Maybe I Just Have a Hole in My Lip

Have you ever had the feeling that any minute now, love will find a way? That the answer is just blowing in the wind? That bananas will remain yellow for more than 28 hours in the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter after you've brought them home from the grocery store? Yeah, me neither.

You would think that after forty-some-odd years, I would acknowledge my drinking problem and stop wearing white clothes out to dinner. Upon my second sip of some Pinot Noir at Roxy the other night, I gave up trying to taste the wine, and decided it was far more important to wear it.

I need an intervention, obviously.

Perhaps some of you recall my last post regarding how I can't seem to keep from dribbling all over myself. That post, with the rather long title of Stop What You're Doin' Cuz I'm About to Ruin The Image and the Style that You're Used To, waxes poetic about the trials and tribulations of my threads and unintended liquids. Blogging experts would tell you to keep your titles short, but as you can see, I'm a rebel.

For reasons that confound me still today, my husband, Mr MudPuppy, does all the laundry. He must figure that if I can ruin clothing so easily while consuming food and/or wine, I cannot be trusted around heavy wardrobe-related machinery.

Mr. MudPuppy is a Stain Master, like 8th degree or something. And when we got home, he couldn't get my shirt off fast enough for some serious tackling. Yes, we're still talking about the stain.

Anyway, after Shouting and bleaching and whatever other ancient Chinese secrets (remember THAT commercial?) he had up his sleeve, it was time for the reveal.

Unbelievable, right?

Mr. MudPuppy kicks laundry ass.

And he's all mine.

So you can't have any.






As you may or may not recall (or care), I was one of the dubious judges in the IMMHB Scary Food Contest. You can find out who won by going to I Hate My Message Board's Contest Winners Announcement, but I'll give you a hint: It has to do with things in cans that don't belong there.





I would also like to announce my overweaning pride over being the #1 Google search result for the phrase "buddha sex with skulls". I can't begin to tell you what joy that brings to me.

Goat Thing of the Day: Thunderboxes

You know, for the life of me, I can't figure out why an outhouse would be called a Thunderbox, but here you go.

(via Sparky of My Thoughts Exactly)

Somebody said seeing this one might give me a clue.

Nope. Still don't get it.

FYI: These outhouses were part of a traveling art project earlier this year called Thunderbox Road. 

It's Not Easy Being Green

I can't stand it when I order a single pea pod by mail and Peas Pods R Us insist on sending it a box the size of a small rhino. It's so wasteful.

Earlier this year in Hawaii, I arrived at the car rental place just wanting to get to the condo after a long flight. I grabbed the keys from the car rental lady, not paying much attention when she said, "This is all we had". I was just hoping it wasn't a motorcycle, since there were three of us. Counting parking space numbers, I was disheartened to see this in our designated space.

photo credit

Yep. That's a Hummer H3, all right. Navigating a monster in and out of parking spaces, and climbing in and out of that thing without the aid of a forklift, AND traveling with a disabled relative isn't the easiest thing in the world, I can tell you that.

This summer in Chicago, I called this car service to pick me up from the hotel to go back to the airport. This was set up as a group thing to transport many people attending a conference. For whatever reason, I ended up going back to the airport by myself, and the transportation coordinator tells me, well there's this car that can pick you up in 2 minutes, but it's the only thing we have available right now.

So I had to yell across the car to the chatty Cathy limo driver all the way back to the airport.

What a waste!

What if you called Rent-A-Hubby, and told the drone taking your order that, "Oh, I guess the tubby, farty one will do."

And then a few hours later, the doorbell rings, and when you answer the door, some guy waltzes into your living room and makes himself at home while the delivery man says, "I'm sorry, but this is all we had."

Do you know what I would do?

That's right, I would look that delivery man right in the eye and say, "Well you'll just have to take him back, because I'm sick and tired of all the extravagance and conspicuous consumption that has been forced upon me by you people. Out, OUT I say!"

Also? I would like to thank Crista over at the Domestic Goddess for this Over The Top Award. Thank you, Crista!

Goat Thing of the Day: Haiti

Sometimes I just drown in the goat stuff you guys send me. So while I did save this first photo, I can't for the life of me find its source link, although I do know that it was in some Florida newspaper, it was about goats going to help Haiti and that the photo was taken by one David Tucker. Oh, and that it was sent to me by my friend Dane.

Hello there!

Goats sure like to ham, don't they? Or is it pigs?

Anyway, if we're on the subject of Haiti (and I believe we are), Owen from Magic Lantern went to Haiti in 1997 and showed me his goat photos like this piece of Haitian folk art made of iron:

I know what you're going to ask and I'm going to go with uh, a butterfly?

Owen also has a photo that's somewhat Halloween appropro (unless Haiti doesn't celebrate it), but who knew goats could be grave robbers, or grave grazers, or whatever it is they're doing playing around in a cemetery?

Of Grandmas and Chocolate

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth. So my palate wasn't exactly...evolved. When I was a kid I hated German chocolate cake. Actually, I didn't like chocolate at all, but add that funky coconut or whatever it was that made a cake German chocolate and.....BLEH! My favorite cake was yellow cake with vanilla frosting.

The same thing with ice cream. My favorite flavor was vanilla. Plain old vanilla. Or maybe sometimes strawberry. But never chocolate! And leave the nuts off the sundaes, please.

Also? I didn't like the taste of coffee as a kid. So forget coffee candy or the ick of icks: rum butterscotch. To me, that nastiness was adult candy, not meant for kids.

These preferences of mine were no secret. But you know what my grandmother served after dinner at her house on my birthday, EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR? German chocolate cake with coffee almond ice cream. What the hell, Grandma?

Here it was MY birthday, and I had to sit in front of a plate of this disgusting crap and force it down. As a child, I could never understand it, but it was just one more thing that contributed to the reason why this woman was not my favorite grandmother, if I were to choose one. And I did.

I never ever ate German chocolate cake any other time, why would I want it on my BIRTHDAY--the one day of the year it was supposed to be all about ME?

Of course, in retrospect, I suppose she may have served this brown coco nutty crap because it was also my Grandfather's birthday and my father's birthday and it was meant to be more of a group celebration, but to me it wasn't fair. I was the kid and really, aren't holidays for the children? I mean, would it have killed her to have a second option on the ice cream at least? I usually scraped off the cake frosting and accompanying that with a decent vintage vanilla would have made a world of difference. Birthdays were supposed to be special, and serving me food I hated didn't make me feel that way.

And don't get me started on what I got as a gift from dear old Grandma, either. I'm liable to split a seam.

I never felt very close to that woman. I carried her middle name, Isabel, but it didn't make me favor her more. In fact, my middle name embarrassed me as a kid because it wasn't "Ann" like EVERY OTHER GIRL I KNEW. Isabel sounded like an old ladies' name. It's not something I shared in public willingly.

Even though I never tested any boundaries with "Izzy", as Grandpa called her, I always felt like she occupied her time not approving of me. She was serious and authoritative. She never "played" with me. Children were to be seen and not heard. She was full of rules and standards. You dressed up (as in, you actually wore a dress) when you went to the grocery store. You took off your shoes in the service porch before coming into the house. Her couch was usually covered in creaky plastic. The house was constantly and immaculately clean. My mother obviously rebelled the second she moved out, got married and had us kids, so Grandma's rules seemed Draconian to me.

She spent the last few years of her life in a nursing home, suffering from dementia that would result in her refusing physical therapy for a broken hip. I was her conservator, so once when she hysterically demanded the phone from the staff, they called me and let her cry into the phone, demanding to "come home". I told her I would come right over and I did.

I arrived hoping she had calmed down and forgotten everything by the time I got there, but she was still panicky and wanted to "go home". Instead of telling her she was already home, or that she had to stay where she was, I asked her why. She said "the Germans" were coming to get her and they would kill her with a knife in court or something like that. A few minutes later, I picked up the paperback she was reading and realized she was reliving the last scene she had read in the book. Word for word. Weird that her memory was so good, yet served her so disastrously.


On a different visit, I asked her how she had met my grandfather. She told me this crazy story about how Grandpa was this leather jacket-wearing motorcycle-riding rebel. And how her family didn't approve of him. And how they ran up to Reno and got married while she was still in high school. It sounded romantic, but definitely not something Grandma would do, and I wondered what book she had taken that story from.

When she died, I gave her eulogy at the funeral. I had reflected on memories and gone through her belongings to construct an appropriate funeral for a woman I had never gotten to know. As I outlined the eulogy, I began to realize how much we had in common. Either her "rules" had an influence on me, or I was genetically destined to be like her in other ways not so obvious, regardless of my resistance.

However, my impression of her as a rule-following, properly-behaved woman melted away when I found a newspaper article in her scrapbook that announced the elopement to Reno of her and my grandfather while she was still attending Sacramento High School. In 1937. I thought that was fantastic and wished I could have hung out more with THAT woman.

It was such a revelation for me and I was disappointed that I missed out on that part of Grandma. I wish I had spent more time with her, particularly before the dementia. Instead I got to know her a little better by rummaging through all her stuff as I settled her estate. Now I'm proud of and even impressed by her. She didn't spend her time with me disapproving of everything I did, she was busy teaching me life lessons. And now I like my middle name and I love that it came from my Grandma Isabel. 

But I still don't like German chocolate cake.


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(This post was inspired by, of all things, a recipe. For German chocolate cake. Over at Jan's Sushi Bar)