Anyone remember Mahir (I kiss you!!)? Anyone remember the Ate My Balls craze?

Mahir Cagri Ate My Balls

I’m probably showing my age here, but All Your Base Are Belong To Us. Ah, the wild old crazy days of the Internet.

I have exactly bubkes, doodly point squat, jack point shit to write about. I mean, it’s 90 degrees outside when I want football weather, So Cal sucks, and my kids are slobs, and Boolie’s demanding to be taken to the potty every 3.2 minutes and be careful what you wish for, because I almost wish she was still in diapers. But y’all don’t want to hear about that. God knows I don’t.

But I have me some ferocious links, and some of them you may not have seen, and you should see them. So here goes:

Extremely cool National Weather Service online weather school

Australian showbiz gossip site, better than Perez Hilton because possibly less trashy

Map of recent California earthquakes

The NWS Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK, home of awesome meteorologist and weather photographer Roger Edwards

Gluten Free Frugal, the website of my friend Tenille, who just had a baby girl, Mira, on October 4. Full of gluten free recipes that don’t involve $80 worth of groceries from Whole Foods!

The BBC News and the Toronto Star, which provide especially intriguing reporting on American issues; bear in mind that the UK and Canada are almost the only friends of the USA left standing

Awesome website which will insert your name, or one of your friends’, into a fake news story announcing the Internet phenom of grassroots Presidential nominee [fill in name of your choice], thanks to my Canadian friend Dana!

I know, I know, there’s a lot of weather stuff. But I’m just odd that way.

In Britain in the ’70s and ’80s, there was a wildly popular TV commercial (or, strictly speaking, advert) for R. White’s Lemonade featuring the Secret Lemonade Drinker, a guy who crept downstairs to drink lemonade in the dead of night. See it here:

Secret Lemonade Drinker

Did you know? The jingle, which to me was an immediate earworm, was sung by Ross MacManus — Elvis Costello’s father. The backing vocals were sung by a teenage Elvis Costello, not yet famous and known simply as Declan MacManus.

There are those who say Elvis Costello got his early look from Buddy Holly, but it’s plain to me that he was in fact channeling the Secret Lemonade Drinker.

So now here is the thing about the spider.

I am crazy, because (1) this used to be MY spider, (2) I shipped him off to Erika’s house, and (3) as of today, he is my spider again. (Or, possibly, she. Have you ever studied how to sex a tarantula? I DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. And I’m quite certain that you don’t, either.)

Shortly after Boolie’s birth, I dispatched all living members of the family who were not plants, Basenjis, Ben, children or Sea Monkeys. Because I already had enough living things to worry about, is why. I purchased this spider when he was a baby, about nickel-sized including legs. As you can see, he is All Grown Up.

And why was I insane enough to take him back? Because of this: When Sam started first grade nearly a year ago, he filled out a poster called “All About Me”. And in the spot for “If I could wish for anything in the world, I would want” he wrote and drew: A Tarantula. And I am a sucker.

I am trying to muster up the courage to pick it up and not be afraid enough to drop it on the floor. Because did you know? Tarantulas have exoskeletons, which means they wear their bones on the outside, which means that if you drop it, it will fracture and quite possibly die. I should also point out that they won’t bite unless you seriously fuck with them, and even if so, the bite is about equivalent to a bee sting. There are more poisonous breeds, but they’re not sold as pets.

Anyway. Tarantula. Like I needed this? Sometimes I am floored by my own stupidity.

Last night Orange County finally had the earthquake I’ve been anticipating for so long. It wasn’t much as far as earthquakes go, only a 3.1 on the Richter. Small potatoes, except that the epicenter was, like, right up our asses.

In 24 years in California, that was the only time I’ve ever been right at the epicenter of a quake. It started with a sharp jolt and a loud cracking sound and generally scared the bejeebers out of everyone in the house. It was about 9:30 p.m. and I’d just gotten Boolie down to sleep and the boys settled in their beds; once the quake hit, the kids didn’t settle back in until nearly 11:00, and Ben and I were wakeful most of the night.

Because sometimes a smallish quake is a foreshock. And the idea of being at the epicenter of a large quake scared the living shit out of both of us.

It was our kids’ first earthquake; the last palpable quake was before Ben and I were married. Sam was worried sick and crying a little. Matt didn’t say much and appeared to blow it off. And Boolie was convinced it was caused by the airplanes going in and out of nearby John Wayne Airport. Took a little while to calm Sam down, but we piled all the kids into our bed and eventually got down to sleep.

I’m still a little edgy today. That sucker was a wake-up call for sure. Here’s hoping the next big quake isn’t on our piddly little local fault line.

It’s not often that I take an interest in mainstream entertainment, but if you have access to HBO, may I recommend the miniseries culled from David McCullough’s John Adams which begins Sunday, March 16? I know whereof I speak, because for the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading the book, and although I’m hardly a devoted scholar of history, it’s a fascinating study of the times.

Having been born in Philadelphia, I grew up rather steeped in Colonial America and the Revolutionary War. The Liberty Bell was as familiar and common as mud to me; I knew John Hancock’s signature almost as well as my father’s; Washington’s Crossing and Valley Forge were common, almost obligatory, school field trip destinations; and I knew Betsy Ross’ house from doorsill to attic. But I saw those places through a schoolgirl’s eyes, and the Revolution and early America seemed magical and innocent. The Adams book was most revealing.

You think America is partisan today? You should have seen it in 1800, when public figures were slamming each other with a fervor that make today’s Dems and Repubs look like lilies of the field. The press was so vitriolic as to make today’s news outlets seem beatific. The U.S. hasn’t gone to hell in a handbasket at all — well, it has. Of course it has. But not in the sense of everyone being divisive, suspicious and libelous. That is simply business as usual.

Anyway, check out John Adams if you get a chance. Oh, come on, do you really give a shit about Idol anyway? I promise you this is entertainment of a higher order, AND equally as scandalous and contentious.

As is well known, I have been lusting after an Oregon Scientific wireless weather station with rain gauge for, like, forever. Family finances being what they are, however, I can’t exactly sell Ben on the idea; there are bills and expenses far more important than the satisfaction of my lust for accurate barometric readings, wind speeds and rainfall totals.

However, I have just been informed by my local National Weather Service webpage that Uncle Sam wants me. The San Diego NWS wants Orange County volunteers with complete weather stations and supporting software to feed in their local readings, thereby aiding in the accurate recording and prediction of weather data in the region.

I tried to sell it to Ben: I don’t want this weather station for me. I want it for AMERICA!

He wasn’t buying. But you have to admit, it was a nice try. And if I get an unexpected chunk of money anytime in the near future, there damned well is a weather station in my future. I may no longer support the current President or the Iraq War, but the National Weather Service is an American institution I can feel good about — anything that justifies the acquisition of expensive weather gadgets has GOT to be a good thing.

It’s happened: Sam has learned to use the Internet.

He’s been using a computer since kindergarten, but now he can read and write well enough to type a search term into my Google window. And what does he use it for? So far, to shop for action figures, of course. I’ve got to get up to speed on parental controls and filters and so on, before he discovers porn or even (God help us) anime. I have to harass him to get the hell off the computer and do his homework.

Simultaneously, although I have a general “no video games” policy, he dug out my ancient Game Boy (from 1992, in the old putty grey color) with the Tetris cartridge in it, and has become addicted to Tetris, just like his mother and father before him. It’s as though some mysterious electronics hormone has kicked in, and suddenly he’s a full-fledged tech-head geek. In a strange way, I’m proud of him for it, probably because I’m such a poindexter myself.

We got over an inch of rain Thursday night into Friday night, and another storm is forecast to come through this weekend. We are ecstatic. By happenstance, the rain stopped just long enough for me to pick up Sam from school and get him into the car, whereupon it started raining again. Why is it raining? he asked, and I answered God is crying because Green Bay lost. I was only partially kidding.

Today it’s clear, and although the mountains didn’t see a lot of snow — this storm came up from the south, remember, so not as cold as usual — we’ve got one snow-capped peak visible, which I believe to be Mt. San Jacinto. (And yes, it IS that smoggy in the Inland Empire.)

I’m hoping for a cold storm next time out, because after a good cold storm, the mountains are clearly visible (as opposed to shrouded in smog), and covered in snow, and every time this happens I nearly wreck the car because I spend too much time admiring the snowy mountains while I’m driving. I’m still knocked out by the So Cal mountains after 23 years, mostly because I last lived in Delaware, the flattest state in the Union.

I love the rain, and I’m delighted that we are having rain this early in the season, because usually the storms don’t start coming through until after Christmas. Maybe the drought is finally over. I’m crossing my fingers.

Ben and I woke this morning around 5 a.m. to the gorgeous sound of rain falling. Is there anything in the world as comforting as cuddling with your loved ones in a big warm bed while the rain falls outside? It was harder than usual to get up this morning.

This storm was a bit unexpected, and odd. While our storms usually come down the Pacific coast from Alaska, this one came northward from Baja California in Mexico. (Hey, I’ll take it where I can get it.) The forecast was only for a small chance of showers today and tonight, but the storm took a funny turn and hit us both head-on and early. The rain is expected to continue all day and into tonight.

So cool. If we’re lucky, we’ll get more rain out of this storm alone than we had all the winter of 2006-2007.

Footnote for California residents: Effective January 1, 2006, California law requires all vehicles to turn on their headlights when there is rain sufficient to require the use of windshield wipers. Vehicle Code Section 24400. Get with the program, people.