Image-Google that title and you'll see what I'm referring to.

Now cut and paste the URL below:

http://health.discovery.com/convergence/duggars/baby-name-poll.html

If you've run out of ideas for new names and have to make a poll to have other people decide your baby's fate, maybe you should just stop breeding. Ones ability to breed should never surpass ones ability to come up with ideas. If I had a religion, that would be one of its laws.

What's so odd about this overpopulating resource-exhausting entire-school-of-Jesus-fish family is that they love the limeiight that Discovery Health and TLC gives them, which seems odd since they don't own or watch TV. Ironic, isn't it? TV is the work of the devil except when it pays you to continue in your breeding-addicted SUV-driving millennial consumerism-based lifestyle. Don't let the quaint Little House on the Prairie dresses fool you...they're not plucking raspberries and pulling rutabagas from their garden...there's more brand name non-organic canned products in their pantry than in my local neighborhood grocery store. Watch one of their TV specials...the resources this family consumes is astounding.

What's also ironic is that their family website is now hosted on Discovery Health. Well, I don't see anything "healthy" about having 17 (working on 18) kids.

Labels: It Takes All Kinds

The scene last night where Locke goes into the cabin reminded me so much of the season finale of Twin Peaks where Special Agent Dale Cooper goes into the Black Lodge opening/gateway under the Sycamore trees. First you have Locke going into the cabin and Hurley and Ben stay behind, just like Cooper going in and Sheriff Harry Truman (and was Andy with him, or did he come later?) stayed behind in TP. Then when Locke's in the cabin, he's met with whom I assume are dead people...Christian (Jack and Claire's dad), who by all accounts is dead (of course we don't really know!), and Claire, who is either dead (Stan thinks she is, but I don't know) or, like Locke and Jack and Hurley, can see dead people, and for some unknown reason followed her biodad into the cabin, leaving her baby behind. Of course the TP scene when Cooper is in the Black Lodge is incredibly terrifying and the people he sees, dead Leland Palmer, dead Laura Palmer, The Little Man from Another Place, Señor Droolcup/The Giant, Windom Earle, Bob, and Cooper's Evil Shadow Self are much more scary due to all the screaming, backward talking and white contact lenses, but the LOST scene was still quite engaging. Then outside, you've got Hurley and Ben sitting waiting for Locke like Harry and Andy waiting for Cooper. Except when Andy asks Harry, "would you like pie?" "would you like a plate special?", Ben and Hurley are completely silent the whole time, and Hurley actually grabs what is probably an Apollo bar out of his pocket and offers some to Ben. I wonder if the makers of LOST did this scene as a nod to Twin Peaks? It was very deja vu!

Now about Claire, Stan's theory is that when that blast occurred a few episodes ago and Sawyer goes to rescue her from that house, there were biological weapons in that blast that have affected both of them, and they are dying. He says that explains that she is dead. Also, Sawyer is dying. Of course that doesn't explain why baby Aaron isn't dead...we know that he he's a living, breathing, apparently healthy toddler from flashforwards. Wouldn't a baby be first susceptible to biological agents than healthy adults with developed immune systems? Yet, death would explain Claire's actions. Usually she's so cautious with Aaron, why would she leave him alone in the woods to follow her biodad that she doesn't even like? Of course Sawyer and Miles were nearby, but they were asleep. It's not like Claire.

Weird advice dead Christian gave Locke about "moving the island." I wonder if the Tsunami will play into this? Certainly the Tsunami should be happening soon... How weird it is that after this series was already being made, the Tsunami happened and it has got to force them to write it into the script.

Labels: LOST

I saw the oddest bird at our birdfeeder today. It had a white body with black head, black wings and black tail. It sort of looked like it had a skunk stripe down its back, but it was just because the body was white and the wings were black. On the black wings and tail were a few random white spots. It had a gold beak and was eating sunflower seeds from our feeder. I've never seen anything like it. I tried to shoot it (with a camera, that is) from the bedroom window, but it flew away, of course. Maybe it's a migratory bird. It returned again this afternoon and I noticed it also had a reddish-orange breast. I tried to shoot it again, but could only get the picture below which I had to crank up the brightness and contrast on. I couldn't get any closer to it, and shooting it through a window without it seeing you is a little difficult.

Mourning doves have to be the stupidest birds in the world. A few days ago I saw one land on top of our feeder. It's one of those feeders that hangs from a fishing wire and is supposedly squirrel-proof. It has a bottom part where the seeds go in, and a top covering that deflects rain and jumping squirrels. The dove was standing on this top part, making those jerky head strutting pigeon movements, looking around, wondering where the food was. Well, at the time, there might not have been food in the feeder, but if there was, it wouldn't have been on top. But it happened again today, shortly after the mystery bird sighting. It landed on top of the feeder, wondering how to get at the food which was in the level below. The stupid bird could not figure out how to get to the food. All our backyard birds, from large crows to baby sparrows learning to fly figure out how to fly into the bottom level, except the Mourning Dove. Such a stupid bird. They have such small heads in comparison to their body size. If a chickadee had a body the size of a Mourning Dove's, it would have a head the size of a tennis ball. Wisconsin recently passed a law that allows people to shoot Mourning Doves. I guess they are overpopulated, yet I thought it was a stupid law. But considering the skyrocketing price of food, our doves might look pretty good when gas is $60/gallon and bread is $15/loaf and chicken is $30/lb. Actually, we have an overpopulation of Allium in our backyard which started from a few bulbs. Each year there's more and more and they're taking over the tulips and everything else in our yard. Allium are from the onion/garlic family, so we can cook the doves with the allium bulbs.

I don't know if I could actually kill a warm-blooded creature. We caught our own crawfish and carp and ate them once (Stan caught the fish with his bare hands). But a bird? You can't catch a bird with your bare hands. You might be able to ambush them with a net...they're pretty slow and tame...and stupid. But I refuse to have any sort of gun.

What will we be willing to do when the food crisis gets bad?

Labels: Animals, This Boring Life

Recently I have been researching natural perfume-making and have been collecting essential oils to work with. Like any topic, there are blogs devoted exclusively to the subject, so I feel a little hesitant on adding to the mix since this is not something I have a lifelong experience with. My comments and thoughts on the matter may sound uneducated and naive since I am just beginning. But at least I admit that. I have no desire to become part of the online perfumerati, or part of an online anything anymore. Those days, the 90s and early 00s of web communities and cliques are so old and tired now. I just want my own little journal here where I write about my life, be it my animals, movies, music, art, plants, whatever.

And lately I really want to write about scents. I've already made some concoctions that I feel smell as good as anything commercially available. There are so many essential oils I'm unfamiliar with, so I add a small bit to some carrier oil and wear them as a single note perfume so I can take them in and "learn" them. Then there are some EOs I had been hesitant to get because I have a prejudice about them from my past.

I started obtaining my own perfumes when I was in Junior High. It began with some cheap mini bottles from Woolworths, plus some Avon solid sticks...they were sort of like lip balm, but scents. They came in little decorated tubes, Lilac, Hyacinth, Lily of the Valley and Hawaiian White Ginger. I didn't care for the Hawaiian White Ginger, but I wore it anyway. Then my 8th or 9th grade art teacher, a curmudgeonly old white-haired woman near retirement, wore the same scent. I really had a hard time wearing it after that.

So after that, up until this day, I have not been able to wear any Ginger. Nonetheless, last week I ordered a 1/6 oz size of Ginger Root from an online EO company. I thought I'd give it a second chance. I tried it in carrier oil. It smells nothing like my grumpy art teacher, or the cheap Avon scent. It smells like...crystalized Ginger. It's wonderful, and would make a good scent on its own.

The unfortunate part about natural perfumery is that the scents don't last as long as with synthetics, which is most everything on the commercial mainstream market today. But at least this gives me a way to sample more of my essential oils during a day, than having to wait until I shower next to try something else.

And here's one final thought for the day: I absolutely abhor all the silly Divacelebs with their fragrances. These chickies had absolutely nothing to do with the perfume other than lending their name to it. They probably know nothing about notes and fragrance families let alone tried their own hand at blending. And if anything, it would make me want to try it *less* than something with an abstract/non-celeb name (that is if I were still buying commercial perfume, which I'm not). The thought of a Br*tn*y Sp**rs perfume makes me wretch as I think of horrible smelly things I don't want to mention. Yes, some EOs have quite the...odd, if not downright unsniffable, waft to them. Valerian Root, even diluted, takes my breath away not in a good way. Black Currant bud, which is supposed to be so prized in perfumery smells like cat piss to me. I had such hopes for Galbanum, but I tried it diluted the other night and it left nothing but the smell of paint brushes that had been sitting in mineral spirits for a week. I need to try it again--that just can't be right! But I'd wear those any day before I'd put on any P*r*s H*lt*n. Yuck.

Labels: Scents

Hey, addictionary word submitters: Would it kill you to use your word in an example sentence? Or can't you think beyond just the definition of your brainchild? I mean, it's *your* word, FFS, use it! I subscribe to addictionary, and it bugs me to see a fairly decent "werd" w/definition arrive in my inbox...but there's no example, no context. How hard is it to frame your "werd?"

Reminds me of Freshman Art History at CSU when we only had to remember the artist, the name of the work and the year it was produced. No, nothing about the context in which the work was created or the culture of the country and the era. The first test was a total shocker. I think I got a D. It would've been a boon for Rainman and Aspies who get off on that trivia date stuff. This is probably one of the underlying roots of all my anxiety dreams about not studying for tests. I pulled my grade up to an A for the second semester, but only after cramming to remember useless and irrelevant trivia that I soon forgot after the test. That's what fact- and data-based tests do, make you forget after you no longer need the data--unless you have Asperger's and you thrive on that--but for us Neurotypes we want to go beyond: "32. Artist: Max Benkelman; Title: "Sunflowers in Evening with Farmhand"; Country: Germany; Year: 1927; Genre: German Expressionism. In fact, I don't even think in my class we had the Genre or Country. The instructor didn't care that you studied--as well as a freshman could study given the reading material that was given for the course--about German Expressionism, or Max himself and that he soon emigrated from Germany to the United States, Southwestern Nebraska, specifically, where he set up the Sunflower Institute that was sort of like a Van Gogh cult for suicidal artists. No one cared that Max's fixation on Sunflowers was obsessive to the point that he painted nothing else, not even starry nights. No one cared about how colorless Max's paintings became throughout his years until finally his canvasses were nothing but thick black paint. No, there was no context back in Freshman Art History.

(Sound of current and former art and art history students Googling Max Benkelman because they can't remember studying him in class).

I didn't think about it then, but now I realize it was probably so that the TAs could grade the papers easier since there were hundreds of people in these classes. Wouldn't want a TA to have to mull over essay answers and different TAs give different marks for similar responses.

Why not simply give multiple choice, for that matter? That'd make it even easier and the university could forgo employing TAs as test graders altogether and implement the tests with the number 2 pencil where you fill in the circles and have a computer read it?

I never met a TA that didn't feel a sense of entitlement. Grrr.

So, if I say the work was created in 1788 but the work was actually created in 1787, does that make me every bit as wrong as the bozo who said it was created in 1632? Yup, according to the way Art History 101 is graded.

Labels: Art, This Boring Life

So this is my first post since I've been back (and I've been back for a week now), and it's not even about the trip. No, it's about porn spam.

I got the stupidest porn spam today--yes, I know, they're ALL stupid so how can I qualify one as stupidest--I guess it's just stupid in terms of porn marketing. It wasn't your typical porn spam with your 4-letter word in the subject title in reference to some body part. No, this sender was somewhat more advanced than that, at least maybe advanced in years--they used a 6-letter word in the subject title.

Bosoms.

Who uses the term "bosoms" anymore? Especially for porn spam? I mean if I was the kind of guy--and I'm not even a kind of guy--looking for internet pictures of breasts, "bosoms" is about the last word I would think of that would describe what I want to find. It conjures up images of very clothed breasts, albeit large breasts, encased in a heavily armoured multi-panelled white brassiere forming them into a torpedo shape like headlights on some classic 1950s car. Grandmothers have bosoms. Pictures of pin-up women from the 1940s had bosoms. Contemporary girlies posing on the skinternet have breasts known by other raunchier names that I need not mention...but they don't have "bosoms."

Well, I guess it goes along with the demographic that is consuming the other thing I get spam for all the time--Viagra (not only do spammers think I'm male, they think I'm an OLD male).

Grandpa got his Viagra and now he's googling "bosoms." It's the next big thing.

Labels: This Boring Life

Not the most comfortable accommodations, I don't have anywhere to sit comfortably and use my laptop, except on this twin futon if I prop pillows up against the uncomfortable arms and lie crosswise on it. I can't access the internet while I'm doing this because the phone line doesn't reach, but it's dialup anyway and there's only one line and Montgomery Burns (the doghating version) will yell if he can't call to check the weather.

It is like a prison here, literally. I am in an approx. 10x12 room with two windows that I can't see out of because it's in a basement and there's those stupid plastic bubbles over them. The irony is that this is an improvement over what it was prior to 2004. Back then, I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the living/dining room, no privacy. And before I figured out that the mattress on the floor was actually more comfortable, I was sleeping on a rollaway cot that squeaked and was lumpy. The things I will endure just to see friends.

We almost got a motel for the rest of what would have been an extremely abbreviated stay, because the hot water heater broke. Had I not complained very loudly about the tepidly cold shower, they would've continued to use as is, rationalizing (if you can call it that) "the water is cold because it's cold outside", each shower becoming progressively colder and colder, and shorter and shorter, until finally they took no more showers and just washed in the sink and boiled hot water on the stove.

The above paragraph is supposed to be read in a Garrison Keilor voice. A Scary Home Companion.

So here's what went down so far.

Monday, March 24: Left Madison and went to Galena, IL. Disappointment. The rock shop in town has closed forever. I wanted mass quantities of Fluorite and Galena mined from this town, but instead will have to buy it in Colorado and elsewhere that imports rocks and minerals mined from Galena, IL. The irony. I like hills, but Galena is too hilly. Would not want to live there. Old mining towns are creepy. It reminded me a bit of Bisbee, AZ, but creepier. Since we didn't stay long there, we headed down the road and stayed in Lincoln, NE for the night. Not at our usual haunts because that one was going downhill the last time we passed through (coming back from Arizona a year ago), but this time at a Super 8 so I could take advantage of my Trip Rewards (which I should've signed up for over a year ago). It was near the stairwell over the lobby so it was loud, and although it was a non-smoking room, the room across wasn't and the occupants kept the door open and it stunk. Not a lot of sleep.

Tuesday, March 25: Got coffee at the best coffee shop in the world. Stan felt lousy...he was coming down with a cold. We both felt dessicated and were drinking mass quantities of fluids. I was about to come down with a cold, so I didn't feel my best either. Lots of interstate rest stops. Nebraska. Boring. Eastern Colorado. Boring. Hot. Dry. When I arrived in Fort Collins, my mom had found a Coty Sweet Earth Woods perfume compact for me. This was possibly a rosebud. I don't know if this was THE one I had, or one she had. If it was mine, where were the other two? The smells instantly brought back memories, and now I know why I thought they all smelled alike. In my final analysis, I think the Vermont Country Store's version actually has more distinction between the scents than the originals did.

Wednesday, March 26: Can't remember what happened that day other than buying a cactus at Fossil Creek Nursery. shopping at Sunflower Market. and going into a Mexican grocery to get some juices (Jumex...my favorite). We also went downtown to see if I could find some scents at the Tibetan store, but ended up buying blue coffee mugs that said "Namaste" (LOST reference) because there are no coffee cups at the Burns residence that are of a normal size. Every utensil, every cup is miniature in size, so in order to eat with a normal size spoon, one has to use their version of a tablespoon. It's like some sort of weird Alice in Wonderland through the looking glass alternative world where everything has shrunk in size. Went to Mellow Yellow in search of Frangipani. Found nothing. Went out to eat with Bill at El Burrito that night.

Thursday, March 27: I was sick. I felt awful. I stayed in the prison practically the entire day until I got bored out of my freaking mind (no tv, no radio, that's pretty unbearable when you're sick) and Stan took me for a ride in the evening.

Friday, March 28: This was the morning of the cold shower. At first I thought it was one of Montgomery Burns' money-saving methods of setting the hot water heater down so low that one can't take a shower for more than a minute without being frozen. But Stan checked the heater and it was set pretty high. I convinced them it was a problem with the hot water heater, and that it was old and needed to be replaced. They amazingly got someone over here to fix it...on a Friday afternoon. No way that could have been accomplished in Madison. Earlier in the day, Stan and I went to Bath, Fort Collins Nursery, and Gulley Greenhouse to get some cactuses. After that we came back to deal with the hot water heater guy and meddling Mr. Burns. After that I seriously had to have a Margarita with Bill at El Burrito. I don't drink much anymore because of the pain in my jaw it causes me, plus it makes me unproductive. But when I'm on vacation, productivity is not an issue.

Saturday, March 29: I was not exactly hung over (I only had one margarita the night before), but not exactly well-rested either. Went to the Longmont/Boulder area to see our friends Russ and Lamya and their two kids. On the way stopped at a greenhouse outside of Loveland to get cactus. We ate at a nice restaurant in Boulder that serves South American cuisine, like Cerviche. (sp?) I had a Mojito to drink which was delicious. Stan had a Margarita. We drove back to Fort Colins about 9:30 pm, but when we got back, we were dead. We used to do this all the time, and much later in the night. What has become of us? We are getting old. Unfortunately, this would have been *the* day to go for a bike ride had we not been out of town, unfortunately we couldn't have the nice weather on Saturday come later the next week.

Sunday, March 30: Dead to the world after the Mojito and the long night (up until all of 10:30, well, 11:30 Madison time) before. Went to Avo's to check our email on their free hi-speed internet. Had an absolutely delicious Creamation omelette. Went to East West Imports and found a Persian Attar scent, plus some Asian rice crackers to munch on for road tripping. I also broke down and went to the place in town I swore I'd never go to again, ever. The dreaded Whole Foods. I just wanted to see if they had more Kuumba Made scents available than they do in Madison. Bought some Tunisian Amber and Black Copium, plus some Vetiver essential oil and Jojoba oil to use as a carrier oil, and an empty roll-on vial so I can make my own Vetiver perfume. This might be the "smokier" more molassesy Vetiver that I'm not used to as much as the other kind I got as crystal resin from Eden Botanicals. I felt pretty dead the whole day. We got drive-thru food that night and drove around a lot. Nights are pretty much spent driving around until we're tired of it or have exhausted all the places to see, and then we come back here and hole up in the prison while the TV blares upstairs. If they would just turn the tv off and have conversations with us, that would be fine (non-judgmental, non-worrywart, non-persnickety conversations, that is), but no, the TV is all important. And loud tv too. Just shoot me if I ever get that way. I know I have my favorites like LOST and No Reservations, but if I had guests, the guests would take priority. But maybe that's just me.

Monday, March 31: Met my friend Barb for lunch and got to see where she worked, which ironically is in the same building where I had Driver's Ed in high school. Her boss had someone over that day who came from Baraboo, WI and knew Madison quite well. Coincidences and Ironies. We went with Barb and her sister, Nancy, to the Ethiopian restaurant we ate at with Bill last time we were out. It is so delicious there. We took some food "home" with us to eat for dinner, and even cold, it was still delicious. In the afternoon and evening we drove to Waverly, Wellington (scary), Owl Canyon, Bellevue, Masonville and back through Loveland. Anything to get us out of the house and Monty Burns and the LOUD TV.

Tuesday, April 1: Apollo's 8-month birthday. We took off and went to Denver in search of Dardano's Flowerland and Isis Books. We couldn't find Evans, where Dardano's is located. It's been ages. We found Isis's former location on East Colfax, but they have now moved to South Broadway. On the way to their new location, we came across Evans, fortunately. At Isis I got Heliotrope, Cypress and Wisteria essential oils, and Frangipani, one of my rosebud scents from ages ago that I have since stupidly lost. What an idiot I am. Stan only found one cactus at Dardano's. I remember them having so much more when I went there in the 80s. Maybe it's the time of year. After Dardano's it was still fairly early in the day, so I got the crazy idea to go to Casa Bonita. We haven't been there since the 80s either. Now back in the 70s when I was first introduced to CB, probably in the company of Barb's family and later with Stan, I thought it was delicious. People would say "Casa Bonita, the food's not very good, but you go there for the experience." I didn't understand what was wrong with the food...compared what I was used to, it was quite a treat! Now I know why they say the food wasn't very good. It's not. You can't compare it to any family-run Mexican restaurant. But when you don't know anything better and your family never takes you out to eat good food, what have you got to go by? But yes, the experience is fun, even if it's just in a cheesey "oh, I remember that!" way. I feel so sorry for the "performers." I had no idea what was going on...some Black Bart and a She-Sherrif... really stupid act and horrible PA system that's probably not been fixed since the 70s. After that, Stan drove by his Grandmother's old homestead which looked nothing like how we remembered it, and we took the dogs for a walk on a bike path. We have to take the dogs with us on these long day excursions. Monty Burns and Co. are completely incapable of dealing with dogs in their house while we're gone longer than a couple hours. Of course we always have to kennel them in the basement, hell forbid we have them LOOSE in the house. On the way back, we found a greenhouse in Lafayette and Stan got some things there. After I got back to the prison, I added the essential oils to jojoba in empty vials. I used medicine droppers and rinsed the droppers out in a little water and that water smelled so good. Who would've thought the combo of those four oils would smell so great? Now I really want to try my hand at perfumery when I get home.

Wednesday, April 2: We'll go up to Bill's later. Thursday we'll see Stan's sister, and Friday, I think we'll split the scene. Not only does the weather look the best for Friday as far as travelling across the mountains on I-70, but I'm going stark-raving loonie here. Even though the TV will be loud in Montrose, and sometimes I really feel like an outsider there, at least there'll be a beautiful window I can gaze out of with a beautiful scene of the San Juans. Bill said he's fixing up a room downstairs, so maybe in the future Stan and I can stay here instead of at our cell at the Montgomery Burns State Penn. I guess we could chip in for propane, as Bill keeps the place very cold.

Labels: LOST, Scents, This Boring Life, Vacation

The other night almost a week ago (I have extremely limited internet access right now) I had this dream. I can't remember which night because I'm not where I usually am right now, and perception is a bit distorted and confused. It all harkens back to that silly "which LOST character are you" quiz.

I dreamt that I was with Stan, except he was Charlie. It was like we were in the early stages of our relationship, because we seemed younger. We were running, and he, Stan/Charlie, kissed me while we were on the run. Just for the record and to set things straight, I'm not that attracted to Charlie...I'm a Desmond girl...but there was something really sweet about that kiss, maybe because despite outward appearances, it was Stan behind it.

That sounds really cornball.

Anyway, the dream continued in a LOST vein, because we went into this strange place like a dungeon with chains and shackles and torture equipment, and Charles Widmore was there. It was rather sinister. As I was dreaming it, I was thinking how cool it was that I was actually experiencing my very own LOST episode.

I wish I could remember more of the dream, and perhaps I would've if I could've written it down afterward like normal, but it's been very difficult lately.

Labels: Dreams, LOST