Halloween Night ~ Stay Away From My Candy, You Little Brat

By W.R. Jones

 

    I first posted this painting on www.cafecrem.wordpress.com last week in reference to coffee cups.  Here it is used as a symbol of Halloween.  This is known as multiuse, or sometimes by the more common phrase of “too lazy to do another painting.”

    I’m going to the rifle range to shoot tonight rather than staying at home passing out my good candy and shooting at those neighborhood kids.

    I’ll stick my wife with the job of answering the doorbell 50 times.  I really can’t bear to watch my good chocolate walking out the door in those grubby little hands.

    I buy the candy at the store ostensibly for passing out on Halloween.  It is obvious to the most casual observer, looking at my lowered head and shifting eyes, that I have no intention of sharing my stash.  Luckily there is no lie detector test required.  If they ask if the purpose of those 47 bags of candy was for passing out to a stadium full of crippled children.  I would look at the floor and whisper “yes” whereupon the detector needles would wrap themselves around each other and snap like dry twigs under Paco’s hoofs.

  

Cotton Pickin’ Cotton

by Lisa

     

     About a year ago, a friend of mine, who is very much into decorating, mentioned that she was looking for some cotton pods like the ones above to fill a pot with. I got to thinking how much I would love to paint some in a still life, and I made a pact with her that whoever found it first would get enough for both of us. She lives in Atlanta, closer to cotton picking areas than me, but so far has not produced a single pod.

     Meanwhile, the day I ate at the City Cafe in Northport last week (see my last post), I was walking by a store, and there in the window was an entire display of cotton stalks. It was perfect. I glanced through the window, and could see a large bucket brimming over with them. With glee I rushed to the door only to find to my HUGE disappointment that it was locked and they were closed for the day. I was set to leave town early the next morning. My brother and I then made it our mission (well, I made it mine, and he was a captive audience and complained profusely throughout) to find cotton somewhere in that cotton pickin’ town by the end of the day.  We went to every decorator store, every antique store, and were even told where a possible field was where we could sneak in a pick some. NOTHING.

     Meanwhile, I have a demo to do tomorrow for my classes, and I really had my heart set on painting cotton. So I am going to settle for boring old persimmons. But I still want my cotton. If anyone out there knows where I can get some, I am willing to pay top dollar for it.

     By the way Bill, I’ll bet dried cotton would flame nicely too in case your pyromania  begins to itch again. Do you suppose our blog is under surveillance for your tumbleweed story? We once lit an old Christmas tree on fire in Miami, and that caused a real scramble for the lawn hose (bandaid on a bleeding artery) and a bit of a stir in the ol’ neighborhood as well.

Confessions Of An Idiot and Ramona’s New Beau

By W.R. Jones

  The spot of yellow in this Idaho study coupled with the recent fire storms we are having in California triggered a memory of one of my multitude of extremely stupid ideas.  Also at work bringing back this particular memory was seeing a field of growing tumbleweeds on my way home last night.

    Tumbleweeds have been mentioned in a least one old western (as in the western or “cowboy” part of the US)  song.  They sound rather romantic in that song.  In real life they are a miserable plant,  a plant version of a mosquito.  They grow into large round balls and in the fall they turn brown with brittle branches.  Their shallow roots break off and any wind takes these big balls everywhere. 

    Years ago every fall we would have a large number of these plants blow over our wooden fence and get stuck in our back yard.  They were a real pain to remove.  They were so big and prickly that breaking them down to place in a trash container brought out my tendency towards bad language.  

    One fall I came up with a new plan, pay attention here – you are about to read of uncommon stupidity, I would pour gasoline on the plants and burn them.  They are mostly dried twigs in a ball form so they would burn rapidly and leave a small pile of ashes.

    They did burn rapidly.  However, they are so light, the slightest puff of wind starts them tumbling – hence the name tumbleweeds.  Directly after lighting them, a slight breeze blew them against our wooden fence which, wouldn’t you know, started burning along with the weeds.  The men from the fire department were astounded at my ignorance.  They were not even slightly amused at my bumbling foolishness and I think I narrowly avoided being fined.

    In another note – here is Paco.  Owned by Miki, I thought we could breed Paco and Ramona and get a little herd started.   I worried a bit; Paco doesn’t look like he would be very gentle with her.  When I got the estimate for shipping Paco here for the big event – somehow the invoice showed Paco, Miki, and Kev coming on a luxury liner, I decided to have Miki email me a jar of Paco’s semen and do an artificial insemination.  As soon as I finish this I’m going on the web to learn the technique; doesn’t seem like it could be that hard.

            

       PACO                                         RAMONA