How long has it been?

How long has it been since you looked forward to something with real excitement?

How long has it been since something really great happened to you unexpectedly?

How long has it been since you saw something you really wanted and you could just buy it without having to worry or rationalize?

How long has it been since everything just worked out perfectly on its own, without a great deal of setup or hedging of bets?

How long has it been since the sound of a phone ringing made you wonder if it was someone you liked calling to tell you some good news or invite you out to do something fun?

Happy Anniversary to US!

September 28, 2002

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

- William Shakespeare
Sonnet CXVI

Rest in Peace - Paul Newman

Jan. 26, 1925 - Sept. 26, 2008

Marcheline fought the law, and ....

Yesterday, on my way to work, I encountered a slow-moving rig hauling lots of tonnage, about a quarter of a mile before my exit from the highway. There is an unwritten rule of the road which states that if one encounters a large, slow-moving vehicle on the highway and does not get in front of it, this same large, slow-moving vehicle will take the same exit you do, turn in the same direction off the exit, and be in front of you nearly the entire way to work on the two-lane road that gets you there - only he'll be doing 25 miles an hour in the 45 mph speed zone.

So I gunned it, passed him, and got off on my exit. Once I was on the two lane road, I wasn't speeding, so I was very surprised to see a large black unmarked sedan blinking its red "Knight Rider" lights at me. I had no idea he'd followed me from all the way back on the highway.

Something I know about state troopers (that's sergeant R. Lee Ermey pictured above - he's Army, but gives the proper image and the hat's the same) is that no matter how softly they speak, they carry very big virtual sticks and you don't screw with them. You don't lie, you don't give them excuses, and you always call them "sir". As long as it's a male officer.

When Trooper Blooper came up alongside my truck, I had turned the engine off and left my hands in full view - something that most people don't do, but it's what cops are trained to instruct people to do. If someone does this when pulled over, it's a sign that either they used to be a cop (as I was) or they've been pulled over so many times that they're probably a hardened criminal and should be interviewed at gunpoint.

In the golden days of my youth, getting out of tickets was much easier due to my hot bod and flirtability. Not that I ever used that ploy - I didn't have to, I was a cop back then - but it was there, a sort of unspoken weapon in my arsenal.

Nowadays, I pretty much have to lean on my laurels, which include photographs of myself in uniform, and PBA cards dating from 1999 through 2004. These are strategically placed in my wallet so that if I am ever required to find my license and registration, I must accidentally display all of these evidences of police connections to the officer who is hawking over my shoulder.

The trick with a trooper is never to actually mention the photo or the cards, as I would do with a police officer in my own county. With a county cop, the likelihood is that we would know at least a few people in common "on the job", and that would bring the level right down to a friendly chat. The state police don't fraternize with us lowly county cops, and if one is uncouth enough to mention one's county police connections, one's ship is immediately sunk. The trooper then gets to exercise his well-memorized high-horse "we don't care about your connections, we uphold the law, blah blah blah" speech.

However, I kept my cool, riffled through my wallet in full view of Trooper Blooper, and handed him my license and registration. He asked me if I knew how fast I was going back there, and I said no sir, I didn't. He held my paperwork in one hand, raised his head, and squinted off over the horizon. This was the moment of truth.

If he took my paperwork and headed back to his vehicle, I was screwed. If he spoke to me again, there might be a glimmer of hope.

He said, "Where did you get those courtesy cards?"

SCORE!

The "Up Side" of bein' po

When the economy is booming, we folks who are living paycheck to paycheck just to keep a roof over our heads and a vehicle to get to work in feel put down by all the luxury items and vacation getaways advertised in the media. Articles and television ads that cite "getting a financial planner" as a step towards paying off debt are laughable - because if there are no finances, what the hell good is planning going to do? Getting a financial planner means paying out more money for someone else to tell you that basically, you're screwed.

But when the economy is sucking hind tit, the rich folks are running around screaming because all of their money in stocks, bonds, IRAs and other assorted acronyms is going down the tubes. We blue collar paycheck-to-paycheckers are looking around, shrugging, and going back to work. When you don't have any stocks, bonds (or regular old cash money, for that matter) to lose, and when your job isn't pushing paper around for a big financial institution, it's just another day.

Sure, I realize that when the economy is bad, prices on everything go up and everyone ends up feeling the pinch, but that's why they invented ramen noodles, rice and beans, and peanut butter.

I also realize that we paycheck-to-paycheckers don't actually qualify as "poor" because we are not doing without food, we are not homeless, and there are a lot of really poor people who are much worse off than we are. I am in no way making light of their situation. I suppose what I am saying is that we are one breath away from being poor. We're only making it because we're still healthy enough to go to work. Our vehicles are old but still functional, and if they stop working, we can't afford to buy another one. Our mortgage is getting paid, but only with enough left over to pay the utility bills and buy some groceries. We have no savings account - only a small checking account that gets emptied out every month like clockwork. Our credit card has a pretty chunky balance on it, because when unavoidable things like getting a new transmission ($1800) have to be done in order to survive, there is no other way to handle it than using credit.

The thinnest of veils separates the viability of this household from poverty. This is what I mean when I talk about "bein' po". Maybe a better expression would be "pre-po".

Marcheline takes on Martha Stewart and KICKS ARSE!!!

When we last left Marcheline and the great Beeswax Candle Caper, she had poured the silicon molds and was waiting for an opportunity to try making her very first beeswax candles!


Here we see the silicon molds with the melted beeswax inside. If you look carefully, you can see that the candle mold on the right was recently poured, as the wax at the top of the mold hasn't even solidified into the light yellow beeswax color yet - it's still a liquified mass of molten lava!

I used an enameled pot to melt the beeswax (double-boiler style, set in another pot of water on the stove), and then poured the melted wax into a plastic cup which gave me precision pouring control.

Big rubberbands hold the molds together, and the wax that seeps out the cracks actually helps to seal the mold somewhat. I wasn't too sure about the skull candle leaking wax out the bottom of the mold, so I used some of the Sculpey modeling clay and a layer of cling wrap to seal the base holes in the mold. Worked like a charm!

And here, just in time for Samhain, I present to you my very first homemade beeswax candles!

The Skull and the Potion Bottle

Never Forget: In memory of my cousin, Michael Otten

Marcheline's Charitable Contribution

It's just sad that someone with this kind of vocal talent has not yet learned to speak English. Isn't it? Yes, I think it is. Just think how his career could take off if he were able to do interviews with American radio and television spokespeople.

And so, in my trademark selfless, giving way, I, Marcheline, am ready to volunteer to teach Juanes English. Completely free of charge.

I know, I know - it's almost choking me up, too.

Questions on the road

Have you ever wondered why the chocolate ice cream in Rocky Road is always whipped full of air, no matter what brand you buy? I mean, there are plenty of ice cream flavors that have other ingredients incorporated into them - nuts, chocolate chips, cookie dough, etc. - but those ice creams all retain their familiar ice-creamy consistency. Not Rocky Road, though. The chocolate ice cream in Rocky Road is always more like chocolate Cool Whip than ice cream.

I really like the flavor combination of marshmallow, nuts, and chocolate - but the whole consistency issue turns me off. I haven't been able to find a single company that puts out a Rocky Road with solid, creamy chocolate ice cream.

While the rest of the world is talking about the presidential elections, the really important issues are being ignored and I feel compelled to bring them to light. Don't thank me, I'm just doing my part.

Marcheline takes on Martha Stewart and nearly loses: Part I

The above video shows a gloveless Martha Stewart glibly making candle molds while simultaneously instructing a bimbo completely inexperienced candle mold maker. The results?

Flawless. Of course.

I have been staring at a block of beeswax that my mother gave me (from her beehives in NC) for months now, and when I saw this video it really lit a fire under my arse. I Googled that "oomoo" crap and found one store that carried it in my area.

By "my area" I mean a forty-five minute drive away from my house. Ouch.

But it was either drive and do the project today, or place an online order, pay exorbitant shipping fees, and have to wait several weeks to do the project. So drive I did.

As long as I was going out anyway, I decided to stop off at the craft store and pick up some candle wicking, Super Sculpey (modeling clay that you bake in your oven - can be drilled and sanded afterward!), and other doodads for the finished candles.

Above, you can see my booty. No, not THAT booty - I mean the stuff I bought to make my candles.

• The 7-11 cups were donated free of charge by Jalil Hamar Al-Sarif, who probably just didn't feel like having to dream up prices for the crazy white woman who only wanted the cups, not the Slurpees.

• The tiny little package of candle wicking? That was so that I could finish my two-candle project without spending the insanely ridiculous price of $20 for one lousy 50-yard roll of candle wicking just after I saw 100-yard rolls online for $9.99! The tiny little package was $3 - still a rip-off, but a much smaller rip-off.

• The little black perfume bottle and the skull are my two chosen candle subjects. One just to be pretty, and one for the upcoming Samhain season.

• The red embroidery floss and beads are to decorate the perfume bottle candle after it's finished (the real perfume bottle came with a lovely beaded tassel attached around the neck, so I will mimic that).

• The Sculpey modeling clay is for me to create my own candle ideas to make molds from, for future projects.

• The box that says "OOMOO" is the two-part silicon compound that you mix together to make the mold with.

After gathering all of my components together, I had to spend a few minutes searching around for tools to do the mixing. Happily, I had an empty plastic coffee container handy, and I found a carpenter's pencil in the junk drawer to use as a stir-stick. The perfume bottle fit perfectly in the large plastic cup, however I had to sacrifice one of my tupperware containers for the skull, since it was too tight a fit in anything else.

The jars of silicone compound were labeled "A" and "B". Just like Martha Stewart said! Of the two, only the jar labeled "B" had the instructions to "shake well before mixing". And so I shook. And shook. And shook.

I was misled by the sound of squishy sloshing that came from jar "B" as I shook, throttled, and mauled it. I thought it was actually getting mixed. But when it came time to empty the jars into the mixing container, the "B" jar poured out a small amount of blue liquid and then stopped. The jar still felt very heavy. When I looked inside, it was more than half full of sludgy, nearly solid smutch.

I had jar "A" already inverted, its pink goo streaming slowly into the mix, and had to juggle both jars into one hand in order to thrust my stir-stick (which was much too short in any case) up into jar "B" to try and coax the sludge out of the bottom. The silicone crept right up that stick and got all over my fingers, but a quick swipe with a paper towel fixed the worst of it.

I finally got the two components thoroughly blended, and began to carefully pour the stuff into the plastic cup around the perfume bottle, just the way Martha did.

All was going according to plan until suddenly - egads - the cap of the perfume bottle bobbed up from the floor of the mold cup! Drat!! The perfume bottle was empty, and the air inside had caused it to float!

Before I could think of anything else, I'd shoved my left hand into the silicone and forced the bottle back to the bottom of the cup. Great - now what? After cursing Martha Stewart and the horse she resembles rode in on, because of course she would have known the bottle would float, I yanked it completely out of the greyish-purplish goo and took off the cap. With my elbow, I turned on the water in the kitchen sink, filled the perfume bottle with water, and shoved it back down in the silicone, hoping against hope that this would add enough weight to keep it submerged.

It did!

Now that I had one whole mold-making extravaganza under my belt, I plunged straight on to Candle Mold Number Two. This time, instead of merely shaking jar "B" to within an inch of its life, I ran some hot tap water into one of the plastic cups and dropped old jar "B" in there to stew a few minutes.

This time, when I shook it, the entire contents gurgled around and mixed together, so that when I poured it into the mixing container, almost all of it poured out right away. I chucked the carpenter's pencil in favor of a long wooden dowel for a stir-stick, which made it easier to reach inside the jars and scrape out the remaining pink and blue schlamiel.

Thinking to outwit the Flotation Factor, I taped the skull to the bottom of the container before pouring in the silicone. I began to pour, and everything was going just swimmingly. Until the skull broke free from the tape and bobbed to the surface. More cursing ensued, and I jammed the bottom end of the wooden dowel into the top of the skull, and wedged the top end into the handle of my kitchen cabinet, which was luckily exactly the right height for said wedging.

It was about this time that I realized that my second batch of silicone was not actually going to cover the top of the skull. Not only that, but I didn't have a narrower, taller container to transfer the project to... so I did the only thing I could think of.

Once the skull was wedged into place, I paddled some of the silicon up over the top of the skull. It stuck! I did this several more times, hoping to create a layer of silicon over the skull's crown to effectively complete the mold, although I realize this portion of the mold will be incredibly weak structurally, and will require very gentle handling. At $24 per silicone batch, I was not willing to let my skull go the way of the world, no sir!

So now, the molds are resting. Tomorrow I shall unmask them and see what further disasters adventures I can get into with the actual wax casting!

Why Marcheline is Not Running a Cat Portait Studio

I'm getting out of here!

I am being held against my will.

Demon ears = certain death to
all photographers

Maybe if I try the "invisible head trick" she'll
leave me the hell alone...

I am backing out of this commitment.

Oh, all right.
As long as you get my good side.