Got Wood?

Oh, yeah, baby.
I got wood.
Lots and lots of big, hard wood
Wanna see a picture of my wood?
You know you do…

What?
Were you expecting something else?

Yesterday, on his day off (because Firefighters work less than trust fund babies), Brian ordered 3 cords of wood to be delivered to the house.

If anybody is unsure how big a cord of wood is:

A full cord is a large amount of wood. It measures 4 feet high by 4 feet wide by eight feet long (4' x 4' x 8') and has a volume of 128 cubic feet.

In other words, we had 384 cubic feet of wood dropped off in our neighbor’s driveway yesterday that needed to be moved and stacked.

Of course, I was at work, stickin’ it to the man in between facebook visits and coffee refills. Brian, suddenly realizing that he might have bitten off more than he can chew, was faced with the task of moving all this wood by himself.

Needless to say, when I got home last night, he was sore, exhausted, and 4 beers deep.
Poor baby.

Having a fireplace insert is a great thing. We went from spending about $600 per month to heat our house (oil heat), to spending $600 in wood to heat our house for the entire winter. Seriously, think about it. One month’s heating expenditure now gets us through the whole winter.

Awesome-sauce.

Of course, there are some drawbacks. For one thing, the front of the house, where the insert is, gets sit-around-in-your-underwear toasty, while the back of the house is akin to a nuclear winter. To solve this dilemma, Brian and I are planning on literally cutting a big hole in the wall that separates the living room from the hallway to the back of the house, so the hot air can mosey along to the back bedrooms.

Another drawback is that fire requires a great amount of attention to start and a moderate amount of attention to maintain. But then again, it’s kind of a cool chore to have. I’d rather come home and be faced with the task of lighting a fire than, say, emptying the dishwasher or cleaning the bathroom. Kind of makes me feel like a pioneer or a caveman. It’s a welcome change from staring at a computer screen all day.

The thing about a fireplace insert is, you kind of start obsessing about wood. Like, you stand in front of a beautiful oak tree, which has probably been around since the revolutionary war or some shit, and all you’re thinking is, “I bet that tree could heat my house for a long time.”

And then you kind of stare at it creepily with Deliverance eyes and push your fingertips together and calculate ways to chop it down, and all I can say is it’s a good thing that trees can’t A) read minds, or B) move around, because I would have been squashed SO FAST by the first mighty oak I encountered since installing that bad boy.

It’s also kind of comforting to know that, no matter what goes on in the world, we will always be warm. Like, the power could fail and we could run out of gas and society could cease to exist as we know it, but we would still have a way to heat our house through the winter. Granted, we’d probably be eating the pets at that point, but I’m willing to bet that Milo would actually be pretty tasty if roasted over an open flame.

(All kidding aside; seriously, Milo, get your shit together or I’m totally going to eat you)

So with this latest delivery of GINORMOUS proportions, we will have enough wood to heat us through the winter, and then some.

It feels good.
VERY good.

But then again, I wasn’t the one who had to move it…

A Story That Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With Me

It’s hard to be funny when you’re surrounded by idiots.

I want to laugh today – I really do.
But I can’t. Because there are so many stupid people in this world, I can only assume that Natural Selection up and quit this bitch a long time ago.

That, or Darwin was wrong.
Which, really, would explain the duckbilled platypus.

And of course, I have to speak in these vagaries, because if I got all specific and shit, certain people might have my head on the chopping block.
Because that’s the problem with having a public blog, and as much as I sometimes want to make this thing private so that I can have a safe venue for ranting and raving, it’s just not going to happen.

Because I love you guys.
And I love the people who haven’t discovered my blog yet, but one day will. And they too will follow my ridiculous path through life, and it will inevitably make me feel a little less alone.

Which is what you guys do, and for that, trust me, there is much love.

So I guess today is kind of a wash, because I’m full of rage, but not in the fun way.
More in the defeated, throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air kind of way that Condy Rice must have felt when she was trying to have a conversation with Dub-yah.

“So, that meeting with Iran went pretty badly”
“What d’ya mean? Ah think it went fine. Jus’ fine”
“They refused to let us tour their nuclear facilities.”
“Oh, what’s the harm in a few nuke-u-lar plants anyway? They SAID they weren’t gonna make no weapons or nuthin’”
“It’s just that…oh, nevermind.”
“Besides, that Iraq leader guy seemed pretty nice to me.”
“Iran. We were speaking to the president of Iran”
“What?”
“Nothing. Nevermind. Look! Something Shiny!”
“Ooooohhh!”

So instead, I’m going to tell you a story.

It’s about a squirrel who works in a nut factory.

You see, Squirrel works in the Acorn department. His job is to find acorns and bring them to the factory to be processed. He’s always been good at finding acorns, and even went to school to learn how to find them better and faster than most of the other squirrels around.
So Squirrel is running around, finding acorns, and bringing them to the factory. He is doing a good job, and is content in his work.

Problem is, the foreman, Raccoon, doesn’t really understand what Squirrel does. He knows that the Squirrel works with other squirrels in the Acorn department, but beyond that, he doesn’t have a clue. To him, it seems like the acorns just appear out of thin air.

One day, and order comes to the factory. It’s for twice the amount of acorns that the Acorn department usually brings in.
Of course Raccoon, believing that the acorns just appear out of thin air, agrees to supply this order. He tells the Acorn department to produce twice the normal amount, and they protest, saying how they can only collect so many acorns in one day. Raccoon tells them to “figure it out” and goes home, leaving the squirrels to work though the night collecting acorns until they are exhausted.

One day, a few weeks later, the Raccoon goes to the Acorn department. He proudly announces that he has finally brought some help for the Acorn department, and introduces Rabbit.

Unfortunately, Rabbit has never collected an acorn in his life.
In fact, he’s never even SEEN an acorn.
And he’s certainly never been to Acorn Collecting School.

So they send Rabbit out on his first day, and by the end of the day, he has returned with a carrot.
The squirrels show him what acorns look like and try to describe the best places to get them, but Rabbit doesn’t understand the difference between acorns and carrots.
In addition, he doesn’t have the right kind of paws to dig up and transport acorns.
Because he’s not a squirrel.
He’s a rabbit.
And no matter how they try to teach Rabbit to collect acorns, he continues to bring back carrots.

Raccoon, noticing that acorn production has not increased and has, in fact, decreased slightly, furiously marches to the Acorn Department and demands an explanation.

The squirrels try to tell him that the Rabbit doesn’t know how to collect acorns, and in trying to teach him, they’re losing valuable daylight in which to search for acorns.

But Raccoon doesn’t understand why.
He doesn’t understand that squirrels are designed to collect acorns and rabbits are not.
He tells them to work harder and train Rabbit better, and then goes home for the day.

But all the training in the world won’t make up for the fact that Rabbit is not a squirrel, and will never be able to collect acorns as well as the other squirrels.

So, if you were Squirrel, wouldn’t you be pretty pissed off?

Yeah, I would be too.
In fact, I would be pretty damn sure that Squirrel needs a new job.
Good thing that I’m not a squirrel, right?….

Friday Featured Follower

First, a brief monologue, if you will (oh, stop your complaining, I'll get to the good part soon enough):
Ahem...

There is no doubt that the past week has been a lousy one for me. I’ve been moody and bitter and all kinds of shouty, and I kind of knew why but kind of didn’t. I think it was an amalgamation of worries and doubts and feeding off of other peoples’ frustrations that left a big ole’ black cloud trailing me like a leopard trailing an injured gazelle. Great for my blogs (because my humor is fueled by my unquenchable rage), but not so great for my sanity, which at any day is iffy, at best.

Regardless, today I feel like I’ve turned the corner. Maybe it’s because it’s a beautiful, sunny Friday. Maybe it’s because I have a great weekend ahead of me, full of fire pits and dogs running on the beach and horses that need riding.

Or maybe it’s the crack I smoked this morning…

Either way, things are really looking up today, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Moving on…

It’s Friday (Yessssssss!)
And you know what that means.
Time for a Friday Featured Follower.

Today’s Friday Featured Follower is Carrie over at Brick City Love.

Now, there may be a few of you out there who are saying, “No fair! She's, like, one of your best friends! That’s cheating!"

And to those people I say, Shut it. It’s my blog and I am the blogtater and I make my own G-D blog rules.

But seriously, for those of you who are able to look past this blatant favoritism and check out her blog will see, in an instant, why her blog is featured on my site today.

Why I want to do sexy times with her blog:

Here’s the deal with Carrie:

I’ve actually known this little blondie since the day she was born. As in, literally, the day she was born, my parents took me and my sister to go visit her in the hospital. My mom watched Carrie and I every day before we were old enough to go to school, and her parents are my godparents.

Hell, this chick not only attended my wedding, but practically ran that bitch.

To say we’re tight is an understatement.
It’s like saying Nicole Kidman and her Botox doctor are tight.

Anyhoodle, watching this lady grow up has been something all kinds of special. When she was a teenager, she was sort of creative, in this arts-n-crafts, home-ec kind of way (and with a home-ec teacher for a mother, is it really any surprise?). In short, she could sew and she could cook, and that was really, really handy if I needed something hemmed or ingested.

But since that time, she has seriously come into her own. Her creativity has gone through the roof, but not in the way I thought it would, like making sweaters for her dogs or decorating cakes. She got all strange and wild and passionate and bizarre, and the more I saw it, the more I knew that this chick was TOTALLY ON to something.
She was the bright, independent, totally confident, slightly off-kilter individual whom I could only HOPE to become one day, if I played my cards right and didn’t succumb to the conformity of an office job.

And this wonderful personality is completely evident in her blog, which started as a way to track her progress while she and her husband (another dear friend of mine) renovated a bajillion-year-old house in Newark, NJ. She still writes about the renovations, but she has also added another dimension to the blog that displays her eccentrically wonderful tastes and reveals tidbits about the awesome person she has become.

Plus, she’s a hottie (as if you guys needed another excuse to go check her out…literally)

One of my favs:
All of the posts that proudly display her unique tastes are fun, but today’s post takes the cake.

Only THIS WOMAN would:
A) Dream of owning a vintage dress form
B) Find a vintage dress form and proclaim how beautiful it is
C) Take awesome pictures of said vintage dress form so that, when you’re looking at it, you’re all, Hey, I can kinda see it!
D) Walk away from this dress form, get in her car, and get on the highway only to TURN AROUND, GO BACK, AND GET IT.

This woman?
She LOVES her dress form.

And because of this, I love her.

[interesting aside: she also decorated a wall in her former apartment with giant gas station numbers and has a doll head mold collection. At this point, are you thinking, WTF?!?!? Good. That’s exactly what I thought when I saw it.]

So go visit her blog, and I promise you’ll be hooked. And you might learn a thing or two about home renovation in the process.
But you can’t be her best friend because that’s MY job, and I called dibs, suckas!


So that concludes this little love-fest. If you want a shot at becoming the next Friday Featured Follower, make sure you’re 1) a follower of mine, 2) have a great blog that you update pretty regularly, and 3) are not above blatant commenting and sexual favors.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Sunday Can't Come Soon Enough

Oh my god, you guys. This animal situation is getting completely out of control. Now, if you are a frequent reader, you know that Brian and I have enough furry animals in our house to assemble some sort of small, fuzzy, domesticated army (if only I could motivate them to do anything other than sniff each others’ assholes and ruin my life).

Our Cast of Quadrupeds:

Jericho: The wise old dog who knows everything about life, yet continues to take his morning piss on my euonymus plant, knowing full well that I will chase him down and scream in his face for doing so. Also known to poop in inappropriate places including (but not limited to): Petsmart, a crosswalk in New Brunswick (as the light was turning green), and center field at the annual Firefighter Turkey Bowl. But NOT at my wedding, and accordingly, is the house favorite. By a long shot.

Skittles: The deranged, serial killer cat who will cut you if you fuck with her, or even if she’s just in a mood. Known to be handleable only when her surface temperature reaches 3462346952234 degrees Fahrenheit after sitting in front of the fire for countless hours. Is anticipated to kill us in our sleep one day.

Tiger aka Pumpkin aka Fat Girl: World’s fattest cat. Can be found sitting on my laptop case 24 hours a day, exposing her lady bits and licking the fur off of her engorged tummy. Believed to be the incarnate of my Dear Aunt Peg (may she rest in peace), and as such, is alleged to speak with a throaty voice developed after years of chain smoking, and probably calls everybody “doll.” Also has a testicle-stomach.

Milo: The scourge of our house, and the bane of my existence. Is 11 months old, not yet fully potty trained, and 100% untrustworthy when left alone for even a second. Exuberance is matched only by his ability to digest anything and everything, including books, crown molding, antique chests, windowsills and window frames, shoes, bras, pillows, blankets, dog beds, bills and other paper goods, and various plastic sundries. Has been known to scooch his crate through multiple rooms in our house and run six miles at once without tiring. Will likely be the death of me.

So, considering this menagerie, is it any wonder that the addition of another animal is seriously giving me a heart attack?

Enter Bandit.

Bandit: Beagle belonging to in-laws. Neurotic, spastic, clingy, and prone to baying that will make your ears bleed and your eyes pop out of their sockets when he is left alone. Has a serious Napoleon complex and thus, splits his time between staring down and attacking Milo and running from Milo with his tail between his legs. Designated “Weirdo” and habitual shedder. Not even that cute, to be perfectly frank.

Bandit is staying with us through Sunday while my In-laws go on vacation somewhere in NY.

Oh, joy.

When he’s at his home, he sleeps in my In-Laws bedroom room on the floor (I think). Sleeping arrangements are already tight in our house, so you can imagine that adding an additional…eccentric…animal to the mix is not conducive to sleep. Or sanity.

At first, Bandit was determined to sleep on the bed with Brian and I. Unfortunately, that piece of prime real estate is already monopolized by Milo and trust me, there ain’t room for one more. So Bandit jumps up and theres all kinds of whining and staring and a few snarls as Milo and he negotiate the terms of his lease.

When the grumbly growling doesn’t stop, I make an executive decision to boot Bandit to the floor, and would you believe it? He GROWLS at me. Like, seriously snarls. I saw teeth and crazy-eyes. So Brian shoves him to the ground and then…
The pacing starts.

Back and forth across our wood floors. Bandit is trying to figure out where to sleep.
*click click click click
Like the Tell Tale heart, but VERY MUCH NOT MY IMAGINATION.

And for the record, I was seriously considering burying him below the floor boards at this point.

But finally everybody settles down for the night.

Unfortunately, Milo decides that 2:00am is a GREAT time to wake up and stare down Bandit from the top of the bed until they resort to fisticuffs.
So there’s more growling and snarling and you know what?
Don’t fuck with my sleep, you little hairy bastards!

Milo gets the boot out of the room, and I crawl back in bed and try to sleep.
Thing is, I keep imagining all the stuff he’s getting in to out in the living room.
So I sleep, fretfully, until Milo throws himself at the bedroom door, barking, around 3:00am.

So in Milo comes and he’s back on the bed, but he’s all squirmy and wanting to play and I had to beat him...er...pet him until he acquiesced to stay still and “go the fuck to sleep,” as I so tactfully put it.

So that was my night.
And we have three more to go.

Bandit is also unable to regulate his food intake.

In other words, he’s a fat, greedy bastard.

So Milo and Jericho’s food, which is usually down 24 hours a day, has to come up. And Bandits food has to be measured and put down twice a day, without allowing my dogs to eat it.

It’s fucking retarded. So what if he want to eat himself to death? I say sit back and let the process of natural selection occur.

Brian put down Bandit’s food this morning while me, Milo, and Jericho were sleeping in the bedroom. Sure enough, it’s still on the floor when we emerge, and as soon as Milo gets a whif of it, he runs to the kitchen and FLIPS THE ENTIRE BOWL OVER.
Then he starts eating it off the floor.

(I hate this dog).

So I clean it up and put it back in the bowl, and I have to watch Bandit eat to (slowly, nugget by painful nugget) make sure Milo or Jericho don’t sneak a bite. And then I have to put Milo and Jericho’s food down to make sure that Bandit doesn’t eat it, and they’re all, “What is this shit?” Because they’re used to eating at their leisure.

Ugh.

So I’m pretty sure Jericho didn’t eat at all, Milo ate half of Bandit’s food, and Bandit ate the other half of his food this morning.

I seriously don't have time for this when I'm struggling to make it to work by 8:45 am.

So if anybody needs me, I’ll be at a hotel until Sunday.

Brian,
If you’re reading this, Bandit gets a cup of food twice a day. Oh, and Milo’s shock collar is in the closet.
Have a great weekend!

Way Off Target

Just in case anybody was worrying that Target was too good to be true (and let’s admit it, we were ALL thinking it), allow me to alleviate your fears:
No.
Target is NOT too good to be true.

Because the same people who brought us reasonably priced pajamas and papyrus greeting cards and that adorable bull terrier with the target around his eye have...apparently...brought us THESE find clothing selections:

I call this first piece The Ricky Ricardo:

Hey Ladies! Ever have one of those days where you’re in the mood to marry a feisty yet submissive ginge and sing at a Latin dance hall? How about those days when you look in your closet but just can’t find an appropriate outfit to wear to your local Pimp Convention?
And what about those cold winter mornings where you’re thinking to yourself, hey, it’d be great if I could sling a skinned otter around my neck to battle that winter chill?

Well, allow Target to answer your prayers. Pick up this coat for the low, low price of $39.99 and be the envy of every pimp, I Love Lucy fan, and frostbitten person you encounter.

And what about these beautiful skirts, which I refer to as The Courtney Love Collection?

FINALLY there’s a skirt in which I can go from giving BJs in a back alley for 8-balls to my ballet recital without having to change. Throw in some Lindsay Lohan knee-pad leggings and you’ve got yourself a highly versatile outfit that will have your next appointment behind the dumpster begging for more!



Here we have The Lumberjack Special:

What else can I say about this vest? The plaid proudly communicates “Resident of Montana,” yet the faux-fur-lined hood screams “playboy bunny.” And sleeves? Who needs them when you’re ensconced in layers of flannel and fake dead animals? What you got here is a vest that allows every aspiring pin-up to express her inner mountain man..until her arms freeze and fall off.

…and speaking of Mountain Man…
Nothing brings out your inner wild animal like The Yeti:

The Yeti is made from 100% recycled Yeti fur, skinned from only the finest Himalayan Yeti. Ever need a vest suitable for howling at the moon? Ever wonder what it would be like to wear a muppet? Than The Yeti is for you. Impress your friends! Intimidate your enemies! Spread your fleas! For the ultimate animal experience, The Yeti can’t be beat.

And finally, we have The Night Fever:

Perfect for those nights out at Studio 54, this leopard-print gem will make you the envy of everybody at the roller disco. Start your own “night fever” in this classy, stylish shrug that in no way, shape, or form makes you look like a prostitute.

Just make sure not to give anybody directions on the street while wearing it. You know…just in case the cops drive by.

A Post About My Vagina, As If Your Day Wasn’t Weird Enough Already

I’m in a bad mood today.
A REALLY bad mood.
Fucking dismal.

There are a lot of reasons for this mood, many of which I can’t disclose, but the primary reason involves my inevitable date with a speculum at 6:30 tonight.

Ladies, you know what I’m talking about…
And men? Well, maybe you don’t want to continue reading today, and I wouldn’t blame you one bit.

Honestly, there is nothing worse than a visit to your ob/gyn. I mean, where else can you experience all of the awkwardness and discomfort of sex with none of the fun parts?

You go into this little room and take off your clothes, and they give you this weird paper mumu (open in the front, of course), and a thin paper “blanket” that’s supposed to help you maintain some sort of dignity but really only highlights the fact that you’re essentially dressed in a paper towel.

And then the doctor comes in and is all, “Spread ‘em.”

…and not in a sexy porn way, but in a strictly utilitarian way that involves elevated stirrups and instructions to “scooch your butt towards the end of the table.”

And then they tell you to relax.

HAH.

Hey, I’m as liberal as the next guy, but any woman who can relax whilst spread eagle in front of her ob/gyn (and nurse ‘witness’) should probably be checked for drug use.

Because there is NO WAY that a woman can relax when her bits and pieces are on display in that manner.

And then they get all up in there. Like, real close, face-to-face time with your vajeen. And they try to make small talk about the Phillies while digging for buried treasure in your woman area, and part of you kind of appreciates the distraction, but the other part of you is all, “it’s kind of hard to talk sports when you’re elbows deep in my crevasse.”

And then a third part of you is like, “maybe you should be paying attention to what you’re doing, seeing as you’re squeezing the bajesus out of my uterus and at some point, I may want to have children.”

And then a FOURTH part of you is making your grocery list, because you’ve kind of been there, done that and really, at this point, who in the tri-state area HASN’T seen your vagina?

Or am I alone in this?

So your ob-gyn is finally done with the “getting to know you” phase of the exam and breaks out the big guns.

He or she holds up a speculum in one hand a giant tube of KY in the other and says something like, “this is going to feel a little cold.”

And before you know it, you’re being violated by a metal duck bill that’s been slathered in goo.

So you’ve got the cold, slimy duck bill in your nether regions and you’re thinking to yourself, hey, how much more uncomfortable could this get? And then, just to prove you wrong, your ob/gyn OPENS the duck bill and suddenly you’re all, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, want to open that thing a little wider, doc? I can’t QUITE fit a basketball in there yet”

Because when your vagina is flapping in the wind for all to see, sometimes sarcasm is your only friend.

And then they stick a long Q-tip up there, and you don’t know exactly what they’re doing.

But your uterus knows.

And it objects.

But finally. Finally. Your doctor is finished.
The speculum is removed and they leave you to deal with the KY-slathered aftermath, and they never, EVER leave you enough tissue.

Because they want you to suffer.
Because they hate you.

And that, kids, is what is going to delay me from getting home until about 8:00 tonight.

Is it any wonder why I’m kind of in the mood to punch babies?

WonderBread Ted

So, we got a new car last week.
“New” as in, new to us. Not “new” as in, nobody ever had sex in the back seat of it and it still smells like leather.

It was actually Brian’s brother’s car (and now that I’ve mentioned sex in the back seat, I think I need to go throw up. Awesome).

Brian’s brother recently went to Afghanistan for a year on a contract position with an engineering company. He had a car that he needed to sell, and Brian needed a car whose shocks weren’t about to desintegrate at any second, undoubtedly causing the car to careen out of control and plow into a gaggle of schoolchildren.

Volkswagen: the “Hitler” of automobiles since 1933
(and I’m not even kidding about it. Read the Wiki entry here)

So I guess the timing was ideal. Two DMV visits and multiple calls to various insurance agencies later, we had ourselves a new to us car.

Sure, it isn’t the car we ideally hoped for. Brian had his eyes set on a new Jeep Sahara hard-top for off-roading fun, and I was daydreaming of driving around in a new Nissan Frontier (Because I’ve always wanted a pick-up truck. Because I’ve always wanted an excuse to wear a cowboy hat that doesn’t involve Halloween or riding a bull). But sometimes life doesn’t work out like that, and despite your best intentions, you end up with…something else.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you:

WonderBread Ted:

So yeah, we have a Focus. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It has decent pick-up and an MP3 connection and a moon-roof.

It’s just so….I dunno...white-boy.

And I know, I know. Last time I checked, Brian and I are white (with the exception of some sort of suspicious activity with my great great great great grandfather and a woman of African descent, according to my half-crazy grandmother, which might explain my badonkadonk and killer moves on the dance floor)

But this car.
It’s just not us.

This car belongs to a recent college grad who wears button-down shirts and slacks and works at Inatech and owns a condo and spends his weekends playing beer-pong with his friends on his Ikea dining-room table.

This car belongs to a guy who wears just a little too much gel in his hair and listens to rap (but turns the volume down when a black guy walks by) and drinks Heineken to impress the ladies with his taste for “imported” beer.

This car belongs to a guy who replaces toner cartridges and spends his vacations at the jersey shore and spends his cash on the newest plasma TV and Playstation games involving guns and those little headpieces that allow him to curse out his 10-year-old opponents in Dusseldorf, Germany.

This car DOES NOT belong to a hip, adventure-seeking firefighter and his equally hip and adventure-seeking writer wife and their two dogs, two cats, and disgruntled beta-fish. I mean, where’s the roof rack for the kayak? Where’s the hatch-back to fit our camping gear? Where are the heated seats to soothe my bruised backside after a day of snowboarding?

*sigh.

So yeah.
We have a Ford Focus.
And for all intents and purposes, it’s very nice.

I’m just not sure where I'm gonna put the damn kayak...