There's a lot going on in the world that I just don't want to talk about. I read the New York Times online and watch CNN and eventually I have to stop and shut it off. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people on both sides who can't do that because they are living it.

Neither of us is doing very well in the basketball. However, as of the 2nd round, I was kicking The Scientist's ass (well, I was three games up). Not bad! Of course, Sports Illustrated informs me that I'm in 84,000 place (literally).

I bought these vintage reproduction animal alphabet cards on sale at Martha Stewart. I like them a lot, but they made some strange choices for animals.

A is "ape" (kind of nonspecific), C is "cow" (Is that even the right word or is a cow just a female bovine?), M is "marmot" (How about moose or monkey?), R is "red fox" (What? Anything can be red, how about raccoon?), and V is "vulture" (slightly morbid for the children).

Marmot and vulture are just funny and I can deal with ape (although I would have used "alligator"), but cow and red fox bug me. Come on, use camel for C. Kids love camels. And red fox is just stupid. Like R is such a difficult letter to come up with an animal for that you have to add a color onto an animal that clearly begins with F (I don't see them using "silver fox" for S). At least if you're going to use a compound name, use something like rattlesnake. But really, raccoon is the clear choice for R.

Also, there's a small part of me that wants to say, "Heh, heh, they said 'beaver,' heh heh," but that's my problem.

I can't remember what else I was going to say. The Scientist is out of town for six days, leaving me home alone with the cats for way too long. I started talking to them last night and it had only been a day and a half.