May 2005 – Bitchypoo

5/30/05

hushpuppies and it’s the first thing she wanted to have. It was practically dinner time, so we stopped and ate there, and she got her hushpuppy fix. We stopped at Sonic after that and got ice cream, and then we went home. I showed her the kittens – she wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was; she’s not much of a cat person, though she could certainly see the appeal of little meowing fuzzy round-bellied kittens – and then we sat on the couch for the rest of the evening and watched episodes of The Surreal Life, the one with Christopher “Peter Brady” Knight and Da Brat and Verne Troyer, and it was interesting in an I-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-this-trainwreck kind of way. Then Fred came in and sat down, and we spent the next few hours watching rerun episodes of Yes, Dear and South Park. At 9:00, Fred and I went upstairs and played with the kittens and then lay down and talked until about 10. Then he went off to bed, and I came back downstairs to spend time with Liz. We watched the Surreal Life 4 Reunion (and whoever did that makeover on Chyna sure did a good job – and she looked like she was off whatever drugs or alcohol she was on during the filming of The Surreal Life) ’til 11, and then went to bed. I was pretty tired for some reason, and knew I had to get up this morning to go to the pet store. I kept waking up through the night, and had a truly bizarre dream about being on Survivor and Jeff Probst and Julie Berry getting married, only she was half bird (?) and gave birth to a flock of birds (not seagulls, though.). Truly weird. I was up and out the door by 7:30, and then home again by 8:45. Once again, I forgot to take my Benadryl until I was about halfway to the pet store, and it didn’t really kick in until I’d been in the cat room for about half an hour. And when it kicked in, I got really sleepy. I ended up coming home and snoozing on the couch for almost an hour before I forced myself to get up and take a shower. Liz ended up sleeping ’til 11:30ish, and then we watched Britney & Kevin: Chaotic (or whatever the official title is). It was a… less than interesting show, I guess I’d say. Britney’s a little too into the making-faces thing which is funny once or a hundred times, but beyond that gets a little old. You can tell that she’s very, very young. We’ll leave it at that, shall we? I don’t know that I’m going to bother to watch the second show, but if I get bored enough, I might. After we watched that, Liz went and took her shower and we went back to Captain D’s, ate lunch, and then went to the movie store and grocery store. We rented some movies for this afternoon – which we didn’t actually watch, but they’re not due back ’til Sunday, so we’ve got plenty of time – and then we bought the stuff for Liz to make pork adobo (I don’t think her recipe is exactly like that one, but it’s similar) and bought a few more things (she was hungry last night, and we didn’t have a single damn thing to offer her. How embarrassing!), and then came home. We watched TV for a little while, and then she got a headache, so she went to lay down, and I went to clean the cat room. I know – we haven’t done much exciting stuff, but it’s nice to have someone to do stuff with, you know?

* * * I’ve been intermittently text-messaging with the spud since she left. Every time I type in “u” instead of “you”, I die a little inside. * * * The section about the kittens. In the past few days, those kittens have gotten WILD. They’re little playing machines. I walk in the room and they rush at me. If I don’t immediately sit down on the floor, they give me the sad kitten eyes and sit on my feet and wait impatiently for me to get my ass on the floor. When I finally sit down, they climb all over me, and kick and bite at me, and then they jump on each other, and then they run across the room with their ears back, and let me tell you – it is UNBEARABLY fucking cute. Flossie, especially, is turning into a real spitfire. She runs across the room and jumps on her brothers, she stalks them and jumps on them, and when they jump on her, she kicks their asses. When I pick her up to kiss her atop her fuzzy little head, she has been known to dig her needle-sharp claws into my cheeks and try to bite my lips. She’s also EXTREMELY possessive when it comes to her food. Fred has been bringing a small handful of Kitten Chow into the room with him at night – they have Science Diet kitten food available to them all the time, because that’s what they’ll be eating when they’re up for adoption at the pet store – and the kittens and Mia LOVE IT. Fred put a small pile down in front of Flossie, Edgar, and Oy, and when Edgar and Oy tried to eat some of the food, Flossie growled fiercely, and then PUT HER PAW on the pile of food so they couldn’t get to it. My god, it was cute. Yesterday, she was eating some food out of the food bowl – the Science Diet Kitten food – and Snoopy went running over to eat, too. He tried to eat out of the same bowl (we have three different bowls of food), and she growled and smacked her paw down over the food so he couldn’t get to it. I laughed my ASS off. Speaking of Snoopy, he’s getting to be a big one. I’m looking forward to deworming and weighing the kittens on Thursday so I can see how much he weighs now. He clearly weighs quite a bit more than the other kittens.

Edgar in the litter box. I swear – one day, they had no idea how to use the litter box, and the next day they did!

Snuggled up in the cat bed. This picture was taken before the kittens all turned into devil kitties and started spending all their time jumping on Mia and biting her tail.

A cat in the hand is worth two in the litter box.

Is that the sweetest little face, or what?

Serious little Snoopy.

Snoopy in mid-run.

Flossie, in mid-run.

I love the one closed eye, like he’s taking aim.

Little cat, great big tongue.

Deceptively sweet-looking Peanut.

Looks like Peanut’s having some deep thoughts, doesn’t it?

Flossie stalking Snoopy.

Oy (I think).

Doesn’t she look sweet? She’s two seconds away from biting my toe.

Fight! Fight! As always, there are tons more kitty pics over at Flickr. * * * No idea when I’ll update again – it’ll happen when it happens, mm’kay? * * *]]>

5/27/05

The Right Jack. I got about fifty pages into Maneater, and decided to stop because I flat-out didn’t give a shit what happened in the book. I don’t care if the author IS married to Brian Grazer – being married to a big-time producer apparently doesn’t magically bestow upon you the ability to write an interesting book. I’m disappointed, though. I was hoping for some good Hollywood gossip.

* * * At some point in the past year or so, I became aware that when the spud was washing her hair and then brushing it, instead of taking the loose strands of hair and putting them in the trash, she was putting them in the sink and running the water, so that the hair was going down the sink. Since her hair is about to the middle of her back and she sheds worse than a cat in spring, that’s a lot of fucking hair. I told her to stop washing her hair down the sink, and she promised to stop, but the sink in her bathroom was draining very, very slowly. Since Liz is going to be here on Sunday and she’ll be staying in the spud’s bedroom and using her bathroom, I knew that something needed to be done. I suggested to Fred that we might think about taking the pipe under her sink apart and pulling out any hair that was stuck in there. Last night I was eating dinner – sushi for dinner, YUM! – and was just about finished when he called down to me from upstairs. I went up to see what was going on, and I realized that as soon as I hit the top of the stairs, it smelled like a great big huge nasty stinky fart. “Look at this,” Fred said, indicating the spud’s under-sink area. I looked, and saw two pieces of pipe with a great mass of hair spilling out, covered in a sludgy, stinky mold-and-mildew mixture. “God, what an AWFUL SMELL!” I said, almost gagging. And we spent the next half hour pulling sludgy, nasty hair out of the pipes, cleaning the pipes with a very strong bathroom cleaner, and then putting it all back together. Then I text messaged the spud, told her what we’d done, and told her I’d beat her if I ever saw another hair in her sink again. She text messaged me back and said “At least my sink will drain now!” Brat. She’s just lucky she’s in California (“California! California! Caaaaaaaaaaaaaliforrrrrrniaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”) and not here where I can give her hell to her face. Giving her hell via text message isn’t quite as satisfying. * * * The week before last, I spent some time online looking for a new comforter for the spud. I just bought her a new one last year, but it wasn’t really one that she much liked, and she spends so much time sitting on her bed that her comforter was pretty grimy – plus, apparently every time she shaves her legs she seems to scrape off about a three-inch piece of skin, so there were plenty of blood spots on the comforter, too. I found several comforters that I thought she might like, sent her the links to them, and let her pick her favorite. I told her that if she didn’t like any of them I’d take her shopping for one, but she liked this one, so I ordered it and hoped it would arrive before Liz got here. I got notification that the comforter had shipped, and when I looked at the UPS tracking, saw that it was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. Tuesday came, and in the evening I was sitting in the computer room and glanced up to see the UPS man walking back to his truck and leaving. I was puzzled that he hadn’t rang the doorbell, but when I went to the door to get the package, there was no package. I went and checked the garage in case by some chance he’d decided to leave it by the garage door, but there was nothing there either. I went to my computer, looked up the tracking number, and saw that according to UPS the package had been delivered. I puzzled over it, decided the UPS guy had delivered it to one of my neighbors by mistake, and put it out of my head for the time being. Because if he’d done that, surely whoever he’d mistakenly delivered it to would bring it by, or come over to let us know, right? Right. Riiiiiiight. Wednesday came and went, and I spent a good part of the day hoping to see someone walk to the door with a big box, but no one ever did. I didn’t worry about it too much, because I had a box of pillows from Overstock scheduled to be delivered – those for the spud’s bedroom, too, because she hasn’t had new pillows in as long as I can remember – and I figured I’d just catch him when he delivered that box and say, you know, “Yo, motherfucker, what the fuck?” Only that UPS man is a FAST MOTHERFUCKER, and I was in the kitchen making dinner when he showed up, and I ran for the door but by the time I got it open he was driving away up the street, and I wasn’t about to go chasing after him. So I sat down at my computer and went to the UPS page and was looking for the number, so I could call UPS headquarters and bitch about my missing comforter, when the doorbell rang. I looked out the window and saw a truck in the driveway, a man at our front door, and a box on the ground in front of him. It appears that UPS had delivered the box to a house with the same number, only on a street with a name that isn’t anything at all like our street name. It wasn’t even near our street. I have no idea what that UPS driver was smoking, but he’d fucked up in a big way. And this nice, nice, NICE man had gone out of his way to deliver the box to the right address. He said he’d thought about calling UPS, but didn’t think it’d be worth the hassle, that it would just be easier to bring it over himself. What an awesome guy. I thanked him profusely, he said it was nothing, I thanked him again, and he was on his way. I have renewed faith in my fellow man. * * * So, Liz is going to be here on Sunday. I have no idea what my schedule is going to be like next week and whether I’ll have the time or inclination to update. If I do I will and if not I’ll see you after she leaves. Fair enough? * * * The section about the kittens. I am pleased – nay, THRILLED – to announce that as of last night, every single kitten has used the litter box at least once. When Fred and I were in the room last night, I said “I haven’t seen Edgar or Oy use the litter box yet…” and as if he’d heard me and wanted to prove himself, Edgar went over to the corner and pooped in the litter box. And when he was on his way out of the litter box, Oy climbed in and pooped too! By god, I think they have the hang of it. They’re all eating kitten food now, too, and nursing as well. I’m sure Mia’s going to wean them in the next few weeks. They’re getting more playful, too, with the jumping and the running and the climbing. I need to find some stuff to take in there that they can climb on – maybe a scratching post – and maybe some small boxes they can hide in. This morning Edgar ran at Peanut, who reacted by humping up and running sideways. It was about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. By god I love these kittens, can you tell? Today’s pictures were all taken by Fred. You can tell, because they’re not BLURRY.

Mia was feeling playful last night, and Fred rolled her onto her back.

Miss Flossie, with her usual worried look.

Peanut, creeping slowly over Fred’s leg.

Snoopy gets a cleaning from Mia.

Oy. That’s my leg in the picture – you can’t really tell from this picture, but my legs and arms have tons and tons of little scratches caused by these little monsters.

Fred gives Edgar a belly rub. Edgar pretends not to enjoy it. * * *

We moved this dresser out into the hallway – Fred didn’t want a bunch of little kittens scratching it up and peeing on it, go figure – and I set this blanket on top of it because I’d just taken it out of the dryer, when Miz Poo spotted it and settled in. I’d say she spends two or three hours of every day hanging out on that blanket, now. I guess I’m going to have to wash it again to get rid of the cat hair! ]]>

5/26/05

baby! He insisted that I should get him nothing for his birthday, but please. As if! If he doesn’t know by now that that sort of thing doesn’t fly with me, he never will. Happy birthday, baby. You don’t look a day over 43! (Ha! That joke just neeeeever gets old!)

* * * Currently reading: Maneater. I had no idea until I read the bit about the author on the backleaf that this was written by Brian Grazer’s wife. I’m not very far into the book, but so far it seems tolerable. The main character seems to be an all-surface-no-depth kind of gal, and so I suspect the whole book’s going to be very tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not sure which this one will be. Finished yesterday: Other People’s Dirt, which was sent to me by awesome reader Dawn. It’s not a bad book – it reads very fast – but I think I would have liked a bit more in-depth gossip about the people the writer cleans for. Worth a read, but I’d get it from the library, a second-hand store, or borrow it from a friend rather than going out and buying it new. * * * The spud is on her way to the O.C as I type. Actually, she just text messaged me that her plane had landed in Dallas. She has a 2-hour layover in Dallas, and then a three-hour flight to Orange County. Until now we’d forbidden her to use her phone for text messaging, because those babies cost 5 cents a message, and T-Mobile doesn’t appear to have a plan that includes unlimited text messaging (another reason we’re switching to Verizon at the end of the year – though the main reason is that Consumer Reports ranked it the highest, and I am ALL ABOUT the Consumer Reports these days. Even though they has NO USE for my kind of car. Fuck you, Consumer Reports! You don’t run my life!). But there is a 1000 text messages per month for $6.99, and since she’s going to be gone for just about the entire summer, I told her she could text message her friends – and me! – while she was gone. So we did a test run with text messaging while we were waiting for her plane to leave. I got her text message just fine, but when I tried to respond, the fucking predictive text input HORSESHIT made it impossible to figure out how to type in the message I wanted to. So I told her I’d check the book I got with the phone when I got home, and text message her while she was in the air. I did check the book when I got home, and I got all frustrated and swore at the phone, and then I figured out how to set it so that only what I typed in showed up (fucking pain in the ass phone), and I text messaged her. And here’s something you might not know about me – I hate it when people use “u” instead of “you”, “2” instead of “two”, “gd” instead of “goddamn”, etc. in email. Because there’s no reason for it! It really and truly and honestly does NOT take that much fucking longer to hit the extra keys. I just find it extremely annoying. But by the time I was about three words in to the text message to the spud, I was using “u” and “2” and “gd” with abandon, and it STILL took me 4-fckng-eva 2 get th gd msg typd n & snt. Then, after I’d sent the first message, I remembered that I hadn’t actually signed her up for the 1000 text messages per month, and I went online to do so, and realized that I didn’t know her password, so I had it sent to her phone, and went to text message her to let her know that she needed to send it to me so I could sign her up for the plan. And THEN I remembered what the password was, so I text messaged her AGAIN to tell her nevermind, and so when she landed in Dallas, she had three text messages from me and one from T-Mobile with her password, and I’m sure she was thinking “Oh, HELL NO. She’s not going to be doing THIS every fucking day, is she? Because I wanted the text messaging so I could send and receive text messages from my FRIENDS, not my clingy fucking mother. CUT THE CORD, WOMAN!” Oh, she just called. She thought it was funny that I’d text messaged her so many times. Heh. She found her gate with no problems, and actually asked a woman in a uniform for help. Now she has almost two hours to kill before her flight to the O.C. leaves. Another five hours, she should be in California (the theme song for The O.C. is playing in my head right now) and I can stop worrying! * * * I just spent half an hour text messaging with the spud. My last message to her was “K, call asa u r n cali. Luv u!” I think I’ve officially reached the highest level of dorkdom. Though a truly proficient text-er would have said “ca” instead of “cali”. * * * She flew out to California (“Califorrrrrnia! Califorrrrrrnia! Caaaaaaaaaaliforrrrniaaaaaaaaa!”) on American Airlines this time – Independence Air doesn’t fly to Orange County – and the agent who checked her in asked if I wanted to pay the $75 to have a flight attendant take her to her gate in Dallas. It was with great pleasure that I said no. Because the tickets were expensive enough – I had no desire to add $150 ($75 each way) to the total. I think the spud would have preferred me to pay the extra money; I know she was a little nervous about being responsible for finding her own gate. To be truthful, I think if she had her way I’d be paying the $75 ’til she’s 32, but I think she’s old enough and smart enough to figure it out on her own. And she did! Since she was traveling as an unaccompanied minor, I was able to get a pass to go to the gate with her. The security line wasn’t long at all, and we got through the metal detector pretty quickly, but apparently they felt the need to run my purse through the x-ray machine a second time (perhaps it was the bottle of Benadryl?), and people started piling up behind me while I was waiting for my purse, so I had to move to the end of table. Now, the whole process of putting my purse on a conveyer belt so that it can be x-rayed and then passed even further along a conveyer belt is something that fills me with a bit of anxiety. I don’t like being so far from my purse, and I especially don’t like the bit where my purse has to ride along the conveyer belt, because any yahoo could come along and distract me while someone else grabbed my purse and took off with it. I always have my cell phone, all my keys, and my wallet (which includes my driver’s license, credit cards, and – most importantly – my Gold Crown (Hallmark) card), so if I lost my purse I’d be a tad screwed. And I know security keeps an eye on things, but I haven’t got much confidence in them. Because I know things at the airport are SECURE and all, but let’s be honest – things have relaxed more than a little in the last 3 1/2 years. When Fred and I flew in the summer of 2002, they all but gave us enemas and analyzed (ha! ANALyzed!) the contents before they’d even let us through the metal detector. These days? Things are a bit more relaxed. I know it, you know it, and the terrorists know it. Thank god we have Jack Bauer to keep us safe! So I stood at the end of the table (which was next to the conveyer belt) and saw my purse come out of the x-ray machine, and I glanced up the conveyer belt, and I realized that there are in fact two sides to the conveyer belt, and so I walked along the back of the conveyer belt in hopes of grabbing my purse. Which is when Barney Fife popped up from his station behind the woman running the x-ray machine, and bellowed “MA’AM! PLEASE STEP AROUND TO THE FRONT OF THE CONVEYER BELT TO RETRIEVE YOUR ITEMS!” And then he put his hand on his skinny hip as though he might be required to pull a gun on me and shoot me three times in the gut and twice in each kneecap, just in case. I put my hands up, said “Oh! Okay!”, and backpedaled as fast as my stupid ass could move. Then I went around the front of the conveyer belt, elbowed my way to my purse, and grabbed it. Then I rolled my eyes, shook my head (BECAUSE I AM A REBEL) and pulled the spud toward the escalator. And yes, I felt as guilty as if I’d been planning to hijack the nearest plane. Because all you have to do if you are in a position of authority – or think you’re in a position of authority – is glance at me with some suspicion, and I’m ready to confess everything down to the time I was driving the riding lawnmower around the front yard and ran over some flowers in my mother’s front flowerbed (because I am a KLUTZ) and then pretended I had no idea how that had happened. SORRY, MOM! * * * The section about the kittens. Yesterday afternoon I was hanging out in the room with the kittens, rubbing bellies and kissing little heads and just generally having a good time, when Snoopy, who’d been attacking my feet (these cats have a real thing for feet and the attacking of) got a strange look on his face. He backed away from my foot, thought for a moment, and then walked toward the corner of the room which is located behind the door. And then DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID? He climbed INTO the small litter box which was located as close to that corner as I could get it, and he hunkered down, and he BEGAN TO POOP. Y’all, I was so proud, I about burst. Then I noticed that Snoopy was having some problems. I don’t know if he was constipated or what, but he climbed back out of the litter box and the poop didn’t stay behind IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. I watched him, and he wandered around with a somewhat pained look on his face, so I picked him up and put him in one of the big litter boxes and rubbed his belly, then squeezed him gently, in hopes that that would help coax the rest of the poop from his poor little system. What? WHAT? Oh, shut up. Constipation is hard enough if you’re an adult; if you’re a month-old kitten, I’m sure it’s about excruciating, because you don’t know WHAT THE FUCK is going on. I was just trying to help. Snoopy hunkered down again, and he gave me a look as if to say “What the holy fuck is going on here, woman?”, and then he started to climb out of the litter box, and I said “Momma, are you going to HELP THAT POOR BOY?”, and she looked at me disinterestedly, and I had to leave the room, because if I had to watch that poor baby walk around the room with an inch of poop sticking out, I don’t know what I would have done. When Fred got home from his hike half an hour later and headed upstairs to change his clothes, I asked him to look in on the kittens and let me know if there was poop everywhere, because I needed to know whether or not to take a bucket of warm water and lots of rags to clean up poop the next time I went in there. He reported back that there was no poop to be seen, and Snoopy had not a smidge of poop on him anywhere. After dinner, I went back up to do some more visiting. The kittens were wild last night, jumping on each other and biting, then jumping on me and biting, and running around and jumping some more. While I was holding Flossie (whom I have taken to calling “Miz Flossie”, big shock), I looked up to see Snoopy walking toward the litterbox with purpose in his step. He climbed into the litterbox, hunkered down, and pooped with no problem at all. While he was doing his business, Peanut climbed in next to him, looked him over, and I swear I saw a little lightbulb go on over his head. Ten minutes later, Peanut climbed into one of the big litterboxes, peed, ate a piece of litter, and climbed back out to attack one of his brothers. This morning, Flossie peed in the litterbox. It appears that they’re getting the hang of it, THANK GOD.

Oy’s lookin’ a little wild.

Edgar shows off one of his sharp little teeth.

Flossie cracks me up when she eats. She always looks so intent. Eating is HARD WORK, PEOPLE!

Peanut wishes he had a paper to read.

Did I mention that the kitties love to attack feet?

Flossie always looks worried, doesn’t she?

“Somethin’s not right, but I don’t know what it is…”

He is the POOPIN’ KING!

Another yawn pic!

King Oy looks down upon his subjects. And then he jumped on them and bit their tails.

This picture makes me laugh until I snort. More – lots more – kitten pics over at Flickr, and there’ll be more going up later. Speaking of Flickr – can someone tell me what exactly a “set” is? Yeah, I know, I’m a dumbass. But should I be posting these fosterkitties pics to a set rather than using tags? Use small words and speak slowwwwly, if you would. * * *

Apparently there’s a nest of young swallows around here somewhere, and every morning several of them like to hang out on the ledge directly outside the study room (the room upstairs where the spud’s computer is). They drive Mister Boogers cuh-ray-zee, because they’re SO CLOSE and yet so far.]]>

5/25/05

Nance, who turns 53 today! Doesn’t look a day over 48, does she? (I KID. She’s actually turning THE BIG 4-0.)

* * * This morning after I was showered and dressed, I headed down the stairs. I could hear blinds clattering in either the dining room or living room. Mister Boogers smacks at the blinds when he is displeased about any random thing. “Mister BOOGERS!” I yelled, as I stepped into the foyer. “Cut it OUT!” My eye was caught by something nasty-looking on the wall by the front door. At first I thought it was a dead bug that someone had killed and left there, but then I took a closer look and decided it must be from a cat barfing up some grass he or she had eaten outside. Our cats adore taking turns going outside, eating a ton of grass, and then coming inside to barf it up in a nasty rug-staining puddle. “How the fuck did it get so high?” I wondered. Because this little bit of black-green nastiness was at eye level. I theorized that at the end of his or her barf cycle, the cat had shaken his head and sent the grass-barf flying. I began looking on the floor for the rest of the barf pile. Mister Boogers rattled the blinds some more. “Mister BOOGERS!” I bellowed. “STOP! IT! NOW!” More blind-rattling. And then I heard a fluttering noise. And then I understood. I walked into the dining room to see Mister Boogers, crouched on the floor, his eyes wide and dark. On the other side of the room, Spot was doing the same. Against the window fluttered a HUGE grackle. He could see the outdoors, he could SMELL the outdoors – he just couldn’t GET to the outdoors, and it was driving him nuts. “SPUD!” I yelled up the stairs. “Bring down your hamper!” Did I mention that this was a huge fucking grackle? Grackles are kind of evil-looking and have great big beaks and I’m sure their bite is far, far worse than their bark. The spud brought down her hamper, and I yanked the cord so that the blinds were out of the way. The grackle flew into the window and fluttered his wings. I held the hamper up so that the open end was around the grackle, and the grackle fluttered some more. I had no idea what to do. “I need… something,” I said, with the half-formed idea that I’d put a magazine over the top of the hamper and carry it to the back door, two rooms away. “Why don’t you just open the window and push the screen out?” the spud suggested. Since it was an excellent idea – go, spud! – I did just that. When Mister Boogers saw me open the window, he knew what was going to happen next, and he ran out the cat door to sniff at the bird through the screen. I pushed a corner of the screen out, and the bird flew into the screen and grabbed on for dear life. “No, dumbass. Go. Go out THERE, buddy!” I said. I pushed at him a little bit, and he caught sight of freedom, and flew off. Mister Boogers ran after him, but wasn’t even close to catching him. The interesting question is how the grackle got into the house. Did a cat catch him and bring him in, or did he come through the cat door on his own? I almost believe it’s the latter, because he was a big fucking bird and Mister Boogers didn’t seem too inclined to grab at him when he was fluttering against the window. The funny thing is that just last night Fred’s mother and stepfather came over to check out the kittens (and bring us a loaf of sourdough bread, aka MANNA FROM HEAVEN), and his stepfather asked if we’d had any possums in the house this spring, and Fred indicated that we had not, and I said “We haven’t had any birds in the house, either!” Famous last words. * * * This is the section about the kittens. Thanks, y’all, for your advice about the kittens. I got some advice from the lady who runs the shelter, too, and basically all I did was put out more litter boxes – in the corners where a few of them peed – and covered the spot behind the door (where a litter box won’t fit) with a towel so that if they pee, at least it won’t go on the rug. We have officially named all the kittens. Meet:

Edgar.

Flossie.

Oy.

Peanut.

Snoopy.

Mia. Yes, that would be two names – Oy and Mia – from the Dark Tower books. Just be glad we didn’t name one of them Roland of Gilead. I finally figured out how to tell Edgar and Oy – the black and white kittens – apart.

Edgar.

Oy. Edgar’s white stripe, in the middle of his face, is narrower than the white stripe Oy has. Also, the black comes down farther on the right side of Edgar’s face than it does on Oy’s. Also, Edgar has a little freckle under his chin, but that doesn’t usually show in the pictures I take. We weighed and dewormed the kittens last night. Snoopy is the heaviest, at 1 pound, 1 ounce – which is appropo, since we named him after Tubby (“Snoopy” being Tubby’s “real” name). The smallest cat is Oy, at 12 1/2 ounces. I almost wish we’d weighed them when we first got them so I could have some idea of how much they’ve grown in the last week, but it never occurred to me. They’re definitely bigger, though – they’re growing so fast you can practically see it. Peanut has learned, in the last day, to jump. He jumps! from one spot to another. He jumps! over my ankle. He jumps! onto his brother. Jump!Jump! Jump! I need to remember to take the camcorder upstairs with me one of these days. * * *

“Those stupid kittens can have their stupid room. I have MY DADDY.”]]>

5/24/05

reading: Crisscross, still. I’m enjoying it, but I haven’t done a whole lot of reading lately. Fred said last night “F. Paul Wilson isn’t the best writer, but Repairman Jack is the BEST character!” True, that.

* * * I spent three hours cleaning this morning – the master bathroom, doing laundry, vacuuming the upstairs, vacuuming and mopping the entire downstairs, dusting the upstairs – and I swear to god the house doesn’t look any different. There are already kitty footprints across the dining room floor. Imagine that. * * * The spud came downstairs yesterday afternoon – she had a half day of school and was home before noon – and said “Do you have any errands I can run?” “Like what?” I asked, to see if she had anything particular in mind. “I don’t know… Maybe check the PO Box?” Then I remembered that Diet Coke was on sale at the grocery store, and I said “You can do TWO errands for me! Go check the PO Box, and then go to Publix to buy 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke.” We had a ten-minute discussion on exactly where Publix – the grocery store she’s probably been to ten zillion times in her life – is located. I gave her money, told her to buy 6 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke, and off she went. She called to let me know she’d arrived at the post office, then asked if she could get Diet Cokes at Kroger instead of Publix. “No,” I said. “They’re probably not on sale at Kroger.” As an aside, how fucking ridiculous are we that we get all excited when Diet Coke is on sale? The regular price is $1.39, and they’re currently on sale for $1.09. That’s a savings of $1.80 for six bottles. And yet I’ll happily pay $1.51 for a large Diet Coke at McDonald’s a couple of times a week. WHERE’S THE SENSE? Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. “Um,” said the spud. “Where is Publix? Is it past Winn-Dixie?” “That depends on which way you’re going,” I said. “I’m in the Winn-Dixie parking lot…” “Do you see Lowe’s?” “Um… yeah?” “Publix is in the strip mall on the other side of Lowe’s. It’s in the same mall as Staples,” I said. “Oh,” she said. She was home again ten minutes later, Diet Cokes in hand, everything just fine. I have no idea how she managed to miss Publix. She had to have driven right by it! But I think the less questions I ask, the better. Today, she drove my car to school and then home again. No problems. Wednesday, she’s going to drive a little further afield, to the mall. Hopefully she’ll make it home with no problems. If she gets lost, she’ll have her cell phone with her. My lord, this whole business of being the parent of a driving teenager is mighty nerve-wracking. * * * THIS IS THE SECTION ABOUT THE KITTENS. Okay, those of you who have dealt with kittens this age before – I need your help and advice. Leave it in the comments, would you? The kittens are starting to pee on the rug. I had no idea this was going to happen – how dumb am I? (Don’t answer that!) I thought Momma was going to teach them to use the litter box. What the hell is going on? I’ve caught a couple starting to squat, and put them in the litter box, but they couldn’t be less interested in using the damn thing. We thought about putting the litter box where they’re peeing, but their favorite spot is behind the door, which would make it impossible to open the door. Is there something I can use to repel them from the places where they’re peeing (usually the corners of the room)? Every time I find a little puddle, I clean it up and spray Nature’s Miracle on the spot, but that doesn’t stop them from going back. Am I spending too much time in the room with them? I go in there four or more times a day and spend probably half an hour each time. Am I interrupting Mom’s training-the-babies schedule? Mom and a couple of the babies were sitting at the food bowls eating, and one of the as-yet-unnamed black and white kittens (we’re naming them tonight when we weigh and deworm them) LAID DOWN A GREAT BIG TURD IN THE FOOD BOWL. The food bowl HIS MOMMA was eating out of. And she just DID NOT CARE, she just kept on eating ’til I took the bowl away to remove the GREAT BIG KITTEN TURD. That was pretty damn nasty. Anyone who’s dealt with this kind of situation before, I would VERY MUCH appreciate your suggestions and comments. Thanks! Now, on to the pictures…

Flossie, hanging out with Mom.

“No, no, guys, LISTEN! You gotta listen to this! You won’t believe it! You will SHIT when you hear this story!”

Baby bellies and baby TOES. Could anything be cuter?

“Heeeeeeeeey, lady with the flashy thing! You wanna stop that shit? It makes me see dots!”

Flossie. I think she’s one of my favorites. Actually, they’re ALL my favorites.

I brought in something for them to sharpen their needle-like little claws on, and they all spent a long, long time sniffing it. I guess it smells like our cats. Aren’t I nice, taking toys away from our cats for the foster kitties to play with?

Flossie again.

I KNEW that sooner or later I’d get a yawning pic! Yay!]]>

5/23/05

calorie-burning motherfucker, that’s right.

* * * I took a child’s dose of Benadryl this morning on an empty stomach (I put the bottle of Benadryl in my purse, by the way, and it came in handy when I remembered halfway to the pet store that I needed to take some.) and I think I’m a little bit buzzed. Yes, a child’s dose of Benadryl on an empty stomach, and I’m about ready to dance on the bars and twirl my bra over my head. Sad, ain’t it? * * * On my way to the pet store this morning, I realized that my air conditioning wasn’t working. It was blowing out air, but warm air, despite being set on the coolest setting. I fiddled around with it for a while and still couldn’t get cool air to come out. I picked up my cell phone and called Fred. “Why me?” I said when he answered. “Because god loves you?” he suggested, and then asked what was going on. I told him, and he sighed and then laughed. “Maybe I just need to set up a standing monthly appointment at the dealership,” I said. “Want me to call Salesguy?” he offered. “HELL no, what the hell would he do? Tell me to take it to the service bay!” I asked and answered. We talked for a few more minutes, and then I arrived at the pet store and went in to do my thing. It was a pretty light day – there were three empty cages due to adoptions over the weekend – so it took me about an hour to do all the cleaning, feeding, and snuggling. When I was done, I went out, got into the car, and turned it on. “This is just the PERFECT FUCKING TIME for this to happen,” I muttered to myself. “I can’t take it in today, because the spud has half a day of school and I might need to go pick her up. Tomorrow’s no good, because I told the spud she could take my car to school tomorrow*. Wednesday, I have a doctor’s appointment in the late morning, Thursday I have to take the spud to the airport, and next week Liz will be here!” As I finished my woeful litany, I glanced down and immediately felt like the idiot I am. The “air conditioning” button wasn’t on. I pressed the button, and a blast of cold air immediately hit me in the face. Duh. *Eek! * * * I roasted a turkey yesterday, and it smelled so damn good by the time it was done that I was ready to gnaw my hands off. The only downside is that I over-roasted it, and it was dry. Still damn good, though. Especially the dark meat. I know it’s fatty and not good for you, but DAMN I love the dark meat of a turkey. I think maybe this summer I’ll try brining a turkey and see how that turns out. Love to eat turkey… love to eat tur-ur-ur-ur-key…. And the best part is there’s plenty left over to make turkey soup! * * * The kittens are doing well. We had an unexpected problem, though, with the mother. I know I’ve mentioned that she’s extremely protective of her kittens when she sees other animals. The problem is that she flies into protective-Momma mode whether the cats are near enough to hurt her babies or not. Friday night, Fred and I were hanging out in the room with the kittens for a little while, and when we got up to leave we started walking out the door together. Unfortunately, dumbass Mister Boogers and dumbass Miz Poo were hanging out on the landing right outside the room, and when the mother saw them, she lost her fucking mind. She was howling, she was screaming, she was hissing, she was spitting. Fred managed to catch her before she could get out the door, and as he pulled her back, she grabbed the back of my pants and held on for dear life. I’m pretty sure if he’d let go of her, she would have climbed over me to get to Miz Poo and Mister Boogers. Who were scared shitless and cowering by the top of the stairs, by the way. I don’t blame them – Momma sounded like a wild cougar. A wild pissed-off cougar, even. Fred finally got the mother to let go of my pants, and I went out and shut the door. He stayed in there for another ten minutes or so, but every time he started for the door, she was there ahead of him. He finally had to grab a blanket we’d put in there, toss it over the top of her, and run out of the room. We talked about it for quite a while, but couldn’t come up with a good solution. Because dealing with a hissing, spitting, howling Momma cat is not something I wanted to worry about every time I went in the room. “What we need is something like a decompression chamber!” Fred said. And then he came up with a plan. Saturday morning, after he’d gone hiking with some coworkers, he stopped by UHaul. There, he picked up one of their wardrobe boxes. He brought it home, split it down one side, and set it up in front of the door to the guest bedroom. Basically, it’s like a big cardboard screen. When we’re going into the room, we step in front of the door and pull it around us so that it’s sitting on either side of the door. It’s like a little room outside the door – our cats can’t get in, and even if the Momma cat came running out of the room, she can’t go anywhere but into the little box room. Is my husband fucking smart, or what? I would NEVER have come up with that on my own, I can guarantee that. It’s working out pretty well so far! Want some pictures? Sure you do…

This is my favorite nursing picture so far. Snoopy apparently had so much to eat he can’t even move.

Snoopy.

These kittens LOVE to have their little bellies rubbed.

See those sharp little teeth? I don’t blame Momma for trying to convince them to eat regular food.

Snoopy in a contemplative mood.

Flossie gives me a beseeching look.

“You want a piece of me? You WANT a piece of me? I will LICK YOUR FACE OFF, and you’ll wish you’d never been born!”

I love the way they walk, with their little tails stuck straight up in the air.

Snoopy joins Momma at the food bowl.

Such pretty eyes.

Peeking around the box at the other kitties.

“Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” Peanut is far and away the most sociable of the kittens. It’s gotten to the point now where if I go into the room and sit down, he stops whatever he was doing (unless he was eating. Because NOTHING will stop him from eating.) and comes over, climbs up on my leg, and waits for me to put my hand around him so he doesn’t fall off. Then he rolls over onto his back and waits for me to rub his belly. When I do, he wiggles around and cleans himself and stretches. These kittens are so freakin’ cute that I’m pretty sure I’m going to bite my tongue clean off one of these days. There are more kitten pics over at Flickr, and in Fred’s entry for Saturday. * * *

Not impressed by kittens. ]]>

5/20/05

reading: Crisscross, by F. Paul Wilson. Finished yesterday: Crash Diet. I didn’t particularly care for it.

* * * So, the kitties. We really, really, really aren’t going to keep any of them. I know y’all don’t believe me, but it’s true. The only way I could get Fred to agree to let me foster them is to promise I wouldn’t beg to keep one (or all!) of them. I know it’s going to be really hard to give them up, but I know that they’re going to go to good homes, so it’ll be worth it. I think I mentioned yesterday that we cleared out the guest bedroom – and I mean cleared it out completely. We moved the bed out, and it’s leaning against the wall in Fred’s bedroom, the dresser is now in the hallway, and the table is in the hallway as well. The only thing in there is the leaf to our table, which I left in there because I’m going to have to weigh the kittens pretty regularly, and I’ll need a hard surface to put the scale on. We’re not going to let the mother cat and kittens out into “general population” (heh), because the mother is extremely protective, and when she sees our cats sitting out in the hall, she loses her shit. She went after Mister Boogers yesterday, and scared him so badly that his tail was puffed up for the rest of the day. Poor Mister Boogers. As far as naming them goes, I got a list of names from the shelter – names that they’ve used in the past – and the idea is to use names that haven’t been used before. We’ve tossed names around, but have only named two of them for sure so far.

This is Flossie. So named because she has markings like a Holstein cow. Yes, we thought of naming her “Bessie”, but I like “Flossie” better. It’s just lucky coincidence that this one ended up being the girl (at least so far as we can tell), because we really wanted to use a cow name. If she’d been a boy, I was thinking of naming her “Moo”, actually. Heh.

This is Peanut. The spud named him. We haven’t definitely come up with names for the other ones, but we’re probably going to name one of them Oy. We briefly considered naming them Roland, Eddie, Jake, Oy, and Susannah (Fred got really excited when he came up with that. “It’s the perfect ka-tet!” he said.), but most of those names have been used before. We also thought of using Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer, but again – they’ve been used. Nance thought I should name them Elliot, Paco, Fred, and Rick. Heh. We’re also probably going to name the one with the little speck on his nose – the one I was holding in yesterday’s entry – “Snoopy”, because that was Tubby’s “official” name. Also, we might name one “Edgar”! Give me suggestions for names for the mother, would you? She doesn’t have a name, either, and I can’t come up with one that fits her. Fred suggested “Mrs. Boogers”, but as Mister Boogers has proven himself to be a chicken little pansy-ass when it comes down to it, I’m not sure that really fits her.

This one is the one that might be “Snoopy.”

So damn cute.

Snuggly kittens.

They’re always so damn hungry.

Poor long-suffering Momma.

You can see more pictures of them in Fred’s entry for yesterday, or over on my Flickr page. I’m sure I’ll be uploading pictures at Flickr for as long as we have the babies, so I’ll add a link in the sidebar at some point, hopefully this weekend. This morning there was baby poop all over the damn place – all over the towel in the box they sleep in, all over the babies, and a tiny little baby turd on the floor. I replaced the towel with a clean one and picked up the poo on the floor, but left the babies for Momma to deal with. If they’re still dirty tonight, I’ll wipe ’em down with a damn cloth. God knows Momma must be tired to DEATH of licking up baby poo. I also need to take a good look at each of the kittens and see how the hell I’m going to tell them apart. I’m okay with all of them except the two black and white ones. I’m sure their markings aren’t exactly the same, but I haven’t noticed any obvious difference yet. Okay. Enough about the kittens. * * * We watched Team America: World Police last night. It was pretty damn good, and every time the Matt Damon puppet exclaimed “Matt Damon!”, I laughed my ass off. We noticed that Kim Jong Il sounded very Cartman-like several times (Fred would point it out by yelling “I’m thankful for stuffing and pah!”). The music, of course, kicked ass. Fred’s favorite was Pearl Harbor; I have a feeling we’re going to be owning the soundtrack before too long. As always, watching anything Trey Parker and Matt Stone have done makes me want to watch Cannibal! The Musical again. It is, in fact, a happy-go-lucky-shpadoinkle-dy daaaaaaaaaaaaay. * * *

“Ah shmells kittens…” ]]>

5/19/05

IN REALITY THE URBAN RAT IS A DIABOLICALLY CLEVER RODENT, I would totally buy it and wear it with pride. Hell, if someone wants to send me a rat drawing, I’ll make the shirt myself at CafePress. On a side note, “Diabolically Clever Rodent” would be a great name for a domain, band, OR a novel.

* * * There’s a lot of really dorky, annoying slang in this world, but after watching The Shield last night, I can report that hearing “The PoPo” over and over and FUCKING OVER AGAIN makes me want to jam a pencil into my eardrums so I never have to hear it again. It’s fucking idiotic. “The PoPo”, my ass. * * * It’s been a busy, busy day for me. I didn’t want to say anything until it was a done deal, but Fred and I are now foster parents, at least for a little while. Last night we cleared out the guest bedroom and set it up for our new foster children. Today I went and got supplies, and now the children are comfortably installed in the guest bedroom.

You can’t really tell from this picture, but there are four of them.

The fifth. That’s right, five kittens in all.

The others were sleeping, but this one was awake and let me hold him – her? – for a little while. Strictly speaking, I guess you could say we’re not actually foster parents, since the mom is still around.

The mom’s story is that she lived at a junkyard, but when she came up pregnant, the owners of the junkyard didn’t want her anymore. Fuckers. So they gave her to a vet clinic way out in the country, and one of the employees of the vet clinic has been taking care of them. They are awfully damn adorable, and I have a feeling they’re only going to get cuter. I know I didn’t get any really good pictures of them, but we’ve only been home for about half an hour, and I wanted them – the mother, at least – to get comfortable in her new home before I snap ten thousand pictures and harass them. The mother is very very VERY protective of her kittens when it comes to other animals. She was perfectly happy to have me petting the kittens and holding the one, but before that, when we walked into the house, she saw Mister Boogers and went into protective-mommy mode, hissing and growling and spitting at him. I’ve mentioned before that we’ve never seen Mister Boogers knead or hiss. Well, today? He hissed. And he looked just as dorky as I expected he would.

I’m not going to be required to do much but scoop litter boxes and make sure they have plenty of food and water. The director of the shelter said that oftentimes kittens who are with their mothers will go directly from mother’s milk to hard food, but she gave me canned kitten food, just in case. I have to keep an eye on their eyes to make sure they don’t get goopy (and if they do, I have drops). I have to give them deworming medicine once a week, keep an eye on the litter box for bloody poop, and at six weeks I start giving them vaccines. Other than that, the mother will take care of making sure they have enough food, and know how to use the litter box. The mother isn’t terribly friendly, but she did let me pet her. She’s very sweet. There are four boy kittens and one girl kitten. The woman who’d been taking care of them said she thought the girl was going to be a real spitfire. Oh, and I have to check with the director of the shelter to be sure I heard her right, but I do believe I get to name them. I may need y’all’s help with that! Okay, I’m going to go check on them and make sure they’re settled in okay. You KNOW there’ll be more tomorrow! See you then. * * *

“Kittens? Bleh!” ]]>

5/18/05

Crash Diet. It’s a book of short stories and I’ve only read the first story. I’m pretty sure I’ve read the book before at some point in the distant past. Know what book I have no interest in reading? Haunted. That Chuck Palahniuk is one disturbed individual. I read Choke a few years ago, and it just wasn’t my thing. Something about the book reminded me a little of something I read by Spaulding Gray years and years ago, though I couldn’t tell you the name of the thing by Spaulding Gray, or even what it was about. Anyway, Haunted has the story from Playboy in it, the story about the pool, and if you read it, YOU REMEMBER IT, because you still have a knot in your stomach when you think about it, and you have to immediately go to your happy place and sing a little tune as if you are The Biscuit, just so you can stop thinking about that fucking story. Or maybe that’s just me. Anyway, I’m not a huge Chuck Palahniuk fan, though I did like Fight Club, the movie. I’ll be giving the rest of his books a wide berth, though. We were going to go to Florida this summer for the July 4th weekend, but ended up deciding to stay home because I’d have had to find someone to cover for me Monday morning at the pet store, and I’ll already need to find someone to cover for me later in the month when I go to Maine, and it was all just too much for me to contemplate, so I told Fred we should just stay home. He’s not a big fan of the beach, anyway, so it was no great loss for him. Which he proved by dancing lightly about the room once I’d said we should just stay home. I think I need to start looking for a part-time job, because I’m beginning to get REALLY FUCKING BORED. There’s only so much time even I can bear to sit on my ass in this house. I could always start on that novel Fred’s always harassing me to write. Uh. BORING. I need to find things to do outside the house. Things other than running errands and volunteering at the pet store once a week. Obviously what I need to do is have a couple more kids to keep me busy. HA! Kidding! I had my hair cut and colored yesterday, and when I got home and looked at my hair in the mirror, I cringed. She used an awful lot of product in my hair, which is usually naturally wavy, and it was flat and straight, and I thought I looked a lot like Martha Huber’s sister. What the hell’s her name? Anyway, I thought I looked like her, at least hair-wise: Fred, on the other hand, thought I looked like Emo Fuckin’ Phillips: Har. Har. I’m not sure he’s got any room to make fun of someone else’s hair, the fucker. When he got back from hiking yesterday after work, he called me outside, and there was a baby robin – not a tiny one, but obviously not a fully grown one, either – hopping around the yard. Later, he put on gloves and went out to catch the bird, with the intention of putting it back in its nest. The bird did NOT like being held, and squawked and sputtered at Fred. We tried to figure out where the nest he’d fallen out of was, but couldn’t find it. Fred ended up putting the bird under a bush. Later, I looked out the window to see him hopping across the yard, and Fred went out and tried to get it to eat some bread, but it wasn’t interested, and just kept giving him the stinkeye and hopping away. We finally left it alone – either it’ll figure out how to fly, or an animal will get it. Circle of life and all that, I guess.

* * *

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5/17/05

reading: Death in Blue Folders, by Margaret Maron. From my comments: Where are you getting the out of print Margaret Maron books?!?!? Please tell me! I’ve been scouring the used book stores looking for them! I got all of the Sigrid Harald books online, either at Half.com, or from sellers on Amazon. It took me about a year to collect all of them; some of them were more expensive than I expected. On a side note, Margaret Maron has a new Deborah Knott book coming out in August!

* * * So, I believe I’ve mentioned in the past that Spot has started over-grooming, and basically groomed all of the fur off his belly and the backs of his legs. We tried a few different things – the vet said at first that Spot must have fleas, but we checked, and NO FLEAS, thank you, then we tried some other medication, and it made him sick. We bought hydrocortisone lotion to put on the areas where he was overgrooming, thinking that maybe he was continuing to groom because those areas were itchy, and it improved his skin, but he was still overgrooming, even though he clearly didn’t care for the taste of the lotion we were putting on him. A few weeks ago, we started him on immunoregulan, which oddly seemed to make him worse rather than better. So much worse that he was CHEWING on his back legs ’til they bled. We stopped the immunoregulan, and in a fit of desperation, Fred remembered that we had a bottle of Elavil left over from when we thought Miz Poo’s big, puffy upper lip was caused by excessive grooming. We kept her on that for about two days and then took her off it because it completely removed her personality. All she did while she was on it was sit around and stare into space. She wouldn’t play, she wouldn’t snuggle – she was just a big ol’ zombie, so we stopped giving it to her. So we decided to start giving it to Spot (and by “we”, I mean “Fred”, because I can’t give medicine to cats worth a shit), and within a couple of days Spot stopped chewing at his legs, and on top of that, he went from being his usual neurotic self to being a really laid-back cat. I mean, it used to be that whenever we so much as glanced in his direction, he’d freeze and then run away, then have diarrhea for two days. Now, not only does he not care if we glance at him, I actually walked across the room and stepped over him, and instead of cringing and running away, he DID NOT GIVE A SHIT. It’s like a fucking miracle drug, is what it is. After a few more days, we noticed another change in him. Anytime anyone at all was in the kitchen, near the kitchen, or thinking about the kitchen, Spot was RIGHT THERE, demanding that we give him food. He’d make his straight-from-the-depths-of-hell squeaky meow, and keep on doing it until we gave him something to eat. If we ignored him, he’d come closer. And if we still ignored him, he’d SMACK AT OUR LEGS until we gave in. It usually never got that far, because go watch this movie I made (movie will only be up ’til the end of May). Is that not the saddest look and sound he’s giving me? HE’S STARVING TO DEATH! How could I not share with him? “I think the medication is giving him the munchies,” I said to Fred. “Maybe so – I can’t believe he’s so demanding. He used to be so quiet and shy!” So we continued to feed him when he asked for it, and then a few days later, Fred said “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen Spot eat out of the bowl of cat food at ALL in at least a few days.” So we started watching him, and while he was in there all the time, sitting by the bowl of food, we never actually saw him eating it. “Maybe he doesn’t like the food,” Fred suggested. We switched to Science Diet food a few weeks ago in hopes that Miz Poo was allergic to the Purina ONE we had been feeding them, thus accounting for her big, puffy lip (oh, did I mention that her lip has puffed up again? It has. Everything we’ve tried has worked, but only for a little while before her lip puffs up again.). While I was out running errands the next day, I picked up a small bag of Purina ONE, and when I got home I dumped some of it into their food bowl. Spot came running, then ate a few pieces of the food while I watched. Mystery solved, we thought. A few days later, Spot was limping, so Fred took him to the vet (it NEVER FUCKING ENDS, people!). The vet looked at Spot’s paw and declared that he had an infection and prescribed antibiotics for him. While he was there, Fred asked the vet to look at Spot’s teeth, because we’d noticed that Spot wasn’t much chewing the food he was eating – he was pretty much swallowing it whole – and the vet looked at Spot’s teeth and declared that they looked nasty and sure could use a cleaning. Fred made an appointment for me to drop Spot off yesterday so the vet could clean his teeth, and the vet’s assistant told Fred that Spot needed to have no food at all after 6 pm the night before. When we went to bed Sunday night, we put the bowl of cat food in the closet and shut the door. As you can imagine, that went over like a lead ballon. The cats – especially Spanky and Mister Boogers – kept trying to lead us into the bathroom, and when I went in there to pee, all four of the cats sat and stared at me. While Fred and I read ’til 9:30, Mister Boogers ran around like his tail was on fire, howling and grumping and bitching. He took out his frustrations on the other cats, and there was a lot of hissing and growling and smacking of the Booger. We turned the light out, and Mister Boogers REALLY got wild, running around in circles, making his grumping noise, and teasing Miz Poo. When something bothers Mister Boogers, he does NOT hesitate to let you know. Fred went to bed, and I read. The entire time, Mister Boogers wandered through the house grumping and howling and singing of his woes. I finally yelled “Booger, SHUT UP!”, and he did briefly, then I could hear him downstairs, howling and grumping and singing. I went to sleep, and ALL FUCKING NIGHT LONG was visited by cats who wanted to just let me know that there was no food. Spanky came and climbed up on me, then put his ice-cold paw on my face. When I rolled over to dislodge him, Spot jumped up next to me and sat there, staring at me. When I turned the other way, Miz Poo and Mister Boogers got into a fight ON MY FUCKING HEAD. At some point I sat up and held the can of compressed air out and sprayed it around the room. There was a stampede of cats hauling ass out of the room, and a few moments of quiet before they started it up again. Fred put Spot in the cat carrier before he left for work, and I took Spot to the vet at 7 and dropped him off. At the vet, they asked if we wanted them to perform pre-anesthesia bloodwork (this is where they perform bloodwork to make sure the cat will make it through being knocked out okay. We never opt for it.), and they gave me the “My god, you are such a bad pet owner. I can’t believe you don’t want to spend $100 to make sure your cat will be okay. Even though he’s been under anesthesia before. Bad pet owner. BAD BAD BAD. How can you live with yourself?” look. Fred called mid-morning to let me know that Spot was okay. They cleaned his teeth and had to remove a side tooth, because they just touched it and it bled all over the place. Fred picked Spot up on the way home, and Spot was groggy, but one of the first things he did was go into the bathroom and eat; we could hear him chewing his food. Fucking cats. They sure are a money pit. Good thing for them we love them so much! * * * 24 SPOILERS IN THIS SECTION. Dear 24: There are many times when 24 has stretched the bounds of credibility. I mean, I may be a dumb housewife, but even I know that everywhere in LA is NOT 5 minutes from everywhere else. Jack leaves one place and shows up at CTU five minutes later. He leaves CTU and arrives at his destination five minutes later. It never takes longer than 5 minutes to get anywhere in 24-land. I mean, President Pissypants gave orders that all his cabinet members should be brought to the White House. And 12 minutes later – TWELVE MINUTES LATER! – they were all there. Come on. 12 minutes to locate the entire cabinet? Horseshit. So, the bounds of credibility are stretched every week on 24. I’ve come to deal with and accept that. But last night, my friends, you went so far over the line you couldn’t even SEE it anymore. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. When you had the Speaker of the House utter the words “Doesn’t the public have a right to know the truth?”, those bounds of credibility snapped so hard I could hear them smack Jack Bauer in the ass as they went by. I’d be willing to bet no Speaker of the House has ever ever ever uttered those words. Please. We’re not idiots. We’ll buy for the sake of entertainment that you can get from that warehouse to CTU in 5 minutes, but we DO have our limits. Love ya anyway, Robyn PS: When Richard Heller was crying to Audrey, his voice went so high that he sounded JUST LIKE Miss Piggy. PPS: Where the fuck is Behrooz?? * * *

She’s funny looking, but I sure do love her goofy ass. ]]>