Life!

The unicorn meat eating orphans have taken to running up and down my face all night to punish me for not letting them outside. It's a bit like those Japanese women who run up and down one's back, only it's not. Minkins, the boy, is become philosophical about the whole thing...Echo, the girl, tries to claw through the glass and howls...usually starting about 10 o'clock at night. That is, as soon as I lay down and she is sure she has an audience.

Max, the new corgi, thinks the whole thing is just too interesting and starts barking or chasing them around the bed. Just to keep it fun. I need to modify Eddie's service animal vest to fit Max. He is just as broad as Ed was, but from muscle, not tubbiness. And he's about 3 feet shorter than Eddie. You'll know him when you see him at Mill Mountain Coffee.

Queen Elizabeth collects corgis. I suppose after the brouhaha about Charles' nuptials, a pack of small yappy dogs seems a relief. They have a medium throated bark, not Chihuahua, not Newfoundland and I guess they drown out anything she doesn't really want to hear. Kind of a royal face saver, "Your Majesty, the economy is in the tank." "Yes, order one in fuchsia as well; the one with the brim." Not that the Queen doesn't care about the economy, but she is darn certain not going to give any of those castles back to the Scottish and they already turn their bedsheets to save the washing of them. What more can one ask?

And I'll tell you the truth, dear Reader, now that I have been recognized by other artists as an artist, outside of Hollins, writing this blog is scary. I think I was so much more funny before I gave a damn and was writing for that dude in Slovakia.

It's All Gouda

I am honored to be asked to join Southwest Virginia Artists.

Now for the dirt:
The unicorn meat eating cats have banded together to eat the dog's food. Meanwhile the dog, a STRAY, only likes the $ 47 a bag food that the neighbor's dog eats. Something has to give.

And it figures that now that I live in Roanoke, it's most interesting attraction, the Food Court in the Market Building, is closed until August. The funnest thing to do Downtown is eat, after all...look at all the restaurants and even the coffee shop has an extensive menu. So does the Art Museum. Everyone eats, except the Board of Supervisors. They live by osmosis, like amoeba, or a virus.

My Life of Crime

Got a mani and pedi at Ilema's Esthetique in Salem, the "High Maintenance Center for Men and Women" today. Next door at "Lourine's", she sells wigs and breast prosthesis. It's fun to help someone with creative advice who is out for a new look as they enter or leave chemo or radiation. I have never met anyone who wasn't pumped about getting any hair they want.

For a nail color, I picked "Last Night on Wisteria Lane" which is a hot pink...usually I like "Meet Me at the Copier" or "Out for a Drink of Lunch", but I wanted something more sentimental to match my leavetaking of my home of 25 years in Botetourt County.

The cats are especially pissed because they are now indoors only, after 11 years of crawling all over the backwoods of Troutville and cruising God's Own Half Acre, as Mom used to say. They have never known any other life and take it out on me every night: howling, crying, crouching at the screen door, being tortured by the birds...I'm such a bitch. But I lost too many animals on a busy street growing up in Roanoke, and now that I am on a quiet one, I don't feel any safer. They are too innocent in the ways of the big City, and too trusting of dogs, since they were raised by one.


This article is not only to say goodbye to Home, I have more grieving to do and will write about it in the future, but is also dedicated to River Laker, one mean kilt-wearing...sorry...jeans wearing dude about town; practicing for his Marilyn Monroe tribute...Marilyn over the heating grate, that is. Shorts don't have the same impact as a kilt would, but I think the brou ha ha about his strip tease took something out of him...yes, that IS a challenge. After all, do you know of any question more perennial than, "Do they wear something under there?"

Slovakia

continues to dig me, according to my stats, which is really cool with me.  I would love to be in Europe right now. Although the spring is magnificent this year, unless you live in Chicago, which is much cooler than  usual, or anywhere in reach of the Mississippi River, which is much wider than usual.

Blackberry was returned and adopted out...The pit/lab mix ended up being named Capt. Jack Sparrow and being much more energetic than I had planned for. He got adopted thanks to the combined efforts of the Roanoke Valley SPCA. Now I have been gifted with a beautiful corgi mix, a rescue from Boone, NC. I named him Maxwell, which is pretty boring on the whole. I was going to name him Peanut Butter, after my niece's chicken, but was voted down in a poll.

I have moved back into Roanoke City, where I spent my teenage years. It's a blast from the past to be 5 minutes from Downtown...although I am not giving up my Daleville Mill Mtn. Coffee & Tea...the baristas are too cool. More later. I just wanted to check back in...Love to All.

Time

to write something more entertaining when a video beats my best article in "statistics." For those of you who blog, you know what I mean.

For the rest of you it just means I'll be trying harder to entertain. I'm low on Girl Scout cookies, but my connection is gonna hook me up tomorrow. Addiction is a terrible thing.

I am addicted to: the love of my cats and any dog wandering by, my brother's sense of humor, cigarettes (already rolled), coffee, liquor, fudge, pearls. But my friends are my biggest addiction. It's hard to explain it to them sometime. People are a big addiction.

I was handing out posters, looking for my puppy the other day, when this elderly gentleman, parked in front of Food Lion, rolled his window down to ask me if I wanted a free paper. Egypt is Free was the cover...either he was so happy he couldn't wait to share the news or so depressed he didn't want to read it. I didn't ask.

This time of revolution is another peak in the wave that hit France, England and America in the 1700's, so let's not blame too quickly.

"River", his real name, is a revolution in Roanoke, VA. Born in Kent, he works for the city government. At a local restaurant the other night, he was participating in a "date auction" and decided he wasn't getting the right response when he didn't get any bids. So he stripped down to a hard hat---symbolizing the reconstruction of the market building going on right now. For those children out there reading this blog, it was tastefully and strategically placed.

This is Roanoke. People either didn't care, were scrounging for food that night, or booze, or were shocked, as they were supposed to be. Either way, it titillated. It didn't call for stoning, like the Hollins woman who painted themselves red and strolled out on campus. She is now an avant guarde choreographer, who owns a pit bull she adopted in Roanoke. 

This is all beside the point. The point is that something about Roanoke makes people want to get naked. Why? Is is our air of sophistication? Hell, no. But there are several undercurrents running here; the avant guarde in Roanoke itself (!) which means the faction that wants Roanoke to be avant guarde so it will make money. And the native feeling that nudity should be allowed and encouraged...which stems from the fact that Franklin County, directly adjacent to Roanoke, is the Moonshine Capitol of the World. (Moonshine is homemade booze)

It also gets very hot here, due to global warming. Perhaps River, being from a colder country, felt the need for some air.

Still Water Runs Black

No, not doom and gloom today, although Blackberry is no where in sight. When I pulled out his bed and jingle bells last night, the day of empty searching rushed in and I cried, as I should. Probably some student at Radford has him, not know how very big he is going to get. I think they will take him to a shelter sooner, rather than later. He chews everything, and isn't housebroken yet. I am going to alert apartment managers on Monday.

Now that Mubarak is gone, it's too bad Naguib Mahfouz is gone. He would make an excellent leader...Nobel in literature.  Or Khalil Gibran...even if he was Lebanese...what a state Egypt would be then! Leaders worthy of Egypt's past and future.

As for my own small world, it is windy and cool today/night. Spring is coming/here! And I have never been happier to see it come. I hope I am in Scotland when it's spring there...about 4 more months. I'm passing on exposure this time. Marc's not planning to go to Orkney again, but I am. Although it's more boring without him. I'm hoping Megan can come this time. She has a new rash of chickens, but is less interested in them. Being a child is such a fleeting, temporary thing.

I am fostering another dog...haven't named him yet. Lab/Pit mix, looks like. Loves to cuddle. Looks like a black pit bull. I was thinking about naming him Dog Blue. All votes counted and suggestions considered. Come on, folks. Help us out here.

Roll 1 4 Me

Was a friend's car license plate a long time ago. Right now I am in the phase of rolling my own cigarettes. I know, I was supposed to have quit, like Obama. Actually, I hope he does smoke. Smokers need more positive role models. I get tired of hearing about how the original "Marlboro Man" died of lung cancer. Mubarak probably smokes...that's the kind of street cred we have.

Of course, those of you overseas are wondering, "Why wouldn't anyone want to smoke?" And "What's street cred?" Street credibility is how bad, totally cool, brilliant, viking someone is. Those with a lotta street cred are: U2's Bono, Sting, Severus Snape, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Harrison Ford, Luke Skywalker, or the late Jimi Hendrix, Timothy Leary and Janis Joplin...someone so hip they can't get their pants on*...

They all smoked, until the health thingy started to hit the planet. Now we know smoking is bad for us...and our culture looks at smokers as criminals. Right on up there with child molesting and torturing baby weasels. Or people who pick their noses in conversations. Rare, fragile, freaky birds are we in the U.S. I still remember when you were allowed to smoke OUTSIDE, which one can't in some places now.

While at the same time our per capita consumption of sugar has gone through the roof, even overseas. People get fatter and fatter. A musical group called 'The Waitresses' once had a song that touted smoking and drinking black coffee as a way to cut down on world hunger. I think it's time we reevaluated that one. Cause it looks like it's true.

*Douglas Adams