I had a scattered weekend. There were things I intended to get done, and I got them all done, but in kind of a haphazard manner and I found myself staring off into space thinking “What was I going to do…?” many, many times.
Can I blame it on ovulating? Given that everything on earth revolves around my menstrual cycle?
I think I can.
So Saturday morning I got up earlier than I wanted to because I was going to Decatur with Fred to pick up the fence for the back forty. We left the house a little after 7 so we could stop by the L0we’s in Decatur before we went to the place where we were getting the fence. Since I hadn’t slept very well Friday night, I was kind of sleepy and cranky and in desperate need of eating junky, greasy, crappy food for breakfast.
Fred refused to stop at Waffle House or the “good” breakfast buffet place in Decatur because he’s a motherfucker.
We were in L0we’s for about half an hour and at first I followed Fred around and then he grabbed something and I was all “What’s that?” and he said whatever it was (please, like I was really LISTENING) and I said “What’s that for?” and he turned and gave me an annoyed look and I flung my arm up in a “talk to the hand” gesture and said “Whatever, I’m going to look at the storage shit” and huffed off.
In the storage section, which was not easy to find (I don’t know why they don’t set every Lowe’s up in the exact same way, perhaps it’s to annoy me), I looked around and pondered and considered and thought. I want to put the pillows and sheets and comforter that go on the guest bed in some sort of secure container so that if the cats feel the need to pee on something, it won’t be the bedding for the guest bed. After some looking around and thinking, I ended up picking up a couple of boxes of heavy-duty 22-gallon Ziploc bags. The idea was that I’d putting the bedding and pillows in the bags, and then slide them under the bed.
I was headed to the section to look at curtains, when Fred waved me down. I followed him while he decided on storm windows (the new chicken coop will have windows, just like the current one), picked up some nails or something, and then he pointed out two kinds of wood.
“These are to go around the windows,” he said. “Which one is better?”
I looked at the one on the left and said “Well, that one looks better.”
He started snarking at me about how I was looking at both pieces of wood when I said that, so I threw up my hand, said “I was looking at the one on the right, assface. I’m going to look at the curtains.”
I was looking at the curtains – I don’t know why I bother, there’s never anything I like in their curtain section – when Fred came up to me, pushing the cart, and said, accusingly, “Did you take my list?”
Like I was having a temper tantrum, so I grabbed his list and took off so he couldn’t check it twice. Fucker.
(Okay, it totally sounds like something I’d do. Except I hadn’t.)
“No, you put it down when you were looking at the wood,” I said. He left the cart with me and wandered off. Eventually he came back, having found the list and picking up the one thing left that he hadn’t gotten yet. We checked out and then headed off to get the fence.
Naturally, despite the fact that he’d ordered the fence the middle of last week, and the guy running the place had told him it would be there waiting for him on Saturday, only part of the fence order was ready. The rest, apparently, was still in the warehouse. The guy who runs the place told Fred that the guy who takes care of the warehouse could meet him at the warehouse and Fred could get the rest of the fence, but the guy who’d meet him there would take about half an hour to get to town.
Fred said “How much would you charge me to just deliver it to Smallville?”
The guy considered. “Usually we charge fifty dollars. But I’d only charge you twenty!”
“Really,” Fred said. “You’d charge me twenty dollars to deliver fence that I’ve already paid for, that you promised me would be sitting here waiting for me?”
The guy considered. “I could do it for free!”
After some discussion, they decided to meet halfway between Smallville and Decatur this afternoon.
We got home (despite the many times I pointed out places where we could get a good breakfast because Fred wanted to get home and get started on the chicken coop, BASTARD) and then I changed into a pair of shorts and t-shirt (it’s been cool in the mornings and much warmer as the day goes by lately. I’m not complaining!) and got started on wandering around the house trying to remember what I’d been intending to do.
I ate breakfast and then cleaned up the kitchen, and then went upstairs and spent about an hour in the foster kitten room reading. The kittens alternately slept and stared down at me, trying to figure out what my game was.
I came back downstairs and decided it was time to make a loaf of apple bread and then use the rest of the bag of apples to make and can some applesauce. I knew we had a doohickey that would peel, slice, and core apples at the same time, but I could NOT find the friggin’ thing. I got the apple bread in the oven and then started peeling apples to make the applesauce. I’d peel and core an apple, think “FUCK THIS”, dig through the cabinets to look for the peeler/ slicer/ corer, wouldn’t be able to find it, peel and core another apple, think “FUCK THIS”, dig some more, and so on until all the apples had been cored, sliced, and peeled.
(I eventually found the doohickey, in the closet in the laundry room. Right where I’d put it. OF COURSE.)
Long, boring-ass story short, I made the applesauce and canned it (ended up with three and a half pints), cleaned up the kitchen, ate lunch, and spent a few hours with the kittens.
Every night, Fred and I start watching TV around 7. Some nights it’s earlier – in fact, it’s trending earlier since it’s getting dark earlier and the chickens are ready to be put up when it’s dark, and by the time they’re put up and the cats are brought inside, it’s about 6:30. Lately, right around 8:00 one or the other of us will say “Is it time for bed yet?”
I must be getting SO FREAKIN’ OLD, because if Fred said “Hey, you ready to go to bed?” at 8:00, I’d jump at the chance. We don’t go immediately to bed and then to sleep when we say we’re going to bed – there’s a whole process that involves my clearing all the dishes out of the sink, starting the dishwasher if need be, checking my email, Fred checking his email and his doofy online places he likes to hang out, Fred checking to see if Her Majesty Maxi or His Majesty Newtles wants to come inside, brushing our teeth, taking our contacts out, and the last few nights, spending some time with the kittens (edited to add: oh, right. I didn’t mention here that we have new kittens, did I? Duh. Go here to see them – there are three or four entries about them so far!).
So it’s not like I want to go to SLEEP at 8:00, I just want to start the process of heading for bed. Nothing on TV is really lighting my fire these days, and so when we start watching TV at 7, I sit there bored and count the minutes ’til bedtime. And unlike the old days, when Fred would go to bed and I’d turn the light on and read or come back downstairs and sit in front of my computer, these days I tend to just roll over and go to sleep when Fred goes to bed.
Most nights, I’m asleep pretty soon after 9:30.
I’d mock myself here, except that I’m usually out of bed in the mornings by 6:00, so it’s not like I’m sleeping 12 hours at a stretch (though on the weekends when Fred is around to let the chickens out of the coop when it gets light out, I do tend to sleep ’til 6:30 or so).
I’ve always considered myself a night owl, so to be the sort of person who’d prefer to go to bed when the sun goes down (or shortly thereafter) and get up when it comes up is really weird to me.
Friday afternoon, the guy came to fix the dishwasher. When I tried to start the dishwasher Wednesday night, it made a very loud grinding noise, and I thought it prudent to not use it ’til a professional had had a chance to look it over. So the guy showed up Friday afternoon and looked at the dishwasher, and I stood in the kitchen and watched, because I always feel like I’m being rude if I wander off to do something INTERESTING. And as seems to be the way with repairmen or delivery men, he felt the need to make conversation with me. He was a perfectly nice man, but he kept talking about dishwashers, and that is a topic I neither know nor care about, but I made the attempt to look interested as he went on. And on. AND ON about dishwashers.
And then I had an epiphany.
I bet this is how Fred feels when I babble on. And on. AND ON about cats.
When I said this very same thing to Fred when we were laying in bed talking that night, he laughed and didn’t even attempt to deny it.
A sweet moment between brothers. Right before Mister Boogers jumped on Tommy and bit his neck.
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: I sure do wish I was going to see Callie Torres and not some old guy.
2005: Does this mean I’m getting old?
2004: No entry.
2003: Bringing home Mister Boogers.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: All about the cats.
1999: I certainly am bitching a lot today, aren’t I?