Saturday, December 16, 2006

Your imput, please!

TRIPPIN HARD, MY DARLINGS.
omg.
I have been asked to consider writing for the local lesbian, gay and bi-friendly newsfagazine
The Betty Pages. Which I think is an adorable title, btw.
I will not be making any money doing this. I'd do it for free anyway.
The Yummy Biker and the Stainless Steel Amazon think it is a great idea.
Me, I'm fighting with my natural compulsion to be a free muk, set shit on fire, exceed the speed limit, spread anarchy, dissent and freedom with....
Fear.
I've lived out, tits first, and I regret not one moment. It's one of the best things about me. But I have never written out.

Not publically, close to home.





Gimme your thoughts!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Vaseline for Africa

Caring for your Ficus

SUPPLIES NEEDED:
one ficus tree
hippie
pestilence
biker
___________________________

Surprise! It's getting near Christmas, and in those last frenzied weeks of preparation, your beloved 15 year old ficus tree suddenly comes down with the sniffles. When you examine it you discover that in the space of one weeks' time, in full midwinter yet, your ficus has become infested with not one, not two but THREE different types of death dealing gross insect bugs!



1. The thrip is a fascinating creature. Attaching itself permanently to the stem of the plant and then concealing itself with a hard coating of chitin, the thrip is easily mistaken for a leaf bud, which strategy is purposefully deceptive on it's part and meant to lure you into it's thrippy trap. Not only will it subject your woody-stemmed plants to a slow death, it will actually shoot disgusting thrip faeces out its tiny thrip ass for a distance of up to three inches, coating your corner table, wall, telephone and neiboring leaves with clear, sticky driblets resembling Karo syrup, but not as tasty.

2. Mealy bugs are another threat to the health of your ficus. The mealy bug first permanently burrows its tiny mealy head into the leaf axils of your plant. Straining its minute sphincter muscles, it then poots out and coat its' mealy rest of itself hanging out of the branch with a wad of white, cottony fluff. Once hidden inside this fluffy white domicile of pooted outedness it performs secret mealy rituals which eventually prove fatal to the ficus.

3. No bigger than a gnat, the fungus gnat is a flying, beer actuated gnat which is driven to a suicidal frenzy by the presence of adult beverages in open containers, into which it leaps like a meth crazed diver off the rocks of Acapulco. Those gnats late to the fray retreat in a sulk to the potting soil of your ficus and burrow in deeply. Millions of vampiric grubs then shoot out their asses (seeing a pattern here?) and proceed to burrow into the root system of the plant and chew their way up to its' brain and out its' eyes. Most ficii find this fatal.

THE CURE: I used to have their t-shirt . The 'Absolute Beginners' one.

Have a glass container ready.
Grasp your biker firmly by the handle and squeeze gently. When the quid emerges, catch it in the glass container, and pat and pet your biker lovingly. This reinforces positive behaviors in your biker.
Add hot, not boiling water. To the glass, not the biker.
Set aside for several days, covered lightly. See above.
Watch as the fluid in the glass turns dark brown.
Transfer the now unnaturally thickened, lumpy substance into a larger glass container.
Add more hot water.
Place in an area reserved for the sanitary preparation of food.
Wait until someone complains.
Using a fine meshed, metal tea strainer which you fully intend to soak in boiling bleach afterwards, strain the liquid into a clean, empty spray container. Tap dregs into sink. Avoid examining the drain trap. Really. Don't do it.
Turning to your ficus, remove any dead leaves or twigs from the branches and the surface of the soil.
Place the giant, heavy, rootbound ficus tree into the center of your dining table, directly on the surface normally used for the sanitary consumption of food.
Go put on your husbands elastic hernia belt and take a brief lager break. Bat at fungus gnats.
Contemplate your ficus tree. Watch leaves fall off.
Work yourself into a murderous frenzy.
Without spreading anything to catch the drips, thoroughly and liberally spray the entire ficus with the unutterably foul nicotine solution, taking great care to coat every single surface above and below, as well as the entire surface of the soil, the table, the chairs, part of the carpet, your Opie, and the glass shade on the dining room light.
Step back and enjoy the fresh, holiday aroma of wintergreen chew and fermented biker saliva!
Note that your table, the chairs, your Opie, part of the rug and the glass shade on the dining room light now sport a shiny brown glaze, adding to that holiday mood!
Adjust hernia belt and settle in for another lager break. Curse fungus gnats.
Blog.
Notice that as your body temperature adjusts upwards to compensate for the arctic conditions in your kitchen, the sleeves of your sweatshirt are emitting the fresh, clean
wintergreen aroma of chewing tobacco and fermented biker saliva.
Go back, stir the surface of the soil to a depth of at least one inch and soak with remaining tobacco solution. Watch emerging fungus gnats skitter across the surface. Soak them mercilessly with the solution, taking inordinate and unseemly joy in watching them twitch and struggle in agony as they die.

No it would NOT be easier to throw the whole thing in the trash. I raised this thing from a twig with two leaves on it. I'll be damned if I give up without a fight.

grumpy cold little Muk (with spectacular tits) misses you!

Speaking of spectacular tits, THE CHAMP has returned from exile, and we are all proud as a hen done laid a square egg! Now give me some goddamn fight points, Mary.
I am tired of making excuses for not visiting or posting, and you are tired of hearing them.
Too bad; get over it.
It been one motherfuckin thing after another here at the rancho. Storms, power outages, high winds, low temps, blogger beta; yea verily the enchilada in its' entirety. I done been visiting, I swear to youse. But see, I go visiting, and I cannot comment. I switch browsers, and I cannot post. Half of you won't load. I switch back and I can post, but not pictures. Then the fuckin eel lick trisuddy goes tits up and I have to reload all my passwords and cookies and FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK!
AND POOP!
... in a big mud puddle with some ketchup, and garbage, and some tartar sauce that has mold on it and French's mustard and toilet paper, and a pinecone!!!!!!!

Pam, Eats, Shoots and Leaves and any of the rest of ye who live in the Pungent Sound Region, kids, hunker the fuck down and stay at HOME. Y'all are expecting winds up to 100mph. It is eerily calm and quite still here at present. I don't hear any birds - wait, lemme check something-
nope. A couple of juvenile ravens and crows drifting over, looking around. Nobody on the ground and nobody in the trees, though. The birds, even the winter loving ones, are all roosted up waiting for the weather to pass.

Members of the Corvidae are generally accepted as the most intelligent of the northern bird species. They exhibit amazing and creative problem solving behaviors. They use tools. They adopt creatures from other species as 'pets' or 'friends', establishing mutually beneficial relationships with them. All this, in addition to the problems of flight and the everyday challenges of survival, and all done with a brain no larger than a pecan.
So, come this next storm: How many crows or ravens will there befound stranded up on some logging road for a week in their Yugo sucking on frozen pee to survive?


There are three mountain climbers stranded up on Mt. Hood at present. I feel badly for their families, but as someone who has lived next to the Cascades all her life I have to say that I don't feel a whole lot of pity for the climbers themselves. This happens EVERY. SINGLE. MOTHER BUTT FUNKY YEAR. Right around Christmas or Thanksgiving, sure enough some group of dipshits choose to get themselves lost up on the mountain. Then a whole pile of rescue personnel who really deserve better have to leave their families and homes and go search for their sorry mountain climbing asses and risk their own lives doing it. And this particular group of hikers really should have known better; they were experienced enough to have known better by all accounts. I hope they are found alive, but I also kind of hope frostbite causes them to lose a couple of fingers or a toe as a permanant reminder NOT TO BE FUCKING IDIOTS AND RISK OTHER PEOPLES LIVES.
One of the miniature bikers has this birth defect. Granted, he is a hardy sort, and knows his shit; the man's a qualified Alpine Search and Rescue stud for heavens sake. But this last Thanksgiving sure as shit the dumbass decided, on a whim, to head up to the mountain and go hiking IN A FUCKING BLIZZARD. And put his miniature truck into the ditch halfway there. Did I feel pity?
No.
-because I am a bitch, yeah, ok, but still. The roads were deserted (because the SMART PEOPLE were all home cooking meth or screwing their housepets-it is Central Sound, after all- or watching the Seahawks) So he GOT OUT OF THE TRUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLIZZARD. All 93 lbs of uninsulated gristle. Yeah. He hiked up the road. He found a rangers station. It was deserted. He tried to break in. He couldn't. So he hiked back to his truck. Several hours later a PSE truck came and hauled him out just as he was turning into a miniature Cajuncicle.
So . Major holiday of joy, perfect for inflicting the upcoming aniversary of your senseless death on your loved ones for the rest of their lives? CHECK
Dangerous recreational outdoor sport? CHECK
Middle of winter? CHECK
Bad weather expected? CHECK
Unfamiliar with the terrain? CHECK
Attempt to 'go for help'? CHECK

STAY.
AT.
HOME.
UPDATE: it is now straight up noon, and THE WINDS ARE BEGINNING.
YIKES.
UPDATED UPDATE: at 2:45 sideways sleet and 40mph sustained winds from the northeast give way to crepescular darkness, torrential downpour, and seagulls. stay tuned.
GAY-FRIENDLY UPDATE: 6:pm sees continuing downpour. No wind, just rain. Worst storm since 94? meh. Ellen Degeneris, Sir Elton John.
TWEAKING UPDATE: 9:30 on the dot. the Gale has begun, and I is out! see y'all later!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

the calm between the storms UPDATE

Have you switched to Blogger Beta?
I can't leave a comment on your blog until I do too.
Funny how that works.
I thought I had a choice, Blogger. Apparently not, eh? Funny... I feel as though I am being lead down into an increasingly narrow chute...and that light at the far end might be a man in a white lab coat weilding a 'humane killer'.
Or maybe thats just me. I get funny around this time of the year.

I stuck a needle into the second joint of my index finger the other day. It didn't hurt as much as you might think it would, but it did kind of ache; and it made bending my finger difficult. To make matters worse, I couldn't pull it out. As I was attached at the time to a rather sizeable piece of sewing soaking it was out of the question ( and stupid, in afterthought.) Furthermore all my pliers were OUT IN THE GARAGE FOR SOME REASON. I ended up pulling it out with my teeth. This made an audible popping noise as the point left the cartilage, and chipped my front tooth.
No, I don't do things halfway.

The snow has gone. However the wintry assaults continue on rancho FirstNations. Yesterday starting at 11:30 in the morning, freaky disgusting bathtub-temperature winds rose up from the south and maintained a steady 45mph with gusts up to 60. Good thing, then, that these were not the usual winds from the south we experience here at rancho FirstNations. We expect more of the same tomorrow, along with torrential rains and a chance of snooooo. It almost goes without saying that we'll lose power again. We did twice yesterday. Yay.

In Oregon they called these freak warming trends a chinook.
A chinook is a salmon.
This is not a fish.
There are no fish associated with this phenomenon.
There is nothing remotely piscine about it.
That is why I moved away from Oregon. People in Oregon are fucking strange.

Tell you what though, I look out at the giant rotting stump which markes the place where the Tree of Evil stood only one year ago and thank God we kept bugging the city until they took it down. For those of you who have just joined us, the Tree of Evil was a freakishly large Lombardy Poplar that stood in the center of my driveway, just on city property. Lombardy Poplar is a softwood anyway, but this one was rotten all the way down the property side-that is, OUR side. To make matters more interesting, yardarm-sized branches would tear away from the main trunk and fall off just for the hell of it. Rather than breaking, though, they'd burst and shatter and spray wet cottony pulp all over the place. This made our driveway and the sidewalk out front a less than optimum place for mommies with baby strollers and hippies and dogs and cars and people and things.
Understandbly we got real tired of waiting for the next high wind to bring half the bastard plowing through our roof in the dead of the night and started a campaign of 'friendly visits' to City Hall. Finally the city removed it. No charge; their tree, their dime. SoooWEET! Took two days, four trucks and a crane. Giant chunks of this tree are still to be found at the city compost heap, chunks bigger than my car. All of them rotton and hollow down the side that faced our house.
Better there than my roof.