All that glitters is not good

As God is my witness, I forgot what glitter can do.

A late night project to produce 24 handmade valentines for my daughter's first grade class induced a sense of delusional creativity. I lost my mind and actually sent my husband to the store for supplies - including glitter.

I did not remember the Valentine's Day of 2008, or the Christmas of 2009, when other honest and loving attempts at handicrafts resulted in a sandstorm of glitter infiltrates that still end up in Sunday dinner and places on my body I won't even mention.

My theory is glitter is a nanite conspiracy. A clever alien plan to take over the world, one kitchen table at a time. We are mesmerized by the pretty colors and shiny snowfall of these minute creatures. With a bottle of Elmer's glue in one hand and glitter in the other, we are certain we can make something pretty enough to cause world peace.

But the opposite happens. It actually becomes a tracking device, a frustration, a bio-hazard. You suddenly know where everyone has been by following the glittering road. It ends up in the toothpaste, the sheets, the butter in the fridge. It's in the casserole, on your fork, in your hair; it gets into everything!

I was storming at my husband that night over some minor infraction and he broke out in laughter saying, "It's hard to take you seriously when you have glitter on your face."

The nanites are succeeding. They are driving us apart. Divide and conquer. Laugh and the nanites chortle about the success of their plan.

The children are in on it. They plead for the glitter, beg for it, promise to choose wisely in their use of it. But it is a diversion. They are double agents. The glitter bomb explodes.

I even know of a woman who mistook a bottle of glitter hairspray for a feminine hygiene product. Nervous about her doctor appointment, she freshened up. The gynecologist took one look and said with a nervous smile, "How festive!" She didn't understand what he meant until she was in the shower that night.

Beware the glitter. Beware.

Fish wrap

So I have been out of the loop for awhile. How ya been? No pithy observations today or wise words on lemurs or sleep disorders. The world is at sixes and sevens (have to look up what that means) and it is hard to focus on the lighter side. Although, the newspaper cartoons Zits, Dilbert, and Baby Blues help a lot.

But my newspaper did away with my other favorite comics. Seems like the paper just takes the comics from the lowest bidder. I am sure the new, cheap, use-only-to-wrap-fish cartoons are helping with the brutal bottom-line for newspaper managers, but it demonstrates the art of diminishing returns as readers become even further disenchanted with the paper and drift away.

I guess I am ready for an iPad and to go fully electronic with the Sunday funnies and the news it comes wrapped in. At least I can carry an iPad from room to room without having to balance a keyboard in the process. Nothing out there has had a screen big enough for me to read, so I welcome Steve Jobs' new creation. It has a niche in the market, at least for me. Hopefully for others as well, as I really need the price to come down before I can afford one.

Until then, I will continue to read what is left of the paper news and funnies and scan the headlines for something remotely relevant to my community and my life. Oh, and the newspaper has one superlative function that my (someday) new iPad doesn't: it can mop up my spilled coffee. Steve needs to think hard on that one. Maybe I can purchase an app or add-on for iPad that will serve the same purpose.