(You DID notice I was gone, right? Yeah, OK, just checking.)

So yesterday afternoon I was plugging along, when a pop-up popped, telling me there was a ZoneAlarm upgrade and did I want it? Which I did. Foolish me. (Yes, I HAD read the warning on the LangaList, but I Forgot.)

To be fair, I might have caused some of the problem--it's all a blur at this point. But SOMETHING caused my computer to no longer be able to find the DHCP or DSN address numbers, which meant it wouldn't connect me to my ISP, and thus to the internet.

Luckily, Caro and I both have computers connected with a router and hub, and HERS was fine. So after about eleventy billion searches and restarts and such, I FINALLY found the way to get back on! (Yes, I *touched* 'regedit' and live to tell the tale!)

And here I am. So now I'm going to get busy reading 36 hours worth of email and LJ, and also drink quite a bit more wine....

So we got back from our trip to Denver yesterday afternoon. The concerts were wonderful fun, and I will have a pic page done soon for anyone who is curious about Harry and the Potters.

Mike was very well behaved Monday, but woke up in a snit Tuesday which just kept on a-snittin' all morning. We had planned to do some shopping, but didn't really feel like dragging a 12 year old tantrum machine through the mall, so we headed home instead.

The house was still standing when we arrived, always a plus. One of the inside aquarium fish had died, minus. (The Tiger Barb. I suspect the Red-finned Shark, who didn't like him and was always chasing him around.) Then I went to boot up my computer. Wo! No power--not to Caro's side, or mine, or the router or the neon fish lamp on the wall!

Very very VERY big minus.

I had to move a few boxes and a file cabinet to get to the main power cord connection, which was much less simple than I just made it sound. Sure enough, the cord had come out of the wall socket. Probably because of Painty the cat, who pretty much lives under our desks because she hates and fears Jenny the other cat. Who was not even IN the house while we were gone, precisely because we didn't want cat wars breaking out....

Unfortunately, what Painty was probably doing when she unplugged the cord was using her Top Sekrit Hidden Bathroom. I know it sounds impossible, but because that area was so blocked off, with almost no air circulation taking place, it had been generously endowed with a thick pile of cat poop, AND WE HAD NEVER SUSPECTED A THING!

So I spent the next few hours on THAT fun little clean-up, including blocking the whole area off and then re-sorting all the Stuff that had to be moved before and during.

Once that chore was done, I was at last free to get started reading my email and Friendslist. Because it looked like rain, I took break from THAT to go out and mow at least some of the yard. Which went pretty well except for the unfortunate incident where Mike thought he was being helpful by propping the trapeze of his swing set up out of my way. That part was okay, actually. Where the plan broke down was when he started playing on another swinging dealie as I rode the mower under the cleared area, which caused the trapeze to swing down and crack me soundly on the forehead. Which hurt, and made me forget myself and say The Bad Words.

I still have about a 3" long welt today. But the news about the surprise John Kerry visit was exciting enough that I feel like the day came out about even....

What with one thing and 90 bazillion others I had to deal with after our return home, I didn't check my phone messages until a little bit ago.

My friend the Dem county chair, who went to the cool training with me, called.

We need to have another meeting and get our party peeps organized for an event. Because

JOHN
KERRY
is coming to Lamar on August 6.

Yow.

We are going to Denver. We are going to Denver to hear Harry and the Potters , two brothers who have gained modest fannish fame for starting a band in order to play and record songs inspired by the Potterverse. This summer they are on tour, going from town to town and library to library.

Their music is...very sincere. But that's why I like it. I just think it's cool that a couple of kids can dream up something grand like this and then DO it.

Anyway, family outing. Caro, Mike and I are driving to Damaris's, and then the lot of us will go to the 3 o'clock show at the Littleton library, and THEN we will zoom across town to Broomfield for the 7:30 show. Whew! Fangirls (and boys) MUCH?

I am determined to have much fun, because I so richly deserve it. This week I have been

1) Working overtime trying to deal with Mike's strange not-totally-new foibles. Mike is slowly and reluctantly coming to terms with the idea that he's gone WAY over the line and needs to jump WAY back. The consequences, BOREDOM or vile slavery (I've been making him do housework), are too awful for him to deal with.

2) The local Dems are, with a few notable exceptions, about as charged up and motivated as so many bags of concrete. By attending that uninspirational meeting Thursday I missed my one chance of the week to mow, as it started raining AGAIN. Yes, I know I ought not to complain about that, because of the drought, but by the time I eventually get to mow the weeds will be 60 feet high!

3) Killing flies. By the hundreds and thousands. On the plus side, it's been kind of helpful to have something to smoosh.

4) Falling further and further behind on email and LJ.

5) Revolt of the Mechanicals. Mostly minor things, except the dryer acting slightly odd tonight, plus MY MONITOR SUDDENLY AND WITH NO WARNING GOING TITS UP! RIGHT in the middle of some work I was doing, and of COURSE while I was trying to figure out what was wrong I unplugged the computer....

Now, there HAVE been some good things happening too, I admit. Internet sales are slightly up. Gary the Snail is about 1/4 again as large as he was when we last took his picture, the size of a large plum. Plus there are 19! snail egg cases around the pond. 'Dead Like Me' is back on TV. I am down to 236 1/2 pounds (which doesn't sound impressive unless you know I was around 280 this time last year).

But still, I think we can all agree Caro, Mike and I DESERVE to have a really good road trip....

Mike has dislodged another one of the brackets for his braces.

Yes, he is still alive....

Yowza!

Damaris called me this afternoon, all excited. She took the kids to the Kerry/Edwards rally in Denver, and their camera magnet powers were working at full strength. (She only managed a regular reporter interview...for a paper in Japan....) According to her, quite a few of the news folks got the kids in their viewfinders. So she exhorted us to be sure to watch the 5 o'clock news--all the stations. Which is of course not possible anyway. :/

I thought, "What are the chances, realistically?" Caro cynically suggested that the Liberal(Not) Media in Denver might be quite likely to show ONLY the kiddies romping, saying, "And here are some typical Kerry supporters...."

But dang! We were watching Channel 9 at JUST the right time, because all of a sudden, THERE THEY WERE! It was a nice long shot, too, because one of the girls was holding a Kerry/Edwards sign...upside-down. Someone must have brought it to her attention off-screen, because she quickly flipped it over.

And of COURSE I wasn't recording it! When we tried again at 6, the spot had been tightened up, and they didn't use the sign one, although you can still see them briefly in a wide sweep shot of the crowd.

I'm going to go look around the various stations websites now, just in case! :)

Do you have a basement full of old computers and stuff because you worry about what they do to the environment when discarded? (Or because you're in a locale that doesn't allow such things to be dumped, for the same reason?)

Good news! Office Depot is sponsoring a free recycling service for the rest of the summer!

Yes, I'm actually going to say something about what's going on around here! Although I'm mainly going to let the photos do the talking.



Soon after we first moved here, we came up with yet another house name (to go along with 'At the Sign of the Three White Cats' and the later 'House of Unruly Fish'). Other homeowners will instantly understand 'House of 1,000 Unfinished Projects'.

It's way way over that now, although some HAVE been finished. For instance, the path Mike and I made now has wads of grass--this is it a month ago.



Here's one we are just starting. The funny shaped whitish block on top of the ordinary cinder blocks used to be a decorative ledge running around the upper walls of the old junior high, which was renovated and turned into a middle school. These blocks and their kin are eventually going to be a little garden bench.



Out in the back by the old barn/chicken pen, Caro the Pumpkin Queen has a huge herd of Subjects. Some are the giant Big Max kind and others the white kind. This is also an old picture from about 3 weeks ago.



A few shots of the Garden of Art, Science and Technology, which DOES include a kitchen sink!



The object in the upper right corner is an old opthamologist's vision tester from the 30s or 40s.

Mint and a morning glory, below.



Petunias and zucchini. The orange flowers are portulaca (moss rose) and the clumps back behind the zucchini are catnip.



The other sink, which has some seeds in it which I'm still waiting on to pop. The tomato behind it is not doing so well, but most of the others are bearing fruit.



We've been doing a couple of hours of puttering every evening after dinner, when it's a wee tad cooler. Yesterday we were deprived of Mike's assistance for most of the work session, because I had fished a yard-long garter snake out of the fish pond, and he was having too much fun holding it. We did eventually convince him to release her out by his watermelon plant (in the corner of the Pumpkin Queen's Realm). However, he first gave the poor thing a long lecture on staying out of the pond, and keeping herself busy eating bugs and mice out there in the barn and garden....

In conclusion, a genuine and un-enhanced sunset!

# posted by Susan : 11:40 PM

I got this from one of my mailing lists, from someone who got it from one of HER mailing lists....



One of the moms at ebus sent these pictures. She has a friend
who found the fawn under her step (they think the doe might have been
hit by a car). Her Ridgeback dog is helping look after it. The family
named the fawn Bella.



Once she has regained her strength (she was not in good shape when the
family found her) they are going to send her to some friends who (in
the past) raised two orphan deer and released them to the wild. Right
now she is being bottle fed. Their dog (Hogan) has basically taken
over. The fawn even shares his bed.

I'm sitting here eating dinner, and the phone rings. It's the PO
calling me. Just out of curiosity, the worker asks, why is one of
the packages I just dropped off making a mechanical buzzing noise.



In some alternate universe, I might now be fleeing, all having been
discovered. Instead, I say a Mildly Bad Word. "It's the
kind of longish one, right?" Yes. "That's a motorized coin sorting
bank. I taped the switch down before I packed it, but I guess
something is making it go again anyway...."



I offered to come get it, remove the batteries and repack it. But
they were running late loading the truck, and said they would just
write "Noise OK" on the outside.



I GUESS the worst thing that can happen is that the batteries will wear
out before it gets to its new owner. Another day in the life of
the small independent e-business person. :/



On the coolness side, as I was driving to the PO, I was amazed to see a
small plane, with rainbow colored side stripes, parked in a front yard
not much bigger than it is. I think I know the guy who was up on
a ladder futzing with the engine; at any rate, I did the Lamar thing of
stopping dead in the street to holler out at him that I sure
liked his plane.



I wonder how he got it there, and what he'd going to do with it.

Being a loose catch-up aggregate of things I meant to say this past week and didn't yet.

***

Last weekend when we were in Denver at the political training seminar, we went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. (Because I know darned well it's not ever going to be one of the two movies per week that show here in Lamar.) Even though I thought I pretty much knew what to expect, it was still a powerful emotional experience. I can't say it was a "good" movie, because that implies (to me) that it was enjoyable, and it's too horrific for that. But I'm glad I saw it.

***

Last week I got all energized and listed a mish-mosh of stuff on eBay. Quite a bit of it sold, which is a good thing. But now comes the part which I'm not as crazy about--packing odd-shaped, bulky items. Yesterday I sent the CPR half-guy on his way in a cobbled up mess made of two boxes stuck together. Today I have to pack up a chenille bedspread, a motorized coin back, a set of learning the alphabet booklets (OK, those are not so hard, I admit) and a double headed gooseneck desk lamp. *sigh*, my life is so teh hard....

***

I realized too late that what I REALLY should have headlined the snail post with was, "MY EGGCASEZ ARE PASTEDE ON YAYYY!!!11!!

***

I haven't posted anything about soup in a long time. But I am making some today. I had a lot of cheap clearance mushrooms on hand, and Thriftway had a sale of the 10 pound bag of chicken legs and thighs for $3.99! Last night we ate the leg parts for dinner, and I tossed all the thighs into the crockpot. A little while ago I deboned them. The meat and broth goes in the mushroom soup, joined by the goopy stuff I always save from the pan (in the freezer, of course) when we cook chicken the usual way. (Garlic powder, vinegar and soy sauce, bake at 400 degrees until done. Eat the crispy yummy skin first even if you aren't supposed to on your diet.) I'm chilling the broth and meat now, so I can easily remove the rest of the fat. My hands are really soft just now, from the chicken fat. Or is that TMI?

Those 10 pound bags on sale make me feel very self-satisfied, as we get 3-4 nice meals and a good big glob of highly appreciated pet food additive for that four bucks and a little work!

Gentle readers, I have news of an upcoming blessed event to share with you.

Do you know what THIS is???



Yes! A snail egg case! I think my really big snail was that way because zhe (they are herms, you know) was PREGNANT!

Oh, and by the way, Mike kind of Cuted the Vote in re snail name nominations, and the big one is now called Gary, after SpongeBob's pet snail. But we are going to be able to use ALL the suggested names, and then some, because there are...

SEVEN!

eggcases as of this morning. That first one on the front of the plastic waterfall base has been joined by three more, and there are other cases here and there around the pond itself.

I will probably have snails to share with my aquacultural friends this fall....

Put new batteries in Sarcas-o-meter. Posts are coming out way too believeable....

(In other words--that Draft post? Joke.)

I am very sure all my readers are fine, upstanding patriots and will be pleased to know you can beat the rush and sign up NOW for the draft! Fight that darn War on Terror!

http://www.draftregistration.us/

Even though I am not QUITE in the target range of 16-45, I'm going to fill out the form--just to see what happens next!

Whew, I'm back. I've actually been PHYSICALLY back since late late Sunday night, but it's taken a while to get my brain back online....

The weekend of political activity training was STUPENDOUS! If you added up the real time, big dog experience of the people doing the various lectures, it would probably be a couple centuries easy! It went from 9 to 6:30 both days, and the experts had their work cut out for them, trying to cram the huge sum of their knowledge into the 200 variously experienced (read, not-so-much-so) folks who paid a whopping $45 to attend. (It's normally $300, but the training was kindly sponsored by Democracy For America!)

Basically, we are now totally primed to do numerous useful things which will persuade, lure, goad and/or drag an astonishing percentage of voters to come on out and install a Dem roster of candidates--this election; and even better, more socially progressive and fiscally responsible ones in the years to come.

I'm psyched, if you can't tell.

The bummer part is that something like this does require time, and since I can't really dump my family duties and home business ditto, I'm probably going to have to cut way back on net stuff. :< Time will tell, I guess....

This is getting long. More in a bit!

I was guided to this by Elke Tanzer, about a vulnerability in the various types of Mozilla browsers, which many people have recently switched to because IE was worrisomely compromised and no one seemed to be in too big a hurry to get the patch out.

What Mozilla users should know about the shell: protocol security issue

On July 7 (yesterday) a security vulnerability affecting browsers for the Windows operating system was reported to mozilla.org by Keith McCanless, and was subsequently posted to Full Disclosure, a public security mailing list. On the same day, the Mozilla security team confirmed the report of this security issue affecting the Mozilla Application Suite, Firefox, and Thunderbird and discussed and developed the fix at Bugzilla bug 250180. We have confirmed that the bug affects only users of Microsoft's Windows operating system. The issue does not affect Linux or Macintosh users.

http://www.mozilla.org/security/shell.html

***

OK, here's the part where I rave about the "tabs" function Firefox has. I didn't understand how to work it, at first. But I saw someone saying the command for a blank screen was Control-T. Huh. Much quicker than popping up a new browser window! So I tried opening a few more with links already in (when you right-click a link, it gives you Open in Tab as one of the options), and then I opened a BUNCH. Woo! Even 25 tabs at a time don't faze it! And if you should need to close your browser before you have eaten all your tabs, you just click "Bookmark this Page" and tell it to save all the Tabs in a folder. And it DOES!

This is a big time saver when you are reading LJ Friends lists, or some other complicated thing where you want to jump off to all the links. Just open them in tabs. You can go straight on with the main page you are viewing, with no delay at all, and then go browse your tabs when you're darned well good and ready! So now I can read all the way back in my Flist to where I left off, just opening tabs for things I want to read or replies I want to make later. Giving replies a little time to mellow also lets me READ the replies of all the faster people. :)

Tough beans, IExplorer. I'm gone--send my saddle home!

Hmm. I have literally a dozen orders to pack and mail today (a darn good thing, as our little craft of hominess is in danger of getting beached in the Low Cash Flow Lagoon), plus pack for my weekend excursion, double also plus a few household chores that Must Be Done. So by my watch that makes this a FINE time to update the ol' blog a bit....

I Am An Iriot, Part I Don't Know What, Having Lost Count Long Ago: You remember me mentioning the pump to our well suddenly failing to perform its primary function last night? I jiggled things and turned the breaker switch on and off, both ineffective at restoring water coming outage. The pump housing was very warm to the touch, so I thought, "Okay, I'll let it cool down and try it again in the morning."

Turns out it would have been a pip of an idea to SHUT DOWN THE POWER to the seized up pump. Um, yeah, the poor little thing was basically on all night, still struggling to pump. Therefore still hot this morning. Which I bet you a nickel is Not Good.

I suppose I should go actually DO something constructive or something.

These will make you laugh and blow your mind at the same time. The "Know More Than You Should" commericals for the Discovery Channel:

http://media.dsc.discovery.com/knowmore/

(Requires Flash)

They let you vote on your favorites. I picked Milk, but Transporter was a close second....

Continuing with the puttering around the place which has been keeping me busy and in non-posting status most of the past week. Tonight we were THIS CLOSE to putting in the rest of the herbs (lemon balm and rosemary) and the zinnias, but for some unknown reason the pump decided to stop pumping. It's odd it would do that, because usually stuff waits to go wrong until I leave town. Maybe it got the date wrong.

It IS pretty late in the season to be putting in seeds, I know. But I suddenly went hog wild buying close-out stuff on eBay, see. Some of the stuff got planted last week, but we were interupted by a windstorm during one session. I have not yet found the packets of oregano and Indian Paintbrush seed....

OH WELL.

One thing I got done was cleaning the filter of the koi pond and doing a good scrub of the algae and all that. I took a head count of the snails at the time--at least all I could find. We have about a dozen Mystery/Apple snails and 6 Ramshorn. They need to get busy on that algae, because the water is right back to being grubby again, after a few hot days.

At least ONE snail seems to be taking his responsibilities seriously, and I sure hope he's fixing to produce a new generation of equally robust algae busters. None of the snails we bought (only in May!)were any bigger than large marbles, but check this fella out!



I think he deserves a name, and I'm throwing the nominations open to my readers! Go for it!

If you need something in your day to just give you a good feeling, click here to go read this story in the Rocky Mountain News.

It's about a man, 74, who has moved back in with his 103 year old dad so he can continue to live in the family home. The amazing part is how, after all those years, they mended some father/son issues and became friends!

The top story in our little local paper, the Lamar Daily Snooze (Not Its Real Actual Name), was a good one Friday. It detailed the excitements listed on a poster for the 1909 Fourth of July celebration for a REALLY small neighboring town, Two Buttes. (Population these days about 12.) How far we have fallen.

The day was to get off to a rousing start with cannon firing, dynamite and the shooting of anvils. The clone and I spent some time wondering about that last. Was it for the sound, or was it a primitive form of Russian Roulette, where those attending got cheap thrills by being the ones NOT hit by the ricocheting bullets?

Some unnamed professional yakker was to give an opening address at 1 pm, but those willing to endure same would have had first crack at THREE barrels of ICE COLD lemonade.

Much sweaty fun was promised by the offering of various contests: boys pony race, mule race, cow pony race, bronco busting, motor cycle race, fat man's race (!), ladies pony race, free for all foot race, boys foot race, sack race and potato race, not to mention a proposed baseball game of the team from Two Buttes against all comers.

Here's where it really gets fun. This poster was clearly displayed at the time, and some typical independent-minded Westerner saw fit to add onto it. Beside the part assuring people there would plenty of shade for picnics is the penciled note, "I don't know where at. Bring your parasol."

In case people hadn't yet had enough fun during the day, there was to be a Big Dance too, starting at 6:30 pm and lasting until 6 AM, at which point a breakfast was offered!

Of course there were to be fireworks, "*$200* worth of the best assorted fireworks ever displayed in this section of the state." Plus "Some ten to fifteen 10 foot balloons will be sent up at this time."

Man. If I ever run into anyone with a working time machine, I'm going to go check it out!

OK, I confess, I subscribe to Reader's Digest jokes via email. But sometimes they are GOOD.

***

Working as a secretary at an international airport, my sister had an office
adjacent to the room where security temporarily holds suspects. One day security
officers were questioning a man when they were suddenly called away on another
emergency. To the horror of my sister and her colleagues, the man was left alone
in the unlocked room. After a few minutes, the door opened and he began to walk
out. Summoning up her courage, one of the secretaries barked, "Get back in
there, and don't you come out until you're told!" The man scuttled back inside
and slammed the door. When the security people returned, the women reported what
had happened. Without a word, an officer walked into the room and released one
very frightened telephone repairman.

***

If you are warped like me, the link to sub is here:

http://DailyInbox.com/rd/addfriend.shtml

But any day is off to a good start when the first thing you do is shave your kid's head!

Don't worry, he wanted me to. For some reason, he was more disappointed than I was about the haircut place being closed yesterday. Maybe because Mike has thick, black Harry Potter hair, and when a guy needs to be riding his bike all the heck over the place, he doesn't want sweaty helmet hair as a result! And shaved to the skin is his summer look of choice. So now he's happy and I saved ten bucks!

I am guardedly happy because I found the instruction manual to the riding lawn mower. Well, one of them. The one in Spanish. But there is a DIAGRAM of how to take the wheel off, so later on I'll go out and give it a whirl. Luckily I know some Spanish cusswords....

Best thing about today? CARO WILL BE HOME TONIGHT!!!!!

So. The fire department fellas spent a couple three hours hosing everything down, then headed home. Nigel mended the broken pump pipe and put on a new hose end, because he's a conscientious and helpful guy. (I <3 my son-in-law!) The Denver contingent packed and washed up, and we all went out to dinner, because we adults were way too tired to deal with cooking. We barely managed to gather up the energy to eat!

Once we were back home, I started in on my regular watering procedures, after pulling in several lengths of hose from where they stretched off into the back. Meanwhile, Caro walked to the fire site to look things over. She came back to where I was nourishing a little living thing, a baby tree (!), to inform me stuff was still smoldering and she thought it needed more hosing.

*I* thought my trees and plants needed water. But being as how I am (theoretically) a mature adult, I did my best to accommodate her desires with all due good nature, and gave back the hose.

Using my handy-dandy sump pump which lives in the fish pond, I was able to water the Garden of Art, Science and Technology, plus my still-under-wraps sprouting baby grass seed. That of course meant that afterwards I had to refill the pond. For some reason, Caro did not seem totally on board with undoing the hose again so I could do that. :/ Yet she too is a mature adult, and let me have my way with just as much good grace as I had shown, and maybe even a wee bit more.

With fish water levels restored and QAF safely recorded for later viewing, we settled down to a restful evening in front of out respective computer screens. All went well until Caro decided to call it a night. She looked out the kitchen window and saw...smoldering. Yes, and little flames, too!

But how bad could it be, really? I wondered. Tried to wonder. Caro preferred to actually go out and look at it up close, so of course I went along. Somewhat under protest.

The problem was that there were hot spots (especially those damned tires!) which were under bits of tin roofing or other metal pieces. Plus the trailers had been up on old railroad ties. But these scattered patches were, I thought, not burning fast or high, and thus were very unlikely to spread, especially since they were in the middle of big patches of wet ash.

Caro's opinion was that we should re-call the fire department.

I demurred. "They'll have a fit," were my exact words. I mean, they'd been pretty cool about it all and so far we weren't in danger of there being any legal repercussions, and I didn't want to muck that up by pissing them off.

"Let 'em," she suggested.

Well, you don't live with someone about half of forever unless you've learned how to compromise and work things out. So I huffed back towards the house, pulled the hose BACK out towards the field (tripping over Mike's bike as I went--I did mention it was almost midnight and very very dark out there, right?), reconnected it and commenced discouraging the smolder.

"The hose doesn't go all the way back to the farthest spots," Caro informed me. "Are you sure we shouldn't call the fire department?"

"It's dark back here--God knows what they might drive over on their way in." They'd had trouble enough in broad daylight.

I really really really wanted to just go to bed. But I could not honestly say there was not even a TEENY chance of the fire flaring up and spreading. Sadly, this made Caro...right.

"Why don't you go buy another hose? Wal-mart's open," I said, probably not sounding at ALL pitiful and long-suffering and crabby. "I'll work on the nearer patches until you get back."

So that's what we did. (And by the way, that was 8 or 9 hoses all together!) We finished up close to 1am. By that time I was feeling philosophical about our adventure as free range firefighters by night, and even felt bad for Caro, who was going to have to be up at 6am, because it was going to be the first day of her Summer Reading Program.

Except she actually arose again at 4am, because (as she told me later) she thought she smelled smoke. So SHE went out in the pre-dawn and put in another hour or so on anti-smolder detail. I slept right through it all, partly because I was so tired I probably would have slept through my HAIR being on fire.

The next morning I brought the hose back up front to finish watering the trees that had gotten short shrift the night before, and also the baby grass, which I was moistening twice a day. Imagine my surprise when, later that evening, Caro's eagle eye again spotted combustion taking place, and I got griped at because the hose was not still fully connected out to the back lot!

It was not unlike MY griping when I had to FETCH the hose again the next morning, for the sake of the baby grass. Although I must point out that this was not entirely like people caught up in the age old argument of whether the toilet seat is to be kept up or down. Each time I dragged that multiply damned hose back up front, I was SURE that the evil fire monster had finally been defeated and we would no longer need it out back....

And yet by Wednesday, despite another several hosings, meaning it had had enough water dumped on it to, well, at least thoroughly WASH the Queen Elizabeth II, there were STILL fire spots. STILL! And it had even rained a little bit!!! ARGGHH!!! The Fire That Would Not Die!

In fact, on Wednesday the wind kicked up and there were again actual FLAMES. By now, even Caro was getting kind of tired of wielding the business end of that hose. So when I suggested that maybe, just maybe, the fire would go out sooner if we just watched it carefully and let it BURN out, she agreed.

Which it was well on the way to doing when our recent unseasonable but very much desired rainy stretch started, dousing it once and for all.

I should point out here that, despite me being kind of on the grouchy side now and again during this unfortunate situation, I am well aware that I'm not even close to medaling in the Domestically Put-Upon Regionals, let alone the Olympics. In fact, most impartial judges would probably give the nod to Caro in a match-up between us.

Due to incidents like this:

Caro, very calmly: By the way, I happened to notice a frozen lizard in the freezer.

Me: Uh! Oh, yeah...well, see, I took it away from the cat.

Caro just looks patient and does not say: To save for her for later?

Me: She bit it, see, and its intestines were coming out, so I couldn't just put it outside...I thought if I wrapped it in a plastic sack and put it in the freezer, that it would be a fast way to put it out of its misery. Except I forgot to take it out again later.

Caro: Ah.

Me: I'll just do that now, while I'm thinking of it, shall I?

***

So I would say that I've got the flashier technique in bearing up under the occasional difficult domestic situation, but Caro is performing under a much higher degree of difficulty, and that's what racks up the points!

Or is it too early to start up with Olympics metaphors?