What Ruby ate this weekend

• 1 pair of cheap-ass earbud headphones
• 1 expensive headset for cellphone
• I'm not sure how many pairs of earplugs, including the plastic cords that go around your neck
• 1 arch support insole thingy
• 1 sock
• my favorite glasses, the ones with the rhinestones on them
• 3 perfectly ripe garden tomatoes that I was saving for my dinner last night
• 1 yellow squash

Ruby helps out in the kitchen

"Somebody's gotta do the work around here," sez Ruby.

Walk on the wild side

Here's a nifty link. You enter your street address and it tells you how pedestrian friendly your neighborhood is -- complete with a map to your nearest hardware store, drugstore, park, coffee shop, etc. It rates your Walk Score™ on a scale of 1 to 100. Unfortunately -- given that I don't have a car -- my current location has a Walk Score™ of 37. My old place, which I moved away from to have a shorter walk to work, scores 48. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

But here, for no particular reason, is a list of all the songs on my iTunes list that have the word 'walk' in the title:

Walk Away - Tom Waits
Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
Walk Away Renee - Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy
When You Walk On - Eliza Gilkyson
Walk Awhile - Fairport Convention
Keep on Walking - Spanic Boys
Walkin' Home - Iris Dement
Walk Free - Joseph Crookston
My Walkin' Shoes - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Walking On Thin Ice - Yoko Ono
Old Man As He Walks Out the Door - Sally Spring
When My Boy Walks Down the Street - Magnetic Fields
Walk The Dinosaur - Was (not Was)
The Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line - The Costello Show
Walking Jerusalem - Blind Boys of Alabama
Walk Like an Egyptian - Bangles
Walking Down Your Street - Bangles
Walking the Floor Over You - Sandy Denny
Walkin' Blues - Rory Block
Ghost of You Walks - Richard Thompson
Walking the Long Miles Home - Richard Thompson
Walking After Midnight - Patsy Cline
Walking in Space - Orig. Broadway Cast of "Hair"

This just in from the WTF Dept.

Sen. Hillary Clinton is a mammal.

This is news? The intrepid reporters at WaPo couldn't find her haircut or makeup consultant receipts?

h/t to Jeff Fecke over in Shakesville.

Shoeblogging: RocketDog v. DestructoDog

Of course the dog won. I'm pretty good about not leaving shoes out where Ruby can reach them, but apparently we've reached a milestone in that "where Ruby can reach them" now includes the tops of all the tables and dressers. Oh, and the Tab cartons; she loves to rip those up.

I can't get too upset about something that is really my own fault. I should have realized it was only a matter of time before she noticed that everything cool and chewable was up on a dresser or a table. But damn, they were my favorite pair of sparkly RocketDog flip-flops. And now I keep stepping on the little metal thingys and the rhinestones that she pulled so neatly off the shoes.

Wasn't it me who said that about not wanting a puppy? I think this kind of thing is why. But isn't she cute?

Friday test results: I'm not sure I get it

What Finger Are You?

I, apparently, am a pinky:

You are fiercely independent, and possibly downright weird.

A great communicator, you can get along with almost anyone.

You are kind and sympathetic. You support all your friends - and love them for who they are.

You get along well with: The Ring Finger.

Stay away from: The Thumb

Go ahead, take the quiz.

via Teh Portly Dyke.

The Green Moth

I have a new guy living in my carriage house apartment and he is very cool. He works nights and the other day he brought this moth home for me in his lunch container. He just thought I'd like to see it, for one thing; for another thing, some birds were trying to eat it. You can see that there is kind of a tear in its tail region. It sat for a while in the container, and then I helped it crawl out and perch on this stick. And then after a while it folded up the lower parts of its wings, so that it looked like a spaceship or a sea creature. The antennae were especially fascinating, I think.

After hanging out on the porch railing for a while, it found a shady spot rather too close to Ruby's water dish, but it was gone the next time we went outside.

How to shave your legs with duct tape

I blame the Hedonistic Pleasureseeker for this one. Sort of. I can't find the post, but it was a while back, in her comments. It might have been on a post responding to one of those endless, stupid arguments about whether one can be a feminist if one shaves one's legs, wears lipstick, likes to buy shoes, or has ever willingly given anyone a blowjob. [Sometimes, hardly ever, yes!!!, and who wants to know?].

Anyway, we were chatting there in the comments about the stupid things we'd done in order to conform to patriarchal grooming standards (Epilady, anyone?) and I happened to mention that I knew that it was in fact possible -- and not all that unpleasant, as these things go -- to remove your leg hair with duct tape. Miss HP, or someone, requested documentation of this; she may in fact have dared me to post photos, but that might have been someone else.

Turns out that, after all these years of trying to remove the leg hair, I really sort of suck at growing leg hair anymore. It took quite a while to accumulate enough leg hair to show up in a photograph [see photo below].



Is this one of the few pleasant effects of middle age? Or is it simply the result of so many years with the Epilady, the leg wax, the Nair, and the razor?

For the record, I only ever used the epilady like twice, but I did wax my legs occasionally for years. Until they came out with the triple-bladed razor, in fact, and one got delivered to my mailbox addressed to Current Resident. Those things totally changed my life. I had begun refusing to shave my legs back in the 1970s -- due not so much to any kind of feminist convictions as to extreme klutziness with those godawful single-edged, heavy-ass razor blades. I was tired of hacking my shins to pieces every morning. And I was really good at growing leg hair back then.

But then I met this very glamorous French exchange student when I was about 16, and she waxed her legs regularly and I thought this seemed like a good idea. The first time I had it done I thought I'd died & gone to hell. After the nice lady at the salon pulled off the first strip, I really didn't see how it was possible to let her do it again. Unfortunately, she had already applied another, and another, and I couldn't see any other way to get them off of me, either.

It hurt less the second time, and eventually it got to the point where I can fall asleep on the table while they wax my legs. But yes, it does hurt really bad at first.

I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone thinking they can go ahead and try this duct tape thing without any pain at all, just because I don't experience any pain. Experienced leg-waxers, however, can probably go ahead and give it a try -- it's much less messy than any kind of at-home wax kit I've ever tried. It does use a lot of duct tape, however.

I happened to try this the first time very late one night; I'd gotten home from about a 19-hour day at a job that I was trying to leave. I'd had already two interviews at the place I work now, and was pretty sure I'd get the gig. There was a message on my machine telling me that the dept. chair wanted to meet me, and could I show up at his office (35 miles away) at 8 the next morning?

Oh, and the woman on the phone -- a former boss, and one who knows that my sartorial style is somewhere between absentminded professor and old hippie -- added, just before she hung up: "And Nora, please, wear a suit. With a skirt, and everything. I know you still have that navy blue one. J's a great guy, but he'll be afraid of you if you don't look like everybody else at first."

So I get the suit out, and a nice blouse, and pearls. And the navy blue heels. And the last damn panty hose in the house. Which are, alas, very sheer. I look at my legs. No evidence of recent shaving, or waxing, or any such. Very dark hair under sheer panty hose is not very attractive, and I would feel self-conscious about it even if no one noticed. Big deal, I think. I can shave. So I take a shower. No razor -- none, anywhere. Panic!!

I get out of the shower, rummage around thinking maybe I have an old one in a gym bag, or some leg wax -- not even. By this time it's almost two am and I've got at least an hour's drive in rush hour traffic like five hours in my future. No way do I want to go out and buy a razor, etc. Should I wear pants and pretend I didn't listen to the end of the message? What if I don't get the job, will I forever wonder if it was on account of not shaving my damn legs and wearing pants?

I go out to the kitchen to get the coffee things ready for a mad dash out of the house in the morning, and whaddya know -- there's a fresh new roll of duct tape on the table.

I recall all the jokes I've heard about girls who shave their legs with duct tape.

What the hell? I think, and I try it. It takes a couple of tries to find the best technique for ripping the tape off, but the whole operation takes about ten minutes -- longer than shaving, but way way less time than waxing. Like waxing, however, it's not completely perfect, but looks just fine under panty hose.

I got the job. I've long since given away the navy blue suit.


But there's another funny story here, sort of related. I got dressed the other morning and couldn't find any pants that didn't have dog hair and dog drool and muddy dog footprints all over them. But for some reason, I was avoiding the skirts and dresses, as if some little voice in my head was saying 'NONONONO don't wear a dress today!!! Just don't!!!'

Which I found a little annoying and ridiculous. It's hot out. I have a million perfectly nice dresses, several of which actually fit. I pulled one out and put it on. Julie picked me up to drive us to work on account of it was hot. I got in the car and reached down to tighten the straps on my Doc Marten's and damn if I didn't notice that only one leg was shaved. The other was sporting like ten months of leg hair growth [see fig. 1].



As I said, I'm not very good at growing leg hair anymore, and it's no longer as dark as it was. No one noticed (or if they did, no one said anything) but it really felt funny, especially outside in the breeze as I am in the picture.

Why only one leg shaved? you might be wondering.

The reason I had one leg shaved bare and not the other is that I'd made an attempt to document the duct tape procedure for you, and I'd only done one leg just in case the photos didn't turn out.



Which they hadn't, so I was waiting until I had a few minutes and some good lighting to try again. Here is a photo from the first attempt [see fig. 2], which I'm including just because I'm sitting on a very cool motorcycle. You can't really see any details; there wasn't enough light or contrast or something. I thought it would look really butch on the motorcycle though.

But it took quite a few days before I got around to doing the other leg.

Anyway, here's what you do: apply a strip of duct tape to your leg, pressing firmly with the direction of the hair growth. Then you want to pull the tape away from your skin, starting from the bottom (i.e., against the direction of the hair growth) and roll it quickly and firmly up to the top [fig. 3]. Repeat until the hair is gone.



The dog will help [fig. 3a, below] -- I couldn't get through an entire post, especially a long rambly one like this, without including at least one picture of Ruby.



Make sure, by the way, that you get even the very back of your calf, or someone will be walking behind you on the stairs and make some hilarious comment about your new mohawk. Never mind how I know this.

The coolest part: See how easy it is to clean up the mess [fig. 4]?

DestructoDog

I used to have these three wooden planters along the edges of the patio. I was sort of wondering what to put in them, plant-wise. Herbs? Flowers? Tomatoes? I'm not much of a gardener, and I confess I was kind of freaking out a little, what with all the possibilities.

Well, I can cross this off my list of things to fret about. The boxes, which it turns out were seriously rotting and about to fall apart anyway, have been disassembled by the persistent Ruby and her exciting! new! teeth! Which work great.

Aren't puppies cute?

Friday test results: the anarchist/communist edition

Which Western feminist icon are you?



I'm Emma Goldman!

You are the mama of Anarchist/Communist feminism and you inspired millions to embrace the labor movement. Without ever directly saying so, you directed efforts toward saving wymyn and children from exploitation. Oh yeah, you were also a total sexpot!

Take this quiz and find out!

Via oh I don't know whoall; I saw this one all over the place & it's been sitting in my files for a while.

What Stella did on her summer vacation

My lovely ex-wife sent me this hilarious picture of Stella from summer camp last week, and I thought I'd post it in case youall are getting tired of all Ruby all the time.

I think this is a great photo of Stella. You can tell she's having a good time by the look on her face. Or not; it's actually hard to tell what she thinks. She looks stern and/or grumpy pretty much all the time even though she's actually quite sweet, and very funny.

Ruby goes to the dog park

I know you're all waiting anxiously for more cute puppy pictures, so here are a couple from Ruby's first trip to the dog park:



There she is taking a water break after tear-assing it around full tilt. And here she is with Tigger, taking a quick break to gather steam for another round of extreme dog-chasing:



Thanks, Julie, for taking the pictures! It's very difficult to catch her standing still long enough to take a picture. [The dog, not Julie.]

Well, alrighty then

Apparently there are people I don't even know who read this little blog. Enough of them that alphabitch.org was chosen Runner Up in the Best Blog category in Smitty's Notes' First Annual 'Best of Winston-Salem' Awards. Who knew?

Thanks, yall. Whoever you are. I'll wear my tiara all day.

I'm in good company, by the way -- other runners up include my favorite coffee (yay, Krankie's) and my favorite dive bar (Swaim's Grocery) -- among many others.