stupid stupid cold, stupid stupid

- well, it's finally gotten too cold for comfort! brrrr!! sort of fun to bundle up like a stupid-looking zeppelin, tho... i'm waiting & waiting (see below), so meanwhile here's a really stupid story: when peewee was a kitty, we kept having to pull him away from the fireplace, where he wanted to, we thought, play or be a little toasty after the fire'd died down but the hearth was still warm. i'd sweep little ashen kitty paw prints off the hearth, smack (softly) his little kitty butt, admonish, "don't play in the fireplace, kitty!" we'd be watching tv & james'd exclaim, "i smell the cat box!" my super nose immediately would go on patrol, snarfing in the box's direction, smelling nothing, but detecting a smell elsewhere in the living room, TOWARD THE FIREPLACE. "must be an animal under the house," i would conclude, since the smaller forest creatures nestle in the crawlspaces, esp when it's cold... so yesterday i finally cleaned out the fireplace &... PEEWEE HAS BEEN CRAPPING IN THE FIREPLACE!!!! STUPID CAT!!!!!! i scooped an entire grocery sack-full of fossilized little nuggets from the ashes. yes, fortunately peewee has been big & fat for some time, so many months ago, his a*s got too wide to dip his way into the fireplace to sneak a dainty little hearth-poop, so merry christmas to us...
- i'm waiting for some stupid slow music files to upload to send to a fellow in bakersfield who might book us at his & his wife's smartly-arranged club in old town kern (bakersfield). i used to drink there many many moons ago, priding myself stupidly on how i would pay for a full basque dinner, then ONLY eat french bread with bleu cheese, along with sucking down least one bottle of wine all by my stupid self (boy, i showed THEM!)... stupid stupid youth of mine...
- how were your holidays? above's our warm & comfy thanksgiving pic. we are doing well, & i'm so happy... only one or two stupid relatives/people were at thanksgiving; most everyone was terrific & nice & funny & warm & helpful & loving... just found out i get to play the annual christmas party with big manny. he put up a fb profile pic much like one of james & me, so we said we should all start a band. here's me & james:

here's manuel: 

 he said we'll call the band monkey see, monkey do. :) i'm looking fwd to playing w/him, leo, & micky for the rush street christmas party (yay andy!) & also with james at the oasis for our monthly duo... i'm trying to convince james to learn "here comes fatty with a sack of sh*t," which i first heard on the john waters christmas album, but i don't think he's going for it... we really should have some christmas songs at our show, & certainly some stupid ones, too... ok, the stupid files uploaded finally; time to go.

blablablablablablablbalbalabalbalablabalbalalbalaba...

last night, in an amazing deal for the place, i got 3 pizzas for 11 bucks at the local market. winter bringing rain, high winds, icy snow has blown in & locals look different now, all of us hollow-eyed & hunkered-down in coats to combat the cold, lumbering & scurrying to get our supplies before securing ourselves tightly away for the night in (i hope) warm homes... the snow is beautiful & forbidding, but also light & playful: we've only this year so far seen it be the former, but i have learned living up here the weather's got so many faces, temperaments, colors, moods... it is a living entity, the greatest one of all! (see article below about nature.)
there's a local stir right now about a corporate dollar store coming to town: most objection is coming from local biz owners ("natch"), chiefly the guy whose family has a monopoly on local markets. he even was spotted removing local newspapers from stands so locals couldn't read the story wherein he threatened to fire employees who didn't sign his petition protesting the incoming dollar store! (his attempted subterfuge only resulted in yet another newspaper story, which only made him look more like a weenie...) man, that's rough: i feel sorry for the folks working for these markets. will they always have to watch their backs when they want to pop into the dollar store for a cheap item or two?
we're on a budget in this life-chapter (which is fine; self-restraint aligns nicely w/my OCDish tendencies), but i'd never buy everything from dollar stores. such food generally is limited, low-quality & un-nutritious, falling into the category of fake food, for the most part, & the products are plastic, cheaply-made, quickly-broken. but i hope this dollar store goes through cause it'll be nice to have more shopping options. we won't have to go off the mountain as much!
one argument from local biz owners is that the dollar store will create traffic congestion in our little tiny liliputian itsy-bitsy downtown.
oh, please!!!
competition is good, people around here are loyal to one another's persons & endeavors, & our locally-run stores generally are high quality & run, i think, with love & care. (example: the feed store; the library [not a biz, at least not yet]; the pizza joint; the video store; the vegetarian restaurant; the burger joint; the junk store; the toy store; the hardware store; the car wash!) go, dollar store, go!
next i will pray mightily for a movie theatre to be installed down at the outlet mall. come on, movie theatre!

mama mia, papa pia, potato chip

just saw this dazzling pic that kaykay posted of james, to which i commented he was the handsomest man i've ever seen, then joked in postcript, "except for johnny weissmuller." so then i had to look up weissmuller on google &... good gravy!!!!

the weissmuller shots (below) are such obvious beefcake, but some people like me are obvious in what twists their twinkie, as cousin tushi would say (another of her exclamations comprises the title of this post). dad & mom are the same way: he, always so gentlemanly, has only ever commented (politely) on women's physical appearance when they are as beautifully, intoxicatingly shapely as, say, dark-eyed sophia loren; mama's favorite has long-been big manly sean connery... me & james have had talks about the 1st time we felt "funny" seeing a celeb. i've known men who were most thrilled physically by women who looked more like teenagers or even were childlike (yeccch), or feminine caricatures, like bette davis, who really were more like drag queens or had masculine characteristics, but my husband & i have always been attracted, really attracted, by strapping uber-men (me) & -women (him), hunky (me) & healthily curvaceous (him) endomorphs, their visages maybe displaying high testosterone & estrogen levels. he recalls his first realization that there was something special about the female specie the first time he viewed raquel welch, in 10, 000 BC. good heavens! that must be one of the top-10 ultra-toned beautiful-bombshell images ever recorded! for me, it was walking into the tejon theatre in bakersfield & being stopped in my tracks by the sight of john amos (yes, good times 70s tv-dad john amos) shirtless in the world's greatest athlete: the strong chin, wide forehead, handsome, masculine face, & broad broad chest clicked something on in my 7-year old being.

- there's nothing wrong with androgyny or any other legal physical attraction (we're not fatty-haters, & if you are, go suck an egg). why write about this? well, it's my damn blablablog.

anyways, this is what i think about on this wintry day, the 1st snow having nestled the mountain these early morning hours. the house is quiet & calm & we had coffee, pyrenee's rolls from bakersfield, provolone & meats from generous mama, lingonberry jam, & now he's retired to rest & i'm on to reading in a few... he said this early morn he was out watching the sunrise & falling snow & cavorting wildlife & laughed happily, "this is my HOME!" i feel that way so often... no high-paying career would take the place of the simple & pretty life of today. to repeat thoreau for the 100th time, "that man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest."

anyways, back to my mundane, everyday, but fun-to-consider-for-the-moment topic, the pics here  give me that john amos feeling (tho the one of james additionally stirs my heart with many other kinds of love, which is what happens in marriage, as love deepens & broadens), & also remind me of the 1st time i saw my husband sans-shirt. that image will never be posted here or anyplace else, but i'll say, just to be polite, oh my, hubba hubba, mama mia, papa pia, potato chip.

sleepy mind, beautiful life force

my mind feels soft & warm like a blanket... slow & quiet like late afternoon light... the low clear clean light is breathtaking & makes my brain & heart shush & draw in, comforted by the certain coming of winter.
just read a really neat, well-written article that i used to wipe my hands on as i ate & read (unfortunate habit of mine), before i realized i would have otherwise saved it, so i'll just quote it here, since i must now throw away the pb&j-smeared pages. "just as there are receptors in the brain for drugs, i like to think we have receptors for nature as well. we may believe we are run by our thoughts and anxieties, our urges and our choices, but come to a place like montana [or a place where nature is in charge, like here on the mountain] and you wil be reminded that the moon is running you. the sun is running you. the light or lack of light is running you. you are the full moon. you are the rushing river. you are the animal, moving and being moved" (amanda fortini, from good magazine)
...
oh, cool! here's a link to the article itself! i was initially not-much interested, but the piece builds into something quite different than its initial description of mundane activities... surrender by amanda fortini (of course, she's not just a great writer, but beautiful)
the link contains photos quite stunning! like the one below of james and me... his smile makes me swoon (as dad said, james has no bad angles, & as i say, his immense heart & soul shine through his eyes), and i know i'm not alone, but that is ok with me... :)

all hallow's eve

winter's coming! finally can feel it in the air... we watched most of soylent green the other night after the above crazy-successful show at long beach's  shenanigan's, but i can't ever watch past when edward g. robinson goes to the euthanasia factory to "go home" cause i start blubbering... am happy to feel winter in the air because tho charlton heston's hammy-yet-wooden macho brawn & corniness make soylent green laughable, its "dystopic vision" isn't cause it in ways seems too plausible -- the ideas that the future always will be hot, squalid, over-populated, evil-government ruled, with sexism & exploitation of the human even more culturally-imbedded... but now turns the weather to winter, yesterday & today with billowing storm skies bringing fresh cold rain & shining nighttime of brilliant, chilled stars... welcome, winter. :)
(btw, the peanuts movie comes out next week, just in time for the holidays.) :)