The Best Blog Ever In The History Of Blogs
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
A Busload Of Random
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Settling In Jitters
Saturday, August 16, 2025
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Making A Silk Cow Out Of A Cars Ear
IDAHO SO FAR:
People here are unfailingly nice, polite and helpful. I mean like 1950's small town America polite and helpful. Please and thank you, excuse me, do you need help with that, let me get that door for you.
There's some MAGA stuff., but nowhere near what I'd expected to see. There's one MAGA barbershop and two MAGA houses, one here and one in Payette. A couple of bumper stickers. Some lingering 'fuck Biden' sentiment. I expected WAY more idiocy. Shit, Lynden WA has more MAGA stuff. Even Bellingham had more, and it's liberal. Also, no open carry. At all. It's legal here, you just don't see it. You sure in shit saw it in Bellingham. As they say in America, 'Wow'.
Even though religion is very very very very very big here, not one single person has mentioned it. Not even at the super hard-shell Baptist Separatists separatist primary school thrift sale, and those women and their daughters were in full modesty garb. Not. A. Word.
The Mormons are big here. They have their own bank, they live out in the hills in fenced compounds comprised of huge McMansions, and the white SUV's with the blacked-out windows patrol the streets in the evening. Around the corner is a Brethren church (look it up Paco, you're sitting in front of the internet) and the Patriarch and his wife, both elderly, both in Plain Dress, have taken a long, slow stroll past to peek in and see what's up. Six blocks down is the Roadside Worship Revival church, which I'm assuming is some kind of Pentecostal set-up. Having had my fill of Ecstatic Religiosity, I intend to give their happy asses a wide berth. Two different Catholic organizations (one from Oregon, one from Idaho) compete for those who don't have enough guilt in their lives. Three blocks down is a Methodist church that I have yet to look into. Traditionally, Methodists have been LGBT friendly, but who knows what the fucks' up with these Idaho people.
...ooooh! Nations is gonna sell out! Well shit yes I intend to sell out. A bitch is new in town and I want to meet people. A nice, low-key communion out this way might be just the thing. I mean come on people, trust me, I'm gonna do my research. And it's not like I'm going to rock up in a Borsalino smoking a Petit Nobel and put my feet up on the seats.
OK maybe at the Brethren's.
The price of living is really, really low here in Idaho ,and it's even lower three miles away in Ontario Oregon (which is where everyone shops and buys legal marijuana to take back across the Idaho line and into the waiting arms of the police.) We've been able to assemble a nice little makeshift household for about 300.00 - and that includes all the absolute basics, like beds and sheets and a coffee maker and soap ffs. And groceries. Now that we're actually living in our apartment instead of a motel room, the flow of blood money going out is down to a trickle. Which is a damn relief.
The area we've moved to is called Fruitland because of all the gay people who live and work here in social harmony with the rest of the residents of this humble rural garden spot
...in the early days this was allllllllll fruit trees. Nowadays trees are out and root crops are in, chief among them onions.
The onions are being harvested now. This entire town smells overwhelmingly of onions. It has for the past month. It does now. It smells like onions 24/7 - except when it smells like the decomposing onion gravy left in the beds of all the trucks and railcars.
Strongly. Nay, violently.
The local joke is 'Oh you get used to it after awhile and you just think 'Oh! Onion rings! *Tee hee!*
- except no. That does not happen. Honestly WTF. Nobody is looking up suddenly from their mundane tasks going 'Why I do believe I smells onion rings, senor!'
The good thing about this is, if you happen to be low on onions, just stand on the corner of 16th and Whitley (also known as Gayway Corners) and hold a sack open. The gutters are full of onions! They send out road trains full of onions from this place - three trailers long! Who is eating all these goddamn onions????
We are in the sagebrush steppe region of Idaho. It's generally hot and very dry, but here at the confluence of three rivers it's extremely green down along the water's edge and extending about a block inland. After that you need a little irrigation to get things rocking - and holy SHIT does it pay off. This is astounding growing country! Folks here, when they can be bothered to try, have incredible gardens. But as you drive through town you'll notice an interesting thing -You'll have a street lined with glorious Victorian homes and gardens, say, but one property in the row is neglected - and it will have reverted entirely back to bare gravel, sandspurs and sagebrush. It looks artificial, like one person decided to go all 'Boot Hill' with their property., but no, that is not the case. You can easily tell who in your neighborhood is a lazy chunk of fuck.
This is Louis L'Amour's' Old West. It looks exactly like every cowboy movie you've ever seen, except 'Midnight Cowboy'. There are buzzards and wagon wheels and horses and outhouses and tin shacks; horses everywhere, miles and miles of rolling grassland and round brown hills. There really are deer and antelope playing out there. Of course the ones I saw were splattered all over the highway, so not playing. Playtime was done. Still, you got real cowboys, real sheepherders, real farmers and an entire local culture based on generations of rural life. I never knew there was such a mindset. Some of these folks grew up with no electricity and no indoor plumbing - not because they were poor, but because they were remote.
If you took the aroma of all the car air fresheners, all the punk aftershave, all the cheap deodorant and all the bargain laundry soap in America and mixed it in a huge vat, it would smell like every single indoor space in Central Idaho. This smell is following us around. From outdoor garage sales to the offices of the local telephone company, from McDonalds to El Cameron Mexican Restaurant, you smell this smell. Our apartment smells like it - I've been cleaning frantically trying to get rid of this smell. I got up at 3:00 AM two days ago and damp mopped the whole place, trying to get rid of it. It is wretched! It gets into your clothes and hair! Tomorrow we're going to be visiting one of the pot shops over on the Oregon side to see if they have any hardcore incense we can burn!
Honestly just incense. The cops on this side would pull our out of state plates over in a FLASH if we brought over any dank.
I like it here so far. Not the hot weather. The hot weather blows. That, I hate. But everything else is pretty good.
Of course,
I'D LIKE IT A LOT BETTER IF I HAD MY GODDAMN STUFF.
Saturday, August 2, 2025
And you may ask
Well? How did I get here?
And I would answer myself 'in a black car, with malfunctioning air conditioning, during the hottest part of the year.'
And I would be right.
Let's skip the preliminary eight day visit, and the to-ing and fro-ing between Washington and Idaho in a black car with NO AIR CONDITIONING. And let's skip driving all over the Idaho panhandle in that same car looking at apartments.
Let's skip that.
Let's go right to the part where arrived at our motel room only to find that not only was our entire house full of belongings NOT there to greet us, "...it might not be there until next week. It's impossible to say."
That was last Thursday.
Friday, July 25, 2025
Blue-Collar Heroine
The days are ticking past and in a matter of hours, now, we'll be packed and on the road, leaving
Washington for good.
So given the circumstances, I did the logical thing, and bought a Barcelona chair.
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Movin' on down to Idy Hoe
We did it! We found the perfect place!
It was amazing. The places available for us in Idaho, we never could have set foot in here in Washington. We saw luxurious! Luxurious!! places - newly built, newly remodeled, several in renovated Victorian buildings with exposed brickwork and marble counters and deluxe appliances...honestly, if it's getting too expensive for you wherever you are, you could do a lot worse than the Idaho Panhandle region.
Now us, we are intrepid trendsetters. Not for us conventional luxury. We went for the remodeled 1920's lawyers office in the funky little brewpub-area of
Yes, John, FRUITLAND.
And this is it:
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Aye d'Haoe
HOLY SHIT PEOPLE WE ARE IN IDAHO AND IT IS
ANOTHER FUCKING PLANET
I am not even kidding. I have never been any place like this. People have been responding to us based on our looks (elderly, white) and have been saying some of the most amazing things...
As for me? Not a single shit, piss, cunt, fuck, cocksucker, motherfucker or tits have I spoken. Not even a damn, a shucks or an 'oh boogers'.
Have you ever seen any of those Mormon Expose' shows, where they have the immense houses on closed compounds, and their own bank and shit? It's here. That shit is real. We have seen some of the most virulent anti-woke propaganda signs, and stickers, and entire houses decorated in American and Trump flags, and HOLY SHIT PEOPLE.
The TV stations here are, how do I describe this. OK. Home Decor, QVC, Religion, Religion, Adventure ( shows featuring cops, bikers, truckers, game wardens, firefighters - sounds like one of Peenee's magazines, doesn't it?) Western, Vintage (literally right now playing Ozzie and Harriet) Fox News, Real Estate TV-all listings that scroll slowly by - and one other one I forgot. I mean yeah we're in a motel right now and cable is all they have, but HOLY SHIT PEOPLE. Oh I remembered - Law Enforcement TV, which is all cops chases, cop arrests, cop beatdowns, cop crashes, fatal crashes, fatal chases, rousting drunks, jacking up poor people and questioning sessions.
HOLY SHIT PEOPLE.
But we have seen two fantastic apartments already!
Both of them are in remodeled historic buildings in the downtown of Fruitland. We'd be right down the street from the brewpub, the tattoo parlor and the funky resale places. I've done the research on both, and they're not too good to be true - we just happen to be able to afford them. Just as we are able to afford all kinds of places here, for at least a thousand dollars less than we're paying now. WITHOUT getting our retirement income taxed!
So golly gee whiz, folks, we gonna be living in the light of Jesus here in Idyhoe.
HELP
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Age, Controversy and Bare-Titty Economics
Today, this morning, for the first time ever I have spoken the words "The goddamn government is fuckin' around with my Social Security check."
I guess this is a milestone moment in my life. Like butt hair, or one's first federal charge.
This is exactly how I am focused and what I am focused on at this moment, just the minutia of my life and my petty inconveniences, because every fucking thing outside the limits of Whatcom County Washington is going STRAIGHT TO HELL. You watch the news. You know what I mean.
Pride is going strong here. The 'No Kings' protests were well attended and peaceful. Around the county the Trump flags have come down, mysteriously. There was even a 'Trans Rights' protest in Lynden!!!!!
The cost of living in Washington State is significantly higher than the national average, with housing being the primary driver of this difference. While some basic necessities like groceries and clothing are also more expensive, the biggest cost burden is in housing, which is substantially above the national average.
Monday, June 9, 2025
Pink Soap Cowgirl Chews With Mighty Teeth
Oh my God what is this taste. WTF did I just put in my mouth. Why God Why.
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I am drinking the worst glass of wine I have ever had in my life at the moment.
I am.
This wine tastes like if you rented a cabin deep in Redwoods National Park that had not been rented in several months, and this cabin had spent the prior recreational season being cared for by indifferent teenage girls.
OK.
You open the door and there it is, the first thing you inhale.
That smell. That taste.
Honestly it is this bad. Oh Lord.
You'll want to avoid:
Two Vines, Red Blend, Wahington State. Tell your friends.
I have never tasted anything this bad.
Oh holy shit this is BAD.
It is so bad.
So very bad.
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Note to the makers and purveyors of Two Vines Wine: I absolutely support you and your efforts to purvey a nice beverage. I am mostly sure that you have good intentions.
Saturday, June 7, 2025
Shocking Cookbook Expose DANGER THRILLS BREAST IMPLANTS
We need to have a talk about those Fundraiser Cookbooks, people.
You think you are getting authenticity, but it's all a LIE.
I am talking specifically about fundraiser cookbooks. Not fake titties. This is what's called a visual metaphor.
When I go thrifting I often see women with tall stacks of these church/fraternal organization/ etc. cookbooks, heading to the checkout, exclaiming in delight about how charming it all is, and I don't disabuse them because why take away someone's happy? But if they took the time to flip through that stack they'd soon realize that they're buying exactly the same content over and over and over again. Particularly if the books are all from the same small town, because (and I congratulate myself on this discovery) different agencies will tend to use one publisher whose name gets passed around on the grapevine. Like, some poor volunteer in Milton-Freewater ass of nowhere Oregon gets stuck on the Cub Scouts 'Cookbook Committee' and doesn't have a goddamn clue, so s/he calls the Milton-Freewater Fire Station or the Library or the Hospital and asks the poor person stuck on their Cookbook Committee what publisher they use, and...there you go. Five organizations in Milton Freewater ass of nowhere Oregon put out fundraiser cookbooks that year, and all five have the same goddamn content, and most of it was written by that asshole at his desk in Missouri.
When I am out trawling for cookbooks, I'll take a stack to the Furniture department, pick out one of the cleaner armchairs, settle in and flip through those sapsuckers before I buy. Damn straight I will. Go ahead and stare me down, nervous young thrift store employee. I know you're worried that I'll fall asleep or die or set up camp here and have to be escorted out at closing. I know you're expecting me to piss up this cushion. Suffer. I did not come here to throw my money away.
I've flipped through literally thousands of fundraiser cookbooks over the years. You get to recognizing the signs. I mean the publishers imprimatur is usually right there in the title page, or on the back cover, so there's a giveaway (duh, it took me ages to figure this one out, which is sad.) Sometimes there are no title pages - but after time, you learn to recognize the stock recipe lineups and get a feel for the writing style, the type and appearance of the feature pages. And a lot of times - bring your reading glasses for that fine print - you'll find that the publishing company is taking money to promote different grocery distributors, so it'll be nothing but recipes with 'Sunshine brand Margarine' or 'Hormel Brand canned brain of something'.
No, cookbook aficionados, what you want are the fundraisers that some earnest volunteer cranked out on a mimeograph, or on one of the first Xeroxes, and another volunteer collated off a table and stapled together on one of those stand thingies. If it has title pages or any other features, those will have been drawn by someone's kid.* Maybe it was decorated by some sincere soul with a calligraphy pen, no skill, and benevolent motives. Maybe it's made of hand-laid paper, or grocery bag stock, and hippies have been involved somehow. Maybe it was put out by a cult, a commune, or a maniac food philosopher (like Jethro Kloss), or some isolated, obscure rural organization. And maybe, if you are very very lucky, it was put out before 1950. THERE YOU GO. That's your treasure. That's the really good stuff.
You want content that was volunteered by real people. That is where you find the gems. That is where you get the most readable, fun content. That is where you find the best food atrocities, and where you find the really good recipes too, the things that people in that time and place really ate and enjoyed and have passed down.
So there you go. Now go grab your garage sale money and hit the streets, eager young space cadets! Answer the call of the food of our ancestors, some of whom were crazy as shithouse rats! Go forth and refuse to let this stuff die!
Sunday, May 18, 2025
106 Tarantulas in a Subaru
I have been way, way up the ass of my current project. So far up it's ass that I fell into a stupor in front of the computer this afternoon, and had to go lie down. I had two source texts open, two maps, and was scrolling a set of manuscript images that I was enlarging. I was juggling seven different main questions and keeping two windows clear for incidental queries, and I got so wound up in all this shit that I began to be able to read Latin.
I am dead serious.
Not word for word, but I was getting the sense of it. I must have suddenly begun using all my subconscious crossword skills and figuring out word roots and prefixes and suffixes and tenses and shit.
However, when you begin to understand Latin, it is time to take a break. I don't understand Latin now, and somehow I am super relieved about that.
This is not humble bragging. Much. This is an indication of how much my ability to concentrate and focus has improved after experiencing a certain transformative event recently.
Shit I'm interesting. Right? I am so interesting.
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There are three subjects that get worse the more you read about them:
1. Jeff Daumer
2. Ed Gein
3. St. Catherine of Sienna
It seems like nobody wants to come right out and put down all the facts in one place. And maybe that's a good idea. Maybe that's why we have cops and medical specialists. We hire them to know these things so we don't have to. Of course, I am the exception to that rule.
I have read a lot of gross stuff in my time, but Daumer? Honestly it's enough to make you give up on humanity completely, some of the things that man did. Not just the stuff that everyone knows. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's details that were never widely disseminated, and I seem to be on a mission to hunt them all down.*
Same goes for Ed Gein. At the very least, he had way, way too much time on his hands, did Eddie. Every time you think 'Dear God that's got to be it' though, you find out about another over the top, horrible...say, facet of his interior design philosophy. Or his fashion sense. Ahem.
Neither of them are a patch on St. Catherine of Sienna, though. St. Catherine of Sienna knew exactly what she was doing - and she was doing it to herself.
St. C of S was a perfect storm of time, place, intellect, mania, credulity, dissimulation dressed as grace, batshit insanity and circumstance. This woman was driven by things that modern medicine was invented to prevent, and driven hard, as though she was being run by terrible electrodes in her head. Everyone around her supported her behaviors, though, and encouraged them, and it all devolved into starvation, bleeding, crying, levitation, miraculous healings, extreme demonstrations of faith and obedience, and people handling the deceased and no no no no.
There was a secular book written in the 1980s that goes into her plight. It's called 'Holy Anorexia' but anorexia was the least of this woman's issues. Under the impression that God was constantly demanding that she humiliate herself in extreme ways to purify her soul, she resorted to, among other things, eating 'corrupt flesh and matter' and you know what, use your imagination.
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The last few weeks have been interesting like this. My back has been slowly releasing tension, and I am not the limping wreck I had been for the last five or so years. I had been developing a misers' squint in my right eye; that's going away. I swear to God my hair is beginning to come in thicker too. It's a trip, is what it is. I had been battling a few compulsive behaviors, nothing new in my depression/ADHD co-morbidity wonderland - those have gone away. I'd super like it if I spontaneously developed the ability to do math, or drive a stick shift.
I have lost 25 pounds.
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So why did I blow off a whole month? Where was my ass when I should have been blogging?
Out enjoying my newfound clarity. It's just amazing. I keep on expanding outward into life, squishy as that sounds.
I have worried that this is how dementia starts, and if I might have had a mini-stroke or something, honestly. If that's the case, I really like how it's turning out.
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*Why? This is such a chick thing! I'm being such a typical chick! I can't get enough of those true crime serial killers, the grosser the better! Ann Rule would understand.
Monday, March 24, 2025
Purgatory Smith and his Ailing Leg
Here for Jon is my next post - THE WATKINS COOKBOOK!
Is it the Rawleigh Cookbook? No it is not. Now, I have owned the Rawleigh Cookbook in the past and I might have one now, but that would mean getting up from Command Central here and digging through my bookshelves, which I am not going to do because I am snuggled in with my modern Jazz and my Big Ballard. Anyway I already took the pictures for the Watkins one.

And this is a pair of salt and peppers that look like dolphins, and the salt comes out of a hole in the middle of the dolphins' face.