Paula’s walking in honor of Jane‘s Jugs on Mother’s Day to raise money for breast cancer services. Get your butt over yonder and sponsor her!
New month, new banner!
Thank you, once again, to the wonderful and talented Christine, who created this banner for me – along with a lot more of them in the past. You rock, have I mentioned?
So, a few weeks ago, local reader Jean read my entry from last year where I was bitching and moaning about the dryness of my hands. She highly recommended the CeraVe line, and even offered me some from her stock of the stuff. I took her up on her offer – I mean, why not try before you buy, right? – and she dropped some off, and I’ve been using it ever since.
This stuff is AWESOME. There’s the cleanser, the cream, the lotion. I use the lotion after I shower, and I use the cream when we’re sitting and watching TV (it’s very thick, so you don’t want to, say, slather your hands with the stuff and then pet a kitten), and it is doing the most amazing job of keeping my hands (and the rest of me) un-dry. And a little goes a long way – I’ve been using the stuff for a few weeks now, and I swear the level isn’t going down any. It’s not one of those lotions that sits on your skin, it sinks in and protects your hands from the 45-times-a-day washing. If you can’t tell, I highly recommend it – and you can even go over to coupons.com and get a $2 off coupon, to sweeten the deal! I use my beloved Spiced Orange lotion (from GCDSpa) during the day, then slather up with the CeraVe at night, and these days those damn microfiber cloths that I bought to dust with aren’t sticking to my hands like MicroVelcro, THANK GOD.
Jean said that she’s found that Costco has the most consistently low price, but you can find it at Walgreens and Walmart, and really a whole slew of places. If, like me, you tend to suffer from super-dry hands, give the CeraVe a try.
(I received no compensation for my rave review of the CeraVe, for the record. Though if someone from CeraVe stumbles across this page and wants to start handing out the free stuff, I would gladly take some o’ that, and make sure you send enough for CeraVe Pusher Jean!)
Early Saturday morning, Fred asked if I wanted to accompany him to Lowe’s to return some trees that had died. Lowe’s has a 1-year guarantee on their fruit trees, and Fred wasn’t sure when he’d bought them, but suspected it had been around a year ago. The trees died, and so we were prepared to take advantage of the guarantee. As it turned out, he got them in October. There was no problem with the return, and Fred picked out two nice-looking fruit trees to replace them.
I started looking around at all the plants Lowe’s had available, and thought about buying some of them for the front porch, but couldn’t stand the thought of Fred standing around questioning every single thing I picked out, so I decided to wait and go back ALONE.
We stopped and picked up chicken feed on the way home, and then as soon as we got home, I kissed Fred and headed back to Lowe’s. I had a good idea of what I wanted to get, so I wanted to get everything, get it home, and planted and set up on the front porch. It took me about half an hour of browsing, but I ended up with a couple of hanging ferns, some begonias for the big pots, and impatiens to put around the begonias.
It was supposed to rain Saturday, and of course the rain held off until I was in the process of checking out. I called Fred to see if the rain was going to blow over quickly or stick around for a while, and after he told me that it would probably be around for a while, I realized that the Lowe’s employee was locking the doors to the Garden Center. I could have gone back through the store to go out into the parking lot, but then I would have had to go all the way down the parking lot to my car, because of course I’d parked near the Garden Center.
I decided that I wouldn’t melt in the rain, so I asked the employee if I could get through the door before he locked it. I went out the door, got halfway to my car, and the sky opened up.
Whatcha gonna do, right? Instead of freaking out and doing my best to stay dry, I didn’t even bother – SOMEONE had to unload the shopping cart, and like I said, I don’t melt in the rain. By the time I got the cart unloaded, I couldn’t have been any wetter if I’d stepped directly into the shower, fully clothed.
A few hours later, the rain let off and I got everything planted and put on the front porch. It already looks about a thousand times better than it did.
It rained on and off all weekend, and was gray and dull and ugly outside. Last night, instead of waiting until 7:00 to give the cats their Snackin’! Time!, I opted to do it around 6 so we could get them inside and shut the back door.
“Whooooooooooooo’s ready for the snackin’!” I bellowed out the back door, and all the cats came running. All the cats except Tommy, that is. Lately he’s been less interested in Snackin’! Time! and more interested in staying outside. Sometimes I go out and get him, and sometimes I leave him out there for Fred to get after he closes up the chicken coops. Tommy came halfway across the yard toward the back door, and just stood there and stared at me.
“Tommy, come ON!” I said impatiently. He just stood and stared. “You are a fucker,” I told him. “No snack for YOU!” I made a mental note to ask Fred to get Tommy on his way back from the chicken yard, and went to do the usual Snackin’! Time! duties, followed by scooping the litter boxes.
We were watching TV when the skies opened up. It rained for the rest of the evening, with thunder and lightning and all that good stuff. We put the kittens up around 9:00, and headed upstairs to bed.
I had the niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t put my finger on just what it was.
I was in the middle of brushing my teeth when a loud clap of thunder sounded, and then I realized.
“OH SHIT,” I said.
“What?” Fred, who was already in bed said.
“SHIT. Is the alarm on?” I asked, heading for the stairs.
“Yeah, why? What’s wrong?”
“TOMMY’S STILL OUTSIDE!”
I’d completely forgotten to tell Fred that Tommy was out there, and so Tommy had been out there all evening long. In the pouring rain.
I got the alarm turned off, and Fred opened the back door, and we called for Tommy. He came halfway across the yard, paused, looked around, and finally came inside.
As it turned out, he wasn’t nearly as soaked as I expected he’d be. In fact, he was just slightly damp. There’s a trash can in the back yard, laying on its side, I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of Sugarbutt hanging out in it. That’s where he’d spent the evening, hanging out in that trash can, watching the rain.
Knowing Tommy, he probably didn’t even KNOW he was locked out of the house.
I think I’ve mentioned before that we put the kittens in the guest bedroom at night so that we can, you know, SLEEP. I was pretty sure that there’d be all kinds of hijinks if we let them stay out in the house, and I really like my sleep.
Last night, we couldn’t find Maura at bedtime (she looks so much like Maxi that I’m always worried Fred will accidentally let Maura out thinking that she’s Maxi. Hasn’t happened yet, but there’s always a first time!), so we looked for her, and then decided that she had to be in the guest bedroom with the kittens. She was, so Fred got her out of there (which, in retrospect, is kind of dumb. I think she (and they) would have been perfectly fine locked in that room together overnight) and when he shut the door, he apparently didn’t shut it all the way. This morning, when he went to let the kittens out, they were already out.
I have no idea at what point during the night they got out. I guess we’ll be leaving them out all the time from now on – I slept just fine last night, no hijinks or loud crashes or hissing and growling at all!
Reacher.
Reacher.
Bolitar.
Rhyme.
Rhyme.
Corbett.
Rhyme.
Joe Bob, glaring at Sugarbutt, who’s all “What? I’m just rolling around, here. I’m not gonna steal your box!”
Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: My feng is not shui’d, and it’s pissin’ me off.
2006: It’s a Suggie in the Sug Cave!
2005: I RUE THE FUCKING DAY I decided to buy a car from this guy.
2004: I snorted. “This from the man who put Oxi-Clean in the dishwasher over and over and over last summer.”
2003: No entry.
2002: I am now sporting a fashionable little red mustache.
2001: What? You don’t think bugs would use the word “abattoir?”
2000: Why all of a sudden is her big scary clown face all over the place talking about it?