What Makes Me Laugh

I haven’t been up to blogging much lately in part because I wake up to National Public Radio. News about the oil spill in the Gulf nearly kills my day. I just want to pull the covers over my head and go back to bed. It doesn’t put me in the mood to laugh.

But, my friend sent me a news clip from USA Today about the Gulf that made me laugh. In fact, I get a chuckle out of it nearly every day. Hundreds of thousands of hair clippings from pets and people are being stuffed into used pantyhose and shipped to the Gulf to help soak up the oil. This is the idea of Matter of Trust, a tiny non-profit in San Francisco that helps recycle and reuse natural fibers. You can learn how to donate to the cause at their website.

To date, I haven’t seen anything that confirms that cleanup crews will use the natural fiber booms, but the idea of stuffing our collective hairs into used pantyhose for cleanup does make me feel like there is a way our cats and us can help. The only problem is our rate of hair loss is not nearly fast enough for this process. By the time I filled one pantyhose leg with my cat’s hair it might be a month from now. This is not because they don’t shed like crazy, but mainly because I can’t get them to sit still long enough to groom them for more than five seconds at a time.

Anyway, if you’re wondering what to do with all of your unwanted hair, well, get your combs and scissors out, someone wants it!

A few buds are out on the lilac trees, which worries us a little since we have a few more snowstorms to get through before warm weather is here to stay, but never you mind, I’m going to enjoy the sun that’s shining today. Doug is making me a big breakfast (my favorite meal of the day) and the cats are romping around in the yard. We’re all feeling frisky.

My mom sent me some Easter photos, and I have to pass on our secret family recipe (shh … it’s a secret) for how to tie dye your Easter eggs. Simply add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to each of your dye pots, dip in the egg, wipe it off, and then dip in the next pot. It makes an amazing looking kaleidoscope of colors on your egg, and you look like an artistic genius. This is the only craft I’ve completed where I look like an artistic genius, so I do enjoy it. Hope you do too!

My friend Amy posted this on her facebook page and I had to steal it. She says it’s her favorite commercial of all time and I have to agree. This post is dedicated to my father, who is the ultimate cowboy cat herder in our family, especially when my mom is out of town. Truly, I watched it three times and laughed every time. Take a look and have yourself a laugh too.

About 10 years ago I sent an e-mail to a group of friends from college asking them all for a list of the best books they had read that year. I did it to reconnect with friends who share a common interest (most of us were English Majors) and because I have trouble finding new authors and I figured they might have some great suggestions. For several weeks we swapped e-mails, sharing our favorites, and making must-read book lists for the coming year. Over time, it’s become a tradition, and after most of us joined Facebook, I created a group to make it even easier for participants to share. From my friends’ recommendations I’ve discovered some of my now-favorite authors: David Sedaris, Jeannette Walls, and Elizabeth Gilbert.

You can check out everyone’s picks for 2009 by clicking on this facebook link. I’d love to hear your suggestions – either on the facebook page or at this blog in the comments section.

My suggestions for this year included:

1. Memoir – “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I like to include at least one book that someone recommended from last year’s list, so my thanks go to Liz Salan for recommending this great travelogue. After a nasty divorce, Elizabeth Gilbert embarks on a spiritual and physical discovery across continents that is funny and inspiring. She also wrote the article that was the basis for the movie Coyote Ugly (which I have yet to see, but is on my list this year).

2. Fiction – “People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks: This book is both well-written and has a gripping plot,  a combo that is nearly impossible for me to find these days. I’m increasingly becoming impatient, skimming through books, but this tale of a rare Jewish book and the people who either make it or try to save it made me read every word. Geraldine Brooks won a Pulitzer for her book “March” in 2006.

3. Fiction – “One Shot” by Lee Child: Stuck in an airport over the holidays and out of reading material? Pick up a Lee Child book. His mystery/thriller books will keep you from going crazy while on standby. They are all told from the point-of-view of Jack Reacher, an ex-military man who has no home, but always ends up in a place or position to solve a crime (and then moves on). He’s smart and brutal, but I’m never disappointed in the ending, and I read every word.

4. Memoir – “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life” by Steve Martin: I really enjoyed this tale about Steve’s start in comedy at Disney, his spare family life, and why he ended his stand-up career. A lot of great stories about other famous comedians come up in the book. It’s not really a funny memoir, but very illuminating.

5. Fiction – “The Other Boleyn Girl” by Phillipa Gregory: I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t compare it to that, but I can say that I normally don’t like historical fiction (or fiction that is based on someone else’s sense of history) but this book brought Henry VIII alive in a new way to me, and what it must have been like to vie for his attention. Plus, it was just a good old-fashioned romance.

Anecdotage — old age, when a person may be prone to regale others with anecdotes about his past. [A humorous blend of anecdote and dotage.]

Definition from freedictionary.com.

I was listening to a podcast of This American Life about Frenemies (another hilarious word) when I heard it and I laughed out loud. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.