The “Arrangement”

This post is for my brother, my only devoted fan. Well, devoted enough to accuse me of never updating. That’s worth something, right?
I got a call this afternoon at the office. It went like this.
ME: Bob’s Blue Boxes, this is Laura.
LADY: Hello this is Fiona Maple.* (expectant pause)
ME: Hello Fiona, how can I help you?
LADY: [...]

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Greenpeace Storms Mt. Rushmore

From Dustin’s office came the call: “Laura? Your dad’s day is about to be ruined.”
I immediately started worrying about more deaths in some national park somewhere, or a foreign park administrator challenging my dad to a drink-off. It was nothing so heinous as either of these things.
Greenpeace had managed to climb to the top of [...]

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Giant Baby Pumpkin Comes Home

It’s here, it’s here! My giant pumpkin has arrived!
Isn’t it cute and inconspicuous? Well… that is a gallon ice cream bucket it’s in. I suppose “inconspicuous” is relative.
After a whole week of back-and-forth with Giant Pumkin Guru Matt, I finally managed to arrange a seedling hand-off this evening. The reply to the question “what does [...]

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Lest I be fired…

I’d better get a post up before the end of May. Two whole months missing from the archive is just too much to excuse. What can I possibly say that is witty? I blame my recent silence on the dead batteries in my camera. Dustin’s got a great camera, but if I take pictures with [...]

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The Pickle Ladies

So after discovering our parts last week, Anne took to calling me the Principle Pickle. I can’t blame her. “Pick-a-Little” sounds a lot like “pickle ” to me. And so I was inspired to a flight of artistry. Check it out:

The Pickle Ladies! Hahaha. I think I’m very funny.
And, because we’re the Principle Pickles (by [...]

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An Honest Valentine

Though I don’t celebrate most holidays, I can appreciate ironies, excesses, sillinesses and – in this case – blatant honesty as well as anyone else. Now tell me. If this isn’t the most honest valentine you’ve ever seen, what is?

This was discovered by my friend Teri, floaing somewhere on the internet. To help out the [...]

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My Crush on Brevity

My vacation in Mexico is about to end with no further adventures other than watching (“watching”) the Super Bowl with a spanish commentary and spotting a gecko living under the TV. So rather than put up another long-winded account of my day lounging around, here is an ode to the delights of brevity.
A couple weeks [...]

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30,000 tons of tungsten: 100,000 balistic fridges

So we were listening to Marketplace on the drive home this evening and they had a segment about banks covering the tracks of money transfered from Iran. Stephen Beard, the expert they were interviewing, gave an example of why this might be suspicious:
BEARD: Well, again, the details are very hazy. But there are some [...]

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If Sea Kittens Taste Like Pumpkin Pie…

So: PETA has asked the principal of Spearfish High School to change the school’s name to Sea Kitten High.
“Well obviously!” you say. “Every high school in the nation wishes for a mascot as enviably ferocious as a kitten!”
Apparently the name “Spearfish” is a little too violent for the animal rights group. I’d never be able [...]

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How to be happy when it’s so cold your snot could freeze

Over the last few days, the Black Hills and much of the western United States have fallen victim to a really serious cold front sucked down from the arctic by moving pressure systems. That’s a fancy pants way of saying that it is freaking freezing here. The sun has been shining through most of this, [...]

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