what do you want?

What do you want for Christmas?
A little doggie with a rhinestone collar?
A gift certificate to Barnes and Noble?
A backhoe?
A moment to yourself?
A million dollars?
A new love?
A vegetable peeler that really works?
A trip to Vegas?
What do you want?

i'm sorry

OK, I'm sorry. I'm SORRY. OK? So I didn't post today. So what do you want from my life? Sometimes I have other things to do and nothing to say. I'm SORRY. I said so, right? I am really really sorry. But there is just nothing in my eyes or my brain to show you. I'm just boring. OK? So give me a BREAK already. I'm SORRY.

night and day

How does this work?
In November on the island I have to struggle to stay awake until 8:00 pm, while in New York I have to force myself to bed at 1:00 am.
When do you sleep?

da bronx, baby

Yes, La Otra Rubia has moved into Dolores's building, lock and stock and Veuve Cliquot. They began with mimosas in the morning (well, it wasn't really the morning—Dolores doesn't get up that early) and moved on to the famed Yankee Tavern in the afternoon. Exploring the neighborhood. An expedition to the grocery store was cancelled due to lack of oomph. And fortunately, the firecracker sisters (above) left town before the vice police came after us all.

surprise

He was pretty surprised. Wolfen had organized a party at DJ-man's bar and was wondering how to suggest they go there, when he suggested it himself over dinner. There were presents and carrot cake and mulled cider, which I took down in a cab. The party got started kind of late and seems to be continuing (devolving into a sleepover, with Spogga on the couch) in the living room this morning

stone soup

The children prepare their own Thanksgiving dinner.

this year's thanksgiving lineup

Female: 11
Male: 6
Males under three: 2
Sets of twins: 1
LBGT: (that I know of) 2
Psychiatrists: 1
Under 25: 6
Big media employees: 2
Female car mechanics: 1
Chinese-Americans: 1
Latinas; 1
Gasner/Dowling clan members: 7
Aliens: 1
Parents: 6
Blonds: 6
Strangers: 1
Native Americans: 0 (though a possibility for next year)

We still don't know about the toilet seat mosaic artist or the high school friends.

staging

Movin on up. Wolfen's room looks like this (below), as we prepare for the feast and for her move.
And my room looks like that (right), because a gal's gotta

run her business from somewhere in the interim.

I can't describe how the living room looks. Suffice it to say that the Cub is packing, too.


And now, I will go buy a turkey.
And move the truck.

it's a miracle

Our Lady of Lourdes appeared on the kitchen table in New York City.
She arrived by post, having suffered a bit of fluid loss through her screw-on crown, with the result that the US Postal service is now holier than— well, certainly than thou.
J sent her hoping that she would cure my knee. I was hoping that she could find me some work.
Now that would be a miracle.

and the winner is. . .

OK, thanks for playing WHAT'S IN THE TRUCK?
As you can see, DaDa was correct about the banana. Actually, there were two bananas at the beginning of the trip and one and a half by the end, seen here. So that's 5 points for being right and a bonus of 5 points for being first.
Dada 10
Wolfen, too, scored on the banana issue, for 5 points. She gets an additional 5 for condiments, though she might have specified four different types of wasabi, two boxes of sea salt from France, a bottle of ketchup and several mustards.
Wolfen 10
CBA, hmm. She was right about the power tools (though actually it was just one screw gun and the girlie set of manual tools my sister gave me last Christmas) for 5 points. And I probably SHOULD have had an air conditioner and a few chairs, though I didn't, for 20 points. But CBA loses points because the question was not what was in HER truck (which she only bought because she was jealous of me) but what was in MY truck! And that is so outrageous that she loses 15 big ones.
CBA 10.
Dangerman was right about the beer for 5 points, but he had something of CBA's problem about Jimmy Hoffa in that I suspect he simply wished that I had Hoffa in my truck so that he could find the body and put it all over Fox News. Doesn't he understand that this question is about me, not about him? So I'll give him 5 for trying.
Dangerman 10
Certain Mother is wrong on one point. I DID have a lipstick, and a pretty fancy one that Desperado bought me at Jeffrey's in the Meat Market for going on TV. As for the girdle, that's outrageous. She get's 15 points for that suggestion, minus 5 for being WRONG WRONG WRONG about the lipstick.
Certain Mother 10
DR was right, I SHOULD have had those darned tomato-soup coffee cups. But I didn't have room when I finished loading 50 white dinner plates and 50 place settings of cheesy Ikea silverware, along with 15 wine glasses and 16 strands of fairy lights for that next big party. And BTW, DR, did you notice your vase in the tricked-out kitchen of the new place?
DR 10
Cowgirl. This girl was playing for real! Laptop 5. Tools 5. How-to books? Ixnay. I have very little left to do. Other books (a copy of The Marriage of Zones Three, Four and Five by Doris Lessing among them)5. Coffee maker? Nope. I had the last pound of Zabar's coffee, but at last count I owned two Chemex coffee pots, two electric setups and a Melita or two, so I don't travel with em. Camera, check, for 5. Underwear 5. Water 5 (you can see it in the Ozarka bottle above). Phone 5. deducting 10 points for the how-to book and the coffee maker, that still leaves Cowgirl the rodeo queen.
Cowgirl 25! Yippie ty yi!

None of y'all guessed the koa wood ukulele, the ham knife, the brass platter on permanent loan from 4th floor Web Guy, the bushel of apples, potatoes and onions, the cooler full of frozen foodstuffs including a lot of veggie burgers, the two pumpkins and the box of things to return to Home Depot, but hey, thanks for playing WHAT'S IN THE TRUCK? I look forward to your suggestions next year.

Oh, the prize. The prize for the 6 runners up, with 10 points apiece, is being able to stay in the New York apartment. Preferably NOT ALL AT ONCE. And the prize for Cowgirl? She gets to stay a whole lot longer!

point b to point a

Yes, folks, it's time for that semi annual game once again of
WHAT'S IN THE TRUCK?
It's harder this year because--yes--it's been raining, so everything is in garbage bags.
Still, I am sure there are things you could guess right--and some things you would never ever expect to find being carted from the island to New York City.
So, let's play WHAT'S IN THE TRUCK?

5 points for each correct answer
10 points for answers that should be correct
15 points for outrageous answers

Employees of Claudia's Surf City not permitted
Prizes to be announced

the other side of the story

house proud

If you could only see what the other half of the room looks like, you would understand photography as illusion much better. Let's just say it is not floored.

this just in

Here is a glimpse of a new earring collection by Wolfen at AZU. She says,
"This piece, 'Silver, Brass and Glass,' from the Hapless Collection, will be featured at the "Are You Nosi" Event in Providence on December 2nd.
Why hapless? We're nosi. And we want to know what they cost.

godzilla invades fjord

OK. So it's raining, and polyurethane takes longer to dry.

another triumph for geekdom

T-Shirt Turns Air Guitar Into Music

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Scientists announced Monday that they have developed a high-tech T-shirt that turns the strumming of an air guitar into music. The T-shirt has motion sensors built into its elbows that pick up the wearer's arm motions and relay them wirelessly to a computer which interprets them as guitar rifts, said Richard Helmer, an engineer who leads the research team from the government's Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

That would be "guitar riffs," however. And I think it might work better if the sensors were on the belly of the T-shirt.

perhaps you'd like to know. . .

We are reliably informed that the Fox News tower in midtown Manhattan has bedbugs. Dangerman reports that they originated on the VIP couch. . .La Otra Rubia has moved into the just-floored apartment she bought in Dolores's building. . . Angelina is in Georgia making everyone terribly jealous by pursuing the purchase of a large, loaded midlife crisismobile, a Chevy Silverado pickup to compliment her Tiffany diamonds. . . J returned to California in time to vote, leaving her mate in France attempting to install the new Viking stove in the under-renovation kitchen (photos upon request). . . The Block Island social scene has been etiolated (?) by the departure of Mr. Piss-on-the-ants and his bride, Ber-Ber. It will be further depleted by the desertion today of Wolfen and the Cub, bearing a cratefull of wedding gifts and much firedancing equipment, and leaving the Architect happy with a new portfolio of photographs and me with a new kitchen floor to be urethaned. My own departure next week will be the less mourned as I have decided to forego hosting further dinner entertainments.
Please post your own items below.

puzzled

doing floors

yay!

It seems that neither Rhode Island nor New York needed my vote. Shoulda moved to Virginia.

sold!

moving house

now what?

Faithful readers, I know I've been boring you lately.
There is the post-construction slump, the post-wedding slump and, perhaps most importantly, the this-island-is-too small factor which has led me deeper into vanilla prose and prosaic photography. I know you need a little hot sauce.
So what do you want?
Nude pictures?
More pet photos?
Gossip?
A return to the ascerbic?
Intimate details about the lives of people you may or may not know? Intimate details of your own lives?
Pictures of La Rubia's construction site?
A guide to feng shui?
The latest on the internet affair with the MTF Lakota?
The most recent installment in that continuing family saga, "East of Westchester"?
What's going on in Oaxaca?
The sociology of blended families?
Dangerman's latest health report?
Yesterday's beer count?
Or I could just pass my remaining days with the specific goal of not boring you and report the truth.
My life is in your hands, dear readers. Do you ever wonder whether your participation in this blog is just a little, shall we say, passive?

meet cute

Wolfen and the Cub were headed north along the Eastern Seaboard.
Angelina and I were headed south.
The twain, or rather two twains, met by the side of the road in New Haven for a few minutes of face time.

the boat

We're down to two or three boats a day. And today, I'll be on one of them.

happy new year