Iron Maiden is for the infestation

A while ago Jesse and I were at Target and we saw this little "you are Iron Man" mirror thing in the toy section.  It had Iron Man's body on the mirror and you put your head where his head should be.  I told Jesse to squat down.  Now, Jesse has this long torso.  Like, really, really long torso.  Homeboy is mostly torso, and a smidgen of legs.  He won't be happy with me when he reads my description of his body.  His shoulders kept appearing in the shot, because if you can believe this, they only made the display tall enough for kids.  He was getting all frustrated with me saying over and over again "Lower.  No, lower."  And he got up in a huff and had me do it.  He said to me, "You need to grab my head and put me in place, like this."  And he proceeded to shove my head further into my neck in front of the children and their parents in the toy aisle.  You can see how excited I was to still be a Target shopper.

Next up was Jesse, and I delightfully shoved his head into the right spot in the mirror.  Can you tell by these photos that we were SO DONE trying to be Iron Man and Maiden and just wanted to get out of the store, but no, we must finish what we started?

Good times with the Bray folk.  Come and knock on my door...

Okay.  You guys.  That was what I was going to write about today.  But do you know what happened last night?  DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED?  Of course you do.  You see where this is going.

They're baaaaaaaaaaack.  Suki was ready for her nighttime snack of licking water in the tub and as I leaned over to turn on the water I was like, SLUG.  SLUG.  SLUG.  And Jesse came in and SLUG.  Four of them this time.  We think they're coming in from the window.  I'm still not 100% convinced that's what it is, but it's either that or the drain and I have to sleep at night somehow.  I just wish our stupid bathroom had a fan.  Can you put a makeshift fan in the bathroom somehow for when you take showers and you don't want mold all over your ceiling?  Please advise.

We did decide, however, this was a good time to clean out the drain following my good friend Martha's advise from this book.  She tries to kill you slowly with chores.

First we put in baking soda.

Then white vinegar which we repeatedly said "It smells like feet" until we were no longer amused with ourselves.

Then it foamed.

Then you stopped caring what we were doing to our drain and clicked to another website.

Then you pour boiling water down the drain.  Turns out?  Boiling water just fogs up the camera and makes all my followers go "thank goodness she stopped posting photos of this nonsense."

And then Suki got VERY, VERY ANGRY that we were not letting her in the tub.  Note the ears.  I gave her some treats in hopes she wouldn't pee all over my stuff while I slept.

Well, on a lighter note, my cats are still cute and annoying:

So, what's new with you?  No slugs in your perfect little world?  I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.

Just kidding, I do.  GO ON.

Oh, one more thing, unless you want to get depressed with your cleaning skills, don't take lots of pictures of your shower with the flash on.

Portland, we have a problem.

Jesse and I are going to Comic Con next month with some friends.  Yes, I know, you should be jealous, yadda yadda yadda.  What I'm trying to say is we are paying off one particular credit card right before we go so we can rack it up at Comic Con.  So, I'm trying to save some money.

I am in love with the Clorox toilet wand. 

DID YOU HEAR ME TOILET WAND?  I said I love you.  But you are not as cheap as other methods of toilet wandiness.  Six replacement wands are something over $4.  But a container of Comet and a new toilet brush?  Just over $2.  And it cleans the tub.  Not the toilet brush.  I guess you could use the toilet brush to clean the tub, but please don't invite me over to shower at your place.  Because, you know, those shower invites.  All the rage.

Jesse and I got back from Grants Pass on Monday and I cleaned the bathroom with my new Comet cleaner.  I was scrubbing the bathtub and pulling down all the junk we keep in the corners of the tub to wipe underneath them.

I pulled out my face wash.

And I was greeted by the newest resident of the Bray household.

Okay, so that's a picture I found on google.  My face wash is not a leaf on cement.  But his cousin was in my bathtub.  Well, his slightly thinner cousin.  Sorry, tubbo, you were the best I could find online.

I would have taken a photo but I was too busy asking Jesse, "Do those look like eggs?"  I even said, "Poor little slug" as Jesse flushed him down the toilet and we (he) wiped off his disgusting eggs from my facewash.

Fast forward to last night.  Jesse is in the shower, doing the thing where he has a song in his head but only sings like every 5th line.  I'm on the couch flipping through a Pottery Barn catalog looking at ideas to rip off when Jesse shouts "BUUUUH!!"  I RAN to his side, meaning I flipped through a couple more pages, said "What is it, honey" and when he couldn't hear me I dog eared the page (amidst a sigh) and mosied into the bathroom.

"There's a big ole slug in here and I think it's pooping."

I popped my head in the shower and while Jesse's sight was dead set on the slug in front of him and his MILLION DEMON EGGS that had just come out of his butt, I noticed another on the rim of the tub and another in the window.  I calmly told him to turn off the water and REMOVE YOUR PERSON FROM THE DEVIL SLUG TUB.

There were three!  TTTHHHHRREEEEEE.  I had uttered "Poor little slug" to the thin cousin while he laughed his way down that toilet.  "My children will be back to avenge me, you strumpet!" he gurgled.

You won this time.  One of those little beasts pooped some eggs out on the shower curtain liner too.  WE ARE LIVING IN THE JUNGLE.  The Slug Shower Jungle of Suburbia.

So do you think everyone in our house is just relaxed as pie to go into the bathroom?  Even Suki is like "nah, I'll just drink the water from the bowl you leave me every morning."  Why's that, Suki?  You don't want aqua a la slug?  You know, I don't think she's much of a huntress anyway.  Cinnamon keeps psyching me out, making me think he's done with that wild behavior of leaving me dead animals, and then he does something like LEAVE ME A HEADLESS BIRD.  Does he have to be such a...an animal sometimes?

And dear lord, where was the head?  That bird haunted me.  I remember when I opened up the door to let Cin in and I saw the dead bird next to him,  he looked at the bird, then at me with this look that said, "Are you going to thank me, or..."

RIP the good ole days.  (This picture was taken October 14, 2009.  We hadn't had Suki for more than a few days and after I got out of the shower she hopped right in and started licking the tub, much to my disgust.  I sent this photo to Jesse via my phone.)


OKAY BYE BYE

All quiet on the western front. (pull my finger)

I can hear you all thinking "I wonder how Katie's trip to Grants Pass went?"  Well, Jesse was there too, did you even think about that?  But I'll go ahead and answer you.

There was a parade.

BAGPIPES

There was much eating.

Let's not tell Melissa that the only picture I have of her on my blog is of her eating, shall we?

Which means that while we passed the time, Jesse passed some gas.

Seriously.  That guy.  He's lucky he's cute and I love him and that he's a great husband.  Otherwise?  Stinky.



And do you know there are NO YARN STORES IN GRANTS PASS? 

Woah, I just crawled back into my chair after the collective gasp from all of you sucked the air out of my lungs.

And there's Darin (Jesse's uncle), on the City Council float.  I took some horrible photos.  I got one that actually has the City Council sign, but he's not smiling, and in fact, looks rather grumpy.  The next one he is in the very far bottom left corner and the rest is sky.  So this was the one.  How the sky knew I wanted it to point an arrow at him with his name, I may never know.

Oh, and here's one of the joys of living in a small town.

Caveman Towing brought out the big guns and towed all of their trucks.  I think it was like 15. I don't know, I was too busy taking bad photos.

Jesse took this good shot though.  He also took a lot of horrible shots that I guess he doesn't feel like he ever needs to delete, ever.

One of the downsides of taking most of the pictures is that there aren't many of me.  Let me show you the two that were taken of me (that weren't of me with knitting needles in my mouth looking like a walrus, sorry).

Hey.  He tries.

So the cats didn't come with us this weekend, because we had a discussion beforehand about how Cinnamon thinks he's old enough to stay home alone and watch Suki.  The plus side of this was that Cinnamon, only out of necessity, actually buried some of Suki's poop instead of just letting it sit on top of the litter.  What was that sound?  Was that the sound of losing a reader by talking about cat poop?

Okay, is there some sort of correlation between how a cat has a litter of kittens (I almost typed a liter.  Do some cats have two liters maybe?  Certainly not a gallon) and how they use a litter box?  Jesse mentioned that to me and I found it hysterical.  But I'm also the person that never put any thought into the words pony tail and hula hoop.  (Did you know when you're using a hula hoop it's almost like you're dancing the...oh, never mind.  EVERYBODY ALREADY KNEW THAT.)

ANYWAY, back on target Katie (Steve), that above photo of Cinnamon is from when we had the GREAT ANT DEPRESSION OF TWO THOUSAND TEN.  The bottom shelf on the red bookcase back there used to be Suki's eating area until ants found it.  Then ants found the mario table cat food so we moved it in front of the armoir.  We wanted them to have a good view of Arrested Development and Futurama.

Should I keep him?

Yes [   ]

Yes, farting is part of better or worse [   ]

Were 'for better or worse' even in our vows?  I only remember me stammering.

Never make a pretty person your wife.

See?  Groveling DOES work.  It has helped me get cats, McDonald's, a husband, and three extra followers.  Joann started pity-following me, and I think Steve's wife made him follow me, and Jenna made her husband Nick follow me.  Joann's blog and Steve's blog have been some of my favorites for a while, but I wasn't following Nick's because I'm a bad friend.  Maybe if I wouldn't be so concerned with followers, you say?  I can't hear you.

Oh, but Nick wins the dollar.  Sorry.  I'd send all of my followers a dollar, but that's pushing 20 bucks and do you know how much Taco Bell you can get for 20 dollars?  If you don't, you must be eating at those fancy restaurants like those elusive "buffets" I keep hearing about.  And GOOD LORD, when did buffets become so expensive?  They were so much cheaper when I was a kid and didn't know how much they cost.  Jesse and I took my niece and nephew Michael and Jasmine to Hometown Buffet and they had a big sign out front that said adult meals were $6.99*.  That *?  Said does not include drink.  Oh, but you're going to charge me a buck fifty for a drink anyway?  So you're lying to me, kind of.  I cannot read the writing under the * from the road.  This is not a good review for Hometown Buffet.  I understand $7.49 wasn't bad for an adult meal.  Just keep reading.

Last Christmas we visited Jesse's family.  His grandparents kept asking me where I wanted to go to lunch.  "Well, honey, what kind of food do you like?"  I kept saying anything was fine, but no, they wanted something I liked.  Over and over again.

"Really, I don't know any of the restaurants here, you guys choose."

"No, where do you want to eat?"

"Okay... Mexican."

"Oh, okay!  Well, Neil probably wouldn't do well with Mexican.  We'll go to a buffet."

That buffet was 12 dollars per person.  We had paid for Jesse's sister Jaime's meal and when she came to the table with just a plate of salad I said to her, "Oh, how's your $12 salad?  YOU BETTER BE KIDDING ME AND GO GET SOME REAL FOOD."  I may have embellished that last part, but I did ask her how her 12 dollar salad was.  When we had all walked in, Jesse's grandpa pulled out $40 to pay for us all and I was like, "No, no, I understand your stomach is too delicate for Mexican food, but we'll pay for our own."   Yikes!  Is the senior discount $2 a meal?  I ate macaroni and cheese and lukewarm cheesecake.  Oh, and?  That won't give you diahrrea at all, not in the least bit.  (Eat your diahrrea.)

I do like how old people are sweet like that, even though they know they have already decided what they want.  I did not know the politics of old people because I have no grandparents.  Mom and Dad, you are NOT OLD.  When you start denying me Mexican food, you will be old.  Keep your chops up.  My mom has always thought I think they're "old" because they were 35 when they had me, but what that really made happen was I started making friends who were married and in their 30's by the time I was 19.  What teenage only child?

Okay, yeah, where was I?  I thought I had a point, but time makes fools of us all.

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND.  We will be in Grants Pass, Oregon partying it up within the retirement community.  That's right, Judi.  I know you're like 15 years younger than my parents.  Judi is Jesse's aunt.  Judi makes me mad.  It's okay, I can say this because, as she states, she only comes to my blog when she's bored, and leaves even more bored.  This is Judi and myself.

And you thought I was finishing up this blog post!  LOOK AT HOW CUTE JUDI IS.  I'm all stressed out trying to be attractive and she just casually turns around and looks all "Oh hello!  What a surprise you're taking a picture!"

One time Judi was visiting us in Portland and she came to pick me up for lunch.  Later in the week, a coworker of mine was talking to me and asked if that had been Jesse's sister.

His sister.

I told her this amazing, wonderful compliment and she didn't even acknowledge it.  But maybe she didn't have her hearing aid on.

But she is SO DOWN with Mexican food.

Beggin'.

Will someone new please start following me?  I'll mail you a dollar.  Jesse created another Blogger account to follow me with, named "Señor McBray".  At least, this is what he told me until I looked and saw he was indeed not Señor, but Senior.  Not really what I think he was going for.  Long story short yet am I still talking?  I made him delete old Senior there.  However, my dashboard keeps saying I have 15 followers and when I click and see it's only 14, I die a little inside.

Jesse and I went to Bullwinkle's to play mini golf, like, I don't know how long ago.  Good thing you don't care that much.

Slug bug yellow!  We may have forgotten to take the camera inside and had to wait until we were leaving.

If you are ever at Chuck E. Cheese, or one of those places where after winning all those useless little tickets you are forced to not be "selfish" and to give your tickets to the kids in your group (jerks), GO TO THE SPONGEBOB GAME.  I am talking business right now.  You will master it, and you will be the king chicken, or something.  With my ticket earnings, we got a crayon bank, fake orange teeth, and a green heart shaped bracelet.  Here I was trying to show off my bracelet.  And our blue lips from drinking an Icee.

But really, let's just focus in on Jesse for a moment.

Jesse.  Available for babysitting at a time convenient for you.

Pity marriage?  You'd be wrong, because he married this.

Which, oddly enough, also included Brittney.  And this:

Jesse saw a whole series like that last photo of Cinnamon and I touching noses and cuddling and he just sat there and said, "Are you and Cinnamon dating?"

He may have a point.