I can never work out what to wear ankle boots with, so I'm safe from their lure.

I pretty much live in ankle boots in the winter. I wear them with jeans and sweaters and such.

Happy Birthday, d!

Vortex, that coat RAWKS!

Pix, please share your good news!

ChiKat, grading ~ma to you and Break-a-leg to your students. First quarter in this county ends next week and exams are next Thursday and Friday.

If all they do is stand on the stage and fart, their parents would still love every second of it.

This is what we say about one of the other high schools in this county. I could be doing Shakespeare with Julie Taymor as a guest director and costume designer, Ming Cho Lee designing the set and lighting and Patrick Stewart guest staring and we would get a 'press release' in the paper with half the information wrong. Lecanto could have a farting contest and it would be front page with full color photos.

Can I have a "medically necessary vacation"?

Still - traditional Thai desserts? Crap.)

Does mango and sticky rice not count? I think that's coconut milk, though. And it may be something that americans eat.

Well, I did say "outwith fresh fruit", in my dissing of Thai desserts - and I'd extend that to include deep fried bananas, as well as mango-with-sticky-rice. These things are pretty tasty.

But if a nation has basically ONE DESSERT (mango and sticky rice being the ubiquitous dessert here), then even if that dessert is quite nice, I think that they still can be considered to suck at desserts, in general terms. Which is fair enough, since heaven knows they KICK ASS at all the non-dessert elements of cuisine.

Mango and sticky rice is all well and good once in a while, but if that is YOUR ONLY DESSERT OPTION FOR EVERY MEAL (unless you go the grated-ice-topped-with-sweetcorn-or-kidney-beans-or-cubes-of-black-jelly route...which, frankly, not top of my list of yummy options), then its charms would quickly pale. And pretty much any dessert I can think of off the top of my head - Tiramasu, apple pie with custard, rhubarb crumble, chocolate fudge cake, sherry trifle, raspberry cheesecake, treacle tart, lemon meringue pie, apricot and almond strudel, profiterols, molten chocolate cake with vanilla icecream and caramel sauce, knickerbocker glory, om ali - would totally take it in a dessert smackdown.

er. imho.

Oh. My. God. What a gigantic clusterfuck:

Dallas district fires 375 teachers

Campus by campus, hundreds of Dallas teachers learned their fate Thursday in whatever manner their principals saw fit. Some retained a small measure of dignity; others were forced to clean out their desks in front of stunned students.

The layoffs were expected at the end of the day but some teachers reported getting the news as early as first period. At Pinkston High School, drafting teacher Tom Warner, 45, was called out of class, fired, and sent back to pack his belongings as students looked on.

“I was blindsided,” Mr. Warner said.

Tiramasu, apple pie with custard, rhubarb crumble, chocolate fudge cake, sherry trifle, raspberry cheesecake, treacle tart, lemon meringue pie, apricot and almond strudel, profiterols, molten chocolate cake with vanilla icecream and caramel sauce, knickerbocker glory, om ali - would totally take it in a dessert smackdown.

This list is made of Awesomeness. I'm having serious dessert cravings now.

Dallas district fires 375 teachers

This is so aweful! My heart goes out to these teachers. Many of these must have attended the same sensitivity tratining at DD.

billytea!!!! Best announcement ever, first of all. More importantly, OMGWTFBABYPENGUIN! All the congrats in the world to you and Biyi. It couldn't happen to a nicer couple. So happy for you!

Billytea! Fantastic news!

Eeee! There's a babyteabee on the way!! Congratulations!