Alan had a day off today and Kate didn’t, so it was almost like having a babysitter, except it was daytime and we weren’t going to a movie, and it only cost our tax dollars, not $20 at the end of the evening.

But it was still all romantic ‘n’ stuff — we went to King Books, which I can say may be the best used bookstore I’ve ever been in, and yes, I’m including you, Strand Books. You know you’ve been married a while when you can walk into a place like that, split up immediately and not reunite until an hour or so later, and still be deliriously happy.

Alan got a book on marlinspike seamanship. I got two Elmore Leonards and a John D. MacDonald. The pickin’s on William Wells were thin, but I noticed abundant copies of local journalists’ column collections. When I was writing a column, people would occasionally ask if I’d considered releasing a collection. Never. The people I knew who did so complained bitterly of the extra work, the sales grind and, of course, the boxes and boxes of extra copies in their garage. I own several column anthologies, and with few exceptions, they don’t age well. Like newspapers, in fact. A columnist I knew once said, very perceptively, that he’d rather his work be clipped and hung on refrigerators than anthologized to bore freshman in years after his death. That did not stop him from releasing his own anthologies, but at least he kept the right attitude about it all.

Bloggage:

Local boy John DeLorean is dead. Low Culture makes an obvious, but amusing, visual joke.

Fort Wayne has the rep for being America’s stupidest city, but I’d like to nominate its sister city New Haven for the crown, based on this evidence: When Vickey Siles got a check from the Globe Life and Accident Co. last fall, she decided she�d spend it on bills, medicine and some other debts. The check, though, was for only $1. So, according to court documents, here�s what happened: the 35-year-old New Haven resident decided to put it in her typewriter and change a thing or two. When she was done typing over the document�s original face amount, Siles no longer had a check for $1. She had a check for $4 million. And she did what anyone with a $4 million check might do: She went out to cash it.

But Siles apparently never heard what famed gangster Willie Sutton once said about banks being the places where they keep the money. She didn�t take the check to a bank. She took it to the American Cash Express on Coliseum Boulevard East and told a clerk she wanted to redeem it.

Hey! Beato is Wonkette today! I like his take on the Playgirl editor. But not as much as his his first take on her.

Finally, if you must read one thing Schiavo-related today, make it the faboo Dahlia Lithwick:

And what is the overwhelming constitutional value that supersedes each of these centuries-old legal notions? Evidently, Congress has a secret, super-textual constitutional role as the nation’s caped crusaders�its members authorized to leap into phone booths around the world and fly back to Washington in a single bound whenever the “culture of life” is in peril.

Yes.

UPDATE: And also this, by William Saletan: The point isn’t that Schiavo’s parents are bad or that she’s expressing anything about them. I’m no more qualified to draw such conclusions than you are. The point is that once people like you, me, and Tom DeLay start second-guessing the judges, doctors, and families who know a case firsthand, it never ends. The “culture of life” becomes a regime of ham-fisted political reinvestigation that does for ethics what medieval barbers did for health.

OK, and also Richard Cohen: Sen. Bill Frist watched a videotape last week of Terri Schiavo made by her parents in 2001. He did this in his capacity as Senate majority leader and as a renowned physician. In both roles he performed miserably. As a senator, he showed himself to be an unscrupulous opportunist. As a physician, he was guilty of practicing medicine without a brain.

After viewing the tape, Frist felt confident in questioning the several courts and many doctors who — apparently handicapped by firsthand examinations — had erroneously concluded that Schiavo was in a “persistent vegetative state.”

What do you think of my new coffee table? To be sure, it’s not a table yet. I had tax paperwork to sort out Sunday and Alan deserved a little liberty, so he headed over to the Royal Oak antique flea market. Looking for a table. He came home with, well, you can see what he came home with.

“It’s a drum,” I said. No. It’s a coffee table. It was a drum — a nice drum, looks like maybe mahogany — but now it’s a table. In transition, so to speak. The plan is to get a piece of glass custom-cut for the top, put some sort of foot deal on the bottom, and — what’s the word? Oh yeah, “repurpose” it.

The moral of this story is either that Alan has a better eye for the unusual than even those queer guys, or else that it was an idea that didn’t quite work. “I got $60 bucks in it, what the hell,” was Alan’s take on it. Sounds about right.

Not to change the subject too abruptly, but from the beginning, the Terry Schiavo case has baffled and confused me. No one seems to be telling the whole truth — the people who want to remove her feeding tube, who describe her as comatose or brain-dead (when she’s clearly neither) and hardly mention her husband’s new girlfriend and two children (which seems at least worthy of consideration) and who behave as though dehydrating to death is a passing no worse than, oh, Nelson Rockefeller’s.

Then there’s the other side, which seems to have lost its senses, too. Let’s start with Peggy Noonan, who really should keep the liquor cabinet locked until after deadline: She looks like one of those coma cases that wind up in the news because the patient, for no clear reason, snaps to and returns to life and says, “Is it 1983? Is there still McDonald’s? Can I have a burger?” How about those who do everything from hinting to stating outright that Michael Schiavo was abusive before his wife’s heart stopped, and now he just wants to finish the job, 15 years later.

I feel fortunate to have found Abstract Appeal, a Florida-based law blog that’s been following the case closely and, I’m relieved to say, has no particular ax to grind. If you want a clear-eyed overview of the case, I recommend it highly.

That said, there is something horrifying about the idea of the goddamn U.S. Congress getting involved in this. If you’ve ever had to make end-of-life decisions, this has to be your worst nightmare, the idea of having Tom Freakin’ DeLay pushing his nose into your private business, accompanied by Bill Frist and the rest of the GOP. To think that these people, when they aren’t shamelessly pandering to the religious right, pay lip service to the idea of getting government out of people’s lives is almost enough to make your head explode. Shameless hypocrisy? That barely begins to cover it, and I’m standing here as a person who isn’t at all comfortable with the idea of feeding-tube disconnection.

Here’s a tiny clue, from the WashPost: An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party’s base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

“This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue,” said the memo, which was reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. “This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.”

I notice the barking nitwit who used to be my congressman was in the papers Saturday, talking about the steroids-in-baseball hearing. Here’s a guy who ran on all the usual issues, c. 1994 — term limits, government out of private business, etc. Today he’s comfortable with the idea of running a professional sports league: �These star players need to stand up and say this has gone far enough,� he said. �They have a very brief time to fix this, or we�re going to.�

Let me just wrap it up this way: If my brain ever ends up looking like this, feel free to pull all plugs and tubes, nuke me with morphine and let me go on down the drain. And Alan’s free to take all my clothes out of the closet and find someone else to warm up my side of the bed. Hey — life goes on.

Oh, my. Poor Toby:

Toby is a bunny with wheat-colored fur and innocent brown eyes. He’s about 10 inches long and the picture of fuzzy-wuzzy cuteness.

“I don’t want to eat Toby,” the site operator writes on the home page, “he is my friend, and he has always been the most loving, adorable pet. However, God as my witness, I will devour this little guy unless I receive 50,000$ USD into my account from donations or purchase of merchandise.”

Fe-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of Joey Skaggs. Only he already did this prank, with dogs.

I know I promised some pictures by now, but my old Coolpix is on its last legs — the battery gives out after about five snaps — and I don’t have the mix I want yet. I bought a new one on eBay, but it won’t be here for a couple more days. So give me, oh, a couple more days.

Journalists. Always fudging the deadline.

Fortunately, we have bloggage.

Two days ago, the Free Press ran a story about dogs, advancing this weekend’s Detroit Kennel Club bench show. Well, it was more than just “a story about dogs,” but that’s all you need to know for the follow-up story, which ran today, in which readers brag about how smart their dogs are. My fave was Buster, the dog who peed in the tub when no one could let him out.

However, goddamn, but I hate it when dogs die. If you need a good leak on this hungover post-St. Patty’s Day, go read this, a tribute to TBogg’s late basset hound.

Alan got a postcard in the mail reminding him of his 30th high school reunion this summer, and ignored it. I’m not surprised; the evidence that he went to school with the biggest bunch of dorks to ever occupy God’s green earth is no stronger than this: They chose as their class song “Seasons in the Sun,” by Terry Jacks. (Alan always hastens to add that he backed another candidate — the Jefferson Airplane’s version of “Wooden Ships.”) Nevertheless, it’s apparently a guilty pleasure for a lot of people who should know better, as this amusing Slate piece points out.

(The Upper Arlington High School class of ’75 didn’t name a class song. With 750 or so members, I’m sure any claim of consensus on the topic would have been too ridiculous to hope for. I’m sure, though, it would have been something by the Doobie Brothers or the Eagles — just a different flavor of lame-o.)

Our trip to Mexicantown yesterday took us past the Michigan Central Depot, surely the most fabulous of Detroit’s fabulous ruins. It’s almost more famous in ruin than it was intact, as this site, one of many devoted to the topic, points out. To be sure, abandoned depots are not confined to this city, but few are quite so fabulously abandoned.

“They shoot videos there,” my escort said. I’m not surprised.

Me, I’m back to “Middlesex,” and a swell weekend. For me and, I hope, you?

You want to know how to write an appreciation of someone hardly anyone knew and even fewer appreciated? You could start by reading Jon Carroll.

I have no appreciation to offer today, other than one for last night’s dinner. After my sophisticated grown-up business lunch — yes, it was in a humble Mexicantown taqueria where everyone spoke Spanish, and the check was for under $10, but these days “sophisticated” means “anywhere other than my kitchen table” — I was feeling, well, sophisticated. European. Not Spanish-speaking, more…French. I decided to go hit a specialty market, see what looked good and plan dinner around it. Thought I’d try a meat market down the block I’ve not yet checked out. I was thinking tenderloin. I was thinking Delmonico. I was thinking expensive.

“What are you looking for today?” the helpful clerk asked. “Something easy for dinner?”

Well, yes.

“Try one of our pre-mixed meat loaves,” she suggested. “We have three kinds.”

And just like that, tenderloin was shoved aside by comfort food. What the hell, it’s still too cool to grill out in comfort, my winter appetite for mashed potatoes has not been entirely sated, and…meat loaf. A pre-mixed meat loaf from a specialty meat market was bound to be a cut above.

“Does it have ground pork and veal and all that? Like we used to make?”

But of course. It even came in its own little pan. Stick it in the oven at 325 for 90 minutes and then sit down to (cue angel choirs) the best meat loaf of my goddamn life. Savory, juicy, meaty, loafy — ohhhh mama. I can’t wait for lunch.

Today was sunny, at least. I drove north along the lake, one-third of the reason we chose the east side over the better-appointed west. (The lake is one hell of an appointment, if you ask me.) The river is still ice-clogged, but it was strange — close in the water was clear, but pack ice was still visible farther out. In between, bergs floated free, making everything look very…well, still very bloody cold. We’ll be out there eventually, but not for a while.

Speaking of being out there, Alan’s on the prowl for a used Flying Scot. If you’ve got one lying around the back yard, holla.

Bloggage:

The Boston Phoenix has an amusing feature on High Times magazine. The lead: There are three questions people ask Rick Cusick when they learn he�s an editor at High Times magazine.

“Can you get me some weed?”

A few people from my college newspaper ended up there. When they introduced themselves at the reunion, one said, “I work for a youth-oriented consumer magazine.” Chuckles all around.

Richard Cohen’s two-for-two this week with with his column on a few questions some senator or senators should ask Karen Hughes.

Today’s Duh Award winner. Reminds me of the picture I saw, years ago, of a car that had left the road for a ditch. Scrawled across the back: “Daved and confused.” Poor Dave.

I forgot to tell you one errand that brought John and Sam north this time. They packed all their CDs — around 600 — into bankers’ boxes, and gave every last one to some friends in the Upper Peninsula. Not because they’re joining an ascetic cult. Not because the U.P. lacks record stores (although it does, at least the last time I was there), but because John and Sam have moved beyond even CDs. They’re an iPod-and-hard drive family now. They are the wave of the future.

John’s an odd sort of early adopter; he can be incredibly sluggish on some things, ahead of the bleeding edge on others. He still has no cell phone, and his cable is primitive, but he was the first person I know to get broadband at home and generally buys the computer today that I’ll be buying in two more years. He does BitTorrent, which I haven’t figured out yet, but I still pay attention when he talks about it, because I know it’s the next step.

He’s trying to make me more Unix-literate. He has his work cut out, as they say.

Another thing: Although John is hugely well-informed, he gets no newspaper, and hasn’t for years. He thinks his hometown rag is less than impressive, and besides, how can one paper satisfy any single reader these days? Like everybody else I know, he reads a little bit of a dozen papers, plus blogs of all stripes, this, that and the other thing.

This bothers newspaper publishers. It should.

Services like Craigslist should bother them more, since classifieds are such a cash cow for newspapers. (The money crunch in newspapers didn’t get serious until the economy went south, taking job classifieds with it.)

Head-scratchers spend a lot of time thinking about these things. I wish I were a head-scratcher these days; they seem to be working quite a bit.

I am a happy girl today. I have a lunch date! With adults! Downtown! I’m a grown-up again!

Full report later.

Houseguests — everyone should have them. Otherwise, how would you ever find the energy to clean the house?

Not that we here at NN.C Central value our houseguests purely for their motivational purposes, although the impending arrival of John and Sam (Sam’s a girl, FYI) did prove to be the motivational fire under my ass to finally whip the last room — not counting the basement — into shape. It’s the guest room/my office, and for weeks, just looking into its jumble of boxes and chaos defeated me. In this house’s former ownership, it was the baby’s room, and it still has its peaceable-kingdom wallpaper border, upon which giraffes frolic with lions. I used that as an excuse: “I think I’ll make myself some lunch first, so I don’t have to look at those giraffes.”

Now it’s more or less finished, except for the frilly curtain thingies and the wallpaper. I hung my KWF diploma/group picture over the desk, to remind me that 17 other people in the world are advancing in their careers, and I’d better get going.

As always when John and Sam visit, the computers got improved; he’s my Mac-genius friend. A few tips to pass along: If you haven’t discovered Google maps, run right over there and do so — you’ll purge Mapquest from your bookmarks immediately afterward. I’m also experimenting with — Vince, Alex, pay attention — Flickr, a faboo photo-sharing site, and hope to have a little Grosse Pointe photo essay in place by, oh, let’s set a deadline — week’s end, say.

And I pass along John’s oracular advice to you: “Metadata is as important as data these days. Pay attention to your tags.”

Yes, oh great one. But when you start nosing around Flickr, you’ll see exactly what he means.

J & S left yesterday morning, March 14, not quite halfway to the alleged lamb-like end of the month. Temperature: 18 degrees. I give up. I F**CKING GIVE UP, I say. I feel like Al Swerengen getting a prostate massage, just one big lump of misery and fury. I feel like hooking the dog to his leash and walking south until we reach the zone where temperatures sit at 55 degrees F. or higher. Unfortunately, we’d have to go through Detroit to get there. Maybe not.

So, then, the bloggage:

File this under “what liberal media?,” Richard Cohen’s take on the absurd lengths to which “balance” can be taken, especially on C-SPAN: You will not be seeing Deborah Lipstadt on C-SPAN. The Holocaust scholar at Emory University has a new book out (“History on Trial”), and an upcoming lecture of hers at Harvard was scheduled to be televised on the public affairs cable outlet. The book is about a libel case brought against her in Britain by David Irving, a Holocaust denier, trivializer and prevaricator who is, by solemn ruling of the very court that heard his lawsuit, “anti-Semitic and racist.” No matter. C-SPAN wanted Irving to “balance” Lipstadt.

Whenever I go to Starbucks, I refuse to use their stupid euphemisms for small, medium and large. I thought it was just me (and Alan). It’s not: When Seth Shepsle goes to Starbucks, he orders a “medium” because “grande” — as the coffee company calls the size, the one between big and small — annoys him. Well, there’s a man after my own heart. The story’s about how people cope with life’s small annoyances. I guess refusing to say “venti” beats going into a church with a gun.

Lance linked to one of those stupid online time-wasters, this one “Which Greek god are you?” Mercifully, it doesn’t waste much time.

Even though I feel like Dolorosa, the goddess of late-winter cabin fever, it turns out I’m…

Thursday’s dinner: Leftover baked ziti.

Hey, you can’t have salmon every night.

The leftovers don’t quite explain why the evening update became the morning update again after a mere day. I’ll admit to having nothing to say last night — which is sort of like being speechless — after hearing the weather report. Ready? Yes, snow! Snow! Big fluffy flakes of snow-a-licious snowiness! I glowered at it until I took the dog for his morning walkies. Hard to feel bad about new-fallen show when you have a happy dog nearby. This is perfect snow for a little dog — about two inches, not enough to impede progress, plenty to roll in. He always enjoys a good roll in the snow. He makes dog angels.

And it will melt soon enough. I have this on good authority.

In the meantime, Hank leads us through the slime of the Jacko trial, and please, no Jacko-jackoff jokes, OK?

Although you’ve been forewarned.

Jon Carroll reads the morning newspaper. I bet he’s fun to have breakfast with:

Oh, it is so exciting to read the newspaper. I wonder why more people don’t do it, because it’s a real mood-enhancing device. For instance, here is a story about 19 illegal immigrants from Mexico who died (apparently of heatstroke and thirst) in the back of a truck on its way to Houston. The truck driver, one Tyrone Williams, has said in court that of course he would have helped the hapless victims, who were screaming for help, but he did not understand Spanish.

Yes, that’s a plausible defense. There are, after all, so many different ways to say “Sacame de aqui” or “Tengo sed” or “Tengo hambre.” One could speak it very tenderly, almost like a love song: “Get me out of here, my darling, I am hungry for your large eyes and thirsty for your red lips, and I suffer, oh, how I suffer, for your love.” It could be like a festive folk tune: “Get me out of here and we will dance around the hat and laugh about our hunger and thirst!” And even if they were screaming in abject terror — hey, they were screaming in Spanish, the mystical secret language of the ancient conquistadors.

It’s a tough state: Michigan cat shoots owner. Well, me-OW.

Me, I’m off to spend a chunk of the morning reading about William Wells, the original little big man. Do you know, if you ask the Indiana Magazine of History for a back issue, they just send it along, and tuck a hand-written invoice in the pages? What an antique idea.

Have a swell weekend.

I’ve said this before, but I’m saying it again, especially now that I’m living in a Top-10 media market: I preferred the news on the below-100 stations in Fort Wayne. I can’t tell you why, except that it’s more interesting, in the way that amateurs are more thrilling than professionals, that people who don’t get it right are funnier than those who do, that a brow yet unlined by time is better than one unlined by Botox. It’s news without a net.

Fort Wayne is an entry-level media market, and sometimes it seemed the whole news operation had been turned over to high-school kids. You became accustomed to seeing reporters so young they looked as though they weren’t ready to shave. Since only a fool watches TV news in Fort Wayne to get the actual news, I watched for the other entertainment — the manic head-nodding as the anchor tossed to the live stand-up; the mispronunciations of the simplest place names; the goofy, puppylike enthusiasm you only see in those who haven’t had it beaten out of them by consultants and bosses and other villains.

Compared to the slick androids of Detroit news operations, I’ll take the raw material. Much more amusing.

So, that said, it seems a bit strange to be getting on a high horse to defend the lost newsroom of Fort Wayne on journalism grounds. Is community coverage really going to suffer with one fewer TV news operation? Maybe, but probably not. It still pisses me off. When reporters lose their jobs to increase profits and “efficiency,” it’s not good news.

Here’s a prediction: In the days to come, very few voices will be heard on this issue. Maybe one of the papers will write an editorial; perhaps a columnist will clear his throat for a few paragraphs. The tone will be sad, but not very — there are new realities in the business of journalism, which is, we must always remember, a business. No mention will be made in any of these columns of the current business climate in the city’s print operations; my old paper is now approaching a staff level of maybe 60 percent of its high, four years ago. Circulation is falling off the table, which contributes to the cost-cutting cycle. Does anyone make the connection that perhaps people are dropping the paper because it’s now filled with wire copy, rather than locally written stories? Of course they know this. But they don’t care. This is, we must always remember, a business. The day is coming soon when there will be one fewer print newsroom in the city, too, and some things shouldn’t be said too loudly.

This is wrong. The idea that people who profit from the public airwaves should serve the public is positively antique, but it was a good one, and I’m sorry to see it go.

Yes, journalism is a business. So is plastics. But plastics doesn’t get mentioned in the first amendment. Journalism does. And guess what else. All those reporters at Channel 33? They were fed peanuts. A few folks made a decent buck there, but in a market like that, there are plenty of staffers who are eating ramen noodles three nights a week.

OK, that’s the end of that rant.

I think the evening update will come back for a while. I need a more structured morning, a more active morning, and mostly, I miss the nightly dinner menu reports. Tonight: Salmon Cooked on Salt, from the new Gourmet cookbook. It’s so cool — pour two cups of kosher salt into a dry cast-iron skillet, heat it up, place a salmon filet on top, cover and uncover 12 minutes later to find a perfectly cooked piece o’ fish. Serve with cucumber dill sauce, asparagus and au gratin potatoes, plus a nice chardonnay. Mmm, don’t you wish you were invited tonight?

No dessert, but I think there are some ice-cream sandwiches in the freezer, if you’re still hungry.

Back tomorrow.

Some of the best responses to yesterday’s grammar question came by e-mail. Emma, for instance: “Masturbating himself?” That just sounds riduculous. I’ve always prefered “manually manipulated.” When I worked at the tanning salon, I had to tell my boss that an elderly male customer had “digitally manipulated his anus” in the tanning bed. I didn’t know what else to say.

God gives all writers the material for their novel. We just have to be wise enough to notice it. I, for instance, was gifted with 20 years at a steadily declining small newspaper. Emma, on the other hand, had her stint at the tanning salon, where she witnessed enough disgusting human depravity for a trilogy, at least. Customers peeing in the wastebaskets, smearing the beds with bodily fluids and now, apparently, digitally manipulating their bummies — evidently there’s something about the combination of UV light and private rooms that makes people bonkers. Maybe it’s the little glasses. I’m tempted to ask Emma how she knew that about the digital manipulation, but I just had breakfast.

The moral of the story: Tanning is really bad for your skin. Among other things.

Of course, if you wanted to write a roman a clef about a rotten business, you really can’t beat TV news these days. Two companies play a game of pass-the-license, and the upshot is, a city loses another newsroom. Granted, TV newsrooms in Fort Wayne aren’t exemplars of the form. It still sucks.

Time to consider a serious career change. Maybe I can work for GM. I hear they give discounts on cars.

Another thanks to Eric for pointing out the error message generator. Hours of time-wasting fun. Here’s mine; it’s an inside joke: