Email I received this morning:
Protip: If you’re going to run a phishing scam that hinges on luring people to a phony spellchecking service, don’t hire this guy to write your spam:
Something tells me my sophomores will find this absolutely hilarious when I share it with them.
Emily
Remember last summer, when we shucked out $800 and pretty much went through hell and back trying to move our hives all over the yard to get the city off our backs after some jerk called to gripe about our bees?
Remember when I said that I really hoped the guy behind me was responsible for the visit from the city inspector, because the changes we were required to make pretty much ensured that his backyard was going to look like O’Hare International Airport, what with all the hives now facing his property and the big ugly privacy fence guiding them over there?
The guy outed himself today by taping a little handwritten nastygram to my front door, telling me what a horrible neighbor I am because my honeybees are drinking all the nectar out of his hummingbird feeders and scaring his dog away from its water bowl.
I would like the record to show that the letter I am sending back to him does NOT say, “Baaaaaaahahahahahahaha!”
But really:
Baaaaaaahahahahahahaha!
Emily
… that I think the Jack Chick tract I found on my windshield this evening is the funniest thing I have seen all week?
I probably shouldn’t laugh at it. It’s unconscionably homophobic, and I absolutely hate it when people use the Bible to justify bigotry. But this thing is so far over the top that it really borders on self-parody. No, I take that back. It doesn’t border on anything. It crossed that border a long time ago and is already deep into the interior of the Land of Irony.
Seriously: This thing looks like what you’d get if The Onion started printing religious tracts.
Behold:
This was a misprint. It was actually supposed to say: “Whatever is required to get national attention is valid. If that includes lying out of your arse in the name of Jesus to garner support for your own bigoted world view, so be it.”
“It’s that time again!”
“No, Daddy! Noooooo! For the love of everything that’s holy, don’t drag me to the Keane-Eyes Gallery again! I promise I’ll be good this time!”
Check out that perpetrator’s back hair and Cro-Magnon build. And you thought fundamentalists didn’t believe in evolution. Shows what you know.
“Dude, Lot just said his parents are out of town until Thursday.”
“Bitchin’, Dude! We’ll stay in your home tonight, Lot.”
Is it just me, or does that guy on the left look like a cross between Leonard Nimoy and Ziggy Stardust? I knew the Teletubbies were gay, and Bert and Ernie have raised suspicions, but is there something I don’t know about Lamb Chop? Because that certainly looks like her on Tonight We Party’s right arm.
Speaking of Tonight We Party, what’s up with that outfit? How does a dress like that even happen? I can just imagine the conversation that led to that:
“Hey, Wally, what do you want to do tonight?”
“I dunno, Beav — what do you want to do?”
“Well, Donna Summer’s in town. We could try to score tickets to her show. Or we could head over to the toga party at Lot’s place. Rumor has it Otis Day and the Knights are going to show up again.”
“I know — let’s do both!”
“Swell idea, Wally! But what shall I wear?”
Something tells me Chick had waaaaaaay too much fun drawing some of these frames.
I’m dying to know who left this gift on my windshield. Was it an earnest would-be missionary blanketing Red Fork with tracts to save our heathen river-rat souls from damnation? A neoconservative operative who mistook the tie-dyed rainbow pattern on my car for a political statement? A wiseacre student playing a good prank on his hippie English teacher? A gay friend with a marvelously wry sense of humor? A secret pal who knows of my fondness for kitschy subcultural ephemera? Who knows?
Ah, the mysteries of life in a red state….
Emily
I am teaching To Kill a Mockingbird in my Pre-AP English II classes. In the second chapter, Scout goes to school for the first time. Her teacher — an earnest, attractive young woman who might be all of 21 years old — scolds her because she already knows how to read and write. Scout’s literacy is problematic for the teacher because it did not come about as a result of the one-size-fits-all method that the teacher’s college professors told her to use.
The novel is set in 1935.
You can imagine how hard I laughed when I read that scene and suddenly realized that Harper Lee’s description of a young teacher in 1935 was virtually identical to my experiences with 21st-century educational consultants.
Emily
I got my math certification test results back this afternoon. I scored 289 out of a possible 300. Looks like I’ll be keeping my job next fall!
Emily
So yesterday I wake up with my thought in a dark place, which of course manifests itself in the form of a steaming pile of unnecessary hassles and nonsense that render the day worthless for all practical purposes. I come home feeling exhausted, defiant, and wholly unwilling to cooperate with any request from any direction. I fire off a snarky e-mail to Swayze (whom I normally adore) and get a polite reply that doesn’t answer my question. I (barely) suppress the urge to click “send” on a reply that will obliterate any delusions he ever had about my being a “team player” or the One Girl He Can Count On for Support and instead decide that I need to blog so I don’t miss a day.
Still crawling around in a dark hole, I find I have absolutely nothing positive to say and instead turn my energies to a public announcement of my intent to be as uncooperative as possible with his latest request. Very professional of me. Then I get up this morning, check my e-mail, and find a congratulatory comment informing me that I have been nominated for another Okie Blog Award for best inspirational award. Way to earn it, Em. Bet that snarky missive yesterday really pulls in the votes. nice work.
As usual, the Father pulls me up short when I need it. Sometimes I think it would be easier if He’d just put me on a full-cheek snaffle and stay in my mouth for the whole ride instead of trying this loose-reined approach on a day when the wind is blowing and I’m inclined to spook, y’know?
Emily
The day Ron picked up Scout’s ashes from the vet, he also stopped by the florist shop and picked up a graceful little flower arrangement to put on the table next to the little velvet bag from the crematory.
I saved part the arrangement and hung it up to dry, thinking I would keep it to put in a shadowbox with a few of Scout’s things.
Apparently the dried flower fell down, because Riggy found it on the floor this evening and tore it into tiny pieces before I could stop him. I yelled at him, gave him a good scruff shake, and then suddenly burst into simultaneous laughter and tears as it occurred to me that Scout wouldn’t have been the least bit upset that Riggy had torn up her flowers; if anything, she would have been overcome with glee at the prospect of tearing something up and scattering it all over three rooms.
Life would be intolerably dull without a feisty little terrier to shake things up….
Emily
So I’m drying my hair this afternoon when the doorbell rings. Scout immediately launches into an uncontrollable barking frenzy, and Jason follows her into the living room to stare at the front door, both of them ready, willing and able to get medieval in the event that Something Wicked This Way Comes.
A young guy in a uniform the color of a mailman’s is on the doorstep, so I order Scout to get back as I pad out onto the porch in my bare feet, hoping that my visitor is here to deliver my new honey extractor.
No such luck. As it turns out, Uniform Guy is selling home security systems, or something like that. (I didn’t catch all of the details. It was hard to hear, what with my dog barking loudly enough to be heard in Sapulpa.)
I manage to keep from laughing openly as I point to Scout and say: “Well, as you can see, we already have a foolproof alarm system….”
Emily
Blogging is a weird thing. It’s one of the only ways I can think of to be an anonymous (or at least pseudonymous) celebrity.
On the one hand, I’ve had strangers stop me on two separate occasions to ask if I’m the Red Fork Hippie Chick. (I think one of them recognized me because I was with Ron, whom he’d met somewhere along the way. The other one saw me at a race and identified me by the number on my bib and the inappropriately Bohemian outfit I was wearing.)
On the other hand, there was this little incident, which added a bit of levity to a dull afternoon:
I got an e-mail today from a newspaper reporter who had run across my blog and wanted to interview me for a story about New Year’s resolutions.
I sent him a polite reply, explaining that I’d love to help, but I was afraid our executive editor would fire both of us if I did….
Pseudonyms, man. You can’t beat ’em. 😉
Emily
I needed to go to the zoo Saturday afternoon to take a photo of a Ganesha statue for my goddaughter, Remy, whose room is decorated in a jungle theme. Her mom asked me to shoot an elephant, a giraffe, or a hippo. We have kind of a tradition involving photographs of animal statues, so I’m hooking her up with a triptych featuring Ganesha, a blue fiberglass hippo from Edmond, and Bob Cassilly’s giraffe from the Dallas Zoo.
While Ron and I were at the zoo, we went to the Wings of Wonder exhibit, which is a big walk-through greenhouse containing lots of flowers and several species of butterflies. It made me think of the Insectarium at the St. Louis Zoo.
St. Louis’ Insectarium is a lovely educational exhibit that gives viewers a peek at the habits of some of the less cuddly species that share the planet with us. But I love it because it’s the best example of irony I’ve ever seen.
As you walk into the Insectarium, you are greeted by a big sign proclaiming that the exhibit was made possible by a generous donation from Monsanto.
Yes, that Monsanto. The folks who gave us Roundup herbicide, Ortho pesticides, and one of the nastiest Superfund sites in the country. One of the world’s largest purveyors of bug spray sponsored a huge exhibit about cohabiting peaceably with bugs.
I can’t think of the Insectarium without bursting into song:
They cut down all the trees, put ’em in a tree museum
And they’re charging the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em….
— Joni Mitchell
Wings of Wonder didn’t have any glaring irony attached to it. It was just pretty.
I shot a few pictures while we were in there; of particular interest was the chrysalis house, a little kiosk sort of affair made of wood and screen wire where caterpillars turn into butterflies. Two newly hatched butterflies were drying their wings while we were there; the young docent was very nice about letting me get close to shoot pictures:
I also got a picture of this character sipping nectar from a black-eyed Susan:
Hope your weekend is full of beautiful creatures.
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 