Umm, what was that?

We are officially in "school-tour season" here at the museum and I have some funnies to share with you. Now, I know that for all my intrepid blog readers, if you ever had the joy to work at a living history museum or are currently working there, you have far better one-liners than I do, but please remember that I don't have: fires, flies, chickens, or horse doo in the street to spur on some of the best visitor comments.

So here are my school tour comments, 2008:

Why do you have so much old stuff here?

You have nice teeth. I like them. (directed towards me from a middle school girl)

So which one is older, WWII or the war of 1812?

It smells like old stuff in here.

Is that a real man in the mine shaft? (it's clearly a mannequin)

I don't want to look at this junk, I want to go to the gift shop.


And my all time favorite which happened a few months after I started here:

This town is so old, it doesn't even have a Starbucks. (from a cranky 15ish year-old)

Merlock Holmes and the Case of the Kitty Prints

So, I know that some of you know what I've been doing the past few days: trying to finish painting the basement steps. We have two flights of steps that lead into the basement, one by the back door and the other in the center of the house. Well, we've had the steps pretty much primed for about a month now and I decided it was time to finish the job. So Saturday, I was painting the treads of the center steps with the white primer. Now, all the fun kitty stuff, like food, water, and litter is in the basement. I thought (ha!) that if I left one door open and closed the other, the cats could still get into the basement to their essentials. In a perfect world, this would have worked. I don't live in a perfect world. After painting a couple of steps, a tan blur rushed past me up the freshly painted steps. I, of course, shouted at him "Gus, what are you doing?" which made him run faster because suddenly "shorter, blond one who feeds me" is yelling at him. I yelled at Matt to grab Gus but he missed. So now there was white cat prints on our wood floor in the living room. I reacted in the appropriate manner: paint on floor first, cat second. Luckily it all came up with only a slightly traumatized Gus to contend with.

So last night, I was painting the same steps, only this time with the finish coat. I closed that door and left the other one open for the cats (apparently I don't learn). I had finished and was sitting in the living room. Matt came downstairs from the second floor and I asked him to go look at the freshly painted stairs. When he opened the basement door, guess who came out? A painted Gus. This time he had run up all the steps, leaving nice cat prints on all my newly painted steps. And now there is brown paint on our kitchen floor (which isn't a problem because it needs to be replaced anyhow). So we grabbed Gus and I held him while Matt cleaned his feet. Gus was a very good kitty to let us wash his feet and cut away the painted fur.

We decided that at least Gus did it in the correct order: primer first, then top coat.

So, I doubt that Gus has learned his lesson but I have: close both doors while painting and the cats can just hold it for a bit!

I'm the worst blogger ever!

Yes, it's official. I'm a horrible blogger. If you look at my blog, nothing has happened in my life for the last month or so. Apparently, I've been doing nothing. Well, as you can imagine, that's not true. I will now post many, many, MANY pictures in a not-so-veiled attempt to make it up to you. And maybe it will tell a story......

Even though we were all happily hibernating throughout the winter, Spring came anyhow. (This is what happens if I don't make the bed in the morning quick enough)

There was much rejoicing and feasting the end of the long hard winter.

Early flowers began to bloom. This is a now domesticated Jack-in-the-Pulpit. It was found running wild through the hills nearby, tamed (i.e. dug up) and moved to the wilderness preserve on Ash Street.

We all took our Spring baths in anticipation of what was to come.

Matt's potato garden. Yeah, I don't see anything yet either. This began as a spot to dump used potting soil, then a compost heap (see the pumpkin shells) and is now a potato hill. We'll see.

We received new toys to enjoy the spring weather.

We're all so excited about it, we just can't contain it.

We're all giddy about Spring! As giddy as schoolgirls, I mean, schoolboys.

THE END