Were you waiting for haiku thursday?

Yes, you were.

Oh my god I'm old
I just watched wheel of fortune
and rolled up some yarn

Eggs Are Way Cool

This may be the best thing ever. C read somewhere that you could submerge an egg in vinegar for two days and the shell would dissolve, leaving a raw egg surrounded only by it's membrane. First of all, eggs are so lovely. Second, 'membrane' is a great word. Third, whenever you have a chance to do a home science experiment, take it. You automatically become a better person.



1. The egg is submerged. I buy those damn brown eggs because they are from chickens that are allowed to run wild, and aren't force-fed hamburgers and whatnot. I think next time we will try this with white eggs, to see what sort of difference it makes.

The crazy thing was, I was at home that day with little sicky F child. I would steal nervous glances at the egg occasionally. After a few hours of being submerged, it would twirl 180 degrees every so often. Why did this happen? Plus, the bubbles hung out on the outside of the egg, as I suppose something magical was taking place.


So two days passed and the shell was completely gone. When we rubbed the egg gently it felt all rubbery and gross. When C came home from work (Oh yeah, I was home again with sick-face again), I told him I changed the egg's vinegar and glass, and we just looked at each other for a minute. Some sort of pathetic recognition passed between us that we married correctly.



If you try this, there will be a certain amount of time that will pass before you will be brave enough to actually handle the egg. It ends up feeling heavy and rubbery in your hands, and reminded me of some sort of bloated body part. But it was really pretty and subtly striated.





This photo didn't work:




Next time, I'll make a white egg and photograph it at work on a light table. Supposedly you can shine a light through it and see the yolk. oooooooooh


Eventually, you get bored with playing with it and will decide to dissect it. Yep, it's true. Just a membraneous membrane holds the innards in:



The end.

P.S. I googled egg + vinegar and found lots of sites on the subject. Apparently if you let the egg stay in the vinegar for a week it will be translucent. And if you soak a chicken bone in vinegar you can tie a damn knot in it.

Things Around Our Stoopid House

This post is all about some sweet little items that reside in our home.

Setting: Tonight is a super-cold, extremely windy, snow blizzardy night here in IL. C just said, "hopefully we'll get one of those weird tornadoes that blows all the snow off of your sidewalks" I'm not sure that has ever happened, but apparently in his mind, it's possible. Now he's talking to the cars driving down our street.

Anyhoo, here's a tour of some items that are in our house. I love, love, love visiting peoples' homes. When we were looking for new homes, I wanted to keep searching for years because I had so much fun seeing how people lived in their private domains.

This is a little taste of treasured items we own and look at daily.

A Spaceship C made with tin foil and nails:


Blue glass balls. They are magical and delightful, So are you.


C makes creepy baby heads. Creepy in a good way. Creepily delicious. Kiss them, they love you.

This one was made with drier lint and polyurethane.


Dis one was purchaesed by my dear husband for me. It was used as a doll head mold. When you jam your finger inside of it, it's all oily and greasy and disgusting. So then you do it again to make sure it was as disgusting as you thought it was.



Farmer's nose. This is a regularly looked-at item in our house. Dog's noses are both wonderful and under-appreciated. They may be the someteenth wonder of the world. Check it.


We got these off of eBay because they are exact replicas of what C and I look like. We keep them by our mirrors and speak to them daily.

Sick Child Day

Today was sick child day- All three kids were illin'. Not barf-bucket sick, only the special way that kids always get sick. You hear details of every one of the symptoms, and then you witness the physical manifestations of the symptoms. At that point you are powerless to make them go to school. I'm not sure if it's sheer exhaustion or admiration of their absolute focus on the end result. Ultimately, they win and it is cartoons and juice all day long.

Only one out of the three was really, truly sicky. But all three stayed home from school. Dorks.

I remember actually holding a thermometer against a light bulb one morning, to feign a fever. I saw it on a movie, I think, and was duly impressed. After I mastered the art of staying home "sick", and I was old enough to drive to school, I learned how to copy my mom's handwriting. Doh. The office staff must have thought I was a really sickly child. I always blame the public school system for my not learning everything, when it was actually my own damn fault. But I wouldn't have skipped all the time if school wasn't so boring - let's just put the blame back on the public school system.

Here are some flying step children pictures, because I psychically know that everybody wants to see flying step children.

What I Done Today

This is what I did today for cold hard cash. I helped make some pretty pictures, and here they be-




Do you like them? Would you purchase these objects of beauty? Yes? Oh, goody. I've done my job.

Jobs are weird. There are a lot of jobs out there that I don't understand. Do you ever ask someone what they do for a living, and as soon as they tell you, you inquire further out of politeness. Then they actually start to explain and your eyes glaze over and despite your attempts at understanding, you realize you have nothing whatsoever in common with that person and any further attempts at conversation would be pointless and a terrible waste of time.

(Should I have ended that run on sentence with a question mark?)

Haiku Thursday!

Wheeeeeeee-hooooooo

Look at Iron Chef
I am so not a foodie
Nasty fishy shit

Bring it, nerds

Let's Talk About Me

I've been thinking a lot about myself lately, and how you all probably are really yearning to know some intimate details about me - because I am a minor celebrity. Since I have a blog and all. Y'know. Here we go:

1. This is the mascara I use:

Hot damn, it's good.

2. I love using the colon. (Not the body part; the punctuation mark.) (I also love the semi colon and parenthesis.) I also love the body part.


3. Naps are glorious and special.

4. When I was 10 I secretly wished that my mother was really Cheryl Ladd.


5. I was a vegetarian for 14 years until I got pregnant and started to eat meat again.


6. My first record album was a Sean Cassidy.


7. I have bunions. My right foot is worse than my left.

8. My sister gave me the movie, "The Boy in The Plastic Bubble" for Christmas.


9. I dream about sea creatures almost nightly. Dream interpreters, enjoy.

10. I just love Makers Mark manhattans.


11. Sometimes, when I am craving something desserty I will scoop out a huge spoonful of peanut butter, roll it in chocolate chips, and have at it. Tuck in, as it were.

12. I feel super pretentious saying this, but Japanese food really is my favorite.

13. Actually, I have this "thing" about Japan. I love Japanese things. All of them, even Hello Kitty.


14. This is a great site: http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html

15. I am a complete slob and also I own too many craft and art supplies.

16. I believe in ghosts - but I don't believe in god.

17. I haven't eaten a Chicago pizza that even comes close to the pizza I grew up with in NY state, and it makes me livid when pizza is cut into squares.

18. No one can beat me at Connect Four.

19. I tried to smoke 3 year old pot seeds from a band aid box in my basement with my friend Karen when we were about 17. We tried really hard to feel high.

20. This is my favorite pic of F: taken while she was cutting the lawn with scissors.

A Day of Epic Proportions

Yesterday was little F-bomb's 5th birthday. *sniff* Her party consisted of many static-inducing elements, including a large plastic play area and a nylon parachute. There is nothing that makes me laugh and snort more than seeing her hair in a frenzy of gravity-defying, electrically-charged mayhem.



Here is one of the culprits:


The blessed parahute. There are about 14 people under there singing "Happy Birthday" (Not still, they were eventually allowed to get out.)

Good times were had by all, plus there were no clowns.



Escapees awaiting their ultimate fate:



****************************************************************************************

Let's rewind the clock a few hours and see how the day began:

Picture if you will, good readers, a mother and her daughter sleeping in their living room on a couch, while the husband is upstairs sleeping in bed. Why, you ask? Well, on the coldest day of the year our upstairs furnace ceased working.



back door action:

BRRRRRRRRRR

Why did the husband insist on sleeping upstairs in frigid temperatures anyway? I think it is because he is extraordinarily macho. Yes.


This is the sacrificial sleeping bag. One side of it is warm, and the other is freezing cold. Sort of like my personality.



The other simply amazing and mind-boggling adventure of the day was that I unleashed 7 years of pent-up anger and pure hatred over the phone at C's ex-wife. Oops. I'm such a silly.

Before and After

Do you love before and after pictures? I do! Plus I finished my second felting project.

Before:


After:


Plus some odds and ends that I felted at the same time:

This is why I'm not a hand model.

2 Things:

1. C and I are on a 'third season of Lost' bender. We needs to finish up the box 'o' shows before January 31, when season 4 begins. It's so fun to binge watch. I love that show. I love that I spastically laugh like an idiot at the really good, tense parts. Also, wine is involved while watching, so by the time we start the second episode, I'm bug-eyed, drooling and completely inebriated from not realizing how fast I'm drinking my wine. Huh.

2. Little 5 year old F asked me yesterday in the car: "When I get married, will you choose my big dress?"
me: "Of course I will! Or I'll help you pick it out!"
F: "What if you die before I get married?" Nice. Way to freak out your mom. This made me sad for two reasons:

2.a. My mom died before I got married, so I immediately decided I was jinxed.
2.b. I feel old and haven't exercised in god knows how long.
2.b.1. Is it possible to buy a piece of exercise equipment and actually use it?

P.S. I just told a container of sour cream to fuck off.
(In my defense, it was totally warranted - it tried to jump out of the fridge and kill me.)

Lastly, since it wouldn't be right to post without an image, here is a reminder of summer. Since it's gonna be a high of 5 degrees tomorrow. Yum.

It's Haiku Thursday

Hot damn and here we go:

Burping up my lunch
It tastes even better now
Onions and garlic


Anyone care to take on the challenge?

Cops and Barbies

Since we live very close to a busy street, we have many tons of cars that speed down our side street. We love seeing them pulled over by the cops; It's a legit form of entertainment in the suburbs.



This happens every night, but last night was a total score. Look, two at once!



Another good thing about yesterday is that I made a hat for Barbie. We had a long chat about her fashion needs, and I designed this faboo piece for her. Notice how absolutely moderne she looks in front of the abstract painting?