Our Dirty Little Secret

Folks, It's hot in Austin. And dry, very dry. In fact, it's so dry that that Lake Travis has reached new lows that now include the revealing of old cars that were surely part of mysterious crimes and drunken nights 20 years ago. It's so hot and dry that we're all on water restrictions. These things are to be taken seriously, people. I've heard of the water police coming by and handing out $500 tickets for auto-sprinklers spraying lush yards on off-days. It's so hot and dry that the "crap" grass that we've been trying to kill so that the ever-thirsty St. Augustine would grow all over the yard has finally died on it's own. So has the St. Augustine, unfortunately. It's hot and dry, y'all.


It's so hot and dry, that the roaches are coming in. That, my friends, is just the beginning of our dirty little secret.


When we moved in here 4+ years ago, we decided to have quarterly pest control. Though I do not like the idea of toxic chemicals surrounding my house, the alternative was worse to me. The prior residents of this here house weren't bothered much by rodents, or smoke or dingy curtains or florescent lights either, but that's a different story. When we moved in, there were a few bugs more than I could handle. So, the quarterly pest control. We paid for pest control for a year, felt like it worked, and decided to stop forking out hard-earned cash for bug killer. This sort of scares me as we ceased treatment over 3 years ago, but the toxins seems to still be working on the little buggers.


Our house has become a roach graveyard.


Their little bodies can be found every morning around the house. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but we have found at least six in the past month or so.


I, being of the easily grossed-out nature, do not like picking up roach carcasses. KP, being annoyed at my inability to pick up a dead little bug, has decided to leave them where they lie. This is quite unpleasant for me. I have (don't tell KP) begun picking them up, either with a full roll of paper towels secured tightly around my hand or with the vacuum. But there's one that I am refusing to touch. It's on his side of the bathroom, beneath his vanity. We're going on day 3.

Okay, that's disgusting. I am going to arm myself with the vacuum right now and suck up KP's new best friend (and whatever guts he let out before he died). And then I might bleach the area. Hey, we're into toxins, remember...they at least kill the roaches before they come in our house to croak.

Little Sistered

My little sis doesn't know this, until know, but we call getting better dealed, Little Sistered. Really, we use her name and add an -ed on the end. KP's the one responsible for the adage. It all began on a trip to Houston. We called Little Sis on the drive to see what she was up to that night. She told us that her datebook had been cleared to hang out with her favorite sis and bro-in-law (ha!), but then hours later she called to say that some better option had come up and she would see us the next day. We discussed this with my peeps and my Dad said that Little Sis is notorious for better dealing. I mean, I get that a girl's got to look out for her own best interests, but you would think not wanting to get smothered by your older sibling for ditching her might be near the top of the list.

KP and I are currently in the process of being Little Sistered by our ferrel cat, Scrappy, otherwise known as Kitty. Scrappy has been around for about a year and a half. I started feeding him when the owner of the clutter-filled house across the street decided to clean out his garage. Mice became a neighborhood norm and I got the wise idea that Scrappy might just kill those little displaced rodents. Right I was! Scrappy is gnarly and scarred, but he's a hunter all the same and protects me from the need to get on top of furniture and shriek as I try to figure out how to save my soul from a one-inch-long animal.

For a little over a month, Scrappy's appearances have become more disparate. At first I was convinced that he must have gotten himself locked in someone's garage because when he did show up, he was nothing but a meowing bag of starving bones. He'd drink a bowl of milk, eat a can of wet food, and a bowl of dry food all in one sitting. I actually felt sorry for the vocal little guy (or girl?). That was until I caught a glimpse of him over at my in-laws house a street away. He was gallivanting around with a feline I had not seen. When he saw me, he pretended not to even know me. The nerve.

In the meantime, this kind of cute white and grey cat started hanging around our house. Two days ago, KP and I decided we might as well feed that one, since it seems to appreciate our shade and bowls of water. But, Scrappy must have caught wind of the changes over here at the Pac house. He knew we were on to his little sistering and wasn't going to stand for our fair weather dedication to him. He came back last night, with a vengeance like nothing I have seen since the morning after we last got better dealed by little sis. He meowed on the porch for about 30 minutes at 11 o'clock last night, until I got up to feed him. Then, this morning at 7 am, the crazy cat started the process of defending his front porch from the cute kitty. He made no apologies for his absence, but instead claimed his place and told that other cat to eff off, these are his people, and his toughness allows him to choose when the hell he feels like gracing them with his presence.

What we have been up to...

The pictures below are from the Byman/Kiel wedding in Marshall, TX two weeks ago. As usual, I am a terrible photographer and I took NO pictures of the bride and groom, except one blurry one of their first dance. It was a beautiful daytime wedding, which if you ask me, is the way to go. Check out the Byman Blog for some better pics.

Cool Steve.

Baby Dave and Sue Sue.

Lukers with Daisies.

The Kiels first dance.

Us.

Davis tearing up daisies...he was playing "she loves me, she loves me not."

The car-load on the was to Shreveport, LA.

Davis' serious face.

Sweet Baby Dave.

Wait, what's this? Is something missing. Damn straight. A big TV used to hang there on the wall. With it was taken my sense of security and faith in mankind. Ok, that's going overboard a little bit. We were burglarized on Monday during the day. I came home to a busted open back door, missing TV and DVD player, broken sculpture, freaked out dogs, and still cool house. Not fun at all. That's all I will say about this on the blog. Oh, except that we are now alarm owners.