a fema first, part two

the transcript of david paulison's media conference is here.

unidentified male 1 is my favorite player.

a fema first

reader, the baron's not sure if you know, but she used to work for the federal government, for this broken down, morally bankrupt and generally mismanaged agency you may have heard of, called fema? it was a job she liked (she was a planner, a job that appealed to her sense of order), despite the travel, but she could never get over the nepotism (even while she benefited from it), or the political appointees, or the way policy changes were made by people who had never been involved in the response end of an emergency, and hadn't been to the field, ever.

it's not a note on her resume that she's particularly proud of, if you get her drift.

however.

the husband still has a stake in it. she thinks it's because he's kind of an adrenaline junkie, though he doth protest (too much). and, lately, he's doing work that interests him, he's carved out his own little new media/social media niche. as far as the baron can tell, the husband is getting only scattered support from his agency peers (yay for bill! and aaron!), but this fact doesn't really seem to deter him. at all. in fact, despite lacking real peer support, the baron is quite pleased to say that the husband is appearing less and less like a cervantes character every day!

ahem.

all that to say, yesterday was a big day for the husband, something about new media or a twitter media event, something something, reaching out to bloggers, something something. follow the links and read on for yourself.

a tale of two chickens

the baron's mother was born in the year of the rooster, an obvious fact to anyone who has visited the baron's mother's house. roosters abound, in the form of kitschy bric-a-brac and at least one large wall clock.

the baron, though born in the year of the snake, seems to be following her mother's poultry-flavored footsteps:



the chicken on the left, or timer chicken, was a gift from the baron's recent traveling companion, and is a little something you, reader can pick up at anthropologie. the chicken on the right, or chicky chicky brock brock, is something the baron and the husband picked up in phoenix a few years ago, from sur la table. chicky holds salt and, along with timer chicken, stands silent guard over the kitchen. a nice pair, no?

one more for the blue team

the baron says, "congratulations, minnesota, you've done good."

friday breakfast

so, because of that pesky cancer thing, the baron has to take this pill once daily, in the mornings. (by the by, how weird are the graphics at levoxyl.com? super weird, right?) the pill is to be taken on an empty stomach, and no food can be had for the next 60 minutes. it seems pretty simple, as it should, but reader, it's actually NOT SIMPLE at all. if the baron took her levoxyl as soon as she got up, her 60 minute don't-eat-anything limit would expire right around 7:45am, which is, inconveniently, the time she's leaving for work.

so.

her work-around is this: most mornings, the baron is prompted to take her pill at around 4:30am, for this is when the husband, to a symphony of canine-related sounds, gets up to let the dogs out. taking the pill so early in the day ensures that, by the time she's waking up, she can have a worry-free morning meal. lately, though, the baron has been sleeping right through these early morning rumblings; the tick-tacking of the dogs' nails on the hardwood floor, the jangling of their collars, and baron's barking don't wake her AT ALL.

so.

this means that the baron is taking her pill at around 6:45am, which means that she doesn't have time for actual food before heading to work.

which means that lately, breakfast - and not just the friday ones - looks a lot like this:

are you having a laugh? the baron, she is not.

the baron and the husband are steadily working through their netflix queue, moving from 'the king of kong' to 'saving face' to 'cinema paradiso' to 'hancock'. (you, reader, are thinking 'what a random assortment of films, eh?' while the baron and the husband are thinking, 'how sophisticated are we that our filmic tastes range from blockbuster to independent lesbian comedy/drama?')

netflix is particularly valuable when it comes to television series: the baron and the husband can, in rather a short time, view their way through an entire series... which is what they're doing now.

they're into the second season of 'extras', and reader, the baron thinks she's in love with ricky gervais. and possibly ashley jensen. and daniel radcliffe and patrick stewart. and also, barry from eastenders.

but.

the baron DOES NOT love, not remotely, ricky gervais' andy millman playing ray stokes. it's the glasses, and the under-slung jaw, and the wig, and that GODDAMN CATCHPHRASE THAT IS STUCK IN THE BARON'S HEAD ON A PERMA-LOOP.

see for yourself:

should old acquaintance be forgot

reader, 2009 is here the baron couldn't be happier about it. 2008 was, on the whole, a pretty good year, but there are some moments the baron is glad to leave behind, including this, this, this and this.

of course, we all know the passage of time doesn't do anything to those things, doesn't eradicate them. time, though it may diminish our memories and the immediacy of the moment, doesn't actually eradicate anything.

for instance, photos? time's anathema.

and the baron's mother? doing a little house cleaning.

to wit:




the baron doesn't know in what years those photos were taken. but, she remembers her mother parting her hair with scientific precision and wrestling it into two pigtails. and she remembers that white dress from the second picture; it was diaphanous, kind of, and had a little cluster of orange and yellow flowers embroidered on the front. and that last photo? with the bangs AND the farmer looking shirt AND the overalls? the baron has no idea what's going on there, but you know what? she's very glad for the years that have intervened between that photo and today... helping her forget and all that, eh?

reader, happy new year. the '09's going to be a good one.