random ice storm thoughts

• The fact that the CIA is advertising jobs in a huge ad on the NY Times homepage is a bad sign about the future of U.S. (so-called) intelligence services, don't you think?

• If Norm Coleman had won in Minnesota by a couple hundred votes, he'd be encouraging his opponent to accept the results and move on gracefully rather than pushing for a costly and time-consuming recount. He might even say repeatedly that if he were in his opponent's position, he'd do just that honorable thing, and allow Minnesotans and the U.S. Senate to move on and get down to business. Oh wait, that actually happened. Bummer for him that he's now down by a couple hundred votes, and pushing for a recount of the recount. Can't have it both ways, Norm. (OK, fine, I suppose you can, but do you realize just how much of a jackass you look?)

• Whenever, in the coming months, I need to be cheered up, I will look back on yesterday evening. Froggoddess owed dinner to Mr. Schoolbus for picking her up at the airport, so she decided to take him to the coziest, happiest restaurant around, and emailed a few others to see if we'd like to join. And we did, and then Froggoddess' pseudo-big-brother stopped by to have a drink at the bar, not even knowing we were there. So we pulled up an extra chair. And then the Pickle Man happened in, so we pulled up another chair. And we ate marvelous food, and toasted to everything we could, until eventually the nearby tables started toasting with us, because clearly there was so much to celebrate. Just your ordinary, extraordinary Tuesday evening.

• And thank God for my warm and wonderful community, because the world is so f*cked up. The fact that Israel will now hold a brief daily pause in bombing and shooting in order to allow a tiny bit of humanitarian aid through to Gazans before it resumes bombing and shooting at them is the ultimate illustration of the insanity of this conflict. I have been wanting to write something, something much longer than this and more thoughtful and descriptive of the absolute anguish I feel about what Israel (and the U.S., by proxy) is doing to Gaza and to itself and to the world through this assault. I still want to. And I still don't know where to start or what to say. Maybe soon.