All me, all the time.

If it's not about Bubba these days, it's about me, I guess! This photo is circa 1990-1991ish. I'm so silly!

Ahead of the fashion curve

I went to Georgia last weekend, did I mention? I can't remember. Anyway, I got dinner with some friends, who took pictures. And then they did this to the photo:

SNOW!

There's maybe an inch of snow on the ground. I don't want to go to work. Do you think I can call in with a bad hair day?



UPDATE: SNOW DAY!!!!!!!

Alright, SPILL!

Someone wonderfully kooky stopped by my house yesterday and left this for me.



I'd like at least a clue to the mystery, kthanks.

No remembro how to say eleven.

The One-Semester-of-Spanish Spanish Love Song.



Thanks very much to a former colleague, I came across this hilarious video.

Making Do

My housemate went Krogering and locked me out. Hrm. Looking around, I'm OK as far as food goes. The garden has a few tomatoes, numerous peppers, chard, and a few young lettuce leaves. I have access to water, and also a soda I accidentally left on the porch.

It's getting cold. Housemate left a bathroom rug out to dry last week, so that could supplement my shorts and t-shirt. I also have a plastic tarp, and I could burrow down into the wood chip mulch for warmth. It's kind of fluffy, so I expect it would be insulating. Actually, I wonder how hot my compost pile is?

Really, though, the bigger issue is that I'm beginning to have to pee.

Random Stew

There's a website I participate on, and someone there built a tool that will put randomize a new comment based on what you've said before. I've decided to create a post with it. (And no, I never said anything about hating anyone, much less chinese folks!)
***********

Cried. Couldn't finish it. Can someone point me to an ophthalmologist anyway... I was just overwhelming. Ramps are almost in season! Make ramp ice cream! Well, if y'all had fun! Oooooh. Warblers make me cringe. Hm. Looks like I'll try some of our overweight patients, and she, too, was aghast. Yes, she knows he's an excellent driver. She knows that there's no problem with. A is my dream. I just made me gag. Eating something actually seemed to help, in that they don't meet all of that keyboard, damn it.

I am so sad I missed this. Though I did it. It soothed me, that I saw my own 11/12. I felt like nothing will work. I tried to change the "signal type" from the get-go, would be so nostalgia-inducing?? I'm totally going to concentrate on The first fish I had one I've wanted to bring them Clinique skin products.

Thank you thank you! I am bothered by the tight clasp the clapper had. Thanks for reminding me how much I like to use, and they need to also." "It's not safe to leave the doors unlocked." "The door needs to be allergy related. When I actively try NOT to "stomp", the only way I can find that's structurally sound and not located in a fortune cookie factory! I actually hate old Chinese people!

(that wasn't meant to be locked when we're not here or sleeping" "I'll be locking the door, and you need (locked room) and not as much information from her side when the only restaurant that I didn't find anything specifically about petroleum jelly, but this tidbit of info about olive oil and vinegar (also a stretch) sugar and spice steak and potatoes brats and beer fruit and nuts pancakes and syrup nuts and bolts

The spermicides, such as the right hand side of my head), (keyword:s Ceceo or seseo). If other things do, and so on, until maybe there's more concern about the puzzle piece type of scavenger hunt, but since I'd like to look at some of the night to cry to him about it, and you might especially like this off the ground and create a strategic plan for how you look at it). Hound the landlord. Explain that the constant NPR in the world than her looks.

I just dabbed a bit creeped out.

I second birding. You can flip if you have to. Don't know what to plant something like that, and THEN at least 20 years, for at least this one or two people dominate.


A local birding listserv I'm on recently pointed this Sibley Guides article, that talks about using a condom on and using the remote to press source doesn't seem to have this kind of humming and hawing to myself about the possible tools they have been about a year, but had always been called that, so it really touched me. I was so freaked out.

So seriously, the saltines with some folks on the back. Actually, pat yourself on the keyboard) It is huge, to be there any tradition/law about children chewing/eating paan? (Sorry for such ignorance on my wrists and rubbed them together.

(this is the best one, i think:)

I wanna experience an earthquake! Not too bad of one, half dozen of the gym-teacher style. Wiith pork chop pockets! And a cold sweat and puking. I called the property management company and explained that it looks like it scraped the phlegm off. Currently I have to act on it.

Solve this mystery!

Later on on the same day I had a visit from the Freakin' Big and Important agency guy, I had a mishap.

What do you think happened? I'd love to hear your conjecture!

VCL. Oh. MY!

Yesterday I got back from Georgia, where as per usual I visited Jamie and Nemoid. Georgia is my default road trip. I have people I love there, it's relatively close by, and I always enjoy myself.

In that respect, this trip wasn't any different. So many things are the same from visit to visit, only changing a bit in the details. Jamie got a new freezer since I last saw her. The garden's bigger. Karen has a new car, and her children have reached new developmental milestones. Jamie, the s.o. and I trade stories about plants, wildlife, food and soil. Karen and I laugh about old times and catch up on the new ones.

It was just as perfect as it always is.

BUT! The overarching theme this weekend was not one of calm and expected happenings. Nope. It was a weekend of firsts. First time I've been stuck in traffic so bad that we turned the cars off entirely, going only two-ish miles over 1.5 hours. First time I've ever dropped my binoculars 8 feet onto a hardwood floor and knocked the optics out of alignment. First time I stepped with sandaled feet into a fire ant nest.

Sounds pretty sucky, that part. But it really wasn't that bad. I used the downtime in the car to clean it out, and the delay inspired me to let down my hair and buy cheap beer in cans in order to crack one open upon arrival, before I'd even opened the trunk. The binoculars miraculously fixed themselves over the course of two days. Right after the crash I had double vision through the eyepieces, but when I looked through them as I was leaving, the images had become one. I felt a certain pride at finally having succumbed to and survived fire ants.

Fire ant bites are rite of passage for southerners, don't you think? I only ended up with about 20 bites, thanks to multiple factors--not least being Jamie's s.o.'s quick reaction as I ran into the house shrieking "FIRE ANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Thanks for that, s.o.!

Welp, I'm making a short story long, again. Ah well.

The biggest first of all was on Saturday. See, when I asked my Georgia friends if they were going to be in town, Jamie encouraged me to come on down, with the caveat that she had plans in Atlanta for part of the weekend that I was more than welcome to tag along to.

That's how I found myself at a multigenre convention. Oh yes. Not *just* Trekkies. Not just comic-book collectors. Not just Dungeons and Dragons LARPs . Furries. Anime. Fairies. Wizards. You name it.


Fandoms of every sort wended their way around and through the three adjacent hotels that hosted DragonCon this weekend.

Here are my reactions, in brief:

• Wow.
  
• Everyone's either naked or overdressed.
• Hm. There are a lot of good-looking people here. That doesn't fit into my head.
  
• Am I supposed to recognize the characters people have dressed up as?
  
• Why would anyone go for a full-body plush or rubber suit in Atlanta in the summer?
• You know, that guy's creepy. So's that girl.
• Who has this kind of *money* to spend?
  
• The health department needs to have a table here with condoms.
  
• I wonder what all those Clemson and Alabama fans are thinking right about now?
• Does not compute
• A lot of people seem to be either fainting or puking in here right now. Not me! Cookies please!
• Most women's costumes rely on a corset, it looks like.
  
• Bad corsetry signals: breasts pushed so high they fold over on themselves. VCL under spandex.
• The Utilikilt to corset ratio is 1:1 (Holy CRAP that Utilikilt video's wrong!)
• I lack the background to understand any of the concurrent sessions here.
  
• Zombies.
• Poor kids in their strollers.

Check out the photos I took. Some of the costumes are obvious, but others left me entirely clueless.

BTW? Definitely worth the $50 entrance fee.



**************
Edited to add:

I forgot another first!

DURIAN! DURIAN!

I survived it! Basically imagine sweet taste combined with burnt hair/emerging BO. Unfortunately, I also ended up with Durian burps, which hold none of the sweet and all of the stench.

Heh Heh Heh

I'm wearing the same dress today.




From here.

When other people blog

Lazy Stew!

I'd planned to blog my very fun Thursday evening watching the VH1 Classic's "Rock honors the Who" with Cristin, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Fabulously, Cristin did the evening much more justice than I ever could. And the photos! You've gotta step over to Cristin's blog to see the goodness of the pix she took.

Check it out.

Additional observations:
• I introduced Cristin to McVicar, which had shots of Roger Daltrey's bare butt. I saw it at the Eastown theater* with my wonderful stepmother, who took a 10 year old girl to a midnight movie because she loved the Who.
• The musicians' commentary on Squeeze Box, my standard karaoke song, has vindicated me. I get made fun of for liking the song. NUH UH, baby! Sting likes it! So does Joan Jett! And Billy Idol! HA!
• I used to know all the lyrics of all the songs. That is no longer true. However, thanks to the magic of Google, I was able to sing along with everything anyway.
• Cristin does a damned good job of keeping her house cat-dander free. I slept over (very responsible of me) on her couch, and didn't have even one moment of breathing problems.

*No longer a theater--I think it's a church now, which in GR makes all sorts of sense.

Also

I have to admit that I filed my toenails at work today.

Because you just have to post something like this

Cher doing all parts in West Side Story.




And then part two:

Ask me to marry you...

...and pony up this ring. I'll say yes, but then dump you and keep the ring. OK?

Thanks.

Does anyone have a pennywhistle they can loan me?

Or maybe you'd just prefer to accompany me in singing, once I get my voice back. Because, thanks to our Marianne, I have a new favorite song.

Perhaps you'd like to hear it? Everyone loves a midi, right? Well, that's just the tune, though. Such a sweet melody. Da da da daa da da da daa...

Why don't you now begin to memorize the lyrics!

Nine Inch Will Please a Lady
(Robert Burns)

Come rede me dame, come tell me dame,
My dame come tell me truly,
What length o' graith when weel ca'd hame
Will sair a woman duly?"
The carlin clew her wanton tail,
Her wanton tail sae ready,
"l learn'd a sang in Annandale,
Nine inch will please a lady."

"But for a koontrie cunt like mine,
In sooth we're not sae gentle;
We'll tak tway thumb-bread to the nine,
And that is a sonsy pintle.
Oh, Leeze me on, my Charlie lad,
I'll ne'er forget my Charlie,
Tway roaring handfuls and a daud
He nidged it in fu' rarely."

But wear fa' the laithron doup
And may it ne'er be thriving,
It's not the length that makes me loup
But it's the double drivin.
Come nidge me Tom, come nidge me Tom
Come nidge me, o'er the nyvel
Come lowse an lug your battering ram
And thrash him at my gyvel!

graith=gear, equipment; clew=scratched, fondled;
tway thum-bread=two thumb-breadths; sonsy=healthy;
daud=a lump, a bit; laithron=lazy; doup=rump;
gyvel=gateway.

(images, lyrics, etc from here)
(pennywhistle accompaniment here)

when all else fails...

....take a picture!

I was caught unprepared for the cold this morning. Luckily, I don't often clean out my car. A while back, our girl Pinky had given me a hood that I had sworn didn't belong to the jacket she gave me last season. It's been languishing in the car. No longer. I'm going out for a walk. I really like the fashion statement of wearing just the hood. It's kind of like wearing a hairnet out in public like my sister does, or like the safety glasses Suze let me wear a couple of weeks ago.

I got all sorts of laughs in the car on the way to work this morning, thinking of how weird I look!




(p.s. I'm dying of stress.)

Happy Birthday to Former (the good one) Roommate!

My friend whose name is not allowed on here is celebrating a milestone birthday today. Not the one I'll be at in a little more than 3 years--the one before that. I had a brainstorm yesterday about how to help make the day a little more fun for him, and I'm just hoping he doesn't hate me!

When I got up this morning I sent an email out to as many people as I know who either know Former Roommate the Good or who know of him, or who know me. Some of you who are reading got this email. I asked them to either call and wish him a Happy Birthday or to email him and do the same. So far my dad, stepmother, and two old friends have done it. (*Update--the total count is now at 5. Heh. **Update the second--many, many more calls/emails. He's not angry, thankfully!)

Heh.

There's an outside chance that this will just piss him off (especially if he feels his privacy is being violated), but I did tell him that if something weird happened today that it would be my fault. So...

(If you didn't get the email but would like to participate, leave a comment and I'll get you the pertinent info.)

Here's the email I sent, info redacted

Hey...

Today is my friend Former Roommate the Good's 30th birthday. I had the brilliant (??) idea yesterday to get as many people as I can, the more random the better, to call and wish him a happy birthday. It's especially good if you don't know him very well. He probably won't even pick up the phone because he won't recognize your phone number anyway, but a quick message would be awesome.

I'm thinking just "Hey Former Roommate the Good, it's Jane Doe...I'm Stew's (friend, sister, mom, whatever), and I just wanted to say Happy 30th birthday!"

Obviously he'll know some of you; in that case just a Hey Former Roommate the Good, it's _______! Happy birthday!

Anyway, his phone number is (Bla)-Bla-Blah.

If you'd rather email, it's Former Roommate the Good@gmail.com

PSA

Please bear with me. I'm looking at PSAs that are available online, to see if any of them could be used to spark discussion with my kids. I kind of liked this one. Basic translation: There are many different names for "nose"-- Honker, schnozz, beak, snout... But whatever kind of nose you have, or whatever name you use for it, if you use your nose to inhale chemicals to drug you up, you can cause brain damage...or even DIE. And the name for THAT is STUPID!

Net Neutrality

This video I've embedded has made my day. I actually have no idea what Net Neutrality is about (google! where are you??), but this issue apparently brings together all the happy oddness of the internets I've ever known. Check out We Are the Web. Watch this first:

Tilting

I kind of think plating is stupid.

I think it's fuddy duddy and gets in the way of the actual tasting experience. Things get cold while you futz around with them.

At least at home I don't like it. I don't know. It's pretty in a restaurant, but I avoid things that are too complicated in general. Like specialized tools, for example.

Along with this anti-plating theme, my tastes also run to the proletariat. The tasty and fresh and lowbrow, that is. Not Twinkies.

However, as a concession to the plating practice, I made an homage to Cervantes. Tortilla española, made with local eggs and potatoes, accompanied by acelgas criadas con cariño en el jardín y saltadas con ajo y sus pencas.

(I'm really just jealous of people who plate well, I think. Therefore I fall back to my strengths--spanish and the absurd)