stumpy little bastard was going to start with crickets and grasshoppers, and then move on to bigger things?
Sunday morning I was sound asleep and Fred had gone out to get fresh-grown tomatoes at a produce stand down the street and around the corner. When he got back, he dumped the produce on the kitchen counter and walked into the library just in time to see that stumpy little bastard come through the cat door with a baby (well, maybe not baby – more of an adolescent) cardinal in his mouth. Fred took the bird away and that stumpy little bastard expressed his displeasure by making bitchy noises, and Fred carried the bird upstairs to show me, and just before he woke me up, the bird died in his hand.
I do love the stumpy little bastard, but I wish he hadn’t killed that poor damn bird. Oddly, just last night Fred and I were standing out back and looking at that very bird, discussing how he hasn’t learned to be scared enough yet, because usually when we go out back all the birds chowing down at the bird feeders fly off; this adolescent cardinal didn’t even seem to notice that we were there.
At the rate the stumpy little bastard’s mighty hunter’s skills are improving, he should be dragging a bull through the cat door one night next week.
* * *
Catster is up and running! And I put up pages for each of the cats –
Spanky,
Spot, Miz Poo,
Meester Boogers, and even
Tubby and
Mr. Fancypants. If you have a cat, make a page for your own cat, and add any And3rson kitty as your cat’s friend! They’re not picky, they’ll be friends with anyone. Heh.
* * *
Today’s the spud’s first day of 10th grade, and I’m nervous as all hell. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but although 9th graders in Madison are still considered to be Freshmen, they have classes in the middle school rather than the high school, because Madison is growing at such a rapid rate that there’s no way the high school could accommodate all four grades.
Aaaaaanyway, last week I started getting nervous about the spud catching the bus to the high school – that is, none of us knew where the hell she was supposed to catch the bus. She told me that every year when she’s been waiting for the bus to the middle school on the first day of school, the high school bus stops and the driver asks if she’s going to the high school. We talked about just having her stand at the end of the road as usual, but I’m a spaz and wanted to be sure that the high school bus would be coming by the end of our road. So I made Fred call the high school and ask them, and they said that the spud should be at the end of the road at 6:45 and the high school bus would come along and stop to ask her.
Sounds like a plan, right? I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.
At 7:40 I was sitting in front of my computer, doing a quick email check before I went to feed the pet store kitties, when the spud walked through the front door.
“Oh, shit!” I said. “The bus never came?”
“No!”
I told her to go get in the Jeep, then put my shoes on and joined her. As we approached the end of the street, a bus was coming toward us, and I said “Oh, I bet that’s your bus! Go stand out there so they can see you.”
The bus driver did see her and stopped, but when I looked at the kids already on the bus, I knew there was no way the bus was going to the high school – in fact, they all looked small enough to be going to the elementary school. The spud came to that conclusion too, and came back to the Jeep. I drove the long way through the neighborhood to make sure that the high school bus wasn’t just really late (school starts at 8:00 at the high school), but there wasn’t a kid to be seen.
I dropped the spud off at the high school about 5 minutes before 8 and gave her my cell phone so she could call home if she had problems figuring out what bus to take (I told her to ask the bus drivers if they come to our subdivision), and I swear to god as I watched her walk into the school she looked like she was five years old all over again. I wanted to park the car and take her hand and lead her to her homeroom and settle her in at her desk.
Except, y’know, I’m not actually into humiliating her to THAT extent. Heh.
* * *
“UGH!” I said, several months ago. “We need new computers!”
“Why?” Fred said. “We just reformatted your hard drive!”
“I know, but it’s so friggin’ SLOW. It’s driving me NUTS. We NEED new computers!”
“Bessie,” Fred said in the ultra-patient tone that always makes me want to hurt him. “We do NOT need new computers, our computers work just fine, they’re perfectly fast enough. Besides, no computer would be fast enough for you, because you want everything instantly.”
“Well, DUH,” I said, and spent the next few days pouting about not getting a new computer.
“UGH,” Fred said last Thursday. He had installed some brand-new game on his computer – Doom, maybe? “Look at this! My computer is so slow that I’m getting slaughtered!”
“Huh,” I said. “Sucks to be you.” Let it not be said that I’m not sympathetic when the occasion requires. Heh.
“We need new computers!” he announced after another half hour of struggling with his game.
I took great pleasure in responding with “Oh, baby, we do NOT need new computers!”
Guess what? We’re getting new computers. Fred ordered the parts over the weekend, and they should be put together by next weekend. And MINE has a yellow case.
I’d be annoyed as hell that when I say we need new computers he shrugs it off but when HE says we need new computers we get new computers, but you know what? I’m getting a kick-ass new computer! I’m not going to complain about THAT. It’s going to have a DVD burner, and I am SO going to be burning all my little cat movies to DVD, you can bet your ass on that.
Whoo!
* * *
Today marks exactly eight years since I moved to Alabama. The spud has lived here for more than half her life. Amazing how time flies. I still don’t feel like a Southerner.
* * *
Spanky can always be found laying in the sun.
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