Well, to be sure, Valentine's Day does not suffer a lack of reasons to laugh at it. But.

My coworker called me over, because he was enjoying some post-Valentine's Sweethearts. Some of the sayings were pretty entertaining - like "TWEET ME," which is sort of ... not particularly useful, seeing as a Tweet goes out to everyone who reads your Twitter.

But my favorite, I have to say, was a misprint where part of the saying didn't make it onto the candy. So printed off-center on the little heart is the word "YOU," and beneath it, truncated on the left side, "OCK."

(As my coworker said, the possibilities are endless.)

Last night when I was going to bed, ratzeo had just bid me goodnight and was about to leave the room when we heard yelling outside our window. ratzeo took a look outside, said that it sounded like a cat had gotten out, and left to see if he could help.

Soon after he did so, there was a *WHUMP* and much scrabbling as the cat in question hurled herself at our window and started scaling our screen. (Let me tell you, I'm glad we knew that the situation involved a cat, because if I just heard yelling and then something slammed into my window in the dark, I would have shat a brick.) I think I yelled something inane like, "I found her!" and went to grab my glasses, but before I could do so, all of the cat's jumping and clawing caused our screen to pop out, and she hurtled through the open window into our bedroom.

Lost Cat went shooting into the living room, I grabbed my glasses, and then she came shooting back with a Kershach chasing her. >_<

(I think, though, that Kershach wasn't trying to attack her, but was just terribly excited at all the fuss and the strange cat. When she ran into the bathroom and hid, he stayed outside, pacing and looking around eagerly, with his tail up and ears forward. He was probably just confused as to why she was so freaked out.)

Lost Cat hid in the bathroom, doing the scared-cat-yowl, and ratzeo went in to get her. He coaxed her out and she let herself be picked up, so he took her to the balcony, which has access to the street and where one of her owners came to meet us. Of course, the moment she was taken outside, Lost Cat flipped the fuck out and started clawing ratzeo, trying to get away. He managed to give her to the owner, but she was still freaked and went the opposite route, digging her claws in and refusing to let go. The other owner arrived and was eventually able to get Lost Cat to remove her blades from human flesh, leaving only two of the four humans bloodied - in pain, but not seriously injured.

It turns out that the cat was from an apartment on the floor above us, and somehow knocked out their window screen and fell to our balcony. It seemed like she was an indoor-only cat who was severely freaked out to be outside (not to mention having fallen out a window), and was also quite small, so could have been young as well. This would explain why she was so unhinged. I wish we'd thought to wrap her in a towel when ratzeo picked her up, but she was relatively calm while she was in the apartment, probably because it was indoors.

ratzeo is fine, though I went D: D: D: a lot at his wounds. He'll have some impressive battle scars for a few days, but nothing deep. Kershach is also fine, though he remained very alert to strange noises for awhile - he was totally chill, though, and flopped around a lot begging for pets. I'm not sure if the excitement made him happy, or if he wanted reassurance that we weren't getting a replacement cat or something. :P In any case, he got lots of pets and some treats, and was a happy purring lump for the rest of the night.

My exciting life. o_o

I just gave out my business card for the first time. I feel stupidly pleased with myself. Now I can pretend I'm a real grown-up and everything!

So, I tried out my coffee maker tonight. I'm not enough of a coffee expert to know if all the rave reviews are accurate, but the coffee was pretty good. You start by pressing a super-strong amount of coffee, and then top it off with water. I think I put in too much water, because when I sampled the essence-o'-coffee it was good, but the final cup was weak-tasting.

Anyway. I had the coffee after 9:00 p.m., which I realize is somewhat close to my bedtime. However, I also know that a cup of coffee doesn't have a huge effect on my system (unlike espresso, a fact of which I have very recently reminded myself, and with which I provided ratzeo much amusement). I figured that one cup would be okay.

Except -

I knew, at the time, that this particular coffee maker uses quite a bit of coffee - about twice the grounds other coffee makers use, in fact. For some reason, I didn't make the connection that this would result in me getting about two cups' worth of caffeine.

... Whoops.

*vibrates*

So, I haven't seen kyonkun for a few days now, because I was at ratzeo's all weekend and she left on her Great Canadian Adventure.

But that certainly doesn't mean she isn't still communicating with me. Because, see, I came home today and opened the door to my room ... and on my bed, there was a cube. With the face of a cow.

No, I don't know.

I tried to figure it out. I read the tag, looking for an answer - it said, "RAGDOLL OF A CUBIC COW." Which, okay, I guess that qualifies as an answer, though - if one considers an "answer" to be something that provides enlightnment - not an adequate one.

The rest of the tag said things like shikaku animaru ("square animal") and was equally helpful.

It's just ... a cow. Shaped like a cube.

When I tell people that I still live with my sister, sometimes they ask why. And sometimes I want to tell them, I DON'T KNOW.

XD

Last night, after a delicious New Year dinner, I totally passed out before 9 p.m. and slept through until it was time for me to get up in the morning. Then I slept in extra and caught the later bus (which gets me into work 1-2 minutes late, which is why I don't usually take it).

I don't like accidentally sleeping my evening away, because that means I didn't get anything done last night. However, since the sleeping was preceded by good food (duck and tilapia and chow mein and yum), and this morning I have coffee to boost me, I feel okay.

Today, I will spend my working hours crushing the dreams of younglings.

How is everyone else's day going?

Am getting shocked by every available metal surface in the office. All day long and repeatedly.

What the hell, static electricity. Why are you out to get me?

This better, like, give me super powers or something.

I had a half-pint of heavy cream I needed to get rid of, so I did a little hunting and came up with this recipe for fudge:

     2 cups granulated sugar
     1 cup heavy cream
     2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
     1 tablespoon butter
     1/2 lb marshmallows

Combine sugar and cream and cook over moderate heat. When this becomes very hot, add the chocolate. Stir constantly. Cook until mixture reaches soft-ball stage (238 degrees). Remove from heat and add butter and marshmallows. Mix until fudge starts to thicken. Transfer to a buttered tin. Cut into squares before fudge hardens completely.

As you can see, it's pretty vague, but I figured that it looked simple enough that I couldn't screw up, right?

Well ... no. See, "very hot" is not a clear cooking instruction, so I had to do some guesswork. Then, after I added the chocolate, I wanted to be careful not to burn it, so I put it on low heat and tried to stir it a lot. But I didn't know how long to stir it, because what in sweet heaven does "soft-ball stage" mean? Must the fudge congeal into a sphere the size of a softball? Should I heft it and see if it has the correct weight? Aerodynamic quality?

Thus, panicking, I went ahead and added in the marshmallows. But they wouldn't melt. Seriously, when have you known marshmallows to not melt at the slightest heat? Panicking again, I stuck the pot back on the stove, and ended up boiling the mixture as I tried to get the damn marshmallows to give in. All the while, I kept stirring.

Afterward, I did some searching, and it turns out that "soft-ball stage" means when you can drop a bit of the mixture into cold water and get a "soft ball." O_o Is that in any way an intuitive instruction? I didn't think so. Apparently this is just some well-known technique that all fudge makers must be familiar with. Or is it some innate knowledge about cooking that I should know as a woman? Did I fail somehow? Is this because I'm a whore who uses frozen??

Also, there are apparently points in the cooking process at which you Absolutely Must Not Stir the Fudge. Whoops.

So, in the end, I have this weird goopy substance of the consistency of chocolatey marshmallow cream. Or taffy. It won't allow itself to be cut into pieces - or, rather, I can cut it, but then it reforms into a whole in a process that makes me suspect sentience - so now I have some globs of would-be fudge in some tupperware containers. Making softballs out of it might not be a bad idea.

On the way out of my neighborhood and to the bus stop, one of the houses I pass by has a giant bush in front of it. It's about six or seven feet tall, and until a few months ago it was so large it bulged out over the sidewalk. This was a bush that would not be contained. Unless you wanted to walk in the street, you would have to duck and squeeze your way by it every time you passed this house.

It is also, apparently, some sort of Mecca for bees in the summer. You can't see them all - the bush is darkly colored, and most of them are inside somewhere - but you can hear them, a loud and steady ominous hum. Last summer, as I passed by the bush every morning, I thought of it affectionately as "The Wall of Bees please to not kill me kthx."

A few months ago, the owners of the house apparently decided that terrorizing the neighbors was no longer fun, and hacked off most of the protruding branches, so now the bush is mostly concave. Easy to slip by - and now that summer is approaching again, no longer a Wall of Bees so much as a sort of ... Bush-Cave of Bees.

Anyway, so I thought I wouldn't have any problems going by the bush this morning - and I didn't - but a few steps past it, I noticed a strange looking pile, about two feet in diameter. It looked like a pile of small leaves or tree bits or ... bees. A GIANT PILE OF BEES. YAUGH.

I stopped myself before I could step into the pile and cause them all to rise up and slay me, but still - what. The. Hell. Pile of bees.

(I don't normally have a problem with insects or spiders and such, but for some reason, swarms of small wriggling things make my toes curl.)

So that was my morning. Also, this. It's actually almost too much Jesus-mocking for my tastes (shock), but I figure there are some of you out there who would enjoy it. XD;;