A Well-Dressed Oyster

 There are things we approve of here at the Rancho.  We approve of:

Hanging out in the garage in the summer, drinking beer

Drag Queens

Drag Queens in the garage hanging out with us in the summer

Red meat

No active volcanos

All these things and more meet with our approval.  And upon them one might be tempted to affix a seal of approval, thusly:

I like that he's wearing a sweater and has human hands.  Maybe he's a Centaur-seal, is what I think.  Seal above, human below.  Imaging standing next to that on an elevator.   

But this is Rancho FirstNations, and we don't go around handing out tired memes like socks filled with raw liver, you know? (All the kids in the neighborhood look forward to that come Halloween.)  No, we prefer to hand out Swanky Oysters of Good Taste and Discernment:

The Swanky Oyster of Good Taste and Discernment sees you out there, and He approves.  

Mr. Swanky Oyster also heartily approves of Mr. Indigo Roth for his recent gift of an inflatable pickle, and the re-emergence of Z onto the scene!

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I found out the most awesome thing!  L. Ron Hubbard, the DEAD (in case there's any lingering doubt out there) former leader of Scientology, was for a brief period of time the commander of a small Navy vessel.  During his short, yet incompetent career as a commander, he carried out his duties exactly as you'd expect - he mined 'a Japanese sub' off the coast of Oregon, and then he sailed South to attack Mexico.

Yes.

Having detected a suspicious, elongated radar echo in the waters off the Oregon coast, he immediately jumped to the conclusion 'SUB!' and mined the everlasting fuck out of that sapsucker, called in the troops, called in air support, called in the Coast Guard, called in local fishermen, and generally pulled a lot of people away from more serious concerns to come look at what he'd doneded.  

Which was to kill a whale.

You can imagine everyone rolling their eyes and trudging back whence they came.  C'mon, dude.  Seriously?

After that astounding feat of fuckery, what next?  Go attack Mexico, of course.  So that's what he did.  Cap'n Hubbard in his little cruiser sailed straight down to Mexico and proceeded to blast the fuck out of the shoreline with his woefully limited battery.  What he hoped to accomplish by this is not known.  What is known is that he was drop kicked out of the Navy shortly afterward with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.  Of course, you're saying, Captain Queeg got away with that shit for years, no fair.  But you have to remember that Captain Queeg was Humphrey Bogart. He ran a tight ship.  Not even the strawberries were too small to escape his supervision.  And you know that Humphrey Bogart would never dump a bunch of sea mines on a whale.  It just wasn't in the man.

I have a brief, pathetic history with the C of SCN.  In my desperation to catch a man I agreed to join the 'church' that he belonged to.  Which was ol' 'Nuke the Whale' Hubbards ship of fools; and I'll say here that I never saw so many ignorant, incompetent misfits gathered under one roof in my life as I did during my short tenure as a member.  Luckily, I'd been through the cult thing with my mother years earlier and so I knew bullshit when I saw it.  

I lasted less than a year; and shortly after I left the church and my ex, my ex-husband was frog-marched out the front doors by several burly staff members for throwing one of his tantrums on staff time.  This really happened.  And it proves that there's nuts, and there's incompetent people searching in vain for direction, and then there's 'nutty is nutty but you don't get to turn red and kick over furniture and scream like an infant when you don't get your way and threaten to punch your superiors.'  So he got tossed out onto the sidewalk in the middle of town, and then stood there and raged and continued to have a tantrum until they called the police, which for a Scientologist is tantamount to drinking strychnine - they just don't DO that.  But in ex-hubby's case, they made an exception, and having been his wife, I understand it completely. 

So, even though it was not an episode of my life that I'm particularly proud of, here's to you, unknown burly Scientologists sick of my ex-husbands hissy fits:

Happy After-Christmas!!!

 Here at Rancho FirstNations our asses are all partied OUT. I have a flaccid pickle, y'all.  Mr. UK Happy Pickle could not take the action and he just laid his pickled self out on my floor, it was so wild-ass here.    There was jumpin'!  There was shakin'!  There was funky merry makin'!  We thought globally and acted locally and our personal badassery melted all the snow, and lo, there was grass beneath and it was good in our eyes!  Normally you don't want grass in your eyes so we kept our distance.  It was still good.  Now here is my Boxing Day present to y'all:

Tio Choko is blowing up all over everywhere and dammit, he deserves it all.  This guy is amazing!  My bud Rocky Lawrence Green turned me on to the dude.  This man is a natural all the way, and he looks into the lens and honey, you'll GET there.  I love this guy and I'm happy to read that he's getting noticed.  You could ride that moustache like a bicycle, kids.  Believe.

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Make The Bad Snow Go Away!

 It snowed yesterday.  It was not supposed to snow.  It was supposed to be sunny and 42f.  But it snowed.  And today, the shit's still there.

I am way over snow.  Living out here, snow means 'some dumbass is going to drop a tree on the lines and our power is going to go out."  Because sure as shit, someone will decide that the cottonwood (not a good firewood tree, but an excellent 'fall on your house' tree) next to the power lines on their property will make perfect firewood, fire up the chainsaw - or, in one memorable incident, run their tractor into the tree until it fell on him, the tractor, and the line - and, boom boom! out go the lights!  

Still, it's pretty, and I should quit bitching.  We have a generator if the power goes out, and this is not our first rodeo.  Country livin', friends. 

So someone sent me, for Christmas, a three foot tall inflatable pickle.  I inflated it immediately.  It seems like a happy pickle, and it saved me having to get a Christmas tree - hell, it's green!  and so, I have a three foot tall inflatable pickle in my house.  My friends know me well!  Indigo Roth, if you're out there, thank you SO much!  I got a good laugh out of it and so did the Biker.

We have Christmas lights up, and they looks great.  Red, white and blue! We also have both our Biden-Harris signs prominently displayed, and we've had a couple of coal-dumps

"Blowing coal"  is when somebody with a diesel truck and a tiny dick wants to show his ass.  

 and an angry honk-n-rev or two because of that, and I love it!  

See, Democrats are supposed to be Un-American socialist sleazebags looking for a free ride, at least in local tradition, and it just burns the Republicans to see us, proud home owners, with our flag out on all national holidays, our tidy yard, display garden, our late model cars and our red, white and blue Christmas lights.  We refuse to comply with their stereotypes and dammit, that just will not do!  What kind of an idiot lets that kind of thing get them so pissed off that they present a hazard to traffic? Coaling a house???  REALLY??   Back during the elections, I had my Biden-Harris sticker, and a nut in a truck almost sideswiped me, flipping me off and honking, at one of the busiest intersections in Bellingham - I mean the idiot swerved out of his lane and acted like an ass because of a sticker! And my husband was repeatedly coaled on his way home from work because of his Biden-Harris sticker.  That certainly showed him.  Gaah, what a bunch of losers. 

Of course I hope all of you have a wonderful Winter Holiday.  The Biker is going to fire up the smoker and do a pork loin wrapped in bacon.  You know you wish you were me!

Let me know in the comments what you're going to be up to!

 

You Are Here

I've been rambling via comment links around the Blog world and leaving comments where I have hithero gone unseen and foul in the lonely places, like The Elder Gods.  If your interest has been piqued and you're new here, hello and welcome!  C'mon in! Set a spell!  Spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!

  It doesn't get more normal, and I live in the smallest town in America so don't expect any cosmopolitan accounts of fine restaurants, glittering company and interesting occupations either. This is rural fuckin' America and my neighbors are Hereford steers.  I've got a Biker, a display garden and an eleven year old Ford.  I also have a flamboyantly screwed up past, so there's that to run into along the way.

I believe in keeping a light and irreverent view.  I make occasional excursions into serious territory and blah-some whining about politics and the weather.  Sue me.

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 I am tired of having a bare, boring blog.  This joint looks like old tat and I'll be damned if I can figure out how to make anything work, or show up after I've made the changes.

I'd love to have a colorful background, and the advertisement for my favorite artist Mr. Rocky Green up there in lights, and a list of blogs that I follow, but can I get the bitch to cooperate?  I cannot.  Now I've had problems with Blogger of late and I read that others have too, so I'll take that into consideration, but still,  I wanna be like the cool kids too!

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OO I have run into the best thing ever!  Actually two.  One is Snoop Dog/Lion/wtfEVER singing 'My Medicine' with Willie Nelson.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fWCa3GvbNUE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>  

The other is Marc Rebillet, all over YouTube doing on the spot, mix-and-loop funk like a full grown man.  Here's a taste:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EuIuxbfk7ko" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe

Now lets see if that shit actually embeds.  Man, if it doesn't, here's the links to YouTube and just, you know, hit the link and let it happen.  

Snoop and Willie:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWCa3GvbNUE

Marc Rebillet giving you smooth, sexy geek funk on the spot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuIuxbfk7ko

Now honestly, don't deny yourself.  This is your early Christmas present!  Stick that rock in your sock and get some soul in your stroll!

Shit It's Cold

 It is cold.  It is December, and I live up near Canada, so yeah, you'd figure, and you'd be right.  But I don't fucking care if I live near Canada and it's supposed to be cold in December at this latitude.  It sucks.

Because I only have a strange wrinkled place where my thyroid used to be, my body temperature is all over the goddamn place at any given moment, and I'm usually doing the elderly Dance of the Seven Veils taking off or putting on various pieces of clothing throughout the day.  I am told that this condition is something I'll just have to live with, and I say I should have been issued a personal valet, because suddenly needing to struggle out of an 'Aah Bra' is no joke, kids.  

For those of us with Partonesque mammaries, the Aah Bra is a Godsend.  It's a devious little garment that in flesh tone looks like a large discarded condom, but flattens into a tiny bra in it's native, un-stretched state.  I mean it is minute. You take it out of the package, look at it and go "Oh no my friend, this is not going to occur."  But the Aah Bra is a miracle of expansion.  It works like a Tardis.  Something that looks as though it would fit comfortably on Barbie expands by the power of Greyskull (I assume) to enclose even the most unruly frontage.  Once you get everything tucked in and your nips leveled out, because nothing is sadder than uneven nips in a cold climate, you look reasonably perky.  It's kind of amazing.

Do you know how you have to put on one of those things?  You have to step into it. Yes. While it is infinitely stretchy, it doesn't give way without a fight.  The Aah Bra is no pussy.  You have to pre- stretch the thing and then ooch it up over your ass and your rolls and so forth and then drop titty into each pocket while rubber-banding it over your arms and adjusting the shoulder straps.  This is an unsightly operation that looks like that one guy who can pass himself through an unstrung tennis racquet, so I don't suggest you do this in front of a mirror, because it's distracting.   

And the instant you bend over, the straps fall.  Oh, your boobs are just fine.  They stay put.   But any back tit or pit rolls are going to be flapping like salmon in the bottom of a boat, and it's a case of either retire to the bathroom and get all your excess  flesh re-arranged in the damn thing or just roll it down over your shoes and kick it into the corner.  Because there's one thing they don't tell you about the thing - it gets HOT.  The Aah Bra is not a breezy piece of clothing.  Once it's on you, it's on for good,  like a python strangling a hapless swamp dweller, and if you crack a sweat, the Aah Bra does not care.  It just melts into your skin and jeers you.

This is why I'm generally that old broad.  The one working out in her yard with the whole front of her jangling around under the t-shirt, where you drive by and go "Oh my God someone should say something."  Because only the Aah Bra can tame these tigers,  unless I have somewhere to go that isn't jiggle friendly, I prefer to fly free, and if I'm out in my yard looking like I have a shirt full of raw liver and you're watching, ask yourself why you're checking out a sixty year old womans' tits, ya pervert.

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I have sweaters, t-shirts and hoodies strategically strewn about the house so if I experience a sudden rise in body temperature I can do a quick change on the fly.  I've got this down to a science - I had my thyroid removed about fifteen or so years ago.  Right on the cusp of menopause.  It was a confusing time. 

I had to drop out of college one quarter shy of getting my Bachelors, in fact.  When your thyroid goes to hell, it will fuck with you bad, and if you're already a. firmly planted on The Spectrum, and b. beginning to get extra extra because your hormones are feeding your propensity to act a fool, and 3. experiencing the confusing symptoms of Graves Disease on top of 8. raising a teenage girl and going to college, it's an all flags flying colossal shitshow.  With monkeys. Do not try this at home.

It's cool if you time it right.  If I'm feeling a hot flash come on, I run for the kitchen, grab the trash and take it out to the curb, and won't notice a thing.  This works like magic.  Of course two minutes later I'll be running for the nearest hoodie, shivering, unable to feel my fingers, but my trash is out of the house and I did it in a t-shirt, which I'm certain the neighbors all envy.  "Look at that badass old rip trotting around in the sleet with a sack of trash.  I want to grow up and be just like her, momma."  I know they're saying it.  And they're right.  Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.  Give them a "Live Long and Prosper" Spock t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants and send them out in the snow now, while they're still young and malleable.  

 

Quaint Vignettes From My Charming Rural Idyll

 The BB had to go get a secondary cataract removed today.  This procedure took five minutes, was accomplished with the use of a laser, and caused him no discomfort whatsoever - aside from having to be a passenger while I drove him home.  Oh, that man cannot abide being a passenger, no no no no no.  If he is not in control of the vehicle then his world is just all out of alignment.  But with one pupil blown out like Trump in mid-rant, nope. Ah, but I had thoughtfully provided him with 10mg. of Valium before the procedure, so he was a pleasant and chatty car companion, instead of his usual clutching, gasping, putting on the passenger brakes and constantly checking the speedometer and giving helpful little criticisms;  and thus was spared having to walk 16 miles home in the rain.  

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The pro-Trump contingent has, if anything, only put up more signs, purchased and home-made.  I honestly think these people are crazy.  The results are in, the electoral college has closed up shop, the show is over, but Trumps Theatre of the Absurd continues, and a disturbing number of people out there are still not using their native reasoning capabilities.  And I mean absolutely refusing to look outside their narrow worldview.  These are generally the very first people who would tell you that this nation needs unity, too.  Most of them are small business owners; all farmers are small business owners - but still fully invested in the fantasy and the show while determinedly ignoring the very real and lasting damage that has been done to this country by the Funny Orange Monkey. You want to ask these guys "Would Jesus brag about grabbing women by the pussy?  Would someone who was concerned with your well-being tear apart the Public Land Use Act? Would you leave your fifteen-year-old daughter alone in a room with Trump?"  

These are God-fearing, well meaning people for the most part, and the obscene shit show that was spread all over Hells half-acre for the last four years has been nothing but diametrically opposed to everything Christian and well intentioned - but their allegiance continues, and I do not understand it.

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My quest for weirdness continues and I've turned up a doozy.  John Jacob Astor Jr. - of 'died on the Titanic' fame - wrote a science fiction novel in 1894!  And I'm reading it on Internet Archive!  He was the black sheep of the famous Astor family, considered too mentally unstable and sickly to inherit, although he was still worth several billion in today's dollars when he bounced off the iceberg because the Astors had a metric buttload of money and laid some on him as a 'no hard feelings' gesture.  I'm willing to bet JJA Senior took one look at this work of sheer WTF, titled "A Journey In Other Worlds:  A Romance Of The Future" and changed his will accordingly.  

There are not enough !!!!!'s to describe this mans whackery.  I think him and Mr. Piggot (of "(Paraphrase) After you have retired for the night, inject a quart of soapy water up your bunghole to prevent tuberculosis, which is caused by millions of microscopic worms. This is guaranteed to 'knock the worms silly.'" fame)  would have gotten along famously.  I can see them now, smoking cigars and talking about aethric vibrations and electric shampoos and the pneumatic creatures that roam Saturns' vast prairies.

"Compulsive" is such an ugly word

I've been working my way through the house doing deep cleaning, because now that it's Winter, I'm seeing now all the stuff I'd been walking past on my way out into the garden all Summer, and it's kinda grubby.  One thing that struck me in going around is just how damn many collections I have.

I used to collect old kitchenware and appliances bigtime. I had Fire King (early Pyrex) for days. Enamelware pots and pans.  I had every single item in the Foley antique kitchen gadget catalogue in red and white. Yes.  I was venturing into apple green, and had some yellows and a few of  the rare blue ones too. I had vintage electric counter appliances too, like waffle irons, stand mixers, popcorn poppers, toasters...the list goes on. And I  had this stuff in multiples. Twelve eggbeaters.  Four kitchen scales. Four breadboxes. Like that. A LOT of a lot, and all of it, everything mint, perfect.  I had sub-collections like Bakelite handles, glass measuring cups, 1950's chrome appliances...basically I was on the verge of having an all-vintage kitchen.

  My husband and I were seriously considering it when we moved into our present home.  We had a color scheme and an era ( 1940's -1950's) picked out.  We got vintage cabinets from the architectural salvage store, put in some boomerang patterned Formica...and all this, up until this point had been totally on the cheap!  I had it ready to go, right down to the escutcheon on the wall switches, the overhead light, and a big old cast iron and enamel kitchen sink!  Only the jump to large appliances remained. There are places out there where you can get  restored and working condenser-topped refrigerators and reconditioned kitchen ranges, the big old ocean liner sized ones that look like jukeboxes and have three ovens and all the bells and whistles.  But that represents a major investment too. After buying a house? That wasn't gonna happen.  

I kept a vintage electric stand mixer because it's in perfect condition and it's just soooooo Deco, and four select pieces of Foley and sold the rest. C'est la vie. 

  But I seem to have started a vintage soda pop collection without even being aware of it in the meantime.  I realized this as I stood washing the fifty vintage pop bottles I have in my kitchen window.

Let's  not forget the wall-mount bottle capper, and the soft drink advertisements.  And all the old bottle caps. Many, many old bottle caps. I made them into a nice frieze over the kitchen doorway and the spiders love to play on it.

And that's just the kitchen. My natural history collection and my cookbook collection is in the dining room, and my Tonka Toys are in the family room.  My Tonkas keep my husbands collection of automobilia company, and all of it keeps our house-wide book collection company (part of which consists of my Leonardo DaVinci collection and my 'classics to 1519' collection.)  Some of it sits on my collection of Mid-Century Modern furniture, which is accented by my collection of vintage suitcases, which contain my collection of Last Gasp comic books, part of which is a collection of Gilbert Sheltona and R. Crumb-inalia, near my collection of vintage vinyl record albums.  Of course, none of it compares to the queen of my possessions, a 400.00 replica of the USS Enterprise, under glass, that I keep in my bedroom so I can see it when I wake up every day.  What, like I wouldn't have a Star Trek collection?

The funny thing is, it all started with a glass measuring cup. I still have it.  It was given away as a premium inside a bag of flour back during the Depression, and I'll never get rid of it.  Something about that one goofy little measuring cup lit off this urge to collect.  Weird, right?  I never collected anything up until my husband brought that little cup home from the Salvation Army one day, because our other one had broken in the sink.  The instant that thing came into my house, I was like "I love this look!  It reminds me of my grandma!" and the rest...is what I have to dust.

Pigeons On The Roof! Pigeons On The Roof!*

Good Heavens, I must send out for more champagne and canapes!  The guests are beginning to throw the cabana boys into the pool!

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Reuters reports that White House chief of Staff Mark Douglas urged the FDA head Steven Hahn to approve the new Pfizer covid vaccine by Friday (yesterday) and quipped "he should prepare to resign if not."  Smell something?

There's also a link in the article here at the FDA site about the covid vaccine:   https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine

You can scroll down the article to find the links to the various handouts they'll be providing to health care workers, the public, etc.  I urge you to read the FDA article and the handouts.

Folks, make up your own minds. 

Me, I'm going to wait.  Of course I have the luxury of waiting so that's easy for me to say.  I live in the country, and I've already had covid.  So has my husband.  This first course of inoculations is going out to health care providers and people in long term health care facilities.  I'd be making a different decision if I were in that position, I know.  But at 60, with a long-term respiratory condition, I'll wait until something less 'hurried onto the stage' comes along.

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Thank you all for putting up with my petty household disasters.  I get cranked up easily when things break, or don't work right - yeah, I'm the lady who asks to speak with the manager and writes letters of complaint and returns food to the kitchen and calls customer services a lot.  Not in an entitled, Karen kind of way, but because I expect new things to work.  That's not unreasonable.  What's unreasonable is the way it enrages me - I know, I know.  Shit happens.  Mistakes occur.  At least I don't cause public scenes and berate waiters and take shit out on people who have no responsibility for the thing; I've seen that and been on the other side of that, and it's not cool.

This is not to say that Samsung did not get a couple of scathing emails from me last night.  I might have mentioned 'poor design', 'pirated technology', and 'chimps'.  You want feedback?  You'll GET feedback from me. Even if you vet your comments, I'll find a way around it. 

Now catch me at home and yeah, I freak right the fuck out when something I've owned suddenly croaks. If I'm at home and my 20 year old washer/dryer suddenly stops working I lose my shit, because I LOVED YOU WASHER/DRYER YOU WERE MY HELPER WHY GOD WHY and I cry and flail.  I think this is the legacy of having been raised by Great Depression Babies. -fine, and I'm really clumsy.  If you're a lawnmower, you do not want to be owned by me.  Same goes for power drills.  I might want to be a robot, but the robots probably won't have me, I've killed so many of their mechanical kin.  The trail of rusty corpses in my wake is long and very greasy, arrrrgh.

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In case you were wondering, we are now settled in happily watching our new Visio television.  The return went smooth as silk, thanks to The Bejewelled Biker!  We had it set up and running in the time it took us to find the sign-in site for Samsung online last night!

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*This is what we used to yell when someone was railing up in the back room and only wanted to share with a select few.  Yes, the party never stops here at the Rancho!

OH NO

 So our television fried, and the Bejewelled Biker brought home a Smart TV.  A Samsung.  It rhymes with 'piece of shit.'

I am now living in George Orwells' 1984. This thing can and will watch ME.  It wants to connect to all our devices and it can detect them all from our internet bringer inner thingie

 - router.  Hello, router.  Sorry I forgot your name.  Please don't hurt me.

I am freaking OUT.  I do NOT want a smart home.  I do not need my television talking to my laptop or my phone.  Or watching me.  And it has a direct internet connection as part of the package, you can Skype on it, so there's a camera in there someplace and I want it DISABLED. 

NEVER buy a Samsung.  Setting it up is like trying to break into Fort fucking Knox.  They rush you through the terms with a set-up password that you only have a limited amount of time to use before it disappears forever, so you can't read all the terms even if you wanted to.  The site won't let you create an account from your laptop - oh, it says it will, but try. I did.  You end up in a closed loop of account confirmation. No, Samsung wants to own your phone.  I don't have a smartphone.  The hubs does.  Both of our devices in the same room, and it wants the phone.  Fine.  It got the phone. 

Still, we've been chipping away at this monster for close to an hour now and we still can't get the goddamn thing to play a movie or show anything but more sign in screens and then - black screen, back out, try again, more passwords, more accounts, more emails, more onscreen navigating with their astoundingly cheesy remote....FUCK THIS THING IN THE HEART.

UPDATE:  After dealing with this thing for less than four hours, we've decided to return it.  It's a piece of garbage...slow as molasses, with bad speakers and lots of interruptions.  Our poor late lamented cheapo Vizio was it's superior in every way.  And that's what we'll be buying. 

I Am TOO A Robot

 Blogger has that stupid 'prove you're not a robot' thing.  Dammit, I feel highly insulted when I have to prove that I'm not a robot.  I absolutely want to be a robot. If I had the chance; hell yeah, download me into that sucker! And give me the full extra attachments package! Robots are excellent!

Yes.  I've seen all the Transformer movies at least twice, and the first one about six times so far because it has the best, full-metal-nerd robot battle sequences EVAH.  When they're kicking footholds out of the sides of buildings and diving in as one iteration and doing rolling midair transformations in multiple planes and shit - I just let those fight sequences go, hit 'back' and let it roll again a couple of times, hitting pause a lot, (Thank you, Netflix!) just to deal with all the incredible, imaginative, awesome detail that goes into every single second!  There were some genius nerds in on that shit!  

I saw the first three Transformer in the theater, which is really what they're meant for, that big screen experience, and I was losing my mind right along with my grandson, much to the embarrassment of my husband.  All the little kids screaming and cheering there in the dark and this one lone adult female screaming right along with them; fine, I know, I get it, but still. Robots.  It was robots having a full on roboto a' roboto free for all in the middle of a city, people. Trash entertainment simply does not get any better than that!

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Why does Samuel L. Jackson appear in so many movies wearing an eyepatch? 

Why does the Klingon general in 'The Undiscovered Country' have an eyepatch? (albeit a leather one that's nailed into his skull, which is totally what a Klingon would do, but still, it's the future. Get that shit rectified.)

Why do so many Special Ops team leaders in action movies wear an eyepatch?  You'd think you'd want the guy who dodged that bullet to lead you, right?  The one with full 20/20 vision?

These are the things I ponder.

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Nature note:  The fish continue to migrate across the road about a mile away from here.  The Bejewelled Biker has pictures of them swimming around in the flooded blueberry field, waiting for their turn to cross the road at the flooded place.  He also grabbed a shot yesterday of two flocks of swans that were so huge that it took three snaps to encompass!  We figured it out on Google maps. Those pictures represent THREE ACRES of swans.  Hundreds of swans!  

Do I have those pictures? No. Of course not.

Non-Stop Party Action At Rancho FirstNations Continues

So, I finished Marcus Aurelius.  He seemed like a very anxious, bummed-out, harried person, and so there go my aspirations to be Philosopher King of Sumas.  His thoughts read so much like the way I grew up in Catholicism that I felt sorry for the guy.  Basically 'Suck it up, ignore  your feelings, nobody cares about your opinion, it's all in your head, and you're just going to croak and be forgotten anyway.'  Not even kidding.  This dude is no advertisement for being Emperor of Rome.  "Would you like some honey covered slave girls scattered in edible gold, your Majesty?"  "Naw, gimme a bowl of cold oatmeal.  I'm gonna go sit in the outhouse and eat it.  In the rain."

So, to cheer myself up a read a few old, forgotten Grimms Fairy Tales, which were by turns bloody, really bloody, full of random talking animals and bloody.  And violent.  Me being me, this worked, and so, greatly heartened, I ventured forth outside and did a little mowing with my push mower, for the exercise (That's me thinking.) I...  

1. punched myself yanking on the pull starter, then I  

2. ran over a dead rat, and then I

3. had an asthma attack.  

Not because I ran over the dead rat, which to be honest did not look anything like a dead rat until the lawnmower was just starting in at it, when the tail and feet suddenly appeared out of the sodden mass; by then it was too late and I was wearing tall boots so screw it, rats are biodegradable.  No, I had the asthma attack because I've had asthma since 1966 and it was cold and damp and I was exerting myself = asthma attack.

I'm going to put in a word here about asthma.  It's not imaginary.  It can't be cured. Nobody knows what causes it. You can control it, and learn to live with it.  So here's what growing up and living with asthma looks like: You look healthy and hale but can't perform the kinds of prolonged strenuous activity that  3/4 of the rest of humankind can, so you have to refuse, which gets you branded 'lazy' and 'a liar.'  

It's why, at my last job, I had to go from doing rooms and collecting big tips, to working in the laundry, which is less physically stressful, and does not include tips.  The only tips you get in the laundry of a hotel are the turds that people wrap in towels and send down the chute, lots of baby binkies and for some odd reason, single shoes.  Even when I work out in the yard, it's do a little, then rest. Do a little more, then rest. Rinse, repeat. All. Day. Long.  I'm not a Maserati - I'm a bulldozer.  That kind of thing.  

If you know someone who has asthma, don't  belabor them with your ignorant opinions and remedies. For example, this one: 'You just need to stretch out your chest muscles!"  (?)  I heard this one so many times it's just stupid. I train with weights, folks. The only thing you gain is a stretched out chest. You get to keep the asthma. 

Don't say "Oh, it's just allergies."  No. It is not just allergies, Karen.  (And allergies are not a 'just' kind of subject either.  They can kill you.  Now you can have allergic responses that trigger asthma-like symptoms.  Or, like me, you can have asthma AND allergies, and have allergic reactions that trigger asthma-like symptoms, that trigger an asthma attack.  Huzzah!)  You can't fix that shit with Benadryl and a couple of aspirin.  

"Just drink honey and whiskey!"  How 'bout not? All you get a drunk kid who is still having an asthma attack.  This shit was tried on me for years by literally every old person in my neighborhood, including my tea-totaller grandma, who kept a short dog of whiskey just for me if I happened to have an attack at her house -  which is probably why I like a sip of Bushmills to this day.  I was smart enough to sputter and put up a fuss, too, which made my folks even more determined to pour it down me.  While it wasn't a cure, it was fun.  

"Oh, it's all in your head.  Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Everyone knows that asthma is just psychological."  Do they.  Funny.  I went through seven solid years of therapy, twice a week, read the books, faced my shit, did the work - with a few shorter sessions in later years - and at no time did my asthma subside.  And yes, having asthma was one of a number of  therapy issues for me.

Nobody really knows what causes childhood onset asthma.  For me, it was something that showed up in the middle of my first grade year after a week spent in the grip of a strange, intense floaty feeling.  The buzzy, distant, carefree sensation you get right before you faint, basically, only I never did faint, I just said odd things very slowly and walked around feeling like I was at a foggy remove from everything.  Then one night I woke up and I was barely able to breathe, coughing up guck, and the rest is history. 

An attack can literally happen at any time.  No trigger.  No warning.  Now yes, strenuous physical activity is a trigger.

Sometimes.

This is what gets you branded a malingerer.  Asthma is not 100% predictable.

Intense emotional turmoil can be a trigger.

Sometimes.

This is how you get accused of 'playing it' as a way to manipulate people.  I promise you I was not outside mowing my lawn this afternoon trying to manipulate anyone.  Or in the middle of a deep sleep, come to that.

Here's what an asthma attack feels like.  Imagine you've just run full tilt boogie down to the end of the block.  You're winded. Suddenly, someone swaps out your trachea for something the size of a cocktail straw, and you have to try and breathe through that, and remember, you're winded already.  Now add mucus!  Gallons of it!  Your lungs are producing it because they're trying to wash away an irritant that isn't there!  Way to go lungs!  This creates a horrible downward spiral of forcing yourself to cough to clear your lungs, which inflames them, which causes them to produce more guck, which you have to cough to get rid of, and so on, getting worse and worse, until you end up in the emergency ward, where I have been about twelve times in my life.  For asthma anyway.  

The emergency treatment for a severe asthma attack used to be adrenaline.  It was given in a drip I.V. and you'd go from lying on the gurney like a blobfish to 'fight or flight' the instant it hit.  Worked like a charm.  And also made it look like you, the kid, had been scared out of your fakery by the needle and the hospital surroundings.  There were some very outspoken, bitchy doctors and nurses in those days too.  "Oh, we see this sudden recovery stuff aaaalll the time with the asthma kids," they'd sneer disgustedly.  Thanks folks.  I really needed you to reinforce that notion in my parents' minds.  Kudos to you!

In latter years they switched treatments to something else, either using an I.V or delivering it via inhalator, which works on the same principle that a vape does, only it was a much more elaborate contraption back then.  You'd have oxygen being fed through a nose tube, while sucking on this big collection of hanging tubes and drip chambers, and exhaling the most amazing huge clouds of cold, rolling fog; it was awesome.  The nurses would yell at you for doing that. "Just keep your mouth on the inhalator and breathe through that!" they'd say.  I say if you're going to come into a hospital damn near dead then you get to have a little fun.

The last time I was hospitalized for a severe attack, shit hit the fan in the middle of the movie 'Full Metal Jacket', right there in the theater.  My husband and daughter half pulled, half carried me out past the line of people waiting to go in, and I can only wonder what they were expecting after that sight.

So there you go.  I'm feeling just fine now, thank you, I have a shredded rat carcass in my back yard, and the Bejewelled Biker Beast just  made oatmeal cookies and I get them all! Not a bad way to end the day!

Party, Party, Party

 Quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll!

I seem to have picked up another pet teenager!  Pet Teenager #1 grew up and moved to Las Vegas, which she is in the process of taking over.  This new one is just another neighbor kid who started coming by because of my garden also.  I shall refer to her as Occasional Teenager.  Just a nice, friendly kid who stops by every now and then to say hi and see how I'm doing.  It's so weird!  Really nice, but...of all the things I thought being older would bring me, Pet Teenagers was not one.  

________________________

James Joyce is really annoying.  He can fuck right off.

________________________

I am making a conscious decision this Winter to exercise and get outside when I can. Last year when the monsoon season began, I basically stayed inside all winter flat on my ass writing and studying, which made the subsequent Springtime Rush out in the garden excruciating!  

By the end of Summer, I'm usually in pretty good shape.  I still build up biceps that rip my t-shirt sleeves 

This is totally a picture of me.  Really.

and I'm flexible enough to not just touch my toes, but lay my palms flat on the ground.  You don't use it, you lose it.  To go from a high level of activity to sudden dormancy is not good, which I suppose should go without saying. (Can you say 'severe constipation'?  Then go run outside and scream it in the middle of the street ten times! I'll stay here and enjoy that mental image.)  To spend an entire winter on your ass is super de duper extra no good.

I'm seeing the benefits of my new regimen.  Even if it's just doing exercises indoors, the improvement in my mental health in particular is marked.  Whoda thunk it?  All this time doctors really did know what they were talking about.

Gotta exercise those brain cells as well.  So, I girded my loins and delved into the world of 20th century poetry, which is way, way, way, way out of my comfort zone - because it is way, way, way, way out of my comfort zone.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there's a lot of stuff out there that is not only readable, but beautiful and enjoyable too.  Will I be forsaking my beloved Beat Poets anytime soon? Not on your amphetamines, buddy.  But I've found out a new thing, and gone in a new direction.  Now even my brain cells will have little biceps that rip their little t-shirts too!

I decided to take a more active role in Good Reads, too.  I have three books going at any given time, not including the nonfiction articles I read online, so that's been a pick and choose proposition.  But it's also a form of social media on a higher level of discourse than "Here is a picture of some clouds" and "I hate the Tories" ; or, as they call it, Facebook.  I just started 'The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius' because I  know how to party.  We'll see how that goes.  Gotta be less annoying that Joyce.