Molly Goatwax

For Pam: walking

I'm not an elbow pumpin' power walker. I'm more what you might call a three mile meanderer. My goal in March when I set out each day was to reduce the belly and back flab hanging over the waist of my pants and doing something as alien to my body as sit-ups was out of the question. After a month, though I felt much better and my color and circulation were quite improved, I asked my husband if he could see any difference. He noticed that I had been standing up straiter. After two months, my pants fit a bit better and he did say that I seemed to have lost weight. At the end of the third month, it occurred to me that my adipose tissues didn't quiver so violently as I waddled along and now that we're at the end of the fourth, old hippies are trying to pick me up. Because of the car fumes and the athletes shoving geriatrics like me aside on the main boulevard, I like to stroll the shady lanes tucked between the traveled streets and the ancient, public staircases between the stately homes each morning. Being nosey, I find it highly instructive to ponder the rich peoples' cast offs on bulk trash and recycle days. Every day I see something new. Rabbits, foxes and yards full of Alfas are old hat. Last week I saw a flicker. And my feet.

Habanero how I love you

I'm not a big fan of ants, though there are worse pests, but when I found them marching up my kitchen wall last week, I wigged. I wiped and scrubbed with vinegar and they came back. Then I screamed at everyone who may or may not have left a dirty spoon on the counter. (I know they did! I didn't! Ahhhh! Don't put that there! Rinse it off!!!!) The ant traps were ignored. Remembering something about hot pepper repelling them, I put an African sauce heavy on the habanero on a paper towel and wiped the woodwork they favored. The ants havn't crossed that territory again, but hubby complained about my using his food as insecticide. Not to be critical about what he eats or anything. So! I bought for myself an xxxxtra hot pepper sauce. Not much besides the habaneros and some pineapple juice. I put a spoon of it in a spray bottle with a little water and wiped up the marching ants as if they were a crayon mark. The wall they might come in by got zotzed. So did the back of the sink, where they partied like drunken sailors. The aerosol made me sneeze and a drop of the sauce on a lump of cheese burned all the way through when I sampled it. Now hubby has reaffirmed his view that I'm insane, but the ants went away.

Goat Action

Dag! I've been so unchained from the computer that I almost missed Goats in Action Month! And what is my mission if not to celebrate the utility, nay, the necessity of our friend the goat? Miss Lis, as if to remind me, sent along a link to a news item about some hard working landscaping goats. They have saved countless lives and billions of dollars in property loss from wild fires out west. And then! The mystical white ibex, an albino mountain goat from ancient lore, was spotted in Italy! The Earth has birthed a new Goddess! Humankind is saved! If this isn't a sure sign that goats are taking over the world for its own good, check this out:

Picture courtesy Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation

As any parent numbed into senselessness by overexposure to beer and Teletubbies can testify, this heroic goat is indeed doing the world a favor by consuming this parasitic plant life. So let's all hail our not-no-humble friend, the goat. For the few days that remain, celebrate Goats in Action Month. I think I will really live it up, spread the joy and cause delivery of a pair of Nubian Pygmies to my sister in Wisconsin. She really needs a few goats. You should order your mom a one or two.

shuffles feet...

In moving my studio to the vacant house in Remington, I plowed through a box of fifteen year old gas and electric bills, bank statements and insurance policies. The old letters were saved (Gosh, Miss Lis! I know you from, like, forever!) and bits of poems rose up to the surface. This one is titled "we8"

                                                         we'll make money raising ferrets

                                                              feed them all cream cheese and carrots

                                                    they'll toast and sing our merits

                                                      from their rusty little garrets

                                                    as they pet and tend the ferrets

                                                raised on cream cheese and carrots

And it was typed on a piece of brown paper bag. Yeah, well. As it follows that I can't get a gallery, is it any surprise I don't have a current publisher? In the fullness of time, I will plot and the launch another offensive.

                                            We'll pour bean soup through your mail slot

                                      and then kick the empty soup pot

                                            away down to the corner lot

                                      We'll feed soup to your wee tot

                                  with her mouth up to the mail slot

                                      then discard the empty soup pot

It could use some work.

Life in the city

Do you read "Police Blotter"? Do you follow the unceasing reports about the erosion of civilty in modern society? If you live in Baltimore, your eyes must glance across the homicide ticker every once in a while. That is, if you haven't moved yet. And while I may feel insulated as I am up in the northern reaches, it's items like this published in today's Baltimore Sun that make me understand how people can get so frustrated they just leave:

Western

Burglary // On June 13, someone broke into a house under renovation in the 800 block of N. Fulton Ave. through a rear door and stole a second-floor bathtub valued at $350. Five days later, police believe the same person broke into the house again and stole another bathtub, also valued at $350.

The man

Ack! Ack! Tax Assessors! In the garden! They came at our friend the electrician from behind the bushes! He simply denied owning the property, dropped his tools and evaporated. This is what happens when you try and straiten out your listed zoning designation with the city a year after the board changed it, the gummint is creeping about the footpaths and we can't crack any jokes about barricading ourselves in and defending our rights to the last one standing because the windows are open and well... I hope they don't tax the rhododendrons.

TCB

When Hubby saw the letter I wrote to the mortgage company, he called them up himself. In just a few minutes they promised to lower our monthly payment to the original, agreed apon, amount and send us a check (after they pay this half's property tax) for the escrow overage. Why couldn't I do that? Now I've got to write a letter to the gas and electric company.

Stop me before I mail this

Dear Twiddlebutt and Woo-woo,

You charge me too much property tax! Shortly after I settled my mortgage with you rocket scientists, the amount billed for escrow went up almost five hundred dollars a month! The nimrods who answer the phones for you in Bangladesh don’t know anything about it! I try and try to explain that my taxes disburse twice a year and that I had prepaid at settlement a good fourteen months tax and a whole year’s insurance up front, but when I called to enquire, I was simply told that there was an escrow shortage! That don’t fly, bubba! What did you do with my money?! You owe me big time! Please reference account #oxoxx. Please also find attached my property tax bill and my listing with the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation along with my settlement sheet from the purchase of my house showing these items paid...then send me the check for the overage you've been collecting. Kisses and all that!

Sincerely,

Signature

Some girls go in for a manicure

I noticed that the temporary tags for my newer car expire today and found out that the saucerful of nuts and bolts Mr. Beetz gave me to affix the permanent plates were all wrong. Of course. I managed to put the rear plate on good enough not to shake off on the way to Cockeysville and went to the SAAB dealership. You can't sneeze in there without it costing a couple hundred dollars, but I went in the rear bottom door to "Parts" and told them I couldn't get my plates on and they fixed me up real good. If OSHA didn't mandate steel toed boots, they'd be wearing sandals with socks. I got a bracket to put on the front fender, a bunch of black enameled screws that don't need a star shaped driver and custom tire valve stem caps. Now I'm legal and now I'm stylin'. Oooh Oooh, baby.

And life goes on

Hubby got tired of waiting for me to get up off my seat and go to Las Vegas, so he's jetting back to Baltimore right now. He told me to call him up before he boarded his flight and I did, just as I got out of my initial appointment at the titty smashers. "They found a blob, so I have to go back in an hour when they get back from the tumor board." I told him. (Personally, I think "the Tumor Board" must be their pet name for the hospital cafeteria) Oh, no, OMG, how big, etc. He was all on the edge. Then he had to get on his airplane, so I couldn't call him back to say they don't think the blob's bad, so I'm telling you first.