Addictions

The first step is admitting you have a problem. Current addictions:

Homemade ice cream
Cardigans
Iced Coffee
The jigsaw puzzle game on my phone
TMI blogs
Chocolate peanut butter pretzels
Harry Potter

Step two is combining all your addictions into one glorious, coma-inducing weekend. Me, wearing five cardigans, sipping on iced coffee ice cream float, playing puzzles and reading teen lit.

All's Well that Ends Well

The Great Door Saga of 2011 is over everyone. I'm sure MSNBC will get around to reporting the details after the hurricane is over. Here's the condensed version, for the on-the-go crowd:

Me: Major Crier

Contractor: Liar

George Clooney: My hero

Contractor: Total Zero

Lowes: My New Favorite Place

Contractor: I Can't Look at Your Face

Jessica the Builder

I know how to wash my clothes. Therefore I don't send my laundry to a laundromat.
I know how to vacuum and dust and pick up my clutter. Therefore, I don't hire a cleaning service.
I know how to drive my car. Therefore, I don't have a driver named Stuart.

I do NOT know how to cut my own hair. Therefore, I pay someone to cut my hair.
I do NOT know how to plumb (hee!), Therefore, I hire plumbers.
I do NOT know how to install siding on my house. Therefore, I hired a contractor when I needed to replace rotting siding.
I do NOT know anything about gutters. Therefore, I hired a company to install the gutters on my house.

Do you think I know anything about installing a new front door with sidelights? No, I don't. So I hired a contractor. He told me to go to Lowe's and buy the door and he'd install it. Hmmmm.

Never before has my plumber ever said "You need a new gaskety thing. Go buy it and I'll install it." My gutter guys did not tell me "Just go buy all the gutters you'll need. We'll come back and put 'em up."

So guess what?? The door opening is not standard-sized. Did I know that? Nope. Did the contractor I hired know? Who knows. He sure didn't tell me. So now I own a door that--in order to get it to fit in my house--the gorgeous, thick, wood trim around my house will have to be cut into about 4 inches, destroying the look of the house.

And he doesn't feel responsible. He told me "I didn't tell you what size of door to order." Um, that's kind of EXACTLY THE POINT.

Stay tuned for updates.

To Serve and Protect and Knit

I was driving after work last night when this next story takes place. I was approaching the intersection where I was going to turn left. Up ahead, on the street that I was about to turn onto, I spotted a police car. I immediately ran through my mental list that I run through EVERY time I see a police car:

Do I have my seat belt on?
Am I speeding?
Did I renew my license plates?

Do I look suspicious?

I was pulling through the left turn with an eye on the police car and I noticed that I couldn't see the driver. "How odd," I thought. Upon a closer, staring-at-you look, I realized that the driver was (probably) not police, because the driver was a little old lady. When I say "little old lady" I mean like this:

Now...I'm not sure what was going on, if this woman had legal rights to drive the police car (it looked like a new police car, not a Blues Brothers situation),

if ANYONE is allowed to drive a police car, or what. Like, if my husband or brother were a cop--could I drive the police car??? Was she a cop in disguise, coming home from her undercover gig??? Is the city selling their old patrol cars?? If so, I'd like one. I think it would make my neighbors much more accommodating in our little silent parking war.

Bye Bye Kitties

The kitties are gone. Vanished! I have no idea what happened to them, since I didn't call Animal Control or the Humane Society. Maybe they decided they could get a better free meal elsewhere, I don't know. Roni is content, once again, knowing that she is queen of this castle. I continue my duties as her serf, scooping the litter, retreiving the toys from under the couch, and being her attack dummy.

The whole incident with the kitties--and the raccoons that showed up Monday night--has led to some nasty nightmares. I woke up in the middle of the night last night, convinced I was laying next to a dead animal. In the most cartoonish of ways, I BOLTED out of bed, grabbed my glasses and turned on the lights...to see The Prisoner of Azkaban laying there. (Not the REAL prisoner, Sirus Black, but the Harry Potter book.)

Cat Lady

There was a little black cat running around the neighborhood for a while. I named him Rooster. He'd sometimes show up in my front yard, sometimes he'd be in the back alley, but he always ran away from me. I put food out on my deck once, hoping that he'd realize that I'm a nice person and would befriend me. No luck.

Rooster, I learned, is a girl and apparently gave birth to a pride of kittens a few weeks ago. They're living on my deck, as I found out last night. I was listening to my ipod with my earbuds in, making dinner, and stepped out on the deck to pick some basil. I turned around to see if Roni was making moves towards the storm door and behind me I heard a small thump. I heard another thump and then little feet, running. I was frozen, certain that what was behind me was a family of racoons or skunks or badgers.

I slowly turned around to see a kitten dangling from the screen of the screened in porch. Another kitten was sitting on one of my porch chairs. From around the doorway of the screened porched peered another kitten. And then Rooster appeared, walking towards me and sitting down in between me and the kittens. The kittens swarmed her. I stood motionless, unable to process everything at once: was that Rooster? Were they LIVING on my porch? If they were living there, how long had they been there? Are they ferrel? I backed up to the storm door, wanting to get some cat food and water and Rooster started to approach me. I didn't THINK I had made any threatening moves towards her or the kitties but it scared me, nonetheless.

I was probably inside getting tupperware and cat food for no more than 2 minutes. When I came back to the door, this is what I saw:

I gingerly stepped outside and slowly placed the food and water bowls down, not sure if Rooster would think it was a threatening gesture. In SECONDS the kitties were bounding towards the food and ravenously ate.

I sat down on a chair to watch and take pictures while Rooster watched her kitties fight for position in the food bowls. I made a kissing noise to get one of the kitties to look at me for a picture and Rooster approached me and slid in between my legs, rubbing against me. Soon one of the kitties followed her and rubbed up against my leg, giving me this picture:

They were still there this morning, sleeping in a big huddle until I opened the door to give them more food. Then the kittens started bounding over each other and rolling around...being the cutest kittens that ever lived. I soooooooo want one of these little kitties. I want to pick them up so bad and play with them but George Clooney warned me they may have fleas.

Does getting a kitten make me a cat lady??

They Did It!

My little brother did it! He married his sweetheart! It was a slightly sweltering weekend but no one cared--especially me, the queen of air-conditioning. The weekend was great from start to finish. Everyone looked fantastic, everyone seemed happy, we danced, we laughed, we cried, we ate and we drank.

I don't know if I could pick a highlight, there were too many great things that happened. The priest who married the couple had the immediate family over for dinner on Thursday and it was awesome to have a Nebraska steak while catching up with my family and meeting his new in laws. My mom gave a terrific speech at the rehearsal dinner Friday night and we feasted! The food was out of this world! Saturday was a whirlwind but George Clooney was there to drive us around, fix mimosas, take pictures and charm the pants off everyone.

I wish we could do it all over again. In another month...I'm going to need significant recovery time.

Best wishes to the best brother a girl could ask for. And thank you, to my new sister in law, for being wonderful and nice and funny and so easy to like. And for loving my brother.