Jack Has A New False Accuser

Every day when I come home from town, the dogs go crazy. When T-Hoe is halfway down the driveway, Jack and Copper Jack run across the carport, barking their fool heads off, and jump over the side to run down to the tree line chasing an occasional squirrel that is trying to sneak dog food out of the bowls on the side porch. Except by the time I get out of the Mansion, the dog food is long gone.

Anyhoo... Juno joins in with the fool-head-barking-off, but generally stays at the edge of the carport, and sticks her head under the garage door as it opens. She doesn't go inside. Juno does not like the garage, ever since her very special operation when she was about six months old, and was kept in the garage for 24 hours to let her anesthesia wear off. Even loopy, Juno did not like the garage.

As I park, my little buddy Jack comes in to wait for me by T-Hoe's right front tire. I close the garage door with the remote clipped to the sun visor, and get out, talking to my little Jack. "Is my little buddy in here with me? I bet he is! What a good dog! Coming to greet me every day! Even though I KNOW you're only excited about your TREAT!" 

 

By the time I round the front bumper of T-Hoe, I can see Jack sitting on his haunches, wriggling with anticipation. By the time I reach T-Hoe's license plate, Jack can't hold it any longer. He runs to me and jumps up for petting. Then squats in front of the people door, waiting for me to turn the doorknob so he can slither through the minimal crack he forces with his long body.

Every now and then, Jack gets in trouble. He can't decide IN or OUT. I hit the remote to close the garage door, and it makes a clanking sound. The overhead garage light blinks off and on. I have to wait for the door to go all the way back up, and the lights and clicking to stop, before I can press the remote to close it again. Sometimes this happens more than once. Nothing puts Mrs. HM in a fouler mood, except perhaps dealing with Farmer H's byproducts on the toilet seat.

DANG IT! YOU STUPID DOG! IN OR OUT! I GET SO SICK OF THIS! JUST STOP!!! STAY OUT FROM UNDER THE DANG DOOR!

Of course Jack hears "WAH WAH WAH" like Charlie Brown's teacher voice. But he KNOWS that HM is not happy. When HM ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy! Jack comes around the front of T-Hoe then, his happy-go-lucky bravado gone, crouched down in supplication, very sorry about what he's done. Of course that melts my cold, cold heart. I tell him never mind, I'm over it. He's a good dog after all. And I pet him a little extra.

On Thursday, that dang dog stopped the garage door again. I had my little fit. Only THIS time, I left the garage door up. I got right out instead of gathering my purse and 44 oz Diet Coke first. I walked BACK around to T-Hoe's rear, to get some groceries out. As the hatch was rising, JUNO came darting down the middle of the garage, and out the door! Jack came waddling along behind her, looking confused by my new routine.

I THINK I HAVE BEEN BLAMING THE WRONG DOG!

I think JUNO is the one who darts in and out of the garage, while Jack just comes in and stands there waiting for me by T-Hoe's right front tire!

Sorry, little Jack. I will watch the mirrors next time. You might be too short to see, but Juno's feathery tail should be easy to spot as she darts back and forth.

Mrs. HM Has A Bone To Pick With The Chicken Salad

You might recall that I used to get the chicken salad sandwich from Country Mart's cold deli section. It came on a croissant, with a side of grapes. Mmm. It was delicious. Then I didn't see it for a while. I bought their croissants in a four-pack from the bakery section, and made my own chicken salad at home, out of baked boneless skinless chicken breasts, to eat with red grapes I bought at Save A Lot. Still delicious, but not exactly the same flavor profile.

Mid-week, before I returned for deli salads and was highly annoyed with the slacking deli workers, one of whom gave me the stinkeye for no reason... I again found my chicken salad at Country Mart! Only it wasn't on a croissant. It was in a container with grapes and apple slices.

 

I glanced at the price, which was $7-something. Fair enough. A Dairy Queen Honey BBQ Chicken Basket is $6-something. A Whopper Meal is $10-something. This chicken salad would make two generous sandwiches on the croissants I already had. So I bought the chicken salad.

When I got home, I put it in FRIG II. The date was good for three days, and I had two salads that I was planning to eat for the next two days. When it was time to open and eat my chicken salad, I tore off the label to get the lid off.

Wait a minute! That chicken salad meal was priced BY THE POUND! The cost of the chicken salad was $8-somehing per pound. Do you notice anything fishy here? I did NOT have almost a pound of chicken salad. I had some chicken salad, and SOME HEAVY FRUIT! 

 

The salads are not priced by the pound. In the section of the label marked WEIGHT, it's listed as "1". As in 1 unit. Which I think this chicken salad should be. All the containers have about the same amount of chicken salad. The fruit may vary a bit. I think there should be a standard price for a tub of chicken salad with fruit.

Oh, I'd buy it again. I just think their method of pricing is akin to the Devil's Playground shooting their meats full of saline to increase the weight.

No. I do not plan to raise chickens again, and pluck and butcher them to make my own chicken salad.

Low-Rollin' With The Pony

Every day when I cash in my winning scratchers and buy more, I get some for The Pony. He doesn't ask. I send Genius tickets every week, so I figure The Pony should get some too. Unless The Pony has winners to cash in, I spend about $6 on him. He likes the draw tickets, mainly Cash4Life with the easy match option for an instant win up to $500. For a while, he was winning $2, $3, $4, or up to $10. For about the past 7 days in a row, The Pony has not had a win on the Cash4Life.

Wednesday, I bought The Pony two $1 tickets, a $2 ticket, a $3 ticket. I didn't have high hopes. I can't win on anything under a $3 ticket.

The Pony sat down with his supper plate and the tickets at the marred coffee table. He commenced scratching. Farmer H was on an important phone call, so The Pony and I were whispering. The Pony scratched his first $1 ticket, and raised his eyebrows. Then he moved on to scratch the other tickets. Not much reaction. When he was done, I said,

"Oh. I guess maybe you only won on the first one?"

"No. Actually, I won on ALL FOUR of my tickets! The $1 won a ticket. The $2 won two dollars. And the $3 won three dollars. But this first $1 ticket... LOOK!"

 

 

No, it's not a heart-stopping win. But it's pretty darn good for a $1 investment. The Pony said, "It wasn't big enough to interrupt Dad's phone call, but it's a lot for that ticket!"

 

I don't know how The Pony is so lucky on these lower tickets. I could buy 10 in a row, and maybe only win a ticket. IF that.

The Insanity Of A Farmer H Description

You may recall that Farmer H does not describe things like any other human on earth. Oh, no. He has his own way of explaining, and if you don't get it, YOU CAIN'T UNDERSTAND NOTHIN'!

Wednesday evening, The Pony got home around 7:00. Only a 10.5-hour day! I warmed up his leftover pasta that I had frozen last time we used the expired pasta, and heated two slices of frozen garlic toast from Save A Lot. Otherwise, The Pony says he'll make something after his 2-HOUR NIGHTLY SOAK IN THE BIG TRIANGLE TUB IN THE MASTER BATHROOM. Then he falls asleep, or is too tired to cook. So he gets up hungry. Or eats a snack of soft garlic cheese with crackers at 3:00 a.m., and is nauseated on his 6:00 a.m. route. Like on Monday.

Anyhoo... The Pony was sitting at the marred coffee table, just waiting to drop some saucy pasta on my carpet, I'm sure. I was on the short couch, and Farmer H in his recliner. They were discussing Pony House closet. The main closet that will be in the master bathroom. Farmer H plans for it to be a walk-in closet, but with an accordion door. I think it should be a regular long closet, and not waste the room to step into it. Farmer H thought I meant to LITERALLY not step into it. The part about NOT leaving a 2-3 foot corridor in the middle of the closet was lost on him.

"HM! You'll HAVE to walk in the closet! Nobody has 4-foot-long arms! You can't stand outside the closet and reach the clothes!"

"I don't mean THAT. Instead of a short rack on one side, and shelves on the other, you could have a long rack across the whole closet. You could still have shelves or cubbies at one end. Just don't hang clothes all the way down the rod. At the other end, you could have a lower rack, too. So you could double the hanging room at one end."

"No. You're not getting it!"

"Mom. He knows what he's doing."

"I just think that would be wasting space, to leave an open area to walk in."

"HM. Look. Since you can't ever understand anything..."

Farmer H held up an envelope. A regular business-size envelope. He ran his finger along the bottom edge.

"Here. This envelope is the closet. You're here. At the back of the closet--"

"Wait! Why am I at the BACK OF THE CLOSET? Can't you show me like I'm standing in the bathroom, getting ready to reach into the closet? Nobody is going to be standing against the back wall of the closet, looking out!"

"OH MY LORD! Here, then!"

Farmer H actually took that envelope, and FLIPPED IT 180 DEGREES. He ran his finger along the bottom of the envelope again. Which was actually the flap part now, since he'd flipped it over.

 

"NOW you're at the FRONT of the closet..."

 

The Pony cut eyes at me. So much for being loyal to his dad.

"SERIOUSLY? Did you just do that? Did you FLIP the envelope over to say I'm at the front of the closet??? Why not just say, 'Okay, you're at the front of the closet looking in.' It's not like the envelope is the actual closet!"

 

Farmer H droned on as if any normal person would flip over an envelope to pretend I was on the other side. We know they would not.

Farmer H Is One Of Those People Who Give Something And Then Take It Back

If you're a Seinfeld aficionado, you'll understand the title. Let's just say that episode involved a certain life-size wooden statue found at a cigar store, and political correctness concerning Jerry's new girlfriend.

Anyhoo... it's relevant here because once upon a time, Farmer H gave me a new heater for my dark basement lair. You might recall that my underdesk heater went on the fritz, then came back to life, then finally bit the dust. I've been freezing for a while now. It's not quite as bad during the summer months. Even though I DID used to run it because the air conditioning was too cold down here.

Anyhoo... the new heater Farmer H gave me wasn't new at all. I think he found it in the stuff from the original 18 storage units that he bought. It's a little beige radiator-looking heater. Like in my 2nd grade classroom. A RADIATOR! You don't wanna touch that baby when it's running! 

This little radiator is about 2 feet tall. It has 6 "folds" that radiate the heat. It's electric. I'm not sure it is fully working. Oh, it DOES take the chill off. I am at this very moment without my orange sock cap! My fingers have enough feeling to type. Sure, my thighs still feel like corpse thighs when I'm sitting on the throne in the NASCAR bathroom next to my lair. But it's definitely an improvement over NO heater.

This little radiator would be more effective if it had a fan or blower. I think it does have one, but it doesn't work. There are two dials. One clicks into notches that saw LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH. I hear nothing when I change from one setting to another. The other dial turns smoothly. It has a little circular stripe that starts out thin, and gets thicker on the other end. So I'm thinking that's the amount of heat you're getting.

Anyhoo... this little radiator radiates like a charm. If I walk past and hold my hand over the top, I can feel the heat coming off of it. I have to set it in the middle of my lair walkway. It's supposed to be 2 or 3 feet away from objects. Right now one side is only about 18 inches away from my newer (unused) rolly chair. But nothing is close enough to burst into flames. Nothing is in contact.

The plug-in cord of this little radiator gets hot. Farmer H says they will do that. The thick extension cord I have it plugged into gets hot on about the last four inches of the cord. I monitor it closely. It's within arm's reach. I always unplug this little radiator when I leave my lair. The only exception being trips to the NASCAR bathroom next door.

Farmer H said this weekend that he's planning to take this little radiator over to Pony House, so he can have heat while he works. I'm not thrilled about that...

Sweet Treats For The Unpetite

Sunday, I discovered that Farmer H had brought home a PIE from the auction Saturday night. It was down in the bottom of FRIG II, in the top of the two crisper drawers. Huh. Funny how he didn't mention it. Yes, of course I asked.

"Oh. I was gonna tell you. Look! I bought you some treats. A whole BAG of them!"

Farmer H walked to the table, and held up a Devil's Playground bag, full of clear bags of a cereal/candy mix of the type we call Puppy Chow. Which still didn't explain the pie. Yes, of course I steered the conversation back.

"It's not really a pie. It says it's a turtle cheesecake. With caramel and pecans. But when I ate some, it didn't really taste like cheesecake to me."

I tried a piece on Sunday night. Not a fan. It has a dark cookie crumble crust, like ground Oreo. Kind of a smushy tasteless middle. An occasional pecan. And some liquidy caramel drizzle. Not bad, but not much flavor. I won't be having any more. 

 

However... I tried some of the Puppy Chow stuff on Monday. My mom used to make Puppy Chow. It consists of Crispix cereal, which is like Chex in a more round, perhaps pentagon shape, coated with a combo of melted chocolate and peanut butter, then shaken with powdered sugar. The auction version is a little different. 

 

All but one (of the 9 remaining, since I found an empty one in the wastebasket) bags is the Puppy Chow. One is labeled as Haystacks. I've had them before. I think they are sesame noodles coated with melted butterscotch chips. I left them for Farmer H. Here's a closeup of my Puppy Chow:

 

I posed the label off the bag in the ramekin with a portion. Apparently, THIS Puppy Chow has a special pedigree. It's White Chocolate Pom Chow. There is Rice Chex, white chocolate chips, and M&Ms. There's some peanut butter blobs, too. Maybe mixed with powdered sugar. Very tasty. Farmer H got the candy and pie for the grand sum of ONE DOLLAR! He entered the table drawing, the price of a ticket being $1, and won it, choosing these treats as his prize.

Thanks, Farmer H. Even though you tried to hide your secret pie.

Once They're Sanitized, They Can Slip Into Something More Comfortable

Hand sanitizer it not the only "treat" I bought The Pony at Country Mart. I also got him a pair of gloves for work. I know they won't be useful for the hand he uses to type things into his scanner. Most likely his right hand, as he's not a crazy lefty like Genius. But he can use these gloves when the weather is chilly, on days he delivers packages.

 

Temperatures have been dipping below freezing overnight here at the Mansion this past week. The Pony does NOT park under the carport, even though Farmer H cleared space for him by moving the Gator. He says he allows time to scrape his windshield. So he could use the gloves for that, too.

 

Aren't they cool? The background color and shadow of my phone does not do them justice. They're that bright HIGHLIGHTER YELLOW color. Not bad for grocery store gloves! The best part is: they were only $1.99! You can't beat that with a stick!

I actually bought The Pony a pair last week, but what I thought was size L was actually size XL. The Pony said the fingertips were a little bit long, and he'd prefer a simple size L. For $1.99, I picked up a pair the next time I went. PLUS a pair for Farmer H, who had seen the XLs, and said he wouldn't mind having some for himself. You know, for $1.99. They both like their new gloves!

 

Here's a closeup of the "honeycomb" grip, and the mesh back. Farmer H will be using his gloves to work on Pony House. He's working without a furnace, you know. Having trouble getting a call back from the heating & cooling guy, who's a former student of mine, and a distant relative of Farmer H.

If the display still has gloves left in the proper size, I might pick up a couple more pair!