if you do nothing else tonight . . .

 . . . visit ZooBorns and get your "awwwww" in shape :)

more pumpkin paintin' at Holley's House

I know you'll find it so surprising that this is my pumpkin, since I'm all sweetness and light and such ;) The fork was T's idea but the...uh....wet work...was mine!

Oh yeah, that's the money shot! Look out Romero, here comes Night of the Living Punkin'!

This gruesome looking fellow came supplied with the Freddy Krueger slash to the face. I asked M if he'd picked that pumpkin on purpose but he promised he didn't notice it until I pointed it out! I think the mirror glass eyes really set off the whole ensemble!

You can see the slashes better from this angle. Ahhh, the scars! Ahhh, the bottomless mirror glass eyes! Ahhh, the Frida Kahlo brows! Ahhhh, the stump eye! Ahhhhhhh!


. . . and a good time was had by all.

pumpkin paintin' at Holley's House!

Z put us all to shame with her spoooooky haunted house! The bats in the sky and the enshading trees are overlooked by a waning moon adrift in the clouds...good work Z!

The bottom row represents the entirety of KT's family. From left to right: E's three eyed rainbow, Essie's arachnid-looking beastie, KT's feather-crowned beauty, P-toe's haunted veggie, and bringing up the rear is D's honorary decoration (since he was not there). I like everyone's randomly placed eyes! The sun and star pumpkin is T's and I wish you could see the flower and vine on the other side! Arrrrgh! I didn't get a pic!

Here is A's flapper girl...you can practically see her doing the Charleston! Come on, you know you can! Love the mole!

The is M's feathered friend! He looks pretty excited to be there next to the chips :) I told M he looked like Captain Harris from Police Academy. Hopefully someone, somewhere, will get that reference...come on people, don't make me feel old before my time!


continued . . .

better late than never!

so, the always venerable KT has a blogged a series of posts about what she doesn't want for Christmas...my favorite so far has been the 9000% polyester whitetail deer bedspread - HiDeOuS!  

I give you the super uncuddly Plush Microbes!  I do NOT want any of these for Christmas but you may want to get your loved one(s) a cute little mange microbe?  Maybe some stomach ulcer or E. coli?  Oooh, the herpes is cute!

soooooo . . .

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could I interest you in a muffin?

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or some fresh squeezed orange juice perhaps?

I just put this on the hold shelf for a patron.

that is all.

redecorating..on a small scale

Completely disregarding the fact that my furniture is covered in sheets (I love Binky, but her furry presence is very apparent and I just cleaned), I forgot to lower the blinds on one window, and the lense of my camera needs to be cleaned, check out my spic-n-span living room! I moved The Lady, who used to hang over the couch, to the opposite wall, which you'll see in the next photo, and my newest purchase now hangs in its place. I haven't decided what to call it yet, but I saw it at the The Foundry yesterday and HaD tO hAvE iT! It is dated 1976 and I SO believe it. It has one fairly long scratch but it doesn't bother me, I have a few scars myself and I'm only a year younger :)

As you can see, The Lady is now keeping my television company. Here's as good of a closeup as I could get without glare from the glass.

My brother, the deceased one as opposed to my half brother, drew The Lady when he was in junior high, pretty good eh? Eddie was severly colorblind so charcoal was his medium of choice since it didn't matter what color anything was supposed to be. This is the only work we have that I know of. It just brings home the fact that he was only 19 when he died, I'm sure he thought he had all the time in the world to draw.

And here it is! Still Life with Flowers? Jugs and Oranges? Butterflies and Jars? I don't know what to call it, but something will come to me I'm sure. It looks really good against the cedar paneled wall, IMHO.

toooo funny!

I watched all 68 seconds of this and laughed the entire time...what a great puppydawg, just so happy!

are you truly alone? *bwahahaha!*

For the merry few who visit the House with differing levels of frequency, you may remember that I signed up for the RIP III Reading Challenge.  I finished my first book of the challenge, shamefully, about a month ago, the epic graphic (ha, ha!) novel The Walking Dead.  It was exssssselent!

So, in record time (I finished it in two days!!!) I'm cranking out the next and am halfway through with the third but let's leave that for later.

It was about 2 years ago or so that I was browsing my way through the library's downloadable audio collection and I came across a not-so-little book called City of Masks by Daniel Hecht.  A haunted house in New Orleans' Garden Distict?  SIGN ME UP!  Let me tell you, gentle readers, it wasn't long before I was driving down the interstate at about 45 mph in another world.  Unfortunately for me, Mrs. Roomie was out of town at the time and I had forgotten to leave any lights on in or outside of the house.  I sat in my car for about 20 minutes trying to get over the image I had in my mind of turning into the kitchen and seeing a pair a shoes and a snout try to scooch themselves back into the corner on the other side of the kitchen...it was a near thing.  So, needless to say that I urge this book on all of the patrons I know who enjoy a frightening little tale.  

Land of Echoes is the second book in this series featuring paranormal psychologist Cree Black and I LuRvEd iT!  It wasn't quite as scary overall as CoM but it had it's moments.  I did have to have Two Weeks Notice playing in the background while I read to try and tamp down most of the fantods I got from this book.  

EEEEK!  So, CoM was a haunted house thriller and LoE is a tale of possession on the Navajo reservation in the lonely, flat, desolate desert of New Mexico.  Cree is called out to a school for gifted Native American students because a 15 year old boy is suffering from bizaare, violent, agonizing seizures with not apparent physical cause.  He no longer feels or recognizes his right arm, instead identifying his arm near his spine and his shoulder on his neck.  When in the grip of the seizure, his eyes, arms, and lungs act independent from one another and he becomes violent. The woman who started the school, Julieta, has her own reasons for wanting the young boy well, but she knows if word got out about the boys symptoms that the people's innate superstition would soon cause the school to go under.  Cree is under the gun with little information and suspicious school employees snooping around.  

I think it is the surrounding desert that plays just as much a part in making this book scary as much as the boy's horrific symptoms.  The stark terrain, jagged skylines, and arrid conditions lend to a feeling of abandonment and isolation that soon becomes almost unbearable.  On the other hand, I'm now going to HAVE to get a book on the Navajo Indians.  I don't know how they felt about their portrayal in Hecht's work, but I am FaScInAtEd!  

I used to think this commercial was stupid, but after reading this book, it's not a little unsettling...read it for yourself to find out why!

Verizon - Sleeping - Watch more amazing videos here

sometimes . . .

. . . I do wish I lived in a bit more of a progressive town, ya know?  I love living in a rural area except for some of the...um.....rural people.  

Seattle's Dunshee House is hosting a citywide book discussion series called the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Book Club.  I thought at first that this was something organized by the Seattle Public Library but it is getting off the ground through the good work being done by the Dunshee House.  I'm sure SPL and the other community partnerships they are working for will come through for them but, as far as I'm concerned, this is the work that librarians should be particularly focused on, underserved populations!  

I am not gay so I can't speak to exactly what they go through in day to day life, but I have gay friends and I've heard their stories. Especially around here, the social outlets are few and far between.  When I say that, I'm not sure how to express what I truly mean by that statement but it would be something along the lines of there not being a ton of places where they can go, truly relax and be themselves without the censure, voiced or unvoiced, of others.  I'm a big girl, I know what it feels like to be stared at in fascination (and not in a nice way I assure you).

So, all that to say "Way to go Seattle!"

I just submitted this to failblog.org!

I bought it at Publix on Friday afternoon

moar funny pictures