Still life with serpent

Feb 19 -- first day of real winter at the Hellmouth

2012-02-19T21:19:00.000-05:00

Current view from my yard. Two more inches of white stuff forecast tonight. It was low 60s F yesterday and will be back to that by midweek. Sure is weird around here.

And I'm guessing the author was thinking Coconut

2012-02-19T14:07:00.002-05:00

Three pounds of string theory. Yikes.

Dug out my ancient webcam

2012-02-19T11:18:00.000-05:00

So if you're on Googlechat or Skype and are madly keen to admire my graying hair, wrinkles, and multiple chins in real time, I might oblige. Unless you're a prospective date, in which case I won't, as I've already been warned a couple of times by kind friends that the webcam is even crueller to my sleep-deprived face than most.

I think the cleverly peculiar comic artist Dave Blazek must have concluded that my sporadic fanmail to him had to be the result of dire sleeplessness. I swear he drew this one because of me.

I've bought everything of his in print. Go buy one of his books already. If you liked the oddness of Far Side or Bizarro, you'll like Blazek's work.

Personal ad dating horror stories, sorta funny

2012-02-18T16:43:00.002-05:00

I share these because many many years back, pre-Internet, I was asked by a gay male college student group to be their speaker for the month. So I shared my tales for an hour -- good and hilariously bad -- to a standing ovation... and most men could relate to many of them, but had been assuming that their mistreatment was due to their orientation. Fantastic evening of endless hugs, endless adorable non-straight men expressing amazement that my cute, straight, sexy, 30-ish self would have been subjected to such abuse at the hands of straight guys so thus they could go away realizing that shitty behavior is not about them, it's about dealing with humans, who are quite often surprisingly shitty, especially when frightened.

On to the funny...

* We met for coffee and pre-dinner snack. Waiter brought ice water. No recollection of conversation topics. Date was awkward, I knew that. I already knew that no charm would overcome my disinterest in his appearance. (This was back in the day before online ads where you at least had a photo.) Date excused himself, went to restroom. I waited. Read the menu. Read notes in my wallet. Wrote more notes in my wallet. Waited. Finally, very nervous waiter stopped by, asked if my "friend" might be ill, offered to check on him. He entered bathroom, came back, confirmed that "friend" was not to be found but the only bathroom window was open, it appeared he climbed out and ran away. Waiter was beside himself with unease. I smiled a lot. Wish I'd had the maturity to laugh more or say the right thing to calm one very brave waiter.

* We were supposed to meet at a Borders bookstore coffeeshop, late afternoon, weekday. I walked in, facing 5 geeks with their laptops, pretty much all resembling the bad photo I had of my date. I approached the one staring at me the most, asked "Dave?" He hesitated and said no. But he hesitated just long enough that my intuition screamed "You got him." Three other geeks are gawking from behind their laptops. I walked away. Then walked back, long enough to say to him "You spindless bimbo!"

Then I retreated to the math section of the bookstore. Minutes later, one of the onlookers showed up, approached me, assured me he was married, apologized that my blind date had been such a shit, and offered to escort me to my car. Nice guy!

How many Americans can even find Madagascar on a map?

2012-02-17T11:47:00.004-05:00

Do penguins brush their teeth?

Do penguins have teeth?

If penguins evolved to need teeth, would they choose cherry gel embedded with glitter? Over, say, herring flavor?

We bought a tube. Yup, definitely is glittery.

Is it really that hard to get kids to brush?

What exactly is Jesus on, in this image? Anybody? (another dollar store gem)

2012-02-16T11:45:00.000-05:00

Inexplicable dollar store objects

2012-02-15T11:36:00.001-05:00

Hard to believe these didn't sell and ended up remaindered.

If my heroes Phil Plait or Neil Degrasse Tyson get a boo-boo

2012-02-15T11:34:00.000-05:00

Most questionable storefront window ever. Happy V. Day!

2012-02-14T05:13:00.002-05:00

Florists, interior decorators, caterers, event planners. And this is their storefront?

I'm so proud to live in High Point, the furniture and interior design capital of the world.

Wow. Really?

Valentine, because I love you, I did NOT buy you...

2012-02-13T04:43:00.028-05:00

A huge creepy card.

Or a pink heart wearing sneakers.

Or dancing stuffed animals.

Or a very long dog. Or a dinosaur with pink hair.

Or pink party favor kazoos.

I'm to understand that in this country, little kids are required on 2/14 to blatantly lie to each other and pretend they love everybody and give VDay cards and gifts to absolutely everybody* in their class. In other words, they are taught early on that it's mandatory to be a liar. In my country, 2/14 was a vicious, suicide-inducing occasion, just like Real Life. But there wasn't any lying. I miss it.

*And I'm guessing that these kids are required to give VDay crap to only the opposite sex. So we reinforce nice and early that same-sex love doesn't count and isn't acceptable.

Dollar store: FBI and Top Secret Spy stuff in the toy section

2012-02-12T11:30:00.001-05:00

Aren't you glad I no longer write test prep workbooks?

2012-02-11T11:17:00.001-05:00

Two of my gems:

Also, I tried to sneak a reference to Louise the Python into everything I worked on, so if she shows up in your textbook, you know I had a hand in it.

My monsters. Not papier mache... cloth mache... glue and old sheets

2012-02-10T04:32:00.004-05:00

Chicken wire and newspaper body, covered in strips of old bedsheets (think Goodwill store) soaked in plain white glue that you buy by the gallon at the art store or the hardware store.

Then you paint. Easy.

My first was Agnes in 1990. She's still living on my fridge and I gave her a hat.

Then there was a cheap unfinished table at a yard sale. I definitely finished her!

Finally, I was asked to create an homage to Rodin's Thinker. My first commission, woo hoo! I shipped this guy in a massive box to some place in Charlotte NC.

All inspired by the papier and cloth mache monster books written by Dan Reeder, available on Amazon.

No artistic talent required! Go buy Dan's books and create something hideously lovely! Have fun! Send me photos!

Louise decides that she's in the doghouse/dogbox

2012-02-09T05:35:00.002-05:00

Americans call it the doghouse. The Brits call it the dogbox.

Either way, Louise the Python decided it was her time.

And later I stumbled on Python Glue at the local drugstore. What??

Tarot Cards in the toy section with Gags/fake spills/rattlesnake eggs. Yay!

2012-02-08T22:24:00.000-05:00

Shout out to the local Dollar store for sensibly placing Tarot Cards next to fake blood spills and fake dog poop. Exactly where Tarot Cards belong.
There is hope!!

Trippy focus misfunction in the camera with a cool result

2012-02-08T10:21:00.001-05:00

No photoshop trickery here, just a peculiar and artsy result from my old but good Canon 4.0 megapixel camera. I love it!

Crocuses before Groundhog Day. Things are getting weird around here.

Need fake lifesize penguins? A buttplug tablelamp? A Grecian urn?

2012-02-08T05:00:00.000-05:00

Need all three but don't wanna make three stops?

Boy, did you come to the right place!

High Point, NC... world headquarters for interior decorating and furniture. Nobody ever said it was in good taste though, sorry.

This photo taken through a storefront window. I was too scared to go find out what horrors might be in the back room.

Easy and dazzling wax crayon art for people like me who cannot draw

2012-02-07T15:21:00.002-05:00

Here's the finished art. Scroll down for the How To.

You'll need:

any old sheet of paper

a roll of paper towels

box of wax crayons that includes black (dollar stores are good for these)

something pointy -- I used a drawing compass. A skinny metal knitting needle would work.

some place you can work where you won't get yelled at for getting little flakes of wax everywhere.

dustpan and brush or a little handheld vacuum cleaner for quarantining most of the little flakes of wax before they begin migrating everywhere.

What I did:

I used several differently colored crayons to lay down a THICK layer of wax in random blobs making sure that there were no white spaces between them.

Then I covered it all over by coloring hard with the black crayon.

Then I used the compass point to draw a couple of snake outlines in the middle and worked outwards. Why snakes? They are dead easy to draw and back when I created this, I was smitten with a newly acquired pet python. Twenty-something years later, we're still together.

Cover up the wax where you aren't working with paper towels so you can rest your forearm on the towel and keep a steady hand without getting filthy or smearing the wax.

I drew all the snake outlines first, then went back and added stripes, dots, whatever. I tried to be random. Sometimes the pattern was chosen because I had fudged up something and so incorporated the fudge into the snake's design.

Start small for your first one! Go for something, say, 2 by 2 inches so you can experiment with what amount of wax looks good to you and what carving tool you prefer.

This takes hours but could be the perfect complement to podcasts. Good luck! Have fun! Get creative!

Back in '79, I had a bit of a crush on Alan. This took me days.

2012-02-05T11:34:00.003-05:00

Front of an envelope, 9" by 12", black fountain pen, and about ten hours of teen-angst-crush time. No doubt the letter it contained was equally disturbing. I'm not recalling what happened, I'm guessing he sat me down and asked me to kindly go away and he thus never saw this. So this masterpiece of teen obsession ended up in my scrapbook.

Click to embiggen.

Update:

I haven't attempted this since 1979 but, yes, to answer a question, I would be willing to do a much smaller one, say 3" by 5" on an index card, if you don't mind waiting a few days and you buy me an e-gift certificate at, say, Amazon. Fire me an email (click up left). I don't know what I'd charge, probably about $25-40, depending on the size and whether it fries my eyesight or induces carpal tunnel. You sure you don't wanna just make your own? Better than a cheesy card and a stuffed animal for Feb 14!

Valentine's Day -- buy your man something to bludgeon

2012-02-04T13:09:00.002-05:00

I found these at a dollar store and tested them on my two honeys. Hilarity ensued. See below for video.

For best results, shake the packet first and then hit it hard just once and then wait. Do not open the packet. If it activates, it will burst out of its packet with a bang. My men liked that part too. Then the dog got excited.

Each $1 packet contains four little balloons. Of the four, one failed to inflate completely and one took 30 minutes to inflate enough to explode out of the packet. So buy more than you think you'll need on the assumption that they're at the dollar store because they some are defective.

My men loved 'em and would have been happy to get them as VDay gifts.

3 min 37 sec video embedded here:

Unlike the Everglades pythons, mine hates the outdoors

2012-02-03T22:20:00.005-05:00

Highs in the 60s, so I hauled Louise out to the back yard for the first time in months. She frolicked in the sunshine and licked some buttercups for nearly five minutes before deciding she'd had enough of the scary outdoors and bright light.

Bewildering Penny the dog, who was soaking up the heat in her black fur, Louise raised her head to find the back door, and hightailed it back to the gas heater and the comfort of her Vera Bradley bag. Later Penny came in too and kept her company.

There's ridiculous amounts of fearmongering going on that every feral Everglades python is going to devour the nation's dogs and cats. Louise and Penny have been coexisting for over TEN YEARS without a single confrontation. Before that, Louise lived peacefully with two cats for years. Click on the Louise label at left to see prior blog posts and numerous photos documenting her docility.

Funny old girl and set in her ways now that she's in her golden years. I've tried in the past buying other bags for her and she doesn't care for them. They just don't have the right cachet, I guess. I have concerns that her acidic piddle would ruin the Vera Bradley fabric but they've held up for years now being laundered every week and she likes their soft coziness.

Getting 3 to 6 hours of sleep every 24

2012-02-03T05:59:00.000-05:00

A fantastic improvement over most of January. I expect in time my hypothalamus will acclimate to new combination of meds and sleep will have buggered off again but for now I have a window of time to get out of the house, have as much fun as I have energy for on this quantity of sleep, and scramble to get my finances and affairs in order while I can.

This blog is parked for a while

2012-01-28T18:12:00.001-05:00

The Hypothalamus Named Hitler has been going to extra special lengths to make my life even more wretched than usual. Instead of blogging, I'm mastering enough psychopharmacology, cell biology, and chemistry to be able to intelligently monitor a pharmaceutical I've not tried before to try to defeat his cruelty some. I'm also channeling time spent blogging into time interacting daily with the few people who consistently make me happy and keep me feeling loved when I'm neck-deep in insomnia-exhaustion-despair.

I'll be back here in a few weeks. I hope.

Coping with stairs as an autistic

2012-01-02T17:54:00.000-05:00

Some of our symptoms.. hating stairs...

which we mask assorted ways

I cannot judge rise and run, I have never had a tolerance for uneven stairs, I have the worst fear of falling on each and every set of stairs I have ever encountered.

I have learned that I must hide my fear, even when it is present. And no props to the sadistic bastard who wanted me to walk down stairs in high heels, handcuffed, refusing to understand how fucking frightened I was even going down his stairs in decent shoes. Nope, not forgiving you, ever. Nothing you will do for me will ever compensate for that abuse.

I have learned that I will often fall on stairs, going up or down, because I have trouble perceiving the edges. Every step is a drop for me. If it is my house, I can fix this by taping the edges of my stairs with the right duct tape.

I have learned that it is foolish to trust that the next step will be exactly where I wanted it.

I have learned that I must tell myself Left Right as I go up the stairs and that near the top, I will freeze and forget which leg goes next unless I say Left Right out loud. Even then, I am frightened as I don't believe the stairs will hold up when I get to them.

I taped my every stairs and Jim's every stairs with tape. It kinda helps. I still fall, badly, about once every two weeks.

It's a rare day when my body isn't sporting a vicious bruise now.

I hope it helps you if you're autistic and realizing you must cope with stairs.

Sad, just sad

2011-12-27T18:19:00.000-05:00

Sign posted in the Greensboro World Market.

That said, they still had Marmite. Shelved beside clotted cream. Like that's acceptable.

On clearance: Pez dispensers: Presidents and Lord of the Rings

2011-12-26T19:16:00.000-05:00

In the clearance aisle of Bed Bath and Beyond...

Presenting the Buddha Golden Showers Snow Globe. No, really.

2011-12-26T19:10:00.000-05:00

World Market. Marked down 50% today. I don't know what else to say, it's so all-encompassing in its awfulness.

Lo, three alien blobs in Santa hats riding Segways did come from afar

2011-12-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

I have no other explanation for this baffling Xmas light display.

Best Serpent Xmas Card Ever

2011-12-24T18:46:00.000-05:00

Picked up at a charity function two decades ago. Sure hope artist Lauren Miller is doing well! I just mailed out the very last one I had of these.

Santa as Penetration Tester and Serpents as Protective Detail

2011-12-24T09:51:00.001-05:00

Not only is my fireplace boarded over and nailed sealed, but it's blocked by the newer gas fake-log fireplace. If Santa defeats that too, he has to face the wrath of the Serpent Elf, who intends to strangle anybody who messes with her poinsettia. Also, she's testy because there's a stupid hat scotch-taped to her head.

If homicidal mothers overheard in grocery stores are to be believed, the new Mythology is that Santa's role is to come down and remove overnight the presents of all children who talk back to their exhausted parents.

There'll be none of that in this household, I swear. Merry Christmas, y'all.

In celebration of the Solstice, the Hellmouth woke up

2011-12-22T04:52:00.000-05:00

Within 24 hours, Hellmouth subjected me to...

1) sleep deprivation to the point of hallucinating, and then messing with me by sending a real life mouse across my kitchen floor as I stood there. I believed I hallucinated it and said so. But Eric was present, and confirmed it was no delusion. He saw it too! I have skittering mice in my kitchen. Wonderful.

2) an hour later, Hellmouth decided to produce a wet puddle two feet across at the low point on the kitchen floor with absolutely no traceable source. No dripping from the ceiling, no leak from the walls, the fridge, a bottle, a spill, a dog, nothing. Just water. In fact, the same puddle that materialized two months ago that caused me to slip and fall on the slick linoleum and break open my elbow that has yet to heal. It's healing, slowly, in terms of I'm at the stage where I'm staggered by intermitent imaginary stabbing pains that tell me the nerves are reconnecting. It's no longer bandaged daily. But the slightest touch is misery. Yet, the puddle appears only every other month, and briefly? What the hell? Oh, wait, this is the Hellmouth. There's no rational explanation here. Stop looking for one. Burn incense, sprinkle garlic, I don't know how to tame this place. We're cooperating here. I'm okay. Things could be way worse.

3) a few hours after that, I checked on Louise the Python, only to discover that she's cold and wet all over... what? pythons don't sweat... how can she be wet up top? That makes no sense until I looked straight up to face a 3 by 3 grid of ceiling tiles buckled in directly over her and turning brown and a drip of water every minute or so after two recent days of nonstop drizzle. Crap. The roof has a leak. Thanks, thanks a lot! For now, a bucket will suffice. Getting a roofing dude the week of Christmas? Yah! Sure.

The guard guinea fowl decided I was getting too close and had a fit

2011-12-21T18:30:00.000-05:00

Video of alarmed guard ~~turkey~~ GUINEA FOWL* embedded here, 20 seconds. Alarm goes off at 10 seconds. Couldn't get video, but bird continued to do its best to play border collie and herd the Shetlands away from me, with minimal success. Fascinating to watch the interspecies communication though.

[thanks Max for the link to the bird sounds website for guinea fowl!!]

By now, the half dozen Shetlands under its watch have concluded that the guinea is crying fowl and came over to have their photos taken at the fence.

I took Penny and Eric to meet a very playful pony

2011-12-20T06:34:00.000-05:00

Three minutes of pony running up and down, trying to get Penny to play.

Penny was snarly, got put back in the car, which resulted in pony bucking, whatever that means. Pony still happy to race up and down the fence between me and Eric though.

Missing from the video, 30 seconds of pony dropping to the ground and rolling with glee as we all got back in the car to drive away.

Video should be embedded here:

Sigh. Time to sell the folding bicycle.

2011-12-16T00:18:00.000-05:00

High 60s today, I slept well last night, but was still stupid enough to think that although I can no longer climb up or down my own stairs without clinging to the handrail, somehow I'd be able to ride a bike.

Also highly dubious... that I'll somehow be able to ever ride again. Next year, might look into adult trikes a little more. A brief bit of research led me to the large and dizzy community (and I do mean dizzy) of young and outgoing adults who have a permanent and likely incurable balance disorder who have very opinionated things to say on Amazon about adult trikes as worthy or unworthy expenses for the easily unbalanced who refuse to give up cycling. Good to know they're out there!

The urban myth of "you never forget how to ride a bike" applies only to the able-brained. Some research today into balance disorders suggests that they are incredibly common, that very few people in fact are not susceptible to some form of motion sickness or vertigo.

I do remember how to pedal a bike; unfortunately my brain can no longer figure out how to keep any kind of balance and I'm thus wracked with panic attacks within seconds. And most bike riders, when they're done being smug, admit that when they took up bicycling again after a decade or more, they needed a few minutes to regain balance and confidence and quit wobbling.

So I walked the bike a block home. Foldable or not, it will be a pain to ship. I think it's going on Craigslist but I'll sleep on that, ha ha.

Guess I should ditch the inflatable surfboard too, given that it's in fantastic shape and easy to ship. Not confident I'll ever be near a beach and capable of that kind of strenuous activity on the same day.

We're to assume that emergency vehicles can jump the guard rail

2011-12-13T13:13:00.000-05:00

There used to be a bridge. When that collapsed, they sealed the road with a very long guardrail anchored between huge trees. There's no getting around it. Which makes the Emergency Vehicles Only Beyond This Point sign 30 feet on the far side rather curious.

Pretty spot though.

My token Christmas Card image, snapped yesterday

2011-12-12T18:46:00.018-05:00

Tasteful and rustic, yes?

Okay, okay, I apologize.

This should cleanse your palate.

Hats off to the friendly, pleasant, and downright handsome State Trooper who saw me pull onto the shoulder, hit the blue lights, and walked up to render aid. Probably didn't hurt that long before he cautiously reached the car, I was hollering cheery greetings through the open window, keeping my hands visible and still, and trying to exude the message of No, Officer, you're probably not about to get shot at out here in the sticks. Abusive cops often make the news; all the good ones never do. Also not much on the news: all the abusive drivers who lash out in paranoia or prejudice. Color me naive; I've had my moments with bullies in blue but the majority of my encounters have been professional and at times, downright charming.

Presumably, he thought I might have car trouble, not that I needed help composing the best possible photo of 5 foot tall ceramic horses wearing wreathes.

I was quick about it, and he stayed with me till he saw me safely back on the road and on my way.

It's just not Xmas unless there's an Outhouse on your lawn

2011-12-11T18:34:00.003-05:00

According to Gardenridge's stockers, you're just not in the Spirit of the Season if you don't have some festive outhouses flung about.

I don't remember this bit in the Story of the Nativity.

Pretty sure the Pagans (from whom the Xmas tree icon was stolen) didn't introduce this either.

Is regularity a Kwanzaa principle now? Doubt it!

Occupy High Point, the reptile chapter

2011-12-11T02:08:00.000-05:00

Sometime today, while this human was hosting company, the reptile abandoned its place of rest to take possession of mine. Twelve hours later, requests to leave peaceably are being ignored or responded to with audible warnings of violence.

Will try to respect and compromise here for a while; don't care to have to relocate the squatter using physical force.

Because a green Christmas tree is SO last decade.

2011-12-10T18:28:00.003-05:00

Orange
Purple
Black
Blue
Pinkish-Orange, light pink, AND dark pink

Wait? Did you say BLACK?

Yes, Yes I did. Behind and to the right of the blue one.

6 feet, $99, Gardenridge.

Hay Bear!

2011-12-09T15:47:00.033-05:00

Last night headed 15 mins out of town to revisit a string of nine or ten giant ornaments along the shoulder beside a back roads farm.

Hay bales stacked 3 tall with a forklift -- 12 feet high. Then sculpted and spray painted into ornaments.

I dashed onto the property long enough to grab one snapshot to show scale.

They were probably even taller a few days ago before torrential pounding rainstorm made all these critters a little squishified.

Spray painted hay bales, y'all.

We fell over this midmorning, went back at night with Jim to bliss out in its magnificence under a chilly full moon. Turns out there were spotlights out there, which I feel renders them all faintly sinister as in Twilight Zone. Especially the clock face. How is that a holiday icon?

Somewhere out there is a man whose wife threw away his beloved Erector Set.

Please admire my artsy shot getting some of the snowman in the mirror. He was the only inflatable. These giant figures are all over this town, mostly deflated in a heap already. I think I sense a soul who shelled out for a giant inflatable, got disgusted with it, and decided that he could do better with a forklift, leftover hay, and a whole lotta paint. And black plastic plates for eyeballs.

If you're looking for Trouble, you gotta go down some serious back roads

2011-12-09T13:08:00.019-05:00

Blacktop is for sissies.

And we ran into Trouble.

Plus heading down the road way less traveled gets you funny looks from the livestock. That or Miss 571 just had an attitude.

Somehow I found the energy to decorate the yard a bit

2011-12-08T13:02:00.017-05:00

Nutcrackers and a moon.

A neighbor already came by to compliment the Xmas ducks and take a photo for her FB page.

Bad hair day

2011-12-06T13:57:00.001-05:00

Inexplicably tasteless nutcrackers at Target

2011-12-06T12:52:00.001-05:00

Let's make Dec 1 Decorate The Dom Day

2011-12-01T05:24:00.000-05:00

Seems to me if one is going to spend a few minutes decorating the domicile, there's no harm in getting the Dom to look a tad more festive too. Unless he can outrun you, in which case there probably will be harm when he catches up.

Goofy photo embedded here:

Bubble and Squeak

2011-11-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

I love the smell of boiling cabbage.

There.

I said it.

You happy now?

See, even wikipedia has an entry for it. So you can't have me institutionalized on the grounds of insanity just yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_and_squeak

Ongoing, blog posts will be even more sporadic

2011-11-23T09:42:00.000-05:00

In the past five weeks, I've spent 10 days of that bedbound upstairs, away from the computer, having become so exhausted from lack of sleep that I can't actually stand up anymore on two legs because my sense of balance is fried. There's a 4-inch long gash on my elbow that will attest to what happens when I try.

This week is the week of the month that I sleep well, so I'm working on what it's going to take to move permanently downstairs so I have at least computer access. Some days, the highlight of my day is crawling on hands and knees 15 feet to the bathroom.

So bear with me being bedbound, with no energy to read either, just lay there and watch a monitor. Last month, I watched the entire 7-season West Wing series 24/7. The month before that, I was watching seven seasons of Buffy.

I'm currently out of DVD box sets to get me through the next attack of insomnia, though there's 15 books piled by the bed, if only I have the capacity to read them after 4-5 days of absolutely no sleep.

If you're reading this, and you happen to have a spare hypothalamus, please email, because mine is clearly intent on killing me.

Just back from annual visit with the Doc Who Admits She's All Out Of Options. Occasionally, my hypothalamus obeys commands from generic-forms-of-Ambien. This is the week I sleep anyway, so Ambien-generics just improve and support that. Still worth the money. I actually slept about 7 hours, in pieces. Anything over 5 hours a night is fantastic for me. Most days of the month, I measure my sleep in minutes... as in 5 here, 30 there.

Round of applause to the Doc who didn't give me the lecture on why I should have gotten stitches but recognized that someone who cannot get down a flight of stairs safely alone is probably not going to leave the house and go fight with medical staff and endure the torture of stitches either. She merely asked how I was taking care of it (betadine and water nightly soak, new pad, new gauze) and let the subject drop.

Meantime, I am going to throw myself into the joys of cooking bubble and squeak, and go buy me a really good cabbage while I can actually drive.

Raleigh NC mural... homage to Where The Wild Things Are

2011-11-22T22:44:00.000-05:00

A wholly nondescript building on the other side but somehow they were crazed enough to commission this goregous madness on this side. I was urged to come here by a friend during my annual visit to Raleigh (in order to see my physician annually and score some sleep meds. Because with no meds, I'm facing up to 110 hours of nothing but microsleeps and it's hell plus makes me a physical and psychological basketcase.)

No matter, this gorgeous mural made my day. Though the breakfast T-Bone steak (shame on me) and eggs didn't exactly hurt.

Round of applause to pal BH... .because his photos were way better than mine here. Thanks, old friend!

Best North Carolina fall color scenery I could find nearby

2011-11-21T06:26:00.003-05:00

Cows on the roadside, looking like border collies

2011-11-20T06:23:00.000-05:00

Hard to believe this church went out of business

2011-11-18T06:14:00.000-05:00

Would you buy tasteful real estate from these folks?

2011-11-17T06:13:00.000-05:00

Cotton!

2011-11-16T06:11:00.000-05:00

Local sight photos of the day

2011-11-15T06:11:00.000-05:00

So she visits a rose garden and gets all artsy with the camera

2011-11-01T21:12:00.000-04:00

These are the two best. And, no, I don't have some high dollar piece of equipment. I'm using a cheapass Canon Powershot A430 you can pick up used for about $30 that just happens to have a billion features not intuitively obvious from the GUI. You gotta crack open the near-incomprehensible manual and work through it some afternoon.

To crop the drivel out of photos, I run everything I take through a free program called Irfanview. I also resize everything down to a few hundred K.

Health insurance costs just go up and up -- I beg to differ

2011-11-01T09:04:00.000-04:00

Each year, Blue Cross send out a letter in late October warning you how much your premiums will be as of the first of the year.

I've just been informed that my current premium of $149 will be, as of the first of the year, $144.

This entire year, and the entire last year, I claimed NOTHING on my health insurance.

Over that period, I saw my doctor twice for a very quick routine annual consult. I paid for each visit out of my own HSA account, and didn't involve insurance. Both visits cost under $100.

I had a couple of cheap prescriptions, and again paid for them myself out of my HSA.

In short, BCBS were billed nothing from me in the last two years.

This week, I got my annual letter from them. Next year, my monthly premium will go DOWN. I might be the only US resident whose health insurance is going down from last year.

Want to have cheaper premiums?

Then quit seeing a doctor for every sniffle and charging the visit to your insurance.

Save the health insurance for catastrophic events.

Get an HSA already.

Up your deductible to the maximum they offer and have an emergency fund that covers, gee, real emergencies. My deductible is $5K. I most definitely could cover 5K given that

-- I eat out once a month.
-- I don't have a massive cellphone plan.
-- I don't have cable or satellite TV.
-- I don't have a new or high-maintenance car.

Funny how people think in this country that frugality is something you suffer under, when actually it allows you enormous peace of mind and freedom and flexibility.

Big BIG trees

2011-10-31T20:59:00.000-04:00

I've no recollection of ever seeing a tree so tall that it was outfitted with a grounding cable, running down the left side of the trunk in this photo. Pal tossed into the frame to give scale. I took this photo laying flat on my back in the dirt. Pal was kind enough to clean me off afterwards by patting me down. Apparently, I was filthy. At least that's his justification.

This whopper is labeled Bicentennial Oak. I waited for a car to pass by to give scale.

A couple of beauties. Sky was hazy and diffuse, perfect lighting for this too.

I have little faith...

2011-10-30T17:12:00.000-04:00

... that the interior of this store is any less off-putting than the exterior.

It's next door to what appeared to be a tattoo and headshop. So maybe that's the source of their walk-in customers.

More reasons not to live with a pet python

2011-10-29T21:19:00.000-04:00

I feed Louise only in the bathtub. If you feed her in her daily living habitat, then it will remain contaminated with the scent of food, so she'll constantly be detecting the scent and shifting into Attack mode.

So I only ever feed her in the tub, which she thinks of as her personal food bowl.

When she's hungry, she goes and camps out in the tub for hours. When no bunny materializes in the tub, she begins exploring the entire tub, bottom to top, including checking out the shower head. Then she expands to exploring the entire bathroom bottom to top.

And by top, I mean that she climbs on TOP of the bathroom cabinet and checking up there. Just in case there are some airborne bunnies flitting around up there.

Dog on a chain... is upscale? Please help me here.

2011-10-21T14:35:00.001-04:00

How is the chained dog upscale?

Listening to horse whispers

2011-10-20T16:56:00.000-04:00

Okay, so it's my turn to be lookout.

Do you see this? What is that? A woman with a camera? Taking photos for what?!?

Can we talk about this? What's she up to? She keeps taking shots of my bad side!

Somebody go check her out and tell her how this makes us feel, all objectified and all.

Plants from other planets

2011-10-12T17:42:00.000-04:00

Found in an arboretum. Anybody know what this is? Very pretty, regardless.

Historical reproduction failures

2011-10-07T09:35:00.000-04:00

Around Winston-Salem, visited two neighborhoods of recreated historical villages, both marred by visually amusing peculiarities.

First, this old place, facing a barn that looks much like it.

Within the barn we found these.

Later, at "Old Salem", we found this nice row of houses.

But step back a few feet, and you find this 10?-12? foot tall coffee pot.

Baffling and silly.

Found the Pisgah Covered Bridge, one of only two in NC

2011-10-04T06:00:00.000-04:00

Eric tells me he'd never seen a covered bridge in real life. Yikes!

So we took off on our favorite activity of driving back country winding roads just to see what's there. I stare at maps and Google terrain/topo settings and satellite imagery and plan routes that look hilly, winding, forested. Eric drives, I navigate, and we turn onto side roads often. And I have to determine first whether I'm with a man who is squeamish about driving on gravel roads, because some of these back roads are real damn obscure.

Eric trusts my skills and loves just driving without feeling lost or feeling responsible for extricating us later.

I'm like a GPS that puts out and has tits! Yay me!

So here's the bridge, which looks lovely from afar but ...

... the bridge is marred with graffiti, albeit that some of it is entertaining in its stupidity. Spraypainting your twitter account on a historic landmark? Smart.

The Hellmouth Won a Round

2011-10-03T10:59:00.000-04:00

With great regret, I just filled the dumpster with every mural in this house, save the one in the bedroom that is nailed to the wall.

There simply isn't enough spray glue, poster tape, double sided duct tape, and in some cases just outright ugly duct tape to overcome the wrath of this house.

I give up. I'm starting to get used to the blank walls anyway.

Magical, fantastical quarter mile of solid morning glory vines

2011-10-01T18:06:00.002-04:00

Somewhere on a back road between Denton and the Pisgah Covered Bridge.

Eric and I were so enchanted, we parked on the shoulder and tried to capture the Disney-esque sight of such a massive stretch of vines.

Finally! Deceased and heroic Brian Kelley finally makes the news.

2011-09-30T18:32:00.000-04:00

Round of applause to The Week Magazine, who are the only ones, that I know of, to tribute this man's life and contribution. I am reeling from the loss, and I barely exchanged a few words with him. My heart goes out to those who called him a friend. They have to be suffering greatly right now.

This 3-minute sciencey tearjerker just made my day

2011-09-30T15:16:00.000-04:00

I can't go into detail without introducing spoilers. It's a love story, in three minutes. Beautiful acting, design, filming. I'm tickled they won some kind of short film award. This tiny 3-person company definitely deserves more bizness, so if you're near London, check 'em out.

Smoochies to Dr. Phil Plait aka "The Bad Astronomer" for reblogging this when it was sent him.

Starcrossed Dir cut from Tactful Cactus on Vimeo.

Final batch of NC Zoo photos

2011-09-30T14:28:00.000-04:00

Some more of my better photos, NC Zoo

2011-09-29T14:24:00.000-04:00

More of my better photos, NC Zoo, Asheboro

2011-09-28T14:20:00.000-04:00

Failed to find the miniature train

2011-09-26T10:07:00.000-04:00

Visited Tanglewood county park outside Winston-Salem for the first time. The photocopied map I got from the campsite registration office shows a public swimming pool and kiddie playgrounds right beside something labeled TRAIN.

I presumed miniature railroad.

I presumed wrong. This was one hell of a startling sight. Lots of laughs.

Giraffes! Zebra! Ostriches! Real darn close!

2011-09-25T09:36:00.000-04:00

African plain, NC Zoo, Asheboro

Cool, overcast day. Animals weren't all in hiding.

On way too little sleep, drugged on ibuprofen to make the healing rib tolerable, we moseyed about 4 miles of very hilly terrain from one entrance to the other and took a tram back. Wikipedia says this is the largest zoo in the world based on geographical area. Few animals are in prison cells. Most are in huge huge wooded, more natural looking habitats like this one.

I took my two honeys to Horneytown for lunch

2011-09-23T03:35:00.000-04:00

Tucker's Grill, on the corner of the only crossroads in Horneytown with a blinky light. You kinda can't miss it.

Reasons I'm in love with this place:

* no radio, no music

* no TV screens on blasting the room with sports or CNN babble. There is an old tube TV gathering dust in a corner.

* where a flat screen TV would be hung, instead there's a GIANT map of NC counties; what a joy for a map junkie like me (see far left of interior shot)

* their t-shirts all say "Best Burgers In Horneytown" ... which is especially droll given that this is the ONLY place to eat in Horneytown. A sense of humor! I like these people.

* so I had a burger and it was outstanding... no food service industry patties, these are hand-molded in front of you and endearingly uneven and bumpy and tasty

* Eric had two corn dogs, in delightfully old-fashioned wax paper wrappers, and declared them yummy.

* the building exterior lacks, uhh, curb appeal and gives no hint of what you might expect inside. The first time I ate here, I was pretty apprehensive as there are no windows to speak of and you can't see through the glass in the front door. I was expecting, frankly, a dump or even a biker bar. Instead, I walked into a packed, standing-room only lunch crowd, everybody socializing, most everybody knowing everyone else. I felt like I'd walked into a church potluck dinner. I spent 30 seconds wondering where to sit and weighing whether to leave since I didn't know anybody and didn't belong. And then two women greeted me with big smiles, started up a conversation about my goofy purse and scooted up to make room for me at their table. Within a minute, I was one of the gang. Delightful!

* finally, Tucker's Grill is across from the wonder that is the Horneytown Country Store.

If you're stopping by to stock up on Cheerwine or a mason jar of Chow Chow, take a minute for the snack cake section near the register, because they've got Cheerwine Cake in stock. Good luck finding that online. Eric was the taste tester and refused to share, so I guess it's good stuff.

I bought Eric a Tucker's Grill, Horneytown NC t-shirt.

$11

Numerous colors and sizes available, not just red medium.

Way better than the tees at the NC Zoo, which were priced at an astronomical $29.

However, the zoo does have a basket of Magic Boxer Shorts in magically creepy designs, and I'd already spent $11 on Jim buying him the ants boxers. So neither of my two men felt left out or neglected.

On the way to Winston-Salem, we fell over England's Lake District

2011-09-21T05:26:00.000-04:00

Click for larger images you can steal for wallpapers if you want.

I'm currently rereading a giant volume of Beatrix Potter stories, so the appearance of her home where she set all her stories was fresh in my mind.

High Point's Adorable Amtrak Train Station

2011-09-20T00:38:00.003-04:00

The railroad tracks used to run alongside the platform, then they tunneled under all the main arteries into downtown so now there are no railroad crossings for people to attempt suicide-by-chicken on.

The recently restored waiting room is gorgeous.

And if you aren't sick of quaint, a box on the wall is full of this 4-page pamphlet of games for the kiddies, presumably designed back in 1972 before every child believed Child Services should intervene if they make it to age 5 without being given a device that plays Angry Birds.

Why is water coming out of the dolphins' blowholes?

2011-09-19T04:16:00.004-04:00

Deeply disturbing fountain in a nearby county park.

Back in January 2010, I came up with this quip, which got published on the Ruminations humor website. It's one explanation.

The Navy has trained a select few dolphins and sea lions to assist with harbor patrols and mine detection. Some have worked in the Persian Gulf, despite Navy concerns that they could be trapped by enemy forces ... who would do what? Waterboard them?

Behind the dolphins, in the background, is statuary of a girl. Once you're done making waterboarding jokes with your companion, you go give her a look, to find that she has a fat lip. Like that's not creepy either.

By then, you've stopped pondering why there are coffee cups on sticks stuck in this garden patch. Compared to the girl and the dolphins, they no longer seem weird.

Louise the Python has little future as a covert operative

2011-09-18T10:12:00.000-04:00

I didn't pose this. I just walked upstairs and found her on the landing inside the flowers. Maybe she's watched Kaa the Python in Disney's Jungle Book hiding in the foliage one too many times.

The napkins at the Raleigh Spy Conference

2011-09-16T05:21:00.000-04:00

Somebody somewhere was in a droll mood.

Pushy dude inspects my camera, gets in my face, later I'm tailed, scrutinized

2011-09-15T17:51:00.001-04:00

First this really pushy dude demanded to inspect my camera.

Then he got in my face.

Really in my face.

Feeling threatened, I moved on elsewhere.

Only to be accosted by someone else who tailed me all over the place and loomed over me.

The more I tried to get away from him, the more he got

in

my

face.

I'm safely home now, cowering behind closed blinds.

An astronaut mural in tiny Robbins NC. Awesome!

2011-09-13T05:02:00.001-04:00

Way to go, science nerds of Robbins. Fantastic to see someone other than sports and entertainment celebs being honored. This made my day.

Below, a very cool coffee shop storefront that was a block from this mural.

Penny has Masticatory muscle myositis

2011-09-12T07:24:00.001-04:00

Penny two years ago

She's visibly old everywhere, so when she started having trouble chewing kibble, I assumed it was arthritis. Then when her jaw began locking up, I did some googling on "lockjaw" and got a billion pages about tetanus. I dismissed tetanus as unlikely.

At present, Penny can separate her front teeth about half an inch so she's on mushy canned food now. Her jaw hasn't locked up entirely. Still, in desperation, I did some more googling, now excluding pages containing the word tetanus.

That led me to learning about masticatory muscle myositis. There's a prescription drug that's supposed to treat this but the side effects of the drug sound awful. The drug is prescribed for humans for different conditions and hallucinating is common. Since Penny dreams, I'm guessing she could hallucinate too. Not nice. Not to mention that there's a bunch of blood tests that must be done first to diagnose the condition, like her visible symptoms aren't sufficient. Given how much Penny's old vets ripped me off for heartworm and Frontline, cynical me is fairly certain that I'd get billed many many hundreds of dollars to treat this that I'm not willing to spend on such an elderly girl. Also, at this point, her condition has advanced enough that it's irreversible. I'm seeing the shape of her head change due to breakdown in muscle tissue. Her eyeballs have recessed a bit. She's hard to look out without feeling guilt that I didn't figure this out earlier. Unfortunately, by the time you really notice the lockjaw, it's too late to reverse the damage.

Penny now, doing the best she can to pant

All that said, Penny is eating well, has no trouble drinking so long as the water bowl is kept full to the top, is peppy and playful, and clearly not suffering. I give her the occasional dose of aspirin. She can still bark without opening her mouth. She can't bite anymore, though she can nip. She tries to yawn and can't. She tries to pant but cannot get her tongue out of her mouth so I'm now very conscious of keeping her out of the heat.

Link to Wikipedia article here.

I tried to photograph the top of her head to show the loss of soft tissue but it's just not coming out on camera.

Now THAT'S what I call a silver lining

2011-09-10T09:09:00.000-04:00

To: The Covert Comic
From: Me
Subject: so...this your handiwork?

Went for scenic drive and on the way home, over my house, there's a cloud with an erection. Fuzzy photo, taken on highway through the windshield, sorry.

Is this your followup to Titusville?

To: Me
From: Him

I would have hoped you thought me bigger than that.

[And, yes, written permission obtained to repost this private email.]

Receipt of this email resulted in my blushing so His Covertness is now a proud member of the Men Who Can Make Me Blush Club, swelling its ranks to, uhh, five.

Ten years on, we have the freedom to think crap like this has a market. Too bad.

2011-09-09T15:36:00.000-04:00

Do you need to click the images to get big versions so you can savor every syllable of the blurb copy? Yes, yes you do. Both pages torn out of a catalog though I briefly toyed with tearing out my eyeballs first.

Chronic insomnia plus Hellmouth -- near lethal combination

2011-09-08T21:57:00.000-04:00

The Hellmouth House can detect when you're at your weakest and most vulnerable. Last week I had several consecutive days of being exhausted, passing out, and waking up again between 5 and 30 minutes later, for no reason, and then being unable to fall back asleep for another 24 hours. My balance was shot and I mostly huddled upstairs in bed subsisting on nothing but bottles of Ensure for days and rewatching four entire seasons of Buffy, being all out of options and otherwise the will to live. However, the Penny dog still needs feeding and being let out, so braving the staircase was necessary daily.

At some point, downstairs, my balance went out enough that I grabbed the large living room table while half falling over. The Hellmouth detected me down on all fours and decided this would be a great time to upend the 7-foot table floor lamp and dump it onto my lower back. I twisted, yanking a muscle in my left side, and hit the table; I'm pretty sure I have a bruised rib too.

So now I look like this and I walk like a cripple. This muscle sprain is a bitch. Who knew that getting into and out of a chair could involve quite so much cussing.

Cantina Band from Star Wars played CW-style from the movie Paul

2011-09-08T16:42:00.001-04:00

I found it on Youtube!

And you can sample and buy the whole movie soundtrack from Amazon over here.

Funniest country western bar brawl movie music EVER

2011-09-07T03:33:00.001-04:00

Brawl breaks out. In the background, on stage, a trio of guitar, double bass, and fiddle are playing a catchy tune... and it's on the wrong instruments, so your brain is going WAIT A DAMN MINUTE... and you hit pause and argue with your partner and then realize... they are playing the Star Wars Cantina Band tune.

So you must be watching "Paul" which I just saw tonight and it was the happiest two hours of my life in WEEKS.

This is me, who is the High Queen of hitting Eject button on DVD movies within 10 minutes, often sooner. Odds of my getting to the end of a DVD movie... currently about 3 in 10. I'm a hypercritical bitch.

Great script, inspired casting, great plot, great set design. Fantastically devoid of affected color palettes, shaky handheld cameras, incessant sickening camera motion, and other current movie director bad habits in place of good old fashioned hilarious script and a damn good story. Within 10 minutes, I was determined to buy this movie on DVD. Tomorrow, the rental has to go back to Redbox but I'll be watching this puppy over and over.

Best line ever in a SciFi movie... "Oooo... Marmite!" But that's cause I'm a crazy Brit who stockpiles massive amounts of the stuff. At that moment, in fact, I paused to go make a pile of crackers and cheese and Marmite treats. Though half were Vegemite, so bite me.

If you're either a Christian fundamentalist or a devout Intelligent Design person, you're gonna hate this movie because it skewers you something wicked. You're gonna hate it so much that a whole mess of you wrote rotten reviews on Amazon even though you obviously never saw the movie. Classy of you. Real classy.

Trailer embedded below. And I just bought this DVD on Amazon.

Rush hour 8 a.m., High Point, when the Circus is out of town

2011-08-15T23:45:00.001-04:00

Don't steal in High Point! Just don't. Nice sign!

2011-08-15T11:42:00.001-04:00

Award for Best Misuse of Apostrophes

2011-08-14T07:35:00.002-04:00

Not content to violate Ladies, the store owner went after Girl's night out. Maybe that's accurate. Maybe she only gets one victim a month. Presumably, punctuation lessons play no part in the Night Out.

Need stuff? And only stuff? I know just the place.

2011-08-13T11:33:00.001-04:00

Apparently they are short on coins and on jewelry.

But if Stuff is what you need, they have it!

What the heck is that? A stretch.... what??

2011-08-13T11:31:00.002-04:00

Spotted near the local Country Club.

Someone please explain the bead necklace to me

2011-08-12T22:21:00.001-04:00

I get the bonnet. It's a Moravian icon.

But the beads have me wigged out. Help?

Tree falls down? Hire a chainsaw sculptor!

2011-08-12T09:55:00.000-04:00

I've now driven by two houses in which the residents hired a chainsaw artist to pretty up the debris after a huge tree fell in their yard from a storm or from disease.

These *BIG* sculptures are just beautiful, IMO, making the best of a catastrophic loss.

Fox in Chains at a Christian school

2011-08-11T23:13:00.000-04:00

Okay, so this is their mission:

"For nearly 40 years, Wesleyan Education Center has provided a rigorous Christ-centered education in which God's Word is woven into every facet of life in this ministry. During this rich tradition, alumni from Wesleyan have experienced exceptional academic achievement, athletic success, and accomplishment in the arts."

And all new students and visitors are greeted with THIS?

Remind me again about the parable of the fox in chains from the New Testament? I'm a little fuzzy on that story.

Surprisingly, the local mall has lost 90% of its stores

2011-08-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

Not only must you park even more feet away, in consideration of the pregnant who have come to a mall that is 90% vacant...., but on entering you're faced with an amazing array of rules. No, really, click on that image to see its brilliance full sized.

And this is why the local mall has more dead space than actual stores.

Bizarre puzzle in the local Que Pasa newspaper

2011-08-11T08:49:00.002-04:00

As though the fact that this paper devotes an entire page to puzzles isn't strange enough...

Downtown High Point has no parking meters. None. Anywhere!

2011-08-10T11:02:00.000-04:00

Why? Well, because 50 of every 52 weeks, downtown is dormant and there's no reason to be here. Two weeks a year the Home Furnishings Crowd comes to town and it's mayhem, though I bet most don't have rental cars given the absurd amount of space given over to the shuttle buses, that only run during Showtime.

So the rest of the year, if we're desperately bored enough to come downtown, we get faced with these:

As Paris is to fashion, so is High Point to the World of home furnishings

2011-08-10T09:26:00.000-04:00

The quote in the subject line, with capital W in World, is from one of the many freebie brochures listing all the interior design showrooms that are open to the Uncredentialed Muggles. Most showrooms here are closed to the public. That's probably in the public's best interest, frankly, if the ugliness of the showroom exterior is any indication of the horrors within.

Meantime, I've been collecting photos of the ugliest houses in town, as I deliberately drive different back streets looking for amusement.

Here's my favorites.

It's like a cousin to the Hellmouth, extruding bricks from its own exterior. Nice!

Beside the door that needs paint are two short columns. Piled on top? That would be sea shells.

The ice cream truck came back to taunt me

2011-08-08T17:23:00.000-04:00

Today within earshot I heard it rotate through one verse of:

Hallelujah Chorus
Doe a Deer, a Female Deer
Frere Jacques
Jingle Bells
O Come All Ye Faithful
Silent Night
Deck the Halls

The last four were particularly disturbing. It's August, it's 100F outside, and I was standing in the street watching where the ice cream truck had stopped to camp out and play tunes, which is three blocks up next to the cemetery.

I'm not off my meds, I swear, I swear.