The Fair in pictures

First off, I want to thank everybody for their kind comments on the last post.  You guys can come play in the park anytime. :)

Now, The! Fair!

Yes, there really are that many trees on the fairgrounds.  Makes it easy to find a shady spot when you need a break.

Look!  Giant ice cream cones!  This is MY kinda fair:

Native American beadwork:

Gotta love the Kid Art:

Dancers:

Longhouse:

4H displays:

This little dancer was strutting her STUFF on that great big stage:

 Calf, just a few hours old:

Gotta wash up before the show:

Getting there early means you beat the crowds:

Oh, the quilts!:

I cannot even imagine the patience it must take to piece one of these suckers together.  I can just picture myself wadding everything up and heaving it across the room.  Where the cats would then deposit fur on it.

 This flower arrangement ... well ... some of the flower arrangements were, frankly, baffling.  And this one won a blue ribbon! WTF ...

Sand sculpture - Dr. Seuss.  The guy standing next to me said, "Well, everybody ELSE is taking a picture.  I guess I might's well, too."  Yeah, we all took a pic. 

Log cabin recreation:

 I love the demonstrators:

You could not PAY me enough to get on some of these rides.  Hell, I got nervous just standing next to them.

See you next time, Fair!

As a matter of fact, I *am* the Park Police

So I did something last night that ... well ... I'm still not sure if I did the right thing or not.  You be the judge.

There is a public park right next door to my property, with a meeting hall, playground, tennis courts, a ballfield and, closest to my yard, a big open space.  Sports teams sometimes use the open space to practice on.  Last night, it was a group of soccer players.  At first, I thought they were high school girls, but seeing as how they all drove their own cars, I'm guessing college-age.

Now, my living room window faces the park, and my computer is on a desk in front of the window, so when I'm on line, I've got a clear view of the park.

The girls all pulled up, piled out of their cars, and started putting on gear, tossing balls around, etc.  And then, a girl showed up with a dog.  A shepherd mix, it appeared to be.

BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK

Oh, did I mention that dogs are not allowed in this particular park?  Due to a problem (long before I moved in to the neighborhood) with people not controlling their dogs in the park?  I should probably also mention that the park is prominently posted with "ABSOLUTELY NO DOGS AT ANY TIME IN THIS PARK" signs.

BARK BARK BARK BARK BAAAAAAAAARK BAAAAAAAARK BARK BARK BARK

The girl got out a rope, tied her dog to a tree, and went to join her friends for soccer practice.  Yep, there they all were, running around, kicking a ball back and forth, doing their drills,  while the dog went f*cking BERSERK watching them on the sideline.

BAAAAAAAAARK BARK BARK BARK BAAAAAAAAARK BAAAAAARK

"Eh," I thought.  "None of my business."

I mean, some of my neighbors walk their dogs in the park all the time, but I don't have a problem with it.  Their dogs are leashed and cleaned up after, and they don't

BAAAAARK BARK BARKBARKBARKBARK

I shut all my windows, but DAMN that dog was loud.  I swear those barks were ECHOING off the nearby hillside.

"Eh," I thought. "They'll probably be done with practice soon."

A half-hour went by.  An hour went by.

BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK

Out of curiosity, I got on line and looked up the town's law stipulating that no dogs are allowed in the park, subject to a maximum of fifteen days in jail and a $500 fine.  I don't know WHAT exactly went down at the park previously, but the town is NOT having any more of it. 

BAAAAAAAAAARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK

I printed out the law.

And then?  I saw one of my neighbors coming down the street.   A woman of around my age, who walks her cute little lap dog around the block every night.  They got to within about a hundred feet of the park, the tied dog saw the lap dog and

well, yeah.  See above re "BARK" etc.

My neighbor snatched up her lap dog, did a u-ey, and ran up the street.  And that was it.  I had HAD IT.

I grabbed up the printed-out law, FLEW out of my front door, and speed walked over to the girls and the dog, who was now losing his sh*t barking at ME.

"Whose dog is this?" I asked.

"Mine," one of the girls said.

I gave her the paper, and said, smiling, "I've been listening to your dog bark for the last hour and a half, and that's long enough.  Plus, dogs are not allowed in this park.  Here's the town law, just in case you, you know, missed the giant signs."

All the other girls were standing around, big-eyed.  The dog owner started to give me a look, then evidently thought the better of it, and said, "Well, I'll just leave, then."

"YOU don't have to leave," I said, pleasantly.  "But your dog does.  Right. Now."

I turned around and stormed back to the house, and by the time I got to the porch, she had loaded up the dog and gone.


So.  Yeah.  I know it was an a**y move, but at that point, it was almost dark out, and I'd been listening to that dog, who was not supposed to be in the park in the first place, bark for an hour and a damn half.  Ain't NOBODY got time for that crap.  And here's the thing; once a group starts practicing in the park, they usually continue practicing there, until their season starts.  There was no way in HELL I was going to listen to that damn dog for the next several weeks.

I was as polite as I could be, given the circumstances, and I certainly had the law on my side (and let's face it; she HAD to have seen the NO DOGS signs in the park), but it's just a taaaaad too close to "get off my lawn" for my comfort.

What do you think?  I mean, I KNOW I was being kind of a dick, but then again, was I?  Or was I within reason?

Enquiring minds want to know.

How much concrete does it TAKE?!

So, I'm having a contractor put up some privacy fencing between me and my a**hole neighbors and their sonofab*tch dog.  Yay! He called me at work and said he had bought the concrete to set the posts; he wanted to know if he could drop the bags of concrete mix off at my place.

Sure, I said, doing a little fist pump at the idea of this fence being one step closer to completion.

I got home to find sixteen, eighty-pound-bags of Quikrete in my garage.  I am having four 8-foot fence panels installed, which means that five posts will need to be set.  With SIXTEEN BAGS of concrete, evidently.

Wow.  That's gonna be one sturdy fence.

State Fair!

I played hooky from work today and cruised up to the Great! State! Fair!

In a way, I wanted a do-over.  I went last year, but was so darn sick from the Summer of C-Diff that I wanted to experience it again while actually not feeling like death warmed over.

It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day.  I walked my feet off, and while I couldn't figure out at first why walking at the fair was so tiring, I've finally come to the conclusion that it's all that pavement.  I can walk for miles and miles out in the woods, but put me on blacktop and things are a little different.  And I got sunburned, but hell, summer's almost over.  One more sunburn for the road.

And!  I walked and walked and walked, and drank an ocean of lemonade (one cup was SEVEN  DOLLARS, and at first I was all, WTF?, but the cups were HUGE and you got free refills,  so, yeah, seven bucks paid for all my beverage intake for the day, and did I mention that the cup was HUGE?  Seriously, it got to be a pain to carry around after a while.  Poor me.  I'd wander back to the midway every so often for a refill. 

So, lemonade and ice cream (okay, TWO ice creams) and a hamburger and a sausage sandwich with peppers and onions and I WAS going to try a Twink (twinkie stuffed with twix wrapped with bacon, deep fried, and drizzled with chocolate), but it was so warm out that deep-fried ANYTHING sounded like not such a great idea

and I bought a three-foot wooden flamingo and a flying freaking FROG (also wood) and a toucan-mobile (also wood; that woodworking booth made book on me today), and a t-shirt and a banner and I made sure to pick up some feathers from the floor of the poultry barn to take home for the foster kittens, who are HUGE FANS of feathers

and oh LORD I had fun.

pics to follow ....

Summer stroll

Yesterday, I went to the nature preserve for a little walk.

The pond was muddy from all the rain we've gotten lately.

The cattails sure didn't mind the rain:

And the fungi seemed to like it, too:

Mickey Mouse!

I don't know what these berries are:

These either:

The deer can be hard to spot in all the foliage.  Your first hint is usually a blob of brown:

Yep, there she is (if a bit (okay, a LOT) out of focus):

But wait ... she's got babies!

No wonder she's thin - she's feeding twins.  Although by the size of those fawns, they should be just about weaned.

Here's another deer:

Now look around; there's bound to be more:

I was surprised that the buck stayed still - they're usually much more skittish than the females. 

It's always good to get out in the woods.

Random

Hmmm.  This is my second Friday Random post in a row.  I can't seem to get it together enough lately to put up a big, coherent post about any one thing, so here you go.  A bunch of tidbits.  Bite-size RockyCat!  Ha.


Yoplait has come out with pumpkin pie-flavored yogurt.  I can't decide if I like it or not.  I mean, I love pumpkin pie, but it seems like the whole pumpkin-flavor thing has been done to death.  Can't help feeling like Yoplait's a little late to the party on this one, although it's entirely possible that Yoplait's been doing pumpkin for years, and my grocery store just started stocking it.  Anyway, I tend to go more for the fruit flavors, so I'm on the fence on this one.  

I was reading the TV listings and came across "Madea Goes to Jail", which I read as "Madea Goes to Hell".  Ha, I might actually watch THAT one.  Turns out reading the TV listings is much more entertaining when you're evidently mildly dyslexic.  This happens to me all the time.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I can never remember what year 9/11 happened in.  For some reason, my mind always goes to 1999.  or 2004.  It's a good thing they named it 9/11, or I'm sure I couldn't remember what DATE it happened on, either.  I'm a terrible person.

I've hired someone to put up a privacy fence between me and my neighbors.  Hopefully it will be up by Labor Day.  I've HAD IT with those dipshits and their awful dog.  It's going to be a natural-wood, pressure-treated stockade fence.  I'm going to stain the side that faces my yard in a clear stain that lets the wood grain show.  It will be very pretty.  I'm thinking of painting their side of the fence battleship gray and writing F*CK YOU on it in giant letters.

I'm not a fan of tattoos.  That said, I've got a stupid janky little heart tattoed on one of my shoulders, from back when I was young and idiotic.  So I'm thinking I might get it covered, because any tattoo-removal job I've ever seen looks worse than the actual tattoo.  Don't ask me what I'm thinking of getting it covered with, because then all of you would just laugh your a**es off.

I only had to run my AC, like, twice this summer, and then only in the foster room.  It's not too late to still have a heat wave, is it?  Because I'd like to b*tch and moan about the heat at least once before the snow flies.

Recently Read

1.  Movie time! "The Waiting Room" is a documentary about a hospital emergency waiting room.  Very good.

2.  Okay, now we'll do some books.  I'm Down  by Misha Wolff is a memoir about a poor white girl growing up in a poor black  neighborhood.  Very funny and very good.  A keeper.

3.  Coop by Michael Perry - Memoir about a guy who moves to a hobby farm.  Okay.

4.  Chalktown by Melinda Haynes is a novel about a small Southern town, some of its inhabitants, and a murder.  It could have been interesting, but instead was boring as sh*t.  I finished it, but I'm not sure why I bothered.  yawn.

5.  Crazy Enough  by Storm Large - Memoir by a rock and roll chick who struggled to understand her mentally ill mother.  Good.

6.  Another movie! "We Need to Talk About Kevin".  Da fuq?  I think this was supposed to be a movie about a "bad seed", but I got fifteen minutes in, couldn't make heads or tails out of it, and bailed.  It was like watching some indie producer's fever-dream.  Sorry, can't review, didn't make it to the half-hour mark.

 7.  The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield - Novel about a preacher's family in 1950s Arkansas.  Good.

8.  The Butterfly Garden by Chip St. Clair.  Memoir about childhood abuse.

9.  The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit.   This novel was written in a narrative voice of which I was previously unaware - the royal we.  "We took the car to the shop to get the oil changed."  "Some of our husbands left first."  "Our brothers said we looked like movie stars."  Da fuq?  Sorry, too distracting.  I got two pages in, leafed through the rest, and quit.

10.  My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin.  Novel written in 1895 about a young woman in the Australian Outback struggling with class and gender biases.  The protagonist is annoying, but the book is good.


So!  That's what I've been reading.  How about you?

Favorite Hate Reads

Dooce, obviously, although I haven't actually read her in a long time.  Not sure if anybody else reads her anymore, either.  She jumped the shark with the Poverty Porn trips.

Pioneer Woman.  Remember when they were going to make a movie about her, and Laura Jean Poon ... errr, Reese Witherspoon was going to star in it?  Yeah, I'd totally forgotten about that until they mentioned it on GOMI the other day.  Oh, and if you want a laugh, head over to this post:

Reese Witherspoon Knows Shakespeare

Make sure to check out the comments, where hilarity ensues.

There's some other blogs I hate read, but they're really too small to publicly snark on here, so if you wanna know, just shoot me an email.  The woman whose blog rhymes with Sigh Sigh Die is a current hate-fav.

How about you?  Got any hate reads?

One Ringy-Dingy. Two Ringy-Dingy

So, I was all set to write about how my foster kittens have ringworm, except ...

SonofaB*TCH, ringworm sucks.  That is all.

Most of the fosters never got it.  But these final two have ringworm which has defied all efforts at a cure.

Send help.  And donuts.

The things I do for you guys ...

Sorry, Ginny,  the kittens are snoozing right now, and the Number One Rule of Fostering is "don't wake the babies".  However, here's the hair:

It's actually darker than that; I was sitting next to a lamp. Wait a minute, let me move ...

 hahahaha yeah this is why I suck at selfies ... somewhere in between those two photos is the truth. :)

Copper

So, I had my hairs did this morning, and the blonde is now gone.  *sob*

I opted for a copper shade, think brown with a hint of reddish.  It looks pretty, and even if the red element fades fast, the brown is close enough to my natural shade (DAMMIT) that it will be much lower maintenance than trying to force a blonde that goes roots-dark much too quickly for my budget.

I ... like it?  It's okay, and frankly, I don't really spend enough time looking in mirrors to care too awful much about my hair, other than  wanting to present a somewhat professional appearance at my job.  Add to that the fact that no one really looks at fifty-plus women anyway, and it's all good.


In my dreams I can be blond ... and young ... and pretty ...  aw,  f*ckit, I'll just stick with being me.

Random

The only time I clean my desk at work is when I spill a soda all over it.

I was exhausted at work the other day, so I bought some of that five-hour-energy stuff at lunch.  Sadly, I was as tired in the afternoon as I was in the morning, so save your money.

I really like that show "Leah Remini:  It's All Relative".  I think the entire family is adorable.  However, I spend way too much time contemplating Ms. Remini's eyebrows.  They. Never. Move.  I think she's probably had so much Botox that they CAN'T move, but it's oddly disconcerting.  Especially since she has to resort to mugging like Lucille Ball in order to show any emotion, because the eyebrows ain't movin'.  Weird.

Current bumperstickers:  "Foster Parent" (BO-ring), Flying Spaghetti Monster emblem (meh), and "Things Just Haven't Been the Same Since That House Fell on My Sister" (ding ding ding we have a winner!)

I am going for a haircut tomorrow at 10 a.m.  I'm still debating what to have done.  I think continuing with the blond highlights is pretty much off the table; I don't have the time or the money for the maintenance required.   I'm thinking of going with a bright auburn or caramel color, which won't require as much upkeep, and hopefully getting my butt in for cuts on a more regular basis.  (Taking your advice, Kris!)

How does a room without a roof feel?  How can a room even have feelings?  And if I was a room, and suddenly lost my roof, I can imagine feeling a little disconcerted, to say the least.  Not necessarily happy.

I was out in the front gardens last night after work, screwing around, when I looked down and realized that I was wearing
GASP
socks with sandals.
whaaaaaaaaa?
Yeah, I have no idea how that happened.  I was just as horrified as you all are. 
and worse, they weren't even really sandal-sandals.  They were fluffy poolside-type sandals.  I KNOW.  Next thing you know, I'll be out there in a damn housedress or something.

I need for some new foods to be invented.  I'm tired of eating the same stuff all of the time. 


How about you guys?  Got any random?

One more post about Robin Williams and then I'll shut up. Promise.

I read a comment on GOMI yesterday paraphrasing David Foster Wallace thusly:

A severely depressed person who commits suicide has made a decision in the same manner that a person in a burning building decides to jump out a window. It seems like the only way to escape the horror.

I thought that was really, really excellent in explaining how people don't just cavalierly decide to off themselves.  I did a little digging and found the direct quote:


The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. Yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

- David Foster Wallace

Sadly, we all know how things turned out for Mr. Wallace.  Even with all  his insight, he still couldn't save himself.

I don't get it.

I've got one-one thousandth of his talent, one-kabillionth of his money, and none of his fame.

And I'm as happy as a pig in sh*t.

I don't understand depression, and I hope I never have to try to.  What a terrible thing.

Well, well, well, look who found a home

Yep.  I've lost my cobweb cleaner.

We had an adoption event Saturday, and seven!  kittens and cats found their new homes.  A family came in toward the end of the event and fell in love with Cow Kitty, who is now living with Mom, Dad, two little girls, two dogs, and one other cat.

I predict Household Domination was achieved by Sunday at two p.m.

And in other TV news ...

... you may remember that I bought a new TV a couple of months ago.  Woot!  And I, cheap me, actually PAID the cable company to come out and hook it up, because I'm hopeless with that stuff.  Wires and cables and diagrams ...  time to pick up the phone and hire somebody.

And they came out and hooked it up and all was well until the first time I went to play a DVD and ... nope.  Oh, the DVD would play, you could see the timer-thingy clicking away on the player, but the show wasn't playing on the TV.  The system was not reading that there was a DVD/VCR attached.

Well.  I called the cable company, explained that they must have goofed something up when they hooked up the new TV, and requested that they send someone back out.  Which they did.  And I'll tell you what, that poor bastid worked and worked and worked, and finally got the system so it would acknowledge the DVD.  Success!

Until the first time I went to record a program, and ... nope.  The system would recognize either the DVD/VCR player or the TV, but not both at the same time, making it impossible to record a program.

Oh for the love of ...

I was NOT going to get the cable company back out there.  And I WAS going to be able to record my beloved, batsh*t crazy Duggars. (When there's nothing on TV, which is most of the time in the summer, there's nothing like a healthy dose of Duggars to fill the void.) Surely, surely, there must be a way to figure this out.  And last night it was time.

I got out all the manuals.  I got out all of the extra bits of coaxial cable wiring I had laying around.  (what?  you don't?)  I got out the flipping wrenches and pliers when I discovered that the last cable guy had evidently used vise-grips to tighten down all of the connections.

And I went to town.  Let's see ... cable in to cable box, out to RF modulator, then to TV, plug TV into cable box ... SH*T!  TV plug is three-pronged.  Grab a converter plug ... CRAP!  It still won't fit!

Okay,  Deep breath.  Cable in to cable box, let's skip the RF mod because that's probably not strictly necessary, audio/video wires from box to DVD and from DVD to TV ... F*CK!  There's no "video in" plug on the TV.  Okay, back to the manual ... hmmm ... I think I can plug the video wire in here ...

And then it was time for a test recording.  First try ... not so much.  Okay, let's see ... maybe I need to change the input on the TV to AV ...  Second try ... oh  the angels sang IT RECORDED!  IT RECORDED!

and I did a little happy hula dance around my living room.  F*CK YEAH!

It's the little things that'll make your day.  I swear.  And I sat and watched two hours of Duggars last night, happy as a damn clam.

I really should just stay out of current affairs

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of headlines and thinking they look suspiciously like Stephen King book plots.  Ebola, anyone?  And the two health care workers getting evac'd to Atlanta?  "The Stand".  Missing Malaysian jetliner?  "The Langoliers".

Yet another blogger (one of the, "I'm so much more SENSITIVE than the rest of you poor bastids" ones) (see also - Subcategory:  I'm mentally ill and milking it for all it's worth*) has chimed in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Siding with Palestine, for what it's worth.  I was kind of surprised that a commenter dared to question her, because she's got some pretty rabid fans, and so when I saw that the first comment was a dissent, I said to myself, "Cue the attack in three ... two ... one ..." and sure enough, the blogger's fan base started piling on.

I will freely admit that I have no idea who is good and who is bad in this particular conflict.  I'm kind of on the, "they're all a bunch of religious fanatic a**holes" side.  But I am getting kind of tired of the attitude in bloglandia where dissent is not tolerated.  As in, you either agree with what I say, or shut the f*ck up.  And UNTIL you shut the f*ck up, my fans and I will make you regret speaking up in the first place.

Eh.  Hive-mind makes for pretty boring blogging. 

About the only thing I do know is that if I lived in Palestine OR Israel, I'd be living someplace else right now.  Hell, I'd flipping crawl out of the country if I had to.  Screw that bomb shelter crap.  I'm OUTTA there.  I wouldn't care if I was leaving a job, a house, relatives.  I wouldn't care if the only thing waiting for me was uncertainty.  F*ck, I wouldn't care if the only thing waiting for me someplace else was a steaming refugee camp or jail or a detention center.  As long as the bombs weren't landing there, I'd be cool with it.  Just get me away from the got-dam bombs, and it's all good. 

So, yeah, I really should just stay out of current affairs.  I'm obviously woefully underinformed and overly opinionated.  So, the stereotypical blogger, pretty much.





* Yeah, I know that's gonna catch me a bunch of sh*t.  I don't care.  I have nothing but respect for people who struggle with mental illness.  Because it IS real, and it IS an illness.  A rat b*stard of an illness.  Where I do have problems, is with bloggers who pull out the Mental Card whenever pageviews drop.  Or when they've got a book to sell.  Cry me a river, Crazy.  We've all got our crosses to bear.  And the incessant "I'm so BRAVE and MIGHTY" crap, especially when it's only pulled out when it can benefit the blogger, gets mighty tiring mighty fast.  Stop milking your pain like it's a f*cking cash cow already.  Oh wait; it IS.  So, yeah, if you can make money offa it, I guess go right ahead.  I dunno. 

Not the sharpest tool in the shed

So, I'm scrolling through the TV listings tonight, and I see a listing called "How the Universe Works", with the sub-heading "Saturn is spotlighted".

Except I read it as, "Satan is spotlighted", and I'm all, like, whoa, they're really going to introduce good and evil into a science show?


hahahahahaha yeah, I could do with some more sleep right about now.

Hairs

This morning, I made an appointment to get my hair cut and colored.  I had it dyed red a while back, but the red didn't hold, which pisses me off because my MOM was a redhead, so you'd think I'd have some red hair genes in there somewhere, but no.  My hair won't hold red.  So then I got it highlighted blond(er), and that looks nice, but holy hell it looks like crap when it starts growing out.

My hair used to be blond.  Like, REALLY blond.  See:

And it stayed blond, right through my twenties, but then it started to darken.  I was absurdly heartbroken several years ago when I had to get a passport photo taken and I was officially classified as "brunette"(WHAT?!).

So, now it's "brunette" (DAMMIT) with blond highlights, except I'm not really enamored of the whole thing.  I think I might just have it dyed, somewhere in between the "brunette" (F*CKIT) color and the blond with which it's currently highlighted.

Here's what it looks like now:

LOOK HOW AWFUL IT LOOKS ON THE TOP, THERE.   Look at those "brunette" (SOB) roots.  That is NO BUENO.  Visible roots are TACKY AS SH*T.

And I really should just go back to my natural color, because let's face it, having your hair dyed ain't cheap, and visible roots when it starts to grow out look awful and I can't afford to go back every few weeks for a touchup, but I am STILL not reconciled to being a "brunette" (YECH.).  Maybe ... maybe I should get it dyed darker than my natural color, so that when the roots start to grow out, they would be lighter?  Ah god I SUCK at this stuff. 

I dunno.  What do you guys think?



And no, I was not just, like, hanging out in a random store with a kitten on a leash.  We were there for an adoption event.  I had an EXCUSE.  *cough*

Tinks, Splayed

So!  First off, we had four kitten adoptions on Saturday, including one to the owner of the store where the event was held, which is, evidently, proof that we could indeed sell ice to Eskimos if the situation warranted.

The oddest conversation probably was the one with the woman who proudly told us about her barn cats.  Her many, many, many barn cats.  When we offered her some literature about local low-cost spay/neuter programs, she explained that nononono, she needed to keep her numbers up.  Her ... numbers up?

Seems that if the barn cat population dips too low, the rodent population skyrockets.  I find it hard to believe that the cat population on her farm isn't skyrocketing as well, but then again, she's out in the country.  I would imagine that coyotes, tractors, etc. probably keep the cat pop under control.  I guess?  Anyway, it was my first exposure to the whole cats-as-livestock idea, although if we keep doing events out in the sticks, it probably won't be the last.

I hauled the area rug out of the foster room the other day and took it out back to scrub down.  Tinks was happy to have a new thing to sprawl on:

Have I mentioned before that Tinks is a splayer?  He likes nothing more than to spread out:

Comfy boy.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

We had an adoption event last Saturday, and as a result six (!) kittens found new homes.  This is the slow season for adoptions, and so we just keep plugging away, an event every ... blessed ... weekend.  Last week, toward the end of the event (and there is always, ALWAYS, someone who comes in at the tail end - we were there for an extra hour last week thanks to the last-minuters), a woman came in who wanted to adopt two kittens as a surprise for her daughters.  We're not real big on "surprise" adoptions, but we let the woman go ahead, with the promise that if her daughters were less than thrilled with the little surprises, she'd return them (the kittens, not the daughters) to the rescue.  Here is her story of the surprise (and I'm leaving the misspellings in; there's too many to correct 'em all):



"Thank you so much for the two little blessings Ruby and Snowball (for now anyway).I told the girls there was a surprize waiting for them when they got home. So when we got there they were excited to see what it was. I handed each of them a collar (and they at first thought they were braclets) they loved them. Then I gave them each a cat ball toy. They were not as thrilled as they were with the cool new bell braclets but they were greatful. Then I gave then a mouse on a pole each. This caused them to both look at me like I was crazy. Beth said um mom these are cat toys you know that right. I was schocked and said are they really I thought they were really cool batons with mice on them. She clearly does not think I am as funny as I do . I said well I can take them back just go put them in the bathroom in the hallway for now so they don't get lost. confused but happy they walked to the bathroom together and opened the door. As they went to set them on the counter they spotted our new family members. Joyce was excited and happy but Beth actually cried to see them. So I think that kittens number 155 and 160 are not halfway home anymore they are all the way home now."

Cute, right? 

The Bad:

As I was setting up last weekend, a local yahoo walked past the display and loudly proclaimed:  "SOMEbody needs a bag, a box of rocks, and a body of water!  har, har, har!"

No, I did not kick him in the nuts.  He was obviously already genetically challenged enough, and it hardly seemed sporting.

The Ugly:

I make little cat-sized quilts to sell as fundraisers at the events.  They're small, around 20" x 24", and made out of sale fabrics that I pick up at Jo Ann.  Here's one:

That's not a great pic; it's laid out kind of kitty-wampus there on the rug.  Anyway, some of the quilts are patchwork, and some are done with diagonal pieces, and some are done with vertical rows of fabrics.   We sell 'em for five bucks each.  And you would not BELIEVE the number of people who look at the quilts, pick each one up, EXAMINE THE STITCHING, and ponder ponder ponder before finally deciding that no, five bucks is too much to spend.  On a quilt.  A hand-sewn, machine-washable, one-of-a-kind blankie for their kitty.  God.  I'm not THAT bad of a seamstress, for Pete's sake.  Or am I?


So, we've got another event tomorrow, at a new location.  We'll see what happens ...


 

Finally found a way to keep the kittens in the foster room from knocking over my beer ...

Yep, that's me - high class all the way.

yeah, probably not a *good* noise to hear

So!  I got home from work last night, and headed to the mailbox to grab the mail, when I heard a sound.

zzzzzzt          zzzzzzzzzzzzt         zzzzzzzzzzzzt

It was coming from ... up in the air.  Up where the power lines run through the trees in my front yard.

zzzzzzzt  zzzt zzzzt zzzzzzzzzzt

"Meh," I thought.  "It sounds like something arcing, but I don't see any arcing.  Probably nothing," and I walked into the house.  All the power was on, TV/phone were working just fine.

A little while later, I had to go out to the car

 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt   zzzzzzzzzt  zzzzzt zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt

And this time I could smell something.  Something ... burning.

"Oh, for f*ck's sake," I thought.  "My first day back to work, and now I've gotta deal with this?"

I went back in and called the utility company.  The woman I spoke with was very nice, said she'd get a truck right out, and added, "If anything else should happen before the truck gets there, please call us back."

"If anything else happens, the FIRST thing I'm doing is LEAVING," I said, and we both had a little laugh.  Arcing power lines!  Are funny!

So a little while later, up pulls the utility company truck, and a dude gets out and starts walking around the front yard, looking up into the trees.  Because I feel the need to inject myself into every event, I walked out and asked him, "do you hear it?"  "Naw, not right now," he said.  "Um ...," I said, "You might want to ... shut off your truck?"  That great big diesel was idling about ten feet from where we were standing.  "Oh, yeah!," dude said, and shut off the truck, and sure enough

zzzzzt   zzzzzzzzzzzt   zzzzzzzzzzzzt  zzzzzzzzt

"Yep," the dude said.  "I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take down some of those branches."

"Take 'em ALL," I said.  "Those trees are a pain in the butt!"  They are.  They are locust trees, nearing the end of their lifespan, and they keep dropping branches and drooping and in the fall the little tiny leaves are too small to rake, meaning they stay on the lawn all winter.  I don't know who ever thought that planting trees directly under power lines was a good idea, anyway.  IT WASN'T ME.

The dude laughed.  "Usually people get upset when I tell 'em I have to take down branches," he said.

"Take as many as you want," I said, and went back inside.

So dude got up in his bucket with his saw thing and went to work.  About twenty minutes later, there was a great big pile o' branches in my front yard, one of the trees looked decidedly ... lighter, and no more zzzzzt zzzzzzt zzzzzzt.

It's just one dang thing after another, I tell you.  It's always lively at my place.


 

Oh hai! I'm back!

Well.  THAT was a much needed break.

What did I do with my time off?  Not a whole heck of a lot.  The remaining kittens and I went to two adoption events, and now there are only THREE kittens in the foster room.  Seems empty in there!

I did a lot of sitting in the sun, some lawn mowing, some shopping, and a lot a lot of sleeping.  I take after my dad, who was a world champeen sleeper.  Give me the chance and a nice comfy bed and I'm good for ten hours, no prob.  *yawn*

Let's see.  One of the kittens learned how to do this:

Yeah, there went ten years off my life, right there.  (And ignore the cobwebs in the corner.)


I did go the to the county fair, which honestly seemed pretty rinky-dink compared to the state fair, but hey.  Free entertainment.  After the fair, I went to a nearby dam for a little hike.

Here's the ... dam ... thing:

Behind that ... dam ... thing ... is where the river goes in:

And there went another ten years off my life.  It doesn't look it, but I was up really, really high to get that pic, and there wasn't any, like, barricade or anything.  Scary!  The things I do for this blog.  Sheesh.

Here's the reservoir on the other side of the dam:

There were sailboats out that day; it was really pretty.  And yes, I WAS ON TOP OF THE DAM.  You're welcome.

And look!   I could see the fair from the top of the dam!:

Can you spot the ferris wheel?

So, yeah, that was my big exciting week.  A whole lot of nada, and it felt great.

 

Oh, hai! *waves hand*

I'm taking a few days off from work to get my equilibrium back.  Taking a few days to unwind.  Taking some time away from the internet.  Taking a few days to catch up on some sleeeeeeep.  I was about to lose it with the kitten load, especially since one of them came down with ringworm over the weekend, so the rescue shuffled stuff around and now I've gone from ten cats in the foster room  to four.  I knew that if I didn't get a break now, I was going to burn out of the whole thing, and I didn't want to do that.  (Don't worry; the extra cats went to the home of the rescue founder, where they are fine.)

I spent the afternoon in the backyard sitting in the kiddie pool with a beer in my hand, and I see no reason to do anything differently for the next few days.  Might go buy a National Enquirer for my trash reading pleasure; might not.

See you in a few days!

whut whut whut

Tomorrow we are doing an adoption event at a produce stand out in the middle of nowhere.  You know that joke about a b-list celebrity who'll show up at an opening of a 7-11?  Yeah, that's us.  Next thing you know, we'll be sending little kids to stand outside of Walmart with boxes of kittens.  Desperate times, folks.  Desperate measures are indicated.  These kittens aren't getting any younger, you know.

So, we had an adoption event last Saturday, and one of the assistant managers of the store where the event was held has a crush on one of our volunteers, which we all thought was kind of cute until the months went by and it became evident that even though the assistant manager was aware that the volunteer in question was (a) married and (b) now visibly pregnant, he was going to continue flirting with her.  So now it's just skeevy, and the volunteer is not amused, and I don't blame her.  But hey, she's a grown woman, both of these people are in their thirties, and it's up to her to say something, am I right?  I mean, if she comes to me and asks me to speak with the dude, I certainly will, but I'm staying out of it until then.  She's a strikingly attractive woman, so I'm thinking she probably gets this crap all the time and has gotten used to it.

So, then, last Saturday, things were kind of slow, and one of our other volunteers decided to go outside for a smoke break.  The assistant manager, let's call him Tom, saw her grab her pack of smokes and said, "That'll ruin your looks, you know."

"What?!," the volunteer said.

"Smoking," Tom said.  "It'll ruin your looks, and then you'll never get a husband." 

whut whut whut

The volunteer said, "You know what?  It's my looks, and I've already GOT a husband, so bug off."

and she went outside to have her smoke.



I dunno.  (Full disclaimer, I used to smoke myself, and did so for thirty years.)   I mean, if one of our volunteers was overweight and had been eating Cheetos, would this dude have felt free to comment on it?  ("You'll never get a husband if you don't lose some weight!")  Is it ever appropriate to comment on someone else's behavior, unless they're, like, a loved one?  Or about to commit a crime or something?

So I used to like this dude, and he even adopted a cat from us and may be adopting another one, but really?  And what's funny is, this guy is young-ish and good looking and fairly articulate, and I used to wonder why he wasn't in a relationship with someone.

I guess now I know.  Geez Louise.

In the garden

My garden has been horribly neglected this year.  Luckily, over the years I've kept adding perennials, so by now I don't have to buy any annuals as "filler", and things are carrying on just fine without me.  Well, I DO need to do some massive weeding, which hopefully will happen soon.

Summertime.  The best time of the year.

How to kill an entire afternoon

I just managed to get our rescue into another local store for adoption events, and now I feel like a total bad*ss.  Kind of makes up for that whole "yelling at a little kid" thing.  Sorta.

But!  While I was on my lunch break I was perusing the internet, as one does, and I checked out GOMI, one of my favorite sites (see again: am horrible person), and came across this gem of a trainwreck:

Forum Hall of Fame:  Beverly and the Haunting of GOMI Manor

Dudes, it's priceless.  Make sure you check out the actual forum itself as well.  I'm only, like, sixty pages in, and it just keeps getting better and better. 

Oh!  And while I was scanning through the forum posts, I came across a link to this, which creeped me right the f*ck out:

My dead girlfriend keeps messaging me on facebook

Warning:  You may never sleep again after checking out that link.  I'm not even kidding.

Happy  reading, and you're welcome.

... so then I yelled at a little kid

yeah, I'm winning all kinds of humanitarian awards over here this week.

Last night, I got home from work, and I had tons of crap to get done before I could even think about relaxing.  So I changed into my civvies, fed the cats, and got some pasta boiling for pasta salad. I figured I could vacuum the foster room while the pasta boiled, then make the salad, then move the kiddie pool before it killed all the grass underneath it, and yada yada yada.

So I'm vacuuming the foster room, turning off the vacuum every few minutes to listen for the buzzer on the pasta.  And then I turn off the vacuum and I hear someone pounding - POUNDING - on the front door.

"Rocky!  ROCKY!  HEY!  Where ARE you?  ROCKKKKKKYYYYYY!" pound pound pound pound.

What. the. f*ck.

I go out into the living room to see the neighbor girl at the door, the one who used to come over and play with the kittens all the time until I told her that if she was going to come over every day, she was going to have to start helping scoop litterboxes, and then I didn't see her anymore.

Well.  There she was, pounding and yelling and peering through the screen door.  "Open up!  OPEN UP!"

"YOU KNOW WHAT?!," I yelled.  "THAT'S REALLY RUDE!   What is your PROBlem?  I can't always answer the door INSTANTLY!"

"uh ... uh ... uh," she muttered.  "I ... I thought you were hurt!  And that's why you weren't coming to the door!"

oops.

but, I mean, really?

"Look," I said.  "I'm sorry I yelled.  I was vacuuming - didn't you hear the vacuum cleaner?  THAT's why I didn't come to the door. I can't always come to the door right away, especially if I don't hear you.  Now, I'm really busy, and you're going to have to wait a minute until I finish vacuuming to visit with the kittens."

"Oh ... okay," she said, and sat down on the front steps.  She came in after I finished vacuuming, and I apologized again for yelling, but she only stayed a few minutes and then left, and frankly I was glad, because see again NINE MILLION THINGS TO DO, but then I felt bad for feeling glad, and then I was all, like, "well, she's going into seventh grade, so it's not like I yelled at a damn TODDLER or something," so, yeah, Justification City, but still, DON'T POUND ON MY DAMN DOOR.

*sigh*

I need a break.  Calgon, take me away, would ya?

Time flies

Sorry for the dearth of posting around here - I'm so damn busy it ain't funny.   Family drama, which I thought would die along with my mother, has managed to rear its ugly head again, so much so that I scared the cats the other night with my loud swearing as I listened to (yet another) message on my answering machine about the newly-sprung idea of MANDATORY contributions to my mother's headstone.  Coming from the people who couldn't be bothered to be here for her actual, you know, death.  Sweet Christ on a Cracker let her go already, people.  AND LEAVE ME OUT OF IT. F*ck.

Cat count?  Let's see.  There's my three, the two feral fosters, Mama Puff, four from Litter A and five from Litter B, for a total count of ... I'll think about it tomorrow.  Unfortunately, Kitten Season comes square up against Camping/Cookouts/Family Vacation Season, which means slow adoptions.  I'm drowning in cats over here. 

We did have an adoption event Saturday.  Can you believe that both of these gorgeous cats are STILL available?:

And there was a sighting of the rare and elusive Parrot Cat:

Someday, SOMEDAY, I'll have time to hike and relax and drink beer by the kiddie pool.  SOMEDAY.

Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.


1.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Novel about a young girl in Germany in the 1940s, I found it stilted and disjointed.  I didn't finish it.

2.  Couldn't Keep it to Myself by Wally Lamb - Life stories written by women prison inmates.  Interesting, but they were all kind of the same:  "I got involved with a bad man, and now I'm in prison."  Eh.

3.  Bootstrapper by Mardi Jo Link - Memoir about a single mom raising three sons.  The subtitle of the book - "From Broke to Badass on a Northern Michigan Farm" made me think they were back-to-the-landers, but other than a few chickens, no.  Still, a fairly interesting read.

4.  A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen - I tend to stay away from cat biographies, because, well, we all know how they end, but this one, about a recovering addict street busker in London and his stray cat, was a charming, quick read.  Recommended as a gift for the cat nut in your life.

5.  Hunter's Horn by Harriette Arnow - Novel about a backwater Apalachian family in the runup to WWII.   Very, very good.  I loved her book "The Dollmaker", so I'm not surprised I loved this one as well.  Hated for it to end.

6. A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O'Brien - I  thought this was a memoir about growing up in old Hollywood, but instead it was a novel.  Meh.

7.  The Bartender's  Tale by Ivan Doig - Novel about a little boy and his father, who runs a western saloon, in 1960.  Good.

8.  Sisters - Coming of Age and Living Dangerously in the Wild Copper River Valley by Samme Gallaher and Aileen Gallaher - Memoir of two sisters in Alaska in the 1920s.  Very interesting.

9.  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I don't know why I pick up murder mysteries; I don't like them.  This one got rave reviews, but I found it contrived and only got about fifty pages in before I gave up.

10.  Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller - Memoir of a woman who grew up in a hoarding household.  Interesting.

11.   A Land  More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash - Novel, told through different viewpoints, of a boyhood tragedy.  Good.

12.  Mary Coin by Marisa Silver - Novel about a Depression-era mother, told from three different viewpoints.  I read the parts that were set in the Depression, and skipped the other eras (60s and modern-day), and it was good.


Okay, guys, I'm looking for some good books to read.  Whaddaya got?

Taking a page from the Adam Richman playbook

An on-air personality for the local public radio station took it upon herself to start commenting on our rescue group's Facebook page yesterday, telling us, basically, that we were doin it rong.  At the time, we were trying to raise funds to take a kitten with an unusual medical condition to the vet.  What, according to her, were we doing wrong?  Well, we were dicking around trying to raise money instead of just rushing the cat to the vet, already.  GEEEEEZ, what a bunch of ignorant hillbillies.  (The kitten's situation is not life-threatening.  Just so you know.)

She was very condescending and abrupt.  Just ... assy.  And while some people tried to respectfully inform her that she was commenting on a situation she knew nothing about, and maybe she ought to get some more information before she started offering unsolicited advice, well, one person did call her an a**hole, which I may or may not have silently applauded.  From then on, it was time to grab the popcorn and watch the show.

Pro Tip #1:  Do not offer unsolicited advice on a situation of which you have no knowledge.

Pro Tip #2:  When gently advised that you do not have all of the facts of the situation, do not double down and inform the other party that you have much more experience in this type of situation, i.e., you've just spent the last five minutes googling it.

Pro Tip #3:  Do not inform the other party that you *were* going to help them, but since they weren't respectful enough of your vast knowledge, well, forget about THAT.  (The "help"?  A twenty-five dollar donation.)

Pro Tip #4:  When a major part of your paid position is fundraising for a non-profit, and you are very much in the public eye, be careful about dissing other non-profit organizations who are staffed completely by volunteers and are involved in animal rescue instead of, say, raising money so that Ira Glass can get a raise..  That can backfire in a hurry.


Ah, Facebook. Always entertaining.

survey SEZ ...

...  beach umbrellas.  Five bucks a pop, and they block the view of my backyard from the neighbors.

Is it as good as a privacy fence?  Nope.  But for fifteen bucks, I'm a happy camper.

Thinking so hard my damn brain hurts

Which, admittedly, isn't much of a stretch, but still.

While things have settled into an uneasy detente with my crazy-ass neighbors, now that the weather is getting warmer,  I don't like hanging out in my backyard with the next-door loony-tunes in full view.  Especially since one of their sons (the slow one) (well, they're all kind of slow - the slow-est one, I guess) has taking to bringing his f*cking unleashed Rottweiler over.  Fun!  If that dogs runs onto my property barking at me one more time, I'm gonna get out the baseball bat. 

Fencing would be the obvious solution.  A nice high fence between my property and theirs.  Except I know what fencing costs, and I can't afford it.

So then I thought maybe I could just install a couple of panels of privacy fence, maybe just like 20 feet worth.  Checking into it, nope, still out of budget.  Oh, I could afford the fence all right, but not the install.

Hmmm ... how about some kind of lightweight fencing?  Home Depot sells rolls of bamboo privacy screening for 25 bucks a pop.  Getting closer ... but it's designed to attach to an existing fence.

Maybe I could attach it to garden stakes?   Like, put 8' stakes 4' apart, and attach the bamboo?

Yeah, I can think of myriad ways I could f*ck that up.  I'm just picturing myself out in the backyard, all tangled up in bamboo and zip ties.  Not to mention, if we're not going full-on fence here, I want something I could easily take down for mowing.

Well, let's see ... I've got a couple of garden arches I picked up for five bucks at Family Dollar and never used ... Maybe I could set them up, and install some type of fabric ... maybe bedsheets ... to create a view blocker.

I dunno ... let's go back to the garden stakes.  Attach bedsheets to stakes, making the whole thing roll-up-able.  But wait.  If I'm gonna need 8' stakes, will they even fit in the car?  And how, exactly, to attach the sheets ...

Oh man, the wheels are just churnin' today.  Hopefully I'll get this solved before I burn out too many brain cells.

Another Saturday at Tractor Supply

Okay, first off, the kittens who found new homes yesterday were the two black sweeties in the fourth and fifth pics from yesterday's post.  Congrats, guys!  Don't forget to write!

We had lots of visitors:

Mr. Attitude turned on the charm:

Miss Tabby, reviewing the merch table:

Is there anything cuter than a kitten in a crib?:

Finding new ways to doze:

Saturday was a little slower than usual, possibly owing to the fact that every high school in the region had its graduation this past weekend.  We had a total of four adoptions.  We'll be doing three events in July - gotta move these kittens!


And in other news, I woke up this morning, fed my cats, brushed my teeth, and headed into the kitten room.  Scooped the six litterboxes, then realized that one of the long-haired kittens had a poop explosion on her butt.  Took her into the bathroom, washed the poopalooza off of her (have you ever tried to give a terrified, squirming, needled-clawed kitten a bath at six a.m.?  No?  Good.), dried her off, and headed back into the kitten room, where I found that she had pooped her way across the carpeting.  Grabbed a bucket and the Fabuloso, scrubscrubscrubbed,  including the poop on the WALLS, then vacuumed the room.  Fed/watered all,  went to turn on the portable AC, and discovered that the drain plug had gone mysteriously missing and will need to be replaced.  Went out to the garage, grabbed some modeling clay out of the craft crap box, took it back into the kitten room and jammed it in the AC drain hole as a temp fix, and played with the kittens in the approximately two minutes I had left before I had to hop in the shower to get ready for work.  Took the poopy kitten-bath towels in with me to rinse them off.   Just in case you thought it was all fun and games.  It's all fun and games until someone has a poopsplosion, I guess ...

Cute kittens, comin' up

Okay, so I do have some pics from Saturday's adoption event (two down, ten to go!), but I haven't downloaded them off the camera yet, so first here's some cute kittens for all.

Who got adopted?  Tune in tomorrow to find out!