Sex is the Answer

What is the question you ask?

No question. But sex is the answer.

Take books in specific.

One imagines the writer sitting in his office; facts, pictures, clocks plastering the dark-paneled walls. Dictionary and thesaurus easy to hand, as well as a reasonably current MLA handbook.

The story is so far as follows:

Steven, our dashing hero, hears of a nefarious bank robbery plot, but the details are sketchy. The police (shock! gasp! surprise!) can't donate man power to something so iunsubstantial, but they file the report away for future reference. Steven, a budding amateur detective (of course) uses his astonishing luck and natural talent for ferreting out information goes on the hunt. While pursuing the soon-to-be criminals, he meets brilliant and sexy goddess of a newspaper reporter, Andrea. They hit it off. The chase heats up. Things are looking mighty dark for our pair....

But wait.

Something's missing.

We've read 153 pages into the book, and something is glaringly obviously absent.

Our writer realizes this. Well darn..but there's a solution! Oh yes, there is indeed! He pulls out the sleazy red flash drive he keeps for such emergencies, plugs it in. In it are a series of folders labeled with simple numbers. Our valiant author randomly selects one of the files that purports to be 509 words in length--that should fill the slot nicely. Copy, paste and save!! Success! Yet again, the emergency sex scene file (under a folder marked "steamy") has saved the book. When the writer makes it through to a little over halfway through the book, he will choose from the folder marked "scandalous" and change the names to fit.

Only when he gets to the last fifth of the book will he choose from the "sweet and sexy" file. When desperate to up the ratings, he will allow himself to select from the "shockingly racy" folder.

Somehow, somewhere, amidst the gypsy lasses buying shoddy dresses that were too small for their robust figures and sequentially bursting out of them at inopportune moments with male suitors, the sex scene was born. Born to rescue the world not from sin, but to damn an otherwise decent novel with the scene that makes you go "eh? where did that come from?" You recognize nothing but a generic scene that could have been left out entirely without affecting the novel whatsoever...except probably making it light years better.

My sister and I have come up with something we're calling "The Book Flip Test"

You take a book that looks promising. You like the look of this book. Flip it about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through. Check first at the page breaks, as steamy scenes tend to taper off about there. Then, if it passes the first flip, flip to the last 1/5 of the book. This is where the "make up" or "reunited after intense battle sequence" sex happens. If nothing appears, and you really want to be sure, flip to a little AFTER half way.

Only then will you know true success ;)

Adventures as a Vermin Killer

They're everywhere-insects and animals that invoke a feeling of distaste. Some, on sight, like that glossy black cockroach you really tried to avoid stepping on because the feeling of *crunch/splat* under your thin flip flop is worse that knowing it is alive and scuttling the streets. For the other ones, think rabbits. And squirrels. I shall try to keep my comments on little bushy-tailed specialty nut-eating squirrel-demons to a minimum. (Janitor, stuff your heart out)

The little cotton-tail was sooo cute, bouncing its little self through our side field driveway area. I encouraged the dog to chase them only to watch them scamper back to the brier. Aww! Next day, the sawzall wouldn't turn on when connected by extension cord to the house. Not that I particularly wanted to cut kindling, but, the mystery of the thing had more allure than trying to pass off a "Um, Dad, the sawzall is broken, and so, I guess I can't....well...SAW". I discovered the extension cord had been chewed through by 2 very cute-but-now-absent cotton-tailed bunnies.

Gophers have never been misfiled in the"so cute" category probably because they spend their time trying not to be seen at all except by earthworms and other gophers.

So, there I am, doing some gardening work, and saw those promising fresh mounds. I would tackle this. The hoses come out, holes are plugged, water is turned on, my brother comes out to observe the occasion. After a good 15 min of excitement and expectations, the furry little head pops out of the last dry hole.

Ummm. Now what? We have our gopher, but my faith we would get this far has been lacking.

When my mother had found a gopher when I was a toddler, by father had charged in and beat the thing over the head with a handy piece of firewood. None such around me though, and the critter is starting to make tracks. "Trista! Grab that bucket, we'll trap the bugger!" I yell, and grab a short-handled, square ended shovel. I'm not sure what I had planned to do with it when I picked it up-maybe scoop it into the bucket? Oh yeah. Drown it-that was the plan!

The gopher is still running, so I whack it with the shovel to make it stop. Tristan, not realizing he would actually be needed to take part in the execution, dithered. "The bucket!" I holler enthusiastically, and enthusiastically alternating in trying to scoop it up and whacking it to make it stop moving.

Then we no longer needed the bucket.

I had scooped the gopher in half.

I 'm not quite sure how it happened. But it was dead, so maybe it doesn't matter.

After moving to a less rural area a few years back, I thought these were things of the past. I had forgotten that when I visit home, the inevitable "coincidence" will happen.

Case in Point:

*phone rings*
"Hey...we're driving down the driveway, and there's a dead skunk trapped under the bottom hot wire, shorting it out. Can you get it out?"

What I'm sure she meant to say was pry it out, because when I fetched my stick, my camera (yes. oh yes.) and my little bro who had the misfortune to be around again, pry was exactly the word. And trust me, electrified and scorched bloating skunk is not the best way to start one's day.

But.

Heads up.

I am considering letting you start yours with just such a picture someday. After all, that's what cameras are for, oi?

You Could Call Me Nuts: except the squirrels stole them

Out of a somewhat misplaced desire to spend some *quality* time with my older sis, we decided to go camping at one of her favorite horsey-triany spots. The word "horse" alone should have popped warning flags up in my mind about the viability of the trails, but hey! I was in decent shape right? I bike everywhere.....eat salad.....you know.....

So the date was set, and my personal journey began with a train ride to Turlock. I will gloss over this rather gloomy portion, except to comment on Stockton. The bus was driving to the train station, and as we began to pass over the bulk of the city, I began giving up hope of finding a coffee shop near bye to wait at. As we passed over even more of the city, and took our exit, I gave up hope of going ANYwhere but the station. And as we pulled up? I was willing--nay anxious to stay on the bus. Stockton is scary folks.

We stopped by Costco to grab some campy food on the way over to Livermoore Del Valle State Park. Jumping at the chance for nuts in bulk, I got baggies of hazelnuts and Brazil nuts. (remember this...this is important) We set up our humble tent-shack amidst the opulent moterhomes and one tent trailer that housed a rather unfortunate looking adolescent who really shouldn't have been sleeping that late in the day.

It was so hard. My calves were aching, my arches sore. The trail started up ahead, and we were forced to leave the parking lot behind. There were happy flowers, happy deer, and lots of shiny happy poison ivy. I took pictures of it all. That was probably all during the first .3 miles. Then....things got...a little dicey. I'm not really sure what the grade was, but I came up a name for it. Too Steep. I mean really really painfully steep. Like nose in front of the path and if you sniff too hard dirt clots hit your brain kind of steep.

Its bad enough to be forced to personally evaluate your fitness level under such circumstances (evaluation: paaaaaain), but an entirely different story to have marathon sister on the slope above yelling "come on you wimp!! it only gets worse!!!" Me: tries to catch breath while shooting murderous looks, but they are tired too and roll back down the hill without accomplishing anything.

After the first couple miles, any awareness of where I was kind of faded, and the only reason I took pictures anymore was to make my stopping to gaze over the valley more plausible and therefore have a chance to catch my breath. She bought it, anyway. But hey, I have pictures! I can prove it!

The best thing about the hike down, aside from the returning part, was thinking about what delights I was going to eat back at camp. I was going to have a banana and a handful of nuts. Yum! Until I heard these words: "Bethany, did you leave your nuts out?" Me: "noooo......" Melinda: holds out what appear to be two empty bags with holes gnawed in them. The dirty rotten scheming little ground squirrels had drug them from my food bag and eaten them. My immediate plan was to gut the 4 fattest ones I could find. Even if the nuts stayed gone, there would be immense satisfaction obtained. But, considering I couldn't walk after our "little" hike, that didn't happen.

Modern campgrounds. There is something wrong with them after spending years Civil War Reenacting when all you have is straw, wool blankets, and a porta potty if you're lucky. Even if permanent bathrooms are present, your light is what you bring with you and if the toilet has a seat, that means God is smiling on you. But these? THESE? Not only were there doors, seats, LIGHT, but there was hot water in the sinks. And I found a girl curling her hair with her iron plugged into the convenient outlet at the rustic outdoor sink counter. Add this to Mr. CampSpot 63 playing his radio into the night to serenade us all away, I was ready to pack up into the bush.

Shun!! Shun!!

Oh, and one thing, Melinda. When someone is sleeping, and you wake them up by asking "What was that noise!!??", they probably didn't hear it. Because they were SLEEPING when it was made. Just something to keep in mind.

ROTs (Really Odd Things)

Today, as it was raining and everything is so green, I had a great idea; I would go take pictures of the lovely trees and things. Venturing outdoors, however, provided me with not much scenery. Instead, I found a few incongruous things which I will attempt to illustrate below:A) What is the thing with flags? Are they supposed to make things look festive? Funny...these don't seem to be doing a very good job. Perhaps its the fact they're drenched and sad.

Yup! Clean up after Fido! Clean up with these...um...well, just b/c you can't SEE the bags doesn't mean they're not there. They're just thin. Very thin. Almost see through. If you don't like *our* bags, then go buy your own.

Death Row. See those lovely hedges? Oleander. And if you don't know how poisonous those are, allow me to invite you over sometime for my homemade full-leaf tea. Horses and small children welcome >:D

Ok. We have already established that it's raining. Not only that, but that it has BEEN raining for a while now. Either the occu*pants* really need that college education (seriously folks, we should take up a collection at this point), or there's something about those jeans that PREVENTS them from being allowed in the apt. Hmmmm....

The BBQ pit with the fancy-shmancy roof-thing that ...um...doesn't actually keep anything out. Water, sun, bugs, bird poop....

Enough said, I think

A Heart for a Tree

Today I took down my Christmas tree.

To be fair, I've been planning on it for a while now, but a few key events altered it from the ever-existing petrified sculpture in the corner to a 5 foot tall blazing inferno in all but deed. A) My mother came for a visit and actually entered the apartment and B) Whichever friend coming over to play cards got the chair with their back shoved into that stale piny mess would probably never have come back.

So of course, I was planning on using the entire week to clean the place gradually, nude the tree of its red finery, and etc. Funny how times gets away from a person. In this statement, read: Friday night, home from work at 12:30am knowing the place had to be clean by 8am. It's awfully handy that, while my motto is "you only get one chance to make a first impression", following that, it becomes "after that it doesn't matter, they got their shot to see it looking good."

I realized I had neglected to alert my flatmate of the impending arrival. Anyone who has flatmates knows this is a no-no. So I told her. Only to learn that she also had a surprise guest. Who would be arriving in 3 hours. As I looked at my sad little Christmas tree I had fondly named "Dougie", I remembered my mother's words. "That thing is a fire trap" Me: "But it's still green! And we've BONDed!"

Looking at it now, I can see that it isn't green...it is more of a "dead turtle" color, and the only reason I was attached to it was because the needles were everywhere--sticking in my socks, getting in my shoes.

I had to use a candy cane to coax the ornaments out of the tree, as the needles actually pierced flesh. Then I did something I hadn't known that I wanted to do until then. I took the red hair spray my little sis gave me for Christmas and spray painted a giant red happy face on Dougie. I filled in the other area's with a glow-in-the-dark black light paint that was the other half of her gift. All this was of course done to the strains of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" that I blasted to delight the apartment complex. (hey, from the sounds of the parties I was hearing an hour previous...nobody was going to hear anything anyways)


But then how to dispose of it? I considered sneaking it out to the street side, which is a kind of foliage waste area that gets swept regularly...then I looked at the plastic bucket on the bottom. And at all the "potentially fatal if swallowed" chemicals I had just sprayed all over him, and realized that he was a tree cyborg. Half tree...half...something else. So I propped Dougie up in the dumpster with his happy face ready to greet the next lucky disposer.

Looking at his happy face made me almost as happy as vacuuming our entire apartment at 3:15 that morning. And it looks good. :)

Garden of Discoveries

Why does no one make art like they used to? Aside from the fact that the nature of art is that it changes over time with our beliefs and the way we express them. That's nice. I however am a fan of the quirky and highly detailed works of our friend...Hieronymous Bosch!

The center panel (Utopia) of his most ambitious work "Garden of Delights" has got to be my favorite. Every time it is examined, it expands the mind in new ways, causes new questions to be asked. For instance:

The red tepee, with oxygen-rich blood vessels emerging...not bad. Behind is a lovely bird feeding a random guy. But that's not the fun bit. Look at the tepee. It must be like the Tardis...a whole lot bigger on the inside than the outside. I'm counting 3 pairs of feet, and if the proportions are right in this, one guy might be able to duck a tad. Just two people and you are already straying into the dangerous lip-action zone.

But what is this? I declare...a man-eating mussel. My first thought involved the mussel forming men instead of pearls around a central kernel of junk, but there are pearls inside already. Maybe the man (lets call him Steve) climbed in to get some. And then Bob (the guy carrying him) is trying to help in some way. Or he's hungry for a little stir-fried mussel and just took advantage of the situation. Either way you look at it, something awfully strange is going on here.

(or the unthinkable...the rest of the panel is filled with folk copulating...perhaps we shouldn't be so specie-ist)

This one is just odd.

At first, the woman's? man's? arm looks almost like the man's leg behind them. The poor fruit is spewing out little black orbs like a flayed pinata on the bottom. And why aren't they joining the reverie of the entire rest of the Garden's population? I mean, she just looks tired. The man behind them has a thing for strawberries--he's clutching that thing as though the strawberry has just realized what's coming and is trying to make a dash for it. But our couple just looks tired. What *have* they been up to? Never mind. Given the context, I think I can guess.

'till next thought!

Love, Friendship, and Consumerism

So I looked it up, and V-day is basically every other holiday; in that it was one of those ancient Romans-slaughter-animals-y

oung-virgins-things. The church comes along and “saint-ifies” it, picking (probably) good ‘ole Valentine, who illegally married young couples and got beheaded for it.

Then along came Hallmark.

Not Hallmark specifically, but cards/chocolates/flowers/etc. I just saw a commercial; “…everything you NEED to show your love” We all know V-day has been commercialized, but what is pathetic is when you see the how companies are trying to tap into the friendship market…telling us it’s ok to NOT have that “special someone”. Face it. St. Valentine (the most probable one) MARRIED young LOVERS. But since on any given Valentine’s day, a large percent on the population remains unattached, that leaves a very large group of people potentially with no drive for consumerism. (besides, I must admit, those of us who say “oh look, CANDY!! CHOCALATE!! Time to load up…” or those of us who feel depressed and sorry for ourselves and buy it to feed our loveless depression)

So now friendship has become candy-worthy. I am not knocking this. I have friends that I love, just not in the “St. Valentine-I-will-help-you-get-married-if-you-don’t-tell-the-emperor” kind. If I did, they would be my sig. other, not just my friend. (true, I could feel that way about someone, but as long as I don’t tell them, the point is moot)

Now you can potentially spend money on red foil and chocolate love for everyone. Yum!!

I suppose that this “friend inclusion clause” in the Valentine bylaws is so amusing to me because of all our other holidays:

• St. Patrick’s Day…wear green/pinching—fun for all!


• Easter…(us) Christians=Jesus, the rest of you can hunt eggs/poke the Easter Bunny


• 4th of July…ditto, wear red/white/blue


• Labor Day…don’t go to work


• Halloween…dress up or do the “All Saints Day” thing, your pick


• Thanksgiving…kill a turkey and say thank you (vegetarians…um…just say thanks)


• Christmas…(us) Christians celebrate Jesus’ birth, and anyone can kill a tree and give other people stuff, and say thank you when YOU get stuff

What does one notice? Well, there are options for all! V-day however is primarily for “lovers”. It would be like having Mother’s Day roll around, and your mother had died. Or maybe, you never had a mother. Quite the quandary really.

So, I will give my roomies chocolates and conversation hearts while I munch on the “leftovers” while I try to remember which of the two reasons I had for buying the candy in the first place.

....is that a...Fuzzy Onion?

From where I sit, I can see the fuzzy backside of an onion. At first, I took it for a heavily waxed apple, but the rest of the bag appears to have yellow onions, so...

Things go bad in the kitchen, but the onion says more. It says "whoever bought me intended to actually fix something that required more cooking than the use of a microwave" or "they forgot about me on top of said microwave".

The fuzzy apple is more forgivable, and therefore not as interesting. After all, the styles for eating a Jonagold and a Vidalia wildly differ. One buys a bag of apples to keep up on the middle right hand side of the food pyramid. Very noble. (tho not as noble as buying a head of cauliflower in a singular stab of optimism). Wilted scummy lettuce is you wishing you had bought the pre-cleaned and bagged stuff. Moldy cheese is....a redundant phrase. Rotting meat is laziness. Face it, your freezer is at eye level. Anyone having trouble with this concept should look by the door. Check for Velcro fastening shoes. Check.

There are two excuses for a fuzzy onion:

1. It is in a cupboard not in plain sight, and another, newer onion is currently half gone in your fridge. This proves that you could and were going to use it, but honestly and completely forgot about the little devil. A silver star for you, oh gourmet chef!
2. It was the shriveled runt in a bag of 5 or more others that have already or are getting ready to make their way through someone's digestive system. Congratulations on your thriftiness, plus the fact that you were able to get through the other five onions before THEY molded...a GOLD star for YOU! :D

I have 1/3 of a beautiful red onion in my crisper. Time to get my backup....

Forgein People...Inn p7

When people come from out of town and out of the country, there are two things that I notice: the accent and the manners. Accents are truly lovely things--but as with any lovely thing, they come with a danger attached as well. Who can concentrate on the fact that Mr. 213 needs a wake-up call at 5:30 when all *I* hear is
Mr. 213: "Can aye 'ave (Australian accent.............)"
Me: (oops, I should be listening) I'm sorry sir, what was that?
Mr. 213: "Aye need ah (Australian accent.............)"
Me: (oops, new problem, I didn't understand half of what he said) "What was the time again sir?"

So, all in all, I end up looking (and sounding) like a deaf zoner

The word "cheers" is also a word seemingly much neglected in usages here in the U$ of A.
I enjoy a good all-purpose word as much as anybody, but I think "cheers" is becoming a rising star. (and yes, I am referring to *polite* society)
Cheers can mean "thank you" like on the occasion following.
*ahem*

Australian man walks up to the desk...it is the Wednesday before the 4th of July weekend
Man: I need you to book me a cabin in Lake Tahoe for the weekend"
Me: Any particular cabin?
Man: Anyone of the nice ones...I can't remember which ones. One on the south side. Cheers!
(walks off, leaving me, mouth agape. Tho in this particular mans opinion, the word cheers seems to be interchangeable with the phrase "thanks love" but we shan't go there)

Or as "Goodbye"

Me: Goodbye!
Man from Holland: Cheers!

Or as in "Goodnight"

Me: Your room is down the hall and to the right. Goodnight!
Man from Ireland: Cheers!

Or "Good luck"

Man from Germany: Cheers!

My conclusion? People from Europe are fun.
Perhaps not blinding, but true all the same.