The Facebook Dilemma

I have been invited to join Facebook. By a close, personal friend. (Not all those distant, communal friends I have.) Someone with whom I would like to be in greater contact and is not great at replying to e-mails. (Something about a 17-month old and buying a house and moving and other lame excuses.) The problem is I don't do Facebook. I don't really know that much about it, I don't know how to use it, and I don't want to start. As far as I can determine it's a cross-between a directory and a scrapbook. I don't care about directories and I don't keep scrapbooks. If I did, I don't know why I would want it exposed to the world. Frankly, I'd close this blog if I thought anyone other than people I've told about it ever visited. I don't even like that it shows up when you do a Google Blog Search. Censoring for group consumption and interest is one thing, censoring for total public publication is another.

Getting back on track, I'm torn between possibly being better-connected with a good friend and being more publicly exposed than I like. What to do?

2015

That's how long ASU expects me to be here. From 8/24/2008 to 5/15/2015. That's seven years! I'll be thirty-one before I leave this place. They'd better start stocking chocolate chip ice cream, that's all I can say.

A Fiendish Conspiracy of Unfathomable Proportions

Dear readers, I feel I must alert you to a Fiendish Conspiracy of Unfathomable Proportions (FCUP). Chocolate chip ice cream is ridiculous hard to find here! Seriously, it's one of the basics, people. Yet of the many flavors and brands available at our local Albertsons, only one (Dreyer's) had it. Albertsons didn't have it, Breyers didn't have it, Blue Bunny didn't have it, Blue Bell didn't have it, Ben and Jerry's didn't have it, Haagen-Dazs didn't have it. That's six major brands of ice cream that don't believe in chocolate chip apparently. Assuming that chocolate chip ice cream still exists in other parts of the country, I am forced to make some terrible judgments. Namely, the stores here don't carry it because it doesn't sell. This means there are people in the state of Arizona--a lot of them, it would seem--that do not like chocolate chip ice cream. How is that even possible? What do you find unpleasant? Vanilla ice cream? Chocolate? Seriously, they're delicious and universally liked. I fear something is wrong with the people here. Probably something in the horrible, horrible-tasting water.

Also, they do not celebrate Presidents' Day here. How is that even possible?

Things You Don't Want to Get in the Mail

Things you don't want to get in the mail:

10. Animals (dead or live)
9. Glass bottles with syrups inside
8. Things for someone else important enough not to throw away
7. Anything from the bank
6. Firearms
5. Solicitations
4. Underwear
3. Body Parts
2. Biological Agents
1. Sex Offender Notification

Guess which I got today? Yep, numero uno. I opened my mail box today and right on top was a flyer with the words: "IMPORTANT Sex Offender Notification." My first thought was, well it's probably someone just in the neighborhood who 'likes' little girls." Not good by any means, but not something I have worry about. But nope, I open it up and the first thing I see is my address, #18. Yeah, that came as a bit of a shock. Was not expecting my next-door neighbor, the loud one who loves football and parties. I've only seen him once and I'm definitely not his type so there won't be any extra paranoia, but still. Not the kind of thing you want to get. (Although I suppose it is better than not knowing.)

And Lo, There Were Shorts!

The glory of humanity is shorts. Yes, short pants. For the first time in five years, I have shorts again and it is the most beautiful thing. Or it was, until the temperatures plummeted back into the fifties with a strong wind. I actually had to break out the granny cardigan yesterday. (Note: I do not think of it as a "granny" cardigan--indeed, it is the anti-granny cardigan if anything--but Paul stubbornly refuses to call it anything but. "It makes the outside match the inside," he says. Bah and pffiffle, I say!) Now I just see my shorts in the closet, looking dejected.

On a completely unrelated note, Muhlesteins and Muhlestein aficionados should had over to Paul's cousin Jordan's website (www.jordanandcrystal.blogspot.com) and watch the video of him doorbell-ditching his baby. Note how long it takes for anyone to bring said baby into the house.