The shouting down becomes deafening

8 May 2008 – 12:46 pm

Wow. In case you think we’re the only ones sick of Hillary, check out some of today’s international headlines:

Hillary! It’s not about you, so hang up your hat (The Age, Australia)

Senator ignores circling vultures (Sydney Morning Herald, Australia)

Obama, obviously (Edmonton Sun, Canada)

By elf | Posted in News | Comments (0)

Citicards’ “All-Electronic Program”

5 May 2008 – 3:59 pm

I got tired of having to shred half my mail over the years, so as merchants began to offer options to receive statements electronically instead, I’ve generally jumped at the chance.

One merchant that I opted for all e-mail with was for my Citibank credit card. All went fine for a while, but then, insidiously, sometime in the last couple of years they began mailing me a letter every month to inform me that they had e-mailed my card statement notice.

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By elf | Posted in Notebook | Comments (0)

Batteries not included. Now with termite-chompin’ action!

2 May 2008 – 5:09 pm

As Thud has alluded in his Twitter stream, I recently ordered an item online – a carved wooden box – which, alas, turned out to have termites.

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By elf | Posted in Notebook | Comments (0)

Cory the kid

1 May 2008 – 9:00 am

I know we say this every few weeks, but once again it feels like Cory woke up one morning in the last week and was suddenly more like a little kid than a baby. He still doesn’t walk, but is now very good at climbing up on the furniture. He doesn’t talk, but understands a lot of what is said to him, and has become keenly interested in being read to. In addition to climbing, his pastimes include taking toys out of his toy box and putting them in again, reading books to himself (he’ll get one and babble very intently at it), and seeing how far he can drop something on the other side of the baby gate before he can’t reach it anymore.

He is also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, extremely silly. I can’t describe it, only emphasize it. Silly is silly. You’ll just have to trust me.

But what made me really feel like a mom was yesterday, while I was playing the Wii. He climbed up on the couch and sat down next to me. Considering that he usually only climbs the couch with the intent of crawling around, and had never sat on it properly before without being placed there by one of us, it was really something. Suddenly he was a little person who was sitting on the couch to watch the TV.

By elf | Posted in Mommyblog | Tagged | Comments (0)

At least my day at work was never this bad

29 April 2008 – 3:06 pm

Apropos of nothing, well, apropos of the Get Smart episode we watched last night that included a CONTROL agent who was also a snotty opera diva – I was reminded of the horror stories I had once heard about Kathleen Battle. Remember her?

If not, fire up the Wayback Machine and read this old Time article.


Stories about her pettiness are legion: the time in Boston she telephoned the management of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to complain that the Ritz-Carlton’s room service had put peas in her pasta; the time when, feeling chilly while riding in a limo in Southern California, she used the cellular phone to call her management company in New York, which phoned the limo service, which phoned the driver, who turned the air conditioning down; the time in New York when she and Luciano Pavarotti competed to see which could arrive later for a dress rehearsal. Battle has a penchant for changing hotel suites in the middle of a stay just to vary the color of her surroundings. After her appearances at the San Francisco Opera this season, the backstage crew sported T shirts that read: I SURVIVED THE BATTLE.

Her firing by the Met back in 1994 effectively ended her opera career, which is why you don’t hear about her so much anymore, although she still does a few performances in other venues.

By elf | Posted in Diversions, People suck | Comments (0)