kris

Lawn mower

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 11:11 on 15 February 2009

My dad doesn't mow his lawn as much as the neighbors would probably like him to mow it. It's a big yard. It's a big yard on the corner, and a lower priority in life than other things.

It's a skill I, too, have mastered.

Over the last seven years, we've stripped out most of the concrete in the back yard, thanks to Doyle and Kevin. We've also removed a lot of the plants, which may or may not have been a good thing.

Unfortunately, the removal of the concrete and its placement with compost and good soil was an invitation for whatever seeds were blowing in the wind to start in our yard. Each year its something different, this year it was grass.

Kris wanted to dig up all of the grass, rototill it under, or rip it out and throw it away. The grass was growing too tall for him to be able to find the dog poop in the yard to clean it up. Somehow, I managed to convince him to wait a week, for me to order a lawn mower and mow the grass. I don't know just how I managed, but I did.

The mower arrived this week, but it sat there until this weekend. After I opened the box, Kris assembled the mower. He handed it to me and said "Have at it."

The grass was so tall, I had to get a running start on most of it. The backyard is mowed now, but I can't say it looks good.

At least Kris can find the dog poop now.

My drinking buddy

Blog Instead of being asleep at 19:35 on 13 February 2009, kitt created this:

Also known as my BevMo angel.

And the battle begins!

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 11:13 on 6 December 2008

Last night, after we finished the lights installation, we were greeted by a knock on the front door. When I opened the door, two of my favorite people tumbled into the living room, giggling and calling "Kiiii-itttt!" followed quickly by another favorite person.

Mike, Liza, and Maeryn were on their way some, but stopped by to drop off the truck and some other items, including a pile of books. I handed Mike back two of the three books in the Old Man's War series, having devoured them rather quickly. I received a slew of Percy Jackson and Grimm Sister books in return.

While Mike and I were chatting, Liza and Maeryn wandered around the room looking for something to entertain themselves, with Kris hovering somewhere close. At one point, Liza picked up my foam rollers and asked, what are these for?

Kris picked up the other foam roller and the foam roller sword fight began.

After a few swings, Maeryn tackled Kris to save Liza. She managed to wrestle the foam roller out of his hands, and started swinging it in his direction. She was successful in her subsequent beatings of Kris with the roller, until Liza took a swing and accidently hit Maeryn. That changed Kris' fortune, as the two girls entered a fierce battle for supremacy.

Not to be outdone, Kris retaliated with the Big Red Ball™ move, conquering one of his foes.

There are some peple who are slow to anger but fierce when provoked. When Kris had captured of of his girls, Mike, one of these slow to anger types, couldn't resist any longer. He came in with pillows flying, and balls bouncing off heads, including the basketball which had until this point been a quiet observer of the war raging around it.

The hilarity of the battle scene soon became overwhelming for me. I doubled over with laughter, my stomach cramping so hard it hurt. The battle continued until, well, someone poked her eye out with a stategically thrown pillow, and we all had to calm down while the medic checked out the injury.

After a few moments, said medic asked, "Are we done yet?" To which the injured party said yes and stopped crying. We were all subdued enough that the war was clearly over.

I can only hope the forces battle again some time soon.

Bioengineered for this

Blog kitt decided around 10:45 on 26 November 2008 to publish this:

This morning's velocity had all of the characters from Monday with one switch, we swapped out Jennifer for a quick Asian dude I've seen at various classes. Oh, and I learned the name of the guy whose name I couldn't remember on Monday. It's Greg, not David. I have no idea where David came from. Maybe Pickett.

Lockwood hike and home

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 13:38 on 23 November 2008

Kris and I managed to sleep most of the night through last night, with Kris' waking to the smell of Andy's coffee and my waking to the thud of an excited Blue landing on top of me, bringing the tent down in the process.

Nothing like using a sixty pound dog as wake up call.

That same dog makes a great escort in the middle of the night when there might be coyotes and other large animals roaming around, and you're not sure if it's safe to walk around the small building, across a small open space to the other side of the hilltop, in order to pee.

Andy thinks that Blue didn't actually sleep last night, that he maintained watch the whole night. I know that Annie wriggled her way out of the tent in order to sit watch for a while. She did, however, recognize the warmth of the tent, and wormed her way back into the tent, sitting on Kris' head in the process.

This morning, I was, unsurprisingly, the last person up, with Bella being the last of the seven of us actually getting up.

After breakfast, a meal that Bella thought meant, "We're going home!" but really meant, we're heading off for another hike. Having climbed to the top of the hill he'd been wanting to climb, and discovering another hill beyond it, he decided he wanted to climb THAT hill to see if there was another hill beyond it.

Interestingly enough, I think all of the dogs have decided that I am the source of all that is good. That is to say, food.

So, off we went on our hike, pretty much following the same trail that Kris and Andy (and Blue and Shadow and Annie and mostly Bella) took yesterday. The six of us (where the six of us were the seven of us minus Bella, who was, once again, on her own hike again) went out the back way, down the hill, up the next one, and along the ridge. Up and over a couple hills, to the top of one hill, to discover the next range of hills after that range.

For the way back, we decided not to go back the same way we came up, and opted instead to hike back "towards the water tower." We found a copse of pine trees, though how they survived, much less grew so big, on the top of the hill with little water, I have no idea.

Bella kept up with us, following her own path, sometimes being ahead of us, sometimes being behind us, but always walk walk walking at her own pace.

At one point, I stopped to squat, and Bella passed me, to catch up with Kris and Andy. Kris decided to wait for me, Andy decided to continue. At that point, we lost Andy. He went off either down toward a large ravine or down towards a dropoff of unknown height. We decided to try to the left, towards the large ravine.

After a few hundred meters, Kris was less confident about the direction we were going, so decided to turn around. Bella was in front of us when we made this decision, being the only dog with us. I hurried up to her, turned her around, and hustled her back the way we had come.

We had walked just far enough for Bella to disappear over the hill we were scrambling up when we heard Andy call out to us, why were we walking back the wrong way? Eh?

We called for Bella to come back, but, being on her own hike, she just kept going. We turned back back around, headed back to the ravine, scrambled up and around around the ravine, and waited.

And waited.

Must to my pleasant surprise, Bella figured out our mistake, had turned around, and was coming back our way. She didn't seem too pleased about our mistake, deciding not to greet us when she caught up to use, and just walked right by.

Much like yesterday, according to Kris.

We wandered down to the bottom of Crews Hill, walked up Crews Road to the top of the hill, and gathered up our stuff. The dogs were sufficiently tired out to sleep all the way back home.

I'm happy to say when we made it home, I was able to stop by a Starbucks and buy a hot chocolate. A premium hot chocolate.

One I'd been talking about for the previous day, to Andy's consternation, I think.

Walk back

Blog kitt decided around 10:50 on 23 November 2008 to publish this: