The Bug Saga, Pt 2: My Boyfriend, The Hero

The last few weeks have been an all-out war with the bugs. I'm beginning to think the bugs own the house, and our "landlords" are just bugmen hybrids who act as the go-between so things don't seem weird. The good news with this war is I think we are winning!

Sean, bless his heart, has been bearing the brunt of this hefty task, which includes all of the outside and foundation spraying. This charge involves tackling the Amazon Spider Fortress, also known as the garage, and leading the fight in the Kitchen Ant Wars. He is truly kicking ass, and he would be taking names, if these bugs had names, or if we gave a shit that they had names.

I'd like to state that I haven't been entirely useless in the battle. I have played the supporting role of the Screaming-From-A-Safe-Distance Damsel-In-Distress. I'm also skilled at taking down lone rogues that pop up in random places in the house by spraying them with an extremely superfluous amount of Hot Shot Naturals.

One afternoon, we set out to run some errands, only to find that the biggest wood spider I've ever seen had built a web spanning between our vehicles. This thing seriously had a body (just the body!) the size of a marble, and if this were Charlotte's Web, the web wouldn't be saying "Terrific"; it would be saying, "Fuck You, and Your Trip to Autozone". God knows it was big enough.

At the sight of this mocking monstrosity, we both sprung into action. I played my part beautifully, diving into the opposite car door from the spider, cowering and shouting my support for Sean, who vanquished the beast by unloading a blitzkreig of Liquid Spider Death on it's ass and everything within a five foot radius.

After the epic battle, I sung my hero's praises. I told him he was at least twice as badass as John Goodman in Arachnophobia, and just as handsome!

The Snarkiest Place on Earth, and Anger Ventilation

Right now, it is 7AM, and I can't even go to work because Comcast is supposed to be here between 7 and 10AM, to bring me internet that I already have, and 7 channels of TV that I don't. Which means I probably won't get to work til at least noon, and I'll have gained barely anything! AWESOME.

Today's post was originally going to be a small and humorous(in theory) tack-on to last night's post, but some extra "research"(read: tooling around on the blogs) brought the bile to the back of my throat, and I couldn't even make jokes anymore.

So, as I pretty much get all my news from the best source of morning information, the Bob & Tom Show, that means I am privy to hear about only the most pertinent current events out there. Naturally, the first thing I heard about yesterday was that Universal was adjusting seats at the new Harry Potter World to accommodate larger guests.


And yes, I know it's "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter", but mine is better, and can be shortened to HPW - the Human Papilloma Wizard.

At first, I thought this was hilarious for many reasons. I was planning to write a blog about how while yes, this was at first funny, it is a good topic for the discussion of American obsession of being able to accommodate one group at the risk of others. (And at this point in my blog, the American diet/obesity problem is already implied.) I wanted to open up a discussion of how the safety of smaller people might be at risk now. Though, for the same price, the slimmer people might get to be fully immersed in HPW with an extra ride - learning how to fly like Harry Potter! Hopefully they can learn real quick, or this game of Impromptu Quidditch is going to be over fast as they plummet to the ground.


SHIT, THIS ISN'T AS COOL AS I EXPECTED!!

While reading through a few blogs on this matter, there was a trove of comments from before the seat adjustment about how people even slightly above average size couldn't fit in the seats (a size 16 woman or a woman with Double D's, for example). A lot of people listed their dimensions, and it seemed a lot of tall or stocky men and a lot of top-heavy women would get ushered off the ride at HPW. But these same people had no problem at any other ride before or after, in any other amusement park. At this point, I felt that maybe the seats really WERE too small, if they are less than the standard size for a coaster ride. So that took the wind out of my fun-poking sails.

My search led me to a new blog, where I found a telling post about the level of rudeness at Disney World towards large or disabled people. I would seriously suggest reading it, it will make you embarrassed to even be a part of this thing called humanity, if you aren't already. I should mention that the rudeness is from customers at Disney World, NOT employees. If you felt the link was TL;DR, I will post the most important part:

"I had my VERY fidgety five-year old perched on my shoulders while waiting to board Small World when the line stopped moving for a few minutes.

At Disney you are going to wait in line and you are probably going to be there for a long time so you need to mentally prepare yourself and let it all go.

It became clear that the ride operators had slowed the speed of the arriving boats to accommodate a woman in a scooter and her husband who were entering on the handicapped ramp. The horrific man behind me actually started HECKLING them, screaming out “I’ve been on line for an hour and that fat ass rolls right up and gets on because they are too lazy to walk the park?!”

Even more nightmarish?

He had people agreeing with him."

My mind was blown as I read this post and the following comments. All I could think was a variation on, "How could you bring that attitude to DISNEY?!" and "Why didn't anyone call his ass out?!" I mean, we've all made fat jokes, but I have never made one to someone's FACE, and certainly not HOLLERED IT in front of like a hundred people. I have been the subject of a fat joke, and it does not feel good. (Though, ironically, I wasn't even fat at the time - just a 10-year-old with some "baby fat" - and some little anorexic bitch who is probably a typical drugged-out, herpes-infested Eastern Shore whore by now decided to pick on me for that. Thanks for ruining my self-esteem for the next 10 years, you C%^&!)

EDIT: At this point I have read all the comments, and I am happy to find that at least the people in front of him told their inquisitive child that those people were mean because they are assholes, and said assholes shut up after that. But none of the other bullshit was called out on, it would seem.

What has this world come to where shitheads can act that way without fear of reprisal? Where idiots like that can displace their anger on others because they probably couldn't afford the vacation anyway (because logic would say that if they could, and waiting in line was that much of a BigFuckin'Deal, they'd have sprung for Super Fast Passes) and are feeling anxiety that they aren't getting enough for their money? How could someone actually shout that type of hatred at someone that they don't even know who is trying to enjoy their own vacation, but now can't. That person may have been (as in one example) recovering from surgery, maybe they lost a foot to diabetes (type 1 isn't caused by being fat, assholes), maybe they're freaking PARALYZED.

What astounds me is that this person was PROBABLY with their own children, or at least surrounded by a fuckton of them, and providing this kind of an example??? At the Happiest Place on Earth!? A place where the outside problems are supposed to melt away and we can all pretend for a moment that we are Mickey's best friend and live in freaking Cinderella's castle!? WHAT THE FUCK!? IT TAKES A VILLAGE, YOU PRICKS!!!!!

Maybe it is the way I was raised, because I can't allow myself to just ignore this sort of bullshit. If my mom and stepdad had taken me to Disney with them back in the day((take that, Mom and Stepdad, I'm still mad about not going!! and now it's public!!), and this happened, that shit would have been corrected. That is certainly a situation in which I'd love to have my stepdad there, because that other guy would probably be crying of embarrassment.

Note: This is probably the first time I've mentioned Stepdad on the blog. He exists! We don't have a whole hell of a lot in common to relate to each other with, nor do we see each other a lot, so I haven't brought him up before. Usually Realdad gets most of the screen time, but he's also a blogger, and 1/5th of my fan base!

Though my stepdad has a tendency to be the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room, there is one thing he doesn't stand for, and that is people getting picked on - ESPECIALLY if they are physically disabled. And unlike the rest of the country, he doesn't have some insurmountable fear that everyone else is probably a gun-toting lunatic who will pop a cap at the drop of a hat, so calling someone out for being a shithead is pretty much common practice. And because he has influenced me to be this way, though to a much lesser extent, I simply cannot fathom those situations happening without someone else being like, "WTF STFU" in so many words.

I can't honestly say for sure what I would have done in the same situation, but at least I know that I've inherited the balls to fight the good fight!

LAY OFF ME, I'M STARVING!

So, dear readers, I am officially on Day Two of a diet. I am on a diet because officially I need to lose a couple pounds to keep up with the modern perception of how I must look, and unofficially it is just for fun and hopefully some blog entertainment. I am back on the Supermarket Diet, a diet that, when coupled with an exercise regimen, has given me great results in the past.

Except this time, I'm on the holy-shit, crash-diet, are-you-insane, 1200-calorie boot camp for two weeks. Someone like me should be at around 1800-2100 calories a day, so this sure sucks. It's only a two week program because eating that little food will fuck yo' metabolism in the long run. I've never done this program before, but I'm starting to commiserate with how Shadow must feel when he is howling and pawing my head at 4:30AM in the morning.

Shadow Update: As far as HIS diet progress, he can officially lick his ass, scratch his face, not give me a hernia when I pick him up, and all the things other fat cats can only dream about!

So, what I'm hoping to achieve is that I'm hoping I get all hungry and food-deprived and hallucinaty from this so I can blog MOAR FUNNY. It's already begun - today I couldn't remember that Egg Beaters existed.

OH, IT'S ON!!!

What is on, you ask? My war is on. My war with:








SPIDERS!!!!!!!!

Disclaimer: By the way, if you have an intense fear of spiders, you shouldn't have viewed those pictures.

So, I like our new rental house. It is pretty private, and quiet, and we have all major appliances. But, our new house is filled with bugs. I don't want to be an alarmist, and say the word infested here, but I AM an alarmist, so INFESTED is RIGHT!

Though we live out in the country now, it stills seems insane for this many bugs to be shacking up inside the house with us. We have found several spiders ranging from almost-not-scary, confidence-boosting small to OMFG-golf-ball-sized-! large, including one nasty customer clinging to Sean's shirt in the closet. I'm unsure about the message this fashion police spider was trying to convey. I'm assuming it was, "please kill me for being so shallow about clothes". REQUEST GRANTED.

We have also found a few other random bugs, and some ants in the kitchen cabinet, resulting in me scrubbing the hell out of every cabinet like it had syphilis on it, and filling the offending cabinet with Raid ant traps. I have officially seen more ants than previous, so Raid can officially suck it.

We decided we were going to hire out for an exterminator, but then decided it was way too much money to pay for what will probably give us cancer. So I have been researching like a mofo on the internet about how people used to solve bug problems before all this carcinogenic spraycan bullshit and before they had the internet to tell them how.

My research has shown that spiders are a lot like vampires, in that one: that they are overpublicized assholes, two: they have fangs and hide in the dark waiting to eat your face, and three: they have their own personal kryptonite/garlic.

A spider's kryptonite includes lemon Pledge (can't cross the lemon Pledge line, bitch!) various essential oils, chestnuts, hedge apples, tobacco, and eucalyptus. Unfortunately, hedge apples are hard to find, and tobacco is also a Meredith repellant, but I can sure as hell fill my house with lemon Pledge, crappy decorative eucalyptus branches and fancy oils!!

I was planning to build a dreamcatcher of eucalyptus to put over my head at night, but my paranoia has led me to find out that king-size eucalyptus SHEETS are in the works for manufacturing. Sure, it might be a pipe dream just like bamboo sheets were, but either way, I know what I want for Christmas! So, I'm not sure if you can donate bedsheets over PayPal or not, but the button is to the left.

Another suggestion the article had was to get a cat, because they are natural hunters. Immediately I thought, I can't get a cat, Shadow will eat it alive. GET REAL, internet! It is amazing how warped my life is sometimes. But seriously, Shadow has no interest in hunting bugs or doing anything a normal cat does. He has transcended the concept of doing anything, much less anything that could be construed as the least bit servile. As I type, he is sitting on my lap right now, trying to lay across the keyboard and interject his own radical opinions on the matter, about how cats were worshipped in ancient Egypt or some shit.

I can also use the spiders in my secret drug lab:

The Pepsi Confession

So, last week, there was a big sale on Pepsi products at the grocery store, so I bought a bunch for us and the gracious family members and friends who helped us move. This included a case of regular Pepsi, {though I am a Coke person, but I'm more of a whatever-brand-is-on-sale person}. But, anyway, here's the problem: no one drank the Pepsi!

We are a diet-drinking household, because Sean's a diabetic and I'm a slight bit chubby, so I can't afford the extra calories. I would be about a million pounds if I drank only regular soda. This is further cemented by the fact that I think I might have diabetes insipidus, which is not a cool name for a Sith lord, but actually a disorder in which one drinks and urinates about as much as a Sith Lord.


When will it stop?

So, since me being chubby is slightly less dangerous than abusing "real" diabetes, I have been charged with pounding through the Pepsi. Since I am not used to this much sugar coursing through my veins, I have been bouncing off the walls, which resulted in my insane and inane blog from last night. I was so hyped up by the time I finished it, that I actually emailed my dad to tell him I was NOT on drugs that weren't Pepsi. In case he was afraid by my diarrhea of the blog that I was cracked out on something stronger than high-fructose corn syrup.

I think I'm cracked out on life; this is the first time I haven't completely hated it in a while! For a while, I was depressed and stopped doing cool things. Now, I DO COOL THINGS AGAIN!



Okay, this is old. But it is supposed to symbolize me being free, and on top of the world, and happy, and DOING COOL THINGS AGAIN! like some froofy Zoloft commercial.

P.S. - You're welcome, Pepsi, for the free advertisement!

My Cat and Home Improvement Advice - Deprived on Sleep

My cat doesn't actually give me home improvement advice. To clarify, my cat doesn't give me any kind of advice except that Fancy Feast should be shoveled by the truckload into his gaping mouth, 24 hours a day. The home improvement will come later, but first I want to talk about how my cat is a smug asshole.

I should preface this entire entry by saying that I have been actively obsessed with this cat for 12 years, going on 13, and he is the only thing or being in this world whom I love unconditionally. Just in case you can't understand satire!

Shadow has of course relocated with us to the new place, which he has taken to with a lot more enthusiasm than the last place. In the old place, due to the round-the-clock noise and bustling bustleness of the old 'hood, Shadow barely emerged from under the bed or equivalent hiding spot unless it was one of his two daily feedings.

Now, he's strutting around like he owns the place, like he's fucking Jabba the Hutt and we are to fulfill his every whim or he'll feed us to the Rancor in the secret basement.



Pictured: Shadow the Hutt on his moving platform (aka My Lap), and his slavegirl awaiting orders in awed silence.

I should give some backstory as to why he is like this. If you've been following THEBLOG, you will remember every detail of my life, including Shadow's two brushes with death this year. I didn't go into very much detail over Shadow's new condition, MEGACOLON (OF DOOM!), but it essentially means his colon got stretched out beyond repair, and he has issues with, erm, {{insert classy word for "defecating" here}}.

In the interest of educating you, here is a boring timeline:

2005 - 2008: My grandma, out of the great goodness of her heart, takes care of my cat. He gradually climbs to obesity, despite her insistence that he is not eating anymore than he did before. We chalk it up to old age and declining metabolism.

December 2008 - April 2009: I prepare Shadow to move to Boston with a vet-prescribed diet to help him lose weight (Shadow is at a hefty 23 pounds at this point, and while he is at least Maine Coon-sized, that's still a fat ass!). Shadow loses weight and is on the road to healthy!

April 2009 - August 2010: Due to unforeseen circumstances, I have to move back to Maryland and Shadow has to go back to Grandma's. I provide her with exact instructions on how to feed him, and she maintains for the entire year and a half that this is exactly what he is eating, even though he balloons in weight again.

August 2010: Shadow spends almost a week in the hospital, getting a double digit number of cat enemas and generally hating life, the universe, and everything. I decide to bring him home with me when he leaves the hospital, because I am afraid he might not be long for this world, and I want to be with him no matter how long he has left. At this point, my dear, sweet Grandma, whom I love dearly, divulges that she's been feeding him TWICE THE RECOMMENDED AMOUNT OF FOOD!! The jig is up, G-ma! No wonder his freaking colon exploded! I also decide to take Shadow because he is apparently too much of a manipulative sociopath to have a sympathetic old person in charge of his feeding.

Alas, it is in the past, but due to over four years of conditioning, Shadow has learned that loud meowing = food. And has chosen to exercise his will at any time, day or night. So now, the entire house is in a raging war of who is large and in charge, or both. Shadow has also started a war of who is alpha male in the house, and he literally will go up to Sean with a friendly facade and start shit, but that is a story for another day.

His feeding times are at 6AM and 6-7 PM, though Shadow thinks he can bend the rules here like every day is daylight saving time. He stumbles into our bedroom, drunk on his own sense of power, and meows at the top of his lungs anywhere between 4AM and 6AM in the morning, hoping one of us will get up and feed him early in order to shut him up. Sacrificing feline pride is worth an early can of Fancy Feast beef! Sean is more steel-willed than I am at resisting this maneuver, but Sean also doesn't have to deal with the head-pawing that follows loud meowing.

He also tries to trick us into giving him double breakfast. This is the oldest trick in the book, as far as "Shadow's Book of Cheap Chicanery" goes. Sean gets up first, and feeds him breakfast. Whenever I decide to roll out of bed for work, Shadow has cleaned his dish immaculately and tries in a vain attempt to tell me that Sean is a negligent asshole and has FAILED TO PROVIDE BREAKFAST for this obviously near-death wasting-away cat.

As I said, in this war of domination, Shadow is trying to break my spirit by removing all sense of creature comforts or dignity. This includes gnawing on the internet cables and laying on the modem under my desk, which one can only assume is in an attempt that the internet will break and I'll get so bored that I just have to feed a starving cat.

The other is busting in on me when I'm on the can, EVERY SINGLE TIME. I close the door tightly to, but not latched, and inevitably, he will kick the door down, and interrupt me in what should be a quiet moment of contemplation. Shadow is like a post-traumatized Vietnam vet, all punching me in the leg, and, "You think I had privacy in that hospital with tubes up my ass!??!?! Get off the pot and make me some FANCY, DAMMIT!!!!!"




EDIT: The home improvement thing was: what is the most efficient way to oil-heat a house? Budget plan? Pay as you go? Using space heaters and hoping the pipes don't freeze? THANKS!