Happy Monday all. Or I guess I should say, y’all.  I hope you’re keeping warm. Our weekend windchill temps got down to single digits, which is crippling cold for central Mercyburg. But don’t worry, I didn’t log in to bitch about the weather. I’m one of the weirdos who likes Winter. I’m here to have fun with it.

Let us remember that wellness is not all work. Wellness is rest and fun and play as well. On Saturday The Chef laid one of those colorful southern expressions upon me while describing the weather. He said, colder than a witch’s tit.

That’s funny. And it’s fun to say. But the expression has horrid origins. You can look those up for yourself but I encountered quite serendipitously it a few books back. I read a novel about a girl whose entire family died of the Plague. She was the only one to survive so the townsfolk of her community surmised that she was a witch. She swore she wasn’t a witch so they granted her a trial. As part of the trial she had to be strip-searched by a delegation of neighbors to determine if she bore any marks of the Devil.

Since witches were thought to be in league with the Devil, they were also thought to be physically marked in some way by the Devil. Damn devils always gotta mark their territory, ya know. More like a rancher marking his cattle. These marks became functional teats through black magic. Demons and imps would allegedly suckle these teats to nourish their evil and the witch would allow this suckling as part of her witchy duties.

They dragged the poor girl out of her home and stripped her naked, shaved her body hair and head, and probed her with fingers, sticks and needles while examining every inch of her body, including her genitalia. Her real tits would have been cold by virtue of being naked. Her hypothetical witch’s tits would have been cold because they were freshly exposed. Indeed, they found a mole under this girl’s armpit hair (now removed) so she was declared a witch. This mole was identified as her evil witch’s teat. She was imprisoned, robbed of all her personal property (turned over to the church), starved, convicted of plaguing her family and half the town with the Plague, and sentenced to death. I wonder if most folks who use this expression would do it so gleefully if they knew it implied all this business as well.

But I digress. This weekend was colder than the water in my backyard fountain. Said water is depicted here in daggers. Must be witchcraft, right?

I’ve got a lot of moles, people. Tons of them. Freckles too. And scars. I don’t let any freeloading creatures nurse upon me (get your own, suckas) but I can go inside my home, snuggle up under the covers, and by doing absolutely nothing, turn water into weapons. Mwahahahaha! I’ve also successfully resisted the Plague. So you know, hide your children. Bring in your goats and chickens.

One of my witchy tools for fun on the go is still the Hipstamatic app, specifically because you can shake it up like a magic eight ball. Instead of asking it stupid questions, I ask it to randomly mix together various lenses and films to create a spontaneously awesome (or awful) effect. It’s so much fun. Of course you can use it in a pick and choose pro capacity to get the look you want. But what about when you’re up for something more relaxed and amusing? The shake to randomize method means you never know what you’re gonna get. Every time you shake the app it changes virtual equipment so you get a completely different virtual result. Here, I’ll show you.

It snowed on Friday. Most of the state stayed home from school and work. We didn’t. The Chef and I went to work. And the gym. And the grocery store. So we needed a car wash on Saturday to clean off the municipal snow-fighting chemicals applied to the roadways. While The Chef operated the manual controls of the car washer hoses and brushes, I took photos from the inside. Here’a shot through the soapy window with the regular camera app:

Pretty and cool and abstract. Yes. But let’s have some fun. I shook the Hipstamatic app to see what kind of magic it would throw together for me. Here’s the same shot with Hipsta-magic applied:

Still pretty and cool and abstract but this time it’s a muted watercolor painting. Serene. Tranquil. I might be at a spa instead of a car wash.

Here’s another one au naturel:

Dynamic. Dramatic. The soap is running down.

Here’s the same Hipsta-magic combo:

More ethereal. The soap seems to be flowing upward.

Oh yeah. All witchy as hell. No need to look for a teat. It’s leaking from my eyes. Plus, I’m warm and cozy on heated leather seats while The Chef has been compelled to wash the car in single digit wind chills. Mwahahahahaaaa…Cross me and I will mold your bread hard. The Devil wishes he could be in league with me. I make magic with an index finger while he’s out sucking moles to keep his strength up.

Practice. Be well. Let some of it be fun.

— Eaugie Soothful

(out of his league)