Everybody wants to be a hero.

How do you define hero?

Were you at gunpoint?

Wacky Food of the Week: Last year, Tuesday Morning Quarterback did an item on Moto, the trendy, preposterous Chicago dining establishment that charges $165 per head for meals that include edible paper and "goat cheese snow." Moto calls itself a "postmodern restaurant," which TMQ speculates means a restaurant where no food can be said with assurance to taste good or bad. Here is what Moto food looks like. Recently came word from The New York Times that Moto requires its chefs to sign nondisclosure agreements -- we wouldn't want the recipe for goat cheese snow falling into the hands of the North Koreans! The really strange thing about Moto is not the food, but that it's difficult to get reservations.

Official Brother Frank Easterbrook, a habitué of fine Chicago restaurants, reports that Moto has been surpassed in price, absurdity and difficulty of obtaining reservations by Alinea, which charges $195 a head for a menu that includes "frozen and chewy" strawberries. All this nonsense began with El Bulli in Spain, which has won several world's best restaurant awards and is where Euro-trendies expend about $300 a head for an evening of such delicacies as seaweed omelet in a martini glass. El Bulli's Web site -- which has links that are impossible to copy -- declares "a new way of serving food" in which "diners themselves participate in the process." Are there restaurants where the diners don't participate? Also, the El Bulli Web site announces that "Decontextualization, irony, spectacle, performance are completely legitimate, as long as they are not superficial but respond to, or are closely bound up with, a process of gastronomic reflection."

People are so wacky, Jacky!

What phase is the moon in?

And where's Lippy? She claims there is an astrological occurence that coincides with online community members going especially bats, but I can't recall what it is.

I'm sitting here making piddly little copy editor corrections on the manuscript (Annoyances) and Joan's choice of music went from Back Street Boys to a Christmas comp I made 8 years ago.

What phase is the moon in?

And where's Lippy? She claims there is an astrological occurence that coincides with online community members going especially bats, but I can't recall what it is.

None of the people I spoke to/bought from at two greenmarkets today - many of whom have known me for years - saw fit to point out that I had a big honking clip in my hair.

Mark my words. The next time you visit the greenmarkets I'm betting that every third vendor will be sporting identical hair clips. And the trend will be set.

The most bizarre thing, I thought, was that he had the Listerine at the ready, as if this whole sequence of peculiar events had been meticulously planned.

And probably will grope you as well.

And, Rebecca, you can't blame Nathan for this one. The only reason my choice of music went from Backstreet Boys to a very odd Christmas mix was because Rancho Gordo, bless his little heart, does NOT mark his CDs. And since he took ALL the CDs home with him and left me with mostly unmarked ones, I've had to listen to everything to figure out wtf is on each CD.

The Backstreet Boys cd was his?

Mark my words. The next time you visit the greenmarkets I'm betting that every third vendor will be sporting identical hair clips. And the trend will be set.

What phase is the moon in?

Waxing gibbous. Apparently it makes people batshit insane. I never knew.

i've known for a week that i'd have to fly out to l.a next week for 2 days for a funeral, but couldn't purchase the tickets until the date was completely confirmed*. this evening it finally was and so i went to orbitz to check on rates from minneapolis. as expected, with less than 4 days remaining before the trip, non-stop flights were through the roof, and the only one-stop flights i could find with reasonable departure times and connections were also pretty expensive. for a lark, i decided to see how much it would cost if i purchased two separate one-way tickets, and what do you know? only $50 more than normal low rates, and i get to fly out midday both ways, and the return leg is a non-stop. i guess there must be someone somewhere who understands american airline ticketing policies.


*the variable being how long it would take the coroner's office to release the body (ended up taking four).

FWIW, I like Kayak.com as a flight-search tool.

I saw an electric yellow Ikea truck tooling around yesterday. It has clear walls on 3 sides. Inside you can see an Ikea decorated den with furniture, curtains and overhead light.

I saw a UPS truck from overhead yesterday. Their truck roofs aren't painted brown. Another illusion shattered.

Do I spy.....BEANIE BABIES??????

Just for the heck of it, and to keep your husband off balance, I recommend that, when they Beanie Babies DO arrive, you should artfully arrange them all over the bedroom and tell him that it's your newest decorating idea!!!