So Brian (my husband) and I were late to the Netflix revolution, but we’ve made up a lot of time. Have you guys watched any episodes of Big Love yet? We’re addicted! I watched Big Love when it was on HBO, and I like it a lot, but Fred isn’t interested because he’s a HATER. I say any show that has the two most smackable faces in Hollywood on it (Bill Paxton and Chloe Sevigny) on it that still manages to catch and hold my attention has GOT to be a good one.
When you come to Maine this summer, would you want to do a meet up for your New England Fans? I think I just might! I’ll have to think harder about it as the time draws closer, though. New England area readers, should we have a meet up? A BitchyCon?
Just a thought: If you put the turkey breast side down, seems like all the juices would run down to the breast, doing a continual basting as it cooks, thus keeping the breast from drying out. Maybe that’s why it’s so good. I once read somewhere that that’s the best way to roast a turkey, upside down, so that the breast stays moist. If I could tell by looking at a turkey where the breast is (I’m hopeless when it comes to identifying the parts of a turkey), I’d be sure to do it that way every time.
I can’t remember if you answered this or not but if you were blindfolded and had kitties meowing at you, would know who was who just by their meow? I’d have to say yes – all the cats have very distinctive voices. I might mix up Sugarbutt and Tommy (they’re not very vocal), but I’m pretty sure I could identify all of them by voice.
Do you find your arms are sore after you use the Dyson? We just got the animal one and I use it at least once a week. I am not a gym rat by any means but my arms always hurt the next day after I use the Dyson. I don’t have any problems with sore arms after I use the Dyson, but that’s probably because I’m badass and all. I can see how you’d end up with sore arms, though – the Dyson requires some muscle to move it around, it’s definitely not self-propelled!
AND, I just got the handheld Dyson to use on the stairs. It’s better than a Dustbuster (or Dirt Devil or any other handheld that I’ve ever tried) but doesn’t do as good of a job as the full-blown Dyson. Over all, worth the money to not have to use the big Dyson on the stairs. And it looks like a flamethrower (according to the guy at Best Buy) so, y’know, there’s that. Oh, the handheld Dyson is definitely next on my list. My brother has one (that he uses to catch bugs with, heh!) and I tried it out when I was visiting, and it’s pretty nifty. God knows when I’m emptying out the shredder, I always wish I had a decent handheld vacuum with which to suck up the pieces of paper that fall all over the place!
I have a question about your Dyson vaccuum cleaner. What model do you have and are you satisfied with its performance? Can you turn off the beater bar so the wood floors don’t get damaged? I have the DC07 Dyson Animal (and according to Amazon, I’ve had it for four years, now!). I am absolutely satisfied with its performance, and I find that when I start to think “Hey, this isn’t working so well. Why did I love this stupid thing so much, again?!”, that means it’s time to clean the filter, because as soon as I clean, dry, and replace the filter, it works amazingly well again. You can turn the beater bar off – there’s a dial toward the bottom front of the machine that reads “carpet” and “bare floor”, and turning it to “bare floor” turns off the beater bar. I adore my Dyson, and I highly recommend it to everyone!
My Dyson just had its filter washed this week (I finally got around to it), and it seems to be much happier for it. I’m glad I listen to you. Isn’t it amazing, the difference a clean filter makes?! I think my new tagline should be “Just listen to me. You’ll be glad you did!”
I’ve lusted after a Dyson forever, but since we’ve ripped out all the carpet in the house, it just doesn’t seem practical anymore. I think I’m gonna try one of those Swiffer wet jet things instead. Maybe I’ll be motivated to clean. I bet it’ll help when we have the baby goats in the playpen! AHEM, Farmwife, ix-nay on the oat-gay talk! I don’t want Fred to get the idea that we should get little baby goats and put them in a playpen in the HOUSE. I use my Dyson on the hardwood floors and it does quite the fabulous job, believe me! (Speaking of Farmwife, this cracked me UP. I could totally see Miss Momma doing something like that – while Newt sat off to the side and shivered sadly.)
When you take a week off from writing in your journal, is it a relief or do you miss it? The first morning I wake up and think “I don’t have to do ANYTHING, I don’t have to write an entry and post it! I can just lay here in bed ALL DAY and read!”, and then ten minutes later I go “I don’t want to read.”, roll out of bed, get chores done, and by 10:00 I’m sitting there bored. I mean, I always find something to do – I got pretty well caught up on my TV shows, for one – but I actually do miss it. Not enough to come back early, obviously, but it does feel like there’s something missing in my day.
I do NOT have that kind of room in my freezer. Ever. EITHER ONE OF THEM. We have a full-size upright freezer, the freezer over our refrigerator in the kitchen, and the freezer in our refrigerator in the laundry room, and still I find myself grumbling as I move shit around trying to find a place for it. We don’t currently use the freezer in the garage (it’s not plugged in, even), but it’s earmarked for beef and chicken and pork in the future. I think we could just about use a walk-in freezer, sometimes!
Have you ever thought of getting one of those hairless cats? Fred would dearly love to have a Sphynx, but I am very much against it. It seems like their skin would be fragile, and I’d be afraid to pet it. Also, they’re ugly (and this is where Fred makes a crack about how ugly Miz Poo is because he’s a HATER). Also, NO MORE CATS. (Now that I’ve said that, you can expect an entry next week about how we adopted another cat, I’m sure.)
I LOVE the idea that the cats are turning Lupe on (er, you know what I mean)! Instead of yelling at them, you should TRAIN them to do it — pretty soon you’ll have an army of trained minion cats ready to do your bidding! If I thought I could really train them to do it right, I’d be all OVER that idea. But I think we all know that I’d get up in the morning and come out to find Lupe laying on her side with Miz Poo’s tail sticking out and cries of alarm from Miz Poo coming from inside Lupe.
Does Spot get pills or something else? Right now, Spot’s taking
How old is [Spot], anyway? We don’t know, exactly. He showed up on Fred’s doorstep before I moved down here, and was a kitten at the time. Fred says he had Spot at least two years before I moved down here, so we’re guessing he’s anywhere between 13 and 15.
Tell Boogs he is still king shit of turd mountain in my eyes. Kisses and Pill Pockets for Mr. Spot and his thyroid meds. We use the pill pockets at the shelter for our thyroid cat, they are like a miracle. Pilling cats has never been easier. Those Pill Pockets look COOL. Spot’s an easy cat to pill (Fred says it’s because he has no strength and can’t fight Fred off!), but I think I might pick up some of those just to keep around in case we have to pill one of the harder-to-pill cats in the future!
Booger can come to my house for some snackies! Although he’ll have to fight a big fat, wheezing calico for his share. đ He should be right at home, then – he currently has to fight a rapidly portlifying Siamese mix with a nasty streak – he can probably take on your fat, wheezing calico, no problem!
If you want to *really* freak out your cats, I have another suggestion. My son got me a Fur-Real kitten for Christmas. (Though mine is a black and white tuxedo kitten who did come with his own bottle). I keep mine mostly turned off to save the batteries (and to keep it from World Domination, which one of my friends thinks is the ultimate aim). But I did turn him on and presented him to one of our grown cats and to the litter of foster kittens we had. The thing purrs and meows and I believe those are recordings of a real kitten. The thing seriously freaked out the kittens and even the grown cat was sniffing the Fur-Real kitten just to check. He seemed to be saying, “It *looks* kinda like a kitten and it sure *sounds* like a kitten, but it doesn’t *smell* like a kitten. What is this thing????” I got quite a kick out of it. Oh, I NEED one of those!!! Anything that’ll freak the cats out is A-OK with me!
Question, though, from one catlady to another: Does the Roomba also pick up hairballs? I’m actually not sure whether you mean a hairball like one of the cats barfed up, or a hairball like a big ol’ tuft of cat fur such as those that roam freely around our house. On the first, I would have to say that I don’t know, because it hasn’t come across one yet, though if it were dry enough, I imagine it could pick it up. There’s one particular bag of catnip that lives somewhere in the laundry room. I don’t know where it lives, because I never see it when I’m picking up toys and shoes out of the laundry room, but after every time Lupe the Roomba goes around the laundry room, she picks it up with no problem at all (it’s slightly bigger than a teabag, if that helps). If you mean the second – the roaming dust bunnies comprised mostly of cat fur – then yes, Lupe the Roomba kicks ass and takes names with no hesitation whatsoever!
Wait. Does the Roomba ACTUALLY sing that song? I think I want one now just for that! However, I’m a little worried about the possible meanings of “be-boop you.” Maybe the Roomba is also into World Domination, like Diane’s FurReal kitten, and “be-boop you” has a sinister meaning? The Roomba doesn’t actually sing âFor me about to clean, I be-boop youâ, I just made up those words. It does sing a happy little cleaning tune, though. I have to say, although I support HUAR, when it comes right down to it, if a robot could get my floors spic-and-span with very little input from me, I don’t think I’d mind a little domination.
But a quick word of caution. We were told Roomba could sense stairs – and then we found at the bottom of the stairs one night. We got lucky and it works again, but we now have a virtual wall at the top of the stairs. Better safe than sorry. And we were almost very sorry. Oh, definitely – I used the virtual wall at the top of the stairs just to be safe. I’d hate to find Lupe dead at the bottom of the stairs!
I want a Roomba! Have you considered getting a Scooba? I want one of those too! I’m not sure how a Scooba would work on hardwood floors – I know I had a Bissell something-or-other that was supposed to do a good job cleaning floors (it was like a steam cleaner for floors), but it always left streaks. I’d rather have a dirty floor than a streaky one, is that weird?
On the Real Housewives, my biggest problem with Quinn, is actually her cleavage. It’s not attractive AT ALL, and it’s about a foot deep, yet she exposes it with every outfit. I end up just staring while she talks, and thinking “WHY? WHY would you continue to show that?” I cannot stand the cleavage on any of these women. I understand that big boobs are supposed to equal sexy, but how about a little MYSTERY, ladies? But yeah, Billy is such a know it all. Ever notice how weird his face is? There’s a strange line between his face and his hairline. He’s kind of abrasive and annoying, and I think he’s got plugs, personally. What do you think of her son shackin’ up with George’s ex-wife? Sickos! I… don’t think it’s a “shacking up” thing, I think it’s a kid needing a place to stay and finding the option that will hurt his mother the most and going for it. I don’t think there’s anything sexual between George’s ex-wife and Josh. I could be wrong – I just hope I’m not!
And just what does he do in [the coop]? I betcha a nanny-cam would catch him singing and baby-talking to the chickens in ways only millions of people on U-Tube could appreciate. While I wouldn’t discount the idea of Fred singing and baby-talking the chickens, these days when I say he’s out in the coop, it’s ’cause he’s out there building the new one, the Taj Mahal of chicken coops!
So did you throw the PG test away so that the next person in there didn’t think it was YOURS?! I’m one of those weirdos who throws extra t.p. into the port-a-potty so that the next person doesn’t think that stinky mess that was there BEFORE me was left BY me! I didn’t throw the pregnancy test away, because I couldn’t stand the thought of handling something that had someone else’s urine on it. ::shudder:: Although if there’d been a line of people waiting to get into the stall (it was completely empty when I was in there), I might have considered it.
Isn’t landing at National fun? Did you come in down the river? Beautiful sites… sure do miss that place. Yeah, we came down the river (though I couldn’t remember the name of it and had to ask Fred because the only river name I could think of was the Seine. Heh!) and it was so beautiful, seeing the reflecting pool and the monuments. It made me wish I had a longer layover so I could go out and do some exploring!
From someone who just had back surgery (herniated disc from LIFTING something heavy)-PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do NOT lift anything like that again! You hear me young lady? Yes ma’am! Although oddly, after I carried that TV upstairs, my arms and legs hurt the next day, but my back was just fine (and I know it only takes one injury for a lifetime of back pain!). I promise I’ll let someone else carry it next time – or ask for help!
Go here and buy this for Fred right now! Hee!! Fred said “If the CafePress shirts weren’t so flimsy, I’d love to have one!”
Since calico cats are always female; is it true, that white females with blue eyes are ALWAYS deaf? I have no idea! I know that white blue-eyed cats are sometimes deaf, but I hadn’t heard that white blue-eyed females are always deaf. Anyone out there know the answer to this one?
I love love love the brown chair in your brother’s house….It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. Do you know where he got it? Lisa, I actually emailed you the answer to this, but in case you didn’t get my email, I asked my brother and he said A local furniture place in Hollywood, MD. Brand name is “England – a Laz-Z-Boy Company” It’s been several years, though.
Does Fred ever go to Maine with you? What is usually the reason? Would he be miserable and bored? Just curious, my hubby doesn’t like to do a whole lot with my family. Fred doesn’t go to Maine with me (he’s never been) because he doesn’t like to leave home – you’ll note we haven’t taken any vacations since we bought Crooked Acres! And both of us being gone at the same time now would require hiring someone to feed the cats (and scoop the litter boxes), let the chickens out in the morning and locking them up at night. I’ve thought about trying to convince him to take a trip to Vegas for our 10th anniversary in October, but I don’t think I’m going to have much luck. Fred doesn’t mind being around my family – it just has to be them visiting us rather than him having to get on a plane and go somewhere. He doesn’t get off the farm very often, and he likes it that way – he said to me “I’d rather be here than anywhere on earth!”
What is your all-time favorite TV show, and why… and what’s the one you can’t stand the most? I’d have to say it’s a tie between The Brady Bunch and Friends. If I’m flipping channels and come across either of those, I’ll stop and watch it to the end. I still miss Friends, damnit. As far as shows I can’t stand, I really don’t care for the trashy talk shows like Jerry Springer or others of that ilk – Jenny Jones is the other one that comes to mind. I also don’t like the court shows – Divorce Court, Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown – though I used to like People’s Court when I was a kid. There are just too damn many of those court shows these days, though, and I can’t stand to watch any of them.
119? Thatâs hardly any reading at all! GFY, bragger. Hmph. and But yeah, I was all proud that I read 30 books this year. ::sigh:: and I read only 26 books last year. and I bust a gut last year and managed 32 books – I thought I was quite the reader! Y’all have JOBS, though. If I had a JOB, I might be more impressed with myself for reading 119 books, but I don’t – if I wanted, I could go back to bed right now and read all day long and no one could dock my pay (though the cats might come put their dirty-litter paws all over me, blech).
What’s Spot’s middle intial “J” stand for? He won’t tell me. I suspect “Jehosaphat”, but he will neither confirm nor deny.
What do you think about Britney? I think the whole situation is very, very sad. If someone could whisk her away from the public eye and get her into some hardcore therapy, she might be okay in a few years. I think that despite the fact that she says she wants to live a normal life and be left alone, the fact that she has gotten so much attention from such a young age means that as much as she hates it, she also craves it. She’s spinning out (what an insight, huh?) and if I had to guess, I’d say that within the year she’s either going to hit rock bottom and work her way out, or she’ll be dead and be spun into a dead-before-her-time Hollywood icon. And let me take a moment to say that I am HORRIFIED that Dr. Phil inserted himself into the middle of this mess. I mean, if he was working with the family, whatever, that’s great, but to go see Britney and then release a goddamn statement about it? What the fuck? He needs to learn to shut the fuck up. GOD. (Edited to add: Someone’s filed a complaint against Dr. Phil!)
Speaking of cooking, could you at some point talk a little more about your smoker? After reading about yours, I bought one (electric). The first turkey breast was mighty fine. The second … I might as well have saved some time and just licked an ashtray. Blech! Now I’m scared to waste more $$$, time and effort. I have never so much as touched the smoker, so I had to ask Fred about this. He’s never had an issue with our smoker and the only thing he could think of was, maybe you’re using too much wood? He said he uses about a chunk of wood an hour, if that helps.
“Sucks all the oxygen out of the room” in our family is known as the (person’s name) vortex. and âSucks all the oxygen out of the roomâ – this is a relative of mine, who we often refer to as “the tornado”. and We use the phrase “Social Vampire” to describe people like that. and I worked for a chemical company for about 7 years. In some buildings they would need less oxygen (to make it non-flammable) so they piped in nitrogen to the buildings. I think the correct term for âSucks all the oxygen out of the roomâ is “Nitrogen Blanket”. I love all of these, but my favorite has got to be Nitrogen Blanket. That is AWESOME!
“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” (flickr)
Previously 2007: Just call me Nicole Richie! 2006: Iâd be a lobster, âcause they are yummy, and I would be bringing joy to someone after I die a horrible boiling death. 2005: Saturday I spent at least two hours – conservative estimate – finding and downloading a ringtone that sounds exactly like the âinternal callâ ring on 24. 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: Iâm quite the stylinâ bitchypoo, I really am. 2000: Itâs the period that never ennnnnnds! Yes, it goes on and on my friends!]]>