stupidhippy.com

When you’re living on unemployment (or are very very underemployed), things like getting your hair cut just sort of… don’t take priority at all. So when Rebecca and I went to get ours cut today, it was the first time in about a year, I can’t even remember the last time. We both had about three or four inches hacked off. I took before and after shots, but we were standing out in the bright sun and I couldn’t see them on my phone screen very well, so I didn’t realize until it was too late that I’d taken shitty photos of both of us. Doh.

But oh oh oh, I love the feeling of having all that hair hacked off! Even though I’ve been LOSING my freakin’ hair, it’s still pretty thick and it was really long and now that the weather is getting warm, it was really starting to piss me off. Not to mention it was just a mess. Now it’s so short and light! Originally Rebecca said she wanted to keep her hair long and just have a trim. But then we saw some old photos of when her hair was short and she remembered how much she liked it, and how easy it is to take care of, especially in summer, so she got her hair short again, it’s just about at her chin, all angled and cute. I do have a photo of her from a few days ago. She got this hat at Ross and has been wearing it constantly. I love that she dresses a bit quirky. Although sometimes it’s hard to keep my mouth shut because she thinks, say, plaid goes with plaid, regardless of the colors. But whatever, she’s got her own style. This hat is perfect.

There are several big rosemary bushes outside our Trader Joe’s and they are covered with these weird spit ball things. I think they’re some kind of bug doing something? Laying eggs in there? Something else? Anyone know?

You get what you pay for — cheap bags quickly end up in the waste basket or sitting in a closet, contributing to more wasteful consumption.

via The Hidden Costs of Cheap Reusable Shopping Bags.

OMG, this pisses me off almost as much as plastic shopping bags, maybe even more.  I’ve been given some cheap reusable shopping bags and not one of them has lasted more than six months.  I have a few of the Trader Joe’s bags and they last pretty well.  The handles don’t break, but the seams eventually give out. BUT.  BUT!  I have a bunch of bags I sewed myself and a handful of plain old canvas bags that either I got for free somewhere or bought for a quarter at Thrift Town, and those bags are for-freakin-ever.  I’ve been using some of them most of Rebecca’s life (she’s going to be 9 in 10 days, omg) and they’re still in great shape.  I had one of those cheap bags break on me the other day, what a pain in the ass, too, carrying my groceries home on the bus with the broken handle.

I’ve had three girls here for most the last two days. Zoe has been staying here (she’s going home tomorrow, I think) and a friend from the apartment complex has been here all the hours she wasn’t at school. It’s been alternately great and not great. They’ve been mostly occupied with each other today. I did some laundry, baked some bread and recycled some thrift store books and magazines by making an embarrassing number of envelopes. Anyone want some envelopes? So far I have some made from a battered copy of “The Velveteen Rabbit,” some from a book about Berlin (in German even) and some from a book about about American lifestyle. I may still rip up a book about Ireland. These books weren’t very good books, in terms of sitting down to read, but I harvested lots of images from them and now I have this big stack of envelopes. It was a way to spend a day, anyway. I need to get some labels to stick on the ones that don’t have a place to write addresses. And some glue sticks, I used almost a whole one making envelopes today. Gah, geek!

I’m getting my hair cut on Friday. It’s been a bazillion years since my last one and I’m so ecstatic, I’ll probably cry tears of joy.

These are Emily’s eyes. It took more than three full days, but she finally got over her ‘tude about Mister. I sense there’s still a chill in the air between them, but she’s not hissing at him anymore. Handy is still lounging in sun spots in the middle of Rebecca’s room when she can. Becca’s best friend Zoe is here today, though, and that usually drives Handy into hiding, so we’ll see.

Some of you must remember when we got Emily, almost four years ago! She was super tiny, had been separated from her mother and siblings too soon, we bottle fed her when she first came to live with us. She slept on me a lot back then, but after the first few months, she clearly claimed Rebecca as her person. These days she still loves Rebecca, but she sleeps on Ed as much as possible. As soon as he sits down when he comes home from work, she’s on him, in his way, purring, covering him with her hair. She practically hates me! She will not sit with me, pretty much ever. Although she knows I’m a sucker, she brings her toys to me when she wants to play. Today was a rare day, when I picked her up and put her in my lap, she stayed for a while and I got this photo of her eyes. A few moments later, she bit me and ran away.

Can anyone help? Rebecca got paint on one of her favorite shirts and tossed it in the laundry without telling me and I didn’t see it before I threw it in the wash. I did notice it before it went into the dryer, so there’s that. It was washed in cold water. I don’t know what it looked like before the wash, but it doesn’t look like much happened. Anyone? Is the shirt doomed?

Well. We usually go to the library twice a week, so it’s not like it’s rare or anything. Our new library is awesome, though. Here’s my haul for today:

You can see where my mind is right now, eh? In the last few days, I finished Invisible Privilege, which was very good. I also finished Fool Moon, which I enjoyed, and I’ll probably start the next book tonight.

Here’s a cute photo of my girl, reading Garfield to her cat:

Heh. If we track days of the week by Ed’s work schedule (since we don’t have a school weekday to tell the difference between Monday and Friday), Sundays are Tuesdays. Rebecca and I ran a couple of errands. We stopped into a new craft store that opened up near the shopping center where we do most of our erranding. It’s mostly scrapbooking stuff, but there are some other general crafting supplies, too. Rebecca was drooling over a big paint-by-number of horses. I was drooling over paper (that I would make envelopes out of, heh) and a rubber stamp set. I actually can’t stand most rubber stamps now that I carve my own. I just prefer the sort of creative, raw style of hand-carved stamps (my own are a little TOO rough still, but I’m getting better!). But I saw a set of, I don’t know, doodles? There were some small stamps and some large, all sort of random shapey swirly circly things, they would be great for layering under/over other things. I was also drooling over a large rack of ink pads. I couldn’t resist them, actually, and got a color called “lettuce” and one that is sort of dark pink. I want the whole rainbow, though!

A frozen yogurt shop also opened up in the area, across the street from the craft store. I love that they have Fruity Pebbles as a topping choice! I can’t justify buying a box of them at the store, but I don’t feel bad sprinkling a few over some frozen yogurt. Because I’m weird (shut up, you), I got peanut butter yogurt with bananas and fruity pebbles. Yum! Rebecca had to try a bunch of flavors, and then a bunch of toppings. It was sort of psychotic, her dish. Most of her toppings were fruit, with a few white chocolate chips. As I suspected would happen, she was unable to eat the whole thing, and said afterward, “well, it was a good experiment, I know next time to just get the blueberry and fruit, and smaller.” I know if I’d tried to control what she chose, or limited how much she got, she’d have still been trying to make THIS every time we go, but now she learned a big huge yogurt sundae with so many flavors isn’t really as great as it looked while she was making it. Heh.

It’s sunscreen season. I actually got sunburned today, waiting on a bench in the sun, for the bus. The price of sunscreen irritates the crap out of me. Yes, yes, I know, I bought ink pads but then balked at the price of sunscreen. Rebecca and Ed both have super sensitive skin, though, and most sunscreens break them out in a rash. So far, Aveeno and Jason are the only two brands I’ve tried that don’t bother them. We went to Walgreen’s today and the Aveeno is $9 for a small tube that would last a week at most during the height of summer. Grrr. I wish I could get tiny samples of all “natural” brands to find the ones that won’t be too rough for my family and their sissy skin.

Rebecca’s birthday is in a few weeks, on May 10. We’re having a slumber party! Her birthday is on a Monday, and the day before that is Mother’s Day. I don’t care that much, but I’m not sure her friends’ mothers would want her to be here, so we’re having her party the following week. I have nothing planned yet. Rebecca wants an ice cream cake, but I don’t know, I can’t really see bringing one home on the bus? We’ll see.

She’s going to be 9! Wtf?! NINE! Next year — two digits!

Bed time for bonzo.

OMG, these cats! Emily is still hating on Mister. Rebecca was amusing herself (and, um, me and and Ed, too, I admit) by picking up Mister (who is huge, so he’s a real armful for her) and walking slowly toward Mister. When they got close enough, Emily would hunch over, flatten her ears and start growling and if they got any closer, Emily would start hissing. My brother suggested maybe Mister got peed on while he was outside? Ha!

But this morning a new drama is developing. Every time Wombat hears Emily hissing, she hisses, too! It’s one big hissing fit and Mister seems oblivious to the fact that he’s the cause of the crazies.

Meanwhile, Handy is just lying in the middle of Rebecca’s room soaking up sun. It’s just odd, she’s such a fraidy-cat, she NEVER sits in the middle of a room, she’s always hiding somewhere or sitting off in a corner all unobtrusive and quiet, practically invisible. If you came to our house, you’d probably never see her, even if you came over often. To see her lounging around like that is weird.

We have four cats. Handy is the oldest, by far, at 16 or 17. She was born feral and isn’t exactly normal, she’s very skittish and has been known to run from her own shadow. She’s tame with me, a little less so with Ed, a little more less with Becca, and runs from all other people. She used to be friends with our old cat, Jack, and there was no animosity between her and Max or Paisley (both deceased, they were Handy’s contemporaries, just a little older than her). She has an uneasy peace with Wombat, mutual ignoring with Mister, and Emily is her tormentor. Emily is constantly in trouble for chasing Handy, which she does frequently. Handy is constantly on the look-out when she walks around because she knows if Emily spies her on the move, a chase will happen.

Emily is the youngest, she’ll be four in July but she doesn’t act a day over six months. Until today, she’s friends with Mister, they play together, sleep together, are generally just pals. Wombat is her nemesis. Wombat LOATHES Emily and takes every opportunity to express her loathing.

So today is weird. Emily is anti-Mister. And just now I walked by Rebecca’s room, where Handy is lying just out in the middle of the room in a big patch of sun. She’s not normally one to relax out in the open, but I’m the only one home, so maybe that’s why. What’s weird is that a few inches away is Emily, enjoying the same patch of sun. I know they know they’re only a few inches apart because when I walked by they both looked up at me briefly, before returning to their sunning. I’ve never seen them be near each other without Emily harassing Handy.

It’s like our apartment got turned upside-down or something, it’s all very weird.

Yesterday one of the cats, Mister, the big dumb cat that looks like a Maine Coon, pushed out the screen in my bedroom and flew the coop. Our cats (aside from Not-our-cat-Goldy, who is NOT OUR CAT) are all indoors, all the time. I believe it’s best for them to be inside, but it means they don’t really know how to conduct themselves outside. A couple of days ago Rebecca and Zoe left the back door open and Mister escaped but was captured quickly. Yesterday, though, we didn’t even notice he was gone for who knows how long, he might have been out for as much as five hours! Once we realized he was gone, we called and called, walked around calling. Anyway, he eventually came home. It was hilarious, too, because he came tearing ass, streaked past the yard on the outside of the fence, then crawled under a little gap and up to the back door, like he was on fire. When he found the back door closed, he went completely hysterical and started running back and forth across the yard until I got to the door and opened it for him.

Well, since his walkabout, Emily HATES HIS EVER-LOVIN GUTS! These two are pals, or they were, but now Emily hisses and growls whenever she sees him. A little bit ago he tried to sit down next to her and she went completely postal on him while he sat there with a “wtf” look on his face. Now Mister is sitting on the couch licking his butt and Emily is under the couch growling softly. I hope she gets over whatever it is because things were sort of peaceful between all the cats before this Big Cat Drama.