You know those people that come to your house?

So today I was working upstairs – which is where all of the “magic” happens – and then ‘bing-bong’ goes the doorbell. I rushed down the stairs and answered the door in an extremely dissheveled and frenzied manner – which – and I know that you weren’t necessarily asking – is usually a great way to open the door if you are trying to get rid of the people doing all of the ‘bing-bong(ing)’.

Now wait wait wait young sir – you may just be thinking to yourself – why in the world would you want to scare people away from your door?! Well it is an epic struggle from those who are at home in the middle of the day and those people who are all about knocking on my door to give me some crazy booklet with a baby holding a star and looking at a rainbow – or whatever – you know those people . . . Here is how the conversation typically goes:

Them:Why hello sir! What a glorious day we are blessed to be having. Would you be interested in . . .
It is usually by now that they realize just how dissheveled and frenzied my door opening was and start to trail off. So then I mumble something about “Having to work . . . working from home . . . gotta go to do some work” or something even more effective like coughing uproriously and then – and yes I do go back to the mumble for this – “Really sick . . . work from home . . . sorry about my dog . . . gotta go do something.” At which point they usually give measured glances to me and then at each other and decide to just cut their losses give me their pamphlet and go to the next house.

Today was the exception (and I have to point out that this was their third visit this week – and so I think that they are catching onto my little game) – I pulled the mumbling work thing – they gave me their pamphlets – and then the deal was done – right?! Oh no friend – because as they were leaving – just before they threw in their “Have a blessed day” thing – the leader mentioned that they would love to come back and talk with me about whatever I was supposed to be reading in their pamphlets . . . like some sort of potential pop-quiz or something. I was trapped – my tricks hadn’t gotten rid of them at all and so in a vain effort I threw out the “Even though I work from home . . . meetings . . . sometimes I go out . . . to meetings.” or something like that. She just looked and – even though I’m not even really sure if she said anything – this is what I got from her eyes – – “We know when you are here . . . we will find you . . .” So I have lost this battle . . . and will be boarding a cruise to Antigua on the first of the month . . . or maybe I’ll just have them in for tea and cakes . . . or – or – or . . .

A Terrifying Story (about a doughnut)

So last night I was out and about – usually whenever I leave the house I tend to go “out and about” – or if I am feeling particularly Canadian then I may sometimes also go “oot and aboot” – but that is besides the point – so let’s ignore all of that and get back to that that that there point.

It was around a quarter after ten in the evening when I found myself at one of the local “doughnutaterias” – what a treat it is to watch the big machine make the little doughnuts – but more on that some other day – for right now one important thing to point out is that I noticed that the doughnuts seemed to be a bit “cakey” on the line (or maybe a tad overcooked?!) – they just looked a bit off . . .

Anyway – I ended up with a plain doughnut with chocolate frosting and multi-colored sprinkles and a “quick-slam” jug of milk – or something like that. Once in the car – I pulled out the doughnut and started to eat it – and that was when it hit me . . .

As much as I would love to think that there was something intrinsically weird or wrong with my “cakey” doughnut . . . I had to ask the question – am I past the point of doughnut goodness?? And don’t get me wrong about it being too “sweet” or anything – I drank 1 1/2 gallons of serious sweet tea yesterday – but maybe it was too sweet or something . . . Is this just a bump in the road – or something more final?

Tonight – I think that I’ll take a bath in simple syrup to find out – or maybe the dog will . . . maybe – just maybe . . .

Last night I ate some rice . . .

But seriously – it wasn’t just any old rice – it was fairly-super-great rice . . . it needs a bit of tweaking – but I think that it’ll get there. I dropped some cilantro, garlic, scallions, salt, pepper, butter, lemons and limes into the rice cooker – and let it go go go . . . I need to figure out how to get all of the flavors to like each other and then how much of which and what to put in there – but it’s just a start . . . a tasty treat of a start.

And that was just the “entree.”

On the side we had a mixed greens spring salad mix thing – which could have been anything – the real excitement came from the Makoto Ginger dressing. So so so so so so so good – it’s almost like being at one of those Japanese steak houses – which are some of the best places in the world . . . except without all of the steak, shrimp and fun . . .

The fun came from watching Cannonball run . . .

Rice – Ginger – and Sammy Davis Jr. as a priest in a red Ferrari oh what a treat!!

Now my dog needs a license . . .


So evidently the Decatur dog parks are getting to be too big for their puppy britches . . . and now my innocent little angel of a dog [Irving Brown Socks] has to go in and get some sort of license.

Will he need to take some sort of eye test, or study from a book of rules and symbols, or have his height/weight/eye color scrutinized by some humorless by the books toady?!

I’m not even sure – go to this link and read everything and let me know . . . for right now – we are going to be too busy working on parallel parking and stuff . . .

This thing that I did . . .

For three seriously strenuous days this week I got to put on the hat of “Art Handler” for the Madison Morgan Cultural Center, located in the bucolic town of Madison, Georgia.

According to the Morgan County Citizen the show [“Neat Pieces”] was “An exhibit of “plain style” furniture made and used by Georgians in the 1800s.” So basically it was a bunch of old old wonderfully crafted sometimes very very heavy furniture that needed to be taken home after an extended exhibition. And what an adventure in driving a 16 foot truck around all kinds of parts of Atlanta and then carrying scarily expensive pieces of furniture into really nice houses (that often smelled like my Grandparent’s old house – ah the boxwood) it was.

I had great fun getting to put on a different work hat for part of the week. I enjoyed pretending that we were playing an odd version of “Smokey & the Bandit” except we the only cops that we saw were looking out into the woods, the “blocker” car was a Toyota with nary a “Firebird” symbol to be found, we were carrying furniture and not beer, I never remembered to wear a cowboy hat – okay – to buy and then wear a cowboy hat, and instead of a basset hound named “Fred” I had Ronald. But other than all of that – seriously – a lot like the movie . . .

Maybe next week I’ll put on some other different type of hat . . . perhaps something along the lines of a stovepipe?!