Did you know that Ganymede has a SEA under its SURFACE?

This is fantastic. (Fantastically gross, that is. ANNIE. DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK.) Kate! Thanks for sending this, and thanks as well to the Boston Globe for such a hard-hitting expose'. Or is it a human interest piece? I really have trouble differentiating. Maybe you can tell? And, oh...my favorite part? It's a tie between when the lady exclaimed "Oh my stars!" and when her mother almost fainted because she had the "willy willies." I have a feeling that if an eight foot-long snake were found in downtown Chicago the utterances would not be nearly as quaint.

Grohohossssss.

Some other tidbits from my week (I'm cutting and pasting a bit more than usual because I leave in about six hours to go to Cape Cod for a week. I should really finish packing. And maybe squeeze in a shower.): Um, Kidz Bop. Why? WHY? I truly don't understand why kids can't listen to the actual songs. Not appropriate? Well, having kids sing J-Lo's "Waiting for Tonight" does not make it more kid-friendly, no matter how many high-pitched full voiced tots wail "Ohhh!" It is a song about meeting your lover. (Oh, my stars.) And it's an actual track on one of the Kidz Bop albums. I use the term 'album' kinda loosely, as it's essentially a Now That's What I Call Music CD dubbed in kidspeak. Make the kid a mix tape, she'll thank you. (Right, Dad? Alice Cooper!!)

Hmm, what else...so many amazingly relevant things to write about in one short week! How about when P.J. was at the gym (yesterday) and was asked How It Was Goin' by a random guy in the locker room? P.J. looked up, realized the guy was speaking to him and replied "Oh. Fine." The man followed up with "Did you know that 40 percent of all prostitutes in Thailand are transvestites?" An awkward silence ensued, as you can well imagine (I HAVE to imagine, for I wasn't there either.) P.J. calmly responded "No...I didn't." Pause pause pause pause. "I enjoy travel."

And I was so thrilled today on Facebook- When I asked for info on Jupiter's moon Ganymede in my "status," four people responded with wall posts and two sent messages. I'm not completely mental, I was researching cool tidbits for a one-act play that's due in, oh, about ten minutes. I received some creepy information as well as some completely timely and writer's-block-obliterating dialogue! So, um, thank you.

We went down to Summerdance at Millennium Park after work to hear a Serbian brass band and learn how to dance like other cultures. Namely, Serbia. Turns out, it's mostly dancing in a line, holding hands and doing something tappy with your feet. Since we were in the outer ring (I don't know how that happened- I'm short and usually shoved in front) we couldn't see the instructor's feet and thusly didn't know the tappy parts. So, we bounced in place until people moved right or left, then we bounced to the right or to the left. We looked amazing- people totally wondered how we got such cultural dance moves. I told them that it comes from the heart- g-goung. G-goung. (Anyone, anyone? Not you, Kate.)