If I just woke up, it’s breakfast
The trip was uneventful, but so very, very long. I carried on bravely and as long as I could, like the courageous weasel that I am, but finally crashed out and slept the happy, dreamless sleep of the rabid and feral. Uncle B just woke me up with a bottle of champagne.
It isn’t the best champagne, but very drinkable and plenty good enough to get me out of bed and into some serious drinking.
Huzzah! Christmas is here!
December 20, 2007 — 8:44 pm
Comments: 13
But I don’t wanna marry Kevin!
So I had this dream. I dreamed there was this ratfaced dude with long, limp brown hair and they were like, “right. This is Kevin. You’re going to marry him.”
And I’m like, “wait…what?!”
And they go, “you promised you’d move to England and get married, didn’t you?”
And I’m like, “uhhh…yes. I guess.”
And they go, “well, the regular guy can’t make it, so you’ll have to marry Kevin.”
And I wail, “but I don’t wanna marry Kevin!”
That’s going to be my personal catchphrase for a while. You’d appreciate the power of this dream more fully if you had any idea how many suicidally stupid things I’ve done in my life because I felt like I’d promised somebody something.
And don’t get me going on the irresistible power of the dare!
Okay, so this here is what I laughingly call my studio. Actually, it was a proper artist’s studio for years, but then I raised three baby squirrels to robust adulthood in it. Squirrels are a genetically-engineered cross between rats and psychotic trapeze artists.
It was my task this weekend to pull out everything I want from this great tottery pile of squirrel-tainted weasel poo so the Garbage Fairies can come over the holidays and whisk the rest away to Santa’s Landfill. This was what it looked like on Friday. I took one look and wailed, “but I don’t wanna marry Kevin!”
But I learned something, going through my old drawings and other artwork. I learned that, if I work hard and put my mind to it, I sure can suck. I also learned that ammonia dissolves india ink — good to know when you find a big crusty pool of dried ink with squirrel tracks radiating outwards in all directions on a hardwood floor. This happens to everyone some day, and now you’ll be prepared. You’re welcome. Also, I found many hidden caches of inky peanuts and dessicated broccoli, so you’ll be relieved to know I’ll be okay in the lean times, thanks to my beloved psychotic trapeze rats. Fare thee well, boys — wherever thou mightst be!
Wait! How long do gray squirrels live in the wild? Never mind…
December 18, 2007 — 7:09 pm
Comments: 12
Oh. Right. Thanksgiving.
My assorted brothers had spousal families to eat with in the afternoon, so we had a Thanksgiving brunchy thing.
Have you ever had riced eggs? My stepmother is generally a very good cook, but I don’t know about this one. You boil eggs and then “rice” them with a cheese shredder, make a roux and pour it over the top. “The boys fight over this,” she said. And I saw them do it, too, but damned if I can work out why.
Anyhow, she makes the only edible grits in the world. She makes them the regular bland way, then mixes in raw egg and cheese and bakes it. Nice. Basically, you melt cheese on something, I’m going to eat it. I’m an au gratin kind of a gal.
I got three jackets, two pairs of slacks (slacks! That I should wear slacks!), several tops, a skirt and five pairs of shoes out of the deal. I like two of the jackets and one of the pairs of shoes, so I’m going to call this a success.
Now I’ve essentially got two weeks to de-junkify this place. And a headcold, which I presumably picked up in the airport in Cincinnati. Yeah, I knew that germy infant in the seat in front of me was going to give me a disease.
November 28, 2007 — 4:49 pm
Comments: 37
Yea it is nitty, and verily it is gritty also
Okay, here’s where it all becomes a lucky happy pink fluffy buttload of playtime joy. The real estate lady looked upon my Mighty Pile and instantly decided it would be quicker if I picked out the few things worth keeping and then turned the ragpickers loose.
I’ve never liked throwing things away (which is how we got here). I’ve never been one for new beginnings and fresh starts. But it’s finally dawning on me that nobody’s waiting to compose my hagiography; that my every post-it note and snotrag is not a precious relic; that rubbing my adolescent journals on lepers will not make them clean. In fact — on the whole — I would rather the world not remember what a spoiled, whiny, self-absorbed unpleasant little proto-emo toe-rag I was at sixteen.
So here we go. I guess it says something not-flattering about me that the idea of throwing out my first computer is a whole lot harder to bear than the idea of throwing away letters from my first serious boyfriend.
After all, that computer is an XT clone with a Phoenix BIOS — the first proper cloned PC. “Phoenix” because the company rose anew from the ashes of its lawsuit with IBM. Ironically, IBM’s loss is what tilted the nascent PC market toward IBM and away from Apple, since there were cheap clones of the former and not (still not) of the latter. “Cheap” is relative, of course: I had to take out a loan for $2,500 to buy it — a very serious chunk of change in 1985 weaselbucks. Still, it ran at 9.44 MHz (as opposed to the 4.77 MHz for a genuine IBM XT), had an RGB monitor, a 20 meg hard drive AND two floppies (one of which was double density). I combed Computer Shopper for months before I picked this one out.
And the boyfriend was just some lovesick twit I grew up with.
November 14, 2007 — 8:00 pm
Comments: 19
Stay classy, Providence!
Meet, Nibbles Woodaway, the Big Blue Bug, star of stage, screen, tattoo art and morning traffic reports. Built in Providence in 1980 (meaning your humble Weasel predates him in this city by two years), he’s the tasteful chickenwire-and-fiberglass mascot of New England Pest Control.
I suspect his fame derives from the fact that traffic on Interstate 95 bogs down near him at rush hour (much like the Dorchester gas tanks in Boston), so mentions of “the big blue bug” happen every ten minutes on news radio. He has since been featured in such outstanding theatrical productions as Dumb and Dumber and Oprah.
So when my real estate lady told me to call “RI Pest Control,” naturally the giant helpless advertising-drenched lobes of my brain substituted “New England Pest Control” and I did that thing. I don’t suppose it makes much difference; it was just a precaution anyway. And nope…no termites. I do have a bit of woodboring dung beetles or some damn thing — I forget — but it’s no big, apparently.
Also on today’s list: garage doors and the ragpicker. New garage doors aren’t nearly as expensive as I thought (no, I didn’t pick the cheapest and sleaziest, I picked the next one up from the cheapest and sleaziest. A class act, me). Installed a week from Monday.
And finally, the ragpicker. He and his good lady ragpicker have just had the fifty-cent tour…and, as they didn’t run away screaming, I guess they’re hired. When I said I was a packrat, they looked at each other and burst out laughing. I don’t think they were laughing at my nouveau-Brit understatement. I think it means the Weasel Collection is soon to become a small part of the Ragpicker Collection. Suits me fine.
And that’s more boring, home-ownery, grownuppy stuff than I’ve done in the last six years, all packed into one zany, madcap adventure. It’s now an hour and sixteen minutes past drinking time and I’ve been a Very Good Weasel, so — bottoms up! And then let’s have a drink!
November 13, 2007 — 7:46 pm
Comments: 28
Knitting up the ravell’d sleeve of broccoli
In case you’re not sure what you’re looking at there, it’s knitted potatoes and tomatoes and other garden vegetables. They represent a small part of an entire knitted garden dreamed up by some British biddies. That’s 300 people, fifty miles of yarn and four million stitches.
I’m not much into knitting, mind you (that would be my big brother), but Pupster sent me a link to the excellent Stitchy McYarnpants Museum of Kitschy Stitches a few days ago, so the topic just seemed… knitted in the stars or something.
I’m going to need all the cheap and easy blogfodder I can get for a while. A real estate agent had a look at Weasel Manor over the weekend and left me a To Do list that included items such as “douse livingroom in gasoline and light match” and “write ‘I Will Never Buy Another Knick-Knack In My Whole Stupid Miserable Life’ one hundred times — in own blood.”
If you haven’t figured it out on your own, I’m not a very good grownup. The process of hiring and directing workmen is not one I’m likely to do well. I was on the phone all day asking the important interview questions like, “would you like to see me hang a spoon on my nose?” and “recite three recent booger haiku you have written.”
I’m doomed.
November 12, 2007 — 6:40 pm
Comments: 26
C’mon-a my house
Have you ever had a break so lucky, you were actually afraid to brag about it for fear God would smite you? No, me neither. And it’s scaring the hell out of me. I’m sure the Acme safe is going to fall on my head any minute now.
Uncle B and I have been house hunting for a decade. We knew pretty much what we wanted, and where. We’ve pored through the listings nightly and looked at dozens of houses. We became known to the local real estate community as “Oh, them.”
We’ve looked at so many houses that were…almost right. But this one had no garden, and that one was in a crap neighborhood, and another one needed a hundred thousand pounds spent on it before you could flush the toilet. We put in a bid a couple of times, but I can’t say with much enthusiasm.
Incidentally, Britain is a fantastic place to be rich. If you have a million or more, you can still buy something that looks like it escaped from an Avenger’s episode. It’s a pretty good place to be poor, too, on account of all the socialism. It’s the mokes in the middle like us what get squeezed like…ummm…gonads in a pair of Levi’s.
Anyhow — long story short — Uncle B found this place that is Goldilocks all over. Set back from the road, decent garden. Walking distance from the town we wanted to live in, but surrounded by sheep fields. Decent size, recently done up (but tastefully, not by speculators). Checked over by a local architect ‘sympathetic to old buildings’ — as the saying goes. JUST inside our price range. Oh, hey, did I mention it’s a SIXTEENTH CENTURY FARMHOUSE?!?
If there’s really such a thing as feng shui, this house is soaking in it. I’ve never been in a warmer, more organic place. It chuckles to itself. It moans in the sun. It gurgles with plumbing. We keep plucking stranded newts off the living room floor. It’s alive with sheep and crows and spiders and little dickie birds.
To avoid distracting this blog from important subjects like penis enlargement spams and booger haiku, I have set up a separate Flickr site for Badger House. I didn’t take as many pictures as I thought, but I was Rather Busy.
Hey, check it out! I’m not colorblind!
November 5, 2007 — 7:24 pm
Comments: 27
And then came home again
Of course, I’m just guessing here. I wrote this two weeks ago. For all I know, we had a horrible falling out under the strain and it’s all over.
Hm.
Do me a favor. If I come back tomorrow and act like nothing happened and never mention Britain again, we’ll just go on like before, ‘K?
October 30, 2007 — 7:27 am
Comments: 21
My poor pussoes
This is the point of the trip where I start to feel guilty about my cats. I imagine them shuffling around the house going “miaowwwwww…” in forlorn voices. They always have HUGE eyes, like those paintings.
In truth, I left them a way in and out through the basement, so they’ve probably had the time of their lives. And I’ve undoubtedly been feeding their friend, the Big Black Cat Who Is Not At All Intimidated By Me. Dude eats out of their bowl even when I’m IN the house.
Damnedest thing. My two are usually territorial (especially Charlotte), but they don’t seem to mind this guy.
October 29, 2007 — 7:26 am
Comments: 4
Awwww…
In an apparent murder/suicide pact, two mustelids were found dead today in the front room of their newly purchased house in the South of England.
Yeah, that’s for all of you who went “awwwww…”
October 28, 2007 — 6:22 am
Comments: 15