10/31/11 – Monday

First thing first: the 2012 calendars are FINALLY available! Betty reminded me, I kid you not, TWO months ago that it was about time to get my butt in gear, and first I promised them at the end of September, annnnnd THAT didn’t happen. As I promise every year, I’ll try to do better next year! All the calendars are marked up by $1, and all profits go to Challenger’s House.

I’ll put this up at the top of the entries for the rest of the week for those who don’t read every day or who read via a reader, and after this week they’ll be in the sidebar to the right. Well, they’re already in the sidebar to the right, but after this week they’ll only be in the sidebar.

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Behold, I live!

The last week and a half has crawled by, let me tell you. There’s just nothing on the face of this earth as boring as recovering from surgery, though thankfully I had lots on the DVR to watch to keep me entertained, but still – BO-RING.

I’m doing well – I saw the surgeon on Thursday and got the okay to start scooping the litter boxes again (Fred was thrilled!) and basically I can do anything except heavy lifting or anything that would require turning my head all the way to either side. The nurse took out the stitches in front of my ears and half of the stitches under my chin, and I go back this Thursday to have the rest of the stitches out.

Naturally, I came home and immediately overdid it and had to force myself to slow the hell down. It’s just harrrrrd when there’s so much to do, you know?

I also got the okay to stop wearing the head garment unless I’m doing something active, but I’ve been wearing it almost all the time because it reminds me not to turn my head to the side.

At this point, I am THRILLED with the results of this revision, and I promise that SOME DAY I will get around to taking pictures of my neck and my arms so that y’all can see how the surgery went.

I ALSO got the okay to chew food, which meant that I could stop eating Spaghetti-Os, grits, soup, and scrambled eggs. I can’t chew anything too hard yet (like a steak), but softer stuff, like burgers and noodley casseroles is fine.

I’m back to cooking, too.

I’m hoping that in another week or so, I’ll be back to doing just about everything. Those litter boxes aren’t going to scrub themselves, y’know.

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Today is our 13th anniversary and we’re celebrating by taking the pigs to the processor. Do we know how to party, or what? I am going to miss these pigs because they are SO handy when it comes to getting rid of kitchen waste (especially the stuff we can’t compost). We’re not planning to get pigs again until the spring, so for now the pig yard will get a rest, and Fred will have a chance to fill in all the holes the pigs made with some of the dirt from the pond.

(Speaking of the pond, we got rain last week. We have no standing water in the pond, but it’s early yet. I suspect by mid-winter, it’ll be a different story.)

I got word back about my big camera, the one I’ve used to take thousands of pictures over the past five years, the one that a cat peed on, and I picked up and dropped on the floor a few weeks ago. It was damaged beyond repair, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest because it sounded really, really broken when I was trying to get it to work after I’d dropped it. So we replaced it with another (newer) Sony DSLR, which arrived while I was recovering from surgery and which is currently sitting on the bookcase in the front room. I haven’t even taken it out of the box yet, but I plan to in the next few days. For the time being, I’m using my little Sony W300, which takes pictures that aren’t nearly as nice, but will do in a pinch.

It turned cold here in the last week – I know those of you who got snow over the weekend are sobbing and rending your garments at the idea that I might be chilly for a moment or two – and so I got out the electric throw for the front room. If I’m not actively using the heated throw, I turn it off, but about half the time one of the kittens runs over the control and it gets turned back on, and I’ll walk into the living room to see the throw (which sits on the recliner when I’m not using it) covered in kittens. When I am actively using it, I end up covered in at least two or three kittens. I should probably just lay it out along the couch when I’m not using it, so the maximum number of kittens can lay on it.

I need to get out the heated bed for the cat house on the front porch in the next few days, too, and while I’m at it I might as well get out the heated cat beds out to put in various places around the house.

Spanky’s not waiting for me to put out the heated cat beds, though. He made his own! (Box on top of the heat vent = pretty warm!)

Oh, that reminds me – when I walked into the front room Saturday morning to scoop the litter boxes (which are kept in front of the fireplace at the end of the room opposite where the TV and couches are), I could feel the cold air POURING down the chimney. We ended up duct taping a piece of cardboard over the hole to the chimney, which helped a lot, but it’s still colder over there (and thus in the front room) than I’d like it to be.

There was a time when I wanted to put a wood stove in the front room, but it hasn’t happened by now and to be honest I don’t think either of us is that interested in making it happen (and I can’t interest Fred in a pellet stove). What we really ought to do is brick up the damn fireplace, but it’s possible that after we’re dead and gone whoever owns this house after us might want to use the fireplace as a fireplace (I am so thoughtful, y’all KNOW that your average bear would be all “FUCK the next owners!”), so I’m looking for a long-term temporary solution. Got suggestions? My ears are open!

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The daily routine these days is like such: Fred gets up in the morning and closes my bedroom door. Then he opens the foster room door and lets the big Peppers out of their room. He goes downstairs and lets Charlie and Patty out of their room, and then the kittens all run around like the wild things they are.

When I eventually get up, I scoop the litter boxes and greet all the kittens and cats, and the kittens are allowed to stay out and race around the house all day until about 8:30, when Charlie and Patty go into their room and the big Peppers go into their room for the night and the permanent residents get a bit of peace.

Between the permanents and the fosters, there are 20 cats in this house at the moment. I’ve determined that 18 – 20 cats is the tipping point where we enter “My god, this house smells like a litter box!” territory, and we are reminded yet again just why it is that we went from 100% Cat Attract litter in the litter boxes to half Cat Attract and half Fresh Step. The Cat Attract litter is good litter (and pretty dust-free), but it does NOT hold down the litter box smells the way Fresh Step does. If Fresh Step wasn’t so incredibly, horribly dusty, that would be the only litter I use, but alas it is (dusty) so it isn’t (my only litter).

The Peppers Gang is ready for adoption, we’re just waiting for there to be room at Petsmart. And Charlie and Patty will be going for their spaying and neutering next week (I just need to make the appointment), and once that’s done, they’ll be ready to go, too.

Considering how hissy-spitty the big Peppers were when we got them, it blows my mind how super-friendly they are now. Especially…. well, I was going to say especially Molly, but it’s true for all of them.

Harlan and Everett, snuggled up for a nap.

This time of year, when you see a gathering of very interested looking kittens, it means a wasp has gotten inside. I have to step in and squoosh the wasp so they don’t get stung.

“Where’d it go?”

Charlie Peppers loves him some Everett. Everett’s all “Why meeeee?”

Miz Poo and Patty Peppers. (Miz Poo: “If I don’t look at her, there’s no kitten there…)

Definitely not blue-eyed anymore.

Harlan lets his southern roots shine through.

Charlie says “Hallo, Tom Cullen, you up for a snuggle?”
Tommy says “Hallo, little man, you just keep on moving. Tommy needs some alone time.”

“He’s TAKING up half the bed. I’d like to stretch out and nap, but there’s hardly any space for me! MOVE him!”

Pretty Molly Peppers, daydreaming.

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Elwood sleeps like this a lot and it cracks me UP.

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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Holy crap! Ten years!
2007: Holy crap, I’ve been married for 9 years!
2006: We’ve been married for eight years now. And they said it’d never last!
2005: Let the Seven Year Itch commence!
2004: Happy anniversary, you walnut-farting motherfucker.
2003: We’ve been married for five years as of today.
2002: He even sent me flowers.
2001: And they said it’d never last.
2000: And happy anniversary to Fred, who married me two years ago tonight, which was the smartest thing he’s ever done.
1999: “We don’t have to get married. We could just wait ’til next year. Shouldn’t we get married on the anniversary of the day we met? That would be more romantic!”