Chicken butt!

Okay, no chicken butt. More eBay stuff.

 Yesterday I saw a guy on the bus who had a pinky where his thumb should be. It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at. He was a young dude, and, like half of the young whippersnappers on the bus, he was texting furiously on his phone. His left thumb was proportionate to the kid and the rest of his hand. His right thumb was teeny-weeny. Then I noticed the scars around it, and the fact that he had only three fingers on that hand. Yep, some enterprising doctor had plucked that kid's pinkie right off and made a new thumb for him.

It worked pretty well, too. I know that digit transplants in the past frequently ended up stiff and not entirely functional, but this lad was texting with his wee thumb at the speed of light. Then I noticed that his right ear had been reattached and reconstructed as well.

HOW COOL! Well, not cool that the poor kid was in some kind of horrible accident. But TOTALLY cool that doctors could put him back together so nicely!

Last night I read about a guy who was in a catastrophic accident, and consequently became a supervillain. In real life. 

The guy's name is Alvin Briscoe. In 1979, he was a 47-year-old economist and associate vice-president at the University of Tennessee. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A police chase went horribly wrong. The bank robbers' car spun out and slammed into Alvin, severing both his legs. After he recovered, Alvin sued the police department for negligence, and won.

You'd think a guy like that would go on to become a public advocate, right? Nope. He embraced the dark side of the force. He started a firm called MBD (Mongovern, Briscoe and Duchin). MBD specializes in aggressively defending corporations against humans. They help chemical companies and other ecological evildoers compile dossiers on their enemies. Over the years, he's defended the use of dioxin, bovine growth hormone, defective infant formula, and seriously heinous pesticides.

I think Batman needs to kick his ass.

 I hung four drywall panels in the attic yesterday after work. I'm feeling very ferocious and mighty. Also feeling like my neck and shoulders are going into rigor mortis.

I took Giant Jeepload #8 to Goodwill last week. And there was a Jeepload 7.5 I forgot to mention earlier.

I found a box of books in a dank corner of the garage. I don't think that box had been touched since we moved in 14 years ago. When I opened it, the CREEPIEST mold I have ever seen was consuming the books. It was white and lumpy and fibrous. Looked like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft story. Hurk.

I've found some really cool stuff too, though. Sculptures I'd forgotten I had, elderly comic books, some of my old art supplies (which delight the boys no end). Dead mice. Dead spiders. A lamp I swear doesn't belong to me. A box of really excellent fabrics.

I recommend not cleaning your garage for 10-15 years to everyone. It makes for fine adventuring.

It was a little cool when I left the house yesterday morning, so I was wearing a sweater. When I got to work, my office was warm, so I took the sweater off and hung it on the back of my chair.

Evidently, I had slipped my car keys into the pocket of the sweater.

Which I remembered when I was at the Eastgate Park and Ride. Staring into my locked car.

I had to call Daniel to come rescue me. 

Crikey. Maybe I need to start taking gingko or something. Stuff is starting to fall through the large holes in the Swiss cheese that is my brain.

I appreciate you sharing your whizzy dreams with me. I feel much better knowing I'm not the only one who has them. Even my own mom admitted to having them. She has a really strange variant--she finds a bathroom, but it's too tiny to squeeze into! That's pretty funny, especially since my mom is pretty darn small.

Zombies. Right., Mr. cynickal. I dream about those too. They're never really scary dreams, though. They're kinda fun. I'm usually blowing zombies' heads off with a shotgun, or knocking their blocks off with a baseball bat. I think it's my brain's way of playing Doom in my sleep. Y'know. So I don't actually hurt anybody.

Scuse me. I really have to pee.

Cut for your protection:

Why yes! Yet more eBay stuff!

INCLUDING...a set of anthologies with a story by our very own yvonnenavarro! (I've got another copy and yer not getting THAT one, bubba.)

If you know any hearse drivers, pass the link along,wouldja? I've got some great hearse stuff this time around.

Sincerely,

Loris "Would Sell Her Nose Ring For Gas Money" O'Possum

Do you like crime movies?
Do you like Stephen Dorff?
Do you like surprises?
Do you like gore?
Do you like funny gore? 

Go rent a movie called "Botched." Do not read the back of the box. Do not go to IMDB and read the plot summary. Do not talk to anybody about it first. If you have Netflix, you can stream it. Do not read the description. Just watch it.

Yes. I'm being very bossy. But as amusing as this flick was to me, it would have been even more fun if I hadn't known a damn thing about it.

Just a warning. It's very silly. And very bloody. But I laughed like a loon through the whole thing.  

So things totally suck at work right now. I've had to work late all week. Not that I'm lazy or anything. I've worked in the tech industry for a really long time. I know that death marches happen. But I was right in the middle of a drywall project at home when this latest work shitstorm hit, and so I've had to put the construction aside for a few days. I HATE that. Once I've got a head of steam on a project, I like to finish it. In fact, I'm almost maniacal about it. (What, Lorelei? Maniacal?)

I checked out the weather forecast and saw that it's going to be in the high 80's for the rest of the week. YIKES bad news--the screen door on our bedroom was ripped to pieces by our puppies last year. So I stopped by Home Depot on the way home and bought some (supposedly) dogproof screen. This stuff is really heavy plastic, and harder than HELL to spline. It took me almost two hours to finish the freaking door. I had to literally hammer the spline into the channel, inch by inch. It sucked. Okay it was sort of fun, after sitting on my ass at my desk all day. But it still sort of sucked.

Not trusting the dogproof screen entirely, I also attached a piece of (steel) hardware cloth to the bottom half of the door. It's not exactly attractive, but it's doing the job. Yeah I know you can buy premade pet screens to attach to screen doors, but they cost about $30.00 as opposed to the five bucks I paid for the bigass roll of hardware cloth. And I have plenty left over to fence in my fruit trees so the dogs don't eat them.

Tired. Going to bed now. But at least I fixed something wtih my hands today. That always makes me feel better.

 I know, I haven't posted in awhile.

MISS ME????

Just hella busy with the day job, and eBay, and kids, and drywall, and stuff like that. You know.

I got really behind, didn't I. I missed

westonochse's birthday! I hope you had a GREAT one!

The kids are out of school for the summer. It's finally getting to be lovely weather here, and I'm freakin' stuck at work. But I'm listening to the late and ever-awesome George Carlin, so things are OK.

 

More later. Some movie stuff, and so on. Now I have to go archive some files. OH THE EXCITEMENT!!!

 gone baby gone

This morning, as Daniel and I were waking up together, I snuggled against him and told him "Happy Father's day."

"Thank you," he mumbled, still mostly asleep.

"Thank YOU for filing me with your demon seed and producing our devilspawn."

Well, now he was awake. (Wicked leer) "My pleasure..."

The rest of this scene has been omitted to protect your delicate sensibilites. 

Y'know. So you don't hurl. 

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, all you daddies out there!

 And not just to people I know.

I fell asleep on the bus yesterday. Now that I'm using the Issaquah Transit Center, I just take one bus, and it literally goes from one end of the line to the other. 45 minutes of uninterrupted reading, writing, or sleeping time.

Well, I was tired yesterday, so I put up my hood, leaned against the window, and crashed. Usually when I nap on the bus, it's more like a catnap. I open an eye every time the bus stops or turns a corner. Not this time. I must have been REALLY tired, because I was OUT baby.

I woke up with the bus driver rudely poking me in the shoulder and yelling "Ma'am! You're downtown! This is the end of the line! You have to get off the bus!" I turned around and looked at him, thinking he probably needed less caffeine in his life, and he jumped backwards! "Uh, sorry," I mumbled, still half asleep. I got off the bus, leaving my book behind by accident (dammit).

While walking the rest of the way to work, I thought "That bus driver was such a jerk! Geez!" Then I got to thinking about what he may have experienced in the past. Why do people sleep on busses? Well, usually because they're tired, like me. But sometimes because they're drunk, or on drugs. Maybe they're trying to live on the bus and hoping nobody notices. Even if they're just asleep, they might be like Scary Sandwich Guy and start flinging baloney and obscenities at you when they wake up.

So I don't blame the driver for his brusque manner. He's gunshy. I do think it's kind of funny, though, that he was poking me with one finger like a little boy might poke a slightly flat animal by the side of the road. Is it dead? Will it get up? Will it burst open? EWWWWWW!

When they find out what I just did.

I was listening to AM1090. Love me the Thom Hartman. But today he had on Pete Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Now, Pete's an awesome guy. Liberal to the core. Total populist, caring, decent dude. But he answered every question he got over the phone with a SONG. No. Really. Odd, updated versions of "If I Had a Hammer" and "Blowin' in the Wind" and even (Dog help me) "Puff the Magic Dragon."

I very nearly plunged a pair of pens into my ears, Kakihara-style, just to make it stop.

So I shut off my stream and pulled up Rhapsody. Now I'm blaring the most offensive music I can find to clear out my brain. It's definitely helping.

I'm a liberal. Really. But I'm not a goddam flower child. I like my protest songs to be of the pissed-off variety.

The Issaquah Transit Center is open for business!

Well, sort of. The big huge garage won't open until July. But you can park across the street in a crappy wet gravel lot. Which I am quite willing to do, because it means I don't have to drive on the freeway at all to get to work, thereby saving myself loads of gas.

I haven't thought about gas this much since Fenris was a baby with colic.

And here are a few more weird bus tales.

The other day a guy in his mid-30's got a call on a quiet 3rd street bus. He answered, and promptly told the caller "You've caught me at a really bad time. I'm actually on a roof." This caused both me and the bus driver to let out snorts of laughter. Lying Boy glared at us--I guess there weren't supposed to be giggling women on his roof.

Now, I'm not a big fan of talking on my cell phone on the bus. But I usually end the conversation at "You've caught me at a bad time, I'll call you back." I've never really felt the need to elaborate with a weird lie. But perhaps I'll start. So the next time you call me, you'll understand if I tell you I'm in a space station or a submarine.

This morning there was a tired-looking middle-aged blond lady on the bus. Very normal-looking. Y'know, compared to me, anyway. When her stop came up, she shifted in her seat and her jacket fell open, revealing the Coolest T-shirt Ever. It read "Celebrating 666 Years of the Black Death." And it had a rat wearing a party hat on it!  WANT!

This afternoon on my way home, a family of German toursits got onto the 99 waterfront line. Mom, Dad, and a beautiful teenage girl about 15. She had milk-pale skin and pale gray eyes, not to mention lovely, delicate bone structure. Kid looked like she could have played an elf in Lord of the Rings with no makeup. But this story isn't about her.

The mom and dad said "hi" to me politely. They didn't seem to speak much English. They were chatting quietly together in German, when a guy behind me got a phone call. He answered it, and started YELLING into the phone. Before I even had time to cringe, German Mom whipped around and shook her finger at him, making that WSHSSST! noise that the Dog Whisperer makes to chronic rug-soilers. Then just to make sure he got the message, she said very clearly (but not loudly), "Dat iz too loud." He gaped at her, then hung up! I grinned at her and said "You're my hero!" I'm not sure she knew what I said, but she grinned back and patted me on the shoulder.

I'm gonna try that Dog Whisperer thing on the next obnoxious bus rider I come across. Wow!

 The new horror TV show "Fear Itself" debuted tonight, and my freakin' sattelite service lost the channel. It's been off the air all evening.

Oh well. "Dr. Giggles" is on the Chiller channel and "Habit" is on IFC, so at least I have something gruesome to watch.

I love "Dr. Giggles." It's such a goofy, over-the-top slasher. and Larry Drake is AWESOME. 

And "Habit"...what can I say, I love me the Larry Fessendon. OOH he sent me an email awhile back! A real email! Personally! From him! I'm such a geeky fangirl. I love the fact that the intarwebs can connect you up with artists you really admire. I saved that email. SIGH!

And yes, I AM spamming LJ. I seem to do that when I'm stressed. It makes me feel better. And hey, there's no law saying you have to read my blah-blah-blah bullshit!

Speaking of bullshit, here are some horrible insults from around the world!

 My adorable pup Jack has been having some allergy problems lately. He's chewed raw patches in his skin, and rubbed his muzzle until he looks like Rudolph the Red Nosed Pitbull. We took him to the vet, and they put him on Benadryl and some antibiotics for the skin infection he'd picked up. He's doing better, the infection is gone, but he still has itching fits now and then, and he's still scraping his nose. Anybody know of anything topical I can put on him to soothe his skin? Of course, it has to be non-toxic, since he'll prolly lick it off in about 30 seconds.

There's nothing sorrier-looking than a motheaten puppy. Orion asked me "Are you sure he doesn't have mange?"

(We're sure. We had a skin scraping done.)

 Yes, you already knew that. But I am a particularly awful jerk for forgetting to wish fatcooka happy birthday.

I hope you had a great one, gurl!!!!