Brandon Notices

This black neighbor cat has repeatedly visited our back porch over the last week or so, and more recently, it's been sleeping on the porch swing. It's even pretty friendly and lets me sit next to it and pet it. This neighbor cat, which has big ears and I think is named Midnight, is making my own cat, Garth, paranoid. Garth is usually friendly around people he's familiar with, but he absolutely HATES to see strange cats near his house. He even hisses through the screen door. My cat really needs to learn some manners.

Oh, I just realized that I already wrote about this cat a month ago.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Notice that there's nothing along the lines of "nor someone's car parked in front of the mailboxes" in there, and that's the main reason why we haven't been getting mail recently.

Our neighbors have a very steep driveway, so their visiting company parks at the foot of the driveway, in front of the mailboxes. Lazy Mr. Mailman refuses to step out of his mail truck to deliver our mail, which is kinda sucky. He'll take the time the next day, however, to write "Couldn't deliver; car blocking mailboxes" on everyone's mail.

I've asked the USPS if there's something I can do, but I'm pretty sure they're only going to tell me that we're SOL. The police also say they can't do anything about the cars. I'm sure there's some law documented somewhere highlighting that you aren't supposed to park in front of mailboxes.

A few of the little neighbor kids these past few days have really gotten into playing Ding Dong Ditch. They've been playing it and off all day today, so I thought it would be fun to set up a camera so I could watch a live feed of the porch remotely.

In the feed, I saw Jesse run under the porch. Then I saw Davey run up the stairs with toddler Patrick shortly in tow. After Davey rang the door bell, I took a still from the feed. Davey stumbled quickly down the stairs and hid under the porch, but Patrick just stood on the porch, not knowing to hide. I watched as he stood there for what was probably about 20 seconds. Then I saw them all dash away together in the background. A minute later, I stepped outsie and told them that they would have to do a better job than that, because I could see everything they did. I told them every event that I could remember from the video, pointing out that Patrick stood on the stairs far too long. Jesse asked me how I knew all that, so I presented them a printed copy of the still I took, which you see to the right. They were surprised and thrilled to notice the webcam in my window.

A little while later, I set a single wrapped popcicle on the porch and then quickly went inside to watch as they all three walked up on the porch and grabbed the popcicle. I later learned that Jesse alone ate it, because his tongue was orange. After that, they rang the door bell, asking me for gumballs, but we got rid of those a long time ago. Patrick was upset about not having a popcicle, and I explained facetiously that they were all three meant to split the orange-flavored one, but I shortly after that chucked two more popcicles into the yard. Davey ate one, and I scolded Jesse for starting to eat a second one instead of giving it to Patrick.

A bunch of us are eating at Azteca. The waitress serving us was very strict in reminding us of the "one per table" clause of a coupon Mom wanted to use. However, she really didn't care to listen to my reasoning that our party is sitting at what is actually THREE tables, pushed together. Only when it comes to coupons does the definition of "table" change.

Tuna Noodle Gratin. It sounds really good, doesn't it? The picture on the box makes it look very appetizing, but when I went ahead and microwaved the meal, it ended up looking like slop. The box says that there is a "creamy sauce", but I would never have guessed from the picture that there would be so much of it! I wish there were more crunchy breadcrumbs, too, but they just kinda got buried under the sauce.

I know it's usually a given that the picture on the box will look better than the actual product, but come on, isn't this a bit of a stretch here? I'm not saying the food tasted bad—it was quite delicious, actually—but it just didn't look that good.

I'm still hungry. These things never fill me up.