The Kitty's Top Five of It All

(Prompted by The Lumberjack to reveal all sorts of things about myself, here goes...)

Top 5 Things Under $5 I Couldn't Live Without:
1. Chocolate
2. A notebook
3. The Scotsman's Irish Spring soap
4. Movie rentals
5. Hair ties

Top 5 Favorite Movies
1. High Fidelity
2. Almost Famous
3. Good Will Hunting
4. Breakfast at Tiffany's
5. Empire Records

Top 5 Favorite Baby Names
1. Maggie
2. Stella
3. Will
4. Ryan
5. Bob Oblaw

Top 5 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over Again
1. Tiny Dancer/Elton John
2. Cupid d'Locke/ The Smashing Pumpkins
3. Kind of Blue/ Miles Davis
4. The Song That Jane Likes/ Dave Matthews
5. I'm Just a Girl/ No Doubt

Top 5 People Who Have Influenced My Life in a Positive Way
1. The Scotsman
2. My parents
3. The Lumberjack
4. Gangledorf
5. The Seahag and The Queen

Top 5 Things Always in My Purse
1. Tide stick for the Scotsman
2. Cell phone
3. Playing cards w/ "war kittens" on them
4. Makeup bag
5. A pen

Top 5 Moments that have Changed My Life Forever
1. Finishing college
2. When the SuperRat broke up w/ me (for the better)
3. Moving in with The Lumberjack
4. Meeting the Scotsman
5. To be determined...

Top 5 Obsessions I Have Right Now
1. Watering my garden
2. www.icanhascheezburger.com
3. Finding a new hair stylist :(
4. My baby brother graduating from high school
5. Flowers (esp. my lilac trees)

Top 5 Places I Would Like to Go to..
1. Scotland/Ireland
2. New York
3. Mackinaw Island and U.P. MI
4. A deserted island w/ the Scotsman
5. HOME (esp. bed)

Top 5 Appliances/ Kitchen Utensils I CANNOT Live Without
1. Garlic Press
2. Iron Skillet
3. Knife set
4. Glass juicer
5. The Rabbit wine bottle opener (it is AWESOME)

Top 5 People Whose Top 5 I would Like to See:
(Lumberjack, you don't count, I've already seen it.)
1. The Scotsman (ha!)
2. My first crush (interesting...)
3. Han-Solo
4. Mikey
5. Donna vs. Jackie

somewhat revealing... at janeh928@yahoo.com

Swampy Clothes and Missing Toes...

The excitement never stops!

Two weekends ago, the Scotsman and I went to visit my sister the Seahag and her boy, Zachipoo. We all decided that the absolute best use of our time would be to take canoes out into the middle of a lake and eat some snacks.
Setting off, we were sure that the Seahag and Zachipoo were going to tip over, judging by the way they argued about how exactly they should be rowing the pink canoe they had chosen (By chosen, I mean the Scotsman deemed the pink canoe unfit for his manly arse, and took the green canoe, leaving Zachipoo to navigate the "girly" vessel.).

Well, arguing is one thing. A not-seaworthy vessel is entirely another. The manly Greenship turned out to be just a pretty face, all style, no substance. (By substance, I mean, sides tall enough to NOT take on water.) REALLY.

We paddled around for more than an hour, ate some chocolate chip cookies, laughed at how stupid Seahag and Zachipoo sounded, shouting, "NO, Zachipoo, I said DON'T tip me over!" "Bwhah-ha-hah! You will love swimming in your clothes!" "AHHHHHHH!!" (These two also found rowing around in a boat to be the perfect time to argue about subject-verb agreement.)

Only, try as he might, Zachipoo's pink boat with tall sides, would not tip over, dumping his girlfriend into the murky depths below.

NO, that priveledge was reserved for... me. The Scotsman and I fell into the lake, approximately 100 yards from shore, when a wave lapped over the side of our Manly Green Deathtrap, filled the canoe, and sent us right on over! IT WAS COOOOOLD!!

We swam to shore, toting our waterlogged vessel behind us, only to discover that "shore" was actually a rock wall skirted by a sidewalk (I must not have mentioned how much rain we've gotten lately). We had to scale the slippery, slimy, most-likely snake-infested wall in order to reach dry land. Only dry land turned out to be an impromptu island.

Then, because the "canoe-warden" was "kind of busy. Are they in danger or anything?" We had to dump out the canoe, try to get back into it, off of the rock wall (I got dumped again when the Scotsman attempted that maneuver!) and row, sopping wet, all the way back to the "real" shore!

Upon finally reaching real, non-island, ground, I took off my now-100-pound wet sweatshirt, revealling a totally soaked and see-through white t-shirt w/ black bra combination to several drunken Turkish exchange students who were attempting to learn how to fly fish. FAN-tastic!

I also lost my sunglasses. The Scotsman lost a sock.

In other news, the Scotsman now has only 5 toes, all on one foot, after a diabetes-related-emergency-surgery. He missed going to a Cubs game in order to go to the hospital, and let me tell you, Surly Scotsman has never made such a committed performance. (I can't blame him, last week really sucked for the Scotsman.) He was gruff and grouchy to the nurses (who tried to give him the wrong insulin), he got into fights with the kitchen people...

Actual conversation:
The Scotsman: "I would like the Personal pizza for dinner."
Kitchen Minion: "You can't have pizza for dinner, it has 6 carb points, and you're only allowed 6 carb points. You can have half a pizza."
The Scotsman: "And because I'm allowed 6 carb points, I can't have something that equals 6 carb points? What the hell?!!!"
Kitchen Minion: "Oh,well you can have pizza, but that's all you can have."
The Scotsman: "I ONLY WANT PIZZA!"
Kitchen Minion: "Okay. Would you also like a salad with that?"
The Scotsman: "Am I ALLOWED to have a salad with pizza, or does that shoot me out of my allotted point range?"
Kitchen Minion: "You can have a salad."

I'm not making that up!

Other dumb things:
"You put your side-rail down? That's against hospital policy." (Siderail was down because the Scotsman couldn't squeeze his shoulders into the narrow twin bed.)

"While you're recovering, try to wiggle your toes, so they don't get stiff" (Um, his imaginary toes?)

SO, now the Scotsman is at home, recovering, and all mad about not being able to go outside and chop things down, mow things, etc... A couple of days ago, I planted the last of our garden, while he sat in a lawn chair, leg propped on a bench, telling me how to plant the garden. I also learned how to mow the lawn, and last night, I scooped the litter box.

(by the way, our cats poop largely. i am getting muscles from all the lifting of pooper-scoopers and pushing of lawn mowers and turning over of soils. and i think i killed the tomato plants.)

never seen anyone so mad about staying home from work and watching t.v. at janeh928@yahoo.com

All your garage doors are belong to us...

Our garage door opener broke. It was 35 years old. It gave many great years of service to everyone else it opened and closed for. BUT we move in, and all of a sudden it's all "I'm tired" and "I don't feel like opening today" and "How about I spit this sprocket at you, huh?!"

During the next two weeks, the Scotsman spent countless hours at specialty hardware stores, local small ancient hardware stores, re-sale stores, even bike stores, looking for a replacement for our lovely 35 year old sprocket, so he could repair the existing garage door. NO WHERE does anyone, on any planet, make sprockets like the one we needed. NO ONE. NO WHERE. NOT ANYMORE. JUST. NO. (We knew this could be a possibility because when we went to The Overhead Door Company to request a second garage door opener for my use when we first moved into the house, they took one look at the giant brown remote from 1976 that the Scotsman had in his hand, laughed, and asked us if we didn't just want to donate that model to their "museum of relics" and buy a whole new set. We said no. Ours works just fine.)

(Ha- I now see what happened. The Overhead Garage Door Company, seeing a business opportunity, snuck into our garage and ruined our sprocket ON PURPOSE!)

SO, after the Great Sprocket Search, we found out that you can get a tiny new sprocket made for $85. Or a completely new garage door with all brand-new parts for $180. Hmm...

For awhile, the Scotsman decided he would open the garage door by hand while he thought about what to do. But, sadly, this required him to back the Millenium Falcon out of her space for me every morning so that he could CLOSE the door before leaving for work everyday. We learned the hard way that it's not safe to leave a garage door open on our street. (Suddenly, all the neighbors' yards look suspiciously weed-free when someone takes your brand-new weed-eater in the night!)

After all the weight-lifting and squeezing into my tiny vehicle, we finally made the decision to get a whole new set. That was on Friday night. We will let go of $180 to buy a new door, we said.

Saturday morning: The Scotsman tries to make biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Oddly, much swearing seems to be involved, instead of his usual happy-morning-banter with Mr. Yellow.
Why? Because Oven, hearing that Garage Door was on strike, decided he was going to break also.

We went out to breakfast. Silent Scotsman. We bought the garage door opener set. Steam-at-the-Ears Scotsman. The Scotsman begins to install said garage door opener set. SWEARING Scotsman!

You know the "blue cloud of obscenities hanging over Lake Michigan" created by the dad in Christmas Story? Well, it's floated south a bit. It now hangs over my house. Specifically, the garage.

Several, and I mean several, hours pass, and the swearing goes from muttered-utterances to full-out, I-can-hear-it-from-the-other-side-of-the-house tirades streaming up and down the street. It was getting annoying.

So, I got my purse and my sunglasses and got OUT of there, "I'll be back in a couple hours" shouted over my shoulder as I back out of the drive!

When I got back, the Scotsman was still toiling away (something about completely unnecessary coordinating lasers being mandatory to open and close the door...)

I went to bed.

We now have a garage door that works.

Can't wait 'til work starts on the oven... at janeh928@yahoo.com