Month: June 2005

Hobbies Cats. Can caring for and falling in love with the sweetest little kittens in the world be called a hobby? I think it can. If lovin’ the babies is wrong, I don’t a-wanna be right. Reading. You knew that. Cross-stitching. I spent the first five months of the year working on these little ornaments (which will be put up on the giveaway page in the next few months), and since I finished the last one, I haven’t cross-stitched at all. I’m trying to decide what I want to do next, is my excuse. I always do this – cross-stitch like mad for months and months, and then stopping for a long time before picking it up again. This website. That website. That one, too. Oh, and that one. Hey, I never said I was talented at it. In fact, that’s one ugly website right there, but it serves its purpose. Worrying. At the moment, I’m worrying about Flossie, Mia, and Peanut, who are at the vet being spayed and neutered. I’ve spent more time fussing and worrying over these kittens than you can imagine, but when they go to be adopted, I’ll find other things to worry about. You might think you worry, but I, my friends, am the worrying queen. I worry about things going on in my life, but I also worry about things going on in YOUR life (if you have a blog or journal, that is). And if a character in a book is fucking up his life? I practically get ulcers, I worry so much. Actually, I’m surprised I don’t have ulcers. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Jumping to conclusions. (Fred’s desk) Resisting temptation… and giving in, all too often. Singing. Badly. Very, very badly. I couldn’t carry a tune if I had a bucket to put it in. Ignoring housework that badly needs to be done. Taping cheesy shows and watching them… …and taping good shows and never quite getting around to watching them. Buying cat toys. Which the cats scatter all over the house, and then ignore. Taking pictures. I know I get some really good pictures, but I’m not really all that skilled at it. If you give a monkey a camera and teach him to snap pictures at random, I can guarantee you he’ll get some good ones, almost by accident. I probably erase two – if not more – for each one I keep. It’s the ones that come out really good that keep me taking pictures. Thank god for digital cameras, that’s all I can say. Using an HTML editor to teach myself basic HTML. Unfortunately it goes in one brain cell and out the other. I tend not to retain the knowledge I gain. Yelling at the cats to get off the table. And pretending they’ll listen. Missing the ocean.]]>

* * * Before I tell this story, I have to say that I don’t care about Hillary Clinton one way or the other. I mean, I think she takes a lot of crap because of who she is, but also I think that anyone who seriously wants to be a politician – especially those who want to be president – has to have a screw loose somewhere. I don’t think she’s the monster some people would have us believe, nor is she any kind of saint. She’s somewhere in the middle, I think, like most people. So. I was in Sam’s yesterday, and whenever I go into Sam’s I have to check out the book selection, because they have pretty good prices on hardcover books, and although I have far too many books already, I still have to look and see if there’s anything I want to read, so I can buy it and it can sit on the bookcase for two years before I get around to reading it. Some women buy shoes, some women buy jewelry, I buy books. Anyway, I checked out the book selection, and saw a book with the title The Truth About Hillary : What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She’ll Go to Become President. With a name like that, you know it’s going to be a hatchet job (I’m surprised they didn’t just name it The Hatchet Job on Hillary, and be done with it), and when I saw that it was written by Edward Klein, I knew I wasn’t going to buy the book (well, I knew before then that I wasn’t going to buy it, because I have no interest in reading a hatchet job, and even less interest in politics, but when I saw Edward Klein’s name, I REALLY knew I wasn’t going to buy it), but I picked it up anyway to check out the flyleaf and the pictures inside. I didn’t get to the picture collection, though, because first I checked out the flyleaf. And I read: She’s a wife, but she shows no wifely instincts. She’s a mother, but she isn’t maternal. She’s a feminist, but she rode to power on her husband’s coattails. She’s strong and assertive, but she has abetted decades of chronic infidelity. She inspires fierce loyalty among her followers, but she frequently stabs them in the back. and I got to the third line, and I said “Oh, fuck YOU, Edward Klein. Fuck you up your stupid ass.” and I put the book back down – though to be honest, I wanted to buy them all so I could build a bonfire with them, but that would be shooting myself in the foot, because Fuckward Klein would still get the money from the sale of all those books, and I’m sure he doesn’t give a shit what happens to the books once they’re bought. I mean, what kind of bullshit is that? She doesn’t show wifely instincts? WHAT THE FUCK ARE WIFELY INSTINCTS? No one told me I was supposed to be showing wifely instincts, where the hell do I get a pack of those at? And as for being “a mother, but not maternal”, What. The. Fuck? Seriously, what the FUCK? How the fuck would anyone but Chelsea Clinton – THE CHILD of the woman purported to be unmaternal – know whether Hillary Clinton is maternal or not? Also, what a LAME allegation to make. I’ve forbidden Fred from bringing anything by Edward Klein into this house – thus showing that I might not have wifely instincts, but I certainly have bossy instincts – because I’m afraid the mere presence of lame bullshit like that would bring down the collective IQ of the residents of our home. And we can use all the IQ points we can get.

* * * I was ranting about the above to Fred last night, and he said “Welcome to last week’s news”, and I said “You shut up, motherfucker, or I’ll unleash my wifely instincts on you” and he said “Shut your unmaternal mouth, woman.” And then Miz Poo stomped across my hair, and the conversation was forgotten. * * * We were watching TV the other night, and Fred turned to me and said “I think I might have to start buying songs on iTunes. All the songs are basically a buck, right?” And I said, “Yeah, ninety-nine cents.” “Which is basically a buck,” he snarked at me. “What the fuck?” I said. “I WAS CLARIFYING IT FOR YOU.” “I didn’t need the exact number,” he said bitchily, smirking at me. “I just wanted to know that it was basically a buck.” “THEY’RE NINETY-NINE CENTS!” “I KNEW they’re ninety-nine cents. But it’s easier to say basically a buck,” he said. “There are less syllables in basically a buck than there are in ninety-nine cents.” “I don’t think so.” “Bessie, please,” he said, and then held out his hand so he could count syllables. “Ba-sic-al-ly… well, no, you really say ba-sic-ly, right?” “Yeah.” “Ba-sic-ly-a-buck. Five,” he said, looking at me to see if I’d gotten it. He held out his other hand. “Nine-ty-nine-cents… Shut up.” I only smiled. “Not allowed to write about it!” he said, pointing at me. “Nooooot allowed to write about it!” Ha. That’s what you get for snarking at me, motherfucker. * * * Okay, this is driving me CRAZY. I was doing errands this morning when the line “Country don’t mean dumb” popped into my mind, and I cannot for the life of me think of who said it. It was in a movie, and a man said it, and he might have punched someone before he said it, but maybe not. I can hear the voice, but I have NO IDEA whose voice it is. Help me before I go crazy from racking my brain, won’t you? * * * Them kittens. Snoopy, Edgar, and Oy are home and just fine. They were very indignant when I first picked them up from the vet’s, and they kept sticking their paws out of the carrier and meowing at me. They’d just started to settle down when I got to the shelter, and then they milled around in the carrier for a few minutes, ’til I actually walked through the door, and then they quieted right down, because there was a big slobbery dog there, and other cats, and they were so freaked out that they all ran to the other end of the carrier and huddled up together, and stared out at the dog and the other cats with big dark eyes. They were indignant again when I took them out, one by one, to have their vaccine shot, and when I took them back to the car they took turns meowing at me, telling me what an awful woman I am, but about five minutes after we left the shelter they were snuggled up in a pile, sound asleep. I expected them to be kind of loopy and out of it when we got home, but as soon as I opened the carrier, they all came bounding out, and ran around like their little butts were on fire. It’s going to be fun (NOT) taking Mia, Flossie and Peanut to the vet tomorrow, because Mia and Flossie are both pretty vocal, and I expect that by the time I get to the vet’s office, I’m going to want to poke a stick through my eardrums. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for room to open up at the pet store… and is it wrong that I hope it takes a looooong time for that to happen? Yoga kitty. “I wike to put my tongue over to the side, like this. It makes me wook cool.” Peanut, who cannot keep his tongue in his mouth. Flossie, bathing. Which is cuter, the toes, or the little pink nose? I can’t decide. Love that Flossie. Oy, posing. Edgar (I’ve taken to calling him “Egg” all the time, now), with Mia in the background. * * * Mister Boogers sure does love his daddy. ]]>

here you go, they were there last week – and when I walked into the cat room, Miss Priss was laying on her side, and Christopher was… nursing. Or attempting to nurse, since I don’t suppose she was producing milk. I hope not, anyway. She was laying there patiently, and he was kneading and nursing for the LONGEST time, and it was extremely disturbing. I don’t know WHY I was so freaked out, it wasn’t like it was a sexual thing, but it just seemed WRONG. I thought about calling the lady who runs the shelter, but I’ve called her an awful lot since we got these kittens, and Fred likes to jokingly (I think he’s joking, anyway!) say “If you don’t stop calling her every day, she’s not going to let you have any more kittens!” Besides, I have a feeling she’d just tell me it’s a normal thing, that kittens who are taken from their mother too soon or weaned too soon tend to do it. It’s still freaky, though.

* * * I’m so helpful. Oh, and I own but haven’t yet read What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal, Eleven on Top, and Gods in Alabama. I read The Weight-Loss Diaries in October of 2004 and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in May of 2004. (I gave them five Poos and four Poos, respectively) (I haven’t seen the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants yet, if that’s what you were wondering.) And as for the Bullshit episode we were on (you probably found that with the search, but just in case…) you can read about our experience here, and we were on the episode entitled Eat This! You’re welcome. * * * I had a damn busy morning today. I got up when Fred left for work – 6:45 – so I could do some laundry, take a shower, get dressed, and wrangle three of the boy kittens. Today’s neutering day for three of the boys, and I couldn’t decide which boys to take, so I cleaned out the litter box and looked them all over, and then finally decided to just grab the three closest boys and toss them in the carrier. I ended up with Snoopy, Edgar, and Oy. Once that was done, I had to make the half-hour trip to the vet. I was dreading the drive, because little kittens have surprisingly loud meows when they’re scared, but except for a few sad little “Why do you hate me?” meows from Oy, they were pretty quiet. At one point I stupidly stuck my finger in the carrier so they could feel… I don’t know, comforted? Which sounds stupid when I really think about it, ’cause why exactly would a finger comfort them? “Oh, look a finger! I feel so relaxed and unfrightened now…” Anyway, one of them decided that a good reaction to the finger would be to sink a claw into the end of the finger – you know, where all the NERVES are – and I ended up driving down a country road screaming loudly while the man in the truck behind me probably wondered whether I’d been drinking. I dropped the kittens off at the vet – and the vet assistants immediately fussed over how cute the kittens are, which means I LOVE the vet assistants – and drove back to Madison for a 9:00 hair appointment. I was about ten minutes late, because I’d made the vet appointment without realizing I had a hair appointment, and the vet appointment was at 8:30, which didn’t give me a lot of time to get to the hair place. I did call and leave a message that I’d be a little late, so all was okay. The woman who cut my hair did her usual faaaaabulous job. She’s pregnant and due in a few weeks, and I think she’s really ready to get this whole pregnancy thing over with. We spent the whole time talking about her kids, my kid, the kittens, and various other things, so the time flew. I left the hair place, put gas in my car, and went to Sam’s to pick up a few things – bottled water, gum, trash bags – and for probably the only time in my life, left without spending over $100. That almost never happens, so I gave myself a high five in the parking lot (not really), and headed for home. Where I am now. Waiting for the vet’s office to call and tell me I can pick up the kittens. After I pick them up, I have to run them over to the shelter so they can get their vaccinations (the lady who runs the shelter – and I need to come up with a name for her, don’t I? – offered to show me how to do it, but I’m such a klutz I’m sure I’d only end up vaccinating myself, and since I’m not (so far as I know) in danger of developing feline leukemia, I’d rather have her do it). So yeah, it’s been a busy day for me. I’m not complaining, though – I like the occasional busy day. I just don’t want every day to be a busy day, because I’m too damn lazy to deal with that. * * * After Fred went to bed last night, I turned on the laptop and settled into the chair in the corner of the bedroom, and finally, finally, FINALLY got caught up on my email. It took me about an hour and a half, and there were actually emails that had been waiting for a response since the END OF MARCH (god, I suck), but I got every last one of them answered. The later it got, the chattier I got, so there were a couple of emails that people had sent just a paragraph or two, and I responded with pages and pages of yammering. I’d like to say that I intend to keep caught up on my email from here on out, but even I don’t believe me when I say that anymore, so I’m sure sometime mid-Fall I’ll be talking again about how I just got caught up on all my email again… * * * Now. I’m not much of a jewelry wearer, except on special occasions, you know how it goes. When I heard that Bonnie and Suzanne were going to be selling their stuff online, I took a quick look and liked what I saw, but never got around to ordering anything. Yesterday, I went to the post office, and what do you suppose was sitting there waiting for me? Bracelets. YELLOW bracelets. Now, like I said, I don’t usually wear any jewelry at all, but these bracelets are so cute and comfy and very much ME that I’ve been wearing them since I got ’em. (They also sent me something for the spud, but I won’t show a picture of that, ’cause the spud reads this journal and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.) Do I sound like a cheesy commercial? Because I don’t mean to, but these bracelets are so cute and well-made that I think y’all should go order one. Or a pair of earrings, or even an earring and bracelet set. You know, whatever strikes your fancy. Go on, go check ’em out. Don’t forget to come back, though. I’ve still got cute kitten pics to share. * * * Those darn cats. The vet’s office just called. Oy, Edgar, and Snoopy are just fine, and I can pick them up in a few hours. Poor babies, they’re going to need a lot of snuggling tonight, I bet. Flossie in front of the window. Fightin’ kitties. When I see pictures like this, I realize just how much the kittens have grown. I mean, compare that picture to this one: Amazing, isn’t it? Snoopy, trying to nurse. He was unsuccessful. I’ve become just a piece of furniture to these kittens. Here, we see Peanut and Flossie sitting on my shoulder and fighting with each other. Snoopy on my shoulder. Peanut and his toes. Is she yawning… or is she screaming? “Momma, your feet stink.” The Floss-monster shows that ball just who the boss is around here.]]>

Inconceivable, by Ben Elton. Finished over the weekend: The Innocent, by Harlan Coben – kickass as usual – and Dry, by Augusten Burroughs, which I enjoyed so much I stayed up late to finish it even though I knew I had to get up early (for me) this morning. I don’t know why it is that I was less enamored of Running With Scissors, but I really liked both Magical Thinking and Dry a lot. If pushed, I’d say that Magical Thinking was my favorite of the two.

* * * So I was in Target this morning looking for toilet bowl cleaner (and, may I ask, back before toilet bowl cleaner, what did people use to clean their toilets? Oh, right. People used outhouses back then, didn’t they?) and I walked past the tub and shower cleaners, and I stopped and stared at the Scrubbing Bubbles, seriously tempted to buy a can. When I was a kid, I watched the damn Scrubbing Bubbles commercials, and I thought that when you sprayed the Scrubbing Bubbles onto the tub and shower, the little bubbles would come out looking exactly like they did in the commercial: And I harassed the shit out of my mother to buy a can of Scrubbing Bubbles to use for cleaning, because there is NOTHING ELSE IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD I wanted than I capture one of those scrubbing bubbles and keep him as a pet. I’m still a little bitter at the memory of my mother spraying the tub with Scrubbing Bubbles, and my disappointment when all that came out was cleaning product. Not a damn smiling scrubbing bubble to be seen anywhere. Can I sue for emotional distress? * * * I’m afraid I’m going to have to divorce my husband. He told me that he thinks the foster kittens are ugly because – and this is a quote – “their markings are asymmetric and random.” He went on to defend his point of view, saying that as a computer geek, he wants everything to have symmetry and logic and a pattern, but I was so busy spluttering like Sylvester the Cat that I couldn’t come up with a decent response. I mean, I’m sorry. How can you see this: and think “ugly”? It baffles me, it really does. * * * Fred went to the movie store and rented Hostage, Hitch, and The Jacket yesterday. We watched Hitch in the afternoon, and Hostage last night (then followed it up with a couple of episodes of Scrubs, because that is one fine damn show). To our surprise, they were both pretty good. We were disappointed that Hostage was dumbed down a little – we both read Hostage earlier this year and it kicked ASS – but all in all it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday evening. Only, except, remember back when I said that Autumn Chiklis – daughter of Michael Chiklis, star of The Shield – was possibly the worst young actress in all of Hollywood? Yeah, well, Rumer Willis is definitely in the race for that title, for sure. Hollywood nepotism at it’s best, I suppose – putting young, extremely untalented kids in roles that should have gone to kids who don’t have their mommies and daddies to pull strings for them. And yet they’re confused as to why movie attendance is hitting record lows. * * * The kitten section. So Friday night Fred and I were hanging out in the room with the kittens, and Mia started rolling around on the floor making a lot of noise, and every time either of us would touch her, she’d immediately raise her butt in the air. “Bessie,” Fred said. “I think she’s in heat.” We watched her for a while longer, and she got even more agitated, and rolled around on the floor even more. “Well, shit,” I said. “What the hell do we do?” “We can’t do anything. And she’s going to get loud.” Fred once had a cat who went into heat, and she was so loud all night long that he spent the next morning calling vets and begging them to spay her that very day. So we came downstairs where I called and left a message for the lady who runs the shelter to ask her if there was anything special I needed to do – separate her from the kittens, perhaps? I mean, I have NEVER dealt with a cat in heat before. I did some looking around online, and found mostly unhelpful advice that the way to keep a cat from going into heat was – can you guess? – have her spayed. She’s scheduled to be spayed on Thursday. Figures, right? I did run across a page where they offered up the suggestion to relieve the cat’s distress with a q-tip, and then I passed out from the sheer horror of the thought. We went to bed and discussed it some more. I said, “Well, should we separate her from the kittens? I don’t want them to be mentally scarred for life from seeing their mother in the mood for love!”, to which Fred replied “We should send Mister Boogers in there to take care of business!” I don’t know. Can neutered cats even get it up? We decided that we’d just keep an eye on her, and if she got aggressive with the kittens in any way we’d put her in the study for a few days. You’ve probably figured this out by now, but when we went in Saturday morning, Mia showed no signs of being in heat at all. AT ALL. In fact, she hasn’t shown any signs since. What the hell is up with that? I mean, not that I WANTED her to be in heat, in fact, I’m quite grateful that she’s NOT, but we were really sure she was, Friday night. There’s a new kitten movie up, here. It’s a fairly short one, of the kittens being teased by Fred with a toy. As always, it’ll only be up until I upload a new movie. Snoopy. That boy sleeps like a rock. Sleepy babies. A rare picture with all five of them (you can’t see Snoopy’s face, since Oy and Edgar are laying on top of him, but he’s there!). This picture cracks me up because of the stretching kitty paw over Flossie’s head. It looks like someone’s doing “jazz hands”! Heh. It’s a rough life, it really is. “I think I’m in Hell. I’m in Hell, right? In a small room with all these little wild kittens? Yeah, I’m in hell. I wonder what I did wrong…” Edgar, mid-lick. It looks like he’s showing us a trick, doesn’t it? “Look, I can make my tongue go in one direction, and THEN I can make it go in the OTHER direction!” Oy, cleaning. I sure do love this little guy. He’s little, but he’s scrappy. * * *]]>

reading: The Innocent, by Harlan Coben. Finished last night: Fat Girl. I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it, but I just didn’t care for that book. Part of it is that I have no patience with long passages of lovingly-described food – it bores the shit out of me, to be honest, which is probably not what you would expect from a lifelong fat chick – and part of it is that it’s such a fucking downer of a book, and part of it is that my heart has not the ability to bleed for someone who’s always struggled with their weight yet has never crossed the 200-pound mark. I guess that’s my own personal prejudice, and I know that the struggle’s the same whether you need to lose 20 pounds or 200, I do intellectually understand and accept that, but in my heart I just can’t cry for someone who talks about how grossly obese they are when I outweigh them by 50 or 100 pounds or more. Because I think, “If that’s what you think about yourself, what on god’s green earth must you think to yourself about ME?” (And I know that the answer to that is probably “I think nothing at all about you, because you are NOT the center of the universe, even though you APPARENTLY think you are, and are under the impression that all everyone ever does is think about YOU.”, but I think we can all agree that the truth is that I’m the center of my universe, and so I think I should be the center of YOUR universe, even though YOU are the center of your universe, and SHE is the center of HER universe, and so on and so forth.) My beloved Andrew Vachss gave this book a rave, though, so perhaps I’m blinded by my own prejudices. In fact, I’m sure I am. But I’m not giving the book another shot – I’m going to release it into the wild one of these days so that someone else can give it a loving home.

* * * From my comments: Robyn, here is a non-cat question. You had mentioned you have read Marian Keyes & Anna Maxted – can you suggest any other similiar (fun, fluffy, Brit, chick lit) authors I can check out. I have exhausted all Keyes & Maxted’s books and now I am bored! Thanks. I’m going to throw this one to the rest of my readers, because honestly no one else is coming to mind, though I KNOW there are more authors out there. I just can’t think of them at the minute. If you have a suggestion for Natalie, leave a comment, eh? Robyn did you read Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich? Do you know if this is going to be a new series and when the next comes out? Have you read Eleven on Top yet? I did read Metro Girl, and I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a new series or not, so I checked out Janet Evanovich’s page, and stumbled on her tour and release dates page. According to that, Motor Mouth(Metro Girl #2) is coming out next March, so it does appear that it’s going to be a new series. Yay! I haven’t read Eleven on Top yet, only because I’m waiting for it to arrive – I ordered it from the book club I belong to. I’m definitely looking forward to it, though! That Janet Evanovich is one hard-working woman, isn’t she? * * * The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development. For the record, that’s the sort of thing that gives me a fucking stroke. LOCAL GOVERNMENT can seize your home for PRIVATE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. Joe-Bob Dumfuck can decide a Wal-Mart would look right nice where your house happens to stand (yes, I’m simplifying – BUT PROBABLY NOT BY MUCH), and you haven’t got a goddamn legal leg to stand on. I’d say this country is going to hell, but that handbasket sailed a loooooong time ago. * * * Fred sent me an email yesterday letting me know that it appears the former Judge Roy “I am a law unto myself” Moore will be running for governor. Then he said we might have to move out of the state if that happens. That bastard, he just looooves to tease me. Think I could convince him to move to Maine? There are no poisonous snakes in Maine, you know. At least not ’til Fred shows up and they follow him into the state, that is. * * * There are four things I really hate doing when I’m sitting at my desk. The first is keeping our checkbook (which I keep in Quicken) up to date. We use our debit cards an absolute criminal amount, never save receipts, and having to sit and figure out what’s been entered already and what hasn’t is a huge pain in the ass. The second thing I hate doing is paying bills, which is why our absolutely stellar credit status shocked me so much when we refinanced the house a few months ago. I know it’ll only take me a few minutes to write a check or move the money online, but day after day I think “I need to pay bills”, then “Eh. I’ll do that later.” and never get around to it until the day I force myself to sit down and get it done. Our bills are very rarely paid late, but it’s not uncommon for me to run to the post office at the last minute to mail off a payment or stop by the bank to make a credit card payment. The third thing I can’t stand doing is cleaning off my desk. I always have piles of shit everywhere (though I can’t blame my lack of bill-paying on that. I’ve TRIED, but I can’t bullshit myself, much as I try.) and it’s always a pain in the ass to find anything, but I’d rather just let the piles grow taller and taller and yell at Mister Boogers when he gaums* around on my desk and knocks shit over. It isn’t until I’m pissed off enough to do something about it – like when Mister Boogers knocks the same pile of shit over six times in a row – that I actually DO something about it. And the fourth? Email. I love getting email, love reading it, love pondering the questions you ask, the advice you give, but answering? Um, yeah. Not so hot at that. Which you know if you’ve EVER emailed me. So on Sunday, I came up with a brilliant idea. BRILLIANT. This brilliant idea is that I can stand just about anything for five minutes. And so, I suggested to myself, why not start a five-minute dealie once a day where I spend five minutes doing one of the four things I loathe doing so much, or a little of each of the four things for five minutes, and when the five minutes is up, I go on my merry way, guilt-free, to surf to my heart’s desire. I attempted the five-minute dealie almost as soon as I thought of it on Sunday afternoon, and ended up spending half an hour paying bills and balancing the checkbook. Good enough. I mean, after all, the rule is that I CAN give up after five minutes, not that I MUST. Monday afternoon I spent five minutes cleaning off my desk, and even went and got the spray bottle of ammonia and scrubbed the surface of my desk where I rest my arms most of the time, and let me tell YOU, that was one nasty, dirty desk. Tuesday, I completely forgot about the five-minute dealie until Fred had gone off to bed and I was settling in with my book. I groaned and fussed, then forced myself to come downstairs, where I spent five-ish minutes checking our checking account online to make sure the debit card hadn’t been used since the last time I looked on Sunday (it hadn’t), threw a few pieces of paper from my desktop to the trash, answered an email that had been sitting in my inbox for six weeks (I suck), and went back upstairs to read. Wednesday, I spent about a minute and a half rearranging the pens in my “How much shit could a dipshit dip if a dipshit could dip shit?” mug, and filed a couple of bank statements. Thursday? No five-minute dealie. No two-minute dealie. No ONE-minute dealie. No dealie at all. I couldn’t even make it an entire week. I am the lamest lame-o that ever lamed. *According to dictionary.com, “gaum” is defined as “To smudge or smear.”, but my mother always used it as a substitution for “klutz” or “klutzy” – ie, “What a gaum.” I think it works well in the sentence “…when he gaums around on my desk and knocks shit over”, don’t you? * * * PS: Did you know that Guam is developing new tourist attractions? I would SO love to go back to Guam someday – did I ever mention that we lived there for two years when I was a kid? I could go back and smack myself for not appreciating the beauty of the place, but that’s just not the sort of thing an 8 year-old does, I guess. PPS: Psst! Fred: Guam covers an area of 212 square miles (549 square km), and is about 30 miles (48.39 km) in length with a width of 8 1/2 miles (13.71 km) at the northern tip and a maximum width in the south of 11 1/2 miles (remember when we were talking about it the other night?) PPPS: Psst! Fred: There’s apparently a big snake problem on Guam. Also, there’s hiking. Lots of it. Lots of difficult hiking. Isn’t it too bad it’s 20ish hours away by plane? PPPS: I only bring this stuff about Guam up because when I Googled “gaum”, the ever-helpful Google suggested that I might be a dumbass and possibly what I REALLY meant to type was “guam.” * * * The kitten section. The kittens are exactly two months old today. My lord, I’m such an idiot. In the mornings when I go into the cat room, I tend to leave the door to the room open, because the big cardboard box is there blocking Mia and the babies from the rest of the house, and they like to run out there and sniff around, and rather than chase them back into the room, I let them stay out there for a little while if they want to. What’s the harm, right? Well, this morning I heard a loud thump and when I went to investigate, I found that one of the kittens had figured out that he could pull the cardboard away from the wall a little, and slip through to the other side. I was a bit freaked out that Mia might try to run through the gap – though she was flopped over on her side and wasn’t even paying attention to what her kittens were doing – and so I picked up the can of compressed air that I leave sitting right by the door, and I herded Mia and whichever kittens were in the cardboard area back into the cat room. I shut the door and then went after the kitten who had escaped, who happened to be Oy. He might be little, but he’s smart, that one. So I found Oy in the spud’s bathroom, with Miz Poo sniffing at his butt, and when he turned around to look at her, she hissed and backed up. The reaction of our cats to the kittens – especially Miz Poo and Mister Boogers – is hilarious, because these kittens are a tenth the size of either of them, but they react like they’re seeing the most threatening things ever put on the face of this earth. I grabbed Oy up and took him back into the cat room and stayed for a few more minutes until Edgar pooped in the litter box, then tromped through it, and then bounced across the room to bounce across my leg and leave a big nugget of poop on my pants leg. I can take a hint, plus I had errands to run, so I said goodbye to the kitties (and yes, I ALWAYS say “hello” and “goodbye” the kitties.) and came downstairs. I spent a few minutes checking my mail, made a quick phone call to Fred, and headed for the door. As I was almost to the door, I heard a loud bang from upstairs, and I paused and thought about going to check it out, but then remembered I’d started the washer and decided that was what I’d heard. I went to the bank and the grocery store and then to McDonald’s for a Diet Coke. When I got home I started putting away the groceries, when I heard a loud wailing sound from upstairs. “What the – ?” I said to Miz Poo, who was looking more than a little freaked out. She shrugged at me, and I went upstairs to see what was going on. What was going on was that Snoopy was sitting outside the door to the cat room, every piece of fur on his body fluffed up as far as it could fluff, wailing to be let back in with his family. “What happened, baby?” I said to him, and he turned and saw me, and ran toward me as fast as his little legs could carry him. He was TERRIFIED. I guess it had been fun to wander around for a little while, but when it came down to it, he really wanted to be with his brothers and sisters and his Momma. I took him into the cat room, where he immediately started running around and jumping on his siblings. Then he saw Mia laying on the floor, and he ran over and started trying to nurse. She wasn’t up for that, though, and walked away. He kept following her, until she turned around and smacked him, which is when he decided that the kitten food in the bowls was just fine with him. Poor baby. I don’t know if he got out when Oy escaped and I just didn’t realize it, or if he ran out of the cat room when I was leaving and I didn’t see him, or what. I guess I need to start counting kittens before I leave the cat room, huh? He’s such a Momma’s boy. He follows his Momma around a lot. When he’s not chasing his siblings around, that is. Hugging his Momma. He LURVES his Momma. But Momma can only take so much love before she has to flee the interview premises. Oy is such a sweet little brat. Snoopy grabs for the camera. Don’t mess with Miss Flossie. “You lookin’ at ME?” (Edgar) “You puts your paws in the AYER like you just don’t CAYER!” The damage those kittens do. ]]>

* * * Hel-LEW. Did y’all not SEE the Best. Picture. Ever. in yesterday’s entry??? She looks like she’s having a good laugh at your expense, doesn’t she? I’m half-tempted to use CafePress to make myself a Flossie shirt, and underneath the picture it would say “You’re wearing… THAT?”

* * * So we – and when I say “we”, you should know, of course, that I mean “Fred” – have been giving Miz Poo oil for the last three weeks or so. Fred did some looking around online, and found that what Miz Poo has – her puffy lip – is called a rodent ulcer, and that people have had good results treating it with omega-3/omega-6 fatty acid oil. So we – he – started giving her the oil, and for a long time nothing happened, and we wailed and gnashed our teeth (or maybe just shrugged and shook our heads), and then in the last few days all of a sudden, her lip has gotten much, much smaller and has started to look a lot healthier. We’re cautiously optimistic, because in the past a lot of the stuff we’ve tried has worked really well, but only for a short amount of time. But if this oil is the answer, I’m going to be thrilled. THRILLED, I say, because we’ve been dealing with the puffy lip for years now, and even though the lip never seems to cause her pain even when it’s at the puffiest, just looking at it causes US pain. Keep your fingers crossed that the oil keeps working, eh? Boy, that’s not a flattering picture, is it? I’m lucky she’s not human. She’d kick my ass for putting up such a horrid picture! * * * What a difference five weeks makes, huh? Then: Now (well, last week): Have those babies grown, or what? How about this: Then. Now. They grow so DAMN fast. Her eyes went from that gorgeous blue to green, and I didn’t even notice it happening! * * * It’s a good damn thing I decided to start wearing a sweatshirt into the cat room, because right now every damn one of those kittens love to launch themselves across the room onto my back, and then scale the Robyn Mountain to sit on my shoulder and chew on my hair. Snoopy. And my hair. Which he loves to chew on. Sometimes he gets so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of hair that he sinks his sharp little claws into my scalp and tries to eat my head. Oy’s favorite place to be. He sits juuuust right so that he can see the other kittens running around, but just far enough back that I can’t turn my head and kiss him. Brat. Miss Flossieeeee….on my shoulderrrr… makes me happyyyyy…. * * * Not every night, but every few nights, I give the kittens a can of kitten food. It’s a nice change from the Science Diet Kitten they get all the time, and they seem to really like it. I open the can, put the food on a couple of plates, and they all stop what they’re doing to come belly-up to the trough. I love the way Miss Flossie can’t quite seem to decide which plate she wants to eat off of. She’s in kitty heaven. And once they’re done eating, they sit around for the next half hour and lick their lips. ]]>

reading: Fat Girl, by Judith Moore. Finished last night: The Things We Do for Love, by Kristin Hannah. Good book and I ended up staying up late to finish it, but if you can’t see the ending by the time you’re 50 pages in, you have to be clueless.

* * * So thanks for all your headache advice, y’all. I did a little looking around online, and I did have a lot of the symptoms of a migraine – fatigue, neck pain, pain on one side of my head that moved to the other side – which leads me to my next question: Is it common for a woman in her late (::sob!::) thirties to suddenly start having migraines? Because I’m pretty sure that I’ve never had a headache that lasted for two days before. I was even ready to take my ass to the doctor, and y’all KNOW I’m no fan of going to the doctor. * * * How ’bout that whole Oprah thing? For those of you who haven’t heard, she was turned away from Hermes when she wanted to dash in to buy a watch for her BFF Tina Turner. One report stated that employees of the store said they’d been “having problems with North Africans lately”, but another report states that they knew exactly who Oprah was. You can bet there are people shitting and heads rolling in gay Paree right about now. And if Oprah actually does a show about the whole thing? Whoo-ee. Hermes better pack it in. They’re going to be hurting. Not that I care about Hermes one way or the other, you understand. Now, if Target had turned her away, that’d be a whole ‘nother story… * * * Fred and I were laying in bed the other night, and I said “I guess I need to make an appointment to take Edgar in.” Fred said, “How come?” “Because of the rattle. You know, the rattle I was telling you about?” Long silence, and then I realized why he was confused. “Edgar the car,” I said. “Not the cat.” “That’s a fairly important piece of information you might have wanted to share,” Fred said. Oh, the hilarity that ensues when your car and foster kitten have the same name! I could almost hear the laugh track in the background. * * * So, I mentioned in the past that we like to watch Family Plots, and someone asked if we liked the show. Well, of course we like the show! How can you not like a show set in a mortuary, with a set of characters like that? I could do without the occasional dead-body-involved scene when Shonna’s in the middle of embalming. Shonna, by the way, is my favorite. She doesn’t hesitate to say how it is, and she reminds me a little of my sister. I pretty much like everyone on the show, though Chuck gets on my nerves, probably because he reminds me A LOT of someone I can’t stand (someone I know in real life, though haven’t had to deal with for about five years now – longtime readers might remember Tex). We always look forward to watching the show, and in the past few weeks we’ve made a point of settling down on Saturday nights to watch two episodes of Family Plots and then Intervention. Speaking of TV, we watched Entourage from Sunday night, and were REALLY surprised to see Ralph Macchio. Especially since it took us until Drama said “Macchio! Tell Hefner you let the monkeys out of their cages!” for us to realize that it was, in fact, Ralph Macchio. I have no idea what it is, but the man looks NOTHING like he did when he was the Karate Kid, and it can’t be blamed on bad plastic surgery, because he’s a perfectly nice-looking man, but I never would have known that I was looking at Ralph Macchio. * * * Hmm. Nope, not a damn thing going on ’round here today. Let’s talk about the kittens, shall we? Did you feel the earth shake on its axis Sunday? Miss Flossie actually let me pick her UP and snuggle with her for a good two or three minutes, and she didn’t fight it or anything! I guess the best time to get some kitty snuggling is when they’re just waking up. I’ve started wearing a sweatshirt into the cat room because now every damn one of those kittens climbs up the back of my shirt at some point, and a plain old t-shirt isn’t protecting me enough. The sweatshirt, however, will absorb those sharp little kitten claws, and they can climb to their heart’s content without maiming me. This morning, they somehow knocked over the platform thingy they love to jump on, and they thought it was the COOLEST THING EVER. For at least ten minutes, all five of them were running at and jumping on the platform, then jumping off and racing around the room like their little butts were on fire. I’ll have to remember to get a picture of it, so y’all know what I’m talking about. The kittens love my camera. They’ve been known to attack the camera and drag it across the floor by the strap. Which makes it somewhat difficult to take pictures sometimes. Sleepin’ Edgar. I swear, I don’t think Peanut’s tongue is EVER in his mouth. Oy just loves chewin’ on straws. Such a sweet Miss Flossie. “I haff come to suck yoor blooood.” * * * Da Poo in da sun.]]>

Divine Comedy: Milla Hatful of Rain: Del Amitri Liz Phair: Liz Phair Tigerlily: Natalie Merchant 3 Sides: Bob Guiney) So I sat down at my computer and threw a bunch of random songs into a playlist in iTunes, and then burned them to a disc. It ended up being a really good bunch of songs to listen to when you’re driving too fast down country roads and in the mood to sing at the top of your lungs: Goodbye Time: Blake Shelton Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way: LeAnn Rimes Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy): Big & Rich Me and Charlie Talking: Miranda Lambert California: Phantom Planet The Blower’s Daughter: Damien Rice She’s Gone: Hall & Oates El Cerrito Place: Charlie Robison Over & Over: Nelly & Tim McGraw Always on my Mind: Willie Nelson With or Without You: U2 Leave (Get Out): JoJo Anymore: Travis Tritt Breakaway: Kelly Clarkson And it also happened to be the exact perfect length for the trip to and from the shelter. I started it as soon as I pulled out of the driveway, and the last song ended when I pulled back into the driveway. The only problem is that now I have California playing on repeat in my brain, and I can’t make it STOP. California here we come Right back where we started from Californiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Californiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Oh, Caaaaaaaaaalifooooooooorniaaaaaaaaa (You’re welcome)

* * * I finally got off my ass yesterday and got the last month’s worth of pet store kitty pics up: here, here, here, and here. I’m very pleased to announce that Loverboy – who also goes by the name Paolo, for some reason – was adopted in the past week. Yay! * * * Starting Sunday afternoon, I had a headache that just would NOT go away. I took Tylenol, which would make it mostly go away for a little while, but it kept coming back, and if there’s one kind of pain I just can’t stand, it’s the pain of a headache. When we were going to bed Sunday night, I said “I should just take a percoset.” The doctor prescribed percoset for Fred after his vasectomy, and Fred only took one or two, and the rest of the prescription has been hanging around, because we pretty much never use the narcotics that are prescribed for us, but we do believe in saving them just in case they’re needed in the future. Fred gave me a faux-disapproving look and said “If you MUST. Will I be seeing you on Intervention in a year?” I counted the number of pill left in the bottle and said “If I can make four percoset get me high for the next year, you just might.” So I took the percoset, and the headache went away for about an hour, then came back with a vengeance, and I tried to go to sleep so that I could wake up headache-free – or so I hoped – but I woke up around 2:30 with my head absolutely pounding, got up, took a handful of Tylenol, and went back to sleep. The headache stayed gone until around 2 yesterday afternoon, when it came wandering back. I napped on the couch for a while (I couldn’t take any more Tylenol, because you’re not supposed to take more than 8 in a 24-hour period, and I’d gone over that limit by a couple. And the last time I took too many pills for a headache (though it was aspirin, not Tylenol) my ears rang for several hours and I HATE THAT), then after Fred got home I took a shower and put on the very comfy pajama bottoms Debbie gave me for Christmas, and my favorite sweatshirt. Which is when Fred came upstairs and asked if I wanted to ride with him down the road to the vegetable stand. We ended up driving around for the better part of an hour, and my head got better for a while, then worse, then better. It was driving me CRAZY, and finally around 7, I took a couple of aspirin, and a couple more around 10, and finally the damn headache went away and it’s currently still gone, THANK GOD. I guess it’s not a tumah. * * * The kitten section. Flossie and Oy have discovered that they can climb up the back of my shirt and perch on my shoulder. Which is cute and all BUT HOLY FUCK DOES IT REALLY REALLY REALLY hurts when they climb up my back, and now my back is all scratched up, and OUCH. But damn it’s cute. We’ve started leaving the blinds in the cat room up all the time, because if we put them down at night, the kittens will hang on them which annoys me. So at night, when the light in the room is on, they see their reflection in the window, and both Flossie and Oy have gotten freaked out by their own reflections, complete with fluffy tail and hissing. I need to remember to take the camera upstairs with me at night some time. Flossie, mid-slurp. Flossie does this goofy thing where she sits over the water bowl and drinks some water, then lifts her head and… I can’t describe it, really. It looks like she’s nursing and she makes these sucking noises. I’m not sure what that’s all about. Da widdle Peanut. Miss Flossie, on a mission. Snoopy, snuggled up to his favorite toy. Edgar, rolling around in the sun. Snoopy. The sultry look. Hee! Mister Eggs does his bat imitation. * * * Spanky in the sun. ]]>

The Things We Do for Love, by Kristin Hannah. Finished over the weekend: Deadly Pursuit by Brian Harper (good book – I had a hard time putting it down.) and One Shot, by Lee Child. One Shot was excellent, and despite the fact that I had a pounding headache last night and was very sleepy, I stayed up to finish the book. I’m on the Lee Child mailing list, and got an update email over the weekend implying that there would soon be news about turning one of the books into a movie. Fred and I spent a good part of yesterday trying to decide who should play Jack Reacher, and had a really hard time with it, because Jack Reacher is a big, big man – 6 feet, 5 inches, and 250 pounds – and when you think of the main Hollywood actors, they tend toward the small size. Fred got up and went to bed, and then immediately came back out of his room. “David Morse!” he said. I think we’ve got a winner. David Morse is certainly big enough, and he can definitely do the intensity that would be required for Reacher. I’m sure they’ll put one of the Hollywood pretty boys in the role, though.

* * * Last night Fred and I were in the living room watching the first season of Scrubs, and Fred paused the DVD because he had to pee. Mister Boogers was sitting on his lap, and he said “Would you like a Booger?” I was laying on the couch, and I said “Yeah, sure.” Then I thought for a second and sang “Pour that Booger on me!” And Fred guffawed about it for the next five minutes. I sure do love that man. * * * “Bessie!” Fred said, his eyes dark and wide in the same way Mister Boogers gets when he’s all excited. “What?” I put down the magazine I’d picked up to read when Fred went outside to make sure all the cats were inside. He closes the cat door every night before sunset because when our cats go missing, it’s almost always after dark. Zapping collar of doom or no, Mister Boogers gets overwhelmed by the darkness and has to go exploring. “Spot caught a copperhead!” he said. “Oh my god!” I put down the magazine and stood up. “What can I do?” I moved toward the door. “Well, first you can get out of the way,” he said, and then opened the door to go back outside. I followed him. “Spot, no!” he said. Spot was probably three inches from the snake, who was curled up and not doing much of anything. Fred picked Spot up. “Help me check him over!” I looked Spot over pretty thoroughly and didn’t see anything that looked like a snake bite. His fur is pretty thick, though, and I was sure if I’d actually see a snake bite through his fur. I didn’t share that little bit of knowledge with Fred, though. Fred thrust Spot at me, and I opened the door to bring Spot inside. As soon as the door opened, Miz Poo and Mister Boogers darted outside to sniff at the snake. “You should get the camera,” Fred said. “First I’m going to get a Booger,” I said. I scooped up Mister Boogers, and Fred grabbed Miz Poo, and we put them inside and shut the door. I went and got the camera and the can of compressed air, and headed for the back door, where all four of the cats were lined up with their noses pressed to the glass. “Get!” I said, and sprayed the air at them. They scattered. I went outside and stood a respectful distance from the snake, and pointed the camera at it. “What the hell are you doing?” Fred said. “Taking a picture!” I said. I mean, duh. What the hell did he THINK I was doing? “Give me that. All you’re going to get a picture of is a smudge in the distance.” I handed over the camera, and watched with horror as Fred bent down so that he was well within striking distance of the snake. He took several pictures and then handed the camera back to me. “Is it alive?” I asked. “I don’t think it’s alive.” “I can’t tell,” he said. “You should get your walking stick and poke it and see if it moves,” I offered. “I’m going to get the hoe and cut it’s head off,” he said. He went to the shed – no doubt there’s a huge nest of copperheads under the damn thing – and got the hoe. I kept my respectful distance on the other side of the patio. Fred poked at it. “Yeah, it’s alive. See it’s tongue flickering?” “Yep!” I lied. “See the big triangle-shaped head?” he continued. “Yep!” I lied again. “You can’t see it from there. Come look at it!” “No, that’s quite alright. I’ll stay HERE.” Fred shook his head at the foolishness of a woman who prefers to stay far away from POISONOUS SNAKES rather than putting her face six inches from it so it could strike and sink its fangs into her eyeball. Fred lifted the hoe. “Be careful!” I said. “I’m BEING careful.” “You’re AWFULLY close to it!” “I’m NOT close to it, Bessie. It can’t get me.” He lifted the hoe. “Do you have to kill it? Can’t we call someone to do it?” “Who are we going to call?” “Animal Control?” I said. “At 8:00 on a Saturday night?” he said skeptically. “Or the police! This is something THEY should do, not you.” “I’m not calling the police about a damn snake.” He lifted the hoe again and let it fall on the snake. The snake reacted by striking at the hoe. I screamed and clutched at my face, running around in circles. “Get the hell away from that thing!” I yelled. “Bessie, would you be quiet? If I get bitten, it’ll be because you distracted me!” I watched in silence – from the other side of the patio – as Fred struck at the snake several times. He finally declared it dead, and lifted it on the end of the hoe. I flinched backwards. “BESSIE!” he said, half-laughing. “I’m NOT going to THROW the snake at you!” “I don’t believe you,” I said, and scooted across the patio and into the house as quickly as possible. I got a small box out of the garage and the packing tape out of my desk, and tossed them out on the patio. Fred put the snake in the box and then went to the houses on either side of us to tell our neighbors what he’d found. I thought really, really, REALLY long and hard about going out, putting the snake in another box, and hiding it so that when Fred came back he’d find an empty box with no snake anywhere to be seen. And then I could act all terrified and make noises about how “There’s a badly hurt snake out there, and he’s really pissed off at YOU!” In the end, though, I didn’t because I didn’t want to get that damn close to the snake who, after all, COULD just be playing dead and leap up and sink his fangs into my eyeball. When Fred was done talking to the neighbors, he sealed the box up with tape, and put it in the trash can. And that was our exciting Saturday night. He said, with pictures. * * * The spud made it to Rhode Island just fine, though the phone rang at about 3:00 our time, and it was her on the other end. “Mom, you were WRONG!” she said. “I DO have to change planes, and I only have fifteen minutes!” “Fifteen minutes until the plane leaves?” “No, fifteen minutes until it starts boarding!” “Do you know if you have to change concourses?” I asked. “No, I only have to go two gates down. But we’re still moving!” “You only have to go two gates down the concourse and the plane doesn’t start boarding for another fifteen minutes?” “Yes! Do I have enough time?” “Yes. They’ll begin boarding in 15 minutes, but they usually board for 20 or 25 minutes. You have plenty of time.” “Oh. Okay.” “And if you have any problems, ask a woman in uniform for help. Or call me back.” “Okay.” She sounded marginally calmer. “If I don’t hear back from you, I’ll assume you got on the plane okay.” We hung up, and I didn’t hear back from her until she landed in Rhode Island, and all was well. Thank god. * * * The kitten section. I’ve gotten several comments and emails about the fact that the kittens are going to be spayed and neutered at the age of 9 weeks. The vet that works with the shelter will spay and neuter as soon as kittens reach 2 pounds; it’s the shelter’s policy to do so, so the kittens can be adopted out as soon as possible. The shelter used to adopt out cats without having them spayed or neutered first – in fact, Miz Poo wasn’t spayed when we got her – but even though people were signing forms swearing to have their cats fixed as soon as they hit 6 months, they weren’t following through, and at some point the shelter made it a policy not to adopt out un-spayed/ neutered cats. So, that’s why. If you look very closely, you can see the tip of Snoopy’s tongue sticking out. I think he was in the middle of washing his face when something distracted him. Edgar looks guilty, like we caught him snuggling with Snoopy when he wasn’t supposed to, doesn’t he? That Flossie is just so damn cute. Awww, what a cute little Peanut! Edgar the sleepy. Flossie has decided that Edgar needs some cleanin’. Edgar would just like to sleep, please. Peanut just woke up. Can you tell? ]]>

banana bread, and then because that only requires 3 bananas and I had 4, I used the last one to make banana nut breakfast cookies. While those were cooking, I made a batch of blueberry bran muffins, which I’ve been meaning to make and freeze so I’d have something good on hand for breakfast. Then when I was typing up the recipes, I realized that I’d used 3/4 cup of bran flakes in the muffin part of the recipe, when the recipe actually calls for 1 3/4 cup. I made this same recipe a few weeks ago and used 3/4 cup of bran flakes then, and the muffins came out okay, but I decided that I’d use up the last of the buttermilk and make a second batch following the exact recipe, and see if there was any big difference. When the first batch of muffins were cooking, I cleaned up the kitchen and took a break for lunch. Once lunch was finished, I made pecan squares, because Fred’s office manager made them around Christmas time two or three years ago, and he’s been kind of craving them ever since. Since I was using a smaller pan than the 15×10 the recipe called for, I had to keep an eye on the pecan squares while they were cooking. While the pecan squares were cooking, I made the second batch of blueberry bran muffins, then finished cleaning up the kitchen and started the dishwasher. The pecan squares finally finished, so I set that pan on a wire rack to cool, put the muffins in to cook, and collapsed on the couch to watch an episode of Oprah. This might be a new diet for me, because after spending all day cooking that shit, I had no desire to eat any of it. I did try the pecan squares, though, and they were pretty damn good. Fred also tried the pecan squares, and then said “This might be a weird thing to say, but they’re really sweet, aren’t they?” And I gave him a look and said “They’re composed of corn syrup, sugar, margarine, and pecans. You expected them to be salty?”

* * * Currently reading: One Shot, by Lee Child. LOVE that Jack Reacher. Finished the night before last: Magical Thinking, by Augusten Burroughs. I have to say, I enjoyed this book far more than I enjoyed Running With Scissors. It made me guffaw like a goon more than a few times. * * * I went to Hallmark the other day, because Father’s Day is this weekend, and I needed to get Father’s Day cards for my father, Fred’s father, and his stepfather. I had picked out cards and was standing in line to check out, when the woman standing behind the counter (who sounded EXACTLY like Shonna from Family Plots) said “Did you see that our ladder frames are on sale for $7.99?” And I so desperately wanted to say “Did I see? Yes. Do I care? No.”, but instead I just smiled and said “Yes I did.” I love the Hallmark store, because they have the BEST cards, but I hate going in there, because they invariably are all “Oh, did you see! The candles are on sale! This ugly jewelry is on sale! These overpriced purses are on sale!”, and I feel harassed, because I DO NOT go into Hallmark for anything other than cards, and I have to smile and wait for them to go away. I got a card for my dad that made me laugh, though. The front. The inside. Like I wrote when I signed it, “I should be talking, huh?” * * * The spud is leaving California for Rhode Island in a few hours. Her plane leaves at 11:00 California time and arrives in Rhode Island eight hours later. It appears, from the itinerary, to be a nonstop flight, which surprises me. I never would have guessed that there’s a direct flight from the OC to Providence, RI. She’ll be spending a few weeks with her father and his wife, and then she’ll be going up to Maine for a few more weeks. Ah, the life of the world traveller. Did I mention that we had to put the smack down on the spud? In the five days after she arrived in California, she sent and received almost 800 text messages. Not only that, but when I signed her up for the 1000 text messages per month, it apparently didn’t “take”, and when Fred called T-Mobile to see what was going on, they said they could sign her up beginning that day, but couldn’t make it retroactive to cover the 800 messages she’d already sent and received. “Let me get this straight,” Fred said at one point. “If she sends a text message, she gets charged for it, and the person she sends it to gets charged for it as well?” Long pause. “Well, that’s quite the money-maker for you, isn’t it?” Despite the fact that Verizon was running an unlimited text messaging special at the time, the T-Mobile customer service rep couldn’t be convinced to sign us up for unlimited text messaging, since they apparently don’t offer that. (Verizon’s not offering it at the moment, either. I guess it was just a limited promotion. Hopefully they’ll be offering it again in December when we’re ready to dump T-Mobile.) Anyway, Fred called the spud’s cell phone, and she didn’t answer. He tried calling another zillion times, and kept getting her voicemail. I suggested that he leave her a message asking her to call him when she was in a quiet place, and ten minutes later I got a text message: Am I in trouble? Heh. So she called Fred, and he told her she needed to calm down with the text messaging, and then I told her that she could actually talk to her friends on the phone, and if she talks to them at night or on the weekends, the minutes are completely free. Lordy. Cell phones come in handy, but they sure can be a pain in the ass, eh? * * * The section about the kittens. Well, we weighed the kittens last night and Oy – the lightest – is just under 2 pounds. The rest are over two pounds with Snoopy, aka Porky, at almost 2 1/2 pounds. I called the vet this morning to make the appointment for spaying and neutering. I was not terribly dismayed to find that they couldn’t get them in right away, to tell the truth. They’re set for the week after next. Tuesday they’re going to do three of the boys, and Thursday they’re going to do Mia, Flossie, and the other boy. I thought they’d keep them overnight, but the woman I spoke to said that they’d be able to come back home that same night. ::sob:: Mah babies are growin’ up! Oy has developed the MOST IRRITATING HABIT EVER. He’s started climbing up my back to my shoulder so he can bat at and try to eat my hair, then he jumps down and runs off and comes back a while later to do it all again. It’s mostly okay, because he’s the lightest kitten, but Snoopy saw him do it and gave it a try, and I almost passed out from the pain of him sinking his claws into my back and trying to pull his porky ass up my back. I think I’m going to have to start sitting with my back against the wall. Tell me he’s not smiling. Happy Oy. I think he just finished eating. Mia lays on her belly so those damn babies can’t get to the milk supply. * * * In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the Booger stalks toNIIIGHT. ]]>