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So here are some update pics from our garden which we started about three months ago from seeds. We now have our first official flower! We planted giant sunflowers, which are getting pretty giant. They have no flowers yet, but the biggest is about three and a half feet tall already. They are supposed to grow something insane, like twelve or fourteen feet high. We also planted cleome, also called spider-flower, but I'm not really sure if those did anything. We have some as yet unidentifieds, so we think they may be them. Or those could possibly be the snapdragon we planted. We probably won't know until they flower. We have a very healthy-looking patch of Cosmos, most are about two and a half feet tall with buds all over them.

So you see, it wasn't the large and healthy Cosmos that first bloomed. No, it was the tiny runt over on the side that's half their size. I have the Underdog of flowers apparently.

Oh, and while inspecting the growing flower buds on the larger Cosmos, I noticed that when I touched it, it released moisture, becoming wet and shiny. Wow...that's weird and gross and ripe for a swift decent into the gutter. My husband then made it even worse by pointing out that it looked suspiciously like a cat's..um...behind.



I submit for your consideration: Cat butt, or flower bud?

And my last update pic is of our burgeoning materbucket. If you'll notice on top we've planted a crop of cilantro (no use in wasting perfectly good dirt up there), and the tomato is growing pretty quickly. The stalks are thick and strong, but it hasn't acclimated to growing upside down, and insists on turning up once it reached the edges of the bucket. It has several yellow flowers on it now, and will hopefully soon begin producing tomatos.



Random funny for your viewing pleasure: I stumbled across a few clips from a show called Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, which I was unaware of because we don't have cable (nor do we stay up late enough to watch it anyway). One of the creators is Seth Green, who is one of my favorite people on earth anyway, but here are some video clips on YouTube which had me rolling. The Star Wars one, the Real World Metropolis, the Napoleon Bonamite...all are so funny you might fall off your chair.

Gentlemen, start your engines

So yesterday we went to a race. It was the Busch series Carquest 300 at Lowe's Motor Speedway here in town. Through his work, my husband got pit passes for me and a friend of his. This was my first Nascar race I got to spend down in the infield and it was very exciting. We pointed and laughed at all the hoochied out helmet-lickers, and enjoyed feeling like VIPs. "We're with THE TEAM." Yes. We are so cool.

So when we got to his team's trailer they asked him if he wanted to help out some while he was there. He said sure, so they gave him team shirt to wear. Then he put it on and came out with the collar up and the zipper down. He looked so eighties that we had to point and laugh at him.

So then we hung out for what seemed like FOREVER in the blazing heat. Finally it was time to go over to the pits and get the race started. I pointed back to the people behind the fence (the people who just had infield passes and not pit passes) and said loudly "Look at those losers back there!" and then I realized I was pointing at quadraplegic woman in a motorized wheelchair. "I meant, the people who are behind the fence, not the disabled in general." Doh.

So then we watched some skydivers fly in trailing some flourescent powder and then land on the track. You'd think they'd try to land on something softer...like, I don't know the GRASS, maybe?


Then pit road opened for a few minutes and I walked around and saw the drivers up close. Like Michael Waltrip, who signed my hat for me. He wasn't his usual jovial self because his cars were running crappy that weekend. (Through no fault of my spouse, I'd like to add.)

And Robby Gordon, who cannot be blamed for his hilariously awful firesuit. He looked like a cross between a rejected superhero and a leprechaun mascot for the Minnesota Vikings.

The race itself was loud and surprisingly short, only a couple of hours. I brought my earplugs, which I heartily recommend to anyone if they ever go to a motorsports event. I got to stand at the back of the pit and watch them do their thing. I took a ton of pics of my husband's backside and drank free Coke products while I sat on hot tires only recently pulled off the racecar at the last pitstop.

Oh, and don't let me forget. You'll never guess in a million years who was at the race. Now I'm pretty good with faces and I've spotted a small handful of celebrities so far, Hugh Jackman, Bobby Flay/Stephanie March, and Karl Rove. The last three I got pics with. This one, ranks somewhere in between on the fame scale, but the highest on the scale of total random awesomeness. So me and Jimmy's friend were just chillin, and we hear this clamor go up down the aisle behind the pits. We see a guy, walking through with some security guards and a small posse. He had on a powder blue track suit and a do-rag, but he was turned backward talking to some fans. So I start pulling out my camera, because even though I couldn't tell exactly who it was, better to be prepared, right? So finally when he turns around, it's to late and I froze trying to place his face and not pointing and clicking. My first thought was...Deion Sanders? No, that's not it. I know that face! And then realization dawned on me. IT WAS M.C. FREAKING HAMMER. At a Busch Race. Sweet Funky Jesus, what in the world was Hammer doing at a Busch Race in Charlotte, NC?????

And all I got was this:


Depressing, isn't it? Although, Scott actually barely touched him, which actually proves that it can be done. Awesome. I wished I'd though to do that.

I have no words

This video is the most unbelievable piece of human folly I have seen in...I don't even know how long. It's fan-freaking-tastic. It's so horribly awesome I couldn't even laugh, because it transcends laughter. It's straight sublime.

Domestic Goddess

Yesterday I made an apple pie and took it over to my hubby's job for all his coworkers. It was molten lava hot right out of the oven, and I even stopped and got a carton of vanilla ice cream to go on top.

Yes, I'm aware that I rule on occasion.

The guys were so excited they made me an honorary member of the race team. I also got called a "hot ticket", and his boss stated that he hopes I never find a job so I can keep making pies and bringing them in. I'm fairly certain a "hot ticket" is a positive thing. It's got "hot" in it, right? I think my ever lovin' honey should mention that if they started paying him mucho dinero then I wouldn't have to work at all. I could just hang out and make pies like twice a week for them.

Unless they want to start paying me for the pies. Then that could work out quite well. I'll charge...five hundred bucks a pie. That should do it. Anyway, so it was a fun little thing to do. I got a taster of the pie and it was one of my better ones, so I got to waltz in and dish out some goodness and he looked like the man in front of his boss and friends.

All Hail

We just got iced. It's Mother Nature gone wild, with ice cubes instead of mardi gras beads. It went from a lazy, partly cloudy Sunday afternoon to "OMG WTF THE SKY IS FALLING!" in no time. I clicked on the tv and sure enough, a severe storm and tornado warning were in effect. The red cone of doppler death was laid right over our house. It started to rain, the wind picked up, and then we heard the tinkly tink of pea-sized hail stones clacking on the road. At first we were like, "Check it out! Hail! Cool!" Then the hail got bigger. And bigger. And the wind got wilder and wilder.

I asked my husband like three times if we should be getting in the closet. He scoffed. Thankfully we didn't need to. It quickly blew over and it's back to being sunny and gorgeous, though a bit cooler. All the hail on the ground has made the temp drop significantly. It was seventy degrees earlier. Now we can see our breath. Wild! Check out these pics.

To give you some scale as to how big the hail was. We joked that during the several years we lived in Florida, we never experienced a hurricane. Just months after we move back up here we get freaking hail. I'm just glad it wasn't big enough to mess up our vehicles.

To give an idea of just how much fell. This is our front walk. It was a lot.


The fog was getting thicker. And Leon is getting laaaaarger.Sorry. Couldn't resist.

The Next Generation

My niece had a birthday this week. She turned twelve, which is just wild to me. I spent quite a bit of time with her up until I left for college, so in my mind she's perpetually four. Man, she was the cutest four year old ever. Seriously. She was a straight stunner. People would just stop on the street and be like, "Damn, that's a cute kid." She could work it too. I taught her how to stick out her bottom lip and do a mean set of puppy dog eyes. She could make grown men melt at twenty paces, just putty in her tiny hands. She had these gigantic black-brown eyes she would bat and say "Pease." It was like standing before a tsunami of adorableness. No one could stand against it. Resistance was futile.

So she's twelve. Wow. She's still adorable, and I can see hints of the young woman she's morphing into. I've still got a few inches on her, but she's almost grown. She's getting to that awkward adolescent age, but she's not awkward yet. I don't know if she ever will be. The last time we were together I sat down with her and taught her how to put on makeup. She's not allowed to wear it yet, but I wanted her to know the basic rules before she got in the driver sear of an eyeliner pencil. I think we all remember the cosmetic monstrosities we saw back in junior high homeroom. I taught her the same basic lessons my sister taught me, as well as basic truths I've come to over the years; stick with a basic brown shadow for now, looks good on everybody and it's hard to mess up, smudge the eyeliner and the lipliner (blending is your friend), racoon eyes look best on racoons, blush goes on the apples of the cheeks (not the temples). Then I made her repeat the cardinal rule of modern makeup, NO BLUE EYESHADOW. I was shouting that mantra like I was talking about wire hangers. Inevitably, when I mention my complete and utter disdain of blue eyeshadow, someone defends it (Oh, if you do it right....or I think it looks nice...). Whatever, it's not like it makes your brown eyes look blue. It's your call, but don't blame me for laughing at your bruised looking face and asking if anyone has kissed your grits yet. That's what blue eyeshadow makes me think of, bruises and diner waitresses who smack gum and wear beehive hairdos.

Not that there is anything wrong with diner waitresses, people. It's just not a look that many people shoot for when gussying up to go out. It's not like you turn to your girlfriend before hitting the club and saying, "How do I look?" and she says "Straight Waffle House, baby!" and then you say "Sweet, just what I was going for."

Anyway. So back to my niece. After the awesome tshirt I got her brother for Christmas, she told me she wanted a cool funky tshirt for her birthday. Since I reckon myself to be a connoisseur of cool and funky tshirts (as well as human folly), I was all over that. So I got her this one. I thought it didn't seem too age inappropriate, plus if she didn't like the design at least it was pink. So I called on her birthday to see how she liked it. She liked it so much she had worn it to school that day. It's official. I rule. I'm officially a cool aunt. Awesome.

Smelly Furniture and Early Nineties Memories

This weekend me and my lovely husband went to a local monthly antique fair held down near Charlotte. We went with the goal of a bookcase. The Metrolina Expo is a big place, and the antique fair is huge. Unfortunately it was hard to find a bookcase because most of the booths who had them were not selling them because they themselves use them as displays. Long story short, several booths had this one kind of cabinet (labeled "pie safe") in several colors. Turns out it's new and built in Indonesia and just recently shipped over. They weathered the heck out of them so they look old. Other booths were asking $350, but this one guy offered me $250 for a buttery yellow one. It might be the first time I've gotten to utter the definitive phrase "I'll take it." If it wasn't the first time, it FELT like the first time. I felt like a grownup for a second, which was scary and cool.

So as we're loading it in the van, I noticed a strong chemical odor coming from the piece. The guy says when they shipped it over they fumigated them, and to let it air out for a few days and it would be fine. By the way, word to the wise, don't try to eat a funnel cake in the car. Powdered sugar was everywhere. I swear, we looked like inept cocaine traffickers. As soon as I got home I opened the windows, set up a fan in front of my smelly bookcase and Pledged the heck out of it. By the evening the smell had largely disappated, so I loaded it up with my books. My favorite part of moving is shelving my books. This is part of what makes me think I need to be a librarian. Organizing and displaying my books makes my soul happy, I can't explain it any other way. My new bookcase not only has the glass (bevelled no less!) panels in the front doors, but also on the sides as well. I carefully picked books to put in the side windows as well. So fun!

So yesterday morning I opened my bookcase and the dizzying stench of insecticide smacked me in the face. NOW MY BOOKS ALL SMELL LIKE IT TOO. Dammit.

Elsewhere on the internet:

This video right here, is the reason the late eighties, early nineties were the greatest time in pop culture history. Slow motion cartwheels, belted THONG leotards, hairsprayed poofy bangs (you know you had them), cheesy silhouette effects, and best of all-the mid-air frame freeze at the end. Can you even stand it? Is it any wonder Jessie Spano went on to such cinematic heights as Showgirls? And let's not overlook the sweet innocent beauty of Tiffani Amber Thiessen pre-boob job. And Lisa, who was in my opinion, quite possibly the prettiest of them all, but was relegated to the roll of a spoiled, bratty Jughead. Aaaah the days. I remember TBS would show like two back-to-back episodes of Saved by the Bell every afternoon after school. I could usually only stomach one, but afterwards I would watch my favorite nineties sitcom, A Different World. I can't wait for YouTube to dig up the Gilbert Hall Step competition performance. Now THAT will be some classic stuff. "A-B-C...D, E-F-G...*dum...dumdum* Gilbert Hall's the...one for me..".

Now turn your speakers up louder, like to eleven,and jam out to this. In my opinion, early nineties George Michael is just about as good as eighties Prince. And Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington were so fierce they make today's models look like spastic adolescent wannabes. You got to give whatcha give whatcha give...Super special bonus: Too Funky.

Bookfreak Review: Working For The Devil, by Lilith Saintcrow

So, as I stated in my previous post I also purchased the above titled book the other day. It had been on my Amazon list for a while, as I stumbled upon it tredging through the Customer Reviews of yet other books. The description was intriguing, as I have an unwaivering love of badass chicks. It sounded like an Anita Blake knockoff, but as Anita's been more of a lover and less of a fighter lately, I've been craving some tough broad action. Also in it's favor was the blurb on the back from one of my personal rock-star authors, Jacqueline Carey. Even more to my delight, Lilith Saintcrow herself credits Carey in her acknowledgements as the "best damn fantasy author in the last decade". Lilith Saintcrow is a girl after my own heart, in more ways than one.

I found the book to be an interesting beginning to a series with potential. It's set in the future, with a whole techie, cyberpunk vibe. There's hovercraft (bout time), and databands for the wrist that access the net, all the bells and whistles. But mixed into this futuristic world is also the arcane. Magic-workers are a registered population, licensed to practice their skills and carry weaponry the normal population can't. The protagonist/heroine is Dante Valentine, yeah the name is a bit cheesy. But she herself is not. She's pretty hard, but as it's written in first person, we understand her inner vulnerabilities and reasonings. And here's where it gets Anita-Blakeish, she's a Necromance, but instead of raising whole physical bodies, she just raises their spirits for a living. She also does some bounty hunting on the side, and that's where the plot picks up. She gets tapped for a job...by the Devil. Saintcrow does an interesting job of describing this, and Lucifer's character is less scary, and therefore MORE scary because of it, in my opinion. He's attractive, calm, and reasonable. He gives her a job to do, with promises of vast riches upon completion, but doesn't give her the option of NOT taking it. He assigns her a demonic partner, Japhrimel (a total badass demon assasin), and then sends her on her way.

There's a couple of little realistic things thrown in that always bother me in other books, like "Do these people never have to pee, sleep or eat?" So I gotta give her some credit for covering mundane details. Dante's got lots of emotional baggage, and that is covered with enough to make her interesting and relatable as a character, but not so much as to get tiresome. A lot of the apocolyptic history/techie stuff is glazed over, which I was fine with. It is easy to get quagmired in those details. In her pursuit of her quarry she interacts with interesting and endearing friends and an ex-boyfriend (I was kinda "Feh" on him). Her interaction with her demon partner was my personal highlight. She's torn between hating him and relying on him, and she understandably learns to appreciate the intimidation he brings to the table. Saintcrow slowly builds their relationship, but it never fully develops, which I found frustrating. I will acknowledge that it did not conform to predictable "Happy Ever After" strictures, and so I must give props for daring to be different.

I'm impressed, but not blown away. I'll probably get the next one, if only to beef up my collection of badass women. She's got a sword, for pete's sake. She had me at THAT, really. Plus, I got a chuckle when she complained of not wanting to kill someone because of dreading the paperwork involved. Nice.

I give it three and a half Napoleons.

It would have been four Napoleons, but I would have liked more of Jaf. Dude has wings that can also be just a coat. I know. Sweet.

Bookfreak Review-Charlaine Harris's Definitely Dead

Because of my dear love of literature, I wondered to myself, "Self, why are you not writing up your thoughts on the books you read? You are sharing just about any other random minutia of your life, why not that?" And I could find no real good answer, because I always enjoy things more when I can share them. I hoofed it over to Barnes & Noble Tuesday to pick up the brand new Charlaine Harris's Definitely Dead. Why hoof it? Because that was the book's release date, and the Sookie Stackhouse series is one of my favorites. The other reason I hoofed it was that Tuesday was also the release date for the new Tool album, 10,000 Days and I had to pick up two copies for my husband. Why two? Because he swore up and down that he would need two because he'd wear out the first one and needed a backup. As I am a book freak, he is a music freak, so he gives me no grief about it. It works out well. While I was there, I also picked up another book I've had on my Amazon wishlist, Lilith Saintcrow's Working for the Devil, because the world would assuredly tilt off its axis if I left a bookstore with only ONE BOOK.

Definitely Dead, by Charlaine Harris

This is the sixth book in Harris's Southern Vampire series, starring the ever-delightful telepathic barmaid, Sookie Stackhouse. I'm a huge fan of the series, and recommend them often. Mostly because I think it deftly straddles a couple of genres and works well as a intro for people who usually like romance, mystery, or fantasy. Harris is one of the few authors who really brings you in to Southern culture, also, which I found to be validating and authentic. This aspect has been confirmed during lenghthy discussions with my girl, B, who found it interesting as someone from elsewhere.

The sixth book begins a new relationship for Sookie with the character of Quinn, introduced in the fifth book as a mysterious, very tall, very muscley, very bald, and very charismatic shapeshifter who turns into a tiger. It doesn't get more badass than that, really. He doesn't turn into a puny lapdog, or a bat, or even a wolf. He turns into a 450 pound tiger. Sweet. Can you imagine if somebody messed with you? I'd be all "My boyfriend's gonna TEAR YOU APART", and it would be true...LITERALLY. So hot (but not in a fetishy-furry way, thank you). Anyway, so Quinn shows up and asks her out on a real date. That in itself is practially fantasy material. Back in the old days, when I was dating guys didn't have the guts to ask a girl out. It was always, 'hey, you and your friends wanna meet up with me and my friends at this bar?'. What is that?!? Fortune favors the bold, guys. Suck it up and grow a pair. And the saddest part is girls let them get away with it! Why? Because the alternative is to sit at home and become and spinster. So reading about some fantasy land, where big strapping hot guys with good jobs and awesome paranormal powers risk a little rejection and ask a girl out on a real date. The idea of such a place makes us all sigh, shake our heads at such wild and wonderful ideas, and daydream about such a land, which would also have Godiva truffle and Jimmy Choo trees, and populated with unicorns and pegasuseses (pegasi?). Where our hair is always Pantene commercial perfect, where we are all a size 6, and zits, wrinkles and calories are just a myth.

I'm sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, the book. So it's great, Sookie maintains a grounded, identifyable and charming voice that takes you through the myriad twists and turns of her story through little Bon Temps all the way to New Orleans (Pre-Katrina). She is one of the few practical and un-annoying heroines in fantasy literature, thinking her way through Were abductions and vampire coups.

The book is all goodness. Exciting story, interesting characters, my girl Sook staying true to herself and remaining one of the characters I'd most like to have dinner with. The only thing that could have made it better would have been...more of it.

I've decided to score my reviewed books by how "Sweet!" they are, and the best way to do that is obvious.

Four out of five Napoleons, because it would have been sweeter if it was longer, not because the plot needed more development, but because I just like it so much.

Bugged Out

I woke up this sunny morn with the rumblings of a headache. Centered in the left temple region and rumbling like a distant thunderstorm, I grabbed an Aleve and stumbled, hands out and bracing like a blind person, to the coffeemaker. At that point the cats were weaving around my legs like two sharks in a chummy tank, making a loud and desperate bid to bring my attention to their empty food bowls. I set down my Aleve with a curse worthy of shipwrecked sailor and filled their bowls before one of them tripped me up, causing me to fall and gash my head open on something and die in a pool of my own congealing blood. Back at the coffeemaker, I lifted the lid, beginning the first in a set of motions I could do in my sleep by now, and stopped dead. There was a bug. I don't know what kind of bug it was, but I've seen them a lot in the backyard. In fact, I cut a gorgeous white iris stalk a few weeks ago and brought it inside. I noticed quickly that there was a black bulge in one of the blossoms. Sure enough like four of those suckers were just chillin in it. I gingerly took it outside and beat it on a paving stone until I knocked them out. The flower was a bit worse for the wear, but bug-free dammit!

So it was black and looked like a really short centipede with a big claw on its back end. I tried to google it in effort to identify it, but I found the experience to be disturbing and gross and had to give up to save a shred of my sanity. So, anyway. The bug was on the wall of the water reservoir, so I grabbed a plastic serving spoon in effort to get it out before it tainted the innards of my machine. I was not as deft as I'd hoped and instead it fell down to the bottom and clung to my coffeemaker's water filter. Looooooooovely. I suppressed a ragged scream mostly in effort to keep my headache from splitting my forehead open like the San Andreas fault. I removed the filter contraption and proceeded to beat it against the inside of my sink to knock it out. Nothing. I ran water all over and in it, nothing. I went back to my machine of delicious-caffeined-happiness. I saw nothing. The only place it could have gone was down in the water intake hole. At point I was all "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

With unsuppressed rage at my thoroughly tainted machine, I poured a bit of water in the reservoir and...yep, up he popped, desperately trying to swim and grab onto something with his sickening and unnatural back claw. I'm getting all retchy and shivery just remembering it, hold on. EEWWWAAAARGGGH! Ok. So I rearmed myself with my spoon and proceeded to dig that bastard out, plop him on the counter, dazed, and bring that spoon down on him with a satisfying "CRACK". I killed the crap out of that bug. Nonethess, it does nothing to untaint my coffeemaker. I first ran a full pot of water with several generous squirts of 409 in it. My mom always said the best way to clean your coffeemaker was to run vinegar-water through it. So I did that next, then several of just plain water. My kitchen smells like easter eggs. I made a cup of strong hot tea instead of coffee, as I don't think I could enjoy it with the taintedness so fresh in my mind. I took my Aleve with my tea, and I feel the thunderstom in my head moving farther off. I am forever changed, though. I will always feel a twinge of fear when I go to make a cup of coffee. I hope I've cleaned it good enough. If I die of some obscure infection that only Dr. House can diagnose, we'll know what's up.

P.S. Yes, as suggested the bug was totally an earwig. I don't believe it to be harmless, as I consider myself to be emotionally damaged from this incident.

He's Dreamy

After watching the video and reading the transcripts of Stephen Colbert's speech from the White House Correspondent's Dinner, I'm pretty much loving him. I almost winced at how sharp some of his jabs were. The fact that he said all that right to the faces of the people who need to hear it makes me think this guy needs a medal of honor. He has brought political/social satire to a level not seen since Jonathan Swift recommended the rich start eating the babies of the destitute as a delicacy. One wonders what in the world whoever invited him to speak was thinking. Maybe they thought he'd get up there, say a few lame jokes, brown-nose a bit. Wouldn't it be great if whoever suggested him didn't "get" his schtick? Then again, maybe they knew exactly what they were doing and loaded that gun with real bullets to make a statement. Well, the who and why won' t really matter in the long run, as I'm sure they were fired as soon as he walked off the stage.

It seems his show is getting some attention by the media at large now, and he was recently on 60 Minutes. While I missed it, here is link to their piece on him which delves into his dry, satirical style, his childhood, his lack of southern accent despite being from South Carolina (I can relate), and raising children when you are a sarcastic insincere bastard (he doesn't let them watch his show so they'll believe him when he tells them he loves them).

My favorite quote:

Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio got a taste of Colbert's brand of humor, when Colbert asked her, "Twenty-two astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the earth?"

Outstanding. That man deserves a standing ovation. On your feet, people.