HalfAsstic.com

Hello there.  I would like to start out by clarifying one thing:

When I paint the door, it will only be the outside.  The inside is in great condition and there is absolutely no reason to paint it.  The outside, however, is not so good.  I will take a picture and show you, my speculative intertubers.

Here it is all peeling and weather beaten.  Not to mention the chick that lives here needs to sweep the porch, but she’s a slacker and let’s not discuss that now.

Purrrza wants in and is TRYING to be patient while I snap stupid pictures!  She thinks, “Damn I wish she’d paint this ugly door!  I’m embarrassed to live here and all the neighborhood cats think I’m low maintenance.  BUT I’M NOT!  If I flatten my ears back a little bit more she’ll know I’m really pissed and mean business.  GET THIS *&%$#! DOOR OPEN!”

Purrrza: Oh Gawd!  The stupid dog, now… what more must I put up with?  How come she’s inside and I’m out here?

Baby: Momma!  How come Purrrza is outside and I don’t get to come out?  MOM, what are you doing?

MOM?

OK, Kissy is here too now Mom and she wants out too… I’m telling you, you don’t want us to call the union!

And lastly, just because it’s hanging on my porch and I was out there anyway I took a picture of this plaque that my brother and sister-in-law gave to John and I a few years ago for Christmas.  Does anyone recognize the quote and know from where it came?

Well, today I spent the majority of my time at Lisa’s house with her three year old grandson, Bryen and her son’s girlfriend, Megan.  We worked hard and emptied out her entire kitchen, (except for the pantry), and put every single thing in any cabinet or on any counter top in her dining room on the table.  Now if those SOB’s don’t show up to put in those cabinets tomorrow I will, personally find somebody to castrate.  You just don’t take a woman’s, (or a man’s, for that matter), kitchen away from them and not follow through with your promises to give it back, only better.

Here’s Lisa, Megan and Bryen hard at work while I walk around aimlessly snapping pictures…as it should be.

Good Gawd.  That was a lot of shit to move into the other room.

These pictures, I offer as proof of how badly she needed this redo.  I have known Lisa for 13 or 14 years now and she has wanted to do something with this house for a very, very long time.  Well she is doing it up right!

Her walls are sheet rocked and painted really beautiful earthy colors.  It as so much fun picking out the paint chips!  We even had professional help!  (Lisa keeps telling me I need professional help… wonder if that’s what she meant…)

Living room with the couch sitting in the middle with the cushions upended.  The cat and dogs are not welcome.  Yet.  The furniture isn’t coming back in yet.  Still some touching up the painters have to do and SOMETHING has to get done about that fireplace wall.  We have plans for it.

I love the paprikaish colored wall thrown in just for good measure!  Lisa’s idea and she was on fire.  It is a short little wall around the corner and is just one side of the foyer.

I wish I had pics of before it was painted!  It was bad and dark, and paneled in the living room and the LR and hall, along with the kitchen, breakfast area and utility room all had tragic flooring.  The living room was an unfortunate carpeting choice that she made years ago, (with me there assisting) and it was a horrible, stinky, stained mess.  (Lisa and husband, Roger have two large outside dogs that tend to smell.  A lot.  And even with the giving of a bath, this is not rectified.  Stinky. Dogs.  They are supposed to stay outside, but someone I will not name, (starts with Rog and ends with er), tends to let the stinky dogs in when Lisa isn’t at home.  I think he’s scared to stay by himself.  I am sure he would dispute this.

This is in the breakfast room.  Can you tell we had only just gotten started bringing stuff in here at this point?

They also have two small inside dogs and a cat.  Housebreaking the dogs and having the cat puke hairballs all over the place for ages has just worn the sanitary out of the carpet.

The kitchen, breakfast area and utility room all had terrible old sheet vinyl that was original to the house, built in the 60’s.  Now it is this awesome large Italian porcelain tile.

Strange side note:  Every time Lisa takes pictures in her house with her camera she gets all those weird little circles and light spots on the pictures.  You can see them above and I think in all these shots.  I never have that problem so I brought my camera.  These pictures are with my camera and there are still all the weird little spots.  What’s up with that?  Are they haints?  If so there certainly are a lot of them and they better not smurf up the new paint job.

Oh!  That’s the little antique oak table I am SO GENEROUSLY GIVING UP OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF MY HEART.  (I’ll kill her if she tries to put that thing back in my garage.)

Ok.  It pains me to say this but there is some bad news in the way of our friendship.  I am afraid I am going to have to report Lisa to the SPCA.  I even have photographic proof.  Before I show you these disturbing pictures I will explain what has, obviously, been going on.

Lisa has been contributing to the obesity, (I mean incredibly obese), of these poor, over indulged squirrels.  These poor guys don’t stand a chance if the cat ever gets out.  I watched one of them attempting to… scamper(?) up a tree and let me tell you, there was no scamper about it.  Poor squirrel looked like he was hauling a load of bricks up a ladder.  He may as well have been.

She buy bags of mixed seed and seduces lures attracts these little critters from the surrounding yards with her own brand of crack.  These guys can barely move.

There’s even a little one.  A baby, that she is trying to get hooked at the moment.

I think this little guy is doomed.  Here he is, so transfixed in his stupor he doesn’t even notice me.

Passed out Sacked out in a tree trying to recuperate.

Please remember these guys in your prayers…  I don’t think there is a Jenny Craig program for squirrels…

Well… not really.  But he could have!  And the important thing is… that that’s the story I’m going with!

It was, after all, John who caught the cabinets on fire.  He did!  NO!  REALLY!

A couple of months ago he decided he was going to make himself a tostada with some left over taco meat we hand and he popped a couple of tostada shells in the little toaster oven we have on the counter top.  I guess he set it to “Incinerate” and walked off.  Well, pretty much immediately the fire was pouring out of the toaster oven and the varnish on the cabinets was aflame.

It was exciting!

The strange thing is that the only emotion I can come up with is relief that it was him and not me who did it.

I wasn’t around when it happened, but he told me that he threw water on it.  INSIDE THE TOASTER OVEN.  I indicated that it wasn’t the brightest thing he had ever done as he could have electrocuted himself…but, then again he did torch some innocent tostadas…

I explained the theory of using baking soda to extinguish flames from an electrical source. (Assuming he didn’t want to go and get the FIRE EXTINGUISHER from the utility room.)  He informed me that he doesn’t know where in our kitchen the baking soda lives.  I showed him.  I am CERTAIN, within an inch of my life, that he will never need to know the whereabouts of the baking soda.

Unless there’s another fire.

Well, here I sit only moderately better prepared than yesterday.  Yeah, sorry.

I’ve taken some pictures of some random things lately that may or may not ever be able to legitimately be worked into a post.

I’m not feeling very legitimate today.  (Sorry Mither and Pop.)

So here’s a… random sampling of life in the armpit of Texas.

Here’s John trying on shoes at the new Shoe Carnival store that opened up by us.  His dogs were killing him when he came home from work every day and the insides of his other black dress shoes were shot.  All broken down.

I know.  Fascinating….

So what do we think?

There’s also these Nunn Bush ones that are on sale, too.

I’ll just cut straight to the end and tell you that he got the other wing tips.  Normally $60.00 on sale for $40.00.

Gee, I wonder how many of you were just about to wet your pants in anticipation of that announcement.

OK, where else could such a gripping post go but to a discussion about the… (are you ready for this?), weather.  It hasn’t rained in forever and I know I sound like an 80 year old farmer, but we really do need it bad and it is supposed to be coming here TONIGHT!  Woo-Hoo!  This combined with the fact that it will be coupled with a COLD FRONT is the best news I’ve had lately.

We have been living, (if you can call it that), with the windows open for about 48 hours now.  Henrietta is having a seriously hard time of it.  If you recall, one of the posts after we got electricity back after Ike, (If I was a good posty…postie(?) person I would hunt down a link… but, I’m not.), I explained how she tried to die at the thought of leaving her window open when we had no electricity.  Her room is directly across from ours and we needed the cross ventilation.  She was so opposed to it she told us we were abusing her by making her sleep with her window open.  Yes, we have screens on all of them.

Aaaaaanyway, she has asked me why the air isn’t on when she is in her room because it is freaking hot in there and I have told her it’s not on because it is cool outside and there’s no need for it.  We have the windows open.  If you want it cool in your room we’ll open yours.  I’m not making her do it because we have electricity and a working ceiling fan in our room.  She does, too.  “OOOOH NOOOO, Krissa!  (panic setting into her voice), I don’t want the window open!”  I, very carefully, explained that she didn’t have to, but it would be much cooler and did she want her ceiling fan on?  Now, she has always maintained that the ceiling fan makes her sick.  Or have allergies or constipated or some such shit.  (hehe… constipated or some such shit HA)  But she told me to turn it on low.  I turned it on medium and asked if that was all right and she felt the breeze and decided it felt so much better she’d stick with it.

But then, she started stating her case.

“Why don’t you run the air conditioner, Krissa?”

Because it’s cooler out side than it is in here and it’s free and the light bill is horrible and we are constantly trying to save money and this economy sucks, not to mention it’s the ecological thing to do and, etc. etc. etc.

“But, you know, Krissa you’ve got that chemical plant…”

Blank look Henrietta, we don’t have a chemical plant.  (Much less ME)

“Oh, yes!  Over in Texas City!”

Well, hell there are gazillions of chemical plants in Texas City, but somehow I don’t think it will help my case to point that out.

“Yes.  In TEXAS CITY there is a chemical plant…?”

“Well, it’s those chemicals, Krissa, and I’m old already.”

Every time she wants to get her way about something her arguments at one point or another hinges on “Well, I’m old, already.”

She then proceeded to tell me that’s not right to have the windows open because she’s “the patient”.  I looked incredulous and said, “Patient?  You’re not sick.  What’s wrong with you that you think you’re a patient?”

She got a little huffy and I left the room.

But let me tell you one thing.  She rolled her happy ass into the living room where it’s nice and cool shortly thereafter.

Hello there peoples!  Peoples?  There is more than one of you… right?

Whatever.

As the common expression in my family goes, “Do you want the good news or the bad news”? Well, the good news is, there is no bad news.

John is still on vacation and we are, in general, having a really fairly good time of it.  We have now added to the list of things accomplished to include:

*Called Verizon to get them to set us up with land line service.

Hopefully it will be every bit as dynamite as the cell service.  It was awesome during the hurricane.  They never even lost a tower, I guess.  All the circuits were busy a few times, but we always had service.  They are supposed to call us back… sometime.  My guess is that they were inundated with calls for service after Ike, from Comcast customers that lost service before the hurricane ever got anywhere near us and didn’t get it back until at least 2 weeks later.  Oh hell, some still don’t have it.  One month later.

* I caulked the edge of the shingles on the back of the house and the garage Thursday.  I did the front of the house yesterday evening.  I rock.

Here you can see how the shingles don’t stick out far enough past the flashing in places and this is where we are having signs of water…well, not yet damage, but the paint is beginning to bubble so rot is not far way, under the eaves.  And this is happening only where we were “short shingled”.  Coincidence?  I think not!  I went ahead and caulked the entire house and garage anyway, just to make sure we got it all.

Now here’s my dilemma:

I want to paint our front door.   It is an oak door and it weighs a gazillion pounds.  Yeah, yeah, I know!  Every guy out there is going to try to die at the thought of painting it, but it needs refinishing or painting really badly and if I am going to go to that much trouble I want it to be a pretty color.

Ideally I would like red, HOWEVER, the damn neighbors across the street, (really very sweet people), beat me to it and their door is so pretty! Especially when her geraniums are in bloom.

See their pictures below?  Don’t they have a beautiful yard?  Even with the recycle bin still out?

So, I was wondering about, maybe, green?  I would really like to know what everyone thinks of this.  My house needs some color as it is shades of beige and brown with pasty white brick.

Oh, please note the attractive piece of cardboard in the lower right side of the window in the door.  Yeah, gotta get that fixed, too. And I don’t usually have a ladder in the front yard but I was doing the caulking when I stopped and took these pictures. Also, the shutter that is standing on the ground by the post with the house numbers has been replaced on the right side of the window.  It blew off during Ike and I ran out during the eye and retrieved before it blew away.

See how dark it is in the itty bitty porch?  I am thinking a sagey (this may not be an actual word, yet you know what I mean…), green.  So what do YOU think?

Here is the continuation of the whole Ike debacle.

Oh, I never did get the photos from John and he still has them on his jump drive.  In his pocket.  I am just not working out!  I will really try hard to remember to get them tonight, I promise!

Tuesday, September 16- Today I saw two hummingbirds and a housefly. Please God, don’t let anyone tell the mosquitoes how to get back…

There is candle wax ALL OVER MY HOUSE.

SO. FREAKING. BORED.

I can’t believe how awfully bad my carpet needs vacuuming.

I have decided I am not going to boil another pot of water for dishwashing. I have been inconvenienced enough already and if some sort of plague gets its start here, in my house… well, I’m sorry.

We are probably all going to die of dysentery. My next door neighbor said she never did boil the water for washing the dishes. I don’t feel I know her well enough to ask about her bowels…

Keelan went to meet the vet out at the barn as our horse and pony show now necessitates a visit. Dandy, (her mare), has a bad cut on the back of one of her ankles from… barbed wire(?). She got there and discovered, yet, another snake in her tack room. A couple of her friends were there with her, DJ and Victor and they, being boys, quickly and joyfully beat said snake to death with shovels. Eww.

Wednesday Morning, September 17- We got last Friday’s newspaper delivered to us. The first bit of outside news since last Thursday. The editor had a notation on the front page saying they are going to try to get the past issues caught up in the near future.

Our good friend, Roger, brought us over a generator and I hooked up the washer and dryer to it after I ran the fridge for about 6 hours. I then proceeded to do rapid fire laundry. Frantically.

As I was slowly rolling the refrigerator forward to reach behind it and unplug it from the useless hole in the wall, my grandmother’s 70 year old Kitchen Aid mixer fell off of the top of the fridge and landed squarely on top of my head. Dead center. I cried. That sucker must weigh 15 pounds and has a motor that could run a riding lawnmower. Keelan was frantic and I ended up feeling sorrier for her than me. It really did scare her to death.

Crap. I am watching a mosquito, (among the first of many to return), searching on the outside of the window. It’s the one window that is just cracked open a tiny bit because that particular screen was never found after the wind died down. Plus, the little dog keeps making her escape through that window every time she see’s someone walking their dog, so it isn’t open very much. I’m going to have to shut it because the mosquito is being persistent and will get in eventually.

OK, I’m back.

When I was done with the laundry I unplugged the washer and dryer and left the fridge hooked up while I plugged the TV and DVD player into the generator, also. (The cable was out well before they cut the power…probably as soon as the sun was behind a little white cloud. By way of explanation I say to you this one word…Comcast.) So we watched movies and sat and wondered what was happening on the news. What the surrounding areas looked like, death toll, what the evacuation looked like, etc.

The cicada’s are back… it’s gonna be a scorcher.

Thursday, September 18- No paper today.

Friday, September 19- THE ELECTRICITY CAME BACK ON!

Today is Monday, September 22, and they STILL don’t have everything completely full at the stores. At least they have opened the major highways back up leading into Houston. John’s store is getting as many trucks as they can spare to send him. He has worked 14 hour days EVERY day since the hurricane, and he is running out of steam.

My friends, a few neighborhoods away from us still don’t have electricity. Lisa is out of town, evacuated, and Roger is practically living at work. He is bringing over his clothes, which I wash and I’m cooking for him. Poor guy, I hope and pray they get their power back on soon.

Needless to say the Comcast services still aren’t working and I am betting another week at least. We will see. It would be fun to take bets.

We were really stupid when we signed up with them because we got a bundled service thing where our cable TV, internet, and digital phone, (whatever that is) are provided by them. Or not, whatever. So we have been without a landline this entire time and my cell bill is going to be exorbitant. My smart neighbors across the street never lost their phone service because THEY DON’T USE COMCAST.

Have I mentioned my loathing for Comcast?

Thursday, September 25- My friend, Lisa, was on her way home yesterday from evacuating to San Antonio and John was off work during the early part of the day. As we drove by her house on the way home I saw that her porch light was on! I called her immediately and told her that her electricity was back! What timing! Lucky dog never went without it the entire time.

Last night I informed john that we would need to make something exciting happen tomorrow in order for me to have some sort of reasonable blog fodder.  He immediately responded, “Have sex?”.  I then told him,  1) I don’t usually write about our sex life on my blog and 2) My mother reads this.  His swift, cocky comeback was reduced to, “Ooooh…”.

Today has been a bust.  The caregiver provider was supposed to show up at 1:00 and let John and I run out and madly dash about doing things together willy-nilly until we had exhausted our three hours and had to return to take care of H.  She never showed up.  Now remember, this is the “new” provider that is, not the same one that had trouble showing up a while back.  So I called the number we had for her cell phone and, surprise, surprise, no answer.  I next tried calling the company that was sending her out here.  The lady told me that she had called her and told her that she didn’t feel well and that she had called us and left a message for us telling us that she wasn’t showing up.  Left a message?  Why on earth would she lie and say that?  That makes it sound as if I WAS ABLE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE AND NOT ANSWER THE DAMNED PHONE.  Ahem…  Anyway, there was no message on the answering machine and we had been here all day.  Waiting.  I was not a happy camper.  I told the lady so and she said that maybe I should call the… “provider’s” home number and she gave it to me and, of course, no one answered.  I called the company back and told her I want someone else and it’s not that she was feeling poorly, it’s that she’s a terrible liar and that really chaps me arse.  So tomorrow afternoon some new chick named Maria is supposed to show up and we will see.  John works a half day tomorrow and so we should get to do something.  I have an exciting list, too.  Let’s see… post office, Lowe’s, grocery….oh gawd…

The exciting thing that happened today is that my wonderful husband has figured out how to get the pics in the memory of my camera onto the memory card and onto the pooter.  Actually, I got them onto the pooter, but he did the rest.  He may get some booty tonight…

On Sunday, August 21st, the same day Henrietta came home from the hospital, Kes came running in to get John and I early in the morning.  I mean DAYBREAK.  She had gone out to the garage to investigate what on earth our little dog, Kissy, had been barking at.  It was a stray cat.  Don’t know why the cat decided it wanted in our garage.  There is no food in there or anything like that.  While she was looking at it something flew across the garage and landed, spooking her no end.  It was this little bitty owl.

Now I have quite a history with owls and I will update you on all that in my next post, given something earth shattering doesn’t happen in my life to supersede it, i.e. H has a blowout that completly dissolves a diaper or the provider care person shows up and John and I have sex for three hours in some seedy motel.  Don’t hold your breath, cause H is finished with her antibiotics and is no longer suffering with diarrhea.

I just read this to John and his first response was, “Are you sure your mom can read all that?”  I said, “She knows how to read…anything. “  He looked a bit desperate and responded, “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”

Is it a baby or just a small breed?  I dunno.  But now that I have the pics on the pooter I will try to look it up.  Tomorrow.  John wants my attention now and I have to go…..

9:45 Saturday evening.

Greetings, intertubes.  I am sitting here watching The Weather Channel and trying to out-predict the weather man.  This should not prove difficult, as he looks like he graduated from high school last year, or maybe the year before that.  God knows I have lived through many, many more hurricanes than he can remember.

It is going to Louisiana… poor bastards.

10:29 Sunday morning

It’s been a long time since I lived in Louisiana, but I swear I don’t remember them having presidents of parishes.  I couldn’t believe some guy on the news was referring to this guy as “Mr. President”.  Then there was a crawler across the bottom that said he was the president of the parish.  For those of you who don’t live in Louisiana, a parish is the same thing as a county.  Except, apparently, they have presidents.  Weird.

The stinking mold is back.  Except, really it doesn’t stink.  And it looks different.  Instead of a white powder it’s…fluffy.  No.  I have not been smoking anything or eating anything that lived down there with the mold.  There was no indication that we had any at all and I would have never known if I hadn’t just reached under there and wiped my hand to check for it.  John thinks that if we hadn’t found it maybe it would change into the powdery kind like we had before.  I don’t really know what to think.  AND I don’t know why it’s here.  STILL.

I have an awesome post waiting in my camera to be unleashed.  But, sadly, the camera card wasn’t in my camera when I took the awesome pictures and they are committed to internal memory so I have to have a cord to download to the pooter.  Guess what I can’t find?  I know.  Enough excuses already!  I will look for one on Tuesday when John is off and the sitter is here to take care of H.

12:35 pm Sunday  SIL just left.  She showed up and visited for about an hour with her mother and helped me change one diarrhea diaper.  I suppose she thinks she has contributed as much as necessary until next week.  She brought her 11 year old grandson with her and she just walked in where I was and said “I guess I’ll go.  He’s already ready!”  No shit?  An 11 year old boy isn’t having fun at my house with absolutely nothing to do except watch tv?  Shocking.  Wonder what she’ll do to break outa here in no time next week…

Well, here it is, Saturday and John’s vacation is almost over.  It has flown by and I’d like to say we got a lot done.  No.  We really didn’t, but we relaxed and did the things that HAD to be done.  The rest of the time we just chilled out and all was good.

Today we went to see Batman and really enjoyed it.  It actually had a good story line and people were dying  that you didn’t think were going to.  Not just this lame, totally predictable movie that you would expect from a comic book hero.  Heath Ledger absolutely needs to be nominated for some big award.  His Joker was the best!  Very quirky and believable.   yeah, yeah, Christian Bale is kinda cute.  Maggie Gyllenhaal seemed to look a bit like a puppy dog throughout the movie.  Her face and eyes seemed drawn.  Poorly done makeup?  I dunno.

After the movie we proceeded to run some errands and made our way to CVS pharmacy to return some diapers that John had picked up the other day that were the wrong kind.  We came in and lo and behold!  There to our left on the floor right in front of the other door was a condom.  Apparently someone had worn it around in the parking lot stuck to their shoe as it was used and quite dirty to boot.  Being the ever resourceful soul that I am, I whipped out my new Chocolate phone and fooled with the buttons and vastly confusing dials for 30 minutes before figuring out how to take a snapshot.  John was off to find a manager and tell the guy to wear a rubber glove and eventually I overcame my possessed phone and managed to take a picture worthy of a professional.  OK, maybe not.

I can only imagine what Google searches are going to lead here now…

Sorry I have abandoned my…post. BAHAHAHA I have been extremely busy being hostess, getting ready for the big graduation and being sick.

Mither and Auntie-Poo arrived on Wednesday amid much hoopla and fanfare. (Picture parade with confetti.) We were all really, really glad to see them. They haven’t been down here to visit me in a long time. Mither usually comes with Pop to see me a few times a year, but it is a real treat when Auntie-Poo gets to come with her. The three of us together are, well, somewhere between The Three Musketeers and the Three Stooges. We always have a riotous time. We have shopped and sat around a bit and I got my heart blessed a good deal for being so disgusting and sick. The Plague will do that to ya.

Kessa has made this family so proud of her. She has worked so hard her entire academic career, to earn the honors she was presented with last night. She was also a bit excited. A very good bit. I will post a picture of her soon, as all the ones I took were on Auntie-Poo’s nifty new Nikon camera and we gotta figure out how to get ‘em outa there. She looked so pretty, though. She wore the blue robe with a white National Honor Society stole, and had a blue and white cord for graduating Cum Laude and a gold one for National English Honor Society. After the shin-dig, (OK, we ran for our lives after they called her name the second time to receive her fake diploma that she has to wait until…Monday(?) to receive her real one to put in the folder thing.), we had to get out of there to get the grill fired up for shishkabobs. We had a wonderful time and got really full. PLUS I ran no fever all day long. I do believe the worst of the virus that ate my soul and then puked it back out is over with.

Yesterday we went to World Market and bought, (between the three of us), three tins of their wonderful ginger snaps. I am not a huge fan of gingersnaps, normally. Just pretty much take ‘em or leave ‘em kinda gal. But these are the most wonderful things ever and you get a good sized tin of them for about $7.00. WORTH EVERY PENNY.

We also went shopping and I got new clothes from Mither and Auntie-Poo for my birthday. This shopping together for the birthday is a fairly traditional thing with us. It gets me outta the house and is fun and I get stuff that I know for sure I like and fits and will wear. And of course Mither and Auntie-Poo didn’t leave empty handed, either.

We are going to go to breakfast here in a few minutes. You’re invited if you want to come and I’ll pay. I feel sooooo secure in saying that as I am pretty sure readership has dropped off to next to nothing. Again, sorry for the long delay! REALLY!