But when I do this it somehow looks like white trash...??

I think we can all agree it's about mixing patterns this year.  Thank gawd.  Now I don't have to look like such a freak for having a sexy picnic on top of every vintage sheet I've ever bought.

Or when I wear my Halloween wigs throughout the year.

With flesh-colored knee highs.

One night a young Madame Sunday and friend decided to draw all over our legs with marker for some unknown reason but it probably involved a lot of rainbows, peace signs and boredom (we didn't drink yet obviously.  On second thought, that sounds more like something I WOULD do after drinking... but I digress).   Maybe we were high off the permanent marker because we didn't think ahead of our dresses required for the next day's 8th grade graduation ceremony in front of the whole school.  It did not wash off.  Or look this hot.

There may have been some sunflowers too...  Fucking early 90's Clinique perfume bullshit.

Just goes to show that winged eyeliner, a spit curl and a attitude of fabulosity makes EVERYTHING look good.  


Except for white trash 8th grade graduation horrors.  There was no saving that hot mess.

All images via ffffound from this awesome but probably NSFW site here.  

The Madame is a "writer" now. You know, of words.

Turns out this is a pretty damn good week for the ModernSauce team.  Charlemagne just gave me a decapitated bird (awwww...), cool people handed Madame Sunday some fancy shit because they think I'm awesome (shut your facehole) and other cool people want me to write on THEIR blog.  WTF?  Remember when it was just me, you and some ninja references?  Oh how far we've come...

Building Moxie is a great blog that talks about home stuff and building-y things.  Also, fucking POETRY!  I dare you to find another blog like that.  They decided to go slumming they needed some sparkling glamour and asked if I could share some of the ModSauce fabulosity with them.  I was happy to oblige.  I'm a giver really.  I wrote a heartwrenching, soul-fondling and slightly embarrassing post about the Madame and her drill.   

Don't worry - the fame hasn't gone to my head.  I'm still just the madame from the block.

This makes me exceedingly happy.

From artist Zhou Fan

Just a normal jellyfish-on-your-head type of day.

Sorry Charlemagne. Venuto is my best friend now.

Just like you suspected, being a blogger is nothing but glamorous shopping at the liquor store, chocolate emergencies and late night pajama parties with ye old laptop and Charlemagne, the Cat Extraordinaire.  Normally I have to fight the mosquitos paparazzi away from me as I sneak into the back door of my own house.  It's exhausting, really, but I do it for my reader(s).  But every now and then something cool happens like somebody tells the Madame they laughed at one of my posts so hard they peed a little (you're welcome) or like in this case Brizo, maker of fancy fixtures for your kitchen, hits me up and says this:


Faucet dude: Hey, you're so awesome that we want to be friends with you.


MS: Look internet pervert I'll totally block your nasty tweets I swear to gawd!


Faucet dude: No seriously, you seem like a cool person...


MS: I think the word you're looking for is fabulosity.


Faucet dude: ...um ok. But we'd like to give you a faucet.


MS: WTF?  Is that like a euphemism for something gross??!!  


Faucet dude: *sigh* No. Look - do you want a faucet or not?


MS: Does a duck fart when it walks?


Faucet dude: What?


MS: I'LL TAKE IT!! mwahahahaha!!

Meet the Brizo Venuto.  It's so curvy and shiny and we know I like shiny things like unicorn horns and glitter eyeshadow.  


I signed a pact in blood before they could realize what they had done because they seem like cool people that do things like this and I'm drunk a lot and do things like this.  Let's just keep that between you and me, k?  But now the Faucet of Amazing Awesomeness is in my posession. 

Hellooooo Venuto.  

That.  Just.  Happened.  


It's probably the nicest thing at the ModernSauce ranch.  So I wanted to get it acquainted with its new home and show it a good time.  First stop - the kitchen.  Shitty old faucet meet Venuto. Venuto; shitty old faucet.  It's on like Donkey Kong y'all.  Venuto is going to tear that sink up when we do the real renovations!! 

Venuto says "In yo FACE shitty faucet!"

After the tour we did normal get acquainted things - mani/pedi, watched Twilight (Venuto is totally Team Edward thank gawd) and just chatted.  

It's called magical realism...

Later we decided to have a picnic outside and Venuto helped me read for my book club.  There was a siesta involved.

While Venuto napped I went to the store and picked up some items for dinner and I surprised Venuto with some flowers!  Teehee!  He was touched I could tell.

Here at the ranch we take care of our guests (sometimes) so I made sure to cook a nice dinner for company.  I made pasta with organic spinach and tomatoes and fresh herbs from our local farmer's market because I care and I'm a liberal white person.  But just so Venuto doesn't think he gonna be spoiled all the time I made sure to keep it real (and keep with the Italian theme) by microwaving some Totino's Pizza Rolls to go along with the pasta because we ain't boughie around here.  We can do nice but we ALWAYS do real.

Oooooh lawd.

But look at this mess.  Venuto's head is on backwards and his naughty bits are all showing after overindulging in some wine and chocolate.  You're one of us now Venuto.  But we'll need to work on your tolerance or this relationship isn't going to last.  


Venuto is already lonely bored but kitchen renovation is just beginning....  At least I have some sink jewelry to look forward to and a new best friend!  


The internet is awesome.

The first rule of fort club is you DO NOT TALK ABOUT FORT CLUB.

Just kidding.  We're totally talkin bout forts today.


Last weekend Madame Sunday was all about some pointy fabulosity and concrete architecture but this weekend feels more like pillows and napping.  Enter the fine architecture of forts.  Definitely something that I'm able to build in my sparsely-furnished living room after a bottle of wine.   

 From the aptly titled tumblr Fuck Yeah Forts

And some strategic use of Christmas lights.  I don't even think the bottle of wine is even necessary.  Actually the Christmas lights are still up from December so I'm basically halfway there.

Boat fort!!!  

these 2 from the Wild Things fort project from booooooom

I built plenty of forts in my youth (who didn't?) but they became quite essential to my life the summer after I graduated college.  Faced with the prospect of working the rest of my adult life with no breaks I gave a big middle finger to responsibility and took the summer off much to the chagrin of my parents and bank account.  Also quite surprised was the design firm that offered me a job to which I said 'Fuck off, I'll call you in August!!'  (I totally didn't say that.)

2 more Wild Things forts here

Most of my roommates vacated our apartment taking the furniture along with them.  I was left in a sleepy college town with one kickass roommate, a lot of spare time and a freezer full of vodka.  Guess what happened.

Like any sane pair of 21-year-olds we turned the living room into a giant fort out of a couple of remaining kitchen chairs and some bedsheets.  It made our lack of furniture seem like a choice not a result of poverty.  She spent her days her days hungover working at a real job while I spent my days hungover Forting. 

My days were pretty busy: first I'd wake up and go immediately from my bed to Fort.  Or just roll over if I already was in Fort.  I'd watch Maury Povich to see some baby daddies til my eyes could focus and then spend the next two hours honing my Nintendo 64 Mario Kart skills all while in Fort.  Sometimes I would switch it up with Adventure Beetle Racing if I was feeling especially competitive.  Then came lunch which probably consisted of boxed mac and cheese and sweet tea.  Hello early onset Type II Diabetes. 

After that it was time for my outdoor exercise so I would head on down to the apartment pool for an afternoon of swimming and skillfully applying my SPF 70 sunblock every hour on the hour.  It's important to stay hydrated when outside during the summer so I liked to carry around a 40 oz slurpee cup of mudslides or vodka and sprite.

4 from here

Once the intensity of the sun made my delicate angel skin burny I had to retire to Fort for more Mario Kart and napping after my exhausting afternoon.   At some point kickass roomie would come home from work to join me for more napping in Fort (to fortify strength for the rest of the night) and possibly definitely more nintendo and drinking.

here

But the world of Forting is not as carefree and magical as one would think.  There are strict rules to follow.

1. No pants allowed.  Pants are like the representation of the rigid corporate bullshit world made up of summer jobs and places with real walls and legs restricted with fabric.  Fuck that!  Fort is love and naps and peace and non-pants.  Also Madame Sunday pretty much only wore a bathing suit and tshirt the entire summer because living like a drunk 5-year-old is really awesome.  I don't even think baths were necessary since I was getting in the pool every day and chlorine is totally like soap.

2. Shirts required. All you perverts who read #1 and think some Girls Gone Wild shit is happening in Fort can fuck off like my credible job offer from that May.  Do not sully Fort with your filth.  This was a girls' Fort anyway.

3. No green vegetables allowed.  Except for fried okra.

4. If a buzz is not achieved within the first 15 minutes of Forting you must leave and not return until proper buzz is rendered.   

5. You can't actually sit in Fort.  You have to lounge or lay down.  Sitting up (even Indian-style) is for uppity bitches.

6. Entrance into Fort can only be allowed by approval of the founding ladies in accordance with the by-laws of Fort Establishment code Summer of 2002.  Or Doritos.

here

I think there was probably a lot of other things that happened that summer including but not limited to bar hopping, happy hours, hottie chasing and that night at the dance club with all those mirrors where that dude got shot but I'm pretty hazy on a lot of the details and choose to focus on my days filled with Fort goodness.

here

Final day of Fort Club Summer 02 was the end of the best summer ever in the history of all summers.  I cried (probably because I had to put on pants and was really really hungover) all the way home. Also because the job that I told to fuck off did indeed fuck off and I was driving home to an unknown future filled only with the certainty of moving back home to my parents' house which was decidedly lacking in Forts. *shudder*

here

I found a job eventually in a non-ID field and got my own place with a couple of pieces of furniture but I still think back to those Forting days and nights filled with the smell of Kraft Mac & Cheese and sunscreen.

 here

So yeah, I totally gave up a career in Interior Design at a well-respected firm in Atlanta for pillow forts, mudslides and Mario Kart.  Best decision I ever made.


For M. ;-)

I attempted fabulosity this weekend. Mediocrity (and porn) ensued: The Memorial Day edition.

This weekend was a three day weekend so that means about ¾ more fabulosity (I’m not good at math) that I had planned to happen at the ModernSauce ranch.  Unfortunately it didn’t start out too good.  I opened my front door on Friday to check the mail and saw this little guy:

Whaaaaa...??

I'm guessing he fell out of my storm door but I don’t know where the hell he came from or how to put him back where he belongs.  Where is your home dammit?  I was laying on my porch trying to jam this thing back somewhere when I realized that the ice cream truck that tortures my neighborhood every summer was driving by really really slow.   Driving slower than normal around my corner because he was, in fact, staring at me sprawled face-down ass-up on my porch.  At least we know he’s not a pedophile.  But now I feel turned on violated every time I hear that damn circus music.  [MS sidebar: he was probably going really really slow because he was high but at least in my version it makes me look like an accidental sexy person.]  

Since I gave up couldn’t figure out where the pin was supposed to go I put it the special aMazing ModernSauce Jar of all Manner of Metal Materials.  (I like alliteration.)  It’s where old hardware goes to die around here that I can’t seem to throw it away because I might need that rusty screw or Bicentennial-inspired eagle light switch plate one day.  That’s a piece of American history.

See ya in three years metal thing!

Back to work.  I wanted to do a lot of small easy things this weekend, you know, to honor the troops. Project #1 – new handle for my nightstand.  No reason.  Just found a little gem (read: crappy piece of shit) at the elegant wonderland known as World Market which I knew would fit exactly my nightstand which also happened to come from the same classy warehouse a few years ago.  

Boooooring.

I used some forethought this time and actually measured the distance between the screw holes and the screws of the new handle.  Score!  Gawd I'm good.  However what I didn't measure was the distance between the ends of the new handle screws vs. the distance between the BASE of the screws.  About 1/8 inch off.  Fuckin A.  But I will not be defeated!!! (also I scratched the "wood" already so I had to follow thru...) So I pushed and pounded and cussed and scraped until this:

Fuck. Me.  Apparently my new superhuman strength in my one arm from working out with the drill so much has made me a beast and I broke the new handle.  Let's pretend that it's not some piece of shit I bought for $3 and instead it's my lone raging bicep that's the problem.  Now a normal person probably would have pulled the handle out and exchanged it at the store for a new one but that's for pussies without imagination.  Also I couldn't pull the handle back out because I had jammed it in so hard to the drawer.  Enter the super glue.

No I don't know why it's so yellow.  Let's just call it ambiance.

The end result.  It's different.  I wouldn't call it better... But it looks like my handle is SUPPOSED to bring out the tiny golden details in my headboard.  Exactly my plan all along.

So two hours later I could begin my main focus for the weekend which was to start patching some holes in my bathroom wall.  After the removal of some super chic vom-inducing 80's wallpaper (including the asbestos kind) these holes were uncovered:

Keep smiling fucker.

What the fuck kind of shower curtain rod needs holes like this?  Gawd I do not understand these people!  But then I remembered – the previous owners were total sex freaks (I made that up) so I think this was actually an ‘omigod’ bar for all their steamy shower sessions.  Adding extra support was just smart thinking.  Now, I don’t have a normal tub – it’s an old 4’ square Cinderella tub and can probably fit two people (maybe three if you angle correctly) so I’m sure there was some definite soapy group rubdowns that needed a handle for support.

Like this but white. From retro renovation.

The previous inhabitants (not the raccoons) owned the MS ranch for probably 35 years so they had plenty of time to customize the house to their own, uh… predilections.  My first clue that they were freaks was the back patio covered in Astroturf where the outline of an old hot tub was faintly visible.  Not that big of a deal – it was probably installed in the 70’s and who DIDN’T have Astroturf and a hot tub back then?!  But THESE people installed the only privacy fence on my block, had locking gates and ran electricity and CABLE lines to the hot tub vicinity. Mmmhhh hhhmmmmm. 

At one point they enclosed the carport as some sort of rec room which is labeled as the “train room” on the electric panel.   

See #2.  Mmmhhhh hhhmmmmm.

I don’t think they were talkin toy trains y'all!!!  (they were)  The “train room” has some windows placed really high so you can’t see in or out and the floor is vinyl.  For easy clean-up I’m sure.  There was also a plastic fireplace that you plug into the wall with a cardboard "brick" surround.  It brings that sophisticated and romantic atmosphere when you’re having the bi-weekly neighborhood orgy.  Sessy.  There’s a window that overlooks the “train room” from a secret cedar closet in one of the bedrooms.  For the neighbors who liked to watch.  During the floor-to-ceiling sterilization that happened when I moved in one of my friends was cleaning the closet in the “train room” and found this:

The bottom corner says 1975.  It's an antique!

Mmmmhhh hhhhmmmm.  I won't show you the inside because this is a family blog but let's just say there are a lot of beaver references.  I just leave this on the coffee table when people come over.  It’s a good conversation starter.

 

Here’s a picture of the previous owner that we also found in that closet:

Yep. That's what part of my kitchen looked like in the 80's I think.

Look at this totally nice grandpa skeezy perv.  I believe he died in the house at some time and totally haunted the place for about a year after I moved in – I would see him walking up and down the hall sometimes.  I think he liked to watch me sleep.  Mmmhhhh hhhmmmm.  Even his ghost was horny.

Another sex freak clue – I received this old lady catalog for months after I moved in that had the usual circulation socks, rain caps and ‘world’s best grandma’ mugs.  But the last three pages of this catalog always had tons of personal "massager" devices.  Vom.  But still mmmmhhh hhhmmmm.  I think I've proven my point.

  

Uh oh – I totally forgot what I was supposed to be doing this weekend… 

Oh yeah, Gawd bless the troops.