Last week I took a trip to Philly to see my friends Thomas and Colleen, and to check out their adorable little bundle of baby-ness, Christopher. Here are some pictures of the visit. Enjoy!

A few buildings in downtown Philly.

And here is the amazing Mutter Museum, which houses such medical novelties as a life cast of Chang and Eng (the original Siamese twins), the secret tumor of Grover Cleveland, and a gigantor colon that resembles Jabba the Hutt's tail. I'm not even kidding.

Here are a few shots from the famous South Street in Philly.

Thanks to Thomas, Colleen, and Christopher for a wonderful trip! Love you guys.

So Nick and I were downtown this weekend, and we happened upon this freaky car show and parade. My guess is that there weren't any rules dictating car design . . . you just had to make it as unusual and distinctive as possible. Take a gander at some of the entries.

Can you see the license plate? It says "I'd rather be living."

Yes. The car is covered with an assortment of beauty items. And check it out: this is not the only vehicle with a head on it.

This car is upholstered. And it has boxing gloves. And a torch on the top. And a working fountain.

This is one of my favorites. The mosaic stuff is very intricate, but it still has a randomness about it that appeals to me.

This is the super-creepy steering wheel of the same car.

And this is a message written on its bumper.

I love this one. And best of all, there was actually an enormous cake on the back that was being served to passersby.

From the blue ribbon, I'm guessing this won first prize. And yes, those are pennies glued to the side of it.

Here's one of the more unorthodox vehicles.

Decorated exclusively with bottle caps.

The ornamentation on this one is one part pvc pipe and two parts computer keyboard keys.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but the dragon effect was created by tire strips. This is why I love Lawrence.

So you know how there are sleeper Cylons on Battlestar Galactica? How they looked and thought and worked just like everyone else, until one day when a switch flipped on in their heads and activated them? It was a scary thing to watch. They started to think back on all of their memories, and it seemed like their personalities had split in two, carrying on paths that were parallel to each other without ever quite intersecting. Boomer, for example, was programmed to shoot Adama in the face, which ticked him off royally and pretty much ensured that she would never work in that town again. And it wasn't even her fault, because the hard-wiring took over.

Well, here's the thing. I'm like a sleeper Cylon. But for babies.

A few months ago something happened to my brain. Something strange and unprecedented. I began thinking about babies on a near-constant basis. You've got to understand, I've never had much interest in having kids up to this point. They were cute enough, but I didn't really want one in my home. Now, I watch myself reacting to babies, and I think: what . . . the . . . frak. How did this happen? I always figured all that stuff about the biological clock was more myth than reality. Guess I was wrong. Not only does the clock exist, it's ticking loudly enough to be heard from space. For real. Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, dolphins are becoming disoriented and ramming into rocks.

Okay. This is what it's like. (And don't bother saying I'm crazy . . . that's common knowledge at this point.) It's as if there's this whole other voice that's sharing opinions with me, whether I want them or not. It's like with Joan of Arc, or Son of Sam, or the head growing out of that guy's stomach in Total Recall. I'll be sitting there watching my Metalocalypse ("Toki, is this the food library?"), and a voice in my head will suddenly pipe up and say, "awwwww, babies." Out of nowhere. The screen in front of me may be filled with blood and gore and diamond-encrusted codpieces and maybe a cokehead clown or two, and all I can think about is babies. And then I tear up, just a little bit. Because babies are awesome. Somewhere in my brain, Snarky Karen is shaking her head in disbelief. What's happening to me? Have I landed in the Manchurian Candidate or something?

Here's what I dreamed about last week. I dreamed that I went to the River of Babies, and I watched all the little babies swimming by. (Seriously, I used to dream about making out with Jon Stewart.) Then I reached down with my big fat butterfly net and scooped one of them out, so that I could take it home with me. It's true. This insidious alien presence has infiltrated my dreams, turning them all icky and saccharine.

You may be wondering, what does Nick think of this latest development? Has he perhaps boarded his space ship and headed for Mars in order to escape the ravening, baby-obsessed Cylon I've become? Fortunately, he has dealt with it like a champ, which is to say, he's adjusting to the idea while teasing me mercilessly. Tuns out he's a secret toaster-lover.

I leave you with this parting question: What's up with the 9-month waiting period on babies? I'm an American, and it's my constitutional right to have a baby now. Will someone please talk to the Supreme Court about this?

Check out the newest products from Nick's knitting needles of fury. Above you'll see my awesome new Mystery Science Theater-themed messenger bag. Below, you'll see my newest pair of socks (we're up to about 15 pairs at this point).

Oh, and check this out. It's knitted toilet paper, complete with its own knitted cardboard roll!

Look at the tiny little mouth. You'd think he'd be kind of ambivalent about his fate, but he almost seems happy, doesn't he?

So guess what? My car wouldn't start this morning. The radio and lights came on like usual, but where I should have heard that beautiful sound of the engine sparking, I just heard this awful chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga sound. Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga. When we lifted the hood, this is what we were faced with:

Gah! I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but the spark plug cables and the one connecting the windshield wipers to the engine have been GNAWED THROUGH. Gnawed all the way through. Like all those thick wires were nothing more than an assortment of tasty Twizzlers to my little rodent friends. Why did they do this? How can car parts possibly taste good to them? Are they demented zombie rodents or something? The man at the auto parts store told us it's actually pretty common for mice and squirrels to do this kind of crap, especially when the weather gets cold. But why me? I've always been an animal lover. I've watched The Secret of Nimh and Rocky and Bullwinkle and Ratatouille and even that stupid Secret Squirrel thing. Why would they betray me when I've always been their biggest fan?

Well, no more. That's it. I'm declaring all-out war on our neighborhood rodents. Squirrels and mice, you're officially ON NOTICE.