Apparently, we've moved to Iceland

I have no real way of explaining my absence from these parts for the last month, so I will just blame it on the weather. It's been completely ridiculous here in Reykjavik (wait, I'm still in Chicago?) since April. It has rained over and over and over. It has rained while raining. I've been on a first-name basis with clouds since Easter.

The temperature? Let me put it this way: it's 11:15 in the evening on June 10th, and I'm drinking tea to stay warm. I can't keep track of the number of times I have had to resist the urge to put the furnace on. There was a frost advisory on the night of my birthday which is in mid-May. That put a crimp in the ol' birthday crocus, believe me.

Last Thursday, I believe, the high temperature was sixty-one. In Reykjavik, Iceland. In Chicago, the high was sixty. That same day, it was sixty-one in Seattle.

(That was the low temperature that day in Seattle)

It's incredibly depressing to wake up on a June morning and think that it is still February. But we move on...Desmond is thriving. He'll be eighteen months old in eleven days and has turned into a little man. He's quicker than I am now, which makes for some interesting early mornings around here. And Lord Almighty, is he determined. When Desmond decides that he wants something, or wants to do something, he is hell-bent on getting his way. This makes for some interesting mornings, afternoons, and evenings. His favorite thing to do is pound: he pounds on tables, the television, appliances, the sides of his crib, and my face. And he cackles with glee whenever he does it.

Desmond snuck up on me a few days ago when I was reading the newspaper and snatched it out of my hand. After I peeled myself off of the ceiling I tried to tell him not to do things like that and he laughed. I vividly recall seeing this written on the wall in front of me: it's all over.

I'm watching David Letterman at the moment. He radiates cool. Dave got himself into a little controversy earlier this week at the expense of everyone's favorite governor, Sarah Palin. The Alaskan Queen was in New York and attended a Yankees game with Rudy Giuliani (AKA St. 9/11), giving Letterman the opportunity to make the following joke:

"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

Now given what we know about the Palin family, who do you think Dave was referring to? The daughter in question was Bristol, the eighteen-year old Alaska unmarried mother of the year. You have to be an idiot (or an opportunistic politician) to not see that.

The problem with Letterman's joke is that Bristol wasn't at the game. The Palin daughter with Sarah in NY was fourteen-year old Willow.

Oops.

Predictably, the Palin family expressed "outrage" over Letterman's suggestion that a fourteen year old girl be subjected to the carnal urges of a steroid-using Yankee third baseman.

Tonight, Letterman made it clear that he was obviously referring to Bristol, and owned up to the fact that the joke was in poor taste regardless of its target. And that was it. I love the fact that he never apologized. He shouldn't have. The idea that he'd joke about the sexual abuse of an underage girl is absurd.

Isn't it lovely to see Palin using her family in another "us vs. them" moment? She was so eager to parade everyone on stage at the convention in Minneapolis, especially Bristol's now-ex, Levi, to show they are an "American" family. How very convenient then, and how convenient now. Leave my family alone, she says, until it bodes well for my political aspirations.

God, she makes me ill. She's found her niche up in Alaska (where it is no doubt warmer than it is here), where she can spew her BS endlessly and they buy it, but why must she subject the rest of the nation to it?

At the end of his explanation tonight, Letterman invited Palin to appear on his show. She'll never do it, of course, but I can dream about it, under fifteen blankets.