February 24th - 27th, 2012

While in Rothenburg, Daniel and I saw many creepy German things, including many creepy dolls. So, it seemed only fitting that we take home a creepy/awesome carved German doll. February 24th:

Meet Benito, the creepy German pirate. He lives on our shelves, frequently trying to commandeer the couch and sword fight with the people in the picture frames.

On the 25th it came to my attention that Barnacle was filthy, so we cleaned him.

Here he is, soaking and clean, and unable to get out of the bathtub.

The dog has the long legs of a horse and he can't hoist himself over the side of the tub, it's amazing. He's the dopiest dog, ever.

"I want an X-Box, I want an X-Box. I WANT AN X-BOX."

This is all I have been hearing for weeks. My husband, who plays with electronics for a week and then lets them collect dust, wanted an X-Box.

So, on the 26th...

He bought his friend's old one - which was the only way I was giving into his X-Box addiction.

Plus, you get a bonus Barnacle nose.

Finally, today, I remembered why I didn't want a dog.

Barnacle ate my favorite shoes. Which just so happen to be my only work shoes.

Today sucks.

February 21st - 23rd, 2012

Bootstrap has been decidedly needy when it comes to snuggling. During one of our more recent snuggle sessions, on the 21st, I documented one of his quirks, which actually has nothing to do with behavior but more to do with genetics.




























He gets bags under his eyes when he's tired. Or, rather, his eyes get red-rimmed when he's tired. Regardless, Bootstrap is weird.

On the 22nd, my pets were both weird, again. What a change of pace.

Here they are as they look out the window. Apparently there was something very interesting off to the left.

Finally, today, we actually explored Germany a little bit.

We went to Rothenburg and spent the day museuming. Yes, that is now a word.

We went to the crime museum and looked at chastity belts, we went to the Christmas museum and discovered creepy, crude nutcrackers, and finally went to the doll museum and were altogether creeped out the entire time.

We also managed to get a decent picture of ourselves and have a nice day.

February 20th, 2012

Today I was feeling a little stir crazy. The dog was following me everywhere, whining. The cat was chasing me around attacking my feet. I couldn't even enjoy Keeping Up With the Kardashians because of them. So, finally I threw my hands in the air and yelled "I need to get out of the house!" to no one, because I was alone with my animals.

Anyway, I figured I'd go to downtown Ansbach to walk around and get some fresh air. I didn't know that it's carnival time, called "Fasching" but I figured it out pretty quickly.

When I got into the square I was greeted by a lot of noise and children running around. I thought it was odd because it's a Monday, and while I understand it's presidents day, I didn't think Germans particularly cared about American democracy.

As I walked on I saw a lot of people in face paint, wigs, and altogether silly costumes. I walked into rain showers of candy being thrown and finally I stumbled upon this performance. I can only assume the man on stilts is a clown or comic of some sort, he bounced around to the drum circles beats, dancing and tapping along on his shield. It was entertaining if not a little confusing for an outsider.

I get really annoyed with living in Germany a lot of the time, I don't like being away from my family, I miss the food and the shopping and just everything. But, I never would have walked around downtown Des Plaines and stumbled onto something like this. It's pretty cool getting to know a different culture.

Either way, it got me out of my stomping rut this morning.

February 17th - 19th, 2012

On the 17th there was a grizzly murder scene in our apartment.

I bought this rhino for $3.99 at the PX, in hopes that Barnacle would love him forever. He lasted for about 30 minutes in our house before he was dismembered. Barnacle loved him at first, but then he felt the need to rip out his heart, or squeaker, and leave his guts strewn about my living room.

On the 18th, I left the laundry room door open for literally two minutes.

And of course Bootstrap was in the dryer, laying on my work clothes. I don't understand his fascination with going into any open door, or hiding in any possible hidey hole, but I can't leave doors unattended in my house anymore and not expect him to be in them.

Finally, today.

I thought I'd remind my reader(s) that I have another pet. I coerced Barnacle into taking a picture by holding a treat above the camera, and I just happened to get this picture of him sticking his tongue out, it made me laugh- so it's the picture of the day.

February 13th - 16th, 2012

On the 13th I opted to take a picture of my cat doing something normal cats do. Not hiding in the sink or bathtub, not flopping into dog food bags, not getting his head stuck in a kleenex box.

And he still manages to have a little bit of crazy eye.

But, he looks cute.

Finally, Daniel and I had a very awesome Valentine's day date.

This was at the very end of the night. Notice the smiles - it was a good Valentine's day.

Anyway. The 15th I documented my car air freshener.

Note that the freshener balls are frozen, thus proving that it is cold as balls here.

Finally, today, just in case you were longing for a weirdo cat picture.

Earlier in the day, we caught Barnacle with a red potato in his mouth, now we only have two potatoes for our pot roast tomorrow. But, the good news is that the mystery is solved as to how Barnacle ended up with said potato.

Also, today I yelled this: "Stop playing with the potatoes!"

I never thought that day would come.

February 10th - 12th, 2012

A side effect of it being fucking freezing out is that the snow is sticking and any body of water is freezing over. Case in point: the 10th.

This picture is a little creepy on my part, but it was the only way to capture the Charlie Brown scene enfolding outside my window.

There's a river across the street from our building, and it turns out people ice skate on it when it freezes. So, for the past week or so, I've been treated to a live action opening scene of "It's Christmas, Charlie Brown" when I look out the window.

I have no desire to join the skaters. I do not enjoy slippery surfaces, and I enjoy falling on my ass even less. But, it does feel like Christmas when I look outside now, more so than it did two months ago when it actually was Christmas. Go figure.

On the 11th I learned not to look a Curtain Horse in the mouth.

A woman who was staying at the hotel offered up her used curtains to me for free. She told me that she was throwing them away and would rather they go to someone who could use them. We've been living here for 10 months now and only have one set of curtains, so I took the trash bag of linen.

I got them home and went through them and only found two sets that I could put up. I don't have much of a design scheme, but orange and yellow aren't my favorite colors, so those got discarded. Anyway, I took the turquoise ones and a white set. I put the white set up in the living room, because they're see-through and no one can really look into the living room anyway, and I put the turquoise sets up in the bedrooms.

I'm very grateful to my curtain fairy, because now we have privacy in our bedroom, where we only had semi-privacy before. Plus, we layered the curtains and it would appear that double curtains almost equals blackout curtains, which comes in handy when my husband is working the overnight shift and sleeping until 2 pm.

Also, that is Bootstrap being a creeper.

Finally, today, the perennial question must be asked...

BOY OR GIRL!??!

I've been seeing these signs for weeks, and wanting a picture of one for the same amount of time. I'm under the assumption that it is a politician. I also assume that this is a transgender individual, but perhaps I am wrong.

Seriously, I've been studying this picture for weeks, and I can't figure out if it is a pretty man or an ugly woman. Furthermore, if you were to just look at his/her eyes, she appears very angry and/or evil. But his/her mouth is smiling. It's a conundrum for sure.

I've never come across a political poster more confounding.

February 9th, 2012

My faithful blog reader(s), today you get two bonus pictures. Even bigger bonus: they're of my cat. You see, he followed me into the bathroom when I was going to take a bath, and I decided to be nice and let him stay. This is what happened:

I think he lasted maybe a total of 5 minutes in the bathroom with me. He spent a lot of that time leaping at the tub, as you can see.

Once, he actually made it onto the ledge. He very quickly pirouetted off after he realized that should he fall, he would be immersed in water.

This watery peril, however, did not deter him from continuously bobbing up and down like a gopher and trying to play with me while I was trying to relax in the tub. I just imagine him asking "what're you doing? why are you in there? why aren't you playing with me?"

After a few minutes I got tired of it and dripped over to the door to kick him out, where he batted at the vent on the bottom of the door for the rest of the hour I was in the tub.

My animals are freaks.

February 6th - 8th, 2012

Nothing really happened on the 6th, besides being tired and then going to work. So, before bed I took a picture of the only, yes the only, picture I have ever seen of my husband as a child.

Well I guess he's more of an adolescent in this picture, but you get the idea. So, first of all, I am very sad that the army has hair cut requirements, because I so badly wish he could grow his hair out like that again, to a shaggy blonde almost-mullet.

Almost-mullet aside he looks a lot like he used to, minus the baby fat and goofy expression. I keep this picture on the fridge because 1) it makes me laugh, and 2) it makes me laugh.

Also, I'm sure Daniel will be very happy that this picture has made it onto the internet. You're welcome, sugar.

On the 7th! I have apparently not learned my lesson about leaving diet coke in the car when it's below freezing.

I walked into the car to see this diet coke explosion. A few years back I had a similar diet coke fiasco, but it was an explosion of a 24-pack. Actually, I think I have a picture from that year's 365. Here:

That was two years ago January, and that was a way bigger mess than this one was. But, it seems I did not learn my lesson completely since I'm having a little bit of deja vu goin' on.

That being said, I haven't left any 12 packs or 24 packs in the car this year to let them freeze and explode in the trunk, though I have been sorely tempted because I hate lugging them up 3 flights of stairs.












Onward! Finally! Today!

Here is Bootstrap - being a creeper.

Not much more to say about that.

February 3rd - 5th, 2012

Barnacle is a very opportunistic dog. February 3rd:

Bootstrap had a clumsy moment which led to this one. He was in a frenzy to get to the milk I poured for him, and lets just say he's not the world's most graceful jumper. Anyway, his food dish went flipping through the air after he landed on it at an awkward angle and it landed belly up on the kitchen floor - that's where Barnacle comes in.

At least this time he had a legitimate reason to eat Bootstrap's food. Any food left on the floor is fair game for the dog, everyone knows that. But, Barnacle usually prefers standing at the counter when no one's looking and scarfing all the kitten food.

This is the dog who won't eat his own food unless he's starving. Apparently kitten food is delicious.

On the fourth Bootstrap got into one of his Bootstrap situations.

He got trapped by a plastic bag - like a pigeon in the garbage.

Bootstrap's favorite thing to do is crawl around in plastic bags. I accidentally left one on the table and he decided it was fair game. I gave him a few minutes of wrestling with it before walking over, and when I did this is what I saw.

First I ascertained that he wasn't choking and then I took a few pictures before letting him out. Am I a great pet parent or what?

Finally, today is a shrine to my ear drama.

Long story short, I woke up at 4:45 am to a clogged ear and freaked out. The pressure got pretty intense and it really fucking hurt. My ear is still sore from everything I tried to do to pop it, which included Q-Tips, a hair dryer, a lot of ear plugging and ear pulling, and finally hanging upside down like a bat.

True to form I assumed it would stay clogged for weeks (thanks to google search horror stories), and that I'd just have to get used to the pressure/half deafness. But, eventually I fell asleep, some of it must have drained, and I woke up, pressed a pressure point outside of my ear, and it popped.

It was a hellish ordeal, I'm surprised I have the strength to tell it.

/dramatics

January 30th - February 2nd, 2012

Lately I've had an obsession with pasta salad. This isn't really a new obsession, but randomly I decide to make buckets of it and live off of it for a week. Well, it turns out my husband likes it, too.

So much so that on the 30th he left the spoon in the pasta salad after scarfing some.

I admit, I have to stop myself hogging all the pasta salad. As a fat kid, I'm very territorial over my food. I have a hard time sharing popcorn at the movies. You see where this is going. Anyway, Daniel basically feels the need to ask for permission any time he wants some pasta salad, so perhaps in his frenzy at "stealing" my pasta salad he left the spoon in it and tucked it away in the fridge. But I caught him. Mwahahahaha.

On the 31st I had another gentleman caller.

He was literally under the covers, snuggling.

He's crazy, but he's also cute. Sometimes.

The first I featured a common household object.

A foil ball.

Basically, I have an issue with hershey kisses. The issue being: I love them. After I devour a few or fifty, I roll all the wrappers up into foil balls. The only problem is that Bootstrap loves to bat them around, so while I'm rolling up the foil wrappers he tends to attack me/the foil ball.

I'm sure that the next time we get to cleaning under the couch, there will be quite a few foil balls.

Finally, today.

It's cold as balls.

I can't even begin to describe how much it sucks to have inclement weather when you have to walk your dog forty-five times a day. Especially when that dog takes his damn time going to the bathroom.

Let's just say, it wasn't an awesome day, dog-wise.