Odds and Ends Thursday 40

It’s been rainy this week, which has worked out conveniently because my fan stopped working. It’s also been quite inconvenient because there’s been no running water in my house since Sunday. And now that the rain has let up, it’s hot in my house and there’s still no running water. There were times in college (and after) when there were dirty dishes in the sink for a month, but in college there was also a host of fast food to aid in the kitchen neglect. In Samoa, I live out of my kitchen for nearly every meal, and this no tap water thing is not cool. Here are some other odds and ends from the week:

• Pop quiz: You have a pitcher of lemonade in the refrigerator, but all your cups and glasses are in the sink waiting to be washed. What do you do?
  
• On the plus side: commenter John Brown linked to me from his blog yesterday. Probably because I used the phrase "public diplomacy".
  On the minus side: He had to “sic” my spelling of “Chargé D’Affaires”. Twice.
  On the plus side: He only actually needed to “sic” me once. “d’Affaires” was spelled correctly (Chargé has been updated.).
  On the minus side: He stuck John William Waterhouse’s “Echo and Narcissus” (pictured at right) in the middle of my quotation.
  On the plus side: I’m a twentysomething. It’s my job to be narcissistic.
  
• Pluses win.
  
• There’s was a student in 10.1 last year, Hiromi. I like to think that if she was a “Hello Kitty” character, her name would be Hirohirohiromi.
  
• Given I’m the only computer teacher at my school, I’ve talked to The Powers That Be, and we won’t be offering Computer Studies to the year 9s and 10s. It’s too much for me. You can rest easy, Sara.
  
• Scout has yet to kill a lizard. I did catch her batting one around the kitchen floor a few months back, but when I pulled her away, it eventually scampered behind the bathroom sink.
  
• Based on the recommendation of my favorite “Fresh Air” book critic Maureen Corrigan, I sent my mom Stiegg Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” for her birthday last year. After she read it, she sent it to me. In an almost O.Henry-esque gesture, she and I unknowingly sent each other the sequel, “The Girl Who Played with Fire” for Christmas. By then, I’d given Phil “Dragon Tattoo.” While he was in New Zealand, he exchanged it for “Played with Fire.” So now we’re all in the same place, ready to move on to the final book, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” except it’s not yet available in America. This is especially aggravating for Phil and me because we saw it for sale in New Zealand and Australia, respectively.
  
• “Hornet’s Nest” and Slate Bourbon. Australia’s got all the cool stuff. Oh, and kangaroos.
  
• The water just came on briefly (I can hear it when the toilet tank starts to refill), so I rushed to the kitchen to fill the water filter. While I was standing there, the cat crawled into the shelves beneath my sink and pulled out a set of my spare keys and started trying to eat them. And then I thought to myself, “Oh right. This is why people put doors on their cupboards.”
  
• A bunch of us were sitting around Zodiac last Friday, and I said something about how I looking forwar to the school year, but I’m a little worried because my year 13s were the most fun, and now they’ll be gone. Blakey replied by saying she’d made a similar comment to a teacher at her school and the teacher told her, “Don’t worry. They don’t get personalities until year 13.” So apparently last year’s moderately enjoyable year 12s are going to bloom soon.
  
• Answer to pop quiz: You pick the lone ant out of the top glass, fill it with lemonade, and then try not to think about what you’re doing as you sip from the glass.

That’s all I got for today. I hope you’re well. Pictures below.

I went to the fish market at 5:45 a.m. last Sunday with 82ers Rachel and Lili. This is pre-dawn Apia.

The fish market. It's the only picture I took, it's blurry. The lady here gave me a very dirty look once she figured out where the flash had come from.

The cross-section of tuna I bought.

The cross-section of tuna carved into steaks.