Happy Birthday Lea!!!!

In case you guys have old eyes like I do, that's a nifty thing my friend Lea made me a few years back with the sentiment "Old Friendships are the Dearest." Old Friendships also mean you have a ton of dirt on the person, and some cool old pics.

Here we are, ready for some skating action! Check out her perfect hair, she is still a whiz with a curling iron. I could have sworn I had a bandanna wrapped around my thigh in this pic. Time has made things hazy. Lemme see, I reckon this picture is about 25 years old. And yet, our friendship perseveres, through dead gay ex boyfriend stealings, college going to, marriages (just to clarify, that would be one apiece for us), children, and the day to day doldrums of being the only person in the house with a brain in their head. (Or at least it seems like that somedays) I know you will always be there for me, and I hope you know I will always be here for you, ready to bitch about cleaning, talk about tv, or what keeps us up at night. Happy Birthday, Lea, I love you. Also, the second half of your birthday present is I won't post a pic of what we look like now. You're welcome. :)

Marshall, Will, and Holly, on a routine expedition...

met the greatest earthquake ever known! High on the rapids, that tossed their tiny raft, (Augggghhhhhhhhhhhhh) and plunged them down, a thousand feet beloooow. You know where, folks, to the Land of the Lost. Or at least you know if you grew up in the 70's. This is my way roundabout way of saying that we went to this coolish store in town yesterday and stumbled upon the fun that is the "Dinosaur Plant." We were all "oh, cool, this would make a great stocking stuffer for Annie," but then when we got home Terry decided that he had in fact bought it for himself. So, prepared to be AWED, mayhap AMAZED.


Fresh out of the box, dunked a couple of times, and placed in some water on its bed of authentic New Mexico lava rocks. Okay, yeah, they are probably the exact same kind that you put in gas grills, but that doesn't sound as impressive, or as prehistoric.

Four or five hours later, all brought back to life and stuff. Supposedly you let this thing dry up a few times a year, it likes that. It said on the box that the plants can last up to 50 years in a dried up dormant state and still spring back. I'm not sure exactly what kind of plant it is, but I think I've heard it called a resurrection plant before too, which is not quite as catchy as dinosaur plant. Terry actually took a picture every 15 minutes because he's a geek like that but I thought I would spare y'all.

Introducing...

The Webmaster

Friend or Foe? You guys decide.

pic credit for Webmaster and Toady goes to Hammer

The Pet Patrol! Or, it's been raining for two freaking days!

Dudes, it's been pouring down rain here for the last two days, and we're all starting to get a bit stir crazy. Annie most of all, mind you, since she usually like, goes outside and stuff. Today she used up the rest of her book cover stash in a creative way. For your enjoyment, I present, The Pet Patrol!

Super Max, the leader of the Pet Patrol. He has super strength and hearing, a sonic bark, and he can fly. He is most courageous (he's a Big Brave Dog) and he seeks injustice wherever he goes so he may correct it.

Miss Mysterious, she can do magic spells, teleport, and she also has the nifty talent of telekinesis. Okay, Annie said "levitate things" but I took liberties.

Captain Parrot, he can control the weather by whipping up tornadoes and hurricanes with his lightning wing action, and he has a super hard beak and claws.

Brainiac, his special powers are super smartness, he ain't no recapped kid folks (Hi Mom!). He also has laser vision and telepathy.

The EEEVIL supervillain, Lexip. His most heinous current crime is polluting the enviroment, specifically the bottom of the stairs with his most unwelcome feces.

This is his evil minion, or Toady if you will. He so far is trying to pass himself off as an innocent animal who has wandered into a friendly home. We know the real truth.

Kittehs!

They say if you start feeding an outside animal it's yours, so for your viewing pleasure, my outdoor cats, also known as strays that I feed cuz they are cute. I originally saw Mama Cat probably a month and a half or so ago, eating Taco Dorito crumbs that I had left out for the birds, and it made me hurt in that place where my heart should be, so I started leaving cat food out for her. And then one day, she had a kitten with her, and the next day, another. And then the neighbor said she was pretty sure there were four kittens altogether. I think one was on the runty side and didn't make it though. :( But she was keeping that third one up her sleeve (or the cat equivalent) for a good long while, so who knows?

Mama Cat with George and George. We didn't know there were two little pinto, or piebald, or whatever the hell you call that coloring until a couple days ago. I thought she was down to two kittens from an original total of four. The name George is from that old cartoon with the Abominable Snowman, "I will hug him and squeeze him..." because that's what I want to do with that little kitty. Lookit the little black tail!!!

The whole family, yeah, not the most flattering pic of Mama Cat (we call her Jasmine) but I wanted to get poor Billie in there, he/she's the one on the tree. We were trying to go with non gender specific names for the kittens since there's no way they are gonna let us catch them and check. Yeah, yeah, I know George, but hey, it worked for George Foreman.

Hops Harvest

Terry decided that part of the hops were ready for the harvesting today. He managed not to fall off the ladder or anything. He did drop his harvesting bag once though, and we all collectively went AUGGHHH! I'm sure the neighbors think we're nuts. Well, they probably do already, but now they have more reason.

MMMmmmm, Hops

The yield from one vine so far---6.5 ounces. They are currently drying on a screen in the garage. Now we just need to formulate a recipe to use them in, probably some type of ale. Annie is taking some hops to school tomorrow for show and tell.

I wuz robbed of a blog post by 15 measly minutes

See that boring pic of a Stop sign there? Somebody spray painted "Hammer Time" on it over the weekend, which I know is an old joke but I still found it mildly amusing. Not so amusing is that I suspect the new neighbors? squatters? I still haven't figured out what's going on over at that house--it clearly has a for sale sign up, yet there is a neverending changing cast of shady looking people who all have different cars and different squalling kids and the yard hasn't been mown in about two weeks and I think they may have lost one of those said squalling kids in the jungle in the back. Anyway, I suspect their kith or kin of the mildly amusing vandalism, but that's neither here nor there. I was finally going to take a pic of the sign when I got back from picking up Annie at school, as I noticed it for the forty leventh time as I was driving past. When I got back I sent my roving photographer Al out to get a pic, and above, the evidence of denial. Yeah, it's been kind of a slow week around here. I guess I'll have to wait and see what they have cooked up for the weekend. Just keep it out of my yard, folks, I am old and crotchedy and will call the police on your asses.

Titanic Soccer

Back at the beginning of the summer, our ice maker broke. After buying countless bags of ice, we came to the novel conclusion that perhaps we should invest in some ice trays and make "homemade" ice (Annie's words, not mine). We didn't need the ice holder thingy because we already had a big one in our freezer, and Al was all huh, it would be cool to fill that up and make a big block of ice. So we did, and it sat there alllll summer long, taking up room in my freezer and generally pissing me off. So on this, the last official day of summer vacation, we finally got out that perennial favorite toy, the big ice block. We spare no expense around here to please our children. Now they actually want to make the big Labor Day iceblock a tradition. I just think maybe it doesn't need allll summer long to freeze.


My daughter does have two legs, that's just a weird angle. I tried to do that and almost froze my foot off, that thing was cooooold. I know, who would have thought, ice being cold.

And then the theme from Titanic was hummed, and they played a little ice soccer. The block actually took quite awhile to melt. I eventually tossed it off the deck to watch it shatter on the patio, whereupon a piece broke loose and slid right at Terry's ankles, which were placed just so that the ice chunk went in between and thumped them both. I tried not to laugh, really I did.

Ghost has an unexplainable love for Al's stinky old Converse. He has been napping on them all week long. He will have a sad tomorrow when they are walking around at her school!!! I however, will not. This summer vacation has been hella long and I'm ready to get back to my regularly scheduled drudgery.