1 Out Of 3 Cats Prefer Orbit Sweet Mint Gum

I walked into the house. The orange cat, Georgie, ran upstairs like he'd just been caught doing something he shouldn't have been doing. The other two cats, Blackie and Chubbie, were sitting watching me, as if they were on look out duty. Behind them, on the floor, was a package of Orbit Sweet Mint gum.

When I picked up the package of gum to return it to the table it had been on, I noticed that a corner of the package had been eaten into, some of the gum inside nibbled on, and it was all still moist.

Hmmm...

I later held the gum package to Chubbie and he acted like he'd never smelled anything worse. Blackie just wanted to rub her head against it. And Georgie is still hiding, like a guilty child who'd gotten caught swiping a cookie.

Wii're Having Fun

My wife, Sarah (with an "h"), called me a few days ago with some exciting news: "Honey, we're having a baby!" "There are some Nintendo Wii games consoles in stock, and it's okay with me to get one!"



Thanks to the van's onboard transporter, Bennett (aka "Newbie Driver") and I were soon standing at a cash register waiting to buy a Wii game console + a Wii game, both of us grinning like a cat that'd just figured out how to open a hamster cage door.



When we got home, first I showed Tim (aka "Triple T") a Mario Brothers Wii game we also got.



Triple T said, "Dude, why'd ya git a wee game when wee kan't play it?" (Tim doesn't spell well when he's talking.)



I motioned for Newbie Driver to come into the rec room (aka "The Teen Cave") and show Triple T the Wii console we just bought. Triple T just sat there smiling the biggest grin of his brief life... like a hamster that'd just figured out how to boobytrap a hamster cage door.



Soon, both Triple T and Newbie Driver were setting up, configuring, arguing (I mean "discussing"), and then playing games on the Wii.



When I went upstairs, I think I heard what sounded like a soft crying or whimpering sound coming from the older game consoles, now forgotten.



next week: The Sega Genesis and the Nintendo 64 stage a protest.

Extremely Local News for Sunday, 4/27

Here is the Sunday 4/27/08 edition of Extremely Local News.

* Our southern neighbor burned a leaf pile.
* Georgie (our orange cat) left his "cave" to set what everyone was up to.
* I used a computer.
* Blackie slept, ate some food, and slept.
* Tim ate some hot dogs.
* Chubbie (our grey cat) drank some water.
* I poisoned some dandelions.
* A duck chased another duck.
* Sarah (with an "h") dealt with customers and co-workers (or as Scott Adams says, "cow-workers").
* We had a fire drill at church during Sunday School, but it wasn't a drill.
* Doug picked up his mail.
* I had some pizza.
* Bennett had some pizza.
* Some neighborhood kids walked past our house.

Gentle reader, I hoped that you enjoyed this installment of Extremely Local News. Tune in next time to learn what happened to the plant. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

Christmas Day 2007

Now that it's March, I decided it was a good time to write about Christmas Day 2007.

How was your Christmas Day? Did you receive any presents you liked? Awesome!

Here's how we spent our Christmas Day.

Since our youngest family member is a teen, my wife and I were the first ones up. We had a nice brunch, followed by The Opening of the Christmas Gifts, supper, and just relaxing. For supper, when we had our Christmas dinner, we feasted on:

• Christmas ham with Christmas pineapple rings
• Christmas green bean casserole with Christmas french onions
• Christmas pudding
• Christmas stuffing

The cats really got into the spirit of the day!

Blackie walked around randomly, slept, sometimes ran quickly for no apparent reason, and meowed.

Chubbie walked around randomly, slept, sometimes ran quickly for no apparent reason, and occassionally acted scared. (Chubbie doesn't "talk" very often.)

Georgie slept, purred, frequently ran quickly as if he were being chased by Dementors, and generally acted scared... unless he was sleepy, in which case he was not afraid anymore and just wanted to be petted (and would then purr when petted, of course).

The day before, Christmas Eve, we were visited by my wife's older daughters, along with the grandchildren. That was an enjoyable time for everyone.

We did have some snow on Christmas Day, though nothing like the crazy amounts of snow we received in January. And February. My goodness! We got a LOT of snow in February. Anywho... As long as there is some snow on the ground on Christmas Day, then all is well with the world.

All Charged Up

Pop quiz, hot shot! What happens when you leave your vehicle's ignition key in the accessories position all night long?

Yeah, that's right. You end up with a completely dead battery.

Question #2: How quickly can a tow truck jump start your vehicle (the one having a completely dead battery)?

Yep. Instantly.

So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Thanksgiving and its Aftermath

We had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Day. I hope you, gentle reader, did as well.

Dinner was hosted by my parents. Along with my family, excluding the girl (who had fled the state for the week), attending dinner there were Brother Jon's family, Sister Mary's family, and Heather and her wee bairns. And my parents were there, too, since it was their house after all.

For dinner we had turkey, hot dogs (for those who don't eat turkey), mashed taters, corn stuff, two kinds of stuffing (double the goodness), some sort of weird red gelatinous substance (my wife claimed it was something called "canned cranberry"), black olives, and gravy. Lots of gravy. Thanksgiving dinner just would not be complete without gravy. Why? Because gravy makes it better. Mmm...

But I digress.

After dinner, some of us shuffled into the family room where we watched the remainder of the annual Thanksgiving football game, at which NFL players give thanks by tackling each other. Then we watched Judge Judy scold people for being idiots. The kids played board games, with the older kids playing one board game where they followed the rules of play, and the younger ones playing another board game in which the game pieces became fascinating toys.

My wife, Sarah (with an "h"), and I celebrated Black Friday, the big day after Thanksgiving day of super-duper sales, by not shopping. Though The Doug did go out super early with his hunting friends... he was successful! Actually, I did go out later in the day for duct tape ("it can fix anything!"). And I put up the exterior Christmas lights, since walking around on the roof is one of my favorite pastimes. Then that night, we all got stomach flu. That was fun. But we're all feeling much better now. Especially now that it's snowing! (see FSOTY post)

30 Days Until My Doom

Today is November 15th, which means that, in exactly one month, I turn 40. Huzzah! Most people approach such milestones in their life with a sense of doom & gloom. But not me!

To help with commemorating this date, that is today, nature has kindly provided us with a cold, grey, dreary, rainy kind of day. So, while I may not feel gloomy today, I guess nature does.

But that's okay... I actually like these kinds of days. Except when my vehicle loses its traction and careens into a ditch. Then it's not so fun. But that hasn't happened for several years anyway. And I got an SUV out of it!

The only thing I dislike about the weather we're having today is that we're not expected to get any snow. I like watching the snow fall, don't you?

Today is also the beginning of deer hunting season, rifle & shotgun edition. I overhead a group of deer talking about it this morning. As with past years, they're all planning to hide in caves & garages until the hunting season ends, at which time they'll return to their favorite activity... playing chicken with vehicles moving at high speed.

They were talking on the local news this morning about how all the deer hunters are whining about how ammo costs several times more than in past years. Babies. In my day, we hunted deer with slingshots. We were lucky if we managed to merely annoy a deer. And we liked it that way!

I once used a slingshot, I think when I was in high school. Yeah, I ignored my mom's warnings and managed to shoot myself in the eye. My friends called me "slingshot eye". But it's all good. And besides, now my eye is stronger than ever! But not as strong as Steve Austin's since he was all bionic and stuff.

Yeah ever wonder what a bionic cat would be like? We've seen bionic men, women, and even a dog. But what about a bionic cat? Would it's super strength help it sleep better on the couch? Or help it be better at ignoring you when you enter the room? If one of our cats were bionic, it'd probably bust through a window trying to chase after birds or squirrels.

We have several bird feeders at our house, which provide us and our cats with a lot of entertainment. The birds, that is, not the bird feeders, which really don't do anything besides just hanging around. There was a really loud bird at one of our feeders the other day. I secretly think it was using a little bird-sized megaphone.

Turning 18

As of exactly one week ago, we now have a new adult in our home. That's right, Bethany turned 18. She allowed Spike the Wave to interview her (transcript below) about this milestone in her life.

STW: Congratulations on turning 18.
Bethany: What? (removes earbuds)
STW: I said, congratulations on turning 18.
Bethany: Oh, thanks!
STW: Do you feel more mature now, since the government would now consider you to be an adult?
Bethany: It's funny you should ask, as I was thinking about that earlier this morning.
STW: Really? In what way?
Bethany: Well, just how it's neat that since I'm now 18, I've magically suddenly become mature enough to do things I wasn't capable of doing as recently as the day before my birthday.
STW: Fascinating! Do you have an example or two?
Bethany: Sure. The first one is that, since the day I turned 18, I'm now capable of waiting tables at the restaurant I work at. I wasn't capable of doing that when I was only 17 and 364 days old.
STW: Ah. Anything else?
Bethany: When driving, I'm now able to have my younger brothers ride along without my parents having to be there.
STW: Are you getting enough oxygen?
Bethany: Um, yeah, I think so.
STW: Well, thanks for stopping by!

Our Internet Connection Has Been Repaired

Like most people having broadband Internet access through cable or DSL, we experience an occasional Internet connection outage. For the last few weeks, though, we've been experiencing connection outages nearly every day... some days we effectively had no access that entire day.

So I called the cable company a few days ago, and they scheduled a repairman to come out on Friday morning, sometime between 8 AM and noon. I called back an hour later to request a tighter time frame, 8 AM to 10 AM, but was told, "Uhhhh... We don't have any technicians available until the 1 PM - 5 PM timeframe Friday afternoon." So I agreed to that timeframe, deciding I would just leave work at noon that day. When I got home from work on Friday, there was a message from the cable company on our voice mail: "Hey, we're just confirming that our repairman will be coming to your home sometime between 1 PM and 5 PM on Saturday." Yep, Saturday, not Friday.

The cable guy actually showed up on Saturday afternoon, spent an hour and a half here, and corrected our cable Internet access. Yay! Now I can get back to work on my really important Internet-related activities, like watching hamsters dance!

Milkshakes on a Hot Summer Evening

Monday evening it was hot & humid, with the outdoor temperature again hitting the low 90's. But unlike Sunday, when we had delightful breezes blowing off Lake Michigan all day, the outdoor air was as still as the grave. Ugh! I think I lost a quart of fluid during my first 30 minutes home after work! Not fun! And it made me use lots of exclamation points, too!!! I ran the air conditioner for a few hours, which helped immensely, especially after I closed the windows.

Later in the evening I was looking around in the frig for something cold to drink, and realized we had a lot of milk. Which got me thinking... maybe I could make some milkshakes!

Here's my recipe for homemade milkshakes Dave-shakes. They're yummy!

• pour some milk into a blender
• toss in a bunch of ice
• dump in a bunch of sugar
• sprinkle in some ground cinnamon
• add just a dribble of vanilla extract
• cover & blend

Mmm... Tasty!

Home Alone

Our youngest boy, Tim, is spending part of each day this week home alone. Yesterday was his first day, with him home by himself for a few hours between when his mom left for work and his older brother arrived home.









As I drove home from work Monday, knowing that Tim had spent part of the day by himself, I kept inexplicably thinking of a certain song by Talking Heads.






burning house photo credit information
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California, USA
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/gallery/kilauea/erupt/24ds331_caption.html

TJ Is Gone

The oldest of our four cats, TJ, past away during the night. A few weeks ago, one of the boys said he thought she was losing weight, but we figured he was just seeing things. Especially since the kitten was now nearly as large as TJ. It seems his instincts may have been correct. During the past few days, it'd become quite obvious that TJ was not well, as she seemed unable to do anything other than lie very still. Especially yesterday.

TJ was a good cat. She was the mom of two of our other cats, Blackie and Chubby. She was quite adept at slipping through open doors, dashing to the freedom of the outdoors, which especially beckoned to her during this time of year. Once outdoors, rodents and small birds fled in terror, knowing that the mighty huntress was on the prowl.

TJ's favorite toy was elastic hairbands, the kind that have 2" or 3" diameter. She'd "acquire" one from someone's bedroom and then run through the house with the hairband hanging from her mouth and her yelling "rowr! rowr! rowr!". At least until she realized she'd been seen. Then she would drop the hairband to the floor and just walk away, as if thinking, "I don't know where that hairband came from! Eh heh. (I'm so embarrassed)"

One bit of silly behavior of hers stands out in my memory. Our family room's windows have top panes that can slide down, as well as the bottom panes being able to slide up. Sometimes I open just the top pane, especially when it's windy outside, to direct incoming air toward the ceiling. One night a few weeks ago I'd done just that. When I came downstairs in the morning, there was TJ, sitting INSIDE the window between the closed bottom pane and the exterior screen. Yep... during the night she'd jumped up to the top of the opening, and then either jumped or fallen down, and then realized she was trapped. Silly cat. :)

Disconnected

This morning my family and I faced one of the greatest trials an early 21st century midwestern family can face... an Internet service outage. AHHHHHH!

I sometimes forget how dependent I am on the Internet, or more specifically the World Web Web, aka The Information Superhighway. No reading or writing e-mail. No checking weather forecasts. No checking the business hours for the local bank branch. No Xbox Live. (Well, actually I don't care about that one, but my boys do.) No nuthin. :( It's like when a thunderstorm knocks out electricity service for a few hours... what do you do with your time then? Talk to family members? Yeah, like that'll happen. :)

Internet access has been restored! Huzzah! Our access came back to life while I was on the phone, for the second time today, with our ISP's customer support. How convenient.

5 Years

5 years ago she-who-became-my-wife and I married. Happy 5th anniversary, baby!

White Easter

We did not have a White Thanksgiving in November, 2006.
We did not have a White Christmas in December, 2006. (I was bummed!)
We did not even have a White New Years Day in January, 2007.
But, yes, we did indeed have a White Easter in April, 2007.

All our accumulated snow had disappeared during March. But winter briefly returned last week. On the morning of Good Friday (April 06), 2007, there were 3 - 4 inches of beautiful white snow greeting us. And the weather remained could enough that the snow was still there on Easter Sunday.

Ah. Snow. How I'd missed you. And now you've returned for one last glimpse of your beauty before the full onslaught of spring begins.

I Can See Our Yard

An amazing thing happened this week. I could see our yard!

You see, since early this year when the snows first came, our yard had effectively disappeared under a layer of ice and snow. And pine needles. Due to the warm weather we've had this week, it's pretty much all gone. Including the massive snow & ice pile that had been at one corner of our driveway (built for us by our friendly neighbor snow plow trucks). And with the vernal equinox coming soon, I don't think we'll get much more snow. But I hope we do. I like snow. And winter, the best season of them all.

Backyard Lake

We have backyard lake now!

To the right ( --> ) is a photo of our backyard lake. Our backyard turns into a lake a few times every spring, and a few times every autumn.

Don't you wish you had a backyard lake?

Most of the year, we actually have a peninsula that'd been carved out by a creek. In this photo, taken today, the creek is about 1.5 - 2 feet above its normal level. It's so high because we've had a bit of warm weather (it got up to 52 today!) that's melting all our snow.

Blizzard of 2007

Winter finally arrived in a big way on February 3rd with a blizzard. The weather did an excellent job of basically shutting down the region. You know the weather is bad when the state police have TV stations flash the following message, "Please, oh please, just stay in your homes." Our high temperature that weekend on our front pourch was 8 degrees Fahrenheit with a windcill of probably -15. Brrr! We didn't actually receive that much snow, but it was very windy.

First Snow 2007

We finally got some snow a few days ago! And it's actually cold enough outside for the snow to stick around!! And I'm using a lot of exclamation points!!!!!!

Winter has finally arrived in West Michigan. Huzzah!

Cry of the Hunter

We were sitting in our family room watching TV when we heard the cry of the hunter:

"Rowr! Rowr! Rowr!"

I looked around for the source.

Then I found it.

TJ, our home's head cat, had pounced on and caught an errant hair band, her prey. TJ saw me looking at her and cried out, "Rowr?", and ran off, freeing the hair band.

I walked out to the hallway to pick up the hairband. As I lifted it, I thought I might have heard a small tiny voice saying, "Help me!" . But, I'm pretty sure it was just my hallucination imagination.