Raisin Hell
I’m an adventurous eater, and will try almost anything once. BUT, there are two foods with which I just cannot abide. Sweet potatoes/yams, and raisins.
Especially raisins.
It dates back to childhood. I’ve hated raisins for as long as I can remember. My mother blamed my older brother for this hatred. I’m not so sure. She thinks he told me that raisins were dead flies, and while he may have, that would not have put me off if raisins actually tasted good. I don’t know why I hate raisins, I just do. Everybody has to have something to hate, right? Nothing fucks up a perfectly good carrot cake like a little sour glob of yuck. I can almost tolerate them in oatmeal cookies, if they are ground into tiny, unrecognizable bits. (What’s wrong with chocolate chips? They’re brown, and taste way better…) I’d give yams equal billing, but Screen Door’s chicken & sweet potato waffles are teh yum, so by default raisins are my number-one hated food.
There may be some truth to the dead fly thing. I was the resident assassin of all things insect during childhood. Living in the country, our house hosted any number of unwelcome critters, and flies were prolific. I was a fly-swatting machine. (I looked to make one million kills before I turned thirteen, but lost count along the way.) I loved it when a bee got into the house; I could swat them in mid-air. It was like facing Gaylord Perry’s knuckleball. It might be… it could be… it is! A HOME RUN! Great for hand/eye coordination.
I’ve been pretty much alone in my distaste for shriveled up grapes. After a recent rant, Art East confessed that he too is less than fond of raisins. He’s been racked up with a knee injury, thus having more time to work on projects of an amusing nature. He sent me this GIF, a teaser of things to come. He used footage from forest fires and several public-domain images of raisins to create the raisin army. Notice the shields the Raisin Army are carrying? Muffin tops. I want to put the image on a tee shirt. He’s promised to finish a short animated film, featuring an appearance from a 1974 Ford Pinto. Can you smell what the Rock is cookin’?
I want to thank Art for making me hate raisins just a little less. It was a labor of love, plus he got this added bonus when he Google image-searched “muffin tops”…
And Baby Makes Seven…
Yesterday would have been my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. I meant to call and remind Sis, but time kept getting away from me.
It was mostly a craptacular day. Hot as hell outside, air-conditioning on the fritz at work. Grinder and Uncle Cliffy were having a difference of opinion regarding each others value to the company, so Dr T and Whitney were playing it smart and staying far away from the yelling. (They found so many busy-projects, we struggled to describe how good the place looked.) Add a toothache and a persistent trickle of my least favorite cussed-dumbers? Good times…
I walked out the door promptly at midnight, hoping the bus wasn’t ahead of schedule. As I trespassed through the park I saw a familiar figure up ahead. It was my bus-riding buddy, heading the wrong direction. “Hey lady, you lost?”
“No, actually I have my car tonight. Would you like a ride?”
Ten minutes into the new day and things are looking better already. I buckled in and we were off.
The bus seems like a fast ride until you do it by car. The house was lit up, the dog was announcing my arrival with mucho gusto. (I swear she can read a clock. If I’m early, or off schedule, she lets me know just how good a watch dog she is.) I hushed her as I squeezed in through the door. The cats were on alert. Hmm…
My niece said, “Hey Uncle, lookie here!” and I’ll be damned if she didn’t present me with yet another cat. A little tiny month-old ball of orange-white, with a raccoon tail.
“Jesus. Another cat? BIL (bro-in-law) is gonna kill you…” My sister has had to hear some mess about her cat collection.
She smiled. “Au contraire. He’s the one who brought it home!”
So now we have yet another furball stalking the night. She’s cute, taking to the new surroundings with a casual aire. At last glance she was stretched out on a pillow, napping.
If nothing else, it won’t be hard to remember what day we got her. Well played, BIL.
You old softy.
Now Open!
The Blue Room at the KittyCat Club!
Am I cheap, or just painfully frugal? After years of use, it was time to retire the laundry basket. I bought the old one when we moved into the house nine years ago. (I think I paid $2.99.) It has served me well, but collapses into itself whenever I haul anything, so it was time for a replacement. I made the bi-annual run to the evil empire.
Six cats allow me to live with them, and one of their favorite chillin’ spots are laundry baskets full of clean clothes. Since I’m allergic to cats, this will not do, so I keep my stuff segregated and only leave the laundry basket out when the clothes are wet and waiting to be dried. In 90+ dee-gree weather? They love the wet clothes!
Rimshot!
This is Neptune, aka CreamCicle, aka a bunch of cuss-words when he’s too nosy. The retirement of the laundry basket must have been a big event in the cat world, because three came to sniff, and Neptune jumped the claim. He hopped inside and immediately began grooming himself in a way many humans are envious of. (Except maybe Marilyn Manson and Uncle Cliffy. But that’s another story.) My disruption of his sanitation activities earned me a dose of the evil eye…
Karma and Cupcakes
At work, I have a reputation for being a hardass amongst the street people. I watch them like a hawk when they shop, I don’t allow loitering, and if they want to hang out in front of the store I *politely* ask them to move along. (If they don’t? That’s what security is for.) I’m not indiscriminate, but I know nonsense when I see it, and don’t want it happening on my watch. I get a flush of pride when a potential criminal walks by the store, looks in to see who is working, and stomps off mad when they see it’s me. (“Sorry, no free lunch today!”)
That said, I’m not a completely heartless bastard…
Another Trashed-Out Mess
“Another trashed-out mess…” she harrumphed.
I was on lunch break, walking through the film lot of Leverage. *She* was an uppity woman of about fifty, who crossed my path as we approached an intersection. I withheld rebuttal; it was an area teeming with Road Warriors panhandling for beer and heroin money. She could have noticed I’d shaved today, and didn’t have the requisite dozen layers of beige dust and street grime crackling and flaking off every time I moved. I resisted calling her a leathery old twat, and rolled the C-bomb back from the tip of my tongue. She was making an ignorant assumption. Or else I looked worse than usual.
White Trash Week in Review
I’ve been working a lot of hours lately, full-time plus. Between that and life’s duties, I haven’t had much time for social pleasures.That doesn’t stop me from trying. I relayed my tales of whoa to Art East. He sent along a piece of animation that captured the spirit and mood of my week, perfectly done in time-lapse…
The Porno Queen has moved into a residential hotel up the street from the store, so I have a place to go when lunch is mandatory. PQ introduced me to her friend Meg, who lives downstairs. Meg appreciates my company more than the Porno Queen, so I’ve been hightailing it there as soon as the lunch person arrives. Meg is shy, introverted, but fun to hang out with. We get to know each other while watching Jeopardy. When I stumble out of her room to head back to work, the hotel security guard gives me the evil eye. He saw that 24 oz can of beer in my pocket. (If I were drinking it, both pockets would have been full.) I bring it as a gesture of gratitude for the hospitality. It’s great having a sanctuary in the downtown core, especially one that smells so nice.
And now another week begins. I’ve been wanting to ask Meg out on a real date, but I keep getting scheduled on my days off. Master P is short-staffed, and the summer is our Christmas season, so I take the money while I can get it. It doesn’t hurt to get a jump-start on the next round of bills, and maybe I can take Meg somewhere really nice.
And stay there for more than an hour…
Dingleberry Gazette 