Category Archives: Humor

Dec17

Neko back to normal…almost…

Posted on December 17, 2011 by heretherebespiders

It appears Neeks is about back to normal. She’s sure hungry. Tonight she gets her kibble again, but I think we’ll hold off on any treats for a bit. Even though the vet said her one carrot a day habit was a really good choice as a treat. I’m just nervous about giving her anything other than straight dog kibble. Mostly because she hasn’t pooped since her case of the runs on Tuesday. I know she was wrung dry, and then had a 24 hour fast, but three days of rice and fish should have produced something by now, shouldn’t it? Especially when three scoops of kibble and one carrot turns into at least two massive piles per day. If my knee hadn’t decided to act up, I would have taken her on a long walk today to try and shake a poo out of her.
Oh, the pill dosage is correct: they didn’t have a dosage large enough for her (she weighs 34kilos/75lbs, which is small for an Akita) so he gave us two different sizes of Flagyl.
She still seems a little sleepy, but she has asked to play a few times.

On a happy note, she had a ‘letter to Santa’ published over on Rumpydog’s blog. I did my best to give her a really obvious Irish accent – she is from Galway, after all. Although ‘schnow’ is more of a Mayo pronunciation of snow… Oh! And we did get a little dusting of the white schtuff yesterday! Not enough to take her out on the bog to play, though – the turf isn’t frozen and that stuff is black. Not the best look on a white-legged dog!

Dec10

Firs and furs

Posted on December 10, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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I do believe I will have a big long rambling post. It feels like one of those days. Where to start? How about some adorable Neko pictures from this morning?

She loves her toy carrot. I’ve used it as a neck pillow when doing the exercises Sled recommended, too. It’s a little smelly but pretty comfortable.

But apparently not comfortable for too long. She rarely puts her legs all wonky like that; I think she knew I was waiting to take a picture.

She’s not been good today. I think I’ll have to take her back to the vet again soon. She eats well one day, then the next she lies around with her tummy gurgling and growling but won’t eat. She’ll eat a carrot – but if she knows better than to eat her kibble, she shouldn’t be eating a treat either. She doesn’t even nom the whole carrot at once like she does when she feels good. This morning, she had two runny poops, and barfed yellow stomach acid. The vet said she has colitis, but didn’t give us a plan of action. Before I go to the vet I’m trying something that worked for my sister’s first greyhound: a little bit of milk. Not too much or she’ll barf it up (I’m guessing, she does that if we give her a lot of liquid at once, like chicken broth). We gave her some around five, and within an hour she ate her food, yay! It stopped the tummy noises right away, too.

A break here: the Twelve Days of Gay Christmas is playing on SomaFM. “Two stiletto PUMPS!!!” Makes us giggle. we love the Xmas in Frisco station, it is mostly irreverent holiday music and not safe for work! That second link takes you to the live stream, be careful…

We finally have ‘Frisco’ on tonight because we finally have our tree, and it has lights on it. That’s it, just lights. That’s enough for one night. It took nearly two damn hours. I hate putting lights on the tree, but it is my job. I’d love to pass the torch over to iDJ, but he has a touch of OCD and would insist that each light was exactly 4 inches from all the others.

It would take a hell of a lot longer than two hours.

We have some fancy kind of tree this year. We normally get a bog-standard pine for €20 at the local garage (gas station). I just made the mistake of asking iDJ what kind of pine tree we usually get… After being asked to visually confirm what he found on the ‘net, we can say that for the past six years, it has been a lodgepole pine.

Anyhoo, this year neither garage had trees until the 8th, and one still doesn’t have them – and the one that did had four. Four crappy, short, ugly, bald, pine trees. So yesterday we borrowed his work van and drove to Claremorris for a tree. We hit five places – three had nothing, one had pines for €25 and fancy trees for €35 and they were all just six foot – but the last place had every tree €25, no matter what kind it was! We rooted through everything and ended up getting the first tree I looked at. Because I’m ‘particular.’ Heh. Yes, the Yank chooses not to spend €20+ on a Charlie Brown tree, thank you.

It appears, according to the ‘net, that we got what is possibly a Nordman Fir, and it is 7foot 9inches tall in the stand. Whattabargain!

We were a bit concerned about getting a fancy tree, because iDJ had a bad allergic reaction to a Norway Spruce a few years ago. But he poked himself on it intentionally and was fine.

I, however, seem to be having a disagreement with this tree about me not being allergic to anything. I recover pretty quickly if I don’t scratch the places it stabs me… but as you can imagine putting five strings of lights on the damn thing left my hands peppered with itchy spots. Even with gloves. Sigh.

Anyway, it is up, the lights are on it, and the fun part of completely obliterating any hint of greenery with tinsel and forty years worth of baubles and ornaments is still to come.

We also did a shit-ton of grocery shopping today. But that was mostly boring. We were cold and cranky when we got home, so I took a bath and iDJ started a fire for me to sit in front of when I was done. He even came up and scrubbed my back for me – an extreme pleasure. Thanks babe!

Here’s what happened to me once the fire was nice and hot.

My thigh, with Lokii draped across it totally asleep but stretching for the fire. Poor always-cold kitty. Ignore the mess – fires are sloppy, but way cheaper than oil heating…

My view. He’s soooo pathetic.

Dec8

Danger! Danger!

Posted on December 8, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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I’m going to do my part for the health and safety of the uncommon person today.

Ever seen one of those infomercials where they make people look reeeely stupid? Like the woman who is in tears over not being able to peel a boiled egg? That’s my hubby trying to use a can opener.

Admittedly, the one I had was an all-metal cheap piece of junk, but he was determined to prove how shitty it was every time he used it. He would use it left handed even though he isn’t a lefty. He’d fight and curse and end up with the lid partway off and soup everywhere. Then he’d twist the lid free, leaving a gnarled needle of tin for me to slash myself on when I washed it later.

We recycle; hence the washing. This is important later.

A few weeks ago, he finally managed to snap the metal in half. I’m sure he gave a cheer and did a little dance, because now he was allowed to buy a new one. One just for him! One he could use left handed, even though he isn’t a lefty!

He came home with a fancy-schmancy white plastic thing that barely looks like a can opener. I had to read the instructions before I could figure out how to use it. It fits over the top of the can, and cuts the lid off from the side, rather than cutting down from above. Okay. It’s annoying, but I’ll get used to it.

The lid is nice and smooth, too – no jagged edges. Nice, I like that. Especially since I am the one who has to wash the damn things for recycling.

But the can itself, however, is a razor-sharp circle of certain injury. I took one look and knew I wouldn’t be sticking my hand inside with a sponge: no way. Good thing I have a brush on a stick.

No worries, then, everyone is happy. Right? Wrong.

We dump all the clean and dry recycles in one big bin, then separate the glass out later on pick-up day. He forgot about the cans.

Oh no.

Oh, yes.

He bled for about ten hours, but since I insist on him bleeding for at least 12 hours before I will authorise a doctor visit, he had to suffer me pretending to be Nurse.

He lived, he’s fine. Until the next time.

My words of warning: don’t buy this thing unless you want to bleed for ten hours, use a brush on a stick, and read instructions.

Dec1

Oot and aboot

Posted on December 1, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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Still getting ready for Sunday and the Open Fair. I still don’t have any information to speak of from the organisers, but apparently they are being annoyed with queries. I got this email today:

“Could I just ask everyone to please be patient? I DON’T have a floor plan yet as applications are still streaming in by the dozen and we’re trying to deal with those, as well as trying to find time to answer everyone’s individual inquiries about their table numbers etc. I DON’T have table numbers yet. As soon as I do, I will send them to you. As I understand it, you will be able to set up from 9am.”

A few hours later, they sent an Exhibitor Information PDF. It didn’t really say much new, other than they are having issues with giving everyone wall space that asked for it. So I emailed them and said my work was very light, and I could use string and clothespins to display it just as easily (and probably quite interestingly), and I didn’t need a wall if they were running short. They sent me a short ‘thanks for that’ reply. Always pays to be nice, I think.

Speaking of which, thank you to the lady on the till at Tesco last week. We weren’t planning to try to use those coupons, we knew we weren’t buying those products. But she said to hand em over, there’s a glitch in the system and we’d get the discount anyway. Nice one; she saved us €1.50 and didn’t have to do that at all, we would never have known. Again, pays to be nice – I’m sure if we were rude she’d have never said a word.

Anyway, back to the Open Fair. Open apparently stands for One Person ENterprise. There’s novelty cakes, lightweight travel bags invented locally, and jewellery makers, bakers, graphic artists, photographers, fashion designers and furniture makers are all mentioned in the newspaper. It sounds like it will be busy! I’ve been telling people about it, and a few folks want to come just to shop – that’s what I like to hear.

I’ve been telling people because iDJ printed my flyer for me. Three hundred of them! I took a batch out with me today. I put them in the hardware shop, the grocery, the post office, the paper shop and the music shop. I know all these folks – I’m too shy to go ask a stranger to allow me to advertise for free in their business. Even though everyone else does it.

I also bought some poster board and visited my Canadian friend at work, to borrow her scalpel and cutting mat. I got 18 8×10 backing boards for €3 and I didn’t cut myself once. iDJ would have cut a finger off, dropped the scalpel, impaled his toe, and bled all over the paper making me have to go buy more.

We had ordered cellophane bags on Monday, so I could put an 8×10 print and the tacky backing board into the bags for sale at the show. They came today. Instead of 8 x 10, they are about 5×10. Fuck. Some quick thinking on iDJ’s part (he’s clumsy, not stupid) got me a pile of clear bags from his uncle’s bakery. They are too big, but I can cut and fold and tape. Fun fun! We’ll go and have a few pics printed on photo paper Saturday and spend the evening making little parcels.

You guys have seen all my work – which ones should I print for sale? I know Fergus the Jack Russell will be popular, and I like Grey Horse and the Seahorse original drawings. Do you think any of the others would sell? How about Mr Penguin, for kids? Oh, I’ve not put him up here, or my dinosaur. Let me fix that next post. It’s going to cost me €2 each to print them, and I don’t want to be stuck with a pile of my own work!

Dec1

International food shenanigans

Posted on December 1, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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I’m grinning like crazy right now. The little group of international blow-ins that I (unintentionally) named is KIBIS really taking off. It consists of me, from the US; a Canadian, an Italian, and our newest member is Japanese.

Our KIBIS group today decided to have a ‘KIBIS Christmas Gala Dinner’ on the 14th Dec. I suggested we make and bring food from our respective countries. This is going to be an interesting meal!

Italy: either sage stuffed roast chicken with walnut bread, or lasagne. (I’m hoping for lasagne, I haven’t had it in years.)
Canada: sweet potatoes with cranberries and maple syrup (Wow! I think I’m salivating just typing that.)
Japan: a variety of sushi (Okay, I’m a newbie at sushi. Hope I don’t make an ass of myself.)
USA: cornbread and DethNog.

Since the last two are obviously mine, I have more than a parenthetical comment to offer.

I’ve never made cornbread, unless you count Jiffy Mix. I don’t know if I can even get cornmeal here! I might end up going with my second option, buttermilk biscuits.

Proper southern recipes for either one are now being taken. I don’t have a clue…

The eggnog, however, is a classic family concoction. I have my dad’s instructions for this brew, and it is POTENT! Our tradition is to write on the jug ‘death nog’, because one morning mom put it in her coffee instead of milk. Wheee! Work today is so much more fun than usual!

I usually draw a skull n crossbones in a Santa hat on the jug, to keep it coffee-safe. Last year I had two, one was a cat and one a dog.

Hmm, it seems I left the ‘deth’ part off last year.

Anyhow, if I could be bothered to dig it out, and had my dad’s permission, I’d give you the recipe. But I can’t, and I don’t. Maybe if someone asks nicely I will. Tomorrow, when I’m less giddy.

Nov28

Socks has a Lime!

Posted on November 28, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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The short story: Socks is the nickname of my best friend, and she is having her first baby. Since I can’t be there with her, I’m chronicling her journey on my blog.

Long story: go here, then here, and the rest are my weekly updates: one, two, three, four, and five. That will catch you up to now!

—

Holy crap! Baby Button grew from the size of a prune to the size of a lime in a week! That’s just crazy talk.

I’m all excited because in a moment, I’ll have a picture of her to share! One that illustrates quite well the whole ‘lime’ business.

We didn’t get our Thursday BS session due to Thanksgiving, but her house is her own again and she had time to send me an email update on how she’s doing. It was short but she still made me laugh: she had a craving for pickles. Ha! Hmm, I’m not sure that’s going to be understood internationally – in the USA, the joke about pregnant women is that they crave strange things, and the example always used is pickles (gherkins) and ice-cream. Yum!

Oo! Picture is here…just let me…hold on…a little bit here…yes. Ready for viewing!

HAHAHAHAHAH! She said her smile was too goofy to share with the world, so I gave her a goofier one 🙂 Love you!

Nov27

From pies to skies

Posted on November 27, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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Right! Turkey is stuffed and in the oven, the pies are done, the whipped cream has been beaten within a micron of its life. I’m ensconced in front of a fire with both cats vying for lap space and my rum n Pepsi close to hand. iDJ is playing his Thanksgiving special in the kitchen and the tunes are good. I could get to like this Thanksgiving thing. Even if it’s a few days late.

Huh. I just realised that I’ve managed to teach my iPad the difference between it’s and its, for the most part (it added an apostrophe to the second one just then). I hope I don’t start to trust its opinion. It got it right that time, too! Now, if it will only stop capitalising white I’ll be happy… and it just didn’t. Yay!

My pie filling looks lumpy. I’m sure it will taste fine, but they aren’t all shiny and smooth like I expected. The pumpkins weren’t pie pumpkins, and I didn’t purée them before freezing, and they were too wet. Oh well, something is better than nothing, and I’m sure they won’t be fed to the dog!

I uploaded a few pics from the proper camera onto the iPad. Here’s my girl Neko about to drink the extremely nasty looking water in our town square’s sculpture/fountain.

Them’s my legs. Just before this was taken, we had someone get out of their car to ask about her. We gave him a short lesson about the difference between American Akitas and Japanese Akitas. The easy answer is that if the dog’s face is black, it’s an American. If not, you have to register your dog on the dangerous breeds list in Ireland and walk her with a muzzle. I also told him the official name for her coat coloration is ‘pinto.’ cool, eh? I have an American dog named the Japanese word for cat with the markings of a horse. No wonder she’s a bit neurotic. You can tell she’s worried all the time just from this picture.

Here’s Lokii looking confused. He looks like this quite often. Compared to his ginormous butt, his head is too small, so I don’t think there’s a lot of room for brains in there. Poor Lokes, someone has to be the dumbest in the house, and it is you. Love you anyway.

I took a couple pics of our sunset tonight, too. The color is wrong, I think it looked more purple and yellow than the camera shows. Rats. In any case, that’s the view out the front of our house.

A little bit of sappiness, if you don’t mind? I’m thankful for every funny, smart, kind, artistic person I’ve met through my blog. X

Nov27

Avoidance baking

Posted on November 27, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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I should be doing ‘stuff.’ I was, in fact, doing stuff a few minutes ago. Now I’m sitting in the sun and writing. It’s too nice out here and I don’t want to go in and cook.

I’m doing Thanksgiving today. We got a turkey for €5 and saved it for the occasion. Turkeys are easy, I’m not worried about it, or the mashed potatoes, or the sweet potatoes.

What I’m not looking forward to is making pumpkin pies.

I’m a pretty poor baker. I always think it will be so easy and fun. Instead I end up with a huge mess, no counter space to work in, and cat hair liberally distributed through the either burned or undercooked dessert. It’s like sewing or knitting: I really want to do it, but some part of me just isn’t up to the challenge. It’s time I accept my limitations, everyone in the house will be happier without hearing me screaming curses at inanimate objects.

The dog leaves the kitchen entirely when I start rattling pans, the poor neurotic girl. Can’t imagine why.

Anyhoo, I have 14 cups of pumpkin frozen from my Halloween jack-o-lanterns. A pie only uses two cups, so I can make seven pies! Yay for me! I’m not making seven today, just two. And I doubt I’ll share with anyone but the hubby because I love pumpkin pie and it is rare to get the gourd here at all.

Wish me luck, I’m going in…unless I can think of a few more things in the garden that need tidying up.

Oh! How crazy is this: one of my blueberry bushes has flowers. This is not good! I hope I still get fruit next summer.

Nov26

Fun on the Internets

Posted on November 26, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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I had a busy night over on the FaceBook last night. I put up my seahorse drawing, and by the time we were done talking shite, me and two friends racked up 190 comments.

Only four were about the actual drawing.

The rest, well. Bird started it by offering up embarrassing stories. She put up three then asked if I had any. I said I couldn’t think of anything, not like hers, anyway! I suggested that another friend (who had commented on the actual drawing first and was, of course, being notified of these new comments) might remember some dirt on me, as we’ve been friends since I was 12 or 13.
Well, she didn’t have anything on me either. I’m sure I had to have something, but just couldn’t come up with anything I did publically that I found embarrassing.

I have a private, in my own house story, but only one other person ever knew about that one.

Not to say that my history has been boring, oh no. I did things on purpose to mess with people, though. I pierced my ear in class with a huge safety pin, and bled everywhere. More disturbingly, I once sat in class and pricked holes in a finger, then spattered blood all over my desk in pretty patterns. I think I was trying to creep out the only kid in the class that was stranger than I was. I guess I was goth before there was goth. I wasn’t embarrassed, and I didn’t get in trouble for either incident.

I did get in trouble for painting one eye – just one – in heavy black and white professional clown makeup. I can’t recall if they made me wipe it off or not, but I do know I irritated the powers that be.

It was a bit like that.

Once I borrowed a dress from a friend and put it on before school. Maybe I was way taller than my friend and therefore showed too much leg, but the school administration stopped me cold and wouldn’t let me go to class. They called my mother to bring me ‘proper’ clothes. While I was waiting for her, I could hear the women in the office talking about me. They called me a whore, and made nasty comments about what I probably had been doing with my boyfriend before school started. It was the first and last time I ever wore a dress to school.

Still, I was ANGRY, not embarrassed. Sorry that my mom had to leave work and bring me clothes, too. Ya know what? I’m still a bit pissed off.

My sister told me recently that when I was very young, I would hiss and growl like an angry cat. At other kids who picked on me on the schoolbus. Yeah, a bit odd.

I just went back to the FB comments; we spent three hours talking! Too funny. Two of us in Ireland and one in Florida, and what great craic. The best part of it all was how much it helped them both. Bird because she’s had it really rough lately, and has had huge life changes to deal with. But, a listing of embarrassing moments made her remember what a free spirit she is at heart, and that she doesn’t need a ‘bucket list’ because she has lived. My other friend because she’s a bit lonely and isolated out in the sticks of Florida; her son is grown and gone and her family lets her down too often (but she keeps trying, what a massive heart she has). She said she laughed and snorted through the whole three hours.

You never know what will come from a simple post on the ‘net, do you? I think I’ll save the rest of my thoughts on that topic for another time, though – too much to tack on to the end of this one!

So, go on, what’s your embarrassing story?

Nov23

Bengal games

Posted on November 23, 2011 by heretherebespiders

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My Bengal Spot is trying to train me, again. I’m fighting it, but it is sooo hard…

He is nine- I think? -I’m not good at keeping track of these things. But he doesn’t act like it, he’s very playful and healthy. It’s just that he gets bored easily. When that happens, he plays games with his humans.

The easy game is ‘I want to sit with you, but I’m going to make you beg me to do it.’ It’s a long game, so he likes it a lot. It has two parts: in round one he stands on the coffee table and stares at the prime lap position he wants. Human talks to him, pats couch, makes kissy-noises, offers the best place under the blanket. He leans in, looks like he’ll come and lie down…then turns tail and walks away. Repeat 2-3 times. Round two of the game involves circling the living room doing bad things in order to get yelled at. He always goes clockwise and hits the same forbidden places in the same order: going behind the TV where the wire soup is dangerous, standing on the rickety DVD tower trying to push it over and/or reach my Peace lily, then back to the coffee table or the arm of the couch where he can leap onto the top of the bookshelf. He does these things deliberately to get our full attention. All we do is shout no at him, but that’s enough for him to be very happy and come trotting back with a smile on his face to sit on the coffee table and repeat round one. This goes on until I get sick of having to pay so much attention to him and not what I’m trying to watch on TV, and I grab him. Ah, the win goes to Spot every time. I’m rough with him; I grab him, shove him under my elbow, and pretty much sit on him to keep him there. Which is what he wanted all along. He loves being squished. The purring is deafening. Weird cat.

I recently tried grabbing him right away instead of letting him have the full game. At first, it seemed a brilliant solution. He was sooooo happy. So very happy that he got up and left within a few minutes so I would do it again. And later that night he was unbearable, wanting the new game over and over. Sigh.

He’s added in a new part to round two lately, and it is even more annoying. It consists simply of going into the kitchen and howling at the sliding glass door. Repeatedly. I am not amused. He sounds like he is in pain! It’s the most pathetic, woeful sound. The only time he sounds worse is when he has a nightmare – that is terrifying. I’m only guessing about the nightmares, actually. We did catch him twice waking up from a sound sleep and immediately screaming, so that’s our best guess. He never acted as if anything hurt, or ran to the toilet or any other indication of physical pain. But wow, it was scary – he only did it a few times in the space of a few months then stopped.

But the one that I’m fighting so hard against is the 2am ‘come play with me’ caterwaul. He wakes up, his cat-brother and dog-sister and both humans are asleep, and he’s bored. What to do? Wake ’em all up, of course!

Mwow? Mrrwow. Mrrwow. Mrrwow! Mrrwow. Mrrwow? Mrrwow. Mrrwow. Mrrwow? MMMMWOW! MMMRRROW! MMM-GURGLE-ROW!

By now, we are all awake, staring unmoving at the ceiling, and hoping against hope he’ll stop on his own.

He won’t.

My solution is to go downstairs, shut the living room door, go into the kitchen, shut that door, fill the nearest receptacle with water and then trap him in the living room to throw the water all over him. He never tries to get upstairs, and lets himself be trapped. He appears to enjoy it when I chase him around trying to corner him in a place I don’t mind getting wet. He doesn’t even really mind the water, but he has to shut up for a while to dry himself off.

I’m really hoping I’m training him this time, and not the other way around. He does it less and less, but I have a harder and harder time getting back to sleep.

Look at him there, all innocent as he tries to smother his brother to death in his sleep. I’m not falling for that one, either.

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