Tuesday, April 18:

Now that it is warm enough to entertain the thought of gardening, I've decided to retire the Angelina Douglas pepper. If her seeds are still viable (word on the street is they are) I intend to plant them somewhere and see if they grow into funny shaped peppers. That seems like a worthwhile thing to do, doesn't it? DOESN'T IT? I'm not planning on week to week coverage of the plant growing, in case you were wondering.

DEET!

Sunday, April 16:

It's Easter now. Not much going on...might as well take pictures of the animals.

Despite thier warm exterior appearances, Cracker and Deet do not want anything to do with people. When handled and returned to the cage the girls always huddle up next to eachother as though they are sharing stories of alien abduction. I don't hold out a lot of hope for taming them while they're spending so much time together reinforcing eachother's paranoid fantasies. Not much you can do though...

Thursday, April 13:

You know it's slow in the cyber would when I attempt to solicit advice from people about how to get ducks to nest in my backyard and no one responds. Must be the Springtime; everybody's out doing something. I intend to make headway on making the backyard safer for ducks by picking up the spent syringes (most likely belonging to our now incarcerated neighbors - I hope) that seem to have accumulated under the porch this past winter. After that I'm out of ideas.

Well, I'm done with my work on the fortune machine. After wading through notebook after notebook of poetic nonsense I've gathered 575 fortunes. Now I just have to coax James over here to write some code and get the show on the road. Maybe that will happen this weekend...what a formidable Easter Miracle that would be! In the meantime I've typed up a few more sample fortunes for you to look at and enjoy.

Tuesday, April 11:

You may not know by looking at her but the Angelina pepper is going to hell in a hand basket. The first spot of mold has appeared on her lower lip. NO! Not the lip! Yes, the lip. Still at least another week left if I keep photographing her from above.

Well, it was 70+degrees here today. Hallelujah! For once I remembered to leave my hiking boots and winter coat at home. I'm really out of touch with weather conditions (among other things) so I've been caught outside on several occasions being woefully overdressed. I think people assume that folks who wear winter clothes on summery days do so because someone would have ripped off their coats and shoes had they left them back at the shelter. It's a theory.

Someone called me up on the telephone the other day looking for bear fetishes. I directed her to the other two bead stores on this block because, like, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a bead store that sells bear fetishes. Don't get me wrong--I like bears but they're not as cool as say, hedgehogs, and they're awfully common. So I spent today working on hedgehog fetish beads--a product that will surely appeal to few. I intend to work on them tomorrow as well. So there.

Friday, April 7:

I finally went to the doctor yesterday to have someone take a look at the flesh-eating virus on my right hand. My index finger had become so sore and swollen all it was good for was pointing accusingly at people. Turns out the rash is eczema. On the bright side they gave me steroids to eat so I should be developing some kind of super-power soon. Of course one of the side effects of steroids is a fairly loaded one: "mood changes". For me a mood change would be developing a sudden dissatisfaction with living in a messy environment or perhaps developing a sudden urge to commit random acts of kindness toward my fellow man. Unfortunately I think the mood changes they're talking about are either meanness or depression. I plan to take just enough medicine to make my blistering rash go away and then I'm giving the rest to may friend Brad who has really bad eczema on both hands and no health insurance.

So since I couldn't make beads yesterday Don and I finally completed our 2005 taxes. Our independent businesses became one LLC in July and I don't think that our record keeping could have been any more complicated than it was. We're going to see an accountant today to see if he will do our taxes for less than H&R block. (We figure even if it takes him 10 hours it will be less than H&R block.) Seeing high-priced professionals such as lawyers or accountants is never any fun but I do like the fact that most of them have well-dressed secretaries at the ready who offer you soda with ice or coffee when you come in. Free drinks of any kind are important to the human bonding process. Free cookies don't hurt either but you don't usually get those unless you're closing on a piece of property.

Tuesday, April 4:

The Angelina pepper met with an accident this week when she accidentally toppled out of the refrigerator and bounced off several objects before coming to rest on the floor. She didn't break or anything but both of her eyes popped off. Due to an inconveniently placed refrigerator and poor lighting I was only able to recover one eye. I fashioned an eye patch out of an old Crown Royal bag for the other one. This isn't anything I want to spend time thinking about but...did the real Angelina ever have occasion to wear an eye patch in any of her movies? The above image seems familiar somehow.

Friday, March 31:

It was warm here yesterday so I took a walk to the Community Pharmacy to buy some powdered calcium for me lizards. On the way there I noticed that someone had snitched up that squirrel skull I had my eye on. Drat! Don felt bad about me missing out on my skull so he went back to the basement of our old apartment to find another one for me. (He remembered seeing a dead squirrel there a few years ago--so do I. I think it might have been done in by the giant fungus erupting through the cement floor.) Anyway, no skull there either. Moral of the story: if you see a skull pick it up right away before someone else gets it.

Tuesday, March 28:

Well, the pepper is finally starting to rot.(Note the blemish on the chin). I'm no vegetable expert but I think it has a few good weeks left.

Above you will see one of the objets d'arte we worked on at JC's house this weekend. Everyone(Cindy, Jude, JC and me) contributed a bead to the creature. Here's a goddess bead we all worked on. JC did the goddess part, everyone else worked on the inside. Good times.

Friday, March 24:

Believe it or not I've completely forgotten about my squirrel skull. I do intend to visit it next time I go to the post office but right now I'm working on something much more important. With the Angelina pepper's days numbered I've been trying to come up with something else for the site that people will want to visit every week or perhaps every day. I think I've got it all figured out now.

What I want to have on the site is a cyber fortune-telling machine. Every day or even several times a day you can click on it and a weird, pithy little "fortune" will pop up. The fortunes will be generated from a data base of about 1000 lines of Lost School collective poetry. Sample "fortunes" might be something like " That tree you danced with at the creek last night wants her money back" or "Your cell phone will ring and a vortex will open". Stuff like that...crazy stuff. Does that not sound like fun? Would you not spend all day pressing a fortune button like that if there were one before you right now?

In the past day and a half I have amassed 340 "fortunes" pulled from some 18 years of drunken poetry writing. I've still got a lot more work to do but we're going to get there. Keep checking back on this one...it will be worth your while.

Wednesday, March 22:

On my way to the post office today I espy ed a tiny skull poking up through some snow and debris in the corner of a raised bed garden. "Free skull!", I thought to myself. I'm pretty sure its a squirrel skull as many of them get run over and tossed about on East Johnson St. I never found a skull before and even though I was pretty excited about it I didn't pick it up because I didn't want to carry it with me all around town. I did made a mental note of where it was so I could pick it up on the way back.

I thought about the squirrel skull all the way to the post office and all the way back. When I finally got back to the location, which was right near a bus stop, I again passed it by because the stop was full of commuters who might look askance at someone trying to free bones from the newly-thawed ground. My plan is now to wait until all the commuters have gone home and go back for the skull with my pal Bob Foster. Bob collects skulls and fossils and such and I don't think he'll be squeamish about picking it up if the skull is still attached to something. I'll let you know how it all works out.

Tuesday, March 21:

The Angelina pepper and myself would like to wish everyone a happy first day of Spring. We intend to celebrate Spring by staying inside and acting as though nothing has changed. This is particularly easy to do right now since outside nothing has changed--its still really flippin' cold.

Been a little light on the blogs of late on account of having a bead show to attend and three birthdays to celebrate this weekend. That was grueling. Everything went well though--the show was easy and everyone behaved themselves at the parties. The birthday boys, Bob, James and Patrick, were all born between March 14&17 and are all left-handed. What are the odds?

In other amazing events that happened last week--my bat shit crazy neighbors were finally arrested. What a nice surprise that was. I don't want to taint the jury pool by going on and on about specifics so I won't do that. I think I've mentioned them in passing in previous blogs. Anyway, now that they are no longer with us it's like a cloud of weirdness has been lifted from the area. It's so quiet and nice here now.

Thursday, March 16:

For pest control purposes in the 1970's hedgehogs were brought from Scotland to a chain of islands west of the Scottish Mainland. Like most non-native species with few natural predators the hedgehog population soon blossomed and began edging out native wading bird species by eating their eggs. Now the Scottish Natural Heritage has no choice but to round up the hedgehog population, estimated at 5000 strong, and euthanize them.

But wait! There's another side to this multi-year long, emotional battle royal. Enter Brian May (guitarist for Queen), Sir Paul Mc Cartney and Sting! They're fighting on the hedgehogs' side. They, among many other famous and non-famous persons alike, have donated money to be used as tax free bounties on hedgehogs which are captured alive and then re-located on the Mainland from whence they came. Turns out that offering 20 pounds ($35.00 American) for a live hedgehog is much less expensive than conducting studies on and carrying out mass slaughter of the hogs. Apparently owners of local pubs reap mightily from the bounty money as well.

According to articles on TheScotsman.com, over 500 hedgehogs have been euthanized so far and a few hundred have been relocated. The culling (thinning of the herd) will continue this spring when the animals come out of hibernation.

Tuesday, March 14:

Friends, the Angelina pepper is starting to collapse. We may not have it to kick around much longer. I don't know what I'll do when she's gone--photographing her each week has given my life some much needed structure. Now I know when "Tuesday" is. (Previously Wednesday, Garbage Day Eve, was the only day of the week that held any meaning for me.) My pal Annie suggested that after the pepper dies I should plant it in a pot and grow new peppers. I think that's a fine idea 'cause what I'm doing now seems kind of like a waste of food. Maybe the babies will look just like this one.

Birthday greetings go out to Poet James Lee (March 14) and Lost School founding member Bob Foster (March 15--Insincere Expression of Affection Day). We'll be having a lavish to-do at the House Of Hilarity for both of them this weekend. Bob, though in his mid-fifties, still harbors animosity toward a little boy named "Ricky" with whom he had to "share" his birthday party when both of them turned five. Because of this we're not letting on that its James' birthday party too. Next year instead of a humorous t-shirt we're getting Bob some therapy for his birthday.

Tuesday, March 7:

Happy pepper day everyone. You know, this is the second Tuesday that I went home and had to come back to the store because I forgot to take a picture of the Angelina pepper. It sure is a good thing I don't have anything better to do with my life. Looks like the pepper is a week older but then again, who isn't?

Earlier this evening I was researching polka bands and trying to figure out which one did a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" when I came across something interesting. It was an article from BBC News positing that the Loch Ness Monster might have actually been an elephant going for a swim. I adore the picture that accompanies the article...it explains a lot. Thanks to Those Darn Accordians and thier weblog "Wall Of Wheeze". Somewhere on that blog are pictures of an extremely obese cat that are pretty funny too.

Monday, March 6:

Look who it is! Its #1 lizard Iggy. I don't think I've ever posted a picture of her before on the blog. Don't you think she would look good in a stovepipe hat? I do.

Don is back in bed on account of a back injury. He wanted to spend the day lying on the floor but I talked him out of it saying it was too cold on the floor etc. What I was really concerned about was mice getting at him while he was immobile. We haven't caught any mice for a while but just because we haven't caught any doesn't mean they're not around. They're probably watching us and biding thier time until one of us falls ill and goes to sleep on the floor. Don has killed so many of them he's likely being percieved as some kind of rodent war criminal. I better get back to the house before it gets dark...

Wednesday, March 1:

My new cyber-pal Joy Raskin sent me this picture of her art work. Joy is a metalsmith who lives in New Hamshire and keeps a steady supply of hedgehogs and, consequently, quills in her studio. (Hedgehogs shed hundreds of quills during thier relatively short lifespans.) Speaking as one who knows, it is really difficult to incorporate hedgehog quills into artwork. Most of my hogs quills end up getting embedded in the carpet of the office-cave. If only I had a special box to put them in...

Rodent update: The digging sound coming from inside my wall is louder today. I could hear it while I was cleaning beads in the bathroom. I'm expecting something dramatic and Shawshank Redemption-like to happen behind my wall of post-it notes. I'll let you know.

Tuesday, February 28:

I can hear clearly some kind of a creature moving around in the wall behind my desk in my office-cave. Its a busy little thing, whatever it is. Wouldn't it be great if it was a hedgehog? Probably just a mouse.

I finally set my sweater on fire yesterday. Lost a sleeve but gained important life lessons. I so knew that if I wore bulky clothing around the torch that this was going to happen but I did it anyway because its cold in here. As far as adrenalin rushes go, lighting your sleeve on fire is a lot more intense than dropping a bottle of acid etching solution on the floor but not as intense as getting your rubber glove caught in a drill. I made the mistake of Don about the episode. He's been calling me "Smokey" ever since.

Later that same day...

Friday, February 24:

I learned today that the British Hedgehog Preservation Society is protesting Mc Donald's use of a certain type of container for it's "Mc Flurry" ice cream drink. The container apparently traps hedgehogs when they go in for a lick of ice cream. The demand for a re-designing of the container has been going on for years now and this is the first that I heard of it. Go figure.

Tuesday, February 21:

I cooked a chicken earlier tonight and at 11pm I decided to run some over to the store so I could give my pet hedgehogs a chicken snack. By the time I got here Deet had already run so hard on her wheel that she was passed out on it and the wheel was wedged up against a wall in the cage. She woke up when she smelled the chicken, though, and she gobbled up both her and Crackers portions. Ya snooze ya lose, Cracker.

So when I was putting the chicken back in the store fridge I smelled something funny and remembered that it was Tuesday and that I had neglected to take this week's picture of the Angelina pepper. As one aquainted with pepper decomposition timelines I know that the window between "extremely wrinkled" and "liquid" is not very large so if you say that you're going to take a picture of a decomposing pepper every week you damn well better not wait eight days between shots or you may not have any pepper left to photograph. Its a good thing I came back here to give the hedgehogs a snack, is what I'm saying. Who knows what I might have found if I had waited.

So here's this week's pepper pics. I have to get back home now. Deet is back up on her wheel and shifting nervously because there is a person in the room and the light is on. I can tell she wants to get back to running fast in the dark. Not going to deny her that.

Sunday, February 19:

Valentine's Day is the traditional end of our nation's long nightmare of streetlamps bedecked with Christmas related trappings. We had unseasonably warm weather (53 degrees above zero) five days ago that made Don's un-decorating job a lot easier. Then a storm came through and as of yesterday morning the temperature was 15 degrees below zero.

Since Friday I've spent nearly all my time at the warm store partly because the house is cold but also because I'm afraid to walk around outside in my sensory deprivation winter gear. On a typical walk home I am likely to collide with two to three pedestrians and come close to getting run over by ay least one vehicle all because my winter clothes afford less visibility than a Burka. I simply cannot understand why people and cars can't just go around around me. I'll probably have to post a picture of myself when I'm all bundled up so you can judge for yourselves but I assure you I do not look as though I can see where I am going.

Thursday, February 16:

Well, the important thing is that I tried. If you cover up half of Dick's face at a time you'll note that he has two distinct expressions on his face. The mask has the same thing going on except the expressions (very angry and somewhat less angry) are reversed. Just something I noticed.

I doubt I'll put this up on ebay so if for some strange reason you'd like to purchase the Dick Cheney mask just email me. (aardart@aol.com)

In other news...it is snowing here people! I heard we were supposed to get 9-12". Since the city isn't plowing the roads or collecting the garbage today I saw no point in my opening the store. An open store will only lure in customers who would then become trapped in the deep snow drifts. Then I'd have to help free them lest they freeze or get eaten by creatures. I don't want any part of either of those scenerios.

Tuesday, February 15:

Angelina Douglas pepper update: I decided to refrigerate the pepper last week in order to draw this bit out for as long as possible. My plan seems to be working. I want to see the pepper dry up completely just as much as you do but we must have patience!

After a week in the refrigerator the Angelina pepper seems to be in need of some...something to plump up her face again. (What would that be? Fat cells from her ass? Collagen? I'm afraid my lexicon of face-altering procedure terms is woefully inadequate here.) Looks like the butt chin will go first followed by the lips and the eye area. At this point she still appears edible and looks happy when photographed from the left side. More later.

In other news...I finished my Cheney mask yesterday. It was really hard to stare at his visage for an hour. I guess he turned out ok though its really difficult to add color to someone pasty like him. I ended up using tongue pink for the base and decorating it with red, white, blue and yellow. I'll post it after I etch it.

Monday, February 13:

I've got this tangy idea for a Dick Cheney-esque mask bead called "I Thought You Were A Quail." I've been studying the man's limited facial expressions and they seem to fall into two categories. 1)"I regret nothing" and 2) "I've got chunks of guys like you in my stool". Making masks in a certain person's likeness is really difficult but I'm going to give this a whirl anyway.

Apparently you can't allow people to draw on your bathroom walls without it spreading to the rest of the house. Yes, this does surprise me.

Angelina Pepper update: I've decided to slowly dry the Angelina pepper in the hope that it will give us an idea of what the real Angelina will look like when she finally gets old. So that's something to look forward to.

Tuesday, February 7:

Me and Cindy went to the Co-op today (to buy delicious lizard food) and as luck would have it the produce section was fully stocked with really deformed red peppers. We picked through the whole pile to find one that looked like Jesus or Nixon but didn't find any. The mutant pepper closest resembling a living or dead celebrity was this Angelina Jolie/ Kirk Douglas hybrid. Now we have a new friend!

Friday, February 3:

I got back to the shop tonight, took off my gloves and put them on my work bench. This is the exact position in which they stayed. Isn't that weird? The glove that looks like its hanging in mid-air is actually resting on a plastic container that organizes bead caps. The more I look at it the more it freaks me out. I hope my pal genius photographer/beadmaker Michele Goldstein sees this photo cause I think it would be right up her movie.

We're at the shop one more night while we clean up the house. I swear there's nothing messier than unplanned drywall cutting and removal. Its all done now, though. The rotten pipe in the Universes' plumbing from whence sprung the Cosmic Shit Storm has been replaced with space-age PVC tubing. We're all safe now and things are only going to get better. Amen. Tell your friends.

Wednesday, February 1:

While researching Alphabet Beads I did a Google image search for "walrus" and I found the funniest things. (This list of...I don't know what you'd call them...I just had to laugh like hell when I found it.)

Look who we finally captured on digits! Its DEET! You're probably saying to yourself "I thought she said Deet was a salt-n-pepper! How can Deet be a salt-n-pepper when she doesn't have a dark mask on her face?" That's what I was saying anyway after visiting this extremely informative page on the International Hedgehog Association's website. Those pet store people were wrong again.

Tuesday, January 31:

"So, if your toilet were flushing into your ceiling you'd know about it, right?"

That was the question on everyone's lips today. Thing was, we had no idea anything was wrong until this morning when it started raining in our kitchen. Before you get all grossed out I have to tell you that, despite a massive hole in our main drain coming from the upstairs bathroom, we did not see or smell any (much) sewage when we opened up our bedroom floor. Lotta stuff in between the floors but no crap.(We weren't just digging around willy-nilly either--we had a plumber with a special camera locate the source of the rain before we started digging.) I'm not sure why this problem decided make itself known today but I do have a theory.

Just yesterday I was telling Cindy that I felt like the universe was picking on me. I've got taxes and stuff to worry about, my neighbors are batshit crazy and lately the store has been slow so its kind of like a boil on my ass. I described my "blue" feeling as one you'd have if you were in a Cosmic Shit Storm: every time you turn around the universe bounces another turd off the back of your head. It makes you crazy and unpleasant. "Hope this Cosmic Shit Storm ends soon," I said just yesterday.

But back to this morning. I awoke to the sound of Don unbolting the toilet from the floor. He continued to work and told me to go down to the kitchen yell when the flow of water coming from the ceiling got worse. I said "OK" and went downstairs where water was dripping from a lot of places. Since it was all over the floor I thought it would be good to start catching it in pots and pans...except we don't have very many pots and pans. I went upstairs to get towels but there were only two towels in the bathroom. The only thing we had in abundance was dirty laundry. I grabbed a pile of that and spread it out on the floor along with all of our bowls and pots and pans and waited for the rain to end.

When the plumber came around 11 am the kitchen was full of dirty wet laundry and bowls partially filled with yellow liquid. I think this was the first time I ever felt ashamed of my surroundings. With the help of his space-age tools the plumber had the break in the pipe located and an "X" on the floor of the upstairs bedroom where Don should start digging, should he decide to dig. The plumber told Don that since the break was so accessable he (Don) ought to be able to fix it himself. This was extremely good news...perhaps the best news I'd had all month.

The point of this story is at hand! Don opened the floor revealing our extensively damaged plumbing. All I could think of was how close to an actual shit storm we had come and how weird it was that I was just talking about a shit storm yesterday. What are the odds? I have no choice now but to believe that our rotten sewer line is a concrete manifestation of the Universe and that all problems I've been having are going to go away as soon as our plumbing problems are resolved. Yes. I have no choice but to believe this.

Saturday, January 14:

This is a hedgehog exercise wheel. As you can see it is covered with poop. This is a good sign because it means your hedgehogs are eating, pooping and running on their wheel. This is a bad sign because it means someone is going to have to give the hedgehogs a bath (especially the white one) before more forced human/hedgehog interaction can occur. I'm not looking forward to this because putting hedgehogs in water does not endear them to you.

Did you know that hedgehogs can run on wheels like this for miles every night? Its true. You can even buy a little odometer for your hedgehog wheel so you'll know exactly how far they run each night. I knew a lot of people who used wheel odometers back when I attended hedgehog shows. I still donate prizes to the Hedgehog Welfare Society's "Wheel-A-Thon" in which people pledge money for the distance your hedgehog runs on its wheel. Proceeds go to the HWS to finance hedgehog vet bills and such. I'm not making this up.

Say, that reminds me...does anyone remember "Easy Reader" from that 70's children's program "The Electric Company"? Did you know that that character was played by Morgan Freeman? I did not know that! I hadn't thought about Easy Reader in a really long time but once I started thinking about him a little section of my brain un kinked and suddenly I could remember all the words to his theme song and everything. Dormant information springs to life! I wonder how much more of that is in there...

Tuesday January 10:

Balance has been restored at Aardvark Art Glass. Last evening we adopted two girl hedgehogs from an area pet store which had been left there on Dec.2. Both are two years old.

Since they came without names we took the liberty of naming the hedgehogs ourselves. Cracker, an albino hedgehog, is very un socialized though not bitey. She's largeish and likes to push her smaller cage mate, Deet (a salt and pepper hedgehog) around with her snout. The people at the pet store told us that the two "loved each other" and should not be separated. Clearly they spent as little time observing them as they did handling them.

Since they seem to like sleeping next to one another we're continuing to house them together. We're keeping an eye on that Cracker, though. She seems like kind of a bully with understandable anger issues. As you can tell Don and I are already projecting our own little dramas on these guys. (I project onto Cracker, the growling one, and Don on Deet, the sweet one). Don wants to build a tube that's just large enough for Deet to fit through in case she wants to escape the wrath of Cracker.

No pictures yet as both hogs are still settling in.

Sunday, January 8:

Marty-Mart the hedgehog passed away on Saturday, January 7. We're still not sure what happened though we suspect he may have had cancer. Marty became violently ill on Saturday morning and was put down around noon. Marty was six years old, which is old for a little hedgehog.

Marty liked digging in Don's beard, turkey and Cindy's deodorant (often he would lunge at Cindy's armpit). He also enjoyed chewing on my hair. We miss him terribly.