Weed Whack-ccident

I learned something very interesting today. If you are attempting to make very small trenches, a weed whacker works excellently. Obviously this isn't the intended purpose of said appliance, but put one in my very capable* hands and you've got trench-city.

Apparently, well not really "apparently" since I already knew this, when you use a tool with a running motor, it changes its perceived weight as you move it about. Two key components to utilizing a weed whacker are a running motor and moving it about. As it would seem, my strong and beefy** arms were not exactly up to this task today.

I tried using the weed whacker the other day but I couldn't get it started. I determined it was an a**hole and gave up.

AV showed me how to start it again yesterday evening so I tried again today. I was planning on doing this later, but the sky suddenly clouded over and I freaked out; AV's having friends up for the Fourth and I don't want my house to look like a total piece of crap***.

Three tries and the a**hole starts right up. I headed around the back of the house to get started. I pulled the trigger and pointed the whack-y part at the weeds growing in between the stones. Nothing happened. I let out more string. Nothing happened. I leaned sideways too far and dropped the head of the weed whacker into the ground. Something happened.

Little bits of grass and weed whacker string sprayed over my entire lower body. Then dirt. A lot of dirt. I jerked the weed whacker back up and, while the path was now free of weeds, it was also free of fill between the stones.

I kept working.

I managed to dig five more trenches, drop the "blades" into the good**** grass and tear it all out, and do an overall excellent***** job.

I put the weed whacker away and surveyed my work. Ah yes, I see a job in landscaping in my future.

I am an artist. I echo the natural variations of human life and personality with my work in grass clipping. The long grasses symbolize humans' natural curiosity and desires. The medium length grass is a symbol for our work ethic and normalcy and the short grass, of course are the outliers, the misfits and outcasts.******

Cheers,
Red



*totally worthless
**tiny and slightly embarrassing
***I don't want them to know how lazy and disorganized we really are
****I say "good" because there's actually some there. We don't get a lot of rain and the soil is super sandy so the grass is awkward and sparse at best.

***** piss poor

****** No, dude... I'm just really bad at cutting the lawn.

Can you give a cat the heimlich maneuver?

This is an important question as I watch Jame-o dance and coo in the living room as he attempts to murder a pony bead.

AV's mom gave the catlings an Easter basket filled with little plastic eggs. Each of the eggs either had a couple of beads in them or a little furry mouse. Since April, we have effectively lost all six of the little mice somewhere into the netherworlds of Under-The-Couch-Land and/or Behind-The-Kitchen-Appliances-Ville. Somehow all of the pony beads have escaped this particular fate and are seen, from time to time, lounging in the shag carpeting lying in wait of bare feet to impale.

Over the last few days, Jess has decided these pony beads are worthy adversaries and has spent the last half hour of every evening tormenting them. This is not necessarily the part that worries me. The part that worries me is when I hear the bead clicking against his little pointy cat teeth as he sits on his furry butt and chomps at them. Apparently just chewing at them isn't good enough, and he has to also sway back and forth and/or jump up and down as he munches.

I'm terrified he's somehow going inhale one of those little buggers.... And then what? Cats can choke can't they? How do you even get something out of their tiny little windpipes? Can you heimlich them? CPR? Its not like I have a little kitty AED set up anywhere. Although I suppose he would probably just hack a bit then barf on my carpet.

Maybe I should go pick all those things up...

Cheers,
Red

Appetizing Gnomes

My terrible spelling self was trying to look up how to spell "hors-d'oeuvre". You'd think that with six years of french I'd be able to spell it... but I can't. At all. So much so that Dictionary.com gave me these options for what I might be looking for:

Yes, one of the options is "House elves". From Harry Potter.

Cheers,
Red

Oh, Internet, You So Silly!!

I was just looking at our stats for the blog and I noticed I wasn't familiar with some of the sites which have been referring* readers to us.

For all time, the sites which have referred readers to this blog are as follows:

So let's look through them, shall we?

Facebook - I sent some links through the messaging platform. Okay, that makes sense.
AVandRed- That's this blog, I didn't know it counted to refer to ourselves, but okay...
Yahoo mail - I emailed some links via email. Good that checks out.
OffbeatBride.com - I'm a member here and the blog is linked in my profile. Makes sense.
Pingywebedition - Well, apparently this little buddy here is spam, so sad :( (explained here: http://elbadaernu.blogspot.com/2010/12/referrer-spam.html)

Now, the last referred, highlighted in orange (red?) in my photo...

Against all my better internet judgement, I clicked on the referring site link in my statistics page. I figured it must be some other blog or something? Honestly, I wasn't thinking about much, I was just like "wtf is this link, I don't know you..?" (when you're thinking this, it should be a red flag in terms of clicking on things...)

The page loaded and my screen was filled with naked women with spread legs. .... "Amateur Porn" read the top of the page. MY EYES!! I'VE BEEN TRICKED!!!

And I still don't even know why (or IF) our blog is being referred from there!

Cheers, and I'm going to go ahead and do a virus scan now,
Red

* Usually this means that this site has a link to (in this case) our blog somewhere

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

 

I'm Hunting WABBITS!

The other day I was minding my own business, picking apart a cooked chicken for my dinner when I heard a very loud boy's voice through my open window. There are a ton of kids that live around us so I didn't really think too much and continued to pick on my chicken. Then the voice came again.

"Taylor! There's a rabbit over here! Come over here there's a bunny!" Of course, like the ridiculously sensible adult I am, I chuckled to my self and thought "what a moron, there's not going to be a bunny over there for very long if you keep yelling about it." But then I heard the voice a third time, louder than the other two times, and strangely close to my open windows.

"Taylor! I'm serious! There's a bunny over here you can shoot!"

My brain skidded to a halt. There's a what you can do WHAT to??? I rinsed off my hands and wandered over to the front door to see where exactly we planned to be shooting at rabbits.

I opened storm door and stepped onto the porch. My brain skidded again so hard it started going backwards. Captian ComeShootThisBunny was standing ON MY YARD. And I'm not talking, edge of the sidewalk, stay off the grass style. I'm talking HALFWAY INTO MY FREAKING YARD. He was pointing at a rabbit who was obliviously eating my bushes. RIGHT NEXT TO MY HOUSE.

So re-cap. You're a little neighbor boy wandering down the street. You see a rabbit so you WANDER INTO SOMEBODY'S YARD. You do not know this person but you then determine your buddy should SHOOT at said rabbit in somebody's yard you do not know. Somebody's yard you do not know is OBVIOUSLY HOME because all the windows and doors are open and the lights are on.

"WHAT THE HELL??? ARE YOU F-CKING KIDDING ME, CHILD???" Is what I wanted to say.

"We are NOT shooting rabbits in my yard, go away please" Is what I actually said. I know, I know, mean old neighbor lady ruining all your fun. But you know WHAT buddy? I don't trust my OWN sharpshooting enough to be shooting at something in front of my house, so excuse me if I don't trust your little ten year old friend's skills. And I severely doubt you have enough money to buy me a new window when you "accidentally" shoot mine out.

Not to mention the fact that I'm currently IN my house and who knows WHAT you are planning to be shooting into my yard/at my house.... Bullets? Definately not okay. Paint balls? Not okay. BBs? Not okay. Nerf darts? Still not okay!

OMG, WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?????*

Cheers, and thank G-d I didn't lose an eyeball...
Red

*I don't know who these lovely children belong to, but I DO know these are the same lovely children that play in the middle of the street on the top of the hill you can't see over till you get your car to the very top.