Alright. According to a site I love to geek out on — the US Naval Observatory’s Sun and Moon Data for One Day— today is one of three days in the DC area where the sun will be out for 14 hours and 54 minutes. If you count the period they call "civil twilight," that is 15 hours and 58 minutes of natural light.
That’s a lot of light. Three more than you get at the tropics, for sure.
This is a good point in my writing to say that I’m happy I don’t live in Juneau, Alaska, where you get eighteen hours and seventeen minutes of daylight, not counting twilit periods– that makes it jump up to a full 21 hours and a little bit of light.
Few things, aside from performance art pieces (and seriously, who goes to those?) take 18 hours. If you’re… er… "full-fugured" you could wear a Playtex bra that whole time, though, and be comfortable too, apparently. Pass.
That means you never really get to see pitch blackness during those three hours, I think.
That can only mean that Alaskans are, for the main part, insane. No offense intended, but certainly there is offense in my words (thus rendering the "no offense" expressioin kinda rude in general). Because there are people who do take active exception to being called crazy. Especially crazy people, and Alaskans, I imagine.
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Apart from picking fights with crazy Alaskans, I have a bone to pick with the over-enlightened hippie set. The loaded-with-money hippies, shopping wholesomely at Whole Foods" and trying to snootily enlighten the world about diversity and delicious foods and tastes as yet undiscovered by the bland mayonnaise-on-everything Middle America set.
So they lovingly "discover" all these third-world treasures and share them with the world.
And the world is a better place, for hot sauce is suddenly *chipotle* hot sauce.
And the world is a yummier place because tea suddenly becomes *matcha* and *chai*….. oh… those silly people and their silly ethnic terms that make it all so special.
And in come the lilywhite guilty people –nails bitten to the quick because they are getting so rich from the poor Honduran or Guatemalan or Paraguayan or Colombian farmer– and they realize that some of those wonderful products for which they are charging a super-duper premium are missing….. something.
They are easy to pronounce. The delightful cacophony needs to SOUND CACOPHONOUS so you can charge a damn premium for it, DAMMIT!
I mean, everyone knows that a ham-and-cheese sandwich can only cost $6 at best. But add the frenchiness of Croque Monsieur ("I’d like a Krawk Meh-syooo"?) and feel compelled to charge $12.
(incidentally: I LOVE CROQUE MADAMES! Bonus if you know the difference between the Mr. and the Mrs.)
Back to exploting the third world:
Take the word "habanero." You could massacre the word somehow: "hah-BEAN-ear-oh." It still doesn’t sound too complicated. Most people will be able to nail it easy, to something that sounds like "huh-BUN-err-oh" and voilá. Er. "Viola." (inside joke. sorry)
It’s simple. It’s not exotic enough.
But what happens when we add that mysterious Hispanic thingy, THE TILDE?
(for those not in the know, it’s this —>~)
H-a-b-a-ñ-e-r-o.
Wow. Suddenly it looks third-worldly and…. authentic! What an innovation!
Add a diacritical mark to Yerba Mate (which in Spanish has none) and once again:
Yerba M-a-t-é. Oh my. Now that’s got to be something Ponce de Leon himself would have sold his right testicle to obtain, nó? (j/k)
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Seriously folks. If you’re going to use foreign words, it’s always a good idea to do a little research on the subject, lest you sound like a total condescending prick.
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By the way, I love mayonnaise. And Habanero Mayonnaise sounds pretty good.
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And one last little bit of whimsy, from Rae over at Live, Love, Laugh. I’ve caught a cute little blog.worm!
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Oh yeah. The term is Hyperforeignism. Who’da thunk it?
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 
Ohhhhhh, I so hear ya, sister. I so hear ya.