So 2018 has gotten off to rather a pesky start, chez nous...

Over in the FaceBookVerse, dear Cookie has come up with a list of 10 Things He Doesn't Understand, and he's challenged his Gentle Readers to do the same. Some dares I can't resist, so herewith, just that number of cultural phenomena that leave me cold:

So I was going to try and feature a little eye candy - maybe something seasonal; I was thinking possibly a variation on the New Year's baby, but a lot more buff. Well, all I can say is: whatever else you get when you run a Bing image search on "beefcake diaper," none of it is seasonal. And much of it is a reminder of just how creative some people get in their private lives...

Except I don't think I'm, as the saying goes, an Early Adopter when it comes to feeling crummy. Increasingly, in fact, I think we live in a pretty crummy era.

I'm afraid that this year, the holidays have been somewhat delayed chez nous.

Just a quick note, darlings, to let you know I'm alive, if not particularly well...

I suppose Al Martino isn't the best remembered of all the last century's crooners, but back in the day it only took a note or two of "Spanish Eyes" to reduce Mother Muscato to sighs and faraway looks.  He would have been 87 today.

Tired blood.  Maybe that's my problem.

I want to preface this by making it clear that I'm not complaining about the heat.  After eight years in the Sandlands, a summer day in Our Nation's Capital only brushes the lower end of truly hot weather.  Hot is 120°F and 100% humidity.  Hot is when small items left in the car fuse in a puddle on the dashboard.  Hot is when the condensation pours like rain down the windows because you're keeping things a comfortable 50° cooler inside the house than it is out.  Today, by that standard, was only very, very slightly hot.

Life certainly is full of its little surprises, isn't it?

Here are things I expected to do this weekend: rid out my closet; take the dogs for longer walks because the weather is finally inching from grudgingly-not-freezing to holy-cow-almost-pleasant; perhaps have a nice meal somewhere out of the way.

...My ass.

Where indeed?  Here, goddammit.  Poor, ill-fated Jon Erik Hexum is dressed for les neiges (captured by Mr. Hurrell in the full glory of his short-lived splendor), but frankly...

When I was a child, my grandparents used to laugh about seeing crazy ladies down in Miami wearing fur jackets over their Catalina bathing suits...

So there we were last night, the four of us, two large and two small, sleeping quietly in our little room...

So, isn't this a... fascinating... time to be living in Our Nation's Capital?

For one reason or another - possibly because the flat is in such a state of extreme chaos that we've simply given up - Mr. Muscat and I have been watching more television than normal.

A few snippets of Camp at its most classic for this lovely August Saturday...

It may be just because the Family's been so much in the news in the last couple of days,* although I think it's more likely because the Mister and I spent the morning braving the DMV, but I've decided that all I really want to do is go to a beach party with Princess Margaret and her pals on Mustique in 1972.  I'll have what she's having, and the gentleman in the back in stripes can stop by my cabana about 4:00, please...

*And yes, I did watch the live cam, and the jury's in:  the kid's a natural - did you see his little wave?

God, I hate jetlag.  Maybe because the leadup to this trip was so intense, or maybe it's that fact that the two dogs are equally jetlagged, but this time around is a doozy.