Yeah, yeah yeah, I know I'm a slack ass.

I've been busy moving all of our earthly belongings from one side of the house to the other, as we turn our house into a duplex. My brother has been living with me and Jason for a while, and the shared living space is no longer working for the intimacy level of my marriage. And I'm fucking tired of being a maid for two slobbish guys. I'll be damned if I wash another dish that I didn't mess up! Anyway, having my brother there is good for keeping the rent cheap, and he keeps me company when Jason's on the road, and he's a built-in dogsitter when I decide to take off for a few days. Like now, because I am currently in New Orleans with Jason, helping him with the tournament coverage at a World Series circuit event at Harrah's. But more on that later. So moving from one side of a house to the other is no less work than moving to an entirely different house. It's even worse, actually, because when there's a house full of stuff, you have to move stuff from one room to another before moving the contents of another room into the newly emptied room, there's a room with double the amount of furniture and stuff. So the past couple weeks have been spent packing, moving, cleaning, unpacking - and working on some commissioned drawings. So I haven't been a total slack ass, just a partial one.

So the break here at the poker tourney at Harrah's New Orleans is over, and I have to get off the computer so we can do live updates at Bluffmagazine.com (like that plug?) so if I survive the night without dysentery after drinking some local water (yikes!) I will be back to tell you all about our adventures in New Orleans, the nastiest city on earth.

Happy Friggin' Mother's Day, Numb Nuts

Had lunch with the family today. My dad, stepmom, brother, aunt, uncle, my two favorite teenage cousins and I convened at my grandma's house for some KFC and fudge pies with ice cream. This is the cool family -- the family that likes to get together and laugh. My mom's family is the disfunctional one. Anyway, the good family likes to play board games on occasion, and today the game of choice was Scattergories. This is a really fun and challenging game, and it gets your creative wheels turning. For those of you who have never played, here's the general idea. There's a many sided die with a letter of the alphabet on each side. There are cards with categories like: flowers, politicians, girl's names, reptiles, capitals, etc. Someone rolls the die to determine what letter you're playing with, and if the letter is "C", for instance, you'd write "calla lily" for flower, "Clinton" for politician, "Carol" for girl's name, "crocodile" for reptile, etc. Everyone writes his own answers and when the round is over you read your answers out loud. If you have an answer no one else has, you get a point. The one with the most points wins. Well, during one round the letter was "N", and the category was "weapon." My sweet and proper stepmother was trying to write "numchucks", but it came out "nimnucks." When she read it out loud, I said, "That sounds like numb nuts! Har har harr!" And everyone busted out laughing. Pat - my stepmom - turned about five shades of red. And the whole family called her Numb Nuts for the rest of the afternoon. It wasn't until later, when I was having cheeseburgers at my mom's house, that I realized we didn't give Pat anything for Mother's Day, but we made fun of her and called her Numb Nuts. I called her up to make sure I hadn't hurt her feelings and she took it all in stride. I think she feels like part of the family now. Part of a weird family, a family that finds humor in the strangest things...

Like back about six years ago when my grandfather died and we were all hanging out at the funeral home for the wake. My grandmother sent my aunt to her house to get the "funeral tape" that Grandpa wanted played at his funeral. The tape wasn't labeled, and unbeknownst to my aunt and the rest of the family, we didn't know it was the wrong tape until the funeral director put it in the tape player and the music started playing through the piped-in stereo system. And what is the most inappropriate song that could possibly be played at a funeral? A song called "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road." When we all heard it, we started dying laughing. The funeral director didn't see much humor in it. But wait! It gets even better! My aunt went back to my grandma's house to get the real funeral tape... The funeral director put it in the player, and this time it was definitely the right tape -- slow , sweet, melodic saxophone music. With all the people coming in to pay their condolences to the family, none of us paid any attention to the music on this funeral tape. The funeral director stopped my dad several times and asked my dad if he thought the music was appropriate for the situation, that it sounded a bit racy. My dad said yes, it was what his dad had chosen for his funeral. It wasn't until the wake was over, when we were all back at my grandma's house, that someone decided to play the funeral tape to see what had been playing back at the funeral home. It turns out it was Candy Dulfer's album Saxuality. Grandpa had only heard one of her songs and had someone make a copy of that whole album! The album gets really...um... sexy in certain parts. So we all got a big kick out of that. I'm sure some of the visitors to the funeral home walked in expecting to hear "Old Rugged Cross" and instead were greeted by the sound of a swingin' jazzy-pop saxophone. If you had known my Grandpa, you'd know that he would have gotten a big laugh out of that.

That's just ONE example of how my family finds humor in the strangest things. I will share more stories later.

Toasted Marshmallows Vs. Toasted Peeps

Which one do YOU think won the contest?

I had both at the little "campfire" my brother and I had in the yard tonight. We call it a campfire, but is it really a campfire if you're not camping near it? We like to sit outside and roast hotdogs and toast marshmallows and drink beers on a semi-regular basis, so there's always an ashy spot with chunks of wood and tree limbs lying around. Maybe I should call it the "Fire Spot" or "Charred Wood Pile". It's actually about two acres away from the house, in a field surrounded by trees and a screaming sasquatch (who did NOT make an appearance tonight, though we had an ax and a machete ready in case it snuck up behind us before belting out its 3,000 decibel mating scream.)

And so I was out to solve the age old question, is a toasted Peep as good as a toasted marshmallow? Or possibly even better?

Q: But a Peep IS a marshmallow, Rachel. There's no need for a comparison, is there?

A: Oh, how wrong you are, Terry. A Peep is anything but a simple, mundane, banal marshmallow. See, Terry, a Peep is coated with colorful granulated sugar with two waxy little eyes, which are, by the way, stamped on by hand. Do ya think I watch too much FOOD Network? Maybe I just have a thing for Mark Summers of "Unwrapped." Did you know he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder so bad that he used to straighten the fringe on his rug, on his hands and knees, in the wee hours of the morning? And NO that is not meant to be read as anything with a sexual connotation. I'm simply giving a shout out to my fellow OCD brethren. I don't give a gat dang about carpet fringe. It's lightswitches that get my panties in a wad. When nobody's around I turn them on and off in a specific sequence upon entering or leaving a room. And if any of you bastards give me beef about it, I'll sneeze on you. Did I mention I'm a germaphobe too? And that sneezes exit the human body at approximately 90 miles per hour?

LA DE DEEEEE DAAAA

Peeps. Marshmallows. Who won?

I have to say the champion is the tried and true regular plain ole ordinary marshmallow. The reason why? The granulated sugar of a Peep develops a taste similar to that of an old sweaty shoe when it becomes even the lightest toasty shade of brown. I had hoped it would taste like caramel, because that's basically what caramel is... cooked sugar. But nope! Old sweaty shoe. And there ya have it.

Shit. We're out of toilet paper and I just had to "Drip dry" as my mom always said, because for some reason we were always running out of toilet papper when I was a kid. I'm really DRUNK. I haven't drunk blogged in a while. Maybe tomrrow when I'm sobver I'll put a link up to my first drunk blog post, which was copied and distributed to my distant relatives by my mom last thanksgiving./ i'M DRINKING pACICIFIo, left over from our cinco de mayo dinner the other night. I put lime juice uin it cause it makes it better. So anyway, I sent jASON Off to Las Vegas today. I'm gonna miss him while he's gone. We've had a really good week or so since he's been home. Check out his blog if you want,. I can't do a link right now because the Pacifico keeps me from it. I just watcjhed a really shitty movie called Safe. It's by Todd Haynes, who isi an amazing director. But this movie stunk to high heaven. It stars Julianne Moore. Get it? It "stinks to high heaven"? I'm prety funny. That;s a Leboswki quote. Nayway, it's about this ladyt who lives an upperclass life who gets really sick and they decide it's allergies to the environment, and she joins this Jim Jones-esque weirdo haven for environmental illness people and it's set in 1987 ans the only decent thing about the movie is the soundtrack. Cause they play Billy Ocean. and I LOVE Billy Ocean. Get ouuttta my dreams [get in the backseat baybayyy] get into my car [beep beep, yeah.] But the movie could havebeen cut down tremendously. Seriously, it was like 45 mivutes too long. There were periouds where there were long lulls for no reason. And Todd Haynes is famous for really striking colors and beautiful cinematography... But this movie lacked it all. As my brother said, when he walked in halfway through the movie,m "I wouldn't want to know any of these peope in real life,.:" CAuse all the chracters were somehwat despicable. Mmmm.Pacifico is good. I'm venturing away from my usual frozen strawberry margarita. I havne't had ythis many beers in a while. Maybe tromrorow I'll puyt a link up to my original drunk blog post from my Mysapce page. it was really funny. I don't blog on Myspace anymore because I'm tired of the poelple who oput meaningless posts up. SO What else? We watched Serenity last night. It was really freakin good. If you watched the serioes "Firefly" at all, you'';ll liove the movie,. It's just like an epsidoe of the show, only it's much more intense. But I was really hoping for a sex scene with Mal, but it didn't happen. He's really hot. And I think I can say thatm Bceuase I think Paris Hilton changed her catrchphrase. yeah, the dude who plays Mal (his name is Nathan something) he's hot. And I'm glad the chracter Kaylee was in the movie. She's my favorite. I was surprsied that River had such a big par tin the movie, beacuse she was sort of a side charactwer in the tv shoew. Sereneity is about this group of thieves who are runnign from the Aliiance and also from these manflesh eating monstesr called reavers. I think if someone hadn't een the shoe firefly they might be a little confuised about the cast, which is my only criticismn. Enara - the aristocratic prostitute - plays a somehwat insiginficant role in the movie, and I was expacting mroe from her. What else? I submitte all my grades today so I'm officially done with my teaching for the spring semester. And I'm not teaching this summer, which means I need to make a bunch of good art. Theres a movie out about the Bell Witch called an american Haunting. The bell withch cave is right down the road from our house. I grew up here. I live in the same house I was raised in, as weird as that may sound.l Yeah, I'm sheltered, i know it. anyway, when I was a kid, the slumber party thing was to go ito the bathroom alone in the dark, and say three times:" I hate the bell witch" while spinning in cicrles, and the bell witch was suppsed to show up in the bathroom mirror and scratch your face. I nebver made it past the first recitation. Im sure everyone had their own version of that same silly game - but the bell witch was a local story. and evreyone around here has been to the bell witch cave mutliple times. The bell witch cave property went up for sale just a few years ago, and it was super cheap - anyone coud have bought it. Luckily, the family that bought it is interested in the tradition of the story and gives tours and such. I hope the movie is good.My friend Lydia bloggeda bout the movie/ You can check our her review if you lok at my list of blogs worth reading. I have to pee aqgain. hang on be right back.

K. peed./ wsih I had something funny to werite aobut because I'm crackingm yslef up. when i turned 21, i used ot get drunk in my dorm apartment by myslf, and email peope or call people on the phone. it was funy. I re]member onenuight I drank a whole 6 pack of FOster's by myself. Iw as reallyt into Ruseell Crowe at thej time, hence all things austrrailain. Isn't he a new zealander, thouigh? Anyway, I cracked my shit up back in those days. NOw I just drink and fall asleep./ Gues thayt's what happens when yuou get old. eh? I had a pet rat named chester copperpot when I was in college. He was a dalmation rat, and he was trained like a dog. He'd come hwne i calle dhis name, and spin in the air for treats; He even starred in a perforamance art piece I did. He got an upper respiratory infectrion and died. Then I had a pet squirrel in my dorm aparmtnet. HIs name was Hickory,. I raised him for 3 months and let him go at my grandma's house. He lived there for a couple years before I think he died ofold age,. One day I was at my grandma's and I heard a sound at the door - I opened uit and Hickory was stting there, scratching to get in the house. Jason hated him. But he wa my baby, I wuold take him omn field trips on our college campus. I had ihim on a leash and I'd let him climb a tree as high as he could go, then I pull him off and put him back at the bottome, so he'd get used to climbimg trees. I tried to acclimate him into the wild as best I could. Now I just have two dogs, Bonnie and Brodie. Bonnie is a petite little princess, but she's scrappy. She'll fight with anyhting. And Brodie, whom I have had for four years, is my baby boy - he's sort of a wimp./ he growls at things and then hides. They are both west highland whit terriers./ ALl I hAVe to do tomrroew is get my check from school and send some auctio things toBob if Jason gives me his mailinv address. Mught sleep in amd stay up late./ But I think I need to make coffee. I havn'=t dne that in a while. Thin the last pacifico is catching up with mne.

There's a sasquatch behind our house.

He screams every night. No joke. My brother Josh went looking for it one night with a flashlight and he saw two pointy ears, and said it's a fox or a coyote. Well no shit we have foxes and cotyotes - they're runnignfrom thefreaking sasquatch! Ever seen the movie "Legend of Boggy Creek"? Wtach it. It's the scariest movie besides the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre that there is. Because it's so realistic./ ANd I think we have our very own sasquatch, and it's doing some sort of mating call every night, but there's not female for it, so it's getting restless. We have black widow spiders and brown recluse spiders and cottonmouth snakes - aka water moccasins - and rattlesnakes and copperhead snakes. Those are the only lethal things we have around here. Besides bobcats and black bears and panthers and wow - guess there';s a lot of things to watch out for besides sasquatches, but the othgers don't scream in my backyard every night. dreamt that my mom and I won a trip to iceland the other night. And I had to explain to her that iceland is green and that greenland is iccey. and we had a good time there. We flew into reykjavik, in the dream of course. ever looked at a plane ticket to there? Jason and I liooked at a buncg of places for our honeymoon, and juist the place ticket to reykjavik alone was akmost $2000. Sheesh! So we drove across ythe USA for three weeks,. We went to Carlsbad Caverns and Roswell New Mexivo and whatever tha mountain chain is in arkansas and the grand caynoyn And las vegas. I shuold probably go to bed soon. K. goodnight,

Cinco De Mayo

Q: Why, Rachel, has it been so long since you last updated your blog?

A: Well, Terry, the main reason is that Jason has been home from his travels during the past couple weeks, and his laptop was messed up, so he has been online using our dial up connection to play poker tournaments almost every waking moment. He did, however, fix his laptop, which I have secretly usurped while he naps away the afternoon. Of course, if I had really needed to get online and/or update my blog at any point in the past week or so, I could have kicked him in the shins until he gave me the 'puter... but I've been too busy to care that much. During the past week I had to finish up all of my grading and stuff at school, and my last final exam was given on wednesday. I mowed several acres of three foot tall grass on Monday with a small push mower, which took the entire day. Yesterday I worked at Adrienne's studio from 11-6, and today I spent several hours at the Nashville Downtown Sheraton planning my high school reunion. (I made the mistake of being Senior Class President during high school - and so now I have to plan my ten year reunion.) Needless to say, blogging has been the least of my concerns.

Q: During your week+ blogging hiatus, was there any excitement that the blogging community might enjoy reading about?

A: Nope. Aside from burning my arm while attempting to bake a sugar free banana cream pie for my aunt's birthday party. I say "attempt" because it didn't work. Twice. During the first attempt, the from-scratch pudding didn't ever stiffen in the sauce pan. I cooked/stirred it until it curdled. Yuck! Threw that batch out, tried again. The pudding stiffened a bit, but not to perfection. The big problem is that I got sidetracked while toasting the meringue topping, which turned into a charred carbon mess. Two bad pies and a burn on my arm - I was rather pissy that night.
Oh! The Sleeping One has awakened!
Better finish my post 'fore he wants his poker fix for the day. Do they sell poker in an intraveinously injectable liquid? Tee heee heee.

The other night I had a dream that I became a werewolf. It sucked. Don't ever become a werewolf.

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!!!! I have already eaten my obligatory chile relleno and taco for lunch. And guess what's for later? That's right, Rachel's drink of choice, a frozen strawberry margarita! Yummmm.

More posts coming soon, I promise!