"I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

[captainsblog]

Believe it or not, they were. On both counts.

I just got a fax from an IRS attorney. On a Sunday.

Approving an order which was the last thing holding up a closing that's been pending for months.

Sometimes it's good to be the King- or at least get faxes from his District Counsel.

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We watched Big Lebowski last night, continuing our Jeff Bridges film festival. During this morning's sermon, Rich made a reference to the effect of "Don't get upset when people talk down to you, because they're the ones who God is going to call on the carpet."  Eleanor, especially, had to suppress giggles at that point because of the connection between that and the Dude's rug- "It really tied the room together."

At least they didn't use "Abide with Me" as a hymn in the service. I think I'd have been carried out on a stretcher for that.

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I'm nowhere close to Eleanor's to-do list for this weekend, but I did get our fish tank cleaned, to the soundtrack of some old Wait Wait special-guest segments. The last of them was Amy Sedaris, from back in 2006 when she was pimping her cookbook. You can read, or hear, the whole bit here, but here's the money shot from it, at least in my book:

(Host Peter) SAGAL: ...I mean, are these real recipes? If I make...

Ms. SEDARIS: Yeah, I took it seriously. A lot of the humor came from Paul Dinello making fun of the fact that I was trying to be serious. So I decided to make it a little bit more entertaining than I originally wanted to, because I just don't like joke cookbooks. And it would just go into a wacky pile, and nobody would take it seriously. So it's all real.

SAGAL: Including, like, your list of munchies?

Ms. SEDARIS: Munchies!

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SEDARIS: Yeah, that was a hard list to come up with.

SAGAL: Yeah, I could tell because...

Ms. SEDARIS: Someone thought I was holding a hummingbird feeder in that picture, and it's a bong. It's so funny to me.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SEDARIS: Because it's like, why would I be holding a hummingbird feeder, looking like that? That's so funny to me.

SAGAL: I mean, the list starts out OK.

Mr. CHARLIE PIERCE (Author, "Idiot America"): That could explain why the hummingbirds fly upside down and backwards in my yard.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. PIERCE: I thought it was a hummingbird feeder when I found it in the garage.

Ms. SEDARIS: They got some good chronic; that's what it is.

I will have to watch our feeder more carefully this coming season;)