Crafty Kid

Britt came through the office and started digging through her basket of craft supplies. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Looking for clues!" she replied.

Then she thrust a handful of pipecleaners in my face and asked what they were. I told her they were pipecleaners. "Uh-uh," she said, "they're buckaroos!"

She took off with sheets of construction paper, googly eyes and other assorted items, then came back and started digging again. "Now what are you doing?" "I'm looking for more clues!"

Clues? Buckaroos? Beats the hell outta me.

*****

She came hopping in from the backyard, pointed somewhere near her ankle and wailed, "I broke my bone! It very hurts!" "Your bone? You mean your foot?" "No, right here!" "You broke your leg?" "No, here!" "You broke your ankle?" "No, I broke my bone!" "Well, is it still broke?" "No," she said, and hopped back outside again.

*****

She watched me fixing some cheese nuggets for her lunch, and said, "I might need some chopsticks for those." Where she came up with the idea, I have no clue. After that, she started hoarding corndog sticks and using them as makeshift chopsticks -- which basically consists of trying various handholds while occasionally stabbing bits of food so she can shove them into her mouth.

*****

Trying to convince me she needed to take a bath, on a night when she didn't really need to take a bath: "But I'm so stink! I smell like a puppy!"

*****

Today she wandered up and burped at me. She said, "I burpeded. Like a catfish." And then she wandered away again.

*****

It may be time for a refresher course on good manners but, holy crap, this kid cracks me up.

Good News/Bad News

Good news: I cleaning up my office and found the software CD for the video camera! I can post videos on my blog again!

Bad news: It's Windows-compatible only, and I have a Mac.

Good news: I have Parallels, so I can run Windows programs on my Mac!

Bad news: I installed the video software, and now Parallels won't work. It says there's a problem with the driver.

So now I have to reinstall the driver. Which means I have to find my Parallels software. Somewhere. Wherever it got off to.

Faaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Unpleasant Realities

As soon as the weather turned cold, our garage was invaded by mice. Mikey went and bought a set of four mousetraps, which were duly baited with Velveeta and set out at strategic points around the garage.

Mikey disposed of the first two victims by winding an entire roll of paper towels around each hand, then carefully picking up the mousetrap and dropping the whole thing -- mouse and trap -- into the trash. The next two mice were caught while he was at work the next day. I released their tiny corpses into the trash can, then rebaited the traps and set them out again. And promptly caught two more mice, which I disposed of in the same manner.

When Mikey came home from work, I reported our tally of six dead mice so far. Smart guy that he is, he quickly worked out the math: 4 traps + 6 dead mice = he wasn't eating any food prepared by my contaminated hands, so I got out of cooking dinner that night. Wheee!

Anyway, the two remaining traps sat in the garage, rebaited but untripped, for the past three or four weeks -- until two days ago.

Now, Britt is not allowed in the garage because it defeats the whole purpose of smoking out there, which is to keep the smoke away from her, and also because it's a few minutes of blessed peace. But, once she learned how to open the door, she kept trying to come and hang out with us in the smoke hole -- until Mikey convinced her there were snakes in the garage. Since then her garage visiting has been limited to popping her head out the door and attempting to carry on conversations until she gets yelled at to shut the door.

And so, two days ago, she popped her head out and spotted a dead mouse in the trap by the door. In her little world, mice are cute cartoon creatures named Jerry and Mickey, and she obviously had trouble reconciling what she saw since she's been chattering about it nonstop ever since. "He has a tail. Did you see his tail?" "The trap got him? Did it get him?" "He died dead! The trap killed him?" "He ate the cheese and the trap went like this!" (making trap-snapping motion with her hands).

Last night I was fixin' to fry up some steaks for dinner when Britt came ambling over. Seeing the steaks, she yelled, "Eeeew! Fish! I don't like fish!" I explained to her that it wasn't fish, it was beef, and she asked "What's beef?" So I said, "It comes from a cow." And immediately kicked myself, because I wasn't ready to go there. "A cow?" she said doubtfully. She stood there thinking and then said, "A cow is made of those?" "Uhhhhmmmm...." said I, because cows are still cute cartoon creatures in her little world. Finally, she figured out the answer. "His body musta broke." And then she wandered off and left me trying to stifle a fit of laughter.

Anyway, the mouse is still out there in the trap. (Perhaps this is why Britt keeps talking about it? Ya think?) I must've caught the contamination oogies from Mikey because we're outwaiting each other to see who will give in first and throw it out. Mercifully, it's been cold out so it hasn't started to stink yet. But I ain't touching the damned thing.

Baby Lily

Just cute as a button!













I could nibble on those sweet little drumsticks all day long!

I Ba-Rocked the vote today!

So did Bridgie.

Did you?

Pretty Kitty

Okay, I slacked off and didn't take a whole lot of pictures last night. Sue me. I'm old and it's like six miles between houses that have their porch lights on and I told Mikey we're driving instead of walking next Halloween.

I took two pictures, to be exact:



Britt got spooked by this motion-activated dude; she just stood there staring at him until I finally told her to move it along.



Anyway, we're headed to Wichita to see Baby Lily in the morning and, since there won't be any hiking involved, I promise to take lots and lots of pictures.