...I've just been
Painting the front porch
taking cuttings of my Camperdown Elm
planting
lifting plants
dividing plants
potting up
building a new bed for wetland plants in the back yard
trimming and shaping the staghorn willow
" " the alaskan willow
handpicking SLUGS out of my strawberries EW EW EW EW EW and giving them flying lessons...and oddly enough, no matter how hard or how far you throw a slug to get it started, they never seem to catch on to the whole 'flying' thing.
weeding
mowing
weed whacking (whack! whack!)
visiting home improvement centers
pricing deck rail
drawing up plans for a pergola
visiting nurseries and pricing trumpet vine and wisteria
so, yeah. My time is now my own and look how I spend it...lying around, smoking crack, watching Jerry Springer...it's pathetic.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
Green Winged Leech of Madness Bringing Active!
I got utterly trashed on illicit weapons-grade vicodin and beer the other day and it did me a world of good. I had a great time all afternoon long, and then went to have a fantastic nights' sleep. I woke without a hangover and I feel like a million bucks. Yes, kids, drugs are fun! Do some today!
______________________________
This may come as good news to some of you...it sure came as a complete suprise to me.
Middle age has given me back the exact same libido I had during puberty.
Oh yeah.
Yes, as my former fecundity sinks slowly into the west and I bid farewell to the HMS Menopause, I turn to face my husband of twenty years, and find him VERY GOOD INDEED.
Frequently.
As in 'call first; don't just drop by'.
Being ecumenical, I also find I have a renewed appreciation for such things as the truly spectacular rack on the little meadow blossom who works at the Pay-N-Run.
Just sayin'.
This, then, is middle age, ladies and gentlemen. It's like thirteen, only with more money, a somewhat greater understanding of how society operates* and a drivers' license.
It ain't bad.
______________________________
The following is probably karma back at me for not buying locally, and so I humbly apologize to the universe and promise forevermore to let not my home improvement dollars wander any further than the Lynden Do-It Center (and not just because the name makes me snicker like a tard).
So we go in to town and hit Home Depot to buy some paint. Now Home Depot is kind of the B-list chain hardware outlet, so they dont' get the pick of the litter employee-wise. The hippobottomous behind the paint counter was a new low...flumping, sighing, rolling her eyes heavenward, sweating grapefruit and flicking attitude like a twelve year old girl. 'What? Huh? Duh?" she sneered at a customer who was insulting her by attempting to buy paint. She emphasized this by waving her hands about vaguely in midair to signify her complete inability to understand what poor Paint Customer was driving at as he meekly repeated 'I want a gallon of white paint, please...?" (or possibly she was shooing flies attracted by her shitty customer service skills.) Meanwhile her manager wrung his hands and paced and pretended to consult catalogues, wandered around like a lost puppy, followed a customer halfway down the aisle, and then turned away to follow another customer halfway down another aisle...fuck, it was painful.
We walked.
And the lame wad followed me! Shouting "Miss? Miss? Miss? Miss?"
I turned and looked at him, whereupon he turned to my HUSBAND (oh, he was racking up the points, I tell ya) and asked "Miss, is something wrong?"
Miss.
Well, yes, quite a bit was wrong by that point.
_____________________________________
A few days ago my Yummy Biker arrived home from work and announced 'I have a present for you!'
"OO! Whadja get me? Whadja get me?" I was bouncing around the kitchen like a small exciteable dog. "What is it? What is it?"
He pulled a huge, heavy rusted bolt from his lunchbox...a bolt that had been some time immersed in seawater, bizarre and corroded, complete with hexnut still attached to one end. He held it out proudly.
"Look!" he said. "It's a severed robot penis!"
______________________________
*In my case this also includes the same utter disregard for the rules of society as I had when I was 13, but a greater knowlege of flammable materials.
______________________________
This may come as good news to some of you...it sure came as a complete suprise to me.
Middle age has given me back the exact same libido I had during puberty.
Oh yeah.
Yes, as my former fecundity sinks slowly into the west and I bid farewell to the HMS Menopause, I turn to face my husband of twenty years, and find him VERY GOOD INDEED.
Frequently.
As in 'call first; don't just drop by'.
Being ecumenical, I also find I have a renewed appreciation for such things as the truly spectacular rack on the little meadow blossom who works at the Pay-N-Run.
Just sayin'.
This, then, is middle age, ladies and gentlemen. It's like thirteen, only with more money, a somewhat greater understanding of how society operates* and a drivers' license.
It ain't bad.
______________________________
The following is probably karma back at me for not buying locally, and so I humbly apologize to the universe and promise forevermore to let not my home improvement dollars wander any further than the Lynden Do-It Center (and not just because the name makes me snicker like a tard).
So we go in to town and hit Home Depot to buy some paint. Now Home Depot is kind of the B-list chain hardware outlet, so they dont' get the pick of the litter employee-wise. The hippobottomous behind the paint counter was a new low...flumping, sighing, rolling her eyes heavenward, sweating grapefruit and flicking attitude like a twelve year old girl. 'What? Huh? Duh?" she sneered at a customer who was insulting her by attempting to buy paint. She emphasized this by waving her hands about vaguely in midair to signify her complete inability to understand what poor Paint Customer was driving at as he meekly repeated 'I want a gallon of white paint, please...?" (or possibly she was shooing flies attracted by her shitty customer service skills.) Meanwhile her manager wrung his hands and paced and pretended to consult catalogues, wandered around like a lost puppy, followed a customer halfway down the aisle, and then turned away to follow another customer halfway down another aisle...fuck, it was painful.
We walked.
And the lame wad followed me! Shouting "Miss? Miss? Miss? Miss?"
I turned and looked at him, whereupon he turned to my HUSBAND (oh, he was racking up the points, I tell ya) and asked "Miss, is something wrong?"
Miss.
Well, yes, quite a bit was wrong by that point.
_____________________________________
A few days ago my Yummy Biker arrived home from work and announced 'I have a present for you!'
"OO! Whadja get me? Whadja get me?" I was bouncing around the kitchen like a small exciteable dog. "What is it? What is it?"
He pulled a huge, heavy rusted bolt from his lunchbox...a bolt that had been some time immersed in seawater, bizarre and corroded, complete with hexnut still attached to one end. He held it out proudly.
"Look!" he said. "It's a severed robot penis!"
______________________________
*In my case this also includes the same utter disregard for the rules of society as I had when I was 13, but a greater knowlege of flammable materials.
Butch as fuck!
Stained the front porch? Yeah.
Scraped, prepped and painted same? Yup.
Tore off back deck railing? Uh huh.
Busted same down, loaded into truck? Oh yeah.
More man than you'll ever be, more woman than you'll ever get!
______________________________________
A few nights ago as I was closing up shop I found a sphinx moth fluttering in the front window. Unlike the last time this happened I did not freak and flap like a nut; I simply opened the window a little wider and let it find it's way out.
A sphinx moth mimics a hummingbird-their general appearance, flight and habits. They come out in the evening and drink from the flowers, looking rather like the ghosts of hummingbirds, pale and slow, drifting along as the dew falls.
They make a helicopery noise in flight, a basso flaptering hum. A hummingbird makes an electrical zzzzzmmm, interspersed with manic chittering, and is all color and dash.
I have had hummingbirds land on me while I was working in the garden, and it's wonderful and a little alarming. They have no fear whatsoever, and so much to say! One hung upside down from the brim of my hat and stuck his tongue out at me. Others perched on my head or arms and looked around calmly, or read me the riot act.
I have had a sphinx moth brush my arm in passing...and I screamed.
They're....soft. And cold. And...mothy.
So much for Butch Muk.
Scraped, prepped and painted same? Yup.
Tore off back deck railing? Uh huh.
Busted same down, loaded into truck? Oh yeah.
More man than you'll ever be, more woman than you'll ever get!
______________________________________
A few nights ago as I was closing up shop I found a sphinx moth fluttering in the front window. Unlike the last time this happened I did not freak and flap like a nut; I simply opened the window a little wider and let it find it's way out.
A sphinx moth mimics a hummingbird-their general appearance, flight and habits. They come out in the evening and drink from the flowers, looking rather like the ghosts of hummingbirds, pale and slow, drifting along as the dew falls.
They make a helicopery noise in flight, a basso flaptering hum. A hummingbird makes an electrical zzzzzmmm, interspersed with manic chittering, and is all color and dash.
I have had hummingbirds land on me while I was working in the garden, and it's wonderful and a little alarming. They have no fear whatsoever, and so much to say! One hung upside down from the brim of my hat and stuck his tongue out at me. Others perched on my head or arms and looked around calmly, or read me the riot act.
I have had a sphinx moth brush my arm in passing...and I screamed.
They're....soft. And cold. And...mothy.
So much for Butch Muk.
Friday, June 01, 2007
RERUN! RUNRE! RERUNUM! REDRUM!
I am re-running this because I feel like it. I'm TOTALLY OUTTA CONTROL, PEOPLE!!!!
_________________________
she writes:
I went looking for pictures of women named Mary, as I've said. And you've seen what happened when my brain got all in a bunch and I typed in 'hairy' instead of 'Mary'.
But damn; it was such a great idea that I really put some effort into recapturing it; and so the search was once again on.
There are some really nasty women named Mary out there, ladies and gentlemen.
Returning to the search for Marys-sounds like an evening on Castro Street, doesn't it?-I continued to come up no tits on the images I wanted no matter what search engines I tried. But what I did come up with, in spades?
The Story Of Judith and Holofernes.
Now to my recollection there is nobody named Mary in the story of Judith and Holofernes. Judith and Holofernes is the story of how one of the few women in the entire Bible who wasn't a complete throw pillow defeated an enemy of her people; she went to his tent, got him completely passed out drunk and then took his sword, hacked his head off and brought it back to show the folks at home. Anyway, since I was having absolutely no luck with the whole 'Mary' thing, I decided 'Well, when life hands you a severed head, make lemonade.'
But before I get started on that, just to let the gentlemen know that I love them all (call me) heres a good solid shot for your team:
'Ha ha!!! Take that, Julia Louise Dreyfuss! Seinfeld sucked!!! Haahahahahahaha!!!!"
Ok. Pictures of the Judith and Holefernes story tend to fall into categories-comtemplation of the deed, the act itself, and the aftermath. Within these categories are some distinct subsets: eww, bigass head, and nice fish.
CONTEMPLATION OF THE DEED:
" Damn. Half a bottle and you're passed out like a little bitch? Man, my uncle Methuselah is 310 and he blows through the vino like it's Koolaid."
Judith: Dear God, I know this is going to be really disgusting and gross and sick, and I'm probably going to barf everywhere and probably cry and get hysterical, and totally just lose it and freak out, God, and maybe faint and..." Servant: Oh SUCK it UP already.
THE DIRTY DEED IS DONE:
...For all the distress it seems to be causing her, Judith may as well be slicing a hunk off a salami. Meanwhile, the servant holding the candle obviously does not like this man at all; while Judith saws away she's dripping hot wax on the guy.
Old Testament CSI. Notice the blood spray? You take a couple hacks at a guys jugular and you bet theres gonna be some damn blood. Judith is mildly distressed by this, but she has obviously given some throught to the act and is keeping her nice blouse clean. The servant is ready with a bag. Holofernes is reacting about how you'd expect a drunk to act while his head is being severed...'Wha' th'FUCK, man, I uaaaaaghlllak, gurglegurgleackgagsplut" My nomination for best picture of the bunch.
THE AFTERMATH
Subset: eew
Subset: bigass head
Judith: " Yeah, mess with the Jews NOW, Holofernes.
Thats RIGHT. You CAN'T. Know why? Because I cut off your huge stupid HEAD, you stupid bastard."
Servant: "EEEEEW! His hairs' dirty! "
Goya knew his women.
" Did I mess up my hair? Really. Look at my hair. Is it coming undone in back? Because it feels like its coming undone in back. Just take a look."
"Judith, your hair is fine. Honest to God. Theres like one little piece coming out but thats it. It looks good. Really. It's cute. It's like that 'Belle Sauvage' look."
" Oh God, I have eighties hair? Are you kidding? I have eighties hair now? Well thats just great."
"Oh just DO something with it."
" Hey. Come here. You wanna see something really sick?
It's a cut off head. Come check it out.
You want to touch it? You can if you want. It's still warm.
Lookit...I can make him talk. 'Would you like a sandwich Holofernes?'
Uh huh, Uh, huh...see, he's saying yes. Lookit his tongue. "
I found at least five pictures chronicling Holofernes' hydrocephalic melon but this one takes the cake.
This is one bigass head.
Poor Judith and her servant seem to be about the size of first graders. Holofernes legs are like fricken telephone poles with feet.
You cannot tell me that this painting is about anything else than sweater steaks. You see how they reflect the glow given off by Judith's elbow? These, the painter is saying, are the boobs of an angel.
Servant" Damn, Judith, that is one bigass head. Lookit this thing; its like a watermelon with a nose! "
See, this plumb eludes me. My search returned 45 pages and here this was on page 24.
Aftermath subset: nice fish
bait: silver daredevil on 20lb. test
"My God," thought Judith's servant "I've known her since she was a little child...but I never really knew her at all until now."
One of the very few Judiths who manage to look the least bit Middle Eastern. She has a great attitude.
"Hell yes it's a head. I cut it off, too. Damn right."
So, I was walking down the road, right, and I see this chick with something over her shoulder? So I want to be friendly, and I said 'Would you like some help with that?' But then I saw that it's a sword, right? Anyway, so she looks at me and, you know, she seems nice, and that's when I look down and see this, like, I thought she was carrying one of those'Sixties-type purses? Except its not, man. It was a head.
A real one.
A real tiny one.
It was a fuckin' HOBBIT HEAD.
Dude, I booked.
See, this is just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
First we have this gross, gross woman who's grossness defeats all attempts at description, who TOOK OFF HER SHOE to oog her TOES around on the face of this decapitated head
Next we have Queen Elizabeths Hat woman displaying her prizewinning entry...taken on natural bait using a split cane pole and silk line.
Fianlly we have Julia Child and her blue ribbon entree', taken with a #6 brass spoon on a treble hook.
"I don't want to carry the head anymore. You carry the head. Come on. Please?"
"Hey, I'm not the servant here; you are. You carry the head."
"But the head stinks."
"So? It's a warm day. It's not a basket of roses, it's a head."
"But it's heavy. And it's leaking down my back."
" Oh right, and now I'm going to carry it after you just said that?"
" Oh come on. carry the head, please?"
"All right, yes, we said bring the thing back but I thought you'd have enough sense not to go waving it in peoples faces like a Hermes bag. Now look at poor Rabbi Jackman; he's passed out. For the love of Mike, Judith, you know the man has a heart condition."
"I got a head! A dead ol head! A head on a Stick! A pointy ol stick! I can make this head twiiiiirl like a propeller! Whee!
Hey Mr. Head, lets go look over this hedge! What do you see? oh, I see a girl sitting on a bench! Oh wow, Mr. Head!
Lets look through this second story window! What do you see? oh, I see a lady screaming! Oh wow, Mr. Head!
I can wave! this! head! Back! and! forth! Like! a! flag! Back! and! forth! Like! a! f...whoopsie...."
_________________________
she writes:
I went looking for pictures of women named Mary, as I've said. And you've seen what happened when my brain got all in a bunch and I typed in 'hairy' instead of 'Mary'.
But damn; it was such a great idea that I really put some effort into recapturing it; and so the search was once again on.
There are some really nasty women named Mary out there, ladies and gentlemen.
Returning to the search for Marys-sounds like an evening on Castro Street, doesn't it?-I continued to come up no tits on the images I wanted no matter what search engines I tried. But what I did come up with, in spades?
The Story Of Judith and Holofernes.
Now to my recollection there is nobody named Mary in the story of Judith and Holofernes. Judith and Holofernes is the story of how one of the few women in the entire Bible who wasn't a complete throw pillow defeated an enemy of her people; she went to his tent, got him completely passed out drunk and then took his sword, hacked his head off and brought it back to show the folks at home. Anyway, since I was having absolutely no luck with the whole 'Mary' thing, I decided 'Well, when life hands you a severed head, make lemonade.'
But before I get started on that, just to let the gentlemen know that I love them all (call me) heres a good solid shot for your team:
'Ha ha!!! Take that, Julia Louise Dreyfuss! Seinfeld sucked!!! Haahahahahahaha!!!!"Ok. Pictures of the Judith and Holefernes story tend to fall into categories-comtemplation of the deed, the act itself, and the aftermath. Within these categories are some distinct subsets: eww, bigass head, and nice fish.
CONTEMPLATION OF THE DEED:
" Damn. Half a bottle and you're passed out like a little bitch? Man, my uncle Methuselah is 310 and he blows through the vino like it's Koolaid."
Judith: Dear God, I know this is going to be really disgusting and gross and sick, and I'm probably going to barf everywhere and probably cry and get hysterical, and totally just lose it and freak out, God, and maybe faint and..." Servant: Oh SUCK it UP already.
THE DIRTY DEED IS DONE:
...For all the distress it seems to be causing her, Judith may as well be slicing a hunk off a salami. Meanwhile, the servant holding the candle obviously does not like this man at all; while Judith saws away she's dripping hot wax on the guy.
Old Testament CSI. Notice the blood spray? You take a couple hacks at a guys jugular and you bet theres gonna be some damn blood. Judith is mildly distressed by this, but she has obviously given some throught to the act and is keeping her nice blouse clean. The servant is ready with a bag. Holofernes is reacting about how you'd expect a drunk to act while his head is being severed...'Wha' th'FUCK, man, I uaaaaaghlllak, gurglegurgleackgagsplut" My nomination for best picture of the bunch.
THE AFTERMATH
Subset: eew
Subset: bigass head
Judith: " Yeah, mess with the Jews NOW, Holofernes.
Thats RIGHT. You CAN'T. Know why? Because I cut off your huge stupid HEAD, you stupid bastard."
Servant: "EEEEEW! His hairs' dirty! "
Goya knew his women.
" Did I mess up my hair? Really. Look at my hair. Is it coming undone in back? Because it feels like its coming undone in back. Just take a look."
"Judith, your hair is fine. Honest to God. Theres like one little piece coming out but thats it. It looks good. Really. It's cute. It's like that 'Belle Sauvage' look."
" Oh God, I have eighties hair? Are you kidding? I have eighties hair now? Well thats just great."
"Oh just DO something with it."
" Hey. Come here. You wanna see something really sick?
It's a cut off head. Come check it out.
You want to touch it? You can if you want. It's still warm.
Lookit...I can make him talk. 'Would you like a sandwich Holofernes?'
Uh huh, Uh, huh...see, he's saying yes. Lookit his tongue. "
I found at least five pictures chronicling Holofernes' hydrocephalic melon but this one takes the cake.
This is one bigass head.
Poor Judith and her servant seem to be about the size of first graders. Holofernes legs are like fricken telephone poles with feet.
You cannot tell me that this painting is about anything else than sweater steaks. You see how they reflect the glow given off by Judith's elbow? These, the painter is saying, are the boobs of an angel.
Servant" Damn, Judith, that is one bigass head. Lookit this thing; its like a watermelon with a nose! "
See, this plumb eludes me. My search returned 45 pages and here this was on page 24.
Aftermath subset: nice fish
bait: silver daredevil on 20lb. test
"My God," thought Judith's servant "I've known her since she was a little child...but I never really knew her at all until now."
One of the very few Judiths who manage to look the least bit Middle Eastern. She has a great attitude.
"Hell yes it's a head. I cut it off, too. Damn right."
So, I was walking down the road, right, and I see this chick with something over her shoulder? So I want to be friendly, and I said 'Would you like some help with that?' But then I saw that it's a sword, right? Anyway, so she looks at me and, you know, she seems nice, and that's when I look down and see this, like, I thought she was carrying one of those'Sixties-type purses? Except its not, man. It was a head.
A real one.
A real tiny one.
It was a fuckin' HOBBIT HEAD.
Dude, I booked.
See, this is just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.First we have this gross, gross woman who's grossness defeats all attempts at description, who TOOK OFF HER SHOE to oog her TOES around on the face of this decapitated head
Next we have Queen Elizabeths Hat woman displaying her prizewinning entry...taken on natural bait using a split cane pole and silk line.
Fianlly we have Julia Child and her blue ribbon entree', taken with a #6 brass spoon on a treble hook.
"I don't want to carry the head anymore. You carry the head. Come on. Please?"
"Hey, I'm not the servant here; you are. You carry the head."
"But the head stinks."
"So? It's a warm day. It's not a basket of roses, it's a head."
"But it's heavy. And it's leaking down my back."
" Oh right, and now I'm going to carry it after you just said that?"
" Oh come on. carry the head, please?"
"All right, yes, we said bring the thing back but I thought you'd have enough sense not to go waving it in peoples faces like a Hermes bag. Now look at poor Rabbi Jackman; he's passed out. For the love of Mike, Judith, you know the man has a heart condition."
"I got a head! A dead ol head! A head on a Stick! A pointy ol stick! I can make this head twiiiiirl like a propeller! Whee!
Hey Mr. Head, lets go look over this hedge! What do you see? oh, I see a girl sitting on a bench! Oh wow, Mr. Head!
Lets look through this second story window! What do you see? oh, I see a lady screaming! Oh wow, Mr. Head!
I can wave! this! head! Back! and! forth! Like! a! flag! Back! and! forth! Like! a! f...whoopsie...."
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Heap Big Crackin' Up!
OO, it finally happened! Someone came here and got their stereotypes all fucked with!
Remember the tit fucking post? About a week ago? it was on 5-7-07. Scroll down to it. Read the comments. Feel the disapproval!
I know I am supposed to be serious. Even noble. Stony faced, impassive, simple and direct.
*snif*
I am not, not all the time.
Not even most of the time.
*snif*
I know I have failed you, anonymous, and not only you but all Native Americans everywhere. I have not fulfilled your expectations.
I am sorry.
*snif*
So very, very sorry.
I know I was supposed to pass my days crapping out kids in a government portable and drinking Buckhorn Beer until I shit myself and passed out with the stove on. Instead, I grew up in suburbia, worked a job, attended school, learned to drive a car, raised a family and avoided substance abuse issues and incarceration.
I admit that instead of walking stealthily through the forest primeval, making fire with two sticks and chewing hides I received a college education....while all I was ever expected to do was know where to sign my 'X' on the tribal benefits application and 'drunk and disorderly' citations.
*snif*
I know I have a sense of humor. It is often inappropriate. It is often expressed in crude terms. I know I have written crudely and in a lighthearted manner about things that Native Americans should not know of and should never mention... like tit sex, fist fucking, homosexuality, twat depilitation, and Tim Footmans book on Radiohead.
Lets not forget the gravy recipe.
*snif*
All I have to say for myself is that I genuinely hope with every fibre of my chubby red being that you were REALLY OFFENDED. I hope you finished your comment with a sharp little bang on the keyboard and moved right along to something with content more appropriate to a Native American blog...like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or claiming sovereign nationhood.
(*snif*
I am so very, very sorry.
Remember the tit fucking post? About a week ago? it was on 5-7-07. Scroll down to it. Read the comments. Feel the disapproval!
I know I am supposed to be serious. Even noble. Stony faced, impassive, simple and direct.
*snif*
I am not, not all the time.
Not even most of the time.
*snif*
I know I have failed you, anonymous, and not only you but all Native Americans everywhere. I have not fulfilled your expectations.
I am sorry.
*snif*
So very, very sorry.
I know I was supposed to pass my days crapping out kids in a government portable and drinking Buckhorn Beer until I shit myself and passed out with the stove on. Instead, I grew up in suburbia, worked a job, attended school, learned to drive a car, raised a family and avoided substance abuse issues and incarceration.
I admit that instead of walking stealthily through the forest primeval, making fire with two sticks and chewing hides I received a college education....while all I was ever expected to do was know where to sign my 'X' on the tribal benefits application and 'drunk and disorderly' citations.
*snif*
I know I have a sense of humor. It is often inappropriate. It is often expressed in crude terms. I know I have written crudely and in a lighthearted manner about things that Native Americans should not know of and should never mention... like tit sex, fist fucking, homosexuality, twat depilitation, and Tim Footmans book on Radiohead.
Lets not forget the gravy recipe.
*snif*
All I have to say for myself is that I genuinely hope with every fibre of my chubby red being that you were REALLY OFFENDED. I hope you finished your comment with a sharp little bang on the keyboard and moved right along to something with content more appropriate to a Native American blog...like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or claiming sovereign nationhood.
(*snif*
I am so very, very sorry.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Weeds never sleep
Late summer in the Willamette Valley was like living at the bottom of a dirty hot tub. Each August a weather condition known as an inversion would squat over the valley like a fat lady in polyester pants and everything would steam and wilt and stink. The humidity simply could not be described. You could see it. Distances were vague, foul and pissy yellow, and the air tasted like mown grass and car exhaust.
Very few people had air conditioning. It was expensive back then, and after all, it was Oregon and you'd only use it that couple of weeks out of the whole year. Instead, people used to sit outside late into the night and wait for the air to cool off, usually in vain...smoking and drinking beer, listening to transistor radios and talking in the darkness. Even at 3:am the metal of the lawn chairs still felt warm and the leaves of the trees would stick to your skin if you brushed against them. I remember the stars even looked hot. For the first few days the kids viewed this as a real treat, being able to stay up until wow-o-clock in the morning, although after about the third hot, sticky, miserable night of it you just endured. It was just too hot and too thick to play. We'd sit around on towels feeling headachy and slow while the humidity soaked our thin cotton clothes and secretly envy the little kids who got to scramble around in the grass naked until they fell asleep in a crabby pile.
I was in by myself watching television one night, some black and white horror movie, when my father and mother came tiptoeing in from outside all whispering and nervous.
"Come look out the bathroom window." said my mom.
"Why?" I yipped. The white must have been showing all around my eyes. Watching monster movies at 3:30 a.m. cast my imagination in the direction of alien spaceship landings. Let it stay out there! I don't want to see the damn thing!
But my dad and mom were insistent, and I was curious because of all the whispery-whisperyness, so I went with them. We all tiptoed down the hallway (past the open front door facing the same direction) and crowded in around the toilet to peer out of the tiny bathroom window.
Some distance away a white figure was glimmering between the apple trees. I almost swallowed my tongue.
" Take a look at that. Is that a person? Someone's over there! Why don't you go take a look?" my father said.
Why don't I WHAT?
" Why don't YOU take a look!" I said indignantly and got hushed and shhhh'd.
"Because its, we think its, its probably your grandma. We think it is, it might be. Just go see."
This made as much sense as everything else up until this point had, which was none.
" Go on, go on now, go see. Get out there and go see!" he insisted.
I still didn't get it.
" We think she's out there walking around. Just go say hi and ask if everything's all right," explained my mom.
" Why don't you?" I said.
" Oh, we, we, we don't want to embarrass her, you know, we don't wanna make her feel bad or anything like that. You go. She won't thing nothing of that. Just go say hi."
OK. It was almost 4: am. Now why would a 7 years old be out roaming around in the yard at 4:am?* This is not the usual time for casual 'Oh, hi!' type chance encounters between old ladies and first graders. I dug in my heels, now convinced that I was being set up to star in another contrived 'cute' situation that I'd never hear the end of.
My father got stern and my mother got angry, and I got sent outside.
Well, it looked like a lady, out there in the apple trees.
I got closer. Intermittently the figure bent over for a few moments and then stood up. I could hear things swishing.
I stepped out past the iris border and into the open, and there stood my grandmother, sure enough.
Now I will never forget this picture: The moon, the stars, my tall grandmother, barefoot, wearing only a white silk slip, her long white hair loose down her back, holding a shiny butcher knife.
" What are you doing up?" she said, flinging aside a handful of dandelions.
" Mom and dad wanted me to ask you what you were doing" I replied. "We could see you from the house and they were scared to come over."
This cracked her up.
I wonder how it might have looked to another person, this elderly woman in flowing white holding a knife and laughing, and the moon overhead.
" Go tell em' to come over!" she laughed. " I couldn't sleep cos the house is too hot so I thought I might as well come out and garden!"
I turned towards the house and yelled as loud as I could "Hey Mom! Hey Dad! She's OK! Come over!"
My father was in an absolute lather of embarrassment. He was stammering out his usual 'what will people think' comments, telling her to get inside and where's your slippers and what in the heck did she think she was doing and why didn't you put on a robe and somethin' could happen to her out here in the middle of the night!
"Oh who cares? I'm covered!" she laughed. This whole thing just tickled the heck out of her. "And I've got a knife, see?"
This was the same woman who took a 'sleepy eyes' dolly head and stuck on a tree limb near her front door in such a way that the breeze would move it and make the eyes blink (which never failed to crack her up.) So this explanation seemed perfectly reasonable to me and still does. Hell, its hot, it's the middle of the night, nothing's on television, why not garden? What was she supposed to do, rob a convenience store?
Now I look back and recall the fantasy story that my parents had concocted about my grandmother pining away after the death of her last husband a year before and getting senile etc etc. It had nothing whatsoever to do with reality. The reality I remember was, that once he was in the dirt and the crying was over she hit the ground running and never stopped, always had plans, always had projects, always had visitors, always smiled and laughed and joked and sang. She was damned relieved to be rid of the burden of caring for grandpa's evil demanding ass and have her life back and she'd told people as much. I know that in the same situation nocturnal yard care is the very LEAST of what I'd be up to.
We all trudged back to the house as my grandmother waved bye with a big grin on her face. "We got to watch her, you know, got to watch out for her now that dad's gone"" said my dad. "I tell you what, I don't think much of that. It don't look right, you know" he continued. " People might not think we take good care of her or something."
" Oh don't worry,", I said. " She's got a knife."
____________________________________
*that didn't start until I was eight.
Very few people had air conditioning. It was expensive back then, and after all, it was Oregon and you'd only use it that couple of weeks out of the whole year. Instead, people used to sit outside late into the night and wait for the air to cool off, usually in vain...smoking and drinking beer, listening to transistor radios and talking in the darkness. Even at 3:am the metal of the lawn chairs still felt warm and the leaves of the trees would stick to your skin if you brushed against them. I remember the stars even looked hot. For the first few days the kids viewed this as a real treat, being able to stay up until wow-o-clock in the morning, although after about the third hot, sticky, miserable night of it you just endured. It was just too hot and too thick to play. We'd sit around on towels feeling headachy and slow while the humidity soaked our thin cotton clothes and secretly envy the little kids who got to scramble around in the grass naked until they fell asleep in a crabby pile.
I was in by myself watching television one night, some black and white horror movie, when my father and mother came tiptoeing in from outside all whispering and nervous.
"Come look out the bathroom window." said my mom.
"Why?" I yipped. The white must have been showing all around my eyes. Watching monster movies at 3:30 a.m. cast my imagination in the direction of alien spaceship landings. Let it stay out there! I don't want to see the damn thing!
But my dad and mom were insistent, and I was curious because of all the whispery-whisperyness, so I went with them. We all tiptoed down the hallway (past the open front door facing the same direction) and crowded in around the toilet to peer out of the tiny bathroom window.
Some distance away a white figure was glimmering between the apple trees. I almost swallowed my tongue.
" Take a look at that. Is that a person? Someone's over there! Why don't you go take a look?" my father said.
Why don't I WHAT?
" Why don't YOU take a look!" I said indignantly and got hushed and shhhh'd.
"Because its, we think its, its probably your grandma. We think it is, it might be. Just go see."
This made as much sense as everything else up until this point had, which was none.
" Go on, go on now, go see. Get out there and go see!" he insisted.
I still didn't get it.
" We think she's out there walking around. Just go say hi and ask if everything's all right," explained my mom.
" Why don't you?" I said.
" Oh, we, we, we don't want to embarrass her, you know, we don't wanna make her feel bad or anything like that. You go. She won't thing nothing of that. Just go say hi."
OK. It was almost 4: am. Now why would a 7 years old be out roaming around in the yard at 4:am?* This is not the usual time for casual 'Oh, hi!' type chance encounters between old ladies and first graders. I dug in my heels, now convinced that I was being set up to star in another contrived 'cute' situation that I'd never hear the end of.
My father got stern and my mother got angry, and I got sent outside.
Well, it looked like a lady, out there in the apple trees.
I got closer. Intermittently the figure bent over for a few moments and then stood up. I could hear things swishing.
I stepped out past the iris border and into the open, and there stood my grandmother, sure enough.
Now I will never forget this picture: The moon, the stars, my tall grandmother, barefoot, wearing only a white silk slip, her long white hair loose down her back, holding a shiny butcher knife.
" What are you doing up?" she said, flinging aside a handful of dandelions.
" Mom and dad wanted me to ask you what you were doing" I replied. "We could see you from the house and they were scared to come over."
This cracked her up.
I wonder how it might have looked to another person, this elderly woman in flowing white holding a knife and laughing, and the moon overhead.
" Go tell em' to come over!" she laughed. " I couldn't sleep cos the house is too hot so I thought I might as well come out and garden!"
I turned towards the house and yelled as loud as I could "Hey Mom! Hey Dad! She's OK! Come over!"
My father was in an absolute lather of embarrassment. He was stammering out his usual 'what will people think' comments, telling her to get inside and where's your slippers and what in the heck did she think she was doing and why didn't you put on a robe and somethin' could happen to her out here in the middle of the night!
"Oh who cares? I'm covered!" she laughed. This whole thing just tickled the heck out of her. "And I've got a knife, see?"
This was the same woman who took a 'sleepy eyes' dolly head and stuck on a tree limb near her front door in such a way that the breeze would move it and make the eyes blink (which never failed to crack her up.) So this explanation seemed perfectly reasonable to me and still does. Hell, its hot, it's the middle of the night, nothing's on television, why not garden? What was she supposed to do, rob a convenience store?
Now I look back and recall the fantasy story that my parents had concocted about my grandmother pining away after the death of her last husband a year before and getting senile etc etc. It had nothing whatsoever to do with reality. The reality I remember was, that once he was in the dirt and the crying was over she hit the ground running and never stopped, always had plans, always had projects, always had visitors, always smiled and laughed and joked and sang. She was damned relieved to be rid of the burden of caring for grandpa's evil demanding ass and have her life back and she'd told people as much. I know that in the same situation nocturnal yard care is the very LEAST of what I'd be up to.
We all trudged back to the house as my grandmother waved bye with a big grin on her face. "We got to watch her, you know, got to watch out for her now that dad's gone"" said my dad. "I tell you what, I don't think much of that. It don't look right, you know" he continued. " People might not think we take good care of her or something."
" Oh don't worry,", I said. " She's got a knife."
____________________________________
*that didn't start until I was eight.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Yellow Tarantula Harvest Of Doom!
Sorry I aint bin around, kids; the server's been down for a couple of days.
So we went to Wal-Mart and bought a garden hose and some barbecue implements.
In the automotive section we saw a lady with bright fuschia hair in pigtails. She was wearing Strawberry Shortcake stripey tights. She was leading a small, condensed-looking redhead around who blinked and licked and gurned continuously as she stumped along. Flap stump, lick stump, squint stump, blink stump.
We saw an elderly black man weighing maybe 85 lbs flying full 'Crips' sign.
We saw a man with his few remaining hairs greased down with vaseline to a perfectly centered point in the middle of his forehead, and he had white cottonwood fluffies stuck in it.
We stood in the checkout line next to a man who farted almost continuously, a nice, neat looking average man who smelled like he was filling both shoes with diarhhea.
I checked. They weren't. But, yeah.
We then went to lunch at a locally owned 'BOO-fay' place where we were the smallest people present, including all the children.
Then we went home.
WE
ARE
AMERICAN!
So we went to Wal-Mart and bought a garden hose and some barbecue implements.
In the automotive section we saw a lady with bright fuschia hair in pigtails. She was wearing Strawberry Shortcake stripey tights. She was leading a small, condensed-looking redhead around who blinked and licked and gurned continuously as she stumped along. Flap stump, lick stump, squint stump, blink stump.
We saw an elderly black man weighing maybe 85 lbs flying full 'Crips' sign.
We saw a man with his few remaining hairs greased down with vaseline to a perfectly centered point in the middle of his forehead, and he had white cottonwood fluffies stuck in it.
We stood in the checkout line next to a man who farted almost continuously, a nice, neat looking average man who smelled like he was filling both shoes with diarhhea.
I checked. They weren't. But, yeah.
We then went to lunch at a locally owned 'BOO-fay' place where we were the smallest people present, including all the children.
Then we went home.
WE
ARE
AMERICAN!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
the red currant
My grandmother felt no compunctions whatsoever about taking from the land. Hell, she came from a time when the land belonged to anyone who was willing to stay in one spot through a winter. She picked up windfall fruit off the sidewalk, berried behind the gas station, she seedheaded in garden centers and from public plantings without a second thought. In defiance of state law she transplanted rare trilliums at will, keeping twelve of them in a washtub under some pine trees behind her house. In this highly unusual setting they grew merrily in utter defiance of the common notion at the time which held that even to squint hard at a trillium would kill it.
One spring she decided that she needed a red currant bush. Now I recall that this had been a subject of some conversation for months and the conclusion was reached that none could be had from any of the nurseries around.
A red currant is a shrub native to the Pacific Northwest. It's habitat is at the forest's edge, nearby a creek or a river. In March it comes forth covered in a fountain of deep pink flowers, nearly red, and later on these are followed with clusters of berries just in time for the robins. That suited my grandma down to the ground; she loved robins.
But at that time native plants were seen as nothing special and not worth offering commercially (excepting fashionable rhododendrons, but those were so pricey that they were black marketed). People mainly wanted exotics and things they remembered from back East, or from the 'Old Country'. This was the heyday of the Hybrid Tea Rose and the petunia. Who'd pay money for something that grew wild?
Which was exactly the way my grandmother saw it.
"I want to go for a ride up in the mountains," she announced one weekend. Her word was law. The car was packed up with picnic things. My grandmother appeared with a shovel (blade polished like a diamond, handle varnished and topped with red paint) and some burlap sacking and the trunk of the Ford opened while my father dithered and sweated and grinned and turned red. "Oh for Heavens' sake Niilo, I'm not going to do nothing wrong. Anyway you never know. What if we get stuck? At least we can dig ourselves out!" she stated. She held the trunk lid open with one hand and tucked the shovel inside, while my dad's hand rested heavily on the lid, pushing the other way. I saw her elbow lock.
All the way up the mountain my father kept repeating "Now, you know we aren't going to bring anything back you know..." and my grandmother kept saying "Oh Niilo, let's just take a nice ride. I just want to see things in bloom." When things wound down my mom would stir them back up again with a provocative comment. I kept mum.
By the time we reached ZigZag, halfway up the mountain, my grandmother and my father were openly arguing, something I had never seen before. "Now, this is against the law, Mom," he announced in his 'I'm the man so I'm the boss' voice. "This is breaking the law! I don't want no part of it!"
"Oh, I'm not going to do nothing wrong! Just drive, Niilo", she said.
" I know what you're gonna do, Mom, and..."
" I am 83 years old and if I want a tree I'm going to get a tree! Now that's it!" she replied emphatically.
This cracked my mother up pretty bad. I was just astonished.
The woods were beautiful, foxglove and seafoam and alder. Rhodadendron bloomed in leggy wands tipped with ridiculous pompons of bright pink, shining between the evergreens. We passed a few 'rhodie rustlers' along the way. These were backwoods Joad families with shitty old pickup trucks loaded down with plants stolen off public land. They openly sold them by the roadside despite it's being illegal as hell. My grandmother pointed them out triumphantly. "Nope! That ain't right! They're breakin' the law!" My father groused. "Now, now don't you tell me you want one a them cause I'm not stoppin!"
" I already have some rhododendrons, Niilo" she replied. "I got them from behind Sherret's place when they moved out."
"Oh, boy" said my dad.
We turned off onto a state forest road and began to climb into the foothills. My father was red. "Look at all the people, Mom" he whined. And it was true; everyone was out enjoying the woods that fine April day.* "We can't, we don't wanna, we, we better not-"
"Keep driving, Niilo" she said.
For awhile the car was pretty silent, unless you count the sound of my father sweating #8 gravel.
"There" announced Grandma "I see one. Stop the car."
There was a brief skirmish. My grandmother finally plucked the keys from the ignition and marched back to the trunk, opened the lid, removed her gear and set out into the woods. Hairnet, dress, stockings and all.
"Go with her, Niilo" my mother nagged. " She's gonna get hurt or somethin'."
Off he trudged with my mom in tow. " You stay here!; I was warned. "I don't want you seeing this! If anyone comes by you just don't say nothin, you hear me? Even if they talk to you! Don't say a word! Nothin!"
And so I sat, and sat, and sat...while the sound of bitching and digging echoed out of the woods.
They returned with a nice little currant, reachy but glowing red. My grandmother directed it into the trunk of the car like an air traffic controller. 'Don't break it, Niilo! And don't just dump it on the ground! Wrap the burlap around the dirt! You're bending it! Just set the root ball in the trunk on the mat!"
I kept my head low and watched this in the rear view mirror. My father was very near a heart attack at this point. Breaking the law was bad enough...this was worse! This was VOLUNTARILY INTRODUCING TOPSOIL INTO THE SURGICAL CLEANLINESS OF HIS AUTOMOBILE!
"Oh come on. A little dirt isn't going to hurt anything!" my grandmother said.
This made my father laugh in sheer disbelief and outrage. It was DIRT! Dirt was DIRTY! Dirt was TOUCHING HIS CAR! AND IT WAS UNLAWFUL DIRT!!!!
It got worse. Once the thing was in the trunk, three feet of it stuck out the back. No, it COULD NOT be cut. No, it COULD NOT be bent. Just prop something up under the lid of the trunk and tie it shut, Niilo.
Everyone loaded back up and we headed off down the mountain with the currant bush waving and nodding behind us like a flag.
Which was when the forest service truck pulled out behind us and made us stop.
The ranger made my father get out of the car, show his license, open the trunk, explain his business. My poor dad could not finish a sentence, blushing and stammering, grinning like a dog, mortified way past rational thought. Finally my grandmother sighed and got out of the car.
She strode up to the ranger with her arms crossed. " This is a red currant bush. I dug it up; I wanted it. I pay taxes. This is a state forest and we own these woods, and if I want to dig up a currant bush I'm not hurting anything. I my taxes paid for it, after all."
My grandmother stood nose to nose with the ranger while my father slunk off and slid behind the wheel. The ranger tried, poor thing, insisting that they had to fine anyone who stole plants from the woods, it was against state law and she had to be written a ticket.
" See? I told you! I told you! It's against the law! my father said, feeling justified. Feeling it at a safe distance from the fray, of course.
My grandmother stood her ground, completely unconcerned. "I am NOT doing a THING wrong. I would NEVER break the law. How can you steal a tree? That's the most foolish't thing I ever heard of. Steal a tree."
And the ranger backed down.
He made her promise that she wouldn't sell it (which set off another stern lecture-"After we drove all this way? This is going in my yard! The robins like it!") wouldn't dig up anything else and that she'd go straight home, the ranger got back in his truck and drove off. Probably to the nearest tavern.
And the currant went into her back yard, and the robins nested in it.
She made my dad plant it for her, too.
_______________________________________________
*things bloom a month later up the mountain than they do down in the warm valley.
One spring she decided that she needed a red currant bush. Now I recall that this had been a subject of some conversation for months and the conclusion was reached that none could be had from any of the nurseries around.
A red currant is a shrub native to the Pacific Northwest. It's habitat is at the forest's edge, nearby a creek or a river. In March it comes forth covered in a fountain of deep pink flowers, nearly red, and later on these are followed with clusters of berries just in time for the robins. That suited my grandma down to the ground; she loved robins.
But at that time native plants were seen as nothing special and not worth offering commercially (excepting fashionable rhododendrons, but those were so pricey that they were black marketed). People mainly wanted exotics and things they remembered from back East, or from the 'Old Country'. This was the heyday of the Hybrid Tea Rose and the petunia. Who'd pay money for something that grew wild?
Which was exactly the way my grandmother saw it.
"I want to go for a ride up in the mountains," she announced one weekend. Her word was law. The car was packed up with picnic things. My grandmother appeared with a shovel (blade polished like a diamond, handle varnished and topped with red paint) and some burlap sacking and the trunk of the Ford opened while my father dithered and sweated and grinned and turned red. "Oh for Heavens' sake Niilo, I'm not going to do nothing wrong. Anyway you never know. What if we get stuck? At least we can dig ourselves out!" she stated. She held the trunk lid open with one hand and tucked the shovel inside, while my dad's hand rested heavily on the lid, pushing the other way. I saw her elbow lock.
All the way up the mountain my father kept repeating "Now, you know we aren't going to bring anything back you know..." and my grandmother kept saying "Oh Niilo, let's just take a nice ride. I just want to see things in bloom." When things wound down my mom would stir them back up again with a provocative comment. I kept mum.
By the time we reached ZigZag, halfway up the mountain, my grandmother and my father were openly arguing, something I had never seen before. "Now, this is against the law, Mom," he announced in his 'I'm the man so I'm the boss' voice. "This is breaking the law! I don't want no part of it!"
"Oh, I'm not going to do nothing wrong! Just drive, Niilo", she said.
" I know what you're gonna do, Mom, and..."
" I am 83 years old and if I want a tree I'm going to get a tree! Now that's it!" she replied emphatically.
This cracked my mother up pretty bad. I was just astonished.
The woods were beautiful, foxglove and seafoam and alder. Rhodadendron bloomed in leggy wands tipped with ridiculous pompons of bright pink, shining between the evergreens. We passed a few 'rhodie rustlers' along the way. These were backwoods Joad families with shitty old pickup trucks loaded down with plants stolen off public land. They openly sold them by the roadside despite it's being illegal as hell. My grandmother pointed them out triumphantly. "Nope! That ain't right! They're breakin' the law!" My father groused. "Now, now don't you tell me you want one a them cause I'm not stoppin!"
" I already have some rhododendrons, Niilo" she replied. "I got them from behind Sherret's place when they moved out."
"Oh, boy" said my dad.
We turned off onto a state forest road and began to climb into the foothills. My father was red. "Look at all the people, Mom" he whined. And it was true; everyone was out enjoying the woods that fine April day.* "We can't, we don't wanna, we, we better not-"
"Keep driving, Niilo" she said.
For awhile the car was pretty silent, unless you count the sound of my father sweating #8 gravel.
"There" announced Grandma "I see one. Stop the car."
There was a brief skirmish. My grandmother finally plucked the keys from the ignition and marched back to the trunk, opened the lid, removed her gear and set out into the woods. Hairnet, dress, stockings and all.
"Go with her, Niilo" my mother nagged. " She's gonna get hurt or somethin'."
Off he trudged with my mom in tow. " You stay here!; I was warned. "I don't want you seeing this! If anyone comes by you just don't say nothin, you hear me? Even if they talk to you! Don't say a word! Nothin!"
And so I sat, and sat, and sat...while the sound of bitching and digging echoed out of the woods.
They returned with a nice little currant, reachy but glowing red. My grandmother directed it into the trunk of the car like an air traffic controller. 'Don't break it, Niilo! And don't just dump it on the ground! Wrap the burlap around the dirt! You're bending it! Just set the root ball in the trunk on the mat!"
I kept my head low and watched this in the rear view mirror. My father was very near a heart attack at this point. Breaking the law was bad enough...this was worse! This was VOLUNTARILY INTRODUCING TOPSOIL INTO THE SURGICAL CLEANLINESS OF HIS AUTOMOBILE!
"Oh come on. A little dirt isn't going to hurt anything!" my grandmother said.
This made my father laugh in sheer disbelief and outrage. It was DIRT! Dirt was DIRTY! Dirt was TOUCHING HIS CAR! AND IT WAS UNLAWFUL DIRT!!!!
It got worse. Once the thing was in the trunk, three feet of it stuck out the back. No, it COULD NOT be cut. No, it COULD NOT be bent. Just prop something up under the lid of the trunk and tie it shut, Niilo.
Everyone loaded back up and we headed off down the mountain with the currant bush waving and nodding behind us like a flag.
Which was when the forest service truck pulled out behind us and made us stop.
The ranger made my father get out of the car, show his license, open the trunk, explain his business. My poor dad could not finish a sentence, blushing and stammering, grinning like a dog, mortified way past rational thought. Finally my grandmother sighed and got out of the car.
She strode up to the ranger with her arms crossed. " This is a red currant bush. I dug it up; I wanted it. I pay taxes. This is a state forest and we own these woods, and if I want to dig up a currant bush I'm not hurting anything. I my taxes paid for it, after all."
My grandmother stood nose to nose with the ranger while my father slunk off and slid behind the wheel. The ranger tried, poor thing, insisting that they had to fine anyone who stole plants from the woods, it was against state law and she had to be written a ticket.
" See? I told you! I told you! It's against the law! my father said, feeling justified. Feeling it at a safe distance from the fray, of course.
My grandmother stood her ground, completely unconcerned. "I am NOT doing a THING wrong. I would NEVER break the law. How can you steal a tree? That's the most foolish't thing I ever heard of. Steal a tree."
And the ranger backed down.
He made her promise that she wouldn't sell it (which set off another stern lecture-"After we drove all this way? This is going in my yard! The robins like it!") wouldn't dig up anything else and that she'd go straight home, the ranger got back in his truck and drove off. Probably to the nearest tavern.
And the currant went into her back yard, and the robins nested in it.
She made my dad plant it for her, too.
_______________________________________________
*things bloom a month later up the mountain than they do down in the warm valley.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Not a fun one. Might want to skip it.
I can't stop thinking about my grandmother and I don't want to write about it. I've tried, and I just don't want to put myself through the sorrow that wells up.
Which is a clear and obvious indication that I should, I guess.
I think about her now, in the spring when I'm out in the garden. That's how I remember her...rambling around in her yard, wearing a dress, with a handful of weeds. she waved at every other car that went past because she knew everyone, and they honked back or stopped to chat. Sometimes she'd give them a pail of apples, or pull up a few onions out of the garden and smack then against her leg to knock the dirt off before she handed them over.
She was my friend.
The short version is: she died a horrible, slow and undignified death, one she didn't earn. My father and her other two sons were responsible. When I spoke up about it I brought a world of shit down on myself...shit you can't even imagine putting a kid through.
Three people shared the expense of her care: a union foreman (who abused his kid), a gas company executive (who molested his daughter)and whatever the other one did (when he wasn't assfucking his sons). And they couldn't afford to put her in a nicer place? Bullshit. The place they put her in made the front page of the local paper! For health violations! It was one of the ten worst rest homes in the state!
As far as they were concerned, it didn't matter. It didn't count. She was old, she was sick, she was taking up space.
She was a woman.
My last living memory of her is standing next to her in the rest home while the adults chatted over her head, her far gone, in pain and on serious drugs. her shoulders and her hips were nothing but a series of open bedsores and the sheets were stained. I was pushed forward. She latched onto my arm so tight she left fingermarks, and she kept repeating 'I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.'
She didn't know who I was. I couldn't pull away. Nobody was paying attention. Oh, they saw, but played it off as though they didn't because they wanted to chat, and meanwhile this ravaged insane thing that used to be my grandmother hung on to me like death and tried to drag me towards her, crying 'I want to go home, I want to go home' in a voice i didn't recognize.
You can't imagine the smell.
She had dried food on her face.
Her eyes were so dilated they were completely black.
Finally my father turned me loose and told me to go sit in the car. My parents were angry with me, of course, they were always angry with me. I was yelled at all the way home.
I loved my grandmother. I have never forgiven myself for recoiling in horror at what she'd become. And for not helping her. But Jesus Christ...I was 10 years old.
Which is a clear and obvious indication that I should, I guess.
I think about her now, in the spring when I'm out in the garden. That's how I remember her...rambling around in her yard, wearing a dress, with a handful of weeds. she waved at every other car that went past because she knew everyone, and they honked back or stopped to chat. Sometimes she'd give them a pail of apples, or pull up a few onions out of the garden and smack then against her leg to knock the dirt off before she handed them over.
She was my friend.
The short version is: she died a horrible, slow and undignified death, one she didn't earn. My father and her other two sons were responsible. When I spoke up about it I brought a world of shit down on myself...shit you can't even imagine putting a kid through.
Three people shared the expense of her care: a union foreman (who abused his kid), a gas company executive (who molested his daughter)and whatever the other one did (when he wasn't assfucking his sons). And they couldn't afford to put her in a nicer place? Bullshit. The place they put her in made the front page of the local paper! For health violations! It was one of the ten worst rest homes in the state!
As far as they were concerned, it didn't matter. It didn't count. She was old, she was sick, she was taking up space.
She was a woman.
My last living memory of her is standing next to her in the rest home while the adults chatted over her head, her far gone, in pain and on serious drugs. her shoulders and her hips were nothing but a series of open bedsores and the sheets were stained. I was pushed forward. She latched onto my arm so tight she left fingermarks, and she kept repeating 'I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.'
She didn't know who I was. I couldn't pull away. Nobody was paying attention. Oh, they saw, but played it off as though they didn't because they wanted to chat, and meanwhile this ravaged insane thing that used to be my grandmother hung on to me like death and tried to drag me towards her, crying 'I want to go home, I want to go home' in a voice i didn't recognize.
You can't imagine the smell.
She had dried food on her face.
Her eyes were so dilated they were completely black.
Finally my father turned me loose and told me to go sit in the car. My parents were angry with me, of course, they were always angry with me. I was yelled at all the way home.
I loved my grandmother. I have never forgiven myself for recoiling in horror at what she'd become. And for not helping her. But Jesus Christ...I was 10 years old.
Monday, May 21, 2007
eating crayons and glue
I know I come late to the party with 'V for Vendetta', but I wonder if I'm not one of the few people who didn't think this was just a totally marvelous movie?
It seems to happen usually that movies taken from graphic novels and comics are almost too big to fit the screen, that even CGI is just barely able to support the vision of the artist. V on the other hand seems like it was stretched to fit. This is not to say that there is not some very fine acting going on here because there is. I was prepared to pass Natalie Portman off but she does a damned convincing job. Now if only the child would have a sandwich. Poor Hugo Weaving has to spend the entire movie behind a mask, and just brushes the fine line between symbol and camp with his suspiciously well-tailored ensemble. His voice does the majority of the work and does it very well despite some of the lines he's expected to deliver. This is a role that could have easily given way to operatic gesturing and it doesn't...good thing. Steven Rea as detective Finch is fantastic. John Hurt playing the Chancellor is amazing (although Chancellor Sutler would never have made it politically on this side of the Atlantic without a set of porcelain veneers and a laser peel).
It's the story that seems stretched thin, somehow. We know that V idolized Edmund Dante, but in The Count of Monte Christo the backstory is a vital part of the architechture of his revenge. We get only the barest hint of a backstory with V...a numeral on a door, an image seen through fire. Evey's final 'He was all of us' made me want to ask for my money back. Except that I was home. Likewise the government baddies...just hints. Nothing at all about the evil Chancellor himself.
Furthermore I had a lot of trouble believing that the general population were mobilized into united action in only a years' time. That was the point at which the entire move fell apart for me.
It must have been a balancing act indeed to make this a movie about symbols and ideas instead of characters and plot, but what was left was like a Swiss cheese it was so full of holes.
Still, give the Devil his due; you do get to see Parliament go up in a huge, gigantic monstrous ball of fire, which kicks ass and is excellent. In my book a good explosion excuses a lot. (Almost as excellent as seeing the White House get firebombed by aliens in 'Independence Day', and also the only reason to rent it out.)
________________________________________________
It is raining and I hate it. I hate it and it pisses me off. I have things to do out in my yard and I would rather be doing them than sitting in this stupid house.
Today I have to go in and wait on my father in law, and I don't feel much like doing that, although I know I will enjoy myself. Why I would rather stay at home and feel grumpy than go into town and shop is a mystery, like Howling Cave in Kentucky or why Lindsay Lohan cannot seem to keep her bathing suit areas in check for more than five minutes at a stretch.
It seems to happen usually that movies taken from graphic novels and comics are almost too big to fit the screen, that even CGI is just barely able to support the vision of the artist. V on the other hand seems like it was stretched to fit. This is not to say that there is not some very fine acting going on here because there is. I was prepared to pass Natalie Portman off but she does a damned convincing job. Now if only the child would have a sandwich. Poor Hugo Weaving has to spend the entire movie behind a mask, and just brushes the fine line between symbol and camp with his suspiciously well-tailored ensemble. His voice does the majority of the work and does it very well despite some of the lines he's expected to deliver. This is a role that could have easily given way to operatic gesturing and it doesn't...good thing. Steven Rea as detective Finch is fantastic. John Hurt playing the Chancellor is amazing (although Chancellor Sutler would never have made it politically on this side of the Atlantic without a set of porcelain veneers and a laser peel).
It's the story that seems stretched thin, somehow. We know that V idolized Edmund Dante, but in The Count of Monte Christo the backstory is a vital part of the architechture of his revenge. We get only the barest hint of a backstory with V...a numeral on a door, an image seen through fire. Evey's final 'He was all of us' made me want to ask for my money back. Except that I was home. Likewise the government baddies...just hints. Nothing at all about the evil Chancellor himself.
Furthermore I had a lot of trouble believing that the general population were mobilized into united action in only a years' time. That was the point at which the entire move fell apart for me.
It must have been a balancing act indeed to make this a movie about symbols and ideas instead of characters and plot, but what was left was like a Swiss cheese it was so full of holes.
Still, give the Devil his due; you do get to see Parliament go up in a huge, gigantic monstrous ball of fire, which kicks ass and is excellent. In my book a good explosion excuses a lot. (Almost as excellent as seeing the White House get firebombed by aliens in 'Independence Day', and also the only reason to rent it out.)
________________________________________________
It is raining and I hate it. I hate it and it pisses me off. I have things to do out in my yard and I would rather be doing them than sitting in this stupid house.
Today I have to go in and wait on my father in law, and I don't feel much like doing that, although I know I will enjoy myself. Why I would rather stay at home and feel grumpy than go into town and shop is a mystery, like Howling Cave in Kentucky or why Lindsay Lohan cannot seem to keep her bathing suit areas in check for more than five minutes at a stretch.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Recalcitrant Green Muskrat Dual Exhaust: Have Destroy!
Every year around this time, as I'm lying in bed in the dark of the night listening to them march around up in the attic I am moved once again to hold forth on the utter lackwittedness of starlings.
What the fuck are they doing up there? Are they looking for Amelia Earhart? And why, at two o' mother-butt-huffing A of the M!!?? Go to bed already! You are not owls; you are not smart enough to be owls. It's night, ya little bastards!!!
I blame the parents. Actually I should blame myself but I know better than to live in an attic; I live downstairs where the electrical outlets are. Theoretically I could block the entry hole. But it would help if the space provided were shaped more like a fat broad and not a series of diminishing triangles, bristling with rusted nails and coated with dehydrated ass.
Normally I am tenderhearted when it comes to Gods lil' critters, but I have no sympathy for these things. Starlings are like runaway robots...originally programmed to perform a few basic tasks: eat, crap, and scream- but they've run out of the range of the remote or something and they just continue to mindlessly perform these activities like overwound toys until they get flattened by a car. They'll pick in the grass (for what; worms? seeds? Viagra?) and just automatically continue on, reach the cement driveway, continue picking all the way across the cement, run into the edge of the cement, fall off, continue picking, stand up, pick pick pick, on into the tall grass.....closer and closer to where the neighbors cat has been openly sitting in utter bemusement all this time as lunch wanders right up to it's paws. This is the only animal stupid enough to just stand in the middle of the sidewalk and be run over by A BABY STROLLER, yo.
Even a baby chicken has the sense to stay close to the nest. Nature has told it that it is a young and inexperienced birdie, and it listens. Not the starling. As soon as it finds it's sea legs it's careening off in all directions, tripping over itself, falling off branches, forgetting to flap it's wings in mid-flight and falling out of the air, wandering into my garage, trying to eat cigarette butts, and falling asleep in the middle of the street.
This probably explains why at 2 a.m. they're roaming around my attic. That and the fact that the nest up there is the size of a bale of hay all spread out, and growing. With one single, small bird-butt-sized cup in the middle of it! There's a whole lot of real estate up there covered with dried hay and chicken feathers and what seems to be coyote crap full of hair, so it all probably looks kind of nest-ish...particularly to something with no more brain than, say, a toe. So you gotta figure day; night; it's all the same. If only they'd grab a goddamn clue, though! It's night! It's an attic! No comic books! Nothing to eat!
Nothing but other baby starlings from years past, that is. Oh goodness gracious yes, Mathilda. Having spent the night pinballing around the rafters instead of sleeping like normal birds, they finally wind down, get tired, fall asleep wherever they happen to be...and then the sun rises, the day heats up and a couple hours later you have slow-baked Tiny Chicken In The Rough. When I find them, they're perfect skeletal vignettes, tucked in a little ball, head under a wing, surrounded by pinfeathers and their own crapped-out remains. (Which is the fate I would have met had I remained in contact with my family of origin but that's another post. ahem.) My home... a warm and inviting place to raise a family situated picturesquely below a hideous graveyard of avian cannibalism.
The first brood of baby starlings has finally died. This year they wound up in my porch roof, right over the front door, which has perfumed the air with the welcoming aroma of putrefying baby bird.
Nothing daunted, Dad starling is out front on the phone line, screaming, twirling his wings and crapping on pedestrians trying to attract another mate. Just like that old saying 'If at first you don't succeed, completely fail to notice.'
Kinda like the Bush Administration.
What the fuck are they doing up there? Are they looking for Amelia Earhart? And why, at two o' mother-butt-huffing A of the M!!?? Go to bed already! You are not owls; you are not smart enough to be owls. It's night, ya little bastards!!!
I blame the parents. Actually I should blame myself but I know better than to live in an attic; I live downstairs where the electrical outlets are. Theoretically I could block the entry hole. But it would help if the space provided were shaped more like a fat broad and not a series of diminishing triangles, bristling with rusted nails and coated with dehydrated ass.
Normally I am tenderhearted when it comes to Gods lil' critters, but I have no sympathy for these things. Starlings are like runaway robots...originally programmed to perform a few basic tasks: eat, crap, and scream- but they've run out of the range of the remote or something and they just continue to mindlessly perform these activities like overwound toys until they get flattened by a car. They'll pick in the grass (for what; worms? seeds? Viagra?) and just automatically continue on, reach the cement driveway, continue picking all the way across the cement, run into the edge of the cement, fall off, continue picking, stand up, pick pick pick, on into the tall grass.....closer and closer to where the neighbors cat has been openly sitting in utter bemusement all this time as lunch wanders right up to it's paws. This is the only animal stupid enough to just stand in the middle of the sidewalk and be run over by A BABY STROLLER, yo.
Even a baby chicken has the sense to stay close to the nest. Nature has told it that it is a young and inexperienced birdie, and it listens. Not the starling. As soon as it finds it's sea legs it's careening off in all directions, tripping over itself, falling off branches, forgetting to flap it's wings in mid-flight and falling out of the air, wandering into my garage, trying to eat cigarette butts, and falling asleep in the middle of the street.
This probably explains why at 2 a.m. they're roaming around my attic. That and the fact that the nest up there is the size of a bale of hay all spread out, and growing. With one single, small bird-butt-sized cup in the middle of it! There's a whole lot of real estate up there covered with dried hay and chicken feathers and what seems to be coyote crap full of hair, so it all probably looks kind of nest-ish...particularly to something with no more brain than, say, a toe. So you gotta figure day; night; it's all the same. If only they'd grab a goddamn clue, though! It's night! It's an attic! No comic books! Nothing to eat!
Nothing but other baby starlings from years past, that is. Oh goodness gracious yes, Mathilda. Having spent the night pinballing around the rafters instead of sleeping like normal birds, they finally wind down, get tired, fall asleep wherever they happen to be...and then the sun rises, the day heats up and a couple hours later you have slow-baked Tiny Chicken In The Rough. When I find them, they're perfect skeletal vignettes, tucked in a little ball, head under a wing, surrounded by pinfeathers and their own crapped-out remains. (Which is the fate I would have met had I remained in contact with my family of origin but that's another post. ahem.) My home... a warm and inviting place to raise a family situated picturesquely below a hideous graveyard of avian cannibalism.
The first brood of baby starlings has finally died. This year they wound up in my porch roof, right over the front door, which has perfumed the air with the welcoming aroma of putrefying baby bird.
Nothing daunted, Dad starling is out front on the phone line, screaming, twirling his wings and crapping on pedestrians trying to attract another mate. Just like that old saying 'If at first you don't succeed, completely fail to notice.'
Kinda like the Bush Administration.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Mauve Coelecanth Dialtone Making Irritate!
I have my garden planted...almost. I have my ornamental beds weeded...almost. And I have all my raised beds cleared and my stock potted up...yeah.
Still, it all looks better than it did a couple of weeks age. I'd show you a picture but my computer and my digital are no longer on speaking terms.
Got the tater man tucked in with a nice dogwood tree over him. I feel a lot better knowing that's finished, but still sad. It is officially referred to as the 'Opie Tree'.
It could be the 'Goonybird Tree' just as easily, but then I'd have to explain why to people and that would get tiresome and might well get me reported to the Health Department. The Goony Placenta went in the hole with the Tater, you see.
The Goonybird was born here in my front room three years ago, so that's how long I've had that thing sitting in my freezer. Every now and then I'd run into it while searching for something and think 'Yoiks!'
I tell you what, having it out of there takes a load off my mind. Why? Because I no longer have to worry about the Yummy Biker accidentally thawing it out and, yeah.
Oh my goodness yes; in this house? Believe me, that could happen. Those things look an awful lot like a liver, and while we don't do liver we Do do liver pate' on special occasions. To a German man who gets high regularly, this special occasion can often be 'Friday'.
I have to tell you that when I was unwrapping it from the plastic under the faucet it did smell disturbingly delicious...like fresh steak.
I mean, son of a freakin' double yoiks, y'all. That bastard went into the hole double mother fast. Gaaaaaaah. Why take chances? I mean, we are bikers.
Back when I had the Stainless Steel Amazon, there was a product for sale in the 'alternative lifestyle' new baby catalogues called, and I shit thee not, 'Placenta Helper.' My midwife recommended it to me. Said she'd attended several births already where this delicious stir-fry product had been served up to all those present afterwards. Hey! thanks for coming! Have a heapin' helpin' of human birthing detrius!
What kind of wine would you serve with that?
Furthermore, what kind of friends decide to make a social gathering out of you grunting and screaming for eight hours and then fall on the afterbirth like a mob of hyenas? Does the addition of dehydrated onion flakes and noodles somehow make this any less bizarre?
There are limits to how far one should take this 'natural' stuff, and that limit should by rights be reached right at the point where 'natural' contacts 'frying up hazardous medical waste'.
Theres a better alternative, folks. Buy a nice little tree.
Does it work? The new little dogwood we planted just broke blossom three weeks early.
____________________
I will be back commenting and visiting you all soon, but my darlings, the sun is shining and...
Still, it all looks better than it did a couple of weeks age. I'd show you a picture but my computer and my digital are no longer on speaking terms.
Got the tater man tucked in with a nice dogwood tree over him. I feel a lot better knowing that's finished, but still sad. It is officially referred to as the 'Opie Tree'.
It could be the 'Goonybird Tree' just as easily, but then I'd have to explain why to people and that would get tiresome and might well get me reported to the Health Department. The Goony Placenta went in the hole with the Tater, you see.
The Goonybird was born here in my front room three years ago, so that's how long I've had that thing sitting in my freezer. Every now and then I'd run into it while searching for something and think 'Yoiks!'
I tell you what, having it out of there takes a load off my mind. Why? Because I no longer have to worry about the Yummy Biker accidentally thawing it out and, yeah.
Oh my goodness yes; in this house? Believe me, that could happen. Those things look an awful lot like a liver, and while we don't do liver we Do do liver pate' on special occasions. To a German man who gets high regularly, this special occasion can often be 'Friday'.
I have to tell you that when I was unwrapping it from the plastic under the faucet it did smell disturbingly delicious...like fresh steak.
I mean, son of a freakin' double yoiks, y'all. That bastard went into the hole double mother fast. Gaaaaaaah. Why take chances? I mean, we are bikers.
Back when I had the Stainless Steel Amazon, there was a product for sale in the 'alternative lifestyle' new baby catalogues called, and I shit thee not, 'Placenta Helper.' My midwife recommended it to me. Said she'd attended several births already where this delicious stir-fry product had been served up to all those present afterwards. Hey! thanks for coming! Have a heapin' helpin' of human birthing detrius!
What kind of wine would you serve with that?
Furthermore, what kind of friends decide to make a social gathering out of you grunting and screaming for eight hours and then fall on the afterbirth like a mob of hyenas? Does the addition of dehydrated onion flakes and noodles somehow make this any less bizarre?
There are limits to how far one should take this 'natural' stuff, and that limit should by rights be reached right at the point where 'natural' contacts 'frying up hazardous medical waste'.
Theres a better alternative, folks. Buy a nice little tree.
Does it work? The new little dogwood we planted just broke blossom three weeks early.
____________________
I will be back commenting and visiting you all soon, but my darlings, the sun is shining and...
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Blue Fleagle: The Plot Reveal In Newhalem!
I am only sitting down to write because the dew is not dry on the lawn yet. Catch me if you can!
When I met my Biker my life came to an interesting stopping point and stood there waiting for me to catch up. Instead of catching up, I tweaked and flapped and generally made a nuisance of myself. I had no context from which to operate a life that wasn't completely fucked up and running on coping with disaster from moment to moment. This is what happens to you when your parents are dysfunctional and you grow up in the midst of crazy people...you simply don't learn how to do sane. When sane happens you aren't relieved, you're freaked out. Someone has just given you a brand new car and a licence... but you don't know how to drive, you don't know where you are, and you don't have a destination. Or a map.
I had suddenly found myself with a good family and a stable life. I had no goddamn clue what to do next.
So I started giving myself an ulcer and having random panic attacks. I did stop smoking though...which did nothing to make me look any saner and probably scarred my daughter for life.
This kind of sucked.
In this way I finally managed to flog my immune system into subnmission, and the first flu bug that came down the pike chomped down on my ass like a mad motherfucker. I was bedridden. I could not walk without holding onto the walls and furniture like Helen Keller. I was running an insane fever and weak as milk.
The afternoon the fever broke I woke up from some pretty Heironymous Boschian dreams bathed in sweat, but in my right mind for the first time in a week and a half. I had something to eat, showered, sat out in the front room and watched some tv and eased back into the land of the living.
That night I had a Grandmother Dream.
It wasn't particularly vivid; I didn't wake up disoriented wondering if it had been real or anything. What it had been was extraordinarily lucid, clear, plain, incredibly freighted with what I have to describe as a sense of personal Truth.
All night long I dreamed about my grandmothers house, her yard, her things. It was like a museum of her life. I dreamed memories of things that I'd seen while she was alive and afterwards.
She was absent. I was in her place.
I woke up the next morning and started to rebuild my life, and build a life for my family.
I'd just been given a template to work from.
Years later I was listening to author and Colville NA Sherman Alexie being interviewed on NPR. He spoke about a Grandmother Dream that he'd had at a similar point in his life that had affected him the same way...he woke up the next morning with a beginning-place from which to rebuild his life.
This is why I live the kind of life I live. It's patterned on my Grandmothers life. Her values, her methods.
This is why I no longer identify 'white', either. Something that desparately wanted to survive and be sane inside my mind chose a NA set of cultural symbols to spur me on with. And it worked. This is not to say that I discovered the right 'magic' exterior to myself, but that I had built something safe on a very basic mental level, and labelled it Native. That's what I am.
The difference is, Alexie was raised on the Colville Reservation, by NA parents. I was adopted off the reservation and raised by white parents in a white suburb.
I live on the world like my Grandmother did.
She was a member of the German tribe.
I told you I had a strange brain.
When I met my Biker my life came to an interesting stopping point and stood there waiting for me to catch up. Instead of catching up, I tweaked and flapped and generally made a nuisance of myself. I had no context from which to operate a life that wasn't completely fucked up and running on coping with disaster from moment to moment. This is what happens to you when your parents are dysfunctional and you grow up in the midst of crazy people...you simply don't learn how to do sane. When sane happens you aren't relieved, you're freaked out. Someone has just given you a brand new car and a licence... but you don't know how to drive, you don't know where you are, and you don't have a destination. Or a map.
I had suddenly found myself with a good family and a stable life. I had no goddamn clue what to do next.
So I started giving myself an ulcer and having random panic attacks. I did stop smoking though...which did nothing to make me look any saner and probably scarred my daughter for life.
This kind of sucked.
In this way I finally managed to flog my immune system into subnmission, and the first flu bug that came down the pike chomped down on my ass like a mad motherfucker. I was bedridden. I could not walk without holding onto the walls and furniture like Helen Keller. I was running an insane fever and weak as milk.
The afternoon the fever broke I woke up from some pretty Heironymous Boschian dreams bathed in sweat, but in my right mind for the first time in a week and a half. I had something to eat, showered, sat out in the front room and watched some tv and eased back into the land of the living.
That night I had a Grandmother Dream.
It wasn't particularly vivid; I didn't wake up disoriented wondering if it had been real or anything. What it had been was extraordinarily lucid, clear, plain, incredibly freighted with what I have to describe as a sense of personal Truth.
All night long I dreamed about my grandmothers house, her yard, her things. It was like a museum of her life. I dreamed memories of things that I'd seen while she was alive and afterwards.
She was absent. I was in her place.
I woke up the next morning and started to rebuild my life, and build a life for my family.
I'd just been given a template to work from.
Years later I was listening to author and Colville NA Sherman Alexie being interviewed on NPR. He spoke about a Grandmother Dream that he'd had at a similar point in his life that had affected him the same way...he woke up the next morning with a beginning-place from which to rebuild his life.
This is why I live the kind of life I live. It's patterned on my Grandmothers life. Her values, her methods.
This is why I no longer identify 'white', either. Something that desparately wanted to survive and be sane inside my mind chose a NA set of cultural symbols to spur me on with. And it worked. This is not to say that I discovered the right 'magic' exterior to myself, but that I had built something safe on a very basic mental level, and labelled it Native. That's what I am.
The difference is, Alexie was raised on the Colville Reservation, by NA parents. I was adopted off the reservation and raised by white parents in a white suburb.
I live on the world like my Grandmother did.
She was a member of the German tribe.
I told you I had a strange brain.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
the garden beckons and i....am....compelled......
i love you all!
meanwhile i am busier than a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest, as CB would say...it is spring, it is not raining, and i have one million and one things to do outside before the dirt turns into cement. i am one busy little muk!
i will be back soon....i just gotta garden, yo!
meanwhile i am busier than a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest, as CB would say...it is spring, it is not raining, and i have one million and one things to do outside before the dirt turns into cement. i am one busy little muk!
i will be back soon....i just gotta garden, yo!
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
NEW POST
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhh...
this is the new post,
lalalalalala
this is the new post
lalalalalala.
this is to make space between this post and the last post
woo, oooo,
this is the neeeeeeeeeeeew
pooooooooooost
the end.
this is the new post,
lalalalalala
this is the new post
lalalalalala.
this is to make space between this post and the last post
woo, oooo,
this is the neeeeeeeeeeeew
pooooooooooost
the end.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Oh fine. NSFW. There. I hope you're happy now.
Right around this time of year, my thoughts inevitably turn to improper methods of tit fucking.
Don't you find that to be the case?
You pathetic flat-chested persons, just go stand by the walls and whisper spitefully amongst yourselves 'K?
If a person is gifted mammarially there comes a time when the subject of tit fucking is just going to become an issue...usually right around the same time that a male someone is getting a blow job. God only knows what possesses some men at a time like this, but it's happened more than once that I've had someone suddenly dive for my cleavage like RoseAnne Barr heading out after a runaway hot dog cart. One minute you're wondering if you have a split of 7-up near to hand and the next thing the guy's bouncing his ass down your torso. Which can kick up quite a breeze, fellas. It ain't rose scented either.
Now if they're on the young and overeager side they won't be thinking about much more than 'must....blow....load' so more than likely Buckwheat won't give you much of a chance to comment while he gets himself situated. In my experience this maneuver is usually performed with the ninjalike grace of a drowning Labrador Retriever...their elbows in your hair, their knees pinching your rib-fat, their swollen meat thumping it's way down your sternum gadoinga gadoinga gadoinga, like like a bald quadraplegic chasing a contact lens...
Ay Caramba! IS SO SEXY!
While you frame just how to say 'Would you get the fuck off my hair you retard' in a loving way they grab a tit in each fist and splat them together like a pair of unwanted twins.
THEN they start ramming away at the cleft between them.
Guys, stop and think a second. It takes every single one of you at least three years from your first piece of ass until you finally figure out where the right hole is anyway, and that's the one that produces it's own lubrication. If you've learned anything at all in that time it should have been that you cannot force your way through. 'Steel rod' is just an expression.
Anyway it's more like a big purpley-pink asparagus. But a friendly one.
It might help to think of it as making a tasty sandwich.
RIGHT: Bread, Meat, Bread.
WRONG: Bread, Bread, MeatMeatMeatMeatMeatMeatMeat.
Simple biology:
BOOBS ARE ATTACHED TO A SURFACE.
A HUMAN SURFACE.
A human surface that by this point is experiencing a not insubstantial amount of pain due to being partially scalped while having each breast forced together into one central megaboob while you launch yourself at it dick first like a monkey humping a football. Let me add that at this point you do not look particularly alluring. The view from below consists of a scarlet sweaty person straining like they're trying to pass a piano.
Nobody is having fun here. You will not be remembered fondly. And as a woman, when you add all that to the *ahem* projected outcome (you see what i did there?? oh, my face is laugh! but yeah...all that and a pearl necklace too! yay!) the inevitable conclusion one comes to is "You, sir, will not be added to my speed dial"
1. LUBE. IT'S A GOOD THING.
This is regular skin. It's absorbent. Sweat does not last. Spit does not last. Old spoo transferred from elsewhere does not last. Which practice ranks right up there on the erotic scale with picking your nose and eating it, btw. Not even plain water lasts. Booze burns, pop gets sticky. Face the goddamn facts... You need some slippy slidey stuff.
2. BOOBS ARE MADE OF HUMAN.
If you ever want to play with them again, treat them nice.
3. YOU ARE BEING OBSERVED
The frantic crap does not play. Nothing-and I mean nothing at all-makes you look more lame than that frantic scrabbly boner chihuahua bullshit. Get a goddamn grip...or a grip's all you'll be getting in the near future.
Ask.
Be considerate.
Act normal.
Remember: those tits are awfully close to those teeth, senor.
Don't you find that to be the case?
You pathetic flat-chested persons, just go stand by the walls and whisper spitefully amongst yourselves 'K?
If a person is gifted mammarially there comes a time when the subject of tit fucking is just going to become an issue...usually right around the same time that a male someone is getting a blow job. God only knows what possesses some men at a time like this, but it's happened more than once that I've had someone suddenly dive for my cleavage like RoseAnne Barr heading out after a runaway hot dog cart. One minute you're wondering if you have a split of 7-up near to hand and the next thing the guy's bouncing his ass down your torso. Which can kick up quite a breeze, fellas. It ain't rose scented either.
Now if they're on the young and overeager side they won't be thinking about much more than 'must....blow....load' so more than likely Buckwheat won't give you much of a chance to comment while he gets himself situated. In my experience this maneuver is usually performed with the ninjalike grace of a drowning Labrador Retriever...their elbows in your hair, their knees pinching your rib-fat, their swollen meat thumping it's way down your sternum gadoinga gadoinga gadoinga, like like a bald quadraplegic chasing a contact lens...
Ay Caramba! IS SO SEXY!
While you frame just how to say 'Would you get the fuck off my hair you retard' in a loving way they grab a tit in each fist and splat them together like a pair of unwanted twins.
THEN they start ramming away at the cleft between them.
Guys, stop and think a second. It takes every single one of you at least three years from your first piece of ass until you finally figure out where the right hole is anyway, and that's the one that produces it's own lubrication. If you've learned anything at all in that time it should have been that you cannot force your way through. 'Steel rod' is just an expression.
Anyway it's more like a big purpley-pink asparagus. But a friendly one.
It might help to think of it as making a tasty sandwich.
RIGHT: Bread, Meat, Bread.
WRONG: Bread, Bread, MeatMeatMeatMeatMeatMeatMeat.
Simple biology:
BOOBS ARE ATTACHED TO A SURFACE.
A HUMAN SURFACE.
A human surface that by this point is experiencing a not insubstantial amount of pain due to being partially scalped while having each breast forced together into one central megaboob while you launch yourself at it dick first like a monkey humping a football. Let me add that at this point you do not look particularly alluring. The view from below consists of a scarlet sweaty person straining like they're trying to pass a piano.
Nobody is having fun here. You will not be remembered fondly. And as a woman, when you add all that to the *ahem* projected outcome (you see what i did there?? oh, my face is laugh! but yeah...all that and a pearl necklace too! yay!) the inevitable conclusion one comes to is "You, sir, will not be added to my speed dial"
1. LUBE. IT'S A GOOD THING.
This is regular skin. It's absorbent. Sweat does not last. Spit does not last. Old spoo transferred from elsewhere does not last. Which practice ranks right up there on the erotic scale with picking your nose and eating it, btw. Not even plain water lasts. Booze burns, pop gets sticky. Face the goddamn facts... You need some slippy slidey stuff.
2. BOOBS ARE MADE OF HUMAN.
If you ever want to play with them again, treat them nice.
3. YOU ARE BEING OBSERVED
The frantic crap does not play. Nothing-and I mean nothing at all-makes you look more lame than that frantic scrabbly boner chihuahua bullshit. Get a goddamn grip...or a grip's all you'll be getting in the near future.
Ask.
Be considerate.
Act normal.
Remember: those tits are awfully close to those teeth, senor.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Red Ox Pyre Of Madness Power Drill!
I came back to my garden to find that a year of neglect hadn't really done much harm. There were the usual monster dandelions and buttercup; that was expected. The thing I was dismayed to see were the giant clumps of canarygrass. They were coming up everywhere I had filled a hole with compost the previous fall.
I use both anaerobic and aerobic cold composting methods. Both methods leave live seed matter in the finished product. The problem is, I'm pretty careful what I put in there and I never, never put grass seedheads in.
Then I recalled the hayfield across the street.
The guy usually hydroseeds, but last year he dry broadcast because the rain came early. I just know that shit blew across the road right into my delicious finished compost potholes.
Prick.
I take pains with my compost. I'm not one of these yuppie Greens who talk the talk and then heave everything into the trash; I live this shit.
My kitchen waste goes into the anaerobic bin, which has a sealed lid and one drainhole. If I collected my grass clippings instead of mulching them it would be a different story. But as it stands, my garden doesn't manufacture enough green mass (what you need for good hot composting) to be able to put spoiled food in with a regular heap; it wouldn't decompose fast enough, and I sure don't need the possums, bugs, racoons, coyotes, dogs, black bears and Frobishers this would attract, laying all in it and hauling it around.
I tap the juice off and use it in my watering mix. When the container gets full, I dig out a deep hole in the corner of one of my raised beds, tip it all in and cover it up FAST. Oh my God does it stink; it's like dead dinosaur ass. BIG dead dinosaur ass.
But everybody loves it...particularly my punkies and cukes! And since all the cell structures are broken down, in a month there's not a trace to be found and all the worms in the bed are roly-poly. Fortunately, this procedure only needs to happen once a year.
Anyway, all my brown, black and green outdoor biomass goes into a pile. This is built at one end of an enclosure and gets turned month by month until it ends up at the opposite end, by which time it's fall and I have a base of sticks and brown material upon which to build another heap.
Then I pull out the garden waste and leave it all overwinter. Freeze and thaw takes care of that and come spring, once things dry out, I have a knee-high pile of nice wormy finished product ready to be screened.
First it goes through a sheet screen I made out of some hogpen, doubled over and 'sewn' with tie wire which made holes about 1 to 2 inches wide. This slightly dished screen fits over the wheelbarrow. I heave a couple shovelsfull of raw compost into the center and then shake the screen back and forth across the top of the barrow. What doesn't pass through goes back into the heap. Compost at this stage is what I use to fill in potholes in the garden or mix into my raised beds.
Now with this first screening of the year, I'll take the wheelbarrow full of screened stuff and leave it out in the hot sun for a few hours. Meanwhile I go weed the ornamental beds into buckets and dump them onto the new compost pile. When I come back, I shovel off the top half of the compost into buckets or onto a tarp or what have you, and return the rest of the barrowload to the new compost pile I'm building and dump it on top. This stuff is alive with chubby, wiggly worms. They migrate downward to the bottom of the wheelbarrow to escape the heat and dryness, you see. And because they were so smart, back they go into the compost to chow down on the new weeds and make more happy worms and more finished compost.
Works like a charm.
Now I take it another step because I make my own potting mix.
I made myself a hod sifter out of scrap lumber, 1/4 hardware cloth and nails.
I dump a few scoops of the screened compost into this and shake it across the top of the wheelbarrow again. The big stuff goes into one barrel; that's for drain material. The little stuff goes into a bin up on my potting bench. When I get ready to use it, I cut in about 1/3 screened garden soil and some plain washed sand or pea gravel. This makes a neutral-to-barely acid mix, good for perennials. If I need to up the acid I use crushed granite, but we're naturally somewhat acid here so I very rarely have to...If I need medium for veggies or annuals I add some dolomite and keep this sweet mix separate.
Yes, I have live worms in my potting mix. They go right in the pot with the plants. There they travel around and aerate the roots, keep things cleaned up, and peek out the drain holes and wave 'hi'.
When I water potted stock I water with juice tapped off my anaerobic mix brewed up with rotted grass clippings in buckets of water. This is both sick and disgusting, which bothers the animals I find drinking it not one whit. 1 quart of that brew goes into a gallon watering can, I top it up with fresh water, and away I go.
I maybe spend one afternoon a month during gardening season dicking with the compost. The rest of the time? I just wander around bothering the bumblebees.
Which is total bullshit; there's a thousand things to do in a garden, but all of them are things I like to do. Although it does annoy the bumbles.
I use both anaerobic and aerobic cold composting methods. Both methods leave live seed matter in the finished product. The problem is, I'm pretty careful what I put in there and I never, never put grass seedheads in.
Then I recalled the hayfield across the street.
The guy usually hydroseeds, but last year he dry broadcast because the rain came early. I just know that shit blew across the road right into my delicious finished compost potholes.
Prick.
I take pains with my compost. I'm not one of these yuppie Greens who talk the talk and then heave everything into the trash; I live this shit.
My kitchen waste goes into the anaerobic bin, which has a sealed lid and one drainhole. If I collected my grass clippings instead of mulching them it would be a different story. But as it stands, my garden doesn't manufacture enough green mass (what you need for good hot composting) to be able to put spoiled food in with a regular heap; it wouldn't decompose fast enough, and I sure don't need the possums, bugs, racoons, coyotes, dogs, black bears and Frobishers this would attract, laying all in it and hauling it around.
I tap the juice off and use it in my watering mix. When the container gets full, I dig out a deep hole in the corner of one of my raised beds, tip it all in and cover it up FAST. Oh my God does it stink; it's like dead dinosaur ass. BIG dead dinosaur ass.
But everybody loves it...particularly my punkies and cukes! And since all the cell structures are broken down, in a month there's not a trace to be found and all the worms in the bed are roly-poly. Fortunately, this procedure only needs to happen once a year.
Anyway, all my brown, black and green outdoor biomass goes into a pile. This is built at one end of an enclosure and gets turned month by month until it ends up at the opposite end, by which time it's fall and I have a base of sticks and brown material upon which to build another heap.
Then I pull out the garden waste and leave it all overwinter. Freeze and thaw takes care of that and come spring, once things dry out, I have a knee-high pile of nice wormy finished product ready to be screened.
First it goes through a sheet screen I made out of some hogpen, doubled over and 'sewn' with tie wire which made holes about 1 to 2 inches wide. This slightly dished screen fits over the wheelbarrow. I heave a couple shovelsfull of raw compost into the center and then shake the screen back and forth across the top of the barrow. What doesn't pass through goes back into the heap. Compost at this stage is what I use to fill in potholes in the garden or mix into my raised beds.
Now with this first screening of the year, I'll take the wheelbarrow full of screened stuff and leave it out in the hot sun for a few hours. Meanwhile I go weed the ornamental beds into buckets and dump them onto the new compost pile. When I come back, I shovel off the top half of the compost into buckets or onto a tarp or what have you, and return the rest of the barrowload to the new compost pile I'm building and dump it on top. This stuff is alive with chubby, wiggly worms. They migrate downward to the bottom of the wheelbarrow to escape the heat and dryness, you see. And because they were so smart, back they go into the compost to chow down on the new weeds and make more happy worms and more finished compost.
Works like a charm.
Now I take it another step because I make my own potting mix.
I made myself a hod sifter out of scrap lumber, 1/4 hardware cloth and nails.
I dump a few scoops of the screened compost into this and shake it across the top of the wheelbarrow again. The big stuff goes into one barrel; that's for drain material. The little stuff goes into a bin up on my potting bench. When I get ready to use it, I cut in about 1/3 screened garden soil and some plain washed sand or pea gravel. This makes a neutral-to-barely acid mix, good for perennials. If I need to up the acid I use crushed granite, but we're naturally somewhat acid here so I very rarely have to...If I need medium for veggies or annuals I add some dolomite and keep this sweet mix separate.
Yes, I have live worms in my potting mix. They go right in the pot with the plants. There they travel around and aerate the roots, keep things cleaned up, and peek out the drain holes and wave 'hi'.
When I water potted stock I water with juice tapped off my anaerobic mix brewed up with rotted grass clippings in buckets of water. This is both sick and disgusting, which bothers the animals I find drinking it not one whit. 1 quart of that brew goes into a gallon watering can, I top it up with fresh water, and away I go.
I maybe spend one afternoon a month during gardening season dicking with the compost. The rest of the time? I just wander around bothering the bumblebees.
Which is total bullshit; there's a thousand things to do in a garden, but all of them are things I like to do. Although it does annoy the bumbles.
BABY JESUS SEZ: FOOTMAN IS O-TAY!
"Rawk on! Awesome!" were just some of the enthusiastic comments which The Baby Jesus uttered extemporaneously during his reading of Footman's latest effort.
Now go talk amongst yourselves. I have a carrot suit to launder, and the comments lounge is all scaffolding and tarps while Beast replaces the carpeting, paints and refinishes all the furniture. For now the rest of you can just stand around outside in the hallway. Miscreants.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
FOOTMANS' BOOK DOES NOT SUCK.
In fact, Footmans' book is a pretty entertaining read so far.
Wait until I've finished it, then I'll have more to say. It got here yesterday morning and I'm halfway through now.
Still, isn't that great? The guy had me all fucking scared to death because of the way he dogged his own writing down. Jesus Christ, Tim. Fine; you're British. I get it already.
So, anyone who ordered a copy and is still waiting for delivery? You did not spend your money in vain. It's interesting and very readable. I have to brush up on my Radiohead to be able to say whether or not he's full of shit, but his writing passes muster 100%!
my god i am so relieved.
Wait until I've finished it, then I'll have more to say. It got here yesterday morning and I'm halfway through now.
Still, isn't that great? The guy had me all fucking scared to death because of the way he dogged his own writing down. Jesus Christ, Tim. Fine; you're British. I get it already.
So, anyone who ordered a copy and is still waiting for delivery? You did not spend your money in vain. It's interesting and very readable. I have to brush up on my Radiohead to be able to say whether or not he's full of shit, but his writing passes muster 100%!
my god i am so relieved.
Monday, April 30, 2007
reality redux. deal with it.
All arguments that deal with THE BIG QUESTIONS fall apart at the very beginning...when the hard math people are advancing towards the philosophers' line, both of them slinging Reason just as hard as they can back and forth across the barbed wire.
Isn't that presuming that the universe conforms to order?
Do you really think that?
Grow up.
"Oh, no problemo!" both sides chirrup. "Subjectivity doesn't count! It's not quantifiable."
Arch chuckles all 'round.
One weeps.
Wouldn't it be nice if it were that easy? We could just all plug our ears and sing real loud until stuff we can't explain and can't make fit into our arguments just goes away?
But that irrational, chaotic, unpredictable stuff just keeps on being there, doesn't it.
You know why?
That static? That will-of-the-wisp, here and gone frisson?
That's reality, kids.
Reality is the note which still hangs in the air after the string has been plucked.
...Unless I'm wrong.
_______________________________
.......with great big honkin' props to the bravest woman on the internet, Chaucers' Bitch, and her Brave New Blog, Question: Everything!
Think you're bad?
GO THERE NOW.
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