You guys are sending good thoughts in Jane‘s direction today, right? 1:30 Central time, whatever you’re doing, drop it, turn in the direction of Kansas, and think about her. If you were to bellow “I’M THINKING OF YOU, JANE!” at the same time, that could only be a good thing. Then get your ass over … Continue reading “5/11/10 – Tuesday”
You guys are sending good thoughts in Jane‘s direction today, right? 1:30 Central time, whatever you’re doing, drop it, turn in the direction of Kansas, and think about her. If you were to bellow “I’M THINKING OF YOU, JANE!” at the same time, that could only be a good thing.
Then get your ass over to Twitter (if you have a Twitter account) and let’s make #janesjugs a trending topic for today. We can doooo eeeet!
1. We were watching Survivor Thursday night, and Fred suddenly paused the show and turned to me, brow furrowed.
“You know what I don’t get?” he said seriously.
“What’s that?” I said, expecting him to come up with some sort of wisdom about the show.
“Picasso’s Cubist paintings.”
I started laughing.
“Seriously, one of his paintings just sold for $106 million. Some fucked-up naked, floppy-necked woman.”
I continued laughing.
“It’s so UGLY. Have you ever seen the stuff he painted before he went Cubist? He could really PAINT. But he wasn’t challenged by painting real paintings, so he started up with that ugly Cubist shit.”
2. We were driving into Huntsville, listening to Bob and Sheri on the radio.
“They’re about to come out with a double-K bra,” Sheri said.
Sheri and Bob talked about that for a few minutes, how it was amazing that there was enough of a demand for a KK-sized bra and how huge that must be. I wasn’t really paying attention until Fred burst out laughing.
“They’re talking about a double-K sized BRA!” he said.
“Yeah…?”
“I thought they were talking about a SANDWICH!”
“What….?” I started laughing.
“It sounds like some kind of Hawaiian burger from Burger King.”
As it turns out, he heard “bra” and thought they meant “bra” in the sense that Dog the Bounty Hunter (and surfers and snowboarders) use “bra”, to be synonymous with “bro”, and that it was some sort of Hawaiian sandwich from Burger King along the lines of KFC’s Double-Down.
3. In the grocery store, walking down the aisle, he stopped and grinned.
“What?” I said.
He pointed. “That would be an excellent name for a porn movie.”
Indeed.
4. Every time we watch Survivor, and it’s about time for a challenge, as they begin the scene by showing an aerial view of the challenge course, Fred calls out “Come on in, guys!” moments before Jeff Probst does the same.
Last night, Newt and Maxi were sitting out on the side stoop and Fred opened the door, waved one arm in the air and called “Come on in, guys!”, then acted like he didn’t know why I was laughing.
Okay, we’re dorks – but it’s never boring around here, I can tell you that.
I’m messing around with my hormone replacement therapy again because I like to fiddle with shit and make life difficult for myself and those around me, for one, and because I packed on seven pounds in the course of about two weeks without changing my eating habits in the slightest, and that shit isn’t going to fly. I decided it was a possibility that my estrogen level was too high (sign of estrogen level too high: weight gain. Sign of estrogen level too low: weight gain. SIGH.), so last Monday I cut my estrogen patch in half.
As the week progressed, I got a tad, SHALL WE SAY, edgy.
Last night, Fred suggested we watch TV, so we headed toward that end of the house.
“Did I see the help wanted ads open on your monitor?” he asked.
“YES,” I snapped. “I’M APPLYING FOR JOBS, I SAID I WAS GOING TO APPLY FOR JOBS, DO YOU THINK I’M NOT APPLYING FOR JOBS?!”
“I was just ASKING,” he said, looking amused. “I saw an ad for a receptionist on your monitor, I didn’t know if you were applying for it or what.”
“Well, you can tell YOUR FATHER that I’ve sent out like twenty resumes, so next time he says ‘Is Robyn bothering to APPLY for jobs, or is she just sitting on her dead ass contributing NOTHING AT ALL, AS USUAL?’, you can TELL HIM I’ve been sending out resumes!”
Fred laughed. “You’re reading an awful lot into him asking if you were applying for jobs.”
“BECAUSE HE THINKS I CONTRIBUTE NOTHING.”
“He’s never said that -”
“HE DOESN’T HAVE TO!”
” – and even if that’s what he thinks, who gives a shit?”
“Shut up and go get me some Tylenol. I have a headache.”
Maxi, in her bed on Fred’s desk. When she’s in the house, 99% of the time she’s in her bed. (The other 1% of the time is divided between eating and growling/ hissing/ smacking any kittens who look in her general direction.)
Previously 2009: Blessed are the pure in het, for they shall see Dog.
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…
* =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * After Friday’s entry, when I said that it was embarrassing that we’d had that damn Amish pantry for a year and it was STILL out in the garage, I decided it was time to get our asses in … Continue reading “5/10/10 – Monday”
After Friday’s entry, when I said that it was embarrassing that we’d had that damn Amish pantry for a year and it was STILL out in the garage, I decided it was time to get our asses in gear. Fred wanted to wait ’til Saturday to try moving it, but Jean had offered to help us get it inside, so I figured if we tried it on our own and couldn’t get it moved, maybe we could beg her to come out over the weekend to help.
That pantry is heavy as hell, but we were able to get it out of the garage onto the back of the truck, then drove the truck into the back yard, unloaded it onto the walkway, got it on the dolly, and then Fred pulled and I pushed, and we got the pantry up the steps into the laundry room. It had to rest there while we moved the bookcase that was in the spot where the pantry was going, and holy COW was there a lot of dust and crap behind that bookcase. I vacuumed, then I sprayed the wall and floor and scrubbed ’em down, and then we got the pantry in place, and I spent the next few hours organizing my kitchen. I did more organizing on Saturday, and while the kitchen isn’t quite yet organized the way I want it to be, it’s almost there.
Of course, the DOORS aren’t on it yet (they still need a coat of polyurethane), but when they are, it’ll look awesome.
We watched Every Which Way But Loose over the weekend (Fred seems to be on a Clint Eastwood kick at the moment). Or to be more accurate, he watched it while I snoozed through most of it.
I actually laughed at several parts of the movie, but my favorite sections were when Ruth Gordon was on, of course.
Saturday morning, knowing that Maura’s new mom was going to be arriving any time, I let Maura out of her room where she’d been sequestered for the week. She immediately came downstairs, hung out in the chair in the computer room, sat on the dryer and looked out the window, and when her mom arrived, she was rolling around on the rug in the kitchen.
This is where, since Maura is now safely ensconced in her new home, I can tell you who her new mom is – Kathy, in Birmingham! Kathy says things are going well, Maura is happy in her new home, and she’s a snuggle bug.
I just love the fact that Maura has a home, that it’s a home with people I can harass for updates on her, and she’ll never have to sit in a cage at the adoption center. It’s no secret that black cats often wait a long time before they’re adopted, and I didn’t want Maura to have to go through that (well, I never want ANY of my fosters to go through that, of course).
Now that Maura is gone, we’re down to just our eleven, plus four fosters. Why, it’s like we hardly have any cats in the house at all!
Except for times like right now, when all four of the fosters are supercharged with energy and flying around like their butts are on fire. They love ALL toys, but they especially adore crumpled up balls of tinfoil. Bolitar carries one around in his mouth and growls at any other cat who comes near. With the money I spend on cat toys, their favorite toys are the tinfoil balls, the milk jug rings, and boxes. Why do I bother buying cat toys, again? (Oh, right. It’s an illness!)
Corbett, considering.
They certainly make themselves at home, don’t they?
“Here is the snacks, lady. Did you forget where they are?”
I’ve been giving the Bookworms a morning and evening “snack” of canned cat food. I decided yesterday to cut out the morning snack. That went into effect this morning, and boy were they confused. They came upstairs after I got out of the shower, like they do every morning, and they escorted me down the stairs to the guest bedroom, like they do every morning. I scooped the litter box like I do every morning, and then I walked out of the room without giving them a snack. You could practically see the question marks over their little heads, like “THAT’s not right!” They followed me around and mewed and chirruped and rubbed up against me, then I threw toys for them, and they were distracted just long enough to forget that they hadn’t had their morning snack and were starving to death.
Newt, keeping an eye on the chickens. Those two are Sassy and Sissy McGee, our two free-range chickens. They fly out of the chicken yard every morning to wander around our property, and then fly back into the chicken yard at night time. If they were prone to wander beyond our property, we’d clip their wings so they couldn’t get over the fence, but they don’t, so we don’t. (And I really like seeing them wander around, scratching and pecking.)
Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry. 2007: I call you people SKIMMERS, because we have SOLD the house, fools. 2006: I NEED MY VEGGING TIME, PEOPLE! 2005: We call him… FANG! 2004: Who has more fun that me, kids? That’s right, NO ONE!
2003: No entry. 2002: I think I’ll call him Fredriq, and make him talk in a French accent and squeal with excitement while he’s doing it. 2001: Your shoes are not lined up exactly, and what’s this?? A PIECE OF GRASS ON THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SHOE??? TO THE DUNGEON WITH YOU!” 2000: Exhausting!
* =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * From Michelle: While I don’t live in Nashville proper, I do live about an hour north, right along the KY border, and I work in Nashville. It’s been absolutely crazy around here since Saturday morning, and most of … Continue reading “5/7/10 – Friday”
While I don’t live in Nashville proper, I do live about an hour north, right along the KY border, and I work in Nashville. It’s been absolutely crazy around here since Saturday morning, and most of us around here who weren’t directly affected have watched in disbelief. And it’s not just Nashville…there are people in the surrounding counties who have been cut off for days with no phone, water, or food who are STILL being rescued by boat.
My home wasn’t flooded, but we did wind up with a very bad leak in a back room & we were pretty much stranded until middle of the day Monday with numerous road closures & flooded areas all around us. Our town is on top of a hill, and it rained so much, so fast, that they were having to do boat rescues in my town. We’ve always joked that if we were flooded, that means everyone else around us would be gone, so that really hit home for me.
One of the hardest things to watch are the families forced to leave there pets behind or refusing to leave because the shelters wouldn’t accept pets. Once again, I fortunately did not have to evacuate, but the thought of being displaced with 12 cats & 2 dogs (or worse, having to leave them behind) absolutely terrifies me, & seeing those people struggling with such a heartbreaking decision with only moments to make a decision really hit home for me.
Since tomorrow is the question answering extravaganza, my question for you is what happens if the kittens continue to test positive for that FLV is it?
It’s FIV (FIV = feline version of HIV. FeLV = Feline Leukemia.) If the kittens continue to test positive for FIV, well, I’m pretty sure (without directly asking, because ignorance is bliss) that the shelter policy is to euthanize FIV positive cats. However, FIV doesn’t transmit from cat to cat as easily as Feline Leukemia, and cats who are FIV positive can live long and healthy lives. Should they turn out to be truly FIV positive, we’ll keep them here until we can find permanent homes for them. If worse came to worst, we’ll keep them permanently, although please note that AS MUCH AS I LOVE THESE KITTENS, I DO NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN (see: husband, unemployed), so y’all just pause for a moment and send happy thoughts in this general direction, would you?
For those of you who don’t know, the combo test that the kittens were given tests for FIV antibodies. Since their mother was FIV positive, she passed those antibodies on to the kittens through her milk. As they get older, they’ll hopefully shed the antibodies and a retest will show that they’re negative.
(Note: if someone knows their stuff better than I do and I’ve got some part of it incorrect, feel free to correct me!)
It seems to me that you could freeze all your summer fruits in the summer and fall and then make your jam in the winter months.
That’s the plan – we’re hoping that this year we’ll actually get some fruit! Last year, we had a thaw in January, which convinced all the fruit trees that it was bloomin’ time, and once they’d bloomed, Mother Nature came along with a cold snap, and as a result we ended up with perhaps a handful of peaches. Mother Nature is a beotch. This year seems to be going better, so we’ll see – it would be very neat to make peach-habanero jam with our own peaches!
Robyn, I am not a cat person at all. I’m allergic and most cats annoy me.
That said, for some reason I am ass-over-teakettle for Reacher. I’m gonna come over and steal him in the middle of the night, okay? Thanks.
and (from someone else altogether)
Man, Corbett is one cutie-pie isn’t he?
Oh, they’re all seriously cute. One moment I think I’m in love with Corbett, and then Bolitar comes along and purrs up at me. Then Rhyme grabs my foot and chirps at me, and I’m all “I love youuuuuu!”, and then Reacher saunters along and complains about something. They’re going to kill me with the cute, is what I’m sayin’.
I thought of this question yesterday when all the storms were going through the south. Do you guys have a tornado shelter, or a basement to take cover when the big storms are threatening?
We do NOT, can you believe that? And in fact, we don’t agree on where the safest place in the house is when the weather is bad (Fred thinks the downstairs hallway – I think under the stairs). I’m hoping that we’ll eventually be able to get a tornado shelter put in, but if a tornado drops out of the sky in the back forty and heads for the house, we’re screwed!
Laundry. I assume that you still hang it out to dry, and my question is this. Do you hang your towels out to dry, and if so, how do you keep them from being stiff. The only towel of mine that doesn’t get stiff is a $20 towel that my motherinlaw bought. I’m not gonna go out and buy 10 $20 towels! 🙂
The only things I don’t hang out to dry are cat beds (the dryer is better at getting the cat hair off the beds than a breeze would be), and cleaning rags/ dish cloths, because the dryer takes care of the lint that tends to stick to the cleaning cloths. I use white vinegar as a fabric softener, and it seems to help make the towels not quite so stiff, but they’re still a little stiff. I actually don’t mind a stiff towel (pardon me while I snicker like a 13 year-old boy), and hanging them out to dry seems to make them more absorbent than drying them in the dryer (I could be wrong about that, but they certainly SEEM more absorbent).
I use to work at a bank as a teller and your story was hysterical! It was even better when you got to the dye pack and setting off the alarm! Did the cops show up? I’m also surprised that you were able to get into the vault at an off banking day/hour. Ours would only open M-F and only between certain times.
We had to go to a training seminar given by the FBI on bank robberies. As one of the FBI agents was on stage talking all of the sudden some guy comes flying through the auditorium, waving around a gun (fake, I think?) and a cloth bag screaming “This is a robbery, etc.” As soon as he exited the room the guy on stage told us to write down everything we remembered about the guy. I always thought I was quite observant, but when they brought the guy back on stage I learned maybenotsomuch!
The police didn’t show up – I guess because the teller at least knew not to hit the silent alarm! (That damn silent alarm, I was always TERRIFIED I’d accidentally hit the damn thing.)
When I was going through training to be a teller, I had to go to classes in Augusta for a week. One day was devoted to what to do if the bank was robbed. The lady running the class had us all turn around so our backs were to each other, then she went around and had each of us randomly describe one of the other tellers in training.
Well OF COURSE she gave me the name of the one woman in the class who was of undetermined race – I believe she was part African American, part Caucasian, but didn’t know for sure and didn’t want to offend her – and I did NOT KNOW how to describe her skin color, so I said NOTHING about it at all. She also had this HUGE pair of fluorescent green earrings on that I hadn’t noticed at all. Luckily we weren’t being graded on our descriptions of each other, because the woman who had to describe me somehow failed to mention that I weighed in the neighborhood of 300 pounds, so I guess it was all good.
Do yours do this? When our three furry fools get a treat to eat, one of them plays ‘guard cat’ and sits at the cat flap and watches through the door whilst the other 2 fill their faces. When one has finished, they swap round. It’s remarkably democratic and v. funny to watch. Anyone else have a catty co-operation story?
I so wish I had cats who would look out for each other, but NAY. My cats would cut each other to get to the good Snackin’! before anyone else.
Meant to ask… is the Amish pantry finished or did I miss it? Last I heard it was still waiting to be oiled or stained or something?
The Amish pantry – which can be seen in this entry FROM A YEAR AGO – is finished, and it is residing in the motherfucking GARAGE because we have not yet tried to get it inside. I’ve been harassing Fred about it this week (I’m sorry, how embarrassing is it that the goddamn thing has been hulking out there in the middle of MY SIDE of the garage for a YEAR?), and I think the plan is to try to get it inside later today. If you don’t hear from me again, it’s likely because I tripped over something while trying to carry it into the house, and was immediately crushed by the goddamn thing.
Last time I went grocery shopping, I found myself faced with a similar puzzle: Was brand A really cheaper than brand b? I don’t even remember what is was, but I know I thought of you and I didn’t get any smarter, but I felt better. Love ya!
Did you say to yourself “I am clearly having a Robyn Anderson moment, and should ask for professional help in figuring this out.”? 🙂
Does anyone have a problem with clumping litter sticking to cat’s paws and being tracked ALL over the house? Or could it just be the brands I have purchased?
How old are the cats who are doing the tracking? I ask because my adult cats don’t generally tromp through their pee clumps, but kittens always always always do until they’re about 8 weeks old. (Also, they tromp through their poo, which is especially fun when they’re suffering from diarrhea.) It could be the brand of litter, though.
Readers? Anyone else have this issue and/ or words of advice?
Regarding the bagel pricing…for Buy 1 Get 1 sales, some stores will just charge half price for each package, but other stores will charge full price for the first package and the second package rings up as free (this is what my stores in the Northeast do). Thus if you were only buying one package you may have been charged $2.59. You may have, in fact, saved yourself that $0.09.
What I would have done, though, would be buy two on B1G1 sale, then popped the second bag in the freezer. If you’re going to be toasting them, you can’t tell the difference.
What I love about Publix is that if they have stuff that’s Buy 1 Get 1, each item is half price. But you’re right – I should have just stocked up and frozen the extras. I did that today with english muffins.
The Gulf oil spill news is terrible too. At least the cement box is supposed to be tried today, hope it works. I found a really good video of the oil spill made by a couple nature conservation pilots yesterday. If you have time to watch it (not long), I think it’s one of the best flyovers of the oil spill I’ve seen.
That is just incredible and horrifying. Thanks, Cara!
Seriously , you take the best kitty pictures ever. Have you thought of doing it as a side business? I am not joking. You seem to be able to capture just the perfect moment and that, my dear, is a gift.
Awww, you’re too kind! I haven’t thought of doing it as a side business, because I’m not so sure I’d be any good at photographing others’ cats. The only reason I’m able to get such good shots of my own cats and fosters is because they’re always right there for me to get a picture of. And I’m not kidding when I say that of every picture I share, I probably toss at least three!
Previously 2009: If you ever thought of mother chickens as being sweet and maternal, get that thought right out of your head! 2008: I choose to believe it recovered and took flight. 2007: “GodDAMN I’m good-looking. Why am I taking orders from this old hag? Am I making enough money to put up with this over-polite shit*? I think NOT. GodDAMN I’m good-looking.”
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry. 2004: Questions answered, and a meme. 2003: Once again, pot-kettle-black. 2002: You can imagine the temper tantrum that followed. 2001: I would have preferred a candy bar, but unfortunately, we don’t got none o’ them ’round these parts.
2000: No entry.
Okay, Bitchypoo now has a mirror site. Those of you who can’t access this site at work due to the domain name, give this one a try. Alls I’m going to do is cut and paste the entries from here over there. If it’s the language on this site that’s got the Nazis at work … Continue reading “5/6/10 – Thursday”
Okay, Bitchypoo now has a mirror site. Those of you who can’t access this site at work due to the domain name, give this one a try.
Alls I’m going to do is cut and paste the entries from here over there. If it’s the language on this site that’s got the Nazis at work blocking it, you’re going to be shit out of luck. But if it’s only the domain name, you should be good to go!
There’s a permanent link over there in the right-hand sidebar, under “journal.” Not that I expect you’ll remember that, and you’ll slowly drive me crazy by doing constant searches on “other site” and “stupid fatheaded kittens” and “robyn, WHERE THE FUCK is the site without the bad domain name?” and such.
Fred and I were watching some of the footage of the flood in Nashville. It’s just unreal to see the Opry House under water like that, and the Opryland hotel. I read yesterday that there were piranhas swimming around in the water of the Opry Mills shopping center, and suggested to Fred that we take a drive up to Nashville to check it out. I can think of a few people who could use an accidental bump into the piranha-infested waters. (Turns out, the piranha escape was just a rumor)
In any case, Nashvillans, we’re thinking of you. Hope you’re staying safe and dry!
We’ve had a week of THE most gorgeous weather. Warm and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. A good week for doing laundry, so I’ve been doing laundry all week and hanging it out to dry. I love the smell of line-dried laundry.
What else have I been doing, what with the warm weather outside making it hot inside?
Making it even hotter, of course.
Tuesday night, I was poking around in the freezer looking for frozen strawberries so I could make some strawberry jam (not strawberry-habanero, just plain strawberry), and what did I find? A big ol’ bag of frozen habaneros! And not half an hour later I got an email from someone looking to buy peach-habanero jam and a bottle of hot sauce.
So Tuesday night I made a batch of the ugliest strawberry jam you’ve ever seen. That stuff was seriously foamy, and don’t worry – I’m not selling it, it’s all for us to use. (9 jars of strawberry jam should last the two of us about a year!)
Then Wednesday morning I got up and made a batch of peach-habanero jam, so I could get the order in the mail before the post office closed. And I did.
Jam-making sure makes for a hot kitchen, though, even though the ceiling fan was going the entire time. Add to that the fact that I was slow-roasting a turkey for dinner, and it was like a sauna in there.
At least it smelled good!
(If you were looking for more habanero jam or hot sauce, it might be time to stock up!)
I know I’ve been sorely lacking in Maura pictures this week. She’s doing well, being medicated every day, and just kind of waiting ’til this weekend, when her momma brings her home. Which will be Saturday!
Patiently waiting.
She’s such a sweet girl. I know I’ve only mentioned that a million times!
Previously 2009: We laughed ourselves stupid. 2008: I ran after him screaming “NOT IN THE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUSE!”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry. 2005: Hoverers make me want to just get the hell out of that store as soon as humanly possible. 2004: I think it’s a boy, though. 2003: He’s his usual Fancy self. 2002: “I can’t believe you let me go out in public like this!” I yelled at Fred.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
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! * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * While you’re gettin’, get thee over to Ms. Darkstar’s and enter her giveaway! … Continue reading “5/4/10 – Tuesday”
So, remember how last week I mentioned that I used to work at a bank, and so should have known that the dye packs they use with the decoy pack of money are red dye and not purple?
I’m sure I’ve never told y’all the story of how one morning we were all required to come in extra early. Actually, now that I think about it, I wasn’t even scheduled to work that day, because I brought the spud (who was about 2 1/2 years old) with me. The plan was that we were going to go through a fake robbery step by step. One of the other non-teller employees was going to pretend to pass one of the tellers a note, the teller would obediently pass the “robber” the money from her drawer, then she’d “alert” the rest of us, and we’d each do the job assigned to us.
For instance, my job was to call the police, alert them that a robbery had taken place, and then there was a list of things I needed to tell the police dispatcher, and luckily said list was stored right by the phone.
So we were all at our stations, counting our drawers as though we were just about to open for real. We were all on high alert, waiting for the “robber” to come in and go through the motions of “robbing” the bank. Then all of a sudden, the “robber” appeared from out of nowhere, and I’ll be goddamned if she didn’t have a GUN, and she was waving it around while she passed her “Give me all your money or die” note to the teller. I did what I always do in an emergency: I froze in terror.
Thankfully, it was another teller, NOT ME, who was responsible for emptying her drawer into the pillow case, because if she’d waved that gun at me, I would have shit, gone blind, and then passed out in one smooth motion. As it was, all I could do was sit there and gape in horror. The robber turned and tossed the bag of cash into the vestibule between the front door and the lobby door, and then went to her desk to observe how the rest of us did at our jobs.
I went to the phone, pretended to dial 911, and then went down the list of stuff I was supposed to tell the dispatcher. As I did, the bank assistant manager (maybe she was the loan officer, I don’t actually remember at the moment) came along and gave me a look like I was an idiot.
“YOU DIDN’T REALLY CALL THE POLICE, DID YOU?” she said.
“NO, I’m not an idiot,” I said.
“Okay, then,” she said, and kept going.
I don’t for the life of me remember what jobs the other tellers were assigned, but they were diligently performing their tasks. A minute later, as I stood there talking to a dial tone, the assistant manager/ loan officer said in a horrified voice to the teller who’d been “robbed”, “YOU DIDN’T PUT THE DYE PACK IN WITH THE MONEY, DID YOU?!”
Well, she did. Because we were supposed to act like this was a real robbery, see? And if you’re a bank teller and you’re being robbed, you put the damn decoy stack in along with the rest of the money. And no one had explicitly said to her, “Don’t put the dye pack in with the rest of the money. Just PRETEND to.”
Guess where the sensor that set off the timer in the dye pack was located?
In the doorway between the vestibule and the lobby.
Guess what happened?
That fucking dye pack WENT OFF, and not only is there dye in that pack, there’s also tear gas. We kept going, trying to finish up the whole post-robbery “process”, coughing and rubbing our eyes as the gas filled the lobby, but it wasn’t long before the bank manager told us to lock our cash drawers and vacate the bank.
Did I mention that I had the spud with me?
So we stood out in the parking lot, and finally the bank manager told me I could put my cash drawer in the vault and vamoose, and I did.
I don’t remember what kind of trouble the bank manager got into for the whole thing, but I’m sure there was SOME kind of trouble because in retrospect I’m thinking we could have gone through the fake-bank robbery thing without actually involving (1) real cash, and (2) A FUCKING GUN.
The best part is that the spud was there in the lobby watching the whole thing, and she SAW the fucking gun. The gun-waving employee’s name was Mickey. The spud, being 2 1/2 years old, immediately started calling her “Mickey Mouse,” and for the next two weeks the spud would say at random times, “Mick’ Mouse had a gun!”
Over the weekend, poor Maura developed diarrhea. Ten seconds after the vet’s office opened, I was calling to make an appointment for her. And since I was going anyway, I piggybacked the Bookworms onto the vet visit so that they could be Combo tested. I was completely certain that they’d come up negative and could be neutered and ready to go to the adoption center by the end of the week.
Maura’s on medication for her diarrhea… and the Bookworms came up positive for FIV.
AGGGH.
I was so sure that they’d test negative that I was already missing them! But they’ll be around for another couple of months at the very least. I’ll take them back at the beginning of July for retesting, and hopefully they’ll be negative.
(For those of you who weren’t reading back then, the Bookworms’ siblings, the Wonkas, initially tested FIV positive and then were negative on the retest two months later.)
On the ride to the vet, Maura settled down and napped – she did not make one single peep of complaint, I swear she’s the most laid-back cat on earth – and the Bookworms howled and yelled and did their best to dig their way out of their carriers. I was about two minutes from the vet’s office when I thought “Huh. I swear I smell food. Maybe it was that restaurant I just passed…” Only, the smell of food didn’t go away, and I found out when I reached the vet’s office that there was vomit in BOTH of the carriers containing Bookworms. And Reacher had apparently gone swimming through it.
Of course, this was the ONE TIME I left the house without my bag of cleaning rags in case of emergency. Luckily, they deal with that stuff all the time at the vet’s (probably after all the nasty stuff they have to deal with on a daily basis, kitten vomit is like roses to them), and got ’em cleaned up and tested.
So anyway, yeah. They’re positive. But I don’t believe they’re truly positive, I’m sure they’ll come up negative on the retest. And Maura is sequestered back in the foster room, being medicated twice a day, and lolling around like she just don’t care.
Reacher, flopped across Jake like he’s a great big body pillow.
Reacher and Corbett, curled up sound asleep in the recycling bin.
Please note Jake’s foot on the back of Corbett’s neck.
Previously 2009: 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?
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.
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 … Continue reading “5/3/10 – Monday”
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!
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?
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! * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * My friend Sue and her daughter Holly volunteered at a Soft Power Education … Continue reading “4/30/10 – Friday”
My friend Sue and her daughter Holly volunteered at a Soft Power Education school in Uganda last summer. They were overwhelmed by the need, and Holly has made a real effort to supply books for their newly formed library.
Holly has now entered a contest on “What am I doing to change the world” through Red Rose tea. The winner will be given a seven-day, all expenses-paid trip for two to live and work in Africa on a ONEXONE partner project.
There is a limit of one (1) entry per person/email address permitted during the Contest Period, so she’ll need support from as many people as possible. A confirmation message will be sent to your email, and you have to click on the link to make your vote count (check your junk mail folder).
Read her entry at this site, and if you are willing, vote for her. Should she win, she and and her fiance Alan would do this volunteer work this summer as part of their honeymoon. Thanks, friends, And cross your fingers.
(From Aimee): I don’t get coupons either. I subbed to a few coupon blogs a while back and I almost never see anything we’d actually use. Lots of processed foods and cleaning/hygiene products. I save money by not using paper towels for anything except cat barf- I use maybe a roll every 4-6 weeks and probably only that much because I have an elderly cat who pukes a lot. I also don’t use commercial cleaners at all anymore. I have two spray bottles, one that is 50/50 vinegar/water and one 20/80 Dr. Bronner’s/water (or something like that, I just squirt some soap in the bottle until I think “that’s enough now!” and then add the rest water). I clean everything with those. Sometimes I sprinkle a little baking soda for scouring. Besides things to clean US, the only commercial cleaning products I still buy are dish soap and laundry soap. The laundry soap is the pain for me. I tried making my own for a while, but I don’t have a good place to keep it in my stupid apartment and I didn’t actually like it very much. My kid and her dad have super sensitive skin, so I always have to buy the “free” or “natural” kinds.
I have my own favorite cleaning spray (that I make myself), but what I find is that in moments of weakness I buy other cleaning stuff, and then it just sits on the shelf and mocks me until I use it. Ugh. My goal for the rest of this year: to not buy any more cleaning products!
We use way too many paper towels – I’m trying to cut down on the amount of paper towels we go through, and I’ve been slightly successful. On the other hand, with 11 cats plus a varying number of fosters, there’s ALWAYS something nasty to clean up, so we’ll probably never get rid of paper towels altogether. (Used paper towels do go out to the compost heap, at least.)
I’ve actually stopped making my own laundry soap. I liked it well enough at first, but after a while, there was build-up on the towels and cleaning cloths so that they weren’t absorbing, and it got annoying, so I’ve gone back to the commercial products. Which I get on sale, and preferably use a coupon for!
Ok, this may be a dumb question, and it may have been previously addressed, but is it a rule that the piggies have to be purchased in pairs? You can’t just get one? Just curious!
I don’t think anyone else has ever asked this one before, actually (and if they did, I don’t recall). The conventional wisdom is that when you have one pig, they tend not to grow as quickly, because there isn’t that concern that the other pig is going to get all the food. When there are two (or more), they get into the “MUST EAT THIS FOOD BEFORE THE OTHER PIG GETS IT ALL”, and thus grow more quickly.
Talking of anal glands – lovely. Our male cat Fred is 12 and weighs 7.5kg (16.5lbs) – he’s just getting over having an abcess in one gland. It burst. It wasn’t pleasant. 2 weeks of antibiotics and pain relief and the ignominy of having his butt washed daily did not make a happy kitty. Not to mention the hole the size of a dime in his rear. I was wondering, are these prominent in ‘chunkier’ cats?
Good question! I know that our only cat who had an anal gland issue in the past was Tubby, who was a great big chunky chunk of a cat. Miz Poo also had an issue a few years ago with an anal gland adenoma (a cyst near the base of her tail burst, and it turned out to be an anal gland adenoma. The vet said that it could turn into a chronic condition, but we haven’t had any more issues yet), and she’s a bit of a chunk herself. On the other hand, as far as I know, Tommy’s anal glands are just fine, and he’s a big ol’ meaty chunk of a mancat, so who knows?
Do George & Gracie go nuts when they see the cats outside? What are the cats reaction to G&G? Also, have you ever had hate mail from someone who thought you were breeding kittens?
George and Gracie usually don’t notice the cats, but every once in a while Tommy or Maxi will run across the back yard and catch their eye, and they’ll bark and whine at them. They don’t lose their minds, though, thank god (how much would it suck if they went off every time they caught sight of a cat!).
The cats seem pretty unimpressed by the dogs, and for the most part don’t notice them, even when they’re barking at something. They must have realized pretty quickly that the dogs are behind a fence and can’t do anything to them.
I’ve never had hate mail from someone who thought I was breeding kittens, thank god, but of course now that I’ve said that, the timer’s ticking and I’ll probably get one before the weekend is out!
I had a dream last night that was a Bitchypoo/Pioneer Woman cross. In it you were taking pictures of the herd of cats as they milled around waiting for the feed truck to drop off fixings for Snackin’ Time. My head is SUCH a strange place to live.
I’m somehow enthralled by the idea of having to take a truck of cat food out at Snackin’ Time and drop it off for herds of cats. I’m sure it would get old pretty quickly, but still. It sounds like it’d be fun!
How is Miz Poo doing these days? She looks real tired in pictures. How old is she now? ‘Enquiring’ minds want to know.
I did my best to get a good interview with Miz Poo. I had it all planned out in my head, where I’d ask her a question, and she’d do her patented Poo chirrup, and it would be adorable. It didn’t quite work out, but here it is anyway!
She’s doing well – her only health issue at the moment is the constant grooming of her stomach, which is resulting in a bare tummy. For a while, we were keeping her doped up on elavil, because it was stopping her from the grooming. But we felt bad about that – when she’s on the elavil, she’s a bit of a zombie (even on a quarter dose) – so took her off it. If the grooming gets to be too bad, we’ll put her back on it.
She’s ten years old now – she’ll be eleven in September!
When you said “Maura’s mom”, I thought you meant her biological mom and that perhaps you were adopting her. Then I was thinking, “But how would they have been able to track down Maura’s mom and how would they know it was really her mom?”. And I’m not even blonde…
You’re not alone – apparently a large number of you guys thought I meant Maura’s biological mom. I guess I should have said her NEW Mom!
Secondly, I must insist that you quit throwing perfectly good kittens in the trash!
They throw themselves in the trash! I’ve got nothing to do with it, I’m just documenting it! I wish my TRASH would throw itself in the trash as well as the kittens do!
If you have a Kroger near you, they have had Petpride scoopable cat litter in the 40lb. box on sale for something like $7.09 for weeks now. I love it and I have tried the rest and I really think this clumps the best. I have 4 cats and I am TERRIBLE about scooping and cleaning the box and the smell is fine for days… yes days, shut up I said I was bad!
I picked up a box of the Pet Pride litter on your say-so, Christine. I hope like hell it’s as good as you say – even at the regular price (just under $10), that’s a better price than the buckets of Fresh Step I’ve been getting at Sam’s.
Speaking of litter, I have to say that for the past few years, I’ve been buying Fresh Step litter at Sam’s because it was cheaper than Arm & Hammer. I thought that Arm & Hammer was the better litter, though. I remembered it as being litter that clumped harder than the Fresh Step and kept the smell down better. Well, a few weeks ago I got several boxes of Arm & Hammer on sale and had coupons, and I’m here to tell you that the Fresh Step is far better than the Arm & Hammer. The Arm & Hammer clumps okay, but not any better than the Fresh Step did. But as far as being better about keeping down the smell? No. When I walk into my bathroom, it SMELLS like litter boxes in there, whereas with the Fresh Step, it never did. UGH.
Ok, this is really bad and I am ashamed to admit it but I seriously still don’t get the bagel pricing thing. I have a fairly recently MBA too (shameful part) but they didn’t cover grocery pricing in my MBA! I can do derivatives though!
Several of y’all had a problem with this, which makes me think I wasn’t terribly clear in the storytelling. Tell me if this makes more sense:
I went into the store with the intention of buying Bagel Brand A because they were buy one, get one free (with a usual price of $2.59 per pack). This means that one pack of Bagel A would have cost half of $2.59. In other words, they would have cost $2.59/2 = $1.30 (rounding up).
Bagel Brand B was $2.50 per pack.
So instead of paying $1.30 for one pack of bagels (Brand A), I paid $2.50 for one pack of bagels (Brand B), because I confused myself. Had Bagel Brand A been the usual price, THEN I would have saved 9 cents. Instead, I paid $1.20 more by buying one pack of Bagel Brand B rather than one pack of (on sale) Bagel Brand A.
Please note that that’s Maura on the right, Jake on the left, and Miz Poo sniffing Jake’s tail. And NO ONE is hissing or smacking or even growling. It’s a miracle!
Maura, staring out the window at a bird.
We’ve given Maura the run of the house 24/7, and it’s going pretty well. Until last night, we were putting her in the foster room overnight, just to prevent any middle of the night hissing and smacking matches. But she’s been getting along so well with the other cats that we left her out last night, and all was perfectly fine. Have I mentioned what a sweet girl she is? (Only a thousand times!)
Previously 2009: “THTOP calling her a bad mother! She is a good mother! I luff her!” 2008: It smelled like evil. 2007: I think you can imagine our happiness.
2006: No entry. 2005: Always/ Sometimes/ Never 2004: Erin should be more concerned with the fact that he’s been killing people and burying them in the back yard and less with his lying. 2003: I believe there’s a seat in the ass-singe section with my name on it. 2002: Sucks to be her. 2001: “Fuuuuuuuuck,” he said. 2000: Don’t come back here looking for no entry, my friends.
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?) * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * =^..^= * … Continue reading “4/29/10 – Thursday”
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.
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.
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.”
Thanks, you guys, for your frugal site suggestions. I love it that there are so many blogs and forums out there devoted to saving money. Like a couple of you mentioned, I’m really most interested in saving money on the cleaning and paper products that I use regularly – and if I can save a … Continue reading “4/27/10 – Tuesday”
Thanks, you guys, for your frugal site suggestions. I love it that there are so many blogs and forums out there devoted to saving money. Like a couple of you mentioned, I’m really most interested in saving money on the cleaning and paper products that I use regularly – and if I can save a few bucks on decent litter, I am THERE.
I’m in the process of updating my links page, but it’ll be a while (I’m trying to convince Fred to write me a simple little links organizer that will sit on our server – along the lines of Blogrolling.com, but it would pull from our own server instead of from Blogrolling’s). Once it’s updated, though, I’ll have a little section of just the money-saving blogs/ forums so y’all can check ’em out, too!
Tell me, sweet darling readers, if this makes sense to you. You and your husband or significant other get into the car to drive to town to, for instance, take the recycling back to the recycling center. As you are on your way to the recycling center, you both decide to swing by the grocery store because Diet Pepsi is on sale, buy one get one free (which adds up to 75 cents per bottle, and that is an EXCELLENT FREAKIN’ PRICE). You drop your stuff off at the recycling center, go to the grocery store, and you realize something.
“Hey,” you say to your husband or significant other. “Since the pet store is right here, I’m going to run over and check on their price on that cat food I was looking at.”
And he gives you the look. He doesn’t say anything, but you KNOW he’s thinking “Every time we go out to do an errand, she has to ADD ERRANDS on to what we’re doing!”
Seriously. If we’re out doing errands, and I think of another errand that needs to be done, what does it hurt if we do that additional errand? Would it make sense to ONLY do the errands we set out to do, come home, and then go out at a later time to get the additional errand done SO WE CAN WASTE GAS AND KILL THE PLANET? What the fuck?
And this is apparently a widespread “problem” – Fred told me that he and a coworker once bonded over the way their wives would “add errands” on.
I watched the Octo-Mom on Oprah yesterday (it was on last week, I DVR’d it. I DVR all episodes of Oprah and then decide which ones to watch based on the description. I end up deleting about 9/10ths of them, and then fast-forward through most of the ones I end up watching).
I didn’t watch the entire interview between Oprah and Octo-Mom, because her voice (and those great big fake hooting belly-laughs) were annoying the shit out of me, but holy CRAP is that woman in over her head. She appears to routinely get only about three hours of sleep per night, and that lack of sleep probably explains (1) why she would ever think that anyone on earth would EVER believe she’s never had any kind of plastic surgery (how are those great big plastic lips treating you, Octo-Mom?) and (2) that she has no idea who Angelina Jolie is.
Please.
It was interesting to see 24 hours in her life, though.
Maura is really coming out of her shell since we’ve allowed her the run of the house. She actually has her favorite spots in the house – in the picture above, she’s laying in the sun in the kitchen. She also likes to hang out on my desk, sometimes she lays by the back door, and in the afternoons she can be found laying in the cat bed on the chair next to my bed. She has her playful moments, and she’s starting to be more interested in the kittens than annoyed by them, especially when the kittens are playing with each other.
Yesterday, she was laying in the kitchen and Rhyme and Bolitar were play-fighting. She reached out and smacked at Rhyme’s tail as it whipped by. He turned and hissed at her, and she just looked at him like “What’s YOUR problem, kid?”
Previously 2009: Yes, I APOLOGIZED to her for not keeping my account. I guess that showed THEM.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry. 2006: I have no skillz, but I’m a quick learner! 2005: Spot let out a sad, drawn-out demon-from-hell sound. 2004: Meme-licious.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry. 2000: I live to please you, my beloved readers.
Yesterday I told Shelly (whose husband found work after 10 months, yay!) that I’m trying to embrace my inner frugal bitch. I don’t think I’m being particularly successful at it, though. Don’t get me wrong, all the extra spending has gone out the window. We don’t spend a penny without discussing it first and trying … Continue reading “4/26/10 – Monday”
Yesterday I told Shelly (whose husband found work after 10 months, yay!) that I’m trying to embrace my inner frugal bitch.
I don’t think I’m being particularly successful at it, though.
Don’t get me wrong, all the extra spending has gone out the window. We don’t spend a penny without discussing it first and trying to figure out a way to get whatever it is we need to buy for less money. (And I’m constantly kicking myself for all the pointless spending we did in the past. Yes, we have savings and we’ll be okay for a good while – but imagine how much we’d have if we hadn’t been such bad, horrible, no-good impulse buyers!)
Every week I go through the Publix, Walmart, Target, and Piggly Wiggly* flyers to see if there’s anything on sale that we regularly use. I clip coupons, and I try to figure out the way to get the best deals on stuff. Thus far, my best deal was a few weeks ago, on Arm & Hammer kitty litter at Target. Between the sale price and the coupons I had, I paid $8.99 per 40-pound box. GO, ME.
My gripe is that you know those women who get $600 of groceries for $1.39 that you hear so much about? Those women are buying a lot of processed boxed stuff we just don’t use in our daily lives. So you have to wade through a bunch of crap to get to the good deals, is what I’m saying. Yes, 6 boxes of Hamburger Helper for 50 cents (if you have this coupon and that coupon, and only these flavors, and don’t forget to run through the graveyard and howl at the moon before you go to the store between 10:59 and 11:01 on the third Wednesday of months with “r” in the name) is a great deal – if you eat Hamburger Helper. We don’t.
But anyway, I go through the flyers, and then on Saturday mornings I hit Publix with my printed-out list of stuff on sale. This past Saturday, I had a pretty short list. So I got what I needed in the produce aisle, and I headed for the bread aisle to take advantage of some mini-bagels that were on sale, buy one get one free. (It would be more frugal to make my own bagels, I KNOW, but the one time I made bagels in the past, I was underwhelmed. What’s the point of making your own when they make you sad and wish for the store-bought version?)
I located the bagels I wanted, and I was just going to buy one pack (because when they say “buy one, get one free” what they mean is “each one is half price” – that might not hold true at all stores, I’m sure at some stores you have to buy both to get the “buy one, get one” deal, but not at Publix), and I stopped and thought “I wonder how much I’m saving here?” Publix is super-helpful and on the sales sign, it tells you how much you’re saving. So, according to the sign, by buying two packs, you’d be saving $2.59. IE, the regular price of the packs is $2.59 each.
Are you following me, here? Because I’m a little confused myself. Keep reading, I promise I have a point.
So I thought to myself “Oh, so these packs of mini-bagels are usually $2.59 each.”
This is where my frugal train ran off the tracks. My gaze wandered from the sale mini-bagels, and I saw a pack of mini-bagels by another company, and I thought “I wonder how much those are?” Those mini-bagels were 2 packs for $5. Which works out to (put your calculator away, I figured it out for you!) $2.50 each. “Hmm,” I thought, in my great big stupid head. “$2.50 is less than $2.59! I could save 9 cents if I buy those OTHER mini-bagels instead!”
And I did.
When I got home, I was all “Blah blah blah saved nine cents!”
Fred gave me the look of Something Isn’t Right Here and pointed at the mini-bagels I’d bought. “Those were less than HALF the price of the sale bagels?”
I didn’t understand the question, so I insisted “Yes!”
It took about fifteen minutes for me to figure out what the fuck I’d done. What an idiot. I was SO PROUD of myself for saving nine cents (it’s not the nine cents itself, you understand, it was the PRINCIPLE of saving nine cents!) that what I actually did was spend $1.20 MORE.
I’m going to nickel and dime us into the poor house, aren’t I?
*Yes, I said I’d never shop there again. But sweet potatoes, 39 cents a pound! Publix was selling them for 89 cents a pound! Come on, how can I pass that up?!
On Sundays, I generally try to make a big meal. Sometimes a roast, sometimes steak – some kind of meat, is what I’m saying. I always make several side dishes out of stuff I have in the freezer or (as is the case lately) some sort of roasted or mashed potatoes, because I got a huge-ass bag of potatoes for $2.75 a few weeks ago.
Yesterday, I decided to try a recipe that called for putting sliced onions and apples in a baking dish, pork chops on top, and baking it for three hours, ultimately ending with pork chops with caramelized onions and apples. While the pork chop dish was baking, I made parmesan garlic mashed potatoes, vegetable medley (summer squash and zucchini, stir-fried with onions, garlic, and dehydrated cherry tomatoes), and even a few pieces of garlic bread (I’d made Amish bread earlier in the day). Everything was really good – except the pork chop dish. The apple and onion slices had gone beyond caramelizing and were burnt, and the pork chops were dry.
Speaking of pork (see above, pork chops), we’ll be getting two more pigs pretty soon. The pig man** just has to corral them, then he’ll give Fred a call to let him know they’re ready to go. They won’t be the tiny, cute pigs we’ve gotten in the past – these are already about 50 pounds. We waited too long to get pigs, and he sold all the tiny ones to other people, damnit.
Oh well – next year we’ll know better and get our asses in gear sooner, right?
(NOT.)
We actually talked about getting pigs several weeks ago – probably back when the pig man actually had adorable, tiny baby pigs – but Fred wasn’t sure who’d take the other pig (when it was grown and ready to be processed, that is). He thought his sister wanted one, but it turned out she didn’t. And then he thought someone who’d previously bought a pig from us wanted one, and it turned out she didn’t, either. We had just about decided to go ahead and get two pigs and worry about who’d take the second one later, when Fred got an email out of the blue from someone he used to work with who was interested in getting one.
So I guess one day this week we’ll be headed out to the pig man’s farm to get us some pigs!
** The pig man’s nickname is “Egg”, and I can’t help it, every time I mention him to Fred, I accidentally call him “The egg man” instead of “The pig man”, and it annoys Fred like you wouldn’t believe.
You can’t really tell from the picture, but Corbett was vigorously licking that ear in front of his face. Doesn’t he look pleased with himself?
“I. HAZ. A. COMPLAINT! I’m wide awake and everyone else is sleeping, then when I’m sleeping, everyone else is wide awake, and THIS WILL NOT DO.”
Bolitar, sound asleep.
I can’t help it, this picture makes me laugh and laugh. Reacher is just so CASUAL about it, all “Yep, here I am, laying directly atop Bolitar’s head. What of it?”
Previously
2009: No entry. 2008: An impromptu Saturday entry to share cool links with y’all. 2007: (What I wanted to say: YOUR MOTHER. Now go to bed!) 2006: So, in essence, the fucking DVR TATTLED on me. 2005: E’gar goes into the shop. 2004: I must be mumbling or something today. Everyone I’ve spoken to has looked at me like I’m speaking French and they can’t understand what the hell I’m saying.
2003: No entry. 2002: Blah blah blah.
2001: No entry. 2000: “Um… you mean, she lies on your butt to muffle your farts?” he ventured.
