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Linkapalooza

1. Here are some fun photos of the Prez at last night's All-Star game.

2. Behold, the Michael Jackson Pantone Color Guide.

3. If you are a fan of both Neko Case and "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me," then I hope you didn't miss last week's episode. Neko had to play "Not My Job" and answer questions about Necco wafers. She is really funny and was slinging Civil War jokes left and right. And I liked the way she described her genre of music: "Modern-Independent-Loud." (I also enjoyed Robert Earl Keen's appearance for the same segment back in May.)

4. If you're reading Infinite Jest, you'll appreciate this Flickr set of photos taken in and around Boston, each accompanied by a corresponding quote from the book.

5. I've become a wee bit hooked on this video in which a very talented musician plays all the instruments for the '70s hit "Long Time" from Boston. And the vocalist he got to do Brad Delp's part is outstanding. (The intro, "Foreplay," goes on for about 2 minutes, but you'll recognize that too.)

That Fickle Trader Joe's Merchandiser

As I've whined before, it seems that every time I fall in love with an item at Trader Joe's, it's discontinued. The most recent item I had to bid farewell to was the Nutty American Trail Mix, which contained nothing but cashews, almonds, raisins, and chocolate chunks. We all ate it by the handful. The other TJ's trail mixes all have icky dried fruits or peanuts or other unwelcome ingredients. Peh.

I tweeted about my disappointment and (not surprisingly) found that I'm not alone. Within minutes, I heard from others grieving the loss of TJ's pear sauce, fig-flavored Greek yogurt, frozen shelled garbanzo beans, concentrated vegetable broth, GuavaBerry VitaBoost, chipotle sauce, key lime pie, and more.

How about you? What TJ's item did you swear to love until death only to find that it was gone the next day?

"Ewww" and "Ewww: The Sequel"

"Ewww"
On Saturday, I noticed that my car smelled kind of fishy. And I don't mean fishy as in "suspicious," I mean "seafood-y." I figured it was perhaps an errant napkin from our jaunt to Woodman's on Saturday or just our briney beach bodies in need of showers. The next day, however, it seemed obvious that a whale had died in my car—and not recently, either. We looked all over, even under the seats, but couldn't find anything. Then we unloaded the back, and Andy found a pail full of Julie's seashells. Oh, and broken crab claws. Yep, apparently one or more of them still had a little raw crab meat inside 'em, now two days without life-blood or refrigeration. It's hard to describe what a huge stench came from such a tiny little critter-part, but man! As soon as we removed the offending pail from the car, it was sweet again. Well, not sweet but, you know, old-Honda-smelling.

"Ewww: The Sequel"
Yesterday I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready when I heard a noise. I figured it came from out the window. Then I heard it again. Nope, not outside. Pete came in the kitchen and heard it too. It seemed to be coming from the pantry or dining room or sun porch area, and it was a muffled clattering sound. Intermittent, too—many minutes would go by in between clatters. I made sure all cats and kids were accounted for—check. I stood at the French doors of the sunporch and peeked in, but could see nothing amiss. (Yes, I was expecting a bat, and the beginning of my long stay at McLean's.) I went back to the kitchen, heard the clatter again, identified it as clearly coming from the pantry—specifically the broom/wine closet—and took the kids and the phone outside. I called Andy at the gym and asked him to come home to investigate. He did, and it was as I feared: The mousetrap that has been gathering cobwebs for a year or so in our closet had finally partially trapped a mouse. It was not dead, and it was flapping around with the trap stuck to it, trying to escape. (Now you know why I would not could not open that door.) Andy didn't quite know what to do with it either. Pete suggested throwing a knife at it, but instead Andy scooped it into a shoebox and threw it in the trashcan outside. Ugh Ugh Ugh.

Movies

I tried to love "Gods and Monsters"—really, I did. It just didn't happen for me. I got bored with Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser, both of whom I usually like very much. McKellen plays famously not-closeted gay movie director Jimmy Whale ("Frankenstein" etc.), and Fraser is his groundskeeper (but not lover). They strike up a platonic friendship, and ... well, that's about it. Many people have told me how much they liked this movie, but I found it under-written and over-acted. I didn't even watch it all the way through to the end. I apologize.

"Songcatcher," on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. It tells the story of musicologist Lily Penleric, who goes to visit her sister in Appalachia around the turn of the (last) century and discovers a whole body of undiscovered folk music that is at the very heart of the community there. (She also discovers Aidan Quinn, amid much bodice-ripping.) My main problem with the movie was the lead actress, Janet McTeer, who just didn't do anything for me. Plus she was too tall. (Sorry, maybe it's because I'm not quite 5'3", but it looked like the Attack of the Giant Woman to me.) Moreover, her feminist views struck me as anachronistic. But, overall, it was an interesting story and, man, if you like old-timey music, get this in your Netflix queue fast. Beautiful. Iris Dement and Taj Mahal have bit parts in order to showcase their singing, and Emmy Rossum has a major role—I'd never heard of her, but her voice blew me away. Oh, and Emmylou sings during the credits (worth the price of admission, I'd say).

I'm a Copyeditor

Just about a year ago, I explained my reasons for spelling my job title copyeditor instead of copy editor. I greatly prefer it as one word, but I do often feel that I'm in the minority. Job listings generally give it as two words, and I get the dreaded red squiggly line under the one-word version in my emails and Word documents. (Weirdly enough, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary—the dictionary I "learned on"—prefers two words for the noun copy editor but one word for the verb copyedit. Huh?)

As language evolves (and it does, so don't think you can stop it!), the oft-observed trend is that new compounds start off as separate words; then, as they become more familiar, they're hyphenated; and, finally, they're accepted enough that they become single words in their own right. For example, consider this evolution: cook book --> cook-book --> cookbook. Or foot ball --> foot-ball --> football. (I'm too lazy to check the etymology of those words, but they seem like likely candidates for that progression.) So I've already welcomed the final stage of evolution for copyeditor—and many others have, too, as you can see from the lively comments on this recent Language Log post. (Have I mentioned lately how much I love the Internet?)

Camp Sick

I guess it's not surprising that the flu is making the rounds at camp. According to Steph's letters, more than a dozen kids have already been sent home! The camp newsletter says that any kid with a fever and flu-like symptoms has to go home and can't return until after 48 symptom-free hours, and then only with a doctor's note. Can you imagine? They've also suspended intercamp sports and activities.

Beach, Part Deux

Today we decided, a bit late, to hit the beach again. Yesterday we didn't get into Good Harbor and just barely got into Long Beach at about 12:30, and we figured that a Saturday would be even trickier. So we decided to try Crane Beach, which has a huge parking lot, and arrived just before noon. We got in no problem, but it was not nearly as much fun as Long Beach or Good Harbor, mainly because the water was icy and there were no waves. (And, as far as we could tell, they don't allow boogie boards anyhow, even if there was something to do with them.) Crane is a great beach for families with little kids—of which we saw many—but not so much for us. Don't get me wrong, a day at the beach is still a day at the beach, but it was very crowded and the water was no fun.

The Summer Wind

Finally, finally! A perfect day. Sunny, warm, breezy, and not even a hint of a cloud anywhere.

We were sure we wanted to head north to Good Harbor Beach and get fried clams at Woodman's, but in the past we've learned that timing is tricky. If you go to the beach mid-morning, as we like to do, you're not ready to leave by lunchtime—but it's really too long of a day in the sun to wait until dinnertime (and then you have rush-hour traffic to contend with on 128S—even worse on a Friday with all the Cape-bound folks). So today we tried something different. We left the house mid-morning and arrived at Woodman's just as they opened at 11am.

After scarfing down a huge, albeit early, lunch of fried-everything-in-sight, we headed over to Good Harbor. But, oh no! Not surprisingly, since this was the first nice day in ages, the parking lot was already closed to non-residents by the time we arrived. The parking lot dude directed us to Long Beach, about 1/2 mile up the road, so there we went.

And it was wonderful. It doesn't have facilities (bathroom, rinse-off showers, snack stand) on the beach like Good Harbor, but rather in the parking lot, and it's not quite as wide, but it was still wonderful. The weather was perfect. The waves were huge and frequent, and Pete and Julie boogie-boarded for hours—in between digging in the sand, looking for shells, and just plain hanging out. I love watching the two of them play together—it doesn't seem to matter what they're doing, they're just in sync. Moi, I read some Infinite Jest, dozed a little, ate some Fritos ... what else does one need?

Date Night

Andy and I just got home from a long-overdue night out. First we had dinner at Solea, which we had not been to in a long time—so long, in fact, that we had no idea they had expanded it to more than double the size! It's gorgeous! There are many separate rooms (I kept trying to think of excuses to have a private party) and two bars. We had a nice selection of tapas, my favorites being Pato Braseado (roast duckling with berry sauce), Chorizo a la Plancha (grilled Spanish sausage), and Ravioles de Mariscos (lobster  and crab ravioli). We had a nice bottle of Portuguese wine, a 2005 Tinta Roriz Blend, Casa Burmeister Reserva. And I learned something new: The Douro region of Portugal is right next to the Ribera del Duero region of Spain, which produces my favorite wines in all the world. The Duero River is just called the Douro River in Portugal—duh!

Then we went to see "Private Enemies," even though it didn't get great reviews. There really wasn't anything else interesting to see and, well, it did have Johnny Depp after all. [Swoon.] To quote Susan's friend, "The only thing better than Johnny Depp in a movie is Johnny Depp with a gun." He's just wonderful as a bad guy with a soft spot for his sweetheart, but the movie went on too long and all the other guys looked like each other. I couldn't keep track of anyone on either side. And Christian Bale does absolutely nothing for me. They sure wasted their money hiring him for this. Oh, and if there's a movie that used more rounds of ammunition than this one, I'd like to hear about it. So, if you like shoot-'em-ups and/or Johnny Depp, go for it—but don't feel bad if you end up waiting till it's on DVD.

Updates

Rabies: We've decided to get the fifth shot. I know in my heart I would insist we get it if it were more convenient, so that means we should get it regardless. Whenever I can't make up my mind, I imagine the worst-case scenario for each option. In this case:
1. We get the shots: Camp is totally disrupted for all three kids, and all five of us have bizarre reactions to the shots.
2. We don't get the shots: One (or more of us) dies.
Case closed.

Infinite Summer: Man, but I do love this. If you're playing along (or even if you're not), now's a good time to revisit this Onion piece: "Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter at Page 20." Also, don't miss this not-nearly-long-enough essay by the editor of Infinite Jest—yes, really, DFW's editor!

Yes, it's still raining here. Why do you ask?

And, finally, here are my three favorite tweets from today:

• Just emailed an old friend to thank him for taking care of Pete during the hostage situation in my dream last night. [He emailed me back, "I’m glad Pete’s okay. Just doing my job, Ma’am."]
• Andy dropped a rib off the grill and into the bushes, but I rinsed it off and ate it anyhow.
• Every time I see a pitcher & catcher conferring, I think they're saying, "Candlesticks always make a nice gift" (from "Bull Durham").

See? You should be following me.