Category Archives: Sweet Domesticity

“First Reader, I married him.”

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At the end of the day, I realized I spent DUDE, 4/20 cleaning and writing. This is my reaction, I suppose, to my state legalizing pot. Take that, grout.

For sale signs are sprouting in my neighborhood like mushrooms right now. It’s like someone turned a switch on and said OK REAL ESTATE TIMES GO. Obviously there is a season, but it looks like everyone is seriously on the same page. You know what this means, right? OPEN HOUSES. I’ve been hoping to get a little inspiration, but houses just a block or two away are five or ten years older and–design shift. No more Mamie pink, instead in 1960 we get…FLESH. UGH.

I did like the mirror though. Can I get this a la carte to go? No? Nuts.

“Flesh and pear!” sang the real estate agent. The kitchen was pear. It was too soon for avocado.

Dig that groovy window. They repeated through the house, sometimes yellow. Amber would be too generous. And the whole floor plan went clunk, poor thing.

Original wallpaper. If these gentlemen could speak, they would tell of shag carpeting, fondue, and tantric sex attempts resulting in backs being thrown out. Another room had a wallpapered ceiling, which, awesome.

This was useful:

I know, I know, useful and APPALLING. What is happening is that this is the main hall down the whole house. On the right is bedrooms, and on the left is a Florida room. There are windows in the hall to admit light. I’m planning on doing something similar to my basement–putting a hall down the center and a bathroom on one side and turning the basement rumpus room into a master bedroom and letting the light come in through nicer windows that will probably just look horrifying when the next owners take this house.

THRILLING, YES? I am having a quiet Sunday now, sitting near the fire and whipping my first reader through the second draft of (working title) “Angora Planet.” Then I can send it off to an editor friend. Then I can watch the rejection notices just ROLL IN. Then I will have to self-publish it. If you want to know how the Sunday comes out, you will have to take a nap and then eat too much cheese dip, spoiling your dinner. End of book report!

BORING.

Easter and April and BRR

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I think it’s been a while since we had a pictorial, eh? I am mostly well again. I was just tired this week after emptying out my entire body. Thanks germs! And ravenous. Without further ado, Snooki welcomes you to a ASSPICTORIAL.

I’ve done a ton of planting in my yard, and decided not to take pictures of the sad sticks I planted, which is my normal custom. I need to rose nerd out, because I went rose nerd batshit around the chick fence and planted another Joseph’s coat where there happens to be a trellis by the porch. “What trellis??” P. said. How do you miss a trellis? I guess you do if you are not a flower nerd. So of course I had to also put in a double delight (looks crap in this picture because I think it was the very first one) of the season, and some kind of lavender which I am forgetting, and also a hot cocoa.

There are also kiwis, which are leafing out now, and a fig, which looks quite stunned, poor thing. In addition to the cherries we planted out back where the rotten apple tree was, I think we might have a fruiting cherry out front. It was summer when we moved in, so I assumed it was ornamental. There are HELLA herbs in the front yard as well, including way too much lemon balm. Not my favorite, but apparently ve have ways of making you talk. Or delicious, or something. I will wait a month or so and then take pictures of what my sad sticks have transformed into.

Easter happened! I already wrote a little about it at the bottom of this recent post, but I thought I would finally cough up pictures. As long-time readers know, I do not have a religious bone in my body, but it nice to have an excuse to celebrate lambitarianism. I’ve weaned the girls off Easter baskets and candy, which just feels like a bridge too far for me. I really don’t like to make a fuss about any holiday I don’t believe in. Which leaves Halloween (Satan) and Thanksgiving (Indigestion). Hand turkeys will be colored. I think my “celebration” of holidays reflects my core beliefs: food and art.

First I let Strudel dye eggs.

Apparently the fuck egg has become a tradition now.

Then we had dinner. I guess I waited too long to buy my customary lamb roast and I ended up with a rack. Which was AWESOME. I made lollypops.

A crazy thing is that I still have part of these Easter flowers in my bathroom. Just the lilies, some greenery, and some carnations. Carnations are highly underrated. I think I came around to them after working at Lush for a while.

Strudel was VERY UPSET that I immediately used some of her Easter eggs, which I was sorry to upset her, but hard cooked eggs are great, aren’t they? Yay salad.

And then, because I am a sucker, I let poor pathetic Franny talk me into letting her dye eggs later that week. She was upset because she was due to spend Easter weekend at her dad’s house, as I mentioned, but for some reason they dyed eggs on Thursday or something? She missed out.

I guess I humored this because it’s not a huge deal, and she’s 12 now. Soon she may lose interest in dyeing eggs at all I suppose. (Cue “Sunrise, Sunset” and some maudlin weeping.) Although I dropped a lot of traditions, but kept dyeing eggs through college with roommates and before children. I have never not dyed eggs I guess.

I’ve been lazy on my wee Indian food project, which is fine. I guess by lazy I mean, “eating other food” and “spending a lot of time writing.” There are no schedules or calendars this time. My delightful work spouse brought me kala chana/black chickpeas for NO REASON except awesomeness and he loves food too, so I am making kala chana curry tomorrow. They are already soaking! I found a lot of interesting words about chickpeas on this blog. Usually I just buy the yellow ones in cans and nerm nerm nerm them up with my food processor until they are hummus. So this will be new.

Speaking of new, my friend J.B. and I will be taking a little field trip to get some new chicks soon. My youngest girls are now two years old, so it is time to cycle in some new girls. Death Ray (headless here) is now FIVE, crap. She is absolutely not laying and is fully retired. I am considering getting some more Silkies because I love them so. I will confess to you that every morning when I walk out I worry that Death Ray will be Dead Ray.

Tildy majestic on a rare clear day.

Holiday Roundup and the Most Boring Day Ever

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Toasting Strudel welcomes you in to a POST HOLIDAY FUCKIN WONDERLAND.

Well! It is January again. I was thinking there would be Polar Bear dippery by my people again on New Year’s Day, but much to my amusement it was completely forgotten about until midday. Whoops. I was in bed before midnight, but at 12 there were fireworks and gunshots. A friend made me feel better later by gently suggesting they were firing blanks. I was refreshed on New Year’s and not at all hungover or underslept.

The same could not be said for Xmas day. I had my sister over for dinner and stayed up waaaay too late watching The Big Lebowski, which is Morgan’s favorite of all time. It’s safe to say the Dude blew Franny’s mind. “This is the coolest movie I’ve ever seen,” she said reverentially, as if some secret had finally been revealed.

Franny and I popped out after present opening on Xmas morning to see Les Miz. I saw Les Miz for the first time when I was 13. I tend to agree that you may be more vulnerable to being hooked by it if you’re a teen girl. We got to sit side by side in the theatre, crying silently and sharing a pack of tissues. By Xmas night I was really sick–my immune system’s tipping point is often when I’ve had less than 6 hours of sleep and am fighting it off.

Something funny happened on the way in to the movie. We were one of the first people in to the lobby and had come almost an hour early for the 11 a.m. showing. I figured it would be full of the die-hard since it opened on Xmas Day, and that was the first showing (other than the midnight opening the night before). We made our way up to the fourth floor of the googleplex and I said, “Let’s get seats now and snacks later.” Franny agreed with me. As I passed concessions, I could see a man and a woman standing there, waiting for popcorn. The woman turned her head towards us and a group of two other ladies and I could see her eyes pop wide in horror. Someone was going to beat her in! Our theatre was really close to concessions and I could hear her RUNNING up behind us, but would not elbow past us. Franny and I got the front and center seats on the raised tier, which I think are the best seats. I could see the shoulders of the woman behind us visibly sag as we sat down. She and her companion sat close to us and were very polite and said nothing to us. I pretended I didn’t see her silent drama, since I didn’t want to tussle over the seats, but hey, I am a superfan too.

I took a week and a half or so off through the holidays so I could hang out with the girls and bake and play with the Wii. Not much happened, which was awesome, except my lawyer finally decided to properly fire our guardian ad litem. The trial is now pushed out four months, since we will need a new one to assess us.

I did a lot of cooking for my sister’s visit. I considered making some kind of sumptuous yule log, but I got a wild hair and decided to make four kinds of dessert: apricot, blackberry, and strawberry pâtes de fruits, brandied fruit tarts, peanut brittle, and to put out my scotch truffles.

P. got involved since he wanted to make gingerbears. The recipe turned out a little oddly–they swelled and puffed more than gingerbread should, but they tasted nice.

Franny thought they looked a little pedobear. It was fun to eat their heads.

Here’s the table all set before the devouring began. I set out potted “hare” and quince jelly.

In between all this I kind of rested up and was pathetic, like everyone else in Seattle. I swear everyone got this cold. Franny left on the 26th. Then I started cooking again.

A craving for non-sucky Moroccan led me to get my own checkstub. And buy rosewater. And isn’t the bottle pretty?

P. made a pattern in parchment for cinnamon. A cinnamon snowflake.

Bastilla!

The table is laid again:

Today Franny is coming back early. Today has been deadly boring, which is pretty awesome. Her early return has been happening almost every weekend for the past little while. It’s nice–I miss my kid who will correct my middle finger from the generic old man flip off into something with flair.

Dear Diary today I made pancakes and my kid came home early and was crying and crap but is now wearing her hoodie and seems ok again

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This weekend I did putt putt putter around.

My good friend Simichrome came over, and we had a fumey good time. I wear gloves but my hands end up dry anyway and I end up coughing. I’m doing a little at a time.

Before and after:

After and after:

I can see my house from here.

Speaking of brass things, I was at the Value Village recently and I found a nice fireplace screen. Mine was okay, I did not love it. It was the replacement since during closing our real estate agent brought her grandson and he fully broke the fireplace screen that was up here among other things. He was kind of an unsupervised brute. Ah well.

FEETS IT HAS FEETS I LOVE THEM.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE A MASONIC SYMBOL WHATEVER IT’S CUTE

I do like this better than the old one I pulled up from the basement fireplace. I’ve kicked it back down there now.

I made some scotch truffles…well, they are part way through. Most of them have been rolled in pecans at this point. So if you are “lucky” enough to be invited over in the next two weeks, you will probably have these very truffles foisted upon you. I made a double batch.

First you mix the cream and the chocolate and the scotch. GANACHEY!

WHIP WHIP WHIP til it is smooth, like on the smooth scale if it one [1] is gravel and ten [10] is opium den hosted by Jesus, then this ganache was probably a seven [7], or Jay Smooth‘s Cousin Who People Say Looks Like Jay Smooth and Gets Drunk And Rants a Little And Sometimes Accidentally Pulls Girls That Way.

Then you measure out even tablespoons and firm them up more before rolling them in pecans. I made a butt ton so I did a double decker thing with shot glasses and a second cookie sheet. Still probably more stable than some of my old Sim houses. R.I.P lot where each room was separate and joined by a catwalk, while all the property was flooded. Yes, that’s practical. I still want to live there, though.

Anyway I don’t have any pictures of them nutted, but I will.

Do you remember the NOOK? Sure you do. Baby, don’t be like that.

I found a free-standing counter I liked and painted it, and changed the hardware. I even painted the little spats it is wearing on its legs. Yes, that is our old friend Rustoleum rosemary. I took the extra spats and put them on my ye olde butcher block table, which is generally home to fruit and plants nowadays. In this way, if I ever need less cooking space (HA) it can be a nook again.

I think it blends fine. I cook on it a lot and look out the window and think about internal and external space and the pantyopticon and semiotics and crap. And crab dip.

V’s Herbie asked about court. Yes. Court. I’ve been pushed out to January 22nd now due to still no GAL report. Guess what though, my lawyer, Lady Jesse Pinkman, totally subpoenaed the GAL though for Tuesday. So it’s like, cough up report or come in and testify. Either way, that’s medium bueno. I bet we won’t continue-ants again.

Dear Parenthouse Fantasy Forum

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One

Last night I watched Tim Burton’s Batman with Franny and Strudel. Franny drank a ton of water and could not wait any longer–she had to run to the bathroom.

“What happened?” she said when she came back. The Joker had just abducted Vicky Vale and Batman had just crashed his car on the steps of the ridiculous cathedral thing the movie ends in.

“Oh,” I said. Was this really happening to me? I had only read about these kinds of setups. “The Batmobile lost its wheel and the Joker got away.”

No one even blinked!

Two

This morning I was picking up so I could dust my messy house and sweep the edges where Neato doesn’t go, when I noticed Strudel shoving Horace slightly. She does this sometimes when he sits on or near her, like she is trying to shoo him subtly. I know she likes the dog, and I never see her being outright mean to him, but I don’t understand this one. I think it’s one of the many mysteries of Strudeldom.

“Quit shoving the dog,” I said, as I folded blankets that were abandoned on the couch.

“Why?”

“Why? Because I will fire you if you don’t,” I pulled out of my butt.

“What’s that like?” she asked, very interested.

“Well, I will point at you like this,” I pointed at her in my most Trumpian fashion, “and I will say ‘YOU’RE FIRED’ and you will have to find a new home that has an opening for a seven-year-old who is NAUGHTY.”

“Do I have to go live in an alley?” she asked.

“No, you go live in a home for unemployed children. They have a couple downtown. You get weekly unemployment candy while you search for a new home.”

“UnemPLOYment candy? That sounds pretty good.”

“You’d think so, but it’s only 60% of your normal weekly candy, and you have to prove you’re searching for new parents to keep getting it. In the meantime I will be interviewing a few children candidates to fill your vacancy.”

“Are the children in the home nice?”

“Well, generally speaking, unemployed children are pretty angry.”

“Nice doggie!” she said, and petted Horace gently.

THREE

Fangsiving! Was weird this year! Not like weird bad. I just realized the only pictures I took were of the chickens in the backyard but everything came out really well, I think. I did a dry brine on the turkey instead of my typical brine bath and then kind of freaked out at the last minute and did the usual breast-covering with a cheesecloth soaked in butter and wine. AND THEN, since I am so clever I had a sandwich at like 1 a.m. and left all the turkey out on the counter, inelegantly solving the hair-pullery which is O what shall we do with the leftover turkey. Answer: spoil it.

I was having a lot of thoughts about how much I love Thanksgiving and yet it is this pageant of…not femininity, since a lot of men cook too, but this really elaborate display of domesticity. Then I got kind of depressed, both at these thoughts and about the idea that my brain can even try to ruin my favorite holiday for me.

I always think of my mother as I do when I think about both holidays and things that are PROBLEMATIC. She made it very clear that she did not like to cook, in general. Hamburger Accomplice was heavily employed at our house–anything to bang dinner out in 15. I could knit a flag about how terrible her cooking was and canned mushrooms and blah blah blah, but it’s pretty unsurprising from someone who is an avowed cookery-hater. When I was little we spent Thanksgiving at a grandparent’s house, and when I got older and she left my stepdad she started to make it herself. The turkey was fine, memorable only for being dry. The sides were phoned in and the stuffing was Stove Top. (This is the part where I say “But it’s okay, because it was done with love.” HA HA just kidding y’all.) The desserts were usually good because though she hated cooking she liked baking so that usually had a better result.

And yet she still went through hours of extra cooking for Thanksgiving, because even the most “button pops up when done,” prepackaged Thanksgiving takes extra time. She did it because That Is What You Do. (I have some things to say about myself and Christmas that relate to this notion as well, but I will save it for another day.) I asked myself, would I miss Thanksgiving if it was gone? Yes, certainly. Do I like the way my meals turn out? Generally speaking, I do. One year I felt my efforts were unappreciated and I boycotted the cooking and I regretted that and no one learned anything really, except new configurations in being a jerk, which is part of life too. Unsurprisingly this is from the three years that I was medium-mental from being overmedicated.

I do have a sidebar, and that is to say that I had a last-minute guest who came over an hour after they said they were coming and unfortunately, after we were done eating. Honestly, I thought they flaked and weren’t coming at all. Lately I am having experiences with hosting that are reminding me why I kind of stopped for two years in the last rental. Hand-written invitations that go ignored, etc. I’m FAR from perfect (I still owe my friend lunch for canceling a pie party after feeling overextended) but caring about etiquette used to just make me irritable but now makes me feel like an idiot, like I have missed some memo. When most people are rude and it’s okay it starts to feel like it’s my problem and maybe they are not rude? I’m still thinking. And feeling lucky that my closest friends are polite, OR have learned my etiquette foibles and are sweet to me.

If You See Me Walkin By, And the Tears are in my Eyes, VANDALAY! BABY VANDALAY!; Or, Apartment Heresy

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Last night I dreamt (here we go again, I know) that Horace yakked all over my chest while I was trying to sleep (barkake) and the cats were peeing everywhere. I reckon this is better than the home invasion dreams I was having. I saw Sorry, Wrong Number last week and SPOILER ALERT at the end the main character is killed when someone breaks in. To kill her. Whoops. I did enjoy the chemist in it who really reminded me of the Gale Boetticher character from Breaking Bad.

What is up? Pup is up, Brown is down. Franny turned 12, since it is October and all.

She finally got a friend to sleep over, which has been a real challenge in the past. There was giggling from her room until midnight. I think this neighborhood is going to be a lot more fun for since her friends mostly live close to their school. We ended up outside the school district in the last place, since our neighborhood school was closed for remodeling and the girls were sent to the next one, which we now live near. Strudel is taking the brunt of the overload of kids who were shipped to their current school, since she was the last kindergarten class before the other school reopened. There are 35 kids in her second grade class, and I think there are 4 second grades. The classes below her are a more reasonable size, I hear.

I’m enjoying the house, especially now that the heat is on (um literal heat, not crime type). I know that the inspector looked at the furnace, and pronounced it new and in good working condition, but I was nervous because of years of moving into rentals and rolling the dice on them. How cold and leaky would the house be, exactly? It turns out it is as snug as a bug in a rug, as they say. I am SO WARM. I always think about SeaFed’s grandmother, who was Seattle’s own Dowager Countess. She was responsible for such Mal Mots as “You would look so pretty if only you’d lose ten pounds” and “You’d look so pretty if only you’d take that metal crap out of your face” and many, many variations on the theme of “THE JAPS!” which she could not be corrected out of, gently or otherwise. However, there was one thing that she said to me once that was not racist, sexist, or insulting, an observation that she made when SeaFed was out of the room and she noticed he was kind of dragging his feet on getting his shit together and doing things like working. “It’s okay to be poor now,” she said. I was 24 and had a two-year-old Franny and was in school. “But not in your 30s. You’ll just be too tired.” I am glad to be in a comfortable house that I like now. I am tired. But more relaxed now that the automatic gun turrets are installed.

I’ve been fooling around with the house a lot as the painting is kind of winding down. I decided the dining room wasn’t blinged out enough and needed a stenciled medallion.

If it wasn’t hard enough painting on a ceiling, the paint started blobbing around under the stencil and I could tell it looked bad. I know enough to know when to quit, so I did!

Of course I tried to wipe it to minimize the damage, but it was already drying. My first fuck up! Kind of nice to have that Band-Aid ripped off I suppose. My last phone came out of the box scratched, much to the clerk’s horror. He tried to take it from me, but I wouldn’t let him. Pre-scratched means you don’t have to have that unique gadget sad when your new shiny gets its first fender-bender.

I decided to “fix” it with a real medallion. Sure, I could have just painted it white, but I decided to just try a different tack(y).

I got a white polystyrene one and painted it. I started with a base of black spraypaint, and followed up with Rustoleum “hammered” Rosemary, which is kind of a metallic green/grey. Rustoleum is theoretically for things like patio furniture, but I cannot tell you how many of the junk shop rescue objects in my house are covered in it. After that I gave it a tiny spritz of some Rustoleum Copper I had laying around from spraying the giant vampire head on my porch (umm, I need a pic of that up I suppose) and then, my favorite thing, Rub N Buff. I am worshiping at the altar of this woman who is the Rub N Buff Queen. So I pulled out the highlights in it using Gold Leaf.

I also realized that something was missing from the dining room.

Come to me, Banditoooo. I cleaned him up a little–my velvets are way dusty. I also oiled the frame with some almond oil, which I use on the dining table and the free standing butcher block counters as well. I’m getting to the point where I’m finally hanging stuff. This house is designed with such an economy of space that I don’t actually have enough walls. I’m going Victorian art gallery clusterfuck on my only large, non-wood paneled wall as soon as I am able to lay out my paintings and Tetris them together before hanging. I measured a space on my floor to arrange my mirror wall and that worked a treat.

The paneled wall is coming along. I think it can hold at least four more heads.

IN OTHER NEWS (OLDS)

This is what 35 looks like. If you’re me anyway. Tired, yet optimistic. This is the age of being asked if you’re feeling tired. OF COURSE I AM. FUCK. WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE, HANDJOB BON-BON PARTY BUS?

Look! It’s a real camera! No Instagrams were harmed during the making of this blog. This is rich, coming from a blogger, I know, but I am feeling like I should be taking more pictures of myself lately. I will tell you I am interested to see what my face is going to do in the next ten years. I see pictures of myself when I first started blogging at 23 and I say WHO IS THAT BABY?

NAMASTE, FUCKERS.

What I Was Doing When No One Was Looking

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1. Stress

HELLOOOO RACE FANS! I am moving in one (1) week! HNNNGH! My house is all crates and ACK again just like it was two years ago. In my spare time I have been painting and playing phone tag with contractors. If you’re extraordinarily bored I just threw up (HARF) a bunch of house pics on le Flickair. Yes, the set is called “Asshole Dream House.” Yes, I am properly ashamed of myself.

2. Court boring also stress

As a bonus, I am going back to court on October 1. I met with the GAL for the first time on Thursday. Why so late, you ask, when we’ve had the better part of a year to get ourselves investigated and shit? Because first I had Seafed insisting that mediation had succeeded (it didn’t, we never scheduled the second appointment or finished), and then he told the GAL to go away because we didn’t need her. And then he said he did not have money for it, not now, not two years from now, not ever.

My lawyer, who is so awesome I am unfit to touch the hem of her garment, was all, “SOOOO like do you feel like paying for all of the retainer then?” And I was like “UM LIKE TOTALLY NO this guy just got back from a vacation that he flew his wife and four children to, and then there was some bonus vacation on an island. Priorities man etc.” And she was all, “Yo this is like deadlocked then dog.” And I was like “FINE.” That is pretty much verbatim. And then I paid it. DOUBLE HNGGGGH. Yes, my lawyer is Lady Jesse Pinkman.

So last night as a result I had a dream that I was up betimes as usual and bammo, Franny had let all these people into my house and they were kind of noodling around or napping places. I said, “FRANNY WTF!!?” And she said, “Oh, they were at a party next door and needed a place to sleep.” Hmm, Franny letting strange people into my house…this is sounding all very metaphorical. Except to be fair I am letting them in.

Am writing the GAL down and will unleash that later. ~cryptic~

3. Workity

Child Labor Rules. That is all.

4. Other

Here is a seventh grader and a second grader on the first day (the 5th).

Here is a Strudel in a tree outside the new kitchen. I regret very little, but I do have a twinge that I cannot throw fuds out the kitchen window at my chickens anymore. I will have to get a slop bucket like a civilized wench.

Also, my face…it turns out it was just dirty. HA HA. The tea tree oil is TOTALLY eliminating the pain I was having. Once a day, cut in half with some sweet almond oil (massage type, just plain). I use about a tablespoon and swab it on with a cotton and then let it sit for about ten. Bonus: the cotton goes in my toilet bowl after where it seems to be keeping it cleaner. I got a brain wave and decided to start using Jason brand tea tree oil shampoo and HOLY CATS my head does not itch anymore. Great comments from Team Asshole here as well about the magic properties of tea tree oil. THANKS. DIE BUGS! Or Bug poop! Or WHO CARES, my face doesn’t hurt. Non-bonus: now that the inflammation is quelled, you can see all my cool exploded capillaries. CRONE-ESQUE.

Coming soon: post-court new assbanner. Can you incorporate fall and courtgasm? Let’s find out.

“It says on your chart that you’re fucked up”

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I’m leaving tomorrow to drive to Wyoming with Halo. I’ve never seen Montana before! And I will be working from the University of Wyoming for a couple of days, which is funny. Corporate librarian squats on uni wifi. Film at 11. I will miss my dog. SNIF.

Franny left behind a bunch of chrysalises, pardon me, chrysalides (from the dead civilization that brought you lead birth control and “octopodes,” natch) when she went off with her father for two weeks of vacation.


I am setting them free as they hatch. They have such short lives anyway. Maybe there will be one or two left by the time Franny gets back.

Franny told me she was going to Colorado and the San Juans. I think it’s funny that her father lives on an island and vacations on a different one. I think it’s funny that he’s vacationing at all, Mr. “I should only have to pay $91 a month in child support because I am broke and because electrolytes.” COUGH.

Franny called me while she was on her first trip. “I’m in Chicago!” she announced. Um.

“You mean, Colorado?” I asked.

“Uhhh, yes.” Pretty similar, I see the confusion there.

There’s probably some message here between me about to leave for vacation and these butterflies being freed. Have some metaphor anvils or something.

I got my hair done today (“Oh so you can look nice for the trees,” sarcassed Halo.). It was supposed to be more of a floral lavender, says me, but the way it took is more like a Crayola lavender. My stylist does amazing blowouts, but I’m going to Yellowstone, so I asked her to pass on the effort. I’m to be all desert and sweaty and eh anyway, and will probably slap it into a ponytail. She let me walk out wet but insisted on putting in smoothing stuff and curl cream and from the back I now look like a spaghetti poodle. There is no pleasing some people.

After this picture was done I lightened my Novakian eyebrows since they were way harsh Tai with my new hair. It is fun to go around the house with giant bleach caterpillars on your face. So I don’t even look like this anymore! Transformation. You would not even recognize me.

P.S. I need a pink spaghetti poodle. You better believe we are going to be flea marketing on our way out west.

The dark covers me and I cannot run now

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Let’s get this out of the way immediately: this morning I woke up to GRISLY CHICKEN DEATH. Zsa Zsa, JWOWW, and So-and-So the Easter Egger got the axe. I locked them up at dusk last night and it was quiet outside and they were burbling in their house and everything seemed well. There was a lot of noise at 5 a.m. but I didn’t think much of it. Sometimes they get noisy when the sun comes up. I came out at 6:30 to let them out (I surrender, I am a morning person now, yes I hate myself appropriately) and the first thing I saw was feathers under the coop. Too many feathers. There were three broken and gutted little bodies around the backyard. One of the raccoons had eaten the eggs out of Zsa Zsa’s body, which just made me furious, really.

I walked to the corner of the yard and old lady Veronica was hiding behind the shed, standing upright and eying me warily. A feather was stuck to her head and at first I was afraid that her eye had been poked or something, but she was just sticky. I let her be since I figured she’d get it off herself, and also because after what she witnessed she is probably now Chicken Dexter Morgan and I didn’t want to get too close.

Watching her stand there made me feel really sad. I surveyed the little piles where the raccoons had left the girls laying around the yard half eaten and all I could think of was how scared they must have been in the dark and how terrible I was to have shut the door too early and locked them out. It’s like a horror movie when the door closes too soon and you watch your friend get torn apart by zombies/tentacles/LaRouchies through the porthole. I cried–I couldn’t help it.

The thing about chicken deaths is that I don’t really bond with them the way I do with my cats and now the dog, but they are trusting and defenseless and just kind of generally good animals, I believe. I know chickens peck each other and sometimes they eat eggs and they are stupid, but after ten years I feel that most problems can be prevented with proper conditions and control. You can steer them like a waterway and they do good work for you. And I had let them down.

Once the bodies were cleaned up I opened their door to check on the remaining hens. No one came forward, and normally they burst out like they have been shot from an extremely short range cannon.

“Girls?” I stuck my head in. There was an egg open on the coop floor and Silver Belle’s beak was wet. That was weird. They rarely break their own eggs. I walked around back and the back egg hatch was open. Strudel had done her egg duty yesterday and had left it open.

I was still crying when I came into the house and I sat on the couch. Frannie came upstairs and it’s extremely rare but I feel bad when the first thing the girls see in the morning is me bawling like a big soppy muffin. I told Frannie what went down and she hugged me while I sniffled and felt terrible. After a couple of minutes on the couch, we heard Strudel’s door open and Frannie went down to fill her in on the news.

When Strudel came upstairs she looked stunned. Strudel always has strong notions about justice and responsibility, and spent a few months asking me hard questions about things like police justice and morality. I have NO IDEA what she is going to turn into when she grows up. For a long time the people who were most responsible for breaking and taking things in my house were Not Me and Must’ve Have Been My Sister, but lately she has been coming forward more and talking about how she could handle things better the next time. What a fucking relief.

“I’m sad about the chickens,” she said.

“Yeah. Thanks. Me too,” I said. I waited for her wheels to turn to where I knew they would go next.

“Did someone leave the door open?” she asked, gently.

“Yes,” I said. “The egg door was left open on the back of the house.”

I watched her face flicker through several changes before the needle got stuck on, “Oh shit, this is my fault.”

“Sorry, Mom,” she said, almost inaudibly.

“Thanks for saying that.”

I got a note on a sugar packet.

Today is the last day of first and sixth grades. She was a very quiet cricket on Wednesday.

Horace vs. Mere and Goethe

He is SO LUCKY they humor him.

Tart, melon, and guac.

Cherry Cheese Tart for Father's Day

Oh god please may I have some please

Noooo you may not.

Sunday morning

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L-R: Zsa Zsa, Death Ray, and Veronica. I cannot believe I still have two of my original gangsta chickens. Veronica is the yellow ball of fuzz in the tank. Also, R.I.P Calliope and a barred cochin that ended up being a rooster. I got Death Ray later that summer.

It’s eggy up in myah. Planted lemon cucumbers, crookneck squash, and some green cucumber today, so the garden is DONE, dude. There are shelling peas and tomatoes. I’m sorry I didn’t find my camera before the crimson clover was turfed under. It was made of bees! Half the garden is given over to sunflowers and native-type bee-friendly flowers. It’s not as bananas this year because it looks like I’m moving in the fall. When I am in the new place I want to build bee hotels.

Spaniels are born to look sad.