Photo Meme - Part 1 of 2!

I'm breaking this up into parts so I don't bombard one post with lots of images. :)

Krysten wanted to see my favorite thing about my home! This was really tough because there's so many things here I love... but I narrowed it down to two. ;)

Thing #1 is our giant garden tub. It is huge!! One of my favorite things is taking a bath in the morning when the sun is streaming through that window... so relaxing.

Thing #2 is the back porch. Weather permitting -- it's been REALLY hot this summer so I haven't been able to sit outside as much as I like. (You can totally see my butt-print in that chair, though.) I really enjoy sitting outside in the early evening with a book or magazine, it's SO quiet and relaxing here. The cats love it too, but more for the unobstructed wildlife views. ;)

Jessica was interested in our dishes! And my favorite coffee cup! And I've got both!

Our dishes are fairly simple; black. The plates have a sort of zebra design on them, and there's also a set of mugs that match but I didn't pull them out.




My favorite mug! It's huge and comes from Edmonton, Canada; Matt got it for me when he was on a meeting up there. I love bears. :)



Gnetch wanted to see what was in my fridge! Augh, this picture is SO boring, as we really only keep what we need and not a lot of extra junk!




Zzz... zzz... milk, yogurt, juice, oh, and some marinating steak on the left there.

The outside of the fridge is much more interesting!



And Jenny Matlock wanted to see my morning cup of coffee. I generally don't drink coffee in the morning because sometimes it makes me wackadoodle but when I do, I like to go with this...



It was SO hot out when I bought this iced coffee, and it took everything I had not to drink it all on the way home... willpower!!! Where I grew up there were Dunkin Donuts on every corner, so I am a huge DD fan. :) And of course, I've got some donuts in that bag... lemon filled and chocolate covered!

I've got a busy work schedule for the next two days so I may not post the other half of this until the weekend. But we'll see! Otherwise I'll be trying my best to stay inside, because the humidity here is really starting to take a toll on me... ugh. No likey!

We need rain.

Seriously.

With how ragingly hot it's been, and we haven't had a good rain for a week or two... argh. It's getting a little dark and stormy outside now, so I can only hope the stormy part will give us more than a few drops.

New job is going absolutely fantastic; I love it there and everyone is super awesome and sparkles and fireworks, etc. :) I'm integrating well and really enjoying myself. I also have tomorrow off so double yay!, I will get to do some cooking tonight and relax at home (or possibly at the beach) tomorrow. Last night I was so exhausted I almost fell asleep in the bathtub, which really isn't the best idea for a snooze.

Also, since I have tomorrow off, I will be able to actually post for two consecutive days! WHOA! Tomorrow's post will contain all the photos from the meme I posted, what, two weekends ago. Yeah. Better late than never, right? ;)



There is a new frozen yogurt shop in our neighborhood that I'm fast becoming a frequent flyer of. I've always loved frozen yogurt (or 'froyo', as it's called in our generation where everything is abbreviated) but Wilmington never had a shop. But now. One is open. And it's amazing. Their daily flavors vary but they always have chocolate and vanilla, and sometimes raspberry, mango, cheesecake, strawberry, and mocha. The toppings bar is huge and heavenly and has every fresh fruit you can imagine, as well as some of the less healthy but always tasty options, such as Golden Grahams, Raisinets, marshmallows, gummi bears, cookie dough, and Froot Loops. I need to take some photos next time I go back, it's such a fun time! It's all DIY so you fill up your own cup as much as you want it, and pile on whatever fits your fancy that day.

I think my favorite flavor would have to be cheesecake. Agree/disagree? (I'm a huge fan of cheesecake ice cream too!)

First Impression = Sea Hag

Here is a photo of myself and Finnegan to prove that I am still alive; I look distinctly like a manatee, but Finn looks pretty sweet!

Things have been busy; I went in for work orientation on Thursday for 3 hours, and I start on Monday! I work Monday and Tuesday from 7-2, off Wednesday, then various hours on Thursday and Friday. Once I get more integrated with my duties I'll have more steady hours, but I'm okay with starting off slowly. Especially since I'll have to get up early... REAL early. Hmm. I can't drink a lot of coffee because it has the potential to do bad juju things to my insides, so I'll have to find an alternate way to get myself awake. Cold shower maybe? UGH.

Yesterday we went to see Inception and it was a FANTASTIC amazing film that really really made me happy in a lot of ways, most notably its originality in a sea of comic book films, remakes, sequels, and vampire chutzpah. The plot was absolutely wonderful and I look forward to purchasing this on Blu-Ray when it comes out and rewatching it on our big TV.

And this morning we attacked the yard (and weeds) with vigor, Round-Up, and the mower. We chatted with our neighbors and our new neighbors that are moving in showed up also, so we met them, and it was only after I got inside that I noted my hair looked like it had been attacked like a flock of small angry birds. That were now nesting inside. Ugh.

I have to walk up and get the mail today but I'm waiting until the sun sets, because as it has been in most climates lately, it's hot as heck outside.


Luckily our AC has been unfaltering, or else I'd have to strap bags of frozen blueberries to the cats to keep them cool. .... I may do that anyways, just for fun. Heh heh. Hope you all are staying cool and out of the nuclear sun rays; it's been a HOT July everywhere!!

Will post photos this weekend! They're actually ON my laptop now so that's a big step!

Fan-freakin'-tastic.

I GOT THE JOB.

Yee - to - the - FREAKIN' - HAW!!!!! So excited. SO excited. I go in for a little training on Thursday and possibly start next week. DSpsohdojfewpodl. <-- -That's how excited I am. I had to go pee in a cup today, and I was SO excited I drank a little too much water on the way and nearly tinkled all over the pee collectors waiting room.

But seriously.

Elated isn't the word.

This is the last piece of the puzzle. It's all in place now ... and for once in a long time? I have nothing to worry about. No creditors, no health scares, no legal people arriving at my door to be mean, no crazy health scares, no court dates, and no unstable employment. After a few years of hardship, everything's lined itself up perfectly.

My new motto? Never stop fighting. Because no matter how craptastic things may seem now, later? They can be amazing, if you try real hard.

I'm still working on my photo meme; I may post it later, if I can stop dancing around the kitchen like one of those fake Coke cans from the 80's that would bend from side to side when you played music near it. (Remember those? PS, my dancing is MUCH better than that.) So until then I will leave you with one more cute, adorable photo.



Hee hee...

Friday Night Blogging; The Random Thoughts Edition

Guess what? TOTALLY the weekend! Heck to the yeah! What better to lead into the weekend than a bullet post of random thoughts? Come on, you know it's good stuff.

• Matt is gone to a business meeting until mid next week, leaving me here to my own devices. MY OWN DEVICES. So far today that has consisted of watching a Pet Sematary marathon on AMC (so many creepy memories of watching those movies), indulging myself at a local produce stand, and cooking up a freeeeeakin' amazing dinner of teriyaki marinated beef strips and fresh corn on the cob. Om nom nom.
• I'm really excited with everyone's suggestions for my big photo meme, I've started snapping a few photos already. Go check out my previous post and leave some ideas if you haven't already!
• I'm usually not a fan of media critics or reviews, but my local mag printed this review of Twilight: Eclipse that just had me rolling on the floor. I think my favorite line may be, 'the heroine of the story has the charisma of a comatose librarian'. But don't take my word for it, go read it yourself!
• We have a ton of little sparrows that like to hop around the backyards and peck around in the grass at this time of day, and the cats are out on the back porch with their little noses pressed to the screen. Fierce hunters.
• In less than 2 months, I turn 30. Let's not talk about that right now. ... Actually I'm not as unimpressed with turning 30 anymore, it will be delightful and full of liquor and sweets and I'll be the awesomest 30 year old on the block.
• I think every other car down here has one of those annoying "family" stickers on the back of it. You know, the stick figure family with the mom and dad and however many annoying little kids/pets you've got.

Like this one. I seriously hope this is satirical BTW; who names their kids Boogers and Alecheetos?? Anyway, not only are they retarded, but sticking your CHILDREN'S NAMES UNDER THE STICK FIGURES OF THEM is really not the safest idea. At all. I'm glad the creeper that pulls up behind you at the gas station while you go inside to pay and get soda will know your daughter's name is Boogers, so he can lure her out of the van by using her name and promising offers of Milk Duds and Cheetos.

Argh.

Matt and I joked that we should either do one of the following:

1. Get one adult woman sticker, three adult men stickers, with 20 small baby girl stickers. Raising that female army, or the next pop sensation. Also, that is one lucky woman. (Although maybe not after birthing all those babies.)

2. Just 25 cat stickers. That's all. Run for the hills.



That's all I've got. I'd like to have a drink, but I'm not even motivated to go to the liquor store. Someone needs to start a delivery service...!

Make me be creative! MAKE ME!

This week has been bonkers crazy. Like super wacko, what the crap, bonko boinko crazy. (You know it's bad when I start making up words.) I had a surprise random working interview with the position I'd interviewed for today, which pretty much means throw on your scrubs and let's see what you can do for 2 hours. YIKES.

So I'm behind on blogging and reading blogs and playing video games and drinking my chardonnay and definitely, my photography.

My photo project has suffered (again) and luckily I'm very lenient with myself. I'm picking up the camera tomorrow to go shoot some early morning stuff, so I figured in the interest of keeping myself shooting (and occupied, as my boyfriend is going on a 5 day business trip), I'm going to do a photo meme. And YOU'RE gonna help. (Only if you want to. No pressure. Honest!)

Leave a comment and tell me a part of my life -- or a few things -- you'd like to see. My favorite pair of shoes, the end of my street, what I eat for breakfast, anything. (Also kinda keep it at least PG-13. No butts.) I'll snap a photo of it and post them all in a future weekend-ey entry.

And now I'm off to catch up on your blogs! And fear not, I'm already remedying the chardonnay sitch. Aaahhh.... :)

Sleeping brain.

Today I had a second interview with that really awesome job I want. Once again I am REALLY excited but don't want to jinx myself, but am really excited.

Moving on.

I slept really well last night for once. Being unemployed leaves me less fatigued at the end of the day than regular working folk, I assume. But I like to try and keep a regular schedule by going to bed at 10:30 instead of staying up watching Diners, Drive Ins & Dives every night until 1 am. But it often takes me a while to fall asleep.

Also know that I am the queen of having an uncluttered mind; never are there excess thoughts or random blurbs of thinkings swirling around in there. If I don't need to be thinking of something, there really is nothing going on in my quiet brain. (Thank you years of meditation classes.) It seems the only time my mind is on overload jumping from thought to thought to thought is ... yep, when I can't sleep. This is how it usually goes down.

10:30 pm: Go to bed.

10:35 pm: Matt is asleep. (WTF how?)

10:36 pm: Think about the cats.

10:38 pm: Think about old job.

10:41 pm: Think about funny stories and anecdotes from old job.

10:44 pm: Think about funny stories and anecdotes from old job.

10:47 pm: Think about funny stories and anecdotes from old job.

10:49 pm: Think about the house.

10:50 pm: Think about how I want to do the guest bedroom.

10:53 pm: Think about how I want to do the guest bedroom.

10:54 pm: Think about breakfast.

10:56 pm: Think about the beach.

10:58 pm: Think about the scariest parts of scary horror movies. (Why do I do this at night? To freak myself out? Am I the only one? Argh.)

11:00 pm: Think about nature.

11:02 pm: Think about soccer.

11:05 pm: Think about soccer.

11:07 pm: Think about baseball.

11:08 pm: Think about ordering gourmet brownies off the internet.

11:10 pm: Think about brownies.

11:13 pm: Think about brownies.

11:14 pm: Think about a book I am reading.

11:17 pm: Think about going hiking.

11:19 pm: Think about going kayaking.

11:20: Think about kayaking.

11:23: Think about buying a kayak.

11:25: Think about buying a small boat.

11:27: Think about the dishes in the sink.

11:29: Randomly fall asleep.

Recently, somewhere near the end of that, I remember thinking to myself that this would make a good blog post. So you can insert that in at your leisure.

Today it is VERY humid and Finnegan is really adamant that I let him on the back porch, but I'm worried he will poof up like a cotton ball. Bad fur day! Bahaha!

But will they have vuvuzelas?

Spain won the World Cup.

I'm no longer allowed to watch serious end-game matches in which I have an invested interest in one of the teams playing, because my nerves pretty much turn into a bundle of rubber bands and I have to go outside after an hour for some 'nature time'. Which translates to doing a few upward dogs on the back deck.

Spain deserved it though; they really played with that 'Spain finesse' I'd been waiting to see the whole tournament, and you just couldn't help but cheer when they got their goal and Iker (their goalkeeper) sobbed for like 5 minutes into his big Stay-puf marshmallow-like keeper gloves. It was awesome.

And my team was #2 out of 32 teams, which is nothing to boohoo about! I had a great time watching everyone play.



We've decided our next long-term goal is to go to Brazil with some friends for the 2014 World Cup and watch a few games in Sao Paulo. Luckily we have 4 years to save money, book hotels, and learn Portugese; this morning I learned how to ask where the bathroom was, but I've already forgotten, so this may take more blood sweat and tears than originally expected. (And flash cards.)


I took 4 years of Spanish in highschool, so seeing 'gato' for cat and not 'puhkalebra' (made up not real Portugese word) or something made me feel a little better. I'll be able to participate in all conversations concerning cat and cow welfare, as well as eventually find the bathroom, and order french fries at any fine restaurant. I'm good to go!

Saturday Centus Shake Up!...

I don't know if you knew this...

But Jenny Matlock is evil. Don't let her sway you with her nice ways and amazing garden that I am highly jealous of! Oh no, it's all a sham. We won't even get into the chicken incident!

Because for this weeks Saturday Centus? ... The rule is, while we get 200 words this time, it has to be written in the style of a Harlequin Romance novel.

(PS, Mister Scoundrel and Miss Captive, you should likely not 'do it' in a bed of poppies. I don't want to think of the allergies or rash that could come from that.)

So yes, much like Scoundrel's Captive, we are captive to these evil, sinister, dastardly rules! So I sat down this morning with a big ol' mug of water and wrote a tale of epic, undying love, affection, and giant hooters. The prompt is in blue, and the rest, is history...

* * * *

The setting sun cast an amber glow over the crowded McDonalds. I filled my drink cup full of sweet, quenching Mr. Pibb as I adjusted my perfect blonde bouffant, waiting for my meal.

When I turned around I was startled to meet a green eyed gaze...

I gasped - my entire body tingled, as if I had been stung by a giant wasp. There he was, the wallet chain dangling from his pillow-like waist winking at me in the sunlight. The arrow on his "I'm With Stupid" t-shirt pointed up to a face chiseled of the finest Laffy Taffy; lips like elementary school erasers formed a perfect, heart-stopping smile.

I couldn't hold myself back any longer! I leapt across the room with the grace of a walrus at the ballet, my stretch pants straining against the two chili dogs and milkshake I'd consumed hours earlier.

I fell into his ham hock arms, the girth of his manly chest crushing my flimsy dollar store brassiere, along with its oversized contents. That moment was ours, and when the cashier called out ... Cheeseburger Happy Meal... I knew he was the one! And after dinner the back of his Chevy 4x4 was our destination, and it would be hotter than fry grease.

* * * *

That, my friends, is what redneck dreams are made of! ;)

A little too late.

I got a call from my library this morning letting me know that I book I had been in queue for had arrived! Hoorah! (I love my library.) I thought to myself -- I bet I could maybe go get that book and head to the beach for a nice read.

HAH.

At 10 am on a Friday?

Hah.

I got my things together and headed out to the library, checking out my book and taking some time to chat with our library duck, George.

(Yes, we have a library duck, he likes to hang out outside! His name is George and he is a Muscovy duck; this isn't him but he looks a lot like this. The first time I saw him he was sleeping and I thought he was a big Hefty bag someone had left behind. Sorry George!)

I got to the beach around 10:30... do you think I'd find a spot? Haaaaaaayyyyylll naw! (That's how we say it in the South.) All of my favorite lots, filled.

With TOURISTS.

You may or may not know my stance on tourists. It usually involves the middle finger and a lot of honking. While I love that tourists flock here and spend their hard-earned money in our shops, restaurants, and other fine establishments so we can tough it out through the winter economy, I would really like to ... oh, I don't know ... see them less. Lately it seems like an even mix between families with anywhere between 4 and 56 children, and Jersey Shore wannabes. Thank you, Jersey Shore, for showing beachgoers they can wear whatever the heck they want and look awful and feel no shame about it. Eek!

At any rate, the moral of the story is, go early or go home. So I went home.

...

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!



I realized today that I have 99 followers. 99! That's a good amount for someone who does very little blog promotion and has serious SITS A.D.D. I'm not really big on promoting though. If you find me and like me, cool! But I'm not going to advertise every freakin' place with giveaways just so people show up over here and don't give a care about my wittiness when the giveaways end.

But maybe I will do a giveaway if/when I reach 100 followers. I don't know what I'd give away, though. I'm horrible at that. I rarely enter them because I'm a minimalist at heart and don't like a lot of stuff/clutter that I don't need.

Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely weather, traffic-free, all the parking you want weekend!! :) I'm going to a new organic produce stand so I'm HELLA excited (who says hella anymore?)... yeah, it doesn't take much to thrill me anymore!

I'm bringing you a gay bar!

The title has nothing to do with the blog contents.

I had to put it there because mere seconds ago, my boyfriend, who is going to a meeting in Portland Oregon in a few weeks, clapped his hands, pointed at me, and said ...

"I'm bringing you a gay bar!"

There is this supposed amazing donut shop in Portland called Voodoo Doughnut (It's been on the Food Network before) that he's going to check out. Their menu sports a bunch of freaky and fantastic doughnuts, one of them being the gay bar. I was supposed to tag along to Portland but then I lost my job and most of my cash so it's sorta a no-go and it's a little bummy. But apparently a gay bar is going to make the cross-continental trip for me! Woohoo! Awesome.

Anyway. Some GOOD THINGS!

I had a fantastic job interview today that I have all the experience in the world for. I'm really excited because it's pretty much the job I had in Maryland, only in North Carolina. Not to put all my unhatched chickens in the same basket, but I have a very good feeling about this.

Please do a voodoo dance for me, or some type of lucky incense waving ohm-chanting ceremony. Look, I'll start; Ooooohhhhmmm... I'm waving my arms in an S-formation... doing the cha-cha...

:) :) :)

My Dutch made it to the World Cup finals!! I am beside myself with delight and excitement. We will either face Spain or Germany; Germany is just frightening as a team this year, and I'll be surprised if Spain beats them today. We'll see...

My pulled pork turned out FABULOUSO. Here is my simple and extremely foolproof recipe:

You need the following.

- ONE PORK BUTT. 2 pounds should do but the smallest we could find was 5 pounds, so we hack-n-slashed it apart into two equal, smaller pork pieces. I have a small crockpot -- actually two small crockpots, long story, thanks mom! -- so I used them both.
- 12oz of root beer per crockpot; or enough to cover your pork.
- Your BBQ sauce of choice. Can't go wrong with Sweet Baby Rays IMO.
- Toasted burger buns, if you so desire.

Place your butt (heh heh) in the crock pot and pour the root beer over it. Cook for 7 hours until you can pull the pork apart with forks easily. Drain old porky butt root beer from the crock pot, replace freshly pulled pork and mix with BBQ sauce. Let sit in crock pot for another hour or two to absorb flavor. Toast your butt buns and VOILA, amazing taste sensation.

Seriously amazing and easy. I'm looking forward to trying this with all sorts of BBQ sauces! And the leftovers the next day? Best thing ever.



That's all I've got. There are lots of good things happening over here, and I'm hoping my gay bar makes it here in one piece. What doughnut would you want to try from Voodoo? There's a link up there somewhere... diabetic coma heaven!

Happy Friday! Many photo memes are here!

Before I get to my photo memes, I have to let you know something amazing.

Last soccer-related babble for a while, honest.

Today? The Netherlands beat Brazil. BRAZIL. Yeah, only the South American soccer kingpin. It was such an amazing game to watch! Brazil got a goal early on and my hopes were crushed -- as they sort of had been when I learned we would face Brazil -- but as the game went on we managed to get two goals and finish them 2-1.

I was shrieking, jumping, hiding behind my hands, running around behind the couch in small circles, and flailing a lot! My throat was sore and I was so amazed and overjoyed that my team came through. We went out to lunch and I wore my Holland jersey and people kept asking us about the Netherlands game and it was fantastic that Americans are really noticing soccer. Okay I'm done with that now, really. :)

Time for photo memes! I have two today. The first one is Tazim's brand new project...

This week's theme due to the impending holidays, is "Iconic Things About Your City/Country". I was going to post some more Wilmington city photos but then remembered I had one better...

It's the Capitol building!

I got the chance to hang out in Washington DC this February while Matt attended a conference; it was snowy and ginormously cold but I managed to go to the Botanical Gardens, and when I realized how close I was to the Capitol, I had to get my nearly frostbitten bum over there for a photo. It really is HUGE close up, and there were all kinds of tours there and kids sledding on the lawn.

At first I was REAL excited, because I thought, hey, maybe Mister Obama's in there! No Sami, that's the White House. .... Oh. This is just where the government meets and stuff? ... Hmm. Still cool, though!

And looking at this photo makes me chilly.

Okay. I'm going to give you a little warning. This week's photo? ... Kinda creepy.

Well, I don't think it's creepy. Some people might, though.

While I was editing it, I had to ask Matt for a bit of Photoshop assistance.

(It's been a while since design school.)

And when he saw it, he said.

"... Whoa. That's kinda freaky."

See what I'm doing here?

Giving you space.

So all of the sudden, on your Google Reader, you don't suddenly come upon ...

... A creepy photo.

I had a lot of fun with this.

And I promise I'll stop taking creepy photos. For a while.






Yay! See? Not so creepy. And also, this is not a tribute to Twilight. Bad werewolf-thing.

Am I a zombie? Have I been chewing on my fingers all morning due to the match, causing mass destruction? Have I run headfirst into a brick wall? Have I had an unfortunate Spaghetti-O mishap??

This was taken in my bathtub because I really wanted the tile as my backdrop. I like the 'clean' feeling it gives the photo, almost like a crazy house. And I also learned something about ketchup that no one else would know, because no one else is wackadoodle enough to leave ketchup on their lips for minutes at a time. It burns. After I washed my face off, my lips tingled for about half an hour. I realized tomatoes were acidic after I worried my lips would fall off for the sake of art, and all turned out well.

I also realized I like ketchup much more as a condiment and less as a main meal. It's very thick and overpowering on its own, and I didn't much care for it smeared everywhere. Yuck. Blargh. Egh.



All right, before I go I have two more photos to show you. They are much friendlier! Remember all those flower seeds I planted a month or two ago?

I have flowers!! My cosmos are in full bloom and I have about 10-12 yellow and orange flowers right now, with more buds on the way. The marigolds are just doing something bizarre and keep growing in snake-like waves, but they are leafy and green and pretty nonetheless. I'm delighted that flowers I planted actually turned into well, you know, flowers.

And this last one is a stuffed sheep that Matt bought me a few weekends ago. He is amazing and flat and soft and yes I'm almost 30 and still love stuffed animals. ;) Have a good Friday night y'all!!

I wonder...

I come to you all this morning with a serious question!

Do you eat fast food??

I'm serious! Inquiring minds want to know. By fast food I mean the usuals; Burger King, McDonalds, Hardees, Wendys, Taco Bell, Bojangles, anything that has a window to pick up your edibles.

We had Chik-Fil-A breakfast this morning because chicken minis are out of this world. But other than that I can't remember the last time we ate fast food. Once in a rare while we'll have a McDonalds or Wendys craving but I can count those instances on one hand. It just doesn't seem appetizing to me.

What about you?

I'll make a more lengthy post later, filled with photos I'm sure. :)

We didn't start the fire. .... Honest! And some pet fire safety for good measure.

Last night, as I was cooking dinner, the smoke alarm went off.

Wait, no. Smoke alarms. See that bolded S? ALARMS.

We are in a brand spanky new house (or heezy, as I have been enjoying to say lately) that has brand spanky new smoke alarms in every room. Now, it's mortifying enough to be cooking dinner and set off the smoke alarm. My mom has a magnet -- Dinner's ready when the smoke alarm goes off! Yeah. It's not the height of culinary fashion. It only happens when I'm grilling porkchops on the Griddler and I don't know why. They come out fine and tasty and juicy, and not charred lumps of sadness like you'd imagine when the smoke alarm goes off.

Uhm, alarms.

All of a sudden, all at once. BWEET BWEET BWEET BWEET. My smoke alarms, let me tell you about them -- three of them are in one section of the house and are about 10 feet apart from each other. 3 smoke alarms. Within a 10 foot radius. Also, there is one in the living room situated about 15 feet up on the ceiling, and one in our bedroom ceiling.

5 smoke alarms in a 1215 square foot house. Three within 10 feet of each other.

Can you guess where the cats were when they all went off at once like some unearthly howl of Beelzebub?


I'd had this happen before so I was more annoyed than anything when the BWEET BWEET BWEET started resonating in my ears. LOUDLY. Piercing like a hot iron poker. And then all of the following things happened in this order, in quick succession:

1. The cats flipped a wig. Our floors are wood so it went something like this.... "skrtch skrht ckshgt..SKRTSKRTSKRRTKSKRT ... FWUMP... SKRKEKTSKRKTSKR" those are cat claws (and the eventual cat falling over on its side from too much speed and no traction) desperately trying to get some traction to evade the hellhounds that were descending upon them from the smoke alarm gods.

2. Matt yelling FINN FINN FINN over and over again because Finn is scared of his own shadow, so surely his little brain was thinking this was the unholy end of days, and he couldn't get under the bed fast enough with his big bottom and bumblefoot. And he fell over about 4 times on the way because wood floors are cruel on manic catfeet.

3. In my rush to get the porkchops off the damn grill -- which I was thoroughly berating now -- THIS @#&^%&*# GRIDDLER I'M NEVER USING THIS #(&$( FOR $&#(%& PORKCHOPS AGAIN YOU #&(^*# PIECE OF %*#) %*)#*^ -- I dropped a porkchop. On my clean wood floors. And porkchop juice went everywhere. And it started again. %*&%)#*$!! (Matt later told me that as he ran by the kitchen to get to one of our many smoke alarms, he saw me standing there, staring angrily at the porkchop on the floor, with a fork in my hand. And at the time it wasn't funny, but it is now!)

4. Matt down the hall, yelling THE PUSH TO HUSH BUTTON ISN'T WORKING, WHAT DO I DO WHEN THE PUSH TO HUSH BUTTON DOESN'T WORK. Huh? I had no clue what a push to hush button was.. oh... that button on the smoke alarm that you can push to make it shut the #$^^$# up when it's going off. The buttons I can't reach because I'm a midget!

5. Me standing on the bed, waving many towels at the smoke alarm on our ceiling as it screeched cruelly in my face, prompting another round of despicable badwords and a hatred that built in my chest for these evil devices. I can see why so many people take the batteries out of these horrid things. Seriously. If the one down the hall in the guest room went off, we would wake up. If the one over our bed went off in the middle of the night, we'd likely be prompted into seizures and perish in the flames anyway.



Later on, after I had cleaned my floor-chop mess and we were sullenly eating (okay that was just me), we got on the topic of cats in a house fire. If they were under the bed in a fire, how would we get them out safely?

Duh, I said, you'd grab them and throw them in a pillowcase and tie the end off and put them on the lawn.

That earned me a long ".........." and a Look.

But it's true!

I used to work in an upscale veterinary clinic for many years, and we would often have safety training and fire drills. And I never forgot my first fire drill where, in the event of a fire, we were responsible for the following (sorry another list):

1. Grabbing pillowcases from the cabinet.
2. Putting angry, cranky, sick, medicated (and likely frightened of the smoke alarm hellhounds at this point) cats and small dogs that probably want to eat our face off or at least poop in our shoes IN said pillowcases.
3. Secure pillowcases and run outside with as many as your arms could hold, full of angry frothing howling animals, and put them in your car for safety.

UH?? I could see it now; my car windows fogged up with about 10 black pillowcases with little felt flames on them rolling around in the backseat, fighting like a bad Looney Tunes clip. I was skeptical. But it was the noble thing to do. Luckily we never had a fire.

And we didn't have one last night, either.