Month: May 2009

So yesterday we had our individual-serving pot pies and they were very good, though I didn’t bake them quite long enough, so the dough in the middle of each pot was a wee bit raw.

After we were done eating, Fred said “I can’t believe you made these in souffle dishes. I’m horrified.” HA.

But before that, because I am SUCH the idiot and I do not ever learn, I preheated the oven, and I kept thinking “What the hell is that SMELL?” Well, that smell was egg shells that I’d put in to dry three days ago, turned off the oven, forgot about them (and in fact forgot until just now that I could have microwaved them for 90 seconds to dry them out instead, like FarmWife told me. DUH.).

I swear to god that if I had a brain, I’d be dangerous.

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Okay, so, who’s still watching Oprah? I have the DVR set up to tape all her new shows and most of the time I glance at the description of the show, decide whether I want to watch it, and 9 times out of 10 I delete it.

She had Dr. Oz on earlier this week, and I don’t always watch the Dr. Oz shows (though sometimes I do; it depends on my mood), but this one was the best moments of Dr. Oz, so I gave it a try. Turns out it’s the Oprah/ Dr. Oz finale and can you guess why? I bet you can: Dr. Oz is getting his own show starting this Fall.

Now, I generally like Dr. Oz – the Oprah episodes he’s on that I don’t watch aren’t because I don’t like him, but rather because I decide whatever specific topic they’re discussing doesn’t interest me. The episode (was it his first? I honestly don’t know.) wherein poop was discussed in full was probably my favorite Oprah episode of all time.

But I don’t know that Dr. Oz needs his own show. What’s interesting once or twice a month on Oprah is going to be overkill when it’s on five days a week, is my prediction.

You know I’ll be checking it out, though.

I also happened to watch the episode with the Elizabeth Edwards interview. That was one that I would have deleted if I’d known what the subject was, because I am not so interested in Elizabeth Edwards (nothing personal, you understand, just a lack of interest). But the summary on the DVR just said something like “Oprah discusses topics with her audience”, so I had to start watching it to see what it was about. And I got pulled in, and I watched the whole thing.

I thought it was a really good interview, actually, and Elizabeth Edwards came across as very sincere and open. There’s clearly a lot of anger toward “the other woman” and I think she made a couple of really good points – about the other woman wanting to “stand in the light” (of John Edwards’ fame) and that after all she and John Edwards had been through, she had to decide, does this horrible thing he did negate all the good things he did throughout their marriage?

I will say that I honestly never thought about it in that light. After 30 years of marriage, do you end it because of one horrible thing?

(Although the part where he first told her it was a one-night thing, they spent a year and a half working through it, and then? “Oh, did I mean it only happened once? Oh, I meant it happened once THAT NIGHT. It actually went on for some time…” Well, that’s pretty fucking horrible.)

So I don’t know much about John Edwards aside from the knee-jerk cheated on his cancer-ridden wife what a douchebag reaction I had when the news first came out, and if I’ve ever seen him speak before I certainly don’t remember it, but there was a point where Oprah got to talk to him after a tour of their house (hello, BASKETBALL COURT) and boy. He certainly came off as completely insincere in every word he said.

Yeah, I thought the interview was very interesting, but I don’t think I’m interested in reading the book.

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OH MY GOD, I can’t believe I forgot to mention this! Speaking of books!

There’s this site where you can trade books – basically, you list books that you’re willing to give to someone else; you get 1/10th of a point for listing them, a point if you send a book to someone in your country, three points if you send a book to someone in another country (you can specify whether you’re willing to send a book outside your country). Then you can “mooch” a book that someone else is willing to send out, and it costs you 1 point if they’re in your country or 2 points if they’re in another country.

The person sending out the book is responsible for the cost of shipping, but since you can (at least in the United States) mail out a book via Media Mail for less than $2.50 (unless it’s one of those really heavy books, I imagine it’d cost more to ship those), it’s still a pretty damn good deal.

Here’s the site: BookMooch.com.

And here’s a widget showing the books I currently have available:

BookMooch.com is a book trade site

It’s not perfect – newer books are harder to come by (though you can set up a wish list, and when someone lists that book, you’ll get an email), but for someone like me who’s got books on her Amazon wish list that were added back in 2005, it’s certainly a bargain!

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These kittens love their sleep. I mean, they LOVE their sleep. They throw themselves wholeheartedly into sleep for 20 hours of every day (the other four hours are taken up by eating, scratching around in the litterbox, and racing around like their tails are on fire.)

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Brudderly love in the back yard.

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Previously
2008: The hetred will never steer you wrong.
2007: Ugly, but somehow oddly appealing to me.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Memeriffic.
2003: “One of the cats brought in a baby possum and it appears to be dying.”
2002: A mother can dream, can’t she?
2001: I almost shot a red bean out of my nose, I was laughing so hard.
2000: No entry.

While I completely understand your desire for us to keep Beulah and while I was leaning in that direction for a little while, I’ve decided that we’re not going to keep her. Really, Theresa said it best in my comments yesterday when she said

There is a point where one has just has too many cats. If you foster, there is always going to be another cute kitten who will win your heart. I know this viewpoint is not a popular one with your readership, but I vote to adopt out Beulah. She is adorable and someone will want her for sure.

Hopefully, no one thinks I am a troll or contrary. I simply think ten cats is plenty for one household and a cutie pie like Beulah has a high chance of being adopted by a good home

I honestly think we hit the “too many” cats limit about two cats ago – not only are 10 cats a lot of cats to stuff into one household (though it’s a little less crowded during the summer when Maxi and Newt spend most nights outside), it also gives me less time to give our cats one-on-one attention. I try to check in with each cat at some point during the day

(I’m imagining Sugarbutt in a suit and tie, passing me in the hallway. “How ya doin’, Suggie?” “Great, Lady, thanks. I’ll get the TPS Report to you by noon.” “Let me know if you have any problems.” “Will do.”)

and give each of them one-on-one attention. But there are some days when Stinkerbelle doesn’t get her morning ear-scritches or Joe Bob doesn’t get to whine his creepy high-pitched whine at me, and I don’t realize it ’til I’m getting into bed, and it makes me feel guilty. I just honestly don’t want to add another permanent resident to Crooked Acres.

That said, I do love the hell out of Miss Beulah, and I’m glad that she’ll be here for at least a little while longer (would you believe she STILL hasn’t hit two pounds yet?). It will be hard to let her go, but I always know that my babies will go to good homes. The adoption counselors for the shelter are really good at their job, god bless ’em. I don’t doubt she’ll be adopted out quickly to a loving family.

It’s okay to be disappointed that y’all won’t get to see her grow up – that’s the hardest part of this fostering thing – and it’s okay to not believe me when I say we’re not keeping her. Just don’t be all shocked and surprised when I announce that she’s about to go to the pet store, okay?

(And Theresa, there was nothing remotely troll-like in your comment, worry not!)

Of course, if any of y’all are seriously interested in adopting her, let me know and I’ll give you the shelter manager’s name and number.

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Probably I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a bad habit of eating lunch (well, and breakfast and dinner too, for that matter) in front of the computer. Generally I sit and read blogs while I’m eating (I know, you’re not supposed to read while you eat. WHATEV.), and it’s been fine. I’ve actually never had a problem with any of the cats trying to eat off my plate (though if I’m eating something Spanky thinks he might like a bite of, he sits and gives me the pathetic “I am starving, Lady, why you hate me?” look.)

But since last week when I brought Ezra and Elijah home for the weekend, the two of them and their sisters have all been all up in my face every time I sit down in front of the computer. They are FASCINATED watching me mouse around and click on things (both the girls have been known to “chatter” at my monitor when they see anything moving around on the screen) and trying to eat in front of the computer? Forget it. They are SUPER interested in anything I might think about eating.

In self-defense, I had to do the unthinkable.

I had to start eating at the dining room table.

I KNOW! The horror!

So far, it’s working really well. I sit at the table with my plate of food and a can of compressed air by my hand, and when one of their little heads pops up, as if they’re thinking of climbing up onto the table to see what I’m doing, I send a blast of air in their direction, and they run off.

I had hoped that once Ezra and Elijah went off to the pet store and I was down to just the girls again I could eat in peace in front of the computer, but when I sat down with my lunch yesterday, Beulah was all “Howyadoin’? Whatchagot? Might I dip my paw in that plate of food and see if I’d like some of it too, please? “No,” you say? Well howzabout I just do it anyway!”

I fled to the table to eat my lunch, and I guess that’ll be my default place to eat for now.

Brats.

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The last time I made Chicken Pot Pie, I had leftover pot pie “filling” that wouldn’t fit in the pie dish. I put it in a plastic container and froze it. The other day I took it out and looked to see just how much filling there was, and decided that it wouldn’t make an entire pot pie, but that I could make a couple of small individual-size pot pies with what I had. The only problem was that I didn’t really have anything to make individual-size pot pies in.

Yesterday, after I dropped Ezra and Elijah off at the pet store, I swung by Old Time Pottery in Madison. That store has got just about every kind of kitchen dish you could want, so I figured they’d have something I could use. I picked up a couple of different kinds of baking dishes, but then put them back after I found small white casserole-like dishes – much like these – for $1.49 each. I grabbed four.

I picked up a few more things, and then went to check out.

As the cashier rang up my purchases, she picked up the dishes, and said “Going to make some souffles?”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to make some individual-serving casseroles.”

And she gave me the oddest look, like that was the weirdest thing she’d heard all day. As soon as I left the store, I wished like hell I’d asked her what the look was for, because now it’s bugging me. Is using souffle-type dishes for individual casseroles THAT strange an idea?

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Stinkerbelle has picked up the nickname “Dinky Doo” lately. Don’t look at me like that, I don’t know. It just kind of rolls off the tongue, y’know?

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Previously
2008: Here’s a hint: Mister Boogers? Not the man.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Oh, it’s FUN to be a girl, ain’t it?
2004: Am I not stylin’?
2003: Like I repeatedly said to him yesterday, “I’m GLAD you’re ENJOYING my pain!”
2002: Momma don’t do food-related or cleaning-related stuff on Mother’s Day!
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to set the banner image so that it’ll resize itself on your monitor no matter what size you’re viewing my site, so for now I’m leaving the banner as text-only.

I don’t know, I don’t think I completely hate this particular design. I’m tired of trying to mess with it though, I’ll tell you that. This is how it’ll be for the time being – do you totally hate it? Is it horribly ugly?

Edited to add: Fine, y’all want your cute banner, so it’s back. Those of you who can’t see the whole thing, I’ll fiddle with it… at some point in the future!

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On Mother’s Day morning, I started off the day by sleeping in ’til 6:30 (I know!) and then when I went downstairs to see what Fred was doing that sounded all messing-up-my-kitchen-y, I found that he was trying to stuff a dead (cleaned) chicken into a too-small bag and was in a bad mood about the fact that it wouldn’t fit.

“You’re not using the right bag,” I said reasonably.

“I couldn’t find anything bigger!” he said, struggling with the dead rooster and the freezer bag.

Last month, I bought a bunch of freezer storage bags to put processed chickens into, because the big ziploc freezer bags aren’t big enough for most chickens. When I got the box of bags, I put them on a shelf on the bookcase in the kitchen, where they’ve been sitting ever since. Except, to be fair, usually when Fred processes chickens, I’m there with the bags for him to drop them into, so he didn’t necessarily know where I keep them.

So we got the two processed chickens (roosters) bagged up, and I put them in the garage.

“The knives weren’t sharp enough at all,” he said, continuing with his bad mood. “So I had to take a gun out there to get the Buff rooster. I couldn’t find the knife sharpener ANYWHERE. I looked in all the cabinets!”

I looked over near the knife block where I last remembered seeing the knife sharpener. It wasn’t there, so I looked in the drawer where I keep the extra spatulas and serving spoons and assorted crap, and it was on top. When he came back inside, I opened the drawer and showed it to him.

“It’s right here,” I said.

“Oh, okay,” he said.

I am 93.7% sure he won’t remember where it is.

He went back outside to clean up his killing station, and I spent the next ten minutes scrubbing down the sink and the surrounding counters. I washed the knives and set them on the counter next to the sink to dry. Then I went upstairs to get my dirty laundry, and when I came back downstairs, he’d brought a cutting board and bucket inside. The cutting board was sitting in the sink, conveniently leaning over the clean knives, dripping blood and goo on them.

I cleaned the cutting board, scrubbed out the bucket, and re-washed the knives. Then I scrubbed down the counters around the sink.

I put the dishes away, and got out my Kitchenaid mixer to start a batch of bread. When I looked down into the mixing bowl, I saw the familiar yellow sprinkles down the side of the bowl.

“Whatcha doing?” Fred asked, coming back in from outside.

“I was going to start a batch of bread, but I have to wash the bowl and beater first, because SOMEONE SPRAYED ON THEM.” I fumed as I washed.

“Happy Mother’s Day!” he said with a big, cheesy grin.

I finished washing the bowl and put it to the side of the sink to dry, then went and got his dirty laundry, and began separating all the dirty laundry into piles*. I started a load of laundry and then dried off the mixing bowl and began mixing the dough for bread. Fred came in from the computer room and said “I think I’m going to make an omelet!”

He puttered around the kitchen, finding an onion to chop, mushrooms to open, and a bag of shredded cheese in the refrigerator.

I was mentally beginning today’s entry along the lines of “Fred celebrated Mother’s Day by making an omelet. For himself. I had a bowl of Cheerios. I bet an omelet would have been good.” when he said “I’m going to make a scramble (ie, an omelet with all the insides just mixed into the scrambled eggs), want me to make some extra for you?”, which ruined the beginning of my mental entry.

Bastard. He ruins everything!

(The scramble was mighty tasty, for the record. Hard to beat onion, mushrooms and cheese mixed up with scrambled eggs.)

While I ate breakfast, I texted back and forth with the spud and emailed my mother.

When the bread dough was ready to be formed into loaves, I called Fred into the kitchen to make rolls out of the dough (last time I tried to form rolls out of the dough, they ended up all different sizes, most of them too small to use as sandwich rolls). I left the rolls to rise, and then he and I broke into the wedge of Horseradish Cheddar that Readerfriend Jean had given us.

That was some GOOD stuff; we ate it on crackers. You could taste the horseradish, which I like a lot (horseradish reminds me of Florida and raw oysters and now I’m craving a trip to Destin.) We brainstormed about the many ways we could eat the cheese (on meatball subs being the idea most popular with us both), then he went outside to do something, and I went upstairs to take my shower.

I announced, when I first got up, that in honor of Mother’s Day I was NOT going to get dressed. Then I amended that to “Well, maybe I’ll get dressed around noon”, but in the end I wore my nightgown all day long and I’ve gotta say, that was one comfy way to spend the day.

Maybe I need to make a trip to the muumuu store. They make muumuus with 3/4 sleeves?

The rolls were done rising, so I put them in the oven and then proceeded to make a yellow cake. It was a recipe I’d run across recently on a site where I run across a lot of recipes, and of all the recipes I’ve tried from this site, two have turned out really good, and the rest have been total snoozers. (And no, it’s NOT Pioneer Woman’s recipe site.) So I made the yellow cake and I made chocolate frosting to go on top, and Fred tried the cake when it was done and he said “Eh.” I got all mad at him and he said “What? Just because I don’t LOVE the cake doesn’t mean it’s a failure on your part! It just means the recipe wasn’t that great!”

But still.

So after lunch I tried a piece of the cake, and it was the most “Eh” cake I’ve ever had. Snoozersville. Fred took it out and gave it to the chickens, who enjoyed it.

They’re not picky.

I spent the afternoon finishing up the laundry, watched an episode of CSI with Fred (since we switched to the cheap plan at Dish Network, there are certain channels we don’t get, so we tend to NOT have as much TV to watch, which means it’s time to start watching TV shows on DVD from Netflix again.), and making dinner.

We had Light ‘n Luscious Lasagna (though I used sausage from our own pig instead of the kind of sausage the recipe calls for), romaine salad from the garden (the romaine is slowly getting choked out by weeds, but Fred still managed to pick enough for a couple of salads), and garlic bread made with the rolls I’d made earlier.

It was a tasty meal, and a good way to start off the week – especially considering that we’ll probably be eating lasagna for the rest of the week, which means I won’t have to cook again anytime soon.

*Please note that I still am not one of you anal motherfuckers who separates out your laundry into “darks” and “less darks” and “lights” and “whites.” The only time I separate laundry is when I’m doing my laundry and Fred’s at the same time (and the only reason that’s been happening lately is because I can’t hang clothes on the line to dry because of the GODDAMN RAIN. When it stops raining all the goddamn time, I’ll go back to my slovenly non-separating ways.)

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Saturday, neither of us accomplished much. I actually made brownies and a lemon icebox pie, was impressed with neither of them, and the pigs benefited. I guess this really wasn’t a good baking weekend for me – but on the good side, those are recipes I can cull from my constantly-growing “recipes to try” pile.

We were lounging on the couch, half snoozing and half watching TV when the phone rang. Fred’s sister had mentioned earlier in the day that she and her husband might stop by to get some eggs, and she was calling to let us know they were on their way.

We sprang into action, Fred running around the house and picking up, and I grabbing the vacuum cleaner and vacuuming the downstairs. We finished just in time; as I was putting the vacuum away, they showed up. They stayed for about an hour, and they wanted to see the pigs (they’re buying half of one of them), so Fred took them outside to see the chickens, the pigs, the garden, and the fruit trees. Then they came back inside and played with the kittens. I think Fred’s sister would have happily taken both Ezra and Elijah, but her husband was completely uninterested. He wasn’t even uninterested in a needing-to-be-convinced way, he was dead-set against it. To be fair, they’re having a lot of work done on their house, so it’s probably not the best place for a couple of troublesome, nosy kittens to be right now.

They left, and then we went right back to our lounging and slacking. I’d make excuses for our slacker ways, but it was a rainy day and there was nothing that could be done outside, the inside of the house was clean(ish), so slack we did.

Oh, actually I forgot – we did go out when it got dark and moved the 33 two month-old chicks from the blue coop they’ve been sharing with the broody, murderous Mommas, to the big coop in the back forty. It was kind of a pain, slogging through the mud with a box full of chickens several times, but once Fred set each of them on roosts in the big coop, they were pretty quickly at home. Their adjustment to their new living quarters was pretty much painless.

(Fred said “I’m looking forward to late July, early August when all the chickens are in the back forty and there are no baby chickens in the brooder in the garage. I second that!)

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The kittens are doing fine. I mentioned on Friday that Phinneas and Caleb were going back to the pet store, since they weren’t the ones having litterbox issues. When I got to the pet store, I saw a note on the cage they’d been in, one I’d managed to miss the night before, saying that Phinneas had been having litterbox issues and vomiting. Since he was perfectly okay after I picked him up, I’m going to guess that he ate something that didn’t agree with him. I emailed the shelter manager and told her that I hadn’t seen the note the night before, but as far as I could tell, Phinneas and Caleb were perfectly fine, but if they started having issues again, to let me know and I’d go back and pick them up.

Not only did they not have issues – they both got adopted over the weekend! Yay!

Yesterday I was shown without a shadow of a doubt that one of the buff tabbies (I think it’s Elijah, but honest to god I can’t really tell the two of them apart anymore) is A-OK in the litterbox, so I grabbed him up and marked his ear so I’d know that he was the one who was okay. The other buff tabby is NOT A-OK in the litterbox, and for that matter, Beulah and Bessie managed to develop litterbox issues, too, so the bunch of them are on something that will hopefully solidify things.

Since the one buff tabby’s okay, he’ll be going back to the pet store tomorrow morning.

Actually, Beulah wasn’t feeling well at all Saturday morning. I found a puddle of vomit upstairs and reported it to Fred. We assumed that it was Spanky‘s work (the boy has issues), but a little while later Fred told me that Beulah was vomiting. She vomited again, drank some water, and vomited that up. We kept an eye on her, but she didn’t seem to be in distress, just didn’t feel well, slept the day away, and by early evening was back to eating and playing like normal.

Oh, kittehs. How you make us worry!

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Blessed are the pure in het, for they shall see Dog.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Mister Boogers doesn’t have opposable thumbs and finds it too difficult to text anyone – he gives up and stomps off in a huff after texting a few LOLs.
2006: Which to ME means “I’m not interested,” but to the operator apparently was code for “I might be interested. Try harder!”
2005: Now, I don’t know. I think that if your life is SO BUSY that taking the time to put a little pill in your mouth throws your entire schedule off, then perhaps it’s time to reorganize your life.
2004: You can’t have genius every day, y’know.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: SHE WAS FIXIN’ TO GO DOWN THE HILL.
2000: Poor overworked, abused child…

Attention, people with mad graphic design skillz!

Reader Anita has a family member who has been diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer – some of you may have heard of IBC, but it’s not nearly as well known as the breast cancer we always hear about. You won’t find a lump because it doesn’t present itself that way. Most women who are diagnosed with IBC find out when they’re already in Stage IV. There is NO Stage V. It can look like a rash, or a bug bite, so many women pass it off. It’s very aggressive, and the prognosis isn’t good.

Anita started up a web site for Sherri, We Love Sherri, and they’re looking for someone to design a banner/ logo so that they can get a Cafe Press store up and running.

This is where you talented graphic designers come in! The only design elements they’ve come up with so far are:

1. a Berry (we call her Sherri Berry)
2. a pink ribbon

She says, Sherri is not working right now b/c she’s so sick, and she’s got 2 kids. We’ve had a couple of charity events for her, but of course, they don’t bring in a ton of money. I don’t imagine the t-shirts, mugs, etc will either, but I feel like I need to do something- anything. It’s all very sad and awful….

Who’ll help out? Email welovesherri (at) gmail (dot) com

And, thank you!

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So, yesterday afternoon I settled down and watched Lost, and then it was almost time for Fred to get home from work, so I wandered back to my computer and checked my email. I had an email from the shelter manager, letting me know that the woman who’d cleaned at PetSmart yesterday morning had found, well, let’s just say that the litter box was not up to par. It sounded like it was quite the mess, and of course with four kittens using the same litterbox, it’s hard to tell who’s having the problem, so I left immediately to go to the pet store and pick them all up.

On the way, I called Fred and asked him to call the vet and see if I could get the four of them in before they closed for the day. He called me back and said I could take them in at 4:30 (which gave me 50 minutes to get to the pet store, box them up, and get to the vet), or today at 9:30. I opted to try to get them there at 4:30, somehow stupidly secure in the knowledge that I could get to a place that takes me 25 minutes to get to, box up four kittens, and drive to a place half an hour from there IN RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC with no problem at all.

I got to the pet store, and the boys were all flopped out in their cage, sound asleep. I opened the cage door and they were all “Hi! What new adventure are we going on today?!” I put them in the carrier, and we were on our way.

Did I mention it was RUSH HOUR? I dithered about which way to go to get to the vet – my two choices were to drive back into Madison and drive up a slow country road with 3 million stop signs and stop lights, or to hop on the highway formerly known as Rideout Road (I don’t remember what they call it these days) up to highway 53, which is a straight shot to the Tennessee border, where the vet is located.

I opted to take the highway and did I mention it was RUSH HOUR, where no one’s in a hurry and everyone feels free to mosey along at 20 miles under the speed limit? I was stressed, to say the least, because I couldn’t call the vet’s office and let them know I’d be late, because OF COURSE my phone (which I hadn’t charged earlier in the day despite my full knowledge that it needed charging) was dead, and I don’t own a car charger (a situation I intend to remedy later today).

The entire drive from the pet store to the vet, Ezra exercised his lungs, and that boy has some POWERFUL lungs. He was occasionally joined by the other boys, but most of the singing was done by Ezra alone.

Look, I made a video to share the pain!

Turn up your sound as high as it will go, put your ear right up to the speaker and then drive a screwdriver into your other eardrum, and you might approach the level of pain I was feeling. And speaking soothingly to them didn’t help at all – in fact, as you’ll notice in the movie, when I say “I know, baby,” they just get louder.

I made it to the vet’s office about 15 minutes late (I hate hate HATE being late for anything, it makes me feel like a self-important douchebag who thinks the world revolves around her.) and apologized profusely. They took a fecal sample from Phinneas (the line of thought being that if one’s got something, they should all, since they share such close quarters), tested it for everything under the sun, and found nothing at all. The vet said the diarrhea could be caused by a diet change or the stress of being in a cage, or who the hell knows?

So I brought them home, Ezra singing the entire way, and put them in the foster kitten room. Beulah and Bessie followed me up to the room to see what exactly was going on, and I let them in the room too. It was like those boys never left – Bessie immediately jumped on Caleb, and Phinneas jumped on Beulah.

I spent some time in the kitten room yesterday evening, and Phinneas and Caleb were kind enough to demonstrate that the litterbox issues didn’t come from THEM, so I’ll be leaving in a little while to take them back to the pet store. There were litterbox issues overnight, so I’m going to say that one or both of the buff boys are the problem. They’ll be here at the very least for the weekend while I try to get them over whatever’s going on with them.

And this entry would be longer, but I’ve got kittens to return to the pet store and errands to run, so I’m outta here!

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Previously
2008: Things that give me the blerghs
2007: Fred was PISSED because he’d been harboring a secret yen to stay in the Shalom in the Home trailer park, and he stomped off to sulk, thus making Nance and Rick uncomfortable and not in the mood to play Catch Phrase.
2006: I ran out the back door, yelling the entire way for Tommy to “Drop it! Drop it, Tommy! DROP IT!”
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: It’d certainly be interesting, at least until it came to blows, I’m sure.
2002: Of course, the mother of the bride is a total sobbing mess.
2001: My butt hurts.
2000: I meant to pick up the razors for Women with Big Asses.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

We’re celebrating by eating Chicken Enchiladas tonight. YUM.

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I think I’ve mentioned before that when I make dog treats for George and Gracie, I cook them for however long the recipe requires, and then I turn off the oven, but leave the dog treats in the oven so that they can dry and harden (since soft, moist treats would start to mold pretty quickly). More often than not, I leave the treats in the oven overnight. Invariably, the next day I forget the treats are there and turn the oven on to preheat for whatever I’m making, and five minutes later I’m saying “What’s that smell… Oh, shit!” I’ve never actually burned the treats, luckily.

You’d think, after doing that ten or fifteen times, it would start to occur to me to check the oven before I turn it on, but so far that hasn’t happened.

So Sunday afternoon I turned the oven on to make my lunch, and then I wandered off to fold clothes and put them away, and when I came back seven minutes later, I was like “What’s that smell…” and then I remembered that that morning I’d put the egg shells on a cookie sheet, put them in the oven for twenty minutes, then turned the oven off. And forgot they were there.

(We collect our egg shells in a bowl until the bowl is full, then I dry them in the oven, crush them up, and feed them back to the chickens. Theoretically, the calcium helps make the eggs they lay stronger.)

Dog treats might not burn when they’re in the oven, with the oven turned to the “broil” setting, but egg shells burn like a motherfucker. And they smell really, really bad. I took the sheet of egg shells out and set them on the stovetop, and they sat there and smoldered and the longer they smoldered, the worse they smelled. I finally had to put the sheet on the back step and asked Fred to take the egg shells over to the compost heap the next time he went outside.

(He thought I should just crush them up and give them to the chickens anyway, but I was all “They won’t eat burned egg shells! They won’t like the taste!” In retrospect, I could have given them the choice, I suppose.)

The house reeked of burnt egg shells for the rest of the day, not just in the kitchen. One of the things about having an old house is that it holds smells in an odd way. There’s a spot in the hallway approaching the front room that always smells like whatever was cooked most recently in the kitchen. It’s not the whole hallway, just this one spot. So every time I’d walk through the Spot o’ Stank, I’d think “What the fuck is that – oh, right.”

Other oddities in the way our house presents smells – if someone pees in the front room (a cat, usually. I’ve mostly broken Fred of that habit. Har!), you might not necessarily smell it in the front room, but you will smell it in the doorway of the guest bedroom. Also, Fred’s bedroom generally smells of whatever was last cooked in the kitchen – though I guess that’s not necessarily an oddity, since there’s a vent in the floor of his room that’s in the ceiling of the dining room, which is right next to the kitchen.

And speaking of our house and smells, whoever thought it would be a good idea to put the air intake vent for the downstairs air/ heating system directly across the hall from the bathroom? Well, let’s just say that they probably should have thought a little harder about that.

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Fred sent me the link to this picture yesterday, and it made me laugh out loud.

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Beulah and Bessie are making themselves QUITE at home, thank you very much. Sunday night after I put them up for the night, Bessie howled and howled until Fred got up and let them out. They stayed out until about 10:30, when they wouldn’t stop moving around and kept waking me up, so I got up and put them back in their room ’til the next morning. Last night, same thing. I’m sure the time’s coming soon when they won’t be quite so squirmy when I’m trying to sleep, and I suspect that they’ll be out and about, 24 hours a day.

They seem more willing to not be right on top of each other all the time. I mean, they’re usually in the same room, or fairly close to each other most of the time, but yesterday they spent all afternoon in separate cat beds – Bessie was in one of the beds on my desk, and Beulah was in the much cozier bed next to my desk. They snoozed there all afternoon, I guess to store up energy for their wild running-around time in the evening.

(The last of the pictures I took before I took the boys to the pet store on Friday.)

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“You. Look at me. You tell me RIGHT NOW who left this branch here. Who would do such a thing? Tell me now, and I will kick their motherfucking ASS.” Sheriff Mama ain’t kiddin’ around.

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Previously
2008: If that man cripples me with the sledgehammer, y’all make sure he gets me the LUXURY wheelchair.
2007: No entry.
2006: “Motherfucker say WHAT? You wanna prance?”
2005: Did you know you could use it to relieve muscle soreness, as a plant fertilizer, and as a laxative?
2004: Okay, girlfriend? Just how fucking stupid ARE you?
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: God, please tell me when I was 19 I didn’t sound that much like an airhead…

So yes, the colors on the sidebar are weird. I fucked around with the css for about an hour between last night and this morning, and I’m giving up ’til I feel like fucking around with it again – which may not be ’til next weekend. You can live with the tan sidebars and comments, can’t you?

The big change is that there are now threaded comments – which means you can reply directly to another comment, and your comment will show up indented underneath the comment you’re replying to instead of at the bottom of the comments (though of course you can do that, too. Whatever floats your boat!). Just click on the “reply” link underneath the comment you want to respond to.

Neat, huh? Yeah, it’s the little things that thrill me.

This weekend, it rained. And it rained. Then when it was done? It rained some more. I think Fred came thisclose to losing his mind, because he wasn’t able to go outside and get anything done. Did I mention it rained? I only know this because every time it started pouring, Fred would sob “It’s raining again, make it stoooooop!”

It’s his own damn fault, really. The middle of last week, when things were getting nice and dry, he said “I kind of wish it would rain, the garden could use the water.”

Well, the garden got PLENTY of water. The back forty got flooded too, and plenty of times I looked out there to see George and Gracie wading through chest-high water. Those dogs REALLY like slogging through the water. The good thing is that the water soaked in/ ran off pretty quickly. It’s still wet and muddy out there, but the chickens are able to get out and get around without getting too wet.

I never for one moment have to wonder what the weather report is, anymore. Fred talks about the forecast CONSTANTLY. I can’t decide if that’s an old-man thing, or a farmer thing, the obsession with the weather. I don’t remember the every-five-minute weather reports when we lived in Madison, but it’s possible I’m just not remembering. Surely he had to know what was going to happen weather-wise when he did all that hiking?

We spent most of the day Saturday in the house, watching movies. We finished up Requiem for a Dream (now THAT is a positive and life-affirming movie right there, isn’t it?), watched half of The Stand, and started Beaches. It was actually my original goal to stay in my nightgown all day, but around noon I went upstairs and got dressed because Fred was talking about going somewhere and picking up lunch (I don’t cook on Saturdays. I BAKE, but I don’t cook meals.).

Mid-afternoon, he said “What do you want to get for lunch/ dinner?”

I said, “A cheeseburger from Logan’s Roadhouse sounds good.”

I don’t know why I bother to answer the question, honestly. It’s as if he asks the question just so he can make sure that I do NOT get what it is I’m craving. Maybe I’ll just start planning meals for Saturdays instead of refusing to cook. THE ENDLESS GODDAMN DISCUSSION ABOUT IT DRIVES ME NUTS.

I finally agreed to whatever the fuck he wanted, just to stop talking about it. We got in the car and headed toward Closeville, and he said “How about Steak-Out?” I agreed, and he tried calling to place the order, but as we were in the middle of nowhere at the time, had no cell phone signal.

“Is there anywhere else you’d be willing to eat from?” he asked.

“Let’s just get Burger King,” I said, since Burger King is near Steak-Out.

But of course, it being Saturday, there was a long, long line at the Burger King drive-thru, so without even asking, he drove up to Steak-Out and parked. We walked in, and I looked at the menu and decided what I wanted, and do you know what Douchey McDoucherton did, as I stepped forward to place my order? He decided that I could just get food from Steak-Out and he’d go next door to the shittastic Hardee’s and get a burger from there. So I placed my order, and then we went through the Hardee’s drive-thru to get his meal, and then I got to go back into Steak-Out to wait for my order.

You know. Steak-Out. Where I’d agreed to go just to shut him the fuck up.

And of course the Steak-Out burger was overcooked and tasteless.

Next weekend, when the “What do you want to have for dinner?” dance begins, I’m going to tell him to submit three choices in writing and I’ll make my decision.

Or maybe I’ll just start cooking dinner on Saturday. Grrrr.

PS: He claimed that the Hardee’s burger was the best! burger! ever! I have a knee-jerk dislike for Hardee’s, though, so I don’t believe him.

Sunday, we finished watching Beaches, watched the rest of The Stand, and in and among all that, I did laundry and started fiddling with the updated theme on my site.

Also, we discussed the fact that it was raining.

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Speaking of food, I made Brunswick Stew last week using a recipe from the same place where I got the Tomato Soup Cake recipe, and the Brunswick Stew was FABULOUS. Fred didn’t think it was as good as I did, but he still thought it was pretty good. The best part is that it makes a TON, so we had it for dinner two nights, then I froze the rest, which will give us about three more meals.

Other things I made over the weekend: a 7-Up Bundt Cake that was nothing to write home about (the pigs gave it two hooves up, though. They give just about EVERYTHING two hooves up.), and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. The cookies were very good – definitely a keeper! They’ve got coconut in them, but not an overwhelming amount, just a taste. They’re chewy and very very good. I recommend them!

Of course, the Cooking Light Chocolate Chip cookies continue to be my favorite.

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So on Friday, I took Jasper, Caleb (Troubles), Elijah, Ezra and Phinneas to the pet store. It just so happened Thursday night that the Friday morning cleaner sent out an email asking if anyone could cover for her, and since I was going to be there anyway, I told her I’d do it. I left the house a little after seven with the boys in one carrier, and Ezra and Elijah took turns singing the entire 25 minute drive to the store.

Once inside, I let them out of their carrier and started cleaning cages. They ran around and explored and checked out the other cats while I was cleaning, and then when the other cages were cleaned and all the other cats had been out for a little while and gotten some love from me, I put the other cats up, and opened the cage where the boys were going to be going.

I figured I’d have to shove them all into the cage and then run away before my heart broke as they looked at me sadly, crying and saying “What did we do wrooooong? Why don’t you love us anymooooore?”

It didn’t quite happen like that. Instead, as soon as I opened the cage door and filled the food and water bowls, the boys RAN into the cage and yelled “Hey, toys! Look, toys! Come check out the toys!” By the time I’d tossed a few more toys in the cage, all five of them were in there, playing and fighting and eating. I picked them up one by one to kiss them and say goodbye to them, and they each gave me the MOST annoyed look and waited impatiently until I returned them to their cage.

WELL. Ingrates!

They didn’t get adopted over the weekend, but reports (thanks, Jean and Lisa!) came in that they were completely calm and relaxed and happy, not scared at all.

Beulah and Bessie are adapting to life without their brothers very well. They stay out of their room from the time I get up ’til the time I go to bed, and most of the time they’re sleeping or playing together. Keeping Bessie here to keep Beulah company was a very good idea on my part, I think.

Brudderly love.

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Stinkerbelle in her Safe Place.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Do you see what I see?
2006: And I mean that “woohoo!” in a completely sincere and non-ironic way, which is a little sad, but whatEVERRRR.
2005: Did I really write a chapter about my sex life? Eek! What was I thinking?
2004: “YES! Yes, she’s sick! No, she’s not sleeping, she’s SICK, and SHE’S ABOUT TO DIE, NOW WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP?!”
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: It wasn’t until I said “I think she’s messed up in the head” that something clicked for her.