Catz
There’s this super spazzy black cat that’s been hanging around the house. We call him “Boyfriend Cat” because we like to pretend he’s Annabelle’s boyfriend (even though she’d probably murder him if she got the chance).
He’s got a very high voice and just goes “MEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEW!” when he sees you. I’m not sure if he’s someone’s cat or not—he’s not super skinny, but he pigs out like he hasn’t had food in days and he doesn’t have a collar.
Pics!
Pretty boy.
(Cater)Pillars of Society
Look at these freaking caterpillars. They look like fluff parties. I want to roll in them.*
(Pictures from here and here, respectively)
These are asp caterpillars (or puss caterpillars) and they grow up to look like these badass moths (flannel moths, they’re called):
(Pic from here)
And I found a video! Tell me this isn’t the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s like a sentient cotton ball.
I love these. They’re Donald Trump in insect form.
*Not a good idea. Their soft-looking coats are actually a ton of spines full of skin-irritating venom.
So we saw Wilford Brimley in bunny form at the fair.
DIABEETIS-BEETIS-BEETIS-BEETIS-BEETIS-BEETIS-BEETIS
Oh gross
Invincible bug attack!
So what is it with me and random insect infestations? I try to be super careful about leaving nasty-smelling stuff around with my anosmia and all. And half the time it hasn’t even been my fault (the flies in the house, the fruit flies in Van, the mice (even though those aren’t insects, shut up, they were crawling up out of the floor)).
So now I’ve had these itty bitty moth-like creatures living in my sink drain for about half a week. Their population had grown to the point where about 20 or so would fly up out of the drain whenever I turned the water on, so something had to be done.
Using an old mascara wand and fighting off the warrior bugs sent out to deter me from destroying their little nest, I successfully remove a freakishly large wad of hair (not mine—it was blonde) from the sink. This causes like 100 more bugs to flip out and start flying around my bathroom like little fighter jets, so I re-plug the sink with a paper towel while I go downstairs in search of bleach. I couldn’t find any, so I used the next best thing: Windex. Which apparently gives this particular species of bug super powers. I poured a cup or so down the drain and the mightiest of the winged things (like 100 more of them) rose up in a frenzied death-driven kamikaze mission to take me out. Which was fun, especially considering I had nothing to swat them with but the bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels.
So I also dumped a bunch of nail polish remover down there and then plugged the drain back up with a paper towel. Then I killed as many of the ones still flying around as I could, shut my bathroom door, plugged the bottom draft thingy with a towel, and haven’t been back in there since.
Fun and exciting times.
In This Blog: Claudia vs. Dog
OW.
So this afternoon I went walking, as I am wont to do. I walked until I hit the dead end of the main drag around here (it certainly screams “Middle of Nowhere” when the main drag dead ends, haha), then went down a different road for about five miles before turning around to get back home. On the way back, walking on the opposite side of the road, I came across a two-foot-long skinny metal rod thingy that had a hooked end. Me being me, I picked it up and started playing with it and decided to take it home with me.
On my way back I turned back onto the main drag near its dead end. A lot of people (like 90% of them) keep dogs around here, and the vast majority of them spaz out and bark at passers-by from within their fenced yards. So imagine my surprise when I catch a loose dog out of the corner of my eye as it jaunts up to me, curious as to why I was walking down the street.
It seemed friendly enough and was wagging its tail, so I said “hello, doggie!” as I continued walking by. It then proceeded to flip out. All of a sudden it started growling and barking and getting real aggressive. It didn’t do anything to me at first, so I kept walking (albeit a bit more cautiously), hoping that it would return to its yard. Then it grabbed my ankle, shaking and pulling, trying to take me down. Which it would have done had I been any smaller or the dog any bigger.
Seriously, it was ready to critically injure me.
So I yank my ankle free and turn around, holding the metal rod out (finally remembering I had it) as menacingly as possible, trying to just get the dog to back down. As slowly as I was backing up to get out of its territory (wherever he deemed that to be; he had followed me already past the property to which I thought he belonged), the dog was still flipping out, lurching at me, growling, barking, ready to bite me again. The only thing that was staving him off was my swinging of the metal rod. I don’t know what would have happened had I not picked that up and carried it with me.
And of course there was no traffic on the road and no one was out in their yards, so there would be no witnesses had that dog decided to take me down. As it was, we had a good 10 minutes of me trying to scare it off with the rod and it aggressively pursuing me as best it could with a metal rod swinging in front of its face.
Not a fun time.
Luckily there were no bite marks or anything; he tore the bottom of my pants up pretty good, but that’s about it. It hurts to walk right now, but I don’t think it’ll hurt much tomorrow.
Exciting times in Arizona, am I right?
SKUNK ENCOUNTER!
So I went to the rec center late this evening, walked to WinCo for broccoli and lettuce, and got home finally around 11:30 or so (I take forever in the grocery store, I have issues). I go around back ‘cause my dad’s gone and the front door is always locked. Not expecting any creatures in the backyard, I turn the corner and surprise! Five skunks just chilling on the concrete. I must have startled them, ‘cause they all turned sharply and stuck their tails in the air like they were ready to spray. Not wanting to deal with the hilarity that would be me getting sprayed by skunks, I very slowly backed away until I was back around the corner from them. Since I couldn’t get in the front door, I picked up a chunk of bark and tossed it in their general direction, hoping to scare them away from the back door long enough for me to get inside.
It worked. And now all is well.
I honestly don’t know what I’d do if I got sprayed by a skunk. The scent does nothing to me, even in such close contact (our idiot dog got sprayed a few years back and I had to clean her), so I’d have to find a neighbor or some kind soul willing to odor test me to make sure I could get all the stink off.
Very glad that didn’t happen, haha.
More Pictures
I found some more pics while I was packing this afternoon. Therefore I shall share them.
This is me with my cat Wooder.
This is an older me with an older Wooder. Note the drawing on the wall. My mom let me draw and write all over the walls in my room when we lived in Troy. How awesome is that?
This is my dad with Wooder. I don’t know if I was alive yet.
Me with Brutus (the black one) and Lena, siblings from a litter from my mom’s older cat, Gracie. Haha, I have so much paint on my pants. And the cats are like let me go, weirdo.
I was a cat lady from birth.
RIP
We had to put our cat Romeo to sleep today. We found him in the shade of a bush, unable to move—we think he had a stroke. So my mom held him and I drove us to the vet where we put him down.
Yeah.
RIP Romers, we love you!
Today’s song: Everyone by Socialburn
Hey you rowdy kids, get off my lawn!
And by “lawn” I mean “balcony.”
And by “kids” I mean “pigeons.”
And by “rowdy” I mean “horny.”
12:15 PM:
Lady Pigeon lands on balcony railing, surveys the pleasant cool night.
12:16 PM:
Male Pigeon A lands next to her with obvious sexual intent.
12:16:30 PM:
Male Pigeon B lands on other side of female with same intent as Male Pigeon A.
12:16:31 PM:
Male Pigeon A disapproves of Male Pigeon B and puffs out his chest dramatically.
12:17 PM – 12:20 PM:
[Incessant angry cooing]
12:21 PM:
Male Pigeon A has had enough and flies over to Male Pigeon B’s side of Lady Pigeon.
12: 21 PM – 12:30 PM:
Male Pigeons A and B proceed to peck the crap out of each other.
12:31 PM:
Pigeon B has had enough of this nonsense and flies away, defeated.
12:31:30 PM:
Pigeon A does victory prance along metal railing.
12:32 PM – 12:40 PM
BOW-CHICKA-WOW-WOW!
Eight minutes of glorious, noisy, feathery pigeon sex.
The worst part is that I had my balcony door wide open for all of this; I didn’t want to close it for fear of interrupting them, ‘cause they might have been just startled enough to panic and fly in here. Angry sex-interrupted pigeons are probably the last things I need right now. I also would have shouted at them to get a room, but that’d probably cause them to fly in here, too. “Screw you, lady, I just pigeon-pecked the hell out of that other dude, now I’m GETTIN’ IT ON!!!”
I’ve never seen pigeons out so late. I guess horniness knows no time.
I also saw two squirrels getting down in a trash can this afternoon.
Spring has arrived in Vancouver.
Today’s song: Wavin’ Flag by K’naan
Lord of the Fly Paper
Oh my god, there are SO MANY FLIES IN THIS HOUSE, and we have no idea where they’re coming from.
Seriously, it’s not like we ever open the door unless one of us is going to/coming from work or Aaron is going on a Jack-in-the-Box run.
The flies must be having a massive orgy somewhere in the house to create so many damn baby flies…I must have killed 50 today, I’m not exaggerating. It’s kinda grossing me out.
And this species disappoints me yet again
Well this is about the most disturbing thing ever.
Albatross are beautiful birds.
Let’s see what else we can fuck up, shall we?
We are slowly disposing of Algernon’s family?
So, uh…
Tonight we killed a few more mice. And by a few, I mean eight. I guess it was some sort of kamikaze finale for Algernon’s family. Or something. They were like dive-bombing the sticky traps. It was really weird.
OH AND THERE WAS ONE IN THE MICROWAVE WHAT THE FUCK.
Seriously. I guess the microwave was left partially open and Michael opened it all the way and hey, guess what? A mouse.
This house is great.
We have disposed of Algernon!
HA!
We caught Algernon tonight. Finally. That freaking mouse has caused all sorts of problems. Also, since we finally replaced the giant filter on the heating vent (apparently it was a health hazard the way we had it), I just cut a chunk out of the old filter and plugged up the mouse hole with it.
Flapflapflapflapflapflapflapflapflapflap
So we have a new roommate in our house.
We named him Algernon.
Because he’s a FREAKING MOUSE.
Yeah, he chewed up through the carpet in my room and now he’s wandering around our house.
Fun times.
The Butterfly Effect…will KILL you!
This is the funniest site ever. Am I a bad person for laughing at these people? Actually, wait on that…let me show you what some of the posts are here…
Some of the titles of the threads of the “Member Introductions” section:
“They control my life”
“Hi, my name’s Liz. And, well, I’m a freak!”
“Death to all Moths…”
“hello my name is jamie, and i’m sooo glad im not insane!” I could debate you on that one.
“I’m Scott and I fear butterflies more than death itself”
Responses to the thread “How do you react if a butterfly comes too close?”:
“Of course if i’m in an open space i am totally vigilant and watching for every flutter of leaves etc incase they might be butterflies so i can bolt in the opposite direction.”
“I flail around like a hooked fish, trying to bat the thing away without touching it (ewwww). I’ll also curse at it as well.”
“oh yea it’s uncontrollable when I see one coming at me too. People are always like ‘how do you see every single one!’”
“Why do they chase US?”
The “Elaborate and Impractical Ways To Get Rid of Moths” thread…
“One word- FLAMETHROWER”
“i find that frantic flapping of a wet towel works wonders (but you have to TRY at least to stay calm enough that the frantic flapping doesn’t break everything in the room !) and then when they get all wrapped up in that you can stomp on it and put it in a bucket of water (just to make sure the thing is dead you know). my adreneline normally runs out at that point and i have to get someone else to get rid of the towel.”
There was this whole long post about a guy who lured moths to their deaths by putting a light behind the whirring blades of a fan (where the hell is PETA?).
And then there were the wonders of the “Horror Stories” section. I could not stop laughing at some of these. Really.
“One day I was just watching some TV, and I had a nice glass of milk.
Without paying attention, I took a sip.. There was something in the milk… I actually took it between my teeth to feel what it was… Then I spit it out.
OH MY GOD IT WAS A MOTH!!!” Well, okay, I admit that’d be creepy.
“Lunesta commercial…SCARY! I lost sleep over this!” Oh. That’s ironic.
“Used my 2 year old as a shield!” You should not be reproducing!
OMG ONE JUST LANDED ON ME!!! Oh good lord, call the fire department!
“A bum almost stole my car because of a moth” A must-read. Someone should adapt this into a novel.
“Moth in the car when driving alone – I actually found screaming reduced tension somewhat.” There’s a MOTH IN THE CAR. For god’s sake, it’s a winged bug, not Hannibal Lecter!
I seriously laughed for like an hour over this. Rob, Matt, you got some of this over Messenger, but it was a lot more in person.
Hahaha, yeah, I’m a horrible person.
Friends with fins
And my third attempt at keeping a living creature alive on my own is…another fish!
Actually, it’s two fish! And they’re celestial goldfish, which mean they look like this.
And they’re freaking awesome!
And I can’t stop using exclamation points!!
Anyways, on to more serious business: what the world should I name these guys? Possible options I’ve thought of so far include:
~Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
~Coefficient Alpha and Chi Square (tests and measurements stuff, don’t ask)
~Rousseau and Voltaire
~Plato and Socrates
~Pearson R and Spearman’s Rho (more tests and measurement stuff)
~Lewis and Clark
~Freud and Jung
Help me name my ichthyoids!
It’s a title that goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and…
My beta died like 6 months ago and I’m feeling the loss now. So I’ve decided I’m going to get a new fish for dorm room companionship. A goldfish. One of those bug-eyed ones. That will rock. I shall name him “Bug-Eye” or something equally as awesome.
“Plato” is also an option.
I’m going to have fun with this.
Henry David Thoreau, get out of my pool!
Haha, my cat. She just noticed this picture we’ve had sitting on a shelf for over three years. She’s totally staring that kitten down!
Yeah, I have nothing else today. It’s Saturday, people, what do you want from me?!
My fish has arrived!
Hurrah! I have a beta. I bought him a pretty tank and a pretty plant. He’s pretty.
I decided to name him Davis Love III, after the golfer Davis Love III.
Cause he’s my favorite golfer.
Isn’t that sad? I have a favorite golfer.
I’m going to stop talking now.
Ner-her…I need a fish
So I’ve decided that, at some point, I shall purchase some sort of fish and care for it and love it and keep it in my dorm room for company. That is, if I can find the time to make a Wal-Mart run to get said fish.
Anyways, I have some names picked out, but I don’t know which one to go for. Suggestions welcome!
Names for fishy fish of happiness and joy:
1) Cup Deja-vu. I thought of this name awhile back, and I think it sounds really cool. Say it out loud: “Cup Deja-Vu”. It makes people stop and think, “what the crap did she just say the fish’s name was?”
2) Freud. Self-explanatory. For the mother-burdened fish of the group.
3) Narcissus. Again, self-explanatory. I’ll name him this if he’s all like, “hell yes…pick me ’cause I rock!” when I see him at the store.
4) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Only if I get two fish. Or a fish and a snail. That would rock.
Okay, that’s all I can think of right now. I’ll add more as they come to me.
Eigenblogger 
