The other day, I heard Harper stirring awake from his nap, so I wrapped up some work in our adjacent bedroom while he woke up. Suddenly I heard him bolt up in his crib and shout, "Turkeys! Get down!"

What the?

This is what I discovered when I went into his bedroom.

Our neighbor's turkeys had wandered over into our backyard, climbed up the two flights of stairs to our top deck, perched themselves on the railing, and couldn't figure out how to get down. They paced nervously back and forth despite Harper's clear instructions to "Jump down! Now!" Eventually all three sort of leapt/flew up to the roof. They are not the most intelligent animals.

I think they sense that their days are numbered, and they're getting desperate. Still, I'll be a little sad to not see them anymore when we return from our long weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The other night we staged a spontaneous photo shoot in the kitchen, courtesy of Photo Booth and its various fun-house effects.

Once we got past our initial horrified reaction to seeing our child grotesquely deformed, hilarity ensued. We hadn't laughed this hard in a long time.

Never let it be said that I am vain.

Wondering how Harper can be so ahead of the curve? It's his ginormous brain!:

Byrne molding his child to conform with our family values:

It's a good thing we found each another:

And now, to scrub those disturbing images out of your brain, something cute:

Some nights, even in November, there just isn't a blog post. Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, you can read my 140-characters-or-less pearls of wisdom at Twitter.

Most toddler mispronunciations are adorable. Some of my son's ways of saying things are so beloved that they have become a part of our family lexicon: Elevator = "eh-vuh-LAY-tor"; pretzels = "PREN-sills"; Abby Cadabby (of Sesame Street) = "Abby Too-Gabby"; Uncle Eric = "Uncle Eggy". But his newest is a little Bushian for my taste.

Binoculars = "bin-OCK-lee-ars."

1. Maple syrup getting onto my eggs.

2. Unloading the dishwasher/ putting away clean laundry/ unpacking suitcases.

3. Restaurant servers who don't write down orders.

4. The sound of my son's cry.

5. Intolerance and ignorance, especially when masquerading as religious righteousness.

6. "Candied" vegetables.

7. The disrespect of women who give up paying careers to care for their children, especially when that disrespect is levied by other women.

8. Those packaged, triangularly halved sandwiches one sees in convenience stores and vending machines.

9. The squeaking sound that styrofoam makes when it is manipulated.

10. Pharmaceutical commercials.

I believe this bottle was one brought over by a dinner guest recently. I wish I remember who it was so I could ask them where they got it (and request that they just bring flowers or something next time they come over).

Haven't I loved you the way you need to be loved? Haven't I stuck up for you when people who don't live here can't understand why I would choose to stay put in a city notorious for its crime, mismanagement, and lack of "there"?

Even though I missed the no-parking start time at the curb in front of my own house by a whopping 3 minutes and your employee was so rude when I tried to explain to him, "No need to finish writing that ticket, sir, I live right here and was unloading but I am moving my car into the driveway right now," I begrudgingly agreed to pay this latest addition to my nightmare-inducing collection of parking tickets because I know you need the money. I read on the ticket that I could pay online. "Aw, look," I thought proudly, "How sweet of my little city to offer me such an easy and eco-responsible method of payment." So why, dear Oakland, are you charging me a $2 "convenience fee" to pay my ticket as such? Is it truly less "convenient" for your employees to deal with an online payment than to open an envelope, remove its contents, mark my bill as paid in your system, and endorse and deposit my check?

You want me to pay you to let me pay? Sigh. Oakland, sometimes you make it so hard to love you.

Sincerely,
Arin

P.S.: Please use the 1 gazillion dollars I have sent you for parking violations this year to work on improving your public schools for my kid. Thanks!

Byrne just made me watch Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever, a Discovery Channel special about the ordeal that ensued after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. I may never swim in the ocean again. It's possible I won't even be able to brave the deep end of my parents' pool this summer.

Note to self: Never turn on the Discovery Channel during Shark Week again. Shudder.

With each month that I pledge to post something to this blog daily, there comes the inevitable day when I'm just not feeling inspired by anything other than my pillow and dreams of sleeping in until 7 a.m.

Until tomorrow, "Good night to you all, and sweet be your sleep...."

Seriously, Sierra Club? Seriously.

I know two people who scoured movie credits when they were expecting their first baby for ideas on what to call the wee one. But while clearing out my comment spam last night, I realized that spammers could be the next untapped source of, uh, creative kids' names.

Which moniker will be the next Jacob or Emily? How about Marquis Kilgore? Or Phoenix Jewell? How about Zecheriah Dodge? Perhaps Dangelo Flaherty? Dexter Jacks has a nice superhero-alter-ego ring to it, no?

And while we're on the subject (though this is old news): Go see how much time the Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager and blog can suck out of your life. It's fascinating stuff!

While walking in my neighborhood recently, I witnessed the following scene. A young, attractive woman is crossing the street with her little son, who looks to be about four years old. A car carrying a group of 20-something guys stops at the crosswalk to let her by. The driver rolls down his window and leans out to address the woman.

"Hey!" he calls. "Are you still with the father?"

Being TiVo users in our household, we don't usually watch commercials. But when we do, they usually crack us up or make us go off on some snarky diatribe about the utter lameness of consumer culture. Among our favorite genres of commercials to make fun of are the ones that involve people getting really excited about some mundane product, like toilet-bowl cleaner or toothpaste. So imagine our surprise that we are flipping over the total awesomeness of a freaking razor.

Yes, a razor.

Let me explain: Some weeks ago, a box arrived in our mail slot bearing a photo rendering of a razor that was clearly being marketed as the EXTREME! shaving implement du jour. I later found the box sitting on top of the recycling bin. Byrne was tossing it out because he thought it was a "video about shaving." OK, I'll give it to him that the shape of the box did look remarkably similar to that which would hold a VHS tape, but come on. I demonstrated to Byrne the apparently foreign concept of the "free sample" by opening the box and revealing the enclosed razor: The Gillette Fusion, with its stainless-steel-looking handle and trim in cobalt blue and techno orange. It's sporty, y'all. But here's the real gimmick: The thing has four blades. Four. This is getting out of hand, we said. How many blades does one need to cut a hair that's less than 1/8 inch long?

Apparently, four, because the Gillette Fusion has rocked our world. When Byrne came out of the bathroom after using it for the first time, he told me to feel his face, just like the overexcited guys in the shaving-product commercials. And I did, and I swooned, just like the overexcited ladies in the shaving-product commercials. It works just as well on legs, too. I'm not sure if it's the four blades, or the fact that the razor head pivots, or the rubber squeegee-kind-of section under the blades themselves that supposedly preps the tiny hairs for execution, but running this razor over your skin feels like nothing. My delicate skin used to be so prone to razor burn that I sometimes dreaded shaving my legs. No more! Now I can't wait to lather up and break out my sporty EXTREME razor! I'm practically hearing a power-guitar soundtrack behind my evening shower.

The Gillette Fusion! Go out and get one!

{This message paid in part by the National Association of Housebound New Parents Who Clearly Are So Pathetic That They Have Nothing Better to Get Excited About.}

Last week, I was walking to work when I stopped at the corner of O'Farrell and Geary to wait for the light to change. The light turned red and a car stopped; I began to cross. I noticed then that the car had a Starbucks cup perched precariously on its roof over the driver side. The passenger's window was rolled down (despite the chilly morning temp), so I called out to the guy sitting in the front seat.

"Excuse me...there's a cup of coffee on your roof."

"Oh, really?" (He didn't really seem to care.)

"Yeah." I addressed the driver then: "You must have left it up there when you got into the car." (Keep in mind that this conversation took place entirely in a busy Union Square crosswalk.)

The driver and the passenger looked at one another before chanting in unison, "Happy holidays from Starbucks!"

A quick visit to the Internets reveals that I am not the only San Francisco pedestrian who's been affected by this seasonal guerilla marketing campaign. Some are receiving Starbucks gift cards as thanks for their Good Samaritanism, but I apparently was targeted by the elves of snark.

Looking for a house is a lot like dating. OK, so I haven't dated since college, but I am going to go ahead and say that because this is my Web site and I can say it if I want to and because my mom keeps telling me I need to write something new here and also because I think it is true. Here's why:

Byrne and I recently bid on a house. It was a beautiful house. We had recently decided to take time off from our search, to not go to open houses every single weekend, but, we thought, let's just go to this one last one, it looks cool, and bam. We saw this house. From across the crowded [street]. It was love at first sight. We walked in, looked at each other, and said one word, simultaneously: "Wow."

We knew it was probably out of our league, but we concluded that if we didn't put an offer on the house and it went for a price we could have afforded, it would forever be the beautful young woman that the old man once saw on the train and never talked to and it haunted for him for all his days because she may well have been the true love of his life.

Well-meaning and hopelessly romantic dork that I am, I even put together a little packet about us as part of the proposal, with a letter talking about our love for the house, and with a picture of us and some personal background--and I dreamed of writing here one day to tell you that, dear readers, it's not all about the bottom line! Not even here in the scene-y pressure-cooker Bay Area market! If you can make a personal connection with a seller, you too can have the home of your dreams for, yes, less than $100K over the asking price.

Overheard at Kearny and Bush Streets, San Francisco. 12:30 p.m.

Standing on the corner waiting for the light to change, a young woman spots a co-worker.

She: Hey! What did you get for lunch?

He: I got a hot dog. I got pork rinds. I got some beef jerky.

S: Wow. The works.

H: Oh yeah! 7-11, baby!

1. Don't list her options for her every time it's her turn to act. Your constant reminders--"It's 75 to you to call", "You can raise, you know", "You could just check"--while oh so thoughtful, are really not necessary, thank you very much. See that big stack of chips in front of me? One thing it could possibly signify is this: I understand the basics of the game.

2. Don't act guilty and say, "oh, man, I feel so bad!" when I finally make a judgement call to lay down a hand after I've bet heavy into you for a couple of rounds. If there's one thing a lady knows, it's when to stop investing in a relationship that won't pay off. Did you say "I feel so bad" after winning a big pot off any of the guys at the table? Don't remember if you did after all those full-to-the-brim glasses of wine you had? Allow me to help: No, you didn't.

3. Don't say things like "Mama needs a new purse!" when one of the ladies at the table takes you down. If you knew anything about women, you'd know it's shoes, not bags, that we all run out and spend our winnings on, beeyotch.

Last week my mom called to tell me that a 600-pound wild tiger was loose in the hills near my hometown. Parents of small children and owners of outdoor pets were all panicky. Local-boy police officers clutched their guns. Bands of teens loitering at the strip mall they could handle, but this--this was a tiger! (Or, they thought, perhaps it was a lion. All authorities had to go on was a set of mysterious 6-inch-plus paw prints that had been spotted in the hills bordering a residential development. All documented large cats in the state were accounted for when officials contacted the holders of the permits, and still no one has come forward claiming to have lost a tiger.)

Today, the kids, pets, and yes, the Reagan Library, are saved. The tiger is dead. I have to say, I was sad to hear that the drama had ended (especially given the fact that the animal was killed rather than tranquilized and moved to a zoo or refuge). I loved the idea of a wild tiger stalking the residents of what for several years running has been regarded the safest city in the nation.

In the 1990s, Target stores produced the "It's a Wonderful Holiday" collection--decorations, gift wrap, clothing, and other items to commemorate the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. Among the products were a set of light-up ceramic buildings and little figurines modeled after the buildings and people in Bedford Falls, the town in which the movie is set.

My mom gave me a few of the buildings and figures as Christmas gifts one year. But sadly, Target sold the collection for only a few years before discontinuing it forever. New buildings and figurines for my village have been on my thrift-shopping quest list for years now. But these things seem to be far less common at flea markets and secondhand stores than one would imagine, and Internet research reveals that folks who have lots of the buildings ain't sellin'.

So last year I got myself to that big ol' online garage sale that is eBay, with hopes of "spending a few bucks to round out my collection." What I found was a thriving black market in light-up Christmas villagery of all kinds. Items from Target's "It's a Wonderful Holiday" line were gathering dozens of bids, and some of the apparently more rare buildings, such as the Bijou Movie House, were catching final prices upwards of $90! I learned there was a second version of the Bedford Falls village sold more recently at Walgreen's drug stores, but serious collectors (and these people *are* serious) generally regard that series, with its brighter paint colors and larger scale, as nothing more than an unsuccessful imitation of the original. The Target collection is where it's at, people. How could I have predicted that shopping at an ubiquitous big-box retailer in the 90s would buy me membership into such an elite society of collectible aficionados? If only all those knockoff name-brand jeans I was forced to wear in the 80s granted the same benefits.

Calculating based on a conservative estimated worth of $30 for each building and $8 for each figurine, I figure my collection is currently worth about $300 at auction (insert your favorite Antiques Road Show surprise reaction here).

Overheard at Trader Joes, Sunday morning. A young couple stands before the egg case, examining the selection.

She: What kind should we get? Look, these are cage-free.
He: Do you know what chickens do when you let them out of their cages? They don't go anywhere. They just hang out by their food.
She: OK. How about these? It says they're organic.
He: Look at how much more they cost than the regular eggs! Whatever. Let the rich hippies buy the organic eggs.
She: God. I'm getting the cage-free.

Defective Yeti posts a couple of jokes that got him LOL-ing, and gets 116 comments (and counting) with jokes that just might--if delivered at the right time--get your Friday-night bar buddies to shoot gin and tonic out of their noses.

One of my favorites:

Two muffins are in the oven, cooking.

One muffin turns to the other and says, "Man, it's getting really hot in here."

The other muffin says, "Holy shit! A talking muffin!"

(Warning: Some jokes may be offensive to some readers.)

Could you pass eighth-grade math? Take an excerpt from the Illinois State Board of Education's standardized math test for eighth graders, and see how you'd fare in the era of No Child Left Behind.

Oddly, my score is pretty much where my math scores were when I was actually in eighth grade (a solid B). Thank you, Mrs. Crowley.

(Link via The Morning News.)

As I prepare to do the packing rough draft for my month-long trip to Southeast Asia, some questions have come up about what I can carry on in my big ol' backpack and what I'll have to check through to my final destination. I was recently reminded that scissors are verboten on planes, even those very small scissors good only for cutting very small things such as yarn, and which one might innocently forget are tucked inside one's knitting supply pouch. (I should have known I'd be a target for a search, what with the suspicious aforementioned knitting supply pouch, which is emblazoned with images of flowers and Sanrio's Chococat. Oh, well--just doing my part in the war on terror.)

Anyway, I plan to knit on the very long flights I'll be taking, from SFO to Tokyo and Tokyo to Bangkok, and I began to brainstorm other yarn-cuttable implements that might clear the scrutiny of the X-ray operators. Hence my visit to the Web site of America's fine Transportation Security Administration, which has a handy chart (warning: PDF file) outlining *exactly* what you can and cannot bring onto a plane.

I was delighted to learn that I may carry on nail clippers, which will do just fine for breakin' yarn. I can even have them if they are the type that have a foldout nail file. My saber, however, I'll have to check. Ditto my cricket bat, cattle prod, power drill, hand grenades, and nunchaku. I may carry on up to two cigarette lighters or books of matches, even though I am not allowed to smoke, or to make fire in any way, on the plane. And the TSA felt compelled to inform me that Transfomer robot toys are allowed--finally confirming that they are indeed not only "robots in disguise" but also "robots in the skies," as I always thought the cartoon theme song said. Interestingly, firearms and ammunitions may be permitted as carry-on items, depending on the airline, so next time you fly be sure to ask your gate agent about that semiautomatic you hate leaving home without. And have a pleasant flight!

I always wondered what those little colored stars next to user names represented on eBay, but I wondered about it in the same way I wondered about how Thermoses work -- that is, I never really thought long about it, certainly not long enough to warrant any level of research on it.

Until today, when I received an e-mail from the good folks at eBay congratulating me for "being halfway to reaching your Blue Star!" Further reading revealed that this meant I had 25 comments in my eBay "reputation", i.e., I have made at least 25 purchases in online auctions.

Maybe I was supposed to be excited about being well on my way to 50 purchases on eBay.

. . . so why can't deer do it?

Check out the story of this adventurous little guy, who merged onto the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge in the FasTrak lane and made it across to the city in record time (10 minutes during rush hour)!

No worries--the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District says it will waive the toll violation.

All the rage on the girly blogs this week is the Pantone Birthday Colors Engine. Select your day of birth and the site shows you the specific shade on the Pantone scale that "reflects the very essence of your birthday." It's like astrology, but no, it's "colorstrology"!

For the most part, I'm on board with the assessment of my hue, #163307--Lavender Mist, though I am not crazy about the color itself. According to the knowledgeable folks at Pantone, I am a writer (check), creative (check), and emotionally complex (checkitty check check). I also have an urge to blame myself or others for misfortune (uh-huh), a thought pattern that can drain my energy and impede my growth (um, yeah.) But do I express myself more readily in a public forum than on a personal level? I'm not so sure.

How well does your Pantone Birthday Color correspond with the you you know?

(Sorry, September babies . . . your birth month and day colors "are currently in development." Lame!)

Scene: 10 a.m., outside Trader Joe's in Emeryville. Some workmen are standing on the sidewalk, having coffee and presumably taking a break from their construction job at a neighboring store.

Heard: The men seem to be talking about their respective cell phones and/or cell phone service plans. One of the men complains that his phone sometimes shows that he is out of range, even in the middle city. His friend speaks up just as I walk by.

"You think that's bad. You get out in the middle of the country . . . man, there are holes bigger than shit."

Interesting little tidbit heard in an editorial on NPR's Marketplace program this evening:

If a "venti" cup of Starbucks coffee were filled with gasoline, it could run a Vespa for a week--or a Hummer for an hour.

This fact rocked my world about as much as I thought it'd be rocked on this most mundane of Mondays. But then I went to the Marketplace Web site and saw the photo of David Brown, the guy who hosts the show.

Do we have any other Marketplace listeners out there? (She says, adjusting the tape on her glasses.) Did anyone, anyone imagine that this is what that guy looks like?

As the final birthday of my twenties approaches, a couple of things have popped up this week just to make sure I'm feeling the aging process moving steadily and uncontrollably along:

1. The movie Thirteen.


2. The opening of my 11-year-old pen pal's latest missive: "Wow, you've been a vegetarian for as long as I've been alive!"

Am I the only one who was more than a little icked-out by the Super Bowl advertising juggernaut's "Fast Food=Sex" message? Granted, I haven't bitten into a McDonald's burger in more than eleven years, and as a woman I'm certainly not the target audience for most Super Bowl commercials, but I'm having a hard time grasping the equation between ground beef and the need for nooky. The image of a man possessed with l'amour after a whiff of his wife's hamburger-scented blouse left me not hot and bothered, but totally nauseous. And while a nubile hottie riding a mechanical bull in slow-mo to "Slow Ride" isn't without its sex appeal, the sight of said nubile hottie biting into a dripping bacon cheeseburger while riding said mechanical bull adds no value to the product for me. (Wait--what's the product, again?)

Weekend roundup:

• Crisp, sunny skies on Saturday/drizzly, gloomy skies on Sunday


• Cleaning clutter out of the home office/shopping for vintage bric-a-brac at the Oakland Museum's White Elephant Sale


• Sitting on butt and crocheting/taking a kick-butt Sautrday morning Pilates class


• Seeing TiVoed SuperBowl ads replete with overt misogyny and obsession with boners/watching The Women, a 1939 film with a cast composed entirely of--wait for it--women


• English comedian Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill standup show (hilarious)/Australian film Muriel's Wedding (depressing)


• Discovering to my glee that a gelato-and-chocolates shop is opening in my neighborhood/realizing that the gelato-and-chocolates shop is opening next door to the local Weight Watchers outpost.

Another reason to sigh and say (with a little grin and thinly veiled pride, of course), "Only in Berkeley":

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday ... It's the the third and final match in the Anarchists vs. Communists soccer tournament!

It will not be televised.

I am well aware that it's been almost two weeks since I last wrote something on this page. Perhaps you've been thinking, "This Hairy Alien, she must have a nasty case of the writer's block. I should refrain from shaking her hand or sharing her hairbrush for a couple of weeks, just to be safe."

Truth is, I've been writing more than ever -- just not here. I just completed a writing course designed to jumpstart students' creativity by making them write and write and write. And write. I'm keeping a daily journal (on real live paper) for the first time in as long as I can remember. I am composing long essays and stories for the first time in years. And I liked the class and what it's done for me so much that I just signed up for another that started yesterday. To top it off, I've had more editing work than you can shake a stick at. All this has left my brain buzzing, my knuckles cracking, my wrists aching, and my soul glowing just a little more than usual.

This weekend, I'm getting away to the North Coast with Byrne and the Es. I am hoping a few days with nothing on the agenda but sleep, long walks in the chilly beach air, reading, margaritas, board games, and h'tub soaking will help me refresh, reinvigorate, recenter, reset.

Last weekend, some pals and I went out to get ourselves some of the Best Pizza Ever.¹ The place was packed, per usual for a Saturday night. We pushed and scooted and crept our way to the podium and gave our name to the hostess, who replied, "O.K., we'll call your name in fifteen minutes or so and let you know how long the wait will be for your table."

Was she serious? She assured us, with but a modicum of attitude, that she was.

Apparently, we have reached a point in our modern urban life where in addition to having to "hurry up and wait" we now "hurry up and wait to wait."

¹ I award this distinction loosely, and for the purposes of brevity. As any East Bay dweller knows, Zachary's indeed offers some of the finest pizza-type creations on the planet, but it is perhaps misguided and unfair to compare its eat-it-with-a-fork-thick, saucy, stufffed crust goodness to your standard flat delivery pizza. As we say at my house, "There's pizza, and then there's Zachary's."