Patty update

So....

Patty just called. She (along with about 7 or 8 people from the dig) has been hired for a job by the Omani government, which means she won't be home on March 17th (as previously planned) but now around April 3 or 4 (we should know in the next day or two).

While I'm somewhat bummed about this, the opportunity is amazing (interesting, good for her CV, in a great location, better accommodations, etc.), and she's getting paid scads of money (fascinating and novel for a grad student), and it's more time for me to do lots of work and get life set up for us for her return.

Meanwhile, she had an x-ray the other day, and her lungs are all clear. So even though she's still coughing a little, no more pneumonia.

LJ Idol, Week 23: The Best Thing

As has been the case with most things in my life, the baby eating didn't start out as an obsession. Hell, it didn't even start out as a big deal. Growing up on the Upper East Side, you just do things like that. I mean, you wouldn't believe how many over-priced beauty products contain animal placenta either.

Maybe, at the beginning, I was trying to fit in, because I just didn't. Ever. At all. I was a weird kid, and even weird about my baby eating, preferring to swallow them whole in a some sort of reptilian fashion, or, once I got good in the kitchen, fashioning the babies into smaller, baby-shaped flesh forms. Because, seriously, if you're going to engage in baby eating, you've got to do it with class, style and flair (I have standards about this, and will mock you if you're just going to drink their blood or whatever -- that's incredibly lazy, and, let's face it, pedestrian).

Of course, awkward and weird or not, baby consumption does put me in some pretty elite company. What with notorious killers, sundry demons and a range of mythological creatures. And hell, let's not forget Cronos and his baby-swallowing ways, although that didn't work out too well for him. More recently, however, baby eating has been endorsed by Jonathan Swift in his 1729 essay, A Modest Proposal.

In fact, when one examines the entire history of baby eating (and why confine this research to just the humanoid? A remarkable number of creatures in the animal kingdom also engage in baby-eating, and I hear young doormice are, in fact, quite tasty) it's pretty much, pretty clearly, entirely The Best Thing Ever.

Which of course, is why I'm so terribly awesome, and wracked with nostalgia for the days when baby consumption was a standard aspiration of both the well-heeled and social climbers alike. Of course, by being interested in traditions passing out of the world, I can only hope to have a hand in reviving ones such as this.

A purpose for which I find catchy advertising slogans (a skill learned from my father) come in handy in quite remarkable a fashion.

So let's remember: Babies! They're not just for breakfast anymore!

(no subject)

via bodlon

Normally Americans marvel at foreign commercials because of all the naked. This time, marvel for all the decency in this Argentinian bank commercial.

LJ Idol Vote, Week 23

It's that time again folks. With 15 people left, we're eliminating 4 to bring us to the Top 11.

As ever, you can vote for your favorites (hopefully including my baby-eating self) here:

http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/240635.html

Polls are open until Friday at 9pm EST.