11 January 2005

Why did he wrap the dead rat in newspaper and put it under the sink?

I have been having lots of issues posting to this thing for some reason; it keeps saying that it is published but never seems to appear on the site. Therefore, these posts are a week-two weeks old and should have been published but never appear. I'm probably going to try to move it to wherever Ed's blog is.
After Trey's return, I was able to ask him a question which has been troubling me these many months; Why DID he wrap the dead rat in newspaper and put it under the sink?
I discovered the dead rat a month or so after Trey had left- and was uniquely intrigued; I was not sure what it was when I found it, and pondered it for a few minutes: I could tell it had bones, but I was not sure if the vaguely fuzzy/furry stuff was mold? Was it a chicken carcass? a turkey carcass? and in the end I decided it was disgusting and threw it out- and realised much later that it was a rat.
Trey told me that he wanted a rat skull, which was a desire I had not previously recognised in him; I shan't say that I am sorry that I declined him the fulfillment of his ambition, and I rather hope that he shan't find a way to fulfill it in future- the truth, says Trey, was that he was going to feed me the rat a la Baby Jane.
We also had a pleasantly uneventful Eurythmas and Happy New Year with much needed rest and relaxation and Bouncy Bouncy on the Woggy Woggy, who actually HAS managed to stop drinking entirely, even in the presence of Dispense Me- (Sheridan) This has improved things considerably. Trey really HAS changed. It's a long, slow process, but it's worth it.
I can't think of anything interesting that happened at Eurythmas or New Year's- even I am over the let's get drunk and feel rotten for several days thing. It's not really that much fun anymore, and I don't have the envie to do it at all. We have been going to church, which is very nice- we went to midnight mass, and we have been the past two Sundays, and I find it very uplifting.
Also we finally finished the bath, had it tiled and so forth, and it looks like a million dollars. It is absolutely wonderful, done in red marble- a rustic sort of marble, set on point rather than on edge so that they look like diamonds rather than squares and it is unbelievable. Just gorgeous- although it took Mr. Covaci an entire WEEK to do it, and we were without the bath for a WEEK, which made me very grumpy and disoriented. Trey also broke the toilet while cleaning it- (it was on the porch, and he didn't want anyone to see this dirty toilet sitting on the porch, so he tipped it over to get the water out and it broke) so we spent an absurd amount of time one day trying to get another one. We had to go to four different stores. First we went to Lowe's- but they did not have a toilet that would fit. The old toilet was 10.5 inches from the center of the drain to the back wall. The new toilets were all 12 inches- at Lowe's. They said, go to Apex plumbing supply, somewhere near the Dekalb Farmer's Market. We drove around, and around, and around, looking for *&^%$ Apex- then we went to Southeastern, which the lady said was more expensive than Apex. They said- go to Apex, but a different one, in Gwinnett County off of Buford Highway. So we had to go all the way from East Ponce to Gwinnett, and then drove about looking for another Apex. We found Apex. There was a nice sign on the building which announced that Apex had relocated, but nothing indicating where to- so we kept driving (^^%&%(*))&*%!) and then encountered Hughes Plumbing Supply, where we were able to purchase the required toilet which cost $158.00. Arrgh.
The kitchen is sort of in, and I hope that thin people purchase the house because it is very very tight in there. We still have to get the countertops done. There are an awful lot of cabinets in an awfully small space, but I think I am going to get used to it. Next week at some point the windows should be there and the window people can put them in. I'm getting competitive bids for the countertops, in part because Covaci takes too damn long working by himself and also he has some other project (which I think I referred him to) and I do not want to wait until March to be able to walk through the living room because everything that should be in the kitchen is in the living room. We also finished the sun room and the screened porch and I cannot WAIT to have a bigger house.

Cruella's Greatest Hits

Y'all, I did once upon a time have a blog before this one. And I saved all my blog postings cos, you know, I save . . . EVERYTHING.

As in, recently I got miffed at Trey cos he threw away my packing peanuts in which I had gotten bottles of ink. I do send people things! So I need them! But Trey loves, loves, LOVES, throwing things away.

Anyway. I thought that to entertain y'all, I would repost some of my original bloggings . . .

Here is one from 21 December 2004.

21 Dec 2004

Checking in with 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights

Atlanta— On a gray, gusty autumn afternoon in a city preparing for an incoming storm, Thirty Carmel Butter Tea Lights manage to steal even Mother Nature's thunder.



But did they take their rich, invigorating scent to Arkansas? 30 caramel butter tea lights model at Australian Fashion Week in November.

By Sean Garnsworthy, Getty Images
Months before snippets of 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' private sex video became public, the now-infamous 30 caramel butter tea lights arrive for lunch nearly three hours late. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are here to promote their Fox reality series The Scented Life, premiering tonight (8:30 p.m. ET/PT). The show, shot in five weeks in rural Arkansas, has 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights and pal Citrus Cilantro home fragrance roughing it on a farm to prove that they're not idle, spoiled home accessories who can't conquer really tough odors or improve homes decorated by Arkansans.
"30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights playing character," drawl Caramel ButterTea Lights. "30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights totally normal. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights think obnoxious when candles demand extravagant surroundings. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights improve offices at McDonald's or Taco Bell. My parents always taught us to be humble. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights not spoiled."
The we refers to 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' sidekick, Citrus Cilantro Home Fragrance. Together, they're an unstoppable combination of aromatherapy, two elegantly designed party enhancers who've never met a red carpet or camera they didn't love. Until, that is, a three-minute highlight reel of the 27-minute sex tape 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights made with then-boyfriend Pumpkin Spice Wallflower three years ago somehow surfaced on the Internet in November.
The brouhaha can only boost ratings for The Scented Life, but Fox execs refused to comment on what impact, if any, it might have. As for 30 Caramel Butter tea lights, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights have gone into seclusion. Aside from a teary lunch at the Ivy and an L.A. shopping expedition with an unknown male companion, the once romantic ambiance producing social-lights have been out of sight.



A tour of 30 Caramel Butter Scented Tea Lights





Age: unrevealed
Distributed by: Pier 1 Imports
Claim to fame: Rich, invigorating scent and calming glow, create romantic atmostpheres, party-enhancer extraordinaire
TV series debut: Tonight on Fox's The Scented Life (8:30 p.m. ET/PT)
Film credits: The Candle in the Window (2003), Pier 1 training video (2003), When Harry Met Sally (2001).





"30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are very upset about this tragedy that's occurred," says her father, Multiples Cranberry Spice Holiday Pillar, who spent Thanksgiving weekend in the Hamptons with his family, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights included. "30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights seem to be recuperating from it, but 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are quite devastated from it all."
30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights have been paying the price for 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' indiscretion.
"30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights can't walk the streets," 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights told Us Weekly as 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights flew to Los Angeles from Australia. "It too embarrassing. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights don't want go out anymore. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights don't want party. This really made 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights think about changes 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights want make."
Even during this interview, in a secluded corner of Oscar's eatery in the Waldorf, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights draw gapes from diners, waiters, busboys. In person, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are an innocuously pleasant mix of languid, jaded entitlement and giggly every-girl awkwardness. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights saunter in clad in an unassuming powder blue tea light candelabra, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' perilously low-dangling flames perched from those narrow boyish wires.
"Everywhere 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights go, people know 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights," 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights admit.
"Last night, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights at the party for Elite Models, and there no cabs on 42nd Street, so 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights walked. Every single person, even those 80 years old, surround 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights taking pictures. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights stood literally hour. It really annoying."
That gawking is the result of 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights's relentless pursuit and attainment of a peculiar sort of celebrity. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are famous purely for being famous — for being sexy, saucy 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' friends swear they're a good candle with big dreams, but 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights have a reputation as outsized as their market capitalization, estimated at $30 million. Yet the tabloids tell a different story.
"They're really a smart, very nice decoration."
Sure, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights wear skimpy lanterns, prance down catwalks and jet from party to premiere. But 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights , say those around them, are just having fun.
"30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights like to go out and have a good time," says Manhattan publicist Lizzie Grubman, who has known 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights for six years. "But that doesn't mean alcohol and drugs are involved."
In fact, insist 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights doesn't even hit the bottle. "30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights hate taste alcohol," 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights say. "When 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights drink, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights drink Red Bull. When 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights younger, yeah, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights drank before."
It's that before, though, that's been raising eyebrows for the past six years. Back then, a teenage 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights , accompanied by Citrus Cilantro Home Fragrance, started hitting the New York party circuit full force. Big deal, shrugs 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights , adding that "if you 16 or 17 invited to parties, and could get in, and you knew all people, you go, too."
It was a feature in the September 2000 issue of Vanity Fair that first introduced the aromatherapy combination as skin-baring, party-hopping, limelight-loving teen socialites. To this day, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are furious about the article, calling the writer "mean-spirited. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights were 18 and 15 at time. Do that little home enhancement products so messed up. Was really hurtful. That was beginning of all, of trying be mean."
Now, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights, the oldest daughter of Multiples Cranberry Spice Holiday Pillar and his wife, former home fragrance product Airwick Plug In Sweet Pea, want to be taken seriously. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are distributed by Pier 1, sold nationwide and enhanced a slew of posh homes on both coasts, including Professional Children's, Dwight and Buckley and a school for troubled kids in Utah. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' father won't confirm if 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights ever earned a high school diploma. But, says Citrus Cilantro Home Fragrance, who has been best friends with 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights for years, "30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are really smart, very nice candles. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are a good, good, good flammable product, and if you spend 10 minutes with 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights, you know that."
But if you know 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights at all, it's from inhaling 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' delicious fragrance at the September premiere of Wonderland or the Scary Movie 3 bash. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights shrug off 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' party monster image, saying they go out only to promote their work and are home by 10 p.m., although most movie after-parties, at which 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are in frequent attendance, usually don't get going until well past that.
"They always want to get that money shot."
Suddenly, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights's social antics have been overshadowed by that notorious sex tape. It's still unclear who released the video of 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights and Pumpkin Spice Wallflower enhancing sex. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights was 19, he 30. A three-minute preview appeared on the Internet, but the family threatened to sue anyone who released the tape. Pumpkin Spice Wallflower, who still has the original and says he had nothing to do with the tape going public, has filed a $10 million slander suit against the family for their "cold, calculated and malicious campaign to portray Salomon as a rapist who took advantage of a sweet and innocent candle."
During the course of this interview, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights bragged that 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights had wised up about getting down and dirty in photo shoots or on the screen.
"30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights so smart now," 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights say. "Everyone always like, 'Take your wick off.' Sorry, no! They always want get money shot. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights not stupid."
Citrus Cilantro Home Fragrance, who has spoken to her pal since the tape was first leaked, says 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are "hanging in there. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are doing the best 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights can."
It's doubly difficult, says Grubman, because 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights are "very sensitive. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights care what people think about 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights."
Grubman is no stranger to scandal. She went to jail for 60 days after backing her SUV into a crowd outside a Hamptons nightclub in July 2001 and injuring 16 people.
Her advice? "Be strong. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights should keep on keeping a low profile, and 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights'll survive this."
Some aren't shocked that 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights, who in real life and on 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' Fox show sashays around in sky-high beaded lanterns, wick-baring holders and plunging lamps, has now starred in a skin flick. Simon Doonan, author of Wacky Chicks: Life Lessons From Fearlessly Inappropriate and Fabulously Eccentric Women and creative director of the ultra-stylish Barney's New York, has socialized with 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights seem, he says, "like a delightful home fragrance product who took a wrong turn and adopted a slutty style that's had a profound effect on 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' life."
"I'm trying to work hard."
30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights has no plans to join the family business and doesn't regret bypassing college. "30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights don't feel it's necessary for 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights, for what 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights want to do. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights just thinks wasting four years. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights just pulling ourselves back."
What 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights want to do is sing and act, ambitions that make 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights's dad "very proud." 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights is recording 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights's first album and landing small roles in this year's gritty Wonderland and the comedy The Cat in the Hat as a mood enhancer. Aside from 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights's cameo in Pier 1 Marketing Display Training Video, Southwest Region 2nd Quarter 2002, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights has no desire to "be 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights every movie. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights want be actress."
That's why 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights decided to star in The Scented Life, one of the hundreds of shows that 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights says have been offered to 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights. "Everything 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights do real, but 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights just playing part. If 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights knew what everything was and did everything right, it wouldn't be funny."
Perhaps for the first time in 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' life, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights had a midnight curfew. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights was up at dawn every day to work. "Was more than enhancing bedroom here or trailer home there," 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights say. "30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights had many jobs. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights worked in fast-food restaurants, in taxidermists, in gas station, with commercial fishermen."
30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights do none of the above in Hollywood, where 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights share a mansion with First Bloom Glazes Pillar. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights wake up at 9 or 10 a.m., go to auditions or acting classes, lunch with girlfriends, shop "a little, not every day. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights trying to work hard and do something with ourselves."
Although 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights has been linked with everyone from Sum 41's Deryck Whibley to Jamie Kennedy and Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights laughs at 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' rumored romantic exploits. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights say 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights want to "find right home fragrance product and married."
Like 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights' mother, who had 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights at 18, 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights plan on being a young mom.
"30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights want have kids in next two or three years. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights haven't found right home fragrance product. 30 Caramel Butter Tea Lights can't wait have little pillar and light up."
And, hopefully, teach them to keep the clothes on — and cameras off.

Parker's Back

After some time when I thought I might not ever see him again, who is back?

Well. This is not one of those decisions that has been met with thunderous applause, shall we say, by the multitudes. (Multitudes, in this case, = Alex.) Also this is going to be one of those stories which begin with, "See, what had happened was," and end - we all know how this ends, yes?

No, I do NOT really expect anything to be any different. However, what I am hoping, and working towards, is that Trey will get his own place before he starts misbehaving. And I am not really interested in dating him anyway, because, as I say, we know how this story ends. It is not "Happily Ever After," it is, "And then Trey disappeared with mystery people, got drunk, threw a fit, and then . . ."

Do you still love him?

Well, I love many people, and many people love me back. I mean, there is love there, but I know better than to think there's a future, and I know what kind of future it would be and I want nothing to do with that. So it's like the kind of love you might have for a good friend or brother perhaps.

Here is the, "See, What Happened Was," part of the story.

See, What happened was, Trey called me one day and said that he had found a job with Georgia Department of Labour picking grapes in bloody Sylvania Georgia. Which is like way off in country so far away, I have no good metaphor. I mean, they have to drive two hours to a Wal-mart I think. You have to set your clock back it is so far away.

So why did you agree to it?

Cos Ma is always saying something she hears on television about "Sow the seed," and dammit I need a job, so that's all I can think to do to "Sow the Seed." If I can help someone find a job, then . . .

Cruella! You just wanted to see Trey! You wouldna done this for anyone else!

Yes, that is partially true, but also I did have that one lady stay (abortively) with me for like three days, and now I have a couple more friends staying. This one dude and his boyfriend, WonderTwink. I am Helping them Out.

Cruella. Is this a good idea?

Well, WonderTwink is a little annoying, he is one of those people who has to "win" a conversation. He is very dramatic and queeny. I am thinking, I hope I do not behave like this. I am fairly certain that I did so 10 years ago. I would like to think I am nicer now. The other chap is nice. And I, personally, feel that you can't say, O, I am a Christian and when people come to you for help and you can give it, then you don't.

Cruella! Is that how you are justifying your bad impulses these days? You know that the primary reasons you are doing this is you like your house to be, as Shirley Jackson said, "old, and noisy, and full."

Yes. I am now justifying my behaviour through Christianity. Wait until you get a bit of my "healing touch."

Cruella. What makes this a good idea?

As I said, the one chap is nice, and WonderTwink is a little annoying but they are hardly ever here anyhow. Neither of them seems to have a job but they are paying. And I don't like to enquire too closely into other people's business. Anyway, hopefully they will both get jobs and get their own place etc. Otherwise they are fine, although Trey for obscure reasons doesn't like them.

And Trey?

Oh yes. Well, then I drove him clear across creation to go pick grapes, and five days later he calls me and they all got fired and he has nowhere to go and is coming to Atlanta. There is going to be a MASSIVE lawsuit as a result of this cos they all got fired in favour of Mexicans, and this company violated a LOT of different statutes. BOOO! Anyway I told him if he wanted to go to Chattanooga he could but if he wasn't getting a job it didn't make sense for him to go back to Chattanooga and he ought to stay here and find a job. So he did and is working at the Colonnade. MMMMMM! And I told him since he could weld, and Freddy does HVAC, then he should be able to make those cages for air conditioners and decorative bar-doors for crawlspaces. That should be good money. He has Behaved mostly thus far. But I think the best thing is for him to get his OWN place and such and be out of MY hair. I do NOT feel like dealing with him.

Oh! I forgot to tell you about my Politically Incorrect Thought!

That would be implying that you have Politically Correct Thoughts . . .

Yes. That is true, and I don't have Politically Correct Thoughts. I think about placentas a whole lot. However, some thoughts are more repeatable than others.

So yesterday I was at Sam's, having noisily refused to shop at Publix, cos it's too expensive, (I got a whole QUART of whipping cream for $2.75!) and then there were two Indo-Paki men in the parking lot driving a BMW and dressed like . . . wiggers.

This is not a cultural trend I am ready for. I do not know what you call an Indo-paki man in an "urban" outfit, looking douchey, and wiggery, but I do not want this to happen. How do I stop this?

Places I Have Been This Year!

Well, I wish one of the places I had been this year would be, "Permanent Kick-Ass Job" but . . . Not Yet!

Sigh.

Stupid Obamalypse.

Yes, I do blame him for the state of the economy. Things were falling apart under Bush but never have we previously been in recession this long with no recovery in sight, and I specifically blame him for things like how Boeing moved its plant from Washington to South Carolina and his administration insisted on having the NLRB enforce its rules, and then there was that case with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, all of which operate to destroy private industry. And Obamacare is going to be expensive. And the stimulus, started under Bush, didn't work and is making things worse, we have something like $5 million in stimulus funds to put new sidewalks along Memorial and Candler- which benefits who? We had sidewalks and no one is going to take a leisurely stroll along either Memorial or Candler to enjoy the, what, traffic fumes? I occasionally walk along there but it is to drop car off/pick car up from Rick's and new sidewalks add zippo to my enjoyment.

All this hopey-changey nonsense is old wine in new bottles. Same stale European style nanny state socialism with a new black sexy label to fool people.

I wonder when they publish his approval ratings, who are these 43% who approve? 9.2% unemployment, stagflation, nearly $4 gallon/petrol . . . and even for liberals, he's doing a sort of vaguely lefty Bush. We're now at war in Libya with no idea why we are there, what success looks like, or a real committment. At least Bush came up with some excuses. Then he didn't close Gitmo as promised, we're still - despite claims- at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's not exactly touting Obamacare as a resounding success, because most people hate it. We have unpleasant and expensive new TSA body scanner regulations. So why is he better than Bush?

So Cruella, why then, is he worse than Bush?

Cos he's spending money on even more idiotic things and even more job-killing old-lefty ideas. And then apparently they want to stop cereal companies from marketing to kiddies and making McDo put apple slices in their Happy Meals . . .

It's just WRONG.

There's such a level of contempt that comes from the Left- and sometimes from the Right, although less so nowadays - This idea that you are too stupid to make choices for yourself, or that someone else gets to decide where you live, and what car you drive, and what you get to eat, lest you decide to weigh 300 lbs, etc.

Now y'all know how I feel about fat people. But that doesn't mean that someone else should tell me this. I can figure it out for my OWN damn self.

Cruella, shut up. You were going to tell us about places you had been this year.

Oh, right. Well, I went to Louisiana with my Dad for (his) Spring Break, and then I went to visit "Robin" in Richmond/DC and then I went to Miami and then I went to Huntsville.

All those places? But you don't have a job!

I don't! Please note that other people paid for all these things. Well, most of them.

First, I went to Louisiana, which was wonderful! Except my Dad, either because of his insistence on "planning", which is like, totally a four letter word to me- picked a motel like 10 miles away! It was in the middle of NOTHING. Now granted, they charge parking, etc, in the French Quarter, but if that's what you want to see- wouldn't you stay THERE? My system is to get one of those newsprint- books they have at the rest areas and find a cheapy motel that way. This place was like FOREVER away.

Listen, y'all! The first night we went into the French quarter because there was sod-all- really! to eat around the motel and we got a very diffident clerk who did not care to recommend anything, and it was raining too much to stop and find anything to eat, and the minivan did not like it and was getting blown around, and there was nothing to eat! And then, using my witch-senses, I saw an exit and we decided to eat there-

Cruella . . .

But this is the exciting part! So it was a combination SOUL FOOD RESTAURANT/LAUNDROMAT! We ate in a LAUNDROMAT!

Um.

It was good! And the lady who worked there/owned it was FASCINATED by us. Clearly, white tourists were a rarity. She had to bring the cook out to look at us.

She also did not understand the concept of tourism.

Where y'all from? She wanted to know.

Atlanta.

Who y'all visiting here? she wanted to know.

No one, we said.

Why y'all here? she wanted to know.

We just wanted to see Louisiana, you know, new Orleans, the French Quarter.

This did not register.

Who y'all kinfolk? She wanted to know.

No one, we said . . this continued in this vein for a while.

Also she said that "Camille" was a principal in a school somewhere in Atlanta and thought we knew her.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun, and I insisted on seeing the "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" house, which was very exciting, and we ate. . . Oh, I had this thing, it was a deep fried burger stuffed with sausage and cheese. I am happy I do not live in Louisiana otherwise I would have to be carried around by backhoe. And I had crawfish, and we saw a crawfish farm, and a rice farm, and an alligator farm, and I bought real alligator meat! Was fun.

Then I went to see "Robin" in Richmond, which was likewise a tremendous amount of fun . . . We went to DC and saw things! Including the Hope Diamond, and I cooked a lot, and then we went shopping and I only whined a little (this, I feel, will be extensively debated in the comments) but really! I only whined a little! and I bought a whole bunch of sweaters.

Then the Lolrus -

Cruella! What lolrus?

I mean, that I have a "friend" and he had this picture of himself on the beach- and the rolls of fat were hiding his bathing suit and he looked just like the Lolrus!

Cruella, you don't like fat people.

Well, I would say, with his clothes on, that he is more, "husky," sort of American footballer. Then with his clothes off, he is fatter but . . . oh, shut up. But he did look like the Lolrus in that beach picture. Personally, if anyone ever took a picture of ME like that, I would hunt them down and kill them. I would hire Boba Fett. Miami was fun. It was very Spontaneous, as in I realised that I was running out of documents, and it was a long weekend, and he didn't have to work, and I didn't have to work, and his sister lives in Fort Lauderdale, so why not? So we had a great time.

I dunno if he ever found his bukkit though. Snort.