The Toxic Housewife

At 6:30 this evening, Bee happened to look out the window and notice a chicken flying across the front yard.  Mind you, I'd just installed an awesome, rickety, semi-anti-chicken barrier to keep them out of there and cut down on the areas of chicken poop in which to step.  (The cats have been ecstatic to have the front yard back.  The chickens have been sulking).  Anyway, we trundled out to throw the chickens back into the side yard . . . and realized there was a raccoon in their open run. We chased the raccoon into the field , but it was too late: Calamity Jane, our favorite chicken, the most-outgoing and quirky, had been killed.

Green Eggs and Ham A few days ago, Mr. C insisted that he wanted green eggs and ham for breakfast.  I laughed and gamely tried.  The results really don't look much different from my regular cooking .

Today Mr. C and I took an expedition a couple of towns over to pick strawberries.  I've decided that going to these U-Pick farms is the same as going to a fondue restaurant: you end up paying twice as much to do all the work yourself.  But you're paying for the experience , right?

We just got back from my family reunion.  And, really, there's nothing like being surrounded by the people who love you most to make you feel like crap. Mr. C was so excited to be near other little cousins that he happily turned into a hooligan, ecstatically pushing kids to the ground and throwing things at them.  The fact that he was the youngest and smallest of all the cousins did not deter him, as he whined and bullied his way through the week.  For such a cute little guy, he had his moments of being a real jerk.

As you may recall from previous posts, I am a terrible cook.  At least, I am according to Bee.  I call my method of cooking 'smoked', while Bee stubbornly pigeon-holes it as 'burned'.

Chocolate Almond Logs  Thought I'd show some of the cookies from recent Cookie Co-Op ventures.  May I recommend you snack on a tasty carrot or a delicious stalk of broccoli while you view the following pictures?

   Mr. C has started taking pictures with my camera.  He began by randomly pointing the camera and pressing the button, which means we got a lot of pictures of the ground.  I classify the resulting pictures as having been during his 'Kitchen Floor Period'.  Then I got through to him that he needed to actually point the camera at something, resulting it a slew of pictures of half a person's face.  Those would be photos from his highly-introspective 'Up My Own Nose Period'.

This evening we hosted one of our potlucks.  I love potlucks: nothing says "Please Come To A Party!" like "Please Come To A Party, And -- Hey! -- Why Don't You Bring Your Own Dinner?" Bee and I have started taking bets on two things whenever we host one of these:

Bee and I are not on the same intellectual wavelength.  Our backgrounds were just too different.  Growing up, I was your average neurotic, socially-inept goody-two-shoes bookworm.  Doing well in school was how I found satisfaction with myself.  Bee was your average rock-'n-roll playing, muscle-shirt wearing, 'stache sporting party-goer.  School didn't provide self-satisfaction in the same way social interaction did. I scored a perfect 800 on my verbal SATs (thanks to the bonus points you get just for signing your name), then moved on to study Biology and Education at a semi-Ivy League university.  Bee barely passed English and moved on to welding school.  Sure, I was lucky to pass my science courses, whereas Bee graduated at the top of his welding class, but still . . . It's a good thing we didn't meet when we were younger: I would have found him to be a wild, intimidating loser; he would have viewed me as a narrow-minded snob who needed to remove...