This won't hurt a bit...

• Costco sells caskets (and urns). But only online. And you don't have to buy them in bulk. I think that when you're faced with the untimely death of a loved one, the best thing to do is try to cost-cut the casket. They even ship overnight.
• The phrase "teach them the ropes" comes from Tudor England when the British sailors would teach the newbies how to manage themselves in the rigging without falling to their bloody (ha!) deaths.
  
• A blue whale's heart is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. And its arteries are so large a two year old could easily crawl through them. But, I mean, really, who'd let their two year old just crawl through the arteries of a whale?!
• Keeping in the maritime theme, dolphins may be the only other species (next to humans) that rape each other. In fact, sometimes, it has been reported, that dolphins have attempted to rape humans.
  
• When intravenous drug users run out of "sites" to inject or else are trying to hide their habit, it is not at all uncommon for them to inject their "stuff" into their "stuff". Yes, I said it. Into their.. ahem, hoohas. It would be at that point that I'd have to reconsider my whole drug habit. Maybe it's time for rehab.
• Humor indicates intelligence. According to an expert, it takes more intelligence to encounter a situation and be immediately able to make a conclusion or inference (the funny) about that situation. People who don't understand or "get" the inference aren't as intelligent because they can't see and understand the path to that inference. And really, that makes it even funnier.
  

No.

If MY neighbor loved ME, indeed, treating me as they, themselves, would like to be treated, then I would consider it. But I feel their lack of love for me negates my responsibility to reciprocate. Turn the frost-bitten cheek, as it were.

Tuesday night we were beset by an ice storm of sorts. And ice storms, academically-school-cancelling-ly speaking, are the best kind of storms to ensure a snow day. They mangle power lines, cover streets with sheets of deadly slickness. It's an equation for school-bound disaster. I love it. Wednesday I stayed indoors and watched the mayhem from the front window. Thursday, however, while the rest of the public school world decided that it was still to iffy, George Mason insisted we forge ahead towards higher learning. Bah.

Thursday morning I decided that 30 minutes would be an ample amount of time to release my car from Ice-Storm-Hock. What I didn't realize was that the ice that formed was secretly made of titanium and about 2 inches thick. And what's even funnier is that the girl who lived in Nebraska and claims to have grown up enduring the winteriest of winters there has nothing larger than the free hotel ice scraper that is no larger than a spatula at her disposal.

Needless to say, the entire "freeing of the car" operation took nearly 2 hours and involved said scraper, a garden spade, a snow shovel, patience, adult maturity and lots of kitty litter (much to the Monsters' complete confusion -- "She's cheating on us with another cat! Look how she's taking our stuff out to her car!"). You'll notice that "neighbor" was not included on my tools list.

However, that's not to say there wasn't Neighbor participation in the whole escapade.

• Two neighbors, mother and daughter, called out of their front door on two separate occasions to remind me to get the ice off the top of my car. For safety. They, can bite me.
  
• One neighbor quickly shuffled from his house to the car in a manner as to not have to make eye contact with me.
• And my favorite, our next door neighbor arrived home and parked on the street. I assumed he had vacated his car during one of my many trips inside for more ice-tools. It was only after I had unshackled the car from it's surly ice bonds, some 20 minutes after said neighbor's arrival, that he got out of his car and quickly dashed into his house. Either he just had to hear the end of the chapter on his book-on-tape, or he was desperately trying to avoid being even remotely neighborly. {A word on this neighbor. This is the same neighbor who, on February 17th, still has his light-up Frosty and motorized snowboarding Santa in his front yard. The very same neighbor who puts out his trash DAYS before trash day -- only to have it inevitably end up on our lawn. And indeed, the exact same neighbor whose two very young children, last summer, managed to, on two separate occasions, wander into my house, up my front entryway stairs and into my kitchen while I was cooking. Imagine MY surprise. I ushered them out and Pops, standing in his yard, claims they must have mistaken our house for theirs. Cha. The Betrothed is convinced he's having his children case our joint. He's not my favorite neighbor by any means.}

I'd hate for you all to shake your heads at me and insist that it's 2007 and I ought to drop the damsel-in-distress attitude. I couldn't agree with you more. I am woman and I roar and stuff. I needed assistance from more of an exhaustion, unsure-how-to-dislodge-the-car aspect than the oh-you're-such-a-big-strong-man perspective. I just don't think it would have killed anyone to have offered to help.

Now back to Jesus. I think He'd back me up on this. Frankly, I think that if His camel had been locked in ice, He too would have expected that Good Samaratin He always spoke so highly of to come skating to His aid. I'm willing to wager that since the Holy Land hasn't had all that many ice storms that Jesus surely didn't mean for those old adages to extend to these sorts of wintery situations, right?

As it turns out, I've done enough neighbor-loving this week already. I let my two lab partners each use an arm to practice their IV insertions (not simultaneously. I'm neighborly, not crazy.). Apparently, when it comes to vascularity, I'm "stacked". Thought you'd like to know.

I did something last night that many of you may not approve of. You make shake your heads at me and pass judgment. I'm prepared for that. And I have my reasons. Last night..... I.. went to a movie theater to see the opening night of a movie. But not just any movie. It was the ultimate pre-quel to Thomas Harris' epic (and at times, halfhearted, no pun intended) series about Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal Rising opened last night -- and according to MSNBC.com, it was a flick to "avoid at all costs". Now, Ill grant you that it wasn't an Oscar contender, by any stretch, but it kept to the book (for the most part) and the story was a fair (ie: believable) chronicling of the childhood "sucks to be you, pal" moments that shaped him into the creature we all loved to watch suck air through his teeth while making slurping noises. {It was good. It wasn't great, but if you're a fan, it was a far-sight better than "Hannibal" was. You might want to reach into the screen at some points and tell that hot, young French guy who plays the teen-cannibal, to quit it with the "I'm-going-to-eat-you" smirk that he perfected by wearing out his SOTL box-set trying to channel Sir Anthony. And also, is that a scar on your cheek or just a really odd dimple? Read the book first, it makes the movie make more sense. But it was decent. A satisfactory 2 hours. It's not for the non-fan who probably won't appreciate the one-liners meant for the die-hard fan and surprising number of reminiscent wart-hog cameos.}

You might judge me not because of my taste (har, har) in movie genres, but because I chose to brave not only the cold, but the oceans of pre-teen adolescents who are deposited by their fedup parents each Friday evening at the local movie theater to wear their finest of fineries for each other and test the limits of obnoxiousness for $9.50 a showing. I feared that my particular showing would be bursting at the seams with giggling youths who flit between making out and impressing each other by yelling out loud at movie moments, "WOAH, man, like, that was NASTY!" Considering the amount of bloodshed I expected at this particular movie, I was skeptical, to say the least.

Much to my very surprise and, indeed, delight, there were maybe no more than 30 people in the actual movie itself. This may speak to the type of movie it was, the waning interest in the whole They-just-can't-remake-Silence-of-the-Lambs-no-matter-how-hard-they-try series or that other over 18-ers are likely to sacrifice opening-night movie magic to avoid the circus that is a movieplex on Friday night.

We (who else but my trutsy Bestie and I? The Betrothed was slated to join us, but was permitted to be "off the hook" so his time could be better spent landing his little plane at Dulles International Airport (a check off of his “things to do before I die” list) with the big planes) finished the movie without incident. Our troubles began when we waded out of the theater into the lobby, which bore a striking resemblance to a middle school dance gone sorely awry. Our first tip off that we were in no-over18mans land were the rent-a-cops strategically stationed all over the lobby.

We weaved and snaked our way through the hoards of prepubescent teens. In that time I believe that I may have contracted:

• asthma from the sheer amount of bad cologne/eau de TigerBeat that they all appeared to have collectively bathed in before their big night out on the Manasas Regal Cinema.
• a yeast infection from the overwhelming majority of young girls there who felt their best side was best portrayed in jeans that may as well have been painted on them. Dear Lord, buying THE NEXT SIZE is not what’s in these days. That, and being able to sit down without a) rupturing seams b) showing any amount of ass crack c)showcasing your under all-togethers to the world.
• a bad case of being grounded. No phone, no tv and no text messages! Every mommy-wagon parked outside proved to be an additional obstacle for us to make it past in the parking lot.

Don’t get me wrong. There was a time when hanging out at the movie theater provided my teenaged self a window of independence and freedom from the tortures of parents for a few hours. I get that. But did we really challenge the sanity of the adults around us as much? Did we all appear to be as poorly dressed, behaved and generally undereducated as today’s youth? When did MTV stop raising us, give up and send us to foster care under the watchful eye of Hilton & Lohan, Inc.?

Good friends, I have seen our destruction. Go, and be sterilized.

I don't know where you are, but where I am, it's snowing. And that's a good thing. It's the very least Mother Nature could do this week to even vaguely justify the freakishly bone-chilling cold that has beset Northern Virginia (and perhaps other locales. But I don't live in those other locales, and so I am unaffected and unmoved by their cold slaps.). At least when we look outside we can visually assume that it's going to be nippy rather than having it smack us in the face once we hit the stoop in the morning.

After I graduated (that last time that I graduated), I remember being very unimpressed by snow -- as I still had to trudge my corporate ass into work everyday. No wishing, hoping or methodical snow dances would make any tag line appear on the news saying "All Work Today Is CANCELED". {In fact, the bastards I worked for used to take vacation hours away if you were late in the morning after a snow. BASTARDS!} But since I've had two years to get comfortable again as a student, I find myself late at night staring hopefully out the front window and willing those flakes to fall faster and harder. My student-take on snow is thusly: Friday and/or Saturday snow is a complete waste of precipitation. I glean no benefits, whatsoever, from it, and in fact, it is only a nuisance. Sunday night snow is a special gift. Ice is even better. Especially if it happens late at night and appears as more of a surprise in the morning to whoever has to make the call.

It strikes me as odd that here in my (hopefully) very last semester of snow-relevant school that I've only just learned two interesting tricks to ensuring the ever elusive snow-day.

1. Wear your pajamas inside out. Interesting. It does pose a quizzical problem to those who do not wear pajamas. Who, me? Guess you'd have to sleep next to me to find out, huh?
2. Flush an ice-cube down the toilet. I'm not sure who this serves as an offering for, really. Especially considering my visit to the final-destination for all good flushes last semester. I did pass along this intriguing tip to my elementary-school teacher of a mother who, though residing in a town that ends in BEACH, still holds out hope for the snow day. {Wimps, those BEACH powers-that-be. She tells me they get RAIN days (and she's not complaining). Days when the rain falls just too fast and too much for their little sea-level topography to handle.} She harbored a moment's concern for the plumbing until we discussed that it would probably not even make it that far, ice-cube wise.

So all these new tricks. Pajamas? Check. Ice cube in the pooper? Check. Snow falling fast? Check-check.

It would just go to figure that I don't have classes for the rest of the week... Son of a...

Stupid snow.

Seriously, I am. And it's monumental! I never win. As in, EVER. I don't win drawings, raffles or door prizes. I don't win with the little "Keep This Coupon" tickets. If my name were the only one in a hat, a strong wind would carry it out of the hat and they'd donate the prize to charity. I don't win on scratch tickets or the lottery. I don't win video games or free lunches.

This is, of course, not to imply that I'm a looser. I most certainly am not. I just don't win (unless we're talking board games. That's a whole different kind of winning. ).

Until today. My gym has a drawing every other week. Each time you come in for a workout, you can enter your name in the drawing. I've been doing this since August 2005. And I haven't won. UNTIL TODAY. When I casually looked up at the board with the drawing winner and it said: Cathy Laws. My breath literally caught in my throat and I actually vocalized the phrase, "ME?! I won?"

I've had perma-grin on my face since I left. Maybe God's throwing be a bone or maybe my luck is changing?

And what of my tremendous win? It's a purple insulated, zippered lunch bag. It's totally sweet. It even had a little pocket on the front to put STUFF in. I'm delirious with ideas of what I"ll be packing for lunch now.

I feel like placing it in the front window as if it were a leg-lamp.