Month: September 2004

I I love kitties. All kitties. Old kitties, baby kitties, cranky kitties, standoffish kitties, cuddlesome kitties, hissing kitties, smacking kitties, fighting kitties, biting kitties, I love them all. I wish I lived in Maine. I wish I could convince my husband that you get used to the cold. Then I remember that when I was in Maine earlier this month and the temperature was a relatively balmy 75 degrees, I was FREEZING. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, tossing and turning and sweating so I kick off the covers, then a stumpy little bastard tromps across my legs with his freezing-cold toes and wakes me up, and I realize I’m freezing and pull the covers over me, only to wake a while later to find that I’m hot again. I feel like we end up making the same 6 recipes for dinner over and over again. I think you should leave me a link to a recipe, or the recipe itself, in my comments. I don’t like any kind of peppers, ground turkey, or big chunks of tomatoes – you might want to keep that in mind. The easier, the better. I prefer not to spend much more than half an hour fixing dinner. I wish I was a clean freak, but sadly I am not. The dust has to be an inch thick before I’m sufficiently horrified enough to dust. I hate dusting. I vacuum regularly, and I clean the bathroom (at least the master bathroom) somewhat regularly, but I loathe dusting. I know that’s idiotic, because it takes like five minutes with a rag and furniture polish to dust the entire upstairs; less time than that if I choose to use a Swiffer Duster. I am amazed at how quickly cobwebs develop in the corners of rooms in this house. I’ve never seen anything like it before; I suspect it has something to do with the large amount of traffic that drives by every day down the road behind our back yard. I worry about the fact that I enjoy not working. I always thought that some day I’d want to go back to work, if even part-time, but it’s been four years and I’m still pretty happy staying home. I do get bored sometimes, though. I spend way too much time on my ass in front of the computer. I have Miz Poo draped over my arm at this very moment. She’s keeping me warm, but she’s a wee bit ticked that my arms are moving while I type, and she keeps reaching her paw out to touch my hand as if to say “Okay, goddamnit, knock it the hell off, will you?” I know I tell too many cat stories in my journal, but I can’t seem to help myself. I am a worrywart. If I know you, I worry about you. I worry the most about Fred and the spud. If I could lock them in a room to keep them safe from harm… well, I probably wouldn’t do it, because what kind of life would THAT be? But I’m be sorely tempted. I lie awake at night and worry sometimes, but I’m trying to stop from doing that, because what the hell is the point of frittering away your life worrying about things that will probably never happen? I talk to myself all the time. Especially in the car. Yesterday I had a five-minute discussion with myself about the correct way to pronounce Iam’s (the lady on the radio pronounced it I’ms, and I thought it was pronounced more like I-ams, so I had to pronounce it out loud several times and then launch a discussion on the likelihood of the woman on the radio – doing an advertisement for Iam’s – mispronouncing it when she was surely paid to know how it’s pronounced). I also inform the other drivers on the road that they’re a great big pain in my ass. “You are SUCH a pain in the ass,” I muttered at the guy trying to turn left in front of me, and blocking me so that I couldn’t turn left onto the road he was on. “God. What a pain in the ass,” I said to the guy going 30 down a road with a 55 MPH speed limit. “Does your mother know what a great big pain in the ass you are?” I asked the guy in front of me who sat at the green light for a good long time before realizing it was green. I always say this stuff in a conversational tone, to myself. I’m a freak. I love and adore Stephen King, but I suspect he might be just the tiniest bit crazy. I also love and adore Tabitha King, and I wish she’d publish another book. I think The Dark Tower ended the only way it could. I still have a wee crush on Roland. I’m reading a chick lit book to kind of lighten things up before I start another serious book. I’m hungry. I think I’m going to have oatmeal for breakfast. I think this entry is done.

* * * The sun. He loves it. Have I mentioned? ]]>

Jane‘s entry yesterday, wherein she discussed (or mentioned in passing) Paco’s habit of frantically pacing whilst talking on the phone makes me want to tell you all that when Fred gets a phone call, he doesn’t frantically pace. Oh, no – he does something much worse. He goes out into the garage and shuts the door so he can concentrate on his call in the peace and quiet of the garage. Which makes me think he’s out there talking shit about me, of course. He used to be normal and would just sit in the house and talk on the phone, but then he’d hang up, and I’d ask him what he meant when he said something-or-other to his dad (or whomever he’d been talking to), and he wouldn’t be able to remember, and then he’d get annoyed, so he started taking the phone into the garage so I wouldn’t harass him. Bastard.

* * * We watched Super Size Me last night. Good movie! I think we must be getting reallllly old, because we’re starting to really love documentaries. I know that when I was a kid, the idea of watching a documentary made me want to fall asleep immediately, but nowadays I just can’t get enough of them. In the morning while I’m working out, I’m currently watching Stevie, which is sometimes hard to watch so I end up pausing it for a little while. Before that, I watched My Sergei, which was documentary-style, and I think there was something else before that. We’re also going to rent The Hunting of the President at some point as well – I would have rented it yesterday, but we’re taping so many television shows to watch that I don’t think we’d have time to watch it this week. Maybe next week. Speaking of Sergei Grinkov – which I was up there in that paragraph somewhere – remember how a few months after he’d died, all his skater friends (and wife) got together and did a tribute show to him, called Sergei Grinkov: Celebration of a Life, or something like that? And how Oksana Baiul came out in black and skated to Ave Maria, and by the end she was so sobbing and hysterical that you would have thought she was the widow? Man, I need to figure out how to get a copy of that show because just thinking about it makes me want to see it again. Anyway, we watched Super Size Me! and enjoyed it a great deal. I find that it always helps when the guy the documentary is about seems like someone it’d be fun to hang out with. I was surprised that of all the times Morgan Spurlock went to McDonald’s – three meals a day times thirty days is in the area of 90 visits – he was only asked to supersize his meals nine times. When I worked at McDonald’s as a teenager and someone ordered “a fry” without specifying what size, you were supposed to say “Was that a medium fry?” because if you said “What size fry would you like?”, the person would probably say “Oh, give me a small”, but if you suggested a medium, they’d almost always go with that. It was called up-sizing and was one of the things we were supposed to do regularly. In fact, if you were being evaluated and didn’t attempt to up-size, you’d get points off. I imagine it’s the same thing with super-sizing, that employees are supposed to suggest the super-sizing every time someone chooses a value meal. How much “value” there is in a McDonald’s value meal is another topic altogether. I found the movie fascinating, and the end even more so. It took two months to reverse the damage Morgan Spurlock had done to himself in one month of eating McDonald’s three meals a day. It took TWICE AS LONG to reverse the damage that he’d done to his body. That is just amazing. The paintings that showed up all through the movie were CREEPY as hell. Just thinking about them now gives me the willies. Brrrr. Good movie, though – highly recommended. * * * I stepped out of the bathroom this morning after putting my contacts in to see that the door to the bedroom closet was mostly closed. From in the bathroom, I had heard Meester Boogers running around in the closet and then heard something fall over. I glanced at the floor along the bottom of the closet door, and my mouth dropped open. It looked like there were bug parts spread all over the place, and I could only imagine what kind of bug he had in there. When I got closer to the closet door I realized those weren’t bug parts – those were pieces of Kitten Chow. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll mention it again: Miz Poo, Meester Boogers, and Spanky get a little pile of Kitten Chow as a treat every night before bed. We keep the box of Kitten Chow on a shelf in the closet, and it appeared that Meester Boogers had knocked the box off the shelf. I opened the door to see Meester Boogers sitting on the closet floor surrounded by Kitten Chow, the Kitten Chow box next to him. He glanced up at me, made a grumpy sound, and continued eating as much Kitten Chow as he could fit into his mouth. I picked the box up and put it away, and Miz Poo and Spanky heard the noise and came running. I thought about vacuuming up the Kitten Chow, but in the end left it, because I know that between the three of them, they’ll vacuum up each and every piece of Kitten Chow before the day is through. I guess we need a better hiding place for the box of Kitten Chow. * * * Mysterious, or just a dork? You decide. ]]>

The Dark Tower book, and Come Home Soon by SHeDAISY – specifically, the video for Come Home Soon. I like to have CMT playing on the TV upstairs while I’m puttering around in the morning, and every single day that video comes on, and I have to sit down and watch it from beginning to end, boo-hooing like a big baby the entire time. The Dark Tower has made me cry – repeatedly – for reasons I can’t get into, unless I wanted a bunch of really pissed-off people who hadn’t read it yet to hunt me down and hurt me. I will say this, though: Dear Stephen King: Stop defending what you did, and just write the goddamn story. Love, Robyn. PS: I’m not sure about the guy who did the illustrations for this book. Could Roland look any more like Clint Eastwood? Also, Jake looks a tad more… feminine than I’d imagined him. Good job on Eddie, Susannah and Oy, though. PPS: “Can-toi” really rolls off the tongue, and I occasionally find myself staring off into space chanting “Can-toi. Can-toi. Can-toi.” I’m driving myself crazy.

* * * I did a LOT of house cleaning yesterday – cleaned the master bathroom EVEN THOUGH it didn’t desperately need it, vacuumed the entire downstairs, washed all the floors, vacuumed the stairs, did laundry, AND MORE. I was a house-cleaning freak, though not on the order of that freak-ass woman on Wife Swap the other night who spends FIVE HOURS a day cleaning her house. I don’t know if I could even find five hours worth of cleaning to do around here, seriously. What kind of life is that? So anyway, I did ALL this cleaning. And did anyone even notice? NO. Bastards. * * * We went to Lowe’s on Saturday to pick out a new dishwasher, because the old one had shit the bed (hi, Shannon!). We’ve had problems with the old dishwasher on and off for the last few years, and finally it just wasn’t draining the way it should and repairmen weren’t able to fix it, so we decided it was time for a new one. We did some looking around online and Fred thought he was going to just go out and buy a new dishwasher, but I put the kibosh on that because hello! I want to be able to go and LOOK at the available dishwashers before we actually buy one. It’s one thing to buy clothes and books online without looking at or touching them first, but big-ass appliances are another story altogether. Fred had seen a dishwasher online similar to the one we had – I think this is the one we had, and this is the one Fred found online. So we went to Lowe’s Saturday morning (along with the rest of the population of Madison) and looked at what they had, and which one did we decide on? That’s right, the one Fred saw online, the GE Triton XL. This morning the guy came from Lowe’s and installed it in about 45 minutes, and now we have a brand-spankin’-new dishwashwer, whee! I love having a dishwasher, but I’ll admit that after the old dishwasher was taken out and there was a huge empty space where it had been, I thought about what we could do with that much storage space, and I wondered if we actually NEED a dishwasher. Uhhh… yeah. We do. * * * Also on Saturday, after picking out and paying for our new dishwasher, Fred and I went for a hike. The man is just a hiking fool, and I’m not so much a person who loves to hike, but it was getting to the point where on the weekends the spud and I were hanging out at the house while Fred went out on long hikes, and I said to myself “Self,” said I, “Perhaps it is time to join Fred in this not-so-new obsession of his.” And then I said to Fred, “Baby,” said I, “Why don’t you pick out an easy hike for Saturday and the spud and I will join you, and then if you want to go on a challenging hike, you can go do that by yourself on Sunday?” Because a hike with the spud and I? Not challenging. If I wanted to challenge myself, I would sit and try to remember the names of every man Paris Hilton has fucked in front of a camera (impossible!), not go hauling my ass through the woods. So Fred picked out an easy hike, and then the spud bailed (though in all fairness, she didn’t actually know that there was a hike planned before she decided to spend the night at her friend’s house) and so it was just Fred and I, with the stumpy little slow-moving legs, going on a hike. The hike Fred picked out was, I would say, a 3 or 4 on a scale from 1 – 10. A 3 or 4 to me, that is – I sweated my ass off, and he didn’t break a sweat at all. We saw a snake and a deer, and a couple of showing-off male hikers who passed us at such a speed that they were nothing but big blurs. I managed pretty well, although at one point I stepped up onto a big rock behind Fred, then started to lose my balance and grabbed his arm to stop the fall, and he wasn’t expecting it, so he stumbled back a step and then held firm so that I didn’t go tumbling ass-over-head onto the ground and break my tailbone or snap my spine or something else equally horrific. So this is going to be a new thing, I believe – family hike on Saturday mornings. I’m sure I’ll have stories to tell about that… * * * He lurves the sun, oh yes. ]]>

Chevrolet Aveo in silver. Not ONLY is it a new car and a cute one to boot, but it also reportedly has a kick-ass stereo AND air conditioning. I’m so excited for her! Deb’s never owned a brand-new car in her life and I think she’s a little weirded out by the idea of owning one. Now, what should I send her for a car-warming present?

* * * Friday night, Fred and I watched an episode of Barely Famous I’d taped the night before. Barely Famous, if you’re not interested in following the link, is a reality show on CMT about Brad and Brett Warren – the Warren Brothers, obviously – who’ve been in the country music business for ages, written hits for artists such as Faith Hill and Sarah Evans, among others, but no one outside of the industry has a clue who the hell they are. It was a pretty funny show – I thought Fred was going to pass out laughing when the Warren Brother with the long hair (I don’t know which is which just yet) was standing in the reception area of their record label, and someone’s cell phone went off, and long-haired Warren said “Got a loud enough ring there, Helen Keller?” Those guys do NOT look like country singers, though – they look more like stoners. No offense to you stoners out there, but the Warrens totally look stereotypical stoners. I’m sure you do not resemble the stereotypical stoner, and are a fashion plate unto yourself, so I’m not insulting you, mm’kay? Look, over there! Doritos! So the show was amusing enough and it was cool to see the occasional country star, but I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to watch it again. I might tape a few more episodes so that we’re never stuck watching “real time” TV again, though. * * * Saturday night at 7, Fred was wandering around in the kitchen making his evening snack. The spud walked into the room, grabbed a bag of microwaveable popcorn, and put it in the (can you guess??) microwave. I was sitting on the couch reading a magazine while waiting for them both to get the hell out of my way. “Did you know that muttermuttermutter died?” the spud said to Fred. “Yeah,” Fred replied. “Who?” I said, turning around to look at them. “Who died?” “Morrie,” they chorused. “Oh my god!” I gasped. “Maury Povich is DEAD?” “No,” Fred said. “Morrie, from Tuesdays with Morrie.” The spud’s been reading that book, and had apparently come to the end. “Oh. Yeah, I knew he was dead.” And I wonder why I have a reputation for being ditzy… * * * The spud’s sleepover at her friend Becky’s house went well. I told the spud to call when she wanted me to come pick her up – though it had to be before 10 or after 12, because Fred and I were going on a hike – and she didn’t call until sometime after 2. When I got there to pick her up, Becky brought a one week-old kitten out to show me. Her cat had had four kittens, and they were all spoken for except for one. Naturally, the spud was DYING for me to say yes, and Becky said “You KNOW you want to say yes!” and I said “Of course I do, but no.” and we left. It sure was a cute little thing. But it might turn out to have problems on the scale of those Miz Poo has, and we can barely afford to keep HER up and running, let alone throwing another problem cat into the mix. Her lip, lately, has been getting worse. The vet thought that she might have allergies, so we (meaning Fred) have been giving her a pill two to three times a day for the last few weeks. It didn’t get better, and in fact got worse. It got so bad that it was hard to even look at her, because it just looked painful. It didn’t seem to really bother her, but it certainly bothered us. Saturday morning Fred called a different vet than the one we usually go to. Our regular vet hadn’t been able to figure out what was going on, so we thought it was time for a second opinion. He made an appointment for 2:00, so he was gone when I left to get the spud, and he was still gone when I got back. He didn’t get home until almost 3:00, in fact. $300 down the drain, once again. Fred has taken to referring to Miz Poo as the money pit, and our million-dollar cat. The vet ran several tests on Miz Poo, took blood, and finally said that she thinks it’s an autoimmune disorder and might even be responsible for all the eye problems she’s been having. She gave Fred antibiotics and steroids, and wants to see Miz Poo in two weeks. We (Fred) started her on the medication right away, and already her lip looks better – less swollen and less dry and cracked. If this helps, then Miz Poo will most likely have to be on steroids for the rest of her life. The pills are $1 a pill from the vet, but Fred found the same pills online for 20 cents a pill, so if this becomes a lifelong thing, we’ll start buying them online. Miz Poo on steroids? Watch out for that ‘roid rage… * * * Pet store kitty pics from today are here. The pictures from last week are here. * * * “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to, yellow ball? You talkin’ to me? Well, I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”]]>

* * * I charged my cell phone yesterday, and when it was done charging I turned it on, to find that I had a voicemail message. I dialed in to listen to it. It was a long, rambling message left by a man who sounded, I don’t know, Indian? Maybe? But I could only understand about every third word the man said. I heard “tow truck driver”, I heard “sister”, I heard “Leroy’s” and I heard “call me back or” and a phone number. Now, I’m pretty sure that it’s a wrong number, because the guy was calling from the “404” area code, which is the Atlanta area. I’m 99.999% sure there’s no reason for a strange man to call and leave a message about my car or Leroy’s car or my sister or a tow truck. Another person might call the number the guy left to let him know he’d called the wrong number, but NOT ME, nosirree. You think I want to try to talk to the guy when I can’t understand what the hell he’s saying? Talking to someone I can’t understand always stresses me out, because I feel like such an idiot for not understanding. I can’t help it! It’s my stupid, ignorant, self-centered American ears that cannot understand the words coming out of your mouf!

* * * I woke this morning to the sound of Fred standing in the closet laughing. Before I could ask what the hell he was laughing about, he walked across the room, into the bathroom, laughing the entire way. I finally got up and went into the bathroom. “I just thought of the most awesome children’s book title ever!” he announced before I could even ask what he was laughing about. “What?” “The Mysterious Mr. Boogers.” Now, that right there is some funny shit. I started laughing and although I went back to bed, every time I woke up for a few seconds I’d think of The Mysterious Mr. Boogers and laugh some more. We disagree what the plot of the book would be about, though. Fred thinks the mysterious Mr. Boogers would be a cat who would appear out of nowhere to comfort children when they were frightened. I, on the other hand, think the mysterious Mr. Boogers should, first of all, wear a cape. And he’d show up out of nowhere to solve crimes. Kind of like Sherlock Holmes. Spanky could be his dimwitted sidekick! Or, for that matter, Miz Poo could be his cranky and sassy sidekick. The possibilities are endless! So very mysterious, that Mr. Boogers. * * * I fail to see how this could possibly be comfortable. ]]>

Robyn, help! Why can’t I submit my email address on the Gmail thing?? There is a space to enter my email address, but no where to “submit”! Am I missing something??? Type in your email address and hit “enter” – that should work. I feel so out of the loop..what is the world is gmail and how does it work?!!!! It’s a web-based email run by those fine people at Google. It’s similar to Hotmail, but you get more storage space (1000 MB) and since it’s still in beta testing, you have to have an invite to sign up for a Gmail address. Can’t you click the gmail ‘remember me for two weeks’ thing. That’s what I do. I could, but I have two Gmail addresses – one for personal email, and the other for notify list email. I have to log out of the notify email to check the personal email, and then log back into the notify email, so checking the box wouldn’t work for me. Hey about your gmail thing. Why don’t you use the gmail notifier? It sits down in your system tray and notifies you of new mail, or you can double click the icon and gmail opens without having to re-enter your username and password. Here is the link to download. That wouldn’t really work for me (see above about having two Gmail accounts), but I thought I’d include the link for anyone out there who might be interested.

* * * It took me a distressingly long time to figure out exactly what the holy hell Heather was talking about in this entry. And then I snorted Diet Coke out my nose. Ouch. Everyone! Reconvene your procedure! * * * I stayed up past midnight last night, even though I felt sweaty and feverish and just generally crappy, to finish The Cabinet of Curiosities. Now, I BOUGHT the book because I had read Brimstone, wherein it was implied (or I assumed, I guess) that there would be more information about a character (Constance Greene) who was mentioned almost in passing in Brimstone. So I kept waiting and waiting and WAITING for Pendergast to come across Constance Greene in The Cabinet, and IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. Fuckers. At least Preston & Child had the common decency to put more information about Constance Greene on their page. Not that you’re interested, but I just had to vent. * * * I just went and picked up the stuff I dropped off at the framer last week. They did an excellent job: I had them put non-glare glass on the bluebird picture, and that stuff is awesome – you honestly can’t even tell there’s glass on the picture unless you reach out and touch it. The more I look at it, the more I like it. My sister did an excellent job on the picture, didn’t she? I can’t wait to hang it up. We’ve been in this house a little more than three years, and I’m finally getting around to hanging stuff up on the walls. It’s starting to feel almost like home… * * * More from my comments: Spanky’s fort is beautiful especially the head board. That is gorgeous. Where’d you get it? I’m guessing it’s “in the family”. This is referring to this headboard: That bed was Fred’s when he was growing up; his parents got it at an antique auction. I like the bed, but wish the headboard wasn’t quite so tall. Look at that GIGANTOR bottle of coins!! When are you going to bring those to the bank? That’s regarding this bottle of coins: We’re going to bring it to the bank (or rather, probably roll them ourselves and then take the rolls to the bank) when it’s full! Actually, we’re hoping to fill it up in the next four years and use the money to help pay for our 10th anniversary trip to the Bahamas. (Did you notice that we WERE going to go to Hawaii for our 10th anniversary, but now we’re going to the Bahamas? That’s ’cause I actually made that 63,000 hour trip to Hawaii and I’m in no hurry to do it again!) Hee. Was the Bean actually gnawing on the cat food bag? That’s regarding this picture: And yeah, he was gnawing on the bag o’ cat food. That’s because his mean ol’ daddy bought the cat food and then left it at the bottom of the stairs, and Meester Boogers could SMELL the cat food, but couldn’t get to it, and he got frustrated, and hung around the bag of cat food and subtlely indicated that his daddy should open the bag and give him some food, but the daddy just ignored him, and the frustration overwhelmed him, and he sunk his fangs into the bag. Which is when his mean daddy took the bag of cat food upstairs and hid it in the closet. Because after all, they HAD a bowl full of food already! What building is that on the candy jar? This candy jar: That building is apparently The Darien. I have no idea where The Darien is, or if it even still exists. I don’t, for that matter, have any idea where my grandmother got the candy jar. It sat on the table next to her couch for a good part of my childhood, but there was never actually any good candy in it. Heh. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the candy jar. I don’t want to stick it up in the cabinet where it’ll never be seen or used, but I also don’t really have any place to display it, and we don’t keep candy around anyway. Maybe I’ll fill it with Trident Wintergreen gum and keep it on my desk. I looked at your contact page to get your mailing address and noticed you posted a new email address. I remember you used to have your email address posted differently because of spiders or bots or whatever and getting spam — is that no longer a concern with Gmail or something? Yeah, my email address used to be posted as an image to prevent spam. When I got the Gmail address I decided to put my email up as a link just to see whether the Gmail spamcatcher was any good. So far, it’s caught all the spam headed my way and put it in the “spam” folder, so I’ll say it’s pretty good and I’m probably going to leave the email link the way it is for now. Maybe it’s just me, but when I read “as ever”, the voice in my head says “as if”. EXACTLY. I always hear “as if” or “whatever” in my head when I read “as ever.” I’m still signing my notify emails with “as evah”, by the way, and I giggle a little every time I do it. Does Miz Poo act adversly from her many health issues or is she pretty much the same throughout? She pretty much acts the same throughout. Sometimes she’s a little more clingy than others – for instance, when she came home after they sewed her eye shut, she wanted to be laying in my lap or arms constantly, and had to be right up against me, flopped over my arm, at night. As she started feeling better she’d give me a little more space. This is how I determine whether she’s feeling okay: if I’m holding her on her back and rubbing her belly, after two or three minutes of belly rubbing, she goes into kitty overload and starts growling and grabbing my hand. I figure if she’s feeling fractious enough to fight with me, she’s doing okay. Also, if she growls and smacks Meester Boogers when he’s just walking by not trying to start anything, I figure she’s doing okay, too. Basically, if she’s ready to kick ass, she’s probably feeling good. * * * “The momma and the daddy are boring.” “Bor-RING.” “Sometimes they annoy me.” “But mostly they just bore me.” ]]>

* * * Boy, I sure wish this guy had his own journal. Though the insulting-a-woman-you-hate-by-calling-her-fat is SO overdone. I’d say the boy still has issues, wouldn’t you?

* * * I left the house at 11:45 this morning to run errands, and ended up taking TWO HOURS to run them. I have no clue why it took me so long to go to the bank, Barnes & Noble, Target, and the post office. All I can guess is that I spent more time than I realized wandering around Barnes & Noble looking at (and putting back) books. I ended up buying the new Dark Tower book (and holy CRAP is that fucker heavy. It’s a good thing I lift weights, or I’d’ve needed help carrying it to the checkout.), and subsequently went to Target, where I found it for $3 less than I paid at B & N. Figures. * * * See him? No? Sometimes a boy just needs to hang out where his bratty little brother won’t find and harass him. Sexy and smoldering, or just sleepy? Who can tell? ]]>

* * * I think the DVR is about the best invention since sliced bread. Since the WHEEL, even. We actually sat and watched something in “real time” last night and it was horrible. “Can’t you fast forward past the commercials?” I whined at Fred. “No, this is real time!” Fred sighed. We’ve pretty much decided that we’re just going to record everything on the DVR from here on out so we don’t have to suffer through commercials. Tonight we’re recording an amazing number of shows and since we have nothing recorded on the DVR (and that, my friends, is something that rarely happens), I rented Scooby Doo 2 for Fred to watch, and I’ll most likely sit on the couch and read since I have NO desire to see that movie. I also rented Mean Girls and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. It’ll be a Lindsey Lohan kinda week for me. If I had to choose between Lindsey Lohan and Hilary Duff, I’d totally choose Hilary Duff because I think she’s adorable and Lindsey Lohan tends toward the skanky (JUST MY OPINION). Luckily, since I’m not trying to date either one of them, I don’t have to choose, so I can enjoy both of them. Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, lordy. Lindsey Lohan is signed up to play Vig in Fashionistas. That should be… uh… INTERESTING. I also rented Bad(der) Santa, because I knew we’d watched Bad Santa and kind of enjoyed it, and figured we’d enjoy the sequel as well. And then Fred told me that Bad(der) Santa isn’t the sequel to Bad Santa – it’s Bad Santa, uncensored. Oh. Well, fuck. That’s another three bucks down the drain. That’s what I get for not looking at the back of the box, I guess. When I was working out this morning, I started watching My Sergei. Let me tell you, it’s hard as hell to use the elliptical trainer when you’re trying not to cry. I absolutely LOVED Gordeeva & Grinkov and was heartbroken when he died. I can’t believe it’s been almost 9 years already. Anyway, the movie is really good – though I don’t know if it’s actually good, or if I just love it because I loved G & G, and it has tons of footage. If you’re at all interested in figure skating, give it a try.

* * * I spent the morning running errands, including going to Lowe’s (which was a little scary. That place is HUGE.) and buying bug killer and a platform bird feeder. Since I figured out that Meester Boogers was catching birds only when they become trapped under the platform feeder sitting on the ground, I decided to get rid of the one sitting on the ground, because I find that I’m happier when there aren’t birds flying around my house. I had to toss the old feeder because it was nasty and beyond saving. So I put the new feeder together, hung it up, tossed the old feeder, and filled all the bird feeders. THEN I filled the hummingbird feeder (though I think they’re about to head South, since it’s starting to get a tad cool at night) and chopped down my butterfly bush. I figure the butterfly bush will come back just fine, since I trimmed it to the point where it was nothing but two sticks sticking out of the ground in April or May, and it was about eight feet tall by the beginning of August. I hated cutting it down completely, since the butterflies were still visiting the bush regularly, but it looked awful, all listing to one side, so I just chopped that fucker down. And now I think I’m going to go watch Dr. Phil. Maybe I’ll do some more exciting cleaning or housework-type stuff tomorrow. Whee! * * * Why yes, that IS the dining room table we eat at every night. Oh, quit freaking out – no one’s asking YOU to eat at that table. Besides, they’re very clean. When they’re not tromping through the litter box or licking their asses, that is.]]>

Say!!!

* * * Attention, Weiner lovers (hee!) – Jennifer Weiner, that is. She’s going to be on the Jane Pauley show on Wednesday. Just thought I’d let y’all know, in case you might be interested and hadn’t read her blog recently. I just re-read Little Earthquakes yesterday, and it’s even better the second time around. “This book makes me want to have a baby!” I said to Fred when I was about halfway through the book. “Let’s have a baby!” He wouldn’t go for it. He also wouldn’t go for it when I allowed that I’d happily settle for a new kitten. Bastard. * * * I left the house Saturday a few minutes before noon to drive out into the country to buy tomatoes. About five minutes from home, it occurred to me that there were an awful lot of people standing and sitting by the side of the road, some of them waving american flags. “Hmmm, odd,” I said to myself. “I know the Trail of Tears is coming through town, but I thought they’d be on the other end of town…” I shrugged, kept driving, and bought my tomatoes. I got back on the road headed toward home, drove about three miles, and then traffic came to a standstill. For twenty-five minutes I sat in the same place in my Jeep and watched hundreds and hundreds of people on motorcycles drive by, going in the other direction. Good thing I had a full tank of gas. No, I wasn’t pissed off, because what’s the point of that? I knew the Trail of Tears was coming through town, so it would have behooved me to check out the map before I left home. I didn’t, so who was to blame? Yep, me. It was pretty cool to see all those motorcycles going by. Almost made me want to get my own motorcycle (bahahaha! Oh, the mind reels at the very thought of Klutzerella trying to ride a motorcycle.) and ride in it next year. * * * D�tente. * * * Two: Hey, I talked about Jennifer Weiner in that entry, too. Three: I think you know what I’m thinkin’. Four: “I’d like to return to my regularly scheduled life, please.”]]>

poor people in Pensacola, Gulf Shores, and Mobile, that’s for sure. I suspect there was some flooding on the road behind our back yard, though, because those fuckers were out there at FIVE TWENTY AM with their big, loud trucks and the constant backing-up. Luckily I was tired enough that I only woke up for a few minutes, long enough to growl “I hate you fuckers!”, check the clock, and snuggle with Miz Poo before falling back asleep.

* * * I have forbidden Fred to ever darken my doorstop with that piece of crap movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Because it looks like the biggest pile of steaming crap to ever cross my television screen. They haven’t even bothered to make it look halfway interesting – they just say “Oh! Jude Law! Oh! Gwyneth Paltrow! Oh! Angelina Jolie!” and expect people to bust their asses to go watch the fucking thing. I don’t think so. * * * Alec Baldwin was on The Daily Show the night before last, and we watched it last night (we tape the show every night and watch it the next evening). After Alec and Jon Stewart had been talking for a few minutes, there was a straight-on shot of the both of them, which is when I realized that Alec Baldwin has himself a HUGE noggin. His noggin gives the Affleck noggin a run for its money. I bet if you got the Affleck noggin and the Baldwin noggin in the same room, the combined noggin acreage would just suck all the oxygen out of the room. How’d you like to wake up in the dark and see the Baldwin noggin coming toward you? I bet your life would flash in front of your eyes. Fred thinks Alec Baldwin looks mean, like he’d punch you as soon as look at you. After some examination, I had to agree. He’s got mean, glittering, tiny little pig eyes located in that huge noggin of his, and I bet if you said something that he took exception to, he’d think nothing of knocking your ass across the room, then crushing you with his huge head. I just hope I never run into him in a dark alley, that’s all I can say. * * * Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here. * * * Is it just me, or does he look like a bat in this picture? ]]>