He's got a nose like a cherry and a beer-barrel-shaped belly; but he's no Santa; he's the anti-Santa. He's my uncle--or, to be more precise, he's the man my husband's mother's sister married. And that jolly red nose? That's from drinking, his coping mechanism for dealing with my in-laws. (And for dealing with, well, life.) He's also the quintessential "bad uncle," one of the men who've made names for themselves throughout the centuries, the Scrooge, the Bad Apple, the Grump, the Grinch,...

Probably thing thing I miss most about JU is my anonymity. It's the reason I have a handle (Angloesque) and the reason not one of my friends or family members has the URL to this place. Back when I was a regular and checked my JU blog from any available computer, I compulsively deleted my history. (My parents probably thought I was looking at porn.) But I've given that up: I've started anew on a simple Blogger URL, and every link on my sidebar is someone I've known for years. But it's cons...

I've returned just in time to see the detritus of another soap opera fiasco. Hmm. So sorry to have missed it. For the last couple months I've been blogging elsewhere. I don't have the anonymity I had here, but I'm not bombarded by idiots, either. Then again, I don't get the variety of perspectives. Call it even. Anyway, cheers all. -A.

Preface: I am married, happily so. Story No. 1: Recently, whilst walking down a hallway at work, my thoughts on the possibility that I wouldn't have to wait for someone else to evacuate the washroom, I happened to pass a very attractive man. He works in another part of the building so I barely knew he existed. Anyway. So I'm walking, I see him, and bam! it's a crush.* Just walking, minding my business, and then crush. Story No. 2 (and even more pathetic): H showed me something o...

Oh thank all things wise and mighty, the Broncos have learned to score in the fourth quarter.

Does anyone else hate the Monday night Football intro with its song and dance exalting the altar of GMC? You see part or all of about 80 GM vehicles, including the logo itself 8 times. This beautiful, sacred game is being whored out with every square inch of field, ball, and every split-second of airtime. Half-time is not brought to me by Snickers, Subway, Nissan, Lexus, or Autotrader.com, just like the weather isn't brought to me by Smuckers (you hear that, Today show?!). I love this game; I...

Taco Bell, my biggest competition for my husband's palate, has this fairly new greeting at the drive-through: "Hi, how are you doing," the monotonic minimum wage worker asks. It's not a question. Not, "Welcome to Taco Bell. May I take your order?" But one has to wonder about the new greeting, do they really care? No, they don't. They want the money. Taco Bell is not and never will be known for its friendly workers; it will, alas, always be known for hiring minimum wage high school, c...

A co-worker of mine invited me to join her book club. They were currently reading The Time Traveler's Wife (which, by the way, I highly recommend) and it would be held tonight at one of the member's homes. I don't know my co-worker very well, but she seems like the type I would really like, so I accepted the invitation, read the book, and went to the house. There I found four women interested in (1) wine, (2) home decorating, (3) clothing, (4) their kids, and (5) the book, in approximate...

Who did Diane Rehm sleep with to get her voice on radio? Listening to her is about as pleasant as massaging my ear with a cheese grater.

I am sick and tired of the fingerpointing following Hurricane Katrina. So allow me this brief moment to point out with my own ten hypocritical fingers some truths: You can't have it both ways. You can't have a democratic nation but expect the government to dole out Band-Aids in the form of money and supplies. Refresher course: We the people make up cities that make up counties that make up states that make up the government. Each of those levels has its own accountability, so for you bandw...

Dear Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, I've seen your ads on TV and read the text of initiative I-336 that you would like to pass this fall in my state. I've read the tear-jerking stories of patients who are the victims of medical malpractice and how you've made their lives better by giving them millions of dollars, money that they would never have ordinarily seen in their lifetimes. I admire your marketing efforts and your fundraising abilities. How amazing to be able to raise t...

Ruminations on what I saw in the grocery store today: Bad: I saw a lazy, obese woman push her calorie-laden cart to her trunk, unload her groceries, then push her cart behind the bumper of another car and drive away. Kicker: The cart return was just beyond the next car. Worse: I saw a low-income Hispanic mom with three kids going down the junk food aisle, piling chips and pop into the cart, plus one gallon of milk and one box of cereal. Then she apparently gave a debit card to her young...

So it's Monday Night Football, my favorite part of the week, and the Saints are playing the Lions. Frankly I couldn't care less about either team, but I'm not going to turn it off—I love football too much to commit that act of heresy. So I wonder: What's a tepid fan to do? I don't know what the rest of y'all do, but here's my method for cheering for teams: 1. Broncos. If Denver's playing, I cheer for them no matter who they're playing against. 1b. Green Bay. I used to hate them but ...

So the world as we know it ends and I'm left to share the wealth of knowledge with the hordes. Oh what a sad day, &c., yes it's true. But anyway, there are a few useful things I could share: 1. How to make a perfect pina colada with just the right amount of rum. Mmm. Rum. 2. How to properly distinguish misplaced modifiers—and where you can stick them. 3. Speaking of grammar, proper punctuation marks go outside quotation marks. ("Well that's silly", you say.) 4. The implications for mank...