Sentry Duty

Wow, its been 7 months since my last post, and today brings a new level of difficulty in writing: The Cat.

Oliver has loved having me home and has since proclaimed himself as my personal support cat. Any time I sit, lie down or stop for a moment, there he is. He gets up with me and follows me around, waiting patiently until I have done my task (glass of water, bathroom break, etc) and then follows me again to whatever destination I go next in the apartment.

I sit and promptly find a cat curled up on chest and shoulder; happy to remain, either looking out the window or quietly snoozing until I get up once again.

The only time he hands me off is when I shower...at that point Samson, our orange tabby, sits on the bathroom counter and waits patiently while I get clean. Once I am dressed, here comes Oliver, following quietly until he can once again claim his sentry post across my left shoulder; always the left and never the right.

Funny, because I wasn't the one who sent him there. I've tried shifting him to the right (for a light guy, my inflamed shoulder nerves can only take so much). He'll accept the relocation...for about 15 minutes or so. I'll look down and somehow he has slowly crept back to that left shoulder or slipped down to be draped across my chest, like a furry scarf that has been wound around my neck too loosely.

Where in this is the difficulty, you ask? Well, my computer has been moved next to the couch in the living room, as it is too painful to sit at my desk. The difficulty comes in that my right hand is currently holding my keyboard up, while being propped on a feline rump for support, while I type one-handed, trying not to jostle the cat who is, at the moment, using it as his pillow. How is this possible? Easy...my right hand tilts the keyboard so my fingers can stretch out to reach the farthest keys when needed.  This is what you do when you allow the household critters to wind you around their little furry paws.

So it means that while I will be posting regularly again, some posts may be shorter than others...it all depends on the cat.

Looks like my little furry guardian has deemed today to be a short one!

Me and the Rat

I have an aversion to rodents.  Not jump-up-on-the-chairs-holding-my-skirts-and-shrieking drama, but, while they are cute, I just don't care to hold or cuddle the little things.

Flash back to me, age 5 or 6.  We had rabbits in hutches.  I have not confirmed this with either parent, so this is childhood memories we're going on here, but I do seem to remember that there were a series of rabbit cages in our tiny shed-like garage, with bunnies in each.  Bunnies that my brother Jason and I would feed... mom would give us carrots or celery or lettuce and we would scamper out to the garage and feed our "pets".  

The rabbit I considered mine (sadly its name has been lost in the sands of time) was always happy for a treat and would hop over to nibble whatever tidbit that was given to her.  I loved watching her little nose quivering and, one day, I couldn't resist and stuck my finger in the cage to stroke it.  

As you can guess, she mistook pudgy little-girl finger for a carrot and bit me.  It was not much later the rabbits all "went down the road" as we say in my family.  Some of them my dad butchered for food, and the others a man with a truck full of rabbit hutches came by and picked up.  So much for "pets".... these bunnies had been raised as a food supply (I only state this so no one thinks my being bitten had anything to do with it.)

Ever since the biting incident rodents and I have walked separate paths.

Until this week.

I took my youngest sister to a local pet store so she could return a fish tank sealant that she no longer needed.  On our way there she told me about this cute rat she had seen in the shop the week prior and about how it didn't bite, but licked people and gave the sweetest of "little nibbles".  

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

We arrived at the shop and while she was busy with her return I located the rat in question.  He was cute, in a beady-eyed sort of way, and he was certainly affectionate.  He kept hanging from the wire-mesh cover of his cage where he could stick a nose out and beg for someone to pick him up.

Against my better judgement, I lowered a finger.  Sure enough, licks and nibbles.... and no bite.

My sister came over, followed by "Barnacle" Bill, the owner of the shop.  Bill reached down, opened the cage, pulled out this bundle of rat and set it in my sister's hands.  Promptly the rat scurried up into her hair where it seemed perfectly happy to stay (not that I blame it, my sister's hair is currently a glorious shade of Autumn Fire that I could never pull off).  He then started climbing back and forth from one shoulder to another, acting as if he was the happiest little rat on the planet.

I stroked its soft baby fur and thought to myself, "okay, maybe not all rats are bad".  After all, my other sister had kept rats in the past, so how bad could it be?

Lets zip ahead an hour and change the scene to my sister's house.  Brisby, as the rat has now been named, is now climbing on my shoulders and snuffling in my hair, when all of the sudden there comes this.... smell.

"Ugh", I said, handing the rat over.  "I think it peed on me."  Funny though, I couldn't feel any wetness, but boy did I stink.

I couldn't wait to get home... in fact, I would swear the smell was getting stronger with each passing moment.

I got home, stripped off everything I was wearing and went to jump in the shower when something fell out of my hair and hit the floor.

Please be a piece of lint, I thought.

Oh no, the fates were not that kind. 

I HAD CARRIED A RATTY POO BALL HOME WITH ME IN MY HAIR.

EEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

And with that I took the hottest shower I have taken in years.  My hair was shampooed several times, and there was not an inch of me that was not scrubbed and scrubbed again with my mesh loofah.  Even after my shower I still felt gross, even though I was certainly clean.

And thus ends my short truce with all things rodent... 

I think I need another shower.

Guaranteed to bring a smile....

I drive a yellow Beetle.... bright, sunny.... which suits me rather well.  

Daisy Jane came to me with a black bra attached and I saw no reason to remove it.  It adds a certain "who is that masked car?" flair, and with all the yellow Beetles on the road, it helps me to identify her in the parking lot.

This is not Daisy Jane, but it looks pretty close to her.  Image shamelessly borrowed from the internet.

My brother-in-law kindly offered to replace my headlight bulbs for me (basically I think he noticed the "deer-in-the-headlights" look I was sporting when I thought I was going to have to do it myself) and, while my sisters and I were visiting, he went out to go do the task.

My sister happened to glance out the window to see how her husband was doing, and made a comment about the state of my car.... one that, while humorous, I wasn't sure if I could believe it.  Sure enough, checking later, she was right.

Flash forward a few days later.

I was climbing out of my car at a local grocery store when the gal parked across from me called out, "That is the brightest, yellowest, cheeriest thing I have seen in a long time". 

I smiled, thought back to my sister's comment the other day, and replied, "Yes, but she has a dark secret.  You see, she doesn't like to go out without her bra on, and now she has tan lines."

This stranger looked at me, looked back at Daisy Jane and then burst out with the wildest laughter I have ever heard.  We're talking head thrown back, and the noise levels high enough that half of the parking lot probably could hear.  

Smiling, and happy that I made someone laugh, I wished her a good day and went inside the store to run my brief errand.

It was only about five minutes later that I came back out and found that she was still there, glancing at my car, shaking her head and still chuckling.

"I just had to let you know", she told me, "that I will be laughing about this all day."  With that she thanked me, and then watched me drive away... still chuckling.

Its been nearly a week since that day, and I wonder about that woman... while I am happy that a random comment brightened her day, I hope that she is doing well and that her life is happy.  You can never tell with people what will lift their hearts from whatever troubles them in life, and I hope that I keep this simple lesson in mind and never fail to do my part to be kind to those around me.

Even if it is only one small, shared joke between strangers.

Comic courtesy of halfbaked.com

Sammy

This is Samson... Sammy for short.

Sam is a sweet cat, but he can be a bit of high maintenance. Like when he comes across one of his toy mice. Mice are to be thrown, chased after, and then you come back and demand a new mouse be tossed. Heaven forbid he should actually bring the original mouse back (that is something dogs would do and is, therefore, not to be considered). A good game of chase will end up with the thrower eventually bored out of their skull and Sam asking for "just one more mouse toss" even though there is a graveyard of abandoned mice littering the end of the hall.



"Toss it Dude!"

Sam's second favorite pastime is mewing at the underside of the couch until Richard finally digs out the yardstick and fishes out all of the toys that have been lost to its shadowy recesses. He gets excited as more and more mice are pulled out, until he is sitting on a stack of toys; his very demeanor chortling with glee, "mine, all mine". Forget the fact that there are two other cats in the house that enjoy tossing a mouse about... the mice in this house are Sam's and Sam's alone.

So imagine my surprise this morning when, while at work, I glance down at the floor and notice a flash of orange on my pants... or rather, in my pants.



Sam had tucked one of his mice into the cuff of my jeans, and I had not even noticed it until then.

For the rest of the day all I had to do was glance down to that mouse, still safely tucked away in my pant cuff, and I could feel the smile on my face growing ever wider. A little secret... me in my mousey pants and no one else the wiser. Not my boss, not our customers... just myself and a sweet little ginger cat, waiting for me back home.

Red Nose Day Doctor Who

Found this funny Doctor Who sketch done last year for Red Nose Day (Comic Relief for charity done yearly in Britain). Its incredibly cute, but its a teensy more risque than your average episode (don't worry, everyone keeps their clothes on). I highly suggest pressing play if you have a few minutes... after all, who couldn't use a few more minutes of Rory in their lives?

Labyrinth...with Sock Puppets

Great Public Service Announcement

I guess even zombies like fresh meat!

Watch what you advertise...

photo courtesy of tombricks on Flickr

I was stuck behind a flower delivery van on my way home tonight, waiting for the flow of cars to slow down enough so we could turn.  The onslaught of oncoming cars stopped and still the van failed to pull forward.  We sat there for a few moments with nothing coming towards us before they finally deemed it safe and they made the turn.  I was following along behind as they slowly drove up the street and pulled into a driveway.  Maybe it was a delivery, maybe they were just getting home for the night....

 

I passed by and couldn't help but think to myself that with as slow as that van had been moving that this was certainly not a service that I would be calling on in the future.  Speedy delivery was definitely not their game.

It just had me thinking once again about how people should really pay attention to their actions when they have their business name plastered all over their vehicle.  If you are the thoughtless idiot who speeds past me in the morning, weaving from lane to lane in a school zone without the use of your blinkers (true story), I can guarantee you that I will not be calling on your services... ever.  If you show me you are rude (flipping me the bird because was in your way and going the posted speed limit - another true story).  If you are reckless (see above comment about speeding and lack of blinkers) or if you are a red light runner then why should I want to support keeping you on the road?

Are people really not aware that everything they do is either a reflection of themselves or the company that they are representing?  Whether you are off the clock or not, driving around in a so-called "company vehicle" (yes, I include moms in minivans with the name of their online scrapbooking service on the back window as a company car) your every move is still under observation. 

So to the guy throwing a shopping cart full of Bud in the back of his construction truck... as an FYI, I'm going to be hesitant about hiring someone who obviously likes to par-tay.  And for the moms whose logos are peeling and faded, and the dashboard of the car full of baby wipes and action figures, your claims that you 'put the special in a gal's special day' seems a bit too shabby for me to want to take a chance on.  Well, that and I think its a pretty safe bet that your hands will be full handling your own brood and not focused on my special moment.  

Maybe this is why I haven't splurged yet on vinyl sides for my own car just yet....

Sleeping on the job....

I open my fortune cookie to find the following:

"No fortune right now...try again later.  Hey, even cookie's need their sleep."

.....huh?  Was someone at the cookie factory out of ideas?  Was his supervisor hitting the bottle, which allowed something so lame to escape?

I guess I can take solace that my lunch companion's cookie was even worse: 

"The problem with humanity is not enough highways and too many people."

Just what we need... fortune cookie's spouting bad philosophy.

I can't believe I paid for this...

It seemed like a good deal at the time... but then, if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is.  Still, it seemed innocent enough...

Saturday morning, late spring. 

The beginning of yard sale season.

Probably only imagined, but I could swear the scent of desperation was in the air as we bargain junkies, starved after a long winter of going cold turkey, climbed into our cars and began the slow crawl through neighborhoods.  Peering into yards as if we had the right to deny our neighbors any scrap of privacy.  We had become stalkers with pockets full of change and small bills, ready to pounce at a moments notice, scrabbling amongst ourselves for another person's castaway items.

At first glance this sale seemed pretty sparse, but my companion and I pulled over anyway and walked over to examine its contents more closely.  Like a modern-day Indiana Jones I was determined to separate the gold from the dross... to haul home that hidden treasure that somehow was overlooked amidst the detritus of a life.

The box sat to one side, quietly unassuming and no one was even glancing its way.  Without much hope I wandered over and was surprised to see a small box filled with lovely seashells and a bunch of sand dollars in perfect condition.  A glance at the side of the box found me looking at a sticker that said $1.  I snatched up the box and made my way to where the beleaguered mother was trying to keep an eye on her wayward daughter racing about the yard while also directing another family member who was still bringing out a few random items.  She confirmed that the shells were indeed just a dollar, and mentioned that she and her family had collected them on a trip to Mexico the year before.

I paid for my shells and a few other items, and put it in the trunk of the car, before we made our way to yet another stop.  Later that day the box finally made its way into the house, where I began counting out the beautiful sand dollars and was surprised to find nearly 30 tucked within!  I was already making plans to ship these to my sister, so she could try recreating a cute garland that I had found online and forwarded to her.

The shells sat off to one side of the living room for a few weeks before I finally hauled them off to work, determined to find a way to safely pack the bits and pieces for shipping, and to sort through the other shells that lay within.

Today on my lunch break I began sorting.

More and more lovely shells went through my hands, were appreciated, and then carefully repacked into plastic bags to await a future of being displayed in a large glass jar.  The flatter shell of the clam, glowing in tones of pearl and pink, gentle spirals in creams and browns, a conch or two and, surprisingly, a lot of glassy bits of obsidian.  All of these were a feast to the eyes...until one little shell caught my eye.  Turning it over I discovered the remains of a desiccated little clam.

Poor thing, I thought, and moved the shell to one side to be disposed of.   A few shells further and I picked up a tiny conch; no greater than a nickel.  Then I saw a flash of red inside the shell, something in direct contrast against the sage green... it was a dead crab that had huddled deep within its adopted shell home, only to die nowhere near the sea it had been plucked from. 

Further inspection found a sea urchin that appeared to have gone in the box while still alive as well...

I had purchased a box of mass murder.

I still have nearly a quarter of the box to go and from what little I see, it doesn't appear as if any of the remaining shells hold any lurking horrors, but I won't know for certain until tomorrow.  Still, I feel terrible for the poor sea life that suffered and died just so they could one day wind up in my hands.  I can only hope that these little creatures weren't collected intentionally; that their inclusion in the box was due to someone thinking these items were safe to collect as their occupants were no longer in residence.

But still I wonder....

...does this make me somehow partially responsible?

To All the Downton Abbey Fans....

I present.... Downton Arby's. Cute spoof on a show I am completely hooked on. If you haven't seen Downton Abbey yet, and you like period flicks like Howard's End, Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth one, NOT Keira Knightley) and Sense and Sensibility, you need to start watching this program. The first season is now available to instant stream on Netflix, or you can watch it on Hulu.

Interesting recipe for making guacamole

But I certainly wouldn't eat it!

This is great....

The Great Mouse Detective never looked so good....

Can YOU choose which would be better?

Me neither....man do I love me some British TV

Hello Mash-Up

Who knew that I could ever come to like this song again?

Hello from ant1mat3rie on Vimeo.

For Doctor Who fans...

Amazing take on the Doctor Who theme as a Belgian Jazz song... love it! Now to see if its available for download onto my iPod...



and for those of us who don't speak French... this should be the interpretation of what Bill Bailey is saying...

It's him, Doctor Who. He travels in the TARDIS, The fantastic phone box from space. The inside is much larger than the outside. And that is the mystery of Doctor Who. - The leader of the Daleks is called Davros He wants to control the universe, He wants to control everybody He has never controlled the universe With the Daleks the Doctor is superior. He laughs, "Ha ha! I am "Doctor Who" Daleks can't go up stairs, it's a tragedy for them. Zut alors! Exterminate! No you cannot for I'm Dr Who

Too Cute...

The ever-changing job market....

Okay, my job duties have expanded so now I will be tweeting and doing FB "updates" for the company accounts...

... so I will be paid to hang out on public forums.....

...hmmmmmmmm....

Anyway, I was doing my first work "tweet" and saw this little gem in our stream.... and it had me laughing. No offense to gals who can't (or choose not to because they have oodles of cash to burn) cook:

TheFunnySexist The Funny Sexist™

Women Who Dont Cook aren't really women. If God didn't want women to cook, he wouldn't have filled their body with milk and eggs.

I must be bored...

...because I found this incredibly funny....

...is that sick or what?