don't let the door hit ya

I didn't even know the Pet Goat delivered his last state of the union last night. Shows you what an ocean in between can do to tweak one's perspective, let alone lower one's blood pressure. Tagesspiegel had a nice duo of headlines, however, that let me know that I wasn't alone. "Bush talks, no one listens" was the lede, yet more importantly, the follow-up was an article on Americans playing a Bush drinking game as a way to pass the time while passively listening to such drivel. (Need a cheat sheet? Here's one.) Granted, drowning one's sorrows while contemplating the state of any nation been a "tradition" for decades. There's just not enough alcohol, people.

it's true

I saw them. Birds, that is, flying in V formation, north. (No camera, no proof.) But really. I saw them flying away from the general direction of lands where there is allegedly warmth, and sun, and people building sandcastles, toward our neighborhood, where it is wet and cold and generally rain-pissy. (And no sandcastles.)

Which means it's going to get warmer, right? And I don't have to stare at this basket of Spanish oranges much longer, in the vain assumption that they emit, like little nuclear fruits, previously absorbed Vitamin D?

wine rack

Thirsty? (Or need a napkin?) Competition for wine sales in France has become so dire that the industry has had to bring out the boobs (and I'm not talking Liberty's racks, here) to get people to tip a glass or two. While at the same time (and this is where it gets really weird) the French courts are pursuing requirements for newspapers that feature articles about alcohol to carry health warnings, just like advertising. Someone pinch me. I'm guessing the next step would be to outlaw fois gras, while instituting a 20-hour work week? La belle France, I fear, is suffering from bit of schizophrenia. Which is why the "article" attached to the skin shot (and three others like it, in tasteful black and white, scattered throughout la RVF) amuses me so -- I'd say it was a razzberry at the puritan French police if the mag wasn't on good days such a vapid piece of marketing trash. The story? Wine and Love. Three thousand words on someone's afternoon of Googling "vin" and "amour." Now just try to add a warning label on that one.

das original

Peoples, chill with the tossing of slimy fish from the north to the south. "Flocke" may be a cutie but, per Tagesspiegel, there's only one Knut.

only 300 days left

But you'd think the U.S. presidential election was tomorrow, given the coverage. It will certainly be a year of surprises. My usually conservative mother's traded her mani-pedi money over to Obama; Gloria's slapping the sisterhood around. I sent in my enormous ballot envelope (and paid 4 Euro for the privilege through Deutsche Post) yesterday and got a brief buzz off it. Brief, mind you. My first serious buzz was as a doe-eyed freshperson plastered with NARAL posters and buttons at a Clinton (no, the first one) rally in San Diego, surrounded by conservative nasties, thrilled at the prospect of electing My First President. My second was driving circles in the Nevada desert for three consecutive days, pre-election 2004 -- me and quetzl knocked on doors and chatted with registered Dems about their Superfund site-cum-backyard and the possibility of kicking Bush out of office. We hoped. We and the larger team of volunteers (most of whom were holed up in the Reno Motel 6 for the extended weekend, all refugees from Cali) got 99 percent of the registered Democrats in our adopted Nevada county to the polls. Listening to the returns at 2 a.m. we almost drove into the desert.

I've spent a good amount of time kicking myself for my lack of "political participation" since then but short of kidnapping VP Vader and leaving him pants-less somewhere in Anbar Province, I haven't come up with any strategy that is very constructive. So, I voted, dammit. The clock's ticking.