You can see the general leaflessness of the Eureka lemon, but a couple of weeks ago I noticed that it was starting to bud like crazy. And those buds are now getting ginormous. Within the next week or so, that sucker will be flowering.

The lemons that were growing on the Meyer lemon tree stopped getting any larger for a while, but they seem to be on the grow again. The Meyer is also budding up, but not as violently as the Eureka. It still has probably a dozen lemons in the works, with the largest ones about the size of a small lime. We’ll see if they continue their journey now that they’ve had a little winter nap.

The other night we attended an awesome concert — They Might Be Giants, with Jonathan Coulton as the opening act. Coulton played the electric guitar (as opposed to the acoustic performance two years ago [and I'm amazed that it's been two years since JoCo visited]), and he was accompanied by a bass player and drummer. A small band, but a band nonetheless. His performance was awesome, as always, and he played many a good song, but it was too darned short.

We hadn’t seen TMBG for years; certainly not since we moved to Florida. They gave a great show, and did some fascinating bits with knit puppets. And we got to see what was probably one of the last public performances of “Marty Beller Mask” ever.

Paul and Storm are also visiting our town this coming Friday. I may have to venture downtown to see them.

I changed the strings on my second-best ukulele, and it sounds much brighter. I think I’ve had this thing for three or four years now, so it was about time for a string change. I’ve special ordered strings for my first-best uke, so I can get the low-g string instead of the high-g. Those should come in later this week. Then I’ll put the used first-best strings on my third-best, littlest uke. Yes, I have three ukuleles. And like cats, I’d have more if I was allowed.

Finally, in the category of tasty things, I made some roasted garbanzo beans (or chickpeas, if you prefer to call them that). I started with the Alton Brown base, then fiddled with the recipe. I ended up soaking the dry beans for at least 16 hours (overnight), then roasting at 375° for about 45 minutes (stirring them around every 15). Instead of his oil-vinegar-spice mix, I just used coconut oil and salt.

With the coconut oil, they smell like movie theater popcorn while they’re cooking. When they’re done, they have the texture of corn nuts, but a flavor similar to roasted pumpkin seeds. Me likey!

It actually wasn’t that bad. I parked around the backside, where I usually go, and got a spot that wasn’t exactly rock-star-parking, but it was certainly bar-band-with-a-following parking. In the central rotunda, I saw this:

You can see Santa down there, in the middle of what looks to be a baffling and overstimulating maze. Good luck, kids.

I browsed a few stores, but the lines were massive. And they didn’t have anything I wanted. Is it just me, or is it hard to find sweaters that aren’t coarse and stiff this season? Either that, or they have a massive cowl neck and short sleeves. The short-sleeved sweaters are everywhere.

Although I’m a fan of a good droopy cowl neck. Still, the short sleeves need to go. It’s not that cold out here in Florida, but the office I’m working in is usually freezing. Guess I’ll keep looking. Either that, or I’ll whip up something long-sleeved and fleecy on the ol’ sewing machine.

The malls are also boasting a look we refer to as “Vulcan air hostess” this season:

We borrowed “Vulcan air hostess” from Stacy London on an episode of What Not to Wear. Amazing how the look has stayed around. And speaking of WNtW, the new season starts up again this week. Can’t wait, love the show, though after watching it for 20 seasons or however long it’s been on, you’d think I’d dress less like a schlub.

Costco has a ton of gifts, a surprising number of which are Hello Kitty. There’s a Hello Kitty projection alarm clock. A Hello Kitty sewing machine. A Hello Kitty microwave oven. A Hello Kitty mini-fridge, just big enough to hold a 6-pack of pop cans. And the weird yet wonderful Hello Kitty water dispenser.

Most of these things also came in Julius, who’s also cute. But I’d totally go Hello Kitty. I already have the Hello Kitty humidifier by my bedside. The water dispenser is pretty small — I think it only holds 8 glasses of water. And it has encouragement to “drink 8 glasses” printed on the side of the bottle.

We ventured out to a Barnes & Noble bookstore for the first time in ages this past week, to see our friends Jen & John do a signing for their most recent Cake Wrecks book, Wreck the Halls. They had a good turnout:

And they gave a very entertaining show. I can see that it would be tough to build a “reading” around a book that’s mostly pictures, and they did a great job building a presentation that works.

At every stop on their book tour, a local baker made them a cake. The Orlando cake had a great rendition of the book cover, as well as a “carrot jockey”:

Scott said the cake was very good. I believe it was piña colada flavored, possibly also with raspberry.

They also had a guest book, signed by people from all of the stops on their book tour. It was cool to see all the lovely things written by all the lovely people throughout the US and Canada. My favorite, though, was an entry from a kid:

“Love cake I”. Says it all. Makes me think of the original Star Trek, and “NO KILL I”.

Which is appropriate, because Jen & John are geeks.

On the way home from the signing, which took place in a part of Orlando we rarely visit, we saw Beefy King.

If they’d been open, I might have tried them. Sadly, I guess Beefy King calls it a night pretty early in the evening.

In health and cat news, my finger is healing up great, it’s all scabby now. The antibiotics are doing their thing, and I’m infection-free. The cats appear to be killing off fleas very well, and both seem happier and less twitchy-scratchy. Although Commie has scabs on his back, he’s a lot less tender to the touch. I’m giving them daily comb-outs to get rid of the last of the flea dirt and eggs.

We’ve also salted the carpets, and are waiting a week to vacuum it back up. I have no idea how well it’s working on drying out and/or eviscerating the fleas with its razor-sharp crystals, but at least I don’t have to worry about having poison on my floors. At any rate, we’re seeing far fewer fleas, and those that I’m finding are usually dead or very sluggish.

Commie is, in fact, more affectionate than usual. I’m sure we’re just anthropomorphising, but we feel like they know we’ve helped them banish the itchies and they’re thankful for it. He’s also become a huge fan of our desktops. Although usually, he’ll lay on my hand or stand up in front of the screen, blocking any kind of work.

My next task for the long weekend is to put up decorations. I just did the lights out on the deck; next will be the tree with its silver piggybank topper.

Instead of our tree, though, I’ll leave you with this decorative item from the local outlet mall.

WHAT?!

For a couple of days, we’d noticed some fleas on the cats. I have no idea how on earth these two got them, since they’re 99% indoor, and the only outdoor exposure they get is on our 2nd-floor deck. I suppose either this apartment came with fleas already installed, or my one friend with indoor/outdoor cats brought some over when she visited.

Anyway, we kept an eye on the cats and didn’t notice any more scratching than usual. But then yesterday we suddenly saw that Commie had gnawed a little sore spot on his back. And going through his fur, he was loaded with fleas and flea dirt.

We figured that we’d need to treat the cats and the house both. So off to the pet store we went, to check out our options.

We ended up getting those fine-toothed flea combs and some flea-killing shampoo. I decided against a bomb-fogger or boric acid on the carpets for now (I’m going to try the salt method first, since it’s so very harmless to us and the cats). And we opted to come home and research whether we wanted to go with flea collars or liquid treatments.

We combed the cats (Commie wasn’t a fan, but Trouble put up with it well) and dunked all of the fleas we found into a bowl of warm water. They drowned pretty quickly. Then we moved on to the bath.

Scott did this comic in 2006. Which was well after the last time we gave the cats a bath. So it’s been at least 5 years.

The cats did not deal with it well.

We did Trouble first; she moaned and writhed and meowed quite a bit, but then seemed resigned to her fate by the end. And when we let go of her after the rinsing was done, she actually sat there and let us towel her off a bit. Which was quite civil of her.

Then it was Commie’s turn. And he was way, WAY worse about the whole thing. And he’s also WAY stronger than Trouble. He was hard to hold, and very wriggly, and VERY pissed. So he did was any sensible cat would do when being held down and tortured; he lashed out with his teeth. And bit my finger. Twice.

For those of you who haven’t been bitten by a cat, their teeth are like little needles. And they go WAY in. And you need to wait for them to let go. And it hurts like hell.

We got the bath done, and set him free, where he proceeded to sit on the bathroom floor and tolerate a toweling-off. So at least neither of them made a beeline for the dusty under-bed. Scott did the toweling, while I cleaned my finger and doused it in hydrogen peroxide. I put on some antibiotic ointment, some gauze, wrapped a Band-Aid around it all, then went straight to visit Dr. Internet.

Dr. Internet said that a LOT of cat bites get infected, specifically because they’re so small and deep, and a cat can be a total Yuck Mouth. And oh, hey, Dr. Internet also said that if you’re a child or an oldster or don’t have the best immune system, you should totally visit an actual doctor immediately and start on some antibiotics.

Trouble tried to be helpful, in that she hopped right up on the desk and got her wet fur near the electronics. And then did some glaring.

Anyhoo, the tip of my finger was numb, and I’m immune-compromised, and even though I felt like the biggest hypochondriac in the world, we went to the emergency room (which we only seem to ever visit at 11 at night). I didn’t want to wait until this afternoon to go see my regular doctor and get antibiotics. So off we went, to the same ER we visited when I had the mysterious chest pain (which turned out to be a panic attack brought on by a vicious inner ear infection). At least they didn’t treat me like a hypochondriac. Everyone agreed that since I’m immune-compromised, it was absolutely the right move to get checked out and started on antibiotics right away.

Even when it’s a small thing, a trip to the ER takes 3 hours. First a trip to the triage room, where they took my vitals. And where I got to watch a baby throw up right outside the room. Poor kiddo. Back to the waiting room, then a trip down the hall to sit on a bed for an hour and a half. They looked at my finger, had me pay, gave me a tetanus shot, and sent me home. Of course, all of those steps had at least 15 or 20 minutes in between.

And if you haven’t had a tetanus shot lately (I don’t think I’d had one since stepping on a rusty nail as a kid), it’s a classic pinching-then-burning injection in the arm. What you don’t expect is how much it hurts the next day. At least rabies isn’t a concern, since we took the kids in last year for their 3-year booster.

They didn’t even cut away the skin flaps over the punctures (I did remove one, the big one in the middle, because it was hanging by a thread). So the big one looks worse than the rest, but the flap is covering a nice puncture near the top, and there are two other skinflaps covering holes on either side of the big one.

At least it took so long at the ER, I got the feeling back in the tip of my finger. So no nerves were severed, yay! It was swollen and warm, but that’s to be expected when you’re deeply stabbed with a needle-like object.

By the time we got home, the cats were more dry, and perfectly pleasant. And my worries about late-night retribution were for naught — they were actually more affectionate than normal, probably because they were delighted to have survived such a harrowing experience.

Today I treated them both with Advantage, combed more fleas out of Commie (he was totally up for it today, go figure), and did five loads of laundry, including all-new bedding. Tomorrow we’ll start with Project Carpet Salt, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll also start seeing more dead fleas than living fleas, since Advantage is supposed to really start kicking in around 12 hours after application.

Oh, and today the finger is all bruisey inside. But the swelling and pain have gone down.

At least I’ll finally have something to say when I’m asked, “Did you do anything interesting this weekend?”

(Besides, of course, starting Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, which is lovely so far.)

(This post’s title gleefully mooched from the classic internet video “Charlie Bit Me“.)

(A tiny idiotic part of my mind is worried now that Commie has had a taste of delicious human blood.)

Job: Two days ago, I started a temporary assignment. At Disney, a TA is where you’re pulled from your regular area to do something a bit more specific and skill-tastic. This job is only for a couple of months, covering for someone who’s covering for someone who’s doing a holiday-specific job. It’s over in the talent casting and booking area, which is a department that’s had me in its pre-approved employee pool for 3 years or so. It’s nice to finally get a short sample job over there to see what it’s like, and if I like it, and if they like me. So far, it’s interesting work — booking musicians and variety acts.

And let me tell you, if you can come up with a variety act that’s unique yet fascinating, there’s definitely a living to be made at it. So far I’ve written up orders for stilt walkers, sword swallowers, living statues, and various other cool weird things. I really need to come with some sort of act.

TV: What with me and Scott on contrasting schedules, we’ve had to hack away at our season passes. Out with Unforgettable (totally forgettable) and Pan Am (meh). Also out with Terra Nova (cool concept, but the surly teen aspect is always a ruiner) and long-time favorite Survivor (they finally got too repetitive for us). We’re backed up on, but plan to keep watching, Person of Interest (although it’s all for Michael Emerson, since we don’t care for the whispery acting of Jim Caviezel) and The Walking Dead. We’re also a couple of weeks behind on The Amazing Race, sadly. Fortunately, Project Runway is done (we liked Anya), but it’s quickly replaced by Project Accessory (haven’t sampled episode one yet), Work of Art (worth it just to hear people say the name “The Sucklord”), and Top Chef Texas. Reality overload!

Books: I’ll throw down some reviews soon — when I’m done with the massive over-1000-page tome that Scott recommended.

Holidays: I only bought one bag of Halloween candy. I let myself get the one thing I really wanted, and I ended up with candy corn. I know it’s just corn syrup and wax, but darn it, that stuff is SO GOOD. I was in Macy’s a couple of days before Halloween, and they had their Xmas decorations up. Seriously. I mean, the lights and fake trees and stuff for sale at Costco in August is one thing. Actually decorating your store with them before Halloween is something else entirely.

Pop: I’ve embarked on the quest to give up Diet Coke. I was drinking the equivalent of six cans per day, which was WAY too much. Not only too much caffeine, but also just too much artificial sweetener. The cruise at the beginning of the month helped, because we would have needed to pay $60 in order to get refillable mugs for pop. We spent the week beforehand going through withdrawal, and just had iced tea and water on the cruise. Nowadays, I got some really nice lemon juice from the Costco, and have club soda with lemon for something fizzy. I can’t say that I feel a lot healthier, but it’s nice to not feel like I NEED a bottle of pop. I did have a single cup of caffeine-free Diet Coke from the fountain at Chick-Fil-A the other day, and it was a delightful treat. Which is what it should stay.

Hair: Last but not least, this stuff is driving me crazy. I’m keeping the back and sides trimmed up so that the top can grow out, and my horrible discovery is that my hair likes to grow straight forward. Check out how it dries — I brushed it straight back, with a little bit of styling product in there. Over time, it made its way forward.

Yes, yes, I need to color those roots. Thing is, I can’t be without clips or bobby pins or a hairband to keep this out of my face. Because there’s SO MUCH that wants to be in my face. And this being Florida, where even in the cold weather it’s relatively humid, no styling product stands a chance. I could use my industrial-strength hairspray at the beginning of the day, and at the end, the hair is back to being a flat, lifeless sheet of blah. It doesn’t help that my hair is baby-fine, and that I have a metric ton of it.

I’m thinking this weekend I may recolor, and then hack back to the pixie cut. Because a forehead full of hair will never be acceptable to me, and neither will needing to pull it back and clip it every day. That’s why I cut it short in the first place.

Trouble the cat accompanied me out onto the balcony, as always. She loves it out there, even though she’s the one who’s afraid of most people. On the flip side, Commie the social butterfly is terrified of the deck. He’ll stick his head out the door and sniff the great outdoors, but he won’t come out.

Anyhoo, the Meyer lemon looks great here. And hark, what’s that?!

One of my little buds has gone full blossom! And it smells fantastic. It would appear that not all flowers become fruits; in fact, relatively few do. But a girl can always hope.

Meanwhile, the Eureka lemon tree looks lovely, but not a bud so far. It would appear that Eureka is the lemon most commonly sold in grocery stores, while Meyer has a thinner skin and is slightly sweeter (possibly a cross between a lemon and an orange).

On a competely different topic, we partook of Taco Tuesday at the new Tijuana Flats nearby. As opposed to the one we used to live near, I really liked the mural painted on the wall.

Zombies and pirates and skeletons. It was fairly awesome.

And the tacos were great, too.

Yes, we just moved back in January. But here’s the thing — in mid-July, we got new neighbors downstairs. Those new neighbors had a loud party with massively bass-heavy music on their very first night. They then proceeded to play music that would make our walls and floor vibrate on a regular basis, often after midnight. The apartment complex encouraged us to call the police, which we did. Repeatedly. The apartment office sent them a series of letters, each more strongly-worded than the first, but the music continued. We were also treated to the occasional screaming fight — the one at 4am merited a call to 911, not the non-emergency number we’d used for the noise complaints.

The apartment complex is in the process of evicting these neighbors. But they warned us that the eviction process is a long one, and it might take months to work its way through the legal system. Seems like in an eviction, the people being evicted have more rights than anyone else involved. And as soon as that process started, the music was turned up to 11 on a nightly basis.

We asked about moving to another apartment, because we like the location, we like the apartments, and we like the management company. They had a “carriage house” apartment available and gave it to us at our current rent, even though it rents for a higher rate. The carriage house units sit above a garage, with no third floor above, and no shared walls with any other units. They also waived the transfer fees and deposit, and gave us a generous two weeks to move everything. So yes, it was a pain to pack up and move, but we’re now in a place with no neighbors above, below, or to the sides. It’s SO MUCH more quiet.

This new apartment has a very similar floor plan to the old one, but it’s not exactly the same. I have a little less kitchen space, but it’ll still be great. The carpets are new, and not the off-white of the old place — these are a really nice brown, kind of in a Commie-ish color pallette:

We got cat food in a color scheme that matches the carpets. That, combined with using our Bissell Little Green cleaner, is keeping our floors free of barf stains so far.

As you can see, we’re also getting more sunlight than before. The windows and deck of this unit face west, as opposed to the north-facing unit before. Since we get some hours of sunlight on the deck, I’ve acquired some new plants.

In the box planter, I have a jalapeno plant and a strawberry plant. I’ve grown peppers successfully before (in Seattle even), and that baby is already starting to put out some flowers. The strawberry is an experiment, since the only other time I’ve tried strawberries, Trouble ate all the leaves immediately and the plant died. This one is well out of her reach.

I also got the plant I’ve always wanted: LEMON!

In fact, I got two lemon trees. The far one is a Meyer lemon, which was the obvious choice. It’s a dwarf variety of lemon tree, well suited to growing in pots. The nearer one is a Eureka lemon, also a dwarf variety. Not only is it a much sexier plant (the Meyer lemon tree is a twisty, awkward thing), but apparently having more than one variety of lemon tree makes both produce more fruit.

After a little more than a week, the Meyer is already starting to bud. I’m guessing I’ll have blossoms in another week or so. I totally don’t expect to get actual lemons this season, but you never know.

We’re mostly settled in to the new place — only a few more things to hang on the walls, a couple of boxes left to unpack, and some light rearranging. My desk is now close to the couch in a way that makes it easy to get onto, which means I sometimes have company at the computer:

Commie’s eye is doing great, by the way. It’s occasionally a little winky and full of tears, but most days it’s delightfully normal.

We’re sleeping like the dead, which is awesome. This is the kind of apartment we could stay in for years. And hopefully that’s the case, because I don’t want to go through moving again for a long, long time.

Monday

House – Yeah, it’s totally formulaic. Ill person, four or five misdiagnoses, sudden epiphany, resolution. I’m still not sick of the formula, and it’s probably because Hugh Laurie is just so damned good. This season, Lisa Edelstein is on the way out, and a couple of new faces (including Odette Annable from the charming Breaking In, which we’ll totally be watching when it returns midseason) are joining the crew. (October 3)

Castle – If you don’t find Nathan Fillion charming, there may be something wrong with you. I’d advise seeing a doctor for that. Last season ended with a great cliffhanger — I know Beckett isn’t going to die, but I get to puzzle and wonder about how things will fall out with an injury, a new boss, and certain confessions. Wheeee! (September 19)

Terra Nova – Okay, so because the world is trashed, some colonists go 85 million years back in time to settle on prehistoric Earth. With dinosaurs and stuff. Say no more, sign me up. I’m just hoping I can suspend my disbelief regarding the time-travel paradox, because we haven’t found any 85-million-year-old human skeletons alongside the dinosaurs. I also hope it’s not too super-serious like Falling Skies was. (September 26)

Tuesday

The Biggest Loser – I’m not ashamed of my love for reality. Even though we only started watching this show in its 7th season, we’ve watched them all since. It’ll be weird without Jillian getting all up in the contestants’ heads. I usually disagree strongly with the nutritional aspects, but overall it’s compelling reality TV. I also wish the episodes were only an hour, but what can you do. (September 20)

Ringer – I just don’t know about this one, so I’ll give it a shot. I didn’t watch Buffy, so for me, Sarah Michelle Gellar is still Erika Kane’s daugher on All My Children. The concept is interesting, and the divinely-eyelashed Nestor Carbonell co-stars. (September 13)

New Girl – I’m so torn on this. It’s a half-hour sitcom, which I rarely watch. And I’m not all that big on Zooey Deschanel (not her fault — she was just so miscast in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). But the promos intrigue me, so I’ll tuck it in on the side. It’ll be like TV Jell-O. (September 20)

Body of Proof – I actually didn’t expect this show to get picked up. I guess it did better than we thought. Dana Delaney’s character got a little more human throughout the first short season, which was good — she was pretty unlikeable at the start. We’ll keep it recording, but it’s probably not going to be at the top of the to-watch list. (September 20)

Wednesday

Survivor – I don’t think I’ve missed an episode of this show. Like, ever. Call it a guilty pleasure if you will. They’re continuing with last season’s trends: Redemption Island, and two returning players. Also, Russell Hantz’s nephew is playing. Will he keep that under his hipster hat? (September 14)

The X Factor – What do you think — will it suck? Will it rock? I love the idea of allowing contestants over 28. And it looks like the judges will do some mentoring (like The Voice) instead of just offering meaningless nattering (like American Idol). I’ve also missed Simon’s acid tongue. (September 21)

America’s Next Top Model – I completely missed last season, because the show was on at the same time as two other programs. But this season (or “cycle”) is all-stars, and so must not be missed. The prizes have been tweaked, and now include the potential to become a correspondent for Extra. Which is smart, because some of these chicks are 30 years old by now. (September 14)

Thursday

Grey’s Anatomy – I think I’m really watching this show out of habit by this point. They’ve jumped so many sharks, it could be a SeaWorld show. The music is always good, though. And I always enjoy McSteamy. (September 22)

Prime Suspect – Never saw the original BBC show, but I’ve heard that it’s kick-ass. How can it not be, with Helen Mirren. I’ve heard good things about the US version, which is a surprising change from how things usually go when we transport shows in from across the pond. (September 22)

Person of Interest – A show from Bad Robot starring Michael Emerson. That’s all I need to know to rush to the TiVo. Sounds like kind of a Minority Report-esque predictive crime drama. Oh, and apparently the pilot tested so well, CBS bounced CSI from the time slot it held for 10 years to make room. (September 22)

Archer – If you’re not watching this show, DO IT. NOW. The best animated show on TV, and one of the few half-hours I watch. It’s the perfect mix of brilliant, funny, and shocking. Three episodes will air in September, with the rest of the season following in 2012. (September 15)

Friday

Fringe – An awesome show where awesome stuff happens. Last season ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger, and I have NO IDEA how things are going to play out. But I can’t wait to see. (September 23)

Grimm – A cop drama that takes place in an alternate universe where Grimm’s-inspired characters exist. Extra bonus: Pacific Northwest location. My hopes are X-Files meets Eureka. My guess is, by the time this starts airing, we’ll have a spot cleared out for it due to a September show not catching our interest. (October 21)

Saturday

Um … yeah. Nothing. Which is usually the case. Looks like the networks are airing mostly football and repeats.

Sunday

Once Upon a Time – Somewhere in Maine, there’s apparently a town that’s a crossover point between the real world and the fairy tale world. Disney has given their blessing to use their versions of the classic fairy tale characters, and Damon Lindelof is a producer. So this could be great. It could also be a big horrible mixup of weird. (October 23)

The Amazing Race – We’re up to season 19 already?! That’s incredible. This is the best reality show on TV, and I’m nowhere near tired of it yet. Contestants this time around include former Survivor winners Ethan and Jenna, who are dating in real life. So maybe this season there will be at least one “dating couple” who I can stand. (September 25)

Pan Am – No, I haven’t seen Mad Men. So this would be my first ’60s period drama. We’ll see how long it lasts on our recording schedule — reviews so far have been very mixed. (September 25)

Not Watching

Dancing with the Stars – this show has been going downhill for me for the last few seasons, and this time I just don’t have the gumption to watch it. There’s really nobody I’m interested in watching, although if I had to throw my support behind anyone, it’d be either Carson Kressley or Chaz Bono. At least it’ll save 3 hours of TiVo space every week. (September 19)

Charlie’s Angels – I’m sure this will be a perfectly fine reboot. But the producers have gone on the record saying they refuse to do anything “campy or retro”. Where’s the fun in that? Seems like this was MADE for camp. (September 22)

Revenge – A woman moves to the Hamptons and gets … REVENGE! This looks way too serious for me. And a bit too much of the fancy-schmancy rich and famous beautiful people. (September 21)

The Playboy Club – Unlike several “family” organizations, I don’t have a problem with the content. It just doesn’t look that interesting to me. I’ll stick with Pan Am as my period-drama attempt. (September 19)

Unforgettable – A former cop with a medical condition that makes her remember everything joins her ex-boyfriend’s homicide unit to solve crimes. I have a couple of other crimey cop shows, and this sounds like it’s going to be seriously heavy. (September 20)

The Secret Circle – Teenage girl goes to small-town Washington, discovers mysterious magical heritage. Yes, it’s witches instead of vampires, but it still seems a little too Twilight for me. (September 15)

Hart of Dixie – A New York doctor moves to small-town Alabama to work. And her last name is Hart! Nothing about this one speaks to me. (September 26)

H8R – I hadn’t even heard of this show until I looked at the fall schedule. Apparently celebrities get to confront mundanes who “hate” them, to try and convince the haters that the celebrites really aren’t all that bad. This sounds like the worst possible kind of reality show. (September 14)

A Gifted Man – Self-absorbed surgeon becomes a better man when visited by his dead wife’s ghost. Never heard of this one either. Looks heavier than dark matter. (September 23)

Thoughts? Opinions? What will you be watching? What will you definitely NOT be watching?

Chickpeas: An episode of Good Eats was dedicated to chickpeas. For me, however, they will always be garbanzo beans. Why do we need two names for these legumes? How do they get to be both a pea and a bean? I don’t think I even heard the word “chickpea” until my late 20s, when suddenly hummus was everywhere.

My first experience with garbanzo beans was at an Italian restaurant called Teo’s Mia Roma, in Kenmore, WA. There were garbanzos on the salad, as well as in the minestrone. Best minestrone I’ve ever had, by the way. And one of the best Italian salad dressings in the world. Google says the restaurant is still there, but they may have changed cooks/recipes.

Polliwog: On an episode of QI, the “fact” was mentioned that what English kids call tadpoles, American kids call polliwogs. And I was all, WTF, Stephen Fry? I grew up knowing those larval frogs as tadpoles. I always thought “polliwog” was an English thing. But perhaps it’s the location of my upbringing.

Gesundheit: This one is clearly location-based. Both Scott and I say this as a response to a sneeze, and we’ve received many a strange look here in the south. It’s all “bless you” or “god bless you” down here. But just like my way of calling fizzy drinks “pop” instead of the southern standard of “soda”, I’m not about to change.

$ Dollars: I saw this on a billboard on my way home last night: $3 Million Dollars. To me, having the dollar sign and the word “dollars” is redundant. It’s like saying “ATM machine” or “PIN number”. In my mind, it should be either “$3 Million” or “3 Million Dollars”.

I think we can all agree that there are errors on this truck. I’m fascinated how they covered both “its” and “it’s” bases in the same sentence. Also, capitalization of titles: all or nothing, friends. Don’t leave out the word “your” if you’re so dead-set on capping your slogans. (But at least they did use “your” correctly.)

So what do you all think? Who says what out there? I’d love to know of any Americans who grew up thinking of pre-frogs as polliwogs. Or of anyone else who responds to a sneeze with gesundheit. Or your take on the garbanzo vs. chickpea battle.

Many times in the last few years, I’ve thought about growing my hair out. And every time, I get to a certain point where the hair enters the ugly-times, and nothing can be done to style it, and I get frustrated as heck and cut it back down. I just don’t see how it can be done!

But on the flip side, maintenance of hair this short is a constant process. I cut my hair probably once a month, and it can get really shaggy-looking really fast. Plus, I get hair all over the place.

Yes, I cut my hair over pages of old magazines next to the bathroom sink. I’m all about the glamour, baby.

The killer is, I know I’ve grown it out before. I just don’t remember what the heck I did, or how I put up with the torture. Of course, it’s probably been 10 years. But you’d think that would stick with someone.

Anyhoo, I’m seeing super cute chin-length A-line bobs everywhere now. With the absolute cutest on Allison Scagliotti, part of the Warehouse 13 team. Dare I say it–since Joanne Kelly’s hair is straightened this season–Scagliotti has the best hair on the show.

See? SO CUTE. So I’m going to try to grow my hair out. And stick it out through the tough ugly times.

By posting it here, hopefully that’ll give me the gumption to stay the course.

After consulting the internets, I think the most important thing is to avoid getting mullety. So I’ll be trimming the back of my neck regularly as the top grows. I’ve also done a little light trimming on the sides, so the little sideburns don’t turn into sidelocks.

Here’s where I’m at as of August 1:

Keeping the back really short (I think my hair grows farther down my neck than most people. Seriously, it’s like I have a case of werewolf neck.) and letting the top grow.

I have bobby pins and some headbands at the ready to tame the beast. And since I’m a couple of weeks past my usual haircut time, it’s already getting a little too long for short-hair styling. Which you can really see when I show you how it likes to stand up in the morning:

Go, hair, go!

(By the way, the manga-style avatars at the top are from Face Your Manga, my personal favorite cartoonerizer on the web.)

These two are total barf machines.

They’ve always been barfers, these two. Trouble gets crazy big hairballs, while Commie is merely a food glutton. Besides which, they’re both elderly cats. And of course, all dry cat food seems to come in either brown, or orange, or a mix of brown and orange. Which is never good for apartment-dwellers, since all apartments seem to have the same standard ecru carpeting.

We’ve tried scrubbing by hand, and various spray bottles of pet-specific cleaner, but the barf stains remained. So we finally bit the bullet and got the Bissel Little Green:

A cute little squirter/scrubber/vacuum affair. We also got a jug of pet-stain-specific cleaning fluid.

(Also pictured: two of Trouble’s favorite toys. That little catnip Xmas stocking is from probably 3 years ago, but it’s still one of the first things she’ll pull out of the toy box. The brown thing is a face-down plush hedgehoggy thing.)

The setup wasn’t that tough — fill one chamber with warm water and cleaning fluid, spray and scrub and vacuum, then empty the resulting orange water afterward. As you can see here, one of the more vibrant stains isn’t completely gone, but it’s certainly much better than it was:

I don’t think any of the stains are 100% gone, but they’re all a lot better than they were. We’re not terribly concerned about our deposit here, since they didn’t change out the carpets before we moved in. They’d have to swap them out when we move out anyway. We’re just delighted that the spots don’t stand out as much.

Hopefully in the future, we can catch the barfs when they’re fresher, and those might clean up more thoroughly.

Now, on to the wild animals! We’re totally plagued by frogs lately. I posted recently about the tiny baby frogs, but some nights we also have larger models.

This guy is almost as large as my fist (although I do have smallish fists). And his coloring is so weird, it’s like I used the watercolor filter in Photoshop. But this is all him. All hail the hypnotoad!

The weirdest part about these frogs is that when I come home late at night, they’re all turned facing the wall. This guy was the one weird exception. The rest were all like something out of a froggy Blair Witch Project. Which made my walk to the apartment in the dead of night a little more eerie.

We also have ducks galore at our ponds. Here’s a whole crew, all almost as large as mom:

They don’t seem worried about the alligator warning sign. Which all of our ponds have, by the way. I’ve yet to see a gator in the apartment complex, but you never know. Here in Florida, you just have to assume that all bodies of water have reptiles in them that want to kill you.

Last but not least, there’s also insect life galore in the summer.

This is a mud dauber wasp. They look terrifying and gigantic, but apparently they’re harmless. They build these weird little pods out of mud, then lay their eggs inside. This one is kindly making its mud pods on my catnip plant growing out on the balcony. I will confess, after the mama wasp left later, I removed the pods and chucked them down toward the pond. I’ll let the alligators deal with them.