Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Thank god Martha Stewart didn’t come…

Yesterday, we threw a farewell party for Mickey, who’s headed off to Tasmania, Kangaroo Island, etc., all paid for by a fine natural history tour group.

To celebrate the hybrid nature of Australia, we had English-tea scones and jam and mounds of creamy stuff to put on top (Empire days) plus music in the background that was mostly dainty tea-party-classical interspersed with such Aussie classics as “Tie Me Kangaroo Down,” “Drunken Philosophers Song”, and “One-Eyed Trouser Snake.”

Instead of dainty little tea sandwiches, which are a nuisance to make, we had heaps of French bread and cheeses and fruit and chocolate cake and two pots of coffee for any non-tea-drinkers.

Mickey’s friends John and Lizzie brought a magnificently entertaining baby. Mickey read some hilarious short bits on duck-billed platypi. But for me, the most family-typical moment came just as everyone sat down at the food-piled-high tea table and I said,

Oh, whoops–I forgot to make any tea!

Hmmm–maybe I have that backward, but it’s late. Late, yet I am determined to blog just a couple of great things that caught my eye recently.

• Lisa Williams blogs Orkut, and reminds me of the most awful days of my life–those early teen years where an imaginary audience was *noticing* if I sat alone in the cafeteria.
• After a year of world travels, Dervala (soon to be Meetup-ing in Manhattan) blogs her native scenery:
  

  “In winter it has the most dramatic of lighting designers, and the scene changes by the moment. Ireland will not be fixed: you cannot say you’ve seen it unless you live there, and even so the claim is shaky. Ireland is theatre, not painting, and you have only seen a production.”

• The funniest 3.2 Megs you’ll download today: mp3 of Sinister Ducks (blogged by Neil Gaiman, downloaded for me by my children.)

And in conclusion, I’d like to quote the March of the Sinister Ducks:

What are they doing at night in the park?
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Think of them waddling about in the dark.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!

Sneering and whispering and stealing your cars,
Reading pornography, smoking cigars.
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!
Ducks, Ducks! Quack, Quack! Quack, Quack!

The good: life full of adventures and surprises.

The bad: life too full–feels as if the last time I blogged was Christmas eve blogging the reasons for brown-sugar hard sauce.

The most dramatic event in my life this past week occured Wednesday morning just after I woke up–my little white Westie dog Marianne took one look at me and started moaning and yipping. I don’t need a Dog Decoder to know what this means:

“Something is wrong–so fix it, right now–waaaaa, I’m so unhappy!”

A trip outdoors–and rarely have I been so un-toothbrushed, uncombed, and generally half-asleep for our morning walk–did not make her feel better. My vet recommended me to an emergency vet who could see Marianne exactly at 9. (So I tried to set Feedster’s Feed of the Day before leaving–and that’s another crazy story…)

Cut to $200 of vet consultation and dog-tummy x-rays later. Marianne’s tummy contains a big bubble of gas and a large, smooth-edged mass that puzzles the vet. On the other hand, she is clearly feeling much better after throwing up, peeing, and pooping all over the floor.

Still with me? I drove her home, worried about the mysterious “mass” in her little fur tummy. Then I noticed–her dish full of breakfast dogfood was still in the fridge. Then I realized–my kindly husband had not forgotten to feed her. No, letting me sleep, he had given the dog a full bowl of….

BROWN SUGAR HARD SAUCE!

Marianne had wolfed down an exciting breakfast of butter (mostly) plus brown sugar and brandy. So the large smooth-edged mass in her tummy was:

BROWN SUGAR HARD SAUCE!

Well, as my husband explained, it looks just like dog food….

Heh–well, my dog feels fine now.

And, in other good news from the real life that keeps me from blogging, at this Thursday’s Dave Winer mtg:

• The always-amazing Jay McCarthy showed us how he blogs–when he’s not busy working or going to college.
• IRC friend I got to meet in real life: Jack Hodgson (Gone East)
• Berkman blogger who kindly consented to be the first guinea pig for my “busy smart person interview”: Steve Pomeroy (StaticFree).

Can beer-drinking lead to foolish romantic choices?

Hah! You think you’ve got stories to tell? They are dwarfed by the tragic tale of the Australian male buprestid beetles.

Imagine you’re a shiny male beetle flying over the plains of western Australia with nothing more on your mind than finding a female to mate with and pass on your shiny genes. All at once you see the hugest, most beautiful female you’ve ever laid eyes on. Big females are the best to mate with because they carry the most eggs (more bang for your bang). Sounds like a dream come true, right? Well, if you happen to be the jewel beetle Julodimorpha bakewelli, you’ve probably been deceived. That gorgeous curvy body belongs to a beer bottle not a beetle….[more shocking details follow]

Thanks to Amity Wilczek for her blog Nature is Profligate and also, just a bit, for being my daughter.

xxx

Imagine you’re a shiny male beetle flying over the plains of western Australia with nothing more on your mind than finding a female to mate with and pass on your shiny genes. All at once you see the hugest, most beautiful female you’ve ever laid eyes on. Big females are the best to mate with because they carry the most eggs (more bang for your bang). Sounds like a dream come true, right? Well, if you happen to be the jewel beetle Julodimorpha bakewelli, you’ve probably been deceived. That gorgeous curvy body belongs to a beer bottle not a beetle.

xxx

OK, phew. The tree is up, the family traditional Christmas-Eve dinner of Chinese food has been eaten. (Judging by the crowd outside Cheng Sho when we left, that’s a popular tradition here in Cambridge.)

OK, stockings full.

OK, making hard sauce. No sherry so we use cream and a little brandy. A vote for brown sugar turns into a vote for dark brown sugar because I don’t have light brown sugar. A vote for salted rather than unsalted butter means the result tastes a bit like popcorn. I’m not sure a normal family would accept the result as hard sauce, but a normal family also might not accept our background music choice of “Codfish Ball,” Bert and Ernie singing the L song.

Now the CD has ended. The kids drove home with their stockings–they’ll come back tomorrow at 9 to open “real” presents. I sit here blogging and resting my tired feet.

Isaiah’s promise sounds pretty good to me now: “They shall run, and not be weary. They shall walk, and not be faint.”

But I’d settle for “They shall blog, and not fall asleep at the keyboard….”

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Help, I’m channeling too damn many Betsys! And now every one of them wants to write in my blog! (About time too–my blog has been neglected for a week.)

First of all, if you want the real spirit of this crazy, loving, season of fantasies about what a good job we’ll do for those we love *this* time, nobody ever says it better than Halley on most days, but she really “gets it” with her No More Santa.

In a sadder side of the year’s end, two of my favorite bloggers seem to be getting ready to fold up their URLs and fade away. Elaine and Niek, I wish you’d change your minds.

Elaine of Kalilily hasn’t blogged since December 1, when she quoted a hairdresser teaching women in Afghanistan:

If i was a reading teacher i would teach them to read. but i am a hairdresser so i teach them hair.

Meanwhile, Niek of Shutterclog has some other projects he plans to work on:

Like the invention of the wheel. Thank goodness I’m almost full circle with that one!

For a final word on both sides of this complex season–here is Steve Himmer (OnePotMeal) with the ultimate super best top card of the season.

Ho ho ho and warm wishes to all of us!

If you want a job, there are two kinds of people to hire you.

Alpha people. And everybody else.

Alphas are company owners, entrepreneurs–people who really care how the story comes out. Alphas work hard to hire somebody great. Alphas care about what you can do, how smart you are, and how hard you work. If you can get hired by Alphas–you lucky dog!

Most job offers, alas, are made by Betas. (I’m being polite here–hot-tempered folks might call them “Human Resources.”) Betas have one, only one, question in their minds:

Could I maybe get in trouble by hiring this person?

Betas look for “the obvious candidate.” But that’s only secondary to the main thing they’re looking for–to avoid the “don’t-hire” candidate who could get them fired.

If you don’t have a job but hope to land one–don’t blog yourself into oblivion with the Betas:

• Don’t blog your drinking habits, pet peeves, relationship issues, etc. in a personal blog that’s on the first page of Google when Mr/Ms Beta types in your name.
• Don’t blog your drinking habits, pet peeves, relationship issues, etc. in a personal blog that’s linked to from a site on the first page of Google when Mr/Ms Beta types in your name.
• Hey–limit yourself to corporate/geeky stuff on any page linked to from Google results for your name.

In a just universe, everybody would hire like Alphas. In the *current* Bush recession–hey, have some compassion for Betas scared for their jobs!

If you’re smart enough that an Alpha should hire you–take only a tiny step more. Be smart enough not to scare away the Betas.

One of my favorite jokes, hope it cheers you up after reading this post:

There are two kinds of people in the world, they say.
Those who think there are two kinds of people–and those who don’t.

I am so thankful Thanksgiving is finally here. In just a few hours, family and friends will be here–all of them people I’m longing to see.

Right now, I’m thankful that my ambitions for today have been squished by the pressure of time back to finite reality. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go back to the grocery store for just-one-more thing. (How many times did I go back yesterday?) Do I have time to….

• …clean the whole house before everyone shows up? No.
• ….cut up raw vegetables. Yes, plenty of time for that, nothing to worry about.
• ….lose 10 lbs before everyone gets here? No.
• ….write a blog entry? No. But I’m doing it anyway.

All over the US, fervent prayers are rising from every kitchen. Oh, Lord, you know I don’t know how to cook this ugly bird. By your mighty power, keep the breast meat from drying out while ensuring that the rest of it gets cooked. In your infinite kindness, don’t send me more than two people this year who always, always, and only want a drumstick. And please, by your merciful aid, don’t let any parts of it burn and stink up my kitchen.

In my kitchen, prayers get even more complex. Of course I have turkey–what do I look like, a furriner? But it’s not the main event for most of the family.

Frank won’t eat meat, though he’s very fond of fish. Kevin hates fish–thank goodness he does like turkey. Mira won’t eat meat or fish, but she is looking forward to my big vegetable pot pie and the green olives stuffed with feta cheese she said she wanted and I found for her. Zoe is vegan–I’ve got lots of veggies and something beany, for her. I can’t serve anything with eggs in it, by the way–not unless I want to watch Father V taken away in an ambulance–he’s terribly, terribly allergic to eggs.

So I’m a bit hassled right now. (Stop blogging, Betsy!) But I’m also thankful. Thankful the day is here at last. Thankful my life includes people I love enough to fuss over like this. Thankful for the super-special people who show up way early to help.

And aren’t you thankful you don’t have my family to cook for?

Postscript: A couple of people left Thanksgiving morning comments–I don’t know why the software decided to hide them. Maybe the tech gods were running around their own kitchens? Anyway, I copied and pasted them here. Betsy

From Oren Sreebny: “A great post to read early on Thanksgiving morning (west coast time) – being in the midst of a huge kitchen remodel which is running months late, we’re not hosting Thanksgiving for the first time in like twenty years, instead doing it at my parents house. Reading your post made me smile and relax – thanks, and have a great holiday weekend!”

From marcum: “I did not have time to blog either. Lol.”