The Jerky Girls reeled me in like a sucker fish.

I was at Marshall's, and in the midst of looking for a new blouse that made me look 15lbs lighter, I overheard this conversation in the fitting room.....

The two youngish ladies come in after I was already in my stall.
One was next to me, the other was across the hall/aisle.

Girl #1: Oh my gosh...I love this. It makes my b**bs and belly look like perfection! Ayee!!
Girl #2 : Oh, cool. Hold on a minute, I need to finish getting this on and then I want to see.

Girl #2 enters #1's stall: "Oh wow...that LOOKS great!" followed by a few sentences in spanish....then some spanish mixed with english.
All I could really understand were the words sh*t girlllll over and over.

Now, they are both in the same stall trying on different outfits.
#1 and #2 are giddy, laughing and cussing....mostly in spanish now, with a few english words thrown in for me.
I understand the english....it's mostly cuss words with a lot of 'oh my God's' mixed in.

The laughing, the sh*t girlllll and 'oh my God'ing' goes on for a few minutes.

This is where I start to pay attention:

#2 says to #1: Dang girl, YOU look really really good.


#1 Thanks! I've geen going to this place on The Boulevard! It's super cheap and never crowded!


#2: wow....I need to go where you are going, because YOU have never looked hotter.

me thinking: Wow, she must be working out....sounds like she has some rock hard abs....I wonder WHAT gym she goes too. I want to see this girl when I get some clothes back on.

#1 and #2 keep up with the convo: Yeah, I feel really good...I try to go three nights a week....and four if I can really find the time! It's only 9.99 a month!

Me thinking: Wow, that is really cheap for a gym membership and I live close to the Boulevard! 

#2 says to #1: Dang girl, you keep this up and you will look like Snookie!

Followed by laughter and more spanish/cussing.

Me thinking: What? Snookie? What? Did Snookie just lose a lot of weight and start working out? How did she stop drinking long enough to exercise safely? Is she working out with The Situation?

Then, it dawns on me....#1 has been going to a tanning salon.
Jerks.
Pulled me into this conversation, and it was about a tanning salon.
Stupid jerky tan girls!

I can't wait to see them in 10 years when their faces has fallen off;  Sh*t girlllllllll.

PS. I did find a shirt that made me look thinner. Exactly .2 lbs thinner.
Aye caramba.

I'm not irrational.

I don't even have a rash.
Yeah, I say stuff like that.


Yesterday, I was outside watering my plants and I came in with some news for Lindsay.


Hey, Linds, I just saw the teeniest tiniest little baby octopus on top of the pool cage!
Her: What?
Me: Oh, never mind, more than likely it was a spider. 
Her: This is why I think YOU are so weird. 


I'm not weird. I'm imaginative.




Seriously though, we must have a twelve million octopus spiders around our house.
Have I stressed to you all at least twelve million times how scared I am of spiders. I'd rather wrestle an octopus covered with baby oil in a canal surrounded by alligators than be in the vicinity of a spider.

But they are amongst us. Amongst ME.

 And they want to take my life more than anything else.

 

This morning in the fog, it was even more evident how they are here...and they are going to destroy my life with their little claws.

Mama, I think my eyes are getting old...I can't see so clearly this morning. ~ Cocoa

 And fangs. I've seen fangs.

Our poor flood light, it din't see the fangy clawy spiders coming. Can you believe the spiders ate the top of that poor palm tree?

Well, don't believe that...it just died by itself. Old age I think. Or depression.

If they dare to step their little clawy/fangy selves into my garden, something will be burnt down.

A few months ago, our pest control guy (Captain Obvious) left me a note saying we had a spider problem....and to call if we wanted a spider treatment done on the yard/lanai. 

 I thought about it for 10 seconds, and did not call him.

 About 10 years ago, we were having a spider issue. Specifically a Black Widow issue. They were all over our lanai....making nests under chairs, tables, the kids jungle gym. Yeah, bad. 

So, we had our pest control guy come and do a spider treatment. 

He did a treatment like you would not believe.

Every plant/tree in the area was dead. 

Including our beloved mature 'dropping key limes like it was nobodies business' key lime tree.

The spiders were gone...but it cost us so much in landscaping. So, I am scared. 

Truthfully, I have not seen ANY spiders near these webs/nests. They are invisible, ninja and stealth-like. Lurking at me with their claws and fangs ready. Ready to take me down and make a nest in my hair, procreate in my ears....poop in my nostrils.

I'm a goner.

I'm going to update my will today.

Love to you all, it was nice knowing you.

xoxo

Dirty mind.

How sad is it that I am pining away for one of these?

{uber chic compost tumbler}

I know, I should dream bigger, but seriously, good compost would enrich my life. And my soil. 

My garden would be in dirt heaven. Me too. 

What it all boils down to:  my thoughts are always in the gutter dirt.

It started with a blog. It ended with a defeated blogger.

It is a funny little big world this blogging thing is...the people you meet can often be the best sort of people. You know, the 'kind' people. As opposed to the unkind people who want to chop you up into little pieces. I avoid those people at all costs.
A few weeks ago my friend Gary, {the potter} wrote a nice post about little ol' me. Gary is often very complimentary to everyone he likes...and he likes me. I mean, who doesn't, but that is neither here nor there....Gary is one of my favorite people, always kind, humble and NICE.  I find myself saying out loud to friends or family members: You know, my friend Gary, the potter...well yadda yadda...blah blah...and so on. Oh, he has great pottery too...I've purchased a few pieces!

Anyhoo, Gary wrote some nice stuff about me, and one of his readers Claudia, who I had never had the pleasure of knowing before, read the post. In turn she clicked over to my blog and saw my post about the cat Screen. {insert destiny, serendipity, fate, cosmic alignment, etc}

This is NOT the cat that I wanted in the carrier.....if it was HER who I wanted in there, she wouldn't have been in the vicinity.

Claudia, being a smart and very very nice person realized we lived in the same area, and she had a friend who works with feral cats! And guess the heck what happened next?

Guess!!!!

Oh, you are wrong. :)

She contacted me, and offered to help with the situation.

I KNOW! a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

And guess what else...I've talked to Claudia and she is not even a serial killer. Not even close. She is a flutist! A big hearted cat loving flutist! What are the chances....

I was able to lure Screen into my lair. I mean, my lanai. She will do stuff if you give her food. As soon as she ate, she again hid from me. Little elusive booger.

FYI: we've renamed Screen...she will now be called Sasha Fierce. They won't look at me so strangely at the vet next time. Well, maybe not AS strangely.

Sasha has been on our lanai for a while now, and she has two favorite hiding spots. Behind cabinet area #1 and cabinet area #2. When she is in her hiding spots, I can't reach her....no siree bob.


I got her to the VET!!! She is spayed, and has her necessary shots too! A big hurdle has been jumped.

So, we set up a day/time to meet. I would get her to Claudia, and then she would transport Sasha to the feral cat whisperer.
It was to be on Thursday afternoon. I had a plan. I would leave work, go home and catch Sasha Fierce. I had arranged for Linds to be picked up from school...had it all worked out.  I got a fresh can of  tuna ready. I was nervous...I knew I only had a small window to catch her and drive the hour and a half to meet Claudia; the not serial killer.

I decided to NOT feed Sasha the night before, so she would be hungry. And that was hard for me...withholding food.

This is the carrier to get Sasha from point A to point B. THIS is NOT Sasha, again, if I wanted to take this cat somewhere, she would have been a mile away from the carrier! 

And I sat down with my can of tuna and waited for Sasha to come out from cabinet #1...and I waited and waited. She did not come out.

I then plopped down at cabinet #2....and I waited and waited. She is not coming out.

I am sweating. I am silently cussing. I am frustrated and disappointed.

My window of time is closing in. 

And finally. my window of time was gone.

Defeated by a 3lb cat. 

Did you celebrate VD last week?

I called Claudia and let her know our plan was foiled. Foiled by the elusive Sasha. I had determined that our pool cleaner came, and while the screen door was open Sasha ran away; escaped from my lair. 

Claudia and I agreed that if that happened, then perhaps it was meant to be...she is a wild cat. (which is ok, but I don't want the wild cat living ON TOP OF MY Screen...remember the poop situation?)

So, the saga was over. Done. Finite.

I ended up going to pick up Linds at school, moving through my life as merrily as I usually do. :)

We came home, I walked out to the lanai heading to water my garden and who the heck runs out of the lanai plant beds?

Sasha freakin' Fierce!

Yep, she found another hiding spot. 

And yep, it looks like I have another cat....another cat who doesn't want anything to do with us.  She is not as terrified of the dogs as she was weeks ago...but she is just as scared of humans. I am wondering if something happened to her before she made her way to our home. 

Oy.