Buddy The Escape Artist

Ever since Keith started letting the cats explore the backyard for a few hours each day Buddy has been a big pain in the you know what when he can't go outside. We watched Life of Pi last night and I think I'll be changing his name to Richard Parker because he reminds me so much of that hungry wild tiger. Buddy roams around the house growling (which of course sounds more like a meow), pacing and rubbing on things and if he were bigger I'm sure he would think seriously about eating us.

Early this morning Keith was awakened just in time to see Buddy's tail going out the window after he discovered that he could pull on the rubber stuff that holds the screen in and make a nice opening in the bottom of the screen, an opening just big enough for a cat to jump to freedom through. Keith grabbed his tail and hauled him back in and I'm really surprised that Buddy didn't bite and scratch him, but in the process of pulling him back in the window, the screen was totally ruined.

Please disregard the sad state of our backyard and the shed door wide open in these pictures.

Anyway, Life of Pi was pretty good, Keith was getting bored up until the shipwreck, though. I had read the book recently, which of course was better than the movie because books can go into more detail and there were parts of the book that were left out of the movie, like the fact that there were bloody dead animal parts in the bottom of the boat, not to mention cat vomit and pee. I got to thinking about how messy a tiger would be, it's bad enough cleaning up little cat vomit, hairballs, and poop. Tiger hairballs must be huge.

We are having a very very hot weekend, so it is a good thing that we decided to postpone (indefinitely) the barbecue that we were going to have since everyone would have been totally miserable sitting outside in the almost 100 degrees that we had yesterday. Not to mention the drive up and back where you have to turn off your air conditioners when you are going up the sides of mountains.

I decided to clean out my kitchen cupboards this past week and got some new contact paper shelf liner stuff but it was a waste of time because the contact paper doesn't want to stick too well and is already curling up. It's this new kind that is supposed to be easily removed later and I guess that later is 2 days after you stick the stuff down. So, back to the drawing board on that and maybe I'll just lay down some butcher paper or something. I had some of that shelf liner in there that is kind of rubbery but every time you try to put something in the cupboard, like baking dishes, the rubbery stuff kind of sticks to the bottom of whatever you are putting in the cupboard and moves around. Annoying.

I'm also trying to cook more of a variety of meals and once again went to the Goodwill bookstore and got a bunch of those little cookbooks for 29c each, plus a stack of paperback novels for 99c each. Yesterday I had a whole box full of books and a bag for what didn't fit in the box for a grand total of $19.99. About the price of 1 1/2 new paperbacks. Score!

Procrastination

At its best.

We've been planning on having our first of what we hope will become an annual May Birthdays/Mother's Day/Spring/Whatever Barbecue Event since the beginning of the year. Five months ago. Five months to get the backyard ready and the doors put back up in the kitchen and the painting finished and the trim put in around the kitchen floor.

Five months and the barbecue is this coming Saturday. And is everything finished? Of COURSE it's not finished!

The doors are not up in the kitchen and the trim is not in around the floor and the painting is not finished and the backyard is not done. And we have five days to go.

Keith spent the entire weekend in the backyard, leveling gravel and digging a trench for the drainage system for when it rains and going back and forth to Home Depot for loads of paving stones. It was very very hot this weekend, almost 100 yesterday, and before he started all this I suggested hooking up the new patio mister system that we got and good thing he did or he probably would have had heat stroke out there.

The patio is halfway done. It might actually be finished in time. Just don't look at the rest of the yard that is all weeds and dirt.

The kitchen probably won't get done.

I sort of have a plan for getting the house all shiny clean and getting the salads and cupcakes made. Friday will be a busy day I think.

I was telling Keith that maybe by next summer all of the projects will finally be finished and we won't be spending money on paving stones and maybe we can drive to the beach on a hot weekend or even just go out to lunch and a movie. So, that is our new goal. No more home improvement by next summer.

We'll see how that goes.

New Coffee Pot and Other Fun Weekend Happenings

It was a rather dull weekend here. It was HOT so after we went to Trader Joe's and Winco Saturday morning we stayed inside the house with the shades drawn and the air conditioner on. Then yesterday we went downtown to the Rabobank Arena and Convention Center for an indoor air conditioned totally lame Home and Backyard Show. They have these home shows twice a year here at the Fairgrounds and they are somewhat interesting and something to do, but this show was just kind of sad. It was inside the concert hall, so you go down through all the seats, up over the stage, and behind the stage curtains where there is a huge room, which I'm assuming they use for conventions since it is the Convention Center after all. I had no idea there was so much space behind the stage since I've only been to a show here once before and of course didn't go backstage. Anyway, it was pretty boring, and they had not one but two booths both selling the same cookware with the same demonstration of said cookware. And some people selling purses and jeans, what that has to do with your home and backyard I don't know, unless you need a new purse and pair of pants to go into your backyard.

So, after we got home from that, and I'm SO glad it was free to get into the show because I would have been really upset if we had actually wasted money on paying to get in, we came home and once again stayed inside the house with the shades drawn and the air conditioner on. (Keeping the shades drawn helps keep the house cool, it's not because we are recluses or anything.)

While getting the kitchen ready for dinner, I thought I should wash out the coffee pot, which doesn't get washed out all that often, and broke the carafe when I knocked it against the side of the sink. So, after dinner we walked over to Target to replace the carafe because there is no way I am going a morning without my coffee. We found the replacement Mr. Coffee carafe and then saw the price tag of like $14.00 on it, looked at the brand new complete Mr. Coffee coffee pots which were only a few dollars more than the replacement carafe and were kind of thinking why not pay a few dollars more for a brand new coffee pot when the carafe is almost as much? So, while we are looking at the brand new coffee pots, we see a Chefmate pot on sale for $7.00. Well, heck, lets just go for the Chefmate pot which is half the price of the replacement carafe alone. So now we have a new Chefmate coffee pot, which made perfectly good coffee just like the more expensive Mr. Coffee would have this morning.

We are in for a hot hot week, well actually a hot hot few months here, so I'm sure I'll be doing lots of complaining about how HOT it is in all my posts for weeks on end. Be prepared.