Boooooooooooooo!

We're off to trick or treat!!! See ya later!

Thursday Portrait

I like this picture because I'm just chillin between posing as a fashion model. Yes, you are right, I am getting a little portly. Time to "ease up on the linguine." First one to guess which film that is from wins a prize. No googling IMDB!

I'm having so much fun right now selling lots of clothes. Sometimes I just can't believe it! They like me, they really like me.

PS I know I am a day early but it's just a habit left over from HNT days. I'm heading over to G~mans now because he's got the velveeta!

Have a good day, y'all!

Mispelled Misspelled Words of Wisdom

Little Rita's birthday weekend was a smashing success. She and 7 of her girlfriends hung out over here on Saturday afternoon before being shuttled off to the movies to see Nightmare Before Christmas 3D version. Of course being the kid that I am, I had to go too! Problem is, as some of you know, I am amblyopic. Just means only one eye works. That makes the 3D thing a little odd for me. I had the strangest tugging sensation on my "bad eye" when I put on those glasses as that eye was trying it's dangdest to do the 3D experience.
Needless to say, things were not so 3D for me, but still it was fun sitting one row behind the girls, watching them devour three huge bags of popcorn, two bags of fun size candy bars and various beverages. Do you have any idea the noise that 8 girls can make while busily munching popcorn and unwrapping crackly caramel wrappers?

So that was totally fun, but while we're on the subject of food, let's back up here to the party before the movie. Now being that I have only one kid, and a skinny rail of one at that, I am never quite prepared for the volumes of foods these 12 and 13 year old girls can put away! Before the party the fridge was jampacked with cake, brie, schmears(!), strawberries, chocolate, ice cream, etc....and after, it was like Mother Hubbards cupboard, i'm tellin' you!

Simply amazing.

Little Rita loves her laptop. Now if her not so computer savvy parents can figure out this wifi thing, she'll be online in....well, in....as soon as we can figure it out!

In other news, I had a fun day at the market. Did ok, not fantastic, but good. Mostly it was a beautiful 85 degree day and perfect for hanging out in our town square listening to some really fantastic Ghanan drummers and dancers too. We have a fairly sizable Ghanan community in our town, and they are just such wonderfully lovely people. Many are multi talented dancers, drummers, and basket weavers, and they really liven up our market!

After the market we had our annual meeting. I am the president so I hadda make uh speech! You know, funny thing, when people find out that I am the president of the board of the farmers market, they give me freee tomatoes and stuff. Quite a few people have asked me if I can get them a booth in the market. With a little coaching from Gary, I have learned to smile and say, "I am just an elected official." :P It works. We blame everything on the market manager, and afterall, she gets paid, and she really is the boss, so that's just the way it goes. The rest of us are just elected officials.
So now I have that lovely Monday morning feeling when the kid is at school, the hubby is too, and I am just here, hanging out with the cats. Ahhhhh! Nice. Time to pop open an icey coke and enjoy my space.

And now I will leave you with these misspelled words of wisdom left on a bench near my market booth and brought to you by some local punk rampant. Also notice upside down martian head. Cool.

Wishing you a lovely Monday!

Thursday Portrait

Happy 12th Birthday, Little Rita!

Guess what we got our straight A student for her gift?

Shhh! Don't tell her til after school!

A Family Reunion

So, this weekend the three of us loaded up the car and drove to LA for my parents 50th wedding anniversary party. We were sorta hoping to fly down, but it costs more to fly from SFO to LAX than it did for each of my 15 Canadian cousins to fly down from Ontario! So drive we did. Snnnnorrrrre! Can't someone change the scenery on the 5?

Did you all know that the central valley in California is the breadbasket of the nation? That might not be the official title but it really is. One would think that 500 miles of crops would be a scenic lovely rural thing, well let me tell you, on that scale it's nothing but smelly!
Ok so, let us start the tour with the hotel room. Being the traveling family that we are, Little Rita is completely accustomed to hotel room rituals such as take out pizza eaten from the box while sitting on the sleazy bedspread watching cartoons or whatever else is on TV that prior to the '08 Olympics, we were seriously deprived of. Other rituals include not letting the maid in no matter how messy the room gets, using all the towels and beauty products provided, and jumping on the bed. In these pictures we are passing a football "kitty" and trying to catch it on camera. Took about 50 tries.....After about 20 minutes we heard pounding on the floor/ceiling.....oh, oops! We forgot we were on the 3rd floor!

So then off we went to my moms house where we reunited with relatives and friends of ours that I have known my entire lifetime. I almost don't know what to say. It was so awesome. I saw cousins that I hadn't seen since I was 8 years old, uncles and aunts, friends of my parents that have known me since I was an small child. There were so many people there that I knew, I barely could figure out who I wanted to spend this precious time with.

Ok here we have from Right to Left because it'll be easier that way, my dad, then mom, then LR, Me and Gary above. Right next to Gary is my baby brother, J. Ok then over there on the far left, that is my sister, J, and everyone in the middle is her kids and 2 grandsons. Believe it or not, one son is missing. He's 15, and he was texting! LOL Now I'd say that of the 75ish people that came, about 60 of us were related. I am hoping that one of my cousins will send some more pics my way this week.

What's that up there in the sky, Susan? It's a bird, it's a plane. These are my second parents when I was growing up, and my very best childhood friend, Susan. Yes, we were quite the pair on our street, Susie and Susan. With barefeet and rollerskates we wore a dent in the sidewalk between our two houses. Most weekends and just about every night in the summer, we were never sure which house we would sleep at, but one thing we all knew, was that Susan and I would be spending the night together, listening to music, making jigsaw puzzles, watching all night movies and eating candy.

Susan and Gary chill in the pool room. Eventually, everyone under 30, and some of their cooler parents, ended up having their own good times in the pool hall!

My Canadian cousin, another Susan, who I had not seen since I was 8 and she 6, my mom (a canuck too!) , and my cousin Lynn, also from Canada.

Susan and Susie again. The cousins version this time. Now, I have spent zero time with this woman in my adult life, andyou know what? It's high time I did! My god, my shoulders are fabulous, aren't they? : p

So I will end with this fun picture which is my sister and her 2 daughters, me and my daughter.

I am feeling verklempt. More pictures later, but I just wanna say, that next summer my sister turns 30 (haha!), and all the chicks are meeting in Las Vegas. 25 girl cousins, sisters, hip moms and friends in Las Vegas! No husbands allowed. You know what they say about Vegas...
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Thursday Portrait

Someones gotta model the fashions!

Have a lovely Thursday!

PS That's not a mustache, it's chocolate.

Mona Monday

Hee hee! I couldnt resist, Monaji!

I will bet that Mona doesn't want to be VP of India even though she can see the Taj from her house!

In other news, had a fantastic weekend at the market. My fleece hoodys are selling very well this time of year, and so that is what I will be sewing this week as I am nearly sold out of them. Not complaining at all!

Sunny and very windy sky sent only one poor vendors canopy flying through the air! Man, I hate when that happens, because a bent by the wind canopy is a $200 disaster. People ran from everywhere trying to grab onto one of the four legs before one of them landed through a car window or someones head! After watching that disaster, this week I will be making some new sandbags.

All is well on the home front. Little Rita seems to have calmed down a bit. I suppose this is going to be a monthly mood swing freakout thing.....suppose? Know. We are women.

Have a lovely week!

One

Sometimes you run across a really good sounding thing on 'tube. This is one of my all time favourite tunes. I hope you will enjoy it.
REM & U2 live
ONE

And in other very important factual news:

Now darn it, Jooe, there you go again! If you'd like yer own button:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vt_related_2&listing_id=15861456

Have a lovely weekend!

Thursday Portrait

Here we have part two of the yurt tour. If a picture paints a thousand words, how many paints a video? I know, I'm just a lazy ass. No really, I have been working very hard. If'n you don't believe me, just go check out the new stuff on my sidebar there. See, I cleaned my room just for you. So next time someone asks Mojo what a yurt is, well darnit, he's gonna know!

I apologize because, yes, I do have a nasally wierd voice. I like to blame that on my nearly deaf mom.

Seriously, do you have any idea what it's like having your cell phone tell you over and over and over that there is "no match found" to retrieve my voice activated voice mail?

Anyway, Gupta doesn't care what my voice sounds like.

Have a lovely day!

Stagger Into The Light

Hey Bryan, (and my other three fine readers), now you can listen to this really cool not live unavailable on video Joan Wasser song! I have included the lyrics. Hope you'll enjoy it.

http://www.joanaspolicewoman.com/music/japwintolight.html

Stagger into the light

I do

Want every night

To feel like the eagle in flight

I do

And if you feel like you might

Want to share this with me

Well, I beckon you

To me

This is an attempt to recover

The stone in the gold

And the ice, ever-crystalline

And the oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

That acts like its lost its place

In this warring world

Listen to me

Stagger into the light

Stagger into the light

The earth is child

Treat her tonight as if she were infant

And you're her first springtime

Remember the human piece

Rips like tissue when trying to get the gift

This gift

This is an attempt to recover

The song in the reed

How it bends to become you

And the oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

That acts like it's lost it's place

In this warring world

Listen to me

Stagger into the light

Stagger into the light

Oh-Stagger into the light

Cause I do

Feel like tonight could be every night

For forever

And I know you feel the same wayI do, I do

Send your eyes my way

We'll recover the warmth of the dirt

And the shine in the salty air

And the oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

That acts like it's lost it's place

In this warring world

Stagger into the light

Stagger into the light

Oh, Stagger into the light

Musical Monday

Here we have a little live Joan As Police Woman from the Bowery in NYC 2 weeks ago. Some of you are just gonna hate her voice, but I just love Joan. My goodness what a gal.

Furious

Furious

Why don't you save your soul

Let loose your dogs of war

Abandon your done capital

Burn all your flags and hold onto

Hold onto nothing

And the stones in your stomach

Become a part of the sea

And the mark that your footprint leaves

In the sand starts to lighten

And finally whispers

Whispers

"I am gone"

Don't wait for the last page

Don't wait for your final breath

Don't wait for the pendulum to drop

It swings so low today

Don't wait, don't wait for nothing

And you'll wrap up the tears

Of forty thousand gone

Who wish they'd acted out

When they had time

And they had voice

To tempt the furies

The furies are not gone

Are you not furious

Are you not furious

Are you not furious

Are you not furious

Furious

Wait for, wait for, for what

Wait for, wait for, for what

Are you not furious

Are you not furious, enough

Are you not furious

Are you not furious

~

In other news, Sunday at the market was sunny, lovely and fun, and I made some dough, too. Rainclouds threatened but did not produce! A client brought me a pile of white fur to make her son a polar bear suit for Halloween. I just love making costumes!

As for the home front, things are a little tense as Little Rita is quickly becoming Bigger Than Mom Rita with the sass to match. Somehow, I always come out looking like the bad guy when it comes to discipline around here. Someone is having a birthday in three weeks and has requested the red carpet and the kitchen sink. I said let's compromise, dad says, give her everything she wants. I say with whose millions? Well, it's going to be with dads millions then, isn't it? So, you can all just call me grumpy face for asking my daughter to feed her cats and pick up her half dozen pair of socks lying all around the house. Goodness knows I can be unreasonable sometimes. It's tough being the bad cop, but someone's gotta do it.

And well, that's about it. Have a lovely week.

In Which We Ponder The Question, "WTF Is a Yurt Anyway?"

Three years ago we built our second yurt and it became our bedroom. It's totally cool and roundy inside, as I will show you later. But I have recently been asked the age old question, "WTF is a yurt?" What's that you say, Mojo, sir? Blog fodder?! Just what I needed. Hurray.
~

What The Fuck Is a Yurt by Susie

Just let me say, that erecting a yurt on a hillside, and then sleeping comfortably in there, now that has to be a challenge. Now I could go on and on about Mongolian yurts, gerts, gers or whatever you wanna call them, but you can learn more about those over at Wiki.

So if after those visuals you now know what a yurt is, and have work to do, you can go on!

Otherwise, I'm gonna keep going on about my yurt, OK?

Ya gotta get it right otherwise yer yurts gonna be crooked!

Don't let anyone ever tell ya you can't make a yurt, because dad gummit, ya can!

You can see yurt number one cum workshop cum storage outbuildin'in the background there. (haha Mona, that word always cracks me up!)

This picture gives you a pretty good idea of how I have to run across that deck (which I also built, thank you) in the middle of the night, through rain, snow, sleet, and skunk spray to get to the bathroom which thank fully is in the house. OK wait, now that I have my glasses on, I see that the deck hasnt been built yet, but you can see it in the last picture. Yes, I said skunk spray. Now that's another story but let me just sidetrack and say that last week OUR skunk (grrrr!) sprayed Oaty and then I picked her up...(ooh more blog fodder!)

We invited some friends over to "see our new yurt." Always make sure you invite friends that know how to make stuff, and share well. Just saying.
As you can see, it worked. The help has arrived just in time! So now let's jump to the finished product! Ta Da!

Now believe it or not, this post took me over an hour, so Mojo, you are gonna have to wait for part two, the inside of the yurt. That will give me more time to collect/edit "the bedroom" pictures. But I will tell you that a friend of ours once remarked that our yurt looked "just like the inside of an i dream of genie bottle!" Sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it? Stay tuned.

Have a lovely day!

...Remembering Gandhiji...