Toothbrushes, Trolls, Tex-Mex

Plus: Happy Mother's Day, Mom. See you soon!

Hey there. Does your neighborhood have an email listserv? A Google Group? I’m not talking about Nextdoor, that cesspool of racism, or a Facebook Group. I mean a good old fashioned distro. Mine does, and last night someone wrote to inform the neighborhood that in case we heard an unusual buzzing noise on her street, it was because she couldn’t seem to turn off her electric toothbrush and so she had put it outside on her driveway with a rock on top of it in hopes that it would soon die. She had not removed the battery or plugged it in to charge. She had not even stashed it in another room in her house, far far away from her bedroom. Maybe the linen closet, in between some towels or blankets to muffle the sound? No. She had instead decided that the best place for this toothbrush that would not stop vibrating was outside, and so sometime after 9 P.M. she placed it not on the grass but on concrete, and then for some reason put a rock—another hard material—on top of it.

My friends, this makes no sense. (Well, it makes about as much sense as the number of people who availed themselves of the reply-all function to recommend other brands of electric toothbrushes.) But as my husband likes to say when I get riled up over other people’s stupidity, her vote counts the same as mine.

Some fun recs today:

1. I was in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill (NC) area this week and my friend Brenna took me to Dorothea Dix Park to see some Trolls by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. They are sculptures made from recycled materials. There are hundreds of them installed all around the world. There is a map—a Trollmap! Find it here and join me in planning all of your future travels based on the locations of these delightful fairytale creatures.

   

2. The teenager is making these cheese enchiladas (gift link), which have been on heavy rotation in our house for a few years now, for a school project. Thanks to author Bryan Washington for sharing the recipe in the New York Times.

3. Last week I listened to Lena Dunham’s Famesick, about which much has already been said. I highly recommend the audiobook, read by Dunham. But don’t just take my word for it—read Elisabeth Donnelly on Dunham’s second memoir, Girls, and that particular 2008 milieu.

   Thoughts on Lena Dunham's Famesick

I’ll leave you with a pic of fancy Osito, wearing a bow tie for his (our) graduation from Canine 101 last weekend.

photo by Beck