OK, OK, I know: Too much bitching about winter this year. But now that we’ve finally had a few days of thaw, when all of the season’s accumulated trash and dog crap and uncollected leaves are daring to emerge — let’s call it The Season of Muddy Paws — guess what’s in store for tonight?

At this point, I’m too numb to complain. And I’m not entirely convinced this will even arrive; seven inches just feels like garden-variety sky-is-falling weather terrorism at this point, but who knows? I’ve been getting up early to exercise the last couple of weeks, and I’m setting the alarm. Swim today, spin tomorrow. It’s good to start your day knowing you already got the physical jerks out of the way. (EDIT: I turned off the alarm and slept another hour. Not sorry I did, either.)

Yes, it’s another of my occasional flirtations with the pool. It’ll be the best thing ever until it isn’t anymore, but I’m paid up at Kate’s old middle school to swim twice a week for half an hour through the middle of June. Gotta get my money’s worth.

So. The internet exploded yesterday when the video of the president meeting with Zach Galifianakis dropped. You can watch it here if you weren’t one of the 7 million who watched it yesterday. I will cop to laughing, mainly because I’m a longtime fan of public-access television, and “Between Two Ferns” is a better parody than “Wayne’s World” by a long shot. I thought the only thing that could have made it funnier was a piece of freestanding lattice with a light aimed at it, casting shadows on the seamless paper behind them, because Depth. My earliest instruction in television, at WARL, my high school’s closed-circuit station, included lessons in how to add depth to the set, and if ferns weren’t involved, ficus trees were, and yes, there was a lattice. So already I’m giggling, and then the pixelated graphics came up, and without the president opening his mouth, I’m pretty much in his pocket.

Of course, not everyone was. According to Wonkette, Jim Avila of ABC News asked this question at the daily White House press briefing:

“How much discussion was there in the White House about the dignity of the office and whether or not, in order to reach these people who don’t watch us at 6:30, or who don’t watch this briefing … how much the dignity of the office might be lost? This is an interview like no other probably ever done by a president.”

When all else fails, invoke the Dignity of the Office, yes. Because Bill Clinton never played sax with Arsenio Hall, and George Bush didn’t walk an aircraft carrier flight deck in a jumpsuit– or should I say junksuit? And never mind the nominees — Bob Dole in a Viagra commercial and all the rest of it. Yes, by all means, sitting down with a comedian is leagues different from sitting down with Jay Leno, because he’s practically like David Frost, right?

I liked the plaintive little line about “these people who don’t watch us at 6:30,” too. I haven’t watched network TV news in probably decades. It’s not just the kids, Jim.

That Wonkette post includes a great visual punchline, which I encourage you to check out.

OK, so what else? I see a few of you picked up on Neil Steinberg’s excellent blog yesterday, but if you don’t read the comments, you missed it, so click. It’s a second-day column on the reader reactions to his first-day column about guns. Word:

This is, at bottom, a religious issue, if not religious, then certainly a matter of faith. Their faith is not in law, not in God, not in society, but in guns. There is certainly a religious fanaticism to all this. It’s a passion, almost sexual in nature. No wonder they don’t want anyone drawing attention to it. They are like onanists caught in the act, blustering through their embarrassment, hurt and humiliation, shouting at the intruder. Go away. So faith and a kind of twisted psycho-sexual fixation. Guns give comfort and security to people who obviously sorely lack both. You can’t argue that. Guns are owned by people who feel they need guns. I know gun owners on my block. Lots of guns. Yet we live in the same peaceful place. We’ve talked about it. Nobody is going to yank that blankie from them. One reader wrote to me that Obama was to blame for the sale of 100 million guns, and I wrote back asking why, given that he has done absolutely nothing to restrict gun sales and no rational person believes he ever will.

And the reader said, not realizing how right he is: yes, but they were afraid he might.

My favorite silly blog, Animals Talking in All Caps, took a months-long break a while back, while its proprietor moved to Scotland and began a new life there, but it appears to be back, oh it’s back and it’s so, so wonderful.

One for you cat lovers.

Also, don’t miss Ta-Nehisi Coates on the singular gall of Condi Rice and especially — especially — Emily Bazelon, who read the briefs in support the Hobby Lobby birth-control case so the rest of us don’t have to. These people are out there, folks:

The Beverly LaHaye Institute, the research arm of Concerned Women for America, drives home this point, arguing that the government should have considered:

the documented negative effects the widespread availability of contraceptives has on women’s ability to enter into and maintain desired marital relationships. This in turn leads to decreased emotional wellbeing and economic stability (out-of-wedlock childbearing being a chief predictor of female poverty), as well as deleterious physical health consequences arising from, inter alia, sexually transmitted infections and domestic violence.

And so, as the AFLC argues, contraceptives of all kinds aren’t medical or related to health care at all. They are “procedures involving gravely immoral practices.” Protected sex demeans women by making men disrespect them. (Just as Pope Paul VI did decades ago, the AFLC presents this as true inside marriage as well as out.) By separating sex from childbearing, birth control is to blame for the erosion of marriage, for the economic difficulties of single motherhood, and even for the rotten behavior of men who beat their girlfriends and wives. Birth control is the original sin of modernity. Its widespread availability changed everything, for the worse.

Whew. I’ve known some anti-birth control activists in my life. An amazing number had fertility problems in their own marriages. Not too Psych 101 there at all.

The week is at its midpoint! The snow? We shall see..

When we were in New Orleans, a tragedy: A drunk woman lurched past Kate at the Krewe du Vieux parade, sloshing beer onto her phone, which was unfortunately in her front pocket, top-down. The speakers and power port were drowned. And so: New phone shopping today.

She’s a good kid, and she takes care of her things. But I’m damned if I’ll pay a $175 early termination fee for a phone that isn’t even manufactured anymore. The model that came after it isn’t manufactured anymore. And so into a new plan we are swept, which is less money, except when it’s more. Looks like a wash, but the new iPhone was $39 out the door and the data plan is truly insane. And no, I don’t want uVerse or the home security system.

“What do you use for home security?” the salesman asked?

“Light bulbs,” I said, allowing his pitch about the digital locks and timed windows for entry and all the rest of it to wash over me. Someday I might need all that crap, but for now? Light bulbs and common sense — doors are never left unlocked, ground-floor windows ditto and plenty of lights left on. It helps that we don’t have much worth stealing, the great gift of not being rich.

If I were really paranoid, I’d wonder why the people we trust with certain information — the letter carrier who’s not delivering the mail this week, the newspaper carrier ditto — don’t sell it for a cut of the antiques. Maybe because they’re just good people. The world is held up by people who don’t act on actionable information, while we lionize the ones who would steal you blind just because they can. Yes, I’m talking about Wall Street, wolves and all.

Bloggage? Sure.

I need to read more H.P. Lovecraft if I’m going to understand “True Detective,” evidently. There are huge gaps in my sci-fi education, mainly because I dislike the genre in general. So maybe I should concentrate on “War and Peace” or something.

I don’t understand Bitcoin, but this story looks like it’ll take me a ways down the road toward getting it.

Sarah Palin is looking positively strange these days; what’s with the Tammy Wynette hair?

Sorry for lameness, but Tuesdays suck.

I forgot to add this detail of the trip: We did Airbnb for the first time. As children get older, it’s harder to travel with them unless you’re a very rich person and can get a second room. When we’re in normal cities, we go for a two-room suite, but a destination city during season? We need an alternative. Airbnb it was.

We ended up with half a shotgun house in the Uptown neighborhood, and that part of it was great; you really do get a different sense of a city when you stay in a neighborhood. Ours seemed to be yuppifying from African-American to brussels sprout-eating hipster. The property next door was being renovated out to the lot line and up into a second floor, and the carpenters arrived at 8 a.m. every morning to BAM BAM BAM for a while, and then leave.

But the main thing was that it was a classic New Orleans shotgun duplex, which meant it was a) small (to live in, that is), and b) loud. Oh, so loud. Our neighbors the first night played their music at top volume, and I mean top volume. I was five minutes from knocking on the door when they went out, only to return at 5 a.m. and STOMP STOMP STOMP around their side for a while. As a means of not going insane, I reflected on other noisy lodgings of my life, both my own and others’. When Alan first took his job here, the paper put him up for a month in a furnished apartment in Royal Oak, where, he reported, the couple in the unit above had loud, scream-y sex every night at 11:08 on the dot; it lasted for just a few minutes and wrapped by 11:15 or so. I recalled neighbors whose arguments I could clearly hear through the walls, babies crying.

When I was a reading tutor, I had to meet my student at her apartment, in a subsidized-housing development in Fort Wayne. It was a warm night, and the overwhelming impression was of the thrumming noise — every window broadcast the sound of television dramas, music, domestic affairs.

I tried to think what it would be like to live next to the Hip-Hop Clydesdales all the time, not just for one night. It made me very grateful I don’t.

Pretty good read in Bridge today, about how a beloved ski resort in northern Michigan became a ruin. Laff line:

But anyone in Leelanau County who wanted local government to condemn and seize the long-shuttered resort faced an uphill battle. The seven-seat County Commission, controlled by small-government, Tea Party activists, expressed concern with Haugen’s efforts to inspect Sugar Loaf, with some citing United Nations conspiracy theories as a basis to thwart economic development plans in general.

Sorry for the late update today. Just flat ran out of gas last night. Fueled by coffee this morning, however, I wish you a great day.

It’s been one of those days, pals. Post-vacation workload, lousy weather, husband with the nastiest cold he’s had in years — just the sneezing makes me cringe — and even Wendy has lost her list. Apparently she went on a bit of a hunger strike at the boarding kennel, and still hasn’t bounced back; she’s sleepy and throwing up now and then, and had an accident in the house today. She’s in that gray zone between take-to-the-vet and let’s-give-her-one-more-day. Yes, she’s had all her shots and no, she doesn’t seem seriously ill. She just feels the way we all seem to, today.

I passed a mirror today and thought, Who is that old bag? I downloaded our vacation pictures from the memory card and thought, The short haircut is NOT working. I know, I know: Poor, poor pitiful me. Grow up. Stop complaining. Do something good for someone else. And consider the alternative. Sooner or later we all end up here:

But the haircut? Not working. Too short:

Louis looks pretty good, though.

Power through this week, and let’s see what the next one brings. I rowed 35 minutes on the erg today and didn’t die. Maybe spring will come. In the meantime, here’s something to warm your black heart: A man who had “been drinking all day” demonstrates to his girlfriend that his weaponry is unloaded, taking three separate handguns, pointing them at his head, and pulling the trigger. You can guess what happened. Hello, Darwin awards.

Tomorrow promises to take me out in the world a little bit. Tomorrow, I predict, will be better. Fingers crossed.

I read something remarkable in the New York Times while looking for restaurant recommendations in New Orleans:

Though the city has fewer people than it did before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, it has 70 percent more restaurants, according to a count by Tom Fitzmorris, a local expert who does not include fast-food or chain restaurants in his tally.

I believe it. When you announce you’re going there or recently returned, everyone mentions crawfish. Of course you had the etouffe, or the boil, or whatever, at some high-end Creole showplace. Nope. Not even one. This was only my second trip there, and I still remember the disappointment of our meal at Galatoire’s, which we visited more than 20 years ago. Maybe it was a bad night or something, but I have a feeling it has more to do with all that damn tradition. I always remember, poking through a heavy cream sauce at whatever lies beneath, that a lot of the details of classic cuisines evolved because frequently meat and fish arrived in the kitchen in…not the best of shape, shall we say.

(And pardon me for lowering the tone, but I try to remember that whatever I pay for this meal before me, in 12 to 24 hours it will be on its way to the sewage-treatment plant. It puts a $52 lobster thermidor, mentioned in that same NYT story, in perspective.)

So you can have your K-Paul’s and Galatoire’s and Antoine’s and so on. Give me the smaller places which are, in many ways, much closer to the new places popping up in Detroit and all over the country, where the emphasis is on the best local ingredients, imaginatively prepared but lightly messed with. The best thing I ate all week? The shaved brussels sprouts salad at Cochon, one of the hot new places but still requiring less of its diners than the old guard. We ate there with Laura Lippman, a part-time local who knows what’s what. (She also has a new book out, “After I’m Gone,” which I predict you will enjoy very much. More on that later, or maybe later this week.)

We also had good Vietnamese food, Mexican food and yes, Louisiana food — po’boys and red beans and rice and muffalettas and gumbo and beignets and coffee with chicory, because you have to go to Cafe du Monde, that’s like a law. The worst meals were in the French Quarter, because they can get away with it.

We had a nice time. I walked too much and wrecked my feet, but it’s the best way to see the city. We stayed in an Airbnb place Uptown that was sort of a dump, but very economical. It was just a few blocks off Magazine Street, a gentrifying neighborhood with construction going on everywhere. Besides the dozens of new restaurants, there were also vintage clothing shops and bars and clubs and the proverbial music everywhere. I came to appreciate the city’s tolerance of alcohol, because it’s nice to take a beer to go and just stroll and window-shop.

We toured Tulane, which Kate liked well enough to put on her short list. (Notable alumni: Newt Gingrich, Jerry Springer.) We saw a snake slithering across the sidewalk, and gathered this was a pretty typical thing, along with lizards. We tried to get into the storied music clubs on Frenchmen Street, but none would let 17-year-old Kate cross the threshold, even with her parents. Fortunately, there was a great brass band on one of the street corners just tearing it up — four trombones, three trumpets, two drummers and a Sousaphone. We were enjoying a cool sangria at a cafe on the same street two days later when an ambulance pulled up and took an obvious OD out of one of those same bars, so it’s good to know they were keeping the wrong element out.

One day as we were leaving a cab, I noted a pair of men’s pants sitting on the seat. “These yours?” I asked the driver. No, they were from an earlier customer who was “pretty messed up,” he reported in one of those what-can-you-do voices. Bourbon Street has either changed, or I have — it’s almost unbearable after dark. (It was NBA All-Star weekend when we arrived, so it’s possible this amped things up considerably.) We rented bikes and saw parts of Treme and, of course, the Louis Armstrong statue and St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and Lafayette Cemetery, in the Garden District. We rode the streetcars all over, even when the city seemed bound and determined to make that as difficult as possible.

We saw a lot, but not everything. You never see everything. That’s why you go back.

And now we’re back. We left behind temperatures in the 70s and missed two significant snow/ice/thundersnow events in Michigan, which left the driveway buried in ice, so much that we literally couldn’t get into our gated back yard when we returned. And just when I think I’ve accepted that it’s cold again but it will soon be as warm as New Orleans, guess what’s coming? Polar Vortex III: The Freezening. I can’t stand it.

But I’m back. Cold, but back.

If it’s Monday, it must be time for the Grosse Pointe North High School Cardboard Boat Regatta of 2014, now in its third or fourth year, always with new rules. This year’s were:

Cardboard and duct tape only for construction materials, with duct tape only along seams — no wrapping for stiffening. This year they were also warned not to try anything too fancy; evidently last year some group of wiseasses launched an enormous craft that had a second dinghy concealed onboard. They got to the far wall of the pool and launched the second boat — I’m imagining they were going for some sort of low-rent James Bond effect — and the whole thing sank. Stuff was sucked into the pool’s filtration system, the custodians were furious, and stern warnings were issued.

This, then, was Kate’s team’s entry. It was called the Poseidon, after all rejected Alan’s suggestion (Box of Rain):

Very utilitarian. Of course, Alan knows boats — not uncommon in a lakeside community full of sailors — and helped with construction, but his major contribution was to suggest the cardboard mailing tubes for gunwales and bulkhead stiffeners. No one else did it quite the same, but quite a few teams used tubes in other capacities; one made a pontoon out of cardboard post-hole forms, stuck a box on top, paddled it up and back, and scored the A. It wasn’t as pretty as Poseidon, but it worked.

Another rule: Two paddlers. Here they are, ready to launch:

I was concerned about the lack of freeboard, but it had a triple-layer bottom and the girls were able to paddle it while sitting flat on their fannies. If they’d ever done it together and maybe been better-matched, I think they could have won their heat. As it was, I think Kate dug in too hard and they got fouled up in the lane dividers. They didn’t get the big bonus for the win, but if your craft made it up and back without sinking or capsizing, you got the A. They did:

Others weren’t so lucky. A few sank at the dock, so to speak, and others capsized or went down mid-voyage. I think Poseidon could have done a few more laps easily, but upon completion, everything went into a special dumpster parked outside. Lessons learned:

• Stability, stability, stability.
• Duct tape is nice, but Gorilla Tape is better.
• A parent who likes to make stuff is very helpful.
• Have fun.

And now I think we’re done with these projects for a while. It doesn’t get more exciting than this, unless they build a rocket ship. (Kate’s taking astronomy next year; her school has, no shit, a radio telescope. Senior year, when the electives really become important, should be the best of the lot. We’ll see.)

And with that, I have to get to work on another extracurricular project, a grant application for a friend. So I leave you with this, which someone sent me today. It gives me hope, because obviously I wasn’t the only person who found Mitch Albom’s column yesterday ridiculous:

I would have made it “young person” instead. Stop listening to that Lady Geegaw, young person! The Beatles were better!

See you tomorrow…

If it’s February 2014, it’s time to spend our winter entombment sitting on our holiday-fortified butt fat watching the slender and graceful do some of the silliest sports in creation.

Slopestyle — oh, please. Team figure skating? If it keeps them from scratching each other’s eyes out. Moguls make my knees hurt just to watch. And yet, I’m gonna sit here on this couch and eat Girl Scout cookies until it’s over, because I am done, done I tell you, with what’s outside my own house at the moment. Two more inches fell Saturday night. Fuck every damn flake of it.

You know, this slopestyle is sort of fun to watch. Crazy damn kids.

I think speed skating is my great lost opportunity. Who knows? If I’d grown up in Milwaukee, maybe I’d have rock-solid 36-inch thighs that could kill a man.

Well, it was a weekend. Cold, snowy, a little dull. We saw “Dallas Buyers Club” Saturday, while Kate went to a Pixies show downtown. Made macaroni and cheese and a panzanella salad. You know how it goes. This time next week, we’ll be in New Orleans. Where, today, it reached 70 degrees. I think that’s all I have to say about that.

Meanwhile, a little bloggage:

When Mitch Albom goes to the mat for something, you know he’s going to give it his all. After all, he’s a sportswriter, a venue where putting it out there and then smack-talking to back it up is part of the job. And he’s a decorated, nationally known sportswriter. So, today, he wound up his keyboard and declared THE BEATLES WERE THE BEST. Actual lines:

Yep. I said it.

Yep, he said it. He said it: The Beatles were the best, and he won’t take it back.

If Katy Perry wants to argue, bring it on. If Lady Gaga takes exception, I’ll raise it.

Because this is an incredibly bold position, isn’t it, to argue that the most successful and enduring pop-music group from an almost supernaturally creative epoch in modern pop-music history is still worth listening to.

And addressing this lecture to a hypothetical “young person,” as he does? That’s simply the work of an asshole.

Moving on: What, you mean I was ahead of the editor of the New York Times? Nonprofit news — it’s what all the cool kids are doing.

The weather was bad in Portland over the weekend, too. Here’s the best story to come out of it. I could see it coming, too – watch out for that ice!

Tick, tick, tick.

For a few weeks now, I’ve had a draft on my WordPress dashboard that reads “crudity Seth MacFarlane all horror movies.” I don’t think it’s going to get written. As I recall, I started jotting notes while watching the first 20 minutes of “Ted,” the film MacFarlane wrote and directed, but realized if I was going to say anything intelligent about it, I’d have to watch the rest of it, and I couldn’t do that.

It occurs to me that, day after day, Mondays are the hardest to come up with something to say here. Not much happens to me on a Monday, unless you could two gingerly minces around the bock on the treacherous icy lumpy fuck, as well as a few phone calls and 12 million emails. I have but two things to offer today, one stolen from Eric Zorn’s link roundup, but a subject I’ve always wondered about: How do they make the yellow first-down line in televised football? Like this.

And here’s a seven-minute Philip Seymour Hoffman highlight reel, with NSFW language but some of his most memorable scenes:

I loved “The Savages.” Think I’ll Netflix it tonight, if it’s Netflixable.

For now, eh, a weak effort and I’m out.

I read Rebecca Burns’ interesting explication of Atlanta’s snowpocalypse, which is also a criticism of sprawl and bad urban planning, while I was sitting at the car-repair place. My car has entered its nickel-and-dime years, but as long as the nickels aren’t too numerous, I figure it’s worth hanging on to.

It was a long repair, though, and stretched over the lunch hour. While the garage is smack in the middle of a highly developed stretch of strip malls, it appeared the only non-fast food option was a pizza joint about half a block away. I zipped the Parka of Tribulation (its rebranded name; I think it sounds more biblical than “parka of misery”) and headed out.

Good lord, but walking in St. Clair Shores is a royal-ass pain. It’s one of those suburbs with older roots, but that really blossomed in the glorious age of the automobile. Why would anyone walk anywhere when you can get into your shiny chariot of freedom and drive? Last summer, when I needed to get there after a two-day repair, I decided to ride my bike — it’s only a few miles. But there simply wasn’t a way to do it that didn’t involve taking a road that would be risky to life and limb. So I ended up going all the way on the sidewalk (Harper Avenue, for you locals), which I absolutely hate to do, but why not? It’s not like anyone walks on them.

Certainly they’re not all cleared of snow, as I discovered today. Between the biting winds, the snow piles and the agog looks of passing motorists — looky there, someone’s walkin’ — I’d had just about enough of my winter stroll almost as soon as it started.

But the car steers correctly now, at least. Just in time for another snow squall. More coming, too.

New Orleans in two weeks. It’s going to be in the 70s there this weekend.

Wendy’s having a fierce chew at my feet as I write this, really working her Nylabone down to a nub. It seems to scratch a deep itch for her. The world is more hospitable to her now that the temperature has risen above 20 degrees. We took a longer-than-normal walk today and she enjoyed every step.

I don’t have much more. How’s your weekend looking? Kate will be starting another physics project — a cardboard boat — and there’s a party in Detroit for Ragnarok. I’ve been told it’s mainly an excuse to burn shit, so I’m really looking forward to it. The weather says it’ll be snowing. Quel surprise.

Have a great one, everybody. It sure took us long enough to get here.

I’m trying to avoid sugar these days. Not going paleo or low-carb, I’m eating fruit and occasional yogurt and, OK, dessert if someone sticks a piece of cake under my nose. But I’m trying to hold the line on the winter pudge that inevitably piles up this time of year, and it seemed the easiest way.

I had to stop working out as often as I had been when I blew out my knee, and the good news is? Haven’t gained back any of the 15 I lost over the summer. Yay, me. Twenty to go.

However: GOD, SUGAR IS WONDERFUL AND I MISS IT SO. I come from a long line of Germans, and we love our pastry and whipped cream and pie and ice cream and yes, even cheap-ass cookies like Oreos and the ones made by Keebler elves and especially those sold by Girl Scouts. I bought some Meyer lemons the other day. Normal people do that and think about cocktails and salad dressings. I thought of a Meyer lemon cake in one of my Chez Panisse cookbooks, and it took all my willpower not to make one.

Although I might this weekend.

How do people not get a sweet tooth? And once they have one, how do they let it go? I’ve heard people say it takes anywhere from a couple-three days to six weeks to stop craving sugar at the end of every meal, but all I can say is, it ain’t easy. I pour myself a big glass of water for dessert. I drink a cup of coffee. I leave the kitchen. And if I wait long enough, the protein of the meal works its way into my bloodstream and I stop thinking two little squares of dark chocolate would really hit the spot. But it takes a while.

Some people say, “I don’t crave sweets, but I just love bacon.” I love that, too. Bacon is sugar-cured, you know, most of it, anyway. Even if it weren’t, I reject the either-or nature of being either a fat or a sweets person. The two complement one another — whipped cream is sweetened fat, cake is sweetened fat, and sugar alone is sort of gross. As the kids say, it’s all love.

Don’t give me that crap about flour being sugar, too. It’s a carbohydrate, but unless it has raspberry jam slathered on it, it doesn’t hit the spot.

I’m not sorry. I’m just bereft.

It’s winter, hibernation season. All I want to do is eat a big piece of pie — maybe two — and crawl into bed with a couple good books. There to read and doze and let visions of sugarplums dance in my head.

So. A few words about sugar at midweek.

A little bloggage?

Guess who’s going to be in Chrysler’s Super Bowl ad? Bob Dylan.

Speaking of sugar, it’s the Uncle Sugar bounce!

And now I’m done. Good Thursday, all.