A Little Of This, A Lot Of That (Pictures, That Is)
by Nicole Freire

So on Friday, Ed invited me and the other Edhat columnists out drinking to talk about a possible move. Actually, he said, "Beer". If you spend a lot of time in bars (which I don't, last time I was in a bar you could still smoke in them), then you can guess what a bar is like at 5:30 pm on a Friday. Loud. Lots of big screen televisions, each one showing a different sport. Very loud.

The best sport, by far, was harness horse racing, which I like because the jockeys ride behind the horses in little sulkies. I love that word. Go ahead and look it up.

Anyway, there was beer, and onion rings, and artichoke dip, and beer, and chips, and guacamole, and beer. Beer that came in pitchers.

On Saturday, Ed texted me, "Column?" And I was confused. My Wednesday column wasn't due yet. I texted him back "What?" And Ed was all, "We moved the column to Sunday" and I was all, "Beer? Artichoke dip? Loud noises?"

Apparently I might show up on Sunday. Or maybe I'll stay here on Wednesday. I don't know. It was loud in the bar. Keep your eyes out for me; you never know where I'll show up next.

But look what I have to show you instead! Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen? It lives under that blue deck. I want to grab that bunny and squeeze it. I don't think the bunny would like that, but can you see that soft fur?

School is out and that means it's summertime. Rules are relaxed, and I have two kids. One kid celebrated this way. Shredding a spelling book is extremely therapeutic, plus we use the shredded paper for the cage that has the mouse in it. Very green of us.

One kid celebrated the end of summer this way. No more beds.

And apparently, during the night, both of them emptied this. They left the evidence behind though. Not too smart. And call me a germ freak, but I do not endorse eating ice cream in the bathroom. But then I do not have to be reminded every single morning and every single night to brush my teeth. The kids need the reminder.

This is how the morning began at our house on Father's Day.

And this is how we ended it. The eating portion anyway. I made it myself. And yes, both my Dad and my husband loved it.

Then I made everyone go out for a walk in the sunshine. This makes me a mean mother. But we got to see some cool things. And naturally I took pictures. This makes me a dorky mom.

Check it out, this is the best thing I've seen in years and I bet lots of my fellow Santa Barbarians feel the same way. I was so happy that this light was finally FINALLY put up because memorials of people who died at that intersection were appearing much too often. It was awful. But now we have a light and I hope that it keeps future memorials away.

I didn't mean to make you sad, it's a just a really great light. Good job to those who worked so hard at getting it put up. FINALLY.

We saw this on our walk. It's so crazy. Parrots do not ride bikes. I suppose if you listen to a lot of Jimmy Buffet and call yourself a "parrot head"' and drink too much, you might think they ride bikes. And look at the expression on his face! He looks positively jolly. Or drunk.

The parrot wasn't alone though. He was kept company by this giant RV on giant spinning wheels, seemingly running over a family of innocent ducks.

We walked by a house that magically dropped from the sky from Arizona. That was my version. I'm sure the people who have this yard really dig cacti and have very low water bills. Cactuses make me nervous. They have all those spikes and I worry that I'll somehow lose my footing and be impaled, and it will take days for the doctors to pull all the spines out of me. Usually I walk on the other side of the street from this house, because cacti make me so anxious. I'm not making it up; the whole yard is full of those things.

But what the hell is this? I don't even know what to say. I'm horrified and amused. I'm also afraid it will leap out of the ground and attack me.

I was going to show you a picture of my feet (again) because for my 40th birthday, my friends treated me to a pedicure and a small Vietnamese man spent a lot of time painting pictures of flowers on my big toes - pink and green and white flowers with glitter and rhinestones.

And I was thinking, "Hey, party on my feet!" So, I tried to take a picture of my toe, using the macro setting on my camera and -- oh my gosh -- it was awful. That setting is not for toe pictures. You would not think, "party on the feet". You would think, "that is disgusting" and you'd be correct.

Look what else I found! If you have my brain, you look at this rock and say to yourself, "that rock looks like a toe with nail fungus" and you won't be able to ever look at that rock again without thinking, "toe fungus, toe fungus, toe fungus."

Sorry for that mental picture. Toe fungus.

To make it up to you, here's a picture I took recently at a place that sells only cupcakes, and that is AWESOME. On second thought, maybe they do sell foodstuffs other than cupcakes, but I was really focused on the cupcake part.

Isn't that a worthy sentiment to put on a poster? I say yes.

I'll see you all next Wednesday or Sunday or wherever the beer and onion rings are, or wherever Ed tells me to be.

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Nicole Freire is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara.