Paranormaland

There's a lot of paranormality in this town, I say this as someone who doesn't follow paranormal behaviors much, but I'm always surrounded by them. My wicked old friend Michelle has a bookstore and a blog that dip in the matters, my hubby's workplace is haunted,




and back in the 70s/80s the ghost of our first dog Snoopy Elizabeth used to flip up our old-timey window shades. Wally still hears the whimper cries from the basement where our cat died last fall, and now I'm finding out that my brother's band is now coming forth with some briefcase spirit villain they found.



When does it stop, Portland? Have I mentioned the fossbeast that won't leave my house?

How Convenient

Of the very few days we enjoyed PBS before it got monkeywrenched out of our house I noticed that Jimmy went ape for that supercute and babbly Curious George. He also goes bananas for the Curious George Live commercial so I orangutan'd my work hours so's that we can attend one of the 5 appearances scheduled the weekend of May 7th. I swung into the Ticketmaster.com for tickets, opted for the cheapseats (after getting chimped out by failing 2 separate discount codes, thank you Curious George people!) and
got confronted with that handy Convenience Fee that everyone complains about. $4.30 per ticket! According to my calculator that's an extra $12.90 for the three of us, is that not bonzo. And that doesn't even include ticket delivery, the only free delivery option is a promise from the good people at Ticketmaster to mail the tickets 10 to 14 days after purchasing them. Guerrilla warfare! Then it goes from $2.50 to print them at home, and then $3 for will call, and then $13 UPS 3-day delivery from there on up. Furious George!

So this afternoon as Jimmy and I were putting about our day we dragged our knuckles into the Cumberland County Civic Center and bought our cheapseats with no fees or taxes or nuthin'!



And we weren't even that inconvenienced, which makes us happier than a barrel of monkeys that throw feces at Ticketmaster. Can't wait! Oooh oooh AAAH!

Drifting Into Consciousness

Today was what some might refer to as a down day. Jimmy has a little cold so we stayed in and watched movies, I always thought the Secret of NIMH was about some mythical magical grotto for rodentia--it's not, NIMH is mental lab, who knew!

The highlight of our day: Wally makes chicken stock for Jimmy's congestion.



I hope it works!

SPRING

The past few days we've been having so much springin' fun and avoiding life's blowtrastrophes that we need some catching up to do! Here are 3 minutes of tv that I think are better than a fake 1960s moonlanding:

Friday

Whenever you want to feel completely disconnected with the community and battle arrogant quasibureaucrats and witness a four-year-old throw a fist into your child's face, look no further than your local library!

Aye yaye I'll spare ya the luminous stories of our first post-renovation visit to the Portland Public Library, here are some photos.

Upon exiting I was reminded of a post by Allie at Broke 207 and so we were inspired to eat at...





...Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Back downstairs I took some photos of the Public Market (*much* friendlier than the Public Library, why is that??) and took some advice to do my own DIY sorta Hipstamatic-ing at Picnik.com. Thanks Kelly!

NipsDaInDaBud-ic

All the prominent blogstresses are drooling and posting over the Hipstamatic photo feature that will turn your millennial digital photos into bleedy runny 70s photos and I thought 'heck, I'm hip! Count dis blogstrimatrix eee-in!' and took some photos of Jimmy's new Mr. Potatohead, it was all perfect, hipstamaticwise. So I lawg all into the world wide web (the one with the email) and upload (download? bbs? AOL?) my photos and goggle the Hipstamatic only to find....the Hipstamatic is an iPhone app. Ahem. Hm. I have no other blog ideas for the day, I was kind of relying on the whole Hipstamatic thing...and now I'm forced to admit that I don't have an iPhone or an iPod or an iPad or a cellPhone or callerID or voiceMail or cableTV or any of these dotCalm updated Things dawt calm, so I guess that all nips the Hipstamatic post in the bud and now I'm feeling a little behind-the-times sharing my digital photos of Pixar's Mr. Potatohead and of my digital son version 1.eternity:







Licking my e-wounds, I dust up my 17 lb monitor and my Angelfire website from 2003 and will attempt to install this interwebcamera that my iFather passed down to me. Wish this prehistonic family luck!

Cranes Plus Annoying Trees Equal...

...45 minutes of free tv-free entertainment!



The City came to remove a tree that was hanging into our yard, my hubby was thrilled and Jimmy was mesmerized.















Instead of a Tiiiiiim-BER! it was more of a Tiiiiiim-MID! but still fun to watch. Thanks for getting it out of our yard, City of Portland!

"G.GordonLiddeee, this is DELICIOUS!"

...that's what Hubby exclaimed when I fed him today's Watergate Salad. I'd never heard of Watergate Salad until Jimmy slipped a box of pistachio pudding into our cart a few days ago, I just didn't have the heart to utter once more "no Cutie...we don't need that" so we brought the box home and used it as a reading experiment:



...which turned into a recipe experiment:



...and then an eatin' experiment.



As far as a history experiment goes (why is this called Watergate Salad??), I must yield to the almighty Wikipedia because when it comes to history I'm braindead'd.

The origin of the name “Watergate salad” is obscure. Kraft Corporate Affairs said, "We developed the recipe for Pistachio Pineapple Delight. It was in 1975, the same year that pistachio pudding mix came out." Kraft, however, didn't refer to it as Watergate Salad until consumers started requesting the recipe for it under the name. "According to Kraft Kitchens, when the recipe for Pistachio Pineapple Delight was sent out, an unnamed Chicago food editor renamed it Watergate Salad to promote interest in the recipe when she printed it in her column."

And here I thought Watergate was some Nixon/Forrest Gump thing. Ok, wait...I'm receiving word that Watergate is a Nixon thing, see I thought it tasted Nixony, thank the lawd for live internet reporting, eh.

In other news, on the same shopping trip (thanks, ahem, Walmart) we picked up a yard of choo-riffic fabric...







...which turns out to be a fun use of $4.44 (the discount price of The Beast, mmuuuuuwaaaahahahaa...) Happy fore-twenny!

Happy Patriots' Day!

'Tis the third Monday of April so of course that means: it's Patriots' Day for us he-ah in Maine. Growing up I didn't know the whole country didn't have this holiday, to this day I'm still not quite sure what the holiday is all about (my eyes went blank when I just now looked it up on the Wikipedia--but all is not lost, I do think the Wiki eternally schooled me on where to put the apostrophe) and we celebrated with a patriotic dinner, of course. Featuring:

Franks & Beans



Bread from a can





And put all together with a soft-sided hot dog roll



Hope you had a Happy Patriots' Day (whatever it is....)

On the Ho zon

A 'Ho zon' is a Plymouth Horizon that is missing the 'ri' part of its rear silvery label, or that's what my hubby tells me how it was on his Plymouthian compact vehicle of the 1980s.

Now that we're in the 2010's, on our horizon is:









Checking out the $7m upgrade to the Portland Public Library.












Taking charge of our crayon scraps.
















Scouting locations for Jimmy's Birthday Party #3












Inviting folks to the privilege of participating in a write-in campaign for my ho zon hubby's band The Mallett Brothers in the Best New Act category of the Portland Phoenix's Best Music Poll (aka many pleezes and sweaty heartfelt thankyuhverymuches for clicking a write-in vote on over. <=) [also available for votes in the Best Rock Act and Best Heavy Music Act categories are: Sun Gods In Exile, Ocean, and Twisted Roots.]















Curious George, ALIVE, and coming to a town near me.









And those are our ho zontal prospects on this Sunday. And I can't jussay it enough, Sunday evenings are so much more divine when you don't have to work Monday!!! Jussayin'!

Hangin' on da stoop

It was a good day for enjoying some sun and some mechanical bubbles...









...and with playing with some sidewalk chalk. I like to call it chalk talk as in "You wanna hang for some chalk talk?" or "Stay tuned for some Chalk Talk." Y'know, cool like that.













"Chalk" to you tomorrow. Haha! Bubbles!


Sun!
(just ignore me)