Q: What charge can pepper never be booked on?

A: Assault!

nyuk nyuk nyuk.

Prayers, please, for Dean and Emily, who will be welcoming their first child today! Dean has been a best friend since high school — pretty much one of two (ok, three) friends I've retained from that era.

Dean was looking for “strong, masculine” names for his new son. Our mutual best friend suggested “Testosterone.” Dean-o wasn't crazy about that suggestion. Then I jumped on the bandwagon with a name I saw on the Sprout channel this past Father's day, but Dean didn't like my idea, either. I don't know why… I think “Arsenal Testosterone LastName” would look *awesome* on a birth announcement. Some people have no taste. I mean, really.

Last night, Matthew McConaughey and his girlfriend welcomed their infant son into the world. True to his roots, baby Levi McConaughey was born without a shirt.

I *love* to save money. Usually by getting a great deal on something I was going to buy anyway. Like the $120 worth of bras I bought today for twenty-two bucks.

Another case in point: Monstro needs a laptop that will run XP and Word, so he can write his dissertation somewhere other than a house with a screaming baby (no, I'm not talking about myself). I was looking at newegg.com at $500 laptops when I decided to cruise over to Craigslist for our region. Viola — an Acer Aspire 3610 laptop, complete with 1.50 MHZ processor, 1GB of memory, A 60 GB hard drive, 128 RAM of video memory, and a DVD/CD-RW drive is for sale in the next town over from ours for three hundred bucks.

Monstro called about it and it's still available, so he's on his way to the bank right now.

Gee, with all the money I've saved us today (I count it at three hundred smackaroos), maybe I'll see about that new Mac Mini that's so very cute. Hey, a girl needs her new toys, too!

Lex's buddy and my mother's helper was over today so I got to go shopping. By myself. For clothes and food and home accessories. The first two were for our place, the last for my mom.

I started at Marshall's, where I bought two new bras, size ginormous (because my merely enormous ones no longer fit, and are giving me ugly red welts along my ribcage), for $10 and $12 respectively. Pretty much the deal of the century, as 1) they were Walcoal and 2) the original price of each was *sixty bucks*. So the girls will be transported in great lacy style for the next seven weeks (or so).

Also hit Linens'n'Things for my mom's place. Bought her some soft throw pillows (the ones that came with the rented furniture are scratchy and not conducive to napping), cute curtains for the kitchen, room-darkening curtains for the bedroom, a TP stand and a towel holder. Oh, and a chrome over-the-door hook thingy.

Old Navy was kind of a bust — they had about three summer items left so I bought two of them. The other one was ugly so I left it alone in its cavernous space. It's 92 degrees today and you know they're going to be unpacking their autumn/winter styles this afternoon. Retail makes no sense to me.

Finally, I went to Trader Joe's. Kinda stupid to have a Trader Joe's that doesn't sell Two-Buck Chuck (that's a cheap but reasonably palatable wine, for those of you who don't know), but I'm not drinking much swill these days so I guess the point is moot. Did buy an enormous tub 'o coffee beans for eight bucks, and more food for our freezer, and snacks for Monstro whilst I'm in labor. Then I asked the cashier if I could have a red balloon to give to my at-home two-year-old, and she said I could have it even if I didn't have an at-home two-year-old. Very sweet.

In other news, bending down to pick things up off the floor is a Herculean task, and I'd take a bath but I'm not convinced I could get myself out of it. 🙂

Lex is sick *again*. I have a bunch of work to get done and you know what? It ain't happening.

She got an offer when it had been on the market for only four days. All-cash deal. Closed in 15 days. Done and done. Praise Jesus!

I received an e-mail from a man named Duncan who lives in Calgary. He wrote to say that I was mentioned on a national radio show called Adler OnLine today. Apparently, Charles Adler was interviewing the man behind motormouth.ca — he's an auto reviewer — and the man said he'd tried to buy the motormouth.com domain name from me.

I have no recollection of his offer, but I get e-mails about every six months from people who want to buy it, so the offers kind of run together.

I wrote him back and thanked him for the information. I also told him, “I've actually been to Calgary — a children's chorus I was in performed at the Stampede when I was in eighth grade. It was a great trip until we stumbled upon the campground of serial killer Charles Ng. Thankfully, he wasn't home at the time.”

Also wrote to the Adler OnLine people, to find out if I could get a transcript or .mp3 of the interview.

OK, back to watching “Wiggle Bay” with Lex, who finally decided to wake up from his nap!

Dear God: I'm sorry I called you “stupid.” Please don't let my tantrum affect Mom's home-escrow closing tomorrow. Thank You. Amen.

If you want to make some really good chocolate-chip cookies, buy some almonds and toast them for five minutes, letting them cool before you chop 'em up and mix them into the cookie batter. Trust me on this one.

I just sent three dozen milk-chocolate-chip-and-toasted-almond cookies to Chico via UPS Next Day Air Saver. Not gonna tell you how much it cost. I figure it's 1/6th the price of an airline ticket.