For many years, my grandpa was a breeder of Blue Tick Coon hounds. I looked up these dogs on wikipedia, and I was amazed by what a pureblood and old breed of dog this was. I think I mentioned all that in my post about my grandpa a couple months back.

What I didn't tell you then was that grandpa was fanatical about these dogs. Because one always strives for the perfect hunting dog, grandpa was super-picky about how these dogs were bred.

For those of you who've never been blessed (or cursed) to be in the company of male and female dogs when a female is in season, well, they can be very determined creatures, and they seem to have a demonic drive to hook up.

Once grandpa went in to town in the car with my dad (about 8 years old) in the back seat with a female dog, and my uncle in the front seat with a male. Grandpa had a way of walking up the high street and stopping and talking to all and sundry, and his kids still talk of what eternities they languished in the car while grandpa did his requisite chin-wagging with the locals.

[It is important here to note that in the South, only women are capable of gossip. Endless hours spent by men talking about other people's business is merely a frank exchange of information vital to the proper functioning of the community.]

On this particular occasion, the female dog was in heat, and grandpa admonished dad and my uncle that if these two dogs united--well--they were made to understand they'd get a be-all end-all whuppin,' an event not to be desired.

Dad was holding onto the female by the collar, and she was most determined, as Uncle Wayne barely managed to restrain the male. Dad said the male was "about to get the job done."

I don't know what verbiage exchanged between dad and my uncle, but I do know they were desperate not to get the whuppin', so Wayne had a stroke of genius that relieved them of the threat of raw backsides while cleverly incorporating a stripe of sadism for which he is known far and wide.

Holding onto the collar of the male in one hand, he reached over with the other and popped the cigarette lighter in on the dash and waited. When the lighter popped back out, Wayne pulled it out of the dash and applied the red-hot coils onto the dog's scrotum.

Ironically, a flaming set of balls instantly cooled the romantic ardor of the male dog, and he lost all interest in the bitch in the back seat. The dogs settled down, grandpa returned to the vehicle none the wiser, and dad and Wayne lived yet another day without being thrashed within an inch of their lives.

Mischief managed.

Dad said for the remainder of its days that dog had a perfectly burned circle on its nutsack. Grandpa never noticed.

Celebrity Snark
I saw a blurb on the news recently that Sean Penn was raging against the machine and making like a politician on the campaign trail. I noticed, too, he has a new film coming out, a super-preachy, man'o'da'peoples kinda movie. Please, spare us. I predict audiences will stay away in droves.

What I'm wondering is how a megalomaniac like that ever married a megalomaniac like Madonna. You know they each woke up every morning thinking "now, if I'm ever going to rule the world, I'm going to have to kill him/her one day soon..."

I saw an image of Cindy Crawford and husband with their pre-school age child, and the child was flipping off the cameraman taking the photo. What kind of break with reality does one have to have in order to teach and/or allow their little child to make gestures that connote a non-romantic sexual act? I mean, shit, I know she's a model and all, but even with all the trappings of wealth and fame, how can a person be so short-sighted as to deny their child any sort of innocence? Fuh'd up...

Oh, back to Sean Penn. Sean is very pro gun-control. So imagine how boggling it was a few years ago when his muscle car was stolen in L.A. WITH his personal firearms inside. Same for Rosie O'Donnell - VERY gun control, but her personal body guards are packing. Some animals are more equal than others... Bottom line is we the great unwashed are not capable of handling the very things THEY the enlightened are entitled to. After all, there are never mass murder attempts in places where guns are banned.

I'm not saying that Lukas Rossi - the monchichi who won Rockstar Supernova - is not cute, but he does bear a more-than-passing resemblance to Chaka from Land of the Lost. He has nice teeth, by the way. Someone I know thinks he's the cutest thing ever and she is perpetually swooning over him. Um, like I said, cute, but I'm not seeing the rest of it. Maybe it's because I'm a jaded old hausfrau. Maybe it's just because he's such a pup.

I thought it was interesting how the whole show came down to the two people with the most distinctive vocal qualities.

It was strange that Dilana tore a calf muscle last Tuesday, and had to be carried around that day and had crutches the following day, and then yesterday she had to have a cane to get about, yet tonight she was prancing around the stage unassisted. Hm. I was just shocked she didn't do any of her patented David Lee Roth air-splits. Sympathy ploy, anyone? Pity party, table for one. She would've gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those nosy kids.

I thought Toby should've won, but his career may be better for not having won after all - he's a good songwriter and he can do entirely his own thing, obviously.

OK, now let's address the issue of me getting sucked into reality shows. I have to go back again and give the disclaimer that the ONLY reason I'm regularly watching broadcast tv shows for the first time in my life, really, is because I now have DVR and can skip through the commercials which make me pathologically annoyed.

I'm SO glad Laura won Project Runway's challenge tonight. When they showed the previews of her so crestfallen and crying, I was certain they were just teasing - that she wasn't about to be kicked off. Then a short bit before the show it occurred to me that maybe she had a miscarriage, and Meatloaf himself would have called that a "pretty big downer." Anyway, she deserved to win.
My prediction is Uli will go home next week.

Anyone watching Million Dollar Listing? That Peter Deep guy was so supremely loathesome that I felt hostile toward him. I can't wish him to go down in flames since he so obviously already does, but he was a wholly repugnant person. It will be fun to see how they savage his homely ass on The Soup this weekend. He buried a St. Joseph effigy in the back yard and recited a "prayer" to St. Joseph to help him sell his house, thus proving that any moron can get their mitts on a million-dollar house in L.A.

Me? Petty? Bilious? You betcha. I gives as good as I gets.

Oh, and anyone else watching that wickedly delicious show from Laura Kightlinger on IFC, "The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman?" I love the stuffing out of this show.

Sad celebrity news: Whitney has filed for divorce from Bobby Brown. Now, I know I'm going to get serious shit for this, 'specially those of you who know me, but I'm going to do it like a band-aid and just quickly get it out there: I think Bobby is kinda hot. I kept seeing "Being Bobby Brown" referred to on The Soup and I checked out an episode once, and it was really funny, despite being a bit sad and disturbing. I thought Bobby was witty and playful, and sexy in a way, so that totally caught me off guard. And hell, Bobby may have served hard time, but he seems WWAAAAY more together than Whitney. 'cause, you know, Crack is Whack.

Welcome to my world. Whatever bug crawled up everyone's ass last week is still snugly ensconced there and apparently thriving. Here's the .jpg from the email I told y'all about last week. Well, I shouldn't bitch - things are smoothing out a teeny bit. I still reserve the right to bitch.

It's good to see the pontiffs get so tarted up when they go abroad. LOVE the red shoes - that's just my speed, actually. Quite smart. And you must love the intimate little wave - so demure. He reminds me a bit of Uncle Fester. I wonder if he does that trick with the light bulb? And apparently Tim Gunn of Project Runway is his left-hand man. Who knew TG was in so tight at the Vatican? I was never tipped off on PR when he deadpanned to the camera "I wanna give a shout-out to my homeys in da V.C." Silly me.

OK, so the cake looks mildly, um, well, gooberoid. But it's our cake and we liked it. Or some of the family did, anyway. Everyone raved about the butter/hazelnut cream icing, but I didn't like the cake, and neither did nephew. I'm guessing that those of you who are quick on the up-take will discern that nephew's name is Frank. When he was still in the hangar, his big sister - the fetching young lass here donning the remains of the Nemo pinata - started calling him Frankenstein. By the time he arrived, we all thought it was fitting to call him Frank since that's what we'd called him all along already. It just fit him. I am glad his mom and dad agreed with the rest of us that he would be a good Frank.

Frankie did his 4th birthday party topless, and why not? It was hot.

There's also a picture of my dad, Frankie's proud grandpa with the birthday boy himself. They are two peas in a pod.
And then there's Frank with Colton, his best buddy in the neighborhood. They have a good time together, and Colton is over all the time. They looked cute with matching kool-aid moustaches.

Frank got lots of guy toys and he had a blast. It is gratifying to see little ones having such a good time, and it was sweet to see his big sister doting on him and trying to make sure he had the best time possible. She's a good big sister, and he's a sweet little brother. Ah, bliss!

I had a wonderful, lengthy phone call tonight from my dear friend Kim over at Something To Say blog. It's amazing that we've known each other about 19 years now.

She's a multi-talented artist and has always been a great inspiration to me. We talked tonight of the creative sandtraps we creative folk booby-trap our creative realms with - things like "the studio is too messy to work in" or "the studio is clean and I don't want to mess it up." Making anything worth making involves an enormous mess, generally. But then again, that's half the fun of it. So, play with your food. Make mud pies. Tap dance in the taxi line.

You know those cans of compressed air that you blow the fuzz out of your keyboard with? I need a mental version of that, something to clean out the cobwebs between my ears...

I was thinking about the croc hunter Steve Irwin, and that business of him pulling the barb out of his chest. Um, do stingrays lose their barb when they deploy it, like a honeybee or a scorpion? Or was there this big flappy-winged fish flopping about on him while they were trying to make it not so? Or was a stingray harmed in the filming of that segment?

Anyway. I thought he was a jolly good sport, and it was sad, but I rather think he would have preferred to go the way he did rather than sitting at a desk counting beans, even if it meant a longer life and a safe retirement.

Tomorrow is bear-killer's birthday party, and I spent the entire day making him a huge cake. It's a rectangle and I split the cake and put raspberry on one side and apricot on the other in the middle, and I made buttercream frosting which is EVIL. Evil evil evil stuff. 1.5 pounds of butter in one recipe is pure-dee wicked on a stick. I mixed nutella in with the top layer of icing so it's kinda brownish, and then I'll have piles of crumbled cookies on top with little Bob the Builder backhoes and bulldozers pushing them around. I hope it'll be cute. Picture tomorrow, maybe, unless it's embarrassingly bad, in which case I'll never mention it again.

Cheers & happy Sunday.

Four years ago today it was raining--not a brutal hammering rain--just the gentle sort of rain you get at the end of summer when things are cooling down a bit. On that day we also were graced with the arrival of a fearless, intrepid boy, my nephew. You may recognize the gun and the pajamas from earlier when I posted his ferocious bear-killer face and stance. This was take one, when I first said "make a mean bear-killer face." This was one of those moments when I had to make a conscious effort not to laugh at his ardor, because he was just so excited by the thought of killing a bear that he didn't have the self-awareness to look truly mean. What a brute, eh?

He is an absolute joy, and as with his sister - when I think about how happy he makes me, I could cry like a baby.

He's small now, but I know one day he'll be a huge man, a natural athlete, and probably more adventurous than will be healthy for his old auntie's nerves. He wants to be a pilot, and he would carry a light saber daily if that were possible, and I believe he'll probably kill a bear someday - he's not the sort to give up on a dream. So for now, I'll just sit back and cherish how delighted I am that my sister and brother-in-law brought such a wonderful gift into our family as this little man, our pocket Atlas. And I'll always remember his arrival during a late-summer rain, a harbinger of the unsurpassably lovely changing of the seasons. Happy Birthday, Bear-Killer! Aunt Phlegmmy loves you very, very much.

Doglet is the first dog I've had of my own, and I got her when she was just a pup. Well, in my mid-20s, I was just a pup, too.

When I was growing up, we had several dogs for hunting--bird dogs or coon dogs-- but only once did we have a family dog that I felt some affinity for, and that was the only fur-bearing pet mom ever allowed in the house. Well, there was that Betta fish my brother had for, like, 6 years, but he didn't do cuddly. Then there was the kitten mom let me "have" when I was 4 in Mississippi, but kitty couldn't come in the house, so one night kitty disappeared, and I would pitifully ask the mailman every day to check in the blue mailbox at the end of the street to see if my kitty was stuck inside.

We lived in the Memphis area, and a family we knew were moving to Texas and didn't want to take their poodle, Peppy, with them, so they bequeathed him on us. Peppy was sweet and probably a bit of a dim bulb in the way a small over-bred variety of poodle can be. He was a loving little beast, but he was sort of a tofu dog - he sorta took on whatever flavor you projected on him.

We didn't have a fenced yard, so sometimes we'd just let him outside on his own. One night he was at the door begging us to let him out at almost my bedtime, and it was very cold. I was in a thin little cotton nightdress with pastel embroidered flowers, and I remember begging my mother to let me take Peppy out and put him on the chain that was staked in front, but she wouldn't let me because it was late and too cold, I wasn't dressed, etc. I was about 9.

So, in the way that things always seemed so often to go wrong for me in my childhood, Peppy wasn't out the door 5 seconds before we heard the brakes of the VW Beetle squeal on the pavement in front of our house. I looked out the door, and everything looked black and white except that incongruously, cheerfully yellow car beneath the streetlamp, Peppy's lifeblood spreading black on the pavement.

Peppy was hit and probably killed instantly - though I never asked. Naturally, I was inconsolable.
[gawd, more than 30 years ago and I'm misting up over this(what a sap!), and the whole point of this story is actually funny, believe or not. wait for it.]

I went in my bedroom and threw myself facedown on the bed and squalled myself to sleep. It was a shitty little moment.

My brother, one year older, went with my dad to do away with Peppy. No backyard service for our dearly departed pet, no breaking up frozen earth to bury him. I never asked what they did with him, but my brother told me several years ago, and I just couldn't stop laughing. Here's what he told me:

They drove out to the municipal landfill, which at that time of night was closed, naturally. However, around this dump was about a 30' fence. They drove along the fence a ways until dad divined the perfect spot. Dad got out of the car and carried Peppy by the scruff, poor thing.

What happened next, the way my brother describes it, was what made me laugh until my sides ached, laugh until tears streamed down my face. I'm just glad he waited 20-some years to tell me about it, because the loss was still too fresh. It was just so funny that out of this tragic situation where I'd lost what amounted to an animated pillow came one of those seminal moments where my brother stood in awe of the physical power of our dad.

Dad carried the pitiful carcass by the scruff, and walked into a shadow. Brother saw him draw back Peppy in his right hand - the wind-up, and then up, up and away went Peppy. Let's just say that sweet chariot didn't need to swing very low to pick up this passenger. Brother said that dog not only cleared the fence, but seemed to go up forever, and that he was amazed to see that doughy ball of fur was so aerodynamic.

I got over Peppy. Peppy wasn't mine mine all mine. Doglet, however, is mine in a way I'll never possess another person or pet, and I'm wondering if you only get one of those in a lifetime. I just hope I don't have to lose her soon. Needless to say, I won't rely on my dad for arranging her disposal.

Now, my sister(9 years younger than me) is obviously the genius of the family. She had a way of manipulating mom (the one who especially hates furry things in the house) that was pure poetry. I was in high school, and sister begged for a puppy for years. At that point, I was interested in other things and indifferent to the idea of getting a pet, but I did marvel at what finally made mom relent and get sister a dog.

Sister talked about a dog constantly, and pouted, sulked, screamed and threw fits, but nothing worked until the day she adopted Fred.

Fred was a housefly sister found dead on a window sill. Sister made a cozy little home for Fred in a shoebox, and Fred and his shoebox were then her constant companions. Road trip? Not without Fred. Fred and his shoebox went everywhere with the family.

Needless to say, several months of exhibitionistic doting on Fred paid off. Mom relented and let sister have Fluffy, a pretty little American Eskimo pup. Fred was quickly forgotten.

My beloved doglet will be 15 on October 31, and she's really started to feel the effects of her wild youth in recent years. Jack Russell terriers bounce constantly when they are young, but it plays havoc with their hips later in life. As a younger dog, she could spring up 5 feet from standing still, and higher with a running start. They were apparently bred for maniac sorts of traits. I love it and I adore her intrepid spirit, but it's exhausting.

Anyway, lately the old girl is more fragile on some days than others, and I give her a Glucosamine/Condroitin chew every morning and evening, but generally I've assumed she's done with jumping up on the kitchen counters.

Not so fast.

I left a bag on the counter today with the leavings of a Boston Market meal (chicken bones!) and part of an old cheesecake from the refrigerator.

When I came home from the store, she had demonstrated that her problem-solving skills are as refined as ever. She jumped up on a chair on the other side of the kitchen, leaped a few feet over to a slightly-higher barstool, then up onto the bar and over onto the kitchen counter, knocking things off onto the floor nearly every step of the way. Of course, nothing remains of the Boston Market meal or the cheesecake, other than the icky containers up-ended on the floor.

crazy bitch.

One of my earliest forays into the world of employment involved a stint checking groceries at Winn-Dixie supermarket.

After closing, the stocker guys would all be busy re-stocking all the shelves, and their night was just beginning as I would tidy up the registers and clean all the front of the store. One more of my duties was to return all non-sold items throughout the store to their appropriate area.

One thing the guys liked to do was make crafty arrangements of fruit to surprise me with when I walked through the produce department, generally involving 2 peaches, some parsley and a banana. They'd be busting a gut trying to not react so they could see my moral outrage. Instead I'd quip something like someone's missing out on a brilliant career in the art world, where they could be drawing, painting or photographing the male genitalia all they liked.

Here's a universal truth I'm certain even Martha Stewart would agree with:
Bananas have no graceful way of fitting into a fruit basket. Leave the bananas out.

tickersoid tagged me on the book meme, so here goes:
1. One book you have read more than once. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. A brilliant writer and conjurer of worlds. Even if some of his sentences do run 3 pages long. Believe it or not, even with my short attention span I manage to get wrapped up in his writing.
2. One book you would want on a desert Island: A tossup between the Florence King Reader and the Roald Dahl Omnibus. Both brilliant, funny, and endlessly entertaining. Then again, I might prefer "how to survive and live well on a desert Island for dummies." Chapters in this book would include manufacturing coconut wine, cultivating a kitchen garden, self-surgery and how to emulate all aspects of fresh beef using common island ingredients.
3. One book that made you laugh. Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady by Florence King. The story of Flo's genteel Southern Granny trying to mold our heroine into a proper Lady is filled with hilarity.
4. One book that made you cry. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Beautifully written. A slow starter that totally snuck up on me.
5. One book I wish I had written. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
6. One book I wish had never been written. The Koran. I don't think I need to 'splain you this one.
7. One book I am currently reading. Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell B.C. is a delight to read. Fun.
8. One book I have meant to read. The Penelopeiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood This is the story of the Iliad but told from Penelope's perspective, the wife who stayed home and remained faithful until the very end after 15 or so years, and all this before the advent of cell phones or telegraph wires, or private investigative agencies.
9. One book that changed your life. um. Do magazines count? If so, then Fiber Arts magazine. Or Vogue. Or Dwell. Or Marie Claire Maison. Or, yeah, a book - Nigella Lawson's How To Be a Domestic Goddess.
10. I tag... LJ, Kim, Kelly, Fathairybastard, and anyone else who'd like to join in the fun.

Husband took me to Texas de Brazil tonight, which is ALWAYS a safe bet for wife-pleasin'. I drank a superb red zin with dinner called Leaping Frog from Napa Valley- and it was a glorious complement to all that delicious meat. Here's to the vegetarians of the world who leave more for us who know what to do with our carnivorous urges. TdB is a Churrascaria - (I THINK that's how it's spelled) which is a Brazilian steak house. All these young Brazilian guys in gauchos come around with big spits of meat and they give you whatever cut you want. Funny thing is that I have concluded that every one of these guys is walking around thinking "yeah, _I_ am the hot Brazilian gaucho here tonight."

Anyway, LOVE this food, had a grand time.

Finished up with a papaya ice cream. Not that I want to sashay over into the territory of huge oversharing, but this dessert has a --shall we say-- expedient effect on the digestive system. My recommendation is either don't linger after the papaya thing, or take it to go and eat it when you are already in your pajamas at home, or nude, or wearing just anything with an expandable waistband. Seriously. We've been home for hours and my stomach is still making sounds you would only expect to hear on the muppet show. Or from Yoda. And I'm not generally fragile in the digestive department... I'm just saying...

[This is an ancient draft I found in me blog. The second line mystifies me - I think my evil twin has been horning in on my blog and leaving little calling cards to surprise me]

Universal truths that ensure an unbreachable gulf between me and Martha Stewart:

I am to pastels as to she is to hooker pads.

I will never, ever host a clam bake.

[WHAT on earth, I wonder, did I mean by "hooker pads?" Anyone have any theories for me?]

I was driving in the area of South Dallas today where some old warehouses were altered to mimic the form of middle-eastern buildings, then all painted sort of an anemic baby-doodie brown. This was done for the making of the TV movie "The Jessica Lynch story, which was about the rescue of a hot soldier-babe from the Iraqi army early on in the current proceedings. Anyway, the interior of these warehouses continue to be used as ever. So today it really cracked me up to be driving up the street seeing the minarets and arabic graffiti, only to hear Tejano music spilling out the open windows. It was kind of beautiful, actually. I wished I could do a YouTube post of that.

That Karr guy who claimed to have killed JonBenet Ramsey just wanted to get out of one of those shit-stain jails they have in Thailand. Oh, and considering how lax they are on sexual abuse of women and children, it's damned scary to think what one would have to do to actually get jailed for perversion there. Voila! Free trip home. Odds of survival or at least the survival of his teeth just went waaaaay up when he was deported. Personally, I think he needs to be put in a lock box with that dancing frog that sings "Hello my baby! Hello my honey! Hello my ragtime gal!" and buried in the foundation of a new skyscraper. Open it up to give him fresh eats and water in about 100 years. It just makes good sense.