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So, you see, My Captain was concerned about the steep drop-off of the road in front of The Little Cottage, and that really is what led to our new kitten.  It’s his fault, if you really want to know.  Left to my own devices, I would have had no reason to take on another mouth to feed.

He’s really got no business rolling his eyes at me, you know.

It happened like this:  First, I came home to notice that the landscaping that we had been painstakingly nurturing over the past five years had been mowed inadvertently by the County Roads Crew.

We’re talking Oak Saplings grown from Acorns my children had gathered, and Ivy I had rooted myself.  Hosta we’d grown from seed, and Fern we’d lovingly bought on sale at Lowes.  (What?  Don’t judge.)

Be being the pacifist that I am (NOT), I called the County and said the equivalent of “Oh No You DIDN’T!”

And the County sent their top guy out to me the very next morning.

No, seriously!  I know it sounds like fiction, but by golly there was a man at my door the next morning!

As we were working out how the County would fix the property damage, Mike, who is by all accounts one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, happened to notice the very steep drop-off of the road by our house.

It’s happened from erosion and it’s crumbling the road, you see.  My Captain has been wanting to put larger stones in the ditch to prevent it from eroding further, but we’ve been busy with other projects!

Mike mentioned two things:  1) He would be happy to get the county roads crew to fix the ditch and 2) He had a full litter of kittens at the Roads Garage in need of a home, and would anyone be interested?

And he might have pegged me for the sap that I am.

And he might have mentioned that the ditch could get fixed faster if we would take a kitten or two off their hands.

So, you see, it was all for the ditch, and making My Captain happy that we ended up with this little guy.

My Captain has taken it fairly in stride.

Though,

to be honest,

he would probably take it better if the little stinker didn’t keep sticking his buttocks in My Captain’s Face when he’s working.

Many of you may already know about the Firefighters across the nation showing their support for Breast Cancer Awareness.  Montgomery County is no exception.  A few years ago, My Captain’s fire department began to order their work shirts, house by house, in PINK.  And not just pink, HOT PINK.

Makes sense, being firefighters and all.

Last week, around the time the government shut down, My Captain took his shift to a National Park along the banks of the Potomac River, called the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Historic National Park, to do some training and drilling and basic reconnaissance / area familiarization.

He took this shot of them as they prepared for their evolution.

I loved the pink!  LOVED IT!  Hot pink works on them!  If AWARENESS is the key to the whole Breast Cancer Awareness thing, they’ve nailed it!

I swear, these guys have the biggest hearts.

And you know, they kind of make pink look, well, MANLY!

Not just because it’s like a dare.  Like saying, “Yeah, we’re wearing pink.  Wanna make an issue of it?”

But mostly because it screams, “WE WANT OUR WOMEN TO LIVE.”

And that has got to be the most manly thing ever.

Ever.

Cuteness alert!

And no, I’m not talking about the Moose.

What could be cuter than a 10-year-old boy on the tippy top of a ladder, earnestly trying to color in realistic Ghost eyes, on a 9-foot wooden moose Halloween costume?

Is that a run-on sentence?  Because I feel like it went on forever.  And nothing is more irritating than reading a run-on sentence, unless it’s writing ad nauseum about a run-on sentence.  That is most definitely more irritating than actually reading one, I think.

Definitely.

What was I talking about, again?

Right, the cute-but-scary Moose ghost’s eyes.

Critter colored in Moose’s ghost eyes with a precision and conscientiousness that I have never before witnessed in this boy during homework.

Maybe homework needs to be a little more fun, is what I’m implying so very subtly here…..

If you drive by, give scary Moose-Ghost a honk.

IF YOU DARE…….. Dun dun DUUUUNNNNNNNN!

The saga of the MUDPIT PROJECT, a collective evolution of “Might-As-Wells,” continues!  This week My Captain and I finally got the herringbone pattern of pavers, and all the pain-in-the-petootie cuts it required to finish the edges….DONE.  Next up?

The Sand.

(Dun dun DUUUUNNNNNNN!)

Critter and Varmint helped out as soon as they got off their respective school buses.   It was not as fun as it looks.  (Which, I realize, isn’t saying much of anything.)

You have to take dry concrete sand, and push it back and forth over the cracks and seams of the brickwork.  Then you have to tamp it with the gasoline powered tamper.

But wait!  We purchased our tamper Used!  And do you know what this means?  That’s right, Vern, it means we don’t have all of the original parts!  We had NO tamping sheath!

It’s one thing to tamp gravel and sand with your bare-bottomed tamper (sounds so dirty!), but when you have your neato-cool, raw-thar expennnnsive pavers ready for tamping, you have to put the tamper’s protective sheath on the bottom, so it doesn’t scratch them thar raw-thar expennnnsive pavers!

Scratched pavers will make a Captain cry!!  Note to self.  Complete and total No-No!!!

My Captain, the consummate “Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome” hero that he is, quickly devised our own makeshift, wooden sheath that worked remarkably well.  Some left-over plywood and two-by-fours, some counter-sunk screws, and three different CVS-brand, heavy-duty, fabric band-aids later…. a sheath was born!

Oh sure, he got frustrated, he muttered some, thankfully inaudible, phrases that the kids pretended not to hear; and he banged his thumb a time or two…right on the blister he got at the last FEMA collapse rescue training.

But he DID overcome.  And he did so in front of the kids, which is important!  They need to see how we adults deal with adversity, so that they have a clue how to behave when adversity hits them!  One simply does not give up when an obstacle is placed before them!  One does not simply say “To Hell with it” and go upstairs to finish her son’s half-eaten after school snack! Nay Nay!!  One perseveres!  And Persevere My Captain did!  (I, on the other hand, finished Critter’s snack….)

Yes, Critter and Varmint learned a lesson in perseverance this week.  A lesson powerful and meaningful enough that I suspect it will last well into their lives.  Score one for the ol’ parenting model! Woot! Woot!

And Me? What did I get out of this event?

I got a hefty dose of eye-candy.

And really, isn’t that what it is all about?

Don’t judge.