Back to My Roots

I'm off to Manitoba again for a few days' visit. Will be back in the blogosphere in about 10 days' time.

It's Our Anniversary Again!

My Rare One and I are celebrating our 14th anniversary today. From the first time we met . . .

. . . until now, things have been just one delightful romp!

Fun, fun, fun all the time!

Of course, all you long-term couples out there know that can't possibly be true!

No, we have had our fair share of choppy waters and stormy seas as well, but so far have successfully managed to sail through it all!

We still want to be each other's adorable little angel . . .

. . . and little devil too!

So here's to another year!

Updating Shakespeare

Shakespeare is damn tired of feeling irrelevant and outdated in the modern world. His image needs a makeover!

How about a haircut and some hipster clothes, Bill? Yeah, that's better.

And screw parchment! He's using an iPad these days.

And he's got a blog!

LL Shakey Bill is getting quite a reputation as a rapper on the World Wide Web, complete with parental advisory controls on his sites.

And he's on Twitter too!

Bill is also trying to update his writing style. He's gotta reach computer nerds now, after all.

Plus connect with the youth of the 21st century! That's why he's rewritten a few of his classics using texts, slang, emojis and hashtags.

Take his play Hamlet, for instance. Who the hell wants to plow through Hamlet's dull "Get thee to a nunnery" speech when they can read this instead?

And teens relate much better to his new style than a bunch of ye olde Englishe claptrap!

It's not like the update strips the original of its power or poetry or anything!

The new folios do, however, have their detractors.

[Note: These books are real and part of the recently published "OMG Shakespeare" series. They are available on Amazon and presumably at better bookstores everywhere, assuming that any such places still exist.]

Food, Glorious Food!

Insulting the Irish in last week's St. Patrick's Day post got me thinking. Why not insult MORE nationalities? YEAH! And you know, nothing is more ripe for satire than a country's CUISINE, right? So here we go!

Let's start with everyone's FAVOURITE country, the good ol' You Ess of Eh, eh?

And those Irish are almost TOO easy to make fun of, aren't they?

But then, so are the SCOTS.

And my beloved UKRAINIANS shouldn't get off lightly either.

By the way, may I just take a moment to mention a PET PEEVE of mine? I often hear people pronouncing "kielbasa" as keel-BASS-ah when every good Ukrainian or Ukrainian wannabe like me KNOWS that it's really pronounced KOO-bass-ah. Even WOLVERINE (that good Canadian boy) knows how to pronounce it correctly so SHEESH, people, get with the program!

Not surprisingly, Sweden and England are about to have a COOK-OFF for the title of World's WORST Cuisine.

To be fair, I must be EVEN-HANDED in this post and mock CANADA's contribution to culinary bad taste as well. So here's a replica of the Stanley Cup made entirely of DONUTS.

Yes, we take hockey SERIOUSLY in Canada, goddammit!

And let's not forget POUTINE!

Hell, we're lax with LABELING LAWS too. G'day, mate!

Happy Ostara!

Today is the Spring Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere, a date which pagans call Ostara (from the same root word as Easter, estrus, estrogen, etc.)

The Goddess of Spring awakens under the earth following Her long winter repose. Her Divine Feminine energy spirals upwards to the surface to bring growth, renewal and new life to the world once more.

May Her bright blessings be yours today as well!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Sure, an' tis a grand day for to be gettin' drunk and havin' that tattoo done what ye've always been hankerin' for. Ye know that St. Pat hisself would approve, now. Faith, an' ye should have seen what HE had tattooed on his arse, the old divil what was. Go now -- the Guinness awaits ye.

[Reposted from 2010. So sue me, I was busy this week and didn't have time to write anything new. I figured a Blast From The Past would suffice!]

[Also, just to be clear, I can use Irish stereotypes because I have Irish heritage myself *hic* so feck off!]

Hail Caesar!

Wishing everyone a Happy Ides of March, except for all the brutal dictators of the world. Sic semper tyrannis! Ever thus to tyrants!

Help, I'm Being Blackmailed!

Taking her cue from Monty Python's infamous skit, Leeanna Henderson of Can We Have a New Witch, Ours Melted has now started up her own BLACKMAILING home business. To cite one of her recent posts, "Yeah, just wave the pretty shiny things and the paper money and I'll take those incriminating pictures off my blog."

Ha ha, pretty funny, right? But then, just a couple of days later, this photo shows up in my email with a demand for HUSH MONEY! "Where's my check?" Leeanna wrote menacingly. I was so rattled, I didn't even correct her appalling American misspelling of the word cheque. And then, clearly upping the pressure, she repeated her evil demand in the comments on my last post!

OMG, she's accusing me of seducing STRAIGHT WOMEN! Unless I pay her BIGGA BIGGA BUCKS, she's going to put my REAL name on that photo instead of the pseudonym "Gloria" (*nervous laughter*)

I have, of course, retained legal counsel to fight this. THE BEST LAWYER MONEY CAN BUY! My attorney Bill Clinton has issued this official statement on my behalf:

"Debra She Who Seeks categorically states that

she did not have sexual relations with that woman!"

He'll settle your goddamn hash, Leeanna! You picked the WRONG LESBO to blackmail, you bloodsucker!

From the Pen of Inky and Scratchy

Today's post is kind of a sequel to my Monday post about the introductory calligraphy course I took in February. Dezzy of Hollywood Spy -- ever the hard-nosed journalist -- demanded "Where's the photographic evidence?" Stacy of MagicLoveCrow and Debi of Puddleduck Grange aided and abetted him in making these demands.

So okay, okay! Here are my three best practice sheets (all from the final class) -- blots, splatters, erratic letter sizes, wonky spacing and all!

Skritch, skritch, skritch!

[All photos by Debra She Who Seeks]

Happy International Women's Day!

On this day every year, my blog post always focuses on how WONDERFUL women are, rather than focusing on the many, many struggles in which we must all still engage to obtain, guarantee and preserve equality rights. Those struggles are what the OTHER 364 days of the year are for. Today is for CELEBRATION! *cue Cher*

The Carnage of Art

So in February, I took an introductory evening course in calligraphy. The short course just covered the basics, like understanding the characteristics of different nibs, learning how to dip the pen in liquid ink, acquiring the central skill of making thick and thin lines and practising some basic alphabets.

Dipping the pen proved to be a challenge for me. After the first class, I was ink from ass to tea kettle, as the old saying (sort of) goes. It took days for the black ink to finally wash off my hands. Good thing it wasn't red ink or I'd have looked like a serial killer.

In the second class, for reasons unknown to me, my efforts at calligraphic writing produced a loud skritch, skritch, skritch noise that was literally heard throughout the whole classroom. Perhaps I was pressing too hard, I don't know.

One of my coworkers signed up for this class too, which was great because she's fun to be around. She took to calling me "Inky and Scratchy," which I actually thought was quite clever. I certainly butchered enough calligraphy paper to warrant comparison to that violent duo, LOL!