Who's sleepy?

This is on CNN today. Click to see MAJOR cuddling material. Sorry if you have to watch the anti-drug ad first.

Wow!

Congratulations to Kev, who just finished the Boston Marathon! Yay Kevin!

Possum!

Ummm... I'm sitting in the Carolina Room, surfing Craigs List, looking for a used-but-in-great-shape set of patio furniture, and right now -- RIGHT NOW -- there is one baby possum snuffling around in the cedar chips lining the planting bed outside one of my windows.

He just came strolling across the courtyard from god knows where, beady eyes shining in the light from the room, hairless, pale tail almost glow-in-the-dark, his little pointed nose headed straight for a place to root for... what? What do possums eat? Bugs? Grubs? The foundation of my house? I have no idea.

If I open the door, will he hiss at me? Leap at my throat from some dark corner? Hypnotize me and make me stare into his insane, violent little face?

Do possums have opposable thumbs? I'm locking the door right now. He doesn't have the key, and seeing as how he's only about 9 inches long, I don't think he can reach the handle, anyway, unless he leaps. God, that would be scary -- a possum leaping right at the door, plastering his little marsupial body against the glass, scratching to get in. Night of the Living Possum.

Can he be rabid? Maybe he'd make a good pet. But then I might end up with a possum posse (is the plural of possum possi?) looking for their missing comrade.

My back yard is full of wildlife friends. Lizard friends, squirrel friends, bird friends and now baby possum friend.

I got no bear

No Bear of Friday this week. Just a few tidbits:

1. No lie, after Papa's speech the other day, Bush said "Thanks, Your Holiness. Awesome speech."

Awesome indeed.

2. Jen will be here Sunday and then Peter and Kevin arrive Wednesday evening for a weekend of fun, frivolity, Southern food and Slingshotty goodness. The Slingshot is a beachside attraction.

Its name is not in the least bit misleading.

You are strapped into a seat that's attached to huge rubber bandy things, and you bounce until you reach the upper limit of the rubber bands, about 200 feet above the pavement, flipping and turning at the peak of the bounce.

I cannot find a good picture of it, so I will see if I can take one this weekend.

I won't ride the Slingshot, of course, because seriously, I don't want my heart to stop just yet. But Peter and Kevin said they would, and for some reason, they are less fearful of that than of parasailing.

To me, parasailing is far less frightening because if a cord breaks, you're just going to fall into the ocean, not be fired like a human cannonball into a neighboring resort tower or fall straight down to the hard, unforgiving pavement.

But hey, as long as I get to watch... just kidding.

I'm just afraid that if an accident does happen, I'll have to write the damn story about my friends becoming severely handicapped projectiles.

3. I figured out that the mystery flowers in my yard are actually some kind of lily. Hooray for lillies. I also have bush roses (not George Bush roses) and some pretty purple things that might be weeds but I don't care.

Marking another birthday

My little mommy would have been 85 today. I unpacked some of my favorite pictures this weekend, of her teaching me to swim, of her when she was young in Canada, of her with her mother, with my sister. of her and my dad in Hawaii. She was a really beautiful woman in so many different ways.

Pandas of Friday

Happy Friday!

En fuego

It's rare, but some days I get those interviews that really get me fired up to do a big project. I had one today. I LOVE when someone chips through my cynicism AND gives me a whole different perspective.

Yay!

If only he would have given me chocolate, too.

My life as a homeowner

There was a time when you could look through my purse and find all manner of fun things.

Now, what you'll find at the bottom of my bag is a paint key, Lowe's receipts and picture-hanging kits.

How chic.

Let's play a game. It's called "What's That Growing in Lorena's Yard?"

I'll describe something in my yard and you tell me what it could be. And let me just say up front, the answer is never going to be "pot." Weeds, maybe, but not the chronic kind.

OK. Here's this week's unnamed flora: It comes from a bulb, grows on a thick stalk about two feet tall, and has long, slender, plain, pale green leaves. The closed flower is kind of a dark, almost rusty color, but when open, it looks like an alstromeria inside, only bigger, with thicker petals.

Your guess is as good as mine! I'll try to find a prize if you get it right. of course, I might never know if you ARE right, because I don't know what it is, either!

Another letter to Bob Cesca

Dear King of Snark --

I just finished reading "Senator McSellOut," on the HuffPo, and I cannot wait to read your book (available for pre-order on your blog, I see, as well as on Amazon.com -- good on ya!).

Beware of congratulatory yummy cake and Sith choke holds.

You rock.

L.

The Bear of Friday

It's not arctic here, but for some reason, I'm fascinated with the polar variety of bear.

Also, this one looks like how I feel today. Cautious, and ready to fight. Or maybe run. The point is, oh, I don't know what the point is.

Just for fun, go here to find out which Stephen Sondheim musical you are.

I am, according to the test, "A Little Night Music." It says I am "a neglected masterpiece. Insightful and poignant, you make people laugh and love. You'll even make people question their very outlook on life.. if they ever live to be 80."

Ha!

Another reason to adore The Onion

Ha! The brilliant geniuses at The Onion offer this "editorial," allegedly written by the great Dr. Seuss. Family ties to "Cat in the Hat" aside, of course, I LOVE this.

STOP MAKING MOVIES ABOUT MY BOOKS

On the fourteenth of March, in towns nationwide,
In every cinema, multiplex, on every barnside,
Gleamed another adapting of one of my books,
CGI-ed and digitized by another sly crook.

Horton, my favorite—look how he's been treated!
Stuffed with tinsels and tassels and promptly excreted!
The puns! And the filler! The script fees you must save!
While I tumble and grum-humble around in my grave.


Did you learn all but squat from The Cat In The Hat?
Please tell me you fired the prick who made that.
I would have stopped writing, maybe sold Goodyear tires.
If I knew one dark day I'd costar with Mike Myers.


And Oh!
Oh, dear! Oh!
My poor Grinch, what they've done!
They crammed in live-action and snuffed out all the fun!


It's icky, it's tacky, it's awkward, it's wrong.
The Whos look like ferrets, it's an hour too long.
What a rotten idea to spend millions destroying
This masterful tale kids spent decades enjoying!

But still you keep making them!
Just how do you dare?
Sell my life's work off piecemeal
To every Tom, Dick, and Har'.


Why it's simply an outrage—a crime, you must judge!—
To crap on my books with this big-budget sludge.
My books are for children to learn ones and twos in,
Not commercialous slop for Jim Carrey to ruin.


Have you no respect for the gems of your youth?
To pervert them on screen from Taiwan to Duluth.
Even after you drag my last word through the dirt,
I know you, you pirates,
You'd cut out my heart for a "Thing 1" T-shirt.

For eighty-some years I held you vultures at bay,
knowing just how you'd franchise my good name some day.
Not yet cold in my grave before you starting shooting
the first of my classics you'd acquired for looting.


Mrs. Seuss, that old stoofus, began selling more rights
to Dreamworks, Universal—any hack in her sights.
First The Cat In The Hat and then this, that and Seussical
without a thought to be picky, selectish, or choosical.


So to Audrey, you whore, you sad sack of a wife:
Listen close. Pay attention, for once in your life.
You give Fox In Sox to those sharks who made Elf
And so help me, I'll rise up and kill you myself.


No Sneetches by Sony—
No One Fish: On Ice—
Burn that Hop On Pop II script not one time but twice.
Don't sex up my prose with Alyssa Milano…
And no Green Eggs And Ham with that one-note Romano!


This must stop! This must end! Don't you see what you're doing?
You're defiling the work I spent ages accruing.
And when it's dried up and you've sucked out your pay
There'll be no going back to a simpler day,


When your mom would give Horton a voice extra deep,
And turn the last page as you drifted to sleep.
Instead you'll have boxed sets, shit movies, and… well,
You'll have plenty to watch while you're burning in hell.

Budget retreat, hell yeah!

I'm at the city budget retreat in Pinopolis, S.C. Yes, it's called Pinopolis.

The drive down here from the MB was gorgeous -- all back roads through the woods and swamps, and when you get here (here is about 30 miles away from Charleston), the little town where the retreat is held is picture perfect. Everything is blooming -- there are huge bursts of pink and purple azaleas, even in the most modest house's yards, beautiful white dogwoods everywhere, and Spanish moss and wisteria dripping from the trees. Wisteria is everywhere, even in the swampy areas.

These great houses that date back to the early 1800s, white with black shutters in the low country style, with their giant porches -- this is the kind of place where I'd like to own a house someday.

The road leads to the Santee Cooper conference center, which is a misleading name, because it's really like a giant park with old lakefront "cabins" (that are bigger than my house).

It's starting to get humid here -- we had rain all night, and now it's about 70 and damp. And the air smells like everything that's in bloom. Well, until you get near the paper mill. But that sweet flower smell will stay with me all day. What a great way to wake up, even after a night at the Holiday Sin in Moncks Corner (yes, I spelled that correctly).

It's not even half over and I can't wait to come back next year.