this just in

A perfect blend of catch and skiff here. Enjoy Moby Dick via the interpretive genius of one Aaron Francis, D.V.D., one of my four adopted sons (AQ, JA, PR, you know who you are). The degree letters are for AF to decipher. [Hats off to my virago daughter (definition 2, por supuesto) for the link.]

Dave, Dave, Dave. You bait me with this:
Now I am plagued by unclean thoughts.

• Is the photo dirty or has she been rolling around with the zebras?
• I thought zebras were herbivores. Looks like this one ATE HER BOOBS.
• What could one do with an octopus? (sweater-wise, I mean, you pervs.)
• How long would it take to knit the matching leggings?

Christ on a flap jack, so many questions. So much zoo crafting envy.

Went to the Bayou City Farmers Market this morning. Nice produce but astrorganically priced. (I'm copyrighting this word.) Okay, it's possible that my love of word coinage leads to hyperbole. Stuff is probably no more overpriced than Whole Foods or Central Market. But I won't pay for that kind of wholesomeness every week. Just won't do it.

Will you look at the time? I've got to get back to the shit on my list...

no blogging until you've finished your peas

Couldn't blog this weekend; I had chores.

Spent part of Saturday and most of Sunday pulling the landfill (computer room) apart and putting it (mostly) back together. If wires and cables were money... Anyway, the junk I didn't throw away is piled up on the dining room table and in the, well shit, I don't know what to call it, I guess it's the den but that sounds too plaid herculon for my tastes.

I am such a collector of crap. Of course, it's not crap to me. It's material for projects, things that surround me with happy ideas for future creativity. But it's also too much. Too fucking much. I need clear spaces and breathing room. So I am fighting against my nature and doing the purge.

The biggest challenge is momentum. Which is why boxes and bags have become an anathema to me. Anything dumped in a cardboard box and moved out of my visual path is dead to me. I am not going to open it up just to sort through and organize. I shouldn't even have closet doors. The existence of a closed box of chaos simply doesn't nag at me. They scream to be dealt with for most of my family members but I can't hear them at all.

Speaking of not being able to hear things
I learned early in adulthood that I don't do well with pets. Particularly quiet pets. If I have to tend to something, it had better know how to make some noise when it needs food and water. My ex-husband had a penchant for getting pets and then, going out of town. The hermit crabs were a case in point. I can't recall if we named them Larry, Moe & Curly but that's how I remember them. And that's about the sum total of my affection for them, too. Hermit crabs are not easy to warm up to. And they are awfully quiet. I walked past them a few days after Dave had gone and thought, Jesuschrist those damn things stink like fish. At which point it dawned on me that I had forgotten something. Like teaching them to tap on the glass every night to remind me to, you know, feed and water them.

The three dead crab stooges initiated the guilt list of pets in my life. (No, I didn't kill all of them, assholes. Well, I did kill a couple hundred sea monkies, I'll admit. And euthanized a paralyzed parakeet, Bert–or maybe it was Ernie, who entered his eternal rest in a carbon monoxide fog, but that was an avian mercy killing, people.) The rest of the animals and plants (goddammit, plants are really quiet) that I have reluctantly allowed to share my domain were under the strict purview of the softhearted family member who wanted them. Or they just didn't make it.

More later, about the creatures in my life.