On mutant bougainvilleas, teenage cousins and giant skeletons

I took this picture yesterday at 6:45 pm, just as the double rainbow began to fade.

For those who care, the scary branches in the corners of the photo are our killer mutant bougainvilleas moving in to grab me. They’ll attack even when I’m holding my hedge trimmer—especially when I’m holding my hedge trimmer. Bougainvilleas take hedge trimmers personally.

Anyway. I like to think this rainbow landed in my town to celebrate the event of my niece and nephew visiting for Easter Break. Normally Tiger and Squirt don’t get to spend much time with their cousins—apparently 24-hour connections via cell phones don’t count as spending time with anybody—so they’re having a blast.

They’re also depleting all food stuffs within a 25-foot radius of my house.

TIGER: Mom, we’re out of food.

BONNIE: What? I just bought three days worth of groceries!

TIGER: Is there anything else to eat?

I must therefore go to the store. Again.

Yup. I’ve got to go to the store soon.

Or, rather, I will go to the store, as soon as I finish scrolling through all the Photoshop contest entries at Worth1000.com.

See, they set up competitions with rules like, “Architectural Anomalies: You are to create an archaeological hoax. Your job is to show a picture of an archaeological discovery that looks so real, had it not appeared at Worth1000, people might have done a double take.”

Then all these crack Photoshoppers rise up to the challenge and create the photos my Aunt Matilda insists on forwarding to everybody on her AOL friends list as proof that a giant skeleton really was unearthed in Saudi Arabia.

Some of my recent favorites:

• Wrong Turn, especially the entry where Gollum meets that squirrel from Ice Age, and “Traffic Jam,” where a gondola bumps into something that doesn’t belong in a canal. Also…
• The “Counterfeit Art 8” contest, where you can see Rembrandt do a Hasbro game proud and a famous bathing beauty show off her sunburn. But don’t miss…
• The creepy “Fasting Time” contest where we see what stars like Angelina Jolie, Russell Crowe and John Goodman would look like if they dropped a couple of pounds.

Okay, NOW I’ll go to the store.