double-edged stick of fire*

My brilliance is perhaps overshadowed by my stupidity.

Brilliance: I had a coffee to stay awake for the fireworks.

Stupidity: I had a coffee... to stay awake... for the fireworks.

A smack to the forehead would be wise at this juncture.

Also wise at this juncture? ME SHOWING YOU FIREWORKS PHOTOS! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!

One of the neighbor kids playing with sparklers:



I used the moon setting so that I could capture the movement. I think they were trying to spell the abbreviation for Iowa, which happens to be IA. Yes, you see that too? Awesome.

Here are the rest of the 61 photos. Go. Look! Do it! Stop reading my words! Go look at my mad photo skillz, yo!

Sigh.

You people don't "listen" very well..11!!!!!@!!!

Bye.


*I told you I live in France, where we celebrate Bastille Day. (But really this is just a do-over of the July 4th fireworks which were rained out on the day.)

Would you like highlights or lowlights? Because lowlights cost more.*

There were no fireworks. My town is, yup, an asshatted assclown and, despite all the boooom-booooom-booooooooooms going on in every single surrounding town our elected officials (I DIDN'T VOTE FOR ANY OF YOU, YOU BUNCH OF REPUBLICANS!**) decided they'd rather not get a little wet. Fuckers.

I had really good food. Cheddar bratwurst, macaroni salad, red potato salad, mixed green salad with a dijon-dill dressing, Cape Cod salt & pepper chips with french onion dip, BEER***, and fresh made from scratch strawberry shortcake. YUM. I just made myself hungry all over again.

I tricked myself into getting invited to the beach on one of the days I have off this month where I originally had plans to go see ACW and Mel (oh, and see my cousin get married) but that has been postponed (because my cousin is now getting married in September...don't ask).

I got felt up by both my friends, and by one of their 2-year-old children. (At least the 2-year-old used a cat toy. My friends just got all handsy on me.) (Yes, this is all much more innocent than it sounds. Apparently it's fun to touch my Old Navy low rise ultra-thin cord something-or-other pants. They do make my ass look fabulous, and now I am less creeped out that my stepmother always comments on those pants when I wear them.)

The house is clean! Because people came over! The house is never clean! Because we're lazy! Have I ever mentioned that I totally suck at cleaning? I can keep the cats fed, the litter boxes scooped, the bills paid, the dishes done, but everything else is not my responsibility. And there's very little Hay claims responsibility for as well, so that leaves the cats to do vacuuming and sweeping and dusting and surface cleaning and and and. The cats? Very lazy.

I forgot to mention the bats! While we were sitting outside in the bug tent waiting for the fireworks that never were to be we kept seeing bats swooping around in front of us. Beautiful. I love bats.**** We're going to put up a bat house now to attract them to sleep near the pine tree. Yay. :)



*Or maybe that's just a rumor.

**Not all republicans are awful, but these republicans encouraged "4 more years" of a dim-witted monkey and his sinister organ grinder in office to happen.

***I only had 3/4 of one beer because the night before I drank 3 and my kidneys are delicate. :)

****You know I love all animals, but bats are adorable.

backstabby holiday wishes

HAPPY DAY MY FAMILY REVOLTED AGAINST MY HOMELAND, EVERYONE! :)

Don't get too drunk. Or light yourself on fire. Or anyone else. And make sure to wear bug spray.

cheese grater

Note to self: Perhaps wiser to have someone else grate the cheese for the pizza when you've had an entire beer on an empty stomach, ya lightweight.

Is everyone else drunk already? Meeeee toooo now.

Happy Canada Day, boypren and green bee! (And all my peeps I will totally be texting too early on a Sunday, "oops".)

I love Happy Slip*. I mean, like a lot. I'm kinda... stalking that site. I started watching Christine's videos while waiting to listen to Fab and Tug do their radio show last Sunday (during which I was accused of giving blow jobs instead of calling in, but what can you do...) and it was that stalk-at-first-site sensation. So, you're coming into this whole Happy Slip thing late, but when Kevin starts serenading Mini I lose it laughing because it totally reminds me of the Chinese BSB serenades which I LOVE.

So, yah, talking about it too much. Here's the video from Happy Slip/Christine, entitled "boypren":


And now for Chinese BSB (aka Back Dorm Boys):



(I may have just yelled at Hay, "STOP INTERRUPTING MY CHINESE BACKSTREET BOYS TIME!" while I rewatched that video. May have. Maybe. Yup. I need my Wei Wei time, k? I know he's wearing a headband in that video and headbands are not cool, but he's not always wearing a headband. Duuuuh. Anyway, my yelling is cute.)


This week's Sunday Garden Party contains bugs because flowers + bugs = high quality entertainment. Just look at this fine specimen:



Green bee! Again! I swear he's a superhero. Rest of the 36-photo set is over at flickr.

Please note that next week's set will be a super colossal SGP because Hay, his parents, and I will be going on our yearly garden tour and I will be taking 400+ photos. I won't show you 400+ photos, but it'll be a lot.


To my girls and boy au Canada, HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!!!!




*In case you're thinking to yourself, "what exactly is a happy slip?" Christine has explained on her about page.

little bits

It's summer, shouldn't you be outside or something? Yah, me too.

I totally forgot that I had set up a recording for Sleepaway Camp on IFC. Now I totally get to see boobies this morning!!!! (What? Boobies are pretty!) Edit: Dammit! No boobies because the twist at the end is that she is really a he. So I think I just saw a prosthetic penis. I think.

It's 9:30am but I'm craving Mexican food. A nice beef taco with pico de gallo would be lovely. And beans and rice. And maybe a chimichanga (I don't care what's in there, it's fried and awesome). Now I am starving... Nice job, Poppy!

I'm pretty sure for the first time since it warmed up I have absolutely no plans for the weekend. Except drinking ice water and watching the cats go nuts. Yup, there goes Ripley now!

We can see our town's fireworks from our backyard because they're launched from *pointing* right over there, so people invite themselves to our house to eat our food and sit in our screened tent, in the front of the tent so that Hay and I get the crappy view of our own fireworks. I'm not quite sure how this happens every year. Except that Hay keeps saying "what time are you coming?" when they say, "hey, we're coming over for the 4th." I'm not opposed to visitors, I'm just opposed to people without common courtesy.

I am still hungry. Bye.

I'm a giver!

Happy Father's Day to the fathers! My gift to you is that I'm wearing a white t-shirt and the forecast for today is thunderstorms.

I may get zero responses, considering the date.

If you were me, because, face it, you want to be, which would you cook for Memorial day?

• boneless chicken breast
  
• boneless pork chops
  
• pale ale bratwurst
  
• Hebrew National hot dogs
  
• herb butter angus burgers and worcestershire with garlic angus burgers
  
• fried tofu, sweet onions, sweet bell peppers, and julienne carrots with yummy Chinois glaze sauce over Jasmati rice

How about dessert for Memorial day?

• cheesecake
  
• Jell-O peanut butter cup no-bake dessert
  
• chocolate silk pie
  
• milk chocolate chunk brownies
  
• carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
  
• Ben & Jerry's coffee heath bar crunch ice cream
  
• plain old chocolate ice cream

It's okay to choose more than one of a main dish and a dessert but not more than two in each category. If you choose more than two then something really bad happens to the universe.

You are welcome to suggest things that aren't on the list but I am soooooo not going back to the store. :)

Living vicariously through others

Do you know what I am doing while Mel and SkeeterB are wishing I was there? I'm gardening. And picking up groceries for my dad. And trying not to give myself a lobotomy because I have to go play cards with my stepmom later. KILL. Me. NOW. *sigh*


This serves as the repository for Mel's drunk texting for today. All messages are SIC. Including when Mel writes gong. *grin* And, clearly, I'm an instigator.

2:02pm Mel: And it begins... First drink tequila sunrise :) oh yeah, and feel free to blog any of my stupid drunken texts!
2:56pm Poppy: I definitely will be :-D
3:38pm Mel: First shot... Oooh warm gong down! :)
4:01pm Poppy: 2 more for me :-D
4:37pm Mel: Im drunk!!!p)
4:41pm Poppy: Hehehe but are you naked? O:)
5:00pm Mel: I just had 2 shotsm. Not naked but wiwish i was :p!!!hhhhhh!
5:04pm Poppy: I am sooo imagining dirty things about you and [SkeeterB].
5:22pm SkeeterB: I don't know how i feel about that... But i sorta gives me a warm and fuzy in da pants
5:25pm Poppy: I was wondering when you would take over :)
5:23pm Mel: There are people here now... But im hoping for the dirty studff later! :)
5:35pm Poppy: Off a my dads - gah. More later, have fun!
5:36pm Mel: Wiwill do. We just saw you were bloggin about us... Well done!! ::))
7:17pm Poppy: GRIN
7:22pm Mel: I just s ebt a message to myslf. And [SkeeterB] is bloggin drunk. Life is good ::)
8:30pm Poppy: Oh MAN I wish I was home to read it!!! Soon...
9:16pm Mel: Oh fun party. Wish you where here! :)
9:24pm Poppy: Take pix!! Im home now, definitely wish i was there!!! ;-)

My poor dad kept wondering why my pocket was buzzing all night. (Ohhhh, that was fun to explain. :) "Work, dad. Work.")


Side note: Also today I received text messages from SourPuss who was having a Bacardi with her friend and from B who was at a wedding. I feel popular today. Thanks, everyone. :)

Cupcakes and bunnies

Prity cuppy-cakes from A.


Hay and I are off to see the in-laws for Easter. Obvious point to be made is that Easter was like a year ago. Life got in the way of us going sooner, so we're going now. I am totally dressed for the occasion in a cobalt blue long-sleeved t-shirt, dark blue jeans, and pink socks. Totally Easter bunny! :P

Later, blogland!

xoxo,
~P

Detractor

Two items:

1. Happy Friday the 13th!
2. In case the newest Target commercial with "A little bit more, a little bit more" is haunting you in a good or bad way, here's the only version I could find at YouTube:



The song is done by Jamie Lidell, but he isn't the one singing "a little bit more," that's a background singer. I bought Jamie's album Multiply from iTunes last night. It's funky. Jamiroquai meets The Commodores meets a touch of Disco? :)

Posting this as older than the Interview Questions post because I want that to receive the top spot for the day. :)

Yes, they are, in fact, smaller.

BJ Novak from The Office demonstrates on Conan O'Brien that the Cadbury egg has actually shrunk in size, despite Cadbury's claim to the contrary:



And the FAQ sheet which lies to us:

Worth your time

A's non-traditional vegan Easter meal spread. :)



...and totally not related, I've been playing Chinese vs. Japanese in instant message with a colleague all morning and we started talking about sharing our iTunes collections. I explained why I don't do this, because I don't want to have to edit my song names, that "people swear, that's life," and in response he sent me Pop Muzik Mashup -Exactshit:



He rawks. :) Ironically, he does not know my secret blog identity, so it's only funny to me that he sent me something poppy. :)

Admittance

Hi. Maybe you weren't around this weekend. If you weren't, please go read this post and follow its instructions. Thanks to Spéncèr, Molly, and Maman for voting. If anyone else voted I thank you as well and you should fess up. :)

Speaking of fessing up, this postcard from PostSecret deserves attention:



I'm sure this postcard was very liberating, but it amuses me to no end that this was posted on a Christian holiday (that'd be Easter). Question: Don't all guys (who prefer or like women) want to have sex with every woman they see? I wonder how hard it is for him to sit through bible study with his teacher. I think if I were in his situation I just wouldn't be able to do it, I'd have to switch study groups. Or, I'd resolve myself to the fact that I won't be learning The Word, I'll just be learning to deepen my crush on the object of my affection. What do you all think?

The final fess up, which is actually just something interesting that has happened to me: I met Bob Keeshan (aka Captain Kangaroo) while he was still alive. Not as nice in real life as he was on the TV. Honestly, who is? I met him a few times, most notably at the wedding of my ex-boyfriend's father to the family friend of Bob. The very strange thing is that Bob gave a really gruff toast directly after the justice of the peace proclaimed that the bride and groom were now wife and husband. We all just looked at each other while we raised our glasses and drank. And then we all watched the bride and groom walk into the kitchen to go get plastered. :)

And yes, one more mini fess up after I promised the previous was the last: I am in fact cheating by posting this on Sunday with Monday's date, but Blogger sucks and doesn't let me hold back posts until their timestamp. I'll make the switch to Wordpress some day... I'm just too lazy and busy to do it today. It's Monday morning, and I'm republishing, so technically I'm publishing on Monday? :)

Sunday, bloody Sunday I had a clever title but it was eaten by The Man.

Sorry, that was a little gross. So, the strikeouts: I was going to do a meme today, and it was going to be kinda cool, but I realized that the answers were just a little too revealing. Like I haven't done a lot of revealing lately? Even I have my lines to draw. So, no meme.

How about SUNDAY GARDEN PARTY MINIATURE EDITION WITH MORE SNOW CROCUSES!!!!!! instead? And spider pictures. And snow pictures. One thing to say: Effing power lines, always ruining the shot. Another thing to say: This set isn't actually so mini. Hmm. Semi-mini. Anyway, here's a teaser:



Rest at flickr.

Some thankfulness: Blogger ate this the first time, so I shall do the condensed version. Thanks to Stef at Stefanie Says for semi-randomly-but-with-semi-purpose sending me The Essential Johnny Cash from my Amazon Wish List!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been wanting that double album ever since I saw Walk the Line, and actually quite a bit longer because I am a Cash fan who just happens to not have any of his music really. Hay had American I-IV but somehow only American IV is still in the house, which has my absolutely favoritest covers by Johnny, Hurt (NIN) and Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode). I grew up listening to Johnny in my house because after my mom divorced my dad she dated a man who loved country music. This made me hate it for the rest of my childhood, but then when I was 19 I almost started liking it again when Hot Roommate had his friend from Australia over for a few weeks and he was an absolute country music fanatic. (Yes, there is country music in Australia.) All he did the entire time he was over was talk about country music, which I didn’t mind because it gave me an excuse to stare deep into his eyes and fantasize about totally making out with him. :D When I finally did enjoy country music again was at age 22 when I went to visit my friend and colleague in New Mexico who drove me to Tucson, AZ to see her boyfriend-at-the-time (she has finally realized she is a lesbian and is now happily married to a wonderful woman). Um, anyway, she and her boyfriend really liked country music and she explained to me that I need to broaden my horizons and get over my past. So I did. And now I love it. Not my favorite genre, but I was repulsed by it before and no longer am.

Also thankfulness: To Bdogg (who is on hiatus, in case you were wondering where the heck she's been) and Avi who independently talked me into loving Nine Inch Nails. I purchased The Downward Spiral because iTunes actually had it. What they don't have which B and Avi highly recommend: Pretty Hate Machine and Broken which are also not sold through Amazon so B suggested I try eBay but I kept getting botbid (that's outbid by a fricking bot set to outbid me, which is really cool if you're the one using it, but not so cool if you're on the receiving end of botbidedness). Anyway, yesterday I did one more search for these albums and guess where I found them? Wal*Mart online. Soooooo, between the dates of April 12 and 17 I shall become the proud owner of PHM and Broken, and my music collection will go a little bit more to the hard side. Probably a good thing because I realized lately there is a lot of emo-inducing music in there. I allowed myself to be swayed by younger people the last few years (and by young I mean adult age but just barely). (Spéncèr, je vous promets I am not referring to your music taste in this statement.)

Okay, and final thankfulness: To B again because she is my bestest friend in the entire world and you wish you had a friend this awesome because, for the first time in 15 years, I RECEIVED AN EASTER BASKET! FROM HER!!!!! I HAD JUST BEEN COMPLAINING ABOUT LACK OF BASKET EARLIER THAT DAY, AND I CAME HOME FROM THE MOVIES TO FIND THAT B'S BASKET HAD ARRIVED! NO, I DON'T THINK I CAN STOP YELLING. SHE'S JUST THAT. AWESOME. AND. AWESOMER. BESTEST FRIEND EVAH!!!!!!!!!! A photo representation of said basket:

     


And, for your viewing pleasure, speed painting with ketchup and french fries:



If you're a celebrator, happy bunny day! (Apparently Google is not, no special Google front page today. It really is Easter, right? :)

Yummy2

When I was a kid I dreamed of growing up and having lots of exotic cats, a dark house à la Elvis's bedroom, and a never-ending supply of Doritos. Seriously.



I really enjoy this commercial's cleverness of integrating the words that describe the product into also describing the situation. And the physical comedy is hilarious, too. :)

Totally unrelated, Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope you get a pot of gold and no hangover. And maybe a visit from Colin. :D

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Phil didn't see his shadow!

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!!!!!!