The Gods Have Voted: Lisa Will Not Be a Landscape Painter

by Lisa 

          So, I went out, as I told you in my last post, to sharpen the ol’ landscape painting skills. I went alone and a cappella. I had chose an area nestled in the mountains on a cliff overlooking the beach. There were beautiful yellow wildflower bushes everywhere.

          I was painting along feeling happy about being outside and not being attacked by any creatures. My painting was by no means spectacular, but I was enjoying myself. The weather was beautiful, the waves were crashing below me, and seagulls seemed to fill the sky. They were carrying on and cackling and doing flybys to see if I might offer any food. And for a while, I was entertained by them. And then, you guessed it, the ultimate happened. One particular group flew over me casting an ominous shadow when suddenly something light, hit my back. My first response was that a tarantula had landed on me, but it did not take me long to figure out that I had been shit on by a seagull. I grew up in the south, and I know that a lady does not use the ‘s’ word, but I was shit on. There is no better way to put it. And then they laughed at me. As God as my witness the seagulls got the biggest kick out of it.

          I was so peeved I decided to quit and snapped this picture.

           Then I went over and peed on one of Mother Nature’s beautiful yellow bushes. And it wasn’t easy.

I Couldn’t Even Shoot The Hostage

By W R Jones

This is Trixie, my imaginary girlfriend.  She is angry because I won’t buy her some imaginary clothes.  I suppose this makes me about as cheap as they come.

    I went shooting with my son the other day.  I wanted to try out my new tang sight.  A tang sight is attached to the narrow front part of a rifle stock.  It can be folded up or down and has a small aperature which helps old myopic eyes focus on both the front sight and the target.  I can’t shoot any better, but now I can see my misses clearly.

    I was pleased with how the rifle was working and should have stopped right there.  Nope, I had to get out the handgun; figured I might as well shoot a few rounds since we were at the range.   I have a small 9mm and can’t hit a damn thing with it.  I bought it because it was small and stainless so I wouldn’t have to worry about rust.  I should have worried about hitting something.

    I asked the girl at the counter to give me the tall fat guy target.  She gave me the largest target they had which was a woman hostage standing in front of an evil man with about 1/3 of his head visable from behind her.  I immediately up made my mind up to go for the hostage.  She was a bigger target.  Turns out she had nothing to worry about, safe as a church mouse.  The evil guy could relax as well.  However, anyone laying in the dirt about 5 yards in front of them was in some danger. 

    Down the line from us a man was shooting a Kimber 45.  Kimber makes some very fine handguns for some very fine dollars.  My son spoke with him and admired the piece.  Later the man stopped and offered my son the opportunity to try the pistol.  Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam – all into the evil man’s eye and nose.

    I asked my son to shoot my pistol as I could not believe I could shoot THAT poorly.  He tried and sure enough he missed everything as well.  So my gun is junk.  Not really, it is just meant for short range (very short range as on top of you) defense not target shooting.   If any burgler invades my home I will have to ask him/her (let’s not leave out the ladies) to please hold the barrel to the center of their chest; not off to one side.  Otherwise I might end up shooting the dog.

   When I got home I mentioned to my wife I would be needing a new handgun.  Whoa, what was I thinking.  This was too close to my recent toy helicopter fiasco.  When I looked up and noticed the look she was giving me my mind raced for the nearest exit.  I came up with, “Well, on second thought, it would be money better spent if we got you some new shoes and purses, don’t you think?  Let’s go shopping tomorrow.”  

   You young fellows can take a lesson here.  Sometimes we have to compromise to keep domestic harmony.  Compromise is a euphemism for giving her the keys to your ball locker.  But, what the hell, they aren’t of much use anyway when you are shopping for a purse.

PS – to those bloggers I normally leave comments for on your blogs, all my comments are being sent to spam.  I’ve asked wordpress what is happening but have not heard back.

Twenty Foot Boa Constrictor Found in My House

by Lisa

Some years ago I came up with the crazy idea of painting eggshells with tempera, and crushing them up to create micromosaics. Here you see the only one I actually created because my eyes went bad doing it. Well, I did get halfway through another one before I quit. I don’t have a picture of that other one, but I would show it here if I could, because I was recently reminded of it. It was a depiction of a lizard. Why a lizard you may ask? I don’t know what possessed me at the time. Was I trying to work through my bug phobia?

Like I said, I didn’t finish it. The phobia still exists. Why, just the other day, I came across a huge amphibian IN MY HOUSE. Okay, it was more like a fifteen inch lizard, but it was formidable I assure you. I was talking to my poor son on the phone at the time, and walking into my kitchen when I almost stepped on him. My son must have thought he was about to be orphaned. I began screaming COME HOME QUICK into the phone. In my zeal to exit the house in a hurry, my hand slipped off the doorknob, and as I continued through the door, it stayed shut.  I have the bruise to prove it it.

My son, good kid that he is, came right home to see what the commotion was about, and to rescue me from the man-eating lizard. I kept warning him that lizards tails break off very easily, and I am convinced now, yucky boy that he is, that he wanted to see if I was right. After supposedly trapping the lizard in a towel, he grabbed him by the tail, and sure enough, held up a three inch piece of writhing tail for me to see from clear across the room, cementing my phobia in stone. Then the lizard DISAPPEARED UNDER THE KITCHEN COUNTER. Where he is apparently happy. Or scared of our dog. He’s not scared of me because I refuse to go in there and cook. We’re all losing weight.

I am leaving now to go plein air painting at a location near the beach–BY MYSELF. If you don’t see a post from me in the next few days, come looking for me. You’ll find me cowering behind a rock, mumbling incoherently about a grasshopper.