My very favorite thing to do (aside from rolling around naked in money, which I have not yet done but sincerely hope I am one day able to do on a regular basis) is daydream. I daydream a lot. I do it in my car, on the bus, before falling asleep at night, in the shower, and pretty much everytime I am not required to be present and focusing on a task at hand. I know we are supposed to live in the NOW and be PRESENT and all that stuff, but some things in my own life are not really divine and delightful and soul-enriching, such as dentist visits and traffic. Daydreaming is like a little vacation for the mind.

Perhaps I am more like Walter Mitty than I care to admit. On Saturday night a few weeks ago, Faith and I were at the bookstore/coffee shop and I was thinking about my Mittyesque moments so I asked Faith if she knew that Kafka used to work at an insurance agency. We were in the middle of talking about a trip to Palm Springs so I'm not sure the question made sense... to her.

"I am like Kafka," I said. "Except without the talent. And it's a bank not insurance. Tomato, tomahtoe. But I might still turn into a cockroach one day."

Surprisingly, making weird bug-related comments is not the strangest thing about me. That same night I brought my own little tiny tupperware container of heavy cream to the coffee shop because they only have whole or skim milk there and half-and-half but no heavy cream. And if I am paying two bucks for a lousy cup of coffee I want it to have the creamy goodness.

Faith just laughed good-naturedly at my Tupperware. She kindly ignored my Kafka cockroach soliloquy.

ANYWAY. Daydreaming about vacation is my favorite, I love to imagine vacations of the future and what I may be wearing in these vacations, which is always something fabulous and I am always thinner in my mind, and also probably taller. And I must have had laser hair removal or something in my daydreams because I'm never covering unsightly stubble with long pants in hot weather as I am known to do in real life.

My top five favorite daydream destinations:

1) Spain. I think the next trip I take will be to Spain because I have thoroughly enjoyed every past visit to Spain (I once spent three days in San Sebastian once, just remarking at how much one can eat and drink on vacation and just feel BETTER instead of worse.) I love the people and the language and the food and since I was never single at the time of past travel experiences to Spain, I never had the opportunity to make some amigos.

2) Croatia. In this fantasy not only am I the aforementioned "skinnier" and "taller" but I am also a delicious buttery tan all over and I drink cocktails with fruit floating on top. (On top of the cocktail, not me.) (Although on vacation I might just try that one day.)

3) Surfing the coast of Peru. In my fantasies, I am not just the skinny, taller, tanner version of me but also am practically out-Gidgeting Gidget with my rogue surfing skills. Hang ten, dude.

4) Greenland. I am probably still skinnier and taller and tanner but none of it is troublesome as I am covered up under layers of fabulous handknits.

5) Maui. There's an actual real possibility that this place will move from fantasy to reality but again in the daydream I am skinnier, taller, tanner and suddenly look good in floral prints. There is probably a greater possibility that I will indeed sprout and grow taller than the chance of me ever looking good in something floral. It clashes with my personality.

But Lord I love to daydream. Especially when someone stinky is too near on the bus and you're stuck in traffic and you do the math and realize that by the time you get home you will need to turn around and head back to work in just a few mere hours. It's also good to have a little daydream in your pocket for the long wait at the DMV. Or when you're in the dentist's chair. (Although what really helps when you in the dentist's chair comes with a prescription.) I've been to the dentist four times this year already. Not once have I had a prescription... but the daydreams help a lot.

The best thing about daydreaming vacation is that it's totally free and you can do it even while in the shower. How's that for multi-tasking?

I was in traffic and daydreaming this morning when I saw this:

You can't tell from the picture because I was shooting into the sun (and driving for hours into the sun which is REALLY AWESOME) but the truck in front of me has the tailgate down and inside the truck's bed are all sorts of goodies that are not tied down ... including one big ol' microwave oven. Untethered. On a truck with no tailgate to hold it in... ON THE FREEWAY.

Our freeways are a series of stops and very jagged stops, so I can't imagine that microwave made it to its intended destination, unless said destination was "roadkill." People wonder why the freeways of Southern California are always littered with sofas, ladders and houses. People maybe need therapy in this town.

I took the photo then expediently changed lanes. And got right back to daydreaming.

That is my story and I am sticking to it. CONGRATS!!!

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Also, new winner tomorrow! Read about the sweepstakes if you haven't already, and enter to win right here.

ALSO -- did ya'll know Lucia has FREE knitting patterns on the innernets? Go see!

That is about all I can write today because OH MY GOD. Work is hard. Apparently I can not just sit here and daydream about Zappos all day while multitasking with coffee-drinking, I have to get proverbial butt in non-metaphorical high gear. Sad, I tell you what.

But yay Lucia! Also, new winner tomorrow! Read about the sweepstakes if you haven't already, and enter to win right here.

If you have already entered your name is still good to go for the next drawing. Except Suzi, who already won. And Lucia. And Zappos.

You may be wondering how they could die AGAIN, but this is just another year in the long sad cycle of me and dead watermelon seedlings. I try every year and still they die. Every year.

Look how dead they are, there is not even a sign that something green used to be planted here:

Obviously... I am growing dirt.

So I had two big empty patches of dirt where the watermelon plants were supposed to be happily growing and waiting for their squareness to begin. But no luck. I decided to go out back to the Back 40 and look at my raised bed garden to see how the one lone zucchini outrider -- that I did not plant -- and my two pumpkin plants were faring. I expected the zuke to be alive and the pumpkins to be dead.

The good news: The pumpkin vines are still hanging on! The bad news: There are five more seedlings just sprouting from the barren ground and they are suspiciously zucchini-like. One can safely assume that nature thinks this is hilariously funny and wants me to be afraid of my backyard.

Just to recap:

1) Sometime last fall the gardeners got tired of looking at the scary huge-ass zucchini plants that were taking over the back backyard and while I was away they cleaned the whole thing out including about two inches of my organic dirt.

2) There was nothing in the raised bed garden all winter.

3) Just dirt and probably bug poop.

4) Then one day I noticed a green thing growing in there. It was a zucchini plant.

5) I did not plant this zucchini. I did not plant any zucchini seeds. I did not water, fertilize or even look at the back backyard.

6) Now there are MORE mystery seedings!! Popping up from the dustbowl of barrenness and despair!!

I am a little afraid, because I have never in my life had wild zucchini sprouting up here and there, it is not normal for plantlike things to flourish in my presence. I have already lost a thyme plant and a whole marjoram that was eaten in one night by a fat neon green worm. Later I thought it was kind of sad that I don't live in a worm-eating culture because he was probably really tasty, having been seasoned from the inside out with pure organic marjoram.

ANYWAY, this coming weekend I will move the two zucchini seedlings (or at least I suspect that is what they are, they could be body-snatching plants WHO KNOWS, time will tell) into the watermelon patch on the sunny side of the yard and another seedling over to the shadier side of the yard. What I am saying here is that I am going to have a houseful of zucchini again, I have just resigned myself to the idea that I will have to learn how to cook. Or better yet, I should learn how to make biodiesel out of squash and then learn how to single-handedly convert my Jeep to run off zukediesel insted of gas and then I could have a neverending zuke-based economy!!! Or, you know, I could learn to cook.

OR, maybe they make good wine!! That would be a self-sustaining economy right there. Zucchini wine!!!

New winner tomorrow! Read about the sweepstakes if you haven't already, and enter to win right here.

If you have already entered your name is still good to go for the next drawing. Except Suzi, who already won. And Julio.

And it was smart of them to offer up the Green Grocer bags, they're colorful but not printed with a pattern so that if you aren't a floral fan or mad about mod, you're still winning a great bag. The only nit is that the handy carrying cases for the set are backordered so the winners of this here sweepstakes will be carrycase-less. But still, winners will be five Envirosax richer!

So go over and enter the give-away today at crazyauntpurl.com/sweepstakes. There will be five winners and each winner will get a set of five cool Envirosax plus a signed copy of my book just because. The book has nothing to do with Envirosax but I like to give, and I only have three cats so ... books it is!

The rules are pretty simple:
• You get one entry per email address (the duplicates will be filtered out.)

• Any person from anywhere on planet earth is eligible to win.

• I will draw one winner at random starting tomorrow morning and do so for five days (math challenged? that means the final winner will be announced on Saturday morning.)

• All email entries from any day of the week are eligible for each drawing, meaning that if you enter today you will be eligible for all five drawings!

• As usual, I never re-purpose, re-sell or re-distribute your email address. I have enough issues with spam, I certainly wouldn't spam you!

So that's the big Monday goings on here at Chez Bagpipes, and each day this week I will draw a new winner's name from the pile and announce it here in between the normal goings on which tomorrow involve zucchini. Or at least I think they're zucchini. God only knows what is happening in my yard.

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Go enter to win! >>>

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

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

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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...