This one is worth the 4.52 minutes.

While I'm waiting for the storm to pass:

I found THIS.

Reece is taking a shower, and when he's dressed we're going to find every pet store in town and look at mice. Then we're going to the Army Surplus store. Again.

Midnight tonight: Harry Potter. Wish me luck.

The Boy

I returned last night from a week's visit to Arkansas and I brought Reece with me! He's staying until Friday, which is the longest visit he's ever had with me, and he's excited to be here. He told me last night before we went to sleep that he couldn't wait to wake up tomorrow and "do stuff." So, that's what we'll be doing: STUFF.

He's so funny. We picked up sandwiches at a nearby sub shop last night and I'd ordered a veggie sub, and he ordered turkey, ham, and cheese. While we were eating, he asked, "you are eating a sub with no meat on it?" When I answered yes, he said, "that's just wrong."

Just in case you were wondering:

It was on this day in 1937 that SPAM came onto the market. The canned meat product from Hormel Foods Corporation was given its name by a contest winner; the prize for his ingenuity was $100. On one occasion, a Hormel spokesperson said the name was short for "Shoulder of Pork and Ham"; on another, a company official said it was a conflation of the words "spice and ham." All sorts of parodic acronyms have circulated over the years, including "Something Posing As Meat." The original recipe, still sold as the "Classic" flavor, contains pork shoulder and ham meat, salt, water, sugar, and sodium nitrate. There's a gelatinous glaze on top, which forms like that after the broth cools down.

Spam sold in the Americas is mostly produced in Austin, Minnesota — "Spam Town USA" and home of the SPAM museum. Hawaii's residents consume more Spam per capita than the residents of any other state, and the canned meat has been nicknamed "The Hawaiian Steak." Spam is the main course in the Israeli Defense Force's combat meal kits, but the pork is replaced by beef so that it's kosher.

There's a Monty Python sketch that came out in 1970 where the actors go into a café and try to order breakfast, but almost everything on the menu contains Spam. One woman doesn't want Spam in her breakfast and gets into an argument with the waitress, who tells her that the menu consists of "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans, Spam, Spam, Spam, and Spam." It's from this Monty Python sketch that "spam" acquired the use so familiar today: unwanted or unsolicited e-mail. The first recorded use of the word in this way is in 1993. It's also become a verb in the English language, for the action of sending out spam.

And the word "spam" itself, untranslated, is now a noun in French, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. The verb "to spam" in German is "spammen"; in Czech the verb is "spamovat"; and in Italian it's "spammare." There's a new Monty Python's musical, SPAMALOT, currently playing in San Francisco.

No explanation needed if you're an AD fan.

Buster: And I'm going to continue dating, Mom.

Michael: It sounds a little bit like 'dating Mom'.

Buster: It's starting to feel a little like it.

Happy Holiday

Can't wait to see this girl next week! She's in Florida now, but will be home about the time I drive down to Arkansas. Planning to stay a week and visit, then I'm bringing Reece back to Columbia with me for a week. We have tickets for the first showing of the new Harry Potter movie on the 15th at midnight. I don't know which feature excites Reece more: the movie or the fact that he's getting to go to a midnight movie. This old auntie will have to drink a couple of espresso shots to stay awake that late.