I have a functional toilet and all my stuff! Except my spare keys which they were supposed to leave in the apartment. Hmph.

I don't own enough blue to justify buying blue shoes (and I think this really just applies to Navy--lighter blues look fine with black IMO).

And frankly, how often can you find blue shoes that match anyway? Feh. I usually try to pair the navy with something that has black or brown in it to dictate the shoes I wear. (Or I just wear my bluegreen Danskos, but those aren't for the level of formal that would require navy shoes in the first place.)

A travel story in a knitting blog: [link]

It was Saturday night in Paris and it was raining, and Jennifer wasn't feeling well, so she stayed in the hotel while Amber and Shannon and I headed off to dinner ... at 10:30 p.m. (j'adore le French nightowls!) By 11 p.m. we had found a dark, tiny fondue restaurant in the Latin Quarter that looked like a lively and inviting house of cheese.

We had a big dinner, steak fondue (you cook strips of meat in hot oil) and cheese fondue ("keep stirring the pot!" we were reprimanded often) and there was wine and crusty bread and chocolate fondue for dessert, all of it delicious.

We left the restaurant around 2 a.m. and walked back to the hotel. It was raining and we were on a teensy cobblestone road so we walked single-file to accomodate our umbrellas, with Shannon leading the parade, Amber behind her, and me pulling up the peace train at the end.

It was dark and late, but it's Paris, and it's a tourist area. The street was empty when a group of about seven men approached us. They were drunk, and they were a little too old to be harassing tourist girls. One of the men ducked under the umbrella with me and one tried to chat up Amber. The most aggressive of the group was still carrying a beer can in his hand, and he approached Shannon and began saying some really inappropriate things to her. Mean things. It all happened so fast, their tone changed -- it was late after all, and they were very drunk -- and Shannon started walking faster. A major intersection was just a head, a large street with more foot traffic.

We walked faster.

They kept pace.

The one under the umbrella with me was annoying but harmless. The aggressive one was trouble, though, he was about six feet tall, walking almost side-by-side with Shannon, and she was scared and tensed up, and he reached out...

... and without even knowing I had done it, in one split-second, I closed my umbrella, shoved the annoying one away from me, closed the gap between me and the agressive one, and I proceeded to whack him upside the head with every single ounce of repressed anger and rage and disgust and moral outrage I carry around in my five-foot-almost-four self, and I'm just saying ya'll. That is a lot of repressed anger. I am Southern. Recently divorced and wronged. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YA'LLS BULLSHIT AND I HAVE AN UMBRELLA.

"Leave her alone!"

HUGE LOUD THUD OVER THE BACK OF THE HEAD.

As I stood in indignant rage in the middle of a Parisian street like Mary Poppins gone wrong -- umbrella at the ready -- the one formerly known as "the aggressive one" cowered over in the street, staggered and clutched his head. His six friends turned and immediately RAN IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, leaving him to fend for himself with three crazy American broads.

He slumped over, holding his head, the half-empty beer can rolled down the street.

"You... you shut up!" he whined at me. He whimpered. Amber and Shannon laughed at him.

But something about seeing this big, drunk bully cowered over and holding his head and yet still he wouldn't shut up ... it made me INSANE. With umbrella outstretched, I chased after him IN THE STREETS OF PARIS as I shouted possibly the classiest words ever said by a woman abroad, "I'm from Los Angeles, motherf***er! I'll bust your ass!!"

And he ran as fast and far as he could, and the Mary Poppins Gang was born that night in a cobblestone picture-perfect street in Paris, and I can probably kiss goodbye any future gainful employment at the Los Angeles Visitors' Bureau.

But the fondue was really, really good.

I'm not home yet. In fact, I haven't even left work yet.

Why isn't it Friday yet?

I want to send her a class protector award v.2.

Don't fuck with knitters, man. They'll poke you.

sumi! I was very worried! But, the fact that it was NOT an non-elimwas the big surprise!I won't miss Lake at all!

TAR: "Might think our relationship is whacked" Ya THINK, Michelle?

That story cracks me up. Especially the repressed anger explanation in conjunction with invoking LAness.

I didn't even know Allyson was in Paris.

TAR: I was so relieved! And seriously, should having an elimination in a leg with a fast forward be a twist? But I will not miss Lake and Michelle. The promo has me worried that the hippies have hit the fatal fatigue level.