My Fingers Smell Like Basil

*happy smile*

Who Needs A Shower?

Because we can't shut my shower off. Something is broken inside the faucet handle and it won't shut off.

We can't find a seperate water shut-off valve for the shower anywhere, and I told Mr Swami he is not allowed to use the main shut off for the house because then we have no water at all. Turns out I am very fond of water for washing and flushing and stuff - so the water will just have to run until my plumber comes to fix the darn thing, and install a proper water shut-off valve for the shower. Stupid shower.

One more thing: this will be a COLD shower you are taking...

My New UPS Guy

Is a girl.

She looks nice enough in her brown shorts. I guess. But it's just not the same. My old UPS guy was a Tom Selleck look-alike.

What does Brown do for you?

The Full Madonna

I just exposed myself to the postman, lol.

This morning when I got dressed I put on an over-sized tank top. The top of my bra was peeking out but that isn't a big deal anymore, I was wearing a black bra and I figured it'd be okay. If I was going to go out I could always change.

A few hours later the postman rang and I had to sign for an envelope. It wasn't until after he left that I noticed practically my whole left boob was hanging out! Oops. Oh well.

Important Yet Pointless, Private Rituals

Do you have quirky ritualistic things you do? These are 2 of mine:

1. Eating a sandwich.

All bites must contain equal amounts of crust and non-crust areas. To accomplish this I
-cut the sandwich into 2 rectangles
-take one bite off each corner of a rectangle
-my third bite is a two-parter. First I bite off the little strip of crust remaining on one side followed immediately (without chewing!) by biting off half of the crustless stump left by my first two bites. Only when I have crust & non-crust in my mouth do I chew.
-I repeat the two-biter with the other side of the sandwich.
-then I turn the small remaining rectangle, which has no more side-crusts, to it's long side and finish it off in 4 - 6 bites, alternating sides and being careful to keep the edges even so the crust is perfectly proportioned for each bite.
(-repeat with other half of the sandwich)

If for some reason I can't eat a sandwich like this I am very upset. Like if some idiot has cut the thing into triangles (evil!) or the sandwich is unexpectedly round (twisted, evil sandwich!) Okay - now that I read it that sounds pretty bizarre, but mostly people never even notice that I am engaged in this important ritual.

2. Reading a Newspaper.

Like many people I immediately section sort the paper and get rid of sections I don't look at, like the classified & sports. It's reading the Comics that is ritualistic because I must read them in order and not even see the Wuzzle until I have finished the first 3 columns of comics (the Wuzzles are at the top of the 4th column.

This means that when I begin Page 2 of the comics (columns 3 & 4) I have to flip the paper over with my eyes averted and place my right thumb across the Wuzzle so I can't peek at it. If I accidently catch a peek my whole page 2 ritual is thrown off and I have to solve the Wuzzle immediately before I read column 3 of the comics - which is all fucked up because the Wuzzle is on top of column # 4 and 3 comes before 4!

Please top my quirks and make me feel more normal, lol.

Tortoise Sex

*smirks*

I'll bet no one has blogged on this topic yet!



These are my two Russian Tortoises, Boris and Natasha, sitting with a 12" ruler.


Boris is kind of lazy and not a really good eater. He spends most of his time sitting in a corner looking pissed. His favorite food is green peas. As in many reptile species, the male is the smaller of the two. (Natasha should eventually reach 10", with Boris reaching maybe 8".)

Natasha is way more fun. She runs around; she looks at you when you talk to her. She has probed every single spot she can reach of her cage sidewalls and floor looking for weaknesses she can exploit to escape. Her favorite food is the stemmy part of romaine lettuce. Tasha is all about the crunch.

The way you sex tortoises and turtles is: Males have a slightly concave bottom shell. Females are either flat or slightly convex. The male has to be concave in order to mount the female.

So what happens is, when Boris has saved up enough energy to feel horny he chases Tasha down and bites at her back feet hissing until she assumes what I guess is a good sex position. Then he heaves himself up onto her like a little shelled stallion and moans & groans something fierce for about 5 - 10 seconds. Who knew tortoises could moan so loudly? Then Tasha bucks him off. I have no idea if he is moaning in tortoise ecstacy or tortoise frustration because she bucks him off too soon. They'll mate 5 or 6 times within a few minutes - then ignore each other again. I have never seen his little tortoise package, but he must have one - right?

Anyway. That's it from the Swami Nature Preserve for Tuesday, July 22nd.

Corn Syrup Bad.

This weekend Mr. Swami and I wound up having breakfast at McDonalds because we were in a hurry and couldn't think of anywhere else. I like their sausage biscuits. I take out the icky yellow fried egg thing, give it to Mr. Swami, then eat my improved little sandwich.

This time, however, Mr. Swami had some kind of BOGO coupon for a cinnamon bun jumble thing. I like cinnamon buns, so I happily tried one. It tasted nice and cinnamon-y although the cinnamon / icing stuff was kind of strange. When I was 3/4 done I had a sudden, whole-body rush that was very uncomfortable. You know, like when you have a near-miss car accident or something and the adrenalin rush makes your whole body ache? Yeah, well I get that reaction sometimes from a major dose of corn syrup. I hate corn syrup! Hate it! That cinnamon bun must have been swimming in 10x corn syrup.

Why can't they bring back sugar? We are all being slowly poisoned with this stupid, by-product substance!

Swami, Back From The Dead. With a few pics!

I had a very busy, hectic and totally enjoyable visit from my oldest daughter for the past two and half weeks. It was wonderful and now I am all tuckered out, lol. We saw parades, fireworks, museums, sculpture gardens, two plays, painted two ceilings (I'm scared of ladders these days so daughter did the deed), tiled a backsplash, ate out a bunch of times, saw movies, etc. etc. etc. That's about six months worth of excitement for me!

This is The World's Cutest Grandson, all tuckered out after the 4th of July parade, and waiting for his mom to come and pick us up from the very, very distant place she had to go to park. For the actual parade we had front row seats as the invited guests of a home designer whose shop is right on the parade route.


Here is my lovely DD and grandson in a little park near Lake Minnetonka - one of the Twin City area's premier recreation lakes.


And here they are with one of my favorite exhibits at the Franconia Sculpture Garden, near Taylor's Falls. I love these ginormous statues! When they first went up about 5 years ago the mylar robes they are wearing were just brilliantly reflective! Dazzlingly reflective! Sadly, the shiny stuff has started to peel off the robes - but I still love the statues. So did DD and grandson.


This was grandson's favorite sculpture, he being a huge fan of pirates these days.


Here is grandson with some of the cast from Charlotte's Web - the first play we saw. The play was nicely done, if not spectacular, and he enjoyed it a lot.

We also saw When You Give A Mouse A Cookie at the Children's Theater in Minneapolis which was just a fantastic production! Non-stop, totally manic, physical comedy. I haven't laughed so hard in ages. Grandson was totally in love and wanted me to buy the DVD right away so he could watch it every day! He was so disappointed to learn that theatrical plays rarely are filmed for DVD.


He liked playing in my backyard too. This is a baby snapping turtle from the creek behind my house.

While they were here, my other DD and her BF gave him a Nintendo Game system of some kind (I'm not good with my game system names; a Game Cube? It has 3" discs you put into a cube to play the games.) It was his first gaming system and he had a great time learning to play Mario through a bunch of worlds. And Zelda. Ane some kind of frantic hedgehog creature. The BF is a master of all things video game related so he chose a nice selection of games that were fun without being graphically violent. One game came with bongo drums instead of a hand control! That was a very fun game since grandson loves to drum. Grandson was over the moon with video game excitement!


My DD was here for a combination pleasure and business trip. This is DD at her Trunk Show in White Bear Lake. (She is not responsible for the polkadot background, lol. It came with the room assigned to her by The Bead Gallery.) On her left are a bunch of magazines which feature her designs, and an upright display of photos from her life and the findings factory. In front of her are some of her findings. To her right are more findings as well as a few finished pieces showing how the findings work in a finshed piece. The stuff in the case behind her belongs to the Bead Gallery and is not related to her. The dragonfly necklace she is wearing is featured in a large color photograph in one of the magazines. (If you click the pic it gets bigger and you can see the actual necklace.)

Jewelry findings, in case you don't know, are the connectors and clasps and things that you use when building a finished piece of jewelry, as well as fancy pendants and stuff that can be used as a centerpiece of a finished project. So for the dragonfly necklace she designed and is wearing above, her company made the dragonfly, which is also the clasp, and a couple of connectors. She manufactures findings in sterling silver and gold vermeil - which is gold (usually 18 carat) plated over silver. This is her website

Generally she sells only to stores and professional jewelry makers, but at a trunk show she sells individual items to any customer of the store, as a promotion of her products. The website is still under contruction. She really wants to put in a shopping cart feature, but that hasn't happened yet.

Overall?
I had a wonderful 2 weeks!