Police blotter.

Friday, 8:52 P.M.: Pedestrian flagged down an officer by the post office to ask if the officer knew of any lodging available.

Saturday, 5:02 A.M.: Firecrackers in mailbox.

Saturday, 12:42 P.M.: Anonymous male caller reports that a male left a butcher knife on the front steps.

Monday, 2:39 A.M.: Caller reports there's a guy sitting in a tree smoking a cigarette.

Monday, 9:09 P.M.: Caller states she is caught between two neighbors who are trying to annoy each other with loud noises like loud music and barking bear dogs.

Tuesday, 7:20 P.M.: Complaint of sheep and goats in yard.

Wednesday, 6:55 P.M.: Report of kids being loud and vomiting.

Thursday, 9:39 A.M.: Caller states someone put Dairy Queen food on her car.

Thursday, 9:35 P.M.: Report of logs burning in fireplace inside store with no one around; per responding officer, it appeared to be a decorative fake fire.

Burn, baby, burn.

I've never really gotten a sunburn. Well, not one of those pink-as-raw-hamburger, peels-like-an-onion, hurts-just-to-look-at-it types of sunburns, anyway. I get my annual nose burn in the late spring, usually in conjunction with my annual burning-of-the-hair-part on my head. But most summers, that's the worst of it.

I don't remember ever burning when I was a kid--me and my older brother were just un-pasty white enough to tan. Our poor little brother, though, looked like an albino and I can remember him getting red as a damn lobster a few times after trips to the beach.

The more I think about it, I can only remember three times I've ever gotten fried anywhere other than my nose:

1. A warm-but-not-blistery pinkness on my shoulders after a trip to the beach the summer I graduated from high school, with a big white hand print in the middle where somebody'd slapped me with some sunblock.

2. A series of rosy triangles on my legs the day I sat Indian-style for too long out on the student center lawn at UMD.

3. And a ridiculous one-by-four inch patch on my right arm this weekend--up above the elbow, where my sleeve sat. Just one little rectangle on my arm. Nowhere else.

"Giddy-up."

I have no desire to see the Transformers sequel...but this? This, I could get behind.

This bird wouldn't get off of my car this morning.

I figured it was a fledgling from the robin's nest on the garage, and I didn't want to shoo it away too obnoxiously since I wasn't sure how steady it was on its wings yet. And so our dance began...

I walked up to the car: nothing.

I opened the door: nothing.

I sat down in the car: it just kept staring.

I slammed the door: still nothing.

I started the car: it didn't move a muscle.

I rolled down the window and turned up Hot Rock J96: it didn't even tap its feet along to the Skynyrd.



I was reluctant to start driving with it on the hood--I mean, what if it fell off and I drove over it or something? I don't need that first thing in the morning. Instead, I turned off the car, got out, and slammed the door again to see if that would finally do the trick. Nope.

Sensing that we were at an impasse, I went back in the house to get my camera. It was still perched there when I came back outside. I took three pictures, standing right beside the car. On the fourth one, the flash went off.

That did the trick.

I plan on having myself a merry little shrovetide.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day who lives near Pennsylvania Dutch country, and he asked if we celebrate Fasnacht Day around here (since there's a lot of people of German descent in Wisconsin, too). My dumbfounded silence apparently speaking volumes, he sent me a link to Wikipedia and oh, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the donuts!

I'm still sorting out all the details of this most delicious of traditions--there's a lot of talk of shroving and shriving and other crazy Lenten stuff I never managed to learn about in my 12+ years of catechism classes--but come next Easter, who's with me? DONUT PARTY!!

...Wait. You're not into donuts? Blasphemer! Well, I'm willing to give a little: there's a pancake variant. Oh, yes.

"...The day is also called Pancake Tuesday. In England, and perhaps elsewhere, the day is celebrated with pancake races. The contestants run a course while holding a griddle and flipping a pancake. Points are awarded for time, for number and height of flips, and number of times the pancake turns over. There are of course penalties for dropping the pancake."

Donuts and pancake races? This is sounding more & more like our old Feaster celebrations out in Helena...I think we could've easily squeezed in some donuts & pancake races between dyeing the eggs, making Boone's floats and having our P. Diddy pool parties down by the hot tub.

Oh, it's on!

"We've gone on holiday by mistake."

1. How have I never seen Withnail & I before today??

2. Imagine my delight at discovering the inspiration for the funniest character in Wayne's World 2. (Mmm-hmm, played by the same guy and everything.)

Oh, here, have a taste.

(Attention: salty language ahead.)

Police blotter.

Sunday, 7:27 P.M.: Report of kids climbing a ladder to knock on a window.

Monday, 10:54 A.M.: Report of male in black truck trying to drive on top of another vehicle.

Tuesday, 7:02 A.M.: Report of male wandering around near marina with pants around his ankles and seeming "out of it."

Tuesday, 10:16 P.M.: Caller reports a bull came and has its head in her car; states she was out for a drive on Wannebo Road and a bull ran up to her car and won't leave them alone or take his head out of her car.

Thursday, 10:05 A.M.: Report of woman feeding seagulls.

Thursday, 1:35 P.M.: Caller would like an officer to remove a male from her home; he has been drinking and is taking things off her clothesline.

Thursday, 1:38 P.M.: Anonymous caller requests an officer to check on a subject who is intoxicated and playing with swords.

Saturday, 5:59 A.M.: Caller reported a truck doing "pop-a-wheelies."

Saturday, 10:33 A.M.: Anonymous male reported a guy in a white tank top and black pants knocking on people's doors and asking for money to pay his cell phone bill.

"You can’t swing a cat around here without hitting a place where they say Capone has been."

My cousin Kevin just got a story published in the travel section of the New York Times, which is clearly awesome. But wait--guess what makes it even more awesome?

1. It's about northern Wisconsin!
2. It's about gangsters! And their vacation hideouts!
3. It's tangentially related to Johnny Depp!!

Go check it out!

Crack is whack.

Citizens of Ashland:

I know it's hot out right now, but I implore you: please wear pants that cover your butt cracks when you're out in public.

Don't you roll your eyes at me. I know, it embarrasses us both that I'm bringing this up. (Although given that you're walking around with your asses hanging out, I suppose you might be less prone to embarrassment than some.) It should go without saying that one of the primary objectives of pants is that they cover your butt. And yet, it would appear that there's a communications breakdown somewhere between you and the Pants Council of America, because what I'm seeing out and about this week has made it very clear that maybe it doesn't go without saying.

So to you, hootchie mamas wandering aimlessly down Main Street, exceeding your short-shorts' maximum butt load limits by twenty pounds;

And to you, old guy with the shrunken undershirt riding up your back and pants sagging with pockets full of...coins? Marbles? Taconite pellets? What the hell have you got in there, anyway?;

And especially to you, guy trotting down Ellis Avenue the other day in scuba flippers, your nethers barely contained in the tiniest pair of swim shorts I've seen this side of Rio, your back hair trailing down into the blinding white abyss below;

HIDE YOUR SHAME AND PULL UP YOUR PANTS.

Three things stickin' in my craw:

1. The fact that somebody let Michael Bay make another Transformers movie. Although on the other hand, this alleged monstrosity has inspired some awesomely nasty reviews, my favorites so far being from CNN ("the most terrible revenge since Montezuma's") and Roger Ebert ("I find it amusing that creatures that can unfold out of a Camaro and stand four stories high do most of their fighting with...fists. Like I say, dumber than a box of staples").
   
   
   
2. That Netflix keeps recommending Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to me every time I log in. No. A thousand times, NO. That show was a train wreck. The cast had potential, but the tone was way too preachy, and far too smug; the characters' self-righteousness about their show-within-a-show was ridiculous, given that their skits were generally quite unfunny and not nearly as clever as the show wanted to convince us they were. The insertion of "issues" into every aspect of the plot was really heavy-handed and it sucked all the joy right out of the whole affair.
   
   Plus: a character who (essentially) singlehandedly writes an entire live hour-plus TV sketch comedy show week after week? That, in and of itself, was ridiculous. There's a reason why shows like SNL (and fictionalized versions of them, like 30 Rock) have a writers' room: no one person could ever tackle all of that! But then, on top of that, to have him be this quasi-celebrity who makes it into the gossip columns? Puh-leaze! Quick, name a late night comedy writer. Who doesn't star in their own show. Good luck with that.
   
   
   
3. How much Year One sucked. I really wanted to like it--I did--but great googily-moogily, I was expecting something funny. And this only made me laugh out loud approximately 3 times in its 90-ish minute running time. That's a bad laugh ratio: one solid laugh every thirty minutes? Not good. The average episode of Maury gets better results than that. It's like it had all the ingredients to be funny, but something went horribly awry in the oven because the comedy cake fell flat, my friends. Flat as a damn pancake. (Am I mixing too many baking metaphors here?)