Month: March 2008

It’s been a little over two weeks since we got the new chicks. They’ve zoomed right through their tiny-and-fluffy state into the beginning of their goofy-and-gawky stage. The goofy-and-gawky stage lasts long time, if the last batch is anything to go by.

Another chick died last week, another two on Tuesday, and another two yesterday and the last meat chicken last night. Apparently McMurr@y, the big hatchery, had an issue with a batch of “hot” vaccine at the end of February and beginning of March, so we’re hoping that’s what that was about, and not something we’re doing. The rest of them look fine and perky. I hope the dying is over, because a dying baby chick is a sad thing to see. Out of the 12 meat chickens (white orpingtons) we ordered, we were shorted by 4, one died in shipping, and the rest have died since. Of the chicks who’ve died since we’ve had them, only one was not a white orpington.

One of the Ivanas (ie, white-crested black polish). I love the way the fluff on top of her head is turning into individual feathers.

I think this one is going to grow up to look just like Frick.

Don King, there in the center (ie, golden polish), is also getting individual feathers on top of his head like the Ivanas.

The chicks are getting athletic enough that I’ve told Fred he needs to build a lid for the brooder sooner rather than later, because some of them are getting up on the board that the warming lamps are clipped to, and from there it’ll be a short jump to the side of the brooder, and then the floor. We’ve lost enough chicks now that it would really suck to lose any more by driving into the garage and accidentally running over an escapee.

Fred’s considering ordering more chicks from a different hatchery – possibly the one where we got last year’s batch. We’ll see.

Oh, and there’s a new chick movie. It’s not the best movie, but about 10 seconds in, the Ivanas (puffy white heads) sashay into view and glare angrily around the brooder (perhaps they’re looking for the maitre d’?), one shoots out a poo of displeasure, and they stomp off (or are scared off by me). Also, right at the end the golden polish (puffy brown head) comes into view, fixes the camera with a piercing look and then runs off, hopping over the feeder.

YouTube link

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Yesterday I couldn’t go anywhere (not that I wanted to, really), because I had to wait for the repairman to come and take a look at the refrigerator in the laundry room. (Note to those late to the game: we have a refrigerator in the laundry room; it was the one we had at the other house, and it was too big for the space allotted in the kitchen we have now, so we put it in the laundry room and it has come in very, very handy since the smaller refrigerator we have in the kitchen is way too small for all the crap we need to refrigerate.) After waiting all day, he showed up right at 3:00 (I’d been hoping he’d show up after 3:30, so Fred could deal with him, but no such luck.), took about 10 minutes to inspect, and then told me it was the “damper door”, which needed to be replaced and he’d have to order the part.

So it may be the end of this week or the beginning of next before the refrigerator’s fixed, but I’m not complaining, since it’s been needing to be fixed for at least three months, now.

I am complaining about the fact that I have to deal with the workman again, but eh. I suppose that’s what I get for not having a job, ain’t it?

The fosters continue to be skittish. I spent a couple of hours in the foster room yesterday and got to the point where HG (the black and white) would come around and skirt around the edges of the room. Smudge Bunny (the white) would sit in the closet (where the litter box is kept) and peer out at me, but if she thought I was headed in her direction, she ducked behind the door and hissed.

Last night, I sent Fred up to hang out with them for about ten minutes so he could have time alone with them – it tends to make new fosters a little bit nervous with both of us in there. When I walked in, HG was hanging out near the food, and Fred grinned and said “It’d probably piss you off to know that he’s been letting me pet him, wouldn’t it?”

Braggart.

Turns out that HG really likes the feather-on-a-stick toy, but not the feather end – the stick end. He likes to chase it around, bat at it, and chew on it. I played with him a little, and was able to pet him once or twice. Fred went out to check on the chicks (which he does every night before bed, along with 300 times during the day), so I kept playing with HG, and eventually Smudge Bunny couldn’t stand it anymore, and had to come out and chase the stick a little. Before I left the room, she sniffed my hand and licked me.

This morning when I went in to take a little soft food to them (we woo them with food, of course. Fastest way to a kitten’s heart is through its stomach), HG came right out and sniffed at the food. Smudge Bunny was hiding behind the closet door, so I went in and when she didn’t hiss at me, I took the chance and picked her up. After a brief pause, she started purring.

I put her down in front of the food and then sat down. She sniffed at the food, looked at me, and then came over and started rubbing against me, purring to beat the band. I stayed in there for about 15 minutes, and the entire time she rubbed and purred and climbed in my lap.

One kitten down, one to go!

“Who, me?”

(pic) You can see the gray smudge on top of her head. That angry, suspicious glare could burn holes in your soul.

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I put one of the cat beds I bought at Big Lots in Pennsylvania on the floor near the door in the computer room. The bed has a pad in it that’s attached at two points. Sugarbutt burrowed under the pad and napped there for an hour or so.

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Previously
2007: I think you can imagine how very fucking thrilled I was.
2006: It’s a little-known fact that the butt is the tenderest and most flavorful part of the cashew.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: I’d have to have a mind before I lost it, wouldn’t I?
2002: Luckily, I’ve perfected the mental art of putting my hands over my ears and humming very loudly should my mind ever try to wander in that direction.
2001: While we were on the way to the movie store this afternoon, she turned to me and said “For my birthday” which is in October, by the way, “Can I get another kind of pet?”
2000: Since then, Fred and I, predictably, have referred to smoking pot – when seen in movies – as “Smoking the wheat.”

Test post, just checking something out. Nothing to see here, move along….

I recently finished The Washingtonienne by Jessica Cutler. It was a bathroom book, by which I mean, a book I keep in the bathroom because it is BORING IN THERE, and so when business needs to be conducted, I need something in there to read.

(Shaddup.)

Anyway, previously unbeknownst to me, Fred also reads my reading material when he’s conducting his own business in there, and after a few days of leafing through The Washingtonienne and reading bits of it, he begged me to put a magazine in there because the horror of The Washingtonienne was causing his bowels to slam shut and no business was being conducted.

It took me a few weeks, but I finally finished The Washingtonienne and today I am announcing that bitchypoo.com, in conjunction with vituperation.com, is awarding The Washingtonienne the title of The Most Vapid Book of This Century.

Honest to god, it was the least substantial book I have ever had the displeasure of reading, and I don’t know why I read it all the way through – well, yes I do. I read it all the way through because it was the only thing in there, and somehow I kept forgetting to replace it, so I was held hostage by circumstance.

I should have known when I opened the front cover and a great burst of hot air blew my hair back that there wasn’t going to be a lot of “there” there. It’s like the literary equivalent of marshmallow fluff, except that marshmallow fluff is tasty annnnd…. The Washingtonienne is the opposite of tasty. It’s like marshmallow fluff gone rancid. If marshmallow fluff went rancid. And I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Anyway, you get my point.

I certainly don’t blame Jessica Cutler for this horrific book unleashed upon an unsuspecting public, because she was only capitalizing on the notoriety of writing a blog about who she was fucking and in what position (that’s an assumption on my part, since I never read her blog) and if someone contacted me and was all “Write a book about (whatever trainwreck issues might arise in my life, of which there are thankfully few, or ARE there, ho ho HO wouldn’t YOU like to know?!) and we’ll give you lots of money! Whee!”, I’d be all over that.

I do blame the idiots at Hyperion who thought they’d capitalize on… Oh. Well, I guess I can’t really blame them, either. They’re in the business to make money after all.

I guess who I should be blaming, really, is my own stupid ass and the fact that I feel a weird compulsion to buy books written by bloggers to support! the cause! man! That’s bitten me on the ass more than once, and I guess I need to stop doing that shit. Probably I should just stick to buying books by bloggers I actually read and enjoy and not every book written by a blogger, whether I’ve read them or not.

So, um, yes. The Washingtonienne: don’t bother.

Maxi is a pretty cat and she’s a good cat, but what she is not, is a smart cat. She has, lately, taken to asking to go outside. We almost always let Maxi and Newt out the side door, because that’s usually where we are when they ask to go out. So we let her out, she sniffs around, chases birds, does whatever, and then decides she wants back in the house.

Instead of going back to the door she came outside through, she climbs over the fence into the back yard and goes to the back door and comes in the cat flap in the screen door. This works fine and everything, except that often times she tries to come in the back door when we’ve already closed it for the night, so she sits there and waits for us to open it. Usually, we don’t even know she’s out there. Eventually one of us goes out the side door, and Maxi races over to the fence and howls at us. And howls. And howls some more. Does she climb the fence and jump up on the side stoop? She does not. She howls, and then she races to the back door. So we either have to open the gate and call her, then let her in the side door, OR we have to go inside and open the back door to let her in.

I cannot even imagine how much time she’s probably spent sitting patiently by the back door, waiting for someone to let her in.

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New fosters!

The white one is a girl named Smudge Bunny and the black and white is HG (stands for “Hourglass”, because he’s got an hourglass-shaped patch of white on his tummy).

They’re very skittish. Their story is that an 89 year-old woman found them and took care of them as best she could, but she was just throwing them scraps of the food she had around, so their little digestive systems were pretty messed up when the shelter took them. They’re about 6 months old.

Smudge Bunny, though you can’t see it in the picture, has a smudge of gray on top of her head (you have to look closely to see it) and a smudge of orange along her tail. I just got them last night and haven’t spent a lot of time with them yet – they’re so nervous that I wanted to let them get used to their surroundings a little before I start spending time in there. I took them a small plate of canned cat food this morning and they were interested, but then I moved and they zipped under the dresser and hid.

They’re sweet little things; I’m sure they’ll come around, especially once Fred the cat whisperer gets his hands on them. I just hope he doesn’t fall in love with Smudge Bunny’s gorgeous blue eyes; I really don’t want the permanent cat population to get up into the double digits!

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Newt keeps his eye on the prize (but then it flew away!).

Previously
2007: I was filled with a black hatred for the goddamn lights and my goddamn husband and every goddamn thing that ever was.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Another reason I love the man: he makes me laugh every day.
2003: I’ll tell you what, he’s lucky I didn’t go get the cleaver and chop that fucking finger right the fuck off.
2002: My mind is blank…
2001: It’s just the little things that get to me, y’know?
2000: Married people! Having sex in the middle of the day! What IS this world coming to?

Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day, but it went by really fast – I guess when you’re gone for three hours first thing in the morning, the rest of the day goes by quickly. I did my thing at the pet store, ran over to Target for groceries, ran back to the pet store (once they were open) for a new litter box, then stopped by the grocery store on the way home for the stuff I needed that Target hadn’t had (bran flakes, turnips. Not to be eaten together.).

When I got home, I ate breakfast, and then I had to catch up on the Scrabble and Text Twist and Scramble games I’d gotten behind on over at Facebook (I’m enjoying the Scrabble and the Text Twist; not so much on the Scramble, because I suck so badly at it. Well. I suck at the Text Twist too, but I kind of enjoy it. Most of the time.) and then I sat on my ass and got caught up on some of the TV shows I missed while I was in Pennsylvania.

I find that I’m not terribly interested in the Michael/ Walt storyline on Lost; it’s been too damn long since we saw either of them, and I find I don’t miss them.

There was this episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8 that I watched before I went to Pennsylvania, and during one of the interview segments, Kate is talking about the kids being sick, and she stops mid-sentence – almost mid-word – and turns to him and politely says “I’m sorry, could you stop breathing?” Apparently he was breathing a little loudly and it was distracting her. She goes on to imitate him, and I’ve watched that one little segment about fifteen times now, and it makes me guffaw every damn time.

And after I watched a (different) episode of Jon and Kate, I thought to myself “Self, if Kate Gosselin can get through a day with eight small children, you can get off your dead ass and take the recycling back and clean the kitchen and switch out the litter boxes!”

So I did.

I’m kind of dreading Friday because I have an appointment with the plastic surgeon and if there’s nothing on earth I hate more than going to the doctor, it’s going to a doctor who will purposely touch my flabby sections.

Heh. “My flabby sections” would be an excellent band name.

As do all overweight and formerly overweight and really ALL women, I loathe having my flabby bits touched, let alone touched at length and eyeballed and discussed. Can’t you just trust me that there are flabby bits there and wait until I’m under anesthesia to touch and eyeball them doc, huh?

I’m still scarred from the time my gastroenterologist (ie, DrLiver) GRABBED THE ROLL OF FLABBY SKIN AND FAT AROUND MY MIDSECTION AND SQUEEZED IT. Yeah, he asked first, but I didn’t know he was going to TOUCH IT, I just thought he was going to look. I restrained myself, though, and didn’t scream “DON’T YOU KNOW YOU NEVER TOUCH A WOMAN’S FLAB?!” at him.

What was I saying? Oh, right, I have an appointment on Friday with the plastic surgeon. Not looking forward to it.

“Robyn,” you are saying, “Correct me if I’m wrong, I know you will, but didn’t you originally have an appointment with the plastic surgeon at the end of last month?”

Indeed I did, my appointment was originally for the last day of February, only two days before my appointment I decided I was feeling too fat to be seen partially nude by a stranger so I rescheduled. I told Fred that if I tried to cancel it again, he needed to hold me down and threaten to spit in my mouth, because I could easily cancel and reschedule appointments for the next two years if no one stopped me from doing it.

I want to have had plastic surgery, I just don’t want to have to go through the process of seeing the plastic surgeon, pouting until Fred lets me have all the plastic surgery I want done (don’t even be thinking “fake boobs”, because the day I have surgery to make my boobs bigger is the day I throw myself off the nearest cliff; I only want them lifted), going through surgery, healing from surgery, whining about the pain from surgery, screaming at the cats for tromping all over my cut-and-stitched bits, sobbing about how I’ll never feel normal again, etc etc etc.

Can’t I just snap my fingers and have it over with? Must I really go THROUGH the entire process? Because no fair. I object!

WhineWhineWhine.

Every night, when I’m not paying attention, Fred LOVES to turn the heat in the downstairs part of the house down a few degrees. So I’m sitting on the couch thinking “Why is my nose cold?”, and it turns out that it’s because he’s turned the goddamn heat down.

Now, WHY does he have to turn the heat down in the downstairs part of the house when HE DOESN’T SLEEP DOWN HERE, I ask you? He can hang out downstairs ’til bedtime, then go upstairs to his 45-degree upstairs, and sleep like a baby. Why does he always gotta fuck with my heat?

Last night I was bitching at him about how cold it was, and he was all “I only turned it down ONE DEGREE!”, but apparently that’s the one degree that makes all the difference. I have to have the heat on 71 during the day or I’ll be cold (well, I’m cold anyway, but it’s bearable), and if it’s set on 70 instead, I freeze to death.

Clearly he just wants me to freeze to death. Bastard.

Tommy and Sugarbutt like to sleep in the beds on my desk. Well, most of the cats like to sleep in the beds on my desk (Spanky’s sleeping in one right now, and the other is empty, which is unusual), but Tommy and Sugarbutt spend most of their time on my desk. Sometimes Sugarbutt will feel the sudden need for love from his brudder, so he gets up, walks across the desk to Tommy’s bed, and plops himself down on top of Tommy.

They’re fully-grown cats, and not small ones, either. Seeing the two of them trying to share one bed is pretty funny.

Tommy’s such a sweet boy that when Sugarbutt makes himself at home, Tommy does as requested, and begins grooming Sugarbutt. Every time it happens, I want to pick them up and squeeze them to death.

Sugarbutt haz a flavor.

Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: The spud is officially licensed.
2004: Ain’t it always the way that when you call someone names in your journal, secure in the knowledge that they’ll never see it, they always do?
2003: (And before you say it, yes. You shouldn’t give a shit what I think, either.)
2002: Is it just me?
2001: No entry.
2000: If you knew you’d get $341 million for being treated savagely and cruelly for 7 years, would you do it?

Nance and Rick are gone, left here Saturday about mid-day to drive partway home, stop for the night, then finish the drive on Sunday.

We sure did have a lot of fun while they were here. Fred took Friday off so he and Rick made a bridge to go over the ditch that separates the back yard from the back forty (I hate having to slog through the water to get out to the back forty when it’s as wet as it’s been recently – and the fact that there are holes in my boots makes it that much more miserable) while I made breakfast (bacon, eggs, biscuits, YUM). Nance alternately loved on the cats (Miz Poo is a huge love slut) and mocked me for being Suzy Homemaker in my apron.

I dropped Lucille, Lindsay and Maeby off at Petsmart. They’re so cute and personable that I expect quick adoptions. (Maeby was adopted on Saturday; I haven’t been to the pet store yet, so I don’t know if either of the other two have been adopted yet). The entire drive to the pet store, the kittens would take turns howling mournfully, and then at the pet store while I was setting up their cage, they howled sadly, and then I put them in the cage and it was like I was taking them out of the carrier and putting them in the cage and they were all “Wah wah wahhhhh, why must we be in this carrier, why do you hate us so, why do – oh! Is that a new toy?” When I left the cat room, they were all sniffing interestedly around their cage like “Hey, this place is cool!”

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From the pet store we went over to Target, then stopped by the fabric store (Nance bought some fabric and I picked up a flyer. I’m thinking of taking a beginning sewing class, since it’s been more than 20 years since I touched a sewing machine) and then Fred called and was all “When are you coming home? We want to watch I Am Legend, do we have to wait?”, so we headed home.

Nance went off to read while Fred and Rick and I watched I Am Legend. About half an hour into the movie my sister called and we talked for a minute and after I hung up the phone the three of us decided to pause the movie so we could take naps.

Yes, we are the lamest.

I dozed off for about ten minutes and then couldn’t sleep any more, so I went out and filled the bird feeders and then Fred and I walked out to the back forty to see the pigs.

Here’s where a conversation took place that later came back to bite me in the ass. I was wearing sneakers on my feet and I bitched about having to walk through the mud, and Fred said “You should wear Nance’s boots!”, because Nance has these cool yellow boots.

I said “Oh, they won’t fit me. She wears, like, a men’s size 14.” Exaggerating for effect, you see? Because she’s like a foot taller than I am, so she has proportionately larger feet?

“Does she really?” Fred said, fascinated. “A men’s size 14?!”

“Well, no. But Rick can wear them, so they’re probably far too big for me.”

And then we went out and visited the pigs, then went back inside and finished watching the movie. Once the movie was over, it was about dinnertime, so Fred and Rick went out to start the grill and Nance and I went into town to return the movie and go to the grocery store.

We had Fred-grilled steak for dinner and baked potatoes and salad. The steak (according to Fred) was salty (because he was at the bottom of a bottle of Dale’s steak sauce), and the salad was sadly lacking. Unlike the salad they served me in Pennsylvania that was the best! salad! ever! (I’m going to start calling it Shirley salad), the bagged stuff I added tomatoes and cucumbers to was just not all that. The pigs ended up with the bulk of the salad later that night, and they loved the hell out of it.

Rick took Nance up into town to Starbucks, and I did a quick vacuum of the house while they were gone, then Nance and I sat in front of our computers and Fred and Rick played with the Wii (Trey’s Wii, which he kindly allowed us to bring to Alabama with us) until Fred could barely stand it anymore, and we adjourned to the living room to play Pictionary.

Pictionary is a fun freakin’ game, helped out by the big whiteboard Nance had bought during our trip to Target. We played two games, and Fred and I started out strong with both of them, but about halfway through each game got ourselves tripped up so Nance and Rick would just mosey on by us to win the damn game. It was KILLING Fred to lose those games, but you can’t win ’em all, right?

(Admire my mad drawing skills hither. And hither. Also, hither.)

During the game, Fred would walk over to the whiteboard to take his turn and then he’d stomp back over to the couch, and he’d walk so fucking close to my drink – which was sitting on the floor in front of me – that I was convinced he was going to kick it and knock it over. So I’d be “Watch out, watch your feet, don’t kick over my drink!” and he’d say, all annoyed, “I’m nowhere near your drink!” and finally I got so annoyed with him that I got up and clomped about in imitation of the way he walks with his big goofy feet, and I thought Nance was going to pass out, she was laughing so hard.

Which is when Fred said “Yeah, well, she was making fun of YOUR feet not very long ago!”

Aghast at the lie, I said “I was NOT!”, and then he recounted the “Men’s size 14” conversation from earlier, and I about choked to death, I was laughing so hard. I had COMPLETELY forgotten I’d said that. And then they tried to say that I was calling Rick’s feet “dainty”, so in one short day I managed to insult everyone in the house. Score!

We turned in pretty early, ’cause we were all tired. That sitting around all day with a nap thrown in halfway through the day is a killer, ain’t it?

Saturday morning we left the house earlyish (not as early as Fred would have liked to leave, because I’m sure he wanted to leave at like 5 am) and we went into Nearville to eat breakfast at a restaurant Fred knew about (a restaurant I do not recommend in the slightest, because my omelet had NO flavor whatsoever) and then we headed to Lacon Trade Days, which is just a big, crappy flea market type place where they also sell some livestock. It’s where we got McLovin, actually.

(pic) If we hadn’t just eaten breakfast, I would have insisted on eating at this place. It smelled really damn good. Alas, we were all still full from breakfast.

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(pic) I tried to convince Nance that she needed to invest in this as a statement piece. Somehow, she disagreed. Isn’t it creepy?

We walked around there for a few hours, eyeballing everything they had for sale, and believe me – there was a LOT of crap. Fred ended up buying some goose eggs just ’cause he wanted to try them (he scrambled one yesterday and tried eating egg sandwiches, but then declared the egg to be – any guesses? – too eggy, so gave the others to the pigs).

It’s so sad at that place to see all the puppies they have for sale. It wouldn’t be so bad except that some of the people have these little bitty puppies all crammed into one small cage, and the puppies are scared and have no food or water. And you can adopt some of them and bring them home, right? Except that you cannot possibly save them all, there’s no piece of land on earth that will hold all the puppies places like these sell.

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(pic) I think this is a Silver-Laced Wyandotte. They’re gorgeous birds, I wouldn’t mind having a couple.

(pic) Fred’s still pushing for goats. I’m still pushing back.

We left there after a few hours and ran over to Stuckey’s so Fred could use the bathroom and Nance and I could nose around. Nance and I are copycats, because we both bought “genuine hand-made Mexican blankets” for $6.99 each, and then I bought some ground pecans to make pecan-crusted chicken, and we headed home.

We stopped on the way home to visit the bakery thrift store. We poked around looking for sweet stuff for the pigs (we’ve found that they’ll eat their pig chow a lot more readily if there’s a little something sweet mixed in with it) and Fred ended up buying about 100 packs of mini powdered donuts for $10. That’ll last for a month or more, so that’s a pretty good score.

(pic) You cannot come and visit Crooked Acres without leaving with a load of canned stuff. It’s the law!

Once home, Nance and Rick loaded up their car, we stood around and talked for a few minutes, and then they were on their way and Fred and I were like “What the hell do we do NOW?”

(The answer: Eat lunch, putter around, then settle down and spend the afternoon watching The Office and Enchanted and Survivor.)

Yesterday was very low-key for us. I slept in ’til almost 7, started laundry, wandered around in my nightgown, stripped and remade the guest bed (when we have no guests, we keep some old sheets and a crappy comforter on the bed so that the cats can hang out on it and I don’t have to worry about getting cat hair all over the mattress or cat vomit all over the good comforter), cleaned the litter boxes, then read for a while and showered and did more puttering.

Fred’s mother and stepfather stopped by, late morning, to drop off leftover food for the pigs. I don’t know what it was – rice and carrots and cabbage and there was some kind of teriyaki sauce on it, it smelled really good – but the pigs dove in and didn’t stop eating ’til every bit of it was gone. We hung out and talked to them for about an hour, then Fred pawned some tomato plants off on them (he’s planted 120, woot!) and they left.

The rest of the day was laundry, puttering around, hanging out with the cats. The usual.

(pic) My new sweatshirt, thank you to reader Lyndell who posted the link in my comments. Fred’s got the t-shirt. He’s promising to wear it while he does the slaughtering.

We had steak for dinner, with black-eyed peas and green beans. I’d thought about doing a mini-Easter dinner with the ham and mashed potatoes and deviled eggs, but that was more work than I wanted to do, and we ended up with a damn fine meal anyway.

Now it’s back to life as usual. I’m off to the pet store. See you tomorrow!

There are a ton of pictures uploaded over at Flickr.

I love the way Tommy goes a little crazy-eyed when you rub his stomach. Check out those claws!

Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: I. Am. PISSED.
2004: “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t believe I quite understand. Could you explain this “spoonful” word to me via pantomime again?”
2003: That, or she’s a stalker-reader.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Some people just have a smack-me face, don’t they?

Last night, in front of the closet in my bedroom, I was getting ready for bed. As I stripped off my shirt and bra, Fred came in. He stood beside me and cast a considering eye at my chest.

“What?” I said, because that’s what we always say whenever the other so much as glances in our general direction.

“Your boobs look smaller,” he said.

“Gee,” I said. “THANKS. That’s always a way to win a girl’s heart.”

He shrugged. “They look less… saggy.”

When I was done berating him, he said “You make me sound like an ogre. I was being complimentary!”

“I think you mean ‘oaf’,” I said. “And it’s not ME making you sound like one.”

Some girls get all the romance.

Since you are the person I “know” who watches the most tv, can you tell me: There is a reality show involving two very prim-n-proper British housekeepers who come in and clean up horribly messy houses. Is this a US show, or a BBC thing?

The idea of watching these Oh So Proper women in business dress clambering around on their hands and knees and talking about poo and pee-pee makes me seriously reconsider my anti-television bias (also I’d feel better about my own messy house), but I don’t know where to find the show. Robyn, or anyone?

Elayne, in case you missed it, Laura said That show is “How Clean Is Your House?” and it’s on every weekday on BBC America.

And Robyn S. said, To add on to Laura’s comment, How Clean Is Your House used to be on Lifetime. I haven’t seen it on there in ages though.

Is the pig solid or is it a piggy bank?

It’s a solid hand-carved pig!

I love roadtrip stories — and you SHOP? Wow. I was brought up to get on the road and STAY THERE until you get there. Your way sounds like a lot more fun.

Yeah, if it had been Fred there would have been NO stopping and shopping. In fact, he probably would have rolled his eyes every time I told him I had to pee. Probably, he would have told me to JUST HOLD IT, DAMNIT, WE’LL BE THERE IN TEN HOURS!

Not that you are old but be careful around that henhouse

I think it would suck in a BIG WAY to die under a chicken coop with Frick looking at me like “Has you got some food, lady?” and McLovin pecking at my feet.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that I’ve been AT that Love’s .. do you happen to remember where it was?

All I can tell you is that it was the last exit before mile marker 45, and there was a Burger King up the road and on the opposite side.

I have been re-reading all of your old entries, and I am reading about last summer’s garden and canning fest. Have you started planning the garden for this year?

Oh, definitely. In fact, Fred has already planted the potatoes and the entire plot has been tilled. Also, he’s started the tomatoes (inside). We’re growing all the same stuff we grew last year, and in addition we’re growing edamame, navy beans, black beans (I think), onions and… that’s it, I think. I cannot wait ’til we get our first tomato! We’re growing a lot more tomatoes, and some of them are paste tomatoes this time around.

Since I LOL’d at your previously listings for today, inquiring minds just HAVE to know. Did your period once again start right before you left on this vacation?

My period did NOT start again right before I left on vacation – THANK GOD, because getting sick while having my period is the most miserable thing on earth.

Is that a Wegmans?

The grocery store we visited with the awesome candy aisle was a Great Eagle.

Was reading a book the other day called Good, Good Pig by Sy Montgomery. Thought of you and your little piggies. One thing I found very interesting and surprising in the book, is that more people are killed by pigs than sharks each year. Wow, be careful out there.

Here’s a funny story for y’all – every time you warn Fred not to feed the pigs by hand, he rolls his eyes and continues to feed them. I, on the other hand have never fed them by hand because I am a good girl and I heed your warnings. So one day Fred and I were in the pig yard sitting on the stump he hauled out there for them to rub against (which they never do), and one came sniffing around my feet, and I held my hand down, and he lifted his head up and sniffed my hand and then…. he tried to bite it. He didn’t, and he wasn’t aggressive about it in the first place, but my own dumbassery horrified me, and I don’t really venture into the pig yard anymore.

You should get some turkey chicks too. I assure you that you will have no trouble wringing their necks when the time comes because turkeys are the stupidest, most exasperating creatures to breathe. In fact, you will probably have to restrain yourselves to keep from killing too early. They’re tasty too!

We’re talking about it, actually – maybe getting them and putting them in the pig yard when the pigs are gone. Do they act like chickens? Do they sleep roosting like chickens do?

I have always said to myself, that when my (very old) cat dies and I want a new kitty, I’ll just try to adopt one of your fosters. I am several states away though. Do you think your shelter would make exceptions for your readers who promise to spoil the cat for the rest of it’s life, and have already proven themselves to be good cat owners?

You know, I don’t know. She’s pretty reasonable, but it’s probably a case-by-case sort of thing. Keep in mind that the current adoption price per cat is $150, and you have to fill out paperwork to apply for adoption.

so are Nance and Rick now staying for a visit at your house for a while?

Yep, they’re staying for a few days, and then driving home again!

Fred thought it would be a good idea to pick up the pig. The pig didn’t agree that it was a good idea, even though he looks like he’s smiling.

Happy pig.

Hungry pig.

I LOVE spring.

Sugarbutt in his favorite hidey-hole.

Previously
2007: That is a monster shredder.
2006: Someone kill me now. NOW.
2005: And THEN in the car on the way to Mom and Dad’s, I was thinking “Well, THAT was rude, to tell her she was being too loud!
2004: No entry.
2003: Miz Poo has an infection.
2002: And if you unsubscribe from the notify list? A reason for the unsubscription is neither necessary, required, nor desired. Thanks so much.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

In case you didn’t already read it on my Twitter, we’re home! We got here just before 9:00 last night. Rick had predicted the trip would take 13 hours – it took 14, but only because we stopped a couple of times to shop and about 15 times to pee.

I am a peeing machine.

We meant to leave the house at 5:00 yesterday morning, and I myself was ready to go, but other people (HELLO) were not. Which was okay, because it gave me time to post my entry and bond with the animals for a while longer. Maddy (for those of you who are newish or just want to see the old pictures, this is what Maddy looked like when she was my foster bebbe) allowed me to come close to her, and she allowed me to hold out my hand for sniffing, but she clearly did not want to be petted by me, and I respected her wishes.

Well.

I respected her wishes until I was standing by her a little while later. She had just eaten and was sitting and watching the goings-on, and her tail was near me, so I just reached out and touched her tail. You would have thought I’d picked her up and swung her around by the tail from her hysterical hissing reaction.

Maddy has no love for me, I tell you what. She’s gorgeous and she’s happy and she’s spoiled rotten, though, and that’s really all a foster mother can hope for.

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We got on the road and stopped to fill the gas tank, and then had to go back to fetch Nance’s laptop (luckily, we hadn’t gone too far), and we stopped for breakfast, and then we were on the road for real a little before 7:00.

We were out of Pennsylvania and into West Virginia pretty quickly. We stopped at Cabela’s in West Virginia for a look around. I’d never been to a Cabela’s, and it reminded me of a cross between LL Bean and the Kittery Trading Post.

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We were through West Virginia pretty quickly and then we got into Ohio, and I tell you what – we were in that state forever. At the point when I started thinking “SURELY we’re almost through here?”, Rick said “We’re about halfway through the state.” Lordy.

We stopped at the JC Penney outlet store in Columbus and did some shopping. I think we were there about an hour. There was a lot of good stuff (really low prices!) there, but I ended up not buying anything. We left there, stopped for lunch, and hit the road again.

The entire trip, Nance and I were Twittering like the dorks we are. Also, of the 14-hour trip, I think we talked 12 hours of it. We’d made sure to have plenty of Keith and the Girl podcasts to listen to on the way down, and then ended up listening to only a couple.

At some point in Ohio – or maybe Kentucky, at this point it’s all a blur – we stopped at a McDonald’s to pee and have our pictures taken with the Ronald McDonald statue in the parking lot, because we are dorks.

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(flickr) Looks like I was giving Ronald hell about something.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel in Elizabethtown, Kentucky for dinner (I only knew where we were because Fred called while Nance and I were checking out the store, and I asked an employee where we were) and the guy who waited on us harassed the hell out of us. No kidding, that guy must have come back to check on us 10 times during the course of our meal. We finally fled in self-defense just so we didn’t have to keep reassuring him that everything was FINE THANKS. Talk about needy. (Actually, I think he was just new and determined to do a good job of it.)

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We got a little lost in Nashville, but not for long, and after a few stops for gas and peeing, we got home and saw the cats and Fred dragged Rick out to admire the pigs, and then we all went to bed pretty early.

I slept like a baby.

Did I mention that I woke up Tuesday morning with a really bad sore throat and stuffy nose? All of a sudden the out-of-it feeling I’d had all day Monday and attributed to jet lag made sense. I started taking the Cold fx I’d just bought the day before at Big Lots (yes, it’s just ginseng, shaddup) and Nance gave me some cough drops. I hoped that by the time I woke up yesterday morning my sore throat would be gone, but it held on until about dinner time before it finally went away. Today, I’m coughing and snotty, but I feel pretty good, so maybe the Cold fx did its job!

Traveling with Nance and Rick, I have to say, is a blast. They are apparently familiar with every single town between their home and ours, because every time we stopped to pee Nance would say something like “Oh, this is where we stopped and bought that shirt, right?”, and Rick would say “Yeah, the Starbucks is right around this corner.” Or we’d be on the highway driving, and Nance would say “That’s the mall where we stopped and shopped. They have a good (insert store name here).” It cracked me up.

(flickr) Miz Poo approves of the $7 cat beds from Big Lots.

Previously
2007: That just screams “Monday”, doesn’t it?
2006: “I prefer ‘va-jay-jay’,” he said almost prissily.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: And why is it that I ALWAYS have my period when it’s time to leave on vacation? Why? Whyyyyyyyyy?
2002: I don’t want to have to think about Ozzy having a boner, thankyouverymuch.
2001: Fortunately, I have many more lazing-around-the-house-reading hours in the day than he does.
2000: I didn’t think cats did such things once they were fixed.

Happy, happy birthday to Debbie, my sister, who turns 38 today!

Happy birthday, Deb! I hope it’s a fabulous one!

Yesterday, after Felina was done surfing the internet and reading blogs (we’re getting her addicted to the internet young), she said “That Pioneer Punk is cool. I wanna be cool like him!” Next thing we knew….

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That Pioneer Punk is a bad, bad influence.

(Relax, it’s not a real cigarette.)

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Yesterday morning, we were getting ready to leave the house, when Nance said “Guess who’s downstairs?!” I grabbed my camera, but as soon as she saw me, she ran for the stairs. I very, very slowly followed her, and she sat on the stairs and looked at me. I moved slowly enough that she didn’t feel threatened, apparently, and when I held out my hand to her she sniffed it, looked up at me, and gave me a mini-Hellcat growl. I’m no dummy, so I backed the hell off.

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Nance and I partied it up some more yesterday, heading back to Big Lots so I could buy the cat beds I was coveting ($7 each! That is SUCH a deal!) and the drugstore so I could pick something up for Fred, and then we had lunch in downtown Near-Nance-Ville. We drove around a little and Nance showed me the sights, then we stopped by the grocery store so she could pick some stuff up, and let me tell you, that is one nice freakin’ grocery store. The produce section was HUGE and then we walked around the corner and I spotted nirvana.

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Any kind of candy you could ever want! I bought some sour balls, because you just can’t find them in Alabama and I like the green ones.

Then we went back to Nance’s house and I sat on my dead ass while Nance and Shirley made dinner.

I highly recommend visiting Nance and Rick and Shirley and Trey and Alex – they totally let you sit around on your ass and not do anything, and they give you the interesting local gossip. Also, if you ever need an animal to snuggle with, you totally have your pick.

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All my Pennsylvania pics are hither.

Previously
2007: I am such a prize, I really am.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: “Have you noticed that it smells like the bodies of fifteen [gentlemen of Chinese descent] laying in a pile in the ditch, rotting?”
2003: Always something, you know?
2002: “I’m starving to death. Meh. STARVING, I’m STARVING. Meh.”
2001: My baby’s growing up!
2000: No entry.