Mamacita says:  My hero Steve Spangler will be appearing on Ellen again this Tuesday; don’t miss it! Check your local TV Guide for the time and station.  Steve is SO MUCH FUN to watch!!!!!!!!!!!  Let your kids watch, too.  You’ll all learn something.

I took the small mower out to what I like to call the North Forty yesterday, to try to get some of that tall grass down before velociraptors started making creepy trails underneath it, and before the neighbors showed up at the door with a petition.  After about six turns around the acreage, the mower died.  It still had several gallons, or approximately twelve thousand dollars worth, of gas in it, so I couldn’t figure out why it had died.  I pulled up the blades and turned the key; it started right up.  I put down the blades and it instantly died again.  Rinse, repeat.  So I gave up and drove it back to the garage, called it a few choice names which I shall not repeat here lest I lose my wholesome reputation – but then, it’s probably far too late to worry about that, isn’t it, mwahahahaha – and haven’t had time to try again.  So, my house is now the one with the really odd formations in the grass; no doubt a television crew will show up any minute now to make a big deal out of how the aliens have been in the county again.

If you like poetry, please consider calling in to Fausta’s Friday Night Poetry Slam, at 7:00 p.m. southern Indiana time, and I couldn’t tell you what the official name for our time zone is because it keeps CHANGING, thanks to some politicians who shall not be elected ever again.  Use these next few days to find a poem you especially love, call in to Fausta’s podcast, and share it with us.  If you say you don’t like poetry, I don’t believe you.  Somewhere on this planet there is a poem you like, even if it’s one that begins with “There was a young girl from Cape Cod.”

So here I am tonight,  my house in the midst of alien crop circles, my freezer full of fresh vegetables and frozen berries, a fresh loaf of whole wheat bread in my breadbox, a new loaf of white hidden safely in the oven (I have bread-loving cats) and a gallon and a half of milk, neither of which will expire for over a week, in my refrigerator.  I’m going to gather up all of the processed, salt-laden foods in the pantry later tonight – anything to get out of grading essays – and package them up for giveaway.  If you want some, come on over.

And by the way, don’t pay the least bit of attention to the clever marketing device called “euphemisms for salt on labels.”  “Low sodium” probably means 500 mg instead of 800.  “Healthy choice” probably means 450 instead of 900.  “Less than half the sodium” means 450 instead of a thousand.  Forget it, because there ARE no completely sodium-free packaged processed foods out there.  Give up and go home and make something from scratch, and even then you have to read the labels carefully on packages of flour and bottles of oil.   Somewhere out there is a very clever salt merchant who made a deal with the devil.

I’ve met the devil, actually.  I used to work for him.  I’m not kidding.

But I digress, and don’t you hate it when people use that expression?  But I really WAS digressing.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  Crop circles and the salty devil.

I could probably make a poem out of that.  Maybe I will.  I’ve got several days until the Slam on Friday.