I love my life even though it sucks right now

I can't Stop the Rain

There were a set of 1928 Chevy Model A tires. Hubs, rims with spokes out in the yard....i researched them on the internet and found out they were worth $265. I had leaned two of them against a tree and thought maybe i could make something else out of them. Something worth more than $265. I dream kinda big. Plus they were beautiful - sturdy and OLD with chipped red paint on one side, yellow on the other.... i envisioned them in a garden gate or under glass as a coffee table. 5 of them! There were five. So it was with more than just my average outraged disappointment that my brother let my cousin's FRIEND have them all. For motherfuckin' FREE! Well F that noise. I meant to right that wrong so i talked to my cousin who pretended like he had No Idea what tires/rims carpart i was even talking about then finally gave it up that they might be in his friend's truck....Well there i go marchin' on over there like Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple. "Oh HELL No(!) was he gonna take those '28 Chevy Model A spoke rims." was what i was thinkin'. I told him in no uncertain terms, this scavenger practically stealing from me....put 'em back. I think i shocked him a little cuz he did exactly what i said pretty quickly. Well he had my cousin's 2 sons do it. I watched them roll them off and put them in the front yard. Well wouldn't you know it, My Brother waited until it was DARK out and FUCKING RAINING (while i'm in the house w/Pop-pops, my hands are tied while i'm waiting for him to LEAVE so i could bring them in the House where it's safe - for now) and Loaded them in his truck and took them back to my cousin's house. Now this to me is Beyond Asshole. Isn't it bad enuf that he took all the money out (never puttin any in to even fix the roof which fucking Leaked) then wants to sell the roof (that my sister bought the raw material for! this of course after the ceiling caved in)over his own mother's head (and his sister and his niece and nephew) - and put us all out in the street..? With all his rim theiving wayze, he ALSO wants to prevent me from making some money for at least a fricken hotel room. ..So the subsequent phone call to try to get back what i had Already gotten back that he TOOK again (did i tell you these goddam rims have been in the yard prolly since the 1930's?!?)....it only resulted in him having to be hung up on Again. What the fuck is a girl to do?!? I'm going to my cousins house and gettin' them back. I've had it with taking all of this lying down bullshit.

This Possum WAS NOT fucking around!

i found this little cutey under a pallet. at first i thought it was a stuffed animal. then i realized it used to be a possum. i was equally Grossed Out & fascinated and took a buncha pictures. all of them blurry except for this one.

Since it was on "my side" of the yard my brother

bitched about having to clean it up as he came over with a shovel. I told him I would do it, that i had just wanted him to see it, just trying to be nice, gah. Heh, heh.... I ended up wrapping him carefully in the tarp and very carefully putting him in the dumpster when i really wanted to put him in the passenger seat of my brother's truck, under his hooded sweatshirt.

And this is Exactly why my ARTSY is Fartsy

Isn't it an urban legend that Valentino died from keeping his farts in? Was it GAStrointestinal? It's not healthy, at any rate to keep them in. So i find it very Healthy to make these kind of weird shrines/monuments/collages of artsy fartsy meaningful crap. It's so symbolic (to me) and Satisfying (ahhhhh) how Extremely Temporary it all is and that abalone teardrop was the last thing i added. Oh and these are Not the rims i was talking about in the post above....these are from either an '85 Buick Regal or a '66 Dodge Monaco....long gone and someone actually got both those beasts running again. Which i find very hopeful.

What w/everything being all turned upside down over here

I forgot to tell you that I have a dream, today!

Happy Birthday Dr. King! My brother is a lying sack of Shit!

The junkyard guy showed up to take these two beauties away For Free (per my sneaky snake of a bro) So I went out there w/my baby on my hip and told him that he wasn't taking them because they were on craigslist and then i painted me a sign out there. He was a nice young kid and not the owner of the junkyard with whom my brother had shady arrangements; This kid was very respectful and he actually knew my dad (my dad had built this kid's grandma's house - small world ain't it?) He understood and off he went. SO after a while i guess the owner of the junkyard called my brother and my brother calls my mom and proceeds to Chew her out! Giving her the riot act and telling her he was going to GET FINED because the county people are showing up TODAY...has this dude checked his fuckin calender lately? It's Martin Luther King Jr.'s b-day. My mom handled that phone call like a pro! She was so good about it, telling him, "Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it." But then ended up having to hang up on him....So far he hasn't shown up....the tow truck guy did again but i told him my brother isn't the owner of the trucks and No, again he understood. I am now waiting for my brother's other shoe to fall.

I was Dying for some Art Therapy so i had to satisfy my need w/this

I HATE what i am having to do! I absolutely hate it. And i love this book of Black & White photography that i bought on the used bookshelf @ the library....so i married the two....and also/too the yard looks Great!I keep finding small rolls of black electrical tape and old used tools....

Can't Sleep.

And when i do - i dream that it rains on all the stuff strewn all over the backyard. There are belongings from 4 generation's out there, ya'll! My family portraits which apparently mean a great deal to me even though they were in a clothes basket in the van. Wrapped carefully with a serape between each and every picture...It's been blissfully sunny though and i brought the basket in. It is Day 3 of the Big Dumpster Fill and I am beyond looopy. My back and my shoulder wheelbarreling muscles are sore as hell. Good thing my crazy ass colorful antics are doing a Great Job of keeping my spirits Up! ( very very important) See the colorful as all get out serapes i flung onto the big ole cactus? My favourite aunt planted that succulent sucker when she was just a little girl (she is now 55). She brought it home from school in a paper cup. Now it's as big as a VW Bug. I took a chainsaw to it one year and made it look like a trimmed up artichoke. Every so often it sprouts this funky phallic lookin' asparagus thinger that grows about thirty feet high before it just kinda falls over....I plan on making a trellis out of it this year. But that's after all this losing Our Family Home fiasco gets resolved. When you're dealing with a Liar, though...it's extra hard. As we all know when you lie, you gotta lie even more to cover up other lies and then it snowballs. Supposedly the county sent my brother a letter saying we needed to get rid of the junk cars, city ordinance and something about only 2 non-working vehicles per lot. We have 2 lots and 4 junk cars....Then he says that it has to be done by the 20th. Which i figured out is a Sunday. When government/county/yard inspectors are all havin the day off. Goin' to church....

then my brother the lying sack of shit says it's the next day.....which i figured out is Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday and a National Holiday. He needs to come up with better lies. We've been keeping on opposites of sides of the backyard. I bring him out cold water when i get one....he's working So Hard. And i keep trying to keep up w/him. Like i'm working for a mean supervisor, like i'm gonna get fired. I have a stash of stuff i've boxed (getting up Very early before he gets here) under a tarp to sort thru when i have more time otherwise he'll just throw it in the dumpster. This is stuff i plan on selling at a very profitable yard sale. He sneers at me and asks, "You think you're gonna sell this??" I sure as fuck am gonna try! Then my cousin came back for another junker and I heard my brother say, " You want that? Take it!" about any old cool and sellable carpart we have out there. WTF? Doesn't he realize I'm trying to make money to keep the house? Doesn't he realize he's giving away stuff that IS NOT his? My mom kept coming out today and offering him food. Warm tortillas must be his cryptonite because his guilty conscience won't let him take a bite. And here i am trying to kill him with kindness when i really wanna give him a boot in the ass. But I'm smart enuf to know that now is not the time to pick a fight. Them peacekeeping angelz are totally working overtime. And i keep finding strength in the strangest of places, I ain't giving up! Mostly because: This is our home and I told my mother not to worry, that everything is gonna be alright.

Goodbye Monster Van, you were a good ole wagon 'til you done broke down

Do you remember when you were little and everything seemed so Big? Like the hallways at your elementary school or the cracks on the pier (i was sure i'd fall thru). Then, when you do get Big and you have occasion to go to an elementary school: the drinking fountains are like midget size? Well, this Van is so damn big i never got that feeling. It was Ginormous when i was little and it's Ginormous now that i'm Big. There's an echo in there! A cavernous hunk of metal to store what was in the house at the time of the depressing ceiling crash. This Van was my dad's construction site workhouse...turned rustbucket Chock full of Stuff including but sure as hell not limited to: historical shit from my family like portraits/collages from the 30's, 40's, 50's and so on....and ON, Porky's Revenge (the video), an old black box phone that used to be in the kitchen, golf clubs, a heavy art deco lookin vanity seat, an empty trumpet case, 4 and a half big plastic totes of gaudy Christmas crap, a big box of ugly yarn, a fishing tackle box filled with carefully seperated (by color - glass- plastic) beads (G. used to macrame), 2 boom boxes w/broken antennaes, flippers, a very hefty/ancient typewriter, and two outside cats named Jericho and Teeeeny Tiger. Plus More junk. I think the cats will miss the van the most because i used to see them on the front dash, sunning themselves as if they were in their own personal SunRoom. Basking in windsheild warmth and mugrero, gettin' Hairs all over everything....It took me 1 and a half days to get it all out. Quite a task but i was up to it as i thought The Monster Van would be the first thing to get liquidated. Yay for money to go towards the stoppage of the foreclosure. Only Not. My brother GAVE it to my cousin Darin because he said he would, before i could sell it on craigslist... it's like my cousin had dibs on it and That was put in front of our need of funds....also the yard is getting cleared Awfully Fast. My eldest brother and his sneaky Shrew of a wife are up to something. I'm not sure What but i'm sure it involves Screwing our (poor) Mother Over. Ain't that a bitch?

I was Deep in the Lickety Split Wood Service half of the yard

Thinking about dye-ing. Thinking about how i sometimes like to dye things fuscia or rose pink...then i was thinking about how girly i feel when i wear a lite pink fuzzy sweater...then i looked up at the sky!

the only thing i did to this pic was crop a distracting branch outta the left side. i was going to enhance the color but when i did it looked way too fake. so what you're lookin at is how it really was today in Nipomo at sunset. I found out we been lied to. Oh the family drama. My mom and I. Lied to by omission. Across the coffee table from my brother and sister-in-law. To our faces. And this after i went into my song and dance of I Can Do it! $5,000 in 2 months Shoooot, i'll eat a bug i'll do whatever i have to ladee da all the live long day....when all along they had it. From one of my well to-do aunts. And various other family members. My favourite aunt told me they had it all along. Those lying sacks of shit.

IN Disaster Mode: Life Goings on (w/angelz AND nuts)

Group HUGS from DewBug Daycare!
Isn't that somethin'? This past X-mas that didn't suck? I re-learned about the group hug. Happy and I were giving my favourite Babydaddy a hug at the same time and contentedly my Happy says, ""Aww, group hug."

Hell yeah. And speakin' of Hell - It HAS been. The foreclosure plot THICKENS to way so thick i am all Stuck in it. Up to my fucking neck. Hasta eso. So i need me some angelz BIG TIME. Did you know that according to Sylvia Brown (not Plath which i just eerily typed instead of brown....spoooookky) There are a GAZILLION angels so you can call on as many as you need? I have found that to be true. So my new thing is; i start off with just a couple and by the end of the day, i got all KINDS of Angels helpin' me out.

Happy Sunday, people! I gotta go sweep out that funky Van from the Seventies as it is all CLEARED OUT! And sold to the highest bidder (not).

Happy Birthday Elvis it's around 8 o'clock and I love you (i even kinda dug it when he got Really Fat)

Elvis ain't dead. He lives on as I just recently discovered my mother' s favourite Elvis song is "Don't Be Cruel". She told me cuz i was playing it (on a cassette tape) over and over and over again. I was trying to learn the lyrics by heart. I know the chords on the guitar. Em7 is one of my favourite sounds. "Don't Be Cruel" it's what i really feel right now and It's on my busking songlist. I'm gonna busk before i die, i tell ya. Isn't that a weird fantasy? I can make it a reality, too. All's i need is a little more practice.

Happy and i once made it all the way to Memphis Tennessee. Our goal was to go to Graceland and to hear Al Green preach (he's a pastor now as a promise to God to get him outta hot water)Al Green has the sweetest voice known to me. His church is just a hop, skip and a jump from Graceland. So Me & Happy, one Saturday night a few years back - We stayed in a hotel right across the street from Elvis's HOUSE (OMG), the hotel had a guitar shaped pool and played Elvis Movies 24 hours a day. It was glorious. Before you get to the Gates of Graceland, there's a flagstone wall Covered with graffiti and/or love notes to The King. My favourite was one written in bold black marker that said:

I'm frightened Auntie Em!

OMG this is in regards to that whole other blog i'm starting: it seemed like such a brilliant idea. but most of my ideas seem like that at first and now

it's like i don't want to do it anymore but i know that i have to. I don't know where to start. Do i state my real name? Do i want to? Does everyone already know it? Does anyone give a shit? How much exactly should i put myself out there? And i already got some OMG i'm crazy feedback from my favourite aunt, well her girlfriend Uncle Kim. She looked at those groovy angels i made outta wood and broken mirror (THose angels) and she said, "Are these the angels she was talking about?" Then made that oh-yep-she's-nuts face. I get that all the time though, from various people and varied situations. My thing here lately is that i don't want to embarrass G. (oh i had to learn how to change my own picture which was embarrassingly easy so i'll probably change it everyday) But i know i just need to buck up and do this...what have i got to lose....But to make a short post long:

One of my favourite parts of the Wizard of Oz is when the Wicked Witch mocks Dorothy (see pix on right), her delicious whining screech as she gleefully teases Dorothy w/"Aunteeee Em Aunteeeee Em (witch's laugh)

I'll give you Auntie Em, my pretty!!!"

Only in our own at home version of The Wizard of Oz -

G. and i changed that to "Auntie Em! Auntie Em! I've got your Auntie Em, Right Here!!"

Oh G. how I miss you and for once am glad you flew out of this nest.

Calling in the Cavalry or is that Calvacade?

She can't let one day go by Without some sort of Scrambling. It's still pretty new. This potentially devestating state of affairs Changa has found herself in. And even though it is slightly Off and grandiose to talk of herself in third person: she still does it! Because she thinks she can.

hee heeee. I started that other blog. It's called Lickety Split Rescue Aid Society and as i am still semi e-tarded i still don't link. Have you ever noticed that about me? I don't even link to my own Other Blog. I don't know how. I also don't know how to change my picture. G. my very smart and loveable son; he does it for me....i just don't seem to want to learn how and that attitude has got to Stop. besides, it's probably so easy a 4yr old can do it....but anywhoo it's neither here nor there because i am launching it....tomorrow JANUARY 6, 2008. That's my magical angel attended to date....1-6-08 Whooo hooo! it's got a six and an 8 in it and not only is it a fact that seven ate nine: I was born in '68. I am taking that as a sign that this blog will be succesful and gets All Kinds of Traffic...traffic that is rich. Shoot i'll take any kinda traffic ...oh dag! i should get a counter. I've always wanted a counter. I'm excited.

I've been sitting on this since New Year's Day

So my oldest brother is the one who owns this house and property. He is the one that has been paying the property taxes and insurance and all that jazz since 1987....he is also the one who took All the equity out of the house and property (which was completely paid for) to buy his family a house in Santa Maria. Meanwhile this house leaked like a motherfucker and the ceiling caved in on my mother's head so she moved in with me for a few looong years and then i moved us back in here (well out in the backyard in a Tipi first) with the grand scheme of fixin this ole house UP. So it's taken me a while but things are pretty groovy up in here, arched to the point of tunnel-dome and very cozy i think. During the renovation my oldest brother just thought i was a complete nutjob because the foundation is cracked and then i went and built everything up and they kept telling me (my 2 carpenter brothers) that i needed to bulldoze this place and start with a clean foundation....Yada yada yada....My own two hands, at my own expence etc....never lifted a finger to help and so on and so forth....

So let us now fast forward to New Year's Day of this brand new year my mom comes home from a visit with my older brother. Her face is ashen as she walked in the door to tell me the house is in Foreclosure. If that isn't the most shiteous thing that could happen: My other brother the town drunk was here as well....that's when me & Happy had to extract him with the help of the palote. That news was the impetus of the big ruckus. He got beligerent over talk of selling my dad's old non-running van from the '70's OMG....So much Drama already this year. And it's what, the Fourth of January?!?

After the drunken ghetto scene which concluded with my brother the town drunk doing a fine rendition of Marlon Brando's "Stelllla!" - fricken bellowing my mom's name, then mine right outside the dining room window. (I got a couple of fine brother's don't i?) Happy was whisked away to a safehouse (my favourite babydaddy de todo el mundo) So I made my mom call my older brother to get me the Bottom line - as in how much do we owe and how long do we have. Okay, are you ready because i thought this was a shocker:

Five Thousand Dollars and 2 months to come up with it.

i think i can do it.

If Ever there was a Do or Die situation, this is It, man. I have been making lists of stuff i can do sell or rally around. I am buying lotto tickets. I am lighting candles. I am crunching numbers with Danielle of DBug DCare to see how many workshops of artsy fartsy i can fit in 60 days. I am seeking more Gainful Employment (starting Monday morning). I am taking stock of what construction equipment i have to put on craigslist. I'm even thinking of selling my [sic] art on e-bay. I am pulling out all the stops. I am starting another blog that i will put one of those paypal thingers on and do whatever i can/have to....that is non-sexual or humiliating....i don't want to do it on this blog because i wanna spare you guys as it's kind of a desperate - okay it Is a desperate move but Desperate Times call for Desperate Measures. I'm gonna attempt to make money off my sacred shit. I don't know how successful i will be but i know i'm going to try my hardest. Hallelujah! & Good thing i learned all about angels and how much they can help because this is one of them times when i need them angelz the Most. I need them and i have always strived not to be a needy chick. But i cannot just let my mother's legacy go for 5 grand. I just can't. So that's what i've been dealing with and thanks for letting me come clean. Lickety Split, indeed.

Even after all of This Bullshit, i still find stuff like this Fun To Do

I'm just phat like that. Big Fat Weirdo that i am. And always will be. And just as a friendly reminder that what i say is true: Here i am pretending to be Cousin It:

Here i am pretending to be Cousin It throwing down the Peace Sign. By the way: In 2008, I wish the Whole World some Peace this year, man COME On!!

i kinda feel a little like Brit Brit in this one....with the laughing and the crying and the going crazies. i been doin' too much of That(even Way more than usual) oh Poor Britney Spears, i was so sad for her when i heard about the Papparazzo Banging on the doors of her ambulance and shoving cameras at the back window to catch her at a worse moment of her short life....she's sick, ya'll. And thank God and Tortilla Mary that i don't have it as bad as her. I hope things get better for her, too. (as well as us)

i picked this sacred hearted candle for the gore factor alone

Jeeez, poor corazoncito - bad enough somebody went and wrapped it in thorns then STABBED it but they had to throw a pointy stick at it, too?! Also, Hello! it's On Fire! So i gave it the most prominent spot in the room.


It makes me feel all warm and cozy. I'm kinda sentimental like that. Anywayze - it's good to be Baaa-aa-ack. I've missed all of you very much. There's something about this blogging business, i'm addicted. When i don't get to, i get kinda whacky. And not wacky in a good way. So Thank God and Tortilla Mary for blogging. It is sometimes my saviour. It really is.

And so this was Christmas....

I stuffed them into brown paper lunch bags i had stamped and glittered and glued, one sheet of tissue paper artfully squished down in there, too. Big Josie, my cousin Veronica and Uncle Fuckin' Johnny: They loved them. I got genuine smiles and hugs and kisses. Plus i had the fun of the tie-dying. It was a win win situation. And a surprisingly Merry Christmas for Grincheluda, to boot.

Christmas Angels kick some ass

At least Christmas Day didn't suck....Christmas Eve for that matter, did not suck too bad, either. There was only one mild (by my standards) drunken incident that sent poor Bandrew home but other than that: without incident. It was New Years Day that i needed This little Angel. It was awful...All's i can say is i'm glad i'm a big strong sturdy girl who is not easily pushed (physically)around and OMG! Happy is the most Fierce little chick i know and Tio Nat better not come up in here dissin' her Nana or my little Happy is gonna be after him with a palote/rolling pin. For real, yo. I don't know how much more quintessentially ghetto we can get. But no po-po got involved (@ my mother's request) and nobody was physically hurt. Pop-pops thought it was a fucken farce. It gave him the shriekin giggles. Thank my broken beer bottle winged pinto bean feeted angelz above [oh them lovely angels that protect children, they're the best] that my Poppity is too young to know What's Really goin down and how Menacing it really was. And it started out So Lovely, too! Dagnabbit. Earlier on we had taken A beautiful country stroll with me and my younger two going to the elementary school to play on the bitchen playground equipment. We had to doff our beannies, it was so sunshiney & Beautiful/Gorgeous in Nipomo on this first day of 2008. Happy New Year, ya'll. I'm all a jumble and can't stand it that the first thing i post is the last one up here tonight. I gotta lot to say! It's been a while. The good news is that We are all intact and ready for some Good Changes cuz you know what? We deserve them changes for the good. For a change! Having to put up with all this bullshit.


Prospero Ano y Felicidadeeesimos ( i made that up)!


Oh and HEY! my computer is fixed! Yay for the Angels who i asked to help me ( w/the jacked up VCR, too!) and yay for all the angels ( i wish you lots) that i hope will find all of you and yay for all of us and our brand spankin new year - to do with what we will.