So, what is in my email box the other day? Some nut (would have to be) is now following me. Really? REALLY? Are you serious? I have no profile filled out. I had tweeted nothing at this point and I still get a follower? What is this world coming to?

I did the only thing someone who is really in touch with their inner bitch would do. I tweeted one lone tweet and as g-d is my witness it’s all I ever intend to tweet What did I tweet? Think of what a policeman says at the scene of a really grisly crime scene to rubbernecking bystanders.

Fred was lurking by the table as I got the log book out, flipped through the pages until I found the right one. I always date the entries and I wondered outloud to myself “is today the first or the second?” I was checking my watch when Fred said calmly “the second.” And I was impressed on many levels. One, it was in Fred’s voice, not someone else (a rarity since Fred is nothing if not a dead on mimic and mocker) and Fred was correct. And then Fred added “…..or fourth.” Which just cracked me up inside because Fred at this point was just messing with me.

It wasn’t until later that night that I realized that little exchange showed me just how much Fred has it going on upstairs. I do give Fred a lot more credit than most folks do. Fred acts like reading was never mastered but I’m not so sure. Math skills? Just horrid. Fred tests out at, oh….kindergarten level, possibly first grade because frankly I don’t think there is a test designed that would accurately assess just what is going on in Fred’s head And quite frankly, I don’t think Fred actually cares or cared about reading, writing and arithmetic.

But Fred pulled out the correct day and the correct label, second, not two and then fourth not four. Who knew Fred was paying attention to calendar time? Who knew Fred even cared?

Yes Fred does have it going on, in a splinter skill kind of way.  The fact remains Fred does not communicate well at all and does not process verbal directives accurately. I told Fred to give the ball to Joe,  and I even was pointing to the ball that was rolling past Fred. Fred probably heard only give Joe ball and since it was me doing the directing  handed Joe the ball Fred was using. Not what I meant at all!  And the result was Fred was done playing ball becuase Fred will only use one ball and not trade off to another. Still don’t know why that rule exists.

Nor do I believe there is a genius lurking in Fred’s head. Sure, smarter than credited, but what good would those smarts be when Fred doesn’t (refuses to) uses them?

Which explains why when I get home from work I’ve been known to doze off for 20 minutes or so and take a power nap. I can be out in under a minute given the right setting (the sofa, a blanket, a pillow, the tv on). And some how my brain must monitor the tv and thus the passing of time. It all wrks well, or so I thought….

Today, despite being off work, I dragged my ass out of bed along with DH at 6 am. I was awake. No sense just lying in bed.  I puttered around, ran an errand or two and ended up on the sofa, with the pillow, with the blanket and the tv blaring to the mini House marathon.  Yes, I was out in under a minute. Dreaming away, dreaming along with the drama unfolding  from the airwaves.

And then it just went wrong. The dream morphed from House fixing and saving the day intellectually to him having to travel back in time, by stepping through a hole in time, hidden in a framed photograph he had nailed to the wall above the bookshelves. (not my bookshelves, these were white and in a room (L+shaped) that lead to another room) And then I was dreaming I was sleeping on the sofa and someone was in the house. I wanted to wake up but I couldn’t move. I tried to move my head but it wouldn’t budge. I tried opening my eyes and could not. I could hear. I could hear someone walking in my house and I hoped it was DH home uber early from work. I tried to move but ended up only thrashing around on the sofa. I tried to see, but couldn’t focus my eyes. Finally I was able to get up. Still unable to see well, I stumbled to the front window and saw a car parked IN the front yard under the maple tree. The cat rubbed against my legs and I picked her up. And I thought,”the cat isn’t freaked out at all, there can’t be anyone here.” and I saw that my car was parked in the driveway below. Odd. And then I was back on the sofa, dreaming away. The whole being able to get up was just a dream within the nightmare I was still having. I was back to being unable to move, but being able to hear. I could hear someone in the bathroom off the kitchen. I heard the garbage can lid whomp shut with a metallic clank. I continued to struggle to get off the sofa, still unable to move much other than my hands. Still unable to open my eyes and search for whoever was in the house. I still had the cat though now she was perched on my side, snuggled up to my face. I began to pet her with one hand and cover my eyes with the other hand.  How could I be back on the sofa? Why can’t I get up? Who is in the house?  Why can’t I cry out either? Why can’t I get off the sofa? I thrash around a bit as I clutch the cat. She purrs happily. The blanket gets bunched up and I try over and over to raise my head and look around. But I can hear and I know the tv is really loud and I want to turn it down. If I was able to turn it down I’d be able to hear where whoever is in the house is. But again I think, “if the cat is happy, then there can’t be a stranger in the house.”

And then I am awake, Really awake. And the cat is on the floor by the tv and my blanket is smooth and covering me right up to my chin and I easily get up and go to the window. Yeah, no car in the front yard, my car in the garage where I left it. I’ve had some weird dreams )with and without the tv being on) but never a dream within a dream type scenario and what DOES it mean when you dream you can’t wake up?

Okay, so when you google dream meanings and go to the dictionary it tells you all this crap about death and or ignorance. hmmm and paralyzed gets you some more psycho babble but did yield a paragraph telling us that when you are under REM sleep you ARE paralyzed. Makes some sense. My brain probably hit rem while another part was trying to tell me that 2 more House episodes had passed and it was time to wake up. Yeah, but my body hadn’t made up for the sleep deficit just yet. Hence the struggle. I’ll go with that. Still unsettling.

No more fat cat waiting at the bottom of the stairs for her early morning ear scritches. And ear scritches can only be given first thing in the morning.

No more fat cat waiting patently by my chair hoping that it is chicken I am eating and hoping I will spare a taste.

No more fat cat slurping up the proffered spaghetti noodle, with some marinara sauce thank you very much.

No more fat cat turning up her nose at rainbow sherbert. Why can’t you have chocolate chip cookie dough icecream every night?

No more fat cat enforcing the “move you feet lose your seat” rule and playing chicken with my butt as I insist on sitting back down where I was before.

No more fat cat skittering back and forth in the hall and the resultant sheepish look as I catch her playing with a stuffed mouse. (snap! caught being a cat!)

No more fat cat thumping through the house then gracefully leaping to her chair.

No more fat cat chair, casually draped with a towel to make the perfect hiding spot.

No more fat cat perched in the bay window waiting for us to come home.

No more fat cat running to the kitchen door when she hears the garage door go up, signalling her favorite’s return home. He was allowed to give pets and ear scritches at any time.

No more fat cat elegantly seated with her tail tucked over her front paws,

No more fat cat telling off the birds from the safety of her sofa perch.

No more shark tail flicking through the air.

No more fat cat gobbling up her food (the first sign there was something wrong)

No more fat cat anxiously awaiting meal time (further proof something was amiss)

Poor fat cat caught and hauled off to the vet at the next available opening.

Poor fat cat finally down in weight, but too much over too short a time.

Poor fat cat, poked and prodded, examined inside and out.

Poor cat, jaundiced cat, attached to iv, given meds, forced to eat

Jaundiced cat oblivious to the ominous outlook.

Miserable jaundiced cat refusing food, refusing water declining despite treatments and initial improvement

Heartsick owners hoping for a miracle but realizing liver failure leads to other failures.

Decision made, mercy quickly given.

Small cat paw print saved in clay.

Small cat swaddled in a blanket, placed in a cardboard casket discreetly exited out the side door.

Small  casket carried home placed deep in the cool clay earth, covered with a stone slab, overlooking the garden near the pine trees.

Small grave site, checked and visited often by the man that hated cats until one liked him best of all.

We went to the ballgame the other night in the sweltering heat. It was an evening game, we were under the awning, it was cloudy, but it was still hotter than hell in the stadium. I was doing my usual thing, reading and the family was hunkered in to watch the game.

Enter the parents of the year. DD first noticed them and hissed to me “are these the same people who sat behind us last year? (flashback to the last company sponsered baseball outing with the child behind us making comments that would make the most seasoned Jersey Shore Guido want to smack him) No, not the same family. Okay, breath a sigh of relief….

And then I start to get snippets of conversations behind me. First thing that caught my ear was the constant harping by the mom to the child to “drink some water” over and over again. Sure, it’s hot, but why the constant nagging? And then I hear “well, she needs to keep drinking, she has a fever.” WHAT? You bring a kid with a fever to a ballgame in 90+ temps and an even higher heat index?  And then I hear “uh oh, Daddy didn’t bring his wallet.” And the kids  groan.  And I think “wow, those kids are going to be miserable since they are sitting on the end of the row and all the vendors are clearly visible to them”

It really went south when the little girl started to whine that she didn’t feel good and she was hot. Mom of the years response? “There’s nothing I can do about it?” The poor child who is obviously a genius compared to mom responded with “yes there is, you can take me home!” DD actually nudged me at this point and gave me a look.

Let the non stop whining and crying begin. For the next hour and a half the little girl cried and moaned and pleaded with her mom to take her home. For the next hour and a half the mom responded with a terse “shut up!”  every time. DD began to roll her eyes. I grimly concentrated on my book while the sweat trickled down my face. I was miserable, clothes damp, sweat all over. I can just imagine how miserable that poor kid was.

And what I didn’t get was why would the mom say “we’re going to eat AFTER the game.” After the game was fireworks (the one and only reason why I go) and th game would be over at, oh 9:30 or so. A little late don’t you think? I bit my tongue because parental unit of the year did not seem the type to take proferred advice well. Take the kid behind the stands. There’s a breeze and its cooler there.

Magically there was money to get the child an ice cream, but this just caused more terse undertone yelling from mom when the sick kid wasn’t eating the ice cream fast enough and was dripping a bit. Total fun. What I wasn’t paying attention to was the brother. DD noticed that the parents constantly belittled everything the kid said. Sure, the player’s name is pronounced  DEE AZ not DIE AZ but you can correct without killing the kid’s soul.

And DD kept hissing “can you chldline bad parents?” and the answer sadly at this point is no. Finally the parents of the year decided to leave. The home team was losing by a mile, the heat, the sick child. Yeah, I guess they had their fill. My gut feeling though was that the sick little girl was in for some heavy verbal abuse and probably a swat or two.

Sure, it sucks when a kid gets sick and you have plans, but its not about YOU, it’s about your child. And if your child is miserable and you’re not paralyzed from the neck down, you get up and take them out. You find somewhere cooler, you miss watching the game because it still is not about YOU it’s about your child. But, when you are dead from the neck up and have the maturity level of a thirteen year old, your child and those around you are going to suffer. Hope those seven innings were worth all the misery.

I cleared out the freezer compartment. Was something blocking the vents? Perhaps. We decided to go look at fridges just to be on the safe side even though beloved side by side was now humming away and not over heating. I put all the freezer stufrfr in the downstairs freezer just to be safe. Off we went.

Yeah, we hit the box stores first. Lowes then Home Depot. With measurements in hand we  began our quest. My desire? A side by side without an ice-maker. The reality? SOL for that. Lowes selection was, well, to be honest, poor. Home Depot was a bit better but the reality , the stark reality was and still is, we have an older home with an antiquated fridge space. Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me. Most fridges these days are OVER 68 inches tall. Our max height is a sad 3/4 inch under that. Let the games begin.

We left the box stores and went home. But not before stocking up on ice so we could put all the fridge contents we cared about in coolers. We knew our luck and it was true that by the time we got home the fridge was once again dangerously hot. Not only along the dividing wall, but also on the outer side panel. Yeah, fill the coolers and face reality. (I tire of facing reality, I really do)

And the reality was there are no side by side fridges that would fit in my kitchen unless I took out the top cabinet or sawed off the bottom cabinet molding. I was loath to do either. So I did what any sane person would do, I whined to everyone I knew until I hit the friend who had the same problem just a year earlier. (only they foolishly bought a fridge without measuring and only realized it wouldn’t fit upon delivery and she came home to an empty fridge space and her hubby sanding the bottom of cabinet molding down with a power sander so the other fridge he found WOULD fit).

Yes, off to Best Buy to gaze upon fridge Nirvana. And I found my firdge within seconds of entering the store. The LG 33 inch wide french door, freezer on bottom, no ice maker on door in black and cheaper than any fridge at Lowes and Home Deopt and SHORT! Okay, huge ass hinges in the front would NOT fit under cabinet, but cabinet sets back  (or fridge sticks out a good ways. We’ll skip the long wait to actually buy the fridge and the delivery snafu (fridge that existed on a Tuesday suddenly needed to be back ordered the morning of scheduled delivery day) and go right to the installation from hell.

Thank goodness delivery company had three men , that’s all I can say. They were able to get the old fridge out easily becuase, well, it was smaller and they could take the doors off and I didn’t care. Getting the new fridge in took some doing. Freezer door had to be removed, Fridge doors had to be open (BUTTERFL?Y!) and all shelves taken off doors. And thatn’s wen I found that all my doorways into the kitchen are odd and different sizes. (go figure) And then I remembered that when we moved in, the old fridge came in through the dining room. Yup. biggest door opeining in the whole house and even then it wasn’t easy at all. No, the fridge was butterflied, and spun, angled and I swear twisted into place. This fridge is NEVER coming out of this house again….at least in one piece. It’s a thing of beauty and I have to love it forever.

The saddest part? It was hellishly hot, the poor guys were horsing that fridge around my house suspended between them by a strap, sweating away and I couldn’t offer them anything cold because I had no ice by this point.

So, what have we learned? Bigger isn’t better, but it is the way of the world now. Measure first, be prepared to saw, sand or remover existing overhead cabinetry but above all, your door openings may be the biggest impediments yet. Just hope you get the guys that know how to butterfly a fridge around the house.

I suspect the neighbor behind us. He has a garden in the low section of his backyard. Fenced, guarded, a thing of great pride apparently. And since said neighbor so nicely threw a tree branch that MAY have fallen from the damn hybrid poplar onto their yard, back into ours, well, I figure cranky is their first response to any crisis. I long suspected them of poisoning the groundhog that lived under our shed. And, now, putting two and two together I think they poisoned whatever curled up and died under our deck. (inaccessibly too I might add)

When you poison vermin they don’t just “go away.” They go somewhere and DIE. And after they die, they ROT. And when they rot they STINK to high heaven. For the inaccessible body under the deck I was able to cram enough quick lime down the cracks between the boards to hasten decomposition and dampen the smell. We avoided the shed for a bit when the groundhog passed (and were appalled that a new tenant moved in so quickly, ick) But now? The bunnies are dropping like flies and attracting them too.

And, it’s not just the foul smell, it’s the fear that some child or pet is going to inadvertently ingest the poison too. I have a feeling mister cranky pants just doesn’t care.

What fool would feed deer? The fool that lives up the hill behind us apparently. Word on the street has it she felt sorry for the vermin over the winter and so she fed them. Really? Really?

And the end result is the vermin grazing up through the backyards and pretty much taking out any new plantings or gardens. DH has lost any bean plant within reach. He does have the garden fenced but the vermin stretch their cute little bambi necks up and over and nibble the edges. uh huh. And I foolishly put out a hanging basket of begonias. Gone! Gone as if a hedge trimmer was on the loose. Those damn deer eat almost anything (except barberry, most thorny plants (but they like roses) mints and herbs). So I got the deer repellent spray and it does work but heed my advice.

Don’t inhale when you spray. Stand up wind when you spray Don’t get it on you, at all! and yes, it does dry odorless.  Who could conceive that putrescent egg solids and garlic could be so , so…so…yeah, repellent?