This Momma is the poo. Take a big whiff.

I am a marketing genius, what can I say?

So you may have noticed I have a link to "Palm Coast Art" in the upper left corner of my blog. This is a link to a site where my mom sells the beautiful jewelry and other works of art that she creates by hand.

My mom has been a super-creative human being long as I've known her. If you check out my jewelry collection (which, as you'd imagine, despite the fact that I'm a tomboy, is quite extensive), 99% of it is either made by my mom or other members of her highly artistic side of the family. My mom can mold silver clay, glass, copper and stone into the most imaginative items. My cousin Heb is a beading wizard, and my aunt (Heb's mom) is a stained glass queen.

Needless to say, when I snuck onto the Palm Coast Art @ Etsy site and bought this cairn necklace last week, I was not disappointed.


At first glance, it doesn't appear to be much. But when I found out my cousin collected the stones from Lake Michigan and then my mom used ancient cairns, or markers, as the inspiration, I had to have it. I love jewelry with a story.

Please visit my mom's Etsy site. There are much more glamorous pieces available on the site for purchase. Every piece of art you buy goes toward a good cause: my inheritance. Spend big! I want another motorcycle!

Palm Coast Art @ Etsy

Kuj Recommends The Following Junk...

Whenever we go on a club ride, we usually do one-stop shopping at a gas station. We can fuel up, take a break, get a cool beverage and glom down crap.

My travels have introduced me to these delectables:

Dark Chocolate Mint 3 Musketeers
Java Twix
Gummy Lifesavers (Mixed Berry)

Fun Family Vocabulary

A conversation my dad and I had a while back reminded me of just how many words our family has added to our schoolin'. I'm sure every family does this. A small child, just getting used to speaking comes up with ingenious and usually right-to-the-point words for common, everyday occurrences and things. Or we were merely mis-heard. Or it's just plain old more amusing our way. Here's a sampling of the Kuj tribe's dictionary:

• Snakelips: Kraft mac and cheese
• Hopcorn: Popcorn
• Mortytaco: Motorcycle
• Seatback: Back seat
• Bweem: vroom
• Scalin' a hot one: Originally "peeling a hot potato", misunderstood as "pooping"
• Pants: Dad
• Taco swimming: honestly, I can't remember what this one actually was, but this is what it was interpreted as.
• Woodypecker: Woody the Woodpecker
• Goggy: gross
• Berzert: term of endearment, also, n., a mouth fart on a giggly belly
  

Feel free to add...

How could I forget this??

On our club website has a page for pictures of member's rides. You can really post up anything you want...motorcycling-related or not. One of our officers with some admin privileges will give new members about 24 hours to post up their own photo...after that, if you are sorry enough to leave the "No Picture" template up, you're at his mercy.

We had a newest member sign up this past Sunday...surprisingly, AFTER we had a crash-and-drop. And he's probably my dad's age. And, (sigh) faster than me. I'm fairly certain he had 24 hours...and I watched quietly, and not without a little panic, waiting for the noob to post a picture. I'm fairly certain THIS is not the photo he wanted posted up:

If you want to view it in all its glory, go here and look for "SVBrad", then click on the image. Enjoy.

Spazzy Synapse Firings

I don't understand how DAYS can sneak by in between posts. My fans must have collapsed, mere inches from the life-giving fountain of useless burblings that is me. All one of ya. Mom. I kid.

I've got nothin. I've been either painting, working or riding. All, which, for the most part, make for a boring post.

The house is very nearly finished being painted. A couple of coats here, another coat there and we get the rest of the summer off.

Our club ride last Sunday was...interesting. We rode a little farther than we usually do and went south of La Crosse through the Mindoro Cut and then back through it toward home. Another Triumph rider went splat just out of the cut in the first turn. His bike broke one of the fence posts and then hovered halfway into the abyss below. Being a Triumph, aside from a scraped up plastic, a bent shifter lever, and a couple of superficial boo-boos, he finished the ride. I thought I'd drop mine on its side for fun as I was pulling off the side of the road to assist.

I need an automatic, retractable kickstand. There's nothing blonder than forgetting to put your kickstand down. Twice. Worse yet, an old dude on a Goldwing had pulled over to let me pass before the Cut and then stopped next to me to help our fallen rider. I was close enough to him that when I dropped the bike, my instrument cowl brushed up against his leg. Didn't affect him. He merely turned his head in my direction and asked, calmly, "Are you okay?" No sir. I'm stupid. Are you okay? Don't sue me.

***

I went for a ride with my dad and his friend last night up to a new tavern on Lake Holcombe. Very nice. Ted's Timberlodge. All pine and slate and stone with a great view of the lake. That was a 70 mile trip. Then I got home and realized I didn't deposit my paycheck, so I rode to the bank branch farthest from my house. At some point I decided to get lost. "I wonder where EE goes? I'll follow it till it ends. Oh, it ends at H. I'll turn left here on H and ride that till it ends." That one was a long one. By the time I got to the end of H, it was getting darkish and all I knew was that I was south. And the farm guys in their pickup trucks were looking at me in a "paddle faster, I hear banjos" sort of way. I found a familiar route and followed it home...85 miles.

***

How are you guys dealing with the gas thing? I think it's around $4.22 here. I could tell you that I've taken an active approach in taking my motorcycle instead of my car, but I like to ride too much. I keep finding the looooonng way home. Honestly, I'm surprised I even know what the price was...I must have glanced at the pump. I don't care, I haven't cut back, I say spook the caribou, start drilling in Alaska, and give me all the 93 octane fossil fuels ya got. I don't think this makes me a bad American. Let's just say I'm doing all I can to hold up my end of the Pursuit of Happiness.

This Saturday the club is heading up to the Twin Cities for a benefit ride. A guy who used to ride in the club (whom we know as "Fez") has an 11 year old little brother who is in remission from Stage 4 Hodgkin's and they are throwing a little party for him. I'm looking forward to seeing Fez again and meeting his brother, but it will also be an all-day motorcycling jag. Yea for me! And Brother is actually going to ride with us for the first time this year.

***

Admittedly, my useless ramblings are more entertaining than current events...but sometimes you just have to build up the good stuff.

And I can't get "Mamma Mia" out. Of. My. Freaking. Head.

And Trish got Italy moments after I threw down my Hawaii gauntlet. Shush, Trish. Threaten me again, and I post up your artwork on the notes we passed from high school. Love to the W-W's!

There are no taste buds down there

Hah. You thought that was dirty didn't you? 'Snot.

I just wanted to publicly announce that I am eating a mashed potato bowl from KFC for lunch. It's mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, breaded chicken bits and cheese. And, so far, I've managed to keep it down.

While this isn't newsworthy in most cases, I am an exception in that my entire life (so far) has consisted of consuming food as if it were perpetually served on a sectioned Chinet plate. I do not mix my food. There is never corn mixed with the mashed potatoes and gravy. There are NEVER cranberries touching the green bean casserole. Barf noise.

I am constantly forced to respond to the statement, "It all ends up in the same place," with a scathing, "I don't have to taste it once it's down there."

Here I am, eating a mishmosh in a bowl...frankly it's not bad. But if there were cranberries in it too, I'd have to draw the line. Barf noise. Guess I'll check this off my list too; right up there with skydiving and track day.

Everyone out there in the food-mixin' USA, have a great 4th of July. Mind the fingers and toes.

How Come I Don't Get to Have Parosamia?

Topic: Things that are stinky.

Stinky: "Escape" by Rupert Holmes
Shortly after I moved up to Eau Claire, I bought an XM radio. Why? There are roughly 11 mainstream radio stations in this area (after eliminating the Christian rock, NPR, talk, and college stations). Aside: college stations play music that reminds me of that scene in "Animal House" when Otter is picking up dates at the nearby women's college. That song playing in the background while he waits in the lobby of the sorority...yeah, that one...the "I haven't washed in three days, my armpit hair is long and braid-able, I'm hanging out here in the coffee shop with the book "On The Road" sitting on the table (unread), and I'm rambling on about curing the world's hurts, but darn if I don't sound intellectual" song. We get a lot of that up here in Collegeland. Sometimes I like to hang out in the coffee shops with a highfalutin book I actually am reading, and scoff at the pretentious little twits. And who gave permission for white boys to grow dreads?

The eleven radio stations can be boiled down to FOUR genres: Top 40, classic rock, country, rock. Ergo, XM. I have a sort of A.D.D. love of music. Not too much of any one thing, but never enough of everything. Oddly enough, my A.D.D. does not include the above mentioned four genres, other than a few hardly-played numbers.

My employer is a definite late 70's/early 80's child of rock. He naturally chooses the classic rock station. With all the machinery noises in the background at work, I can almost drown out the music with the monotonous clicking of the press and my usual busy-headedness. Unfortunately, the station of choice is an internet no-name that, I've discovered, is fairly limited in scope. I have heard "Escape" at least once a week. Now, I KNOW none of you dear readers can claim that. And how is that "rock" anyway?

Last week, the song finally intruded on my conscience, and I was forced to listen to the lyrics. The story goes like this: couple is bored. Man of couple reads personals and finds intriguing mystery woman. Insists he must meet her. Turns out Man of couple re-meets Woman of couple. They laugh, they like pina coladas. Now, would this happen in real life? If you were bored with your girlfriend, and you go combing the personals, find someone you want to meet and it turns out it's your girlfriend after all, would there really be laughing? Or would there be stabbing? Does this do damage to the trust of a relationship? What kind of strength of will is necessary to overcome that terribly awkward realization that your significant other went sneaking off to look for someone new (or had already posted a personal ad doing same) without the common decency to come clean first? I digress. This song still stinks. Brother can come up with better songs thinking about toilet activities.

***

Stinky: Lawn clippings
Leave eight bags of last year's lawn clippings out in your backyard. Then move them to your dad's house. Try not to vomit. There is no way to describe the smell of decaying grass cooking in the sun in a black plastic garbage bag. For 12 months. Does it smell like cow manure? Nope. Feet? Not even. Guinness farts? No. More like all three together.

I had returned from my Saturday morning yoga class to find the back patio cleared of all the black bags, but there lingered a frightening odor that I couldn't pin down. Until our newest roommate wandered into the garage and made the barf noise. And described, all the while moving aforementioned bags, the number of times he and Brother made the barf noise. While I was making the barf noise. And when Brother returned from dumping the bags behind my dad's house, he resumed the barf noise. All day, waiting for the patio and garage to air out...the barf noise.

Now, we go bagless. It helps that Roommate finds mowing the lawn to be "therapeutic" if he's not forced to mow the lawn. I find this acceptable, though he, by no means, is required by us to mow. Frankly, I HATE mowing the lawn. I've mowed once this season; Brother may not have at all. Roommate does this regularly; also, mostly naked (yea for me). And darn if he doesn't mow on an angle. Our lot looks like someone dropped a dilapidated (read: scraped of exterior paint) ranch house in the middle of Fenway.

***

Stinky: Painting a house
Warm weather up here in the Northwoods is slow to appear. It really never hit 70 until early June this year. So when April rolled around and we discovered the exterior paint hanging off the soffit in chunks, and huge bubbles on the siding, guess what took priority while waiting for a suitable temperature to paint? Realistically, we could use new siding and windows, but painting was more financially feasible at this point. The last paint job on our house is crappy at best. No prep at all, it appears. So, perfectionists that Brother and I are, we've been pressure-washing, scraping, filling, and slopping on primer for the last, oh, 2 months. Mind you, I'm inherently lazy. If there's labor to be done, I can come up with all manner of seemly reasons to not labor. My cells are busier than I am.

Brother works two jobs and when he's not at either of those, he's working on the house. I feel bad, but...labor. The last couple of weekends and a couple of weekdays after work, when I'm done eating dinner, and it's not hot, and the sun isn't beating down on me, and I'm properly hydrated, and the hammock in the 3-season porch is not calling me, and I get to use the non-rickety ladder...I've done some work. Mostly because I can't stand looking at our awful Alabama swamp hut anymore. So we've been working in shifts. Brother sands during the day, I primer in the evening. We might get done before we start piling up bags of grass clippings again. Barf noise.

The house-painting highlight so far was last night. I was in the backyard, slapping primer on the bare wood spots when Roommate returns from his "run" (he doesn't, much), grabs a lawn chair and parks it in the grass (mostly naked again; yea for me) to watch me paint. Granted, this was to have a conversation while I was (ech) laboring, but in my head it was totally amusing to watch a woman up on a ladder painting and a mostly naked man in a lawn chair watching. I'm surprised men walking in the neighborhood didn't come up and congratulate Roommate on his achievement.

***

Stinky (but infinitely funny): Farts
Now that there are two dudes living in this humble abode, the farting has increased exponentially. I'm sure you can imagine the giggle factory I've become. Yes, farting is disgusting. Yes, it's socially unacceptable. However, if you constantly laugh at every toot, fweep, and BLAAAAT, you are unconsciously allowing the behavior to continue. It could be worse. We could have cats...and hairballs. Besides, I like to laugh. And now, I do a lot of it.

Brother, as I have stated, will drop a single BRAP and the deadly cloud spreads. Without warning. The rotting gas bag. He has convinced me that he likes the smell of them, even while making the barf noise. "Sniiiiff. Oh. Baaad. Sniiiiff (as if to confirm). Oh yeah. " Fun for him, not for us.

Roommate, on the other hand, makes me laugh, every time. Damn him. Melodic and tonal with a definite longevity. Not a hint of odor (not that you would catch me within 10 feet of him post-symphonic outburst. But, while Brother's has a way of filling the room, Roommate? Non-stinky.) We've determined he's made up of "sunshine and farts." Last night, while we were enjoying our non-cable TV (Public Television, I heart you) in the 3-season porch, I sat curled up in a chair and Roommate was sprawled out (mostly naked) in the hammock. At first I thought a random animal had passed by the 3-season and left a distinct "GTFOOH" mark on the air...then I realized it was the poo-lecules of my fellow human being.

Me: "Hey, you're not supposed to stink."
A pair of eyes peek out over the hammock.
Roommate: "I think I might be lactose-intolerant."
Me: "Why do you think that?"
Roommate: "My dinner of cheese and crackers, chips and dip, followed by cheese and crackers?"
Me: "I suspect it was your 'run'. That's why I don't."
Roommate: "Anyway, it's starting to hurt."
Me: "Want some ice cream?"
Roommate: "Does your pillow smell funny?"

Roommate and I went out on a ride Sunday night after our usual sportbike club ride. He has years of experience at riding (and a few more experiences than me at crashing) and I've improved much piloting my own bike while following him. But, I couldn't help but think as I watched him crest a hill into the sunset and lean out of sight into a left turn, "Is he farting right now? Would I be able to smell it back here? What does he mean 'Does your pillow smell funny?'"