Beautiful Ella

Ella and I are spending the day together, writing my final papers. But mostly I am staring at her and admiring her tiny toes and precious bald head and gummy smile and taking eleventy-thousand pictures, like these here:

You: These are all the same picture.

Me: No! Not really. See in one, her lip is slightly turned up, and in this other one, her lip is slightly turned down. See?

You: They are all the same picture.

Me: No. See, she is kind of smiling here and kinda smiling a little more here.

You: They are all the same picture.

Me: Look! In this one she is looking over my shoulder and in this one she is kind of looking over my head. See? Totally NOT the same picture.

You: They are all the SAME picture. The same. The SAME! SAME. S-A-M-E. SAME!

Me: No. In this picture, you can definitely tell that she will be president of the United States. But in this one, it looks more like she has designs on a Senate seat. See?

You: ….?

Me: And in this one, her hair looks a little blond, but in this one, it has a hint of auburn. Especially if you squint a bit.

You: [banging head on keyboard]

Me: Totally NOT the same picture. Totally.

And here are some other pictures I took. We were having a great conversation about values framing in the 2004 presidential election and also poopy diapers.

Is that what you got out of the article, Mom? Because I have a different interpretation of the author's argument.

Well, sure, I see your point, but I am still a little skeptical. How do you think priming may have contributed to the results of the 2004 presidential election if not through the use of values framing?

Of COURSE priming contributed substantially to the results of the National Election Pool's exit poll results.

I realize Dhavan Shah is a leading academic in studies of values framing and its political ramifications, but I really don't think he sees the full picture.

...That's what I have been saying ALL along. I am way cute. Waaaaaaaaaaaaay cute. And Shah completely missed that in his most recent article on values and political activity.

Ahhhh. The end of the semester. Not technically, as I still have three papers to write in the next week, but it’s so close. Almost there. Like the last mile of a long run, when you know you can do it, but would really like to just stop now, but you won’t, because you’re almost there and you realize that actually, you’re doing just fine and can keep going after all. What’s one more mile after a semester of them?

Speaking of running, I think Ella and I will get out for one this afternoon. It is supposed to be warm today, and by that I mean a high of 34. Which is exciting because the other day we had a high- a HIGH of six. Six degrees. The kind of day that freezes your hair into crunchy ice crystals on your head when you let the dogs outside and sucks the humidity right out of your chest. The kind of day that makes your Chihuahua refuse- REFUSE- to poop outside because DAMN it's cold outside. And can't he just poop under the Christmas tree because that is nature-y enough for a little dog who doesn't really, like, "do "nature anyway. The closest Tabasco gets to doing nature is watching Animal Planet on someone's lap.

So, um, yeah. Tabasco's been leaving us... presents. Under the tree.

Nice.

I guess he figures he IS going outside, and thank GOD someone got smart and brought outside in the house because having to go underneath the bed to poop was getting a little old. And this tree even comes with a pine scented water dish. Fabulous! Humans aren't such complete idiots, after all.

Ooooohh! Dachshund karaoke. This is my favorite nature show.