Welcome to the world, Emily Kate Butler!

Seriously, what am I doing awake right now? And blogging? Rediculous. Hope this isn't asking for it this week.

Got some good, good news, though! My dear friend Kelly (Flowers) Butler had her baby girl, Emily Kate yesterday morning. She is 6 lbs., 14 oz. and both are doing great. I was going to post the picture in the email Michael sent out, but I don't know if Kelly wants her new baby girl broadcast in the blogosphere just yet. I'll definitely take pictures when I meet her and post those.

Congrats to Kelly & Michael!!

Name them one by one...

In the spirit of my second favorite holiday, I'm following suit after MSKS and LT in making my list of a few things for which I'm grateful. There's a current drought for blogging material and lack of time for blogging, so this is a good reason to sit down and make a cheesy, yet honest, list.

1. cold weather

2. a sweet family

3. transportation

4. pumpkins (the wonder veggie)

5. fireplaces

6. many best friends

7. books

8. a job and approximately 100 ruffians that I love

9. Patty Griffin

10. a house to live in and three spectacular roommates to share it with

11. Maggie

12. coffee

13. grace

14. alarm clocks

15. the CHI (I'm with you Swart)

16. opportunities

17. email

18. rainboots

19. Dayquil

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Satan personified

Post title got your attention? Read on.

Those of you who've met James L. Entrekin, Jr. will find this especially funny, but those of you who haven't will still chuckle. He's in New Orleans this weekend working with Redeemer Pres. to help demolish houses in order for the next group coming in to rebuild. Last night, I got quite the dramatic phone call letting me know that despite deadly threats like asbestos and black mold (they have to wear masks), he's hanging in despite a recent waltz with death. Did he breathe in the black mold? No. Did he get asbestos poisoning? Nope. All good. Did he saw his arm off while cutting down a tree? Absolutely not.

What happened, then, you ask? He was attacked by...a caterpillar. Yep. You read that right. My response, after laughing hysterically, was "aaww, that's kind of cute! You got attacked by a cuddly caterpillar!" to which he quickly replied, "Claire, it was Satan personified."

This morning I had the following email in my inbox, with an attached picture of the thing, officially called the Lo Moth, which he googled, just for me:

Cuddly?? You try and cuddle with that thing and see what kind of explilatives come from your mouth!! That thing is a venomous demon! The story: I was chopping down a tree, it fell on my arm, latched onto me with its octopus like suction-feet, and stung me with its over 100 poisonous quills... my arm began to immediately swell as the poison began rushing through my blood... I began to notice some of my normal functioning being affected...for example, I noticed I wasn't as brilliant as I usually am... Gray, who was wearing gloves, had to pry it off with both hands as the suction created by the demon's talons was strong. He had to act fast because the chainsaw in my hand was about to cut the beast open, and possibly sever my arm!

Anyhoo... the only medic-like substance available was some Purel hand-cleanser...so I cleaned the wound with some of that...which likely saved my life.. because a few minutes later, the swelling began to go down, and my immune system was able to begin repelling the poison flowing through my veins. I have a very strong immune system ("cough, cough").

Anyhoo... I'm off to see what other adventures await me today!

James, the brave.

Yes, he says anyhoo, and just for clarification, the "cough, cough" at the end of the email is a reference to Southpark's Cartman's trademark hacking noise. Nice.

Soooo...if you see this beast, learn from James' traumatic experience and go the other way, or you may be in for a battle with Satan himself.

Just when I'd started to worry...

about "The Office" writers' ability to continually produce new material to match or surpass the former brilliant episodes (let's face it, we all have our limits) they bust out with Michael in the wilderness with his ripped apart and duck-taped together suit pants, eating lethal shrooms to survive. Brilliant.

However, Friday I learned of The Office's indefinite season halt, as in a couple of weeks they will go to reruns until they resume production. This is due to the Writers' Guild strike that I'm sure many of you are aware of. 24's season premiere is also indefinitely postponed. I'm sick to my stomach. At first, I was floored. How could anyone let things get to this point? Leave it to unions to react like this, too.

But then it hit me--these writers are young folks in the workforce just like myself, and producing BRILLIANT material for network TV. It really is a disgrace for them not to receive royalties from DVD sales and such. If not for them, we'd get awfully tired of watching a steady stream of The Bachelor, America's Next Top Model, VH1's I Love New York, starring Juan McCullum (this is another blog post entirely) and all the other gosh awful reality shows they'd be forced to come up with without these writers.

The central issue: How should writers be compensated for their work? No doubt they should receive royalties for DVD sales (which, correct me if I'm wrong, they are receiving little to no percentage of), but what about digital platforms like the Web? Is the internet arena still too big and too new to establish a payment formula? Someone is profiting. Definitely a sticky dilemma-interesting to see how it'll all pan out.

In the meantime, Dwight, I miss you. Jack, I don't think I'll make it through the winter without you. Hurry back.