With great power comes great responsibility

This is a tale of courage, valor and local government.

For the past year, a basketball net at a local park has gone from drooping to ripped to missing. Husband likes to shoot hoops and in addition to his whining, it has made my job as bystander/throwing-the-ball-back-er much more trying.

Inspired by the show Parks and Recreation--and by that I mean, thanks to the show I now understand that such a department exists and that they do stuff--I sent an email to ours

To whom it may concern, 

 

The basketball net on the near basketball court next to the Navy Yard field (next to the Sons of Italy) has been broken for a few months. I'm wondering whether the Parks and Rec. department would be able to repair this? If there is someone else I should contact about this, please let me know. 

 

Thank you, 

Jessie

 

It turns out, that there IS indeed another department to be contacted about this

 

Jessica,
The department responsible for repair of equipment is the Land
Facilities and Natural Resourses Division.
The Supervisor is ___________.  His phone and email are below;
_____________
##########
Good Luck.

 

I thanked Parks and Rec. for their prompt reply, but was also slightly put off by the "Good Luck" at the end.

 

 

I sent the exact same email to the "Land Facilities and Natural Resources Division", but did not hear back.

 

 

However, a week later.....

 

 

 

 

 

BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!
 

Paint-your-own-calico

Recently my friend and I went to the clay room for painting our own pottery. I chose the cat-bank (duh.) and she chose the delicate pretty vase. The clay pieces themselves range in price, mine was $11. The painting process costs only $8 and you may literally sit there for hours (we did). Plus you get help from Doug, the owner, who reccomends color schemes, certain brushes, and the order of which to put certain colors on. Oh and he fixes any devastating mistakes you make like a runny pupil on my cat, for example.


Obvs, I documented my progress.

My color palet. Clearly I'm making my cat a calico.


How it starts

No more than 24 hours later, Jamie got to pick them up as they were all kilned-up and ready to go. We were nervous because the colors and junk look different after they are fired so it's hard to know if you've made weird splotch marks or poor color choices until the final product. Suspensful!

Of note, mine turned out perfectly. Thank you.

And in another anachronistic move, I will be saving for my European vacation by dropping change in my paint-your-own cat bank.

Sh!t just got real

Nuni and I go up to the attic every morning (~6am) and every evening (~6pm) to get our quality play time in. If any of these play sessions are skipped, all hell will break loose in the form of a bored kitty with unending meowing and scratching our nice things.

Nuni loves fake mice, endearingly called "mouse-ys" in our house. She has a wide variety of colors, but grey in her favorite. Our play time consists of me throwing them across the carpet and her chasing them. Here is a typical play (soon to be called "training" sessions) session.

If Nuni is not playing with a mousey, she usually just hangs out with them like this

"Hey mousey, say hello to yo' motha for me"

But just the other day, husband spied Nuni like this

I've enlarged this so you can get a good view of her face plastered against the wall. Adam knew she was not hunting for any regular mousey! SHIT JUST GOT REAL!

Finally! Nuni had her chance to put all of her years of training into action!

 

Unforutunately (only for Nuni), she was not able to smite the mouse and it cleverly whirred past her and hid under the stove. I'm pretty sure it's still there. 

Poor Nuni has been looking in the same spots for the last two days with no understanding that perhaps the real mousey moved to another hideout. Until she figures this out, I will continue to train her night and day--wax on, wax off.

Flying fish and bindle sticks. Or, things that don't exist.

There is a hike off of the Kancamagus highway in New Hampshire that I've now hiked a total of three times in my life. The third time being last week. The hike is an easy grade 4ish miles round trip that takes you to The Greeley ponds.

The first time I hiked this, I was young and was just with my dad....So, circa 1998. We both remember the ponds as serene, clear and loaded with flying fish that were going crazy pants and constantly jumping all over the place and making splashes.

The second time I hiked this trail, I was a little older and this time we included the mom and the brother. We literally never made it to the ponds and ended up bushwacking back down to the highway because we got lost in the woods. None of us can understand how this happened, particurlarly after the hike last week which confirmed that there is no way that we could have lost the trail.

So, finally, last week, I went back with the husband with the hopes of proving to him that the Greeley ponds are the most beautiful thing ever and have silly amounts of flying fish.

I took pictures along the way just in case we never made it to the pond, so that I'd at least have documentation of seeing something.

 

Look, its water, could this be it?

Maybe!? WHO KNOWS, IT MIGHT NOT EVEN EXIST.

Yea, totally, this could be it. I think we made it.

So, there you have it. A) It exists B) Still serene C) The Greeley Pond flying fish are a shared delusion between my father and I.

In other news, husband and I went on the hobo railroad and paid extra to get a hobo lunch that was promised to be served ON A BINDLE STICK. ON A BINDLE STICK.

But this is how lunch actually ended up coming

HOW CAN I BE EXPECTED TO EAT A TURKEY SANDWICH WITHOUT A BINDLE STICK????? I WAS TOLD THERE'D BE A GODDAMN BIN...

Oh, fine. 

Important to note: We were each given two options: a bindle stick or a little reusable-bag-style backpack. Adam thought it'd be a good idea to get a backpack--which in my opinion, is actually a bad idea.

(C)action shots

What I mean to say is cat-action shots.

It's been far too long between posts about my cat and this is beginning to disturb me. The following are some ACTION SHOTS of Nuni. She's so wild!

First, this is Nuni trying to play during th 95-degree weather in an apartment with no AC

For a reprieve from the weather, we took a little trip to the mountains. This is Nuni being belligerent on the car ride

Nuni enjoyed all of the condo's amenities



Nuni! No watching television on vacation!

Hangin' out with her moose friends (/alien eyes)

Apparently, Nuni thinks the "two-paw" (on the table) rule is null and void on vacation. I only permitted this because, omg how beatiful does she look??

Bang(s) goes the fourth

One of my--and the other 3-16 year olds that attend my family's fourth of July celebration--favorite parts of the holiday are playing with the little poppy things. I don't have a good photo of the actual thingy but it's essentially a pea size white paper casing over some mini explosive stuff. These are used to make mildly loud popping noises and to have wars against each other by throwing them at others' feet.

Ah yes, that's the name I was looking for, "Party Snaps: throwdown!".

Also,  if you use them as instructed, they produce bang or bangs, depending (depending on what exactly? depending on if I'm lame and use a single poppy verus multiple?)

Look at how much fun the children are I am having!!!!!!

My next favorite thing about the fourth of July is the parade that goes past my house at 9am. It starts off with police cars followed by every fire engine from every town within 20 miles, all honking their hornes and using their sirens. Hilarious. There are also flat bed trucks with bands; local politicians handing out their brochures and shaking my hand; small children from various organizations throwing dum-dum lollipops at us; unicyclists....Oh, and land sharks.

Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose

There was this ghetto vintage vanity set sitting on the street by our neighbor's driveway last week and I like free things so I thought about maybe taking a look at it. By the time I did, the little stand with the mirror on it was gone, but the nasty stool was left. So...I grabbed it.

My initial thought was that I could put plants on it inside by a window or something. But, the stool was in rough shape--the seat's fabric was discolered and old looking and the whole thing was wobbly. Husband helped me brainstorm and we decided to remove the fabric and just tighten all the screws, and we were left with an OK stool

The wood was a little gross looking, but it was easier to use what was already there than find a new piece of wood or something else and cut it down to that size. So, we decided to buy paint (!!!-this was exciting for me) and make it look pretty.

Oooh, ahhhh. And then we bought some beautiful flouw-flouws

Also notice our cat gazeebo and tiki torches on our porch...................