maggots, hairspray, and duck tape

I wanted to throw something in my compost garbage can yesterday, and thought my kids had actually done something without being asked. A short-lived fantasie, I assure you. What I thought was the old spaghatti in the garbage, wasn't. I knew this because Spaghetti doesn't wiggle. (although, if we leave it a little longer in the back of the fridge...) Anyway, every inch of the garbage can, from top to bottom, was a squirming mass of maggots. This explaind the fly epidemic in my kitchen, as the garbage can is close to the open window. But, I'll get back to that part of the story...
The maggot fester called for immediate and drastic attention. And drastic I was. I didn't have any sort of Raid bug killer. I thought for a moment, and decided to blast them with a can of extra hold Syoss hair spray. I thought I could freeze the little bastards in mid-squirm. I was wrong. They were a bit stiffer, but still very much alive. Next I tried Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner. Anything that can wipe out soap scum can certinaly kill maggots. On the contrary. All it did was wash the hair spray off of them. I decided to scan the garage... Tomatoe fertilizer? No, that would probably make them grow. How about the spray that was suppossed to keep the cats from shitting in my garden, but didn't. Why not. More spraying. I could only stand to keep the lid open for a few seconds, it is, after all, a compost full of rotting food, and, well, the maggots. Every time I closed the lid, I would SLAM it shut. I was trying to get the ones all over the inside of the lid to fall off. Spray, gag, slam. Spray, gag, slam. It was then I realised I was in view of about seven neighbors. In a country where recycling is important enough to color code four different garbage cans, poisoning the compost that will be used to renourish Mother Earth didn't seem like something I should do...(at least not when the neighbors can see me) I stopped spraying. Actually, there was a toxic mushroom cloud forming above the garbage can, so it was time anyway. The maggots didn't die. I think it was a case of "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." They say a cockroach can survive a nuclear war. I believe maggots can too.
Defeated by the maggots, I decided to tackle the flies. I thought about those fly strips you hang from the ceiling. I figured I could make my own with double sided duck tape. Duck tape is a personal favorite of mine. I use it for small home repairs, cracked car bumpers, and various sewing projects. I thought it was genius to catch flies with it. I hung two strips of it from the kitchen cupboard doors and smeared them, front and back, with honey and molasses.
Then I waited. And waited. After two hours, I had caught no flies. I believe it attracted several more into my kitchen, but none of them landed on my tape. The honey and molasses, by the way, ran down the tape and dripped everywhere.
So that's my story. I figure I have tainted the magots to the point of producing two headed, three winged flies that have stylish hair, are resistant to soap scum, and repel cats.

Cleaning out the closet

I believe all women have their closets arranged in sections: thin, medium, large, and holy shit. I’ve decided it’s time to clean mine out.
Deep in the abyss, the section I’ll never be again but thus far haven’t been able to part with, is my thin section. There are size 10 clothes that are actually back in style, but would look ridiculous on a middle-aged woman, even if I were thin again. I ask myself, is it the clothes I want to save, or the memories attached to them? And if I really think about it, do I want to keep clinging to those memories? Way back then I always thought I could patch up people like I patched my skinny jeans. I was a seamstress for ripped, torn, suicidal people. I was sure I could help and heal them all.
Pushing the clothes down the memory lane pole in my closet, I come to the medium-sized section. That was the time where I discovered that life is too short to waste on Boon’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine when there is plenty of merlot out there. And although I was eventually able to differentiate between good and bad wine, I still hadn’t learned to do that with friends. My patchwork circle of friends stuck to me like an iron-on that couldn’t be shaken off.
My life and my clothing size turned large without warning. But the clothing industry, God bless them, was merciful. A fourteen is the new twelve. And age forty is the new thirty. I discover everything is sooo much better when you take your time, enjoy it , and do it right the first time instead of jumping right into the deep fryer. I also learned there is red wine beyond merlot , and that the “T” is silent unless you live in the boondocks - in which case you drink Boon’s Farm Strawberry Hill Merlott. Life can be light like a pinot bianco, or heavy like a French burgundy. And if you make the right choices, you won’t wake up with a nasty headache. The same – I was slowly learning – goes for friends. If someone told me their entire medical history within the first half hour of meeting them, I knew not to give them my (real) telephone number.
I am presently clothing myself from the Holy Shit section of my closet. I have learned, but more importantly have accepted, that a size 16-18 is just that. Period. End of story. Don’t misunderstand me. This doesn’t mean I am downing Ben and Jerry’s by the pint. It simply means I am smart enough to know I will never be a size 10-12 again. And I am wise enough to know it is time to throw out those other sections. Time to weed out those memory-laden clothes weighing down the pole and cluttering up my sanity.
Who would have thought cleaning out my closet could be so therapeutic? Life is short. Stop clinging to all that old shit. Throw it away, for God’s sake. Don’t wear clothes that aren’t comfortable. The same rule applies for friendship. Keep that one favorite sweater that fits you no matter what size you are. Keep that one best friend that loves you no matter what.

Spring Cleaning and Couch Rash

Spring cleaning, to me, means springing up from the couch, turning off Farmville and quickly cleaning the house because my husband is coming home soon. Yesterday, however, the cleaning bug grabbed me by the seat of my pants. I ripped the house apart and sucked up a vacuum bag full of dust. Moving the couch away from the wall is always an adventure. A few pine needles, a pen, and even the match to a sock that has been in laundry room for a month. While on my hands and knees picking up what my mother always called “crippy-crappies” I noticed the side of our black leather couch was spotted. Looking over at the love seat and chair, they too had the same rash. I got a rag and some leather cleaner, and went to work. Hummm… Is the leather pitted? No, that’s an optical illusion. Whatever it is, it’s not coming off. Did my husband splatter something while renovating? Cement maybe? No, that can’t be it. I finally decided it was glue. Strong glue. Damn kids must have been doing arts and crafts on the furniture. Probably happened at Christmas time when they were making the window decorations. The leather cleaner wasn’t doing shit to get it off. I got my other rag wet with Meister Proper (Febreze scent) . Scrub, scrub. It still wasn’t coming off, but it was getting loose. I finally had to scrape off the glue with my thumb nail. That worked well. Scrape, scrape. After a while, my thumb nail was getting full. I scraped the glue out from under the nail, and balled it up. I wanted to drop it, as I hadn’t yet vacuumed. No luck, it was stuck. I wiped it on my pants, but every time I wiped my hands on them thereafter, it re-stuck. WTF. It wasn’t until I FLICKED the ball off my finger that I realized it wasn’t glue. There is only one thing that gets flicked, and that, my friends, is a booger. I was reminded of a joke I heard when I was about ten years old.
Two men are sitting on a park bench. One man’s head keeps twitching, as if to signal – come here. He is approached by a stranger. “Excuse me, sir. Were you telling me to come over?” “No, I’m sorry,” he replied. “I was injured in the war, and ever since then I’ve had this twitch.” The stranger looked at the other man on the park bench and asked if he was also injured in the war. “Oh no,” he said, flicking his finger. “I just have a booger of my finger and I can’t get it off.”

A boo-boo on her hoo hoo?

Second on my list of “Things I really hate”, - no toilet paper in a public toilet. (Public toilets being number one.) If you’re lucky, you have a tissue in your pocket or purse. Such was the luck of “Gertrude” (fictitious name to protect her embarrassment) last week.
Gertrude arrived home and felt something was dreadfully wrong down there. Yes, there. Compact mirror in hand she investigated. “GOOD LORD!” exclaimed Gertrude. “ I’ve got a tumor on my hoo-hoo!” Reaching down to investigate further, she realized, (pardon my pun) her lips were sealed. Further probing revealed a sticky mass covering not only her hoochie, but her fingers now too. It was then Gertrude remembered wiping herself in the public toilet with the tissue from her pocket. The same tissue she had spit her gum into.
Alternative titles for this blog: Wrigley's Wax job, and Bubble Gum Brazilial.

FritoLay between a chicken coop and a pig pen?

I try my best to be a good farmer. My insta-grow sits dusty in my gift box. I know it contains nasty chemicals. My animals are free range. And all my poncho lamas and baby elephants were made from scoops of 100% organic feed. (I checked with the president of Farmville personally. Nice guy, round head, wearing an aviator’s cap – which I found a bit odd…) So now, I have quite a dilemma. Where to park my FritoLay’s chip stand and truck. I realize having this on my farm makes me somewhat of a hypocrite, but FritoLay is just so American, and I get so darn homesick. I wonder if I explained my situation to Zachary Zynga, (Yes, we’re on a first name basis) would he make a Tom Wahl’s stand, or better yet, a Pizza Land – complete with a tiny Barb-atar wearing a blue tee shirt covered in flour and splotched with tomato sauce. That would beat a FritoLay stand any day. I think I’ll waddle on over to my post office and send ZZ (only his closest friend call him that) a letter. I can check my winery while I’m over that way. My level 68 red table wine is almost ready. It would be mighty tasty with a large pepperoni, half mushroom pizza…

Boom chick a baa baa - love potion from Labville

I have too many pigs. Pink pigs, pot belly pigs, black pigs, white pigs, and wasabi pigs. No wait, make that ossabaw pigs. (Although, wasabi pigs would make some pretty spicy chops and bacon.) Anyway, I decided to sell a few today. But as I clicked on Sell, a thought occurred to me. Where do the poor pigs go? Off to slaughterville? Or worse, Do they go to a lab? I believe they do. How else would they be able to come up with neon pink valentine pigs? All of those poor animals I sold, and for what? So they could be poked, prodded, and genetically altered for the sake of our enjoyment. How could I have been so naive to think pink pigs with cute little party hats and noise makers could come from Mother Nature. Labville is more like it. Thousands of little avatars in tiny white lab coats just waiting for you to click on SELL. That’s why you can hunt for truffles AND share one with a friend, AND get one back. Oh it’s all becoming so clear to me now! I should have known my pigs couldn’t find truffles on a farm in a country I don’t even live in. I hang my head in shame.
What becomes of all the wandering stallions that no one gives shelter to? And the thousands of unclaimed poncho lamas? Let’s face it, no one has claimed one of those in months. And while I’m at it, who made all those ponchos for the lamas? A ten year old child avatar from sweatshopville, that’s who! And you can bet your chicken coop those poor childatars don’t have fancy-schamcy clothes or costumes to change into when the mood strikes them. Just a sewing machine in a warehouse. Day in and day out, making teeny-tiny hats for party pigs, and thousands of ponchos with matching sombreros for the lamas.
Oh hell, I’m on a roll now – so let me continue. The “instagrow potion” that sprays out of the crop duster… back when I went to school, anything that made crops grow that fast was called toxic fertilizer. Potion my ass.
And then there’s the pot of gold. I have enough gold to buy 12 Clover Chickens which, I have come to conclusion, (because I am just too smart for my own good) are a combination of “Potion” grown clover, and Labville chickens. No sir, not this girl.
But it doesn’t stop there, now there’s the English Countryside. Oh how I waited. I frantically clicked on my neighbors for help as not to wait four grueling days to get there in my British airship blimp. And what happened after I completed my sheep pen? S-E-X that’s what. A “Boom chick a baa baa” sign appeared outside the pen after the (unsuspecting) sheep went inside with the genetically altered purple ram. A-Ha! That is probably the Lab! Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing – A lab in sheep’s housing. God! Those poor little sheep. Why, it’s like an alien abduction. They get probed in places one doesn’t speak of (at the dinner table) And what do we do???? We feed it “Love Potion” Oh those Farmville communist leaders are big on potions. Once the lamb is born, we ease the mama into the fact that she has given birth to an orange lamb with purple polka dots. (Lest we bring back the repressed memories of the lab probing.) We don’t let her know until the poor little thing has had ten bottles.
Good will come of this blog. The people at my Zanganon meeting will take comfort in the fact that stopping their addiction to Farmville benefits not only them, but many, many others as well.

Don't leave yet, what's the worst that can happen?

Why does the bathroom smell like you gave the puppy a bath? Oh, those stupid, stupid questions mothers ask their children.
"Mom, I don't want to talk about it. I had one of the most stressful days of my life, I just don't want to talk about it."
Well if that doesn't peek my curiosity (that, and wet dog smell) I don't know what will.
Patrick took the dog across the street to his friends house. While there, Patrick ate lachs, and didn't like it. He really didn't like it. So much so, he had to vomit. Not wanting to vomit on the neighbours kitchen floor, he left. Walking across the street, he didn't think he was going to make it home to the toilet. These were his thoughts... (and I quote)
"If I puke up fish in the middle of the street the dog is going to want to eat it."
His plan was to get the dog inside the back door, and then throw up in the back yard - because that is closer than the toilet.
He opened the back door, put the dog down, and said to Alex, "I'm gonna..."
He then threw up all over the floor, every nook and crany of the door frame, and, yes, on the dog.
According to Patrick, he had to pick up the pukey puppy, because as he suspected, the puppy did indeed want to eat it. What to do, what to do.
So He called Aunt Margaret in America to see if it was okay to bath the puppy. (I don't know if he told hey why.) Aunt Margaret said yes, and suggested using ham to keep the dog quiet in the bath tub. (Which explained the empty package of ham by the side of the tub.)
He used Julia's Addidas Soft Cotton soap, and I don't know how many of my good bath towels.
The puppy is really soft, and smells like spring time cotton and fish puke.
The living room is clean, but I am now out of Q-Tips. Patrick needed them to get all the cracks of the door frame clean.
Alexander and Julia said they have never laughed that hard. Ever.
The next time someone says to me, "Your kids are fine! Don't leave yet! What's the worst that can happen..." (And then inveigle me with plum cake and the opportunity to feed the most adorable baby in the world.) I will simply reply, "Well, they may have puked on the puppy."

Scheiße! I have a Klo mouth

The other day I swore. As in, said a swear word, cursed - you get the idea. I said, "Faack." exactly like that. Just shoot me right now. If my sister had heard me say it like a German she would NEVER let me forget it. Ever. She would call all her friends and make sure they use it in a sentence the next time they see me. Even my Father would tease me.
"Lizzy, could you get me a faackin' glass of milk?"
Sheet, I might as well just admit I turning German. Ja. - Scheiße -

Where the Wild Things are

In my favorite picture book Where the Wild Things are by Maurice Sendak, Max is a bad little boy who is sent to bed without any supper. He then uses his vivid imagination to sail off over days and weeks to a monstrous world where he is made king.
In the modern day movie version - Max is not only a bad boy, he is an angry boy. A very angry boy. The movie starts out with Max violently “playing” with the dog. I didn’t notice one of those “No animals were harmed during the making of this movie” So I am pretty sure the dog, (and his stunt double) are dead.
Moving right along… Max’s older sister (Was she in the book?) ignores Max when he is crushed in his snow igloo by her friends, and drives off with a car full of boys. This prompts Max to go up to her room and violently trash it. And although his mother finds the wet mess (he was still snowy) she doesn’t send him to bed without any supper - she helps him clean it up. Later that evening, Max finds his mom on the couch sucking face with her boyfriend. (Whether Daddy is dead, or just run off with his crack-ho secretary I do not know.) Max defies his mother, refusing to set the table for dinner. And because that wasn’t nasty enough (for the director) Max climbs on top of the kitchen table in his wolf suit and proceeds to bite the shit out of her. (No, I am not making this up.) Before she has a chance to send him to bed without any dinner, Max takes off into the dead of night and ends up in the woods during a rain storm.
At this point in the movie, I wondered where the great movie trailer was I saw that made we want to see it in the first place. Where are the magical creatures that Max skips, jumps and plays with. We’ll get there. Max spies a boat… ahhh, here comes the sails off over days and weeks part. But wait - through a monsoon rain storm with Max clinging to the mast for his dear life in his drenched little wolf suit.
I was hoping it would be like in the Wizard of Oz. First Dorothy has to get knocked out in black and white, but ends up in the Techno Color world of Oz, and you forget the fact that the movie is making you suicidal. So when Max’s boat lands ashore the Isle of the Wild Things I still had hope.
Max has to climb a slippery wet cliff in the dark to get to the top where he has seen firelight. (Not at all like the yellow brick road.) When he gets there he watches from behind a tree while one of “the wild things” trashes his friends nests. I mean really trashes. He even picks up one of the other wild things and uses him like midget bowling to bash a hole in a nest. You could see Max relating to him, yes sir, you could. And sure enough Max comes out of hiding to help him. A few lies later, max has been made king. I am still waiting for the skipping and frolicking to begin. This will be the turning point in the movie. The costumes are amazing. They do Maurice’s illustrations justice. Now they all begin to play, and jump. Ummm… Tackle that is. The Wild Things are just ramming and jumping and tackling each other - and NOT in a playful way. (Almost like the “Pausenhof” at most German grammar schools.) Max ends up at the bottom of the pile. The director of the movie was going for a Juvenile boys home/ Street gang parody. The Wild Things have obviously all run away from home due to their alcohol/drug/sexually abusive families. Okay, little Max obviously has ADAH, and is a compulsive liar. His violent outbursts are enough to put him in a military school, but I think he was just a tad bit out of his league with the verbally and physically abusive wild things. Was it me? Was I having a bad day? Did the dirt clod war bring back suppressed memories from childhood? Maybe.
I’d like to tell you the movie ends with Max sailing home to find his supper waiting - and it is still warm. But I don’t know. That is to say I didn’t get that far. It was risk watching the movie in it’s entirety and swallowing a bottle of pills - or change the channel.
I assume Max got home to his dysfunctional family, snuck in the back door, ate some cold pizza and went to bed.