I'm posting this for two reasons.

1. I'm a big booster of bilingual beings (not to mention alliterative ones); and

2. It's feels soooo good to start getting my sense of humor back.

Judge: Strip search of strippers illegal

M cracked up over this headline, which was on the front page of yesterday's Daytona Beach News-Journal. After he explained to me what a strip search is--and what strippers do for a living--I found myself sharing his amusement. At the same time, though, I have to wonder about the mental process that led to this totally unnecessary act.

The story by staff writer Jay Stapleton begins:

     DAYTONA BEACH SHORES - Four exotic dancers won a $200,000 settlement from this small, seaside city after a judge ruled police shouldn't have strip searched them during a nightclub drug raid.
     Even topless dancers have rights not to be strip searched unlawfully by police, U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven found . . .

The article goes on to say that the plaintiffs were wearing street clothes at the time of the September 2009 raid at Biggins Gentleman's Club. Maybe so, but hello-ooo! Why did the cops feel the need to strip them? They're topless dancers! If you just watch and wait, won't they eventually do it to themselves?

As much as I like most humans, they sure are a hard breed to understand.

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home . . .

When Grandma Grace was flying airplanes, one of her favorite groups of associates was a club called the Ladybugs. (M says that women aviators were called "Ladybirds" or "Ladybugs" since at least World War II and probably even the 1930s.) As a result of her connection to this club, she began to collect ladybugs. Ladybug jewelry, ladybug painted rocks, ladybug refrigerator magnets--you name it, Grandma had it. Here's a sample:

Because of her love of ladybugs, we think we have evidence that Grandma came to visit us Monday night. Monday was the Fourth of July, a day that I normally hate since firework noises scare me as much as thunderstorms do. There was lots of booming and banging going on outside, so I stayed pretty close to M and J--even though they were watching more booming and banging on television.

Anyway, cut to the chase: Yesterday morning M was walking around the side of our house and happened to look down at the ground beneath the gate to the air conditioner cubby. Here's what he saw looking up at him:

Yep! A ladybug! A BIG ladybug--about the size of a computer mouse. (Which is pretty large as ladybugs go.) As M bent down to pick it up, he could see it was made of some kind of paper or cardboard and that it was a bit cracked and had some fire damage on it.

(M says please excuse the weeds, but he's been too busy in recent weeks to pull them. Nor does he have time to Photoshop them out of the pictures.)

It turns out that this particular ladybug is a type of firework. In fact it's a little rocket that spins and shoots way up into the air. Here's what it looks like underneath after it's made its flight:

We also think that this ladybug was Grandma's calling card, because it chose our house to land at. So I'm happy to give Grandma a "pass" for her rather noisy, showoff-y visit. And we are all very happy to add the bug to her collection.

Here's a video clip I found on YouTube that shows you that when a ladybug takes off, she's really booking!

Why can't I quit you, Arlo?

I think I've mentioned our tuxedo cat, Arlo, a time or two. He's the one that likes me. (Willis, the other one, is a crabby old curmudgeon who wishes I'd move to the moon.) The trouble with Arlo is that he likes me too much. He is always in my face, licking it (or my ears), giving me little love bites, and generally being a pain. Sometimes he just lies across my face and zones out, which does not enhance my nap-taking experience. Here's an example of his pushy behavior:

As you can imagine, sometimes it's hard for me to breathe.

Then, just when I'm about to get up and "mistake" him for one of my stuffed animals and shake him until his eyeballs rattle, he'll decide to at least uncover my mouth. It's like he knows just how far he can push me.

I think he also knows that I like him, too--though I'll be darned if I know why I like him. Maybe you've got a friend or relative like that.

Decisions, decisions . . .

M decided to throw out his 30-year-old La-Z-Boy rocker today, but it was a tough call.

For a while I thought we might be going with it.