Call me old-fashioned, but this is my kind of stove. Finally, someone is doing something pleasing with stoves as has not been done in the past 50 or so years. It's also available in turquoise and 8 or 9 other colors. Yum! If I had the vast sums required to populate a kitchen with these little glories, I'd probably go wonky and mis-match them all. That would be nice, right?



This range is from Elmira Stove Works, and they are doing for refrigerators, dishwashers and microwaves what they did for the range; i.e, make them look good again. It's bloody well time someone did that, if you ax me. The good news is that for the price of about 5 pair of Christian Louboutins, you can own one of the refrigerators. The bad news is the Christian Louboutins will set you back $600 or so, per pair. But what object is money when one considers the happiness of their kitchen??? *sigh*

Golly, it's good to be home.

I got to spend quality time cutting up with my two favorite aunts, and it was good to see so much family all at once. I found a hillbilly post card that made me giggle (watch for it in the mail, Hols & jpg), and it's always good to see my original home, however briefly.

Monday night, I walked out of Grandpa's front door into the inky blackness only afforded by being many zip codes removed from large towns. The front of the house was sheltered from the wind and the night almost seemed still, but I could hear the crackling rustle of countless millions of dried leaves hanging in huge trees, buffeted wildly by fierce winds. This was magical. Moments like that especially make me want to live in the country-- that is truly the rich life.

After the service and everything, I said my goodbyes to everyone and then stopped by the local foodstore to pick up some hillbilly postcards I'd seen earlier. At the register in front of me, a woman was holding the most serene looking sleeping baby boy. I remarked on what a dandy he was, and she proudly agreed, saying the nice man in the butcher department had just weighed him for her and he weighs 16 pounds, having doubled in weight since he was born. Now, I thought this kid was maybe 7 or 8 months old. No. He was 4 months. I was just getting a kick out of imagining someone weighing their kid in the meat department of a supermarket. CHARMED! Norman Rockwell should have done a painting like that.

But then, it all took a turn for the sublimely twisted: the cashier said "oh, my second one was the same way-- the doctor told me at his one week check up to go ahead and give him regular food, just be careful at first." We gasped our astonishment, and she followed up with the delightful kicker "well, he was born with a tooth!"
*BLISS*
This made my week. Love stuff like that. Let's just say I'll never pass through that town without stopping in that store-- you never know what'll happen. Maybe I need to swing by the meat department, too.
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Driving home Tuesday afternoon was windier than a bag of buttholes. Saw a transformer blow nearby, and that was spectacular. Siding and signs were flying all over the place, and you could see that every driver was struggling to maintain control of their vehicles. Add violent gusts to the winding, hilly roads and that makes for some interesting driving.
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Listened to a bit of Harold Budd. The last few funerals I've attended, I've sort of slipped into a mode of listening to his music. I find it calming and contemplative. If you are not into ambient/electronica, you may still recognize the sound of Harold Budd's hand in the music of the video below. Harold's music was used to brilliantly score the The American Experience special on the Donner Party. Stark, austere piano seemed the perfect counterpoint to the enormity of the challenge faced by those on that grim adventure.

Of course, at times like this, one will be philosophical. Budd's music is light and shadow in the same way the most gilt-edged clouds must be dark in the center to contrast the glorious edges. I believe we think of our lives as extended backward, aggregated by our familiarity with history and epochs other than our own. In truth, the fullness of time for each of us is only our tiny window in this existence. Despite the sorrow of the loss of loved ones, it is good that we are forced to face our own limitations and learn to make the most of our time here, that our time may truly be full.

The funeral was stately, dignified and poetic. The local VFW was representing and the military honors were a grand send-off, indeed.

Harold Budd & Cocteau Twins
Sea, Swallow Me [The Moon & The Melodies]

I hope your day is a beautiful one.

Still in Arkansas. Take a couple minutes to enjoy some human Tetris. The music is the best part.

Sourpuss 101.

My Grandpa is a big bag of contradictions. He likes to be kind and helpful to people, but he can be a withering critic. He loves to laugh and cut up, and yet he takes himself very seriously. Perhaps a little too seriously. He also has an exacting memory for when other people fall short of the glory of himself, and he never forgets. This said, he probably still thinks of me as the wild granddaughter with pink hair. Well, he's still right about the wild bit, but anyhoo...

At my Grandma's funeral 1.5 years ago, my great-uncle W. told my brother "I guess the next funeral y'all come up for will be mine." W. had been having health issues, and apparently he felt his time was short even though at about 77 he was younger than my grandpa by at least 15 years.

About 5 months ago, W was driving home one day, wife in the passenger side. Doctors think W had a teeny stroke and passed out behind the wheel, wrecking the vehicle and suffering a spinal injury in the process. Since then, W has been paralyzed from the neck down and in the hospital.

tralalalalalalalallala

When I went to see Grandpa at Thanksgiving, he launched into a story about hauling livestock in a big truck, driving multiple runs from- and to- Indiana to make money in the 1940s. Grandpa asked W to drive so he could get some sleep. Well, W dozed off and nearly wrecked the truck, awakening Grandpa in the process. Being the one-strike & you're out kind of guy, W was forever in Grandpa's mind firmly cemented as someone-who-goes-to-sleep-whilst-driving. Nodding-off behind the wheel as a teenager is on par with being a wife-beater: having achieved the title, you must don the sobriquet in perpetuity. Myself, even if the event last year WAS the result of falling asleep, I'm going to give a body a pass on only slipping up twice in 8 decades on earth. Call me lax.

tralalalalalalalallala

There was talk, of course. Grandpa will not be dissuaded from his quaint views of the universe. The one notion that likely saved him utterly from blaming W for this accident is probably the nagging suspicion that the one in the car with the ovaries was behind the wheel and caused the accident. After all, what moron thought it was a good ideer to have women drivers?

tralalalalalalalallala

Incidentally, Uncle W was in the Air Force. I've heard tell he was part of the crew that analyzed the MiG of the defecting Russian in the late 70s, the first MiG the US military got to interfere with in the Biblical sense. He was an aircraft mechanic, a brilliant man, a capable farmer, forest ranger, an enterprising man, and none of his children have embarrassed the family by breeding-out-of-wedlock or having non-Baptists in woodpiles and such. W passed away early Saturday morning, and we'll miss him. Bless you, Uncle W.

Strange days indeed.

Last night I dreamt I was in India staying at a little cabin thingie, and I wanted to go into a village and have dinner, so someone sent me a camel. Well, I climbed on and grabbed onto the rope and this thing hauled ass - I was hanging on by the rope, flying behind the camel like a banner. Mid-gallop, it occurred to me that I was sposta be hanging onto a rope near the front of the camel, instead of that swag festooning the hind-end. At the rental company as I was about to head back to the cabin, they gave me sweet, middling-sized elephant this time, and that was SOOOO much better.
Sunday I saw a strange sight: in the middle of a disused, weed-clotted former concrete parking lot was a lone green balloon on a white ribbon floating about 5 feet above the ground, no one and nothing around it. Pooled on the parking lot was a couple more feet of ribbon. I wish I'd had my camera and not been in a hurry. I like to imagine it floated over from the Fort Worth Stock Show, and that some little kid would be happy to know their balloon came back down to earth so gently.

Just plain crazy

I know hypochondria comes in varying degrees in various people. Baby sis is a little paranoid about her health, but then again, she likes running for miles and miles. *insane* As she is a fun banterer/partner-in-crime and has produced my adored niece and nephew, I sort of give her a pass on the running. Because there's enough good in her personality, she gets a pass on the health freaky-outy-ness, too.

Another thing that helps to temper my view of paranoid people is that at one point I worked with an actual hypochodriac, and she's sort of the gold standard for me for medical weirdness and obsession. Jean's preoccupation with health problems made my affection for shoes seem like a passing fancy.

Her sons were grown, and I think she was still married, but obviously needed something extreme with which to fill her time. She was in her mid-50s and had a good, steady income with great medical benefits, so I suppose she was bored and off-to-the-races on the health front. Jean seemed to be out of work a lot, having surgery on this or that.

I was about 20 at the time, life was a grand adventure and I was preparing for my first trip to Europe. I, too, had security and financial freedom and it was just good to be alive. Jean was like a living diorama sort of exhibit for me, a peek in to another stripe of weirdness than I'd been exposed to with my very healthy, hardy family: genuinely freaky.

One day, Jean treated me to one of those conversations one never forgets. I was a social butterfly and made a habit of talking to various people at break, asking about their lives, and this particular day was her turn--lucky thing! Talking with her was sort of this vague, freeform conversation of fragmented sentences, Jean occasionally drifting off into her own head (she was my conversational role model). So, anyhoo, she started telling me she had headaches that wouldn't go away, and the doctors couldn't figure out why. In a conversational equivalent of T-boning someone at an intersection, she'd been rambling about her pain and cranial pressure then suddenly looked into my eyes and asked "do you think I should have brain surgery?" I was dying to say something like "if you're asking a 20 year old who hasn't been to medical school if you should have brain surgery, then, yeah, you probably need your brain worked on," but I didn't. I said something like "I think you should do what your doctors advise." I also for an instant teetered on the brink of suggesting a half-measure like trepanning, but that would be mean, wouldn't it?

These days when hypochondria comes whizzing by driving half in the median with its blinker flashing perpetually even though there's no exit for miles and with a wheel that looks like it's going to fly off at any moment, I recognize it for what it is: just plain crazy.

One of my favorite songs: Rid of Me - PJ Harvey
Sydney festival 2001

See Polly Jean.
See Polly Jean kick ass.
Kick ass, Polly Jean, kick ass!

Tonight I started puttering around in my studio and I found a big fabulous stash of coral and turquoise beads that I bought last year. It was like Christmas morning. One other thing I re-discovered was a 16" strand of drilled rough diamond beads. I used 28 gauge sterling wire and started making little links of the teeniest seed pearls on either side of each diamond. Of course, these diamonds just look like super-sparkly rocks, but I think they are kind of neat.

What's funny is that when I started doing this wrap technique a long time ago, I preferred big wire that was more easily managed, but now I can work micro without even thinking about it. This little strand is about 5" and took about 30 minutes to do. I bought some 22 and 24 gauge 10K gold wire last week, but in the end, that stuff is too dear for crap diamonds. Besides, wire that size wouldn't fit in the teeny holes. When I finish this piece, I'll post it here for you to see.

Ya know, maybe I should be making flies for fishing? Same sorts of techniques...
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If you liked the electronic rock of Underworld, Siouxsie & the Banshees you should check out Dragons. Love them. Some of their churning melodies and swirling guitars evoke Wax&Wane-era Cocteau Twins. Love this band. Listen to all 4 tracks, but I 'specially love "Where is the Love" where the soaring vocals cross over into a plaintive glory so like that of Brendan Perry from Dead Can Dance.)

The FAA recently altered the departure headings for flights out of Philadelphia, and a pair of home owners grew frustrated when calls the FAA's noise complaint lines yielded only messages that their complaint voice mail box was full. Apparently the new headings bring the outbound planes directly over their residence, and the noise is interrupting their daily (and nightly) lives. They posted a very pointed message on their rooftop in 7' tall letters saying "[intercourse] U FAA" and apparently some pilots have noticed. The FAA may not give a rip, but they at least can't say they haven't been heard, now their story is on msn.com.

Yes, this has been the Week of Living High on the Hog™. I promise this will be the last mention of food for a while, but yesterday a mortgage company executive treated me to a posh lunch at this chic pan-Asian eatery, Bengal Coast. Gorgeous food. The restaurant owner came to our table and talked about the sauces. Extra fancy! As pennance, I vow to eat stale crackers and sleep on a stone pillow for the next few days. The rich life is lovely, but perhaps too rich for every day.
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Exiting to downtown from the tollroad this morning, I saw a billboard announcing that Tom Jones is coming to the local symphony hall in February. Yes-- it's the month for love. I'm wondering if this will be the first panty-throwing event at the Morton H. Meyerson symphony hall? I mean, surely, some women will still throw their knickers at that sexy old alley cat, right? *rowr*

I bring you the following video because every hour should be the Tom Jones Variety Hour. If Isaac Hayes were going to be at the Mort with Tom next month, well, I'd definitely be there, too. Enjoy.

Went to Queen of Sheba restaurant for dinner Tuesday. Yum. Ethiopian food is better than I remembered.
Best dish of the meal, though, was an appetizer called a sambosa which was a little triangle of phyllo pastry filled with a meat and vegetable mixture, spicy, with relish of spicy lentils and a jalapeno-laced pico-de-gallo-type garnish. YUM! Sambosas are a lot like samosas, which is an Indian dish. Loved the cardamom in several of the dishes. Ethiopian coffee at the end of the meal smelled and tasted of clove. Delicious--better than coffee usually is. Best detail about eating Ethiopian? No forks! Along with the big round tray of victuals comes a bowl of rolls of long strips of a light, fluffly bread with which you scoop up the sloppy bits. Nice. Eating with hands is a good thing. Ook!
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Had lunch at a sushi bar Tuesday and a woman sat next to me turned out to be friends with one of the doctors my mom works for. Small world, eh? Anyway, she asked about my book and then about Terry Pratchett, and we started talking about sci-fi. She said her book club was trying to branch out and try different genres, and if I were to recommend just one sci fi book, what would it be? The first one that occurred to me was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I hope I didn't steer her wrong, but I think that's a good one because for all the heaviness of the subject, it's more character-driven than big on techy-type stuff, and also the personal drama aspect is something I think would be more appealing to women who (no offense) I suspect have read too much of Opran's must-read book list. What do you think? What would you recommend to a first-time sci-fi reader? It's funny to me to turn my mind back and realize I started falling in love with that genre at about age 9 with Madelein L'engle and all that. Funny to think I've loved sci fi for 3/4 of my life. It's also funny how I've read sci-fi in fits and starts. In a strange way, I very much consider my beloved South American magical-realism to be sci-fi - Isabel Allende and whatnot.
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Despite the flip convo I posted, I'm really sad when I hear about people who slip when they are young and never get their footing again, famous or not. Beside Heath Ledger is the actor Brad Renfro who overdosed at 25 last week. It's like I always say: growing up in the glare of the spotlight warps and ruins more lives than it improves. Mamas: don't let your babies grow up to be actors.

Because celebrities are mere playthings-- toys for my amusement-- I bring you the following conversation I just had in IM. This is for your own good.

Phlegmmy: you dere?
Lil Sis: am now
Phlegmmy: can u believe that about heath ledger?
Lil Sis: no what r u talkin bout
Phlegmmy: ded. d. e. d.
Phlegmmy: dead
Phlegmmy: od/d
Lil Sis: `how
Phlegmmy: in mary-kate's nyc apt
Phlegmmy: pitiful
Lil Sis: i'd peg him for killin hisself
Phlegmmy: why?
Phlegmmy: because that's happened in some of his films? monster's ball
Phlegmmy: died in the Patriot
Lil Sis: he seems sad and his marriage broke up and they had a baby and he just seemed sad
Phlegmmy: he seemed down-to-earth to me. Never thought that maybe he was terminally depressed
Phlegmmy: that's awful
Lil Sis: at least maybe Brit will get some peace har har
Phlegmmy: i see it now, but it just seemed to me that he was a regular person and not buying all the Hollywood B/S
Lil Sis: maybe i'm wrong
Lil Sis: those people are prolly all jacked up all the time
Phlegmmy: I'm thinking of starting a ghoul pool on my blog - running numbers on who's next. I think it'll be Amy Winehouse. Then again, she may be the Keef Richards of the lot
Lil Sis: i think it might be lin lohan when she falls all the way off the wagon
Phlegmmy: Yeah, she's totally going down the stony end.
Lil Sis: ok by me
Phlegmmy: what a terrible way to live. what a waste
Lil Sis: i just can't get the images from him and jack G throwin down outta my head
Phlegmmy: yeah
Lil Sis: the gayness, jake seems much more into it than him but that was the way it was supposed to go, pink is new blog thinks jake is really gay, but he would
Phlegmmy: oh, Jake has been rumoured to be gay fo-evah. He is the one referred to as "Toothy Tile" in the Ted Casablanca blind items dish columns
Lil Sis: did u see it
Lil Sis: brokeback
Phlegmmy: Yup, sawr it. Liked the Brokeback Bunny version better.
Phlegmmy: Oh, and about Jake and that goaty little Matthew McC and Lance Armstrong? I'm just saying there was something to that. You get ol' one-ball and Jakey-poo and a nekkid bongo-playin' Texan together and they ain't gonna be playin scrabble, is all I'm sayin'.
Lil Sis: I think they smoke alot of dope too, when we lived in austin a movie prem with matt mcc and that replusive harrelson person in it and they were really jacked up on the news and it was funnneee
Phlegmmy: Golly, ew, gross. Now I'm disgusted. Talk about O/Ds and suicides and brokeback interludes if you must, but please don't mention the name Harrelson - he sends me into paroxysms of repulsion
Lil Sis: If my husband did that I'd shoot em, and that jack nasty too
Phlegmmy: that's "Twist," ma’am.
Lil Sis: whats twist
Phlegmmy: Twist = Jack Twist - Jakey's character
Phlegmmy: I think you'd never marry someone who'd do that-- I think it took a ruggedly heterosexual man to survive you.
Lil Sis: yep, cops and Marines fo sho
Lil Sis: i like firefighters too
Lil Sis: hear they can cook
Phlegmmy: I love how open-minded you are about who's attractive. 'specially with the overlap of the subsets of Marine/Cop/Firefighter.
Phlegmmy: With a heavy emphasis on "Marine." And now you want the poor man to do your cookin’?
Lil Sis: yes
Phlegmmy: This is so going on the blog.
Lil Sis: K then I'll stop 4 i ‘barres myself further

Guilty Pleasure: Nick Cage in Con Air



Yup. I know it's cheesey as all-git-out, but sometimes there is such a staggering degree of cheese-dom-- sometimes the cheese meter pegs so hard that the cheese turns into a loop that wraps plumb back around into splendidness. Such is the cheese of Con-Air.

The bounding insanity of the superb Steve Buscemi must be mentioned here, too.

*SQUEAL* Just found this little nugget: Why Kathleen Turner hates Nick Cage and Burt Reynolds. Tres dishy. Kinda bitchy. All good.

I've been recording Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on the DVR lately and Friday night I watched a few episodes. Bourdain's globe-trotting gourmand schtick gave me a taste for something exotic, and I decided to go somewhere interesting for dinner Saturday night. Oddly enough, I found Queen of Sheba restaurant [Ethiopian] driving up Inwood north of 635 Friday afternoon. It's up in Addison now, but when I went there about 20 years ago, or so, they were on Lemmon avenue between McKinney and Cole. After they packed up from Lemmon, I never knew where they went. Anyway, I'm vowing to break out of eating the usual stuff - I think I'm missing out by not trying new and different foods that are to be found here.

Carribbean Grill at the SW corner of Belt Line and Webb Chapel fit the bill perfectly Saturday night(I wasn't keen to sit on the floor in my cowgirl boots at the Ethiopian joint). CG is a Cuban venue, and I ordered something the name of which I can't begin to remember. The dish consisted of braised beef steaks in a very tomatoey sauce with fried plaintains, white rice and gorgeously seasoned black beans on the side. Honestly, that's the first time I've really liked black beans. The beef wasn't a superlative cut, but all the stuff it was smothered in was fresh and delicious, so it sorta didn't matter too much. I like the way they really fried the plaintains. I love Texas de Brazil, but I think it's insipid to fry bananas but not bring them to the point of caramelization on the outside. I mean, otherwise, they're just hot and full of grease -- what's the point? Anyway, this very much reminded me of Mexican food, only much cleaner and fresher-tasting. And sauced, spiced tomatoes with white rice and fried bananas is one of the best flavor combinations in the world, in my humble opinion. Even better with scrambled eggs. I know it sounds revolting, but it's long been a favorite. The acid of the tomatoes is foiled by the sweetness of the bananas, which compliments the saltiness, and then of course the white rice brings a wonderful starchy body to the party. I first saw this combination in a Greek cookbook about 25 years ago, and it's been one of my abiding affections, this combination. Oh, and you need some garlic in there, too. Yum. Garlic.

Sorry. I drifted off there, for a moment. I'll go on in case someone is still reading:

Halfway through my meal, a sweet little older lady came up to me and started speaking Spanish, and I said "Do you speak English?" and she and I sort of grinned and gestured at each other as she handed me her daughter's business card. A few minutes later, her daughter, Aura, came over to tell me they were here in Texas promoting this new energy company, and that they live in New Jersey. She had this gorgeous, smoky sort of voice, and it was just fun to hear her talk. I told her I'd look their program up on the net and consider it. Funny, in a lot of other contexts, I would have recoiled from a vaguely sales-pitchy approach, but actually it was very casual and chatty, and not just about selling, it seemed. I really liked them.

The meal was amazing, and I was thrilled with my choice for the evening. The music they played was like a younger, hipper Buena Vista Social Club, sort of Danzón-esque, and all the while, technicolor visions of vintage Jordan-Almond-colored cars danced through my head. As I was leaving, Aura hollered across the restaurant "Goodbye, Rita!" and I loved just hearing her say my name. That was fabulous. All that good food and casual chat and I never mentioned the most famous Cuban in the world.

If you live in the area, definitely go check it out.

Stay sick!

So I've started reading Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, and this one seems so much more somber in tone than the other handful of books I've read so far. Yes, there's still humor, but it seems less light-hearted. Then again, I've just started and haven't read much.

So, anyway, I thought I'd ask other Discworld readers - do you notice a difference in tone with the various books? Also - has Terry Pratchett ever done a run-down of events both personal and societal that influenced the tone of his writing? I'm sure there's a Discworld reference book of some sort?

From the "Ur not doin' that right" files:

Crazy man in Hawaii beat a woman to death with a shotgun in front of witnesses. She cried for help from the onlookers until she was beaten unconscious.

If a bystander had been properly armed, or if there had been a real man around, that piece of crap would be the dead one now, and not that woman.

How could a bunch of men watch this happen and not overpower that maniac???

As for the witnesses who spoke in the video - I'd be ashamed to show my face if I stood idly by at such a time.

An LA judge gets creative and sentences Lindsay Lohan to work 2 four-hour shifts in a morgue and one shift in an emergency room as punishment for her drunk driving. That, coupled with the 84-minute jail sentence she served (so, what, 84 minutes of processing, no actual cell-time?), should really teach her the evils of driving drunk. She can think of it as researching future roles.

If you ax me, they should make her spend a few days with Britney (I know, leave her alone!), because Lindsay is heading for Britneyland, it appears.

When you think back to your wild youth and foolishly squandered early adult-hood, didja ever stop to think that maybe it was a tremendous blessing not to have vast amounts of wealth with which to do every little thing your foolish heart desired?

OMG - look at this fabulous photo I found of a visibly disturbed Salma Hayek recoiling from the boozey-cum*-ashtray kiss being offered up by la Lohan. You don't have to be a body language expert to read Salma's mind. Ick. She was prolly worried a herpe might jump on her in such close proximity, and who could blame her?

*TO THE TACKY-ASSED WISEACRE WHO SENT ME THAT EMAIL ABOUT THIS SENTENCE: that's "cum" as in Summa and Magna. Got it?

You filthy prevert!

Giuseppe Zanotti whipped the best of all worlds into this confection of a shoe, a patent leather Double Buckle Mary Jane. I wonder what they feel like on? The heel is only 4", and considering the forward part of the shoe is bolstered on a built-in platform, this is not brutally high by a long shot. The top of the foot is further braced by the strap which crosses from the instep, so they probably feel a lot more stable than most pumps would. I also love the ideer of having shoes made by some guy named Giuseppe. Hey-- isn't that something from an old folk tale or something? If not, it ought to be.

I know: you're squealing with delight.
ME TOO!

I pronounce it officially slobber-worthy™.

Fetch me my drool-cup, Jeeves.

These days I'm officially blissed-out over my Dame Agnes booties which I have taken out of the box and sighed over, but have only tried on, never worn. I'll let you know when I trot them out for their official unveiling, glorious things that they be. But I tell you this: there is enough love in my heart for more shoes, always. Please don't worry that I might ever be tapped out on that score.
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Freaky thing happened on Thursday. I was over by American Airlines Center around mid-day (where the Stars and Mavericks play) and suddenly there was this huge sound everywhere, kind of like the MEEP! MEEP! of a backhoe when it's backing up, only, like, times a million. Then there was an announcer voice on loudspeakers from the AAC system announcing a test of the emergency announcement system. It then said "DO NOT EVACUATE THE BUILDING."

Shoulda been: "DO NOT EVACUATE YOUR BOWELS." Seriously - I liketa peed myself - it was beyond alarming. That's really going to kill business for Italian ices at Paciugo. I mean, you stop in for a delicious, icy pistachio-almond treat and something sounds like an air-raid event going on kills your sugar-rush moment -- was that really necessary?
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Friday again? How'd that happen?
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ADDENDUM: So in my mailbox this morning there's the following thing from the director of Dallas' Public Information Office:
Re: CERT training

Please help the City publicize this important training opportunity in any public service program, newscast, radio program, newspaper, or community/neighborhood publication.

The Office of Emergency Management sponsors free Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training to the City of Dallas . CERT training promotes a partnering effort between emergency services and the citizens of Dallas . The goal is for emergency personnel to train members of neighborhoods, places of worship, community organizations, or workplaces in basic response skills. If a disastrous event overwhelms or delays the communityʼs professional response, CERT members can assist others by applying the basic response and organizational skills that they learned during the training.

If you are interested in training or finding out more information for a potential story, please contact Tahira Ali via email at Tahira.ali@dallascityhall.com or by telephone at 214-670-4279.

Um. (?!)

Now, I don't want to be mean, and I'm not making light of the pain and suffering of others, but I'm so glad that dad-burned football season is over for big teams centered in and around Dallas. Sunday afternoon I decided to go the shorter, more sensible route to my folks' house which involved a spot of travel on Loop 12. Well, waddayaknow if there wasn't a massive bottleneck of traffic involving people trying to exit to Texas Stadium in Irving? I get it. Y'all want to go to your game. Ok, alright already. But why must an 8-lane expressway come to a crawl? I could see the exiting lane, or even possibly two lanes moving more slowly and backing up, but *sheesh.*

And the backup started about 2 miles from the stadium and there was a haze of smoke around the parking lots surrounding the stadium. What do we have here? A bivouac of Civil War reenactors? Scores of jalopies that all made their death-crawl to the stadium one last time, giving up the ghosts in the parking lot, resplendent with throwed-rods and under-hood fires? Oh, no. Bubbas far and wide brought they grills and set up back-yard style cookout events. Whatever happened to a simple basket of goodies? Apparently there's nothing simple to it, anymore. At least I can respect the one guy I heard of who goes to NASCAR events with a margarita machine gerry-rigged with an under-sink garbage disposal for ice-crushing and mixing. Schlepping a grill out? Well, I don't know what to call that.

All the better for Dallas when the Cowboys move into their new stadium over at Arlington, and good rivets, as my baby sister used to say. Let the good folks of Arlington deal with the traffic snarls, the increased municipal taxes and the soused sport fans on their roadways.

Die Hard in 30 seconds as interpreted by potty-mouthed bunnies:



Yippie-ki-yay, melon-farmers!
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I have been showing the apartment of someone who is moving to another city, and his cat-- a plump orange tabby-- has either fallen deeply in love with me, or it thinks I may let it escape. I'll flatter myself and choose to think it's the former, rather than the latter. Yeah, I'm a dog person, but this cat certainly turns my head.
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Am watching the miniseries of Comanche Moon-- the prequel to Lonesome Dove. I think the actors all are doing a fantastic job-- particularly Val Kilmer as Inish Scull. It is a bit disappointing what needs must be left out of the tv production for the sake of brevity, but I thought Inish having his eyelids removed by a butcher was a kind of important element. Perhaps that was asking too much of the actor and of special effects. At least he got the flea-hopping thing down pat. I'm hoping the final episode opens with that buggy-whipping he promised Mrs. Scull. But I expect to be disappointed, on that score, even though she's a very bad girl.

Ah, well. Can't have everything.

*wiped out*
Went with niece to see 5 Browns in concert. The Dallas-area gig tonight was sold out, so we went to the performance in Tyler (90 miles east of Dallas) Monday night instead. Anyway, their encore was Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Good stuff. Fun show.

Half the audience sniffled and coughed their way through. One man a few rows behind me had the oddest throat-clearing habit I've heard, and about the 40th time, I started having to suppress giggles. He would do this throat-grindy sound then phonate (produce a voice-like sound by moving air through the vocal folds) and he sounded like he was attempting to dead-lift 500 pounds. FUN-NEE.
Okay. I'm mature.

here's a little nugget you might enjoy: as I was leaving my sister's house Monday afternoon, she informed me that though she won't have anymore children, she wishes she could have another son so she could name him "Wadsworth." She thought that was incredibly clever for some reason. Yeah, I'm mature, and she's classy. We're just like that. Try not to be jealous. Don't be hatin'.

At lunch Sunday, Dad told two stories that had me laughing uncontrollably. The first is a joke, and the second is a true story.

A little boy was putting the leash on his dog to take her for a walk, and his mother said "you can't take her for a walk-- she's in heat."
The boy said "what does that mean?"
"Go ask your father" came the tart response.

He found his father in the garage, working on the lawn mower and said "ma said I can't walk the dog because she's in heat. What does that mean?"

The father took a greasy shop rag, poured some gasoline on it and wiped it on the dog's rear-end and said "she'll be okay, now. You can walk her."

A little while later, the boy came back to the house with just the leash, and the father said "what happened? Where's the dog?"

The little boy responded "She ran out of gas. Last I saw her, there was a big dog giving her a push up the street."
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Dad was working at a car repair place in Memphis in the 70s. There was a mechanic named Andy who was working on the air conditioning system of an enormous woman's car, and she was there in the service bay, hovering as Andy worked, flapping her gums and basically being a nuisance, micromanaging him.

He was about finished with the job, and she asked him "How many BTUs does this thing have?"

Andy shot back "Well, lady, I don't know how many BTUs it has, but it's got enough BTUs to cool a B-U-T as big as a T-U-B."

Just because you're paranoid...

In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough?

OMG - this is delicious.

h/t to Zelda.

While I'm thinking of wearable art, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of my all-time favorite American jewelry makers, Thomas Mann. You can check out his site if you click here and click on the "catalog" prompt, and then look at necklaces, earrings, whatever interests you.

This stuff isn't cheap like costume jewelry, but then again, it is hand-made in the USA and made of high quality materials and will long be a favorite in the jewelry wardrobe. I have two pair of his earrings (including the little heart earrings here, and the gew-gaws in the box float around behind a pane of lucite or some such. Cuteness!) and the execution is finely wrought on all the teeny washers, rivets and cold-connections as well as the fabricated bits.

Here's a tip for you shopping-challenged guys for Valentine's Day: if your girl is a steam-punkette, you'd do well to get her some of these. I really want the skulls. Unlike the usual fragile, froufy sort of stuff (not that there's anything wrong with that stuff, but we don't go to the opera every day, do we?), these pieces are engineering marvels in miniature, and there are literally dozens and dozens of different designs. These also fall into the category of collectible art jewelry. I'd be interested to hear what you think.

One of my favorite style icons is early 20th century designer Mariano Fortuny, Spanish master of several arts, and one who set a very high bar for textile and lighting designers for centuries to come.

Fortuny developed a technique for pleating silk by placing the carefully folded wet fabric onto heated porcelain tubes to permanently press the pleats into the cloth. He used this silk in a simple dress based on the simple classic Greek sheath design. The sinuous, clinging pleats of the fabric elongated the forms of lithe jazz babies and gave them the va-va-voom that inspired the jazz age to roar so hotly. Examples of this dress, the Delphos, sell for extraordinary amounts at auction these days. I found one example online which sold for well over $11,000 in 2001.

Fortuny was a rich kid whose interests were much varied, and who moved around the European capitals rubbing elbows with other creative sorts. He is said to have been a great inspiration to Proust, and buddy of composer Richard Wagner.

While he was hanging out with these artsy folk, Fortuny became quite keen on stagecraft, and began to design theatrical lighting equipment. A factory in Italy still produces his designs, and the Fortuny Lamp is a style staple you can buy freshly produced today for a cool $5,000*. No doubt, vintage editions of this lamp would fetch staggering amounts. Other Fortuny lamps are still in production and fetch prices in the $1000-20,000 range, rendered in hand-painted silks and intricate glass forms. Srsly.

Serious design. Seriously beautiful. Seriously, nose-bleedingly expensive.

*having been a style groupie for lo these many moons, I was so delighted when the firm Design Within Reach came along, but I quickly discovered they meant the designs could be obtained, but were not at all affordable. *harumph* Oh well.

Here: let's wash that nasty taste out of our mouths, mkay?



Lego version of That Essence Rare by Gang of Four. Fun.

...while the Sex Pistols were taking the world by storm (or not), I was hastened along the path to disillusioned second wave punkette by the oogy light hits of the 70s. Ya know: stuff like Afternoon Delight. Some icky stuff by Doctor Hook and the Medicine Balls or somesuch. And then there was this unearthly delight that made my flesh creep in a not-good way:



Yes my friends, this is why the Sex Pistols had to happen-- a fact I believe the comely young lass in this video understands. Sit back and enjoy the crashing waves of gooseflesh. Nasty.

30 Years ago today....

Sex Pistols played Longhorn ballroom in Dallas. I was 12 and living in Arkansas at the time, so, DUH, no, I wasn't there.

Besides that, at the tender age of 12, despite all the crap life had thrown at me so far, my sense of irony was not yet developed enough to appreciate the Sex Pistols. But it was getting there.

A friend once said "once you hit 40, all that stuff starts breaking down." Considering the rules don't apply to me in other areas, I smugly thought "not me, man. I'm different. I'm special." Anyway, this food poisoning coupled with the pneumonia thingie has me questioning my own immortality. Let's move on to the more-pleasant topic of the flaws of others:

Wednesday featured this gem in which a guy shoplifted hunting knives by concealing them in his pants, but fell and ended up stabbing himself. The article did say his wounds weren't life-threatening, but I wonder if he is still reproductively viable? Then again, in our culture, injuries which rendered him impotent would probably be termed "life-threatening," oui?

By the way, I'm loving that MSNBC has a news sub-heading entitled "criminal weirdness." No doubt, they're never short of news in that section of the site.
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Weekend At Bernie's Chapter 47.5: Two retirement-age fellows wheel their dead roomie on an office chair over to the local check-cashing storefront to cash his check. They woulda got away with it, too, if it weren't for those nosy kids.
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Bitchy, much?

If anyone tells you there are more vicious tabloids in the world than those of the British stripe, don't believe them.

Witness this bit of soft-balling in which 51-year old Kim Cattrall is soundly thrashed for having (shock! horror!) cellulite, gently introduced by this headline: Cellulite and the city: Kim Cattrall's massive bikini bottoms fail to hide her dimpled thighs.

Somewhere along the middle of that production, I watched the occasional episode of Sex & The City. I wasn't a big fan, but I did like KC's character's brassiness, even if she was somewhat shocking occasionally. But ya know, whatever her characters have or haven't been- I think she looks hot enough for 51. Apparently, aging is an unforgiveable sin for the Hollywood elite. Maybe that's why there are so few American film icons who age gracefully, and maybe that's why so many American women are not going gently into that dark night. Don't cowgirl up, ladies: Judy Dench-up. That woman is gorgeous. Joan Plowright? Adorable. Be the age you are. As Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg so aptly put it: "Never be ashamed of who you are. You're warriors. Be proud."

Flip on over in the same day's Daily Mail to see 65 year old Britt Ekland get spanked over her "trout pout," a collagen-enhanced puss. The Bobo/Peter Sellers-era Britt Ekland was imho one of the prettiest things ever to come out of the entertainment industry. It's got to be difficult to be defined by such startling beauty and to then be subject to gravity and all that shit. Better to be known for something sustainable and, I dunno, maybe actually superlative in fact rather than over the happy accident of genetic roulette?

Of course, for me and all my fair readers, well, we are paragons of grace and beauty, and not subject to any of that unpleasantness, are we?

This is part and parcel of why The Soup is one show on television worth watching. Or maybe it's just that I'm tired and silly and will laugh at anything. You decide.

I'm still poorly, but am SO much better than I was yesterday. What's been strange about this is that it's been like echoes of when I had pneumonia, but at the height (or nadir) of this food poisoning thing, my body actually felt worse. Not to be overly graphic, but I think it was the tensing of all my muscles as (stuff) beat a retreat for the nearest point of exit. Even my toes and the muscles in my feet are aching.

Of all the odd things, at one point I thought of a statistic I heard once that more soldiers in the American Civil War died of dysentery than of actual battle wounds. With the unrelenting sultry southern heat, wool uniforms, and the utter lack of modern conveniences - battlegrounds must have been an olfactory assault scarce imaginable, not to mention the sheer discomfort of suffering so in that environment. Such is the type of delirium I'm prone to in a sickly state. Yuck. I'm glad it's 2008 and I have toilet paper and a nice lovely shower handy.

[Added later: As to what made me sick, I can't definitively say. I went to an Indian buffet on Sunday afternoon and I thought the food was wonderful. I didn't eat a lot, but it seemed very good to me, but I've only been to that restaurant once and then about a year ago. Then on Monday morning I had breakfast at a place I rarely go, and I had basted eggs, which meant the yolks were runny, so it could have been salmonella. My sister said it sounds like salmonella, and she's had that before. Who knows?]

Anyway, the worst seems to be over, and I haven't been pukey for about 16 hours, so I think it'll all be okay. I've been drinking Gatorade and bottled water and sprite, and I hope I'll sleep through the night and feel much better tomorrow.

About a month ago, I bought the Pedro Almodovar dvd Volver which stars Penelope Cruz, and I finally got to watch it Tuesday night. Superb film. Almodovar seems to have a grasp on the lovely ordinariness of people, and I think that is so under-done in cinema today, most especially American cinema. Almodovar has long been a favorite, since I fell in love with the divine Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Check it out.

So, anyhoo, I watched some idiot box, and was starved enough for viewing material that I actually watched part of a show on McDonald's, and would you believe it? Willard Scott - the tv weather guy - was the original Ronald McDonald. Muy Creepy. Enjoy:

Dear Elvis,
Even though I'm horrified that I may be exhibiting signs of appendicitis* and even though most people remember the anniversary of your death -- I remember your birthday, Elvis. Oh, my goodness! I'm older than you were when you died. How'd that happen?

Maybe you'll make appearances at select k-Marts and on toasted tortillas and tree stumps around the country. Maybe you'll be in the shadows of Graceland and even dancing on your grave. I don't know what your plans are, but me? I'm gonna slap on Elvis shades (Model LS 3561) if I'm not in the hospital, and maybe even then.

Whoops, gotta puke again. See ya' around the sandbox.
Thank you, Elvis. Thank you very much,

Lurve, Phlegmmy

*Okay, at the time I wrote that, I was horrified that I might be having appendicitis, but I have since decided this is merely a garden-variety case of food poisoning. Yays. Maybe that's just as good a way to commemorate the King as any other... uh uh huh!

Okay. I know I'm coming really late to the party on this one, but Pan's Labyrinth is superb. It's not for children and there's some extremely graphic violence, but it's a fantastic movie. I'm giving it 4 loogies up.

A study has found that male macaque monkeys "pay" for sex by grooming females. The article mentions that after having been groomed by a male, the female monkey is three times more likely to give up some monkey love to her personal nit-picker. The lady monkeys are savvy businesswomen for demanding payment up front. Of course, this has no significance with regard to humans, as the males grooming our females are the less likely than average to interfere with those females sexually. The other irony is that in human society, nit-pickers are far less likely to score with the opposite sex. It was ever thus.
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Comments on this post have prompted me to append this post with an additional note. Tickersoid wrote that seamonkeys were always at it with no grooming ritual required, thank you very much.

Well, when I was at univ ( about 10 years ago), I discovered the Seamonkey watch, and I wore mine to school rather frequently-- at least when I didn't have opera rehearsal and 16 hour school days. This watch has a removeable plastic bubble dome on the face, and you have a little mini-turkey-baster thingie and can suck up a couple seamonkeys from their little tank and inject them into the bubble and wear them around all day. (not recommended for sunny, outdoor wearing.) A pair of seamonkeys can live in the little bubble for 12 hours. Well, sitting in music theory lectures, I could watch my pets swimswim in circles. I rather fancied I was Bruce Dern in the Seamonkey version of Silent Running, the last remaining bubble of seamonkeydom nature was on my wrist, and I would never jettison it back into space, no matter what ground control said-- I was down for the count with my seamonkeys. Mostly, though, I watched them try to make baby seamonkeys - they were constantly hooking up. I'd say to someone "hey, look at my seamonkeys" and they'd say "I only see one-- oh, that's two, uh" and I'd be embarrassed that my seamonkeys were such exhibitionists, canoodling in public and whatnot. At the end of the day, I'd use the baster thingie to hoover them out of the bubble and re-introduce them to the general seamonkey population. Eventually, that batch of seamonkeys died, and I lost their biodome bubble from the watch anyway, and maybe, just for a second, got a little bored. (who, me? Lose interest? Look! A dragonfly!)

Thus ended my seamonkey career. Alas. But for a moment, it was beautiful.

Can I gripe for just a sec?
I thought I could. Thanks.

I've been collecting tribal jewelry for a little over a decade now. I mean, here and there when I was younger, I'd pick up tribal pieces but with no real intent on collecting and not much interest in divining the origin of these pieces.

These days, I do collect and care about the origin of tribal jewelry. I especially love hill tribe pieces from the Turkmenistan in Central Asia (Tekke, Turkoman) and the Karen hill tribe silver pieces from the remote reaches of Thailand, and I love the work of the Naga in northeast India and Tuareg pieces of North Africa. In glass I have sandcast beads from various parts of Africa (lots from Ghana) and some sandcast and whitehearts from Asia. When possible, I buy and wear intact pieces, but if I can get my mitts on fragments or loose components, I incorporate those into the jewelry I design. I haven't made a single piece of jewelry in probably 5 years that hasn't included at least some Thai Tribal stuff, which has long been a favorite.

You may have noticed there aren't a lot of tribal jewelry emporia dotted about the country here, so for a long time I've relied on finding pieces on ebay to supplement what bits and bobs I glean from combing the bins at wholesale supply shows. Once was a time when I could do a search in ebay using only the terms "tribal" and "jewelry" and positively scads of gorgeous ethnic pieces from the world over would pop into view.

Not so now.

If you go to ebay and search "tribal" and "jewelry" in order to get to the maybe 300 or so pieces that truly fit that description, you must now wade through thousands of modern-primitive neo-hippie type crap the denizens of Burning Man perceive to be "tribal."

This is endlessly irritating. In fact, just because it's got that stupid yoga symbol (namaste, asshats!) and is carved out of bamboo or some such does not make it tribal. In fact, I have news for this stinky deodorant-free vegan neo-hippie generation - y'all have turned that grommet-through-the-earlobe and deadlock thing into such a groupthink trend event that I totally swear that your neo-pagan shit is your generation's jellies-&-banana clip. Think about it. Many of you will come to regret the holes in your earlobes you could drive a tractor through. In that mellow settling-in period of middle age, you'll reflect with horror the possibility of what your children will have to do to rebel against you(prolly be nerdy, wear button-down shirts and vote Republican), and you'll wonder what you were thinking, hanging out with a bunch of folks who were just opportunists looking for a good excuse to be ne'er-do-well wastrels. But you'll go through some real crap before you figure all that out, and my heart goes out to you, really, but in the process, you'll go on futzing about and muddying the waters on what is/isn't a genuine artifact from (some cases) obscure cultures that need to be recognized for superb craftsmanship.
But that shit you're wearing? The new stuff made out of eco-friendly materials by sweatshop kids in India and China? That ain't tribal, baby, and I'm sick of you gumming up commerce by calling stuff what it ain't. Call it "modern primitive" jewelry, or somesuch. Think of something original (I know, it's hard to do), but that stuff looks too new and too slick to fit the bill of "pagan" that you so love spit-gluing onto everything.

And while I'm at it: hey you! Get off of my cloud!

Erm. Uh.



This lady stopped cutting her nails in 1979.

This is why little Scotty will need lots and lots of therapy.

Oh my.

Avoid the movie, but the series Reno 9-1-1 is fun-nee.

Hair Apparent

Um, Ew. Just EW.

A Seattle-bound flight landed instead in Pittsburgh to unload a handcuffed pervert who fondled the hair of- and groped a fellow passenger as she tried to sleep. I'm betting she was faking the "trying to sleep" thing. It's time for hair-touching to be taken as the seriously borderline behavior it truly is. Besides, some women go bananas when you touch their hair. At least I have heard this is true. No one I know, of course.
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One of my all-time favorite stories in the news was a girl in England who had the compulsion to eat hair, or trichophagia. Hair and fingernails are pure protein and can not be digested. Apparently the smooth surface of hair does not allow it to be moved through the digestive tract through normal peristalsis, thus a hairball develops.

Anyway, this girl in England had been a hair eater since early childhood, but had been in therapy and her family thought she was cured. She then decided to go to school to become a beautician. One day she began having profound stomach cramps, and within a very short time, she was dead. She had about a 5 pound ball of hair in her stomach-- not all her own stuff.

Isn't it amazing her family let her go to hair school, knowing her compulsion? Isn't that like sending an alcoholic to a bartending academy or a pyromaniac to work in a match factory? Asking for trouble.

Life can be so much stranger than anything you can make up.
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Speaking of made-up, I'm enjoying the courtship of Captain Vimes and Lady wossit (swamp-dragon lady), if that is indeed what's happening. Pratchett seems to have keenly observed how humans get on, and he looks most kindly upon the process. Sweet.

Mosey on over to Myron's place to see the only way Al Gore can follow up An Inconvenient Troot.

I believe in miracles.
Where ya from



You sexy thang?

*whew* Now that I've got that off my chest...

This here's one of them housecleaning posts. So sit back and enjoy the ride.

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Ruh Roh, Raggy!

Beware of the office piranha: Male bosses warned of man-eating women who are preying on them.

Poor wittle fellers - gettin' preyed-on by voracious she-devils.


Yay, predator women! Keep it up, bitches. Y'all make "high maintenance" (whatever that means!) seem downright prim and demure, sort of quaint-like.



[I bring up "high maintenance" only because Hols just gave me a candle with a fragrance of the same name, for some reason. I think she must have been distracted and looked away as she was reaching for the "sweet little lamb" candle she meant to buy for me instead]


*shrug*
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I'm waiting impatiently for my new Dame Agnes 'Vogs to arrive. Today marks twice this week the Brown Truck of Happiness™ has rolled smooth-the-hell on by my office with nary a nod in my direction. We are not amused.


Don't make me go harpy on your ass, UPS. You won't like me when I'm harpy.





We're asking the public for calm. Let's just see how this plays out. We are certain the boys in the brown shorts want to do the right thing. Tomorrow is another day.
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DFW area cab driver Yaser Abdel Said apparently kilt his 17- and 18- year old daughters and left their bodies in his cab at the cab stand of a local hotel.



This guy is either going to do the sensible thing and off himself, or we are in for one helluva floor show as he tries to avoid being flame roasted here in the land of capital punishment. Either way, he's so toast. I'm expecting some immaculately effed up explanation as to why he thought his daughters needed to die - prolly something like them acting like Western hos. In any case, you've got to wonder about the self-loathing of a person who could kill their own children. Execution in this case is a mercy killing, if you axe me.
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I've pretty much not been watching tv in recent months, save the occasional Project Runway episodes. I have to say Gillian with her 70s denim and rainbow-stripe-suspender obsession is really working my nerves. Then there's the issue of her namby-pamby voice, all mushy, wimpy and reeking of that sappy-fake femininity that is the earmark of a pain-in-the-ass passive-agressive bitch. Victorya is wearing, as well.

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Breda - I'm rocking out my Ruby Pumps nail polish. Thanks for the recommendation. They all glittery up in dat shit. I'm rolling to the sonorous tones of the funk hits of the 70s. That's what I'm saying. And when I look at my nails through my polarized sunglasses, I'm feeling very not-in-Kansas anymore. Now I need to get a job where I can just sit around and admire my own manicure all day every day. Visions of red-glitter-vinyl diner booths are dancing in my head. *bliss*
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Tell me something good...

Tell me that you love me.

Yeah.

Myron posted this, and I absolutely must pass it along.

Texas Ditch Surfing.
Hang eleven*, dudes!



*sometimes, when close relatives marry, children are born with varying numbers of digits

To Holly and jpg -
Thank you so much for your hospitality - I had a grand time celebrating the new year with you and Flo and Mr. Flo.

Liz - great to see you and yer fam over the holidays - yes, we must get together more often.

You're truly wonderful friends, all, and I wish you the best in 2008.

Happy New Year!

Yesterday I was driving around in and around downtown, and all around me were people in cars festooned with razorback regalia and Arkansas plates. I was thinking that with all those high-toned vehicles in town, most of the full sets of teeth from my home state must be in Dallas right now. Then it turned out that one street I needed to traverse was closed down for a parade. Turns out the hawgs are in town for the Cotton Bowl game today.

Go Hawgs, or whoever you want to win. Yay, teams!