Tag Archives: have a great weekend

According to everyone’s least favorite superhero, Captain Pedantic, autumn doesn’t start for another two weeks, so saying that it’s Halloween season is somehow supposed to be folly. For those of us who survived the month-long kidney stone known as August, though, this a very special time. We’re on our way to jacket and sweater weather. We’re fast approaching that wonderful season when the best home furnishings are in every store. And if it stays warm enough for a few more weeks that night swimming and stargazing can be done at the same time? That’s just gravy.

Two weeks to the Spooky Spectacle in Fort Worth, and this is the weekend that stretches. Potting, trimming, watering, and a serious bout of laundry, too. Lots and lots of laundry.

The Texas Triffid Ranch Fourth Anniversary Open House opens on Saturday at 6:00 CST, , so now you have plans for the weekend. This will probably be the last open house until October, so you definitely have plans for the weekend.

Forget March: August is the month that comes in like a lion, even if it hangs around as a sort of cross between a frilled lizard and a common house cat. Tomorrow is the DFW’s First Thrift Convention in North Richland Hills, and then expect radio silence until the Oddities & Curiosities Expo in Austin on August 17. The real reason for the radio silence, is someone to whom I’ve been married for nearly a third of my life. Caroline’s 50th birthday is this coming Tuesday, and while buying birthday presents for her is increasingly difficult (she only wants jewelry tools, and not ones that can be purchased while she’s not looking, either), that doesn’t mean we won’t be celebrating.

The last weekend before a very full August show calendar means going into overdrive in order to be ready for said shows, so it’s time for horticulturally-themed music. I love the expressions on people’s faces when I tell them that they ate two different protocarnivorous plants if they are french fries with catsup recently…

If you subscribed to the newsletter, you’d know why this particular composition is so important. If you haven’t, don’t sweat it: all will be explained soon.

The plan was to put out a series of posts and a new newsletter before today, but the time all leaked away. In the interim, a shoutout to old and dear friends who decided to hunker down in New Orleans this weekend: we’re trying to watch out for you, and when you need help, at least one Dallasite will be returning 20 years of kindnesses with a lot of accrued interest.

All sorts of interesting developments: apparently the Triffid Ranch was mentioned obliquely in a discussion with Atlas Obscura for NPR’s Science Friday (hat tip to Amanda Thomsen of Kiss My Aster for catching that). A new Triffid Ranch newsletter goes out this weekend, so subscribe if you haven’t already, because those who remember my writing days are going to suffer severe levels of head explodey. This weekend and next are dedicated to getting the largest Triffid Ranch enclosure yet out the door, as well as engaging the scarlet trumpetvine surrounding the greenhousein a dinner theater production of Pacific Rim. Oh, and I almost forgot: music.

Saturday is a day for the next Triffid Ranch open house, and you can tell from the sound of shoveling, hammering, occasional blasting, and a seemingly endless string of profanity from languages probably not of this planet and maybe not from this reality level. One of these days, I’m going to take a break just to develop a safe, effective, and cost-effective vaccine for sleep.

For the first time in a while, this weekend isn’t filled with shows and events, but appearances are deceiving. This is the weekend necessary to finish up a whole slew of projects in anticipation for the June Triffid Ranch open house on June 29, and the Hot & Sweaty show at the 500x Gallery (complete with two enclosures to fill the need for gonzo science art) ends Sunday. If you see me on the street and want to know my ears are packed with plastic dust, now you have an explanation.

Yet another busy weekend, what with the Swizzle’s Waipuna Tiki Flea at Industry Alley Bar just south of downtown Dallas on Saturday. And now a bit of underappreciated music from 30 years ago, before whiner rock took over everything.

This weekend is busy: between the Garland Urban Flea on Saturday morning and the 500x Hot & Sweaty gallery exhibition on Saturday night, as well as a photoshoot by Dallas photographer Allison David, there might be enough time to mow the lawn. That last is a priority: I’m not saying it’s overgrown, but the neighbors are complaining about the pandas.

A lot of anniversaries hit over the last month, mostly falling in the 30- to 20-year range, but one big one goes beyond that. On this date in 1984, I officially graduated from Lewisville High School in scenic Lewisville, Texas. (Not that I actually attended the actual graduation ceremonies: the best way to describe the dynamics was “Anton LaVey getting an invitation to the Pope’s bat mitzvah.”) I bring this up because I’m fully expecting an invitation to another class reunion any day now, and I’m looking forward to a singalong of the school’s fight song so long as everyone else remembers the lyrics:

And where was this song last April 26?

And May continues to go out like a lion: everyone is cordially invited to Saturday’s gallery open house, and that’s just preamble for the shows closing out May and starting up June. Meanwhile, a shoutout to everyone working in tech, where we ALL know a Bartleby…

Out at the Garland Urban Flea this Saturday, weather willing, so I’m trying to count the number of shows and events I’m doing in a row…

EDIT: Thunderstorms are hitting the Dallas area until Saturday afternoon, so I’m having to cancel my participation in the Urban Flea on May 11. I’m going to try again in June, but glassware and high winds generally don’t mix.

By the time you read this, the Triffid Ranch will be set up at Texas Frightmare Weekend, where I’ll be bumping elbows with Scott Ian of the band Anthrax. And because online writers posting listicles of songs inspired by comics characters never mention Anthrax’s tribute to the classic British character Judge Dredd, here you go.

The third Manchester United Flower Show is this weekend, and between this and the show last weekend…

A little bit of space music, from someone who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite composers:

Because the best humor is gallows humor…

For friends, carnivorous plant enthusiasts and otherwise, from one of the most, erm, dynamic places in the United States:

Don’t forget: feeding hamburger to your Venus flytrap is a bad idea.

The Groundhog Day open house at the gallery is this weekend, so for those in Dallas on Saturday, we’ll see you there. For everyone else, especially for those in the American Midwest, here’s hoping that Sid here doesn’t see his shadow, because we don’t need six more weeks of this. (40 years ago, I was in Chicago, still digging out from under the Blizzard on 1979. I sympathize more than you know.

Have a good time this weekend. Stay warm. Don’t let the Morlocks bite.

The last weekend before things start getting really interesting for 2019, and we have a soundtrack for everybody:

And only 75 days until the first day of spring!

Things keep getting more lively, what with showing plants at the Swizzle’s Hawaiian Holiday Popup on Saturday and the first Nightmare Weekend Before Christmas open house at the gallery on December 15. The days are getting a lot shorter lately, aren’t they?

Because it’s spring in Australia, particularly Queensland…

Nearly sixteen years of marriage later, and it’s STILL this much fun:

If you’re in the Dallas area or happen to have quick access to the Dallas area, you are cordially invited to the Triffid Ranch open house running today. If you aren’t, there’s always music.

One week until the next open house, and a perfect song as soundtrack for the Nepenthes enclosure currently finishing construction this weekend…