My! What big teeth you have!

My! What big teeth you have!
Originally uploaded by Angela's chaos

The dinosaur exhibit at the zoo would no doubt be fun for the kids! Even better than seeing near life-size moving replicas of extinct critters was that these prehistoric beasts were dressed up for Halloween! Was pretty comical. Ok, well the toddlers viewing didn't think so. Many a little one ran to moms and dads screaming in fear of their lives as the dinosaurs moved, roared and spit water at them. Poor things. Monster Man kept telling them, "They are fake! You won't die!" Ha! Oh yeah, they GET THAT. Sure.
I tried not to laugh.

More fun pics with big beasts wearing party hats, coconut bras and hula skirts will be forthcoming.

Friday Fill Ins

From Janet at Friday Fill-Ins:


1. The crickets sing, loudly during a clear night, making me fall asleep quickly.

2. _Good friends will always find you wherever you are.

3. I want to get far away from the _negative thinking in my head.

4. __I had small back end and my bills were paid_; this was OBVIOUSLY a dream.

5. But as for me _I need to get my butt in gear and snap out of this FUNK!

6. __A very small football town and a good-sized fun family is where I come from.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to _enjoying another round of family Wii games then watching L&O, tomorrow my plans include _taking the kids to dance rehearsal then uploading and working with some pictures and Sunday, I want to watch movies and bake a red velvet cake_!


Sheesh! That group of fill-ins was fairly difficult to do! Thanks Janet for making me think...I think.

Elwood

One goofy story deserves another so I might as well tell you an Elwood tale, Jake's brother (seriously) our other kitty.

When the weather first turned cold, you know that NE Ohio cold where you need the heat for a week then ~shock~ you need to go back to AC for a week, then bitter cold the next day?? Yeah, that weather... well, it was a Saturday morning, drizzly rain and just a bit chilly outside. It was just before 8 o'clock, and as we were getting dressed I heard Elwood give his "I'm STARVING!!" meow, which is a horrible drawn out cry that he usually gives from the basement or top of the basement stairs. The cat food is in the basement, accessed by a kitty door, safe from the dog. I said to Mr. FixIt, "He must really be starving. I can hear him all the way up here from the basement!" It was a far off, muted meow but definitely Elwood. Mr. FixIt replies, "He did that at 4:30 this morning, a couple times. Woke me up, and I told him to 'Knock it Off!! You're not going to starve to death by morning!" We laughed at our gluttonous kitty, he's ALWAYS starving. His bottomless pit rivals Monster Man's. Finishing up, quick brush through my hair and flip it up into a clip, I hear Elwood cry again, "I'm comin', I'm comin'! Jeesh!" and as I turn to head out of the room, I see a shadow in the window. OMG it's Elwood. OUTSIDE!! He on his hind legs on the roof, paws up on the window meowing to "LET ME IN!!" He never was in the basement! Our bedroom is second floor, over the garage and den, set back a bit, so there is garage roof visible/accessible from outside our window.

Mr. FixIt and I look at each other and crack up, "You said you heard him at 4:30?!"
"Uh, yeah."
"So he's probably been out there on the roof in the wind and rain since then?"
"Uh, yeah. Stupid cat."
Both of us crack up hysterically as I opened the window and let my poor nitwit cat back in to warmth.
Elwood didn't appear to be any worse for wear. A little cold and wet, but he was fine. He followed my downstairs to fresh food and a big drink of water. Apparently screaming outside for 4 hours makes you thirsty. whoops.

We never did figure out how he got on the roof, but he hasn't been found up there since. Lesson learned...the cold, rainy, lonely way. Poor kitty.

Little Jake

The past few nights have been a mix of torture and hilarity. Torture as in being brought from a deep sleep by "BEEP....BEEP, BEEP....BEEP....BEEP, BEEP" after finally achieving slumber having spent the first three hours exhausting myself in and out of near-sleep twitching and jumping like I had ants crawling over my skin. The unrest due to either an afternoon of sitting in the car and/or forgetting my meds- either way, when I was jolted out of the bed by the loudly squealing series of beeps, I was simultaneously concerned and ticked off. Grab a robe and slowly work my way toward the sound, ok now the noise is coming in to focus, it's coming from the Pit- the noise is my Dell laptop. I can see the glimmer of screen lighting the room but a big shadow looming in front- what the??? Very loud 'Me-OOOW' and more beeping. You dipshit cat- ugh!! He had been sleeping then apparently grooming himself on my open laptop which I DID shut down before I went to bed, but I never closed the lid. I haven't the lid of that machine for over 6 years, unless it's in my bag, which is rare. Nice one of the cats decided it's a suitable place for a nap and a bath, in doing so he not only turned it ON, he managed to click "Guest" to log on to windows, then open about 20 windows and boxes including the command prompt, which THANK goodness he didn't manage to hit 'enter' with all the jibberish typed in the run line. The beeping was from the computer asking for password to come out of screensaver. He'd typed enough letters that it filled the "user" name box and was denying him entry. Little monster Jake.

Bad enough it happened two nights ago. It happened again last night. DUH, someone slap me. Though it didn't take me as long to figure out the beeping noises the second time, it still made me grumble at first but laugh as I rescued my computer from an in-progress kitty bath. Mr. FixIt laughed as I returned to bed, "Did you shut the lid this time?"
"Yes, shut up. How about some cold feet on your butt!?" as he chuckles and rolls over.

I assume Jake was enjoying the warm surface of my keyboard. Then again, the laptop is the only clean level surface in the Pit that won't avalanche if a gnat breathes heavily in the vicinity. Maybe I need to work on that this evening. Or maybe I'll just close the laptop lid and worry about the Pit tomorrow. :-D

ETA: If anyone needs their computer clock adjusted or wireless card enable/disabled, I'll send Jake right over. After writing this post on the Mac, I fired up the Dell and realized he ALSO managed to disable my wireless card, change my clock to a day ahead and somehow disconnect my USB keyboard. Nice.

There goes summer!

October already?! Six+ weeks MIA. Wow, I'm seriously slack around here! If this was fairy tale land, I could say my house is spic-n-span, my laundry is all caught up, and you can see floor and desk surface in The Pit from my absence, but alas it is not and you can't. OH WELL- what else would I do if I didn't have these daily things to keep slogging away at? Sit in the sun and eat bon bons?? HA! Not happening. Temps have dropped significantly and my butt doesn't need any help in the widening department. ;-P

Something I did accomplish was finally changing my bedroom around. I drug out the huge headboard/footboard to use a simple bed frame instead. That frees up about 8 inches in width and 10 inches head to foot from the bed in our small bedroom. Amazing the difference those few inches make! Also jockeyed things around to put Mark's side of the bed towards the window (cold side) of the room and swapped dressers to opposite walls. We actually have FLOOR space in there now, though probably the only one using that space will be my baskets of laundry waiting to be folded and the dog to stretch out at night. She loves the space- now if I don't break my neck tripping over her in the middle of the night! If our room didn't have its own door to the bathroom, I'd swapped rooms with B as her bedroom is bigger than ours, but I do like handy dandy bathroom access. No, I'm not spoiled at all. Oh, final touch of the bedroom swap-a-roo was putting my heated mattress pad back on the bed and dragging out my heavy down comforter- JUST in time as temps dipped to near freezing last night. Ahhh, nothing like hitting the hay in an already warm comfy bed!

Ok, there I've blogged. Bored you with insignificant details of my absence. I'm alive. The scary part of my absence?? I started to hand write a journal...that lasted three whole days and my handwriting sucks after all these years of typing. Didn't take long to ditch THAT idea.