Homer'sWorld

What's for dinner?



















Vegetable quiche.

Quiche, a salad, and a cake.




















Salad.



















Chocolate mayonnaise cake with chocolate-hazelnut cream cheese frosting.

Forrest is leaving tomorrow for a month back in North Carolina and elsewhere. He may end up in northern Michigan and I am encouraging him to stop by and visit Mummy (who adores Forrest).



















Steve and Forrest in the red and gold dining room.

Just when you think you've smelled the most horrible smells at the sewer plant, a new, even more horrifying smell happens.
























Bell-shaped pit.

I was sitting inside the pit trying to dig the last dirt out from the bottom sides, and the nasty stench caught me off guards. It was like Maggie Gallagher had just pooped on me.




















My hard hat does not protect against smells.

In the evening I sat on Forrest's roof and took pictures while he played guitar and sang.

























Pretty clouds.

It seems like we are having an early monsoon, with the clouds rolling in and sprinkles. Since I live in the desert, that is a good thing.
























Forrest plays the guitar.

In an hour I'm off to visit with Ray and Cobban. Pool time!

It's made from corn.

Well today was smelly (I worked out at the sewer plant) and disappointing. I am having a margarita because tequila makes everything better, doesn't it?

After Brett left my house was too quiet and I thought about some things that have been bothering me. About 95 percent of the time I am in a good mood, but there are those times when things bother me, and yesterday was awful.

One thing I have learned in life is that it is no good sitting by myself stewing about things endlessly, because that is something I have done in the past all too often. So I called up some friends and went over to Steve's house and he fed me homemade gnocchi and ravioli and we made miniature lemon tarts. Then I had supper with John and he listened to me. Later Forrest and I hung out listening to the Avett Brothers and he listened to me too.

I'm still bothered, but by tomorrow I will probably be back to normal.

Did you know that the state flower of Arizona is the saguaro blossom?
























Saguaro blossom.

Did you know that seeing Panchesco always put me in a happy state?
























Seriously, I am happy to see Panchesco!

Did you know that all of the gay guys at David C.'s party were happy to meet Brett?
























Brett and Richard D.

He had a nice visit and a good time was had by all. And no, that was not a scream you heard after I told him a snake was nearby.

The water was 75 degrees, but after the first minute or two you kinda forgot about the icebergs floating by.



















Mango-pinapple upsidedown cake.

I made the cake with the most votes. It was highly praised. Also three bean salad and strawberries with whipped cream. You need lots of calories to survive the Antarctic Ocean.

We played four games of naked pool volleyball and I was on the winning team every time. My voice is hoarse from shouting with glee. Next time I will try to be on the losing team so that doesn't happen. Brett's voice is normal, I note.

I am obscured by the net.

It was a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I got to hang out with Patrick, fresh from an exciting foreign adventure, and see Cobban and Ray, fresh from southern Arizona, as well as many other friends, including the handsome hosts Richard and Roger.

The menz.

Another pool party today, and now I'm trying to figure out what kind of cake to make!

Brett arrived safely. We ate too much food at Rosa's. Henny-Penny was cute as she ate seeds. She posed for pictures. Forrest is coming over and we are going to have a beer and play music (he is teaching me to play the auto-harp).
























Henny-Penny and Brett.

I've been out at the sewer plant helping out on our dig. In one area we are about 16 or 17 feet below the modern ground surface. Careful scraping by the backhoe has exposed a large number of pits dating to the San Pedro phase, about 3200 to 2800 years ago.

As the backhoe was scraping, Gaylen spotted the red spear point (below left).



















Spear points and a ground stone artifact (click on picture to enlarge).

As I was digging the pit I found the white spear point and the flat, oval ground stone item, which was unfinished and may have been intended as a pendant.

The pit also contained animal bones (jackrabbit, cottontail, rodents, and a deer-sized animal) and the scraps of stone thrown away as tools were made. I also collected a sample of dirt to check for what kinds of pollen were present (pollen lasts forever) and a larger sample of dirt to be dumped in water and the floating charcoal collected- this will tell us what kinds of wood they were using and what kinds of domesticated and wild plants were being eaten.

Science!

Geckoes!!! Every night they gather around the porch light and wait for their dinner to arrive.
























Geckoes.

There are sometimes eight or nine. Unfortunately, they are difficult to photograph well.

This is the week of me going to the airport, twice in 12 hours and again to get Brett on Friday. To make Brett's visit more interesting, an animal has apparently perished in the crawl space under my house. A faint smell of decomposition is present in my house. Yuck.

And in other news, a close friend of mine has become a celebrity in Peru!

I made mac & cheese, salad, and strawberries & biscuits for dinner. This was after Forrest and I had a hellacious time getting his evaporative cooler working- turns out I had not screwed a fuse in correctly.
























Shoulder chicken.

Henny-Penny had watched us eat dinner through the window. Afterwards she came and sat on my lap and shoulder for a while as I surfed the internet. As the screen changed she would turn her head and look. I suppose she wants a breast-top computer now.

Yesterday, Larry and I went to India Oven for buffet lunch. The food was delicious and I confess, I ate three samosas.



















Plateful.

Afterwards, we drove south on I-19 to Tumacacori, which is a Piman word meaning something like "place of the flat rocks." It is a Spanish-Mexican era mission complex.



















The 1820s church.

Vermillion flycatchers were busy flying around, it is extraordinary how scarlet their feathers are. A friendly female tabby cat followed me around until I gave in and petted her.

























Remnants of murals.

The church was heavily damaged after it was abandoned in 1848. There are many places where treasure hunters scratched away the plaster looking for imaginary treasure. In other places people have scratched their names and dates. It was disappointing to see graffiti from 2006 inside the church. If I ever caught someone doing that I would chastise them (which I did at a temple in Greece, telling two young American girls to behave!).

























Larry.

Summer is officially here and it is hot. I hope Brett doesn't melt when he comes visit.

Like one's youth, this particular type of cactus flowers briefly, and then the pretty blossom fades away and all that is left is the spiny body that will poke you if you touch it.
























Cacti in my backyard.

I wandered around doing yardwork this morning. Henny-Penny followed me, curious to see what I was up to and excited when the water stirred up things. She sometimes finds delicious food when I do so. Just in case, she got the heel from a loaf of rye bread a few minutes ago and she is greedily pecking at it. No low-carb diet for her.

The cats woke me up several times last night, fighting naughtily. Mama Cat was annoyed with Snowball. Joey and Puff were fighting over who got to sleep next to Daddy (me). Joey likes to sleep with her head on my shoulder, she feels safe there from Puff, who will sometimes swat her because he can be mean. So here it is 10:38 AM and I am slightly groggy and you should see my hair sticking every which way.

I am having lunch with Larry and we may go some place. David A.'s 50th birthday party is tonight. I am busy. I need to find time to clean house before Brett gets here. I do not want him freaking out about the cat hair that seems to be everywhere at this moment.

Post 1888. Instead of going to the homo happy hour I have decided to be lazy and stay at home and perhaps clean my fridge. It is overcrowded with condiments. I may also watch a 38-year-old science fiction movie. And perhaps I will balance my checkbook. I have every transaction since 1 January 1993 on my computer. I know exactly how much money I have deposited since that date and all I can wonder is where did it all go?

So next week Brett is coming to town and pool volleyball season starts. So I will be making a fancy dessert to take to Brett's debut at this event, and you, trusted readers, have an important decision to make. What dessert should I make?

A). angelfood cake with strawberry whipped cream
B). rage-inducing lemon meringue pie
C). mango upsidedown cake
D). carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

Please vote in the comment section!

As I type this Henny-Penny is standing on the desk next to me happily pecking at some wild bird seed. She thinks it is delicious.

Since last we spoke, I attended the Avett Brothers concert in Tucson. It was absolutely awesome. They also performed at a local used bookstore and I wish I had been there for that, since the venue is tiny and there were probably 50 people there.



Healing-Fest 2009 continues and I am hardly coughing anymore, which is a relief. I will be seeing the doctor tomorrow because I may have given myself a minor abdominal wall hernia. I love my weak abdomen!!! Snowball and the other cats will miss having me lounging around in bed, I was always good for a few pets and some amusing games.




















Snowball!

Made cupcakes today, yellow cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Forrest and his friend Karl, visiting from Idaho the Land of Taters, got half of a layer cake and were very appreciative. There are benefits of living in the guest house.

So life returns to normal. It is now officially hot in Arizona and my swamp cooler broke down for the first time (blown fuse). Pool volleyball season starts on the 23rd and Special Guest Star BrettCajun will be attending. He'll have a good time, I am sure, and the men in Tucson will treat him nicely.

























Homer and Henny-Penny.

So I have had the flu after all, although the doctor hasn't determined whether I have the fancy pandemic version or the boring old one. So I missed five days of work and came home early the last couple of days to lie in bed and rest quietly, except I can hear my raspy breathing and every once in a while I start dramatically coughing up stuff.

The doctor gave me the super-duper cough syrup, which made me completely forget about all of my health concerns until the next morning, when I read the list of side effects, which started with "Nausea commonly occurs..." and that was a very accurate description of what ensued. At that point I just kinda leaned over the sink and was nauseated and felt real sorry for myself. But in a short time I felt much better.

So yes, Health Emergency 2009 is ending and I tell you what, I will be getting every single possible flu shot in the fall, because this has been a waste of time and when you are too sick to enjoy the silliness of The Bold and the Beautiful (where one male character has been married to a woman, her daughter, her sister, and her arch-nemesis- all within the last year or so), then you know you are very, very ill.

In other news, I have rested up this afternoon so that I can attend the long-awaited Avett Brothers concert.

It is 2000 fucking 9. ATM cards have been around for over 25 years and you still don't know how to use it at the goddamn supermarket? How many times do I have to watch you run it through the fucking reader, every fucking way but the fucking right way? And then you have to argue with the cashier about whether this item was on sale (it wasn't) and then demand a fucking rain check for some bloody piece of meat they didn't have in the death coolers because you really need to salivate over the decomposing muscle of some force-fed, automatically slaughtered pig that probably wandered around in shit up to it knees? And not a single fresh fruit or vegetable in your cart unless Cheetos and Oreos count as a fresh fruit or vegetable. And you still haven't figured out how to use the ATM card so now you are writing a check and stopping to subtract the amount and what the fuck, you just sent your kid back for a gallon of whole milk because they accidentally grabbed two percent????

Sometimes I need a valium when I go to the supermarket.

Oh! The cough stuff the doctor prescribed is making me totally fucked up. I can hardly type this because it is difficult to concentrate. I feel a million percent better. Thank you modern science.

It's 2:00 AM and I can't sleep- busy coughing up stuff. Coughing over and over again. If I sit upright it stops. I am in impatient patient, I want to be well again instantly. So it is hard to let an extraordinary cold run its course because I find it inconvenient. Tonight Forrest went to the pizza place and brought me a pizza, but I had virtually no appetite and most of it is in the fridge. I guess a benefit of being sick is the concurrent weight loss. And yes, I have read through the symptoms of swine flu, and no, I doubt that is what I have.

Little Snowball sits next to me as I type this. He wants his special food but has to wait until sunrise to get it. He doesn't know that it a week or two he is off to the vet to get fixed. Poor little buddy, I've been feeding him some cholorophyll treats and it is amazing how his nasty breath disappeared.

Last Friday night, Forrest and I walked up to the top of Sentinel Peak, a short distance from us, and he set his camera to take long exposure shots with no flash.



















Forrest.

It was after midnight and the only light was the urban lights reflecting down from the clouds.




















Homer.

We sat up there on the deserted road and talked about the uncertainty of life.



















Yellow stripe.

What a difference a week makes. Last night the cold medication I have been taking kept me awake and jittery and there was no calm. I'll be glad when this runs the course and I am back to normal.