This past weekend has taught me many things:

-Whatever happens to my hair is apparently now the property of my synagogue.

I got it cut on the last day of religious school, donated the hair to Locks of Love, and somehow it was turned into a media event. I was filmed before and during the cut, along with two other LoL volunteers, the video was shown to the kids at a last day of school assembly, and then I emerged, a la Extreme Makeover: Balabusteh Edition. My decision to do it was even mentioned in the synagogue bulletin. It's been a couple of weeks now, and people are still exclaiming over my hair, even ones who I don't well, but who have seen me off and on and are now coming over to me to tell me how my hair has changed their lives in some way. Move over, Stacy and Clinton...my synagogue is proving to be a badass in the physical changes department.

-Hello, World, my name is Leigh, and I am a Facebook games addict.

First, after I'd determined that I am the captain of both the Enterprise NCC-1701 and 1701-D, that, if I were a New Orleans neighborhood, I would most resemble the neighborhoods of Gentilly and New Orleans East, and that I am apparently 100% Long Island (Dan is 0%, and, most interestingly, it seems that the polar opposite of Long Island is New Jersey. The description of how non-Long Island he is also includes a dis of his driving skills, which made me wonder if my dad had made up the quiz.), it was a click of link that took me to a series of MindJolt games I could play to my heart's content and beyond, and then the granddaddy of 'em all came down the pike in the form of a badge from a friend saying she'd just gotten a high score. I clicked on the link to that game and have now been sucked into a living dream of playing one minute long games with all the bells and whistles and the constant yearning to send smack talk to all the other friends whose scores are higher than mine and to post the same little badge on my Facebook updates when I BEAT THE ASSES OF ALL MY FRIENDS AT BEJEWELED BLITZ! EAT THAT, YOU DULL CRYSTAL FLIPPERS! Oh, wait... someone just made to near 150,000 points in a minute's time of play? IT IS ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!!!!!

I can't believe I just wrote that. I need serious help before my forearm falls off due to tendonitis in my elbow from pointing and clicking the mouse for long periods of time.

-Yes, I know my son is a flirt of sorts - he was at the pool on Saturday telling a girl his age to pull off her swim goggles so that he could see her eyes, and a friend at the pool told me he needed to save that one for when he got older. What I didn't know was how much he loved to do things like hack away at our front bushes with hedge clippers on the pretext of getting rid of the cat's claw in them. He did get rid of it, but he left a pile of twigs by our front steps and then wondered why the garbage men didn't pick that stuff up this morning. Time to teach the kid how to bag 'em.

His other surprise? This child, who is loath to get into any costume whatsoever unless he has dictated every aspect of its appearance or has sanctioned its purchase...this kid, who will only allow baseball caps to touch his head, and only for short periods of time...this son of mine who really has never wanted to be anyone but himself as a pilot, truck driver, or race car driver...this little guy decided at an event my husband took him to yesterday that he wanted to have his face painted. He wanted to look like a cobra, and he waited patiently in line and waited even more patiently as they turned his sweet face into a frightening venomous hooded snake face, with forked tongue lashing out to the side. It was strangely, scarily amazing.

"Why a cobra?" I asked him.
"It's my favorite snake!" he said.

News to me.

-More instances are cropping up in which, for all the lofty reasons why the Information Age has made things easier communications and technology-wise, there is nothing like the lowest common denominator to drag it all down into the muck and wrestle it into submission and tabloid fodder. When the local paper has to publish something that the rest of the world has already known for a number of years pertaining to how to behave with basic email, it only reinforces this as our town's motto. How much further behind can we get, folks? Should we start trolling through the emails of everybody who is supposed to be helping us to see what sort of indictable sins we can uncover? I propose we go to the folks running the Road Home program and request their emails to see where all that money is going. What I have said and Ms Verite says about Stacy Head still stands.

And as for Ms Nolting... be careful who and what you write about and how you do it, especially if it pertains to your job. On Joe Longo: well, go read Greg. Now.

Update, 5-19 : From Cliff:

I know what some people are going to say when they read this. They are going to let me know that we need transparency, and corruption hurts us all. They will mention Nagin’s trips and the crime camera debacle and Stacy Head’s emails. All of those things did happen and should be looked into but look around this city. Most of these problems were here long before either one of them got in office. Do I think we should ignore any wrong doing? I don’t think that at all. I’m saying that if all we get from turning over all these stones is bad feelings and new faces in office we will have the same problems because there will be no policy changes to benefit the public. Isn’t that what all of this is supposed to be for? Why does it seem that we never talk about any of that very much? Sooner or later we have to move on to other things. What is the plan for the future of the city when there is nothing left to investigate?

Now excuse me while I log onto Facebook and play the games 'til I have to bring my son home...