why am i so fascinated by substances that have many many uses. each new use is like lifting a little flap, and there is a surprise underneath is why. i guess.

so because i'm one of the great dorks of the world, and because i love this mysterious and precious liquid so, in every one of its many incantations, i will share with you the things i know vinegar can do.

1. if you put a tablespoonful in your dog's water 2-3 times a week, your dog's peepee will not burn unsightly patches in your beauteous suburban lawn. or urban. or rural.

2. rub it straight on your ripening pumpkin or watermelon. it will discourage any rotting as well as insects as your produce comes to its fullest potential

3. speaking of insect critters, putting a line of it outside your doorway(s) (or cracks, crevices, wherever they come from) will keep the ants away.

4. hot vinegar poured over a stain will remove it lickety split

5. 1 part white vinegar + 3 parts water= streak free windowy shine, plus a great all purpose (and all natural) cleaning product

6. kicks the rear of bleach for whitening your laundry. add 1 cup

7. sounds gross, but a shot of apple cider vinegar will do wonders for your hangover. keeping it down may be difficult, tho. worth it?

8. a splash or two in the water you use to boil or baste a ham with will keep the ham nice n sweet n juicy. though i never made a ham, ever.

welllll, that is it for now. not the most impressive list, but i know i have much more to learn about this special acid. maybe someday i will brew my own, and begin the vinegar farm of my dreams.......

michael stipe and his fine band were on sesame street last week, bringing a little tear to my emotional eye. the song was "shiny happy monsters" alternated with "sad and sobbing monsters" to showcase to kids the wide range of emotions, and the fact that they can so rapidly flip, i suppose. it was amusing also cause this bunch of serious nerd-rockers sort of had to *force* looking like they were having fun, especially m.s. sheesh. you're playing your guitar with honkers. lighten up, buddies.

anyway rem is great, and always goes with fall for me for some reason, and i don't really know where that came from...... i am trying to interest myself in music made more recently, i am sick of just about every cd we have and would like to branch out a bit. then, it requires some degree of motivation and hobby-like time commitment, which turns me off these days. mostly i sit around and wait to hatch.

it is odd, when you go to move, and take everything down, and realize just how much *stuff* you have here and there, useful or not, and how that stuff defines you in a way. so far there are 7 full boxes of books and more to come. so that suggests that that is the most important aspect of our lives. i will most definitely not have that many boxes of clothes, or sex toys. so. it's just odd, looking around at this gorgeous apartment, and how it will once again be a blank slate for the next folks, and i'll have a blank slate in the new house, which will be my slate and no one else's, and no stomps from my ceiling or ll's telling me not to pull out the jimny weeds that are so precious somehow. that part will be awesome. but moving is sort of intense, especially right now... but then, so is everything, right now.

but you have to know how (so states the Cat, somewhat ominously--he IS quite the trickster). i USED to know how, or so i thought, and then for a while i learned how in a totally different way, now i am not sure i know how at all, or even if i really knew how then either. here is a seussian verse about it:

it was fun long ago but rather confusing
to think of amusements as so very amusing
now there is too much and too little to do
minding thing 1 and brewing thing 2

hahahaha.......terrible.

naturally i wait and wait for a computer, which finally arrives and is glorious, and all i can think to do with it is fiddle around on the internet. i feel so full of lazy interest in so many things, it is a shame that i choose to passively write about them rather than go do research as my pricy liberal education taught. wellllll. sort of.

so since i am so very fond of making lists lately, i shall make one that i can constantly flagellate myself with should more fiddlings lead me here. by this time next year i will be:

1. a beekeeper
2. also a grocer
3. perhaps with a few fingers in catering as well
4. deimpregnated, nursing (most likely), mom of *2*!
5. a better knitter
6. gaining knowledge of essential home improvement techniques, like perhaps tiling, drywall arts, and hole digging

it is a lot for a year. get going, self. the time for lethargy is drawing to a close. either enjoy it while it lasts, or cut it loose and.......well, read about it while you're waiting. tee hee.

cry

-stories on npr, like the teacher in afghanistan, who, despite death threats to her sons by the taliban, refuses to stop teaching because her students are "all our children, our people."

-snow in april

-everything left unsaid with rachel

-songs with too many memories attached, remnants of past lives

laugh

-wikipedia's entry on "Mr. Roboto"

-bugley

-alex trebek and paul together in the same room

-obvious overstated factoids, such as "Humans are the only species to develop bunions, as no other species wears shoes." uh, what about horses? har har