SORRY about all these KIDNEY STONE PICTURES!

Hi! I just had to take the last kidney stone picture off. It was making me nauseous - as I'm sure it offended anyone else viewing my site (so no one else was affected - THANK GOD)! Poor Brad and his on-going kidney stone predicament!

I'm a little pissy that the very long post I was just working on was erased because of a GREAT NEW "auto save draft" blogger feature. I was trying to get past the kidney stone posts but I was thwarted. Don't worry non-existent audience! I will slog my way through this temporary impediment!

WOOH-HOOH!!!!

HALLELUJAH. The stone HAS PASSED!!!!!! I won't overhelm you with too much information but Brad's 5mm stone came out yesterday afternoon! He said it just went "ploop" and there it was. No pain just the fabulous gift of a clear urinary system. Now all we have to do is find out what it's made of and adapt his lifestyle accordingly. We're wondering if the cause was the $200 worth of meat he just finished eating. He bought it from a guy who was selling frozen beef door to door. Don't ask. Brad is a sucker for anyone selling things on our doorstep. Brad filled our tiny freezer and the Truck refrigerator with multiple cuts of beef. He was so proud of himself, cooking on his George Foreman Grill while driving cross country. So (from our amateur sleuthing) it looks like no excessive meat or spinach consumption. The kidney stone analysis will tell us for sure. OH HAPPY DAY!!! His stone is quite black and lumpy, kind of like a little lava rock. Luckily not similar to the stones that look like little shards of glass all piled on top of each other. We're guessing it's made of calcium oxalate - which is the most common type.

Thank you to everybody that wished him well. It was really nice of you all.

Wooooh, what a relief for the poor guy.

Hold on, Don't Give Up!

I'm still here and working on a number of "posts" (and another very late "Colloquialism of the Week"). The kidney stone saga is taking priority at the moment. I send YOU, My Audience (meaning Jennifer if she's still bothering to check this site out) my apologies for not keeping my Blog up to date. I promise, this stone better be on it's frickin' way out and then our lives will be back to normal. Here's a recent picture of me that Brad took before he started writhing in pain.
I'm wearing one of my friend Frederica's T-shirts. We're selling them at the store I work at. They're WONDERFUL shirts - hand silk-screened, hand-painted and sewn as an inlay into the T-shirt. Fred is a fantastic print maker and does hand painted lino cuts, often in miniature. Here's one of her prints that I love. I actually love all her prints - they're all over my house. Fred is FABULOUS and fabulously talented.

OH NO!

Oh dear. Poor Brad has spent this latter half of the week dealing with the passage of his first kidney stones. It's horrible to see him in so much pain. A very kind nurse at the ER gave us this unusual home remedy. She said it helped her husband pass his kidney stone the first day he tried it. What you do is drink 6 ounces of Coke Classic on an empty stomach every half hour. Brad can't stand the taste of Coke but he's giving it a try. It seems to be the least costly and most helpful advice we've gotten so far.

Oh, Great Pumpkin - Please let Brad get rid of this stone and NEVER develop another one again. Thank you.

Wow, aren't those pictures of kidney stones gnarly? I thought they would be like little round balls. No wonder he was doubled over in pain last night. Oh the poor guy, geez.

Bathrooms are an Oasis

I LOVE a nice clean bathroom. To me, kitchens and bathrooms are the most important rooms in a house. First I'll show you my bathroom. It was a small bedroom on the second floor that we converted with the money left from our home loan. We got the rounded (1940's?) bathtub for free. Redecorating was a lot of work - thanks Mike, Matt, John and Tile Guy! I have too many "themes" going on in there - candy, crowns, game pieces, chemistry sets and "red cross" pharmaceutical items. The bathroom is where I get to fully enjoy all my LUSH products. If you haven't tried LUSH soaps and bubble bars, etc. it may be a good thing because they're so addictive. "Decadent to the point of Depravity" is how I feel about their products and the transcendental state of sensual bewitchment they draw me into. LUSH products are superlative, VERY eco-friendly and a real inspiration for my soap and perfume making. You can find LUSH here.

Brad's bathroom is downstairs and has a glassed in shower. I can't seem to take a good picture of it since it's so small. It's theme is Mexican "Day of The Dead". It was hard to get the red paint to cover the frightening flower wall paneling. One day we WILL replace the toilet - it's so sluggish.

Jill - The Beautiful

I haven't been doing Jill justice since posting such a plethora of bizarre pictures of her on my blog. I thought I'd try to right the situation by putting up a more fetching shot. This was a polaroid I took in 1996 when we were at "The Mad Hatter" Tattoo Convention in Portland, Maine. She was in a handmade nagahide dress with metal fastenings and I tried to scratch the polaroid to match the hotel bedspread. By now Jill has A LOT of beautiful tattoos - many done by our mega talented friend Julie Rose. As I said, Jill used to live here in Maine and livened up everyones's life (especially mine). She has a fabulous mix of sweetness, adventurousness and an amazing ability to reinvent herself. She now lives in New York City and makes a living selling her vibrant and distinctive paintings which you can find here. Things are a little dull without her. I feel better looking at her paintings, thinking about how much fun we had and seeing how talented she always remains.

UGLY PARTY - May 1995

Back in 1995 I threw an "Ugly Party". I can't recall exactly what we ate but I do remember a lot of canned vienna sausages and a store bought jelly roll pierced with baby carrots. Since I'm a lousy cook I always fell back on serving weinies in a blanket. I don't know what I'd do without Pillsbury - thank you little Doughboy. Everyone got into the spirit and dressed in the worst thrift store suits, cardigans and dresses. I was working at Family Planning and brought home some especially repellant pelvic models. Don't get me wrong all of you feminists out there - I think we should celebrate the beauty of our private bits but these pelvic models were really grotty. One was "invisible" with the ovaries just kind of hanging in space. The other model was ancient - really large with full buttocks and thighs and was used to demonstrate diaphragm insertion. It had turned a sickening ochre color, had a very unpleasant texture and was still covered with glutinous KY jelly. Blech - sorry for the description but at least I'm not showing you the pictures. I have included a few shots of myself and Jill. The red lipstick all over Jill's teeth was a brilliant touch. She wore a musty old mason's sash and real chicken's feet for earrings. I was going for the overtanned Florida retiree look (with a hirsute problem). Theme parties are almost always a guaranteed winner.

More Mercenary Dreaming . . .

I was standing in line at the supermarket check-out, flipping through an architectural magazine when lo and behold I found the flooring of my dreams "Livinglass". My heart started to pound and my palms got sweaty - it's that gorgeous. It's more than just flooring though - it can be used for walls, ceilings, doors, showers, tables, back splashes, etc.. The other wonderful thing is this stuff is THICK - an inch or more depending. There's something so fantastic about objects encased in a clear substance. I'm attracted to the concept in jewelry too. (See Jennifer Flatow's "Jellie Joolz" bracelets and Barbie's Basement belt buckles, necklaces and other acccessories). I'll include some pictures of Livinglass but I recommend you visit their website since they have so many options available and can also do custom work. I didn't even look at the price - this is strictly "dream home" fodder. Amazingly they can capture most 3 dimensional objects while keeping the integrity of it's look (like draped fabric). Livinglass suspends jelly beans in glass as well but I thought licorice allsorts would be even better.

Here's Livinglass' propaganda straight from their site: "Livinglass is composed of two sheets of glass and a resilient polymer interlayer. Due to the composite action of these materials, Livinglass is an impact resistant safety glass for both residential and commercial applications. Inspired by the colors and textures of nature, Livinglass is a laminated architectural glass, which captures organic materials within luminous sheets of clear glass. We can laminate any material up to 1" in thickness without losing the brilliance or structural integrity of the glass. Combine 2 or 3 interlayer materials, add a background color, throw in a textured or patterned glass and you have a custom designed, unique Livinglass material.

I know I'm starting to sound like some kind of sales rep but it's just that bubbling enthusiasm coming up.

Trapped In a Brandy Snifter

Long before the digital revolution (Adobe Photoshop, etc.), wedding photography could be quite a bizarre and repellant thing. As you can see here:

I've been attracted to many vulgar things throughout my life and I dreamed of the day that I too could be immortalized in a Brandy Snifter. In 1996 the very exciting opportunity arose when our run down little Department Store brought in a professional photographer. My friend Jill was always up for an adventure so we decided to dress up as "Aliens". Our costumes were intentionally shoddy - leftover Halloween make up and antennas made from green pipe cleaners. Unfortunately I forgot to paint our hands so it's obvious in the "portrait" that I doctored it with extra green tinting. The really funny part was the portrait photographer didn't even crack a smile as we posed (though we were successful in scaring a few children).

We were so excited that we went back home and took more polaroids. We figured that aliens would either be friendly or pissed off so that's how we method acted our parts. I'm not sure why the cigarettes were included except for the fact they always made handy props.

From 1995 to 1999 I was having an agonizing creative block (which still plagues me). So I spent all my energy documenting parties and friends and forcing people to dress up, put on make up and do a variety of tableaux for my amusement. It was actually a lot of fun (for me) and I think my friends got used to performing like circus dogs. My favorite model was always Jill who was like the ultimate punk barbie doll. Every series of pictures had a thematic background, was laminated and put into a decorative binder. So I guess I was "scrapbooking" before I knew what "scrapbooking" was. I'm still amazed and addicted to laminating (because it's SO magical and almost indestructible). I think those books will last long after I'm dead. What a weird time capsule to come across - people will think "What the hell was wrong with this group of strangers"? Ha, ha.

Cute as a Button!

Brad was out on the road and noticed another truck hauling T@B trailers. He knew I'd like them since my dream is to one day join the recreational vehicular subculture. We once saw a medium size camper for sale from the late 1950's in PERFECT condition. It had all the original accessories with a pine interior and looked like it had never been used. It was $1,000 which was an incredible bargain. At that time $1,000 was like $100,000 or $1,000,000 to us and therefore an impossibilty. Anyway - these campers are all still out of our price range but I thought I'd post some pictures for anyone who has yet to see them. You can go the the official T@B website here. They are so incredibly cute but the one drawback is not being able to stand up straight in it (as it's so very small). This was good to hear since I'm claustrophobic. Now I'm less covetous.


But that impediment got me thinking of Airstream Trailers again. Even more out of our price range unless money starts flying from the heavens. Since I'm only imagining here I thought I would imagine having the 75th Anniversary Limited Edition of their smaller "Bambi" trailer. After all - that way you get a toilet and shower too.

Here is the Propoganda from the Airstream site: "Airstream Inc. commemorates its 75th Anniversary with a stylish, modernistic take on old-fashioned luxury. The 75th Commemorative Edition Travel Trailer combines ultra-refined, polished aluminum interiors with rich, natural materials such as warm wood veneers materials and details which pay homage to founder Wally Byam’s original designs. Designer David Winick took the lead in creating an interior space that is both ultra modern and retrospective."

Hmmmmm, it's beautiful - really a piece of rolling art. If you have an interest in taking the virtual tour just click here.

I've included some pictures - check out the fabulous interior. So now you know my ultra conventional plan for retirement - if I don't end up in a Home with Alzheimers. (Knock on "warm wood veneer").