Insomnia, stickpile, octane, pickles

It’s way past my bedtime, but I don’t feel tired.  This is all just random typing until I bore myself to sleep.

 My mom lives in a town (Old Wethersfield) that’s super-ultra-mega-proud about how frikkin’ early it was founded.  They have very strict housing regulations in an attempt to stay as Colonialish and touristy as possible.  Each residence is limited to one town-provided trash barrel, so any extra rubbish needs to be taken to the dump, where they charge by the cubic yard or something along those lines.  Incidentally, I was raised there, but turned out fine for the most part.

Where I live (Hartford,) this isn’t an issue.  I have a dumpster that I can fill to the brim, and anything left over can go on the curb.  It all magically disappears on Wednesday mornings, and then I can start filling it up again! 

Yesterday, Wethersfield’s dump had some sort of “promotion” where residents could throw away their stuff for free.  My mom was elated.  I happen to drive a pickup truck, so by default I’m required to help friends and relatives transfer large objects from one place to another.   Mom said she had a pile of sticks, leaves, branches, ornamental grasses, etc. that needed to be taken to the dump. 

Not a problem.

When I got to her house, I saw that the “pile” was more like a hill or small mountain.  In hindsight, I really should have brought my camera.  You would have loved it.  You would have left a comment containing “LOL” or “OMG.”  Even after my truck was filled, the pile looked untouched - that’s how massive it was.

We went to the dump, unloaded the branches and whatnot onto the town stickpile and went to get another load.  Fortunately for my aching back, the guy at the dump said he’d only let us make one more trip.  This time, we made sure to get only huge pieces of wood and not the sticks that were small enough to be shoved into contractor’s bags and ultimately wind up in my dumpster. 

The moral of the story is: don’t write blog entries that require photos if you don’t have the photos to supplement it.  I really need to take my camera with me more often. 

I’m feeling a little drowsy but have more to say.

On the drive home, I passed by the gas station that’s notorious for having the lowest gas prices in the area.  $3.79 per gallon!  Isn’t this getting a little out of hand?  And another thing…who on earth buys the 89 octane?  If your vehicle is too good for the 87 octane, then what would it need to do to deserve the 91 octane?  Do you even know what octane means?

I came home and painted the backgrounds for the next 2 “Garden of Hope” pieces.  I’m really going to take it to the next level for these.  I can’t wait to see how they turn out after breastification.  I also completed a very cute painting that I’ve been working on for over a week.  It’s almost too cute and I hate when I create something this adorable because I don’t want to part with it.  It will be listed shortly…maybe.

I don’t know how to smoothly transition into the next topic, so I’m just going to say that I found these photos deep within my hard drive:

I’m a pickle fanatic and connoisseur, so you can imagine my excitement when I happened upon these conjoined gherkins back in 2005!  They’re still in their original jar in my fridge. 

Here they are next to fifty Zambian Kwatcha (for size reference.) 

Guess what?  It’s time for bed!  I wonder if I’m the first person to use “octane,” “stickpile,” and “pickles” in a blog title.  My apologies for this entire post.

Tags: abstract, art, insomnia, Kira, Koopa, mom, painting, turtle