If Someone Asks, This Is Where I'll Be

In the meantime, feel free to peruse the past five years and five days worth of posts. They're about my life, but I made it entertaining as possible.

If Someone Asks, This Is Where I'll Be

According to the Gregorian Calendar, It's A New Year.

According to the Gregorian Calendar, It's A New Year.

My New Calendar Can Be Your Calendar!

Do you like flowers? Do you like knowing what day it is? I have just the thing!

12 of the most delectable bee-approved flowers in my world have decided they want to spend the new year with you!

Sound familiar? Good, you're not losing your mind! I created another calendar using Zazzle and am selling it here!

I highly recommend Zazzle for all calendar creation needs, really. Unless you've got your own fancy calendar factory.

And yes, the photos will be available as separate prints in Etsy soon, but think about it, you won't know what day it is looking at the prints, and they'll sell for more than $1.70. That's what it breaks down to, 12 of my flashy flowers photos--13 if you count the cover--at $1.70 each.

It's a steal!

(Is that better marketing than this? I think it is. Sure it is.)

My New Calendar Can Be Your Calendar!

My Calendar Can Be Your Calendar!

Do you like flowers? Do you like knowing what day it is? Behold! I have photographed 12 of the most delectable bee-approved flowers in my world and will share them with you all through the year!

I made a calendar at Lulu, kids. It's not cheap, but it's cheaper than buying the prints of the photos at Etsy, and I only get...a fraction of the cost....hmm.

Hey, if you want a pretty and expensive calendar, click the link below!

It's great, if you go there, to Lulu, and look at my calendar, which is still called My Calendar despite the ten times I changed it to What The Bee Sees..., there are links to hotter-looking calenders. Dammit.

So there you go. I took a course in marketing, you know. Unfortunately for me I just don't see the point in the part about making people emotionally attached to something so bad they'd pay lots of money for it. That doesn't mean I failed my marketing course, no. On the contrary, I did obscenely well...and people hated that.

But flowers, come on! Everybody loves flowers! They're pretty flowers!

There should be a preview there. If not, click here.

Capitalism at its most flowery.

My Calendar Can Be Your Calendar!

I'm Not There

I always liked coming home.

Didn't matter how sick or tired I was, when I saw the sign at the end of the block, I knew I was safe. Even when I wasn't.



When we moved here 28 years ago, one major selling point was the backyard, because I liked the park by the rat water but now it was too far away. The backyard would be good for me, I heard. Because I had imagination of a seven-year-old, the backyard was as terrifying as the rooms that had no lamps yet. Then the sun came out.

It may seem like I'm going all Pocahontas, but this house and the land it's on may never be mine in the sense that I can't be removed from it, but I belong to this land. I've bled for the house. But the air makes me live and at the end of the day it's what I want to see. It never leaves me. This is where I am. This is my home. This is my safe place.



The air is getting colder and soon the flowers will stop blooming. Until next time.

"Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back."
-- Bruce Springsteen

I'm Not There

The Tangled Yet Rather Endearing Mess That Is My Life

Summer of 2009 was weird. It started out with me all gung-ho to die of extreme sunstroke and ended with me staggering around unable to recognize even my Puppy's father-in-law after a week of tackling said Puppy to flush her ears with what is basically douche and then driving a great flaming car through rezoned streets of death after playing Frankenstein on patio umbrellas.

It's alive, I say when I wake up.

Not that I sleep much, especially since I got it into my head three months ago to stop taking every pill I used to take. No Benadryl, no Rite-Aid brand Sudafed knock-off, nothing. Commando head. I credit/blame Michael Jackson. I was up to way too much Benadryl to sleep an extra hour. I've had chronic insomnia since age 1 so suggesting more exercise or counting things is going to go over with me as well as suggesting hats for UV exposure for my legs.

I did a lot this summer, or at least it feels like I did. I didn't let anything like the occasional lack of a functional right side stop me, either. I developed a tan. My skin will hurt until 2012. Everything I pruned has grown back and my hair dye has nearly grown out. Time marches on. Or drags awkwardly like Torgo, in my case.

I started putting this Autumnal Vlog together a while back, because I knew it was going to be big, but it was held up by the most recent shocking reminder that I need to keep track of what goes on in my little world at all times. I think it worked out, though. I think it made the video, I think it summed up this year, and I especially like that we made all it through.

Yay autumn!

(Summary for the YouTube-less folk: I spent some time filming The Slinky One and The Puppy as they both tried to explain that The Fluffy One was twenty feet up the cherry tree and could I please stop filming them and assemble the team to help him down. He's a lumberjack and he's OK, but I wasn't after that, which is why you may notice the Vlog went up a tad late.)

The Tangled Yet Rather Endearing Mess That Is My Life

Flowers Are Like A Snack Bar

Today would have been my Uncle Joe's 95th birthday. He was a great gardener, and I think he had a lot to do with me messing with plants. On one of his visits he brought flowers...and bags of soil and huge planters. After that year, and Nan's wicked case of poison ivy, I started taking care of the yard myself instead of relying on anyone else, and the stuff that grows there now is nice.

So nice that a huge orange spider with striped legs loves to hang from this particular Rose of Sharon, which is about a foot away from my swing, every night. Except last night, when the spider decided to make its web ON my swing frame.

I can't get a decent photo of the spider. I'm sure you're all very sad about that.

Me, I was just sad I couldn't sit on my swing without running the risk of reenacting the end of The Two Towers or beginning of Return Of The King depending on which horrifying spider-on-Hobbit action you prefer.

Flowers Are Like A Snack Bar

To The Nines

Today is September 9, 2009. Which doesn't look interesting at all until it goes all 09/09/09 and then if you throw in 09:09:09 for good measure it becomes an explosion of awesome so crazy I start acting twelve again.

Here are nine things I want to remember from today:

1. I pulled two Runes and they just happened to be Isa and Gebo. Why am I talking about this? LOOK AT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE:



2. I got to hear just about every Beatles song ever on WFUV, including remakes by other artists and solo projects.

3. I spent the day with people and furry things I love.

4. I blipped two songs for the day. Revolution #9 by The Beatles because I like to scare people first thing in the morning, and Beethoven's 9th Symphony because I can't believe I remembered it.

5. I got to enjoy some things on television. So You Think You Can Dance is back already, President Obama kicks ass, and Melanie Oudin made this year's U.S. Open interesting.

6. I took a picture of my watch at 9:09:09PM because I'm still that hardcore.



7. I gave a plant a new home and made a crack about Léon: The Professional that was totally understood.

8. I got to walk around in lovely freakin' weather.

9. I got to see the moon poking through the clouds as it hit 9:09 in the Pacific time zone.



It was a good day.

To The Nines

No Juju In Skyflower, Only House For Bugs.

One of my favorite movies is Medicine Man. Maybe because I respect ants. Which is why it's always difficult for me to wipe out the colonies eating my house. Sometimes I weigh who I would rather lose the house to, and ants always come up as the ones who love the house as much as I do.

When we moved here my father pulled out all the Rose of Sharon (along with every other small plant). They were buggy, he said.

The Rose of Sharon came back to me. Pink, white, lilac, every combination, they line the fences and they'd grow to the sky if I let them, but I prune them in winter because I need to see if a raccoon is trying stop in for...whatever it is they do. Hummingbirds and butterflies visit to check out the flowers, and the ants who still live outside of the house--because ants are hardy bastards--stand on the petals looking awesome.

I like ants. Monty Python devoted an entire episode to them once.

No Juju In Skyflower, Only House For Bugs.

The Best Time Of The Year

September brings Orion back into view and the Rose of Sharon start blooming like mad. It's been no hotter than 80°F with no humidity and at night it's near 50°F. My idea of heaven, yo.

The Best Time Of The Year

Happy 4th!

(This was part of a Facebook meme and I thought...why deprive you all of what I did today?)

Turns out if you chant, "I do believe in Cubees," three times while doing community service you get a very special visitor indeed.



Happy 4th everyone! (And you can't get out of it by pulling the international card, I only said Happy 4th. HAHA GOT YOU, YOU MUST HAVE FUN!)

The Cubeecraft Obama & more can be found here.

Happy 4th!

Bring The Pokémon!

A few movie nights ago Mum pulls out this bag of seemingly harmless popcorn. Yet halfway into the movie I began to get sleepy and hear music in my head. Never mind that I was wearing my radio and it was totally late.



I woke up with numbers scribbled on my face in a clockwise fashion with a magic marker. Judging by the way my nose threw a shadow on the four, I was facing entirely the wrong direction.

...I know, I totally would have expected pudding to do this, right?

Tags: February 2009, photos, food, humor

Bring The Pokémon!

I Really Do Have A Sick Sense Of Humor. Just Like The Dude In That Depeche Mode Song.

A while back my buddy Wiggy brought what is now being called the atheist bus to my attention. I hate buses so much that I came up with a snarky comment and then very nearly forgot it as I went on my merry way.

But the Internet, b3ta in this case, being the glorious thing that it is, they've given me a way to make my silly comment a reality.

Made with the bus slogan generator
and a sick sense of humor.

Tags: February 2009, silliness, photos

I Really Do Have A Sick Sense Of Humor. Just Like The Dude In That Depeche Mode Song.

We Like The Moon!

The picture in the last post is what happens when I don't use a tripod. This is as close to what I was trying to get as I could get with little Mavis on a tripod. I have a thing about the moon, but the moon in Gemini, with the two stars like little eyes and moon like a great big glowy nose...MADE OF WIN.

We Like The Moon!

It's Just Me

The pain in my head is not real. You can't see it, after all.

Much like the Electric Slide, it must be felt to be fully appreiciated. Only I believe duplicating the feeling in another person is a felony in this state.

When I was six years old, I sat behind a chair in the living room crying on my cat's shoulder about how my head hurt. I used to throw up a lot after getting off the bus that would take me home.

When I was nine I watched High Road To China in my room while the wood stain on the cabinets dried. By the time the credits were rolling and the plane behind them was dipping and spinning, so was my head.

I remember my worst migraines more clearly than happiness. Fortunately sometimes they overlap. I traveled cross country once. It was something to see. Only the scenery whizzing by--flickering by--triggered a migraine. This spawned the hilarious tale of the white bag of powder I pulled out of my bag to deal with the nausea. It was only baking soda, and luckily it was only during Desert Storm, when people weren't encouraged to be vigilant in there alertness, so I went on to my destination and made it home again without being arrested. Unlike poor Pee Wee Herman, whose mugshot in a paper I remember fixating on instead of the sun filtered through trees outside the window of the train.

A year before I'd ridden an hour in a car and videotaped most of the ride. Watching it back later triggered a migraine. I didn't know about the baking soda yet and spent most of the next day throwing up. I heard the movie my grandfather was watching in the other room, that Keanu Reeves movie about the school production of the HMS Pinafore getting hijacked by a student's death. Permanent Record, it was called. Later that night Nan and I watched Leviathan. I thought it was hilarious that the first symptom of mutating into a deep sea creature of DOOM was vomiting and itching. I didn't recall drinking any deep sea vodka, however.

I can't drink, I've never done any drug stronger than a half dose of an over-the-counter allergy pill, and yet when I have to walk after driving somewhere on a sunny day, I stagger around like the most wasted freak on the planet.

I wouldn't say my life has been wasted. Hijacked, derailed, kicked off course, sure. But it's me. Maybe it's what I was meant to know this time around. Maybe my lesson is to accept that I'm mortal, and weak.

I keep it to myself most of the time. What I feel can't be seen. What I want is to fit in with everyone else, watch the shaky movies with the lights out, play the spinning games without having to look away, go somewhere and not end up crying in some dark souvenir shop, smell meat cooking and not need to run outside. None of that will never happen. People who notice tell me to feel better. I thank them, even though I know it will never happen.

This past weekend another one hit me. It was one of the bad ones. I knew it was coming, and ignored the signs until they would not be ignored any longer, like Glenn Close with a frikkin' carving knife, just with less nookie beforehand. It was hot, mind you, in the house anyway, and I had watched The Clone Wars the night before and the Golden Globes that night, maybe spending four hours in one sitting in front of a flickering computer screen. What did I expect to happen? It's almost like I long for the times when I sit in my dark room with my earplugs in, sometimes listening to music, sometimes listening to British comedy, never forgetting those flickers of my life when I could have been creating something lasting.

The pain lets me know I'm alive.

Tags: January 2009, health, photos, babble, confessions

It's Just Me

Three for 3

It has been a happy third birthday for the Puppy face, the Puppy bod, and the Puppy feet. She's sleeping it off now, so here's what she looks like at her cutest all year round.

Three for 3

An Important Warning

You see this leaf? This leaf drive the cats wild.



That leaf tastes nasty.

I got nothing from it but a weird burning on the tip of my tongue.

An Important Warning

But Maybe Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back

Proving that I once was even more horrendously melodramatic and wordy, I will now post as near a replica as my blog allows of something that was originally posted on my website in 1998. Yes, ten years ago. A decade. No, I can't believe it either. It involves something that took place a year earlier, and has tiny pictures with Comics Sans MS captions that scream "This was my first web page!"

I did not edit any of what follows, so the abuse of the word ironic and grammar in general remains as it was back then. I'd only be pissed at myself if I caught myself correcting things, anyway, as I was apparently quite obnoxious.

But it happened, and if you're very good and scroll all the way to the bottom, maybe there's an update that doesn't involve obscure Sailor Moon R references.

The Tale of Ms. Mulberry

Ralph, Michael and Louie from Arbor Tree Service arrived at 9:45am on October 4th, 1997. (Hitchhiker's day! How ironic...) and by 6:10 on 10/6 it was all over. The 60-ish year old Female Red Mulberry tree that stood in the yard as long as I've been here is gone. Her roots are still here, however, so you never know, maybe she'll decide to grow again. She's done it before.

When we moved here in October of 1981, the beautiful Mulberry tree that grew in the middle of the yard had two leaders, a straight-ish piece that grew on the right side, and a slanted half to the left. In the middle was a stump from where a third limb must have been cut. We enjoyed sitting Bibi the cat (a.k.a. Tookie) up on the flat stump for pictures, never really noticing that the back had an indentation from the stump down to the ground. Every Winter I would marvel at how the snow would catch on the bark of the trees, forming little snow-leaves at the ends of the branches until the wind would blow them away. After a few years, the stump started to lose it's outer bark, and so did the indentation in the back. I would sit out on my swing some nights transfixed by the slugs that would make their way around the base of the tree. I was about ten, so that would fascinate me, you know. I was easily entertained, and still am, apparently.

In April of 1987, my old T-Gym (are all of those as awful as mine was?) sat under the Mulberry and Cherry trees. This one day in particular I was in the yard, on my swing, listening to my radio (with headphones. I'm courteous, if a bit deaf now), and noticed that a tree on Morgan, the block behind us, was being what I'd later find out was called "topped". Looked awful, anyway. Seemed a shame for such a nice tree. Eric Clapton's "It's In The Way That You Use It" was on at one point, I clearly remember.

Once, my grandfather, Savio, Poppy, or Pa, as I usually called him, was sitting in the yard and he noticed that he could see sunlight through the base of the tree, in the middle, where the stump was. On closer inspection, and it didn't really have to be that close, we saw that the tree was splitting down the middle, and that the left side that was off-kilter already, was in danger of falling on our shed (which thinking back wouldn't have been so bad) and the swing that my Mum had just built a year before. Not only that, but it could have easily flattened anyone that had the dumb luck to be standing near it if and when it decided to go.

So Mum called Arbor Tree Service. They came on July 14th to cut the left side of the Mulberry tree (they told us it was a Mulberry, up until then we didn't know) and prune the Cherry tree next to it a bit. I wore this black summer thing that anyone that knows me well knows, in mourning for the half of the tree that was to be cut off. I watched the entire thing from my window, with Simon the cat and Bobby the dog next to me, very anxious about the men that were in their yard, climbing their tree. When it was done, I went out to look at the new stump. It had that smell that lumber departments have, I kinda liked it... I noticed these little bugs walking all over the stump, and not knowing then what I do now, didn't recognize them as carpenter ants.

Two years later, the tree sprouted new growth where it had been cut. I claimed the "new half", pruning it and making it look quite spiffy. Not an easy thing to do with a bowsaw--Red Mulberry happens to be one of the hardest woods, you know.

This Spring, June 2nd, 1997, to be exact (the chronologer strikes again!) After recovering from my hibernation, I took to the yard with my Garden Claw and pruners to see what needed to be done. The back of the Mulberry tree was entirely split, and now you could see sunlight through the whole thing. There were mushroom-ish things growing on the base, and there were discolored patches on the bark here and there. Panicing, as I do so well, we called four or five tree services (you'd be amazed how many tree services are based in City Island) and the overall conclusion was that Ms. Mulberry wouldn't last another year. After an interesting few months of trying to track down the man who was supposed to do the job, we decided to call Arbor again. We knew them, we liked them, and at least we knew that they were capable of handling chainsaws. Each time the day of doom would near, I'd go out in the yard, apologize to "Mully" and ask it to grow back and see us some time. After ten times, I figured we were all ready for it. For some reason the Ben Folds Five song "Stephen's Last Night In Town" summed it all up for me. That and "Tubthumping" from Chumbawumba, but that's another story.

Ralph, Michael and Louie from Arbor Tree Service arrived at 9:45am on October 4th, 1997. It took two days of work, Saturday and Monday, to do it. "My half" of the tree, the new growth from '89, went first. Three cuts and it was down.

As they worked on the tree, one man climbing and cutting, the other two hauling the cuttings out to the chipper and their truck, my radio, which is now tuned to WFUV for all eternity, began playing, of all things...bagpipes... They later played Loreena McKenitt's new song about tree worshipping, "The Mummer's Dance". I watched the entire thing from my window, with Simon the cat and Holly the dog next to me now, Holly very anxious about the men that were in the yard, climbing Frankie Squirrel's tree. Simon had seen it before; he stretched out on his pillow that I keep on my stereo for him.

I wore this black summer thing that anyone that knows me well knows (I've been wearing it for years now), in mourning for the rest of the tree. When it got colder I put on my black Steinwurtzel shirt. What ever happened to Steinwurtzel? What ever happened to the pants that went with the shirt...? So the man cut the tree, an amazing thing to see, really. I have the entire thing on tape. If I could put an animated character in the corner singing tuneless songs I could sell it as a kids guide to the logging industry, maybe. Ocassionally people on Morgan would walk by and watch the tree being cut down. I'm sure a lot of lot of them thought that it was a shame to cut down such a pretty tree. It was. As the sawdust from above fell, it caught in the bark of the tree, just as the snow did every Winter. The gorgeous shiny green leaves fell, attached to bits of perfect, if slightly petrified bark. Watching it, I wondered when the rot would kick in.

Four feet from the ground, the bark began to disintegrate and they actually had to use an axe at one point to split the piece that was cut from both sides towards the middle. It's strange that something could be so rotted on one side and healthy on the other. Or rather, completely rotted with bits of health here and there.

The first night the bulk of the tree was down -- Saturday -- Simon and Holly were enthralled by the fact that they could now sit on the parts of the tree that used to be at least 30 feet in the air. I looked up and saw constellations I had never seen. The clouds at sunset were amazing enough, but to see the Swan? Wow.

As I sat on the swing that my Mum made for me in 1988, listening to my headphone radio, watching to make sure Simon and Holly didn't squash themselves under a log, marvelling at the new constellations, and the lack of slugs, Eric Clapton came on the radio. Ralph said, when it was all done on Monday, that we had done the right thing and that even he couldn't have guessed how bad it really was.

Almost a month later, what remained of the stump has dissolved into mulch, abandoned by the carpenter ants for the softer, sweeter wood of our Cherry Tree, I'm sure. We brought some of the Euonymous hedges back (they used to be in the back, then we moved them to the front, now they've come home!) and placed a bench in front of it to keep ourselves from breaking something by tripping on it. I'm still waiting to see if anything survives, to sprout a new growth that I can sit Simon in for photo ops. Of course, being the Sailor Moon freak that I am, I would. :) Now playing on my radio: The Mummer's Dance Ah, Miss Mulberry, ye were a fine tree. A good tree. A strong tree. And anyone out there that needs tree service and lives nearby, call Arbor Tree Service. They rule.

Update - March 1998 Update: March 1998 -- Who'd have thunk Loreena McKennit would get so popular? :) Update - April 1998 I interrupt my already long story to cut to the happy ending: The other day, after all the rain we had (which was before all the rain we're getting now), I was, well... I admit it. Picking up Holly's poopy. I happened to be near Mully's stump. There were little buds on this twig like thing, sticking out of the front. I hadn't made it official until now because I wanted to see what it was, it might have just been something the ants had grafted into the tree, you never know with them, amazing gardeners, they are. Anyway... Ms. Mulberry has returned. If this was a Sailor Moon episode, I'd be floating off right now with my blue and pink haired friends to make a new start, I'm so happy. Instead, I'm waiting to get a really good picture... and guarding that twig. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy, Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.... :) Update - May 19, 2000 During a rather nasty storm, the bit that was growing out of the stump blew over. It was incredibly depressing but I kept a wand-length branch to er...hide on my desk so Mum doesn't think bugs will kill us in our sleep. Update - August 2004 In 2003, when my Ninjas were wee lads, I was out mowing when I spotted familiar leaves. It was maybe not entirely unbelievable. A separate tree, with its own roots, that would be able to grow...well, wherever I moved it to because it was growing too close to the house. If you click the picture to check out the full size, in the upper-left corner, you see the young twig my mother kept asking me about. "No, it's not a tree," I assured her...that worked for a while.

Update - October 2008 Nearly twenty years since the original mulberry tree was cut in half, and eleven years after the rest was cut down, "Junior" has grown to about ten feet, and I've been keeping it pruned. Mulberries, I've discovered through the other five that have cropped up in the lawn, are easy to dwarf. But this one, this one that appeared the year we brought the Ninja Twins home, this one I let reach the sky.

All there really is to add to this, aside from HOLY HELL, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU READ THIS WHOLE THING, is that on YouTube I found the explanation for all the Sailor Moon tree references. It's been too long since I got to see Sailor Moon, but that's another tale, for another time. Adblock The point, I think, is never to give up because there may be another chance. That and I LOVE TREES!

But Maybe Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back

The Week I Got Verbose Late At Night

Much of this week was taken up with repairing technology. I think it all went rather well, now I just need to find the cure for the kind of injuries incurred crawling around behind furniture with a FANTASTIC-SMELLING coaxial cable (I like the smell of new cables, lumber, eggcrate mattress pads and cat armpits) and playing with IDE ribbon cables (yes, I inhaled).

We saw The Forbidden Kingdom, the new Jackie Chan/Jet Li movie. I mean, come on, it's got Jackie Chan! And Jet Li! And...a white boy as the main character. He turns out okay, though. It was sort of like The Wizard of Oz meets The Katate Kid with some Lord of the Rings thrown in for good measure. And the ending was nearly better than Xanadu, but if I say more than that I'll spoil it.

Somehow I managed to not know anything about the Large Hadron Collider until the logo changed on Google on the day the potential black hole maker was turned on. Of course, once I knew about it I started to wonder if I should attribute the way my dog walks around looking spooked to some special canine knowledge that the planet is being sucked in on itself. Then she saw the neighbors and all was right with her world again. Hussy.

I had decided not to write anything about 9/11 this year, because I've told my story of that day so many times and all I wish now for everyone who died as a result of that day needs is peace. So I was out in the yard, taking pictures of the wildlife and cloud formations, and this bird, perfect little flying bird-shaped bird, got into one of the pictures. The angle reminded me of one of the last pictures I'd taken before that Tuesday in 2001, one that everyone went crazy over because wow, the colors! And a plane, not blurry at all, just PBBBT in the middle of the shot. It was the last time I deliberately took a picture of an airplane. I don't like airplanes, never did, much like I wouldn't like living in the path of oncoming trains or buses, so the picture caught "Ew," and I rarely thought about it over the years. It's sleep deprivation that makes me think a bird reclaiming the sky in my photographs is worthy of an entire post and 189 words the next day, but there it is.

If there's anything that stays consistent about 9/11, it's that we watch a lot of movies that day. No, really, that may seem harsh but there comes an hour when I need to stop experiencing things I can't fix. Generally this is about ten minutes after I wake up, but the women I live with are hardcore. TCM was playing a bunch of Kay Francis movies so I got to see Gloria Stuart (I make no apology for how many times I've seen Titanic) play pool and crash a car in Street Of Women and then we all started cracking up during Give Me Your Heart because Robert Osbourne had to tell the story about Kay Francis' problem with the letter R. I realize I've just made people who can't form Rs very angry, but remember, I can't walk around in sunlight without looking like a drunken maniac, so feel free to giggle at that and we'll be even.

I had the unfortunate experience of not only finding aphids checking out my forsythia, but a chunk of rot in one of the side supports of my swing--now entering its twentieth year of standing outside in sun, rain, snow...hell, I wouldn't have made it past that first summer. I busted out the horticultural oil for the aphids, but found that the tub of wood filler downstairs shares my tendency to crack and dry out over time. So I used Phenoseal. I caulked wood. The end is nigh but I'm holding on. I'll be damned if I don't go out swinging. As high as possible. By moonlight. Listening to '80s new wave. Surrounded by cats. You know, that swing has tried to kill me three other times, but I keep coming back for more. Sometimes I wonder if my love of swingsets is connected with my loathing of things like tags in clothing and being touched or my ability to blather on at length about the songs that were playing when I had a thought twenty-four years ago. Most of the time I don't wonder about it at all.

This week Mum made pancakes, and when Mum makes pancakes, I eat pancakes for days. Those pancakes frikkin' rule. Refrigeration and microwaves are also pretty neat.

Hurricanes aren't neat, though. Way to make me feel like a whiner about my rot, Ike. Stay safe, kids.

The Week I Got Verbose Late At Night

Before and After

2001, this picture wasn't as creepy until three days later.


Seven years later, this wasn't as remarkable until that bird flew across the sky.

Before and After