Mmmm couscous

My recipe catalog has been severely lacking for the summer months.

Hot sticky weather doesn't condone itself well to chaining oneself to an oven and religiously mincing vegetables for some over involved comestible. So most recipes I come across are either unappetizing due to the amount of work, the amount of food, or the weird crap they try to stick in just because well we got a ton of durian and damnit we're gonna use it!

I've been sampling various other food recipe magazines to see if I can find a good fit for us and while it's only one issue so far think I may have found a good one. It's called Eating Well and while I might argue with many of their pseudo-science articles I can't with tasty sounding food.

Last night I made a couscous (I adore couscous. It's the food of the greek gods.) parsley chicken wrap thing. Now my husband and I can pretend we're prisoners in the Village eating nothing buy wraps.

It has a very obvious greek base with the lemon juice, the garlic and the olive oil and was super tasty. Nice and light for those summer days and took about 30 minutes to whip up. I did alter the recipe a bit to suit my tastes and needs. No cucumber as they could kill my husband (I exaggerate, they just had a big falling out over a spilled tub of yogurt) and I cut everything in half.

If you're curious about the recipe you can check it out here at Roots and Zest a somewhat new blog from a very awesome lady. It was she who suggested I try the Eating Well magazine.

Though you should really go read her blog because she's hilarious and has some tantalizing food posts. I cannot be held liable if your keyboard is destroyed from all the drool.

Now I'm off to try and figure out what I can make the other 6 days of the week. Maybe some kind of mud and rock stew.

Eerie Tree Painting

Last night was the big auction and while I haven't heard anything specific about my lot they did raise $1200 for charity. Go Whimsicle!

While I wait to find out the fate of my painting here are a few new ones that aren't as full of whimsy as they could be but there is some spooky and tiny red hair thrown in for good measure.

This is my 18X24. I was going for something a bit eerie. A haunted forest in front of a large setting moon. The forest was driving me nuts as I first painted it a far too bright blue and kept darkening it but not too much.  So I'd go back and forth with the black wash and the blue/gray.

Then I finally added a little haze around the trees so you could pretend it's fog, steam, or all the souls of trees that had to die to make the support structures of the painting.

I'm actually only charging $55 for this one because it wasn't too hard to make. Or I've got my trees down to a science.

I'd just listed it yesterday but it already made it into a treasury.

I also finished another pendant. I wanted to create something fairy like so I got the idea to paint a flower and then at first I wanted to add just one fairy flitting around the flower. But then I thought, where's the fun in that.?

Using my steady hand I added four fairies to my tiny pendant. Here's a picture of it next to a quarter to show just how insane I am:

There are more pictures of it in various garden type settings here. As seems to happen whenever I create anything with a lot of texture it looks a lot better in person. The flower's the most eye catching part and then as you get close the fairies sort of pop out as your eye realizes what they are.

I have one more painting to roll out of the workshop but maybe I'll tie that in when I get the news on how my invisible wedding people did at the Regretsy auction.

Keep watching the skies!

Cryptozoological Society for Really Weird Things

*Brrring Brring Brring Click*

Yes, hello. Cryptozoological Society for Really Weird Things I Saw and Tires? I'd like to report a sighting.

No, I don't need any new tires today. Yes, I'm sure. Look, I don't even own a semi. Fine mail me some literature and I'll be sure to toss it into my recycling.

Anyway I'm calling to tell you that I saw one of the creatures. Yes, I saw one myself. Where? Right out in my backyard.

It was a good 4 and a half feet tall, black as night with large glowing eyes and walked on two legs.

Yeah, yeah, no. No antlers.

Well it looked down at me from my deck and I snapped a picture.

No, it didn't try to control my mind using any special powers. Unless an urge to give it a bone counts.

No, there were no prophesies of impending doom that followed its visit. Though there is a rather nasty smelling present in the garden.


Here's the picture. Maybe you can tell me what it is because it won't stop looking at me and dropping a small rubber sphere at my feet.

Ah so it's the rare Canis Erectus. Any idea how to get rid of it?

What do you mean I'm stuck with it? I've already got bigfoot camped out in my tool shed, nessie overflowing my bathtub and mothman hoovering over my kitchen lights. I don't need another one of your wacky creations messing up my house.

*click*

Hello! HELLO! I don't know why I keep calling them.

I choo-choo-choose you

As some of you may have heard, facebook announced last week its plans to claim various chunks of the web like a greedy prospector with a hidden stash of small flags using its famous like button.

Before too long that little thumbs up will grace not just the f-book (why that acronym hasn't taken off I can't imagine *frantic whispering* Oh . . .) but all corners of this totally tubular network. They have plans to interact, connect and funnel every little thing you like back to all your friends and families on the book (and somehow use that info to break into Fort Knox and hide poison in women's cosmetics).

It's their first big gauntlet throwdown at Google's feet. The question is if Google will accept the challenge and come this summer roll out with its line of four story Googlebots to have a giant smackdown fight with the Defacebookcons over the backdrop of a fairly empty interstate.

We here at Introverted Wife thanks to some insider information from Al the janitor are pleased to share with you secret Facebook information: there will be a second button.

And I must say it's about damn time too. People have been clamoring, joking and just generally making rather giant donkeys out of themselves about it.

What? Oh and it seems we even have working images of the new button in action. Give me a minute to dig through the various jpg piles on my desk here. Hey that sandwich from last monday. Ah there we go.

Drum Roll please.

Most website interaction is a flitting thing, maybe once or twice a week you visit. You all know its nothing serious. But you don't want the poor little youtube video to think its anything serious so you say that while you  it you're not ready for a commitment.

Then one day, when you least expect it, while curling up at Starbucks the blog of your dream wanders across your mouse and visions of white picket fences and well manicured XML dance through your head.

How do you explain to all your friends/family/old classmates/random people you think you might have known at one point but you forget that this is the site for you?

May I give you, the Like Like Button:

No more ambiguity, now everyone on the playground -- I mean facebook -- will know exactly what you "like" and what you "like like."

Now we just have to wait for the giant robot social wars of '010. I hear twitter has plans to throw in its own glove in the form of a mechanized owl from a Greek God to help an idiot that can't keep track of his hat. I give them 2 minutes, tops.

New Bruce Wayne Version

 Leviticus 11:13-19 (New King James Version)

¹³ ‘And these you shall regard as an abomination among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, ¹⁴ the kite, and the falcon after its kind; ¹⁵ every raven after its kind, ¹⁶ the ostrich, the short-eared owl, the sea gull, and the hawk after its kind; ¹⁷ the little owl, the fisher owl, and the screech owl; ¹⁸ the white owl, the jackdaw, and the carrion vulture; ¹⁹ the stork, the heron after its kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.

Batman is totally legit, the Bible says so! Suck it Joker.

By the way, anyone figured out what a hoopoe is yet?

The perfect summer treat

If you've got a tub of plain yogurt, some sugar, various fruits and a few ice cubes then you too you can make the tastiest drink shake thing known to Pegasus.

I speak, of course, of Lassi.

Lassi is an Indian drink made from yogurt and fruits or spices. Every time we visit our favorite Indian restaurant we always order one. We tried all their options: Cherry, Strawberry, Mango and Rose. Rose is interesting but Strawberry is probably my favorite.

Anyway, for a long time we debated about making our own but we simply didn't have a blender to make it happen relying upon the blenders shorter cousin. Then, one day, mysteriously something happened to the food processor. I won't go into detail but suffice it to say it knows what it did and won't be talking to anyone ever again.

So we purchase a fancy (okay not that fancy) new blender (we know it works because my husband uses the same model in lab to mince up pieces of emu jerky for analysis) and promptly stuffed it into a corner for a month or so and forgot we ever got one.

But now summer is acoming, sure we'll get the occasional freezing cold rain but no matter the resistance winter throws up Heat miser is dancing with his little flames.

Last night I decided to give this home lassi plan a try.

We don't have many plain yogurt options here, and after some disastrous attempts at making tzatziki with a plain yogurt that had sugar added (blech!) we discovered that Dannon has a nice tub of plain unsweetened and full fat yogurt. It's a little sour but I like that and it just means using a bit less lemon juice with Greek.

It's our go to for any Greek or Indian cooking I get up to.

For the Lassi we used a low fat version because they were all out of the full fat at the store (though it didn't matter much thanks to the sugar added).

The first step is to drain the yogurt. I just layer two paper towels inside a colander, plop in 3 cups of yogurt, and let that sit inside a pot for an hour or so.

After that just roll your yogurt off the paper towel into your blender. Some will stick to the towels but not much and it really isn't worth the fight and the inevitable paper towel bits to try to get the last bit off.

To the blender toss in 5-6 ice cubes, 3 table spoons of sugar and your fruit of choice.

Because it isn't berry season right now I picked a frozen triple berry mix which works well with lassi as it's supposed to be a cool drink though I'd let the fruit thaw in the fridge before.

Now just blend the heck out of it for 30 seconds or so and tada!

Now all that's left is to sit outside watching the setting summer sun while you sip upon your cool fruit and yogurt drink placing bets on when the first 100º day will hit (I say July 12th).

And that's how to make Lassi, probably the second easiest drink after chocolate milk.

I will break your back, Hollywood!

My husband and I have strange eerie ways of passing the time. Things that if I shared with you could  turn your hair white as you struggle thanks to societal conventions to fight back the laughter hissing out your trachea.

We're just that nerdy.

As proof, I'd like to present object B. A hotly debated sitcom idea we share late at night that is sure to turn my face red as scenes play out on the flat screen of my brain (don't leave your brain trapped between two thick books at night).

There's something about the giant loveable breaker of the bat struggling through sitcom life as he overreacts to every little set back and freaks out threatening to break all in his path. Sort of like a Hulk joke but much more obscure.

The little parenting joke then lead to an exchange where in I wondered if Bane really is a great parenting technique. Which then lead to another T-shirt design (doesn't everything anymore?)

It's kinda funny but coming up with the design of all these things is the easy part. It's sitting down and deciding just which font captures the feel and look I'm going for best that makes me want to pull out my hair and run screaming down the road.

Clearly I have bigger issues than I thought.

Film My Tweet

Twitter - either you get it or you like telling small humans to extricate themselves off your verdigris plot.

The fast moving stream of 140 characters from every corner of the globes blase masses invading your screen depending upon if the whale is flying or not.

But twitter's lost its street cred, it's just not as uh? inspiring as it once was. So I thought of a great idea, what if you had computer based actors recite your tweets for you?

Thus was born my #filmmytweet Xtranomal/twitter relationship. It began with this one:
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6444313

Or there's this bad boy:

Now I'm hunting twitter with my specially calibrated funny gun finding peoples tweets that are either entertaining out of context or just need a special rock on added to end (like this one):

Give it a few months, make sure I piss off Rush Limbagh and this should be a huge internet meme for a week or so.

Baby Introverted

I am excited to announce that the introverted household just got a bit larger yesterday.

We've been expecting this for at least a week, maybe a bit longer, but secretly dreaming of it our whole lives.

While not delivered by a stork, at least the man had a white truck and made sure I signed for it.

Coming in at a bouncing 5 and a half pounds and only one inch tall.

You'll have to be quiet, it gets kinda shy around new noises it's not used to. The packaging it came in really kept everything rather muffled.

I'd like to introduce you all to:

MY NEW LAPTOP!

 I took it on a little walk, getting it used to the house. It became good friends with the coffee table in the living room, wasn't sure what to make of the hot fire thing in the kitchen and was unimpressed by the small black thing that stuck her nose up all over its screen.

It did enjoy the backyard, sucking the heady tree blossom scent into its fan.

And because no techonolgy post is complete without a run down of the specs and other random numbers and letters here we go.

• It's a Macbook pro (the little apple's a bit of a dead giveaway I'm afraid. Anyone want some apple stickers? I got a ton).
• 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor (no giant blue walking sloth mail man though)
• 4GB of 1066MHz DDR3 memory
• 320GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive
• Makes the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs
• Backlit Keyboard
• GogoGadget copter port
• The hot dog champion of Milwaukee
• Two USH 2.0 ports (Universal Serial Hamster)
• and a fried egg

Pretty exciting, no? Now I can wander throughout the house watching Essie instead of having her stomp through my small computer/painting/storage room stepping on all in her path.

Now to put on a beret, head to Starbucks and sit there for 5 hours while I pretend that it's 2004 again. Toodles!

Welcome to the Tee Lab

You know, it's been a few weeks since I last made something that I could stick up on a t-shirt.

I really need to rectify that.

Sit right there.

I'll be back soon, I promise.

Why don't you wait in the Introverted Wife lounge in the meantime. I hear the TV in there finally got color.

*random noises trickle in as you inspect the half full peanut vending machine*

Sonnofadonkey! Who put this here?

Hm . . . needs more goat. Yes, more, more, more . . . MORE!

Too much, take it back.

Hang on, I got a great idea! Let's do it in Plaid!

No, no, no, no . . . I men Yes!

There we go, all done. Hope you enjoy your T-shirt design. We got a bit off the mark for a while trying to recreate Girl with a Pearl Earring using nothing but Peeps, but I think we're really onto something now.

One of the boys is cleaning off your windshield and vacuuming out the interior. We should have your finished T-shirt to you in 4-6 weeks minimum.

Or I was approached by a lovely couple on twitter and asked to design something for a little MST3K slumber party get together they are calling Riffstock.

If you have no idea what MST3K is you may want to just give up and go get a snowcone. Try my favorite flavor, plain. For those that do, this is the insanity my hours of tinkering created:

I took the old Woodstock poster and did some tweaking. Okay a lot of tweaking, and the addition of a couple of bots and some inside jokes hidden amongst the text.

A not all that quick removal of the background and I had a T-shirt all ready to go for Riffstock '10:

I'm having a lot of fun making these things. Some of it's the challenge of can I get these pixels to do what I have in my head and some of it's just the gobsmacking realization that one of my crazy ideas could actually be so awesome it would be permanently placed upon a piece of cotton polyblend til the end of time or it starts to fray and winds up in a rag box.

Welp I best slink back to my T-shirt shop and check on my assistant. He's been chewing his way through the gate a lot lately. May have to look into reinforced steel soon.

Springy Spring

In the Spring a young woman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of setting all the pollinating trees aflame.

Or maybe that's just me.

I obviously love trees. I love looking at them, I love the cool shade they provide, the ever changing kalidescope of their leaves. But every inch of me reacts rather violently to their wanton carnal lusts.

First my throat becomes scratchy and I must suffer a horrible sore throat for a few days. Sneezing become so passe I only notice when my nose ISN'T running. And coughing is the gentle background to the early morning robin's song.

Now I'm not saying that trees breeding is bad, I just wish they'd reserve themselves to a time when I'm locked safely away in my hypoallergenic bubble dome.

But the worst is over (at least for what really knocked and drug me out for a week) and now I have pretty blossoms to enjoy and share:

I have no idea what kind of tree we have (it's been kinda fun this year realizing what does and doesn't grow at our new house now. Apparently we have daffodils!) but they smell wonderful wafting over the gale force spring breeze.

Once the allergy free bunker is finished and stocked with nothing but vienna sausages and twinkies I'll be sure to invite all my tree intercourse suffering friends to join me. We can rip apart saplings while we wait.

NH5D

Happy National High Five Day!

Don't have a clue what National High Five Day is about? Who cares, High Five!

To celebrate I made this poster/graphic/pixleated sandwich:

Lay some skin on me brother (that comes across as incredibly disturbing as text, doesn't it? Wow I really can't be trusted around small children, the elderly and full grown adults.)

High Five! (I have some fairly exciting news to share which I'm being horrible teasing one with as it won't arrive for a week or so. Oh well.)

I'm in an article

That cold November morn when I decided to send in a link to my wedding dress paintings to Helen Killer (aka April Winchell) at Regretsy I went through a dizzying range of emotions: Excitement, Fear, Doubt, Hunger, Ennui, Curiosity, Pie and finally Astonishment (I'm lobbying with Webster to turn Pie into a recognized emotion).

It was interesting stalking the Etsy forums to see those who either hated the whole Regretsy idea or were perhaps a bit jealous of all the attention a featured store and subsequent book deal would get. Throw in the fact that those who say played along and were in on the joke got even more exposure and made more sales and the animosity was as thick as the grime in a chain smokers house.

I guess the whole argument always confused me a bit, so it's terrible that one website is making fun of crafters but another that say makes fun of bad cakes that's just hilarious? Or one that makes fun of people at Wal-Mart? Or say wants parents to STFU?

People have been satirizing others since those days of half goat creatures best known to the Greeks as satyrs.

And I must say that compared to your Cakewrecks where the bakeries or the Wal-Mart people's mullet tamers are never mentioned, Winchell has done a lot to help out those that Regretsy benefits from.

I already mentioned the promise of a free banner for a week advertising, and now I just learned courtesy of an e-mail from her that my shop was one mentioned in a list of favorites for an article about the Regretsy Book:

While I may have been doubtful I'd make the cut, or that I'd get many sales from any exposure (eternal pessimist table for one!) I've never once regretted winding up on Regretsy.

Pretty pretty Pendants

I went through a period where I felt like I had no ideas when it came to painting.

I'd doodle a few things on canvas, erase it, try again then not get up the energy to get a cup of water to put pigment to pallet.

But the whole "Seeing my stuff in a book, woo-hoo" excitement reignited a spark and I've been pendant painting like crazy:

I've been going through a dragon stage like crazy so I thought I'd try my hand at making my own fire breathing lizard:

I hate having to photograph black backgrounds, it has a nasty habit of reflecting the light back so either it's a shiny mess or out of focus (and I just figure I'll get it in editing). I did have a rather ingenious thought for what to use as the setting for my dragon pendant.

We have a smoke chip box in our grill that I use pretty heavily so I dug through the charred bits of wood and placed my little dragon inside for his big world wide debut.

He's up for sale here, but you best be careful. I think he's got his sites set on Lake Town.

Giant mythical creatures are fun and all but nature's been putting up quite a spread lately and I got a crazy wacky idea on my head (ideas look a lot like funny hats, this one resembles an alpine).

Some of you may remember my whole Trees through the Seasons big paintings. I've made and sold Fall and Winter and Spring is waiting in the wings for its pretty picture to be taken. I loved the whole look and idea so much I thought I'd try turning my big paintings into pendants.

I was worried at first that the trees wouldn't transfer as well and the seasons would be lost but I think I captured their defining moments quite well (pst, the white one is supposed to be winter).

I listed them all together for sale, because it sort of loses its point if they're sold separately, but knocked a few dollars off as a group deal thing.

On the whole I'm in a Regretsy Book thing, part of the deal of having ones wacky art featured was that you also got a free ad to run for a week on the site. I'd been putting off making a banner for quite a while, but the whole "wow I'm actually in there, I'd best make something" finally sunk in so I pulled a few of my paintings together and created this:

Nothing too amazing but it seems inviting for your cursor right? Maybe something it might wish to investigate and even think of clicking on?

That's about it, no new wedding dress paintings yet from the book exposure but then there always was a feast/famine feel to them. Otherwise it's been fun explaining just what Regretsy is to various family members. As my Mom asked "That's an internet thing, right?"

Yes Mom, there are a lot of internet things.

Inspiration attack!

My brain moves in mysterious ways. I thought I had it figured out once, believing it moved tangentially from right to left to the plane of existence where all the missing socks wind up but then one day it came up with nothing but old dryer sheets and I was back to square one.

An example, one night for no good reason I came up with this little vignette:

Welcome to the UnDead Bake sale - we're raising money for the vampire squad. They've needed new coffins for years. Thanks to all the holes they've lost a good 10 vamps a year due to sunlight leakage.

Over in the corner you'll see the ghouls hosting bngo (we had to remove the "I" because they had a habit of taking out their ow...n eye). And of course everyone's favorite, the Cake Shamble.

Might want to go easy on the Devil's Food Cake. The demons were a little heavy handed with the brimstone this year.

The local witches coven 312 brought in something bubbling and hissing and it's oh Baked Alaskan. Looks like it might be a Palin.

Frankenstein has a lovely assortment of no bake cookies (for obvious reasons, we don't want a repeat of last years fudge).

Et cetera et cetera

Before all this social media stuff that would have been something to entertain me and maybe one other companion for a few hours before lost to the ether. But now I can inflict it with the entire world! MWHAHAHAHAHAHA

Where it usually then dies a quick five minutes of entertainment death. But this time I got a little something out of it.

Apparently my little UnDead bake sale idea stirred the mind of an on-line comic artist. We traded links, me to Zombie Lawyer (who has sadly slipped this mortal coil after I spilled water all over his picture) and her to her comic.

Which is super duper fantasmigal awesomeness (I may or may not employ hyperbole, but I swear I never lock it in at night).

It's called the Skeleton Crew and if like me you're entertained with zombies, skeletons, vamps and other things that go bump in the night you should really go check it out.

It hasn't gotten too far so there aren't a ton of back issues to slog through and it's a great way to kill some time waiting for a morning, afternoon, or premidnight train.

As for me, I'm off to contemplate what Easter would be like if the Leprechauns tried to take it over.

They Read By Night

April 6th . . .

R - day . . .

A date that shall go down in infunny.

They'd planned a sting operation. A get in and get out with a promise no one would get hurt. But that's the funny thing about plans, they're as compliant as a cat in a bathtub.

I'd spent most of the day tempting fate wondering aloud if I'd actually be listed in the book of whimsicle or if my dreams of inflicting retinal damage across the country would never come to fruition.

Around 18:00 hours the skies cracked and the ever pressing moisture finally took on a visible form, adding an extra layer of gloom and film noirness to the whole thing. My partner in crime and I slugged on our trench coats, slipping out into the night.

For a late Tuesday night, Club Barnes & Noble was hopping. Voices could barely hang over the Mozart as performed by Bjork filtering through the speaker system. My partner and I exchanged glances, narrowly avoiding a caffeine addict dashing towards the 'bucks dealer for another fix.

But we weren't there for a quick trip through all of humanities vices (and no good reason to go anywhere near the romance section) we had a mission. A quick glance and he dissipated into the stacks casting evaporating footprints as he went.

Snuggling deeper into my coat, my hands juggling coins inside the pockets I headed to my most informative target - the New Paperback section.

Covers in Red's, Green's, Blue's and a giant talking head stared back at me, their jackets saying what their blurbs would not "Get out, whatever your searching for isn't here. Pick up a vampire book or begone."

I snarled at the Chelsea Handler cover and stalked off, narrowly avoiding the business section's siren call to wind up at humor. My fingers dug through the alphabet hunting for any semblance of a W.

A low whistle caught my attention and I peered up to find my partner wandering back a confused look dancing across his visage, no luck. Were we misinformed? Was the drop date wrong? Or was The Big Man onto our plan?

"It wasn't supposed to come to this," he said, tossing the Cake Wrecks book aside.

"I know, but it makes things so much more . . . interesting."

Now to find the right dupe and get him to spill. Most had their heads down, concentrating on setting up a New Graduate table or hoping to avoid work for a few more hours. There, in the back corner, dressed in the requisite blue polo of their kind complete with black brooch -- the Manager.

Feeling a gaze upon him the Manager glanced up catching my eye and blanched quickly burying his face behind a Modern Bride magazine. So it's going to be the hard way then is it? Good.

I motioned my partner who melted back into the shadows while I approached lazily, picking up and putting down random books that crossed my path.

"You have something that I want."

"I . . . I have no idea what you mean."

"How much of this game have you played before? Don't you know that after you use your "Get out of Jail Free" card you always lose Boardwalk."

"What?"

"The Book, where is it?"

"You're going to have to be more specific, we have lots of books here. Maybe even some your friend could enjoy."

I waved off my partner in the middle of his tackle (causing him to crash into a stack of Newspapers), this stoolie was going to talk without the liberal use of noogies.

"Just came out today, full of whimsicle shit, got a rather loyal following that would think nothing of gutting and stuffing you with a fish for a head as a trophy. WHERE IS IT?"

"I uh, let me look in back." Wiggling out of my grasp he slipped and slid towards the backroom looking back once. I nonchalantly watched his frenzied dance, glancing through a kitten calendar.

Five minutes passed, and just as I was putting down the cute kittens and pulling out my .38 special balsa wood stick he appeared in a flurry "We don't seem to have it."

"That's not the answer I was looking for *snap*."

"Joe! Joe joe joe. Do you know where the book that came out today is. The Regretsy book, for the love of God you MUST find it!"

"Why don't you wait here beside us, Mister Manager. We've got a great game of iSpy going on. I spy with my little eye someone who's not going to make it home if his underlings don't come back with the book."

"Joe!"

"I found it, there was a whole stack of them on the New Release cart. No idea why they weren't put out."

My eyes still trained on Blue Polo I snaked my left hand out and grabbed the book before anyone else could notice, "Thank you so much, you've all been so . . . helpful," then I looked up at my partner, "let's blow this popsicle stand. Wait, what do you have in your hand? Another one?"

My partner fumbled a bit trying to hide the novel of depictions behind his back.

"What? Oh fine, you can get one but you better hide it from the boss better this time. We'd best get back fast before someone else gets shot from behind by a mysterious woman with a big hat."

And lo and behold there it is, on page 98 my wedding dress painting (right next to the rutting flies which makes me rather happy, I love those little guys):

If you're in a bookstore, why not look it up sometime and say hi to my painting. See what it's gotten up to during those late nights in the bookstore. I doubt; however, that your journey will be as exciting as mine.

Duck takes a holiday

Easter is a curious holiday.

With Christmas you've had such a blending of the secular and the religious, the pagan and the christian traditions that it's hard to tell what came from where. Christmas is a tree which came from barbarian tradition while the lights on a tree were started by Martin Luther.

But Easter is split almost right down the middle. On one hand you wake up early to find colored eggs and a woven basket hidden by a small rabbit, maybe throw in a few storks and you have about as many euphemisms for fertility as you can get in without having the pearl clutchers after you.

And once the basket's found, the dyed eggs back in their carton (after you spend an hour finding that last one your Mom swears she put in the tree stump) you slip into a frilly dress and are carted off to church where you sit for the next hour trying to jam 30 people to a pew.

As one ages and no longer has a parent to hide eggs for you, you care less and less about all the fertility stuff for Easter (I did think of a way you could hide eggs for yourself to find, it'd involve about a gallon of wild turkey; however). Inevitably Easter either means less and less to you if you are not so religious.

As for my husband and I, we spent the night before at my parents house where Essie was happier than a kindergarten class that got into the glitter. She had her two brothers and her mother to play with incessantly while we camped out on the couch and cracked wise for the next 6 hours at the whitest Egyptians this side of Liz Taylor (why didn't Moses show up with say a barreta instead of his staff? It would have been much more fitting for Heston).

The problem arouse when it was time for sleep, our puppy doesn't know the meaning of the word "No," "Stop" or "Get your ass to bed!" She wanted to keep playing and playing and playing and only went down for maybe 2 hours the entire night.

Come morning everyone was dragging tail, especially Es who played so hard she managed to strain her tail. It still hangs limply behind her.

We packed in early to get home so our puppy would leave her siblings alone so they could sleep and to force her on a road to recovery (where she pretty much slept for 9 hours straight).

And that was our exciting Easter. I know, it's enough to rival the Holy Week of the Vatican.

It did give my husband and I lots of time to talk about random things in the car and I think I've decided what I want put on my tombstone (the non cardboard crust kind).

Egg delivering rabbits indeed.

Happy Easterish

Despite constant fake outs this week (shame on Tuesday for putting on a Friday mask and really making me think the End of the week has truly arrived only to be forced back to recalculate the true end so people wouldn't start demanding their money back) Easter weekend is finally here.

I must admit though, maybe it was the horrible snowstorm of Christmas that locked everyone in their houses, maybe the sun that went on a 3 month holiday to bermuda, or possibly the rove of anti-fun aliens that zap your brain from any happy thoughts but I just can't get into Easter this year.

Even all the multicolored signs hung in retail stores to get you to buy your weight in plastic grass have done nothing to perk up my chocolate coated ears.

So, I've decided that what with it being Good Friday and all I should finally embrace the good old fashioned Easter traditions that Christians have performed since the dawn of time.

I'll begin my day at the pound where I will adopt a 5 lb chocolate rabbit to come home and sit at the center of the table before it is sacrificed in an ancient sugar ceremony.

 It's sad how many chocolate rabbits won't be adopted this year thanks to everyone suddenly decrying carbs. Atkins is still a curse word in Bunnyland.

Then, weather permitting, I shall slip on my waders, giant grizzled prospector beard and head to the stream to pan for jelly beans:

I got a pretty good haul last year, but then some jerk stole my donkey and tried to move in on my claim. But I won the day thanks to my "Crazy Prospector" spray. Now he spends his days in a home jumping up and down screaming "Beans! Glorious Jelly Beans!"

And finally if all of that doesn't put me in the Easter spirit then there really is only one final way to catch the dyed egg spirit.

Strap on a 12 gauge shotgun and take out some of the wild peeps mallowing across the land:

Happy Easter everyone!

But seriously, beware the peep gangs. If you turn your eye off them for a moment they'll be on your face smothering you with their marshmallow bodies. Peeps are bastards.

baby shakespeare

From those who brought you baby Neils Bohr and baby Curie we are proud to announce the latest in awe inspiring technology for turning your baby into some kind of super genius hell bent on word domination.

The world is your oyster, so wrote the immortal Bard and if you buy these discs and play them non stop in your baby's playroom then soon your child too will believe the plays the thing where in he'll catch the Ivy League.

We have taken Shakespeare's world famous words and tweaked them a bit to fit with today's modern baby on the go.

After just a few weeks of enjoying the soothing colors, calming music and extraordinary amount of ghosts the bard kept throwing in soon your baby will believe herself to be Ophelia about to attempt scuba diving or Juliet seriously overreacting to some bad news.

Baby Shakespeare has all of the bards favorite classics.

There's Hamlet:

Richard the III:

What baby shakespeare compilation would be complete without that teenage girl's favorite, Romeo and Juliet:

And because you cannot attempt world domination without learning from his mistakes, Macbeth:

 Before you know it on the playground while all the other parents talk about how their kids first word was Mama or Dada, your child struck a pose and uttered the soul searching words:

That's right, baby shakespeare, because the surest way to make sure your kid is super popular at school is if they can quote the entire third act from Midsummer Night's Dream instead of being able to tie their shoes.

P.S. This counts as an April Fool's day prank too I hope cause I don't have much else. Ooh look, your shoe's untied!