Happy Thanksgiving!

New Hats

We're heading up to the mountains for Thanksgiving next week so I made new hats for the boys.

Ta-Da!

What is your Super Villain Name and Title??

I am Killer Shot, The Rogue of Men, bow down before me!

Don't you hate it when...

You're at the grocery store and decide to buy a pack of individual puddings for the boys to take in their lunches but over the course of the day, you manage to eat all four of them because they're really quite small, and the whole time you're remembering opening up your own lunch as a kid and finding those puddings in the little tin cans and the trickiness of licking all the pudding off the lid without cutting your tongue open?

Or is it just me?

Happy Birthday from the United States Government

So I went to the post office this morning to mail a big envelope.  As usual, I used the automated postage machine.  If you haven't used these yet, you really should.  They're the best thing since automated gas pumps.  If they'd just get those self-checkout lines straightened out, I wouldn't have to be smiley and polite to the grocery clerks either.  Anyway, I was using the postage machine and after the envelope was weighed and the zip code entered, I scanned my credit card and out popped my preprinted $2.66 postage stamp.  Shazam, like magic.  Then something new happened.  Instead of telling me 'thank you' and printing my receipt, the machine told me that the printer was out of paper and it was unable to print my stamp.  Huh?

Now, typically, the "out of paper" message is the only printer message that I believe.  The other messages like, "unable to connect", "broken pipe" and "you need to replace the cyan cartridge so I can print your black and white document, bitch" are totally bogus.  The damn thing is just trying to make me dance.  Printers are fuckers.

Clearly, this time it was mistaken.  I had my $2.66 stamp but it had clicked back to the 'press to begin your transaction' screen.  Without charging my credit card.  I was so excited and my first thought was "Hey, you can ship a package for free on your birthday!"  After a few seconds, I thought, 'Idiot, the machine is broken' and this is the early stages of my impending dementia. But it could happen, right?  The US Postal Service could certainly use a new approach to customer appreciation, like a free slice of pie on your birthday at the Village Inn or a free cone at Ben and Jerry's.  And if they let it happen on the sly, without a big ad campaign, like a happy accident, then people would be all giddy about going to mail a package instead of standing in the kitchen and deciding whether or not to apply all of the stamps they can find in the junk drawer and seeing how far it'll get, of course that can be fun too, will it get there? will Tina have to pay $1.00 when it gets there? cause I could just mail a dollar to her but I'm out of stamps now so I have to go to the post office, ugh, I hate going to the post office, OH, maybe this time it'll be free....

Or maybe this is why the post office is going bankrupt.

Painting like a Pro

So I finally painted that last bit of wall that was way up high and hard to get to.  I was putting it off because I knew it was going to require the use of the Scary ladder.  We have several ladders that I use when I'm painting.  My Painting ladder, the Tall ladder and the Scary ladder.  The Painting ladder and the Tall ladder are both relatively stable and have little shelves on which to set the paint can.  The Scary ladder bows when you climb on it and it does not have a little shelf so you have to hold the paint can in one hand, the paint brush in another hand and you use your third hand to hold onto the wall.  Oh, wait, no third hand.  So you'll end up there all wobbly, holding on to the wall with nothing but your strong desire not to fall crashing down onto the floor.

After procrastinating for quite a while, I realized that I could bend the Scary ladder and set one end on the floor of the shower and balance the other end on that window sill way up there, and hey, this just might work....So I ended up painting the rest of the bathroom wall, just like those men of old built the sky scrapers only slightly less impressive.

I really don't know how those guys did it.  As soon as I got up there, my coffee kicked in and I had to pooh.

For future reference, if you set up your ladder like this, everyone in the house will want to paint the wall.  "Can I climb up there?"  "Let me try"  "Pleeeeeaaaassseeeeee"

Movie Review - Interstellar

It was a mess.

A long, hot mess.

I've never wanted an alien to eat someone that much in my entire life.

It's somewhere in the middle

Tom, "Where's Dad again?"
Me, "St. Louis."
Sam, "IDAHO!"
Me, "Nope."

I went to my first Cat Show

All I can say is, "the smell".  What is that smell?  Is it going to stay in my clothes?  My pores?  Is it the kitty litter....or the flea powder..... or the snack bar food..... or the fried permed hair....maybe a combination of all four?....Oh my god, it's worse down here....don't go down there....move! move!....I haven't spent that much time breathing through my mouth since 1975 when we were living in South Korea and took a trip to the local open air market and wandered down the kimchi aisle.  What is that smell?! Now you may think you know kimchi because you tried it at that new asian fusion restaurant downtown and it was just a delight but You. Know. Nothing.  What is thaaaaaat????

And I was promised cats in costumes.  There are no cats in costumes.  It's the day after Halloween and you know for damn sure these cats were dressed up yesterday.  C'mon, it's one more day to amortize the cost of that cat costume you spend so long sewing.  There was even a theme to the show "Colors of Autumn".  What's the point of having a theme if the cats aren't dressed to it.  Two orange carriers do not a Color of Autumn theme make.  Is one cat dressed as a pilgrim really too much to ask for?

John, "What's wrong with your face?"
Me, "Huh?"
John, 'It looks frozen."
Me, "The smell."
John, "I've never seen your brow furled like that.  It's furled horizontally and vertically.  It's a square. How are you even doing that? And your mouth is hanging open."
Me, "The smell."
John, "It's the kitty litter.  Oh, look they're judging over here."
Me, "The smell."
John, "You keep saying that.  C'mon."

The judging was riveting.  One lady was so anxious, she stood directly in front of me.  Really? We're one person deep here?  All the cats got three ribbons.  I didn't see them up close but I'm assuming they were the "Participation" Ribbon, the "Correct Number of Limbs" Ribbon and the "At Least I Got Mom Out of the House" Ribbon.  One of the cats in the second judging ring received a fourth ribbon; the "Best Use of a Neurological Disease" Ribbon.  I telling you, there was something wrong with that cat.  It's back half wasn't working quite right but no one else seemed to notice.

And none of the cats wanted to be there.  You just had to look at their faces to see it.  At least dogs are happy to be at the show.  If that Cornish Rex had thumbs, it would have killed the judge.  That's the difference between cats and dogs.  If cats had thumbs, they'd take over the world.  If dogs had thumbs, they'd play video games.

And the icing on the cake?  47 minutes of pussy jokes from John.