Song: “The Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett
Mood: 7
Nightmares: 0
Ghosts: Lots
So… I was puttering around last night after I finished yesterday’s post and there was a horrible, vaguely familiar screaming sound coming from outside. I couldn’t tell exactly where, but I looked out the windows and didn’t see anything. I stared at the gate for quite a while before I was able to pry myself away from the window and turn off the light, and eventually I went to bed.
I slept reasonably well. I remember waking up twice, and once I had to get out of bed to take a look at the back yard and gate, but all was well. I didn’t lock it all night and nothing happened. That’s good, because the tree company didn’t show up today so I’m going to try and leave it unlocked again tonight.
This morning, J got up, got all prettied up (it doesn’t take very long), and headed out the front door, ready to start her day. She walked into a nightmare. Turns out the screaming I’d heard last night was a bunny getting mangled by something (I knew I’d heard it before), and the corpse was being enjoyed by a bunch of crows. She got a shovel, chased off the scavengers, cleaned it up, then got in the car and headed to work.
I didn’t know about it until she texted me later and asked me to go out and make sure there weren’t any extra bunny parts lying around. I stepped into my crocs and shuffled out onto the lawn, wandering back and forth and yawning until I found a couple of pieces of bunny fluff and a single dandelion leaf with blood on it.
I felt horrible that J had to deal with that first thing in the morning. I wish I’d been awake so I could’ve helped her out. Even better, I wish I’d seen it when I’d heard it so I could’ve gone and cleaned it up before the morning. Next time I hear screaming outside, I’ll go outside with a flashlight or something. Blugh…
While I was outside looking for bunny bits, I noticed that the lawn still smelled of chemicals and, even better, the dandelions were already starting to wilt. I’m a little concerned that once the dandelions die our yard will just be a dirt patch, but that’s nothing some grass seed and watering won’t fix.
BAHAHAHAHAA!!!
It was very nice out today, so after I had something to eat and finished my morning routine, I went for my walk and then went out into the back yard and planted the rest of the garden. A couple of rows of onions and some carrots along with the potatoes. I fixed up the anti-bunny fence (one less now that we have to worry about, I suppose), and sat out on the deck steps until the neighbour’s yippy little dog irritated me enough to go back inside.
I spent a lot of time tinkering again today and, after hitting a brick wall for a few hours, I made some good progress. Turned out I was missing a single letter (it happened to be a “P”) from a single line in the program so all I saw on the display was garbage instead of what it was supposed to be showing. That’s part of the fun, though.
The rope I was looking for to secure my little under-table pedal machine to my chair was out in the garage, so I grabbed it while I was outside. I looked at it and figured that it would be a good idea to have some sort of easy-release mechanism so I found a carabiner clip. Then I thought it would be tough to get the rope the perfect length (because I don’t know what that is yet), so there should be a way to adjust the length without redoing knots. Half-remembered lessons of how to tie a sheepshank knot fluttered around in my head until it hit me – a turnbuckle would be perfect. So I spent a little while drawing one up and started it printing. Hopefully it’ll work out.
I had more trouble with ghosts today than what’s been usual lately. The gate was unlocked but I had the windows open and between stuff going on outside and the sounds the house makes now that it’s getting warm, I was wandering around the house far more than I’d hoped to be. I think our hot water tank is getting long in the tooth, too – it’s making some weird “pop” sounds when it’s heating, and they’re loud enough to hear upstairs with the windows open and the music on.
J texted me to say she was leaving work soon and suggested perogies for supper. I happened to be thinking the exact same thing, so I put on some water and did up our last two dozen handmade perogies from one of the local churches.
Now… those of you who know me should probably sit down before going much further. Normally, I’d cook up some smokies or something like that to go with the perogies, but today I had a different idea. My dad and I were talking a while ago and he mentioned “mushy peas”. I remembered what he’d said and, deciding to not bother actually looking up a recipe, I made probably close to a pound of mangled peas to go with supper. Yes, peas – the little green spheres that come from plants! Check this out:
While they were cooking, the smell changed from peas (ewww) to… something sweet? Anyway, I really liked them and I’d happily eat another plateful of them. I’m not 100% sure what J thought of them – she didn’t seem to thrilled at the start but told me later she liked them – but I think I’m going to make them again.
This evening we hung out, ignored scam/telemarketer/political/survey phone calls, and watched another episode of Blue Planet II. It was pretty good again, although I will say that bobbit worms are utterly horrifying creatures. I don’t care how many hundreds of millions of years they’ve been around – someone (much braver than me) needs to gather them all up and toss them in a dumpster full of boiling salt. Gaaaah.
I don’t have any appointments tomorrow but I have some stuff I’m hoping to get done around the house. It would be very nice if the tree folks showed up tomorrow to get rid of the stump so I can lock the gate again and not worry about it. I’m going to try to leave it unlocked again tonight. Hopefully there won’t be any screaming. We’ll see how it goes.
Stay safe.