A California Yankee in King Cake's Court

I went to Walmart and got some cute sleepwear. I don't really like to shop at Walmart, but I also don't like to spend a lot of money or time on things like sleepwear (which I will wear until it turns into holey cheesecloth), underwear, or leggings. I know I can go into Walmart and find something in my size that I don't hate and that I can afford.

Aromatic Infusions's half-off essential oil this week was Siberian fir, so I got a bottle and a wild orchid soap. I already have fir, but it's less than half full, and I use it a lot in autumn and winter. Nothing more cozy than drinking a hot chocolate and reading while a blend of fir, orange, cinnamon and wintergreen diffuses.

I've recently bought more delta 8 gummies and another delta 11 vape, but I got a pretty good coupon code for THCP gummies from Binoid. They were already on sale for half off, then I got another 33% off that. Buying a lot of alternative cannabinoid products feels to me something like the older white lady version of the deranged drug-collecting spree that Thompson and his attorney go on in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I'll talk about it more in a pop culture round-up, but I'm halfway through the 2nd season of The Bear and GOD IT'S SO GOOD.

I bought some delta 11 gummies from Binoid; I really like the vape. I still have about a dozen gummies (some delta 8 and some a blend of different cannabinoids), but decided I should get some before the end of June. Several weeks ago I got this weird, panicked email from Troposphere Vapes, whose mailing list I wound up on because I bought some nicotine vape juice there years ago. I don't vape nicotine anymore but never bothered to unsubscribe because they don't send too many emails. Anyway, it was something about the state lege deciding to make delta 8 illegal and it goes into effect by the end of June.

Now, that does sound like the puritanical assholes running our state, and I've been assuming that would happen when Jeff Landry inevitably becomes our next governor later this year (Louisiana has weird, odd-year elections for governor). But I haven't heard this from any other sources, including the 2 other local dispensaries whose mailing lists I'm on. And Troposphere kind of has a history of sending these histrionic emails; I remember getting a few during the vaping moral panic a few years back.

So who knows, but I decided to get some gummies just to hedge my bets. I'm not too worried either way, because I have tons of friends in blue states, including my sister (California) and brother (Illinois) who would be more than happy to receive my orders and re-send them my way. I'm probably going to do that later this year anyway, because I want to try the amanita chocolate (they take out the part that makes people, you know, violently ill), and selling amanita as an edible product isn't legal here. (But selling alcohol in drive-throughs is fine!) I can't do that until it's cooler, though.

I had a haircut this afternoon so I was in downtown Lafayette and as usual I had time to kill. There was some kind of pride event happening, and I could hear someone yelling as I walked closer. It was some jerk yelling shit from the Bible, which sucks, but it was also just one person, which is kind of encouraging. People were mostly ignoring him, but as I rounded the corner I heard "--according to Ecclesiastes--" and I couldn't help yelling LITERALLY NO ONE CARES. Now, I am the youngest member of a family that, at its height, was 7 people. Yelling was frequently the only way I could get attention. So I can yell pretty loud.

I got a few whoops and a TELL IT BABY GIRL in reply. Jesus, what an exhausting way to live. And it's like 96 degrees today. Dude's gonna give himself heatstroke. For what? Ain't like anybody at a pride event is gonna hear some lone nut yelling gibberish and decide to live a lie. People like that don't actually care if people they think of as sinners quit sinning, they just want to try and ruin their fun.


This is the forest primeval is the opening line to Longfellow's Evangeline. It's one of those phrases I frequently get stuck running through my head.

I did this on the summer solstice.


From Auguries of Innocence by William Blake

Saturday I slept until 9:30 thanks to *waves hands at previous entry*. I made English muffins for the 'rents and myself, then did some painting before showering. I went to Michael's and Rouse's, came home and made myself a couple of greyhounds (Texas ruby red grapefruits were on sale 2 for $3), and did some work in my planner.

I treated myself to a gummy just before supper (leftover red beans with the Christmas ham bone, and cornbread), and afterwards I did some more painting while watching the 2nd episode of Will Trent (needs more Betty!) and the pilot of Interview with the Vampire. The latter I thought was bonkers over-the-top gothic and thus completely in the spirit of Anne Rice's novel, even if they've made some changes--updating the timeline to the 1910's, making Louis a descendant of wealthy gens de couleur libres, and just putting the fact that Lestat and Louis are having a sexual relationship right up top (heh heh). It's wild to me that some people are still trying to claim that Lestat and Louis weren't fucking. Some people have superhuman powers of denial; I mean, Rian Johnson had to come out and say straight up that Benoit Blanc is a gay man and the character played by Hugh Grant in Glass Onion is meant to be his husband, because some people were going "No, he's his butler!". Because butlers are so much more common in the 21st century than gay men with husbands.

*sarcastic jerk-off motions*

Sunday I made french toast and bacon for breakfast, changed/washed the bed sheets, watched Dateline. It was about the murders at University of Idaho, and I had a good chuckle over the fact that they spent a good chunk of the episode shitting on TikTok. It should be obvious by now that I'm interested in true crime, but true crime TikTok is totally unhinged and I stay far away from it.

After showering I baked a cake, made lunch for Mom and Phil, had some wine and read. Supper was a recipe from Everyday Fresh, chickpea burgers with lemon mayo and parmesan pickles.

Dessert was the last recipe from Snacking Cakes, mint chocolate cake.

I had considered making this for New Year's Eve before I saw the doberge cakes in the Rouse's bakery.

I'm gonna paint some more and watch a couple more episodes of Interview with the Vampire. You know, I watched the whole pilot before I realized Louis was played by the same actor who was Grey Worm in Game of Thrones? He looks so different! So far I like the show better than the Mayfair Witches adaptation, which doesn't have as much of a sense of place as Interview--c'mon, if you're gonna set something in New Orleans, you gotta let the city be a character, too--and also I think the idea to have Lasher be fully present wasn't a great idea. I mean, I get that if you cast Jack Huston you probably don't want him to be out of focus and in the background for the whole season. But it does rob him of some of his mystique.

Here's this week's work in progress.

The oyster mushrooms are finished, hopefully I'll finish the fawn mushrooms before bed. I usually do 3 coats of paint, so it takes a good while to complete each one.

We had some kind of employee appreciation thing at work yesterday. I don't know why; maybe we had an exceptionally good quarter? It's not like I would know--not my department. Anyway, they brought in some poboys from Chris', which we're practically next door to. I love their shrimp poboys because they aren't too heavily breaded. Too much breading and it's like you're eating a bread sandwich instead of a shrimp one. They were still hot with crispy breading because they didn't have to travel a long way, and they brought them right at noon so they didn't sit.

Afterwards, someone from HR passed out gift cards, which was unexpected. They usually only do that during the holidays, and even then it's a raffle system so not everyone gets something. I don't know if different people got different amounts, but mine was $25 and I immediately spent it on that Delta 10 vape from Binoid that I wanted to try.



Blue Bell ice cream already has their Christmas flavors out, and today I picked up a carton of peppermint bark. There's also an eggnog flavor and I'm sure we'll try that eventually, but I love mint flavored sweets.

New season of Derry Girls dropped on Netflix yesterday! I watched the first couple episodes last night and will finish it tonight. I'm not really a laugh-out-loud kind of person, even when something does strike me as funny. I laughed many times watching those two episodes, and it felt good.

There's a new cannabis dispensary on Verot School Road that's on my commute. I went in to see if they had any Delta 8 gummies and they did, but they were charging $50 for 15 25mg gummies. I'd already priced them at Binoid (the website I buy my THC-P tincture and vape cartridges from), and they had 20 50mg gummies for $34.99. And I had enough points to take another $10 off, so they were literally half the price the dispensary was charging. The purchased bumped me up to the next rewards tier too, so I'll accumulate more points with each purchase.

I got three new essential oils: juniper berry, helichrysum, and ylang ylang. The ylang ylang was a restock, but the other two are new oils to my collection. While I was at Aromatic Infusions I also got a rose geranium hydrosol that was on sale, and a lemongrass/calendula soap.

Peacock Premium was having a $1.99/month sale if you signed up for a year, so I went ahead and upgraded my subscription. There's some documentary/true crime stuff I've been wanting to watch; also the first couple seasons of Girls5eva. I was looking around this morning while enjoying my second cup of coffee after breakfast, and they have a bunch of complete horror franchises on there for October. I started watching Phantasm, which somehow I've never seen. I didn't have time to finish it, I suppose there is an actual explanation for it? Like just a dumb '70s/'80s horror movie "explanation", like "Freddie was killed by these kids' parents" or "Jason drowned at Camp Crystal Lake because the counselors were busy knockin' boots" or "Michael Myers wigged out when he... saw his sister kissing her boyfriend"? I was never really clear what the hell his problem was, to be honest.

Also, Twitter unlocked my account.

Suck it Gingrich, you whiny little titty baby!

I bought some eucalyptus essential oil (I used the last of my current bottle a few days ago) and decided to try out the THC-P vape. I got a 20% off coupon for reviewing the tincture, so I figured why not. The tincture lasts a long-ass time, at least at the full 1 mL dosage; I took some Thursday afternoon, but it didn't really kick in until I ate supper. Maybe it's fat-soluble, like some vitamins? I dunno, but I was pretty high for the rest of the evening, slept like a log, and still felt kind of buzzed the enire next day. I'm thinking the vape will be more immediate but also shorter-lasting.

You know, I have to admit I rolled my eyes at the product description that said it was "a much more powerful cannabinoid than delta-TCH!", but I can admit when I was wrong. I probably shouldn't have started watching Five Days at Memorial that night, because I was not prepared for a crazy-ass CGI scene of the 17th Street Canal levee overtopping, then splitting open to allow a 25-foot wall of water to tear through Lakeview.

I went to Five Below again, at the risk of sounding like I have a problem with that store. But I got my sister's nail wraps on Monday and did one that night, and it still looks pretty good almost a week later. I wanted to see how cheap nail wraps compare and I thought I remembered seeing some there. Which I did, but turns out most of them were for kids and too small for my nails. I did get one set, and grabbed a couple other things to make the stop worth my while.

Actually the whole reason I mention it was because of what happened in the parking lot. I pulled into a space next to the kind of suburban assault vehicle that is all too common around here. The driver had also done a crap parking job, right on the passenger-side (which was my driver's side) line, with the front tires at an angle and in the next (mine) space. But I drive a Jetta, so I figured I could make it work. I knew my door would probably touch the other vehicle, so I v e r y s l o w l y opened my door, and stopped pushing the second I felt it barely touch the other vehicle's door.

Well, that wasn't gentle enough for the 'roided-up redneck inside the car, who came popping out screaming and spitting at me. I explained look, I made sure not to bang my door into his, it only just barely touched it. But he had a good head of steam worked up and nothing was going to stop him from harassing a random woman, so I waved at his tires and said "Well, maybe if you did a better job of parking...?" That sent him over the top--a woman questioning his driving skillz!!!--and he came back with WELL MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T SO FUCKING FAT

Okay, smarter and more articulate men than this dope have tried to use a basic fact as an insult; he might as well have impugned my eye color or height. I just laughed in his red. sweaty face and told him "Okay buddy, I hope your day improves, you're obviously having a shitty one". I could hear him trailing a string of muttered "fat"s and "stupid"s and "bitch"s through clenched teeth, so as I sailed out of hearing range I offered a cheery "Good vibes only!".

You know, I've been hearing a lot of people say everyone is shorter-tempered and angrier and quick to over-react since the pandemic started, and my initial reaction was to poo-poo it as a spin on the timeless "These kids today are just not as [fill in your preferred adjective] as we were!" bullshit. But this is like the 3rd run-in of this kind I've had just since the start of summer, so maybe those people are on to something.

One of these days I'm going to get shot during an exchange like that. If I do, take comfort in knowing that I died doing what I loved: Getting under the very thin skin of white, hetero dudebro assholes.

Bought this book:

I've had it on my wishlist for a while, but the price kept inching downward so I thought I'd wait and see how low it went. It's been at $18 for a while, so I finally pulled the trigger.

Went to Aromatic Infusions for lemon and orange essential oils because they were half off, and got a couple more handmade soaps: eucalyptus & spearmint (one of my favorites) and Swedish egg white and cucumber. I had no idea what "Swedish egg white" meant either; apparently it's a type of facial soap popular in Scandinavia. It used to be $1 per bar, but then beauty YouTubers discovered it and now the cheapest price on Amazon is $15 for 2 bars. (The one I bought was $6.)

Decided to try the THC-P tincture from Binoid. The Daily Beast had it in their "Scouted" section a few weeks ago and it's half-price right now, so I thought why not see how it compares to the CBD oil I've been using. THC-P is a cannabinoid that doesn't contain any delta-THC, which means it's legal at the federal level and in most states (including Louisiana) without a prescription, provided it's derived from hemp plants, not marijuana plants. I might get some of the vape cartridges if I like the tincture.

Went back to Five Below for a notebook I almost bought last weekend, then decided not to because I have a shelf full of notebooks I haven't even used. But I kept thinking about; the paper felt pretty nice, and it's a dot grid, which means it will work for a bullet journal. And it's big enough that I can probably fit all of 2023 and 2024 in it, or add a bunch more pages to the ones I do now. It's also disc-bound, which means I can always add paper, assuming I can find filler paper.

I also bought 2 small notebooks for $1 each, and found a zippered binder that I really like. It holds my BuJo, my journal, my stencil and Mildliner sets, and the contents of my pencil case.

I also browsed the candy section, which I didn't have time for last week. I had fun looking at gummy Lunchables and gummy sushi and gummy mac & cheese (which is apparently pineapple flavored and not actually cheese flavored), but in the end chose a tried and true: the cream-filled orange-flavored Twizzlers (the key lime ones are also very good). Regular Twizzlers are one of the most boring candies ever made, but the filled ones are stupendous.

Had a text exchange with my sister, who wants to send me some nail wraps she bought a while back but never used. My sister loves nail stuff and doing nails--when I was in high school she used to do my nails and paint a tiny island with a single palm tree on one of them--but she picks at her cuticles and never feels like her own nails are "good enough" to do anything with.