wanted poster

As I mentioned ever so briefly, a dog killed some of the neighbors' chickens on Christmas eve. I know this because when my dad and I were driving to get the beef tenderloin that was to be served for Christmas dinner, we saw that dog with a chicken in its mouth. It was crazy. I tried to get my camera out, because that scene would have made a stupendous Picture of the Day as well as a great piece of evidence for our neighbor. But the dog ran away, chicken and all, before I could get the shot. The dog got seven chickens total and I think went back for seconds on another day. Unfortunately, chickens are dumb and some of them were roosting outside, making them easy pickins for the dog. I worry most of all about the three little neighbor girls, who have created quite a little business out of selling the free-range eggs that their chickens produce. Their prices are lower than store prices, and those free-range eggs, when cooked, make for really, really yellow food products.

But here is an artist's rendition of the scene of the crime. It was a grey day, which is why there's so much grey. Think of this as a pseudo-Picture of the Day.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming

Well, it took me two weeks, but I finished my cousin-related blogs. But life didn't stop while I wrote those! So here are the top 7 things that happened in the last two weeks that deserve a blog mention. Normally I might put them all in separate posts but based on how long these last blogs took me it might be a week-and-a-half before I finished. And who knows what will happen in that time?!?

1. I learned that the brush that is behind my sink is used for cleaning dishes! Previously I thought the device was just a sort of decorative accessory, much like my canister of spatulas and the like. But I learned that some people actually use it to do things when my parents came to visit me. We went to the UVA vs. Georgia Tech football game. Luckily UVA won or it would have been sad.

2. I also learned about centerpieces and candles when my parents came to visit. On my kitchen table I have these flower candlesticks, and on my kitchen counter I have these brightly colored candles. But my mom says I have to put all those things away because they are too spring- and summer-like. Now I have to have an autumnal centerpiece and autumnal candles. My autumnal centerpiece has gourds! After autumn is over, I have to put up a Christmas centerpiece and Christmas candles. Then I think I have to put up a Martin Luther King Jr. centerpiece. Keeping track of centerpieces is really hard but luckily I have my mom nearby to help!

3. I learned that a certain mall in the Atlanta area that shall remain nameless is going to have a service where pictures can be taken with Santa. But not for children. FOR PETS. If you need a picture of your pet taken with Santa, then let me know and I can hook you up. But you have to understand that something like this is the kind of thing that makes me hate people with pets and I will judge you. Though I am pondering taking my fish Alvin in for a picture in the hopes that the mall might see how ridiculous their idea is.

4. I learned that Samantha Parkington will be retired as an American Girl doll. This particularly stings as Samantha was the American Girl doll I had when I was little. Why oh why is someone crapping on my childhood? How will the girls of tomorrow ever thrive without this sweet orphan living with her relatives in 1904? Who teaches poor girls that live next door how to read? Why should they be deprived of buying the absolutely adorable school dress that I wish to God I could have worn to school? Or deprived of reenacting what happened when Uncle Gard brought Cornelia home for the holidays? How will they ever learn what a petit four is?

5. Someone is trying to communicate with me via Amazon emails. While I try not to talk about work on my blog, I will tell you that I've had a few unhappy days lately. And on one of the days that was most frustrating, I get an email from Amazon.com with the suggestion that I might enjoy Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener." This is the classic tale of a man that just starts saying that he prefers not to do work that's assigned to him. Is this some message from God about what I am supposed to do?!?!

6. A sad lesson was learned: video games trump literature. Here's what happened. For the Halloween office party I dressed up as the Ghost of John Steinbeck, using a white sheet and my John Steinbeck shirt. I carried around some grapes and threw them at people. But despite only four people entering the costume contest, I did not win. I lost to a girl who dressed up as Mario. Of Mario and Luigi fame. So don't bother reading, kids. You will not win office costume contests that way. Just play video games.

7. Finally, last Monday I was stopped at a red light and saw two guys having a fight. IT WAS SO EXCITING! I think it would be awesome if the City of Atlanta could install unhappy people at every long light because then we would have some entertainment while we waited and maybe people would not run red lights and cause accidents. The particular fight I witnessed involved two males fighting. Apparently they have had a turbulent past because one of them had a restraining order on the other. But the very guy who took out the restraining order was trying to see the other one. And the other one was not happy, because he could have gone to jail if they were seen. So he kept saying, "If you really love me, just leave. If you really love me, just walk away. Because if you don't walk away, I'll go to jail. Please, please leave if you love me." Did the other guy leave? I DON'T KNOW! The light turned green and I had to go! Never have I been so sad about a green light!

of dogs and ice cream

I don't think it's fair to say I have a sweet tooth. I do think it's fair to say that all my teeth are sweet tooths. God help me, I love sugar. If a diet of candy, cake and ice cream were enough to keep a person alive and breathing, I'd be interested in that. Maybe I would take occasional breaks, for a turkey sandwich or nachos, but ultimately, I would be happy to survive on sugar.

But if any young kids or my parents are out there reading this, then you should know that I absolutely DO NOT survive on just sugar. For one thing, I would like to keep my original teeth, and for another, diabetes is not appealing to me. But honestly, if I ever get some other awful painful disease and I'm given months to live, I'm just going to eat sugar. Maybe that way the sugar will kill me before the disease does. Please, again note, I am not advocating just eating sugar.

Even though I know sugar is bad, bad, bad, I still sometimes, occasionally make sugar-rific impulse buys when I've had a crappy day. I think that's how I came to buy a little ice cream called Birthday Bash, which won me over with this winning description: "cake flavored ice cream with confetti and blue icing." HOW COULD YOU PASS SOMETHING LIKE THAT BY? I certainly couldn't, especially because the confetti made it look pretty similar to my beloved Funfetti cakes. It's Kroger brand ice cream, and I don't know it's meant to be a generic rip-off of something else, and I'm not going to investigate that too much, because than I'd want to try the original as well.

So anyways, I bought this ice cream, but it's been sitting in my freezer for awhile, almost like a fine wine. I figured I'd break it out when things got really bad, or conversely, when I had a real reason to celebrate. And that point came this weekend.

As I mentioned in the last entry, I worked from home this past week. Working from home allows you to realize that sometimes it's a good thing that you're not around in the daytime, because there's lots of leaf-blowers going, and garbage trucks coming by, and dogs just barking their heads off. The dogs were the worst part for me. There was this one dog that would not shut up. It just barked and barked and barked. I'd never noticed it before, which I thought was due to being shut up in an air-conditioned pod for the past few months (I just turned the AC off and went back to natural air last week), but Katie reminded me that it was probably just that the owners were at work and the dog was lonely.

But then the weekend came, and that dog still wouldn't shut up. It barked so much that it stopped sounding like a dog and started sounding like a donkey. It was just braying away. I felt I was going insane. While I don't condone animal cruelty, I would like to take that dog and drop-kick it to kingdom come. At one low point, I was holding two pillows over my head and also my comforter, and I could still hear that fucking dog. Though maybe it was just the sound of the dog ringing in my ears.

That's when I had an epiphany. No, the epiphany was not talking to the apartment staff or talking to the dog's owner directly, or anything mature like that. The epiphany was that I would break out the box of Birthday Bash ice cream, and that I would probably feel much better because of it. So after a few bowls of Birthday Bash, I thought I'd share my review.

First of all, it does kind of taste like cake. Not a Funfetti cake, sadly, but nothing could touch the perfection of that. But it doesn't cross the line into ice-cream cake territory, which is good for me because I don't really love ice cream cake. Is that surprising? It kind of is to me too! You'd think ice cream cake would be right up my alley! But I just don't like it! It's weird! I prefer ice cream on the side of the cake, not in it!

Unfortunately, Birthday Bash can't quite replace cake on its own. For one, the icing is not evenly distributed throughout the ice cream box, which makes it a little too hit-and-miss for me. Each time I take a bite of Birthday Bash, I can't help noticing how good it would be WITH cake, ON THE SIDE of it. That would be a double cake bonanza, but again I'm stressing that I don't want an ice cream cake. I want two things that both taste like cake, but of different textures and kept separately.

While these very specific cake requests make perfect sense to me, I'm well aware that they may not make sense to anyone else. For that, I blame that barking dog, which, drove me to the crazy house. The dog has been quieter today, so maybe it's okay. But if that dog were still barking, this ice cream would be pointless. I would need real cake. Administered via IV.

On another dog-related note, when walking to the library this weekend I saw a sign that advertised that a dog was missing. The sign listed the dog's name but said the dog answered to "here girl!" Now, call me crazy, but don't about half of the dogs out there probably answer to "here girl!"??? I just don't think these people will find their dog.

On another Birthday Bash-related note, my eyes have been able to carefully avoid seeing the caloric and fat content of what I'm consuming. But I did briefly glimpse the fact that this box is supposed to contain 14 servings. Uh-oh. I think I'll be lucky if I break double digits. Particularly with the presidential debate about to start.