Category Archives: Funny/Cool Stuff

Wiki-Huh? How to Build a Round Pen

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I am not naturally gifted when it comes to building things.

The thing is, that’s never been a big problem for me. I am really lucky in that my life is filled with naturally gifted builders/fixers. I’m surrounded by the contractor/mechanic version of those little old grandmas who hover over a stove and say, “Oh, you just throw spices in until it smells good,” and then they magically whip out a 7-course meal complete with duck a l’Orange.

Case in point: last summer The Bean picked up a car for cheap… which was good, because it broke on the way home. He clucked his tongue in disappointment, made friends with the tow truck driver, ordered the parts online, wheedled some other part from a random mechanic for about 10% of the cost it was supposed to be, and boom. We now have a second car that runs like a dream.

He did this on the weekends with all the planning and preparation I would give to making peanut butter sandwiches for dinner.

My stepdad is the same way. I asked him to look into helping me keep the goats off the porch and letting me know what hardware I should pick up to put together some kind of a barrier. I knew I could do it.  After all, I’d checked out a bunch of carpentry books from the library and was researching it online.  Still, it didn’t hurt to ask for help. He was so much better at it that I that I figured he’d be able to point me in the right direction without too much of a headache.

I left for work and came home a few hours later to a brand new absolutely stunning wood fence he’d put together from… I dunno.  Scraps and twigs and a little bit of spit?

Sometimes it’s disheartening being surrounded by savants.  I seem to come to building things the same way I came to cooking: I’m not gifted at it, but there’s enough recipes and cook books out there that I’m becoming good at it, through sheer determination. The good news is that the information is out there, and it turns out that if you follow the directions carefully, step by step, you can cook or build almost anything.

See, that’s the beautiful thing about the age we live in. Last summer we built a fence in our backyard.  Now, before I started I no idea how to put up a fence – but the information was out there. I checked out books from the library, and that gave me enough of an idea that I was able to look up actual search terms on the internet for better pointers. I watched a couple of YouTube videos, phoned a couple of contractor friends for pointers, and BOOM.  We built a fence, despite having no experience and an incredibly sloped backyard.

Maybe nobody is naturally gifted at building things, except for a rare few.  Maybe everyone is awful at first, but they quietly get better when they were young, and I just arrived to the scene late?

I’m not complaining.  I love the age we live in. The internet is wonderful (most of the time). If I were born in the 1950s I would have either had to hire someone or make do with whatever grainy photos I found in the one available book at the library.

Which leads me to the point of this post:

Sometimes you find information you find on the internet is so incredibly useful, you wonder how you lived without it.

And then sometimes you find Wiki-How.

Okay, maybe I’m throwing them under the bus unnecessarily. It’s not really Wiki-How that’s the problem – it’s more like it’s the Wiki-How pictures. I bet there’s already a Tumblr out there dedicated to them, somewhere. They’re that bad.

I’m not bashing the artists – the art is actually quite good, if unsettling at times. It’s just what they choose to draw that leaves me scratching my head.

The pictures are so, so incredibly useless when it comes to actually imparting information, it makes you wonder why they bother including them.

If you don’t believe me, let me show you an example.

I’m currently trying to decide which projects I can get done this summer before winter hits. I have a variety of things I need to do, althought not enough time or money to do it all. Our bottom acreage is not fenced – we could be saving money by letting the horses graze, but instead we’re mowing it and buying hay. That is frustrating to no end. I actually know what I need for this project, but it’s just a matter of actually getting the time, money, and lack of broken arm to do it.

The goats need to be moved out of the backyard. This one is a top priority – all we need is 8 holes, some fence posts, welded wire and a fence stretcher.  We’re going to separate out a small section of the horse paddock to do so.  I’m hoping to save up and buy the moveable electric fence so we can start strip grazing in the lower pasture and decimating the black berries, but that’s definitely on the back burner.

I need to either extend the horse’s stalls (bringing them out to 12 x 20 instead of 12 x 12, so they aren’t so cramped in winter) or I need to build a roundpen.  I can’t do another year of trying to work a baby horse in slop.

I’m thinking I’ll probably have to settle for extending the stalls, as it will be cheaper, but juuuuuust in case I’ve been doing a lot of research on building my own permanent roundpen .  In a perfect world I’d just buy a bunch of cattle panels and make my own, but even used panels are stupidly expensive so I’m researching how to build it from scratch. What materials are best? Which wood holds up best over the years in the damp Pacific Northwest Winter? How far apart do you put the posts? How big should it be for stride length without making it too big to be able to keep dry with sand, like I did with the paddock?

Etc, etc.

And thus I stumbled upon How to Build a Round Pen (with Pictures) on WikiHow.

All I can say is that thank heavens I speak English, because these pictures are….. I mean….. why? Why?!

 

Step 1: 
Stare pensively in the distance.  Are your sideburns square enough at the bottom?  Yes.  Yes, they are.  What about your delightfully full upper lip? It’s your best feature.  Should you try to emphasize it? How much duckface is too much duckface the first time ride with the guys? What if the other cowboys think you’re trying too hard? These are important questions. Also, why is there a shadow bird on the brim of your hat?  Is that your spirit animal?

 

 

Step 2: 
The right amount of duckface is a weighty concerns. You should contemplate it in the other direction, just to be safe. Contemplating to the right isn’t easy for you – you never were very limber in that direction.  Make sure your hat string is on tight for safety’s sake before you give it a go.

 

 

Step 3:
Measure the ground – nine inches worth of ground should be just about right.

 

 

Step 4:
Eww. Don’t measure that section of ground.  It looks…. alive.  No, don’t pet it! It probably bites.

 

 

Step 5: 
Now that’s a good question. What should your TInder username be? Think carefully.  You can never get a second chance to make a great first impression with the ladies.

 

 

Step 6:
I mean, you want to be confident, but you don’t want to seem like you’re insecure and overcompensating.

 

 

Step 7: 
Wait.  Wait, a second.  I thought we were supposed to be building a round pen.  Aren’t we supposed to be building a round pen?  Do those logs need an adult? 

 

 

Step 8:
Finally, a useful picture.  Dig a hole. Dig two of them.  Make sure you dig them on the…. yellowed fingernail clippings?  I guess they weren’t alive after all.  Before you use the post hole digger make sure you stuff your pink sweatpants into your oddly lumpy dancing boots. You musn’t dirty them.

 

 

Step 9:
Man, that was a useful picture, wasn’t it?  And that is a really well-drawn post hole digger, isn’t it? Better draw it from the other side, just to show off.  You want Wikihow to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.

 

 

Step 10:
This is sort of useful, knowing that soaking boards will help you to nail them on a slightly rounded structure (I read that in the actual Wiki post)….but it’s just not useful enough.  I see we’re soaking posts, but I still have questions.  Does the wood absorb the water so it’s the same as submerging the entire thing? Also, why are you soaking the round posts and not the boards?

 

 

Step 11:
Ta-da!  You’re done!  We definitely didn’t skip any steps along the way. If you can’t figure it out, that’s your problem, not ours. Also, it looks like you finished just in time,too.  The fingernail clippings are spreading at an alarming rate.  You do NOT want to get caught up in that mess.

 

 

Step 12:
Crap, you forgot a step!  That’s what went wrong.  You forgot to paint the boards.  It’s like Mama always used to say – a painting a day keeps the fingernail clippings away.

 

But wait…. there’s more!

What if, instead of building a round pen from scratch, you wanted to spend more money and buy metal panels that attach together on the ends and set them up in a circle?

I mean, the only confusing thing about a metal round pen is how much it is going to cost, and maybe how to get the first two panels to stand up on their own if you’re installing it by yourself. You probably don’t need any drawings. Panels are not exactly rocket science, even for the uninitiated.

Still, just in case you do need guidance, Wikihow is here to save the day:


Step 1: 
You just got out of that breakup with Chad, so you should probably get yourself out there… but man, is internet dating really worth it nowadays? Do you really want to put up with all those unsolicited pics again, every time you log in?  Also, has anyone seen your portable holes?  You swear you had them in your hand just a second ago.  They were right there, just before you adjusted your hat….

 

Step 2: 
Holy CRAP those pipe panels are expensive.   Well, there’s no help for it.  If you want a metal round pen, you’re gonna have to do it the old fashioned way.  Grow out your beard, boys. It’s time to rob a bank.

 

 

 

Step 3:
Oh, look.  They’ve arrived!  Well, that’s fairly straightforward.  They connect on the ends, right?Image titled Build a Round Pen Step 15

 

Step 4:
Ahhhh, I thought so.  That’s how they connect. That’s a great pic. I totally understand it – thanks!

 

Step 5:
…..I said I got it.  Seriously, now?  Now you’re going to get all technical and step-by-step? Because THIS is the step that seems confusing?

 

Step 7:
We’re just gonna put a happy little tree, right there.  It’ll be our little secret…

 

 

Speaking of secrets….. I am not going to admit to how much time I’ve spent looking at Wikihow pics recently.  Want to know something truly amazing?  This isn’t even the worst set of pictures I’ve found. Nope.  Not by a long shot. In fact, it’s not even close.

ADHD Test

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Thank you for calling our clinic!  Before you schedule your first appointment, please follow this link and create your Patient Portal Account.  We request you finish all steps before calling our clinic.

Step 1:  Fill out your name

Step 2:  Fill out your date of birth

Step 3:  Fill out all of your insurance information from the card you keep in your wallet – of course you totally know where your wallet is and you haven’t misplaced it, right?  You have?  Well, go find it. We’ll wait thirty minutes while you ransack the house and car.  Okay, do you have it?  Well, fill it in.

Step 4:  Fill out more information about…. about something.

Step 5:  No, for reals, go back and finish step 4.  You can’t skip it.

Step 6:  Do you have any new email?  You should check.

Step 7:  That’s not what Step 6 said.  Go back and check it again.  Speaking of checks, did that one check clear your bank yet?  Better go check it out before you bounce a check. Heh.  CHECK it out before you bounce a CHECK… was that a pun?   Is it a pun if you use the word “check” twice? No?  I wonder what that’s called?  Wait, follow through on the bank thing.  You really need to see if you have to transfer money.  If your account overdrafts The Bean’s gonna be mad.

Step 8:  Stupid.  You  were thinking of The Bean and accidentally logged into his account.  Log out and log back in to your own account.

Step 9:  We didn’t say log into Facebook – log into Wells Fargo.

Step 10:  Why are you logged into Wells Fargo?  Was there a reason? Man, the browser is slow – how long has it been since you closed it out and restarted it?  A day?  Two days?  And why do you have 19 tabs open at the same time?  Better close all tabs and restart it.

Step 11:  Wait!  Wait!  What happened to that thingie you were filling out?  CRAP.  It didn’t save.

Step 12:  Thank you for logging in to your Patient Portal Account.  We request you finish all steps before scheduling your first appointment.  Please fill out your name.

Step 13:  Fill out your date of birth.

Step 14:  Fill out your insurance informa—Wait… where did you put your wallet?  It was just here.

[Twenty-five minutes later]

Hooray!  Thank you for creating your Patient Portal Account!  Please click on the following link and answer some important questions before your appointment!


Step 1:  Please complete the ASRS-V1.1

Step 2:  What the heck is an ASRS-V1.1?  Better Google that.

Step 3.  Wow, cool.  Better Google that further.

Step 4:  Why do you have 17 tabs open already?  Close some of them.

Step 5:  CRAP – NOT THAT ONE….. too late.

Step 6:  Log in.  AGAIN.

Step 7:  Holy crap – how many survey/test thingies do they want you take?  There’s, like, 9 or 10 of these things.  Never mind, just click on one of them.  It doesn’t matter how many there are – just do one at a time.

  • Question 1: How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?
  • Question 2: How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?
  • How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?
  • How often do you make careless mistakes when you have to work on a boring or difficult project?  Never?  Rarely? Sometimes? Often? Very Often?
  • How often do you have difficulty keeping your attention when you are doing boring or repetitive work?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?












Step 8:  OMG, can you just focus?  For like 5 minutes?  Please?

  • How often do you have difficulty waiting your turn in situations when turn taking is required?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?
  • How often do you have difficulty concentrating on what people say to you, even when they are speaking to you directly?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?
  • How often are you distracted by activity or noise around you?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?
  • How often do you misplace or have difficulty finding things at home or at work?  Never?  Rarely?  Sometimes? Often? Very Often?

And now you know why I’ve never seen anyone for help with my ADHD.

Yay! Knott’s Berry Farm Again!

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I opened up my Gmail, saw the email that was waiting for me, and did a little happy dance.

On behalf of Knott’s Berry Farm, we are inviting a few “mom & family bloggers” and social media addicts, and their families, to enjoy the opening day of Knott’s Soak City on Sunday, May 20, 2012.  Be one of the first families that begin Summer of 2012 with great waterpark fun…

Yaaaay!  More free fun!

I immediately clicked open Gmail calendar, created the event, blocked out the whole day, and sent an invite to The Bean’s email address.

Twenty minutes later, I got a response:

Maybe?!

What the heck?

MAYBE?!  “MAYBE” to my free, all-expenses paid trip to Knott’s Soak City that I earned through the sweat of my blogging?  “MAYBE” to a fun-filled day at a water park that had a lazy river and a wave pool?  MAYBE to letting the boys enjoy a kiddy splash zone?  They were even going to prepare and serve us a free lunch a lunch—food, that I didn’t have to cook OR pay for!  MAYBE?

I immediately created another event and sent him the invitation:

“Becky is mean ALL day long to The Bean for not agreeing to go with her to Soak City”

Fifteen minutes later after I invited him to the new event, I received this notice:

Thaaaaat was more like it.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly until I realized:

Oh.  Crap.

I have to wear a bathing suit, don’t I?

Oh, double crap.

I have to go bathing suit shopping.

Seriously, is there any female over the age of 11 who actually likes to go bathing suit shopping?  If she says yes, she’s lying.  I’m still crossing my fingers that those 19th century head-to-toe bathing suits come back into style. 

I would totally rock one of those cotton, full-length babies.

Also, I like the fact that it would hide my mayonnaise-white legs.  You know, as a half-Mexican you would think I would have dusky, tawny gold skin, but nooooooo.  Apparently “absurdly pale” is a dominant gene.

By the way—Portland?  I can’t wait to meet you.  Rumor has it that you are full of people who are just as white as I am.  Do you have any idea how exciting this is to me? 

Anyways.  Moving on.

As dumb as it sounds, trying to find time to go bathing suit shopping is actually taking a bit of scheduling.  In addition to The Bean being in finals this week, we have a vaguely-realistic goal of trying to get the entire house packed up by Friday.  The moving trailer is dropped off this upcoming Tuesday the 22nd, The Bean graduates on Wednesday 23rd, and the trailer is picked up and shipped off to Portland on Thursday the 24th.

It is very, very busy in our house right now.

Earlier this afternoon, while driving down Pacific Coast Highway in the middle of Newport Beach, The Bean and I played juggle-the-schedule over the phone. 

As I crawled my way homeward in the slow traffic, I saw something that caught my eye.

Actually, it wasn’t something – it was someone.

This someone was a she, and she was GORGEOUS.

Seriously, Orange County, the scale is from 1to 10, not 1 to 15.

She was so perfect it was hard to peg her age – 20s?  Early 30s?

It wasn’t so much that she had the perfect body (which she did), it was the fact that she looked like she just stepped straight out of a commercial, or a movie, or some kind of high-class photoshoot.  Her outfit, her hair, her incredible mile-long legs balanced elegantly on high wedge heels… As she bent through the window of her spotless Mercedes convertible, reaching for something for something on the passenger seat, the soft, elegant folds of her skirt blew playfully in the wind.

Dude, I definitely don’t bat for the other team, but even I was craning my neck over my shoulder to get a second look.

As traffic pulled me past I happened to glance down and took stock of myself:

  • Size 14 Kohl’s skirt – slightly wrinkled.  Still covered in a small amount of cat hair from this morning.
  • Strangely-colored neon blouse that emphasized the pudgy tops of my arms.  Hey, what can I say… it was the first thing that jumped out at me when I raided my mom’s closet this morning (Note to self:  PLEASE, for the sake of your self esteem, PLEASE do some laundry tonight.)
  • Walmart “shoes” – I use the term “shoes” loosely.  They are sensible, unattractive, and were the cheapest shoes they had on sale at Walmart.  When you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel at Walmart, you know you’re sporting high fashion.

Feeling fat, frumpy, and vaguely overwhelmed, I heaved a heavy sigh into the phone.

“What’s wrong?” asked The Bean.

“You know,” I said bitterly.  “If you would just make tons of money, let me stay at home, and hire a nanny for the boys, I could spend all day at the gym, hire a professional trainer, and look absolutely smokin’ all the time.”

There was a brief pause, and I could tell The Bean was trying to figure out the proper response.  I’m sure between my tone,  the subject matter, and my absolutely ridiculous complaining, his little internal warning system was on full-scale alert.  DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!  DANGER, DANGER! Anything you say will probably be the wrong thing!

“Well, yeah.  But then again, if I were to go to prison and pump iron for two years, I’d probably come out all ripped,” he quipped.

I laughed out loud, and felt my tension ease.  +10 husband points for the perfect answer.

“Yeah, you’re probably right, Bean.”  I gave another laugh, then continued, thinking out loud.  “You know, I’ve never understood why they do that.  Why feed them healthy food, and give them work out equipment?

“Exactly, Becky.  After two years pumping iron, I’d probably look like that hamster off of Family Guy.”

I laughed again, and felt the last of my pity party melt away.  “You know, what they really ought to do is feed prisoners really fattening foods – like, every Tuesday is Twinkies Tuesday…. or Thursday is Thirsty Thursday – all you can drink weight-gainer ice cream shakes, with endless sodas – none of the diet ones, either.  Think about it – when they got out, if they decided to act out, they’d be so fat they really wouldn’t have the cardio capacity to do anything that bad, or run very far from the cops.”

I could feel myself getting on a roll – I was really onto something here.

“Think about it, Bean.  Instead of giving stocking the prisons with weight rooms and dumbbells, we could give install big TVs and order all the good shows.  Then we could get them all hooked on shows like Prison Break or Dexter.  They’d only have the weekends to do criminal activity – when  their buddies tried to get them to go out and rob a liquor store on Thursday nights, they’d be all, “Nooo!  I can’t!  I’ll miss Grey’s Anatomy!“

“Forget TV, Becky.  If you really want to solve the problem, get them all addicted to World of Warcraft.  You’d never seem them out of the house again.:

And that, dear readers, is why I still have no idea when I’m going to squeeze in bathing suit shopping before Sunday. 

It’s because The Bean and I single-handedly solved the  problem of repeat offenders, thus solving the issue of overcrowding in prisons.

You’re welcome.

Worst. Advice. Ever

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I just stumbled across a website with the worst “how-to” advice I’ve ever come across when it comes to horses. I’m pretty sure it’s just one of those weird ad-directed sites, but still.

It starts off decently enough…. although it’s kind of obvious English isn’t the writer’s first language:

Eventually it is the dream of all horse owners to ride on them but if you have aggressive horse, it becomes a frustrating problem for you to ride on it. Here in this site I am going to share some valuable tips and tricks for successful horse riding with you. These tips can be a part of your horse riding training as well. You have done your best to ride on your horse but you failed? Don’t worry! I am here to guide you in the best way to make your horse cooperative with you.

Oh, PHEW. They’re here to help me with my aggressive horse. Let’s dig into the handy advice!

“Friendship is All You Need.”

Say wha-aa–a-at? You know, my old thoroughbred Jubilee and I were great friends. Fantastic friends, even. But you know what? That didn’t stop him from spooking and trying to fling himself backwards off of drop offs every time he freaked out. Maybe we weren’t as good of friends as I thought…

“Friendship is all you need. First of all you and your horse must be compatible and comfortable with each other. Having horse is not enough. For this you will have to be a pet lover. This is the way you can have your horse ears picked, bright eyes and working well with you while you are thinking of horse riding. It is also necessary that your horse feel safe and comfort when you ride, stays calm in other animals and is bombproof.”

I love how they emphasize the pricked ears…. and then just kind of gloss over the rest, and throw “Have a horse who is bombproof” in there. Well, yeah, I guess that would help, wouldn’t it? And wait… where did this bombproof horse come from? Weren’t we dealing with an aggressive horse, just last paragraph?  Does anyone else feel like someone skipped a few pertinent steps somewhere?

Moving on.
 
“Be comfortable: Avoid wearing jeans or tight clothes while you are on riding because you can slip from the horse back.”

Well, duh. I mean, everyone knows that you wear loose yoga pants while riding, right? I have to admit, this bit of advice was kind of helpful. To think, the only thing that stands between me and Olympic rider status is the fact that I have been wearing jeans while riding.

“Squeeze your thighs to start riding and your horse will move on. You can scoot in the saddle to tell your horse that you want to move now.”

I’m getting a great mental image of someone “scooting in saddle” to try to urge a balky horse forward. I don’t know about you, but I’d pay good money to see that.

“Just know about leg or rein guide of your horse and have some practice with it to know whether your horse can follow leg commands or slow or turn with the rein.”

I can’t decide if this is the most down-to-earth or the least helpful advice I’ve ever read.

“Stop riding is not a hard task. Just pull on the rein to stop the horse. Pat the horse on neck and shows your happy feeling after it stops.”

I find it’s kind of helpful to break out into song after “pull on rein” to stop my horse. It helps me display “happy feeling” a little better.

And last but not least:

“Remember, your relationship with horse is most important to enjoy successful riding on it. You must trust it to make it obey you.”

It’s kind of like pixie dust, but with horses… just think trustful thoughts, and you and your horse are just seconds away from being the next Stacy Westfall!

I’d send you guys the link, but this is probably one of those sites that fills your computer with adware and viruses, just for clicking on it.

In other news……

Did you all see what Mugs mentioned in the comments of today’s post?  A Mugwump Bloggers Clinic with her and The Big K, some time in 2013?  In Montana?!  A whole weekend spent learning how to scoot in the saddle and helping me to display my happy feeling to my horse…all of this, packed in with getting to meet other bloggers and hanging around in freakin’ MONTANA?  (Yeah, sorry, I am kind of obsessed with Montana.)   I don’t know about the rest of you, but I kind of want to start packing my best “non-tight, non-jeans” clothes into a suitcase right now.

Dear Oregon/Washington peeps:  Hi.  I don’t know you guys that well yet… and I don’t even have a horse yet…. in fact, I don’t even live there yet.  That said… who wants to buddy up and trailer together?  Anybody?  

Bugs, Beer, and Lizards: Part Two

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Hey Becky,

I was just reading the comments again and I would really like to answer some of them, but my lack of computer skills won’t let me. Translation: I don’t know how.

First:  the small lizards here in thailand are over populated, to say the least. I have had them fall on my head from opening doors. I have found them in the refrigerator, dead from the cold. How did they get through the air tight seal? I know they chew their way through the screens in the windows – I see the holes they make, so I imagine they are ruining the seal to the refrigerator.

I agree –  it is very nice and helpful of them to eat the bugs I have in the house….  however, after eating the bugs they digest them….. and you can imagine the step after digestion. Well, they have not had a decent upbringing as far as I can tell –  they just let it go anywhere they feel like. It’s kind of like having a herd of mini horses living all over your walls and ceiling.

Lizards, I believe, also like water, and since there are two rooms that are known to have water in the house that is where they mostly live. The bathroom I can take.  I don’t really like the fact that little ‘wall-horses” are staring at me while I do my business but I can live with it.

Then there is the kitchen, where the food and the clean dishes are kept. If the dishes aren’t washed and put away this will cause the local bug population to congregate in the kitchen…and what likes to eat bugs?  We’re back to lizards again –  and the eating, and the digesting, and…. I think you get the picture. 

There are three permanent lizard-residents in my bathroom (known residents) and another four in the kitchen.  There are at least two in the living room.  The light is left on all night in the carport, for security reasons. This attracts at least nine lizards, so if you total the known lizards inside and outside, they number eighteen. When scared the outside lizards run to the eaves and into the attic.  I can only guess there are more there.

So to round off how many lizards I have, a very conservative guess would be thirty. On the block where I live there are only four houses, so that makes at least 120 known lizards. In a one mile radius I am going to guess there are approximately 128 houses.  With four houses per block and eight blocks per mile, in all four directions this is 3,840 lizards per square mile.  Keep in mind these are only the known or seen lizards.

Now, without wanting to step on anyone’s toes, every lizard within 20 miles would be 76,800 lizards. Now, I do have a cat that helps me control the population, but these are only the seen lizards. I think the number can be at least doubled, because only one other cat lives near by. I know this because of the mating season, but that is a whole other story I don’t want to get into.

Okay,  back to the little digesting machines.  We are now at about 153,000 of them, if you want invite every lizard (seen and unseen) from a 20 mile radius into your house. I honestly think this would chase the cat away – there would be just too many. They would be everywhere. With the mess and (as I have mentioned) the midnight chirping, it would drive you insane.  I am not sure a human could endure this.

Now, what would follow the little lizards here?  Well, bigger lizards for the food, and also, I believe snakes like an occasional lizard or two. Since I have already had to kill a snake in my living room and, while lying on the couch watching t.v., I watched one raise its head to look in,  and the before mentioned king cobra encounter (Becky in:  I’ll post this story later), I am just not ready for that much nature in my yard or house.

As for the one commenter who lectures her cats, maybe she could teach my lizards to use the bathroom in a designated area. I would be more than happy to have a lizard bathroom installed.   Until then I will treat them just like I would a human. If a house guest was seen pooping in my kitchen or if they roamed the house in the middle of the night yelling very loud “I WANT SEX” then they too would have to go  If they refused, then I would probably look for another pointed stick.

Anyway, life here is a little more interesting. I am looking forward to seeing the DragonMonkey again and teaching him some more tricks. To paraphrase an old saying, revenge is a dish best served after your kid grows up and has kids of her own.

Guest Post from My Dad

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In the interest of keeping my typing wordcount up for NaNoWriMo (ha, ha.  I’m so behind it’s pathetic), today’s post is going to be a guest post.

For those that don’t know – which is pretty much everyone – my dad lives over in Thailand.


Why does he live over in Thailand?

Well, to be honest, after reading his emails over the past couple of years, I’m not really sure.

At any rate, here are some of the funnier excerpts about life in Thailand.  Oh, and for reference, here is  a Tokay lizard (it’s actually a gecko):

He refers to them, so I thought you might want to see what they look like.

And here is what they sound like:

The Tokay geckos live in the wall and during mating season they make that noise from 10pm to 2am.

And now onto his emails:

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I was doing my nightly flashlight-in-hand-careful-of-snakes search of the eaves of the house for Tokay lizards.  I found some small white globes under the eave next to the front porch……eggs.

I got a long stick and broke two of the three, but the last was hard to get to. While going after number three the mama lizard showed up. Of course I poked her with the pointed stick to either kill her or get her to move. She came out of the eave and came toward me, so I slapped at her over my right shoulder while doing the macho thing of dropping the stick and running to the other side of the porch.

I’m glad I was alone. (<–Becky in:  BWAHAHAHAHA.  But now it’s on the Internet!)

I eventually replaced the stick in my manly hand and got close enough to pop the egg.

The next day a Karin guy came by and I asked him about getting rid of the mama lizard. He did what all of the Thais do – shrug their shoulders and say, “Let them stay, they are good luck.”

Well, I don’t need several two pound good luck lizards running up the kitchen wall when I turn on the light or lurking in the bathroom when I go there at night,  so “live and let live” to me has become “live somewhere else or die“.

Over here, in addition to a regular fishing pole with a rod and reel, you can buy a “fishing pole” that looks like a wooden rifle, but with just the wooden part. On this there is a very large rubber band and a six inch long piece of sharpened metal that you can attach string to – it’s kind of like a cross bow for shooting fish.

Are you getting the picture yet? Can you envision Hunter Dad lurking the eaves of his domain with his tokay killing crossbow in hand?

YES!

…..Except they cost around $21 and I only have one lizard left…. so to make a long story short I have a six foot piece of metal with two of the before-mentioned projectiles welded to the end for stabbing.  Hey,  it beats a pointed stick. Oh yeah, I found out that if the lizard is nesting it will attack and can jump up to three feet. They are nicknamed the bulldog lizard because when they bite they don’t let go.

So last night I went outside and looked several times for my adversary, but she not there….Anyway that is why I am late wishing you a happy birthday,  I didn’t forget, I was just trying to fight my way through blood-thirsty lizards to reach the keyboard. Hope you have a good birthday and I’ll see you when I can.

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You asked about how life here is going? Well, it is all bugs, beer and lizards right now.

 Bugs: All kinds all shapes and colors. They have bugs so small they can fit through the screens in the windows.  I  believe these are the ones that bite the ankles, all the time.  There is a bug repellent that works but you can’t put it on all of the time. The next best thing is a fan – the circulating air keeps them away. My morning ritual is to get up, turn the computer on and make coffee as fast as possible. The reason for this is the “ankle biters ” are hungry in the morning and they attack. I sit at the computer, but before I do I turn the fan on and aim it towards my feet to keep them away.

 Beer:  What can I say? It relieves the boredom.  I don’t sit around and drink beer all of the time, but once or sometimes twice a week we will go into town (30 kilometers round trip) and see what the tourists are doing. There’s not a lot of tourists right now, so mostly we just sit and watch the cars go by.

 Lizards: what can I say that I haven’t already said?

A lot.

I am tired of them and have declared all out war on anything lizard-like. Why?  The reasons are many right now.  A week ago it was mating season for the house lizards, so  they “chirp”ed.  I didn’t know lizards did that until I moved over here.

“chiik,ckiik,chiik,chiik” most of the night.

I had four living in my kitchen –  they started getting together and having babies.

I’d open the refrigerator and one falls off the door and runs away.

Throw something in the trash and one runs out of the trash.

Go to the bathroom and lizards are on the wall.

Now, outside I don’t mind, but just give me some space.  So against whatever Christian upbringing I have had, and trying not to let the Buddhist people around me know, I stomp, swat, drown and otherwise destroy the little pests in any way that I can.   “DEATH TO ALL LIZARDS”.

When the boredom kicks in there is TV.  Not much help – the programs here are really bad.  They’re mostly revenge/kung fu or monster shows.  Every vampire movie ever made is on here on a  regular basis.  The advertisements  for the next month on HBO are mostly second rate hits from years ago….”Guns of Navarone” with David Nivens (20 plus years old), “Inner Space” (10-15 years old), “Brian Stoker’s Dracula” …… you get the picture, I am sure.  Anyway, all the shows are worthless. Today I watched “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl” and “Earth versus Spider”.  Not a good day for TV.

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The Lizards:

It is an on going battle.  I have killed two more of the bigger ones and two or three of their babies. Now the house is crawling with the smaller,  everyday type of “house lizard”. I am constantly killing the baby ones.

It is funny how the attitude changes.

When I first got here I remember seeing a baby lizard in the bathroom and thinking it was a good thing – it will keep all of the mosquitoes away, so I kind of watched it grow up.

Now?  A baby lizard? Get the flyswatter and kill the little bastard before it can grow up and have more babies.

Tonight I discovered an ants’ nest between the toilet and the wall. I saw one of the big black ants go behind the upper part of the toilet, so I sprayed water and washed out 20 or 30 ants with eggs. I spent about 5 minutes killing them.

Things were finally things back to normal until I looked on the living room floor, and there was a different kind of ant, maybe 50 of them….. So again with the killing spree of God’s little creatures. It seems like that is all I do anymore –  run around trying to keep Thai nature at bay…….I hate environmentalists.

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I have upset the ecological balance. About a month ago I killed one of the large Tokay lizards. I recently learned that they eat the other smaller lizards and I believe the baby Tokays.

I have been trying to come up with a way to rectify this and have devised a plan. I will paint myself green and yellow and live in the attic for a week yelling “TO KAY” between the hours of 10 pm and around 2 am. If it comes to it I may have to eat a few lizards just to convince them I am serious.

I hope it doesn’t come to that.

My only problem is I don’t know if the female or the male is the one that yells. If it’s the male, no problem, I don’t think I will be attractive enough to worry about it. If, on the other hand,  the female is the one that does the mating yell…well, I worry about the aggressiveness of the lizard and the cramped space of the attic.  I will let you know how my experiment works out…..life in the jungle gets weird.

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