Saturday, July 29, 2006

Crashing

I'm crashing really hard. I don't know why...ah, the joys of being BiPolar.
The medicine only smooths out the major highs and lows: It doesn't fix
every crash, and I never know how low it's going to let me go.

My comforter gave up the ghost today--completely ripped apart.
Pocky shit in the house AGAIN.
Hamachi got a hold of my big male leopard gecko last night
(who knew he could climb all the way up there!) and crushed
its head.

I just went in and huddled in a ball in bed for 3 hours...I'm a little better
but not really.
*sigh*
I hate it when I'm this unuseful and pathetic.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Suddenly, a Visitor

So we had the house open last night, trying to cool it off (the last three days have been BRUTAL), and Pocky started spazzing and barking and running backwards.
I tried to calm her, which really didn't work, so I went out onto the front porch to see what she was losing her mind and nerve about, and I saw...

a kitten.
a tiny little fluffball, about 8 weeks old, trying desperately to cram itself back through our fence and escape into the night.
So of course I ran over and grabbed its back end.
I screamed "help!" and TTK came running...he opens the gate, and grabs the well-equipped front half. And promptly screamed, and bled.

But, he had distracted it long enough that I could scruff it, and disable those formidable needles...still bleeding, ttk got the scruff from me and pulled the kitten the rest of the way through the fence (there was NO way this little demon was going backwards).
This whole time, Pocky had decided it was safe enough by now to come onto the front porch and was barking madly behind us...

So now I have a struggling ball of black-tufted white fur in my hands, and I can feel her (his?) bony little body under all that fluff: so thin!

I carried her into the critter room, grabbing a can of cat food on the way, TTK bleeding along behind me.

"If you've got things under control, I'd like to tend my hand." He gestured, disappearing into the bathroom.

I popped open the can and little demon instantly buried his/her face into the dish...

I decided to solve the mystery and parted fur until I saw...no parts! A girl! Maybe. (It's been a while since I sexed a kitten.)
She never once looked up from the dish--I could feel her sides bulging out as she ate.

Long, soft white dirty fur, with black ears and black blotches on her butt and tail.
Just the mere fact I was able to catch hersays that she wasn't born to a feral mother, and the fact that she's bone thin says she's been away (without?) a home for a while.
It's possible she was dumped here, or perhaps she came from the college students renting the house 2 doors down.
TTK set up a cat carrier with towels for her, in the tub (where else? Everything goes in that tub) and disappeared--out onto the cool porch, I figured. I was a bit occupied, so seeing that he wasn't going to bleed to death was enough for me.

After she ate, I pet her for a while (such a purr!) and picked burrs out of her fur, telling myself the whole time, that we would clean her up, find her owners, and if she had none get her shots, spay her, and adopt her out to someone.
We could NOT keep another cat, I kept telling myself firmly.

Finally, I tucked her into the cat carrier and went out onto the porch.
I guess I had been "kittening" for a while, because when I got outside, TTK held up his Anniversary present...

Scrolling across the screen, in a slow march. was a long message (most of which I've forgotten already): There was something about "SHE HAS TASTED OUR BLOOD" and "I'VE BEEN THINKING OF THE NAMES OF DEMONS..." But the final line got me: "I GUESS THIS IS CAT NUMBER SIX..."
!
It wasn't until we were in bed, about to sleep, that I asked him "Were you serious about keeping her?"
He said, eyes closed, "Ask me tomorrow."
Then a few minutes later he said, "Ginsu."

Great. She now has a name.
The next morning I said, "hmm...eight hundred dollar dog, or free dirty kitten. Guess which one I like more..."
TTK looked at me, a very serious expression on his face, "If we gave Pocky to Momma, and she didn't want to give us Fancy, how would you feel about that?"

My response? "Well, I would be fine. I don't really like having this many dogs--we can't go anywhere without an ordeal."
His response was, "It was worth a try--now we know how much work is involved in more than one dog. And we didn't realize how GOOD Willow was, how well-trained and behaved, until we got these other dogs."
Me--*nod*
He went on, "And I think while Willow has had fun with Fancy here, she is a bit overwhelmed and misses being alone."
So that's that.
Pocky shat all over the house last night, I forgot to mention.
Lovely.
Diarrhea.
Which isn't surprising, because she eats EVERYTHING.
She eats her own shit!

We set her up in a crate last night after she shat up the house, and she settle right in like she was used to it...so the woman we bought her from lied: she wasn't a house dog, she was crated.
Sigh.

BTW, diarrhea is a really damn hard word to spell--I can never remember what letter to double, or where the H goes...I finally came up with a way to remember it: Dia is easy, but then I thought of the bird, a Rhea...that way, I know that RHEA stays together, so the only place to put a double letter is the R. Heh.

Yes, I know about spell-checkers. I like to do it right myself and not have to rely on an outside tool.
So bleah.
And now, I go shower so we can get out of this hotter-than-fuck house and buy an air conditioner.
(I can't believe he finally talked me into it. Well, he and htis 98 degree heat wave, that is...)

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Of Tea and Men

I found a really neat website, TeaChef, that encourages people to create recipes using tea and submit them...there are some really damn good cooks there too--some of the recipes are incredibly creative and fun.

I signed up for them, and the first sample I was sent was...
Chamomile.
TTK is allergic to Chamomile.

I'm not going to cook anything he can't eat--he's my biggest fan! So, of course, I didn't make anything or submit any recipes, and didn't get sent the current month's sample, which is Pi Lo Chun, which sounds delicious. Sigh.
Maybe I'll get next month's, which is Assam Melody...which of course I don't like. But then again, I've never tried their version of it, which they describe here as being "a burgundy-red cup with rich aroma and strong malty taste." So who knows? I'll brew a cup of it, then decide what it would be good in.

Most of the recipes I've seen there involve brewing a strong cup of it, then mixing the elixir into the recipe...there have been a few chefs who have actually mixed the leaves directly into the recipe, but not many.
The first time I cooked with tea it never occurred to me to just use the elixir...I used Gunpowder green tea leaves in the water I boiled pasta in though, so I kind of used the liquid. They are little balls that unfurl into whole leaves, and though I strained the pasta I didn't rinse it, so there were a lot of the leaves left on the pasta that then ended up in the sauce.
Was tasty.
I'm waiting for a good one to use as a rub, though.

Um, I guess I forgot the "Men" part of this post...so here goes: of the mammals in the house, just a mere 35.7% are male.
Heh.

GAG.

The new dog just fucking SHAT in the bed.

oh, yeah, she's housetrained, mmm hmm, right.

And just now, stripping the entire bed, we found yellow piss stains on the mattress pad.

Unbelievable.

All I can say is, THANK GOD we bought the waterproof mattress cover for our NEW $1300 bed that this dog has pissed in 4 times and SHAT in.

Maybe now we're learning why the woman wanted to sell this dog after having her for 5 months...

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

And the Ark Grows...

I hate having to do these update entries, but when you don't log on for weeks, all sorts of stuff has happened "in the background."
So.
We have a dog.
I should say, we bought a dog.

She's a chinese crested.
A hairless crested.

Will wonders never cease?

Me, not only getting a dog, but a crested, and a hairless one--and paying money for it, too!

Lots of money.

She's small for a crested, but much larger than Willow or Fancy.

She came with the name Kara, but we've named her Pocky...
she's kinda vacuous, and happy and excited about everything.

And I mean, EVERYTHING.

She could be a sweet dog, with work. She's completely non-housebroken.
Just really has no concept of Potty is Outside...

I'm getting really tired of cleaning up dog poop, and we've only had her for 5 days...

After we (I) bought her, I had serious Buyer's Remorse: I called my mom up, all subdued, and talked to her...I called her when I saw the ad in the first place, so she knew we were considering it.

She "talked me down," so to speak, and said that if we decided that we just really don't like Miss Thing we could bring her down there and she would take her. And buy me the camera I was going to get with the money.
!
SUCH a relief to not be worrying about the $$!
Miss Thing is very girly, which I am not used to, and she's pushy.
She wants to be Alpha.
WILLOW is Alpha.
We'll see how this works, and if Willow can deal with the competition.