today at work, i got one of those emails with the cute pictures of cats and dogs doing cute cat and dog things. one of the pictures was the one to the left there, which inspired this conversation:

Augustine, Erica M.
okay that email was cute and all but the thing i looked at longest was that fish toilet. do you think there's water inside the seat part?
K.R.:
no i think it is one of those squishy seats though
Augustine, Erica M.:
sweeeeet
K.R.:
GROSS!
Augustine, Erica M.:
i could never own anything like that, but it is very interesting
K.R.:
have you ever used one of those?
Augustine, Erica M.:
no, but it sounds cool
K.R.:
it isn't... it is wrong on so many levels
Augustine, Erica M.:
why? cushiness for you butt? how can that be wrong?
Augustine, Erica M.:
you're sitting in a cushy chair right now, why does a toilet seat have to be all hard.
K.R.:
it is weird... You sink in to it a little.
K.R.:
that is what I am use to HARD SEATS for toilets. I don't want to think I am sitting on a couch to go to the bathroom
Augustine, Erica M.:
it's not thick enough to be like a couch. i find your opposition to the idea of comfortable toilet seats a little odd.
K.R.:
it is just wrong... trust me on this one.
Augustine, Erica M.:
i wouldn't want it in a public toilet, but for your own personal home use? why not?
K.R.:
My aunt and uncle have the squishy toilet seat all over there house (at least they did when i was a kid) and it was always so wierd to have to go on them. it was distracting and took longer to get business done because it just seemed so wrong.
Augustine, Erica M.:
comfort karen! comfort! how can you of all people be against this?
K.R.:
Don't mess with the toilet... There shouldn't be comfort on the can!
Augustine, Erica M.:
dude, there should be comfort EVERYWHERE!
Augustine, Erica M.:
EVERYTHING should be made of nice squishy material
K.R.:
You definitely don't need comfort on the can... that causes bad things to happen becasue then you would stay on it too long and we all know what happens when you sit on the toilet for too long of a time.
Augustine, Erica M.:
imagine such a world! no one would get hurt or injured, everyone would be a lot more cheerful, it would be wonderful. i imagine that's why heaven is so awesome--everything's made of soft squishy clouds!
Augustine, Erica M.:
there are no hemorrhoids in heaven.
K.R.:
but we are not in heaven yet... There for no squishy toilet seats!
K.R.:
therefore
Augustine, Erica M.:
it's no wonder we can't have world peace with people like you and your fascist anti-comfortable-toilet ideas around.
K.R.:
that is me... anti-world peace protester of the comfy toilet seat!
Augustine, Erica M.:
we'll just have to agree to disagree.

disclaimer: K.R. then sent me this link, which horrified me to no end. i'm not espousing uncleanable foamy toilet seats, i was envisioning something of a less permeable plastic nature with a gel or silicon filling...like an implant!

i've been working on this paper for my strategic brand management class for several weeks now (although i should probably have started several weeks before that). it's due in eight days and i'm vacillating between frantic non-stop writing and, when i get stuck, unfortunate procrastination (like right now). i found myself feeling morose the other day when checking the powerball numbers, not because we hadn't won anything, but because i realized that even if we had, i'd STILL have to finish writing this paper.

on an unrelated note, yesterday it was 70 degrees and i walked the dog in a t-shirt. today it is snowing.

fact: in all the back to the futures, the ink only disappears at the exact moment someone is looking at it.

we had a nice christmas at home, and hope that you did too. here's a video of anna and her christmas present.