Schlocked

There were eleven people in my house on Friday. (They were: myself, adfamiliares, her colleague Dan, kdsorceress, her twin-friends Lauren and Emily, tirerim, herbertinc, Michael and Lisa, and SCD-Alex.) They were there for the return of Schlock Therapy, and even though I don't have a lot of hostessing experience it went quite well. There was a cooler of drinks and everything, just like a real party!

I spent the three days leading up to the party cleaning, and, since the first movie was Lady Terminator from Indonesia, I supplied Indonesian snax. The guests were vocally enthusiastic about my sticky rice with mango (made with coconut milk, mint, and the pure decadence that is palm sugar), and at least nibbled on the shrimp chips, grass jelly drink, and flour peanuts. They howled and goggled and cheered at Lady Terminator's magical vagina eels and eye lasers, and seemed to sort of unironically get into Rock 'n' Roll Hotel¹ — at least three people want the soundtrack, having somehow seen past the talking raccoon and the rat-nosed man in the wheelchair and the fake-3-D xylophone mallets. People looked happy and satisfied and slightly dazed when they left, so I am dubbing it a success.

Watch this space for updates on the next installment!

¹ Which I have now submitted to the IMDb, incidentally.

Cell Phone Gamera

There's a loop of off-road bike path along the south side of the Charles, splitting from the main bike path just west of the Henderson Boathouse and the community garden. I haven't taken it in a while — ever since they put in wood chips, which are no fun to ride on — but today the weather was so nice I decided I wanted a little slice of nature in my ride home.

I'm glad I did — what did I see beside the path but a great snapping turtle, one-eyed and dinosaur-tailed! His shell was enormous (about 14"x11"), with cracks and ragged tears along the rear curve, as though he were a banged-about museum specimen who'd returned to life. He was lumped and spined and leathery, primordial in a literal sense — snappers haven't changed much in millions of years. While I knelt in the wood chips and took pictures with my cell phone, he watched me sharply with his one glassy eye, drawing his head back into his neck whenever I moved, stretching his barbeled chin skyward when I'd held still for a while. A jogger stopped to admire him with me, and we chatted for a while. I gathered up the nerve to stroke his jagged tail (which he wrapped around his legs, all offended-like), then rode the rest of the way home in a cloud of glee. Turtle!

( [Edit: I've put a couple of cell-phone photos behind a cut.] )