The Bros are Back

Dark Garden
Don't let him scare you

John Boy
Keeping endless reams of recorded statistics since 1960

This just in:

Now We Know Who...



But Where...?

Sorry for the delay, but...

So, Sisiggy, what have you been doing lately since, obviously, you haven't been blogging or reading blogs?

Well, we've had some exciting times here in Linguiniland.

First, the bad news. Thanks to my cousin Anna, who has been visiting, I now know that I am related to this:



We don't know who they are, but they're in with a bunch of family photos. So apparently they are related to us and are just as pissed about it as we are. Anyone noticing a resemblance will cause me to lock myself in a closet for the rest of my life.

In other Linguini news, things are so boring around here that even eating vegetables has been forced into competition mode.

For the official record, we decided size doesn't matter
-- in eating corn, anyway.

To make sure everything else was equal,
we had identical judges monitor each contestant.

It became the judges' call to decide if actually swallowing the corn was required before declaring a winner, since there is one of us around here who stores food in his mouth like a chipmunk and feeds it into his mouth gradually during the course of the evening.

and that person is NOT Dark Garden.

And some people know not to even try to
compete in anything requiring eating fast.

The next day the weekend's festivities were brought to a screeching halt by the evil corn fritters of death which spit fire on the pure of heart. You may or may not want to view this, so I put it on Flicker:

Why Sisiggy hasn't been blogging

Let's just say Sisiggy won't be doing much knitting for awhile.

GNOME UPDATE!

Photos from the second security cam have been developed:

The saga continues

Tragedy has once again struck here in Flushing Meadows at Gnome Hill. Once again evil stalks the roadway and we cower in our house, too frightened to set foot out the door.

It started so innocently. The first time it happened, the theft of our gnomes, we blamed the usual suspects: teenage pranksters, the contract tree clearers hired by the electric company, etc. We sort of laughed it off, you know? Gnomes are funny, right? Surely whoever took them had to have a sense of humor. I expected postcards from my gnomes as they traveled the globe.

But now I know there is something more sinister going on.

As is the custom, many guests that have visited us in the past few weeks have brought housewarming gifts.

JAG and Trasherati were no exception this weekend. Knowing about our unfortuate gnome incident this winter, they wanted to help me replace the gnomes that were stolen.

Since we already had your basic garden gnome, thanks to our friends April and Steve (who I also need to thank for picking out some wonderful wine for me this weekend), JAG and Trasherati decided to find a gnome that would be unique.

And so they searched far and wide to find



a tranvestite gnome!

















We like to represent all walks of life here at Gnome Hill and so Loretta was placed proudly on our front porch.




















No one would have the nerve to walk right up to the house to take our gnome. We'd hear their car, after all, and the dogs would bark.

How could we be so naive?

The next morning he was gone. Not a hint of blue eye shadow left behind, not a streak of lipstick.

But we can't figure out how this occurred. All we have is this blurred photograph taken by our security cam:



Other pictures are being developed . . .

The best thing about cheesecake is...

...it's at its most delicious the second day.

Fortunately Dirtman and I were so impolite we didn't offer to spit JAG's cheesecake offering so that she and Trasherati could take some home.

Cheesecake for breakfast! Cheesecake for lunch!

I'll be back to blog about the gnome incident just as soon as I can fit through the door again!*

The fruit tart brought by Trasherati? Haven't seen it since, five minutes after the conclusion of the Bloggers Convention West, Heir 2 secreted up to his room. All that remains is a torn up piece of cardboard due to a temper tantrum by Salt, who was too late to steal get a piece.

*I ate my lunch piece standing up, the effort of which was enough to counteract the calories. More or less. Give or take.

Now Don't I Feel Guilty...

You have to understand -- G. Fuzz has known me since we were little girls (one of us significantly shorter than the other, but nonetheless...). G. Fuzz knows where all the bodies are buried, all my deepest, darkest secrets, and every embarrassing moment of my teenage years.

G. Fuzz has great power over me, yet she chooses to use said powers for good.

So...yes, now I feel guilty. Because when she was going through a stressful time, all I could think to do is send her subversive postcards and these (even though I didn't sign my name, she somehow knew they were from me).

A year later, though, when I'm going through a not-nearly-as-stressful-in-fact-I-don't-even-know-what
stress-is-compared-with-her-stress-in-fact-a
downright-happy time, she sends me all this:




...like a real, grownup person.

Which means I'll have to cancel the T-Bone Shower Curtain I was getting her for Christmas.

Thanks, G. Fuzz. I'll meet you halfway again someday...

Cute flats...

...they say. They, who are more than 5 feet tall. What do they know of cute flats.

Jag and White Trasherati, bestowing guilt on the dumpy-legged Sisiggy: Why would I wear the Heels of Death when I can wear something called “cute flats.”

Why won’t I, of the Oompah-Loompah legs, wear “cute flats,” Ms. I’m Not Bringing a Bathing Suit to the Bloggers’ Convention West Because I Have No Intention of Entering the Hot Tub Because You All Have Cooties Or Mange Or Something Gross?

BECAUSE MY LEGS LOOK LIKE TREE TRUNKS IF I WEAR CUTE FLATS.

There I said it. So now I don’t want to go in the hot tub BECAUSE MY LEGS LOOK LIKE TREE TRUNKS AND JAG THINKS I HAVE COOTIES.

So now it’s down to Trasherati and Mamma K, (who are coming, correct? Since I have not heard otherwise?).

I will, however, be wearing cute flats because, as important as the Bloggers’ Covention West is, it’s not a wedding and you all do, after all, have cooties and mange.

Place Your Bets

Going to a wedding and keeping in mind that she has not been in heels in over three years (not to mention the unfortunate ankle-wacking incident), Sisiggy will last exactly how long in these:




...before she

a) falls over;

b) kicks them off and hopes no one notices;

c) keeps them on and uses severe foot pain as an excuse for issuing orders from the couch the next day;

d) all of the above.

Happy Birthday to Someone Totally Unrelated to Anyone Here

Normally the one of the qualifications for getting a birthday blog is to be a member of this family. But we’ll make an exception this time for Heir I, who does not want it to get around that we are related to him.

So even though he’s not a relative, Heir 1 has to endure gets a birthday blog.

Some random facts you may not know about Heir 1 (who is currently moaning):

• He was a bit of a celebrity when he was a baby since the newspaper I worked for dressed him in a tux and used him as the cover photo for a special section on weddings. Fortunately, for his sake, I haven’t unpacked that picture yet.
• When he was a toddler, even in the winter I had to hang clothes on the line since we didn’t have a dryer. So I would bundle him up in a snowsuit and take him out with me. The clothesline was on the side of a hill. I used to tell him to hang on to a tree because if he stumbled, his suit was so bulky and he’d just continue rolling down the hill until he hit a fence. As usual, he had to find out for himself…
• He once saved the life of Heir 2 by informing us that Heir 2 had a Lite Brite in his nose. It wasn’t until years later we found out Heir 1 put it there in the first place.

• 

  Heir 1 is an extremely talented writer who wants to, for some inexplicable reason, become a bartender. I think it’s because that way he thinks he can move to the Caribbean and immediately get a job. And drunk.
• Heir 1 hated to get helium balloons when he was little. He was okay until we got home at which point he’d make up put them outside. He thought they were following him.
• Heir 1 is suspicious of the Amish too.

Of course, I'm not sure of any of this because Heir 1 and I are not in any way related. Neither is he related to Dirtman or Heir 2. He is a rock. He is an iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisland.

Heir 1 is 18 today and his over-18 friends are treating him to something I find personally offensive, but is absolutely legal – a strip club (specifically, a West Virginia strip club – how trashy can you get?). And so here is my first hurdle in watching him do something reprehensible to me and keeping my mouth shut.

I do this not because he won’t listen if I forbid it, not because I’m passive/aggressive, but because it’s my job to let him go and let him fall and let him make stupid decisions and live with the consequences.

And I do this because his draft card arrived in the mail yesterday.