Wolf's Den

A tenant ABANDONED his 12 year old cat. The poor guy was left for days with no food or water before the landlord discovered him.

City KItties needs someone willing to foster if not outright adopt. If you can help, PLEASE help this guy. He didn't deserve this. None of them ever do.

The things you remembered while doing the most mundane of chores.

While doing the dishes today, I had a memory surface from while I was in boot camp (US Marines for those who aren't aware). This happens sometimes, when I remember things 10, 15, even 20+ years old, vividly, like they were only yesterday. Mark can't understand it. But ask me about my childhood, and before the age of 10, I have a hard time remember anything. Anything before coming to live with my dad at the age of 5-6, and forget it. There's maybe 2-3 memories and that's it.

About our 2nd month there, mid Sept- mid October, 1991 for me, we were required to do 2 weeks of mess hall duty. I don't remember exactly which messhall, but it wasn't ours, and I do remember it was one of the male recruits messhalls. Yes, we had seperate messhalls.

I was put in the 'Pot Shack', ie, the dishwashing area.

A day wouldn't go by that there were fellow recruits, all female, all from my platoon, mind you, coming into the pot shack to scrap 'treats' from the dirty pans whenever there was a particularly good dish being served that day.

I distinctly remember one day in particular, not being in the room for some reason, maybe I needed to go to the bathroom, I don't remember precisely, and coming back to find a CROWD in there.

Now it wasn't that big of a room, maybe 10x10 tops, so more than 2-3 people and it got crowded.

There were easily 5-6 in there, all crowded around one pan, all licking their fingers. As you can imagine, if this was a high school clique, it would have been the popular girls, so that tells you what type were there.

I distinctly remember getting angry , snatching the dirty pan, no clue what was in it, saying we were going to get in trouble with all them in here, and dunking it in the sink of soapy water. I certainly didn't make any friends that day.

Thinking back, the thing is, they don't realise that while they would have been in trouble, *I* would have been the one who was in more serious trouble. By simply allowing them to come in there and 'lick' the pans, I was breaking the rules, so to speak.

I wonder sometimes, how many of them actually made it past schooling, and how many are still active duty, to this day.


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I rarely make New Years Resolutions. Mainly because I rarely keep them.

But this year, I made 5 main ones, and one secondary that ties into one of the others.

1- Get healthy, and by proxy 2- get in shape. Winter is always hard for me to get out and exercise. Especially since I love to hike, and that's the biggest way I tend to get in shape. so I have Tai Chi dvds, I have exercise cord dvds, I just need to actually start using them.

3- Lose weight. This is seperate from 1, and 2 because you can lose weight but not be healthy. You can be healthy, but be overweight and not in shape. By watching what I eat, not eating as much junk food, eating more fresh veggies and salads, I should be able to do this effectively, all while retraining my metabolism to not want the processed sugars and such.

Which brings me to my secondary resolution- To use my damned Kitchenaide mixer more.}:P. I've had it over 3 years and used it twice now. This translates into more fresh baking, less processed foods. Especially since I made cookie dough yesterday and it took 15 minutes compared to the 25-30 it would normally take doing it by hand.

4- Save money. Mark's raise certainly will help with that, because it means bills will get paid off faster, especially one that would otherwise take another year to completely pay off. Once that's paid off, that money can immediately go into savings because we don't miss it now, we won't miss it then either.

5- Go more green/evironmentaly friendly. This I actually started last year. I started buying cloth shopping bags to use at the grocery stores. I have 4 so far.}:P That translates into 8-10 plastic bags saved per grocery shopping trip. I also get paper bags where and when I can. This cuts down on plastic bags and paper is recycleable far easier than plastic tends to be. Beisedes, the paper bags old more trash than plastic, so that helps too.

We don't use paper plates or plastic silverware, we rarely eat out- maybe once or twice a month, so thaty's not a big factor there. WE do dishes once a day and don't (well *I* don't) tend to leave the water running while doing it. We don't take long showers, 5-7 minutes tops. I know people who take 10-15 minute showers. Yikes.
I dug out my Eeyore slippers and keep a blanket downstairs to curl up in, thus being able to keep the thermostat set at 69-70, mainly for the comfort of the pets as this place is rather drafty. We put the blinds up during the day, and down at night, taking advantage of the heat from the sun.

I buy terra cotta pots, grow my own herbs and lettuces, I reuse the plastic egg containers (don't buy styrofoam, yuke) as seed starters. I collect seeds in the fall to replant the next spring.

I do my laundry at a laundromat, and in spring and summer, hang shirts and jeans outside to dry. Unplug my chargers, turn off my printer, etc. Don't use lamps unless I can't see to type or read.}:P TV is off if I'm not watching it. Computers/monitors are off every night.

We don't generally buy clothes until we absolutely have to- ie the khakis/jeans are too worn out for work. Hel, I have Tshirts that are over 10 years old that I still wear for dirty jobs.

We already rarely drive anywhere. The Demon Truck is still sick, but even then, a tank of gas was lasting me 2 + weeks (at 22 gals/tank). A tank of gas is lasting Mark just over a week (at 20gals/tank) but he drives to work and has to, daily.

I use Carefresh in the rabbits' cages, the gerbil setup and use that as compost around the stump out back, helping feed the squirrals and fertilize the soil. Tried recyclable cat litter, the Boys refused to use it/hated it. They're too set in their ways at 11 years old now.}:(

Little things we already do, that we need to continue to do.

This year, I want to get a small greenhouse, and finish the fence. That'll cut the wind(the fence will) coming down and across the back hill and cut down on the heating bills. The greenhouse will mean I can grow more of my own fresh veggies year round if I want.

Eventually, I want to go even more organic than we already do and start with making my own cleaning stuffs, both personal and home stuffs.

I think I finally made resolutions I can actually keep. Something else I really want to do, is go through more stuff and take more to the Goodwill drop off right down the street.


Now to write Chapter 2 for The Blackblade Clan and figure out what to cook for dinner.