king of the castle

The other day I was playing Draw Something (again) and it was my turn to draw, for my dad, and I chose castle. I didn't draw Nathan Fillion, though, no matter how much I love him, because I don't watch Castle and I'm not sure if my dad does either. So I drew a crappy castle with a moat and a drawbridge and everything except a rude, French guy shouting insults from one of the towers.



If I had been feeling more adventurous or, I don't know, using an iPad and a stylus and not my phone and a finger, I would have drawn the castle my dad helped me make when I was in 6th grade. I don't remember what the exact assignment was, other than: MAKE A CASTLE, but I think we had to pick one material to build the castle out of. If that wasn't a rule, then I was just lazy. I chose Popsicle sticks and my mom bought them for me ages and ages before the project was due but GUESS WHAT, I didn't start building my castle until the night before. Standard.

(The whole nature versus nurture thing has always fascinated me. I know the nurture bit is important and all but my parents tried REALLY HARD to conquer my procrastinating nature and it just never took. I mean, hell, I was procrastinating all the way back in 2nd grade, when I finished my project on trees the morning it was due, gathering fallen leaves as I walked to school. It was a very Calvin thing to do, only I got a Susie Derkins grade for it. ZING! But I digress. Standard.)

When my dad got home from work that night, I was in the basement, practically in tears, with my hands full of Elmer's glue-covered Popsicle sticks. The Elmer's wasn't holding any of the sticks together and when my dad came downstairs, I threw everything down and sunk into my frustration.

Here's where it got good, though. For one thing, my dad is an engineer. And, unlike me, he has actual real world skills, good for helping his dumb daughter with her due-the-next-day school projects. For another thing, MY DAD IS FUCKING AWESOME.

Soon he had the hot glue gun plugged in, gently explaining to me that the Elmer's glue wouldn't be strong enough to hold my castle together. I'd also been trying to glue the sticks together like this, but he had other ideas:

Which...duh. But whatever, I was 12. So, after a while of me using the hot glue gun (that is some trust right there, you guys) and my dad helping me gently guide each Popsicle stick to where it needed to go, led only by the plan in his head, we had something like this:

This was awesome in and of itself but IT GETS EVEN BETTER. It was practically my bedtime, so I figured we were done. But no, my dad had other ideas. Specifically: a drawbridge. A WORKING DRAWBRIDGE. We glued the sticks together to make the actual door, then my dad rigged a pulley system with some string and I don't even remember what BECAUSE I'M NOT AN ENGINEER. It was so cool. I wish I still had it, but my 6th grade teacher kept it. The closest model I could find was this, which totally pales in comparison to what my dad made (because let's be honest, my dad made my project). And these were the days before you could Google "how to make a castle out of popsicle sticks." Very impressive, no? I know it would be even more impressive if I'd done it myself, but my main contribution was not falling and crushing the castle on the walk to school the next morning so, yeah. I earned that A.

this post brought to you by TOO MUCH COFFEE

Whenever I'm watching TV or a movie, if one of the characters is lying in bed or waking up in bed or just anywhere near a bed, really, it makes me want to go to sleep. But not in my own bed, which is only half-assedly made most of the time (unless Joe does it) and is usually covered in all manner of dog and cat hair because our animals think that our stuff = their stuff, but in a TV-bed, a fluffy kingdom of sleepfoolery, full of giant pillows and a comforter I could bury myself in. The sheets are white and pure, like fresh snow but not cold like snow because what kind of weirdo wants to go to sleep in a pile of snow? Maybe vampires? Or Jack London, probably. But no one else.

Anyway, my point is, we got a new bed this weekend. We've been talking about getting a new one since we moved into the new place. And when I say we, I mostly mean me. And by me, I mean every time I had a shitty night of sleep WHICH IS ALMOST ALWAYS, I'd complain about how we needed a new bed frame. Because the one we had felt like it was going to collapse any time one of us moved. It got to the point where I'd cringe whenever Max jumped on the bed and he weighs like 5 pounds. Plus 25 more pounds. Whatever.

So this weekend we rented a truck and drove to IKEA to pick up a shitload of boxes that would soon become furniture. We got all the right ones this time. Did I tell you guys that when we bought our dining room table at IKEA we brought home two boxes and only one of them was the right one? True story. It was really disappointing. That didn't happen this time. Good story, Jennie, tell it again.

A couple of people have asked me how my Easter was and I have stared at each one of them, dumbfounded (which, to be fair, is my default reaction to human interaction most of the time). The closest we came to talking about Easter this weekend was when we drove by the resurrection-in-process Come Unto Me Jesus (formally Terminator Jesus AND formally Touchdown Jesus) on the way home from IKEA. This weekend was not so much about Easter for us as it was constructing a beautiful, happy place that looks like this:

I want to go to there.

Don't you want to sleep there? Well, you can't. SORRY.

DO YOU WANT TO HEAR SOMETHING CRAZY? (Note: it's not actually that crazy.) We put the bed together yesterday so last night was our first night to sleep in it. And even though Max did not jump on the bed at all like he normally does after we fall to sleep and therefore can't chase him off (choosing, instead, to curl up in a pile of dirty laundry), I still slept like crap! I'm blaming it on two things: 1) it was a Sunday night and I always sleep poorly on Sunday nights because of all the Monday-morning-dread and 2) I was playing Draw Something before I went to sleep and cracked myself up with the completely idiotic and inappropriate drawing I made for Joe. Then Phoebe threw up on the floor, right by my side of the bed, and I thought about ignoring it until the morning but then I pictured my foot coming down on a pile of cat barf in a middle-of-the-night bathroom trip and I decided to clean it up, which meant running downstairs then upstairs then downstairs then upstairs and by that time I was SO AWAKE so I tried to relax by repeating the following words to myself: GO TO SLEEP GO TO SLEEP IT'S ALMOST MIDNIGHT YOU NEED TO GO TO SLEEP YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY TALK TO PEOPLE AT WORK IN THE MORNING AND NOT JUST SIT AT YOUR DESK AND STARE AT A COMPUTER SO GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW. This didn't really help. PLUS. I'd plugged in a new cat pheromone diffuser for Phoebe, which made her extra friendly. This was cute but also troublesome because when she's extra friendly she usually tries to make a bed on my boobs at 3 AM which is not, as those with boobs can attest, all that comfortable for the human in the situation. 

Really what I'm saying is that you should play Draw Something with me I AM OBSESSED.

Also, complete sidenote: I've been meaning to talk about this but I keep forgetting. I'm participating in Pajiba's Cannonball Read IV, meaning I'm reviewing all (or most) of the books I've been reading, and they're not like my Goodreads reviews, which are like, "I liked this book, it was good," but actual reviews with more than one paragraph. And sometimes GIFs. Anyway, here's a link to my reviews, if you're interested. Or even if you're not interested, honestly. Also! Even if you don't read my reviews (and comment! I'm a whore for comments!), please read the Junior Cannonballer reviews because YOU GUYS they are written by kids who love to read, so please read and comment on those if nothing else BECAUSE HOW CUTE IS THAT? MY OVARIES EXPLODED, THAT'S HOW CUTE IT IS.

Um, right, so here are the junior reviewer links:

Bunnybean
Joemyjoe
The Grace Hurricane

The end.

"I use him to hunt moose!"

This is the conversation Joe and I had this morning as we were getting ready for work. As is the case with most of our morning conversations, I babble at a still-half-asleep Joe while he responds with a lot of one syllable answers and a general air of what-the-fuckery.

Me: Do you wanna hear about the dream I had last night?
Joe: Sure.
Me: Well. I was looking through all these dogs that needed to be adopted, right?
Joe: OK.
Me: And there was this one dog. I don't know what kind of dog it was but in my dream I kept calling him a Norwegian Elk Hound.
Joe: WTF? Is that even a real dog?
Me: I think so? I don't know what they look like but Mulder talks about one in an episode of The X-Files.
Joe: Oh, of course.
Me: Anyway, it was just one of those really big dogs with really long legs and a kind of a pointy, fuzzy face? Like, if it put its paws on your shoulders, it'd be taller than you.
Joe: Like Marmaduke.
Me: Sure, whatever. Anyway. This dog's name was Mutt.
Joe: OK.
Me: And he only had one eye! So I wanted to adopt him.
Joe: What?
Me: And we were really worried about Max not liking him because Mutt was a boy dog but we introduced them to each other and Max loved him!
Joe: Aww.
Me: So that's what I dream about now. Adopting one-eyed dogs named Mutt.
Joe: I love you.
Me: ANYWAY. I'm going to get on Petfinder today and see if I can find a giant, one-eyed dog named Mutt.
Joe: Um...
Me: COME ON WHAT IF I FOUND ONE WE'D HAVE TO GET HIM.

*****

OK, after Googling pictures of Norwegian Elk Hounds, I can safely say that is NOT the kind of dog I'm looking for.

I'm not Mutt BUT I'M SO PRETTY. 

This dog looks more like Mutt, only Mutt only has ONE EYE, remember? Please remember, you have to help me find him.

This could be Mutt's relative, who knows.

For your reference, here is what Mutt probably looks like currently. Be on the lookout!

Arrrrrrrrrr, matey!