reading: Nights of Rain and Stars, by Maeve Binchy.
Finished last night: Don’t Eat This Book, by Morgan Spurlock. It was a good book, and I swear reading about how cows are fed ground-up pieces of dead cow, among other nasty things, made me gag and want to become a vegetarian.
That, or at least start getting all our meat from the free-range farm where we used to get our chickens.
And Fred will scoff at this, but I’ve put the Great American Detox Diet on my wish list. Written by Morgan Spurlock’s fiancee, it’s apparently got lots of recipes in it, and I can always use more recipes for vegetable-type stuff. We tend to eat the same vegetables over and over again, in the same way, and I’m looking for something new.
Got a good veggie recipe? Leave it in the comments! (Nothing with peppers. I hate peppers.)
Oh, and a good veggie recipe that we had over the weekend, is the one for Three Bean Salad. I made it because Fred found the recipe online. I wasn’t looking forward to it, because I hadn’t had it since I was a kid, but surprisingly enough, it was pretty damn good.
* * *
I subscribe to too many damn magazines. I’ve been slowly coming to this conclusion over the last few months as I’ve been getting magazines in the mail and then letting them sit in the magazine rack by the couch for a month or longer before getting around to reading them. I finally decided last night to reduce the number of magazines I get by cancelling my subscriptions to the ones I don’t really care for anymore.
So I’m canceling my subscriptions to Cosmo (god, that magazine annoys me), Shape (Self is better), and Oxygen (which I never subscribed to, but the magazine I was subscribing to (I can’t recall the name of it) went out of business, and I got the subscription to Oxygen as a consolation prize). There are others, but I can’t think of them at the moment. I already let my subscriptions to Readers Digest and Glamour lapse last year, and I think I’ll probably let my subscription to TV Guide fall by the wayside, too. If I want to know what’s coming on TV, I can check online.
That leaves me with People, US, Marie Claire, Jane (which I might cancel as well; it annoys me sometimes, too), Self, Consumer Reports, and O. Oh, and Playboy (the Playboy Advisor fascinates me). Still too many magazines, but at least they’re ones that I like.
Yes, I subscribe to both US and People. I almost always get People on Friday, then US arrives on Saturday. Usually by the time I get through People and read US, I feel like I’ve already read a lot of the same stories twice. I can’t help it, though, I love both of them. I finally cancelled Entertainment Weekly some time ago, because three entertainment-based magazines is too much, even for me.
And then Stephen King began writing columns for EW. Which wasn’t enough to make me re-subscribe, but I was happy to find that you can read his columns – at least the last four or five –
online.
God, I love the internet.
* * *
Fred’s pretty antsy about his surgery tomorrow. (If you didn’t know he was having surgery, you can read the story
here) He’s a little annoyed that I’m not worried about it as well, but I know he’s going to be just fine and the worst part is going to be the two weeks after, when he’s recovering and has to keep his arm in a sling.
He keeps thinking of things I’ll have to do for him, like wipe his butt (as if he’d even let me. Not that I WANT to, but I could do it if I had to.) and cut his food for him.
He’s not supposed to drive until he’s seen the doctor on Tuesday, so he’s going to work a couple of partial days from home. Or so he plans – I half expect him to spend all weekend and the first part of next week in a drugged daze on the couch, fending off the advances of the kitties who love him so.
I will, of course, let y’all know how it goes.
* * *
The spud apparently hit the mailbox this morning and put a nice scratch in the side of my car. I haven’t seen it myself – she needed to get to school, and I wasn’t going to get up and get dressed to look at it, when I can see it and wail and gnash my teeth just as well when she gets home.
She’s been halfheartedly looking for a job up until now. Now she really NEEDS one, because she needs to pay to have that scratch repaired, and her ten dollar a week allowance ain’t going to cut it.
Anyone in the Madison area want to hire a teenager? As long as it doesn’t require backing your car out of the driveway, she’ll do a good job.
* * *
From my comments:
i also giggled about “smoking chickens” because i am like 11. and my husband and i were looking at your photos last night and i told him that mister boogers real name is not mister boogers and when he asked me what his real name was, i couldn’t remember. how sad is that? it will probably come to me in a flash while i am brushing my teeth 2 weeks from now or something.
His “legal” name is Stanley. It’s okay that you didn’t remember, because I always have to stop and think about it. Also, when Liz emails me and asks me how Stanley is doing, I always immediately think “Who the fuck is Stanley?”
I recently had a chance to watch a few kittens for friends who were going on their honeymoon for a few weeks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t because I didn’t want them to be out socializing with my cats. I was worried about them possibly carrying Feline Leukemia or whatever it is that you call it. But I see that you let the kittens out with your cats. Is it okay as long as my cats have had their shots? I know it’s probably a dumb question, but I’d like to know just in case this situation ever comes up again (like if I can convince my husband to let us foster).
That is an excellent question, and I think the answer is that as long as your cats are up-to-date on their shots, they shouldn’t be able to catch anything life-threatening from other cats. BUT I would hate to tell you that, and then be wrong, so I’d suggest you check with your vet. And anyone reading who knows otherwise, feel free to post in the comments!
I know you’ve answered this question a bazillion times. What kind of digital camera do you have? Your pictures always come out so crystal clear.
I did answer this in the comments, but I thought I’d post it here again, in case anyone else has the same question. It’s a
Sony DSC-V1. Back at Christmas time, we were considering getting another camera, but after doing some looking around, decided we just didn’t like any as much as the one we already had… so we got a second one, so we can each have our own camera! My only real gripe with the camera is that hesitation while you’re waiting for the flash to be ready to go again, but that’s a pretty minor gripe.
By the way, thank you to everyone who suggested different cell phones last week (or was it the week before?). We’ve pretty much decided we’re going to go with the Virgin Mobile prepaid phones, and see how that works for us.
Speaking of cell phones, the spud came into our room the other night and held up a coin.
“Here’s a dime,” she said.
“For what?” Fred said.
“Text messaging. Someone text messaged me and I TM’d them back.”
Heh. Probably her return message was “I can’t TM. Stop TMing me. Stop, damn you! You’re costing me a nickel every time you message me!”
* * *
Rambo is turning out to be a bit of a pig. He was in the kitchen the other day when I was making dinner, and Fred made the mistake of giving him a small piece of chicken. Now, whenever he sees us anywhere near the kitchen, Rambo runs over and stands in the middle of the floor and howls his little head off.
Yesterday, Fred offered Rambo a sniff of the knife he’d used to make a peanut butter sandwich, and Rambo LICKED the peanut butter.
We let them stay out running around the house for about three and a half hours last night, and while Rambo pretty much stuck close to me, Jodie would go wandering off, and we’d say “Where the hell did she go?”, and a few minutes later she’d come moseying into the living room. I don’t know if she was exploring, or going upstairs to eat or use the litter box, or what, but she always came back to the living room, so I wasn’t too worried.
I did only get one picture of her yesterday, though. Because she kept wandering off! I need to concentrate on getting more pictures of her; she’s so damn gorgeous.
Pretty princess in the sun.
Kitten avec peanut butter-y knife.
Rambo checks his fan mail.
Showing off his stripes.
Miz Poo looks pissily at those kittens, who keep insisting upon invading her space.
Rambo snuggles. If that ain’t a Mister Boogers look on his face, I don’t know what is.
Forget those $5 toys. What all cats really PREFER is the milk jug ring.
I love that Spanky’s sitting in the background, watching Rambo clean himself.
The kittens are Spanky’s favorite form of entertainment. Just as long as they don’t get too close!
He’s starvin’. STARVIN’. He’s a starvin’ Marvin.]]>