what should we name him?

Okay.  You guys...

*I'm whispering here, can you tell?*

You guys.  I'm here like a prisoner in my own house right now.  I just have this feeling that I'm being watched, but I don't know where the watcher is.  It's giving me the heebie jeebies.

I keep turning in different directions to look, but at the same time, I'm hoping to not see anything.  I'm watching my every step.  Every little peep of noise makes me jump.  It's hell I tellya!

It started this morning.  Or last night.  I don't know.

The cat was out all night.  It's just what he needs to do, I suppose.  He's got to go out and sow his predatory oats.  And that's fine, the gophers and mice will make more.

So this morning, when I got up, I looked and found him in the backyard.  Certainly after another night of carnage, he was ready to return to the civilized life.

I flicked on the light.
He turned from his crouched position and saw me.
It was his crouched position he assumes when he toys with a mouse before playing with it to death.
But he turned and saw me and decided to end the playtime and come on in.

or so I believed...

He came on in and headed downstairs.  I went down a minute or so later

to find him playing with a much uninvited guest.  The freaking mouse.  He brought the darn thing in with him!  It was still alive.  They're playing Tom and Jerry in mah house!

Oh feck.

I know what you're thinking.  It's my fault.  I'm the one who opened that door all widely and welcoming!  I'm the enabler!  To that I say:

It was dark!
I wasn't wearing my glasses!
Napolion's face (I've since realized) is the exact color of mouse!  Or vice versa!

So here we are.  I figured Napolion would play with that mouse until the mouse had no more play left in him - the usual shenanigans.  I didn't care to watch it, knowing I'd be responsible for corpse removal.  So I cowardly left the room, and returned later.

There's no corpse.  No trace at all.  No juicy gut pile.  No discarded tail.  Nothing.  It's a mystery.

Did Mouse survive?  Is he watching me as I type?  Waiting to exact revenge? If not, where is the body?!?  If so, where is the body?!?  If the mouse is dead, will he haunt our house forever??

There's only one who holds the answer.  And he's not talking.

At least it's a mouse and not one of those monstrous gophers.

But still...

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Silver Liningness Sunday

Well, it's been a busy and - I think - productive week!

It started last Sunday when we went to Magnum's sister's for Marijuana Day Easter.  She and her husband live just a little over 10 miles from us, but we don't see them all that often.

Magnum isn't particularly close with her (politics!), and she and I drifted apart about 10 years ago when she married a new guy - who turned out to be not so new ifyaknowwhaddimsayin' - after a bit of homewrecking drama for her daughter.  Nothing against the new guy, just the circumstances.

But time heals and people mature and I've noticed her making efforts to socialize with us more.  So when she called to invite us over, I was glad when everyone said yes, although it's pretty easy to get Chaco and Wolfgang to play along when there's lots of good food involved.

She cooked a lovely crown roast that I doubt would even fit in my smallish oven.  I realized that having a smallish oven helps to take the blame for some of my lacking skills in the kitchen.

In other news, Meego had his first track meet for the season this week.  He ran the mile, the 800 meters, the 4 x 200, and threw the discus.  He's not a big contender in any of those events, but nice variety, no?

The main thing is, he's having fun.  Save the vomit inducing pressures for high school.

The weather today is total crap.  Windy, cold, cloudy, drizzly.  In true silver lining form, I'm trying to stay positive with the we-need-the-moisture mantra that is so popular on days like today.  

Also, I went for a chop job at the hair salon yesterday.  Actually, I went for a nice haircut and ended up with a chop job, but hair grows, right?   Don't anyone dare me to do the buzz cut.  At this point, I'm actually tempted...(but won't)...

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finally

We're entering the end of yet another semester.  Yahoo!  So with the ending comes all the hoopla before the ending.  Hoopla in the form of final papers, final projects, final exams, final &%#*!

It's all good I suppose, but doesn't leave much time for writing what I'd rather be writing... in this blog.  Instead I'm writing all these final mumbo jumbos.

In other news, the weather's been lovely, so at least I have nice bike rides to and from to break up the final monotony.  Yesterday, as I neared the crest of thigh-buster hill entering campus, I found that traffic was at a complete stop.  There's a big construction zone in that area that has recently spilled to both sides of the road.

From what I could tell, traffic was stopped to allow for this big flatbed truck to enter one side of the construction zone to retrieve some big piece of earth moving equipment.  So all the cars are sitting there idling while the big flatbed truck backed into the fence, pulled forward about five feet, backed into the fence, pulled forward about 5 feet, backed into the fence, pulled for...  well, you get the drift.

When I realized the traffic would be moving nowhere for a long time, I just picked up the nimble Alice and headed to the pedestrian walkway.  See ya!  Yet another reason to be glad I wasn't trapped in a car.

In the meantime, my blogfriends all have updates, and I want to come read.  I just need to take care of a few things first!

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Silver Liningness Sunday

Happy 420!... er... Easter!

Meego's got the spring cleaning bug apparently and is cleaning and renovating Reese's habitat while I am left with the job of snake entertainer, so prepare for typos.  Additionally, that was a rather long sentence.

This week was another goodie.  China seems to really like her short do, she's been frolicking around like a puppy.  If that's the secret to youth, maybe I'll go get a buzz.

This week has been a tough one for my hometown.  I won't go into deep details, but it all started with a fun story about a llama that had gotten loose and was running around.  It made lighthearted news stories, but then things took a bad turn when the llama was killed.  ANYWAY, the teens who killed the llama, with the backing of the owner, did the STUPID thing and posted boastfully about it all over facebook.

I'm not sure what led to the killing, but by that time, the errant llama had developed quite a fan following and the fallout over the llamacide has been NASTY nasty.  I went to innocently check my facebook feed this morning, and the flame fanning hasn't stopped.

So I left and went over the deviantart for some art therapy.  Always a fun time over there, with their bazillion or so members.  But then I was reminded that llamas are quite prevalent over there!  Members give each other llama badges as tokens of appreciation for their artworks, etc.  Then certain llama levels are reached based on the number of badges earned.  So I couldn't escape the llama drama like I'd wanted to!  But this piece always makes me happy, so I feature it here anyway.  This particular artist had reached Albino Llama level (50 badges) and was noticeably happy:

SOURCE

It cheered me somewhat, but still not nice what's going on back home.  I think I'll just go on sabbatical from facebook for about six months or so, and think happy thoughts and rainbow farts.
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Natural

Chaco and I went to pick up his suit yesterday.  We walked into the place and it was crawling with teenaged man boys.  Then I remembered that one of my tutees told me this weekend was prom at her school.  That would explain all those children at the man store.  

So we had to wait a while for a free employee, all of whom seemed a bit fed up with dealing with the prom boys.  I'm sure it's a good time for their profits, but they'd probably rather be selling suits and separates.

When we were eventually attended to, the woman apologized for the fact that a fitting room probably wouldn't be free for another 20 minutes or so.  Chaco tried on the jacket, and we declared it all good since In Hilda We Trust.

As we were leaving, there were more teenaged boys out in the parking lot.  Chaco commented, "Geez, it's like they're tailgating", which they seemingly were.

Funny how prom was such a big deal in high school, but looking back, it's pretty insignificant.  All those boys in their t-shirts and shorts and sneakers, getting all polished up, like it's the natural thing to do.  So I did this sketch for Illustration Friday, where the prompt is "Natural".  I did it with natural charcoal then played with gimp a bit to add that shiny thing.  It's called "distant sun".  Huh?  Huh?  Do I have a grip on technology or WHAT?!

Anyway, through a strange alignment of the stars, I have a light homework load this weekend, so thought I'd let the little art girl out to play...

No one asked her to prom.

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hair of the dog

Had the morning off from class, our instructors declaring a "lab day" since we've got some projects to finish up.  I took advantage of it by declaring it a make-your-dog-look-like-a-lab day, and took China to the groomers.  She's been nagging me for a haircut, the bushy fur coat is not a good thing now that the temperatures have gotten more friendly.

And personally, the vacuum cleaner and I are tired of the shedding.

Look!  So happy!

"I'm sexy and I know it... know it... know it..."

It was a good day for it.  Sun was shining with more promise of spring.  I planned to take a bike ride under the clever disguise of running an errand or two.  

No sooner had I brought the freshly shorn China home that the skies clouded up and the temperature began to drop.  And then... and then... and.... then....

Yeah.          That's me  ^.                  

horny toads and a second to spare

Despite our snowstorm over Sunday/Monday and the impending forecast for this week, I KNOW that spring is here, just having a bit of trouble getting started.

I KNOW because as I type this, the toads are having sex.

They've been pretty quiet through the winter months, but I was sitting here doing some work when I heard the telltale sexy sounds of toad barking.  Ooh, it's been so long...

I don't know what's needed as far as incubating toad babies, and I guess we won't worry about it unless things escalate beyond recreation.

Speaking of recreation, official Bash the Bluffs results came in.  My time was actually 22:34 which shaved a whole second off of the unofficial time.  I'll take what I can get.  I also managed to make a  few of the event gallery pics.

Prize if you can spot me and the "magentas":

And I managed to make this Baywatch-esque shot in the lonely homestretch, except there's no beach, no ocean, and no babe, but a possible medical emergency.

    
Yes, I know the photos are bleeding over into my sidebar.  I blame the template.

Happy Spring!

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