Effervesence

I saw Rameses II driving a red Impala when I came into Georgetown this afternoon. I swear, it looked exactly like him, from the dehydrated tanned skin under the thin shock of black mummified hair, to the brown-paper-over-bones hands that were clutching the steering wheel. He was wearing the same expression, too, that he does in all the photographs of him in his coffin back in Cairo. It was almost as exciting as seeing Bin Laden on a bicycle in Rosslyn, or Nikolai Gogol's the Nose on the Onichkov Bridge in downtown St. Petersburg.

I was--as one seldom sees four millennia old Egyptian pharoahs scooting around in family-style American-made vehicles--in high good humor when I reached the department, and had the pleasure of sharing this vignette with the CSCM, who happened by the front desk. He told me I looked happy, then settled on "effervescent," asking if there was any particular reason. I told him. I also told him about my less-than-stellar biking performance a couple of weeks ago. He apparently rides down to Alexandria from upper DC every day before coming into work. But then again I doubt he would be confortable walking as far as I do on a regular basis.

Speaking of bubbling over, S Dawg has lately cast multiple witty aspersions on my claims of shopping-aversion. Considering the last dozen purchases I've made on any Internet sites have been on behalf of her small offspring, I don't think she should be maligning my participation in the electronic marketplace. Besides, the notion of "shopping" still entails, for most people, going out to a brick and mortar store and listening to bad rock and worse Muzak while pawing through piles of wrongly-sized merchandise. That's the sort I hate. Buying books online just isn't in the same category. So there. Naya naya.