I loved me some Paul Newman. Slapshot, Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butch & Sundance — everything and anything the man was in I loved. I appreciated his charity work. I liked that he seemed like the kind of person who didn’t put up with any crap. I thought it was cool as hell that he was best friends with Robert Redford and raced cars and had a big family who he adored, through hard times and happy times.

But what I loved most was that the man loved his wife, Joanne Woodward. My thoughts are with you, and may Hockey God and I be even half as happy as you two were. Even half as happy as you two, we’ll be doing fine.

Turns out I love tropical fish. Turns out I have gone from being giddy in love with a fat Lab whose weight ranged between 85 and 110 pounds to being in love with a half-ounce Killer Dwarf Frog.

Today while my husband was distracted doing a search, destroy and clean-up mission on our son’s room (Toys Per Square Inch: Six) I went ahead and bought a 20-gallon fish tank to combine all the little aquatic beasts who are now housed in two separate puny little five-gallon tanks. I’m still waiting for the water to heat up, it’s taking hours. Then I can move ’em in. There is a mix of live and fake plants, a nice big rock, a plastic hamster and plastic pirates, small shiny rocks and marbles, a castle, a mermaid, a turtle and a frog. Uh, ceramic.

I may have to add some taller stuff and a fake ship and a plastic skull. I am nothing if not classy when it comes to decorating the tank.

(Vixen, I know. I know I know I know. It is not the 300-gallon salt water tank that belongs in the living room. But it will have to do.) (Also we have all these new guppies. Nine are left, plus the mom.) (Thank you, Funsize, for the tips.)

I’m going to leave the frog alone in his tank upstairs until the guppies get a little bigger. I anticipate many froggy backflips, cuz he’s a little anti-social, that boy. A week or two, then in he goes. Survival of the fittest, I’m sorry, and I’ll be cleaning just one tank a week. Michigan J. seems pretty terrified of the black-skirt tetras, so maybe they’ll keep him in line. You know, I still miss my dog. I miss him every day, several times. Sometimes more than several. And we’re still set on no more pups. I can’t take the heartbreak again. The fish are good because they’re entertaining, do not need to be walked, and don’t really care if the kids forget to feed them. I am not getting attached to them the way I did the dog, see? That is just a-OK with me.

Plus, they don’t do the puppy dog eyes. The frog tries but you know what — he’s a frog, not a dog. (I love you, dear dear Wacky Dog. No one will ever replace you in my heart.)

Yeah. And we gave one of the five-gallon tanks (along with heat, pump, fish net, food, and water conditioning drops) to our super-nice neighbors who live across the street. Their two-year-old needs a starter tank, doncha think?

Yeah, I thought so, too.

That’s right,

“I’d rather be blind, crippled and crazy/
somewhere pushing up daisies/
then to let you break my heart/
all over again…”

I’d rather be all that, rather than letting the damn Portland Winter Hawks break my damn heart again.

Would it kill them to score some goals?

The Vancouver Giants won against them tonight, five-nuthin’.

Mary: She says she thinks she could get well again, if children believed in fairies. Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe.

— from “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”

Thank you, James Rainey of the L.A. Times. Old-school journalism. That’s right. And thank God, because you’re not going to get a “tough” interview from Katie Couric. Here’s Rainey, on Couric’s interview with Palin:

“…(Palin) struggled to respond to Couric’s suggestion that the $700-billion bailout might be better funneled through middle-class families instead of Wall Street firms.

‘That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in . . .’ Palin began, before meandering off in fruitless pursuit of coherence.

But I’ll let the governor speak for herself:

‘ . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh — it’s got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.'”

(Wacky Mommy here: Say whu? As my grandfather would say, “Girl, that doesn’t make any damn sense.”) Back to the L.A. Times:

“That mind-bender prompted Couric to muse, almost charitably, on ‘The Early Show’ that Palin is ‘not always responsive when asked questions, and sometimes does slip back to her talking points.’

It didn’t go much better for Palin when she tried to clarify the mystery of what her state’s proximity to Russia has taught her about that nation. Anyone south of the Arctic Circle would have seen this question coming and had a ready answer. But seemingly not the governor.

‘We have trade missions back and forth,’ Palin told Couric. ‘We, we do, it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to, to our state.'”

(Please, y’all. Vote. Get your friends to vote. Vote early. Vote often. And let’s start working on getting coherent in this country. wm)

What time is it where you are? Ready for drinkies? I am going to have a glass of red wine, and we can talk. ‘K? K. (It’s a Bonterra Merlot. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Thank you, R from Seattle and Chicago.)

“Don’t drink and drink.”
— Wacky Mommy

I am having a life chock-full of fun over here, Internets. Cleaning, cooking, ironing. Working, picking up kids, shopping. Sleeping? Exercising? Working, putting off my online class ’til October. We have the garden to harvest, the patio furniture to bring in and let’s not even talk about the political season and the conversations I have been having with various political types who show up on my porch.

Me: “It’s a private vote.”
Them: “Would you mind telling us how you would vote, were you to vote today?”
Me: “It’s a private vote. We vote privately in this country.”
Them, walking away: “Jeez, a lot of anger!” (more…)

Good news for Troy Davis.

“Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.”

— Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)