Miscellaneous

Today's post is delayed by, once again, waiting for promised return phone calls.

Southern most church depending on one's point of view.

Russian Orthodox in Antarctica.

Public library restroom warning, Midwest USA

Be sure to wash that strontium 90 off your fingers!

Personally built and created by one of my dearest friend.

Foreground:  Miniature pine forest

Background:  Fully functioning bog

While in the works.

Winner, winner chicken dinner.

Also roasted onions and potatoes.

Miscalculated Yet Again

My  first error was that I thought today was Library Guy's Day. I am only mildly disappointed.  Nice clean shower, extra time to attempt some simple crochet, very welcome phone conversation with doctor receptionist who actually spoke and understood the same language I was using, and the last of the blackberry jam.

My non-errors included one item that I know one does not have to write an entire blog to enter a comment.   Others are apparently unaware. There is a block provided for comments at the bottom of the post.  Maybe those were big words. 

Another non-error is my being very sure who I write about. The reason bloggers use pseudonyms or AKA's is to be polite or courteous.  Believe me, when I want to highlight a specific idiot I will use names.  Till then you usual folks can  continue to assume every single blog I post  is about you. (Because the essential part of my life is whatever involves you.) Look up "ego."

Final non-error for today, and please read very closely:  Three of my siblings, females, have block or deleted me from their facebomb pages.  I cannot see ANYTHING they write or communicate on their public pages.  Get it?  They can say anything they want about me and I am not able to respond.  I considers this incredibly gutless on their parts because they apparently present themselves as innocent, understanding, kind, sweet hearted humans and I am ...What?  A robot? 

Anyway I don't consider facebomb the appropriate medium.  Any of you three can telephone, email, or (if you can figure it out...) leave a comment on the blog. If you wanted anything other than drama, which I doubt, anyone of you would have the human dignity to contact me by one of these methods.

If you all dislike this content, please stay away.  This is my blog.  Using other siblings  or off spring to jazz up your own agendas isn't fair to them and will NEVER accomplish any REAL communication.  More of the same from you will simply prove that the drama is what you desire.  Too bad for all of us.

Oh I forgot...I don't text.  Don't know how.   And I am extending kudos to one of the sisters for visiting me while I was hospitalized.  Still not sure I understand why, but I'm amazed by her effort.  Trying to be fair.

What I Know Is True

Ultimately a dog will hump your leg.

Up And Attem

• Flipped the clock
• Little Red Hen
• Sad dead ficus
• "Countertop" sun tea
• Postcard project
• Oriental Trading
• Shiny pink pig
• Future cactus
• Choking on lime jello
• Dandy dreams of brothers and movie stars
• Excellent reading material
• Scented candles
• How much do I hate coffee breath?
• I didn't know they were called "mood boards"
• Toenails
• Slipshod correspondent
• Love that carpet sweeper!
• Schemes and Themes tonight!  Alas Subterranean may be no more
• Chicken salad

Twelve And A Half

Twelve and a half minutes.  That's how long the rain here lasted.  The brown grass is still brown.  The yellow grass is still yellow.  The lilac shrubs are still shriveled and bent down almost to the ground.  Still.....

The outside has that menthol eucalyptus fragrance again.  The evergreen outside my window has perked up just a smidge.  Industrious Guy and all his buddies are out looking at their trucks again.  They apparently adjust something under the hood for several seconds and then step back and talk about it for five minutes or so.  I will never understand boys and their vehicles.

Oh, and all the dog walked dogs are freaking out.  It seems the rain jumbled all the xrays and radar signals that they find on their paths. Hahahahaha.  Maniacal laughter all mine.

For Stephanie

http://www.fnal.gov/pub/about/campus/ecology/wildlife/bison.html
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/06/19/fermilab-welcomes-five-bison-calves/


Yesterday was a scorcher and as I was rushing through my usual cyber contacts I heard the tiniest blurb about the bison at Fermi lab.  Whenever science, agriculture, and ecological responsibility come together my ears prick up.  But I didn't have time or patience to do the topic justice; so I saved the article.

Thought I saved the article.  It vanished.  The above link is a different version. (Looking at the published post it seems as if the first link IS there after all.  I hope so.)

Mothers and babies all look adorable.  Even I am a sucker for huge, fuzzy four legged critters and their young 'uns.  Parental bonding in the wilds of the Midwest right above a particle accelerator.  What more could anyone ask?

Caint

All shampooed and showered and off to the Big Box.  The beets I grew as foliage (and stunning foliage it was!) are finally spent and so I decided to treat myself to some potted herbs.  Rosemary for chicken.  Sage to make fake sausage of ground turkey.  Mint because it has one of the best, cleanest fragrances in the flora kingdom.  And because I think I'm going to add fresh mint to some of my new smoothies

Replenishing yoghurt and cheese when I happen upon tubes of chorizo.  Reasonably priced and within reach of my gimpified self.  When I was a young married, I used to shop at a teeny Mexican grocery.  There was an actual butcher.  He'd hack off a chunk of ground chuck and a half pound lump of chorizo and grind them together before my very eyes.  Made the best grilling burgers I have ever tasted.

Since then I have read Eating Animals and learned how the last edible dregs are literally exploded off a hog's face.  It's a hideous procedure and the men (and it was always men in the book) get sick and die or get killed when the machine, with its many knives, misfires.  I have also learned from Hannibal Rising that cheek meat of any beast is the most tender.

So......in the aisle, at the Big Box, I turned over the chorizo tubes and actually dared to read the ingredient list.  "Pork salivary glands, lymph nodes, and cheek meat."  Uh Oh.

These might be delicacies in other cultures or on other planets, but I very nearly retched.  I replaced the tubes of alleged human food (yes, my perception changed that quickly) and I sped off.  God bless the electric carts.


Cheese and crackers for me tonight, thanks.

Do The Hokey Pokey

How do you know if a place is haunted?

I go to bed early.  I doze.  I read.  I get up to pee.  I look out the window.  I rearrange blankets.  I plan the next day's meals.  I think about calls I have to make and emails I want to send.  I cry.  I pray. "Lather rinse, repeat" like the old instructions on a shampoo bottle.

And last night I listened to a brand new sound.

From the kitchen I am almost sure.  Dripping?  Crinkling?  Munching?  Oh God!  Please NOT munching!  If there are mice or rats I am going to get medieval in a particularly hideous old lady manner! 

All the trash is double bagged.  The only "food" not contained in fridge or cabinet are some new, red potatoes, two oranges and two kiwis.  Counters are wiped and floors are as crumb free as possible.  Yikes!  Please not critters!  There have been no signs and the noises go on for far too long.  Wouldn't rodents chow down and move along?

It's not anything clinking in a breeze.  The window is only open an inch or two and the night is still.  All is calm.  All is bright.  Even the noisy plastic bags from the Big Box are stowed away.  No other possible sources of a crinkle.

That leaves dripping as the only option I can imagine.  But it's 3:15.  If I limp out there to discover a huge puddle there is nothing I can do about it.  And of course, I'd have to navigate a potential flood without slipping and crashing myself.  How badly do I want the paramedics to see my massive self splayed on the soggy floor?  Nope, nope, nope.  Exploration can wait til daylight.

I listen more.  Eventually I sleep.  Cloudy morning.  Since procrastination is my current favorite sport, I treat myself to another LUSH shower.  Thank you, Eldest Daughter.  I medicate.  I dress.  I  hobble to the kitchen and find:

NOTHING!!!  No puddles.  No debris.  Nothing moved or out of place.  No nibble marks on the counter foodstuff.  Nothing is even damp!

So, do I call maintenance and report a ghostly noisemaker?  Or do I wait til the ceiling crashes in?  Or do I do the Hokey Pokey?

Birds Are Morons

Birds are morons and I want them all to die.  May they all come down with avian flu or swine flu or pony flu or whatever disease is most newsworthy at the moment.  Anything!  Just to shut them the fuck up at four in the morning!

I thought when the Loud Mouth Lady and her Yappy Dog and "possibly criminal" Husband finally left we would have some peace and quiet here at Elder House.  Oh, she of the leather lungs and boomingly inappropriate laugh would hold conferences in the long and very echoey hallway day after day after day.  Had they not left when they did I think I would have looked into having them pecked to death by birds and buried in the back yard.  And now I hear through the curmudgeon grapevine that this couple is notorious for moving in and out of the building as they become discontent with their living arrangements.

Hasn't research shown that what some folks think of delightful bird song is really a feathered call for sex?  "I'm a bird!  I'm a bird!  I'm a bird! Let's do it!  Let's do it!"  Guys!  If it didn't work yesterday it most likely will not capture the lady birds' mojo today either!  Take the show on the road already!  Or at least out of earshot of this building.  Please.

Ashes Too Soon

I don't remember the specific reason why I reserved Edie Girl On Fire.  That doesn't really matter I suppose.  Her name probably came up in google searches I did about Andy Warhol.  I'm not a big Warhol fan, although some of his pieces really touch me; but I am interested in the way he surrounded himself with beautiful women.  But if a reader is searching for facts or serious biography, this is not the book for you.

                                                           lots of great chandelier earrings
First a word about the book itself.  It measures almost 91/2" by 12" but is as heavy as a coffee table book twice its size.  This makes it very awkward to read in bed.  The dust jacket itself is a lethal weapon, brittle, sharp, and capable of inflicting vicious gashes.  Many pages use a shiny font printed on black paper.  Then these pages are washed in purples or dark blues.  The reader may wish to invest in heavy gloves and a flashlight.

The authors quote the same five or six people over and over and they seem to say pretty much the same things over and over.  Dull things that are not very enlightening.  'There was something about her.  She would be there doing stuff.'  We quickly learn that she was wealthy, plagued by her parents, and indulged by almost everyone.  Do we see an After School Special developing here?  She runs away to New York.  Not to "get famous" but rather to be with famous people.

Besides Warhol, Edie mused it up for Bob Dylan for a bit.  Is she the girl who inspired "Blond On Blond"?  The question is never really answered.  The book has jillions of photos and, clearly, Edie was beguiling.  The phrase "the camera loved her" could have been coined after viewing her shots.  Movie makers, artists, song writers, photographers, clothing designers all did better work with the lovely Miss Sedgwick around.   But what did SHE do other than be cute?

The book gives us a couple sketches of dragons and a clay horse sculpture.  And that's about it.  But I get it.  She was the first one who was famous for being famous.  Less vapid than Paris.  A shorter filmography than Lindsey.  Did not sing like Britney.  If Edie were alive today her name would probably be smeared all over perfume or shoes like those nothing Kardashian girls. She'd be almost 70 today; who can speculate what she'd be up to.  Famous for being famous?  Doesn't sound like anything to brag about.  Not then.  Not now.

Oh.  Most of the men in Edie's biological family had peculiar nicknames.  "Fuzzy" "Minty"  I wonder what that might indicate.  This is my favorite picture.  In the book it is flipped around the other way.

Dream While Reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals

Dress up like Jennifer Aniston.

Baste and roast two turkeys.  One large and one smaller.

Decorate the larger bird like Uncle Sam.  Slice the smaller bird and shove it up the ass of the larger.

Replace both birds into the oven.

Burn to a crisp.

Remove and serve with cookies.

Fling Open Those Windows!

This mini-season of unlocking can be tricky here in the Midwest.  The temptation to open glass surfaces as far as possible is strong.  The rewards can be great. Tantalizing aromas of other people's dinner preparations.  Yum.  Someday I will figure out all the spice-meat-potato combinations and duplicate them for myself.  Or I may simply go door to door clutching a fork and spoon and begging for a taste.

The giddy sounds of the Kid Parade every weekday afternoon.  Boys have shed their parkas for hoodies alone.  One young chap has actually shed his shoes!  Yup!  Walks home in his stocking feet.  These children seem very good natured.  I've never witnessed a fight or teasing or bullying of any kind.  And, this delights me, they all look both ways before crossing the street.  I guess at least one of those early parental lessons has stuck.  No girls in flip flops yet, however.  Dancing Daughter informs me that's the only sure proof of springtime.

Breezy breezes.  Not the howling shrieks through every uncaulked crack endured the past months, but rather lilting, drifty, pleasant air movements that waft.  Damp evergreen and muddy earth fragrance.  Even faithful Cigarette Man having his 3pm smoke is a welcome addition.  The trees haven't been bamboozled; there are no buds yet.

And then there is, of course, the one sour note.  A new dog has moved in somewhere upstairs.  This dog is left alone for hours and hours every single day.  It is loud.  It is obnoxious.  It is unrelenting in its noise.  I know it is only doing what dogs do.  I don't care.  Do you know what cranky old farts do when faced with a public nuisance?  Even one with fur?  We contemplate slitting its little throat; that's what we do.  Then we can all enjoy this pretend respite from winter.

Back To An Old Friend

Venus, Jupiter, and one human.  Cherry Springs, PA on the 20th from NASA

Time Wasters

Too many people post too much crap on fb.

Spare me your kitties and puppies.

Please, no more pleas to save the whales/dolphins/harp seals,either.

I will NOT repost contrived honorariums to mothers/cousins/friends/cancer victims/our women and men in uniforms.

I prefer to make up what remains of my own mind my own self.

It's not that I disagree or do not respect your sentiments; it's just that even I have other things to do.

However,

I am a sucker for the well directed cynical comment.

When folks ask me how I am, I usually reply, "Medium."

Not medium well.

Not medium rare.

Medium.

I figure they don't really want the details.

Perhaps I will start using the above instead.

We curmudgeons are gonna rise up.

You've been warned.

That is all.

Sometime Not Even That

One of my fb "friends" posts pictures of cutesy wootsy animals all the time.

I loathe cutesy wootsy animals.

But, as an official gimp, I find it comforting in a very strange way to know that gimpdom extends to the animal kingdom.

However, I doubt this was my "friend's" intent.

In any case, rock on little bird!

This human feels your pain.