Their usual Saturday sitter being out of town Saturday, I was privileged to spend the day with niece and nephew. We had a feast at Cheesecake Factory, and the boy concluded with a piece of chocolate cake which had "tower" in its name, appropriately, because the cake was about 8" tall and must have weighed over 10 pounds. It was a beast, but nephew bore up manfully and ate a few mouthfuls before declaring he was simply too full, but he wanted some popcorn at the movie, by the way. Being the hard case I am, I didn't even pretend I would have denied him the popcorn. Niece chose a Kalhua coffee cheesecake that was marvelous. Cheesecake Factory also has a Kobe beef burger that's amazing. The Kobe beef in the burger, by the way, is not to be confused with Holly's Kobe beef dog, which is a large, black and super-pampered thing. Anyway, it's great to have time alone with the kids, and I'm hopeful to do that a lot more this summer. They are the best thing about my entire life, and I hope that I'm secretly their favorite Auntie.
After lunch we went to see Prince Caspian, which is a visual feast. It's been decades since I read the Narnia books, so I can't say how well it stuck to the story line, but it was spectacularly rendered, and I highly recommend seeing it on big screen while you can. Several times during the movie I did think wistfully, however, of Mr. Tumnus and his furry britches from the first film.
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Things are coming along in my apartment. Sunday afternoon I vowed to spend an intense 4 hour session cleaning and organizing. I started slowly listening to PJ Harvey's White Chalk straight through a couple times, but I decided I needed to step it up, so I switched to a Feist cd, which is much more lively and more conducive to industry. I cleaned several pieces of furniture with a wood conditioner, I vacuumed enough dustbunnies to make a whole 'nother doglet, and I did laundry and unpacked 4 more boxes, re-filling one of them with stuff for Goodwill. So, basically, considering all I accomplished Sunday, I was acting like someone else.
I've still got a lot to go toward being truly organized, and I'm trying to get all the regular stuff sorted before I tackle the Herculean task of sorting through all my studio stuff. This really needs to come together in the next week, because I must get my jewelry back into production mode so I can get my work in some more galleries.
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I had to work part of the day Saturday because I had to get a memo out to the residents about the first attempted break-in to one of our apartments, ever. The resident was home and chased away the would-be intruder, but this was unsettling, to say the least. I'll be installing a lot more lighting on the property, including some motion-sensitive lighting. I never was naive enough to think such a thing wouldn't happen, but now that it has, it's-- well, it's just eye-opening. I have some ideas about augmenting my own personal protection, and although I can not say so pointedly, I hope my residents do, as well.
Matt G was lamenting that They Might Be Giants came to Dallas and he had no ideer.
Well, I try telling you people about all the good music (including some in other fair cities) but I can't bloody drag you out and force you to have a good time, so it's my great burden to drag my own happy ass out and have enough fun for the entire lot of us. Lordy, my load is heavy!
You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.
Anyhoo, in honor of Matt G (who shares my most esteeemed birthdate) here's a couple photos of the They Might Be Giants show at the House of Blues in Dallas. I have to say the seats at Dallas' House of Blues are all good, and it's one of the all-around best concert venues I've ever experienced from both the cheap and expensive seats.
Upcoming shows of note in Dallas include Ruthie Foster (FHB-- why don't you and D come up to Dallas for that one???) at the Granada and Charlie Sexton at the Belmont Hotel. Great blues gigs which I'm betting won't be overly-packed.
These are called Crazy Rasberry Ants. Crazy because they don't march in straight lines, and Rasberry for the exterminator who originally battled these diabolical little fiends in the Houston area starting about 5 years ago.
Apparently they are very similar to a Carribbean ant, though their exact origin is not known. They are smart little buggers, and apparently will pile up the carcasses of other dead ants to travel across areas where pesticide has been sprayed. One up-side of these ants is that they EAT fire ants. At least they aren't ALL bad.
The funny thing about them, though, is that Rasberry Ants like to eat the innards of electronics. Apparently they will eat the guts of your computer and other electronic equipment.
The thought of this, while strange and a little disturbing, set me to thinking. I loved the whole Terminator franchise of films in which fully mechanized factories and robotic, computery crap develop awareness and decide they really don't need to deal with humanity and its attendant bag of bullshit, so they set about exterminating humans.
I think it would be a lot of fun to see a post-apocalyptic, Terminator-style movie in which the humans have been eliminated and we can see the matcheens duke it out with Rasberry Ants and their ilk. I'd be betting on the insects, frankly.
That Nina Hagen thing I posted last week with cellos was (I believe) Apocalyptica, a Finnish cello ensemble that re-works metal classics into cello pieces. Just found out they are playing House Of Blues in Dallas next Monday night.
$15.
Hmmm.
Walk the XX blocks to HOB.
Hmmm.
$10 cab ride home...
$25 to see live cellos playing lots of badassery of Metallica & their ilk?
I'm SO there.
A particularly elegant re-imagining of Metallica's Nothing Else Matters by Apocalyptica
*slurp*
UPDATE:
I got an upcoming events email which apparently wasn't for Dallas only. Crap. If you're in Vegas on Monday, go see Apocalyptica, and I'll be wanting a full accounting of the event. Oh well.
Things are coming together nicely at Rancho la Phlegm. I cleared a large area of the floor Tuesday morning (boxes for goodwill) and after my shower, I dropped the towels and things from the bath over the banister down to the concrete floor below to put in the wash. I looked down first to make sure I didn't bean the little barbwire pineapple with a sodden towel, NOT that her blind-and-deaf arse would have noticed, and as I looked down, I saw a curious shape on the floor, much like a handlebar moustache, dark or black in color. Hmmm. Wot's that? I didn't recall leaving anything on the floor. Turns out, Miss Buns has had some decorating ideers of her own, and has pretensions of "aroma stylist" at an impressive number of parts-per-million. She can alter the olfactory profile with lightning speed, I must say. I should buy stock in the company that makes Brawny paper towels. I've been through an entire roll since Saturday.
Here's a pic of teh LOLDOGLET on the sofa, which I've be-cutened with an old bedspread. Lordy, but she does work hard trying to herd me, to no avail, and it just wears her old carcass out.
Sunday afternoon I wasn't feeling great but I decided to go and work on my back yard. I have a wrought-iron fence which she could easily slip through, so I put up hardware cloth with zip-ties.(I LOVE zip-ties - they're just the coolest!) Got the whole thing fenced in so that I could let her out off her leash. The first time I opened the door and beckoned her out, she wouldn't go out until I did. Then she came out, and instead of going downstairs to ground level, she went to the edge of the deck and peed through the crack and onto the air-conditioning unit. Seems the air in my place is destined to smell of pee or poop. *le sigh*
Phlegm: go look at the pic i just sent you Christina: Wow, talk about road-rash waiting to happen! Phlegm: That person on the right is a MAN, baby! and so is the creature on the pink vespa. Christina: WTF?!? Christina: Are you serious? Holly: That was a MAN? Phlegm: yup. two mens. Christina: Not by my definition Phlegm: he was SUCH a xxxx, too - could barely stay upright, Holly: But surely the Vespa has on short shorts? Phlegm: looked drunk, frankly Phlegm: it was a sight. Christina: Probably has moobies, too Phlegm: hell - he prolly had a Mangina Phlegm: i tried to contain myself and act casual so I could get away with snapping the photo. Christina: I'd like to see THEM go into a biker bar! Phlegm: It wouldn't be pretty Holly: Mangina? I have never heard of one of those...do postops have those? Phlegm: no ideer. I don't know. Don't wanna know. Holly: Did you make that word up? Phlegm: I don't think so. Surely I've heard that somewhere before? Phlegm: by the way, this whole convo must go on the blog, don't you think? Holly: It's great...I've never heard it..but like Christina's friend's saying about push up bras...I'm using it Christina: Cool! Phlegm: YAYS! My next post is written!
Saturday was a hoot. Holly threw a birthday wingding for her lovely husband JPG, and a lot of fine folks showed up.
I arrived about a half hour early, and Holly and JPG were already there with Holly's daughter and son who, after much begging from me and Holly and some strong urging from the birthday boy, finally sang the Dodi al Fayed song for us. I was thrilled, having earlier been delighted by the story Hols told of when the whole Lady Di crash thing happened, her kids came up with this Dodi al Fayed chant. It was hilarious.
Various relatives and friends showed up. Rabbit, he of the pithy comment, was there and he's every bit the rapier wit in person that he is in pixels. He's a hoot. Some people I've recently met from the gun range showed up. At one point, a couple people were showing pets and family on their cell phones. They had all these adorable pictures and I went to pick up my cell phone and then realized I had no pictures of loved ones. Then I showed the gun club president and her husband the dead body on Ervay street photo I had. They cooed and intoned their approval. This was the Kodak moment Norman Rockwell forgot to paint.
Anyhoo, Matt G and his adorable family arrived and it was funny to see him in the flesh. I was quickly engrossed in convo with his wife about her ceramics and about glass bead making. I'm going to keep begging her to collaborate with me on some jewelry. Their girls are gorgeous, smart things, and I complimented the eldest on her Barbie-shooting skills, and the youngest displayed a mouth freshly denuded of several prominent teeth, and I urged her to become a dentist. Later, Matt said "you're phlegmmy?" I said I am, and he said he thought I'd be older, that I write like an older person. I think that perception may have been fueled by the bad puns I trot out well past their sell-by dates.
Anyway, today is JPG's birthday, and I wish him a very happy one and many, many more. Thanks for all your kind help and the shooty sessions. It's an honour to know you, Sir, and with the possible exception of a few critters in the world, I'll bet you're a hero to everyone who knows you. You certainly are to me.
I went to JPG's birthday party today. It totally rocked. :)
Recently he tagged me for a meme. Hmmm, let's see now.
1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating! 2. Find page 123. 3. Find the first five sentences. 4. Post the next three sentences. 5. Tag five people.
*ouch! Just got a hella paper cut on this book, Photography in Nineteenth Century America*
Farther down the river "a small colony of Chinamen are engaged in washing gold from the sands of the river, and at Shoshone Falls also; on the beach of the cove which is represented in the immediate foreground of the picture there are good diggings" that, when exhausted, are miraculously renewed "by the agency of the river." Underscoring the beneficence of this entire landscape, Wheeler concludes with a warm, domestic scene: "Near the left side of the stream, just above the falls, stands Eagle Rock, and isolated boulder 60 feet high, on whose summit an eagle has established its home and built its nest, interweaving the branches of trees into a basket for the proteciton of the young." O'Sullivan's Shoshone Falls photographs thus present an interpretive problem.
So, um, if you want to be tagged, consider yourself tagged.
Blind bowler rolls perfect game in Iowa. Of course it doesn't make sense. Maybe it's like that old thing they used to say, something about when you have an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters, eventually, one of them will pound out a best-selling novel. It would have been so tasty if his name had been "Luke" or "Skywalker" and we could attribute his mad bowling skills to using the force or some such.
Jealous much? Uh, actually, yeah, occasionally.
Oh well. Here's a song for a Saturday: Mushaboom by Feist
Tuesday the intarw3bz was installed, and that evening I bought a power strip/surge protector which I finally got 'round to prugging in on Thursday night so I could finally have enough outlets to have sound. So I sashayed over to yootoob where I found this dusky gem:
What could be more metal than cellos? I can't think of a thing. Very sexy instrument, that.
Anyhoo, this woman is Nina Hagen, right? Call me nutty, but I think she looks better than ever, and I just LOVE that thing she's doing with her hair. I have always loved her crazy energy, and her sublime flair for drama perfectly suits this setting. But what's up with them skull boobies? Not something I'd want to see/hear every day, but good for oncet in a while...
The following video, OTOH, should never be watched by anyone, but I can't help myself:
I went and applied to join the gun club on Wednesday night. I hope they'll let me in because I really want to play their reindeer games. The club president introduced me to a lovely gunsmith who is going to do the trigger on my .38. He said "we'll see what we can do for it" and I said "I got a bunch of mint chocolate chip ice cream in it-- that's okay, right?" and we laughed. He was charming and said he runs some of the competitive shooting matches, and would I like to compete? I said I was open-minded, but that I needed to get a lot of practice under my belt before I feel like I could do that. I told him that I'm really lazy, though, and I don't want to do any shooting where I have to run around. He laughed and said he wouldn't make me run around, just shoot accurately. Yeah, I'm going to love the gun club.
What did you say?
Oh! I'm so glad you asked! I wore my favorite black silk chiffon skirt with the wonky poky-dots. I suspect polka-dots are vastly underrepresented on gun ranges throughout the world, and I'm going to do my part to bring to the fore the prim and modest polka dot. I think I need to start a ribbon campaign or something. I also wore my black Steve Madden 4" wedge maryjanes which I found in a box I unpacked Wednesday morning. It's like Christmas, unpacking my stuff. Well, like Christmas before my axis shifted and I decided I liked shooty fun at least as much as I love shoes. That's really saying something.
