Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Bean-Dip Stalker Edition

I will you to come to me, Bean Dip.

We were meant to be together.

Only I can help you fulfill your destiny, oh smooth and creamy Bean Dip. Those others will never love you as I do. You are the one and only true Bean Dip of my heart, with or without Fritos.

You will be mine!

You must!

My Precious.

Our Lips Are Sealed

The Go-Go's recorded this song in 1981, but I always preferred the Fun Boy Three version which they recorded in 1983. This song was written by GoGo Jane Wiedlen and Terry Hall of FBT and the Specials. Most likely, if you've ever heard Fun Boy Three before, it was on the Bananarama hit "Really Saying Something."

Good googly moogly. Was this really three decades ago? Judging by the hairstyles, uh, that would be a big 10-4, good buddy. We've got a convoy of big big hair only possible with enviro-terror CFC-packing hairsprays, bless 'em. So what if it dates me horribly? This still sounds really good to me. :)

Points to the classy drummer in pearls and platinum pageboy. Fun.

I'll say it as nicely as I am able...

Remember when that crazy man flew an airplane into the IRS building last week?

Yeah: crazy.

No matter what anyone thinks of the IRS, that was a singularly horrible thing to do, and, sadly, one man in the building was killed along with the deranged pilot.

Now the wife of the deceased IRS employee is suing the wife of the dead lunatic pilot. In the lawsuit, widow Valerie Hunter asserts:

“[Sheryl Stack] was threatened enough by Joseph Stack that she took her daughter and stayed at a hotel the night before the plane crash,” the suit says. “[She] owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid a foreseeable risk of injury to others..."

Let's review: the guy was crazy and could have done anything (oh, say, shot up a Luby's, had a field day from a certain bell tower in Austin, marched nude up the Capitol steps-- the possibilities were endless), and his unfortunate wife is accused of being in part responsible for his actions because she removed herself and her child from his presence? Living with the man recently could not have been a picnic, but the poor woman may have thought the worst was over when she finally got away from him. My heart goes out to her, as it looks like there's no end in sight for the bullcorn.

Seriously - I know Mrs. Hunter is grieving, but to lash out at the other widow from the sad affair is sheer dementia con carne. I could understand if she sued the IRS for being the author of maddening degrees of asshattery, but this is beyond the pale. The nicest way I can say it is that Mrs. Hunter must be an absolute intercoursing c-word. Her and the lawyer she rode in on.

I hope they are duly shamed in court, as they should be.

Not that this is funny, but...

shoppers in a Dubai mall were terrified when the wall tank holding back gazillions of gallons of water and [live! nude!] sharks cracked before their very eyes. I think they were silly to worry about that because I think most of them would have drowned in plenty of time before they got et by sharks.
******
In other news, someone remind me why they call them killer whales?

cara mia!

Didn't Morticia and Gomez dance divinely?

I decided the commenter who suggested I purchase shoes to celebrate landing a job was on the right track. Last weekend I got the most adorable pair of Mary Janes with about a 3" sinuously curved heel worthy of a tango dancer. I was tickled to find them at about a quarter of their original retail price. Sweet!

Actually, if you think a pair of shoes would look right in a tango setting, well, it's a safe bet I'd like them. Here's a pair I'm drooling over currently.

Objects on dinner plate may be larger than they appear.

Bayou Renaissance Man and Wing did a quick road tour of neighboring states last week and passed through Texas on the way home. It was great to see them, and though it was gilding the lily, they passed along some steaks from Farm Family which I just had to cook up on Monday night.

As the steaks were thawing, I put them in a ziploc tub in the fridge, and it seemed only fitting that the Hellpups from Hades™ got to join in on the feast. so I let them drink up the juice from the thaw. They did not seem to mind helping with the cleanup.

I made a yummy side dish by toasting some sliced almonds and setting aside, then fried 3 pieces of pepper bacon. I took the bacon out of the skillet and then threw in thinly sliced new potatoes, fresh green beans and a single thinly sliced shallot and a little fresh cracked pepper and salt. Then I tossed it all together with the almonds and chopped up bacon stuff and a mix of romano, asiago and parmesan cheeses and fresh flat Italian parsley. This turned out to be a perfect side for the beef.

By the way, these are full size dinner plates in the classic Spode tradition, so objects on plate may be larger than they appear in photograph. DELICIOUS.

Om nom nom. Thanks so much for thinking of us, FarmMom, FarmDad and FarmGirl. You are the loveliest set of folks, truly! And if you ever have a chance to nom on FarmMom's gravy, don't miss it. My toes are curling just thinking about it.

Thanks for everything, Mom, and happy birthday.

I love you.

Dogs who ate owner are up for adoption

Blowfuzzy von Sassy sent me this link in December to the story where a pet owner committed suicide, leaving behind pugs Harry and Sally, and the poor puppies was hongry when no one noticed for a couple weeks, so they ate what edible thing was available.

Said BFvS: yea, I want the one who has tasted human flesh, right

Uh, quite.
*snerk*

dry skin remedy from Shibui

Let me start off by saying Shibui is a small company in Dallas co-founded by a friend of mine. She doesn't give free product to me and didn't ask me to advertise this.

Shibui makes a body butter bar that is fantastic for dry skin. It's in a container like a deodorant stick, but is shea butter and is sooooo good for your skin. The one I use has a very light scent of lemon grass and this one is lavender.

I've been searching for the perfect moisturizer for absolute yonks, and this is the only one that has seemed to not simply coat my skin with a greasy film, but actually makes my skin moist and softer. Yays!

Maybe you're a freak of nature and not suffering dry skin in all the heated air we enjoy indoors in a winter like this one, but if you're like me, you'll love this stuff. Srsly.

this weekend in Dallas County...

Went to Dallas County this weekend. First part was a trip through Dallas, specifically through Lakewood, and then on to see my folks. I was astonished how everyone had been having a lot of tree work done, apparently. There were lots of tree bits on the parkway in front of pretty much every house, and in some cases yards looked naked where only the stumps remained of what had been massive trees. It wasn't until I got to my folks' house that I realized these trees had massive limbs break off with the weight of the one foot of snow they got a little over a week ago.

In the picture, you can see the piles of trees on either side of the street. Huge piles. Some sections of the street were crowded by the branches on both sides. Eerie.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: post of puppehs past...

Wow! I have to look at these every so often to remember when they were both still babies.

Awwww! I admit I'm biased, but they were amazingly cute puppies. These were taken in Fall 2008. Chuy was about 2-3 months old, and Praline about 6 months, or so...

B-Movie Saturday

I saw Frankenhooker in Dallas at the Inwood Theatre hosted by JoeBob Briggs. I laughed and laughed. Even the voiceover on the trailer seems impossibly cheap and seedy.

Good times.




After his girlfriend is tragically killed in a lawnmower accident leaving only her head behind, a budding young scientist harvests body parts from hookers to bring his girlfriend back to life. Some assembly required.

One that satisfies my artistic needs...

Or not.

Or just healthcare needs.

This coming Monday will mark my first day as official employee of Big Corporation. March 1 I'll have health insurance coverage with no preExisting waiting period. And vacation days. Paid. And sick leave. Paid. *giddy*

This must be a mark of sashaying into middle age-- I give a crap about the healthcare benefit. Then again, I am an habitual pneumonia-getter, so the medical coverage definitely rates...

Funny thing was I was mistaken about when I went on break Thursday morning. Thought I'd left at 9:50, but I'd actually left at 9:45. So I was back at my cube, goofing off and my boss called me and said "You've been on break for 19 minutes. I need to see you in my office. Immediately."

Liqui-poo. Seriously. I could have soiled myself right there. She never gets mad at me and today she sounded really pissed. Crap! I got over there and she told me the temp service wouldn't be employing me any more because the company was hiring me permanently. In a scene which was actually much less rife with cliche and gooey sentiment than you'd imagine, there were tears and hugs.

She told me that she finally was at liberty to tell me that people all over the building (especially some of the folks in quality) were demanding that she find a way to get me hired. She said they were all saying "we can't let her go!"

I didn't tell you at the time, but there were a couple tiny issues (resolved in my favor) that happened at the worst possible moment-- when they were considering bringing the temps in as permanent employees. I was still on a probationary program (along with the others), but they offered jobs to all of those people at the end of October. Since November, I've been the only temp in customer service at the company, and I've just been trying to fly under the radar and not call attention to myself, in case they should decide to let me go. The irony was that most of the quality hiccups of mine were overturned, and I made it off of the probationary program around the beginning of the year with very high marks, and I know that some of the people they'd hired were on the probationary program well after I'd gotten off of it. One of life's little ironies, I suppose.

Anyway, the good news is that things feel much more secure in the employment arena, and that's a nice feeling. I've earned this.

floating cannonball

Wow.

Isn't it supposed to be unhealthy to breathe air in a room with open containers of mercury, though?

Sears Kit Houses

Did you know that Sears used to sell mail order kits for houses?

*nodding seriously*

From 1908 to 1940, Sears sold about 70,000-75,000 of their kit homes. It's actually really, really cool to think how many old houses you drive past daily may have been someone's mail-order dream house. On this page, you can click on 5 different year spans which showcase some of the different houses available in that period. What was really cool is that people could design their own house, send their ideas off to Sears and Sears would ship them the plans and all the materials. Interesting to think how people were encouraged to customize the plans, isn't it? Sears had affordable financing options for people, and they guaranteed they'd ship you enough materials to build the house except for brick, cement or plaster.

This also brings to mind the fact that financing homes is very different now than it was 100 years ago. Up until the depression, the few people who could get home loans brought 50% of the house sale price in cash to the closing, and the lender would finance the other half. These days, it's pretty incredible to think of parting with the equivalent of that much dosh in one sitting as they would do back then. What would be left to stuff your mattress with?

Swimmy interlude...

It's strange to reach the middle of February in North Texas without having seen a single day worthy of shorts and flip-flops since before Thanksgiving. The sun broke through today and though it was still cold, it seemed warmer just for the brightness. Soon it'll be 110 degrees or so and we won't remember that fluke of a long, actual winter we're having this time.

For now, here's a swimmy interlude. Ricardo Montalban was not just another pretty accent. Here he frolics in the pool with Esther Williams.

Why she did it...

This teaser for a story about the husband of the Alabama university professor shooter was, uh, very special:

James Anderson tells paper both were cleared in in Massachusetts pipe-bomb
investigation and that Bishop's brother died in accidental shooting.

Wow. I didn't know about the pipe-bomb thingie. Why didn't he just say "my wife's not a nut, they never proved anything."


I clicked on the link because I sort of expected him to express surprise at the shootings because she was adamantly opposed to firearm use of any kind, or somesuch, but I didn't see a statement to that effect.

I believe in second chances for people-- truly I do-- but I wonder how anyone who accidentally shot her brother could be deemed fit to be schoolin' the fruit of others' loins. Apparently, she shot her brother in the gut a few times with a 12-ga so she already had her second and third chances.

Frankly, I think she went on a murderous rampage due to a lack of personal cuteness. That shit's deadly. Pretty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

Good news for gunnies.

Yays!

Click here for info.

It's the...year of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight...

Or somesuch.

Anyhoo, I was a kid when this came out and didn't appreciate it so much, but through the years, Al Stewart's The Year of the Cat has ultimately enthralled me with its lovely bones and virtuouso piano line, and an appreciation for another song about a mysterious dame in the film noir tradition. Here's a video from the period of its release,



and then one from 1991 Al recorded live with just his guitar and Tori Amos noodling on the pi-anny. The sound is not impeccable here, but I love the performance, nonetheless.




Chinese calendar peels a leaf to the year of the Tiger today. Have a nice one. Sharpen your talons. Preen your whiskers. Paw litter all over the place.

Poopy Valentine

This is actually quite adorable.

A Minnesotan farmer made a gigantic Valentine out of cow manure for his wife of 37 years in a snowy field.

AWWWWWW.

Ode on a Grecian Patty Melt...

Eating habits are just a smidge different out here than were they in Dallas. I'm not criticizing but am merely observing. There's many an eatery out here where there's not a single good choice on the menu, health-wise. I'm loving the blue-plate aneurysm special, really, but certain discoveries here have had an *ahem*-- a-- well, a deleterious effect on my otherwise cast-iron stomach. In specific, I speak of the patty melt. Oh, I come to praise patty melts, not to bury them. But the patty melt comes with a price that'll get you in the end. I've probably heard the term "patty melt" over the course of my life hundreds of times, but never got around to asking what it was. I figured it was pretty much a cheeseburger, right?



Wrong.



A patty melt is chopped, caramelized onions mixed with ground beef and cheese, sort of a sloppy Joe consistency festooned between two buttery slices of Texas toast. I like to think of it as a Sloppy Bubba.



Anyhoo. Sloppy Bubba does bad, bad things to my innards. Yes, I know this is a phenomenal overshare, but I'm writing this Friday night and thinking this weekend will probably bring occasion to go down to the local greasy spoon [The Feed Bag] and get my recommended daily allowance of Sloppy Bubba.



And now for a palate cleanser I give you a picture of a tree I took Thursday:

Commute, Interrupted.

After I woke up Thursday, it started snowing and it hasn't stopped since. Here's a picture I snapped just a few miles into the commute, before the roads were very much covered. Now there's a thick blanket of snow on all the roads, and I'm sure there's melted snow underneath which I expect will be a sheet of ice by drive time Friday. Halfway to work yesterday, I nearly slid into a ditch, so I called work and told them I was heading for the hacienda.

On the way back home, the world was blindingly white and this seemed eerie and hypnotic. I was amazed by the beauty of this rugged landscape with its mesquite brambles and pumpjacks encrusted in downy tufts of icing. I was so happy to be in the blinding white, rather than the dirty, grim sludge that city snow quickly turns into. This was actually quite peaceful.

Don't know if I'll make it in to work today, or not. I hate to miss work, but I don't want to spend half a day in a ditch in my car, so for now, me and the best dogs ever are safe, well-provisioned and warm at home. I hope this post finds you cozy and safe, as well. :)

When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing...

shopping report.



Found this lovely little pie vent for just a few measley dollars at Tuesday Morning. Now I'm going to have to bake a full-crust pie and put the little warblers through their paces...

Apparently, you set them on the bottom of the crust and build the pie's innards around them, including the crust on top. Then when the gooey goodness inside gets all steamy and molten, the gases can escape through their upturned beaks.

CUTE!

Valentine's Day is coming...

Not everyone goes for the big splash-out on Valentine's Day, but here's an adorable necklace for just under $200.

Folks who know me will recognize this is remarkably similar to a necklace I wear quite a bit. Mine is the brown diamonds with a row of white on the top of the drop. Praline got me that when she was just a wee puppy. She was not yet wise in the ways of shopping, or she would have gotten me the earrings, too. Anyhoo. Quite smart, indeed, and it was very dear of her to treat her mommy. It's pretty and unusual yet not too-too flash. I get compliments on it all the time.

Then again, if your gal is my kind of gal, on Valentine's Day, daub a little Hoppe's 9 behind your ears and present her with a nice little Colt's Python. She'll love you for it.

maybe this is nitpicking, but...

The past tense of forecast is forecast. Saw forecasted somewhere online today. *shiver*

For the Steampunk Home of My Dreams...

...or any dreamhome of mine, for that matter, I adore this lovely chandelier.

Of Mice and Spam Tins...

Bayou Renaissance Man has a post up about the cruel and unusual rigors of war in which an unfortunate lot of troops were compelled to eat only meals featuring spam for a spate of 42 days. Talk about trials in the wilderness...

This reminded me that one of the things I love about Seattle is that around Mardi Gras, they have a traditional Spam carving competition. I thought originally the Spam carving competition was associated with my beloved shop Ruby Montana's Pinto Pony (I still have my floaty pen from there!!!), but apparently it's a Seattle thing in general. By the way, here are photos from the 2007 competition over at Aardvark Art Glass, where an incredibly clever beadmaker shares her whimsy with the world.

Here are a couple previous entries. I thought the top was one half of a dogbone, but it apparently was Exhibit A from the trial of Lorena Spammit.

The other carving is Spamon, a fish prized in the Pacific Northwest where it valiantly swims-up-can to find its baby daddy, only to get reeled into a cold, cruel shopping trolley and finally to a grave of paperplate and over-processed bread product. Still, it's majestic to see them in their native habitat.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: new little cousin

This wee little darling is the new puppeh over at Chez Tole. He was a rescue and a bit sicky at first, but he seems to feel better all the time, and is a whole 'nother critter from the one he was just a week ago. He has a jaunty gait and a velvety coat and promises to be a fun-loving, light-hearted little dog, which is always a blessing in any household, in my opinion. He chases the kids, and is even scratching at the door already when it's time to go out. [I hope he'll teach that trick to my leetle darlings.] I'm looking forward to him being big enough to hang with my dogs. I'll be shocked if he makes 10 pounds, but I still think he'll be in the league with the phlegmpups. You can see the wheels turning behind his eyes, and he's already learning how to work his mojo. Cutie-pie!!!

I squee'd. Imogen Heap won a Grammy.

Any more, award ceremonies are so rife with unsurprising outcomes that I haven't bothered to watch them in yonks. I was, however, delighted to learn that my beloved Imogen Heap won a Grammy last week for best album production. Her win was historic in that she is the first female ever to have won this category for engineering her own album. Then again, she's been programming since she was a wee lass, so it's unsurprising she is a whiz at it. :)

She wore a Twitter dress, which was a bit more understated than her previous Grammy appearance with the frog-and-lilypad affair. I thought the lilypad thing was cute, and it captured the whimsical maverick spirit I associate with her music. Apparently, she'd thought the Grammys were a fancy dress occasion for sartorial license. I'm on team Imogen in that respect. The large eye-shaped cowl you see around her neck from this's week's Grammys is an LED light strip which has a live feed looping of Twitter comments from her fans. At the same time, her clear handbag held a little tv which was showing live feed of images sent by her fans. She said she wanted to bring her fans onto the red carpet with her.

Imogen is a remarkable artist and I think she would be doing this even if she never made a penny off it. After a launch with the industry that wanted to bend her unerring vision to executive wills [still yielding the enjoyable I Megaphone (clever anagram for her name, btw)], she sold her London flat to raise the money for her own small studio in which to produce music to her own standards, the lovechild of which was the superb Speak For Yourself. Quite, dear. That makes it so much more gratifying to me that she is recognized by the music industry in spite of itself.

Side note to all of this is that despite some very, very good things happening, the last few weeks have been a pins-and-needles affair for me. I've kept Immi's Ellipse on constant rotation in me chariot, and it's been cathartic to sing-- and occasionally howl-- along. Superb cd, this is. Here's a link to Ellipse where it's currently $10.89. Bargain.

On December 2, Imogen was on stage at Webster Hall in NYC when she learned she'd been nominated for this award. Here's a video of Her Adorableness. You can see her girlish delight at being nominated, even musing "I wonder what I've been nominated for". And this is exactly how she is on stage. She chats sweetly as she fiddles with cables and gets things set up for each new song, and I always feel like it would be perfectly natural if she turns around with a huge tray of pretty, flowery mismatched cups of tea to make everyone feel at home. What a darling soul.

I'm thrilled for her. Truly, I am. I'm smiling.

loose ends and other housecleanery...

If I may quote myself from December 22:

And for the record, I think Britany Murphy died of pneumonia. That crap will kill ya.

LA Coroner has listed pneumonia as a contributing factor in Brittany Murphy's death.

Nasty business, that. Okay, yeah, so there was some dope involved, too, but BM was a professional. You know, like Ron Wood[meant to say Keef Richards here, but wits were too addled. whoopsie.]. She should have been able to spool out the junkie starlet trip for, well, for a little while longer.

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Nothing new to tell re: my job, but I'm sure it will all be fine. :)

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When I was in school I played flute and I tended to get ulcers, probably from a vitamin deficiency among other things. One music teacher told me the fastest remedy was to pack salt in the ulcers and I would. It's been many years since I've had ulcers, but I found myself hosting one of the little blighters this week. Yes, I packed the salt in, and though I remembered this had been painful in my youth, I did not recall how extraordinarily painful it truly was. This was not crashing waves of pain with a pulsing ebb, nor was it even a pile-driver to the gums. Oh no. This was a freight train of agony, a lone blister of the apocalypse. This was pain beyond exquisite. This was the annihilating flame of a relentless oxygen lance with its attendant fires rivaling that of the planet's molten core. Ouchie! Finally, the pain does settle down to something of a dull roar and relents to a rather anemic throb for a bit before going completely, mercifully numb.

This set me to wondering that if salt as a folk remedy was widely known, I could surely read about it and other homey, folksy canker sore cures on the internet, right?

So I googled mouth ulcer home remedy.

Rich meat food, that. *shudder* There were plenty links which extolled the virtue of my beloved salt, and many which mentioned other cures, but there was one which just blew my tiny little mind. Someone posted that they most prefer to glom an ice cube onto the ulcer and leave it there until it sticks, and then to peel away the ulcer from your mouth. They mention this is really painful and may bleed. A lot.

*blink* *blink*

Um, ew.

The efficacy of the salt thing justifies its use, in my humble opinion. Just 24 hours later, my ulcer is nearly gone. Peeling away a layer of-- admittedly--diseased flesh does not seem the proper course to me, unless you are an absolute masochist. Why not wear a hair shirt and flog the crap out of yourself while you're at it?

No thanks. I'll stick with my mere oxygen lance, thank you very much.

When it rains, it pours. Er. Um. Poors.

Wow. Apologies for the cliffhanger factor yesterday-- sorry! -- didn't mean to be all cryptic. Also, electric service has been spotty in the area, so getting my posts up with the usual regularity may be more challenging for the coming days. My electric svc has been fine, but I suspect my ISP is having power issyoos.

I haven't mentioned it in a while, but I started my temp job for Big Corporation in May, and I expected it to be about a 6 month long job interview. It has turned into 10 months of sometimes spirit-crushing interview, but yesterday began the process to screen me for offical employment with the company. I have to take a[nother] drug test and pass a[nother] background check, and then it'll be official. I've only known about this news since Tuesday afternoon. Then, like clockwork, Wednesday morning, someone from a company with a job I really want called to offer me a job, but the offer was about 30% lower in pay than I'd hoped for, and would be a cut in pay from present job, at that. Then, 30 minutes later, another job I applied for called to ask me to come in for some testing for the job.


The pity of it is that at the end of the day, I have to choose which job based on money and health benefits, rather than which I would most prefer, necessarily.

Whatever I do, I'm resolved to feel I made the best of choices and move forward with it. It's kind of a strange moment, though, for them all to happen at once. I interviewed for the other job offer nearly 2 months ago, so it's really ironic they should come in with an offer AFTER Big Corporation finally ponied up and asked me to go to the Prom with them. If they'd offered me that job a week ago, I'd have been sorely tempted, but the drop in pay is probably going to be the dealbreaker.

My puppies have to eat. I'll keep you posted, and thanks for the crossed fingers. I love you people!

good news coming, no time to talk...

...looks like something is brewing in the job front. more news soon.

Have a great day!

More funny from Terry Pratchett

I'm reading the Fifth Elephant right now, and the repartee between the officers of the Watch has the ring of authenticity about it. Knowing a few LEOs, I can just hear the following exchange:

"Corporal Nobbs!"
...
"Coming, Captain!" shouted Nobby. He pulled open the bottom drawer of his battered and stained desk and took out a packet of chocolate biscuits, some of which he arranged daintily on a plate.

"Does me no good at all to seeyou acting like this," Stronginthearm went on, winking at the other dwarfs. "You've got it in you to be a really bad copper, Nobby. Breaks my heart to see you throwin' it all away to become a really bad waitress."

Ode to Joy, Beaker-style

I [heart] electric skillet!

I'm sorry I don't have a photograph, but it was over so fast. New household acquisition this weekend was an electric skillet, and I made a traditional southern Italian braised chicken dish with peppers and the house is perfumed with such sweet glory. Yum.

It's been too long since I made this, but I'll be making it again very soon. The puppies were losing their minds as I cooked it- hopping from foot to foot. At the end of the meal, I took the heel of a bread loaf and soaked up all the yummy goodness from the electric skillet and cut it into wee bits and divvied it betwixt their foodbowls. Lucky hounds.

This recipe comes from a book a friend of mine got when living in Scotland in the early 70s, and i can't find a recipe on the net which parallels it, so in a week or two I will cook it again, take pictures before it gets nommed to death, and will post the recipe. Toe-curling goodness, I promise.

This is going to be a good week. Make the most of it!