Random Esquire

1.  I heard Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer today.  I just gotta ask, when is there ever a warm, moist air mass moving over the North Pole on Christmas Eve?  Is fog really an issue at the North Pole?  So I decided to figure it out.  Turns out that because the air is so bitterly cold, it takes a really small amount of water in the air before it saturates, resulting in fog.  But not of water droplets – of ice crystals.  And this is not an infrequent thing.  So I guess the song does sort of make sense.

2.  And then I realized that I’d spent far too much time thinking about that.  Because, really, is the fog part where the song loses credibility for me?  Not the anthropomorphic reindeer?  Or Santa or the LED nose animal?   No.  See, I quickly pinpoint the fog and question that.

Sometimes, my brain is useless.

3.  You may have heard – I have a new service that I’m offering.  But you’ll have to visit QT‘s blog Friday morning to hear more about it.

Speaking of, check out that little Meg Ryan.

4.  I am the product of miscegenation.  This means that rarely a week will go by when someone does not ask me about my ethnicity.  However, I fully admit that it sometimes gets tiresome.  I would probably not mind except that most people seem to think that this is an acceptable way to inquire about your ethnicity:  “What are you?”

Sometimes, because I have decided to be playfully difficult, the conversation goes like this:

Person: “What are you?”

RE:  “American.”  Big smile.

Person: “No, I mean, like, where are you from?”

RE: “Oh!  Sorry – I’m from Chicago.”  Big smile.

Person: “Where were you born?”

RE: “Ohhh, Minnesota.”  Winning smile.

Person: “But what language do you speak?”

RE: “…English.”  Confused look.

Person: “I meant other than English.”

RE:  “Oh!  French.”

I don’t look French – even though I am 1/4 French.  I do appreciate the curiosity but sometimes, I want to make something up.  So I’ve decided to start saying, “I’m Caraway.  Perhaps you’ve heard of our seeds.”

5.  I realize that I have shifted this posture to Little Filthy. Once, while dining al fresco with the pooch under the table, a man walked by, did a double take at him and clearly wondered what breed he was.  The beast is pug-chihuahua.  The man said slowly, “What….is he?”

I said slowly, “He…is   a     dog…”