My Mini Doctah Jones Adventure

So I'm watering my newbie plants.

In my bare feet trying to avoid the large and in charge juicy-ass ants that seem to be taking over the world nowadays.

As I'm on my way to fill up another watering can full of water, I hear a skittering next to the house. I look but don't see anything at first, but I still hear some skittering and it sounds animal-like as opposed to a dry leaf blowing across the driveway.

Then I notice movement in the basement window well. I peer thru the plastic cover and discover a small black snake trying it's damnedest to find it's way out and getting pretty darn close to finding his way into my dryer hot air hose.

I lift the plastic cover and the snake is a smart one. He manages to get up over the edge and continues his way along the house. He gets to my one step stoop which puzzles him for a moment.

At this point I'm just interested in watching him. I really don't mind snakes like Indy does. Get me around bees and wasps and I will pull an Indy snake-in-the-plane fit.

Finally the snake makes a choice. The WRONG choice which forces me to take some stunt man action.

He decides he is going to go up the inside of the trim around my door.

I decide this is highly inappropriate and I'm not allowing this. I pull him out by his tail.

He turns around and quickly heads back up into the trim.

I quickly yank him out again.

He gets pissed and lunges at me. And coils himself up like you see pissed off rattlers on those Animal Planet shows. And lunges a couple more times.

I'm no where near him. I'm NOT stupid (although I appear to be sometimes, when it counts I'm not). So while he's busy keeping a close angry eye on me, I'm busy trying to find something to assist him with moving along and staying out of my door trim.

I use one of the small booksale signs I didn't use for the sale to try to coax him but he transfers his lunging biting maneuvers to the sign. Fine by me.

I get him over the stoop onto the other side where he makes a lightening attempt to go up inside that side's trim at which point I promptly pull his ass out yet again.

He's SUPER pissed with me now and divides his attention between the water hose, the booksale sign, and me, lunging and biting.

I had to laugh at him acting all "big and stuff", he seriously looked like a mini rattler minus the rattle. He was doing that coily thing and his head was all flattened out like cats when they put their ears back to hiss.

I explained to him that under no circumstances was I going to allow him up in the trim nor was he going to get a chance to bite me, so he better make the best of things and go enjoy himself under the cool of the hostas.

Which he finally did.

I hope he sticks around, he's good for the garden, eating slugs and bugs and all.

Just as long as he stays away from the dryer hose and the door trim.

This and That, Tids and Bits

I still don't have my handpush lawn mower back. Seems the repair guy has a "slowness" issue. Last Wednesday I finally had to borrow my neighbor's mower coz my grass was getting too too out of control. Hah, what grass? Let me amend the previous statement... my crop of clover, violets, some kind of fuzzy leaved plant, somethings ugly and spiny, and the four different versions of what I believe to be crabgrass all mixed together with dozens of anthills in the front yard and good grass making a sincere effort to disappear was getting too too out of control. If I don't get my mower back soon I may have to Plan A: borrow someone's mower or go to Plan B: shop around and find an electric-powered mower to purchase. Once the handpush mower is ready, I will be taking pictures of the place I dropped it off at. It's a veritable mower cemetary. Lawn mowers as far as the eye can see, well, until they hit the tree line. But that ruins my verbal effect. Mowers everywhere you look then. I'm pretty sure they go there to die, or us owners just never get them back/give up/leave them there. Or else this guy has a mower hoarding issue. I'm on the fence. The place where I got my mower recommended them. Hmmm. I still have my nice professional looking claim ticket. And I've talked to them directly on the phone several times. So I know this is a place of business. Unless it's a cover for collecting mowers from innocent dupes like me. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

I found a new word...

Traffucked

Good one, isn't it? It means you are so stuck in traffic you ain't getting to your destination ANY time soon. Appropriate for this weekend. Here's to you avoiding being traffucked!

I'm happy to report Moomin and Hobbes' bowels are back to normal. Doodle on the other hand is still dealing with some poopie issues. Let's just say it veers between loose poop somewhat-in-turd form and diarrhea. I'm out of ideas. I've changed the litter completely out and scrubbed all three cat boxes thoroughly.

My garden is going fine. I will be able to pick squash by mid to end of next week. I should pick my green pepper soon. The front something-or-other-named plants in front are getting taller every day. The moonflower is about a foot up the black garden post. And I planted 6 new plants called globe flowers today after work. I thought I lost one of them, but it seems to have come back from the almost-dead. I will have to be very careful with it from here on out.

I tried two new recipes this week. One was a super delicious fiasco. I made my own version of Chinese dumplings. Next time I need to use a non-stick pan. I thought my Jamie Oliver pan was non-stick, but I was OH SO wrong. Basically the dumplings came out great in the putting-them-together process, but actually cooking them was a disaster. Instead of dumplings I had sausage meatballs mixed with noodle casings. Delicious, but a disaster. The second recipe was a different take on Tuna Casserole. It's good but could stand some tweaking. I was highly disturbed to find I accidently bought the wrong tuna format. It came out of the bag as a filet. GAG. GAG. GAG. Let's just say I don't think I've ever worked that fast in the kitchen before to reduce something to flakes, thrown into the casserole, and shoved in the oven to bake. GAG. Why Tuna Casserole then? Supreme comfort food that Mom made when we were kiddos. If the tuna is small enough, I don't have an issue cooking or eating it, but just for casserole purposes. I do NOT eat it any other way. GAG. And to actually have to handle a big honking filet of it smelling the way it does... GAGGAGGAG!!!

I have a book sale to go to tomorrow. I will be there bright and early with my bagel and OJ. I'm always first in line at this one. I gotta get my books before the Book Predator. God I dislike that man. He always comes with a big box so that he can just grab entire sections of my favorite subjects. I've checked his box, no rhyme or reason. That makes me anxious. He could grab something I want. And he's scruffy, unshaven, disheveled, baggy dirty pants, and he's just a thorough Book Predator. I can't see that he CARES for books. Ugh. My book nemesis.

Speaking of books, I've decided to downgrade my cable to basic. This means instead of 65 channels (of which I have 10 that I watch outside of the regular channels of ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CW), I will be down to 14. The ones I mentioned in the parenthesis and 9 other useless channels I don't watch (like the Canadian French, TV guide, two local cable TV, PBS - sorry, a ridiculous channel with bizarro selections, one with constant paid programs, and two others that I have no clue about). But instead of $59/month, it will be $11/month. Cheaper as is needed nowadays. I sure wish they would let us pick our channels. My co-worker said cable companies don't like to do that as they make more money offering package deals of channels. I told him they are losing money with me but if they offered me channel choice, they'd make some of that money back. Whatever. More time to read, tho I will miss The Closer's new season, Forensic Files (I love that narrator's voice), reruns of SVU, DinersDriveInsAndDives, random movies I missed in the theater and have been too lazy to try to rent, and the new crop of paranormal shows that are on various channels I will no longer be getting. Maybe Mom will TiVo The Closer and I can come over on a weekend day and watch it. Or watch a whole slew of them in one go.

What do you say, Mom?

Poop Explosion Weekend is SO Over

Believe me when I tell you that dealing with three cats who all have explosive diarrhea at the same time is NOT. A. FUN. experience.

It started out innocuously with Doodle, as reported earlier last week. Her sample came out negative by the way. Still no word on the blood.

Then Friday evening I noticed Hobbes having issues with sharts and liquid from his ass.

Then late Friday night I noticed Moomin had a schmear on his bloomers and was yodelling more then usual when he went potty.

Then it hit me, they were all going potty in the box and having diarrhea.

It was a veritable POOP EXPLOSION FROM HELL!!! I was in hell, a smelly trigger-your-gag-reflex hell. The cats weren't even bothering to dig holes or bury anything. They would just cop a squat and let go. Mostly in the boxes but there were a few drips over the edge especially when they started to run out of room or needed to go RIGHT that second.

I cleaned the box twice Friday night before I went to bed.

I was awakened at 3am on Saturday by somefurrybody vomiting 3 times, HUGE vomits. I cleaned that up and it smelled just like the box's business. Gag. Then once the sun came up, Doodle tried to go potty, came out without doing anything, yarfed some more smelly vomit, and then immediately went to the box to basically yarf from her butt. I'm thinking she had tummy cramps so bad they made her nauseous, you know, like what happens to us humans?

Saturday morning I scooped liquid poo. Saturday afternoon I scooped liquid poo. Saturday night I scooped liquid poo.

I tried to be a forensic detective Saturday. There had to be a common thread. Obviously it wasn't the food, they all eat different food. The vet gave me 4 cans of prescription wet food for Doodle and Hobbes/Moomin's wet food dates all checked out. It couldn't be Doodle's thyroid coz they all had diarrhea. What else did they have in common besides being indoor cats living in the same house and shitting in the same boxes?

Water.

I've been getting water from my friend J2's house, they live on a lake and have filtered water. This arrangement has been working fine since Moomin's bladder issues this past fall. But I'm wondering if there was a bad batch. I store the water where I come in and I think the sun may have tweaked the water to give them all the squirts. So to rule out the water theory, I emptied the water bowls, replaced the bowls with new bowls, filled them with my new Brita-filtered water, scrubbed the water fountain and changed it's water, and...

the hardest part, I had the cats fast for 24 hours.

Trust me, scooping liquid poo is much easier.

Saturday night I had to listen to "where's our bedtime snack?" repeatedly.

Sunday morning I had to listen to "where's our breakfast?" for two straight hours.

Luckily, I had a project to do at my parents so I could escape the nonstop "where's our breakfast, aren't you going to feed us, where's our food, are you going into the kitchen, what's that you have, are you going to get my food out of the fridge, we're hungry, why aren't you feeding us, what's the deal, can't you see we're starving?"

I spent most of my day away and when I came home, it was the same spiel only with dinner substituted for b-fast. I futzed around outside taking pictures of my garden for as long as I could before getting eaten by mosquitos, came in and blogged, and then settled in with a book. Things kind of calmed down but every time I moved or shifted, the whole hungry Bambi eyes deal would start up again.

Finally I fed them at 7pm, but no bedtime snack. Gotta start slow.

In the boxes this morning were 4 solid good-sized pee clumps. No poops.

The kiddos were fed their regular breakfasts and when I came home after work, I scanned the boxes and did not see any visible evidence of anything.

So here's hoping things are back to normal, poop that is.

Garden 2008

So here's this year's garden. Two of my three pumpkin plants are over in the bed directly behind my house, only one is in the other raised bed. Click on it for larger view to actually see what's in the beds.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a pumpkin plant that grows straight up. I keep waiting for it to lay down. No the jugs are not holding it up.

My wee little pepper plant has a wee little pepper. Dad told me the plant stem gets very strong and "not to worry" about the pepper bending the plant to the ground.

I actually have 4 tiny squash, but to avoid being redundant, here's one set of the four.

One of my tomato plants has flowers.

These are those plants (supposed to grow about 5 feet high) that my mom said have red flowers that look like cardinals.

Little Nikko Blue hydrangea.

And the moonflower. I keep trying to encourage it to grow around the black post, but it keeps wanting to stretch towards the deck stairs.

I Done Did Bought a Fit

Sport that is. Red.

Pictures curtsey of Honda.com.

I'm too excited for words.

I did this on my own, well with an assistance call to Mom who was fortunately home and gave me some pointers on how to get more for my trade-in. Which I was able to do semi-successfully.

Totally not what I expected to do today. I had it in my mind that I was just going for a test drive while my car got an oil change and tune-up. Then I was going to visit the consignment shop and maybe EddieBauer.

Nope. I was meant to have this car and I bought it.

It will be coming in a month.

I called Gpa and he's thrilled for me. Now he's going to go test drive one himself. He asked me to send him pics of me with my...

Fresh brand-spankin' shiny roomy new little red car.

Look What Happened To Doodle!

She's been SHAVED!!! On her pretty white bib. When I took her to the vet today, I did not expect this to happen. She had some extreme diarrhea this morning so I scheduled to bring her in after work. They asked me to bring them a sample and I told them not to worry, it's been isolated and ready to bring over. So I get home and the sample has been fermenting in my pseudomudroom. So nice and fragrant. The "cat" vet (who is super nice and smart) told me that she doesn't see or feel anything wrong but due to Doodle's age, it might be hyperthyroidism. She told me to keep an eye on her to see if she increases what she eats. I had to explain to Dr. W that Doodle doesn't get a chance to free range and eat whatever, so I have no way to tell coz she gets a certain amount for b-fast, a certain amount for dinner, a sprinkle for bedtime snack, and no more. After some discussion, we decided to have blood drawn to rule hyperthyroidism out and coz Doodle is of the age (8) where the vet should have a baseline. The vet whisked Doodle away, the technician brought her back, I paid, and came home. I had no idea they shaved a two inch square until she lifted her head to my hand to give me an "I forgive you" head butt.

I like the effect of this one, like sun's whiskers on Doodle with her whiskers.

Hobbes all handsome in the sun and not hissing at Doodle for once, even tho she smells all vettish and alcoholish and scary.

Miss B profilin' with Moomin.

See the eyes in the background?

Today/Tomorrow

Today:

One of my friends networked on my behalf.

I squeezed some fund-drippings from the rock that is the State.

My cats ate their meals without incident.

I took the plunge and wrote an exorbitant check for a pre-paid oil plan.

I learned how to spell "exorbitant".

I called DTV and was able to give my Gpa the date his coupon will be mailed.

No watering of the garden/plants was needed.

My friend J2 called before work to talk and make tentative plans.

Tomorrow:

Is the full moon.

Is the end of Mercury Retrograde.

It will rain some more (fine by my garden+plants).

I will have another lunch of CrockPot CatNip.

Is one day closer to Book Sale set up.

(I'm practically frothing in the brain at the mere thought of being in an entire gymnasium full of books!!!)