March 1

Oh dear Heaven, it’s Friday and we owe you Five Favorite Things. This week crept up on us for sure. Maybe it’s because we’re so sidetracked with the book coming out, being obsessed over Amazon rankings, the signing at the country club tomorrow, and the Tucson Festival of Books coming up next weekend. Then there was the ring debacle and the even bigger nightmare of getting the contest widget to work right. Amylynn really needs a nap – she’s been a little extra cranky this week. Ava’s no help at all since she just likes to poke the bear with a stick when Amylynn’s like that. Still, we have made it to Friday and that’s a beautiful

Don’t be confused. This is the OLD Titanic

thing. These things amused us during the lulls in Amylynn’s breakdowns this week. We hope you agree.

1. Titanic. Some crazy Australian billionaire is building an exact replica of the original Titanic. Why do so many crazy people come from Australia? Not bad crazy. The Super entertaining brand of crazy. We don’t know either, but it sure seems they breed them over there. It’s never been on our list of places we really need to visit primarily because that flight is like 75 hours long and Ava can’t hold her breath on germy airplanes for that long. Still, we’d probably really like it because we wouldn’t feel quite so crazy over there. These might be our people. Anyway, back to the boat. He’s building it in China. Uh huh. China. What could possibly go wrong with this plan? He was brilliant enough to point out that with the handy development of global warming there aren’t as many icebergs in the North Atlantic to cause trouble. Still,

Loud, pesky alien

we think we might like to go. He wants people to wear period costumes, so that sounds fun. No word if he’s making the cast of the movie take a cruise but if he is we’re definitely in. We have some stuff to chat up Leo about. Don’t forget to pack the shark repellent.

2. Loud noises. There was a sonic boom over town this week. The air force base declared it wasn’t them. Uh huh. Obviously it was space aliens returning that Mars robot. Anyway, the funny part comes in with the comments on the website of the local newspaper about possible explanations. One person suggested,  “it’s the Republican party self-destructing” or “It was thousands of potholes enlarging simultaneously”. Also, “It was just China running some tests.” Our favorite: “The Legislature passed another flaky bill and the State moved severely to the Right???” There are funny people out there.

3. HUGE feet. We loved this picture because of the sheer size of this foot. The polar bear in question, Boris, lives in Tacoma, Washington. He needed a little eye work done and a root canal. That seems reasonable since he’s 27 years old. While he was under, they did a mani/pedi. Will you look at the honking foot this guy has? Imagine yourself coming across a bear big enough to belong to that foot out in the wild. Mercy. Still, we’d give him a quick snuggle while he was under. Maybe kiss his belly. How many opportunities do you get to kiss a polar bear belly?

4. Best fashion accessory. Quvenzhane Walllis, the little girl nominated for best actress for her role in Beasts of the Southern Wild, carried a variety of stuffed puppy purses  during the Red Carpet season. She looked super cute at the Oscars. Why did she pick that particular dress, you ask? Because it was sparkly and fluffy. Finally, someone who knows how to navigate the red carpet without looking like a dolt.

5.The red shoes. Somehow we didn’t know that apparently all popes wear red shoes, but we guess they do. We love red shoes. A lot. When we looked it up Wikipedia stated, “The Papal shoes are the red leather outdoor shoes worn by the Pope. They should not be confused with the indoor papal slippers or

why wouldn’t you want to wear these?

the Episcopal sandals, which are the liturgical footwear proper to all Latin Rite bishops.” Doesn’t this sound awfully complicated? The Sisters have a hard enough time keeping sling-backs and peep-toed shoes apart without getting religion into it. There is a lot to learn about Papal footwear – you simply wouldn’t believe it. Paul VI abolished buckles from all ecclesiastical shoes. We don’t care so much about that, necessarily, but we don’t like his stance on use of the indoor velvet papal slippers which he also discontinued.We may have to rethink this whole running-for-Pope thing if there are this many footwear decisions to be made. By the way, do you think we could get a pair of those velvet Papal slippers in the Vatican gift shop.