Dotty Parker

work it, girl

Today is the dawning of a New Day. All day. All day dawn, all day long.

It would make me nervous, actually, if the whole day were dawn. What would happen when the day was over? And would it ever be over? It presents many problems, you see. Would the days be divided by hours? That would mean that the 24 hour rules would be in place. Or if it were to be determined by daylight, would I get to sleep all day? Or would we all turn into Alaskans? I don't want to be an Alaskan. They wear unflattering clothes. Like snow pants. Pants made of snow would be cold, inflexible, and temporary. Snow pants, however, are simply ugly, although they do make an excellent complement to moon boots.

Oh. Rockin!

Most days--Despite my firm placement in the category of delicate flower, many people are surprised by my affection for needle arts. "You?!" They tend to say. And I demurely look away, my lashes lowered in shame and culpability. Tipping my head back and looking at the sky, my profile in view, I say, "Yes." Then I gather my skirts and leave the room in a rustle of taffeta and petticoats. That's most days.

Other days--Because of my firm placement in the category of delicate flower, many people say, "Hey. Did you make that? It's, uh, unique." To them, as I wilt, looking with teary eyes, I respond, "Yes, I did fashion this garment. I did it for the sole purpose of pleasing your aesthetic sensibilities. I apologize for my inability to measure up to your standards of perfection and artistic merit." Then I gather my skirts and leave the room in a rustle of taffeta and petticoats. That's other days.

New Day--Because I am a delicate flower, planted firmly, never to be uprooted, I say, "Needle arts? Crap! They've gone away. They're passé." In a moment, I would like you to pause and breathe deeply of the synergistic ingeniousness of nature and me.

I do believe one of the reasons that people are initially surprised by my ultra-feminine preoccupation, despite being a delicate flower, is that I don't really like decorating my home with chickens and antique signs about angels. I do not drive a minivan full of children. I have fewer than 80 years under my black, satin sash. I have been known, on occasion, to stop talking. These things do not match with the image of a seamstress.

I am different, you see.

I am the wind.

Yes, you read that correctly. I am the wind. Whooooooosh.

When you feel a gentle breeze caress your face, that is me. When you are blown by a buffeting storm, that is me. It is I. Oh yes.

The little birdies, the little tweeting creatures, the large, stinking vultures, they worship me. Their songs and squawks, if you listen carefully, their music sings,

Oh, Dotty deeear!
Listen and heeeeear!
We'll gift you with string,
If you only will bring
Your windiness neeeear!
Whoooooosh!

(The vultures are responsible for the Whoosh part.)

And so I do blow. The strings and feathers and fluff they saved all year in their nests are rocked until the bough breaks and the nests come down, textiles and all.

I then fashion the enmeshed fibers into a nest shape.

In the winter, leaves that flit past nests use their magical powers to weave these threads into fabric. Upon a nest's liberation from the tree, a new wind, a fresh Spring breeze knits those fabrics together. These fabrics are, in fact, pieces of art derived from dreams, songs, and jettisoned hopes. It is this interlacing of creation, creativity, and despair that inspire my interest in the limitless and often tactiley stimulating world of needle arts.

Now is the time to breathe deeply of the synergistic ingeniousness of nature and yours, truly. Breathe, knowing that if the wind is blowing where you are, you may also be experiencing in the embodiment of my artistry.

And thus, it is a New Day. I spoke, in a grandiloquent manner, of needle arts being "crap". This, of course, is untrue. That is to say, that declaration of crap is crap. As is always true in matters of great intellectual concern, a new definition must be crafted. I say the new definition of needle arts is, "Whatever blows the right way."

(If I may be allowed to speak somewhat irreverently, I will say that if I work it right, I won't have to do anything except pop in some yarn and stick a darning needle into a bird's nest. Although I am Dotty, all powerful and invincible, I am also the wind, unstoppable and indefatigable. Honestly, though, I need a break. If I can eliminate most of the process and simply show the original bird's nest, I won't have to be so active in the Spring. Just one quick blow and my work is completed for a year.)

Following this process will be a journey certain to be exciting and unexpected. In the coming months, I will work on a concept of a more raw, sculptural nature. I see a cup shaped object made of many tiny fibers--put together as if by a bird.

So yes, my darlings, if I work it right, it will be a New Day for needle arts come Spring.

The only response people will have when they meet me will be, "Oh! You're Dotty Parker! You have changed my life."

shiny pants

Folks who are better than I am, folks like Florette, can resist the lure of the divine smoky smoky. Miss Dotty, who believes that things called “divine” can’t be all bad, has done such a good job of resisting said lure.

I bought a package of this sweet drug on or about November 16. That’s twenty drug sticks, for the uninitiated. Florette and I were having our girls’ night on the 18th. I smoked that night. Florette did not. Smart woman. Maybe four or five cigarettes. (Cigareetes, to those fans of the Western genre.) Which makes approximately twelve cigarettes left, if you add in the ones that I had on day 16 and 17 of November.

From day 18 November to day November 29 I have smoked only twelve sticks of smoky joy. Today was my last opportunity to partake. I didn’t really want it, but the box said, “Dotty, it’s what the cool kids do. You’ve always wanted to be a cool kid, right? Now you can be. Do it. It’s okay. You’ll be rockin’.”

And I saw my fingers, unstained by nicotine, lift one glorious and final cigarette to my drug free (hey, work with me here) lips. Fire was applied to this instrument of sin. The flame disappeared; the world was lit only by the embers of burning, nefarious desire. A blue liquid smoke, a thin curl of withdrawal, a wisp of scent that will some day cause me to feel weak, close my eyes, and say, “Oh yes. I want that again.”

An inhalation brings reality softly back. It is never the way I remembered it. It’s always a little rougher. It always lacks some of the mystique that it had when I was learning its secrets, when the flame igniting my bad habit seemed more passionately urgent than dutifully functional. It takes more and more tastes to remember what felt so good.

Just as I’m ready to walk away, just as I feel my heart break with the knowledge that I’ve romanticized an impossibility, just then is when it happens.

A breath that reaches to the tips of my fingers and brings with it the caress of a nearly forgotten joy. Sensations ascend up my arms like dolphins jumping and diving, over my shoulders, and cease at the base of my neck. A sleepy, languorous, slow motion calm banishes all thoughts of quitting this relationship.

And then, when that weak, warm feeling rolls over me and fades, I don’t want my cigarette anymore. The divinity of the divine smoky smoky is exposed. If only I can remember that feeling…that feeling when the sweetness fades and I only know the smell of smoke in my hair and on my hands. The smoke calls to me with a tarnished silver tongue.

Bastard.

So the cigarettes are gone. Consumed by my likely still pink lungs. And the backyard by the fire pit is sprinkled with half cigarettes that I threw away when I didn’t want them anymore.

I feel so cheap. So blind to all the information warning me, warning me of the allure of smoking. And here I am, used. A tobacco whore. I’m ashamed of myself.

I, of all people, should know better. I love textiles. Why didn’t it occur to me that this cigarette nonsense was trashy and worthless?

Look at that. Shiny pants. The box wears shiny pants. What kind of worthy beau would wear shiny pants and misspell Kamel? And “red lights”? Who the hell wants those?

A fool for love! Never, ever again!

But, just in case, when’s the next girls’ night?

big rock candy mountain

Some days I think, "Oh! Dotty, do remember! This would be a most excellent topic for your fondly thought of readership!"

Later in the day I think, "Oh! Dotty! Remember that this would be good to talk about!"

Then later in the day I think, "Oh! Dotty! It's lunch time!"

It's strange the things that are stuck in a person's head. Perhaps mine, in particular, is interesting since there's often some kind of music being played with interpretive dancers skipping ropes of silk. The song they danced to today was "Big Rock Candy Mountain". Where there's a lake of stew and whisky, too.

I know I've talked about it before, but it still makes me laugh when he sings, "You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe."

Lake of stew...When I took OuchyKim to Florida we talked about the word "stow". As in, "please stow all carry-on items in the overhead bins or beneath the seat in front of you." People don't use that word very often.

OuchyKim has a way with words that is not what most people would choose to be their way. I've always heard people say, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it." She says, "I told them to put that in their stew!"

?

I think she was mixing up stewing in one's own juices with putting "that" (being the stew) into one's pipe and smoking it.

I didn't really feel like saying anything as I was being a most gracious martyr who, without shoes, walked on a road of ground glass carrying supplies and pushing OuchyKim's wheelchair for miles. So instead we decided that the past tense of "stew" is "stow". So I began feeling better when she said, "Put that in your stew!" when I could say, "And stow it!"

That way it seemed like a little jokey jokey. (If you see Florette and need to refer to this genius piece of writing say these three letters: JKK. It'll get you everywhere.) Now, though, I wonder if you paddle all around a lake of stew and then you went home and told your _fill in the blank_ what you did, could you say that it's a lake of stow now that you're out of it? You're done with it. You've had enough. For you it isn't even stew anymore.

It's past tense stew.

It's stow.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it...Don't put it in your stew.

ca-cough-any

You might thing that I just don't know how to spell cacophany. Which would be true. I had to look it up. But no. The title means much more than that.

If you ask BrilliantEditor or Erotica or BellyRub or PTAMom or Dr.Dad or AngerTrain, if you ask them how I fare in a room full of random noises, they will say, "Not well." If you were to narrow it down to loudish noises, they will say, "Really, not well." Then if you ask them to narrow it down to loudish noises that happen at irregular but frequent intervals and accomplish nothing they will say, "Not a good idea at all."

So here I am. I've got a cold that is nastier than I would like it to be. I was convinced it was one of those sniffly things that goes away almost as soon as it shows up. This one isn't that. Why am I whining? One: It's fun. Two: It allows me a bit more latitude to be irritable. Three: It makes me a self-sacrificing charmer of which you've never seen the like. Four: It's relevant.

So here's the scoop--I'm at BE's parents' house for Thanksgiving. The food is amazingly good. Really really good. I missed out on Thanksgiving with my family's Thanksgiving, which is always fun with lots of laughing and lots of food and lots of noise, but I get this Thanksgiving which is always fun with lots of laughing and lots of food.

But the noise.

Noise. People here cough and clear their throats all the time. Eh-hem. Eh-eh-eh-eh-hem. Hemmmmmbbbbbrrrrr hem hem hem. Gieeeeeeeeeeeehk-ek-ek-ek.

ALL THE TIME!

I want to take them all aside and say, "Hey, it didn't make it feel all better last time. Why would it make it feel all better this time?"

BE and I have a "conversation" about this when we're at home. He has the same habit. He makes an unnecessary coughing sound (unnecessary because he made one just a few minutes ago) and I say, "Sweetie, would you like a glass of water?" He kind of growls that he doesn't. And then I'm quiet.

Then he clears his throat/coughs again. "Honey, do you need a cough drop?" I get the growly treatment again.

A while later, like half an hour, but it's still annoying the hell out of me, he coughs and I say, "Darling, I think you should go to the doctor for that cough." He growls or ignores me.

"Darling, I'm going to be crazier than normal if you don't stop that soon."

I doubt he'll go to the doctor of his own free will, but he'll go. Dammit. Even if it is genetic. Cough. Hack. Ech.

So there I am, anyway, with my cold and little cough and stuffy nose feeling like people must be really tired of me snorfling and gaffing all over the place, but they aren't! They can't even tell because they're making all kinds of racket in their throats. Like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.

thanks

I'm with BrilliantEditor's family this Thanksgiving. It's always a tasty treat to be here. Lying on the couch, Sprocket is curled into the angle of my bent legs. I can hear her breathing, slowly working her way into an almighty snore

Spring is currently silent. She waits for activity. She waits patiently.

A few Thanksgivings ago, BE and I went to see Dr.Dad's sister for dinner. That's a bit of a tradition. It's also a tradtion to go deer hunting. With all the brouhaha about hunters getting shot or shooting at hunters, I thought I'd include a little morsel of tasty irreverence.

These are pictures of Thanksgiving and winter in general. In the top bit, Spring and Sprocket are chasing away deer. On the right is Dr.Dad with two dead deer in the back (long story). Spring tried to lick them.

Now there is a photo of Spring perched on the back of MMMs couch. Spring looks lovely and concerned. That is the BEFORE picture.

Now there is a photo of two turkey legs. Spring snuck up into a chair that had been pushed in, squizzled herself around, got the turkey leg, and then dropped it on the ground. I think it was too heavy for her; I think she assumed that the leg wouldn't weigh that much. That was our first Thanksgiving with Spring.

But you can see how ashamed of herself she was. The AFTER picture. Sort of. MMM gave her all of the turkey on that leg and then some.

Sprocket's been a bit more reserved, but reports that smelling turkey is a very fine thing all on its own. Tasting it is finer, but she says fine is just fine.

holy cow! oh. wait.

I cooked dinner! Yahoo! It was edible! Double yahoo! It involved no cows, though. Only milk and cheese. I don't think cows make pasta.

So my shmancy recipe asked for two bay leaves. I know that I should fish them out before I serve the food to the unsuspecting hordes, and I know it's because the leaves are sharp and could hurt somebody's insides.

What do you do with the used up bay leaves?

I'm throwing mine away. But! What if I'm supposed to keep them in an empty jar of similar variety to the current jar? What if I'm supposed to use them in cooking for the out of doors? Or for parboiled meats? Or for leftovers? What if I'm supposed to rinse them off and return them to Spice Island where they infuse them, once again, with the delicate scents and tastes of bay leaves? I bet they'd send them to third world countries like Australia.

I'm not sure where I'd send them. So I'm sending them to the garbage.

massive

I have a super-huge, massive bruise on my thigh. Really big and ugly.

Is this a remarkable thing to talk about? No, not so much. Except that it is.

I constantly get bruises and I don't know where they came from. Generally it's the kind that can be assumed to be a graceful crash into a chair or table. But this one, it's like I backed into a pointy something-or-other and it still hurts. It's been there since Sunday. What the hell did I do? A wee Mack truck? An abusive spouse I never notice? An abusive dog? Mouse? Towel? Ketchup?

I just don't know. Perhaps I should take vitamins. Or wear a big fat-suit of squishiness. Squishy protection from pointy bits. Or a space suit. That would be good.

security (protection from bruises?)

I suggested to BrilliantEditor that we should hire the FTA to stand at the foot of our driveway. That way we wouldn't have to stand in line as long at the airport.

He said, "They're going to search you again when you get there."

I said, "Not if they put tamper-evident tape on the car so that if you opened a door or window your seals would be broken. And security would meet us at the door to the airport. But we'd still have to stand in line to get our tickets and stuff. And we'd have to go through the personal checkpoint, in case someone handed us stuff in the parking lot."

It started to sound like a dumb idea, but I just thought, "Valet parking! That's the answer! And some kind of tube to walk through so no one could tamper with you. That's the answer!"

Then that started to sound like a dumb idea until I remembered, "I don't live in the same world as everybody else. I live in Dottyland, the place where dreams are totally weird and wonderful and kooky and there are few limits."

(That's me learning to weave in Scotland. Obviously, there's a lot on my mind.)

Sometimes I wish Dottyland was more than my own paradigm, that people could come in and sip from the stream of laughter and explore the caverns of thick, interconnected thoughts that reduce themselves to darkness and curiosity and mystery.

Maybe I'd scare people, though. Alternatively, maybe they'd want to stay and there wouldn't be enough room for all of us and I'd have to build suburbs and all the originality that struggled to become real would be stretched into soccer fields and raided to build houses made entirely from my own dreams. I'd be too tired to think for myself and I'd be like one of the miserable drones who never think at all and eventually all my suburbs would deflate, all of Dottyland would crumble. The people living there would be unceremoniously tossed from their floating beds and into a world that obeys gravity and doesn't feel like being idealistic and is mean and tightfisted. Their fury at being rejected would turn them into Republicans; they'd all turn against me, claiming that I was an idealistic dreamer who could never be anything but a suck on the system. They'd call me a pinko.

Then I'd return to Dottyland and begin the long process of rebuilding what had been crushed into nearly unrecognizable chunks of broken silliness and fun and what was supposed to be surprising fun. The ideas from the cave would be stretched into worry, rumination, and over-examination. There would be dangerous viruses that inhabit soft furnishings causing Dottyland to become a sterile and hard place, missing every thread of upholstery, every puff of stuffing. The rebuilding would take years longer than expected, making me appear, to others, as a less interesting and infinitely more erratic and peculiar and wrinkly.

Huh.

Maybe I don't wish that Dottyland were real. Or maybe I wish that it was the kind of place you need a visa to visit. There wouldn't be any kind of immigration authority as I would have food only for ten hours a day. And there would not be universal health care.

Oh, yeah, we don't have that anyway.

I am glad that I don't have suburbs. That would be uncomfortable on top of everything else.

At any rate, it's not open yet. Go to Dollywood instead. (She has much larger breasts than I do, too. Often a bonus. Especially when floating.)

rose hips

This is the season, or just past the season, for rose hips.

Main Entry: rose hip
Function: noun
: the ripened accessory fruit of a rose that consists of a fleshy receptacle enclosing numerous achenes

What an odd name. Hip. I knew that Gypsy Rose Lee had hips,

but roses themselves?

NOTE: Three rose hips tend to contain as much vitamin C as one orange.

So what's a hip?

{Hip knob} (Arch.), a finial, ball, or other ornament at the
intersection of the hip rafters and the ridge.

{Hip roof}, {Hipped roof} (Arch.), a roof having sloping ends
and sloping sides. See {Hip}, n., 2., and {Hip}, v. t., 3.

Hip \Hip\, n. [OE. hepe, AS. he['o]pe; cf. OHG. hiufo a bramble
bush.] (Bot.)
The fruit of a rosebush, especially of the English dog-rose
({Rosa canina}). [Written also {hop}, {hep}.]

Those are generally unhelpful.

Try this one out.

from an Old High German word, hiafo, for rose fruits; apparently
unrelated to the word for human hip

Apparently? I don't want apparently. I want answers!

And I found one. Thanks to the silly person who said that rose hips were apparently unrelated to human ones.

It's that magic word "hiafo".

hip (n2.)
"seed pod" (especially of wild rose), O.E. heope, hiope, from P.Gmc. *khiup- (cf. dial. Norw. hjupa, O.H.G. hiafo, Ger. hiefe, O.E. hiopa "briar, bramble").

Now that makes sense!

I'm hip.

lively!

Yesterday I went to visit the Robison-Anton thread factories in Pennsylvania. In Clark's Summit I saw them twisting and winding thread and yarn onto cones and pirns and spools. In Bloomsburg I saw them dyeing the thread and yarn into many fabulous rainbow colors and then winding them onto tiny consumer spools. The kind that I have.

Little me. The delicate flower.

Their oh-so-interesting website says this:

Bruce N. Anton, President of the company, outlines the developments in the last 20 years. “In 1979, we opened up a dye house in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, called Bloomsburg Dye Co.,” he says. “In 1985 and 1988, we made acquisitions of twisting and winding plants also in Pennsylvania. In 1989, we decided to open up a new manufacturing plant and completely refit the dye house. In 1990 we built R.A. Manufacturing, Inc., a modern twisting and winding facility in Clarks Summit, Pa.” Bruce N. Anton, President of the company, outlines the developments in the last 20 years. “In 1979, we opened up a dye house in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, called Bloomsburg Dye Co.,” he says. “In 1985 and 1988, we made acquisitions of twisting and winding plants also in Pennsylvania. In 1989, we decided to open up a new manufacturing plant and completely refit the dye house. In 1990 we built R.A. Manufacturing, Inc., a modern twisting and winding facility in Clarks Summit, Pa.”

There are some great terms that are used in manufacturing. Thread manufacturing is no different. They have giant spool-ish things that they call pirns. Pirn. Yep. Webster says it's another word for bobbin and also that it's Scottish for a device resembling a reel. "That thar reel's a pirn." That's what you can say the next time you see something resembling a reel.

Then there's the term "lively". When thread, or any yarn or string or rope, twists back on itself when it becomes slack, it's called lively. We don't want our thread or yarn or string or rope to be lively. We want it to be dead. Yes. That's the word they use. Dead. Dead means that it just lies there and it's therefore easier to use and it knots less.

How do you kill lively thread? You steam heat it when it's on a pirn or bobbin or spool! Lively!

I loved the word so much that I used it a hundred times until our tour guide, who was the vice president of manufacturing, started laughing a little. Then he pointed at me and said, "Listen to this one!"

I knew it was all going to be just as much fun as I'd hoped.

When we got to the dye factory I was intrigued by how clean their hands were. Nobody had dye stains on their hands. Not the guys in the lab; not the guys using the dying vats.

I asked about that and the fellow who was in charge of dye chemistry and stuff said that they were just very clean people. I looked at him with an arched eyebrow. He said that some people, the people who create the specific dye colors, have stained hands, but the rest of the people don't have any need to touch dye so their hands are clean.

I wanted there to be colors everywhere. I wanted to be dazzled by the glittering colors. Dye just isn't that glamorous, though. It's interesting and it's pretty, but it isn't glamorous. I'm beginning to suspect that there isn't much in the world that is glamorous because real life has to pop in and make it real enough to have consequences.

Real life is a ridiculous thing.

Except for tonight. Florette came over tonight and we watched Sex in the City and drank wine and talked about girly things and had a wonderful time. And that was real life. And that was a good thing. Ridiculous in a delightful, carefree kind of way.

And Florette makes good cookies.

breathing

I talked to my friend P-glo today and we chatted about food and life and cookies and treats and cheese. (We went to a food store.)

We also talked about getting flipped out sometimes about what people say when we're at work or out in public. It's not like anyone says, "Hey Dotty, what the hell are you doing with turnips? You know that the turnip stew you made caused my uncle to die of turnip-related complications from the stew you made twenty years ago! Murderer!"

Nope. No one says that to me. Not anymore, anyway. But there are strange things that people say. Little trigger-y type things that make me go "echh" in a very quiet way.

P-glo told me about a woman she works with/for who takes breaks but will never give P-glo the chance to take one herself. P-glo announces she's taking a five minute break, sits down for a glass of water, and then the boss/co-worker says, "Oh, P-glo, will you get me a cup of tea?"

P-glo does it, because the person is her boss, and resents it internally.

We've all got those moments. Sometimes I let someone go ahead of me in line because they seem in a hurry and have only one item. They accept graciously saying something like, "Thanks, I've just got this one thing."

Then it turns out that one thing is some kind of special order from a company whose special order purchase order out of order come to order piece of paper doesn't work in that store so then they argue about using the tax-exempt number if they pay by credit card and then I'm left standing behind them ready to scream, "You knew this wouldn't be easy! You knew it you knew it!"

P-glo suggests breathing. Breathe deep and often. Slowly. Do your breathing from yoga. Think about that restful feeling and breathe deep.

You know, when I do it, it works really well. Other times, when I breathe, I feel like I'm breathing fire.

bowling for some wildflower other than columbine

We went bowling on Saturday night! I do a much better job when I have had less beer. But I also care a lot less when I have more. I think it's a perfect combo.

Sometimes people pretend to be just average. And then you look at their scorecards and you find, "But, no! This person is much above the average for this pair of lanes!" Who is that person? My darlings, her name is Florette.

Florette has the delicate toe-behind-the-ankle at the end of the slide action going on. She follows through. She holds her arm straight and doesn't let it twist around like Harry Potter's arm in the second book. Florette is the queen of the bowling universe.

So we'll let her pick what wildflower we're bowling for.

Then, to keep it a family affair, Tex also has it going on with the whole bowling style thing. Not one to actually put his fingers inside the holes of the bowling ball, he cradles it like a football and then hurls it down the lane. In the meantime, he's also got the follow through going on and the ankle-behind-the-calf thing. Oh yeah, and he hits the pins a lot. Those two are the ones to have on a team.

Dotty tried to copy the style that Florette had demonstrated and explained. Dotty tried. Not all tries are good tries, my dears. This try, while well meant, was poorly executed. Florette was very kind to me (after I sort of tried to slide to a stop but then jerked to a stop instead and chucked the ball, badly, and put my toe behind my ankle). I hopped on one foot, my toe behind my ankle, back to her, she said, "But you looked good."

Ain't she sweet? We all know that I looked like an epileptic amphibian who'd been out of the water just a little too long. Flap! Flop!

I love Florette. She and I are going to get together sometime and be bad. We're going to watch girl movies and laugh about boys and drink ( ! ) and generally get into trouble. Oh yes! Oh yes oh yes!

For that opportunity, I would most certainly go bowling again.

document this, jerk

I was thinking about the movies of late, the variety to make hearts swell, eyes tear up, put a fire in your belly, give you a headache, have your fingers do the walkin', inspire more elbow room, get your butt in gear, make you want to vote with your feet, cause toe-tapping, finger-snapping, and I thought, "I don't want to do any of those things. I want to relax and laugh and laugh and laugh."

But how to do that?

I think there should be a documentary of great urgency made by, well, someone like me. Although there is no one like me, there must be someone like me. At any rate, I believe a documentary on the hazard of ripe fruit in the spread of West Nile Virus would be appropriate. It doesn't matter that fruit flies aren't the insects that transmit the virus. Doesn't matter at all.

But if I didn't tell you that, if I didn't tell you that and you found out later, just as tragedy was so nearly not averted, wouldn't you feel frightened? In fear of your life? Prepared to smother yourself and your children in DDT, just to make sure you got cancer instead of West Nile Virus?

Or maybe the person like me would make a documentary about carpet fiber and the kind of lint it produces. This would not be a lesson in forensics, as that would give too much information to the terrorists, but it would be a lesson in the kind of rug to buy, the kind of restaurants you should visit. Some lint can catch on fire. Did you know that? In fact, some overripe fruit can catch on fire.

Furthermore, documentaries can catch on fire. There's a reason that Michael Moore film was called Fahrenheit 911. Ray Bradbury might know that books burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. But a documentary? Guess its burnability temperature.

oh, the divine smoky smoky. soooo bad. soooo good.

Guilty pleasure numero uno: I started smoking again when I went to see OuchyKim. Mr.Guy knows how much I enjoy the divine smoky smoky. He finds it interesting, in fact. If I only smoke one or two a day I can still hang onto that delicious and oh-so-good nicotine high. Oh my. It’s gooood. If you wonder why people smoke, it’s this feeling. And the feeling that your nerves are calm again.

When you smoke more, though, that feeling of “highness” goes away and is substituted by a hacking cough and yellow fingernails. At that point you’re hooked and, well, cough cough cough. I threw my box of divinity away. I do this two to three times a year. Smoke for two or three weeks, stop, a few months pass, then two or three weeks, then stop. So have I ever really given up smoking? Temporarily, certainly.

But it’s a wonderful secret. A bad habit that I can jettison at will. A pleasure whose guilt might also be rewarding.

I double dog dare you to find someone without some kind of bad habit. I know one person who picks his nose in public. Not so good. Another person stops paying attention to what someone (me) is saying and begins to sing along with the radio.

BrilliantEditor has a fascination with the numbers on the odometer. When they make a fancy pattern—a palindrome or being sequential or when the numbers roll over—he says them out loud. Either silence or conversation, BE’s world wraps itself around the car and you hear “91119! Point nine!” I think it makes him super happy.

Spring is very good at sitting about three inches past your most comfortable petting distance. And Sprocket licks hands and feet like crazy. It’s kind of gross. It’s slimy.

Mr.Sprinkles reads. How horrifying! And he doesn’t hide it.

SirDougg, well, I bet he has bad habits and guilty pleasures…pork rinds! Pork cracklings! Oh, and he’s British. There are two BIG ones.

AngerTrain is angry a lot. I think it does give him some measure of happiness to be such a pain in the ass. Now and then when I tell him to shut up, he gets a happy grin and he squeaks away in an instant! Like a cartoon mouse. A big cartoon mouse who’s cranky and wears a hat.

And if you didn’t guess, I like writing about people. Even when they don’t know it. Even when they do! Oh yes! Yeehaw!

brrr

It's cold, boys and girls. The days of scampering around without a jacket feeling free and dangerous are over. Now doing that would indeed be dangerous. With below zero temperatures and a windchill of -70 degrees Celsius, walking around without a coat would be foolish indeed!

But it isn't really that cold. It just feels that cold because I ate ice cream. But I didn't eat much, so I shouldn't be this cold, should I?

This weekend I was attempting to finish my extra-pokey planting of bulbs and it started to snow. Snow. And while I scurried to finish, my hands froze to the garden hoe and my shoes froze to the ground. I screamed for help, but the words solidified in the air. They dropped and shattered into a thousand tiny icy cries. Sprocket heard them. She came over and licked my feet. She has a specially treated tongue that will stick to neither frozen feet nor flagpoles.

I'm researching that technology, but it requires me to spend time outside or in the freezer. This research will take time.

evolution of the lamb chop...or "how hot is this guy???!"

****11 November 2004****
Note that I incorrectly used the term "lamb chop" rather than "mutton chop".

Thanks go to CoolCat. Without his in-depth knowledge of hair styles and cuts of meat, I would have forever remained in darkness.

I got word that BellyRub shaved off his beard. I don’t remember the reason why he did it. I don’t remember because of the very special treat that he gave me.

He left sideburns. Oh yes. Lamb chops, baby.

Today I got an email with a subject line that read, “Fun with a beard trimmer.” The text of the message was, “How hot is this guy???” And then there was a picture.

Sweet BellyRub sent me a picture of his awesome new style. I must say that I am most impressed. Particularly since it’s all one fabulous tradition.

If I look back to the Civil War era, there are most certainly men with sideburns. I collected six photos for my own amusement. So it goes without saying that there must be many men who walked around with big chops on their heads back then. Right?

Now jump to the 1960s. Elvis was the king. The king wore side burns. Need I say more?

Now, if I skip ahead to the early 1970s, Dr.Dad was in the swing of things. A young father, recently married, yet still up to impressing the ladies with that bedside manner. How did he get into their good graces? The chops.

(Incidentally, this is not to suggest that my dad was picking up patients for dates. To my knowledge, nothing like that ever happened. But look at that picture. Look how sweet and gentle. And good with kids! Oh! Heaven! And a doctor, too! Well, you see what I mean. Maybe.)

Advance to 1984 when BellyRub was about six years old. He was cute as a monkey and often tried to encourage his ears to grow into monkey shapes. He did not succeed. Note, however, that when he pulls on his ears, his tongue comes out.

And now enter year 2004. BellyRub has a jobby job and has to be “professional” and “work” and live up to “expectations”. Dork. But here you can see him with chops. He left them on. I’m delighted by his silliness and ability to live up to my expectations of nonsense. Ha ha! Look at that! My influence trickles in his ear at night and into his brain. He has a rotten side of the brain. That’s my side. The trickling rotted it. He’s being watched by the Johns Hopkins Medical College. He’s one of the few people who have successfully avoided brain rot malfunction. They think he’s amazing. He doesn’t do it often, but when he does speak to me I believe that he truly is thankful for my aid in the brain rot process. He’s had more head x-rays than E.T. And that makes him creative.

He’s a lucky boy. And he does talk to me. He does. I promise.

And so it seems that the last footprint in this path of evolution ends on BellyRub’s face. Do note that it appears when he puts a phone to his ear, his side burns come out.

[I think AngerTrain had side burns, too, for a while. I don’t know where the photo is, though. If there is one. And there might not be one since I’m not sure it happened. So there’s that.]

oh! what a busy day!

We, my family, used to read that book, or something of a similar title, when we were kids. By Richard Scarry. There was a cartoon not so long ago called, "The Busy World of Richard Scarry." As I recall, it was really boring. But it did have Lowly Worm and all manner of animals, warm and cool. The books which are super-fun because there's a character named, "Gold Bug" hidden in some of the books. And oh, wow, is that cool. Way easier than finding that idiotic Waldo. I highly recommend Things That Go and The Adventures of Lowly Worm.

I feel like my life is full of adventures. I haven't figured out what adventures those are, though. Some days I think I am adventuring into the land of plate tectonics where I am required to lasso the continental shelves and weave my lasso ropes together in the way that my favorite sewing student taught me. You can learn an awful lot about rope and knots from a seventy year old.

Other times, the adventure leads me into the unknown. Swooping purple invertebrates flying by, tall, sequined snakes with legs and cute cute shoes. Songs that shouldn't be on the radio are being played, my purse is actually a small pelican barely clinging to life. In different locations, gravity arbitrarily shifts. Sometimes my hair is sticking up in the air with no gravity but I can't pick up my feet because it's like I'm on Saturn. My feet would be nearly crushed until the gravity shifted along my whole body to that of Pluto. I'd be lighter on Pluto. I'd also be cold and dead, but I would be lighter.

Sprocket is making sounds like a steam engine starting. Puff....puff.....puff. When she does those things, and she makes so many noises, she's pretty fancy, my adventursomeness runs to the wilderness and jungle! The little snorey-puffs are jaguars waiting to pounce! They'll slide from their silent perches where they themselves are stalked by vicious snakes! The jaguars sneak next to my sleeping figure and I reach out next to me and pet the jaguar, soothing it until it groans and falls back to sleep.

Sprocket had two adventures this weekend. Spring also had adventures. They would like to be guest writers today.

Sprocket:
i saw a small thing but bigger than me and it smelled like people and sounded like people but it was like a dog on two legs and it chased me and i chased it and we walked around the sitting on it thing and the small thing laughed and i barked and then i barked again and she thought she would catch me but no one can catch me unless they have food but she didnt have food so she didnt catch me and the people who owned her had a dog that smelled like dog not people who i already met once but pretended not to and i was good and got a treat

Spring:
There were other people.
There was one small person.
The small person liked my fur.
She petted me.
I ate her.
The other people left.
There are no other people now.

You see, we had guests who possess a child. CoolCat and his wife, Acacia, and their daughter, Gwen.

The dogs thought that Gwen was an extraordinary phenomenon, one that could potentially sleep in their beds. They were on their guard.

That was adventure one.

Adventure two involved taking the dogs for a walk at Tex and Florette's house. BrilliantEditor and I took the dogs to the path behind their house. They have a compost pile near the path. Spring and Sprocket found the compost pile and today it had cookies in it. It seems that God played a mean and nasty trick on Florette so the cookies had been rendered unfit for human consumption.

The dogs, however, thought they were really good.

Sprocket:
found cookies and cookies i found and buried in dirt in the pile of pretty stinking stuff but that boy and girl who drive me places saw me and so i was very smooth and i turned my head to look away so they wouldnt think that i had put stuff in the dirt and they cant smell anything or they would know where i planted the cookies but they dont know where i planted the cookies and i had a cookie and now there will be cookies when i go back in springtime

Spring:
I found cookies, too.
I hid one in the grass.
I cannot ever find things I hide.
I went for a run.
I ran fast. You should see me run.
I ran back and forgot I had a cookie.
That girl brought it back for me and I ate it.
I don't have to hide things.
People bring me things.
I did not have to find cookies.
I rule the universe.

Tex was home and we all talked, but not the dogs, they never talk in public, for a while and then Florette came home and we told her the dogs liked her cookies. She was only mildly amused. The cookie God had cursed her cookies with no reason. None!

The cookie adventure is one to savor for years. Rarely does a dog come upon so lovely a treat lying there in the compost pile.

yakkitty yak

My darlings, I am tired. Not in a punch-drunk, ready to do anything kind of way, but in a way that feels like someone verbally abused me until I believed it was true. And then found out it was true.

I told PTAMom that I was looking at real estate in Canada. She said, "It's really cold up there."

I said, "It's colder in hell, Mom!"

She laughed a nervous laugh.

Is there consolation? No. Not really. But Fafnir and Giblets make me happy. I want to have them to dinner. I just might ask them. They're cool. Whatever they talk about becomes cool. They could talk about slime mold and make it cool.

I must go. I think my stomach is demanding attention, even if only figuratively.

Half of this country makes me want to yak. Sons of bitches.

no

But yes. There it is. The fascist gun in Texas has won again. What a bitch.

I've thought about behaving self-destructively and drinking myself into liver failure. Then I thought, "Hey, that amuses me for a couple of minutes, but then I start to miss my liver before I even start making it leave." And so that plan is largely abandoned. Until there's good wine. Then I'll reconsider.

The world hasn't ended, as I'd predicted it would. It doesn't feel good though. I may be the only one who's noticed, but the air is definitely thicker. It might be with that cloying commentary issuing forth from the Republican camp.

And why do they get to go to camp? What's that all about? I hope it's a stinking, bug filled camp. The Democrats do certainly seem to have a side, but not a camp, really. Perhaps it's one of those things that people don't really talk about. Perhaps.

Florette mentioned to me that, aside from W being an extraordinarily successful ass (my words), he waves like a nazi. And Florette, my sweetie pie, guess what I found in the Smithsonian archives!!!

check me out!

Yes, oh yes. An election inspector under age 60.

Me!

Some election inspector left. Probably died. Now they've called on me!

Check that out! Check me out! Yo! I'm a part of the process!

To see me at my first performance, I will be at the Etna Fire Department! You should see what I have cooked up for the interpretive dance part.

Yeah!

heh! hit it!

So said James Brown.

He also said

Sold me out, for chump change (yes you did!!)
Told me that they, they had it all arranged
You handed me down, and thats a fact
Now you're pumped, You gotta get ready For the big payback!! (the big
payback!!)
That's where I am, the big payback (the big payback!!)

Ha! Watch it now! Heh! George Bush! He's a bitch! Hit it, hit it!

Another quote from the godfather of soul

This is a man's world
But it would be nothing, nothing
Not one little thing
Without a woman to care

He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in the bitterness
He's lost, lost and ...

Well, my darlings, I really don't agree with Mr. Brown here. In fact, I think he can take his man's world and stuff it firmly in his ear.

Still, the whole woman thing, he might have a point. All those war veterans waiting to get home to their girl, the lonely cowboy. They're lost!

How can they return? Find a woman.

Here's one.

Vote!

Go. Out. Vote. Call your friends in swing states and tell them what to do. Tell them you won't be their friends anymore if they don't vote for you candidate!

Tell them!

I think I will die if...oh...dying...must ...vote...