To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Sleep is my favorite hobby.  Wait, is sleep a hobby?  Sleep is my favorite pasttime?  Activity?  (wait, activity?!?  really?  I don't think so) Whatever, this girl likes to sleep. 

Anyway, I've developed a bit of a problem since getting married.  Here is my favorite sleeping position:

Yes I do sleep under bedding, but that makes it kinda hard to see what's going on in the picture.  Don't argue with my art.  As for what's going on in that picture, I'm taking up an entire queen size bed because I sprawl when I'm sleeping.  It's all arms and legs everywhere!  And my grandpa (not The Corporal, the other grandpa) used to call me a windmill in a tornado.  Apparently I didn't just sprawl and stay there, I liked to flail those arms and legs around a lot. 

Now that we have a queen size in the guest room (used to be a double bed until it broke... don't ask) my second favorite sleeping position is:

it sucked when it was a double bed, because that really is pretty much the proper scale on size of Muppy and how much bed he takes up.  I apologize for the crappy drawing, I haven't mastered the fine art of Muppy drawings yet.  He kinda looks like a weird cow/horse hybrid.  In real life, he's a weird dog/cat hybrid, but that's a story for another day. 

Now for my least favorite sleeping position:

Now part of me wants to blame Hitter's stupid sleep number bed.  I have hated that thing since the day he bought it (also a very long story for another day... the short version is "whatever Hitter wants, Hitter gets, whether I agree with it or not) And another part of me wants to blame the fact that he refuses to let me have a TV in the bedroom... he claims he can't get to sleep if there's a TV on, even though when we're in a hotel he turns the TV on and sets the sleep timer and falls right to sleep, and almost every time we sit on the couch and watch TV together he falls asleep, but NOOOOOOOOO he can't sleep with a TV in the bedroom *eye roll*  (the reason I want a TV is because I have trouble turning my brain off at night, if I just lay in the dark and quiet I start thinking... and thinking... and everything bad or scary or evil or whatever starts spinning around in my head and then I really can't sleep, so I turn on something mind-numbing... TV when I'm sleeping alone, or I stuff the ear buds of my ipod in when I have to sleep with Hitter) (longest string of words in parentheses in history) 

Anyway, part of me also suspects that it's just the presence of him in bed with me.  Sometimes I'll wake up with his elbow in my back, a lot of times I wake up with no covers, he snores and Muppy doesn't...

I can't sprawl...

Oh, and back to the stupid sleep number bed, unless we have the stupid thing at pretty similar numbers, it's like we're playing a sleepy game of king of the mountain.  One of us is way up high, and the other is down in a valley.  Sleep number is especially stupid in queen size because if you like the bed firm, then you're essentially sleeping on top of one of those stability balls, and if you like the bed soft then you're in a hammock.  Because your air pocket for your side of the bed is literally smaller than a twin bed. 

The biggest problem is I can't just go sleep in the guest room, because oh heaven forbid!  If we don't sleep in the same bed every night, then we're going to get divorced!  Oh my! 

*eye roll*

Never mind the fact that a sleep-deprived-me is a lot more likely to want to leave him than a got-a-good-night-sleep-in-the-other-room-me. 

Men are stupid.  So are queen sized sleep number beds. 

Then I vacuumed the dining room table

*Disclaimer: This post is probably going to be a hot mess.  I've already forgotten some of the stories I wanted to write about, and it just happened two days ago.  And I am writing this at 4 a.m. after waking up an hour ago and not being able to get back to sleep, so I can't deal with all those nicknames.  Characters today: Mom, Dad, Bro, SIL (and possibly also niece and nephew.  haven't gotten that far yet)  And Hitter.  That one I'm pretty comfortable with.

Yesterday morning I get a text message from the Boyfriend (okay he's a character in today's tale too)
Him: what are you up to?
Me: I'm at the farm cleaning my mother's house
*long silent pause*
Me: I should explain, she's not dead or anything.  They're just on vacation and we, umm, kinda had a party at their house while they were gone.  And now I'm cleaning.  Long story.

This past weekend Hitter and I headed to my family's farm.  He had come up with a brilliant birthday present for my dad.  See, Dad has these model trains.  He has some that were his toys when he was a kid, bought another train when Bro and I were kids, and he's picked up quite a few in the last 5 years or so on ebay.  (I refuse to capitalize the b, deal with it.  even though spell check won't deal with it.  ebay has red squiggly line, eBay doesn't.  dammit!  now I capitalized the b *sigh*)  Anyway he used to get the trains out once in a while when Bro and I were kids and just run them around the floor at the bottom of the pool table, and then packed them away for a long time... until the grandkids came along.  Then he got serious, bought some plywood, made a table, bought a whole bunch more track, made a real layout with a rail yard and a mountain and some buildings and a cattle yard and a whole crapload of lights and signals and stuff (as opposed to just running one loop on the floor)

Spell check doesn't like "crapload" either.  Spell check is an asshole.  

So the top of the table looks really nice with all the fancy stuff he's bought and wired up and tra la la.  However, underneath it was pretty redneck.  He had the plywood sitting on top of an old 1960s dining room table, with one piece of 2x4 at either end to make legs.  

Yeah that's stable.  I forgot to draw the plywood sagging on either end and warping in the middle.  I'm all about encouraging my readers to use their imaginations.  You're welcome!

And his electricity!  Oh my stars!  When he was wiring all the lights and signals and stuff, he just ran all the wires to one place, wrapped the wires around each other, and stuffed them into the holes of a power strip!  Holy crap.  I'm pretty sure that's not up to code.  But it's also not the point of this post.

So Hitter's brilliant idea was to build real legs and supports for the table...  so the grandkids won't accidentally knock it over (I'm honestly surprised the air conditioner vent over the table hadn't blown it over.  or that dad's never bumped into it in a drunken stupor and ruined it all) and the plywood will quit sagging and warping.  Hitter knows how to build train tables, we have a layout too.  He gets a bunch of lumber and mostly created the legs at home, he had to wait and do the framework after we got there, and then we loaded them up and headed to the farm this past weekend.  The biggest reason we chose this weekend even though Dad's birthday isn't for a while yet is cuz of the parental unit being on vacation.  We wanted this to be a surprise.  And now my dad has nice legs!

they're even better in real life

I should have mentioned earlier, my mother is an immaculate housekeeper.  At least the parts that show.  I honestly think she vacuumed the living room carpet the very last thing before leaving home, because there were perfect sweeper lines in the carpet with nary a footprint to be found.

("nary"?)

So Bro and SIL and I were joking about how Mom is totally going to know someone was in her house.  I mean before we left, I vacuumed the carpet, mopped the linoleum, washed our sheets and towels, re-cleaned the fridge, and she's still going to be able to sense our presence.  We even brought home the trash we accumulated this weekend!  She's still gonna know.  So rather than try to hide the fact that we were there (plus, seriously, they're gonna notice the new train table legs) I left a note that was all

Dear Mom and Dad,
  We were in your house.  Please don't be mad!  We tried to leave the house as we found it.  I cleaned as well as I am capable, I hope it's enough.  I'm a pretty terrible housekeeper.  We just came here to give dad a birthday present.
Love,
Hitter, Me, and Muppy!

(Muppy is also a terrible housekeeper.  He didn't help clean at all.  In fact, he barfed on the carpet)

(do you like how I guilted them into not being mad because we had such good intentions... I mean who doesn't like a birthday present?!  I stopped short of mentioning the fact that it's my mom's fault I'm a terrible housekeeper) 

How is it I've typed a small novel and still haven't gotten to the point of the title?  And I thought this was going to be a short story.  Well as I said, the framework for the tables had to be built at Mom and Dad's.  Which led to a whole lot of sawdust going into their basement carpet and all over everywhere.  Of course I had to clean that up, it'd be pretty shitty to show up and make a whole birthday present but then leave the mess for the birthday boy to clean up.  Right?  Anyway, the afore-mentioned dining room table that had been the main support of the train table suddenly found itself free from its train prison, but covered in sawdust.  I searched my mom's house high and low for cleaning supplies, and failed miserably.  More text messages, this time between me and SIL:

Me: do you have a dustpan and broom I could borrow?  Mom's house is so clean I can't find any cleaning supplies
SIL: yeah I do, do you need it now?  I think she just vacuums everything
Me: nah, I can wait till we see each other at lunch.  and she vacuums the linoleum too?
SIL: seriously, you know her.  she's nuts.

Which led me me vacuuming the top of a dining room table.  I also vacuumed my socks, while I was wearing them.  It was a weird weekend. 

And why in the hell does vacuum have two u's?  What a stupid word.

To top off the really weird weekend, Hitter is home today.  Guh.  I wonder if I could just sleep all day.  Maybe drink heavily.

Oh and speaking of Hey Fuck Off, there were more revelations of how incredibly stupid and hypocritical my parents are.  For instance: they have a toilet that sometimes sticks in continuous flow mode... I mean wide freaking open, sounds like there's a broken water main.  And it's been like this for YEARS.  I know this because one time three years ago I went up to house-sit for them when they were on vacation and when I showed up after they'd already left, the toilet was running.  It doesn't happen all the time, but some.  Dad is too lazy to bother putting a new flapper on the toilet, but he yells at Mom for using too much water when she's washing dishes.  And he lectures Bro and me about not taking good enough care of our houses and stuff.  This is the same guy who had so much siding missing from the outside of his house that you could see the framing and some of the insulation was missing.  Plus there's that whole electricity thing I mentioned above.  And their garage door is screwed up.  There's no tension spring.  I've asked him two or three times if maybe the thing would work better if he got it fixed.  He tells me it's not broken.  I quit arguing.  Not worth it.  Have I ever told the story about the carbon monoxide leak?!?!?  Fucktards.  I told Hitter on the way home that sometimes I kinda wish I was an orphan.  Dad isn't the only idiot either, as I mentioned above, my mom is an immaculate housekeeper... in the parts that show!  Don't open a closet though...

this was supposed to be an overloaded closet exploding... but I got tired of drawing crap.  See?  I don't even like clutter in my artwork!

 

And even funnier was when Hitter was in the kitchen and busted out laughing... see, my mom is pretty short.  I mean I'm kind of on the short side of normal, and she's shorter than I am.  Dad's no amazon either.  I think he's under 6 feet.  Neither of them can see over the top of the fridge.  So neither of them think twice about how it looks to someone who is 6'4" and can see the top of the fridge and the half dozen mousetraps all in a row up there.  No, they aren't being stored.  They're baited and set.  Because there are mice.  All over the damned house.  But instead of plugging up the holes in the siding and walls and floors and roof and trying to keep the mice out, let's just leave around a couple hundred mousetraps.  

I told Hitter if we ever inherit that house and actually want to move back to the farm, we're leveling the damned thing and starting over.  It'll be cheaper than trying to fix everything that's wrong with it.

You know what?  Now that I think about it, I'm a better housekeeper than she is.  I mean my house may not be quite up to the same immaculate standards in the parts-that-show, but first of all we do a much better job of maintaining stuff, and secondly my storage room is WAY cleaner than hers is.  I think housekeeping skills should be judged by the parts that don't show, not the parts that do.  

I hate people who only care about appearances.  Hey Fuck Off.  

This post is out of control.  I should stop now.  I should have stopped about an hour ago.

It's all part of my Master Plan

The Master Life Plan has kind of taken on a life of its own.  The interesting thing for the first time in my life, when I tell people of a plan I've dreamed up, they've not only listened quite intently and been supportive, they've even had helpful advice and suggestions!  That NEVER happens to me.  Usually the best I can hope for is bewildered silence, but I really get criticism and mocking.

Go me!

It probably also helps that the people I've told do not include my family.  Idiots.  I'm not telling them until it's too late to change.  Heck I may never tell them.  No, seriously, can you divorce your family?  

I already discussed the helpfulness of two Best Friends in a previous post, and then this past week I went out with the ex-husband (or current boyfriend, depending on which version of the story you like) and he was full of even more support and helpful suggestions!  I found out I was pretty wrong about the Kelly Staffing Services company.  I always envisioned them as just placing like data entry and receptionist type people.  Nope, they have an entire scientific division.  And turns out there's an office right here in the city of Hillbilly Hell.  He said they're often looking for people to do just the random lab-rat work... and they get frustrated because the potential employees want to get Nobel-prize-winner's pay for lab-rat work.  Well that's not a problem with me, I really don't need much more pay than to cover the cost of the commute... and potentially any kind of dog-sitting for Muppy.

Plus then if it turns out that the job sucks, it'll just be a temporary position!

 That has potential.  I have a fear of commitment.

I haven't just been thinking either, I've been taking steps.  The first one I did all on my own was this past week I test-drove the commute to the place that's top of my list of potential full-time employers.  That may not seem like much, but I absolutely hate city commutes, so deciding if this one was acceptable was a big deal.  I told Hitter if I have to make that 2-hour drive every day, he's going to have to get me a new car or keep a chiropractor on retainer, because Marvin the Paranoid Car is a bit rough-riding for these hillbilly hell roads.  Other than the bumpity-bumps though, it really wasn't bad.  Yeah it's an hour long, but it's all through the country and no rush-hour traffic.  And I've never been one to shy away from a little driving.

Also Hitter has said he will talk to a guy he works with who has connections at the afore-mentioned top-of-the-list company to see if anyone would be willing to have a little chat with me and share with me what goes on there and what jobs might be available in the future and all that kind of insider info.  And last night Hitter went out with his friend I talked about yesterday and the friend is going to get me hooked up with the... umm... career counselors?... that they use at the corporate nightmare where Hitter and friend work.

Progress is slowly being made.  I still am no closer to knowing what I really want to do, and I'm still struggling with whether or not I really want to give up my free time.  I mean I really like being able to float in my pool all summer long!  And pack up and go visit friends without having to ask for vacation time.  And all that other fun stuff.  Plus I'm really feeling like I'll be abandoning Muppy.  I realize I can't put my life on hold for a dog, but at the same time he's 10 years old and won't be around much longer and has had a pretty rough life so I would really like to be able to make his remaining time happy.  And I'm not sure what I should do with him anyway if I were to go to work full-time.  He's an inside dog, he'd have a heart attack if I tried to leave him outside.  And I'm not likely to get a job that would pay well enough to justify day care every day (seriously, that shit is expensive)

So... that's my story.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but I have also pondered why exactly I sometimes am just crap-happy being a pampered housewife and sometimes I go into this dear-god-I-will-never-be-happy-without-a-job crisis.  I think I've at least mostly figured it out.  It happens to varying degrees almost every year shortly before Christmas, when I am dreading having to spend somewhere between 9 and 12 days living out of a suitcase and start pondering ways to get out of it.  While faking my own kidnapping would be a lot of fun, the responsible approach would be to have something respectable like a job that would require me to stick around here.  I mean the biggest reason the in-laws say they can't come here is because mother-in-law has to be at her job on Christmas day (church organist) so it seems like a job would be a good answer.  And the other is actually kind of related to that.  I start having these feelings that Hitter isn't respecting me and no matter what I do around here, it doesn't get better.  And since he is a corporate-ladder-climbing, power-hungry, money-grubbing dickhead, I figure the best way to get any respect from him would be to also have a job.

Which is actually kind of a terrible reason to get a job.

*sigh*

I think I just babbled with absolutely no point.  In fact, I think I kind of talked myself out of what I am talking myself into.  WTF, me?

So to make a long story short (too late!) my options are, in no particular order:

• get a full-time job, most likely at the place that is top-of-my-list
• get a part-time job
• get a temporary job, either full or part time
• go back to school (I'm still having fantasies about having an apartment at the college across the state, and completely expecting Hitter to NOT go for that)
• be content with being a pampered housewife

and I have been taking steps towards figuring out what I want to do.  So that's good.  And now, I have a headache so I think I'll go curl up on the couch and doze through a movie.

And I ran, I ran so far away

Dear god I just quoted A Flock of Seagulls.  *hangs head in shame*

Yep I ran away from home last night.  I am thirty... almost-damned three... years old, and I ran away from home.

As for the reason, well, it's even dumber.  I was trying to clean up the house some, because we're having company today.  I was also trying to do laundry, because I didn't want to have wet clothes hanging all over the house to dry when company was here so I had to do it yesterday.  I guess I should explain.  Designated Hitter doesn't let me dry anything except socks and underwear.  Pants, shorts, shirts, even grubby working-in-the-yard t-shirts have to be hung to dry.  Seriously.  He has this one shirt he got from a small seed company.  If I had a nickel for every time he has bitched about what a bunch of assholes this seed company was, I could move out and support myself just on the interest alone.  He wears this shirt when he gets all sweaty and muddy and grassy... and then he throws it in the washer, and then that shirt is too valuable to throw in the dryer.  It must be carefully hung up to dry.  Yanno so it doesn't shrink.  That shirt could be the cause of our divorce.

Well, since we moved to the country and got ourselves a septic system, I can't use liquid fabric softener in the washer anymore cuz it fucks up the decomposition of the shit in the septic tank (seriously, did anyone want to know that?!  I didn't) so in order to make our clothes not all stiff and wrinkly and scratchy, I've been tossing them into the dryer for about 12 minutes with a dryer sheet and then taking them out and hanging them to finish drying.  They aren't in the dryer long enough to shrink, but they do soften up and de-wrinkle in that time.

So, I'm doing laundry yesterday.  And I'm cleaning house.  First load of laundry comes out of the washer and goes into the dryer.  Kitchen timer set for 12 minutes.  I go to vacuum.  I'm off in the bedroom vacuuming when the timer goes off, I don't hear it.  Apparently timer shuts itself off after a bit, because when I turn vacuum off the house is silent.  I didn't think a think of it, went on to do some other things, and like 45 minutes later went "oh shit!"  I ran into the laundry room and yep, there was the dryer still tumbling away with a load of dark clothes inside, fully dry.  I take everything out and hang it all up and mostly I'm not too terribly worried cuz Hitter was outside and I've dried a few shirts all the way before and he's never noticed, but then I pull out a pair of blue dress pants.  *sigh*  I flipped 'em upside down and hung them up like I'm supposed to, and then compared them to two pair of khaki colored pants that were already hanging there... and they were somewhat shorter.

I panicked.

I didn't have the courage to tell Hitter what I did.  I couldn't handle the coming lecture and/or look of disappointment.  Just didn't have it in me.  He was outside mowing lawn at the time and I saw him get in the truck and drive off (I suspect he was fulfilling Gas Fairy duties) so I wrote a note that explained the vacuuming and the timer and the short pants and I apologized like 5 times and twice swore it was an accident, and I loaded Muppy up in Marvin (ooooh I haven't explained Marvin yet... that's my car) and took off.  Didn't know where I was going, just left.  Unfortunately I met Hitter in the driveway, he pulled over (one-lane-driveway) and unrolled his window to talk to me, and I didn't even look him in the eyes, just raced past and took off.

He texted me and said he wasn't mad, please come back.  I drove for a while, and then eventually texted him back and said I couldn't handle the disappointment either.  He wrote me back and said something about accidents happen, just come back.  I drove for a while longer.  Then I realized I was lost.  Okay our roads around here do NOT go straight.  I'm not originally from this state, but my parents did go to college here and their best friends are from here too (not here as in this town, here as in this state) so Designated Drinker has a lot of first-hand knowledge of what goes on around here.  And he's always said the way our DOT makes new roads is to just find the nearest hillbilly and put him in a blacktopper machine with a case of beer and tell him to drive around for a while.  If there's a tree, go around it.

I was seriously lost.  Thank goodness the sun was still up because I knew I'd left home heading west so as long as I kept the sun behind me, I should eventually end up somewhere near home.  Or in a river.  Either way, I'd know where I was then.

I'm still a little twitchy, I cried over supper last night.  Hitter gets all "but I'm trying to get better and not fly off the handle" and I tell him that I've been hurt so bad so many times that I don't trust him anymore.  The whole episode with the root beer on vacation kind of put me over the edge.  Oh crap I didn't tell that story either.  Well, short version, I accidentally sprayed root beer on one cabinet and a bit on the floor of the kitchen in the cabin his sister rents for the week.  RENTS, not owns.  B.F.D.  I wiped it up, Sis was all "no big deal", Hitter comes unglued on me like I'd burned the place down and killed half his family in the process.  Over a little root beer on the floor.  Good lord.  Everything's a catastrophe with that man.  And I'm at the end of my rope.  *sigh*

Sorry this wasn't funny and didn't have any cute pictures.  I'm not feeling very funny or cute right now but I needed to vent this shit.

It's a Dog's Life

The Prom Queen has issues.  Mostly she has "I don't need to learn anything because I already know everything" issues.  I once got in an argument with her because she was convinced that she had a lobotomy.

this seems unnecessary for a pregnancy... 

on second thought.....

After a lengthy discussion, we finally figured out she was trying to say "phlebotomy" but even when a dozen people were confirming my definition of the two words, she still wouldn't believe me.  So yanno, maybe she did have a lobotomy.  Or maybe she needs one.   

So the latest issue... she's a veterinary assistant.  She went to school to learn things about working with animals in a vet clinic.  And she is working in a vet clinic.  Somehow she has never heard that onions are bad for dogs.  My vet says so, my friend's vet says so, and Muppy projectile-vomits for three days if he gets ahold of food with onions in it.  He turns into the Puke-Me-Poop-You from "Attack of the Killer App" (pretty awful Futurama episode, but that line made me laugh)  But when I said that I can't let Muppy eat anything with onions, Prom Queen goes "oh don't believe all that shit".  Okay, I won't listen to my vet.  Or other vets.  (sidebar - the vet she works for is a pretty nice guy, and he's the only vet in our little podunk town, but he's kind of an idiot.  he has no common sense when it comes to animals.  even with Prom Queen working at the vet clinic, Buffalo Bill calls the vet in the next town over whenever he needs anything done with our livestock.  go figure) 

She drives me nuts.  I mean she's only 25 and yet she's convinced she knows everything.  She seriously still acts like a high schooler. 

Squirrels have giant balls

Yesterday I went out to check on my pool (daily ritual.  owning a pool is way more work than fun) The little skimmer basket thing, where the water goes from the pool to the pump and filter, is always full of leaves and assorted flotsam.  Daily ritual involves opening up the lid on the skimmer basket and dumping out whatever has collected.

I opened up the thing and found a dead squirrel in there.  EEW!  I was so caught off guard that I screamed, which of course scared the hell out of Muppy.  Oh, and that was the approximate position said squirrel was in when I discovered him.  Balls were looking up out of the skimmer basket at me.

Next dilemma: how to remove dead stiff giant-ball-wielding squirrel from the basket.  I sure as hell wasn't going to touch the damned thing with my bare hands!  I briefly pondered using kitchen tongs, but I knew there wasn't enough bleach on all of earth to render them useful for human food preparation again and I wasn't entirely sure that Designated Hitter wouldn't pull them out of the trash if I turned my back on him for more than 15 seconds.  (the tongs, not the giant squirrel balls)  Luckily we live in the middle of the woods and there are sticks all over the yard.  I managed to get him out with a couple of sticks.

And then I had to yell at Muppy a couple times to leave the damned thing alone.

I just hope to hell that stupid fucking tree rat didn't poke holes in the pool liner before he died.

M'Lady, your chariot awaits

It's MINE!  All mine!!!!!!!  Yep it's official today, my lawn mower is paid off!

(not shown: mud, nail in tire, yard, dull blades, me)

I love my mower.  It even has a cupholder.

(added: me, beer)

Two years ago, Muppy got a present: a 3 acre yard to run around.  That obviously led to needing a riding mower.  A few months later, one of Designated Hitter's co-workers asked him how he liked the Cub Cadet mower, and he replies "I don't know, she won't let me ride it" and he wasn't lying!  I bet he's only used it 3 times total in the last two years... and we live in a freaking rainforest.  I usually have to mow twice a week if the weather cooperates, and start mowing in March (maybe even once in February), sometimes don't quit until November...

Have I mentioned I love my mower?

It's magical too.  Or at least there is magic that surrounds it.  Every time I get ready to mow, I discover that it's full of gas again!  I think there's a Gas Fairy.  Take that however you want.  The weird thing is every time I look to the sky and say "Thank you, Gas Fairy" the Designated Hitter says "you're welcome".  Who is he fooling?  I know it's magic.

I wish I could honor this occasion by mowing today, but the weather isn't being agreeable.

Living in the woods

I wanted a house in the country.  It was all my fault.  I'm not cut out to be a city person.  The very first night we were here, I looked out my front window and I saw trees... and trees... and deer.

and I was all excited because "ooh how pretty!  I love living in nature!"

Shortly thereafter, a groundhog was discovered undermining the integrity of the cement floor in our shed.  Then the Designated Hitter started freaking out because our yard is full of moles and gophers.

The next spring, I wanted a garden.  The beans were happily climbing their poles, and then:

(it's awfully hard for a bean plant to live if the top is no longer physically connected to the bottom)

Last week, in the middle of the afternoon I looked out my window and saw the following:

that's a raccoon, in broad daylight, eating out of a bird feeder, less than 20 yards from my back door.

And then there was this morning.

only much less friendly (and amorous) and much more stinky and diabolical and probably rabid.  Okay I have no reason to believe he's rabid except for the fact that my paranoia/hypochondria also covers rabies.  After I saw the raccoon last week I started researching symptoms of rabies in humans to find out if I was going to die, even though the raccoon was showing no signs of being rabid and I did not come in any contact with it.  I'm afraid to let Muppy outside now!  (Although he has a rabies shot.  And Frontline, so I get ticks and he does not.  Why are dogs so well protected and I am not?) 

P.S. I also saw two toads humping on my back step.  That was funny though.  It was all legs in all directions.  I felt a little dirty for watching them, but I was not in fear for my life.  My soul, maybe, but not my life.

I promise

I promise this blog will be a random string of seemingly unrelated events.
I promise I will be very sporadic in posting. 
I promise you will not understand much, if any, of what I post.

I think I can keep those promises!

I also promise this is very therapeutic for me.  I don't know why I put that in "promise" form.  Probably because I have this disorder where I start a trend and then I can't let it go until long after it has ceased to be funny. 

And I promise that while a fellow blogger did inspire me to start this fun, I am not intending to plagiarize... or steal followers... or advertising dollars... or to win the internet.  It's all yours.  And I'm not even getting any advertising dollars.  Let me know if I piss you off, hopefully we can find a way to both be happy. 

Anyway, for starters, let's have some intros.  This is me:

I have a dog.  I call him Muppy (it's a mash-up of Mutt and Puppy.  No that isn't his real name, but he gets called that more often than anything else)  I also have a husband.  For the sake of this blog, I'm going to call him the Designated Hitter.  The internet acronym of DH (dear husband) always makes me think of designated hitter, and I don't know what else to call him.  No, he doesn't hit me, and quite frankly I'm not a fan of the DH rule, but just go with it.  I did promise this wouldn't make any sense.  Anyway, I didn't draw a picture of either of them yet.  You'll see them someday.  Muppy is black and has a feather-duster for a tail.  Designated Hitter is tall, and doesn't have a tail. 

I have a family.  They're all nuts.  They'll probably be the prime focus of this blog.  Like I said: therapeutic.  Designated Hitter has a family too, and they're also nuts but in a much different (and somewhat less traumatic) way.  Muppy was a Humane Society rescue, his first family was probably the most traumatic but we're his family now.  And we try not to torture the poor beast.

I am typically a morning person, and it is well past my bedtime now.  I've been stuck in an insomniac cycle lately though.  I am going to try to go to bed now.