Friday Nights of Fear! - Deep Sea Edition

Friday Nights of Fear! Anne made this ice cream cake!

Baby squirrel

Greta chased this baby squirrel up a tree

We went to the Kiwanis all-you-can-eat pancakes and sausage breakfast last week, it was great! There's no better way to help the community than by eating as many pancakes as humanly possible.

OSU-Navy Game

John Glenn dotted the "i" in the "Ohio" to the left.

Why didn't I get to drive one of these for my driving exam?

Greta: Interrupted

We didn't want to believe it. Who would? A puppy, little more than an infant, possessed of a dark secret the world wasn't ready to know. Behind those sweet brown eyes, wide and innocent and capable of bringing the staunchest of cat-lovers to their knees, lurks a monster.Concerned citizen Brandon Evans was able to snap a photo of the beast unleashed during an unguarded moment. Looking at the picture, we realized the situation was much more dire than we had originally realized. We knew Greta sometimes played with her chew toys right next to our furniture for the sole purpose of chewing it to shreds the moment our backs were turned. We did not realize she had harnessed the power of electricity to shoot lightning out of her eyes and across her teeth--500,000 volts of raw energy that could kill an adult rhinoceros and still have enough power left over to light Columbus for eons. We attempted to convince Greta to use her electric "personality" for Green purposes: to actually light a city, to solve the recession, or to destroy conservative radio show personalities but she refused. Then she turned her powers on us.
Using flimsy cookie sheets to deflect the terrible burning rays we screamed for help. No one would come. Who could blame them.
After a near miss singed off Brandon's trademark beard, Anne became angry.
"No one messes with my man's facial hair but me!" She screamed, her eyes generating some sparks of their own.
Greta turned her eyebeams on full blast and prepared to blow her adoptive mother away, but Anne's cold stare penetrated Greta's ruthless psyche. A moment's hesitation was all it took:

Quick as a flash, Brandon and Anne grabbed the yellow '70s-era couch which they had been clever enough to pick up from the side of the road some years previously. SLAM! They threw it down on the spot where Greta stood, a last-ditch effort to end her murderous spree. When the dust cleared, Greta was trapped (uninjured--this is a family blog, after all) beneath the sprawling couch.

After a lengthy time out, Greta was released and taken to Puppy Kindergarten, where she will enjoy regular extensive therapy, as well as learn that art can be a positive outlet for her negative energy. Anne and Brandon have to find a new couch. And cookie sheets.

*-*-*-NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE CREATION OF THIS BLOG POST*-*-*

The Hardy's Demon Cat!

You should see him when he's really mad.

"Don't pee on the carpet"...

...is what Greta has successfully learned. Unfortunately, what we tried to teach her was "Only pee on the newspaper." Yesterday I caught her peeing on a tee-shirt (not one that I care about), and today it was a sweatshirt in the walk-in closet. She uses the newspaper for the most part, but she's inspired me to be more tidy.

Clarification

1. Anne actually wrote the last post, I just put the pictures up.
2. Everyone, including a vet and a dachshund owner, thinks Greta's a dachshund, or at least part dachshund. I have to say I agree, if you Google "dachshund puppy", you find some pictures that look like Greta. So maybe she's a beagle/dachshund mix, or maybe she's some other dachshund mix. We'll just have to wait and see what she grows up to be.

Greta!

Meet our new friend, Greta. She's an eight-week old beagle mix (we don't know with what) that we got from the shelter on Friday. She and her brother and sister were strays, found when they were five weeks old, and her siblings were adopted earlier on the day we adopted her. She was lonely and crying when we first met her. Though young, she was a skillful manipulator and we adopted her.

Greta loves her squeaky pig. Even as I type she's got it in her mouth and is trying to kill it. I don't know if it's really great that we're teaching a puppy in its infancy that it's good to bite and chew on things even when they squeak in kind of a pitiful way, but if she ends up an attack dog, at least she'll know her roots. As of right now, she weighs about five pounds, and has learned how to come when called and to poop outside (more or less). We're also working on "sit" and "shake." We tried and failed to get her to grasp the concept of "fetch."

Terror (and ducks!) in the Park

Once upon a time, there were seven little ducklings who went to the park. It was their first time outside and they were hyper vigilant and stayed close together. Except for the loner below in this picture, who just needed a little private time.



The ducklings liked to explore the great outdoors. But only when mom or dad were nearby.

Dad took the ducks for a walk...but things soon took a terrifying turn...

A hawk was watching their every move. And it was hungry. Dad wondered why the ducks were suddenly peeping nervously--and just then, the hawk struck. Diving between two narrowly-spaced trees, it lunged for the ducklings!

Dad was having none of it, and chased the hawk away-for the time being. Mom had left Dad alone at the park with the seven ducks while she went to class...but as the hawk continued to stalk his would-be prey, it became clear that an evacuation was in order.

That's when two nice ladies enter the story. They watched Dad as he tried to protect the ducks, and took pity on all of them. They joined forces with Dad and together they tried to shield the ducks. But the hawk wasn't going to give up that easily, and swooped down again, knocking one poor little duckling to the ground, but still failing to capture any tasty morsels. The little duckling struggled to its feet, alarmed, but uninjured. The hawk was still circling, though, and it was time to go.

Since Mom was still at class, the two ladies offered the use of their truck to the ducklings. So Dad loaded them up with their food and water, and the ladies drove them all to the Institute Building where they waited for Mom to get out of class.

The ducks made an unholy mess of the ladies' truck. It was their way of saying "thank you for saving us." The ladies didn't seem to mind that much--so long as we promised to send pictures of the ducklings when they go to their new home.

At the end of the day, the ducklings were safe and sound, and got a lot of veggies because Mom and Dad felt guilty for exposing them to danger.
Dad ended up sitting in the sun talking to the nice ladies for too long and got an awful sunburn on his arms and face.
And Mom came home from class and took a long nap.

The End. (or is it...?)

Make way for ducklings

Ducklings!

Salt of the earth

This is a photo from a couple months ago, just wanted to let you know that they do use a little salt on the highways in Ohio. On a side note, it snowed all day Monday and Tuesday in Cleveland.

FREE BREAKFAST!

It took two tries, but I got my Grand Slam rain check from Denny's!

Spicing it up, or rather, jamming it up

This morning I took the car to the repair shop to get some rust looked at. The guy there just put some touch up paint on it and said to come back if it got worse. I had two hours to kill before an oil change appointment, so I went to Burger King. I got a sausage biscuit, and the lady said, "Do you want any ketchup, salt, or jam for that?" I was so shocked and confused that I didn't know what to say, but I finally managed a "No thanks." As I took my sandwich she said that it's real good with jam, so I was like, "Sure, I'll try some jam." So while I listened in on a conversation about plowing 18 inches of snow off of a 390 ft driveway with a four-wheeler, I tried my sausage and jam biscuit. It was quite tasty, I highly recommend it.