Not a pagan, but plays one on lawn

Oh no

There are too many of McDonald's (but, we recall that there are more US gun dealers/shops than Mickey D's around the world)!

Bella

Because everyone knows goats make me happy!

Thanksgiving is coming —

and it's scary!

These girls are happy, though. They live in a perpetual state of merrymaking in the re-created woods of Salem, Massachusetts, in the basementy exhibits of the Witch History Museum, one of three coordinated sites, each with its own set of moldering dummies that are accompanied by live people who narrate facts about The Land of Witches and Pirates.

Like this guy on the right; I forgot his name, but he was funny. The Birkenstock sandals are a a great anachronistic touch, don't you think? He neither took himself too seriously nor was a bored worker. I had the feeling he was probably in community theater, too. The young woman who led us through the museum on Essex Street was quite like a friend of mine who is in comm. theat. here, and the tour at the Witch Dungeon Museum opens with a staged piece about the trials and has the cast's 8"x10" head-shots posted on the wall in the foyer.

[all photos by GEAR, 9/11/2009]

Drives a hard bargain

It's going to be a while before we can do this again.

PS: isn't my floor shiny?

Natural Procrastination

I think there is a market for packets of "Cheeto Dust."

Sprinkle it on your ice cream, or just dip your finger into this adorable Chester container and enjoy!

Did you know that 1 oz. of Cheetos has fewer calories than 1.7 oz. of Larabar "Jocolat?" Only 30 fewer, however, and practically the same amount of Vitamin E — 6% dva — which is only 4% less than what Larabar proclaims itself to be a "Good Source" for.

Protein, did you say? She's got 5g, he's packing only 2g. But, he's a small snack, after all, and made up of things like hydrogenated soybean oil, disodium phosphate (I venture this is what makes the cheese powder so addictive — plus the obligatory MSG, of course), enzymes even, and several things described frankly as "artificial," while Ms. Lara has about six ingredients, all organic and with fair-trade certified chocolate.

That's Denver, Colorado, versus Plano, Texas, for you!

I don't post like that

(and immediately, all I can think of are horse-racing metaphors … post-time and all its punnical implications …)

The blogs I enjoy reading the most contain the least amount of righteousness. Sure, I log onto ______ _______ and ______________ to get a fix of predictable ranting (occasionally new information, a decent news-hub/digest) or of a simulacrum of a person I once knew whose personal damage kept repeating patterns until I, too, was "unexpectedly" caught up in the whirling ego and cast out.

But what I really enjoy reading are affirmative narratives of how life goes. Even when the writers are technically sad or down, dealing with small or traumatic stresses of life (all normal, all fair game to any of us in the roulette wheel of life), those who "have it" manage to round up to a positive subtext or conclusion; I suspect that even when they believe themselves to be maudlin or self-indulgent, they are 1,000 times removed from the actual self-indulgence of the latter category I described.

Is not the affected Britishness / 19th-century upper-class Americanness amusing?

Faugh.

Anyway, we had a lovely day today. I woke up dull and bitchy. Coffee (recycled, press-pot's Saturday offering, microwaved — yes, yes, I know) did not help. I frowned a lot, but my husband has finally come to interpret these with less personal martyrdom because it is, after all, true that 90 percent of any frown is false, and 90 percent of all frowns are false to begin with.

I know less about smiles. I lie.

Breakfast outdoors, and it was like camping, but it made (by design) the chicken pot pie cool to an edible temperature within a tolerable period. I had eaten it indoors earlier this season, and there is nothing quite like staring at one's food for minutes upon end while one's companion eats away and one is starving. Not so literally, of course, but there are rows of days when one meal is the only meal. Try that and sit in front of an oval pastry of loveliness in its white-hot white porcelain dish. It's a $10-meal at YST, so waiting and starving are o.k. "in these times."

Or, should I say, "now more than ever?" I am weary of the false classification, brandification, labeling of the contemporary moment.

Excuse me — why is is more important now to eat at home and not buy your kids "breakfast sandwiches" or "ice cream sundaes" at shops? Did not the average family always parse out such luxuries? And, if not, if we mothers (collectively and figuratively) truly have forgotten how to scramble eggs for our kids and slap them on a ready-made biscuit or stick a scoop of strawberry on a cone, then what of the counter argument: ice cream shops and McDonald's represent JOBS? "JOBS are important, and we'll even take mere 10 percent tips, because surely they are 'o.k. in these times' — not."

As someone who acknowledges the privilege of dining out (as well as the relative balance of calories-for-the-dollar for a perpetual party of two), I say the 20 percenter is most standard, and that's often what we give to crummy servers (while making complaint-points in other ways). If service is vile, then, no. You may have read of my definitions in the past.

Today's service was great as usual, and even at Home Depot, we had two whole people ask us what we were looking for. The latter is one case in customer service history where complaints seem to have made a difference.

Of course, the screws hanging on display amidst the metal joists and corner joints we were buying to fix the 100-year-old bed (which is closer to the age of the house, 89) did not fit through the pre-drilled holes; the HD will be giving me either $7.67 back or an equivalent amount of houseplantage. We spent $80 in window caulking, a few batteries and the galvanized bits, which themselves were quite cheap and probably from China.

And we already had drilled in extra holes. Factory holes vary from part to part …

Domicilelife is tedious and time-consuming, but no more so than in log-cabin days, I pretend.

It took a while to engineer bed repairs … what we really needed was a custom-made metal brace or at least one with three sides. We had adequate screws at the house, and later found many other "unexpected" hardware items … when I recommended a bit of reorganization. I do not have Hank Hill here, after all.

But it's back in the high-life again, and the cat is perplexed and upset about the high-jump. Beds from back then are as tall as a medium-sized dog, and Milo is merely a fat feline.

More laundry has been done here in the past three days than in as many months (no verification on the degree of exaggeration will be given — if pilots can't admit they were just having sex or playing poker in the cockpit, where their advocacy groups protest the presence of cameras …), and later, we both went to buy $100 of food products.

Then I made tacos and dealt with some more laundry things. And he did other laundry things.

All the while, it has been raining.

I'm also getting three paychecks in one week (and there shall be no jokes made here nor facts about how funny this really is).

It wasn't the end of Daylight Savings Time last night, was it?

Jumping centuries

A few weeks ago, gave up the opportunity to view full moon, Jupiter and its (her?) moons out by a lake.

Has been watching the same movie at post-midnight hours for 20 years (*almost).

It was on VHS and is now a $10 Amazon Video-on-demand for all time (*or at least until the company ceases to exist; we do believe so in capitalism, yet there is always the caveat — which is perhaps most manifest in non-profit 'businesses' — that someday the entity might cease to be, and you will be without any guarantee on your investments).

"In 100 years, this won't matter" might be a calming opiate ´a la Marx; however, I find it a rather sad resignation to insignificance. Some of our most well-known and famously celebrated and talented or groundbreaking^ artists were either not what we call recognized (*in other words, able to live without freaking out about money all the time) or knew inherently that what they were up to was important or would last, only that they felt it to be important and worthy of a lifetime.

We are lead to believe that they did work hard and worked every day, despite their debauchery (*so synonymous with the Modern Era Artist and even the post-modern one, though we're still in such a muddle as not to be able to tell exactly where any are located in the mix); and now, as a result of their work plus little else usually but professional association, we admire or at least study them.^^

In other less tedious words, tend to your garden. Voltaire cast Candide, Pangloss and Cunegonde well at the 'end' of it all. Gardens take all day, after all.

And everything does, in fact, matter. Even to diests or atheists …

Don Quixote, Candide … even James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, but to a lesser and now antiquated and quaint extent in their understanding of consequence, advised getting down to brass tacks, as it were.^^^

Yes, she likes to quote a quaint (not dead) man who was her teacher who used that phrase frequently.

She wants to express thwarted theatrical tendencies.

A thought occurred a few hours ago, though: if women are obliged in this culture to pretend they have no facial hairs whatsoever save the thin-groomed brow and the oxmoronic thick lash, then why do men not sever off their own defunct nipples?^^^^

Anyway, I still enjoy the layers of this film. They not only reveal their own layers, through a 1972 rendition of a 1966 stage-version of a story set in 1931 Berlin, but the personal ones spanning 1990 or so to now or so.

High school was quite difficult.

And, if anyone can reproduce a good number of those outfits in my size, I would be quite grateful.^^^^^

Also, I recall trying to induce my more-mature friends (I had no idea; I was 8 perhaps?) into playing the rôles of a group of country girls, sweet and innocent and dressed in pale blue, pink, green and yellow checked gingham dresses, to re-enact personaes from a coloring book; and at this time, I had been wondering if it would be easier now to get a few dancers from the area to pose in a tableau vivant of a certain closing scene of the movie's opening act than it was (influence fail) to have my 'friends' be theatrical back then. Has my influence changed?

But, we shall need the costumes!

Because doing is all that matters.

[^was going to write 'seminal;' how is chosen adj. less sexual/violent; ie, negatively masculine?]

[^^would like anyone to diagram and mail me that sentence.]

[^^^asks that you please note the incongruous comparison, characters to authors — or was it intentional, meant to underline the increasing encroachment of the author's personality into his or her work? His or her. Hee. Sorry; read on?]

[^^^^wants you to be assured this is not a specifically directed sentiment, merely an expression of logical frustration based on time and space constraints]

[^^^^^measurements upon request, resume and payment]

Hates it when natural tendency to speak in 3rd person is absconded and standardized by new technology such as Facebook.

Don't you just hate it when you find yourself in the middle of a desert of the mind? Not a nice chocolate sunday/sundae, mind all, but a dry, sand-blown area of heat and absence of thought that scorching and/or blinding causes pain.

Hateful. Second person. Interrogative case.

First person emerging: I, Claudius, do take this opportunity to go forth and forge an empire.

Never mind that the sewers stink. Never mind that the weather or natural crime waves have caused this night to be silent of police sirens, saving up malfeasance and retribution for later. Never mind that half the friends I've have had have moved on to become themselves outside of my first, second, 20th impressions.

It's all quite made-up anyway. This incongruous over-coupling. Trying. To. Understand.

Succumb

~take out dead and painful scratchy contact lenses and use new ones after 2 months

Action infinitive

~get advising appointment;

~process paperwork related to d's end of life … photocopying, mailing at post office, registering debit card …

~validate other credit card … transfer 1% university debt to 12% credit card at latest possible moment in order to receive grades and registration status;

~start research on research paper for un-paid-for class;

~update all 120 former posts on other online publication for site transfer;

~rake leaves;

~laundry monster

MEANWHILE, stay "motivated" to go out of house and see humans and art.

"Gateman Sees Name Garageman Sees Nametag"

Respite, under "Coming Soon: Failure"

detail from "Yeah Right"

Disguise the Limit

Beniah Leuschke, Coming Soon: Failure. Ah, palindromic humor.

Lived on porch for 3 days and then died

Didn't mention

I walked to one of my jobs on Wednesday and fell on my knees (and one hand and part of the cellphone that dangles from my wrist for "emergencies") a few houses away from mine … because I always trip on my own learning curve that comes each time I put on shoes.

The momentum I had was remarkable to unravel as I sat normally (except for being on a sidewalk) holding my knees that were burning in an odd kind of impact-created pain and were not able to be moved by me (unless, I guess, I were in danger or something), waiting for the pain to subside, assessing the damage. You can never tell.

Later, after I called back the person whom my phone had sort-of spontaneously called, when I could actually think about talking and walking again, I realized that the shredded phone saved part of my hand and that people break falls in a state of balance (based on gravity and what part of you hits the ground first). I am not sure how my knees got involved at all. I guess I actually am out of practice with walking to work. It has been a while for this hermetic agoraphobic, though I have driven minimally.

The curb I had an issue with was actually a ramp-shaped affair, though (probably) with that grid of raised, red-colored (for the sighted) bumps (for the sight-challenged). Sigh.

There is a diagonal cut on my left knee, bruised all over the top of the patella … a scrape on my left hand palm bone … and my right knee looks like I fell 12 or more times. The bruises, which are purple here and are flanked by a wide scrape and another slash (all of these still rosy), are multiple and everywhere, so I guess I hit the ground technically multiple times — whole knee!

Gravity is amazing, as is momentum. And practice.

I walked Thursday, twice, without incident. Different shoes. What is interesting, too, is that I got so cut up but my pants were virtually unscathed. Some pilling happened on the inside, which was a bit rosy, too, after I walked the rest of the 10 blocks to an office. Athleta (pre-Gap ownership) makes a mighty fine semi-synthetic product.

Curb Curl, eater of sidewalks, reaffirms her street credibility.

Have called Thomas the Tank Engine to sort it all out as recommended

A one-ton one-track mind that skips over places in the spiral;
Labyrinths are too familiar to those who have run from bull~
T's transcontinental connectors to all points in the grey glob
Evade completion, like so many projects written up in the
Railway brochure*:
Natural happiness!
Academic advancement!
Tide-overs that harken back to the days of 1991!
Intriguing vocational mountains, scenic views, wildlife~
Very often she stares at all the tracks that run their regular limiteds and dailies,
Each usually on time, but none ever getting very far at a time,

Listening for some kind of clue in the song of the engines —

You would think in this case, capitalism would work.

(*Perhaps promoting parks that are not well-maintained or regulated at all. Traveler, beware; always get references.)

Pounds

1 buffalo, ground and mostly browned — no hormones/antibiotics, yay, buffalo and parks/usda laws! and drained and drained and drained but not rinsed; you can avoid the fatty orange chunks on top after refrigeration / they are few

> 2 tomatoes, diced and canned

>2 beans, kidney, canned and rinsed

1/4 pepper, fresh diced, yellow and red

1/8 pepper, fresh, diced, some seeds, jalapeño

1/6 onion, white, diced

(unknown; you do the math)=x

x chili powder (2.5 Tbs, better the better)

x (2 fat) garlic cloves, minced

x cumin (1 or so tsps)

x ground black pepper (about 45 grinds on the grinding thing)

x salt (recommend x3, depending on who you are and what the/your moon is doing — variable)

some water a few hours into the experience of the crock pot (the small one that is so old it doesn't come apart and is a huge pain to wash; the large one's having been cracked by a recent "in the dark" dial turning — warm does not equal high — on some split pea remnants … followed by a "let's see if it can make one more batch of chili* over the weekend" that ended up with grease-leakage / burning into something that is NOT going to come out of that electric unit, and even if it did, it's up to Craig's List to find a crockery to replace the cracked one. Perhaps aluminum foil barrier would suffice. But purge-now! me has already sent it away with the two-bag limit).

*(cow; mainly and manly; not in charge I, though it was good, but not as "healthy" as this one, of which, my point in starting this post, is: going to be completely consumed sans a bowl or so, by me, in within 4 days, tops — watch me, and watch my "I am a Sandro B." 30-something self evolve; later, a reversion to the athletic lady, which, I think, is 12 years away).

anyway, i'm in love with eating this mostly watery and crunchy thing. we didn't cook it very long and so the chili specks and "juice" are separate, but I like it very (too?) much.

buffalo taste(s) great.

photo forthcoming? (of the food, not me)

yes.

Throat still on verge of illness

… all it takes is staying up too late on a school night …

why do i keep doing that?
insanity's definition, blah blah blah.

full moon, tra la la.

the same game, players bored.