1. Purchase ingredients for stucco and dump into the plastic tub specifically made for mixing stucco. Discover that specifically designed stucco mixing tub is actually too small to mix stucco.
2. Drive to Lowe's, purchase second plastic tub. Return home, divide mixture in half, add the required 2 teaspoons of water, start mixing.
3. Discover that the cement mixer previously mocked at the store is now worth it's weight in gold as mixing large tubs of sand and water is not only agonizing but also takes forever.
4. Become frustrated and add three times the amount of water required in order to speed up the mixing process.
5. Stucco finally mixed, dump some on a trowel and smear it on the wall.
6. Watch all the stucco fall off the wall and onto the ground.
7. Repeat until sweaty and frustrated, then pick up stucco with hands and begin smearing on the wall manually, as a monkey might smear feces.
8. Continue to smear until the "may cause flesh burns" label is spotted on the cement bag.
9. Scream in a girlish manner and hop up and down frantically until a hose is procured.
10. Locate rubber gloves and continue to smear stucco on walls.
11. Once stucco is completely smeared on the wall look up youtube videos online on "how to stucco". Watch videos of Mexican laborers in America doing excellent stucco work, and American missionaries in Mexico doing shitty stucco work.
12. Decide to refer to the stuccoed walls as having a "custom hand applied finish", open a stucco company, and make millions because the only equipment needed is two tubs, a rake, and a pair of rubber gloves.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Dr. Livingston, I Presume?
We have reached Threat Level Radioactive Killer Insects here in the Zamora household. At this point I'm waiting for the green ooze to start leaking out around the foundation because I'm pretty sure that we're living on top of a subterranean pool of nuclear waste. That's the only logical conclusion I can come to based on the size, variety and sheer number of insects and terrifying creatures that have been invading our house.
It started when I moved Hiccup's dog crate and what I thought was a very small and active worm started making it's way across the floor. Oh, how I wish it was a worm. But as I looked closer, I realized that there was something very, well, snake-y about it. I did what any young, independent, and strong female would do- screamed for Danny. He captured it, and we stared at it in horror for a while as it slithered frantically in the bottom of a glass, slowly realizing the implications of the baby snake. MORE. BABY. SNAKES. I pictured hordes of snakes everywhere we turned. Fortunately we only found one other snake a couple of days later, just as tiny, and also very dead courtesy of our cat. This is the only thing she is really useful for- killing things around the house. Except sometimes she doesn't even bother to kill them because she finds it more entertaining to bat them playfully around the house and then leaving them angry and vengeful.
Okay, so we had the plague of snakes. Then we had the horde of cicadas that spent their day hiding in the plants around the house and making the exact same noise that's in the previews for Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I don't know if that noise is also in the movie because the noise in the preview freaked me out too much to watch the movie. Little did I know I would soon be surrounded by thousands of little horror movie props predicting my imminent demise and transformation into a human skin lamp.)
Once the monsoon rains hit the cicadas migrated back to hell or wherever it is they came from. But the rains brought a far more terrifying creature. We first spotted one in the road, squatting menacingly and waving it's furry legs at us. The tarantula. The next night there was another one the size of a salad plate crouched by the laundry room door. We brought Hiccup inside because if this thing wanted to it would eat Hiccup for a midnight snack. All that would be left is a wagging furry tail hanging out of this things mouth. If spiders have mouths, that is. But I don't actively try to destroy insects as long as they stay outside of my house. And tarantulas are so large and furry that it's kind of like trying to squash a chihuahua, it's almost grosser to kill them than it is to make them leave (correction: have DANNY make them leave). But the worst was about to come:
So, I'm blind. Like, I can't see more than 6 inches away from my face clearly without glasses or contacts. In the morning I wake up and stumble blindly into the shower. Are you already thinking to yourself "No! Mia, don't get into the shower!" It's like the begining of a horror movie when the dumb blond gets into the shower while the creepy man with the axe hides in the bathroom closet. Anyway, I pick up my loofah, wash, then put the loofah down. Which is when I notice a dark blob on the side of the tub, next to the loofah. I immediately become concerned because anything big enough for me to see without my glasses is pretty freaking huge. I bend closer, squinting inquisitively ("Mia! Noooo!") only to find myself face to face with a baby tarantula. By baby, I mean the size of an average human baby. I leap out of the shower and sprint into the living room shrieking "Big spider! Big spider! Danny! Big spider!" (I'm very articulate when I'm naked and panicking)
People, this is getting serious. I feel like I'm in the jungle with vines and spider monkeys slowly creeping through the windows. I'm going to wake up to javelina curled up on the foot of my bed, rattlesnakes under the sink, and tarantulas in my bathtub. Oh, wait THAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED.
I'll be at Costco buying Raid in bulk if anyone needs me.
It started when I moved Hiccup's dog crate and what I thought was a very small and active worm started making it's way across the floor. Oh, how I wish it was a worm. But as I looked closer, I realized that there was something very, well, snake-y about it. I did what any young, independent, and strong female would do- screamed for Danny. He captured it, and we stared at it in horror for a while as it slithered frantically in the bottom of a glass, slowly realizing the implications of the baby snake. MORE. BABY. SNAKES. I pictured hordes of snakes everywhere we turned. Fortunately we only found one other snake a couple of days later, just as tiny, and also very dead courtesy of our cat. This is the only thing she is really useful for- killing things around the house. Except sometimes she doesn't even bother to kill them because she finds it more entertaining to bat them playfully around the house and then leaving them angry and vengeful.
Okay, so we had the plague of snakes. Then we had the horde of cicadas that spent their day hiding in the plants around the house and making the exact same noise that's in the previews for Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I don't know if that noise is also in the movie because the noise in the preview freaked me out too much to watch the movie. Little did I know I would soon be surrounded by thousands of little horror movie props predicting my imminent demise and transformation into a human skin lamp.)
Once the monsoon rains hit the cicadas migrated back to hell or wherever it is they came from. But the rains brought a far more terrifying creature. We first spotted one in the road, squatting menacingly and waving it's furry legs at us. The tarantula. The next night there was another one the size of a salad plate crouched by the laundry room door. We brought Hiccup inside because if this thing wanted to it would eat Hiccup for a midnight snack. All that would be left is a wagging furry tail hanging out of this things mouth. If spiders have mouths, that is. But I don't actively try to destroy insects as long as they stay outside of my house. And tarantulas are so large and furry that it's kind of like trying to squash a chihuahua, it's almost grosser to kill them than it is to make them leave (correction: have DANNY make them leave). But the worst was about to come:
So, I'm blind. Like, I can't see more than 6 inches away from my face clearly without glasses or contacts. In the morning I wake up and stumble blindly into the shower. Are you already thinking to yourself "No! Mia, don't get into the shower!" It's like the begining of a horror movie when the dumb blond gets into the shower while the creepy man with the axe hides in the bathroom closet. Anyway, I pick up my loofah, wash, then put the loofah down. Which is when I notice a dark blob on the side of the tub, next to the loofah. I immediately become concerned because anything big enough for me to see without my glasses is pretty freaking huge. I bend closer, squinting inquisitively ("Mia! Noooo!") only to find myself face to face with a baby tarantula. By baby, I mean the size of an average human baby. I leap out of the shower and sprint into the living room shrieking "Big spider! Big spider! Danny! Big spider!" (I'm very articulate when I'm naked and panicking)
People, this is getting serious. I feel like I'm in the jungle with vines and spider monkeys slowly creeping through the windows. I'm going to wake up to javelina curled up on the foot of my bed, rattlesnakes under the sink, and tarantulas in my bathtub. Oh, wait THAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED.
I'll be at Costco buying Raid in bulk if anyone needs me.
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