Sorry Folks, but Debbie Makes the Rules at our House...apparently...

I've had this one friend who, for as long as I've known her, (which is as long as I've known internet, which was early 1997) has refused to tell the internet where she is going on vacation or for how long she will be gone.

It doesn't matter that we freely posted every last gory detail of our miserable pregnancy symptoms or birth stories, giving in depth descriptions of the dilation of our vaginas.

It makes no difference that we've posted pictures of our very living rooms and that I have even posted (probably multiple) pictures of my own toilet. Debbie has a rule that she doesn't reveal vacation spots until after her return.

Our friend Teresa adheres strictly to this vacation rule, lending Debbie's rule an aura of authority. For whatever reason, I have also always followed Debbie's vacation rule.

Despite the fact that I've had house sitters, I've followed her rule. Despite the fact that one would only need to pay attention half heartedly to figure out that I spend the majority of my vacation time at my parents' house, I've followed Debbie's rule.

And despite the fact that my sole experience as victim of stalkerhood had nothing what so ever to do with the internet, Debbie's vacation rule has for some reason seemed reasonable. Thus my tendency to drop out of existence unexpectedly.

So if you're wondering where I've been lately, I went to see this cute animal:
And this cute nephew:

And several other relatives and members of the animal kingdom.

I'm back now with the vibrating boobs post close on my heels. So get ready folks - older gal is putting on the finishing touches and we'll have the long awaited, much labored, very informative booby post at long last this very weekend!

Yeah So I Lied Just a Little Bit

I really don't know when I will and won't have internet access over the next couple days. That part was true.

My gal really did tattoo a naked rat. So that was true too.

But it wasn't all the pictures I had. I lied about that part. It was ALMOST all the pictures I had. It turns out I have this picture of some veggies. These are the palest carrots and celery I've ever seen:And I'm not saying there's anything necessarily WRONG with orange cauliflower, but how can it be an American Classic?!? You'd think if it were an American classic, Americans would have at least heard of it. Maybe even eaten it. Like, I dunno...apple pie.

Anyway, I think I'll have internet by the time this posts. But just in case I posted ahead of time. Because the world just can't wait for a picture of orange cauliflower, for cryin' out loud. At least America can't wait. Because how else can I pull this American classic out of its relative obscurity?

'Cause Why Else Would the Rat Even BE Naked?

I may be without internet for a few days, so I wanted to make sure the blogging world, if not the internet in general had adequate pictures of my gal with a naked rat. Oh and my cat.

So here's my cat Sugar right before I told him that our TV is basically a giant DVD player now. We never bought one of those TV converter box things:
Here he is when he found out. He ain't none too happy about it, that's for sure. I don't know how he did that weird thing with his eyes, but I imagine he'll give a tutorial on utube one of these days:
He decided to email his congressman, senator, the SPCA, and PETA. If only he could remember which was the "on" button:Here's my gal and her friend putting temporary tattoos on Bernardo the naked rat:

Because naked rats cry out for temporary tattoos, apparently:
That's about all I got for now people. Come again soon!

Death by Teenager

Every time anyone reminds me that I WANTED kids, I tell them the God's honest truth: I never wanted kids. I just wanted babies.

And I was very perceptive that way, because I'm pretty sure having a teenager will kill a body. Or maybe only parenting a teenage GIRL does that. But teenage boys are said to have more car wrecks. So that probably causes parental death too.

Except in the case of a boy, your heart probably just stops in its tracks when you find out the car was upside down on the interstate at three in the morning. So that would be a quicker death than a girl who kills you by heartbreak and extreme moods. Except, somehow my parents seemed to live through it. They must be superhuman.

Or maybe parents are like Spiderman. Except that instead of getting bitten by a spider that allows them to climb walls, the baby's birth renders them impervious to death by empathy, or death by guilt, or death by scowling and rudeness. I'm pretty sure those feelings can kill a person though, because I definitely had a near death experience this week.

Look at this gal, my sweetheart, my angel, my sweet pea. Here she is all happy before she remembered that I ruined her life (as all parents must, I imagine):And here she is again all happy after she's nearly killed the both of us with her grief over me ruining her life:I don't know why the cat lets her do that. He'd have bitten anyone else's face off and hidden for a week. Actually, that one is our scaredy cat. He probably just would have hidden for a week. But he would have WANTED to bite our faces off.

The upside is that in my fog over the power of teenage emotions, I fixed two of our toilets. Well, I changed out the valve in two toilets and the flappy thing in one of them. But I couldn't even figure out how to get the flappy thing off the other one. Because despite this being a '70s house, I'm pretty sure that flappy thing on the upstairs toilet was installed in 1936.

In any case, the moral of the story is this: when I see a cute baby in a restaurant I plan on fixing a toilet in lieu of getting baby lust. Because it's way easier to fix a toilet than to subject yourself to parenting a teenager. At least, those are my plans. We'll see how it all works out.

War on Paradise

The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken has waged war on the tropical paradise that is our backyard. I don't really have good "before" picture because, truth be told, the newspapers carried very little on the events leading up to this war.

It was a surprise attack, you understand, and photographers such as myself had very little time to prepare. But you can sort of see the lush greenery in these photos:
And by lush greenery, The-guy would argue that I mean space hogging ginger and annoying philodendron. Or was that annoying ginger and space hogging philodendron? In any case, where I saw "tropical paradise", he saw "jungle". The sneak attack last weekend:It looks like The-guy will emerge the victor at some point, that's for certain, even though my boy is the only soldier in his army:Because look at the progress so far:Yeah, that big space where garbage can is used to be lush greenery. Or jungle...whichever...

It's okay though. I'm sure it's going to be some kind'a paradise back there, tropical or not. 'Cause The-Guy commands the plants around here. He's in charge, right after God or Mother Nature or whoever he reports to.

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone's Covered in Barf

The stomach bug sunk victim number four yesterday. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to take a picture, as there were four of us in the car AND the two cats (one in a cardboard box, one in my younger gal's arms) when my boy suddenly puked all over everything.

It was a glorious shade of orange too, because of the carrots and salmon and orange bell pepper he'd had for lunch. So that would have made a vivid picture. But at the time I was more concerned with whether or not I was going to get pulled over as I sped home.

Here's a member of our family that wasn't in the car. His name is Pirate Pete:But we call him Poisonous Pirate Pete because of the warning on the box:Yes, Older Gal and I saw the warnings on ole' Pete before we bought him. But selection was low and we figured no one would actually be handling or eating Pete. He'd just be sitting there in the yard, minding his own business and only looking scary to those of us aware of his carcinogenic proclivities.

But by the time we got him home Older Gal wondered what would happen if children who came up to trick or treat touched him and I wondered if the chemical that causes the cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm would leach into the soil whenever it rained.

Both were moot points, because we didn't get many trick-or-treaters and we had an exceptionally dry fall. Nevertheless, Pete lived in my car for a good month while I attempted to return him to Target. The problem is, I don't really return things in a timely manner.

So then yesterday I tried to give Pete to Goodwill, but it turns out Goodwill doesn't accept Halloween decorations. Needless to say, Pete was crushed. He can't understand it. They'll take the birth defects and cancer, mind you, but no thanks on Halloween. At any rate, Pete's looking for a home if you know anyone that's up for some reproductive damage.

On a totally unrelated note, I saw this on Yahoo the other day:

Web mourns two deaths
The Internet faces the tragic loss of a young Olympic athlete and a beloved actor

That's odd - I didn't realize the internet had feelings! Of course, about 10 years ago I heard something on the radio claiming that computers had the intelligence of cockroaches and that they expected computers to have the intelligence of cats very soon. But they didn't mention anything about working toward providing the internet with feelings. Then again, the internet was still kind of new then...

Meanwhile, older Gal has promised full disclosure on the vibrating boobs thing, along with whatever other information she chooses to disseminate about diabetes. So that guest post will be coming soon to a computer screen near you.

Everything is Coming Up Dried Out Contact Lenses

When you shack up with your man, everything is so romantic all the time that you even get to pee on rose petals:OKAY! So it's not romance ALL the time. For example, the stomach bug claimed another victim at our house this week. So cleaning up puke at one in the morning wasn't so romantic. And it wasn't all that romantic when I brought home lice from preschool. Or the germs from hand, foot, and mouth disease. Or impetigo for that matter.

But none of us actually succumbed to the hand, foot and mouth OR the impetigo. We just hung out with the germs. And then the rose that I cut from the back yard and put in a little vase on the bathroom counter died.

So then, in a fit of romance, The-Guy threw the petals into the toilet. There's a dried up contact lens in there too. So that's like pretty much all romance all the time here at La Maison Twipply Skwood. Mostly.

Here's something else unique about Camp Twipply Skwood - our district representative is an aging soul, R&B, and gospel singer in disguise:It's particularly handy when you want to lobby and be entertained at the exact same time. I'm just kidding! Because I don't even know how to lobby. But I am totally going to check into live concerts.

Hurricane season is here again as I understand it. And lucky thing too! After all, the blue tarps are starting to disappear and the roofs are slowly but surely being repaired.

This place doesn't look like it's ready for the next hurricane just yet:
This place looks like it needed help long before Ike plowed through:Here's my boy, enjoying his summer in between doctor and dentist visits:And here's what I get when I try and photograph younger gal:Only when she feels that she's having a bad hair day though.

I got a few good shots of older gal too. And she provided me with some lesser known facts about diabetes. For instance, if you see a total stranger's boobs vibrating, this could be a telltale sign of diabetes. But more on that when I find out which, if any, of her pictures she's okay with me posting.

Come to think of it, perhaps if I extended that same courtesy to younger gal, I wouldn't get a photo of the hand so much of time...