Wednesday, April 25, 2012


I'm Convinced....


...that I should move to Texas. Into a trailor park. And not take off the wheels.

Because then, when I wander, half dressed, shoeless and chewing tabacco into my local 7-11, I'll actually win when I buy my daily lottery ticket and six pack. Not just the weenie prizes either, the really big ones, the Fuck-Off Prizes. Oh, I'll tell the press that I'm going to become the world's greatest philantrhopist, right up there with Brangelina, Doing Good will be my motto - only first? I'm going to Do Good For Myself for a change.

I'm going to book that massage I've wanted for eons (but I bought child sneakers instead, as someone's feet grow faster than crabgrass on a hot July afternoon) and go to the dentist. For a cleaning. I love love love getting my teeth cleaned.  I'm going to hire someone to turn my barren, sad excuse of a lawn into a beautiful, gorgeous landscaped project, with trees that replenish the earth, and in their ensuing health and shade, kill off the baby stupid trees my neighbor (and I use that in the strictest sense - he really does live next to me, but we're, you know, not neighborly) planted, on my property line. That is, if I don't run them down with the lawnmower I'll finally buy, the ride on kind, you know, by accident.

I'll give to the big contributors that participate in the Grand Scheme of Things: the Cancer Society, the ASPCA, and build a new home for the groundhog - maybe he'll convince Spring it should arrive a little earlier out here, if he had better digs.

I've noticed that some people have won in New Jersey, but not the Fuck-Off prizes. Only the Blip On The Radar, I Had To Share It With Seventeen Other Winners prizes. I don't want those. Sharing is great, in the abstract, but honestly, as much as I tell my son how great and wonderful it feels to share, I think he suspects I might be lying.

I think even he gets it that sometimes, just occassionally, you want stuff all to yourself.

So this time around, when it reached some ridiculously huge billion dollar number, we bought tickets; some with the kids birthdays, some with ours, the puppy's birthday.....along with everyone else. We purchased it from places we would be proud to share some of it with - since, evidently, ultimately, they get a piece of the pie for being the one guy who sold the winning ticket. 

Paid for by the Lottery itself, ps. 

We played the What If game, in bed, late at night, laughing out our options.....stuff like buying off politicians that annoy us, or, better yet, purchasing my seat in the White House. I'm, like, smart, stylish, and, I have fashionable taste. I've a eye for business, and a very limited tolerance for stupidity. Which hubby thinks might limit my reign of power. There is, let's face it, tons of stupidity that goes on behind closed doors over there. 

However. He's right in the concept of purchasing those things that need some serious change, being the one to do it. Ending hunger in THIS country, for one. A live in masseuse for another. We can't decide on male or female; I say, just have both. They'll have a free residence from which to run their massage business, in one of the beautiful cabana's behind my huge pool, in my well-landscaped yard, right next to the Pool Guy.

The one who keeps an eye on that pesky neighbor, and the trees he planted not on the property line, but truly, on my property. I have the right to complain, to go to town hall and force him to move them....but we're already not really friendly, and I am trying to instill in the family how to place nicely in the sand box with others. Or, at the very least, not say anything badly about him, within his earshot.

Wonder how this all came to mind? I'll tell you.

Upon heading over to the town hall, I found out that I missed the big town meeting and open hearing for the gravel pit some idiot wants to put up behind my Other Neighbor's house (this neighbor, I like) ....and I've seen the guy that wants to operate it, and I wouldn't let him near my kid's sandbox, much less dig a big fat hole in the earth, so he can make money off destroying everything aound out here. I've considered going so far as to plant box turtles, which are endangered (this would be their natural habitat anyway) out there, if only I knew when the EPA was doing their walkthrough. I'd have to time it carefully, for with my luck? Those sneaky guys would wander off before the EPA made it to their new home.

 And then, I got to thinking how one of my fellow town dwellers managed to snare this contract's okay by buying off one of the senators and I thought, well, shoot, if I had the money, I'd buy off officials to my advantage. So he could stick his plan in his pipe and smoke it. My house would be saved from losing it's value, and being covered in dust.

Plus also, the town would love me. And then, I wouldn't have to buy a lawnmower. People from all over would line up to take care of the hard to do chores around the house (snow shoveling, also leaps to mind here) as thanks for my saving the town from a hoard of stupidity, dust, and massive amounts of heavy truck traffic on our roads.

Just think.

All this could happen, if only I moved to texas, and took up walking around barefoot, chewing tabacco, surveying my life from the inside of an RV, with the wheels still on.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

(R)evolutionary Drosophilia, Part II


(R)evolutionary Drosophilia, Part II



I remembered this post, written while still residing in My Dream Home after a phone from Mag's to tell me that my fruit fly trap most certainly interested them but failed in its ultimate goal: to catch them. Evidently, they're just a-hanging about the rim on the paper cone I trimmed to size, laced with wine (they do love a good cab - who doesn't, ya know?) and rotting fruit. 
Where have I gone wrong? I could have sworn this worked! I even kept the cap out for Mag's, for easy disposal! So when she called, to tell me they were all just chilling on the edge? I looked this up.

Only to find, I was wrong, and Mag's should NEVER take any drosphilia advice from me, as all I managed to do was create the X-Team of friggin' fruit flies. Sorry Mag's. However, below is how I know I suck at catching the elusive, nasty, invasive and annoying beasts:

Drosophila, a small, rapidly multiplying insect, lives a very short life span. They hatch from eggs, spend the first four hours of their young lives mutating into the full-wingeddrosopholia shortly before it begins to eat, find a mate, and lay nearly one hundred of it’s own eggs, before lazily hovering around, and then, dropping dead. It’s fascinating, that their entire life span is twenty-four of our hours. Not even dog years. They live One Full Day.
Interestingly, you might note, I seem to know a good deal about the elusive yet much seen drosophilia. I should. We did an expirement in highschool, where each team became a parent host, and we bred them, counting them each day, four times a day, to see how quickly our species was multiplying. And, counting mutations along the way. There were several “special needs” ones - one winged wonders that were never going to fly, or reproduce; ones without heads, or feet; and a running ton that were just fine. Healthy little guys…so long as we didn’t use too much ether to knock them flat while we counted them. Flash back to the homestead:
They’ve taken over my kitchen. They pop up out of the trashcan, when it opens to receive the latest dumping of coffee grounds, or anything else unsuitable to doggie digestion. They’ve been spotted hanging out in the sink drain, and miraculously fyling free before the water hits them - but after it’s turned on. Under the cabinets, they’re hanging like bats, regardless of how much Lysol I spray under there. I think, I’m providing my own laboratory for evolution. They’re getting craftier. And, more of them are left to irritate me.
Granted, it’s summer. Fruit can no longer ripen lovingly on the counters, in big colorful bowls, begging to be added to cereal, ice cream, or eaten in passing on the way out the door. Sliced berries, sugared blueberries, fruit salad - all the trimmings and trappings of a bountiful summer lay hidden in the fridge, safe from mass-producing fruit flies invading their tender, juicy flesh.
I built a trap to catch them. I laced a water bottle with slightly-past-it’s-prime fruit (their favorite!), fitted the mouth with a paper funnel, trimmed down to allow easy access to the fruit in the bottom of the bottle, and kept the cap, for easy disposal. How long would we wait to catch some? I figured, overnight, I’d have turned my less-than appealing kitchen into a bug free zone.
And………………………………………….I would be wrong.
They evidently don’t care for the food once it’s in the bottle. Living off Lysol evidently strengthens both their immune systems, and their resolve. They’re not even investigating the bottle. I think they’re even living longer. And multiplying faster than before.
See? I’m breeding smarter drosophilia.
Now, I wonder: if I trap a man in my kitchen, homosapius stupidus, do you think he’d evolve too?

Part II: Have found man....he has been in my kitchen. Seems to be evolving into someone whose company I enjoy quite rapidly. Not quite drosophilia rapid; but rapidly enough. I've near sprayed him with Lysol, and I'll be damned, he's still here. Hmm. Question is, is he evolving, or, (gasp, dare I say it?) am I?

Maybe both. 

All I'm saying, is while he can stay? I'm so not having 100 of his children.