Month: June 2004

* * * When I got to the drugstore, I picked up the pictures I’d had developed (the ones from the disposable underwater camera we took to the quarry last week), paid for them, went out into the car, and flipped through them. And then I called Fred at work and said “Can you give me one good goddamn reason I shouldn’t come to your office and kill you right now?” Because there was this PICTURE that the bastard had taken when I wasn’t paying attention. I was under the water and had my mask on and my snorkel in my mouth. I was looking down at something. This picture was taken from the side and below, and it is the least flattering picture in EXISTENCE. After seeing this picture, no jury in the world would convict me of murder. In fact, they’d thank me for ridding the world of someone who would knowingly take such a horrific picture. I’d probably get some kind of Presidential award! And, no. You may NOT see the horrid picture. Just think of the worst picture of yourself that exists and multiply it by 20. Bastard.

* * * Some of the quarry pictures: Not the best scans, unfortunately. I think what we REALLY need is an underwater digital camera! I bet we could take some kick-ass pictures with one of these… * * * Regarding the leather patch kit, reader Lunalissa says this: i have worked in furniture for over 10 years, and there really is no leather patch kit that works well enough to completely avoid detection. but if you just want to fill in the cracks and holes, any kit from h0me d3pot or l0w3’s will work. the fast drying ones are not necessarily better: if you make a mistake or gunk it up, it dries faster! the key is looking at the blotter than comes with it and making sure it matchs the grain of the leather. I know that back in the early 80s when my father needed to patch his leather recliner, the kit he used did a horrible job of it. * * * I just got an Oahu DVD from my parents, and not ten minutes later my father called to check in and see how everything was doing. Apparently my mother’s having a blast over there, though they decided to walk up Diamond Head the other day and also thought it would be a good idea to WALK THE 4 1/2 MILES THERE before making the actual climb. “I don’t know if you want to do that,” my father said. “I wouldn’t mind doing that, but I DON’T WANT TO WALK 4 1/2 MILES FIRST!” I said. Heh. Also, they’ve checked out my hotel, and apparently it’s in the busiest part of Waikiki. Whoo! * * * Fred’s mother and stepfather have been in Memphis for the last few days, so we’ve been feeding their cat. He’s adorable and I think he’s a little confused, because he’s never been left alone before, poor baby. Yesterday, I took the camera over with me. He likes to lay in his bed and be brushed. REALLY likes it. We brought him a toy mouse to play with. We tend to always come bearing gifts when we’re visiting a kitty. * * * Deep thoughts.]]>

email me a logo, and as long as it’s not obnoxious (and maybe even if it is!) I’ll use it! I usually get a bunch when I put out the request for new logos, so if you don’t see your logo at the beginning of next month, be patient! Previous logos can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Aaaaand, we’ve reached critical mass, people. I’m no longer going to type target=”_blank” after each and every link. Why? Because it’s a pain in the ass. What does this mean for you? If you want the link to open in a new page, you’re going to have to right-click and choose “open in new window.” Sorry, folks. I still love you, you know. Because you rock!

* * * How did it happen that June is halfway over already? The spud’s going to be home in three weeks! And then a week later we’ll be leaving for Hawaii. Whee! I spent the morning cleaning the upstairs, including the spud’s bathroom. The shower and toilet were clean, but there was so much dust and crap on the floor that it made me shudder. She’s supposed to vacuum and mop her bathroom when she cleans it, but I strongly suspect that doesn’t happen. I Swiffered the hell out of the floor, then used a Swiffer duster on the baseboards. I probably need to get my ass in there and scrub the floor on my hands and knees to get it decent looking. We’ll see if that actually happens. I packed up her towels and tossed her shower curtain. It’s been three years since she had new towels or a new shower curtain, and the old ones are in pretty rough shape. I’ll go shopping later this week for new ones. Of course, after I’d tossed the shower curtain, I remembered that our shower wasn’t working and I needed to use HER shower. Rather than dig the shower curtain back out, I opted to shower without a curtain (there’s a hand-held shower attachment), and did a pretty good job of not getting water everywhere. That’s one tiny-ass shower she’s got, though. * * * Fred bought a couple of cherry tomato plants back in April or so, and planted them in big planters. Over the past few weeks they’ve been bearing fruit, and I swear to god, those are the BEST tomatoes I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been a tomato hater from way back – and I still don’t like tomato CHUNKS in my spaghetti sauce, for the record – but I’ve actually been craving these little tomatoes, they’re so awesome. A little slice of heaven, is what they are. * * * Someone asked in my comments yesterday how many movies I have in my Netflix queue. Right now, I only have about seven eleven (I went to check, and added four more. Heh.), but I expect it’ll get longer as time goes by. Also, a couple of people asked how I’m liking The Beans of Egypt, Maine. I actually read it back in the late ’80s or early ’90s and liked it a lot. When I was at my parents’ house at Christmas I saw it on the bookcase and wanted to read it again, so asked my mother if I could take it. It holds up pretty well over time, I’ve found. I had no idea that there was a movie made from the book, though! I’ll have to see if I can find it. Trivia: Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love named their daughter (Frances Bean) after The Beans of Egypt, Maine. Or so he claimed back when she was born. He could have been kidding, I suppose. Also from my comments: Hey Robyn! Remember that letter you wrote to Playboy about their asinine comment about size 16 women? I just got this months issue (I too enjoy the articles, really) and they printed your letter! If you are indeed R.A. from Madison, Alabama 🙂 Too cool. That is definitely me. Now I can tell my mother that I’m in Playboy! Heh. I was just thinking… I’ve been reading your site for a few months, back before the Bean came into the picture. I’m not sure why this JUST NOW popped into my head. I used to have a gray kitty that looked very simliar to the Bean and he too had a messed up tail. It was crooked and looked like a lightning bolt. The vet told us his mother most likely bit it when he was born while trying to break the umbilical cord. Do you know what happened to Bean’s tail? I was just wondering. No, we have no idea why the Bean’s tail is so short and stubby, whether he was born that way, it happened at birth, or something happened when he was a stray. All I know is that when he’s startled and he puffs his stubby little tail up, I laugh until I choke. He’s such a character. What is the name of the leather patch kit, looked at the March entry and of course there’s the info about cats + leather but not the actual name of a kit you may have used. My friend Lara and her new Siamese Thai need to buy something to help their leather couch. HELP and of course many TIA. I’ve never actually used a leather patch kit – we’ve never had leather furniture – but if anyone knows, leave a comment, eh? * * * No quarry for us yesterday, and no quarry today either, it looks like. Damn weather! Where are our days and days of bright sunshine? Enough with the rain and overcast-ness! * * * A hundred years ago (or maybe last summer) someone told me of something I could do to prevent algae from growing in my cement birdbath. In the ensuing year, I have COMPLETELY forgotten, and the crap growing in the birdbath is nasty like you wouldn’t believe, and hard as hell to scrub out. Help? * * * “What?” ]]>

Reality Bites, Center Stage, and the first season of Coupling) should be on the way to me as I type. I feel so hip and with-it.

* * * We spent the weekend in a haze of 24. We received both Seasons 1 & 2 on Friday, watched the last four episodes of Season 1, watched five episodes of Season 2 on Saturday, and another five on Sunday. Such a good damn show. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks that Keifer Sutherland looks like a Doonesbury character brought to life? * * * I also finished reading Song of Susannah last night. God, I love this series, and I’m sad that there’s only one more book left. But I also can’t wait to read it! Have I mentioned that I have a big ol’ crush on Roland? Yeah. There’s me, being geeky again… * * * We went to the quarry again on Friday. I was pretty freaked out by a huge-ass catfish that seemed to be stalking me. Seriously, the fucking thing was about three feet away and followed me wherever I went. I’m sure he was just waiting until I wasn’t paying attention so that he could SUCK MY FACE OFF AND CHEW ON MY BRAIN. But I made Fred get between the fish and I, so the bastard was stymied. Ha! * * * Friday marked one year since Mr. Fancypants went missing. I can’t believe it’s been a whole year! In the past year I’ve probably had twenty dreams that he came home; I’d wake up excited that he was home and then realize it was only a dream. Honestly, I’m still hoping that another family found him and took him in. A girl can dream, right? Perhaps in honor of his memory, one of the cats brought in a bird (a sparrow we think) and left it in my bedroom for me to find when I woke up. Luckily it was under the table across the room from my bed, but I sense that one of these days I’m going to wake up with a dead bird IN BED WITH ME, and then I’ll never be able to sleep again. Damn cats. It’s sad that Meester Boogers never got to meet Mr. Fancypants. They’re so much alike in so many ways – laid-back, friendly, always willing to play, would love to snuggle up with the other cats – that they’d either be the best of friends or mortal enemies. Godspeed, Mr. Fancypants, you fancy little shitting-outside-the-box bastard. * * * Things people have searched on (using the “search this site” link over there in the sidebar): The Apprentice: Nope, never watched it. We’ll probably give Season 2 a try, though. Exercise journal: I took it down, and am journaling my exercise in a notebook with a pen. Weight loss picture and Before after pictures and After photos: Took ’em down, but they wouldn’t be on this site, in any case. They’d be over at OneFatBitchypoo, once I get the archives completely put up. Weight lost: 125 pounds and holding for three years now. Lots more to go, though! Weight loss tracking: That would also be over at OneFatBitchypoo, but I haven’t put the chart back up yet. Soon! Love Actually: Loved it! Buffalo chicken pizza: Nope, haven’t tried it yet. Don’t plan to in the near future, since it seems that almost everyone who tries it ends up in the bathroom for several hours! Honey mustard chicken and Red beans and rice and honey mustard dressing: There’s a recipe link over there in the sidebar which leads to my page of recipes. Which reminds me – I need to put up some new recipes I’ve tried recently! Cat urine cleaner and tubby pee cleaner and cat cleaner and cat pee carpet odor and cat pee cleaner: It’s called Axi-dent, and you can buy some here. Dyson: I’ve had it for six months, and I’m still loving it! Best vacuum cleaner I’ve ever had! Nance: She’s here. Jane: She’s here. For the record, if you look over on the sidebar under Other, you’ll see a Who I Read link. It’s woefully out of date but both Nance and Jane are on the list (though I have Nance listed as “Dysfunction Junction” rather than “Nance.” Which I should change. And I will! One of these days…) Liver: It’s fatty. I have to go back in six months to have my liver enyzmes tested again. New carpet: Nope, it’s not new, it’s the carpet that was here when we moved in three years ago. Leather patch: Uh? Nope, not a clue what you were looking for here. * * * For the record, I do keep meaning to put up a “recommended” page so that if you’re trying to find the cat pee odor remover you can just go there and see what it’s called and where to get it. But I keep meaning to do lots of things – Go Fuck Yourself hasn’t been updated since MARCH, for the love of god – so it’ll probably be a while before that happens. Yeah. It shouldn’t surprise you too much that I’m a procrastinator. * * * Look what my sister found at my parents’ house, scanned, and sent me: Quite the artiste, wasn’t I? * * * Oh, da Poo. ]]>

* * * I understand that Reagan was believed by many to be a great president, and many many people are saddened by his passing, but… WAS IT REALLY FUCKING NECESSARY TO CLOSE THE POST OFFICE ALL DAY TODAY? I mean, the mail is something that I really REALLY look forward, probably a LITTLE too much. But I won’t be receiving this week’s People Magazine today, will I? Why, no. Because the postal workers have the day off, mourning the death of Ronald Reagan. SH’YEAH. They’re probably having cookouts and drinking beer, AND GETTING PAID FOR IT. No fair, man. NO FAIR.

* * * People are so stupid. Newsflash there, right? I stopped at Burger King this afternoon because I wanted to try one of their Garden Shrimp salads (is it sad and wrong that I could have had anything at all for lunch – I don’t count calories on Friday – and all I wanted was a salad and sushi?). Now, for some reason at lunchtime (and possibly dinnertime, though I don’t know for sure) instead of the usual having you pull up to the speaker, placing your order, and then pulling up to the window to pay, they put a sign on the speaker that says “Pull forward to order taker.” You pull forward where a person is standing to take your order. They use their headset to relay your order to someone inside, who gives them the total. They write your total down on a piece of paper and hand it to you, you drive four feet to the next person who’s standing there, give them the paper and your money, and they make change. And then FINALLY you pull up to the window and wait and wait and wait for your food. Convoluted and fucked-up, right? Well, it gets even more fucked-up when you add a dumbass to the mix who pulls up to the speaker and just sits there. Like the person in front of me did, pulled up there and just sat and sat and sat. At first I thought he was staring at the menu to figure out what he wanted, but after a minute or so he started looking around, and then staring at the speaker (the speaker WITH THE SIGN TELLING YOU TO PULL FORWARD) and waited. When it had been two or three minutes, I finally said “Oh, fuck THIS!” and put the car in reverse, backed up a little and went to pull around him. Which is when HE said “Oh, fuck THIS!”, and decided to pull forward to see what the hell was going on. Which made it impossible to get in front of him or behind him, and I had to pull around the building to the end of the drive-thru line, which had grown by about four vehicles. And the person next in line at the drive-up, who had been behind me? Pulled up to the speaker… and sat there. Like I said, people are idiots. Me included, because the Garden Shrimp salad was not all that fabulous. In fact, I’d say that I don’t care for the sauce the shrimp was grilled in, because I’m burping it up. Bleh. And they didn’t have the kind of sushi I like (California Roll), and I got a different kind (the name escapes me), and I didn’t really care for it. Wah! * * * Because I just got rid of a bunch of magnets and there was white space on my refrigerator, I had to buy a couple more… I particularly like the second one. You can get your own (this place has the BEST selection of magnets EVER) at Sticker Giant. * * * Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here. * * * The Bean, he is a yawn-y Bean. And I’ve found that the trick to getting pictures of him yawning is to find him sleeping and wake him up. He’ll yawn ’til the cows come home! (This is at the tail end of a yawn. It absolutely cracks me up. I think it’s my new favorite. You can view the full-size version here.) ]]>

* * * Okay, I’m printing this email from Kelly in it’s entirety, because I’m just not sure exactly what it means, but I’m pretty sure there are interested parties out there. Heh. You have two feeds at livejournal.com (essentially allowing LJ users to get updates of your site via their “friends page”) They are the xml feed and the rtf feed Both links go to the feed info pages. Clicking on the link next to “user” will take you to the main feed page. They are both essentially the same, as of now. If you ever change your settings, for say the XML to show full entries and not just a lead in, then LJ users would have the option to pick full entry vs. one line lead ins. I don’t use Movable Type so I am not sure how those settings are tweaked. (Maybe Fred knows?) Don’t worry about bandwidth, LJ grabs the feed once (the rtf and xml files are very small) and stores it for a short amount of time (I think a week? Not sure) So it wont ding you every time someone reloads their “friends” page on LJ. I just added them because I can read my friends page from my cell phone and it’s easier to check that than email notifications (and I’m a big dork). – Kelly PS: If you want to link it to allow others to easily add it to their LJ friends page, you can use these links: http://www.livejournal.com/friends/add.bml?user=bitchypoodotcom http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=bitchypoo_com Or you can use this HTML: bitchypoodotcom Either one, it will add the feed to their list 🙂 I have only the vaguest idea of what all that means, but thank you, Pinky! 🙂 Hmmm. Should I add something in the sidebar for people?

* * * From my comments: i love your site and i’m always reading, but i stopped looking at the pet store kitties some time ago because it made me sad and i want to adopt all of the kitties. i wonder, is the pet store you work at no-kill and/or what happens to the kitties who aren’t adopted? The shelter I volunteer for (who provides the cats to the pet store) is a no-kill shelter. If the cats don’t get adopted after a few weeks at the pet store, they go back to the shelter. The shelter is a house converted into several big rooms (and some smaller ones) where cats have many places to lay and sleep, or hide, or chase other cats around. The lady who runs the shelter actually lives there and takes care of the cats. When we went to the shelter (and eventually adopted Stanley the Booger Bean), there were cats there that have been there for years. If they’re never adopted, they’ll stay at the shelter and be cared for with love for the rest of their lives. I don’t know that I could ever volunteer for a shelter where cats are put to sleep after a certain amount of time – it would just be too hard. Oh Robyn, I think I’ve been reading your site for too long. Last night I dreamt that you and Fred took my son with you to Gatlinburg, and I was very worried about him being on such a small plane. Not worried about him going on vacation with people I don’t know, no, worried about a plane. He had fun though, because you let him play Gameboy the entire flight. Um, okay. Clearly, I have lost my mind. But of COURSE we’d let him play with his Gameboy for the entire flight! It would take his mind off all those 100-foot drops when we go through the clouds. I just really need to know if TEX the pilot needs a girlfriend…I just soloed in a Cessna 172 and need me one of them there cowboy co-pilots. YEEEE HAW. Tex is a married man. A friend of mine found a brazilian wandering spider on a banana one time. She worked for a pet store so she actually kept it in a terrarium in her house. After she showed me THAT thing, I didn’t eat bananas for years. Everyone, check your bananas carefully before bringing them home… This reminds me – back last Fall when I was planting daffodil and lily bulbs and found a black widow, I was Googling around to see whether spiders breathe oxygen (shut up. It’s a valid question!), and I found a site where people were talking about their black widows THAT THEY KEPT AS PETS. Ugh. Ick. Bleh! beeeeeeeeeeechiesssss My sister posted that one. When I was little, I called bugs “Beechies” for some unknown reason, and I was scared to DEATH of anything remotely buglike. My mother tells the story of when I was three or four and we were stationed in Indiana. I ran out the door into the front yard, and a swarm of locusts flew up, and I levitated in the air and ran back through the door shrieking “Beechies! Beechies!” the entire way. Mom usually express mails me fiddleheads in the spring. She and Dad brave the black flies for a batch or two. I’ve never had canned. Any good? You know, I’ve only ever had fiddleheads once in my life, and I think they were fresh. I don’t know about the canned ones – don’t canned vegetables tend to be a wee bit slimier than fresh or frozen? It’d probably be worth a try, though! The Evanescence song is DEFINITELY “My Immortal,” I play it every morning in my car on the way to work. (You can tell I REALLY love my job eh?) I betcha you love the line, “And I realized I’ve been ALONEEEEEEEEE all ALONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!” At least that’s the one that makes me sob out loud! Heh. Yes, it’s “My Immortal”. And that IS my favorite part! The funny thing is that after I asked in my entry if anyone knew the name, I realized that I’d given the CD to the spud for Christmas, and it was sitting upstairs in her room! Furniture spray? I once threw cheese at a spider, for lack of any other means of defending myself. Oh, and I was crouching on the kitchen table at the time. Hence the cheese. But the important question is… was it on a salad? Because spiders LIKE cheese, just NOT on a salad. (Hee! I slay me!) I think you’d look good in a bathing suit! Don’t be ashamed! Are you going to sport one in Hawaii?! Come on!! ;o) and I have to agree with Heather! Oh, HELL no! If y’all want to put on a bathing suit and prance around in front of my mother, you just feel free to do so. I, on the other hand, will be sporting a pair of badass board shorts and a t-shirt. I may end up with a farmer tan, but I’ll be way more comfortable than I would in a bathing suit. I’ll leave the looking-cute-in-a-bathing-suit up to the spud and her cousin. I agree with you on the Boy t-shirt thing, but I have to wonder…Miz Poo may think boys are fine, but what about dogs? 😉 Miz Poo has no opinion on dogs. As long as they, too, worship her she’ll let them live. If they try to give her attitude or get in her fact, though, she’ll be forced to turn into kung-fu kitty. And no one wants THAT. * * * The Beaniest Bean who ever Beaned. ]]>

Pretty, no? Catfish. ::shudder:: I’m supposed to compare Fred to Jay Leno or Quentin Tarantino (that was the deal when I asked if I could put the picture in my entry), but I think he looks adorable. Fred’s got more pictures up in his entry today, if you’re interested.

* * * M0vie G@llery has pissed me off for the last friggin’ time. I think I mentioned that we’ve been watching the first season of 24, which we’ve been renting from the movie store. We’d watched all but the last DVD and for the last two weeks have had no luck at all renting it. Every time we check the store – and we’ve been checking multiple times a day – it’s been out. I’ve checked every friggin’ movie store in the area with no luck. Yesterday I went in and there were no 24 cases at all in the TV Shows on DVD section. I fumed for a few moments, and then walked down the aisle to grab a copy of Mystic River. There were maybe ten Mystic River cases, but no DVDs. I fumed some more, grabbed Along Came Polly and The Company, and went to check out. “Do you not carry 24 anymore?” I asked the employee as she scanned my card. She glanced over at the TV Shows on DVD section. “There aren’t any cases over there,” I added. “Frank!” she yelled to the other employee. “Do we still have 24?” “Yeah, we’re moving them to the floor,” Frank yelled back. “They’re…” he shrugged. “In transit.” She shrugged at me. “We’re moving them.” UGH. God, this pisses me OFF. I called Fred and bitched at him for a few minutes, then went off to do the rest of my errands. H0llyw00d Video had Mystic River on DVD (which I rented), but no TV shows. Ugh. Which is when I came home and ordered Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD from Amazon. We’re going to watch the last disk of Season 1, and immediately turn around and sell the whole set on eBay. As we were on our way to the quarry last night, we discussed just how much money M0vie G@llery was losing because they SUCK: $4 for the last Season 1 disk, $24 for the entire Season 2, and $4 for Mystic River. From now on, though it’s a little more out of the way, I’ll be doing the bulk of my movie renting at H0llywood Video. And since I now watch movies while I’m exercising on the elliptical trainer, that’s bound to add up. I think it’s time to write a letter, is what I think. * * * You know, I’ve been seeing more and more of that line of anti-boy t-shirts in the stores lately. You know what I’m talking about – Boys Lie, Boys Suck, Boys are Dumb, Boys are Smelly – Throw Rocks at Them, Boys are Full of it – Fling Poop at Them. (If you haven’t seen shirts or pens or notebooks or stickers like that, you probably haven’t been in your local Spencer’s). I’m not so crazy about the anti-boy stuff, in fact I’d go so far as to say I hate them. If there was a popular line of “Girls smell good. Hold them down and fuck them!” t-shirts, there’d be a hue and cry. But it’s okay to be anti-boy? Fuck that. Look, you know I have a sense of humor and I like the rude, obnoxious stuff. But these shirts just aren’t funny. * * * Miz Poo thinks that boys are just fine as long as they worship her. Girls too, for that matter. She’s not sexist. ]]>

Rachael, who saved the day by letting me know that the latest book in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series came out today. I had completely forgotten! I grabbed up the $10 Waldenbooks coupon I’d been saving for just such an occasion and went to the mall as fast as I could go. When I was paying for the book, the lady working there – I think she was the manager – asked if I needed her to put the new Bill Clinton book on reserve for me. “Uh,” I said. “NO.” And then I laughed. Whereupon she told me that her district manager was giving her hell because she wasn’t getting enough people to pre-order the Bill Clinton book, and that his store was getting 50+ pre-orders a day. “Where’s his store?” I asked. “Arkansas!” “Ah,” I said, and we rolled our eyes about her district manager. See? I can be approachable!

* * * SUCH a liar. This is what really happened. After Fred went to the quarry and spent an hour or so swimming there, he came home and talked about it for the rest of the day and into the night. He made it sound so amazing that I was absolutely chomping at the bit to go and swim myself. Yesterday was cloudy off and on, but when Fred left work it was more sunny than cloudy, and once he got home, we decided that it was perfect swimming weather. I put on a t-shirt and shorts (please. I am SO not wearing a bathing suit in public!), we packed some drinks and towels, and off we went. We had the quarry to ourselves for the most part (there were a few people on the other end for a little while), and I went over to the pier to look into the water. “It’s kind of creepy, isn’t it, the way you can’t see the bottom?” Fred said. “No, it’s cool!” I said. The water was a beautiful blue-green (more blue than green) color, and I couldn’t wait to get in. Fred went first, stepping down the stairs from the top level of the pier to the bottom level, gasping every inch of the way as he moaned about how cold the water was. Wimp, I thought, mentally rolling my eyes. But he wasn’t kidding. If I had testicles, they would have sucked up into my body when I started walking down the steps. When I got to the bottom level of the pier, the water was up around boob level, and I whined and moaned about how damn cold it was. Which is when I first felt it. I looked down and realized that I was surrounded by bream of all sizes and they were QUITE interested in me. As I watched, several of the smaller ones darted forward, nibbled at my legs, and then darted away. I’m betting that some people who come to the quarry feed the fish, and they were checking to see if I was edible. It was cool to watch, and I stood in place and watched them take turns coming forward, nibbling, and swimming away. Fred went underwater and adjusted his mask, then swam away a little. “Come on, Bessie!” he said. “Come off the pier!” And then assorted bream started nibbling a little harder, seeming to concentrate on the backs of my thighs. I don’t know if my thighs were jiggling in a way to make them look like fish food or what, but several bream seemed to think there was food to be found. “Hey!” I yelled, and started running in place so the little fuckers would knock it off. I started to feel a tad claustrophobic being surrounded by so many fish, so I grabbed my mask and yellow foam noodle off the upper level of the pier (what? You don’t swim with a yellow foam noodle? Liar.) and jumped off the pier. A couple of the little fuckers took a last few chomps off the backs of my thighs, and then I was away from them. I put my mask on and looked downward. Where I couldn’t see even the hint of the bottom. There was nothing to be seen but water, as far as the eye could see. I draped myself over my foam noodle and suddenly felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. The idea of being suspended in water 50 feet deep, with god knows what swimming down there, creeped me out. I flailed around, feeling more than a little panicked, and checked to see where Fred was. He was about thirty feet away, looking down toward the bottom of the quarry. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, and put my mask back on. With one hand on my noodle (and the other one is flashing the peace sign!) I floated on my stomach and looked down toward the bottom of the quarry again. Which is when I saw the BIGGEST UGLIEST FUCKING FISH I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. It was big – at least three feet big – and it was UGLY, and when it saw me, rather than quickly swimming away, he gave me a curious “Hm. That looks like food…” look and HEADED IN MY DIRECTION. “Fuck THIS,” I said, and I grabbed my noodle and I hauled ass toward the pier. When I was on the pier, the bream darted forward to partake of my delicious thighs, and I stomped across the pier as fast as I could, saying “STOP IT, YOU FUCKERS!” and I stomped up the steps to the top part of the pier, and waited for Fred to take his face out of the water. When he did, he said “What are you – ?” “No, I’m sorry,” I said. “No, it’s too fucking creepy and there was a fish THE SIZE OF MY ASS, and no. I’ll just say here while you swim. I’ll be over at the picnic table. Take your time.” “Bessie,” he said patiently. “Come back in!” “No!” I said. “I don’t like the fish, and I don’t like not being able to see the bottom! It’s too creepy! And the fish are too big!” “Bessie,” he said. “The fish won’t bother you!” “It SWAM AT ME!” I said. “It was going to bite me!” “Bessie, there are no fresh water fish that eat humans!” “SAYS WHO?” “It’s a fact!” he said. “Fresh water fish won’t hurt you, I promise.” “YOU DON’T KNOW THAT!” “Bessie, please? Come back in the water.” I considered it. He was really having a good time and I wanted to have a good time, too. If I didn’t learn to appreciate the magic of the quarry, I could foresee many afternoons where I’d be home by myself while he was off at the quarry. “Okay, FINE,” I said. “But you have to stay WITH me.” I was pretty sure that if another six-foot-long people-eating catfish came toward us, I could cripple him with a kick to the crotch, and swim to safety while the catfish made a meal of him. So I went back into the water, got nibbled a few more times, and spent the next hour following Fred around and checking out all the cool underwater things. It was really pretty amazing, and I can’t wait to go back. I still don’t like those fucking catfish, though. * * * “What? You have an empty box, you think I’m not going to jump into it?” ]]>

Shelley‘s baby while she and M went out to paint the town. The baby was five months old and a boy (it’s a boy, Shelley!), but very advanced for his age. He was potty trained and could walk quite well, and while he couldn’t talk, he could make it clear what he wanted. The child would NOT stop shoving Beanie Babies in his mouth. Every time I turned around I had to pull one out of his mouth, and I couldn’t figure where the hell he was getting them. I’d pull one out, and he’d give me a big toothy grin, then ten seconds later there was a Beanie leg or tail sticking out of his mouth. As you can imagine, it was quite frustrating. I sure hope Shelley keeps the Beanie Babies away from her baby, that’s all I’ll say.

* * * So, one of the things I hate about paying bills is the whole writing out the checks, then trusting my mailman to not lose my mail, and waiting for the checks to clear. My credit union offers a Billpay option, wherein you basically electronically transfer the money, it’s immediately taken out of your checking account, and it gets there faster than the mail would. I’m seriously considering using Billpay to pay the majority of our bills (excepting, of course, our mortgage, because I just KNOW that it would turn into a huge fuckarow because Ch@se Manhatt@n sucks ass). Here’s where you come in – in the comments, tell me the horror stories about your friend’s friend’s cousin’s uncle who used the Billpay option at their bank and they took out $10,000 instead of $1,000. If there are horror stories to be told about paying bills electronically, I know y’all will have them. I have faith in you! * * * Which reminds me – thanks for all the sad song suggestions in Friday’s comments. I read some of them and thought “I can’t believe I forgot that song!”, and there are a bunch I want to listen to, which I think I’m going to start doing this week. Y’all rock. * * * It appears, though I haven’t gotten any email telling me so, that I’m up for a few Diarist Awards. A couple of entry awards, and a site award. Thank you to whoever nominated me (the person who nominated me for Best Journal (Overall), what exactly were you on?), and if you have a journal go vote whether you vote for me or not! Fred’s up for Best Account of a Public or News Event for this entry, and Jane‘s up for Best Writing. You should DEFINITELY go vote for them. Go on, now. Scoot! * * * I so cannot believe Jennifer Lopez married whatshisname. What the hell is up with that? I mean, DAMN. She was in Forever Love with Ben “The Head” Affleck just a few months ago. That is one screwed-up woman. I mean, I’d love to be proven wrong here, but I suspect this marriage won’t last a year. She has some weird deep-seated need to be married, and she’s going to spend her life moving from man to man, marrying them during the first months of their relationship, and dumping them when real-life hits and she realizes “This isn’t champagne and roses!” Speaking of celebrity marriages, I’ll now lift my 18-month prediction on Julia Roberts and Matthew Modine Michael Madsen what the fuck is his name again? Danny Moder, especially since July 4th will be two years. Heh. Also, you can’t have that “They’re about to break up annnnnnny minute now” bad karma out there when kids are involved. I’m surprised that she didn’t wait until she was past three months to make the announcement. Maybe they were afraid that the news would leak and wanted to pre-empt that? Anyway. Consider that prediction nullified and in it’s place a wish for a long, happy marriage, mm’kay? * * * What? You’ve never seen a cat sitting in a box before? ]]>

* * * We finally got the box of stuff we sent ourselves from Gatlinburg, and BELIEVE YOU ME I was cursing the woman who’d packed the box for us. By the time I was done scooping those evil fucking styrofoam peanuts out of the box, I had two big garbage bags full of nothing but the fucking things (Fred dropped them off at a Mailboxes, Etc. the next morning. Recycling at it’s finest.). I loathe those fucking things, HATE THEM. What’s wrong with plain old bubble wrap? NOTHING, that’s what. I swear, the next time I get a box with peanuts in it, I’m going to be forced to go on a shooting spree. Styrofoam peanuts = pure evil. Ugh. Anyway, I took pictures of most of the stuff I bought for you to enjoy. Who loves ya? Why, yes. That would be me. I always buy tons of magnets when we’re in G’burg, some of them from World O’ Magnets, and some in other gift stores. I do love the magnets.

Fred surprised me by buying this one for me. Awww. My favorite. Heh. Love the Happy Bunny! In fact, I got so many magnets that I decided to get rid of some of the ones I’ve bought in the past and give them away on the giveaway page (I’ll get that done later today or tomorrow, promise!). A blurry shot of some of the salsa Fred bought at The Pepper Palace. We won a shot glass from Fannie Farkle’s (an arcade). Fred usually gets the obnoxious t-shirts, but when I saw the back, I had to get this one for myself. Above is the front… The back. Heh. (You can get your own here.) Because we just don’t have enough cups. Really! Two Quarry Cats to add to my collection. And that’s about it. As usual, we bought a bunch of stuff we don’t need. Which is what you’re supposed to do on vacation, right? You can see what Fred bought, here. * * * I was looking for a magnet yesterday, when I ran across a couple of t-shirts that made me laugh. Don’t I need this shirt? I don’t know why this made me laugh. It just did! * * * Since we didn’t have a cake on Fred’s birthday (it was a Wednesday and we were leaving the next day for Gatlinburg), we decided to have one today. I made him call and order it himself. He told them to put a lot of roses on it, though didn’t specify what color the roses should be. When I picked it up this morning, I was surprised to see just how girly the colors were: Pretty, no? I have a feeling I’ll be coming down from a serious sugar high in about six hours… * * * “I dub thee… Sir Stumpinboogers!” ]]>

am the lucky one, aren’t I? I need to invest in shirts that are low in the back so I can show off my badass scar. And for the record, I’m not worried. “Precancerous” means “If you wait long enough, it’ll become cancerous, but it isn’t yet”, so I’m just glad I actually had that physical. I made Fred take a picture of the spot on my back, since it’s in a place I can’t see and I was wondering what it looked like, and can I just say HOLY SHIT do I have a lot of freckles on my back! I had no idea. Luckily they’re all those little tiny freckles and not the big scary melanoma-looking ones. With all the sunburns I got as a kid, I’m surprised I don’t have to have all the skin on my body removed. (You do know the mole warning signs, right? Keep an eye on your moles!)

* * * Speaking of my skin issues, I have to keep a bandaid over the spot on my stomach. Regular bandaids just won’t cut it in the morning, because I sweat (heh – I originally typed “swear”. Which is also true!) profusely when I’m working out, and any regular bandaid will just slide off after a while. This morning when I was digging around in the basket where we keep our large collection of bandaids, I found a waterproof bandaid that sticks on all sides, and it swore on the box that the bandaid would stay in place through anything you could throw at it. I put it on, and went to work out, and sure enough the bandaid didn’t budge at all. When I took the bandaid off to take a shower, a small pool of sweat poured out. Gross. Yet also somehow cool. Is it better to let the spot marinate in a pool of sweat, or go without a bandaid for a little while? I suspect the latter. * * * I realized as I was vacuuming the downstairs this morning just how many damn spiders we have living in our house. I counted at least seven corners inhabited by spiders, and I’m sure there are many more. Like I’ve said before, as long as they keep their webs clean, I’ll let them stay. The problem is that spiders don’t actually eat bugs – they paralyze them and then suck the juices out of them, then toss the bug shell that’s left over out of the web. There were no less than eight bug shells on the floor under the web of the spider who lives in a corner of the kitchen. Did I suck up the spider who was making the mess? No, I vacuumed up the bug shells and let the spider stay. Because he’s killing the bugs like he’s supposed to! It is absolutely an amazing thing that I’m letting these spiders live in my house without freaking out, because as a kid I hated any kind of spider. Once (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before) there was a spider in my room and I didn’t dare to get close enough to kill it and Debbie wouldn’t kill it for me, so we sprayed the fucking thing with half a can of furniture spray until it stopped moving. Most of the spiders in the house are fairly small-bodied with long legs. The spiders I can’t stand (and will either kill or shoo out of the house, depending on how close to the door they are when I spot them) are grass spiders. They tend to be HUGE – when we lived in the other house, we left a foam noodle in the pool one night. The next morning we decided to go for a swim. On the noodle was a grass spider the SIZE OF MY FUCKING HAND, and it was covered with baby grass spiders. ::shudder:: The other kind of spider I really, really don’t like is one I didn’t know the name of until I happened to find the page I linked above. It’s the jumping spider. Not only do they have what appears to be pincer-like front legs (I always think they look like tiny crabs), THE FUCKERS JUMP. REALLY FAR. LIKE FOUR TIMES THE LENGTH OF THEIR LITTLE BODIES. Ugh. I actually found a couple of jumping spiders facing off in the kitchen this morning. I put a cup over them, slid a piece of paper under the cup, and took them outside. When I dumped them out of the cup, one of them immediately JUMPED TOWARD ME. Little fucker. Spider pictures that have made me shudder this morning: the banana spider (UGH), the black widow (those things just look SO FUCKING EVIL), and the golden rod spider. I don’t know about you, but after looking at all those spider pictures, I’m feeling all itchy, as though thousands of spiders are crawling on me… * * * A couple of people asked in the comments yesterday whether it bothers the spud that I clean her room and get rid of stuff while she’s gone in the summer. It hasn’t so far, and she’s always glad to see her room clean and straightened when she gets home. This is actually the first year I’ve cleaned her room that I haven’t tossed any toys, mainly because she’s gotten older and isn’t getting so many toys that she never plays with. I’m going to take down the Little Mermaid poster and put a bulletin board in it’s place, but I’m going to keep the poster (it’s a nice one that her father’s cousin gave her when she was little) and if she decides that she wants it back, we’ll find another place on her wall to hang it. As for the shirts, I’ve packed them away so that if at some point after she gets home she says “Where’s my (blank) shirt?” I can go dig it out. It hasn’t happened in the five years, though, and I expect it won’t happen this year either, since I talked to her the other day and it sounds like she’s already got a ton of clothes to bring home with her! I generally give the old clothes until around Christmas, and if she hasn’t needed something I’ve packed away by then, I figure she never will, and I donate it to charity. * * * Yellow lilies. Pretty, eh? * * * I got the BEST LINK EVER from Laura this morning – Maine Goodies has anything an exiled Mainer could ever wish for. I’m particularly drooling over the whoopie pies and lobster stew! * * * Spot. He’s in his bed! (He spends all day in his bed. I suspect he does the exciting stuff at night when we’re asleep) ]]>