A few minutes ago I sat down, after having slaved working to get a loaf of french bread into the breadmaker, and thought I’d see what was on cable TV in terms of movies. I punched the guide and saw something about Tennessee Williams and found the channel. But something was wrong, weirdly wrong. I had grasped the name Tennessee Williams when what was written was Treat Williams and the movie is about pirates capturing a liner where the passengers have been eaten by sea monsters.

Kind of leaves you stunned, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, everyone here at the PBC&R is cultured enough to not throw Diet Cokes at the TV . . .  Or maybe no one was actually drinking anything.

Yes, I believe the chow mein from Wednesday did me in on Thursday – I was pretty much a MSG blob. I would not say that I am any less blobbish today, but perhaps there is more energy in my blobhood today. Summer and I have already had a go round about who is going to go and get her clothes – and I want you to know I sat my sofa. I did not even say, “Your legs are younger than mine.” I just sent the psychic vibes that yes, indeedy, I would let her go through on her threat to go to school naked.

This morning I found an email from Der Bingle about just how much a trillion is. If this were hands on math in first grade, kids would need more than a few colored marbles.

I came across this and thought you would enjoy it:

A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation that yields a sense of the size of the trillion dollars.  It’s one thing to juggle exponents; it’s another to conceptualize how much a trillion really is.

A stack of 4 bills is 0.5 millimeters thick, so ten bills are 1.25 mm thick.  Let’s round down to 1.2 mm for a stack of ten bills.

Therefore, a trillion dollars is ten billion (10 to the 10) $100 dollar bills, corresponding to a stack of bills 1200 km or 740 miles high!  If the bills were $1 bills, there would be10 to the 12 (a trillion) of them, and they’d form a stack 74,000 miles high, or 30% the distance to the Moon!

Suppose the bills were joined end-to-end.  Dollar bills are about 6 inches or 15 cm long, so 10 billion $100 dollar bills would form a belt 1.5 x 106  (1.5 million) km long.  That’s about 900,000 miles long, almost four times the Earth-Moon distance.

And if you string a trillion $1 bills end-to-end, you’d get a belt o’ bills a hundred times longer than that, or about 90 million miles.  You’re past Mars’s orbit and entering the asteroid belt going away from the Sun, and in the other direction, you’ve about reached the Sun!

Finally, finally, I made it back to the mall. I have not been there since one week before Christmas. Why is this? Oh, weather and shingles and weather and shingles. But today I was there and I ate some lunch.

Not here:

Not here:

But here:

And I had a big carton of chow mein because I love chow mein; I didn’t know that I loved chow mein until last year, but now I know that I love chow mein. I love it with a fork.

They had penguins at the fountain and I took a picture with my phone and was going to take more with my camera on the way back, but I forgot and went another way.

And, alas, Yankee Candle did not have a sale.

Yes, yes, I came back here . . . Sydney was here, dontcha know.

I sat today with this present in my hands and watched the light play on the inlay.

When two people were in California, they brought it home to me.

This morning Cameron needed to leave for school a little early – I learned at the last moment – and I figured Summer would be a few minutes yet. So I took him and came back for her. I met my son coming out of the driveway on his way to take her himself – seems she had a hissy fit. I found this out later when I returned with Sydney from the fairgrounds. She was so mad at me she hid Grover in a place – and I am quoting here – “Where even she ( me) will never find him.” Funny thing is that I got back to take her before our usual departure time.  And, as for Grover, well, I think he’ll turn up . . . and I don’t think he will be happy. Frankly, if I find her with a couple of black eyes, I think I will just vacuum the blue fur DNA right off of her and tell the investigation officer, “I saw nothing . . . nothing.”

Uh, about the Peeps that are too cute to eat . . . Well, it seems that unless they are eaten, they will turn to the Dark Side and become black bears that are not so cute . . . and are also crunchy. The fellow who sent them – Lonzopalooza, Der Bingle’s brother – called to pass on the warning. To say to us: To be eaten – That is their destiny.

But they are so cute . . . maybe we can wait until they start to get a little bit stale.

Okay, yes, he is already dead; and, yes, he was playing a role in a movie. But, gosh darn, I cannot bear to see him in his role of betrayal in “Gaslight” –  even though I am watching it now. And I’m not the only one hear at the PBC&R who feels like that. For instance, Maxwoo, our beloved counselor who gives comforting advice to us when we are troubled, agrees.

Maxwoo.

Der Bingle’s brother, for whom we have to think of a good name that captures his spirit, sent some special treats because he knows how Peeps can bring Der Bingle to Nirvana. However, not even he can eat such cute little guys. Look at their little faces.

In pictures.

Bookcase upstairs with Cameron and Grandpa.

A picture of one of Moo’s dear friends.

Tarping

Oh, goodbye, dear Bob.

*********************

And, now, five pictures of the group gathering for a group shot.

I was going to tape this on the refrigerator with the title of this post written beneath it.

Der Bingle taped it up with “No Coke for You, Summer” written beneath.

Oh, my goodness . . . Katie, bar the door.