Irresistable cuteness

One of the true wonders of the internet is that I can fall in love with a critter who doesn't even live in this country. Like Jing Jing, a panda cub who will be a mascot for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. And what a cute little mascot she is! If Jing Jing was human, she'd be Dakota Fanning or some other child actress--she loves the camera, and the camera loves her back.

She turned one today. You can see the party here. The text is all in Chinese, but the cute little panda and the people celebrating her translate just fine.

Or just take a look at her irresistable cuteness here:

This is when she was about five months old. Her keepers presented her to her adoring public in a *crib*.



At Pandas Unlimited, we've already pretty much made a match for her. We think she'd be perfect for the National Zoo's Tai Shan. Both silly, beautiful extroverts who know what it's like to have people fawning over them, plus they'd make bright and gorgeous cubs! To think, just a year or so ago, I'd have thought any baby panda was cute, but not been able to detect any difference in looks or personalities. Oh, well. There are worse things to think about than cute pandas.

We got our tickets to Orlando. L'Ailee wasn't going to go with me, but Vivian and my brother asked if she was coming, and the last time I went to Orlando without her, her best friend told me never to do that again because she was miserable. L'Ailee needs different things to think about anyway, and she's getting exhausted because she's not saying no to any classes. For you new readers, she teaches martial arts in a gym, with a sideline teaching middle-school girls gymnastics. I think it's how she endures what a friend of mine's calling "the 9/11 Season." So it'll help L'Ailee to be somewhere different, if not on that date, then close to it, and to have different things to think about. It'll help her to *rest*. Of course, I haven't been resting, either. Insomnia again.

We had several invitations for Labor Day, but will be spending that in Orlando. Ernesto doesn't seem to have hit them too hard, from what I've seen and heard. It'll be nice.

Yemaya O'Reilly and I met Method Man. There were a lot of people there to see him, so he just returned our greeting and signed our CD covers. His new CD's all right, but it's the Roots' "Game Theory" I've been playing all day. Yemaya's also trying to talk me into seeing the Suicide Girls live show with her. I don't know about that. I'm just not comfortable watching something that blatantly sexy, you know? My imagination is really good as it is; burlesque and stripping feel like overkill to me. Besides, those of you who remember the Sinead concert story will not be surprised to read that L'Ailee is none too thrilled about the idea.

I finally figured out why she went to see Snakes on a Plane with me, even though she's afraid of both snakes and planes. I don't do well with blood, and she does, and I spend most of the movie with my face against her neck or shoulder ("Can you at least take your glasses off?") With this one, for once she was the one with her face up against me. Only it was against my shoulder and chest. When I mentioned that on another forum, the lightbulb finally turned on!

Got some links:

Mario Batali's idea of NASCAR food is even fancier than mine!

Why someone would make a false confession. Guess what prompted WebMD to post *this* one?

Myths about marriage.

Interesting new words. I'm afraid I'm a "re-juvenile".

Shopping for me, but not for thee I thought Judith Levine's Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping was one of the dumbest books ever. For one thing, a necessity she held on to was to spend $55 a pop to maintain a haircut that L'Ailee or I could touch up with a $25 beard trimmer! (We also know a woman who'll do it for a six-pack of beer!) At least a better writer benefited from that idiotic book, which I ironically checked out of the library, by being able to review it in *style*.