Unraveled

Good morning, Ecuador!
I have to share something with you that is driving me insane.
Back in August, Buddha was diagnosed with Spinal Ataxia, a degenerative disk disease that is causing what they call "drunken walking" in his back legs. Instead of going ahead with a spinal surgery, which I refused to put my 11 year old best friend through, I did some research to find alternative treatments. That's when we found Dr. Jane, pet acupuncturist.

Dr. Jane deserves her own blog post that is just about her and her work, because she is magic. She began aggressively treating Buddha with needles and a machine that hooks to them, sending minute electric vibrations through them. Before we started acupuncture, Buddha would fall down several times during a walk.  He couldn't lift his leg to pee. It was getting very sad to watch. The difference has been night and day, and he now lifts his leg to pee again, and though now and again he will lose balance, he gets around so much better than before.  He continues acupuncture with Dr. Jane every couple of weeks.
One of the recommendations to make egress easier for him in the house was to replace our thin leopard print rug with something shaggier, so that he could get better traction. Though we love our Norma Desmond rug, we saw exactly what she meant, as Boo was much happier on any other surface than that rug.

I went to Home Depot and found what looked to be the perfect fit for our house.  A white shag rug that looked like it was straight out of the 1960's. Four hundred dollars later, it came home with me. I brought it inside, and Matt and I moved Norma Desmond to the downstairs bedroom, which Buddha seldom is interested in visiting. As soon as we unrolled it, and put the coffee table back, Buddha was in heaven. He LOVES the shag rug, and moves much better on it. Dr. Jane came over for a session and LOVES the shag rug, and thinks that it is the perfect rug to give him more padding and traction in the room he spends a majority of his time in. We LOVED the rug for the first couple of weeks. LOVED it.

Here is where the tale begins to unravel.
We started to notice that the rug was shedding little white threads.  Just a few here and there.  No big deal. That's what the vacuum is for, right? Right.
I go to NYC for a week to workshop a new musical, and notice that I find a few threads of the white rug in the apartment where I am staying.  I laugh, and mention it to Matt on the phone. He laughs, and agrees that it really is starting to get worse, the shedding. It's a phase, we both agree.  It will pass. I board the Amtrack train to come home and find another white thread on the floor of the train by my boot.  And I had been hundreds of miles from the rug for a week.

As the weeks followed, the rug began to shed more and more.  We were about to throw a party for New Year's Eve, and were busy cleaning the house.  We gave the whole house a good vacuuming. We had to pause several times to unclog the bristles of the vacuum from the tenuous white threads. Finally the carpets were clear, and all looked good. One hour later, and before company even arrived, Matt said, "Look at the rug. I can't believe it! We just vacuumed!"

 The crawling tendrils of thread had already creeped back onto the other rugs. We both slumped our shoulders, feeling defeated by the rug and it's millions of creeping children.
But Buddha LOVES it.
 And Dr. Jane LOVES it. Now we LOATHE it.

I have found the tiny white threads everywhere that I have been, and sometimes in places that I haven't been. Friends who visit soon find the threads in their own homes. This rug is trying to multiply and make other little rugs in other homes, and will no doubt try to conquer the world within the month.

I can't help but think of the vignette from the 80's film, Creepshow, called "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", In it, Stephen King himself plays a man who finds a comet that has crashed in his back yard, and what does he do? He touches it. I mean...people...have we not learned our lesson from The Blob?  When something falls from the sky, LEAVE THAT SHIT ALONE! Before you know it, he begins to grow a plant like moss all over his body.  Anywhere that he walks, anything that he touches, the green growth spreads. By the end, he is barely recognizable as a human, and shoots himself out of misery. I'm not at that point yet, but I reached a breaking point when I got out of bed this morning to pee and found one of the threads...oh yes.  Just where you think. I hear them now, mocking me.

They are even here, at Ford's Theatre. They have followed me. Watching.  Waiting. Slowly observing when the best moment to strike will be.
We continue to fight. Like Sisyphus, we vacuum the rug, we vacuum the rug, we vacuum the rug. We muse to ourselves that we will rent a rug doctor and that will REALLY get all of those threads for good. Then we are weary that it might only make it worse. So as we lose our minds in a never ending cycle of madness, the threads continue to multiply. I just found another one on my leg.  My mind is unraveling along with the rug, and as I empty the vacuum bristles from their tangle of white threads, I can hear them laughing at me, very softly.
Pray for dawn.
xoxoSGS

The Alaotra Grebe is now extinct.

The Alaotra grebe, a flightless water fowl from Madagascar has been declared extinct. Very sad when a species is forced into extinction because of man. So sad that this gorgeous creature will never grace this earth again. Full story HERE.

35 Days and Still Gushing

The Worst Ecological Disaster in American History

I don't know about you guys, but this oil leak is really upsetting me. I think that many of us see the footage on TV and think, "Wow - that looks bad", and then go along their way without thinking about it again until you hear it mentioned again. I have to admit, I am guilty of the same thing. But I am aware that this is not just a spill that you clean up and then everything is back to normal. This oil, as you know continues to leak into the Gulf waters, and the eco-system will suffer from this more than we even are capable of knowing right now. I think what really brings this home the most to me is watching this Live Feed streaming video from the leak source. If you click HERE you can see LIVE video of the oil as it is spewing out into the sea. It is terribly disturbing.

Hey Jupiter...

One of Jupiter's cloud bands has dissappeared...again. Weird things are happening everywhere, apparently. Of course, the below Tori Amos video is just a song that says the word "Jupiter" in it a bunch of times, not a video detailing the real story. The full story can be read HERE.

SCARY MOVIE DIALOGUE QUIZ

I had a Scary Movie Dialogue quiz on Facebook on Halloween day/night. Here are all of the questions. Answers are below the questions. Try to answer them yourself!


#1:..."Only when I say so! Only when I say!"...
#2:..."We may not enjoy living together...but dying together isn't going to solve anything.."
#3:..."Come to Daddy..."
#4:..."This is no dream, this is really happening!"
#5:..."You're crazy to know who I am, and what I am..."
#6:..."...hope it doesn't rust the barrel..."
#7:..."Thank you... have a nice day."
#8:..."The only person who could miss with this gun is the sucker with the bread to buy it."
#9:..."I need the child...before the blood changes..."
#10:..."There's an old fella named Jack who lives downriver, but he woundn't treat any hospitality towards them. Oh, and there was some kind of Army test site way up on top of the mountain. But that closed down five, six years ago."
#11:..."I'm running this monkey farm now Frankenstein and I wanna know... what the fuck you’re doing with my time?"
#12:..."Call me. Dial your number. Go ahead. "
#13:..."Well, hi. What are you doing out in this mess? "
#14:..."The Han River is very broad, Mr. Kim. Let's try to be broad-minded about this. Anyway, that's an order. So, start pouring. "
#15:..."Well if he come near you again, I'm gonna bust his liver lose if he tries to touch you!"
#16:..."Madam, are you traveling alone?" "All alone." "Should I wake you for Pittsburgh?" "No, I'm going to New York." "The Big Apple?" "Right." ... "Thank you, and goodnight!"
#17:..."Is that you, little man?"
#18:..."Get out of the grave, Alan. Get out of the grave and let an artist show you how to call a curse down on Satan! "
#19:..."Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle."
#20:..."Do you know anything about aphids? "
#21:..." I don't mind telling you, this place is infested."
#22:..." Of all the places in all the world my dad could have picked to build his dealership, he picked the one right down the street from Walking Dead Central."
#23:..." Sorry, Dan. My idea of perfection is a voice on the phone."
#24:..."How can he go so fast? "
#25:..."You're gonna need me in the evening, you just don't know it yet. "
#26:..."There are many strange legends in the Amazon."
#27:..."That's so sweet it's painful. "
#28:..." OH! How lovely! Nobody knows it's my birthday! I've stopped counting..."
#29:..."I believe I will go back to the Double Bar B Ranch..."
#30: (SUDDEN DEATH) ..."Do not venture outside"
BONUS:..."Not true! My hair stinks! This dress stinks! Look, this whole thing is disgusting! These sleeves on this go back and forth! What am I gonna do? "


ANSWERS


1. Poltergeist
2. Night of the Living Dead
3. Hellraiser
4. Rosemary's Baby
5. The Invisible Man
6. The Devil's Rejects
7. Chopping Mall
8. Dawn of the Dead
9. The Guardian
10.Pirahna
11.Day of the Dead
12.Lost Highway
13.Friday the 13th
14.The Host
15.Squirm
16.Martin
17.Trilogy of Terror
18.Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things
19.The Company of Wolves
20.Bug (2006)
21.Graveyard Shift
22.Children of the Living Dead
23.The Fog
24.Duel
25.Carnival of Souls
26.Creature From The Black Lagoon
27.Day of the Woman AKA I Spit on Your Grave
28.Bug(1975)
29.Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula
30.Night of the Living Dead
BONUS:Demons 2

Yard Sale: Saturday at 8AM - Mark Center

Yes, shoppers - you have the chance to own crap that I don't want in my house anymore!!! Old shirts, DVD's of things you would probably never want to watch, Decor that looks like it came from some other country, CANDLES - MY GOD - SO MANY CANDLES, and...are those...by God...ACTUAL VHS TAPES!!!
The prices are CRAZY down here at CRAZY EDDIE'S CRAZY SATURDAY YARD SALE....wait...my name isn't Eddie.
Anyway,
Yard Sale
Mark Center Club, Alexandria, VA
Saturday Morning 8AM-11AM
Look for a very sleepy me, who will have got up way too early for a Saturday morning and chugged 2 tall cups of coffee to wake up.
Proceeds from this yard sale will go to feed one very surly pug.
*no guilt intended*
*kind of*
*But please come and buy my stuff? Pretty please?*
luv,
SGS

30 Foot Spider Attacks Liverpool!

Full story HERE!

Wigged Out

"The show was delightful. I saw it last night. Was there anything unique about Friday night's performance that won't be repeated in further performances? :D "
writes in Googla Monster, frequent commenter on ye old blog.
yes.
Last night, Eleasha's wig flew off at the end of one of her songs.
Did you just hear what I said?
wig flew off.
I died.
I had to sing the next song, and all I wanted to do was laugh. It was the hardest thing to do ever. When the show was over, I came off stage and collapsed in a ball of hysterics.
So yes, Googla, something happened that WE SURE HOPE won't happen again happened last night!
*sigh*
I'm still laughing about it...
The show, PS, is fantastic. Come and see us!