ButtercupPunch – “La clique, c’est chic!”

So I am almost through packing up my house. The movers arrive at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning and I will have to leave this lovely place behind so the owners can reclaim it. I will not deny that I have occasionally fought back tears this week as I filled boxes.

You know the one man or woman who really changed life for you? The one who made you feel truly loved and appreciated and understood? The one who made you feel alive and comforted and lustful and desired? The one whose skin you couldn’t stop touching, whose face you couldn’t stop gazing at, who seemed the most beautiful person you’d ever seen every time you looked at him/her, even years after you first met? The one you still pined for years after you broke up, remembering how perfect and wonderful life seemed when he or she was in your life, and knowing, secretly, than no one else was ever going to truly measure up? (more…)

*From Dlisted*

What the fuck is this?

Mr. k found it in the pool filter, expired — thankfully.  At first I just took pics of it, sure it was one of the desert spiders I’ve read about, but then I noticed — this thing looks wicked.  And fucking creepy.  It has legs like a spider, body like a grasshopper and head like a scorpion.

I have not gone outside after dark since I saw this thing.  no.  thank.  you.

 So I turned 45 this weekend, and decided rather than lying around drinking Bailey’s and smoking weed to commemorate the 45th anniversary of my mother expelling me from her womb, I would do something adventurous. I agreed to go on a two-day, 110-mile bike ride from a little town called Williamsport in northwest Maryland down a beautiful, rugged trail to D.C. that hugs the north bank of the Potomac River.

There were seven of us in our group and we set off a bit late on Saturday morning. This meant we had to go pretty hard to make it to Leesburg by dusk.

I had been training by going on three-to-four hour bike rides the last two months or so, but never had I done 50 miles in a day, so I was really nervous for my bum and legs and more importantly, my neck and shoulders, which always cause me problems whenever I am hunched over for more than an hour or so.

I was proud of my bum and legs. I had no issues and they performed valiantly. But by the end of the day on Saturday, the last hour spent negotiating a violent thunderstorm and torrential downpour that made the trail treacherous, I felt like someone was thrusting a red hot dagger into my neck and left shoulder. This was despite a handful of Advil I’d taken when the pain first started to present itself.

There were many experienced cyclists among us and no one could see any obvious signs that I wasn’t positioned properly on the bike or that the frame was too big for me or anything like that. None of us could quite figure it out.

In any event, I spent Saturday night with a heating pad attached to my shoulders, Advil and booze, and the next day it was only slightly better, largely because we opted for a paved trail that wasn’t as bumpy and unpredictable as the gravel travel the day before.

Have any of you ever experienced such a thing? If so, what to do? I want to do a three-day, 150-mile ride in three weeks and I am already dreading it.

I have been living in the U.S. for almost a year now, and there are many things I love about it. Today I’d like to discuss Trader Joe’s, but stay tuned for love letters to other amazing American retailers in the days and weeks to come.

I am not sure if I can express just how awesome Trader Joe’s is. Think Whole Foods, but way cheaper and way better, with amazingly delicious products that are better than many found in high-priced gourmet shops. If you’re a foodie who doesn’t like to pay through the nose, Trader Joe’s is paradise. It’s so wonderful that when I took my friend Karen there when she came to visit for a week in June, we ended up going back every second day, and then eating or cooking together all the great stuff we found. She’s a fantastic cook and loved what she got at TJ’s so much that she recently made her husband drive her to Detroit to restock her Canadian pantry. She’s also been sending Trader Joe goodies abroad to her travelling family members.

You Americans know all about this place. But for those who don’t, here is just a sampling of Trader Joe’s wonder products:

Pub cheese with or without jalapeno

Frozen Thai shrimp dumplings

White bean hummus

Irish butter

TJ’s smoked salmon

Dried mango with chili

Seedless raspberry jam

Blueberry preserves

Greek yogurt

Lemon curd

Cinnamon crumpets

Frozen mac and cheese — as good as home-made

Frozen naan

Portobello ravioli

Fresh flowers that last forever — I bought three big bouquets of peonies for four bucks each in June, and they lasted more than a week

Bath products that are also ridiculously cheap and high-quality:

Tangerine and grapefruit sugar scrubs

The Mid-Summer Night’s Cream moisturizers

Shaving cream

Honey soap

Lavendar sea salt scrub

I have only scratched the surface here; every time I go, I find some new product or ingredient that I love. What are your favorite Trader Joe’s finds?

Why is it, however, when you’re all proud of yourself and really ahead of the game and you’ve packed up almost the entire house more than a week before your movers arrive, you realize there is something you shouldn’t have packed up so early … in my case today, flea medication.

And even though you’ve been really careful about writing what’s inside each box, for some reason you forgot to include “cat stuff.”

And it is the VERY LAST box that you open, and located at the VERY BOTTOM of that box.

Anyway, the flea medication has been applied and Patrick’s mood immediately lifted. I found a flea on him this morning, and I think he was associating them with going outside, because I haven’t seen him since the Advantage took hold. Weird, though — he wasn’t excessively scratching.

So this cat, Patrick, has always been like the King of Kensington. Canadians will know what that is, you Yankee witches won’t have a clue. But the King of Kensington was a Canadian sitcom character who was a friendly face and beloved in all the neighborhood. He waved and smiled at everyone he met.

Patrick has usually been the King of Kensington in all of his kitty-cat neighborhoods. When the weather warms up, he likes to be outside all the time, hanging out with other cats, checking things out. He only comes in for a bite to eat and to sleep at night.

Suddenly he no longer wants to go out, and almost shudders in fear every time I open the door and offer him the great outdoors. Especially at night.

Something has happened to him out there and scared the hell out of him, I am guessing. There are no dogs around here, so perhaps the raccoons gave him a scare. They are much smaller, meaner and more aggressive than the big fat docile ones back in Toronto whom he actually used to hang out with. In Toronto, I believe cats think they’re raccoons, and raccoons  think they’re cats. I used to have big fat ones open my sliding glass door and stroll into my kitchen, looking at me as if to say: “Why aren’t you feeding me? You feed the others.”

All the cat wants to do now is lounge around in the house sleeping and eating and begging to be scratched. I have never seen him like this. He’s so needy. The other cat is out all the time, having the time of her life. Whatever happened to him clearly didn’t bother her in the least. Perhaps she orchestrated it, because it allows her to sneak around with Orangey.

Kitties. Even with wigs, they’re so mysterious.

Last week I was travelling. And it occurred to me that I have way too many chargers in my life, especially while working.

In addition to the iPod and Blackberry chargers I take with me whenever I travel, when I work I also have to bring a handful of additional chargers and/or power cords: one for my laptop, one for my audio recording device, one for my camera battery, one for my video camera battery, and one for the various rechargeable batteries that I have to use. As well as a number of various USB cords that are required for me to file audio and video back to my office. I practically need another suitcase just to pack all my chargers, batteries, memory cards and USB and power cords.

For all this talk about a wireless society, in fact, all it means is we have to carry around dozens of chargers and cords.

This week I have been packing up my house and have found so many chargers and cords for various devices that I don’t even know what most of them are. It makes one dream of some sort of wondrous land where either all devices in existence used the same single charger, or batteries could be charged in a just a few minutes’ time and held the charge for several days (something that is in the works, apparently, and will be a reality in a couple of years).

I am SICK TO DEATH of chargers.

Hello my Hookers,

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I’ve missed you!  So Sorry for not posting, things have been hectic and new and exciting and unfamiliar.  The mister and I have just completed a move from the MidWest to the desert of Las Vegas and it was brutal.  We drove the whole way, it took forever, my ass almost fell off in the process.  Never again.  Additionally, the other Buttercups are finding their summer to be more stressful than carefree – Trixie is about to move, (again) Panda is still in work confinement (although her last smuggled letter tells us she maybe, possibly can see the light at the end of the tunnel), and Tailfeather has a touch of the piggy flu combined with a massive workload determined to kill her – she is fighting valiantly.

Nonetheless, we Buttercups believe in finding the brighter side of things, the lighter side, the side of the pillow not soaked in snot and tears and your good mascara.  Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, right?

And so, today we are talking about the J-O-B.  For in these harsh, economic times™ everyone is worried about, hating, wishing for or hanging on to whatever job we can find.  But you know, when it comes right down to it, a job is a job is a job.  When you need to make rent, or put food in the fridge, or pay for school supplies, or get your car fixed, or pay medical bills, it’s time to do whatever it is that needs doing.

I’ve had some damn shitty jobs in my life, and I’ve had some fun ones.  Looking back on it though, I see how the shitty jobs have given me perspective, shown me that I could do things I didn’t think I could, and given me the confidence to know that, hey, if I can get through this, I can get through anything.  Bring it on.  After the jump, kadinsky’s illustrious employment history. (more…)

I spent part of the weekend with tears streaming down my cheeks, from the first time I found this website, to the 15-20th time I looked at it in the hours to follow.

Can you breathe? Because I’m howling again.

There need to be more photos, different color wigs. Those cats — the grey one’s name is Chicken, and the black one’s name is Shaft — are superstars.