Oh my! What a lovely yard you have...

The lawn flamingos are thriving in my front yard. Right now there are four pink plastic beauties out there and I'm going to slowly add to the flock until I run out of room or my neighbors become so disgusted with the tackiness of it all that they birdnap them. So I've been hunting around the internet for the original Don Featherstones. The ONLY flamingos in my yard are Featherstones. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just look up "Don Featherstone Flamingo" and you can read all about them. I do realize how insane it sounds to be a flamingo elitist, but really.. who wants inferior plastic birds? If you're aiming for suburban splendor, you have to go with the original.

So anyway, I found a bunch of great links:

www.uptownflamingo.com
This site has a ton of great flamingo themed products. The odd thing, though, is that they don't sell the Don Featherstone Flamingos. They only carry cheap-o knock-offs. I'll overlook this fact because the other flamingo stuff that they carry is so great. This site is really worth a look if you're looking for things like flamingo tablecloths or nightlights.

www.thepinkflamingo.com
they carry a less varied inventory of flamingo related knick-knacks than uptownflamingo.com, BUT they carry Don Featherstone flamingos and also Don Featherstone Snowmingos! A Snowmingo is a white lawn flamingo, which is perfect for yards in the winter months. They are made from the same plastic mold as their pink cousins, so they have the Featherstone butt signature just like the pinky originals. I'm going to swap out the pinks in my yard for snowmingos on the first snowfall this year and then swap 'em back in the spring. The photo below is a good comparison between the two plastic species...


www.flaminomania.com
assorted flamingo themed goodies for purchase, and they carry Don Featherstones in the classic pink and snowmingo varieties.

www.getflocked.com
the flamingos on this site are a bit expensive... it's much easier to find them cheaper elsewhere. It's worth a mention though, because they sell spare flamingo legs which can come in quite handy, if you accidently bend or lose one.

www.mileskimball.com
this site is a treasure chest full of suburban tackiness. In addition to lawn flamingos, this site sells kitchen decor, barbeque trinkets, tablecloths and things like toilet paper cozies. I love this site. Below is a small sample of the great crap you can find at mileskimball.com...

How plastically cute!

And what about these....

...fantastic!

Hmmm...now, I'm more of a flamingo gal than a fan of lawn geese, but I think I may make an exception and find a place in my yard for these...

These geese combine two of my favorite things... midcentury rock 'n roll and tacky plastic lawn ornaments.

If I could only find tiny bowling shirts for my lawn flamingos, my life would be complete.

I am a sissy.

When I first graduated from college I moved into a very tiny apartment in Boston.

The apartment was directly above the boiler room for the entire apartment building. This caused the shoebox I was renting to remain VERY warm year round. The apartment was so warm that there wasn't a radiator in the unit.The heat from the boiler below was enough, even in January. In fact, I had to run the air conditioner 24 hours a day, for the entire time I lived there. This jacked up my electric bill substaintially. The landlord agreed to pay a portion of the electric bill each month after I made him sit in the apartment for 10 minutes without the air conditioner running. It was that warm.

The warmth of the apartment made it the perfect playground for mice. Apparently they LOVE really warm small apartments. The apartment became overrun with these rodents. It was horrifying. Normally mice will scurry away from people and generally only come out during the night. These mice were lounging around, with no regard for my presence. I would see them running around on my countertops and sitting around on the stovetop. Gross. It was so bad that I moved before my lease ran out. Since then I have been really terrified of mice. I hate them. I've trained Dolemite to be a stealth assasin, in case one of those little bastards gets into my house.

So.... last week my friend Myk, his girlfriend Allison and I took a small car trip. Halfway there Myk said: "Beck, a mouse!" and threw something at me which stuck to my arm. I began screaming and flailing my arms around, trying to get the thing off my arm. Tears were streaming down my face as I jumped around in the passenger seat, yelping and flailing.

It turned out to be one of those little sticky toys you can get for a quarter in machines outside of grocery stores.

There is no denying the genius of this...

I'm almost positive that I will marry anyone who will make this for me on a weekly basis:

A Meatloaf Cake!

I'm assuming you had a knee-jerk reaction that was something along the lines of "eeeew" or "that's disgusting."
But think about it.. it's simply a meatloaf in a different form than what you are used to. This is a classier meatloaf. A formal meatloaf. The sort of meatloaf that you could take along to a housewarming party *ahem... cough, cough*


Several things about this are fantastic....

The "frosting" is mashed potatoes, which goes well with a meatloaf. Also, you could tint the mashed potatoes with food coloring for a more colorful, festive cake.

It seems sort of easy to make. Even if the construction comes out lopsided or wonky, it's still going to taste good.

Food is funny when it's disguised as other food.

Meatloaf is delicious.


To read more about it, visit here: http://www.blackwidowbakery.com/demo/meatcake/
(this is also where the image I used came from)

hmm, and I understand that Martha Stewart made a meatloaf cake prior to this one, but who cares? This one has more charm, and a better story behind it.

This thing is a work of genius.

Mister Magoo

My neighbors kitty-corner to my house have a Parrot. It sits on a perch in their screened in porch. I've been looking at this bird for weeks and commenting on how well behaved it is. All day the bird sits quietly on it's perch, never squaking or trying to fly out of the porch. I've been pointing this out to friends when they visit.

Last night I got a better look at it and realized... the parrot is fake. It's one of those fake stuffed birds that you see at tropical themed restaurants and bars in tourist locations.

Perhaps I should wear my glasses more often.

Finally.

Whew!

I've finally moved into the house. I'm currently unpacking. I'm amazing at how I crammed all this stuff into my tiny apartment now that I see it spread out throughout an entire house.

And, more importantly, Dolemite moved in too. He was freaked out at first and hid under a bed for 5 or 6 hours, then slowly emerged and crept around the edges of every room in the house. He's fine now and is back to his old, destructive self... He already managed to knock a chair into a door, thus cracking the wooden slates of said door. That cat is so lucky he's adorable.

To make it official, this weekend the pink lawn flamingos will be unpacked and will take up residence on the front lawn.