Things That Make Me Go Hmmmm...

If you paint a Lawn Jockey white...

(with Arian blue eyes and Revlon red lips?)

Does it make it

more

or

less

"PC"?

Reports From a Miami Zoo....

"The park's big cat problems started around noon, spokeswoman Ashley Serrate told the Miami Herald, when two trainers were carrying a gibbon named Watson past the tiger enclosure in a travel kennel. Unfortunately, the monkey's kennel had a broken lock, and Watson escaped. Salivating at the sight of the tasty simian, Mahesh -- who weighs around 500-600 pounds -- bounded over the 14-foot fence that separates Jungle Island's three cats from the public. "

OBVS...

...to take a Road Trip you need more than a map and a car! I have begun a Wish List of things I think I need (see partial list at right)...

Here is my list in picture form! Any thoughts, comments or suggestions?? Do you have a favorite GPS unit? What camera would you get? What book would you most like to listen to?

a collapsible crate for Rip, Opal car charger, Jaws on CD, a proper camera, a GPS unit, portable breakfast maker (which ideally comes with car adapter!), Malteaster Bunnies, a tape recoder (for the genius ideas the road will pull out of me), and a cooler (with or without large fella)

One More from the Hamptons....

Some Hamptons Fun!

The Tale of Melania....

Imagine being the long suffering, older sister of an evil villain. It is hard enough being the long suffering, older sister of any sibling- lawyer, priest, serial killer. When your sibling casts a long shadow- the light is hard to find. But imagine how long the shadow is if your sister is an evil villain….

Imagine that your sister is the subject of many a child’s nightmare- a striking woman with the ability to turn into a dragon. A woman so powerful that an entire kingdom had to be put to sleep to wait her anger out. A woman so very brazen, so very strong, so very well... pissed- that she has to be portrayed by a man at theme parks. That’s a helluva woman. Now, imagine being HER sister.

Would you ever get more Christmas gifts if your sister could curse you? Not with a word but an actual curse? Would you get asked to the prom if the boys knew your sister could make any prick powerful? Would you ever smile if you knew that someday they would talk of making a movie about your sister in which she was portrayed by Angelina Jolie? Angelina. Frickin. Jolie. Would you even stand a chance of ever being anything but melancholy?

“Melancholy (as defined in 1785) is that state of alienation or weakness of mind which renders people incapable of enjoying the pleasures, or performing the duties of life. It is a degree of insanity, and often terminates in absolute madness.” How could you ever be in any other state? Always wanting people to look at you but also sure all eyes were waiting to see if you were an evildoer, too…. Longing for roses but sure of the thorns...

Oh, Melania- you never stood a chance....

tale by: yours truly...

magnificent art by: Sans Pantaloons-

who allowed me the GREAT honor of naming his lovely, sad, longing Lady

Ripley Has Arrived!

and Ripley seems to like her!

Ripley The Rhino comes from Charming Pets Safari Collection!

Charmed, I'm sure!

I know I am! And Ripley is, too! But, I think, mainly ME!!

We got Pearl first (the pig) and then I found the sheep (who doesn't seem to have a name but I call her Sheeps). Jay spotted Digby, the duck in the Hamptons and Hazel, the horse came from ebay. Yep. I want them all.

They make the funniest noise. I love them!

www.charmingpetproducts.com

Like '66? How You Like '00?!

LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND!!

It's a rhino dog toy (I heart rhinos!) and it's name? RIPLEY! (I heart Ripley!)

it is on the way to our house!!

The Behemoth!

Inspired by The Great Food Truck Race on the Food Network- Jay and I decided to recreate a burger. It is the original creation of the Grill 'Em All truck (based out of LA) and theirs also included beer soaked onions and bacon. Being that Jay is underage and I hate 'em- we opted to forgo said beer soaked onions and we didn't have bacon. So, I give you OUR Behemoth...

A cheese burger served on two grilled cheese sandwiches!! It was

G O O D!

Wanna watch with us and try your own hand at stuff? Click here: The Great Food Truck Race

Live in LA and wanna get your own? More info & sched here: Grill 'Em All

WTF?! Moment of the Week!

Last night, Ripley's had a surprise visit from her BFF, Dexter. She often does. The two pups play, race around, fight over the same ball, and are just ridiculously cute together. People often stop to comment and coo as Amanda (Dexter's Mama) and I chat away....

It was just getting dark when they stopped by last night and I was telling Amanda how some chick walking by earlier and went to open the gate to let Ripley out to play with her dog with a, "you don't mind if she comes out?" I almost punched her in the face as I DID in fact mind. In the never ending sitcom that is my life, she then gave me her card. She's a dog walker. It should come as no surprise that I threw the card out. So, I am telling Amanda this and we are chuckling away at what fucking retards people are when we both notice the ass who runs the As'toria Deli across the street struggling to keep his toddler grandchild out of the way of oncoming traffic. Apparently, the kid wanted to see Dex & Rip up close and Grandpa assumed the cars should not be driving through Jr's walk way. "The fucking retards just keep coming", Amanda & I chuckled astoundedly.

THEN Grandass walked the kid over shouting "doggy" and other words in Korean. The pups ran over to the fence in their usual cute way to greet the kid. Grandloser's response? TO TRY AND OPEN MY GATE AND LET JR IN TO PLAY! He didn't say anything just DID IT!! I slapped the latch down and said no. Amanda grabbed the dogs. We looked at each other in horror. At which point, Grandfuck waved at us and.... LEFT!!! WENT BACK ACROSS THE STREET TO THE DELI!! Jr?? Still at my fucking fence trying to reach thru to the pups. Amanda and I stood there, incredulous for easily 3 minutes wondering if Granddick was coming back or what. At which point, I told her to hold the pups and scooped up the kid- who was more than a little resistant to the strange woman who doesn't speak his language picking him up- and brought him across the street to the deli. Granddouche was just coming out, maybe to come back & get the kid or maybe just to grab the paper, and I shoved the kid at him with a stern- "you can't leave your kid at my fence. It is NOT OK." He just smiled his stoner, fuckwit smile and shouted, "thank you, thank you. He rike dogs."

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?! I think Amanda and I just stared at each other, gobsmacked, for another 15 minutes before we called it a night and took our pups to their rightful corners. If I was a different person, I would have shuffled Amanda and Dexter into the house for a cocktail and left that kid by the fence faster than his Grandprick did. But I am not. I am, however, horrified. I rarely enter As'toria Deli anyway. The punctuation in their title alone pisses me off. But then, the fact that I already thought this guy was annoying and crappy, cemented it. Plus, I am fairly certain it is a drug front anyway as I can often get a contact high by walking by it in the morning. But now? I will never set foot in the place again and I will encourage the neighborhood folk that pause to chat with Ripley not to either.

Seriously. WTF?!?!

Ripley Has Done It Again!

She has a bruised pad and a deep cut on her paw. Insane.

I Gotta Dyson!!

Long have I coveted the Dyson. The Ex's landlady had one and I think I hoovered every day! I hoover whenever I am at my Sis's house, too! (alright, that is a slight exaggeration)....

And just about a week or so ago- I got my own!!! Dyson is pretty and red and has a big ball and sucks like a champ! I LOVE him. Ripley? Not so much. But she likes that when Dyson comes out, she gets treats so there's that! See- here she is barking with barely contained excitement for Dyson/treats!

That's the good news. The bad? What Dyson has really taught me is that I need a new rug. I got the rug that is in my living room at IKEA when I first moved in. It is cream colored and really suits the room- blending my chocolate brown sofas and the BFG tiles delightfully. It is also filthy!! No one should get light colored carpets. (For the record- the Ex picked it)

I remember when I was a freshman in college, my Dad remodeled our living room- out went the brown 70s paneling and brown & orange shag carpet of my youth and in came a lot of white colors! My Mom was thrilled and then a bit of a dictator about her carpets! At the time, I thought her "no shoes, no dirty bare feet, no socks that had recently been on feet in work boots" rules were a bit insane! But looking down at my carpet right now? I get it! I could blame Ripley (and she is too blame for some of the mess) but I am to blame as well.

Family legend tells a tale of a time when my college boyfriend and I were in the living room, how shall I say, fooling around?, when my younger brother came barreling into the house. I shouted to him to stay in the kitchen (and thus give T & I time to right ourselves) and Jeff not knowing why, asked if we had spilled ketchup on the carpet!! Clearly, my Mom was nothing if not good at getting Jeff and I to fear her Stained Carpet Wrath!!

SOOOOO.... I just got some carpet tile samples from Flor! Flor sells carpet tiles that you stick together and then put down! Allowing you to be super creative with your choices and clean the tiles individually if needed!! Plus, Anne has one so, now I want one, too! I am liking the notion of a black carpet with one random scarlet square (as it is my accent color).

What do you think?? You can't see it in this pic but the black has a cool weave to it so it isn't as solid colored as it looks!

Look At This!!!

DALTON GHETTI CREATES MINIATURE MASTERPIECES on the tips of pencils. Dalton, who works as a carpenter, and has been making his tiny graphite works for about 25 years.

The 49 year old said: “At school I would carve a friend’s name into the wood of a pencil and then give it to them as a present. Later, when I got into sculpture, I would make these huge pieces from things like wood, but decided I wanted to challenge myself by trying to make things as small as possible. I experimented sculpting with different materials, such as chalk, but one day I had an eureka moment and decided to carve into the graphite of a pencil.”

Dalton uses three basic tools to make his incredible creations – a razor blade, sewing needle and sculpting knife. He even refuses to use a magnifying glass and has never sold any of his work, only given it away to friends. He said: “I use the sewing needle to make holes or dig into the graphite. I scratch and create lines and turn the graphite around slowly in my hand.”

The longest Dalton has spent on one piece was two and half years on a pencil with interlinking chains. A standard figure will take several months. He said: “The interlinking chains took the most effort and I was really pleased with it because it’s so intricate people think it must be two pencils.”

When Dalton, from Connecticut, USA, first started he would become frustrated when a piece would break before being finished—especially after he had spent months working on it. He said: “It would drive me mad when I would be just a bit too heavy handed and the pencil’s tip would break. I would get very nervous sometimes, particularly when the piece was almost finished, and then I would make a mistake. I decided to change the way I thought about the work – when I started a new piece my attitude would be ‘well this will break eventually but let’s see how far I get. It helped me break fewer pencils, and although I still do break them, it’s not as often.”

Ghetti, who is originally from Brazil, has a box full of more than 100 sculptures that have broken while working on them that he affectionately calls ‘the cemetery collection’. He said: “I have quite a few broken pieces so I decided to glue them on pins and into styrofoam for a display case. People might think it’s weird I keep them but they’re still interesting. I worked on them for months so they might be dead now but at one point I gave them life.”

ps... thanks, Mom- for sharing this! Hope you like the added info! :)

Maybe you want it in video form?

Photo Shoot + Mapquest =

1. Start out going NORTHEAST go 0.0 mi 2. Turn RIGHT go 0.0 mi 3. Turn RIGHT go 0.1 mi 4. Merge onto I-278 E (Portions toll). go 2.5 mi 5. Merge onto I-87 N / MAJOR DEEGAN EXPY viaEXIT 47 on the LEFT toward ALBANY. go 3.1 mi 6. Take the I-95 / US-1 / CROSS BRONX EXPWYexit, EXIT 7N-S, toward NEW HAVEN / TRENTON. go 0.2 mi 7. Merge onto I-95 S / US-1 S / CROSS BRONX EXPY via EXIT 7S on the LEFT toward G WASHINGTON BR / TRENTON. go 0.5 mi Do a LOT of driving.... ...and then.... 19. Turn LEFT onto US-30 / BUTTON BRIDGE RD /MT HOOD HWY. go 0.1 mi 20. Turn RIGHT onto US-30 / OR-35 / BUTTON BRIDGE RD / MT HOOD HWY. go 0.0 mi 21. Stay STRAIGHT to go onto US-30 / OR-35 /BUTTON BRIDGE RD / MT HOOD HWY. Continue to follow OR-35. go 38.6 mi 22. Merge onto US-26 W / MT HOOD HWY towardPORTLAND. go 15.3 mi 23. Turn LEFT go 0.1 mi 24. WELCHES!! go 0.0 mi