12 of 12

So I'm doing my 64th 12 of 12. 

Normally it is 12 pictures taken on the 12th of the month. Since I only post once per day, you get my images the following day. All pictures taken with my iPhone. Click images to enlarge, if you choose.

Created by Chad Darnell and picked up from, what I can tell, any number of random bloggers who then link back to him and vice versa. Chad is no longer doing this, nor is successor coordinating the linking of other 12 of 12'ers anymore. Now it's just Erik (and sometimes Jim) and myself - that I know of. 

I still continue to do this, because of all my consistent post topics, I actually like this one the most.

06:20.  Strip the bed. Time to change the sheets. 

Once a year - whether I like it or not!

06:50. Time to moisturize the noggin.  Face and head. Post shower. 

07:45.  Pete is getting his bedding washed too. The room was smelling too much like 'dog'. 

09:40.  A mid-morning snack (and back-up). And an envelop of things my mother thought I might want to have from her house. I've had it for three weeks and have yet to look inside.

12:12.  Shot of a Google Image page.

Most purposefully taken at this time on this date.

12:35.  Petey enjoying the outdoors before alleged t-storms rolled in. 

14:50. Hopped up to Luna, where my mother had b'fast a few days ago. She left her coat. She asked me to pick it up for her.

I was in there for less than 2 minutes. 

14:54.  TEEMING - as my mother would call it. 

It was pouring before I ever left Luna, but I couldn't wait for it to let up (not that it did for another 30 minutes), mainly because too many windows in the house were open. I had to get home.

17:10. Petey getting tag-teamed from neighborhood dogs. 

They are some of the last in the 'hood that Petey has not met. I thought maybe they weren't friendly, but everyone got along. 

Petey's tail hasn't been this active all week. 

18:35.  Lost.  Now found.

Costco run.

19:20.  Sophie: always a lady

20:10. Dinner.

Don't judge. It's been a long week and the temps and humidity were both in upper 80s. Subs, pizza and salad - where I didn't have to make any of it was fine with me.


...and now......Your Baker's Dozen.

22:10. Dessert.

Love the combo of chocolate ice cream and orange sherbet.

There's also a cookie. That recipe is coming up this week. 

Cooking with Blobby

In my quest (well, one of many quests), to mix up our vegetable sides - per 710's inference - this time I went with potatoes.

I like potatoes well enough, I suppose, but over all, they don't do much for me. Somewhere, Morty just fainted, but he'll recover.....probably.

Oh, I'll eat them if put in front of me, but I don't go out of my way to make them, usually.

Yet, I was watching an old(er) Barefoot Contessa show the other day - all about side dishes - and everything she made, save one, was something I would just never touch. Alas, the last item, brought me to attention.

Mustard Roasted Potatoes.

To quote the woman herself, "how bad can that be?"

Well, it probably could have been better, but I doubt it is any fault of Ina herself. I'm not sure it's my fault either. In certain ways I love our big ass industrial oven, but in other ways, well.........when it comes to no broiler or worse, regulating the temperature, sometimes it tries my patience.

Let's get going, shall we?


Yukon Gold Potatoes - 2.5 lbs (it's a lot and had leftovers)
Yellow Onion - 2 (I used one), slice crossways, 1/4" thick
Olive Oil - 3 T
Stone Ground Mustard - 2 T
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 425.

Cube the potatoes and cut the onions. Lay them evenly on the pan. 

The onion part was my undoing. I did as Ina said, but I think they should have been thicker. You'll see why shortly. 

Drizzle with the olive oil. Apply salt and pepper and the mustard. 

With clean hands, toss it all together, making sure that all parts have oil and mustard distributed evenly. 

Bake for 50-60 min. 

Like in what I am now calling "Petergate",  the one vegetable - the onions - cooked way too fast. I think a thicker sliced onion would have held up better. But I don't want to overlook the fact that somehow even while set on 425, the oven got to 500 in the first 15 minutes of roasting. 

Yes, I turned it down more, but the damage was already done...or on the way. 

In actuality, the now crispy onions were not really so bad. I just have to believe they'd have been better if roasted appropriately. 

The mustard helps. Both 710 and I said our mouths were afire, but that could have been from the bbq sauce on the chicken. 710 asked if I used red pepper flakes on the potatoes. I had not (though not a bad idea).

What really helped?  Having them the next day. I thought the flavours were better after reheating them as leftovers.

I would totally do this again as a side. But I'd still do thicker onion slices.  ....and a lower temp.

Two Steps Forward

Seeing that Saturday you'll get my 12 of 12, your regularly scheduled Petey Porn is kind of preempted, though I'm sure there will be Petey and Sophie pic in that set. Probably.

Still, I thought I'd give you an update on the old man.

As the post title suggests, we are getting there......but slowly. Two steps forward, one step back.

Being an elder statesmen, he's not quick to recover. And being this is his third bout with pneumonia with us (and twice with m sister?), his lungs can be pretty fragile.

Pete is showing signs of recovery, now that we are a week into this. He's been sleeping a lot more than usual (which was a lot anyways). His cough persists, but not as often or as deep as it was earlier.

He has been getting his meds daily - though for the time being he's off his steroid. He's been getting his P&PD too - sometimes with a steam bath, sometimes not.

He has somewhat of an appetite, but not nearly as voracious as before - which is hampering getting his strength back. He's still eating freshly cooked hamburger (!), but I've been trying to wean him off it, by pressing it into wet food. Had I just put it on top, he'd just eat the burger and leave the wet food. If I put it on bottom, he noses the wet food out of the way.

The best signs of recovery are two-fold. He's been following me around the house more often, as opposed to just staying in the bed / on the sofa. And he's been underfoot while I make dinner - very interested in what I'm doing, though not quite (silently) begging for food.

Oh, and he pooped. Twice.  Not twice in one day, but still.......the four + days he went without going started to worry me more than a little.

Tuesday night, was the first since last week when I slept in our bed, as opposed to sleeping on the couch so I could be a few feet away from him. In an odd way, I felt bad for sleeping upstairs, but he was fine and I needed a decent night sleep.

I don't know that Petey will ever bounce back to where he was before this round of pneumonia. At the ripe old age of 13, that just might not be possible.

Right now he's slow - we haven't been able to do many walks, let alone medium or long ones. And when we do they take a lifetime. He is still a little weak, but I think he's getting stronger, even just a little bit, on a daily basis.

We're only a week in from this happening. I suspect another few weeks before we know for sure. And one more week of antibiotics.

Thanks for the good thoughts. We are doing the best for him.




Song by: Paul Young

Rescue

So I was chatting with my friend, Edward, who has liver cancer - the one whom I wrote about eight months ago.

Well, it's now liver, colon and stomach cancer. Things aren't going well, as you might have suspected from the addition of stomach.

Still the bigger surprise is when he texted me: "have I told you I'm in love?"

Umm.....no.

And then goes on to tell me that he's in love with a woman (!!!) and that she is on death row (!!!!!!!).

I believe my response back was: "I. Have. No. Words.".

I wasn't even thinking that New York doesn't even really have the death penalty anymore.


....and then he texts me this........

Oh yes, Scarlett (fka, Bootsie....or something) is now the one true love of his life.

I don't know how Edward came across a 12 year old cat, but she was ready to be put down and he couldn't let that happen.

She is beautiful, if I say so myself - though Edward would say it first.

He's allergic to cats, but that didn't stop him. Hell, he's dying - and that didn't stop him.

The idea, in his mind, was to foster the cat until he could find it a home, which he thinks he has already done. There is just one little problem: he doesn't want to give her up. He has taken to her, as much as she has taken to him.

Not quite being an animal guy - or a relationship guy - Edward didn't know a thing about attachment. Nor did he know the whole rescue animals can really sense that they've been rescued and cozy up to their new owners.

He finds it "hysterical" the way Scarlett will place her paw on top of his arm. He went on to say, he's not sure he'd let a human do that.....ever.  And he wouldn't. And I'm sure he's anthropomorphizing the feline, but he thinks that the cat knows he's sick and is tending to him.

Perhaps - you hear of these kind of things.

And apparently Scarlett is all over him, or next to him. She doesn't like to be picked up (neither does Sophie, or did Tovah or Kylie), but loves pressing herself right next to him (ala Sophie, Tovah and Kylie) at all times.

It is funny to listen to him go on and on about her. I think, even with his limited time remaining, Scarlett is a great thing for him. He claims to have never cried over his diagnosis (and I believe him, as I know him, and when I was faced with that, I cried once, briefly - and I still can't figure out what triggered it), but he did shed tears thinking about Scarlett on kitty death row.

I hope he keeps her.

Edward is an extremely intelligent man, and impulsive, usually in good ways. He set his alarm the day of Apple Watch pre-orders and was on-line getting his order in, because he wanted one "before I die". He got his watch the first day they shipped.

He has "promised" me his Apple Watch when he goes - not that I'm really looking to collect on that one (assuming it happens!). But maybe if I have to come and collect watch, I'll take Scarlett home with me too.




Song by: Lucinda Williams

Shopping with Blobby

Yet another installment in the drudgery that is everyday shopping. The camera-phone makes it a bit more fun - though I get looks whenever I take pics of products. Like I care what people think!

This will have little meaning (read: zero) to those outside the NE Ohio area. And while I like to play to a broader audience most of the time, now and then, you have go go local.

I've written about Big Chuck (both of Houlihan & Big Chuck and then Big Chuck & Little John fame) before.  And while I've met Little John before - twice! - I still have yet to meet Big Chuck.

And no, I didn't buy his beverage for two reasons.....possibly three:

- it only comes in a four pack!  WINE COOLERS come in 4-packs.
- I don't even know what the fuck Barley Wine Ale is - or might even be.
- the price. I mean not that I looked at the price, but people will charge plenty for nostalgia.

Still, it made me smile when I saw it in the store -- and I knew a few people here (Morty, Becky, the other Brett, etc) might find their frown turning upside down when they tripped upon this post.

My Music Monday

As I did a year ago, I'm going with cover songs as my theme for the month of June I'm not sure why I'm doing this, as I vaguely remembering having to struggle for four songs last time out. And there are five Mondays in 2015, so.....there's that.

Erik over at gambrinous and griffonage has joined me on this little adventure for his Hi-Fi Fridays. Erik doesn't know it yet, but if he wants, he can select the theme for July. Assuming he wants a theme.

I'm torn on what cover song to do. I vacillate between cool renditions, obscure covers that no one would know was a cover in the first place or just horrid covers that you wouldn't believe actually existed.

I think I'm going with an amalgamation: a cool rendition added of a song that some of you might not know was a cover.

I have to believe my reading demographic is familiar with the catalog of the Smiths. I mean, most of you are gay men of a certain age. The rest of you are just readers of a certain age.

So I'm going with (the late) Kirsty MacColl from her debut album, Kite, doing a cover of the Smith's "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby".

For the record, there are not many good covers of Smiths or Morrissey songs out there. 10,000 Maniacs did an ok version of "Every Day is Like Sunday", but that might be where it ends. Still MacColl did an excellent job (IMO) of "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby."

The original Kite has the better version. The later expanded version of the album includes an extended version of the song - and not by a little. It takes a 2:50 song and adds more than a minute worth of music and a mix that isn't nearly as pleasurable.

I'm sticking with the shorter / better version. Kirsty actually makes the Smiths sound "fun".



Kirsty MacColl - "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby"

Weightless

I was somewhat taken to task on Facebook for sharing a post of super-athlete, Chris Christie, concurrently showing both Moose Knuckle and Camel Toe.

My comment was that Christie had no access to a full length mirror and / or that he had a full staff of sycophants.

While not addressed specifically back to me, a 'friend' shared my post and asked why people 'fat shamed' other people.

I will go on record that this friend is probably 200lbs overweight. I'm not shaming - I'm just stating from where the person might be coming.

I wasn't really shaming Christie, though I'm sure it could be argued that I was. But there is no getting around the fact that the man and his BMI are out of sync.

However, I might have been shaming not in the fact that he is overweight but clearly dresses like he thinks he is not.

While at my nephew's graduation, 710 joked (I think!) that he was glad I wasn't a Sociology major - and if I were, that my thesis would have been "You're Wearing That?".

And two other friends of mine actually went to high school with Christie. At least one doesn't remember him - and neither of these guys were the ones pseudo-shaming me for shaming the governor.

If I were going to fat shame - and here it possibly comes - I'd have said something about his lap band surgery being unsuccessful. I mean, even Carnie Wilson lost weight the first two times she had that procedure.

I would have said, he did the (unsuccessful) lap band surgery for his probable 2016 presidential run, as fewer voters were going to pull the tab for someone who they'd think would have a massive coronary while in office. As it turns out, his less than stellar presidential polling numbers - and so far lack of announcement - would keep him out of the Oval Office more than his weight.

But that FB post also got me this:

Apparently there is some meme regarding the Christie post of which I referenced. So a friend sent me this. Actually, this above meme entry made me change my entire post for today. I couldn't help grinning.

And since we are just going on a downward spiral and playing the on-going game of whatever the opposite of Non-Sequitur might be, I'm totally stealing this image from D@vid over at Facing Traffic.

I shouldn't have laughed at either of the two above images (but 'yes' to the title image), but I did.




Song by: Thomas Dolby

Pneumonia

It's another Petey heavy week......but with good reason.

Just out on a daily walk while he surveys the terrain and smells. 

A lesser man would feel uneasy with this kind of scrutiny. 

My heart melts seeing them together. 

Petey with his girly bandage. 

Wednesday night at 11p, everyone in the house was fine. I woke at 3a to Petey being somewhat ill - lethargic and labored breathing. I opted to wait it out until daylight before doing a vet call - as I didn't want to use the emergency vet. I also didn't wake 710, but by the time he did wake, we were afraid Petey was too sick to possibly make it through the day. 

Our vet said possibly pneumonia, or heart failure. 

The first one we are familiar with, as he had it in 2012 and 2013 - but we've had a relatively quiet 18 months where his lungs are involved. 

It was pneumonia, which is treatable. At least somewhat. He go IV antibiotics and fluids all day, then came home with us. I stayed up with him all Thursday night / Friday morning.  And he is better. His eyes are brighter, his cough less and his breathing no longer labored. 

It's just scary to know he can go from fine to fatal in 4 hours. It's very distressing for all of us. I hate seeing anyone not being able to catch their breath. 

But the vet staff did a great job and he's on the road to recovery, though I'd be happy if he at and drank a little more, but at least he is doing some of both. If you recall, the first time, he didn't eat for like eight days. 

His pink-ish bandage is covering his IV port. They left it in, on the chance he might need additional IV fluids. He did not. 

Yesterday, I got his port taken out, they checked him over and sent him home with me. With an appropriate boy bandage. He's sleeping a little more than he normally does, but that's ok - as long as he's breathing easily.

Pete is being a finicky eater - right now, hamburger only. And fed by hand. He won't even eat it from his bowl.

I see someone is going to milk this for all it is worth.




Song by: Björk

Life is a Lemon

Now that Mike has proverbially helped break my baking cherry, I've kind have been going whole hog in the kitchen.......so to speak.

You've seen the Chocolate Chip, the M&M and the Triple Chocolate cookies. And a cake.

But as I continue on my 2015 Gluttony Tour, I still wanted lemon - the best of all citrus desserts.

It was actually for a lemon cookie recipe I was searching when I stumbled upon, and became distracted by, the Triple Chocolate one.

I found many a lemon cookie recipe, but I went with one from Ms. Gums herself: Giada.

Never have I made anything she has. I've seen her show (is it even still on?), but her over-pronunciation of certain words - and her gums - drives me to distraction. And almost everything she makes has pine nuts or almond extract. Blech on both.

Or Ricotta. She uses a lot of ricotta. In lots of things.

...apparently even in cookies. Oddly, I had some on hand, so, why the fuck not? These cookies had a lemon glaze on them, where many just had granulated sugar. I'm always picking glaze over granulated sugar.

Cookies
Flour - 2.5 c
Baking Powder - 1 t
Salt - 1 t
Butter - 1 stick (unsalted)
Granulated Sugar - 2 c
Eggs - 2
Ricotta Cheese - whole mile 15oz
Lemon Zest - 1 lemon
Lemon Juice - 3 T

Glaze
Confectioners Sugar - 1.5 c
Lemon Zest - 1 lemon
Lemon Juice - 3 T

Like most cookies - cream the butter and sugar (about 3 minutes)

Have your flour, salt and baking powder at the ready. 

To the sugar and butter - add both eggs (individually), then the ricotta, lemon zest and lemon juice. Make sure everything is incorporated. 

Then add the dry ingredients in thirds, letting them fully mix in. 

And here you go. 

Using 2T scoops (my large melon baller was 2T), put them on a lined cookie sheet. 

For whatever reason, my parchment paper has a foil side. I was distracted and put the batter on the foil side. It didn't seem to help or hurt the process. 

The dough was much easier to work with than any of the cookies I have made. 

Bake for 15 minutes in a pre-heated 375F oven. 

While baking, making up the glaze is easy. 

Mix all ingredients until they are smooth.  The glaze was thicker than I thought. I almost added more lemon juice to thin it out, but it did cover all 24 cookies. 

After cookies are completely cooled, put about 1/2 t of glaze on each cookies and spread it with the back of a spoon. 

Let cookies set for 2 hours, for glaze to harden before storing them. 

When cooling, the cookies look more like biscuits. I expected them to harden, but in fact, they were very soft - almost cake-like. The lemon taste of the cookie and the glaze is good. 

The only semi-unappealing thing is they greyness of the cookie and glaze. It's very monochromatic and save for flakes of lemon zest, nothing looks lemony, but I also wasn't willing to put in food colouring just for that sake. 

The cookies are larger than anything else I've made. Not in diameter, but in height. But with that, you get fewer. Where in Chocolate Chip, I'd get 38 or so cookies, here I got 24. I might have been able to eke out 26....but that's it. 

Still, it's nice to have another cookie in the rotation. 

I'm wondering what the grocery store is thinking? While there has been a slight increase in baking supplies, their pre-made cookie sales have plummeted. 

Thanks Mike!

Song by: Meat Loaf

Wind and Rain

It was 53 degrees. Grey. Overcats (not a typo). Windy and threats of rain.

More rain.

Last Saturday night, we probably got hit with 3" of rain in an hour. And then it just kept coming - all night long. Just like Lionel Richie.

It was wild. Our adjacent 3-lane, one way street was flooded and you saw people finding it was impassible and backing up....at full speed. Including ambulances who were trying to make it to the hospital.

One of our neighbors ended up with 10" of water in their basement. We were bone dry - luckily.

Still, yoga at the beach was still technically on for Sunday morning, so off to practice David & I went.

Don't let that huge crowd of two fool you. That lady on the left showed up after we did (the other person is the instructor). Once again, we were the first two people there....though 1,700 (!!!!) said they'd attend.

Mind you, it was a shitty morning. The wind off the lake was making whitecaps. People were out in their wet suits and surfing. Water temps were 55 degrees, but I've swam in that in Maine. Man-up, folks!!!!

I'm glad that I changed into a long sleeved shirt before heading out. I totally would have wuss'd out whilst hanging on the beach. It was a little cold.

The sand was pretty disgusting but I wasn't putting my mat down until I had to. As it turns out, we ended up moving to a covered shelter, as it started raining again. And as it turns out, about 50 folks eventually showed.

People on the FB page for the event were downright rude about 'weather {sic} the practice was still going to happen because of the weather'.  And because lack of an immediate reply, went on to say, 'I'm reporting this event to Facebook'.  

So much for a zen-like crowd.

Even afterwards the practice others said somewhat accusatory, "well we looked for you, but couldn't find you! You weren't there!!!"

Well, whomever you were - the instructor started 15 minutes late, and stayed at the original meeting site until we started, so, that means YOU were later than 15 minutes after the practice was scheduled to begin.

I love that instructor ended up blocking all of those people afterwards. Talk about Negative Nancys.

But the practice was needed - at least by me. It was less than strenuous, but that's ok, I don't mind a simple flow now and again. And as I told David afterwards, almost no one incorporates Mountain Pose into their practice anymore - and I always find it so grounding.

Afterwards, instead of heading to tea, we ended up at Starbucks for hot chocolate - as neither of us drink coffee, and it we were cold to the core. The walk back to the car was into a direct headwind, that just seemed brutal.

Then it poured on and off the rest of the day.




Song by: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Martha

You know me, always on the hunt for something to make.

Scratch that.....

Something easy to make.

I don't mind complicated, but sometimes you just want easy. And something new. Not that Fettuccine Alfredo is "new", but the real deal can be such an ordeal.

Ruckiry (not Jon's boss) for me, on Sunday evening (though I was a little tipsy), I flipped through Martha Stewart's PBS cooking show. Sometimes I watch, sometimes I keep on flipping. But "3 Ingredient Fettuccine Alfredo" made me stop in my tracks.

I made it the following day.

But to be gayer than Martha's general demographic (which is pretty fucking gay, I'm thinking), I upped it FOUR ingredients (six if you count salt and pepper, which Ms. Stewart clearly does not).


Fettuccine - 1lb
Butter - 2 sticks (softened)
Parmesan Cheese - 1/2 pound grated


then salt and pepper (and I used parsley too)

Mix butter and cheese together until they are creamy. 

Here's what it looks like afterwards. Leave it in mixing bowl. 

 Boil pasta according to directions. Reserve one cup of hot pasta water. 

Drain pasta, add it to the mixing bowl. 

Toss together until butter / cheese mixture melts and incorporates into / onto the pasta. Add some of reserved pasta water if it needs to be loosened up (I needed about 1/4 of a cup).   

Season with salt and pepper, as needed. 

Added more pepper and garnished with chopped flat leaf parsley. 

The flavours were good - but not great. But maybe this dish isn't really about an abundance of flavour. I rounded it out with salad and bread.

No need for eggs or anything - so that's a huge plus. And it's not a jar, so a big plus. But it's heavy. Martha says to garnish with more grated cheese, but trust me, it didn't need it, so we didn't add it.

I liked it, but I'm not sure I'd rotate it through that often.

First - this probably feeds six. Cut it back if you need. I'll be eating this for lunch for the next few days.

Second - while there aren't a ton of dishes to clean, that mixing bowl is like glue. The melted cheese / butter mixture just congeals. I'm trying not to think what it did to my intestines. Even rinsing and soaking immediately didn't help at clean up time as much as one might have thought.

It was a good experiment and probably really good for a casual dinner with 5 other friends. But I won't be revisiting that often.




Song by: Jefferson Airplane

I'm Gonna Change Everything

I was going to go with "Dude Looks Like a Lady", but figured no one would see the humour in it at all.

I'm trying to be more sensitive to the T in LGBT. It's not that I don't care - but I really don't have any trans friends. And by that I mean: I don't have any. Nor do I know anyone who is trans.

I don't even known anyone who has a Trans-Am.

710 has a co-worker who transitioned earlier this year.

This is big huge news, as his industry is about 96% male dominated.

HR gathered all the managers in his division to discuss that a certain person (who was named) would be transitioning from male to female. I believe all employees were mandated to go through a sensitivity class. And a restroom was being constructed for multi-person use. She would be using it, but so would other women if they chose to.

What amazes me - in a good way - was that the employee knew these discussions were going on about her. And what amazes me - still in a good way - was the strength it must have taken to go to HR and their boss to tell them this is where you are in your life and what you are planning to do.

I was really stoked by management and their, at the very least, public-facing support.

710, is possibly the only gay man in his building. He's totally bringing down the the 10% of the population being gay thing - at least in his workplace. So for him, seeing this kind of "situation" has been extremely positive.

The person who transitioned deals with 710 on the phone, but they rarely see each other, so 710 was never sure where in the transition process she was. But 710 made a very conscious decision to not end calls with "thanks guys" or use "guys" in general.

I've heard of women who get bent out of shape with the general term, but I would venture to guess that the term isn't used as masculine or feminine for this use - but in meaning a group of people. It's not meant to demean, but 710 didn't want to take chances.

He says that he was never a very good looking man, but seems to be more attractive as a female. I'm guessing besides any surgery, you have to figure how you carry yourself would be very different - not physically either, but emotionally and mentally. That burden of not being who you are might be lifted and outweigh any worries of what people are thinking.

As for Caitlyn - good for her too.

I think I'm more excited that she will make her first public appearance to receive an ESPY for the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage.

I will say, I was surprised by the timeline from the Diane Sawyer interview until the announcement and almost immediate turn around that she would be on the cover of Vanity Fair. It seemed short - though I know she was taking hormones for ages. But in my defense, I don't know how long gender reassignment takes, nor do I know how long in advance of airing was that interview taped.

I know there will be snickers along the way (see my original blog post title) from people. But save Chaz Bono, there aren't many public figures putting it out there to help the folks who do this, or are in need of this, on a much more frequent basis than we can ever know.

I wish she were going to do something other than her E! reality show. Those clan of tramps with which she lived and was on TV with will sully the entire thing.

Of course, that's just my opinion.  But it's my blog.

Hopefully those Katastrophe bitches won't ruin everything.  ....but deep down you know they will.



Song by: Mandy Barnett

My Music Monday

As I did a year ago, I'm going with cover songs as my theme for the month of June

I'm not sure why I'm doing this, as I vaguely remembering having to struggle for four songs last time out. And there are five Mondays in 2015, so.....there's that.

I toyed with people just doing covers of Beatles songs, but immediately got bored with my own idea.

So, we'll see where this month takes us, shall we?

I'm going out on a limb by saying that I'm 53% sure that Alien Ant Farm recorded music that was not Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal".

I'm about 87% sure that if I had a million monkeys typing for a million years, none of them would come up with a title of any other Alien Ant Farm song.   ....not that I'd actually know if they did. That seems like a lot of cross referencing - and I'm just not that invested.

As far as Michael (Mr. Jackson, if you're a nasty pedophile) goes, I was ok with most of Off the Wall. Thriller was enticing to most because MTV was new.....and soooooo many people liked synchronized dancing.  Go figure.

I'm sure I heard "Smooth Criminal" in the periphery, but I never truly listened. It didn't truly interest me. Like many Jackson songs, there were as many noises (i.e. not real words) as there were actual words. And the words that are there? I'm not sure they actually go together in a proper sentence. It all seems gibberish to me. Maybe there's a story there, maybe not.

And yet, it seems to work in the hands of Alien Ant Farm. I mean, as much as it can be.

Even in its original iteration, Jackson had a rock edge to that song, but AAF take it up 2-3 notches, and that's what it needed.

In this instance, it is where the cover version outshines the original

Cut Above the Rest

As I was walking Petey the other day, a neighbor mentioned my über manly beard.

Despite what Rebecca and Jon think - it does not make me long for a razor nor make me look a 'wee bit homeless'.

Anyhoo - Mark (the neighbor) asked what 710 thought of the beard. I contemplated for about 12 seconds and said: "he hasn't said anything about it one way or the other - so I'm assuming he isn't a fan."

"He's a good partner..." came the reply.  Indeed he is.

My mother hasn't said word one about it either, so I'm sure she loathes it. C'est la vie.

Granted, the beard was a little out of control, and I knew at some point I would have to trim the thing - or shape it. I was just getting it to a point where I could and it would remain full.

At lunch yesterday, knowing I had a meeting on Monday, 710 "suggested I get a trim, which I said I would do. But he wasn't really leaving it up to me - suggesting, after we were done with lunch that I go to a barber and have them trim it.  ....something I've never done.

For the most part, I haven't stepped foot into a barber shop in at least 15 years. I buzzed my own hair. Actually, five years ago, I did got to a barber in Columbus so he could shave my head and then I took it over from there.

As we were on our way to my mother's house for a visit, the only barber shop of which I was aware was the one I went to as a child: the Mug & Brush.

We walked in and only one of the six chairs was occupied. Five barbers were sitting there. The dichotomy of the shop was amusing. I'm not sure - save the Playboys being removed -that a thing had changed in 40 years, except for the fact that each barber was sitting there looking at their iPad of smart phone.

Charlie, the guy who cut my hair (and my fathers, and my brother in law and my nephew and a few people I used to work with), had died a few years back. The bigger surprise would be: he only died a few years back. But the first question they asked me was if I knew Charlie. I tried to regale them with stories of my visits as a child - yet no one seemed to care.....or look up from their iPads or smart phones.

Vince (I think his name was), did an ok job trimming my beard. It's a little shorter than I wanted and there are still some stray hairs I need to clean-up myself. Oh, and at first, he forgot to put the cape on me, much to his co-worker's chagrin. He also made the neckline uneven - so I have to fix that myself.

The trim cost:  $5 (plus tip, of course).

I guess you get what you pay for.

But I'll be neat(er) for my meeting and now the beard has a little shape - and I'll see where it goes from here.




Song by: Bananarama

Pic a Day in May - 31

Prism II

Like last year's Pic of the Day in May ender, you get a prism pic. 

It wasn't the intention, but it worked out that way. The same piece of cut glass gave out more rainbows in the kitchen. 

Again, as we move into June, Pride month, and the soon to be SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, it seems appropriate. 

As I always state, I'm not that into Pride events, though depending on the SCOTUS ruling, I suppose attending this year would be the good thing to do.  I can always pray for rain - you know, like Texas did four years ago. And look how that turned out.   

Congrats to the other known bloggers participating in Pic a Day in May. They did a fantabulous job. 

Erik - gambrinous with griffonage

Patrick - Pac's Pad

the Great Escape

Just another week in the life of Petey & Sophie.  BFFs.

Petey greeting me after his parole from Pet Lodge U.S.A. 

It's really all about those eyes in this pic. 

Driving Miss Ellie. 

Petey used my mother as a prop to look out the window on way home from the kennel. 

Watching. Always watching.......

A scene you've all seen before. 

Petey goes into play mode when he sees Kegger. 

He loves dogs bigger than he is, and a Rhodesian Ridgeback {puppy, still}, is one of his faves. 

Petey has never learned to read. 

Song by: bt