Surgeon! Surgeon!

This is me last night after an attempt to gut a pumpkin. Gourd-inflicted karma at its finest.

OK. So I didn't really cut off my hand.

I was cutting the top off with the old-fashioned serrated bread knife. This was after I had purchased a Pumpkin Master Power Saw™ in order to lessen the time. Savvy, eh? I have been gutting pumpkins for years and never once had so much as a nick. I am no virgin, any mo, any mo. Left hand is holding down top of pumpkin while right hand saws away. I make the final gouge, withdrawl the knife and schhhhick! I'm cut. I stare with childlike curiosity at the hole in the web of my left hand. There's something white in there! A tendon? A bone? Neat-o! Then the blood bubbles forth like a gentle reminder that I'm standing here with a hole in my hand, and shouldn't I do something about it? Oh. Yeah. I run Dylan over to the neighbor's house and go to the emergency room. Three hours, two stitches and one tetanus shot later, I'm home and the sonovabitch is throbbing because the lidocaine wore off. My hand feels like Studio 54 in full swing. I think there's a mosh pit somewhere in there, too.

Folks, every 10 seconds in this country, a pumpkin is gutted and a finger severed, cut open, sacrificed, etc....Be safe this All Hallows' Eve season, everyone.

I did get the pumpkins finished after my hand stopped hurting. They look great! Thank you Power Saw™! I will post pics of them when they are developed.

WTF did I tell them I didn't remember when my last tetanus shot was?! Can't--move--my--arrrrrrm!

Jim.

Happy birthday, dear.
For you'll be
Forever young.
James Wilson Kontra, born October 18, 1969; died November 24, 1999.

"Dance! got canned heat in my heels tonite, baby...."

Today I witnessed a phenomenon that defied all logic. It staggered me to the core and I may never be the same again.

My half-grown kitten, Squeak, loves to eat. Anything. She eats with such gusto that you kind of can tell that she was starved when she was a very little baby. Dylan left a half-eaten crescent roll on the table one day and Squeak took it, and whenever another cat was in the vicinity, she would growl and curl her body around the roll. The other cats tread a wide berth around her when food is involved.

Well, Squeak overate as usual today. Her little tummy was full and she had to purge some of it. I've dealt with cat barf hundreds of times and it had *never been like this....She not only puked, she puked while running in a panic!!! Her puke hit the floor, the couch, kitchen table, my bed, my ab-master (don't laugh!!)..this little kitten managed to spread kitten-chow puke all over my house. I spent the better half of the afternoon scrubbing and picking up pieces. Booger Fred helped out too; he likes to eat whatever the other cats regurgitate. I am stunned.
I nailed my N+ final today. It was a 4-week course and now I have to take the certification exam. WOOOOOOOP!
U2 concert next weekend ::::preen::::
Tara got picked for the school paper and Dylan is advancing up to the imtermediate karate class *tear*

The beautiful creature in the urban dress is Tara, recital time 2005. Isn't she lovely?

I Bare My Heart to You...

"SHADOWS OF shadows passing. It is now 1831, and as always I am absorbed with a delicate thought. It is how poetry has indefinite sensations, to which end music is inessential. Since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception, music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music without the idea is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless." ~Edgar Allan Poe

As always, I am thinking of death and just how soothing--yes, and funny--it can be. Indeed, since the turning of the seasons and I see the earth beginning to shed its greenery and don the sober colors of an withering being, the mind turns to lurk in darker corners and, for a little while, we can enjoy the fun of dead things--mummies, vampires, slashed cheerleaders--without being gazed upon as a freak. For we love Hallowe'en. It seriously rivals Christmas in this house. I love to dress up and pass out candy. The smell of pumpkins. And what a way to celebrate the equinox with seeing http://corpsebridemovie.warnerbros.com/. A most excellent movie!

Some must- hear, must see and must- reads for this All Hallows' Eve:

The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe; Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier; Sorry, Wrong Number starring Barbara Stanwyck; The Nightmare Before Christmas; the album The Gorey End by the Tiger Lillies with the Kronos Quartet; the album Tales of Mystery and Imagination by the Alan Parsons Project

Any more suggestions I gladly will accept.

I won't grow up.

"Meeeeowwwww!"
http://sadcircusbythesea.typepad.com/

A few years ago, I fell in love with the cartoon Invader Zim. This is a cartoon about an alien from the planet Irk who wants to conquer worlds and bring them under Irken rule. Unfortunately, the Irken leaders, the Tallest, exile Zim to the Irken snacking planet of Foodcourtia because Zim behaved like such as ass during the first invasion. Zim "quits being banished" from Foodcourtia and makes a plea to the Tallest that he be given another change. The Tallest readily agree, rewarding Zim with a sandwich, an insane robot and a mission to--well, nowhere. After six months of traveling, during which Zim's robot GIR sings The Doom Song nonstop, he finally lands on Earth and sets up shop. Zim isn't necessarily stupid; he's such an egomaniac that it clouds his usage of common sense when it comes to conquering alien worlds.

The upshot is Zim tries time and again to make Earth an Irken territory and fails each time. This is a great site for Zim info: http://www.thescarymonkeyshow.com/

I became so fanatical about Zim that I launched myself into learning all about the creators and voice casts. This led me to learning about Rikki Simons, who does the voice of GIR the kooky robot, and is, incidentally, my favorite Zim character. Rikki is a talented writer and with his wife Tavisha, they create some of the most ethereal and utterly breathtaking art and prose. They are the authors of ShutterBox books, the two Reality Check! books, and the much anticipated Ranklechick and His Three-Legged Cat. I had the privilege of meeting these two remarkable humans at Katsucon 2005 (a comic convention.) Hopefully, they will return for 2006. Check out Rikki's blog, the link which I posted at the beginning of this entry.
I think if we go back to Katsucon next year, my children and I will actually participate in cosplay; in other words, constructing a costume of your favorite comics character and parading about with all the other cosplayers. Dylan wants to make a GIR costume. Tara wants to be Gaz. I, of course, will be Tak. That is, if we go. I would very much like to.

It's media like this that keep me young and from biting the big one. I can release my inner child (who had been badly damaged) and cavort about with my children. We sing and dance and very often we will talk in nothing but show-and-movie dialogue, the most recent brouhaha being Napoleon Dynamite. Gosh! I tend to not watch the news and read the paper because it does me no good. I am an adult and as long as I pay the bills, give my children healthy meals and enrichment, I can act as goofy as I please, and I daresay my children will benefit far more from a mother who can laugh and play with them as long as they recognize what is wrong in the world, and what they can do to change it.

Thank you, God, for giving me another chance to be a kid with my kids, whom I thank You for every day.

The Counselor.

Take the quiz: "Which Random Irish Gaelic Phrase Are You? "

Ta me bitseach mealltach
Ta me bitseach mealltach - 'I'm a sexy bitch.'You're hot stuff, or at least you think you are. You can usually be found in front of a mirror or shopping for the latest fashions so you can be the hottest thing to walk into the club tonight. Now, if only you could find a date...

And you've probably seen this one: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/ --I like to repost it anyway because I am so easily amused, and I know you are, too...

From this point on, I will reveal a few things which may surprise you--or perhaps not, for when reading my siggy lines on AOL boards, you've got to think that something ain't kosher bout that gal. "Funny, you don't look Jewish!" (from A Mad Look at the Movies: Tarzan Faces Tsuris)

1. ...I have a Counselor. I went to see him yesterday and he asked me if I journal and kind of hinted around that he wanted to be a marginal character but wanted to retain anonymity. So. His name is Ted. This is his picture:

He so wittingly suggested that I refer to him as... ...The Counselor.

2. ...I have been in counseling for almost 20 years now for various character flaws, namely substance abuse, depression and downright orneriness.

3. ...my self-loathing is something I live with everyday and I've grown quite used to loathing myself. I like to loath me, heh.

4. ...I like to loath others, too. Here are some of the people I like to loath: Parents who smoke in the presence of their children; People who litter; Parents who use their kids as pawns; Bigots; Republicans (KIDDING! ..snortsnickersnort...); Assholes.

5. ...I come across as cynical, but I am a very loving person. I love my family and my friends very much. I love my cats. I love music that puts beauty into the world. I also love oysters.

6. ...I don't really know how to digest what the Counselor observed of me: he said I'm a romantic. Maybe I'll be offended another day.

7. ...I have MVP (mitral valve prolapse.) It manifested its irritating self when I was in my early 20s. I can live with it but sometimes it rears its fuggly head and I just feel terrible some days.

8. ...I fancy myself as a closet Broadway star and I will sing and tap dance in my kitchen.

9. ... my greatest ambition is to raise my kids to realize that they can become whatever they want to be. Tara already has a headstart on corrupt politics (two words that fit alongside each other puuuuurfectly) and Dylan asked if it were possible to become a famous comic author, like Stan Lee. Of course!

10. ...my other greatest ambition is to have a no-kill cat rescue. This dream is not hopeless, once I buy the land that I want and build. My own digs will be rather spartan in comparison. Hey--simpler, the better. I just need a bed, microwave, computer and a ton of books.

11. ...everyone, I firmly believe, has their own personal Closet Asshole. Even nuns and missionaries. interpret this however you wish.

I will expand on these, but right now I have to go potty. Dance, dance, dance, Senora...