Greeeeat

It's always something.

1) The plumber came in and fixed the sink problem I posted about a couple of days ago, but noticed that the sink is coming unglued from the bottom of the counter, so we get to call a countertop guy and see if they'll fix it. And until then, we're not putting heavy loads into the sink, so we get to avoid cooking with the (cast iron) Dutch oven, or filling the sink up to soak stuff, or putting a big pot in there and filling it with water for pasta.

2) And then this morning we discovered that one of our crape myrtles has bark scale, a lovely relatively new invasive insect pest (PDF). Wheeeeee! ( cut for photo of our poor crape myrtle )

I have made the Definitive Diagnosis (tm) via Dr. Google, by noting that there are ladybugs on the stem (not visible in pic) attacking the various white things, and ladybugs are apparently a predator of bark scale. Go, ladybugs, go! This pest first showed up in the DFW area about ten years ago and is slowly spreading, so go check your crape myrtles if you're in the South. (More info from citybugs.tamu.edu)

3) On the bright side, WE'RE GOING TO JAPAN. We bought the tickets last night so it's official. :D

Your Friday question

So, an all-female version of The Expendables is in production, with the terrible title of The ExpendaBelles. There is also another all-female action flick in production based off of some other property.

However...YOU ARE THE CASTING DIRECTOR! Who would you cast in it? Note that typecasting is the name of the game!

Toby picked me up for lunch and we started a list:

Sigourney Weaver
Lena Headey
Linda Hamilton
CCH Pounder (my pick for team leader)
Gina Carano (note: actually cast in the other one)

There were several others that I'm blanking on, but please add to the list!