The Cast of Characters

To continue the introductory phase, here are a few of the people - and most of the animals - that are likely to show up a lot over the course of time. There's no real reason to do this, of course, but also no reason not to - which fits right into the theme of this blog, so here we go. ::P

All names have been changed to protect the "innocent". Except for the animals. They're attention hogs who have no shame.

I'll probably update this every so often as needed.

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The Maternal Unit (TMU) - My lovely mother. We didn't have as much in common when I was a kid - the famous sourpuss pictures at living history places spring to mind - but as I grew up we got more and more similar. I'm lucky to get along so well with my mother, and I know it. ::)

She's a newly retired nurse who herself has many hobbies, including tole painting, crocheting and knitting. She's also single handedly responsible for most of my craftiness, especially the scrapbooking, and shamelessly encourages me every time I come across something new to try - like I don't have enough projects! She loves Coca-Cola - both drinking it and collecting memoribilia - understands my love for a brand new box of crayons, loves Disney (and passed that on to me too) and she's the one who got ME to read Twilight despite claiming she doesn't like vampires or fantasy. I still haven't gotten her to like DVD commentaries, but she will get caught up in a philosophical discussion about one of the TV shows we watch almost as easily as I do.

The Paternal Unit (TPU) - My step-dad. He'll watch any sport with a ball in it, reads every sign passing along the side of the road, flails so much while watching wrestling that he's literally fallen out of the chair before, and drinks coffee almost exclusively but doesn't like coffee shops. He has almost complete opposite likes and dislikes to the rest of us, but we love him anyway. ::) He's the woodworking side of our crafting family, and cuts all the pieces for TMU to paint.

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The Felines:

She always has to be right in the middle of everything.

Dusty - My babycat, she's almost ten years old I think. She's developed quite a vocabulary, though she didn't start talking until it was just her and I. She likes to lay on my hips, lower back and shoulder blades, doesn't seem to care much for cat nip, purrs so quietly no one but me can hear her usually, and doesn't much like people food except for certain brands of deli ham. She was supposed to belong to TPU but she apparently had other ideas, and came with me and Cosmic when I moved into my first apartment alone. Her full name is Sawdust, because of her coat pattern. UNLIKE TPU, I didn't completely rename her, tempting as it was to try and get revenge.

I miss having multiple cats. First we had Cosmic and Figaro, then Cosmic and Dusty, now it's just Dusty. For awhile I was afraid she'd stop talking if we got another cat, then we couldn't really afford another one. I miss watching them play together and the antics they'd get up to.

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Cosmic Creepers (Deceased) - Cosmic died several years ago, but he gets included anyway because he's still important to me. He was my first pet and lived to the age of seventeen. We grew up together. I named him after the cat in Bed knobs and Broomsticks, honestly because I didn't have any other ideas. I liked the name so I went with it. It sparked a habit of naming animals after animals in movies or TV shows. TPU thought it would be funny to nickname him Cowboy and refused to stop calling him that no matter how much it annoyed me. Honestly, does he look like a Cowboy to you??

Cosmic was a tuxedo (or close enough to count for me) Main Coon/barn cat mix. In his prime he weighed in at thirty pounds and seemed made up entirely of fluff. He shriveled a bit as he got older, but never lost that regal bearing. He was a little standoffish but liked to be near me, he had this strangled almost silent meow, a purr like a chainsaw, and if you scratched the right spot he'd lick the air. He didn't expend energy if he didn't have to, he adored this real fox tail I bought at a county fair in Wisconsin, and when given catnip he'd usually fall asleep on it afterward. He also actually liked to walk on a leash, even in the snow, which made him a decent traveler - once the first explosion of....anxiety....was past. I miss my boy still.

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Figaro - Figgy, as she became affectionately known as, was given to us by our phone guy when we lived in tiny White River Junction, Vermont. His little girl had named her. He had been trying to re home her, and when he noticed our Cosmic looked almost exactly like her he asked us if we'd like to take her. We did, and so began the tempestuous relationship between her and Cosmic.

She went absolutely nuts with catnip, would often climb the doorjambs, and loved to pull drive bys on Cosmic, slapping him and taking off at a run. Cosmic took it all in stride....usually. When he finally had enough he would literally pin her to the ground and lay on her for awhile, her howling like she was being tortured the whole while. She was more of an outdoor cat so we had to be careful when opening doors. She'd dash through if she could and disappear for a day or so, till she turned back up tucked into the eaves of the porch when she was ready. We never found out what happened to her, she disappeared one day after we'd had to leave her with a cousin when we moved.

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The Basset Hounds:

Brick walls on short legs. Drool factories. Larger then reality barks and lovely three part harmonies.

The Queen on her throne.

Freckles - The grumpy matriarch who's getting on in years, TMU named her after her spots. She wants attention on her schedule, has resented Snickers ever since he knocked her up, and likes egg nog, peanut butter, and squeaky toys. She's gotten much whiter over time - I never knew dogs went grey - and occasionally tries to get one of the others to play, despite having snapped at them throughout the day.

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He's the only one who can fit in the chair properly.

Snickers (Lemony Snicket) - So named because he was much more blonde then red when he was a puppy, and at the time we got him A Series of Unfortunate Events had just come out. Then shortened because we nickname everything. He can't stand to be out of sight of TMU and cries outside the bathroom door, has the most distinctive bark of all of them, doesn't seem to understand that jumping around and running in squiggles ruins the picture he's so excited about, and proved that even short legged Basset Hounds can climb fences if properly motivated. He's a lovable doofus.

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She fits if she squeezes.

Ladybug - She's the baby, gotta love her! Bug is the only pup we were able to keep out of the unintentional eight pup litter Freckles and Snickers had. As a pup we called her Lady because she looked just like Lady from Lady and the Tramp, but TMU couldn't leave it that simple. ::P She (Bug, not TMU) has an unhealthy attachment to a basketball toy, likes rolling in laundry, and thinks Dusty is a toy meant for her to play with.

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The Flock:

Who knew chickens would be such fun? We didn't manage to socialize these guys to be as cuddly as I would have liked, but they're still a hoot every day.

Americauna Golds:

Bertha - Once the dominant hen, she's now a bullied outcast for reasons we haven't figured out. I named her that because she was the biggest for a long time. When she gets hassled a little too much by the others she likes to flap up on my shoulder blade (or head) and sit there while I go about whatever it was I went out to do. She's still one of the biggest ones, and can be told apart from Rooty by keeping her neck stretched straighter on habit. They used to always be together, so I kinda started to think of them as sisters.

Struttin' her stuff.

Rooty - Named by TMU because we thought she was going to be a rooster for awhile. Turns out she was just mouthy. She and Bertha are the two truest redheads, you can tell her apart by how she tends to keep her neck hunched into her shoulders more, and she looks like she's wearing a thick collar or muff. She also makes THE silliest sound. She doesn't really coo, cluck, or growl like the others. She squonks. Like a cross between a squawk and a honk, a short sharp sound. She's most often seen with Glinda lately. Before we got a bar for them to perch on at night in their coop, she and Bertha were the two who would snuggle up against my stomach when I was putting them to bed at night.

Glinda - The only blonde of the bunch, so of course that's the first thing to pop into my head when naming time came around. Before we moved and they had a fenced in backyard to run around in she was always the one who liked to perch on and walk around on the fence itself. Sometimes she'd wind up on the wrong side and make us chase her. Not sure which of us really needed the exercise. Now when a group is out where they probably shouldn't be, she's one of the first to be there.

Twinnie - One of a set of twins that had more black in the feathers on their head and necks, it was the only way to tell them apart from the others when they were young. I never did pick names for her or her 'sister'. Twinnie's the redhead of the twins, getting her mixed up with Bertha on occasion, and has one of the jiggliest double chins of all our chickens.

Took this when she was right in the middle of her molt, poor tailless thing.

Twinkie  - The blonder of the twins. I was just calling her Twin, but Twinkie suddenly sounded cute and kinda similar, so it's stuck. I'm so good at naming pets, aren't I? ::P Twinkie, for whatever reason, is the one most nervous of me.

The Australorps:

Giving me the 'chicken eye'.

Maleficent - Sleeping Beauty reference! I just had to, come on. So named because I tried to name all of them themed after evil characters or black birds, though she didn't get that specific one until she got to be the biggest, because otherwise it was impossible to tell them apart.

We learned eventually that in the absence of a rooster (we've gotten lucky so far with not getting boys) a hen will usually adapt to sort of take over that role, crest and waddles getting bigger then usual and changing behavior. Before we got the Lorpy's that was probably Rooty, but now it's definitely Maleficent. She's bossy, fat, and full of herself. One of Bertha's main bullies unfortunately. Seen most often with Scrawny Neck.

It's hard to get a picture where she doesn't look a little crazy.

Scrawny Neck (Diablo - Deceased) - Yes, that's the name I called her most often. Before they started molting for the first time I couldn't tell one from another, but once they did they all got different bald spots. They're still having feather issues, which means for now we can still tell them apart. Scrawny Neck had a mostly bare neck, and usually looked like she's having the mother of all bad hair days. I decided she'd get Diablo (which is the name of Maleficents pet raven, in case you didn't know) just because she was Mal's sidekick, even though looks wise Baldy is more like Diablo then Scrawny Neck was.

She was the runt but made most of the noise. She was another big bully of Bertha, and seemed to be Maleficent's partner in crime. She was picked off by a hawk.

Looks kinda like those bad blurry bigfoot photos, doesn't it? The Rare and Elusive Bare Butt Chicken!

Scruffy Butt (Blackbird) - Scruffy Butt doesn't stand out so much, except that she seems to like throwing leaves around the most. Anytime they wander around to the front of the house she's always in the deepest leaf pile, vigorously throwing leaves around as she scratch dances.

She's not fond of us paparazzi.

Baldy (Elphaba) - Not very inspired, but with another hen named Glinda around, I couldn't not. ::P Elphie (I really need to start calling them by their names) doesn't have a very strong personality. She's always right with the rest going where they shouldn't, but otherwise doesn't stand out much.


Black Beauty (Deceased) - Included just because she was one of the five original Australorpes and since we're now down to three I'm nostalgic. Beauty was like Elphie, she didn't stand out much among the other hens, and unfortunately died before I was able to tell them apart and officially assign names, so she's named posthumously. I don't even have any pictures that I can identify as her. We think she had sour crop, it was a pretty sudden downward spiral. Like Dia, if we have other Lorpys at some point I may ressurrect her name.

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Not a good hair day. ::P Bertha wasn't helping, but she was stressed so it was ok.

And then there's me.

I'm thirty one years old, short, definitely fat - which I'm working on, but reality is what it is - and diabetic. Both of those have influenced different parts of my life quite a bit in different ways. I like diet Pepsi more then diet Coke, any diet soda better then regular soda, and fountain sodas rule all. I have a slight obsession with keys, quill pens, castles, masks, and dragons.

I'm a crafter/hobbyist with WAY too many mediums I like to dabble in. TMU and I currently are running an Etsy shop together, you can click the link on the left side to see what we're offering, and dream of opening a themed bed and breakfast with an attached craft store.

I'm somewhat of a nerd. Geek? I'm still confused on the specific definitions. ::P I like many TV shows (and the connected fandoms), movies (and their connected fandoms), and will always pay more in order to get whichever set of DVDs has the most commentaries/extra features. I LOVE reading, am ridiculously picky about what editions/cover art I buy sometimes, and fantasize about having a grand mansion with a huge library full of leather bound books. I like video games like Spyro and 3D Mario and computer games like Spore and The Sims.

I'm the closest thing we have to a computer guru. Which is scary. ::P I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid and though I never pursued it seriously I do dabble in fanfic writing now.

I've been told that I'm an old soul. I consider myself shy and insecure in a lot of ways but when I'm comfortable in the environment I'm competent and friendly, though sometimes I can get bossy. I try hard not to. I'm a procrastinating perfectionist. I'm not OCD - though if it's possible to be a little of anything then I suppose I could be - when I do something it has to be done just right, and I can easily get bogged down in that because I often change my mind on what 'just right' means. I have issues sitting down and doing things because of how long I make the process sometimes.

I've never been on a date (I know, shocking) and due to various things at various times never been to college. I've worked almost exclusively in retail. The best job I had I think was the first craft store I worked in when I was sixteen. I live with my parents by choice. I never had the stereotypical desire that many teenagers have to get as far away from my parents as I could. I lived alone for awhile, but rent was ridiculous in my area and they lived nearby anyway, so it made sense to move back in. The rent was cheaper and I was able to help my parents out with various things, so it worked for all of us and I don't see much reason to change it.

I would love to travel. Europe, Egypt, Isreal, hell, just about anywhere would be fascinating to me, but particularly Egypt, Ireland, Scotland and Britain.

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Tl;dr - I love my people, I have cute animals, and I'm eclectic and long winded. ;;P