Happy Halloween.

Photo by Harry Benson

No Excuse.

via TMZ

I am constantly surrounded by people on the road trying desperately to maneuver their vehicles with one hand because their other hand is busy holding a cell phone. And occasionally the "free" hand is holding a cigarette or something as well as the steering wheel.

If you cannot afford the $20 (or $1.48 on Amazon) for a headset for your cell phone, there is an organization called freeheadset.org which will send you one for free. There is no excuse not to have one.

Maria Shriver is now the poster child for this offense. Her husband signed into California law in 2008 a bill that bans the use of handheld devices while driving (as many states have done) yet she has been photographed multiple times violating the law. That is wildly inexcusable.

So tell me: Do you use a headset or not? Do you text while driving?

This isn't really a laughing matter but this video illustrates the topic using humor (just in case you missed it). I think I drive by that guy twice a week.

My Favorite Headline Ever.

Mayans: World won't end in 2012, so stop asking us about it

I really think there should be a "goddammit" at the end of it. Thank you Mark Stevenson from the AP (and/or his editor). Click here for the story.

HG's Helpful Hint #35.

You know when you post a video from YouTube on your blog (using Blogger) and it looks like this?



Here's how to get it like this:



Just go to Edit Html and change the object width (within the quotations) to 425, then change the object height to 344 (also within the quotation marks). Do this in both places.

Et voila.

Perfection.

Compliments of The Little Sparrow.

It's Shalimar Season.

You know it's fall when I get this out. It's been my favorite scent for 20 years - um, since I was a child. *wink* Just a tidge will do ya.

(This post is to relieve those who were terrified by the bat post :-)

I'm Bat(wo)man.

Okay. So, a couple of weeks ago I came home from the beach (I know, don't cry too much for my Empty Nest Syndrome :-) to check on things and take care of the things that didn't get done while I was away and while I was changing the air conditioner filter in the basement I noticed what looked like an old banana peel on the floor. Of course, it occurred to me that there would not be an old banana peel on the basement floor and I realized it was a bat.

It seemed dead and I was upset because I like bats. They get a bad rap from widespread misinformation and vampire movies when really they're quite valuable for keeping insects under control as well as performing a vital ecological role by pollinating flowers. I carefully scooped it up in a large goldfish net and covered it with a paper plate and when I began to do this I realized it was alive.

I immediately took it outside and put it on the dew-covered ivy because I thought it was probably dehydrated. I came back out with a small eyedropper and tried to feed it some water and you know how a bat must love getting something shoved in its face when it's on its deathbed so that didn't work very well. It seemed to be a little more lively so I thought I'd just drip the water on the ivy and hope for the best. I came back out a little while later to check on it and it had made its way up three stairs!

By that time the bird rescue facility had opened and I called to see if they knew of anyone who would take a bat. They did. I called Hillary (not just BatWoman, but WildlifeWoman) and scooped up the bat (well, sort of) into a box and took it to her. It was not happy during my attempt to get it into the box and looked something like this:

Within minutes, she had the bat out of the box and into her own box with a little bat blankie and fed it an eyedropper of water (you could tell she had done this before) and then gave it a mealworm. Exhausted from all the activity, the bat took a batnap (oh, come on) and then ate the worm. It was so cute.

Alex the Big Brown Bat and Mandy the Mealworm*, Discovery Channel

There's a disorder affecting northeastern bat colonies called white-nose syndrome which has killed something like a million bats so far. So, first it must be tested for that, then introduced into a situation with other bats and then released back into the wild.

She had a couple dozen baby squirrels, a baby bunny, box turtles, skunks, snakes, rabbits, all manner of wildlife. I don't know how she ever does anything else.

Anyway, I'm grateful to her for taking care of this little guy. Oh, and since I wrote this post, the bat has been released back into the wild to terrorize other people in their basements.

*no, of course the mealworm did not have a name

My Empty Nest.

You know, when my daughter left for college, I was going to buy a pool table for her bedroom and I thought there'd be a party every night. My husband and I have been married for only five years so we're practically newlyweds. So, I've actually been excited about this time because I thought we'd get to spend some time together, just us, like you did when you were first married, before children, before four teenagers :-).

But now that I've actually packed my girl off to college and she is settled in and happy (fingers crossed), I'm dealing with a serious case of Empty Nest Syndrome. So if you see me walking my puppy down the street in a stroller with a baby bonnet on, please call the authorities.

Anyway, I'm back but I'll likely be posting much less. I've missed y'all, though. Hope you had a great summer.

Why I'm Looking Forward to the End of Summer.

And look at that carpet, will you? *insert leopardy swoon here*

Okay, as you know, tonight is the Season 3 premiere of Mad Men. I've watched Seasons One and Two twice this summer in preparation. To tide you over for the next several hours, there's a great article on Mad Men in the September Vanity Fair. Click here to read it.

It's like a peek inside Matthew Weiner's perfectly obsessive little head...

I Love Meryl Streep Again.

I saw Julie & Julia yesterday and am happy to inform Meryl that she is off my shit-list from the whole Mamma Mia debacle. She was wonderful and really stole the movie (it should have been renamed Julia & Julie).

I was completely charmed by the love story between Paul and Julia Child and fell a little in love with Stanley Tucci, too, as Child's doting husband. Nora Ephron wrote the screenplay and cleaned it up tout de suite (the book and Julie's blog had the f-bomb every other word and offended many delicate readers).

The kitchens Julia Child cooked in were very small and tended to be unfitted because they lived in Europe in the late 40s and early 50s. Which is funny because the larger and fancier the American kitchen has become, the less cooking actually goes on in it. I love a kitchen with tiled walls and a big pine table in the middle of it, separated! (gasp!) from the family room so I can hide the mess I made from actually cooking! I've always been a renegade...

Speaking of kitchens, the new issue of House Beautiful is a must-buy (and not because it's practically THE ONLY SHELTER MAGAZINE LEFT!). Windsor Smith did this Polo Blue kitchen which I am head-over-heels in love with. There are also black rooms galore (so Black is the New Black, after all, or is Blue the New Black? whichever, I solemnly promise not to use that phrase anymore :-).


But I do find myself admiring blue in a way I never did before. So when I saw 500 Days of Summer starring my girl crush, Zooey Deschanel, I fell in love with her little apartment. Simple, blue toile, iron bed, white-tiled kitchen, quirky little touches like origami birds. Sweet. Sweet movie as well, although as it warns: it is not a love story.

Bill Clinton is Still Awesome.

And I dare you to say otherwise.

Perfect for a Rainy Summer Afternoon.

The scenery in A Summer Place is just breathtaking (it's supposed to be set in Maine but was shot mostly around Carmel and Monterey, CA) and the beautiful old oceanfront Queen Anne inn really exists (although now it's private property). An equally gorgeous Frank Lloyd Wright beach house appears later in the film (and really exists on Scenic Drive in Carmel).

In addition to the beautiful properties, the storyline is really romantic. It's about a man who revisits (with his frigid bitch of a wife and lovely teenage daughter, played by Sandra Dee) the inn where he had a summer job as a lifeguard and a summer romance with a guest's daughter. He discovered that the guest's daughter married the innkeeper's son and they now run the place. There's lots of mad love and drama and sex - it was really quite racy for its time (1959).

You can probably rent it if your video store still exists (I bought it from the local record store).

Mad Woman: Vote for Porter!

AMC and Banana Republic are having an online casting call contest for a single episode walk-on role on Mad Men. How much fun is that? And Porter Hovey of Hovey Girls fame is desperate to win. Vote for her by clicking on her photo above. You can vote once per day - now, that's voting Chicago-style (you know: vote early, vote often).

You can also visit Hollister Hovey's site here to see one of her other photos. She looks like a cast member already, doesn't she?

Good luck, Porter! The new season starts August 16. Can't wait.

HOVEY UPDATE: Don't miss Porter and Hollister in today's New York Times. Click here for the article on those pith-helmet-wearing, taxidermy-lovin' sisters. Thanks to Pigtown*Design for the heads up.

The Perfect Gift.

Hail to the Chia-ief.

Looking for a gift for the liberal in your life?

This made me laugh out loud when I saw it at Kitchen & Co. last night (in my mad search for some good vanilla to ease my chocolate chip cookie craving) and then I saw that it has been pulled from Walgreen's because people think it's racist.

Sigh.

Of course I found a picture of it. The internets, they is magical.

Speaking of weird things that grow faux hair when you get them wet, did anyone else have Fuzzy Wuzzy soap when they were a kid? You know, it was shaped like a bear or something and you got it wet and it grew "fur"? And when you washed and washed, you were rewarded with a toy prize inside? God, we were easily entertained...

How to Drink Campari.

It took me years to love Campari and now I do (must be all those dead taste buds...).

You may remember my winter drink with Campari, the Negroni, from this post. But for summer it's Campari and soda on ice (equal parts for me) or fill a glass with ice, add about half Campari and fill with Pellegrino Aranciata.

Mmmmm-mmmmm. Good and good for you.

What a Difference a Door Makes.

All of these doors are in Old New Castle, Delaware, just a short drive from Wilmington. William Penn first landed in (old) New Castle in 1682 on the banks of the Delaware River. The former county seat and center of Colonial government (before Penn established Philadelphia) still has fewer than 5,000 residents.

There's a home and garden tour every May. And there's a great little pub called Jessop's if you're ever in the neighborhood.

You Know Things Are Bad...

when Boone Pickens can't get financing.

Story on the collapse of his wind farm dreams here.

Some Gorgeous Gossip (and Early Alaskan Fireworks)...

You've heard that Sarah Palin resigned. Have you heard this?

EXCLUSIVE: PALIN RESIGNATION 'DAMAGE CONTROL' FOR COMING 'ICEBERG SCANDAL' ... MORE: EMBEZZLEMENT INDICTMENTS COMING?

FURTHER UPDATE from The Brad Blog: Okay, I've now been able to get independent information from multiple sources that all of this precedes what are said to be possible federal indictments against Palin, concerning an embezzlement scandal related to the building of Palin's house and the Wasilla Sports Complex, built during her tenure as Mayor. Both structures, it is said, feature the "same windows, same wood, same products." Federal investigators have been looking into this for some time, and indictments could be imminent, according to the Alaska sources.

Palin's Wasilla Lake House

True? Or just gossip? Only time will tell...

Wood is Good, II: Dreamboats.

1957 Chris-Craft Capri

Chris-Craft 1941 Capri "Dame."

Chris-Craft 1942 Runabout

Chris-Craft Barrelback

Pretty wooden boats all in a row (not all of these are Chris-Craft).

Lacquered wood and polished nickel trays from Williams-Sonoma Home.

Can you think of a better way to spend a summer day than lazin' around on the lake in one of these vintage Chris-Craft boats? They're like the floating, speedster versions of the Woody (with price tags to almost match). And they do require some extra pampering (as most beautiful things do :-) but I'd say they're worth it.

Unfortunately, the water at the beach is either too salty or too brackish for these beauties but my husband grew up sailing on the Chesapeake Bay and the northern waters of the Chesapeake, as I understand, might be just right.

At the very least, I can get those trays for my living room and put a sweating cocktail on them and dream of my vintage Chris-Craft.