Since I often become obsessed with things (music, television, food, etc.) and wear them out until they’re no longer recognizable as anything that was produced on earth, I thought it pertinent to share my obsessions as of late. Note that I make this a monthly and/or unlikely a biweekly ritual of sorts:

• Yo Gabba Gabba
  This is actually a newfound obsession of mine, and I am ridiculously in love with Brobee. He’s green, striped, and has a freaking awesome unibrow. If ever there was a stuff toy that I couldn’t live without, Brobee is definitely it. How old am I again? 24 going on five it seems. My soon-to-be six-month old daughter, Madeline, has not expressed any interest in Brobee just yet, so I’m going to keep this plush treasure for as long as I can.
• Giraffes
  All my life I’ve had an affinity for animals that were typically every known shade of green, so naturally one would surmise that love for green and green animals would be passed onto Madeline. Surprisingly, I’ve been purchasing anything and everything giraffe-related on God’s orange earth for Madeline. Giraffe toys, giraffe onesies, giraffe chewing tobacco … actually, I have yet to find giraffe chewing tobacco. But you get the idea. I should probably note that Madeline’s possessions don’t only consist of giraffes, there’s plenty of manatees in her stash of toys, too, as we are friends of the WWF (World Wildlife Fund or World Wrestling Federation, I think they’re one and the same).
• Madeline’s Fart Noises
  She makes them with her mouth, mind you, oh and yes, with her bum, too some of the time. I’m not entirely sure where she picked up the fart noises (with her mouth) but they sure are cute and it’s only prompted me to go out and buy a video camera already.

The weather’s been on the cold, near-freezing side in SoCal. Quite unusual since we typically face 70+degree (F) weather throughout most the year. I don’t think I could brave the colder climates in a lot of the northern and eastern contiguous states (and Alaska) and I’ve compiled a short list of reasons I would not ever manage in cold weather … or a list among many lists that proves I am a wuss:

1. Inside vs. Outside
   My body has the most difficult time adjusting to extreme temperatures. The drastic shift from extremely cold to hot-cocoa-by-the-fire hot does not bode well with my body, so much so that one time when I went skiing up in the mountains, I broke out into strange hives when we went back to the ski lodge. I blame it on the blasted temperature shift.
2. Snow
   It snowed one time in the Inland Empire, back in 2004 - I even submitted a photo to weather.com on that historical day. Actually, it has probably snowed numerous times, but in the span of time I’ve lived in the IE, it has only snowed once. Anyhow, it was enchanting waking up to a winter wonderland, but that enchantment ended when I walked out into the blistering cold and nearly lost all feeling in my fingers. Imagine the horror I felt if my fingers couldn’t fing!
3. I have horrible hat/scarf head.
   It’s a simple truth. Put a scarf on my head and I either resemble a teletubby or the spawn of Satan - but those two are one and the same. I briefly remember sharing my scarf-head dilemma this to a woman at the customer service counter at Kohls and she said her daughter had the same issue with scarves, save for the bit about the whole spawn-of-Satan thing.