6/8/09

Attention, those of you who own netbooks and love them – tell me what kind you’ve got and whether they’re super-simple to use. I like my laptop, but I really want something smaller. And since I use it solely to check my email and surf the web, I don’t need anything fancy. So what do y’all recommend? The simpler to use, the better!

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You know how it is when you have ten million errands to run, but all you want to do is get home? Friday was like that for me. I left here at a little after 6:30, headed to the pet store to scoop litterboxes, clean cages, and give kittens lots of love.

Bessie was there, but at least she’s not in a cage by herself – she’s now in a cage with two other black kittens, who are around her age. She was happy to see me, happier still to run and play with the other kittens, and when I put her back in her cage with her new siblings, she was happy to eat and flop down for a nap.

I took pictures at the pet store; you can see ’em over here.

From there, I went to Target and shopped for a few things (I’d tell you what, but honest to god, I don’t even remember. I’m sure it was very important.), then left there to go to Sam’s for litter. A LOT of litter. Six 40-pound buckets of litter, to be exact. (Also, toothbrushes and gum.) God bless Sam’s and their 40-pound buckets of litter, is what I say.

Then I drove down University Drive to Garden Cove. Garden Cove is a health food store that I like to visit a few times a year. They have really good produce and I always end up buying some organic animal crackers and other stuff while I’m there. The main point for my visit on Friday was to buy more powdered Slippery Elm bark – I’ve bought it in bulk there before, and it’s very reasonably priced. When I walked in, though, there were no bulk spice bins, and as I wandered through the store, there were empty shelves everywhere. It kind of looked like it was going out of business, and they had no powdered Slippery Elm bark at all. I bought the last bag of animal crackers, and left.

(The powdered Slippery Elm bark was for the foster kittens. You sprinkle it on their food, and it’s supposed to help stop the diarrhea. I’ve been using it on their baby food (they’re also getting Alb0n) and needed to replenish my supply.)

I headed back through Huntsville to Madison, and stopped at the health food store in Madison to see if perhaps they had any powdered Slippery Elm bark. A quick walk through the store told me that even if they did carry it (though I didn’t see it anywhere), it would have been way too expensive for me. That place is EXPENSIVE, but since it’s located in Madison, what did I expect?

From there, I went to have my hair cut. I don’t think I’ve had my hair cut in three or four months. I had canceled my last appointment because Fred and I had to take Spanky to the vet, and then I just kept putting it off. I really like the way my hair chick cuts my hair, but I REALLY hate to have my hair colored. It’s sitting there for so long with the color on my hair that just gets on my nerves and I always dread it. Finally, after months of putting off doing anything about my hair, I came to the brilliant conclusion that I could, indeed, get a cut without having her color my hair.

So I did. And then yesterday, I colored my own hair. And saved about $40 in the process. Go, me!

I left there and went over to Kohl’s to return some jeans and try on more pants. After about an hour of shopping, I ended up buying some jeans and a pair of capris.

From there, I went over to TJ Maxx, browsed for a while, bought nothing.

Went to the bank, cashed a check.

Went to the grocery store, bought groceries.

By the time I got home, it was 12:30. SIX hours after I’d left, and I had a shitload of stuff to haul inside and put away (though I left the buckets of litter for Fred to deal with) and all I wanted to do was eat lunch, spend some time with the kittens, and take a nap. So after I put everything away, I spent some time with the kittens and then? Yes, I took a nap.

Well-deserved, I say.

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Fred has been brushing George and Gracie just about every day. They’re losing their winter coat at an astounding rate, and the fur’s been coming off in fistfuls. There was so much dog hair spread across the back forty that I told him it looked like he’d been slaughtering dogs out there.

He got a brush at the pet store the other day to use in addition to the Furminator, and after he’d brushed George and Gracie with it on Saturday, he came in and proclaimed it the best! brush! ever! (I’m pretty sure it’s this one.) He made me go out to admire how pretty the dogs looked when he was done, and I’ve gotta say – they looked awfully good!

(Which was negated a mere minutes later when they started rolling around in the dirt, of course.)

Gracie found the brush and decided it was hers.

Keeping an eye on the cats. Gracie in the front, George in the back. You can see that he’s huge compared to her (and she’s pretty big to begin with!).

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The pigs are slated to go off to freezer camp in three weeks or so.

“We’re going to CAMP? Oh boy!”

We’re using a new… uh. “Camp counselor,” shall we say, so Saturday morning we drove out to make sure we know where it’s located. We found it easily enough, so then we swung by Lacon Trade Days to see what there was to see. There wasn’t much to see, actually, though it’s probably a miracle that we left without buying any chickens. There were a LOT of chickens there.

Fred bought a $3 pair of gloves, and after one last meandering through the shacks that make up the market, we headed for home. Stopped by Target and PetSmart first – there were groceries I needed to pick up at Target, and then while Fred checked out I embarrassed him by standing off to the side and reading the latest article in US about The Most Evil Woman On Earth, Kate Gosselin (gossip must be slow these days, eh?), and then we finally headed for home, for real.

Fred had just gone out to work in the garden when someone pulled into the driveway and honked his horn. I paid no attention, figuring they wanted to buy eggs, but after Fred had been standing out there talking to a guy for ten minutes, I began to suspect it might be more than that. Sure enough, the guy wanted to buy 10 chickens. Ten! After all these days of having the “Chickens for sale” sign out and no one showing any interest at all, we finally sold some chickens.

Then later that night, he got an email from someone interested in buying another 10 chickens and a rooster. Yesterday, his wife and kids stopped by to see the chickens and leave a check, and next weekend they’ll be picking them up (they’re still building their coop). Twenty chickens sold in the space of two days!

(We sell another 40 or so, and I’ll consider us to be down to a realistic number of chickens for the two of us.)

Later, Lisa – who also volunteers for the shelter I volunteer for – stopped by to see the place and (more importantly, the foster kittens!), and Miz Poo responded by acting like no one had EVER given her love EVER in her life EVER EVER EVER, oh please pet me! Everyone else responded by running for the hills like they were being attacked.

Well, except Joe Bob, who had slipped out of his collar for the millionth time and was hanging out on the side porch – OUTSIDE the fenced back yard, where he is NOT supposed to be – and when I opened the door, he moseyed in like he had every right in the world to be on the side porch.

Damn cat.

Saturday night, we watched He’s Just Not that into You, which I’ve gotta say, I really liked. It probably helps that there was no one in the movie I didn’t like (Fred has a man crush on Bradley Cooper, and who can blame him?) The movie did seem to be a little long, but I’d recommend it.

And on a side note – good god almighty, Ben Affleck has got to have the biggest head in all of Hollywood. I know I mention that just about every time I see him in anything, but it’s true! I have nothing but sympathy for Jennifer Garner, who seems intent on birthing lots of Affleck babies. She’s been lucky so far, but sooner or later one of those babies is going to come out with the Affleck noggin, and things are never going to be the same.

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Brudderly love.

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Sunday morning, I glanced out the window to see Sugarbutt staring intently at something. So I went to investigate.

I don’t know where he came from, but he seemed pretty sure of where he was going. Fred carried him out to the back forty so he wouldn’t have to crawl all the way out there on his own (and probably freak out the dogs along the way). The turtle responded by snapping at him.

That’s gratitude for ya.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Today, no weeding for me.
2006: Apparently I’m high. And in desperate need of makeup.
2005: By this time the investigator’s eyes had glazed over, and he was clearly thinking “This has WHAT to do with reliability?”
2004: When I was on the pier, the bream darted forward to partake of my delicious thighs, and I stomped across the pier as fast as I could, saying “STOP IT, YOU FUCKERS!” and I stomped up the steps to the top part of the pier, and waited for Fred to take his face out of the water.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: But. It. Was. Too. Far. From. Huntsville.
2000: Oh look, it’s Robyn, bitching. How unusual.