Happy AnnaVersusRy to Me

Wowsers! It came to my attention that I have had a blog for about a year. I think that is eleven months and two weeks longer than I should have, but seriously, who keeps track of that?

Anyways....

I think I have had a good time blogging. I've met a lotta people that I feel I can call friends...

Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.

... and I have been inspired by all the deep thoughts and intellectual concepts that those friends have brought into my life that I often attempt deep thoughts myself....

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.

... and I have met some really cool chicks, ah, women on the blogs who have introduced to me the true meaning of feminism....

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.

.... and I met others who share the same kind of deep seated beliefs that I do...

Everyone needs believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.

..and the blogs have taught me that there is a wide divergence of opinion and thought in our world and one must daily practice tolerance of those thoughts and opinions...

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.

... and boy have I read some funny stuff on the blogs. I think.
He who laughs last didn't get it.

.. and I got to meet a bunch of people with religious beliefs that, though I have none, coincide with my beliefs on how to treat people... with kindness and humor...

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
Eric Hoffer

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?"
Quentin Crisp

... and maybe lastly, but not leastly, I met some weird dude in Cleveland who not only emphatically said I should blog, but was 110% responsible for naming it, 'OK Jimm's Eggroll Emporium'

Dude, lemme buy you a doughnut!

THE INVADERS

Ok. I really like trees. and bushes. and flowers. and all sorts of growing green thingees.

Not just beer, cheese and football. In truth, I am a pretty good gardener. I tried a 'Master Gardener' program at the local Tech School, but the assholes kept insisting on referring to different plants by their Latin names, which is really stupid; I have yet to hear a plant speak Latin, though if you really get drunk while gardening, it is very apparent that most species of Flora speak variations of Canadian.

So, I struck out on my own about twenty years and learned by trial and error. I became a King of Compost, a Prince of Perennials, a Sheik of Shade-plants, a Wizard of worms and a Duke of Dirt. Just sayin'. And I started hanging out with some folks who do gardening on my level..... sans Latin.

Yesterday I am in Waupaca, an hour north of town, where the consenus is that the north woods begin, and I am having a beer with my old room mate, Pete, and his brothers Dave and Dan. Invariably the conversation turns to growing things. And things that shouldn't be growing here...... and insects that shouldn't be here: milfoil, Box Elder, gypsy moths, emerald Ash borers, zebra mussels, tent catepillars........ and the one I hate the most.... Glossy European Buckthorn.

This stuff was imported as a hedge material because it grows quickly. Which is an understatement. If rabbits propagated as profusely as Asian Buckthorn, bunnies would rule the world. It sprouts early than native vegetation and has a longer growing period which in essence lets it crowd out native plants. It further has an abundance of seeds/fruits that offer no nutrition native birds or mammals and further acts as a cathartic to further spread itself, and sooner or later the native birds and mammals take off for better food. TheSome info from the WI DNR...

http://www.ipaw.org/invaders/buckthorn/index.htm

...I have cut this stuff, burned it, poisoned it ( and I really, really do not like to use chemicals in gardening) pissed on it and have even tried medieval curses. I may as well be tilting at windmills. Six years ago I completed a landscape revision for a client, an acre of natural woodland and a formal garden that was over-run with the stuff. I was out there last week and it is all back again!

Then, in the midst of all my frustration ( and a time out for a couple of beers) I realized that America is also the target of another kind of 'invasive species'..... The White-Faced-Lip-Flapper......

A

.... a species seemingly dedicated to make America a Mono-culture of hate, swill, verbal sewage and mediocrity. I best be buying a lot of weed killer this year.

To love is to risk not being loved in return...

To hope is to risk pain.....

To try is to risk failure...

but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

Thought for the day!!!

It is not the size of your banana that is important..........

It is the quality of your A-peel !

And now on to something really, really important!

The Bard of Cleveland, monsieur Le Ran-dal, took ever so slight umbrage from my previous posting of a Naked-Truth VP Cheney, and posed the question;

"Did the internets run out of scantily-clad ladies?"

Well, golly-gee&buttered bisquits!

I am sure that the esteemed Poem Peruser knows said pages where such can be viewed overly well and it would not be my place to suggest new ones to him, but he really is a swell guy, and it is thursday, which is awfully close to friday which is right next to saturday which is a great day to have a beer SO.... here is my thursday salute to Randal and scantily-clad women who drink beer!

Just A Drunk Mother

"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober."

G. K. Chesterton

okee doke

all-rightee. The shock-treatment therapy seems like it worked. My membership in the Taliban has been rejected, and I didn't win $200 million in the lottery.... so I came back to the blogs.....where low and behold I been tagged wit a couple of dem Meme thingees by Nunly and Libs..... and Libs hit me with a book-thingee which is easier, cause my life is a open book, the Oshkosh Police have booked me, my Ex threw the book at me...etc&so forth&such

So....

1. Name a few of your favorite books

"All the King's Men" - Robert Penn Warren. One of the tastiest reads ever. Three or four times is insufficient.

"A Confederacy of Dunces" - John Kennedy Toole. Funny on top of Funny wrapped in Ethos and topped with Pathos. Who needs ketchup when something is this funny.?

"Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Cookbook"- (ok. I am into the South right now. And sometimes books are meant to be devoured. Just Saying.

6. What genre do you dislike?

Self-help books. I tried to read one about masturbation and boy&howdy was that a mess!!!

2. Is there an author that you don't like, yet so many people seem to love?

Yeah, God! He really lost me with all the 'begats' and 'thou shalt nots'.

4. Where do you buy your books?

Buy? C'mon! Shoplift! I learned how to do it from a self-help book.

5. What genre do you read the most?

Fiction. Novels, short stories. Non-fiction. History. I am still very embroiled in reading about the Civil War. I can't wait to find out who wins!

7. Is there a book that changed your life?

I think it was 'Moby Dick' unabridged. My older brother whacked me in the face with it. Very hard. Black eye and two stitches.

8. Have you you ever met an author? What author would you like to meet?

I used to book guest speakers at the University. I got to meet Margaret Mead, Buckminster Fuller, P.J. O'Rourke and Ken Kesy. Ken was cool. I got very drunk with Ken Kesey. At the time he favored tequila.

9. Name a book to film adaptation that you really like.

I have two........

Miriam and...

Max.

They break me up daily. I'll try the Nunly next.

How can you miss me Iffeen I didn't go away?

Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.
Truckin, Im a goin home.
whoa whoa baby, back where I belong,
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin on.
Hey now get back truckin home

Yesirree Bob& Green Gravy!

Shit has been really weird..... and I think the worst is over and I am still breathing. Two good things. Now if I can just find the flip-flops I packed away last winter...... the nice LL Bean ones....I make just make it.