The Bizarre Green Mantis Is A Killer !!

If you are new to this site, take a moment and consider the plight of the young lady pictured below. If you find yourself in her predicament on a frequent basis, you might want to stop right here.

...you sad loser. Look! PEE! I just said PEE! Shit! Gall Bladder! Animal Faces! Oh lordy I'M OUT OF CONTROL, people!

After the object lesson in restraint that was April 18, I decided to go a-roaming on the www to cheer myself up, maybe find some nice art. I had a post in mind about pictures of women named Mary, and so I was happily clicking away. But see, staying on task is not my strong suit.

results of FUN SURVEYS :
smurf name: EVIL SMURF
how will you die: I will live to be 115 and be killed by Godzilla
ninja name: CRAZY BASTARD
....all of which please my inner child no end. Yes, for nothing more than a few moments entertainment I volunteered all kinds of information about myself which is now in some marketing database somewhere available to all and sundry. But I'm hoping that whoever purchases this info will be put off by the thought of contacting 'Evil Smurf' about changing her long distance carrier.

Here's a really hairy guy with one nut sort of hanging off to the side. I don't think his name is Mary, but it could be.

Aren't you glad thats not your bedspread?

Madonna, by Edvard Munch. Qualifies as a Mary, I think. But if you search this, and you enter
'Munch images' sometimes you get a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT search result. Try it and see.

You can tell his ideologies are the result of clear reasoning.

This is a cute little dog, I thought. Kind of matched my mood the other day...cute, but terribly disgruntled. Stupid conservative multiple wife having dinner interrupting, doorbelling, bicycle riding toilet heads.

This guy totally reminds me of the first guy I ever lived with. Except he was blonde and had a nicer ass.
Oh, heres a couple of urls I came across.

http://www.flat-d.com/thong.html This is real, and both my dogs totally need one. My grandson too come to think of it. http://www.godawful.net/ For when you just can't be bothered to purchase more Ipecac. I know you run out a lot.

Oh hey, and speaking of vomiting, heres a guy I totally want to f...

No, not really. Well, maybe. If he changes out of the 'Lite Beer' shirt. I dunno. I need to think about this some more.

What do you suppose he's looking at out of the frame there? I say its an AMERICAN EAGLE. On a HARLEY. And, like, they're flying magically across the sky fueled by the strength of their patriotism, trailing a red white and blue rainbow with sparkly things in it like Jem and the Holograms had, but not pink because that would be faggy.

Ever since I found this next picture I have this stupid song running through my head and I can't remember the name of it for the life of me.

"Oh, wibby wib wooby, nibby nobby noobie, la la la, lo looooooooooooo....."
Always check the tanning bed before you go just hopping in all willy nilly. As it were.
Heres something I've always wondered about...can nads tan? They're already a color anyway. Guys?

Here's Eninenstein doing some freestylin for us... You can make this guy say anything. Heres the url: http://www.hetemeel.com/einsteinform.php

WWJD?

I AM SO BLISTERINGLY PISSED OFF. OH. MY. FUCK.

Anyway, what would jesus do?
Good question.
Lets examine the J-dog, shall we?
He: hung out with prostitutes. and fishermen. got married, if you buy the apocrypha. thought globally, acted locally. kicked asses in a synagogue. did miracles of feeding and healing. was generous. didn't suck up to the rich. was an orthodox jew. enjoyed public speaking. got his feet wet.
said LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Phone interview, 9:30 am, Tuesday
her: So what is his condition?
Me- Well basically he's perfectly fine except he keeps passing out all the time. No alzheimers or anything like that. Its just that if he stands up he passes out, and he keeps standing up. All he needs is someone to steady him while he gets up in the mroning and gets dressed...you know, bathroom stuff, not, you wouldn't have to bathe him or wipe him, but steady him while he does all that.
her: Oh, thats fine. (laughs) and only part time?
Me: Uh huh. Well, five days a week for a couple of weeks. But just from 7: am to about 11:00 am for the first couple of weeks, then three times a week, then twice...just until he has his operation.
Her: (laughs) Well...lets see...I'll have to do some juggling...I have another client...
Me: Oh. well, we need someone next week. Listen, do you know any other resources; like services or, do you know anyone who needs a client?
her: Oh sure. (laugh) Get ahold of the LDS Job Service. Its a free service, they don't charge a fee, and they have, like caretakers and chore people..
Me: LDS? the Lakeway Drive...?
her: Latter Day Saints. Uh huh. (laughs) They have lots of people.
Me: Hm. You know, my father in law's out.
her:
her:
Me: Does...
her: (in a higher voice) oh, that doesn't matter......they help everyone...uh. they
Me: So they have a job board...
her: (same voice) oh, well, yes.....they dont care, i mean......its....well....oh. He's....?
Me: Do they-
her: (same voice) I, he...but, I mean, don't worry; they help anybody.



So Remember:
If you are old, sick, a danish cartoonist, a child molester and a raper of dogs, the LDS has got your back.
But if you are old, sick and gay, lie in your own shit and die.

Heres a subject Ive been meaning to foam and rant about for a long time, but I havent because i didnt want to say anything ignorant. first off, my tastes are eclectic. yes, my family knows. but that doesnt qualify me to talk about anybodys sex life except my own anyway, but still
tell me who in fuck does it hurt for two people to have sex? or for two people to love each other? tell me who?
nobody.
once you're a consenting adult, its all good. and thats what i taught my daughter.
they didnt know everything back in bible days.
but you know what? the only person in that entire book who made any sense, who had nothing whatsoever to say about who screwed who?
Jesus.
Love one another.
Not love one another but only opposite sexes; everyone else out of the pool. no.
There isn't a lot of love in the world now and there wasnt then.
So love one another.




but if you want to go shit in the LDS' mailbox, i'll give you a box to stand on.

KINK

Generally I don't listen to the radio while I drive because if a good song comes on it makes me drive faster, and let's just say that's been a problem for me in the past. But the yummy biker was behind the wheel the other day, and so the oldies station was playing and we were singing along and beating on the armrests, punching the dashboard, yelling 'fuck, yeah!' and generally acting like a dignified middle aged couple.

Now it's a good thing there was a nice lineup on or I'd have started whining...the man, god love him, does tend to stick with the classics, while I'm up for just about anything musically as long as it doesn't involve yodelling or fake southern accents or taking a popular tagline and whamming it against a fence until it bleeds and then setting it on fire and peeing on it; or as it's more commonly known, Country Pop.

Well, as fate would have it, later on that evening we were at our favorite eatery, sitting in the bar having dinner and they started in with the inbred Waylon jr. shit. I made my displeasure known verbally, eliciting a noise from the yummy biker. Kind of a 'huh' noise.

But damn. This is a place that usually plays ranchera. I like ranchera. It's kind of like oompah band in spanish, with someone intermittantly cutting loose an 'aaaaaAAA-HAIIiiiii...' or 'ooooooOO-PAA!' which is rad because it sets off everyone in the kitchen to doing it too.

This lead to a conversation about our favorite radio stations when we were kids, back when you had to rub two dinosaurs together to generate fire. His was Armed Forces Radio. Well, he had no choice; he spent a large portion of his childhood in arctic military installations and that's all ya got. Mine was a Portland, Oregon fm station called...
KINK.
No fucking lie. Is that not cool?
That motherfucker changed my life.

Those guy were nuts. They were all refugees from college radio trying to outdo one another proving that they weren't really selling out, so to say the resulting lineup was eclectic is an understatement. You'd get tibetan nose chant* followed by an entire side of Disraeli Gears, some Tom Lehrer, a couple boring comments from Alan Watts, some ZZTop, a little Monty Python, Mountain, Nixon speech remixes....oh damn, I miss them. And the later in the day it got, the stranger the lineup became. Around 9:30 p.m. the jazz dogs would take over. They had a running feud, modern vs oldschool, so you heard a lot of Blind Faith-that seemed to be the audio demilitarized zone-while they mustered their forces against each other.

Oho, but at 12:00 midnight my boy came on. I wish I remembered this guys' name. I called him the 'Lude Dude. His on-air personna was so profoundly laid back and so unself-conscious that you felt like he was in the room with you dropping ashes on the carpet.

Apparently all semblance of management supervision dissappeared around 10 pm at KINK. By midnight, fuggeddaboudit. 'Lude Dude would audibly toke on air. One night he gave a brief tutorial on how to heef coke off a turntable with an empty bic pen by stopping down the rotation with his thumb, during which the technicians were falling on the floor laughing in the background. You'd hear them taking bong hits and hacking. One night he spilled it on the desk and ruined his mix tape, so he did a call-in show and took requests; had to be titles dealing with altered states and illegal substances. First time I heard Billie Holliday was that night, singing 'You Make Me High' (which isn't about drugs; its about sex, but oh well.)

I discovered this guy by sheer accident, only because I had trouble sleeping when I was younger. To me, it was like discovering a hole in a tree that magically refilled with gold coins.

'Lude Dude was no brainless wastoid. He was brilliant and interesting. Most importantly, this guy knew his music and loved it. He'd stick to the playlist for a couple of songs, start expounding on the influences and start picking from the racks to illustrate his points. It was an honest to god free associative education in music, tits out, not sealed for your protection. He gave me my favorite music in a way I could OWN IT. ZZTop and Neil Young. Janis. Brother Jimi. Led Zeppelin. He did a whole show on the music that the Rolling Stones had re-released and made famous long before 'This Ain't No Tribute' was a gleam in some producers' eye.

Can you believe I had never heard Blues before I found this show? Oh, every now and then you'd catch a couple of sanitized bars in the soundtrack of a movie, or some sad wad like Dinah Shore would warble a selection froom Porgy and Bess in her soulless waspy voice while she shook her biznez, though only managing to look as though like she was struggling unsuccessfully against four point restraint. But 'Lude Dude played Muddy Waters for me. He played Howlin Wolf for me. I could not believe what I was hearing.

The effect hearing this music had on me was like having a question answered that I had no idea I was even asking. Read the first few paragraphs of Dante's 'Nuova Vita' because he expresses the type of transformative experience I'm talking about better than I can. All I know is that I was lying on my bed at 2:00 am, 1973, and that man played John Lee Hooker for me and it blew through me like I did not even exist. Something inside me opened up like an undersea flower and my life was different from one moment to the next. It was better.


*in case you were wondering, there really is such a thing. It's unearthly cool, too.

life. death. saturated fat.

All three of my husbands' parents have lead extremely active, healthy lives. In retirement they continued to be active, mom and stepdad participating in nationwide amateur golfing events-and winning them- and the playboy of the western world travelling the world leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake.

And here they are in their late seventies and they're sick.

Fuck it all, folks. No, really, fuck it ALL. I'm never dieting, never going to stop drinking, never going to take it easy. If this is how it ends up anyway then there's nothing that's going to prevent me from living while I have the chance. I mean, Jesus Christ; all Lance Armstrong's ever done is ride around on a fucking bicycle drinking protein shakes and he's minus a nut.

I say this because yesterday I unleashed upon an unsuspecting world the cholesterol death quiche from Planet Tallow. Now, nobody does a pate brisee like me. I am the pate brisee Goddess. Half a cup of butter went into shortening that little honey and it came out fluffy, light and perfect. Homemade pork sausage, mushrooms, onion, smoked basa and shallot filled it. Oh, and four eggs; can't forget them.
Topped with a cup of caraway gouda.
Utterly dee-luscious.

Hey, at least I'm no longer shortening them with schmalz. Or duck fat. So that makes it healthier. Right?
Inasmuch as cobra venom is healthier than being hit with a tactical nuke; then yes, it does.

UPDATE:
oo! oo! i found a pinto!
Yes, after tirelessly searching the web to bring you the best in human misery, I present to you Jesus Is Lord DuFresne doing the perp walk:





Have a Happy Easter, won't you?

The Horrible Grey Rhino King Is Hell's Messenger

This is shaping up to be one of those days that I have.

The Goonybird came into the kitchen this a.m. while I was wandering around the Web and began to pace back and forth, taking very deliberate, measured steps. He paused, then he resumed walking, only this time taking tiny little shuffling steps like a Parkinsons' patient. Suddenly he stopped, looked over at me, shook his head sadly, and sighed a long, dramatic sigh. Then he walked out.
Then he ran back in chasing a fly. "Wheddo go! Go! Go, bee! Tove no! Fooo! (blowing vigorously, flapping) Foo! Oo! Go car!"
Translation: "Where did you go? Aha, there you are; go! Go, bee! Oh, so you think you can baffle me with your foul imitation of a stove? I blow at you! I blow at you a second time! Oo, I heard a car go past."

I followed him and the fly into the front room, where he completely lost interest in it, walked over to the windowsill where my plants are, scooped up a handfull of potting soil and swallowed it.
"Hey! No no!" I said.
"No no!" he agreed, nodding, and walked away.

Now he is talking to the coffee table. I have no idea about what...I doubt the coffee table knows either. But it seems serious.

Usually it's the stove that gets this treatment. He and the stove seem to have a lot of ups and downs in their relationship. Sometimes he'll walk past and give it a friendly little kiss...and then other times that stove has just messed up like a big dog and gets read the riot act. "NO!" He'll yell, standing with his face thrust out belligerently at the oven door. 'Tove! You tove! Go car! go shoe car!"
Translation: "NO! You stove! You utter and complete stove! Just get in the car and go! Well; what I mean is, get your shoes first, then get in the car and go!"

And speaking of things that make you wished you'd remembered to wear your tinfoil hat....

When I was younger and everything was made of chipboard , I used to have birthdays. Now for a number of years there, starting in 73 and all the way up to about 81, every goddamn birthday someone, or two, or more, would give me a David Bowie record. Not too unusual a gift given the times, right? but odd in that I wasn't a David Bowie fan. At all. Nothing against the man, I just wasn't a Ziggy Stardust kinda person. I was not glam. I was daaaaaaaaaaaaaaark. You know...one of those world weary types who liked wearing black and leather and black leather and drinking beer and sitting around on the floor smoking dope. The music you would hear in my place (from about a block away) was either elderly black men singing about killing their wives, or Englishmen who sounded like elderly black men singing killing their wives.
Yeah, I was a riot.

And yet here I was with this all this fucking Bowie. I'd only opened one album over the years. The rest was pristine linoleum still in the cellophane. I think I ended up giving it all away to a club.

The last time this happened, it was husband#1 and my best friend who both gave me the Bowie bombshell. I just sat there looking from one to the other and thinking 'do these people know me?'
'Well, thank you....but, why on earth did you get me these?' I finally asked.
They looked at each other in exasperation. Apparently the answer to this question was being pulled across the sky behind Snoopy on his Sopwith Camel.
'Because you're WEIRD', husband #1 explained.
'You're WEIRD' agreed best friend.
"And Bowie's weird, too" added husband #1 helpfully.
"And weird people like weird things,' said best friend.
"Anyway, all you have to do is look at your record collection to tell who your favorite singer is" finished husband #1.

Mystery solved.

all hyped up and nowhere to spazz

The playboy of the western world is still in the hospital, and as long as he doesn't try to walk, he is fine. They're pumping him full of coumadin. Blood thinners notwithstanding, they've moved him to another room because his fan club was disrupting the floor; SSDD.

The 'strokes' he was having weren't the product of aeneurysm but a narrowed carotid; so think of it as more of a really BIG headrush than a stroke. Not that it isn't killing braincells; it is, but not the way a stroke does, taking out entire areas of the brain at a time and impairing function. So that is a HUGE RELIEF!

Despite my worst fears, father and son had a very low key, normal discussion about home care. Fil's best friend is hooking us up with a guy who knows how to maneuver around all the paperwork. The best thing of all is that we are arranging to get someone in there that fil already knows and who has assistance training. In a larger city where the general population is a little more sophisticated this wouldn't be much of an issue but in a small town like his it's huge. And you know, if you were in your 70's and still had a life wouldn't it suck to have to give that up just because some prig of a visiting nurse might be inconvenienced?

I crank myself up. I know.

Why can't he just be better?

Wikipedia refuses to post this. I am bummed.

At times I stop to reflect on how ugly, yet how pervasive cultural stereotypes are. Hate is truly a learned behavior.

And so, in the interests of furthering social weakness, ignorance and arbitrary divisions among people, I humbly submit my

FIELD GUIDE TO LOW-INCOME WHITEY
profusely illustrated

1. Cracker.
Similar to the U.K. 'chav' (I know because I Wiki'd it.) Television, clothes, booze and drugs sum up the raison d'etre of the cracker.
Here in the northwestern U.S, cracker culture has a strong mystical (some say surgical) connection to the unreconstructed South and the polyester glam of the 70's. Prized lifestyle trophies include state of the art home electronics, feathered hair, badly pitted skin, tribal tattoos, Chevrolet Camaros with Night Ranger and Kenny Rogers cassette tapes scattered on the floorboards, and a satellite dish the size of Montana overturned in the front yard.







The children of the cracker tend toward the wigga. Behold the future of our nation, muthafuckah.















2. Skank Beasts (Woods-Dwelling)
Gary Ridgeway and Diane Downs: the pentultimate skank beast tag team.




Now, some crackers can be righteous people. Righteous, with really really bad taste. But with the Woods Dwelling Skank Beast you open a whole 'nother box of cornflakes.

The Skank Beast is a shy creature, emerging from its two-bedroom rental only to work an obscure job, commit a few random murders, visit the quickie mart and then return to its perpetually curtained pied a' terre. Even in suburbia their dwellings are surrounded by rank and untended landscaping and frequently sit at the very rear of the property at the end of a lengthy drive.

Despite their pallor, poor hygiene and antisocial habits they are keenly driven to share their intimate secretions. They frequent b- and c-list swingers clubs and spend a goodly portion of their meagre pay on porn site fees.

Like their cousins the crackers, Skank Beasts own killer home electronic systems capeable of diverting international air traffic when in operation. I have no idea why this is, but it is.

Newly re-zoned logging areas are a magnet to the Skank Beast with a jingle in his jeans and a few family secrets to hide. Entire Skank Beast families are typically found pioneering these raw tracts, living in foul, algae-covered construction portables or 're-conditioned' mobile homes, huddled around the television in the darkness of their living rooms watching Pat Robertson while dad furtively fondles the kiddies and mom pretends not to notice.

3. Holler Monsters
Which twin has the Toni?
It is a mystery, but what what is certain is that Spitstains on the right there obviously lost the placental battle. He is almost a Pinto (see below)

The Holler Monster is the feral offspring of the Woods-Dwelling Skank Beast. Raised on incest, neglect, instant mashed potatoes, and endless hours of television, the young Holler Monster roams the hills and 'hollers' ( hollows, or valleys) freely and has since birth. Holler Monsters typically spend their early youth sans lower garments and can be seen standing on a lawnmower peering through your bedroom window or crouching on the side of the road next to a mailbox, a runnel of snot decorating their cleft lips, watching the cars go by and letting the liquids and semi-solids fall where they may.

A Holler Monster is a simple being. He is random, a creature of sudden whims and appetites, most of them having to do with road kill, shoplifting and being really itchy. He is frequently found weeping in the rear seat of a squad car, adorned with zipties and vomit, or crouched next to a newly dug grave, trowel in hand, picture of Momma in the other. The perennialy popular Ed Gein represents the pinnacle of Holler Monster celebrity.

Meet Chris Kemp...one of our own. A genuine Washin'ton Holler Monster. As this photo illustrates, the ability to avoid injury (as in, ' I wonder what would happen if I jumped face first into a big fuckin' patch of sticker bushes?' ) is as alien to the nature of the Holler Monster as is being allowed to use the restroom down at the gas station.











4. Pintos
Pintos are the rarest of the rare, so rare that I had no luck in finding an illustration. However fabled, they do in fact exist.
Oh ok. You remember that movie where Jeff Goldblum was in this machine and a fly got in by accident and when he came out he was all gross and turning into a fly because of his molecules and he started eating garbage and there was disgusting mucus and these wierd hairs coming out all over him and Gena Davis was all freaked out and she wouldn't shut up?
Take that machine, coax these two on the left inside it with a ten gallon can of shortening, plug it in, and what you end up with is a pinto.

Sometimes in nature, two wild creatures meet and the result is a tiny new life. And then sometimes, while roaming near the edge of the dump with a plastic bucket and a pointy stick, two or more holler monsters bearing wobbly parts in the correct combination meet in a perspiring tangle of Copenhagen plug and holey underpants. The result of these unions is a pinto.
It takes generations of concentrated incest to produce this, a being whose skin alternates with translucent patches of bluish tissue through which the underlying goop is visible as it oogs around.* A tiny round baseball head wobbles above abnormally narrow shoulders, tapering to a steatopygic base, the whole effect resembling a pile of undercooked porkchops wearing Adidas.
Small-eared, web-fingered and frail, the pinto is sometimes spotted standing in the middle of the supermarket staring vacantly as a puddle of pee slowly spreads around their feet, although their usual habitats are padlocked bedrooms with tinfoil over the windows, or secret rooms under the garage. Or working at Wall-Mart.





*Not vitiligo, but a true condition caused by prolonged human inbreeding. You see what you can learn here at Rancho FirstNations? And it's FREE!!

corruption at the highest levels

Actually it was more like corrosion at about waist-height. Our internet connection has been down, and having ascertained that the problem lay within the walls of rancho FirstNations and not at the server end of things, the yummy biker removed a chunk of sheetrock and revealed a phone jack dissolving into a solid chunk from sheer age and damp climate. Now things are back to (as) normal (as it ever gets around here.)

I have gardened. I have mown; yeah verily I have weedwhacked, trimmed and edged. I have done so with great vigor, with careless abandon, with no thought for the fact that I am no longer 30. Therefore, I hurt. This has lead me to prescribe one order of spaghetti alla marinara, 5 ciders, two naproxin, and one acetominophin for myself. And I was feeling somewhat better.

And I was still feeling somewhat better right up until my father-in-law, the playboy of the western world, called. 20mg. valium was added to the medication rota. More than likely another 20mg. will follow.

He is in the hospital again. The emergency ward. For dizziness. Again. Oh, he's fine. Again.
Then we got a phone call from the friend who took him to the emergency ward. The story changed.

He had a stroke. His second one. Those dizzy spells? Were cerebral incidents. Yeah.
So tomorrow we have to go visit him and try to hammer something out concerning assisted living-whether home or in a facility. What I'd like to hammer is somebody right onto a log placed across the path of a speeding elevator.

This is not going to be fun. One man minimizes or outright lies about his physical condition so as not to get in the way or whatever the fuck his excuse is-personally I think it's vanity-and the other man, his son, avoids any kind of difficult interpersonal situation the way I avoid Fundamentalist Christians. Then you have me, someone who was so traumatized by the treatment her grandmother received during her decline that I still cannot talk about it. And somehow I have to make those two jackass men sit down and forge out a plan of action taking into account all those favorite manly topics like the inevitable decline of health, death sooner rather than later, the inability to take care of ones basic needs, money, property, legal issues, selling the house, fuck fuck fuck.

Then of course there's that whole bargeload of unfinished business between father and son about father being, oh, GAY and everything. And not discreetly small-town gay either. Full on. No excuses, no regrets, young men in and out at all hours at the house and even up in the hospital room. (My father in law rocks so hard!!!!!!!!!!) So that just puts the ketchup on that order of fries, doesn't it?

YAY!
I am so out of my depth.
I am so PROFOUNDLY out of my depth.

If it was just me dealing with fil, no problem. I am an a to b type of person. Kind of like Harvey Keitel was in Pulp fiction. Quilts on the back seat, rinse off under the hose, car sent off to be reincarnated as Furby parts; problem solved. But add one more player and it becomes the dance of the seven fucking veils with everyone avoiding the subject at hand as though it were the plague. And its kind of a serious subject, y'all. So if I play the responsible party here I have to keep the conversation on track and thereby come off as a nagging bitch. (Admittedly no stretch.)

Remember how ol' Harvey caught a lot of snipey bullshit from Chilli and Fro Guy after everything was fixed? Yup. Once you've sorted everyone shit out, is there gratitude? Are you thanked? Do people say "Bless you, you magnificent example of womanly strength? No, you are resented for making everybody face the mean old unpleasant nasty thing.

Actually what I just described is motherhood. So never mind; I guess I can handle this.

Get a goddamn grip; or, Reality part deaux

ECCO STROPHION!!!!!

This image was pulled from Ebay and shows us a man in the act of exhibiting one of my bras for public inspection.

Actually no. But I think he may have just removed it. And his pants too for some odd reason. Perhaps the weather is a tad sultry where he is. (We will cling to this assumption like barnacles to a rock anyway.) Now in order to make this tatty old bra that much more saleable, he could have upped the ante by describing all the little floaty spots you can see drifting around as ' spirit orbs' and by claiming that this bra is haunted.

But no. I quote from the sellers' description: "Sorry about the spotty picture".

Whatever else he may have (we refuse to speculate) this hairy, naked guy selling a bra has INTEGRITY.

"See! Our superior spookiness has attracted a powerful phantom ally! You cannot defeat our SPOOKY FU!!!"

This photo was posted on a ghost site. We are helpfully provided with two red arrows which point to the terrifying circular anomaly hovering above Bad Devine and Premenstrual Woman(apparently Scary Bathrobe doesn't rate supernatural hoverage.)

Now, what I find most disturbing about this picture is that there appears to be a great weight pressing down on their house which is bending the wall over on the right there like a banana. I think that they missed the REAL picture. I think while they were busy immortalizing their Dungeons and Dragons personnaE a BIG HONKIN UFO LANDED ON THE ROOF. And what would have totally kicked ass bigtime is, if what happened next is that they all started melting and smoking and getting big gross blisters from UFO radioactivity and then some landing gantry things came spearing down from overhead and skewered them like a trio of costumed Ball Park Franks. Now THAT would have been a cool picture.

I used to play around with hobby photography and darkroom stuff. This type of thing just makes me rabid. Ladies and gentlemen, its not a ghost. It's common household dust.

Now maybe Naked Guy spilled the urn containing Aunt Rita and didn't get all of her out of the carpet. Or maybe he lives atop an Ancient Indian Burial Ground. Lord knows, America teems with these; we have to fly our deceased around in airplanes because the ground is so goddamn full of dead Indians. In any event, even if what we are seeing in that picture is particulate human, it is still DUST. And God bless him, Bra Dude may be naked, he may have bad panelling, and he may even be kinda icky when everything is said and done, but the man knows the difference between shit that doesn't exist and a dirty lens.

muk at the movies

My first movie review! My little heart is going pitty pat!
To see another, more inclusive review of the same movie by a man who knows his film, go here http://www.wyndhamtriffid.blogspot.com/

The yummy biker and I rented out "Capote' since we were intrigued by the notion of someone attempting to portray such an off the wall personality, and we have liked the work of Phillip Hoffman in the past. The contrast between the role he plays in 'Patch Adams" with the one he played in 'Boogie Nights' is a good example of why. They're both types, but not played as stereotypes.

This is exactly how he handles the character of Truman Capote. That had to be like trying to cross Niagra falls on a tightrope.

I have a living memory of Truman Capote. As a kid, I was fascinated by him and made it a point to catch him on all the interview shows. He was bizarre. (And well into pills and booze by this time, so compound the bizarre factor by four.) You just can't imagine how a personality like his looked to the average person in the 1960's. And yet how interesting he was to listen to; and how much you ended up liking the man! And that despite a truckload of traits which are still considered very real drawbacks in a media personality. He was male, but NOT manly. He was not handsome. Poor man, I don't think he had a handsome day in his life; he was even a funny looking kid. He was short. He was round. He had tiny foetal baby features set in a squashed, weak-chinned head, and he was swanny as hell. And that voice. Fingernails on a blackboard, a whining child with a bad cold, a whinny, a bleat....those only come close. Back in 1969 they were unforgiveable sins. And yet there he was. And you liked him.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays him to perfection. Simply perfection. The voice. the turn of phrase. Stoned, sober, everything in between. He has every nuance down perfectly, right down to the odd breathing noises that Capote used to punctuate his conversation. The walk. The puckered forehead. Sitting and standing. The languid wave of the hand that hesitates in midair, and then wanders up to scratch the head...I have never seen an acting job quite like this. There is not once false note.

It is all the more remarkable yet for its having been held in restraint. Capote in person was a much more vivid character even in his subdued moments. Hoffman plays him at about 3/4 brightness. It's an acting job you can almost measure in inches, yet it flows and it rings absolutely true. This movie could very easily have ended up as the 'Look at Truman' show. That is what Capote's life was, after all, yet that point's made very clear by the movie as a whole, not just by Hoffmans portrayal.

The entire movie is done in subdued tones in order to point up whats at play here: the mirroring of a deeply flawed charactor in an unexpected surface, and the reaction to that image. They do it well.

In fact, where there are flaws, the error was on the side of restraint. The connecting scenes are almost like watching paint dry. A lot of the lead in tone is interminable. And why some scenes didn't end up on the floor of the cutting room eludes me. They seem to have been retained just to make the movie seem arty. Capote answering a phone. Capote lying on a bed while another man walks past with a box. Capote standing by a desk. And then there are those Kansas cornfield shots, as Wyndham points out in justifiable exasperation. Hell yes, already, it's Kansas; we get it. Alienation. Emptiness. Americas bleak heart. Fine.

The film also suffers from an excess of tinkly single note piano playing to remind us that this is a drama, dammit...the aural version of the cornfield shot. Whenever we cut away to a scene in New York we are suddenly assaulted by loud jazz and conversation, and again, I get it. We're in civilization now.

That's all I can come up with to complain about concerning the movie itself. Worth watching. A good erudite college date movie with espresso and conversation afterward kinda movie.

My only other complaint is that I do have a living memory of Truman Capote, because that knowlege rather got in the way of my enjoyment of the picture on it's own merits. If someone who doesn't, say, oh, NOSHIT SHERLOCK, were to watch this film and then give it a critique, I think that would be awesome. Consider yourself tagged, my darling.

the type of people who give liberal hippie scum like me a bad name.

Today is the opening day of the farmers market season in Bellingham. The Stainless Steel Amazon and I are planning on making it a 'girls only' affair, and the goonybird gets to have a male bonding day with the yummy biker.

But there is a cloud on the horizon of this day, a little hairy cloud named Emily.

Emily is the phobic, whining, twat that married 'my' cousin, the supercilious prick. Thumbnail sketch: 'My' cousin ran for city treasurer a couple of years ago, a position which I have to admit he was well qualified for. Not only that; his opponent was pretty much just a high school kid with a notary seal. And she won by a landslide. Nobody voted for him. He is not likeable. And remember, this is the country that made Howard Stern a rich man.

How do you describe Emily?

For years she worked for the NEW YORK TIMES (fanfare) where she was shop steward for the union, making graphs. She moved here and got a job on the local newspaper where she worked for fifteen years and was shop steward for the union, making graphs. Recently she bought a share in, and is the editor in chief of, the floundering local Liberal newspaper, which has no union, and where her vast journalistic background in making graphs has paid off in hard hitting editorials about subjects nobody remotely cares about, with lots of graphs.

This is a woman who, when she first met me, bragged about having been able to 'pass' as a straight Christian all her life when in actuality she is a gay Jew. (What lead her to marry a straight irish catholic, one wonders? Particularly the one she chose? And why brag about it to a stranger you know is related to the man? It is a mystery, like the chupacabra, but with more hair.)

She followed up that statement with the SHOCKING LEFTY REVELATION -at least it had to have been to a simple country turd like me, right?- 'You know, back in NEW YORK our babysitter was GAY. And a MAN. And he was BLACK, too."

WOW!

OMIGOD!

Emily! You are SO LIBERAL! THATS TRIPLE POINTS!!!

So anyway, family issues of a vicious, revolting nature rear their ugly heads, sides are taken accusations are made, letters and phone calls fly back and forth and finally I make break with them all. And that is all. Just, 'the end.' Goodbye. No more contact of any kind. None. Nada.

That was 19 years ago. Time moves on.

Except not for Emily. Emily, who was only on the utter periphery of this affair but took up arms despite that like a woolly little Hun. Emily, who hardly knows me.

Well, how dare I indeed? I can't just run around all acting like I have self-respect; all choosing who I will and will not associate with like I'm somebody and all! I'm just a simple country turd! I drive a compact car! I HAVE to associate with her until SHE says otherwise! SHE is from NEW YORK!!

I'm going to gloss things over here and just say that her misdeeds are legion, and tawdry, and her cheap antics at one point became a therapy issue for my daughter *. The woman is, frankly, bizarre. And there I will let that matter rest.

..........except to say that if you are at the beach and you spy Emily in the distance coming towards you wearing a bathing suit, cover your childrens eyes and RUN THE OPPOSITE WAY. You do not ever want to see Emily wearing a bathing suit. Or shorts. Not even long shorts. Not any kind of shorts. Ever. Ever.

No. I do not like Emily.

This being opening day of the Farmers Market, Emily is very likely to be in attendance. What, and miss the first big event of the Granola year? Unthinkable! Plus she has to be there to record it for posterity now, too, I suppose.

God help both of us if I see her hairy little face. I'll fucking break it.

*until my daughter tore the bitch a new asshole to match the one in the center of her furry forehead. if you ever wondered why I refer to my daughter as the Stainless Steel Amazon, wonder no more.

at least it isn't shuk yon.

My yummy biker has been diagnosed with deviant Buford syndrome.
is this:

a. a medical condition caused by eating fried pork rinds at a Klan meeting
b. a medical condition caused by shouting 'WHOOOO-EEEE!' through the bathroom door at your mother
c. a medical condition caused by swerving your Harley in order to see how far you can kick a possum
d. a pathological lesion of the glenoid labrum, a triangular fibrocartilaginous structure that serves to deepen the glenoid
e. a medical condition caused by your first cousins' five 'o clock shadow


the answer is b.

He'll be going though physical therapy. Eventually he's going to end up with a permanent suture which ought to be giant heaving heaps o'fun for all involved. Poor guy. Send vicodin.

I'm just about the only person I know who isnt in physical therapy now.



update-
dang, folks, he'll live! (you are nice.)
I've already received a phone call about this. deviant buford syndrome is an injury to a piece of cartilage in your shoulder. its nothing so serious as a rotator cuff injury, even, but it makes it hard to reach overhead without pain. its only about this __ long.
sorry.

oo! i have the b manuscript too!

While some are born to serve the Lord and, some are born to battle, I am born to garden. That is my vocation. I'd say I have a green thumb, but that doesn't go nearly far enough and could lead to a series of unfortunate but tempting analogies concerning green body parts. Still, if I lived in a climate that permitted it, I would garden all year and live outdoors, right smack dab in the middle of it all in one of those southwest chikee hut things (with plumbing.) In total abject poverty, gnawing on a carrot and starving for want of food with a face, but doing so in the middle of a bitchin stand of delphinium x var. chinensis 'Blue Mirror'.

Yes, this could very easily become a gardening blog for the next few months. I'm making no promises. I'm already guilty of referring to plants by their botanical names in casual conversation, which I know annoys non-gardeners to tears. But they roll off the tongue so mellifluously! hemerocallis lillioasphoedelus! lonicera japonica! papaver betonicafolia! plus you can Google:Image the name and see exactly what I'm talking about better than if I said ditchlilly, honeyjasmine, poppy.

Now, after all that having been said, I have to admit that lately I have been doing just about zero in the garden. Yeah, after spending all winter bitching about how I just HAD to get outside or I'd go nuts.

Last year I put gardening to one side because we were all busy rearranging our lives around the new addition, Mr. Goonybird. And lets be honest- its more fun to play with a sweet dumpling baby than it is to turn compost, though some of the aromas produced are similar.
This spring I am paying for that. Bigtime. Oh hell yeah, bigtime...I put on 20 lbs right off the bat because I kept eating like I was digging ditches when all I was doing was gazing in adoration at the sweet baby. While chomping on a burrito.

So this spring I look out onto beds where last years cobby old stems are still nodding. Grass is growing in lush hummocks out of the middle of my groundcovers. The HENBIT OF DOOM is still there, laughing, mocking me, despite it being exactly the right time to yank it out and stomp it and set it on fire and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh

So today, while the 'bird is napping, I will go outside and do some long-overdue housekeeping. I promise.
(update2:30pm .....and i did, too. yay!)


Now a little blog housekeeping.
Check my link. If I submitted it, I may very well have put in the wrong url. It's supposed to be
1hplovecraft.blogspot.com
Thanks to Piggy for the headsup!

i explain reality

Some folks out there (not you, my darlings) are continuing to experience problems making that big emotional leap from 'It's SO OBVIOUS that the X Files was real but the government forced them to write it like fiction' to 'There is no Laura Croft really, but I will manage somehow.'

But hey, don't feel bad, you pathetic dork, I am here to help you! So sit down, shut up and let dear old First Nations root around in your brain with a stick.


See, there are things that are true, and there are things that are not. No matter how hard you try to make an untrue thing true, it never will be, no matter how elaborate the buttress of lies you erect around it. The only thing that you will make is yourself look like a moron.

Now. Bearing that in mind, repeat after me:

1. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS VAMPIRES.

Question: How goddamn lacking in self esteem do you have to be to run around in white pancake makeup and fake fangs like Eddie Fucking Munster? Answer: Pretty goddamn lacking. But you are different? You really drink blood? Well gosh, why didn't you say so in the first place? That is SO COOL! Now go slap yourself across the face and drink a gallon of tetracycline you pathetic retard. Congratulations! You're a plague vector. I bet your mom is proud.

2. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FAIRIES

Or Sidhe, angels, elementals, fauns, genie, peris, dryads, naiids, leprechauns, cluricauns, any cauns, kahunas, gnomes, kobolds, ghouls (except for Pickmans' Model; in fact, everything Lovecraft wrote was taken directly from personal experience because I said so) Bigfoot, Mothman, Boogieman, or Stick Indians. Even if they talk to you. That happens because you need 1. Interests other than World of Warcraft and 2. MAOI inhibitors. Fast. Now. Run.

3. YOU DO NOT HAVE PICTURES OF GHOSTS.

It's not a vortex, it's not ectoplasm, and its not an orb, it's you not knowing how to operate a camera, fuckwit. Yes, it would be cool if it were a ghost, but ghosts are bullshit and we can't all be ballerinas, either.

4. THE DEAD DO NOT SPEAK THROUGH PSYCHICS.

The dead are dead. They don't do anything anymore. Psychics? Take Sylvia Brown (please? somebody?) If she could really attract ghosts, wouldn't an aethric Versace have beaten her to death with a handbag by now?

5. YOU DO NOT HAVE AN INDIAN SPIRIT GUIDE. You can have a TV Guide, You can have a Michelin Guide, and in the UK you can even have a Girl Guide. You cannot have an indian spirit guide. You can have a disassociative personality disorder caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, though. **

6. ASTROLOGY IS JUST, NO. PLEASE. JUST NO.

7. AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON FENG SHUI.

My bitchy, innapropriate, rude ex-sister-in-law, rather than seek real help for her many problems, instead paid some lemming to come in and Feng Shui her house. Yes indeedy, that's a little lemming who laughed all the way to the bank that day.


8. OUIJA BOARDS ARE CREEPY.

...and this Halloween I will tell you my creepy, true ouija board story. Now, do I think it's Phil Spector making the planchette move? No. But...

9. RELIGION? GOTTA AGREE WITH MARX.

Offended? Stop reading me immediately. Honestly. I mean it. You will not like it here. Don't forget to pick up your Rice a Roni on the way out.

THERE!
Yew are cleansed!
The eeeeeevil has left you!
Now go fowerth, brothers and sisters, and THINK!!!!

I mean really, for the love of fuck.



* I blame Anne Rice. No really, I do. I just want to puke when an interviewer jokingly asks "Was 'Interview With The Vampire' real?" and she acts all coy like 'oo, if I say too much the Talamasca will put a hit on me!'

**Why do people think that dead Native Americans have nothing better to do with their afterlife than hang around with fat white women who dropped out of high school?

***'Ex Sister-In-Law and the Delusions of Entitlement' would make a sweet-ass name for a band, wouldn't it?

CSI Sumas

Well, we made it through yesterday in one piece. Seems to have been just a bug after all. The forensic evidence follows.....

1. Instead of lying on the couch all day and subjecting me to the spectacle of his misery, he WENT TO BED. In the bedroom. And slept.
In the early stages of diabetic wierdness, he lies on the couch all day moaning and yet insisting nothing is wrong and that he's not acting defensive...defensively, and scowling and talking to you as soon as you're out of earshot and then pouting when you ask him to repeat himself. Occasionally he'll get up with his hair all sticking out like Astro Boy and stumble off to the bathroom holding one side of his stomach as though his liver were migrating. Where he spends 45 minutes making odd noises, reading magazines and snarling when someone asks if he's going to be much longer. Then it's back to the couch for another round of 'how long can I irritate my wife before she puts me out on the curb in a heftybag? IN PIECES?'

2. He actually took pain medication. For pain. *
Instead of bitching all day about having a (headache, backache, toenail ache...) and then getting all defensive (and denying it) when you ask him if he's taken any asprin.

3. He barfed. The clincher! Not a person who just goes around chunking up chow on a whim, he.

Now, I play this for laughs here, but actually it's not funny. It flat fucking sucks to have to keep second and third guessing the actions of someone you respect like a spy, particularly when you know they're not feeling well. On the other hand, the suckage factor goes way up when you have a 250 lb biker who benches 300 lbs undergoing a diabetic event in your house wandering at large and hallucinating. Its just not fun. Getting said into the car to go to the emergency room is not fun. Keeping him in the car is not fun. Having him check the speedometer every fifteen seconds to see if you're speeding is not fun.
Now don't go getting all worried and shit. That only happened once, ten years ago. I'm just venting off some excess paranoia. But keep us in your thoughts, won't you, because I just may take a baseball bat to him yet.


* just poopy old naproxin, dammit. wheres the fucking vicodin? someone call keith richards for me.

For sale cheap: biker, used, stretched front end, wide glide, custom paint.

This morning finds me stuck at home with TWO children...the goonybird, who has as his excuse lack of years, and the yummy biker, who has NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER.
Now before you go rolling your eyes and saying "oh geeze, another man-hating 'guys are such children when they're sick' thing" let me just say that this is a 'yummy bikers with Monday-itis make me want to set shit on fire' thing.

Actually, let me qualify that further. The yummy biker has diabetes. Diabetes that is inoxerably making its way from type II 'everybody thinks this can be cured with diet' to type I 'blindness, foot amputation, running sores'. It's genetic. Runs in his family. He could be an uber-healthy kenyan marathoner who subsists on a diet of air and spirulina and it would make no difference.

One of the side effects of diabetes in men is depression. In his case it manifests itself by turning a normally wonderful person into Satan's three-year old boy. This is not an exaggeration, my darlings. I wish it were. He gets phantom stomach aches, gets weekenditis and mondayitis, sulks, pouts, refuses to go to bed...yeah.

Any change in his body chemistry is presaged by odd behavior. He becomes absolutely convinced that we are broke. (remember the last time that happened? He needed his meds adjusted bigtime, turns out.) He also does this thing where he settles in on the sofa for the evening and becomes COMPLETELY INERT. He kind of semi-dozes, semi-watching tv and semi-paying atention. Meanwhile the goonybird could be making long distance calls or butt-naked, chasing the evil dogs with a chainsaw...but if it doesn't happen to cross his line of vision, he takes no notice whatsoever.

Which for some reason makes me blisteringly pissed.

Even though I know its not that big a deal. Still. When he's howling like a bad shakespearian actor for the bazillionth time that day because the goonybird smacked him in the 'nads with a book again, you just want to heave them both out in front of a silage truck.

Heres the problem.

Maybe this isn't Mondayitis.

Maybe he really does have a bug. God knows it's going around.

Or maybe it's not.

Fuck.

quaint vignettes from my rural idyll

IT IS SPRING!
I have daffodils. I have vinca. I have snowdrop and crocus (somewhere) and best of all, I have a wreath of gentle, fragrant clematis armandii around my front window framing my little slice o' paradise.
I also have moles. No, not personal moles, you zany madcap person who is wacky, lawn type moles. Moles overrunning and undertunnelling my front and back yard. Moles chewing through the tether holding the water meter housing in. Moles burrowing around in my flowerbeds. Moles making little volcanoes everywhere.
Last year when this situation first began I decided to put the hose down one of the mole tunnels and turn it on full blast. Up washed a mole on a column of water, just like in a cartoon. The cutest, snubby, chubby, velvet soft little animal you ever saw, just like a hamster wearing catchers mitts.
As soon as he hit the grass he was off again digging away. I picked the little guy up by the tail and he just kept on furiously digging away in midair.
Awwwww!
So I let him go in the hay field across the street.
This year, everyone on Front Street has moles.

Yesterday the guy across the street ran the mechanical Opie around on his property. This is a chubby, hindslung tank full of strained cowshit that drives around and around spraying seagull food behind it in a great fan, like a peacocks tail. Guess what my house smells like this morning? Patchouli incense. 15 tons of patchouli incense. With more on the fire even as we speak.

Springtime means time to mow. Now I finally put my foot down after living here for a year and demanded a riding lawnmower because 1. our property comprises four city lots, and 2. I am 45 and I DESERVE A GODDAMN RIDING LAWNMOWER. Which at present sits unused and dead of battery in the shed. Meanwhile, the grass is getting tall and lush. I may have to hire a stout young native with a machete and a good knowlege of the forest before I venture out again. In fact I may do that anyway.
(Yahoo! Last minute update! The yummy biker just this moment got the rider going! They're playing my song!)

Across the back fence from my yard is the community soccer field. Right now it is covered with gulls, overflow crowd attracted by the green rain of food across the street. And in that flurry of white and gray there is one black spot. A crow. A crow with romance on his mind. And the object of his affections is a gull.
This little drama gets played out every year. To me, adult gulls look identical. But for some reason this poor crow singles out a lady gull and follows her and her alone for days, bowing and cawing and strutting and offering her nightcrawlers the size of anacondas. He has even tried to mount her. She just dips her bottom and steps around him. And this is the treatment he receives every year. But hope apparently springs eternal in the corvid breast.
Is it spring where you are? ( Oh, well, for the love of Mike of course it is. But does it show?)

I couldn't resist! I had all these great songs saved!

This one goes out in honor of Noshit Sherlock, my top coon. Wielding a disciplinary spoon and living with her cheddar-abusive sister in the land of the wily waka-rere-rangi*, Ms. Noshit survives in apparent self-sufficence despite her tender years, performing singlehandedly all the necessary household tasks and simultaneously playing a number of wind instruments. One assumes the neibors who are aware of this fact are buried in the back yard under the kiwi vine, a' la Jodi Foster in 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane'. She attends Miskatonic University along with Our Saviour, Jesus, his twin brother James, and any number of fun-loving lesbians who play rugby and drink a lot. Ms. Noshits' favorite beverage is one which has the word 'proof' on the label. Do visit this amazing prodigal here at http://drivingthebustohell.blogspot.com/ but be nice, or I'll find you and hurt you. And your dog. In fact I think I'll kick the shit out of your grandmother too if I can catch the old sow.

THE NOSHIT POST

....................Last night was dark. Today finds me full posession of my faculties once again, dammit. I keep trying, but nobody wants to lend me their fish.
"In the morning
Laughing, happy Fish Heads
In the evening
Floating in the soup
Ask a Fish head
Anything you want to
They won't answer
They can't talk
I took a Fish head
Out to see a movie
Didn't have to pay
To get it in"
Fishheads, by some group

I hit my sister thirteen times today with the rear bumper off a Buick but she still wouldn't shut up about the flies. Wwhy do the flies keep annoying me? I don't like the flies. Make the flies go away.
I know they're watching.
And waiting.
" Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia The Tattooed Lady.
She has eyes that folks adore so,
and a torso even more so.
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia.
Oh Lydia The Queen of Tattoo.
On her back is The Battle of Waterloo.
Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus too.
And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
La-la-la...la-la-la.
La-la-la...la-la-la. "
Lydia the Tattooed Lady, the Marx Brothers

The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs.
The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs. The dogs.
"smelly cat, smelly cat
what are they feeding you?
smelly cat, smelly cat
it's not your fault
they won't take you to the vet,
you're obviously not their favorite pet.
you may not be a bed of roses,
you're no friend to those with noses
smelly cat, smelly cat
what are they feeding you?
smelly cat, smelly cat,
it's not your fault"
Smelly Cat, by that goofy broad on Friends

I met my friends outside the emergency room and we all ran in and pushed over all the wheelchair people. We switched catheter bags with Ringers' lactate. We sang foul ditties and smeared food on the walls of the cafeteria. Later, we wondered why. We wondered why.
"I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
and my penis was missing again.
This happens all the time:
it's detachable.
This comes in handy a lot of the time:
I can leave it home when I think it's going to get me in trouble,
or I can rent it out
when I don't need it.
But now and then I go to a party, get drunk, and the next morning
I can't for the life of me
remember what I did with it."
Detachable Penis, Primus

Tomorrow I will go to school the same as always. I long for the day when my kind will rise again, up from the primordial slime and muck which shrouds the bed of the obsidian-dark fathoms, up from below the leaden grey and icy waves of the ocean, up from the seaweed-garlanded spires and temples where once the Elder gods were worshipped in their foulness......until then, i wait.
No, wait.
I mean, I wonder if Billy will let me copy his homework?
Geeze, what comes over me?


* translated: airplane. they're untrustworthy however you look at it but never moreso than on newzealands' soil.

Bread

Today I am making bread (and actually I should be proofing the dough right now.)
Baking used to be something that I found difficult, but in the last five years I've become something of a dab hand at it. I think once I let go of the scientific method and started going by feel is when it all came to me.

Most baking books preach absolute precision. You must rigorously measure and weigh and temp and dither and worry. Now, that's in disregard of the fact that perfectly lovely bread was being produced for centuries before it even occurred to anyone to invent clothes. My grandmother (fully clothed) made it in a zinc tub and baked it in a wood stove 'until it smelled done.' Guys in the Klondike made it in a hide bag they wore on their belly under their shirts. And once you've sat back and entertained THAT mental picture for a moment or two, you never look at a loaf of sourdough bread the same way.

If I didn't have a Cuisinart (a robocoupe) my shit would be sunk, though. Not only for bread, though. I use that sapsucker at least once a day; in fact I've chainsawed my way through three so far. I'm on #4, and #5 is waiting in the cupboard for its debut. Fork blending? Yeah, right. Kiss my what?

I love the smell of the ingredients. A nice egg, a little yogurt, water, yeast, the flour, the sugar and salt...they all have a perfume. And I love to handle the dough. I knead with my eyes closed, going mainly by feel to determine when enough is enough or things are too sticky or need dampening up.

Bread dough as it begins to work is a magic substance. Warmth begins to flow from it as the strands of gluten lengthen and the structure becomes silky. It's the same warmth a baby gives off when it's sleeping on your chest. A fragrance like heaven must smell early in the morning (when Jimi Hendrix is making toast) rises in little wisps as you turn and fold and turn and fold.

I make a french-style loaf once a week just for a giant hoagie sandwich dinner. So that all the goodies and yummies will fit and not squit out the sides, I tear out some of the fluff with a fork. For the rest of the evening the Yummy Biker and the Goonybird sneak into the kitchen and pick at the 'bread guts' for a snack and feel like they're getting away with something.

This is one of the priceless pleasures in life. Bill Gates has nothing I want.

hassled by the man

Not one to pattyfoot around, I emphasize the following:
hey! yeah, you! leave a fucking comment! It's mandatory now! Thats right! House A' Pain, baby!

I had to appear in district court yesterday for a mitigation hearing. Remember back when I went dashing up to the Stainless Steel Amazons's house to pick up the Goonybird (out of the kindness and generosity of my heart and a genuine concern for the welfare of my grandson because I am a woman with a beautiful soul) and got stopped by the cop? Yeah. He was kind enough to drop the speeding ticket-and I was flying low- but he felt compelled to cite me for the expired tabs*. That, I'm assuming, had something to do with the fact they had been expired for nearly half a year.
So anyway I had to show up in court at 8:30 a fucking m.
At the vestibule I get wanded in and pass through the metal detectors; fine. Then recall that I'm carrying a pocketknife on my keyring. Back I go to the security guard like a good little citizen. She examines the knife (sharper than madonnas tits, too-I use it to purloin cuttings.) "Oh no," she says, handing it back. " You can keep it. It has to be a little longer than this." Now the thought occurs to me to point out that the human heart lies a mere two inches behind the sternum, a plate of gristle easily punctured with a determined blow- and anyway you can kill somebody by sticking a pencil in their eye, and here I am wandering around at large in a public building with a cranium full of prozac and a knife for the love of fuck, but I decide not to. I am smart like that.
When it comes my turn for judgement I run a quick wedgie check (nope!) and then step up to the bar.
"I'd like to see your license" the judge states.
I rummage around in my purse and pull out my wallet. And the fucking zipper sticks. Bad enough; but the pull is a stupid skull with a rose in it's teeth. I'm trying to keep the judge from seeing that since I'm disguised as a responsible adult and I'd like to maintain that impression as long as I'm in the hands of the law. I managed to wriggle the vinyl thing holding all my cards out of the side of the wallet. The vinyl tears, and as all my identification and photographs go sliding across the bench I present my license to the judge.
"Oh,' he says. "I didn't want to see your license. I meant your license."
I pause. A small blood vessel in my brain begins to swell.
"Did you get them? he asks."
"I have a license", I chirp helpfully.
"I don't want to see your license. I mean your license", he says.
I shuffle through my papers as though I know exactly what this smiling busload of rectums is trying to get at. But then-
'Aha,' I realize. 'Not license. Buckwheat means 'tabs.'
"Oh, yes. The expired tabs, yes. I had new ones on the car 45 minutes after I received the ticket" I reply.
"Oh. Then I'm reducing your fine to 60.00"
He smiles all crinkly, obviously about to deliver himself of a bon mot. "Oh, and, by the way, nice license."

Plumb fuckin' eludes me, too.

* 'Tabs' are reflective stickers with a date you have to attach to the license plates of your car. They're due every few years. It's a form of extortion.

...a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that chocolate, lard, white sugar and caffeine are all health foods. and beer.

As the level of gleeg in my lungal regions decreases, my level of wanting to do things increases. Drawing of crows picking hideously at a severed head? check. (Turned out good, too.)
Dishes washed? check.
Hair tinted in a sad attempt to appear as though I HAVE hair? check.

Messers. Piggy and Tazzy get the tip o' the hat for todays post. Everyone go see http://www.tazzyandpiggy.com/nsfw/ right now and give them both a big ol' blow job, won't you?
Yes, that means you too.
P and T suggest....
"1. Blog about your deepest sexual fantasies,
2. or poo,
3. or that woman down the road that you don't like the look of,
4. or the person down the street that you DO like the look of.
5. Or how about telling us your thoughts as you masturbate?
6. Or even something as dull as your favourite socks?
7. What about that tattoo? Tell us about that!"

1. Geeze, guys, my daughter reads this.
.........Nyeh, so what!
My deepest sexual fantasy took place in Ape Caves National Park (you see the 'deep' connection here?) which was located on Mt. St. Helens, also making it the highest sexual fantasy I ever had. Having retreated to a small bell-cavern off the main tunnel to moke a doink, I briefly but vividly entertained vulvar visions of vaginas and full body fucking when I became temporarily lodged like a fat boy in the almond-shaped passage back out. Soon afterwards the entire mountain exploded. Coincidence?
2. Already done poo, and rather well I think. I promised another story concerning horses and dogs, though, and that one's in the works.
3. Did that too. But God knows that well aint dry.
4. Geeze, which direction? And how far down the road? In my little corner of heaven there are people I dislike, people I kind of dislike, people I tolerate occasionally and to date 5 people I actually like-like. (not counting you, my darlings.)
5. Who thinks? Do you think? Isn't that distracting? Are you suposed to think? Nobody told me. Now I'm all paranoid. Thanks.
6. Toe socks. They're like cozy little gloves for your feets. I like 'em.
7. Which one?

And thank you to everyone. I really felt like deep fried dogshit last week and you cheered me up.

the nation in review

In the breaking up stage of things today. I will spare you the descriptions.
-Oh all right; fine.
Ever had a fishtank? Think of the worst fishtank you have ever seen. No, worse than that.
...and hold that picture...
Thats it.
Yeah.
Thinking seriously about not doing the blog thing anymore. The weather is changing and I am turning my attentions to other things....That, and I feel 'all talked out'. I guess I have a limited need to communicate? I dunno. Ideas and suggestions and questions and stuff welcome.
But mostly, tissues.

state o' the nation

How am I?
You are adorable and kind to worry.
In answer, I only have two words:
banana slugs.
Send rum.
*stumbles back to her bed of pain*

Indian Lore, or, Fuckin' with your stereotypes, part un

I am a native american so don't go getting yourself in a bunch over the following. I can do this stuff. I have permission. And you know how I'm always talking about white folks, and calling the catholics a pile of twats? I'm part white and I was raised catholic. See how this works? And using the same logic, you will never find me referring to the spoos, the zippyheads, the kites or the eelshoes in a pejorative fashion, mainly because I made those up.

THE HISTORY OF THE FLATBUTT TRIBE-SAVAGE INVESTORS OF THE OLD WEST

Back , back, my children, back in the dim mists of time, the Flatbutt tribe lived their charming, primitive lives undisturbed by the passing parade, amid the peaceful ponderosas high in the hills.

Yes, it was a time of innocence. The mighty Flatbutts stalked game (mainly Twister) in the primeval forests. They raised bonsai Republicans, which they later sold as chum to the fishing tribes living along the coast, or sometimes traded for Altoids. They made highly sophisticated pottery and are known from the archeological record as the inventors of the booby mug. They were particularly known for their greeting cards, which they imbued with powerful magic charms and a strong, greasy aroma.

The children of the Flatbutts were reared with a keen appreciation of something. Nobody knows what exactly. They spent much of their youth high in the elms, waiting for salmon to pass beneath, attempting to hit them with water balloons. Life for the young Flattbutt was idyllic, and most of all, unhygenic. When a Flatbutt lad or lassie came of age they were initiated into adulthood by members of the secret tribal Amish Death Metal Society...felled from their lofty aeries by setting light to kilos of Matanooska Thunderfuck beneath their dung-whitened roosts, and then flung headlong into the mighty Lager river, which ran, strong, foaming and yeasty, through the center of their ancient tribal lands. For days afterwards those living downstream tasted, and knew.

Using pool cues, the newly-made adults were then rescued from the malty torrent and greeted by the tribe. A huge bonfire using wildcrafted sofas was set ablaze. The next three days were passed in feasting, catered by Port O' Subs, attempting to light off damp fireworks with gasoline, peeing for distance, fart tag and Twister. During this time, and for some afterward the buffalo were wary.

The adult male Flatbutt was of average height, not counting the additional inches added by the ceremonial pirate hat and cuban-heeled boots. Adult males wore a penis sheath, a ribbed length of dryer vent decorated with feathers and crackerjack prizes, held fast to the body with duct tape, and many inches longer than was entirely necessary. This article of clothing, it was believed, aided the hunter in attracting the police. Sometimes in bad weather the males would burrow deep into the forest duff in search of Playboy magazines cached earlier in the year.

Women were revered as givers of life, and they alone carried Israeli manufactured automatic weapons with taped clips. Women customarily went topless (inspiring the tradional indian war cry WOO WOO) wore raffia platform shoes with cherry toe clusters and midlength tulip skirts adorned with poodles, eiffel towers, and Frenchmen riding bicycles. No ensemble was considered complete without the traditional Hermes bag where the scalps and genetalia of their enemies were carried. During the winter the females would often drive in to Portland and take in some shows, maybe do a little shopping, and later hunt elk with stone-tipped spears through the center of town, dodging busses and gorging on the thrill of potential bloodshed.

Then came the pioneers... Europeans banished from their own lands by a populace sick to death of their constant whining about being too cold and too wet and too muddy and oo, can't I have another blanket and oh dear the thatch is leaking again and could somebody bring me something hot to drink? and maybe a magazine? and could you turn the channel before you leave?

They crossed the plains leaving trails of used tissues, and the rumor of their passage was told in the sudden increase of postnasal drip among the tribal peoples with whom they traded for Vicks and aspirin along the way.

The first doomed meeting between the Flatbutt tribe and the ofay happened on Friday. Everyone was settling in for a nice picnic lunch and maybe later a swim in the river if it wasn't too chilly (making certain they waited the traditional one sacred hour after eating to appease Douglas, the giant monster lager lizard who was rumored to live on the bottom of the channel eating the adidas of the unwary.) Without warning, from over the rolling hills in the distance appeared the Pintos and Gremlins, the Chevrolet Caprices and Pontiac Sunbirds of the settlers, drawn by tired oxen with large crayons.

Without so much as a howdy do they headed toward the river, heedless of the noshing natives, and then into the very river itself, where they drank their fill, promptly passed out and floated away downstream.

The Flatbutts rallied. Gathering up their blue tarps and styrofoam coolers they waded in, chunking rocks and bottles, sandwiches and eight-track players, and finally, desparately, pelting them with the used diapers of their own children. But a sense of destiny hung over the whole scene, a portent of doom, a scent of failure, and several other things.

And so history was played out on the sage-strewn stage of the painted praries.

Intermarriage alloyed the pride and strength of the Flatbutts. Competition for cigarettes drove the price up. Korean and Japanese investors swept in and bought up the primeval forestlands for a pint of pee and a box of Kotex and built mini malls where once proud Flatbutts had hunted in proud and flatbutted nudity. Although that was supposed to be a little Flatbutt secret.

But a ray of hope gleams through the crack in the bathroom stall of history, blocked though it may be by the wadded up toilet paper of Caucasian revisionism. Today, using laptop computers whch they cleverly assemble from sticks, rocks, pinecones, and some of those carboard tubes that paper towels come on*, the Flatbutts are slowly regaining their former status as the savage investors they were of yore.

Given time, a clearly written pattern-preferably Bernina- and the right yarn, they will rise again.

WHITE MAN, PRAY TO JESUS THEY HAVE YOUR CORRECT SIZE.




*a perfect example of Flatbutt injun-uity.

i hate my lungs (warning: contains dickensian childhood scene)

Is this a 'pity me" post? Why yes, I think it is.

I have had asthma for 39 years, starting abruptly in 1966...in fact around October-November of that year. One month into first grade.

Many specialists say that childhood asthma is stress induced. Let's examine 1966, shall we?

I was in a first grade class that contained 41 children in a single room, with one teacher. (Mind you, this was a private Catholic school that charged an obscene sum for enrollment.)
Surprisingly, despite the asbestos wrapped pipes and the shredded textbooks, this wasn't too horrible in itself. It was in the classroom next door that the real concentration camp conditions were.

Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, the nun who taught that class was suffering from a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. When she became irritated at one of her six-year-olds, she would draw a circle on the blackboard, have them touch their nose to it, and then smack them in the back of the head with a hardcover math book. This we knew because our nun described exactly what was taking place over there, and threatened to have that teacher come and take care of us similarly if we acted up.

She lit into those children so hard that the chalk would bounce out of the trays on our side. The kids seated closest to that wall would get so scared they'd start to cry...and in true 'Catholic school horror story fashion', our nun, Sister Mary Petronella, would go crimson with rage and start slamming books on her desk and shouting at us to mind our own business... while in the background you could hear the kid in the other room screaming and crying and getting his skull cracked off the slate board while the nun bellowed gibberish at the top of her lungs.

I mentioned this at home, and my mom only laughed and showed me the scars on the underside of her wrists from the whippings she got in Catholic school. 'Hurts more there' she explained.

Finally one of the little kids from the other room ended up hospitalized with a concussion and a broken nose, and his parents had money, so of course then the shit hit the fan. But up until then, why, you could always tell the kids from Sister Clementines class...they were the ones with the bloody noses and two black eyes.

So yes, some stress.

Then of course there were the less-than-ideal conditions in the patient-run mental ward I was growing up in. I've treated that elsewhere, so 'nuff said on that point.
The punchline? Because childhood asthma was written off in those days as a 'psychological ailment', I was perceived as 'faking it' ( i.e waking up from a dead sleep unable to breathe, coming out in hives, coughing up things I refuse to describe, turning blue from lack of oxygen, sneezing so many times in a row that my throat bled and capillaries burst in my face) I received only token treatment for my asthma. At the time I was told that too many doctor visits cost too much money.

But see, my father was a career man in the navy. We had 100% medical coverage.


In spite of taking all the required precautions, asthma is a 'the more you get it, the more you get it' scenario so I'm only one or two jumps ahead of the game at any given time. I've always had respiratory problems-bronchitis, pneumonia of every stripe, bacteria busily evolving primitive societal structures in my sinuses, it's been pretty bad. In fact its been downright nightmarish. I've lost quite a few jobs because my resistance is so low I start racking up the sickdays as soon as I come into regular contact with the public.

And now I've got bronchitis again. Dammit to HELL! Every! Fucking! Spring!

Of course the days of 100% medical coverage are a thing of the distant past, so like most Americans in my income bracket, what I'm reduced to doing now is calling around to my friends and asking do any of them have any partial prescriptions of antibiotic laying around could I buy. Yeah, like trying to score weed. Not that I couldn't go to the doctor, but weigh half a day out of my life and the cost of the gas, and the cost of the visit, and the cost of the perscription without any co-pay, and well, fuck it.

So I sit here, full up to the tits with contraband Cephalexin. And, my darlings, I can only pity the holy, bleeding FUCK outta the next goddamn person who crosses my shit.
Have a nice day! :)

agitatos and girlbogs

I always wonder what third world citizens must think of the way Americans treat their pets. We own dogs, and while we are not disgusting in our dog ownership-no outfits, no oojy cuteums voices-we are kind of stupid when it comes to them. For one thing, they eat WAY better than us, at least if you look at cost percentages. And this we spend on animals who lick their own asses.
We must be doing something right, though...we seem to have had the evil dogs forever. First came Jett. She was to be my husbands' dog. She was followed several years later by Opie, who is supposedly my dog. The truth of the matter is both animals exert equal satanic dominion over our household, friends and guests. And, uh, we actually bought Opie for Jett. We didn't want her to feel lonely. Yeah, its pathetic.
Both dogs have nicknames. Jett is the Girlbog, because she is a girl, and like bogs, poo is inevitable. Opie is the Spud, a.k.a. AgiTato, because he is in some mysterious way very much like a potato.* He does not walk; neither does he amble or stroll. He tatoes. Stubbing along in a perfect state of zen mind, head lifted, eyes closed, completely enraptured by some divine odor, oblivious to everything in his path, unhurried, unworried...this is Opie, passant, tatoing.
Jett grew up into a diva of the first water. Opie was already full grown when we got him. Despite being older, male-er and stronger, he is completely happy to let Jett have the run of things.
This is not passivity, however, even though he allows himself to be grabbed mid whiz by Jett and humped-it's complete and utter indifference. He will let Jett-or any dog, for that matter-hump away on the south end of him as though he were one of those nickel horsie ride at the grocery store. Dog X might even work itself into doggie paroxsysme (that's Fronsh, y'all), panting and grinning and drooling and losing its footing, tossing it's head like a ponygirl...meanwhile Opie will be blinking sleepily, chewing his toe.
Jett is a dogs' dog; there is nothing cute about her. The poor thing is caught in a terrible dillemma, though, because for all her instincts she is no bigger than a rat terrier and the fact simply hasn't registered. If you go to pick her up she'll go all stiff and awkwardly twist around exactly the way a large dog does when you try and lift it; kind of ridiculous in an animal no larger than a loaf of bread. She won't sit on your lap for the same reason-she is a BIG dog, not a baby lap dog. She digs dens. She points birds. I once had to pull her away by the collar from a muskrat lodge she was desparately, even compulsively, trying to pull apart...a pile of logs and limbs the size of a city bus. The oddest behaviour is her fascination with white rocks. She would spot one while she was wading and completely submerge, head and all, open her eyes, then crawl across the bottom army-man style until she was able to grab the rock in her mouth. Then she'd stand, trot back to shore and put it on the ground. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. She'd leave a conical pile of round white baseball sized rocks next to every body of water we visited. Is she a breed example of the rare submarine baseball hound? Like Area 54, Stonehenge and much of the Catholic religion, it is a mystery.
My husband is Opies' manservant. I am a convenient source of warm flub when the heater goes off. Opie is Opie. The rest of the world exists only per its relative utility vis a vis Opie. He is a benevolent despot, but a demanding one nonetheless; he wants what he wants, but when his wants are satisfied, why then the rest of the world may proceed. He will be picked up and put on the bed. No matter the bed is scarcely more than futon height from the floor, more than simple for him to waddle up on despite his stubby legs. No, he will be lifted. If you choose to ignore him, he will voice his displeasure and generally Agitate. He does this by repeatedly flumping his butt on the floor and sighing heavily in disgust. He will nose. He will bump. And he will make a sound in his throat I have never heard another dog make.
Imagine you sing bass. Now imagine you also have a terrible case of bronchitis, and that during the past day you have eaten a large amount of elderly beans and that they're reeeeeping and buuu-orpping around in your gut. Now-the sound you might make if someone slowly sat down on your stomach-THAT is the sound Opie makes when something displeases him. OO UHHHrrrrr MMM rr MM. RRoo nnn? MMoooo rrrr.
Neither dog has aged badly. Of course where once they were entirely black they now have white points, and they spend lots more time sleeping, but other than that they are still exactly the same. This must be hybrid vigor or something they're putting in cat food that my dogs are reaping the secondhand benefit of; either way. Both of them are doggie Methuselahs and neither one is showing it in ill health, deafness or blindness and for that I am so grateful. They get so much enjoyment out of the things in their world that its heartwarming to be able to provide them with a comfortable version of dog retirement. Rotton smelly dogs.



* opie even has his own emblem, *, an asterix. If you see this sigil shining on the clouds some uneasy, dismal night, stay indoors. the Dark Tato is abroad.

one declines

Does anyone remember when the band 'KISS' was cool?
Me either.
But according to all the retrospectives, they were just the next best darn ol' thing to electricity and Jesus.
This is such horseshit.
What the fuck, Gene, you don't have enough money? For Gods sake, man, take your hat and go. You were never cool. Your band was never cool. Your entire fan base was the kids too young to know the difference and deluded people in the Midwest who thought they were really doin' some rebelling now, boy, that KISS, boy, they are just really satanic as all get out! 'Knights In Service (to) Satan'! Boy howdy! Won't Pastor Eddie just shit a brick?!?
Their music defined subaverage. That they still managed to have a couple of hits, putting them up there with such musical milestones as 'Jimmy, Don't Be A Hero' and 'MacArthur Park'and 'Down In The Meadow In The Iddy Biddy Poo' simply means they had a lot of cocaine to pass around.
The reason this is yanking my chain is because I just got sent an application for a special credit card. A KISS credit card. A credit card with the rockin image of the rockin badass KISS band on the front complete with Gene Simmons' rockin badass tongue hanging out.
Right.
Like I am going to pay for a box of tampons by slappin down a KISS credit card.
Like I am going to try and rent a car using a KISS credit card.
Like I am going to go out in public and attempt to take part in the money economy using a KISS credit card.
'Declare your status as a proud member of the KISSNATION!!' reads the application. "Show the world that YOU are a rock and roll soldier in the KISS ARMY!!' Yeah, do all that AND keep your lobotomy scar hidden. It's not easy.
Mother of Christ. I think I'm insulted. I really do. It's not so much the inanity as the implication that I was that big a dork and that I"m still that big a dork.
Now, I live in a part of the country where many women my age find it perfectly acceptable, even unremarkable, to charge things using a 'Winnie the Pooh' charge plate and have angel teddy bears printed on their checks. By now it should probably go without saying that I would rather farm toads in my pants than carry something like that round, but still. Teddies and stuffed toys tell the world you're a lightweight, but they don't scream every time you use them 'Woo Hoo! I can't be trusted with simple tasks! I'm a moron! I draw faces on my stomach with lipstick and take polaroids of it! Crack? Why yes, please! And could I have some for my cousin-er, wife here too?
So yes, I'm going to pass on the KISS credit card.

Genetically altered blog post

Back awhile ago the Koreans succeeded in raising a strain of pig genetically engineered to glow in the dark. This caused quite a sensation here at Rancho FirstNations. 'What if they made a GLOW-IN-THE-DARK wrinkle dog??' I mused. I had fantasies of owning an entire litter of them and letting them loose on the property after dark, and running around amongst them screaming 'No! Call them off! Call them off FOR THE LOVE OF GOD..

I still cherish that dream.

Then I found this series of pictures (scroll for the full horror):
http://www.damnfunnypictures.com/html/Worlds-Ugliest-Bald-Cat.html
And thats got me thinkin' about cat ownership once again. But not just any cat. A bioengineered cat.
A GENETICALLY ENGINEERED LUMINOUS STICKY WRINKLE CAT.

Say farewell to yesterdays boring cat.
Say hello to todays' new Adhesive Lumacat!
Press telephone messages onto the Lumacats forehead and save $ on old fashioned Postit notes!
Grease it with shortening and play 'squit the cat for distance' at your next party!
Imagine the utter pantswetting horror your tiny trick-or-treating visitors will experience next Hallowe'en when they reach in the candy bowl and find a mewling litter o' Lumacats coated in red jello! AND RAW CHICKEN LIVERS!!!
WE COULD DO IT!
WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!!!!

_________________
Speaking of cows, the first time I ever saw a Shar Pei wrinkledog it scared the living crap out me. I was walking down the sidewalk and I'm approaching what I thought was a very elderly, bald headed man sitting behind the wheel of a Cadillac.
As I passed, the elderly bald man went utterly batshit and started barking at me, snarling, honking the horn, and bashing his slobbery face against the glass in rage. I almost shit a length of bowel.

To me, one of the greatest accomplishments of the 21st century so far is the invention of the glow-in-the-dark pig. Trust dear old FirstNations-someday soon you will see this same technology applied to house pets-and I'll bet you any money the Japanese will be the first ones to market it. Until then, you can eat a ham sandwich in the dark and dream about that day.

Eukanuba would make a million dollars off this flavor

Because my beloved grandson, the Goonybird, is made of finer stuff than the common run, just the whisper of an irritant or a single whole wheat cracker will cause his ass to rot off.

In order to spare him his grandmothers fate (FIRSTNATIONS: assless queen of the Flatbutt tribe. Venus Williams I am not) he must be let to roam free, free, free, in order to let the breezes circulate. As he is a boy baby and *ahem* unedited, this means we all spend a great deal of time marvelling at the amazing elasticity of the human foreskin.

Was such a day as this I sing. This morning, actually. He had performed all his sceduled bodily functions so I figured we'd just let him air out for awhile. And promptly forgot.

For a long time.

Well, memory came racing back to me and I went racing out to the front room where the Goonybird was romping on the sofa. All was calm. All was bright. Round yon baby had no visible substances besmearing him...fine...
Then I remembered the dogs.

I looked, and there they were, poised, like buzzards on a bargeload of medical waste, licking and trembling. Gazes fixed, noses almost touching.

Between them, on the rug, lay a turd.
Blessedly intact. Miraculously solid. Incredibly uneaten.

It instantly got a job as first mate on the porcelain yacht. Mr. Goonybird instantly got a diaper.

Now, I haven't stopped until just this moment to ask myself, 'Self? do you think there might have been any more little brown cars on that choo-choo?' And I prefer that to remain unasked; a mystery, like the interdimensional time-space portal in Beaver, Oklahoma, and much of the Catholic religion.

And in case you were wondering, yes; I do own a carpet cleaner. I've damn near wore it out.

Try and remember to pick up some toilet paper on the way home from work.

DATES TO REMEMBER IN MARCH:
March 2: International Take Your Dog Dowsing Day. Because you never know.

March 4: Apterygi Day, New Zealand. Festival celebrating the kiwi, a flightless, hair covered baseball. The kiwi plays a vital role in the economy of this island nation, where it is cloned in large vats and exported for use as a nutritious spreadable butter in third world countries.

March 1: Ass Wednesday. Feast of the Burning Donkeys in the island nation of Norway. On Wednesday.

March 13: Dio del Ristomunte, Brazil. Day of the Resteraunteurs. On this day the citizens of this island nation celebrate the return of the Royal Mounted Restauranteurs.

March 17: St. Patricks Day. Comemorating the mass circumcision of the Irish Patricks. On an island.

March 21: Natilacio de Benito Juarez, Iceland. Celebrating Natalie and Ben 'Little Benny" Juarez, this island nations' famed Mafia ballroom dancing team.

March 26: Mothering Sunday, UK. Synchronized childbirth is the order of the day on Mothering Sunday, when women of all lands gather to compete in this ancient, time honored event.

March 20: The Vernal Equinox. Free well drinks for ladies during happy hour!