Chimney Sweep

It was Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. night and The Precious made a motion, which I seconded, to have a fire in the fireplace.  I like fire.  So The Precious built a nice big crackly one, and we turned off the lights and settled in for a visit with Phil Coulson (his first name is Agent), while the Lady of the House watched over her kittens in front of the TV.
About fifteen minutes into the show, a sudden large dark mass of slobbery shag dropped out of nowhere smack-dab in the middle of the room.  It took a few seconds to figure out that it was a cat.  A long-haired cat.  Definitely not a house cat.  In fact, it wasn't even our cat.  Everybody started talking.
"Who is that?"
"It's that stray!"
"What in the world is wrong with it?"
"Why is its face all icky?"
"How did he get in here?"
"Did somebody leave the back door open?"
"He just jumped out of the fireplace!"
"How do we catch him and get him out of here?"
"He's covered in soot!"
"Is he bloody?"
"It's slobber, his lungs are burned!"
Just then the Lady of the House noticed our unexpected guest, and she didn't waste time asking questions.  She simply unleashed an assault.  Agent Coulson was drowned out by clouds of ash, clumps of fur, and screams of animals.  Poor Mark Sinclair Vincent St. Agnes von Lichtenschtein got caught in the crossfire, which gave the chimney sweep a split-second to seek refuge down the hall under Lefty's bed.
Hunneypunkin began hollering instructions that nobody heard.  Lefty intercepted the Lady of the House and managed to shut her with her children in the utility room without losing any blood or limbs.  Angel Doll and Pixie spirited Mark Sinclair Vincent St. Agnes von Lichtenschtein away to the safety of the princess chambers.  I Googled "how to treat smoke inhalation in cats" while The Precious held his head and rocked himself and shouted, "Stupid cats, we're missing Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!"
Someone managed to get the stray back outside, where he apparently got enough rest and fresh air to recover even without my internet knowledge.  There's a grate over the chimney now to prevent further incidents.  We've had a cat in the chimney before, but not during fire season.  http://chevroletmama.blogspot.com/2012/10/chewables-thinks-hes-spaniard.html  It took a day or so to get all the sootprints cleaned up and the smoky smell out of the bedroom.
We missed most of the show that night, but it's not that big of a deal.  We can always catch up online or wait for a rerun.  Now if I had missed an episode where Jeremy Renner had made a guest appearance as The Hawk, that would have been a real burn.

Obituary

Chewables http://chevroletmama.blogspot.com/2012/10/chewables-thinks-hes-spaniard.html and his sister Princess were born on Memorial Weekend.  Their mother, Moreo, took an inadvertent trip to the landfill on a trailer full of rubbish the very next day, and though we tried, we were never able to retrieve her.  So Chewables, Princess, and the rest of their brothers and sisters were fostered by a neighbor cat who had just had new babies, on the condition that when the kittens were old enough, all the cats including the mother would move to our place.
When the combined litter was old enough, they did indeed move to our place.  Their mother didn't like it here and kissed them all goodbye, and one by one the kittens moved away too, except for Chewables and Princess.  After a year or so, even Princess left to seek her fortune, but Chewables remained.
Chewables was a ladies man and he, like Abraham of the Bible, became the father of many.  Truth be told, he was eventually the father of all the ladies, at which time he went to the vet.  You know, to be tutored.  After tutoring, Chewables became the caretaker of all our other cats.  He bathed them, played with them, babysat them, and taught them how to hunt.  When we brought Wild One home from Grandpa's farm on Father's Day, Chewables both tamed and befriended him.  Chewables and Wild One were best friends until the day Chewables died.  Until today.
The Precious found Chewables this morning, lying on the patio outside our back door.  No blood, no marks, no broken bones.  He looked like he was sleeping, but with his eyes open.  We picked him up and held him.  We tried to be tough and cool but we just cried like girls.  (We girls did, anyway.  The boys just took off with shovels.)  We were still able to curl him up and snuggle with him.  But this was the only time we ever held him when he didn't purr.
You weren't old enough to die, Chewables.  What happened to you?  You weren't sick.  Did you jump off someplace too high, as you were so fond of doing, but this time hit your head?  We will miss you.  The other cats will miss you.  Jeremy Renner would have liked you a lot.  I don't care what anybody says, I believe that all pets go to heaven.

Adventures in Packing a Lunch

Once upon a season of life when I was employed and Hunneypunkin was un, Hunneypunkin would assign the packing of my lunch for work to one of the children, the night before.  It was a nifty little way of using up dinner leftovers and including The People in my work life at the same time.
I enjoyed opening my lunch when I got to work to see what The People had sent for me.  Sometimes there would be a napkin in my lunch bag, with a note written on it with permanent marker by Angel Doll.  If there were no leftovers from last night's dinner, there would be a sandwich, maybe peanut butter with honey or our own homemade jam.  But usually there would be something I could put in the microwave (God bless my aunt for buying me one because the office didn't have one).  I might have a slice of pizza wrapped in foil, or a bowl of spaghetti.
I learned to peek in my lunch before I left home though, when I opened my lunch one day and there was only a tiny bowl of plain white rice.  I poked around the office to see if there was anything, anything at all, I could add to the rice.  Coffee creamer...sugar...hmm.  Nope, three bites of plain white rice was what I had for lunch.  Bless their little hearts, Daddy had said, "Pack the dinner leftovers for Mama's lunch for tomorrow," and that's all that was left.
Now, Hunneypunkin is employed and I am un, and Hunneypunkin assigns the packing of his own lunches to The People every night.  They generally do a great job, and they know his routine.  Make three sandwiches and stick them in the fridge, fill three wide-mouth water bottles with ice and stick them in the freezer.  Then in the morning, Hunneypunkin fills his bottles of ice with tea and puts them in his lunch bag with his sandwiches from the fridge.
We did have to remind The People once that after they made the sandwiches, they should put them into sandwich bags before refrigerating them.  Also that the sandwiches should indeed be refrigerated after being put into sandwich bags.  We learned that the sandwiches should be made early in the evening, so The People aren't so sleepy they forget to put the lunchmeat in the sandwiches.  Someone had to be reminded once that the ice in the water bottles wouldn't stay frozen unless the water bottles were put in the freezer.  Only once did Hunneypunkin simply forget to take his sandwiches out of the fridge before taking his lunch bag out the door.  Who knew we could find so much humor in the simple act of packing lunch?
This blog post contains no reference whatsoever to Jeremy Renner.

Warring With Hunneypunkin (Or, Magicking Weeds Into Bacon)

Hunneypunkin wants to spray weeds.  The problem is, he doesn't.  (Did I already tell this story?  I don't remember.)  Now I understand that all spring long, when the weeds are sweet and adorable just like all babies, it's either windy or raining or both and you can't spray the weeds in the wain and rinnd.  By the time the spring windses and rainses are gone, the weeds have all turned into big people.  Then, since there are no more rainsies and windsies, Hunneypunkin sprays weeds.  Guess what we have then?  An acre of big, ugly deadness.  Yuck!
I don't like weed spray because it stinks and I'm sure it's poisonous for plants and people and animals and water and ozone and other neat stuff.  I also don't like weeds because they mess with my favoriter plants.  So my solution is for Hunneypunkin to pull, shovel, pick, or hoe the weeds.  The problem is, he doesn't.  Plan B would be for Jeremy Renner to do it, but he lives too far away.  Besides, then there would be a big pile of dead weeds and they'd have to be burned or hauled off to the landfill or sneaked into the neighbor's yard, and that's just too much work.  Plus then if the neighbors return the favor, you're back at square one.
Hunneypunkin and I have had a habit of spiritedly debating the Spray-Versus-Pull Weed War at least three times every spring and twice during summer.  We've made it a tradition, kind of like Christmas only without the snow, candies, gifts, carols, stockings, good cheer, or eggnog.
This year, however, we came up with a different option: pigs.  We tossed a few oinkers in a pen out back.  I worked up the ambition to pull weeds myownself, and don't you know those hogs are pretty happy about eating their green leafies.  It's a pretty decent solution.  Hunneypunkin doesn't have to spray, dig, pull, pick, OR burn, I can feel all green and environmental, my yard looks pretty nice, I get a little exercise, and when the winter comes and the weeds are no more, we'll have bacon.  You KNOW how I feel about bacon.

Random and Limited

I love to be able to congratulate myself on a job well done, but some days all I can manage is a sigh of patheticness over a job halfheartedly started.  But hey, I just returned from a rehabilatory visit to the Pacific Ocean, so what do I care?
I woke up this morning with no muscle ache, joint pain, or skull throb.  Then I tried to evict a half acre of weeds all by myownself .  Yard work isn't good for you.  Bacon.  BACON is what's good for you.  I've never gotten subscapular spasms or lumbar aches from bacon.
The world would be a better place if everyone ate Second Breakfast.
Long live Jeremy Renner.

Disclaimer

ChevroletMama is not my legal name.
I do not believe in leprechauns; the dryer and fridge noises were really just mechanical problems that we have not fixed as yet.
Pixie*, Angel Doll*, Lefty*, and The Precious* were actually born just like most people are and we assume they are mortals like the rest of us but we're not going to test that.
I don't know anyone named Dromiquine.
I do take Christmas Day off.
My sisters-in-law Lovesme and Hatesme are fictitious; in real life I have and love seven, not two, unique and beautiful sisters-in-law.
One of my favorite mottoes truly is "I do what I can."  (Another is "I'm smarter than I look."  Future blog entry right there.)
Spell-check is the only reason I knew there was an "e" in the plural for "motto".
It's true that I have hidden Cheetos from the rest of my family and scrambled to hide them when someone walked into the room, but I have never actually wrapped my snacks in a bra.
"Broken or fixed" is a real game.
The Super-Secret Manual of Pointless Instructions for Guys is an imaginary book.
Jeremy Renner is presumably 98.6° like everyone else.
*Names have been changed because I thought it was fun.

Broken or Fixed

It didn't bug me when my little ones took all afternoon to eat lunch because if they were confined to the table, so were their messes.  I could clean something and it would stay tidy for a whole hour.  Hunneypunkin, however, was annoyed that lunch was still being had when he got home from work for supper, and demanded to know why lunch took so long every day.
So I spied to learn what nonsense was afoot at lunchtime, and that's how I learned to play "Broken or fixed".  When no one was looking, Lefty would tear his sandwich in half, press the halves together, then hold it up and ask, "Is my sandwich broken or fixed?"  The Precious and the sisters would cast their votes as to whether the bread was torn or whole, and Lefty would pull the two halves apart to show who was right.
Then Angel Doll would hold up a baby carrot with both hands and ask, "Broken or fixed," wait for responses, and then let go of the carrot with one hand to prove that the carrot was whole.
Pixie would repeat the act with a cheese stick, scolding anyone who cheated by trying to lean in for a closer look, and The Precious would take a turn with his sandwich.
The game could get rather complex, what with trying to break apart a carrot without anyone else seeing, or pretending to tear a cheese stick in half without actually doing it, or wrapping one's entire body around the plate to hide the breaking--or not--of the food.
The "Broken or fixed" game was forgotten as the People reached double-digit birthdays.  Adolescent appetites replaced the childhood necessity of playing with one's food.  Recently, however, someone remembered the game, and for a short time it was revived.  The only thing more entertaining than watching Jeremy Renner interviews on Youtube, is watching my teenagers playing "Broken or fixed" with their lunches.

Annual Clan Chili Feed and Fashion Show

Back when I was nice, there was a standing invitation (requirement) to attend the Annual Clan Chili Feed and Fashion Show every month.  Now, some families are close-knit, and others are just...anyway, Hunneypunkin and I attended the yearly event every month for a long time, thinking eventually we would find our place.
The trouble wasn't only that Drunckle picked arguments even more than his nose, or that Auntie Grandma baited him.  It wasn't just that Matriarch blamed the third-generations for the second-gens' bickering.  Or that Matriarch would cry and scold everyone for acting like this when today could well be Great-Great-Grampa's last meal.  I could have even handled the fourth- and fifth-gens biting my shoestrings and running with scissors and painting my diaper bag with gravy.
My sister-in-law Lovesme would try to engage me in pleasant conversation or at least telepathic empathy.  My sister-in-law Hatesme would try to occupy me with condescension or maybe critiquing my babies against hers.  Dromiquine was always there to spread or start gossip, and Cousin Antipath was always there to pants people, play with matches, and pass gas.  Hunneypunkin just stuck his head under somebody's car hood and checked their oil.  Eighty-six times.
The last time we attended the monthly Annual Clan Chili Feed and Fashion Show, it started as usual: avoiding the second-hand smoke, the hand-me-down hostility, and the direction of Great Aunt Chub who really needed a blankie when nursing her newest infant.  Matriarch complained about the food that people contributed and about the people who didn't contribute any.  The day ended as usual too, except this time it wasn't just my children huddled in the farthest corner from the fray, rocking themselves and sucking their thumbs, I was right there with them.
Finally I said to Hunneypunkin, "I'm not sure I can go anymore.  I just don't fit in, and there's never any chili.  But if we don't go, the clan is going to hate us."
Hunneypunkin said, "If you don't want to go, we won't go.  What difference would it make?  They already hate us."
I hadn't thought of that.  So we walked away like Jeremy Renner, and the only thing I miss is seeing Great-Great-Grampa's dementia disappear just long enough for him to grin at me and wink.

Gunner Has Two Mommies

The wiggly little puppies were so precious that it seemed righteous to take two of them.  They would keep each other company and perhaps be less likely to find trouble.  Right?  So then they got big real soon.
They were both female, so we planned to have them spayed at an appropriate time.  That would have worked out well, but the hippo from a nearby homestead beat us to the punch.  I almost swallowed my tonsils when I strolled out to feed the dogs one day and came face to face with a giant stuffie hanging out with our dogs for a smoke.
Oh, well, I told Hunneypunkin, it's the first litter for both of them, so they won't have very many babies.  A couple months later we found out I was right, of course.  I mean, they could have each had ten or twelve pups.  Instead they each had eight.  On the same day.  At the same time.
A couple of them were stillborn which was simultaneously sad and relieving.  They were all indescribably adorable.  So then they got big real soon.  We were able to give a few away, but ten of them we had to pay to have the humane society take.  That was trauma.  But the only other option was to sell our own children to feed the dogs.  That's illegal, plus I'm pretty attached to our own children.
The vet had advised us to take the mommadoggies on a short car trip as soon as the puppies were weaned.  Homestead Hippo, however, was again too quick for us.  I was seriously cheesed about being outsmarted by a neighbor dog.  Twice.
This time we were blessed with seventeen puppies.  On the same day.  At the same time.  But that wasn't even the best part.  The very most exciting part was that Hunneypunkin chose a puppy.  I might have freaked out just a little bit over that at first, but doggone it it's too stinkin hard to turn down a puppy.  Or Hunneypunkin when he puts on his puppydog face.
So then they got big real soon.  Hunneypunkin managed to make a deal with the humanes, for the society to sell the puppies, their profit, no charge to us.  Way better arrangement than the first round.  We outsmarted the hippo this time, whose master himself took one of the pups off our hands.
Hunneypunkin named his puppy Gunner, and Gunner grew up to be bigger than his mommies--we were never completely certain which one actually birthed him--though he never got quite as big as his father the hippo.  Gunner's a handsome fellow, a mellow, friendly, low-maint kind of pet.  If Jeremy Renner were a dog, he'd be Gunner.

What Doesn't Kill Ya

Five weeks from the stork dropping Lefty on our doorstep, The Eighteen-month-old Precious broke its femur which landed it in a cast from its toes to around its waist for a month.  At the same time, Hunneypunkin's boss broke his almost entire self which landed Hunneypunkin filling in the blanks at work every waking minute till stork night.  This left me and my basketball belly taking care of The Broken-baby Precious all by myself.  In the middle of Ice Storm '96.  I'm not making this up.
My good friend (or whatever), Dromiquine, determined--against the pediatrician's and orthopedic surgeon's diagnoses--that the fracture was a result of my failure to provide adequate nutrition to The Precious, and told our friends and family so.
One year in my twenties, I decided to bake myself a birthday cake.  It was, after all, my birthday, and the children weren't yet old enough for Hunneypunkin to order them to bake me a birthday cake and then take credit for it, so I had to take care of myownself.  I mixed up a thick and rich and chocolatey batter and preheated the oven.  The preheating oven started to smell weird.  I didn't know Hunneypunkin had sprayed oven cleaner and left it to do its wonders.  Hunneypunkin sent me to the park with the babies while he tried to air the toxic smokey fumes out of the house and cool down the oven and clean out the toasted oven cleaner grime.
My sister-in-law Hatesme found the situation quite humorous and told me she was a very lucky wife whose husband always took her out for her birthday, plus she was ever so sad for me that I didn't have a self-cleaning oven like she did.  That made me feel WAY better.
A few years ago, I was terminated from my beloved job.  Though I adored my job, losing it would have been a relief, because I was about to drop dead from three years of migraines and chronic sinus infections...except that we'd bled our savings dry while Hunneypunkin had been out of work for ages, and his unemployment had run out--the day before my termination.  Not even kidding.  Dromiquine and my sister-in-law Hatesme agreed that they were SO glad they weren't in our shoes.
If it's true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, then after some of the incredible experiences I've survived and the inconceivable people who have taken the opportunities to kick me when they thought I was down, I oughta be tougher than Jeremy Renner.  I'm absolutely invincible.  True story.  There's absolutely no way at this point that I can possibly be vinced.  You've been there too, I know it.

The Mystery of the Furrowed Brow

When The Precious was a baby, he was happy as he sat in his little baby seat with his little baby smile and tried to make eye contact with all mankind.
When Lefty was a baby, he was happy as he sat in his little baby seat and played with his little baby fingers and toes and was perfectly content to ignore all mankind.
When Angel Doll was a baby, she was happy as she stood on her little baby seat and reached for all manner of things she shouldn't touch and seemed determined to conquer all mankind.
When Pixie was a freshly caught dewdrop, she scowled.  She didn't cry or fuss or complain of a problem, she just sat in her little baby seat with a furrowed brow.  This perturbed me.  What troubled her?
We would talk to her and play with her and read to her and she would stare back at us, chomp on her pacifier, and furrow her brow.  Was she disappointed in the family she got?  Were we confusing to her?  Did she disapprove of me as her mother?
We would wrap her and hold her and rock her.  Stare...chomp...furrow.
I'd leave Pixie in the baby swing while I folded clean laundry.  (I hoped it was clean.  There were three preschoolers and a man in the house.  You never know.)  When I would glance at her over my stack of presumed clean towels, she'd be watching me with her brow furrowed.
Lefty and The Precious would play while Angel Doll napped.  Pixie would watch them and furrow her brow.
Hunneypunkin would come home from work and greet everyone.  Pixie would stare at him from under her tiny furrowed brow.
Somewhere around a year old, Pixie found her voice--her precocious, irreverent voice--and changed her major from furrowing to communicating.  I never discovered exactly what it was that furrowed Pixie's brow.  She's a vibrant cheerful impish teenager now, and almost as famous as Jeremy Renner, but if you're careless enough to make her angry, you still might make her little brow furrow.

I Feel Cranky

The world is insane.
Most people are stupid.
Jeremy Renner is hot.

What Not to Wash Your Hair With

The Precious is a serious and studious fellow, a likeable sort (except to his siblings in his sheepdogging moments), uncannily intuitive, and a responsible, respectful, respectable young man, with a unique way with words and perhaps a tendency to never talk when he should and occasionally talk when he shouldn't.  When he does talk, don't judge, just listen.  You'll probably learn something, even if you thought of yourself as his better or his elder.  And if his voice gets lower suddenly, listen more closely because you're likely to hear something unexpected...maybe even to him.
The rest of us were having breakfast one morning and Angel Doll offered him the platter of pancakes, but The Precious respectfully declined in a normal and natural voice and proclaimed that HE would--his chest puffed out slightly and his voice dropped lower--"make MANcakes!"  I spit syrup all over kingdom come.  Angel Doll just shrugged.
Pixie offered him a banana, but he preferred a (you guessed it) manana.
Not long after, while Lefty and The Precious were...I don't know, stabbing each other with sticks or something, The Precious came through the back door gleefully dripping blood everywhere.  "What did you do?"  I asked.  "Nothing," he smiled, "I just need a Mand-aid."
Everybody was bickering one evening because no one wanted to go out into the chilly air to put the dogs in the kennel and the chickens in the coop and make sure the kitties had clean water to drink.  The Precious gallantly grabbed his jacket and said, "I'LL take care of the manimals.''
I picked up some specialty chocolates this year for Valentine's Day, but The Precious was disappointed.  He'd just had oral surgery and wasn't supposed to eat Valentine mandy.
My daughters are a little embarrassed that I'm an avid (rabid?) Jeremy Renner fan.  The Precious thinks it's mantastic.
But my favorite, my very favorite moment of all, was when The Precious was getting ready to take a shower and noticed that the dispenser in his bathroom was empty.  He came out of his bathroom saying, "I have to wash my hair, I need some Manpoo...wait--"
I was concerned this story might be too much exposure of The Precious, but he says he can mandle it.

Pixie Paths

Once upon a weekend trip with Grampa and Gramma to the deep pine-scented forest, most of us were basking in the ultra-rare opportunity to do absolutely nothing, but Pixie was, as mythologics tend to be, overflowing with livingness, and wanting to explore.
Because of Pixie's size, or more precisely the lack thereof, she was only allowed to go where we could see her.  (Everybody knows how easy it was for Captain Hook to capture Tinkerbell, and we didn't want our own pixie tossed into some pirate's lantern.)  The density of the foliage made the prescribed hiking distance unsatisfactory to Pixie.  She kept returning to the campfire begging us to go with her along the trails she had found, so she could travel farther and we could see the wonderful worlds she had spied.
Pixie pleas being so difficult to ignore, we were eventually persuaded to abandon our poking of the dying breakfast-time fire for the lure of pursuing the unknown treasures of the woods.  "Okay, Pixie, show us your trails."
We started at a little bare spot of earth looking into a little parting spot of the bushes.  A few footsteps into the people-sized walkway, though, vines began to wrap around our ankles and branches started grasping at our legs.  "Are you sure this is a trail?"
Pixie was certain she'd found a great path to hike, so we kept following.  Bushes bit our knees.  Branches slapped our cheeks.  "Pixie, I don't think this is a trail."  Pixie flitted among the greenery like an exotic butterfly in a tropical wonderland.  The rest of us struggled through the brush like harassed castaways in a hostile jungle.
Whether because she was so much smaller than the rest of us, or because she is after all a mythological creature and so can blend with nature much more readily than we mere mortals can, Pixie returned to the embers of our campfire after our venture even more lively than when we left.  The rest of us collapsed into our camp chairs bruised and scraped and exhausted, and someone was missing an eye.  We looked like we'd tried to fight Jeremy Renner.  To this day, when Pixie wants to go exploring, everyone asks, "On a REAL trail, or a Pixie trail?"

Unwanted Hair Removal

Does the word "unwanted" refer to the hair, or the removal?
I tried to tell myself my mustache wasn't that bad.  Then Hunneypunkin in a rare display of Imperial storm trooperhood threatened to hide me from the public until I did something about it.
So I tried to wax my facial hair, but even though I obeyed the instructions like a saint, all that got me was a mustache full of wax.  I tracked down all the vain people I knew to get some pointers, but the only thing I learned was, "Don't buy the stuff from Wal*Mart."  Which of course, is precisely where my little package of pain infliction had come from.
I gave up on the wax and resorted to tweezers.  Unfortunately my mother was Rapunzel and my old man was a Wookie, resulting in us children being fur-bearing mammals.  That's all well and good for my brothers, but it's rather unfavorable for me, what with my being a girl and all.  By the time I had tweezed a square millimeter of the surface area of my face it was tomorrow already.
Tweezing was quite literally a pain so I reverted to ignoring my whiskers until I could see them in the mirror even without corrective lenses.  Then I chopped them off with scissors.
Rapunzel has suggested I just shave, but after Hunneypunkin advised Lefty and The Precious, all in good fun, to "ask Mama" how to manage peach fuzz when they reached the wonderful world of teenage, I refuse to take a razor to my face.
I toyed with the idea of starting some sort of new trend with women's facial hair, but I'm just not famous enough for that to be feasible.  Yet.  Plus, I can't really pull off a heart-stopping goatee as well as someone like, say, Jeremy Renner.
Yesterday after maybe drinking too much (caramel mocha I mean), I opted to try waxing one more time.  When I'd had enough of ripping hairs from my face using strips of wax, I ripped out a few more using tweezers.  Then I scissored the growth that remained.  I still spurned shaving.  Today I have red, sore, and slightly swollen bald spots in the stubble surrounding my lips.  Is this worth it?

Underrf'd and Infraer'd

I have a debilitating fear of somehow having to read aloud in public and coming across the word "infrared".
There really should be a hyphen in there.  Infra-dash-red.  Without a hyphen, I see a word that rhymes with "impaired".
The trouble is, most verbs are made past-tense by the suffix "d" or "ed".  Therefore, when I see the word infrared, with its absence of dash, I see the past tense of the verb infrare.  Of course I know there is no such word as infrare, but this merely adds to my momentary confusion as I try to discern how light becomes, in fact, frare'd or in-frare'd.
I learned I'm not the only person whose mind goes there when my good buddy Grammar Patrol read a newspaper article about underfed horses.  He was trying to figure out how exactly one derfs or underfs a horse.  Grammar Patrol's grandson quipped that in Washington State, all horses must be properly derfed.  Now tell me, should there not be a dash?  Under-dash-fed.
You're familiar with my image.  Tough and cool.  It would not look tough and cool to publicly mispronounce infrared.  This is also why it would be completely detrimental for me to meet Jeremy Renner in for real life.  I'd totally lose my tough and cool.  I'd just look underf'd and infare'd.

Magic Beans

I always wondered how those Dr. Phil Show soccer moms turned addicts. Then I got a prescription for hydrocodone.  That's the generic name for Vicodin, though I believe it's the fruit of Jack's beanstalk.
I only had two wisdom teeth.  (So...I'm half as smart as everyone else?)  One was on the top left, and was abscessed and infected and excruciating and inflammatory.  The other was on the bottom right, and was silent and hidden and complacent and hibernating.
When I visited the dentist to beg for removal of my top left, he said that when one's wisdom teeth are mellow like my bottom right, they pull them if you're under age thirty and leave them if you're over age thirty.  I was right at age thirty.  This meant I got to choose whether, when I had the top left pulled, to have the bottom right pulled at the same time, or leave it and hope it would behave for the rest of its life.  Or at least mine.  After the misery my top left had wreaked in my head, I opted to lose the bottom right lest it later commit acts of terrorism within my skull as well.
I was also given the option of being awake or asleep for the surgery.  Being tough and cool, I opted out of being put under.  (What a fool.)
When the surgery was over, and I was done arguing with the receptionist through my cotton wads because she demanded the entire brizillion dollars immediately but I didn't have it, and mopped up Hunneypunkin off the parking lot after he'd melted down because I'd just written a check for half a brizillion dollars to the oral surgeon but we didn't have it, I got my magic bean prescription filled.
Angels sang.
I turned into June Cleaver and Mr. Clean all rolled into one.  Pain did not exist, anywhere.  Not in my face, my head, my back, my neck, the butt, or even my sore foot.  My children smiled and their teeth sparkled like Crest toothpaste commercials.  No one bickered.  Nighttime insomnia vanished, and daytime fatigue did too.  The house was clean.  Dinner was served.  Everyone on earth looked like Jeremy Renner.  (And I didn't even know who he was, at the time.  The whole thing makes so much more sense to me, since Bourne.)
I told Hunneypunkin I didn't need the one refill I was allowed but I was considering getting it just in case.  Hunneypunkin said I was high.  "I am not," I said, "I just finally feel like a regular healthy normal person should feel."  Hunneypunkin patted my shoulder and said, "That's because you're stoned."
The Precious had his wisdom teeth removed last week.  I dutifully went to the pharmacy to get him his own magic beans.  Now, in my kitchen, stands a little green bottle that holds the answer to all my problems.  But alas, they are there to solve The Precious' problems, and I must abstain.

Only Gonna Paint

All I needed was a gallon of paint and maybe a roller cover, so this little bathroom improvement would be well under fifty bucks.  (You're laughing at me right now, aren't you?)
I couldn't handle knowing that there was a "blank" spot behind the toilet, so Hunneypunkin took it out in order for me to paint behind it.  Naturally, it broke.
I had this tall skinny shelf that would fit nicely between the cabinet and the toilet, if the cabinet were half as wide, so, why not take out the cabinet, cut it in half, paint its ugly self to match the walls, put it back in, and stuff that tall skinny shelf beside it?  There was a filthy, ratty chunk of carpet underneath the cabinet, and if we had moved that chunk of carpet BEFORE we cut the cabinet in half, we'd have discovered that the linoleum had been installed around the cabinet.  Oops.  Shopping for floor tile...  This wouldn't happen to me if I were awesome like Jeremy Renner.
Hunneypunkin decided that since the budget was already blown, and we'd just replaced that lovely gold-colored toilet (did he break it accidentally on purpose?), we may as well replace that lovely gold-colored sink as well.  Close your eyes, bite your lip, swipe the card.  We'll just wait another month to buy groceries.
A few short years later, the new water-saver toilet doesn't save much water when it requires three flushes per use.  The new sink is sporting a little gouge from a slip of Hunneypunkin's tools.  The walls are still much prettier than they had been to start with, but I'm not sure a paint job was worth that many Benjamins.

Pixie and Peaches

Pixie was two years old when Peaches came to be her bestest friend.  Pixie was almost as big as Peaches at the time.
Peaches, being a large cat, was nervous about being lifted off the ground so he'd sink his kitty talons firmly into anyone who tried to pick him up, purring for the attention but terrified he'd be dropped.  Everybody loved Peaches but nobody wanted to hold him.  I personally refused to pick up Peaches because I have a serious aversion to being perforated.  Pixie, however, could slide her miniature arm under Peaches' belly and hoist him off the grass, and he'd just hang there.  I thought Peaches let Pixie pick him up because he'd only be a half inch off the ground, but then I watched her teensy little self precariously scale the ladder to the tree house using only one arm while Peaches dangled from the other.  I was pretty impressed with Pixie's strength and agility, once I got done throwing up from panic.
If you've ever had a pixie or other mythological creature of your own, you know there's no sense in attempting to put the kibosh on their powers, so I learned to just not look when Pixie climbed to the top of everything we owned with Peaches in her little mitt.
One day Pixie rushed into the house sobbing till she could barely breathe.  "What's wrong?!"  I was afraid her hair was on fire or something.
Pixie gasped out, "Peaches doesn't love me anymore!"
I wasn't really able to pull together any kind of intelligent response to that.
"Daddy said!"  Pixie sobbed.
What?!  I grabbed a handful of seamstress pins with every intention of stabbing them repeatedly into Hunneypunkin's lips to make him pay for spitting such a stupid and heartless statement into Pixie's ear, but just before I marched into the man cave I paused to consider that Hunneypunkin isn't really a stupid and heartless kind of a guy.  He's a pleasant, decent, hardworking sort.  A regular Jeremy Renner.  I put away the pins, remembered to breathe, and asked Pixie, "Why did Daddy say that?"
Pixie puffed and snuffled and said, "Daddy said that if I keep taking Peaches up to the tree house and then throwing him off, Peaches won't love me anymore."
Oh, Lord.  Perhaps I should have paid closer attention.  Is there a support group for parents of pixies?

Gray Matter

Dingy mist lurks about the hood today and it puts a serious droop in my brain wave.  I can feel my mind flat-lining.  Maybe that makes sense, because that lame end-of-the-world apocalypse is four weeks behind us and yet I remain so I might actually be a zombie.  But who cares?  Jeremy Renner is still among us, so he must be a zombie too.  I never knew a zombie could be such a studmuffin.
Are you singing that Cranberries song now...in your head?
I need to work on taxes, correct math papers, file my receipts, rear the offspring, bag up donatables, be the wife, pretend some dinner, contribute to society, clean the fridge (stupid leprechaun ought to be doing that, he has been living there after all and he's likely the slob who spilt the salsa), box up Christmas, remember my vitamins, save the planet, scrub the toilets, pay a bill, mop the floors, reduce my carbon, eat all organic, and do something with those planters that are vacant now because dehydrated houseplants do not come back if you just add water.  Thus it is imperative that I devise a plan to stop the gray matter hanging in the air from affecting the gray matter in my head so I can focus.
If I possessed enough mental power right now to be able to experience emotion, I'd be feeling happy with myself over the fact that I didn't waste brain cells making New Year's resolutions this year, because today I wouldn't have the piece of mind to keep any.  Maybe that's why I have the peace of mind to park here and blog while my workload has babies all around me.

Run, Impala, Run

I was mildly unnerved when smack dab in the middle of the George Sellar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senator_George_Sellar_Bridge over the Columbia River at 5:11 pm my Impala stalled.  I had the sense to hit the hazards, kick the car into neutral, and escape the road.
After maneuvering into a safe spot I lit the Hunneypunkin Signal, and for once I got the superhero experience myself.  This was odd.  Generally I'm home being both parents and my own spouse while Hunneypunkin's out saving the world.
Hunneypunkin got me and the car home, but after hours and then weeks the solution eluded even his mechanicalousness.  The Impala would run like...well, an impala, and then without warning it would die, and it didn't give a monkey's butt whether I was in traffic or sandwiched between loaded semis.
I resorted to my motto.  I do what I can.  (Mechanics isn't it.)  I Googled.  (No, not Jeremy Renner pictures.  Stay on topic, people.)  Drivers all over the world wide web seemed to have had similar troubles with their early-2000's Impalas, and of all the fixes these poor suckers tried, the only one that seemed to work was replacing the throttle positioning sensor.  I had no idea what that meant, but I practiced pronouncing that term for six and a half hours so I could repeat it to Hunneypunkin without sounding like a girl.
I'm here to tell you that ADD isn't all bad, because Hunneypunkin's kicked in so he forgot all about the rule in The Super-Secret Manual of Pointless Instructions for Guys that girls can't know car stuff.  He picked up a little gadget from a wrecking yard which had my throttley sensorous positionish deally and two other important Impala pieces in it, for a fraction of the cost of a brand new sensory deally without any other Impala pieces, and behold! the part I'd suggested didn't fix the car, but the mass air flow sensor (one of the two other important Impala pieces) did fix the car.
That was a few years ago, Hunneypunkin and I have since traded careers (he goes to work and I hold the fort), and the Impala, still running (sort of), now carries him to work and back instead of me.  There are several million light years on the odometer and the transmission has low self-esteem.  The gas gauge keeps time with the speedometer, so the faster you go the more fuel you think you have.  But the engine is good and the dome light still works.  We keep discussing a new(er) car, but until we expand our penny collection...please, Impala, keep running.

Only Thing That Works is Me

As I cruised into my garage after dropping off minimum payments on the latest repair bills in town because I was out of postage stamps and calendar spaces, the car collapsed into nine pieces.  Nice.  Now Hunneypunkin gets to use his superpowers to magic the car back together, and I get to decide which kidney to sell to cover the cost.
On my way to the front door I noticed a steady drip of water on the sidewalk.  From under the eaves.  Indicating a leak in the roof.  Well, I can't fix that, but I can print out the papers for my class tonight.
After forty-five minutes of diplomatic negotiations between the printer and my laptop I had the two speaking to each other and at that point my laptop overheated and went comatose.
While the laptop cooled down I washed the dishes.  In dishpans, which I emptied outside because the drain...did not.  I also laundered a load of darks and hauled buckets of washer water outside because the drain, of course, did not.
It seemed wise to cease water related activites in order to maintain my carefully protected facade of sanity, so I mixed up a sugary batch of New Year's Irresolutions.  Unfortunately the oven believed itself to be overheating and kept turning itself off, while the leprechaun in the fridge woke up and proceeded to mock me with repetitious knocking.  Once the oven was convinced it was safe to operate at 350° for thirty minutes, I tried to run the vacuum cleaner over the living room carpet, but it blew the breaker.
It seemed wise to temporarily leave the house in order to maintain my faltering facade of sanity, so I stepped into my waterproof boots and headfirst into the back door because I keep forgetting that in colder weather the doorknob sticks.  Once outside, I sloshed through the slush and tossed a bowlful of stale leftovers to the dogs, then turned back toward the house with my socks drenched.
Is it too much to ask that the things I own work as hard as I do?
Hunneypunkin's little sledgehammer smiled up at me from the welcome mat where it wasn't supposed to be.  This is the Jeremy Renner of Hunneypunkin's expansive arsenal of tools.  It's tough, cool, hardworking, versatile, and fun to look at.  It took every molecule of self restraint I barely had to refrain from picking it up and using it on everything I own.