My Life as TV

I'm not sure why, but recently I've been all about the 90s.

Last night, a trailer pulled up to the Collinses, and a rather large goat was dragged blinking out of it and shoved into their chicken coop by her horns. When released in the morning, it was revealed that said goat has white fur, peaceful marble-like eyes, longish hooves, and a predilection for barging past me into the kitchen. Her voice is constant and omnipresent -- she talks in her goaty voice when the pigs get too close to her, when a hunk of ivy is too far away for her little teeth to reach, and often for no reason at all.

Names for this animal vary. The predominant nomenclature is "Noreen", which I like, since she is very personable and it is after all a human name. Maybe too human; Noreen is also the name of fourteen-year-old-Nadia's friend -- excuse me, ex-friend -- who also likes to bleat. "If Noreen finds out that we named a GOAT after her, she'll be telling it all over town, you know she will," says Nadia ominously. We asked Sophie, the four-year-old who had named her, to think of a different name. She came up with "Daffodil", which has less of a negative connotation, but is sort of boring.

Since there's been such a bother about it, I'm in favor of scrapping both names and putting something more allusive in their stead. Think it over: not only is a female goat called a nanny, but the goat's excessive bleating sounds rather like a certain Ms. Drescher's, and so I'd like to call her either "The Nanny" or "Fran". I'm aware that I have a friend named Fran, but we're cool, and I think she would view it as an honor rather than a slur.

My suggestion has been greeted not with serious consideration, but with laughs. It's okay, though -- my last animal-naming was a great success.

Until recently, two ducks shared an increasingly-cramped cage in the laundry room, talking cliqueishly to each other whenever I came in with their food. They're skinny white animals who are too scared to eat. One is indistinguishable from the other; while they were cute when they were babies, now, nobody's quite sure why they're around. I felt that it was only fitting to, upon their release into the yard, begin calling them Mary-Kate and Ashley.

Additionally, today, I burned branches with a man whose name was James.

"Jessie and James really did a lot," said Chelsea to her husband as he came in the door today. Then she turned to me, and winked.

"....Did you really just make a Pokemon allusion?" I said. She cackled.

She may think of me as half of a crime-creating duo with awesome hair. I, however, beg to differ. The family I'm working with is large, and blended -- Chelsea's two teenage children from prior relationships are combined with her two Mel-made kids to make one very full house, especially if you include the goat. Since I haven't got much in the way of clothes, I'm rather zany-looking a lot of the time. I also occasionally wear scrunchies (even if they call them bobbles here) and look confused.

If this were Full House, I'd be Kimmy Gibbler.

"Gee, Mr. C, where'd the dead goose in the mud room go?"