They had a white pony in the stable; They ride it when the doggie's not able.

Today was one of those rough days. Alastair seemed to be in a grouch mood from the moment he woke up, incorrigible and disagreeable. Then he decided to lunge at me while we were playing with his drum and pop me right in the eyeball with his drumstick. Scared the living snot out of me, hurt like a bejeebus, and knocked my contact lens clean out of my eye (Contact was recovered from the carpet many panicked moments later.). Needless to say, I expelled a few harsh words and shook him roughly off of my body. Knowing he had both hurt and angered me, Little A laid prostrate on the floor in silence while I search for my contact and swore under my breath.

We reconciled and got going to the grocery store where we had a smashing time until I reached into my purse to pay for the groceries and discovered my wallet had gone AWOL. Fortunately, the folks at Ukrop's were kind enough to hold my bags to let me rush home and get my checkbook.

Where was my wallet? In Adrian's car. Of course.

I've been snippy and on edge for the rest of the day. To offset the ickiness of today, I will hearken back Sunday's trip out to Adrian's mom's farm. Alastair had a grand old time hanging with the turkeys, chickens, kitties, bunnies, horses, and cows. (Yes, my mother-in-law is Dr. Doolittle.)

Of course, the farm equipment rated pretty high on Little A's excitement-meter. Here he is hanging out in "Frank", otherwise known as the combine harvester.


And posing with the bulldozer.

Of course, we had to take a stroll about the farm on Snowball.


Little A also loved on grandmommy's newest kitten, Rudy.


A feisty feline indeed, as this picture was snapped moments before rescuing Little A from some pretty sharp kitten claws.

Adrian's mom took us out into the fields in her new John Deere Gator. We drove past the horses in the pasture; especially lovely was a flaxen-haired mare and her sire. The cows and calves in the field went galloping as we drove through. Man, if there's one animal that the Creator didn't intend to move at high speeds, it's the cow. And I thought I looked goofy when I ran. Little A was elated and kept clamoring to jump out of the Gator and get a closer look at the livestock.

Lunch at a local joint was followed by treats back at the farm in honor of my mother-in-law's birthday. While we were eating, she decided to let her pet squirrel out to roam (See? Dr. Doolittle all the way.). Squirrel Girl is normally shy and won't have anything to do with anyone else but her mommy. Stupidly, I put my hand down to see if she would sniff me, and sure enough, she sniffed me. Then she jumped on my hand, dug in her claws, and bit the shit out of my finger.

Ow.

I yelped and flapped my hand until Squirrel Girl disengaged. The bite was a narsty, painful bleeder. Adrian's mom was pretty flustered and shuffled the manic squirrel back down to the basement, reassuring me there would be no reason to worry about rabies. Maybe it was an attempt to distract us from the squirrel attack that she decided to share moments later her theory regarding her husband's (Not Adrian's dad, mind you.) asshole behavior and how it was the result of brain damage suffered from a tree falling on his head. Were it not for the fact that my hand was pulsing with pain and visions of squirrel germs were boogieing in my head, I might have suggested with sly sarcasm that he was a high-functioning autistic, just to set her wheels spinning even more.

Moral of the story: No such thing as a fucking tame squirrel.

My finger's fine now, healing up nicely with no signs of infection. No foaming of the mouth either.

The Chocolate-Kahlua Brownies with Sugar Cookie Crust that I just baked are calling me. Baking always brightens a bad day for me.

Though now I am a starting to worry about rabies again...