My biological grandmother died today. I never got to meet her.

Je n'ai pas ecriver depuis tellement longtemps. Ce n'est pas le verite, parce que j'ecris pour l'universite, mais jamais pour mademoiselle nellie. D'accord, voila. J'ecris maintenant pour apprendre combien de francais je peux me souvenir.

J'ai oublie presque tout ma francais, zut alors. Quel dommage; Madame White serait malheureuse, n'est-ce pas?

Maintenant. Qui voudrais me joigner a l'Alliance Francaise comme membre? Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un qui veut joigner (?), pas pour les classes, mais pour les activites?

C'est vrai. J'ai etudie le francais depuis dix ans. Pathetique, non? Je n'ai pas utilise un dictionaire pour cette exercise. Quelle surprise.

I have never seen such a long line at my lame lil' polling place. I got up at 5:15 this morning to get ready, make lunch and walk the dogs, one of which is rather sick. I got to the polling place by 7:25, and I was outta there by 7:50. I'm not sure why it even took that long, considering I was literally the last person in line when I heard a guy say "If you're in precinct 6, there's no waiting." Well, glory be! I'm a precinct sixer! So I went from being last in line to being the first! Sweet! Then, of course, there was the obligatory confusion about my name, a jammed ballot box, and a lil' old lady blocking my exit after I was finished, but I got my ballot and had my say.

I think the universe definitely owed me a bit of luck, though, considering I spent a solid hour and fifteen minutes yesterday cleaning up the scattered fecal matter of a sick fifty pound dog. Of course on the one day Jack doesn't manage to break free of his crate, he ends up soiling it. Awesome! Whatever you're imagining, believe me. It was infinity times worse.

My cousin!

A week ago I started a new blog. Steel yourself for some major dorkitude:

A flute blog.

I've pretty much lost interest in blogging day-to-day. I don't have much time for it these days, and besides, I'm focusing my writing on MFA stuff. And I guess all the free time I used to spend blogging is now spent fluting.

So if you want to read about a girl and her flute (this one time...at band camp...), bookmark or friend flute_hero.

I have a million things to say, but nothing to say at the same time.

Nothing wins!

But I will share this.

Ten years?! I've been playing the flute for four MONTHS and I'm better than that.

I almost have my credit card paid off. It should be down to zero by October 31. That'll be nice. Very, very nice. I've been chiseling away at it for years. And I didn't even get a credit card until I was 26, and never carried a balance of much more than $4,000.

I'm about to send $400 to my credit card company, which will give me a balance of something like $250. Here's what the $400 is paying for:

-Dog treats and pet spray I just bought over the weekend
-Some groceries at Dierbergs
-Hotel room for Florida (one night only)
-Tickets to Bob Newhart (he was here at the Sheldon two weekends ago; Nathan and I went and he was hysterical)
-Four brassieres I bought back in July (desperately needed)
-Concessions at the MUNY and my ticket for Miss Saigon
-Some school supplies bought back in July

That's not too bad, but man, it really sucks paying for stuff you've already been to/been using. I'm pretty sick of doing that.

Have I ever shared my "trick" with you? I don't see it as much of a trick, because it seems like common sense. But I have almost never paid a monthly fee on my credit cards. This is because I apply for a new card when I know my old one is about to start charging me, transfer the balance over, and voila. No fees. Now, there may be some balance transfer fees here and there, but ultimately, I'm saving money. I think it's a great scam. In fact, I'm overdue for a new fee-free card, as the one I'm using now has started charging me a little for each transaction.

That was a really boring post. I'll have a better one soon, I promise.

There's a hole around the gutter drain in my backyard. We've had a lot of rain this year, and I guess it's run a toll on the soil. The hole seems to be rapidly progressing in size. It's not safe, and I need to do something.

Where does one purchase fill dirt?

I permanently borrowed a hummingbird feeder from my parents. They used to have a feeder up in the tree right outside their kitchen, but it attracted bees. Mom's allergic to bee stings, so down the hummingbird feeder came and had been collecting dust for years, until now. I cooked up some hummingbird nectar a few weeks ago and hung the whole kit & caboodle on the trellis attached to my garage, for lack of a better place to hang, because after all, my yard doesn't have any @$#%ing trees, which really bothers me, in case you didn't know. Anyway, I thought it was pointless, that the hummingbirds would never come, that they wouldn't want to eat from a feeder six inches away from a wall, etc.

But this morning, I saw TWO HUMMINGBIRDS! They perched for a few minutes on one of the wires hanging oh-so-attractively across my backyard, then flew off. Shortly afterwards, one of them came back and sipped some nectar (oh, who are we kidding? It's sugar water). As I was leaving for work, looking through the garage window, I saw him come back and drink some more. I was really very excited. Yay, hummingbirds. I'd like to put up some more feeders. Then I shall have an urban hummingbird oasis.

Finally, after three weeks, my newest L'Artisan Parfumeur samples arrived the other day. I was very excited because the shipment took forever--so long that I contacted the company to find out if my order had even shipped yet. At last! Perfumey goodness!

Well, I was annoyed that one of the five vials did not ship. They shipped the card it comes in, but the vial was missing. I emailed them again, and they said they'd resend it plus some samples. Sweet!

Alas, I'm not crazy about any of the samples. Today I'm wearing Bois Farine, which means wood flour. Yes, flour, not flower. The description left me feeling a bit dubious, but I was curious enough to give it a shot.

Guess what I smell like while doused in Bois Farine?

DIAPER.

I currently smell like DIAPER. Might as well take a dirty diaper and smear it all over your body, then sprinkle baby powder all over you. Save yourself some money that way. P.U.

Finally, myv newv v cvn ccv nnv cbnvm vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvcvm cvm

Hm.v v It appears that sometimes vwhen I press the spacebar, I alsov type Vs. Thatv couldv be a vreallyv funv exercise inv reading through thev Vs. Probablyv though, itv would justv be reallyv annoying.v I'm gonna go withv annoying andv just stop now.

But first,v Iv hadv the weekv from hell. v I'd love tov describe it inv more detail, but thesev dastardlyv Vsv are veryv v eryv v eryv v ery v eryv irritating. v V eritably.v

To make a long story short, here's what happened:

1. Next door neighbor has dog
2. Next door neighbor neglects dog
3. I rebuke next door neighbor and other neighbors witness
4. Other neighbors, most of them children, clap and then come down to discuss
5. They got my back
6. They come over every time I am outside

I live in what would be considered a rough neighborhood. Considering I hear guns firing every now and then and that I know of at least three shootings on or very near my block in the past few years (one fatal), I know that this is not an untruth. I want to sell the house, or at least rent it, and move on.

But at the same time, it means a lot to me that a gaggle of black kids from the 'hood would go out of their way to socialize with a nerdy white girl with a privileged background. No matter where life takes me, I'll think of them fondly and hope they make it big, as they have told me they want to do. They have shown me their various talents, which include singing, gymnastics, running fast, and just straight up being fashionable. I hope that, against all odds, they make it.

Thanks, Tayron, Kristin, Amesha, Jayvon, Jaquis, Layonna, and Miles, and the others whose names I haven't figured out yet. You got my back. In a way, I feel almost safe. I know that if something did happen to me, there would be some unhappy people on my block.

I just love the Olympics.  I want to take the next two weeks off and plant myself in front of the television.  Fencing?  I'm all over it.  Diving?  You betcha.  Hell, I'll even watch that candyassed badminton crap.  Unfortunately, I can't manage to take two successive weeks off work, especially not to do something as exceptionally lame as watch TV.  But every four (well, two, really) years, I have that TV on for two solid weeks, and when I'm not in front of a TV, I'm on nbcolympics.com and watching live events or replays.  Really, listening to, because ya know, I have work that won't get done if I'm glued to the intricacies of target shooting.  But I'll have it on as background noise just to get that Olympic experience.

******************

I got all excited-slash-nervous because I noticed that I had a voice mail from my grandparents.  Wait, my grandparents are dead.  My BIO grandparents called me about an hour ago, and left me a message.  I wondered what the occasion could be for them to call me.  I have spoken with them once in my life: my birthday in 2006.  So I checked the message:

"Delores?  Hi, this is Glenn.  We won't make the luncheon because Mary & I have got a painting class for the next few months.  That's our message.  Love ya!  *click*"

Sigh.

*******************

I had other things to say but now I can't remember what they were.  Bye! 
EDIT: Oh yeah.  I just picked up a call on my home phone.  I knew it would be a telemarketer, but I picked it up anyway.  The guy asked for me.  I said I was not available.  He said that he was calling from [insert name of the University where I work], and that he'd call back later.

Why is my employer calling me at home? 

Channel 4 coverage. It's kind of eerie...you can see S and his family about halfway through the video walking on the platform, luggage rolling behind them. S is in the middle with E and A on either side. A short while later, you can see footage of guys throwing punches. Effed up.

UPDATE: Wow, they made coverage on StL on the Air on NPR tonight. People are talking about this.

Day 5: Mechant Loup. First sniff-pressions: MAN.

Actually, I put this on the very first evening, but thought I'd wait until a day where I'd bathed and stuff so it would be all scientific. I couldn't resist the name, which means "naughty wolf," and what the Frenchies call the Big Bad Wolf.

I loved this the first day, and I love it now. The scent straight from the bottle evokes horny he-goat. That's good, right? Hell yes. There's something sweaty about this perfume. Hot and sweaty in that just-back-from-the-rut-and-ready-for-more way. I don't know what it is. The perfume says it's got hazelnut. Hmm...I smell nuts, but they ain't HAZEL, if ya know what I mean.

**************

One more thing: Metrolink released video of the attacks. They're all over tonight's news. There is also a link to one of them on stltoday, where you can't see much, but you can sure as hell see how massive the mob was.
EDIT: Go to kmov.com Hopefully the videos will work for you, but they keep crashing my browser.

Day 4. Patchouli Patch.

I had to try it because I had read on the Invisible Magnet blog that Patchouli Patch was sexy. I could not believe this, given my first-hand knowledge of patchouli. I had a brief affair with patchouli back during my hippie phase, and there are oh so many bad memories, including the one time a girl attacked me because she said I "smelled like pot" (she had some issues). Seriously...I was just wearing patchouli. Granted, hippies tend to smoke a lot of pot, and also seem to gravitate to patchouli, so it may seem that the two scents go hand-in-hand.

I've been wearing it all day. Somewhere around noon, I became hyper-aware of some sort of musty aroma emanating from around my person. This made me rather unhappy. I think patchouli smells kind of funky no matter what, but on me, it starts to smell like Aqua-Net after a few hours. That's bad.

I don't think I'll be revisiting my sample of PP. What a waste of $1.40.

EMBARRASSING UPDATE: I reapplied it when I got home, because that's what I did with all the others. As a result, practicing the flute became almost unbearable, because my nose began tickling every time I played a few bars. Not only that, but I am convinced that a couple fruit flies were following me. I feel like if someone were to draw a comic of me, today I would look like a female version of Mr. Natural, complete with wavy stink lines and curious flies.

Day 3 of my scent spree: DZING!

Say it out loud. DZING! Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name, and absolutely necessary. I had to get this scent because it was inspired by the circus (notice the cute little tiger being, uh, subdued by a showgirl on the bottle). Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of circus smells, I think of lathery horse flanks, elephant dung, pancake clown makeup, sweaty showgirls, sawdust, hay, and cotton candy. How anyone could mix a WEARABLE perfume out of those ingredients is beyond me.

On first whiff, I swore I smelled a note of manure. Maybe that was my brain playing tricks on my nose, but I swear it was there. Because I don't want to walk around smelling like horseshit, I was a little bit apprehensive to give DZING! a fair try. But try I did. Right after I put it on, Shelby (who I am watching this weekend) made a beeline for my wrists...not a good sign, considering dogs love sniffing poop. I ventured outside, staving off visions of swarms of flies zoning in on me, and let the perfume settle down.

It's okay. I've had it on for a couple hours, and it smells mellow and leathery, with no trace of excrement. I wish I could say I liked this more, but truthfully, the scent seems to have faded considerably and does not seem all that outstanding on me. I'm a little bored, and no one should be bored at the circus. Maybe this would smell super on someone else, but Dzing! is not for me.

Day 2 of my sample spree. I tried Poivre Piquant, which means Spicy Pepper (although the company calls it "Spice of Passion.") Right after application, I smelled both peppery and medicinal. I wasn't digging the medicinal quality. But after the perfume had a chance to soak into my skin and my chemistry worked its wizardry, the scent became very sensual. I liked it quite a lot. The base notes include white pepper, milk and honey; perhaps the milk/honey mutes the pepper considerably, but I still smelled the pepper most of all. This is fine by me, considering I like to put pepper on just about everything. On the downside, I was sneezing a lot yesterday, and I can't discount the possibility that it was the peppery scent that triggered such a sneeze-a-thon. I'll have to try it again in a few days to see if the same thing happens.

I haven't done the reading list in a long while.

The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber.
Fiend recommended this for me and ended up purchasing me a copy about a year ago. I brought it with me to Nicaragua, where I finally got sucked in after one false start. This book is 900 pages of tawdry sex and scandal, with momentary lapses of sweetness and true love. This book was fantastic, and for being 900 pages long, it's a quick read.

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett.
This book has the honor of being my first assigned reading for my reentry into graduate school. My MFA/creative nonfiction program has everyone read a "book in common" each semester, and this fall, it's Bel Canto. While I read this, I longed to be held hostage alongside the famous opera singer. This is a great book for music lovers, and makes me wonder if I shouldn't learn up on opera a bit. People hate what they don't understand (why else would so many people "hate" poetry? Seriously? You just don't get it). I just don't get opera, and never seek out any opportunity to learn more about it or even see one. I went to La Boheme at the Rep once with some friends in high school. I liked it, I suppose, but 3 hours of opera is just a taste, which I have already half-forgotten.

This is what good books do. Inspire.