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Everything here is true. Some things are truer than others. Some things should be true but are not. All things are based on truth. How truthful I am! O, Truth!, et cetera
From the desk of Esther Wilberforce-Packard, typing from Minneapolis, MN
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- Current Posts
Monday, February 28, 2005
Grrrr
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 7:23 PM | 2 comments
These are the Knobs that Try Men's Souls
Unsightly knobs? Do not do as I did, friends! No! Rather, let my tale of woe be your balm on a cloudy day.
"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What knobs we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every knob its value." -Thomas Paine
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 12:07 AM | 2 comments
Friday, February 25, 2005
Do They Shun Me Because I Find Opals Distasteful?
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 12:45 PM | 3 comments
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Look at Me
Joke #1. Why girls not play guitar? Calluses
Joke #2. Why Spaniards play guitar? Don't know
Joke #3. Why joke not funny? They are funny, you are stupid
Joke #4. Why dog sleep on couch? To rest for the party
Joke #5. Why president? Don't argue with me
Joke #6. Why dog sit on towel? It is true, he did
Joke #7. Why man ignore me? Gay or just busy
Joke #8. Why cranberries on turkey dinner? To get to the other side
Joke #9. Why frika fraka brika braka? Secret sauce
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 1:37 PM | 2 comments
Is this Blog Sleeping, or Just Resting its Eyes?
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 9:47 AM | 4 comments
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
My Poignant Deathbed Scene
UPDATE: I had to get out of bed to pee, so I thought I'd update. Tedious, wasting away. I also drank another glass of water because I had some salty beef jerky just now. But that is IT. You won't hear from me again. Watch for my obit in the Star Tribune.
UPDATE: Went to the kitchen for another piece of beef jerky. Tasty. I also put a glass of water beside my bed. But after that, NO MORE getting out of bed. I intend to die miserably. I will teach the universe to deny ME what I want. Stupid universe.
UPDATE: If I knew wasting away was this boring, I would have just gone in to the office. I'm going to have a piece of banana bread and file my nails.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 12:31 PM | 7 comments
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
My "To Do" List
- Weigh lipstick tubes and organize by ounces viable; be sure to tare the caps
- Construct complete Days of Our Lives family trees from memory – include thumbnail sketches
- FINALLY pull out the fridge and retrieve the summer sausage that rolled under there last May
- Proofread complaint letter to Clabber Girl Double Acting Baking Powder Corp.– why can’t Clabber Girl be more like Calumet? Calumet’s always giving me 110% - but Clabber Girl disappoints time after time, the chubby slattern.
- Assemble the window herb garden that Nancy dropped off before she fell into the pothole last month
- Phone the city about the pothole out front. Notify morgue (?) about Nancy in the pothole.
- Do something about the onion smell in the guest room
- LITTER BOXES
- ASH TRAYS
- Pick hairs off all the soaps – Darla’s bringing the family this time
- Rotate couch cushions - my spot’s getting flat
- Put the scoliosis brace back in the closet – scares Darla’s kids
- Find the cockatiel (attic?) and glue cage back together. Don’t glue the cage door shut this time - you’ll just have to break it again
- Replace tarp over picture window (tear in left hand corner)
- Paint nails
- Mail Mensa dues and gas bill
- Replace the brownish doilies with fresh ones
- Full-spectrum light bulbs? Check dollar store first
- Ask Annette to move her urine jar
- Why are we keeping the broken recliner? Every time I sit in it I throw out my back. Ask Todd to haul it over to the neighbor’s yard with the others. While he’s at it – if it’s warm outside - he can hose the mice out of the old Volvo and fill up the tires.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 4:46 PM | 2 comments
Monday, February 21, 2005
There Isn't Anything About Nothing that I Don't Understand
If you didn't get the bit about the van dyke beard and the RV with a full tank of gas, that's because it's an inside joke. Between me and some ... guy. What?
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 7:53 PM | 4 comments
Failure to Gossip Properly Will Keep You Up at Night
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 1:28 PM | 2 comments
Friday, February 18, 2005
Time of Day: A.M. Fast, or P.M. Slow?
After I place the flag stickers on their designate places, I read instructions to the map for placing flags sticker correctly. I did it wrong.
Instructions:
1. Can be adhered and assembled freely to allow full exercise of your creativity.
2. Enjoy together with the kids to play with the stickers and tell the tales.
3. Create a warm family for the stickers.
I did not enjoy together with the kids and tell the tales, I did not ever once create a warm family for the stickers. Also, my map has an ocean called Southern Ocean.
Update: I will put a flag map away for now for snack nachos.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 10:23 PM | 3 comments
Good Luck to Them
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 1:47 PM
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Fae Wellington's The Flattened Bread Revolution
This may surprise you, but I have never flattened two slices of bread to make a sandwich. For a hilarious sandwich, flatten two slices of bread and put a puffy regular slice between the flat slices. You will roar with laughter! A flattened bread sandwich! That is indeed the living end. I chuckle to think of such an outrageous sandwich.
I do think that flattened French toast would cause your guests to positively vomit with merriment.
To flatten a few slices of bread and toast them will result in small pizza crusts that are out of this world, though they will not elicit the bellowing jocularity that the flattened French toast can (and will) elicit.
When camping, consider flattening your bread the night before you leave. This will help preserve space in your knapsack, and will increase the deliciousness of the bread. Common sense dictates that flattening will also increase the waterproof nature of your bread. Flatten it one slice at a time, because if you flatten it all in one go, you will have a devil of a time peeling the slices apart. Nobody wants to wrestle a flattened loaf of bread while squatting before a campfire or while balancing in a charming birchbark canoe.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 12:16 PM | 3 comments
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Lawrence Summers, We Hardly Knew Ye
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 9:56 PM | 1 comments
EWP: On Painkillers
On Morality
What is morality? If we knew, we could lock the warden in a linen closet and go home now. I maintain that morality is really a waste of time, especially when you consider how much time I spend waiting for my dinner to thaw. Time is the problem when it comes to morality. Who has time do the ironing or shovel the walk? One out of every three women do, but they have little time left over for folding their napkins into swans. I'd rather wipe my mouth with my un-ironed sleeve than with an un-swanned napkin. In some areas, people refer to napkins as "serviettes." Does this absolve them from guilt? No! They are still bad people!
On Faith
Some people have faith; others fake it. Some people have faith in God, some people have faith in their country. Some people keep faith tucked between their cheek and gum, though this leads to tooth loss and gum disease. Some have stolen their faith from their employers - and who can blame them? Those fat cats have all the faith they want just handed to them, and we wage slaves have to BUY ours! Once I bought a can of whipped cream and the dispenser was BROKEN. I had to eat my sundae without whipped cream. I could have opened the can with a stab of the knife, but did I dare? No way, Jose. This, too, is faith.
On Luck
Luck is not real. It is completely unreal. Lucky people are just unlucky people with nice haircuts. How do they maintain these haircuts? They don't! Sooner or later, their hairdressers move to a bigger city. That's luck for you. Same goes for manicures, only more so. Luck is not about winning the lottery. It is about hurling your cup of coffee at the car that nearly ran you over, and not having the driver emerge from his car with a shoulder-held surface-to-air rocket-propelled missile launcher. That's luck.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 12:22 AM | 1 comments
Friday, February 11, 2005
Who Is John Galt?
And what of this Churchill fellow, running his mouth? Phoney witches were drowned for less.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 10:46 PM | 2 comments
Thursday, February 10, 2005
What Do They Mean, "Old Hickory?" What the Devil is "Old Hickory?!"
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 10:41 AM | 4 comments
But You'd Be Wrong
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 1:21 AM | 2 comments
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
My Sponge in Every Sink Speech
Thank you for inviting me here today, ladies and gentlemen of the FDWDS - and thank you, Professor Iain J. Jackson, for allowing me to stay in your gorgeous lakeside home. I won't actually be staying there, but my friend Steve will, for he has no home to speak of. He was abandoned at an early age. Then he was reacquired for tax purposes. Onward, however.
Harken unto me, Former Drunks. I have something to say, and I think you'll like it. What is it, you say? It's not that easy. It's never that easy. Lao Tzu said "All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy," but that is of no use to us today. We live in the atomic age, and that means no shirt, no shoes, no soft-shell taco. Except in Arizona.
We need peace and prosperity! We need a sponge in every sink, a ham in every garage, a plastic hand-held weapon that bakes and fires tiny bran muffins! We need lemon-scented Pledge for our wooded surfaces, and something else for the formica! We need a man for all seasons! I would suggest Conway Twitty, but I've heard that he is dead. Just as well. God bless his soul. But what does this have to do with me, you ask. Keep asking! It is one of the eternal questions. "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" is another one. "Where are the salad tongs?" is another. Ask them all. Ask them all!
When I last spoke with Mr. Twitty, he told me a little story about a man with a problem. Yes - a deeply problematic man. Is he you? Probably. He was every man, but with a dirtier shirt. He ate at every Chinese buffet in Grand Forks, and he had the paperwork to prove it. But he was hurting inside. What he needed his folding basket full of-
Sorry, folks. That was the end of my speech. I was cut short by the massive brawl. My words of inspiration whipped those Former Drunks With Dreams into a sublime fury, a riot of epic proportions! I was smuggled out the back door in a violin case; my assistant, Porkpie Lewis, drove me to the airport in an unmarked Camry. I was fortunate to have escaped with my life. Exhilarating.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 1:38 AM | 2 comments
Monday, February 07, 2005
Antiques Roadshow: Deceivers! Liars! Scoundrels!
Monocle: "Where did you get this? I only ask because it is not a monocle at all. It appears to be a plastic button from a pea coat. Do note its blue, opaque nature, and it's embossed anchor. Not a monocle, and not an antique."
1902 Crossley Bros. Monocle: $.02 - $.04
Set of 4 Louis XV dining chairs: "Hmm. Not Louis XV. Not even chairs. Reginald, will you call security? Not sure what this woman is doing here. Miss, what you have here are four Kemps Vanilla Ice Cream Buckets. Security? Yes. Yes. Oh dear. I need a ciggie."
Set of 4 Louis XV dining chairs: $.01 - $.02
Set of Poole Stoneware Quails: "These stoneware quails appear to be actual frozen - yet thawing - sparrows. These would not make it to auction, as dead sparrows are not antiques, but carriers of disease. Excuse me."
Set of Poole Stoneware Quails: no value given
Beaded Turkish Nut Cracker, circa 1880: "This is a soiled athletic sock full of gravel."
Beaded Turkish Nut Cracker: no value given
Ann-Margret, "On The Way Up," 1962, signed jacket: "While this is indeed an Ann-Margret LP jacket, the signature is illegible and may, in fact, be a chocolate stain. The LP inside is not 'On The Way Up,' but Lisa Stansfield's 'Affection.' Wickedly scratched - probably not playable."
Ann-Margret LP: $.00 - $.25
Buffoons! Never have I been so outraged. This is NOT over.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 10:04 PM | 5 comments
I'll Tell YOU What Time It Is
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 7:35 PM | 2 comments
Saturday, February 05, 2005
I'd Rather Collapse on Live Television than be Thought a Libra
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 5:19 PM | 8 comments
Friday, February 04, 2005
I Don't Know Where Dr. Phil Finds these Unforgivable Frankentwats
On a lighter note, Saint Paul's Winter Carnival ice sculptures are melting - proof that God really does answer prayers.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 11:21 PM | 2 comments
More of the Same
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 3:07 AM | 9 comments
Let Us Immediately Set Flame to the Works of Robert Burns
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 3:04 AM | 2 comments
Thursday, February 03, 2005
No Soul-Shocking Trap-Snapping
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 12:30 PM | 1 comments
Hardly Worth the Effort
In case you were wondering, I'll be lunching on beans on toast presently.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 10:27 AM | 1 comments
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Calling All Sane Men of Action
If I were you, I'd wait until they've crossed into Mexico before hatcheting them. They have no laws in Mexico.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 1:05 PM | 6 comments
Good Earth Tea is a Pox on Humanity
I was lucky to escape with my life.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 10:23 AM | 2 comments
You Wiwl Be Wichwy Wewarded in Hebben
It is quite likely that you have no idea what I'm hinting at. Good. Let us agree to part company with this ambiguity swarming between us. It will make our relationship stronger.
If, however, you can guess what I'm waiting for, I shall fiddle with my blogroll and place you atop the tawdry laundry-list of screeching tomfools. You will also be richly rewarded in heaven, and all that.
Note: If I read a precious post like this in anyone else's blog, I'd hit the "back" key faster than you can say Jack Robi-
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 9:56 AM | 8 comments
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
He Empties the Sack of Ears in a Fit of Needless Drama
I think it was a prose poem. Uncivilized, prose poems. I hate them so.
UPDATE: It was Carolyn Forche. Thank you, all zero of you who volunteered this vital information. Your replies fell like pecan pies from the pie-gravid clouds.
The internets tell me that Nick Lachey is 5'10". How can this be? Jessica Simpson is only 5'3"; he should tower over her, yet tower he doesn't. Perhaps I'm not taking her heels into account. Perhaps he wears heels also, like Prince or Louis XIV. Well, I'm 5'10" too; if I ever meet this madman Lachey, I shall insist that we both remove our shoes and stare each other directly in the eye. If he refuses to remove his shoes, I will know that he is an impostor. "I can't remove my heels - I'm wearing my holey socks, and we're standing on a patch of pigeon poo," he might whine. Impostor!
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 9:18 PM | 0 comments
What a Friend You Have in EWP
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 1:56 PM | 9 comments
Ever So Sorry
I knew it would end badly.
© 2004 - 2009 by Esther Wilberforce-Packard | 8:20 AM | 1 comments