Tomatoes

We have ripe strawberries in the garden.
The tomatoes are starting to turn red.
The cat has shed 438 lbs of fur.
My apples are covered in plastic bags (to thwart apple maggots).
Summer is definitely here.

We're living on fruit and the occasional vegetable
in an effort to reduce fatness.

But summer requires ice cream.

The battle begins.

All the news that's print to be fit

something's going on on the older sister side, but nobody's told us!
Houston is underwater but nobody's told us!
The last uncle, Uncle Pee Wee died, and the priest was really old and
funny accidentally, and we got weirded out by the vets bar at the reception afterwards, so we took the starving kids and nieces out too lunch at a normal restaurant,
and ogled each other and ate too much.

the boy and his wife are moving to Seattle. Pray for us, Argentina!!!!

NOthing

the msdwelf is recovering nicely.
the peas are peeing.
the tomatoes are peeing.
the exotic lettuces are peeing.
I have enclosed most of the apples in
newspaper plastic bags in an effort to
reduce apple maggot maggotism.

We shall see.
The black vampire tomatoes are blooming.
This is very exciting.
I'm not growing garlic, will chives be effective?

Potato experiment

The peach tree is very sad this year. It has a disease.
So I put some antiweed cloth down underneath it,
and heaved a bunch of dirt and peat moss on it,
and threw in some potatoes.
Tomorrow for the third time, I shall heap
more earthiness upon them.

Will they really grow potatoes this year?
Out there unrestrained by rows.
What is truly amazing is that the cat or
the racoons haven't dug into them.

But what happens if I end up with peachatoes?

Potatoes with a pit.

Burundi Quilting Project

David Niyonzima arrived from Burundi. Since Ms. Dwelf was splotchily in capacitated, I picked him up at the airport and drove his very tired person to his crash place at the Haydens.

Sunday night we had a fund raising dessert buffet to raise money so
Ms. Dwelf can return to Burundi and continue teaching abused women
a trade, quilting. $3000! raised.

Totally awesome. Now she needs to get some grants!

Everyone is very very very excited. It's stuff like this
that helps stabilize Africa.

She, Ms. Dwelf, has also raized $2000 to help build an
entire building and supplies for a community in
east Congo (still a dangerous place).


When she was there she asked how much. They said $2000
for an entire structure, school and extra rooms. plus
all the accoutrments.

I get all teary eyed thinking about it. $2000 is nothing to Americans.
It's easy to help the world, even if it's just money.
But someone has to organize it.

Saint Ms. Dwelf. hmmm, may have to work on that.

Fun with itches

Mrs. Dwelf started getting itchy spots and puffinesses.
"Aronia berries in the juice!" she cried.
But a google of aronia and allergies produced nothing,
in fact aronia is highly recommended for allergic reactive people.

So I google mangoes. Mangoes, many people are allergic.
Went to the doctor, got Benadryl and drink lots of fluids.
We removed the mangoes but
days passed. But not too many.


Itchy itchy and puffy eyes and lips (free collagen injections!).
Splotches.

Monday morning, she calls the consulting nurse who says,
"Get your splotchy ass in here."


She goes to see Dr. KATO! Now we're talking! KATO!

Patricia Kato. Ah, Ms. Dwelf is Patricia. Now we're really talking.

Time passes. I read my book. Finally I'm called in.

Dr. Kato is 1) a babe, 2) really good.
What's the cause? Don't know but could be the blood pressure med, so stop that immediately and check your pressure frequently. Come in if it goes over 150/90.


Prednisone, steroid, should see results in 5 hours.
Ratgutsadine, does something with histamines and acid reflux.
Pifflegooberosine, antihistamine.
AND an EpiPen, just in case.
The doc says, if the throat swelling was new in the last 24 hours, I'd be very concerned, but since it's been around for a few days, eh, not to worry.

But we'll send you home with the epipen just in case.


So at least I ran through the test procedure for using this!
Someone else did not!


Six hours later, her face is almost normal.
She's complaining about new splotches, obviously a newbie to allergies. Sweety, it takes a couple days to flush your system and let the new drugs acclimate.


Meanwhile the last of her uncles is on his death bed, all the sons have come to Tacoma. Uncle Peewee from Alabama is quite a character. He should have smoked less, but still he made it to a pretty good old age.

All the aunties are still alive.

Life goes on.

Waiting for the Bogeyman

In my yout' I was ascared of the dark.
All the cliche, closets (although I sometimes
sat in them for hours) were creepy at night.
Mirrors were very scary, especially at night.
Well, I grew out of most of that.

I thought I now knew what was real,
and what wasn't ephemeral ectoplasms sneaking
into to my shorts, crawling in my bed,
waiting round the corner.

Then I read the latest Frothing at the Mouse.

Brrrrrrrrrr, where's my night light???????

Today I am a prime number

That is all.

Ponzi

My wife's Italian and Denmarkist, Denmarkian, Denmarkite?
Turns out this Italian Ponzi dude back in the 1910s came up with
this scheme to use the uneven exchange rates with foreign
countries to make money. Sounds good on paper, but like
pyramid schemes, it eventually has to collapse.


A woman in our church was touting her enormous 38%
secure return on her house equity investment, but was coy
about telling us who she was dealing with.


Usually some in her position should be trying to get other
people to buy in, but maybe she's new to this and thinks
she's got a deal nobody else knows about.


Sunday she happened to mention the 'company.'

Oops, a quick internet check and scam bam thank you ma'am.

She's not the type you can talk out of something. She's always
finding new things, new products, hasn't really pressed selling
them to people, but when her house gets absorbed by the beast,
what choice will she have?


Meanwhile some of us have enough sense to realize we
can make a killing on the online poker venue.

All those naive people playing against sneaky devils like me.
Already I've sucked them in, -138% on my 'investment', so now
they think I'm weak and desperate!

Muhahahahahaha, fullhouse! Dorks over Dumbsh*ts.

Please feed my cat until I can make bail. Thanks.

If you have children, don't

So the boy, son number 1, who smashed his finger experimenting
at work which caused him to get fired and almost lost
the end of his finger because it was so squashed and who's
wife also seems to break body parts occasionally, called up
to find out what was going on this weekend, and that
they might come down if they could steal enough gas, and
oh by the way the same hand just got tore open again.


Trying to start a lawnmower and the cord snapped and came
back and whacked his hand. Big slash.


These kids are either accident prone or prone to accidents.
You will not find me being a passenger in their car.

All about bird bath soup

The dainties should not read this.

Yesterday the birdbath was clean. The weather was 69 and lovely.
This morning, light rain, then the sun came out.
I tipped the cat over and proceeded to drag
the weedeater, kicking and screaming to the back 40.
Time hack some blackberries.

Hack we did.

Then I said, I should hack around the birdbath
so's that the grass isn't too high and the little
birdies can see the cat coming.

Whack whack whack, EWWWWW!

The birdbath contained:

partial bird, probably baby robin
another larger bone, probably not bird
(I haven't removed them yet, I'm getting up
the stomach for it).
The temperature is not Houston, but still
68 and enough to make soup out of it after
a long afternoon.

I can't just toss it into the bushes,
the cat might try and eat it.

Culprits:

not the cat
not the possums
not the raccoons, they would have tipped the
bird bath over

This leaves the crows.
They have already destroyed the bushtit nest,
and are very aggressive in the yard,
definitely have a nest in the area.

Even the most ferocious beast in North America,
BARGELLO, descended from Asiatic Lions,
killer of all, is challenged by an adult crow.

I just hope my tombstone doesn't read:

He never sent cards on anybody's birthday
Is it any wonder the crows drowned him in the bird bath?

Of mouses and moles

Planted my dahlias in a raised bed. I watered them.
The water went down this hole. Lots of water went down the hole.

Half a lake went down the hole. Take that mole from hell.

The cat's not doing his job.

So I dumped a bunch of cayenne pepper down the hole! Watered some more to get it down in there, then dumped some more at the top.


Then the cat, Gello, brought us a live little mouse to play with on the back deck on Sunday. What a sweet guy.

We close all doors, keep your toy outside please!

Ten minutes later the fatal, "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!"

Mouse poppers. Gello gets really weird after a kill, like he's totally spaced on caffeine or something. It must be a real rush.

Today it will be 85 degrees in Seattle. That's ridiculous.
The cat will not be hunting, when it gets this hot, he collapses, as do we.

Battery Man

So I took my beater car into the Volvo place for some surgery and to have three very hard to open doors fixed.

Since I never have riders except on the rare occasion I took the Dwelfess to work,
it wasn't until that time that I noticed I now have only two functioning doors.
Driver's side front works, that I would have noticed right away, but the passenger side front is totally dead, won't open from the inside or outside. Driver's side rear only opens from the outside (so I can abduct people now).

Old car needs lots of work which I need to parse out over many many months because I'm not that rich, so I've been waiting for the opportunity to take it back in and bitch mightly about the doors (for which I supplied the parts! you can get all kinds of car parts on the internet).

But one day my car battery died. It's Sunday. Les Schwab isn't open. Nobody's open. I must have my car. Went to AwSchucks and bought a lovely battery from a dyslexic cashier. Spent 1.5 hours trying to get the old one out. Corrosion and an impossible angle to try and remove screw holding it in. Could not find my special tools. No time to go to the hardware store. So OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW,
and lots of WD-40, and very very slowly it started to turn.

Stick new battery in, zoom!
My right hand was unusable, howsomever, for two days. Cramped.

Two days later, radio, lights, fan, but no turnover. Took the bus to work. Nobody threw up on me. Took the bus home, I'm sure those teenagers were looking to rough me up if I got off at the wrong stop (little do they know I am Tai Won On master).

Cleaned the terminals, put them back on really tight, and voila!

So what's the big deal? Anybody could do that?
Well, I'm not very tool oriented.
My dear dwelfess has said, "If you come anywhere near our house with a hammer or saw in your hand, I'll kill you."
I can use them. I just can't use them as intended.

My greenhouse stands, for example, stuck together by duct tape, much like this sentence, and now also by screws, which after 50 years I discovered you can use an electric drill to screw screws in, AND OUT!!!!!! WOO!!!!, about 4,000 times faster than by hand.

It's amazing.

Honey is so much more pleasant than bee poo

I haven't eaten honey in a long time.

Garden vs. the cat

Way behind this year, but slowly getting seedlings and seeds into the ground.
The cat, like all cats, would like to lay on top of them.
I think seeds and seedlings produce heat which attracts the cat.

Also, globally cooling can be affected anytime I even think
about planting my tomatoes.
Cold air is attracted by tomato repots.

Our cat does not dig a lot in the garden.
I think he's pooping in the business building garage next door.
You go, cat!

If the cat lays on the garden, he also provides heat
which helps the seedlings sprout.

It's a fine line between cat and cat nip.

Garden goo

I am waaaaay behind in the garden.
The tomato seedlings in the greenhouse
snap at me to put them outside. No chance until next weekend.
They hate me.
The potatoes should be in the ground.
They live in some peat moss, cringing,
knowing the cat will eventually come and dig them up.

Meanwhile, I can not believe my little baby sister and
her frothmister, were not arrested in any of those
countries they visited.

Payola, I guess.

$50 bets

We had a great time at the ocean. Warm, sunny, gale force winds.

Our room looked directly out onto the bay where there were lots
of birds for us birdwatchers.
We had dinner at the historic Tokeland Hotel. Tokeland is at
the end of nowhere. It was a fine meal indeed. The wine was a little pricey.

We went to Bottle Bay, a superb birding site and got insulted by a
German accented wrinkled woman who's spent too much time in the sun.
"You saw the Red Knots, didn't you? There are 4 or 5 of them. You've
got to be keen to see them. Did you see them? You really do need to be keen."
in this snotty voice. We hate birders.
Mrs Dwelf knows a Red Knot when she sees one. We watched the several hundred
bird peep-a-thon for 30 minutes, there were no Red Knots there.


We had pizza at Dugan's in Ocean Shores which is sort of a high priced
white trash town living on tourist bucks during the summer. We haven't
had a purchased pizza in a loooooong time. It was tolerable but just
too much of everything. We like the simple life.

We stopped at Bay City Sausage at the edge of Grayland and bought
as much variable sausage as we could fit in our cooler: andouille,
swedish potato, turkey cranberry, and much more.


So after all is said and done, the froth and her frothman, and
the dwelf and his dwelfess spent time at or on the ocean
and all is well.

No major laws were broken. It was a good week.


Oh, the $50 bets! That'll have to wait for another time.

Taxes win

Death put up a good fight, but taxes won again.
I thought we would owe money, but after I read
instructions for paying the IRS money --
put your home phone and SS number on your check --
I thought, "Over my dead body! Can you say
identity theft?"

Death perked right up for a second there.
But the internet beckoned and I found a tax
prep package that seemed cheap and adequate.

After a couple time through it to get rid
of my double entries, it kept telling me
we would get money back. And it was right!
I made a booboo and it caught it.

So I hit the SUBMIT button and it looks
like we'll get enough back that we can
buy food on this weekend's trip to the ocean.
I hate long weekends at the beach where
we have to live off slugs, snails,
mussels and seaweed.

Since the baby sis is sailing around on the water,
and we'll be at the ocean, I should be able
to channel her vibes easily just by sticking my toe
in the so-cold-even-witches-don't-stick-their-
tits-in-it water. The oceanic mindmeld, or toemeld.

Well, excuse me now, I have to post obscenities
on the Frothing Mistress's's site. I know, I know,
I'm not really good at the summabitchin stuff,
but then I don't live in Hellwater, Texas either.

Cruising

Since the baby sis is out cruising,
I'll be spending all my energy
keeping her blog disgusting.

Nobody reads this but her anyway.

You all suck.

What's so Good about Good Friday?

Well?


I'm waiting.




Still waiting.




It's blustery and cold today.




hmmmmmmm, hummy hummy hummy.

Making a Fortune with Surveys

So I signed up with many many many sites that pay in one way or another for you to take surveys.
Some pay $, some pay with points redeemable, some put you into a $ drawing.

Some of the surveys are interesting, some poorly done, lots of redundancy.
Most of them never send me any surveys but a few do.

At my present rate of surveyness, I am not making $500/month. I estimate I am making close to $15/month, or $.89/hour.

Of course any day now I will get an email telling me I won $1000 or $10,000 in a drawing. Does the IRS read blogs?

88 Keys

So I blasted away at the piano on Sunday in church.
I figure I hit about 92% accuracy. Fortunately
with everybody singing, that 8% variation isn't
too bad.
The offertory was a little random, but it was rousing,
so unless you've heard it played correctly you might
not notice the unrehearsed accidental jazz notes
or deredundant improvisation.
I could feel Mark Hayes cringing, wherever he is.

A friendly family 'donated' a very old 3/4 grand piano
to the church and now they have their living room back.
Much money has been spent to attempt to get it into
tune. It's not holding tuning very well, it might
settle down. But after at least 100 years, the
action, especially in the lower registers sucks.

It is not fun to play. I doubt that it can be
made playable without some extreme costly repairs.

Since I'm the main (read - only) player at the moment,
the pressure is on.
"Oh, a grand piano. Wouldn't it be wonderful?"

No, it wouldn't. I'm trying to dampen any attempts
at partial work hoping that might make it playable.
They gotta realize it's macho mucho bucks with some
chance it still won't be ok, and that it's
not worth it.
It's a very old piano (handed down in the family) that
isn't ever going to be concert playable again.

Then we'll have to figure out what to do with it,
because it's sitting there in the sanctuary looking weird.

So I've gotta be the bad guy.

Meanwhile, our little piano is suffering, so it
needs work or replacement. It would be the
better investment.

But regardless, nobody has any money anyway!
The church has had some sudden unexpected expenses,
and all us peoples have been forced to go on
trips to New Zealand, Guatemala, Arizona,
oh the pain, the pain.
And of course cars break down, and I had to get
a bionic tooth, and now Miss Patty needs a
bionic tooth. Sigh.

And we need big bucks to go to Ireland next year.
Don't think we'll make it.

H. Squash Perot might make a contribution if his
idiot campaign manager would have one of those
$1000/plate dinners, but no! He has him out
stumping in Wamsutter, Wyoming and
Bitter Water, North Dakota. No big
contributors there.

I wonder if I can make some extra bucks
working as an illegal alien.

Fungus amongus

Well, I can't compete with the truly ill, but
I can compete with the weird and scary.
I'm turning into a fungus.

Dry skin during the winter, that I'm used to,
and sometimes some naughty little fungus will
decide to take up residence also.

Not toejam athlete's foot or crotch rot, this
is right out there on the old body skin.

An assortment of lotions, potions, and motions
eventually work over quite a bit of time, but this
winter, time passes, and I expect I'll be popping
mushrooms pretty soon.


I'm working on the theory of skin chemistry isn't quite
right and is providing too happy a place for them, so
I'm gonna try a diet adjustment and herbal attack.


Don't discount the power of OIBS!

I've got four in the cabinet that are guaranteed to--

1) reduce blood pressure and keep your blood thin
2) greatly improve your liver function
3) improve your arthritis and skin care
4) kill fungi and evildoers.


Do they actually work?

1) still borderline blood pressure, so it does seem to work
2) this one actually has very good scientifical tests, and yes it does work
of course it helps if you don't drink beer and bourbon
3) also has some good tests, we'll see
4) no known side effects but caution for internal use.
Well, I'm blasting them from the inside out.


What are these wonder herbs?

Watch my infomercial, coming to a channel near you soon!

Tomatoes

The tomato seedlings are up, and with attitude.
These are the strongest seedlings I've ever seen.
But the absolute earliest I can put them out is May 1,
preferably May 15. That's a long time to keep them in pots.

They will get big. They will hate me for transplanting them.

I will plant them in a new raised bed where everything I have
ever planted there did horribly. But no tomatoes or potatoes
have every been grown there, so hopefully they will be
disease free and healthy unless the cat lays upon them.

June 3 is apple bagging day. YOU ARE ALL INVITED!
Come on up and bag the baby apples on the tree so
that they are safe from
MAGGOTS (pretend this is a superscript 1 for footnote) and moths and
grow up to be super apples.

I guess the bad news is, is the maggots get frustrated
and will in desperation attack the pears.

Howsomever, it's only a day's work, and perfect
pears are worth it if I must bag them. Might
keep the birds and squirrels off them too.

Might try it on some of the peaches too.

It's gonna be a strange looking yard this year.


1. Maggots are gregarious animals and travel around in 'maggot masses'. Their digestive activities are so intense that the corpse heats up in the vicinity of a maggot mass, sometimes reaching 53 celsius. It can get so hot inside a maggot mass, that centrally located maggots have to migrate to the edge to cool down. However, the heat is a bonus, because it increases the rate of putrefaction, and the rate of digestion.

I'm confoosed

President Bush says the Iraq situation will have to be taken
care of by future presidents and Iraqi administrations.
Now that's lameduckedness at it's finest.

The President is paying for the Iraq war by
borrowing money, so we as taxpayers don't pay now.
It comes due on our childrens' and grandchildrens' dime.

Oh dear, it's going to be pretty funny when his daughters
throw him and Laura out of their house because they are
buried in debt to the rest of the world.

Hopefully all our illegal immigrants will be producing enough
extra cash to solve the problem.

If not, well, maybe India will outsource some of their
online support jobs to us. Boy, would that be funny!

Indians calling us for online support! But those crazy Americans,
I can not be understanding their accentables! How can they
be helping me to be fixing my hard drives?

No offense to any India people out there. We all gotta make a living.

Another day in oblivion

Although a small amount of work was accomplished
in the garden, I am no Chauncey ( 2pts if you know the reference).

I was hoping to get a bit of sun, vitamin D from sunshine is good for us.
Fifteen minutes per day. But it's a working Monday and windy so a little too cold to expose my flatulent body to the pod people in the business building next door.

Lost several cacti this winter, important ones. Sad. Had one day
of very cold temps in the greenhouse, that probably did it. Must rebuild supposed greenhouse because it's godawful ugly and finally falling apart enough that it isn't holding heat well.

Hopefully the wife's grant applications will bring in millions!

She returns Thursday unless she's been kidnapped by Honduran rebels.

Which reminds me, Gruff Ducks website is slowly being updated AND
THE EDITORS OF THE NOOSEPAPER HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED!

www.gruffducks.com

It's never very up-to-date but do you know how hard it is for ducks to type?

JAMES BOND

The new James Bond guy not only had an accident, and
knocked out some teeth but
but
but
but
but
but
this dude can't drive a stick shift!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello! Hello?




speechless

Juggling cats

Ok, nobody's juggling cats.
Check this out, see his Finale, Chris Bliss.
Juggling to a Beattle's song, absolutely marvelous.
http://www.chrisbliss.com/videopresskit.html

Y'all are probably late nighters and already know this guy,
but I'm just a simple websurfer, happening
upon the flotsam and jetsam of life.

Actually, removing the cat from the house in the morning
when it's time to go to work
is very much like juggling.
He weighs 15+ pounds, and he's not fat!
But he can become extremely limp.
Making moving him, holding him, much like
holding melting jello.

I think a juggler who had a jello juggling
routine would be quite the attraction.
Alas, it's not me. I have
trouble not falling off the piano bench these days.

My Skin doesn't Love mE

I hate youNg PunKs who put raNDOm cAPs in their POSts.

I bought a mango. I think it's a mango. I think they are good for us.
Unless it's a papaya, which I think is also good for us.

My car has only one fully functional door. Hello. I paid money to
have them fixed. We'll see.

On top of all that, I'm turning into a fungus!
Some itchy skin, sure, I'm old, but mushrooms!
Give me a break.

I shall try the non-ingestible methods.
If those fail, I will do battle with my doctor,
as to what internal ingestibles I would be willing to take.

Good news: mushrooms go away, I lose 40 pounds
Bad news: Ack BEER! sob

Good news: non-ingestible methods, cheap, known to work usually
Bad news: I'll smell foofy for a bit, and I don't like it

OR and i say OR usInG RaNDOM caps,
I can just be ME!!! muhahahahahahaha
FUNGUS MAN!

Aren't you glad you ARE or ARE NOT related to me?

It's a sign, but what?

Here I am, converting WAV files to MP3 and back because I taped a lecture series at our church given by Tom Ham from Earlham College about the history of Quakers.
Absolutely fascinating. You'd think this would be dry stuff, but
he is a very interesting speaker.

So I normally use my 10 key pad for number entry, which is a good thing,
because I looked at my keyboard and my number seven above the qwerty was
sideways.

I think it's broken.
It must be a broken heart from lack of use, because
I surely have not worn it out.

I found out two months ago that the computer mouse does not
like beer. Had to buy a new mouse.
The computer had a veritable snit, but has finally
come to accept the new critter.

If I have to get a new keyboard, oh woe, oh woe.
See what a horrific and sad life I lead.

Oh, 13 tomato seedlings have sprung up.
If you need some, put in your order now.
I'll be starting more in April.

I think the varieties this year are:

Stupice, nobody knows how to pronounce it, very early and sturdy producer

Big Hunk-a-Beef I'll Whoop Yer Ass, a tomato with attitude, hope it keeps the
diseases away

Sweet Phoophie Baby Tomatoes, did these last year, good cherry tomato that
resists splitting when it rains

I here thumps upstairs. The cat may have brought in a critter.
Must leave now and hope there's no bloody remains in the futon.

Time to get creepy

I do not think the few fickly people who might in passing read this blog
are taking it seriously enough.

texas triplets

If you are a true Texan, you will check this out.
If you live somewhere else, well,

THANK GOD ALMIGHTY!

Bloggers or boogers

I am a good typist. I learned it from my high school Latin teacher, who's wife was the town's mayor at one point.

Nonetheless, Google or is it Goggle, keeps asking me if I meant boogers when I type blogger.

I have a vast experience with boogers, as most of you have also, no doubt.
They are more versatile than some people think.
They can be used as emergency glue.
They can be a source of entertainment or at least ennui lessening.

One mistake some of us superbooger users make is mining a
nice juicy thick mucousy sticky booger and getting and inner ear
itch and quickly attacking, oops, with the booger laden finger.

I have searched the internet and have not found one medical instance
of a doctor or nurse having to extract a booger from someone's ear.
Docs and nurses have had to extract some pretty strange objects
from various parts of peoples' bodies.

But I'm thinking that extracting a superbooger from any body orifice
is a supersecret no no. So I want you all to confess!

Because I know you've put boogers places they shouldn't go!

Home Alone 3

Miss Patty leaves tonight for Guatemala.
She's barely back from Burundi, good grief.
She needs a manager. Once she gets lots of grant money,
maybe she can hire me.

Meanwhile, it's me and the cat. The big cat.
The whiney cat. The cat who shreds paper.

Last summer he killed the squirrel that was
sneaking into the house and eating my peanuts.

A new squirrel is in the neighborhood and
sits on the wooden railing at the top of the steps
and leaves mass quantities of nut shells and
pieces which get disgusting quickly in all this rain.

Finding the bottom half of a squirrel
at 6AM is off putting from a breakfast standpoint
for humans. But we have to pretend we love
it, that he brought us a present.
What a good boy.
But next time don't leave it on the clean clothes!

Garden and depressing art

I've turning over my raised beds,
getting ready for spring. It's a lovely day.

I came inside to order the mrs an ironing
board cover using my Amazon dollars which
I get free from Earthlink because I'm on
their advisory board. I'm not sure if I
should put that on my resume.

I googled floating boobs, yes, there was
a nonperverse reason for that. What I got
was:

THE MUSEUM OF DEPRESSIONIST ART
http://www.dearauntnettie.com/museum/

Wander around Aunt Nettie's site:
http://www.dearauntnettie.com/



I think I'm in love.

Who really invented 'The Twist"

"Come on, baby, let's do the twist."
Chubby Checkers may have made it famous but the moves of the dance came before that.

We grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. Our father worked in a canning factory just two blocks down the street and across the railroad tracks.
Hiding in the bushes and running out with rakes in our hands to pull fresh pea vines off the passing trucks was great summer entertainment.

A long driveway separated us from the big white house immediately to our east which housed a strange family who had chickens in their backyard, and we did get to watch when they chopped of a chicken's head and then the body would run around the yard.

One of their daughters, about my age, liked me to sit on her and pinch her nose and cover her mouth until she nearly passed out. They moved away before we could fall in love.

Midway down the driveway, hornets would build a nest in the ground near their oiltank input pipe. One day some friends ran down the driveway, quickly to avoid being stung.
I lagged behind. They urged me on. I finally ran fast, but I could see the line of hornets exiting the hole coming right for me.

Damn that hurts. These days I swell up like a balloon when I'm stung.

One summer day, early evening, we're in the front yard, and my little sister comes out and she's about 4?, and wearing one of mom's dresses, way too big of course, and she was infinitely cute.

We're all having a lovely time and she suddenly starts dancing. Something small kids sometimes do, they just love life. She's dancing, really making some cool moves.
We're all commenting on how agile and groovy she is.

She was doing some serious dancing, not just twist, but she probably invented
break dancing that day too.

It suddenly became apparent that something was wrong. A wasp had flown into the big floppy dress and was stinging her and she couldn't get it out, and had been too hysterical to tell us what was happening.

She survived and moved to Houston. I skipped the inbetween parts.

Next, more family life, how we ripped holey pajamas off of my older sister.

Undernourished Vegetables

It's no surprise that a Texas researcher (they grow things big in Texas) discovered that our fruits and vegetables contain significantly fewer nutrients than they used to.

Apparently due to growing faster, bigger, more shelf stable produce, the plants pick up fewer nutrients. The exception is carrots, which are being grown to be more orangey, improving their vitamin A content.

You could buy organic but that can be significantly more expensive.
Personally, even though I live in the city, I grow my own apples and potatoes (two crops that are way too heavily pesticided), and home grown potatoes (like tomatoes) are 100x tastier than store bought.

I just put in two new apple trees. We have apple maggot so I will spend two days in late June putting plastic bags over the maturing apples. Time intensive but the result is supposed to be spectacular and no pesticides at all.

For those of you who can't garden or even do container planting, well,
but the smallest withered produce you can find because the
nutrients should be more concentrated!

Remember, you are what you eat.
So you can be large and fluffy, with dementia, berberi and dandruff,
or you can be small and withered and stinky, but without odd disease, just odd appearance,
or,
you can quit your job and go live in the south sea islands.

But do not even think of coming into my yard and stealing my apples.
Don't even think about my strawberries.
Do not ponder my tomatoes.
I have an attack cat, and he's strong and mean, and will kill
to protect his organic rats which feast on my apples, and potatoes,
and tomatoes, and...

Fruit Peeves

So there's lots and lots and lots of kinds of
fruits and vegetables in the stores these days.
Who can keep them all straight? Even the world's
greatest checker can't identify them all.

However, I would ask you all to get off your
sticky buns and invent something better
than those horrid stickers that are now on
every fruit and vegetable.

Here is the lovely tomato.
There is the lovely sticker.
It even has a little edge sticking out
to fool you into thinking that's the
part that isn't superglued to the tomato
and will let you peel it off easily.

One of two things will happen:
it will rip off much of the tomato skin with
it destroying the possibility of artsy fartsy
cutting to make a beautiful tomato arrangement,
or
it won't come off at all, forcing you
to cut it off, with the same dismal results
as above.

Oddly enough, the roma tomatoes
which are tough enough to not have
such peeling problems,
DO NOT HAVE STICKERS!

What is up with that?
Is it because romas are easily identifiable?
I think not.
Star fruit is easily identifiable but it has a sticker.

So now I've gotten the nasty habit of removing
all the stickers from the produce I buy.
If it doesn't remove, I don't buy it.

Of course, I'll be carted off to jail one of these
days for disfiguring fruit, disrobing tomatoes,
and releasing kumquats from their chains.

I shall shout:
"We're apples, not numbers!"
"Free the Physalis ixocarpa Five!"

Olympiczzzzzzzzz. huh?

So us geezers take turns dozing off then hoping the other one
has watched whatever was on the Olympics, then we
switch off.

It's not that the Olympics are boring, we're just unable to
recline without snoring. But at least I woke up in time
to see Sasha Cohen's short program, excellent.

Some friends were discussing whether ice dancing was
a sport, and after much discussion, they came up with:

If you can break a bone doing it, it's a sport.

I think that's overly broad, myself.
I know people who have broken bones having sex,
kicking chairs (at the office out of frustration),
falling in the shower, etc. These cannot be
considered sports.

I continue my attempt to get back in running shape,
however, a friend at McGill working on her philosophy
PhD was describing her six year old daughter's reaction
to her first Poutine complete with a side of hot dog
with cabbage on it.
She didn't like the cabbage.

Why has poutine not infiltrated the US?
Finding fresh cheese curd may be part
of the problem. There may be some
available at the Seattle Pike Place Market.
This could really slow down my running.

Poutine: french fries covered with dark chicken gravy and cheese curds

Beyond Magic BBs

I'm sure many blogs have posted about the magic bb theory.
A fine theory but wrong.

Cheney finally gave an interview to some cable channel,
I just saw parts of it on CNN, but he says he takes full
responsibility and that Whittington was not at fault.

But even if Whittington had moved position and Cheney didn'tknow it,
one of the basics of that kind of bird hunting is
you don't shoot until the bird is above the horizon.

This leads to other theories other than the magic BB.

1) Whittington was hovering above the ground and Cheney shot him
a) because he hates aliens, or
b) he was jealous of Whittington's super powers

2) these quail were not wild birds, they are grown on the farm,
they are not spooked as easily nor fly excitedly like wild birds.
I figure Cheney had Whittington running around the fields
trying to scare the birds up, and voila, he's in the line of fire.

WAIT, HOLD THE PRESSES! I'VE FOUND THE MOTIVE!

Profile of Whittington By Simon Romero, NY Times

"... he has [passions]that do not fit so squarely with his image as a Republican elder.
One is prison reform. While serving on the board of the Texas Department of Corrections
in the 1980's and after observing the conditions in many stateprisons,
he once claimed, "Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants."

He also led an effort to move mentally retarded inmates out of the general prison population
and followed this with outspoken support ofa bill to ban execution of retarded prisoners."

THERE YOU HAVE IT.
What kind of Republican, particularlyTexas Republican, can be anti-death penalty?

Cheney saw through this faux Republican shell and saw the liberal within! BANG!

OK here's the truth

Seems somehow the rational members of our family
have somehow stumbled upon our blogs.
How?
There is nothing identifiable here.
Dwelf, nobody knows Dwelf.
And I only babble about irrelevant stuff.
Nobody even reads this blog.
Therefore it must be the little sister's famous blog.

So I have to either, go underground, or
spew my internal grist for all the world to see.

Oh, I can't. It's too much.
If I'm lucky, Dick Cheney will shoot
me and put me out of my mystery.

Wait, just a minute.
Gruff Ducks is very much out of date.
Let me fix that up, then pepper me with buckshot.

Groin

There's a funny word.
And I thought only guys got pulled groin muscles.

Well, poor old Kwan, class act but eventually
age catches up, you don't recover as quickly.

I have a recipe for organic stewed chicken
that makes one invincible, but it's too
late for Michele.

I mean, I offered it to a number of athletes,
guaranteed to make you super competitors,
and all of them turned me down.

Ok, ok, they didn't respond. Their loss.
Stay tuned. I'm making it right now.

I shall return shortly and write the
super blog. Because this recipe also
improves your mental strength.

After all, there's nothing worse
than a mental groin pull!

LA LA LA LA i'm not listening

Planted two new apple trees today.
Lost 30 buckers on online poker.
Wait, some sucker just bet against my 2 kings!
anyway, plastic bags for the apples will
take care of the MAGGOTS! MAGGOTS! MAGGOTS!

They don't make movies about apple maggots but they should.

Tomorrow we shall bathe the cat.

It's been nice knowing you.

Fluster Buster

Sometimes I (we) make up word combinations and Google them.
Do they already exist? Are we (I) not so creative as (I)we thought?

OR WORSE! Nobody has thought of them. Should we register
domain names? How much money is in my bank account?
Some of these ideas are priceless! Oh my god, we must
run with the idea now before some other slobbering
maroon accidentally thinks of it too.

Last night, I spent an unpleasant night wheezing.
My suspicion is an asian green bean salad i've never eaten before
or possibly something in the other ingredients. I'm not known
for my food allergies. But if it was just an air allergy
the wheeze spray would have taken care of it, so I suspect
food assasination.
Anyway, left my very tired for today. Not a bad day at work,
but too tired to work out, which makes me CRANKY!

Then I rented Wallace and Grommet: wererabbit and the wife
already tried to watch on the plane to Africa, but she's
nearly threw up (small screen, blurpy image) so she's
willing to try it again.

So I went online lost, $30 at poker, and googled "FLUSTER BUSTER"

Parrots. that's all i'm gonna say, parrots.
they're taking over the world.

War is not the answer

So the wife has this sticker on her car,
"War is not the answer".
A knock at the door on a dark night.
A young man, probably 17-19 y/o, asks:
"What is the answer? Isn't war necessary?"
He was polite. We talked a bit.
He said sometimes there's no alternative.

It's an imperfect world, I agreed, and
indeed, there are occasions where unfortunately
violence is necessary to protect oneself, but
it should not be the default way of dealing
with difficult people and situations.

He said he had just moved here (Seattle) from
the south and they very much supported
the military, and was curious about
finding out what people in Seattle thought.

I told him I had been in the Navy,
I have no problem with the military,
but I do have a problem with the
way it is being used.
He seemed to think that was ok, and
he went back out into the street
to smoke his cigarettes with his friends.

Mrs. wife said I should have invited him
and his friends in for dinner and we
could convert them to being
Quackers, the religious society of Fiends.

But I was concerned. He was not a big
guy, not small, just kinda skinny, and
I'm afraid the cat might just
gobble him up on the spot.
The cat gets very hungry in the spring.

Spring? We have not had a hard freeze
this winter yet. It's February and
tomorrow it may hit 60 degrees.
The plants are very confused.

How To Survive Impossible Horror

First of all, Seattle is in the state of Washington,
not Oregon, and from north to south this is how it is:

Washington, Oregon, California

We have hot and cold running water, flush toilets,
and superb summers which we spend naked.
We are a real place, maybe not as sophisticated as you,
but likely more liberal.

So how do the liberals take the horrendous outcome of
the Supper Bowl? Well, they aren't called the
Pittsburgh Stealers for nothing.

Let's just say, the refs weren't a conspiracy, but they
sure better not show their faces around here,
because we'd really do a liberal number on them, like:

"Oh, you poor guys, what stress you must have been under?
How horrible for you. Have a latte. We know you feel as
bad about causing our loss as we do."

Yes, we know that these officials were brought up in
a school system where everyone got an A so no one
felt bad, everyone was a winner, and so when they
get into difficult situations, they cave in to
the bullies.

But we understand their anguish, and forgive them
for ruining our lives.

Yes, if the Seahawks had won, they'd return with lots
of money, endorsements, and raise the profile of our
lovely area attracting lots of out of state visitors
and money.

But instead, we'll remain in our swampy dank little
backwater state, wet liberals to the west,
dry conservatives to the east, and all STARVING!

For shame.

If only Bill Gates had played football in high school,
then we might have had a chance.

Getting Chomped

This got booted by Blogger, so it's out of date.
But here it is anyway, because time is relative.

I've read so many strange things in the newspaper
recently, I'm pretty sure I'm not living in reality.

Well, not the reality that would be real if I did
live in reality.

Or the media is not reporting reality. That seems
more logical, but when I asked my soon-to-be famous
philosophy major taking courses at McGill in
frenchy Canada, she tells me logic has nothing to do with it.

Her suggestion is to move to Alaska. That's where
she's from. I asked about gignormous mosquitoes,
moose tramplings, bear bites, frozen drunks, etc.
and she said, less than in Seattle except maybe
for bear bites.

But people moving to Alaska are locked in their houses!
until they receive bearbiting training.

I just don't know.
There's going to be a BIG wind here this weekend.
Mayhaps it will blow my brain clean.
And then I will be able to sleep like the cat,
drooling, twitching, warm and fuzzy,
and eternally waiting for someone to feed me.

Zim

It's unclear.

My name is Inigo Montoya

"Although the creation of a universe might be very unlikely... no one had counted the failed attempts."

Do you know how many times I tried to make bread?
And even now sometimes a loaf will go bad.
Flat, dry, untasty.
105 days with no rain in Phoenix, Arizona.
Global warming at its current rate will raise the ocean 16 feet.
This will not reach Arizona.
It will give me beach front property though.
57 of the last 60 days it's rained here.

"You killed my father. Prepare to die!"

Oxygen or bust

If libraries didn't exist, I'd have to make all this stuff up.

Scientists have enough information now to show that the amount of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has profound effects on the ups and downs of species.

Way back, 255 million or so years, oxygen levels were about 30%, life was good.
Then over millions of years they plummeted way down under 20%, and 70% of terrestrial species and 90% of aquatic species died out.

Then as time went on, the oxygen levels increased again. Getting over 22% was enough to start the big dinosaur and big animal boom, AND tiny fast animals too like bats. These animals require lots of oxygen to operate: big for obvious reasons, and small like bats because they are so active and flying is high aerobic activity.

Eventually there was another less dramatic decrease, and it sure didn't help keep the big animals alive. Then back to today where it's a comfortable 23% or so.

So, sure meteors may have struck, or volcanoes may have pooted a lot which also caused massive die offs, but we must be aware of how oxygen plays a major role and that small shifts can have huge consequences.

What can you do?
Eat animals that consume way more oxygen per body mass than we do.
In upcoming blogs I'll have recipes for Bat Kiev, Bat poppers,
keep eating chickens, rock cornish game hens, moles, voles, rats,
gerbils, anything small and overly active are oxygen suckers.

Do not eat insects, elephants, worms, slugs, snails, toads or spiders.

Say what?

One of my cybergirls is deep in conversation with some dude in Israel.
If you can decipher it, let me know.
Newest first.
---

yes but a puddle thinks herself an ocean is dearly mistaken.
and a little trickle of water from a drunkard's urine bladder might think itself a chaotic river. and those can be bared and controlled. so why would a bird even care or yearn when the talons of the mighty hawk are cluthing into her back.
TGK


=====defaultgirl wrote=====
I shout, I fly. I can not help those who can not, I can only show them how. You can not hold a cloud. The chaos of a river is not nonsense, nor the expanse of the ocean delusions. When a bird preens, is it self importance or self preservation?


=====thegoblinking wrote=====
your vision is clouded by the waves of nonsese you spout.
they might look like clounds and you may think you a flying.
but again delusions serves only to steer you away from anything worth while. so when you shut the voices out and stop living in an air of self importance then you might be able to fly.
TGK


=====defaultgirl wrote=====
There is no bottom and there is no top, there is lower and higher.
I am flying into the future using the present as my wings. Too many people are climbing up a mountain, or falling down, missing the beautiful view.


=====thegoblinking wrote=====
there is differance between psychosis and delusions
you might be able to fool some of the pepole some of the time but you can fool all the pepole all the time. which means you might be fooling yourself into dreams of power but you ain't fooling anyone who can see stright. as for living in the moment only those who can see clearly and have seen the bottom and climb thier way out can see and know what they see.


=====defaultgirl wrote=====

The shell has long ago fallen off. What remains
may be delusional, but there's serenity in psychosis.
By being unbalanced, I know that I'm always in the moment.
ha.

=====thegoblinking wrote=====
my dear sweet delusional blondie
in order to burst other pepoles bubble you have to free yourself from your own... read back upon how you portray yourself and think hard is that you or you inside the shell you want to be ?
TGK


=====defaultgirl wrote=====
I'm quite comfortable outside my skin.
It's a waste of time to create a persona, imo,
when you can be doing something really creative
like bursting other peoples' bubbles.
Will they claw their way back or just wallow in self pity?
Meanwhile I will dance.
H.


=====thegoblinking wrote=====
you keep telling yourself stories you want to hear...
it's quite lovely how you can create a persona and make yourself belive in it is it not ?
one day your bubble is gonna burst
TGK

WHO'S WIRED?

Coffee is good for you.
Just about everything is good for you in moderation
or in the appropriate amounts.
Take arsenic, for example.
Too much and you're dead.
But a teeny tiny wee little bitty bit is good for you.

"The most impressive reported sign of arsenic deficiency is decreased growth of goats..."
So how are your goats? What? You don't have goats.
Well, there you go.
"a recent human study suggested that arsenic homeostasis is altered by hemodialysis, and that low serum arsenic is correlated with central nervous system disorders, vascular disease, and "possibly" cancer."

Now don't go out there and start taking arsenic, you get plenty
enough naturally (starchy veggies, fish, meat, angry spouse).
I was just making a point that when people
tell you how bad something is, they're poopheads.
It's bad only if it's misused.

I do not misuse coffee. I have one, maybe two cups a day.
I brew my own. But it is no coincidence that the Food
Channel's Alton Brown had a show on coffee and coffee
freshness, and then I happened upon:


http://www.thecoffeefool.com/faq/index.php?type=2&tid=17

I may never sleep again.


Quotes from: http://www.nutrition.org/nutinfo/content/arse.shtml

arse, heh, heh

Four, meme, i don't get it but i'll do it

Four.5 Jobs I've Had in My Life:

Candystand operator at the local park (15, I was presumptious for my age)
Night Supervisor, Green Giant Cookroom (17-19)
An Unusual to say the least Naval 4 years (19-22)(never set foot on a ship!)
Money counter for a company that clearly existed to 'wash' money,
(full story at 11, or buy me two beers)(23-24)
The poetry years
Payroll/HR manager - systems developer (32-infinity)(will it ever end)


Four Movies I Could Watch forever -- way too many:

Alien
Coca Cola Kid, Australian quirky with great music
Don Juan de Marco (see this movie! johnny depp, marlon brando)
Le Papillion (sp? get the right one, it's french and about
and old man and a young girl, you will thank me for this)


Four Places I Have Lived:

Chetek, WI
Beaver Dam, WI
Seattle, WA
(San Fran during the navy)

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

The Iron Chef
Survivor
Fear Factor
News weather and whatever

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation:

Italy
England/France (boy, do i have a chunnel story)
New Zealand (if there is heaven on earth, this is it)
Most of the US except the SE states


Four Websites I Visit Daily:

intellicast (i'm a weather freak)
okcupid (I have four 'nieces' looking 4 luv)
Communispace (i'm on the Earthlink advisory board, woo hoo!
but they do give lots of free Amazon dollars)
gmail, i do lots of surveys, this is my survey email site


Four Favorite Foods:

ice cream, except peppermint
fresh fruit, esp. cherries
cantaloupe, beyond fruit
rock cornish game hens
potatoes, i don't care if that makes five


Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

New Zealand
Australia
Italy
Arizona


Four People I Am Tagging With This Meme:

as a misanthropic paranoid schizophrenic gemini,
do you really think I'd tag anyone?

Atopic Dermatitis

Just in case someone actually reads lonely blogs,
docs recommend cortisone for eczema and atopic dermatitis
and other skin rashes. But steroids are not particularly
good for us, especially on large areas or over long
periods of time.

So I was trying various skin creams, lotions, just to keep
the old skin from being too dry and happened upon
FLORASONE, made from cardiospermum, a tropical plant
used over the ages by the natives.

It is wonderful. Works much faster than cortisone,
works better, and is non-toxic.
A few people might be allergic to it. otherwise,
if you have the itchies, you must try it.
I don't find the smell to be an issue, it's
not strong.

Not every store/pharmacy carries it, but it is
easily available somewhere near you. If not,
get it online.

During the winter I tend to get dry patches.
This stuff really works. It is wonderful.

test test test

Your Boobies' Names Are: The Bazoombas

Get your own Boobie Names

and:

***Your IQ Is 125***


Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average

Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius

Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional

Your General Knowledge is Genius


A Quick and Dirty IQ Test
http://www.blogthings.com/quickanddirtyiqtest/

nonsense, that's totally illogical.

A Winter Treat

Someone left a recipe on my desk this morning.
Cooking with Edgar, Edgar's Favorite --
Hargrow's Stuffed 'Possum

It appears to be a real recipe, although
a few key elements are missing.

For example, he tells you to dress the possum
by removing entrails, head and tail. But shouldn't
you skin it also?

The stuffing sounds rather awful, liver,
boiled egg, breads, onion and a few spices.

Alas, the only possums I see are what
are left behind by the cat, which is
the head, the tail and the entrails.

Edgar does not have a recipe for those.
I am not inclined to make one up.

It's raining again. Good possum cooking weather.
But the Mrs. is returning from Africa today,
so I think I'll stick with the monkey au jus.

The End Is Here

Yes, 27 days of rain and it's all over.
The record of 33 stands for the moment,
but it's raining again today so there's
still hope for a new run.

There's a large spider freaking me out
on the wall in front of me.
Since it's climbed up the wall it is not
the potentially nasty biting spider, but
it needs to be somewhere else.

Would it be sacrilegious to swat a
spider with a fly swatter?

It just sounds so wrong, but
it will feel so right.

If you do not hear from me soon,

ah, I missed! Ah,!!

grease!

grease the cogs of gentility! love that line!!!
Mr. well, dude Bode Miller, is just another young person,
imo, who is perhaps overspending his life budget, but
otherwise is telling it how it is.

He's not the only semisober lunatic out there.
And he didn't get there just by genes alone,
he's spent the time to get good at what he does.

So, can we say the same about our lives?
If yes, I say, then let him tell it like it is,
reality and selfishness are on the same side of the coin.

Where's the edge? and who's calling it?
Who's casting scones?
S/He who lives in grass house shouldn't throw scones!

Next thing you know they'll be mocking H Ross Perot
by painting his face on gourds.
Lordy, lordy, where is the Holy Spearmint?

Anomynous, Alunimum

My wittle baby sister could not login properly.
She was Anomalous!

Perhaps the internet is more evil than we thought.
Slowly turning us into anomalies.

If it's chocolate anomalies, I guess I could live with that.

My name is Inigo Montoya

Still here, reading this, well, you're the only one.
Are you lefthanded?
Can defeat ROUS?
Can you stand 27 days of rain?

Liar.

Where's the Afri Cola?

For years I would buy a bottle of Afri Cola,
a great cola from Europe, Germany I believe.
It not only tastes great, but
it cleans your coffee or tea cup better than
anything else.

Pour it in, let it set for a few minutes and
everything is pretty and white again.

Some wacko pseudo-nutritionists say we drink too
much acidic stuff and that's why we are sickly,
and we should drink more alkaline liquids.

Well, I prefer to think that the good old
Afri Cola is cleansing out my pipes just like
it cleans the coffee cup. And the caffeine
keeps my mind almost functional.

The problem is it's hard to find. I've complained
to the store managers but in this day of monolithic
super companies, specialties get lost in favor of profit.

Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper just don't do the job.

Depression lives in my tea cup now, dull, brown, stained.

Man looses house to mouse

An 81 year old man in New Mexico finally caught
that dastardly mouse.
Since he already had a nice bunch of leaves
burning outside, he threw the mouse in the fire.

The mouse ablaze leaped out of the fire and
ran into the man's house, setting it on fire,
and poof there it went.

The mouse died but he got his revenge.

Poor but dry

Plumber Dan is back to finish up some old leaky
pipes. How old are they? So old he says one of them
is lead. Fortunately it's a drainpipe.

Dan looked at our plumbing and said,
"Hmm, it's all backwards, in reverse.
Doesn't really hurt anything but that sure
is strange."

The hard things are turning out to be easy,
the easy things (simple faucets) are turning
out to be faucets from hell.

Dan's biggest challenge will be the bathroom
sink drain. Barely accessible and corroded.

Seattle is working on beating a record of
33 straight days with rain. Hillsides are
sliding down, even sidewalks have turned to mud.
But Dan has saved us from wetness
and an overly big bank account.

Plumbing, personal and physical

Home alone, one might as well hire a plumber.
Why not? It's warm, no frozen pipes, they need the work.
Simple leaky faucets in an old house, not so simple.

But our new man, Dan, is like a happy cartoon character
and good at his job. Overcharged me so much that he's
willing to do the extra work for a pittance.
Gotta love a plumber like that.

So now the cold and hot water are reversed on the
kitchen sink, but it doesn't leak.
The bathtub faucets do not leak and the bathtub
will now not fall through the floor!

He's coming back to deal with the drain pipe
from 1793. But he's already committed to the tiny
amount he will charge. I believe he will be successful
in his exorcism and it won't cost me much at all.

The last exorcism I did, well, let's just say,
Mt St Helen's erupted. You may not believe it,
but I saved a lot of virgins, but the volcano
did blow up, so whaddya gonna do?

How to Chop down a Tree

Well, that's nothing more refreshing than chopping down a tree on New Year's Day.
Except maybe making snow angels in the nude.

It is good to remember those important words from the Knights of Ni.
"Run away! Run away!"

When trees fall, no matter where, or who's not there, they do make a sound.
Most of us slept through physics, or have conveniently forgotten it.
Here is an important theorem:

A tree that is 30 feet tall, will fall a distance of no less than 90 feet.
This is the triple tree theorem.

Move your car appropriately prior to chopping away with a dull axe.