What's that smell...

Well... I gotta rant about forwarding emails.

Not the nice ones with pretty pictures, super-funny cartoons, cute animal pictures, amazing magic tricks, or unusual YouTube clips that are worth watching... I got my knickers in a twist about forwarding urban legends. Myths. Folklore. Miscellaneous hoo-haw that's really unbelievable in the first place... but still, they get forwarded A LOT!

You know the ones... the ones where most sane people would say before they forward "Oohhh maybe I should check this out before I look like a complete donkey's-tushy and send this to my entire email list...":

- tape a penny to a bee sting to ease the pain! (Maybe if the penny was frozen first... but who keeps their pennies in the freezer for that kind of emergency?! Use ice, vinegar, paste of baking soda, etc...)

- gas pumps are cheating you! (Well we all KNOW that the price is up there, but really, they're not mis-calibrated or cheating you out of gallons of gas on every fill-up. *sigh*)

- forward this email to all your friends and Bill Gates will send a dollar for each email address! (Like a multi-billionaire has any way to do THAT... yeah... pull the other one.)

- dial #77 on your cell phone to connect to local highway patrol! (Don't they know how to dial 911?)

- new dollar coin has no "In God We Trust" phrase! (Umm... yes it does!! On the edge, hehehe. I can't wait to see one, bet they look very cool.)

- hop on one foot and swing a dead cat (hey!) over your head three times under the first full moon in the Spring and all your warts will drop off the next day! (I'm so not making that up! Thankfully I only have received THAT one once, and I'm sure the person sending it knew it had to be a joke... but then... it WAS on April 1st, hmmm...)

And the one I hadn't seen before this morning is :

- for less than 2 bucks you can spray a cheap mouthwash (like Listerine) around your yard and all your mosquitoes will drop dead!!

GIMME A BREAK! That Listerine trick doesn't work, you can do a search on Snopes.com and read all about it. I love that site, they have EVERY urban myth and legend and whether it's remotely true or not, and all the details about anything you'd ever wanna know. Good site to have handy. And no, I'm not making a buck off promoting them, I'm just ranting about the Listerine myth. I'm in a mood, sue me.

There's this one friend that emailed me this urban myth this morning, so before I went to tell all my friends about it too, I checked it out. It's false of course. Use DEET stuff, that's what works on mosquitoes.

Around here we remove any standing water pockets in the yard, it's a mandatory thing for this area to keep them from breeding. We don't have it so bad here, but I know there are areas where they are major nuisances so I can imagine some people will try anything. But Listerine? The yard would sure have a unique aroma... bet the mosquitoes would love the minty-fresh breath before they stung ya too.

Sooo... back to the email. I thought I'd be a pal and just let her know nicely before she goes and wastes her time spraying her yard with mouthwash, and I sent her the link for Snopes page, just as a "by the way read this before you try it" kinda thing. It was a harmless thing, just a let-ya-know deal. *grin*

Her reply to me was very negative and very rude! Surprised me, too. Hey, most people just say thanks for pointing out an urban legend they didn't know about, they don't trash the sender. I didn't even start the thing! LOL!! A lot of people are taken in by the rumor emails that get started and then NEVER STOP. It's nice to nip one in the bud here and there - just so all of our collective email systems don't get bogged down with yet another rumor mill circulating in email.

So...

Please, for the love of God, take a second to look stuff up before you forward it. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

And for Pete's sake, I won't get a hundred years of bad luck for NOT forwarding the other stuff either (but that's another blog for another day hehehe!!). *grin*

How did THAT end up in the cart?

Good grief, someone just shoot me. Well not REALLY! Put the gun away, it's just a figure of speech, golly.

You see... I went grocery shopping yesterday.

Oh but wait, that's not the whole story. (It never is, in my blogs, hahahah...)

I went grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon, when everyone and their dog (really!) was at the Super Wal-Mart. Passed a lady with a guide-dog-in-training, so... it really WAS everyone and their dog, hehehe.

Oh but wait, it gets a wee bit worse.

I went grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon BEFORE I had anything to eat.

Big huge OOOOOOOOOOOPS.

So there I was, resting after the ordeal, and wondering what exactly possessed me when I walked through the deli and the bread sections on an empty stomach. Carb heaven, here we come!

There should be a sign at the end of those aisles that says, "If you haven't eaten in the last four hours, do not enter."

Stuff landed in the cart without me even asking it to hop in! It was almost like shopping with hubby - stuff just mysteriously appeared in the cart. After wandering the Super Wally World for an hour, my feet were saying to my brain "Just take it! It's screaming your name! You want it, really you do!" And the worse inner comment: "There's room in the cart still!"

Did I really need two packages of whole wheat hamburger buns? Well, they WERE on sale. And they'll be used, no doubt... because I loaded up on sliced meats and cheeses too.

Did hubby really need two loaves of nine grain bread for sandwiches, when just one would do? Hey, they were on sale too, such a deal. And he does love his tuna salad.

Did we really need two packages of five-count butter croissants? Not on sale, but they will make absolutely fabulous turkey and swiss sandwiches.

There's a problem with grocery shopping for me though and I'm fully aware of it: if I don't eat, I come back with just about everything we ever needed and THEN some. But on the other side of the coin, if I eat before I go, then I come back with one bag of vegetables and some lettuce. AND NOTHING ELSE! Good grief, we can't live on that for a week!

Now where am I going to put all this STUFF...???

The joy of pets

Eeeeeeks, I shrieked!

There I was typing furiously on my story and hubby walks in. I was hip-deep in some really good scene and I got interrupted. It happens a lot! I put a mirror on the corner of the monitor that shows the doorway behind me but I was on a roll and frankly... he walks like a cat. He likes to sneak up behind me and read over my shoulder (ooo that's a pet peeve of mine, you'd think he'd stop but noooOOOoooooOOOoooo... eh, story for another day, LOL!!)

Apparently he thought I needed more blog material or something. So… herewego.

He delivered this announcement with just a bit of dread and morbid disgust:

"Tigger just barfed by the bed."

Then he stood there… just looking at me.
He. Just. Stood. There.

Well hold me back, stop the presses... does that mean... oh say it isn't so!! Does that mean I get to clean it up? Good golly, Miss Molly... and here I thought I was going to be able to eat din-din without feeling queasy from cleaning up a catmess.

There went that notion. Guess din-din's gonna have to wait till I get disinfected, too, hehehe.

And since when did he forget how to use a paper towels and Oxy-Clean (Ooooo if you have cats or dogs, this stuff is marvy on carpeting!)? We've had five cats for a while - it's not like catmess is a new idea around here.

I sooooo wish it was! We clean the carpets and feed them Furball-B-Gone regularly… if you have a cat, let alone more than just "*A* cat", you're going to get to play rug-spot-fixer at least once a week, if not more. Catmess happens.

So... feeling much like the big bad wolf out to lynch me a cat and a hubby all at once, I huffed and I puffed, and I got out the cleaning stuff (hey that rhymed! cool!), and I marched down the hall to see...

...the tiniest little spot of catmess that I've ever seen. I squinted, looked around, yep – hubby-dearling was pointing at that miniscule spot.

I'm not going to get graphic, but usually a catmess is quite... umm... artistic.

Me, looking around for more spots: "This is IT?"
Him, hedging his bets: "Well, there was that too."
He pointed to a spot some five feet away - far too distant to be from the same umm... errr... projectilation. (That's a word, isn't it? My spellchecker thinks not, but I think it is.)

Me: "That's not recent, that was Tigger couple days ago, darnitall. I'll go over it again."
Apparently the older spot came back up, so I hit it again with the Oxy-Clean right after hitting the new spot.

Out, darn spot, out!

Of course, hubby had to watch me closely, thankyouverylittleforhelpingsheesh!
Tigger had long since vanished. Probably hiding... again. The cat's a woos. Or is that wuss? Yeah... wuss.

Poor Tigger, she gets so stressed sometimes. It'd be nice if she didn't make a catmess right where we either A) need to walk in the dark barefooted, or B) next to someone trying to sleep. Perhaps one of these days she'll aim at the linoleum or wood floor so it's ta-da (drum-roll-please) far easier to clean! Like that'll ever happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kitties though… and I know if we didn’t have cats, we’d have dogs. Or a combo of the two, maybe a house rabbit again - I used to raise those years ago. We just love our pets.

Oh the people I meet...

So much for my belief that Wal-Mart had the only oddballs wandering the aisles during daylight hours. No offense, hubby-dearling, this doesn't mean you. *grin*

Went to Walgreens at lunch today (it's a chain drugstore, if you don't have those in your neck o' the woods) to use some coupons. Hey, if I need something AND it's on sale AND I have a coupon AND they gimme five bucks off for one day... I'm sooooo there!!! Gotta love me a bargain. Or two or three.

And those of you that know me, know I love to read, so of course... there I was, minding my own business, looking over the books and magazines... when along comes a Worker Bee in her ohhh... I wanna guess she was fifty-ish. I just know she was a little older than me.

WB: "Are you 'Dee'?"

Me, blinking, surprised: "Beg yer pardon?"

WB, looking not the least put out: "I know this is a weird question, but are you 'Dee'?"

Me, looking for nearest escape route: "Umm... err... not today I'm not."

WB, explaining further: "I'm supposed to meet someone here named 'Dee' today, and I thought you might be her..."

Me, relieved in an odd way but still apprehensive: "Sorry, I'm a 'Susan' last I checked, not a 'Dee'." I shook my head and scooted a little to one side here.

WB, scuttling away, turned back to chuckle: "Oh you can't be her anyhow, she has a British accent."

Well... game on. Ding ding ding, I can do that!

Me, in my absolute best Brit accent: "Oh, a Brit, you say? I CAN do that, luv!"

WB, skidding to a stop with somewhat started expression: "You're sure you're not 'Dee'?"

I just laughed and shook my head and she was mollified enough to go looking for another her Dee elsewhere. What I didn't know just then is that she was supposed to meet this Dee-person in THAT aisle, not just anywhere in the store.

So there I was, wandering the aisles for the other super-duper-coupon-deals and I roamed back past that aisle again to see her accosting, I mean asking, two more women if they were 'Dee' and overhearing the same explanation that she was looking for a Dee in that aisle today. They had the identical look on their faces as I'm sure I had: Where's the nearest exit? Where're the men in white coats? Security!!

For about ten seconds I seriously thought about walking back to her with my best fake accent and re-introducing myself as Dee, but... considering that I didn't know WHY she was meeting Dee (and in, of all places, the magazine/book section of the local Walgreens! how odd is that?), then I curbed my curiosity for once.

For all I know, she wanted to belt the person in the face! She seemed harmless enough, but then... don't most serial killers at first glance?

Or... maybe this Dee owed her money, I just don't know. I wasn't gonna ask. But now I'm curious as to WHY she wanted to meet Dee... I can't ask her again until I go back there and find the same Worker Bee! Eeeks!

Oh but wait... if I did go find her on another day... wouldn't it be funny to walk up to HER and say, "Are you Susan?"

I'm sooooo mature some days.

So... if you're in Vancouver, and you have to go to Walgreens to pick up some nifty stuff today, AND your name is Dee... shop at Rite-Aid. You'll be safer.

It's just a hunch. *grin*

What's on the menu?

So there I am at Wal-Mart today... again... standing in the checkout line and mulling over things I could rant about online publicly when it hit me... the front cover of a popular woman’s magazine had a little blurb in the upper right, designed to get people to look inside. Or maybe buy the issue.

The bit said: "4 Things All Guys Crave Hearing - pg. 74"

Well I'm curious as a cat , but not THAT curious. I don't have to pick up the latest issue to know the answer to THAT one... I been married since... ohh... umm... errrrr... well, a while. Long enough to know that without even looking, I could imagine they'd mean things that would stroke his (cough hack cough) fragile (cough cough hack) ego. And no, that's not a euphemism, get yer mind outta the gutter. Besides, if I'd picked up the magazine to see what exactly WAS on pg. 74 of this month's issue, I probably woulda died laughing.

Like I said before... some days I'm soooooooo mature. LOL! I just knew I'd be in trouble from the Hysterics Police if I picked it up to read, so I didn't.

Around this house... the four things hubby-dearest craves hearing kinda go like this:

4. "Why sure, I'll pay all the bills this month, you just keep your paycheck to yourself this month, honey!"

3. "You just put your feet up, dearling, I'll bring you something to eat and drink and fetch the remote for you, would you like me to put in a DVD too?"

2. "Of course you can sit around and do absolutely nothing today! The yard can wait. Why... it's not even two feet tall yet!"

...and the all time top drawer ding ding ding winner of them all...

1. "You. Were. Right."

Of course, if ya know me... that's just sarcasm. But now that I'm home and I can't read pg. 74, I'm curious... what are the four things that all guys crave hearing? I shoulda just picked it up anyhow.

P.S. #2-3-4 are really sarcasm, but number 1 there - that's for REAL. He LOVES to hear me say "You were right." *grin*

Trivial pursuits...

Hey guess what... I'm not going to rant on hubby again, not today. (He just breathed big sigh of relief, hahahah!)

But... I do have a new hobby other than picking on hubby: yelling at the TV. Not just any yelling, I mean yelling trivia answers at the TV during the show "Ca$h Cab" on Discovery Channel. This could be a problem if hubby's trying to sleep, LOL... good thing it's on towards the evening here. And for a whole hour! Woohoo!!

If you haven't seen the show... here's kinda how it goes: The opening shtick says there's some 13,000 cabs in NYC (that's a LOT Of cabs, holy cow!) and only ONE of them, driven by the host Ben Bailey, is the Ca$h Cab. Victims, I mean passengers, hop in and give their destination, then these colorful lights go off on the ceiling and as they jump out of their collective skins he intones "You're in the CASH CAAAAB!!! The game show that takes place right here in the caaaab!!!" and goes on to say they can play the game-show-on-wheels guessing general trivia starting at $25/question on up to $100/question as they get harder. They get two shout-outs if they get stuck: one from some random stranger on the street, and one freebie cellphone call to someone. Miss three times and Ben dumps you out right where you are! Of course - bonus is - nothing paid for the free ride. Except a little embarrassment if you strike out.

Oh the shame of being in the mobile shout-out and the random stranger that you pick has NEVER seen the movie "Gone With The Wind"!!! More yelling at the screen here.

One part I love are the red light challenges. They get a red light and he asks a multiple choice question and the idiots, I mean contestants, have to yell out as many answers as possible in 30 seconds for an additional $250 and there's no striking out with wrong answers. They ask stuff like... ohhh... name 5 of the top 7 schools of law (the group of 4 got that one)... or name 5 of the top 7 fast food chains (2 ladies missed that one)... you'd be surprised what people don't know, they completely blank out under the pressure.

What I really like is not the concept, nor the voyeurism of watching the contestants sweat it out, but the host's facial expressions and side comments. He delivers the questions very clearly and succinctly (got an earpiece on his left ear feeding him info, you can see it sometimes), then from the watcher's viewpoint (cough ME cough) we get to see him grimace, grin, or mouth wisecracks to the camera, often with a quite sarcastic tinge. That's gotta be why I like it... the sarcasm.

At the end of the ride, if they don't strike out and they make it to their destination, then Ben gives them a double-or-nothing video bonus question. Half the time the people take the enticement, and MANY times people miss. I think more than half of the errors are because they're suddenly sweating it out thinking of the all-or-nothing-angle, hearing that Ben just said the question's going to be MUCH harder than the other questions.

Often times, they're not!

Like... asking the young lady 'what state is Old Faithful in'... and showed some pictures of it too, becaaaaauuuuse... tadaaahhh... it's a VIDEO bonus question. She went back and forth between Wyoming and New Mexico... with me shouting WYOMING!!! at the screen, and she guessed... drumroll... New Mexico.

D'oh! Oh the pain!!

Her mom lives in Wyoming, she said. Wanna bet she won't live that down anytime soon? Imagine every holiday, birthday, and anniversary from there on out, her mother gently sticking another pin in the doll... "Remember when you didn't know where Ol' Faithful was, sweetie..." I can't remember how much she lost out on, I think it was gonna be $1200 or $1300 for the right answer. She was on a roll, too! Poor sucker, I mean passenger... shoulda left with the money she'd already won. At least she got a free cab ride across town... but the shame of missing that one... woof. That the material family reunions are made of.

Then... there were the two young ladies that were doing sooooo good, till they got to the video bonus... and missed! ARGH!! The question was about who lived in this palatial estate in San Simeon California. Well, I have gone there so that's why I knew it: William Randolph Hearst. Pretty pics of Hearst Castle, too, very distinctive. They looked like they were gonna cry for missing that. Missed out on $1500 for that boo-boo.

Almost (ALMOST!) makes me wanna go to NYC. The odds of actually landing in that cab would be... astronomical. And expensive, LOL! I'll just stay home and yell at the TV, hehehe. For now I will just yell at the TV.

Men and shopping... and oh yes, cats

Well. The cats decimated another scratching post, the big one with carpet on the base and a big section of sisal rope around the middle of the 4' high 4x4 wood post. I figured, we spent plenty $$$ to buy it new and they love that post, AND I'm handy with hot glue and a staple gun, so I'll just replace the carpeting and sisal, rather than buy a new post. Sisal's cheap, so are carpet remnants.

And apparently I needed something to do.

The problem is... what I ask for wasn't what I got (hmm... rarely is, come to think of it! hahaha). I sent hubby to Lowe's (cuz I had work to do… victims to stalk! emails to write! blogs to update!) for "at least 60' sisal and a 2'x3' carpet remnant". Actually, he had appointment, and he was already out-n-about, that's why he went. Really.

Sound simple, right? I wrote it on paper too.

Not so simple. What I got was 50' sisal and a 1-1/2'x20' remnant.

The man has no spatial relations. And I'm not talking derogatorily about the space between his ears, cuz ya know I think he has that, but he has no idea when I say at least 60' I mean get more than 60' even if you have to get two 50' bundles cuz I'll use it on the other posts too. D'oh! So I showed him why the carpeting wasn't quite right...

Me, holding the way-too-narrow carpet remnant to the now-too-wide flat base: "See? I needed at least 2' wide."

Him, shrugging: "They didn't have carpet remnants at Lowe's. That's all they had where I went."

Me, surprised: "Not Lowe's? So where'd you go?"

He named some carpet store nearby, not where I woulda went but that's okay, I didn't go. There's some other shop I'm thinking of nearer the center of town... but... since I didn't go, I wouldn't complain. Much.

Me, confused: "They didn't have anything more... square?"

Him, repeating cuz I apparently didn't hear him the first time: "No, that's all they had."

Me: "There's more than one carpeting store in this town, you know."

Him, still repeating himself cuz I'm too dense to hear him today: "Yeah... welllll... Lowe's didn't carry carpet remnants."

Me: "I wasn't talking about Lowe's, I was talking about where you went."

Him, repeating like I didn't get it first or the second time: "That's all they had."

Me, resigned: "Fine, I'll put a cheap-n-dirty seam in it, Tigger will rip it out in a week. She has a nervous twitch, you know."

Him, ever the broken record to drive home the point: "That's all they had."

Last night I had counted the loops of sisal, and by size of the post I used my handy-dandy calculator and it came up to 54'. I figured 60' I could wrap it tighter. But no! The stuff only comes in 50' bundles and instead of buying 2 of the 50' bundles (so I could have redone the sisal on a smaller post TOO while I was all hot-n-sweaty - and not in a good way, either, thankyouverymuch!!), he brought back only *one* bundle.

So I wrapped it a little looser, it turned out okay, the post is covered. Cats are happy. I'm tired. That stuff is rough to work with, ugh. And hey - I saved major bucks doing it myself!

But the carpeting... wellll... I had to seam it and I don't think that's gonna last. You should see Tigger and Precious and Sweet Pea dig into the flat carpet part, they're aggressive.

Ya know what's really funny? The cat herd watched the entire time. They were fascinated by the sisal rope all over the kitchen floor.

Hubby watched too. He was fascinated that he matched the carpet remnant so close to what was already on the post. I had to shoo them all outta the room no fewer than five times - with the water sprayer. Gotta love it when I get growled and hissed at - and not by the cats, either, that was hubby!

At least now they have a post that works again, I'd hot-glued it so many times it took me a while to undo all the stuff I'd done to it first, hehehe. That's a big enough craft project for me for this week. And now Tigger won't try and eat the sisal, she was gnawing on the loose ends that had ripped off. That cat will eat ANYTHING, but that's a different blog for another day, she's our little omnivore.

And those flowers up top? That's the blooms from a sisal plant. Pretty, huh?