Month: April 2005

always dream about living on the ocean. Sometimes I bring up realtor.com and look for houses on the ocean in Maine. A few months ago I found a house in northern Maine, an old schoolhouse located next to a quarry. I think chances are good that I’ll never live near the ocean again. Unless I win the lottery. But then, I almost never play the lottery, so I imagine it would be difficult to win. I always leave the pet store on Monday mornings feeling as relaxed as if I’d had a massage. Sometimes I wish I’d called Fred and whined and whined and whined at him until he gave in and let me adopt the cute-kitty-of-the-moment. I never do, because I’m afraid he might give in. Sometimes I wish I’d had another kid a few years after I had the spud, so that she’d have a brother or sister; I know she’s sometimes lonely as an only child. Whenever I see a baby in a store, or pictures of an adorable baby online, I wait to get hit with the I-want-a-baby-ouch-my-uterus blues. I never do. Sometimes I wonder what kind of weirdo writes about her life online for more than five years straight; this online journaling is such a strange thing. I always wonder if the day will come when I decide to stop journaling; but I never thought I’d still be doing this five years later. Hell, I never thought I’d make it one entire year. It is, by the way, a point of pride for me that I’ve never torn down this site and quit briefly, then come back. I suspect that the first time I do that will be the last. I don’t intend to do that anytime soon. I sometimes wonder who you are, the people who read this site. I always love to get your emails and pictures of your pets, your family, you. I always love to hear your stories, and I always promise myself that I’ll keep on top of my email. I never do, and sometimes you never get a reply from me. I always feel like an asshole for archiving email without responding to it, but when months have gone by, I feel like the time to respond has passed. But I always read your email, even if I never respond. Same with the comments. I always check out the TUS forum first thing every morning, and always read the Pop Culture and Television boards before anything else. I almost never post, though I sometimes start to, then reconsider and delete it before I hit the “continue” button. Someone else has always said what I wanted to say, only they put it better. Sometimes I think about putting up my own mini-forum to discuss TV shows so I won’t have to discuss them in entries. But I don’t follow through with that – god knows I’d probably never keep up with it, any more than I kept up with my Couch Potato blog. When I read a particularly heartfelt or difficult entry on someone’s blog or journal, I always feel like a jerk for not commenting or emailing the journaler/ blogger. I just never know what to say! Sometimes I post something lame, but mostly I don’t say anything. Doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of and concerned about them, though. I always greet the cats when I walk into a room. Sometimes they respond. Sometimes I’m so overcome with affection for them that I’m afraid I’m going to pick them up and squeeze them ’til their guts come out their eyes. I never do, but don’t think I’m not tempted. I always wait ’til the end of the month to do my WordGoddess collab, have you noticed? Sometimes I think, as soon as I get the email telling what the collab topic for the month is, that I’ll get it done as soon as possible. I never do, though. I’ve always been a procrastinator.

* * * I was out in the back yard last weekend taking pictures, and when I leaned over to take a picture of Da Boog, Miz Poo hopped up on my back and just sat there until Fred came over and took her off. * * *]]>

Couldn’t Keep it to Myself. Finished this morning, sitting in the waiting room (see the next section): One Coffee With. Love that Margaret Maron, but I have to say that so far (this is only the first book in the Sigrid Harald series) I prefer her Deborah Knott books.

* * * So, Fred has now been officially neutered. And who would bring a camera to a vasectomy? That’s right, MY HUSBAND. He did an entry about it, even – read it at your own risk. There’s one picture that made me scream and run around in circles (skip his entry if you have a weak stomach, or are eating), but if you scroll to the bottom you get to see… well, his bottom. For a while when we were sitting in the waiting room there were several other men sitting in the waiting room with us, and I said to Fred, “I imagine this is how a man sitting in a gynecologist’s waiting room must feel.” He’s upstairs taking a nap right now; hopefully he’ll recover quickly (he always does) and will be fine come Monday morning. * * * I don’t think I mentioned the fact that I bought tickets to Maine this summer for the spud and I. Independence Air was having a kick-ass sale – tickets were $79 one-way – so I got round-trip tickets from here to Maine for myself, AND a one-way ticket for the spud from Maine to here (she’s flying to California at the end of May, spending three weeks there, and then flying to Rhode Island to spend a few weeks with her father, then going up to Maine for a while before I fly up there, and then she’s flying back with me) for less than $300 altogether. That’s pretty damn good, if you ask me. When she goes out to California, she’s flying… United? Continental? One of those, because Independence Air doesn’t fly to the O.C. They fly to L.A, but the amount of money we’d have saved on the tickets would have been negated by her grandparents having to make a longer trip to a bigger airport. This will be the first year the spud is required to get herself from one gate to another during a layover in… Ohio? Atlanta? I don’t remember where the layover is, and I’m too lazy to go look at the itinerary. So the idea of her getting from one gate to the other has me a little worried, but luckily she has a two-hour layover, and I’ll drill it into her head that if she can’t find where she needs to go, she should ask a FEMALE in a uniform for help. (That’s right, males. I just dissed your entire gender! I’m going to teach my child that you cannot be trusted to help a cute 16 year-old girl find her gate BECAUSE IT’S BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY.) And if nothing else, she’ll have her cell phone with her, and she can call me, and I can scream and run around in circles and overreact, before I look up a map of the airport online and tell her where to go. On the up side, she has a nonstop flight from California to Rhode Island, so I won’t have to worry quite so much when she takes that flight. * * * Hey, look! It’s Badass Southpark Robyn! Make your own, here. * * * Hey. Has anyone read anything by Ayelet Waldman? I watched the Oprah show she was on the other day, and she seemed really likeable, and defended her essay pretty well, I thought. I know this is absolute blasphemy and I’ll probably get strung from the nearest tree, but I tried reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by her husband – Michael Chabon – and got about thirty pages in before I was so incredibly bored that I gave myself the gift of putting it in the library box instead of trying to get through the entire book. Fred really enjoyed it, though. Clearly he’s the one with taste. * * * Today’s my mother’s birthday. I had to sit and think a good long time before I could figure out how old she is. For a good two or three minutes, I actually thought she was 87. I seriously sat here and thought “She’s 87, right? That’s right, isn’t it…?” Well, NO, that’s not right, dumbass. My mother’s only 25 years older than I am; my grandmother‘s the one who was 50 years older. The day I figured out that my mother had me when she was 25, and HER mother had HER when she was 25 was a great day, because I could stop trying to remember the years of their birth. I remember most everyone’s age by knowing how much older or younger than me they are. My oldest brother’s 6 years older (well, 5 1/2, but I always add 6 to my age, and subtract a year depending on whether he’s had his birthday or not), my other older brother is 4 years older (3 1/2, depending on the time of year), Debbie’s 2 years younger, my mother’s 25 years older, and my father is… two years older than her. I think? For some reason, I can remember that my father was born in 1941, but I don’t remember anyone else’s birth year. Except for the spud, of course. I know how old she is, but sometimes I have to do some mental gymnastics to figure out how old Brian is. “The spud was almost three when we moved to Rhode Island, which was just after Brian was born, so that makes him almost three years younger, and she’s 16, so that makes him… add the six, carry the one, subtract the 7, divide by 5… thirteen? And a half? When the hell did he GET TO BE A TEENAGER?” Some people would write down things like the year important relatives were born, but not ME, baby. I prefer to live life on the edge, yes indeedy. On the other hand, almost nine years after our divorce, I can still remember my ex-husband’s social security number and date of birth. Funny how the memory works, huh? * * * *WARNING: POSSIBLE AMAZING RACE SPOILERS; SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE YET* From my comments: Complete change of subject – are you still watching the Amazing Race? Was it just me or would you have pushed The Beauty Queen out of the car when she said her fiance became a POW to get out of the army??!!! I actually said to Fred that if we were that couple (me a beauty queen! Ha! I don’t own nearly enough lip gloss!), I could imagine saying something like that to him, just to be funny. Because that’s the sort of stuff we’d joke about. But she certainly appeared to be serious there, didn’t she? I have to say – and this might get me hung for treason – I find Ron and Kelly to be completely unlikeable, and I’d hate it if they won the race. At this point I’m hoping like hell that Uchenna and Joyce or Rob and Amber win, because I’m not crazy about Meredith and Gretchen either. He’s okay, but her voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me, and I feel like they’ve bumbled their way through the race so far. I have no idea on earth how they managed to get this far. It’s funny that I’m kinda-sorta rooting for Rob and Amber since they annoyed me so much on Survivor. I really hope Uchenna and Joyce win, though. * * * *WARNING: SURVIVOR SPOILER AHEAD; SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE YET* So they voted off the only non-annoying girl left on Survivor. NICE. Every one of those girls left annoy the holy shit out of me, and if Jennifer, the blandly boring blonde wins this season, I’m going to have to rethink my devotion to this show. (And I’m sure my decision will be “Oh, I’ll give it one more season!”) I’m pulling for Tom or Ian to win, but I’m not holding my breath. * * * Slap fight. ]]>

periodontitis. They showed me a different way to brush my teeth – angling the toothbrush so that the bristles would go under the gumline – and told me to come back in three months. When three months was up, I didn’t even get a chance to call and make an appointment, because they called me first. I had that appointment last week, and the hygienist poked around in my mouth for a few minutes before declaring that the periodontitis hadn’t gotten any better. “It’s not real bad,” she told me. “We caught it early!” And then she went on to suggest that I have something called Scaling and Root Planing done, and she started a movie about periodontal disease and how Scaling and Root Planing helps to control periodontal disease, and when the hygienist came back, I told her to go ahead and make the appointment for me. Did you know that periodontal disease CANNOT BE CURED, only controlled. KIND OF LIKE HERPES. All those nights of half-assedly brushing my teeth before bed were coming back to roost, I guess. So my first Scaling and Root Planing appointment was yesterday, and from the video the hygienist had shown me, it was going to consist of very painful scraping with a dental instrument to get all the crap out from under my gumline. Believe you me – I was SO looking forward to THAT. Sharp dental instruments digging around in my gums? GIMME SOME OF THAT. Except that MY dentists are directly on the cutting edge of all that is cool and awesome – I mean, they have little TVs in every single exam room! – and instead of using sharp dental instruments, the hygienist used an ultrasonic instrument that basically shot medicine-tasting liquid into my gumline and cleared all the crap out of there. First, though, she had to take measurements of my gums using – you guessed it – sharp dental instruments. She poked at the gums in front of every tooth, and then in back of every tooth, calling out numbers that didn’t really mean anything to me, so that someone else could write them down. And then she gave me the Rota-dent, which is a dentist-recommended toothbrush-type instrument. She opened the package, discussed ways of taking care of the Rota-dent, and then had me open my mouth and showed me how to use the Rota-dent. Did you know that Only the Rota-dent� has patented microfilament brush tips designed to reach underneath the gum line and in-between the teeth? I bet you didn’t know that. She showed me how to hold the Rota-dent – at an angle to the tooth so that the bristles can reach under the nasty, nasty gumline – and when she turned the Rota-dent on and held it to one of my teeth, this really nasty foamy stuff came out from under my gumline. “That’s plaque,” she said. And it was nasty. But cool. And I felt like a dirty, dirty whore. I mean, who can’t brush their teeth well enough to prevent periodontal disease? ME, that’s who! And along with the nasty foamy plaque came blood. A lot of blood. Practically a geyser of blood. Every tooth she held the Rota-dent against bled like it was going out of style. After she’d brushed a few teeth, she handed over the Rota-dent and let me give it a try. Apparently I’m a natural at the Rota-dent. After a few more instructions on the care of the Rota-dent and telling me that they sell the heads to the Rota-dent there at the dentist’s office – of course they do – she put the Rota-dent back in the box, and got started on the cleaning of my nasty, nasty gums. I don’t know how much crap she got out from under my gums, but I saw a lot of stuff fly up into the air when she was doing the back gums. There were places where it hurt, but the experience wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be – like I said, I thought there was going to be a lot of scraping with sharp objects – and once it was over I only had the slightest bit of gum tenderness. She only did half my mouth yesterday, though. I have to go back in two weeks so she can do the other half. And in the meantime I get to brush all kinds of nasty crap out of my gumline with the Rota-dent, using some kind of medicated fluoride stuff that tastes really nasty, every single day. What could be more fun than that?

* * * This week, the spud has been going out and driving with a driving instructor from a local driving school. (Could I have used the word “driving” any more often in that sentence?) He’s been teaching kids to drive for 33 years, and I guess he really knows what he’s doing. He actually took her to the scariest place in all of Huntsville to drive – the 565 to South Parkway interchange – and said she did pretty well. Apparently there was quite a lot that her driver’s ed teacher didn’t teach her, but she’s learning now with the driving instructor. Last night, he told Fred that he thought she’d be ready to drive by herself after she drives with him on Friday. The idea of her driving by herself scares the hell out of me, but if we waited ’til I was ready for her to drive by herself, she’d probably be 35! * * * What I’m doing today: Waiting for the delivery people to come, to take away our television and replace it. This is the second time we’ve had the television replaced; this time it’s because the television has been randomly turning itself off for no apparent reason. Speaking of electronics, we bought a VHS/ DVD player/ recorder when we bought the television and speakers. It didn’t work, so Fred exchanged it. The one he exchanged it for didn’t work – the VHS side of it, that is – so we sent it to JVC for repair or replacement. When he spoke to the customer service person, they were adamant that we needed to include the remote and any booklets with the machine. We did, and we got the fixed DVD/ VHS player in the mail last week… only, they didn’t send the fucking remote back with the machine. This whole new TV thing has been a nightmare from beginning to end, really. The one single thing we bought that didn’t have to be returned was the printer/ scanner/ copier. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, though. E’gar is still in the shop. Fred called to see what the hell was going on, since last Friday they told me they expected the car to be ready on Wednesday. The service person he talked to said that they’d been waiting for the part, which arrived today. And now they have to take the engine entirely apart to replace the sensor. This does not give me the warm fuzzies. They expect E’gar to be ready to come home tomorrow. I’m getting tired of driving the gold station wagon, let me tell you. E’gar better shape up. * * * Miz Poo cools off her belly. Mister Boogers lays and considers the fact that he has the biggest feet in all of catdom. I think he might be part rabbit. * * *]]>

One Coffee With, by Margaret Maron. Finished last night: Meet Me on Platform 8. Good book – which surprised me, because I’m a total snob, and the fact that Kelly Ripa was quoted on the cover of the book put me off. I’ll never doubt you again, Kelly Ripa. I promise! I feel like I’m always saying “It was a good book, which surprised me…” and “It was a good movie. I was surprised that it was so good!”, which makes me sound like I spend all my time sitting around grumbling “This movie is going to suck. Why bother even trying to watch it??” and “God. WHY did I buy this book? I don’t want to read it!” Um. Actually, I DO do that an awful lot. I guess I’ll just shut up now. Movies we’ve liked lately: Paparazzi, Dragonfly, The Woodsman, and After the Sunset. We tried to watch Suspect Zero this weekend, but got so bored that we turned it off about half an hour in. We also started Hotel Rwanda, but we were having such a hard time understanding what everyone was saying that we turned it off. We’ll probably give that one another try in the future. I haven’t seen The Notebook yet, but so many people have said it’s good that I’ve actually moved it to the top of my Netflix queue so I can watch it soon. Also, I have Birth, which I haven’t watched yet. Hopefully it won’t suck. Oh, and if you haven’t watched any episodes of Eyes, you oughta. I liked it so much that I convinced Fred to give it a try, and he liked it, too. It’s the absolutely perfect role for Tim Daly – who gets hotter and hotter with age.

* * * Spot and Miz Poo had to go to the vet yesterday, because they both needed their immunoregulan shots, and Spot was due for his annual checkup and shots and everything. After Friday, I’ve sworn off trying to get Spot in the box, so I told Fred he had to get the cats in the box before he left for work. Our vet opens to let people drop off their pets starting at 7, so I intended to leave the house exactly at 7, drop off the cats, and then go back and pick them up when the vet had seen them. We live very close to the vet, thank god. So Fred brought both the cat carriers upstairs. One was a cardboard carrier that we got ages and ages ago at either a vet’s office, or when we adopted Tubby or Miz Poo. It’s similar to this one. Fred opened that cat carrier, grabbed Miz Poo, and before she could even whimper he had her in the carrier, with it closed. Spot was locked in the bathroom, because Fred is a smart, smart man. He knows that the best thing to do when dealing with a neurotic, VERY FAST cat like Spot is to lock him in a small room and then bring the cat carrier into the room, so that the cat has very few places to run and hide, and there’s no danger of a bastardly Booger jumping into the carrier and fucking things up. So Fred grabbed the other cat carrier – it looks like this – and went into the bathroom. I sat in bed and listened, sure that Fred would walk in, pick up Spot, push him in the cat carrier, and walk out. All in the space of ten seconds. Instead what I heard was Fred speaking soothingly to Spot. “Come on, buddy, that’s a good buddy, this won’t hurt,” he soothed. And then I heard loud thumping noises, the sound of the carrier sliding across the floor, and the sound that I imagine a demon from hell would make. An UNHAPPY demon from hell. For the next five minutes all I could hear was: Fred: Speaking soothingly. ::thumpthumpthump:: ::demon from hell:: ::the skidding sound of plastic on slate:: Fred: Speaking soothingly, but not sounding quite so calm. ::thumpthumpthump:: ::demon from hell:: Repeat about thirty times. Believe you me, I was sitting on that bed laughing my ASS off. Because I got zero, zilch, nada sympathy when I told my tale of Spot-chasing woe to Fred last week, so I figure turn-about is fair play. As I was sitting nekkid on the bed, the sheets wrapped around me, laughing so hard I was almost crying, Fred called out to me. “Bessie!” he said. “What?” I said. Long silence. “He peed all over the carrier.” Long silence while I try to figure out what I’m supposed to suggest. Spot let out a sad, drawn-out demon-from-hell sound. “I think you’re going to have to take him to the vet and then come back and get Miz Poo,” Fred said. “Take him to the vet… in a carrier filled with cat pee?” I said, confused. By now I’d put my nightgown on and was standing outside the bathroom. “No, we’ll let Miz Poo out of that carrier, put Spot in the carrier she’s in, and you can take him, buy a carrier from the vet, and come back to get Miz Poo.” I thought that over. “Okay…” So I let Miz Poo out of the carrier – she slunk under the bed, her eyes dark, and gave me a look like “What the hell was THAT all about?? – and took the carrier to the bathroom. Fred opened the door, Spot in his arms, and put him in the carrier. “I used these towels to clean the pee off him,” he said helpfully, pointing to the sodden pile of urine-soaked towels, which were reeking so badly that you could actually see the stink lines coming off of them. He left the room, plastic carrier in hand, and I picked up the stinky towels, put them on the washing machine, and cleaned the spot where the towels had been. In the cat carrier, Spot howled mournfully. Under the bed, Miz Poo gave me the stink eye. Mister Boogers sniffed around the carrier, and then stood up, pushing down on the top of the carrier. He’s broken Miz Poo out of the carrier before using this exact method – he pushes down the top enough so that the cat inside can push his or her way out – so I knew to shoo him away from the carrier before Spot could escape, because if that had happened? I would have refused to ever take him to the vet again. Fred came back upstairs, grabbed Spot (he was going to leave the box in the garage so we wouldn’t have to worry about the Bastardly Mister Boogers), kissed me, said “For a few minutes there, I understood how you felt on Friday”, and left. From her spot under the bed, Miz Poo gave Fred the stink eye. I got dressed quickly and headed downstairs to grab Spot and leave for the vet, when I glanced at Miz Poo – who had come out and was, for some reason, hanging out in the spud’s bedroom – when I got an excellent idea. Rather than take Spot to the vet’s, buy a carrier, and come back to get Miz Poo, why not get one of the thirty-three thousand boxes out of the garage – shipping boxes, not cat carrier boxes – put her in that, and ask them to put her in a cat carrier after her exam? Guess what? It worked perfectly. Miz Poo is scared of the cat carrier, but not of regular plain-old boxes, so when I carried a box upstairs, she glanced at it, saw that it wasn’t a cat carrier, and continued sniffing the spud’s shoes. I picked her up, and by the time she realized I was going to close her in the box, the box was already closed. Of course, the part that sucked was that it was a big box, big enough that all four of the cats could have fit in it and stretched out without touching, but I managed to carry that box in one arm and Spot in his carrier in the opposite arm. So now we have two cardboard carrier boxes that are easy to get cats into (as long as no Bastardly Booger is blocking the way) and no crappy plastic carriers that are impossible to get fully grown cats into. I’m thinking we need to buy a couple more of the cardboard carriers though, because first of all if something happened (fire!) and we needed to get all the cats out of the house (though let’s be honest, if there was a fire, all the little dumbasses would be hiding under beds and couches and would be impossible to find), we’d be screwed since we only have the two carriers. And secondly, if Spot pees all over one carrier when he goes back to the vet Friday, we’ll need to have a backup. I mean, we have a second carrier, but Spanky’s also going to the vet for his yearly checkup on Friday, so we’d need a backup other than that one. My god. This sure is fascinating, isn’t it? * * * A few weeks ago, we got a card in the mail from B3llSouth. A year ago we switched our phone service from B3llSouth to M-C-I, because M-C-I is cheaper. At this point, all landline phone service is pretty much alike, so why not go with the cheapest? So anyway, the card from B3llSouth begged us to come back to them, and said that if we did, we’d get all the bells and whistles – 3-way calling, caller id, call waiting, so on and so forth – for $49.99 a month. What really caught my eye, though, was that included in the $49.99 per month was unlimited long distance. UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE FOR $49.99 A MONTH. Since we were paying M-C-I about that, without the unlimited long distance, I left the card on Fred’s desk and instructed him to call B3llSouth and make the change. Except instead of calling B3llSouth, he called Knol0gy. We get our cable and internet through Knol0gy, and they offer multi-service plans wherein if you get more than one service through them, you save money. So he called Knol0gy and told them what B3llSouth was offering, and the Knol0gy guy countered with the exact same thing, and since we’d be going with the multi-service thing, the phone bill part of it would cost about $35. $35, and we get every special feature you could ever possibly imagine AND UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE. Now, that is just awesome. I mean, I don’t really make all that many long distance calls, but I have an easier time hearing on the landline phone than I do on my cellphone, so this will make Sunday calls to my parents much, much easier. Also, I can talk to Debbie without using up either of our cellphone minutes! “Yep, minding my own business…” “Hey, what’s that?” “What-what-what… WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED HERE?” (The look on his face cracks me UP.) * * *]]>

E’gar up, he and I need to have a serious talk. For those of you keeping track that’s not once but TWICE Fred came to the rescue on Friday. My hero!

* * * First they check out the birdies flying overhead… And then they go for a run! * * *]]>

reading: Let’s Meet on Platform 8. Last night I started A Charge to Keep, at Fred’s recommendation. About twenty pages in, I looked at him and said “Does the entire book read like a campaign speech?”, and he gave me a dirty look and said “Maybe you should read something else.” So I am. It’s an extremely rare political-type book that can hold my interest. Finished last week: Summer in the Land of Skin and Death in Bloodhound Red.

* * * Friday sucked ass for the following reasons: 1. I had to get up at 4:50 so that I could exercise before my 8:30 appointment on the other side of Huntsville. 2. I had to drop Spot off at the vet around 7:45, so they could give him his immunoregulan shot at some point during the morning. I had exercised, cooled off, showered, dressed, and blow-dried my hair, and the entire time I was doing all this, Spot was hanging out in various places within my view, completely relaxed and chilled out. Well. As chilled out as he gets, anyway. The instant I brought the cat carrier upstairs, he disappeared. Using my skills of deductive reasoning, I decided he was under the bed in my bedroom. I shut the door, bent down, and directed the can of compressed air under the bed. Spot shot out and ran around in twenty or thirty frantic circles before running into the bathroom. I cornered him in the bathroom, picked him up, and spoke soothingly to him. I walked out into the hallway, to find that THAT FUCKING SHITHEAD MISTER BOOGERS had jumped into the cat carrier. “Stumpy, get out of the carrier!” I said. He just stared at me. I bent down and attempted to put Spot in the carrier and simultaneously pull Mister Boogers out of the way. Mister Boogers and Spot both flailed around, making my task impossible. I stood back up, trying my best to hold onto Spot, and picked up one end of the cat carrier. “Get out of the carrier, dumbass!” I said to Mister Boogers. Who responded by going flat and staring up at me with dark eyes as though I was implementing a fun new game. Spot flailed around until he got two of his back claws in the front of my shirt, and then he kicked, tearing the shirt and leaving a nasty clawmark across my boob. I could no longer hang on to him, and he leaped to the floor and bounded away. I lost my shit. “GET OUT OF THE CAT CARRIER!” I bellowed at Mister Boogers, who went impossibly flat. He was like liquid cat, spreading to fill every bit of the floor of the cat carrier. “GET OUT! GET OUT!” I bellowed, picked up the cat carrier, held it upside down, and shook it. He went starfish, all limbs straight out to hold him in the cat carrier. I could see nothing but a fluffy little stump of a tail, waving in the breeze. “GET OUT!” I yelled, putting the cat carrier on the floor. “OUT, YOU FUCKER! OUT! OUT!”, and finally Mister Boogers hopped lightly out of the carrier and looked up at me, head cocked to the side and eyes glittering. For the next fifteen minutes I rampaged through the house like an asshole, scaring the holy fucking hell out of all the cats except for Mister Boogers, who followed me around from room to room and watched me with not an iota of fear on his face, although he did duck when I turned in his direction. I chased Spot from room to room, and then suddenly he disappeared and I couldn’t find him anywhere. He wasn’t upstairs under any of the beds, and as I made sure each room was clear of his presence, I slammed the door closed so he couldn’t go in there. “THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK, BUDDY!” I shrieked. “YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE VET! GET IN THE FUCKING BOX!” Like he was going to suddenly come to his senses and see reason, running from his hiding space and hopping willingly into the carrier. Miz Poo huddled in terror under my desk, her eyes hugely dark, and Spanky hid behind a box in the library, peering out from time to time to make sure I wasn’t coming after him. I bellowed the entire time, curse words I’ve never even heard of before; I have no idea where they came from. I’m amazed the neighbors didn’t call the cops. I finally found Spot under the loveseat. I lifted it up to look underneath – I was imbued with Superman-like strength in my rage – and he cowered for a moment, and then fled out of the living room. I tried to corner him in the computer room, but there are two doorways in the computer room and neither of them have doors, so he basically ran in one door, through the room, and out the other door with me in hot pursuit. He ran upstairs and into my bedroom – I’d stupidly left that one door open. He ran under the bed, and when I leaned down to spray compressed air at him, he ran out from under the bed, down the stairs, and under the loveseat again. I chased him the entire way, swearing at the top of my lungs. I lifted up the loveseat and he shot out of there like a greased pig. I was so pissed off, I threw the can of compressed air at the wall, and it left two nice-sized dents before the plastic parts of it shattered all over the floor. At this point I was absolutely seeing red, but I knew in a tiny little corner of my mind that if I got my hands on Spot I was going to hurt him, and I had to stop chasing him, and just leave the house. Which I did. I left the house twenty minutes later than I’d intended and ten minutes later than I should have if I wanted to be on time for my appointment. I called Fred when I was sitting at a red light, and we talked for a few minutes. He told me I should just give it a try later on when I got home from my appointment, and I expressed my certain belief that there was no way on god’s green earth Spot was ever going to let me within twenty feet of him again, let alone allow me to pick him up and put him in the cat carrier. When I was almost to my appointment, the phone rang. “Pick Spot up on your way home,” he said. “Huh?” “I’m taking Spot to the vet’s to drop him off. You can pick him up on your way home.” Fred had left work and driven the ten minutes from his office to the house. He walked into the house, grabbed the cat carrier, located Spot under the loveseat, picked him up, put him in the cat carrier, and left the house. All in the space of two minutes. Because he is a fucking fucker. * * * My god, that got long. The rest of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day will be up tomorrow. * * * “If she starts stomping around and swearing at me, I’m going to poop my pants.” * * *]]>

reading: Death in Bloodhound Red. Finished last night: Watch Me. Not a bad book for one that’s almost ten years old. The main character has a laptop, and all I could think was “My GOD, I bet that thing was huge!” Certainly worth a read, if you get it for 50 cents at a garage sale, the way we did.

* * * Reader Aly sent this to me and it cracked me up: I can’t imagine why it made her think of me, though! * * * Pet store kitty pics from this morning are here. * * * And with that said, I’m taking the rest of the week off from the journal. Yes, everything’s fine – it’s just that there’s really not much going on to write about (not that that usually stops me!), and I still haven’t completely caught up on my television-watching (priorities, you know!). Also, this house needs some serious cleaning, so I’m going to spend the rest of the week cleaning and cross-stitching in front of the TV. I’ll be back next Monday – but until then, I leave you with what is undoubtedly the best cat picture I have EVER taken. It’s even better in the huge full-sized version. ]]>

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English 15% Yankee 10% Dixie 10% Upper Midwestern 0% Midwestern As I was taking the test to see what kind of American English I speak, I was reminded anew of just how much I loathe it when people call grocery carts “buggies.” Oh my god, I hate that word. I want to smack the hell out of people when they use it. And here in the south they do it ALL THE TIME. Ugh. * * * Y’all, I have no clue what’s going on with the notify list. I guess I’m going to give it a week to get its butt back into shape, and then I’ll start looking at alternatives. Stupid notify list. It would probably be easier if you all just sent me your phone numbers, so I could call you and say “Hi! My entry’s up! Go read it!” every day, don’t you think? * * * Fred’s still sick, but he’s feeling a little better. His fever is coming and going (he’s on the Advil, 4 every 6 hours), and I thought he might not feel like going to get groceries, so I went this morning to get enough stuff for the weekend. He hasn’t shaved in two days, and he’s looking like one badass, scruffy motherfucker. Mwrowr! Hopefully by Monday he’ll be back to his usual non-sick self. One hopes so, anyway! So I was wandering through the grocery store, through the ice cream section on my way to the meat section (I always secretly hope that Ben and Jerry’s will come up with an ice cream with all the flavor of their full-fat ice cream, but zero calories, zero fat, and 60 grams of fiber for the entire pint). A pint of Haagen-Dazs Light Vanilla Bean caught my eye, and I had to stop to look. Half a cup? 230 calories. “Light” my ass! I guess this means the full-fat version probably has 460 calories per half cup, huh? Gah. * * * From my comments: Robyn, do you usually finish books, even if they bore you to death? Actually, it depends on the book. The only reason I finished reading An Isolated Incident is because it wasn’t until about the last sixty pages that I started thinking “Come ON, get on with it, would you?!”, and I really wanted to know who the killer was. (Turns out I could have just flipped to the very last page!) I used to read every single book I started, because I felt compelled to, since I’d usually paid good money for the book and would have felt bad about not reading it. However, I finally decided that life is too short to read crappy books, so I’ll generally give a book 50 pages or so to grab my attention. If it doesn’t by then, chances are good that it never will, so I stop reading it. I’ve been looking for a welcome mat, and have been thinking about one on the site you ordered your “The cat don’t take too kindly to strangers” a while back, and now I don’t know where that is…. could you post the url for me?? That mat was made by High Cotton, and they have a page here. I took a glance through the mats, but didn’t see “The Cat Don’t Take too Kindly to Strangers”, so they may have stopped carrying it. I might have simply missed it, though. Robyn, what do you do with your mischievious little kitties while you go away for a weekend? Fred’s mother and stepfather live about two minutes away from us, so they come over a couple of times to feed the cats, scoop the litter box, and check to make sure there were no break-ins. On the rare occasion they go out of town, we do the same for their cat. We don’t have them come over every day we’re gone, though. I think this time we left on Thursday and they came on Friday and Saturday, but to be honest I think we could have just had them come over once, and everything would have been fine. Actually, I have a funny story. Fred’s mother called on Sunday to make sure we’d made it home okay, and while she was talking to Fred, she told him that she’d been walking through the house to check that everything was okay, and she noticed that the door to one of the computers was open. She thought that maybe one of the cats had knocked it open, she told Fred. When Fred hung up the phone, he told me what she’d said. “She said she thought one of the cats knocked it open?” I repeated. “Yeah.” “That seems like a strange thing to be concerned about,” I said. “Well, I don’t know that she was really concerned about it. She just mentioned it in passing. That one of the cats might have knocked the door open.” “Oh.” I thought about it for a minute. “She didn’t mention that one of the cats might have knocked a great big dildo into my underwear drawer, too, did she?” When he was done guffawing, Fred said “No, she didn’t mention that.” (Note: I’m kidding. There’s no great big dildo in my underwear drawer. Or is there? You’ll never know! Ha!) Those are some kick ass pictures. What kind of camera are you using for them? It’s Sony DSC-V1. We actually have two of them now, so that Fred and I can each have one. We were talking about getting a new camera back before Christmas so that I could carry one in my purse at all times – we were talking about the T1, to be exact – but after reading a bunch of Amazon reviews about each camera, we ended up getting another of the V1s. Now we each have our own camera, and I still don’t carry mine in my purse at all times, because I suck. They take kick-ass pictures, though. Especially when they’re set on the highest possible resolution. * * * Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here. * * * The Booger lurves his daddy. ]]>

Watch Me. Finished last night, FINALLY, An Isolated Incident. Some books are like a meandering country road. They go on and on and on. If you’re lucky, there are enough interesting and compelling things to look at during the drive down the road to make the trip worthwhile. And sometimes it’s boring as hell, and you just wish the damn drive was done and over with already. The latter is what An Isolated Incident was like. I don’t recommend it.

* * * Fred is sick. He’s SICK, I say! Sick! He hasn’t been sick like this since before he started losing weight five years ago, except for the time when he had Hepatitis A. I believe it’s a proven theory that if you are male, whining about how crappy you feel makes you feel much better (but NOT all the way better!) almost instantly. The more you whine, the better you feel. He went to the doctor’s office yesterday and they did a flu test, diagnosed him with the flu, and prescribed a prophylactic dose of Tamiflu for the spud and I. Fred got home from the doctor’s office just as the area schools got out for the day, and I took the prescriptions (Tamiflu for all three of us, Tussionex for Fred) to the grocery store. Thank god I remembered to bring a book, because I ended up being in the grocery store for 45 minutes. The doctor had prescribed 7 pills each for the spud and I but our fucking insurance will only cover 5 pills at a time. Fuckers. So I filled the prescriptions, picked up some ice cream and double stuf Oreos for Fred (“I’m sick; I’m allowed to eat whatever I want!”, is his theory.) and went home. Where I felt his forehead many times and reported on the state of warmth. (“Cooler than it was, but still warm!”) He’s feeling a little better today, but still too crappy to go to work. I’m sure there are going to be naps in his future. I, on the other hand, will be spending my day doing laundry and watching some of the ten thousand shows I’ve DVR’d. * * * I’d like to point out that ever since last summer when I realized that Mister Boogers was trapping birds under the platform feeders I had on the ground, and I made it so that both the platform feeders are hanging instead of sitting on the ground, there has not been one single, solitary bird in this house. Of course, Spring is still young. I suppose that when the baby birds are born in a few weeks, some of them might still end up in the house in the jaws of the mighty hunter. * * * Hey, remember how my New Year’s resolution for this year was not to buy any books until I’ve read what I have? Yeah, that’s a resolution that is good and broken. We got our state tax refund back earlier this week, and decided to split it – Fred would use half for whatever he wanted on Amazon, I’d use the other half for whatever I wanted on Amazon. I’ve got about twenty books on the way to me right now. I had stuff on my wish list that had been on there so long that they’d gone to paperback, so I ended up buying mostly paperbacks. In fact, I think I actually bought nothing but paperbacks. I’m not sure I’m going to have room on the bookcase for all those books! Why do I bother to make New Year’s resolutions, I ask you? * * * Miz Poo kneads and kneads and kneads for twenty minutes before she feels the time is right to curl up in her bed. Maybe kneading is her form of exercise, and the reason she’s lost half a pound! I think she’s planning on writing a book. “Knead Your Way Thin.” She and Mister Boogers are already planning the infomercial. ]]>

web page address, so I grabbed one. I’m still thinking about getting one, but I can’t quite decide which one I want, and exactly how I want it to look. Here are some possibles:

* * * So, the other night I was trying to explain something that I wanted – something computer-related – to Fred, and I swear to god he looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. This conversation went on for at least ten minutes, and Fred would do something and then show me, and I’d be like “Um… yeah…” and he’d say “You don’t look happy”, and I’d say “Because that’s not what I was talking about!” We finally got it figured out, though we about had to resort to line drawings and pantomime. It’s very frustrating when you’re dead certain that what you’re saying is making sense, and the person you’re talking to looks at you like they don’t have a clue what the hell you’re trying to say. * * * It appears that some of you on the notify list just aren’t getting your notifies. I don’t know what the holy hell is going on with the notify list, but you might want to try un-subscribing and re-subscribing to the list (go here for both of those – unsubscribe at the bottom of the page; if you don’t remember your password, you can have it emailed to you); sometimes that fixes it, for some unknown reason. If it still doesn’t work for you, try joining the Yahoogroups notify list, which is linked at the bottom, here. I’m sorry some of you are having problems with the notify list; it seems to act kind of flaky sometimes for no apparent reason. * * * When we were in Gatlinburg (“JEEZUS, Doris, why the hell did you think I’d like this woman’s journal? ALL she does is babble about that redneck paradise in the mountains!”), we made our usual trip to The Pepper Palace so that Fred could pick up some hot sauce. On a side note, I just flat-out don’t care for hot and spicy stuff. Even when Fred pulls his BULLSHIT “Oh, it’s not spicy at all, Bessie! It’s flavorful and fruity! Try it, you’ll like it!”, I hate it. It makes my mouth burn, WHICH I DO NOT LIKE, and it leaves a nasty-ass taste in my mouth. And yet, knowing this, Fred has not given up his quest to force me to adore hot and spicy foods. Last night he held out a little bit of beef jerky for me to try, and I did, and THEN I found that it was hot and spicy beef jerky, and I ended up spending the entire evening burping up nasty spicy beef jerky AND IT SUCKED. Anyway. So we were in The Pepper Palace, and Fred was talking to the manager of the place. I saw some hot sauce, the name of which cracked me up, and I whipped out the camera to take a picture. The manager sidled up to me and said “We don’t allow pictures in here…”, and I apologized and put my camera away, and he told Fred some story about how someone had taken pictures of hot sauce and put them up on a web page and faked a webstore, and people thought it was run by the Pepper Palace people, and so they don’t allow photography. I thought, but did not point out, that all I’d need to do was buy some of the sauce (which I did) and take a picture of it (which I will), and there was really nothing he could do to stop me if I had nefarious purposes in mind for the picture of the hot sauce (which I do not). Then the manager turned and smiled politely at me. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked. “Oh, she’s with me. They both are,” he said, gesturing to the spud and I. “Well,” the manager said with a smile. “Aren’t you the lucky man -” And I had to walk away, because I knew that “To be accompanied by two such beautiful women” or something similar was going to be the last part of that sentence, and PLEASE, I have NO PATIENCE for that ass-kissing bullshit. If I’d had to be witness to the end of that sentence, I would surely have rolled my eyes so hard they would have popped out of my head and bounced across the store. There are men who can carry off a line like that without making me want to gag, but this guy wasn’t one of them. * * * I just felt something on my foot and got freaked that it might be a SPIDER crawling up my LEG, and so I moved my foot frantically as I pushed my chair away from my desk, and as I flailed my foot around, I kicked Miz Poo, who gave me a wounded look and stomped away. Apparently it was her tail on my foot that I felt. Poor Miz Poo. I better go beg her forgiveness. * * * In the month since she went off the steroids, Miz Poo has lost half a pound. Clearly she’s thrilled about it. ]]>