There and Back Again

Vermont is lovely this time of year. Super Agent Fred's parents had very kindly invited me to tag along with the old darling when he went up to visit them in their ski house, very possibly with the laughable idea I would keep him out of trouble. I couldn't even keep him out of the vicodin. Wait, wait, that was me. Never mind.

All photos courtesy (more or less) Super Agent Fred because my goddam camera battery was dead. Again.

It was very, very pretty, perfect weather, Tim's mother and stepfather are charming and cool, as were the various friends and relations also visiting. Tom, the stepfather, had built the house as a base for his skiing proclivities and also as a rental. Two units, with a total of seven bedrooms, three or four bathrooms, two fireplaces and two kitchens, both of which were very much of the temporary kitchen ilk we've come to know over the years. In other words, no pot to boil pasta in, lots of odd implements (none of them useful,) and TWENTY ONE skillets. I counted. I also cooked every night.

The last evening, there was lots of hemming and hawing about "We can go out to eat...." "We'll need to figure out ...." "Where does everyone..." "Reservations...." and other sentences trailing off into the land of the vague until I finally broke down and offered to cook. Again. It's amazing how fast vagueness can turn into solidarity and agreement in the face of somebody else making chicken pot pie.

I had a lovely time.

Dolls continue to haunt me

Apparently even New England comes equipped with hillbillies

I also heard about Diane von Austinburg's crack claiming I looked unnatural in nature.

I laughed, but I managed to keep a very lemony look on my face. So there.

Vermontino

Super Agent Fred and I are off to Vermont tomorrow. Have you heard of Vermont? I understand it's this adorable little state, popular with lesbians and cheese enthusiasts. And then, at the other end of the spectrum, I'm going to visit my father in the old folks' home he just moved into in Houston. Whee. In fact, Super whee.

In unrelated news, the woman who trims the nails of Saki, my Evil and Adorable Cat, warmly recommended giving him a bath the last time we went in for is pedicure. A cat. A bath. A catbath. Doesn't that just seem to be asking for trouble. After all, Saki barely tolerates going in to have his razorlike talons nipped down. I'm sure washing him off would only lead to sulking and cat turds in my bed. We have filed this under "Ideas, Bad."

Here's a good idea:

Street Fair

Oh, Castro Street Fair. Super Agent Fred and I stumbled into each other there yesterday and that was pretty much the highpoint of the day. That and the vicodin I washed down with a dainty little Cosmopolitan. If you've been to any street fair, I'm sure you know the drill:

Smoldering fajitas contributing to global warming.

And semi-naked boys, contributing to nothing.

My favorite booth was the "Girl on Girl Dodgeball." Plus, I accidentally bought raffle tickets to win admission to Cirque du Soliel when I thought the prize was a pass to a bunch of art shows instead, but by the time I figured it out, too late. I suppose that means I will inevitably win to see, as Carmen on South Park says, "a bunch of gays in sequins."

TV P Nee

I am one big fan of the TV show Criminal Minds. Grim FBI agents talk in curt sentences with occasional wisecracks whilst tracking down serial killers. The A&E channel (that's arts and entertaining for those of you taking notes because the show is both entertaining and art) very kindly provides us with marathons of these shows every weekend, hour after hour of the agents kicking in doors, which is my favorite part. On Friday night , I counted them kicking in seven doors in one show. I almost got a little stiffy. Almost.

Oddly, the channel will sometimes repeat the same three episodes in row. Am I ashamed that on that same Friday night I watched the show where the killer glues his victims' eyes open (classic) and then, two hours late, watched it again? Well, yes, a little, but then, as a small victory, I changed channels.

Speaking of changing channels, I did not make it through the dreadful BBC sci fi show Bedlam last night. Ghost Whisperer had already plowed the same ground as a show with Jennifer Love Hewitt who saw ghosts no one else did and slept in false eyelashes. This was the same idea, but without her enormous fake eyelashes and enormous genuine breasts, but with the astonishingly adorable Theo James frequently "acting" in nothing but a towel.

I have no idea why I can't find a picture of Theo showing off his humpalicious lean torso like he did on the show. Sometimes the internet just lets you down. But not even his flat tummy and sizeable tits were enough to keep me around. I had to go watch the boys kick in doors.

Out of Season

Imagine my thrill when stumbling around the patio earlier this week I ran across this stunner. It's a bearded iris I bought at the half price nursery a couple of months ago. Since it wasn't blooming then I had no idea what color it might wind up, but I love irises, so I put it over in the "What the Hell?" column and was prepared to wait and see.

My thrill came from the fact irises typically bloom in the spring. For those of you not paying attention, this is, in fact, autumn, so having a gigantamundo splash of say-something purple was okay with me. Also, it's about the size of Godzilla. If this is yet another effect of global warming, it's hard to complain.

mrpeenee Rocks Out

Oh, my sweet little potatoes, life's just been a whirl, a mad gay whirl around here. Diane von Ausitnberg was here last weekend, fomenting like mad, putting up with my sullen attitude and mostly just glad to get away from the fires of Central Texas. She seemed terribly impressed with my dedication to watching hours of crappy TV.

Plus, this weekend is Folsom Street Fair, a festival celebrating fat men's unwise decisions to appear in public wearing their ill-fitting fetish wear. The city is wild for this, for example, the naked guys who hang out in the little park on Castro street decided to have a Nude In to warm things up.

Also, they're protesting a local ordinance that has been proposed that would require people to spread a towel on seats before they plop down on them, should those people be less than covered in their butt-chop regions. I support the naked guys who point out wandering around nude is not against the law here, but I also think simple courtesy leans towards "the towel on the bench" argument. Do I know you well enough to come in contact with your cooties? No, I do no think I do. Therefore keep them and your buttsweat to yourself.

Even though I avoided the Castro today in order not to bump into the naked guys and I will also be missing from the rounds of leather, flagellation, and fajita stands at Folsom tomorrow, don't think that I haven't been celebrating. Tonight I went to a concert with friends where the orchestra played a charming version of the opera Carmen. Some crazy ass Russian composer put this together in the mid-60s as a ballet for his wife. He took the pieces of the opera and reassembled them and then amped it all up with a wacky percussion section. This is the answer for people (like me) who have always thought all Carmen needed to be better was bongos and marimbas mixed in. It was brilliant.

Plus, during the earlier, staler part of the show (Mendelssohn. Like eating a stale cookie.) I was able to distract myself by staring at the very cute bass player and imagining his nipples.

One felt sure they were medium large and firm, possibly perky. I'm sure I don't have to explain chamber orchestras are not normally equipped with men who lend themselves to this line of thinking, so I was plenty glad to see him there.

Speaking of nipples, here's a couple, prime example of the Gum Drop metier.

peenee Paint

In February, right after R Man died, I tackled painting the room upstairs we use as an office. I realize now it was grief triggered madness since I am, bar none, the worse painter in the world and should never be allowed near a brush that is not related to what little hair I have left. I understand this, and yet, this afternoon found me once again slinging latex and taking names. And not even a different room, but the same one I painted seven months ago.

Why? Well, yes, madness is repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome, but besides that, it was the curtains. Earlier this year, I had some ravishing scarlet silk curtains made for our dining room. They're ravishing. People come over, see them and announce "I am ravished." Ravishing. But then I found an equally beautiful, dark magenta rug. Tragically, just like the tired old joke says, the rug and curtains did not match. Often I would come home to a strained, sullen silence in the dining room that let me know they had been squabbling again. I got new curtains last week, not as ravishing, but quite charming and capable of living with the rug.

I offered the scarlet curtains to Secret Agent Fred and as I was loading them into the car to take them over there, I was trying hard not to feel deprived. Fred is a good friend and deserved them, they'd be going to a good home and blahblahblah, but they're so pretty, it was hard to let go. Remember, ravishing? So when they turned out not to fit his windows., well, let's just say I was not conflicted about bringing them back.

What could I do? Giving them away was obviously going to bring on some kind of designer homo breakdown, but the only room that didn't already have curtains was the office. The lavender office. Lavender and scarlet. So very much not feeling the love there. Okay. Okay. Goodbye lavender, hello charcoal. Goodbye also to my vow to never, ever paint again.

Still, I've finished the first coat without killing myself , I should grind out the second one tomorrow morning in time for my chiropractor appointment in the afternoon (which I'll need,) and by this time on Thursday, I'll be al through. And I will never, ever, ever paint again. As god is my witness.