Rant: Volume 5 (?)

Hello and welcome to yet another rant.  I'll be your host, Ms. Daisy, and we'll get started right away.  Please have a seat and make yourself comfortable.

Let's begin.

1.  Hoochie mamas.  I live in a place where hoochie mamas live.  These hoochie mamas are like 13 years old and they are totally sketch.  They walk up and down the street (well, sidewalk, but dude, they probably will be walking the streets in a few years) in their mini-skirts with their booty hanging out and yelling inappropriate things that you would start screaming "la la la la lalalaa!!!" if you heard it coming out of your idiot box TV in front of your children.  Then high school boys leap on their hoochie-ness and compound the inappropriate-ness by tenfold and exponentially soar it to never before seen heights.

I love my neighborhood.  I may prefer the rats after all.

2.  When someone dies in your family, this is the response that you DON'T want to hear: At least you have ______________________.

Really?  REALLY?  Who in their right mind thought this would be a good comforting comment?  Let's try it.  Let's say your parents just died.  Let's pick the correct response.

Response A: I'm so sorry.  Please let me know how I can help you.
Response B: I'm so sorry to hear that.  What day would you like me to come over and bring you a meal?
Response C:  Well, at least your brother is still alive.

What the stinky bungholes!!  When you don't know what to say, either just say "sorry" or shut your mouth and give the person a hug.  

Yeah.  Can you try to remember that for next time?

Okay, good.

I feel better already.  Phew.  Thanks.

Peace, love and inhale, exhale,
Ms. Daisy

A trip to the compost bin

I have a compost bin.  Oh, how I love the compost bin.  I toss my leaves, kitchen scraps, the whole lovely deal in there.  I was glad to have it when I was ripping out my dead veggie stalks, no giant bag to wrestle it into needed whatsoever - just open the lid, toss it in.  

It was a dark and stormy cold night! 

A couple of nights ago beneath the full moon, I did not love my compost bin.

It was a night like any other around here, the depressing effect of Daylight Savings Time being wrought from my grip, creating black darkness akin to an Antarctic winter at the blessed time of 5:00 p.m.  I was making dinner and creating enough scraps to fertilize my upcoming spring garden for weeks: carrots, brussel sprout bottoms, parsnip shreddlings, green onion bits - it was as if I were trying to overflow my bin with the amount of things I was scraping and whittliing away at in the kitchen.

As the mountain grew inside of my flower pot I utilize for such a purpose as this, I decided it was about time to take it out and toss it in the bin.  The eggshells from breakfast were crushed to bits and yet scraps were still billowing over the top of the designated flower pot.

This task, although it may seem menial and simple to you, actually contains a bit of danger and risk.  You see, I have a dog.  If I were being nice, I would say that my dog has "special needs".  She is basically a diseased (she has EPI = her pancreas doesn't produce enzymes so I crush pig enzymes onto her food, wet it, digest the $50 dog food in the bowl and then give it to her so she can deposit twice as much as what I gave her onto my grass) German Shepherd who loves to squirt piles of doo in every possible direction at every possible chance.  In fact, my parent's dog was over last week for two days.  I picked up two piles of poo from their dog.  In that same time frame, I picked up about 24 piles of poo from my dog.  Actually, when I say "pick up", I mean a combination of "squirt with a high powered jet stream hose" and "scrape across the grass into a receptacle" as it is as solid as a preservative/high fructose corn syrup-laden chocolate Snack Pack. 

And even though I pick up such piles of sludge on an every-other-day basis and fill a paper Trader Joe's bag while muttering about how I'm sure she has the bowels of a bovine or perhaps equine animal and stretching my quaking fingers to the sky like an evil Sith lord while lamenting the day we chose to bring her home, they keep coming back at an insane pace.

It was with these thoughts that I crept outside to the bin.

My backyard seemed to me a possible minefield.

The full moon helped a little as I stared at the ground, inching, carefully, taking large steps to diminish my chances of stepping in a poo puddle bomb.  

I focused with Karate Kid-like intensity, as if I were Ralph Macchio balancing on that beam, staring into the sunset over the ocean's tide.  I must overcome!  For a brief moment, I was sure of what Frogger was going through in all his trials.

But alas!  I made it!  Rejoice!  I had reached the goal - the bin - unscathed!

I lifted the left side lid and held it open.  With my right hand, I showered down pumpkin seeds, crushed eggshells, carrot and parsnip shreds, bits of brussel sprouts, everything.  

And then I heard a death scream.

And it was coming out of my mouth.

As the cascading waterfall of veggie scraps fell to the pile and I looked down upon it, to my shock and horror, a ratty rodent leapt miraculously high out of the bin at me (clearly must have been mixed with kangaroo DNA - have you ever seen the leaping power of the rabbit on Monty Python's Holy Grail?  I feared for my very life.), then scampered down the edge of the bin and away to safety, a.k.a. my neighbor's garbage can.



This is what my life felt like at that moment.

I dropped the bin lid like it was hot.  There was no thought of carefully wading across the lawn now - only a 100 yard dash sprint a la Usain Bolt.  Surprisingly, I did not get any poo on my shoes on the way back either, but I am pretty sure that is because I was flying over the backyard.

I leapt into the house, slamming the door behind me, crashing against it and trying to tell myself to calm down lest I cause a heart explosion and have to clean up the walls.  That would totally be worse than poo!  Plus, I'd be dead, so it would also be difficult.

Since people in the house were all absorbed in doing loud things, they did not hear me.  I did, however, worry for quite some time that the police would show up at my door due to a call from the neighbors checking to see if I heard anyone being murdered lately in the area.

Luckily, that did not happen.

I reported the story to my hubby, who said, "Don't you always prepare yourself for that?  I always think that a rat is going to jump out at me!"  SERIOUSLY?!  What?!  So you can imagine the buckets of sympathy I received upon the admission of my predicament.  That would be negative zero, in case you were wondering.  (And I totally just said "negative zero" for all the engineers and mathematicians so that they could have something to gag about.  You're welcome!)

Needless to say, I only go out to the bin in daylight now (those 3 hours a day over here...er, it just feels like it) and have delegated any night trips to my dear loving husband.  And the bin lid is permanently open.  No more surprises, suckas.

This is Ms. Daisy reporting, reminding you to keep your eyes open and your shoes clean!

Peace, love and I hate everything about winter (apparently I needed yet another reason),

Ms. Daisy

Ratman Returns

Hello, my dearies.  Today I shall tell you another story in the long and winding saga of Ratlandia.  Our story begins here: My story of rats and a perpetual fire.  

Let's move on now to chapter twelveteenhundred.  

As our story opens, the Jefferson's ratpartment building has been torn down and burned up.  We begin with an ignored (or really an unheard) knock upon the door by Mr. Ratman himself at the house of Ms. Daisy Princess.  Since he was not heard, he meanders along the perimeter of the castle in the ever-pressing effort toward rooting out and exterminating the evil rat population.  Ratman is looking over fences, squinting and doing is best to use his eagle-eye peering skills to spy out any trace of rat harbor.

Ms. Princess exits her castle to greet Mr. Ratman.  Ratman asks permission to spy out the outer gardens (a.k.a. the backyard in other vernacular) and she grants permission to do so.  Ratman tells her that she must excavate her properties outbuilding (= prefabbed shed).  She assures him that the rat population is not being harbored in her grounds and isn't there something we might be able to work out?  She loves her dear properties outbuilding (shed) because it keeps the stinky gasoline powered equipment out of her carriage house (a.k.a. garage).  Ratman flinches in a moment of pity and admits that perhaps her properties outbuilding (shed) may just quite actually fall under a certain clause wherein, due to it's size (smallishness), it may escape total and utter destruction.  It may, if Princess could twinkle nice enough-ly, even have a chance that it would neither be required to move out of it's current location nor be annihilated.  But in order for this to occur, it must be moved for an inspection to verify that there aren't any ratty ratsicles building ratpartments beneath the twinkling, sparkly, lovely properties outbuilding.

Glory!  Princess smiles thankfully and promises to keep an eye out for ratness and says that she will indeed move her properties outbuilding (shed) for him to come back and inspect with all of his eagle-eye might. 

Prince Charming, however, is the one to do the moving.  Princess would not be the one to tip a properties outbuilding (prefab shed) upon her sparkly self (even though she is obviously so tough she could handle it, yet she prefers not to, strictly out of principle).  Thus, Prince Charming moves the properties outbuilding (shed) and tips it on its side (after it was emptied, of course.  We're not that daff.). 

Princess was a little disturbed when the properties outbuilding was tipped as she found a white, flattened, disintegrating (approaching skeleton-ism), gigantic rat beneath her outbuilding.  It was quite the size of a cat.  Or an opposum.  Or Michael Jordan's shoe.  Whatever.  Gigantic.  Not normal.  Like it had eaten a quarter of a cow when it was on sale.  In one sitting.

Because these things are disgusting and disturbing, Princess decided the very best thing to do with Rat Cat was to obviously get Prince Charming to dispose of it and pretend it never happened.  Tut, tut!  And with a dusting off of the hands, *poof*, Rat Cat was gone.

I'm pretty sure that thing could have been a source of food for an entire rat army.

So let's not tell Mr. Ratman and pretend we didn't notice it.  Announcement: this didn't happen!  No rats here!  Excellent.  Well, no live ones and neither are there any rat tunnels.  (I bet that thing got in there and was so huge it couldn't find a way out.  Ten years ago.  Maybe I should have sold the rat skeleton on ebay.  Oh well.)

Where were we?

Ah yes, nothing to be concerned about.  So sparkly Princess and Mr. Ratman must meet again.  Mr. Ratman comes out, inspects the lovely area where the castle's outbuilding sat (and is now at this point quite sideways on the ground), puffs triumphantly, waves his magic wand and violá - issues the magic ticket!  "Approved". 

Team Sparkle and the Outbuildings: 1,   Ratsicles: 0

Unfortunately, the moving of the building has created an uneven ground wherein now there are gaps in areas abutting the shed, er, properties outbuilding.  They're just right for a rat family to move right in and make themselves at home.  Thanks, Ratman.

I'm glad we had this enlightening experience. 

Please join us next time for another exciting adventure (cue theme song) in the life of...(bum ba da bum!) Ms. Daisy Princess!

Oh rats! (and a perpetual fire)

Okay, so.  I live in a neighborhood where peeps are trying to get the heck out.  In that effort, some people just leave.  Pack up and go find somewhere else.  This leaves a pile of empty and foreclosed homes.  Now let me tell you who loves this: not me.  But rats, oh baby, rats dig this.  Which, I'm pretty sure, makes this place even more appealing.  It really does(N'T!!).  But if you are a rat family looking to build a home, this is the perfect place.  You can get yourself a 3 bedroom fix-er-upper for no money down!    Well, anyway.  

In an effort to keep the people population greater than the rat population, the local government has put safeguards into place (because they are trying to avoid the Guiness book for Rat City, USA).  One of these safeguards is that all peeps with firewood must dispose of it immediately.  Like yesterday.  Like unless you like rat-a-tat-tats nibbling out posh apartment buildings with their cheese-chompers.  I was a bit bummed to lose firewood, but the thought of rats singing the theme song to the Jeffersons in my backyard made me feel even worse so I had to come up with the disposal plan.  I would really like to chip it up, get some lovely mulch, so let's explore that.  The local handy dandy hardware store will be oh-so-generous and allow me to rent a chipper for around $200 (don't forget the insurance and tax - oooowwwwww!!!! My leg!!!!  Wait, why do they require insurance again?).  Perhaps no.  Maybe some tree service peeps will be strolling this way with a chipper and want to do me a flavor (yes, I said flavor) and chipper it upper.  They'll get back to me on that (a la don't call us, we'll call you).  

Then it happened.  The cheapness thought struck.  Burn baby, burn!  So around somewhere in the middle of the morning, I began celebrating the end of summer with a bonfire.  And rat apartment nation negation began.  It ended sometime over twelve hours later, a hunk of ratty wood here, a hunk of ratty wood there.  I woke up this morning and tossed the paper garbage in that empty fire pit and viola!  The fire woke up again and started burning.  Might as well toss on another log.  Or two.  Or fifteen.  

I am pretty sure the energy output I've got going on over here could pretty much fuel El Salvador for a month.  In the winter.  Where its...88 degrees every...day...nevermind...

I meant fuel all of Alaska.  For 12 minutes.  In the summer.  If only I had a tube that could send all of this energy that way.  Oh well.  One can have lofty goals, now, eh?

For me, for now, I shall sit here, relaxin' with my tower-o-flame and ponder the important things of life with a glass of kombucha, for example, how did early people discover fire in the first place?  Why do rats multiply faster than anything?  Why does that neighbor's dog weigh 200 pounds?  What subset of the populace could I get to like rats singing the Jefferson's theme song enough that I could make money on it?  All very ponderous man, really ponderous.

I remain, yours truly - peace, love and kombucha,
Ms. Daisy