Random modnaR

Let the Randivity spew forth:

1) Use For a Cat #1138: I made Trillian dizzy with a Cat Dancer yesterday. She was running/falling sideways. If I knew how to post YouTube stuff I'd go for it. She got so tired she started panting, poor thing. I hope that doesn't constitute animal cruelty. I did it for her health after all - she's a bit pudgy these days. Today was instant replay day, but she'd learned not to run after it once she was dizzy. She can't leave the thing alone though.

2) Woody Allen *has* made a movie I can stomach. Go figure.

3) Picking sour cherries is an entertaining family/friends activity.

4) They're called "sour cherries" for a reason.

5) Donuts and cider are *still* great together.

6) Mortarific *could* be a combo of Mortification and Horrific, but it can also be a combo of Mortar and Terrific. My sister is not having a crisis. She is happy to have a new explosive toy.

7) That last bit sounded kinda dirty

8) It's good to keep an anonymous sex blog. I highly recommend it.

9) Nausicaa, like, totally rocks!11!!eleventyone!!one!!

10) Mark Hamill has done voiceover for every single animated feature since 1979. Impressive. And he IS a Jedi.

11) Nathaniel Parker is an EXCELLENT reader of the Artemis Fowl audiobooks. And holy crap, after Googling him, he's easy on the eyes, too. Yes, I'd pay for a DVD of him sitting reading the book. ;-)

12) Most audiobooks readers seem to have theatre experience.

13) Eoin Colfer is a brilliant author. "Her smile shrank by a couple of molars." Brilliant.

14) Decanters really do improve the wine

15) Even if you got yours on sale at Walmart for $3.50

16) Don't let your kids try to hoist your friend's kid up to the loft with a block and tackle

17) Even if you ARE busy scrapping with his mom

18) The fridge door is about to fall off. Again.

19) Does that mean it's about to be curtains for 2 other appliances as well?

20) Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the longest train station name ever. It means, 'St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave.' Makes me proud to have a few drops of Welsh blood swirling through my veins (along with a hodgepodge of about 8 other things, none of which are French.)

I forgot the GuTTer MuNKi link last time. So here's a bonus.

O I C U HNT

something purple, July 2006

No, that is not the C word up there. But it's darned close, isn't it? Shall I leave my HNT for last? Probably.

OK, so what's new in the the delusional alternate reality that is Candy's World? Em, let's see. . .

Oh yes! I bothered Egan all day while he was "working." Actually, you could just go read my comments over there instead of me bothering to blog. Hmmm. . . He is the master of - uh - something, because for the longest time there, while I thought I was messing with him, he was actually messing with me. Much better than that Recruit movie of which I spake yesterday. I suspect that Egan is actually CIA. Sssshhhhh! If I'm right he'll have to kill me, so don't let on that you know.

I'm tightening up a picture book and the next step is to find a publisher off of which to boomerang it. :-)

Aw, hell. I have nothing to say. Here are pretty flowers, and then my HNT. You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky, as we walk in fields of. . . purple.



UGO (Unidentified Garden Object)


When will the blood begin to race, the sleeping bud burst into bloom?




Echinacea! (bless you)


O I C U HNT

Old Dogs, New Tricks

"I can't wait to go to the dentist."

These words were uttered by the 6 year old Boy today, I shit you not. The Prawn was awfully fired up, too. All four went. All four had fantastic check-ups. We blasted our eardrums out on the way to and from Ann Arbor listening to The Killers and singing along. It was a gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, wonderful, perfect summer day. " Hallelujah Jaffar!" Can I have an "amen!"?

I love Michigan. It's beautiful here. I need to take the camera along when we drive places, so I can show you all how everything on the way to everywhere is tree-lined and stunning, but I suppose that eventually I'd wreck the car trying to drive and snap simultaneously (and in rapid succession - that's for you She-Ra. And I want to talk to you for more than 12.5 seconds sometime, dammit.)

Here's my pseudo-inspirational thing for the day: it's never too late to learn a new skill. Or multiple ones. ;-) And the more you practice, of course, the better you get at it. (Hallelujah Jaffar!!)

If I sound all smiley, it's because I am.

One of the Saturdays this weekend (we counted the 4 day weekend as 3 Sats and a Sun) we went to Main Street in Ann Arbor, which is rather reminiscent of State St. in Madison, though a lot shorter, and with cars. There are lots of little restaurants and interesting shops tending toward artsy, New Age, etc. As we passed one of the Irish Pubs (come back, She-Ra - you could score Navan so many gigs here it's not even funny) I noticed a tiny little door set into the the door of the shop next door. There was a little sill in front of it, at the bottom, which had some coins on it. Turns out it's a "fairy door" and there are several around town. We'll have to look them up. How handy to have a list of locations on that page.

I got dibs on another review book, so hopefully that will be coming soon.

Tonight we watched - hmm. I don't know what it was called. I grabbed it at the library. Ah, found it - The Recruit. Eh. It was interesting but had at least one major problem. And lately I can call everything about an hour before it happens, more by formula than by actual clues given, so, eh - a good one-time view, but doesn't invite repeat viewing.

The Boondock Saints (in case you missed the link the first time), on the other hand, is an awesome script and I appreciate it more every time I see it. In Nomeni Patris, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti.

Carpe Crappum

raccoon trail, July 2006
I'll warn you right off that I'm not staying on the path in this one. Not even remotely. (Even if there ARE "guerrillas in those woods.") So what's new?

A wise man once (OK, yesterday) said:"Today is the day that we waste other people's time with our crap."Brilliant!


Last year I joined an order, a sisterhood, in which we set goals for ourselves. Each phase of the moon brings us the opportunity to focus on a different aspect of our goal setting. We also each have our own Life List of 8 goals that we plan to accomplish. Have you ever really thought about what you hope to accomplish in your life? Let me tell you, to sit down and decide on the 8 things that you most want to do in your lifetime - it really makes you look at yourself and how you're doing things. Now, we have a bit of an "out" in that once we accomplish one, we update our lists. So that's a little pressure off, right? I mean if it was only 8 EVER, I think that would be harder. But still. So here's my challenge to you: make your own List. They don't have to come to you all at once, but don't look at it as a "here's a few and someday I'll choose the rest" type of exercise. It might take a couple of days. You might change your mind on one or two. A year from now, you may find some things have lost their importance, and other things have taken their places, but make your list anyway. Eight things, no more, no less. And then get started. But do be sure to stop and smell the daisies along the way.



OK, being serious for too long causes me physical pain. I'm just not a very serious person. Levity is the key to, uh, levitation. . .? Anyway. On to the - LOOK a chicken! stuff.

For the visually oriented, the rest of this post will be peppered with photos.




I'm slowly attempting to make the front of the house more inviting.


So these greet you by the front step:


The echinacea was photo shy, but the mums, ironically, clamoured for a close-up.


(insert clever segue here for seamless transition)
The following is proof that I am

1) Overambitious
2) Insane
3) Going to be using a lot of potty words
4) A sucker for pretty fabric
5) And cheap patterns
D) All of the above



Look away now, Poly and Egan. When you hear the chime, you can look back.

I had plenty of help with the cutting phase.




It's Trillygami! This is why God gave her thumbs. 2 on each hand.

**ding** (that's the chime for Egan and Poly)


I had no clue what size to make. I will try to chronicle the saga of this ill-fated project with plen -- OOOH! Shiny thing!


**skipping record noise**
You can tease me all you like about the awful Brittany hair, I did it for GuTtEr MuNKi, who promptly rogered me senseless. Afterward, I lulled the birdies to sleep with Enya. (whose music hath a far more pleasing sound than Brittany's)


3 birds at piano

Yes, the books are double-stacked in the case. No, there's not usually any room for them to lean over like that. (Will ho for bookcases.)

And so I leave you. Who's accepting my challenge?

something like the sun July, 2006

Links comma Sausage comma Creative

Caveat Lector: from now on, click GuTtEr MuNKi links AT YOUR OWN RISK. Some are not for children under 18. None are for the emotionally mature.

Hey! Check out Mr. Froggy's legs (well, leg.) He's keeping them small so some evil Frenchman doesn't kill him and rip them from his corpse for lunch. ;-)






Today after kids' sparring, we headed off to GuTtEr MuNKi's co-worker's house to see her Savannah cat, Ozzy. Before doing so, however, I made a string of catnip sausages for her pixie-bob (some sort of bobcat derivative) Sigma, and a string of lavender sausages for Ozzy. Lavender affects lions like catnip affects housecats, so I figured it was worth a try. And most housecats like lavender anyway, so why not? Needless to say, I had helpers who eagerly offered to perform quality contol checks on the catnip during this task.






But the carelessly proffered help soon degenerated into a boxing match over who got to do the next test.






Then it was on to see Sigma and Ozzy. Sigma graciously accepted our gift of catnip sausages.






And was, in fact, quite taken with them.






Ozzy was interested, but not horribly impressed, preferring to play with some of his fishing toys.






Please note that the hairy legs in the background belong to GuTter MuNKi and not me.






On the way home, we hit Joe Randazzo's, (whoops, this one, not that one) where we stocked up on lots of fresh fruit and veggies and paid a mere pittance.

Once home, I cut up 3 or 4 different kinds of plums (and some pluots) for a plum good fruit salad, and made pico de gallo. I thought I might make sangria, too, but alas, I have no glass pitcher and no brandy. GuTTer MuNKi made bajingo chicken and those yummy rosemary new potatoes.

I was still feeling somewhat sewy, so I made The Prawn a tiered skirt.






It's not actually messed up in the front. That's just a wrinkle from how she was standing. If you look closely, you can see her black toenail on the back foot. Ow.

Yesterday she had a bit of a crash in the wagon thanks to an overzealous older sister who shall remain unnamed. *coughSlugcough* Check out the scrape between her eyes and the Band-Aid on her chin.






Poor child. But it doesn't seem to be hurting. I've been putting calendula on it, which always helps.

Some time after dark (10ish?) the fireworks started. Wow! Some of the neighbours put on quite a show. I don't know if they were celebrating Canada Day (we're like an hour from Canada) or just having some early 4th fun. One of the nearby towns was putting on a show, too, which we could see from the yard. Naturally, GuTter MuNKi (after some prompting by me and the little munkis) felt obliged to put on a display as well. The neighbour's grandson came over, to watch, too.



Yeah, they had The Good Stuff. It was pitch black out, but you'd never know it from the picture. Yee haw!! :-)

Some of ours:




Holy fiery mint, Batman!!

We might not have lit up the sky, but we lit up the front of the house. Actually, GuTter MuNKi set off some mortars that weren't half bad, but I couldn't get the camera to focus on any of it.

OK, now I've angered 1) people who don't believe in interfering with nature (oh, hey, the raccoons are having dinner out there, too) 2) Frenchmen and anti French-stereotype people 3) anti cat-labour activists 4) anti cat-drug activists 5) people who don't like cat pictures 6) Joe Randazzo, and 7) those who are against the manufacture, distribution, and blowing-the-hell-up of fireworks, so that ought to about cover it for tonight. (Egan, will you ever read my blog again?? Ooops! Is that you??) Thanks for reading, and have a lovely final few bits of Canada Day.

Is That a Dagger or a Crucifix I See?

Have you ever looked for something that seemed like it should be just around the corner, but you can't seem to find it? Or maybe you've looked for something, but been a little bit leery of what you might find when it does reveal itself. Or maybe you can picture where something ought to be, but then, as soon as you get to that place, your mind jumps ahead, and then you're picturing it somewhere else. I hate it when that happens.

But now it's time for more of - LOOK! A chicken!

The biggest taddies are growing legs now. They have little tiny froggy knees and toes and everything. Very cute. Too bad it didn't show up so great in the pics.

We gave Summer Pudding a try. Not bad! I think I'd prefer it with ladyfingers or something rather than bread, though.



And Mollusc and Sluggie found what I think is a polyphemus moth. At first I thought it was a cecropia moth, but now I'm feeling a bit sheepish ;-) about that because we raised 2 cecropias a few years ago, and I should have remembered how they look. :-P

I'm writing again. This is good. Blogging suffers as a natural result, so please don't be offended if my visits to your blogs have become more sporadic. I still read it all, but I kind of go in spurts now. (Now, now,tsk tsk!!)

Thanks to Mr. Gabriel (aka Archangel?) for the inspiration. And the lyrics.

We wanted the union
Oh, the union of the woman,
The woman and the man . . .

Bunch of Freakin' Liars and a Test

My sis sent me this link. Storm pictures

Nuh-uh. I know for a fact that that last one is from the Stoughton, WI tornado. Look eerily familiar? Pretty freaking cool, though. Well, since it isn't here, that is. I wonder if ANY of them are from the Canadian one. :-P Stoughton is actually really close to my in-laws', so we saw some of the carnage from that one when we passed through on the way to see them last summer.

Speaking of seeing things (or not,) my son is colour deficient. I learned this about a year ago at the eye doc's. He never had trouble with colour books, crayons or anything like that. Ironically, it was the Prawn who I thought might be colour blind when she took longer than all the others to learn her colours. Wanna see how my son sees the world? Actually, I suspect that there are many, many variations on how colour deficient people see the world. In the second one down, he doesn't really see much difference (if any) between the normal and protanope pics. If you go to the third one down, he can see red dots in the normal one, but those same dots in the protanope version are "brown." (I think he only sees the darkest red dots as red - the others are brown or something.) And, yes, he sees a 2 here. (very bottom one) The only time this has ever manifested in real life is when playing Castle Keep. And then, only because his sister was carping at him that something was green, not brown. Yes, my X chromosome contribution to my baby boy was deficient. At least 2 other guys we know are colour deficient. Are you? No lying now!

Kiss That Blog

I've been busy. Mostly I was reading or out trying to do some garden stuff. Yesterday, every time I tried to get out to plant it would start raining. Wednesday was a day of gorgeous thunderstorms - you know the kind - ominous skies, sporadic distant rumbling, every now and then the rain just teeming down, and, occassionally, hail. I love a good thunderstorm. Especially at bedtime, but all day is fine, too. I love the ones that are so close that your entire world is consumed in a brilliant flash of light that's followed almost immediately by a bone-rattling, eardrum-smashing CRACK! And the ones where the sky is deep purple and you can see occasional forks of white lightning splintering through the sky, and the rumbling roars on and on. But alas, those have moved on now. Fortunately, they left some cooler weather in their wake.

OK, I'm finally posting the picture of my grossly misshapen foot from Monday.

So, after icing it all evening



It looked like this:




Yucky, huh? Yeah, that lump should NOT be there on top. :-P

Fortunately, by morning it was much better. My knee looks much worse than it did before. I was perfect for the pool - big purple knee, big purple bruise on forearm (hey, at least I blocked!) and a bruise from running into the corner of a cabinet on my upper arm. MMmmm. I look MAHvelous! ;-)


I finished that book (it was riveting) and now must write the review. And get back to writing more. So between that and living outside more, I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing. I have a hunch it won't be daily.

Little Lies

This is not the one that hurt. Not until my foot started feeling better, anyway. :-P

I've come up with a way to take over the world with. . . soap??? 10 points if you know what movie we watched tonight. 30 more points if you admit it. ;-)

So tell me, what did you think of Pirates of the Caribbean? (No, that's not the movie we watched tonight.) I saw it on DVD way after all the hype and, while it was OK, I just didn't get all orgasmic about it like the rest of the world seemed to. What did I miss? Do I need to see it again? Without SIL's magical heavy blanket and kiss-of-death snuggly dog? (Either of these evil tools of the devil can send you to dreamland effortlessly. In concert, they could take over the entire world while it slept.)

The kids and I have been listening to the audiobook of A House Called Awful End, by Philip Ardagh. Mr. Ardagh is one of those brilliant writers who will get you nodding and chuckling and laughing out loud. Once you're familiar with his style, you'll see something coming and laugh all the harder for it when it appears, and then out of nowhere, he'll blindside you with something even better that you never would have imagined. Even if you haven't got kids, his books are definitely worth checking out. Tell yourself that you're previewing them for that child of your friend's or your niece or nephew if you must. I see they are making a movie of it, and like the Lemony Snicket movie, I can't imagine it will be anywhere near as entertaining as the book.

This week is "Purge Week" at our house. Next week is "Binge Week" LOL! No, not really. This week we're taking a break from schooly stuff (as far as the kids know - heh heh - they don't realise that a lot of the stuff I read to them and the things we do are actually educational) to purge stuff. Not moving for 3 whole years has been nice, but it has also resulted in an unsightly buildup. Call in the "Crelm" car! The not-white car represents another leading brand. And just look at that "Crelm" car go! I really need to clear some shelf space for all these new books, too.

I opened up the latest UW-Alum mag to find an article featuring my mom's cousin. He's not kidding when he says he was the black sheep of the family. When I was in 5th grade, a girl in my class (not knowing the relation) proudly exclaimed to our teacher how her mother had "called that man up and told him he was a sinner!" And, yes, some church members still think he's the Anti-Christ. I have to say that for the Anti-Christ he's a swell and fun-loving guy. :-) Note to all authors: if you don't want to be labeled the Anti-Christ by your church, DO NOT write a book mentioning how your church's prophetess was a plagarist who got her writings not from visions sent from God, but from books with publication dates earlier than her own and with the plagarized passages and illustrations dog-eared and highlighted (all of which were found at her estate.) :-P

As an interesting aside, this cousin has a very bad name for answering the phone. "Hello, Ron Numbers" "Oh, I'm so sorry." *click* So if you ever call him up, don't be surprised to hear you've reached "Nebuchadnezzar's Candle Palace" or whatever strikes his fancy that day.

My dad went through a severe crisis of faith after that little discovery. (the plagarism thing, not the phone-answering thing) If you found out that the church had been lying to you for your whole life about one thing, then why not another? Why not all of it? My dad got over it, eventually. I don't think my cousin ever has. Interestingly enough, an old family friend from Hong Kong (and from the same church) contacted the family not long ago and said that he finally understood some of what my dad had been so upset about. He hadn't really gotten the full impact, I guess, from what my dad had told him, but he ended up at the "prophetess's" estate while doing research for a book of his own about missionaries, and came across a lot of things that really turned his world upside-down. Sadly, my dad was already gone by then, so they they didn't get to talk it over.

Hope you enjoyed this little episode of - Holy Dinah! Is that a Whopper I see before me? (Or just a little White lie?)

In Which I Save a Life and Injure Myself (independently)

I saved a life on Saturday. I looked out the kitchen window to see Hoover, the chipmunk who visits our deck (i.e. raids the birdfeeder) , swimming for his life in the splash pool (where he had obviously fallen from said birdfeeder.) He was out of his depth and couldn't get out, so I ran out and, after a couple of failed attempts wherein he leapt frantically off the toy I was using as a scoop and flung himself into the pool again, managed to fish him out. The ingrate ran off with nary a word of thanks, but I've seen him back again several times since then, so obviously he survived. (I was a little worried about pneumonia due to experience at the rat farm.)

In an example of karma totally falling down on the job, tonight I hurt myself "reeeeeel guuuuud" (say it like John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda) at TKD. We were doing 3-step sparring and I did a double on my opponent, but caught an elbow in the top of the foot/ankle area. I have a pic, but it hurts too much to walk (or hobble) over to the other computer to post it. Trader Joe's's (??) frozen peas are my buddies tonight. And arnica. The good news is that it should be a lot better by morning, going by past experience.

I got my first book to review today. Until now, I've been the kiss of death and the publishers have failed to send out every one for which I've signed up. But today, in a break from tradition, I got a package containing The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. Thomas Covenant has gone on hold, which is kind of a shame since he's at the Sandhold right now and has met the Kemper with his "infant son" on his back. (Anyone reminded of Voldemort?) Well, I say "met" but Mr. C is actually catatonic right now. Anyway, so far the new book's riveting and I really appreciate Miss Edwards's restraining herself in the thesaurus department.

Today's confession: I love Target brand (Market Pantry) fruit snacks. I ate 6 pouches of them tonight and I'd like to eat more.

Confession #2: I have parethesisitis. (no brainer!)

Candice

^ It's clickable.



I would have posted sooner but was enduring a battery of rather startling and inconvenient events, which, I believe have been recorded by a certain author. I was ravished by Bulgurs, wounded in the thigh and disembowled, upon which I died. Later, it turned out that I hadn't actually died and I escaped, only to be (uncharacteristically) hung at an auto-da-fe. Fortunately, the surgeon who bought my corpse for medical study realised I was still alive when his critical incision drew a yell from my not-dead lips. He placed me in the care of a Jesuit priest, who ravished me again and sold me to an Israelite, who ravished me and sold me to a Dutch pirate, who ravished me and lost me when his ship sank. Fortunately, I grabbed a giant red sheep that was swimming past and was carried to the relative safety of the shore, where I was captured by a Sultan and placed in his harem. When the Russian army appeared and tried to starve out the Sultan's guards, the guards cut off the left buttocks of all of us harem girls to eat. Shortly thereafter, reinforcement Russians destroyed our fortress. I won't bore you with the rest of the details, but suffice it to say that I had sufficient reason to be tardy in my posting.

How ironic is it that my copy of Candide is a translation by John Butt? :-)

OK, so first off, I want to say Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. I hope you have a great day! :-)

Sluggie's tooth looks as good as new. The dentist built it up with white composite stuff. Who knew that a dentist also had to be a sculptor? I learn something new every day.

Gordy tested for senior brown belt yesterday. He did great and also sat quietly while he waited his turn to answer Qs. (That's pretty hard for 6-year-old boys.)





He got everything right except for "What is the at school routine?" That one's only on the wall, not in the book, and we really need to copy it down.



As it was, he replied that he doesn't go to school (of which the Master is well aware, LOL!) and that "all I have to do is my math" LOL! He did answer "Do you obey the bus driver's instructions?" with "Yes, and that's my parents." :-)


He knew some of the vocab that's not in the book, too. Here he is breaking his board with an axe kick.




During the test, The Prawn busied herself by becoming a meringue. (There's an a/c vent there.)


The raccoons are increasing in a seemingly exponential fashion. Last night there were babies galore. Tiny babies came first. The rice wasn't their first choice, so I went out and moved it off the top of the bowl so they could get to the good stuff. They were really brave and stayed there while I did so. Of course the kids had to get out there, too. The one in the bowl kept looking sideways at Mollusc while he ate, LOL!



You can tell what a baby this one is by the loooooong-looking legs. His bod isn't fat enough yet to conceal his legs.



I suppose in about 3 more years we'll have HUNDREDS of raccys.


The kids are watching Anastasia, starring Kate, Jake , Beast, and Dr. Brown. Oh, and Agador Spartacus. Very entertaining. :-)

Yesterday was the last day of the library book sale, which means only one thing: A WHOLE BAG OF BOOKS FOR A BUCK, BABY!!!!! Muahahahahahahaha!!!! :-) Oh yeah. I scored quite a few of Frank Herbert's not-Dune books, several Piers Anthonys, a couple of Terry Brookses and quite a few other goodies. My reading pile grows and grows.

Today I harvested a bunch of these:


Please excuse me if my thoughts flit here and there.



I've probably had too much sugar today.


(chocolate cake mix combined with a stick of butter, pressed into the pan, topped with 1c choc chips, 1 c white chips, 2 c coconut and a can of sweetened condensed milk mixed with another 1/2 c of nuked choc ships, baked at 350 for 18 mins)

Our tadpoles still live. They eat boiled lettuce.



My time spent learning how to repair multi-million dollar warplanes paid off yesterday when I was able to fix the kids' cash register ( the drawer would no longer open.) These are no doubt manufactured by 5-year-old children in China. But hey, I did it!


(note drawer which now opens when the button is pressed)
I left the little hands in the upper pic because those are one of the 2 pairs that kept trying to help me, causing the whole operation to be a lot more difficult than fixing an F-16. :-/


Some might say that with all the time I've taken off from blogging there must be more to write about. And that's true enough, but I must go and work in the garden. ;-)