Surprise! A Splotchy Web Virus

Unexpectedly, today I was given a virus unlike any I have experienced. I am obligated to contribute to a story and then pass it to someone else. All thanks to Splotchy who engineered the virus in a lab somewhere. Here's how it goes...

The story:

***
I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words.
***
"Interesting", I thought to myself, "I don't know anybody named Ted Kaczynski." Unless it's going to clear this damn sinus infection in my head, I'll have to open it later.I set it on the kitchen table, and prepared my tincture of herbal tea remedies.
***
As I watched the lengthy glossop of honey slather into my tea I heard a rustling noise behind me. Having spent my childhood in a rotating house (due to some awkward foundations) I am quite adept at craning my neck and utilised this skill in the current situation, looking behind myself like a six-foot-tall owl.
***
The envelope - so stationary seconds before - had started to move, an event that I found somewhat odd, given that I was four days away from celebrating a year of sobriety. I picked up the nearest implement of swatting size without thinking, and slowly approached the bubble-wrapped delivery.The envelope continued to shuffle and shake as I stood poised with the potato masher held in readiness over my head. A small bead of sweat edged down my temple, hitting the floor at the same time as a lump of congealed potato from my weapon. There was a tearing sound, and I froze, unable to move, as a disembodied hand broke through my mysterious delivery. I blinked, and the thumb and forefinger of the hand formed a mouth.
***
"Hey, dude, what's up?" The Hand/Mouth said. I just stared, perplexed and terrified. "You got any grub? I'm starving!"
At this point, my fear got the better of me and I swung the potato masher down fiercely, knocking the hand/mouth (still partially in the packaging) off the counter and onto the floor. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I ran to the kitchen stool and stood on top of it, still grasping the potato masher with white-knuckled terror.
"Not cool, man," said the thing.
***
I stood transfixed in horror. The hand now started to inch across the floor towards my stool.
Ring, ring! On the wall across the kitchen the telephone began to ring, breaking me free from the icy grip of fear.

I had been in the middle of moving into a new home, in a fairly clean neighborhood. Kids on bikes, 2 cars in every garage. This hand was not something I had expected to be dealing with.

Ring! The phone rang again.
Cautiously, I climbed onto the counter, stepping over boxes and the empty sink to answer. "Hello?" I shouted into the receiver, intently aware of the scrabbling fingers below me.

"Mr. Newman, I have a proposition to make."
***

Thanks for passing it this way, Jillian!
On to you, Herbal-Amanda!

Our humble abode

This apartment reminds me of living in a collapsed star. Everything overlaps.
The [living room/computer room/bedroom/laundry drying room]is cluttered with shoes and maps.

I am bigger than the kitchen which is a stove, sink, and refrigerator stuffed into one cubby. Around the corner is a fold-up wall-table like our friend Caitlyn's, stools, a washing machine/extractor, shoe cubby/dresser, closet, spots-for-the-dishes (I'm sooo grateful for the dishes!), pantry, and appliances.

The bathroom really minimizes on space as well, with pull-out drying racks on the side of the sink, and a sitting shower/bath. The drying rack resides here when not in use.

On arriving we realized our European electrical converter wouldn't work, and the stores didn't have a French adaptor, so we improvised. Now our cameras and phones can recharge, although Amanda's phone still can't find a signal.

Amazingly enough, none of this really matters because we're having a great time.
Lots of love to all you readers.--Sean

James Ensor--Still is Belgium's Famous Painter

We went to the Musee D'Orsay today and while there stumbled upon this remarkable find.
It's James Ensor's "The Lady in Distress".



What? You don't know about James Ensor? Here's a little about the artist: James Ensor was most famously an early expressionist(ic) painter from the late 1800's. He produced his most successful work s up until his 40's and declined in vivacity from there. (Is that just the way of it?) Largely this is because he'd already become famous, and he decided to move into making music. His new work was kind of a softened repetition of earlier works, with a few goodies here and there. Musically, he was gifted at improvising on the "harmonium" and performed for guests. (If you trust Wikipedia).

Some of James Ensor's works can be found here, on this Danish website, and if you're not totally impressed by this, "Meet James Ensor" kind of puts things into perspective.

Dream about Mapping the 10th Dimension

A "bad guy" was looking for someone to take over the mapping of the 10th dimension project (using a big computer) and found a British man who aparently had no credentials... a janitor of sorts. However, you and I know him as Dr. Who, the hero of our story. He, unfortunately, does not realize his own importance and goes to work for this fellow.

In working, the Dr. produces several artistic chaotic renderings and a diagram of a city. The bad guy asks how he did these so quickly (quicker, his cronies say, than any other computer tech so far), to which the Dr. explains it just came naturally. He did it entirely without the computer, which is still broken.

The bad guy looks at the papers as imaginary rubbish. [I assume the bad guy will throw him out, only to discover the true worth of the drawings later, but we'll never know, will we? 'Cause I woke up!]