Little Shop of Horrors

Last night I watered my plants.

With BLOOD.

It's true. I read that some plants like blood, so I diluted a bit of blood in a Cool Whip container full of water and fed them last night. For the record, my spider plant seemed to love it, but my philodendron and my shamrock seemed indifferent. Oddly enough, some carnivorous plants like Venus Flytraps hate it. I guess it has to do with the type of soil they're planted in.

Maybe you should try it the next time you're working with meat.

Memes are silly sometimes

Memes are so much more fun when you're sarcastic.

Have you ever...

Taken a picture naked?
Yes, taking photos while naked is a great hobby of mine. Half the photos on my photoblog were taken while I was naked. AMAZING.

Made money illegally?
I don’t think I make money illegally…I mean, my main sources of income are my job as a speech pathologist and my huge money-laundering operation. Those are both pretty legit, right?

Had a one night stand?
Yes, my sister wouldn’t give me the matching nightstand, so I only had the one nightstand.

Been in a fist fight?
As opposed to…what? An eyelash fight?

Slept with your best friend?
One time I was dog-sitting at my parents’ house and the furnace went out so there was no heat and at bedtime both the dogs wanted to sleep on the bed because it was so cold. So I guess I’ve slept with man’s best friend.

Had sex in a public place?
Yes, that freeway on-ramp going through the middle of my bedroom is so annoying.

Ditched work to have sex?
I couldn’t get to work…traffic was too backed up on the on-ramp.

Slept with a member of the same sex?
The dogs were girls.

Seen someone die?
Only the times I’ve hit frenziedly at a spider with a shoe, screaming, “DIE SPIDER DIE DIE SPIDER DIE”

Ran from the police?
I can’t help it, Sting terrifies me.

Woke up somewhere and not remember how you got there?
“Mike, this hotel is near Moorland Road, right? No? But we are in Brookfield, right? No? Man, I need to get a sense of direction.”

Worn your partners unmentionables?
The only thing of Mike’s that I hate to mention is his ancient Siouxie & the Banshees t-shirt, and I wouldn’t touch that thing.

Fallen asleep at work?
Those midnight-to-3AM speech therapy shifts are killer.

Used toys in the bedroom?
Legos!

Ran a red light?
Everybody needs a hobby.

Been fired?
It buurrrnnns!

Been in a car accident?
It’s sort of something that happens when your hobby is running red lights.

Pole danced or done a striptease?
I’ve done that. We had to wear these ruffley red-and-white dresses with ribbons in our hair and…oh wait, that’s Polish dancing, not pole dancing.

Loved someone you shouldn't?
That characterizes about 90% of my relationships.

Sang karaoke?
“Monie Monie” never sounded so good.

Done something you told yourself you wouldn't?
That characterizes about 90% of my experiences with eating an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Laughed so hard you peed your pants?
It was such a bad idea for them to have a comedian at the beer-drinking competition.

Caught someone having sex?
That characterizes about 90% of my experiences with porn.

Kissed a perfect stranger?
Yep…Balki even slipped me some tongue.

Shaved your partner?
Told my partner to shave.

Given your private parts a nickname?
Given my public parts a nickname (I call my eyeball Sally).

Ever gone in public without underwear?
One time there was a fire in my apartment building and I dashed outside in just a robe and slippers, so yeah.

Had sex on a roof top?
Not until I get another tetanus booster. Don’t let passion make you stupid, people.

Played chicken?
Played Uno

Mooned/flashed someone?
I successfully avoided this, even during the apartment fire.

Do you sleep naked?
Don’t let the propaganda of the powerful Pajama Lobby fool you. It’s myths, all myths!

Blacked out from drinking?
Drinking is nature’s sleep aid.

Felt like killing someone?
Felt like kissing someone. Aww!

Had sex more than 5 times in one day?
That’s a lot of work.

Been with someone because they were in a band?
Yes, the only reason I’m with Mike is because of how he rocks that double bass.

Taken 10 shots of liquor in a day?
Yay, college!

Shot a gun?
Shot some vodka!

Gone outside naked?
Aren’t we all naked…under our clothes?

d00d

I'm sure you've all seen pictures of cats with captions like, "I'm in ur _______________ ________________ing ur _______________." I guess the concept was a takeoff of the gamer phrase, "Im in ur base killing ur d00dz." Anyway, for the past few days I've been spending a lot of time giggling at this site, which has several pictures like that. After awhile I decided to make my own, featuring Edison.

By the way, this will be much funnier if you click on the link above first.




Oh Edison. You truly, truly are.

The Bathroom Tyrant

I have lunch at a different period every day. It makes it tough for my appetite to stay on a schedule, but the bright side is that it means that I don't always have lunch 6th period, which is the same period as the Bathroom Tyrant.

I guess the name "Bathroom Tyrant" is slightly misleading because she doesn't really make an attempt to rule over the bathroom. Instead she just takes every 6th period to camp out in the staff bathroom. Sometimes I can beat her in there and get done before she comes in, but most of the time I just resign myself to waiting until later that afternoon to go.

Now, when I say she camps out in there, I mean it. She spends the entire period in there. While I don't need to be completely alone to go, her insistence on using that room for the entire 45 minutes is so weird that I just can't do it. It would be like peeing in someone's living room. It's her space.

Now, in the past I figured that she was just slow and would finish up her task and eventually leave, so I just waited in the stall. That's how I found out that she treats the bathroom as her own personal lounge. She does different things in there. One time she washed off and and completely re-applied her makeup. Another time she went to the bathroom, washed her hands, and then sat down on the little couch we have in there and began grading papers. If I were a student I'd feel very weird if I knew my paper had been graded in a bathroom. Today I walked in and saw her doing her hair. And I don't mean just whipping it out of a ponytail and putting it back up like I do sometimes...I mean she had a hair dryer and a flatiron going. I just checked my makeup in the mirror, trying to act casual, and then left. Curse that woman!

Now, I don't know why she's claimed the bathroom when we have two staff lounges and each department has a lounge as well. I mean, there's only one staff bathroom.

Man. Things like this bother me.

Pummer

Recently Mike has begun teaching himself the basics of electronics from books and kits. Every night he builds a simple type of circuit so he can learn more about how everything fits together. I really didn’t have much personal interest in his hobby until he built a little thing called a pummer. Basically it looks like a red box with a solar panel and four LED lights, two green and two red, on top of it. The solar panel gathers sunlight all day, and at night the LEDs slowly flash in random patterns.

It doesn’t sound very impressive, but there’s something almost organic about the flashing. It reminds me a lot of fireflies. And so, as I do with many items that are not really living, I feel a personal relationship with the pummer. Perhaps it’s even more than usual because it’s something that Mike built. Either way, I’ve taken it upon myself to look out for the pummer. I look in on it in the evenings to make sure it’s still flashing. I check on it during the day to ensure that it’s getting enough sunlight. I do this while ignoring actual living organisms in my vicinity, such as my plants or the cats or Mike. That is how concerned I am for the pummer’s welfare.

This morning I checked on the pummer as it sat on the windowsill and then happily began wandering the internet. Mike came into the room and removed the pummer and placed it on the table next to my computer. Because the room was dim, it began to flash weakly.

“Poor pummer, why did you move it?” I asked.

“It’s still alive, it’s flashing,” Mike replied, not concerned in the least.

“It’s weak. Why can’t it go on the windowsill?” I asked.

“I’m afraid the cat will knock it down,” Mike said, pointing at Lucky, who happened to be inhabiting the pummer’s windowsill.

I nodded. Although I’m sure Lucky would never intentionally hurt the pummer, he was careless. He didn’t understand the pummer the way I did.

“Well, put it on that windowsill,” I said, pointing to a sill that the cats ignore. Mike shrugged and put it there. After he left the room I looked in on it. It had stopped flashing and was once again gathering sunlight. I smiled contentedly and went back to the computer.

I know that the pummer isn’t alive and doesn’t need my help. I know that Mike built it out of wires and plastic. But I can’t help but feel for the little thing.

Mike said he’d build me another pummer for my office, but I won’t keep it there. I’ll put it right next to our other pummer. It needs a friend.

Church on TV

Like many Catholic churches our parish holds several Masses over the course of a weekend. We used to get up early to go to Mass at 8:45, but then over the summer we fell into the habit of attending the 10:45 Mass. Within the past few months we’ve fallen into our 9-to-5 job schedule and we get up pretty early even on the weekends. Even though we’re usually up early enough to hit the 8:45 Mass we still tend to go to the 10:45 just out of habit.

Lately, though, this has been a bad idea. When we get up at 8 AM and just sit around until 10:30 we build up a powerful inertia. The temptation to just remain stationary is horrible. Today we finally gave in and did something we’ve been talking about for awhile – watching Mass on TV.

This occurred after a period of negotiation. We agreed to start going to 8:45 Mass again next week. We also agreed that while we watched TV it would be almost, but not quite, like being at church…Mike conceded that he wouldn’t build any circuits or do any projects during Mass, and I conceded that some degree of cuddling was permissible. We hit a stumbling block briefly on appropriate attire.

“You have to put on clothes,” I said. “Just wearing your boxers isn’t good enough.”

“You want me to put on pants?” Mike said, scandalized. “But we aren’t going anywhere, it’s just in our living room.”

“It’s church!” I exclaimed. We finally compromised that he’s wear a t-shirt and cover his lap with a blanket.

Promptly at 11 o’clock we sat down and turned on the TV. Juneau earned the award for Most Catholic Pet by curling up on our laps to listen to Mass.

It was a really odd experience. Normally during a Catholic service there’s a lot of group responses and speaking in unison, so you can’t really hear yourself. As Mike and I followed along in our living room it was very odd to hear each other praying. Mike mentioned that it made the whole thing feel more intimate, but it felt the opposite to me. As odd as this sounds, seeing Mass on TV reminded me of the first time I saw video pornography. Even though I knew it was inappropriate, I felt a little sad. After all, this was supposed to be something that occurred between people who were bonded together and for whom it was meaningful. Now it was impersonal, spread out over the screen for any casual observer to view. I felt invaded.

Soon we were both disenchanted. The Mass dragged on. Parts of it were in Latin so we couldn’t respond. We didn’t have any of the song lyrics so we couldn’t sing either. The priest’s homily seemed to go on for ages. I was nodding off, and Mike wasn’t paying much attention either.

So our experiment with church TV was a failure. At least it’ll make Mass seem a lot more appealing next Sunday.

No Tanenbaum

Last night I decorated our living room for Christmas. Normally I wait until the first of December before breaking out any holiday decorations, or even acknowledging the holiday. I used to go to great lengths to avoid the seasonal sections in stores. But now it seems that Christmas can't be avoided, so I went ahead and embraced it.

Unfortunately, we're going to do without one of my favorite symbols of Christmas...a tree. We can't have one this year, not only because there's no room in our little apartment but also because it would become a perch for the cats almost immediately. Last year when it was just me, Rusty and Cider it wasn't a problem...my cats weren't intrepid enough to cause any real damage to the tree. However, I'm sure Edison and Juneau would get into it for sure, and the last thing I need is to come home to find a toppled tree with a ton of broken ornaments or worse, injured cats. Mike is going to build us an LED Christmas tree, but you can't really hang ornaments from it so it's not the same.

In place of a tree I draped a garland over our windows and hung a few ornaments from it.



These are just a few of my ornaments. Most of them were purchased last year because I had to throw away all of my Christmas ornaments when I lived in Illinois since I didn't have enough room in my car to take them back to Wisconsin. It kind of pains me that my ornaments are so generic because when I was a kid we had a large collection of ornaments and each one had a story. I suppose after a few years these ornaments will be sentamental as well, especially since Mike and I bought most of them together. The three stars were gifts from my mom last Christmas, so they already have some meaning.

All in all, though, I'm pleased that the holiday season is getting underway. Some people get frustrated with Christmas but I still have a bit of the whole childlike wonder. I can't wait to start baking cookies, watching the old cartoons, and listening to the carols. And, of course, on Christmas Eve Mike and I will place our gifts for each other under our garland...

...oh, it's just not the same.