When You're Evil

A fairly concise explanation of the condition.

Your Attention Please, Lu

One bit of advice: this will all look so much more smashing in red shoes.

Happy April 24th-- Hairball Awareness Day

That's right. It's that day again. The day we take a moment to consider the bezoar. The bezoar has a colorful history. They were once believed to be an antidote to poison and, as you can see in the above picture, there may be some things that you can't polish, but a bezoar clearly isn't one of them. A girl in England died in 1999 after doctors removed a bezoar the size of a football from her stomach, which was the result of her chewing on her hair. Bezoars come in several gross types:
Food boli (singular, bolus) imitate true bezoars and are composed of loose aggregates of food items such as seeds, fruit pith, or pits as well as other types of items such as shellac, bubble gum, soil, and concretions of some medications.
Pharmacobezoars (or medication bezoars) are mostly tablets or semi-liquid masses of drugs. Normally found following overdose of sustained release medications.[8]
Phytobezoars are composed of nondigestible plant material (e.g., cellulose) and are frequently reported in patients with impaired digestion and decreased gastric motility.
Diospyrobezoar is a bezoar formed from unripe persimmons.[9] Coca-Cola has been used in the treatment.[10][11]
Trichobezoar is a bezoar formed from hair [12] - an extreme form of hairball. Humans who frequently consume hair sometimes require these to be removed. The Rapunzel syndrome, a very rare and extreme case, may require surgery.

Happy Thoughts for Easter

Buffalo Gals and Lulu's Got a New Dance

It looks like it's about time for a new dance craze. We're hoping Lu will get down with Buffalo Gals, because we're about to head out to the open range, that home away from home where the buffalo roam and the fear and the loathing are never far away. Chupas feast on the blood of poisoned princesses even as we make our preparations, but that's of no concern. When you bring your princesses to this wild land only misery awaits, and for those of us in chupa husbandry, we welcome the addition of princesses to the diet of our foul stock. It's well known they only feast up on goats, after all, when there are no princesses available. Don't worry, Lu, dangerous as it is, we do not go into that foul abyss unprepared. The demon steeds are harnessed up and the hounds of Hell are baying. We've packed our Texas strength hair gel, which is infused with organic oblivion potion and extract of flowers of evil.

Lulu and the Horrid Bling Ring Incident

"Shut up you stupid Granny," Lulu screamed.

"Now, Lulu, that isn't nice," Granny replied. "You really need to come to the dinner table."

"Don't talk to me!" Lulu shouted, sticking her tongue out at Granny. "You don't know anything and I'm not listening to you."

"Lulu, if you don't look out you could turn out like the Wicked Witch of West Texas. I might even send you to Texas to live with the Wicked Witch and see how you like that?" Granny threatened. "Texas is a dirty, dumb, uncivilized place."


"I won't go and you can't make me. Besides those are just stereotypes about Texas."

"Stereotypes save time," Granny replied.

Lulu was about to come back with a nasty rejoinder but she was interrupted.

Suddenly there was a loud pop! and smoke filled the room. Before she could see through the stinging smoke Lulu heard the Witch.

"Now I'll get you Lulu. When your Granny made that threat I heard it all of the way over in Texas and I came here in my magical smoke belching fuel guzzling SUV to take you away. And I see you've gotten careless with your bling again too," the Witch said, pointing at Lulu's naughty little hand where the Magical Witch Repelling Ruby Bling Ring was not in evidence. Lulu remembered she had left it by the sink when she went to wash her grubby mitts only a few minutes before she began hurling defiant insults at Granny. "Now that I've cured my horchata allergy, you won't be getting away so easily as last time, either."

"Shut up you stupid Witch," Lulu replied. "You're ugly and I don't even believe you're a real witch. Besides I have to go to school."

"Waaaaaa, haaaaaaa, haaaaaaa," the Witch cackled. "You won't need any fancy book learnin' in Texas. All you need to know there is to stay out of low water crossings." Lulu heard Crispin outside barking at the magical smoke belching SUV as it sat idling and guzzling enormous amounts of fuel. "Anyway, you don't have to know how to read to make tacos and that's all you're going to be doing."

"I won't work in your taco stand," Lulu declared.

"We'll see about that," the Witch replied waving her wand. Poof! Sparks flew from the end of the wand as the Bling Ring floated from the bathroom and straight into the hand of the Wicked Witch. "Now I have your Magical Ruby Witch Repelling Bling Ring, so I will be immune to the vulgarity of bling! The days of my aesthetic vulnerabilities are over."

What the Witch didn't know, and Lulu didn't tell her because Lulu was not aware of the fact, was that Lulu had destroyed the Vugarity Innuring charm. Worse than destroyed it really. She had worn the ring once to a bling infested area of the mall which had inverted the Vulgarity Innuring charm turning it into a Sensitizing Hideousness Hex. Lulu just hadn't noticed because, unlike the witch, she was immune to bling.

"Just let me slip this ring on and we'll be going," the Witch said, sliding the ring onto her finger. "Ooooooh Nooooooooo! The Witch screamed. "Something is wrong." Just then Cybil came through the door carying a very garish outfit she was going to foist on Lulu. The outfit was composed of fake leopard fur with sparkles. It's rainbow hued sparkle fur trim was, itself trimmed by some lovely gold-tone chain. It was easily the most hideous outfit that side of Calamity Flats and Cybil's plan had been to make Lulu wear it to school where she would likely be taunted, pelted with cafeteria food and given nicknames humiliating enough to require years of therapy.

The witch took one look at the outfit and began to wail. "My eyes!" the Witch cried. "They're melting, melting."

And indeed they were. Running down her face, that is, and making a ghastly goooey mess.

"Ha!" yelled Lulu. "You can't take me to Texas now!"

The Witch was clawing at the ring trying to get it off, but it appeared to be stuck. "AAAAAAAAh," she screamed, but finally some of the melting eye goo got on her hand and she was able to slip the ring off and throw it to the floor. Then she waved her wand, depositing herself back in the magical SUV and she was off.

"Lulu," said Granny, "why weren't you wearing your Bling Ring?"

"Next time I will," Lulu said.

"You know who has to clean up this mess, right?"

"Not me. I didn't make that stupid witch's eyes melt," Lulu answered and then ran for the door.

"Lulu get back here," she heard Granny screaming as she made for her favorite hiding place.

The Cat Came Back The Very Same Way

This cat just returned from yet another trip through time, so he's looking a bit odd. He's the only animal in the universe known to have time traveled, and since he's composed mostly of thoughts, he's a very strange beast. We're pretty sure Lulu will enjoy his groove though.

This Day in UFO History- UFO Battle Over Nuremberg--1561

April 14th, 1561, the skies over Nuremberg, Germany were quite a sight. UFOs battled it out as astonished residents looked skyward. Or there might have been some tainted grain. Ergotism, a condition  caused by eating breads made with rye grain that has been tainted with a particular species of black mold, which is the original source of LSD, has been blamed for a number of weird mass hysterias, including the Salem witch trials. I can tell you this, however: witch sightings in these parts aren't from eating moldy bread. Whatever the cause, though, the Nuremberg case is interesting.

…the dreadful apparition filled the morning sky with cylindrical shapes from which emerged black, red, orange and blue-white spheres that darted about. Between the spheres, there were crosses with the color of blood. This frightful spectacle was witnessed by “numerous men and women.” Afterwards, a black, spear-like object appeared. The author of the Gazette warned that “the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that he avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may, temporarily here and perpetually there, live as His children.”

Tripping Westward

West of West Texas the tsunamis break on edge of the continent. The Beaver State awaits, yet something wicked that way wanders in our wake. It's true what they say; wherever you go, there you are. The shadow knows what it is you ultimately can't escape.

Night Music

At one the wind rose,
And with it the noise
Of the black poplars.

Long since had the living
By a thin twine
Been led into their dreams
Where lanterns shine
Under a still veil
Of falling streams;
Long since had the dead
Become untroubled
In the light soil.
There were no mouths
To drink of the wind,
Nor any eyes
To sharpen on the stars'
Wide heaven-holding,
Only the sound
Long sibilant-muscled trees
Were lifting up, the black poplars.

And in their blazing solitude
The stars sang in their sockets through
the night:
`Blow bright, blow bright
The coal of this unquickened world.'

Philip Larkin

Happy Birthday Billie Holiday-- Gloomy Sunday for a Thursday

Just because I happen to like the song. It was originally written in 1933 Hungary by Rezső Seress and titled Vége a Világnak which translates to End of the World. The speaker of the lyrics mourns a lost love and vows to end it all in order that they may be together again. Urban legends sprang up around the song alleging that it inspired hundreds of suicides, though these are probably just stories told for the amusement of the overly suggestible. The composer, Seress, did eventually commit suicide, but not until 1969. In the Holiday version a third verse was added to the song in which the suicidal speaker wakes to find it was all just a dream. This is possibly the most lame ending ever, whether for a song, a movie or a book. It's a cheat.

'Poem to Be Read at 3 A.M.'

Excepting the diner
On the outskirts
The town of Ladora
At 3 A.M.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second story room
A single light.

Donald Justice

A Musical Saw Number From Hajime Sakita

We're tuning our saws for a little moonlight sonata out on the plains. The coyotes and chupas will accompany. Listen, Lulu, to the sound carried on the wind tonight. Maybe you'll hear a ghostly melody from West Texas. Just maybe.