Martha and Me in the Big House

Welcome to the glorious world of Gardening at Super K ! It is indeed a glorious day, it's cool out, the sun is shining, and the sky is blue. What a great week it's been (especially the mornings) getting the plants watered and fed, before all Hell breaks loose!
And I mean that literally. I've been enjoying my new job at the Super K Garden Shop. I've dubbed it the Martha's House of Plants, since almost everything in the shop has Martha's name on it except the plants themselves. I've been busy everyday (since no body, and I mean NO body in the Big K likes to work in the Garden shop, but ironically I do (so far). The reason they don't like working in the shop? Well because you actually WORK your butt off in there and the days seems to fly by for me. This is when all hell breaks loose. (When the doors open and the customers arrive ALL expecting personal service as well as carry out....and I'm the only person working in the shop!) Yea, it's a wee bit short handed at the Big K. So far, I'm the cashier, stock person, plant advisor, the carryout, and what ever else should turn up. Thus far, if I don't know the answer to a plant question, I fake it. Not really, but I do read a bit up on the plants as we get them. I'm going from Artist , to Restauranteur, and now to Horticulturist. (Anyone in need of a residence Artist that cooks and gardens, please let me know.)LOL. So this is what I have been doing for the past 2 weeks, and guess what? Since I have to be to work in the mornings, and I have to leave by 7:30 am for my 2.67 mile hike, no body has bugged me for a smoke! Now THAT is a GOOD THING! : )

Things That Make You go EWWWW!!!

Yes, the thought of re-cycled toilet paper make you wanna go ewwwww...(if you've read Dorn's "Dust Bunny Club " Journal) But I had a recent ewwww yesterday.
A few months ago, when I came to being where I am, I was working for my (so-I-thought) friend, helping her with her restaurant business. One morning I was unloading the meat truck and a box of frozen chicken dropped on my toes! Yes, bullseyed both my big piggies! The next day , of course, they were black and blue, but not broken. Then a few days later, underneath the nail turned into a lovely icky blister. So, of course I had to stick a needle in them and drain them. (EWWWWW) well, what was left turned into a lovely dried up scab (under the nail) this in turn turned into a lovely cruddy mess. So now it's been 3 months and finally, I was able to pry those ugly ass toes nails off my toes! (It's amazing what surgury you can do with a exacto knife and some tweezers) But alas, they came off, and I cleaned and scrapped them and low and behold , there are new nails under all that gobbly-gook!. SO I cleaned those up, and now have half-nails that are growing back. Ahhh just in time for spring and some open toed shoes!

A Big Snake and a PuttyTat

Just thought I'd add these photos to go along with the Shambala story below!

Someone to Watch "Over" Me...

Deslily had a big brain fart yesterday, (see her journal...I'm sure you all got the message) But before that , and she remembered how to do things on her journal...she did start this page for me! We were chatting on friday and needed some pics to add to my blog/journal and she sent this one along. And since she added Shambala's link to the blogspot, I thought I'd add this photo of me too.
This of course is Timbo, over me, that is. I had gone to visit mom when she was living in California and volunteering at Shambala during the weekends. So of course, I had to go and see all the great animals that were there.( If I remember correctly, this was after the earthquake, and her camping for a week outside, incident.)
If you've read about, or seen some of the pics from Shambala, then you already know it is an animal preserve run by Tippi Hedren. Along with Timbo are lions, tigers, (no bears, oh my) and some other exotic animals. At one point I know ther was a very large albino python (mom will send the pic and I'll post it later.)
While there, it was an "Open House" weekend. One weekend a month Shambala is open to the public for tours. I took the tour along with the other guests, while mom did her volunteer work. Along the way, the trainers (or keepers) are usually with the animals to talk to the guests. I remember one very funny incident. Walking along past the animal pens, we came upon the male lion. Now, the trainer had been in there with the big cat, just to make sure the animal wasn't aroused by the guests, even though the lion was from a circus or zoo and had, at one time probably entertained guests. As we approached the pen, the trainer warned the guests not to get too close to the pen boundry. But, by this time it was too late! No, the lion did not attack the fence, or the trainer. The Lion simply had walked up to the fence, then turned around to walk back towards the trainer. During which time, the lion "sprayed" a few guests! I was glad I wasn't among them, I stayed to the back of the crowd! The cat was just marking his territory and a few people, too! I laughed so had I was crying, and was glad I wasn't hit. Those of us that have house cats know what a fatal smell cat spray can be!(If not nutered.) I obviously had someone watching over me that day, and a few people brought home a souvenir that they probably didn't forget for a long while!

A Birthday Conversation between Cats....
Meercat 1 : Did you hear it's DESLILY's Birthday today??!
Meercat 2 : No really? I heard she doesn't like them. So , how old is she?
Meercat 3: (whisper...whisper...whisper...)
Meercat 4: WOW! Is that ,like, in Dingo years??!!

WARNING!!!!!

NEW VIRUS WARNING!

If you recieve an email with a subject line of "BADTIMES," delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous Email virus yet.
It will re-write your hard drive. And it will re-write your stories. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computr. It will even scramble your eggs. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace harmonics to scratch any CDs or DVDs you try to play.
It will give your ex-wife / ex-husband your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave dirty socks on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic.
It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girl friend (husband/wife) behind your back and billing their hotel room to your Visa Card.
Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hairdryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.
It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will refill your 2% milk with whole. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve that hasn't been seen since 1984.

Hope you all had a good weekend! : )

It's All What You Know...

Last week in my mom's Journal, (Here,There, and Everywhere) and her pages, she was writing about, well...writing, and what's a writer. Well this is just my input on the subject:
When I was in my Creative writing class in College, my professor gave the best and easiest advice to the class. It's very simple: 1) Write what you know. 2) organize it 3) re-write it . That's pretty simple. And if it was something you didn't know about: research it! How simple can that be! Of course anyone can write and re-write, it's all about if anybody's interested in reading what you have to say, or what your story is about. So, I usually just keep to my artwork, and keep organizing until I'm ready for the re-write!
My Professor was also a good kidder, too. After 3 semesters with her, she came up with something that stumped me. "This semester, you're writing a children's story!" Oh wee hee, that should be easy. Well it's not that easy. I did my research. I read all of Roahl Dahl's books as a kid, and re-read them as an student. (James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and my favorite The Witches, which was made a movie with Angelica Houston as the Head Witch) I never laughed so hard in my life. After the first initial draft, came the comments and the re-writes. (after all, I had all semester to do it) I had to be a little more simplifing and yet "over-the-heads of a child". she said. Simple being ,they can understand what is happening, and over-their-head , well, that's the fun part...adding things a 5 year old won't understand, but an adult will, neatly desguised in the story. It was a difficult task, and I'm not even sure what ever became of the story. But it was a lesson in what I didn't know! I'll stick to what I do know for now, and do the research at a later date. Maybe I'll just continue to do the illustrations instead.
As for the painting abouve, it really has nothing to do with the blog, just one of my " Daliesque" paintings I'd done in the past, but it's a good one for critiques and comments! I'm sure I can fill a blog on comments and theories behind my painting alone.
The Garden : painted by Thomas Neal around '96 or 97' ?

Round Robin: Signs

I was reading Dornbrau's Journal (Photo's you should see, Not Dustbunnies Club..) And the Round Robin topic is :Signs. Well not really having and photos around at the library Computer center..I 'll use what I've got on the internet.

Mistress Sebrina, came about as a sorta Joke. And I mean that. When I first moved to Atlanta, everyweek there was an add for Mistress Sebrina in the classifieds. I thought it was a hoot, but to each their own (fantasy).

In turn, I was bored and came up with the idea for the painting. I did exhibit it, and sold it (the one you see here is the original, painted about 1995. I recently repainted another). The buyer was a very eccentric Jewish lady , that in turn was buying it as a Joke. (For her Rabbi!)

I guess when something starts off as a joke...let it run. As for signage...I love to hear people critique paintings at a show. "What was this person thinking?" "What sorta drugs were they on when they were painting" And of course the "metaphors". One person said it was suggestive selling of Mistress Sebrina. I wasn't quite sure what they meant at the time, but I will always remember it.

The background has an "open" for business sign, a "frankfurter"sign, and my favorite the "specials" sign. All of them metaphors for selling of Mistress Sebrina? No it wasn't. I had found a Very realistic painting of a diner, and thought I'd use it as the background, and I also added "Mable" the waitress, with her look of shock as Mistress Sebrina walked by.
So indeed it was a joke, nothing more.

Process...Due Process...and the Circus...

I've been attempting (in my spare time) to get a few things done that I've been meaning to do for a loooong while. Haven't we all ?
My first mission is to get a replacement Social Security Card. Government Process. To do this , you have to stand in line (most of the day) just to speak to someone. You really can't call and get a human being on the telephone. The line is always busy. "We prefer you come down in person," the rep said to me. So they keep the phoneline constantly busy , I heard the busy signal somewhere in the background, thus meaning they keep the phone off the hook. And the process begins....
To get a copy of your S.S. card, you need a photo ID (Got one of those, my license!) and a copy of your Birth certificate. (Don't have that). I was told if worse comes to worse, I can get a copy of my birth on-line at VitalChek.com. So I looked it up. To get a copy, you send in a copy of your ID. And do the rest online..except...this is purchased with a credit card. (Don't have one. Haven't had one in over 10 years, can't afford them!) So, in order to get a credit card, I was told at the bank, you need to have an account. To open an account, you need $,(of course) (Don't have.) and ID (Have) and a copy of your Social Security Card.
(Hmmm...) this is what I've been told is DUE PROCESS. I've been told this is the general circle of things that happen with Medical support, Financial aid for school, as well as other long process that take up our time. Seems more like a Circus Event to me....
Processed Meat:SPAM
Processed Meat Parts: Hot Dogs
Processed Hollywood: American Idol ; Marilyn Monroe

MY PROCESS: WHAT TO READ, AND DO ,WHILE, WAITING FOR THE PROCESS TO FINISH Some books on my reading list this week: Anything by authors Patricia Corwell or Jeffery Deaver. Yup, my favorite detective characters that do thier CSI and Forensic Science work, to solve crimes. If you like CSI, Law and Order,and those kind of TV shows, these books are for you!

Channeling Cleopatra and Cleopatra 7.2 by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough I knew Elizabeth Scarborough sounded familiar, but it took a bit to remember where from. Well her book with Ann McCaffery, for starters. However, in these books, she combined the fantasy aspect with Sci-fi. If you like things Egyptian (which I do, ever since I was in the 4th or 5th grade when the first King Tut exhibt came to the USA), and a little sci-fi, you might enjoy these books. It takes DNA from dead famous historical people and "blends" them with present day people. Yea, it's kinda like that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie where he's on Mars or something like that, but A little better and not so much sci-fi. They aren't long books, so it's easy reading and the characters are believable. A definite adventure into the past "blended" with the present. I give it a thumbs up.

My Process: (the watercolor at the beginning) a copy of a John Singer Sargent, impressionistic period. Painted by me a few years back.

On the Hunt for a Job or the perfect Cookie...

Job hunting really sucks.

You take your time to fill out applications, type up resumes, only for a manager to take these papers from you and say,"We're accepting applications and we'll call you to schedule an appointment." All the while they are rolling their eyes as they turn away, as they can't be bothered. I thought to myself, when I was managing a small cafe in Atlanta, was I that much of a bitch? I thought for a second, and obviously I wasn't ,cause about 75% of the staff was still the same when the restaurant closed, as is was when we had opened 4 years earlier. Which bring me to my point...and I do have one...
I was walking down the street the other day, to my local Starbucks with my prized Steer being towed in one hand. (He won a blue ribbon at the F.F.A.* booth at the county fair.) And in my other hand, my shotgun. (Just to warn off muggers). *Future Farmer's of America ,if you didn't already know.
So I sat at my favorite table and ordered a Double Latte and a Chocolate Chunk Suprise Cookie. **(That's what I call it, cause Starbuck's doesn't sell them. See receipe at end of story.) Drank my coffee, ate my cookie, then took my gun and shot my prized steer in the head, and promptly left the cafe.
Yesterday I went back to for a cup of Joe and another cookie. This time I brought Bessie with me. (I know Bessie sounds like a cow, but he's just a little shy.) I sat down and the waiter rushed over to me and exclaimed," You can't come in here anymore! We're still cleaning up the mess from the other day! What do you think you were doing!!!" So, I told him I had point , and I did have one for him. "I'm job hunting , so I'm putting my resume together with some job experience for a management position; I come in, drink my coffee, shoot the bull, then disappear for the rest of the day!"

** CHOCOLATE CHUNK SUPRISE COOKIES :

You'll need:2 sticks butter (soft) 1 cup Quaker oats1/2 cup sugar
big pinch of baking soda 3 eggs or 2 extra large
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet Chocolate chips 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
(use a big bar and crack it up into bits) 1 cup brown sugar
1 cup English toffee bits 1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped (crushed Macadamia Nuts)

Preheat oven to 375 F. Beat together: butter, lt. brown sugar, sugar,... add eggs and vanilla till mixed.Mix dry ingredients together. (flour,soda,oats)Stir the dry mixture into the butter mixture until well blended.Stir in your chips, bits, and nuts until combined.For small cookies: drop by rounded tablespoons onto greased cookiesheet (approximately 2-3 inches apart) Bake for 9-11 minutes on middle over rackFor BIG cookies: Use 1/4 cup or ice cream scoop to drop dough on cookiesheet 3 - 4 inches apart. Bake 13-15 minsCool cookies on rack.Option: Once cool, melt chocolate in sauce pan or double boiler (don't burn your chocolate.) Dip half the cookie in chocolate and let cool on Parchiment paper.Yummmmmmmmmmmm.
Enjoy with your favorite coffee, or just a big glass of milk.

Starstruck...Speedbumps..and other Oddities

Well, it's Tuesday near lunchtime, so I have to wait till closer to after lunch to go back out job hunting, cause no one will talk to you durning lunch anyway. Since I have no pictures to throw up here yet..I'm passing on today's" What animal are you most like?" topic. So instead I'm going to post a book review of the books I read last night...something maybe of interest...

STARSTRUCK by Michael Joseph Gross :At first I thought this was going to be fiction, but it turned out to be non fiction. And if anyone has ever written a letter to a celebrity for an autograph, this book I'm sure, has a story you can relate to. Mostly Micheal writes stories about growing up an autograph hound, at a time way back (Maybeee 25 years ago) when Stars still appreciated their fans, and fans were not hunting them down stalking them with butcher knives. He also continues his antedotes about going to conventions, and stories about hanging with some celebrities, some nice, some not so nice. Since Dennis Weaver and Don Knotts passed away recently, Micheal Gross brings up a short about death of celebrities, and I included a passage here because it reminded me of when my mother lived in California and assisted a few celebrities at such autograph conventions. "In the ballroom, death is on a lot of people's minds. Wayne Schulman, who works for a bond house, told me he started collecting autographs because, when Jack Benny died, he thought, "I'm never going to get his autograph." Since then, he's amassed a huge collection, and for him, the Beverly Garland (Renaissance Inn Convention) is a chance to "get them before they are dead." When I asked Darryl Bechthold, a video producer, what makes the show special for him, he said, " Several people have died since I started getting autographs here. Like Dr. Smith from...what's that TV series? Where they travel, with Guy Williams and the robot? Well, I just happened to get him, and the next thing you know, he's gone. So you gotta get them now, or you're not going to get them."

My mother was at such a convention and mentioned to me about meeting "Dr. Smith", so I figured I'd include that passage. But she can tell you that story, and I'm sure, add a few photos. It's a somewhat interesting book, I got bored when he discussed a few celebrities, but they were boring celebrties in the first place.

SPEEDBUMPS by Teri Garr : Now that's she's touring the talkshows of daytime TV promoting her book, I found Teri Garr's book in the "New" section of the Library, and gave it a chance. At first I thought the book was just going to be about her dealing with MS. It is not! This is a humourous, whitty,gangle of stories about her life from being a dancer in Elvis and Annette Funichello movies to her "What Knockers" scene in "Young Frankenstein" to being nominated for an Academy Award in "Tootsie." Only about the last 15% of the book covers her illness and strive to continue. I enjoyed reading this one and recommend to anyone that like Autobiographies.

Well, as you can see, that's what I did last night. Sat back and read and tried not to think about much besides what I was submersed in. I have no idea what I will try to write about in this journal, it might be the daily topic , a book review, a story, a rant or rave, a receipe,but I don't think I'll take photos of being Dead , like Deadguy.com just to get on a talk show! (I think that's the web address ? )