Cookies Even a MAN Can Make

Brig just came back from the gas station with a pop and a boughten cookie---aarrgh. So I immediately made an easy batch of cookies. Generally, I would prefer to make something like "George's Chocolate Chip Monsters", or something from scratch, but I am on the computer so these are fast and easy.

(George was a man--a funeral director-- that my dad ran marathons and trained with for 15 years--running up and down country roads, traveling around the US, but he died of a heart attack at the end of a run in Topeka--irony. My dad never ran after that, except to honor George every spring by going to his favorite race. That cookie recipe was from their family...)

Anyway-- a "cheater's recipe":
dump either a cheap chocolate or yellow (or other) cake mix in a bowl and add 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of melted butter or oil. I like real butter. Throw in a bag of chocolate chips, and ANYTHING you have in the kitchen: raisins, nuts, coconut, handfuls of oatmeal, crunched up potato chips or pretzels, peanut butter chips, butterscotch, a broken up candy bar.... Bake at 325 and take them out slightly before they are done and let them cool a little on the tray before removing them. Spray pan with Pam a little first just in case you have too many sticky goodies...
Burning! More later!
Then quickly give most of them away to your neighbor (if your son is busy "X-Boxing" and cannot be bothered by something so trivial as EATING when playing Turok or Call of Duty,) so that way you don't eat them all yourself...

Puppeteer: A new Venture in Paint Application

2 X's Beer...

When I used to create oil paintings in the kitchen I made quite the mess; my college teacher said I was more of a 'turpentine painter' than true oil. (Could ya please give back the stolen painting?!) I agree with that comment...I would splash, splat, dribble it on until I had a mess running down my elbows in rivers and virtually staining up the old linoleum floor. I didn't even realize it until hours later, 3a.m. or so... But who cares-- I was creating ART!

Today, Brig and Paula and I went out into the Flint Hills in our old swimsuits to paint a corral. I had no idea what to expect other than I was pretty sure it wouldn't be water-soluble paint. I was correct in my assumption, but not in the manner of application! In my mind I perceived old wood board and time-consuming paint brushes or a sprayer that I wouldn't understand how to use.

Well, here's a new one! Sock painting. How amusing! The corral was round pipe, about 1 1/2", and spread all over the place to the south of the coolest rock barn ever! First a rubber glove is placed on your hand, followed by an old sock, which is then dipped into a gallon of either white or black high dollar paint! Grab the pipe in your fist and rub it on thickly.
This made me smirk for quite a while-- how weird, and when my hand started sweating inside the large rubber glove, I wondered if that was what a condom felt like on a guy. (Sorry!)

In reality the sock stretches out and gets all sloppy so you may have paint splatting through the air. I was warned that I would get covered with drips, but I was actually neater painting outdoors than in my own house. I had black, so maybe I was just envisioning my body looking mulatto for my daughter's wedding (in case it wouldn't come off) or the fact that I didn't want to mar up the lovely KS limestone fence posts the black railings were attached to.
(Brief stop while I say hello to the Fugitive. At 10:08, he is a minute late. Oops. Crapola! Not the same raccoon!)

While painting, I passed the time with mindless scenarios...what would my daughter think of this new painting style?! I am almost sure we would turn these gloppy socks into some type of funky being:
Who is my right hand? Buckwheat from the Lil Rascals? Aunt Jemima? Is that too racial--after all I was becoming quite black by this time...the Black Mamba? He he! Maybe I'm just a Shadow Puppet. And who would she be? Casper the Friendly Ghost?

Aahh. Sadly, her and Nate used to send each other funny little stories and scenarios they'd invent while people-watching--her in the US and him in Ireland for a few months. Hilarious. Glad they are together and soon to be married. Maybe we should all publish a book of weird adventures....

So, Who would your sock puppet/brush be?

(We painted an old dresser with tomato red later... but socks were NOT part of that process! Thank you Barry, it was a lot of fun!)

Scritch scritch

I messed up my ability to youtube my blogs, so here are the clips that are hard to look away from. Better go buy one of those sink trap hair catcher thingies!

kitchen sink part 1 independent film love story
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G5y4rdoNir0&feature=related
kitchen sink part 2 independent film love story
by Alison Mclean

Serial Killer Painters

Several summers ago, my daughter and I were doing some random painting jobs for the local King of Craphouses (sorry, the guy has tons of rental apartments and homes, but doesn't always maintain them to a very high degree).

In the past, we'd painted the interior of a newly constructed home, which was nice, but the contractor was going through a divorce... And when I was just out of high school I worked as an exterior painter down in the town of Emporia where you could just wear your shorts and a bikini top and get a good tan. As a freshman in high school, we painted a gym one summer with a horrid greenish paint and boys took rollers and zipped them up and down our legs, which we had to wash off with gasoline. I think this was an attempt at flirtation!

Some bizarre things had happened a few years ago around here: a lady disappeared in the next town over (I still swear that messiah man knows what happened, but is too bonkers to talk coherently about it) and there was the world's largest LSD bust (!) here in Wamego, and then there was the woman in the other close town that was found cut to pieces all over the place. Body parts strewn everywhere. Pieces in a creek, fingers in baggies; it was crazy and I had her grandkids in class. Disturbing.

Then I remember standing at the gas station and another painter working down the street saying that they'd found some human remains behind a wall when they'd pulled away some old lathe and plaster. Cool!

Well, as Bail and I labored in this ancient old home that had been divided into apartments, we had to pick up ladders or various equipment out by the junkyard on the outskirts of town, as the landlord guy had many employees that worked construction so we all shared the stuff. Every time we went out there we elbowed each other and giggled because there was a rather cute young man we'd pass by and eye. A few days later (after several trips to obtain just the right ladder!) I was shocked to hear that our cute guy had been arrested. It was terrible! He'd killed at least 5 men. Apparently, he'd prey on homeless people in Boston and feared getting caught so he traveled down to KS to stay with a relative.
I was really scared and mad that we'd been put in that position to walk right by him, but who knew? He looked so normal...


I don't know why but this brings to mind a bumper sticker I saw today: It is all the Bizarre People in the World that Create's All it's Beauty.

Hmm. That is way out of place.