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A classic and a possible new classic.

November 10th, 2014

I saw two movies recently, Gone With The Wind and Boyhood. Gone With The Wind I saw ages ago on TV with commercials poppin’ in every ten minutes which really chopped up the experience (it’s tough to get into the Civil War when you’re perpetually interrupted by smiling white people wearing backwards robes like cult members). The Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers was showing the movie in one of their smaller theaters so I, my father (who is one thousand years old and saw the movie when it came out in 1939), Snorth and Snorth’s mom flounced off in our finest garments made from curtains to check it out properly with a good screen and sound system and no commercials. Here’s something interesting about the movie: it totally holds up. The first half, the half that’s about the Civil War, is thoroughly engrossing. The second half is a bit melodramatic and romantic, but it’s still pretty great. Here are some thoughts I had.

1. The last line makes me so bummed out. It is, famously, “Tomorrow is another day!” Yeah, yeah it is. So was yesterday. And two weeks from Thursday? That’s a day too. EVERY DAY IS A DAY. Whatever. It’s fine.

2. No matter how bad it gets for Scarlett (starving, unwashed, wearing the same dress for a year) her eyebrow game remains on point. Good for her. Also Vivian Leigh has the best RBF of all time.

3. This movie’s alternate title should be “Crying and Sweating in the South.” Lawd have mercy. I am not exaggerating – in every single scene at least one character is weeping copiously or is slathered with dewy drops of sweat. If it was a drinking game you would be sloshed in the first hour.

4. I’m all for tasteful classy ladies of society, but I really wanted to hang out with Belle Watling the local madam. She wore vibrant outfits, had lots of money and her home had a crystal lamp shaped like a peacock. She didn’t have to go to those stifling affairs all the fancy plantation owners did. Team Watling for me.

The other movie I saw was Boyhood. The movie itself is not what’s amazing, it’s how it was made. Boyhood was filmed over 11 years with the same actors, so you get to watch them age. It’s amazing that Richard Linklater (the director) got all the actors to show up for a few weeks every year. It’s well-acted, it’s beautifully filmed, engaging things happen, all it’s missing is interesting dialogue. Maybe I’m lucky but so so many of my conversations with people are fascinating. There’s humor and exciting interaction on any number of topics, and in this movie there’s… not so much. There’s a lot of mundane “how are you doing?” and “get in the car” and “don’t forget to come home after school!” After that, when the lead character becomes a high school student, he has long boring emo/introspective speeches which are 100% accurate to being a teenager (and what I make an effort to avoid talking to teenagers) so I had to deal with that. I would encourage people to see Boyhood because it’s a one-of-a-kind in the timeline/filming regard but I wish that characters had been more witty. The other thing I learned from this film: Don’t drink alcohol. That’s bad. That’s a reoccurring problem.

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers. | No Comments »

Would you like some charts? Because I happen to have some right here.

November 7th, 2014

Several of them involve dinosaurs.

Posted in Charts | No Comments »

Kitchen, Part Never-Ending Ouroboros.

November 7th, 2014

Backsplash! I’ve started working on it. I waffled back and forth on a variety of ideas but now I have finally decided on this.

In order to decide if I liked it I stared at it for several days to see if I would get sick of it. I did not, so I began the painting process. First, a brown paper bag-colored basecoat. Then I did the first layer of splotches but the sponges weren’t diffuse enough.

So I got tiny round sponges on tiny sticks and started painting individual dots. It’s a long way off but it’s getting closer.

After I paint several million more dots I will re-update. SO MANY DOTS.

Posted in Apartment, My Art/Design/Business | No Comments »

Rhinebeck Sheep ‘n’ Wool Festival 2014.

October 30th, 2014

I went this year! It was great. I drove up with my sister K. because she is a super-talented knitress and as opposed to me who goes for the sheep-petting, she actually goes to buy yarn like a normal person. This is some of her work:

Yeah. She’s amazing. Anyway, we went up and I saw some excellent work. I considered walking up to several people wearing beautiful handmade sweaters/shawls/gloves/etc. and thanking them for making and sharing these wonderful pieces with the world, but then I decided that that would be way too weird even for me, even for the RSnWF. And let me tell you the RSnWF can get mighty weird. One example that immediately comes to mind is when I walked up to a woman, a professional woman, a woman manning a booth filled with wooly products for sale. She had a two-year-old child sitting on the counter in front of her and while this woman was talking to a client the child pulled up her shirt and was nursing from one of her breasts while finger-playing with the other nipple. All of her goods and services were hanging out into the great wide open and I mentally shut down. It was like seeing a griffin*. I’m all for breastfeeding but this was waaaaaaay too much. I think I got boobPTSD from that experience. My point is that one could walk up to a stranger at the festival and compliment their knittery without being the oddest thing that happens to them that day. BY A LOT.

We hit up a couple of specific shops K. wanted to purchase products from, one of which was Fiber Optic. They sell yarn groupings that gradually change from one color to another so you can make ombre-type scarfs. I LURVE me some ombre so I loitered outside their booth staring at the examples they had pinned up. So good.

Other neat things I saw at the RSnWF: this sweater.

This shorn roving with pictures of the sheepies that it was shorned from which makes me want to buy this fleece even though it’s probably greasy (lanolin) and I have zero use for it.

The truth was I did end up buying some roving because I have a very special project in mind. Let’s start at the beginning. When my friend Ness turned 30 she and a bunch of her chums went to New Orleans to celebrate what she called her Dirty Thirty. At this exact time a hurricane had passed through the delta and drowned thousands of nutria (a giant South-American rat) and these nutria corpses were washing up on the beaches. I could not stop talking about it. So, in order to make Ness’ trip even more memorable, every time she would post something on Facebook I would comment with something about nutria. No context, no explanation. Every time.

Then I started photoshopping her pictures.

I was shocked she didn’t come back and stab me in the face with a collectible plastic margarita glass shaped like a fleur de lis. I honestly expected the stabbing but I still couldn’t stop myself. Now Ness is getting married in May and the wedding is going to be in New Orleans, her reasoning being “it’s equally inconvenient from people on both the East and West Coast.” I cannot let this opportunity pass. I am making myself a Southern church-going hat to wear to the wedding and on top (you guessed it) will be a six-inch nutria doll made of felt. In order to make this felted nutria I bought some brown roving from a llama (no lanolin so naturally dry and clean) with tiny sparkly threads woven in. It’s going to be glorious. Get ready.

*”Is that half eagle, half lion? What’s going on with its front legs? I have so many questions and I cannot physically stare hard enough at this.”

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, My Art/Design/Business, Nature, New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff | No Comments »

A small medium at large. And all the dog memes today.

October 20th, 2014

Sorry for the long delay between posts. There just wasn’t a whole lot of anything going on. I was working, and then I was working some more, and then for a change, work.

The joke I am referring to in the title is this one:

My sister K. is a producer and she asked me two weeks ago if I would be available to be filmed having a reading done by a medium. I said I had ebolaAIDSpinkeye and wouldn’t be able to go because I do not believe in hocus-pocus, but she needed bodies to populate this video so finally I acquiesced and said yessssssssss fine. On Sunday morning I woke up at 7:30 (before the sun which is the Lord’s way of saying don’t wake up yet), put on an appropriate outfit (no black, no logos), painted my face, brushed my hair and went to Manhattan where the filming was happening. I filled out paperwork allowing them to use my face and any corresponding footage for this video and possibly as filler in porn movies (I didn’t read the document) and then waited for the medium to arrive. The other producers asked me whom of my dead relatives I wanted to speak to, and I answered honestly. “Well, I would really like to talk to my paternal grandmother because she died when my father was nine and all accounts describe her as a very nice woman, but she only spoke Yiddish and chances are we might not be able to communicate. Most likely my maternal grandmother will come through who helped raise me and was a ‘strong woman.’ That’s a nice way to say it. I’ve heard her referred to as ‘soul-crushing’ and ’emasculating’ but ‘strong woman’ is probably the best way to put it.” The first thing the medium, who was a nice tiny woman of about thirty years old, di when she arrived was burn sage and clear the room of negative energy (actual result: the whole space smelled somewhere between a Catholic mass and a 4/20 rally) and then she called the four people who were going to be read into filming area (me and three freshly-graduated NYU students). We did some meditation, clearing our minds and readying ourselves to contact the deceased. And then she began. I would LOVE to say she changed my mind and I got to chat with family members and I’m a total believer now, but alas, she did not. She asked incredibly vague questions until she narrowed it down to something tangible in your life and then she honed in on that. My favorite example was, “I’m feeling a twisting sensation in my belly area. Did you know someone who had gastrointestinal troubles or someone who internalized their feelings?” Why, yes, yes I do, because you’ve just described everyone who’s ever lived on this planet, ever. Thanks for that. She could have said, “I’m feeling a tender sensation in my earlobes. Do you have a relative who was able to hear in both ears?” Wow! As a matter of fact I did.

In my follow-up interview I was very diplomatic. I said while I didn’t feel convinced that this was not an advanced parlor trick, if someone had lost a person close to them and was suffering and this medium brought them some peace, then I was totally okay with it. Placebos work too. I don’t think that’s what the people recording the TV show wanted to hear but I wasn’t going to lie, especially for what they were paying me (a fat hairy ball of nuthin’).

In a thoroughly unrelated note my friend Gem was in town for the Annual Gathering of the Nerds Otherwise Known as Comic-Con (did everyone see this amazing costume? It’s all the roles Johnny Depp has played on one person, that is GENIUS):

And every time Gem comes to town she takes me to a different bar or eatery which is good because I am totally inclined to staying in my apartment and crafting while watching copious amounts of Nat Geo Wild and Investigation Discovery. This time she took us to The Dead Rabbit which is a bar in the financial district. It was extremely cool. I know exactly zero things about the original gangs that ran in New York during the 1850s and one of them was called The Dead Rabbits. I believe the movie Gangs of New York was based on them. We got to sit at the bar in the parlor which normally would bother me (I’m sad when my feet don’t touch the ground) but this particular time it was awesome because I could watch the bartendress. Her name was Jillian Vose and she blew my mind. First of all, there are seventy-two cocktails on the menu. Seventy-two. Twelve of them are seasonal and change regularly. Sixty-four are separated into groups based on different sections of the Dead Rabbit gang leader’s life, John Morrissey. Here’s a sample page from their menu.

When an order comes up there’s a small screen under the bar that lists the ingredients but Jillian still had to figure out which bottles to use to make it. There were like fifty bottles with various concoctions in them, syrups and whatnot, all the same size, all unlabeled. You can see them in this picture from their website.

She was amazing to watch. And then she would take large chunks of ice, put it in the palm of her hand and whack at it with an ice pick. I kept waiting for Jillian to give herself stigmata and a strong metallic taste to the subsequent drinks but it never happened. That woman’s a pro. In addition to there being a gazillion festive drinks and British foods (I tried a scotch egg for the first time, they’re pretty darn good, like a breakfast food orb) when you order your drink, in order to hold you over until your drink arrives, you get some house punch in a porcelain tea cup. How freakin’ cute is that?

I would go back if it was on the grid, or near the grid, or literally not at the bottom of the island in what I consider a no-man’s-land of New York. Perhaps if someone else goes with me I will return. If left to my own devices I would get lost.

Posted in New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | No Comments »

Brain droppings du jour.

October 1st, 2014

1. Saw this on Buzzfeed. Did not click.

Wow. I had no idea the vegetarians of Thailand were so intense. That picture is crazy. It looks like there are explosions and shrapnel and someone is throwing a sledgehammer at the man in the skeleton mask. I always took vegetarians to be a more mellow sort of person, but apparently I was wrong. And as for severe body modification, I say (brace yourselves) phuket (NO I WILL NO APOLOGIZE FOR THAT).

2. I am a huge fan of taking things that are considered rubbish and making them into things of beauty. Right now people are really-super-obsessed with a show called Adventure Time. I’ve watched a few episodes, I can’t really get into it, but it has a rabidly devoted fan base.

My point is some guy found a trash-chair and made it into an Adventure Time chair. Delightful. Good for him.

3. Two internet things that taste great together = Wikipedia and TL;DR. I assume everyone knows what Wikipedia is, and TL;DR stands for Too Long; Didn’t Read. One sees that often as a comment at the end of multi-page articles with a lot of words. Well, as y’all know, almost all of Wikipedia’s articles are long so there’s a Tumblr website called TL;DR Wikipedia and I can’t stop reading it.

Head’s up: some hit a little hard and will make suck your teeth and make that hissing noise. Still good though.

Posted in Random Art Bloggery, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Bugs be TRIPPIN’.

September 29th, 2014

Before we get into nature being unnecessarily disturbing recently, we will address the “compliment” I got yesterday. In case you were unaware, I cut off a goodly portion of my hair and donated it, and I decided to dye the remaining hair purple, it looks sort of like this:

So yesterday I was walking along the High Line, that park made on abandoned train tracks in New York, where I saw a bucket drummer and I gave him some change. He stopped playing, turned to me and said, “Thank you Beautiful, who does your hair?” And I was all, “Gosh, thanks, I do it myself,” and he said, “You know which movie star you look like?” and I was all, “Which movie star?” (take a moment to appreciate how well this is all going, that’s gonna end momentarily) and he said, “Who’s that actress who kidnaps a writer and keeps him prisoner in her house?”

“That would be Kathy Bates in Misery,” I said.

Yup, you look just like her in that movie,” he said.

Yaaaaaay.

Don’t get me wrong, I happen to think Kathy Bates is a damn fine-looking woman:

HOWEVER, in that film they did everything in their power to make her look frumpy and plain, so, yeah, not a compliment really. Gonna not take that one, thanks though.

Alright. Onto insects being unacceptable. Did y’all see that article that made my skin crawl across the floor? The one about the guest room? And the wasps? UUUUGGHGGHHHGHGHHH.

http://jezebel.com/thousands-of-wasps-found-living-in-womans-home-1627843820

Some of the comments are golden. Here are a few of my favorites:

I bet that was awful. Try to imagine: thousands of them, nesting on that bed, telling stories about their days on the Harvard rowing team and complaining about the Hamptons running out of rosé.

The only time in my life I legit fainted was when I called an exterminator to my house to investigate a tiny hole in the siding where I had seen a few wasps flying in and out. I stood outside beneath the wee hole while the dude climbed up a ladder and poked around a bit, shined a light in the hole, etc. He came down and said, very matter-of-factly, “Yeah, you got about 50,000 yellow jackets in there. Surprised they haven’t chewed through the –” ::THUNK::

It’s weird how everything around the nest looks so crisp and clean and normal and then in the center is this crazy hell portal.

Look, I know that people are BUSY these days. But the fact that nobody even opened the goddamn door to that room for three whole months is nuts! NUTS! Does nobody else in this godforsaken world do a full house spot-check for serial killers every night before they go to bed?

I know you’re all thinking, one horrific insect-related thing does not hysteria make, but then Cricket was walking through the forest when he saw a weird dark spot on the ground and a thin layer of white fur on the tree branch above. So, being of an exploratory nature, he tapped the white fur with his walking stick and the WHITE FUR GOT AGITATED AND STARTED WAVING AT HIM WHY

http://youtu.be/BA7F-wosu0w

Turns out the dark spot on the ground was the white puffs’ poops. Does anyone know what the hell those are? Here’s a close-up photo if that helps.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, New York | 1 Comment »

Two artists that have piqued my interest lately.

September 23rd, 2014

Does everyone here know what needle-felting is? Basically, needle-felting is taking fluffy wool (before it’s spun into yarn) and stabbing it repeatedly with a big needle until it forms the desired shape. Wool does that because the fibers have microscopic hooks and these hooks get tangled when the stabbery occurs. It’s a very versatile art. You can build things over a metal or wood sub-structure, you can do a flat piece, add stitches and beads, etc. Here are some pictures I found on Pinterest (most of these track back to Etsy, if you like these pieces, go to Etsy and buy them – support artists!):

By the way, needle-felting doesn’t have to be about animals, it just so happens that I love animals so those are the samples I chose. The two artists that have caught my eye recently are both textile artists. One was brought to my attention by my friend Gem (thank you Gem). I love these soft insect sculptures by Yumi Okita. She uses a combination of a canvas-like material, wire, fake fur, fabric paint and sewing to make these moths and butterflies. If you go to her Etsy shop she also made a flower that is stunning. Big fan.

And the other artist is a woman named Steph Laberis. She does animal illustrations in a charming 1950s/1060s style. I think she really captures the essence of the beasties she’s rendering. I own her potoo and momonga prints (got them at Shana Logic if you want them).

But she has many other works that if I could find them for sale I would snap them up. I mean, the three armadillos (the small one is called a Pink Fairy Armadillo, that’s why it has a wand) is amazing, is it not? And the penguins? And the maned wolf mama? There’s very few pieces I do not adore.

Ms. Laberis has a blog you can visit to find out what she’s up to AND the header has a grumpy dung beetle, so, you know, best header for anything ever.

Now you may be wondering, we were talking about needle-felting, what the hell happened? Look at me bring it all together. In addition to drawing wonderful things, Steph needle-felts sculptures of some of her drawings so they can exist in a three-dimensional space, which is awesome. I may have to explore the wonderful world of needle-felting.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Random Art Bloggery, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

I left no things, in San Francisco (because I packed carefully the night before).

September 16th, 2014

My friend and former co-worker Ness moved back to her homeland of California to become a police officer and after seven months of grueling training (seriously, she got pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed on the same day which is insane) she graduated and I decided to go and show support because I’m proud of her and hey, free cake. So off I went to the San Francisco Police Academy Graduation. If you’re looking for a place to stay in California, check out laguna beach oceanfront hotels.

I arrived the night before the graduation so I had plenty of time to pet Ness’ cat, Gizzy. If we’re telling truths here, I may miss Gizzy more than Ness. I wore a nightgown given to me by my neighbor that had a Gizzy-like cat on it and posed for several pictures while hoisting her in the air like a prize-winning ham. Gizzbeast was pretty okay with it (because she’s AWESOME). She clearly wasn’t too put out because she spent the rest of the evening punching me in the face with her face and purring.

Before we get into the graduation itself, let us discuss the flight to California. Fellow travelers: we are, for all intents and purposes, trapped in an airless tube for which there is no escape but death. Can you pretend to be a person for, like, five hours? Five hours, that’s all I’m asking. On my flight there was a man, a morbidly obese extremely hairy man who was wearing a muscle shirt where the sleeves were so stretched out his hirsute nips were hanging out said sleeve-holes. THIS WAS HIS IDEA OF PUBLIC ATTIRE. In addition a woman brought a hot fresh full-size pizza on the flight for her family to enjoy which made the entire plane smell like pepperoni. I know I use the wise teachings of Patton Oswalt often on this blog, but he has the insights we often look for in a prophet or guru and this is no exception. Listen to this link and feel my pain.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3593326

The next morning when I got up Ness was already gone and her aunt (also a cop) was going to come by and pick me up later and take me where the graduation was being held. We swung by a Krispie Kreme to get doughnuts (the appropriate food for a police academy event)(Ness’ aunt the cop bought them so it’s not offensive) and stood in line outside the Scottish Rite Masonic Center. Hoo boy. Do you look for Illuminati symbols in things? Well, look no further because here they all are, designed in a lovely 1960s style with mosaics.

Finally we got into the main hall and settled ourselves down in the third row which gave me a chance to be confused about the murals. From what I can gather they are important figures to the Masons, all I know is on my left was a figure labeled “Venerable Master” next to “Zarathustra.” I found this page trying to gather more information. It’s not really helping to clarify anything.

http://www.scottishritecalifornia.org/orient_of_california.htm

So… they build houses but they’re also secretive and community-oriented? I don’t get clubs.

While everyone was getting seated the loudspeakers was playing patriotic music, which is fine except that the only place I’ve ever heard the songs they were playing is in Assassins, a musical about all the failed and successful attempts to assassinate various American presidents. I realized I was singing out loud along with all of the tunes about how I prevented Roosevelt’s murder and creeping everyone around me out. I should not be allowed to leave the house sometimes. Listen to this chunk of song:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3534901

and this chunk:

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3534911

to hear what I probably should not have been gleefully crooning so close to the San Francisco Chief of Police.

There were a ton of seats set up on the stage and off to the side was a plaque with glittery things all around it. When I got up closer I could see that it was a carpeted display with the graduates’ shields on it.

Ness’ was at the bottom, number 844.

The important people went up on the stage and it began with color guard coming in. Another reason to add to the enormous pile of why I can’t be a cop: all the pomp. It took forever for the color guardians to put their flags in the damn stand. They had to march and bark instructions and I have zero patience for that. PUT THE FLAG IN THE STAND. TODAY. I’M GETTIN’ OLD OVER HERE.

After that the graduates came in and the clergyman was invited to say a prayer. I want everyone to know how well-behaved I was at this point. He was an elderly Asian man and he spoke extemporaneously which may have not been the best choice for him. He rambled so damn bad, it was all over the place and it was long. I started getting the giggles in the middle part (about four years into his prayer). He totally reminded me of Oogway from Kung Fu Panda but with less of a cohesive thought flow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq8loZlpa_8

Then various politicians and police-people gave speeches, including the city supervisor for District 8 (Harvey Milk’s original district) a 6’7″ man named Scott Weiner who I renamed The Jewish Jack Skellington:

Finally the class president got up to speak. A tall woman named Mikayla Connell got up and as soon as she opened her mouth to speak I realized that she was MtoF transgender. And then she told her story. She was 45. She tried to join the police force right after college 23 years ago and was rejected. She joined the military (wow) and then became a lawyer (damn). About ten years ago she transitioned to female and after sitting behind a desk Mikayla realized she still really wanted to be a cop so she applied again and not only did she make it in this time, she was class president, the oldest person in her class and the first MtoF transgender person the San Francisco Police has ever had. Not enough? There were five awards given that night and Mikayla won two of them. Two. Out of five. This woman is my hero. She let nothing get in the way of her dreams. Ever. I wish I had one half of the strength of spirit Mikayla has. (And her speech was terrific, I wish I could get a copy of it.)

The shields were given, closing statements were made and we were done! Ness is now a cop! I took an atrocious selfie of us but you can appreciate how happy both of us are.

There was a reception in an adjacent hall and I’m sure most people were excited to see their friends and family members but I was totally focused on the 1960s murals of trees on the wall. I was wandering around taking closeups for research purposes; I definitely asked a police academy student who was serving cake to move out of the way so I could take a better photo. In my defense, the paintings were awesome. Very “It’s A Small World After All” ish.

Her family and I went out for a celebratory dinner which included a cake specially made for Ness decorated with icing versions of a gun, handcuffs, a baton and a radio.

Luckily Ness got Saturday and Sunday off (some of the graduates had to show up for duty the next morning at 6:00 a.m. which is awful) so we could travel around San Francisco. Saturday we went down to Fisherman’s Wharf and walked around there in matching t-shirts because even though Ness lives in San Fran, if you’re going to be a tourist do it right or don’t do it at all.

She drove into the city and we were led into the city proper by a tour of people on Segways, which was adorable and dorky.

Ness took me through the Tenderloin area which is famous for being a bit rough-and-tumble and sho’ nuff as we were passing through a 20-something man was peeing into the street. Not like, behind a car or anything. No, he was doing his best impression of the Manneken Pis into the street, arc of pee glinting in the sunlight. It made the experience very authentic for me. Thank you, Peeing Man. I hope whatever drug you enjoy gives you much pleasure, as much pleasure as watching you urinate gave me.

We went to Lombard Street which in case you don’t know is the super-wiggly street. It allowed us some beautiful views of the city.

Everyone else was looking at the view but I kept getting distracted by the stunning flowers and plants. Ness could not have cared less if she tried. I think I yelled at her at one point. “YOU DO NOT APPRECIATE YOUR FOLIAGE!”

We ended up down at the edge of the water where we saw the sea lions basking.

We saw that there were antique fire trucks that had been turned into tour buses and I decided that when I came back I would ride on one.

I took pictures of the phenomenal flower baskets on the street corners while Ness rolled her eyes. “YOU DO NOT APPRECIATE YOUR FOLIAGE!”

And we posed in front of a big metal crab structure that had succulents planted in its body area. I love how it looks like the crab is attacking us. Also note the matching shirts.

My favorite thing that day was the aquarium. It’s a small aquarium but it’s a not-for-profit that helps maintain the health of the bay area so I was delighted to support them and see some fishies in the process. I got to pet some rays (yay!) and a sea cucumber which I had never touched (slimy! squishy! yay!):

but the coolest part was by far the shark tank. You walked through a tunnel in the middle of the tank and it had some really cool sea creatures in it. In addition to having rays (I love rays) it had a shark that looked like a leopard and a shark with barbs down its back. I called that the toothback shark. I don’t know what its real name is, but toothback shark is perfectly descriptive. The toothback shark looked like it was swimming around 400 million years ago and decided, “Yeah, I think I got this exactly how I want this. I’m done with evolving. I’m good.” And that’s how he’s been, completely unchanged since forever.

I made a little animated gif so you can appreciate the awesomeness in motion. I could have stayed in that tunnel all day.

The next day Ness took me sight-seeing to places of interest in her life. We went to the Police Academy where she trained:

And the top of the hill they would make her run where people were taking pictures of the view. I found that extremely funny due to the fact that we were surrounded by cloud and you couldn’t see anything but people were taking pictures regardless.

I guess I drank the tourist Kool-Aid because shortly after I had to take a picture myself. Damn you, FOMO! Damn you straight to hell!

We drove past her high school where I found mirth in this sign:

And we spent the afternoon at a Zucchini Festival.

It was only vaguely related to zucchinis in any way. It was predominantly the fried-bad-things-for-you festival.

If it could be fried, chances are it was there.

There was also a booth entirely comprised of inflatable aliens:

Some kind of hamster-ball-in-water thing that the kids were loving:

And a person selling spinny rainbow garden decorations. I couldn’t stop looking at them. So many colors… and spinning… I was mesmerized.

On a stage off to the side were various acts performing throughout the day and when we got there it was a pretty damn good Elvis impersonator. He was great. Many women thought so as well. I am not joking, they were lined up at the stage swooning. It was intense.

There were people selling all manner of items – jewelry and useful home appliances, all kinds of things. I bought The Moomins some local honey made with bee pollen. One of the booths was to help shelter animals so I totally donated to that. There was a dog at that booth and people were putting dollar bills in its collar like it was a stripper, which I found amusing. I put it in the jar myself. Keeping it classy here, people.

Of course I spent most of my time in the petting zoo hanging with the goats. There was an enormous paddock with dwarf goats hanging out and you could feed them. I took a photo of this couple who were just sitting with a stranger goat. It was looking at the woman’s iPhone like it was helping her pick out photos. I loved it.

There was a super-pregnant little lady goat. I made sure she got most of my food.

And in one corner of the giant park was… a small table with zucchinis on them. There are the zucchinis for the Zucchini Festival. Look at them. There they are.

Shortly after that I got on a plane and took the red-eye back to work. I will go back at some point and hang out with Ness again. (And Gizzy. Who are we kidding, almost entirely to see Gizzy.)

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

I’m sorry. Have some charts.

September 9th, 2014

Work has been a mean one lately and I have to clean my apartment in a rush because family is coming to town in a week and The Moomins was like, “Great! We’ll have them all come to your apartment for brunch!” and I was like, “Yeah, I should probably get a functioning sink then” so when I’m not pulling fourteen-hour days at work I’ve been furiously scrubbing and wiping and putting things away so my relatives don’t think I live like a candidate for an episode of Hoarders. There’s going to be twenty of them and apparently they will all want a place to sit, the whiny needy people that they are, so I have to clear the stuff off all the tables and seats. Whatever, it’s a pain and it’s prevented me from blogging as often as I’d like, so while I am battling the pile of home-repair debris please enjoy these internet nuggets of information.