Dotty Parker

grown ups. bleh.

Grown ups don't have favorite colors. I loved pink when I was a little lass. Dr.Dad called me the Pink Princess. I think he stole it from someone else, but still, that's what he called me. Now I'd have to call blue my favorite color. In clothes, anyway. But then there are other things, like lipstick colors, where blue is not my favorite color.

I was looking at my embroidery threads, trying to decide which colors to use to make a applique for the neighbor's twin boys. My sewing machine has an embroidery design of a cat in a spaceship. It's very special.

I think they're cute, but not vomit-a-licious cute. Vomit-a-licious isn't what I'm after. And neither are the neighbors.

(I should write that the design I've taken a picture of belongs to Husqvarna Viking and the grid that the design is on, it also belongs to them.) (Another reason why grown ups suck--they worry about copying other people's stuff even when they intend no harm. Bastards. Grown ups. Bleh.)

If we all had a favorite color, would the world be easier? It wouldn't be black and white (ha ha ha), but it might be distilled into clearer chunks of information. It might. Instead of deciding which grocery store to go to, as in which color blue to choose, just pick blue and get the stupid groceries.

BrilliantEditor has talked about this choice action--an illusion of choice, I think it was. I don't remember. I was too blinded by options. But the deal is that we thing we have all kinds of freedom and benefits by having bajillions of choices when, in fact, it's somewhat paralyzing and stressful.

Grown ups. Bleh.

I'll be a blue one.

head fulla...

I've always got something on my mind. I wonder what it feels like to have a mind that isn't thinking about something else. I'll have to try it.

In the meantime, I will reflect upon my greatest and most amusing attempt at keeping my mind on the one thing: yoga relaxation.

The woman on the DVD is great. She's soothing and calming and she really wants the best for me. I know that.

So I really want to do it right!

So what would happen if she were in the room? That's what I wonder. Would she try to guide me into proper relaxation technique? That would surely make me more tense and less relaxed. So maybe she wouldn't say anything. But she'd hate me because she knew that she couldn't say anything but that I was doing it wrong. Although I wouldn't do that if I were the teacher. I'd just feel kind of sorry for them...maybe she feels sorry for me! Maybe she would. And then I'd be the big yoga loser.

---

Relaxing is not good for me.

goodbye cruel world?

I found a dead bird in the back yard today. She, I think it was a she, was a warbler of the yellow variety. I think she'd hit the window and died.

I was going to bury her, but then thought it might be better to leave her in the woods with some flowers to ease her way back into the food chain.

So I used a trowel and put her in the woods. I went to get her some flowers. When I came back, though, she was gone. Or I couldn't find her. I put the flowers down anyway and hoped she was okay.

Earlier in the day, Sprocket had examined her and found that she was worthy to pass into the next world. Extending the blessing of her nose and then looking up at me with those eyes that are so full of, um, bigness, she nodded. She says that it's all going to be fine.

Last weekend, I was at my parents' house. A hummingbird had died. PTAMom had his carcass, if they're that small are they still carcasses?, sitting on a bench. He was sad. His neck feathers were still iridescent, but he, alas, was not nearly as sparkling.

Is it the season for finding birds like these? BrilliantEditor has also seen these sights. I worry that I must face the cruelties of the world. I worry about that every time I face them. And the world can sometimes be a cruel place. Still, I refuse to believe that the world is always a cruel place. Even my little bird was beautiful.

don't give me the run around

I was out today, running around, and I went past a house that's growing little trees. Little pine trees.

Very little trees often need a hand being seen so that they aren't run over by the lawn mower. Lawn mowers and saplings don't go well together.

Generally people use some kind of stake, a wooden thing from the garden store or the lumber yard. This hoiuse, however, doesn't do that. Oh no.

They use hockey sticks.

I've tried to imagine how they came into the possession of so many hockey sticks. Enough to be able to just use the stick part. They weren't training clematis or anything on the blades...I don't think...perhaps another look...

oh that charlie!

I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday for my birthday. I love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Actually, it's the Willy Wonka movie with Gene Wilder that I love. The book wasn't everything I wanted it to be. Strange, isn't it? To like the movie better? Perhaps because I saw it first...but now there's Johnny Depp. He's very funny, too. A different kind of funny. An "I'm on the edge of sanity" kind of funny. The kind of edge that makes interacting with new people a bit difficult.

Ah well. He interacted with the movies and I'm so happy about that. You should absolutely see it. Willy Wonka makes these silly "heh heh" noises that are lovely. And Charlie's adorable and so lifelike. heh heh.

Go see it! It will give "little boy" and "you're mumbling" new meaning!

sexy ear smells

I was out today looking around at the big world. It's cooler now. It's pleasant to go outside. There are fewer bugs to fly into my hair and eyes. But there still seem to be many, many ear bugs.

As I was walking along, I went into a spasm of hand flapping and mild cursing, "What the hell? Dammit! Go away!" Said softly, of course, so as to not disturb the neighbors.

It must be that my ears smell good. There must be a scent that emanates from them and draws the insects close to me. The must be buzzing a love song in my ear, caressing my ear lobe with their rapidly flickering wings. Gross! That's no love song!

I'm considering ear muffs. But they're hot. I'm tired of being hot. I think I'll stick to having bugs fly into my ears.

harry potter

So the new Harry Potter book is out. And I've read it. So I'll just tell you how it turns out. It turns out like this: I'm not really going to tell you.

I want someone else to have read it so I can say, "Did you think it was as well written? Did you find any inconsistencies in the plot? Why do you think..." And so forth.

Reading a book like this is a bit like having a secret. You want to talk about it because it's on you mind, but you aren't talking about it because it's not what you're supposed to do. So I'm all shifty and squiggly and twitchy waiting for someone to tell me what they think. I can then choose to ignore them or change my mind entirely based upon that opinion or listen to it and move on gracefully with my Harry Potter life.

I tend to read books more than once. So I should be diving in to Harry Potter again soon. I also watch movies more than once. I've been watching Monk lately. Knowing the end of those is like knowing a secret. So watching it again is like watching for the little signs that someone has a secret.

You know, the second time I read or watch a thing, it doesn't seem so mysterious. Yes, I know that's because I already know what happens, but the foreshadowing and whatnot seems so much less mysterious and so much more obvious. I'm curious to know if authors have a magical scale upon which they can measure the power of their foreshadowing.

On a scale from one to ten, ten being the most obvious:

One: Gertrude Stein
Two:
Three: James Joyce
Four:Virginia Woolf
Five: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Six: Vladimir Nabokov
Seven:
Eight: O. Henry
Nine: Charles Dickens
Ten: Beatrix Potter

I will leave you the honor of filling in the two empty spaces. And I'm not sure I'm happy with it anyway. I'm thinking that maybe J. K. Rowling is in at seven.

It's too late to think so much, I say! Off to pretend to sleep! Huzzah!

raccoon?

It's trash night tonight. But earlier this week is wasn't trash night. Funny how that works...

So I had lots of trash and I bagged a bunch of it up and put it outside to put in the can the next day. I couldn't sleep that night so I was walking around and went past the door where I'd put the trash. I heard a rustling sound. I stood there for a bit and then said, "Hello?"

No one answered and the rustling didn't stop, so I assumed it was my ears playing tricks on me. It must be just leaves or wind or something.

But no! I went out later that night thinking that it was an awfully weird thing to have happen, to have rustling leaves and things.

By the light of my trusty flashlight I saw aluminum foil removed from the bag. It had been opened and the leftover shortcake crumbs consumed.

And there was a tiny scrap of foil separated from the rest of it. It was shiny.

I have been referred to as a raccoon because I tend to look at sparkly, shiny things. I don't need to have them, that makes me different, but I do like them. I like to look at them. I like it a lot.

So there I was in the yard looking at the wreckage and thinking, "Raccoons sure don't respect each other, do they?"

wish i'd thought of that

I've been going through old journals and things. There is, of course, lots and lots of brooding and ruminating and unhappiness. That's what I tend to write in my journals, to get it out of my head.

Then there are stories of things I've done with friends and wacky phone calls and bizarre observations. This one made me laugh out loud. I wish I'd thought of it, but I think I quoted it from someone or something.

Just as bees will swarm about to protect their nest, so will I "swarm about" to protect my nest of chocolate eggs.

Nothing can make the world absurd like absurdity.

sleepy girl

Dotty's sleepy tonight. My class tonight was a strange one with two women showing up, one thirty-five minutes later than the other. The first had a sewing machine that would sew by itself. She'd be sewing sewing sewing and then it would just start going faster and sew by itself. Woo! That's a fancy machine!

The other lady came in late and wanted me to do her class with her, which was fine. But she kept interrupting to ask about other products, other machines, other classes...and so I'd tell her what she wanted to know. Then she said, "Nevermind, I'm not doing that anyway. Let's learn this machine."

So we'd start and then she'd go on with her shopping shopping action. Perhaps she was living inside the other woman's machine.

wilted

It's hot, boys and girls. And it's humid. My hair is very big. Bigger than usual. Very big, indeed. I have tried a variety of hair products (aren't I fancy?), and none of them have turned me into the Pantene princess that lives in the tv commercials.

Ah well. At least it's warm, right?

These are the days when I try to conjure up the cold cold cold weather that froze me all the way to my insides. I try to remember the bits of ice I saved up to use in these days of heat and humidity.

I seem to be finding most of them when I'm standing in front of the open refrigerator door.

rabbits are dumb

When I went out today to experience nature, heat, and humidity, I saw quite a large number of rabbits. Like ten rabbits.

That's a lot of rabbits.

And they aren't smart at all. They sit really still pretending that they're invisible. Then, just about at the point where I could reach in and grab its hair (hare, ha!), they stick out their tail and run away. If Sprocket were a little more stealthy, the might catch a few more rabbits.

Harvey, however, the rabbit who's about 6' 3.5", he's not dumb. He's a pooka. I do love that movie. Jimmy Stewart plays Elwood and Josephine Hull is his sister. Her name doesn't conjure up any images, but I know her when I see her.

Harvey, being a smart rabbit, must have sucked up other people's smartness. That's why there are quotes like these:

Elwood's sister, Veta Louise, says:
As I was going down to the taxi cab to get Elwood's things, this awful man stepped out. He was a white slaver, I know he was. He was wearing one of those white suits, that's how they advertise.

Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me.

Harvey doesn't say a word. Another indication of his cleverness.

democrats, fabulous in french

I got this message from the Dryden Democrats mailing list. It's very worthwhile. Very very very.

This label is found on backpacks and laptop cases manufactured by Tom Bihn in Port Angeles, Washington and marketed in France.