Happy Easter, Everybody!!!

We are having a quiet Easter this year. Stephen and Hannia went up to spend the weekend with Erica, so I don't have any of the kids around for this holiday. It seemed ridiculous to cook for just the 2 of us, so Bruce and I have made reservations for the Easter brunch buffet at Chef's 505. This place is amazing, but there is generally no buffet. I hope its as delicious as their usual fare.

Anyway, I always remember this one Easter in particular, back when the kids were really little. Probably somewhere around the ages of 3 and 5. Every year the Easter Bunny would hide their baskets and they had to find them. When they were really young it would be someplace relatively easy (that's why I KNOW they were not much older than that when this incident happened). But as they got older and developed reading skills, the Easter Bunny would leave a plastic egg on their bed that contained a clue....which led to a whole treasure hunt all over the place. As they found their clue, it would lead to yet another one, and the whole hunt was much more elaborate. Fun times, I tell you.

But that year the children were too young to decipher clues so the Easter Bunny had hidden their baskets behind the sofa. The thing was that I had gotten all creative that year. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning making these beautiful chocolate lollipops in Wilton chocolate molds. It wasn't hard so much as time consuming and tedious. I used all of these pretty colors of chocolate like green, yellow, pink and blue. There were molds of cute little bunnies, and chicks, and all kinds of springtime fun stuff. The chocolate had to be melted, and painted into the molds in layers to have the colors in the right spots. Then it had to be refrigerated for a while until the chocolate set...and then another layer had to be painted on, and so forth and so on. It took a really long time. But the end result was worth it. The candies were absolutely beautiful. I wrapped them in colored cellophane, tied them off with colorful ribbons, and placed them artfully in the Easter Baskets amongst the peeps and the chocolate bunnies and all the other Easter goodies I had bought at the store.

Morning came. I got up early, before the children, and the first thing that I saw was Rufus (the full-sized Collie that we had way back then), licking a piece of crumpled cellophane that he was holding between his paws. That dog had found the baskets, and he didn't touch a single thing in them except for the hand-made chocolate lollipops. I wanted to sit in the middle of the floor and cry. Honestly, it was enough chocolate that it should have killed him....chocolate being poisonous to dogs and all. But he lived through it. The Easter baskets were looking a little sparse though, so my husband headed out to the only thing open at 7am on Easter Sunday morning....a convenience store/gas station and bought whatever he could find.
Mainly stuff like M&M's, and skittles, and regular candy that you can find anywhere.
It wasn't exactly the presentation that I was going for......

Funny thing is that the kids absolutely did NOT notice or care. Candy was candy, and it was all good. They were too busy having sugary treats before breakfast (one of the only 2 days of the year that would be allowed. The other day being Christmas with the candies in their stockings). And the Easter Bunny always left some little trinkets and toys in the baskets, too. The dog didn't bother any of that. Noone got to see the efforts of my labor but me. And the whole experience traumatized me to the point that I never attempted to make those candies again. But IF they had survived, the lollipops would have looked something like this:

Funny Easter Stuff

Calling in Sick

Barb sent me this in an email, and it was so hilarious that I just had to share it:


Cat Lover or Not, this is Hysterical!


"We've all had trouble with our animals, but I don't think anyone can top this one:

Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitimate my excuse, I always get the feeling that my boss thinks I'm lying.

On one recent occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway, because the truth was just too darned humiliating. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury, and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I reasoned, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on the top of my head. The accident occurred mainly because I had given in to my wife's wishes to adopt a cute little kitty.
Initially, the new acquisition was no problem.

Cat Lover or Not, this is Hysterical!


We've all had trouble with our animals, but I don't think anyone can top this one:

Calling in sick to work makes me uncomfortable. No matter how legitimate my excuse, I always get the feeling that my boss thinks I'm lying.

On one recent occasion, I had a valid reason but lied anyway, because the truth was just too darned humiliating. I simply mentioned that I had sustained a head injury, and I hoped I would feel up to coming in the next day. By then, I reasoned, I could think up a doozy to explain the bandage on the top of my head. The accident occurred mainly because I had given in to my wife's wishes to adopt a cute little kitty.
Initially, the new acquisition was no problem.


Then one morning, I was taking my shower after breakfast when I heard my wife, Deb, call out to me from the kitchen.

'Honey! The garbage disposal is dead again. Please come reset it.'

'You know where the button is,' I protested through the shower pitter-patter and steam. 'Reset it yourself!'

'But I'm scared!' she persisted. 'What if it starts going and sucks me in?'

There was a meaningful pause and then, 'C'mon, it'll only take you a second.'

So out I came, dripping wet and buck naked, hoping that my silent outraged nudity would make a statement about how I perceived her behaviour as extremely cowardly.

Sighing loudly, I squatted down and stuck my head under the sink to find the button. It is the last action I remember performing.

It struck without warning, and without any respect to my circumstances. No, it wasn't the hexed disposal, drawing me into its gnashing metal teeth. It was our new kitty, who discovered the fascinating dangling objects she spied hanging between my legs. She had been poised around the corner and stalked me as I reached under the sink. And, at the precise moment when I was most vulnerable, she leapt at the toys I unwittingly offered and snagged them with her needle-like claws. I lost all rational thought to control orderly bodily movements, blindly rising at a violent rate of speed, with the full weight of a kitten hanging from my masculine region.

Wild animals are sometimes faced with a 'fight or flight' syndrome. Men, in this predicament, choose only the 'flight' option. I know this from experience. I was fleeing straight up into the air when the sink and cabinet bluntly and forcefully impeded my ascent.
The impact knocked me out cold.

When I awoke, my wife and the paramedics stood over me.

Now there are not many things in this life worse than finding oneself lying on the kitchen floor buck naked in front of a group of 'been-there, done-that' paramedics.
Even worse, having been fully briefed by my wife, the paramedics were all snorting loudly as they tried to conduct their work, all the while trying to suppress their hysterical laughter......and not succeeding.

Somehow I lived through it all. A few days later I finally made it back in to the office, where colleagues tried to coax an explanation out of me about my head injury. I kept silent, claiming it was too painful to talk about, which it was.

'What's the matter?' They all asked, 'Cat got your tongue?'
If they only knew!

Why is it that only the women laugh at this? "



There is something about the way he says "silent outraged nudity" that just paints a picture in my mind.....LOL!

Here kitty, kitty:

Omen Felicity

Here is the new kitty, Omen Felicity. The picture isn't very good, but she is either in motion, or feeling shy and hiding under the bed. If only I could get a picture of Vixen's evil, unadulterated face of hatred. But that is probably too scary to post on a public blog....LOL.

Dogs, Easter Egg Hunts, and Kitties

We went to the Doggie Easter Egg Hunt yesterday. Hannia took lots of pictures, and there were a whole lot of people there with their dogs. Some of them dressed their pups up in colorful Easter dresses, and bonnets, and hats with bows. It was cute, and most of the dogs were very well behaved. When it came down to actually hunting for eggs, none of them were all that interested. They wanted to socialize and sniff all the other dogs. The eggs were dog-treat filled plastic eggs "hidden" by essentially just lying in the grass. You could see eggs everywhere. Not much in the way of "hunting", but it was a good time anyway. Hannia got enough pictures, so we didn't stay for the whole thing. We don't know who found the $100 egg, but we enjoyed it all the same.

After that we went to lunch at a cute little used bookshop/sandwich shop called The Tipsy Teapot. The kids go there occasionally, but it was my first time there. The food was excellent, the smoothies were delicious, and it had a really laid back coffee-house kind of vibe. You can browse the books, and read at the tables and couches spread out among the shelves. The funny thing was that while we were ordering we ran into Katie, a friend of Stephen's. I haven't seen Katie in a long time, so she joined us for lunch, and it was a really nice time.

And then....I had to run by PetSmart for dog/cat food. Our pets eat specialty foods that I can't get at the grocery store, so a pet food run has to be made at least a couple of times a month. The Humane Society had their adoptable pups and kitties out front, so of course I had to stop and browse. Well, we were kind of thinking about a second cat anyway, so.....there was this one cage that had a gorgeous long-haired black cat, and a little gray-striped tabby cat that was hiding behind him. I overheard the woman in charge talking to a customer who was interested in the black cat. Apparently, the black cat and the tabby were really close friends, and they had been trying all morning to find somebody who would adopt the pair. But because they had half a dozen or so people who just wanted the black one, they were making the decision that the pair was going to have to be split up. I just had to ask about the little gray one. She is a female, the same age as Vixen. They were both spayed within days of each other. And the lady explained that because she enjoyed the company of other cats so much, they would only adopt her out to a home with another cat in it. Perfect!

I drove all the way home to get my husband, because he was out working around the yard and not answering his phone. We decided to adopt the cat. Her name is "Omen".
That was the name she came with, and I thought it was cool, so we aren't going to change it. She is a real sweetheart. She loves to be petted, and is really friendly with us. I was hoping for this perfect kitty family, where my kitties played and curled up together, but alas....not yet. Vixen hates Omen. She makes this hissing sound whenever she sees her. I haven't given up hope, because seriously, its only been 24 hours so far. We are keeping Omen in a separate room with her own food and litter box, and letting them have supervised interaction for very short periods of time every little bit. Hopefully Vixen will chill out, and decide that its cool to have a new sister....? If anybody has any helpful hints to get us through this adjustment period, that would be welcome. Also...there will be a picture of Omen soon. She is feeling a little bit shy right now, but she comes out to sniff around every once in a while. I'll snap a picture as soon as she starts to feel more at home.

One other thing, I made homemade biscuits yet again, this time using buttermilk, and the result was a whole lot better. I'm getting there.....