For most of this month, my city has been living in the winter hell that is locally known as “the inversion.”
If you’re lucky enough to not know what this means, let me fill you in: a high pressure system — aka a layer of warm air — thwops down on top of the Salt Lake valley, slamming like a Tupperware lid to trap all the air below inside. Every cow fart, truck exhaust, cough and sneeze just swirls around inside, leading to what’s officially known as the country’s worst air pollution.
We had a case of this that lasted for almost a month. Yargh. But a few days ago a storm system swept in, scrubbed the sky clean, and suddenly there was BLUE SKY! And we could SEE the mountains our city is famous for! And I was allowed to let my children play outside again!
In celebration of this, I’d like to make a list of other things from this month that come from the land that is Made of Awesome:
- My sister in law, Deb, has compiled her list of the top twenty albums of 2009. Those of you who participated in my Mix Exchange a few years ago know that this woman has excellent taste. So fire up your iTunes account, and get hoppin’.
- If you’ve ignored Twitter up until now, you may want to reconsider for a chance to read HalfPintIngalls. Its author writes in the voice of Laura Ingalls Wilder, with her tongue stuffed firmly in her cheek. It’s snarky, clever, and has posts like this, from Jan 1st:
In New York the ball drops at midnight. In De Smet the blacksmith drops his anvil from the feed store hayloft. It’s really quite a sight!
- The local drug, Stephen’s Gourmet Hot Cocoa, has come out with a Peanut Butter Cup flavor this year. It has chopped up bits of peanut butter cups in the cocoa mix. This means that when you are finished sipping it down, you are left with an incredible salty-sweet layer of peanut butter sludge at the bottom of your cup.
- The Baby Name Wizard Blog. No, I’m not expecting, but these little tidbits on the history and context of baby names is nerdy-cool fascinating.
- Jeffrey has requested that I write the word Yipe! in extra-large font, and I just realized that I haven’t the foggiest clue how to do that in WordPress. He then commanded that I stop blogging and turn on a game for him. “Come on Mom! DOWNLOG me!”
- Americabowl.net. I read about this in The New Yorker. It puts all 44 American presidents up against all 44 Super Bowls in the weirdest, funniest mashup of history I’ve seen in a while. (So far the Presidents are up by three points!)
- My family had our portraits taken by a local photographer over the holidays. Check out the sweet results:
- And lastly, for those of you who are mighty sick of New Moon, I present the best Collie dog with human lips I’ve ever seen:
Casa Camisas 
Awww thanks! 🙂
I loved the pictures of your family! I’m so glad the inversion is over– I hated those with a vengeance.
Ommmm, you said “cow fart!” (snigger-snigger)
Thanks for the halfpintingalls, I’m new to Twitter and find it kinda boring. Not so much now.
That is one sexy collie.
I’m so hungry after reading about the month of inversion. And thanks for saving me a trip to the movie theater – I’m pretty sure that was the best 1 minute of Twilight I’m ever going to see.
I’m so glad somebody else reads the baby name wizard blog. I always feel like some kind of desperate baby hungry weirdo, but I think it’s so interesting. Her namevoyager is pretty much the coolest interactive information graphic.