Meeces, I hate meeces!

Remember Mr. Jinks?

With the new puppy this past year, we (No... Nope. Not this time... I am not taking the credit or blame on this story...) It is all Mrs. Hogwallop.

I digress... It was decided that the dogs would eat outside rather than the laundry room. Not enough room for both dogs to move around and eat without bothering each other, so we purchased a big garbage pail with a lid with plastic clamps to keep the dog food out on the back deck. Needless to say Thing 2 discovered quite quickly how to remove the lid and dump dog food all over the deck. He did this many times in our Summer of 2008. This meant little dog food pellets made their way into the cracks of the deck and eventually underneath the deck...

And it has become the new buffet of choice for unwelcomed guests. Even Mrs. Dr. Doolittle is not happy.

Meeces!
Not the cute kind like Pixie & Dixie.

Or, even more fondly remembered, Jerry and his little cousin, Nibbles. Maybe it's my fondness for things French, but I do remember the funny episode, "The Two Mousekateers" - Nibbles and his little baby accent, "Ah, pauvre pussycat! C'est la guerre."

(if you don't remember or never saw it. Tom and Jerry and Nibbles are french muskateers dualing with swords and at the end of the cartoon, Tom (at least it is aluded to, that he is beheaded by the guillotine for not keeping the place mouse-free; to which Nibbles says "poor pussycat, That's war!")If you have the Boomerang channel, you'll see it if you record it a few times.

So today, we...(Hang-on!), IT was decided the Hogwallops needed to deal with the meeces as Mrs. H was seeing them outside rather frequently and (although I'm going out on a limb with this blanket statement) freaked all girly-style with the heeby-jeebies, cooties and whatever else makes your skin curl and crawl... and said we MUST get rid of them!

Ah, BUT wait! We cannot kill them. Oh NO! That would be too cruel! Besides, traps means trouble for the dogs, Thing 2, the Mrs. puts her foot down.

"C'mon, it only takes one snap in the snot-locker and the doglies would leave the traps alone.", I protest.

"No, and no poison either!" So we're on a scavenger hunt for 'humane' mouse-traps.

And we find, The Tomcat live catch mouse trap. Nifty little thing, but it only catches one mouse at a time. Which means we have to dispose of (we only purchased two) of the meeces two at a time. So we take a drive out to a field upon catching our first pair.

Mrs. Hogwallop is freaking out the whole time in the car and pushing me as far to the other side as possible and whincing and getting girly-squeamish and I hold the traps in my hands motioning (you know, boy torture) that I'll drop them in her lap...

We stop next to the field, and I pop the lid open then holding the base, snap my wrist so it flings and ejects Mouse 1 and Mouse 2 into the field - they'll probably die by morning (a nice head fracture or whatever... I don't care what happens to them. I wanted to kill them in the first place, remember?)

So two weren't enough and we head out again to the Home depot to find traps that will hold 5-6 at a time. So we've set them up and we could have a nice harvest tomorrow morning...

Danger Mouse will be coming to seek his revenge.... on us! It's just a matter of time...

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

At the Hogwallops... So much to say, not sure if I should have done 2 separate posts, but I'm too lazy...

So this weekend, we finally finished painting the kitchen and the monster-wall. The paint color is "utterly beige" - isn't that sweet?

The wife re-did the artsy stuff above the cupboards...

and the more interesting part of our weekend...

My wife has a new name. No No, we're not divorcing... I believe she has earned the name of: Mrs. Dr. Doolittle

Why? Because we go from 1 animal, to 2, to now 3...

Well, let me just tell you... Someone decided to dump a little kitty in our backyard. Now this really couldn't be the cat that just decided to be in our backyard. That is just wrong - a death-wish for a cat to jump in our yard... So we think someone gave it the heave-ho.

"Dawg" - our new kitty

Secretly this must be what the kitty is thinking...

And now, the funny: The dogs love playing with the kitty and the kitty just goes along with whatever. On Sunday, my wife told me she saw Koda have her whole mouth around the kitty's head. Just playing... Well they seem to be bosom buddies.

So if you know anyone in need of a kitty...

This morning, my wife IM's me to say that the The Good (Timber), The Bad (Koda), & The Ugly (Not sure what to call the kitty - so I'm going with "DAWG" until Thing 1 comes up with a better name) were playing so hard, and affecting her sleepy time so much, that finally, she shut them out of our bedroom last night.
I told her maybe it was time to 'thin the herd'. She busted up laughing...

Freaky Friday

The house is a wreck because we're painting the kitchen - and those that have seen our high vaulted ceiling you understand how insane it really is to get it painted...

So Thing 2 is playing around the house. He really likes to get into things that aren't his. I think it might be his favorite thing of all...

He loves both Thing 1's play makeup and mommy's real stuff... And this seems to happen quite frequently - Thank goodness for child locks (but they're only good when they are being used...)

So this morning I'm in an out of the house trying to get stuff done. Mommy say's "Hey mister, Thing 2 is all yours, I'm not feeling well and am going to go nap."

"But...", I protest, of course it doesn't get me anywhere...

Anyway I call out my boy's name every couple of minutes to check where he is and to see what he might be getting into.

I do this about 11 am and I don't hear anything. No response so I start walking around the house. No sight of the boy. There are ladders in the kitchen and the table is blocking my ability to get out back, so I go out the front and open the side gate, walk around and still no sight of my boy. I panic. I go up to my sleeping wife and say, I've lost the boy. I'm going to walk around the block just to see if I find him.

The weather isn't terribly cold, but it is still cold and I'm certain Thing 2 wouldn't have either shoes or a coat on if he did happen to sneak out front without my noticing...

I walk all around our mini block and over to our neighborhood park looking out for little foot prints in the snow packed throughout the neighbor's yards and still... Nothing.

I am a wreck and cannot figure where he might have gotten himself. I come inside and quickly head upstairs... I'm about to awake the sleepy wife and then I come back downstairs to think where he could possibly be. I notice this lump on the couch..


Peacefully asleep. Whew!!!!

Dough-boy!

Thing 2 got busy with the flour!

Oh and by the time he was done, he had mixed enough saliva to make little dough balls. Aren't I cute?

It's Potty Time

Superbowl Sunday and I'm feeling it's man-time. To the family this just means daddy wants to be a little selfish (you know leave me alone, so I can enjoy some quality football).

Good game. Nice to not see a blowout...

Meanwhile, since I was hogging the family room television, The rest of the fam-damily was upstairs hanging out. Thing 1 was watching Drake & Josh or iCarly....(gag) and I can hear mom wrestling with Thing 2 to change his diaper.

All of a sudden, I hear her scream, "No, Koda!


She is now preoccupied with cleaning up the puppy pee, when nekked boy decides he wants to pee, too! All over his bed.

Now the most famous peeing boy, at least that comes to my mind is in Brussels, Belgium - The Mannekin PisThat was the mental picture as I asked what was going on. This Belgian website shows several of the many costumes they put on the statue, as well as background, history, etc.

So, there you go, a funny story and some culture, too. All in one.