George Clooney and Isaac Demme; separated at birth.

On a whim, I decided to search Facebook for famous people. A name popped into my mind and I typed in George Clooney, just for giggles. Several pages popped up, mostly with the actor's picture. ( One side of me says, Foolish imposters. The other side says, How unfortunate to be named the same name as a celebrity.) As I looked at the page, I was STUNNED. There, amidst half a dozen George Clooneys, was ISAAC DEMME'S name and likeness.


*shocked silence gives way to sputterings*

WHAT?!

I have no idea how you showed up on a search for George Clooney, Isaac, but it made my day! Now, can anyone tell me why this happened? Is there some obvious link that I'm missing? Like Isaac's nearest and dearest use "George Clooney" as his nickname? If I search for Oprah, will I find Fritha's page?

Oh. False alarm. I figured it out. I just looked at his page and under his musical interests he has "George Handel" and later on, "Rosemary Clooney." Sigh. Rats. It's all due to eclectic taste.

Facebook weirds me out.

But, even though the mystery is solved, I still want to post this. Just for giggles.

In other news this week...

...I went to Philip's I.E.P. meeting on Thursday. ( Individualized Education Plan, for those of you who are not up on the latest alphabet soup of the Special Ed world. It's a meeting for parents and teachers to evaluate progress and set goals for the next year.) I did not have anyone to take care of Aiden for me as Brad had to work overtime that day, and my mother, mother-in-law, and Penny were all out of town, so I told Philip's mom about my dilemma and she was fine with me bringing Aiden with me... I told her that as soon as he started to fuss, I would leave. There were six or eight people there besides Philip and his parents, and all of them were women; you should have seen the commotion that Aiden caused. Everyone had to see him and coo over him and touch his toes and make him smile and they all wanted to sit next to him. He put everyone in a good mood from the get-go, and someone said, "We should bring babies to every I.E.P. meeting!" We didn't last the whole meeting, but I got to stay for a good part of it anyway.

Changing the subject completely... The other day I was thinking, What are we going to do when Aiden gets too big for his cradle swing? It's his primary residence when we're downstairs and he's not being held by someone, but he's fast outgrowing it. I saw this picture in Liane's Flickr account of Adam in this thing called an exersaucer - kind of like a walker but without wheels. It's pretty much a seat in the midst of a big, round plastic play station type of thing. I thought, hey, I should look for one of those when I go yardsaling.

The next morning was Friday and I had a couple errands to do... and I knew of a few yardsales in the area. At the first one I went to, there was an exersaucer. YES! I hit the jackpot! It was a little more money than I wanted to spend but I figured it was too early in the day to start seriously haggling. Plus, as I thought about it, I realized I was being stingy. Here I'd just said I wanted one of these, and I knew that it would cost three times as much to get a brand new one, and now I'm complaining that this one, right in front of me in great condition, is too expensive? There is a line between wise frugality and pinchy miserliness... and I dance on that line on a regular basis. ( I pictured God heaving an exasperated sigh if I passed it up- Hello! You asked, and I provided, even if it isn't a rock bottom price... it's still a pretty good deal. ) So I decided to throw stinginess to the winds and cheerfully forked over the cash and bought the thing. And proceeded to douse it with Lysol and wash the cloth seat. I'm very happy with it. He probably won't be able to really use it for another month or two, until he has better trunk control etc.

I was a little stunned at my good fortune. I was hoping to find this very specific thing and I found it right away! Okay, I'm going to have to set my mind on something else and try this on next week's foray. I really want to find a nice big mirror for my dining room wall. It has been bare of any wall decoration for nigh onto three years. Mirror, mirror, mirror. I need a mirror. I'll let you know how my bargain hunting goes. ( Don't I always?)

Wash your hands, people!

The other day I went to a required training session for my company. (That sounds weird - like I own my own company, but I couldn't very well say "the company I work for" because that would end the sentence with a preposition, which, as we all know, is wrong. Oh, the quandaries of trying to be grammatically correct.)

I had to get up early and drive up through the city, both things of which I am not fond.

I got there and found that it was a session on "Universal Precautions." My heart sank. Just thinking about the words 'bloodborne pathogens' is enough to make me feel weak. I found temporary salvation in the annoying jaw clicking noise coming from the girl sitting to my left. I was so close to telling her to stop chewing her gum but I realized that the distraction and irritation was saving me from thinking too much about the grossness of bloodborne pathogens.

Basically, the class was an OCD person's worst nightmare, confirming the need to be paranoid about the unseen perils lurking in our midst. There was a long lecture on the dangers that we all face as we live in this germy world... and what is the thing that will save us all? Handwashing! Regular, thorough, extended washing of the hands. Under the nails, up the wrists, for as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday...

The lecturer reminded us that germs, bacteria and viruses are everywhere. "When was the last time you cleaned your lightswitches? Doorknobs? Cell phone? TV remote?" Now I knew she could find no fault with my handwashing; I'm really crazy when it comes to that. But cleaning my lightswitches...? She had me there. Guilt assailed me. I've really let my housekeeping slip - especially after Aiden's birth. In fact, I think the only reason my kitchen floor is as clean as it is, lies largely to my mother's credit. Today I bought some Lysol and cleaned every lightswitch I could find. And more. A NEW outlet for my blossoming obsession with cleanliness! ( I say that with a fair degree of sarcasm because if you could see my house, you would know that my obsession with cleanliness is pretty selective. There are certain zones in the house that have been settled exclusively with clutter. In fact, this clutter thinks it has squatter's rights.)

Now, whenever I touch anything, I envision little squirmy, evil looking germs transferring themselves from the item I have touched and clinging to my hands. I feel like I'm living in an ad for Purell.

She also mentioned another thing I already knew - that the bacteria, germs and viruses that survive all this manic cleaning will become freakishly strong and resistant to cleansing. So we must remain vigilant and continue to take the battle to these evil baddies. "This Present Darkness" meets Flylady. ( I was going to put links up to both those things but this computer's being weird... and if you don't know what either of those things are, Wikipedia has EVERYTHING you EVER need to know about ANYthing. Trust me. The internet is a brilliant miracle.)

So pretty much, all this stuff was stuff I already knew. Stuff EVERYONE already knows, if they had a halfway decent mother. But hey, I got paid for listening. I got paid to have someone tell me to wash my hands. I got paid to have someone validate my OCDness. So I'm not complaining too much.

I wonder what kind of nastiness lives on this keyboard? On this mouse? Ew! I'm off to go wash my hands! You should too! Right Now!