You'd laugh if you knew how many pix I had to take before I got a non-blurry one.
Holly caught me and Bunny making cookies live on speaker phone last night and said I need to video share that stuff. Bunny is a continual dialogue and everything happens in high speed, and I'm so used to it that I just go with whatever is happening. We had a big raisin fail, though. That kid used to inhale little boxes of raisins. She's grown up now. Raisins aren't cool and the cookies are ruined and the entire project was dismissed from her mind the second they went into the oven. Papa was like heh heh, more cookies for meeee...
We stayed up till midnight partying with all the top shows. My suffering through PJ Masks, Doc McStuffins, and Little Einsteins has grown exponentially with the back button now. Every time a scene makes her giggle (usually Stuffy, I agree he's a riot), she yells "Go back again!" and we see the same slap stick or funny word combo 10 times in a row, and she cracks up every single time. One of the biggies in Doc is when Stuffy is doing bubble beard in the ep where they first find out Grandma McStuffins has been visiting a special toy world all this time. Another one is when a ballerina doll is teaching the other toys ballet moves and chants "One, two, three, don't step on me." Sadly, I've gotten to know these shows as well as my current faves on Syfy, and reference PJ Masks in real life all the time now. Bunny wants to be Cat Boy, I wanna be Gecko, so that leaves Owlette for Papa. He didn't protest at all because Owlette is just that cool.
Bunny is pure Calvin and Hobbes. She switches tracks, drops everything (literally), and leaves puffs of dust in instant zooms a hundred times a day. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants, and she's open to razor sharp negotiations, so watch yourself or get scalped by her brilliance. My goal today is get my brain put in before she gets up and hopefully have my body ready for meemaw level competence. She is very sweet about me being unbendy and not able to zoom around the house and up and down the stairs like she does and solemnly promises me every time she gets on her scooter that she won't run over my toes (again). It's still up to me to move them as quickly as I can if I see her coming.
I think I'm more awake now. I think I'm ready to do this. Bacon is nearly done and she's not even up yet, so I might even get a peaceful breakfast. Sweet.
Won't be long till I get her started in moc singleplayer. I'm looking forward to that. She turns 4 in a few weeks, and already spelling a few things, plus we've named several of my pets on the server after her.
p.s. That turtle crapped like a duck and was evicted fairly quickly. If you've never been slimed while holding a duck, you have no idea.
I'm partial to Vork because he thinks like me, and Clara reminds me of some of the Snarkalecs and cracks me up. A deep dive into a binge rewatch of The Guild web series has pretty much gotten me through this last week.
Dear person in France using a Firefox browser in Windows- It's getting a little excessive. I hope you're ok. If you need to shoot me a private message, no one sees comments until approved, and I can leave it in pending so it will stay private. I don't know what else to say except that whatever is going on feels like some kind of weird morse code and maybe you're ready for that step out from lurking.
So, huge weekend in progress in the U.S., and my crew is all over getting food ready for a great big cookout next door. In case a few of you have missed the hints, my father-in-law (retired veteran, 15 year cancer survivor) is on hospice at home because the cancer is back with a vengeance.
@bonenado had a free evening last night, so we started plowing through a stack of The 100 that had piled up in the DVR. We're up to the part where Clarke finally cried over a very bad decision and still kept making the bad decision anyway. Wait, wot... The 100 isn't very different from The Walking Dead, all the same vehicle accidents in all the right spots kind of thing, the constant flip flopping and side taking, the facepalming and regrouping. Mostly, though, it's just a whole lotta mud. I think Octavia looks awesome in mud. She's the new face of warrior princess, and wouldn't we love to see her go up against Xena, amIright. Srsly, tho, I think 2 eps and we'll be caught up. Jasper's death scene was fantastically done, btw, very wrenching and beautiful and tragic. Loved it. Other top fave character developments include Raven and John Murphy, and I could go on for miles about supporting cast being awesome. And some of you know how I feel about 'shadow govt' kind of stuff, which was nicely handled earlier in the series. How ‘The 100’ has facilitated important conversations about free will and rape culture
Moving on, allergies are horrible here because 3 1/2 weeks of rain has turned Mirkwood and the surrounding Shire into a jungle, mowers galore mulching it all up into the thick humid air for us all to inhale, our lungs are full of green slime, our ears are stopped up, our sinuses are gunked, @bonenado is covered in poison ivy, and isn't it all beautiful out there. All y'alls living on concrete promoting planet luv need to understand this space ball is poisonous and vindictive and will take us all down in the end with a satisfied burp. We're only hurting ourselves with all our lawn care products. I keep voting for rock gardens, but noooo....
This is a prolific monster copperhead year, too. "Copperhead snakes are some of the more commonly seen North American snakes. They're also the most likely to bite, although their venom is relatively mild, and their bites are rarely fatal for humans." What they don't mention is one bite on a finger can swell your entire arm up to your shoulder and you'll be in a lot of pain and feel super gross for days, and some people even get delirious, so 'rarely fatal' doesn't mean it doesn't mess you up. People like to run around barefoot, and like so many, I've actually stepped on one barefoot (and have worn shoes outside ever since), but thankfully I jumped so high so fast and scared the snake so badly that neither one of us were harmed. I've known people who wound up on crutches for several days, and it's pretty miserable for pain. Also please note that 'rare' doesn't mean 'never' concerning fatalities, plus there's just as much risk from infection or other disease like salmonella from point of contact, so take a snake bite seriously.
How ironic that this comment just came in on my youtube chicken eats a snake, talk about live blogging.
I may not block and don't always delete, but I vigorously report abusive interaction because there's no excuse for poor behavior.
That person can't see all my notifications.
True, I can't see theirs either, and it's not a contest at any rate, but at least my twitter account is active and thriving and my websites actually work and that youtube has nearly 6000 views, so SanityGamingUK can suck it, but you're welcome for the web traffic you're about to get... that you can't see because your stuff is so shut down...
I think I've gotten up 50 times during this post to do stuff with Bunny. Maybe I should stop here and move on with my day, lotta busy stuff going on.
~later~ And this is why I normally don't engage. It was a garter snake, and someone just wants to fight. Fine, reported and blocked. You guys know chickens very naturally eat anything that moves, right? Frogs, lizards, mice... They crave nutrients just like the rest of the world does, and skeletons are full of calcium. We live on a hostile planet, get a grip with the hatefest, and bring some intelligence to the game. Live and be well.
Being public is a challenge, and not because of this kind of stuff. This is nothing. I've had much nastier things said to me and thrown at me than this. The challenge is realizing that the person on the other side is using internet to displace onto, and that either comes from a toxic environment or an emotionally sideswiped person having trubbas dealing with something irl. Hostility is a symptom, and reacting with more hostility doesn't help anything, doesn't prove anyone right, doesn't make a winner out of either side. If SanityGamingUK has dead and closed accounts all over the place, one can only wonder why, how much suckage is going on in real life, and the hugs this person might need. Been there.
For about a week my top post was depression, suicide, and Pinky's revenge. I actually never intended to become a depression blogger (I can't believe how many posts I've written on it), but I don't know how else to hug people through my screen. I know it's really hard out there.
My superpowers are growing.
That's why my dance moves are getting so awesome.
I hope you guys can imagine how this tweet looks in a #pinky hashtag feed, which is mostly porn. Yes, I take my puns very seriously. No, actually, I thought it would be easier to look for one of my #pinky tweets on the hashtag feed and about fell outa my chair, so I facepalmed and looked through my own photo/vid tweet feed instead. #bencongruity
I wonder how many views came in from the porn feed, though, because these two posts were hot on the heels of the suicide/depression post and suddenly flew right by it. Hope I didn't disappoint anyone. No one is yelling Take it off in comments, so that's good. Have to wonder if some of the regulars on that feed have become solid readers, though, since I've been making #pinky posts for a year and a half now.
Stuff from the last few days-
BATS! You remember I warned about rabies, right? That's a real thing. I see way too many people holding bats on the twitters. Never brush off a little bat bite like no big deal. It's a horrible death to go through.
This guy. As long as my finger and took a bit of leverage with a little stick to make him let go and fly away.
This last week has been so rough that I found myself plowing through sock bins Monday after my neuro date. I'm a back to school junkie, I try really hard to hold back until what I find is more rescuing the last of the cool stuff than filling the basket up with ALL THE THINGS.
Other back to school included updating my bugout bag (super cheap shark backpack from Walmart) and epi purse. Click for ---> way more pink camo stuff.
Between a register coupon, sale price, and using some of the points I earned, I got TWO free pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream at Walgreens yesterday.
Going over the James River bridge in Ozark yesterday. Yep, same one that flooded higher than a car last month. And speaking of more rain, storms ripped through again this week, and now we've got a big leak in the kitchen because the tarred tarp bolted down with boards couldn't stop the 60+ mph winds. Big tree was blown over next door, they have roof damage. Our new roof can't come fast enough. I've never seen such a wet August, and then suddenly dropping 30 degrees yesterday and waking up in the 50s this morning. O_O We're all just really really confused- the trees, the bugs, the lawns...
I WANT THIS BATHROBE. So did this person. If I went to all that trouble, I'd be more into the velvet, brocades, and piping details. You know how Mrs. Hudson jokes about Sherlock's blog post on a comparison of textile fiber tensile strengths and origins? There really are people out there who do this. <--- But I don't care what anyone says about the incongruity of this bathrobe in the Shire, the real tragedy was not mass producing it for fans. $Kaching$. Anyway, one of my sisters is a quilter, I come from a whole family line of expert seamstresses and quilters (Mennonites), I know a lot about fabrics and marketing thanks to a 5-year retail stint, and I'm shocked and appalled that as much work as was put into this bit of costuming, it wasn't merched to the fans, who would easily have paid the high dollar ticket just to have it. However, thanks to a pinterest link, I've also found TARDIS toile. And who could resist the Sherlock collection? You're welcome.
The nacho experiments are going well. I have discovered cooking up an entire package of Italian brats or a pound of taco meat ahead and freezing portioned cooked crumbles into little ziplocks is so easy to get out and thaw later and top onto corn chips with shredded cheeses out of a bag. @bonenado and I can split this and call it a light supper.
Speaking of @bonenado, he's been teaching Bunny how to hang out like old guys. Probably talking about the neighbor.
Sorry the posts lately have been so lengthy. I seem to be in a regroup kind of mind, like how you zoom around, stall out and coast, spring forth and boing around, spaz out again, get cranky and shake yourself by the collar, and suddenly realize OH, I think I've got a virus, on top of all the antihistamines super squelching all the ragweed on top of teetering back and forth on the brink of spiky pain monster on top of life throwing an entire roof replacement on top of football season and new shows starting back up on top of the boss maybe selling the business just before we get the roof loan on top of MOAR STORM DAMAGE. This is way too big for Benedict. I need The Doctor.
Bet you guys don't live next door to a gun going off at 3 and 4 in the morning. Fortunately, I was already awake. RIP whatever critters meandered out of the woods into that tiny yard.
Click & scroll down for rabies map
Contrary to protests, critters really do bite, and SWMO is like the local CDC for rabies. I've had bats show up on my deck in broad daylight and just sit there. Never pick up a bat under those circumstances. It might be quite sick.
I click to an awesome bat info page.
You know, just in case you actually do run into a bat. (Why do you think people historically associate bats with death?) Bats can be very small, like mice, and hard to see if you're walking around barefoot, like this guy. (I NEVER go outside barefoot, we have copperheads, scorpions, spiders from hell, and wasps.)
Click for hair raising article- he nearly didn't get treatment
A few years ago, a family of skunks that had dug their way under the middle school was captured and found to be rabies carriers. Cats are reported with rabies 3X more than dogs. Cats also carry a number of other diseases that affect humans. This is a good page for legal issues concerning handling wild animals and feral cats. "If you have any other questions contact us online or by phone at 1-855-WILD-HELP anytime."
Missouri Conservation once encouraged shooting feral cats on sight during hunting season, but that's changing across the nation. Abandoning pets is already becoming punishably illegal in some areas, and one day restrictions and pet licensing will be an across the board necessity for conservation of protected species and disease control.
Aww, cute bunny, um... o_o (Yes, click.)
I like cats. I grew up with cats. I also have positive immune markers for Bartonella from cat scratches, and was very sick as a child because of that, and may still be impacted neurologically. -Cat Scratch Disease- I think it's scary that my neighbors let their cats run around the wild woods and then come back into their houses, and then the owners wonder why they feel run down or get some kind of weird illness. Rabies is 99% fatal to humans, but many people dismiss getting their cats vaccinated. Who even cares about the rest of the germs and parasites they bring in, right?
My neighbor is an older veteran in his 80s, and he's pretty old school about handling wildlife. We don't bother him about it. I grew up with my dad killing strays and extra pets as a solution to problems, and even though that is deeply rooted in me, as well, it bothers me that it's a solution to a much bigger problem of people ignoring their responsibilities to dismissed, escaped, neglected, and abandoned pets. How did the solution to rampant cuteness 'ownership' (slavery... think about it) become killing the leftovers?
This could have been a child. Thinkaboutit.
click for extreme pet ownership clashes
I think all pet owners should have to apply for approval which is given after attendance of a class on pet diseases and legal responsibilities, and then pay taxes on each one (I have to pay tax per head on a handful of pet chickens where I live) and pay fines when their pets are caught on camera at other people's wild bird feeding stations or in their yards or not wearing collars that verify vaccination and ownership. (I was told I cannot legally detain someone's dog in my yard with a leash even if it is destroying my property even if I am kind to the dog and holding it for the frantic neighbor looking for the dog to come pick up- my neighbors' dogs running around have more rights and legal protection than I do, like diplomatic immunity or something.)
Millions of dollars are spent every year trying to round up and care for unclaimed or escaped pets because the original owners weren't responsible enough to prethink pet ownership in the first place. Pets are expensive. If you cannot afford your electric bill, you cannot afford a pet. That's right, we also got city ordinance notices in the mail yesterday over the rise in nonpayment for utilities.
If I were the President of Southwest Missouri, I'd say no more pets until y'all straighten your butts up. Stop shooting your guns, stop dumping your dogs and cats, leave wildlife alone, and focus on getting your lives back together so your AC won't be cut off during the hottest time of year. I understand the psychological need for pet love (I really do), but pet love doesn't cover pet ownership sins. If you can care about a pet, then you can care about your neighbors, their property, laws regarding such, and paying your dues over it along with everyone else.
Sorry so mean. Kinda get that way living next door to guns going off at 3 in the morning. For twenty years. Except it hasn't been so bad lately because the guns are getting heavy.
I've gotta go, might get someone showing up for coffee. You never know in these woods. Hope he's had his rabies shot.
The makeup effects in Surrogates was awesome. If we really had 'surs', I wouldn't get one for the simple fact that I can't lay anywhere that long being plugged in. They were originally made for the homebound and disabled, but even then, I can't even imagine plugging in to a doll unit, no matter how well I could experience by proxy, just to walk around town or sit in a car or whatever. A job, yeah, I can see that, working from home and still being mobile, but honestly? With *my* nerve endings? I'd be the one to get weird itches and my doll would be out there constantly scratching or tweaking or doing weird things while I wiggle around in the chair and get two different sets of brain waves tangled up. I'd constantly be turning my doll off in public to get up.
Avatar. Totally jealous that we don't have a glow in the dark forest. ~But~. Ok, floating mountain. Whatever mechanism you wanna use to create this wonderful effect, shouldn't you apply the same physics to everything around it? I mean, if gravity is in any way changed enough to affect an entire mountain, how did the People run around like gravity was just fine? Sorry, James Cameron, it was really pretty, but shortcuts like that bother me. Normal flying would have been impossible in that area, as well. I won't go into the rest, like nothing having fur (too much trouble?) and the really super bad light the whole movie put on the military in joint operations with super corporations, broadly hinting at the fact that everything on Earth itself is completely and utterly evil, which in turn, I'm sure, points to our world govt badly needing an overhaul. Personally, I think the whole movie was political agenda wrapped around pretty graphics. I'm all for saving the World Tree and all, but can we please not vilify the entire human race in one fell swoop? I've seen a lot of scifi, that was possibly the crudest story line I've ever seen making future tech the Bad Guy. And the really sick irony is that James Cameron is very wealthy, living off the masses... I'm not against wealth. I'm against wealthy people who twist reality to get wealthy, while the people below them spend money they really don't have on merchandise and 'green' initiatives. How many urbanites really believed the phrase in the movie "We killed our mother! The green is gone!" (paraphrased, perhaps), while I sit here surrounded by lush forest and fields so overwhelming with pollen and vermin and critters that I don't even go outside? How many people aren't aware that our govt is currently seizing hundreds of thousands of pristine acreages as we speak? Excusez moi, but the whole movie was propaganda. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot more of that.
Fisherman Bob: What are you doing here? Dr. Ivan Hood: We're looking for the president. Fisherman Bob: The president huh? The president's dead. Dr. Ivan Hood: Are you sure? Fisherman Bob: No. Are you sure he's alive? Dr. Ivan Hood: No, but we're gonna find out. Alex, Bizzi & Tyler: [fists in air, chanting in unison] THE PRESIDENT LIVES! Dr. Ivan Hood: Hey hey hey! Can we stop with that 'President Lives' crap, okay? You're not slogan repeating slaves anymore, you're free people! Start acting like it.
Ok, tell me how, in any kind of theory, this movie is any different in plot than Avatar, just the roles are reversed, but they make the same point. And I find the super crappy one more entertaining. At least you can blame whatever poor editing on a really low budget. James Cameron had no excuse. Just once I'd like to see a wealthy Hollywood director actually do something without begging the question around every corner. If you're gonna make a point about greedy alien hostile takeover, just make it and don't drag in all the current political baggage with a line about how humans destroyed their mother and the green is gone. I like this quote fromGeek Entertainment News and Commentary - Angry Zen MasterGuess I wasn't the only one who came away disgusted.
"Science fiction can serve to give us hope for the future. Star Trek is all about unity and the indomitable will of humanity. Avatar is about us being total dicks to ten-foot tall blue cat people. I find that far more sinister than the noble savage aspect. Sky People suck so bad that even Jake can’t stand to be one. He spends most of the film in his Avatar. Why should we give a toss what happens to humanity when our hero doesn’t."
Back to 2015. I have a lot more distraction now chasing a tiny Sky Person around.
This is the @bonenado shelf at Hobby Lobby. No, we didn't get anything. We're as frugal as Vulcans.
Got a cute little Toshiba message letting me know my battery will be expiring one of these days and something about my SSD can be written over only so many times before it gets worn out. Basically, lappy might only have a few weeks or months left before I've gotta spend at least $100 on a battery or just flat retire it and get a new laptop. I'll be hoarding away money and being a bit selfish this year, might be a slim Christmas. Just a heads up. Since I can still see pretty good, I guess this means another year in my old glasses. I'm not too worried, the health report looks good, but as hard as I work this thing, maybe I need to stop downloading vids and toggling so many screens, give this poor thing a break.
That's it, I'm bushwhacked. Going down early again tonight.
Or, irl, as it's acronymed. All of these things happened over the last nine days while black ice and 6-8 inches of crunchy frozen snow kept us more indoors than out.
She doesn't dig the snow, either
Like living in a glass forest
Paper Towel Death
Since our kids are moved out, Scott and I usually eat together in front of our massive TV (the bliss of empty nest), unless he's superglued to fantasy stats or some such on his PC screen. It's not uncommon for me to walk past the couch the next morning picking up the odd paper towel or glass out of the cup holder. The other morning I chanced across a paper towel tightly twisted into what looked like a piece of rope laying on my favorite couch pillow- Was this a message? Had I irritated him too much? Was he subconsciously (or even consciously, egads) thinking about doing to me what he did to that paper towel? Everything Freudian imaginable popped into my mind, and it all pointed to DEATH.
I was right. After Scott got home from work and we were once again eating together on the couch, I paused the show we were watching and said "Hey, by the way, there was this paper towel all twisted up on my pillow. Are you thinking about killing me? Because if you are, I think letting me know what's bothering you and me changing my behavior might be more beneficial, because otherwise you wind up eating fast food every night. And cereal. That thing looked like you were making a rope, and you laid it on my pillow, dude." Turns out he was. He'd been watching one of his uber violent assassin shows the night before and had seen something that triggered him to remember Jackie Chan uses anything around him, and wondered if a paper towel could be made into a strangling weapon, and even sort of demonstrated how he had tried it on himself to see if the paper towel would tear apart. It didn't. Then he forgot to throw that towel away when he got up and took his dishes to the kitchen.
Whew!!! That explanation is entirely plausible. Between some of the shows I've watched with him (including everything from black and white samurai movies to vampire bloodbaths) and his fascination with zombie defense strategies (which I first learned about when he was going through an autoimmune blood vessel flare and a big load of steroids that made him super yappy), Scott is pretty dark in there. Maybe we need a cute brain cleanser now.
Coffee Races
Scott usually leaves me a couple cups of coffee in the pot when he goes to work, and I just microwave them when I get up, unless I'm up with him and drink it fresh. On weekends it's all fresh, which rocks, but Scott is one of those older gen guys whose little mind I can toy with. I call from the kitchen to him in the bedroom, glued to a monitor- "Hey, I'm going to make fresh coffee. You want this last cup before I pour it out?" I hear a muffled 'yeah' and know he's not moving because #glued. So I call back with a little louder voice, "Then bring your cup, I'm pouring this out in ten seconds. Ten... nine..." I hear a mad scramble out of his chair and a wild hunt for his coffee cup. "...five...four..." He's actually running into the kitchen with his cup. "...two...." His cup is under the pot that I'm holding over the sink just as I say "...one!" and start pouring. He knows I'm not bluffing. I haven't yet figured out why he still falls for that when fresh coffee in a few more minutes would have magically appeared anyway and he'd never have missed the old cold stuff, but it revs things up and makes the day more exciting. I like it.
Someone wanted a milkshake
The Pros and Cons of Having No Responsibility
This is more like a think tank game of wits that pops up every little bit. It usually starts with something Scott sees on a TV news flash or hears at work that crosses his mind, in this instance, a group of people camping or living up in some snow laden mountains and other people worrying about whether they were ok in all this horrible cold, and Scott blurted out it must be nice to have no responsibilities and just go live in the mountains, and I can never tell if he's actually jealous or what, but I once again see an opportunity for sport and jump into the deep end with "Well, you have the responsibility to stay alive, which is probably a whole lotta hard work when you're living like that", and then we launch into a discussion about all the work it takes staying alive when a person has no responsibilities to society. We usually don't get anywhere with it, partly because Bunny calls and babbles, but when we're not interrupted, we run on like that sentence up there.
Because WORK
Cripple Fight
Sometimes we reach an impasse while we're both stuck in the house together, and the only solution, as throughout human history, is to simply just kill each other. It would be preferable to do that with our battery operated computerized Battleship or a multiplayer video game, but the first is too slow and way too much sitting for all the adrenaline Scott continually processes with his ADHD, and the second gives me optic nerve migraines and him motion sickness nausea and we both wind up crawling off the couch sorry that we ever tried duking it out with our thumbs. So sometimes I take a shortcut and just slug him really hard, and then we don't talk for 3 days. I know I'm really lucky that he doesn't slug me back, and that it hurts his feelings when I do that (long history of sad reasons throughout his life that I understand I trigger), but sometimes I get 'stuck' and 'act out' and then regret it the rest of the day. In short. aspie gets frustrated processing communication and emotion at the same time and briefly gets violent, which I sometimes fail to control. I dread a future of being labeled the combatant patient in a nursing home one day when my mind deteriorates and I go Bendii Syndrome all over the staff.
I can take him ANY TIME
Anyway, this last weekend, as we hit another stalemate, I mused on the fact that recent events have left me nearly incapable of getting a good slug out, so instead, I turned from the stove to Scott watching out the kitchen window for suspicious activities going on with the neighbors and said "I never was very girly, and yet here you still are" or something like that, put my good arm around his shoulders and said "Lucky I can't hit you right now, eh?" and we laughed. If we could go back to younger years and do this all over again without all my stupid challenges in the way, it would be fun to take taekwondo and stuff together. He's always wanted to go ghost hunting, and if we were equipped for defense and strategy while we were at it, we could scheme and do stuff all over the place. But here we arrive at a place where the phrase 'cripple fight' means 'as you wish'. I'm not sure I'd give that moment up to change anything. One must embrace cabin fever to truly evolve. We both got gold stars on our foreheads that day.
One of the big kids
Walmart Bunny Rodeo and the Missing $20
Bunny's mama was assessed in the third grade by the area's top pediatric neurologist, who diagnosed her with full blown ADHD, saying he'd never seen a child score a ten on both tests before. Bunny is a cute little clone with all the signs of busy energizer bunny (I used to tell her mama that all her bunnies were bouncing out of the box), and already at only 19 months she is such a handful for 3 people that we have become a weekly shopping team. The 'problem' is that this kid already knows who she is and what she wants, and since we are still pre-language with her, reasoning doesn't work (negotiating worked beautifully with her mama once I learned the tricks, which I'm really good at because I'm aspie), and I'm juggling 3 genetically hardwired go-go-go people with poor communication skills. In Walmart.
Constantly moving equals joy
The key is to split up and run into each other 'randomly' (Bunny has no clue we're touching base on the phone at first)- Grampa uses an owl 'backpack' leash that makes Bunny feel grown up and they go walking (super fast walking, she doesn't meander) while mama and I race our carts around with our lists. We have about 15-20 minutes before Bunny and Grampa get too frustrated to work together, and then we start switching off. Sometimes mama shows up with a cookie from the bakery which Bunny can have only by sitting in the cart (helps to take her hungry when we go shopping), and if I run into them first, I have so far successfully gotten her to sit in a cart twice (which is huge) while we hunt for a special box of animal crackers, which she is allowed to open. I doubt this strategy will keep working beyond another 2-3 weeks, but at least we get our shopping done without too much entertainment that inexperienced bystanders might not appreciate.
It has helped me greatly through the years to remember that these ADHD loved ones of mine are direct descendants of the Daniel Boone clan, and that possibly it took people like this to survive being pioneers starting towns and networking local governments and whatnot, as opposed to sitting around croaking off. I also can't help but wonder, every time I hear of a family dying in a house fire during the winter, if they might have gotten out safely if they'd had a Bunny in their midst with enough insomnia to keep someone awake around the clock. Heavy sleepers croak off in fires and raids, light sleepers scream and get out windows. Maybe ADHD running through 10% of the world population is an ideal genetic variant assuring society survives in particular ways. Whenever I get worn out, I remind myself these are the people that get things done. We're very jealous of zurrito sitting in a cart, although his mama assures us keeping him in one has been a fight the whole way.
At any rate, by the time we hit the register lines we're pretty frazzled, like we've done toddler olympics or something, and our brains are all falling out. I asked Scott last weekend if I should put money on the gas card, and he said sure, $20. Neither one of us caught a miscommunication between a checker running away to puke (pregnant? sure hope it wasn't germs, ish) and Bunny reprogramming phones again while we were unloading two full carts, and I failed to grasp that I was supposed to put money on the gas card AND get cash back. We figured this out hours later when we needed the cash... Ah, yes, the Bat signal has a few bulbs going out again, gotcha. As long as we're not skidding on ice and have food in the fridge again, it's all good.
Losing internet for only one day was awesome
Squirrels and Crows vs Deer and Birdies (not counting bluejays)
Scott and I take sides. He spends a little cash putting out winter treats for the deer and birds (NOT 'wildlife') and I secretly don't let him know the wrong mouths are scarfing it all week while he's at work. I'm a softie, not a racist, and I say it's all good, let the hungry come and feast. Besides, if I think it's a little unfair, all I have to do is open the deck door and the greedy hogs whoosh away, relief washes over the forest as shouts go up "Hooray!", and the tiny little cuties (who are actually super aggressive themselves and just as mean, if you watch long enough) swoop in for leftovers. I figure the deer are big enough to walk on anybody they choose if they want a little corn, so I don't worry about it, but then, it's not my money we're spending, is it?
Over the years Scott has tried a lot of things, and over the years we have learned just how super smart the freezing famished can be overcoming obstacles. We've tried splitting up feeding stations and learned that 'common knowledge' on how to feed wildlife doesn't stick at all. Doves will eat wherever they want to eat, crows and squirrels will work together like corporate team members to solve a problem, pretty birds will kill whoever gets in their way if they feel desperate enough. The biggest wrench in any plan Scott makes is the deer. They don't cooperate. They'll eat bark while corn or hay sits 3 feet away if they suspect something's wrong. Their heads rotate up periscope for what seems like hours while crows at their feet scoop up all the good stuff. When they finally let their guard down enough to sniff around, they don't get upset if it's gone. Where other animals compete for available food, deer shrug it off and go about their business. Scott has gone through some very frustrating weekends trying to figure all this out.
TODAY, I got 8 deer on video meandering through. They do this all the time, but deer are smart enough to change their routes and times and never repeat their path. They all looked healthy and even played around with each other. That's the beauty of deer- they can live on next to nothing, like horses. Horses are made to survive on scrub, deer are made to survive forest winters. Knowing this doesn't change anything. I'm sure my video will only step up Scott's game. In the meantime, as Tosh would say for the rest of the critters, "And for that, we thank you."
