Author: Annie

Yes. I am THAT She Devil. The original, shedevil at vix.com. You know: I am: mom, attorney, fathers' rights advocate Actually, I'm a lawyer -and- I play one on tv. Yep..that's me.

Bad Mom

Today I lost it. It’s true, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but I lost it. Months of being laid up and impeded with an injured back, having had no time – at all – to myself, everybody wanting and needing something from me (customers, employees, my husband, my children – I mean, I love them all – well, ok, I love my huband and my children) and I have had literally zero time for myself.

And so I lost it.

And I said a bad word, and it traumatized our son.

The bad word that I said was “damn”.

Now, I feel terrible for how upset our son was. But even through the haze of my guilt, I have to wonder if this highlights a ray of hope – does the fact that the word “damn” was such a dramatic departure from my usual language and demeanor mean that I’m actually not that bad a mom?

The Blog is Dead, Long Live the Blog!

MangeMerde.com is now the official blog of She Devil, a/k/a me.

So please update your feeds because the feed at SheDevilsBlog.com is going away.

The new feed address is:

feed:http://www.mangemerde.com/feed/

That is all.

At Least I’m Not an Art Critic

Few things can eclipse the level of ridiculousness to which descriptions of wine from wine critics sink, but I have to tell you, descriptions of art and artists by art critics is one of them.

Take for example this real-world description which we recently saw at a local art museum. Only the name of the artist has been changed:

“John Doe’s work entices us to view it both up close and from a distance. When viewed in its larger context, this series of small paintings create a harmonious arrangement of natural forms. These forms, at a close distance, establish a reductive language that addresses the formal concerns of painting and drawing. It is this tension between Doe’s technical skills and his passion for the intuitive process which gives rise to a dynamic conversation in the work. These conversations keep all the components together as they form, dissolve, and re-form.”

And they accuse us lawyers of being full of nonsense.

It’s Not Christmas Yet!

Geezus! Here it is, November 11th.

And that’s the point. It’s November 11th. The body of Halloween isn’t even cold yet, and Thanksgiving has not yet happened, and it looks like a Christmas cheer factory threw up all over Starbucks.

Ho bloody ho bloody ho.

Can You Get Bird Flu from Eggs?

Here’s an interesting and scary thought: can you get bird flu (avian flu) from eggs?

To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about this possibility, until I read today that a food expert from the European Food Safety Authority is advising people that you don’t have to worry about getting bird flu from eggs – if you cook the eggs well.

Well, great. While my raw-egg drinking days are over (ok, they never started), it seems that the only way to be sure that you don’t contract bird flu from eggs is to cook them well, which means, to me, that it is theoretically possible to get bird flu from an uncooked egg, such as in, say, real mayonaisse.

I wonder if going vegan would be as relatively easy as has been going vegetarian?

I Still Don’t Get the Space Elevator, But I Think It’s Cool!

I think that the space elevator is a pretty nifty idea, even if thinking about it makes my brain hurt.

The concept, as I understand it, is to have this very thin, very strong, and very long piece of cable-like material known as “nano tubes” stretch from the earth, miles into space. It will stay erect through some laws of physics which I don’t understand, but which I am assured by those who do will work.

The latest news about the space elevator is that perhaps the only thing harder about the space elevator than my wrapping my brain around it is coming up with a proof of concept. NASA recently offered $100,000 in prizes for its Space Elevator Games, in which there were two challenges:

“The Beam Power Challenge tasks designers with building an unmanned machine, weighing 50 to 100 pounds (22 to 45 kilograms), capable of pulling itself up a 4-inch (10-centimeter) wide, 200-foot (61-meter) long ribbon suspended from a crane, and powered only by the energy beamed up from a 10,000-Watt xenon searchlight.”

And the Tether Challenge, in which “four teams offered their best formulation for an ultra-light, ultra-strong ribbon material. During one-on-one tug-of-wars, each of the entrants were tested to their breaking points.”

It is telling that nobody won either challenge, and all $100,000 remains locked in the NASA vault.

Still, it’s all very interesting.

What Kind of Car Does Mr. Money Drive?

Now, what kind of car do you think that someone who calls themselves “Mr. Money” would drive? On what kind of car would you expect someone to put a license plate proclaiming themselves to be “Mr. Money”?

Ok, I confess to not knowing the definitive answer to that, if there is one. But I’m pretty sure that Mr. Money would not be driving a Honda compact (apologies for the poor quality – I was..uh..driving at the time).

More Comfortable Shoes

Ok, they are actually boots. But they are so comfortable that they are like wearing slippers outdoors. And they have the cutest tree on the bottom of the soul.

I really like Eugene, Oregon, Comfortable Shoe Capital of the United States.

These Lyrics are Just Plain Wrong

I overheard these lyrics on the piped-in music in the loo at a local restaurant, and did an aural double-take. I was sure I’d misheard, but nope, sure enough a bit of research revealed that it was Old Blue Eyes himself, singing about love, when he opined:

“When love congeals, it soon reveals the faint aroma of performing seals…”

Uh…a little bit TMI there, Frankie.