Miscellaneous Monday

In no particular order:

1) After a hiatus of two years or so - during which they probably missed me terribly - I am once again a Costco member. The most immediate result of this weekend development is that my mid-afternoon snack today is approximately one and three quarters pounds of delicious pineapple. Guess what my mid-afternoon snack tomorrow through Friday will be.

Since we don't have tons of storage space in our apartment, it's probably a tossup whether the annual membership fee is a great investment. The 30-pack of paper towels might save us lots of dough, but unless we start crating stuff on our porch, that's probably a little too much Bounty for the humble abode. But if my math is even close to correct, we should be able to make it worthwhile with what we save on gas (almost 25 cents per gallon cheaper at Costco right now, I think) and cat litter alone.

2) Speaking of cats, we took two of our three to the vet for vaccines and checkups Saturday. Is it just Sampson and Brearley or do all cats really freakin' hate getting into their carrying cases? I don't think they even care how deeeee-luxe these bags are - they want no part of it.

Unfortunately, we had to bring Brearley back to the vet this morning for a dental cleaning, which is kind of a production for kitties. So we weren't in the greatest mood while dropping her off and then the receptionist makes it worse by continually referring to our cat as "it," as in "Has it been to our office before?"

I'm no expert on animal hospital management, but I'd hazard a guess that one of the first rules they teach you in vet receptionist school is referring to the animals as "he" or "she." Maybe because pet people want vets and their employees to not make it seem as though they're taking care of inanimate objects.

3) In what must be a sign that I'm now a full-fledged resident of Greater Hollywood, while I was sleeping last night I dreamed up approximately half of an episode of Entourage. It wasn't the most original storyline - I think E cheated on his girlfriend but got caught - but the dialogue was pretty snappy. Maybe there’s something in the air (smog?) that makes people think teleplays.

4) So, you knew I'd get to t-shirt news at some point, right? Oh calm down. I'm not even talking about what's new at S and J Market.

No, I wanted to show you what arrived via UPS this morning. My very own Alaska for Obama t-shirt:

I ordered it a month ago, just minutes after the Palin-Biden debate, as my own mini protest against criminally inept vice presidential candidates. I guess lots of other people had the same idea because the shirt was backordered. But I think I'll wear it tonight when I get home and certainly tomorrow while we watch election coverage.

5) OK, never mind that stuff I wrote before about not boring you with more news from S and J Market. How could I let you go through the rest of your day without seeing our latest new design? Answer: I couldn't.

There's a suburb south of Chicago called Flossmoor. When I lived in the Big Windy, any time someone mentioned the place, I'd tell them I had a brilliant, t-shirt-worthy slogan that the town should use to drum up... I don't know, tourism? The point is: Until this weekend, that brilliant idea was just a t-shirt-worthy slogan. Now, it's actually on a t-shirt.

See for yourself:

Catchy, no? (Weird picture, though. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to this dude's head.) And it's printed on a high-quality American Apparel shirt - perfect for holiday giving! (On sale through tomorrow!)