Tuesday Tails....ONION Entomological Silliness: Fun Stuff for a bad news day....Oy Vey!

Pictures and article from the Onion files, for today:

ANNAPOLIS, MD—Apologizing profusely for failing to properly confirm their findings before going public, researchers from the Entomological Society of America retracted Tuesday their claims about the discovery of a new species of spider last week, admitting that the supposed arachnid was actually just a clump of dust and hair. 

“We definitely got a little ahead of ourselves on this one,” said ESA president Michael P. Parrella, noting that the specimen in question, Latrodectus graucus, “absolutely looked like a real spider” and even appeared to scurry away when approached by humans, though this behavior was later attributed to a slight draft from a partially open window. 

“Shoot, guys. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. We noted in our paper that the cephalothorax resembled a coffee bean, and, well, sure enough, it was. The whole team was shocked when I tried to pick it up and it kind of just fell apart. Live and learn, I guess.” 

At press time, the researchers had decided to release the wad of detritus back into the wild “just in case.”

And now:
Back to our regularly scheduled program:
"Keeping up with the Toddler in a Toupeé"

Read it and Weep, no really, Read it and weep...

 Actually, it's, "Watch it and weep".

  I'm out of here for awhile.

First Robertson shooting off his big, BIG mouth about Haiti "deserving" what happened because they are "cursed by a pact with the devil", and now this bit of info.  I just can't stand the World.


Al Jazeera English aired this report on Sunday.  And if you donated to Doctors without Borders, well, good luck........

A Cure for the Chronically Cheerful

L found this and thought that it needed a much wider audience. So, though she didn't send it to me to get that, she did send it to me because she thinks I was once ill with it!



L has made claims in the past that I just wasn't in touch with reality. She has said that I am doing so much better now because of the whole last eight years of treatment under the Bush Administration, watching the Democracy being eaten alive. I think I'll do more research on something that Chalmers Johnson calls "The Sorrows of Empire". Perhaps this will finally cure me of my Fatal Cheeriness. ;o) Where in the hell is a really perky smilie when you need one?

Mind of Tao meets Fashionista

This battle has been going on for over 30 years. Sometimes the Mind of Tao wins and the Fashionista who loves to sew and knit gives up the color wheel and retreats into deeper philosophies. This may be news to my children but it is so. I Ching, and the study of it should have taught me better lessons like, "Politics Is A Tug of War".

I'm now ready to listen, one reason being that we normally have a lot of people running for president who are never heard but whose IDEAS usually are co-opted by the major two parties. We aren't really talking fringe people, because the Republicans have succeeded, just, in getting themselves divorced from the fringy right wing of their domain. The people I'm talking about are the decent and fair minded middle folk, always under represented. You know, the ones with really workable ideas that don't waste time waiting for the politicos to change horses "in mid stream".

Ah well, someday the color wheel will run over me again, and I will probably start sewing and knitting. If I'm silent til then, it doesn't mean I've died or anything. This for the 8 of you who look in from time to time.

ValScot reminded me that spinning wheels should not be let go to waste. I'm grateful for that. Thank you, ValScot. It's time to spin to a rhyme that must have been made just for me:

Cross Patch
Draw the Latch
Sit by the Fire
And Spin....

I'm almost over this funk. Don't mind me. My sister and my dog have been having a rough time and my neighbor as well. Convergence of little black iron arrows to the heart of the happy. Where is that Angel of St. Theresa when he's needed?

PS. The picture of the little kitchen Goddess will be taken and posted as soon as the tiny dog is done eating. We can't disturb 'is Lordship while he's eating or there is hell to pay.

Knobs and Pulls

 

I am happy with these even though they are not the acorns and oak leaf design I expected, they are the same overall look. Sometimes things go south when you aren't looking, and go extinct. My acorns are extinct.

Edit!!! They are the same.. I just don't know what is happening to my brain. This may be my last post until I get the transplant.

I'm so glad that we can unpack the kitchen this weekend. DH is sure that he will have to set up a camp kitchen outside somewhere now. He just doesn't want to give up that great feeling he gets from foraging for utensils and other kitchen equipage in an unstable, stacked set of drawers from the old cabinets.

Doctors, Bird life, kitchen update, and the weekly Spam Report

Well, the doctor that I'll never see again (long story) but who was once head of Rheumatology, says that my knees look like they will go the distance. This means, that for me, the treatments are working, and my medicines are good to go, and I can hopefully avoid knee joint replacements forever or until I die, which ever comes first. And, if I am careful and cut back on my food, I can even lose some weight. That means one malt ball instead of three for a treat, and a half bagel in the morning. There is practically no fat to cut out of the diet since we eat so little meat, and absolutely no dairy. Lol. So, of course, the first thing I did was come home, weigh myself, eat three malt balls and read all the food blogs! Yes, their scale was right. Dammit!

We will have the second coat of paint going on tomorrow. THAT is when I will take pictures of the "new green". The cabinets are ready on Monday, the granite top is done, and the contractor is rushing off his feet, juggling several jobs. He is not twins but I bet he wishes he was sometimes. He said his wife thought the granite was for their kitchen. I'm thinking that I remember being the child of a contractor. It was a little like being the proverbial child of a cobbler. teehee. Since I was raised in the same house as a busy, admittedly nut case contractor unlike, in any way, this one, I am inclined to be kind and patient. Also, I haven't got four children running around trying to eat everything that is not nailed down, either. I would just have to farm them out to relatives if they were here. Not really. We'd just go camping!

The baby Scrub Jays are growing up well, and learning new songs. They will start making a noise that sounds like an adult jay, and it declines into a long bubbly sound that is almost like one a warbler makes. One of the babies is a lot younger than his nest mates so that Jay is still screaming to be fed while the others are out grubbing up stuff on their own. They all take baths and drink from a portable "bird bath" made up from an old table in the patio. It sinks in the middle so I filled it up with water once I saw they were drinking some rather nasty looking water that had accumulated from the plants being watered there. Ick ick ick.

Spam season! Mrs. Rosemary King wants to be my Dearest Friend. Somehow I just do not trust that woman. And Dr. Christian C.Ibe wants to take me into his confidence. Oh, I so need a confidential letter from someone who thinks I'm worth a lot of money. If he only knew that I've actually decided that it was time to try to suck money off of Blackwater's big government tabs and use it for things I like instead.

Accidental art: Eleventh in an Occasional Series.

 

Modern still life, with screen. I was trying to get a picture of the Towhee, the illusive tease. But something interesting happened anyway. Happy accidents are the genesis of many "art" projects.

Oh, Praise the Goddess, the exorcism of the wood eaters is complete. The workers were good and pleasant people. The only thing disturbing, but certainly not as disturbing as the creatures in the attic, sheathing and beams, was the drilling through the cement in one hundred little holes.

The house smells like Old English Furniture Polish -orange oil being the major ingredient in both Polish and exterminant- and the yarn closet coughed up some happy surprises called New Zealand wool and at least three OTHER wools, enough to make vests and sweaters. Unfortunately, all are brands so ancient that Ravelry will not have heard of them. We had to move everything out of the yarn closet because "there be" the hole to the attics.

Those of you in Florida, if anyone from Florida even reads this blog, will be intrigued to know that the formula was developed by a "mad scientist" type -according to the saleperson- from the University of Florida. He saw the tragic waste of a very good natural oil, put that together with the need for an earth friendly fumigant, and created a green miracle product that doesn't pollute, kill birds, reptiles, other quadrapeds, the ground water or the inhabitants of a house. The Torts are safe. Jazzie's safe, we are Home free....

Bad Knitting News Flash: The cozy for Leggy ( a nano) is not going well. I frogged it and will probably make wrist warmers with the yarn. The socks grow daily, except one must be tweeked. That's enough bad knitting news.

This is War I tell you. Take no prisoner's War.....

Hello from the war front, Termite War II

We found termites in a header above the laundry room door. They came out and greeted us, flounting their defenses. So, we captured one of their soldiers (with tweezers) to know what army we are fighting. I reached up and captured one of the heavily armored warriors and dragged him to his death.

Our first line of defense is Windex, recommended by a five star general (*****) in the Headquarters of the Office of Habitat Defense. We have to seal up the holes, after spraying Windex in them, with tape. Duct Tape? As you can imagine, I didn't get to sleep until 5 am last night, so slept in sometime around noon today.

Last night all I could think of was, "Freaking Hellacious Abominations! Not again!"

*Toss, Turn...Itch*

Of course I itched all over because that's what bugs in the walls can do to you. They make you twitchy and shell shocked as you know you are fighting the species that will have the very last word with any wooden house! Then you silently scream something brave- and silly- like, "NOT ON MY WATCH!", and fret yourself into hyper alert insomnia. Also, it's impossible to sleep as you see all your dollars for yarn grow wings and fly out the windows. The new expensive windows, no less.

Knitting content: I will have a close up of a green sweater cable beginnings( gah, was that a moth? Now there's another species that will long outlive any woolen except the ones we poison!) which I've been working on. This is to prove that I can actually sit and knit, or could before we went to war, for about an hour a day.

Cheers! Hell hath no fury for Boadicea. Bring on the Armies of Rome! *puts on battle paint and mousses out her hair to look fierce*

Another Freaking test. Ignore this please... Bloglines has run amok

I'm trying to figure out what the heck bloglines is doing, strange STRANGE little red eyed creature that it is.

I have the poison tipped arrow in my bow... I await the approach of the bloglinian furzz.