Oh, my stars and garters!

Buy more crap!

 

Please allow me to direct you to Pointy's Outpost, my tiny new online shop where you can choose from a (thus far limited) selection of items with my designs printed on them.

I set up a PayPal account and everything. I'm pretty excited. Hell, I might even buy some of these things if I didn't already have a shelf full of them.

Three generations of camera

My dad just handed his Pentax ME Super down to me. I also have his father's Pentax Spotmatic and a Pentax K1000 that Eric bought me for Christmas a few years ago.

The Spotmatic and the K1000 are virtually the same camera, except the K1000, the later model, has an automatic light meter and a different lens mount. Both are fully manual. The Pentax ME Super is aperture priority automatic and feels a lot different. It's going to take some figuring out. It came with some pretty good lenses, including a macro zoom lens. They're compatible with the K1000, which is cool because Eric and I will be able to mix and match lenses* even more. 

I've let the photography go by the wayside lately, and I suspect having a new toy to tangle with might revive my interest again. So I'm about to download the manual and am wondering what causes me to get so intensely interested in things right before I need to go to bed.

*K mounts are great, but the Spotmatic had a crazy array of lens attachments (PDF file, so don't click unless you really give a shit) available, including a microscope adapter, a mirror adapter ("for detective photographers") and a bellows/slide copier contraption. 

The subtitles are too small, the song is way too long, and what the hell do they have to crab about, anyway?

Helsinki Complaints Choir

Conk

Wow. I just fell asleep on the floor. Hardwoods and dust bunnies do not make a very comfortable bed. I think I'll brush myself off and head over toward the real thing.

Zellar in the cellar

Wallace finally ventured out from under the chair this afternoon and made a beeline for the gap under our poorly installed dishwasher. He could just barely squeeze his head under there, and we stood there and laughed at poor stupid Wallace, who thought he was hiding just because we couldn't see his face. Cats!

We found out who the stupid ones really were when we left the room for a minute and came back to no Wallace, anywhere. We didn't find him in the bedrooms or the kitchen cabinets. We didn't even see him under the dishwasher. A closer inspection revealed that there was a small gap behind the dishwasher, and we theorized that he had shimmied under the dishwasher and escaped again, to under the house and possibly beyond.

I cried, because how fucking frustrating is that? After all the crap we've gone through with him, we lose him to a two-inch gap in the floor? Does he really hate us that much?  Worse, were we really so dumb that we left that space open in the first place? I mean, I never dreamed he could fit under there, or if he could, that he could keep going, but still, I felt negligent and awful.

Pop in

We have two cats now, but one of them won't come out from under the chair and the other one is so mad about the whole extra-cat situation that he won't come inside for more than five minutes at a time. So although we doubled our cat population, it feels like we have no cats at all. Let this tragic holiday story be a lesson to you all somehow.

I just ate half a box of Frango mints. That was very, very stupid of me. Never do that, okay?

Thanksgiving was nice. We got up late, cooked, and went over to Dan's, where we ate a lot and goofed off. I don't know what it is about Jennifer K., but she can make me laugh until I cry when she gets me started.

That's all. I have lots to do. I should go do it.

Flibber T. Gibbet

Wallace has barely moved from his hidey hole since yesterday. Poor trauma kitty.

I learned to screenprint yesterday, sort of. Well, not really. Wain burned the screens himself at his work, and while I did a few (and some of those turned out pretty well), it just seemed much faster and easier if Wain cranked out most of them. He's a pro and I have wimpy noodle arms. I doubt I physically would have been able to do all those myself anyway.

Hey, Eric and I will be celebrating 10 years of happy fun together tomorrow. Unmarried-couple-type people: What do you consider your anniversary? First date? First kiss? First time you discovered your significant other crouching in the bushes beneath your bedroom window? Do you even celebrate one?

We arbitrarily decided on our first kiss a long time ago. That kiss seemed to seal the deal more than anything else, and anyway, we needed to set aside a day each year for spending too much money on dinner. I'm curious how the rest of you do it.

That's all, really. I think I'm going to post lightly for the rest of the week so I can give my proper attention to these holidays. Bye! Bye forever!

Kitty jail

We have Wallace back!

You can't see him because for the time being, he's hiding in the seclusion half of this ingenious cat cage that we borrowed from Lynell and Morgan*. Hopefully he won't be in jail long, just until we're confident he won't bolt like he did last time.

Right now he's quiet, but once he ventures out and realizes he's in jail, I suspect he's going to be extremely unhappy. I am glad he's here and am looking forward to re-befriending him, but I'm also grateful for the lack of angry, baffled yowling for the time being. 

*They designed it so newly-fixed feral cats can recuperate in peace. The board sticking out in the middle slides in to separate the two sides so you can open one of the doors and change out the food, litter, or bedding without worrying that the cat will either escape or try to claw out your precious, precious eyes. Plus there's a combination hidey-hole/raised perch on the blocked-out side because cats need to cower sometimes.

Sorry.

Did you hear the one about the gynecologist who looked up his ex-girlfriend?

Foamies

Wain was supposed to hang out with us tonight, but he was deterred by a sick raccoon on his girlfriend's porch. He thinks it might have rabies because it's falling down a lot and seemingly fearless, although maybe it just got hit by a car or something. He called animal control just in case.

It's hard to say with stuff like that. You don't want to overreact, but you really don't want to fuck around with that kind of thing, either.

Denied Wain's company, all I have to do now is think about how incongruously cute the word "rabies" looks with its sweet, appealing "-ies" ending: Bunnies! Puppies! Ponies! Rabies! Just picture a little heart over the 'i' and you'll see what I mean. Whozzat got the rabies? Whoizzit?

See? It's adorable! And deadly.

How to tell if maybe, just possibly, I am premenstrual:

Eric showed me the Kiwi! video last night, and it made me cry. 

Things to look forward to

Eric has told me we will have deer sausage soon. Wain has promised me to teach me to screenprint in two colors this weekend. I am supposed to hang out with an old friend tomorrow night. Our former neighbors have Ball-less Wallace in their spare bedroom and plan to trap him and deliver him to us. I switch to night shift in two weeks. My bed, still unmade from this morning, patiently awaits my return. All in all, I am a happy woman.

Watching grass grow

Before. Hate:

After. Like:

Once the moat was (finally) filled in, it only us took two weeks and $10 worth of ryegrass seed to get something resembling a yard again.

Even though we decided we're basically just going to be camping here for the rest of the lease, we didn't want to spend all winter with a mud pit for a front yard. Mud pits are good for mud wrestling but bad for just about everything else. After we sat down and were totally and completely honest with ourselves, we came to terms with the truth: we spend a lot more time doing everything else than we do mud wrestling. So we planted annual rye, watered it a few times, and behold! Grass!

The best part is it should be dead by the time we move out, meaning the landlady reaps no benefit from our efforts. Hell, yes, we're bitter. Bitter and petty. It's really fun to be small sometimes.

My 28-word review of the Borat movie

It let out 45 minutes ago, and I still hurt from laughing so hard. Also, I have grease stains all over my shirt from the popcorn I spilled.

Nicely hung

We just got back from helping Dan set up his photo show.  It looks fantastic. The theme is color filters--nearly all the pictures in the show were shot with a color filter on the lens or flash.

What's in the show is only one aspect of what he's been working on lately; you can check out his new website to get a feel for what he does.

So. If you live in Austin, come by End of an Ear on Sunday evening between seven and nine to drink beer, listen to music, talk to nice people, and look at beautiful color photos. If for some reason that's not enough of a draw, there will also be lemon bars. I am told they are delicious.

You ain't no friend of mine

I have been a loyal customer of my HEB for over 13 years, so I felt betrayed today when there was a very bad Elvis impersonator in the deli, belting out "Blue Christmas" so loudly I could hear him throughout the store. It was inescapable, indescribable, unacceptable. It is November 11, for Christ's sake, and I hate Elvis impersonators more than you guys hate clowns. I feel like HEB really let me down today.

Great unwashed

I am unusually tired tonight because I went to the pool at lunch today. The pool I go to in the winter is such a freak magnet. My summer pool has the mermaid, it's true, but Stacy Pool wins the freak crown by virtue of sheer volume.

At this pool, I have seen a man pull his beard up over his face to better sun his nipples. I have seen a man in a Speedo two sizes too small aggressively checking out the women to make sure that they are checking him out (they are, but probably not in the way he thinks).

I have been denied the use of the shower at this pool because two grown women took turns splashing around in it while making noises that ranged from moans of raw sexual pleasure to a series of joyful boops while I stood there waiting, wrapped in a towel and trying to look like I was minding my own business. Like there is any such thing as your own business in that sort of situation. I was actually very resentful at the time. I just needed to rinse the chlorine out of my hair really fast, and they would not stop fucking around even though they knew I was waiting.

Omigod I KEAn't wait!!!!!!!!!!

An IKEA is opening up in Round Rock next week. Which is great, and certainly newsworthy, but does that really merit what amounts to a free half-page of advertising on the Statesman's website? It's a STORE. People are excited, sure, but all this hoo-rah about the opening of yet another chain store--even a popular one--makes the Statesman look like it's staffed by a bunch of rubes.

Chain store's a-comin'!  IKEA's a-comin'! Who'd a thunk they'd come all the way out to Round Rock, just to see little ol' us? Boy howdy, Austin's in the big time now!   

Listen to this shit:

"At a special preview of the new IKEA on Thursday, visitors were greeted with bins of yellow shopping sacks lined up at the front entrance, blue road signs directing shoppers to various areas of the store, furniture and rugs in dizzying numbers of bright colors and inventory stacked to the ceiling in the warehouse."

Dizzying, I tell you! It was dizzying! I saw all those rugs and colors--rugs! colors! colors! rugs! wahwahwahwah wockita wockita wockita wockita--and, why, I just about swooned. Right there in the warehouse, the very warehouse, in which inventory was stacked to the ceiling!

Note to newswriters: Get a grip. There's a fine line between the lively treatment of a subject that interests you and blowjobs.

To be fair, the whole article isn't quite as breathless (or clunky) as the paragraph I quoted. Still, I haven't seen this kind of goofiness since Krispy Kreme deigned to open a store in North Austin.

How goofy? The main article is accompanied by a story called "How Swede it is: A fun fact sheet in anticipation of our new Swedish neighbor." For example, did you know that Swedish fish are actually from Sweden, whereas Haagen Daz really isn't?

Gosh, thanks, Statesman! But don't you have a major election or a cabinet secretary resignation to cover somewhere? No? Not anymore? That's all over now?

Well, then, phooey. I apologize. Let me be the first to welcome our new particleboard overlords to our community. I still refuse to go near that place until well after Christmas.

Oops

Those cocktails were maybe too delicious. Wheeeee!

Yay

I do believe I will fix myself a delicious cocktail.

Two things

1. starsandgarters.com finally became available. A Dixieland band called Stars and Garters held it for a long time, but I checked every so often just in case. I even waited a few months to snag it once it lapsed, just in case they'd forgotten to renew it. They never did, so from now on you can skip the ".blogs" part if you like. Wow. I feel all legitimate now. Sort of. Not really.

2. If you haven't yet, please go vote tomorrow. Thank you. You are a wonderful person who deserves good things.

That's it. Now I get to watch The Wire. This season doesn't quite have the momentum of last season--they seem to be focusing less on character development, and they they tied up most of the really epic multi-season story lines in S3--but it's still awfully damn good. Every once in a while there's a scene so intense I forget to breathe, no kidding.

(Oops, I lied. That was totally three things. Damn dirty liar! And actually it's four, if you want to count this part here about the lying. Let's not, though, okay? I mean, I have a reputation to uphold, especially now that I have my own domain name.) 

We didn't do much this weekend, but I'm sure you won't be able to tell when you're done reading this.

I have to say I much prefer big-box hardware stores to Breed and Company. I'm okay with shelling out a little extra money for the whole shop locally thing, and usually I like the stuff small businesses carry better anyway.

Breed and Co. is the exception. It's more annoying upscale gift boutique than hardware store, the markup is atrocious, and half the time I end up having to go somewhere else to get what I need anyway. Worst of all, it is packed with intimidatingly coiffed women with permanent I-smell-shit lines carved into their mouths and foreheads. They obliviously block the aisles as they examine the decorative birdhouses, trying to find the very, very best one for themselves. Meanwhile, their bored husbands either hover nearby or wander over to the tool section, listlessly picking up hammers and putting them back down.

It doesn't matter what they're doing, though; at every turn, they all manage to be right in my way, the whole furrow-browed lot of them. You try muscling through that crowd for a garden hose or a pack of screws. From now on, I'll go to Home Depot, where at least the aisles are wide, the air smells comfortingly of lumber, and everyone is there for a reason.

Well, enough of my hardware store preferences. Let's talk about completed road work. (What the hell is wrong with me?) We drove on the brand-new, free-for-now toll road tonight.

We went to see Roo play soccer way out in east pfucking Pflugerville, right where S.H. 130 passes through, so we thought we'd take it toward home and see where it dumped us off. On U.S. 290 quite a bit east of the flea market, as it turned out, but it was really fun to drive on a fresh, smooth multilaned highway without another car in sight for miles. That never happens around here, so we felt kind of rich. Eat a dick, I-35 driving suckas!

Roone, not running

Oh, and Roo's team tied after being down 0-1 for about 7/8ths of the game, by the way. We even saw him run. It was actually pretty exciting. All right, RooRoo! Way to hustle, etc.!

Okaybye.

Lumb lumb lumb

I did not putter today. I did lumber around a lot like a big lumbering lumberhead. I think I'll be ready to go back to work tomorrow.

Oh, and there are actually three secrets to my tuna casserole recipe: use a whole bag of cheese; crumble an entire bag of salt-and-vinegar chips over the top before the last ten minutes of baking;  and never, ever, ever, ever add peas.

Putt putt putt

I have a gnarly cough and Eric's back went out last night, so it seemed not only justifiable but necessary--noble, even--that I stay home today.

It was cool and cloudy all day, which is prime puttering weather. I didn't even go back to bed after I called in, I was so ready to start puttering.

I puttered like a motherfucking champ. I drank coffee, read, watched TV (I have now seen the last 20 minutes of Raising Arizona at least 5,764 times), tidied my desk, drew pictures, and wrote a letter. I played with the cat, brought Eric food and beverages, went to the store, and made the first tuna casserole of the season.

Finally, St. Murse came over to give me a check for a T-shirt design I did for his nursing student association. He stayed for dinner, and I also gave him the "Eat a Dick" greeting card set I made for him (I may do more). 

I am capping all this off by drinking a hot toddy and catching up on blogs. That is some five-star puttering, if I do say so myself. I'll probably feel better tomorrow, but aside from the painful coughing aspect, I'm almost hoping I don't.