|
Take a walk on the mild side.
April 2008 - Posts
-
My husband convinced me it was time to get a locking gas cap for my vehicle. Normally when he ventures into the "paranoid" zone (and he is a frequent visitor), I humor him but don't usually change any of my habits. Now that it is costing about $60 to fill my gas tank, his suggestion has merit. It was easy to find one (apparently the gas cap size is one of the few things that is standard across most vehicles) and not too expensive (about $8). There is a little more hassle at the gas station since I have to take my keys with me, but I do have peace of mind. And so does my husband.
|
-
Can you imagine trying to think of enough different names for the inhabitants of a small town? Even worse, you're not allowed to use any name more than once. Difficult, isn't it? Well that's what we have to do every time our cats produce more litters. It gets tougher when so many of them look alike. How many times have you named a black cat, Blacky? Or called a cat with white paws, Socks? Or named a tiger stripe, Tiger?
In years past I've had a cat or two and it was easy to name her with what I felt at the time. Usually, the appearance of the animal suggests a good name. Or, you name it after your Teddy Bear, no problem. But, since moving in with my husband, I've entered a time warp. He says that, in the past twelve years, he's had to name upwards of six hundred individual animals. It all started with one stray cat a little over twelve years ago. Just like Genesis, one begat four, four begat sixteen, and so on. The normal litter is four kittens; we sometimes get one or two, but we've had several with seven bright, healthy, cute-as-can-be, kittens. Each one needs a good name.
Our best method for names is movies and TV shows. Whatever we happen to be watching when a litter is born can provide several names. This way we can remember which cat belongs to which litter. Each litter, then suggests a particular theme. When we saw the movie Serenity, we names those kittens Inara, Mal, Kaylee, etc. Right now we are watching the Civil War so some of our kittens will have the names of generals. If we need more names we'll start using the battle names, even splitting one name for two kittens. Like Gettys and Burg will take care of two kitties' names, or Bull and Run. Guess "Bull" should be a male, huh? We are always looking for suggestions. I guess we could start naming the kittens using names from the Bible. We'll name the first one Begat. The names of the latest litter: Tonto, Yvette, Alejandro, Dominique, Brady, Inara, and Bogart.
|
-
We had a noisy server running in our office for over three years. I was responsible for this server -- running Windows updates, rebooting, setting up the development websites and databases, installing anti-virus software, etc. Whenever I started a global search and replace on the files, the server would shift into high gear and sound like a jet plane warming up to take off. Just last week, this server was moved into its very own room. What a difference this made. Quite a few times during the day, however, I find myself wondering, "I can't hear the server. Is there something wrong with it?" before I remember that it is supposed to be this quiet. I almost feel like a mother that has lost track of her child in the store. I start to get a little panicky, I listened very intently, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I can just barely make out the sound of the server. Is this normal behavior?
|
-
We have three wonderful dogs who are more like children to us than they are pets. We consider their health and comfort when we make decisions about buying a car, a couch, and even bedspreads. I'd like to talk about our newest arrival, Logan. I wasn't actually there for his arrival. I was headed out of town to visit my mother on Mother's Day. One of our other dogs, Katie, noticed this small, black puppy, no more than a few weeks old, wandering across our front lawn. Katie was making so much noise that my husband felt compelled to investigate. He thought the puppy would be gone by the time he got out the front door. Instead, the little fellow, scared and lonely, was sitting on the edge of the property. My husband called to him but he ran to hide in some bushes. With a little coaxing he came out to be picked up and cuddled. After asking all the neighbors about this little puppy, my husband decided that he must have been abandoned by some sorry person. He took little Logan into the house and fed him; he ate as if he were starving. Once Logan was in our house for twenty-four hours, he became a part of our family.
We couldn't be happier with our third child. He's very intelligent, trains easily, and is ferocious with strangers. We feel that he communicates with us extremely well. He's always trying to emulate our speech. If he had vocal chords, I know that we could teach him our language. He'll tell us, in a normal voice, for example, that he wants to go out. If we don't respond in a reasonable length of time, he'll bark softly and reiterate his request. If we are disinclined to acquiesce to his request, he'll bark sharply, as if to say (and he probably is), "if you don't let me out now, you'll have to clean it up!" That usually gets through to us and we let him out. If we happen to be engaged in conversation, he won't interrupt with a bark; he will walk up to one of us and put his paw on your foot. That means he wants you to walk over to the door and open it which you can do and still keep talking. If you are eating something, he will sit beside you and put his paw on your leg to alert you that if you feel like sharing your food, he is available to help.
 Logan has an extraordinary internal clock. I get up during the week at 6:30 AM every day. He will often wake us up just a couple of minutes before the alarm clock goes off. Unfortunately, he also does this on the weekend. It is the rare occasion when he will let us sleep late until 7:00 AM. He is so eager to start the day that his enthusiasm is catching and we can't stay mad at him. We have a heck of time getting him to understand Daylight Savings, though, and how this affects the time of day.
|
-
One thing I dread is car troubles. I know so little about cars. I think that any time I take my car into a repair shop, I'm taken advantage of. They could say, "Your flap-doodle is shot and it must be replaced." I respond with, "Oh, OK. How much will it cost and how long will it take?" My car recently started acting up. I could tell even before I went to the shop that it was an expensive kind of problem. The official diagnosis was that the vehicle needed a new transmission. Ouch. The cost of replacing the transmission was about as much as the car would be worth as a trade-in (it is an old vehicle). I decided to have the car repaired and I'm hoping that I get enough use out of the car for long enough to make the repair worthwhile. I took the car in to a repair shop on a Wednesday. They said they could get a transmission to put in by Thursday afternoon. They would take the car apart Thursday morning so that when the transmission arrived in the afternoon, they could start putting it in immediately. Well, guess what. The part did NOT arrive on Thursday. And even more bad news, the mechanic would not be available to work on the car until the following Tuesday. My car has been disassembled at the shop for five days now. The only thing that kept me from blowing a gasket of my own is that the car place loaned me a car (for free) to drive while mine was was not functioning. I am hoping and praying that they get my vehicle fixed tomorrow and my life can go back to normal.
|
-
This is one of my favorite animated GIFs. On some of my worst programming days, I feel exactly like this. But watching this picture always makes me smile.
|
-
My bedroom set (two dressers and a nightstand) are almost as old as I am. I got this set when I was a kid and I've carried them with me to every home I've lived in. Every time I think about changing the furniture, I end up realizing that there's nothing out there that's any better than what I already own. There are two very good reasons not to purchase anything new: quality and price. The stuff that is sold in stores now is of such poor quality that I'm afraid that the drawers will break before the guarantee is up. Very few pieces are made of wood anymore. Most furniture is made from pressboard. This material is notorious for breaking and, if it gets wet, disintegrating. The finish is usually cheap looking. If you can find real wood pieces that are properly constructed, you'll see a world of difference in the quality of the finish and serviceability. Of course, if you want the real McCoy, you'll pay dearly for it. The junk is really, really cheap in price, as is the quality. That's how the stores can sell this low quality stuff; they charge so little for it that people think it's a bargain. In reality, you get what you pay for (most of the time, anyway) and if you pay a little, you get a little. Likewise, if you can find quality furniture that will last a lifetime, you'll pay a high price. Actually, if you work out the price per year, you'll find that the good stuff is a lot cheaper. Let's say you spend $90 on a dresser and it falls apart in three years. It cost you $30 a year. If you spend $200 on a good piece of furniture and you get twenty years of use out of it, then it cost you $10 a year. Chances are that the good piece served you well for the entire time you used it, and the cheap piece probably started to wear out a month after you bought it. You didn't want to get rid of the cheap piece right away because you felt you wanted to get your money's worth from it. It's easy to see that the "bargain" really lies in the quality of the material and in the workmanship. My furniture has lasted close to forty years and has always worked well. I guess if I got tired of looking at it, I could always refinish it with paint or stain. Then I'd have brand new furniture and still have the reliability of the quality that was built into it when it was new.
|
-
 Today is a grand day. Our cat, Tastee Wheat, gave birth to seven beautiful kittens. Three are black, two are gray, and two are a black/brown/gray/white mix. Needless to say, they are all wonderful. We were wondering when this marvelous event would take place; the poor cat seemed to be pregnant for six months, but we know that it's only been nine weeks. This is Tastee Wheat's first litter and she's really doing well. Tastee Wheat primarily lives outside, but we would bring her in at night if it was cold. That became the norm even when it wasn't cold. We were pleased that she decided to give birth inside. If you can handle the kittens from the very beginning, they get used to humans and enjoy their company. The cats that stay outside all of time tend not to be as trusting to humans and mostly stay away from them. Then when they give birth outside, we don't get to know their kittens either.
Tastee Wheat was born a little over a year ago. Her mother, Tuvok, was an exclusively outside cat who would let us pet her a little bit but would mostly stayed away. One day when Tuvok was very pregnant (she looked like she had swallowed a basketball), she came to our front door and meowed. We were surprised, but we let her in and put her in one of the spare bedrooms. When we checked on her the next morning, she had given birth to seven kitten, one of which was Tastee Wheat. We handled those kittens a lot and they grew up friendly to humans. We managed to find homes for a couple of them. Once the kittens were old enough, we put Tuvok and the kittens back outside. The few of them that stayed around are still very friendly to us.
|
-
Everyone has embarrassing moments. Some are of a lesser degree like broccoli in your teeth, a booger hanging out of your nose, or someone pointing out to you that "irregardless" is not a word. Others are worse. I was feeling pretty good at work one day. I was wearing one of my favorite outfits - a long pleated silk skirt in dark green with a matching top and black boots. As I was walking down the hallway back to my office after visiting the restroom, I noticed that my skirt was not swishing around my lower legs like it usually did. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I reached my hand around to my back and instead of feeling my skirt I felt my pantyhose. Yup, my skirt was tucked up completely inside my pantyhose. I whipped my head around and the only person I saw in the hallway with me was walking away. To this day I still wonder if he had been following me and noticed my skirt was tucked up in my pantyhose and only reversed direction when he saw me turning around. If he did turn around to lessen my embarrassment, I appreciate it. I also wonder then if it qualifies as an embarrassing moment if no one sees it happen?
|
-
There are two kinds of shopping. Shopping for fun, which, for me, is a new purse or pair of shoes. Then there is the mandatory shopping for household products, groceries, and the like. This kind of shopping can be a chore. I have gotten to the age where I MUST write down a shopping list before heading for the store. No matter how obvious it is at home that we need [fill in anything here], by the time I get to the store, it has completely slipped my mind. I have put two dry erase boards on my refrigerator door. One is labeled "Regular Items" and I have a list of the items I buy regularly like bread, milk, eggs, juice, cereal, etc. To show that I need one of these regular items, I draw a circle beside it. The other board is for unusual items that I don't buy regularly like bug spray, cleaning products, special desserts, etc. My husband has gotten very good at circling items or writing them down and does this of his own initiative. Probably because he has learned if he doesn't write it down, he doesn't get it. On a day I expect to go to the store, I copy down all of the items to an index card and put it in my purse. I go shopping, then when I get home, I get to erase all of the marks of the products I remembered to buy or was able to find in the store. I feel very satisfied when I am able to remove all of the marks. Unfortunately, the break-down in this system is actually remembering to take the shopping list with me. There have been many days when I call home and have my husband read me the list over the phone. I'm happy then because I have my list and he is happy because he "helped" with the shopping and he'll get his ice cream.
|
-
I would like to be a vegetarian, but I'm not there yet. I have managed to cut out eating cow and pig so far. Luckily this was pretty easy since I prefer chicken over either of those two anyway. I would mostly like to be a vegetarian for the health benefits. The second reason is I don't like killing animals so that I can eat. I can't even look at a whole chicken because it still looks like the animal that it was (minus the head of course). However, I have no problem with buying chicken breasts, turkey roasts, fish fillets, or shelled-and-deveined shrimp. Anything that doesn't still look like an animal is fine with me. I certainly couldn't go vegan (omitting all animal products). I love cheese, eggs, and milk. I have tried soy milk and I got used to it okay, but I found that it spoiled quicker than cow milk so I stopped using it. I was raised in a family that had a meat, a side dish, and a vegetable at dinner every night. Most of what I know how to cook requires meat. I try to learn a new vegetarian dish every week, but I work full time and my weekends are mostly taken up with doing chores. When I get in a rush, I fall back on my old recipes. I know that isn't a very good excuse. But I'm trying. My parents are very involved in their church. One of the younger church members spent many months raising a calf to enter in a 4-H fair. After the judging, the animals are auctioned off. My parents bid on the kid's calf and won. I understand they wanted to help a friend out, but whever they had steak in the evening, they would brag, "Boy, Rick sure was tasty this evening." How could they eat an animal that had a name? They met this animal at the fair and even took a picture of him standing beside the proud owner! I get a little sick to my stomach whenever they talk about "Rick".
|
-
We put out food for a bunch of cats that live outside, staying mostly around our house and in the 30 acre vacant lot next door. Most of them we can't get near, although we know they appreciate the food. Some of them are more friendly to us and will let us pet them. We will try to bring these cats inside on those nights when it gets really cold. One of the cats has become very friendly to us. She is also very friendly with the male cats. She is one year old and so pregnant she looks like she is about to burst. We try to find homes for the kittens that are born regularly to the outside cats, but we are running out of friends that don't already have a kitten from us.
|
-
I first described Tard Ball in a previous post. It's like a miniature tennis game without the net and using your non-dominant hand (this is the tard factor) to hit the ball so that it bounces in your opponent's area. An easier variation of this is simply Tard Ball Catch. Two people throw a ball back and forth using their non-dominant hand or alternating left and right. I prefer to alternative so one arm doesn't get too tired. My husband and I play Tard Ball and Tard Ball Catch most weekends. We go out on our back porch and use the 4' X 8' plywood sheets on the floor to mark our areas. We usually start Tard Ball Catch standing 8-feet apart and then once we are warmed up we spread out to 12-feet apart. (As an aside, almost without fail, our "warm-up" session is the one in which we make the most catches in a row without dropping the ball. We also do better at the 8-foot distance than the 12-foot, but we hope to improve enough to become "Tard Ball Champions".) This past weekend we were lucky enough to be able to introduce Tard Ball and Tard Ball Catch to a visiting couple. I don't think they were too enamored with it, but they humored us and played it some. We made up a new game we called "Double Tard Ball Catch". We used two balls and stood at the four corners of a square. Couples faced each other across the middle, like a plus sign configuration "+" and each couple threw a ball back and forth. At this point you have a choice: throw the balls one at a time or throw them at the same time for "Synchronized Double Tard Ball Catch". You might expect that the balls would strike each other in the air with synchronized throwing and they did at first. A lot. But we realized that if a taller person and a shorter person threw at the same time, the balls were less likely to hit. I think everyone had fun. I'll know for sure if the couple ever comes back to visit us again.
|
-
I had a strange dream the other night. First, a little background on my situation. In real life, I live in one house that I'm trying to sell and I have another house in a different city and I work in a city between the other two cities where I have houses. I spend a lot of time driving between these places. In my dream, I met this couple that also had two houses and they were doing a lot of commuting as well. We decided to start carpooling. That part of the dream I understand; selling the house and all the driving I do have been weighing heavily on my mind. The carpooling went well and one night they invited me over to their house for dinner. I was surprised to see that they had a couple of pigs running around in their kitchen. The pigs were their pets. One pig was named Macaroni. I guess because his tail curled like macaroni noodles and possibly because of his color. The other pig was a dark color and, unfortunately, I didn't catch his name.
I have not been able to figure out what the pigs represented in my dream. I do know that if I ever get a pig as a pet, his name will be Macaroni.
| |
|