Dippity Do-ed

I guess it's hard to stay bummed out when my favorite holiday is just around the corner! I can't wait for the fireworks and red, white & blue cake!

Did you know that Canada also has a July 4th, of sorts? And it's on July 1st! Does this mean that Canada became independent four days before the U.S.? I'm picturing it being kind of like V-E Day and V-J Day. But I'm pretty sure we would have learned about that in Social Studies if that's really how 1776 went down. I guess I should look it up on Wikipedia.

Anyway though, I'm going to a Canada Day barbecue tonight at Francey's house, and I made some potato salad and cole slaw. I used a combination of red and white potatoes in honor of the Canadian flag. I have some doubts about the cole slaw, but I see this as an opportunity to practice my cole slaw before the big day on Friday!

Did you know that there are new episodes of Law and Order Criminal Intent on the USA Network all summer? Well, it's true. Annie and I tried to watch one last week but we ended up catching a rerun instead. It was basically the craziest thing I have ever seen on television, except for Twin Peaks and that dream-within-a-dream Halloween episode of Facts of Life.

It was guest-starring Karen from the Wonder Years as an American Studies professor who bought really expensive shoes for this graduate student and pretended to have an affair with him so that he would kill the chair of their department. Or at least, that's what it started out being about.

I don't want to give away the whole ending, but during the five minutes that Annie was brushing her teeth, Karen Wonder Years turned out to be having a lesbian affair with another professor (played by the corporate lawyer from "North Country"), the graduate student got poisoned by peanut oil injected into his nicotine gum, and the detectives discovered that Karen Wonder Years was (a) Australian, (b) a former inmate in a Thai prison, and (c) impersonating an American Studies professor, not an actual American Studies professor. The detectives already made the joke about how she had lots of time to catch up on her reading while she was in Thai prison, so I won't. But anyway, it was crazier than anything Tootie Ramsay or Dale Cooper have ever dreamt.