This week has been a bear, but at least work-wise, it's over. The Island takes the day off tomorrow to eat fishcakes on hot cross buns and to fly kites.
I'm pretty sure that if you went back in time 2000 years and explained these customs to the guy from Nazareth, he would scratch his woolly head and say, "What?"
And don't get me started on how we'd explain this to him... TweetJeebus said it best: couldn't they re-enact the whole 'taking care of the sick and feeding the hungry' bits instead?

Is anybody else as seriously creeped out by this picture as I am? I mean, aside from the "Crush all hu-mans!" aesthetic, does it not look like something out of V for Vendetta (the good version)?
When did "scaring the crap out of people" start masquerading as journalism, or as good governance?
Leave the dystopian realism to Alan Moore, and let us have our Bill of Rights back, thank you very much.

Stupid Customer Tricks: My colleagues were discussing the frustrations we sometimes encounter dealing with people, over the phone or in person, who really should not be let out of the house, much less anywhere within a mile of an airport.
Today's example: Customer didn't get the service she wanted. She had not followed the instructions on the website. Therefore, she declared, we were racist.
There is a leap in logic there that escapes me.
Am I stupid, or is she racist?

Things I Have Learned From Living on the Island, Part One:

- in a sufficiently humid environment, even rice in the salt shaker won't help.

- "stainless" steel often isn't.

- there are people in this world who will put spinning rims on a Ford Fiesta.

The "Mom Job"? When I first saw this headline, I thought, "Oh, Tupperware sales, or part-time 'Mystery Shopping' right?" Then I kept reading. Didn't know whether to scream or start saving.

I was raised by a mother who simply never allowed me to entertain the idea that there was something I couldn't do because I was female. I ended up at a women's college in New England and absorbed many valuable life lessons about body image and patriarchy and yadda yadda yadda. And for many years, I have taken the position (with varying degrees of smugness) that elective cosmetic surgery was a waste of time and money. If you can afford cheek implants and collagen lips, and haven't been disfigured in an auto accident, you would do much better giving that money to charity. Cosmetic surgery, I thought, is just another way of pummeling the self-esteem of otherwise intelligent people (male and female) by forcing them to comply with artificial standards of physical beauty. Let's face it, a large bottom will get you ostracized in Los Angeles, but admired in West Africa. Why subject yourself to needles and knives? Surely, I thought, I would never be so vain or shallow.

Then I bore and breast-fed two children.

The feminist (and sensible person my mother raised me to be) knows jolly well that my reshaped body parts are badges of honor, my patches proclaiming membership in the Mommy Gang.

The part of me that wants my old clothes to fit properly, and resents having to spend half a paycheck on new foundation garments, wistfully looks at the possibilities of having my old body back, but new and improved.

Then I realize that needles and knives are involved, and oh yeah, money that would be better spent on college tuition, and I come to my senses.

Thanks Mom. Good job.

I should not be surprised, since my mother had e-mail at home before I did. But now she's created a blog. The Force experiences a mild tectonic shift.

Because my daughter really needs another football-headed ethnic role model. And I need another cheap babysitter in 25-minute installments.

Things I Have Said Without Flinching Since My Daughter Turned Three:

"Because I said so."

"I'm the Mommy, that's why."

Child: "Why?" Me: "Because."

"You pooped on the potty?! Of course I want to see!"

"Go ask Daddy."