Molly Goatwax

Best Wishes

Not quite sundown, but here it is!

sludge head

Blah! I'm not feeling very lively today. Something about the short days filled with chores makes me sleepy and susceptible to the blues. We are doing a software conversion at the farm, which wouldn't be so challenging if my brain were less filled with sludge. Hubby asked if we are having "issues". I told him, no, just being short and cranky. (Now there's a set-up line if I ever heard one!) This afternoon the 7 year old gets released from school early, so he is taking her down to East Baltimore to participate in some community service. You know where I'll be headed.

Black Ice

Being in a temperate zone, our daytime temperatures are usually above freezing, while at night they dip below. This melt and freeze cycling gives us fresh ice on the roads every morning. I'm ok with that now. The first winter I worked on the farm, I was also a new driver. I had heard of black ice but not experienced it. One morning I arrived to my co-worker's question; "How was your drive over all that black ice?" "Oh, is THAT what that was! I thought something was wrong with my steering wheel!" Later that same winter I knocked over one of the farmer's stone walls, not a mark on my tank at all...

Photography Assignment

Here is my older daughter, hard at work on her school project.

clowns

The 22 year old daughter is persuing a degree in photography. To this end, her final project for this semester involves documenting her daily routines dressed as a clown. This has been going on for some time and last night the 7 year old asked when her sister would look normal. We told her as somberly as we could that her sister was undergoing a lifestyle decision, that she was trying to express her inner being and that she will always be dressed as a clown. This threw the youngster into utter dismay. "Why can't she just look like that on the weekends?" I told her to be tolerant and tell her big sister that she loves her anyway, which she did, but the younger would not let the elder play on her trampoline.

Tah Dah!

Here is my tree, in front of my painting, "Analogies; 1.Bugsy 2.Bombs 3.Burger" Ummm...I've figured out imaging from my own hardware. I need a scanner.

Inroads

I feel as though I am getting things accomplished. I called for an estimate on getting our gutter fixed. Some finances company sent to the farm a whopping big check for a client we never heard of, and if this check doesn't get directed to the right bank, some poor soul in Mississippi could lose thier house. The company insists that the check is ours and refuses to consider that theyv'e made a mistake. I managed to track down a phone number for the client and told them to set some one's butt on fire before that happens. I even screwed up enough courage to make inroads on contacting the right person at the Visionary Art Museum in hopes of landing a spot for my valentines in the gift shop there. I seem to be much more hesitant about my concerns than a stranger's across the country...but, dag! The only thing imperiling my house at the moment is the hanging gutter.

Sunday last

Now, if I were one of the most wanted fugitives on the face of the earth, with 750k in my pockets, I think I would have quietly altered my appearance and left the country. That said, yesterday we woke up to a new coat of glop outside. It made me feel like being a domestic goddess. It took me about an hour to set up the arrangement of light-up porcelain houses and pull out the sculpture that serves as a tree, fluff it up, add more tinsel and plug it in. In its 19th year of service, you can't even tell there's no tree under all that tinsel, just coat hangers on armatures. Hubby keeps complaining that we need a REAL tree, but I don't see him chopping one down and dragging it home. The 7 year old by now is so used to this makeshift tree that she thinks it silly to buy a new one every year, anyway. I also cooked a fine roast beef dinner, complete with gravy, parsley noodles, zuchinni and parsnips. I'd cook more often if I didn't have to clean up for an hour fore and aft....bring on the strudel!

Jobs

You don't want to hear about the shifting tides of fluid in my head, so I am pondering Miss Lis's Thursday Three here:
1: What's the worst job you've ever had?
Jeeze, so many...the underwear department at Stewart's? Modeling cold and naked for instructors who pose you like studio furniture? Assistant to an insurance company secretary? No...copy girl for a caustic and abusive drug addict who slammed me into a glass table with her giant rear. I didn't go back after that, but she lived across the street. When she heard that I had quit, she leaned out her window, spilling out of her negligee, make up all smeared -screaming obscenities. I wish I had been holding a camera.
2: Ever been laid off?
Yes.
3. What's your dream job?
If I didn't have to work for money, I would go back to clerking at the used book store. I could wear rags, paint, drink beer and be a smart-ass in addition to unlimited reading. Better yet, I'd own the bookstore.

The feds

Over the past few days my post, FR 4615-F-02, ( in which I complain about the Federal Register) has been getting an undue amount of attention. I wonder if I'm being investigated. Move over, Enimem, I'm the new threat to national security.