Alpha recently received a bonsai tree from a friend. It has been in our entry way, dying a little more each day, leaves gathering around its twisted base.

Tonight I cooked Mexican food. Another friend was over. Beta got a stomach ache and read a book. Gamma acted autistic. After we got the kids upstairs, we sat on the sofas and talked. Moritz the red water loving cat climbed inside my sweatshirt for a while.

The friend told us a story involving, on the very far edge of the story, bonsai trees. We mention ours isn’t doing too well. She suggested we move it to somewhere where it gets natural light.

Duh, we say, good idea. Also, this is how you water bonsai trees we found out: completely submerge the pot, until no more bubbles come out. Then let the excess water drain out, and put it back wherever you had it. Do this twice a week.

Learn something every day.

Have you observed an affinity for water on the part of red cats? The first red cat I met was Pete the One-Eyed River Cat, who lived with a rafting guide on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula. He had one eye and would sit on the guide’s shoulder as he took tourists down rapids in rubber rafts.

Our newest cat, Moritz, is also red. Yesterday, for the dozenth time, he was on the kitchen counter sniffing the chunk of parmesan cheese, which bothered me, so to teach him not to do that, I placed him in the sink and turned on the tap. He seemed to enjoy it. He ran through the house afterwards, making everything wet. And later, when Gamma was taking a bath, he jumped in with her.

Like it was for Pat, Moira’s So Blue It’s Black was one of the first blogs I read when I discovered this pasttime about a year ago, and I even had the great good fortune to meet her in person in Seattle last summer. Moira has announced that she will be concentrating her blogging energy on her new site, A Constant Reader. Go Moira.

Cat vomit all over door: check.
Make Alpha mad: check.
Car frozen solid: check.
Plague of locusts: too cold, try again in summer.

In the shower today, I remembered, as a perky undergrad, doing a translation for an economics professor of the German Effluent-Charge-System Law. That sure was fun.

One interesting fact I got out of that was the practice, at least 20 years ago, in Germany of totally fucking polluting one river and keeping others relatively clean, instead of sorta polluting all of them.

We take a similar approach at our house with disgusting chores. Like, I get to apply the ointment to festering cat’s sores. Cat vomit on the door this morning: no one even said anything, I just put down my coffee and got out the paper towels. The frozen rat out in the back yard two days ago: me. Etc. etc.

Alpha and I do split human vomit, however.

Go give Bauke a “10”. (This is to make up for making fun of his webcam pic.)
Caution: site in Portuguese. Just click on the “10”.

Romantic love: The most pernicious hoax ever perpetrated on Western Civilization. But fun.

American democracy: How Americans can still believe in that after W. was wrongly appointed “president” by the Supreme Court escapes me. I mean, even the Ukrainians were joking about it.

Cash Money: It’s just paper and metal. Or 1’s and 0’s when it’s electronic. Sometimes you’re working so hard to get some you forget this part. This whole “Euro” thing has been a reminder of its illusoriness. In general, European money is far prettier than American money (although, around the world, a buck is a buck is a buck). American money: all green and the same size. European money: different sized-bills and different colors for different denominations. Some of it, in countries such as Greece or Italy, gets kind of frayed- and faded-looking. Other countries, though, such as Germany, Holland or Ireland, for example, they have pretty bills. Austria, so-so. Other countries I’m not that familiar with in general.

They all have various historical personalities or buildings, etc., on them. Now, the Euro introduces a new dimension of illusion. {Note: I think this is true, but I’m not 100% sure so don’t quote me.} You’ve got, what, 10 or 12 countries currently participating, and you can’t have that many different bills. Each country gets to design one side of its coins (which are, however, legal tender in all other participating countries). So you get, like, harps on Irish coins, Mozart on an Austrian coin, etc. The bills, though, they’re all the same in all countries. And to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings by leaving anyone out, no real objects are pictured on the bills. They all have pictures of European-looking architectural objects, like bridges, arches, buildings, etc. But none of them are real.

There was even a brief crisis several months back when someone claimed to recognize the bridge on one of the bills.

They were all designed by an Austrian graphic designer, by the way, who did a great job in my opinion. Very pretty money. Nice colors, nice shiny bits to make them harder to counterfeit. And you can bet the counterfeiters have their presses working overtime right now. Now would be the best time to pass anything a little odd.

A radio prankster proved that this morning in Vienna. He (terrible person) went out onto the streets and asked people if the bill in his hand was a genuine 20-Euro bill. Of course, 9 out of 10 told him to go piss up a rope, but for the morons, this was their 15 minutes of fame. Enough people were sure it was real.

It was a French 20-Franc bill.

How to be an Austrian ATM machine:
1.) Roll over and say “oink”.
2.) Do nothing for two hours.

The operators of the system in Austria swear by their mothers’ eyeballs that the crash had nothing to do with the transition to the Euro. Simply a bug in the main computer system.