Late Night Infomercials: The CatSwatter

Scene set in generic kitchen. Frustrated woman stands at center, swatting at flying insects
Announcer: Do you have an insect problem? Are you still using a dirty old fly-swatter? Those are covered in germs! Yuck! Woman throws down fly-swatter

Announcer: What you need is a brand new CatSwatter! Box appears on floor at woman's feet CatSwatter is a hands-free insect destroying machine! Just open the box and away it goes! Woman opens box, cat emerges No assembly required! No more chasing insects around your house, CatSwatter does it for you! Cut to cat chasing insects No more messy bug splatters, CatSwatter cleans up after itself! Cut to cat chewing then cleaning face

Scene returns to generic kitchen. Happy family stands with cat sitting on counter top 
Announcer: 100% effective!

Family: Thanks CatSwatter!

Announcer: Reads quickly as text scrolls across screen. Extensive additional maintenance and long term care required. All directions must be followed. CatSwatter INC not responsible for additional costs associated with product. Not all CatSwatters will behave identically. Effectiveness not guaranteed.




Cheers,
Red

nom nom nom nom

I don't really have a post tonight... I just wanted to say it's super creepy sitting here in the middle of the night with Kelly under the table apparently eating a bug..?

He's under my chair clearly making little chomping noises. There's nothing on the floor and he was in wild beast mode a few minutes ago, so my (very powerful) skills of deduction tell me he has caught something and eaten it. I guess it was fighting for its life inside his little kitty mouth because it took an awful long time for him to chomp it up.

It must have been one of those elusive "invisi-bugs" though, because I most certainly have not seen any insects in here for quite some time.

Cheers,
Red

Red's First Children's Book

There Are No Cookies in My House: A Ghost Story, or Cat Pee Under the SinkBased on a true story

Little Red stretched in her bed in her little blue house on the top of the hill. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. It was a lovely morning, made even more lovely by the memories spinning around in Little Red's head. She had just gotten back from a weekend trip to The Big City. She had a wonderful time there; shopping at fancy stores, dressing up in lovely clothes, and eating at all her favorite restaurants. But of course, every trip had an end, and although Little Red wasn't quite ready to come home, she knew her cats would need her.

Little Red patted the cats' heads as they sprawled around her on the bed. Today, she thought, I am going to make cookies to celebrate being back home! She popped into the kitchen, and to her dismay remembered that the butter was all but frozen solid. Little Red knew her cookies wouldn't be very delicious if she tried to make them with frozen butter, so, with a sigh, she placed the hard sticks of butter on the counter and sat down to read a book.

After lunch, Little Red prepared the kitchen for her cookie making. She was excited, she hadn't made cookies in what seemed like forever. She loved making cookies almost as much as she loved eating cookies. Little Red bent down near the sink and smelled a terrible smell. She froze. No, she must have been mistaken! That terrible smell couldn't be THE terrible smell! In horror, she bent down again. NO! It was! It was THE terrible smell! The terrible smell of cat pee!

In a frenzy, Little Red threw open the cabinet doors below the sink and stuck her head inside the dark cavern below. NO NO NO!! The smell was stronger here! Hastily, Little Red emptied the cabinet below the sink, the crock-pot, coffee maker, popcorn popper, and the brown paper bags were strewn across the kitchen floor. Little Red stared at them in horror and brought them, one by one, to her nose.

NO! NO! NO! NO! Tears sprang to Little Red's eyes, she didn't know if it was anger, sadness, or just the burning aroma wafting from the cabinet below the sink. The paper bags and a cardboard box were all but mush, warped and damp.

Little Red flew to the laundry room and returned with arm fulls of cleaning products. She filled both of her kitchen sinks and a bucket. Lysol, bleach, and dish soap were squirted with abandon. After scrubbing out the cabinet under the sink, everything else was thrown into bleachy water. Little Red scrubbed and fretted, yelling obscenities; the cats hid in the living room.

Panting, Little Red tossed the last bleach soaked bottle cap onto a towel on the counter to dry. She did not know what else might be coated in a sticky layer of cat pee. The anxiety gripped her tightly and her eyes went wild. Without pause she began tossing other things into the cleaning solutions. She began spraying bleach and Lysol upon everything in her path. She began to cackle crazily as the fumes mixed and sent her head spinning, yet she did not stop. "I must clean the pee! It could be anywhere!" Little Red shouted insanely.She continued through the house, overturning furniture and dumping cleaning products anywhere she could reach.

The next morning, the police found her body. She lie flat on the kitchen floor, her eyes rolled back in her head, and white froth pooled in her mouth. Dead as a doornail. The cats were nowhere to be seen, but a window had been broken and bits of short hair clung to the shattered glass.

To this day, people say they can hear a voice carried on the wind from the top of the hill. "Noooooo," it seems to call, "there's peeeeee everywhere".

The End.

Floral Destruction! RAWR!! CAT SMASH!!

For the last couple of weeks I've had a little soup can on my desk. I have been storing some practice flowers for the wedding in it. They're made of Crayola Model Magic so they feel really funny... like weird foam.  I had about ten of them im my little can, about six inches tall with an inch wide flower. I want o use them as the bouquets and boutinnieres, so I probably need at least a hundred.

They're supposed to look like frangipanis. I need to work on the ends of the petals... They need to be pointier or something..?

Well... now I have six.

I have six of them because SOMEBODY ATE four of them... ATE THEM!!!

I noticed Kelly (two year old, white and tan cat) up on my desk the other day. He was busy nosing around in the can of flowers. He then proceeded to pull one of the flowers out and shred it. By the time I got to him he had completely destroyed it. I shooed him away but didn't move the can (WTF so stupid of me!). Later he apparently came back and destroyed an additional flower.

I finally put the can into the closet so he couldn't get to it. When I took it out again today I notice TWO more of the flowers were ruined. One is missing a petal and the other is full of fang holes.

Grr I am so angry! They're not allowed on the desks to begin with, but I suppose it is my fault for having things sitting there. But really... wth.  Angry! Angry!

Now I am all kinds of paranoid about ALL of my things... Particularly anything wedding related since I think Kelly is going to nom on some more of it, or possibly tell everybody else about how delicious inedible things are.

 Y u blame me? Me so adorable! Me no eat your things!

Cheers,

Red

Hiking Adorably in the National Park

We went hiking in Hoffmaster State Park today. And while our discovery of the fantastically large dead fish on the beach was pretty amazing, we discovered something else way, way more awesome.

As we headed back out of the woods after our treck along the beach, we came up to a man taking photos of something on the side of the path. We pulled up short when I realized what exactly this guy was taking photos of.

TWO BABY RACCOONS. OMG BABY RACCOONS. SO ADORABLE.

They were exploring the forest together and chittering at each other. We watched them wander about for about 15 minutes and I was able to get a few photos (and some super cute videos). Too bad I just had a point and shoot camera instead of an SLR or something because my photos were terribly grainy...

"Come on brother! Follow me!"

AV thought one of them was larger than the other, but I couldn't tell. One of them was obviously the leader though, he seemed to be showing the other around and waiting for him if he fell behind.

SO VERY ADORABLE!!



They seemed to want to cross from the left side of the hiking path to the right. I think we were making them nervous when we were standing and watching them, but they eventually hopped up to the path and found their way across. Before they crossed the path they turned and looked at us. Maybe checking where we were before they headed out?

I also took a video of them wandering up a log and checking out the roots. Watch and be happy!!

Cheers,

Red

Fish Flakes

Have you met my smelly friend?
Sadly he has met a tragic end;
No longer will he swim and sleep,
In the calm, shiny waves of the dark, blue deep.

On the sand, spring hikers find,
This friend of scale and bone and slime.
Oh, poor dear has lost an eye,
Taken, no doubt, by seagulls roaming by.

In our travels, wide and long,
We found many with life long gone.
Today a fish, mouth filled with sand,
Washed upon the dune covered land.

It has been chilly all week (except for Tuesday when it was somewhere near a hundred degrees) so we thought a hike would be the perfect thing to do today! We went to one of the national parks and walked through the woods and along the beach. There were ENORMOUS dead fish washed up on the shore. I'm talking enormous like two feet long. These suckers were ridiculously huge. I'm so glad it wasn't hot out today because those dead fish stank with a capital "S" I don't think breathing the air would have worked out if the sun had been beating down on those giant carcasses...

Cheers,
Red

Home Decor for Bad-Asses

AV and I SHOULD be moving soon and I've been thinking about how we should decorate. I want to put up a lot of photos of the places I've/we've been (since I have thousands) but that's all I know so far. But I do have one thing I will for sure have to make the perfect space for...

AV's grandmother gave him a set of brass knuckles a few years ago. He's been keeping them in the paper Walgreen's bag she gave them to him in. Not really an optimal storage space.

But what to do with them? Since we're not exactly drug dealers, we can't quite use them in our daily lives. I can however, use them as some hardcore decor.

BEHOLD! The Bad-Ass Window Box!

The note underneath is the one Grammy wrote telling AV what she was giving him. It reads: "These are Original Brass Nuckles (KUCKLES) from the 1920's-1930's gangster days in America"

So watch yourself when you come over, the livingroom might be armed and dangerous, like a gangster.

Cheers!
Red