Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Birthday Offerings

Filed under: Life

Just a few pictorial offerings from April 11th (my birthday):

My birthday cake; a homemade, gluten-free German chocolate sheet cake. (<- I was too goddamn lazy to bake three separate 9" rounds and do the entire layered thing.) If you can believe it (and you should, because my ability to pack food away borders on being a divine motherfucking gift from God), only a tiny corner remains.

To include everyone in the birthday festivities offerings were made to my ancestors, companions and the roommates-with-benefits comedy team cohabiting with us. This makeshift altar in the backroom was for my indoor companion animal spirits: Chippy, Tiger and The Shango Man.

All I can say about this picture is: the less said about it, the better.

Well, maybe one thing - if you really fucking dig German chocolate cake and haven't had it in motherfucking years having your ass eaten out as you dive face first into your piece of birthday cake while under the influence of nitrous is probably the way to go. (I should know.)

The quiet before the "stoned off my fucking ass and crawled around on the flour at 5:45 AM wearing nothing except my new Sunday school goth dress and an antique wooden goat's harness" debacle: homemade sole'n'almond gin (a gift from a friend), and a spring hedgerow-themed jigsaw puzzle.

Birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper for a mostly benevolent goddess made incarnate. Hidden beneath Yuletide greetings? Vintage jewelry, new altar pieces, some clothing and a handful of other miscellaneous items that fall beneath a Ms. Dirty persuasion.

Eating Well Tonight

Filed under: One A Day

What's more awesome than getting a perfectly wonderful terrific gorgeous reduced to clear duck? When the perfectly wonderful terrific gorgeous reduced to clear duck comes with some of its innards.

We weren't the only ones who ate well tonight. (Go on, baby, you deserve it.)

Arctic River

Filed under: Life

This Spring's been an arctic river overflowing with winter run-off. Fast moving, non-negotiable waters thunder past my legs pushing, pulling and sweeping me away with the charging current. There's no use fighting the tidal wave of lightening movement, so I haven't tried. (No struggling means freedom, even when lost amongst the tumbling chaos, and with my attention undistracted I can almost catch all of the beautiful, awe inducing gems the season's hidden away just for me.)

(IN OTHER WORDS, I'VE BEEN SO GODDAMN BUSY FOR THE PAST THREE WEEKS DUE TO SPRING RELATED ACTIVITIES THAT I'VE HAD TO RELY ON MY BRAND NEW BIRTHDAY CAMERA AS A DIARY.)

Late last year I stole a narrow stretch of waste ground where I loosened the earth and haphazardly planted over three heads of garlic. (I didn't think it'd work, but it DID.) Very early in February there were suspicious shoots popping up in a semi-neat row, and now, at the very end of April, this is what it looks like. Next year? Next year I'll try even //harder//. (Any more effort than I originally expended would already be an improvement. Srsly.)

No signs of scrapes yet. (Once the garlic is ready to flower it grows out a tentacle - the scrape - which'll eventually blossom. To encourage bulb growth you need to cut the scrape before it flowers so the energy is diverted below.) But, baby, once those fuckers pop up it'll be garlic scrape pesto time...

Sections of Aberdeen were built on a hill, so a part of it slopes down at a slow angle and is only disturbed by stairs and old buildings. Wild city rabbits live in any patch of green (along roadsides, next to towering blocks of apartments and in cemeteries) and as we were cutting through lanes and streets and alleys to get to our dinner reservation, we saw that the rabbits had already beaten us to Sunday dinner.

I always feel stupidly disappointed when wild animals don't respond to my ANIMAL SPEAK. (ANIMAL SPEAK = PURSING LIPS TOGETHER AND SUCKING AIR IN JUST A LITTLE TO MAKE A SQUEAKING SOUND.) Italics and I have spent years developing ANIMAL SPEAK since our first pair of rats, Ann and Nancy (after Heart, although Nancy was the one who got fat out of the pair).

Animal Speak gets used when I want to attract the attention of the rats (they know it's my COME HERE RIGHT NOW or FOOD PEOPLE HAS FOOD or I WANT TO SEE YOUR LITTLE RAT FACES voice), but it'll also work on wild animals - they cock their head, blink and then give you a straight up WHAT THE FUCK? expression.

Last year we celebrated the winter solstice by renting a hotel room and staying in town overnight. (Aberdeen's roughly 15 minutes away from us; we're in a subdivision in the shire where it's mostly rural.) Even though we were running late we took a few minutes in the privacy of the alley to take some pictures.

(AND WHEN I SAY "TAKE SOME PICTURES" I MEAN, "GET HIGH BEFORE EATING A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF CHINESE FOOD AND, ALSO, TAKE SOME PICTURES".)

The above picture was taken mid-April (spring!), and THIS HERE PICTURE was taken mid-December (winter!); both show Marischal College's tower erupting in the background.

In the few instances we've used the stairs as a shortcut we were always on schedule for something. This past trip, however, we were running early so we were able to loiter more leisurely around ancient brick and stone.

While Italics was trying to get our pipe working (JOINTS ARE NICE IN A SUPERFICIAL VISUAL WAY, BUT WASTEFUL - AND, ALSO, I DON'T LIKE MY FINGER SMELLING LIKE CIGARETTES) I noticed, for the first time, that there was writing on the wall.

(I have NO idea what it means, but Aberdeen's known for keeping crazy ass insane records, so it should be easy to find out the history behind the engravings.)

I don't know anything about this church other than it's OLD, OLD, OLD (you can tell by the structure of the buildings attached to it, and the look of the building materials) and IT'S ANOTHER ABERDEEN CHURCH (you guys would not believe how many fucking churches there are in the city). I haven't made my way up to visit it, but I do intend to...eventually. (To see the church at night in winter click on THIS HERE LINK.)

I chose this little Italian cafe place for my belated birthday dinner. Despite being absolutely desperate for a pizza (I'VE TOLD ITALICS V. BLATANTLY AND WITHOUT ANY SUBTLETY THAT I'M WILLING TO PROVIDE SEXUAL FAVORS FOR A REALLY FUCKING GOOD PIZZA; YOU JUST CAN'T GET THE PIZZA I WANT HERE IN SCOTLAND) I saw that they served veal Marsala and my Evil Queen heart (I ALSO WEAR FUR. THAT'S RIGHT - I EAT VEAL AND WEAR FUR AND ADMIT TO BOTH; CRUCIFY OR WORSHIP ME AS YOU PLEASE.) skipped a beat and all notion of pizza was gone.

Italics, either up for the challenge or hoping to fill the pizza void in my Chicago-born heart, ordered a calzone. The picture above does absolutely no justice to the sheer size of the fucking monster; that plate could fit a decapitated head on it easily - EASILY. My veal? A little tough due to being overcooked, but the Marsala sauce was exquisite. Their cured meats (our starter) were terrific, but the Tiramisu was only so-so (they put a layer of jam, or something, through the dessert, but it tasted like apricot-flavored petroleum jelly at best, and apricot-flavored toothpaste gel at worst).

The coffee? To fucking die for. (It was seriously the star of the evening.)

By the time we saw a movie, walked up from the beach, had dinner and returned back to the hotel it was edging just past nine in the evening. I had to keep a straight face while gnawing on a inner cheek when I noticed that our hotel neighbors opposite of us, despite having two trash cans in the room, decided to discard their take-away garbage in the hall.

(LOL, CLASSY! I ESPECIALLY LOVE HOW THEY HUNG THE "DO NOT DISTURB" SIGN. OH, POOR PEOPLE, YOU'RE AN ENDLESS SOURCE OF DISGUSTED AMUSEMENT FOR ME. PS: THIS PICTURE'S BLURRED BECAUSE I FORCED ITALICS TO GO BACK OUTSIDE AND TAKE A PICTURE AND AS HE WAS DOING SO ONE OF THE OCCUPANTS BEGAN OPENING THEIR ROOM DOOR.)

Italics didn't know that I packed away my blond wig, a pair of knee high socks and my cheerleader outfit for fun later that night. I posed, for a second, in his semi-new sort've Indiana Jones BUT NOT REALLY jacket, and the whole cheerleader thing went out the window. (FIGURATIVELY, I MEAN. DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE NICE WIGS ARE? JESUS.)

After dinner entertainment was wearing my husband's jacket and nothing else (WAIT, I TAKE THAT BACK - I WAS STILL WEARING A BRA!) and the "movie" mode on our recently retired digital camera. (I was feeling the affects of the coffee - even though it had been a decaf - so I needed a visit from THE FIREMEN to soothe the affects of GERD. <- LAUGH NOW, BUT WAIT UNTIL YOUR OVERLY ACIDIC STOMACH IS IN DIRE NEED OF A SHOT OF SOMETHING ALKALINE TO CALM IRRITATION.)

This is a shot of Union Street running down into Castlegate (the smaller, secondary looking castle in the middle of the picture) in downtown Aberdeen taken by Italics the morning after our belated birthday celebrations. (IT STARTED WITH HIS JACKET, AND ENDED WITH A CHIPPER AND A BAG OF MALTEASERS IN BED.)

Aberdeen, to the naked eye, appears to have been built around a church (St. Nicholas) and its graveyard. This is a picture of the more formal entrance to the kirkyard which is used as a thoroughfare and public park. (I've never seen people so happily sit on green cemetery grass like they were visiting a botanic garden until St. Nicholas.)

"Marischal College is a building in the Scottish city of Aberdeen belonging to the University of Aberdeen. It was formerly an independent university in its own right. A significant portion of the building is currently leased on a long-term basis to Aberdeen City Council for office space. As well as being the tallest building in Aberdeen, it is also the second largest granite building in the world."

Oh, Wiki, you're a blessing to this lazy shell of a human being! (View right outside the newest Starbucks in town.)

Since the St. Nicholas kirkyard is in the center of the city, it's one of the best semi-private places to have a joint before galloping off to diner. Our preferred spot is near Mr. Alex Fullerton, Druggist, which is wonderfully aged and picturesque on gloriously sunny days. (LOLOLOL, I KNOW. WE ONLY REALIZED THE "DRUGGIST" PART SORT'VE RECENTLY.)

When a friend who's involved in medicine and health care requested some graveyard dirt I immediately knew whose grave the dirt was coming off of. (NOTE TO SELF: In return you left one of the red-dyed Easter eggs (Ukrainians, in the olden days, left red eggs at the graves of ancestors and friends to encourage reincarnation and resurrection) and a gold foiled chocolate coin.)

This is the infamous dirtyard, post-crocus season. (IT HAS SERIOUSLY SAT LIKE THIS FOR OVER THREE YEARS NOW.) I took this picture just before I went to work with a flattened box of cereal and a spade to mark the strip where I intended to plant carrots and beets. Unfortunately, the street extends too far beneath the soil so some of the chthonic vegetables I wanted to grow in the dirtyard (carrots!) will have to be planted elsewhere.

Last year my father-in-law, Mr. Awesome, threw away all of my spring bulbs that Italics had given me as a gift. (IN THIS HOUSE, HE GETS TO DECIDE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR THINGS.) He never apologized or acknowledged that he had thrown away another gift (or ashes that belonged to my mother, or an anniversary gift I was making for Italics, or...) so Italics stepped in and bought me another round of bulbs.

"Richly coloured tulip of burnt orange-red with petal edges of yellow-gold."

One of my favorite parts of Spring is watching the giant, almost unbelievable changes that seem to happen overnight. One day tulips are tight, pursed buds; the next they've unfurled with a gasp for fresh air. Transformations always seem so immediate during the season of renewal.

Oh, nasty ass Starlings, I love how you don't give a fuck about me even if I'm outside doing gardening work next to your bird food. (Nothing comes between you and the food I put out for you guys, NOTHING.)

When planting out CASTLE PIE ADVENTURE Spring flowers last fall (grape hyacinths, dwarf irises, dwarf tulips, tulips and daffodils) I discovered a handful of mysterious bulbs hidden deep within a dirt filled container. I rescued them (they were buried too deep to properly sprout, Christ only knows how long they've just sat in that plastic bucket) and relocated them to the container with my Finnish poppies. This Spring solved the mystery; they're Narcissus, and they smell like heaven.

Whenever I cook with Italics there's always a fifty percent chance of ass.

(This is our third batch of Cowboy Bread (sort've like a flour tortilla meets pita bread) - THE BEST YET! - after its first rise. Italics is dividing the dough into eight smaller portions so after the second rise we can roll them out and "bake" them in a skillet.)

The Cowboy Bread's risen twice, rolled out and then pan-fried in olive oil until golden spots appear. (We made two super huge ones - the size the recipe suggests - and then halved the other portions so they were more pita than giant, fluffy flour tortillas.)

Once cooked-baked-fried you shove the flat bread(s) into a ziploc bag, or cover them with a damp towel, so the steam keeps them soft and pliable. (We never got around to artfully arranging them on a plate for SRS FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY because all we wanted to do was tear into the fuckers and shovel hummus into our mouths.)

Shango blossoms on the Shango (Bone) Tree. (Technically, Mr. Awesome (my father-in-law) owns the tree, but I adopted it a few years back and have been gradually and systematically exerting control over it.)

Two years ago - the first REAL year I started getting V. serious about all of this magic business - the Shango Tree (a plum tree), bore fruit. Thanks to everyone's complete disinterest in the the garden I was able to secretly reap the reward and ritually consumed the tree-ripened plums without having to share.

I was so swept up in foraging hedonism that I didn't occur to me to KEEP THE FUCKING PITS SO I COULD GROW NEW SHANGO (BONE) TREES FROM SEED. I kicked myself for fucking MONTHS for discarding the pits and anxiously waited for the next growing season to roll around. And what did the tree do last year? NOT FLOWER, OBVIOUSLY. (No flowers = no fruit; no fruit = no seeds; no seeds = no new Shango (Bone) Trees.)

I spent all of last year coaxing it to flower (everything from leaving offerings of food, watering it by hand almost every other day, laying my hands on the tree and giving it some Barry White vocal love) this year, and all of that effort paid off. (Although it would've been A LOT MORE AWESOME if the Shango (Bone) Tree hadn't decided to stick out the ONE FLOWERING BRANCH IT PRODUCED like a fucking flasher with an erection. <- WAY TO ATTRACT MR. AWESOME'S ATTENTION, S(B)T! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SUBTLE MAGIC? JESUS.)

I can't remember a time when Scotland wasn't washed with some sort of green. Even in winter the wild azaleas and mosses and lichen and holly trees retain their vibrant colors. It takes late Spring to alter my perception of "green".

We're on route to the cemetery and stove to leave belated Easter offerings, passing pasture land, green wheat fields and weathered stone walls. With every new walk to the kirkyard the landscape gets more green and alive.

There's a hedge of ancient beeches that outline an entire side of pasture which touches the crumbling wall that runs in front of the ruined church (with the abandoned walled garden in the background) and the back of the local cemetery. Discarded in the line of trees is this old water trough (or at least that's what I //think// it is) which we call "the stove".

Even though the metal's rusted and old the hinge and latch work perfectly, which allowed me to safely hide roadkill (a rabbit, fresh and in near pristine condition) last autumn when we were stealing potatoes out of a local potato field. (I didn't want to bang up the rabbit while we scrambled over walls and frantically dug up potatoes from an agricultural field at six in the morning.)

There comes a point, every year around Spring, where non-perishable food offerings begin taking over the house. When we begin feeling claustrophobic we know it's time to visit "the stove" and leave the offerings to their Fate*; we've been doing that for two or three years now.

(* IN OTHER WORDS - WE LEAVE IT FOR OUR ANCESTORS, BUT KNOW THAT THE INDIGENOUS WILDLIFE WILL ALSO BE ENJOYING THE SPREAD.)

This Easter season, while I was flipping through one of my Ukrainian cookbooks, I stumbled across a passage explaining several ancient customs Ukies observed around Easter. Apparently, long ago, food was deliberately left IN A STOVE as an offering to feed and sustain ancestors, relatives and friends who have passed on. (WE ARE SO ON THE BALL WITH SOME OF THIS SHIT THAT SOMETIMES IT SCARES ME.)

(NOTE TO SELF: This is the first year you put individual Paska/Babka for loved ones who died since last Easter (i.e., Hezbollah, Beh and Didi) in the stove rather than at the cairn in the cemetery.)

It took until LAST FUCKING YEAR for me to even notice there was a wild gooseberry bush growing in the ruins of the church. By the time I realized what the shrub was the berries were the size of quail eggs. (I AM SO NOT JOKING IN THE SLIGHTEST; THIS BUSH HAS GOT SOME SERIOUS JUNK ON IT.)

Unfortunately, I was hella, hella sick last year (bedridden due to symptoms and ailments that's baffled the medical community and put me in the very familiar category of "atypical") so by the time I was well enough to leave the house the animals had enjoyed every ball-sized gooseberry and left none for me, SIGH.

(Behind the bush you can see one of the walls and doors of the abandoned wall garden directly behind the ruins of the small church.)

When I was a kid and running naked through Midwestern waste fields and woodlands I could name almost every flowering plant I ran across. Finding something totally new felt like discovering new species of previously unidentified vegetated life.

That excitement and drive totally disappeared around the time I started high school, but resurfaced recently (just over ten years later) the deeper I got into indigenous folklore. If I haven't misidentified it, this is Green Alkanet (in the same family as good ole Borage) and it grows rampant in the space between the NEW OLD CRUMBLING WALL and the OLD OLD NOT SO CRUMBING WALL.

Until last year it was an absolute mystery where they were burying the majority of the recently deceased. As it turns out, what I thought was a community football pitch was the new section of the cemetery. (There aren't a lot of headstones, and they're way, way in the far corner of the very long stretch of land. Until you're physically in the open space it's difficult to tell there are bodies actually buried there.)

This was post-stove and pre-cairn, just before we hopped over the road and had lunch in an open meadow beneath an oak tree. Two fields and a line of trees over you can see a man-made loch created a very long time ago.

The stone wall neatly bordering the graves in the background is the wall that separates the cemetery from the pasture field which touches the hedge of beech trees and ruined church. This is the new portion of the old cemetery, where Muriel and the nun are buried.

Our visit to the kirkyard had to be quick on this occasion because hired help were mowing the lawn. (HOW AWESOME OF A JOB IS THAT? MOWING THE VELVETY SOFT LAWN OF AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH CEMETERY ON A GLORIOUS SPRING DAY? HOLY SHIT, DUDE, WHERE DO //I// SIGN UP FOR THAT GIG?)

I HAVE NOT HAD "NORMAL" SEX SINCE FUCKING MARDI GRAS. When the GREAT RITE was celebrated it was celebrated IN MY ASS, so since Easter Sunday we've been joking that I'm only half married (OR PERHAPS "ASS MARRIED"?) and that I'll remain only partially married until ACTUAL VAGINAL PENETRATION IS MADE.

Because I'm so good at making things difficult I suggested we wait to have "normal" sex until we can have sex in the same wheat field where we reaped last year for the first time. (IT MAKES SENSE, RIGHT? IF I'M REAPING AND HARVESTING THE FRUIT, I BETTER BE FERTILIZING THE LAND TOO, YO.)

Content with the half he married (THE ASS HALF, IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN) he agreed, so we're now just waiting for the right moment (i.e., WHEN WE HAVE POT, WHEN IT'S DRY AND WHEN IT'S DARK ENOUGH) to finish the rite we started on April 12th.

(My idea is to have sex in the space between the two wooden posts, effectively performing Hieros Gamos on and in the threshold of a "door". If not there there's always an unused water trough right next to it...)

The very first local Spring lambs we saw were a pair of black kids. (Ever since Imbolc I've been meaning to leave an offering of oats to the lactating sheep but I never got a chance.) (LAMBS HAVE A PECULIAR AVERSION TO FACTORY PRODUCED STRAWBERRY-FLAVORED MARSHMALLOWS. I, UH, READ THAT SOMEWHERE ON THE NET, OR SOMETHING.)

OH, SKELETON ZOMBIE I WANTED TO TAKE YOU HOME WITH ME, OR AT LEAST TAKE YOU TO SEE A MOVIE. (BUT IT'S PROBABLY GOOD THAT I DIDN'T SINCE MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS, EVEN IN 3-D, WAS SHOCKINGLY SHIT, EVEN WHEN REALLY, REALLY HIGH.)

I think they must've recently painted and decorated the Haunted Mansion because I don't remember it ever looking so fresh and new. (ONE OF THESE DAYS I'LL FORCE ITALICS TO BUY SIX TOKENS SO I CAN SEE WHAT THE HAUNTED MANSION'S ALL ABOUT.)

I wish I could remember more of this day. I know we saw two movies (I Love You Man and Monsters Versus Aliens), I know we went out to eat (Jack Daniel's Monterey Burger at TGI Friday's) and I know we visited the shoreline twice to get high (once before eating and once again before the second movie).

I also know that I realized something, or said something, or Italics said something - THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT SEEMED OBVIOUS - but now I can't remember what IT was. ("Zoe" was scribbled into the sand, which, if I remember right, means "life" in Greek, and seeing the name/word and even being able to translate it somehow felt significant.)

I poured fresh water on wet, salty sand as an offering, and it left the impression of a dick with balls. Cruelly, the camera's battery died just before I was able to secure a picture of my sand cock. (OH, MAGIC, SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED.)

This is my fat little bizza bear, Shoney, who's pretty sure that my camera might be food. (DON'T TELL HER IT ISN'T, OTHERWISE SHE MIGHT NOT BOTHER SITTING STILL THE NEXT TIME I SHOVE IT IN HER FACE.)

OH, BEGGAR RAT SISTERS, LOOKING FOR A FOOD HANDOUT WHILE LOITERING IN MY COMPUTER DESK. (My lap's the bridge between two hollowed out spaces in my desk so there's constant rat traffic streaming back and forth when there's a suspicion of food.)

The trio of rats we have now - Wuzza (Denny's), Choney (Shoney's) and Shakey (Shakey's Pizza) - are damn near impossible to take pictures of. All the other generations of rat roommates we had managed to sit still longer than three seconds which allowed us to build a library of photos. These guys? They've been restricted to "movie" mode on the camera because they're always just a blur of motion in anything remotely resembling a picture.

Within a day of noticing that I turned over earth in the dirtyard to possibly plant some carrots and beets Mr. Awesome drove through the dirt with a car leaving two very distinct tire marks across the strip of land I had marked in the soil.

We've had the dirtyard for years. (AND WHEN I MEAN "YEARS" I MEAN "AT LEAST THREE, PROBABLY FOUR".) After several years of no obvious intent I decided if I can't plant grass I might as well make use of the available dirt and grow some vegetables. After several years of no obvious intent my father-in-law suddenly DROVE OVER THE EXACT SPOT WHERE I HAD BEGUN MAKING A ROW FOR BEETS. (Should I take that as a hint?)

The thing about this NEW DRIVEWAY he's created is that UP UNTIL THIS POINT - THE POINT WHERE I MADE AN OBVIOUS MOVE TO CLAIM SOME UNUSED DIRT - HE'S NEVER, EVER DRIVEN OVER WHAT IS, EFFECTIVELY, THE FRONT YARD.

I don't know what's changed, if he's acting out or if it was a honest necessity when he found he couldn't maneuver any other way out of the driveway. At any rate, it isn't exactly an auspicious start to my adventure into creating a dirtyard vegetable patch.

You know to expect some MAN BEHAVIOR when your husband helps you with the Spring gardening. I was instructed to sit still as Italics ran for the camera to document how perfectly he dropped a Sharpie down my pants on his first try. (OH HEY, I'M WEARING UNDERWEAR FOR ONCE! EVEN IF IT IS A PAIR OF BOXERS.)

Oh, we do horrible, awful things to our Lindt Easter bunnies. This white chocolate one, for instance, graced our Easter basket this year which was blessed at a special church service on Holy Saturday. Even divine intervention couldn't save him (her?) from the melting pot when it came time to make Chex Muddy Buddies. (The giant dark chocolate rabbit? Oh, his (her?) fate's already been determined - dark chocolate brownies.)

My inside outside vegetable garden post-growing closet and pre-bonsai house. (Once the plants get too big in the confined space of the closet they get repotted and moved to the backroom where they'll sit for a few weeks to bulk up before being relocated to the bonsai house to become acclimated to outside temperatures.)

There are two other fruit trees other than the Shango (Bone) Tree trained against a wooden fence in the backyard. One of them is an apple tree, but I can't remember what the other one - the one pictured above - is. It might be another apple, or it might be another plum. Either way, it's getting some extra love this year to encourage the flowers to fruit.

(In the background you can see all of Mr. Awesome's bonsai trees and shrubs that he said would only sit in the backyard for a few weeks. That? That was last year. And on top of that, he killed off all the grass in the backyard - after digging it all up in the front yard - so we literally had NO LAWN to sit on last year during summer.)

WHOOPS, I FORGOT I HAD ALREADY TAKEN A PICTURE OF THE SHANGO BLOSSOMS ON THE SHANGO (BONE) TREE! (This one was taken about a week after the first one. Nearly a week after THAT the petals of the plum blossoms are almost gone, and whatever remains is hidden behind leafy buds that get bigger every day.)

BEAR ME FRUIT, DAMMIT, I'VE MASSAGED YOU LIKE A PAMPERED COW, FED YOU LIKE A HUNGRY HUSBAND AND WATERED YOU LIKE...UHM...A CAR (OR SOMETHING).

The backyard's become a bird sanctuary due to the high ratio of bushes, shrubs and trees to gravel and concrete. (FOR SOME REASON SOME SCOTTISH FOLK LOVE TO TEAR EVERYTHING GREEN OUT OF THEIR YARD, FILL IT WITH GRAVEL AND DUMP A CONTAINER OR TWO OF TULIPS AMONGST THE ROCKS.) It helps that their natural predators - the neighborhood cats - are too busy scarfing down (people) food offerings to be bothered with them.

(That feed container? Yesterday, on May Day, I decided to refill all bird seed containers no matter how full they were in honor of the day. Just before twilight I filled that exact feeder until it was spitting seeds, this afternoon - just after three - it was virtually empty. THESE BIRDS ARE GOING TO PUT ME IN THE POOR HOUSE.)

I first began wedging bones into tree branches as a joke (on my father-in-law, who's forever getting in trouble for TOUCHING THINGS THAT AREN'T HIS), but then the joke grew and before I knew it the Shango Tree had become the Shango Bone Tree. (Winter's a much better time for the S(B)T, with the onset of Spring all of the whitened and weather-stripped decorations get lost behind a canopy of green.)

(I can't believe that A.) that the Christmas goose carcass is still hanging off the truck and B.) Mr. Awesome hasn't touched ANY of the bones dangling off the plum tree I stole from him.)

HOLY HELL OH MY GOD MY ABU HASSAN TULIPS HAVE FINALLY BLOOMED! (OOPS for thinking they were dwarf! WTF gave me //THAT// idea?)

What was it the internet said about the appearance of these tulips? WAIT, HOLD ON, I MENTIONED IT EARLIER IN THIS ENTRY: "Richly coloured tulip of burnt orange-red with petal edges of yellow-gold." OH, NATURE, YOU DO DELIVER, DON'T YOU?

Italics bought these Flava tulips for himself (although I'm taking care of them for him), and they're the very last bulbs to flower from the bags'o'bulbs he bought me on our CASTLE PIE ADVENTURE last year. (I swore they were an early dwarf bloomer, but I also swore that about all of the Abu Hassans I planted.)

The amazing two-headed Bull Heart tomato plant from Ukraine. (OH, GREAT APIS/BA'AL MAY YOU BE EXALTED IN FUTURE TOMATO SAUCES!) I might just keep this one indoors since it refused to grow outside last year. (You can see part of Chippy as he inspects the inside outside garden; he's a very keen gardener, you know.)

What our backroom "lounge" looks like when a witch is hard at work.

(The plastic skull bowl is the ritual bowl I use when I'm doing something a little more heavy duty than baking bread or soaking menstrual rags. The scattered wheat sheaths inside is the last bit of the didukhy that I've systematically picked apart so every wheat kernel from every sheath got saved for growing or ritual use.)

(The eggs are our version of Sharpie pysanky, some especially decorated for pets, relatives, friends and others who've passed on since last Easter. When it's time to leave our Easter offerings at the stove and cairn we leave the decorated eggs amongst the food for the dead.

Beh's bee egg is sitting in a carton as the glue attaching the wings to the egg dries. There's a handmade miniature hat that Italics created for another egg, a bowl of partially shucked wheat (the kernel's still attached to the long, skewer-like spikes), Papa's skull planter with some of his dried tobacco leaves and a Jack Daniels gift set that Italics had given me earlier in the day.

From a tiny, withered peanut to a vibrant, lush plant. Only two of the five peanuts I bought germinated; I can't decide if I want to buy and plant more, or just stick with the two healthy plants I already have. OH, DECISIONS, DECISIONS...

OH, IT'S ALL SUPER CUTE, NOW, WITH ITS BLACK AND WHITE TUXEDO AND LITTLE SMILING BEGGING FACE BUT ONE DAY, DAMMIT, ONE DAY NEAR THE SUMMER SOLSTICE WHEN IT GETS LIGHT HERE AT THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING THAT FUCKER WILL BE ON MY GODDAMN BEDROOM WINDOWSILL SCREAMING THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW FOR BREAKFAST. (HOW THE FUCK DOES A MAGPIE KNOW WHICH ROOM IS OUR BEDROOM? I DON'T KNOW, TRY //MAGIC//.)

That's one of the four (five?) aubergines (eggplants) that I've grown from seed. One of these days I'll have to relocate them outside to the bonsai house, but until then they get a chance to flourish in better-than-green-house conditions.

One of my Sub-Arctic tomatoes which will most definitely be moved outside since they were deliberately bought for their "sub-arctic" nature. (GROWING TOMATOES IN SCOTLAND WITHOUT A PROPER GREEN HOUSE CAN BE HELL. I'M SO DESPERATE I'M GROWING THE EQUIVALENT OF SIBERIAN TOMATOES.)

One of my thriving courgettes (zucchini) on the verge of blossoming. (Which is EXACTLY why I kicked that very nearly flowering plant out of this house - the second I let ONE plant mature, flower and fruit in the house is the second I breakdown and let ALL of the damn plants mature, flower and fruit in the house and we don't have the room for that sort've Eden.)

Hey, Hey, Mama Lion...

Filed under: Old Notes

The following post ventures into "OLD NOTES" territory. In this particular case it's a copy and paste job from an old livejournal entry from December 4th, 2007 (although the events that took place pre-date the writing; actual date of said events would have been late November, 2007 (i.e., during Thanksgiving)).

On Thanksgiving morning I was a vindictive bitch and sprinkled Fet Ghede (07!) Dirt in my brother-in-law's shoes while he slept. (DO NOT PISS OFF SOMEONE WHO COLLECTS BLOOD CLOTS, DIRT, AND DEAD INSECTS, OKAY?) It wasn't enough; it wasn't immediate, and I didn't get a sense of closure. So I went back and spat on his shoes. Both of them. And I felt A+ satisfied and Papa was all "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!" but also "BABY GIRL, THIS NIGGA AIN'T NEVER GONNA PISS YOUR ASS OFF!". (<- That's because he knows I'll show him the door AND THERE AIN'T NO HOMEMADE CORNBREAD SITTING ON THE DOORSTEP FOR HIM.)

(He's very supportive of my WITCH INSTINCTS but takes a step back when I'm a-cursin' or a-hexin' because he's a V. smart man who understands YOU DON'T GET IN THE WAY OF AN ANGRY WOMAN, ESPECIALLY AN ANGRY WOMAN WHO CAN BREAK LEGS AND BRING SNOW. <- Thus proven and cemented by a conversation Italics and I had regarding his father's medical misfortunes when I told him how Papa sort've becomes passive and very "YES DEAR, NO DEAR, OF COURSE DEAR" when I get all MAGIC STROPPY and Italics was "NO SHIT, WHO WANTS THEIR LEGS BROKEN? I DON'T!" and there was much LOLOLOLOLOLing on my part because two of the most important male figures in my life HAVE COME TOGETHER TO THROW UP THEIR HANDS WITH A "WHOA!" (<- THEY STILL SPINNIN', NIGGA!) AT SOME OF THE COINCIDENTAL THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED JUST AFTER I ANNOUNCED I WAS GOING TO MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN THEREFORE MAKING EVERYTHING UNDENIABLY SCIENTIFIC.)

Before the Ghede gang were informally invoked for ANGRY WOMAN revenge there was THE SHANGO MAN. Now Papa be all MODERN and HUMAN so ignoring his presence is HARDER than noticing it. (Y'ALL, I GOT A LARGER-THAN-LIFE, STEREOTYPICAL BLACK MAN LIVING WITH ME, OKAY? I'VE WATCHED ENOUGH MAURY TO UNDERSTAND A FEW THINGS: 1) LIE DETECTORS DON'T LIE (DARLIN', IF YOU NEED TO DRAG HIS ASS TO THE MAURY SHOW FOR A LIE DETECTOR TEST HE'S CHEATED), 2) THE BABY CAN -STILL BE YOURS- EVEN IF IT "DON'T LOOK NOTHIN' LIKE ME!", AND 3) THEY ALL PLAYAZ (OR AT LEAST THEY ALL THINK THEY ARE). <- I'm not actually sure how #1 and #2 figure into things, but they're somehow relevant. SOMEHOW.)

TSM is Papa's opposite, and either is V. content to co-inhabit quietly, or is somewhat silenced by Papa's perpetual trash talkin' presence. (THIS MAY SEEM A BIT SHOCKING (MORE SHOCKING THAN THE FACT THAT I'M A 27 YEAR OLD WHITE WOMAN WHO OPENLY ADMITS TO USING THE WORD "NIGGA/NIGGER" (<- I HATE THE A. I HATE IT. I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO FUCKING -FAKE- COMING FROM ME BECAUSE PAPA WANTS TO HEAR -THE REAL THING- AND BECAUSE I AM WHAT I AM I'M NOT -ALLOWED- TO SAY -THE REAL THING- SO WHENEVER I SAY THE -FAKE VERSION- YOU CAN TOTALLY, TOTALLY TELL THAT I'M THINKING ABOUT THE -REAL VERSION-.) AND THAT I'M A-OKAY IN CELEBRATING ETHNIC STEREOTYPES!) BUT PAPA DOES, IN FACT, ENJOY STEALING THE SHOW. OFTEN. AND GOD FUCKING FORBID ANYTHING MALE (OTHER THAN HIM OR ITALICS, OF COURSE) GET INVOLVED BECAUSE THE SECOND A THIRD PARTY DICK ARRIVES ON THE SCENE IT BECOMES -WAR- AND I'M THE ONE GETTING BOMBARDED WITH "BABY GIRL, WHY YOU TALKIN' TO THAT NEGRO CAT? YOU KNOW HE DON'T UNDERSTAND NOTHIN' COMIN' OUTTA YOUR MOUTH! HE ALL...OOGA BOOGA IN SHIT!" AND "BABY GIRL, WHY YOU WASTIN' THAT PERFECTLY GOOD PIECE OF LIVER ON THAT UNGRATEFUL NIGGER?" AND ALL I CAN DO IS ROLL MY EYES INTO THE BACK OF MY SKULL AND REMIND MYSELF THAT I SHOULD BE -REALLY, REALLY HONORED- THAT PAPA GHEDE IS SO DEVOTED TO MY SPIRITUAL AND MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL WELL-BEING THAT HE IS EVER-FLOWING WITH WISDOM AND GUIDANCE, ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M BENDING OVER WHILE VACUUMING AND MY GHETTO ASS IS SALUTING THE AIR. HAR HAR.)

I met TSM during one of my very first MDMA trips. While standing over a container pouring out ribbons of copal smoke I had a series of hallucinations, and in each split second "vision" my outfit was V. V. similar (in ancient Egypt it was a white dress and green headdress as I walked on flames, and in ancient Britain it was a white dress and green headdress (again), although this time I was more aware that the headdress was a crown of oak leaves - whatever that means (X2 with "green headdress" in ancient Egypt - I GUESS THIS IS SHIT I SHOULD'VE LOOKED UP ALREADY)) except for the last one which found me standing at the top of a South American ziggurat in the mountains. So there I was, bare feet firmly planted on chiseled stone, standing in what I think was a temple and being very aware of my "priestess" status, looking across a grassy courtyard (more like a field pitch) towards a parallel ziggurat.

I don't remember what I was thinking, or what I was doing. It was one of those weird lost-in-non-thoughts moments, when you stare and observe and feel REALLY, REALLY AWARE yet a part of you still feels a million miles away. The thing that broke that disconnection/connection was a large black jungle cat at my side. (ZOMG, I KNOW, HOW WONDERFULLY LLEWELLYN FANTASY, RIGHT?) One second I was 100% absorbed in this non-thought while staring at an overly familiar Super Mario Brothers 3 World 2 pyramid, and the next I'm back in reality, wearing a white dress and super bold, blood red feathers in my hair (RED JUNGLE BIRDS? ALL I CAME UP WITH WAS "MACAW".) as my pet Jaguar/Panther/Black Leopard/Whatever stands by my side. (AND NOT EVEN ALL NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC COOL WITH TEETH FLASHING AND EARS PINNED BACK AND HISSING AND CLAWS EXTENDED, JUST, YOU KNOW, STANDING THERE, QUIET, SILENT, CALM, AND PROTECTIVE.)

Eventually BUT FOR REAL reality trickled in and after a long second or two I was just me - just me in a dim family room hovering over a bowl of V. fragrant incense. No more green headdresses, no more white dresses, no more red feathers in my hair, ziggurats, flames, grassy courtyards, or high priestess imagery that spanned several civilizations over thousands of years. The only thing that remained was my sleek, black jungle cat who (awkward tense shift approaching!) never says anything but stands there, quietly, silently, calmly, and protectively. (Further SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN by the fact TSM adopted a wee stuffed Scottish lamb (THE SHANGO LAMB!) around Easter this year, which doesn't seem like a big deal at all until, ZOMG, you take in account that I spiritually identify with the concept of goat/lamb/ram/sheep SO IT IS V. V. V. OBVIOUS TO ME WHAT HIS JOB IS IN THIS HOUSE.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is - EVERYTHING HAS ITS OWN UNIQUE KINK. (I, uh, think that's what I'm trying to say?) Papa is loud and obnoxious and big and really, really likes to put on a show, which is all in-keeping with how he's generally received in the voodoo/voudon belief system. TSM manifested differently for me, for whatever reason (but still decided to identify himself as "Shango", but that's another long-winded story that y'all probably don't want to hear because if you're like ME these sorts of "OH, HEY YOU GUYS! LOOK AT HOW SPIRITUALLY AWESOME I AM! I SHALL EVEN CAPSLOCK EVERYTHING FOR YOU SO -YOU HAVE TO EAT IT LIKE UNSWEETENED OATMEAL-! HAH! HAH HAH HAH HAH!" entries just piss me the fuck off), and I'm just rolling with it. (i.e., Chango/Shango in voodoo/voudon tradition, to me, isn't entirely different from Papa with his love of woman, vices, and confrontation. But the Shango I know and live with is a 180 from the caricature portrayed, down to preferring blue as his offering color instead of the widely accepted red. (THAT MAKES HIM A CRYPT, I BELIEVE! <- LOL!))

SO, ANYWAY, BACK TO THE STORY I WAS TELLING BEFORE I WENT OFF ON A 6-7 PARAGRAPH TANGENT THAT SEEMED V. V. V. IMPORTANT TO WRITE OUT AT THE TIME. (JESUS H. CHRIST HELP THE WORLD SHOULD I EVER GET MOTIVATED ENOUGH TO PUBLISH MY OWN SILVER RAVENWOLF BRAND OF MAGIC MANUALS! <- LOL! UNLIKELY! HIS DAD DISLIKES US ENOUGH TO MENTION US SEVERAL TIMES IN THE BIBLE! WHY DO YOU HATE CAKE SO MUCH, GOD, WHY?)

Thanksgiving Eve found me in a sullen state with an uninvited guest spending the night (I had Thanksgiving worked into a schedule, people! AN ACTUAL, HONEST TO GOD SCHEDULE WHICH WORKED A+ PERFECT AWESOME UNTIL MY GODDAMN BROTHER-IN-LAW DECIDED TO THROW A SPANNER IN THE WORKS!), and as I crawled all demoralized into bed I caught THE SHANGO MAN'S indignant expression (the, uh, stuffed animal version of him). And THEN I had one of those MEMORY FLASHES where YOU REMEMBER SOMETHING, BUT NOT ALL OF IT, BUT THE GIST OF IT IS ENOUGH TO BE HELPFUL DUE TO ITS GENERAL VAGUENESS AND AMBIGUITY THAT CAN BE BUILT UPON CREATIVELY and it happened to be "VOODOO BLEND - BLACK CAT - BLACK CATS THROW SMALL INCONVENIENT HEXES".

And when THAT happened I thought "I WONDER IF SHANGO MAN WOULD BE UP TO MAKING SOME SHANGO MAN MISCHIEF FOR ME?" and I got SLAPPED HARD with an image of my sleek, black jungle cat darting in front of M's feet while walking and tripping him up. To that I was all "LOLOLOLOLOLOL! YES! EXACTLY!" and I THEN got SLAPPED HARD AGAIN with an image of TSM, in stuffed cat form, sitting in front of a steaming turkey leg. HOW COULD I RESIST THE OFFER? (GOOD...TRADE.)

The morning after I was in a piss-poor mood. Without even really thinking about it I grabbed my baby jar of FET GHEDE DIRT and HEXED IT, HEXED IT REALLY GOOD and spouted something about FEET NOT CROSSING THIS THRESHOLD WITHOUT MY SAY and then came back to SPIT ON THE SHOES to seal the deal, totally forgetting that the previous night M'S LEGS/FEET WERE ALREADY IN PLAY THANKS TO THE SHANGO MAN.

I WOULD SAY THAT THE DIRT WENT DOWN INTO THE SHOES BETWEEN 9:30-10:00 AM. By 11:30 AM I already had my first result - M missed his train by 3 minutes and was then forced to sit in a cold, open train station for 45 minutes for the next one which, no doubt, helped screw up the rest of his day. (SMALL INCONVENIENCE, ANYONE?) I had totally, totally forgotten about this hex because, you know, OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND (I'm really volatile emotionally - I explode like you wouldn't believe, V. quickly scary-like, and then after the Pompeii explosion I'm cool once again and forget all about it), until YESTERDAY.

See, the first thing I did after carving the turkey on Thanksgiving was remove THE ENTIRE LEG OFF THIS 14-18 BEAST and take it outside to THE SHANGO TREE. (Another long story!) SO THERE I WAS, SICK, WEARING A STRING BIKINI & MINI-SKIRT & A COOKING APRON WITH ARMS OF LOCAL SCOTTISH FAMILIES, TRAMPLING OUT IN THE COLD (I HAD MADE IT SNOW EARLIER, REMEMBER?) WITH 1/5 OF A ROASTED TURKEY, FORCING THIS SUPER HUGE TURKEY LEG BETWEEN A WOODEN FENCE AND SOME ROCKS SO NEIGHBORHOOD CATS COULDN'T MAKE OFF WITH IT ON THANKSGIVING'S TWILIGHT.

I had 100% forgotten about this incident until two nights ago when I took some leftover mashed potatoes to THE SHANGO TREE and saw the leg bone, clean as a whistle, sitting perfectly poised on fluffy Scottish moss, at the very base of the tree (one or two feet away from the crevice I had hidden it in). Whatever ate it did so WITH MEDICAL PRECISION and then simply left the huge leg bone BETWEEN THE SHANGO TREE'S BASE AND THE DEAD CROW DIRT CONTAINER. (<- Okay, I'm not saying that it's SPECIAL CRAZY MAGIC that the leg got eaten, because, dude, that's the entire point, what I am doing is LOLing at how WHATEVER ATE IT DIDN'T BOTHER TAKING IT OUT OF THE YARD and WHATEVER ATE IT DIDN'T BOTHER TAKING IT OUT OF THE YARD BUT POSITIONED IT PERFECTLY, IN OBVIOUS SIGHT, SO YOU WOULDN'T HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO SEE WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE SUPER SECRET OFFERINGS!)

I LOLed when I saw what the flash of white was in the darkness, and then I LOLed when I brought it in, and LOLed some more when I retold the story to Italics, and then we LOLed together and speculated what else has happened that we don't know about. (IF THERE WAS AN INCONSPICUOUS WAY TO CALL SOMEONE YOU HEXED AND GO ALL "SO, RIGHT...HI! YOU HAVEN'T BEEN HAVING, YOU KNOW, SOME IRRITATING OR UNFORTUNATE EVENTS HAPPEN TO YOU RECENTLY, HAVE YOU?" I'D BE SO ON THE PHONE THIS SECOND, OKAY?)

...AND IN CONCLUSION, BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS ENTRY IS-WAS-IS GOING, OTHER THAN A SUPER SPECIAL HOMAGE TO THE SHANGO MAN (IT HAPPENS TO BE CHANGO'S/SHANGO'S FEAST DAY TODAY!), THAT IS PRETTY MUCH THE STORY.