Pictures Of A Cat And Several Trees

Columbus Day Postcard

Things are good. The weather here has been beautiful this past week, although generally I have been too sick to be able to take advantage of it. A nasty cold has been going around the middle school where I work, and it finally caught up to me, laying me down from about Wednesday through Sunday. But I feel better now.

Columbus Day has been one of my favorite holidays for awhile now, and so that made me feel a little awkward this weekend when several of my friends were circulating this video about "Reconsidering Columbus Day." At first I was put off, but then I began to think about why I have such strong feelings for this holiday, and I realized that it had nothing to do with Christopher Columbus or patriotism or history or whatever. I just like it because the weather is usually nice, and I think that it is ideally situated between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, and I have good memories about sneaking off to New York City by myself during "Fall Break" when I was in college. So I guess that I'd be down with changing this holiday's name, or changing it's emphasis towards Native American history, just as long as I still get the second Monday in October off.

Addendum: I'm going to start putting most of my sports-related posts here. If I think that something I write is particularly clever or interesting, I'll post it on this blog. But I found myself just making one inane sports list after another, and felt like they needed their own space.

College Football Saturday!

It's a gray and rainy morning in Urbana, IL, and I am sitting in the sun room in my underwear while Robyn is making french toast in the kitchen. Soon, I'll be leaving to take Coraline to the vet for her shots, while Robyn readies the house for her BIG DANCE PARTY tonight. If you're anywhere around central Illinois tonight, stop on by for some totally geek chic dancing.

I went out by myself last night, toting along a book about Schopenhauer, sporting my Oregon sweatshirt. Champaign has been invaded this weekend by hordes of scarlet-wearing Ohio State fans. Illinois plays the Buckeyes today (in about two hours, at this point) and I'm definitely not expecting an upset. But it was fun last night chatting with some of Buckeye fans at the Blind Pig about football and the BCS and the Rose Bowl, and how freaking good the Ducks are this year. I think that it's a sign of the times that, on a day when Florida plays Alabama and Oklahoma plays Texas, ESPN's College Gameday is in Eugene, Ore. (Although I guess there's a big caveat to that because Florida-Alabama is on CBS.)

Also, on a weird sidenote: I got a cheeseburger last night, and my waiter was all, "Oh, Oregon! I love the Ducks!" For a while, I was suspecting that he just said that whenever he had a customer who wears any team's gear - "Oh, Mississippi Valley State! I love the Delta Devils!" - but then it turned out that he has family in Eugene. So we chatted about Bachelor for awhile. (But I did give him a good tip.... maybe he just does extensive research and concocts elaborate storylines about his fake lives in every possible region of the country. In which case, I think he would deserve a good tip.)

Also also: We're getting cat #2!



Though he be wee, he is fierce.

We'll be picking him up from the Hugh-mane Society next week, after he gets neutered and receives a clean bill of health. Any thoughts for names? His institutional name is something lame, like Tiger or Garfield or something. We're thinking "Lucius," because he's tough and has red hair, and might have a bit of a Gallic look to him.


The likeness is uncanny.

Also, and this is completely unrelated to anything, but I like to think of Micheal Strahan as being the bizarro version of Peyton Manning. I feel like he has all these product endorsements, but their all slightly odd, like Dick's Sporting Goods, and Dr. Pepper.