Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Tips for Deskunking a Loved One

How can such a cute animal smell SO disgusting?
Pepe Le Pew
But I'm NOT just talking about the skunk.
I'm talking about my little Lucy.
#skunked
She was skunked late one night last week. She's had MANY baths and showers since, and now she's nearly back to smelling like her normal, sweet self. HALLELUJAH!

I have never smelled anything quite like that initial stink of contact and I'm sure I won't soon forget it.  The night that it happened, after I washed Lucy off the first time, I could actually taste it in my mouth.  I think it permeated not only throughout the air in most of the main floor of our home, but through my whole body as well.

And poor little Lucy- her eyes watered- from the smell of course, and then maybe from our reaction to her, and then probably from the fact that she was going to have to spend a lot of time over the next week getting baths and being alone in her crib until the stinky wore off.

Finally I can get close enough to her to kiss her pretty face.  But for days, I just couldn't.  She got sprayed in the neck so the stench hung around her neck and face the longest.

Some lessons I learned, that will be valuable to me if this happens again:
1.  The yellow stuff is actually skunk oil.  DO NOT touch it, and rub it around.  Soak that shit UP as best you can with a disposable towel before you even begin washing and rinsing.
2.  None of the remedies you read about online (tomato juice, hydrogen peroxide + baking soda + Palmolive, vinegar, and skunk remover by nature's miracle) are great or work immediately.  Just like a heartbreak,  being skunked takes time to get over no matter what you do!
3. Do not carry your #skunked animal inside before you do your best to clean off the skunk spray, no matter how much wine you've consumed.  You are stinking up the whole house way more than you realize! (Fermin!)
4. Vinegar smells bad, but it's an odor neutralizer so put it in front of your open windows and let's blow that stuff around!
5. Candles and oils are your new best friends.
6.  Open any and all windows that don't face the direction where the skunk smell lingers outside. After a day or so, when the air outside is deskunked and fresh again, open up all the windows and doors that you can.  VENTILATE OR DIE.

We probably all lost some of our sense of smell through this ordeal.  We probably wouldn't have survived otherwise.  After a couple of days, I would think things were smelling normal- until I would leave the house for a while and then return to it.  And then it would hit me again like a punch in the nose.

But we got through it.  We survived. We all still love each other.  But we never want to encounter another skunk again!  EVER. Especially Lucy.
Shake it off, Lucy! ❤️




Monday, September 10, 2018

Before Sketchbook Skool

My friend Theresa and I just signed up for an online drawing course called, "How to Draw Without Talent."  I'm always wishing I could draw less like a 5 year old, and more like... well, I don't know, a 10 year old?

And lately, I've become interested in painting rocks for a rock garden, and to leave around town as happy little gifts to strangers.  But in order for my painted rocks to look nice, I've got to up my game in the drawing department.

Today I did the first "klass" assignment, which is simply to draw your hand while looking at it.

Below is the drawing- and the bad news is, it's pretty shitty.  But the good news is, I got nowhere to go from here but up and up and up.

This is only a week long, although self-paced course, so I'm not expecting any miracles.  But I am hoping to just have fun doodling with some instruction, and then hopefully doing it much more often from this point forward.  I know that's the name of the game of getting better at something.  Have fun and do it regularly.  So, here we go!

day 1.  thank god my hands aren't actually this ugly. :)