Blob is back.

Blob is back, blob is back, blob is back.

Speaking of wholesome songs from my childhood, today on Sirius XM radio (Pop2K channel), I heard “What’s Your Fantasy” by Ludacris for the first time since attending/standing-stiffly-with-arms-folded-at Oratory Preparatory middle school dances.  Am I the only one who completely missed the lyrics?  Like, all of them?  It’s quite an exhaustive list.  I almost crashed my car at the (thankfully faded) memory of sixth graders humping each other to this song in a dark, hot gymnasium. SIXTH GRADE.  Are you even ten years old in sixth grade?  When I see a freshman in college now, I’m like, wow, you are a child.  So what do sixth graders look like?  Fetuses?  Terrifying.  How were the chaperones not traumatized by these images?  They must have been drinking to forget.  Feels like the only way to cope.  No wonder my parents hated those dances. 

And this is how I know I’m getting old.  Thoughts like these occur with increasing frequency.  I always remember my dad’s line for when we thought they were being mean parents for not letting us attend this or that event: “You think it’s because we don’t remember, but it’s because we do.”

ANYWAYS, I meant for this post to be a small update, but I think I’ll leave it there.  The Blob is momentarily reactivated.  Details to come.  GOD BLESS.

Public service announcement.

A British friend recently informed me that “blob” is slang for “period”.  So if someone were to, let’s say, name a blog “Claire Blobbing” or perhaps “THE BLOB”, others might infer this blog is somehow related to Claire’s menstrual cycle.  Given the semi-regularly scheduled bitching that may occur on such a blog, some might even think it a clever, if vulgar, title.  Any resemblance to such cleverness, however, is purely coincidental.  Longtime readers may recall the rationale for this blog's name back from episode one.  I apologize to my British readers and friends if I unwittingly distressed their polite sensibilities.  We all can now share in the awkward terminology commonly employed here ON THE BLOB.  GOD BLESS.

Bah humbug.

Merry Christmas, you are now allowed to take an exam.*

*After you send us a check for a hundred dollars.

*And then you wait four more weeks.

Bag ladies for America.

I am all studied up for voting in California tomorrow.  17 state ballot measures, 24 city propositions, and 1 district measure.  Most exciting thing I learned: there is an American Progressive Bag Alliance.  Where do I sign up?  They are fighting California’s proposed ban on single-use plastic and paper bags.  Some of you may know—upon moving to San Francisco, I was very distressed to learn the city had banned plastic bags.  My precious plastic bags.  I had amassed a considerable collection in Houston.  How would I, in this new city, find more plastic bags to stuff into other plastic bags?  It has indeed been a struggle.  It’s too late for plastic bags in San Francisco, but perhaps not in California, if the American Progressive Bag Alliance has its way.  I await the result of tomorrow’s vote with bated breath.

In other news, I will be wearing a pantsuit tomorrow in honor of HRC.  Let's go ladiezzzz.

To the tune of "Work work work work work": Vote vote vote vote vote.

Speechwriter application, round 2.

Good evening.  Hello.  It’s me, Melania.  Did you forget me?  It’s been months since my husband, Donald Trump, has allowed me to speak, in public or in private, but I do so tonight at his behest.  He continues to enjoy making a fool of me, so the topic he has chosen for me to discuss tonight is online bullying.

I worry about my son, Barron von Trump.  He looks too much like his father.  He doesn’t take my hair advice.  If your parents were Donald and Melania Trump, whose hair advice would you take?  Melania’s, right?  My hair is amazing and Donald’s is very bad.  It’s very frustrating.  I’m sorry….I didn’t mean to speak my mind.  I am to be seen, not heard.  Don't forget, Melania...seen, not heard.

I also worry about Barron because most people don’t know what he actually looks like.  They assume he looks like this:

The only thing remotely accurate is that delightful little hand.  Just like his father's.  But I wish they would assume he is beautiful like his mother.  Instead, he is a classic target for those cowardly, faceless, nameless, internet low-lives.  Why are they afraid to use their names and pictures?  Is it because they are ugly?  Bullies should emulate my husband, Donald Trump.  He is proud to use his real name and picture while bullying others online.  So please, bullies, I want you to feel empowered to be yourselves.  It will make it easier for my husband, Donald Trump, to find you and put you in jail when he is our king.

I want to thank you all for supporting my husband, Donald Trump.  He tells me that I will be queen whether he wins the election or not.  I am so humbled.  God bless you, God bless Donald Trump, and God bless America.

Pep talk for Donald.

Mr. Trump—can I call you Don?  Yes, is that OK?  Good.  I want you to be very happy.  It's very important to me.

Rumor has it (ooh) that you and your gang of old white cronies are huddled up in Trump Tower at this very moment, discussing options for your campaign in light of that unfortunate video published by your friends at the Washington Post.  (Listen, I hear ya, it was ten years ago, you’re a changed man.  There’s nothing like that sixth decade of life to force a man to examine his past life of misogyny and entitled behavior and start anew.  Truly, you are amazing.)

My sources tell me one Jefferson “Jeff” Sessions has mustered the courage to recommend you withdraw from the race.  Don.  Listen to me. Do not withdraw.  Jefferson is being selfish.  He’s a backwards dweeb.  You hate dweebs.  Dweebs are losers.  Look at the guy.  He looks like the kid from Mad magazine grew up and became a senator.  How did this guy get on the A-team anyways?  (Or do you call them the D-team? D-team might be more accurate.  Let’s go with D-team.)  You prefer guys who look like actual thugs.  You could have at least recommended he take some hair tips from Donnie Jr.  I mean, come on.

But I digress.  Jeff and the gang are starting to get a little worried about this thing called Election Day.  It’s on November 8^th.  They are just now beginning to think that day might be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the Republican Party.  (This is what happens when you surround yourself with people who aren’t smarter than you.  Not a critique!  I’m just saying!)  I hate to break it to you, but I don’t know how much Jeff actually cares about you.  (I know, right?  Don’t tell him I told you.  But seriously, who couldn’t care about YOU?  You’re the best!  You’re the bomb!  You’re the richest guy!  You get all the hot ladies!  Despite being an over-stuffed orange man-child with small hands and bad hair!  You are ABSOLUTELY KILLING IT.  People love you!  The crowds!  Those unbelievable crowds full of the very best people America has to offer!  You have so much to be proud of.  You have created a movement.)

But I digress again.  Listen, we have exactly one month left.  You’re not a quitter!  You don’t quit!  You’re a winner!  You have a winning temperament.   Let’s show those futzy old Republicans what you’re gonna do to their party, huh?  Let’s make them watch in horror as the results come in (in horror, because of how big you’re going to win, of course!).  Let’s make them truly understand what it means to UNLEASH THE DONALD.  Let’s watch them squirm.

It’s been one hell of a year.  And I do mean hell.  You have put us through hell.  A good hell though!  We’ve enjoyed it!  It brought out people’s true colors.  Or whiteness, as the case may be.  

Don, I know you’re not exactly accustomed to doing things for others.  (It’s not your fault you were born with a silver spoon up your ass.  I would never blame you for that.)  But I humbly ask you to give the American people the chance to reject (or accept!  We still could accept it!) your vision for making American great again.  You really have forced us to think about who we are and who we want to be.  Now give us the chance to prove to ourselves and to the world that we are not completely terrible.  You owe us that much. 

Now you get back on that horse, Don.  We'll see you tomorrow at the debate.

How interesting.

We have a winner.

PS.

Very proud to announce:

Ann, you are the best.

Speechwriter application.

Thank you.  Thank you so much.  Please.  Thank you.  Thank you.

I am thrilled to be here.  As I look out at all your bright, white faces, I am excited at all we can accomplish together, with my husband, Donald J. Trump, as our king.

Some people wonder—what is the best thing about being the beautiful wife of Donald J. Trump?  Or perhaps, why did I debase myself and marry the man some consider the vilest American alive?  Two words: bank account.  Oh, and his giant dick, which I am contractually obligated to mention on a monthly basis.

I don’t understand why people think my Donald hates immigrants.  I mean, hello?  They don’t make bodies like mine in America.  Donald fully supports the importation—sorry, I mean immigration of beautiful women.  Rich American douche bags need people to marry too, you know!

When I am your queen, I will work for a cause very near to my heart—the cause of all the beautiful women and children.  And I do mean just the beautiful ones.

But for now I want to address all American women, even the ugly ones.  I have heard that some of you think Donald hates women.  It’s just not true.  Donald loves women.  Look at me—I’m a woman, and he loves me.  So you shouldn’t worry. 

Please, vote for my husband.  He is the greatest husband, the best. 

Thank you so much for all the love you've shown for Donald and me.  You’ll hear from me again in a few years—I’ll have a tell-all with Anderson Cooper after my contract expires when I turn 50 and Donald has upgraded to the next hot, young piece of ass.  We can’t expect him to keep an old hag by his side!

Anyways, God bless Donald J. Trump, and God bless America.

A history lesson.

My love for history began when I was a kid.  I remember one Christmas I got a book containing stories, letters, and images of real people during World War II.  I was spellbound.  Here were ordinary people doing extraordinary things in extraordinary times.  The victory gardeners, the Navajo code talkers, the concentration camp inmates, the D-Day soldiers.  Perversely, I was actually jealous of these people—they got to live history.  All I could do was read about it.  In the naïve, grammar-school mind of an upper-middle class white girl, history was over.  The world, or at least my world, was stable and prosperous.  Nothing exciting or dangerous would ever happen again.  The struggles of earlier generations had born the fruit that was my blissful childhood in the ‘90s.

Of course, I was so wrong.   I had thought of history as stories with neat beginnings, middles, and ends.  It was a convenient way to take it all in.  But history does not happen that way.  We can’t know how historians will classify the present moment.  Is this moment—the departure of the UK from the EU, the rise of Donald Trump—the beginning of a new, fearful era in the experiment of liberal democracies?  Is it a strange, momentary aberration in the trend toward global economic cooperation?  Or is it (pause for melodrama) the end of the world as we know it??? 

When I read history now, I consciously try to erase my bias of hindsight.  I had realized I was taking events in history for granted. Of course the Allies won World War II.  Of course the D-Day invasion worked.  Of course Neville Chamberlain should have known never to shake Hitler’s hand.   But when I suspend my knowledge of how the story ends, the plot becomes more treacherous.  Certain characters, like Chamberlain, engender more sympathy.  His country had not long before emerged from the worst war it had ever known.  He did not know something more terrible could be on the horizon.  Other characters, like Eisenhower and his D-Day soldiers, earn even more admiration and awe.  The D-Day invasion had absolutely no guarantee of success.  Eliminating the advantage of hindsight allows us to understand that the moments we study in history are defined by their uncertainty. 

More now than at any other time in my life, I am hyper-aware of the uncertainty of the future.  For the first time, I look to the future with great unease.  The only other moment rivaling this is 9/11 and its immediate aftermath, but the difference between now and then is my faith in the stability of government.  I don’t know if we can overcome the dysfunction in Washington.  I am afraid of a Trump presidency.  I don’t know if our system and national wellbeing can weather his ignorance and narcissism.  That scares me more than terrorism.

I finally feel like I’m living history, but I wish I could tell fourth-grade Claire that it’s not as cool as we thought.

Soil stack vents.

From the Kaplan Building Systems ARE study guide:

"In the soil stack, the section above the highest fixture is called the stack vent (as opposed to the vent stack) and vents the soil stack.  The vent stack is a 'stack' of vents; the stack vent is something that vents the top of the soil stack."

"Stack" and "vent" are starting not to look like words.  

A Disavowal of Christopher "Chris" Christie.

I am sorry to break the news that I must on this blog that my very own denounce and disavow the New Jersey governor, the dishonorable Chris Christie, who has given up his very soul in a foolish and misguided bid for the vice presidency of the United States of America.  My feelings on the governor have come a long way since I first saw his lawn signs in New Jersey back in 2009 and thought, “that’s a dumb name”.  While I do not agree with him on every issue, I formerly liked and respected him, I naively and disastrously underestimated the depths of his thirst for power and can no longer support his actions.  He is such a pragmatist, not that he sold his soul to a pyschopants demagogue in exchange for keeping his name in the news and his political career alive.  But, as it is written, "for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" (I'm sure his new overlord can give him some tips.)  His Jersey ‘tude will be wasn't really missed that much in this race.  

Nevertheless, I have had been calling Marco Rubio a robot for a long time, so I still do really appreciate that Chris Christie confronted him on this and brought the issue to the national stage.  That particular clip of him destroying poor baby Marco in Saturday’s debate was the first thing I saw Monday morning after I woke up (thank you, Erin) and it had me totally jazzed.  I practically leapt out of bed and fist pumped my way to the shower. will always bring me joy.

So Governor Christie, I know Bruce Springsteen probably didn’t let you use any of his songs on the campaign trail, but baby, you were born to run, is ashamed of you.  But I am just ashamed of myself for having been fooled by your brilliant disguise.

I never meant for you to go this far even if only to take Marco Rubio down with you.  Mary Pat, how could you let this happen...

God have mercy on the woman who doubts what she's sure of.

A special President's Day post.

Happy President’s Day to all.  Will and I had a wonderful long weekend (including a romantic Valentine’s Day trip to Costco).  Perhaps I will elaborate more on our weekend in my regular Wednesday post.  In this, my special President’s Day post, I would like to comment on the most recent Republican presidential candidate debate.  I am tempted to go candidate-by-candidate and write about my feelings (no, Ben Carson, I will not go to your website), but rather, I would like to focus on what I think was the most egregious statement of the debate*.  Very early on, Senator Marco Smooth Hair Rubio claimed, “the Constitution is not a living, breathing document—it is to be interpreted as originally meant.”  Ah yes, the founders really got it right the first time—such foresight on the women’s suffrage issue.  And that three-fifths compromise…pure gold, amirightMarco??  GARBAGE.

I am so sick of this trash “founding fathers’ intent” argument.  THE FOUNDERS WERE FALLIBLE HUMANS WHO DID NOT AGREE WITH EACH OTHER.  THERE WAS NOT ONE COMMON “INTENT”.  Almost as soon as the Constitution was ratified (which was a battle in itself—apparently the document was not yet glowing in the dark with its powers of infallibility), did the founding fathers start doing battle over how to interpret it.  Alexander Hamilton was stretching its meaning from the get-go, sending Thomas Jefferson and James Madison into conniptions.  (PS I highly recommend the Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow, and I really thought “conniptions” started with a ‘k’.)   And then there’s everyone getting their panties in a wad about “activist” justices on the Supreme Court.  “The founders did not intend this!!”  But what about John Marshall, the chief justice who transformed and empowered the Supreme Court?  The original activist justice!  What do you think he did every single time?  To pretend he didn’t have an agenda is naïve.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the Constitution.  I am amazed at much of the wisdom of the founding fathers.  The more I read about the founding of our country, the more I am in awe of what they accomplished.  I truly believe we have the best governmental system on earth—but that is because the Constitution IS elastic.  It was not engraved in stone.  It adapts to every age because its tenets are timeless.  Furthermore, the founders knew they were not perfect, so they built in the mechanism for amendments.  How do those fit in with your theory, Marco??

So on this President’s Day, I ask you, my gentle readers, to please be wary when you hear a modern politician profess to know and invoke the “intent” of the founding fathers.  That person usually needs a good punch in the face.

Happy President's Day from me and the boys.

*I am disqualifying all Donald Trump statements from the “most egregious” category because I am so goddamn sick of him and his terrible face/ego/yelling/tanning booth goggle tanlines.  If I were to include him, however, the prize would go to him attempting a serious comeback at Jeb (!) with: “Yeah?  Well, two days ago, you said you would pull your pants down and moon everyone in the audience!  But no one reported on that!”  Sometimes I like to pretend American politics is not a complete cat circus, but this sort of thing makes it very difficult.

Wingapo.

I must not have noticed the colorful leaves swirling around me as I left the house for my run this morning, but by the time I got back, I felt like a regular Pocahontas.

My first wildlife encounter was in Buena Vista park.  When there was no person attached to the off-leash dog ahead of me, I realized it was in fact a COYOTE.  A nice looking coyote.

Do you have an owner?

No, I am WILD.

But even better was the flock of PARROTS all chomping on breakfast berries in a tree right by my house.

I spy...

PARROTS

Oh hello.

Just brunchin' with mah buds.

(San Francisco has a population of wild parrots, thanks to a homeless dude who kept them as pets on Telegraph Hill back in the day.  We see them flying around a lot, but this was the first time I had seen them this up close.)

Then, from the shower, I watched a falcon/hawk/big bird as he surveyed his domain from a tree in our backyard.  I’ve been browsing “Birds of San Francisco” websites, but can’t figure out what exactly it was.  (I think I have mentioned here that I can foresee an old Claire birdwatcher…)  Birdwatching readers, I welcome your thoughts on what kind of bird this is, if you can tell from these bad pictures.  It had white spots on its wings, a white throat and belly, and a brown/gray head.

Ok, back to studying/tearing my hair out watching the Patriots.