Day without MacGyver 2

When beets attack!  Found this grapefruit-sized beaut when clearing out 2 of the raised beds to top off with compost.  Definitely strafing towards a permacultureish-"spread and forget" approach to gardening these days.  Also found a half dozen almost grapefruit sized bug pupae of some sort in my 4 back breaking barrow loads of compost (I'm not exercising strenuously, Dr. Pham, I swear!).  I think they are what Mac and MaGyver call potato bugs aka "Jerusalem cricket" or stenopelmatus.  We threw into the compost whenever we dug them up last year.  Either that or radioactive cicadas.  

Turbo'ed my taxes.  MacG is letting me claim the entire mortgage interest, so I got a decent refund which I preemptively dumped into paying off more mortgage principle.  My stretch goal would be to get this mortgage into the 5 figures before I turn 30.

Last weekend, Sun Joe chipper shredder made pretty short work of a trumpet vine standing between us and an established lemon tree, so I dragged the tarp of his contributions into the chicken coop to deepen the bed a little bit.  

MaGyver and Ri were kind enough to swing by around noon which is when things really started getting interesting.  We loaded 2 dog crates into the Prius and headed up to Norco to shop for some heritage hens.  Ma got a very spunky Blue Andalusian, a Black Sex Link (sounds kinky), and a French Black Copper Maran (with hairy legs, of course).  She even subsidized a second BCM to be our Clyde 2.0.

2 has already proven herself a capable escape artist.  After breaking out of her a-frame holding pen, I had to follow her into the crawl space under the house and hustle her out through the basement past the house arrested Klee Kai's (all the while totally not exposing myself to dusty/pokey environments without my safety goggles, Dr. Pham!  >.<).  Blinky, true to her attack mechanic, immediately commenced pulling 2's feathers out.  Inky, I think out of BCM solidarity, would shield her a bit, but she was still getting whooped every couple of minutes.  So I shut the dog door (but not before Rho knocked a triumphant broccoli-grazing Blinky down a couple pegs), left the coop door open, and let them sort it out.  I came back at sunset to find the usual suspects roosting on their perches.  I'm not convinced 2 knows how to flail-flap yet, and eventually found her hunkered down in a sort of sheltered area by the foundation.  I was able to gradually herd her back into the coop.  She's still doing the adolescent bird thing of wandering around nervous-clucking, which attracted the liberated dogs' attention.  I caught Rho at dusk more than half way tunneled under the coop entrance and put him in another time out.  Hopefully tomorrow things will go more smoothly.  

Kai dislocated some tendons playing with Rho yesterday and spent the remainder of the day hopping on 3 feet and yodeling her plight to sympathetic vets.  I managed to sneak her anti-inflammatory meds into some peanut butter (surprising considering we gave her a PB and hydrogen peroxide cocktail not so long ago after she'd helped herself to a PB and rat poison cocktail).

Day without MacGyver 1

What's wrong with this picture?

If you said some version of, "OMG, I can actually see most of your kitchen table!"  "Wow, what an immaculate griddle you have on that 1910's Chicago stove,"  "Where are all of the tools?" "Flowers?!... how uncharacteristically romantic," or "dude, that looks like a lot of medications..."  Give yourself a cookie.

Sigh.  MacGyver has been sent to China for 13 days to fabricate software using scraps of aluminum foil, a shoe lace and a paperclip.

Fortunately, his Christmas [sic] present to me arrived before his departure.  It is that nifty copper thing in the foreground, also known as Dr. Alexander's Botanical Vasculum  p.s. its solar charger (which looks suspiciously like a spray painted decapitated lawn path light) allows its preserved moss terrarium to glow in the dark.  tres romantic vasculum-lit dinners of home brew, chips, and guac.

He was also able to suspend my parent's Christmas present, a skillet and matching deeper skillet whose powers combine make Dutch Oven (yes, I know, I too was more familiar with the *other* definition of Dutch Oven before reading Ferriss' 4 Hour Chef).  It is pictured in the background.  Also clutch for perfectly circular hangover crepes after aforementioned romantic dinners.  

Flowers?  OK, so by and large, I miss MacG.  This is why I was crazy enough to buy a house with him and continue to pretend to our friendly elderly neighbors that we are married and thus not living in sin (just dust and dog hair).  However, being a bit introverted and substantially codependent, I hazard that it would be healthy to revisit my roots once in a while and find my buzz even if it isn't a pre-existing mutual one.  On my commute to and from school, I used to trudge past this awesome flower shop in Beacon Hill.  One day, possibly influenced by a girly self-empowerment book or the ambiance of living with 3 estrogen-fueled single roommates, I bought myself a dozen roses.  They were orange which I've always gravitated to, possibly because I was presented with one in a prom corsage.  I started doing this semi-frequently on Tough Days.  My awesome landlord, Gerry even showed up on my birthday with a dozen for me when an aforementioned estrogen-filled roommate insisted I call him to get him to drive in and fix a light bulb.  Did I mention Gerry is awesome?  But I digress.  These were $7 at TJ's and worth every penny.  I've also been fantasizing about swapping out some of the heirloom (aka uber prickly and prudish) roses behind the chicken coop with an Osiria (pictured).  These are hard to find rootstock for, so this might be a multi-month project.  I got intrigued with the concept of "black" roses when a college dorm-mate received a dozen of them one fine Valentine's day (she was goth, not to be confused with the Susie in a fraught relationship with Mick Jagger).  

Pristine Griddle.  Yeah.  MacGyver reminds me to eat and does most of the cooking.  He's not much for multi-tasking, so there's usually a huge mess in his wake.  I learned how to clean as I cook because otherwise I would miss passing time in Home Ec (back when schools could afford such things).  I also learned that plastic cookie sheets should not go in the oven, but in a pinch, are more effective than bomb threats for evacuating the school.  I am down 5 lbs from normal and he's been gone less than 12 hours.  This could be because I took a Valium instead of dinner yesterday.  Or it could be because I ran Rho a casual 3.5 miles today (so as not to violate doctor's mandate not to exercise "strenuously.")  Or because I ate plantains and spinach for breakfast, a chai latte for "lunch," and 2 frozen taquitos and a glass of milk for dinner.  The world may never know.  By the way, yes, the stove works.  It is our only stove.  We cook on it every day.  It isn't for sale; every contractor we've hired has tried to buy it.  It is a pain in the butt to clean.

Meds.  There are three things going on here.
1.  I got sort of infatuated with Traditional Chinese Medicine/homeopathic remedies.  So I started taking Free and Easy Wanderer tea pills for anxiety.  Royal Jelly for an energy boost.  Korean Ginseng tea to replace coffee which I quit a couple weeks ago.  Couldn't tell you whether the supplements amped my octane, or the coffee detox, or the admission I was in a rut and needed to stretch my comfort zone.
2.  I got Lasik yesterday afternoon.  I was nervous.  It went awesome.  I could drive into my post-op the next day and now I cruise around in iconic Ray-Ban aviators and feel like a celeb.  MaGyver hypnotized me the night before, which isn't like "when I clap my hands, you'll cluck like a chicken."  It's more like the sort of positive affirmations sports psychologists and law of attraction devotees use.  This new lifestyle does seem to take a lot of eye drops to maintain, at least in the short-term.
3.  Kai (the 2.5 yr old "pet" Klee Kai) has a bad knee and Rho (the 1 yr old "stud" Klee Kai) likes to rough-house.  I came back from my 20x20 post-op victorious, only to find Kai hopping around on 3 paws again.  She's on anti-inflammatories for the next week which I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to solo administer.  Guess we'll take it a day at a time...

The dog house

There are many perks to working for a video game company...

(thanks to Kim and Ashley for this awesome montage)

I still remember waiting at reception for my first interview here, self-consciously early and over-dressed.  A little white bundle of Bichon came tumbling down the stairs with his owner in tow and I was in love.  Yes, the games are Epic.  Yes, the people are phenomenal.  Yes, I had left consulting to return to school after confronting the reality that the highest form of life I could keep alive on my 4 days out of town 3 days back routine was a guinea pig... and even that didn't turn out so smoothly after picking up corporate digs in West Village.  The day I got the offer, I asked my would-be supervisor if he could check on whether my would-be coworkers were cool with a would-be mascot.  Then I got Kai (pictured).

But over time, it became clear that the warg streak ran strong with Kai and her eventual sidekick Rho.  They were a pack.  They knew who had a seat in our open office cubes and would chase intruders (particularly those wearing hats or pushing bikes).  We discussed redoubling dog obedience efforts, perhaps enrolling them in extra classes, but the hours on call at work undermined our resolve.

To contain the pint sized predators, MacGyver outdid himself, making these super-stylish "Graymane Saloon" swinging doors.  Such an elegant solution to Klee Kai containment without forcing fellow cubemates to step over unwieldy baby gates or get tangled in tie outs.  But alas, the doors had many admirers (and concerned facilities caretakers).  After a poorly considered nip, the dogs are under Halladay House arrest.  The saloon doors are waiting for their next epic installation, next to plans for at home agility course obstacles.  GG.

Opossum vs Klee Kais

Klee Kais win easily. 3AM get woken up by serious barking. Rho hasn't really figured out the dog door yet, he will go through it for food but will still decide to go to the bathroom inside if he isn't let out. Yet he was outside, no doubt because he heard Kai going off like a bomb. She was in about round seven of her second fight with an opossum. She was also doing significantly better than round one, no doubt with help from her packmate Rho. Rho was busy nipping at the possums head while Kai was ferociously attacking its rear. The thing stood no chance even though it outweighed the dogs by a factor of 2. They had managed to get it completely tangled in the ivy to where its back legs couldn't move. Not really sure how I got them to back off, well Rho was easy with food but Kai wanted this thing dead. Finally I got them trapped inside the house and had to cut the possum out of the vines it was so badly trapped. Snapped a few pics before I cut him loose, much smaller than the last one Kai wrangled with solo: