We were supposed to get a new stove today. This was seriously the highlight of my week! Our existing stove is utter crap and we’ve lived with it for over a year before finally breaking down and getting a new one.
Matt worked from home today so he could be here for the delivery. I got a text around noon saying that he had to send the the stove back because it was the wrong color AND the wrong model.
@#$^#$%&$^&
Then I get home and learn the oven is no longer working on our old stove (the pilot light refuses to relight). We’re guessing something got bumped/shifted when they hauled it out and back in again (because why would you be super careful with an old craptastic stove?).
$%^$*&%(&)*
I then get on the phone with Home Depot and ask them what the hell is going on because we don’t even have a new delivery date for the CORRECT stove yet and are oven-less.* While waiting for the appliance guy to call me back with an update we had the following conversation.
Matt: We could do Caprese tonight
Me: Sure
Matt: The baguette you got isn’t take-and-bake is it?
Me: %@#%^&*##$%@#
UPDATE: We heard back from HD around 7 this evening and the company they contract with for appliance deliveries isn’t given them any useful info either, but they are going to try and get someone over here to get our oven working this weekend.
*I was actually much calmer than that on the phone. Screaming at people is rarely effective… unless they’re your ISP in which case they are already the devil incarnate.
Confession time: I’ve been feeling a little ADD with house projects recently. I currently have a primed-but-not-yet-painted upstairs hallway, newel cap trim mostly cut and not at all installed, 2 outlets in my basement work space I need to redo, 1 small section of a cat tree re-wrapped, and a partial side of a workbench built. I should really step back, take a breath, and refocus.
Instead I just binge-watched Stranger Things on Netflix this weekend.
Short version: it is awesome!
I personally think it’s like a cross between ET and Pan’s Labyrinth with a creepiness level of Children of Earth (4th season of Torchwood and the only season I actually like of that show*). I don’t want to give much away, but it’s full of 80’s nostalgia and the characters are all believable middle/high schoolers (ie totally awkward). Plus the main group of middle school boys are complete nerds and I love them to death.
There is a second season planned but what I’m reading is that it will be more like a sequel than a second season so we’ll see what happens. Matt and I have been thinking about switching over to Amazon Prime but I may have to hang on to Netflix now… Both of them are still cheaper than cable at least!
So have you seen it? Are you in love? Do you have another favorite nerdy show? Let’s be nerd buddies. Also, has anyone tried both Netflix and Amazon Prime? Do you have a preference for either’s selection? I know, I’m just full of questions today. I’m apparently just trying to put off more work.
*Mini spoiler: I lost it after the Cyberwoman episode. An overly sexualized female cyberman???? Are you freaking KIDDING me??? The only reason I watched season 4 was because it came highly recommended by one of my best friends who is probably even more opinionated than me.
Around 1:30 this morning I woke up to strange sound in our bedroom. One of the cats was running around like a lunatic and occasionally meowing. This is a little bizarre for either of them at 1 am and I was only partially awake so I listened for a few minutes to try and figure out what the heck was going on.
Eventually I turned on the light and peered over the foot of the bed. Schmutz was the one racing around the floor and she wasn’t after one of her toys. Because I had already expected this from the earlier noise I stayed calm, sighed resignedly and said to Matt, who was at least somewhat awake now too, “Your damn cat found a mouse.”
We watched her for a couple minutes while caught the mouse, pranced around proudly, deliberately dropped it, chased it again, caught, pranced, dropped, repeat. Spencer wandered in to see what the commotion was all about and would occasionally bat gently at the mouse with his paw if it came his way, but he clearly didn’t have any idea what to do with it.
Eventually it became clear that the mouse wasn’t going to be put out of it’s misery anytime soon so I decided to step in.
“Schmutz! Get the mouse!” And she did, but ran away with it as soon as I got off the bed. I followed her into the dining room as she continued her game of chase-catch-prance-drop and grabbed a plastic tumbler and a large putty knife to attempt to catch the stupid thing myself.
Sometimes Schmutz and I would be working together and flanking the mouse, but I never managed to shoo it into the cup. The 3 of us kept going around and around the dining table while Spencer watched from under a chair. Occasionally the mouse would rear up or charge Schmutz. “I think it may have toxoplasmosis!” I shouted up to Matt.
After 10-15 minutes of this (and more random things shouted up to Matt who was staying in bed playing a game on his tablet) I finally managed to catch the damn thing. Since it was nearly 2 in the morning, I just dumped it outside, so I’m sure it’s back in by now, but it was the middle of the night and I was all out of fucks to give.
I went back upstairs (Schmutz was still frantically searching for her new favorite toy) and Matt asked if I had given the cats a treat.
“A treat? Why?”
“Because my cat found a mouse.”
“But she didn’t kill it.”
“But she found it.”
“And brought it into our bedroom!”
Matt eventually went downstairs and gave both of them a treat. What Spencer did to deserve it I have no idea since he was even a bigger failure.
Around 5:30 this morning Schmutz sat on my chest and yowled at me for her breakfast.
“If you had just killed the damn mouse you wouldn’t be hungry right now.” I grumbled and then Matt kicked her out the room because she was being pesty and it was still way too early.
So those are our cats in a nutshell. Spencer thinks everything is a friend and Schmutz has currently brought us one well-dead mouse and one far-too-alive mouse. At least this is the first sign we’ve had of rodents currently in the home so I don’t think we have an infestation on our hands.
Looking on the bright side, at least she didn’t drop it in our bed.
We started painting our entryway/stairs yesterday! We’re actually doing pretty good on the ground floor, but have all the upstairs landing to do yet (trim and walls).
Matt was champ dealing with the obnoxiously tall wall on the stair landing…which was good because I am really not a fan of ladders. He managed to reach most of the wall just by having the ladder on our larger landing, and I came up next to him to point out spots it looked like he missed.* Now, there was plenty of room on the landing for the ladder, but me standing next to it meant I was standing pretty close to the edge and being the genius that I am, took a step back to get a better view.
Bad move.
I immediately felt myself unbalancing as my foot connects with nothingness and flailed wildly for support. My left hand grabbed at the railing and my right hand grabbed for the ladder.
The ladder that wasn’t actually solidly attached to anything.
The ladder Matt was sitting on.
I realized this was probably not a good idea a split second after I actually grabbed hold of the ladder. Oops.
Luckily, my foot shortly connected with the stair tread, about 6″ past where I expected to feel floor, and I was able to regain my balance without pulling the ladder down the stairs after me. Matt was looking a little horrified though, and I can’t say I blame him.
He made it out completely unscathed, but I managed to bang or twist or something my left wrist as I grabbed for the railing, so it was pretty sore. Luckily it’s my left wrist, but because I’m also prone to emphatic hand gestures and continuing to work on projects when I’m sore, I picked up a wrist brace to try and avoid twisting it further since certain movements do make it worse.
I really don’t think whatever I did to it is that bad. I’ve sprained both a toe and a foot in the past and at worst this is probably just a very mild sprain, but the best thing for a sprain is to avoid stressing it, so wrist brace it is.
In 90 degree weather. Fun times.
*Painting light gray over light cream is a beast since it’s almost impossible to tell if you’ve missed anything until it starts to dry.
Our cats are very demanding about their food. They’re both little furry alarm clocks that may go off as early as 5 am and start crying like they’re starving to death the second you get home from work… even if you only had a 1/2 day are home by noon. They also know what our real alarm clocks mean so they get extra excited when those goes off in the morning.
This morning though…. silence. Matt and I both looked at each knowing this was suspicious. I went downstairs and found Schmutz waiting at the front door, hoping I would let her out onto the porch. Not yowling, not scolding me, not racing to her food bowl, but waiting quietly.
HIGHLY suspicious.*
I turn into the dining room and find that the cat food bin was tipped over… which had popped the latch… which had opened the lid… which had spilled food all over the floor… which had allowed the cats to gorge themselves. Spencer was still inhaling food off the floor.
The most disturbing thing about all of this? They learn, like the raptors in Jurassic Park. Our sealed food bin may never be safe again…
God help us when they figure out how to open doors.
UPDATE:They’ve learned how to open the latch on the food bin! We noticed the latch was undone in the middle of the day and I know I had fully closed it in the morning. Matt turned the bin around so the latch was against the wall and later we noticed Schmutz nosing at the hinges, searching for a weak spot apparently. I don’t know how long we can continue to outsmart them….
UPDATE #2: …apparently not for that long. If the bin isn’t pushed all the way against the wall, Schmutz will squeeze her way into the gap so she can get to the latch and then get her snack on. No wonder she’s turning into a bit of a pudge.
*Anyone who’s known Siamese knows it’s highly suspicious when they’re quiet about anything. A year ago Schmutz was pretty sick and when we first took her to the vet we listed one of her (several) symptoms as “she’s being really quiet.”
I have the day off today (yay bank holidays!) and was catching up on laundry. Spencer followed me into the basement since the cats aren’t really let down there too often. I shooed him back out with me when I went upstairs and closed the door. A little while later I heard a small crash and wondered what the hell the little furballs had gotten into now. I made a cursory inspection but didn’t see anything amiss except that Schmutz was no longer sleeping on the bed. Whatever, she probably just got freaked by the noise, right?
Wrong.
I go back to the kitchen to make tea and hear a weird scratching noise. Ugh. Stupid cat apparently snuck into the basement and I closed her in. I open the door to find both Schmutz and a dead mouse on the top step. I don’t handle surprises well and screamed like a sissy (despite the fact that I actually don’t really mind mice, I just don’t really want wild ones living in my house) and slammed the door as soon as Schmutz was out.
Poor baby, she was really proud of herself since she’s never caught anything other than bugs before and I reacted rather badly. She’s now pitching a fit since the door is still closed with her trophy on the other side since I need to find something to dispose of it with.
Updated: I went to go dispose of the mouse and discovered that it had very clearly been dead long before Schmutz got to it. Oh well, she’ll still probably prove herself as a mouser sometime in the future.
Everyone else has already done it, so I suppose it’s time for me to weigh in on the Great Target Gendered Labeling Debate of 2015.
I have no problems with pink and blue versions of different toys. I don’t think that liking pink and sparkles and Barbies is a sign that your daughter will not grow into a strong, independent woman. Hell, I loved my Barbies and My Little Ponies when I was little and today “girls’ nights” with my friends typically consist of discussions of politics, feminism, science, and books (that and booze, obviously).
What I do have a problem with is labeling things as gender specific when the only possibly gendered aspect is the color.
I was at Target looking for a birthday card and baby shower card. For the record, I hate shopping for baby shower (and wedding) cards. They’re usually ungodly sappy or cutesy which I just cannot get behind. As I was prowling the cards looking for something not absolutely nauseating (and not $10+ because come on Papyrus, your stuff is gorgeous, but let’s be real, it’s a card, it will probably get thrown out in under a week) I started noticing the labeling. There were “Boy Birthday” cards that appeared to be labeled as such purely because they were blue.
Sorry, that’s not a “Boy Birthday” card, that’s just a birthday card. I can understand labeling the cards “boy” or “girl” if the writing in the card in gender specific, but not just because the card itself has flowers or dinosaurs on it. People are generally smart enough to pick out a color/pattern suitable for whatever their kid likes (and maybe their daughter/niece/whoever happens to like dinosaurs, or maybe their son/nephew/whoever happens to like pink).
I also have a beef with unequal equivalent merchandising. This example has been making the rounds and it’s unfortunate for a number of reason. 1) You want your preschooler dating? Creepy much? and 2) Why can’t a girl be a future super hero? It’s not like there have never been female super heroes (Storm, Wonder Woman, Black Widow… there was even a female Robin). I’m not even terribly bothered if the girl “equivalent” is just a pink version of the same thing. It’s mildly eye-roll worthy, but I get that a lot of little girls really do like pink and if your little girl doesn’t, well then get her the non-pink “boy” version. Is she happy? good. Are you happy? good. Does anyone else’s opinion remotely matter here? no.
The shower card I ended up with was this cute little onesie-with-a-cape cutout saying “super cute.” Since the proud parents-to-be are having a Wonder Woman themed nursery* and had a super hero themed shower invite it seemed perfect. The problem? The inside was all “congrats on your new baby boy” and there was no “super cute” girl’s card.
So I bought the damn card. For a baby girl shower because fuck that, girls can be super heroes too!
Luckily Photoshop (or really any text editing program + a printer) is a great tool for subversion.
Seriously, would it have been so terribly difficult to make the inside text gender neutral?** Not that I think every single product needs to be gender neutral, but text inside the vast majority of cards? Easy-peasy. And since most cards suck anyway you’re not even really losing anything (plus cards are sort of designed to be written in so if you keep the printed text simple the buyer can customize, and gender-ify, all they want).
And in closing, a comic on sexism, since this goes far beyond gendered marketing, and the issues don’t only affect women.
*Which I think is both awesome and badass
**And I’m totally counting “hero” as gender-neutral and not worrying about “heroine” because that’s just splitting hairs at this point. Just like actor vs actress or painter vs…. oh wait. Matt did suggest the title of accountrix to one of my (female) CPA friends and I do actually think that one’s a winner.
