Green Ox Reads Seven Government Form: Gluey!!

What have I been doing during my long absence from the innerwubs? Thinking only of you, my darlings. Only of you.

With you in mind, then, I undertook to perfect a special recipe. This is particularly for those of you with an open mind, an adventurous palate and a thrill-seeking liver. So without further ado (or extensive disclaimer - if you misuse this it's going to take some deliberate doing on your part and I'm not your mother)I present to you the fruit of ten years' experimentation:

Shasta Daisies a la Mexico
...a delightful beverage you can serve at your next Young Republicans soiree
fig a: "shasta daisy" (wink wink) showing all plant parts.

Note: Effects and measurements of the "Shasta Daisy" are based on results using a middle aged woman weighing 210 pounds with an empty stomach first thing in the morning. Your results may vary. In fact, if you are allergic to opiates, your results may vary as far as death, which is fatal. Don't be a dipshit.

___________________________________________________________

INGREDIENTS:

-Entire "Shasta Daisy" plants, leaves and all, harvested after the first few seedpods have formed... any undeveloped flower buds removed and discarded, any flower petals removed and discarded, root ends and woody trunk cut off and discarded, the remaining plant parts washed and chopped into manageable pieces. DON'T forget the washing. Particularly if you have dogs. Yeah.
fig. b: "Shasta Daisy" comes in many different colors and petal configurations, which matters not one whit to the relative potency of its psychoactive compounds.

-Lukewarm water as needed

-One whole cake of 'Abuelita' style Mexican chocolate

-One pint heavy cream

-1/4 cup Hershey's Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder

-Plain white sugar or honey (or fructose) to taste


The following ingredients are optional and to taste and can be omitted if so desired. I don't. These are what makes it extra delicious.
-MORE Hershey's Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder

-One can of coconut milk (or one handful of shredded sweetened coconut)

-Ground nutmeg

-Ground cinnamon

-Ground black pepper

-More sugar or honey (or fructose.)

______________________________________

INSTRUCTIONS:

Run the chopped "Shasta Daisies" through a blender, using just enough lukewarm water to make things able to move through the blades, adding bit by bit until you have 2 cups of green chopped up goop. Pour into a saucepan and set aside.

Now pour the heavy cream and/or the coconut milk into the blender. Break up the cake of Abuelita Mexican chocolate and add to carafe, blend until smooth. Or as smooth as it gets, which is a little sandy.

Add the rest of the ingredients into the carafe and blend them together now, if you're the bold type and know your spices. Or, you can wait and whisk them in later and taste often. It's up to you. I honestly don't care. Just do whatever the fuck you want. Just go right ahead.

Transfer the contents of the blender to the saucepan. Now add extra lukewarm water, cream or milk to this if you have to, enough to bring the slurry up to a 'Campbells chicken noodle soup' consistency. It all depends on how 'juicy' the "Shasta Daisies" were, so do whatever you gotta do here.


Stirring often, bring the contents of the saucepan up to a bare simmer, just before it begins to bubble actively. If you were all spineless about adding the extra ingredients earlier, now is the time to whisk them in, tasting often, but sparingly. After all, we're talking about "Shasta Daisies" here. At this point it's going to have a distinctly rank, uncooked green vegetable flavor. This is probably because at this point it's raw uncooked vegetable matter. You see.

Once it reaches the 'almost bubbling' point, lower the heat and let it steep on 'low' for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. This develops the spices, extracts the active ingredients from the "Shasta Daisy" and also kills the 'lawn clippings and raw beans' taste.

Let cool (overnight in the fridge is optimum), then strain. I use a ricer over a fine mesh strainer set over a bowl, working in batches, so I can squeeze out every last drop of that "Shasta Daisy" goodness.
fig. 3: "Shasta Daisy". If anyone at this point actually, actually comments 'Hey, that's not a Shasta Daisy!', please go read Wife in the North.

This is delicious. DELICIOUS . The "Shasta Daisy" adds a pleasant astringency that keeps the whole from being too cloying, actually acting as both a culinary and a psychoactive ingredient. One 16 fluid ounce glass is roughly equivalent to the intoxicating effect of one hefty oxycontin, so if you're a cheap date don't be operating any giant wheat combines or the Space Shuttle or attempting microsurgery or taking care of an infant or trying to conduct serious business. Or actually yes, try and conduct serious business. And make a video of that, and send it to me. In about 30 minutes, assuming an empty stomach and a normal constitution, you should begin to feel the effects, which can last anywhere from 6 to 10 hours.

You Randolph Carter types will already know what to expect from the "Shasta Daisy" and its unique melange of active ingredients, and so you'll be glad to hear that you can use any of the usual enhancing agents to kick it with for that extra something special. I'd advise you to let it happen unassisted for the first trial, though. If I add anything, I add a shot of Bushmills and call it good.

Now, you see? Wasn't that worth waiting for? Yes it was. Now here's a picture of some boobs.

APRIL FUCKING FOOL

My computer was wiped out completely-COMPLETELY- by the April Fools' virus. For Gods sake, folks, be careful opening your e-mails. Particularly forwards. I'm pretty sure thats how it snuck in. I checked my mail, then turned off the computer for the day. When I turned it back on, garbage. Toast. A giant heaving pile of steaming fecal debris rotating silently in the void like a derelict spaceship from the planet Fuckroast.

What this means to you is that Paul is going on hiatus. For those of you new to the nutty wacky zaniness and madcap tomfoolery, go hit the archives and see what you missed and cry. (Ignore the labels. The labels mean nothing.) Hit the sidebar and go visit the Muk-sponsored sites. If you want an invite to Unorthodox Juju, or to wah and kvetch about me going on hiatus, or to send me money, gimme a dingle at

redace196oATgmailDOTcom

While I'm here I'll bring things up to date...
The Playboy of the Western World passed away and left us with a lot of things to finalize. He also left us more than enough wherewithal to finalize said things with, which was an unexpected blessing. As in, DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG.

The Playboy of the Western World is in heaven, and heaven is a significantly more fabulous place because of that

The Stainless Steel Amazon is going to have a baby here in May sometime, and she's going to do a home birth because she is not a simpering tool of the patriarchy and because birth is not an abnormal occurrance

The Lucky Bastard is riding a Sportster, growing a beard and getting ready to be a dad

The Goonybird is growing like a goony weed and doing his damndest to teach himself how to read!

The Arborist continues butch as fuck and hard as nails, making tall trees tremble, cows cower, and slashing tequila out the neck of the bottle

Girl Getty is still far too gorgeous, has 50% more hair and has opened another store!

Jimmy the Greek is cooking and reading!

Teh Princess is dancing!

Spreidel is running!

The important thing is, everyone is employed, healthy and happy.
Me, I'm outta here.

Yes, 'tis I

I'm still here. I'm just busy doing things. Secret things that you can't know about.

Fine, actually I'm re-doing my bedroom. Now here's a nice picture of Mr. Egyptian Penis Man:


Mr. Egyptian Penis Man says "Look busy"
I say "Never drive a car that has one wheel falling off it"

UPDATED: CRAP!

NOW WITH PICTURES! AT THE END!! SCROLL DOWN!!! QUICK!!!!
_____________________________________

I have too many collections.

I have a collection of 50's diner ware (matched, flawless, full service for 6! THATS RIGHT BITCHES!)
I have a collection of metal Tonka trucks and cars
I have a collection of eggs
I have a collection of things which are spherical (round rocks, globes, old bocci balls, slag...)
I have a collection of old pop bottles
I have a collection of paper ephemera
I have a collection of 60's era underground comix
I have a collection of mid-century modern display pottery
I have a collection of dead animal parts
I have a collection of glass measuring cups
I have a collection of vintage kitchen utensils

The only collection I have displayed in its entirety is the pop bottle collection. The rest are in storage, either in part (eggs, display pottery, animal heads) or in whole (all the rest of the stuff I haven't mentioned.)

My husband got me started collecting purely by chance, way back in 1986, when I mentioned that I needed a measuring cup for the kitchen. He brought me home a depression-era glass mug-style cup. "Aw," I thought, "how nice."

60 measuring cups later......some of which I still have....and use....

A need for an eggbeater (still in use) brought a 1942 Foley with a green handle into the house. Similarly, when our coffeemaker tanked, we picked up a 1935 Pyrex glass percolator (still have two of them, guts included.) Of course, by now we were both hooked. At one point I had every single item in this collectors catalogue:

(...well shit, I sold it and I don't recall the name. Had to get temptation completely out of my path. Anyway, it was a pretty comprehensive book.)

...and some that they'd never heard of. Including hand-made ones. 25 different egg beaters. 17 different pancake flippers. Tasting spoons-5. Choppers-5. Cake knives-4. Tinned milk openers-7 (including one given away as a premium by a funeral home. WTF?) Sub-collections included advertsing premiums, red handles, green handles, yellow handles, Foley, Formay, black composition ware....

In the meantime I had branched out into collecting antique working kitchen appliances, Bakelite, vintage crocheted hot mats, vintage Fire King and Pyrex (curse you Martha Stewart for making latter so desirable that it got priced out of my reach, you bitch!) and I had the Biker halfway talked into doing an entire 1940's kitchen.

Because I was working in rental properties I had my choice of any style of vintage appliance or accoutrement I wanted just for the asking. And they ALL WORKED. Condenser-top refrigerators, gas ranges, you name it- anything my demented little heart desired. Wringer washers? Check! Enamel double-sink with attached drainer? Yup. Light fixtures, fans, hardware, counters, trim....fricken' towel bars, even. LIGHT SWITCHES.

Bear in mind that at the time, we lived in a MOBILE HOME.

I finally woke up one day right before my daughter was going to have a birthday party and looked around at a kitchen that was almost entirely encrusted in vintage kitchen tools and asked myself "Self, why are you nuts?" I sold it all. Well fine, most of it. At least didn't lose money, but still. The habit remains, and I still find myself looking without even meaning to.

Same with the pottery. I found a lovely ikebana piece and it fit so nicely in with my decor. Then I found another, and it complimented the first one, and it was only .10 so how could I NOT buy it, right? And so on, and so on, and....yeah.

The dead animal parts collection is just strange on a couple of different levels. Once again, my husband started it. He presented me with a deer skull with antlers intact, and I displayed it, and then one of his buddies brought me a badger skull, and another guy brought me a coyote jawbone, then my daughter found an entire coyote skull...a crow in a tree dropped a squirrel skull right at my feet one day while I was gardening....the neighbors cat drug a rabbit into my shed and the bugs did the rest. I figure when the Universe wants you to collect something, you'd better heed it.

The problem is, I live in a small house. I really don't mean to accumulate all this crap either; its just once you develop an 'eye' for something, you see it everywhere. Like when you buy a certain make of car and suddenly it seems like the entire world owns the same one. And if you're me and you have the scrounge-bargain gene, you see it everywhere, for DIRT FRICKEN' CHEAP.
Whats a little Muk to do?

...Get buried in crap like the goddam DiAmato brothers if she doesn't watch out.

Anyway, I am seriously thinking about selling the mid-century modern pottery. Here's some pictures. You can enlarge them and enjoy the dust and smudges! The only one with any kind of a flaw is the tall white vase, and it has a chip on the base. Which you can't see in these pictures. So, yeah.




Anyone interested? I've got some sweet stuff. Gimme a dingle.

The Watchmen

Visually, The Watchmen ranks right at the top, with Dark Crystal. 300 runs a distant second. It is photographically true to the artists work. It reaches further by being absolutely, painstakingly true to the original story and writing style as well. This is no loose adaptation, and furthermore it works exactly because of these things. The two-story scale of the theatre version can barely contain it.


I'm pretty inured to screen violence, yet parts of this had me absolutely revulsed. It's not the graphic gore-which there is in plenty-it's that its not treated incidentally. You are meant to pay attention to it. Its meant to be ugly and squalid and disgusting and petty and cruel. And it is.


This movie is a lot of things...visually wonderful, exciting, intense-but it is not a 'fun' film. I thought it was almost as emotionally exhausting as Das Boot was. ( and at 2 hrs and some-odd minutes running time your ass ends up almost as numb afterwards.) This film makes a very caustic, mature statement about idealism vs. reality. It's R rated for a reason. Another large, blue, uncircumcized reason is waving around randomly on Dr. Manhattan for most of the movie. And then theres some hot costumed superhero sex too. So its not exactly a total bummer.

Go see it NOW. And go see it while it's still playing on the big screen. It's worth whatever you have to pay. It really is that good.

The Re-Store!!

Let's all go on a field trip to the local architectural salvage place! It'll be fun! Those of you allergic to bargains and terminal cool may stay on the bus. Here's a can of CoolWhip and some Wet Wipes. Let's all remember our manners and share.

If it weren't for the ReStore my kitchen would be a barren wasteland, like parts of Elton Johns head. As it stands, thanks to the ReStore, we no longer have to stack our pots and pans on elderly bald pop stars.

They don't only sell kitchen components, of course. Here's a nice bathroom sink from back in the dim and distant...
...I had one just like it at the place on 9th and Pine. It was so unpredictable that it had its own room, as did the bathtub. The toilet was so difficult it was in another part of the apartment entirely.

What was that extra bulge in front for? To keep you from falling off, I always figured. And look, the price has been reduced!

Behold: the mighty EXPULSO. Even after all these years it's a name that inspires confidence. You know the mighty EXPULSO is ready and willing to handle whatever you can throw at it. Bring it, bitch.

Of course should you host a long weekend full of frat boys and takeout Thai food the Restore has a solution for that too:


The whole place is filled with random strange works of...art...just like this, in odd corners. Some of it is made by the various volunteers who staff the place, and some of it is 'found'
If you and the Wallendas are experiencing one of those slow patches during a visit, here's something you could do to keep them amused! And no, its not for sale. I've asked. They said no. I was shattered.


Looking for a knob? You no longer have to go all the way to Dorset and knock on Beasts door. The ReStore has a hardware section!


Another random display challenges us to ponder the source of our water.

and one persons answer.


At one point in time one of the volunteers must have been from the UK. See, this is so typical. Like I'm not going to get it, right? Like they can hippity hop off and think 'Woo, I'm so clever and British! Those Americans have no idea what that means!" but see, I do; I just don't care so HA HA ON YOU.

This thing has been perched high above the paint and fasteners section for over 20 years.

I'm pretty sure that if you look at it for too long the pet mosquito leaps down and buries its probiscis in your brain.

This was on the back of some old cabinets. Man, if I could find linoleum like that I'd rip up the floor in my kitchen with my teeth!!! Is that not cooler than shit?



Bad 70's downmarket furniture store accessory #45: Glutea Maxitude


Which should serve as a nice lead-in to our 'WTF' category.
Seriously, what the FUCK?


No, now, lets move in a little closer and examine this thing. The more you look at it the more disturbing it becomes.

You see what I mean? Huh?

You see? You see what I mean? What the hell is this thing? I've thought of three possibilities:

1. A chiropractic or surgical device, possibly used for spinal injuries or setting leg breaks.
2. A device used for assembling and dressing store window mannequins
3. A device used for STRAIGHTENING OUT DEAD PEOPLE and keeping them that way while you wired them into place.

Anyway, I want one.

I also want one of these.

I've had one of these in almost every place I ever rented in Portland. They all worked flawlessly, you could break them down into easily washable pieces, and...

...they had this cool enamel cover that gave you extra counter space and kept the javelinas out of your stovetop. If we had NG hooked up I would donate my electric stove and install this sapsucker in a New York minute. I took a lot of really good meals off these things.


This is their trophy case. Its all weird things they found inside donations. Brandish the dried penis of an Alaskan Tigerbat three times in front of your screen to enlarge the image. Or click.

Now, wasn't that fun? Sure it was. Really, it was. Yes I know the man yelled at you. Yes I know Voices kept staring at you and it was creepy. It was fun because I said it was, ok? Now hurry up and get back on the bus before the cyborgs ask to check our ID implants.

You are all WONDERFUL.

I'm taking a break for awhile, probably about a week. We lost the Playboy of the Western World four days ago (we're checking all our pockets and the dryer) and right now the Biker and I are going to hang out in the real world and get things situated.

You can save your condolences; they aren't necessary. This was a good thing, and while we're all sad, we're relieved too. The Playboy had just come through a very difficult couple of months. It had been just one thing after another, and on top of it all he was recovering from a horribly painful bout of the shingles. All of that had stressed his system past what it could tolerate. After a couple of weeks in the hospital he'd been released into interim care. He was in his favorite facility where everyone knew him and loved him - in fact I'd had members of the staff say to me 'You know, don't take this the wrong way but I can't wait for him to be here full time!'
He was doing well, running around visiting and gambling and gossiping and whatnot. That morning the nurse gave him a haircut. When she was done she told him he was beautiful, and he looked in the mirror, agreed, and said "Let the party begin!" And a few minutes later someone walked past his room and found him sitting in his wheelchair. He had just slipped away to the party.

Those were his last words.

Isn't that something?

Isn't that the most amazing thing?

Right now, all the angels are singing 'It's Raining Men'