Happy April 1st, fools!
New month, new banner! This one was created by Aly, who answered my cry for help (the beginning of the month took me by surprise!), and did a fabulous job of it, didn’t she?
Thanks (again!) Aly!
On Monday, Fred and I dropped my car off at the car place in Nearville so that they could change the oil and do whatever they usually do at 24,000ish miles. This meant I had no transportation to go anywhere yesterday, so I was home all day long. Allllll day long
When Fred got home from work, he and I went to Nearville to pick up my car. It took us maybe 20 minutes from the time we left the house to the time we got back home. Possibly as long as 25 minutes, and I think that would be stretching it. I was right behind Fred as we drove down our street, and so I expect we saw the flashing lights of the fire truck at the same time.
Calm down – this isn’t an entry about how the house burned down, or about how the garage burned down (with all those baby chicks inside!), and it’s not an April Fool’s joke. Nothing was burning. No one was dead or even hurt.
There was, however, a truck hanging over the culvert leading to the ditch between our property and the church property next door. The fire truck was parked in front of our house, and all the traffic was being diverted onto the access road across from our house. Someone was parked in our driveway.
The truck was attached to a trailer and was hauling a car on said trailer. There’s a stop sign directly across from the culvert/ ditch, and I’m assuming the guy couldn’t stop and slid across the road and into the ditch.
He was fine, no one got hurt – it’s about as much excitement as the fire department’s seen lately, so there were a LOT of fireman standing around out there.
Fred drove down the access road and talked for a moment to the infant fire department volunteer, who shrugged a “Dude, I don’t know what to tell you, MOVE ALONG NOW.” Fred moved along, and pulled into the church parking lot. I followed him, and we parked on the side of the lot nearest our land.
We locked our cars and walked across the church property to the ditch dividing our property from theirs.
“Wow, they have a mole issue over here, too,” I noted, sinking into the ground with every step. Fred agreed.
We reached the ditch, and began looking for a place to cross. Due to the amount of rain we’ve gotten recently, the ditch had water in it.
“There’s really not anywhere to cross,” Fred said. He was wearing sneakers. I was wearing my boots.
“I’m going across here,” I said, approaching a spot where the water was low, and the bank on the other side of the ditch wasn’t too high.
“Careful,” Fred said. “The ground is really soft.”
I looked down at where I was about to step and thought it doesn’t look that soft. It looks kind of sandy, actually… and stepped.
I sank in mud that came up to within about two inches of the top of my boot. Unable to do anything else, I brought my other foot down, and it did the same. The suction on my boots was so hard I couldn’t lift either of my feet up. I flailed around and looked helplessly at the bank from whence I’d stepped.
“Well,” Fred said BECAUSE HE REALLY IS THE HELPFUL SORT, “You’ve gone that far, you might as well go forward!”
“I CAN’T!” I bellowed.
Fred skittered back and forth behind me, trying to find a place to cross. I pulled as hard with my right leg as I could, and then I lost my balance and fell forward onto my knees. My purse and the bottle of water I was holding fell into the mud. From behind me, I could hear MY ASSHOLE HUSBAND as he LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED.
“Goddamn,” I said.
“Jesus fuck,” I said.
“JESUS GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK,” I said.
Fred giggled helplessly. Which somehow did not help. I picked up my purse and the bottle of water and heaved them over the bank in front of me. Then I reached up to the bank in front of me and yanked my right leg as hard as I possibly could – so hard that my thigh aches today – and then I did the same with my left leg, and I crawled through the mud on my hands and knees until I was over the bank.
At some point Fred skipped gaily across the ditch, and when I picked up my purse and water bottle and stomped toward the house, he followed behind, gasping for air.
“Some day,” he promised between high-pitched giggles. “You’ll see the humor in this!”
“FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK,” I snapped, left my purse and water bottle on the side steps, and then went into the back yard to wash the mud off my boots and scrape as much mud off my jeans and coat before I tossed them into the washer.
I’m still waiting to see the humor in that situation. HASN’T HAPPENED YET.
(Note that you can not only see the truck and the random men standing around supervising, but also my car (the red one) and Fred’s (the blue one) in the church parking lot.)
Since I was home all day yesterday and couldn’t go anywhere even if I wanted to (which, really, I didn’t given the rain and the crappy, cloudy, overcast day), I decided to do some baking. First I made a batch of Cooking Light Chocolate Chip Cookies – BEST chocolate chip cookies ever, I swear – and then I happened to glance in the fridge and saw the container of ricotta I’d bought last month. I checked the date on it and since it was expiring in May I figured – y’know – better use that baby up before it goes bad! So I made a batch of Lemon Ricotta Cookies, which are SO good. This time around I only glazed half the cookies, because I personally think they’re way better without the glaze. Just the slightest bit of a lemon taste to them. I also made them a lot smaller this time around, too.
Then – because we decided that sandwiches made with leftover pork roast from Sunday (I really think we’ll be eating roast pork for at least two more meals – luckily it’s tasty!) would be good, I put all the ingredients for a loaf of whole wheat bread in the bread machine. And THEN, because I had buttermilk in the fridge taking up space, I decided to go ahead and make Buttermilk Honey Bread.
Everything came out just right (though the loaf of whole wheat bread came out a lot smaller than I expected, but then realized I’d followed the directions for a 1 1/2-pound loaf rather than the 2-pound loaf. Dur.). The Honey Buttermilk bread came out tasty, but I’ll be honest – I think I prefer the Amish White bread Aimee linked to.
The funny thing is that after all that baking, I wasn’t interested in eating any of it.
Fred thinks Beulah is ugly. I think he should just shaddup – how could a wee little kitten who likes to sit on my knee and look judgmentally at her siblings as they go bouncing by be ugly? DOES NOT COMPUTE.
Okay, clearly I have a particular fondness for Beulah, but let me tell you about Ezra.
Ezra is just the sweetest little guy. He loves to bounce around and fight with his brothers and sisters and he has a LOT of energy (an energetic kitten, go figure!), but when it’s time for snuggling and going to sleep, Ezra doesn’t hesitate. He climbs up into my lap and looks up at me, and then he jumps up, grabs onto the front of my shirt, and pulls himself up so that he’s right under my chin. If I don’t immediately put my hand under him, he has the saddest meow, like I’m breaking his heart, how oh HOW could I just let him hang there like that?! When I do put my hand under him, he lets go of my shirt, and he lays there and purrs and purrs and purrs.
(He also likes to be kissed, but don’t tell his brothers or they’ll mock him mercilessly.)
Sometimes he decides actually it’s NOT time to snuggle and take a nap, in fact he has gotten his second wind. So he climbs up onto my shoulder and surveys his kingdom, and then he slowly lets himself back down to the floor by backing down the back of my shirt.
And off he bounces, to expend some of that energy!
More kitten pics over at L&H.
“I am NOT April’s fool! I don’t even KNOW April!”
Previously
2008: However, I don’t subscribe to the “only pick it up if it’s heads up!” theory of thought.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: There’s a saying that men make plans and god laughs.
2004: No entry.
2003: Won’t be happening in my lifetime, thanks.
2002: No entry.
2001: I get the weirdest freakin’ referrals to my site.
2000: No entry.