Bullet Proof Vests Now Required in the Kitchen

So there I was at the Farmer's Market the other day, you know the one in Sacramento in that parking lot downtown, underneath what some of us old-timers call the WX freeway? What's that thing called now? Anyway, I came across something I don't recall seeing before, but I can only assume I ignored them all the time and became sensitized to them when I was served flowers at a Hollywood restaurant recently...

I stood there like a tourist and took a picture of these squash blossoms, attempting nonchalance, because what idiot takes pictures of vegetables at the Farmer's Market? I mean, really. I've never seen anyone take a picture there. People are too busy pushing and shoving to get to the perfect basket of strawberries, ignoring the fact that this is a civilized society, people and there's a line here, buddy, I want to pay for my avocados too you know and I got here before you! That is what normally happens at these places. Anybody stopping to snap a photo is just plain cuckoo and should be made fun of.

Less than a minute later and further down the aisle, I walked past a woman pulling out her camera and exclaiming, "Oh! I've never seen THESE before." And then click, click click.

Was she crazy? A camera at the Farmer's Market? Didn't we just go over this? Honestly!

So I whipped out my camera again, just so I could show you what she found so fascinating...

Good Heavens, with ingredients like squash blossoms and torpedo onions, what kind of violent offensive would a cook execute in his or her kitchen? Hammunition Surprise? Blood Red Velvet Cake? Firecracker Quiche in a Nuclear Fusion Sauce? I mean, yeah, they sound yummy and all, but the next time you're at Joe's Landmines and Chop Suey Bistro, and the guy at the next table blurts out, "This soup is the bomb!", take cover.


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NGiP would like to thank Drowsey Monkey for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll. Every time I visit her blog, I smile, because penguins roam around in the side bar and penguins make the corners of my mouth reach for my ears. Today (Saturday) is Drowsey Monkey's 1 year Bloggiversay, so go over there and say Congrats! And tell her Nanny Goats sent ya!

Bugs: They're Not Just For Breakfast Anymore

We have a couple of Tarmac strips in our little town called Sacramento International Airport, although the "International" part of it may as well have quotes around it. OK, I guess there is a flight to Guadalajara now and again. Not that I have anything against Guadalajara - I mean, who doesn't want to order a drink whose Spanish name translates to Happy Buttocks? (These drinks are served at Los Famosos Equipales. But that's not why I called you here today.

I walk through this "international" airport a few times a month and the Starbucks had a serious fly problem. I apologize in advance for not taking a picture of the large poster made of flypaper, but I promise you, it was gross. But alas, it's gone.

Recently they installed these lights on the walls...

This coincided with the fact that there were no flies. Where could they be? I reached up with my camera and aimed down into the top of the light... 

For further enjoyment, you can click on the picture to enlarge.

Mmmmmm.  Kinda makes you want a Venti Mocha Flypachino about now, doesn't it?


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...And the answer to the trivia question the other day about where the Nanny Goats In Panties banner picture was taken:  Fremont, California. In Coyote Hills Park, near the San Francisco Bay.

What Part of "Squalor" Don't You Understand?

I would ask that you not get me started on this whole housing crisis thing, except that I've already decided to get started without you. Come with me in the Wayback Machine to 2005, when gas was still less than three bucks a gallon but a 2000 square foot home was pushing $450K, in the country's fastest-growing, least desirable suburb: Elk Grove, California. Ask anyone from the Sacramento area who changes their underwear every day, if they had their druthers, would they live in Elk Grove? Who wants to put "Elk Grove" in the real estate search box when the nation's headlines about the poor city lead with "Squalor"?

And I don't want to hear, "Well it used to be nice." "Used to be" doesn't let you sleep at night. "Used to be" doesn't keep you from getting shot while pulling out of Chili's. "Used to be" doesn't stop the house from across the street, and another one around the corner from becoming pot farms.

We held out as long as we could. Our tight-knit neighborly little court began to disperse, saying the neighborhood was going downhill. Plus, in 2004 and 2005, they were panic-buying like everyone else, buying bigger McMansions before they were priced out of the market. Of course they exacerbated the blight of the street by abandoning us, moving out so fast that all we could make out were elbows and assholes in the dust. And everyone who moved in after them were loud, rude, obnoxious, wouldn't speak to us, etc... Eventually our annoyance and fear won over our laziness and we moved.

Now, by "going downhill", do not mistake for a minute that I mean anything racial. In fact, when we were a happy little party-having group, I was the only white girl. Well, actually there were two of us, but the other one high-tailed it out of there because she saw the writing on the wall long before we did.

No, I'm talking about class. I'm talking about behavior. I'm talking about moving two or three families into one house and parking your 12 cars all over the court leaving no room whatsoever for our own guests. I'm talking about letting your yard go. I'm talking about leaving your front door open all day long while your unsupervised children run around half naked and barefoot in the middle of the street, screaming until well after midnight.

So, late to the party, we finally gave in and sold our house. Here is a picture of it just before it sold in November 2005. Please note the green and well-maintained lawn.



A few months after that we began to hear rumors of our old house going into foreclosure. More than once.

Last week, my niece happened to ride by it and snapped a picture from her phone. It's the one on the left...



What is that, a "For Sale, Sort Of" sign?

This is the backyard when we moved out in 2005...



I'm too chicken to climb the fence to see what it looks like now.

When we left, we bought a bigger McMansion. In Elk Grove. But that's another long story.

One year later, we moved again, out of Elk Grove and into Sacramento, which is another long story, one that involves bending WAY over.

Wishful thinkers, manipulative speculators, and real estate talking heads are now going to be calling the bottom of the Sacramento market every week for the next 2-3 years. We'll just be calling it "rent".

* * * W H A T     E L S E * * *

My book review of Driving With Dead People by Monica Holloway is up at Curled Up With a Good Book. You can click on the links in the previous sentence or right here if you wish to read it.

Nanny Goats in Panties wishes to thank Wendy over at wining and ironing for adding NGIP to her blog roll. Wendy joins our global network as she hails from South Africa and is "not your average desperate housewife".



Some of you may recall last week's post about the new Hands Free cell phone law. Have you seen this parody?




Please click here if you wish to rate this post on Humor-Blogs.com

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorched

You know, it's weather like this that keeps you locked up inside your house because it's too damn hot. And when there's eight hundred (give or take four hundred) wildfires blowing around Northern California and killing people's homes, they tell you to stay inside because of the air quality. Unless, of course, they're telling you to evacuate. So you sit on your couch of nails, watching the weather channel, ants crawling all over you because you just HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE BEFORE YOU KILL SOMEBODY!

So you leave the house. And while you wait for the air conditioner in your car to blow out cool air because right now, the interior is searing you like Sushi Grade Ahi Tuna, you see the grey hazy air that looks like a foggy winter day, except that you're beginning to sweat. A ball hangs in the sky like an out-of-focus fuzzy orange, as if you forgot to put on your glasses. And you hear the news radio guys talking about the heat and the fires and you immediately switch it to your Pink Martini CD to get your mind off this ever-lovin' heat. You pull up to a red light and take a look at your dashboard:

GAHHH!!!!!

Some anal retentive angel is running around up in Heaven like a headless chicken right now yelling, "Good Lord, who left the oven on? BAWK! BAWK!"

Oh, by the way, did I mention that it's hot here today?

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Nanny Goats would like to thank Don over at It's A Funny Thing for adding us to his blog roll. Under the "Some Funny Some Not So Good" category. We would like to be so egotistical as to think that we fall under the "Some Funny" part.

Speaking of "some funny", you can click on this link to Humor Blogs in order to vote with a LOL Smiley Face to help keep Nanny Goats in the Top 30 (which seems to be a bit tenuous at the moment)

How Moses Disposes of Those Tainted Tomatoeses

We took Dad to Scott's Seafood for Father's Day yesterday. Dinner with my family usually means plenty of food.

On the floor.

See?



Looks like SOMEbody didn't believe the waiter's claim that the tomatoes were salmonella-free, and didn't have the GUTS to just leave it on the plate.

My contribution is that little bite of filet mignon - I had an incident out the gate with my fork and my first or second bite. But I saved the fork from starring in this picture.

Oh sure, I could have shown you the prettier side of Scott's on the river, like this:



or this:



but we didn't have that fabulous view. And besides, that serenity thing...it's not really me, or what I'm about.

I'm about the food on the floor at table twelve next to the kitchen.

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I'm not sure how this happened although I'm sure it's all your fault: Nanny Goats In Panties jumped from #21 to #13 on Humor-Blogs, so THANKS HEAPS!!!! You can click on the logo (or here) to see the current ranking.

Tap, Tap, Tap...Is This Thing On?

As I witnessed my Amazon Reviewer Ranking plummet from 49,674 to 49,838, I thought, man, I gotta buy more stuff and tell the world what I think of it. And fast! I mean, once I tumble beyond that 50,000 mark, I may as well just throw it in.

But that's not why I brought you here today. I wanted to tell you about my niece, a rising rock star on the local punk scene, who was a guest on Rob Fatal's Waxaholixxx show on KSSU the other day. They shared and played some of their favorite music and he interviewed her like how they do real rock stars with "How did you get where you are today?" and "Who were your influences?" and I was beaming with pride as I streamed the show live from the station's website. Especially when she mentioned her "aunt who was probably listening right now". Woo hoo! That's me!

Beside myself with pride and excitement, I couldn't resist texting her every few minutes during the show:

~ omg ur on the radio! Thats so awesome!

~ your voice is soft, are you talking close to the mike?

~ dont forget to mention your CD

~ sit up straight, talk from your diaphragm

...and so on.

When the host told the listeners to call in if they had any questions for either one of them, I told MrMudPuppy he HAD to call and ask the Freak something. Freak is her stage name. Don't ask - I can't remember why.

MrMudPuppy told me I should call. After much pushing and shoving and a bunch of You, No-You!s followed by some hesitation - I've never called in to a radio station before - I picked up the phone. And the conversation went a little something like this:

"Hello, KSSU FM, you're on the air."

"Really I'm on the air?" (Pretty stupid, huh? My only excuse is that I was expecting a screener or something first, but I sallied forth.)

"Uh, well, this is Manjo MudPuppy. I'm a longtime listener, first time caller." (Manjo is my alter email ego and MudPuppy is my married name. The plan was to speak in character while still letting Freak know who was calling, but when I blurted out "Huh Wha? Duhhhhh... Am I on the air?" in my normal voice, that pretty much blew my cover.)

"How ya doing?" (The DJ said this, probably wondering why in the hell he didn't have the screener answer first, although he was laughing. Sort of.)

"Fine, thanks. Thank you for taking my call. I just had one question for the Freak of whom I'm a big fan. Who is your favorite Power Ranger and why? And I'll take my answer off the air."

I should note the Freak is a Power Ranger fan and yes, I'm still kicking myself for not coming up with a more blog-worthy question, but shit man, I was nervous. And running out of time trying to think of something witty, so get off my back. They had two callers the whole show anyway, I was just trying to add a little interactiveness. You try and come up with a brilliant idea with the clock ticking, you 24 Jack Bauer wannabe!

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Nanny Goats Shout Out

Nanny Goats has gone global, man and in no small part thanks to Aileni Noyle, a Welshman and Megadeth fan living in Ireland. From his blog, Loose Ends, you'll see a link called Nexus.... for the Index, Links and Other Stuff. This link takes you to his Nexus Page where you'll find the link to Nanny Goats In Panties. Woo Hoo! We are on someone's Other Stuff page!

This man has lived and if you check out his Once An Islander page his picture scrapblog, or his Personal Myth page, you'll see the artist and thinker that Nanny Goats sees.

After the KISS, They Wanted to Rock and Roll All Night

I was never going to get married. Or have kids. I'm 1 for 2 so far and it looks like that whole childless strategy is going to pan out. The thought of planning a wedding makes me want to take a nap, so when it was my turn, we eloped. I don't know whether to admire or shake my head at all the women out there willing to go to hell and back to have the "perfect day". But stress themselves out they do and without them, the rest of us wouldn't have such events to attend. And criticize afterwards.


So we're at this outdoor wedding the other day with MrMudPuppy playing the role of best man. It's an uncharacteristically gorgeous and cool 74 degree day in the foothills above Sacramento. I can't imagine the Farmer's Almanac predicting anything below 95 degrees at this time of year. A perfect day for a wedding.


Behind The Headquarter House, wooden stairs and hills lead up to a plateau of green grass with a gazebo. Coincidentally, the last time MudPup and I were here, back when the place was a restaurant, we celebrated our own engagement. You don't see the railroad tracks behind the row of nearby trees, but just as the reverend announced the Mister and Missus, a freight train roared by, violently vibrating away any sentiment our hearts held moments before. But this was a Rock and Roll wedding, 80's metal making most of the play list, so this was merely viewed as perfect timing.

At the beginning of the reception, we formed a two-line gauntlet and each member of the wedding party was introduced. They came through us, slapped our hands, acting like the rock stars they were. I was scrambling my brain trying to think of something crazy fan-like thing to do when the MudPup was introduced. I had too many underthings on blocking any quick panty removal to toss his way, so I did the next best thing...

Van Halen's And The Cradle Will Rock... erupts from the speakers while the DJ introduces MrMudPuppy to the cheering crowd. When he enters the gauntlet, I jump into it and run toward him frantically waving my arms and screaming like a properly obsessed fan. I plant a big wet one on his lips like a teenage girl who has rushed the stage and is about to be hauled away by security. We spin around - I see cameras everywhere capturing this Rock and Roll moment - and he struts down the rest of the gauntlet. And for some reason I'm giddy with excitement, having slobbered all over my husband in public.

For the lead-in to the garter toss, the groom disappeared head first under the bride's dress, lingered a little too long as if he'd gotten lost in there, and then jumped up producing a rubber chicken. He dove back in and began pulling out a string of flags that ultimately ended with the garter tied at the end.

As the bride and groom made their grand exit to the limo, we blew bubbles.

A playful wedding for a playful couple. It was perfect.

Kind of blows the wind out of this cynic's trash talking sails.

So, what's the coolest or most unusual thing you've seen at a wedding?

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Nanny Goats Shout Outs

A big THANK YOU to The Learning Curve for linking to my Timeshare post. And for complimenting the story. And for mentioning Nanny Goats In Panties near a picture of some hot looking Laker Girls! Methinks he likes the ladies in uniform. The Learning Curve is also a member of the Sacramento Top 25.


And another shout out to After The Dust Settles who has generously added Nanny Goats to her blog roll. You have GOT to check out her pigs. A fabulous gift idea, if you ask me.

Hide The Clarinet Player!

Memorial Day Weekend in Sacramento brings the biggest (their words, not mine) jazz festival in the west. That's right, when we are not busy making names for ourselves trying to yank "under God" out of our daily pledge to the flag, we bring together the world's best jazz bands to Old Sac (not Old Town, you Pasadenians) and its nearby environs. And in celebration of this musical extravaganza, do you know what I do? That's right, I stay the hell away from it because my God, the crowds.

When I was a kid, it was called the Sacramento Dixieland Jazz Jubilee. Now it's called the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. Why? Because apparently, now it's sans dixieland jazz. Which as far as I'm concerned is a crying shame. I for one, do not like standard jazz particularly, but I love dixieland jazz. It's so bouncy and happy and New Orleansy. I mean, who can listen to When The Saints Go Marching In without tapping at least three of their feet? I will listen to NPR all day long, until that blasted "trad jazz" crap comes on. Then I ferociously spin the dial over to some golf station. You know, because I'm lookin' for something that MOVES me.

I know a lot of people are of the opposite view, to whom I say: DIXIELAND-DIXIELAND-DIXIELAND. And it's because of you anti-dixites, that MY kinda music has been scraped from the playlist like the charred part from toast.

Now for all I know I'm talking out of my ass, assuming dixieland jazz is all but eradicated from the event, but when I looked at the genre of bands (traditional, zydeco, blues, etc.) guess which category was NOT on the list! So, while the Black Tuesday Jazz Band claims to play dixieland, they are listed under "classical". It's like: "OK, you play dixieland jazz? Well, we can't really put you under that, because we don't want to scare people. We'll just see who comes in and then see how it goes. You know, AFTER we get their $100."

So Dixieland jazz has been relegated to the underground. How do you like that? Secret handshakes and passwords and sunglasses and trenchcoats and "Pssst, c'mere buddy" and twenty-dollar bill-slippin' to the man in the know just to find out where you can get you some o' dat. Because as you know, you can never quite get rid of all the burnt bits, no matter how much you scrape.

May The Peace Be With You, Luke

You know those people who say "I can watch such and such a movie over and over because I see something new everytime"? Do you know why they see something new every time? I will tell you why. It is because they can't keep their big trap shut during the movie. They will buy the movie on DVD even though they've already seen it in the theatre, pissing the rest of us off who want to see it only once and want to hear every damn word the FIRST time. I pay gobs of money to see it in the theatre and for some crazy reason, expect people to shut the hell up so I can hear it. And I expect them to turn off their damn cell phones. But I guess that's like paying gobs of money for a house and expecting the neighbors to take care of their damn lawns oh don't get me started.

Anyway, my niece and I went to the movies the other night to see Death Note, which was playing all of two days (at 7:30pm only) here in Sacramento. I didn't know much about the movie, only that it was a Japanese animation movie and as it turns out, I was even wrong about that: it was live action.

As we walked toward Theatre 2, we passed a couple (or maybe they were just friends but that's not the point) who reeked of nerdiness. They were hunched-over, unkempt mouth-breathers with odd conversation oozing from their pie holes. They took turns growling and screeching and the girl said, "I like to freak people out," in a sort of Beavis and Butthead tone of voice. "It's like, my hobby."

We grabbed two seats inside and the place was full of Beavis and Buttheads, dweebs of all shapes and sizes. I was easily the oldest person there. There was a festive buzz in the theatre. These kids were FANS. A girl in the back proclaimed to all of us that it was her birthday and did people get all smart-assy on her like I expected? No, they shouted "Happy Birthday!" Someone else walked up to the front and announced something that people applauded, but I had no idea what he said.

Geeks to the left of me. Geeks to the right. I thought, This must be what it's like to go to Comic-Con or a Star Trek convention.

The first trailer came on and everyone cheered. It was an ad for an upcoming movie based on another Japanese comic book (excuse me, graphic novel [excuse me again, manga]): Bleach.

Then a commercial for some other Japanese comicy thing came on and more people cheered. The girls were woo-hoo-ing between each trailer, like giddy school girls. In fact, it seemed like there were more girls than guys in the theatre.

And then something wierd happened: the movie started and everyone shut up. For the WHOLE MOVIE. And the movie was actually good. A good premise, a good story, intriguing characters. Unfortunately, this was only Part 1, but it was still good and didn't leave me totally hanging off a cliff. And...AND...not one cell phone rang out.


So I guess if you want courteous neighbors who mow their lawns and say, "After you" at the grocery store and wave you on at 4-way stop signs, move to Nerdville.


* * *


Nanny Goats Shout Out

Nanny Goats would like to thank Tammi over at Love The Eclectic Life for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll. She's a blogging SAHM who's new to the SAHM scene and the blogging scene, so go over and say hi and tell her Nanny Goats sent you. I'm hoping she regales us with what's got to be a large mental library of retail nightmare stories.

... and one more thing....if you haven't clicked the Top 25 logo, please do so. The rankings have reset and I'm back at the bottom. Actually, clicking here will do the same thing.

And How Was The Weather In Your Neck Of The Woods?

Because it was a little windy over here yesterday.

I mean, it's no Coloradan tornado or anything, but...

101 Degrees of Perspiration

Sacramento's heat is like a stealth bomber. Its viewfinder captures the tiny, naive people in the city below. It maps their coordinates and hears their thoughts. Thoughts like, "Oh, it's only May. Since gas prices are killing me, and I wanna be a good doobie, I'll ride my bike to work." Or: "Hey, since parking is such a pain in the wahtoosie where Sheila lives, I'll walk over there. It's only a mile. And it's only May. Lord knows, my fat ass needs the exercise." Or: "Hey it's Friday. Let's hit that weekly Concert series thing at Cesar Chavez Park."

Meanwhile, the stealth bomber locks its sights on these tiny urban dwellers with silly little notions of various outdoor activity. The entire city is in the cross hairs and click! - the heat bombs fall. Then BOOM! - the oppressive missiles crash and explode on all the unsuspecting victims, killing just about every one. Bodies are draped over bus benches, dried tongues hanging out of their dehydrated mouths. The whole city is devastated.

Luckily, though, I'm safe and locked up in my bomb shelter with the air conditioner set to 65 energy-wasting degrees.

If I had to write an open letter to Sacramento, it would look a little something like this:

Dear Sacramento,

Look, pal. It's bad enough you swelter us during the summer, and I understand you've gotten all caught up in the instant gratification craze that we all suffer from, but can't you wait a little bit longer before you pelt us with your triple digits? I mean, seriously.

Also, would it kill you to cool down sooner in the evenings? Certain event organizers (I won't name names, because I don't actually know them, but maybe they know who they are) insist on holding events outside. At 5pm!!! The hottest part of the day.

Speaking as a former long-sleeve-wearing, wool-uniform-even-in-the-summer-donning, marching member of the Sacramento Youth Band, I beseech you to cool off! I'm stuck here. Many of us are stuck here. We are all but naked before you, peeling off our wet perspiration-soaked rags, secreting salty, watery fluid from the glands in our skin - not to mention, sweating to death. We beg you, stay away from the One-oh-somethings!

And if you can't avoid the hot hot summer, could you at least wait until the goll-durned summer before we are doomed to feast in all your blistering glory? Have mercy, already!

Your loving, albeit panting citizen,
Nanny Goats In Panties

No Campaign Promises Here, I Can Promise You That

So for some reason you click on a link which links to something else which links to something else and pretty soon you've got 14 browsers open and you are way out there in cyberspace losing your mind, exacerbating your ADD, completely forgetting to eat, and now you can't remember what the hell you were searching Google for in the first place.

And so it was on one of these occasions I tripped over the Sacramento Top 25 website. And I decided that Nanny Goats in Panties MUST BE ON THIS LIST. It became my life's goal to be one of the Top 25. I could be a contender. I could BE somebody.

As of press time, wee little Nanny Goats is ranked number 63 out of the 77 sites listed at the Sacramento Top 25. If you could see your way to clicking that logo on each visit here, or as often as you can remember, I want to see just how far I can climb. Will Nanny Goats make the Top 25? The rankings are reset every two weeks, so tune in tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and ...now a word from our sponsor...


Do you have hemmorhoids? Are you bored and listless? Do you find yourself camped in front of your computer every day wishing you could just go and kill 93 seconds of your life? Well look no further than the Nanny Goats' Silly Ass Questions Daily Trivia Quiz and Fun Park. It's loads of laughs and maddening at the same time. I mean, some of those user-contributed questions are absolutely assinine, but you keep coming back for more, and you know why? [cue Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Spring] Because it's a community of like-minded people getting irate at the stupid-ass questions together.

But don't just take our word for it. Listen to what some of our customers are saying about Nanny Goats Daily Trivia Quiz.

"I thank this quiz is jest about the stupidest but quickest dang waste of tahm thar is on the 'net." - Bubba (Dumpy Hills, Arkansas)

"Before I started taking the quiz, my tumors were getting bigger and bigger. And now, I'm in total remission." - Seymore Butts (Urine Valley, FL)

"The Nanny Goats Daily Quiz saved my marriage!" - M.R.S. (Salt Lake City, UT)

"It's not the itching and redness, it's the swelling and burning." - C. Myrash (Potatoville,ID)

You'll come for the fun, but stay for the pain.

Ask your doctor if Nanny Goats Silly-Ass Questions is right for you.

Some of Nanny Goats' best readers have signed up for this torture. That's the Daily Trivia Quiz. Come check it out. You'll probably be sorry you did.

...And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. The Top 25. Remember kiddies, vote early and vote often. Just clicking the logo on the left activates a vote for Nanny Goats.

Two Christians Walk Into A Bar...

I was sorting through my toenail collection a moment ago, and it occurred to me that I can't remember the last time I had a good blaspheming.

They say you should never discuss sex, religion, or politics in a group setting because it usually doesn't go well, but I'm going to see if I can mention something about religion without going to hell before I push the PUBLISH button.

Last night I went to see a couple of friends of mine perform their stand-up routine at a megachurch.



Amy (the Barnes of Barnes & Miner) is the other half of a writer's club that I belong to in L.A. Depending on how much Comedy Central you watch, you may have seen her before.

Have you guys ever been to a megachurch? Holy Cow! It's ridiculous. Imagine what a church would look like if it were in the Fortune 500. This place was a compound. A corporate-feeling building adorned the center of it. No steeple. No crosses. No statues. No stained glass. No pews. Just a big space inside with hardwood floors. And a colorful stage that looked like it was ready for an Amway rally. Or Abba.



Just outside the church in the next building where they had daycare for this event, was a Starbucks. A Starbucks! At a church! It was all so....suburban. It's easy to see why these places are called McChurches.

Before the show started, we were instructed to meet our neighbors, so we asked one of the regulars at our table how large the congregation was. His answer: ten to twelve thousand. Did I mention that this was a church? Not some central headquarters of some corporation (which is exactly what it looked like), but a church. I mean I'd read about these places before, but I'd never stepped foot in one of them.

But anyway, Barnes & Miner do a lot of megachurch gigs. Being Christian, married and comedians, they've carved themselves quite the niche. Can you even name the last stand-up married duo? Besides Stiller and whats-her-face?

So if you go to a McChurch, they may very well be headed your way, and I highly recommend them. And I'm not just saying that. Or maybe I am, what do I know? They don't restrict themselves to church gigs, but they keep it clean, if not necessarily tame. One minute, Amy & Jerry joke about online dating and the next, Amy plays the piano and sings a cringe-worthy but hysterical song about leprosy. So check 'em out.

And while we're on the topic of religious humor, I found a little web series entitled Mr. Deity. An irreverent look at the Big Cheese and his assistant Larry as they struggle over the Creation. I've enjoyed every goddamn entertaining episode to date.

You can get it at iTunes, or mrdeity.com or YouTube. Each episode is less than 5 minutes. Here's episode 1 (4 min.):

Let There Be Blight

Ahhhh, back in Sac, the little town that hasn't. Did you know Sacramento ranks #5 in the country in foreclosures? Yeah, we're pretty proud of that. I get to come back home to news stories like the one about the people who are vandalizing the homes they can't afford anymore (that they couldn't afford in the first place, actually, and now if they can't have it, no one can.)


Wishful thinkers disguised as talking heads tell us that we're close to the bottom and things should get better next year. It's amazing how the media coupled with mob mentality can be so effective in creating mass delusion. People have a short memory, and believe what they want to believe.

I'm not bitter or anything, but a few years ago flippant flippers swooped in, raped and pillaged, and scrambled out, all the while proclaiming that home prices were going to climb forever. "...and you can just get this interest-only loan with a zero down payment...." What could possibly go wrong?



And now housing market optimism hype spreads like teenage STDs.

But the fact is that there are still plenty of 3 or 5 year adjustable-rate loans that have yet to reset in 2008 and 2009, not to mention all those "liar loans" dotting the financial landscape. (For those of you who haven't fallen asleep yet, liar loans are no-doc loans or stated income loans where the borrower is simply asked to state their income, and taken at their word.)

Foreclosed homes remain vacant, and many are vandalized, creating neighborhood hazards described with words like blight, disease, and poverty. These conditions take years to recover, if they ever do. What part of all that allows the market to "turn around" by next year?

I thought blight and disease were reserved for trees. Granted, houses are made out of trees and Sacramento is the City of Trees. We should we change our motto to: Sacramento - The City of Blight and Disease (which rhymes with trees, by the way).



Kinda makes you want to bust out your AAA Travel Guide book and arrange a trip to the capitol of California right away, doesn't it? Yeah, and if you're interested we've got a McMansion or two or twelve for sale, dirt cheap. Come on down.

... IN OTHER NEWS ...

Nanny Goats would like to step off the soap box for a second to give mad props to Onedia In The Ozarks. This beautiful blog, run by the Super D Duper Miss Onedia, has been generous enough to not only link to Nanny Goats, but to also throw it into the "Laugh Out Loud" category. Thanks, Onedia!

Finally, Some News To Get Excited About

Yesterday, while walking my ostrich, Sheila, I discovered a new newsstand. That's right. A newsstand that was news to me. It was one of those indoor magazine stores, Newsbeat or something, near Pete's and Peet's, and the urge to check the inventory for literary magazines overwhelmed me, so I tied the Feathered One to a bawling youngster outside and darted in.

Sacramento is not exactly known for its literary prowess, but this place carried more than the average Borders, which bordered on refreshing. And before you start snoring at the thought of all those obscure words, let me also inform you that this spacious and family-friendly place of business carried more than just your average lunch break reading material.

Say, for example, you're surfing working at your desk and it's 2pm. Time for your afternoon break. You've got 20 minutes to run down to the newstand and grab a mag, and oh, I don't know, some anti-masturbatory cream. And not just any anti-masturbatory cream, but the fast-acting kind. The current stuff you use can't keep up with you - you smear it on, and before you can say, "Oh God!", you're smoking a cigarette.

Well, have I got news for you. Lookee what I found there:




Oh, don't worry. If this New and Improved product still isn't up to your speed, they sell cigarettes, too.


...IN OTHER NEWS ...

My review of Tara Yellen's After Hours at the Almost Home has been published on Curled Up With a Good Book. Click here if you wish to read it.


...IN OTHER OTHER NEWS ...

The Princess and The Pea has been kind enough to add Nanny Goats In Panties to her blogroll. The Princess, a new addition to the Midlife Bloggerettes, explores the "Foibles & Fables on Being Female". It feels like a nice morning chat over coffee and you feel like you've walked away having learned something.

Peet and Repete Are In a Boat

If you blink in Sacramento, you can miss spring entirely. This desert city that ironically boasts the most trees in the world, flips from winter to summer before you can exclaim, "What a nice day."

So it was in awe that my friend and I walked around the city after a late breakfast, only to be assaulted by corporate expansion gone awry. I give you Exhibit A:



Just because Starbucks and McDonald's (the Starbucks of hamburger joints) sees fit to open up stores across the street from each other, I was dismayed to find out this unforgivable sin didn't stop with them. Shame on you Peet's. Or Pete's. If that is indeed your real name(s).

Actually, I have a good mind to lease a 3rd corner here, open up a gardening store and call it "Peat's".

IN OTHER NEWS....
Nanny Goats In Panties debuts on BlogHer today. In the forum introductions, I noticed that the prevailing tone seemed to be somewhat timid, so I decided to bust in like a loud obnoxious Neanderthal. Perhaps the others will think "Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood." What do you guys think? Too pushy?

There's Never a Hoodlum Around When You Need One

One of our favorite restaurants in "midtown" Sacramento is a place called Ink. Here's what you see before you walk in:



We heard the place was owned by a tattoo artist and was frequented by hordes of bikers late at night, but the heathen crowd wouldn't start showing up until around 10 or 11pm. The food is awesome (and OMG you simply must do the Sliders) so we always sneak in at our senior-citizen-like early bird time of 6 or 7pm.

When you're dining at Ink, the rich red and black interior allows you to imagine the place teeming with black leather vests with big hairy arms covered in scary tattoos.

Look at the ceiling...



And this wall decor reeks of artistic creepiness:

And you get the full effect in this picture:

OK, forget you see the quaint middle-ag