Art of the Odd

…in the black leather, with the Chicago accent.

I’m so proud of him.

I made a mistake on Tuesday.

I went to OSH for supplies – a rosemary bush, some stripper (for the cabinets, you perv), a tube of epoxy, and a pitchfork.

I walked out with a tulip, some stripper (still for the cabinets – what is wrong with some people?), a tube of epoxy and, yes, a pitchfork.

Going to OSH was not the mistake.

Going to OSH at 4:30 on a weekday – that was the mistake.

The drive there was fine, but coming home? Yeesh.

I got so fed up with the traffic on Bundy that I turned off, planning to take Pico to 23rd and come home past Santa Monica Airport.

Never, ever take 23rd past the airport during rush hour.

A couple of miles north of the airport, I posted this to Twitter.

(Before you chastise me for tweeting while driving – I wasn’t driving. I was sitting through two light changes, in the middle of a blocks-long tailback, waiting for the cars in front of me to move. They finally did – after the light turned red for the third time.)

Some time later, I made it home with my pitchfork. (And my tulip, and my epoxy, and my stripper. Which is still for the cabinets.)

And NovySan said that we just don’t use pitchforks often enough in this modern world.

He had an idea for how we could change that, though.

Not by pitchforking people in traffic, but by escorting trick-or-treating groups armed with pitchforks and torches.

Imagine it – a cluster of princesses, mutants and monsters, flanked by a sizeable group of (possibly tipsy) adults waving the implements of B-movie riots proudly aloft.

Halloween may never be the same.

NovySan sent this out as an accompaniment to my blog post about our trip to Ireland. I’m reposting it here so that Julia can read it.

“The trip was filled with wonderful people, odd sychronicities, and good Craic. (Craic is the Irish term for good conversation, good times, hanging with friends, etc. Not Crack Cocaine.

“One story sums it up best for me. It occurred during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin. We had been invited to participate, rather than spectate, and found ourselves dressed in tie dye, faces painted, pushing a 400 pound sound system up and down the hills of Dublin. (I know, Dublin SEEMS flat. It’s not.) As a set of grandstands approached, I noticed I was having a little trouble walking. My stride seemed clipped. We were halted in front of the grandstand and I found out why I was having trouble walking. My costume pants had worked their way down past my hips, and just at that moment, they dropped to my ankles. Quickly grabbing my pants and frantically pulling them up, I noticed not 5 feet to my left, a seated chap in a green robe, with a very impressive gold necklace around his shoulders, a woman seated next to him, and a police officer with an ornate gold mace staring directly at me.

“Yes, my pants had fallen to my ankles 5 feet directly in front of the
Lord Mayor of Dublin.

“After this I had no trouble smiling for the crowd as I giggled the rest of the parade route. It was only at the end when I told our host what had happened that he informed me that the woman seated next to the Lord Mayor, was in fact, THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND.

“So that was my St Patrick’s Day. How was yours?

“Sliante!”