For the grown-ups, this is.

The 17 least appropriate playmobil sets for children, because obviously Playmobil isn't meant for the children. It's serious business. All terribly mature.

Raccoons, a boon?

I always feel a little excited when I first hear the raccoons, their little warbles and chirrups. How nice, I think, of them to come and visit. They sound simply adorable, busy yet social, outside my window in the evening, late into the night.

I have a fondness for woodland creatures. They are the simpler beasts of our lives. Raccoons, deer, squirrels. Badgers and hedgehogs. The little birds.

Last fall much of my poetry found itself wound around the lives of these, my forest friends. I should continue to explore this phenomenon, before the weather shifts again.

I feel a growing excitement for the coming holidays, though. I bought a Playmobil Advent Calendar, "Christmas in the Forest". Everyday a new and exciting and fun and adorable plastic animal or set piece will be revealed, to amaze and astonish, to inspire. Or just for fun. Ah, Nostalgia!

In the mail: Playmobil Nativity Set with corresponding Three Wise Men and Santa's Workshop (aka My Take Along Holiday Home).

I feel can justify the purchase of so many toys by calling them 'christmas decorations'. I suppose I'll have to resort to having children if I want to expand my collection to include the awesome farm sets!


Dear Raccoons,
I love you. I truly do appreciate you coming to visit.
Please go to sleep now. Seriously. Shut up.
Thankyou.

Yes, dear.

Today's creation a la slow-cooker: Peasant Goulash.
"Peasant is a bird, isn't it?"
"No, hon. You're thinking of pheasant."
"What are we eating?"
"Peasant means like 'poor people'."
"Goulash?"
"Stew. Soup."
"What's for dinner again?"
"Peasant Goulash."
"So, like... people soup?!"
Mmmmm, smells good already!

No Rocky Horror would be a terrible thing.

The word 'anticipation' always brings to my mind the Rocky Horror Picture Show. No word has ever been so perfectly spoken as that one was in that film. Seriously.

Maybe I'm biased; I've been a fan for as long as I can recall. I'd never even seen the film, but as a child I had all the words to every song memorized. My mom had the soundtrack on tape (cassette tape!) It was awesome! I'm not even now much of a fan of musicals, but that one had, and still has, some of the most catchy, dramatic tunes to ever grace the screen. Although grace might not be the right word...

Of course I have as an adult seen the film. I watch it every year on halloween. Someone has yet to learn to love it, but maybe this year he'll finally understand. And not inundate me with stupid questions. I mean, really, with costumes and makeup like those, does the film really need to make sense?

I also always watch Ghostbusters on halloween. Holy jeebers did those dog-statue things ever scare me as a kid! I laugh now, but-- !!!

I like soup.

I don't want to just sit and wait for the big changes to come along (fingers crossed for that government job!) so I'm making sure to throw in a few little ones, to keep life spicy.

I'm learning to use a slow cooker. And not just use it, but to eat the foods that come out of it without fear. I've always equated slow cooked foods with foods that have sat around a long time at a low temperature. Unattended. As in possibly teeming with bacteria from time spent in the 'danger zone'... Oh god.

I don't understand why I'm so squigged out by this. Food poisoning, it's not so bad right? And it's not like you can even see the germs wiggling about on your food, or even taste them. It's just the knowing. Knowing can be a terrible thing.

All of the following are terrible things: knowing, not knowing, waiting, a life of no antici pation, food poisoning, anti-soup.