Cutie Pie McFly of the Week.com/Thinkshe'dlikeGambit.ohmanshe'scute!

Sponsor me! Name: Midge Code Number: 64438 Date Available: 1/24/2009 Adoption Fee: $85

Type: Dog Breed: Beagle/Mix Pattern: Black Color: Black/White Gender: Female Age: 7 Yr Weight: 30.25 lbs. Location: Dog Green Pod - 34 Description: Do you love Beagles? Meet Midge! She is a very sweet and social Beagle who is searching for her new forever home. Midge will do best in a home where someone is with her for long periods of time as she is very needy. She loves to be with her people, sitting on their laps. A home free from cats is needed - both due to her breed and her inexperience with them. Her new owners should do breed research before taking her home. Midge has a lot of love to give to her new family!

That's far enough, economy! Leave the mailman out of this!

Post Office Could Cut a Delivery Day

Published: January 28, 2009

Filed at 3:42 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, the postmaster general told Congress on Wednesday, in asking lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week.

If the change happens, that doesn't necessarily mean an end to Saturday mail delivery. Previous post office studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day when mail flow is light, such as Tuesday.

Faced with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, the post office was $2.8 billion in the red last year. "If current trends continue, we could experience a net loss of $6 billion or more this fiscal year," Potter said in testimony for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

All this could be avoided if everyone found a steady penpal. We'd all be a lot less bummed out about losing our jobs with a friendly note from our sweethearts. Ray Johnson understood it.

Radios. Who needs 'em?

I've been on a mission these past few weeks. The task seems pretty basic but has proven to be completely impossible. When I lived back in Nebraska, the normal world, The Good Life, you might say a girl could find a radio anywhere. They were all over the thrift stores, at gas stations, dangling from the necks of well-informed stray dogs. So when I moved here two years ago and was in the middle of negotiating what I could pack into my 1978 Dodge Aspen honey of a stationwagon, the radio collection was easily cut out of the picture. That's right! A collection! Literally dozens of radios . 

For reasons of proximity, I have been going to Freddies- two blocks away and looking at the four radios they sell about twice a week for the last three weeks. As a way to punish myself and scold my idiot judgement for leaving my radio goldmine in Lincoln, I go to Walgreens about once a week. There I am stared at blankly by the guy who is annoyed I am taking time out of his hobby snooping through other people's photo negatives. 

Last Monday when I asked to see a little plastic radio that was light blue and had a CD player on the front of it-the only one that I had actully liked this entire time-he told me not to get it because it was a piece of crap.  I couldn't believe he said that. Just because I see him once a week every week doesn't mean he can take that casual, you're my stupid, tasteless little sister tone with me, I wanted to say. I didn't but when I tried to convey the idea with my eyes he stared blankly back, double daring me to try it. He wouldn't even get it off the shelf for me. I stomped off as he rolled his eyes at me in obvious digust of my poor taste. I turned back around with every intention of saying an amazing thing that would make him burn all night and turn and toss on his no doubt filthy pillow for hours just as I heard the dumb photo machine jam and screech. 

At least there is that. I went home and listened to the girl next door play the organ she had gota at some point when I was back home for Christmas and sulked about my useless attempts to arm myself with a radio to block her out. I hate her now. I sat on my bed listening to her, thinking about what her and that guy from the photo counter would be like if they were just people I hung out with, people sitting on my furniture, sharing a thing of wine with me and playing with Gambit.

 I bet they'd be the kind of people who would try to pretend to be thinking about a news story they had read a "while back" when they were really just reading notes and stuff on my desk.

When I was exploring NE Portland on Thursday on my way to an appointment, I happened upon a Radio Shack. No WAY! How could I not have thought of this sooner? Need a radio? How 'bout a radio store, Miss? Thank you! and Finally! I thought as I went into the store. As the store was almost completely empty, the first thing I noticed as the stiff door slowly swung back into its closed and please don't open me again position, was the thread bare, navy blue carpet. There were two displays of cell phones. 

The salewoman came out from the back and asked me what I needed and when I said "radio" she twisted the right side of her mouth and after a what seemed like a full minute asked me what kind. Oh, just a table radio, I said relieved at finally coming to the end of my radio battle. Oh, we don't got those. We only have this one stereo here and I think it has a radio on it. At this point I turned and looked her straight in the eyes, making sure to hook her eyes on mine before casting my gaze over to the large sign on the wall "RADIO SHACK" it said. Turning back to her, making sure she was seeing the same words I was, I thanked her with tears welling up in my eyes and asked her for directions to the office I was heading to. Naw, I ain't too familiar with this neighborhood she said. 

I learned from a toothless man at the busstop right outside the store that the street I was looking for was two blocks down. As I was walking the few streets to my office, I realized that Radio Shack is a drug front and she must have thought I was just as crazy as I thought she was. 

I accidently blurted out the L(ove) Word! Turns out it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be

On New Years day, I finally tracked down my pals Chris and Jen who had lived (sorta) through Portland with me for a while. We all pretty much immediately ended up laying on their kitchen floor, talking about how great living in Nebraska is. I was so happy to be there, dressed in the black sweatsuit my Mom gave me for Christmas. We reminisced about the good old days of driving up to Marquam Hill and singing along to the Blizzard of Oz cassette that came with their car for a long time. I kept adding coffee to the community 60 oz horchata I had procured earlier that morning that neither of them even pretended to be interested in. Then, Jen gave me this!!! Handcrafted love! This is when I told Jen that I love her. Such a bold step, I know. Really though, craftsmanship AND poetry. I feel like the luckiest girl. Then, Jen told me they are getting MARRIED! Best couple ever, pretty much. And they are letting me be a bridesmaid in the wedding this summer. And the theme is 20s flapper girl. I am rereading the Great Gatsby for the 39th time in their honor. And obviously, eating disorders are in full swing. 

Turn the blanket up to 9!

While staying in Omaha for the holidays I stayed with my one and only baby sister, Kate. Having recently moved to Omaha from Lincoln, we had many repeat visits to Jakes Bar and Pizza Shoppe, two of the few places Kate knows how to get to. My Mom and Dad bought each of us queen sized beds when I went to middle school and Kate moved into my brothers old room but we usually preferred to share a room, up until I left for college. We always talk until we are barely awake enough to form sentences and then say"G'Night Slothead" to each other from the movie we love called The Brave Little Toaster and it was so good to hear those words with a tummy full of pizza and beer bought by my little sister. Kate lives with two girls who are just as cuddly and giggly as she is. On my first night there we all four sat around watching a reality t.v. show about a bunch of girls that are trying to marry these guys who have their moms there to approve of the relationship. They all felt like little sisters to me, and we all lounged around in our jammies, wrapped in blankets until I could barely keep my eyes open. My sister always tries to teach me how to put makeup on when we are together. Here she is in action.

Four Eyes Squared

Talk about your celebrity Cameo! My favorite co-worker of all time! This time with bigger lenses. 

Isn't She Lovely?

I spent a lot of time in Nebraska sitting at the counter at La Bouvette watching my Megsie create beautiful things like this as if it were nothing. I had  great time reading the newspapers and writing postcards and getting stray cheese and tastes of wine passed my way. I took a ton of pictures of Meg putting together pretty plates but she was so camera shy they all came out like big foot citings. Light, blurry figure in a black apron sprinkling cracked pepper on the edge of a dish. This is the only clear one I got. I felt like a proud parent snapping away and making my baby so embarrased we couldn't make eye contact until my camera was put down. 

Holmes Sweet New Home

My Maud loves Christmas music. While visiting the northwest for a week, she somehow managed to find a radio station that played only holiday music 24 hours a day and left the kitchen radio on for pretty much all of each of the 24 hours in each of the 7 days she stayed. When my brother came back from Paris he had the audacity to challenge my knowledge of each of the reindeers names. First off, he was so sure that I was mistaken that Claus had in fact named one of his pets Vixen. I think he was even irritated that I wrote it out on the coloring book page I was sharing with little Maddy.  I was like, "believe it man, one of them is named Vixen." He had no idea I had just spent 7 days in a row having the names repeated over and over like a festive nail gun to my head. He also didn't believe Cupid. We were both confused about Blitzen though, hemming and hawing over whether it is actually Blixen or even possibly Blizten? It all ended in waging bets, as most of my discussions with siblings do and before googling the results, we each named our prize. I imagined a split-level gingerbread house with tiny gumdrop shrubs and candycane fencing inspired also by my Maud and her insistance that we watch the gingerbread house bake off everytime (about three times daily) it came on The Food Network that week before Christmas. Here is what he came up with. Did I mention he is an engineer? The cookie in the foreground was made with earnest concentration by my niece Breck. I have to say I am very impressed. By both of them. 

M. Bear wins again

Little sister and I watching my nieces open all their gifts from my mom. She got them all Easy Bake ovens and made them each little aprons with their names embroidered on the front. Kate and I were noticeably paralyzed with jealousy. 

Christmas in the Heartland

After 15 months away and one sad Christmas drinking sloe gin in Vancounver with my brother and Andy, I hired a little girl to watch Gambit and headed out for a 20 day trip back to the Good Life. All four of my little nieces were together at my Maud's house for the first time in Holmes history.