Everything crossed for you guys, Sparky! I'll repost your link on my fb today, just in case.

My poor old diabetic kitty, Swifty, was all wobbly in his back legs this morning. He was otherwise alert but it is worrisome. He couldn't jump on the couch and he kind of dragged himself upstairs. He's at the vet now. The vet tech said sometimes the diabetes causes numbness in their limbs so maybe it's that? Hope whatever passes quickly. That guy loves to jump on stuff!

My commute is now 17 miles and about 25 minutes there/30-35 home. Unless traffic is really backed up on the beltway. I miss my 5 mi/12 minute commute a lot. Mostly where I was working though. That commute could be 40 minutes on the way home if traffic was bad. I do NOT miss my commute to Columbia which ended up regularly being an hour or more home every night. That sucked. And no public transit at all! (To here I could take the subway and a bus if I really needed to.)

Awesome video of the President quieting a crying baby. Seriously cute.

the best part is the smug look he gives his wife. They are SO CUTE.

They are SO CUTE.

Totes.

I hope Swifty's ok, lisah.

I'm putting off serious housecleaning.

So Summer begins 10:16 a.m. board time. Astronomical Summer, anyway. Meteorological Summer begins June 1 and ends August 31st.

When I was a kid, it felt like Summer began when Summer vacation began, which was usually the very end of May or maybe June 1st or 2nd. School began in early September, so that was the end of Summer.

So when does it feel like Summer begins? June 21st? June 1st? The first hot day of the season? Nowadays, kids have a shorter Summer vacation - what do they think?

For me, it's June 1st. But then part of me says it's not officially Summer until the Solstice.

the best part is the smug look he gives his wife. They are SO CUTE.

LOVE THEM.

I think summmer starts about June 1 for me.

of course, as a teacher, summer begins the first day of summer vaca for me, regardless of weather! But we generally start into the 90+ degree weather in June, so...

NSM today -- it's supposed to be in the 70's. Nice!

I wish summer started at Memorial Day, but mostly it's the weather and/or late June, I guess, between the solstice and the end of school I grew up with.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Summer = Memorial Day to Labor Day theory....

ON Memorial Day weekend, I often feel like, "It's a three-day weekend and sorta' the beginning of Summer - I should be outside doing something instead of sitting around in my apartment."

Origin of the Good Humor bar

From the Smithsonian's daily snapshot, a summery history of the Good Humor truck: "His first candy invention was the Jolly Boy Sucker, a lollipop on a stick. While working in his ice cream parlor, Burt created his own recipe for a smooth chocolate coating that would be compatible with ice cream. His daughter Ruth performed the first taste test. Although it tasted good, Ruth thought it was too messy to eat. To solve this problem, Burt took the advice of his son, Harry Jr., who suggested freezing wooden sticks used for the Jolly Boy Sucker into the ice cream as handles. He named his new creation the Good Humor bar, capitalizing on the belief that a person's "humor" or outlook on life was related to the humor of the palate. Burt immediately sent the patent to Washington, D.C. "

Now I want a Jolly Boy Sucker.

From feminist, atheist blogger Greta Christina:

Wealthy, Handsome, Strong, Packing Endless Hard-Ons: The Impossible Ideals Men Are Expected to Meet

The article in question is about the hellish, dangerous, illness-inducing routines that male fitness models regularly go through to forge their bodies into an attractive photograph of the masculine ideal. According to journalist Peta Bee in the Express UK (the article was originally published in the Sunday Times [London], but they put it behind a paywall), in order to make their bodies more photogenic and more in keeping with the masculine "fitness" ideal, top male fitness models routinely put themselves through an extreme regimen in the days and weeks before a photo shoot. Not a regimen of intense exercise and rigorously healthy diet, mind you... but a regimen that involves starvation, dehydration, excessive consumption of alcohol and sugar right before a shoot, and more.

OK, it makes sense the "fitness model" ideal is impossible.

Sexuality educator Dr. Charlie Glickman has written a great deal (and teaches workshops) about male gender expectations, and what he calls "the performance of masculinity." And a two-part series he recently wrote crystallized this idea for me. He was talking about the "box" of masculinity --- the ideas we have in American culture about what a "real man" is and does. You know: strong, competitive, dominant, wealthy, good at fixing machinery, lots of sexual partners enjoys sports, big dick that gets hard on demand. You know the drill.

And he pointed out that many of these ideas aren't just rigid or limiting. They actually conflict with each other. As Glickman put it, "Some of the items in the box are contradictory. You can't be a mechanic and a CEO. I've talked with men who are convinced they're not Real Men because they aren't rich and I've talked with men who are convinced they aren't Real Men because they don’t work with their hands."

I'm wondering how big a problem this is. But obviously I'm just not a real man and don't give a fuck. (OK, I'd like to lose my belly-fat, so I guess I do give a little fuck.)