4/29/10 – Thursday

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!

(I made that graphic at the top with my own two hands. Awfully talented, aren’t I?)

 

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You know your day’s going to be kind of weird when you’re washing the blood off a rooster (“a bloody cock”, if you must) before 9 am. Apparently two roosters decided it was time to BRING IT ON, and they both ended up pretty damn bloody from the chest up. As far as we could tell, all the blood was coming from around their combs. Fred held them one at a time, while I poured warm water in a stream over the bloody areas and swiped with a wet cloth to get rid of the worst of the blood.

Then I had to open this bottle of purple inky stuff. I would tell you what the hell the stuff is called, but I don’t know, and Fred’s not present at the moment, so just believe me when I tell you it’s like purple dye. You know the dye packs they put in the decoy pack of money at banks, that they stick in your bag of money when you rob a bank, and then you walk through the door and the sensor starts the timer in the pack of dye, and at some predetermined time, when you’re away from the bank and can’t angrily stomp back through the door and start shooting people, it explodes, dying the money and everything else in the area? That’s what it looks like.

Oh. According to Wikipedia, the dye pack is red. You’d think I’d know that, given that I was a bank teller at one point in my very distant past.

Anyway, this bottle of stuff is like purple dye. IS MY POINT. And we use it on the chickens when they get bloody spots on their combs because chickens, when they see blood on another chicken, respond by pecking at the blood. Which causes more blood. It’s a bloody cycle, is what it is. (Also, it helps the wound to heal because it’s got some kind of medication in it. I’m sorry to be so specific.) So Fred held the roosters while I opened the purple dye and dabbed it on the bloody spots. When you cover bloody spots, the other chickens say “IS THAT BLOOD? Oh, no. It’s purple. Clearly NOT blood, so I’ll move along and not peck at it. Bug-AWK!”

The first rooster was pretty good about the washing and the dying, but the second rooster was pretty twitchy and while I was dabbing the dye on his comb, he shook his head, and the shit went everywhere, and so now there are purple spots of dye all over the jacket I was wearing (it was a crappy jacket Fred got at Walmart, so no big deal) and all over my hands. I spent the rest of the day worrying that when I went out in public people were going to be all “SHE HAS PURPLE DYE ON HER HANDS CLEARLY SHE ROBBED A BANK”, but since I was wrong about the bank dye packs being purple, they were probably only thinking “SHE HAS PURPLE DYE ON HER HANDS CLEARLY SHE’S BEEN HANDLING BLOODY COCKS.”

We finished with the rooster and freed them, and petted the dogs, and then came back to the house.

I sat down at my computer to do something, and then became aware that my hand smelled like wet dog (from the petting of George and Gracie, obv)(first I was all “Ugh. Apparently wet roosters smell like wet dog”, then I remembered I’d had wet hands when I patted the dogs. Duh.), so I got up and went into the kitchen to wash my hands. I turned on the faucet, and no water came out. Not even the sound of water TRYING to come out. What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” I said to Fred.

“What?”

“WE HAVE NO WATER,” I said. I went into the bathroom, then into the other bathroom and checked those faucets just to be sure the problem wasn’t with the kitchen faucet specifically. We had no water anywhere.

“Huh,” Fred said disinterestedly.

“You’re not NEARLY disturbed enough by this,” I told him.

“I’m sure they’re working on a broken water main,” he said.

I stomped out to the garage to get a jug of water (I have about 20 jugs of water in the garage for JUST such an occasion) and then made Fred pour water over my hands while I washed them.

(He did eventually call the water company, and just as he’d predicted, they were working on a broken water main just up the road from us.)

“This is happening FAR TOO FUCKING OFTEN,” I fumed.

“It’s only the second time it’s happened since we moved in,” Fred said.

“LIKE I SAID.”

 

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Fred just came in. Blue Kote Wound Care is what that purple stuff is. In case you were wondering what to do next time you’re faced with a bloody cock.

 

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On Tuesday afternoon, Maura’s Mom stopped by to visit her. The visit went well.

THAT’S RIGHT, I SAID “MAURA’S MOM.”

No more details for now, though. I don’t want to jinx the adoption process! More details once she’s gone to her new home (which will be sometime after Sunday), I promise.

 

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Rhyme, having just woken up, isn’t sure who or where he is.

Play time for Corbett and Bolitar.

Tommy was pretending not to notice Rhyme down there, and was twitching his tail juuuuust out of reach. It was driving Rhyme NUTS.

Recycling inspectors, asleep on the job!

Reacher, having gone into the trash searching for a crumpled up piece of tissue or paper towel, comes out disappointed.

 

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Newt, in the Newt Cave. He seems a little concerned that Maura’s going to come along and kick him out, doesn’t he?

 

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Previously
2009: “This will not DO,” she says, tsking, and immediately begins arranging her eggs in the preferred pattern.
2008: I thought you guys would want to know.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: So, Fred has now been officially neutered.
2004: All I have to say about the kayak is this: those fuckers are HARD to get out of!
2003: Except that best laid plans and all that jazz.
2002: I love old houses with deep porches.
2001: No entry.
2000: Even now, Fred and I talk about that, and we refer to it as my “Walking the gauntlet.”