Life – Page 72 – Bitchypoo

7-6-09 (Monday)

Thanks, y’all, for your kind words and thoughts about Mister Boogers. We are missing him an awful lot these days – more than we expected, I think. With Spot and Tubby, at least they were sick for a while before they died, so it wasn’t unexpected (especially with Spot), but Mister Boogers was young and … Continue reading “7-6-09 (Monday)”

We both keep finding ourselves surprised anew by the loss – and every now and then one or the other of us sighs and says “Poor Boogie.”

Good ol’ Boogie.

It’s so strange – Mister Boogers’ personality was so large that with him gone it’s like our cat population has halved. Things are so quiet around here, and the other cats seem to know that something’s not right.

If you haven’t donated to the shelter in his memory and wanted to, there’s still time! (For that matter, if you were offended by the Boogie hetred, you could donate NOT in his memory. The shelter can always use the money, especially now that they’re aflood in baby kittens.) I suspect Mister Boogers would pretend to be horrified that people were remembering him in such a way, but secretly? He’d be pleased. He’s looking up at y’all right now IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

They accept donations by mail (check or money order), by phone (Mastercard/VISA), or select the button below to donate through PayPal.

Challenger’s House

112 Tristian Rd.

Toney, AL 35773

Phone: 256-420-5995

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So on Friday, after I went to the pet store and cleaned out cat cages and gave extra love to all the cats there, Fred and I set off on an errand. I know I mentioned that the pigs went off to freezer camp a couple of weeks ago. As always, once the pigs were no longer there for us to feed our kitchen scraps to, I missed having a convenient bucket to toss everything into. When we’re pigless, I toss everything into a Ziploc bag and keep it in the freezer ’til it’s full, then move it out to the garage so that when we have pigs again, we’ll have scraps on hand to feed them (they get pig chow as the main part of their diet, but we supplement it with food from our kitchen, the garden, and Fred’s mother saves their leftovers for the pigs, as well).

After a few moments of discussion (doesn’t take much to convince me), Fred decided to call the pig man and see if he had any small pigs he could sell us. He did – he just had to trap them, which took a few days – and they were ready to go. Since Fred had Friday off, we decided Friday morning was the perfect time to go pick them up.

The drive up to the pig man’s house is always a pleasant one. While Fred and the pig man went off to get the pigs (you can read more about that here WARNING GRAPHIC VIOLENCE), I walked around and took some pictures.

Great Pyrenees puppies (no, we didn’t come home with puppies!) and a kitten.

Momma cat (the slightly larger orange and white is the Momma) and some of her babies.

Kittens (they didn’t let me get close to them at ALL).

This one wanted to be friends in the worst way, but she was just a little too scared of me to let me pet her.

One of the many dogs around the place.

“Pet me! Pet me! PET ME!” (I did.)

Momma pig heard her babies squalling and came running. Right through a barbed wire fence. All I could do was stand there and stare – she slipped through so close I could have touched her. (I didn’t.)

Happy pigs.

“What?”

Guineas sure are ugly.

New pigs. Thus far, Fred has attempted to woo them with food. He hasn’t been 100% successful at getting them to connect him with food, but with the help of Piggerdoodles, he’s getting there.

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Saturday – well, what did we do on Saturday? I know I got up early and went to the pet store to clean cages again. To my utter delight, Belle got herself adopted! I cleaned out the cages and then let the kittens – and there are a lot of kittens right now – run wild. I swear to god, if I could bottle 1/100th of the energy those kittens have, I could rule the world.

I left there and went to Sam’s Club to stock up on important household items (2 gallons of white vinegar for less than $4? Yes, please!), and I think I was only in there for about half an hour. I wasted some time at Target, walking around looking at stuff ’til Michael’s opened, then browsed in there for a while before I headed back to the pet store (which was now open) and bought some cat food.

I was home a little after 10, I think, and then I did a lot of puttering around the house getting veggies (which Fred had helpfully picked while I was off running errands) cleaned and put up.

We had a pretty simple Fourth of July meal – hamburgers, horseradish potato salad, corn on the cob, and cherry tomatoes with blocks of mozzarella (always my favorite part of summer. Well – that, and the raw green beans, straight from the vine. Nothing tastes more like summer to me!).

The best part of dinner was dessert – holy MOLY was it good. I ran across a recipe for Paula Deen’s Strawberry Cream Shortcake last week some time, and printed it out. Instead of using just strawberries, I bought some blueberries on sale, and used strawberries on the first layer, and blueberries on top. SO GOOD. I highly recommend it.

(So do the pigs!)

Out of curiosity – do any of Paula Deen’s dessert recipes NOT call for a can of sweetened condensed milk? Not that I’m complaining!

Speaking of good food, I made Quesadilla Pie for dinner last Friday, and it was a big hit with both Fred and I. I did make each layer a lot thicker than I should have, so it ended up being higher than the pie dish, and lasted for several meals. Next time, I’ll make the layers shallower and see how that goes. It’s a good recipe to use up leftover chicken, extra summer squash and zucchini – I imagine just about anything tossed in would be good!

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Creed, Dwight, and Phyllis are such funny little kittens, racing around the house, jumping on each other (and us!), fighting, and then falling in a heap to sleep for hours and hours before resuming the racing around again. They’re sassy little monkeys, and Creed especially is a love bug. He adores climbing up on Fred in the evenings, sniffs wildly at Fred’s mouth, rubs his face along Fred’s cheek, and then settles in to sleep.

(Unless, of course, he hears a strange noise at the other end of the house, in which case he goes racing off to investigate.)

At this point, these three are ready to go to PetSmart, but there are so many kittens at the shelter and more coming in all the time, that it could be a while. And to be honest, I’m fine with that! They’re no trouble, and they’re certainly entertaining.

Phyllis, sound asleep with her eyes open. Kinda creepy!

On the mat by the door, among the shoes, is Dwight’s favorite place to snooze.

“We are trying to sleep. Go ‘way.”

He just REFUSED to lay so that the hat would sit on his head properly. So I hung it off his ear, and he could not have cared less.

Sweet boy.

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Stinkerbelle thinks about taking on the Mantel of Hetred.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: What can I say? I’m a freak.
2006: If the vet tells me that Tommy’s overweight, I’m going to say, with great dignity, “We prefer to call him ‘portly’.”
2005: Mia.
2004: There were a couple of parts that had me laughing so hard I could barely breathe – especially the line “I see you have a little swimming mouse”.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Have I ever mentioned that I’m kind of a dork?

7-1-09 – Wednesday

Mister Boogers June 15, 2003 – June 30, 2009. & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & Yesterday afternoon as I was eating lunch, I thought that it was odd that I hadn’t seen … Continue reading “7-1-09 – Wednesday”

Mister Boogers
June 15, 2003 – June 30, 2009.

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Yesterday afternoon as I was eating lunch, I thought that it was odd that I hadn’t seen Mister Boogers all day. With as many cats as we have, that happens from time to time – Mister Boogers usually spends his mornings wandering around the back yard and his afternoons in a cat bed on my desk. Sometimes he prefers to sleep on the bed in the guest bedroom, or even occasionally disappears upstairs and hang out in the foster kitten room.

I made a mental note to look for him, and then immediately forgot about it.

An hour later, I was bringing in laundry from the clothes line, and I glanced to my right, toward the side yard that leads to the street. A bit of white caught my eye. I looked closer and saw a lump that was obviously Mister Boogers laying under the big tree in the side yard. It was definitely him – his color, his white feet, his red collar. He looked like he was laying half on his side, snoozing comfortably in the shade of the tree.

We have an electric fence around our back yard and the cats who are prone to jump the fence – Mister Boogers, Tommy, Sugarbutt, Joe Bob, and Kara – wear collars that will beep a warning when they get too close to the fence. If they keep going, they’ll get a short zap. This is enough to deter them 99% of the time, but occasionally (rarely) even with the warning beep and the zap, Mister Boogers would withstand the zap enough to get over the fence. Every time he did it, we tried yet another tactic to block him from getting over the fence. Usually the tactics worked – but he was a smart one, our Mister Boogers.

I put my laundry down and walked to the nearest gate, promising myself that Mister Boogers was in TROUBLE when I got my hands on him. I went through the gate and walked toward Mister Boogers, and it was when I was about twenty feet from him that I saw a small swarm of flies around him. I walked a little closer and looked at him.

He wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing. I was pretty sure he was dead.

I turned and walked back to the back yard and into the house, intent on getting to a phone and calling Fred.

“Hmm,” I thought. “I’m really handling this pretty well!” I dialed Fred’s work number and went to the side window at the front of the house and looked out at Mister Boogers.

When Fred answered the phone, I burst into tears. I managed to ask him to come home, told him I thought Mister Boogers was dead, and he said he’d be home soon.

I spent the next half hour, walking from window to window, looking out at Mister Boogers, hoping to see him move, twitch, breathe, but there was nothing.

(I couldn’t bring myself to go out and get right up to him. I was too afraid that he’d been attacked by something and would be all chewed up. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing him like that.)

An eternity later, Fred got home. He went over and looked at Mister Boogers, picked him up while I watched through the window.

Mister Boogers was dead.

Fred examined him closely, and determined that something big had gotten hold of him. He had a hole in his side, and the fur surrounding the hole had very clearly been wet and then dried – you know that look fur gets when that happens. He’d been dead for hours, without a doubt.

We have stray dogs that wander through our property from time to time to get to the food bowl on the front porch (there’s no longer a food bowl on the front porch, and never will be again). We’re theorizing that one came through, got hold of Mister Boogers, and killed him. I don’t know how long he was there under the tree, dead, before I saw him. If I hadn’t seen that bit of his white paws, I might never have noticed him.

I hope that he died quickly. I hope he didn’t lay there and die slowly, in great pain, while I wandered through the house not so far from him.

Last night we buried him next to the boxwood, the one covered in honeysuckle, a few feet from his old buddy Spot.

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On October 10, 2003, we adopted Mister Boogers. His name wasn’t Mister Boogers then, though – in fact, the shelter had named him “Paw Paw” and it just so happened that I’d seen the picture on his Petfinder page and thought it was so funny that I showed it to Fred.

A few weeks later Fred decided it was time to bring another cat into the house, and we went to the shelter. We met lots of cats, but didn’t fall in love with any of them. Fred remembered seeing the picture, which led him to ask if “Paw Paw” was still at the shelter. He was, but he was in quarantine due to an upper respiratory infection. We got to see him, and when Fred picked him up, he started purring, and because he had an upper respiratory infection, his cheeks puffed out as he purred. We knew immediately that he was going to be ours.

We had a really hard time coming up with a name – Fred wouldn’t agree to “Stumpy” or “Stubby” (which I suggested due to the fact that Mister Boogers was lacking in the tail department – I’d say he had about a third of your average tail; I could never imagine what he’d look like with a full tail) because he said it would be making fun of his “handicap.” We tossed names around for a long time before settling on Stanley.

(I cannot believe we ever thought his name should be “Stanley.” SO not his name.)

He settled in and made friends quickly – he and Tubby got along very well and were fast friends. His face settled into that baleful glare which always made us laugh, and which led to the whole “Mister Boogers hets you” thing; he always looked like he was sitting around thinking about just how much he hated everything.

But here’s the secret – though he always had that malevolent glare on his face, though he always looked like he’d cut you as soon as look at you, Mister Boogers was, at heart, a sweet guy. Always up for a petting, always up for a kiss behind the ear. All you had to do to get him to purr was greet him with “Hey, Boogie.” He’d start purring immediately – sometimes he’d answer your greeting with a grumpy sound (a sound we called a “grump.”).

He always had a soft spot for Tommy and Sugarbutt, from the time they were tiny. They would snuggle up to him, and he’d look grumpy, and then he’d purr and clean the tops of their heads. He was like the grumpy old man with a heart of gold.

Last night, I was laying in bed trying to remember if he’s been a character his entire life, or if he developed into one. I’m pretty sure he was a character from the very beginning. He had what we called a “war cry” when he wanted to fight, and he’d sit there and cry his war cry over and over again. The war cry usually last longer than the fights did.

Here he is, a few months ago, crying his war cry at Joe Bob, who had the utter nerve to be in occupancy of a box Mister Boogers thought should be his own.

He loved to be outside – OH, how he loved to be outside. Every morning he’d wait impatiently to be collared up so he could go outside, sniff around the perimeter of his territory, and then flop down on the cement pad in the back yard. He’d go outside from time to time during the day, I guess just to make sure things were as they should be, check on Tommy and Kara, and then come back inside to sleep off all that hard work.

At night, he’d get up on the couch next to Fred, and grump at him ’til Fred moved over to make room for him. Our Boogie was not terribly demanding, but when he wanted something, he wanted it NOW. At dinner time, he’d sit by Fred and howl for food. Fred would give him a little piece, he’d sniff it, turn his nose up at it, and stomp off. It was never what he thought it was going to be, I guess.

At bedtime, he’d come upstairs with us, and often he’d dig at the sheets until Fred held them up. He liked to get under the sheets with us, flop down on his side, and press his cold, cold feet again our bare skin. That cat had the coldest feet I’ve ever felt on a cat. The best part would be when one of the other cats, not realizing Mister Boogers was under the covers, would tromp across him. He’d lay there and let out this part-whine, part-growl, part-complaint that sounded exactly like this:

Sometimes he’d smack at them through the covers.

Sometimes he’d make his part-whine, part-growl, part-complaint noise at me if I moved my leg or displeased him in some other way, and I’d always kick him off the bed when he did that. He learned quickly that Momma didn’t put up with that behavior, but sometimes he just couldn’t seem to help himself.

He had the heaviest walk of any cat I’ve ever had. You could hear him walking down the stairs – sometimes he’d walk so heavy I’d think a person was coming down the stairs or across the dining room. I guess all that personality weighed him down.

He was SO patient with us. He’d let us carry him around like a baby, he’d let me put hats on him. He’d grump and glare at me, but the entire time he’d be purring and waggling his stump.

He was such a character – you’d think that in a house with ten cats, an absence of one wouldn’t be so noticeable. It is, though; the absence is huge. I keep expecting him to walk into the room, announce his presence with a grump, and waggle his stumpy tail. I keep remembering that he’s gone, and there’s a sense of disbelief every time. He was larger than life, our Mister Boogers.

Bye, Boogie. I miss you.

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If you’re of a mind to, donations can be made in Mister Boogers’ name to Challenger’s House, the shelter I volunteer and foster for. We got Mister Boogers from Challenger’s House in 2003, and all of our cats since then (except Maxi and Newt, who came with the house) have come from there. It’s a no-kill cat shelter, and they do good work.

They accept donations by mail (check or money order), by phone (Mastercard/VISA), or select the button below to donate through PayPal.

Challenger’s House

112 Tristian Rd.

Toney, AL 35773

Phone: 256-420-5995

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I’m taking the rest of the week off – I’ll be back on Monday with a Comment-Answering Extravaganza, so I’ll see you then.

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Previously
2008: I find that I’m filled with hatred a lot these days.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: That Tom Cruise. What a fuckin’ loon, huh?
2004: Jesus christ. After almost five years of marriage, wouldn’t you think he’d KNOW that there are only two ways to answer that question?
2003: And then she vaulted her portly ass across me to say good morning to him, cracking three of my ribs in the process.
2002: We went to see Minority Report on Saturday, and though I really liked it, I did NOT enjoy sitting next to Billy Bob ShutTheFuckUp, who was compelled, when not clearing his throat loudly and phlegmily, to remark upon each and every plot point.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

6/30/09 – Tuesday

The shit that is PISSING ME OFF these days. 1. A few weeks ago, Fred was home from work and I was making dinner or puttering around the house or sitting on my ass in front of the computer, I don’t remember what exactly I was doing, and it’s not important (and yet I cannot … Continue reading “6/30/09 – Tuesday”

The shit that is PISSING ME OFF these days.

1. A few weeks ago, Fred was home from work and I was making dinner or puttering around the house or sitting on my ass in front of the computer, I don’t remember what exactly I was doing, and it’s not important (and yet I cannot seem to stop blathering about it. Was I wiping down the counters? Scrubbing the toilet? Talking to a cat? IT’S A MYSTERY.). The doorbell rang, and Fred went off to answer it. I didn’t concern myself, because I figured it was someone wanting to buy eggs. A minute later, Fred came in and reached for his wallet.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Remember Woody?” he said. “The guy who moved us here from Madison? From Woody’s Moving?”

“Yeah…?”

“Well, his truck ran out of gas, and he needs to borrow some money.”

I looked out the window. “His truck ran out of gas in our driveway?”

“No, not that truck. His moving truck, it’s down the road a ways and he ran out of gas. He forgot his wallet at home, and he doesn’t have his ATM card with him.”

“Then why doesn’t he drive home and get his wallet?” I asked.

Fred responded with something that I don’t recall. He continued digging through his wallet.

“I don’t like this,” I said. “Tell him we don’t have any cash.”

“Bessie,” Fred said. “He moved us into this house!”

I misunderstood, and flipped out. “Oh, he MOVED us? So, what, we OWE him? FUCK that!”

“No, he moved us, so he knows what we have. He knows we’re not poor!”

Which, in retrospect, was a dumb argument because most of the time we really don’t have much cash around the house. But that’s neither here nor there.

Woody had asked for $40; Fred gave him $30. Woody assured Fred that he’d be back the next day, asked what time would be best (Fred told him “After 3:30.” “In other words,” I said. “‘My wife will be here alone until 3:30. Feel free to drop by, tie her up, and rob us!'”). Woody thanked Fred profusely and then left.

We haven’t seen Woody since, and it’s been at least a month. I think you can imagine my shock.

I’ve already told Fred that the NEXT time someone stops by to ask us for money, I’m going to give them the phone number for Woody’s Moving Service and tell them to get it from HIM.

Honestly, I’m not sure why this has me so pissed off, but when I think about it (and I only think about it occasionally, I don’t sit around and think about it all the time), I FUME. We’ve had people ask us for money, and have given it willingly knowing (despite their assurances) that we’d never see it again. The Walkin’ Dude (also here, here, and here; he hasn’t been back since that last one), if you’ll recall, got twenty bucks or so from us, and thought that we were his fucking gravy train. That didn’t piss me off (well, except the part where he didn’t have the good sense to be embarrassed and stay the fuck away), just annoyed me a little.

This thing with Woody, though, even though I knew we’d never see that $30 again, well – Woody better not show his fucking face around here again, because I am the shy and retiring type (stop laughing!), but I will tell Woody to go fuck himself and to get the fuck off my porch and not come back and I very well might bitch-slap him in the process.

2. Robert the egg-buying man. Truth be told, this doesn’t piss me off, just more annoys me. Robert the egg-buying man loves our eggs. LOVES THEM. He stopped by one day and bought all the eggs we had on hand, and then he asked Fred if we could have 10 dozen eggs by the following Friday. Fred told him that we likely could, and Robert tEBM said that he’d be by Friday afternoon.

We made sure to save 10 dozen eggs for him, but Robert tEBM never showed up. So we sold the fucking eggs. He showed up a week later and apologized, saying that since the weather had been non-rainy, he’d been trying to catch up on work. Fair enough, I s’pose, though I’m not sure how much time it takes to swing by and buy some eggs THAT ARE BEING HELD ESPECIALLY FOR YOU.

Then, last week Robert tEBM stopped by and bought all the eggs we had on hand (a couple dozen, I think) and asked Fred if we could save him three dozen eggs for Sunday. Because we are stupid and trusting, we did.

Never showed up. WHAT A SHOCK.

We are no longer going to save eggs for Robert tEBM unless he pays for them in advance. Fucker.

3. Back when Gmail was new and you had to have an INVITATION to sign up for it (November 2004, this was. Damn. That’s like 300 years ago in internet years!), I signed up not only for the email address I use all the time (mizrobyn), I also signed up for robyn.anderson, not knowing what I’d use it for, but figuring it’d be handy to have as a backup email. Well, I don’t use it at all, though I check it every couple of weeks just to see (I think I’ve used it in a few different places where I signed up for message boards or whatever). There was never anything much in the in box, until late last year. Apparently when you sign up for a user name with Gmail, if there’s a period in the user name anywhere, Gmail doesn’t really “count” it. So when I signed up for robyn.anderson, I also got robynanderson by default. And there are Robyn Andersons ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE who just ADORE giving out that email address as their own.

There’s a Robyn Anderson in Canada who’s going to school to be a teacher, and I ended up on her study group’s email loop for a while. There’s a Robyn Anderson in Illinois who’ll be attending her reunion in Dallas this summer – her mother was nice enough to forward her flight information to me. I got her email confirmation from American Airlines confirming that she’s signed up for their frequent flyer program, too. I get business emails, I got an email asking how I was doing, since I was apparently having a problem pregnancy and confined to my bed and who on earth was taking care of my two young children, anyway?

You know, I know Robyn Anderson is not an uncommon name but GODDAMN, people. When you’re giving out your email address to people, you think you could maybe double-check that you’re giving it to them correctly???

4. Assfucks on eBay that bid on shit, get the winning bid and then don’t bother to pay for what they won, or for that matter, to even so much as let you know they’re no longer interested. And you can apparently no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. That’s some fucking horseshit.

5. On Friday, Fred picked all the zucchini and yellow squash in the garden. And then he sprayed them to kill the squash bugs that have started showing up, which meant he couldn’t pick them again for two days. Yesterday when he got home from work, he went out to pick the squash and zucchini and holy SHIT that stuff grows fast. We ended up with a ton of squash and zucchini, and some of the zucchini was so big that I ended up putting it to the side to feed to the chickens. The chickens LOVE squash and zucchini from the garden, it’s one of their favorite things to eat. This doesn’t really go under the heading of things that piss me off, I guess – it goes under the heading of a win/ win situation. I didn’t have to mess with squash and zucchini for a few days, now I’ve got enough to dice and freeze AND enough to make the chickens (and dogs, for that matter) happy! Also, Fred’s started harvesting the corn and I give the ears that are half-eaten by bugs to the chickens, and they must have thought yesterday was their BIRTHDAY. I tossed several ears to them, and then had to tell George to back off because apparently dogs are rather fond of corn on the cob, too, and he was grabbing all the corn he could get his mouth on and carrying them off to his eatin’ spot, then going back for more WITHOUT EATING WHAT HE’D ALREADY GOTTEN.

Corn hoarder.

(Edited to add: Giving corn on the cob to dogs, apparently not a good idea. DAMNIT. When will I learn to Google this stuff first??)

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Someone mentioned yesterday that I hardly ever talk about Creed or post pictures of him. That’s true – but in my defense, (1) It’s hard to get decent pictures of black cats and (2) That little monkey hardly ever holds still. I snap plenty of pictures of him, they just never come out!

But in any case, today will be all about Creed. Here are some fun facts about the sweet little guy:

1. He lurrrrrves his brudder and sister. LURVES them. He loves to play-fight with them, snuggle up with them and sleep, follow them around to see what they’re doing. If they’re in a room where he is not, and he doesn’t know where they are, you can hear him calling out to them with a plaintive “Where ARE you? I’m lonely!” cry.

2. If he’s feeling playful and you bend down to pet him or pick him up, he’ll stand up on his back legs and wave his front paws around like he’s a wee boxer. It’s severely cute, and I’ve tried and tried to get it on camera, but have had no luck as of yet.

3. He’s a snuggler – there’s nothing he loves more than to curl up beside you and go to sleep. Unlike Dwight, who has to be laying on top of you to go to sleep, Creed will curl up next to you, just barely touching you, and drift off to sleep. If you pet him while he’s sleeping, he reaches one paw out to touch you without ever waking up.

4. He is both very laid-back (I put him on top of Mister Boogers yesterday just to see what would happen, and he and Mister Boogers looked at each other for a few moments, then Creed hopped down and moseyed off to see what there was to be seen) and prone to go ::FLOOF:: at the drop of a hat. Any unexpected noise, any cat running by suddenly, and ::FLOOF:: he goes.

5. He’s the current produce inspector at our house, and he takes his job very seriously.

The Creed Cave. It’s the perfect size for him!

Look how annoyed they are with me. “Okay FINE, we’ll pose together. Can you just TAKE the picture and get it over with??”

Note please that I have to put the keyboard up against the monitor when I’m not using it, because the kittens will tromp all over it.

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Really? You think you wanna mess with Sheriff Mama? Are you SURE?

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Previously
2008: I’ve warned Nance that the house is a pig sty, but I don’t think she believes me.
2007: No entry.
2006: Must be ’cause I’m so approachable.
2005: Hobbies.
2004: Fred calls Miz Poo “Musty.”
2003: He sighed. “Because everybody knows that 256 (the total number of pages in the book) is 2 to the 8th, which is 2 to the 6th times two squared, which is 64 times 4, so you should print four blocks of 64 pages.”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Folks, it’s Dumbass Day.

6/29/09 – Monday

In the Crooked Acres kitchen this weekend: Made zucchini chocolate chip cookies. Neither of us cared for them, so after we each ate two (the second one to make sure our first impression was correct, of course) I packed them into a freezer bag ’til we have pigs again. Made St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake … Continue reading “6/29/09 – Monday”

In the Crooked Acres kitchen this weekend:

Made zucchini chocolate chip cookies. Neither of us cared for them, so after we each ate two (the second one to make sure our first impression was correct, of course) I packed them into a freezer bag ’til we have pigs again.

Made St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake (not the Paula Deen version). Neither of us cared for it, so after we each took a few bites, I packed THAT into the freezer bags for the future pigs, too.

Made Cheese Straws. We both liked them – Fred liked them more than I did, I think. I do believe that I’ll mess with trying different kinds of cheeses and more crushed red pepper, in the future. They were very simple to make, and I recommend them.

Made blueberry muffins batter. I love blueberries, and I’m always willing to try new blueberry muffin recipes, and I really liked the idea of keeping the batter in the fridge and making one or two muffins fresh, each morning (or whenever I’m having the hankering for fresh blueberry muffins). I made the batter on Saturday and then Sunday morning scooped out some batter and made fresh muffins for breakfast. I did forget to sprinkle sugar on the top before I baked, but I found my muffin just fine without the extra sugar. Fred gave his muffin two thumbs up, as well. As a note, it’s a stiffer dough* than I expected, especially after sitting in the fridge overnight. Makes a damn fine muffin, though!

Canned four quarts of green beans. Last year I froze all our green beans; this year I’m canning them so we’ll have more room in the freezer. We’re estimating needing about 40 quarts of green beans for the year, and I’ve got about 2/3 of that already.

Diced and froze ten tons of yellow summer squash and zucchini. None of the usual sites online, none of the canning and freezing books, no one nowhere recommends saving yellow summer squash or zucchini. What I’ve found, however, is that you can dice both, put them in food saver bags and then freeze them. Then you can thaw them, toss them in a pan with chopped onion and garlic, add cherry tomatoes (which you’ve also frozen in food saver bags over the summer) and maybe chopped okra (ditto), sprinkle with salt and pepper and maybe a pinch of crushed red pepper, and it’s a perfectly good side dish. Not as good as fresh, but it’s certainly good in its own right.

Also, last weekend I made a Butterfinger Cake, and holy COW was it good! Fred took one bite and declared it in the running to take for Christmas dinner this year (last year’s #1 candidate was Paula Deen’s Not Yo’ Mama’s Banana Pudding, which is not what he ended up taking, if I recall correctly). Because he can never leave well enough alone, he’s declared that it would be even better if we made Devil’s Food Cake from scratch, and used real whipped cream instead of Cool Whip. We’ll see about that. (One year when we were at Fred’s father’s house on Christmas Eve. Fred’s sister asked her son (L0gan) to pass the “whipped cream”, meaning the Cool Whip, and her son responded “That’s not real whipped cream!” Fred looked all proud that L0gan knows what fine quality food really is, when L0gan went on to say “Real whipped cream comes in a spray can!” HA.)

*Snicker.

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Saturday night, Fred and I were in the big chicken yard trying to get some chickens out from under the coop. Recently we moved a bunch of younger chickens from the maternity yard to the big yard, and about a dozen of them have taken to sleeping under the coop at night, instead of going into the coop with the rest of the chickens. We’ve been letting them sleep under the coop because we figured they’ve got George and Gracie to protect them, but we talked about it Saturday afternoon and decided that’s probably not a good habit to get into. It’s entirely possible that George and Gracie could be at the back of the back forty, and something could get inside the fence and go after the chickens. Not likely, but possible.

So when it was mostly dark Saturday evening, Fred used the hose to spray water under the big coop, and I stood at the front of the coop, waiting to herd the chickens into the coop. George and Gracie stood and supervised, and occasionally gave each other looks like “What are these idiots doing NOW?”

Fred and I were both standing in front of the coop (the herding of the chickens wasn’t going well, because the little shits would come out to escape the water from the hose, then zip back underneath the coop) when both dogs started barking their serious take-no-prisoners bark. We turned and looked, and someone was walking toward the big chicken yard.

It turned out to be one of our regular egg customers, stopping to see if we had eggs. Fred told him that we were sold out, and when George and Gracie stopped barking once Fred started talking to the guy, but they were agitated the entire time the guy was there.

Our dogs are awfully sweet and it amazes me that anyone could be scared of them, but I have to admit that when they bark with their serious bark, they can sound kinda scary.

“We was gonna mess that guy UP!”

“FIRST I was gonna jump up and down right in front of him! Then I was gonna sniff his butt! And then I was gonna lick behind his knees! He didn’t have no chance!”

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On Friday, I covered for the usual Friday morning volunteer at the pet store. When I was done there, I went over to Sam’s Club to pick up the stuff on my Sam’s list. Nothing important, just a few things I’ve been needing to pick up.

I spent LESS THAN $100 at Sam’s. I had no idea that was possible, much less allowed! I was half afraid that they’d stop me on the way out and force me to go back and buy a 30-count pack of toilet paper just to get me over that $100 mark.

They just glanced at my receipt and waved me on through, though. It’s a miracle!

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As I type this, Dwight is running around with a toy in his mouth, growling at any other feline who so much as looks in his direction.

What’s cuter than a growling kitten? NOTHING.

Phyllis gets in her recommended daily allowance of cardboard.

“Hey! Leave some for the rest of us, wouldya?”

Dwight flops down on Fred for his nightly ear-rubbing and chin-scratching.

Pretty Phyllis.

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“Someone is going to PAY for this.”

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Gives new meaning to the term of endearment “shithead”, doesn’t it?
2006: No entry.
2005: I said “You shut up, motherfucker, or I’ll unleash my wifely instincts on you” and he said “Shut your unmaternal mouth, woman.”
2004: Wound report: It’s sensitive and weepy. Just like me!
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Have you ever felt like your hair looks like a really bad wig?

6/26/09 – Friday

Guys, I’m aware that Bloglines isn’t showing my latest entries, but I have no clue on earth how to fix that. I can tell you that Google Reader is showing my entries just fine. I updated to the latest WordPress, thinking that perhaps that was the issue, but Bloglines still doesn’t seem to be working … Continue reading “6/26/09 – Friday”

The only other thing I can think of is that since my template is elderly, perhaps Bloglines doesn’t like the RSS feed… but I don’t know that that makes sense. I’ll try switching to the newer template (the one I used last month and then discarded because I couldn’t figure out how to force it to show my banner at the top) this weekend and testing it. If that’s the issue, then I’ll look for a newer template instead of sticking with this old one. It could take time, though, so be patient!

(Or switch to Google Reader? 🙂 )

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Boy, Michael Jackson – what a shock, huh? I just happened to glance at my updated stuff in Google Reader yesterday afternoon, and saw the dlisted headline.

Farrah Fawcett did not come as a huge shock, she’s been so sick. Ed McMahon did not come as a shock, he’d hit the “He’s lived a good long life” stage of his life. But Michael Jackson? Wasn’t expecting that!

(When I announced to Fred that Michael Jackson had died and he said “No way!” (which was also the reaction of my sister and Liz), I said “I wonder who the third will be?” and he said “Ed McMahon was the first, Michael Jackson was the third!” Oh, right. Forgot about Ed! He lived a good long life.)

I texted the news to my sister and Liz, and as I sent the text – Did you hear that Michael Jackson is dead? – I thought “This sounds like the beginning to a bad joke.” Sure enough, my sister said “I thought at first it was a joke, but wasn’t sure what the punch line was going to be!”

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No way of taking a train instead? Even driving a car across the entire country only takes four or five days. Just thinking here…

I don’t know that it’s possible to take a train from here to Maine – that’d be something worth checking into, for sure! I think I mentioned that if I had to do it again, and if I’d realized when my flight was first delayed that I was going to end up spending the night in the airport, I would have rented a car and driven from DC. Now I’m wondering if there’s a train from DC to Boston (surely there is?) – I could have taken that and then the train from Boston to Portland. Hmm… I’m not going to say I’ll keep those ideas in mind for next time ’cause there ain’t GONNA be a next time. I’m only flying early morning flights from here on out!

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I was stuck at Narita International Airport in Japan for 24 whole hours and on top of my deafness and ASL, I couldn’t find anyone who understood English. Based on my harrowing experience (mostly due to exhaustion and sleep deprivation from flying for 24 hours and no “American” food to be found), better at LaGuardia than Narita!

Oh lord, what a nightmare!!!

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My worst delay was coming home from Las Vegas- two hours on a Sunday night. Our flight didn’t land until after 2am in Edmonton. Did you know that everything except Burger King shuts down at 5 or 6pm in the International Terminal at McCarren? No, I didn’t either. You would think that a place that is as 24/7 as Vegas you could get something other than a Whopper on Sunday evening, but not so much.

This reminds me of years and years ago, when I had to spend the night at the Newark airport (that’s right, I slept in Newark!). It was to my utter amazement that all the stores and restaurants closed down early in the evening. I’d always thought that airports were up and running 24/7, including the stores and restaurants! Who knew?

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But my question is, would it have been faster for you in the end, to have just driven the distance?

and

Next time DRIVE trust me it will be faster. I avoid flying at all costs.

It would have taken me two entire days to drive from here to Maine – I actually did it back in… oh, I don’t remember. 2000, or thereabouts. It wasn’t a bad drive, but it also wasn’t a fun drive, especially by myself! And I’ve driven through Pennsylvania three or four times, and every single time I drove through the state of Pennsylvania, it was to the tune of horrific torrential rains. Pennsylvania doesn’t think I should be driving in their state, obviously.

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You really ought to put out a bulletin before you fly anywhere to see which readers are in the area. Then heck, take them up on the offer of staying with them! A good way to see the USA?

I always say (or at least I’ve said once or twice in the past) that I’d love to drive across the country, stopping regularly to have mini-Bitchypoo conventions! Good way to see the country, good way to meet y’all. 🙂

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I guess only you were allowed to drive and if not if you dared to pull over to switch drivers you’d NEVER get someone to let you back into traffic.

Yeah, I was the only driver on the rental agreement, so I didn’t dare to let anyone else drive – but I also didn’t want to chance getting off the road, switching seats, and then not being able to pull back into traffic. And since I was mostly dry-heaving AND we were moving along at a crawl, I was okay with continuing to drive.

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I know this has been discussed, but I haven’t paid attention because I don’t currently have a cat. Anyway, a friend of mine has a problem with her cat peeing all over the house (yes, it’s a clean litterbox). The vet says it isn’t a physical problem and her solution is to make her an outside cat. My friend would like that to be a last resort (lots of reasons). Any thoughts or helpful hints? Her other friends have told her to have the cat put to sleep.

I would suggest Feliway, but to be honest, I don’t think it really makes a difference. I wish it did, but it just doesn’t seem to, at least in our house.

Would your friend’s vet be open to prescribing kitty Valium for your friend’s cat? Maybe if the pattern of spraying could be broken, it would help stop the spraying.

Another idea (I don’t remember where I read this, and I haven’t tried it myself, so take it with a grain of salt) is to put the litterbox where the cat tends to pee (I know you said it’s peeing all over the house, but perhaps it has a particular favorite spot?), then when the cat starts using the litter box, move it slowly toward the preferred location. I don’t know, though – if your friend has kids, that might not be a feasible solution.

Readers? Suggestions?

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Off topic, but have you had a problem with older cats pooping on the carpet. My older cat Angel has done this 3 times. If you have had this problem, what did you use to clean it up?

Mr. Fancypants (god rest his soul, I assume) expressed his displeasure by pooping on the rug near the litter box. And many things displeased him.

(Just thinking about it REALLY pisses me off. That fucking bastard. He sure was a character, though.)

We’d remove what we could of the waste, dab at the spot with a warm damp cloth, and then we used Resolve Spot & Stain Carpet cleaner. We used Oxi-Clean from time to time, but I really think the Resolve did a better job, and it was what we always reached for first.

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Another off topic, but I thought you might enjoy this story about a chicken surviving a tornado.

Awww, good for Momma hen! They need to name that hen Lucky!

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One morning I woke up with a creepy feeling that I ignored. Finally opened my eyes to see a spider hot-footing it down my arm. I jumped out of bed and issued loud, guttural sounds while doing the panic dance. I looked all through the bed clothes with Robert helping, but nothing. I went to the bathroom and on the way back to bed, looked down to see the spider beat-feeting it up my pajamas leg. Again, loud guttural (what happens to language? why does it go away?) sounds and the panic dance. This time, I ripped the PJs off and Robert corralled the spider in a drinking glass and took it outside. It took him a full day to admit it was a brown recluse.

I hope it has gone back to its reclusive ways. Or I’ll be shooting a spider in my pajamas!

(That last sentence reminds of the Groucho Marx joke, “Yesterday I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.”)

It is to my utter horror that I went to look at pictures of Brown Recluses, and I’m 99.3% sure I’ve seen those fucking things around here, and further that I think I saw one in the garden yesterday.

Pardon me while I shudder and run around in circles.

The problem is that they’re pretty generic-looking spiders, and I don’t know that I’d really be able to tell them apart from an ordinary garden spider without getting close up and personal. I prefer not to do that, thank you.

I just finished, a couple of days ago, the Lisa Gardner book Say Goodbye. It told me far more about spiders in the south than I ever wanted to know.

If you want some creepy reading, go ahead and Google up “Black widows as pets” (PEOPLE KEEP BLACK WIDOWS AS PETS I SHIT YOU NOT) and if you have a strong stomach, check out “Brown recluse bites.”

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The lack of photos of the gigantic twirly-eyed spider was noted and very much appreciated!!

Only ’cause I didn’t have the camera with me, I assure you. I’ve been pretty lax with the bug pictures this year, haven’t I?

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What was UP with Jacqueline’s lips?! When she had them plumped up during the show they looked ok. Last night her top lip was so puffy I thought it might be hives or something.

I actually didn’t notice her lips, I’ll have to look closer when I watch the second part of the reunion later today!

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The foster kittens are doing well. Phyllis the cranky (it’s really too bad the name “Angela” was taken, because it would have been perfect for her, she’s TOTALLY Angela from The Office!) is still cranky if you pick her up or pet her for too long or look at her the wrong way, but she’s also got snugglebug tendencies. I took a nap yesterday afternoon, and she climbed up on me (I barely felt her laying on me, she’s such a tiny thing!) and napped as well. All three kittens are inordinately interested in sticking their heads in our mouths, I don’t know if they’re trying to figure out what we’ve been eating or just wondering if they could fit in our mouths (I bet Phyllis could come close) or what.

They’re all three such sweet things (Dwight LOVES Fred, climbs up into his lap every evening when we’re watching TV), and so laid-back that I know they’ll get adopted quickly.

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Newt has apparently located the coolest spot in the house. Most days he can be found in this corner of the kitchen, snuggled up behind the mixer.

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Previously
2008: I am fully aware that y’all are going to tell me that the shirt is too big, but what you need to keep in mind is SHUT UP.
2007: I figure it’s the goddamn circle of life and all that.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: I know I did the same lazy-ass, stupid-ass shit, and in retrospect she didn’t beat me nearly enough.
2002: Fred: Hey. You’re married to an old white man.
2001: No entry.
2000: I’m having a klutzy day.

6/25/09 – Thursday

So after Miz Poo drove me nuts all Tuesday night and a good part of Wednesday by howling, whining, and chatting, Fred called the vet to find out that she was likely having a reaction to the medication. One of the side effects of the medication she was on (at least in humans) is that … Continue reading “6/25/09 – Thursday”

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This has been the week of the spider for me. Monday and Tuesday mornings, I went out to weed the tomato rows. Monday, I was about halfway down the first row of tomatoes, and as I pulled a huge handful of weeds out from under a huge tomato plant, a garden spider the size of my hand came sauntering out.

“What up, bitch?” he said, his 73 eyeballs glittering at me.

“I am not scared of you,” I said, keeping a respectful distance. “For I know you are but a helpful garden spider, hanging out under the plants and eating all the bugs that try to eat my tomatoes. I appreciate that. But now I’m going to use this hand hoe to herd you over to the pepper plants while I finish weeding under the tomatoes, and then you can return home. You might have to rebuild your web, if you have one, though. Sorry ’bout that.”

Then I leaned down and waved my hand hoe behind the spider, and he saw it with his 73 glittering eyes, and he moved in the direction of the pepper plants. I took my eye off him for one second, and he immediately zagged left and began skittering up my boot.

I reacted calmly, of course. I mean, it’s only a SPIDER.

The size of my hand.

With 73 glittering eyeballs.

Making a sound of horror, I flailed about, threw my hand hoe at my boot, and danced a getitoffme! GETITOFFME! jig. The spider landed near a pepper plant and rolled his eyeballs at me (which took some time, as you can imagine). I looked around to make sure that no one had seen me, wiped off the gash the hand hoe had left in my shin, and went back to weeding. The spider stayed under his pepper plant for a long time (I kept an eye on him), then disappeared. Maybe he was looking for friendlier pastures.

Tuesday morning I was walking across the yard toward the gate, on my way to the garden, when I glanced over at the cement pad and saw Tommy sitting there, watching something with interest. I went over to see what it was, and saw a beetle, the size of my thumb. It was caught up in a web, and as Tommy and I watched, a jet-black spider came sauntering out from under the metal hanging over the side of the cement pad, and began doing whatever the hell spiders do to their prey.

I waited until I saw the red hourglass shape on its abdomen, but I was pretty certain from the first glimpse that I was looking at a black widow. They are so fucking EVIL looking, those spiders. Once I saw the red hourglass, I kicked at it with my boot. I managed to miss the black widow completely, but I crushed the beetle and put it out of its misery. The black widow ran off and hid for a moment, then came rushing back out to see what the hell was going on.

Whereupon I crushed it with my boot.

Black widows like to hide under things, and I think what we need to do is pull up all the metal around the cement pad so that we don’t get a damn colony of them hiding under there. (Although I actually think that black widows are pretty solitary creatures.)

I’m sure tomorrow morning I’ll wake up and find a brown recluse on my freakin’ pillow or something.

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Regarding the Gosselins (ie, Jon and Kate Plus Eight).

I have to say that I was kind of surprised to find that Jon and Kate Gosselin really are divorcing. I half expected they’d sucker everyone in with their ads about “Jon and Kate have made a decision!”, and then there would be Jon and Kate, all cozy on the interview couch, holding hands and talking about how they’ve started counseling. It’s disappointing that they’re divorcing, because obviously you want people to stay together, and you’d hope that the kids would be enough of an incentive for them to work through their issues.

I think that Kate is very sad about the split up, that she’s still working through it, and that Jon checked out a long time ago. I get the feeling that he’s ready to par-tay, and I expect to see lots of pictures of him partying it up with 21 year-olds.

(Earrings on Jon: Not a good look. Some men can carry it off. He’s not one of them.)

Also, I dearly wish Aunt Jodi and skeevy Uncle Kevin would shut their fucking faces instead of sounding off about every move Jon and Kate make.

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Annnnd regarding the NJ Housewives, Reunion Part 1 (and I’m sorry, how ridiculous is it that they’re splitting the reunions into two parts now? Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to see Part 2 tonight!).

Warning: Possible spoilers within.

I don’t know that that reunion was all that exciting – although it certainly looks like tomorrow night’s is going to involve everyone ganging up on Danielle.

While I understand Teresa’s defense of Joe (that he’s not homophobic and that he’s not “like that”, why some of his best friends are gay!) I know that I grew up saying “That’s gay” and “you’re so gay” and certainly NOT meaning anything homophobic by it. It’s sometimes a knee-jerk reaction on my part to reach for those phrases just because I grew up hearing and saying them for so many years, and you can train yourself to not say things like that, but you can’t stop them from coming to mind.

BUT. I also know BETTER THAN TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT WITH THE FREAKIN’ CAMERAS AROUND and in front of complete strangers. I’m glad Teresa apologized for him. Also – bless her heart, that woman has a disconnect between her brain and her mouth. “Cleansiness?” Wha-? Also, Teresa’s not invited over to my house anytime soon because I’m sure the state of my house (can’t remember the last time I cleaned the floors!) would horrify her. She’d probably start itching two inches inside the door.

Danielle looked like she’d rather be scrubbing Teresa’s floors with a toothbrush than be at that reunion. She didn’t have much to say, did she? And is it just me, or is her color odd? Too much fake tan? I wish someone had called her on her “I’ve never had plastic surgery aside from the bubbies!”, because come ON. She’s had at the very least an eye lift if not a face lift. Eyebrows don’t get hiked up that high by Mother Nature.

I like that Dina addressed the fact that her husband has no desire to be on the show. I don’t remember much about what Dina had to say, actually. She certainly is pretty, and I’ll reiterate – she SO looks like a young Lorraine Bracco.

Jacqueline and the crying over the miscarriages – I felt bad for her. You KNOW Bravo was hoping like hell she’d go into labor during the reunion. I’m surprised they didn’t tell her to call them when her water broke so they could do the reunion on the way to the hospital! Was it just me, or did she spend a lot of time NOT looking at Danielle?

Caroline just scares the hell out of me. She is the most intense little spitfire I’ve ever seen. I will never never mess with her family, she would fuck me UP. So sad to hear about her father in law (did you get the impression that Dina didn’t want to talk about that topic? She tried to change the topic a few times.). I’m anxious to see what has her teary-eyed in part 2 of the reunion! I get how tired they all are of hearing the mafia question, but COME ON – maybe the Manzos aren’t mobbed up, but five bucks says Teresa’s husband is!

Okay, that’s all I can think of. I wonder why they wouldn’t disclose where they were having the reunion? It’s not like it was airing live.

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The babies are back from their spaying & neutering/ id chipping/ rabies shots none the worse for wear. Phyllis was a little cranky last night (as the tiniest of the three, I think she feels a little more discomfort from the id chip and the rabies shot – plus let us not forget that her spaying was a more major surgery than the boys’ neutering. They might disagree with that, though.), and Creed spent the evening sleeping on Fred’s lap, but this morning they’re racing around as if nothing ever happened.

They need their second vaccination shots (which will be either today or tomorrow), and then it’s just a matter of waiting their turn ’til space opens up at PetSmart. There’s a flood of kittens right now, so it could be soon, or it could be a few weeks. All depends on where we are in the queue, and how fast adoptions go!

Gone campin’.

Dwight enjoys hanging off the cat tree.

“Daaaaang, woman, you desperately need a pedicure!”

Princess Phyllis.

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Smilin’ Joe.

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Previously
2008: I know, I’m lame. But you’ve gotta have priorities!
2007: Three times in the course of an hour, the same conversation, word-for-word, I swear it.
2006: No entry.
2005: I’d say this country is going to hell, but that handbasket sailed a loooooong time ago.
2004: Yes. Robyn DID recently learn how to do popup windows. Why do you ask?
2003: Do I LOOK like an outside kinda gal?
2002: Which is when I realized that I’d actually dreamed the conversation and hug and kiss.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

6/19/09 – Friday

So yes, I am home again! My flight landed at 9:40, and by noon I had unpacked, gone to get groceries, gone to the post office, and scooped the litter boxes. I made dinner, I vacuumed the house, I ignored the fact that the bathrooms need to be cleaned and the furniture needs to be … Continue reading “6/19/09 – Friday”

It was like I’d never left, really.

If I have anything to say about it, I will only fly early-morning flights from here on out. It was nice to reach my destination before 10 am, and even if one of my flights had been delayed, they would have had all day to get me on another flight. Besides, when your flight is first thing in the morning (I had to get up yesterday morning at 3:30 to leave the house by 4:00, to get to the airport before 5:00) you don’t have to sit around and wait for it to be time to leave, right? Right!

It was freakin’ cold in Maine, and even though I looked at weather.com before I packed, being in 90+ degree heat in Alabama makes you think that temperatures in the 60s in Maine is perfect capri and shorts weather. I wore a pair of jeans on the plane and packed nothing but capris and shorts. I ended up wearing the same pair of jeans the entire time I was in Maine (washed ’em every other day, of course). It actually wasn’t so bad – I told my mother before I left that next time I visit I’ll pack two pairs of jeans and three shirts and underwear, and call it good enough.

(I’m sure I’ll have forgotten that wise idea next time, though. I always do.)

With the heat index yesterday, it was over 100 degrees here. (That’s VERY FUCKING HOT is all you Celcius types need to know.)

Thanks, you guys, for the heads-up on the Zicam recall. The problem is with the nasal spray and nasal swabs, and the kind I got was the chewable kind. It seems to be helping – I haven’t developed a full-blown cold in any case, just feel achy and tired and like my glands are swollen, and who the hell knows – that could be from the traveling and the horrific temperature change. We shall see.

Today I’m doing laundry, and I have to go get a few more groceries. I was going to weed the tomatoes this morning, but I’m not gonna (shaddup, Fred), I’ve got too much other stuff I prefer to do. This afternoon I’m going to pick up the foster kittens from the foster mother who cared for them while I was gone. I can’t wait to see the little monkeys!

So I’ll answer a few comments and call it an entry!

Oh, and there’ll be a few days of my vacation recap next week, then things will go back to normal ’round here.

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I have to give you kudos for pressure canning at all; I’m of the belief that I’d blow myself to kingdom come, so I’ll stick to jamming and call it a day.

I was very nervous to try it, but I have to say – once you try it, you find out it’s honestly not that hard at all! If I can do it without blowing up the house, so can anyone else. I guarantee it!

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Tell Fred to count his blessings. My daughter risked her life, running onto a busy 4-lane highway, to save a turtle. He thanked her by peeing on her. In case you’ve ever wondered, turtle pee is some noxious stuff.

Yeah, Fred’s been peed on by a turtle, too. And a few weeks ago – the week before that turtle came wandering into our yard – we were going somewhere and there was a turtle in the middle of the road. He stopped to move it to the side of the road and it snapped at him, and I think he got turtle poop smeared on his hand. Whatever it was, it was NASTY smelling. Fucking turtles. (Won’t stop him from saving the next turtle he sees, I guarantee it!)

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I can’t believe that you teased me by bragging about your new hair cut and color and didn’t include a photo.

It wasn’t intentional – I just used the medium-brown color, and it came out… medium brown! Like so:

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I did it! I had a bitchypoo dream! I was visiting you on Crooked Acres and it was raining, I think because all of your posts lately talk about rain, and you took me outside to sit on the porch at dusk to see the real secret of Crooked Acres which was….. hundreds of cats (that all come trotting home at dusk apparently…) that you were not blogging about because you didn’t want us readers to think you were weird enough to have more that 10 cats (even in my dream I was thinking Too Late! inside my head.) You were going on and on about this one’s name and that one’s personality and where that one came from and how you even had to edit some of the pictures that you posted to crop the secret cats out of the pics you posted so NO ONE WOULD KNOW! So tell me, dream or prophesy?

Oh, I’d never ever withhold information from my readers. Never ever. Nope, not me!

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Oh, you ARE writing! The last post I got on my Bloglines feed was the camera pic of the tent… and then I come here and there is more. Why you hide? Us internet peoples are totally friendly. And not at all intense or weird or stalkery. Anyway, I am now subscribed to three feeds of yours; two are broked (technical term) and the third (which is your 0.92 feed up thataways) works but is short posts not long. I don’t know why any of this is and instead I will sit here hopefully with big eyes in the sure knowledge that Fred will SPRING upon this problem and FIX IT GOOD. Right? Right?

Those of you who read me via Bloglines, are you seeing this? The only thing I did before I left for Maine was to change the settings on my site so that the last 5 entries would show up on the front page rather than the most recent one. I just went back and put it back the way it was – I don’t know if that fixed it or not, though. And I don’t know why only short posts are showing up, either – I have it set so that the RSS feeds will show the entire post. It’s a mystery to me!

I can tell you that everything’s working fine in Google Reader.

And Fred won’t spring upon the problem and fix it, because Fred’s not the go-to guy when it comes to RSS feeds and such (probably because he doesn’t care about that stuff and fondly remembers the days when everything was hand-coded and he had to walk uphill both ways to get to the computer).

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Hey, does the LL Bean place have their bamboo towels? I love love love them and desperately need new ones.

I’m trying to remember, but I honestly don’t think I ventured into the house section of the outlet store, so I don’t know. They had just about everything else – I carried around a leather purse for the longest time before I put it back because I refuse to spend $89 for a purse!

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That is AWESOME what the hair-cutting place is doing. Good on them! But, what is proof of unemployment down there? We have EI here (or, pogey as they used to call it!) but – what does the states have?

That’s an excellent question – I’m assuming that people who are drawing Unemployment down here get some sort of statement? Or something? Anyone know the answer to this?

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I am so close to the Spud that if she acts up, I can be sent over there to smack her around a little. hee hee.

Don’t tempt me! 🙂

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Hey you were in my neck of the woods. Haven’t seen the sign at Emerald Square yet…did you hit the Providence Place Mall while you were here..it’s HUGE…

We didn’t get a chance to visit the Providence Place Mall this time around, though the spud did mention it, and that it’s huge. Maybe next time I go down to get her, I’ll spend the night and we can actually do some sight-seeing. I’d love to go back to Newport and Middletown to see how it’s changed over the past 13 years.

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Hey Robyn, you do have a water view at Crooked Acres. But only when it rains.

Ain’t THAT the truth. Too bad we don’t have a pool, we’d have a water view year-round! (This is the first summer I’m really, really wishing we had a pool!)

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Welcome home, Robyn. I, for one, am relieved. Things just didn’t seem right without you in residence at Crooked Acres. I’m sure Fred would agree. Speaking of Fred, when are we going to get a new picture of him? Has he suddenly become camera shy? We have kitty, pig and chicken pics galore (which I love), and even the occasional teaser shot of you, but NO FRED. Hmph.

I think Fred would agree with you – his life kind of goes to shit when I’m away, we’ve discovered. He had to do all his work and mine too – and he finds he doesn’t care for having to make his own dinner, do his own laundry, scoop the litter boxes, clean the house.

When I talked to him on the phone the night before I came home, he said “I hope you aren’t under the impression you’re coming home to a clean house.” I wasn’t. But it only took me a few hours to clean the kitchen and vacuum, and just that little bit of cleaning makes it look about 200 times better around here. Fred says I’m his egg-selling good luck charm. He sold 7 dozen eggs in the entire time I was gone – and yesterday between the two of us, we sold 11 dozen eggs!

This is probably about as much as you’ll see of Fred these days. He refuses to pose for pictures because he’s a hater.

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My parents don’t have any cats, but they’ve got them a Benji dog and he’s a character.

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Previously
2008: You’re breeding bacteria that is going to TAKE OVER THE FUCKING WORLD.
2007: Since it’s wet outside, I don’t have to weed today. DARN.
2006: I hate that fucker.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Then, I stopped and thought about it, which hurt a little.
2002: I was an errand-running fool today.
2001: You always know you’re going to have a nice, clean system the next day if you’ve eaten you a big ol’ helpin’ of okra.
2000: Oh, that’s right. That was my bright idea.

Home again, home again.

Home again, home again., originally uploaded by RobynAnderson. And Miz Poo is clearly beside herself with the thrill of having me back! It’s good to be home!

Home again, home again., originally uploaded by RobynAnderson.

And Miz Poo is clearly beside herself with the thrill of having me back! It’s good to be home!

“Her shocking past”

"Her shocking past", originally uploaded by RobynAnderson. I think ‘lurid’ would been a better word than ‘shocking.’ I wasn’t shocked by the stories of her past, but I sure was lured into reading them. (RHoNYC’s Danielle I’m talking about, here.) Sitting in concourse A, waiting to board the flight to Huntsville. They’re claiming it’s on … Continue reading ““Her shocking past””

"Her shocking past", originally uploaded by RobynAnderson.

I think ‘lurid’ would been a better word than ‘shocking.’ I wasn’t shocked by the stories of her past, but I sure was lured into reading them. (RHoNYC’s Danielle I’m talking about, here.) Sitting in concourse A, waiting to board the flight to Huntsville. They’re claiming it’s on time, but I sense Dulles isn’t through with me yet.

Flying home!

Flying home!, originally uploaded by RobynAnderson. Waiting at the gate for your flight to board is an excellent time to catch up on important national news. Oh, Jon. Oh, Kate.

Flying home!, originally uploaded by RobynAnderson.

Waiting at the gate for your flight to board is an excellent time to catch up on important national news. Oh, Jon. Oh, Kate.