If only I'd remembered to wear my camo pants.*

My mom loves flowers, but has severe allergies, so any flowers she is given have to be of the outside variety. Unfortunately, she also gets sick if she's out in the heat too much, so she can't do much gardening. Every year for Mother's Day, my dad plants flowers in the beds in front of the house, and for the last three years, MB and I have outfitted the porch with two large planters full of petunias. To this end, I went out in search of potting soil after work today, and wound up at Rural King, the most aggressively middle-American store I have ever, ever seen. (Incidentally, they really are only in middle America:  locations.)

I usually do my extremely limited home and garden shopping at Lowes or Home Depot, stores with shiny commercials and neatly organized stores, places where I feel empowered to beautify my lawn and improve my living space. Rural King is not a place for shiny commercials. It's a place that gives out free popcorn and sells horse feed one half-assed partition away from a pile of deer bait, which is across from the Carhartt aisle. I felt like there needed to be a sign over the door that said, "You don't have to drink PBR to shop here, but it helps." As I guided my squeaky shopping cart across a parking lot so cracked and uneven that I swear my fillings were coming loose from the vibrating and the noise, I had to navigate around a tractor. A tractor, ya'll. And not a little Toro job, either...an honest-to-God bigger-than-my-car tractor.

This is the kind of store that doesn't bother with fluffy or sparkly advertising campaigns, and there is something solid and noble to that, I think. It's a pretty unusual experience to be shopping in a place that doesn't even pretend to care about projecting a modicum of sophistication. Then again, the Midwest wasn't built on sophistication. It was built on hard work and being somewhat countrified, and I guess that's nothing to be ashamed of, even if it does produce the kind of retail experience that could underwrite an entirely new, entirely vast spectrum of Midwestern / Upper South stereotypes, just by having a non-native wander into a Rural King and assume it was an iconic experience.




*And is it just me, or does "camo pants" sound somewhat naughty?




Can I get a Hell, yes?

From Pajiba's 10 Sexiest People -- The Celebrities You'd Most Like to Bang:

1. Nathan Fillion - I’ll concede this: Christian Bale actually merited more mentions on the freebie list, but Nathan Fillion ... well, goddamnit, when I think of "Pajiba," he’s one of the first names that jumps into my head (after "Arrested Development"). I feel like you folks have a sense of ownership over the guy--not quite as much as the Whedon people, but still, he’s like the unofficial Pajiba mascot (if you’re into shtupping mascots), the site’s personification, if you will:  A guy that’s known in certain circles, but--amongst the mainstream--he’s an obscure actor, still remembered mostly as the dude from "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" (he played the pizza place) if he’s even remembered at all. He’s not a nerd, nor a geek, nor a dork, but he’s the nerd/geek/dork sex symbol, you know? He can play the lead in a fanboy movie while maintaining fanboy detachment--he’s cool, but he’s not, you know, Clooney or Depp. He’s also a genre-crosser. He can do the dimwit ("Two Guys and a Girl") dry wit (Slither), twisted villain ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), befuddled charmer (Waitress), droll action hero ("Firefly"), or charismatic leading man (Serenity). He can do TV or movies. He’s like this generation’s Harrison Ford, but there aren’t any goddamn Indiana Jones films (and how great a Han Solo would he have been?) for him to star in, so he’s relegated to a bad Fox show that is cancelled after three episodes. Because nobody appreciates this guy--and why the hell not? Worst of all:  He’s got nothing in the pipeline. Nothing! Why won’t anyone hire him? Lookit:  I don’t even like sci-fi that much ("Firefly" / Serenity being the exception), but I think this guy is the coolest motherfucker on the planet. There’s no reason in the world he can’t do traditional action flicks or romantic comedies or even another ensemble movie / show. And hell, I’d kill to be his wingman for a night--he’s the ultimate Everyman but, for the ladies, completely bangable, too--as long, it would seem, as you go on a few dates first (Christian Bale, maybe even Paul Rudd, might go for a one-night stand, but this guy’s got scruples--he’s Canadian, for God’s sake). He can be bluster and sarcasm, but underneath it all, you know he’s a softie--and a handsome man, at that. Indeed, he’d treat you like a lady while you were cheating on your husband.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Nathan Fillion is Pajiba’s 2007 Sexiest Man of the Year.


(Cue applause and wolf whistles from the velocibadger household, where even MB states, "That is a very handsome man.")



Reading: Lions and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My!:  a Pearls Before Swine Treasury by Stephan Pastis


Playing: mixes on the mpMonster