Clareified

When I was teenager, I used to play a memory game in my head, while I waited for the bus to take me to school or home. I’d try to remember a concrete thing that happened each day of each month. At the end of the year though, I’d try to think of one big thing from each month for every year starting at the present year going back until my bus came or I got stuck. I was going to do that again, but I realized, my memory isn’t what it used to be and I’d just cheat and go through my archives. Instead, I decided to do a year’s end thank you to the people in the Clareiverse. So, yeah, go ahead and get your Ctrl + F pressing fingers ready…cause this list is in no order other than random Dawn’s memory shuffle. Enjoy.

We’d like to thank April first and foremost for organizing the Winter Poker Blogger gathering! It was a randomly well-needed vacation. Also we thank April for getting us on twitter. On the other hand, you all now know who to blame. Oh, and April is also the awesome bringer of the molten Lava philosophy which exponentially cut down on the number of days I’ve spent wringing my hands and agonizing over nonsense. Which, of course, leaves me more time to tweet.

Second, we’d like to thank JCN, without whom my greatness would not be possible. Well, it’d be possible, but it wouldn’t be as great!

Speaking of twitter, we’d like to thank Petweetdov, our favorite Republican hippie. Also she is a total perv who is skilled at making ordinary, everyday accusations of theft sound dirty. Which makes us laugh. Also her threats may be just the thing that gets my book finally done.

We’d also like to thank Angela for inspiring Poetry Wednesday and making up words our language didn’t even realize it needed! My inane twitter conversations with her and pdov got me through one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had. Blech. Not to mention her genius invention of inane comments Friday! What up! Also, for one last time in ’09 “Suck in, Ken Wheaton!”

Thanks to Gerard for like an endless library of youtube footage and internet links! I swear, I’ll blog the most random thoughts and he is quick with a comment pointing me to a video or story about it! He led me to actual video of the famous Harvard/Yale tie! Dude. Now, if he’d just apologize to Barney Stinson, we’d be all good.

Thanks to Elana for introducing me to How I Met Your Mother, by the way. And also for my latest sports teams challenged, hilarious fake brother.

To Gib, for finally getting me into Supernatural just in time for the combo shark jump/series end. Grr. But he makes up for it with the cute Xander pics and thorough fake wrestler coverage.

To Mrs. Jake for being an excellent Scrabble student and teaching me how to make a bed. Though you will probably have to show me again, because I am old and TV has rotted my brain.

Thanks to Jake for the awesome Rumpole DVDs! Anytime guests to my apartment see them, they think I am learned and worldly, not a girl who just watches Gossip Girl! And for pretty much introducing me to the whole cast of High School Musical 2, including my fiance Zac Efron.

Thanks to Kearns, my own personal yoda, who gives me excellent advice sugar coated in words that make me laugh every time I think of it. I do have short arms! And thank you for all the pizza. They are always tasty and delicious! Also, for his work, along with Phil Ivey in rehabilitating the reputation of black male poker players. I apologize for what I have done to the reputation of black female poker players.

Thanks to Kat for planning and running Eh, Vegas this year! I had so much fun and I got to see Toronto for the first time which was kick ass! We must do Tim Horton’s next time so I can practice the craps skills that Astin and Nasim taught me.

Thanks to Mary for doing all the planning to get us to Canadia. I totally wouldn’t have gotten off my lazy butt to make the arrangements myself! Also thanks for all her baking this year and continuing to play poker at my house even though mean, redhead Eric always sucks out on her. (That’s a poker term, you pervs, I’m looking at you pdov!) Oh and for the AWESOMENESS that is Liz Phair and Magnetic Fields. And really both those CDs! You are definitely my second favorite Mary! (What? You birth us a savior and I will move you up a notch.)

Thanks to Vinnay for all the friendly football banter. My favorite was the Patriots home opener! That we may have conversations like that every football season! Also for being the best Buffalo hoster and the impromptu marathon drive down for my birthday! I was truly floored that you’d come all that way just for me! And then I realized it was for the pizza. And for the awesome Zac Efron video! Seriously, Tae, you have to watch it!

Thanks to NoCal Eric, for keeping Vinnay and Pdov company on the wrong side of the Clareified political debate. I’ll convince you guys, yet! We’ll all be voting for Obama in ’12, right? Right?

Thanks to Katie for being the latest of the great people I’ve met through the internets!

To Tae for leaving all the best things for me to enjoy and for not causing AC to be sucked into the black hole vortex. Also, for making me laugh so hard when she tweeted that she wasn’t going to make it to Harrah’s after all! Hahahaha Oh, and for the awesome Christmas gift!

Thanks to Dawn 2 also for an awesome Christmas gift, but also for hosting our random Jersey City outings and letting Alceste out of the house.

Ah, and of course, thanks to Alceste my one-stop shop for all of my bizarre, inscrutable questions and thoughts. You guys have no idea the depths of my annoyingness. Like, you think you know, you think you have a ballpark, and then Alceste is all: she made me wear a birthday hat! She gets a job in Jersey and she’s asking me to explain tax laws to her. After her car accident, I’m her insurance agent, somehow! And very often after I’ve explained stuff, she makes me explain it again! And then, she crinkles her face and says “well, that’s stupid.” Seriously, that whole college football situation is stupid! You guys have google? I have Alceste’s email address. And when I say stuff like “I saw that girl from that game with the guy that we used to go to”, he goes “Oh yeah, I saw her too.” Can your google do that? Oh and thanks for the itunes genius button info!

Ah, thanks to CK for making me learn football. No, wait, I mean I hate her for that! She is a ruiner of lives! Oh, wait, she has a shotgun in her office. Nevermind, she is the epitome of greatness.

Thanks to F-train for keeping Brooklyn F-train free all year! I like it, I like it a lot! If that were to change in 2010, I would be very sad and would cry!

Thanks to Kaz and Tito for taking me on my first and only foray of doing donuts in a parking lot!

Thanks to Astin for making me a cake for his birthday. I cannot believe the border patrol guys wouldn’t let it through. But really, it’s the thought that counts!

Thanks to Zac Efron for being beautiful and smart and beautiful and talented and beautiful oh and legal! #nopedophile

Thanks to Pi for getting me out of the house to do stuff and for bringing me food when I refuse. Also thanks for the perennial Thanksgiving invitation when I am not even invited to my own mother’s dinner!

Thanks to Rebecca and Ladigargar I’ve loved re-getting to know you guys on twitter! Congrats on the book Rebecca and congrats on impending yogini-hood, ladigargar! Ha! What a great online name!

Thanks to pearatty for ever being a font of good advice and humor! And also for commenting on ALL of my posts. Ahem. Look forward to seeing you and your tax deduction in the new year!

Thanks (in advance) to Smokey for admitting that our nephew’s name is Brady Zac.

Thanks to Binda for like over 15 years of reading all the crap I write! Binda was a reader when I published in actual honest to goodness print!

To T-Bone for inviting me out to your Vegas trip! I hope it’s not another 13 years before I see you guys again! No. Tequila.

To Fuelsellage for all the lunches and witty exchanges…even though, it’s mostly all me and really, you contribute very little. (Can I tell this story? Please?? Stupid RIM outage!)

To Karol for the memories.

To Sidney, Emil and Ryan for not throwing up on me.

To Sammy for noticing he wasn’t in that last thank you and for working on that in the New Year.

To Ugarles for orchestrating that awesomely AWESOME birthday tweet from Elon James! Woo! And for being the only person who comments on all my Scrabble blog posts! Damn you and your shark attacks to HELL! Pooooke!

To Drobbski for commenting here and on my facebook statuseses. And for his hilarious “I don’t know if I could comment this” emails. I’m glad we’re still in touch.

Thanks to Sabaka for the sympathetic and empathetic ear!

Thanks to Dustbury, Batesline and Jasmine for the linkage!

The gives-me-shit brigade of Chilly, Consiglieri, Rick Blaine, Jamie and chsw.

To my mommy who always wants only the very best for me even when it’s completely impractical and I absolutely can’t afford it.

You all make a lazy, underachieving introvert, feel almost like a productive member of society!

You’re all person of the year!
Gimmee a hug!

Vinnay, are you happy now?

It’s been awhile since we did a round of “you know how I know I fail at life”/”It’s not easy being this awesome. So we’ll close out the aughts with a combo platter for $1.99!
Not literally, sillies.
A few weeks ago I’m walking to my office building after having left my car in the garage. It’s freezing and it’s Newark, so I’m walking briskly and my head is down. I am about to make a dash across the street, when my eye spies one of those punchcards for Dunkin’ Donuts! You know the kind, buy nine drinks, get your card punched each time and the last drink is free. There are already four punches in it and I get Dunkin’ Donuts coffee every morning! This moment brought to you by the letter W, for win!
I picked up the ticket, went to the Dunkin’ Donuts down the block and got my “medium skim vanilla latte, two pumps vanilla extra hot” and got the card punched. For the next two days, I did the same thing.
Then, I realized I would have to stop driving to work or stop buying lunch. Parking fees plus tolls plus lunch equal cost ineffective.
My first day taking the trains went swimmingly! There was even a Dunkin Donuts in the Path train station! I ordered me up my “medium skim vanilla latte, two pumps vanilla extra hot” and gave the guy my ticket.
“Sorry, we don’t take this. You have to go to location on card.”
I pouted and looked at the card. Indeed, there were two addresses written on the back 1116 Broad Street and 441 Court Street.
Grr.
I gave the stupid man a credit card to pay for my coffee.
The next day, I walked right past mister hoity toity we don’t serve your kind here and went back to my old Dunkin’ Donuts up the block.
Punch.
I was one away from free!
The next day, I’m standing on line waiting to order, when I notice I am on Halsey street. This is neither Broad nor Court! Dude!
I didn’t sweat it though. This place had been punching my card for a week. Why should I worry now about addresses?
Sure enough, I got my “medium skim vanilla latte, two pumps vanilla extra hot” and the lady punched the ninth hole!
Monday morning my beverage would be free!
Ahem.
Except, as you know from your in depth reading of prior posts, there was to be no Monday.
I had bought all these damn lattes FOR NOTHING!
Why, God, WHYYYY?
Lo and behold I got a call from the manager a couple of days ago, asking if I could come back for a few days.
Um. Hell yeah.
FREE!! FOR ME!
I was so excited, I totally forgot that it would mean waking up early and going back to Jersey!
I took the train, walked past hoity toity and went back to my old spot. I eagerly said “Give me a large skim vanilla coffee.” That’s right! The ticket said nothing about the size of my free beverage, suckahs!
“Sorry, we do not give you free coffee. We will punch it, but not here for free.”
“What?”
“You go to store on card. On card.” She repeated, pointing.
Mother%#&.
Fine.
I give her my credit card.
She hands me a large cup.
That was uncharacteristically fast. AND not the usual cup.
“That’s my latte?”
“You no say latte. You say vanilla coffee.”
Arrrggghhhhhhhh.
A line is growing behind me.
“Just cancel everything.”
She stares at me blankly.
The manager comes over.
“We give you latte. One dollar more.”
My level of pissivity is climbing by the second.
Fine.
I pull out a dollar.
He says “$1.20.”
What!?!!
Five minutes, $3.00 and six more ounces of skim latte than I could ever hope to drink, I’m trudging back to my office in extreme defeat. As I head for the front desk, I notice that the building is on Broad street! Just like the card. My building is in the 700s, so I assume four blocks away, I will find the Dunkin’ Donuts in the thousands. At lunch, I clock out and head downstairs. I ask the guard which way the thousands are? He says left.
Okay. Left we will go.
You’ve conned the wrong girl who found your free punchcard in the street Mister Dunkin’ Donut man!
So now here’s where I should tell you that Newark’s not the safest place around. My second or third day here, this dude is all “Can I have a dollar? Can I have a dollar?”
And when I said “Sorry.”
He goes “You know, I coulda just robbed you.”
Um. Er. Okay. Thanks for not robbing me then…I guess?
That was at 2 o’clock in the *afternoon*.
I kept my hands in my pockets and walked briskly. 800. 810. 840.
Cross the street.
860.
What the hell?! The numbers are going sequentially by TENS??? NOT a HUNDRED!
So the thousands are God knows how far from here?
I kept walking. Stores gave way to empty lots. Oh, there’s a church!
What are you doing Dawn? You’re only up to 920! You’ve got to get back! You don’t even *want* any more coffee today!
Shut up! Leave me alone!
It’s free! They’re trying to scam me!
As I’m crossing this huge four lane avenue, I notice a Dunkin’ Donuts sign with a “Open 24 hours” note with a bright red arrow pointing left.
Court street.
The other address on the card! I peer down the street and I see that the Dunkin Donuts is in a mini strip mall about ten feet away! Nuts to the eleven hundreds!
I walk in, the place is packed with, um, men at tables nursing cups of coffee.
I hand the woman my punchcard triumphantly.
Like, seriously, I was all “Here you go, lady at the Court street Dunkin’ Donuts! You thought I wouldn’t find you, that I would give up, but I did! And I didn’t. So suck it and give me my large FREE beverage.”
Meanwhile, she’s just staring at me like “lady, what do you want? I don’t have all day…well, actually, I do. Take your time. Suit yourself. I don’t care.”
I had no idea what I wanted, so I looked at the pictures and ordered a strawberry coolatta, which looks like a strawberry daiquiri.
LARGE.
Jerks.
About three minutes later she handed me a tub sized plastic cup filled with red slush.
I took a picture.

That, my friends, is what victory looks like.
Um, and victory kinda tastes like cough syrup with sugar and ice.
I took a few sips and tossed it.
But it was the principle, dammit, the principle!

And the crowd goes wild….

So I did a google search of poetry and “new year,” I got a bunch of hits, but I picked this one. I didn’t even have to read it first. It immediately jumped out as the poem for me! Three guesses why, and the first two don’t count!
Goodbye, 2009, we hardly knew ye.

The Old Year
by John Clare

The Old Year’s gone away
To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
In either shade or sun:
The last year he’d a neighbour’s face,
In this he’s known by none.

All nothing everywhere:
Mists we on mornings see
Have more of substance when they’re here
And more of form than he.
He was a friend by every fire,
In every cot and hall–
A guest to every heart’s desire,
And now he’s nought at all.

Old papers thrown away,
Old garments cast aside,
The talk of yesterday,
Are things identified;
But time once torn away
No voices can recall:
The eve of New Year’s Day
Left the Old Year lost to all.

I’m going to need you guys to send me links to stories about heinous crimes committed by men named Joaquin. (Yes, reviews of “Two Lovers” DEFINITELY count) Extra points if the heinous criminal admits to having commit these crimes because obviously his own parents didn’t love him enough NOT to saddle him with the name Joaquin!

And…Go!

My free BMW “Winter inspection” turned into a $200 BMW “special cleaning.” I really shouldn’t be allowed to own cars.

Early on in the planning for the Winter blogger gathering, there was talk of a cooking challenge.
Contestants would include BG, Otis and of course, @astinto. It was also decided that I would be the judge and cooking would happen at CK’s house. A few weeks after all this was decided, I was gently informed that all these plans existed merely in my own head.
“What?”
“Yeah, you made all that up, sweetie. BG isn’t even coming to the Winter gathering!”
Dammit!
It’s my senior year protest prom all over again! I am always so SURE these conversations happened in real life with other people.
Cest la vie. With the cooking challenge out, so was I.
I shouldn’t really be travelling anyway, I had a job to be looking for. So it was I became a target for the #getdawntovegas movement. I was promised Tom Brady and Zac Efron and cats not eating my face. But I held firm.
Had. To. Work.
I was out.
And then Alceste decided he was going at the last minute. And since Alceste is my role model in all things, not involving holding a steady job, I thought I could figure out a way to do Vegas on a Saturday and get back to work by Monday morning.
Nope.
The best I could swing was Monday afternoon and the price for that ticket was a hundred bucks more than I was willing to pay.
Sad panda strikes again.
So I gnashed my teeth at all the drunken happy tweets from the IP and the MGM. I shook my fist at the sky and wondered about a God that would let STB08 hit quads in a hand he played from the bar AND let him get paid!
What next, lord, Tony Romo wins a Superbowl?
Oh, the antics and the hijinx! I wanted in.
And then my boss announced on Friday afternoon that they were closing our project early. This would be the last day! I didn’t have anywhere to be Monday MORNING!
To say, I ran, not walked to the travelocity website, well…that would be a lie. I don’t run. (This will soon prove to be a lie too.) I found a flight rountrip for $210. What the what!
There were tons of seats on my Saturday morning flight, but only one middle seat left for the Monday night leg. I plugged in my credit card info, and hit purchase. It didn’t work.I tried it again five more times. Nothing.
I called travelocity directly because I figured it was a computer glitch and I didn’t want to lose that seat. I was informed it would be an extra $25 to book over the phone. Boo.
Fine, stupidfaces! But the operator couldn’t get my info to work either.
Blurgh. She suggested I try another card.The only other credit card I use was locked in my car glove compartment. In my basement garage!
Why won’t Mastercard let me be great? I hung up and ran all the way from my 12th floor apartment to the car AND BACK!
My final act before collapsing to the floor, was to drag my laptop to the hardwood with me. I logged back into travelocity. Not only were my flights still there, the price was now $180! Woo hoo.
(A week later, while trying to use my card at a gas station, the Mastercard was again declined. I threw a Naomi Campbell level fit and made he try it again: declined. I blamed his machine, left all the items on the counter and stormed out. And *then* I called my credit card company. Evidently someone has been using my card to purchase hundreds of dollars of itunes and Scottish currency, so Citibank put a hold on the card until I could be reached to confirm the purchases. They apparently don’t know about my not answering numbers I don’t recognize policy.)
I booked, packed, texted Alceste and tried to sleep. Ah, who could sleep! I would be in warm, sunny Las Vegas in a matter of hours!
Ha! It was like 40 degrees and raining when I landed at Mcarran. No need for my usual stripping off of coat and sweater layers. It was cold.
I managed to get comped rooms at the Rio for the weekend, so I went straight there to dump my luggage and stuff. Alceste said he was having breakfast with CK and Ftrain at the IP. Now, I love me some IP, however, after an…um…unsettling dining experience there last year, I will never eat there again! But I figured I’d swing by to say Hi, before heading over to Caesar’s to register for the tournament.Alceste had ordered some weird face sized chocolate chip pancake and once my mouth started the sentence “that looks…” I had no choice but to end with “gross.”
So I skipped dining with them and walked back to Caesar’s with Pauly, Derek and Chang100. The last longer team that edge out my own last longer squad by 8 points to take third! I was totally bouncing off the walls to see everyone, though I knew I’d missed the best night. I knew this because upon making my surprise appearance at Caesar’s I was informed that my late arrival made me one of two people in all of Vegas that the Rooster didn’t owe an apology to!
Damn it! Yet another year stuck on the D list for Dawn.
I am the absolute WORST when it comes to names and faces, but a few familiar ones jumped out right away:I saw Carter and Falstaff and @astinto, California April and CJ.
I ran into Katitude in the ladies room and I was all “Hi, Kat!”
But she was all *blank stare* why is the crazy lady talking to me in the bathroom? Then she did a double take and was like “I thought you weren’t coming!”
It was funny.
Then I ran into Drizzle and Al Can’t Hang and my absolute favorite, Iggy!
And then my phone rang and it was my mother. My mother who probably thought I was in my bed in Brooklyn.
Ruh roh.
“You’re where?”
“Um…Las Vegas. It was a last minute thing. Um…a couple of my friends are getting married.”
“Which friends?”
“Oh…you don’t know them…uhm…it’s starting. I gotta go.”
I made it back to my seat in time to see Onafolddraw awarded the Gigli for busting out first. Frankly, I was glad. I never want to bust first, so with that particular honor already bestowed, I could play poker. Or try to anyway. I was pretty aggressive with a couple of Le Dawns and some suited connectors, then stupid Otis had to stupid raise my continuation bet and I had to stupid fold. So sad. And lonely.I logged in to twitter to cry about it, when I saw a tweet from poker grump saying Dawn Summers was at his table. Heey, *I’m* Dawn Summers. I look around, but didn’t see the signature brown sweatshirt. Yes, I do imagine everyone to look exactly like their twitter avatars at all times. I can’t wait to meet Tae the talking jeep! I finally spotted the most likely Poker Grumpish guy and asked if he was him. (Huh? What? English, woman, do you speak it?) He said he was him and I waved! But then I realized that with BadBlood to the left of me, Otis to the right of me, Stupid Asian Alan button raising all my big blinds, Luckbox, the lady that takes the pictures AND PokerGrump at my table, I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving this table.
I outlasted a number of people though, thanks mostly to PokerGrump going on a player busting heater, the likes of which would make Darvin Moon proud! (Except Darvin would be confused about PokerGrump having the best hand when all the chips hit the middle.)
Haha the one hand I remember besides, the back to back pairs which lead to my demise, involved Luckbox shoving with maybe four big blinds with J3 and Pokergrump calling him with A3. Luckbox pretty immediately flopped a jack. He sprinkled a bit more luck powder and managed to river himself a jack too! The core of my starting table lasted to the second break. Otis’ bounty: a Flavor Flav sized clock which hung from his neck, announcing “Hammer Time,” did not.
It evidently fell from its string right into the urinal.And he fished it out! AND AWARDED IT TO THE POOR SAP THAT BUSTED.
From the Gigli to the Peepee!
Ewwww
After I busted, I went back to my hotel room to nap and charge my phone. This quickly turned into play poker and charge my phone. Nothing of note happened during the session, maybe I made $6 over my $100 buy-in, but mostly I was just biding time and drinking Jameson’s.
The Rio is not on the strip. So, I had to take a shuttle bus back and forth. The shuttle to the strip was full of these well dressed, white, what I thought were, businessmen.
Not so.
Turns out they were college students celebrating the 21st birthday of one of their merry band! Whoa! They looked OLD! The bus driver got into the party spirit and put on “Play that funky music white boy” while the birthday boy and some chick grinded upon one another in the aisle. Then she put on that “Midnight train going anywhere” song and we all sang along until we reached the strip.I got back to Caesar’s in time to see the final table: Talk about a Poker blogging All-Star team! Al Can’t Hang, F-train, Alceste, @Astinto, Obie, some kid with hippie hair and a chick I didn’t know!
“Maaaan, what the hell? F-train’s still in this? I’m WAY better than him! I want to rebuy” I said, pouting.
This was met with AlCan’t Hang’s
“The rail says what?”
Boo.
I hung out on the rail with CK watching and tweeting when the kid with the long hair said something and I was like “wait a minute…I know that voice…”It was JOE SPEAKER!!
DUUDE!I immediately tweeted “DUDE Joe Speaker has hippie hair and is aging backwards!! WTF??!!!!” I assume his deal with the devil is coming along nicely.
Later he goes “how did you not know it was me? You said hi to me earlier!”
This is where I point out that decades ago, when I realized how much I suck at the faces/names thing, I quickly learned to pick up on signs that someone knows me, and can totally fake my way through entire interactions with them. It’s a gift. But wow! Joe Speaker’s at the final too!??
Blogger tournaments are SO Rigged!
I took a seat in a cash game. I was sitting to Carter’s right. Then I noticed Metsfan getting up with racks and racks and racks. I asked if it was a 1/3 game, he said yes, I called lucky seat and switched. I won at the game, but really I was railing the final table.
F-train got picked off bluffing by @astinto and busted from the table in 7th. Al had the chip lead and after Alceste busted out 4th, the three remaining: Astin, Speaker and Al talked about chopping. Al had the chiplead and so wanted first and the trophy. The other two were willing to give him first, but insisted on playing it out for the trophy.
“Don’t you think you can win it?” Astin asked. Leading to my patented “Oh Snap!” and a tweet that said “@astinto’s mouth is writing checks that his chip stack can’t cash!”
Al then threw his arms in the air and said “no chop!”
He then lost all his chips but the ante. But those ante chips were just enough for him to outlast Speaker and go heads with with Astin for the Golden Hammer and all the marbles.
In the end, Astin proved me wrong for the second time! (Earlier, he had gone all-in on a three way hand and I tweeted he’d busted, but nope he had survived with a few chips left) The Golden Hammer was going abroad!
Au revoir, Hammare. (Which I assume, is the proper Queen’s French.)

Alas, that you are inconveniently located in Arizona, means that I couldn’t make it in person. Doubly worrisome because it appears that your hippie Aunt Smokey has been calling you Cletus the Fetus and that just will not stand! Arizona’s most famous and influential citizen will not be saddled with the name Cletus!! Despite the fact that it rhymes and who doesn’t like a good rhyme…huh…what? I lost my train of thought.
Oh, right… Brady Zac!
I hope you’re well and growing stronger each day. I understand you’re not technically due until February, but personally, I think it’ll fun and awesome if you were born on Martin Luther King day. You’ll get why this is so funny when I tell you the story about the only state in the union that turned down a day off because it was for a black man! (Ha ha, even funnier, the look on your mom’s face as I tell said story and the indignant tone in which she will protest Arizona’s racist reputation! So excited to meet you!) Also, if you are born on Martin Luther King day, that’ll mean no more rhyming with Cletus just that sooner! Cletus. Sheesh. Has a Cletus ever lead an NFL franchise to the Lombardi trophy? NO! Anyhoo. Hi, Brady Zac! Enthusiastic wave!
Oh yeah, Brady Zac’s carrier human, pearatty, has thoughtfully requested that in lieu of gifts, donations be made to a charity to help other pregnant persons and their cletus fetuses. (Not that Brady Zac is a Cletus in any way!)

So, if you were looking for someplace to give money to before the end of the year, I hope you’ll consider this very worthy cause. Here’s a bit more from the mama to be herself:

As people keep asking me what I want for my birthday and Christmas, I have come to realize that I don’t really need anything. I have such a great family, wonderful friends, a good job, a nice house, etc. I know you’ll all be there when I do need something, so why use up your goodwill now?

In the meantime, if you really want to spend money on me this season, how about a donation here: http://www.fistulafoundation.org/. If you don’t know what fistula is, it’s a gross but easily surgically remedied condition caused by childbirth complications. Women in very poor areas who can’t afford the surgery are often cast out by their families and made pariahs. They could use your money a lot more than I can.

Here’s a little rundown of the charity itelf.

Snaps Wheaton hits bookstores. Well, not him, his book. And I guess they’re not really hitting it, so much as sitting on the shelves. Go buy one.

And to all a Good Night!