Little Odd Me

the stinkiferous adventures of Fu Kitty.

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 07:20:37 -0600

Why do I feel so hungover when I didn't actually drink anything last night? I sure was acting drunk, though. :P

I just had to close the back door. I smelled the cat arrive. She's an SEC (Someone Else's Cat) but we feed her and she sometimes spends 20 hours of the day hanging out on our back porch.

Kitty ~ The presidents of the united states of america

Her name is Fu Kitty, sometimes Fu Fu. It's short for....um.... well have a listen to the song, and you might work it out. Hint: It's a three-word name that ends with "Kitty". Extra hint: You might not want to play it around people who don't want to be hearing the "F" word.

Of course, the sanitized versions of her name come out when children are present, and it's useless to call her - she's almost completely deaf. It's become a fond greeting as we exit our back door: "Oh! F*** you, kitty!" - followed closely but much petting and loving on her head.

I named her. No, I am not ashamed.

Actually our neighbor said her name is Snowflake, and she technically belongs to the people up the road. But they don't take particularly good care of her - our neighbor has to rescue her with frostbitten paws and even ears every winter. So I will call her what I like. She's so affectionate... unfortunately.

See: I was heading out the door for work at five thirty Thursday morning. When I got out of bed at five twenty, all smug that my stuff was all laid out and it would only take ten minutes to get ready for work, my Love roused from his slumber enough to mumble: "The skunk's been busy." It was true, the skunk had been, well - skunking. It was worse in the living room. But the scent had been so lodged in my nostrils that I didn't really even notice until I was out in the car and on my way. I stank. All the living room windows had been open, and the smell had permeated everything. Including my clothes for the job interview P and I had for work that day. On my only pair of work interview pants and all. Bah!! So the morning was spent picking P up and coming back to my house, changing, putting all relevant clothes in the washer, leaving so we didn't pick up the smell in our current clothes, coming back and putting clothes in the dryer, leaving while they dried, and coming back to pick up dry clothes and just make it to the interview in time. We got the job, so I guess it was all worth it.

The smell in the living room is dying down today. I am thinking of washing all washable fabrics - tablecloth, futon cover, even the cushions. All of which were only washed last week before our guests came. I am thinking I might sprinkle some oxygen bleach powder on our living room's white carpet and see if that helps the smell there. We have no curtains, so that's not an issue. Pat down our computer chairs with detergent and rinse and dry. Best I can do, I think.

However, there's Fu Kitty. She reeks. I think she was the recipient of the skunking. My Love thinks she's rolling where-ever the spraying first happened. Do cats do things like that? I thought only dogs did. My theory is that she just seems to smell worse because the house is smelling better now.

Anyhow, she needs to be de-skunked today. So, when my Love gets up I am pulling down the attic stairs, rescuing one of our storage tubs, taking it into the yard and filling it with tepid soapy water. Then I am getting Fu Kitty from the back steps, slathering her in de-skunking formula, trying to hold her for ten minutes to let it do its work (I know, wish me luck) then slathering her in tomato soup and letting that stay on for another ten minutes (she can lick this away to her hearts content, I guess, but I am worried she might just run away. lol). Yes she's white and may end up pinkish orange because of the soup. Oh well, guess that's the price you pay. We have guests coming over tonight and love to sit on our back steps and chat, but a skunky cat ain't gonna help the social situation.

A pink kitty, on the other hand, might be cute.

Did a revision of my Gnomicidal Maniac shirt. I will be looking for shirt printers today.

Gnomicidal maniac (mark 2)

Other things to do today:

- tidy up all the stuff I just dumped around the place after work the last few days

- move the bedroom back to the large room. We got rid of the pong table to the garage and will set it up in there.

- vacuum the whole house. I HATE white carpet. Bloody fricking white carpet. What was the landlord thinking?

- deal with the washing of living room things.

- clean up the kitchen a bit

- clean out the dishwasher filter and do a load of washing.

- finish putting up the wire around the garden (invoves four lots of cutting the wire and stapling it to stakes. Bah). Plant tomato seeds. Water the lettuce and spinach and herbs that are coming up. Finish the door to the garden area and add it. Take all the pots from the back porch and put them in there. Cut withes from the forsythia to form an arching roof from the garden stakes. Add deer fencing to the outside and over the top at my leisure.

- clean out the car (it's starting to look like a trash heap, and it's all my stuff too)

- check that the last joke I made last night with a new friend wasn't too too too horrible.

- find a pond and go swimming

- play Vampire: The Masquerade with friends tonight

Of course I am not doing all this myself. My Love will help. His last job just finished, his new one doesn't start for a few weeks. He's getting enough pay to cover his half of the household rent and expenses. I am nearly getting enough to pay the whole rent and groceries myself, so I think we are doing ok financially right now. It would be nice to make some of the savings back that we spent in the last year when I couldn't work, though.

On that note, I should go and get started. Here's a photo from the other day:

Dawn in the woods

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Gnomicidal Maniac

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:49:35 -0600

T-shirt design:

Gnomicidal maniac

I think I need a smidgen more of white space at the top, and move the words down just a tad. Considering a thin black border for either the photo or the photo-and-words. But... you get the idea. What do you think?

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Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:24:55 -0600

Opalescent Gold

Annoyed at myself. I am supposed to be playing croquet right now and having sangrias. Damnit. But about half an hour ago I just didn't feel like it. Actually I still don't.... not the croquet. I feel frumpy and kind of cranky, and overworked. I've had a busy day. What I am sad about missing is the sangrias and the socializing.

However, this does give me the opportunity to finish off the housework and gardening.

Hurrah. Oh... hurrah.

Silvered Frost

Except - I just did my nails up all pretty for socializing, and now I am going to wreck them. So I am going to sit here and sulk for a bit, and work on an entry I was writing earlier to update on everything. Then I am going to take my pretty little hands out into the garden and work some more on digging my trench around my garden to sink the wire into it. I have about an hour and a half of sunlight, who knows if I work hard, I might get my fence up tonight.

Not yet, though, I am going to upload some photos, which shall make a bit more sense if you read down and read the entry that I was writing earlier, but didn't save because I prioritized getting ready to go out instead.

***(earlier entry)***

Feeling busy.

Blue Frost

I worked a couple of long days Thursday and Friday. Got annoyed by late coworkers. Penance for them starts tomorrow, tonight I am calling the worker who is relieving me tomorrow and asking her to pick Patty up from my place at the end of work, as my Love is picking up his daughter. That way she also knows where my place is to pick up Patty in the future when she is late next.

Saturday I went to Block Island with my new friend Janet who I met off of okcupid.com a few weeks ago. It was a hideously expensive day trip, but a ton of fun. Janet hadn't been on a bicycle since childhood, and we got a tandem and rode right around the whole island. I went swimming and got a couple of good photos and a whole lot of ok photos too. Overall it wasn't a good day for photography, but I got an awesome shot of a tall ship sailing near the ferry, which the haze actually enhanced, as far as I could see in the camera.

Climbing Frost

I got home at ten pm. The next morning my Love and I did a full clean up of the house for our arriving guests from Colorado. They were bringing their daughter who turned two the next day, and grandma as well. So we had a fun time with them and a very full house, as Paul came over to visit with them too and brought the dog he was dogsitting.

Unfortunately, I downloaded the card in the least labor intensive way and deleted the card after downloading without checking the pictures. I didn't realize my RAW images wouldn't download that way and I lost all my best Block Island photos, including all the tall ship ones. I was SO annoyed with myself for a few minutes, but... they were gone and there was no point being upset after that. I went up in the attic and sorted a couple of boxes of stuff I wanted to sort, and got over it.

Frost Filigree

I got great photos of our friends. I am back in a photo taking and editing mood, and I am about half way through editing the photos for them. Grandma bought some of my photos from me, and offered to pay for some of the ones I took with her and her grandbaby too. They stayed overnight and we had a lot of playing of music (four musicians in the house) and lots of playing of Boggle. We had a walk in the woods the next day and they left before lunch. The rest of the day was recovery for me, and the beginning of the cleanup. Still have some vacuuming to do today.

Frost Dragon

I sold two photos on etsy on the weekend too. I have moved down to selling cheap 5x7 prints there as my standard size, and am selling more now. It's a much better size for the impulse buy. I am feeling like I have a good formula going for that site. Also, it's cheap to keep my whole store in stock, though I need to do a stocktake and a restock of all the ones I sold recently, and use the money I made to get a few more things up in my store and in stock.

I also got my frost photos into stock in 4x6 prints with a free shutterfly order and I am going to get the full series up on my etsy store. I just finished putting in an order for my frost photo notecard set, which I hope will sell well as a regular card set as well as for Christmas cards. I will put half the profits from those back into printing card sets of other photos. The photos in the cards are the ones I have included in this entry. I think they will sell well, at least at fairs. I haven't planned any fairs yet - I think I am going to try out the local flea market soon, and also the monthly sidewalk sale in a nearby town.

Silvered Frost 2

I had a lot of stress recently, but I am feeling back on an even keel now. My Love has helped a ton with that, and I am so grateful that I have him in my life. He's just so fricking wonderful.

16.30. Croquet and sangria with V & C from down the road in two hours. Vacuuming and clothes washing to do before then. More photo editing - I want to get that task finished before I go, because I know I won't get anything done after croquet and sangrias, because we will while away the evening on their patio just chatting as we do at least once a week these days.

Wow. Just caught up with a friend on yahoo chat I haven't talked to for ages. Got to talk about some of the stuff that has gone on these last few weeks. There were details I just wouldn't talk to her about, though. I am starting to be very careful about what is said online. Of course that means that it is five fifteen now, and I have things to do and I haven't even attached the photos as I said I would.

***

So that's it. I have no more excuses, and now I only have an hour to work on the garden, which suits me just fine. I already have my seeds in, so in a few days I need to have my groundhog protection in place. I have mustard spinach, romaine lettuce, basil, dill, cilantro and oregano in place.

Hmmm... anything else I can talk about? I don't think so. Make a list:

- take down the old fence posts and deer fencing from up in the old garden/bamboo patch and take them down to the new garden.

- take the new wire for the fencing down there too.

- finish digging the trench at least one foot down around the garden (two sides done already, this is the stuff that is going to totally trash my fingernails, and I might leave it for last in the hope that I won't have time to do it, hee).

- when it gets dark: finish the clothes washing, vacuum the house, move the bed to its new location, put away the clean dishes

Or.... I could just give myself a break completely and refuse to do anything but watch Star Trek reruns and play Empire Earth all evening. Hee. In any case I am feeling a lot better, which ever path I choose. Maybe a bit of both?

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Garden Mark II

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:23:18 -0600

Well the new garden is on the way. I have laid down cardboard to cover the grass, spent several hours digging topsoil (sifting roots and rocks) and filling in the garden edging I made out of cinder blocks from the old firepit down the back. Today I topped it off with some composted manure and some chicken manure fertilizer. It's now all ready to go.... except:

The Fence.

So, still to go:

* mark out the distances I want the fence to be from the garden. Put in the garden stakes that are forming the fence posts. Put in two for the door I want at the bottom of the garden.

* do something about the grass inside this space, and for about six inches outside of the space. I want to just take a spray bottle of roundup to it, but I know my Love will hate that. Sigh. I guess I will be digging up the grass with the mattock, chipping away carefully at the surface.

* dig a trench between the markers for the fence wire to be sunk into the ground. This should be two feet down, but in a lot of places there is rock in a shorter distance below the ground than that. So I will be digging with the mattock again, trying to tell the difference between the 10000 rocks in each square foot of ground here, and the large base rock that seems to run about a foot below my garden area.

* Put in cross-posts spanning the garden in the middle and at the ends to support the deer fencing.

* Put the deer fencing up around the posts, attach it, and put another length across the top.

*sink the damned wire. I don't know how I am going to keep my fence posts in and dig a trench for the wire as well. I guess if I am careful I can dig around them and still have them standing. I'll just fold up any wire left in the bottom of the trench if the height varies around the garden.

* Fill the trench for the wire back in. Preferably I think I should dig the trench and fill it back in in the same day so that I don't have a messy big pile of dirt hanging around killing the lawn. This means I should leave this project for the weekend. Yay! That was what I was searching for: an excuse to leave this project for the weekend, as I am working the next two days, and have somewhere to go tonight in a couple of hours.

* Last but not least is the door. I still don't know what I am going to do for a damned door. Which means until I solve this problem, I probably need to hold off on doing anything about choosing where to put the door posts in. I do have a couple of aluminum window screens that I could use together for a door. I have some lathes I rescued from a construction site a couple of weeks ago. I guess I will put them across for the frames, and also use them to secure hinges.

I'm taking photos as I go, but I want to put them all up in one hit when I am done with it. Not much other photography going on, I am going to try to go out a bit more hiking and such in the next few weeks, so you can expect a bit more then.

I guess this is my project for the next few days: make the door, put in the corner posts, and maybe dig some of the grass away. Tomorrow I only work a six hour day, but Thurday and Friday I work a full 8 1/2 hours, starting at six am. I am grateful for the extra pay, but... ugh. At least work is only fifteen minutes drive from home, and I am usually up before six anyhow.

One sad thing about work: all the grad students who live in that apartment complex are on holidays, so there are no internet connections available for me - or there weren't last week anyhow. Le sigh. I was just getting used to the fun idea of being able to blog from work. However, if Patty naps I shall now put in some hard work trying to nap also.

It's a hard life, but someone has to live it.

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How could I?

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 14:17:07 -0600

I did consider capturing and relocating our groundhog (the bastard who ate my garden) but I was standing in our hall today watching him munch his way through our flower bed, and... I just don't have the heart!!

I ated your lettucez

How to reconcile this entry with my last one? Lets just say I am a woman of very varied emotions at this point in my life. lol

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R.I.P old garden

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:38:42 -0600

For ten minutes or so it was THE last straw. I seem to be having a few of these lately.

The tantrum lasted from discovering the woodchuck in mid-decimation of my garden, until ten minutes later, while demanding that my Love solve this problem in the two hours we had between when my work ended and we went out to an elegant dinner with friends, and he promptly told me I was being obnoxious. Which probably could have sent me right over the edge, but he knows me too well. I calmed down and took stock of the situation:

1. The woodchuck has sampled bits of everything, and totally decimated the lettuce. He's not going to let anything in there survive.

2. The bamboo growing up all around is making it virtually impossible to put up a wire fence around my deer fencing to keep him out, especially as I should dig this wire fencing two feet into the ground first.

3. My Love is right, I made the garden area too big to manage easily. I did this partially because I included the chicken coop in the area so that the chickens could be let out for supervised feeding in the garden. (No we don't have chickens yet, I haven't had time to finish the coop).

4. I am spending an hour or so every second day just devoted to bamboo pulling within the garden, let alone dealing with the towering forest of bamboo that is actually shading my garden patch for a lot of the day. Yes my MIL was right, it is the best spot in the garden area for the garden, but the bamboo is making it impossible in so many ways.

5. The plants were already mostly gone. The salvageable ones were going to go as soon as we left for our dinner, or at least today.

So:

- I dug up the salvageable plants, except the remaining lettuce and spinach, I'll just reseed those. This morning I will go up before work and pick what remains of them and put it in the fridge.

- I put the plants in pots with earth and put them on the back porch, where they may get eaten by something else, but at least they have a chance.

- I emailed the landlord to ask him if we could dig up part of our back lawn to make a garden. He got back to me this morning with a yes. :)

- So this weekend will be spent digging a new garden patch. I think I might even rent a rotary hoe for the job, since I am damn tired of digging up a garden patch myself. It's on the opposite end of the property, and I can't see myself lugging stones all the way down there... alright, you know I will. I just got an extra day of work given to me for July, though, and as soon as it is confirmed, I might spend a bit of my wages for that day just getting some timber edging for the garden, though. Much easier to manage weeds that way. The stones can come down to the fire pit area to create seats and firepit edging and such.

Now the only question that remains is - what to do about the lawn in that area? I need to get rid of the grass, and I know my Love will never approve of me using roundup to kill it before planting our veggies. I guess it's just a case of hacking it all out with a spade.

***

In other news, I made an etsy sale last night! Yay!

Dragonfly on Orange Lichen

Anyhow, I have to leave for work in about half an hour. Time to go pick what remains of my lettuce and spinach and get to it. Have a great day, everyone.

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Download?

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:45:49 -0600

Is it possible to download my vox blog onto my computer? If so, I certainly can't work out how.

If not, what other blogging/diary sites are there online that have the capacity to be downloaded without a whole lot of cut and paste? I am thinking of trying to amalgamate all my diaries from the last four years into one diary, but obviously I want one that can be backed up without a whole lot of cutting and pasting.

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Queen of understatement

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:43:46 -0600

I sat on the back porch with my Love. We were talking about our new friends from down the road. "They haven't really lead at all a typical life" I said.

He cocked an eyebrow and said I was remarkably observant.

I mused for a moment "I haven't really had a typical life either."

He grinned and kissed my neck "Sometimes, hun, you are the queen of understatement."

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Page

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:17:59 -0600

Barn tryptich

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Have grackle, will still travel.

nobody@vox.com(Little Odd Me) — Sat, 17 May 2008 07:01:42 -0600

Paul brought an azure grackle with him when he came last night. It had been hit by a car. It has a droopy wing, but doesn't seem in any pain - it just can't fly. I am judging the pain on the fact that it doesn't try to peck me or even struggle when I move the wing to examine it. We have the number of a bird person here who can take it on Monday.

We were supposed to go to Vermont last night to pick up Pauls car. I got tomorrow off of work so that I could do it, and I love having two days in a row off. We didn't go, though. Paul did his usual angst-ridden dithering about when we should go, and then there is the whole issue with the grackle. I was having the period from hell last night, and so I said I would stay home and take care of the bird.

This morning the sun is out and it's shaping up to be a beautiful day. I wonder if I should change my mind and pass the bird off to Paul's housemates as originally planned, and just go have this overnighter. Last night I was feeling a bit depressed about it, I know the guys often do things efficiently, and I was worried we would go up this morning, stay a couple of hours and come home in the dark. It doesn't look as if it will be that way, though. I think they will stay overnight. I look out at the glorious morning here, and think that sheesh, if tomorrow morning is at all like that, I will regret not being out on a kayak in the middle of a lake for the dawn tomorrow.

Alright. Decided. We've got to swing by and pick Paul up anyhow - I'll call him first so he can arrange for his housemates to take care of the bird. I have half an hour to get ready. Eeeeeek!

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Little Odd Me

the stinkiferous adventures of Fu Kitty.

Gnomicidal Maniac

Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

Garden Mark II

How *could* I?

R.I.P old garden

Download?

Queen of understatement

Page

Have grackle, will still travel.

How could I?