Her legs look good and stable!

A few years ago my friends and I had a night of hysterical can't-catch-our-breath laughter in which we designed imaginary satyrs (or centaurs, or fawns, or minotaurs, depending whom you ask) for each of us. Maybe you had to be there, but the topic has induced giggles for me ever since.

Recently Stephen Colbert said "I'll go on record saying John McCain is a minotaur," which caused me to shriek with delight and research which man/beast combo we really meant a few years ago. I think it was the satyr. But when googling "centaur," I found an awesome site called Elfwood, to which some dude submitted a digital painting with this note:

"the basic idea about her legs is they are actually a normal (very muscular) human legs with extended feet (those of a horse) all covered in fur, so I think she wouldn't have any trouble in walking, and keeping her balance for standing with two legs in a long time. I don't think that a person with a true horse hind legs could walk normally, because their thighs are too short so their knees are also too high, it's not easy to walk with such legs. recently I found that highlighting the skin tone with yellow looks very organic compared to white (I used to make highlight using white, and then wondered about the unhealthy pale look on the skin I just rendered, and spent so many hours to adjust the contrast, hue, and everything in a frustration) manually sketched, colored with photoshop,then rendered in painter, and exported back to photoshop for the final adjustments (ex: the make up for her face). the dress was painted from scratch in painter, and the eye glasses was made with photoshop."

This is the picture:

And these are some comments:

• I think the creature isn't a centaur, it's either a minotaur, a faun, or a satyr. Great work though!


• Aah who cares what you call her, she's gorgeous! I love the yellow skin, and her dress, and her legs look good and stable!


• She is what I call a "hemicentaur": the F1 hybrid of a non-centaur human and a centaur (this assumes incomplete dominance of the centaur gene). As your picture shows, the result is beautiful (lovely legs!). [Do you wish you were one (or ARE you one)?].


• I appreciate it more in the closeups of her head. That's when the detail in her eyes and lips comes out. It's very good, I think, very indicative of a tough but beautiful personality. She's got a tan elven ladies might kill for, too.

Mom's Corner

i fixed an awesome dinner for evelyn with poached pear/ice cream dessert, so she was very grateful and impressed. i had eva come for lunch today so we began drinking greyhounds (grapefruit juice/vodka) on the patio and playing fetch with maggie. i made scrumptious sun-dried tomato wraps with turkey, avocado, chopped butter lettuce, swiss cheese and a touch of italian dressing. eva had never had a wrap, so it was fun making her one. it was lots of fun being domestic for a couple days...[dad] has enjoyed that too, of course. i guess watching the food network channel has been inspiring me...a little bit :) tomorrow at 5 p.m. [cousins] arrive, so i've got some appetizers for them before they go back to a wedding welcoming party later in the evening.

does [brother] know you're considering a fit? [Fn1] he'd sure be excited about that, since he loves that car. will that be enough room for you? are you buying a used or new one? ouch...cars are so expensive!! good luck car shopping! here's some advice (although you haven't asked for any, ha) i recommend going through costco's auto plan, since you get the best price in town. costco has a deal with certain local honda dealers who will sell a car a few thousand $$ under the mfrp (manufacturer's retail price); it's a great deal. just get a costco store's auto plan booklet which lists the honda dealers in your area. you'll probably deal with the honda dealer's fleet manager. that person will be your only contact and he/she simply explains the plan and finalizes the paperwork for you, so there's no need to wheel 'n deal with car salesmen...nice. also, there are additional fees when buying a new car. they are: a document preparation fee ($45 for my accord), sales tax, license fees ($211 for the accord) , and california tire fees ($5 for the accord). fyi: the mfrp (window/sticker price, which includes a destination and handling fee) for the 2004 accord was $26,890.00, but the costco discount lowered it to $24,250.00!! even if you have to pay $50 to become a costco member, it's well worth it!! maybe i've given you more info than you want at this time, but you know me...always looking for better prices/deals and ALWAYS wanting to help you in any way i can!!

I LOVE YOU!!

mom

[Fn1] My car was stolen from the mean streets of Noe Valley the other week. I hated that hand-me-down '95 Civic Coupe with a cherry red paint job and many street parking scrapes and a recently developed high pitched whirring sound. I was disappointed when it was found, but happy when my insurance declared it totalled. Honda Fit, here I come! (Note to self: Learn how to buy cars.)

Welcome to my new all-video blog.

Easter in San Francisco

After the Hot Jesus contest

and before the Big Wheel race

a gentleman asked my friend Cheryl:
"Would you like some merlot and Coke? ...It's very popular in Spain."

Meet Burger and Fries.

Pinky goes nuts.

Stuff White People Like

I know you've all read and enjoyed it, so I'm not linking, but merely sharing this morning's family email dialogue:

• Brother 6:42 AM: This is hilarious. It's like an outsider's cultural guide to understanding whites (albeit whites in the upper-middle class). There has been a lot of discussion on the 'net about this lately. Apparently a lot of whites are outraged that someone would dare generalize them in this manner. I however was completely amused, and so was Linda, despite being basically the exact prototype of this classification. http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

• Mom 6:47 AM: hey brother...i'm laughing so hard i can hardly type! thanks for the morning cardiopulmonary workout while drinking coffee (#1)...instant coffee, i must admit! yup...you and linda fit into many of the stereotypes pretty closely, hmm. it's about time us parents are off the hook a little ('cept by their kids!). i guess the saying is true, "what goes around comes around." thanks a lot for sending this to us and keeping us informed about our race...i'm passing it forward!!

• Linda 9:08 AM: Whoa. Are you sure you've only had the one coffee?

• Mom 9:20 AM: one and a half actually. how about you?

• Dad 9:26 AM: Mom, put the Bushmills away. No more irish coffee for you this morning!

It destroys art. It destroys souls.

Today Gentleman Friend proudly showed me his new Anne Geddes checks. He also reminded me of this great moment from "The Office":


Angela: It makes me feel like the babies are the true artists, and God has a really cute sense of humor.


Oscar: I don't like looking at it. It's creepy and in bad taste and it's just offensive to me. It makes me think of the horrible frigid stage mothers who forced the babies into it. It's kitsch. It's the opposite of art. It destroys art. It destroys souls. This is so much more offensive to me than hardcore porno.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

Today, in response to a post about What to Expect When You're Expecting, Jezebel commenters discussed weird things that happen during pregnancy and birth. This has been a favorite topic of mine since I learned (relatively recently) that women often poop during birth. My response was basically "Hold on...WHAT?!?!"

Here are the top ten comments and tips from today's post:

(10) I was a C-section, so there was no chance for such grossness with me. Only cutting flesh open, pulling it back like wallpaper, and shifting organs about. You know. The usual.

(9) Seeing my friend's fiancee not able to get off a couch because she had an 8 inch blood clot after her c-section made me die a little inside.

(8) My friend's mom craved dirt when she was pregnant with her. Dirt. More specifically she wanted red dirt. I don't know why she was hating on the other flavors of dirt, but whatevs.

(7) I think the first truly horrifying reality check about pregnancy came the day I learned in 9th grade health class about shitting during labor, tearing, and what 10 cm dilated really looks like. It was a trifecta of horror.

(6) A guy I work with was horrified about the thing where well, they cut something (cervix, vagina, not sure?) to make the baby come out easier. He came by my desk and asked me about it (why, not sure, I have no kids) and was all pale. He told me he thought they "just fell out."

(5) What about that gross mucus plug that comes out the last few weeks?? Uggggg.

(4) Ahh me too on the shitting during labor! All I could think was - "I can't believe so many husbands have watched their wives shit, camera-in-hand!"

(3) I threw up during labor. I also got extreme "morning sickness" from the second month until the seventh month. I threw up so much and so often that I began bleeding from the back of my throat every time I gagged. Oh and my insurance wouldn't cover the cost of the anti-nausea pills. It was the worth nine months of my life, but I'm happy with the end result. He's pretty rad.

(2) When my sister was in the midst of her ninth month she sent me a text message that read, "Thought my water broke this morning, but I just peed my pants."

(1) A friend and I told a male coworker about how sometimes babies poop in the womb (I think it is called merconium?). First he didn't believe us. Then he got upset. Then he yelled at the top of his lungs "Nobody is SHITTING inside MY WIFE!"

Happy St. Patrick's Day! (v.1)