Sometimes, My Temper Gets The Best of Me

So, way back a long time ago, I wrote this post about how I sometimes lose my temper and act like a full on crazy person.  It happens.  Not TOO often, but often enough that I have learned to live with the general humiliation my crazy temper actions cause me.  Sometimes though, I begin to full on lose it in a situation, when, what can only be God, takes pity on his crazy, little hot-tempered Kristi and intervenes so that my overreaction is only witnessed by me and two little dogs.  Luckily for me, this is one of those times.

A couple of weeks ago, I return home from my hot, sweaty walk from the office and immediately get the two little spastic dogs ready for the afternoon bathroom walk.  I take the dogs out, they do their business, and I am soon waiting for the elevator to rescue me from the heat of the Texas summer and take me back to my apartment.  As soon as the elevator appears, I am surprised to see the person who lives below us (a new person since my stomping war, but no less volatile and aggressive) exit the elevator and walk swiftly outside.  I take the dogs up to our floor, and walk to our apartment.  Upon turning the corner to my floor I notice a small brown pile directly in the middle of our doorway.

I cautiously walk up to it.

It’s poop.

Dog poop.

NOT my dogs’ poop.

I manhandle the dogs around it (I have one certified poop eater of a dog), and go into the apartment, processing the fact that there was a pile of poop in front of my apartment door that WASN’T there just 10 minutes earlier when I left to take the dogs out.  At first, I place the blame on Chopper.  He is a swift pooper.  Maybe he somehow did it when I wasn’t looking.  After about 5 seconds, I dismiss this.  He isn’t THAT swift!  I walk pretty quickly from apartment to elevator.  He wouldn’t have had the time.   I then start piecing together my latest mystery.

Sometime, in between the ten minutes that I left the apartment and returned, a pile of dog poop appeared in front of my door.  I saw no other dog walkers.  I DID however see my crazy downstairs neighbor.

Quick facts about crazy downstairs neighbor:

1)  The people directly below Blake and I have a palace of a balcony.  Seriously, it is the same size as our bedroom.  Therefore, anything that falls off our balcony, lands on her balcony-palace.  When she first moved in, she called management on us to report that we throwing dog poop on her balcony.  Which, we weren’t THROWING, we were just allowing our dogs to go to the bathroom on the balcony, which would sometimes then blow on to her balcony-palace before we could clean it up.  Woops.  We have since changed our ways (PROMISE) and don’t even allow the dogs to go to the bathroom ON the balcony anymore.  Because of this, anytime ANYTHING dog-related lands on her balcony, she immediately blames us (throwing giant dog toys that obviously belong to a much differently sized dog onto our balcony that she thinks our tiny dogs “dropped.”)  She has gotten in screaming fights with the people above Blake and I because they one time watered their plants and water landed on her balcony-palace.  She is very protective of this balcony-palace.

2)  She one time got into a hysterical screaming fit on her balcony with her live-in boyfriend involving the following:

• The “C” word.  Yes that “C” word.
• The phrase “Your ass is grass.”
• Drinking from noon on
• Her boyfriend screaming, “LIES, LIES, LIES, LIES” at the top of his lungs.

It was a source of endless amusement for Blake and I (we still use the LIES LIES LIES line to express our dislike of something the other one of us is saying), but it did make us question the sanity of the two 35 year olds living below us.

So, with full knowledge of the above facts AND her presence in the elevator around the time of the rogue dog poop crime, I decided that it must have been her.  That someone else’s dogs must have pooped on their balcony, angered her, and she immediately blamed it on the innocent Porky and Chopper.

AND I GOT MAD!

I began pacing the apartment,  imagining knocking on her door and rehearsing all the perfectly timed and cruel things I was going to say to her when she answered.  I thought about transferring the dog poop from in front of my apartment to hers.  I thought about calling the apartment management and reporting her for placing rogue dog poop in front of my apartment.  I thought about throwing it ONTO her balcony and repeating the cycle.  With each scenario, I grew more and more angry and more and more confident that I could NOT let this slide.

Without a clear plan, I grabbed some paper towels and got ready for my imagined confrontation.  However, when I opened my apartment door, I realized that the dog poop was gone.  I looked down the hall both directions, to see if it been kicked either way, but there was no dog poop in sight.

I then realized the more likely of scenarios.  On the way out, some dog had gone to the bathroom in front of my apartment.  Their thoughtful owner had cleaned the area upon returning, while I was plotting more and more elaborate revenge on my innocent downstairs neighbor.

Could you imagine what would have happened if I had hurled it on to her balcony while she was sitting their smoking her cigarettes?  I probably wouldn’t still be sitting here to tell this story.

Thanks, God!

So THAT’S Why You Are Supposed To Be Careful Mixing Hot Liquids In A Blender

So, as I continue to plod my way through my very own Julie and Julia and Kristi cooking project, I settled on the next recipe from Mastering The Art of French Cooking – Potato and Leek Soup.  After the adventure that was Coq Au Vin, I decided to try something a little easier.  This recipe had all of about 5 ingredients, potatoes, leeks, water, salt, and cream – therefore, it had to be easy.

And it was.  Except for one little detail.  You see, I guess they didn’t have blenders back in the 1950s, because Julia instructed me to simply use a fork to mash the tender vegetables together after they hung out in a pot of simmering water for what seemed like eternity to hungry old me.  If that didn’t work, I could, as a last resort, rely on a food mill.  Well, I’m not entirely sure what a food mill is, and after half-halfheartedly chasing the leeks and potatoes around the giant stew pot with a tiny fork for a while, I decided that blenders hadn’t been invented during Julia’s time, and pulled out the trusty blender.

As I plugged everything in and poured as much of the pot into the blender as it could possibly contain, I vaguely recalled warnings from a previous corn chowder recipe regarding the risks of steam when blending hot liquids.  Being entirely to lazy to actually find any sort of instructions, I decide that I needed to allow some of the steam to release by not securely fastening the lid onto the blender and allowed the lid to crack open at the side.  Then I turned it on.

Potatoes and leeks exploded out of the top of the blender over my entire kitchen.  While my naturally good-natured husband laughed at the predicament, I immediately began yelling that the soup was RUINING MY COOKBOOK!!  I frantically blotted the cookbook, while Blake doubled over and laughter and the dogs began enjoying the people-food heaven they had found themselves thrust into – licking everything in sight.

I eventually laughed as well, and Blake and I poured the remaining soup back into the stew pot.  Deciding that the mistake was leaving the blender’s top cracked open, we re-poured the liquid into the blender and this time, securely fastened the top in place.  We went as far as to hold the top down.  Once again, I turned the blender on.

AND AGAIN MOLTEN HOT POTATOES AND LEEKS AND WATER EXPLODED ACROSS MY KITCHEN.

This time I was also able to see the hilarity in the situation (especially now that my cookbook was safely drying in the living room).  The dogs resumed licking the floor, and Blake and I resumed laughing hysterically.  I came to the conclusion that I should probably look up instructions on the blending of hot liquids in a blender.

After a short internet search, I discovered that you are supposed to puree hot soups in the kitchen in small batches with a slight crack in the seal in the top as to allow the steam to escape and the liquid to expand.  Information in hand, we careful tried a fourth of a cup worth of soup to see if we would once again find ourselves covered in onion-y soup.

And no soup coat!  We succeeded!  Tiny cup by tiny cup, we pureed the mixture.

We ended up with some delicious soup and gigantic mess (later cleaned by Blake, what a guy.)

Chopper Continues to Pee on Blake

The number of times that Chopper has peed on Blake – upgraded to three.  That’s right.  Chopper pee-attacked Blake.  Again.  Third time.

Porky the Fisher Dog

Porky (the Yorkie) has a very strong personality for a dog.  She has many favorites (Kristi’s lap, hogging food, beating up other dogs twice her size) and is always bossing Blake around, telling him (via Kristi) to do things like, “Take me for a walk!” or “I want you to get Kristi some ice cream and a diet coke!”  Well, this weekend, Porky (the Yorkie) let us in on another one of her favorites – fishing.  Apparently, Porky was meant to be a fisher dog.  SHE FREAKING LOVES TO FISH!  Now, she might be small (8 pounds) but seriously, she could put any lab to shame in the tough doggie competition (I am pretty sure they have one of those).  This is Porky when you have a fish on your hook (ignore the size of the fish Blake and I (although not really) were catching) -

Porky's thought, "Let me at that fish!! I"ll show it!! I will eat it and eat it and then eat it some more!! Let. me. have. it!!!"

You might be lead to think, by the above picture, that Chopper also wanted a piece of that fish.  That’s would be not true at all.  Chopper simply copies Porky, but if that fish had flopped his direction, MAYHEM WOULD HAVE ENSUED! (namely, he would have ran and hid and probably peed)

Now, Porky, being somewhat brilliant, decided that she did not like it ONE BIT whenever we threw small fish back.  In fact, she hated it so much, she decided that she could catch (with her tiny paws) any fish that we dared to toss back into the lake.  Here is what happens when your eight pound dog (with the personality of a 100 pound dog) decides to jump into the lake after a 6 inch perch, you decided was too small for eating -

Yes, we had to fish Porky out of the lake using a fishing net. And no, I did not help. I ran to get my camera.

I don’t think I have ever laughed this hard.