Feed me, Seymour!

Anytime there is a family get-together at my parents' house, my job is to arrive early to set the table.  This involves hauling the extra chairs, the table leaf, and the bridge table up from the basement.  Once the heavy lifting is done, I can get on with more regular table-setting tasks, like choosing a tablecloth from the cupboard.

I picked one for the big table, laid it out, and turned back to get a smaller one for the bridge table.  Guess who was in the cupboard?

He moves quickly and quietly, like a ninja.  His mission objective is to get fur on everything.

I told him "Stop helping!" and he just stared at me.  

Other ways in which he helped were:

• running between my feet while I was carrying heavy objects upstairs from the basement;
• sitting on chairs that I had just laboriously de-furred by hand with masking tape;
• taking every opportunity to try to jump onto the table (I did manage to stop him each time when I saw him lining up for a leap); and
• pretending not to understand the word "No!"

After all that, he was tired.

It's hard work, being a helper.

Seeing as we were celebrating father's day and my aunt's birthday, it was a big party.  My Mom, who had been embarrassed at the last party by not having bought quite enough meat, overcompensated by roasting two five-pound turkey breasts.  The first one served all 12 people at the table comfortably.  She sent the second one home with me, because how could she and my step-dad finish the other one by themselves?  They are only two people.

Last time I checked, there were only two people living in my house too, but when my Mom decides that you are taking home leftovers, the best thing is not to argue and just get used to the idea of eating turkey every day for the next two weeks.  It's like Thanksgiving in June!

My Mom and her great ideas.  Last time she was at my house I showed her my window garden, which is pleasingly healthy and overgrown.  It's pretty much taking up the maximum amount of space that I currently have for indoor plants.  Therefore, my Mom decided that it would be a great idea to buy me another plant.

Well, it is just a small one.  A Venus flytrap.  It looks kind of like this:

It's freaky.  If you put the tip of your pinky in one of the traps and wiggle it, the trap closes slowly but firmly.  It feels like an eyelid closing, fringed with eyelashes.

I have been looking into the care and feeding of Venus flytraps online, and man, are they ever labour-intensive.  If you want them to do well, you need to feed them freeze-dried bloodworm meatballs (first re-hydrate the bloodworms in a little water) with a toothpick, making sure that you wiggle the toothpick to trigger the trap closure sequence, and then massage the trap gently to ensure that it seals.  There is also a whole dealio involving a winter dormancy period, which, given my geographic location and the fact that I live in a condo, will probably involve putting the plant to sleep in my fridge every night because it needs to be cold in the winter or it will be sad.

I have had high-maintenance pets before: the air plant, which needed a shower every morning; and Sea Monkeys, which needed manual aerating twice per day.  Neither of them was worth the hassle and they both died slow, agonizing deaths despite my dutiful care.  But, well, I'll give this little fella a chance.  At least going to the pet store to buy dried bloodworms will give me an excuse to look at the hamsters and the bunnies and actual cute pets with soft fur that reward your daily efforts with benefits like love and purring, and helping you to set the table.

Speaking of the party, I wonder how my aunt is doing.  I think she was feeling kind of bummed out about turning 62, so she got the party started at home.  Before dinner, she whispered in my ear:  "I've been drinking wine.  My teeth feel funny."  I wonder how she's feeling this morning?