Homer'sWorld

I dropped my cell phone in soup at the Minneapolis Airport, a few minutes after chatting with Jimbo. It vibrated for a while and then passed on. Since I have a local telephone provider, it is likely I will be without a phone for a week. Very strange.

My sister Susan wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant for lunch today. That was a mistake. The food was awful. The salsa, in particular, was downright nasty.

Weather nice, daffodils blooming, saw Canadian geese, turtles, deer, and you can hear the frogs chirping.

I'm at the public library using their computer since Susan and my mother are living in the Stone Age- no computers or internet at their house. That is also very strange.

As I was packing my suitcase a pair of neighborhood dogs came into my backyard for a visit.


























Chihuahua.

The Chihuahua wanted to sit in my lap (and who could blame him?) while the chow mix looked for things to play with.

I'm off to Michigan for a week. My uncle Fred's funeral is Saturday. Springtime has come and the snow has melted in the family cemetery so they can get the backhoe in and install the vault and do the other things that people in the upper midwest do when someone gets buried.

I'll be seeing cousins I haven't seen since the 1970s- so strange how time flies. I'm also meeting a more distant relative who has family photos back to the Civil War era. And besides that I'm planning on enjoying the wildflowers, daffodils, and tulips (they are having a late spring up north).

The first flight drops me in the Minneapolis Airport- I'll be walking by the Larry Craig Memorial Bathroom- wonder if any Republican politicians will be lurking nearby?

Something I ate is certainly being disagreeable. I believe I'm off schedule because I didn't have anything to eat until about 11 AM this morning.

The worst thing about getting a physical is peeing in the cup. The best thing is free samples.

Let's get physical. I'm getting poked and prodded today at the doctor's office. He always makes a big scene over the prostrate exam, so silly. I'm joining a gym again and want to make sure everything is in working order before I get on the treadmill.

So the appointment is at 10 AM and at 7:02 I am starving like crazy. I start thinking about things I don't normally eat (donuts, bagels and cream cheese, chocolate shakes). Crazy!

I try to learn something new everyday. Today I was reading about ginger root and discovered today's interesting fact: figging.

The field trip to the Coyote Mountains was fun. About an hour west and south of Tucson, on largely undeveloped land. Inside the ruins of a 1930s ranch house I saw this mural.
























Bluebirds.

The cacti were busy blooming. The ocotillo isn't a cactus, but follows the same cycle. The little red flowers appear on the ends of long stems.
























Ocotillo blossoms.

The first two sites we visited were about 900-years-old and had mounds inside compound walls. Interesting, but not photogenic.
























Bathtub used as a cattle feed tank.

The third site was at the base of a cluster of mountains, with a dam built to catch the water seeping out. Large brown bulls bellowed as we had lunch.
























Coyote mountains.

A set of pictographs are painted in red, gray, and black underneath an over-hanging rock. There is a deer, a human with a headdress, and various geometric shapes visible.



















Click to enlarge.

Nice way to spend the day.

























Prickly pear blossom.

Pecan shortbread.


























Pecan shortbread.

My boss (best boss in the world, that's why I've worked for him for 15 years, 9 months, and 14 days- but who is counting) is taking everyone on a field trip to look at some archaeological sites in the Coyote Mountains, southwest from Tucson.

I made pecan shortbread cookies- so easy and everyone will think they were hard to make. I even messed up the amount of butter, but snuck the extra stick in after mixing everything up and you can't tell. Yummy!

The price of bananas at Safeway went from 59 cents to 69 cents. A loaf of the variety of bread I like is now $2.69, that's about 13 cents per slice. I make sure I eat all of my crusts now. The Mexican strawberries are $3.00 a carton, usually at this time of the year you can get a huge flat for $6.00.

My natural gas bill is higher, even when I use less hot water. At least the price of gas is the cheapest in the country, at $3.29 a gallon.

When I went to get my tire fixed yesterday the first two places were no longer in business. The number of other businesses closing, especially furniture stores, is noticeable. Real estate sales have slumped, the number of people who have given up looking for jobs is rising, etc.

Meanwhile, the Arizona State Legislature has introduced a bill to ban gay marriage. Another bill would prevent high school teachers from discussing communism in classes and would prevent all ethnic clubs from forming at colleges (no NAACP, no Latina Women's Business Club, etc). The same set want to prevent illegal immigrants from renting apartments. This is problematic when there are mixes household- perhaps a legal father, illegal mother, and legal children. So the entire family gets kicked out. Of course Arizona provides little money for homeless people.

And so on.

I got screwed today. Well, my tire did, a bright shiny screw. The tire slowly deflated and in the afternoon I discovered my little spare was deflated as well. A trip to the tire store, a surprise when they didn't charge me for fixing it, and everything was better.

So Ms. Clinton won her primary. Congrats to her. This is going to go on for another six weeks or so, I guess. Then it comes down to the superdelegates. Will they decide quickly, or will they drag this into August and the convention?

The most likely scenario is that Obama will have the most pledged delegates (with the results today, he leads by 130 or so), the most states and territories (as of today, 30 vs 13), and the popular vote (currently about a half million). This is according to the political analysts I have read.

Clinton will have to convince the vast majority of the remaining 305 undecided superdelegates to overcome Obama's lead in pledged delegates. Will it happen? I don't know, anything is possible.

It could very well be that a relative handful of unelected Democratic party leaders decide who gets the nomination. Now that would be interesting.

This will be the year of travel. Alburquerque in January for starters. Next week I'm going to northern Michigan for a week to attend a funeral and visit with Mummy, Susan, Elizabeth, Bub, and other assorted family members. A whole week with little media- Mummy and Susan do not have computers at home, and I think they also don't have satelite television. It will actually be nice to avoid listening to the never-ending-pointless-primary-shite.

Later in May I'm going to NYC and attending the Blogger get-together. I attended the first and second. I suffered an embarassing injury at the first and got sloppy drunk at the second. I'll try to behave myself better this time around, especially since I'm staying with Chris and Aaron.

In July or August I'm going to Washington, DC for a visit with Jimbo, TJ, and Archer. TJ and I are going to explore Baltimore. You never know where we might show up! We've read all about the interesting folks that live there. I'm going to entice Archer into eating a raspberry or maybe something more exotic (kiwi fruit? parsnips?). Jimbo is going to introduce me to all of his single redhead friends who like scientists named Homer.

I'm also thinking about a trip to Portland later in the summer, since Vince is going to be living there and I'd like to meet, in person, former blogger Corky and maybe ask Mark and Rodger to let me help can foods. And Larry wants me to come north to Vancouver and stay with him and Eric at their seaside home.

I'm sure I'll be all tripped out by the end of the summer.

Where did I put my nice Amish straw hat? And where are my reading glasses? They seem to have disappeared- not in my office at work, my car, or anywhere visible at home. Could the Borrowers have gotten them?

What else? Why won't the dry patch of skin on my face go away? Am I turning into a lizard?

Why did I have to drop my battery recharger? Now I have to purchase a new one. That means a trip to Best Buy [oops, mispelled that as "Best Boy" for a moment!] and I will look at digital cameras with desire. Going to be getting a new one soon, with a better zoom feature and more MEGA pixels.

Other questions- Will the hairball stuff work? Will Mama Cat's eyesight come back (again)? Is it possible for the Bold and the Beautiful to be any more incestuous? These questions, and many more, will be answered soon on Homer'sWorld.

They call it a "Destruction Derby" instead of a Demolition Derby nowadays.



















26 cars.

The cars are stripped down of extraneous things, and crash into each other. It is over in a relatively short amount of time.



















Yes, black socks and sandals.

Jim, Chris, and I enjoyed the derby, whatever it is called.
























Jim (in blue) stands next to the winning,woofy driver.

Besides the awesomely cute goats (except for the dead baby one that was being deposited in a trash bin), the chickens, and the mama pig and her babies (including a tiny runt), the best part of the fair are the many fine men standing around.
























This one is shearing a goat.

Going to the fair exposes you to many people you don't normally see (although we did run into Forrest while there).
























DILF.

We ate fair food, but I had a Greek Salad, so it almost didn't count. The onion rings were awful.
























Sheep!

No rides, I didn't want to get sick.

























Close to sunset.

It was a nice time with good friends.

When I'm in NYC next month, what museum should I go to? I usually go to one (only!) per trip. Except when I was in Berlin, 10 years ago, when I went to three fabulous museums in one day (the Egyptian, the Pergamon, and some palace).

I wish I had a butler or valet to pick my clothes out in the morning. He would bring me a Diet Coke (no ice!) while I was lazing around in bed, select the clothes, and make sure they were ironed and that the shirt sleeves were long enough. Nigel (that's his name) would also clean the litter box and comb the cats so they wouldn't barf up hairballs on inappropriate surfaces (my bed, the living room rug, my bed). He would also know basic home repairs, and would re-wire my house when he wasn't washing the dishes and monitoring my treadmill usage (Sir, no computer time until you run three miles!). Nigel would also look good when he was serving canapes at this summer's naked pool volleyball games and would make sure that all of the drinks had little frilly umbrellas and that the flies wouldn't land in the salsa that my handsome Mexican gardener Pedro made using his grandmother's recipe. Having personal servants, including a Brazillian chaffeur named Gustavo, would certainly be a help.

My favorite picture.


























Of my sister Susan.

Total Eclipse of the Spur of the Moment.

I just purchased a plane ticket to New York City for May 14-19. That coincides with the BGNYC5 gathering, so I'll get to see some friends and make some new ones. Anyone want to play host for a night or two?

If someone gave you $10,000 dollars to spend on something completely frivolous, what would it be?

I think I would go on a long trip- I'd like to see the animals in Africa, spend some time in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and go to Iceland.

Or maybe I'd fly to Vietnam and have somebody make me some shirts with the sleeves long enough. I can never find long enough sleeves, even in the Big-n-Tall section of Penney's. I'm so tired of my bony wrists sticking out.

What would you do with $10,000?

What the fuck?

New York Times headline: Possible Nazi Theme of Grand Prix Boss’s Orgy Draws Calls to Quit.

Lessons learned from reading this article- look out for hidden cameras hidden in bras and don't get videotaped counting in German while whipping someone.

A Portrait by Panchesco.

I'm so over the Olympics. All of the crappy symbolism mixed up with the commercialism. The stupid stories about how the athletes overcame some horrible event to go on and jump a centimeter farther or run a millisecond faster. The only good events are mens' diving and that gymcrapistic stuff with the ribbons and balls.

I hope the protesters make a complete mess when it gets to San Francisco on Wednesday (poor Moby!). What's there to celebrate about the Beijing Olympics? Tibet occupation? The air pollution? Leveling most of the historic part of town and displacing all of those people? And so on.

I would hope if the United States had the Olympics under our current war-mongering, torture Presidency that people around the world would conduct a similar protest.

I am every cat lady's dream come true.

























Cute with Chris- shirtless!

My dinner with Forrest.

We went to Rosa's and I had cheese enchiladas and beans and he had something with dead cow. Afterwards we went and had frozen yoghurt. I'm feeling bloated!
























Cowboy Forrest.

In other news, Sandy is moving from Australia back to Tucson for a while, he's going to stay in the guest house, since Vince is leaving for Portland. It's like a soap opera around here, with regular characters leaving and former characters returning. I wonder what drama will happen this summer?

At the end of this month I'll be going back to Michigan for my uncle's memorial service. Although he died in late December, the family had to wait until spring to take care of things.





















Chinaberry.

It is well into Spring here, with the flowers and trees blooming. I passed this chinaberry last night as I continued to take pictures of the houses in my neighborhood (only 210 more!).


When I get back to Michigan it will be Spring again- the frogs chirping and the tulips blooming.

Everyone else decided to be sick, so of course I had to get my once or twice a year cold sore on the same fricken spot on my lip as usual. Ouch-ouch-mother-fracking-ouch.

So instead of using my lips for interesting things I get to dab on stuff and think of other things to do. Like make a chocolate cake this weekend, because that recipe in the newspaper looked interesting.

Presents.

Curtis sent me a book from my Amazon wishlist and Moby sent me a t-shirt, since he knows I'm a Cat Lord (the male version of a Cat Lady).

























Squinting.

Of course, if people want to send me cash I'm always up for that too.

It is difficult to get them to pose together.

















Puff and Joey.


Especially when they know That Human wants to take a Happy 8th Birthday picture.