Many of my followers are upset about my idea that I look like the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Well, thank you for being nice, but I've embraced our dead-ringerness because who doesn't want to look like a famous person?

Plus, there's no denying that our squinty eyes are almost identical, both of us preferring skin folds to peripheral vision. Also, do you see how close-set our eyes are? We can't even use binoculars because the sides don't push together far enough. This means that birding is off the table for us both. We share that pain.

Boris and I both have mussed-up blonde hair*, and our eyebrows are too light to see. Our noses and cheekbones are virtually interchangeable. Another spitting image may be our mouths, but it's hard to get a bead on what his teeth look like, as British people rarely smile for the camera.

That's me on the right smiling openly.

*Okay, okay. Boris' hair has always been blonde.

I'm noticing that this fall, the fashion world is bringing us sweaters and other tops that include a full back zipper. The garment below is from one of my favorite stores, Anthropologie. If you grew up with a little brother, you'd never be comfortable going out in this sweater unless someone literally had your back.  The black bows practically scream:

"YOUR SISTER'S NEW BOYFRIEND IS RIGHT HERE IN THE HOUSE! WAKE UP MISTER! YOU COULD PULL DOWN FROM THE TOP TO LET THE GUY KNOW THAT HER BRA IS EQUIPPED WITH CHAINS AND PULLEYS! OR, OPTION TWO, YOU COULD PULL UP FROM THE BOTTOM AND REVEAL THE BRIMMING OVER OF HER MENTAL INSTITUTION UNDERWEAR! TOUGH CALL, YOUNG MAN AND HAVE AN EXIT STRATEGY!"

Anthropologie, didn't you have a little brother?

                                

I'll never forget the day I discovered that I look just like Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. We were on an escalator, descending into a London Underground station, and along the wall was a stream of posters that included extreme close ups of the mayor. Not knowing who he was at that point, I became distracted and curious, wondering, "what's up with this big line of mirrors?"

When I realized that I wasn't passing my reflections, but photos of Mayor Johnson, I did a semi-black-out. Then, while I pulled myself together, I considered not mentioning the phenomenon to Bo and the girls, because I feared teasing from them down the line. But I'm too much of an extrovert to keep something big like this bottled up, so I pointed to the the male-me images as we glided by each one. "You guys," I said. "You're gonna to think I'm crazy, but I'm telling you that I look exactly like the Mayor of London."

Greta reached over and put her hand on my arm. "You're wrong Mom," she said. "I don't think you're crazy."

Guess which guy is me.

We got back from Turks and Caicos late last night and the first thing I did was check on our pet turtle, Natasha. She had all but trashed her aquarium because Bridget, our turtle-sitter, let it slip that we went down to see Margot with out inviting Natosh along. Through various hand signals, and by silently making the facial movement you would do if you said, "bwah, bwah, bwah," I tried to communicate to her that she would've made the trip way too sloshy. But she was ripping mad and turned a deaf red-ear.

The issue here is that Natasha is passionate about Margot, as you will see from this erotic video, which was shot right before Margot left for the semester. To clarify, in this scene, Margot is the one with human fingers.

Though I didn't ask, I'm pretty sure that one of them laid eggs 60 to 90 days after the making of this film.

Today I asked Bo if he tried to dig to China when he was little, especially at the beach. And he said, "Of course I did. But only at the beach. We weren't allowed to dig China holes in our yard. Were you?"

I've preached to you for months that cairn is the worst sounding word in the English language. But sorry people because someone (thanks, Mom!) said the word jitney out loud a few weeks ago and the clashing of auditory effects made me collapse flat on the floor, which, p.s., is the exact opposite of what cairns are up to.

Now for those of us who are lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the word jitney, it's a vehicle that picks up and drops off people at regular intervals.

 

Definitely a jitney.

Probably not a jitney,

 but worth seeing.

The good news here is that the English language is kind of like the popular table at a high school cafeteria, so weirdo words are weeded out because nobody identifies with them. And the fact is that over the years, both cairn and jitney have tracked negatively because they are virtual ice picks in everybody's ears.

More good news is that no one needs to say either word ever again because jitney can be shortened into "bus." And cairn can be shortened into "heap of stones set up as a landmark."

But here's what reminded me of all this jitney business. Yesterday, Margot and her friends got onto a small bus that left our hotel in Provo for the airport. It was time for them to fly back to South Caicos so they could start working and studying again at the School for Field Studies. As I watched the bus pull out of the parking lot I got a huge lump in my throat, I teared up in my mouth a little, and I thought, "man I hate that stupid jitney."

This is something that actually happened.  Bo and I were packing to visit Margot in Turks and Caicos, when I reached into one of our suitcases and pulled out a something that was hard, brown, oval-shaped and definitely a result of natural processes.  

I was nervous because it looked like some kind of a pod and I'm afraid of pods because they often encase unpleasantness like spider or praying mantis or even cockroach eggs. To ensure delivery of their contents, pods are built to last and hard to look at. I'm thinking my brother Dave probably chased me around with a pod or two when I was little.

Anyway, back to the pod-like formation* that I was now touching with my actual hand. I asked Bo if he knew what it was. He said, "Yes I do. That's a moose turd that I brought home from Montana. When you light it on fire, it smells like incense."

"Well it's a good thing our suitcases are out," I said, "on account of I'm leaving you for someone whose name is the Orkin Man. Because unlike you, he's against bugging people and he certainly won't give me any crap." 

This man really gets me.

*Something called a formation also has a high chance of turning out to be pretty disgusting, because no one can control its aesthetic -- it just keeps forming on its own.