On the road...

Spencer said, upon seeing a hawk in flight,

"It sure would be awesome to be able to fly. You'd never have to use your legs.
Except to stop for ice cream."

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Him (drunk and yelling inappropriately at midnight): "Hey, hey, hey...let's have a contest to see who can lose 10 pounds the fastest. It would be COOL! Yeah, I'll win because I NEED to lose 10 pounds RIGHT NOW because I am a fat slob and no one loves me. HEY!!!!" (interspersed at a couple of points with, "GOD, I LOVE this FUCKIN MOVIE! Batman Begins RULES!")

Me: "No thanks." (Quietly, since Spencer is asleep (found out this morning that he actually heard every word))

Him: "What -- you want to stay the way you look NOW?" (scoffing and then laughing rudely)

Me: (silence.)

Wow, being loud and drunk on a Sunday night when your girlfriend's son is asleep right upstairs, now THAT'S cool. Never ever having to clean the house or wash the sheets or buy toilet paper or toothpaste, or scrub the toilet or sweep up dust bunnies or call the plumber or weed the garden or pay for the insurance or make sure that there's milk in the fridge -- well, that's the coolest thing of all, because apparently the Idiot Fairy takes care of all that for you even though you constantly behave like an asshole and somehow manage to top yourself nearly every single time.

I am a jackass.

Fuck that shit, I'm DONE. If you can please direct me to the store where they sell grown-up men who behave like adults (not that there's anything wrong with getting drunk and dirty on the night when the kid's at his dad's), I WILL PAY LOTS OF MONEY.

Helping Spencer write a po-em

There once was a woman from France
Who refused to wear underpants.
When she stuck to the seat,
She said, "OOh, man, that's NEAT!"
And then did a victory dance.

Headline of the Day

Courtesy of www.kmgh.com.

"You Could Own Barry Bonds’ Ball"

But DADDY, I want TWO of Barry's balls!!

This is what happens...

when you send a kid to Mexico with his DAD in the SUMMER. That's right, a peeling tan on top of a tan. But the Coppertone tanline is something else...


Tackle football started Monday. God, take me now.

Kitten Love

"Do you love the...

sweet jiggle of lard in the morning?"
"I LOVE the sweet jiggle of lard in the morning. Smells like victory."

Our friends CYNDI AND JON are moving to Belgium for six months so that Jon can go on with his bad self, racing cyclocross and generally being very cool. They sold their house here, but we all have our fingers not-so-secretly crossed that when they come back they'll find something perfect in our neighborhood.

Cyndi (actually LEAH) gave us a groovy loft bed for Spencer, which will about double the living space in his room.

Also, since it's really not best to have it in a storage unit due to weather issues, we graciously offered to keep this for them until they get back:



36 inches of flatscreen loveliness. Football season is going to ROCK this year!! (of course, we'd rather have the Baker family than a TV any day, but they will be enjoying themselves so much that it's all righht)

Call of the Day

Kat, our receptionist at Rocky Mountain Institute, has lots of funny tales of phone calls she receives. Most of the callers are old men who have nothing better to do all day, so they ring us up wanting to "chat with" Amory Lovins, our Chief Scientist and co-founder, who charges something like $20K per speaking event (I know -- who the hell does he think he is, Nancy Pelosi or some shit like that?)

Needless to say, Kat must divert these calls to other people besides Amory, because he is a terribly busy man what with being brilliant and tending to his banana plants and talking to monkeys and all. Really. I have BEEN TO HIS HOUSE and he has banana plants in an arboretum in the main hall and stuffed monkeys everywhere. He talks to bonobos in zoos. TALKS to them. As in, the keepers just let him go into the cages and have tea and scones with Binky and Mfufu, and they chat up about things like current politics of the jungle and how unfair it is that monkeys can't throw poo at zoo visitors without serious repercussions.

Anyway, back to the phone calls...the best is when the caller says something like, "Uhh, yeah, um, I knew Armory [real name = AMORY] way back when, and I was just, um, wondering if he'd talk with me for just a minute about..." segueway into 5-minute detailed old man nothingness. This I know to be true, as I sit in for Kat at the front desk on a revolving basis, and yesterday I had a call during which, for SEVEN MINUTES, this old coot rambled on nonstop and I COULD NOT interrupt without hanging up on him. Fucker. So here is a good one from this morning, which Kat emailed to me after she stopped rolling convulsively on the office floor:

Kat: "Good morning, Rocky Mountain Institute"
Caller: "Hi, Can I talk to Ebony Lubbins?" [note, again: AMORY LOVINS]
Kat: "May I ask who's calling?"
Caller: "The next Pulitzer Prize winner. I woke up this morning and had the energy crisis answer!!"
Kat: "Wow, sounds like a busy morning."
Caller: "Indeed, I think I might explode!"

Game of Tag

I don't know what the hell a "tag" is, but I got this list from another blog, so I'm filling it out. I guess that's what you do -- if you read this Blog, then you have to copy the list to your own Blog and fill in your own answers, right??? To keep it going...

5 things I was doing 10 years ago.
1. Dealing with a baby in very hot weather
2. Trying to lose "baby weight"
3. Wishing I lived somewhere else
4. Having dinner cocktails with Grandpa around the corner
5. Learning how to use the internet

5 snacks I enjoy
1. cheese and crackers
2. popcorn
3. nachos
4. potato chips
5. cold pizza

5 songs I know all the words to
1. All the songs on Born To Run
2. All the songs on Choclate Supa Highway
3. Random by Lady Sovereign
4. Rapper's Delight (long version) by Sugar Hill Gang
5. Smile by Lily Allen

5 things I would do if I was a millionaire
1. Buy a fabulous beach house
2. give money away - a lot of it
3. travel
4. Buy a Victorian house and re-do it (multi-millionaire, I guess!)
5. Adopt a child

5 bad habits
1. I interrupt
2. I gossip
3. I pick at my nails
4. I procrastinate
5. I drink too much

5 things I like to do
1. garden
2. sleep/read
3. hike
4. cook
5. spend time with those I love

5 things I will never wear again
1. Huskies from Sears
2. Garanimals
3. A bikini (hell, a one-piece at this point!)
4. A restaurant/gas station uniform
5. A college guy

5 of my favorite toys
1. my new 120 GB hard drive
2. my cell phone
3. my camera
4. Spencer's Game Boy
5. My kittens

OK- now I don't know who to tag- but if you read this blog and you have a blog- you are tagged. How's that!

Chappelle's Show - Prince vs Charlie Murphy

This is too freakin funny. I watched it like three times in a row and was screaming every time.

Kittens Gone Crazy

Our kittens might just possibly be the cutest animals EVER. They do all the hideously inappropriate kitten things: scramble around the house all night like beasts gone mad, and climb the screens, and jump on the table to eat our food, and attack anything that moves. I could go on...wow, I guess that kittens are really just cute little pains in the ass! Pudge has now figured out what they are, and he is NOT happy about it. He routinely hisses and slaps at them when they try to make him the Baby Daddy and suckle on him (they don't know he's a boy, I think). Aw HELL no, he ain't takin none of that shit! It's pretty funny to watch him try to resist their kitten charm.

The best thing lately is that Jethro has discovered the cursor on my laptop. He sits on the desk next to the computer and tilts his head to one side and goes apeshit when I move the cursor to the bottom of the screen, because he can't find it anymore and apparently assumes that it went out the back side of the computer. So then he leaps back there and starts meowing frantically and sticking his head around to check out the screen again. Typical baby behavior, I suppose, but usually it's reserved for HUMAN babies!

Next best: last night I came in the house and saw Fergie dart across the living room with two orange foam earplugs sticking out of either side of her mouth like tusks.

This is stuff that I can't get pictures of, sadly, because it all happens too fast!

Note to self: remember that this weekend is when the mosquito bite swelled your upper lip to the size of the biggest baddest Ubangi in the jungle.

Water Fun -- and Fergie

You have to click on the pictures to see the detail, FYI.


Monday: funny Fergie picture...she actually stayed with her back legs like that for about 10 minutes, while she was holding Pudge's foot. It was really cute. And a picture of them all being lazy together. I'm now okay with leaving them alone for 36 hours while we're in Aspen.


click on the pic below to see Maliq on the corner with the sign!

Spencer, Brianna and Maliq had a car wash on Sunday. They were mildly successful. Maliq got scared right after this picture and refused to return to his post on the corner holding the sign....the cops drove by and he was convinced that they would arrest him if he stayed there holding his sign. Too funny. My house has been like a living Benetton ad all weekend...LOL

Maija, Gilroy, Indra and Zeke came over to hang out on Saturday, and Zeke spent the night. It was so frikkin hot that the kids played in the water all day. Apparently, it was to become a theme for the weekend!

FINALLY...they sleep

SHE HAS A NAME!!

She's Fergalicious!! Okay, just Fergie...and you can see her swirls in this one (click on it)...I can't believe she sat still so long! More on Jethro to come.

DOG? Who needs a DOG?

We looked at a couple of dogs (including a black lab named Teal who is SO FAT that her vagina prolapsed and popped out. Not the most pleasant thing, but it will go away and she is SO SWEET.) Ahem, instead, we ended up with two little bitty 12-week black kittens instead. They're both semi-feral (one, the girl, moreso than the boy) and they must come from the planet Spitfire because they have been chasing each other up and down the stairs and around the couch, and they are having NOTHING to do with Pudge. When we first got home from the Humane Society, I opened the box with Pudge standing there, and one of the kittens hissed and spit and stuck a clawed foot right out of the box. HAH! Paybacks are certainly going to be a bitch for Pudge who, 12 years ago when I brought him home, immediately tried to kill Peep -- some 7 years and 24 pounds his senior -- and freaked Peep right the hell out. Remains to be seen, as I need to get these two calmed down enough to let me take a picture, let alone meet Pudge! I got a couple of shots but can't tell you who's who. I'll do better next time, I promise. Little Man is asleep on the steps and Little Girl will NOT sleep, even though the HS sent her bed with her because apparently she usually never gets out of it. I haven't seen her look at it once since we got home. OH, and they both pooped in their box already! Woo Hoo!
Normally I would not get one kitten, let alone two, but I doubt that Pudge would tolerate a grown cat in the house without many a blood-curdling, fur-flying, emotionally devastating encounter -- plus, they had so many kittens at the HS that the price was marked down from $145 to $25 each. We almost got a third, a teeny-weeny named Commander Zim, who is 8 weeks old and the runt and SO CUTE. I might go get him tomorrow. Hell, what's one more?? Plus, he is SO CUTE. I just looked at his picture online again and got teary. SO CUTE.

Boy = Jethro (the name the HS gave him, which we think is cute and also apropos since Will bought Jethro Tull tickets today)
Girl = ??? They named her McMonagle, because she has faint swirling visible under her fur (like a black panther in the sun), and for some reason that is a Scottish trait (or something), but I'm not a fan of that name.

Suggestions? So far, we have come up with Minstrel and Velvet, and Elly Mae. She is SO not an Elly mae, though.

Dead Cold Duck

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My Daily Dose...

of "You Are Inadequate":

In my inbox this morning:

"Cynthia, I am so sorry. My schedule got really messed
up today and I didn't get your message until late this
evening. It was great to meet you both. I have decided
to pursue another family for Mea. I really hope you
find a great dog for your family. Hope all is well and
that you had a great weekend. Take care. marc"

So we're not getting the dog. Spencer's dad drove him up yesterday afternoon for the express purpose of meeting Mea at 3 pm. When the owner didn't return my phone calls, you can imagine the drama that built up. Spencer was heart-broken. And when I had to call him this morning to say that the dog is going to another family, I thought he was going to die sobbing. A bit over the top, perhaps, since he has never actually met the dog, but I think he sensed my excitement. So, yet again, my little boy has been crushed by the Dog That Was Not To Be. I keep reminding him that we really don't want to go through another episode of "the wrong pet," but it isn't much consolation.
Deep down, I think that Mea's owner is keeping her. She really is a great dog and a beautiful animal.

Dog

Update: Mea is a GORGEOUS animal! Even Will thinks so. She's totally clumsy (she fell down the steps when we first went in the house!) unless she's running, at which point she transforms into a graceful, almost horse-like creature. Oh, and she SHEDS. A LOT. And did I mention that she's BIG?? BIG. Three feet long and about as high. Eye-to-eye with any 5-year-old she meets. But she's well-trained, well-loved, very gentle, and can go off-leash at the dog park without running away. Imagine! wishwishwishwish that we get her! Spencer's meeting her on Sunday afternoon. Another update ahead!! (and, if we do end up being her people, I'm changing the spelling of her name to Mia)


Here's the dog I'm looking at getting:




Her name is Mea, and she's a LEONBERGER

Will says that if I get a dog, he's leaving. Anyone looking to rent a room?? Apparently I will have a free one soon.

Anyone? Bueller??

Can anyone tell me why my supposedly "regular" zucchini (the slender, green kind) looks like THIS???? (FYI, both fruit are about 6 inches long and the big one is about 10 inches around at the thickest part) Maybe I planted it too close to a yellow squash plant??? The only other squash nearby is spaghetti, and I was told that they will never cross-pollinate since one's a winter (spag) and one's a summer (zuke) variety.

*Hatchet, I don't know if you actually even read this blog, but you seem to know an awful lot about gardening, so if you're here, any advice is welcome!!
:-)




Gardening success: I nabbed this (along with 4 other 14" hanging baskets!) from the dumpster behind a flower shop about 4 weeks ago. Check it out....a little love and flower food got me this (the others are almost as impressive):