MFA Mama

DRAW ALL THE THINGS

   If anyone needs me for the next week, I'm MFAMama on Draw Something.

 

P.S. It's about all my brain is or will be fit for, seeing as how Isis shook, whimpered, and twitched all night last night as the anesthesia wore off, and then I went in early today to make up for leaving early yesterday, and now Isis seems determined to whine, whimper, and grovel all night tonight because there is a cone on her head. Yes, I know YOUR dog adapted just fine to the cone. Want to trade?*

*  That's right. She is being SUCH a pain in the ass about the cone currently, what with the trying to shake/lick/scrape/paw it off and the whining that it only took us twenty-four hours to go from "DA POOR BAYYYBEE" to "is she better enough to kick yet?" SPOILED DOG DOES NOT LIKE THE CONE OF SHAME.

birdie school

   Everyone please give a warm MFA welcome to the first advertiser to take advantage of the first annual OH MY GOD LIFE SUCKS ad sale extravaganza, BIRDIE SCHOOL! If you have a parrot and are interested in training them to be a better citizen of your household through positive reinforcement, this is the website for you. We here at Casa MFA have a middle-aged cockatiel who probably isn't bright enough to benefit from the technique, but who knows, maybe I'll get inspired...in the meantime, I'm waiting to receive HTML from one other advertiser and will probably cap sales of the larger ads when I've filled the immediately-visible portion of the left sidebar, so get yours while the getting is good!

once more into the breach, dear friends

   I hate that that's what's in my head as I prepare for another work-week, but there it is. I love my job, I do. But I'll be working long days at PseudoCorp to make up for the missing day (holidays are for the rich), and at least one day at Weekend Warrior Job during the week (I know, the HELL, but I can't afford to turn down work). I'll HOPEfully also have some Fairy Sweatshop Job stuff to do, although I'm not counting on it, and that is my least-taxing job because I can do it while helping people with homework or talking to Hotter, so not really any added strain, I just...well. I wouldn't have it any other way right now but it kind of sucks not having any of your waking hours be your own.

   Today was a day of largely playing catch-up at home. Doing work-laundry (I wash my own work-clothes because Hotter can't tell what color things are or read the tiny washing instructions on tags), making dinner to give Hotter a break from cooking, cleaning the rabbit-cages and clipping the rabbits' nails (yeah, you have to do that), giving the dog a bath, feeding the snake. Scrubbing out the tub so I can take a bath, because I stupidly told a friend who also has autoimmune issues on Friday that despite all the stress I wasn't hurting, and apparently the gods of inflammation were listening, and now? Oh boy, NOW I hurt, a lot.

   Tomorrow I go in at six, if I can get the snow and ice off the minivan that early (yes, we had snow, oof). And you?

updates from the animal kingdom

*   Black bears, y'all. Remember that fight Hotter and I had back in the The Summer of Surgimacallititis (kind of like The Summer of Love, except instead of peace, love, and hippies there were ER trips, rampant assholery, and surgical staples) where he basically pooh-poohed my fears? Black bears have become kind of a standing joke/sore subject in our household: we'll see one in a zoo/nature preserve and I'll point out on the information plaque that TECHNICALLY our state is within their natural habitat range, or there'll be a random noise in the woods behind our house and Hotter'll go "it's probably a black bear--HOLD ONTO YOUR FACE!" Har. Aaaaanyway, this morning as I was getting ready for work I noticed the most recent edition of the small-town free newspaper that comes with the junk mail, and right there on the cover? WAS A PICTURE OF A BLACK BEAR WITH AN ARTICLE ABOUT HOW ONE TRIED TO EAT A DEER HUNTER AND SIGHTINGS ARE ON THE RISE! Of course I woke Hotter up to crow over this. "Awww look at him," Hotter said, squinting at the picture of the bear (it wasn't the one that menaced the hunter, which he shot, it was just a stock-type photo of one sitting in a tree), "they're like Labradors that climb trees!" The bear in the picture did look kind of cute. Except that probably that is how they look when they're thinking about eating someone's face.

*   I...think I may have lost a friend over the rabbits. Yes, the rabbits. Said friend has rabbits. WE have recently acquired rabbits. But we view and treat our rabbits differently from how this friend views and treats HER rabbits and therein, apparently, lies the crux. There are many schools of thought on keeping rabbits, ranging from "tastes like chicken" and "these are our pets but their babies are dinner" all the way on up through "that's the rabbits' room" and "of course we don't CAGE them, we just rabbit-proof our ENTIRE HOUSE because OMG THEY ARE LIKE KITTENS THAT HOP." I used to have horses, and horse people tend to run toward The Crazy (with occasional super-cool exception--of course I didn't mean YOU if YOU have a horse!), but rabbit people, as it turns out? Rabbit people are also disproportionately touched by The Crazy (although if YOU have a rabbit then of course I didn't mean YOU; YOUR rabbit is tasty/adorable/pick one). Maybe it is just something about animals that eat hay? 

*   Worms: does anyone know, off the top of their head, whether you can start a worm bin with just regular old worms from the dirt that you find when you're digging in your garden? If so, I may try and start one when I begin preparing beds outside. If not, though, well. I'm not paying for a bunch of damn worms.

*   Finally, and this is totally random, because apparently even though Casa MFA is zoned Agricultural and plenty of people in similar neighborhoods in this very county DO have critters, if your neighbors/cyberstalkers are dicks there are ways of keeping you from pursuing happiness/low-impact sustainable eating by having any animal you want and that DASHED MY HOPES so I'm just saying: man I wish we could have goats here. Sigh.

contented

   Three hours in a minivan with children is its' own special kind of hell, but it was worth it:

Figure One: Instabunnies! Has on the left and Pfeffer on the right. They are pure white; the dark shadowing in Pfeffer's left ear is her rabbitry tattoo.

   We stopped at the feed store we used to use when we had the MFA Flock on the way home. Winter greeted me with a smile and a "long time no see." She was sorry to hear about our birds but pleased to sell us a bag of rabbit chow, bundle of cedar shavings, and 60-lb bale of compressed alfalfa hay (I have no idea whether two bunnies can consume that whole thing before it goes musty or not, but considering that a "bunny bale" from the pet store is half the cost, an eighth the quality, and 1/30th the size I think it was a sound purchase). From there we triumphantly returned home and installed our rabbits in a large tank that has housed generations of poultry and various reptiles.

   Since it seemed like a celebratory occasion, we roasted a whole chicken with herbs from the garden cut into butter shoved under the skin. It made the whole house smell like a holiday, and everyone enjoyed it (even picky Little Child, who scorns most meat, had four helpings of the moist, flavorful breast). After dinner, we took the bunnies out to pet and fuss over.

   I was holding Has when my children quite literally scared the shit out of him by getting up in his face. He let loose, filling the palm of my hand with dry, round rabbit turds, some of which rolled onto the floor and bounced around. The children shrieked, the rabbit looked terrified, and I took him to join Pfeffer in pulling apart a handful of alfalfa back in their cedar-scented home and picked up the mess. I poured the manure-balls around the base of my potted Dwarf Meyer Lemon as the children squealed in disgust, and gave the plant a cup of water to start washing the nutrients into the soil.

   I think we're going to enjoy having bunnies.

 

rabbit

   So work today got canceled (boooo) and I got to sleep in (which still means I was up before eight, because I have kind of lost the ability to sleep late). The boys should be home from their father's soon and I am effing DETERMINED that this will be a good day.

   To that end, we are all packing up and going on a road trip to pick up some baby bunnies, because baby animals are nature's finest (legal) antidepressant. We're getting a boy and a girl. Any ideas for names? So far Has and Pfeffer are in the lead but I'm open to ideas.

   Fact of the day: rabbit manure is the only kind of manure you can put directly on the roots of plants without composting first (chicken poo, horse poo, etc. will burn your plants' roots due to the nitrogen content if you use it fresh).

today was a better day: YAY!

*   My tooth is fixed (my wonderful dentist said to just pay when I can), no root canal needed, and while I am still getting that migraine-aura earache here and there, it's fading. WHOO TITS!

*   Today I got some potentially very-good news at work. I can't really say what without getting into a long, involved, and potentially identifying story, but it gives me some hope of possibly being hired on full-time in the new year. This is particularly good in light of my stupid health insurance premium going up by sixty bucks per a letter I got in the mail yesterday (*grumble*).

*   Today I got a call from our Mennonite butcher friend; a hunter donated a deer to the MFAmily (we still had to pay the processing fee, which this being a smallish deer worked out to something like $2.63/lb. for the meat, but we love venison and it's organic and very lean, which means that Hotter can eat it, too) (he can't really eat beef at all because it has a super-negative effect on his GI motility). I got to leave work early because there was NOBODY there, which gave me time to pick up the meat. We had Sloppy Does for dinner and they were delicious!

*   Since I was already all the way out in East Jesus (is that just something my family used to say? It means kind of the same thing as "BFE"), I also picked up some Mennonite-made fruit jellies they sell out there. The black raspberry is particularly delicious!

*   I asked the butcher whether he had any bones for the dogs, and he said "if you wanna go through the barrels out back you're welcome to take as much as you want, but I don't think you wanna do that." They were unwilling to part with a garbage bag (the local Mennonites here are super-cheap; I'd feel bad making that kind of a generalization except that the pastor of their church, who is a friend, was the first person to tell me so and he's TOTALLY right) (and it's understandable I guess, because probably if they gave up a garbage bag to everyone who asked for one for dog bones it'd add up), but I had a paper grocery bag and a soda crate in the MFA Minivan, so I pinned up my hair, tucked my scarf out of the way, and pulled a bagful of very meaty bones out of the heap (they were very fresh and odorless; really not that gross although ten years ago I wouldn't even touch raw beef or poultry) (I guess I've changed a lot since I now butcher poultry bare-handed and, evidently, go through slaughterhouse scrap barrels without a second thought) then used the soda-crate to keep them off the carpet inside the MFA Minivan. The dogs are in HEAVEN!

Figure One: I think Isis looks kinda dangerous in this picture! Really that's just the face she makes when Hotter goes "I'm gonna TAKE YOUR BONE!" right as I snap her picture. A split second later she snatched it up and ran, just in case :) Bumpus's picture is pixelated and grainy because I had to enlarge it--he wouldn't let me anywhere near his bone, haha.

*   How are all of YOU?

the case of the disappearing duck

   I didn't even mention it, since she's done it before, but Houducki disappeared again. She's been gone for about three days this time, although Hotter swears he saw four ducks around the pool briefly a couple of days ago. I haven't been home during daylight to go out and look, but we suspected that she was holed up under the shed and after loosening my achey back up with a hot bath and a good book (and a Dentist Pill, which I'm very glad to have a few of still if my back is going to pull this mess) I went out looking. Which entailed much getting down on the ground and sticking the iPhone under the shed in various spots until I hit paydirt:

Figure One: Just as I thought. It's not the best photo because she started honking at me like a goose and furiously pulling the leaves and down in closer with her bill; I didn't have the heart to disturb her. I kind of doubt she'll succeed in hatching anything as it's pretty chilly for that, but we'll see I guess. At least she had the sense to choose a hidden spot that's protected from the elements so I don't have to worry TOO much about her!

tonight is not a school night...

...which means that Bumpus is very, very happy (because he gets to sleep in Big Child's bed).

Figure One: I swear we feed him, y'all. Last time he was at the vet the vet told us he was underweight and scolded us into buying a $50 bag of dog food, which we dutifully did and started substituting for one meal per day of the BARF diet (our dogs eat twice a day), but he didn't really gain any weight. I think it's half that he's a hound and half that he runs like the wind every chance he gets. Maybe he's part Greyhound?

who wants a free pair of glasses?

   Ooookay, so back a couple of days ago before my own eye-doctor dropped the boom on me about my vision, I was bouncing-off-the-walls kind of happy because I had arranged to bring you a truly awesome giveaway.

   As y'all know, I had to let some things slide due to finances...things like prescription eyeglasses (and of course the tooth, which is getting permanently fixed TOMORROW thanks to the wonderful people over at Brighter and my friend Morgan), and I know a lot of y'all are probably struggling, too. So when Eye Buy Direct asked me if I wanted to do a review and giveaway where I would get a free pair of eyeglasses for myself and one for a reader I was allll over that!

   I was a little curious how it would all work, but it was surprisingly simple. I got my vision checked (well okay, there was nothing simple about that for ME but chance are YOU will have better results), and had my doctor give me a copy of my prescription (which was greek to me, but I just made sure I could read all of the letters and numbers). She mentioned that when you buy eyeglasses online you often need to know your PD (pupillary distance) and had me go and get that measured by a nice lady who gave me two different numbers, but also explained that if the website I was using asked for one number I could get that by adding the two. With my prescription in-hand I went home to look at some glasses!

   The selection on the website was pretty extensive, but my biggest reservation had to do with how I would tell what would look good on my face. I've been wearing glasses since I was two, and have therefore picked out enough pairs to know that what looks good on the shelf doesn't necessarily look good on your face (in fact, sometimes it will make you look like a bug-eyed stick insect...or worse, your own elderly grandmother). This is where it got SUPER-cool, though--YOU CAN TRY THE GLASSES ON ONLINE by either capturing a picture with your webcam or uploading one that you have in digital format! I decided to use my webcam since I was already wearing glasses in all of the pictures I already had of me, and GET THIS: the website estimated my pupillary distance from the webcam capture! It wasn't exactly what the optometrist who took mine in-person got with her machine, but it was very, very close and I was impressed that the website was able to do that.

   Y'all know how I am about maintaining my pseudonymity, so I can't show you a picture of my new glasses on MY face. I did, however, find a member of the MFA Family who didn't mind modeling them:

Figure One: I thought models weren't supposed to eat??? She snarfed a TON of liversnacks during our photo-shoot. Also, apparently we have the same pupillary distance? Or else possibly the dogface threw off the program. Which means that if you're ordering glasses online for your dog you may want to have someone check that in person. Oh, god, nobody is ever going to work with me on a giveaway again, are they?

   I was going to wait until my glasses arrived to actually post this, but then I decided to see if Eye Buy Direct participated in eBates and LO! When you go on eBates' site and search for the company you can not only get 7% cashback (not that it's much, because these are incredibly cheap eyeglasses, but every little bit, right?) but ALSO 20% off your order with an eBates-only coupon code through the end of the month, and I didn't want those of y'all who don't win to miss out on that deal if you really need some new glasses! It almost made me sad that my pair was free...almost.

To enter to win a $30 gift voucher to use toward your own pair of prescription eyeglasses from Eye Buy Direct (designer eyewear and sunglasses excluded): Go and pick out a pair of frames, and EITHER visit EyeBuyDirect.com on Facebook and "like" those frames OR tweet "I love (frame name) @EyeBuyDirect.com" on the Twitter, then leave me a comment on this post saying which of those two things you did. 

Extra entries (for each extra entry, please leave me a SEPARATE comment telling me what you did):

1. ‘Like’ EyeBuyDirect.com on Facebook, become a fan.

2.  Follow EyeBuyDirect on Twitter (leave your Twitter handle in your comment).

3.  Post your "Eye Try" photo with your favorite frame to the Wall of Frame.

4.  Post a comment to the Wall of Frame - Help other visitors choose which frames suit them best!

   I'll choose a winner via random.org the evening of Wednesday, September 28th and e-mail them (so make sure you leave me a good e-mail address with your comment, because if I don't hear back from the winner within 48 hours I'll let random.org pick again). Good luck!

 

Disclosure: I received a free pair of prescription eyeglasses in exchange for including relevant SEO phrasing with links in this review, and Eye Buy Direct is providing the prize for this giveaway. I was not compensated for saying nice things about the website and as always all opinions expressed on this blog are my own and not for sale.