Sisyphus calls in a pro

Today while I stood before my empty liquor cabinet, and dreading spending another day ripping canvas off the walls of the thing, the phone rang.

The good news is that it was Hugo, my drywall guy.  For small projects, I can take care of stuff.  But when it comes to ceilings, I call in the pro because I am not stupid. 

And this is where 6'10" tall Hugo comes in, and myself of Sisyphus Contracting bows out.

I had talked to Hugo about redoing the second floor hall and bathroom ceilings, because they are a 95 years old and cracked and look like bad ass.   Hugo said he could replaster (you'd have a wave instead of a crack) or he could sheet rock it over.  Hugo, besides being one hell of a nice guy, is also really affordable.  Everyone should have a Hugo.   So I opted for the drywall fix, primarily because plaster takes a really long time to dry and joint compund doesn't.  And for his trouble, Hugo is charging me $250 dollars. 

That's the good news.

The bad news is that Hugo was going to get to it starting TOMORROW at 8AM to start the job. Yikes!

So much for my plans.  As for the Liquor cabinet, its running ahead of itself, so all in all, things could have been a real clusterfuck, and they are not.

Anyway, if this is the worst thing that happens to me this week, I'm in good shape.

Who you calling Sisyphus?

Cousin Millie took a swig of her after dinner coffee and said to us, "You guys have such a great old house.  I just love old cottages like this.  All the charm and the wood work.  New houses like mine just don't have the character like these cottages do."

I've always thought Millie was a moron.  She's not the one who has to deal with the upkeep of an older home.  All these lovely old features take time and money, and there is no such thing as a quick fix.

When I bought the place eighteen years ago, and it was a spry Seventy-Six year old house, I thought I would fix it up and move on.  No such luck.  The house, as it turns out, suited me and it was affordable.  Then the husband came along and it suited him, and that suited me.  The house has suited us well and served us well.  But nothing lasts forever.

But a lot of the changes have been made in the past are now old enough, and worn enough that they need to be redone.   And Miss House celebrates its 95 year this year. So we have lived in my house long enough to find ourselves on the verge of a remodeling of the previous remodeling.

This is where Sisyphus comes in.  Oh, he who was doomed to roll a rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down, just so he can start the whole spectacle again, and over and over.

Most of the projects have gone well, and haven't been exciting, in a bad way.

Now, I am tackling the worst part of any old house - the basement stairs and the side hall.  This is the part of the house that got the least decorating help in 95 years and bore the brunt of being the cousin of the cellar. So for 95 years, people have been trudging, stomping and climbing the steps to the second floor.  After a while, your plaster walls (reinforced with horse hair!) along the basement hall and steps begin to crack, peal and begin to setting and crack some more. 

And this house was built before drywall.  So those warm plaster walls that give it that character that Realtor sold me on all those years ago?  They crack and pop whenever the weather endures great swings in temperature and humidity, and like Sisyphus, I am at it again with the spackle and the touch up paint.

In the stair hall they used canvas as a backing for the plaster, not lathe.  There is noting wrong with this old technique, except when the weigh of the paint laid on over the years begins cause "canvas failure".  Then you have to rip it all down and start anew.

And its just not old paint you can throw in the garbage - NO! It's lead paint that have to be disposed in a legal fashion.  And this is how a twenty dollar project gets turned into a into a $1,000+ project.

So its been: tear this down, spackle this, reattach that, paint, paint, paint and just when you think you are done, "how did I miss that crack?" you start all over again.  Up the stairs, down the stairs and back up again.  I've been to Lowe's so much I've developed a crush on Stephen, the paint guy. And it disturbs me that I know his name.

And the worst part is that unlike a room that one labors over only to show it off and gloat, no one cares about your cellar stairs. No one cares how much time and effort you have put into it. But if you do it right, you don't have to do it again for years to come.

Tomorrow, I empty out the liquor cupboard and the bar, which happen to be at the top of the basement steps and begin to give it a once over of stripping, sanding and painting.  Then I do the flooring and the blasted back hall will be done.

For now. 

Until someone rolls a bowling ball down the stairs, and cracks the plaster, and it all starts over again.

Brenda Dickson and her Vejean

Its been awhile. Enjoy.

Yay, me!

I'm quotable!

Spanky Gunn at the Oscars...

Tim "Spanky" Gunn

During the red carpet interviews on ABC, Tim "Expedia.com" Gunn got his claws into Maya Rudolph and the two of them started talking fashion.  As a joke, Maya Rudolph started on an undergarment topic, mocking how fashionistas will do anything to have slim, clean lines.

But Tim Gunn didn't see it as cheeky fun. 

No.

He used it as a moment to admit, through his Locust Valley Lock Jaw and clenched teeth, that he, too, was wearing "men's slimming garments" under his tux.

Really?

Really.

Do we need to know this Tim? No.  Do we need to know anything about Tim Gunn? No.

For those of you like I who think Mrs. Gunn is wound too tight, it appears that Mrs. Gunn is also packed tightly in SPANX as well.

I get up in the face of a Christian woman today.

I went antiquing today, while I waited for the plaster and spackle to dry in our basement hallway.  I'm looking for some very specific things - Viking glass, specifically - in a specific color, persimmon.  We chose this because orange is a color in our kitchen and we've added a bridge shelf in our kitchen over the big window.  It isn't lit, but that persimmon catches the light and if forces you to LOOK UP at it, DAMN IT!

You know, there used to be a TON of this stuff in junk stores a couple years ago.  I've always loved the complex nature of its clean, saturated red-orange color.  Well, then, David Bromstad of HGTV said last fall that he loved it and couldn't buy enough of it, and the prices are climbing.  Now the medium small pieces are  harder to find than Rookwood Pottery.

So I'm at this junk store run by a woman who calls it "an antique emporium" in small town Ohio, because I figured if I can't find this stuff in a big city, maybe I can find it in an out of the way place, like this woman's junk store.  And I see a couple pieces (priced at about $10) and I'm looking at them and I look up and this man/man couple (you know the type, been together for twenty years and dress just like each other) walks by with a big something and smiles on their face.  Since we're all gay guys in Bumfuck, Ohio, the gaydar goes off and we all smile at one and other and thats that, and they walk out of the store with their purchase.

So I pick up the compote bowl that I found and liked, and walked it back to the cashier, just in time to hear the woman who runs this place say to her friend who's standing next to the counter, and I quote:

"As a Christian woman, I know that homosexuals like those two are sinners and live a vile lifestyle. They want to ruin marriage! But I don't judge. Its a free country. They can live how they want to live."

She turns to me and says "did you find everything that you were looking for today?"

"Well, not really," say I. 

I asked her if she could help me understand something.

I explained that I heard what she said, had seen those men, and it sounded like gossip. Vile gossip  And good Christians don't gossip because its not nice. And those two men just spent money in her store, put cash in her pocket. And that I overheard what she said and it didn't sound the least bit Christian. And that I was troubled by it, and that in reflection, she too should be troubled by it.

"What would Jesus do?" I asked, having read it on the wall behind her bigoted self.

Then I was quiet, real quiet. Cricket chirping quiet.  And it got uncomfortable because she and her friend knew they got caught. She started to say something, which was my cue to speak up again.

"The price tag on this says ten dollars.  I'll give you five in cash and that includes the tax.  Take it or leave it."

She wanted to get rid of me.  So she took it - two rolls of nickles and two rolls of pennies.  And she'll have to count those coins and I hope when she does a little voice inside of her keeps saying "this isn't worth it."

SNAP

But I got under her skin. And I got the vase.

Wow, Just - Wow

{{via SissyDude}}


It sings for itself.

Passed my eye exam!

So the eye surgeon today tells me that my vision with the new lenses is superb.  Something like 20/10 in the left eye that was done in January and a week out from the surgery the right eye is 20/15.  I can see the ittsy bitsy, teeny, tiny line that is second from the bottom with 90% accuracy.

If you will recall, I opted to go a route that changed my eyes from -4.75ish to -2.00ish.  I'm still near-sighted, but I can be with friends and not need glasses.  At the computer, I don't need glasses.  But if I watch TV from across a room, or drive, I need them. 

I went this route because I have worn glasses for distance since I was eight and I have a comfort level with having them.  I need cheaters for threading needles, but I am no longer Mr. Magoo.

Anyway, I have temporary glasses that make me look like my father.   But I can't order real glasses until they release you as a patient after four weeks. 

We're be headed to LA this summer for our nieces wedding and I told Donna Lethal that I would teach her to play MahJong and I'll take my lorgnette (yes, I have a lorgnette) along in honor of the event.

Yay!

I'm not one to gossip, but Paul Babeu is a Pedrophile

Titty Man: Sheriff Babeu is "copping" a

feel on that guy that he that he claims he did sleep

with, but didn't threaten to deport.

By now, you will have heard that Arizona's Pinel County Sheriff Paul Babeu is in trouble - the kind of trouble that seems to be lurking behind most uber Conservatives these days.  

A sex scandal is going down on the Sheriff like a wetback on his dick.

If you haven't heard, Babeu is a Pedrophile!  It is not a typo people, I mean just that.

Babeu, a Massachusetts native, was running under the highly imaginative slogan "Send a True Conservative to Congress" is running for one of Arizona's seats in the US House of Representatives.   And until Friday, he was doing so from inside the closet, because for gay Conservatives, being the closet is a the safest way to achieve power and keep it.

And not only that, but Babeu's former male lover is telling the media that Babeu threatened to send his illegal ass back to Mexico if he displeased the Sheriff.  In fact, Babeu likes those little Mexican dishes.  That makes him a Pedrophile.

And then there were the private naked pictures of Babeu on the Internet hook up site that Paul uploaded.

Of course, Babeu denies all of the allegations made by "Jose" (or Pedro, or whatever we're going to call him), however he admits that the two of them saw and slept together.  Babeu claims that Jose is a sensationalist.  But Babeu admits that he was gay, but that the nudie pictures of him are private, but hasn't explained if they were so private why did he post them on the Adam4Adam website? 

And then there are the texts that Babeu sent to "Jose" in September in which he confronts the illegal alien about his status.  This of course invalidates Babeu's assertions that he never knew about Jose's immigration status in the first place.

What Babeu is not speaking on is how a Border Hawk like him can hire an illegal to create his campaign website, and then make sweet love to him later in the night.

And it gets better, still!  How so you ask?

Well, on his campaign web site, Babeu states that he was "Headmaster & Executive Director of DeSisto Private Boarding School from 1999 to 2001."

What of it?

Well...the DeSisto at Stockbridge School was a private therapeutic boarding school for high school students in Stockbridge, Massachusetts that was set up by a guy named Michael DiSisto for "at risk youth".  Evidently, the school had some success, but the founder was a bit of a crackpot.  The schools were not accredited in the late 1980s, and they used some controversial methods.  From Wikipedia we learn that:

In January 1999, " two workers at The DeSisto at Stockbridge school were arraigned in Berkshire Superior Court on a single count each for abuse or neglect of a disabled person resulting in bodily injury. These charges arose after the staff members allegedly did not make sure a patient taking the drug Lithium remained properly hydrated. This resulted in a Lithium overdose and the student's hospitalization.^[15] Investigation resulted in the charges being dropped for these two staff members, and the blame affixed to higher ranking staff, and licensed medical personnel...The Cult Awareness Network, Inc. placed the DeSisto School on its list of cults it kept records on.[28][29]"

Head of a cult.  Nice.

And as if the Sheriff wasn't having a bad enough day yesterday (!!!) when all of this blew out, Mitt Romney removed the good Sheriff from his Arizona Election Committee Chairmanship.

So what do we learn from this.  Well we learn that everyone eventually gets discovered.  We also have learned that you can be gay and Conservative, although I still don't understand how a gay man can support platforms that harm his own self interests.  And we've also learned that Paul Babeu is available.  So if that's your cup of tea guys, have at him.

I don't fault Babeu for coming out.  He should have done it years ago.  I wish him well.

But now we have another example of the Conservative Credibility Gap. They say God and country in the speeches, but behind closed doors the rules don't apply.

Babeu is not in trouble because he slept with an illegal.  Babeu is in trouble because he employed that illegal while chastising local businesses because THEY employed illegals.  And Babeu is in trouble because he made bad personal choices, and we don't need another fuck up in Washington.

But things are looking for him.  John McCain still thinks he's just the bees knees.

Politically speaking: Satanorum

Its our Country - use your vote to make sure this doesn't happen to us, use your vote to make sure this doesn't happen to the US.

Half way to something FABULOUS!!!

Reader - I know that I have been cryptic about the behind the scenes struggles here at DHTiSH, but we have good news!  Well kinda.

In order for me to tell you our good news, four things have to happen, all of which are beyond our control.

The good news is that TWO of the four things happened, yesterday. 

So that would mean we are at 50% of the BIG CHANGES IN LIFE scale.

We know that piece number three in this puzzle must happen by a fixed date in the near future.

Then, we wait for the biggest hurdle for Cookie and the Husband to clear.

Yay!

Cocktail celebrations and my thoughts of Mr. Peenee

The one and only, Ed Fury

{{via}}

Dear reader:

It's official, I am completly blind now with my glasses on.

Today was my SECOND cataract surgery and is tradition, when they were giving me the sedation, my final and one thought was of Mr. Peenee.  I have written Mr. Peenee into my will and I was thinking: God, I hope I don't die, but dear Lord, if you take me, please make sure that my husband boxes up all my old porn in the basement and ships it to Peenee.   I have BOXES of gently used porn in the cellar.  All of it top notch, legal, and its weighs a fucking ton.  Most of it from the 1980s.  But Peenee, if you are out there, it has your name on it.

Anyway, the surgery went fine, but now I have a disco ball light show going on inside my eye.  Because the eye is swollen from the trauma, any movement of something causes light to bounce around.  In two days it'll be be gone.  Still, because my eye are now both -2 instead of -4.5, I can see the computer screen without having my nose to it, but my glasses are pretty much worthless.  This will make driving interesting.  So I plan to be ferried as many places as possible.

Anyway, to celebrate my new eyes - and it is something to be able to see like a 20 something me used to do - I'm having cocktails!

I mixed up a batch of Cookietini's:

1) Good ice cold vodka (I use Vodka 360 because its good and its inexpensive - better than that Grey Goose crap, and it has no taste what so ever);

2) a splash of sweet vermouth;

and cocktail onions.

Reader these are delicious.  They are also deadly because they have no strong taste.  So if you imbide, do not drive.

All this begs the question - what is your favorite cocktail?



Portends: Dog Days of Winter

Kevin, Russell and Rocky All of them: Guilty of Cuteness in the First Degree.

This weekend has been one of limited options. Cold weather outdoors.  Me.  The Husband.  The Dogs.  And the constant hum of swiftly moving cold air across the roof causing the various plumbing stacks on our roof to hum their tones much like we used to blow across the tops of our pop bottles.

I fucking hate winter.

So the dogs got their buddy Russell over to play and we had all manner of puppy derby here.

Exhausted dogs are happy dogs.

We are hoping for news in the coming weeks that we can share with everyone. This has been like waiting for a baby elephant to be born, except this has NOTHING to do with infants or babies.

The tension is massive.  I may need to take a Xanax tomorrow.

On the other hand, the house next door actually has daffodils  that are in bud.  We're two weeks out from crocus (or is it croci) season and this dizzy daffodil's are out their just freezing themselves to death.

Let's see, my horoscope said to keep an eye out for something happening midweek.  That would be my other cataract surgery on Wednesday.  Creeps me out when the horoscope, which is just a stab in the dark actually, portends of real things that were scheduled long before someone one somewhere decided to say "here, stick this in Leo."

Hang on readers - the next six weeks could be a real rollercoaster ride into the unknown.

Who's your daddy?

In my "Guess Who" a few days aga, I posted this picture:

The hands give it away.

Now I knew that Norma would get this, since Norma is Miss Cocks in Frocks over at The Infomaniac.

Scooter, too said he knew who this.  But they kept their tongues so that others could guess it.

The simple truth is that Jean Harlow would have known the answer.  So let me give you another hint:

Did this make it any easier?

Looks differently than she, I mean he, looks with his mustache, don't you think?

Well, our Guess Who is - if you haven't guessed who by now is......





scroll down

keep scrolling

Yeah, I saw the whole thing!

So yesterday I'm driving back up home to check on whats left of Momma Cookie's farm, Tarable, and I'm on the road, which is four lane divided with limited access and traffic lights.

And since I'm being green by driving my Prius, aka The Scarab, I'm getting 52 miles to the gallon by sticking to the speed limit.  So we come up to a stop light, and I stop, and this noisy old pick up truck pulls up along side of me and I look at who is driving that ratty old truck.  Its two high school lads - very fetching grits - and then I get a load of the headliner in the cab of the Ford truck, and its a confederate flag.

I look away because 1) The lads are no longer fetching, and 2) their "grit" quotient just went up exponentially and thus they offend me with love of the stars and bars.

So the truck creeps up and I can see out of the corner of my eye that these two are horsing around in the truck cab.

Then the light turns green and the shithead who is driving that sorry excuse of a vehicle hits the gas and the truck takes off Hells a-popping forward.  They get about six car lengths in front of me when the driver decides that the car in front of him is going too slow.  The truck veers dangerously to the right lane and then our pretend Luke Duke over corrects his steering wheel and - you guessed it - lost control of the truck which launched itself into the left lane before coming to a screeching stop in the highway median.  Well of course evry car that saw it stopped, including me.

A couple guys get the kids out, who are shaken up but in better shape than that sorry excuse for a truck, and the driver starts in on the driver of the car that he tried to pass and starts yelling "Who seen what happened?" and "This bastard cut me off, who seen it?"  So a couple truckers separate the kids and the Highway Patrol shows up and takes control of the situation, but I am unable to correct the kids appalling grammar because I know when to speak, and when not speak.

Now I once dated a Trooper in my yute, so I understand the mind set.   So one of the troopers starts taking names of witnesses, and they get to me and ask if I have anything to say.  The Trooper, by the way is black. So I say "I saw the whole thing from that red light to here."

The trooper takes my name and some notes and asks me again to repeat what I saw.  I tell him: shit for brains boys behind the wheel, acting like fools, laws apply to everyone else but not them, breaking the laws of gravity and physics, etc. and so on.

And then I throw in "Sir, those young men who are acting like fools probably want their Stars and Bars from the cabin of their truck."  Trooper looks at me, smiles, nods and goes to talk to someone else.

So I call my old boyfriend - and its been like twenty years since I've seen him and after the hellos and how are yous I ask him - since he's desk jobber waiting for retirement - what came of the yutes in the truck earlier in the day.

So he looks it up and of course he can't tell whats going on because nothing is public yet and then he goes, "hold on Hoss. Says here that they had a Confederate flag.  You made the report!"

Buzz me Miss Blue, I am a credit to good citizens everywhere. 

If they need me, they'll call. But enough people saw that moron cause his own misery that I don't think I'll her anything more. In cases like this, its a slam dunk and a fine.

Still, if you are stupid redneck, you deserve to suffer.

Yeah, I saw the whole thing.

We interrupt this "Guess Who" with an important message from Miss Peggy Lee.

Note dear readers, this was back when Peggy still wore form fitted dresses and before she began her long descent into her Caftan/Mumu years.

Guess Who

What was the name of that old dirt road in Natick, Mass?

This is not a gag. This is not a typo.

Seen whilst traveling.  I kid you not.  It is Natick, Massachusetts.  How do I know this?

Because it also appears here:

Evidently, I'm deadly serious about this. 

There was once an unincorporated town here called Felchville. And my sister in law's house is located in Felchville.  It has since been absorbed into Natick.  Oddly, Felch Ct. is located just out of Felchville proper, on the other side of Route 9.

I have since learned that there are other Felchville's in the US. 

I'm sad to say that I found no signs for Rick Santorum in Felchville.  That, dear reader, would have sent me over the edge.

Things found at my inlaws, part II

I found this vignette in the kitchen at my inlaws. 

I thought about fishing the fallen from this cage and placing it on a dish with a food dome over it and taking it to my husband and serving it to him.  But because the moldering thing looks like it would fall apart if touched, so its better left untouched.

My mother in law asked I would like the cage and I said that it would be difficult to get on the plane.  She said I could have the birds, too, if I liked.  Made it tempting, but getting through TSA at Logan is hard enough without trying to explain something like this.

Seen at my inlaws...

Things tend to collect at my inlaws, with no rhyme or reason.  My mother in law is fascinated with "little stuff" especially if it sparkles or has glitter.  And if its FREE,  she'll take one of everything and scatter it around the house.  We found a "Go Patriots" car flag poked in a planter in the living room.  The planter had no plant, just the old spent dirt that once was potting soil and the flag.

These things sit around for so long that they tend to fall apart from old age, but instead of throwing them out, they are left to disintergrate. On this trip we found...

 
A New Years Eve noise maker on the toilet.  I found this an odd pairing.  The husband pointed out that it was there in case one of them needs help to stand up.  "Maybe it's to celebrate a success," I said as my inlaws are preoccupied with their bowels and how they move, or don't for that matter.  Upon further inspection, the rolled paper sleeve had a hole in it, so while it may look festive, it too is broken.
 
Those detergent jugs?  That's because the toilet is in the laundry room.  You can sit, shit and watch the Norge spin dry.

Take no shit. Take no prisoners.

Message to Susan G. Komen Foundation:  STOP playing politics with our sisters, our mothers and even our daughters future.