The Devil Hates Kung Fu

I wanted to use February as a Month for Gratitude and talk about all the things that I was grateful for and try to mentally trip myself out of the January doldrums.  I had this master plan last week that I would start on February 1st and even had a subject that I wanted to start with. Two days ago it was February 1st and at the end of the day, the only thing I was grateful for was to be able to go home in one piece.  Yesterday was the annual Wish It Was Spring By Trusting a Rodent Festival  (Groundhogs Day) and despite the prophesies  of an early spring, it didn't put a spring into my step. It isn't that I am not grateful, I have a lot to be grateful for, but when you are seeing colors in a dreary light it is hard to see colors.

One of the things I do when I need to work stuff out in my head is reorganize the space around me, and then hope that by the time that I am done my brain will be in a better spot.  I was reorganizing the library last week since it had become a black hole of clutter and half finished projects.  In the middle of moving a cabinet I discovered a bunch of old year books and compact discs.   One of the discs that caught my eye was the one my husband made for me when we first started dating.

Before I was with my husband I had a very specific music taste. I am not saying it was good music taste or bad music taste, but it was pretty much whatever came on the radio.  I had never been super obsessive over music, but on the other hand I could listen to the same CD for weeks without taking a breather, because it just jived with me at the time.  I will admit that I get in a rut with my music.  I get in a rut in a lot of things and I don't even know it most of the time.

My husband is a constant evolution of music and has introduced me to a lot of bands that I would never have discovered on my own.  Looking back at the first mixed tape made me so grateful that he didn't call it quits when I told him that his favorite band had nasally grating voice that I couldn't stand.  If you hear him tell it, I was a hairs breathe from getting the axe, because I inadvertently insulted the band that spoke his soul.  I am grateful that he could accept our differences and move forward and give me time to change my music tastes at my own pace and not instant expect me to love everything he loves.  My husband and I are almost a dozen years out from our first date, and I still don't love all the music that he does, but thats okay.  He certainly doesn't love all the music that I do, but when I showed him that first compact disc he made, he marveled at his good taste and I was able to laugh with him over some of the songs.  Looking back and enjoying the past is one step closer to getting out of the rut.

Below is the play list for those that are interested.

The Devil Hates Kung Fu

1. The King of Carrot Flower by Neutral Milk Hotel
2. King's Dominion By Black Eyes
3. Pull My Strings- Dead Kennedys
4. Target by Fugazi
5. The Kids are Alright by Gold Finger
6. Call the Doctor by Sleater Kinney
7. Bloody Murder by Cursive
8. DatSkat by The Roots
9. Goneja by Skinny Puppy
10. Circus by Tom Waits
11. Caroline by Jawbreakers
12. Magical Colors (31 Flavors) by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
13. The Lost World by Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon
14. Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)  by Digable Planets
15. Futile Bread Machine by Meshuggah
16. Watergate by Ohgr
17. Kill All the White Man by NoFx
18. Snow Shoe BBQ by Atom and His Package
19. Turn Around by They Might be Giants
20. Can God Fill Teeth by Lard
21. Kabuki Girl by The Decendents
22. White Kids Love Hip Hop by MC Chris
23. Exploding Brains by Tenacious D
24. Hotel Yorba by The White Stripes
25. United States of Whatever by Liam Lynch

January is Not My Favorite

I am not sure if I am a fan of January.  It might has something to do with the frigid temperatures and lack of sunlight, or it could be that bad tends to hold off until the holidays are over. Last year around this time I has dealing with funeral arrangements for my brother and it wasn't what one would call a positive start to a new year.  The year did get better and I mended a couple of fences along the way.   This year almost started the same as last year, with a funeral, but thankfully it didn't. 

Iggins & Dib

My bathroom is being remodeled. When it is done, it is going to look awesome. I have been exceedingly pleased with all the work that has been put into it. My cats have been less then pleased by all the work going on in the house.  Dib is angry that he isn't allowed out of the downstairs to help the nice gentleman doing all the work.  He has been quite verbal with his grunts and growls and the way he throws his little kitty body against the door hoping that it will open so that he can go help in a very non helpful way.  Iggins just wants to hide and have nothing to do with anyone, and preferably be away from Dib who is full of pent up kitty energy and tries to take it out on him in a not so playful way. 

I was getting ready to come home from  work the other day and my husband called me right as I was putting my coat on to combat the winter chill.  The message was short.  Iggins was missing. Dib had succeeded in opening the door and the front door had been open at the time, because the plumber was prepping to do plumbing stuff. No one could find Iggins.  Dib didn't seem all that worried, because he had achieved getting out of lock up and was his smug self, but Iggins was missing. 

For the next three hours I wandered the block with a flashlight, clicking the cat food dishes calling Iggins name in single digit temperatures.  I think I talked to more neighbors in a single night then I have in the last four years.  I registered Iggins as missing and posted information on social media as I slowly began to lose my mind. My husband created cat beds and put them on both porches and set out food, hoping that he would come home and tried to console me as I turned into a mess of snuffles and tears.  Iggins in my cat.  Jon and I share ownership of him, but he really is my cat.  He likes me best, probably because I am the mistress of the canned cat food and I know how to use my thumbs and rub his face the right way. He is sassy, moody orange fluff ball with and extra fluffy belly and a smirky look to him.  He trusts red heads and hates sneezes, and loves me. 

After circling the block for the fifth time I had decided to go home, go upstairs, have a good cry and then go and circle the block again. I was on the guest bed cuddling with a giant stuffed frog that sits on the bed and sobbing when a thin stripped orange tail comes into view. I seriously thought I was hallucinating.  I thought my brain was playing tricks on me. I don't normally hallucinate, or at least as far as I know I don't.  I reached out and pulled that orange fluff ball into my arms and tried not to wipe snot onto his fur as I cuddled him.   I had never been so terrified fearing for his safety and thankful that he was okay, and angry that he wouldn't come out, but mostly relieved. 

I am still not completely sold on January, but it is getting better and at the end of January my bathroom will look fabulous. 

2015 Boiled Down

I love lists.  I love the feeling of being organized and having a clear direction that a list gives me. I wanted to create a list of 15 things to describe 2015. It sounds like a simple thing, but the more that I thought about it, the more daunting the task became.   How does a person describe the glowing bits of happiness with the dark bits of sadness in just a few words? The idea of creating a list was slowly becoming a new year’s resolution. Something that I said I would do, and in my mind I would do, but in reality I would maybe not quite do completely.  

I dislike the term, resolutions.  It makes me feel broken and that something needs fixed. I prefer the word challenges, because it makes me feel like it is something that I can overcome and grow from. With that in mind, I challenged myself to come up with some words that described my 2015 and reflect upon the crunchy bits, to learn from them and help challenge myself to make the most of my 2015 and hope to challenge myself to find ways to enliven my 2016.

1. Welcome to Nightvale
2. Homemade wine
3. Pishing
4. Cherries
5. Bacon Jam
6.  Zumba
7.  Comics
8.  Museums
9.  Thrift Stores
10. Fabric
11. Board Games
12.  Post Cards
13.  Sunblock
14. MST3K
15. Cats

I know that with the word, I didn't put things like Family, or Friends or Love, because it is my belief that all of those things are involved with my core essentials, it is just a way they were manifested in 2015.  I can only anticipate what 2016 will bring.

Subconscience Gift

I love giving gifts. I also enjoy my libations. When these two things meet up, it often leave me scratching my head and wondering what I was thinking.  To quell this buyers remorse I have resorted to online shopping and either throwing things on a wish list to look at later or not checking my virtual cart out until a day or two has passed and my head has cleared. That way I can assess if I am a genius or perhaps just a little intoxicated.

I recently discovered a private wish list I created that has left me scratching my head.  I probably started it in the summer or perhaps in the fall, but honestly I don't know when I started it.  I clearly had something in mind when it came to fruition.

Here is the list:

1. Mindful Skull Tapestry Beach Sheet
2. Set of 4 Ninja Throwing Spikes with Wrist Sheath
3. M48 Apocalypse Tactical Tomahawk
4. Kraken Sea Monster Patrol Patch
5. Tungsten Carbide Steel Lord of the Rings Ring
6. Map of Middle Earth on Silk Cloth
7. Cat Treats
8. Mudder 60W 110V Electrically Adjustable Temperature Welding Soldering Iron w/ Five different tips


To me, it looks like I am either going on an adventure to Middle Earth and I am taking my cat with me and expecting trouble or I was preparing for the end of the world and planned on surviving off of the cat treats as a last resort.  Either could be a possibility. I don't know.  Part of me wants to buy all the things and use them as white elephant gifts and the other part of me is trying to figure out the method behind this madness.   If you are ever stuck for gift ideas, I don't think you can go wrong with throwing spikes.  I am pretty sure that is something every one could use multiple of and not be upset for receiving duplicates.

Quilt of Books

My dear friends decided that they wanted to combine DNA. I was and am very excited for them. They live in the harsh New England area and it is said to get a fair bit brisk there than it does in my location.  I had this brilliant idea that I would make them a book quilt.  Books are unisex and everyone of any size and shape can enjoy them and they can grow with you and help you grow.
Quilts are warm and help you survive through the winter.  It was a perfect combination in my mind.

The only hitch in that plan, is that while I have done quilts in the past, I haven't really done a quilt.  Normally my mother and I will work on a quilt together. My job normally has something to do with the acquisition of fabric and supplies and the manual labor of hand tying it when it has been assembled.  My job has never been the math in the quilt, until now.  My mother was unavailable to assist in this adventure, and with the help of some creative excel spreadsheet mapping, I had a plan and some math flushed out.

Where The Wild Things Are

The plan was simple.  I have one large block that I draw a book cover on and then I have color block around the side of it. Then it all gets sewn together on a flat sheet with batting and add a border. It would test not only my artistic skills, but my limited sewing skills. It was a simple plan and I gave myself two weeks to get it accomplished in time for their shower.

The beautiful thing about math, is that number don't lie, however if you ignore them or perhaps don't pay attention to them, then things get a little interesting. All off that math I spent a day mapping out turned out to be mostly useless, because I bought the wrong sheet size in my supplies gathering, and had to wing it from there on out.

I could go through the ins and outs of what it takes to make a quilt and how much fun it is to try and do anything with a super helpful cat that thinks that it is his job to lay on everything or chew on any of the strips of fabric, but I won't.  I had promised that I would give a guide to the book covers that was used on the blanket. This is that guide. From the top row, where Iggins is standing going left to right is the following:


1. The Hobbit
2. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
3. Brisinger
4. Pride & Prejudice
5. Dune
6. Moby Dick
7. Alice in Wonderland
8. Don Quixote
9. Disc World (I couldn't choose just one book!)
10. The Last Unicorn
11. Harry Potter (Again I couldn't pick just one!)
12. We Have Always Lived in the Castle
13. Peter Rabbit
14. Where the Side Walk Ends
15. Where the Wild Things Ate
16. Sherlock Holmes (Okay so maybe there are several book series on here, but they were needed!)
17. Game of Thrones
18. Batman (Frank Miller's Batman was one of the first graphic novels according to my husband and everyone needs Batman in their life.)
19. The Phantom Tollbooth.
20. The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe  21. Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

I had a lot of fun working on this, and while it might not be a perfect quilt with all the straight lines and defined lines that my mother would have done, but I am still proud of it.  It was fun to think about what sort of books should be on the quilt and whether or not I could mimic any of the art. My husband was a great support in looking for images for inspiration and listening to him campaign as to which books he felt should be on the quilt.  If anything my friends have a reading list they can pass down to future generations.

Goats

Goats!



I am a nice and normal person. Or at least I think I am, but every now and then my brain takes a turn and goes down an alley and I have no idea why.   Some people call it a squirrel moments, because they could be normally doing something and BAM! Oh Look ! A  Squirrel! They are utterly distracted and there isn't any particular trigger.

Goats!

I have what I am going to call Goat Moments. It is where I can be carrying on a perfectly normal conversation and then all of a sudden a word is going to strike me as funny. Not funny Uh-Oh, but funny Ha-Ha!  This past weekend that word was Goats and I have no idea.  I was puttering around killing time before meeting some friends for lunch/afternoon beers, and I left my coffee cup by the goats and that is all it took/  For some reason the word goats and the way it rolls off of my tongue stuck me as funny.  Funny like it was the best joke I had ever heard.

Goats!

Funny in a way that I am saying the word goats over and over again in a sing song manner and can't stop laughing at how the word feels as it is uttered. My husband just rolled his eyes as I gasped for air as we left to get beers/ lunch.    Even as I am typing this out, I am saying goats to myself and snickering. It is still funny and it has been a few days since the first goat threw me into a giggling fit.  I have no idea why I find humor in this.  And that is what a Goat Moment is. It is something that is unexplainably funny that comes out of the blue. Maybe some day I will have a better explanation, but that is all I have now. I have goats.


Goats!

Pishing About

My husband and I were on the coast for our anniversary and the weather was not idyllic.  In fact it was a cross between rain and mist and was just over all damp.  The term my husband informed me was it was "pishing" and that it was a British Term, and that is what we called it.

Fast forward a few weeks later and I am out with a friend doing shopping and the weather is very much the same sort of rain and mist combo.  I told her about the fabulous word that described the event that was befalling upon us weather wise, and asked if she had heard it while is was across the pond.  If there was anyone that would have a word for rain in its various stages it would them.

She had not heard that term and asked if what I really meant was "pissing" and it had been misheard, because she had heard the rain called that several times, but by no means was she on the up and up on all of the British colloquialisms.  While we were having a coffee break from out daily adventures and discussing how we were doing on our NaNoWriMo word could. I decided to turn to the internet looking for words that describe the rain.  

Oh my. I came across a charming article from several years back  by BBC that bemoaned the lack of description on the way the water fell from the sky.  I have never read a more British article or laughed so hard about it.  It made me want to use all of their terms to describe rain, even the some what french one that was described as "raining like a cow relieving itself," which is to say it was probably a steady heavy down pour that will muck up your shoes considering the manner of cows.  

While that article gave me a good chuckle and some inspiration for a little bit writing, it crossed my mind that perhaps I should continue my search for "pishing" and maybe it wasn't a British thing at all. This lead me to Urban Dictionary. Yeah... Well... The answer they gave for "pishing" was much like a cow relieving itself on people that enjoy that sort  of thing.  Not the answering I was looking for, but did point me in the direction that perhaps my husband just heard the word wrong. 

Once last search before giving up on the internet distraction and forcing myself to go back to my noveling brought me to The Fine Art of Pishing, which thankfully had nothing to do with urination and everything to do with coaxing a bird out of a bush and also nothing to do with doing that in the rain.  Giving up, I realize that sometimes that some of the best distractions are the one that leave you with more questions than answers, and that if I want to get anywhere on my novel I have to start giving my characters more interesting questions than them chatting about the weather.