I Call Holiday Month Shenanigans

Deli dishwasher? Seriously? Your ass couldn't soldier through another month? Although my coworkers putting various signs upon your steel ass cheered me up considerable. This thing, it was SO LOUD, with its failing internal bearings and such, I felt like I was working in a dang airport. Thank you for the hearing loss, and having to yell at peeples when they were just trying to get a dang pound of pina colada salad. I have been assured you will be fixed, but my pessimistic side does not believe it. We will be three sinking it until 2012, when it like, doesn't matter anymore, according to the Mayans and stuff.

Thanksgiving and belated introduction

My Thanksgiving/holiday cactus is actually blooming at the time of year it's supposed to! I was amazed, being as we thought this thing was gonna crap out on us shortly after we bought it, but that was probably a couple years ago by now. The terrarium thing is a "rare" specimen of Madagascar palm, which so far seems to mainly just be growing mold. Plus, Annie made the point of exactly how rare can it be if you can buy it in the store for less than 6 bucks? Oh well, I will let it mold a little longer before I give up and toss the dang thing.

Wild turkeys at the farm, where we went for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if they have names, but they aren't for eating anyways, just for looks. I guess if you put food out and you live on a farm, any turkeys that are happening by will take up residence. These even let me pet them, even though I may have still had the faint scent of turkey on my breath from an awesome Thanksgiving dinner. Sorry 'bout that, gobblers.

We did NOT come home from Thanksgiving with a new kitten, this situation took place back in the summer, it's just taken me an extra special long time to get to the introducing. This itty gray tabby is Yukiko, or mostly Yuki for short. Not to be confused with the not so itty Itty who is behind her. After Ghost got kicked out for his peeing problem, Itty seemed morose and I was toying with the idea of trying to talk Terry into getting Itty a friend, since Gizmo had gone on to her just reward (a one way trip to the farm), even though Gizmo and Itty weren't cat friends anyway. Annie had stayed at the farm for a weekend, and when we stopped by to pick her up, this gray kitty jumped on my back like a parrot and screeched please take me home this is a barn it stinks in here. We found out the cat had been there for less than an hour, she was actually one of the neighbor's horde of kittens, and he had told Paul to bring some to the farm, and he had randomly reached down into the teeming mass and scooped this one up. And it made me fall in love with it in five minutes, and I brought it home. Terry wanted to call her Lucky, but I thought that sounded like a dog's name, so I tried to fancy it up, and Yukiko *supposedly* loosely translates into "lucky girl" in Japanese. But she's not going to be lucky much longer if she keeps trying to eat my dang frog!

Annie is a doof

Sorry about the ittiness of this pic, Annie emailed it to me and my html skills are severely limited. She and her friend Holly spent a fair amount of time cos-playing, or larping, or whatever you call it (huh, back in the day, we just called it.....playing) in the back yard. At any rate, Annie is really into this anime thingy called Full Metal Alchemists, and I'm not sure if she dragged Holly along with her, or if it was the other way around. Holly is quite talented and actually MADE that coat thing, with her own two hands. I don't have much clue what the show is about, beyond it involves alchemy (which I think is what that big symbol is doing to that rock up there, I'm hoping it turns into a pile o' money, a big ass flat screen tv, or maybe just a maid), and I think the Metal comes in because they have like arms or legs or various appendages made of metal, why this is so I have no clue.

I just hope nobody shows up at the door tomorrow asking about the Satanist who was in the backyard on Sunday afternoon. Wearing red cape like things and drawing symbols on the ground might look somewhat strange to the casual observer. Oh, and I'm supposed to give photo credit to Holly.

Punkins

I'm putting mine and Terry's first, because frankly I think we're the only ones who didn't dial it in this year. He did a Franken-pumpkin, and I went with trying to recreate Zombie Jim from the Facebook Zombie Pets game. Yeah, I play a Facebook game, and probably more than I should, what of it? It's fun taking care of itty pixilated dead persons, and gardening my exotic flora. And oh, that's Al working her Meijer uniform in the background there.

The whole pumpkin crew. Al supposedly did Itty's face on hers, and frankly, I don't know what the hell Annie's is supposed to be. She just made two big eye holes and then painted some stuff on it. Maybe it's some anime character? This Halloween kinda blows, Terry's parents aren't coming over, Al has to work, and Annie decided to ditch us for the neighborhood across the street. I didn't even make the usual chili, I'm making "mummy dogs" this year, and I guess Terry and I will just sit here handing out candy and feeling sorry for ourselves. But then maybe the candy will help with that. :)

And We'll All Float on Okay...

Hi there. I've steadily been feeling guiltier and guiltier about blog neglect, but still not having many inspiring thoughts. Y'all can thank my long walk and Modest Mouse for this one. I probably have a bazillion pics I could have blogged about, I will try to slowly catch up. The upshot is, yeah, we're all okay. Some of us more than others (Al in lurve is sooo annoying)

I've been dealing with stuff that I'm sure most of you know about, and it has made me cranky and uncommunicative. I have hope that someday it will all be over and I can ha ha ha laugh about it here, but right now, not so much.

Hmmm, updates. I still work in deli hell, but I'm getting better at pasting on a smile with rude ass customers, I've found that pisses them off even more, which gives me a little internal happy. Annie is totally being tortured by braces, the latest horror they perpetrated is install this thing that pulls her jaw forward. It's to correct her bird like profile, and it's freaky how much it changes the shape of her face. She still maintains she was okay with her crooked teeth and she wishes we had left well enough alone.

As mentioned before, Al is in lurve and annoying. She's going to see the girlfriend this weekend, got a ride with a nice person that we've never met who she hopefully won't be murdered and chopped up by. If she is, well, we at least have a phone number and a reaaaallly interesting backstory. The nice upshot of all this longterm depression is nice weight loss, Al and her girlfriend got into a "whose mom is hotter" discussion last night and Al was arguing vehemently on my behalf. Now, granted, there may have been a whole subtext and they were really arguing about whose mom is a bigger hot mess, but I prefer to think it was the former.

Terry is fine too, the poor guy just floats through the flotsam and jetsam, trying not to look at the wreckage too closely. He often refers to one of his fave books, called " A Spot of Bother."

That would be my froggy Lord Spectre of the Sluggoth Clan in the pic, doing his float through life too. I don't know how the thing keeps alive, he can't catch a shrimp bite to save his soul. He keeps getting bigger though, and now he croakily sings to me at night, so I guess he's happy. Or maybe looking for a lady frog. Can't help you there, fella. I'll just throw some more shrimp bites at you.

Bunch o' Stuff

First off, our new living room floor. Ghost's pee job finally got too much for us to bear and we gave in and ripped up the carpet (huh, first I typed crapet, which is what it had definitely turned into). This is one of those prelaminated thingamadoos that is supposed to oh so easily snap together. Um, not so much, much swearing and a mallet was heavily involved. It's nice, but it really shows the kitty footprints, they must have hella sweaty paws or something.

EEK!

I thought a bird had rudely shat upon my screen door because there was a big blob on it, and then when I went outside to clean it off, I noticed that the blob was writhing about. So I hauled ass back into the house, and then of course stood behind the door and blew on the blob and watched the itty spiders kersplode out and skitter away, and went back outside to take pics of them so I could make all my spider loving friends screech.

Annie is writing a novel, she's way over 100 pages (handwritten) at this point. She tried to explain it to me, people can move atoms or something, and it's heavily influenced by her love of all things Japanese, and there's cool weapons and such.

Al waiting for Terry to pick her up after her first real day of work, she got the job I wanted in the bakery and she kinda keeps rubbing it in and Ima gonna kick her 18 year old ass out if she doesn't stop it. No fair she gets to fondle donuts all day while I'm stuck frying chicken and shaving people's meat.

When I tried to climb up to the top of the slide to well, spy on the neighbors (there had been all sorts of heavy machinery sounds from back there) I broke through the rotted rung (seriously, it was rotted, my ass isn't quite as fat as it used to be) and we decided that the swing set was regrettably coming to the end of it's journey. And for some reason it made Terry all emo and he had to take pics of the slide. I want to knock the whole thing down, burn it in the fire pit, and get a nice old person swing/glider thing going back there.

New screen door installed by Terry this past weekend. Ghost had turned into a jailbreak artist and he could just muscle the last one open, which means we had to keep the door closed all the time and with the weather being so hot lately it was becoming a pain in the ass. So, yeah stupid Gho$t costing us yet more monies to put up a new door with a latch and a handle.

Hah! Suck on that, hairball. You can bang your pointy head on that all day and it's not gonna budge. Just give up and go find a window. I can almost see the emo tear running down his itty fuzzy face.

Prom Pic, one of these days I will do an actual post, I swear

I was hoping for a full-length one, but I was at work and couldn't supervise, but I think Annie did a good job. And Bailey looks disturbingly like a dude. And I want to hold Al down and make her do her hair every morning, cuz she looks all purty and stuff.

Cats are Ebil

Itty likes to walk on the counters, despite our best efforts to dissuade this behavior because we know where her paws have been. Last week I was minding my own business when I heard a HUGE crash tinkle tinkle sound that could mean nothing good. She had managed to drag the whole dish rack off the counter, causing my beloved Pyrex measuring cup to meet the tile and immediately EXPLODE, or as three year old Al would have put it, kersplode. It's over a week later and I am still finding pieces of glass. I was pretty pissed because the thing was older than my kids, I can't even remember where I got it. Stupid cat. But it forced me to give my kitchen floor a good sweep, which it needed, judging by that macaroni noodle in amongst the glass, I think it's been a loooong time since I've made macaroni.

Annie's painting from school. The colors are really nice, so don't judge it by this kinda washed out looking photo. What cracks me up (and pisses Annie off) is that we think this poor bird looks like he is in dire need of the bathroom. Yeah, yeah, I know it's a rear view and his wings are just crossed behind his back and those are the wingtips sticking out. I think it's the lines around his eyes, they give him a somewhat concerned look, and I don't think he's thinking about the rainforest being chopped down. For the life of me, it looks like he's doing the pee dance up on that branch. Terry was actually the first one to notice this phenomenom, kinda like one of those pictures like look, it's a bunny, no it's a duck.

Al's drama team? cast? whatever you call them, the one act play won the State championship thingamajig this year. She does the soundage for them, and really enjoys it. She doesn't so much enjoy getting her picture taken though. I have helpfully circled her forehead for you, which appears to be growing out of her friend's armpit.

Happy VD

Lately, I have been not much of a carnivore, but nothing says Valentine's Day like a big hunk of meat, and I must heartily thank this cow for giving its yummy yummy life. I figured if I was gonna go there I might as well get the good stuff, so we got tenderloin, and I found this recipe on the internet that involved our beloved Shiraz, and well, there you go. I'm sure someone I know who has recently entered the culinary arts will no doubt have something to say about my presentation or messy plate, but hey, it tasted good.

The recipe involved much pan searing and hot baking sheets and a veil of smoke hung in the air in our dining room, but at least the strident strains of the smoke alarm were not heard. Wait, when's the last time we changed the batteries?

We managed to get rid of the kids, Annie for the whole night (hope she remembered her toothbrush, she has an orthodontia appt. tomorrow) and Al for most of the evening, she and her friend are having a "Losers night" (even though neither of them are just by virtue of being unattached) and hitting up the Pizza Hut and watching some movies. I even sweetened the deal by throwing in a giant chocolate chip cookie iced thing.

Happy Valentine's Day, hug em if you got em, or maybe just cuddle a pet, because that's just as fun most days.

The Circle of Life

Alas, my good friend has expired. It brought me much joy, laughter, and well, rage at times too. It started acting weird about a month ago, turning itself off and having a wonky screen and just generally being unreliable, but in his usual fashion Terry waited until it was completely a boat anchor, mainly because he wanted to get out his itty screwdrivers and pry it apart. Since then it has been ascertained that it's probably just a screen issue, and with any luck it can be fixed. Al has been eyeing the carcass hungrily like a hyena, or vulture, or some other thing that likes carcasses. I think she's thinking she needs a laptop for college, and at least she likes all the stickers (for the most part, I'm thinking maybe the High School Musical Ones might get prised off, even though, c'mon, Zac Efron gay dancing is totally hilarious).

The Simba to the Mufasa, the new kid on the block. We're still getting to know each other, and there's a lot of things different with the OS so I spend a lot of my time clicking around and muttering and trying to find things, but I like the purty purty color. And yeah, the stickers will probably come, I'm just like that. I guess it will be interesting to see how my tastes have changed.

The other night this sweet little Indian Man snuck into our house to play with the new Rock Band game. Nah, that's just Annie in her oh so fashionable Turbo Twisty. And Terry had to buy a new game to boost the Best Buy purchase so we could get 18 months free of interest, such a huge sacrifice, I'm sure.