JanerBlog

Oh, these are the flowers in my neighborhood...

In my neighborhood...

In my

Neigh

Bor

Hood...

Thanks, mom, for alla priddy fleurs.

You know technology is only so useful when...

... you have to IM a different coworker to thump on his cubewall and yell at the coworker you're trying to reach to check his IM.

Procyon Iotor

So, that was fast. The nice lady from Animal Control came and got our "cute", "docile", "forlorn" little raccoon, which turned into a snarling ball of fury the second she touched the cage. Boy, am I glad I didn't go anywhere near the trap. Little bastard would have taken off a finger.

The term "fights like a caged animal" is especially true, if anyone's wondering.

He's gone now, and according to the lady from Animal Control, he'll be put down later today. Too many of 'em in the city, and not enough room in the country to support them all. I figured as much.

I AM the Law!

So we've had a raccoon in our backyard since we moved in. The little bugger is very brazen, and literally climbs up and down our tree while we're standing ten feet away, talking to our neighbors over the fence.

I was perfectly content to live and let live. I had no problem with him roaming the neighborhood with my backyard as a base. That was, until, he started digging up my newly-planted garden. He set back my baby blueberry plant by a couple of weeks; broke off half its branches. He killed my sweet marjoram, thinking for some reason that it alone was the flowerpot with all the grubs in it. The strawberry plants will be coming to fruit within a month or two, and I can just imagine what he'll do to those.

So I went down to the city's Animal Control and rented a live-trap. I brought it home, baited it with peanut butter and promptly caught a very angry squirrel, who, once he was caught, ran in circles on top of the peanut butter and scolded me the whole time I was freeing him. I warned him that if he got caught again I was leaving him in lockdown. I rebaited and reset the trap.

As soon as night fell, sure enough, there was a clatter and we'd caught ourselves a raccoon. He looks a lot smaller than he did on the tree, and I hope we got the right one. It'd be a shame if we just got his accomplice. He's currently in the cage, awaiting pickup by the city, and looking quite forlorn. He's docile and cute and giving me the exact look that should get me to open the door and let him out. Tough luck, plantwrecker.

I'm home today, so I'm going to talk with the officer when they come to get him. I'm hoping they're just going to take him out in the country and let him go somewhere, rather than euthanizing him. He's done nothing really wrong, doesn't appear to be rabid, and deserves to be released rather than put down. Still, I'm sure country residents wouldn't be too keen on getting yet another cast-off garbagepicker from us city folks, and they'll no doubt shoot him or turn dogs on him if they catch him in their gardens. Which is better, a quick death in a scary room or being torn apart by dogs? Either way, not fun.

I'll post tomorrow with the future of li'l mister ringtail.

Thought for the day...

Why the hell hasn't anyone written a Dune Filk called "I'm Cloning up my own Duncan Idaho"?

Klaatu Barada Garden

I think I'm raising a roomful of Triffids. When I came in to check on the plants last night, I found that one of the cucumbers had wrapped its tendrils firmly around the necks of the nearest two peppers. Strangulation? Turf Wars? Dominance posturing? Or maybe it's just time to freakin' plant the things already.

Good weekend.

Saturday we did Free Comic Book Day signing at Fanfare Comics in Kalamazoo, then went out for my birthday dinner with my family. My mom and gram got me tons of beautiful perennials, and today Paul and I planted them.

We totally outfitted the sideyard, too. Paul dug up the weeds from between our paving stones, mowed the yard, and planted pansies in the curb lawn. I got the two hundred pound pile of fieldstone organized into a nice border, planted bleeding heart, irises, stargazer lilies and columbines and levelled the sideyard. Then together we dug and amended the soil in the newly created fence bed for my strawberries, and I got the wee baby plants put in. Whew! The backyard is totally transformed. I want to go nick some more big rocks from my dad's house; he has some really pretty ones about as big as my head, and they make terriffic showpiece rocks. Then we gotta get some pavers put in for the patio, and we'll be set. That'll be expensive and a lot of work, so right now we're pretty well done for the time being, and quite happy with the results.

We also want to get some really cool outdoor sculpture to go on top of the second manhole cover... something welded out of scrap metal, with gears on it, not some sissy-ass gazing ball or bathtub Mary. Unless, maybe it was a bathtub Mary Queen of Scots. Made out of welded scrap metal. With gears on her head. That'd be cool.

Dude, now I know what I'm asking Paul to get me for Christmas.

Unnapants.

So our washing machine quit working on Sunday. I came downstairs, expecting to turn over the laundry, but instead I found a soggy mess of clothes and the stench of burned rubber.

We were fervently hoping it was just a broken/burned belt and that we'd get away cheap, but the truth was even weirder. Seems a pair of my underpants got sucked into the hose, preventing the machine from pumping out the water in preparation for the spin cycle, and when it tried to spin on a full load of water, it couldn't take the trauma and shut itself down before it burned itself out. (Smart little washer.)

When the repair guy left yesterday, my one question to him was whether I should switch to boxers.

Bertha Day

So yesterday was my birthday, and what a good birthday it was. Got nice calls from the parental units, and Paul and I went out to what's probably my new favorite place to eat in Kalamazoo: Bell's Eccentric Cafe. Cheap good food, fantastic atmosphere. Oh, and the best beers in the entire midwest. We got our dinner and took it out to the beergarden, where we sat on the grass and watched the sun set.

I tried this wonderful apple/honey beer called Cyser (prounounced "Sizer", nyuk, nyuk) that was tart and rich and appley, as though someone had dissolved a handful of Sour Apple Altiods in a glass of Oberon. MmMMMmm. At 9% alcohol, though, it also came with a boxing glove. *Kpow!*

After that, we walked back to O'Duffy's, where it was Session Night, and I got to play with one other flute player for a couple of hours while Paul hung out with two other couples. I wanted to hang with the gang, but if I'd stopped playing -- the session would've been over.

Paul gifted me with a wide array of garden tools -- shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction -- and a lovely framed street-art photo-transfer of himself he had taken while he was in NYC last week. I have very few good photos of my husband, and this one is very good indeed; very flattering and arty and cool. So cool, in fact, that he's probably going to use it for his author photo in his new book.

B&T also gave me some super-neato candle lanterns for the front porch, and we're going to put those up along with some that Paul has, and have a pretty front-porch candlelight supper. Well, as soon as the weather warms up. Paul and I usually eat dinner together on the front porch whenever the weather allows, and the lanterns will be luvverly out there.

So yeah, a most excellent birthday, and the first one (ever) that Paul and I have spent together. Yay for good days.

Redefined:

Nintendo, a Capella.