Happen in Threes

The T and I were doing the we-have-no-kitchen-counter-space dance as we constructed the evening meal and I dropped some cottage cheese on the teeny tiny little rug. It really was a perfect shot. All that linoleum and the cheese lands right on the rug.

Me: What is my problem today with dairy products? I did a similar thing in my office this morning with yogurt.

T: Sorry can't help you. You missed a spot.

Me: Thanks. What's the third thing going to be? Should I go cow tipping just to get it over with?

If you'd been listening in

The T, upon arising from bed: Ow, ow, ow, ow.

Me: What did you do?

T: I used my legs.

I was waiting for more information, like "I used my legs to kick the
bed" or something similar. None was forthcoming.

Perhaps the pain is related to the nine miles run yesterday. Perhaps.

Sent from my iPhone

Almost messier than ever imagined

Yesterday, The T and I went on an adventure to the dump. While this might not sound like a good time to you, it was kind of fun for us. The main reason for the fun was the novelty: we had never been to the local dump before. I was excited to learn more about the intricacies and logistics behind waste management. Face it, for most of us, garbage disposal is a magical process which happens out of sight and out of mind. Only on occasion when a cat or raccoon or boogie-man knocks over the garbage can are we reminded of the mess surrounding the vast amount of things we throw away. I was curious as to how this is handled. And since I am a city resident who pays a fee to have my garbage hauled away from my yard and my conscious thought, I also wanted to see where my money was getting tossed. This trip was a long time in coming, also, if for no other reason than to get some crap out of the yard.

We loaded up the not-so-big pile of items we couldn't cram into our bin and headed off to the waste amusement park. As a diet-inducing maneuver, might I recommend weighing yourself while sitting in your car? You know you're surrounded by steel but seeing your 4-digit weight flash high in neon lights makes your pants feel tighter all the same. We found the three-sided barn which serves as the main depository before the trash is transferred to the big hole in the ground and a broom-pushing dude directed us to back in—pretty close to the pile, I might add. The smell alone encouraged us to not look at the pile too closely. Even though I was fascinated, this was not a place to linger. We opened the hatch, we each grabbed a side of the compact pile of debris (smell-free, I might add) and heaved it onto the pile...

... and this is where a disaster of monumental proportions was narrowly averted. I did a tiny countdown of "three... two... one" and tossed with all my might. The T, on the other hand, realized we didn't have to heave since the bulldozer would push the pile higher and so she was not prepared for my display of strength. I heaved while she was still hanging on. When our deposit landed, I glanced over to see The T doing a tap dance sort of routine to keep from falling into the stinking heap.

24 hours later, I'm still apologizing loudly and often for almost tossing her into the pile.

Last straw, anyone?

Hmm, there's been an earthquake in China, an earthquake in Italy, an active volcano in Alaska, North Dakota is flooded and frozen, and Oklahoma is on fire.

I have but one question: where are the locusts?

Laugh(ing) out loud ... still

This comic panel wins the award! I don't know what award but it wins. Hands down.


I'm still giggling and snorting. My nose hurts—perhaps it has to do with the hot tea that came out through my nostrils.

I will no longer struggle to come up with the right word. This gives me permission to just insert the type of word that I need, not an actual word.

Comic panel from Dog Eat Doug (c) Brian Anderson

Simple suds

The T and I are simple folk at heart. We have few needs and don't ask for much. For instance, neither of us can understand why some shampoos cost $10 or more for a 12-ounce bottle. What gives? The ingredients look the same to me. Well, we finally found a brand we really like about five years ago. It's inexpensive and our hair doesn't react to it after a week of use and go all insta-oily immediately aftering toweling off following a shower.

So far, our only complaint with this shampoo is that the marketing department seems to think that the bottle must change every eight weeks or so to keep the product fresh and in the face of the wandering consumer. For us, faithful customers that we are, this constant label tweaking means we have to hunt for the bottle every time we need to restock. There is this brief moment of panic when I think the brand has disappeared and then—poink!—there it is, plain as day in a new outfit. A heavy sigh usually ensues.

But the last trip to the ol' suds aisle has me dismayed. Not only was it hard to find the shampoo but once I did I noticed that the shelf space allotted to this brand seems to be shrinking. The UPC tags of the other brands are encroaching. I fear we will have to find a new brand. Oh, poop.

So I brought home a couple of constestants. If you'd been listening in, this might be what you heard:

Me: So what did you think of shampoo X?

The T: I thought it smelled a little like dead fish when you put it on your head.

Me: Hmm. Smelled like bubble gum or watermelon to me. This goes a long way toward explaining the differences in our ... (pause) ... food choices, I think.

A familiar tale

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

You want me to sign what?

The coffee stand on campus has a sign-up sheet for the Alliance for Animals that Eat You, or AAEY.

The manifesto is not provided. Is it pro-predator? Is it a movement to make more animals carnivores?

Sometimes I feel like an ESL student.

Permission to do anything

It seems as if The T and I have managed to overcome our blockage regarding the Remodel (I capitalize it because it is going to be with us a long, long, long time). After not making any progress for many weeks, we've managed to cross four items off the list—the least of which was to make a list of tasks we have to do. This circular referencing has done the trick and I think the ball is rollin' now, baby.

Item #1 Make a list.
Item #2 Determine which of us will do what on the list.
Item #3 Make sure at least one of us is home when the contractors show up.

So far, so good. After much deliberation, the future woodstove has completely circumnavigated the first floor of the house and is going to be installed in the spot we originally picked out. Are decisions decided like this for all remodelers? I kid you not when I say the stove started in the middle of the southwest wall, slide to the north east to act as a room divider, perch in the southeast corner for a bit to admire the view, and then scoot over to the southwest corner to catch its breath before settling back where the journey began in the middle of the wall.

Now that that is settled, we can call Brien to start pounding out the construction documents and get a little more detail on paper.

We also asked a contractor to {cough cough} submit a bid for the bathroom out in the Taj Garage. Since we are so anxious to get the bathroom done out there that we're going to go with this gent who is a worker for our architect's father's construction business. He's a bit of a known quantity by Brien and we're anxious to have the plumbing room completed so we're going to accept his bid unless it's off by a power of 10.

We also met with our gardener. Didn't know we had one of those, did you? Well, we didn't know either until we realized he had us pegged perfectly after about 20-30 minutes of circling our lot with us. Our gardener, whom we'll call Duane, summed us up in one fell swoop when he pointed at me and said I like chaotic splashes of all kinds of color all mixed up and then pointed at The T and said structured color was more her speed. It was that accurate assessment of our design, er, styles that won him the contract to turn our drab city lot into a northern amazonian jungle, complete with wild felines.

We asked him where we should locate the outdoor cat enclosure. The grrllzz want to be outside and I want them to be contained and safe from traffic and the fleabags across the street. The T voiced her concerns over having the pen near the front of the house where its addition might make the house look "white trashie." Duane slowly turned and looked out the front window and across the street. He drily said, "You have a pink house across the street. What are you worried about?"

Point taken. Where's my shovel? I see some ground that needs a breakin'!

Needle in a haystack

While clicking along and pondering the ginormity of the interweb, this passed in front of my eyeballs:


And I am speechless. It is brilliant. I mean, who would mistake that drive for their own and accidentally walk off with it? Half the world's population would leave it on the desk. Awesome. It also has me thinking about floppy discs—with wings. Best not go too far with that one.

I'm more of a visual person so the picture was enough for me. When I followed the link to The Bloggess, I was pleasantly amused by the blog entry preceding the image. Better than hearing about the budget nightmare again. I scored a two-fer.

Off to scrounge up some dinner now.