(How’s that for an interesting and foreshadowing title? Stephen King, eat your heart out.)

A bit of a rundown of various random things on my mind and that for which I have photographic evidence:

My Cat is on Grass

Many moons ago when my mother-in-law was over here visiting from Australia, she bought my cat, Leo, a “cat grass” kit from Wal*Mart. Now, I’ve never seen anything like this before, but it’s a self-contained kit to grow…waaaaaaait for it…GRASS. Yeah, I know. But apparently it’s supposed to be “cat friendly” grass that they’ll want and desire to eat.

And what’s funnier is that he actually does like to eat it — so much that he horked it all over the kitchen floor the other day and then looked up at me as if to say, “Well, it was nice, but the bleu cheese dressing was a bit tangy.”

I trimmed it tonight, thinking that perhaps it had grown a bit hairy, and since we put it up on the cupboard to keep Leo from snarfing it down like a vegan bulemic it has grown considerably. This very well may kill it off, as it appears to be some form of oats or similar — probably something exotic like, “mouse weed”, or similar, that has a flavor like a speeding rodent.

BANG! Thump, thump, thump is not a normal sound effect

The thing that never ceases to amaze me is that once you have a bit of money in your possession, something happens to sap it out of your wallet just as fast as it came to exist there. Really, my bank is just a pass-through for funds, not a stopping grounds, as nothing ever sits there long enough to even cool off.

Saturday as we sped up I-35 to the wedding reception of my cousin, I went to pass a guy in the left-hand lane and loud racket erupted from the rear of my car. Originally, my mind went, “You cut off a biker, you idiot.” and then proceeded towards, “No, you blew out a muffler. Nice.” The reality eventually crept into my head — “It’s a tire, it has to be a tire. Dammit.”

I pulled over to the side of the road and sure enough, the rear driver’s side tire was completely deflated and sitting on the rim. Shit. We tried calling my father, thinking that he might be behind us, but he had turned his cellphone off for the wedding. I tried to find my roadside assistance number, but even though I pay $7/month for the damned thing, I don’t appear to have the number actually on me. It dawned to me that I should probably just bite the bullet and change the tire myself, which I did in about 8 minutes, no problems, and put on the “donut” spare, then proceeded to drive 50mph for the rest of the night (its rated speed limit).

This is on my 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse, which hasn’t even turned over 50,000 miles yet — clearly a lot of tread and wear was killed off in its early life.   The tires are P215/50R17 90Vs and the current ones are Eagle RS-As,which have been great for me when driving, but…

The pictures are not doubles, nor are they pictures of the same damage — the tire blew out in two places, or at least one place and the other ripped once I started driving on it, unknown about that. So I have been searching and I believe I get to drop $260+ on two new tires come Monday. Yay. ~

Toilet Herbs

Everyone has heard of an herb garden full of pot — but this is a pot full of an herb garden. Perhaps you remember my posting about our old house being destroyed. Well, before it was flattened I went through and stripped tons of useful items from it. One of the very last things I grabbed was our old toilet.

Now, I hear you saying to your computer screen (as your spouse wonders how long you’ve been crazy, and why you don’t take your meds), “Nathan, what in fuck do you want a toilet for???”

Well, I thought since it had been through so much shit with us, it deserved to come along and keep sharing the experience. However, I knew that it was time for a career change for the water closet, and so I have turned it into my herb garden by filling the bowl with dirt and planting some sweet basil and Italian oregano in there.

Think of the advantage — it’s self-watering! You just flush it and voila! Instant wet dirt. Too much water? No problem, it’ll just flow out the trap. I’m planning on eventually redirecting the output of the downspout into it to provide plenty of good rainwater reserve for those dry days of summer.

Think of the humor! You’re cooking for friends and need some spices and so you just say, “I’ll go to the toilet and get some oregano!” The look on their faces will be precious, really. Plus, it should be a great conversation piece once it gets going.

Never say that something can’t be recycled — even if it’s in “crappy” condition!