an apology, sort of, rant really I guess; sorry :(

I am sorry if I offended anyone by dissing Vampire books. Let me be clear. I do not see anything wrong with enjoying a book for sheer pleasure, and not just because it won a prestigious award or offers a unique and artistic world view. I just think we should differentiate between "my favorite" and "the best". I may say that Napoleon Dynamite is one of my favorite movies, but I would be an idiot to claim that it is one of the best movies ever. For categories such as best, there should be some discernment and standards, such as the people who hand out Pulitzer and Booker prizes use. ( this does not necessarily apply to the people who hand out Oscars. Titanic?! right.)

I may not always like the books that win these awards, but I recognize that they have some merit. Of course in this society there seems to be some resistance to trusting authority, as in "so what if he is a Nobel prize winning climate scientist, what does he know about global warming",and, "who cares if my president is a moron, I would like to have a beer with him", and, "who cares if those people are authorities on English literature, my Vampire book was the best book of the year." You have every right to have your favorite book be a vampire book. But, you know what? If you read the pulitzer prize winner, you might actually even like it better!

OK so this has turned out not to be an apology really, but more like another rant. As in I am sorry if you don't like my opinion, but there it is; even though there is the word sorry in that sentence, it is clearly not an apology.

Sorry.

monarchs and butterfly weed.PARENTAL WARNING: ADULT CONTENT

Hello. i love butterflys. Doesn't everyone?

Flitting about the sky with colorful wings, eating plant nectar, harming no-one, nary a vampire among them.

I was at a plant nursery the other month, and noticed a plant that was attracting monarch butterflies. i talked to the proprietor about it and he said that monarchs were very attracted to the plant, and laid their eggs on it. Impulsively, I purchased a small plant and took it home.

Within a day, there was a butterfly arial-dancing about the plant, sipping the nectar and laying eggs. Soon i had caterpillars. They began to eat the plant, and the realization came to me that they would soon devour the plant and be left to starve. Of course the only thing I could do was to return to the plant nursery and buy a nother butterfly weed. This time i bought a bigger one. A few days later there were two butterflies flitting about. They seemed angry with one another. I noticed that one was trying to kill the other, pinning it to the ground and beating it with its wings! On closer examination they appeared to be doing the monarch version of the mattress mambo. I was shocked that such beautiful creatures would engage in such brutality. But I guess the trip to the butterfly bush counted for the flowers and dinner. Who am I to judge? Nature is a mystery. Also red in tooth and claw.

Still, they are not vampires.

hunting poodles

This is a picture of Caydee, stricken by heat.
I have a few things to touch on here.

First, I want to talk about hunting poodles.

I found a magazine at work, and it said something about hunting poodles on the cover. Now, I don't care what your opinion about poodles is, they may be silly looking and froo-froo and yippee, but that is no reason to hunt them. I was outraged at the implications as I opened the magazine to find out where to send my strident letter to the editor, and it turned out the article was discussing using poodles to hunt. well OK but this is almost as bad. Here you are, most likely a man, and obviously having issues with your " manhood " else why would you be hunting Bambi's mommy with an assault rifle in the first place, doubtless a member of the NRA sayin "guns didn't kill Bambi's mommy, disney did " and driving a Hummer too, to boot. You show up at the forest to meet your friends who all have labs, and retrievers, and wolverines and tasmanian devils and such like fierce hunting dogs, and you are like, " this is Fifi, my hunting dog " Now that is going to cause psychic damage when they laugh you all the way to trying out for community theatre .

Secondly, I would like to announce that we have decided to get an airconditioner for Caydee,

as she has been really stricken by the hideous hot spell we are having.

Thirdly, I read an incredibly good book. It is called "All that I Have " by Castle Freeman Jr., and it is sharp, funny and other stuff too. I will maybe post about it to this book club I joined, but this book club nominated some vampire book as the best book of 2008, and I don't feel as though I fit in there. I mean, if all you ever read is crap, what is the point of talking about it? Like, omg she fell in love with this cute guy and he turned out to be a vampire , well hello did she not notice the fangs? I read books that are above me, which isn't hard, but I would like to talk to people about them, to see if others could help shed some insight on the books, to help me understand. I actually like to think that the author is cleverer than me, I mean you may have read my book, "The Phlebotomist's secret: tales of secret love in the night shift lab " which is basically about a couple of hospital workers who have a secret love, and one of them turns out to be a vampire, and it wasn't the Respiratory Therapist. OK you say, If you are so smart, then why didn't your Phlebotomist book end up on the NY Times bestseller list for, like, ever,

and OK I am crying now are you happy ? of course you are because I am an elitist and you are an honest God-fearing ( which God, I don't Know ) American who doesn't have airs, so it is a clear case of good versus evil, or is it a witch hunt. The question is, does it end with me repenting of my evil ways, and becoming a good person who reads Vampire books with the rest of the people working on the fourth floor, or do I end up with a stake through my heart? To find out, you will have to read my new book, I was a Teen-aged elitist, until I turned into a were-wolf and ate everybody, Starting with the Hunters who Killed my friend, Bambi's Mommy. It is a long title, but it is a complex exploration of the human desire to fit in, or kill everyone trying.

Also I illustrated it, in Anime style.

bye bye messy

Messy was the silver maple in our front yard. We called her messy, because the real estate agent said, " that tree is messy, i would get rid of it. " I laughed inside and thought, I will never get rid of that tree with its wonderful deciduous leaves. But then, sadly, Messy started to look bad, and the Arborist said she was dying, and had to be removed. I am not really some new agey fakey druid or anything, I am simply a person who loves trees, and thinks they are mysterious creatures that we cannot hope to understand. Part of it is that when I read the Giving Tree I thought it was about a tree, and was suprised to hear some overeducated commentators on NPR saying it was about parents. ( huh, not my parents haha just kidding ghost- of -Mom) Trees really are amazing, and losing Messy meant losing a leafy green source of shade, cool, and privacy. Even at night more light comes in through the bedroom window.

don't judge people by their writing

This is a picture my brother Tim took.
When i was single, I tried a free dating service that allowed you to e mail people and get to know them that way. This one fellow wrote very nicely, and i was impressed and so went to meet him.

He was pleasant enough, but some things he said worried me. Such as, your alright, I used to date babes so I am over that phase. 

Let me assure you that if you have spent a reasonably long life not being a babe, except to certain men with astigmatisms or bad taste, you are well aware of the fact that you are not a babe. It is not a good way to start a relationship, because you are probably not going to become appreciably better looking, and after a few weeks he will run screaming from you.

He also apparently came from a well to do background, and when he found out that I was an hourly employee he said ' wow you punch a clock and everything? I never knew anyone who punched a clock" and I did feel a little like Norma Ray but I was afraid that if we ever got involved he would make me enter through the backdoor and sleep in the servants quarters. 

The worst thing was that he turned out to be rabidly right winged, which some might consider a redundancy, saying things about taking all the land back from the native Americans and Reagan should have been made king and such. Nowadays, and this was ten years or so ago, it is common for young people to learn about each other through writing and texting and twitching or what have you, and this is just a cautionary tale from someone old enough to be your mother, though if I was and you had tatoos I would definately disown you, just a warning, and you are all like, women get mean when they get old, but sometimes that is all a woman has left, is to cut you out of the will for eating fast food burgers and driving an SUV and I am leaving everything to PETA just to spite all of you...ha ha just kidding. The Humane Society, really.

Kay-dee and jan-c review a movie

We stayed up late and watched this movie called the Dark knight. We wanted to see Heath Ledger, because he killed himself and won an oscar. Jan-c slept through everything except the parts with Heath, which she asked me to wake her up for, and I tried to sleep but there were loud parts that woke me up. mommy said it was too long, and they should have cut out the parts of the movie that didn't have Heath or Morgan Freedman in them, but Daddy said he feels like he has gotten more for his money if a movie is long. Mommy says sometimes it is better not to try to understand Daddy.

Mommy thought it was silly for Batman to disguise his voice, cuz he just sounded stupid, but if they were going to disguise it they should have done something high tech, or had him do an accent, or talk like scooby doo. Actually, that was Jan-c who wanted him to talk like scooby do, I thought muttley would be better. I think the whole movie would be better if they had just replaced Batman with Lassie, and Alfred with one of the monkeys in Planet of the Apes, and Commisioner Gordon with Deputy dog.

There actually were dogs in this movie, Rottweillers played the bad guys and of course German Shepherds were the good guys. Batman kept throwing the rotties around, but I thought it would be cooler if Batman had some super power where he could just look at them and hypnotize them, so they rolled on their backs for belly rubs.

But the saddest thing, if Heath did kill himself for some reason to do with this movie, is that, even though his performance was amazing, the movie pretty much stunk. 

Apache

This is a story about my Dad's dog, Apache. I still think of him as my Dad's dog, even though my Dad is with his beloved wife now,( one can only hope, cuz he has a lot of explaining to do, ) and A patch( his hood name) is living with another nice man who absolutely will not allow him to wear baggie pants or teeth grills or rap about his bitches whereas my Dad, in his drunken phases, was a bit more lenient.

This is a story about when my Dad was still alive, and living in a place that I will call Solar town west, with Apache. Dad, who will be known as Bud in this story, because that was his name, well Bud got sick, and had to go into the hospital, lets say he suffered from telerium dremens. I went out and spent 2 weeks in the Arizona sun, mostly walking Apache and being snubbed by the third rate ICU nurses in the hospital i will call like Hell you'll get Well. bud was always telerious and talking crazy when I went to see him, but his friends would tell me how they had seen him and he was lucid and walking down the hall. The social worker had called me and told me I had to come to the hospital and make some "end of life " decisions for Bud, and one of the doctors told me that Bud was basically a vegetable, but I never saw those same Doctors or social workers after my Dad was out at the nursing station doing Rodney Dangerfield impersonations. They were convieniently on vacation once Bud was up and reciting limericks for the volunteers. Bud was moved to rehab, and they said he would be there for a month and I should research assisted living places for him. I needed to get home to california, and Bud's good friend lets call her Shaggy, just because, said we should leave Apache with this lovely woman named, lets say Butch, until Bud was out of the hospital. My heart was so touched by the goodness, the faith and Charity showed by these kind people of Solar Town, my spirit soared on the wings of loving-kindness. I was home about a month later when my Dad called from the hospital to tell me that he was going home to live, and he wanted Apache back, and Butch wouldn't give him back. Now,  Butch really was a nice lady, she just got attached to Apache, and was afraid Bud couldn't look after him. It ended up with us having to drive out to Solar Town and buy a gallon of chivas regal and some cigars for Butch, and after much discussion with Bud's so called friends who all wanted Butch to keep A patch, we finally got Dad his dog back.

 The point of the story, if there is one, is that Butch got very sick and had to go in a group home a year after this whole incident, while our hero Bud continued on for a few years more, and passed out of this life at home with his beloved Apache at his side.

 The wonder of this story is that if I had written it for a remedial English comp class, the teacher would have ripped it up and thrown it in my face, whereas now it is published, for all eternity , in cyberspace.

compost

I made awesome compost.

rb float

john-see my puh-pee

thinks she is a big dog

oh I hve to go before vahm-see drinks the root beer float=

golf cart tips

so you want to sell a golf cart

[Photo]
number one:Craigs list is not a good place to put an ad for a golf cart being sold in a retirement community.( I do hardily endorse craigs list, cuz I like the peace symbol, just not for selling golf carts)  I don't mean to discredit our older friends, some of whom are very computer savvy , but in general they are more likely to look at print ads. If you put an ad on craigs list and no one replies, you might think no one is interested and try a print ad that offers the golf cart for a very cheap price. Which segways nicely to :number two:Make the price higher than what you really want for it. That way people will haggle for a lower price, and feel like they have gotten a good deal. How come every third world child selling pens on a street corner knows this and I don't? Obviously i am not hungry enough. I guess the lesson is, hire a skinny kid to dress in rags and stand in front of the golf cart, make sure they have big sad eyes, and have them haggle for a good price,. Make sure you follow local child labor practices, and give the kid a good cut. Remember, children are the future.

rootbeer

Today I got in the back seat of the car because the dogs had jumped into the front seat when I went to the store to get creamer and root beer. I put the root beer down on some staples that had spilled out of a box into the back seat and one must have gotten pierced ( please stop singing Vamsi ) because  root beer started spraying all over the car. Vamsi won't stop singing. He is a terrible singer. He is trying to get on my good side, at least he said so, but he is doing a very bad job of it.

falling off scooters on vacation

Google suggested this title for my post. I haven't posted in so long. One day is much like the other, sunrise, sunset, etc.  And yet so much has happened. Yesterday was my birthday and we went to see this Disney movie called Earth because earth day is my birthday. I thought Disney movies were cuddly and magical but o no not this one it was brutal and horrifying. The narrator said that we are not in touch with the circle of life but he did not see the dead bird on my doorstep. I can only be suspicious of foul play as there is no reason for that bird just to have flown up to my door and died. Just a few months ago there was a dead rat next to the door. I do not have a cat either and none of the logical explanations apply.  Is space alien or neighborhood psycopath. Spell checker suggests episcopate, pussycat, scoped, passport or scooped. I don't think it is any of those.  I don't even know what an episcopate is, maybe a syncopated Episcopal, but I don't think they would leave a dead house finch, male, at my door. Other than that, spring is wonderful and April is the coolest month, like the poet spake.

polar bears

polar bears

Ok so we are going to list polar bears as endangered but e are not going to do anything about it. Anyone who has seen the movie Earth ( which I did not recommend in an earlier post ) knows that melting sea ice, which we all know is being exacerbated by man's actions, is leading to the death of polar bears. But the former administration said that endangered status didn't mean any action would be taken about climate change, and now the current administration agrees. Change ? this is change? no change on climate change policies.OK maybe it is all too complicated for me, but if climate change is causing animals to become endangered, then shouldn't we do something about climate change? Otherwise what is the point of having an endangered species act? So that we can show the list to future generations and say " yes we knew these animals were endangered but we didn't do anything about it." Great, as if those future generations aren't already upset enough about being exploited to sell used golf carts.