sunday best-of blogging

best song to let coffee dribble over your shocked, slack jaw to as your eyes widen in numbing horror:

Real Media | MP3

uh, thank you (?), think progress, for making sure the right brothers don't get mistaken by the power-pop set for just one more guitar-driven we-*heart*-blink-182 derivative drivelfest. this here's a band with a message, instead of a buttload of liberal LIES. that eminem, man… what a pinko. this is exactly the sort of activist anthem america's mall-roving hipsters need to wake them up and get them involved. perhaps it will convince some of them to enlist. perhaps the right brothers themselves will heed their own call to arms. but then, i guess we really do need them here at home; who else will thumb their noses at cindy sheehan?

best travel advice: "now, if any italian men pinch your bottom, don't you get angry; it's a compliment. i know sometimes you get a little upset about those things, but you have to remember that you're in a different place." courtesy of my septuagenarian irish-catholic grandma. what a peach, eh? i didn't argue with her about it, but i have a feeling that the random squeezing of one's body parts by a stranger is frowned upon around the globe, although i'm sure that in some places it's gotten away with pretty frequently. i don't approve of it in any location, though, and i'll do my best to speak their language and politely scrape their cheese into an inconspicuous pile underneath my napkin, but i'm an american girl and ain't nobody pinching my bottom. maybe it's just that grandma's a product of a different, surprisingly less uptight era. when she and my grandfather were dating he was playing drums in a jazz band, and my favorite story of theirs is how one night he took her to see him play in a gay bar, and before he went on stage he pointed out a transvestite at the bar who'd been giving him the eye; every once in a while, from behind the drum set, grandpa would look over at him and wink, and when he giggled and waved back coyly grandma laughed so hard her cape codder shot out her nose. now that i'm thinking about it, i remember my mom complaining frequently about my grandfather's habit of patting her tush on her way past when i was young.

best out-of-the-blue infatuation: mine with catherine zeta-jones as velma kelly in chicago. i had zero interest in this movie when it came out, being a decided non-fan of both the majority of broadway musicals and the entire cast. i'll tell you what i am a huge fan of, though: 1920s fashion. so over the past few days, as bravo has been playing the movie on a loop, i've paused on it enough times to have seen almost the entire thing, and miss catherine has stolen my heart right away. i still can't stand that zellweger, though, and i'll admit that my distaste for her is now fueled by a huge amount of resentment over how much better she looks in those little flapper frocks than i do. i don't generally wish that my body were built more like that of a 12-year-old male farm hand, but i think it's the ideal figure for those get-ups. so sad. catherine, though, has this delicious little roll of chub that peeks out over the top of her bodice now and again:




yum. murder is wrong, it really is, i believe that through and through, and i didn't change my mind when it was bebe neuwirth singing an angry, indignant song. nevertheless, when this particular velma says they had it coming, i'm with her.

best reason to return to 1991: so i can never watch aeon flux on mtv's liquid television, thereby eliminating my reflexive loathing for the current movie version. for all i know it's very good, but i'll never have anything to do with it, because i'm such a nostalgic elitist.




picture i like found here, picture i like not so much found here. eh? you decide.

best subject for late-night introspection: why am i so taken with vengeful, gun-wielding women in black bustiers? let's change the subject, shall we?

best canine miracle: about two months ago a little dog, part shepherd, part who-knows-what, was admitted to the hospital as an emergency after having been hit by a car. the person who had hit her had tied her to a tree on the side of the road, called the police and given them her location, and taken off. the critical care staff got her more or less stable and wheeled her in for x-rays, which revealed a crushed pelvis and a right femur in so many pieces we weren't sure we'd find them all. the surgeons weren't convinced they could repair it completely, and because she was ownerless at the time, no one was sure whether or not we'd be able to help her at all (the financial office is sickeningly strict. you wouldn't believe how many patients we have to turn away. animals aren't people, blah blah blah, but if human institutions ran themselves with the kind of cold iron fist this one does, there'd be no more concerns about overpopulation), but we held her overnight and did as much as we could, hoping someone would claim her soon.

well, i don't know how it happened, but her owner did manage to track her down. it turned out they were from new orleans and had come to massachusetts to stay with a friend while katrina was blowing their house down. they made it all the way here safely, just so their friend's nincompoop landlord could let the dog out for no reason in the middle of the afternoon. stellar. she got her surgery, but when she left the hospital two weeks later she couldn't walk at all, and her potential for independent mobility was pretty uncertain. she was a trooper, though, and incredibly sweet. you can't help but root for the poochies who lick your hand while you're tugging on their shattered legs.

so we were all thrilled to death to see her running down the hall this week, wagging her previously lifeless tail at everyone she saw. her radiographs show that she's healing beautifully; she'll always be stiff on her right side, because it's now more machine than dog, but she doesn't seem to care at all. pain-free, eager and able to frolic as a little dog should—the world's happiest ending. i wish more katrina stories ended so well, or even half so well. it's something, how quickly we stopped following them.

best readers*: megan and dina, who have very kindly offered to supply me with snacks and postcards that are more readily within their reach than my own. you guys are totally the cutest.





* everyone else who made it this far ties for second, and if i could i would wrap each and every one of you in something fleecy and feed you tiny cupcakes.