On our way home from dance class this evening, I spotted a run-over snake in the road very close to our house. I stopped the car and backed it up so I could get a closer look. I just wanted to see if it was venomous or not; you know, so I would be aware to be on the lookout for more of them around, if it was venomous. I couldn't tell very much about it at first glance, and I'm not all that very well-versed in snake identification. All I know for sure is that venomous snakes' eye pupils are slit-shaped (like cat's eyes), and that non-venomous snakes have round pupils. So I first tried looking at the snake's pupils, but I couldn't really tell very much about them. So me and Lilly drove on up to the house and told Jamie about it, and we all walked back down the driveway together to investigate the snake carcass closer. At first we assumed that it was a venomous copperhead. But I researched it on the internet a little while later and discovered that it turned out to be just a harmless corn snake. Here's a picture of the entire mangled snake:
(I had moved it around with my foot a little to try to tell more about it).
Here's a picture of its head:
Here's a picture that I tried to take of its eye:
Here's a picture of the tip of its tail:
I had Jamie flip the snake over so we could see its belly, and much to my surprise, it was in a neat-looking checkerboard-type pattern:
We just so happened to have a crusty old yardstick on our porch, so I had taken it along with us so that we could use it to measure just how long the snake was. The snake turned out to be just a few inches longer than the yardstick when we stretched it out straight!:
(How do you like my stylish lunch-lady shoes & pants)? LOL (I included them for scale)
But most interesting (and kind of sad) to me was when I was taking one last very close look at the snake before Jamie pitched it off the side of the road, I noticed that its last meal was protruding from a hole in its side. A mouse:
It makes me so mad to hear people say "the only good snake is a dead snake". There are about 42 different types of snakes in our state, and only 6 of those are venomous.
I learned through my very brief internet research to try to figure out if the run-over snake was a venomous copperhead or not, that copperhead bites are actually fairly rare, and if someone does get bitten by one, they don't even treat it with anti-venom. Sure, the bite would hurt like *&^%$#@$$#%#$&$**, but it more than likely wouldn't kill anyone.
I was also surprised to learn that killing non-venomous snakes in our state is actually illegal.
I can't believe that people would actually prefer to have harmless snakes around as opposed to vermin. Snakes have their important place in the ecology of the environment just like everything else does. Just because they give people the creeps or freak them out is no reason to eradicate them. That's like choosing disease-carrying rodents over a harmless, beneficial mouse-eater that just happens to be in an odd, slinky shape. People think it's great when a cat kills a mouse; so isn't it even more great that snakes probably kill more mice and rats than cats do? A snake is just a long, legless, hairless cat that doesn't meow! LOL! Like, if you stripped most of the features off a cat's head and attached it to its own tail (and shaved it all)...then you've pretty much got yourself a snake! LOL!!!
Well, today was our town's annual Rabies Clinic. We take our dogs there every year to get their shots. And even though I think we're really supposed to by law, we don't bother taking our cat to get a rabies shot anymore. She doesn't really like to go outside, and whenever she does actually ask to go outside, she usually only takes just a few steps out on the porch, and then hurriedly waddles her fat @$$ back inside the house as quickly as possible a few seconds later (with her droopy saddlebags a-floppin'). Domino is a housecat by choice. So what's the use? Anyway, last year, Jamie took the dogs to the Rabies Clinic all by himself for the first time, and it was a complete disaster. Maddie is always fine with everything. But Lucky is a different story. Lucky is extremely protective. So last year, Lucky ended up freaking out and peeing all over the car. My car. (Jamie wouldn't take them in his truck). It took numerous people to hold Lucky down (and subsequently muzzling her) in order to give her her rabies shot, and somewhere in the mix, Lucky also ended up taking a nervous dump in my car, which was the terd equivalent of the cherry-on-top of a disaster sundae. Lovely. >:{ So this year, I decided that we would all pile up in the car together and go. At least that way, Jamie could drive, and between me and Lilly, surely to goodness we could handle soothing and entertaining the dogs. The picture I took below is actually Lucky yawning, but I like to pretend that she's yelling because Jamie's driving is so awful. Jamie turns curves too hard, so my coffee travel mug ended up dumping over and spilling about half of my coffee out all over my foot. Twice in a row. Even though it was in the cupholder. Boy, was I pissed.
Lucky: *AAAH!!! YOU'RE GONNA GET US ALL KILLED!!!*
Plus, as we were flying down the road, I could hear the unmistakable sound that a door was not completely shut somewhere in the car. It turned out that doofus Jamie hadn't even properly closed the back hatch of my car after he loaded up the dogs in the back. I don't think that it would've come open as we were speeding down the road, but it's too unnerving to think that there's even a slim chance that it might, and if it did, we'd probably be having a couple of dog funerals on our hands, and severe emotional trauma about it for the rest of our lives. So I fussed really hard at Jamie and made him pull the car over to shut the back hatch of the car all the way. But he wouldn't pull over right away; he had to continue driving up the road for another minute to find a *good spot* to pull over, even though he could've pulled over as soon as I told him to. Dopey dork. He makes me so mad. >:{
Anyway, all in all, it went well, aside from one huge snafu that lasted for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality, it was probably only 30 seconds. As we inched closer to the area where they administer the shots, Lucky decided that she wanted to lay in my lap. So I wrapped my arms around her, talked soothing to her, and petted her, and we were having a wonderful time. Until Maddie eventually stepped over too closely in our direction. I guess Lucky just suddenly went into psycho jealous mode, and as a result, Maddie instantly went into super-defensive mode, and we almost had an ultra-mega-severe dogfight on our hands. In the tight quarters of the car. For a while there, I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been bloodshed. The growling, barking, and snarling was really awful, and the wild eyes and flared teeth were very scary. It could have actually been a fairly dangerous situation. But thankfully, since Lucky stayed in my lap, I was able to grab her leash, and Jamie grabbed Maddie's leash, and we were able to keep their heads far enough apart so that they didn't tear into each other. I scolded and scolded and scolded loudly to try to make them stop, and I made Jamie help Maddie get up in the front seat next to him. After we got the dogs separated, everything was fine. Lucky still kept trying to look at Maddie so she could snarl at her, so I put a quilt up between the front and back seats so they couldn't see each other. Crisis averted. I think Lucky went ballistic because she just didn't want for Maddie to come over to me and *steal* the petting and attention that I was giving to her. Lucky is an extremely jealous and way overly-protective dog. And even though Maddie and Lucky are super-best-friends 99.9% of the time, they have gotten into some pretty scary fights a few times in the past. The only other minor mishap that happened was that when we were only a minute away from making it back home, Lucky started whining and growling again. It was a little scary. I don't know if maybe she was having a little pain from her shot, or if she needed to go to the bathroom, or needed water, or she was carsick, or what. But I was able to calm her back down, and luckily we made it home just a few moments later. So in all, I'd say that taking the dogs to this year's rabies clinic was a success. And when we go again next year, we'll know just what to do...Keep the dogs separated the whole time. Maddie in the front, and Lucky in the back. With the *privacy quilt* firmly installed between them. Whew! And now I've got enough dog hair and dander all in my car to scrape together and make a whole new pet! :/ Gee, I know what I'll be doing tomorrow...vacuuming it all out. *sigh* Here's a montage of the whole ordeal:
They finally emailed me Lilly's Easter portrait that she had taken with the bunny the other day. Here it is:
Meh; it's not a very good picture, but we only gave them a $5 donation. You can tell that Lilly had to wake up earlier that morning than she wanted to (from the dark bags under her eyes), and as usual, she wouldn't allow for her hair to even be brushed; much less styled. Ehh. Oh, well; it was just fun to hold and pet a *strange* bunny besides our own for once!
This bunny is named Oreo (tee hee; how cute!), and it's a boy. He was a very good, calm bunny during the photo shoots. His little 'sniffer' was quite a bit more audible than any of the other bunnies that I've been around. He was really sweet. I got to hold him too. Squee! :D
Jamie and Lilly came home a little while ago from visiting over at Jamie's Dad's house (like they do every weekend). Most of the time, they'll come back dragging some ol' useless, ugly, pile of crap to clutter up our house with. But sometimes they come home with some real gems. Today Jamie and Lilly came dragging in a dumb little red tablecloth, some God-awful ugly ruffled, curved, brown-printed, who-knows-what (that Jamie said was "really pretty" --and he was serious), and this fantastic vintage '70s black velour jumpsuit that used to belong to his Mom. Intrigued with the jumpsuit, I said daringly, "You want me to try it on"? Jamie was skeptical and didn't think I could squeeze into it. He was afraid that even if I did manage to get it on, that we wouldn't be able to get me out of it! So of course I flung off the clothes I had on, yanked the jumpsuit out of Jamie's hand and squirmed myself into it. LOL! Check it out!:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!! My butt looks like that stuffed pig-prize I saw at the Fair yesterday:
I wanted to do the YMCA dance in the jumpsuit and get Jamie to video it, but Step 1) I don't know how to do that dance right off the top of my head, and Step 2) I can't dance anyway. So you'll just have to use your imagination. Sorry.
A tag inside the jumpsuit said that it was "Union Made" by the ILGWU (International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union). I thought that was pretty neat.
So I guess this dopey piece of '70s clothing history will be clogging up another person's closet for another 40+ years! :/
And now I've got the Bee Gees stuck in my head! >:{
Well, even though me and Jamie were both completely exhausted after work yesterday, Lilly asked me to go to the Kiwanis Fair that's currently set up in town. I had originally planned to take Lilly to the Fair either Saturday (after she attended a friend's birthday party in the afternoon), or all day on Sunday (which is the last day of the Fair). But I thought 'what the heck; why not' and we all piled up in the car and went to town. First at the Fair, we came upon the little petting zoo, and we all died of cuteness overload from these super-ultra-sweet tiny baby bunnies!:
Next, there was a cute li'l pig, all wagging its little tail like a happy li'l doggy would, grunting, and wanting to be petted:
Jamie said it felt like pettin' a bristle-broom.
Lilly petted it too, but I didn't get a good picture of that.
(I actually took all these pictures and videos with my new phone, and it was the first time I'd really messed with the camera part of it, so I wasn't quite used to it yet):
So then I wanted to have a turn petting the cute li'l piggie, but when I was about to try, it ended up pushing its funny li'l snout onto my bent knee, throwing me off-balance just enough to knock me down on my rear-end (LOL)!:
Next, we checked out this sweet, soft, fuzzy donkey:
Its hair was surprisingly softer than expected! :):
There were some ponies next to the donkey:
I thought one of them might be pregnant, because its belly looked kinda fat, but then it turned around and I saw its ugly ol' wrinkly black goober hanging down, and I instantly realized that it was a boy! Lilly was right next to me when it happened, and she saw its goober too at the same time I did, and we looked at each other in surprise and I explained, "It's a boy; that's its goober...so it can't be pregnant!" And then me and Lilly frowned together in disgust over seeing its yucky goober. LOL! :P
Next up, the goats!:
In the pen together, there was a mama goat with her little baby (who kept trotting around trying to suckle her jug), and another brown goat (who I overheard someone who was watching them too say "oh great...it's a male"). And the 'male' seemed to be kind of playfully harassing the female. (I didn't personally inspect to see if the brown goat was indeed a male -- and I wouldn't trust stranger's judgment since goat 'junk' looks weird, and it can sometimes be hard to distinguish a male from a female in a fleeting glance).
Anyway, the goats were fun to pet:
(Even though I have a sneaking suspicion that the goats were secretly just using us as their own personal salt-licks, and not actually 'giving us kissies') :/
Then I wanted to pet the goats, and when I did, they gobbled my fingers!:
I've never had that experience before (I usually try to keep my fingers away from all animals' mouths under the assumption that they will most likely bite the total crap out of you, and you might even lose a finger, or at the very least need stitches), but these goats' biting didn't hurt at all! It actually felt kind of tickly and funny! Their teeth weren't sharp; they actually felt kind of flat (probably for grinding up hay and stuff). Hmm! Who knew?
Then Lilly wanted to move onward to ride the rides. She ended up having to ride the rides by herself for a while. There weren't a whole lot of kids there at first (because we got there soon after they just opened --5:00 PM on a Friday).
As we were standing around waiting while Lilly was riding rides, I looked around just to see what I could see. Of course there were several different (usually rigged) games to play, where you could win (cheap, silly) prizes. One of the large prizes in particular caught my eye. At first glance, I thought it was a gigantic butt!:
So I studied it closer, and finally realized that it was actually a giant stuffed-animal pig!:
(WHEW! LOL!)
Before too terribly long, lots of kids showed up that Lilly knew. At one point, Lilly excitedly exclaimed "half the class is here"!
I was slightly surprised when Lilly spotted a classmate and went running off calling their name, "Lane! Lane!" In these days of kids' names being ambiguous at times, I was expecting to see Lilly running toward a little girl. But Lane turned out to be a boy, who is one of Lilly's classmates. When I caught up to them a few moments later, Lilly introduced him to me as "This is my friend Lane, who's a boy"! (And I thought to myself,' so Lilly means that in other words, he's a boy, and he's my friend, but he's not my boyfriend')! I just laughed and said "well, that's OK"! And it reminded me of myself growing up, with more boy-friends than girl-friends. I guess Lilly takes that after me. She's tomboyish enough to get along with the boys well, but girly enough to have fun with the girls too.
Here's Lilly riding the Mixer with Ethan (he's not in Lilly's class this year, but Lilly told me they were in the same 1st grade class together -- hee hee):
Then, a bunch of Lilly's girl-friends showed up, and they all had fun riding the rides together:
After riding the rides with her girl-friends for a while, Lilly met back up with a couple of her boy-friends from her class, and they all rode the Mixer together (with Lilly in the middle, of course):
I thought this was cute, so I zoomed in and snapped a picture, and it turned out to be my favorite picture I took during our whole time at the fair. Hee hee! It's so cute and funny! Look at Lilly's expression, sitting there between those two boys! Ha ha ha!:
Not long after this ride, the boys decided that they wanted to ride one of the more intense rides that Lilly doesn't like (and the boys ended up riding it over and over and over again), so Lilly had no choice but to ditch them to do other fun stuff.
It started getting late, and we'd been there for about 4 exhausting hours already. Lilly wanted to play a game before we left, and I told her that the only kind of game she could play would have to be one that let you win a prize no matter what. So she chose to do this 'whack the thingie with the hammer and make it ring the bell' game:
Lilly ended up throwing back that first inflatable toy hammer that she picked up. And after a grueling eternity of sifting through the whole bin of giant inflatable hammers to pick out just the right one, we were finally able to persuade Lilly that it was time to go back home.
Sitting in the car, before we headed out, I took this picture of Lilly enjoying her fair-goodies:
Lilly actually found that wacky pair of light-up sunglasses laying on the ground next to the pig's pen at the petting zoo! That kid finds more stuff than anybody I've ever seen!
Realizing that the glaring picture wouldn't do it justice, I took a little video so you could see Lilly's wacky glasses in action:
And after 4 fun (but exhausting) hours of enduring having to chase Lilly around all over the place while smelling a bad mixture of stale cologne, pony manure, and funnel cakes, that was our trip to the Fair! :)
It's our first Easter with our very own Easter Bunny!
The *actual* Easter Bunny almost forgot to visit our house, but luckily she remembered at the very last second. (Whew)! ;) Our bunny, Bunnerdy, had a very Hoppy first Easter:
Tee Hee! :D
And I actually cooked us all a decent Easter Dinner without burning the house down!:
After we finished eating our dinner (and nobody died from eating my cooking --LOL) I hid Easter Eggs for Lilly to find:
(Lilly had a little bit of trouble finding the last egg, so we had to tell her when she was getting "warm" or "cold"):
Then Lilly hid the eggs for the grown-ups to find:
Well, there was a lull in the receipt of "Old People" mail for a while there, but now it seems to have picked back up again. Yesterday I got this dumb postcard (which may or may not technically be "Old People" mail, but it sure seems like it might be):
I don't even know where to begin. The first thing that caught my eye was the picture of that wretched, unappetizing free meal they're offering. I mean, really! It looks like some dopey ol' supper I might cobble together myself at home! But this is supposed to be from a restaurant! Those crinkle-cut fries look really overcooked! And what is that other stuff? Fish? Chicken? Where are the vegetables or salad? And why is there a fork thrown down randomly on the plate? It looks like a picture that an unsatisfied patron took with their cell phone of a meal that they took two bites out of, but got up and left because it sucked!
Oh, well, I guess 1) you get what you pay for, and 2) at least they're honest, so when your complimentary burnt crinkle-cut fries and breaded mystery meat arrives at your table looking exactly as pictured above, you won't be disappointed, thinking you would be getting something better! :/
So after I finished scoffing to myself about the ugly free dinner, then I wondered what the crazy postcard was even trying to dupe you into attending. So I looked closer at the mysterious fine print to see this:
Oh.
Hmm.
Wow, 'Technology' with a capital 'T'.
'Technology' that will benefit you All year long.
Seems legit.
And immediately, I thought of something like this:
And then this:
LOL!
And today I got this stupid ol' depressing Funeral Home survey in the mail:
Their depressing ol' complimentary gift leaves much to be desired...the least they could do is tuck it inside a complimentary mini tote bag or something mildly useful... :/
Ugh.
Getting one of these in the mail is always a downer. But it would suck even more to arrive in your mailbox at a bad time. Which is why they thoughtfully include this microscopic footnote at the bottom of the page:
(Unless, of course, the illness leads to a bereavement; in which case, we'd like to offer our services)! :D
This gem was in my mailbox yesterday. It's by far the funniest piece of "Old People" mail I've got so far. It actually made me LOL when I pulled it out of the mailbox. It's addressed to "Resident", so everybody else in town probably got it too, but it's still hilarious:
And this testimonial (in bold and italics) printed on the back was my favorite:
Lilly has been in the beginning stages of puberty for a while now. A while ago, she came up to me grinning, with one of her arms raised straight up in the air, and her other hand pulling the sleeve of her t-shirt back to reveal her armpit. Then Lilly gleefully says to me, "Guess what its name is?......Harriet"! (Get it? 'Hairy'-et)? LOL! Oh, dear...! :)
Me & Lilly were laying in the bed before going to sleep a while ago. I was checking the weather forecast on my Nook, and Lilly was playing a little game on her Kurio. Lilly was apparently doing good on the game she was playing, because she said, "Wow! I'm really on a ball!" I laughed and said "Don't you mean you're on a roll?" And Lilly said that her teacher says that the kids in her class are "on a ball" when they're doing good. I laughed again and explained "No, she says that y'all are on the ball". And Lilly was like "Oh. Well anyway, I'm on a ball". LOL!
