Monthly Archives: May 2007

May31

Gross.

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Gross.

It’s 11:13 p.m. on Thursday and I’m sitting at Joey’s parents house using their computer to check emails and whatnot. We just spent all day in Ankeny with friends and are really tired. I was just about ready to close up shop and go to bed (broken toe and all) when I heard a strange, strange sound coming from the bathroom.

Sounded like splashing. Loud splashing.

Joey’s parents have this ginormous Border Collie (well, I think she’s ginormous; but then I’m short) with a really long nose. As I was hearing this splashing sound I was thinking, “Now, what could that be? Everyone’s either asleep or downstairs…”

And then I realized what it was. It was the dog drinking out of the toilet.

The very same dog that sticks her nose in my lap and tries to get me to pet her. Who attempts to lick me (but is usually thwarted because I thump her with a pillow). Who sticks my dog’s head in her mouth when they’re playing.

Ew.

And just then, the splashing sound stopped and Midnight (aforementioned long-snouted Border Collie) came prancing out of the bathroom, licking her chops.

Ew.

I’m so glad Henry can’t even come close to drinking out of the toilet. If he did…well, I don’t know what I’d do, but I’d do something.

Ew.

May29

I Broke My Toe

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I Broke My Toe

We were having Mothers/Fathers Day this evening since all us kids were on holiday from our Diaspora. We had just given Pops his new rockets (yay!) and Mom was getting ready to open her present when Andrew started making strange shouting noises directed at the living room.

Henry was sitting on the couch proudly (I guess dogs aren’t allowed on furniture at Mom and Dad’s) and Ernie (The Kid’s dog) was sitting pitifully on the ground, looking up at Henry.

Andrew’s shouting was directed at Henry. Because everyone knows that bellowing sounds make dogs get off furniture.

Since Henry wasn’t getting off the couch, I went over to get him off. I picked up his furry little body and bounced back over to the dining room.

The living room is one of those sunken ones, so it’s got one stone step in between it and the dining room. As I bounced along, I underestimated the appropriate height of my bounce up into the dining room and caught my pinkie toe on the stone step.

Crunch.

“AAAAAUGH!” I screamed, and dropped the dog.

We had just spent the last half hour discussing gory and disgusting stories, half for our dinner edification and half to gross dad out. So me crunching my toe on the step was real fashionable. Everyone at the table was silent for a second and then erupted into discussion a moment later.

“I think I ripped off my toenail!” I wailed.

Andrew shot off his chair and ran upstairs. Sister crouched down beside me and said, “Let me see, let me see”. Joey hovered around above me. Pops said, “Oh man, I hope it’s not broken”, and “If you’re bleeding, get off the carpet” and other motivational things.

I scooched myself over to the wood floor where we surveyed the damage.

For those of you who have been unfortunate enough to see my pinkie toe, perhaps you will recall that I have the sorriest excuse for a pinkie toenail. It’s really small and Joey makes fun of it whenever he can. (Meanie.)

The nail isn’t ripped off, but it’s longer than it used to be and a strange greenish/purpleish color at the base. And there was no blood, which was a disappointment.

Andrew reappeared carrying two boxes of bandaids, hydrogen peroxide, and rubbing alcohol.

“I didn’t know which to grab,” he explained, and set all his loot down on the kitchen table. “And I couldn’t find any cotton balls.”

I was still wailing (as any self respecting woman would do) and Joey sat down and made me show him my toe. “Can you move it?” I wiggled it up and down.

“It’s not broken,” he said.

“Is too!” I wailed. “I’ve never had a broken bone. It’s the very end that’s broken.”

“It’s not broken,” Pops weighed in from the dining room. He’s the expert on broken toes because he just broke his a couple weeks ago.

“Is too!” I reiterated. “It’s all swollen and purpley-like.”

And, thus, I maintain that I broke my toe. It hurts like a banshee, it’s all plump and swollen and, while I can move it, it’s the end of it that really hurts. So I probably broke the end off or something logical like that.

Gross.

May27

"Why isn’t Joey watching you?!"

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"Why isn’t Joey watching you?!"

On Thursday night my friend from Iowa (Amber) and I went to Central Market to buy some exotic fruits that grocery stores in Iowa are unlikely to carry. (Starfruit, passion fruit, miniature pinapples, etc.)

The power in Central Market was out because of a huge thunderstorm we’d had, so the few lights that were on were running off a generator, giving the entire store a kind of “can’t touch this” feel. Like we weren’t really supposed to be there, you know.

At least I kept waiting to get kicked out.

Anyway, since it was so dark we had trouble locating the particular fruit we’d come to find. We wound up having to ask some employee, who took us right to them. (In our defense, the passionfruit was buried under the pomegranates. Seriously, how were we supposed to know we had to pick all the pomegranates up in order to find the passion fruit.)

Amber ran off to another part of the store and I told her I’d wait for her in the fruit area. But I got really bored of looking at fruit in semi-darkness and wandered over to the seafood section. Where the lobsters are. And crabs.

I leaned over their tank and blew on the water to try to rile them up. There were about 50 of them in the tank and some were fighting but most were sleeping. I wanted them to all be fighting.

I happened to glance up and notice a “Do Not Put Hands In Lobster Tank” sign. This was disappointing to me, so I whipped out my cell phone and called The Kid.

“The Kid, I’m here at the grocery store. The sign says not to touch the lobsters but I want to anyway. Should I stick my hand in the tank?”

He sighed heavily. “WHY isn’t Joey watching you?”

“He’s not here. So can I touch the lobster?”

Pause. “GOSH, fine.”

I stuck my hand in the lobster tank and poked the nearest lobster. I squealed (as quietly as possible) and said, “He had a hard shell.”

“Where’s Joey.” The Kid demanded.

“He’s somewhere else. Can I touch the crabs too?”

“Not my fault if you get your finger pinched off.” He said.

“I superglued three of my fingers together tonight.” I said, shaking my wet hand off all over the floor before an employee came and escorted me out of the store.

The Kid sighed again. “Seriously, why doesn’t Joey keep a closer eye on you?”

“He was sitting right by me; he helped me peel my fingers apart. I was making a tinfoil sculpture of Trogdor in your honor when we were at Freebirds. Turns out superglue and tinfoil don’t mix real well.”

I could tell that he was shaking his head all the way up there in Iowa. “Sugarplum, I’m hanging up now. You need that husband to keep a better eye on you.”

“Do not. I do just fine.”

“OKFINEBYE,” he said, in traditional Laird style. I said the same and we hung up our respective cell phones, although I did so with semi-sticky fingers from the leftover superglue.

I watched the lobsters fight for a few more minutes (barely restraining myself from poking any more of them) before deciding I’d better find Amber lest I got kicked out.

And since I really like Central Market, I don’t want to get on their naughty list.

May26

My Strange Morning and Stranger Pants

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My Strange Morning and Stranger Pants

We’re in Iowa. And whenever we’re in Iowa, Pops has Tons Of Work that he needs Done. So we woke up at 9:00, I borrowed some really strange old jeans from my Mom (mid-nineties jeans….jibblies), a t-shirt, and some mowing shoes and went outside to get marching orders.

So it was Me, Pops, Gramps and Joey. A very volatile combination. (It’s usually three against one; I’ll give you three guesses on who gets ganged up on. The first two don’t count.)

The first order of the day was to push Dad’s antique John Deere B out of the barn. We had to do this because:
a.) we had to wash it
b.) the stall was filled with cat poo that we (me?!) had to clean out

It was super nasty pushing that tractor out when the wheels were covered in shadies. Dad had gloves. I did not.

Somehow we got the tractor out (we almost knocked a weed whacker off and broke it). I was real glad when Joey showed up because then I could stop touching the cat-poo wheels. Sort of.

So then Dad said, “Wash the tractor.” He commanded me to go find some soap up at the house. The soap did not exist, apparently Mom doesn’t buy the kind he wanted. So I got something else and headed back down to the barn.

Joey and I then washed the tractor. In the rain.

The rain began as soon as we started sudsing up the tractor and Pops said it was “helping” us.

That was when he started hosing off the other side of the tractor. The side we had recently washed. Maybe some of you don’t know what my dad’s tractor looks like, but it’s not real tall and it has a lot of holes in the engine part.

Most of the spray Dad was spraying on the tractor came through and sprayed us. Not Ideal.

So it was raining, Dad was “accidentally” spraying us with the sprayer, and we had cat poo vestiges on our hands.

The morning wasn’t looking real great.

Oh, and morale was dropping because we were getting hungry. Somebody had made the mistake of saying the word “doughnuts” and as soon as that happened, morale just tanked. We (primarily Grandpa) kept grousing about how the lack of doughnuts was impairing our judgment and productivity.

Grandma showed up and decided she’d get on the doughnut bandwagon. Pops was beginning to feel outnumbered and was making bold statements of “no doughnuts” and “we’re not eating lunch” and suchlike.

Mutiny was in the air. (Again, primarily from Grandpa.)

In order to keep me and Grandma quiet, Pops handed us his busted up model airplane and said, “take this to the trash over there.”

So we did. Only “the trash over there” was real full. So grandma and I looked at each other…looked at the busted airplane…and started jumping on it to break it into smaller pieces so it would fit in the trash can.

I felt real guilty jumping on Dad’s airplane. I was afraid at any minute I’d hear “WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” and he’d realize he’d given us the wrong airplane to throw away or something.

But that didn’t happen. (Good thing, too, because Grandma smashed her piece into really tiny bits. She was going to town on it.)

When morale was as low as it could possibly get, Grandpa mutinied and said, “We’re going to Culvers!” He then stuffed Pops in the truck and forced him at not-quite-gunpoint to drive him there.

And, thus, we went to Culvers.

Me, dressed like this.

Disclaimer: What you are about to see is very disturbing. If you don’t think you can handle it, run away from your computer monitor screaming. If you don’t, you may be very likely to do so after you see these pictures.


This second pictures is Sister’s fault. She liked it because she thought I looked real ugly and terrible. And so she made me stand like this while she took a picture. I only upload it now because I realize that it does have comic value. Other than that, the picture is disturbing.

And that’s my morning. Breaking Pops’ airplane, getting soggy, and wearing strange pants.

I need to go to Iowa more often.

May24

And It Rained Cats And Henrys

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And It Rained Cats And Henrys

It’s raining so hard right now that I can barely see the skyscraper across the way. A minute ago, I couldn’t see it at all. The sky had this strange sea-green opaqueness to it and, had I been in Iowa, I’d have run for the basement immediately.

However, I’m not in Iowa. I’m in a high rise in Dallas. And the ceiling is creaking.

Considering the amount of water that’s rushing down the windows, the ginormous lightning and booming thunder, it’s going to be a Long Drive Home.

We’re having issues with flash flooding, too, so I’m not sure if it’s smarter to take the freeway or to take the back roads where there are less idiots but more low spots. Oy. And if you look at the RADAR, the storm’s about the size of Iowa; we’re going to be having rain for awhile.

It better stop before we leave tomorrow. I need the boys to drive super fast so we get home sooner.

May23

In Which Henry Barfs All Over The Floor And Then The Sink

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In Which Henry Barfs All Over The Floor And Then The Sink

I generally try to keep my posts tactful. By tactful, of course, I mean that I try not to talk about bodily functions, etc. However, I must make an exception.

Henry.

We have visitors from Iowa this week. Henry ADORES them because they will play fetch with him. All night long. (Which we put the kibosh on last night, he was getting really annoying so Amber hid all of his toys in the closet. Smart girl.)

He was too excited about “his” visitors, so he didn’t eat all his dinner. In fact, he ate only half of it. He hadn’t been, um, regular since Joel and Amber arrived, either. Mostly because we’d take him outside and he’d pretend to do his business (we were totally on to him) and then he’d run up the stairs to go back inside and harass them again.

So we knew something was up.

Well, I was in the middle of making sandwiches for everyone’s lunch when I saw Henry sitting by the kitchen door looking pathetic and cute all at the same time. Then he began to sniff the floor and make strange coughing sounds.

“Is Henry barfing?” I asked.

Joey shot off the couch, grabbed the dog and dashed over to the kitchen sink.

Yes, he was barfing.

In my kitchen sink. Where I wash my vegetables.

“Why are you holding him over the sink? He already barfed?” I asked.

“No, he’s doing more,” Joey said, wiping Henry off with a paper towel.

He was right; Henry did more. I emptied his half-eaten food bowl and mixed up some Pedialyte for him to drink.

Joey set Henry down and said, “I’ll clean up the stuff on the floor.”

I was grateful…it was really grossing me out.

Henry wandered back over to his now-empty food bowl and tried to eat what wasn’t there. I sat him down on the floor and squirted Pedialyte down his throat, which made him quite miserable.

And then he lay around calmly for the rest of the evening. So we may try to have him barf more often if he’ll be calm and civilized afterwards.

May21

The Reason Why The Kid Is Dead Until Further Notice

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The Reason Why The Kid Is Dead Until Further Notice

On Saturday, I received a text message. It came from The Kid’s phone, but I could tell by style that it was most definitely not from The Kid.

And so I replied with a, “Where are you and what have you done with The Kid?”

And it was then that I learned that The Kid had been kidnapped and was being held hostage in exchange for 6-12 Pepsi’s. I was to deliver said Pepsi’s behind Mom and Dad’s house at, like 1:00 a.m. on Saturday.

I looked at Joey. I looked at my phone. I texted “I do not negotiate with terrorists.”

I received a text back saying that The Kid was dead until further notice. Because of my obstinacy. He’s being held by some really major terrorists, it seems.

Just call his voicemail if you’re wondering. He’s totally dead I guess. Or until further notice. I haven’t seen him in a couple months anyway, so who really knows.

Anyway, that’s why The Kid is dead until further notice. Hopefully he’ll resurrect in time to graduate on Saturday, but there’s no telling what those terrorists will do with him.

May20

RETRACTION

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RETRACTION

My sincerest and most humble apologies to my Grandpops. Apparently it was not he who said I was real obstinate, it was my GRANDMOTHER!

My very own grandmother.

And, thus, it seems to me that I inherited my obstinate and troublesome nature from my grandma. Perhaps Gramps and Joey will each be getting a Double Portion?

Gramps definitely called me this afternoon to inform me that I needed to check my sources more carefully before defaming him all over the Internet.

SISTER, I blame you. As my primary (um, only?) source, you really let me down this time. And since The Kid is dead until further notice, it’s not like I could really call him for clarification.

So I must give discredit where discredit is due: Grandma is the one who thinks I’m real difficult, not my gramps. Although I wouldn’t put it past him.