Context: I frequently ask Piper, “So, what’s your diaper situation?” To which she always invariably replies, “Good!” The verbal response is not the one I’m watching; if she sidles away while saying “Good!” than she’s trying to get out of smelling range, which indicates un petit falsehood as to her pants’ status. If she stays put, she’s most likely telling the truth.

However, this is not actually a diaper story. This morning, I took the bag out of our kitchen trashcan. While knotting the damn eco-friendly trash bag, I noticed a dead fly down in the bottom of the can, and figured I would swab out the whole thing when I came back from taking the bag out.  As I walked towards the back door, though, Piper walked over and peered down into the bottom of the can, and then quizzically looked at me. “What’s the bug situation?”

Late update: tonight we got asked about “the music situation,” during dinner.  So I think we officially have a catchphrase of the week.

One year ago today, Lucy-the-cat threw up on your (closed, thank god) laptop. I cleaned it up and never told you. By now, it should be clear there was nothing to worry about! Enjoy!

And people say men are no good at communicating in relationships.

Above, Addie and Piper sharing some chuckles at dinner last night.

Lamont: it would be possible to instruct you as to my method of blending such frozen treats, but I am afraid that I would require some form of pecuniary recompense.

… says, paraphrased, that the simplest explanation for things is generally right. Here are some explanations for things where, I’m hoping, Occam (or “William of Ockham,” per Wikipedia) is getting it wrong.

• Piper is sneaking out of the bedroom while we’re asleep and eating fistfuls of turmeric.
• Piper is sneaking out of the bedroom while we’re asleep and telling the cats to steer clear of her or she’ll use this shiv, understand?
• Water, especially lukewarm water on washcloths, is actually highly corrosive to babies and burns, yes, my precious, like acid on their skin.
• Breastmilk served out of a bottle tastes like an ashtray-flavored Italian soda.
• Eons ago, only the young of our species who ripped the most chest hair from their fathers survived and thrived.
• Repeatedly whacking yourself in the face feels awesome and looks great!

Off to find some bleach for these brilliant-orange-stained diapers. Seriously, now, wtf.

Neat service pulling intriguing Tweets by how many times they’ve been marked as someone’s favorite — something like Flickr’s “interestingness” algorithm. I went to check out the page (at the above link) and noted this little gem, from Twitter user hotdogsladiesкомпютри:

Clinton fans tell us they’ll protest by supporting McCain. Many also vow to protest gas prices by shitting in their cars. Back to you, Tom.

Via the inimitable Warren Ellis, of course.

In the meantime, it may (or may not) say something about my mental state that this provided a much needed morning guffaw, alongside my daily cup of Irish Breakfast tea.

The hospital Kate works at has had its name change frequently over the last 10 years as various schools and corporations have merged and sponsored it. The ambulances say “New York / Presbyterian,” people commonly refer to “Columbia / Presbyterian,” signs around 168th St say “Columbia University Medical Center,” and somewhere in here, Morgan Stanley got involved. The folks who work with Kate call the hospital “CHoNY” (rhymes with “Joanie” and stands for “Childrens’ Hospital of New York”), so that’s how I’ve started thinking of it.

Kate’s been at the hospital 5 days a week, 7 a.m. (which means getting up at 5:30 a.m.) till 3 p.m. (which means getting home at 4:30 p.m.). The early morning wake-up-and-fall-back-asleep routine costs me a little, so I’m trying to go to bed earlier, too.

I’m still turning out kinda boring written pieces, but I’m feeling a lot better about my radio bits. My classmates and I have been editing each other’s work, which has reassured me that I’m not really that far off from everyone else in terms of overall ability and perception. Also, some well-timed advice reminded me that there’s no way I will learn anything this year if I’m frozen up with panic. My grandmother’s yankee frugality in my genes makes it impossible for me to pay Columbia’s tuition and not learn anything, THEREFORE: I need to calm down. And I’ve largely done so, though not without some interesting observations on my procrastination techniques, which deserve their own post, later.

Still no gas hookup. Cooked dinner for six on the camp stove over the weekend, which was the first real cooking I’d done down here. It felt great, though the dishwashing aftermath made both Kate and I pine for a dishwasher. This morning, while heating water for tea, the gas bottle emptied. So I microwaved a cup of water, noting that the following numbers on the microwave’s keypad no longer work: 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7. We’re basically reduced to solving a Sudoku puzzle each time we want to microwave something for a particular length of time.

Today my RW1 class will do a 30-minute radio news magazine webcast at 4 p.m. precisely. We all applied for the various jobs one would normally find in a radio newsroom; I asked for and got one of two “Day Reporter” positions, meaning I’m going to go out and find a story today, acquire sound, and produce a story before 4. (Unless something else comes over the wires shortly, I’ll be going down to the UN to cover an Ahmedinejad protest involving Israel’s Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.) I asked for the job because rapidly developing a story seems to be where I’m weakest just now — here’s hoping this works.

Speaking of responses to Ahmedinejad, here’s a sarcastic piece by Scott Adams on the subject which I found amusing, and then his response to the commenters on his blog who started calling him all sorts of nasty names.

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/09/a-feeling-im-be.html

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/09/sorry-i-confuse.html

Man, I loves me some Paul Ford.

Rather than purchasing goods made by overseas laborers—who are often forced to work in unsafe conditions for low wages—I have kidnapped and enslaved a group of neighborhood children and chained them to a bench in my garage, where they make my clothes and build my gadgets. ¶ I carpool or ride my bike to Klan rallies. ¶ And I give public transit passes to my suicide bombers. ¶ I flush the toilet once a month. ¶ I avoid wasteful, ecologically unsound packaging by stealing. ¶ That barbecue sizzle? Humanely slaughtered pandas raised no more than ten miles from my home.

(Continued at Ftrain.com)