Musical Monday

Conor Oberst, live in Vancouver 7/08, lady and gentleman.

Have a lovely holiday!

55 Flash Fiction Friday

Some guys have all the luck

Some guys have all the pain

Some guys get all the breaks

Some guys do nothing but complain
Alone in a crowd on a bus after work

And Im dreaming

The guy next to me has electric lime in his arms

My arms are empty
The 150 box! :O

Ok todays 55 is for Bryan who has managed to be the first to snatch up the coveted prize, photograph and boastfully display it for his post today. Bravo, Bryan! I knew I should have bought that telescoping 120 pack when I was in Tar Jay the other day.....

So, it probably won't surprise you, but I have discovered that adults love crayons, don't we? If'n you do not believe this, simply read the comments from the past weeks crayon posts, and I dare you to admit, photograph and post your new box of crayons because I know you are gonna go out and get one!

I also have coloring books in my "den", Bryan. Well done, sir, and happy coloring to you!

Well, what are you waiting for? Tarjay is open already. Go get your crayons!

Thursday Portrait & Crayola Mystery Solved

Mwah! I just love my kitty!

So here we have the email that I received from Crayola in regard to our missing electric lime crayon. I was sorta hoping they would offer to send me an electric lime crayon of my very own...sigh.

Dear Susie,

Thank you for your recent inquiry.The color "electric lime" can be found in a 120 count Crayon Box. Below are the 120 different crayon colors that are included in the Crayola 120-count Crayon Box.

almondantique brassapricotaquamarineasparagusatomic tangerinebanana maniabeaverbittersweetblackblueblue bellblue greenblue violetbrick redbrink pink (new name - pink sherbet)brownburnt orangeburnt siennacadet bluecanarycaribbean greencarnation pinkceriseceruleanchestnutcoppercornflowercotton candycranberry (new name - blush)dandeliondenimdesert sandeggplantelectric limefernforest greenfuchsiafuzzy wuzzy browngoldgoldenrodgranny smith applegraygreengreen yellowhot magentainch wormindigo jazzberry jam jungle greenlaser lemonlavendermacaroni and cheesemagentamahoganymanateemango tangomaroonmauvelousmelonmidnight bluemountain meadownavy blueneon carrotolive greenorangeorchidouter spaceoutrageous orangepacific bluepeachperiwinklepig pink (new name - piggy pink)pine greenpink flamingoplumpurple heartpurple mountains' majestypurple pizzazzradical redraw siennarazzle dazzle roserazzmatazzredred orangered violetrobin's egg blueroyal purplesalmonscarletscreamin' greensea greensepiashadowshamrockshocking pinksilversky bluespring greensunglowsunset orangetantickle me pinktimberwolftropical rain foresttumbleweedturquoise blueunmellow yellowviolet (purple)violet red vivid tangerine vivid violetwhitewild blue yonder wild strawberrywild watermelonwisteriayellow greenyellow orangeyellow

We appreciate your contact. If additional assistance is needed, you may reach us by telephone at (800) 272-9652 weekdays between 9 AM and 4 PM Eastern Time or e-mail by visiting Crayola.com.
Best wishes for a colorful future!
Colorfully yours, bla bla bla

Well there you have it. So thorough!

Have a lovely day!

Afternoon of a Fawn

Hey Guptaji, you've got some pretty cool friends, there!

So we stood inside the house peering at these three for about 10 minutes. The littler fawn came right up to Gupta and they touched noses. The larger fawn, must be a male because he was stomping and sticking his neck/chest out as far as he could, all the while standing right behing the small one.

Now check this out...the deer mirror each others steps.....

Ok I just wanna say I love my cat. I mean, she has already been through a few of her lives and here she is, happy, large, funny, friendly, smart, and I do like her friends a lot too!

BTW, The mom is to the left of the fawns, about 10 feet away. She seemed to be allowing them to play with their new pal while at same time keeping close watch!

Have a lovely day!

Important Announcement

Bryan, there is no Electric Lime in the 96 box selection!

Maybe we should protest?

Little Rita and Susie Get New Crayons

Wow!

Little Rita, lookit what I got at the Rite Aid today just for us me!

Wow mom, thanks! Just what we've I've been wanting lately!

Hmnn, do you think we I should open it or just admire it for awhile?



Well now wait just one second here mom, let's just establish whose crayons these are! I am the kid, afterall.


Cuz you gotta admit, they are worth fighting over. Notice that Little Rita has put these crayons in color order before I could get the shot of how they come when you buy them...took her about 5 minutes before she dumped them out and rearranged them!

Shhhh! I think it's clear who owns this box!


And here we have my favorite color. It's in the orange group of course....Macaroni and cheese, macarrones con queso, macaroni au fromage!!
Have a lovely day!

55 Flash Fiction Friday

The Special Olympics!

They had been training for this all day. Hours of mental preparation were about to pay off. They were of one single mind, purpose, goal. In an explosive fury, they hurtled toward their destination. Only one would get the prize.

Edging out her opponents with an expert elbow jab, the bubblebath would be hers tonight!

This is one of my all time favorite books from when LR was little! With one bathroom, I can certainly relate to this poor mama elephant who just wants five minutes peace!

Have a lovely weekend!

Thursday Portrait

School is back, and now it's just me and the girls.....

~

Not those girls, you big pervs! I'm talking about my sewing machines. Three Berninas, one very hearty 12 year old sewing machine, one most excellent 13 year old serger, and last years acquisition, the new serger that I had to buy when the old one was in the shop for, I kid you not, 6 months waiting for a part! I was trying to come up with names for them, and all I got was Beluga, Cevruga and Ocetra. I think I could use a little help with the names! LOL Now I know this isn't a great photo, but I just do not have time to take another one ok? I'll be getting back to work now. Miss you all, mwah, mwah...ok, ok, i'm going!

Have a lovely day!

I'm sewing...

I found a way to manage the kid until school starts on Wednesday. Feel free to mock and pelt with rotten fruits.

Have a lovely day!

Musical Monday

Gary and I watched High INFidelity for about the 6th time last night. Man, I love that movie. Jack Black and that bald kid that plays "Dick", just crack me up so bad! Jack Black is just perfect in his "don't touch the shirt, it's vintage" role, and Dick is just well, understated and hilarious, and a just little bit of a...you guessed it.

By the way, did you know that a lot of the record store shots were actually filmed in a downtown Seattle LP shop? How do I know this? I was in said shop last summer, and believe you me, I recieved quite the lesson on which scenes were filmed there!

Here though we have one of the funniest scenes from that film and no doubt, the way we all should have behaved in similar situations when the opportunity arose..

Just kidding!



A very special Top Five List:


And then finally, one of my all time favorite tunes from High Fidelity, a little "don't touch the shirt, it's vintage" Stevie Wonder for you!

Have an awesome week!

55 Flash Fiction Friday

This was her 6th visit to Bengaluru, and it was finally time. So when the rickshaw wallah stepped out for some paan, she jumped into the front seat and sped off into the night, leaving the wallah standing there, shocked, red juice dripping from his chin.

"Finally, a rickshaw of my own", she sighed, exhilarated!

Oh what fun, stealing a rickshaw! Lookit, G~man I played my own game! You know, just for fun I looked up "55 Flash Fiction Friday" on Google images...go ahead and once you get there, search through a few pages. I don't know about you, but I find it a little creepy that if you type in 55 Flash Fiction Friday, you would get my face over and over...and some of yours as well!

Anyway.....It really is a dream of mine to commandeer an auto rickshaw of my own. When I was in Jaipur last January, Aslam let me drive his rickshaw through the crowded, narrow streets of the Pink City, past that dead bloated pig I told you about back then. What fun, I tell you!

Have a lovely weekend!

Thursday Portrait

Gosh dangit, these sunflowers is tall!
Hurry up, Mr Gary, I'm fallin' off the wine barrel!

Little Rita and Mr G in Flaaarridah!

Aunt Judy and Little Rita in Miami or some beach ovah theah!
So, can you tell everyone is back and I don't have time to blog now? It's cool, school started for Mr G today and LR goes back in a week. Yay! I say we bloggin parents meet for an online tea party or sumpin' when these brats have all cleared outa here!

In the meanwhile, I have a mountain of sunscreen smellin' laundry to do. Yes Lime, it IS better than 12 year old boy laundry!

Have a lovely day!

Staycation Day 7

Well hello! I've been out picking blackberries all morning because I am avoiding work. I avoided work for two hours, and now I can avoid more by making this post! I think this is about 5 pounds of berries, I gotta start weighing 'em. You can't tell that this container is about 5 inches deep! I had to quit picking because I ran outa room.

One interesting fact about blackberries is that the color of the juice changes as they ripen. Earlier, tart berries are very red and stain your hands and clothes pretty well. Really ripe bursting berry juice is dark purple, more watery and doesn't stain as deeply. Today I got mostly really ripe ones so the stain factor was underwhelming.
Here, in this picture from last August, you can clearly see a purple handprint from really ripe berries, and a redder handprint from sour unripish ones. Thank you Mr Ratburn for modeling. To be honest, I prefer the more sour unripe berries for their drama, but you already know that!

The only reason I am allowing those meats in my freezer in the bottom left hand corner is because I went grocery shopping for a change. Mr Ratburn is going to be eating that meat when he gets back from Florida. To heck with frozen foods like ice cream, ice cubes and meats, this is my blackberry stash freezer and I want all o' you meats outa here by the end of the weekend, ya hear?
Oh yeah, and don't think I don't see those other frozen weird god knows what's that Little Rita has stuffed in there underneath the berries. They are outa here too!
Today I have to get my hedge clippers sharpened so that I can go bushwacking again tonight. If I ain't back by sundown, send in the search party.
Have a lovely weekend!

Thursday Portrait

Today I am

A small blue thing

Like a marble

Or an eye

With my knees against my mouth

I am perfectly round

I am watching you

I am cold against your skin

You are perfectly reflected

I am lost inside your pocket

I am lost against

Your fingers

I am falling down the stairs

I am skipping on the sidewalk

I am thrown against the sky

I am raining down in pieces

I am scattering like light

Scattering like light

Today I am

A small blue thing

Made of china

Made of glass

I am cool and smooth and curious

I never blink

I am turning in your hand

Turning in your hand

Small blue thing

~Suzanne Vega

Fer cryin' out loud, I just wanna cream those blogger guys for this lame spacing. Don't they know we are trying to make art here? I hate the way it's all spread out all crummy like that, sheesh!

Staycation News Day 5

I think those taco bell guys have been taking acid or something......

So today I sewed a lot and then later on, I picked blackberries for 2 hours. I got so stuck in some thorny tree that I had to rip some fair amount of hair outa my head to escape. I felt like Gretel. It has gotten so wild and overgrown out back, that I had to work pretty darned hard wading through waist high grass and thistles, and finally found my two favorite shade berry trees and there they sat, untouched and the vines bursting with ripies!!!!

I picked almost 10 pounds of blackberries all by myself!!!!

And yes, I went to taco bell today. Shhh! Don't tell Mr Ratburn!

I have to go now, there's a spork poking me in the foot.....

A Visit to the Longs....

So today is day three of my "staycation". LOL that word just kills me, because well, my entire homelife has been a staycation, it's just so darn fun living here! Here I am having bachelorette dinner....pizza delivered in a box! YUM!!

As some of you know, on Friday we got cable so now my computer is super fast and as a bonus, we have some television. We decided that we want to watch the Olympics for the first time since we moved here in 1992....so whichever Olympics came last before that. But of course we pick the "lets boycott the Olympics because it's in China and all that" year...so we'll just see! Then, if we haven't totally turned ourselves, or our child into zombies, we might even keep television. Right now though, I'm sorta watching Tyra...and what the heck? What a waste of time....before that I watched Morrie Povitch..man, that dude has gotten old since the last time I saw his show in 1992! What a bunch o crap, i'm telling you!

So after I looked around and noticed that my house was a mess because I am on staycation and therefor do not have to do dishes, pick up my clothes, or clean up all the sewing stuff strewn all over the house, I thought I oughta spend the morning cleaning up a bit and then head over the the store for some unneccessary plastic objects, beauty products and cleaning supplies.

So I headed over to the shampoo section and looked for something not too crappy. I hate drug store shampoo if ya really wanna know, but since I live in the boondocks and the local beauty supply store went out of business... I perused the sorta high end head detergents. There was a mom/teen daughter combo shopping at the other end of the aisle. Suddenly the daughter yells out, "HENNA AND PLACENTA SHAMPOO!!! WHAT? THEY USE PLACEN....."

The moms hand claps over her kids mouth and through gritted teeth, says, "Will you please......."

OMG I thought I was going to fall over on the floor laughing. I had to turn my head, grab my shampoo and run for the checkout stand. I laughed out loud for a good 5 minutes after that. Coulda peed my pants it was so funny! Thank you, little teen, that was just hilarious but I just wanna ask, where do they get that placenta from anyway?

So then on the way to the checkout I was stopped by a sudden olfactory memory. It smelled like warm flowers and reminded me so much of Bangalore. I had to walk back and forth a few times to figure out it was the heat coming from the coke fridge that was heating up some scented beauty products on the "Last Chance" sale shelf. I peered into the shelf to see what could be making that smell and that's when I noticed this:

OK but, you have to understand, it had a sale price, and it said LAST CHANCE! Now, what I wanna know is, why would contraceptive foam be marked down? Was it expired? If so, why buy it? Did it prove ineffective causing unwanted pregnancies? If so, why.... OK no, I have a feeling that this LAST CHANCE item is going to end up in the dumpster out back.

So there you have it.
Have a lovely night! It's time to break out the bachelorette party supplies.

More Pics Of The Old Neighborhood

Venice July 2008

Um..... maybe I dont like that cable guy afterall.....My blog is broken people! Wahhhh!!!!!! I can post, I can comment on your blog, but I cannot go to my blog front page. The message in the dreaded grey box reads:

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site Operation Aborted....any suggestions?

**UPDATE** For now, I have to use firefox.....I have no idea what that means, or if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but if you are having trouble accessing my blog, please use Firefox...it worked for me.
In other news...I have just taken Gary and LR to the airport. They are off to Florida for the week to see dad/grandpa and Aunt Judy. I have an entire week to myself!!! Hurray!! Um, I mean, I will miss them so.
I have just driven from SFO, like, 80 miles, having to pee the entire time! Do you ever have that feeling where you find yourself thinking..."I could pull over and pee there"...."or maybe there"....ok...80 miles worth of that side of the freeway type imagining and can you believe it? I didn't pee until I got into the orchard and ...LOL...ok, I'm like....400 yards from my house but I just had to get out of the car and pee in the orchard because I was dyinggggg! I practically flooded the road! Ok TMI I know, but after that drive I have also had a shot of whiskey or two and I am quite silly.
Have a lovely weekend!

Get Modern!

I heart my cable guy?

Can you say Suuuuupahhhhhh Fast?

Having an online store, and living out in the boonies and all, we thought it was time to get some faster cable service around here, and while we were at it, some television.

When I googled "cable guy", I also got this dude....

Um, I didn't know there was such a rush on cable guys! So, am I really sure I want TV afterall? I am a little afraid of this Larry person.

Little Rita is already lying on the floor in front of the television trying to catch up with 11 years of no TV. I'm not sure I like this idea.....keep you posted.

Have a lovely weekend!