That’s what you get for owning a cat, Lissla me dear. When you get it into the box find a nice deep lake…
Ex, how’s that different from other weeks? Though I must admit, the hijack opportunities dont’ really abound inthis thread. Breakfast skeet has potential, but after you’ve moved from toast to bagels to pop tarts where will we go from there. It’s not like you can put a squirrel in one. Unless it’s a toaster oven, but then you don’t have the skeet ability.
From today’s Weird Earl, a poem about this thread:
PM welby made her own workcleaning, maintenance,
or reposted without notice
or only downside
to
pick the street. . and have an
inch or the title Optional Options:
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parse URLs:
automatically parse URLs: automatically
adds around in
welby really enjoy
that. when you
could give
you know here but
that goes. off. for you
this website
2 months ago.
I don’t think that any pedicurist (is that a word) in their right mind would go anywhere near my toes. 
It was a quiet day, with no hint of what was to come. The weather was seasonal for Northern California in early spring. The sun was out, but filtered through a high layer of clouds, so the day was overcast, but with no hint of rain.
My sisters and I were looking for something to do while our mom napped away the afternoon after church. (Cue ominous music…)
The entire two acres was fenced, and there was a gate at the end of the driveway, so our two horses had pretty much free range of the entire property. This particular afternoon, they were taking advantage of this fact by hanging around the back porch, begging for treats, a pretty standard state of affairs.
Since they were so convenient, it was decided that the horses could use a good brushing, as they were starting to shed out their winter coats. They were easily caught and tied to the uprights on the porch. The grooming kit was brought out.
I had been inside up to this point, but upon seeing the horses, came outside with some carrots to say hello. I am the oldest, and was no longer living at home, so I would come over occasionally to visit, and this was one of those times.
As usual, the horses gobbled the treats and looked for more. So someone went inside for some bread. We started combing the kitchen looking for things to feed them, which was only right and proper, if you asked them. We gave them some uncooked oatmeal. More bread. We let them sample our Kool-aid. We gave them the rest of the carrots and a couple of apples. We gave them more oatmeal, this time with wheat germ and molasses. They ate it all. But we were running out of things to give them. Mom was going to be mad when she woke up and there was no bread in the house. And the horses were still looking for more.
At this point, someone (it might have been me) fell upon the bright idea of feeding them breakfast cereal. It was made with oats, right? Horses love oats, as our two had already proven. So someone went out with some Cheerios in a cup.
It was about this time that I, in all innocence, had taken a quick bathroom break. Or something. At any rate, I was inside the house when the event occurred, walking toward the sliding glass door. So I had a great view. This is key.
Both horses were mares, one about half as old as the other. The younger one was a Palomino/Appaloosa mix named Candlelight (Candy for short). The older one was a Quarab registered as “Bucky’s Tasha Bars”, Tasha for short. I only tell you this so you know them apart.
Candy had been fed a handful of the Cheerios while I was in the house, and apparently, liked them just fine. She was looking for more.
Then they gave Tasha a handful. She gobbled them up…rolled them around in her mouth for a moment, looking thoughtful…
Then she decided she didn’t like them.
Now, horses don’t spit. They can’t throw up. They have limited ways to remove something that tastes nasty.
Tasha went with the Tongue Waggle. She stretched her neck out as far as it would go, opened her mouth, and hung her tongue out. Then she shook her head like a dog after a bath.
Cheerios flew everywhere.
The other four girls were outside. It was like a war movie when the bomb goes off. In slow motion, and with looks of horror, they flung their bodies away from the source of the horse-spit-covered Cheerio shrapnel. All that was missing was someone yelling, “Hit the deck!”
I was inside, laughing hysterically. And I deny those nasty rumors that I planned it that way.
How’s that for a hijack? 
Wintermute I give it a 9.5. I’m deducting a half point because it did not quite make me snort water our my nose, and thus left me with water halfway up the nasal passage.
I wonder is Tasha would have like the honey oats Cheerios. Thems tasty.
Mmmmmmmm cheerios… we have loads of cheerios here… under the couch, wedged into the car seats, in the VCR, basically in any little nook or cranny she can find. Thank goodness we have a dog who likes cheerios!
Sorry about that. Would it help if I told you that I spoke to one of the victims of The Cheerio Incident and she remembers someone actually shouting, “Hit the deck!”?
If not, wait for the next exciting installment of The Amazon Sisters Do Something Stupid, or The Day the Merry-Go-Round Stood Still.
We didn’t have any Honey Nut Cheerios; she might have liked those. But I think it was the texture she didn’t like.
Now, damn, damn, dammit! I had composed a very nice post regarding Wintermute’s horse story, and my computer went CHOMPF! And ate it.
And then it waggled its tongue and sprayed me with soggy letters.
Anyhow, I was GOING to say that I liked the story quite a lot, and found it most educational. If I ever have occasion to feed something unpalatable to a horse, I’ll make good and sure to have some cover handy, so I can escape the shrapnel.
And as regards Cheerios: Are there any rat-lovers here? Cause I used to have pet rats and they LOOOOOOVED them some Cheerios (though they called them “Cheery-toes”).
They’d hold the Cheerios in their little hands and [sub]nibble nibble nibble[/sub].
It was very cute.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I ALSO like Cheerios a whole lot.
But I don’t hold them in my little hands and [sub]nibble nibble nibble[/sub]
Rats! I love rats! We had bunches of them when I was in high school. I don’t know that we fed them Cheery-toes, but I love how they hold things in their little paws.
I also like how they wash their faces while thinking. Show a smart rat something it hasn’t seen before, and it will start washing its face. If the something is particularly puzzling, it might get as far as its tail before its made a decision about what to do.
I also* like their little noses and whiskers and how they go, niff, niff, niff. They are so sweet!
I had Cheerios for breakfast today… well, a generic equivalent, actually. I figured they’d be kinda benign as I continue to recover from whatever bug has been bugging me. I don’t put anything on them but milk. No sugar, no fruit. Just cereal and milk. Simple and basic.
Lunch was peanut butter on white bread - another basic. Not toasted (as an allusion to the thread title)
Dunno what dinner will be. I’m almost feeling like my usual self, so I might manage some real food. Or hamburger helper. Either way. But no horse spit. This neighborhood is not zoned for horses.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by FairyChatMom *
a cucumber-onion salad. It’s killer!! <drool>
[QUOTE]
Is there an appropriate place you could post a recipe for this? These may be my two favorite foods.
My backyard has a big hole in it surrounded by mounds of red clay dirt. It’s little boy (and probably welby) heaven out there I tell ya! Pool guys and pool lady (that oughta yank Ex’s chain… there’s a woman doing manly things in my back yard) told me they’ll be pouring the concrete this afternoon. Ok, a big concrete hole surrounded by mounds of red clay dirt sounds more like a welby thing. I can picture him now diving head first over a mound of dirt into the cement hole, while yelling YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
-swampbear
hoping it’s pool time by this time next week
Red clay dirt + pool = big messes mama don’t like. Invest in sod.
Oh and Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Pool party!!!
-Ellen. (eager for a tan)
No, no, no, Angel Pants. You misunderstand me completely.
Manliness or unmanliness is a function of the activity alone, and has nothing at all to do with the gender of the person performing said activity. Women should by no means be discouraged from doing manly stuff. In fact, I highly encourage such behavior.
Take FairyChatMom, for instance. She’s a very ladylike lady-type person, but she still gets to do way cool manly engineering stuff all the time.
I’m extremely happy about the proliferation of new hijack topics, and I’m sure you guys can make good practice with them. I, however, am still at a loss. I don’t really want to talk about illness, and I don’t like horses much. I got kicked in the head as a kid.*
Excuse me while I go blow up my swimmies.
*Somebody please get in here and beat welby to the obvious “that explains a lot” joke.
Send me an email and I’ll gladly share it with you. I may have contributed it to Zenster’s recipe thread, but I don’t want to bog things down by searching.
Well, that explains a lot!
Anything for you, Ex.
Sorry you got hurt, though.
Kn*ckers had talking rats? Cool.
One of my brothers had a white rat many years ago but he was kind of mean. The rat that is. My brother isn’t mean, he labels himself “inert”. Anyhoo, the rat was an adult when inert got him and we thought maybe someone mistreated him because he never trusted any of us. He made life interesting though mainly because you never knew when he’d bite. Once he started climbing up the inside of my pants leg causing me to do my freaked-out dance. It wasn’t pretty.
But Mr. Rat had at least one redeeming character trait-he taught us all an important Life Lesson.
Another brother (not so inert) had a habit of just dropping his poplin jacket on the floor when he got home from school. Mom told him repeatedly to hang it up but he never listened. One fine morning as we were getting ready to go out to the bus stop, not-so-inert-brother picked up his jacket from the floor where he’d left it… and came up short a sleeve. Seems he’d tossed it a wee bit close to Mr. Rat’s cage who had then proceeded to pull in a sleeve and shred it for nesting material. From knit cuff all the way up to the shoulder seam, lining and all, gone.
Mom was quite amused.
Oh yeah, Cheeri-O’s. (They used to be called “Cheeri-Oats” but the Quaker guy got cheesed at 'em and made 'em change the name. True story.) We used to get them at Sam’s Club. It was great. We’d hold up our boy and tell the Sam’s Club person (we didn’t quibble on gender issues at Sam’a Club) “We want this much Cheeri-O’s! Stat!” The boys would go through their own bodyweight in Cheeri-O’s in no time. They’d even eat some of it. But there was no way you’d starve to death if you got stranded in our car. As long as you weren’t picky.
I just stuck my head up into the attic over the garage tonight. Dear Cecil and all that’s holy! They (the previous owners) left more crap here! Two bowling balls, a portable typewriter, a doll house, a teeny tiny life jacket and three grapevine reindeer. That’s not the best thing. There was also a Coleman camp stove. One of the two-burner kind you have to pump up to make work. That kind. When I pulled it out of the attic it went slosh slosh slosh. This did not fill me with glee. But it’s out of the attic now, so the probability of it FREAKING EXPLODING is now much lower.
In the old house we were real close to a Thriftway. (Thriftway was bought by Winn-Dixie if that means anything to you.) At Thriftway they had these seltzer-like drinks. Flavored fizzy water. Only not just fizzy water and flavor, they were loaded with high fructose corn syrup. The key lime kind was good with rum. (Yeah, that can be said of so many beverages. “It’s good with rum.”) I stocked up on Soupo’s last day of school so I’d have some for a while.
Well, I was running low, so I went to Kroger to see what they had. (Kroger is the largest grocery chain in the US. Neat huh? Ol’ Barney Kroger would be so proud.) They had this seltzer-like drink too. Not key lime like I like, but a lemon-lime thing.
Here’s the thing. It ain’t got no high fructose corn syrup in it. Just fizzy water and some lime flavoring. (NATURAL flavoring.) It’s not as good as I hoped.
-Rue. (still drinking the rum)