veggies from the garden and dogs in tshirts

i can't take any credit for these eggplants since my chickens destroyed my garden (my fault, not theirs) but my mom did bring me some eggplant from her garden. i still have peppers and tomatoes growing but no squash or beans or anything like that. anyways, i made myself dinner the other night using her eggplant. i made eggplant stir-fry. which i didn't like - only because i don't really like eggplant but ya know, you got to keep trying it cause maybe one day you'll like it - with the exception of brussel sprouts. those are just freakin nasty.

i also had a eureka moment the other day when i put my t-shirt on louie. louie likes to play under blankets and burrow himself into things, and he especially loves to nuzzle up to me (such a mama's boy) so when i was changing my clothes, he was watching me and wanted to play with my shirt, so i just put it on him. he loved it! it was like nuzzling me and burrowing at the same time! so he kept the tshirt on all day.

i noticed that by having a tshirt on, louie was much more calm and comfortable and most importantly, he didn't get as much fur everywhere! so, in addition to being cute and funny, it's functional! naturally, i had to put one on bibi, who doesn't like to wear clothes that much, but she tolerated it just fine. i think bibi wearing a tshirt is even better cause she has such sensitive skin and this could help her with that. i would have put one on the smooshie, but he didn't want to be touched in any way yesterday. such a grump.

while i was sitting on the couch by the window, i took a close-up picture of my eye in macro and it came out pretty good. unfortunately, it also highlighted the terrible condition my skin is in. i used to have such clear pretty skin and now i am aging. ugh.

home alone

johnny left on sunday for new york. he got a new job as the regional sales manager for a big printing company and they sent him to new york to take a training class. so, we bought him some new clothes, new shoes, new glasses, and a new laptop messenger bag. he's all white collar now. i'm really happy for him and wish him the best. he deserves it. unfortunately, his father has fallen ill and needed to have a triple bypass on monday - just days after we left them in beaufort. i can imagine the pressure johnny must feel right now, but there is little i can do to ease it for him, he's totally on his own in new york. meanwhile, i'm here at the house, taking care of the animals and trying not to get sucked into the couch. it's really weird how lazy i can get with a man around the house who does most of the daily cleaning. it's a good lesson for me.

the weather here is so stifling hot with nothing but a moist hot breeze occasionally. it's been stormy all week, but very little rain. the dogs are completely bored out of their minds and louie has regressed into his puppy teething habit, so i took them to the lake today. with my banging headache, it wasn't all that fun (for me, anyways). in general, life's a little boring and dismal right now. i miss my friends terribly and even though i don't really miss johnny yet (he's only been gone for 3 days, afterall) i know i will really start missing him soon.

to top things off, i am stuck in this twilight zone of a city with nobody to talk to but my mother. horror of horrors. this woman tortures me. i sucessfully ignored her for 3 days but had no choice but to answer her call yesterday evening. any longer and she would have likely barged her way into my house when i least expect it. i wish i had some kind of alarm that notified me as soon as she entered the neighborhood. something that sounds like a submarine alarm so i can't sleep through it.

so the funny thing is, when i answered the phone she laughed because she thought i might have been mad at her. oh, haha haha haha.... ya think? you brutalized my chickens, you insane woman. of course i'm mad at you. she told me she was glad i wasn't mad at her, and that i shouldn't throw such a fit like that. did i get a word in edgewise? no. i just had to bite my tongue as usual. she has fallen in love with her new charity case - she likes to pick up strays and call them her "friends" while she finds some profitable way to take advantage of them while they thank her all the while. it makes me sick. she thinks its so admirable and endearing that this woman hates being a lawyer so she runs her own locksmithing business. well, what about me? i hate architecture and wanted to start my own business, but did she find that endearing? hell no! she insists that i can't stop being an architect - not because it's my calling, but because she has plans for her own future business dealings. why do i even care what she thinks? oh, trust me - i stopped caring the moment i graduated from college. i just thought it would make life a little easier if we could just get along. if SHE could just stop trying to take over the world and be normal. oh yes, i forgot - that's all part of her charm, being totally nuts is cute these days.

as you can see, me being alone in the same city as my mom without a buffer is a potentially explosive situation. the last time that happened, i think we disowned each other at the marta station. my stepfather is not an ideal buffer, he's more of a bollard. hopefully, everything will be ok by the time johnny gets back. but it's only been 4 days and he's gone for 2 1/2 weeks. someone may just go completely batshit and it's anybody's guess who it will be this time.

warning: graphic content.

the past few days have been a little emotionally charged for me. it could be my hormones or a chemical imbalance in my brain, but i feel like things haven't been handled quite properly. my mom is just about the only person on this earth who can piss me off more than even i could imagine. i swear i deserve a freaking medal for putting up with her all the time. my sister SO OWES me for this shit cause when it comes time to take care of mom, i plan on being busy raising my own kids. whew- i feel better now. ok, so what could a cute little asian fireball of a woman do to piss me off so bad? well, for starters she likes to kill my chickens. and if you fuck with my chickens, you are fucking with me. (sorry for the profanity, i missed my regularly scheduled therapy appointment and feeling a little bottled up...lol).

anyways, it's not just that she killed my chickens, it's that she ENJOYS it. she relishes the thought of breaking necks and slitting throats. she likes to kill chickens because they are food. and food doesn't deserve dignity. (i swear i'm not crazy). so, i let her kill the first chicken a while ago. i knew that these chickens were fated for the butcher block when i got them, but STILL. Johnny and i did not partake of the first chicken. the second chicken she killed earlier this week, once again with my permission, and this time somewhat more humanely. i watched the whole process of de-feathering and gutting a chicken and assisted with a hose and pail. it was not the easiest thing to watch but i had to. i need to know how to do all that cause hello! i raised these chickens for meat (and eggs). the dogs were entranced with the whole show and i just tried to keep from tossing my cookies. we made a fabulous curry chicken stew over brown rice but i had a very hard time eating it. i only took a small piece of chicken and had to think of other things in order to chew and swallow the meat.

i was glad when that whole thing was over. i ate one of my chickens and i have mixed feelings about it. i know it's normal - we eat chickens. i like chicken, for the most part. we gave them a good life and they died for a purpose. i still felt a bit of guilt and decided to thank the universe for the chicken's sacrifice to us. (still not crazy). so, how did this all piss me off? well, i guess my mother took this and the notice from the code enforcement that it was time to become ruthless chicken handlers and, along with johnny as co-conspirator, tormented my remaining chickens by shoving them roughly and without regard into the small cage for transport. they were squacking and screaming, feathers flying everywhere, the dogs hysterical, and nobody was listening to me. nobody heard me, or otherwise ignored my requests, to be nice to my chickens. i didn't want to traumatize them during this stressful time. I wanted to be able to peacefully put them in the cage and load them in the car and take them over to my mom's. instead, my mom went into a determined terminator-like mode to grab and fling fowl around. johnny, of all people, actually grabbed a rooster by his neck to try and shove him into the cage. my only demand was that they put the cage into the coop and try to coax the chickens inside, using feed as incentive. but NO - don't listen to the crazy, emotional, know-nothing-about-chickens, silly girl. surely i had nothing of value to add to the whole operation. then it became hostile and i lost my cool.

they weren't listening to me, the chickens were frightened out of their minds, and not a single damn chicken was in the cage. finally, my mom took the cage and went inside the coop to grab the chickens and stuff them in. which is excactly what i wanted to do in the first place - put the cage inside the coop and let the chickens go into the cage on their own. WHY wouldn't that work? now, she was essentially doing the same thing - only with a more mean and hostile twist to it. i was very mad and frustrated and broken hearted. not only for my chickens but for that fact that they didn't give a shit that it meant a lot to me to be gentle with my little flock.

i'm sure people may think i'm totally crazy and stupid. chickens are food, why be gentle? why care about their well-being when they are going to be eaten? to me, it just seems to be the right thing to do to treat a chicken with care and respect. you are going to take it's life to sustain your own, it deserves to live and die with a little dignity, don't ya think?

if you want to hear johnny's side of the story, you'll have to hope that he comments to this post.

farewell, my chickens...

today is the deadline we were given to get rid of our chickens. assholes. anyways, my mom is going to take them to her place and i hope she doesn't kill jerky but they are her chickens now. we left the remaining 6 chickens in the coop to make it easier to put them in the cage for transport. my mom is taking the coop, too. i'm a little sad - i'll miss jerky the most. he's got personality. they all think i'm nuts but chickens have personality, dammit.



i really want to just tell the code enforcement person to fuck off but i don't think that would be the smartest thing to do. johnny thinks we should record jerky and potpie crowing and play it every morning after they are gone. i think it's an excellent idea. i know i've mentioned this before but we sure do have some STANK neighbors. i'm not sure which ones they are, but good grief they really have nothing else to do but complain and meddle in everyone else's business. i'm so glad we don't have a homeowner's association because i wouldn't live here. i'm done being nice to these assholes. i can't believe i gave them homemade fig jam like a dork. from now on, any neighbor that comes over here without something nice to say i'm just going to ignore them.



there is the possibility that none of our neighbors called the code enforcement people on us. who knows. in any case i really can't stand the fact that it's okay to have barking dogs and kids banging on drums but god forbid someone hears a damn rooster. assholes. okay, rant over.

zoning regulations suck

so the first thing johnny and i see when we got back from beaufort and savannah was a notice taped to our front door from code enforcement. apparently they came by while we were gone and nosed around our house. they wrote me up for have chickens in a neighborhood zoned R-100 and for having paint cans in our carport. jerks. i don't understand why we can't have chickens at our house. the only nuisance they are is the periodic crowing from the roosters. but honestly - we can hear sirens, trains, horns honking, giant dumptrucks, semis, school buses, and bass booming all day long in this neighborhood. what's the big deal about a crowing rooster? i find it kind of funny and endearing to hear jerky and potpie practice singing - it's cute. but i guess that's just me and i'm a wierdo.



regardless, we are going to have to get rid of our chickens by the end of the week (also unfair!) and i think my mom is going to take them, along with the coop johnny built, over to her place - at least until i can find them a good home (stop rolling your eyes). i know of a small petting zoo that was looking for chickens so maybe i'll start there.



why aren't we just going to eat them? well, i'm a little too attached to jerky and potpie to actually kill and eat them. the others not so much. but most importantly, they are not tasty birds. my mom (with the help of bibi) killed and butchered one of the cocks a while ago and she made stew (which i didn't eat either). she said the chicken was way too tough. i guess our birds are leaner than the average grocery store chicken and have very little fat to make them juicy. i guess they get too much exercise. i think our birds are quite happy - they get to roam around about 2 acres of backyard complete with ponds and gardens and bamboo forests and little gullies. it's like paradise for chickens.



so, i can hardly send my priveledged birds to some butcher for a meal. i know i'm a wuss.

bittersweet vacation

it's been really quiet around my blog lately and that's because a lot has happened. our dear friends have packed up and moved back to the west coast. we've been spending every spare moment hanging out with them and their baby. they wanted to see the sunrise over the atlantic and visit savannah before leaving the east coast. so we all drove down to savannah and beaufort, which is only 40 minutes from savannah. johnny and i brought all of our dogs with us and stayed at his old house in beaufort. as soon as we got into town around 7 pm, we went straight to the beach to let the dogs run around. our friends arrived much later, and stayed in a motel near us. at 5 am the next morning we all drove to the beach (only 2 miles from motel) and watched the sun rise. we collected shells and shark's teeth and did a little bit of yoga. it was nice, and we enjoyed each other's company.

we then drove to savannah and spent the entire day walking around forsyth park and hanging out with my best buddy, kim. they got to see all the big old oak trees with moss hanging, had a light lunch at the coffee house sentient bean and hung out with some interesting roommates that i didn't know kim had. it was a blast. we had a lot of fun but at the same time it was a little sad. we made some really great last minute memories and i'll cherish them. we then walked around city market and had some of the best gelato ever. they had a fig and ricotta flavor that was to die for. i bought myself an art print of a painting called "the invitation" by grant nelson who does really beautiful tesselated paintings. i've wanted one for a long time...

last, we had sushi dinner at our old favorite japanese restaurant on broughton st. called sakura. we had excellent meals and good service (our waitstaff was hot!). then we drove back to beaufort and said goodbye to our friends who were leaving early in the morning. i really really miss them. they are such awesome people.

i spent the next day hanging out with my homefry kim, who i haven't hung out with in a while. i realized how much i missed her, too. johnny fixed her car (he's always got work to do with me around!) and at the same time recieved some really good news! he is now gainfully employed and landed the competitive position of regional sales manager for a multinational printing franchise. it's a great job with excellent benefits but he'll be travelling all over the southeast and has to go to new york on the 28th for 2 1/2 weeks! he's all professional businessman now, so we have to go out and get him some new clothes and travel stuff. i am so proud and happy for him! i'm going to miss him when he goes to new york, but we plan to spend the time apart to concentrate on improving our health by sticking to a strict regimen of diet and exercise. i want to lose as much weight as possible for when he gets back.

so yeah, i'm cramming in 2 weeks worth of blogging in one day but hey, it's better than nothing! i have tons more pictures but i still have to upload them. i'll come back and insert pictures as i get them, so come back again in a few days. glad to be home, excited for what's coming next and can't wait to see my friends again :)

doggies in paradise

while johnny and i were saying farewell to our good friends and having reunions with other friends and family, the dogs were on vacation. they got to hang out with three other dogs and go to the beach all week. johnny's brother jimmy adopted a german shepherd mix named jake and of course took darla when we needed to find a new home for her. he also took on an aging family member's dog - a 10 year old female mutt named shadow. at first the dogs were standoffish but they became pretty good friends soon enough. jake is very timid and shy and darla is still that annoyingly excited non-stop licking jumpy pup. shadow is the older, slower, less amused one who just sort of lays around the house.

when we arrived into beaufort, we went straight to the sands, our favorite beach spot. we let the dogs out and luckily it was high tide. bibi was beside herself with excitement and syrus went straight into the marsh looking for goodies. louie was blissfully unaware of the difference between beach (ocean) and park (lake). he jumped right into the water, not expecting it to be very deep or salty or have a current. but he took to it right away.

it was so beautiful. i truly love the sands at port royal. it's like your backyard beach where you can go anytime for some fresh air, softly crashing waves and the sharp cries of seagulls. the sand is a powdery white and the water is a clear blue. the marsh grasses are a brilliant bright green and it's all layered in a soothing pattern - the white fluffy sky, the clear blue sky, the deep blue water, the bright green grass, and the white sandy shore. during the day you can see for miles all around and at night the sky surrounds you like a black blanket with twinkling stars. it's heaven.

well, now the dogs are thoroughly depressed to be back home. all they do is sulk and mope around the house, thinking about how boring it is around here...

princess pei pei

sweet pink baby toes and soft juicy baby cheeks. om nom nom nom... i stocked up on nibbling the baby the last few days before her family packed up the vw and drove across the country back to the west coast. penelope has grown into a happy chubby little baby that you just want to squeeze and nibble all over. she has the cutest toothless grin that lights up her face and makes her cute little dimples show. it takes incredible self-constraint not to just grab the baby and lick her from head to toe like a mama cat. everyone took about a million pictures of this baby in the last couple of weeks and now i just have to show them off. my friend kim is a total paparazzi and took some awesome pictures that she IS going to upload soon. it's sad but exciting to think that the next time i see princess pei pei she will be so much bigger. this kid is so loved and is going to have such a wonderful life. she got to see the sunrise on the east coast with us. it was a beautiful morning on the beach in beaufort and we found all kinds of sharks teeth. the very first tooth i found was an inch long! i should have taken a picture but i gave it to penelope because she needs a bad ass shark's tooth necklace to go with her spear. i'm going to miss her!

do dogs enjoy music?

i'm listening to some fabulous flamenco music on Pandora (i loooove pandora) and doing some work on my computer and i noticed that the dogs are here next to me passed out completely on the floor. i know they seem to always gravitate to where ever i might be in the house but usually it's just one or two of the dogs, and right now i am noticing every dog (including our step-dog nadia) is in my office - sleeping contentedly.

this is the only pic of nadia i have right now.... she's a little monster :)

this is unusual because our dogs are hyperactive little shits and usually somedog is chewing, ripping, running, jumping, or barking. right now they are so cute and peaceful, snoring softly on the down comforter they dragged out of my bedroom. nadia and bibi's ears ae sticking straight up and louie passes gas every so often. syrus sometimes growls a bit in his sleep. nadia has one leg draped over louie. i wish i had a camera.

it must be the music because i'm a little drowsy myself... i think flamenco is my new favorite music to work to. it's very relaxing yet motivating. so far i really like Paco de Lucia, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, and Jaleo. i really think the dogs like flamenco, too.

in other unrelated news, i got my first bunny bite today at the feed store. he was a cute little bastard but he bit the heck out of my finger and made me bleed. johnny was laughing at me cause at first i was all like, aaawwww - canihavacutebunny pleeeeeze? then post-attack i was all, i'm gonna feed you to my other bunny you little *&%#$!