That hat I do not love. I will maintain with my several sequined evening bags that I hardly ever use.

ION, there was a protest outside my building just now, with a bagpiper playing "Lift Every Voice and Sing"! The flyer was something about someone getting evicted, and then I was talking to a woman who works for the agency being protested. Apparently it's some housing organization that does squatters' rights or something, and they've gotten this squatter building converted into something official, but apparently the rules say the tenants can decide who lives there, and they don't want this one guy. Thus, protest!

Ha! In that sequins article there's a line

instantly transfixed with Hervé Léger's bondage dress

but the picture shows a BANDAGE dress! Much less intriguing than the sequin-spangled leather-and-cuffs thing I was expecting.

Bah. I waited too long to reserve a rental car for Thanksgiving, so the places I usually go to are all out. So I have to go to O'Hare, where the City taxes are like 20%. Plus I don't get a weekend rate, so it's $250 to rent a Focus for two days. (Usually I end up spending around $100.)

Tom, since you have to get it at the airport anyway, try carrentals.com. I've gotten crazy good deals there.

Bah, have to work late tonight. Don't wanna.

Have I mentioned that the editorial writers at the WSJ are insane?

WSJ columnist blames financial crisis on the War on Christmas.»

In his Wall Street Journal column today, Daniel Henninger argues that the “unprecedented economic ruin” that many Americans are facing is a casualty of the War on Christmas because “a nation whose people can’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ is a nation capable of ruining its own economy”:

Notwithstanding the cardboard Santas who seem to have arrived in stores this year near Halloween, the holiday season starts in seven days with Thanksgiving. And so it will come to pass once again that many people will spend four weeks biting on tongues lest they say “Merry Christmas” and perchance, give offense. Christmas, the holiday that dare not speak its name.

This year we celebrate the desacralized “holidays” amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin — fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man’s theory: A nation whose people can’t say “Merry Christmas” is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.

After cataloging a series of complex economic factors that do relate to the financial crisis, Henninger concludes that what really went wrong is that “the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America” led to “subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers.”

Unrelatedly, may I propose:

Natter 63: Happy Holidays, Daniel Henninger!

but the picture shows a BANDAGE dress!

Hah! I thought I misread it as bondage and was being a dirty girl. But my hands (and mind) are clean.

I like sequins. I have none. One day not too far from now I should remedy that.

My Roomba is currently doing its scheduled clean. I hope this makes a dent in my dust mite allergy. Someone mentioned a spray that kills mites ded. Can anyone make a recommendation?

I didn't triple post. My Roomba did it.

I have a sequined cowgirl hat!

[link]

Even a roomba feels like too much work to use most of the time. I have to clean it out so much and that's a pain in the ass.

When I was diagnosed with my allergies I was told to vacuum every day. A Roomba is the only way I can approximate that.

My living room/kitchen is now tidy enough for Roomba to go nuts, but the bedroom is a tip.