party/chick (see what i did there?)

We threw a Mardi Gras party last night, a subject I’ll just lightly touch on because, well, apparently I don’t remember the second half of it.  I love to cook and had a ton of friends over for jambalaya, red beans and rice, shrimp-stuffed pistolette rolls, cheese sausage puffs, Cajun bbq chicken, crab cakes, bacon-Nutella brownies, and a King Cake.  It was a TON of fun.  Over the course of 5 hours, I had exactly 2 drinks (okay, so they were Hurricanes made with a splash of Bacardi 151, but it wasn’t much.)  This is where I found out that, although I am now 30 and have the appearance of a 24 year old (so I’m told), I have the insides and recover-ability of a 40 year old.  It turned into one of those nights a girl needs a hair clip in the bathroom, if you catch my drift.  This morning, after sleeping off and on until noon, all I could moan was “What happened?  I used to be able to do this!”  Not cool.  But, if the success of a party is dependent on the number of friends who crashed in various rooms of your house (3) and the amount of glitter on the floor, we totally rocked it.

Also, in new news…our neighbors have chickens.

This was discovered yesterday when we heard the cat going absolutely batty outside and looked through the pool screen to find a baby chick peeping at her and it was royally pissing her off.  Scot grabbed Bella and I squeezed out the door (it’s a little-used door behind the swing) and grabbed the chick.  I started next door to return it and found another one a few feet away, and another one a few feet after that.  After capturing all 3 (which looked exactly as you think it would- I was bending over, arms outstretched, waddling after them going “heeeere chickie chickie”) I knocked on the neighbor’s front door.  First time meeting the neighbors.  Nice lady, she only speaks about 60% English but we managed to get the chicks back into their little cage she had on her back porch.  Then she said “Uh oh, dere eees one more…” We went back out the side gate and found the 4^th chick, which was heading over towards our screen door.  Back in the cage he went.

This afternoon, we heard the sound of the chicks “peep peep peep”-ing again.  It was louder than usual (we can hear them from the yard next door in their cage), so we went outside and what do you know, there they are again, all 4, taunting the cat from the screen door again.  I told Scot to grab the cat and meet me outside with some twisty ties, then I went out the door and waddled around capturing chicks.  Again.  They almost got away from me, running under the bushes this time, but I managed to scoop them up just in time.  I went straight into the neighbor’s back yard to return them to their cage, waving at Diana through her living room door.  She came out, apologizing and laughing, and we put the chicks back in the cage.  Scot came through the gate with the twisty ties and I wired the cage shut.  The little doors on it were just spring-loaded and did not lock, which means that those 4 freaking chicks were either super crafty or flat-out bionic to push through it.  And the fact that ALL 4 of them escaped every time means that they ALL pushed through the door one at a time (or, as Scot suggested, they came up with a plan to intentionally taunt my cat and one held the door open and the others all used team work to climb out, “Mission Impossible” style or something.)  I do expect fresh eggs in a few months, because these chicks owe me their lives.