Random Musings

A couple of weekends ago Carlos and I laid tile … and by that I mean we laid tile in the bathroom. Get your minds out of the gutter, people. I wish I had pictures to show, but our computer has decided to stop reading the camera’s picture card and until we buy a new computer — because we need one, not because of this picture snafu — I’ll have to hold off uploading personal pictures.

Anyway, we found some cool 16x16 gray tiles that look like burlap and I thought they’d go well with the man’s pinstriped suit look on the walls, but when it came time to create a pattern I was perplexed. I wanted to set  in even rows, very modern looking, but no matter how I measured we’d end up with small tile at the end of each row and that looked off to me. So, I tried a running bond pattern where the grout lines don’t match up, and this created small sections of tile at the opposite ends of alternating rows, and that was what we, er, I, er, we, picked.

And, for our first tile setting it went quite well. We borrowed a tile saw and, once we learned to run the tile through the saw in the proper direction, it all went rather smooth, though there were some hiccups, like explaining measurements to Carlos. Who knew I would be the Math Master when it came to measurements? Not me!

And so we cut tiles, and mortared the floor, and set tiles, and we were very nearly done when I took a look in the room and said, not so quietly, “F**k.”

The last row of tiles were not laid in a running bond pattern, but set in a regular square pattern, and I told Carlos we’d have to take them up and switch the sides — small tile to the left-side now, and then work backwards to get the running bond pattern.

Carlos, bless his heart, said, “No one will notice, it’s gonna be behind the toilet and under the sink pedestal."

I said, in my best Martha Stewart-Joan Crawford-Adolf Hitler voice, “I’ll notice.”

The tiles were switched. And it does look better. And soon, hopefully, there will be pictures.

A few new hot guys on The Tube this week, starting from the upper left and working clockwise.

Keegan-Michael Key, of USA’s Playing House. Not your classically handsome man, and quite adept at making the funny faces, but there’s something about him on that show that just tickles my funny boner.

Ian Anthony Dale from TNT’s Murder in the First. Smoldering, I say, smoldering. And, of course, with Taye Diggs as the star of the same show, the hotness quotient is quite high.

Last, Omari Hardwick from Starz’ new show, Power. He’s a drug lord trying to get out of the business and, well, he has the finest ass I think I’ve ever seen, and I saw quite a lot of it last Saturday night.

Just sayin’.

Another school shooting in Oregon last week and still we do nothing about gun control — not taking guns, but controlling who has them.

Good for us.

They’re saying the demise of the Tea Party has been greatly exaggerated after ‘Bagger candidate Dave Brat upset rightwingnut incumbent Eric Cantor.

Here’s my take: the Republicans in Virginia were sick and tired of Eric Cantor and just simply voted for the Other Guy. That doesn’t mean the Tea party is on the rise, it just means the Republicans in the state wanted Cantor gone.

We’ll have to see what happens come November, and hopefully the people of Virginia will send Dave Brat packing as well.

Still, it was a joy to see Cantor fall, thus becoming the highest-ranking Republican to lose renomination in one of the most stunning primary defeats in congressional history.

In other primary news, openly gay candidate for Governor of Maine, Mike Michaud is one step closer to becoming the nation's first governor to have been out at the time of his election.

Michaud will face incumbent GOP Governor Paul LePage in the general election and, as of now, the two are in a dead heat.

Fingers crossed.

In the Crazy Category: Mariah Carey made a personal appearance at the St. Regis Hotel in New York this week to announce the release of her new beverage.

Beverage? WTF? But, yeah, Mimi is getting into the beverage game with Butterfly, a carbonated beverage described as a “melodic beverage inspired by the magic of Mariah Carey.”

Side effects are that your boobs balloon up and you begin to wear sequinned dresses three sizes too small.

This made me smile.

When marriage quality became legal in Wisconsin, on the first day of same-sex wedding, police officers in Madison showed up at the courthouse with cakes for the newly married couples.

Gotta love that, eh?

And speaking of Wisconsin — nice segue, eh? — there’s this:

When Milwaukee resident, Christopher Graham and his partner, Andrew Capelle, heard that same-sex marriage was legal in Wisconsin, they hightailed it down to City Hall to make it legal. And., after the ceremony, the two men and some friends went to Transfer Pizzeria & Cafe to celebrate.

And the best part, other than finally being equal in America, was when the bill came and Graham and Capelle learned that the bill for their wedding dinner had been taken care of by the staff at the restaurant.

If I ever get to Milwaukee I know where I’m having pizza!

But, in other receipt news, there’s this:

Amira Gray says she went to Bistro 18, a Washington, DC hookah bar, in August of 2013 with some friends and, after receiving terrible service from the wait staff was shocked to see the name “Gay Bitches” on her receipt.

A friend showed the receipt to the manage, after a picture had been taken, of course, and the manager grabbed it away and returned with one missing the offensive language.

Still, I know where I won’t be going when I head back to DC.

In more crazy news, this is a new trend: short suits.

Fashion folks say it’s the way to beat the heat this summer, while I say it looks like what I wore to Easter services when I was six.

I’ll pass.

And since we began with a Carlos story, before we get to Tweet of the Week, let’s have one more.

Last Thursday Carlos had an appointment to have two wisdom teeth extracted; they had never bothered him before, but now, well, yeah. So, the week before he mentions his dentist appointment and when I ask what it’s for he says “pulling teeth.”

I immediately tell him I’ll take the day off from work and drive him, and he tells me it’ll be fine. I tell him he’s having wisdom teeth pulled and he will not feel like driving himself home, nor will he be able to; so he relented.

Cut to Thursday, I’m sitting in the reception room, waiting, reading In Cold Blood, and finally after about an hour, Carlos comes out. He seems perfectly fine; he says there is hardly any pain, even though he just had a local anesthetic.

Well, whatever. I drive him home and he takes a brief nap, after which he says he still feels fine, but could I make him a bowl of oatmeal. I do, and as he eats it, we are sitting in the living room and he’s trying to tell me, via clenched jaw, that it really doesn’t hurt and that he’ll be going in to work the next day.

I hold my hand up, and bring my fingers down in a ‘Don’t talk’ gesture.

He says, “I’m not supposed to talk after the extraction.”

I say, “You can talk, but you’re bugging me.”

My motto is, and always has been, make ‘em laugh, er, make me laugh.