The Bloggess

UPDATED: Twice as cute. Although I suppose that’s subjective.

June 24, 2014in Random Crap, Taxidermy is weird but so am I

Last month when we were in Atlanta I found an old, two-headed taxidermied bobcat in a thrift shop that I really wanted to buy, but then I noticed that the shop also had a human hand in a jar for sale. I couldn’t justify buying both of them and that’s when I realized that this is probably the kind of torture that normal women go through when they’re forced to pick only one pair of shoes. The bobcats were awesome because they were on clearance, so they were twice as cute and half off. The math does itself. Victor disagreed, but I pointed out that there was a lot going with these bobcat heads. One face seemed conservative and cranky while the other seemed flighty and possibly insane. These heads were a personification of us. The Victor-ish head seemed to say, “No. This is a terrible idea” but the me-head was like, “I CAN’T WAIT TO GO HOME WITH YOU GUYS. GIMME A SNUGGLE AND A BALLOON.”

I'm the one in the middle. — I’m the one in the middle.

But the severed hand was cool too, mostly because it was tattooed in the most ironic way ever.

You have to question how “lucky” a guy is if he ends up with his hand in a jar, but severed rabbit feet are supposed to be lucky too so maybe this all makes sense somehow. I couldn’t decide between the two so I held them up to Victor one at a time. “Which is better? The conjoined bobcat faces or the severed hand?” He looked at me like he was in pain. I don’t blame him though. It was a tough decision. Victor insisted that I couldn’t buy both but I cradled the bobcat heads and said, “I don’t know. I really need ‘a hand’ with these two. Literally.” Victor pointed out that we were getting on a plane in a few hours and I probably couldn’t bring a human hand through airport security, and I was like “Good point. Because of the liquid formaldehyde, huh?” And he was like “AND BECAUSE IT’S A HUMAN HAND.” I don’t know much liquid can you bring on a plane if a severed hand is displacing most of it so I still couldn’t decide but then the clerk pointed out that the hand was an old movie prop made of latex and so I decided to pass on it because I’m allergic to latex. I paid for my cat(s) but I couldn’t come up with good names for them. Victor suggested “Hang-Nail & SideCat” but I asked twitter and they suggested several winners too and now I can’t decide. So I’m going to let you decide. Please vote on the best names for the newest members of my terrible posse:

The left head hates the tie. The right head loves it. Victor would prefer it if I'd stay away from his ties. — The left head hates the tie. The right head loves it. Victor would prefer it if I’d stay away from his ties.

UPDATED: Another option. Please don’t sue me, Kevin Smith. It’s a tribute. Swear to Alanis Morissette.

Oh, Facebook…you win.

June 22, 2014in Random Crap, weekly reruns

Remember last month when Facebook sent me a targeted eBay ad specifically for me, and it was for the ass of a squirrel sticking out of a wall? And I wrote about it and then Facebook decided to double down so the next week they sent me an ad for the taxidermied ass of a larger animal. And then Victor told me I was bringing it on myself because I kept looking at these animal-ass auction ads that Facebook kept sending me and so Facebook probably thought I was into that sort of thing? Well, I stopped looking at the weird ads Facebook was sending me, and Victor was right…the ass pictures have stopped.

They’ve been replaced with this:

I give up. — I don’t even know what that is but it seems to have a goggly-eyes and I think it comes with its own sauce.

Touché, Facebook.

****************

And in other news, it’s time for the weekly wrap-up:

What you missed in my shop (Named “Eight pounds of uncut cocaine” so that your credit card bill will be more interesting.):

Chocolate-filled calendar. Except without dates because this way you can go for the chocolate whenever the hell you need a piece without a calendar telling you what to do. Perfect for friends having a shitty week. This is the safe-for-work version.
This is the version you hide in your desk and eat from when you coworkers are being dicks.

What you missed on the internets:

This week on shit-I-didn’t-come-up-with-but-wish-I-did-because-it’s-kind-of-awesome:

The only thing better than this website are the people who don’t realize it’s satire.
Victor and I are amateur ghost hunters so we visit lots of haunted hotels, but he’s drawn the line at this one. Also, I’ll never eat ham again.

This week’s wrap-up is brought to you by Zazzle.com. You already know I love them because I use them for my own shop, but they’re also pretty fantastic for finding bad-ass gifts, or creating your own. You can customize designs that already exist or make things from scratch. My personal favorite: post a picture of your kid (or cat, or whatever) here and they’ll turn it into an acrylic, cut-out photo sculpture. I used that same process to make tons of tiny standing Beyoncé’s and Juanita Weasels so I could create a custom checker board. I recommend.

I’m stuck on this deer. Literally.

June 20, 2014in Random Crap, Taxidermy is weird but so am I

Victor says I never accomplish anything when he’s out of town but I spent yesterday super-gluing tiny rhinestones to a taxidermied deer’s nose so that it would look more magical. So there, Victor.

PS. I bought the deer in a thrift shop because it looks exactly like Victor when he’s like “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Honestly. What are you doing? I’m just baffled.”

And the answer is that I’m rescuing a battered old deer head to turn him into the kind of magical bad-ass who looks fit to hang out with The White Witch of Narnia.

I’m not even close to finished yet, but it’s a work-in-progress…

PPS. I accidentally super glued my thumb to a dead deer’s face so now I can check that one off my bucket list. Victor said it doesn’t count because no one has that on their bucket list, but I do my bucket list in reverse order (writing down the items I want to accomplish after I’ve already accomplished them) so that I’m always caught up. So now I can also scratch off “dismantle a chandelier” and “bedazzle a corpse”. Also, “annoy victor from several States away”. He claims that one was already accomplished long ago but now I’m trying to set a record for distance.

Summer vacation. UPDATED.

June 18, 2014in Random Crap

This isn’t today’s post. Today’s post is here. It’s about cats. As usual. This is just something I need advice on that I can’t fit on twitter.

Hailey’s off for the summer and we want to take a family vacation but we have no idea where to go. We want someplace exciting, but not super stressful or crowded. Someplace where you can sign up for tours/activities, ideally. Our favorite vacations were Alaska (glacier-watching, crab-fishing, hiking, whale-watching, panning for gold, hanging with bear) and South America (cave diving, exploring ruins, hanging with monkeys) but it would be awesome to find something new that’s easy and fun and can be done in 4-5 days. I was thinking Yellowstone but Victor thinks it might be boring. He was thinking New York but crowds freak me out. Hailey was thinking Jupiter because she’s nine and doesn’t understand the concept of limits.

I need advice. What’s the best place you’ve ever been and what did you do there that made it awesome?

UPDATE: You guys are the best and holy shit, do you love traveling. After going through all the comments we winnowed it down to 5 spots less than 3 hours away and then my friend Karen called and was like, “Why don’t you just go to Hell?” It seemed a bit abrasive for Karen, but turns out she was referring to Hell, Grand Cayman, which was on our short list because apparently the island has pirates, rum and a sea turtle farm. This works well because I like pirates, Victor likes rum and Hailey likes turtles. We just bought our plane tickets but I haven’t booked a hotel or anything else. Since crowd-sourcing worked so well this morning I’m trying it again…those of you who pushed (or who’ve visited) Grand Cayman: Where’s a good place to stay? What should we do and/or avoid? Why am I paying money to go to Hell when I’ll probably end up there for free eventually? Pick a question.

And that’s why cats shouldn’t be allowed phones

June 18, 2014in my cat's toes, Random Crap

Truthfully though, the same sort of progression happens to just about anyone when they begin taking selfies…

This makes me weirdly homesick.

June 17, 2014in Random Crap

My sister and her kids are at my parents’ house and we were supposed to be there too but this hernia bullshit made traveling impossible so I’m living vicariously through my sister’s texts:

Turns out that they are not swans but are baby geese. I know from experience that they grow up into real bastards and can draw blood when angry, so I reminded Lisa to get tetanus shots but then she reminded me that she had already learned her lesson because daddy had given her husband tetanus a few years ago. Accidentally, that is. Not as a gift. That would be a terrible gift. Not as bad as indoor geese probably. But close.