Staycation Day 8

We start the morning with trying to put in the new eye drops that I got to keep my eyes from watering when I talk.  I'm horrible at putting eye drops in, and I've been told by numerous photographers, eye doctors, and others that I have the fastest blink reaction known to man.  If I can ever dig out my prom picture, you'll see that not only are my eyes closed, but I'm wearing a hideous dress that I got as the bridesmaid at my sister's wedding.

Anyhoo, I suck at keeping my eyes open, and aiming for an eyeball when trying to apply drops, so I have to resort to doing stuff like this:

I'm glad I have like 8,000 refills, because I waste most of it dribbling it down my cheek or up my nose.  I had more fun getting waterboarded in survival school than putting these damn drops in.  I also don't know if its working because I haven't really talked to anyone, so I guess I'll have to report my progress once I get back to work... oh wait, I try not to talk to anyone there either... it may be a while before we know if the drops work.

I've been looking at E-bay, hoping I can find something like this

Which would make putting eyedrops in a lot easier, and I could viddy the kino with my droogs.

Oh, while I was putting the drops in, I remembered another little discussion I had with my doctor:

Doctor: You know, some people smoke to lose weight.
Me: OH PUHLEEZE, if those people really wanted to lose weight, they'd be shooting heroin.

After the new morning trauma... I mean ritual, I looked outside and discovered that... the SUN HAD COME OUT!  I immediately got in the RAV and drove to Starbucks.  Ok, I actually went to Petsmart, then Costco, THEN Starbucks, and actually got to sit outside and enjoy a reasonably nice day out for a change.  Of course everything smells like mold, but the sun was shining!

Came home and let the dogs out, and they were also relieved that the sun was out, because it was much nicer tearing up the entire yard searching for grubs when it wasn't raining.  I pretty much stood over them with the bug zapper killing hoards and swarms of giant mosquitos (small brown babies clutched in their beaks) ( am I going to be forced to link all of this material to the actual movies?) because they were going to dig for grubs whether I want them to or not (kinda hard to stop 3 very strong willed and sharp clawed Huskies on a mission for grubs, so you might as well just join the fun somehow).

Pretty much the rest of the night I lounged, lay around, lollygagged, cartooned, blogged, stretched out, read, played Angry Birds, flounced a bit, harassed the dogs some (which is why I'm wearing a band-aid on my arm now), and cruised Facebook, twitter, and watched tv... the extra special depressing marathon of 9/11 shows on every channel because Hillybilly handfishin wasn't on.

I'm not quite sure I should have even counted Friday as a Staycation day because its my normal day off anyway, much like Saturday and Sunday don't really count as Staycation time... I pick up Lobsterman at the airport later tonight (I did make one last trip to the landfill, having to take the long way around because the washed out road is still washed out), and then it'll be the absolutely dreadful Sunday before going back to work time and I'll allow myself to think of the 80,000 autogenerated e-mails that await me at work on Monday... sigh... it went by much too fast.

Meh

Staycation Day 7

When we last left off, I was preparing to go to the doctor for my wonderful annual exam fun-fest

I was semi-disappointed that there were no photo worthy scenes of flooding, chaos, or mayhem

Oopsies

I arrived early, which meant slogging through the articles in really old Vanity Fair magazines (which apparently are now 99.9% advertising, and apparently the "IN" thing is ads with guys who look like they need showers wearing suits and holding women's handbags), and playing Angry Birds until it was my turn.  It was while I waited that I came upon a brilliant idea:  If you pay for the ultra mega-mega high end insurance, you should be taken into a room promptly at your appointment time and be seen while those who don't pay the ultra mega-mega high end insurance sit in the waiting room wearing a paper gown with their privates hanging out until my appointment is done.  I'm just saying.

I love my doctor.  She has a good sense of humor and doesn't nag me about stuff.  She half-heartedly tried to get me to commit to quitting smoking (I've tried Chantix, the patch, the lozenges, cold turkey, and every other route and for the safety of all citizens, its best that I just keep smoking... because you don't want homicidal me stalking the streets jonesing for a smoke). 

She said "Can you just commit to quitting by next year?"  I told her "well, I could lie to you and say "sure" just to get you off my back, but then when I came in here next year still smoking, it would make you feel as though you failed, so for the good of your self esteem, I'm not going to lie to you".  See, I'm a giver, I care!

She then picked the MOST inopportune time to ask: "If there was one medical thing you could change or fix in your life, what would it be?"  I told her the most obvious thing: "That I wouldn't need to have people sticking their fingers where they don't belong once a year." 

I did ask if there was anything that would keep my eyes from watering when I talk.  Its a very annoying thing related to my Maryland allergies.  I'm pretty tired of talking to people and looking like I'm weeping uncontrollably while discussing mundane things like grammar.  She prescribed some flonase and eye drops... but no Xanax (of course).

After getting my referrals and blood work paper, where I need to fast then go for blood (which I typically lose about a week after my appointment), I raced off to get my hair cut.

Normally I go to a fancy spa and get my hair cut by Katie (who is amazing and wonderful, but expensive) and all I really wanted was to even things out a bit so I could grow it through the winter... and I didn't see paying big bucks for that, so I went to Hair Cuttery.  The stylist did a good job, and I got it blowed dried, only because I like to see how they envision me wearing my hair, and because it will be the ONLY time it will look like its suppose to.  I have a distinct lack of will to actually "style" hair in the morning, and generally the goal is getting it dry and not sticking out in 14 different directions, although most of the time that last goal is not met.

After the haircut, it was Starbucks for a latte and some sitting outside relaxing, sipping latte while it rained and rained and rained and every person passing by telling me that they were sick of rain (random, strange people always tend to feel comfortable telling me things... as you will see in a minute).  I sat there for about a half hour reading the facebook page of our counties breaking stories, and watching as each minute a driver decided to self destruct on the roads somewhere.

Before rush hour got started (maximum carnage) I journeyed over the CVS to pick up my prescriptions... except they weren't ready yet.  Apparently my healthcare doesn't cover prescriptions, they're covered under a separate plan that I should have had a card for, but couldn't find the 14 times I looked through my billfold, but then found on the 15th time, and then I had to wait for them to fill the prescription... which consisted of 2 prepackaged boxes of nose spray and eye drops... that's a toughie. 

As I was standing there waiting... a person was talking and it took me a moment to realize that she was talking to me, and holding something out for me to see.  It was some glucose meter for kids that included a fun game... although I'm pretty sure that's a ghoulish concept: stab yourself and get points or something.  She rambled on for about 10 minutes about her life, her kids, blah blah blah, then just stopped talking and wandered off in the middle of the sentence.  Luckily my stuff was ready, so I grabbed it and ran home.

The rest of the night was spent lounging, watching tv, more angry birds, playing with the pups (who are 99.9% covered in rain, mud, and have grub breath), then went to bed and watched "scared straight" because I like watching kids get threatened by inmates.

Tomorrow you'll get to hear just how inept I am about putting drops in my eyes.

Staycation Day 6

Rain.  Did I mention rain?  Oh, I have... ok, how about really loud thunder and lots of lightening... did I mention that?  Or being clawed every 5 minutes?  Yeah, that pretty much sums up Day 6.

I had all sorts of wonderful plans for yesterday.  I was going to go in the morning to renew our firing range membership and poke some holes in paper targets while I was there.  Then come home, take a nap, then get back up and piddle around doing cartoons or something relaxing, then probably nap, then go run some errands.

Instead it was chock full of panting clawing panic husky, and screeching "I wanna be just like Meeshka" Loki freaking out, and thankfully Sam slept through it as usual.

I did manage some cartooning, paying of bills and throwing out of files I have no idea why we kept in the first place type of stuff in between storms, which seemed to arrive, last an hour, stop for an hour, start for an hour, etc.  It was very weird.

Around 2pm(ish) I saw a break in the storms and made a dash for the range (minus weapon) to renew, to Starbucks (of course), and some other errands, and getting back just in time for the next round of torrential downpours.

Lobsterman called just as I was washing the cool stackable Ikea plastic food containers, and while Meeshka decided there was something tasty under the kitchen shelves.  He's having fun out there at least.  I also discovered that stackable Ikea plastic food containers are impossible to get into the same shape they came in once you wash them.  Seriously, you need a PhD or trained monkey or something to get these things stacked the way they came.

Then I had to vacuum out under the cabinets to appease Meeshka, who was then all mad because I didn't simply reach under the cabinet and get the goodie and give it to her, so I had to pretend to reach in there with a goodie and pull it out and give it to her, but then she was all like "I know that wasn't THE goodie that was under there" and kept snorfling under the cabinet.

More storms, more clawing, more rain, then REALLY more rain, and just when you thought there couldn't be more rain... yep, more rain.

So... around 10pm I decided that I would try to go to bed, so I did, and started watching "Get Him To The Greek".  Russell Brand has this sort of repulsive appeal, and I've come into the movie about 6 times in the same spot (near the end) and wanted to watch it from the beginning (ok, I totally laugh at some parts of it, like when Puffy is running after them and gets hit by the car), but generally, meh.

It was at this point when the REAL thundering and downpouring started, so I moved into the living room to provide less clawing acreage when we started getting tornado warnings, so I bribed the dogs downstairs, gated them off and turned on the tv and iTunes loud to drown out the now roaring thunder, lightening and literally throwing buckets of water down... yard flooded AGAIN.  Apparently (from our local Facebook county breaking news page) there was a rapid river response down the street from us.  Its not even a river, its a tiny creek that always floods, but apparently its now a river.  The Baltimore tunnels are also under water, a bunch of roads are closed, and its just not pretty out there, but thankfully no Tornado.

While I hung out waiting for the storm, I did this:

I also got this picture of Meeshka and Sam, during a lull in the storms:

They never "snuggle" so that's about as close as they get. 

At this point, its 3am, and things finally settled down in the thunder arena that I herded the pups off to bed, but it was like sleeping while you wait for something to happen... I figured that as soon as I closed my eyes... it would thunder, so I got about 3 hours of sleep.

Apparently there's all sorts of roads closed and under water.  I have a very exciting annual doctor's appointment at 2pm

 Do I know how to staycation or what!

I'll leave early because I'm not sure what road I can take to get there, or whether I'll need a canoe.  I'll take pictures of the flooding if I find any on the way there, or to Starbucks, because seriously, if ever I need a Starbucks... its today!

Staycation Day 5

Neither rain, nor cold we keep me from my appointed round to the local landfill.

I love the landfill!  Its very organized with individual dumpsters for different types of junk.  There's this wonderful feeling of satisfaction with dumping a contractor bag full of junk into the dumpster and watching it get smooshed.  I love it!  For bulk stuff, you get to heave the items into really big dumpsters situated below a wall.  Its like your very own little world of stress relief.  The big burly guys who work there always try to help me toss my stuff, but I wave them off.  That's the fun part and dammit I'm gonna toss it in the bin!

I had two runs to the landfill, the second being some dry wall that we had in the very back of the back room (for some reason), and to make it fit in the RAV I had to break it up.  If you've never broken dry wall, I highly suggest buying a huge sheet of it, leaning it against a wall and karate kicking it.  It breaks really easy and makes you feel invincible.  I also got to toss in the huge glass screen door pane, but I was totally disappointed that it didn't shatter in a zillion pieces.  Even when I purposefully tossed the dry wall on it... nothing.  Now that's glass!

Next it was a drive over to Salvation Army with a huge contractor bag of clothes and purses, and then off to Starbucks... because its Starbucks and I needed Starbucks... seriously, I have to explain that?

On the way home I went to Lowes, where I bought the last two plastic (edible) shelving units... which means I have to go scout out another Lowes for more.  One major complaint with Lowes:  your self check-out needs one of those scanner wand things.  All of the other stores have them, so I have no idea why you don't... do you know how hard it is to scan a huge plastic shelf?  Well, it looked really hard because the guy in charge of the self checkout had to do it twice.

By the time I got home it was now POURING rain, so the only thing I could do (other than nap) was continue purging the back room and minimizing the kitchen counter stuff, so that's what I did... and frankly as I was working in the back room the only thing that came to mind was: "On this episode of Hoarders... Penny suffers a hernia and goes insane".  I did manage to make enough room to put up the two new shelves and stock them with boxes.

Did I mention it was POURING rain?  Yep, for hours, and hours, and hours, and frankly when the water level in the back yard was getting alarmingly high... I wondered if Katia was ahead of schedule (apparently we're getting Lee... which needs to go to Texas), and we were getting a rather disturbing amount of water coming into the outside back porch... duh because I had accidentally knocked the drain pipe off the back gutter, so I went out in the POURING rain to fix that.

During the POURING rain, Meeshka decided that she wanted to stay out in it and dig for grubs, taking a break once in a while to bang on the door to come in, shake her mud everywhere, then go back out.  So it was generally a few hours of moving heavy boxes, getting showered with wet husky, moving heavy boxes, more husky shower, Loki wanting out, then in, then out, then in, drying feet, and finally Sam joined the grub hunt and it was three soaked huskies versus me.  Whoot.

I gave up and did some Angry Birds relaxation, read (Dick Cheney's book... which is really good so far), and watched some tv.  Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up and saw an infomercial for a chair-like device with handles that you sit in and wiggle around and tone your midsection.  I was a bit disturbed by the claim that kept scrolling at the bottom, and yes, in the middle of the night I got up and took a picture of it:

Frankly, I don't think I want 7 pounds of fat running loose in my body

My Week In Review

So, this week at work was one gigantic brain suck of a week (remember, my week only contains 4 days, so that's saying a lot).  It was one of those "if it ain't one thing, its another" type of weeks. 

On top of it sucking like a black hole, it was also a bazillion degrees out and humid.  Going outside was like opening the oven door and sticking your head in to retrieve a cooked roast without letting the heat disperse (and I do that ALL the time).  Getting into the truck was torture, and then turning it on so that the air conditioner would throw molten hot air on you until it cooled off, you could feel your flesh melt.

I was SO looking forward to my relaxing Friday.  Although it was suppose to be another "feels like" 103 day, we were suppose to get a cool wave for Saturday, so I had planned all sorts of relaxing things to do in the luxurious air conditioning of my home, like napping, lounging, and then napping.

So this morning I get up and let Sam and Loki outside, look up at the robin's nest and belatedly realize that out of the 4 birds that were in there... only 1 remains.  HOLY CRAP we have free range fledglings in the yard and that only means carnage!

It was at this time that the robin mom and dad start throwing a shit fit, screaming, swooping, and generally freaking out in the back of the yard (where Loki is sniffing) and I do that slow motion "NOOOOO" run toward the back of the yard to save the fledgling.  Luckily my full tilt bozo freaking out confused Loki, who semi-sorta obeyed me by running to me (he probably thought I was having a stroke and maybe when I fell down some treats would fall out of my pocket), while Sam was totally oblivious to his surroundings because he was searching for the perfect place to poo.

I get Loki under control by the scruff of his neck and order him to the house, which he does in a circuitous route with me yelling "IN THE HOUSE" all along, until finally we get to the back steps and WTF!  There's a tiny baby bird sitting right in front of the back door. 

This thing was SO not ready to leave the nest, and I have to guess that its much larger sibling (probably a bully robin that beat the smaller robin up for its regurgitated worm food) had thrown it out of the nest.  Bully robin was still perched on the nest, laughing.  I hate the bully robin.

My problem now was, if I let go of Loki and try for the baby bird, it would probably scream, Loki would hear it, then it would be a race for who got to the bird first, as earlier experience has shown... Loki is faster, especially when the stupid birds run away from me and straight into Loki's mouth.

I had to risk it because it was either that, or stand there holding on to Loki until the bird grew up, went to college, found a job, got married, and had a mid-life crisis... and its so hot that I'm sweating profusely.

I'm not sure if the bird was smart and realized I was saving it, or it was stunned after plummeting 10 feet onto concrete, but it just let me pick it up... great... now what?

Meanwhile, the parents are freaking and swooping at me now, so I take the bird inside and through the front door, to the front yard, and deposit it outside of the fence, but close to the place where I found it.  Birds are smart, and the thing will cheep and announce its location, right?

I herd the dogs inside and go about my business, but after a half hour I go back out and there's the parents feeding that worthless bully robin while I hear tiny desperate peeps coming from the other side of the fence.

GAH!!!!!

I close the gate to the deck so the dogs can't get up there if I let them out, get a box lid, go retrieve the stupid baby robin, carry him inside (where the dogs go insane), take it out on the deck, plop it in the box lid and retreat.  Sure enough the parents come check it out and give it a worm.  So much for the theory that the parents will shun a bird if you touch it.  I pat myself on the back for a job well done.... then watch the stupid baby jump out of the box lid, bounce crazily after its parent and fling itself off the deck.  The bird has a death wish.

Sure enough, the thing survives and is now clumsily trying to follow one parent who is looking for food for it.  I can't leave the thing in the yard, the dogs will get it!  FINE!

I google "what to feed a moron baby robin" and some site said you can feed it canned dog food... FINE, so I open a can (dogs go insane again), gush it into a bowl and go outside and relocate the stupid bird outside the fence again, raising it over my head as I go to show the parents where its going... found a nice shaded hidey spot for it, give it some dog food (which it liked), and left the gate open for a bit so the parents would get a clue.  Apparently robins aren't very linear and can't figure out change well... the robin kept going back to where the baby WAS, glaring at me. 

OHMYGAH FINE!!!!

I really want to put it back in the nest, but the bully robin is stomping all over it and will probably toss it to the pavement again, and I was half tempted to throw the bully robin in the yard to finally fend for itself, but I'm guessing it wants to stay in the nest until its 26 and glom on to its parents' health care program, so I get a box that has walls higher than the box top, but not too high that the parents couldn't get into it, put some nice leaves and stuff in it, go get the baby robin AGAIN (it now thinks I'm its mother and opens its mouth for food), put it in the box, put the box on the deck on a chair near the nest and retreat.

I hide downstairs and watch... hoping... will they.... YES, they figure out the baby is in the box and are willing to feed it from the box... WHEW!

Now I have to leash walk the dogs in the backyard until everyone makes it out of the yard.  I really have no delusion about the future of baby bird.  Its tiny, its survived two very large plummets to concrete and probably has issues and won't most likely survive, but I at least tried.  I couldn't just stand there and let Loki play with it, or throw it over the fence and listen while it peeped until it peeped no more... I tried, I gave it my best shot, but I'll still be sad.

Knowing my history, it will survive, get to the fledgling stage... and fly straight into Loki's mouth.

So much for my relaxing Friday, which is why I created my new icon

The Rat Trap

A few months ago I noticed that some sort of vermin had dug a hole under my fence. I can only imagine that its some starving rat, taking advantage of the lack of rat snakeability looking at my yard for foodstuffs from Ye Olde Foreclosed Home.

I poured Quikrete down the hole, poured in water, and thought the problem was solved... not so fast.

A few days later, right next to the cemented area was another hole. I knew that I was dealing with a very determined rat. Although determined, this rat has to be dumber than a box of rocks to dig INTO a yard with 3 Siberian Huskies wandering around. I commonly see Loki sitting patiently near the hole, waiting, waiting, waiting for it to come out. He’s very good at that. He’ll wait prey out, catching moles, mice, fledgling birds, whatever, just by sitting perfectly still and pretending to be a lawn ornament. Either that or they just eventually commit suicide and run into his mouth.

So I looked into the various and sundry types of ways to capture, kill, maim, destroy and obliterate various and sundry types of vermin.

Hav-A-Heart traps Good concept, except for one thing... WTH do you do with it once you caught it? Its not like I’m Billy the Exterminator (who I LOVE, so don’t be mocking Billy) and have thousands of miles of forest area to free trapped critters. The best I could do would be to call animal control for pick up, and the poor critter would die of old age in the trap by the time they showed up, or release it into the foreclosed home area... but all I’d be doing there is training the critter that it could come to my place for a free meal and lounge in the trap for a while, like a mini all-inclusive vacation. Of course, there’s always “disposing” of the critter but what kind of humane way is there to “dispose” of them other than drowning or shooting them (and frankly the county frowns upon firearms discharging).

Poison: errr, no way. There’s absolutely, positively no way I’d use poison on critters, not because its a horrible death (which it is) I honestly don’t have a problem with vermin dying horrible deaths, its just that I don’t want poison ANYWHERE near my dogs, I don’t want something non-targeted to get into the poison, and once the vermin die, don’t want my dogs or other non-targeted animals eating poison dead vermin. Plus the vermin usually crawl somewhere unfortunate to die and stink, so poison is right out.

Glue Traps: While handy indoors, they don’t work for crap outdoors in cold weather. I don’t have a problem using glue traps (bite me Animal Rights nut cases), I do have a problem with removing them from husky fur, as my dogs would no doubt be covered in glue traps because they were “interesting”.

Snap Traps: Once again, I’d be making vet trips with dogs that had snap traps on their noses since peanut butter is the main trap bait, and mine can’t resist peanut butter.

Call a pest control company: but what are they going to do that I can’t do? Charge me a lot of money to set a trap, that’s what.

So, using logical (for me) thinking, I’d need something non-poisonous, non-sticky (because of the cold), that would kill the vermin (so I wouldn’t have to) that the dogs couldn’t get into it. Once again... watching Billy the Exterminator pays off. I found this really cool AMERICAN company (and from what I can tell, they are family run) Do My Own Pest Control

They have the really cool professional grade rat bait stations that you can put one of their T-Rex Rat traps in. It has a hex lock, and a way to anchor it to the ground. This solves the following problems:

1.) Dogs getting snapped by traps
2.) Dogs playing hockey with the enclosed trap thing
3.) Dogs snacking on the dead critter once the critter is dead
4.) Dogs picking the lock to get at the peanut butter

PERFECT! I order a bait station and a trap online and then spend hours gleefully imagining the fun that will ensue.

Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse in Georgia, which delayed my shipment. To their credit, they immediately e-mailed to let me know that not only couldn’t they get to their shop, but all of the shippers couldn’t get around on the slippery roads, and apologized profusely for the delay... which lead me to respond:

“Dear Customer Service,

I want to thank you for the e-mail in regard to the status of my rat trap order. I want to assure you that I totally understand the delay, and frankly I wouldn't be able to live with myself if one of your employees injured or killed themselves trying to mail out my rat trap. I'd have to change my name, possibly move out of the country, and that's just a hassle.

Even if I had ordered a brain eating zombie trap, it would be silly of me to be upset under the current weather circumstances, and totally irrational not to buy one locally, although when attacked by brain eating zombies, one typically doesn't think clearly.

I appreciate your update and fine customer service, and although I don't hope I have a need to buy more traps, if you do market a brain eating zombie trap, I'll be sure to get it from your fine company.

regards“

Pretty much everyone in customer service responded, and even thanked me for suggesting the brain eating zombie trap as a potential untapped resource for them.

To which I responded:

”I’m pretty sure you could make a zillion dollars with an effective brain eating zombie trap. You just never know when the zombie apocalypse will kick off, and frankly, even if it wasn't effective... I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get any complaint e-mails, as zombies can't type.“

At last check, my rat trap is in the vicinity and scheduled for delivery on Monday... I’ll let you know how it goes, but if you ever need any sort of pest control stuff... please visit Do My Own Pest Control