Republicat or Democat? No.... definitely Dictatorcat!

(I did not even know she had a black Dictator's Scarf. Who knew!)

- - -

Have a great and furry weekend! ("I am Sobakowa and I approve this message.")

Dude, I'm like... all serious and stuff.

Perhaps it's a widespread low-level depression, or a collective free-floating anxiety. Maybe it is a combination of financial stresses from an economy that is currently at a terror threat level of "Industrial Concrete Grey" -- that is the color they paint the inside of debtor's prison. People at the gas stations all across America are mad, people at gas stations in other countries are mad at Americans for being mad, and people in grocery stores everywhere are downright pissy.

This is because stuff is expensive. I am not so good at math, but I estimate everything at the store to be one gazillion times more expensive than this time last year. Give or take ten dollars.

Or maybe people are overwhelmed from the constant blaring news headlines yelling at us emphatically about how something new is going to kill you, maim you or rob you blind... tune in at ten for more details. (I always want to know... if something is THAT important, shouldn't you tell me now instead of making me tune in at ten p.m.? What if I get killed, maimed or robbed blind between now and ten? Where is your commitment to my well-being?)

People also seem poised to argue any point at any time no matter if that point has any bearing on anything at all. It is kind of like being in high school debate class when you got SO MAD about that thing that time ... and you can't really remember what it was but you were still SO RIGHT. For example, if you say, "Hey I saw a cute movie pre-teen girls might like..." people say, "You're an jerk who is perpetuating stereotypes about the differences between boys and girls!" If you say, "What can I use in this smoothie besides a banana?" someone writes you an email demanding to know what you have against nature's finest fruit. "How dare you malign the poor banana? People in other countries DIE to produce your banana!" And you are left to wonder A) when bananas became so dangerous and B) who has time to sit around scolding strangers about their smoothie contents.

What I am saying here is that everyone is batshit crazy right now and I believe it is global. It cannot possibly be limited to Encino-Adjacent and one block of downtown Los Angeles.

In full disclosure and with a nod to the observer effect on scientific research, I admit that I myself am not immune from the global beserkedness. No, I truly do believe that much like charity, true crazy starts at home. Case in point: last week I passively aggressively confronted the Coffee Pot Bandit. I saw him leave the coffee pot at work dry TWO DAYS IN A ROW and I lost my damn mind. Over a coffee pot. First (on Day One) I just stood in shock that he drained the coffee pot before my very eyes and sauntered off with nary a nod to a coffee filter. When I returned to my senses, I did the only thing I could -- I made faces at his retreating back as I held my empty coffee cup of rage. Later I tried to get my Deepak on and lower my blood pressure by imagining that Coffee Pot Bandit was actually working on a proposal to cure cancer so I cut him some slack and made a fresh pot of coffee and called it a day. Breathe in, breathe out, etc. But then when he repeated his performance the following day, I remembered OH YEAH, I WORK AT A BANK so he was totally NOT CURING CANCER! Then I was mad and confrontational! Later I told a joke about cameltoe. No one laughed. My whole day was just not right.

I would also like to mention I outweigh Coffee Pot Bandit by about forty pounds and he better not meet me in a dark alley. NOT THAT I AM HOLDING A GRUDGE OR ANYTHING.

It just seems like any old thing will set someone off these days ... even though coffee, in my defense, is more expensive per gallon than premium unleaded. (Or at least I think it is, it was a few days ago when I was formulating this hypothesis ... I haven't filled up my Jeep today and I could be wrong.) In just the past week I have seen a man on the bus yell at a woman for talking on her phone, I have witnessed two people get in a fight over a parking space at a grocery store, and I have seen a crazy person confront a poor unsuspecting coworker about leaving the coffee pot dry.

In my scientific reasoning brain, the one I use for making up statistics and also fooling people into thinking I am smart, I have surmised from my serious research of the topic that 97.3% of the population of Earth is collectively disgruntled and we need a vacation.

That is pretty much the end of my research. Because as you know, it's really expensive to fly anywhere or drive anywhere and people are really irritable when they travel. I am thinking a vacation alone in the bathtub might be nice.

I do not know what the solution is... prozac dispensers in the hallways? Rum in the water supply? Gnomes who turn into male dancers named Fox? I do not know, I don't posit solutions I merely observe for science. But we should all agree right now to leave the coffee pot full at all times because until they invent a hybrid version of me that runs on part electric, part caffeine I really need at least that particular cup to runneth over.

Finally, in conclusion, ad nauseum, ipsum lorem dolar, I am certain there are people who will argue this hypothesis of mine. They will say, "But you're wrong! I'm not cranky or argumentative! I'm great! I feel happy and joyful!" and there is an explanation for this anomaly: these people are aliens. Because science doesn't lie.

Also if you know about any gnomes that turn into hot male dancers named Fox... do not hesitate to share this data with me. I will research the matter and report back to you. In the name of science.

But if you still want the creamy goodness that a banana provides and you either don't like bananas or don't have one on hand, what do you add instead to get the smoothie smooth?

Ideas? Suggestions?

You see, I don't do your Netflix or your DVD-watching or general admission movie watching pretty much ever, except on the rare occasion that I need to see a gem like say The Bodyguard, and when urges such as that come over me they are all-consuming I have to see said movie rightnowrightnowRIGHTNOW. But in general I don't have a lot of free time for moviewatching. I think the last time I sat my butt in a real movie theater was when the last Bourne movie came out and before that it was... uh? Probably the Bourne movie before it. I love me some Jason Bourne.

But sometimes I get a window of opportunity and a sleepless night and they collide when the planets align and the stars get twinkly and for that brief interlude I am forever grateful to the human who invented Movies On Demand. I am certain this clever person was an insomniac herself, and she spent many a sleepless night wanting to get wrapped up in some relatively-new-release movie and yet it was 3:25 a.m. and all the stores were closed and like some people we know, mail order is TOO DAMN SLOW to fulfill the one magical window of opportunity.

Movies On Demand is pretty much the best insomniac invention since the Tivo. Or with the Tivo. Tomato, tomahto. While I am trying valiantly to cut back on my TV viewing (and I have) there are still times when it's 3 a.m. and you can't sleep and none of the books on the nightstand seem appealing and your neighborhood is too ghetto to go out and go for a walk or anything productive and you really just want to watch a movie and forget you have to be at work in three and a half hours.

You know?

With Movies On Demand you just scroll through whatever your cable company has on tap (mine has bazillions of movie titles and TV shows and all kinds of stuff) and with a press of the B button (for BUY! Buy!) you get your selection right then and there, delivered to your teevee through the modern marvel of technology. No gas was harmed in the delivery of your movie! The fee shows up as an additional charge on your cable bill and it's usually between $1.99 and $3.99 for a movie.

And that is how I managed to see "Waitress" (cute) and "Michael Clayton" (very good, love you George!) and that is how I found myself one night not too long ago watching a tween movie called "Sydney White."

Sydney White is a modern Snow White re-telling, with that frothy cute Amanda Bynes as Sydney White who goes to college to pledge her dead mom's sorority (I'm surprised it wasn't a Disney film ... there's always a dead mom in the story somewhere!) and the sorority girls are meanies and Sydney is banished and ends up in a house with Seven Dorks. And it's actually (and surprisingly) a really charming and cute movie and even I wouldn't be afraid to show it to a kid-sized girl, and I am notoriously fickle about what I think kids should be allowed to watch on the magic screen. (Have you heard of that book, "I was the perfect mother until I had kids"? That's me in a nutshell. Yup.) But it's a cute movie, so even though I'm unmasking myself as the lamest old lady on the block it's for a good cause. So you can thank me when you have one pretty good movie to watch with your twelve-year-old.

That's right, thank the middle-aged insomniac with three cats. There's nothing weird at all about that.

But hello and Happy Birthday!

Also May 1st in Los Angeles is very exciting because people who apparently do not do such things as "develop secretary spread in stale office air" such as myself take to the streets in the middle of the day and swarm the city with chaos and then people throw coke bottles at the police and then the police shoots them. I have never really understood the whole May Day Melee thing but then again I do not understand quantum physics and still I say things like "entanglement" on a regular basis.

People will hold placards and some will have bullhorns and there will be more sirens than usual and downtown will be a mess. Or not! Because you never know, people might just go get a plate of hotwings and a pitcher and call it a day. The buses may or may not run, the city may or may not perish, and either way... it's still May.

How on earth did we get to May so soon?

Very Important Thing #1:
Finally, like a bad fever or something, my state of grumpiness broke around 5 p.m. yesterday. Nothing happened to trigger it, I was just listening to music on my ipod and I realized I was no longer walking around with my face scrunched up.

Very Important Thing #2:
The weather has finally cooled down to a tolerable level. This is excellent news. I did not want summer in April.

Very Important Thing #3:
This one is really the most important thing, the other two were just teasers, although having my panties out of my butt and also having my face non-scrunched are pretty good. But this is BETTER than good news. This is GREAT news.

I am getting a new brother!!!!!!!

That's right, my parents are getting a Welsh Corgi puppy and he is sure to become The New Favorite Child as soon as they can bring him home in a few weeks. That's fine with me, besides I am really excited to have a brother who is obedience trained, the other two are really out of hand. Especially my older brother who is just a real piece of work. I of course am perfect.

Also, please note that I am the editor of this column and what I say has been fact-checked by me and is true. To me.

ANYWAY, my new puppybrother has no name yet! Last night on the phone I gave my two cents which was met by many groans and sighs. You see, when I was a baby I got a stuffed animal dog who I named Sam and carried around through thick and thin, dirt and bathtime. I LOVED that Sam. Then a few years later for Christmas I got another stuffed animal dog who looked just like Sam only smaller. So he was Little Sam and first Sam became Big Sam. After that all my dogs, real and stuffed, were named Sam. Or Charley. I have only owned dogs named Sam or Charley and I think this has worked out really well for me and for our family as a whole so I don't understand why they won't name him Sam or Charley, depending on his personality.

But my parents do not share my predilection which is why I guess we kids aren't all named Guy #1, Guy #2 and Guy #3.

So, what do you think they ought to name my new puppybrother?

Isn't he the cutest? Doesn't he look like me a little, especially around the nose?

Needs a name!

I'm not sure I'm a seasoned Californian, I've only been here... wait... THIRTEEN YEARS? It's true, then. By Los Angeles standards I'm practically a native, aside from the funny accent. I actually remember when this town had a football team! I can remember when a two-bedroom, one-bath house only cost $375,000!

Anyway, as a resident of this great city, let me assure you the best thing about earthquakes is that you don't know when they're coming. (This same thing could be said about tornadoes, which apparently rumbled all across Virginia yesterday, and I have no advice on tornadoes at all because they scare the beejezus out of me. Seriously.)

But while earthquakes may seem sneaky, it's a good thing. There's no "season" for earthquakes, so you don't start dreading June to October. Plus, you don't have weathercasters standing outside in yellow slickers waiting anxiously for rain to begin falling and 24 hour round-the-clock coverage of THE CONE OF UNCERTAINTY. Hey, I lived in Florida (And Mississippi and Louisiana...) I know the cone of uncertainty. It is decidedly uncertain.

While earthquakes may seem like the earth's version of a Silent But Deadly fart, one which causes mass destruction and has no known warning signs, the upside to earthfarts is that no one is clearing the grocery store shelves of bread, milk and vodka two weeks ahead of time. No one has to buy lumber and board up their windows and fill sandbags and tie down the lawn furniture.

Although I personally have witnessed farts which could do such damage. I am just saying is all. A few years ago, I was on a red line train that experienced a Silent But Deadly and we all had to immediately evacuate the car at the next stop and get on another train car. It was almost lethal.

Where was I? Oh yes, earthquakes. So you build yourself a nice big earthquake kit that you have ready "just in case" and the rest of the time you live your life and forget all about earthquakes and hope for the best, which is a pretty good way to live in my opinion.

The earthquake kit is something I am famous for, because while on any given day my fridge may hold three limes and a packet of lunchmeat, my earthquake kit has all the good stuff I don't eat or drink on a regular basis. But earthquakes are special occasions, and in my opinion if you have just lived through a 7.0 and its aftershocks and there is no power and gangs of gun-toting women are perusing the neighborhood, you can have a packet of cheesy garlic powdered mashed potatoes if you want them and you can wash them down with bubble-wrapped vino.

The only thing that's different from my earthquake kit list of 2005 is the cigarettes, which are now gone as I smoked them up right before I paused smoking for good. I can't believe I haven't smoked in 16 months, that is nutty. What I think is so funny is how all these people who do not know me, really know me, were all so sure I'd change my mind about smoking again when I turned 60, because they just knew I'd come to my senses and see how AWFUL and GROSS smoking is. And to be honest with you there are entire days that go by that I think, "How many months until I turn 60 and can start smoking again?" When I turn 60, I am going to have a truckload of cigarettes delivered to me by a scandalously young male stripper, I tell you what. My sixties are going to ROCK.

But anyway, for now the ol' earthquake kit is devoid of the cigarettes. But it does have cheesy garlic mashed potatoes in powdered form.

I keep the disaster preparedness kit in my garage since there's less stuff there to fall on it and endanger the potatoes, plus my house is just too tiny for a big ol' Rubbermaid box of earthquake goodies. I do keep water in the cupboards and extra cat food in the house and so on, but the most important thing about being prepared for a quake is knowing where your eyeglasses are. Oh ye of perfect eyesight will not understand but I'm blind as a bat without my contacts or glasses, and if you place your glasses on the nightstand and the nightstand goes gyrating off into the mystic ... well, it might be a bit hard to find your eyeballs! So I used velcro to attach a small glasses case to the metal part of the bed frame. Now I know where my glasses are if the world starts moving in the middle of the night.

Listen, it is very important to see where you're going.

Also, it is not always bad when the earth moves in the middle of the night. It's just bad when you're alone and it's moving!

Also, how sexy will I be at 70 with my bottle-thick glasses and my chain-smoking? I might even get a little yappy dog to sit on my lap and nip at strangers. I will probably start dyeing my hair a color that does not occur in nature. Frankly, in my later years I plan to not give a damn, my dear. I will end sentences with prepositions and I will cut all the tags off my mattresses!!

So my advice to anyone living in earthquake country is this: Put together a nice big ol' earthquake kit and make sure it has water, food and first-aid supplies. Keep extra pet food and wine on hand at all times. And then forget all about it.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! You just can't predict an earthquake, so there's no use worrying about it. If only I could take that philosophy in all areas of my life...

There's one good thing about a despicably hot weekend in April: it gives you something to talk about pre-coffee Monday Morning when your interpersonal chitchat skills are at their lowest and you're standing there in the galley actually waiting for the coffee to finish brewing because it's too much exertion to do anything while it brews.

"So!" says cheerful freakish morning-loving co-worker. "How was your weekend?"

"Hot," you mumble.

"Oh my gosh I know, but it was breezy at least! Love that sunshine! Love that Vitamin D!" says Cheerful.

"Coffee," you grunt.

- - -

The Wrath Of Vinegar Man Has Not Subsided

One of the biggest downsides of commuting is that you cannot pick who you commute with. Why I do not commute alone in a darkened vehicle with Al Gore is beyond me, but alas. I commute with them. The masses.

My evil arch-nemesis is Vinegar Man, who smells like a rancid vinegar-sweaty pickle wrapped in dirty underpants. While I know I should be feeling kind and loving and also understanding toward the various issues that face my fellow commuters and humans etc. etc., Vinegar Man makes me physically ill and I want to kill him. But first let me get my HazMat suit because I am not killing him without some filtered oxygen. Lordy his stank is so powerful it can peel paint. There are other people on the bus who've noticed it and remarked on it as well, so at least I know it isn't just my over-active olfactory. I just groan when I see him coming, shirttails flapping, running toward the bus.

The worst part of all this is that Vinegar Man isn't consistent -- sometimes he takes the 6:45, sometimes the 7 a.m. bus and sometimes the 6:30 so on any given day I have to be holding a barfbag nearby just in case. I could move my schedule around if I just knew which bus he was taking but no. Pickledeedee is all over the map. I don't know how the man holds down a job, don't his co-workers suffer? Doesn't he have performance reviews? Don't they have NOSES??? Good grief.

I know I'm grumpy. Plus I forgot my earrings and my laptop. And my hair has static cling today.

But I do not smell like vinegar and that is something.

Somewhere around mid-2006 I realized I wasn't doing much reading. I was knitting and writing and working and commuting and carrying on ... but not much reading was happening in my limited free time. I didn't want to give up my commute-time knitting for reading so I discovered the audiobook and life was lovely. Exhausting, but lovely. And things have kind of progressed at that level, with me downloading all kinds of great books and lectures and finally I discovered podcasts and that is delightful, etc. And then I went on a little vacation at the end of March and found myself in a strange place with an ipod that was on the fritz and no TV. No TV! No ipod!

Whatever would I do?

Good thing I packed some books and I could kick it old school, me and the paperback. YES I JUST SAID KICK IT OLD SCHOOL.

I'd brought a few philosophical and self-helpish pieces I needed to read for research and I packed a Joseph Conrad I'd been meaning to read for oh ... 15 years ... because I am nothing if not behind on my to-do list. I also packed an Anne Rivers Siddons paperback (love me some paperback romance) and then there was the Jodi Picoult.

I SO did not want to buy or read that book. My friend Courtney has been telling me for a while that I needed to read something by Jodi Picoult because she's an author who writes prolifically and has a huge fan base and blah blah blah good for understanding the market. But every time I went to the bookstore I'd read the blurbs on the backs of her books and they all seemed so depressing. I am all about the feeling BETTER in my limited time here on earth. I don't want to volunteer and pay money to feel BAD. That is just crazytalk. This is why I stopped watching the news.

Oh, yeah. I stopped watching the news. It started by accident, really, not as a statement to the world or a life change or anything. The local news was showing a really wretched story over and over again on the TV and I just decided to avoid TV news for a week or so until it all went away because I was crying before work every morning about some horrible thing that had happened in some other state to people I did not even know. I thought, "Maybe I should stop watching the news in the morning while I'm getting ready for work. I can watch the weather channel if I need to feel connected to the traffic alerts." That's why I watched the morning news anyway, for traffic and weather.

There is no way to avoid the news entirely, of course, since the elevators at work show nonstop news all day. And WHY do we need TV in the elevator? Why? Is fifteen seconds of silence too much time alone, untended? All that screen in the elevator seems to do is shout nonstop about the election or polls or pundits and so before long I found myself stopping ALL my news watching at home, even the nightly network news. (Full disclosure: I do watch "The Daily Show" which is now my main source of TV news. I am so Gen XYZ123.) It hadn't occurred to me how much news I watch and read -- I am and will always be a newspaper girl, so to this day I won't even consider giving up the paper -- but that's reading, which is different from watching what a network feeds you, which is what I realized I had been doing for a very long time.

And I guess things went on pretty much the same in the TV department except in January I cut out the news. Then one day I was programming the Tivo to record the about-to-air new season of American Idol and it showed all the episodes coming up -- it was something like 36 hours of television programming for one show. ONE SHOW. And I sat down right there on the floor and on the back of the light bill I added up how many shows I watch a week and with "Dancing with the Stars" coming up and a new season of "Survivor" and you know I love my Oprah and add in some CSI, or The Closer or whatever... it came out to something like 45+ hours a week of television. Even if you skip through the ads and the boring challenges and the singers you don't like, people. THAT IS A LOT OF TEEVEE.

So I opted out of all reality, including Dancing and American Idol and Survivor and I cannot believe it -- but I lived to tell the tale. I am still alive. It is maybe a miracle.

And so anyway, back to the original thread of this story which started about 17 paragraphs ago, when I found myself on vacation with no TV and no ipod and no movies I started in on my pile of books. I think I read six books in five days and it was AWESOME.

Usually I listen to books in audio form while I commute and multitask. But it was awesome not to multitask. In fact, I am here today to share with you the truth: I HATE MULTITASKING. It felt decadent and delicious to sink into a good book and sit still and read, just get sucked into a good story and forget everything on the to-do list, forget all the worries and anxieties of real life.

And my friend Courtney was right to insist I pick up a Jodi Picoult book. I decided on "My Sister's Keeper" since they're making a movie out of it and I read on a gossip site somewhere that fans of the book were crazy outraged at the casting decisions. My thinking was any book that had fans so personally connected to the characters was the book to read.

And it sucked me in! The storytelling was careful, the characters were interesting and the plot was intriguing. I really could not pull myself out of that book, I think I stayed up half the night to finish it. I went online to amazon.com to find the link to it and I started reading the reviews and I was surprised to see so many bad 1-star reviews. This is why I don't read reviews. They usually have more to do with the person leaving the review than they do the book itself. Or maybe I just have less desire to critique books now since I know how hard it is to write one and I'm all, "Good on you for finishing this whole thing!"

Also -- did you know you burn more calories from reading a book than you do while watching TV? Seriously. That's scientific facts right there.

So what are you reading? Got any good book recommendations? Right now I'm reading Le Mariage because I love thinking of Paris and I think Diane Johnson is breezy, and on my soon-to-read list are:

• Plain Truth - another novel by Jodi Picoult
• Prep - by Curtis Sittenfeld (again, I am years behind on my to-do list)
• The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 -- by Saul Friedlander

I don't have as much time as I like for reading, but I'm thinking that freeing the Tivo list of so many programs will help. I find it really hard to relax in the tiny spaces I manage to have for myself, and I guess it became habitual to use TV as a perfect way to zone out, calm my mind down. But books are good for getting my mind off the worries and to-do lists, too.

If only vacation were a full-time job and reading could be my full-time zen...

But hey, at least it's Friday.

It's not THE most embarrassing thing to happen to me in a workplace, because this is me I'm talking about and I have done things like staple my skirt closed at the gaping hem, and say "porn" in a meeting of conservative suits and more suits, and also I once sat on my boss' lap at the Christmas party but that was back when I worked in entertainment and he tried to French kiss my ear. Then I think later he threw up on an ice sculpture. I guess actually in comparison to that last one what I am about to say is sort of boring.

BUT it always kind of sucks when you compose a really good business-etiquettey letter with stuff like "per your request" and "advertising objectives" and on and on, maybe even you add some rockin'

• bullet points!!!

And then you say, "Please refer to the attached documents and files and images for your review." And then you FORGET TO ATTACH THE ATTACHMENT.

Because you're sitting at your desk all, "I should totally get an assistant named Bryan or Jake who will bring me coffee... I am so professional and all ..." and then you get an email saying, um, hello? Can you please attach said attachments dumbass?

Then you have to send a follow-up letter that says, "OMG!!! Wouldn't that crazyass professional side of me ROCK if I remembered to attach my attachments? Ha ha! Just keeping you on your toes!"

Which SO adds to your Professionalism Quotient.

Hypothetically.

That was taken through the plastic window of my Jeep, whoopsy. Anyway, you know what would really suck? It would REALLY suck if your real name were... Sarah Marshall.

Any you know what else would suck? If gas prices got so high that more people than ever started taking mass transit so the city decided that was a good time to begin not just ticketing people who are parked in adjacent lots BUT now they're towing cars! Fun! The city really knows how to make a buck in tight times, I tell you what.

The price has actually gone up since I took this picture.

And to be honest, it's fine ... I'm just getting up earlier and earlier so I can find parking in the currently-legal parking lot (who knows for how long! stay tuned!) but the real thing that irritates me, and I mean REALLY ANNOYS ME TO NO END is that I grew up my whole life thinking that by the time I was as ancient and decrepit as THIRTY, not to mention thirty-plus years old, I was just sure I wouldn't have to own a car at all because I would be going to and fro with my own personal jetpack.

I WANT MY JETPACK DAMMIT.

Other cities have made plastic bags an expense -- in some places, if you want plastic to hold your goodies you have to pay for it. It's been like that in many places in Europe for years. The first time I saw it was in Zurich in 2002 and the Co-Op (the local grocery store) charged for bags at the checkout. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, especially because Zurich was one of the cleanest large cities I had ever visited and it just seemed to fit in with the whole "We're Swiss, we're neutral, we make great cheese" vibe. I love Zurich, I should go back soon. The cheese is REALLY GOOD.

Anyway, before Gwen left Los Angeles, she gave me two big green woven Whole Foods grocery bags that I love and use all the time. But only at Whole Foods, of course. After Allison read about my issues with branded bags, she gave me possibly the best gift anyone has ever given me -- a pack of five Envirosax. They're these fabulously strong and roomy nylon bags that fold and roll into little tiny egg-roll shaped logs that fit neatly in your purse. If you buy the five-pack, which is what Allison gifted to me, the little logs fir in their own carrying case and the whole thing is smaller than my makeup bag.

I keep one or two bags tucked away in my handbag all the time for unexpected purchases, or to hold my lunch on the bus or whatever. I love my Envirosax!

The Envirosax online store is here. I don't work for them or get a kickback -- I just think they're a cool product. I love them so much I even bought a set for my mom, which is news to her since they haven't arrived yet (her birthday isn't for another week.) And I plan to give them as gifts this year for Christmas. I love these little bags because they're so easy to keep on you at all times and it's so handy when you just happen to make a little impulse buy to skip the bag and use the Envirosax.

Since Allison gave me this amazing gift, the amount of plastic bags coming into my house has decreased by about 90% -- which means I am also consuming 90% less plastic and bag-related resources than before. It's not like I made cold fusion or cured cancer or something -- my life hasn't changed in some dramatic way -- but it's one very small, teetiny change that over time could have a positive impact on the planet.

Little changes are the key for me.

Of course you can always make a bag yourself, sewing one or knitting a tote -- maybe that will be my next summer project, a hand-knit grocery bag. But if you don't want to buy a bag, today the California Grocers Association has a whole list of participating stores in California that are giving away FREE re-usable bags! Apparently these bags are "soft, durable and made of 100% recycled water, soda and food containers and carry the message, 'Great Taste & Zero Waste.'" Check out the entire list here. I am all about the free.

... and the victor decided to lounge on the middle floor:

Blur courtesy of my crappy new camera which has reverse PMS and only takes good pictures one week of the month. This was not my week.

Happy Monday!