The slog, uh, continues.

Well, not so much a slog, really, but I have finished most of the first coat of kilz2 in what will soon be my bedroom. Sometimes it seems like I'm not moving forward very quickly and the whole world smells of Kilz.



Oh, and that ceiling fan/hazard thingie hanging by its wires has to go. I'm standing on a stool for painting the ceiling, which is only 8' high. To think I was lamenting not having a 9' ceiling... Anyway... this is what I've been up to lately. I want things to move forward on the home front so I can have company. I want my sister to come visit and bring her wiener dogs and her kids. It'll be a party. :) And my mom and pop. And Lin. And Christina. And Peter. And Holly and Johnny. And all my friends. One or two at a time, of course. It'll be sweet.



I'm glad I have the hallway finished. That's a good reminder that it's possible to make progress. I recall just a month ago looking at it and thinking I'd never be through. Then again, a house you live in is never really finished, is it? It's just this one had a lot farther to go when I started than one is usually dealing with. I'll be in high SQUEE mode when I have a finished bedroom to show you. Promise not to laugh at my heart-shaped bed with the 70's pimp red velvet tufted headboard, mkay?


Oh, and this is your final shopping day before My Birth Month™. We shall be celebrating all month. Yes, we shall. :) Champers tomorrow night, yes. I think so. Yes. Yes.

I'll've Mantids.

I suppose along with the coyotes and rattlesnakes, it's to be expected I'd see a lot more mantids around here. I've never seen such a preponderance of walking sticks, though. They are marvelous. This one was about 6 inches long. I hope he noms up a bunch of the fat mosquitos. You should have seen one houseguest on mosquito patrol with my handheld bug-zapper.

Good times.

Hideousness.

Here's one Worst-Dressed mention I agree with:

MSN fingered this vile gown on its Emmys loser-list. They dubbed this dress "Barack Bottom."

Uh, Quite.

And speaking of puppies, this puppy's for the elk hunt this Fall.

Did I mention the elk hunt?

Dad suggested I take this Browning for the elk hunt. Pop got this rifle about 25 years ago, and it's killed a lot of deer. He said he felt plumb sorry for one deer he shot with it. He held his hands apart and said it blew a hole this big in the thing. I reckon at least it was quick.

Poor elk, though. Bad news is on the way.

Oh, and I'll have to show you the $1950 Colt's Elite Python I slobbered over this weekend at Ray's Sporting Goods. *whimper* It were purty.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: That Darn Dane...

I laughed and laughed at this scene from the 60's Disney film "The Ugly Dachshund."

Notice how they set up the wienerdogs to look evil. How could they be naughty with all those warm, fuzzy wrinkles?


Overnight Friday and Saturday in Dallas. Lots of mean, nasty traffic and I'm missing my Furnacle™* and my Chiweenie. It's a terrible thing to be away from one's dogs. Home again Sunday afternoon. :)

See the original trailer here.

*™: fur barnacle.

Thus was dentistry born...

Thursday night I pulled the right front tooth on this boy:

He bore up manfully. His folks mentioned he had a tooth wot needed to come out, and I'm sure the wheels were greased by my offer of $5 if he'd let me pull it. He said "for $100, I'll let you pull my head off!" What a cutie! Nah. I'd rather pull the little teeth $5 at a time. Plus, he's nice to have around. I scrubbed up, sheathed the tooth in a piece of saran wrap, and a good little tug liberated the tooth from its fleshy prison. Fly free, little toothie!





Friday night I pulled this one:

This one was being pushed aside by the permanent tooth coming in behind, and this one was barely hanging on. He has another loose one, and he's a pretty tough guy... Today we may make a three-fer of it.



What's funny to me is kids who'll leave the tooth flapping in the hangar for weeks, loose. I liked pulling my baby teeth. When one went wobbly, by golly, it was coming out. I've pulled teeth for lots of little kids, and I haven't always had to bribe them to let me do it. One squeamish friend would always ask me to "take care" of her daughter's loose tooth- they both were grossed out by it. What can I say? I'm a giver.

What baffles me is that most of these teeth come out with no effort-- I don't know how they managed to keep them in so long. Both these baby teeth came out clean as a whistle and with barely any foundation remaining to hold the tooth in. My teeth came out with their little shanks fully intact, blobby little chunks of flesh still holding on around the edges. I suppose that flesh figured it would stick with the winner. They figured wrong. Anyhoo, the teeth were coming out.

Heh.

The New Bull

I went with my parents to see Jerry Clower when I was a little kid. He was hilarious.

In the bathrooms at Sweetie-Pie's Ribeyes in Decatur, they play Jerry Clower stories all the time. When I met Holly there a couple weeks ago, this story was playing and I had to stay long enough to hear the end.

The news that was: Busload of Crazies to Tour Homes of AIG Executives

From New York Magazine from back in, oh, about the first 100 days of someone's rule.

Turned out ACORN was the little shit-stirrer wot organized the busload of crazies.

Quelle surprise!

Mebbe someone should organize bus tours of conservatives to drive by ACORN locations?

Sauce for the goose...

Oh, here it is:

oddly oriented...

Went to the Big Asian Buffet in town for lunch on Tuesday.

I enjoyed a bit of sushi, though I picked around for pieces containing cooked fish. I adore sushi, but I tend to keep to high-volume places that make sushi or sashimi fresh rather than having it sitting on a buffet. This was a little taste of the good stuff, though. Would have loved some unagi or a marinated salmon spicy pressed sushi. Om nom nom.

I was tickled to find some of the most delectable duck I've had in the Cantonese style, but they marked it "Thailand Chicken."

Hmph.

Wow. I suppose that means calling a duck a duck is a hard sell around these parts? Considering the high ratio of hunters here, this surprises me. Then again, most who've tried duck have prolly had a sad representation of how delectable that bird can be. Pity, that. [If you live near a First Chinese Barbecue in the Austin or Dallas areas, be sure to go there. Get the crispy pork, too. Oh, and imho, the Richardson location is best, though the Plano Coit location will do, also.] Hmm. Now I'm feeling wistful for dim sum. Best stop now. Must get to DFW sometime this Fall for a proper dim sum feed. Om nom nom.

My fortune cookie promised an investment was soon to bear fruit. Hmm. To what investment could they possibly have referred? Shoulda bought a lottery ticket, perhaps?

Was a nice, yummy meal, though. Then when leaving I saw a Chinese year calendar. I never knew we were in the year of the Ox. This one looks a bit girly, but I couldn't help noticing the big swinging cod out front and center of the prognosticular, um, theatre.

Anyhoo, it made me giggle.

Progress Report...

This hallway has been transformed-- trust me on that one. The hardwood floor in this house is a rich, warm color and is actually in quite nice condition.

The blue room at the end of the hallway is the room I emptied out this weekend. (Not where the spider was, though.) Monday night I scrubbed baseboards and made a first-stab at cleaning the floor. I got a little of my cut-in work done with the Kilz2, but not much. I worked so hard this weekend that I'm feeling a little wiped-out. Plus that 30 year old blue paint is going to prolly take 2 coats of Kilz to properly cover.

Speaking of the spider, I am wondering if it didn't come in on one of the cardboard boxes I bought that day at the local do-it-yo'sef store. What do you think? There are no big cobwebs or egg sacs that I've seen, so I'm hoping it was just an interloper. Have done a bit of reading and know a bomb is not the way to go. Am checking into a proper extermination. Not a bad idea, anyway, since I live by pasture and lots of creepy-crawlies will be trying to find a way indoors as the chill sets in...

More later...

Along came a spider...

The weekend was most productively spent.

I got another bedroom cleared away and now it's ready for cleaning and painting. Within the week, I may possibly be moved into my new bedroom. Meantime, I'll be putting an extra shelf in the closet, cleaning and conditioning the very nice hardwood floor, layering all walls and ceiling in Kilz2, and then painting same. Then there will be new mini blinds. It's going to be very nice. I'll post some photos this weekend. :)

What is it about fresh paint that bugs--particularly moths-- find so irresistible? I feel sorry for the little fellows, even though they are pesky. Now the mosquitoes, well, I just laugh at them. Haw! Haw! Haw! Now I know vengeance.

As I was shifting boxes about, I saw this very pretty spider. With leg span and all, it was about 3/4". I generally love spiders and am loath to kill same, but this one was in the house, of indeterminate species (to me) and I decided to err on the side of caution. After the flash went off, it started booking it across the box top where it had been perched. Thank goodness for latex gloves-- I squashed it with my thumb with a pang of regret. It's certainly exotic, isn't it? Anyone have an ideer what this is?

Addendum: Uh, this is a male or a juvenile black widow. er, it was. Crap. That means there's probably a momma around here some place. I'm so bug-bombing the house this week. Ew.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Beefcakery.

This morning, momma broke with protocol and let the very snuggly velvet boy up onto her yummy-posh Sferra* sheets for a snuggle fest. Ever the tart, Chuy flipped lithely on his back to grovel for tummy scratches. He wrinkled at me, and I just had to comply.

*If you are vigilant, you can get bargain basement prices on Sferra sheets at Tuesday Morning. By bargain basement, I mean a normally $600 set of sheets for a full size bed will be about $140. I kept my eyes peeled for this set for about a year and a half-- full size is not common to find-- you'll be more in luck with queen- or king-size if you're seeking Sferra at TM. With proper care, they will last you for years and years, and they feel gloriously sumptuous. I sleep better on these. [no, not princess-and-the-pea, Holly.] At the end of a really rough day, it can be so lovely to take a cool shower and slip into these. As corny as it sounds, it makes a massive difference for a good night's sleep.

Sunday, Puffy Sunday...

...wherein your humble narrator alters the Sunday theme ever-so-slightly.

When I think of beaver, I think of, well, places like Canada and points generally northward. I didn't know we had them around here.

Driving home from town with friends this afternoon, we all simultaneously expressed surprise at the beaver on the side of the road. I asked the driver if we could make the block and swing back around so I could snap a pic. Got out to look and it was a marvel.

Here's a photo. I think it must have been about a 50 pounder, bloating aside. You can see it's quite large next to the rather large human foot at the left of the image.

Back on the road after the beav's big close-up, one friend got a call from his wife and they talked for a couple minutes, and he said "we had to take a five minute detour because we wanted to get a better look at a fat, furry puffy beaver." She laughed maniacally and didn't ask for details. I think she must get all manner of oddities from this character, but based on her reaction, I'd say he married quite well.

For Halloween, may we suggest...

Here at the Phlegm Propulsion Laboratories™, we're working night and day to bring you the very best in shopping. We've told you about bacon flavored dental floss, the bumper dumper and who could forget all those wonderful shoes? In that vein, I come to you today with seriously considered, sober suggestions for your holiday attire. Well, if you're like most of the demented people I know who dress up for Halloween, you've been vexing for a while about precisely what gay apparel will don you then.

Vex no longer, darlings! I have the answer right here: latex wigs.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

You may select this insouciant blonde flip-do. Very chic if you've the right coloring for it.

Though the bouffant-action could do with a bit more loft, we greatly admire the Hawaii-Five-OH! Book 'im, Danno!

I must admit great personal bias in favour of the Elvis 'do. Bonus points for the glasses. Come to that, the glasses alone are worth their weight in hours of good, clean fun year 'round. I know I'm getting mine!