I'm getting old. I forgot to wish Perkins a

Happy Frickin' Birthday!!!

kicks pot stash under the couch

My pot stash is under the oven with the casserole pan stash.

OH! THAT kind of pot.

I've never had to kill a mouse before. I've had to capture escaped hamsters and guinea pigs. And once I helped a neighbor get a badger out of her basement.

Then again, I'm weird about animals. In Wisconsin, I saw the freakiest ones every day. In Australia, where animals consider biology textbooks to be "what not to do" guidelines, I'm only seeing mosquitos and magpies. Not even one little spider.

My first year after college I shared a house with four other women of the classes of '92 and '93. The place was mouse-infested, and somehow it happened that of the five of us, I was the least squeamish. This meant that I had to dispose of all the dead mice once the traps got them.

Should've faked the squeamishness better.

Madrigal, in Australia, it's the spiders you don't see that cause the problems. Errr, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

Hugs and ~ma to all the Bitches.

Happy Birthday, Perkins.

I made her a pot roast two weeks ago.

But not in the "changed her into" sense.

I prefer beef, fish and poultry for my stews.

Methinks he doth protest too much. His mom left rather suddenly while I was at work the other week. Supposedly she left a note. But do I know it was really her handwriting? She left behind a surprising amount of her belongings....

I just saw an ad on tv that said that "you" have a right to own their brand of SUV. I know it's just a commercial, but I so very much hate how commercials (primarily) and life in general keep harping on all the trivial things that we deserve to have or have a right to have. It's so frustrating, because so many seem to care more about deserving an SUV than deserving the right to privacy or free speech. I think that this waters down the meaning of the words, making things that people really do deserve, making rights that they should have, on the same level as a car, or makeup, or whatever. And, on the other side, it gives us a sense of entitlement for things that we don't need, that we didn't even want last week. Argh!

it's the spiders you don't see that cause the problems.

Oh, crap, is there some invisible species of uber-venomous redback they just don't tell people about? I mean, I knew about all the dangerous stuff here before I moved, but then, I also saw that most of the country manages to survive from year to year, so it seemed more like one of those college courses where you just have to be in the upper 75% to survive....then again, they do have all those citizenship ads on TV, and there's the thing about the government giving people money to procreate....

Or maybe it's not the spiders at all that's resulting in them needing so many new people every year.

Maybe......vegemite is people!

Oh, crap.

Almanzo just bought some yesterday.

Nutrition supplement question for the hive-mind:

Here's the situation - I have a potassium deficiency, no insurance, not a heck of a lot of money, and a prescription potassium chloride tablets that costs $40ish per month to fill. This supplement provides in the neighborhood of 1,500mg of potassium per maximum daily dose. I can blow through upwards of 10,000mg on a hot Arizona day, and somewhere between 5-7,000 on an average Minnesota day. In addition to taking the supplements I liberally sprinkle salt-substitute, which is made from potassium chloride onto everything I eat and about half the stuff I drink (salty cocoa, anyone?). It has been brought to my attention that a 40lb sack of potassium chloride pellets for use in water softeners cost less than $10. Daniel says he believes these pellets could swallow-able if cut in half. How bad an idea would this be?

Oh, crap, is there some invisible species of uber-venomous redback they just don't tell people about?

Not that I am aware of. I was just thinking about some Discovery Channel show that highlighted the perils of not checking your shoes before sticking your feet in them. I for one would probably die from a stupid spider bite if I spent time in Australia, because I rebelliously gave up the habit of shoe-checking in Arizona the second time I had a scorpion join me in bed.

WindSparrow, I'd be really cautious about ingesting water softener KaCl.

Although water softener pellets may be made from food grade salt, the pellet press process, itself, does not meet the criteria required to call the finished pellets "food grade". Therefore, direct application of pellets in food processing is not recommended. Other water softening salt products like solar salt, rock salt and brine blocks are not recommended for food application for the same reason.

[link]

This may be true as well for potassium chloride pellets.

Morton brand water softener claims that they use no resin or binders in the process of making the pellets, but still.