How not to bathe a cat

Our pets stay in the house, with the exception of the dog who has a pen in the back yard that she gets recess in during some afternoons.  Since our pets time outside of the house is very limited we’ve never had an issue with fleas, until this past weekend.  Somehow fleas have made it into our house.  This caused my bride to panic and rush me into action.  The dog, no problem at all, a quick bath, some flea drops, she’s on her way.  Our cats on the other hand…  

We were worried our neighbors were going to call the cops on us.  

My bride scoops up one the cats like a hero and proclaims that he needs to be bathed in flea shampoo.  She bravely takes our sweet little fuzz ball and places him in the sink.  What happened next, let’s just say there was a lot of screaming and a grey and white streak of lightning.  

Well, we can all see that bathing the cat has gone real well.  Now since my bride has failed she has handed the baton to me.  I grasp our slightly damp kitty and easily place him back into the sink.  I ease on the water, and start to wet his fur.  At this point I’m trying to hold a greased snake and not get bitten by it.  You would not believe the noises a cat will make when you’re trying to bathe it.  And the noises don’t stop, this is why we were worried about the law dogs being called on us.  The cat is screaming, which sets another cat in the house into a frenzy.  So now I have a screaming cat getting bathed, and a growling/hissing/meowing cat that has no idea why he’s so upset.  

Then the dog joins in, she wants to see what’s going on.  Growling/hissing/meowing cat doesn’t like happy dog at this point.  Now growling/hissing/meowing cat and previously happy dog are rolling around the floor in a WWE grudge match.  

At this point, I’ve lost my bride.  She’s scared of the fighting pets, scared of the screaming cat half wet in the sink, and laughing uncontrollably at the entire situation.  

Time for me to take control of the situation.  WWE pets roll my way, I gently separate them with my right foot and send them on their ways.  Screaming half wet cat sees this as his chance to make a run for it, he pops out of my grasp and leaps towards freedom. Quickly I turn my attention back to screaming damp cat snag him by his hind legs before freedom was obtained.  In a stern, but very loving voice I ask for some assistance from laughing bride and the shampoo for screaming now fully wet cat.  Laughing bride pours shampoo onto screaming cat, soaked Cas gently lathers the shampoo.  Laughing bride disappears, saying something about “I’m about to pee on myself”.  Soaked Cas is now left holding soapy screaming cat, growling/hissing/meowing cat has now returned to the party, happy dog has wondered off to find food.

Having rinsed off screaming cat I realize that in our haste we didn’t provide a towel to dry screaming cat.  Soaked Cas yells to Peeing bride to bring towel.  Towel is supplied, Screaming cat is clawing and biting white towel.  White towel is turning into red spotted towel.  Bleeding soaked Cas pats screaming wet cat with red spotted white towel as best as he can and releases screaming wet cat.  Screaming wet cat runs and hides, soaked bleeding Cas goes in search of medical supplies, growling/hissing/meowing cat is pacing circles in the kitchen, happy dog is still eating, laughing bride is still laughing.  Screaming now dry cat will still have nothing to do with me and hides as soon as I walk in the door.  

Most of the fleas are now under control.   I hope to never have to go through this again.  

What was I thinking

Hello everyone, sorry for my lack of blogging here lately.  I had a great Easter weekend, but it went by way too fast!  But don’t all weekends?  Part of my weekend is still hanging around though.  I’m still a bit sore.  What kind of an idiot wakes up early on a Saturday, drives off into a remote wooded area, pays 25 dollars and crawls through the mud?  *This guy*  Have you guys ever heard of a mud run?  If not it’s basically a 5 or 10k through some of the nastiest stuff you can think of.  Only dummies need apply.

The run started out with an 8th of a mile sprint to stacked monster truck tires that had to be scaled.  Next we sprinted a little further to climb some steep hills.  After the hills we ran through our first little spot of mud.  *confession, I’m a bit of a pretty boy, I don’t play in the dirt, and I’m sure as heck not playing in the mud.  I tippy toed my way through the mud trying my best to stay clean and dry.  Mission accomplished, made it through with very minimal mud.  Next was a bit of a trail run through the woods.  At this point I’m thinking, this is so easy, the ground is giving me a less impact of a run then when I run on the road, there isn’t much mud, and the obstacles are fun!  While in these woods my mind started to change.

While frolicking through some, what I’ll call small puddles now, in the woods I started to see why this was called a mud run.  Again, I’m a pretty boy so running through these “puddles” was a big deal for me.  I’ll say there was about 6 inches of water and about 2 inches of mud in these puddles that ranged from 5 feet long to some around 30 feet long.  Again, I’m happy, smiling, having a great time.  Look at me, I’m in the mud, I’m a MAN!

I bust out of the woods and back into an open field.  Staring dead in front of me is a steep wall, about 20 or 25 feet tall that is made up of huge boulders.  Things are fun again!  I like climbing, I don’t like getting dirty.  I scale this wall with little effort.  What’s on the other side of wall is when things start to get interesting.  To get back down off this “mountain” I had to jump down a series of “stairs” that were each about 4 foot tall.  The bottom of each “stair” was nothing but mud.  Splish, splash, Cas almost fell on his a…  Yeah, so I somehow manage to stay pretty clean at this point, just some mud on my shoes and ankles.  Ladies and gentlemen, this was about to change.  Dead ahead of me was the soupiest, most foul smelling slop of mud I could ever have a nightmare about (to this point anyway, this will later be just a walk in the park).  This mud is so thick, the only way to make it through is to get on your belly and military crawl your way through.  The slop is about a foot thick, and feels like it has a thousand little hands pulling you down into the core of the earth.  With these tiny hands are a team of trolls trying to pull your shoes off.  In this mud pit I learned a life lesson, “when crawling through the mud behind someone, ALWAYS keep your mouth closed.”  A huge clump of this muck flew right off the shoe of the guy in front of me and straight down my throat.  At this point I almost coughed the mud back out, along with my breakfast.  *side note, I didn’t throw up during this race, but there were several others who felt the mud wasn’t nasty enough, so they added their breakfast to the mix.

Thankfully, right after this mud pit there was a water station!  I can wash my mouth out and keep on running.  I don’t know who the sick people are that organized this thing, but the water station was nothing more than a table with empty cups on it with cute girls standing behind it.  Not cool guys, not cool at all.  Let’s keep pressing on shall we?  After this mud pit things get back to being a little easier, some hills, small mud puddles, which at this point I’ve given up on my pretty boy status and I’m just plowing right through. 

They steer us back into the woods for some more of a trail run.  I like the trail runs.  This trail had a 3 foot deep creek in it, which surprising was a blessing because it washed the heavy mud off of me and slightly refreshed me.  Back out of the woods I burst feeling revived and ready to finish this race strong.  One more mile to go, I can do this!

And then… Let there be MUD.  Sweet Mary daughter of Mildred, this last mile is nothing but some of the most foul, thick, sloppy muck of mud I’ve ever seen.  I start out trying to run and not fall through only six inches of mud for about 50 yards.  Next we run over some grass and around a blind corner that they deviously have hidden a slop fest behind.  I turn this corner and what I see before me is what my old worst nightmares would be made of.  Two marines yelling at me to get down on my belly and craw in this foot thick patch of mud under this grid of strings, keep your butt down or Charlie’s going to shoot it off.  Now I’m thoroughly soaked and covered in as much mud as I think my body can hold, but BOY was I wrong, my body could hold much more mud as it was about to prove.

More small obstacles out of the way and I can see the finish line.  There at the top of that hill I see the gallery, people cheering, a water table where people are getting cups that are filled with water, all I have to do is climb this hill and prance my pretty boy self over the finish line.  Oh how it seems so easy.  Remember the thick mud filled with the thousand little hands and trolls?  Well those were apparently the mud babies.  This mud is where the strong adults live.  I take off trying to climb this hill and as I’m only a quarter of the way up the thousands of hands have grabbed me and they’re much stronger than I am.  The much stronger trolls are able to easily slip my shoes off my feet and drag them down deep into their mud layer.  Fighting with all my strength I’m able to reclaim my left shoe and get it partially back on my foot, the right shoe was recovered shortly thereafter.  Now, all I have to do is gather the strength to break the grasp of these thousand hands pulling me down.  It’s impossible to move my legs, I fear that I’m stuck and that I will die here on this muddy hill with the finish line and a cool cup of water painfully close.  Then like the voice of God booming down from heaven I hear “Get down and crawl it’s much easier”  Heeding the advice I fall face first into the mud and start to pull with my arms as I push with my legs.  I’m moving, I feel the hands releasing me from their grasp, I’m going to make it, they won’t take me down and put me in some sort of mud POW camp.  As I top the hill to a point where I’m able to once again stand, I see 100 yards of hell between me and the finish line.  My spirit is broken, I stand and look disheartened at the final 100 yards as it starts to expand to 100 miles away.  Through my fog I hear the cheering of all my fans yelling for me to finish.  Slowly I put one 10 pound mud covered foot in front of the other and make my push for the finish line.  VICTORY!  I finished my mud run, 3.2 miles of pure fun and abuse.

And you want to know what's the worst part of a mud, other than completely ruining your clothes?  Having to get on your father in laws roof the next day to fix his ridge cap.  Climbing the roof and putting my fresh cuts down on those hot shingles really lets you know how much damage you just did to your body.

One 5k down

I never thought I’d see the day where I was looking forward to spending a day of my weekend running.  But last weekend I participated in my first 5k.  I had a blast.  Notice I said participated in and not ran in.  I did a walk/run type deal.  It was my first 5k cut me some slack and stop laughing at me.  Anyway, the race was for one of my wife’s friends who has a little 8 year old girl with brain cancer.  My resolution this year was to run at least one 5k, what better way to meet that resolution than to run one that’s supporting a cause close to us.  Over 600 people showed up to run, and I’m slower than half of them.  Let me tell you who all I’m slower than.  A 60 year old hippy, he beat me by a solid 20 minutes, a 8 year old girl in a tutu and a boa beat me by a solid 20 minutes, some military cadets bested me by more minutes than I wish to admit.  It’s ok though, I finished, I pushed through to the end.  I only let my fat swollen cankle slow me down a little bit.  That’s right I said cankle.  For some strange reason my left ankle just starts swelling on its own when I run.  I’ve got pictures to prove it if you want to be grossed out.  It also didn’t help that I miss timed my eating.  I was scared to eat too close to the start of the race, and so I ended up missing what I thought would be my window to eat.  After about a mile down my stomach started to growl and I was having to fight hunger pains, as well as fight to breath.  My only saving grace was the nice cool breeze I felt every time some highly trained sponsored professional athlete went flying by me.  And when I say highly trained sponsored professional athlete what I mean is 8 and 9 year old little girls, or soccer moms pushing double strollers.  Another way to tell if they’re a professional is if they take the cup of water, and drink while running.  I took the exchange cleanly, one step closer to being a pro, then I proceeded to completely miss my mouth with the water as I tried to drink and run.  Drinking through your nose while trying to run is not something I would suggest to anyone.  But the cool water splashing on my face, chest and legs was almost as refreshing as jumping into a cool pool on a hot summers day, complete with sucking half the pool up through your nose.  After ingesting half a sip of water through my mouth and a huge gulp through my nose, I discarded the cup and kept on trucking.
At the end of the race you were given a choice, they hand you a bottle of water and a free banana, OR you could go and pay to eat a chick-fil-a sandwich.  Guess what this guy opted for?  That’s right, nothing caps off a good run like a fried chicken sandwich.  But one $3.50 fired chicken sandwich just wasn’t enough to fill this huge void in my gut.  So we headed straight from the race with my racing gear still on, number on my chest and all, to Steak and Shake where I devoured a poor unsuspecting Frisco Melt, cookies and cream milk shake, and fries.
I don’t know how much money was raised for Tori, but I hope whatever it was it really helps the family. 
If you want to see why I ran, please check out this video.

I'm a Diva, and I'm Dashing

Sorry I’ve been MIA for a while.  But I have a good reason.  I’ve been busy at work, and I’ve been training to run my very first 5k, Diva Dash .  Tomorrow, March 23rd, I’ll lace up my shoes and huff and puff my way through a 5k.  I have no delusions that I will run this entire race.  With my swollen ankle and shin splints I’ll be lucky to run one continuous mile.  But I’ll be out there giving it my all.
Why did I choose Diva Dash as my first 5k you ask?  It’s a fund raiser for this amazing little girl who is battling brain cancer.  She is also the daughter of one of my bride’s friends.  My goal has been to run a 5k this year, but I had no idea I’d be running one this soon.  As soon as I heard about Diva Dash, though, I said I was in.  I figured if this girl can fight brain cancer, my old out of shape butt can go and suffer through 3.2 miles of attempted running.
Please watch this short video, it gives her amazing journey and shows just how awesome of a little girl Tori is. It relays her story much better than I ever could in a blog post.

 She has a carepage if you want to follow her journey more closely.  Just search for Tori Svenson.  It has some amazing stories about her journey and a list of Celebs that she’s met and touched.  From Atlanta Braves 2nd basemen, to American Idol finalist.  You can’t meet this girl and not fall instantly in love with her.  She also has some other videos on youtube so if you’re bored get a tissue and watch them.

Year of the house

So, I’m sure everyone is wondering where in the world Cas has been?  Well, I’ll tell you where I’ve been.  I’ve been working.  Not only at my job, but also at the house.  2012 is the year of the house.  Little known fact, my bride and I have been in our house for just over three years and we are yet to put any paint on the walls, the horror.  We’ve painted a thing or two in the house,furniture and such, but the walls are all the same bland color that it was when we purchased the house.  So that being said, we’re forcing ourselves to customize our house and make it our own.  Now I can read everyone’s mind, you’re all thinking, “Well what have you done so far?”  Thanks for asking, below I will show you!  There is a lot more to come folks so hold onto your seat! 

The first thing we did was get rid of our old pantry system that we hated so much.

See how cluttered that is?  With only 3 shelves we were limited in our organization.

Look at all this crap we had crammed in there!

But thanks to our good friends at IKEA we put in a new shelving unit and was able to cram even more crap into the pantry!

Next we decided to move our climbing rose to block our storage building from the road.  Sorry I forgot to take a before picture, it’s just an ugly metal building.  So I built an 8x8 foot lattice wall for the rose to climb on.

Now we just need to move the rose and that project will get the done stamp.
Then last month I was walking through the Home Depot and I noticed in the end cap they had a section of doors for over 200 dollars off retail.  And wouldn’t you know it, it’s the exact door I wanted.  Not the door the wife wanted, but at the price she couldn’t argue with me.  After fighting with someone who thought that just because they had already paid for the door that fit my house they could have it, I brought the door home.  You read that right, the door I bought had already been purchased by someone else and put on hold.  I had the Home Depot call the guy and convince him that he didn’t really want the door as bad as I did.
Here is the old ugly door.

*Side note about the old door.  I knew it wasn't installed correctly, but I had no idea just how poorly it was installed.  When I ripped it out the hole I was shocked!  Not one shim was used, and they didn't even glue the threshold! 
And here is the new door, before it was painted.  I need to get a picture of it painted, it looks much better black.

I also framed in a larger floor space in our tiny attic to store some stuff that is crammed in closets to make them a little more usable. 
As we complete more projects I’ll keep everyone posted.  Hopefully by the end of 2012 you guys will have seen a complete home transformation at the Smith House.  *Curse you pinterest for adding even more projects to my todo list!

I'm Homeless!

Well, after all my moaning last year, this year I did it.  I raised my money and I did Homeless for a night.  This is a fundraiser put on by the Fuller Center.  The Fuller Center was started by the same man that started Habitat for Humanity.  It’s a pretty awesome charity, and they’re doing big things in my area.  I decided to help everyone see what was happening during the night I’d start a twitter hashtag and tweet all through the night.  If you want to search for all my tweets, you can visit my twitter feed, or search for #homelessforanight in twitter.  Guys this event was so awesome to be a part of.  It’s really eye opening.  Sure it was cold being out there with the frost and all, but I knew that this was just for a few hours.  I knew that at 7:00 they were sending us all home, after donuts and chocolate, and I could go get in my nice warm bed and curl up with my sleeping bride.  Speaking of my bride, before she left me for the night, I asked her for her socks.  I already had on two pair and my toes were frozen solid.  So she was nice enough to loan me the thick fuzzy socks that I let her wear out of my drawer before we left the house. 
In total we all raised just over 29,000 dollars!  That’s just over half of the cost to build a deserving family a home. 
At the start of the night I figured I’d stay awake through the whole thing, but around 3:00 I decided that standing around a fire barrel wasn’t going to give me the full experience.  I walked way away from the warmth of the barrels and climbed into my home for the night.  Two cardboard boxes that I taped together to make one home big enough for my long body.  I was surprised at how well the boxes kept in the heat once I was inside and closed off all the openings.  Granted, this is not the ideal sleeping arrangement, but for one night, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.  I couldn’t imagine having to do this every night though. 
To start the night we had local bands playing, some kids playing football, and a soup kitchen making potato soup.  The rest of us were setting up our homes and decorating.  Everyone kept it a secret from my Bride that there was a contest for the best decorated box.  The prize was an iPad2.  They all knew if my Bride knew there was a decorating contest they didn’t stand a chance so they cheated and left that little piece of info out.  She would have had me a two story cardboard house with a dinning room and seating for eight.  I would have had a working fireplace, a chandelier, DirecTV, and a white picket fence.  My bride is crafty yo!  But alas, no one told us so we had one sad little pumpkin that I had taken from our put away fall decorations and placed him in front of my boxes.  Below are some of my tweets, in my sleep deprived mind these were twitter gold.

My home for the night. #homelessforanight

Hands are frozen, hard to type on the iPhone. #homelessforanight
Made my bride @howardsmithhome surrender her socks before she left for our nice warm house tonight. #homelessforanight
All these extra layers are making using the restroom a challenge. #homelessforanight
Getting a little frosty #homelessforanight

Someone apparently didn't check the weather before coming to #homelessforanight

Someones cardboard box just got jacked. It's hard out here on the streets. #homelessforanight cold blooded.
Cardboard box is very ineffective at dampening train noise. I think it's coming right at me. #homelessforanight
Now that I'm settled I really have to pee. Getting up would destroy my house. I'll have to hold it. #homelessforanight
As a grown man of 32 years I'm very disappointed in myself for not going to the bathroom before getting in my box. #homelessforanight
I can hold it no longer I will risk destroying my house in an effort for the comfort of an empty bladder. #homelessforanight
I'm all hopped up on mountain dew so sleep evades me. Standing by the fire it is. #homelessforanight
5:30 temp update. #homelessforanight the thick sheet of ice on my windshield tells me it's cooler than advertised.

Standing between two fire barrels is 360 degrees of heat and like beck said, where it's at. #homelessforanight

Final temp update. Weather.com is a lying pirate hooker. #homelessforanight

Wearing a toboggan for an extended period has made my head and hair quite itchy. #homelessforanight

And here are just some pictures from the night.

Here's my view from inside my box, iPhone 3G doesn't have a flash.

As Random as it gets

So, I put on twitter that someone needed to remind to post a blog on Friday, and no one did.  So here I sit on a Saturday night posting a random blog.  This blog is all youse guys fault. 
So, I don’t know how many of you guys are followers of mine on twitter, or on friends on the book of faces, but if you are you know that my cat Snoogans got out last weekend and was missing.  How did he get out you might ask?  Well Saturday morning my bride and I were getting ready to go to my folks for their Thanksgiving events.  I woke up not feeling all that great and was dragging around the house.  As the primary car loader in our family I’m guessing on one of my trips o the car to load stuff Snoogs snuck out behind me and into the great outdoors.  Normally when we go out of town we close off our bedroom, which means we have to do a pet count to make sure no one is locked in.  Well, we were in a hurry so we left our bedroom open and hit the road.  Snoogans is out on his.  That long story was told just to tell you this.  My bride and I went out in our area looking for him.  We made the standard flier that we posted around the area with a picture and our numbers.  My Bride goes to a near by trailer park and talks to some of the locals.  Upon speaking to one local and showing her a picture of Snoogans from her phone my bride ask, “Have you seen this cat?”  The replied she received, “YES!  His picture is on that flier posted to the mailboxes.  I saw him in a picture right over there.”  Thanks for your help lady, but no thanks.  Side note, Snoogans found his own way home Tuesday evening and is once again safe at home.
While eating at a new sports bar and grill Thursday night we were told by the owner that he got a discount on his window tinting because he let the window tinter advertise in the window.  The owner then said, “I don’t have a problem with it, if NASCAR can have sponsors, hell, why can’t Vic’s?”
A new liquor store has opened at the corner of my street.  We pulled in the parking lot before it opened to see what it looked like inside.  We noticed they sell, liquor, cigarettes, and prepaid cell phones.  So you have everything you need for a night out.  Drinks, smokes and cell phones to drunk dial and drunk text your exes. 
I’m watching “Vietnam in HD” on History right now.  I know that wasn’t a popular war, but those that fought in that war need to be treated as the hero’s they are.  They went where they were sent and did what they were told.  They didn’t want to be over there, but they were there for us.  So to all our Vets, I thank you. 
This dog has to go out again.  This is serious the third time in the last 30 minutes.  Has she been drinking beer or something? 
As I am every year about this time, I’m already over Christmas.  When Christmas is used as a money making event and not the Holiday it truly is, I get sick of it.  It starts earlier and earlier every year because everyone wants to get in on this Christmas money.  Radio stations in my area were playing Christmas music before Halloween.  So instead of “nightmare on my street”, “Monster mash” and “Thriller” Kids in our area are listening to Jingle Bells as the Treat-or-Treat.  People, this is just wrong.  Someone needs to put Christmas back into check.
The last payment on my truck was made in May of this year and I still haven't gotten my title.  Is that normal?  I've never paid off a car before, but this seems like a very long time for them to mail me my title.  I don't think they understand how bad I want this document.