Connor Floats

Summer is back again. It's hot, but the pool is still COLD! Connor won't be deterred by a little hypothermia, though. He was dying to try out his new floating chair - he won it for having the most AR (accelerated reading) points. Congratulations, Connor!

La Loca's Laptop

First thing this morning my phone started ringing. First, Marilyn called to say that La Loca was standing out in front of the apartment wearing a black sweater and a mini skirt and holding a sign up letting the morning commuters know she is selling her laptop computer. Before I finished talking to Marilyn, my other cell phone rang and it was David wanting to know if La Loca was standing out in front of the apartment trying to sell her laptop.

If you look very closely at the right front of the dumpster enclosure, you can see part of a leg and through the trees, you can see a bit of black sweater. I tried, but was unable to get a clear shot of the elusive La Loca.
This is a shot of La Loca's newest sign - I guess she planted it when she got tired of being ignored by the passersby. It looks like La Loca is becoming a neighborhood fixture, like a billboard...a demented billboard.

Small Porcine Trio - Revised Edition

Today I found a stack of "books" left behind by a well-meaning (albeit deluded) soul. When I saw the title, I had to have one for my very own.
You have to click on the pictures to understand how special this book really is. The pictures should expand enough to be readable, and frankly, nothing I write could do justice to these printed pages.
This book is so special that it even contains a "Special Test." I think the high score earns extra credit for Heaven.
I am only posting one chapter of the book, so if your curiosity is piqued, you will have to order your own copy from the prison Ministry.


I hope you all enjoy this book as much as I did. Honestly, I am only posting the first chapter because, as funny as it is, that was as far as I could get.

Herbs and Veggies and Spiders, Oh My!

This is a picture of my herb garden. The weather has been mild this Spring, so everything is still alive - so far.
I have two kinds of tomatoes growing. One of type is a Roma and the other is an Heirloom variety. I've never had an Heirloom before, so I am looking forward to trying them. These are jalapenos. I think I may have some chilies growing also, but I really can't remember.
I found this spider web growing outside, too. I didn't see Mrs. Spider, but I'm sure she is lurking about somewhere.

La Loca

I noticed that La Loca has installed new signage in the flower bed this morning. She is now selling her furniture. I apparently missed whatever transpired that brought down her sign advertising for a roommate, but she bounced right back with an entrepreneurial spirit nobody would have predicted. La Loca seems to really love signs. In her short time living here she has made several versions of her "Impeach Bush" sign, in addition to the roommate and furniture signs. I can't wait to what she comes up with next.

Wookin Por Nub

OMG!!! On my way out this morning, I saw this sign in the flowerbed. I hoped and prayed it would still be standing when I got back in this afternoon, so I could snap a shot for my blog. The management company is going to plotz when they see that she has put up her very own sign advertising an apartment to share. Her sign is actually bigger than the sign that management uses to post their contact information, so they can rent whole apartments. I am not notifying management of her sign, because the alternative is funnier to me. Besides, they will know soon enough - her sign is HUGE.

Honestly, I cannot wait to see who my mentally impaired neighbor entices to be her new roommate with her beautifully worded sign. I'm not sure why she has underlined the word friendly. I can only imagine she is trying to subtly prepare her potential vic...I mean, roommate for the fact that there is only one bedroom (and she likes to spoon).

Schadenfreude is not pretty, but this is a train wreck - and I have a front row seat.

Dangerous Toys I've Owned (but won't be giving to my niece)

My nephew, Steve, called this week to tell us that he and Gina now know that they are expecting a GIRL!!! I was hoping for a girl - I have 6 nephews and zero nieces, so now I will have a grand-niece!! I get to buy her girlie things, take her to get her hair done, and for a spa pedicures. We took Connor for a spa pedicure - but it will be girlier experience with my new grand-niece. The name they have chosen for her (so far) is Ada, but they have not come up with a middle name. If you can think of a good middle name to go with Ada, let me know and I will pass it on to the judging committee.

Thinking about having a little girl in the family took me back (WAY back) to a toy that I had as a child. After an exhaustive search for a Betty Crocker Easy Bake oven on E-bay, I finally stumbled upon a picture of the exact oven I had when I was about 4-years-old - a Suzy Homemaker electric oven. It was a funky little teal colored oven with knobs in teal, red, yellow, blue and black. Marilyn and I cooked everything from little cakes and cookies to cough drops in that thing. It was a great toy to have, but there is no way anyone would sell anything that got that hot these days. It wasn't huge, but it was also big enough to fit both hands into. The toy ovens available now are much different. The baking areas have a slot so small that it would be very difficulty to fit one tiny hand through.
Kids today have no idea how buffered they are from the real world. Gone are the days of Irwin Mainway's Bag-O-Glass. This is a metal dollhouse that Marilyn had when we were growing up. We cut ourselves countless times on the sharp corners and edges.
I owned these skates, too. Notice the teeny tiny little brackets that are supposed to hold a small child's feet in place. Those brackets NEVER worked for very long. I would be cruising along, my foot would pop out, and then I'd be eating sidewalk and picking pebbles out of the palms of my hands. Good times...

Laugh Now, Cry Later

Cry now.

Coffins

Coffins by Rodman Philbrick is Gothic tale of supernatural terror that befalls the Coffins, a sea faring family in Maine. The story has wonderful characters like craggy old sailors, a tyrannical ship captain, and a genius dwarf abolitionist (you don't get one of those in every book you pick up). Like every great Gothic tale, Coffins incorporates the supernatural, dark family secrets, and an eerie abode.

The tale takes place on the brink of the Civil War and incorporates historic figures like Frederick Douglas and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In a series of frightening events, the Coffin family begins dying off one by one in gruesome and bizarre circumstances. The family members who don't die go mad. The patriarch of the family, Captain Cash Coffin, rules his home with an iron fist (and firearms), but he is afraid to step foot out of his bedroom. Dr. Brentwood, as a proponent of Transcendentalism and Ralph Waldo Emerson's biggest fan, is the most rational person that Jebediah Coffin knows. Jebediah Coffin (a.k.a. as the abolitionist dwarf and Cash Coffin's youngest son) summons his best friend, Dr. Davis Brentwood, to come to the coast of Maine to help save his family from the malevolent spirit that seems to have invaded the family home. Before the novel ends, Dr. Brentwood faces the sinister force and must unlock the sinister secret that is destroying the Coffins.

There are not a lot of books that I have trouble putting down, but Coffins is a true page turner. Coffins reminded me of when I first read Edgar Allen Poe's Tell-Tale Heart as a child. Philbrick has achieved an exciting and suspenseful mystery, but because of one rather violent sexual encounter in the book, I would not recommend Coffins for the entire family.

Hey Nostradamus!

One of my favorite authors is Douglas Coupland. I started reading him in the early nineties when he published Generation X. A lot has been written about Coupland being the voice of Generation X, and I can't help but believe that is true. Each of his novels speaks to me through the pop culture references and the sit-com speak of the characters who are his voice. Hey Nostradamus! tells the story of a school shooting through the recounting of the experience by Cheryl, Jason, Heather and Reg. Coupland explores the aftermath of the tragedy as it ripples through the community, through time, and through the psyches of all involved.

Without spoiling the story, I can tell you that Cheryl is a girl who is killed in the shooting. She is active in a youth Christian fellowship group, and she tells the story from her perspective, post mortem. Jason and Cheryl met in the Christian fellowship group, Youth Alive, and they were secretly married before their senior year. Jason's chapter of the story is told many years after Cheryl's death. It is hard to say which was more detrimental to him, the school shooting, or his father's extreme religious beliefs. Heather is Jason's girlfriend at the time he is telling his story. As her story unfolds, it is clear that even she was affected by the shooting, in spite of not attending the high school with Jason and Cheryl. Reg is Jason's father and he tells the story from his perspective, showing how the shooting shook his faith and destroyed his family and life as he knew it.

Hey Nostradamus! is a timely and realistic story that explores the epidemic of senseless killing that is happening schools today. Coupland's success in telling the story lies in his use of very personal perspectives of people who are touched by the tragedy.

Sometimes Madness is Wisdom

I just finished reading a biography about Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, Sometimes Madness is Wisdom, by Kendall Taylor. The author of this biography, Kendall Taylor, was once a professor and historian, and he produced a very thorough account of the Fitzgerald's youth, their marriage, and how they fell from the great heights of the Jazz Age into the depths of mental illness and addiction.

Learning more about Zelda made me feel like I had a window into the world of my grandmother when she was in high school. She always got a twinkle in her eye when she talked about how she was a "flapper," and from the way she lived (back in the day), I think Zelda was probably one of her heroes. Sad and flawed, but a hero to a young and impressionable girl nonetheless. Not unlike the jet-setting celebrities of today (think Paris Hilton), Zelda was renowned for her outrageous behavior and her never ending quest for a good time.

I discovered many things about Zelda and Scott's life that surprised me, starting with their promiscuity during a period in time when being chaste was still considered the norm. If Kendall Taylor's findings are accurate, then Zelda actually had sex with one of Scott's college buddies while on her honeymoon. Scott and Zelda were just a vague idea to me before reading Taylor's book, so I never knew how darkly their story ended. Zelda's nude frolicking in New York fountains became the stuff of legend, but her fated attempt to become a professional ballerina in Paris and the way her obsession with dance drove to despair is not mentioned in most accounts of her life. Zelda was an accomplished artist, a skill that she developed during her many stays in mental hospitals around Europe and in America, and several beautiful examples of her work in water color are shown in the book.

I never realized that Scott relied heavily on Zelda's diaries to write his books, and in many instances used whole passages verbatim to build his characters. In the beginning she was flattered that he would build whole novels around characters that he based on her, but when she decided to write a novel herself, Scott jealously undermined her throughout her process of writing her own book. Ultimately, he caused her failure as an author at a time when she desperately needed to succeed at something.

Scott and Zelda drank themselves into oblivion each night as they partied their way through whatever city they found themselves in, and obviously, that lifestyle has its drawbacks. In the end, Zelda became a schizophrenic and Scott became a drunken wastrel. Their daughter, Scottie, is a classic example of a child raised in an alcoholic home, and she admitted in her own biography that not receiving proper parenting herself, she had trouble connecting to and parenting her own children. Scottie tried to avoid the pitfalls of her parents, but in the end, Scott and Zelda's life impacted their daughter and her children in ways that they never could have imagined.

Scott's attempt at becoming a screenwriter in Hollywood failed miserably because of his drinking, and Zelda never did recover her mental faculties. After many years of paying for treatment for Zelda's mental illness, Scott was left financially and creatively bankrupt. They were completely dependent on each other for their identity and for their emotional and financial support, making their relationship both symbiotic and parasitic. Scott died much too young from the effects of alcoholism and Zelda died in fire in a sanitarium. The Fitzgerald's made each other legends, and in the end they destroyed each other completely.

Lunatic Fringe

For the last week or so, I have noticed that my mentally ill neighbor has been standing out in the median of a nearby busy intersection with a handmade sign that reads: Impeach Bush Now! She starts this pointless ritual about 7:30 AM and I've noticed her packing it in about 2:30 PM. When it is raining, she is out there with an umbrella. When her sign wilts, she makes a new one the next day. I haven't been able to get a picture of her holding the sign - frankly, I would not want to risk being caught - but that's a shot of the sign in the back of her car.
Last week, our new apartment management company placed a letter on each door stating that the maintenance man would be coming to inspect the apartments for A/C filters, fire alarms, etc... The day that they did the inspections, I found the letter shown above on my neighbor's door. It reads:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: No one is to enter this apartment without the Expressed verbal and physical presence of (insert her name here). Violators who enter will not like what's on the other side. Return time is this morning or mid noon. Adhere to these rules and you will be fine.

I have both a morbid curiosity and a fear of what exactly she is threatening. It never occurred to me before that she might actually be holed up in her apartment armed and waiting for an interloper, but that possibility doesn't seem unrealistic given her cryptic threat. Today I had the pleasure of hearing her scream at the yard workers who were using a gas blower to clean the courtyard. She chased three men out of the courtyard while screaming, "Get out God damn you! DON'T you DARE come back in here!" She screamed obscenities at them, and believe me - they ran like hell to get away from her. I think I am starting to smell ink in her future...the wet ink on a freshly written eviction notice.

Oddly enough, I had trouble sleeping the other night and woke about 3:00 AM to the sound of a trash truck picking up trash. An hour or so later, I woke again. This time it was the incoherent ranting of a mentally ill man (apparently unrelated to my neighbor) who was wandering up and down the street. He stopped in front of my apartment building, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was picking up on the vibrations that surely must emanate from my insane neighbor. It occurred to me that they could be kindred spirits. I almost expected to see him howling up at the moon as he searched forlornly for his mate, who is no doubt sleeping fitfully three doors down from me. I watched him out of my window until he wandered out of site still bellowing random nothings into the night, then I went back to bed. As soon as I was about to nod off, I heard him coming back up the street, so I got up and watched him until he meandered back in the other direction. On the same morning that I saw my neighbor tilting at windmills in the median, I also saw the ranting man - he only made it about two blocks up the road over the course of 4 hours. Very disheartening.

Memphis Wedding Belle

These pictures are from the lunch we had recently in Memphis at Bahama Breeze. The first one pictures Gina and Steve with Dale makin' with the finger horns. Steve called tonight to let us know that he and Gina were married last weekend. Congratulations to both of you - and of course, to Bob!

Here is beautiful Gina, her father and her step-mother, Gail.

Con and Fin, sharing a laugh.

Carrah, Connor and the back of Dale's head. This was a day that I could not frame a good shot if my life depended on it. I guess some days are just like that.

Rain

Storm Noir by Finijo

Some day a real rain will come down and wash all the scum from the streets. Substitute pollen for scum and "my car" for "streets," and that about sums up my wish for today. The weather man says we have storms rolling in, and I truly hope so. My car is coated yellow with pollen, and my sinuses have been run through the mill for the last two weeks. I got sick and lost my voice, flew to Memphis, flew back last Sunday and I am still dragging - too tired to blog or do much of anything. I could really use a good hard rain about now and so could my garden.

CB Jolley Art Show - Memphis

Steve and Gina took us to a unique art show on our first night in Memphis. The art and the venue were both quite novel. We had a lovely evening looking at and talking about art.

The artist, CB Jolley, was showing his art in a dentist office - Studio 32. If you click on the pictures, you can see the hors d'oeurves set up on the dental chair trays.

Mr. Jolley creates very intricate collages from pictures he has taken and his art is both digital and organic. His work is multi-layered and I can't imagine taking the time to cut and arrange all of the tiny pieces that make up so much of his work.
This is a painting he did when he was working in that medium. Connor pointed out to me that you can see the blood on the shirt of the horseman. That kid loves anything that's gory.
It seems inconsequential, but I really like the way the frames are so well coordinated with the art work. This frame is a gold leaf, but the underlying color is a beautiful rose.