Weatherman says 30 this Wednesday, which is good, but thunderstorms for Thursday, which is bad because that’s the wee one’s birthday and the yard will be full of 18 witches, or the cellar if the storm comes through.

The trees are blooming, birds are nesting, and our tortoise got high-centered on her first strawberry of the year. I went out to check on her in her large habitat I constructed for her in the yard, sort of a Playboy mansion for tortoises, and there she was atop the strawberry, legs making walking motions but not getting anywhere.

It’s still too cold to leave her out at night, so she sleeps in the office. This morning when I went in to collect her, she heard my voice and came running out from her hiding place to meet me.

Well, running… running for a tortoise.

A friend celebrated her 40th birthday on Saturday with a DJ in her living room, a man in a chef’s hat doing something to asparagus with a blowtorch in her dining room, and several waiters and waitresses shuttling things between the kitchen and a tent out on her deck. Service slowed down as the party grew more crowded so I resorted to serving myself from the tub of ice and beer bottles which stood next to our table. This seemed like a good idea at first.

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Actually, Richard Anthony Delgaudio is an adult producer of child pornography.

He is also:

A prominent Republican fund-raiser who once said former President Bill Clinton was “a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation’s young people” pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to production of child pornography.

Richard Anthony Delgaudio, who was sentenced to two years’ probation before judgment, admitted to taking lewd photographs of a 16-year-old girl he met in East Baltimore’s Patterson Park in 2001. In some of the photos, he was engaged in sex with her, court records show.

2 years probation. On the other hand, if you’re a Peruvian immigrant in Texas who takes pictures of her child breastfeeding and bathing, they take your children away.

[Via Jessica and Aardvark]

UPDATE: The Baltimore Sun link appears to be broken. Here’s another mention at KRT Wire.

There’s a park a couple blocks from where I work and when the weather’s nice like it is today I take walks there at lunchtime. It has a big collection of trees from all over the world, and they’re being sluttish right now in their displays. The magnolia and ume, cherry and pear, they make you blush, the way they wave their sexual organs at you. May is even worse, if you’ve got hay fever; how did I live without Claritin, walking around covered in pollen? Or should I say plant sperm?

On my way back I watched a crow wolfing down a mouse between two cars.

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Wow!
[Via Joeri]

Ling-Ling: Special K?
Man: What’s wrong with Special K?

Ling-Ling: Nothing, nothing. It’s just…
Man: It’s five-thirty in the morning in Central Europe, sorry, all the garden shops, florists and nurseries are still closed. Where am I supposed to get bamboo at five-thirty in the morning?
Ling-Ling: Don’t sweat it.
Man: Coffee?
Ling-Ling: No thanks, I had a cup. If I drink too much of that I’m like this, you know? BZZZ!!
Man: What now?
Ling-Ling: Nothing. Just wondering: what’s with all the wet voles?
Man: Don’t get started. Forget the voles.
Ling-Ling: He was here, wasn’t he?

Man: I said don’t get…
Ling-Ling: You of all people. I can’t believe you fell for the weasel.
Man: Shut up.
Ling-Ling: What is it with humans and talking animals? The most cynical, skeptical person, it doesn’t matter, they meet a talking animal and believe everything he says.
Man: That fish in New York recently…
Ling-Ling: Oh, the fish was real. Forget the fish. But a weasel?
Man: How should I know. And anyway, what’s a panda got that a weasel doesn’t?
Ling-Ling: Massive fucking claws, for one thing. I’m not pulling your leg. Look at these massive fucking claws, dude. Those little kids going, ooh, how cute? Sheeit. Climb in the cage with me for a second, little kid. Just one second. Cute.

Man: What about libido, though? A weasel has you beat there.
Ling-Ling: Libido, schmibido. Who needs it? You have any idea how sick I am of all the negotiation and begging sex involves? Jee-sus-Christ. I’m in heaven, I get to lie around all day eating and watching prOn.
Man: Hrm.
Ling-Ling: Seriously.
Man: All day?

Here’s a relationship tip for you: when your daughter is asking her parents what first attracted them to each other, and it’d your turn to answer, “She cracks me up,” is not necessarily an acceptable answer.