Owls and Critters: Fly on the Wall

2026-04-17T08:00:00.382-05:00

Welcome to our monthly Fly on the Wall, a blog post written in snippets. Marcia, Diane, and I invite you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes, at our writing desks, and in our worlds. Come on in, buzz around, see what we've been up to. Bet you laugh!

I was on FB early in the morning, wearing neither my contacts or glasses, never having had a problem with that before.

But this time I got a little nudge that I may need to start using my glasses for reading from now on.

I was reading a recipe that someone had posted the ingredients for, and it looked interesting, worth checking out.

But I spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out what an ingredient was, who'd ever heard of whale milk.

So that was 5 minutes of my life I'll never get back. And wouldn't have wasted if I had my glasses.

Nudge, nudge.

Whole milk. Yup, I know exactly what that is.

I mention, pretty regularly, commercials that make me laugh.

I recently saw a commercial for an injectable medication for arthritis pain in dogs. Apparently, with a doctor's prescription, the pet owner injects the dog themselves once a month, at home.

As with all commercials, they quickly name some of the side effects to watch for. For this particular medication, that list ended with "take extreme care to avoid self-injection."

And oh, how I'd like to hear the story behind the need to list that warning.

I am extremely neat. When I'm done with something, I put it away. Everything is always in its place. Always. Yeah, extreme.

My boys are the total and complete opposite. Nothing is ever put away. When PurDude moved to his first apartment (you can read the story and see the pictures here: Home with an H), I completely designed and furnished it. The second day he lived there, the table in the living room was covered. All the drawers in the table empty. When he sent me a picture of where his TV sat in his room, there on his dresser, next to the TV, was a banana peel. Ugh.

Anyway, PurDude, living in Boulder and having friends who ski and snowboard, has visitors over the winter months. He mentioned to me that he has a few friends from high school coming soon.

Me: Well, since you live in a 1 bedroom condo, it's a good thing I gave you those 2 air beds.

PurDude: One air bed.

Me: No, we had 2, I sent both air beds and the pump out to Boulder with you when you moved.

PurDude: I think I only have one.

Me: Do you ever look at what's in your closet? Or do you throw things in there, piling new stuff on top of the old.

PurDude: Yeah, that second thing.

I had steaks on the grill and asked Hubs to go out onto the deck and flip the steaks over.

Hubs: There's an owl out back.

Me: I'm not surprised, that's nothing new.

Hubs: He seems to be pretty mad at me.

Me: What makes you say that.

Hubs: He was angry hooting at me from the time I went out onto the deck.

Me: Angry hooting?

Hubs: Yes.

Me: Well, he was probably afraid you were going to steal from his selection of critters.

Hubs: Steal his selection critters?
Me: Yeah, his dinner.

Hubs goes out onto the deck and comes back in a few minutes later.

Me: What were you doing out there?
Hubs: Having a "come to Jesus" moment with the owl.

Me: What?
Hubs: I let him know that if he didn't go after our steaks, we'd refrain from eating any gophers and moles.

I can live with that.

Another in my ever increasing repertoire of old age antics.

I was heading into the library to sit in my chair by the window and read. I was thirsty, so before settling in I went to the kitchen to grab a water bottle.

I was already back in the library before I looked down and saw that although I had successfully opened the fridge (yay, me), it was somehow a bowl of raw cauliflower I had grabbed.

Cauliflower? I mean, I could make a case for a subliminal grab of an Orange Strawberry Cupcake, but cauliflower? Really?

Orange Strawberry Cupcakes

And, just a couple of days later:

I'd finished my coffee and gone up to take a shower. Along with my toiletries, I put some clothes for the day onto the bathroom counter, and showered.

I got out of the shower and got ready for the day. On the way out of the bathroom I threw my clothes from the day before down the laundry chute.

It was hours before I looked down and realized that I was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

And, apparently, had sent the clean clothes down the laundry chute.

We have a fairly new dishwasher. I loved the last one (if you can love a dishwasher), this one won't let me load it the way I want. But I wasn't spending any more money for a dishwasher that these days are deliberately made not to last. I've tried so many brands and they're all basically disposable. So I complain about it. Pretty regularly.

Anyway, I went to turn it on the other day, pressed the buttons and closed it, but a few minutes later I realized that I didn't hear it start.

When I looked up, I noticed that the lighted section that, when the dishwasher is on, counts down the time until it's done, doesn't have a number. Instead it says HI.

Me: Ummm, we have a problem with the dishwasher.

Hubs: What is it?

Me: Well . . . it's either telling me that it knows I've been complaining about it. Or it's coming on to me.

So, apparently, when a pan is sitting up too high on the top shelf, the dishwasher lets you know by saying HI. And although I don't like that I can't load it the way I want, I guess that reason for the "HI" is better than what I was thinking.

And now for this month's episode of autocorrect making a fool of me:

Hubs and I watch most of the Red Sox games thanks to beeing able to stream the games via the full season MLB channel app PurDude bought me for Mother's Day years ago and renews every year.

For whatever reason, between innings they show the same 5 or 6 commercials over and over again. Drives us crazy.

So, PurDude mentioned the parents of a friend of his from high school. He knew and liked them, having spent time at their house. The parents are realtors and PurDude was talking about getting permission to use them to look at houses.

Me: Which friend is this? Dad's friend owns a realty office, I wonder if they know each other.

PurDude: Their name is Ritter.

O M G. One of those endlessly shown commercials was one of a realtor couple. The Ritters.

Me: You have to be kidding, I know the Ritters.

Only, you know, that isn't what I sent. My text actually read:

Me: You have to be kidding, I know the Critters.

PurDude: Well that's kinda mean.

And another one:

We were dealing with a new internet provider and were considering changing our service. We were discussing, via text, the list of questions for Hubs to ask them before we decided what we were going to do. In the past, if we used auto pay, they took some money off the monthly bill.

Me: Ask them how long the price is good for.

Hubs: OK.

Me: And ask if we need to have the equipment changed out.

Hubs: OK.

Me: Oh, and ask if it costs less with auto pay.

Except auto correct changed that text. What I actually sent:

Me: Oh, and ask if it costs less with autopsy.

Hubs: Ahhh, I think you actually have to be dead for that.

I'm sure you're aware that April Fools Day was at the beginning of this month. I really don't keep track of it any more, no longer playing tricks on my kids (and them on me).

But this year, I punked myself.

The back story: I have these pretty coffee mugs that go with my dishes. I also have much bigger mugs that I bought because the ones that go with my dishes are tiny. And I'm a big coffee drinker.

So I use the bigger mugs for coffee, and it turns out that the smaller ones are good for things like melting butter or reheating sauces in the microwave.

I was finishing up my coffee, and knew Hubs would fix a plate of the leftover Chinese food for lunch. I pulled out one of those small mugs took the leftover sweet and sour sauce out of the fridge, poured some into the mug and heated it up. In an hour when Hubs eats, it'll be around room temp.

I put the rest of the sauce into the fridge and, wanting to put my coffee mug into the dishwasher before heading for the shower, took one last big gulp of . . . sweet and sour sauce.

April Fools.

Now click on the links below and see what my friends have to share:

Menopausal Mother

On the Border

Orange Strawberry Cupcakes

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

4 strawberries

1 box (15.25 oz) white cake mix

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup oil

4 egg whites

1/4 cup strawberry yogurt

OPT: 2 drops red food coloring

1 box (3 oz) orange jello, mix, divided

1 tsp orange zest

1 can (12 oz) whipped strawberry frosting

OPT: mandarin orange slices and/or sliced strawberries for garnish

Directions:
*Hull and finely chop the strawberries and set aside.

*Preheast oven to 350 degrees. Place 18 paper cupcake liners into cupcake pans.

*Beat the cake mix, milk, oil, and egg whites for 2 minutes. Move about half of the batter (about 2 1/4 cups) to a bowl and set aside. To the batter still in the original bowl, beat in the yogurt, chopped strawberries, and food coloring (if desired).

*To the other half of the batter, whisk in half (4 TBSP) of the orange jello mix and the orange zest.

*Fill the cupcake cups with the batter, alternating colors for each cupcake, 1 rounded TBSP at a time. Start some with the orange and others with the strawberry so there is some of each batter color in each cupcake.

*Bake for 18 - 22 minutes, just until the enter springs back to the touch. Cool completely.

*Whisk the remaining orange jello mix into the strawberry frosting. Pipe or spread onto the cupcaket. OPT: top with mandarin orange slices and/or sliced strawberries.

Baking in a Tornado

Owls and Critters: Fly on the Wall