Friday, January 23, 2009

Multi-Species

My cat looks like a sheep. I'm serious. She looks like a sheep. I used to think she looked like an owl until I saw a picture of some sheep at Happily Housepoor's post here. Look at the sheep in this picture. She seriously reminds me of my cat.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Green Meme #3

Guidelines:

1) Link to Green Meme Bloggers. (use image if you like)
2) Link back to whoever tagged you. (no need to wait to be tagged!)
3) Include meme number
4) Include these guidelines in your post
5) Tag 3 other green bloggers.

Green Meme #3
  1. Are you keeping your temperature (heating/cooling) systems on low? If you have radiators are they fitted with thermostats?
    Yeah. We keep the thermostat on about 68. I don't even have my heater on ever now that it's stopped snowing and we're into that part of the winter where it feels like warm even though it's January.
  2. If yes to the above, what do you to keep warm/cool without resorting to turning up those numbers? Just open a window.
  3. Do you turn your fridge temperature down when it has less items in it? No. We keep it down a little, though.
  4. Do you unplug unused small appliances? Yes. We keep them in the cupboard and only plug them in when we use them. Except the blender.
  5. Do you switch off rather than leave on standby; TV/computer/DVD player/etc? Yes, we do. The computer plugs into a switch we turn off but the TV and DVD player just plug into the wall. And the keyboard.
  6. Do you own (or will you purchase in the future) energy-efficient (star-rated) home appliances? All our appliances are brand new. I don't think we'll be buying anything new soon.
  7. Do you have any green goals/hopes for the next few months? Not really. I've got other goals that take precedence.
I'm sick of tagging people. So if anyone bothers to read this (i.e., you) and decides they want to be tagged...well I tagged you even if you didn't know it.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Damsels in Distress

So yesterday afternoon I was over at my friend's house playing DDR and her boyfriend called about 3pm. Well she was worried because he never calls during the day, only at night and, furthermore, he was supposedly quail hunting with his dad. She tried to call him back, but she couldn't get a hold of him. Three and a half hours later, he called back. He and his dad were stuck in the mud about fifteen miles away from us, he said. So she, the worried girlfriend got her dad to start up their big diesel four-door truck to go rescue the Damsels in Distress. I, the country girl who loves adventure, decided to come along (plus my I didn't wanna go home, although my sister did). We packed two ginormous chains and two shovels and set off with 40 miles worth of gas in the tank. Fifteen miles in, no boyfriend and his dad. Twenty miles in, no boyfriend and his dad. I used my cell phone (which was going dead) to ask him for more details. They're on road number five. Okay. So we're on the right track. Twenty-five miles in, and it's too late to go back and go into town for more gas.

Thirty five miles in, we found boyfriend and dad. They were on a hill eating jerky and sitting around a fire they'd made (that's country people for you!). We nearly got stuck ourselves on the way in. They'd never made it to where they were going to hunt. When we stopped where their truck was stuck, boyfriend came barreling down the hillside worried we're not going to recognize the truck just because it's his dad's, not his. It was dark, like eleven o'clock at night at this point. We attached the chains (and the cable boyfriend and dad had) between the lil truck and our big one. We got in the big truck and boyfriend got in the little truck. We started dragging. We were up on the side where it wasn't so muddy and were pulling from that direction. We slid into the mud pit. Boyfriend got out of truck and said that the keys weren't in the truck like he thought and so he went to go get them from his dad.

Boyfriend got keys and his dad came down. They got in the little truck and we dragged them out. We had them go in front of us in case they got stuck again. They started off down the road going twice as fast as we did coming up and we followed behind them. No one got stuck because it's so late that the roads have frozen over and so it's all good. We ran out of gas ten miles from home (twenty from the nearest town). Boyfriend and his dad came back to rescue us, in turn. Friend called her first cousin once removed (who is eighteen) and asked him if he had any diesel fuel. My phone had been dying this whole time and chose right then to bite the dust. So then she switched over to boyfriend's phone which was also dying but had more juice (probably because it's newer).

A round of phone calls were made and in the end boyfriend's dad and friend's dad decided to go into town in the little truck and buy gas. Boyfriend, friend and I sat in the truck and listened to an iPod that's plugged into the iTrip. We talked about random stuff and then a medium white truck came up the road. There was a misunderstanding and two men from friend's house thought that they were supposed to come rescue us and came bearing gas. They put the gas in the truck and showed boyfriend (who was sitting in the driver's seat) how to prime the gears or whatever it's called so that it wouldn't mess up after being all empty.

Boyfriend drove the big truck down the road with medium truck behind us. Then came little truck towards us with people's dads inside with more gas. We all pulled off to the side and everyone got out and stood around in silence. Then we all got back into our various trucks to head home. Boyfriend and dad in little white truck, followed by friend, friend's dad, and I in big white truck, with two men in medium white truck bringing up the rear.

When we finally got home, everyone was asleep except my lil sis (thank goodness, I hate my evil stepfather and my mom just refuses to accept it). I told lil sis all about our adventure, told her she missed out and went to bed.

Monday, January 12, 2009