Hello, hi! Thanks for the comments, you guys. I don't mind lurkers, but I was getting sad at how few comments I'd been getting lately. I just needed to feel loved by virtual strangers. (Don't we all?) And holla holla holla out to David Bowie and Elvis! Happy birthday to them both. So again, it's Monday. I know the weird weather is a tired topic, one that has been giving the weather guys boners lately, what with the wackiness and all but dang, it was 70 degrees on Saturday!

Anyway, the weather. It was gorgeous on Saturday but I didn't get a chance to ride because I needed to play with Kate instead. On Sunday I really wanted to ride but I had a Craft Mafia meeting instead. I was grumpy about it, which I'm sure everyone was happy about. Anyway, it was nice to see my crafty friends. The rest of my weekend was pretty basic, but after all the holiday craziness I was happy to get back to basic. I love my schedule, a lot.

Alright, really not much has changed since last week, so I thought perhaps I'd review some stuff. Who doesn't like a review? (Related: one of my favorite things to do is to go through the reader reviews for books I like and click the "this review was NOT helpful" button for the idiot reviews. Hmph.) Anyway:

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme

This book is fantastic. I didn't honestly know a ton about Julia Child before I started reading it, but boy she was the definitive good egg, you know? Funny, smart as a whip, and 100% dedicated to FOOD. This memoir starts when she and her husband arrive in Paris for the first time, before she's even begun to cook. It's fascinating to read about someone finding their true calling - how often does that actually happen? I discovered that Netflix has some of her old TV shows on DVD, which I've never seen. I can't wait.

Here's another one of my Christmas presents:

It was made by my friend and fellow Mafioso, Kelly. It's a scent locket pendant! You can put a little bit of essential oil on the fabric inside the necklace which I think is ingenious. It's really quite a well-made and unusual piece and I've been wearing it a lot lately. It's fun to wear someone else's jewelry besides my own, for a change.

If you want to get really, really mad, rent: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

We watched this documentary last night and while some of it came as no surprise, some elements of just how bad this company is managed to shock even me. I'm not a Wal-Mart shopper now and this documentary pretty much guaranteed that they'll never get a dime of my money. I know that lots of big companies follow similar shady practices, but Wal-Mart seems to go above an beyond to stomp on anyone - small communities, local businesses, their own employees, to make a buck. They're the biggest employer in the U.S. and probably the worst. Rent it.

I like pop music. There, I said it. And now this: The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani.

Yes, I know. I KNOW. She totally initially won me over by sampling The Lonely Goatherd in the first single. Who loves The Sound of Music more than me? Apparently Gwen Stefani does. Sincerely, I think she might have gone a little "Jenny from the Block" in a recent interview in which she talked about how similar her life is to Maria von Trapp (er, except for the Nazi part, the Captain part, the seven children part, the Austria part...) but dude, she sampled The Lonely Goatherd! Who does that? I love it. The rest of the album I didn't love at all the first time I listened to it but I've discovered that it's actually full of crack, in that the more you listen to it, the more addictive it becomes. It's nasty candy but it's still made of sugar so you eat it. I currently love it and will probably hate it next month. It's all about right now, though, so if you can't bring yourself to buy the whole thing, download the title track and don't blame me if your teeth rot out of your head. YEE HOO.

That's all. Go home.

6 chatty monkeys