Business in the Front

Well, this second half of August has certainly been interesting.

Slow? But interesting.

Hard...where?

Kevin had a random idea for a business about two weeks ago and spent a couple days mulling it over to see whether it might be worth pursuing.

So then on Tuesday the 19th, I knew he'd be going out for a lunch date with Catherine. But he texted me shortly before noon:

Market Gardeners

I met Kevin at his parents' house after work and the four of us had dinner together.

Then Kevin and I harvested a TON of stuff from the garden. A giant bowl of cherry tomatoes, and as much basil, oregano, rosemary, and lemon verbena as we could carry:

When we got home, we divvied everything into thirds and then went back downstairs and knocked on Jeff and Lillian's door, and Keith and Rosie's.

Rosie was in the middle of cooking, but we stayed and chatted with Jeff for about 20 minutes. And I got to hang out with little Turbo!

A Man, a Plan, and a Pal

The next night, Kevin wrote out a business plan.

Then on Friday he invited Joe out to lunch to get his opinion on it.

He texted me shortly after they had left, to tell me that Joe had read the plan and was in!

Hopefully something will materialize in a few weeks or months and we'll have more to say about this. But for now it's just an idea that needs more "R&D" so to speak :)

Stay tuned.

The Burgers and the Bees

On Saturday we went over to Catherine and Ron's for dinner. Ron grilled burgers, dogs, and hot sausage, and Catherine served baked beans and French fries.

Liv kept begging Uncle Kevin to let her help him with that riveting privilege of picking tomatoes, so after dinner the two of them went out in the garden together.

Kevin said the first half consisted of Liv hanging back because of a lone bumblebee that kept trying to pollinate the same flowers over and over again:

...And then the second half consisted of her plucking one unripe tomato after another off the vine, holding each one up to him, and asking if she could pick it.

Another One Bites the Dust

Sunday night Kevin and I got to bed later than we should have for a work night. I fell asleep almost immediately, but he usually stays up and does a crossword or two on his phone.

Just as he was finishing up, he got a notification about motion out in the stairwell. So he figured he'd pull up our camera feed real quick and see whether it was Ruth or her boytoy (since they both seem to work overnights).

It turned out to be Boytoy.

But...

Ever since we put a camera outside our door back in February, Boytoy has a tendency to shimmy through the door to Ruth's apartment like he's slipping in and out of a top-secret government facility where foreign spies might be hiding with binoculars in the bushes and just waiting to glimpse something worthwhile:

So, it naturally piqued Kevin's curiosity when he noticed that Ruth's door was WIDE OPEN for probably the first time ever.

That, combined with the slew of suitcases Boytoy was taking down to his car, made Kevin wonder whether yet another man had hit his tolerance limit living with the lovable ball of joy that is Ruth.

Kevin didn't want to wake me, but he watched for close to 15 minutes as Boytoy made half a dozen trips out to his car and back, seemingly moved out, and finally drove away:

There sure seems to be a bounce in his step that wasn't there before!

Mind you, he was doing all this clomping back and forth at 10 minutes until midnight on a weeknight, which is pretty jerky when you think about it.

Fortunately we didn't hear any of it over the air conditioner in our bedroom, and hopefully he didn't disturb any of the downstairs neighbors either!

Finally, almost a full 15 minutes after our camera first detected motion, he was finished:

And he pulled away a few seconds after midnight. Hopefully forever!

Granted, I was unaware of ALL of this until the following morning when Kevin sent me another video from the stairwell FIRST, before filling me in on all of this from the night before.

Ralph and the new maintenance guy were changing Ruth's locks:

The High Life

Monday was also Riley's first day of ninth grade!

She only had a two hour orientation to start out. But still, how is my baby already a freshman in high school???

Later that afternoon Kevin texted me to let me know that his desk chair finally "broke" broke :(

That chair has been janky from Day 1 when Riley gave it to him for Father's Day two years ago, because I wanted to surprise him with a fully assembled chair instead of bringing one home in a box. So I trusted some schmuck at Office Max to build it instead of just doing it myself, and the guy put it together all crooked so that the thing has always made popping sounds every time you move a millimeter while sitting in it.

Lesson learned. Just build your things yourself!

We ran out to BJs and Office Max that evening to look for a replacement. BJs had an okay one for $130, but not the one we had wanted.

So we went across the street to Office Max where we saw this gem in the parking lot:

When I pointed it out to Kevin he said he and Joe should use it as their slogan if their business idea takes off:

Office Max must have had 50 display model chairs, but barely anything for under $300. And even the dinkiest pieces of junk were well over $200.

We finally found the most bubonic (the bubonickest?) prices online and ordered one from Amazon instead. Under $100 even with taxes :)

So Kevin would only have to endure two days of basically having a stool at his desk instead of a chair, since if he tries to lean back, the thing goes all the way back like a dentist's chair (and will just continue to break a little bit more, every time he does.)

Mother-Daughter Chats

By the time Kevin and I finished up "chair shopping" Monday evening, we just stopped at Wawa on our way home and grabbed sandwiches for ourselves and Riley for dinner.

Then Riley and I sat on the couch and had an unexpected but welcome talk about life. And boys. And high school. And the reasons behind the prevalence of pornography in what seems like EVERY corner of the internet Riley tries to hang out in these days.

Our talk ended up continuing the following night when Kevin went out with Joe for a few hours and Riley and I had the evening to ourselves.

This time we got onto talking about music, and Riley hinted that she likes a lot of Kevin's musical tastes and "totally wouldn't mind it" if he made her a playlist of stuff to check out, because she REALLY loves the Porcupine Tree album he gave her for Valentine's Day a year ago. (And she has also been showing Taaro some of the tracks from the Incubus album Kevin gave her this past Christmas.)

Late Tuesday evening, Amazon emailed us to say "Oh hey, that chair that's coming the day after tomorrow? It's coming Saturday now. Thanks for being loyal Prime members though! OK thanks, bye."

It's Not Delivery Or DiGiorno

Thursday night we decided to whip up another pizza for dinner, except that we had run out of sausage after our last one, but Kevin still wanted some kind of meat on it.

So I fried up half a pound of bacon while he cubed about that same amount in chicken tenders we had left over from a few nights prior. And then he chopped up a bunch of our tomatoes and some of our basil while I rolled out the dough and shaped the crust:

I went light on the tomato sauce, and instead we decided to gamble with attempting a barbecue-ranch sauce instead.

Then we threw on all the fixins:

And drowned the whole thing in mozzarella:

And voila!

Aaaand of course after dinner we got another update from Amazon:

Raiders Of The Lost Ark (And The Found Chair)

Friday night Kevin and I were going to finish up the last few episodes of Revolution, but when I turned on the TV he saw that Indiana Jones & The Raiders of The Lost Ark was currently free to watch on Pluto TV.

He said he hadn't seen it since he was probably seven years old and would love to check it out again. So we had to try to gauge the running time of a 1980s action film with ads strewn in, versus a couple episodes of a 2010s television drama with ads strewn in:

And then, against all odds, we woke up Saturday to discover that Kevin's new chair was out for delivery by UPS!

So yeah. That was a nice surprise:

Much like with building just about anything else, things could have gone much quicker if the code enforcer hadn't had to roll through to check on things every 10 minutes.

But heaven only knows what would our precious demeowcracy might devolve into without bureaucats constantly looking over our shoulders and crawling under our feet to supervise and scrutinize our every move?

And speaking of cats...

Since tomorrow is sure to big day with a TON of photos, we'll post the cat pics on this story instead. Enjoy :)

Felinology, Because Meowledge Is Power!

We thought we'd do things a little differently and present this month's cat pics alongside some little-known facts about the genetics and general physiology of cats. So keep reading to learn some things about cats that you might not have known before!

Firstly, it's crucial to know the difference between direct-current cats and alternating-current cats.

Direct-current cats draw their power directly from the sun, as they have microscopic solar panels built in to the ends of their fur and can harvest energy from sunlight via photosynthesis:

But if an alternating-current cat tries to photosynthesize, he will have a bad time. (Especially if the sun isn't even out!)

This is because alternating-current cats need to be plugged into an outlet and charged like a phone or a laptop:

Now let's talk about reproduction.

When you've had your cat long enough, it's not uncommon for him to undergo the process of meowtosis.

You may remember mitosis from high-school biology, in which a cell's nucleus divides into two halves and the cell's genome is copied to both.

Meowtosis works in exactly the same way. Or... almost. Your cat may one day decide to divide into two cats:

These cats will be similar clones of each other, but not necessarily identical. Most likely, they'll be two halves of a yin yang of light and darkness.

Order and chaos.

But don't judge a cat by its color. Sometimes the darker cat is the calm and orderly one, and the more heavenly-colored cat turns out to be the demon imp!

But you can almost always expect the original and the clone to share a remarkably close bond with each other:

They are, after all, cut from the same genetic cloth:

So they will likely be quite protective of each other:

Of course, meowtosis can quickly lead to an overpopulation of cats!

And especially once they're all charged up (either from the sun or from a wall outlet), all those cats will become quite powerful.

Before you know it, they'll be trying to take over: Sitting on your furniture! Sleeping in your bed! Holding court at the dinner table!

Don't be surprised if your cat even starts making increasingly vocal allegations of neglect because you don't play with him every 30 seconds like clockwork!

What EVER can be done?!

Fear not, frightened mortal: It's as easy as simply running down their batteries!

Your cats will become increasingly lethargic as their energy depletes:

This will occur not just physically, but mentally as well. Expect your cats to do absolutely boneheaded things that make no sense whatsoever:

Once they have drained their batteries, the cats will commence hibernation, and you can store them in a cool, dry place:

Bear in mind that your cats will be highly vulnerable while in this hibernatory state, so you should take the utmost care to ensure that they are kept safe from harm!

Also, if your cat happens to be a direct-current cat, expect them to revert to full darkness when they are kept out of sunlight long enough. Their features will quickly return with just a bit of sunlight though:

And finally, be aware that your cat will probably like to lick his own butthole a lot. This is simply an attempt to spread some extra sunlight "where the sun don't shine," but it's always an awkward exchange when you happen to catch him in the act:

That concludes this month's lesson. We hope you've learned something new about cats :)