January 2009 – Page 2

1/16/09

The spud made it home yesterday just fine. She was flying via US Air, but she wasn’t on the flight that went into the Hudson. Thank god. (And thank god that all passengers made it off that flight!) & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & … Continue reading “1/16/09”

The spud made it home yesterday just fine. She was flying via US Air, but she wasn’t on the flight that went into the Hudson. Thank god.

(And thank god that all passengers made it off that flight!)

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When Fred called me at home yesterday and recounted this conversation with his father, I howled. Because first of all, FRED LOOKS JUST LIKE HIS FATHER. I would have thought that his father’s first step would have been to call Fred and ask what his blood type was, just to be sure that he remembered correctly. I’m curious as to whether or not Fred’s father discussed this with Fred’s stepmother at all, because she’s a very sensible woman, and I would have thought she’d tell him he was being a dumbass.

I do feel some sympathy for the man, I’m sure he struggled long and hard whether to tell Fred, why it must have been a good twelve hours of fretting and googling, but mostly I’m just shaking my head and laughing.

(Also, who are you weirdos who actually KNOW what your blood type is? I haven’t got a clue what my blood type or the spud’s blood type or for that matter, what the blood type of any of my family is.)

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Robyn, I think you should write to Alton Brown and ask him to do a frozen and thawed vs non-frozen egg show, and let us in on the science of this. Inquiring minds want to know!

I think that if the cookies I make later today come out cake-y and prove my frozen-and-then-thawed eggs = cake-like cookies theory is proven correct, then I very well might do that!

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Now, why did this make me think of you?

more animals

Hmph. I cannot imagine!

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I keep meaning to ask you if you have any Bathroom Kitties? My male cat Chip is almost inevitably in the shower several times a day or just laying about on the floor in front of it. Amber shows NO interest, but he the total Guardian of the Shower. Cracks me up.

We have Spanky, who is our Bathroom Ambassador. If you walk toward the bathroom, Spanky gets very excited and runs so that he is walking into the bathroom ahead of you. He rubs against every surface he sees, and he purrs and purrs. Then you say “Okay, I’m fine, you may go now” and he vacates the premises. He just wants to make sure you’re comfortable before he leaves you alone, apparently.

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Jesus H. I stop reading for a week and you have dogs.

That’s why you can never take your eye off me for one minute! “Stop reading for a week” indeed!

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The second pic that Nance took of you, you look about 12!

My favorite picture of those three is the last one. I look so concerned, like I’m about to say “And how does that make you FEEL?”, and it cracks me up every time I see it.

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What kind of teeny birds are those on the feeder? their color looks so… milky or something. but not like, white. just… smooth and blended. even though I don’t really blend my milk.

Those are Tufted Titmouse – which I only know because I posted a picture of them shortly after we bought this house and was like “What the hell are these?” and several people told me what they are. I think they are seriously purrrrrty.

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You have the prettiest birds, really. But that won’t stop me from have chicken pot pie for dinner tonight

I agree, we have some very pretty chickens – and it doesn’t stop us from eating chicken, it surely shouldn’t stop anyone else!

Earlier this week, we had chicken enchiladas and I had enough meat left over to make a small batch of chicken and rice casserole. SO good!

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I have been taken aback at this season’s Real Housewives. I got interested in it last year (The Orange County is my favorite, the others are just wannabes). But the CATTINESS!! I don’t remember it being so blatant last year, do you? Last year, it seemed more like it just highlighted each of their lives. This year, they are so catty, they are meowing. Or did I miss it last year??

and

The Real Housewives is my favorite guilty pleasure. They are beyond catty this season. Is it just me or is Vicki the most obnoxious person to ever draw breath? Poor Don and her poor kids! Love to hate her.

I think the Housewives have increased their assholery since last year. The most recent episode made me really REALLY not like Tamra and her trashy fucking son. God, what a couple of sleazeballs. Did you see the way he kept pawing Gretchen? HE GRABBED HER ASS when she was clearly beyond three sheets to the wind.

Vicki is the most insecure, neediest woman I have ever seen in my life. Between the following her mother around begging “Tell me you love me!” and “How come you never buy anything for ME?” and the automatically disliking the new housewives, and the bitchiness about how Gretchen likes to be the center of attention – POT KETTLE BLACK, Vicki!

I feel sorry for Gretchen, because she’s such a sweet girl and to be thrown in with those women, especially Tamra, who is clearly so very perfect that she can pass judgment on Gretchen taking a day off to get away from the hospital. Tamra deserves Simon-the-douche, I think.

GOD I LOATHE TAMRA. ALSO VICKI.

And Lynne and her husband at dinner, talking about how a bottle of wine was missing and it was probably their daughter, gosh we should really do something about that, yeah let’s get right on that, :shrug: I predict an alcohol-related accident on their daughter’s part before the season is over.

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I swearz….I was just looking at some lolcats….and look what I found!

I love that site!

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Love the names you picked out for the Dogs, I am assuming George Burns and Gracie Allen?

But of course – although I have to admit that I didn’t come up with the idea on my own. It was shortly after I read this entry at One December that we decided to get dogs, and I immediately knew that I wanted to use those names.

Fred protested, but he didn’t have a choice in the matter.

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In one paragraph you say “where did my muscles come from?” and then in the next paragraph you talk about pushing 240lbs of kitty litter around. I’m not a Dr. and I don’t even play one on TV, but I’m guessing you may have answered your own question.

and

Muscles come from lugging litter and Jimmy’s cracked corn and boxes and kitty crates, etc., etc., etc.

Okay, I suppose you have a POINT. I was just surprised because I haven’t done any more of that stuff in the last year than I did the year before – but my mistake was in not realizing that it’s entirely possible that I gained muscle from doing all that in 2007, I just didn’t have an InBody scan to compare it to from the previous year!

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Off topic, did Nance tell you that they have FiestaWare cat and dog bowls? I confessed in her comment section awhile back that I’m such an addict that my cats eat out of FW bowls. My complaint is that they don’t offer them in all of the colors, so our cat bowls don’t match our plates and bowls. My name is Mia and I am an addict.

No, she certainly did not tell me that – Nance, you have been lacking in my FiestaWare education!

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I also saw the Purina One food. I was just curious…does that seem to work well with the kitties? I am using Iams and would like to switch, since Purina One is slightly less expensive.

I actually bought that bag of Purina One Urinary Tract Health food a few months ago when Joe Bob developed a UTI. We got the prescription stuff from our vet, and I thought I’d try them on the Purina One version, but they liked the prescription stuff so much that I didn’t have the heart to switch them over.

I’ve always heard good things about Purina One food, though, if that helps!

(By the way, when my sister and nephew were visiting, she kept calling Joe Bob “Billy Joe”, and it cracked me UP.)

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Hmm..we used to use Fresh Step, but the dust was terrible. Do you not have that problem?

Yeah, it’s pretty dusty, but the litterboxes are all in locations (laundry room, bathroom, foster kitten closet) where the dust doesn’t bother us.

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I can see Spud has features that are different from yours, but riddle me this? If she doesn’t look like you, then explain the phenomena that is how her and Brian look like brother and sister? LOL

It’s a mystery, is what it is! Like someone mentioned, it’s probably that she looks enough like me that people see the resemblance, and Brian’s mother and I look like each other, so he resembles her, so there’s enough of a resemblance there that they look like siblings? Maybe? Sounds good to me!

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Random question – what is that green thing by Claudette as she is grooming herself in the sun?

It’s a laser toy. You turn it on, open the top, and a laser light goes in circles. Some cats find it fascinating, other cats couldn’t be less interested.

Here it is, in action:

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Glad to see that Miz Poo is overseeing Claudette’s grooming techniques. You would not want to adopt a kitten out that doesn’t know proper grooming techniques.

Miz Poo always likes to make sure that the babies are super clean before she releases them out into the world!

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[the vet] and the other employees of the clinic actually take ivomec every month themselves, but they’ve never tasted it straight (apparently it’s really good with Coffeemate in it)

!!! Wait – the who’s in the what now?

*a little bit of Googling later*
I had no idea that humans could get heartworms. Although Wiki says it’s of negligible consequence. Still.

I shall now proceed to spend the next three months being faintly worried that this goddamn cough, for which I have undergone four separate courses of antibiotics and multiple other treatments unsuccessfully, is indicative that I have A GIGANTIC WORM LIVING IN MY HEART SLURPING UP MY BLOOD.

“Thanks so much,” Robyn! (c;

Seriously, though, do they take it to protect themselves against heartworms, since they are high-exposure, or is there some other reason for it?

*more reading*

Wiki says: “Usually the adult worms are killed with an arsenic-based compound. The currently approved drug in the US, melarsomine dihydrochloride, is marketed under the brand name Immiticide.” [bolding mine]

!!!!!!!!

Though I didn’t ask any questions (I wish now that I had!), my impression was that the vet and employees use Ivomec as a broad-spectrum dewormer rather than a heartworm-specific dewormer.

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Robyn, would you please post that link to the recipe website where they keep updating recipes and all things food? I can’t remember what it is called but it has multiple pictures of recipes on each page and continuously updates. Thanks.

Tastespotting! God, I love that site.

(I also love Half Assed Kitchen. I made the chocolate pudding last night and it was just what I needed on a cold-ass winter night!)

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How long were your eggs frozen for? Do you think it might work if I froze some eggs for a week, thaw them, then bake? My husband has always ADORES cake like cookies. I’ve tried many recipes in the past, but none of them really were that good in my opinion. They were good directly out of oven, but then turned to bricks. I’m going to give it a try with the frozen egg theory. How long does it take to thaw and egg?

They were frozen for at least a couple of months, but I bet that if you just froze them for a couple of days or a week and then thawed them, they’d likely be the same.

I usually take the eggs out and put them in a bowl about an hour before I want to use them, they thaw pretty quickly that way!

Let me know how it goes!!!

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There is a cat in my complex who is always outside – even when it is cold. I have put a heavy fleece blanket outside on my lawn chair for it to sleep on – which he/she does regularly. But sometimes I think it is too cold for that (I have a big, mean inside cat who would hate it if I let the outside cat in, otherwise I totally would), but as a next best solution is there something like a dogloo for an outside cat? Am I enabling too much?

I think your cat friend would likely sleep in a dogloo (or other kind of less expensive dog house!) if you put one out there. For that matter, a small carrier with a blanket in it might work, too. They also make these neat self-warming pads that you could put in the bottom of the house or carrier.

Are you enabling too much? Do you know that you’re asking that question of someone who insisted that her husband build a small house for the front porch for cats who weren’t (at that point) ours? And that the house comes complete with a heated pad and a warming lamp?

Probably when it comes down to it, if the cat gets cold, s/he can likely find a place to keep warm – but there’s nothing wrong with making sure s/he’s comfortable!

Cat enablers, unite!

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Kindle thoughts? (Not Yankee Kindle Candles)

It seems just the sort of thing that might interest you, combining reading and a fun gadget. I don’t have it or any other electronic reader so I can’t say whether it would be worth it.

I have actually messed around with Nance‘s Kindle and think it’s pretty damn neat. I do want one, but I decided I’d wait a year or two before I start agitating about wanting one* so that all the bugs can be worked out. Maybe I’ll get one for Christmas 2009!

* The steps to getting stuff I want are as follows: 1. Talk occasionally about the item. 2. Talk frequently about the item. 3. Talk constantly about the item. 4. Be told “THEN GET ONE IF IT WILL SHUT YOU UP! JESUS!” (Fred has a low patience threshhold when I start whining about wanting something. We both do, actually – thus the reason he now owns a Yamaha DGX-625 keyboard.) 5. Decide I’m not sure whether I really want the item. 6. Decide I do. 7. Get the item.

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Robyn, I’m not sure we should take your word on the taste difference in the cookies made with the two types of eggs. The only way we will believe you is to taste the difference ourselves. Please send all of us 6 of each type of cookie for evaluation. I’ll e-mail my address to you right now!! LOL!!!!!

Wouldn’t you just die if a box o’ cookies showed up on your doorstep? 🙂 (Fred would kill me if I sent out 1200 boxes of cookies, I suspect!)

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“I’m going to the vet’s AGAIN? Are you shitting me? Why you hate the Poo?”

(Miz Poo’s been obsessively grooming and now has herself a belly bare of fur. She’s driving me nuts. Wish us luck at the vet’s!)

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Previously
2008: Dear Peoples of the Bitchypoo Readers
2007: I suspect this behavior will not go over well with the ass-showing Mister Boogers.
2006: Things you may not know about me.
2005: No entry.
2004: I put too much perfume on this morning and now I’m sitting here with the stank rays shooting off me in every direction.
2003: And on the way home, he recounted, word-for-word a conversation he, his doctor, and I had had, only he substituted the nurse for me, and had her saying what I’d said.
2002: Ever hear of “Shut up, Junior, that’s rude, and the next time you say it, you’re going to your room for the rest of the day”?
2001: I’m such a ditz sometimes
2000: I’ve turned into such an old lady.

1-15-09

The spud actually didn’t go home yesterday as she was supposed to. She woke up sick and proceeded to throw up for the next hour or so. She slept for a while, vomited some more, then called and changed her flight to today, and spent the rest of yesterday sleeping. In fact, I heard not … Continue reading “1-15-09”

In the evening she got up and ate soup and was pretty perky. She told me when I said goodnight to her that she felt much better.

So we’ll be leaving here in an hour and a half or so, and the spud will be headed home.

It sure was nice having her here!

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So, here’s the story of the cookies, because I am fully aware that you are DYING to know the story of the cookies.

I know I wrote last month that I made a batch of Sundry’s Chocolate Chip cookies, and they came out more cakey than cookie-y. Fred loved and adored them. I made a second batch, and they came out the same way.

I – and y’all – had all kinds of theories as to what might be going on, whether it was the flour or the baking soda or the butter. My own personal theory was that it was the eggs. Back in the Fall, I froze eggs to use over the winter, because chickens tend not to lay as many eggs in the winter due to the shorter days and that’s when they tend to molt (when they’re molting, egg-laying tends to cease). When I made the cookies last month, I thawed out a couple of frozen eggs to use in the cookies.

The second batch of cookies I made, I used frozen and thawed eggs again, and again they came out cake-like and Fred LOVED them.

The third batch of cookies I made, I used the frozen and thawed eggs, and I added a cup of peanut butter to them. Fred likes peanut butter cookies, and he thought that peanut butter added to this recipe would be fantastic. So I added a cup of peanut butter to the cookies, fully expecting that they’d be flatter and more cookie-like, due to the added fat in the peanut butter.

Cake-like again.

Another batch of cookies, again with the frozen and thawed eggs, again with the cup of peanut butter, this time with chopped mini Snickers bars added. Fred pronounced them “not bad” at first, but as time went on he change that to “really good.” And again, they had the cake-like texture.

(By the way, all these cookies? We’re not eating them all ourselves- in fact, I’m not eating them at all, really, ’cause I don’t love them the way Fred does. Brian helped eat a bunch of the peanut-butter ones I made around Christmas, and a lot of them have been tossed into bags in the freezer to feed the pigs we’re planning on getting next month.)

Finally, yesterday I decided it was time to really test my frozen-eggs theory. I made a batch of the cookies, following Sundry’s recipe exactly, only this time I used never-frozen eggs.

Weirdly, the texture is completely different. They’re more cookie-like. Fred said they were good – I agree with that – but he prefers the ones made with the frozen eggs.

I think I can reasonably conclude that frozen and thawed eggs in a cookie recipe result in cake-like cookies. Now y’all go give it a try and report back!

(Actually, my next step will be to use the frozen-and-thawed eggs in another recipe altogether, and next (probably in a few weeks) I will try these chocolate chip cookies and see if the frozen-and-thawed eggs = cake-like cookies theory holds up!)

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Here’s a dumb question for y’all: can you play games meant for a Nintendo DS on a Nintendo DS Lite or do the games have to be specifically FOR the Nintendo DS Lite?

Do you have a Nintendo DS Lite? Do you love it? And what games do you play on it? Tell me, I wanna know.

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YOU MAKE KITTY SCARED.

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Previously
2008: (Confused silence from Fred.)
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Does it wuv it’s daddy? Why, yes. Yes, it does.
2003: No entry.
2002: SHE IS A PORTLY CAT WITH A PORTLY ASS.
2001: I made one quietly to myself, and personal resolution I guess you’d call it, and it was a rather vague one. This resolution went as follows: “This year I will do something that scares me.”
2000: I’m a spoiled rotten brat, that’s what I am.

1-14-09

I think this is just about the neatest idea ever. It might be a little beyond my sewing skills right now, but I’m going to start saving bags and working on my sewing skills, and one day I’m going to make me a cool reusable bag like that! & & & & & & & … Continue reading “1-14-09”

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George and Gracie are home from the spaying and the neutering. Everything went well, except that George has demodicosis. I could explain what it is, but if you’re that interested, go read about it yourself over here, ’cause I have not the patience to explain it.

The treatment is a daily oral dose of Ivermectin, which is the medication we have to give them for heartworm, conveniently enough, so treating it shouldn’t be too big a problem (I nominated Fred to be the party responsible for treating George every day). He could grow out of it, it could come and go throughout his lifetime, it’s a wait-and-see sort of thing.

We need to re-weigh him regularly to be sure he’s getting the proper dosage.

As we were driving home from the vet – we took the dogs to the vet I take Miz Poo to, a vet’s office that is a 25-minute drive from home – I said “Now do you understand why I like Dr. Wendy so much?”

Fred said “Yeah, she seems pretty laid-back about the fact that they’re farm dogs and thus won’t be pampered. I like that she took her time to explain all the possible treatments.”

“I like her because you can tell that she genuinely likes animals, she’s not just phoning it in like (male vet we’ve used in the past) or (other male vet we’ve used in the past).”

I just wish she was a little closer, because while I’m willing to make that 25-minute drive for the problem pets (Miz Poo, mostly), it’s still easier to take the rest of the cats to the vet who lives five minutes up the road.

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These past few days, Claudette has been really coming out of her shell. I wish I’d had the camera in the living room with me last night. Claudette wandered in as we were watching TV, and let Fred coax her up onto the couch with him. He petted her for a few minutes, ’til she reached her petting threshhold and started kicking and biting his hand. Then she spotted Tommy in the cat bed on the end of the couch and she flirted with him for a few minutes before she climbed right into the bed with him. He groomed her and she groomed him back, and then she kicked and bit at him a little bit. She settled down for a few minutes and he was hugging her like she was a teddy bear, and I just about died from the cute.

Remember when she was like this all the time and we thought we’d never get her to come to us for petting?

She still runs if you walk toward her, and she doesn’t like to be picked up at ALL, but when it’s on her terms, she loves to be petted, and she’ll even climb on you and snuggle up. She’s such a sweet thing.

Sun bath.

More pics over at Love & Hisses.

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Spanky considers putting the smack down on me for getting all up in his face with the camera, but ultimately decides against it.

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Previously
2008: Negative. Good news or sad news, I wonder?
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Y’all rock.
2004: So many books, so little time.
2003: Ah, good times.
2002: So, you know what I hate?
2001: No entry.
2000: I was a tad peeved.

1-13-09

Randomness 1. The dogs love the spud. Have I mentioned that the dogs love the spud? Because the dogs? They love the spud. 1a. The dogs are also kind of fond of Fred. But secretly, I’m pretty sure that Miss Gracie prefers me. To Fred, that is. They both are passionately in love with the … Continue reading “1-13-09”

Randomness

1. The dogs love the spud. Have I mentioned that the dogs love the spud? Because the dogs? They love the spud.

1a. The dogs are also kind of fond of Fred. But secretly, I’m pretty sure that Miss Gracie prefers me. To Fred, that is. They both are passionately in love with the spud and would throw both Fred and I over for the spud without thinking about it twice.

2. The spud is a Twilight fan. O lord, where have I gone wrooooooooong?

3. The spud has pretty blue nails.

4. I actually think the spud looks more like her father than like me, but I take the comments y’all leave saying that she looks like me as a HUGE compliment, as I am an old hag and she is a young, um, non-hag.

5. It’s supposed to get super-cold Thursday (stay below freezing), so last night we made a practice run at putting Vaseline on the roosters’ combs and wattles. We have WAY TOO MANY little roosters – it’s getting close to time to cull the herd, I think. I felt very much like I was invading their space and being inappropriate with them.

Maybe greasing up c0cks could be a new career path for me!

6. I went to South Huntsville yesterday morning for my yearly appointment with the nutritionist. My appointment with the surgeon who performed my weight loss surgery is in another couple of weeks. The appointment went fine, and this is the first year I’m aware of where I weighed the same (within a pound and a half) at the end of the year as I did at the beginning. “Robyn,” you are saying. “Didn’t you have like ten pounds of fat and skin removed from your midsection? Shouldn’t you weigh less than you did last year?” Alls I can say is that the scale never reflected a loss of more than five pounds after surgery, and after three or four months, it went right back to where it was the day I went in for surgery (I had a lower-body lift in May, for those of you not in the know) and it stays within a three point range most of the time.

As part of my appointment with the nutritionist, I had an InBody scan, where you step on a scale-like thing and it analyzes your body fat in the different parts of your body. Muscle-wise, I’m right where I should be in all parts of my body except for my legs, which are close to where they should be (and somehow more muscular than they were a year ago despite the fact that I probably only lifted weights for a sum total of three weeks all year. Actually, despite my lack of weight-lifting, I apparently put muscle on all over my body, and put on an overall muscle weight of almost three pounds. Huh. I wonder what the hell that’s about? I wonder how reliable this thing is?). The scan recommends I lose twenty pounds of fat, given my body fat percentage, and could I stand to lose twenty pounds? Sure I could. But I’m pretty happy where I am right now.

HOWEVER, I’ll be taking another InBody scan next year as part of my regular appointment, and I’d really like to see what happens when I get into (and STICK TO) a regular weight-lifting routine, so I’m going to start lifting weights again and hopefully keep it up so I can blow that In-Body scan away. It’s not my goal to lose weight, but it is my goal to gain strength and to see what the scan says this time next year.

I’m going to start lifting weights… next week. This weekend will be spent cleaning and rearranging the garage to make that possible.

7. Because I arrived early in South Huntsville for my appointment, I went over to TJ Maxx to look around, and ended up buying a set of (NON-Fiestaware) bowls. They’re adorable, they have roosters on them. In fact, I couldn’t figure out why the roosters looked so familiar ’til I got home and realized that the canister where we keep our Splenda is the same design.

8. After my appointment, I went to Sam’s, whereupon I loaded a BUTTLOAD of kitty litter into my cart. And then, because I was pushing a cart that weighed more than me, I came way too close to wiping out a little kid who went wandering in front of my cart. Attention, Sam’s Club shoppers: Don’t assume that woman pushing a cart holding 240 pounds of Fresh Step cat litter can actually control the damn thing. (Attention, me: You’re a dumbass. Don’t fill a cart so full you can’t control the fucking thing.)

I can’t imagine why people keep asking how many cats I have…

9. After Sam’s, I went to the pet store where I found to my dismay that Lem and Delmar have still not been adopted. On the up side, they looked bored, but not scared. Lem was actually tracking a small fly around his cage. Delmar was sound asleep. Well – given that Delmar was sound asleep, I can’t actually say that he wasn’t scared, I guess. I’m extrapolating.

(Delmar’s asleep in that cubby thing behind Lem.)

10. George and Gracie are being spayed and neutered and ID chipped today. Fred drove the truck up to the vet’s office and I followed in his car. Once the dogs were at the vet’s, Fred drove his car to work and I drove the truck home. I hate driving big vehicles and I don’t have any desire to ever drive that truck again, for the record. We were worried that the dogs would be scared, but when we got them into the vet’s office, they were completely curious. A little nervous, maybe, but mostly curious. George weighed 65 pounds this morning, which means he’s gained 12 pounds in the three weeks since he got his rabies shot. Gracie weighed 49 pounds, which gives her a gain of 6 pounds.

We’ll go this evening to pick them up. If dogs are anything like cats after being spayed and neutered, George will be bouncing around like nothing happened, and Gracie will spend all night conked out in the dog house.

11. We had this very broody hen, I believe I mentioned to y’all, and Fred was all “Weeeee neeed baby chickens!” and finally I was all “What the fuck ever, put eggs under her and shut up about it!” So he did, and she’d sit on her nest and occasionally she’d get up and go get something to eat and while she was gone from her nest one day, another chicken got into that nest to lay an egg, and when Broody Hen came back to get on her nest, there was a chicken there, so Broody Hen got on another nest. And then the hen on the nest of Broody Hen’s eggs went wandering off, and the dogs came wandering in, and ate all of Broody Hen’s eggs.

Fred has since made it impossible for the dogs to get their heads in the nest boxes. Also, he filled some eggs with a combination of Bitter Apple and cayenne, put the eggs back in the nest boxes (before he made it so they couldn’t get their heads in the nest boxes), and they ate two of the three eggs. I think they may have been broken from the eating-eggs behavior. Fred put Broody Hen in a cage for a few days to break her from the broodiness, and now she’s released and acting fairly unbroody. Hopefully she’ll go broody again in a few months, and we can let her have some babies.

12. About the phone: I mostly only really want the G1 because it’s new and shiny and the spud keeps adding cool applications to her phone which only makes me want it more. Given that I am rarely more than half an hour from home, I really don’t need a phone with internet on it and all kinds of cool applications. Want? Yes. Need? Not really. Maybe in a few years when the monthly cost goes down, I’ll reconsider. As it is now, my contract with T-Mobile expires next month, and I will likely go with Virgin Mobile and see how that works for me.

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President-Elect Thomas J. Cullen has a rare moment of relaxation before wading back into the fray.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: If nothing else describes me, “Morally strong, with waffly ways” does.
2005: Who loves their readers more than me? That’s right, NO ONE.
2004: Let us go forth and speak of this no more.
2003: But one of these days he’s going to wake me up, and I’m going to pull his arm off and beat him about the head with it.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

1/12/09

I’ve had enough people do searches on my site for what kind of breeds George and Gracie are, that I suppose I need to make up a page for them and add them to the “permanent residents” sidebar, ya think? They’re Great Pyrenees, in case anyone searched and couldn’t find that information. They’re also going … Continue reading “1/12/09”

They’re Great Pyrenees, in case anyone searched and couldn’t find that information.

They’re also going tomorrow for spaying, neutering, and id-chipping. I actually bought them both id tags for their collars, but collars can come off and get lost, but id chips are FOREVAH.

The spud and I went out to hang out with the dogs and chickens on Friday, and I swear to god, George and Gracie adore the hell out of her. They think she is totally the bee’s knees, they were rubbing up against her and flopping onto their backs for belly rubs and giving her the puppydog eyes.

Speaking of Friday, it was my birthday, and the spud took me out for a birthday lunch. (All together now: Awwww!) We went to Logan’s Roadhouse and I had a really good cheeseburger and side salad and it was really quite nice!

By the way, thank you for all your sweet birthday wishes! I appreciated them.

I really kind of (not-so-secretly) hoped that Fred would surprise me with a G1, but I didn’t really expect it, so I wasn’t TOO heartbroken that I didn’t get one. Like he told me last night, it’s not the cost of the G1 that stopped him, it’s the two-year contract for $65 a month for the bare minimum.

A few weeks ago, Fred said “What do you want for your birthday?” and I said “Let me think about it”, and to him, that translated into “GET ME NOTHING.”

(He insists that I said “Let me think about it. Probably nothing.” WHICH IS WRONG.)

And then a few days after that, we started talking about going to Nashville overnight, since we have the dogs to watch the chickens and so we don’t have to be home at dark to close them up into the coop. “That can be my birthday present!” I said. I wasn’t able to talk him into taking in a show at the Opry, but there are other things to see in Nashville, so I was happy.

Last week, on a particularly rainy night (Monday, maybe?) Gracie escaped the chicken yard. We’re pretty sure that the water was freaking the dogs out because there was a LOT of standing water, and once we let them into the coop, they were calm and happy.

So a few nights later I said “Are we still going to go to Nashville, or would you be too worried?” about the dogs escaping when we weren’t around, and he allowed that he would likely be too worried, and I said that I would too, and we decided to put off the overnight trip (if any) until the summer. We’re planning on getting pigs in the next month or so, and we can’t really be away overnight, because the pigs have to be fed at night.

“You didn’t get me anything for my birthday, DID you?” I asked, the night before my birthday.

“You said you didn’t want anything!”

So, no. No birthday presents from Fred, no G1, nada. NOT EVEN A CAKE.

“You didn’t even get me a cake!” I said, on the evening of my birthday.

“I figured if you wanted one, you would have said something!” he said.

“NOTE FOR THE FUTURE: I ALWAYS WANT A BIRTHDAY CAKE!”

Before I yelled at him about the birthday cake, though, he suddenly asked if I wanted to go get some ice cream in honor of my birthday, and ice cream is about equivalent to cake in my world, so I didn’t kill him and bury him in the back forty.

THIS TIME.

(Besides, the dogs would just dig him up. Damnit.)

I did get a box of birthday goodness from Nance and Rick that included a buttload of Fiestaware, a lot of stinky stuff, and the coasters she sewed for me (when she posted the picture of fabric in this entry, I just KNEW it was gonna be for me. That adorable fabric is VERY “me”). My mother sent me a gift certificate so I can buy more Fiestaware next time I visit Nance and Rick.

My mother and Nance are all about feeding the addiction, obviously.

So, all in all, a very quiet, low-key birthday. And it ended with ice cream, so it’s all good!

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Hey, did I mention that I almost bought myself a GPS for Christmas? Only, when I went back to buy it, the model I wanted was all sold out.

Hey!

Guess what comes with a built-in GPS?

A G1.

It’s almost like the universe is trying to send a message…

(Okay, I’m shutting up about the G1 now.)

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Hmm. Fred DID make me a couple of bird houses last weekend, I guess I could consider that my birthday present. They came out really nice, and we have enough wood for a couple more. I’m going to get him to show me how to slap them together; that seems like a handy skill to have.

I painted them on Thursday, but they’re slow in drying (I just put some outdoor paint on them; the wood he used wasn’t treated, and we don’t want them to rot). Once they’re dry and mounted, I’ll take another pic.

(Tufted Titmice. Titmouses? Whichever, I love these little birds.)

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Hey, how about some chicken pics?!

This is Sassy. Every day, Sassy flies to the top of the chicken yard fence, jumps down to the ground, then struts over to the OLD chicken yard where her childhood home – the first coop Fred ever made – is located. She lays an egg in the old coop, then spends the rest of the day wandering around the property before finally flying back into the chicken yard just in time for a snack before bedtime.

If she ever started wandering too far, we’d clip one of her wings to stop her from getting out of the yard. But she stays right on the property, so we’re letting her be free. She truly is a free-range chicken!

Speckled rooster. Purty, no?

Rhode Island Red.

A few weeks ago, we realized that Michelle and the Buff rooster had gotten frostbite on their combs. Stupid us, we didn’t know that would happen – we thought that putting a heat lamp in the coop would be enough to protect them. We put stuff on their combs to prevent infection, and in the future if it’s going to get really cold (which it’s supposed to do in a few days), we’ll put vaseline on their combs to protect them. (The pics are post-medication – the purplish-black parts you see on their combs are post-medication.)

So far, they seem to be recovering nicely.

These little chickens are starting to get really pretty.

SOMEONE has a crush on Michelle.

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“Hey! You! I SAID NO PICTURES!”

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: I don’t know what it is about Lowe’s that makes me so gassy.
2006: Right now, Fred’s thanking his lucky stars that I don’t have this much Christmas stuff, because it would drive him NUTS.
2005: (YES, GODDAMNIT! I HAVE CONFIRMED THAT YOU CAN, IN FACT, BEGIN WRITING THE FUCKING CHECK BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY HEAR WHAT THE TOTAL IS, YOU IN-MY-WAY MOTHERFUCKER!)
2004: I need to go crack open a beer, watch the game, scratch my balls, and think about what this means.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: “Yeah, so you‘ll be the one with the big head blocking everyone else’s view.”
2000: No, I’m not on any drugs, why do you ask?

1/9/09

Attention, anyone in North Alabama, West Georgia or Southern Tennessee: Green Acres Animal Sanctuary is desperately looking for homes for dogs. Read more about it here. & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & Happy birthday to me! I … Continue reading “1/9/09”

Attention, anyone in North Alabama, West Georgia or Southern Tennessee: Green Acres Animal Sanctuary is desperately looking for homes for dogs. Read more about it here.

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Happy birthday to me! I am 41 today.

(Also, this made me laugh very, very hard first thing this morning. Thanks Nance, you brat! Hee.)

Thanks, you guys, for your birthday wishes. I appreciate them!

Like I told someone in email earlier this week, I honestly don’t feel any older than I did when I was 19.

And yes, having the spud home is the best birthday present I could have asked for! Yesterday she hung out with me for most of the morning, met the chickens (we only had 12 when she left a year and a half ago!), and met the dogs. George and Gracie both think the spud is the bee’s knees. They were VERY excited to meet her, wagged their tails wildly, sniffed and licked at her. I think she was a little overwhelmed, but she liked them.

Hard not to – they’re pretty charming.

We went out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel, stopped by Wal-Mart for Snackin’! Time! food (dudes, I know. Total party time all up in this shit!), then late morning, I gave her the keys to my car, and she headed off to hang out with friends for the rest of the day.

It sure is nice having her around.

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Oh yes, as long as I’m delurking and commenting, I’m about to get 5 baby chicks. Your fault. Completely your fault.

Send me pictures when you get the bebbes, please!

And we’re going to have babies of our own in a few weeks. We decided to let the broody hen hatch a few eggs. I feel it’s going to be too cold for babies to be outside, but Fred made like Holly Hunter in Raising Arizona, bawling about how he wanted babies, so I figure he can deal with the frozen baby chicks when the time comes, damnit.

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The way to tell if a cat was born with a stump tail is if the tip is pointed it’s genetic. If it’s a flat end, it was cut off (ouch!). We’ve had a stumpy but I couldn’t bear to check what the situation was.

I touch Mister Boogers’ stump as little as possible (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID), but Fred reports that it’s pointed and kind of twisted around at the end, so it looks like our Boog is a genetic freak!

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Many, many LGD’s are also escape artists always looking to expand their territory, so you may want to start reinforcing that fences are never ever to be challenged by installing a hot wire or two – one high to prevent climbing and jumping and one low to prevent digging – now while the pups are still learning.

We do have one hot wire all the way around the back forty, and Fred’s started putting a second wire around as well – he’s also (I think) going to reinforce the fence at the weak spots so we don’t have any issues.

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Very nice dogs. I guess they will be huge when full grown?

They get in the area of between 85 and 140 pounds – the females tend to be smaller (Gracie’s quite a bit smaller than George) and the males on the larger end of the spectrum. When we took them to the vet a couple of weeks ago, they weighed in at 43 (Gracie) and 53 (George) pounds, so they’re about half as big as they’re going to be.

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Doggies! You didn’t say how much, or what, they are eating and I’m curious.

They’re eating Puppy Chow Large Breed Formula. We’re guesstimating that between the two of them they eat a pound a day – so they’re not huge eaters right now (or maybe our expectations as far as how much they’d eat were way too high). They get the occasional small dog treat, and I do believe they’ve tested the chicken food a time or two and found it lacking.

It’s kind of surprising to me how little they eat, given how terribly high-energy they are.

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I wonder how long before you consider them family, er…pets…and also I heard on the radio that the crazy “animal rights” people are now saying that having pets is wrong because animals have just as much right to life as we do…. That’s some kind of crazy. Can it get any weirder?

I guess the point I’m making by saying that they’re working dogs and not pets is because I consider pets part of the family and it would take an awful lot to get to the point where I’d think about finding them a new home. The dogs have a job to do, and if they can’t do it (though they seem to be doing a pretty damn good job of it, they’re still really young and have lots of time to learn to screw it up!) then they won’t move into the back yard or the house – we’ll have to find a new home for them. I call them our employees – their job is to protect the chickens, and if they start killing chickens (I don’t expect it, honestly) then they’re gonna get fired.

Heartless? Maybe. Now excuse me while I go make them some homemade dog biscuits and go out to tell them how pretty they are.

(And the idea that it’s “wrong” to have animals as pets – well, let’s just say that it takes all kinds.)

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How do they run off the hawks? Are there trees in the back 40 that the dogs chase the hawks out of? (Out of which the dogs chase the hawks, if you’re being formal.) Or they get in between a dive bombing hawk and a chicken? Do tell.

There are trees around three sides of the back forty (and a couple of trees on the fourth side as well), and the hawks can sit in the tops of the trees, wait ’til they see easy pickings, and then swoop down to get dinner. Just the act of the dogs being present often scares off hawks – they know they can’t swoop in and grab a chicken without having to fight off a dog in the process. When the dogs spot a hawk, they’ll run toward it, barking, which generally makes the hawk decide to find easier targets elsewhere. Over the weekend, a hawk was swooping kind of low across the back forty and Gracie ran under it, barking, and then actually JUMPED UP like she thought she might be able to catch it. (She didn’t come close, given that the hawk was about thirty feet up.)

I haven’t actually seen a hawk try to get a chicken since we brought the dogs home, but I’ve heard stories of dogs stopping hawks in the act, so hopefully our dogs would do that. I suspect they would!

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They are probably the cutest things I have seen in a long time! Are you worried about when Gracie goes into heat and George trying to do his thang?

Not at all – I’m going to call later this morning to make the appointment for their spaying and neutering, hopefully next week. Unless she goes into heat in the next little while, we should be okay.

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I just wanted to say, too, how much we LOVE the chicken calendar we bought from you. It looks SO adorable in our kitchen. If those are still for sale, and any of you readers haven’t bought one yet, I recommend the chicken calendar!!!

I made that calendar so Fred could have a little piece of Crooked Acres at work, so I’m glad you like it! It’s still available here for anyone who wants to order it.

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OMFG, I read the list of speakers and a few words of each bio and now I want to puke! Why would you even think of going to that conference?

Mostly ’cause I thought there might be bloggers there who I’ve read, that I’d like to meet. Aside from Jen Lancaster, I’ve never heard of any of them – and really, the truth is that even if my most favorite bloggers on earth were going to be there, I’d probably talk about going and then not. Strangers skeer me.

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Are you still reading as much as you used to? You don’t talk about it much anymore. What was your favorite book that you read recently?

I’m reading pretty close to as much as I used to – I read 119 books in 2007 and 112 books in 2008, so my reading has dropped off some, but not a lot.

Um. Actually, I read 170 books in 2003, so my reading has dropped off a LOT since then. Of course, we didn’t have this house and these animals who demand attention, so maybe I had more time for reading back then!

Best books I’ve read lately – Heartsick and Sweetheart, by Chelsea Cain. Gretchen Lowell is creepy, creepy, creepy, and I love it! I’ve also read a few by Jane Heller lately that I enjoyed – she’s funny, and the books are entertaining and a quick read.

On the nonfiction side, I like Merrill Markoe quite a lot, and so I enjoyed It’s My Fucking Birthday. Every time I read something by her, I end up over on Amazon adding something else she’s written to my wish list (or shopping cart).

Also on the nonfiction side, I highly recommend A Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas.

Book I read recently that I do not recommend at all: WORD: A Real Dog Locked in a Shelter Cage for Eight Years Until. I gave it two smilies ’cause I read to the end and it did make me tear up a little, but it’s a horribly written book. It’s the true story of a dog (named Word) who ended up in a cage for 8 years due to a biting incident, he eventually is released to live on a pig sanctuary, and there’s a fire and he saves all the pigs. BUT IT IS WRITTEN FROM THE DOG’S PERSPECTIVE.

Actually, now that I think about it, although I told Fred it sounds like it was written by a fifth grader (and not the smartest fifth grader; one who perhaps struggles with writing skills), it really does sound like it was written by the dog.

Except that I suspect the dog was probably a little more self-aware.

You know, I often write in all-caps, and I think someone told me that every time I use all-caps to emphasize a point, I’m supposed to send Dooce $1.93, given that she invented all-caps and the concept of blogging and such, but if I wrote a book? I would not use all caps to emphasize a point. The author of this book did, and here – let me quote the all-caps sentence toward the end of the book that kind of explains the tone of this book:

THEN EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL IN THE SANCTUARY LOOK STRAIGHT AT WORD AND SILENTLY GAVE HIM AN ANIMAL SALUTE!

(And then, in the next paragraph, Word instantly felt an invisible line from his heart to all of theirs.)

Please don’t buy this book.

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The Barenaked Ladies remade the song on their 2004 Christmas album (Barenaked for the Holidays) and they did indeed call it “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. Though, I don’t think the Barenaked Ladies are much for political correctness

I am saddened that I couldn’t find the Barenaked Ladies version on YouTube. I did kind of like this one, though:

I think I might love it more than the original, to be honest. I don’t know whether it’s the (faux, I hope) zebra skin rug when they’re gathered around the fireplace (1:46), or the child RAPPING (at 2:27), but something about this version, I absolutely love.

(Oh, and they’re German. That explains why none of them were familiar to me!)

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No, it would be called…”They don’t celebrate Christmas in Africa you politically insensitive asshole.” Or “No, they don’t know it’s Christmastime unless they’ve been forced to convert to Christianity by some assholes from the States.”

I love that song and often wonder what political correctness would do to it.

I love this comment. That is all.

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I have lost it. Miz Poo was in my dream last night.

Details, please!

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My brother raises his own chickens, much the same way you guys do. As such, we have an abundance of eggs. I prefer to hard boil a dozen or so, every time he brings them, and honestly? They don’t hard boil as nicely as store bought eggs. Do I need to let them age a bit? Or boil them differently? I have a carton of both store bought and home grown and the home grown are probably twice as hard to peel, as the store bought. Help?

You absolutely need to let them age a bit – I’d recommend one week at the very least. I tried to hard-boil super-fresh eggs on Christmas Eve, and was able to salvage only one egg; the rest were total losses.

Once you have aged eggs, put them in a pot of water with at least two inches of water above the eggs, put two tablespoons of oil in the pot (I use vegetable oil; I don’t think it matters what kind you use), then boil them on a “low boil” for 12 minutes. When they’re done boiling, put them in ice-water with 2 teaspoons of baking soda stirred in. Let the eggs cool completely and when you peel them, they should peel with no problem!

That’s how I do it, and it works really well for me – Fred’s sister used the same tricks at Christmas with eggs that were less than a week old, and it worked well for her, too. So give it a try and let me know how it goes!

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What’s the spud think of the chicken population & the 2 new furry fluffy members of the outside animals?

She thinks they’re awfully cute – when we went out to the chicken yard, Gracie was a tiny bit standoffish at first, but then she and George just about fell all over themselves to get the spud to pet them. They liked her a LOT!

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Should we all go and pester Fred to get you the G1? We will you know.

Nah. He’s contrary and the more he’s harassed to get me the G1 (which I WANT but don’t NEED) the less likely it is to happen. I mean – I don’t expect it to happen anyway, but a girl can hope!

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I think we have the same color of nail polish on!

I shall take a closer picture of the spud’s nails and report back!

She has such pretty nails. I was looking at her nails and thinking “Those are so pretty. Maybe I should get some short nails put on and my nails would be pretty, too!” Except that with my luck it’d take about two minutes in the chicken yard before I had chicken poop or dog goop (I’m always wiping their eye boogers off) caked underneath all my nails. There’s a reason I keep ’em short, I guess!

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Quick question for Friday…. I seem to have to train my cat to use anything we get her – toys, the scratching tower, the bigger scratching tower – and now she just behaves as if the scratching towers are treat manufacturing ladders to get to the top of the bookshelf and will stare you down with het once she gets onto the tower until you go and get her some damn treats already. Then she will lurve all over you. When she’s done eating treats, I mean. She spends most of her nap time sprawled out on the digital cable box, which although cute, is a habit I’d kind of like to break. It’s a 4 year old habit, and at my fiance’s suggestion, I’m just now getting around to considering that it may be bad for the cable box. So, now, we want to get her a cat bed or two that she’ll use. All of this ridiculous amount of information is to say… Is there a trick at all for getting stubborn cats to actually use cat beds? Maybe something that doesn’t require treats. Are there particular types of beds that you would recommend getting over other types? Place to put said beds that attract the most use?

I guess I’m pretty lucky that all I’ve had to do is put the beds down and eventually a cat (or two) finds it.

I’d suggest starting out with putting the bed where your cat likes to nap. If she likes to nap on the cable box, put the bed on the cable box (although… I suspect that probably isn’t very good for the cable box, either!), then once she sleeps in it, move it off the cable box and see if she’ll follow the bed.

Does she like catnip? Try sprinkling cat nip on the bed.

Oh – and you know what might work? I bet she sleeps on the cable box ’cause it’s warm. If you got her one of those cat beds that heats up (they’re a bit expensive, I know), she might be more inclined to sleep in it.

Readers? You have any other suggestions?

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Great to see the Spud again! I am looking forward to hearing the stories of your adventures together! How long is she staying?

She’s staying ’til Wednesday! I don’t know how many adventures we’ll be having, mostly it’ll be hanging around the house (though did I mention the exciting trip to Wal-Mart yesterday?), but if anything happens, I’ll be sure to let y’all know!

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If she got the phone there, won’t she have an Alabama phone number? or maybe it doesn’t matter, re: rates, long distance, etc??

No, she already has an account with T-Mobile. I bought her the new phone and we just had to switch the SIM card from her old phone to her new one, so she retains her same Rhode Island phone number. I bought her the phone – but I didn’t buy her the internet or voice plan, that’s her responsibility (her cell phone bill has been her responsibility since shortly after she moved to Rhode Island).

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I was going to ask the same thing about the Spud and the new critters. Was she surprised? What a nice birthday bonus for you to have her home.

No, she wasn’t surprised – I didn’t keep them a secret from her, just all y’all. (Or, most of y’all!)

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I’m waiting to see what you say about the cat beds. Our two spoiled brats will never use them. Of course if they got their furry butts out of the kitchen someone might cook chicken on the GF grill and they would lose 30 seconds of prime time of staring at it.

The idea of cats sitting and supervising the George Foreman grill operation, well, first of all it sounds like something that would happen in OUR house, but second of all it makes me laugh, because I can totally envision that. How on earth would the world keep turning if our cats weren’t around to supervise every moment of everything that goes on?

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Bet you are so loving having the spud around. Could she do a guest post?? Or say Hi?

The spud says hi! (Heh.)

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She’s all ::sniffsniffsniff:: “HI TOMMY!” and he’s all “Yeah, whatever, runt.”

More pics over at Love & Hisses.

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Tiny young Sugarbutt has only this cold, hard garbage can to call his home. At night, he cries himself to sleep, scared by the noises of the wild dogs in the distance. All he wants is a soft bed to call his own, some Snackin! Time! food to eat when he’s hungry, and a catnip mouse to snuggle with. For only PENNIES A DAY, you can help provide a home and THREE different kinds of nutritious foods to choose from, and his very own bed. Won’t you call Kittens International and donate today?

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: “Oh! And did he tell you that if I were A GOOD WIFE, I’d submit to your will?”
2006: Happy birthday to me!
2005: No entry.
2004: Happy birthday to me!
2003: Happy birthday to me!
2002: Happy birthday to me!
2001: Happy birthday to me!
2000: Happy birthday to me!

1/8/09

Look who’s here! Her flight left Rhode Island over an hour late yesterday morning, meaning that she didn’t make her connecting flight in Charlotte. Luckily, they were able to get her on a later flight out of Charlotte, so she eventually arrived about four hours later than she originally was supposed to. Not too bad, … Continue reading “1/8/09”

Look who’s here!

Her flight left Rhode Island over an hour late yesterday morning, meaning that she didn’t make her connecting flight in Charlotte. Luckily, they were able to get her on a later flight out of Charlotte, so she eventually arrived about four hours later than she originally was supposed to. Not too bad, really.

The worst part was that due to lack of sleep the night before and awful turbulence from Providence to Charlotte, she was sick on the plane and felt awful while she was waiting to board in Charlotte. By the time she got here, she felt fine, though. We went directly to the T-Mobile store to get her Christmas present – a G1 phone! – and then we went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner.

That G1 is SUPER cool. I really really really want one – but Fred really really really thinks I don’t “need” one. What does NEED have to do with it, I ask you?!

I’m sure he’s going to go buy me one and surprise me with it tomorrow for my birthday.

(NOT.)

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Look what I found on my memory stick! It’s Lem, snuggled up to Spanky (who’s pretending that Lem doesn’t exist).

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Jake has found a new home.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday.
2003: How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday.
2002: How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday.
2001: One more day ’til my birthday! Whoo!
2000: No entry.

1/7/09

I think I forgot to mention that the night Debbie and I took our big-time trip to check the PO Box in Madison because we didn’t want to sit around the house, after we visited Old Time Pottery (I always want to type in “Olde Tyme Pottery”), we drove by our old house. (The house … Continue reading “1/7/09”

(The house Fred and I lived in when we bought this house, I mean.)

Right after we sold our house in Madison, the people who lived right next door to us put their house up for sale.

(These are the people we’ve mentioned in the past, the woman who spent an entire summer stalking up and down the property line, scowling, before she asked Fred not to mow over the property line because the lawn treatment people wouldn’t treat their entire lawn and “It looks funny.” And the man who shook his fist at Fred, who was driving down the street going under the speed limit, because instead of taking his child on a walk on the sidewalk, he felt it necessary to parade her down the middle of the street. Yeah, them. Luckily, the neighbors on the other side of us were very cool and had the most adorable boys, which made up for the – shall we say – douchebaggery on the other side of us.)

When Debbie and I drove by the old house very slowly, first I noticed that the people who bought our house had two Christmas trees up, one in the upstairs study, which meant that they clearly DO NOT HAVE TEN CATS. And then I noticed that the house that had gone up for sale right after we sold ours was still for sale. A year and a half after we sold ours.

Yikes. Fred wasn’t kidding when he said that we put our house up for sale at exactly the right time!

(Also, our old house doesn’t appear to miss us at all. I DON’T MISS YOU EITHER, STUPID HOUSE. Hmph. You could PRETEND, at least!)

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If you depend on my links list for your daily journal/ blog reading, you might want to go through and bookmark the links that are important to you. I’m going to redo my links list this week (it may take a while) and some of the links are going to disappear.

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I realized yesterday that I didn’t hear Do They Know It’s Christmas? even once over the holiday season, so I had to go to YouTube and listen to it. That song, more than any other song, makes it feel like Christmas to me.

My favorite part of the song is when Bono bellows “WELL TONIGHT THANK GOD IT’S THEM INSTEAD OF YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!”

My favorite part of the video is when Sting and Bono and some other guy are standing in front of the microphone and Sting looks super-uncomfortable standing there next to Bono like he’s thinking “Oi! Who the hell is this wanker and why’s he all up in my shit? Pip pip!” (That’s my British accent. In case you were wondering.) My second favorite part of the video is when those skinny girls with the horrible hair that I do not know (maybe they’re from Bananarama? I know not.) are standing in the front of the group, clearly not knowing what the words to the chorus are (how hard is it to memorize the words “Feed the world/ LET THEM KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME!”?), swaying back and forth.

So yeah, almost two weeks after Christmas, I’m finally in the Christmas spirit.

I wonder – if they were going to make the song these days, would they call it “Do they know it’s Christmas?”, or (more likely) would they call it “Do they know it’s the holiday season (please don’t be offended if you don’t observe a holiday this time of year)?”

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My desk is a popular destination for most of the cats of Crooked Acres, including even Miss Stinky, if I’m not around. It’s a nice, big desk, but I’m selfish and like to actually use it myself and thus need space for my monitor and keyboard and the mass of paperwork that always piles up, therefore there’s only room for two beds. And always, ALWAYS someone’s having a fit because both beds are occupied, whether it’s Miz Poo who’s all ::sniff::sniff::HISS!::HISS!:: when she sees that there’s no room in the inn, or Mister Boogers, who will just climb into a bed even if it’s occupied because he always assumes there’s room for one more.

So over the weekend, I started brainstorming about how I could provide more desk space for the spoiled rotten brats, and what I did was move the filing cabinet from the right side of my desk to the left side, so it’d be under the window. And I put a couple of small cat beds atop the filing cabinet, thereby doubling the cat bed space.

It went over pretty well – most of the time one or the other of the two beds will have a cat in it, and once I saw Tommy in one of the beds and Sugarbutt in the other.

Then yesterday, I noticed that only one of the beds was occupied and when I walked into the dining room, Mister Boogers had pushed his way into the cat bed on the dining room table with Newt.

I think that secretly (or maybe NOT so secretly), Mister Boogers is a snuggle slut.

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I admired this sign at Cracker Barrel the first time my sister and Brian and I went there, but decided against buying it. Then the second time we went to Cracker Barrel (on the way home from Nashville), I admired it again and decided against buying it, because I knew we’d likely make at least one more trip to Cracker Barrel, and I could buy it then, and maybe it’d be on sale.

After we ate our meal, we were headed out, and the sales clerk pointed to a wrapped package on the counter and told Debbie that it was the item she’d bought. It was pretty obvious right away what was in the package, but Debbie tried to convince me that she’d just bought a lot of candy, no really, IT’S A BIG BOX OF CANDY! The next day, she let me open it.

I don’t know why I love it so much, but I DO. I plan to hang it over the doorway between the kitchen and living room. Isn’t it adorable?

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I have to admit something. In the very bottom of my heart, I keep hoping that one day, Miz Poo will turn into Charlene Butterbean, at least attitude-wise. That she’ll start liking the kittens, that she’ll snuggle with them and groom them and treat them, if not in a motherly fashion, then at least in a tolerant big-sister fashion.

These days, instead of immediately smacking any kitten who comes too close to her, Miz Poo will sniff them, regard them and THEN smack them.

That’s progress, right?

More kitten pics over at Love & Hisses.

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“How YOU doin’?”

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: What I hate most about flying is how incredibly fucking boring it is.
2003: Damn 8 Mile.
2002: I think we can agree that I’m all about the politeness
2001: The story of how Fred & I met.
2000: Fred: Well, what’s 8 times 1? Spud: 10?

1/6/09

Okay, pictures of the Holiday cards I received this year are uploaded over here. As always, I made sure to cover or blur out any names that were on the front of the cards – if your picture or your kid’s picture is in one of the pictures I took and you’d rather have it … Continue reading “1/6/09”

I received 128 cards this year and sent out 301. That’s 50 less than I sent out last year, damnit! What’s up with that? Okay, probably less of you requested cards in the interest of saving me money on postage. Which I appreciate – except that I have about 200 freakin’ holiday cards left over.

This is the card we sent out this year:

(Inside: Laughing all the way, my tail.
Happy freakin’ holidays.)

I didn’t do card stats this year, because I didn’t do it as I went along this year, and when I sat down on Saturday to start going through the addresses and entering the states in my spreadsheet (shaddup), there was nothing on the face of this planet than I wanted to do LESS than enter stats into a spreadsheet. I hope your hearts aren’t broken – I’ll do better next year, I promise!

This is the other picture we considered using for the Christmas card, but decided to go with Tommy.

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Mister Boogers does not care for Christmas decorations, to say the least.

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Over at Jennsylvania, I read that there was some new blogger’s conference going on in Nashville next month, and I was all “Hey, I need to check that out, maybe there’ll be people I want to meet! I can get drunk and sing karaoke with the best of them!”

(Except for the fact that I can’t carry a tune if I have a bucket to lug it around in, and I don’t drink (note to newcomers: I don’t drink just ’cause I don’t like to, not ’cause I have any Issues. I could drink if I wanted to, but I haven’t in the almost-three years since I had weight loss surgery, so why start now?).)

So I went and checked out the list of speakers, and aside from Jennsylvania Jen, I don’t know who any of them are annnnd I’m not inclined to drive two hours and spend $100 (or more) to hobnob with strangers and listen to people talk about “marketing” and “branding” and all that boring-ass shit. If that’s your thing, more power to you. The idea of trying to market myself (and what exactly would I market, do I imagine, my fascinating babblings about cats? These events aren’t meant for people who have personal journals/ blogs, I guess) makes my eyes glaze over.

Ah well.

Remember the days when there were no such things as blogs just online journals, and every year there was JournalCon, which I’d talk about attending (but never did) and there was no corporate sponsorship and someone would inevitably get their feelings hurt and then they and the rest of the JournalCon attendees would spend a couple of weeks sniping at each other and defending themselves and then they’d all get over it and move on?

Those were the good old days.

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Delmar and Lem went to the pet store on Friday – I believe I told y’all they were going – and it was a bit of an issue getting Lem into the carrier. I sent Fred up to put them in the carriers because he was home and I don’t want ALL of Delmar and Lem’s last memories of me to be bad ones. I’d intended for them to both go in the same carrier, but Lem fought so hard when Fred put him in the carrier that when he opened the top of the carrier, Lem shot out.

So separate carriers it was. After his initial freakout and some scared meows from both of them, they settled down on the ride to the pet store. They were very much less than happy when I put them in their cage at the pet store. They sat and looked scared with their ears out to the side (kind of how they were when I first got them) and my heart broke for them.

I don’t think they’ve been adopted yet, but I’ll harass the shelter manager later and find out.

Since their brothers have been gone, Marion and Claudette have started to come out of their shell. Claudette’s the real surprise – last night we were watching TV and she strolled into the living room like she owned it. Fred coaxed her up onto the couch, and she would writhe around while he petted her, then slide off the couch, jump back up, writhe around, slide off, over and over again. When she’d had enough of the petting (Claudette has a low petting threshhold and gets bitey pretty quickly – both Claudette and Marion do, actually), she curled up in a cat bed on the end of the couch. This morning, Fred reported that both kittens slept downstairs last night.

It’s nice to see them come out of their shell a little more! They’re still plenty skittish and don’t like to have people walking toward them (they run and hide), but considering their practically-feral state when we got them, and the fact that I thought Claudette would never EVER come down off the cat tree on her own, this is some big progress.

Miz Poo checks out Marion – and Marion checks out Miz Poo.

More kitten pics over at Love & Hisses.

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Squirrels in the side yard drive Suggie CRAYZEE!

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Previously
2008: Cumin smells exactly like stinky armpit to me.
2007: No entry.
2006: “Oh. Were you gone?”
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: “Ohhhhh,” I finally said, the light dawning. “It’s a comedy.”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

1/5/09

So, I know that after I got back from visiting Nance and Rick after Thanksgiving, I mentioned that something – we suspected a hawk – had gotten our little white silkie. It was about the fourth chicken we’d lost in such a manner, and we decided it was time to start seriously figuring out a … Continue reading “1/5/09”

We talked about dogs. We talked about donkeys. We talked about turkeys. About guineas. About moving the chickens back to a more protected, smaller yard. About putting shelters up in the middle of the back forty. We talked and discussed and talked some more, until I was ready to go out and kill all the chickens, just to stop the incessant talk about how to protect them.

We went to the flea market and eyeballed some peacocks. Or guineas. Or turkeys. I don’t even remember what we looked at, but I can tell you that getting big obnoxious birds to protect the littler (obnoxious) birds is an idea I wasn’t crazy about. I also didn’t want a donkey or goats.

Fred talked to a woman who worked with a Great Pyrenees rescue in Tennessee. She had two Great Pyrs that she thought would work for us. They wanted $250 for the dogs.

$250 each.

The idea of spending $500 to protect $3 chickens, well, it wasn’t something we were crazy about. We went to the flea market again. I still didn’t want turkeys or guineas or geese.

(I fucking HATE geese. Have hated them since one bit me ON THE ASS. Fuckers.)

On our way home, we swung by a small takeout chinese restaurant in Closeville to get lunch. On our way out, Fred pointed to the stack of free newspapers by the door. I grabbed one. As we drove home, I leafed through the paper, reading the classifieds.

“Here’s a guy in Tennesse with Great Pyr puppies,” I said to Fred. “$50 each.”

After putting it off for a while, Fred called the guy. The puppies were four and a half months old, they’d spent a lot of time around chickens, they were purebred Great Pyrenees, and the guy was desperate to get rid of them, because he had four adults and three puppies, and they were eating him out of house and home.

I tried to convinced Fred that we should drive up to Tennessee and see the puppies that night, but it was getting on toward dark, and we couldn’t be gone when the chickens needed to be locked in. We also couldn’t go the next day (Sunday) because the guy had choir practice and some other plans.

“You could take part of a day off from work, and we could drive up there,” I said to Fred. He didn’t want to do that.

Fred told the guy we’d think about it, and maybe drive up the next Saturday to see the puppies. He hung up the phone.

“What if he sells them before next weekend?” I asked worriedly. “Maybe you should call and tell him we’ll come up after dark tonight?”

Fred didn’t want to go up there in the dark.

“Take the goddamn day off and we’ll go up there on Monday!” I said.

Fred didn’t want to take the goddamn day off.

“THOSE ARE THE BEST PUPPIES EVER AND SOMEONE ELSE IS GOING TO GET THEM!” I fretted.

Keep in mind that we knew nothing about these puppies except that they’d been around chickens all their life and they were purebred Great Pyrenees.

In the end, Fred called the guy and told him we wanted two of the puppies, he’d pay the guy a little extra to meet us in Fayetteville the following Friday, and then he spent the next few days putting up an electric fence around the perimeter of the back forty. We also spent plenty of time saying “Oh shit, what if this is a stupid thing we’re doing? Are we idiots?”

He left work early on Friday, we went to Fayetteville, and waited at the Co-op there to meet the guy. When he showed up, he had all three puppies in a cage in the back of his truck. When we walked over to the cage, three puppies rushed over to meet us. One licked our hands vigorously, and two of them sniffed at us in a friendly manner.

Apparently these puppies were people-friendly.

In the end, we chose one male and one female. Though we’d brought carriers with us tied down in the back of the truck, we ended up putting them in the back seat of the truck. They were perfectly quiet on the ride home, didn’t howl or try to get out of the back seat – just sat there and looked around, and eventually fell asleep.

Meet George and Gracie.

We brought them home on December 12th (and y’all think I can’t keep a secret!), and so far we’ve had a positive experience with them. We’ve begun training them – they’ve pretty much got “sit” down pat; we need to work on “stay” and training them to walk on leashes. We had to take them to the vet for their rabies shots and it wasn’t so much fun carrying them into the vet office because they don’t quite get what the leash is about – that was two weeks ago, and they weighed 43 and 53 pounds at that point.

They live out in the back forty with the chickens. They’re in the back forty all the time except for the one time we had to take them to the vet (and we’ll be taking them next month to be spayed and neutered). We got them a Dogloo to sleep in, but they completely ignored that and took to sleeping under the chicken coop, so we decided the Dogloo wasn’t big enough, and Fred built them a dog house on the back side of the coop. Sometimes they sleep there, sometimes Gracie sleeps in the dog house and George sleeps under the coop, sometimes they both sleep out in the middle of the field. Whatever they feel like at the moment is what they do.

(They thought Brian was THE BOMB.)

Gracie is a sweet, protective guardian who seems to notice the possibility of a threat before George does, and acts to protect the chickens. George is a sweet dunderhead who would happily show you where the silver is kept and help you carry it to your car, but he follows Gracie’s lead when it comes to protecting the chickens.

One day Fred and I were in the chicken yard with the chickens and dogs, and a guy who buys eggs from us approached fence. (We knew he was coming over.) George was a little worried about the guy, but when he saw Fred talking to him he was okay with his presence. Gracie (who was on the back side of the coop) didn’t see the guy ’til he was already in the yard. She put herself between the guy and the chickens, and barked a few times until Fred told her it was okay.

We’ve seen the dogs run off hawks at least three times.

One afternoon I was out gathering eggs from the chicken coop, and a couple approached the fence. I didn’t hear them coming until they were at the fence, and I happened to turn around and see them. They startled me, and I jumped, and both dogs barked at them the entire time we spoke (they were looking to buy eggs; I didn’t have any to sell that day. I’M SORRY, BUT HOW DIFFICULT IS TO GRASP THE CONCEPT OF IF THE SIGN IS OUT, I HAVE EGGS TO SELL. IF IT’S NOT, I DON’T?!). I’d like to think that they picked up on my discomfort (the wife don’t take too kindly to strangers, as Fred might say) and were protecting me, but who knows?

I like these dogs quite a lot (especially Gracie), but they are not pets. They have a job to do, protecting the chickens, and if they fail to do their job, we’ll find another home for them.

(I say that, knowing that so far they seem to be doing a really good job of protecting the chickens.)

As long as we can train them to sit when need be, to not bark at strangers if we assure them it’s okay, and we can get them into the truck for the occasional vet appointment, I’ll consider it a job well done. Great Pyrenees are notoriously hardheaded and not prone to follow directions, so it’s going to take some work.

I’ll say it again – I like these dogs, but they’re working dogs, not pets. Will I give them treats and pats and scritches and tell them how pretty they are? Of course I will. (I also brush them occasionally, but rumor has it that their first great shedding won’t come ’til Spring, when they prepare for the summer.) Will they ever be spending time in my house? Nope. They’re in the back forty with the chickens, at all times. They don’t come into the back yard, they don’t come into contact with the cats (they bark at Maxi and Newt if they get too close to the back forty – just a bark that says “I see you, don’t you touch my chickens!” – but for the most part they ignore the cats. They can see into the back yard, and at first they’d bark at Tommy if they saw him out there (I don’t know if it was because they know Tommy’s secretly a chicken-killer at heart or because he was just easier to see or what), but now they pretty much ignore the cats in the back yard. The cats pretty much ignore the dogs, too, and go about their business wandering around the yard.

So, there you go. We has us some dogs, and some pretty damn good ones, at that.

(And we kept it a secret for a few weeks because after the last time we adopted a dog and the time before, we wanted to make sure this time the dogs were going to work out. The fact that they’re working dogs instead of in-my-face dogs in the house (or right in the back yard, in Sadie’s case) seems to make a big, big difference.)

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Also, we’ve started watching The Dog Whisperer, and Cesar Millan cracks me UP when he starts imitating dogs.

If there was one dog on this planet that I would want to come live with me, it’d be Daddy. He is just such a cool, laid-back, sweet guy that every time Cesar brings him in to assist, I squeal and clap my hands.

(Yes, I’m a dork.)

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“We don’t need no stinkin’ dogs. I coulda run those hawks off.”

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Oh look! It’s been two years since the last time we adopted a dog.
2006: Home again, home again.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: How we met.
2000: And that’s all I have to say ’bout that.