What you don’t know about women

Mom and I drove a hundred miles to Sequim, on the peninsula, to look (and smell) lavender farms. And eat lavender mint ice cream. After driving another 2 hours (via ferry) to have dinner with Rob, we found ourselves at a loss to describe how wonderful the day was.

Rob said, “How come you guys like looking at fields of flowers so much?”

Almost how forgot how unimpressed he was by the fields of tulips in Skagit the first time he met my mom.

I’m so relieved to learn that JITB’s Root Beer Floats only have 470 calories and 20 grams of fat. (Small vanilla milkshakes have 570 cals and 29 grams of fat, so you can see why I’d be concerned.) Was starting to feel like my float-a-day habit could have a negative effect on my physique.

My co-conspirator at work complained to her new boyfriend that she was feeling fat and he intimated that it was because of the float a day. (Please collectively gasp here.)

Here’s what I know: Two floats a day is not acceptable. I probably should cut back to one every other day. But solid food remains a challenge (it aches on the left side too, now) and floats do contain a significant 15% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin A, 25% Calcium, 2% Iron and 4% Vitamin C. And 8 grams of protein! (Yeah, we did ask the chick at the drive-thru for the nutritional information.)

Guilty

I haven’t exactly used this as a forum about international and social injustice. And probably spend too much time thinking about reality TV, celebrity romances and my own silly life, but this is a really good column.

Be sure to look at the slide show under “Related”: Genocide in the 21st century.

Nicholas Kristof does a good job. Wish I had his job.

Spoilers that shall not be named

I know who the Half-Blood Prince is. But I had to read the book to find out. I also know who got killed and by whom, but that was spoiled for me in two ways.

I read a news brief about the cancelation of bets on who would die after a disproportional number of people placed bids on the same character…and those people lived in the town where the book was being printed.

Then, and this is the weirder one, on the Best Week Ever, one of the “commentators” did a bit where he read aloud from the “last page” of the book. He said “(Name which shall not be named here, but was on television) killed (name that the show bleeped out with a ‘spoiler’ balloon).” So VH1 wasn’t spoiling who died, but who did the killing. I wondered whether that first name was actually the person who did the killing, and learned last night, as I finished the book, that it was.

I enjoy Harry Potter. I think the magical names are mostly colorful and fun. (I suggested a colleague describe the names of various noxious weeds as “something out of a Harry Potter book” and she did.) But “Death Eaters”? Bleah. Lame.

The only part I find unbelievable is that Hermione would be interested in Ron. Puh-lease. The guy’s not smart enough for her. She has to do his homework for him and put spells on other Quidditch players to make him look good. He’s a likeable enough guy, sure, but worth sobbing in the bathroom over? No way.

Here’s an interesting piece on Potter.