10-29-07

Yaari.com this weekend, I apologize. I got an email from them a few weeks ago and because I’m an IDIOT I signed up with them because they were all “So-and-so wants to be your BFF! Join now, or they’ll think you hate them!”, and I didn’t want So-and-so to think I hated her, so I joined up. I might have thought twice if I’d noticed that it was “By Indian youth, for Indian youth”, but I totally didn’t notice. DUH. Time went by, and those assfucks waited ’til I’d forgotten about them, and then they started spamming the motherfuck out of everyone in my goddamn address book. Sorry if you got spammed. It won’t happen again – or at least not ’til I’m a dumbass once AGAIN. I’d give it six months.

* * * The comment-answering extravaganza starts… now! (And yes, there’ll be another one Friday, if you’ve got any burning questions.) Have you ever had to (or known someone who had to) shave one of you cats b/c of matted fur? We have to take my 16 year old baby to the vet this weekend to have the mats looked at…the vet said it is likely they will have to shave him. I’m so scared that it’s going to upset him so much that his old kitty heart will just stop. Do you know anything about cats’ reactions to being shaved? We had to have Fancypants shaved, years ago (my entry here, Fred’s here) and the vet actually had to put him out briefly to get it done. I recall him being freaked out about it, but after re-reading my entry, apparently it wasn’t Fancypants who was freaked out about it, but the other cats, especially Miz Poo and Spanky. Reader Elaine had this to say: I have had to have my 17 year old guy partially shaved a couple of times due to mats. He is a Birman and their hair is so fine it mats when they get to a certain age and can’t bend as well to clean. Gibson did just fine but then he is the King of Laidbackville. I took him to PetSmart and it was quick, inexpensive and they did a fine job. You can stay and watch also. Also, you might ask the vet to give you something to keep your cat calm – kitty valium! – so that he doesn’t freak out too much during the process. * * * Since your move to the country it appears your life has changed drastically! It seems you are really busy all the time and doing so many cool country-type things! I was wondering…(and you have probably answered this already somewhere)…has your book consumption decreased dramatically? I know you read like 80 books a week (or maybe not that much) and I wondered how you found time. Do you still read so much? I’m actually not reading nearly as much as I used to – I have a reading list, and I seem to be averaging about 7 books a month at the moment. In 2006 (before we bought the house) I don’t think I read less than 10 books a month. In 2005, I was averaging more like 12 to 15 a month. I still read for a while before I go to sleep at night, though I get tired a lot earlier than I used to (probably because I’m getting up earlier than I used to). Usually Sunday mornings I’ll get up, clean out the litterboxes, do a few things around the house, then climb back into bed to read for an hour or so. I read as much as I can, but I’m clearly not reading quite as much, and that bothers me, because I own a ridiculous number of books that I haven’t read yet (when Nance looked at the bookcase in my bedroom and I told her that I hadn’t read any of the books on that bookcase, I thought she was going to pass out from the horror). I always start my days thinking “I’ll take a break around noon and do some reading!”, but I never seem to get around to it. In 2005, I actually read 29 books in February (it was my goal for the month to read a book a day), and the idea of being able to do that these days is just foreign to me. Maybe my reading will pick up some over the winter, since I’m not canning! * * * Pretty please, can we have a video of the girls eating angel hair the next time you cook some? I’ll do my best to remember to make a video – in fact, I think I’ll charge the camcorder and keep it handy, because I feel like I’ve been missing some prime movie-making opportunities lately. * * * Are your hummingbirds gone? Ours left about 2-3 weeks ago. I miss the little guys. Yeah, they’ve moved on. I think it’s been about a month – I left up the feeders for a few more weeks after they stopped showing up just in case, but I finally took them down, cleaned them, and put them in storage. I guess they’re gone ’til next year! * * * My kitty usually ate a can of wet food (fancy feast, the kind with morsels in gravy, never never the pate-type, god forbid), and I just kept a dish of dry food out during the day. Usually he would finish his wet food at some point, but for the last week or so he hasn’t touched his wet food at all. I have been trying other brands, but no go. He still fortunately eats the dry stuff, so I know he isn’t starving, but wonder if this is something I should be concerned about, or am I just an idiot. I’d keep an eye on him, but if he’s still eating the dry food and is acting normally, I wouldn’t be too worried. I think cats like to do that sort of thing just to freak us out. I’d say stop offering him the wet food on a daily basis, but try again every few days. Maybe he just needs a break from it. * * * When you had your WLSurgery, did they do it via scope or did they have to cut all the way open? Also, after the surgery have you had to take a myriad of vitamins and supplements? They did it laparoscopically (thank god). As far as vitamins and supplements, I take a multi-vitamin, a calcium supplement, B-12 once a week, and the occasional iron (a couple of times a week). I don’t use protein supplements, but some people do; I’m able to get enough protein through the food that I eat, although I do have some “emergency” bars and shakes just in case. * * * I’m sure you get lots of people suggesting neat websites, etc; but for some reason I think both you and Fred would really love www.rathergood.com It can be filthy but it can be hilarious. It’s a guy from Australia or somewhere who makes awful musical videos. My favorite are the Tales of the Blode series. So my questions are, Have you ever been to that site? And would you consider naming a batch of kittens “Blode, Food, Griblit and Hairy” once you’ve seen the little videos? I’ve never seen that site, but I’m going to check it out when I’m done with this entry. I might consider naming a batch of kittens Blode, Griblit, and Hairy, but I have a feeling the shelter manager might object if I tried to name one “Food!” * * * If you and Fred decided to dress up for Halloween, what/who would you be? YES this is my poorly disguised attempt to solicit ideas for Halloween costumes! Suddenly we are going to a huge costume party and I am stuck for ideas. In 2005 we went as Hurricanes Ivan & Katrina. This year, I’m brain dead! DreamGuy won’t cotton to my proposal: PEBBLES & BAM BAM. So I’m stumped. WWR&FD? I know you’ve come up with a solution, Kathy, but I’m still going to answer this – I’m sure I’d put on a black sweatsuit, ears, and a tail, paint on some whiskers, and go as a cat. Fred says he’d go as the Phantom of the Opera – which he’s done in the past. * * * How can you tell when 2 cats are just playing or when they are really fighting? If they are fighting is it better just to leave them be or break it up? Reader Nik had some great advice: For fighting vs. playing, I like this youtube video. You can tell the cat is playing, even though that ferret is cRaZy, because it’s tail is relaxed and not “lashing”, nor are it’s ears laid back (much). They play for nearly ten minutes in the video. Don’t watch it with the sound on unless you like Survivor or Manowar. We only break up cat fights in our house if one of the combatants is cornered and obviously scared. Otherwise, we assume they’re playing. I used to have a BIG cat named Sly that would “tattle” on the two smaller cats for fighting; when I made it clear that I wouldn’t break it up, he’d look so disgusted, then break it up himself by ramming them with his chest. Heh. Sly was some sort of mutant, overgrown Siamese, so he “talked” a lot with a DEEP cat voice because he was so barrel-chested. After he’d break up the fight, he’d lecture the other cats just like a cop. Then they’d try to make nice with him! So funny. I miss Sly. We pretty much let the cats go at it, unless one keeps trying to get away from the other, then I’ll swoop in and grab up the one who’s trying to get away. Usually the aggressor will stomp off and lick himself or find someone else who’s willing to fight with him. * * * Does your neck of the woods have a legal limit on the number of cats you can own? I wouldn’t be surprised if you have more cats than the shelter you work for! Hopefully you’re able to lure in the “Pusher” and get him fixed so that he’s not off creating more feral cats. I don’t believe there’s a legal limit – if there is, I’m not aware of it. There’s no limit on livestock here in Smallville, so probably not on the number of cats. At least, I hope not! The shelter has a varying number of cats at any one time, but I think there are about 75 cats there. If we ever approach 75 cats here at Crooked Acres, you all officially have my permission to show up and smack me around. The little tabby-and-white cat doesn’t come around very often – if s/he came around on a regular basis, I’d get a trap set up, but since last week I haven’t seen him at all. * * * 1. What ARE your mad wasp killin skillz? I mean, what’s the technique? I have a small nest of wasps, hornets, something on the side of MY NEW HOUSE WHEEEEEEE!!!!!! (ahem, excuse me) that needs to be taken care of and I don’t know how without (1) getting kilt or (2) paying someone. I haven’t had to kill any wasps in nests on the side of the house, just the ones that get inside. My mad wasp killin skillz for those who get inside is to either grab the fly swatter and smack it several times until it’s dead, or (if it’s hanging out in a place I can easily reach) taking a piece of paper and squishing it ’til I hear the cracking sound that means the fucker is dead. If it’s hovering around the ceiling, I get the vacuum cleaner and vacuum it up. However, Carol has some wasp-killin advice: Elayne, Don a long sleeved shirt, put a large hanky or tea towel on your head, put a hat on over it, a pair of gloves… dont laugh folks… seriously those bastards hurt… and get a large can of Wasp spray from Lowe’s, spring for the good stuff, its cheaper than an exterminator. Go out and spray the hell out of them while simultaneously screaming like a girl and doing the “chicken duck and dive” Once the spray hits them, they are lethargic. 😉 Seriously, spray them early in the morning before the sun heats the nest. They will all be asleep and you can pick them off! 2. Do your green peppers grow stupidly huge like the monster green peppers in the stores that are bigger than my (a 6′ tall woman) fist? Because I spend 87 cents on a damn pepper and then only use like 1/4 of it. (I pretty much only ever use it in spaghetti sauce, and there’s just the two of us, and we’re bad about leftovers, so I do one meal’s worth at a time.) I have long thought that someone, somewhere needs to invent little mini peppers. I will give it a shot at growing them if you tell me the homegrown peppers are a reasonable size. Maybe golf-ball sized instead of softball. Actually, our peppers were coming in fairly small until the weather cooled off. Apparently peppers REALLY like it in the 70s. Right now they’re about this size: (source) Still not huge, but not as small as they were. The thing to remember is that you get a ton of peppers off each plant (we did, anyway), so you probably don’t want to plant more than one or two. Keep in mind, though, that green peppers freeze nicely, so any leftover green peppers, you can dice and freeze for future usage. * * * You sure that the eating of chickens doesn’t make chickens insane? Or are they too stupid to tell sanity from non-sanity? I have no idea on earth how we’d ever tell if a chicken was insane, since they seem to lean toward The Crazy even when they’re (we assume) perfectly normal. * * * you vacuumed the whole house on Saturday, then mentioned vacuuming it again on Sunday morning, THEN mentioned you might vacuum it again before you stopped cleaning for the day?? There is no WAY I could find the time NOR the energy to vacuum my house that much. PEOPLE. What you need to keep in mind here, before you get too impressed, is that I don’t have (1) A job, or (2) small children to take care of. The only thing I really have to do is take care of the cats and the house, so if I need to spend half an hour vacuuming the house every day, there’s no reason I shouldn’t. (I don’t usually vacuum the house every day, though. Every other day, maybe, but not every day. That was an aberration.) * * * I have recently started to volunteer at a food pantry and I was wondering if you guys thought about planting more veggies next year (or just using the excess that you have.. either way) and donating it to a local food pantry in your area. I don’t think we’ll be planting more next year, because the garden took enough work as it was, and we don’t want to spend more time on it than we did this past summer. This year, we gave all our extra vegetables to a single mother down the road rather than donating it to the local food bank. She’s moved on, so if we don’t stumble across another local person in need to give our extras to next summer, we’ll either donate it to a food bank, or to a local church kitchen. * * * Anyone know how to get the stink of cat spray off of something? I took my Jeep hard top off this summer and left it in the garage. Seems a cat sprayed it. Bleh. I HATE that smell. I like Axi-dent Pet Odor Neutralizer, but I’ve never used it on something like a Jeep hard top, just furniture and carpet. Maybe try something like diluted bleach and wipe it down with a rag? I don’t know, honestly. Readers? * * * Did you lose E’gar and Spud in the same day?!?!?!?! We actually sold E’gar to the spud last Fall. That is, she made payments on it (half of what the monthly payment was) for six months, then we paid it off for her before she left for Rhode Island. Not bad, getting a $10,000 car for $600, I’d say. * * * I don’t think Spud resembles you AT ALL. Does she and I’m missing something, or does she look like her dad? okthxbye The weird thing is that in her baby pictures she resembled me a lot (that is, her baby pictures and mine bear a striking resemblance), but the older she gets, the more she looks like her father. * * * Okay, this is yet another cat question- we have a medium haired cat, and a short haired. In your experience, have you ever noticed that medium to long haired cats wash less? Izzy, the longer haired cat hardly ever bathes. Chloe, the short hair, bathes almost obsessively (like every other cat I’ve had). Izzy takes a swipe here and there, mostly after we touch the god damned princess, lol. We’ve really only had one cat who wasn’t a short hair – that would be Fancypants – but I didn’t notice that he cleaned himself any less than the short hairs do. * * * (Reader Jean sent these for the Nebshit – Bitchypoo video podcast that never happened, and I thought they were interesting enough to answer anyway!) Does the fact that you journal your daily/nearly-daily life online affect how you live it? Nope. What happens, happens – I say “Oh, I am TOTALLY going to write about that!” a lot, which I wouldn’t do if I didn’t have the journal, but I don’t do something or NOT do something because of the journal. When you’re going through your day and something happens that you realize you’re going to want to chronicle, do you anticipate different outcomes to the events unfolding and think to yourself, “oh it would be funnier/more interesting if x happened than y”? I tend not to do that while whatever is happening happens, but after it’s over I very often say “Oh, it would have been funnier if this happened instead!” or “I wish it had happened like this!” Or is blogging/journaling a looking-back experience: “Now what did I do yesterday? Oh yeah, that was interesting/funny/aggravating…” It wasn’t my intention to have it be a looking-back experience when I started – more an attempt to entertain myself and whoever wandered by my site – but I can’t tell you how many times I think something like “Now, when the hell did this happen…?” and had to go do a search on my site to see when it happened (case in point: figuring out when we had Fancypants shaved). I like reading old entries to see what was going on, and I really like saying “Hey, it’s been two years since (whatever)!” to Fred. Time flies by so fast these days that if I didn’t have my journal to look back through, I’d have no clue when certain things happened. And is there anything you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY would NEVER write about? Besides skinny sex vs. not-skinny sex… 😀 (I know you *say* “ask!” but I thought that was pretty ballsy of someone to ask anyway.) Nice of Mister Boogers to jump in and field that one for you! Oh, not a whole lot. I don’t write much about family issues now that everyone I’m related to is aware of this site’s existence. I try not to write about stuff that would invade the privacy of others (I don’t write about the spud much now that she’s All Growed Up, for example). I hold back if, for instance, a nearby person in a nearby house spends a lot of time on their deck smoking pot and staring at my husband, because I wouldn’t want them to stumble across this site and have their feelings hurt because really, they’re pretty good neighbors aside from the staring. I don’t write about money – or anything – I donate to charity, because I’d hate for this to turn into Robyn’s Big Book of Good Deedz, and that’s some boring-ass shit anyway. I don’t write about my Deep, Dark Feelingz because I don’t use this site to process that stuff – I prefer to do that in real life, and I’m not actually all that Deep, anyway. Also, I try not to write too much about farting, but somehow that seems to seep in (HEE) anyway. * * * Cat stuff over at Love & Hisses. * * * Previously 2006: No entry. 2005: No entry. 2004: In case you were wondering, we are officially Crazy Cat People. 2003: I always look like a fucking lunatic when I take my own picture. 2002: (Is it just me who always thinks of Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally saying “I would be pleased to partake of your pecan piiiiiiiiiiiiie” when I hear, say, or read the word “partake”?) 2001: (For the record, her verdict was that the real-life prostitutes were “creepy”.) 2000: No entry. 1999: And going blind would just suck.]]>