Corner turned. Olive is not in agonizing pain constantly.

 Her kidney infection ordeal is waning. Finally starting to be herself and far more chatty: Just told be the entire plot of the movie Venom. She woke me up this morn in that spectacular way people wake each other when they are grateful for being cared for (with coffee on, a back massage, flurry of careful kisses). Still not right as rain, her abdomen is sore. 
The pain that comes with this infection is intense and leaves echoes. 
Also being on drugs isn't our thing so she took Tylenols and ibuprofens as sparingly as possible. It's interesting that the pain became like a roommate that we have to live with and who has a schedule that we had to abide by. 
Olive: "I should go take a hot bath because my pain will be back on strong in 30 min." I loved her strategies of dressing in mini skirts and half shirts the whole time she was in the worst way. She would be croaking in pain, "You like this right?" Of course I do, but I had to say, "It's.. it's not about me, hon. I don't care what you wear." 
But to her credit I was never more than a shout away from her the whole week. Well played life-mate. I would sleep on the floor so she had as much bed-space as possible. When I thought she was going to wake up I would get up and help her downstairs to the bathroom when I could. 
I couldn't have slept on the bed anyway, because the sounds of torment aren't exactly conducive to sound sleeping . I'm so glad to be on the other side of this. 
Thanks for all the well wishes and support from our friends and family we should be rocking and rolling within' a few days. 

sick olive

Slow walking into the clinic. It's been a really tough few days at our house. Olive got a UTI that moved to her kidneys. She has been in agonizing pain for days. Most miserable time we have had in a long time. We have never had health insurance and our default has always been Planned Parenthood. 

This weekend they were closed. We had to sign up for insurance. Glad she did. Each step into the clinic is painful and miserable but this gal has her some insurance. Some real live OHP Obamacare. But they needed paperwork first. 
They asked if our business was over due to current events. Olive said "Not really we are just as powerful as ever" How much do you make O&D? (checks stack of 235 receipts)"$12,000" And how much does it cost to be O&D? (checks again) "$12,000" Haha They said yeah yer biz is over, you easily qualify. They also informed us that we are unemployed. 
That was a shock. Last I checked we go to bed tired every night...we must be doing sumpin! 
lol Clowns don't need a lot of money to be rich, I understand why it gets so many funny looks from pencil pushers. It's hard for them to quantify clown pay since we work for culture, gold, information, leverage, nettles, funny looks, bits of string. None of that looks good on paper so we never tried. 
But these are rough times so we had to get it together. 
She went to the clinic, got tested got a script, then across the street fer some meds. The end of her nightmare is in sight. The medicine was paid for by the good people of the Oregon. Thanks Oregon!
We were stressed for days because we didn't know what to do. Can't afford the emergency room and even more there was that question: How do you know when it's time to go to the ER? We still don't know. 
We almost went last night but she refused. She just toughed it out. We thought it was adorable that the Ibuprofen Olive was taking was from Texas so it said HEB on it. It was like a hug from my Mom every time I picked the bottle up. LOL 
Right now Olive is making my favorite music "Sound Sleeping" she hasn't slept much. 
She is still sick but now she can finally relax. The stress and mystery of what to do are over. 
Thanks for all the well wishes folks.(on our olive and dingo productions page) She was reading them to distract herself earlier and was very moved by your words and suggestions. 
Our bird still can't sing or laugh but she is getting better now that she got some strong medicine. 
Thanks Loves.

Civid Blues Groove By Dingo Dizmal and the respirators

ticket to ride

I got taken for a ride last night. A man came to our door with a story.
AAA is popping the lock, won't take a his card, wife screaming at him...he was from Canada. He needs $40 and he will bring it right back.
He even offered to leave a kid as collateral.
Sounded like a huge load of bullpucky in many ways. I let him know by savoring his details "Ooh you have a story! Tow truck that won't take a card huh? Canada I love Canadians" I was having fun because I didn't know myself what I was gonna do. This guy sucks at scams. Even so, my body steered me to our little cash stash. I pulled the money out.
Not much left, we don't have much money. Luckily we also don't spend much.
I gave it to him and he vanished into the night.
Under normal circumstances he would have just made a deal with the devil. He would have become the paid actor in my new documentary, lets follow this dude and make sure whatever he is pulling blows up gloriously (then write about it on the net).
Many options in a clownarchist toolbag.
But I couldn't. I was even wondering to myself what I was doing.
I thought "You are literally a Carny, why are you going for the ride? You could get in this man's head in two seconds and have him doing all kinds of goofy stuff for $40"
From the other side of the wall, Olive was monitoring everything She was thinking the same thing. We held hands and talked about it. She would have given him the dough too. We had the same reasons.
He looks like he should be managing an upper scale tire shop.
Behind his sad, plastered smile he was freaking out. He was having a different night than I was. I had just fed my wife and son, rent is paid. so is child support. We both thought, if this dude had to come to the door with a clumsy crackhead ruse, he must have needed it. Maybe it's his first day as a scam artist. Maybe his real sad story is too embarrassing for him to tell us. We are lucky that people take care of us. We have a sea of guardian angels and we owe it to them to be worth supporting. Not everyone has that luxury. I'm hoping that guy finds peace and safety.
I'm gonna call the encounter an expensive one act play I took my wife to. Credit where do, he had props like the AAA book, money, keys and pacifier.
That isn't nothing.

songs game

wear: Pink Cigarette- Mr. Bungle
drink: Brass Monkey- Beastie Boys
place: Xanadu -Rush
food: Bob's Burgers theme
animal: Amoeba -The Adolecents
number: 99 luft balloons- Nena
color: Raspberry beret -Prince
girl: Sarah- Ween
boy: Charley Browm- The Coasters
profession: The highwaymen -Willy and Walon and the boyz
home: Our House- Madness
flower: Blue Orchid -The White Stripes
day: Ruby Tuesday- Rolling Stones

Listening to the Portland Fire on the scanner..

 It's intense. I wanted to know what a nearby Fire truck was excited about. Dusted Old Betsy off, tuned in and found out theres black smoke pouring out of someone's front door. EEesh. That's rough. 
That means it's around 2am and a house is on fire. Someone's life is changing tonight. I feel for them. I can relate.
 I have scars on me from house fires. Twice in my life I was woken to the house I was in being on fire. I also ran into a burning house once and that was fairly terrifying. These pros tonight are a delight to listen to. 
The picture of bravery. The fire is in the basement... and they are going in. What? I was like
 "I just do attics man," I ain't going into a frikkin basement that's on frikkin fire." 
These Cats do Godblessum. 
The homeowner told them it was chemicals burning. Chemicals!
 I'm hearing them darth vader breathing the play by play to each other as some of them knock down the fire while others search the pad for anyone...even the cat. 
Sounds like a no injury thing. Hope so. 
Wow, Big thanks to the Fire crews. They will not hesitate to go into harm's way. It was a pleasure to hear them soundly spank that situation. What would be worse, a housefire from: A."some chemicals",
 B. laptop cord, 
C. lightning or D. something Ironic like a giant Salt Water aquarium? 
Now the fire crew are off to the Albina train yard where a locomotive is on fire and dripping battery acid.
 Can't put it out with water because of the acid. 
Maybe they will blow it out. 
It's not threatening anything else but if you live around there (and listen to clowns in the wee hours) ya may wanna shut yer window.

Interesting morning. The power went out just before our livestream and came back on as soon as it ended.

Interesting morning. The power went out just before our livestream and came back on as soon as it ended. My son's school got interrupted and that wasn't so cool. 
Luckily we had enough data and battery to awkwardly string together a low-fi act. 
At least the power came on just in time for Olive's hot yoga class. It's not actually hot yoga, Olive is just really hot doing yoga. 
It was funny doing our show and watching the power company outside on the pole. I was wondering if it would come on in time. 
Also some guys are building a fence outside. I spoke to them in a Spanish, New England accent "K Passser?" We been doing an acting thing this week and my character is from Massachusetts so I have that accent on speed dial. 
I don't know if it worked. 
The workmen may not know Spanish or Spanglish or whatever I was doing. 
Once I spoke Spanish to a crowd for an hour before finding out they were all from Turkey. That was great. Had they actually known Spanish they would have quickly drawn the conclusion that I don't actually know Spanish. 
Party on fellow apes!

Try explaining that to Tom Sawyer.

Homeschooling our 15 yo I'm seeing an update to the old "Dog ate my homework" line.
It's come a long way. When asking for an assignment just now he said "I accidentally deleted my homework when my phone got too full" 

BOOYA! That's how ya do it.

I found the following on them there innetnetz. Albert Abraham Michelson dedicated his life to measuring the speed of light and was the first American to win a Nobel Prize for physics. Even as he was dying at age 78, he was measuring light. He wrote in his log: “The following is a report on the measurement of the velocity of light made at the Irvine Ranch, near Santa Ana, California, during the period of September 1929 to—.” 
Rock till ya drop, that's how I wanna do it. My only reason for wanting to gain world fame is so my last words can be a string of unpronounceable consonants. I want my gravestone to be half a block long.

Missing the simple things.

 Like sneaking into Goodwill just to use their laptop and eat a tepid half-microwaved burrito imported from exotic Bakersfield CA.

I love that you can see the cook on that burrito. Middle=piping hot, Ends=thawed

"Translucent bags of beef and beans."

Meal idea: Springroll burritos. I made this for my son's lunch/enrichment. Trying to keep him on his toes. I walked by him later as he was eating. He was telling his friend "Translucent bags of beef and beans." It was he that asked for "invisible tacos" when he was little and didn't know what a Spring Roll was. 

Craziness in Philly.

Lots of damaged douchebags roaming around.
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/05/gun-waving-suv-driver-crashes-parade-celebrating-nurses.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=theoregonian_sf&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR02zMvmCIxMlyEktmR-xZf6u-s1-c2sxXB69vvTHi7UPLNNm6F8ZZy7xUA
This kind of reminds me of something that happened here in Puddletown last week.
I was listening to the cop radio late one evening. The cops were buzzing around looking for an angry guy who was shooting a pistol off over the roofs of cars waiting at an intersection.
As they chased the street numbers were inching closer and closer to our house. I was thinking "any moment this nut will be running through my yard.
I had just lit a joint, I wasn't moving without a fight.
Then everything changed.
One of the police was telling his comrade where the guy was. "He's beyond the yellow brick road" and then it hit me.
Maybe the crazy guy with the hand canon is just a simple farm boy stuck in the big city wanting to furrow his field back home.
Or maybe the cop was a massive Elton John fan?
Maybe police radio banter is full of a lot of metaphors.
By the time I crawled out of that "true crime/classic rock" rabbit hole, my joint was gone and I went inside...like ya do.

Maybe people believe Trump because they also believe in talking snakes?

Why would anyone want to follow the words of people who thought the moon was bigger than the stars? Oh yeah, it comes with a superiority over "infidels" and provides easy (wrong) answers to things that terrify people. Funny that these are the same folks who are afraid of Sharia law. It's virtually the same thing.
I like some of the biblical laws but the fact that 
"Thou shall not enslave others" didn't make the cut kind of tosses that book's cred right into the dumper.

mask makers

Buncha backs and fronts. 

I'm cutting stuff out a lot. That pizza cutter fabric slicer is no joke. lol Titanium blade and scary sharp Yo. I don't mind being a little afraid of some tools. 

I also discovered that I love ironing. So satisfying. 
Ironing is as satisfying as when your kid is a toddler coming out of the bathtub and you wrap a towel around them. luv it.

My son's "not even close to final" guitar exam.

He demonstrated better adeptness for the engineering of the guitar than for his chording and music skill. Now he gets to string and tune every working guitar I have plus his own. 
The Gutstring ("Trigger" my daily ax), His gutstring, The Double neck ("The Stump" 12 and 6 strings) A Baritone Ukulele and a tenor Ukulele. 
The saxophone was invented by the son of a musician. I forget his name...oh yeah his name was Sax. 
Adolphe Sax. 
He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. 
Not bad for a dude who just passably played clarinet. 
I hope my boy invents something musical.