Time off and the evil of ants

For a very, very long time I’ve been very, very excited about today. You see, yesterday I had my last exam this semester, and that means that today is the very first day of my vacation. It’s a day I’ve dreamed about and planned in a hundred different ways many, many times. There is only one tiny, little problem.

Today is boring!

For one, it’s rainy. The first day of your summer vacation isn’t supposed to be rainy, dammit. I’m pretty sure that’s a rule. I know that I wrote it down on a piece of paper when I was a kid and gave it to my mum so that she could mail it to the king. That was ages ago, so it should have made its way into the lawbooks by now. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also windy, which means that if you venture outside with something resembling an umbrella, you’re going to take off, Mary Poppins-style. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy flying, but I’d rather do it sitting down and with a stewardess serving me snacks, drinks and offering to fluff my pillow.

Just a little while ago, Pooch and I spent 20 minutes staring at an ant, just to see what it would get up to. Everybody knows that ants, although seemingly boring, are all psychotic maniacs. I know this for a fact, because I live in a very old house which is full of these delinquents. Only last summer I caught the little bastards trying to chew their way through the walls.
Even Pooch - who might not care much for the deeper philosophical conundrums in life – has insight enough to understand the evil of ants.

This particular ant, though, went on to crawling up the toilet bowl and falling in.

I flushed it.

I feel a little bad about that.

A very, very little.

Chasing that pink dragon

I had an appointment to go get my hair all pretty and shiny on Monday. It was about time, as tall people were now able to see my natural haircolor. Filled with joy and excitement, I skipped across the bridge and down the hill to where the salon is.

“Closed every Monday,” said the sign on the door.

Still, the hair dresser had clearly told me Monday on the 21st. I waited. And I waited, and waited and waited, but no one came. I even peeked through the windows, into the darkness beyond the L’OREAL posters, to see if maybe she was hiding under the desk.

It seemed clear that nobody would be making my hair all pretty and shiny, so I started to walk home. As I passed by the store, my stomach grumbled a bit, and I decided to go inside to buy a sandwich, or something. I spotted them quickly, stuffed full of chicken and lettuce and sitting on a shelf. And between them and me, behind the glass doors of the refrigerator, stood my old demon – strawberry milk.

Someone had come up with the clever idea, that you could fill plastic straws with strawberry milk powder which would then flavour the milk. I was just going to look at them, I thought, as I walked over. As I came closer, I could spot my own reflection in the glass. My hair looking distinctly un-pretty and un-shiny. Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d opened the door and placed a box of the straws in my little plastic basket.

“This is wrong,” I thought, but didn’t put them back.

So now I’m dealing with my strawberry milk addiction again. I know how it’s going to play out. The way it always does. I will gulp down the stuff until I can’t even look at anything pink without feeling violently sick. After I reach that point, it will continue for about a week. Then it’ll be over.

For now…

Pic by sindrityr for www.flickr.com

Meet Mr. Green!

For those of you who have been paying attention, you might recall that last year I mentioned that my lawn mower was the devil. Whenever you turned it on, thick clouds of smoke would well from it, oil would spatter everywhere and it would make a sound like a hundred mice being slowly squeezed to death. For this reason, I was now ready to mow my lawn for the first time this season with a brand new, hopefully non-demonic, and very orange mower, which I decided to name Mr. Green.

So there I was, in the middle of my garden with Mr. Green, surrounded by far too tall grass. I pulled the starter-thingy and the engine roared to life. Or…well…“roared” might be an overstatement, it was more like an enthusiastic fart. Still, it was a nice change from the usual 20min battle it had been with the old devil spawn.

Thus far everything was terrific, but there was one itty, bitty little detail for which I was completely unprepared – the back wheels that moved all by themselves.

So the engine came to life with a loud fart and all of a sudden, Mr. Green blasted forwards, clumps of grass flying in all directions. I hung on for dear life, while the little voice in my head (Toots) yelled “GHOST! It’s a GHOST!”

Luckily the rational part of my brain, which is called Bergerac, decided to join us. “Perhaps you should let go of the handle,” it suggested. I did, and the mower's enraged attack of the garden seized immediately.

Now I have a freshly mowed lawn, although it is a bit funny looking, seeing how I haven’t quite worked out the aim just yet.


In further news, I had an exam on Friday. There are two things in this world that make me incredibly grumpy, if not straight out malevolent, and those two things are 1) gardening and 2) exams. This means that this past weekend I was so grouchy, I just wanted to rip someone’s head off and then make my way through town and beat people to death with it.

I didn’t, though… I wasn’t me, and you can’t prove it.

I'm a grown-up, I am!

I’m waiting impatiently to hear back from the universities where I’ve applied to my masters’ degree, including Hellhole U.

Year ago, long before I wanted to be a brilliant scientist, I had a dream of becoming a lawyer. This dream was formed inside my tiny head way back when I was only a little horror, based on one very simple thing: the hit television show known as “LA Law”. More specifically, the power suits and briefcases worn by the women in that show. I liked the hairdos, as well.

For year and years, the idea remained there, until the time came to start applying to colleges. That was the first time I ever really asked myself why I wanted to study law. After careful consideration, I came to the conclusion that power suits and briefcases (even really, really fancy ones) probably weren’t the right foundation for a career choice.

As a kid, I had all sorts of ideas in my head about what it was to be “grown up”. Once, for example, I found a 100kr bill (a fortune for a nine year old kid like me) abandoned at the side of the road, just outside my school. I decided to be mature, so I instantly picked it up and ran back to school, where I handed it in to the principal, in case it’s owner would come looking for it, all the while hoping that nobody would so that I might get it back. Now I’m a grown-up. It says so on my birth certificate. Sort of. If I found money on the street now, I’d pick it up, put it in my pocket and be on my merry way, because that is the grown-up thing to do.

Also, when I was little, I dreamt about the day that prince charming would come climbing in through my bedroom window at night and… well, I dunno… sing me a song, or something, I guess. I was a kid, after all.
The grown-up thing to do if someone comes crawling through your window in the dark, however, is to scream, hit them on the head with something hard and call the cops.

All in all, I’m glad I’m not a kid anymore.

The doggie cloud prophecy

The other day, when I was out walking the dog through the farmlands of Hellhole, I saw something interesting. This was unusual, because Hellhole isn’t exactly crammed full of interesting stuff. It was a cloud, to be specific. Now, you might be thinking that clouds aren’t all that exciting, but this one was different – it looked like a dog with enormous ears chasing a cat.

“Hey,” I thought. “I have a dog with enormous ears, and she likes to chase things.”

At that very moment, the pooch’s ears pricked up as she spotted something on the other side of the field. “Mjau,” said the thing. That was pretty much the only invitation the pooch needed, and it shot across the field like a white arrow with lots of hear on it and huge ears. It as if the cloud was some sort of prophecy.

I drew a deep sigh and waited for the unavoidable: the part where the pooch starts to catch up to the kitty and realizes that she just might get her ass kicked. At that point, her brain starts to doubt the wisdom of her decision. However, it uses several seconds to transport this hesitation to the rest of her body. This is probably because said brain is very small. Very, very, very small.

This is the part where I call the pooch back. She is then so relieved that I stopped her from doing what she was about to do, I’m immediately elevated to hero-status.

But you know, in movies and such, prophecies always give you more than 30 seconds warning. I’m writing a letter of complaint.

A funny

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's SUPER-JOKE!

Pete and Eric were twins. Pete owned a run-down boat and accident would have it that the dingy, old thing sank on the very same day that Eric’s wife died.

Some time later, Pete ran into an old aunt who, mistaking him for his brother, told him how sorry she was for his terrible loss.

“Oh, I don’t know…” answered Pete. “Quite frankly, I’m glad to be rid of her. She was rotten from day one. The lower half was completely wrecked and she smelled of old fish. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she leaked constantly and had a huge crack in the back, not to mention a fairly sizeable hole in the front. Every time I used her, the hole got bigger. I suppose that what broke her in the end, was that I rented her out to four guys who wanted to have fun. The idiots all tried to get in at once, so she cracked in the middle. But it’s no big deal. I’ll just have to start searching the ads for a new one.”

Spring springing and sumo gymnastics

Spring has sprung. I know this for two reasons:

1) The other day I picked a gigantic tick off from behind the pooch’s ear, where it had settled quite comfortably in the soft, downy fur with its enormous, blood swollen ass in the air, like some sumo gymnast. Now that ought to be an Olympic event, if you ask me. I’d watch a sport like that.

2) Yesterday I gave the pooch a bath out on the porch. There’s not a creature on earth who hates bathing as much as the pooch does. She’ll take cover under the couch as soon as she sees the shampoo bottle. The trick is to wait until she’s not paying attention – which isn’t as easy as it might seem, since the pooch thinks I’m the most fascinating thing ever created – and then take care of the bath preparations (bucket with water, sponge, rubber gloves and shampoo. Not very complicated).

When it comes to the actually bathing process, she is somewhat conflicted. She hates the getting-wet-part but she quite enjoys the getting-the-shampoo-massaged-into-her-fur-part. After all, who wouldn’t? That’s my favourite part whenever I go to get my fur… uhm… hair done.

Anyway, her conflicted emotions keep her from running away, even though I’m sure she entertains the idea, long enough for me to bathe her properly. Once the bath is over, however, she storms around in a fit of joy so overpowering that it’s difficult for me to dry her off properly.

So you see, it’s spring. Although I suppose you might have noticed that yourself by now.