Aka, mammogram. Monday
And I believe the subject line covers the mechanics of the process. That's not what this is about. What it is about is that a little prep table next to said wringer is a kitchen spatula. The mind boggles. I didn't ask--I'd rather boggle.
n. — excessive desire to stay in bed
Who made this into a pathology?
From Wikipedia (just the A demon said to work on behalf of Belphegor, Lucifer or Satan to introduce errors into the work of scribes…has also been described as collecting idle chat that occurs during church service, and mispronounced, mumbled or skipped words of the service, to take to Hell to be counted against the offenders.
In his own words,
"I am a poure dyuel, and my name ys Tytyvyllus ... I muste eche day ... brynge my master a thousande pokes full of faylynges, and of neglygences in syllables and wordes."
It can only be assumed that Titillivus’s remit grew astronomically post invention of the printing press. and has to bring extra large contractor bags when he stops by to gather his pokeful from me. Who seem to stay more or less employed despite the typing with mittens effect.
Found that one on the web. It’s a plant.
I am, among other things, a great fan of weird plants (among my most treasured books is Fun with Growing Odd and Curious House Plants)—you might remember my detour into stapeliads during the mouse crisis. I admire sculptural structure more than flowers, so my taste runs to succulents and tillandsia.
Euphobia obesa.
Among the other bees recently in my bonnet, I decided to replace a few beloved plants that previous ignorance had killed—the baseball (or plaid) plant Euphorbia obesa ( pictured at left, too much sun),. A wispy air plant, Tillansia fuschii (too much handling). A lithops (watering. Not overwatering. Simply watering at all).
I did this shopping online. Which is a double pleasure, since (a) you can find them and (b) this is one market in which Amazon has no dirty paw-prints. But of course also a serious rabbit hole. I found myself among “collectible” and “rare” dealers/fanatics. With a little more discretionary cash (which I could have if I had a little less attraction to handbags—there, I confess it), I’d really be one of them.
“To my horror” because I associate collecting with women in purple capes who shop at craft stores for thimble display boxes; twitchy, basement-dwelling coin collectors, or twitchy Bond villains with orchid houses. But since I have the Dr. Evil pulse in my throat, I am already halfway to being the latter, I suppose. Destiny.
Lithops.
Some Tillandsia (mine).
One of the things that makes these plants so attractive to me is that I am rather bad at watering/remembering. And thus they thrive. But then I do something like put lithops (healthy ones at left) in the sun in summer: South African desert species, after all. No. They burn, they wither. Or in an act of uncharacteristic tenderness, I feed them—just this once—and they die a horrible death.
If you’re going to spend your vast fortune on collecting rare plants, it’s best to know how take care of them. Or maybe I don’t have the kind of vast fortune it would take to be a truly evil villain plant fanatic.
However, I have been recently successful at nurturing a number of them over the last years, so I have taken the plunge. Given my caretaking style and general trend of thought, you’d think that coming across a plant called “neglecta” would appeal by genus and by its pathetic name. But it is not very appealing (perhaps name is destiny).
But I do have a soft spot for pathetic. I have in mind as my next acquisition a boojum tree. Which is described by the authors of Odd and Curious as having “a pathetic appearance like a despairing sea creature.” What’s not to love?
Aka, “the home of adventure shopping.”
We call it “the used food store,” but that’s not true—every foodstuff they offer is within its sell-by date, and Nick regularly goes to buy shopping carts full of (respectable brand) canned kippers and sardines, which they always have. (Because of his RP, he is supposed to eat oily fish three times a week, and if you’re going to be doing that, the small ones have less mercury. And they’re yummy. But enough of the asides).
And there is so much more than food. We have found there:
Bonne Maman jam at half price. But that’s almost all the time. There is, in fact, lots of stuff that they always have besides fish and jam: aluminum foil bakeware, Bob’s Red Mill organic grains of all sorts, garden supplies, nasty cheap towels, nasty cheap rugs; nasty cheap tools. Etc. So you always keep coming for the regular stuff. And then you find . . .
A pair of cowboy/pimp pony-hair zebra print boots, which Nick wore regularly beneath his robes to convocation and graduation before buying his “Garden of Earthly Delights” Doc Martens.
Three boxes of 1996 “Dove” pop-up holiday cards by Robert Sabuda—one of my favorite paper artists (“engineers,” they call themselves). I have one of these cards left and I periodically, anxiously check to make sure it’s still there.
Nine boxes, several years later, of Sierra Club aurora borealis holiday cards. Unfortunately, there were a lot more cards per box than the dove cards. My excuse for not sending cards anymore that I’m embarrassed to be using the same cards year after year.
The best Colombian chocolate bars I’ve ever tasted. (No pictures. I ate them.)
Three little wooden houses with drawers in them, meant for crafty types who like painting them in pastels and displaying thimbles, etc. Milo’s favorite chew toy (corks and what’s left of the drawers conceal treats), now carefully husbanded and re-glued and patched over the years, since by the time he finally got around to loving them, they had vanished. Vanished off the face of the earth, in fact—web searches and dreadful trips to Michael’s Arts and Crafts (not my favorite store ever) have been bootless.
And then . . . adventure shopping moves into the nth dimension:
Once again, the laws of physics have been rent asunder as the meaning of “black” is tested. I’m sorry—it’s a bad (as in washed-out) likeness.
Reader, I couldn’t eat it.
I must add that, dubious caviar dye jobs and nasty rugs aside, it’s a sleaze-free adventure. This chain does good things. They collect and donate for really worthy charities. They have specials where, say, if you buy a winter coat for a veteran’s shelter, you get a coupon for the same amount (lots of coats). They bought and donated the property that is now the home of the Foster Parrots rescue organization. More blue food, mom.
Rum, brandy, or any other spirits, that have been lowered with water.
I have mislaid both Mrs. Byrne and the superior person's book of words, so this is from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. I have landed on an interesting page, so there may be more of these.
As for how's life...
On the domestic front. Again. (Creative writing-wise, I'm taking the cheap way out.)
So, I'm picking Milo up from his perch, because he's been drinking water nonstop for half a minute, which when you think about it, is long time. Yes, we have a parrot with a drinking problem. (aka psychogenic polydypsia, which is, I'm afraid, a nervous disorder. Sad.)
OK, so I'm picking up a bird who has just had a good long drink, and I say, "You weigh a freaking ton."
Nick, standing a few feet away, turns toward me, looking puzzled: "Beware the wrath of a patient man?"
He also once heard me say, "I'll weave my nose hairs onto epaulets." Unfortunately, though it's a thing of beauty by itself, it would be far better if I could also remember what I really said. (But I think after hearing something like that, your brain goes into overload.)
