Real Men Love Cats
It didn’t take an article in the New York Times to tell me that: More Men Are Unabashedly Embracing Their
Back in the day, I asked potential boyfriends if they liked cats or gin. If they liked gin, they might work. If
they liked cats, they had a much better chance. (If they liked both,it was awesome.) It never occurred to me
that men thought liking cats was effeminate or strange, probably because I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to
those men.
Crazy Cat Ladies and Crazy Cat Men, unite!
Rescheduling Tuesday Project Roundup
I need to sew on buttons and hem the blue floral dress, so I thought I’d just wait to show it, rather than making you use your imagination. (“The buttons are great, trust me! And it’s really cute on, even though you’re seeing it hanging on the closet like a sack!”)
That should get done this week, but maybe not. I’m feeling a little cramped for crafty time–the garden project is ongoing and takes precedence when the weather is nice; I’m, um, working the second job again*; there are closets to clean out and organize with warm clothes; etc.
But there’s no rush, I suppose. My closets are well-stocked with clothes.
*I realize I’m ashamed to tell people about this, because they always look surprised and then pitying. Although before I did it, I’d look the same way, I suppose: Second jobs are for poor people. At least I’m working for spending money and not, say, heat money. But still. I did ask for more money at the first job (pending)**, but that’s tricky, too, since I can’t stay late at the first job on Mondays if I want to make it to the second job, and that doesn’t make me look very committed or raise-worthy, does it?
**I should probably just not discuss any of this, huh?
People For Obama:
- Crafters for Obama.
- Pumpkin carvers for Obama: Yes We Carve! (And they carve Barack O’Lanterns.)
- There are even thereminists for Obama. (He’s playing a theremin here, if you don’t get it.)
Shouldn’t you be for Obama, too?
Friday Unrelated Information
1. I’ve done a good job not talking about politics or the economy this week, right? I even listened to some of the debate Tuesday and didn’t mention it! This is too good not to post, though: The McCain “My Friends” Video Montage.
2. And as long as I broke my silence, how about some local political outrage? “Horse’s Mouth: Yep, We’re Bigots!” Obviously, this is not an unbiased news source, but the final line sums up my feelings: “A church can lobby. I just don’t want them exempt from paying taxes if they choose to support legislated bigotry.”
3. Mr. Isbell and I finally saw Speed Racer last night, after wanting to see it in IMAX and not being able to because I was still working two jobs and it had a run of about a week. It’s fantastic! I remember nobody was very excited by it but I have never seen a movie look like this. If you have a fancy big high-def TV, it will look even better. And that is probably the only time I’ll ever recommend anyone getting a big TV.
It Puts Both Lawn Tractors To Shame
Gardening
I’ve learned a few things from my little 10×10 garden this year–I hate snails, you must pick yellow squashes the day you see them because the next day they are the size of Godzilla, etc. Perhaps the most important thing I learned is I probably shouldn’t cram in 7 tomato plants, three squash plants, an eggplant, lettuces, and two rows of beans next time.
With that in mind, I’ve been working on getting a flowerbed that runs alongside of the front lawn cleared out, so I can plant tomatoes and daylilies in it and use my 10×10 patch for lettuce and squash. (Not yellow squash, though.)
Of course, I use the term “flowerbed” loosely, because it contains about an even mix of dead snails, live snails, and vining groundcover. Thank goodness for gardening gloves. But, on the upside, I can think of poems about things rotting and the earth while I’m out there, avoiding the live snails.
“Fall Song,” by Mary Oliver
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
Tuesday Project Roundup: Almost, Not At All, And About 60 Percent
That’s the degree of completion for this pile:
A navy beret is on top, the plaid on the bottom will be a shirt, and the floral on the right just needs side seams, cuffs, and buttonholes to be a dress.
(Why all this navy? I found a navy and gray coat at the J. Crew outlet I had to visit last week. I guess that’s like caving and emailing the ex-boyfriend you kind of hate but must know all about and, instead of getting mad all over again, he gives you information about a freelance job that pays really well? Something like that.)
The Trees Are Turning, There’s A Chill In The Air…
Friday Unrelated Information
1. I listened to about 10 minutes of the vice presidential debate last night, and then wisely turned it off and listened to Mahler instead.
2. The Onion has an article up–Report: 60 Million People You’d Never Talk To Voting For Other Guy:
The 110-page document reveals that these strangers share a fundamental vision of our nation’s future, a vision that shockingly runs completely counter to your own and is furthermore embodied by the candidate whom you could not in a million years fathom being the leader of the free world. Even more frightening, the report says, is that their votes count just as much as yours.
3. And in other items that make us feel happy instead of mad or worried, the last cria of the season at Blue Moon Ranch was born yesterday, just in time for the end of the warm weather. His name is Zeke: