Month: October 2005

do have feelings one way or the other about Kirsten Dunst. Hmm.

* * * Speaking of movies, we watched The Interpreter on Saturday. That is one long fucking movie. I think if they’d really tried, they could have cut about half an hour off it and lost nothing important. It came out, while we were watching the movie, that I think that Sean Penn is repulsive. Fred thought that was hilarious, but at the point where it seemed that Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman’s characters might hook up, I shuddered and said “If he kisses her, we are turning this movie off RIGHT NOW.” I loathe it when two characters with zero, zilch, zip chemistry end up sleeping with each other for the sole reason that one is male and one is female. And I like Nicole Kidman and I loathe Sean Penn and didn’t want to see him rubbing his liver lips all over her. Anyway. If you skip the movie, you’re not missing much. * * * Saturday night after Fred had gone to bed, the spud knocked on my door (“Come and knock on our door! We’ll be waiting for you! Where the kisses are hers and hers and his, Three’s Company too!”) and we got into this long discussion about how her boyfriend wanted her to get a formal dress for Homecoming and she didn’t want to spend that much money on a dress for ONE NIGHT, that was stupid, and she just wanted to wear a skirt and shirt that she had, GOD! “So. Wait. You’re going to Homecoming?” I said. “Yes. Gosh!” she said. (Okay, she didn’t say “Gosh!”, I made that up. Hee.) “Well, we’ll PAY for a dress for you for homecoming,” I said, remembering last year and the whole “What the fuck should the spud wear?” fiasco wherein all you haters accused me of trying to dress her in middle-aged old-lady dresses (nevermind that it was true, shaddup), and she ended up wearing a denim skirt and it turned out that things were a leeetle more dressy than that. So even though I offered to buy her a dress, she kept insisting that that was too much money to spend on a dress for one night, and then she came and showed me a few skirts and I picked the nicer one, and asked what she would wear as a top, and she said she didn’t know, and I imagined her wearing her Something-or-Other Brewery t-shirt and her ratty sneakers. But anyway, she went to bed and then Sunday morning I got up and discussed the whole situation with Fred, and when the spud finally rolled out of bed, I said “We can get you something nicer than what you have, that isn’t a formal prom-like dress, you know.” And she said “Well, I wouldn’t know where to look!” and I said “Well, I would GO shopping with you!” and she said “Uh. No” in that kind of “I’m saying no, but I might mean yes, and probably what I will do is wait until two days before Homecoming to let you know that I changed my mind, I really DO want a new dress, let’s go do some last-minute shopping! Fun!” way. So I said “I will BUY you a dress for Homecoming, but if you want me to, you need to tell me so RIGHT NOW, instead of waiting until two days before and telling me you DO want a dress.” And she said “Okay. I want a dress.” I said “We’ll go shopping tomorrow after school.” Then ten minutes later I came to my senses and realized that it would be much better to begin the shopping right away, because if we had a hard time finding something she liked, we’d at least have that much more time to shop. So I said “Let’s leave at 12:30, go to Kohl’s, and then to the mall.” So we left at 12:30, and Kohl’s didn’t have a damn thing. I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did. We headed for the mall, then ended up stopping on the way at Dress Barn (give me a break, I’ve never been in there, I had no idea what it was like), Marshall’s (ditto on the never being inside. I assumed it was like a nice department store. It was not.), and Ross Dress for Less (ditto again.). We got to the mall a few minutes after it opened, and since we were parked close to McRae’s, we went in there first. There were a couple of possibles, but nothing that really struck our fancy, so we walked up the mall to Dillard’s. I knew Dillard’s would be a good place to look because I’ve been through there and have seen the formal section, and at least it would be a good place to start. We must have spent an hour or hour and a half looking through the racks. The spud didn’t want to wear anything with spaghetti straps, and the problem was that anything with sleeves looked old-lady. She found a black skirt she liked, and so then the mission was to find a top to go with it. She must have tried on ten tops, and liked none of them, and then she found a camisole top she wanted to try on. She went and tried it on with the skirt, and I went in to check it out, and oh my GOD, I almost burst into tears because she looked so GROWN-UP! MUH BAYBEE IS ALL GROWED UP! We decided that was perfect for Homecoming, and so we bought the skirt and top. Then we went upstairs where she tried on three or four pairs of shoes and decided on the pair that was most comfortable and went the best with her dress. THEN it was over to the lingerie section where she had to try on three or four strapless bras before finding one that would work. All together, it took about two and a half hours to find a dress, shoes, and bra. Not a bad deal at all, considering how damn cute she looks (and keep in mind, this picture doesn’t do her or the dress justice at ALL): I’m going to make her an appointment to have her hair colored, since her roots are showin’, and probably make an appointment to have her hair did the day of the dance too. Hell, maybe I’ll even take her to get a manicure the day of, too. I think we did pretty good, for two people who don’t shop for clothes much, and who have never bought a formal-like dress before. * * * Look who’s back! Saturday afternoon – after I’d been to the pet store and filled out the paperwork to adopt Tom Cullen née Barrett/ Bear – the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID (I ALWAYS look at the caller ID) and saw the name of the shelter I volunteer for. When I answered, it was the shelter manager. She told me that Sugarbutt (only she called him “Sad Eyes”, since that’s his real name and all) had been adopted Friday night, and the guy who’d adopted him brought him back to the petstore because he was dripping blood from his butt. The adoption counselor working that day took him over to the vet, and that’s where he was currently, and the manager wanted to know if I could take him once the vet was done with him. OF COURSE. I mean, I know that I’d agreed with Fred that we wouldn’t have any fosters ’til Tom Cullen got older, but I still consider myself Sugarbutt’s foster mother (and the one who loves him more than anyone in the whole wide world), and I didn’t even hesitate before I told her I definitely would. Didn’t even check with Fred. But he understood and didn’t even think of giving me a hard time about it. So I went to the vet’s around six (the adoption counselor/ shelter co-manager had called and told me he’d probably be ready around six), and ended up waiting until almost 7:00, because the vet was so backed up and trying to get caught up. It turned out that there was a lot of bacteria in his fecal sample and the vet said that it looked to her like coccydia, but they hadn’t found any coccydia in the sample. They gave me antibiotics to give him, and then brought him out, and I was so thrilled to see him I practically ran in place. (The woman working the front desk went on and on about what a sweetheart he was. And I kept squealing “I KNOW! He’s so sweet, isn’t he?”) I called Fred on the way home to get the kitten room ready for Sugarbutt, and when I got home with him, Fred took him right up to the room. When we let him out of the carrier, we had a ten-minute discussion as to whether or not it was really Sugarbutt, because I SWEAR he had grown in the four days since we’d last seen him, and he seemed darker than we remembered. Once I got a good look at his face, though, I knew for sure it was him. I swear he got bigger, even though the paper from the vet said that he weighed exactly the same as the last time he was there. He’s longer and has less of a pot belly, I swear he does. And, because I couldn’t bear to have him in the room alone with only sporadic visits from us, we put Tom Cullen back in the room with him and we’re giving him a prophylactic dose of Albon so he doesn’t come down with Coccydia too. They seem happy, though they do try to sneak out every time I open the door. PS: I have yet to see anything like blood on Sugarbutt’s butt. I’m not sure what was going on, but apparently it passed. “Hey! Who’s the new guy? He seems really familiar!” Almost looks like an advertisement. “We like to use Arm & Hammer Multi-Cat litter! Mom says it cuts down on the stank, so it doesn’t smell like boiled ass in here!” “Me. And my. Shaaaaaaaaadow! Strolling down the ave. uh. nooooo.” I adore this picture. It’s a good one of him. Also, CRAZY EYES! There’s a new cat movie uploaded, direct YouTube link here. It’s Tom Cullen in the grass, with Spanky. You can tell he doesn’t like the feel of the grass under his toes, but he’s so curious about all the smells that he can’t help but walk around on the grass. All of today’s uploaded pictures are hither. * * * Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: Poor Stanley. All he wants to do it play, and none of the big cats will play with him. 2002: That’s a lot of poop to scoop. 2001: “I don’t like it,” he said haughtily. “It’s not even REAL lemon juice. It’s citric acid!” 2000: Now I just have to decide what to spend it on. 1999: When I got to the top of the stairs I found Tubby huddled there soaking wet, and Mr. Fancypants circling him in a hostile manner. ]]>

1. The best picture you have ever taken of something/someone This is one of my favorite pictures, ever, of the spud. She had just woken up from her nap, and I came in with the camera, and took several pictures of her, and she started getting fussy because I kept snapping PICTURES instead of freeing her from her PRISON. You’ll note that she’s holding onto a pacifier, which is attached to a ribbon, which is attached to her shirt. She love her pacifiers fiercely when she was little. We didn’t call them “binkies”, though, we called them “rah-rahs”. 2. The best picture of yourself & why you think it is. My favorite picture of myself, ever. I don’t know that it’s necessarily the best picture of me, but it’s certainly my favorite. Christmas day, my Junior year of high school, and a bunch of us were hanging out at our friend Norm’s house. I just look so damn young and happy, it always makes me smile. 3. A favorite picture that someone else took/painted/doodled My parents and my nephew, Brian, on the last day the spud and I were in Hawaii. Debbie snapped it, using one of the waterproof disposable cameras I took to Hawaii with me. I think I was laying under the trees trying not to get sunburned, and the spud was snoozing on a blanket on the beach. Seeing this picture (I have it hanging over my desk) always makes me want to go back to Hawaii, even though I was miserable much of the time while we were there.

* * * In my comments yesterday, Martha asked for more information on the cube I mentioned. This is what it looks like: It’s basically made of nylon and wire, and there are nylon tassels hanging from the top. I got two cubes (I had to toss one because it was covered in cat poo and I didn’t want to scrub it down) in the cat section at Target. They were in a pack of two for $9.98, I think. I’ve also seen them at Wal-Mart in single packs for around $4 each. I cannot tell you how much the cats love this toy. It’s light and moves easily, so they can get in and push on the side and basically “roll” it around. Like I said yesterday, the kittens loved to roll it from one side of the room to the other, and once we were keeping the door to the kitten room open all the time, I’d occasionally find it in the hallway. I looked online to see if I could find them, but had no luck. The label on the top says “Sport Pet”, if that helps at all. Oh, and I forgot to mention that they’re pop-up cubes, so in theory if you wanted to pack them away for a while – if, say, your cats got bored with them, or for moving – you could fold them flat to do so. * * * So we were laying in bed last night, and I was harassing Fred about keeping Bear. This is nothing new, I did the exact same thing with all the other foster kittens we’ve had in the past, especially Jodie and Rambo. His response is always “You promised you wouldn’t beg to keep any of them!” and “What’s that you’re saying? That you never want to have any foster kittens ever again?” “What would we name him?” Fred said. “If we were going to keep him.” This is nothing new, either. We thought of new names for Rambo, too – the most popular being “Worm” and the second most popular being “Gollum.” We started throwing out names that started with “S”, just to keep in the tradition, since all of our other cats have names that start with “S”. Not that we ever CALL them by their names, but still. “Satchmo!” Fred said. “Uh, no. Satchel!” I said, thinking of Satchel Pooch, the dog from the “Get Fuzzy” strip. “Uh. NO,” Fred said. “Stevie! We could name him after Stevie the blind wonder cat!” “Cute,” I said, pondering. “But Stevie was a pain and Bear is a sweet little monkey.” I thought some more, then giggled. “Shalimar!” I said. Fred laughed. “That’s a good one!” Silence fell as we both thought some more. “Tom Cullen!” Fred said. You know how something that’s not THAT funny hits you just right, and you start laughing so hard you come thisclose to passing out? That’s what I did when Fred said that. “M-O-O-N!” Fred said. “That spells Tom Cullen!” I flailed around and laughed, gasping for air. Under the covers, the kitten in question became alarmed and ran out from under the covers and jumped off the bed. “These are our cats,” Fred said. “Spot, Spanky, Scrappy, Stanley… and Tom Cullen.” “Man,” I said when I could breathe again. “That’s a good name. It’d be fun to call the vet and say ‘I’d like to make an appointment for my cat’ and when they said ‘What’s his name?’, we could say ‘Tom Cullen. But we call him Moon.’ and see if they got it.” We went on to talk some more about other things, and I tried a few more times to convince him that we should keep Bear, even going so far as to say “Mister Boogers likes him so much! No one else will play with him!”, but it was no good, the man would not be persuaded to add a little kitteny goodness to the permanent household. Hmph. Bear hung out with me for a while, and when I went to put him in the kitten room, the spud asked if he could come in her room for a little while. I told her to put him in the kitten room before she went to sleep, and I went to bed. This morning, I was awakened by cold little kittens toes on my shoulder. Fred was standing over me holding Bear. “Two conditions,” he said. “Huh?” I said, and yanked an earplug out of my right ear. “I have two conditions,” he said. “What’s that?” “First of all, his name has to be Tom Cullen.” “Of course.” “And secondly, no more foster cats until he’s old enough to not get sick from every little illness they bring into the house.” “Okay,” I said. “Kitten season is mostly over for the year. He’ll be old enough for us to start bringing kittens into the house when it starts up again next Spring.” “Then I guess he’s ours!” Fred said. The shelter manager called me a sucker when I told her we wanted to adopt him. Heh. Of course, if I’d had my way we would have adopted the first five, the second two, and all four of the most current batch. I guess it’s probably a good thing that cooler heads prevail in the And3rson household. Meet Tom Cullen And3rson: “Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I’m going to sneak up on him and scare him!” When I talk about his crazy eyes, this is what I mean. Big, round, crazy psycho eyes. He’s very clean. We let the cats outside for a little while yesterday. Mister Boogers kept an eye on Tom Cullen (hee!). I guess we need to get Tom Cullen his own collar. We don’t want him running away! He doesn’t need much room. He just wants a little of the Poo warmth. Playing in the bubble wrap. Making himself just a little TOO much at home. All of today’s uploaded pics are here. Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: I’m pretty certain “Never going to fucking go hiking with him EVER A-FUCKING-GAIN” crossed my mind at least once. 2002: Hotel room so big/ roomy, spacious, perfect. Butt/ is what it smells like. 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry. 1999: Don’t get your bippies in an uproar, though; we’re not trying to get pregnant. ]]>

* * * From my comments (some of these are from several months ago): You know something weird. I am trying to figure our what to call you!! I will be talking and something will come up in conversation and I will want to tell something you said or did and I will say “my friend Rob…..” and then I stop myself realizing you are not technically my friend seeing how we have never met or even spoken…but it feels like it. Weird. So, I have to back up and say “the lady whose online journal I read” and it just doesn’t feel right. It feels like I am slighting this friendship I have with your writings. Anyone else have this problem? (Just feel like I know you so well!!) I find that amusing. I suggest you refer to me as “Queen of the Universe Robyn And3rson”. If enough people refer to me that way, it’ll surely come true someday, right? Seriously though, I have that same situation. I’ll want to tell my mother about something I read in someone’s journal, and so I just say “Someone I know online…” and tell her about what I read. She always kind of makes this skeptical “You can’t know someone from online, because it’s all voodoo!” face, but I don’t care, it’s just a way to get the information across. If I’ve actually emailed with someone more than once, I’d probably say “My friend So-and-So”, though I guess “My internet friend So-and-So” would be more accurate. I’d be interested to hear how the rest of y’all deal with that sort of situation. The hard wood floor guy who installed at my house said to use water and vinegar to clean the floor. He said that ammonia would dull the finish. Well, crap. That’s right, and that’s what I’m supposed to be using – vinegar, not ammonia. Which would explain why my floors look so dull lately! I have no idea why I always mix up ammonia and vinegar in my mind. Maybe because they’re both clearish liquids with strong odors? Since you have a few cats (not including the foster kitties), I was wondering if any of them have had fleas. If yes, did you or Fred or the Spud get bitten? I think my apartment might have fleas (because of my landlord’s cats), and they’re having a big ol’ feast on me. I have spray for the furniture and carpet, but is there anything I should get for myself? We’ve actually never had a flea problem, and the foster kittens are always treated with Advantage before we even get them (and treated every 30 days thereafter), so they’re (thank god!) not bringing fleas into the house. If anyone’s ever had to deal with fleas, feel free to leave suggestions in the comments. Just read your posts from last week. I must say …sounds like way too much cat box cleaning! Have you ever heard of the litter robot? We have one and it is truly the greatest invention ever made!! I bought my oldest son one for Christmas last year. (for his cat, not him) Literally…..with 2 cats , I only have to empty mine once a week! I hadn’t heard of the Litter Robot, but our cats are so weird about their litter box that I’d hesitate to bring a new setup into the house. And it doesn’t really take all that much time. Even when there were two litter boxes for the foster kittens (now just one for Bear) and the one litter box for our cats, it takes only about five minutes – if that – to clean them all. Our litter box setup is pretty easy – just dump from one litter box into the other, through the strainer, dump the clumps into a small trash bag – so I don’t really have any complaints about it. We just got those pop up red cubes for our (6 yr old) cats and they love them more than I thought they would. Are they a hit with the kittens, too? The kittens ADORE the pop up cubes! Well, I guess I should say “cube”, since we only have one now. I had to toss the second one, ’cause it got too much dried poop on it, and I wasn’t up for scrubbing it down. The kittens loved to get in it and “walk” it from one side of the room to the other, and once we started opening the kitten room door all day long, we’d occasionally find the cube down the hallway. The first time Mister Boogers went into the kitten room and saw the cube, he jumped into it and just sat there with a grumpy look like he was thinking “How come those little brats get ALL the cool toys?” Okay, I know this is probably going to be a stupid question but — is there a potential medical problem with Callie trying to nurse off of Smitty’s weiner? I.e. could it cause one of them some sort of injury or disease? There’s the potential of damage to the penis (heh – it bugs Fred when I say “penis”, so I try to say it as often as possible. Penis! Penis! Penis!), according to the shelter manager. She had a certain name for the damage, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was. Robyn-I have to tell you I did a websearch the other day to make sure I was treating my little orphan kitties correctly. The page I came across was very informative and I found that I was doing the right things. THEN…..I got to the part where the woman said that she liked simulate actions like the mother cat. I TOTALLY draw the line at licking them on the top of their heads and carrying them in my mouth. I swear she said she did that!!!!!! Talk about being grossed out! I would rather be seen on tv talking about the image of Elvis being on my freezer, (which by the way isn’t). I love my kitties, but I think that goes a little too far into the kitty lovin realm. What do you think? Yeah, I think that’s going a little too far, bless her heart. Though I’ll admit, I’ve always wondered what Mister Boogers would do if I went over and licked him on top of the head. I’d never do it because BLEH, can you imagine the amount of cat hair I’d end up with in my mouth?, but still I’d just like to see the look on his face. I imagine he’d be bewildered. I can’t imagine carrying a kitten around in my mouth, either. I’d be afraid I’d hurt them! On a semi-related note (cat-related) I thought you might enjoy this quote. It’s from The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, the book I’m currently reading that I LOVE. “The sidewalk is crowded with lunchtime shoppers; they avoid bumping into one another without seeming to look, as if they’re covered with cat whiskers.” I like that.

* * * Several people, a few months ago, asked if I was going to put the Flossie yawning picture on t-shirts. I finally got around to that, and you can get them here. All items are marked up by one dollar, and any profits will go straight to the no-kill cat shelter I volunteer for. If you ever see a picture you’d like to have on a t-shirt, sweatshirt, journal, mousepad, or anything else CafePress offers, don’t hesitate to ask. It’s pretty easy to upload the picture and create the item on CafePress, and you know me – I aim to please. * * * Bear isn’t limping at all. He’s absolutely fine, and he’s got his crazy eyes back (when he’s very excited, his eyes are perfectly round, and he looks like he’s going to actually bounce off the walls). I was going to let him stay out of the kitten room last night, but he moves around so much in his sleep that I knew there was no way it was going to work, so around midnight I took him into his room and shut the door. I didn’t hear him meow at all, so I think he settled down and went right to sleep. This morning I walked into the kitchen and saw Mister Boogers standing by the back door, looking out. Bear – who follows me from room to room – saw Mister Boogers too, and went over to look out the back door as well. Then Bear turned and gave Mister Boogers an adoring look, and my heart cracked open and leaked out my belly button. Because it was the CUTEST. THING. EVER. If I’d had the camera, you’d be looking at pictures of the cuteness right now, I guarantee it. Bear has clearly realized that Mister Boogers is the only cat who’ll play with him – the others hiss and run away like the big wimps they are – and last night they spent the entire evening playing in the dining room. There’s a big piece of bubble wrap on the floor in there, and Bear thinks it’s the best toy EVER. If I think of it, I’ll try to get a picture of him playing in the bubble wrap later. Yesterday afternoon Fred went out back to read, and took Mister Boogers and Miz Poo with him. Bear looked out the back door and could see everyone out there, and he started howling like a sad little monkey, ’cause he wanted to have fun too. Fred kept an eye on him, and he pretty much stayed on the patio because he didn’t like the feel of grass on his feet. I didn’t get any pictures of that, either – the camera was charging – but maybe later I’ll take him out back and snap some. Callie thinks America’s Funniest Home Videos is funNY. “You SAID he was going bye-bye. You made me KISS HIM on the head. WHAT is he still doing here?” He waits for her to go to sleep, then he sneaks onto the bed with her. And then he snuggles with her, and she wakes up warm and happy and momentarily forgets that he needs to be smacked on the head. Remember how I mentioned that he follows me around like a little puppy? I left to do some errands, and he followed me to the door. When I got back half an hour later, he was sitting on the desk by the door waiting for me. It probably didn’t hurt that there was a comfy pile of fleece sitting there for him to lay on. “Fear my SCARY CLAWS!” * * * Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: Bringing home Mister Boogers. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: All about the cats. 1999: I certainly am bitching a lot today, aren’t I? ]]>

You Should Get a MFA (Masters of Fine Arts)

You’re a blooming artistic talent, even if you aren’t quite convinced.
You’d make an incredible artist, photographer, or film maker. I think not. I have no l33t artistic skillz. I hate those stupid tests. I always think I’m going to find out some deep, hidden truth about myself, and then I get “Oh! You should be an artist! You’re the artistic type!” Bah. * * * I ended up making a last-minute trip to Wal-Mart yesterday. Not because I particularly care for Wal-Mart, but when I was there last week returning the security monitor I’d bought (the one I got to keep an eye on Callie back before we were letting them out to run around the house during the day) I started looking around and bought a couple of inexpensive fleece baby blankets to sew together to make a cat pillow. (Shaddup. I’d ended up stealing several cat beds for the kitten rooms, and there was no bed in the corner of the room where Spot likes to sleep. Spot is old and decrepit and deserves to be comfortable. He DOES.) At the same time I bought a couple of cat beds that looked interesting and, according to the package (but then, you can never really trust the package, can you?) they “hold heat” and cats like them because cats like warm things. So I bought the cat beds and put one temporarily in the corner of the room where Spot sleeps, and the other downstairs near the window. And the one downstairs was a huge hit with the kittens, because it’s a light bed and they could crawl under it and pretend it was a tent, or they could get on their sides and kick at the bed, and move it across the room to wedge it under the couch where it would stay for days and days because I never did quite get around to pulling it out and smoothing it down so it would fit many kitties. The problem with the downstairs bed is that the kittens were kind of ripping it apart, and there were bed guts strewn across the floor. Oh, this is what the bed looks like: See the little piece of bed gut over there to the left? Anyway, the cat beds stayed on the floor, and the baby blankets I’d bought to sew together stayed on top of my dresser where I’d set them when I got home from Wal-Mart that day, and a week or so passed. Spot was sleeping on the cat bed in the corner of the room, but he shot me very clear “I’m only sleeping on this stupid thing because this is where I sleep, and this is where this ugly cat bed is, and don’t think FOR ONE SECOND I like this stupid bed!” Finally, Sunday I decided to go ahead and make the baby-blanket cat bed, and I spread the blankets out on the bed to see exactly how big this bed would be, and I caught sight of Spot’s bed in the corner of the bedroom, and a lightbulb went on over my head. “Self,” I said. “I could basically sew the blankets together with the cat bed inside, and that would solve the falling-apart problem, and would make the cat bed more comfortable for rickety old Spot, and it would look a whole lot better!” So I measured the blankets and cut them to an appropriate size (I only had to cut about two inches off), pinned them together, and started sewing. I sewed three sides of the blankets, turned them inside out (or outside in), put the cat bed between the blankets, and sewed the fourth side. I would provide you with a picture, but the cat bed is upstairs and I am downstairs and I don’t love you that much. Okay, maybe I do. Check out the crappy sewing job and uneven seams: While I was sewing the blankets together, Smitty and Bear noticed that I had something potentially comfortable on my lap, so they jumped up and settled down and batted at the thread I was using. Altogether, it took me about two hours to sew the damn thing together, because I’m a horribly slow seamstress, also not a very good seamstress, and when the thread you’re using makes a little black kitten go wild-eyed and wild with the batting at the thread, it tends to slow you down. So the bed seems to be a hit with Spot, since he’s been sleeping on it. But then again, probably if I put a little bed of thorns and nails over there, he’d still sleep on it. A creature of habit is our Spot. The trip to Wal-Mart was supposedly so I could grab another couple of baby blankets to put over the cat bed downstairs, but really I was craving Jack Links Prime Rib Tender Cuts. I discovered those when I was at Wal-Mart last week and between Fred and I (but to be honest, it was more “I” than “Fred”), we polished off two bags in less than a day. Hey. We NEED our protein, you know. So I grabbed a couple of bags of the Jack Links Prime Rib Tender Cuts and wandered back to the baby section, where I realized that the only cheap fleece baby blankets that were left all had, well, baby designs on them. The blankets I’d gotten last week were both plain blue. I finally ended up grabbing a couple of blue and white check baby blankets, then went over to the craft section of the store to buy matching thread. I ended up looking around for a while, and ran across a kit that included a large piece of fleece and ties so you could make your own pillowcase – basically you cut slits around the edges of two matching pieces of fleece, and put ties in the slits (with an end result of something like this). For less than the two baby blankets, I could buy the kit and get a big-ass piece of fleece and ties (which I didn’t need, but they came with the kit), and have plenty of material to cover the cat bed. I put the baby blankets back and bought the kit. I haven’t covered the cat bed yet, but when I do, I’ll make sure to take a picture for y’all, so you can laugh at my crappy sewing job. * * * Currently reading: Not Tonight Honey, Wait ‘Til I’m a Size Six, by Susan Reinhardt. I’m about halfway through it, and it’s pretty damn funny. Finished the other night: Wish You Were Here, by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. Good book (I mean, when one of the main characters is a cat, you KNOW I’m going to like it!), but I don’t know that I’m going to go out and buy the rest in the series. Maybe when my current book inventory goes down a little I might consider it, because I really did enjoy it. * * * Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here. * * * Okay. Don’t get excited about this and jump to conclusions. On my desk right now as I type this: No, we aren’t adopting him. Yesterday, a few hours before I was going to take the whole bunch to the pet store, I noticed that Bear wasn’t acting like himself. I picked him up and held him like a baby – which he usually loves – and he let out a growly little hissing noise, and struggled to get away. I just figured he wanted to go play, but a little while later I noticed that if any of the other kittens approached and wanted to play (he was laying on the cat bed in the living room), he’d growl at them. I picked him up again, and again he did the growly-hiss thing. All he wanted to do was lay on the bed and sleep, and at one point he got up and walked over to the water bowl and was moving slowly and not quite, but almost limping. I called the shelter manager, and she offered up a few things that it could be. I asked if it would be okay to take the other kittens to the pet store and keep Bear here to keep an eye on for a day on, and if he didn’t improve, or got worse, I’d take him to the vet. Of course she said that was fine, so when I took Smitty, Sugarbutt, and Callie to the pet store, Bear stayed here. All I’ll say about leaving the three at the pet store – the boys in one cage, and Callie in a cage by herself – is that it sucked as usual, and it didn’t help that Callie was scared and meowing pitifully for me to come rescue her. I cried a little on the way home, because it really bothers me that she has to be in a cage by herself. I didn’t feel too bad for Sugarbutt and Smitty, because they at least had each other, but Callie all by herself, scared, made me very sad. So for most of the rest of the evening Bear slept on the cat bed in the living room, though he did get up a couple of times to drink water – which made me happy, because at least I knew he wasn’t going to get dehydrated – and for a little while he jumped up and snoozed on top of me (I was laying on the couch). We put him in the kitten room when we went upstairs, but when Fred came downstairs for a minute and then back upstairs, Bear heard him (the stairs go right by the kitten room) and started scratching and meowing to be let out. I felt sorry for him and suggested that we let him out of the room for the night. Fred let him out, and brought him into my bedroom, where for the next half hour or so, Bear snuggled up next to me, under the covers, and snoozed. Then he jumped down and went to get some food and water, and Mister Boogers was right on his butt, sniffing and making his “I’m disturbed” noise. Bear ate and drank, and then actually batted at a toy for a few minutes, then went out of the room to explore. Mister Boogers continued to follow him around making his “I’m disturbed” noise and after about fifteen minutes of that, I went out to see what was going on, and Bear was sitting on the top stair looking a little scared and Mister Boogers was being a pain and all I could think was, “I’m tired and I don’t want to listen to this all night”, so I scooped Bear up, gave him a kiss on the head, and put him in the kitten room and shut the door. He meowed pitifully a few times, then settled down and (I assume) went to sleep. This morning at 8:00 when I opened the door, he was sitting right by the door, and he looked up at me and purred and pranced out of the room and trotted off to check out the food situation in our bathroom, and played and touched noses with Mister Boogers. In other words, he acted like his old self. He’s limping a little bit, but he’s acting like himself, so we suspect that he just landed wrong on one of his legs while he was playing or something, and had a sore leg. I’m going to keep him here for a few more days just to be sure he’s okay, and then Friday he’ll be going to the pet store. I think he’s a little bored with us, since he doesn’t have any other kittens to play with at the moment. Torties in the sun. Callie in motion. Nothing scared her, I just happened to snap a picture when she felt like running across the room. “Give. Me. THAT.” Flyin’ Bear. I love the little spread-out claws. All of today’s uploaded kitten pics are here. * * * Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: TV talk. 2000: I’m about the laziest chick in the world, I think. 1999: Yeah. I’m a bitch.]]>

Last night, Pollo Sudado. It’s a Columbian dish. And it’s apparently – according to the spud, who takes Spanish – pronounced “Poyo”, not (as the pedestrian amongst us might attempt to pronounce it) “Paul-o.” I wasn’t witness to the Spanish pronunciation lecture the spud gave Fred, but apparently it’s pronounced that way because it has two ls… or something. He wasn’t real clear on the whole thing. Having never made it before, I had no idea what it was supposed to look like when done. It ended up being somewhat watery, and Fred and I discussed whether it was supposed to be watery, or whether the broth was supposed to thicken, or what. Finally, when the chicken had been cooked through and was so tender it could be shredded easily (though you’ll note in the picture that I didn’t actually shred it) Fred put forth the idea that we could add some cornstarch to the broth to thicken it a little. I told him that would be a good idea and told him to do it (that way I could blame it all on him for not putting the cornstarch in correctly) and went to make the honey-mustard dressing for my salad. When the dressing was done, I turned around and I swear to god, he’d dumped at least half a cup of cornstarch directly into the pan. I couldn’t help myself; I gasped. “Oh!” he said guiltily. “Is that too much?” “Well, I – no, maybe not!” I said, my eyes big as saucers. He began scooping out as much cornstarch as he could, dumped spoonfuls of lumpy cornstarch into the sink. “Perhaps next time,” I said judiciously, “We could stir the cornstarch into a small amount of water to prevent lumps.” When he’d removed about a third of the cornstarch he’d added, he stirred the rest of the cornstarch in the best he could. And in the end, it worked out pretty well. The broth thickened nicely, and there were only a few small lumps of cornstarch left. There were two thumbs way WAY up to the Pollo Sudado, and we’re actually going to have it again later this week instead of Curry-Cajun Chicken, because we both liked it so much. I don’t like cooked tomato in… well, anything, but I was okay with it in this dish. The kittens liked it, too.

(There was only a small amount of the broth left in the bottom of the bowl, and they came running from all corners of the house and fell upon the drippings as if we’d been starving them to death for weeks. When they were done, that bowl was spotless. I could have put it back in the cupboard (NO, I didn’t) and no one would have been the wiser. Well, except maybe for that little whisker someone left as a calling card.) Yesterday we (by “we”, I mean Fred and the spud, because I can no longer stand the taste of taco seasonings) had Taco Burgers. They had Taco Burgers, I had regular burgers, and we were all happy. Fred declared the Taco Burgers to be a keeper, too. That’s two new recipes in one week. Did you feel the earth shake too? * * * You know how I mentioned last week that we talk about disgusting things at the dinner table (ie: cat poop and the consistency thereof) and it doesn’t bother any of us at all? Well, last week we were eating meatloaf for dinner, and Fred said “How about that E. Coli story, huh?”, referring to a story he’d read online about how some bagged salads were recalled due to some of them having E. Coli contamination in them. As soon as he said the words “E. Coli”, I couldn’t eat any more. I came thisclose to gagging. Just the THOUGHT of E. Coli absolutely grosses me out, and I don’t know why I’m okay with poop discussion, but E. Coli discussion absolutely takes away my appetite. Yeah, I’m a freak. * * * I played a major game of phone tag yesterday. I was sitting in the dining room playing with the kittens when the phone rang. I let it go to voicemail, knowing that I could just check caller ID when I was done playing with the kittens and call whoever it was back. Fifteen minutes later, I checked caller ID and saw that it was my brother. I settled on the couch and called him back, but there was no answer. I thought for a moment, then decided to call my sister and see what she was up to. There was no answer at her house, but while I was trying to decide whether to leave a message (“Hi, just called to see what you were up to, nothing important!”), my call waiting beeped, and I looked at the caller ID to see that it was my brother, so I clicked over to that call. I talked to him for a while, and at some point the call waiting beeped. I glanced at the caller ID to see that it was my sister, and let the call go to voicemail, figuring I’d call her back after I was done talking to my brother. When I was done talking to my brother, I checked my voicemail, and found a message from my sister. I decided to call her back after dinner. And promptly forgot. Around 6:30, my mother called and said “You need to call your sister, because it’s raining outside and she can’t stand out there and talk to you on her cell phone, and she was wondering why you called her.” “Oh,” I said. “I was just calling to see what she was up to.” I hung up and called my sister and we gabbed about everything under the sun for like half an hour. After all that time on the phone, I think I need to take to my bed for a day just to recover. Heh. * * * The kittens are going to the pet store this afternoon. I am going to miss them SO MUCH. They’ve been so sweet and cuddly lately (well, ever since we got them, really) and I’ve really enjoyed always having a kitten climbing up into my lap. Mostly I’m going to miss Sugarbutt, noxious gas and all. Y’all, hope and pray they get adopted this weekend. I don’t know if I’d be able to stand it, going in there Monday and seeing them still there. When does this get easier, again? It’ll probably take me through the end of the week to get all the pictures I’ve taken of them up, so y’all will still be able to see them for the next few days. Sugarbutt in the sun. Sugarbutt in motion. Smitty in the sun. Climbin’ kitten. Smitty snoozes in the box of giveaway stuff. Callie, up close. Callie, in the box top. “Mooooom! My toy mouse went under the fridge, and I can’t REACH IT, and Smitty keeps TOUCHING ME with his TAIL!” All of today’s uploaded kitten pics are here. * * * Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: My breasts are strawberry scented. 1999: I was ambitious today.]]>

very first journal entry. After spending a couple of weeks going through tons and tons of old entries, I have to say that sometimes it amazes me that so many of you are still around. But thanks to those of you who did hang around – let’s see if I have another six years’ worth of entries in me, shall we?

* * * It ended up being a good thing that the spud and I didn’t go to Virginia this weekend to meet up with my mother, sister, and nephew, because their flight got canceled and they couldn’t get it rescheduled in a timely manner, so they ended up not going. I guess those of you in the Norfolk area were having some bad weather over the weekend, huh? I can’t imagine how peeved I would have been to get halfway to Virginia and realize that my shopping partners weren’t going to be there. I suppose we could have just hung out with my dad, though. Ah, well. Moot point! * * * I got caught up on my email last night for the first time in about three weeks. If you emailed me in the last month or so and expected a response, re-send it, would you? It’s possible I got delete-happy at some point, since I was up until about midnight getting caught up. * * * To celebrate the 6th journal-versary of this journal, I gotta say: I’ve got nothin’. Nothin’ to write about, not a damn thing. Nothing’s going on, no spud-gossip to share, nothin’. So I’m going to toss up some kitten pics and call it an entry. Fair enough? Oh, hey – if you used to read OnePhatMan, it’s back. Just in case you didn’t know, and weren’t on the notify list, thought I’d mention that. * * * The kittens are going to the pet store tomorrow afternoon. The shelter manager emailed me over the weekend to let me know that I could take them in today or tomorrow. Since they don’t do adoptions on Monday evenings, of course I opted to let them stay with us until tomorrow afternoon. Man. I’m going to miss the little brats. What I’m not going to miss is the rotten-egg gas Sugarbutt’s been suffering from lately. We were watching The Amityville Horror yesterday (Ryan Reynolds sounds JUST LIKE John Ritter) and I grabbed up Sugarbutt. He fell asleep on his back and the noxious fumes coming from him were just horrifying. Good thing for him he’s so cute. Speaking of Sugarbutt, I fully believe that if he were a dog, he’d be a bulldog. He’s bowlegged and barrel-chested and watching him run from one side of the room to the other just cracks me UP. Oh, how I’m going to miss his stinky little butt! Barrett waited until Miz Poo fell asleep, and then snuck right in there. With Smitty (left) and Sugarbutt (right) side-by-side like this, you can really see the difference in their faces. Like Callie, Smitty always looks like he’s smiling. Smilin’ Callie. This would be a better picture if my big dorky slipper wasn’t right there in the background. Gigglin’ Callie. Gigglin’ Smitty. Last night, Callie started out on my leg. Miz Poo was sleeping next to my leg. As Callie slept, she slid down my leg and ended up spooning with Miz Poo. Miz Poo was displeased, but you’ll note she didn’t jump down and run away. What my lap looked like last night. I don’t think I could have fit another cat in there anywhere. I think I see tonsils. Smitty and Sugarbutt tussling. The look on Sugarbutt’s face cracks me up. Check out the closeup: Also, Fred took this one Saturday afternoon: Awesome picture, no? All of today’s uploaded pictures (there are a ton of them today, because I took a bunch over the weekend) are here. * * * Previously 2004: Off to Myrtle Beach. 2003: Instead, we should probably go for “Shizzle M. Andersizzle.” 2002: Why I journal. 2001: No entry. 2000: Okay, enough of that mushy crap. 1999: So. Welcome to my journal. ]]>

Jolene‘s place. 1. Name someone with the same birthday as you? Richard Nixon, Joan Baez, Jimmy Page. Borrrrrrrring. 2. Where was your first kiss? Sitting on the picnic table in my parents’ back yard the summer I was 16. 3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else’s property? Nope, never. 4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? I smacked Fred with a spoon the other day. Does that count? 5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? HELL no. I wouldn’t want to subject them to the pain. 6. What’s the first thing you notice about the preferred sex? If he’s wearing tight jeans, I notice his butt. Otherwise, his smile. 7. What really turns you on? NOT THIS QUESTION, that’s for sure. 8. What do you order at Starbucks? Anything that’s not coffee flavored. I think the last thing I had was a strawberry-creme something-or-other. 9. What is your biggest mistake? Immediately believing what I’m told without standing back and thinking about it. 10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose? No. 11. Say something totally random about yourself. I smacked the holy hell out of my foot with the carpet steam cleaner and it HURTS. My foot is throbbing right now. I might have broken something. Send chocolate. 12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? Years ago when I worked part of a day at a temporary job, someone told me I looked like Mama Cass. JOY. Oh, and everyone always tells me how strongly I resemble Ashley Judd. IN MY DREAMS. 13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows? Nope. 14. Did you have braces? I did, but not for very long. They tightened them the day before Thanksgiving, though, and I couldn’t eat Thanksgiving dinner because my mouth hurt so badly. 15. Are you comfortable with your height? I guess so; I wouldn’t mind being a few inches taller, though. 16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you? None o’ your bidness. 17. When do you know it’s love? You just do. 18. Do you speak any other languages? I could probably cobble together a half-assed conversation in French if given enough time. 19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon? Nope. 20. What magazines do you read? People, US, Marie Claire, Jane, TV Guide, Consumer Reports. There are more, I’m sure, but I can’t think of them right now. 21. Have you ever ridden in a limo? My Junior prom, a bunch of us got together and rented a limo. 22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away? My grandmother, a little more than a year ago. 23. Do you watch mtv? Rarely, though we tape Punk’d sometimes. 24. What’s something that really annoys you? Mister Boogers tapping at the blinds on the back door when he wants to go out and the cat door is closed. It makes me want to commit Boogicide. 25. What’s something you really like? Diet Coke. Lost. The sex scenes on Nip/ Tuck. Little purring kittens. Big purring Miz Poo. When Mister Boogers “talks” to himself. When Spanky lays in the sun and rolls around. When Fred calls me from work during the day for no real reason. When the spud shares the school gossip with me. Being able to sleep in on the weekends. ROAD TRIPS. 26. Do you like Michael Jackson? Ugh. No. 27. Can you dance? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII can’t dance! IIIIIIIIIIII can’t sing! I’m just standing here selling ev. uh. ree. thing. 28. What’s the latest you have ever stayed up? When I was a teenager and worked at McDonald’s, I got home from work after closing at about 2:30, stayed up and went back in to open at 4:30. A couple of people called in sick, so I ended up staying until 4:30 in the evening. When all was said and done, I was probably up for about 36 hours. 29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? No, thank god. 30. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out? I do!

* * * I’ve got three kittens laying on the pillow on my desk, and they’re taking turns farting and OH MY GOD is it a nasty, nasty stench. Nasty kittens. It’s lucky for them they’re so damn cute. * * * I went to the grocery store this morning, as I usually do on Friday mornings. Well, I usually hit the grocery store on an average of four days a week, because there’s ALWAYS something I need to pick up. Anyway. I was in the grocery store this morning, and I was checking out. The cashier, who recognizes me because I’m in there so often, greeted me and made some conversation. She was handing me my receipt when she glanced downward, and got a look of disgust on her face. I glanced down at the front of my shirt to see if I had dribbled something down the front of me before I left the house. There was nothing, and I glanced up at her, and she still had the faintest look of disgust on her face, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Hmph,” I thought and I walked out of the store. “What’s HER problem?” I did the few other errands that needed to be done, and then when I got home I put everything away, greeted the kittens, and sat down in front of my computer. I’d only been home a few minutes when Fred called and said “I need our checking account routing number.” I went into the kitchen and leaned down to grab my purse. And then I saw it. Dried cat puke on the side of my purse. No wonder she made the face of disgust. I’m making the face of disgust right now, because walking around with dried cat puke on your purse? The height of classy. Goddamn cats. * * * Currently reading: Wish you were Here, by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. It better be good, or I’m coming after whoever recommended it. If I could remember who that was… Finished last night: Vanish, by Tess Gerritsen. SUCH a good book. * * * It got cold overnight. I think it might be time to get the space heater out again, because HOLY SHIT am I cold right now. Even though I have a pile of kittens over on the side of my desk I could probably warm my hands on. Probably it doesn’t help that I’m sitting here with wet hair, either. Oh! Before I forget this, I have to recommend something to y’all. I was at Cracker Barrel with Liz while she was visiting, and they sell lotion in the gift shop, and I picked up a 4 ounce bottle of Dionis lotion in the scent called “Love”, and oh MY. I LOVE this lotion – not only does it smell good (it SMELLS like LOVE), but it also sinks in quickly, so you’re not wandering around with greasy hands. SO AWESOME, this lotion. I highly, highly recommend it. And while I’m going on about things that smell good, have you ever ordered a candle from Say? Because I have, and I currently have a Wildberry Pancakes jar candle burning, and it smells so good I want to go over there and eat the candle. I have to keep reminding myself that it won’t taste like it smells, though. It makes me want to go to IHOP for breakfast. And lastly, speaking of good-smelling things, when I was shopping at the mall with my mother when she and my father were here last month, we went into the Yankee Candles store, and I ended up buying a couple of electric air fresheners. Now, the electric air fresheners came with one bottle of scent, but you could also buy refills in sets of two. I really wanted to get the lemon zest scent, but while you could get refills in that scent, you couldn’t get the electric air freshener with that scent. So I got two air fresheners with a cranberry-scented bottles, and a couple of boxes of lemon zest refills. When I got home, I plugged in the cranberry-scented refills, and they smelled… okay. Fred thought they smelled like grape. To me, they smelled like wine. And I’m not crazy about wine. A month went by, and finally I noticed that the cranberry scented bottles were empty, so I dug out the lemon zest refills, plugged them in and thought nothing more of it. That afternoon when Fred got home, he went into the bathroom and yelled “Something smells really good in here! What is it?” When I told him it was the lemon zest air freshener, he told me he thought it smelled like Froot Loops. I’ve got one air freshener upstairs and one downstairs, and they’ve both got lemon zest refills in them, and my house smells FABULOUS. Yankee Candles Electric Air Fresheners with Lemon Zest refills, highly recommended. * * * The kittens are home and doing fine. Bear was the only troublesome one, because apparently one of his testicles was undescended and they had to dig around for it. ::wince:: Right now, they’re running around like their butts are on fire, as if nothing ever happened. I don’t know if it was the drugs, or what, but Sugarbutt was twice as feisty last night as I’ve ever seen him. On to the pictures, eh? When you rub his belly, Sugarbutt basically puts his paws up in the air and kneads. It’s severely cute. WHAT is THAT?” Mister Boogers looking out the window. > Da Boog unaware that trouble approaches. Putting the smack down. Callie. She breaks my heart, this little one. She’s so standoffish, but as soon as you pick her up she purrs and purrs. But then she wants to be put down, and off she goes again, being standoffish. “Bleh.” Warm little pile o’ kitties. A particularly good shot of Sugarbutt. And kitten toes! All of today’s uploaded pictures (there are a ton of them today) are here. * * * Previously: 2004: Reader requests. 2003: Why have kids if you aren’t going to make them do the scut work? 2002: You know, I don’t even have the words. 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry.]]>

reading: Vanish, by Tess Gerritsen. It’s very, very good so far. I intended to go to sleep at 11:00 last night, but ended up staying up until midnight because I just couldn’t put the book down. Also, she’s got a site, and a blog she updates regularly. I love it when authors I like have blogs! I really like her Creepy Biological Facts section, too.

* * * I woke up at a little before three this morning, turned over, and realized that there was a light on. As I pondered who would be up at that time, turning on lights, it went off. A moment later the air conditioning kicked on, and I thought that maybe Fred had woken up sweating and decided to turn the air down a little. This morning after Fred left for work, I snoozed for a little while. After snoozing for ten minutes or so, I looked at the clock and realized it was 6:40. I further realized that I didn’t hear the spud up and moving around, and she’s usually up by that time. I got up, put on my nightgown, and walked over to her room. She was laying in bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. “Are you planning on getting up?” I asked. “Yeah. I don’t have to take a shower,” she said. “Why’s that?” “Because I got up at 2:30 and took my shower.” “Why?” “I thought it was 6:00.” “Oh.” When I was a few years younger than she is, the phone rang in the middle of the night. I woke up, thought my alarm went off, turned it off, got up, got dressed, and walked into the kitchen to look out the window. My mother, standing in the kitchen, said “What are you doing?” “Seeing if it’s snowing,” I said. “Why?” “So I’ll know whether I need to wear my thermal underwear,” I said. To explain: I had a morning paper route, and let me tell you, delivering papers in the winter sucked ASS. I walked back across the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of Cheerios. “What are you doing?” my mother asked. “Eating breakfast before I deliver papers,” I said. “At 1:30 in the morning?” “Oh,” I said. And went back to bed, where I overslept because I’d turned my alarm off. (The phone call? A girl calling for my brother.) When I told Fred this morning what the spud had done, he thought it was the funniest. thing. ever. I forsee a lot of spud-teasing this evening. * * * My sister and nephew and mother are flying to Virginia Beach tomorrow. My father’s currently working in Norfolk, and they’re going down to visit him and check out the area. When I was talking to my mother earlier today (she seems to have a sixth sense about when I’m trying to get some housework done, ’cause that’s when she always calls. Today I was grateful for the break, though, since I’d just finished scrubbing out five litter boxes with bleach and hot water when she called and my back was starting to hurt.), she said “You know, it’s not too late to change your mind and drive up to stay with us!” I’d be tempted if it wasn’t twelve hours away. But then, I did a 10-hour drive to and from Myrtle Beach last year, didn’t I? It’s probably a good thing I’m covering for someone at the pet store next Tuesday morning, or I might seriously consider driving to Virginia. * * * The kittens are currently at the vet’s, waiting to be spayed and neutered and chipped and vaccinated against the rabies. They were all excited when I opened the doors to their rooms this morning, far earlier than I usually do, and then confused when I tossed them all in the carrier. They’re such good monkeys; they didn’t howl even once on the way to the vet’s office, and in fact they curled up together and slept most of the way, except when I was singing along with Natalie Merchant (Beloved Wife always just gets me right HERE), and then they sat up and looked at me and said “It’s not enough that you’ve thrown us all in a box and are driving us over a bumpy road to an unknown destination, you also have to SING? Our young and tender ears cannot withstand your caterwauling, lady.” So I stopped singing. At the vet’s, I helped the woman running the front desk weigh all the kittens. Callie was far and away the heaviest, at 3 pounds 3 ounces, Smitty and Barrett were each 3 pounds, and Sugarbutt was the lightest at 2 pounds 6 ounces. On a side note, Fred called when I was leaving the vet’s, and I said “Sad Eyes weighed the least. He’s only gained about 2 ounces since he saw the vet last week.” And Fred said “Who?” “Sad Eyes,” I said. “Who is Sad Eyes?” “Oh. I mean, Sugarbutt.” “His real name is Sad Eyes?” “Yes,” I said. “What an awful name. No wonder you gave him a nickname!” Heh. If everything goes well, I’ll be picking the little brats up late this afternoon, and tonight they’ll probably be running around like their tails are on fire as if nothing ever happened. I spent the morning cleaning the house, and cleaned all the nasty little marks they’ve left on the carpet in both rooms. Between the clean carpet, the clean litter boxes, and the fresh litter, they won’t know what is going on. Smitty’s such a little poser. I cannot help kissing Bear atop his little noggin. Clearly he doesn’t enjoy it as much as I do. Every evening, Bear and Smitty jump up on the pillow on my lap and sleep all evening long while I watch TV. If I move around too much, Smitty gets annoyed and jumps over to the love seat. Now THAT’s a long tongue. Callie and Bear fighting. Callie looks like a little devil kitty. Check out the closeup: Pure evil. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2004: Phil Hellmuth is a whiny little bitch. 2003: “And then he told me he likes to have sex with you in the break room every day at 11!” he lied. 2002: No entry. 2001: Recovery. 2000: No one ever said I had a long attention span!]]>

* * * At dinner the other night, the spud told us about a couple of kids she knows who are dropping out of school. Immediately, I puffed up and got very disapproving. “If MY kid was dropping out of school, she’d ALSO be dropping out of MY HOUSE, because I’ll be DAMNED if my kid is going to drop OUT of school and continue living in MY HOUSE!” and I turned to her and gave her The Eye. On the other side of the table, Fred gave her The Eye as well. We were double-Eyeing her. Because it’s a good thing to let your kid know where you stand on the dropping-out-of-school issue. Pre-marital sex? Not so much, but definitely dropping out. She responded by rolling her eyes. “I KNOW,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about THAT, I have no intention of dropping out of school.” “Damn straight,” I said. “Damn straight,” Fred echoed. There was a time when I hoped that the spud would never realize that college wasn’t an option, that we’d just present to her that everyone goes to college and she’d accept that as a given fact, but she seems to be doing this “growing up” thing, and when kids “grow up”, they at some point start “talking” to “other kids” and somehow the information that kids can drop out of school and PAR-TAY is distributed amongst them, and the dropping out spreads like wildfire. Little fuckers. Why can’t they just listen to what their parents tell them ’til they’re 18? What’s with this “mind of their own” shit?

* * * Last weekend Fred was out hiking, and the spud was still sleeping, so I went in and visited the kittens (who were still spending all their time in the room and not out running around the house). While I was in there, I noticed that one of them was spending a lot of time chewing on the cords that went to the phone base plugged in on the far side of the room. The phone base belongs to the cordless phone that the spud uses (the phone plug in her room and the guest bedroom don’t work), and she only leaves the phone on the base to charge when the phone has gone dead and needs recharging. Got that? Good. So I noticed the chewing of the cords by the kittens, and decided that rather than letting them chew through the electric cord and be electrocuted, I’d plug in the phone base in our bedroom where no kittens could get to the wires, and all would be well. All I’d need to do is plug one of the numerous line-splitters we have scattered around the house into the phone line in our bedroom and then I could plug our phone in, and the spud’s phone in as well. The phone plug is located at around knee level, behind our bed. I got down on the floor and reached for the plug, but couldn’t quite reach it. I assessed the situation, and decided to pull the mattress away from the wall, then reach in from between the mattress and headboard, unplug our phone, plug in the line splitter, and then re-plug in our phone and the spud’s phone. I reached in and did all that without much of a problem – though it was still a bit of a reach for me – and after everything was plugged in, I began to pull my arm out… and it was fucking stuck. I mean, STUCK. It was stuck at that point right above the elbow, where that bony part is, and no matter how I tugged I couldn’t get my arm out. I tried moving to the side of the bed, with the idea that I could slide my body onto the floor and use my other arm to pull the mattress further from the wall and then slide the stuck arm out. Only, when I started to move toward the side of the bed, apparently the space got smaller and I wasn’t able to move more than a few inches. I tried moving to the other side, and the same thing happened. So here I was, in my big stupid-looking pink nightgown (pictures at a later date, if I think of it) (of the nightgown, I mean, not me in the nightgown), sprawled across the bed with my arm stuck between the mattress and headboard. What’s worse is that I had started the shower before I began with the unplugging and plugging, so I was sprawled across the mattress in my oversized ugly pink nightgown, arm stuck between the mattress and headboard, with the shower running. And then Miz Poo jumped up on the bed and settled down in the middle of my back. To recap:

In ugly pink nightgown.

Sprawled across bed.

Unshowered.

Shower running.

Fat cat snoozing on my back.

No adults around.

Teenager sleeping like the dead on the other side of the house who wouldn’t wake up if a nuclear bomb hit. And even if she would, she’s not strong enough to move the mattress with me lying on it.

And then the last straw came along and broke the fat woman’s back. Mister Boogers jumped up on the bed and sniffed at Miz Poo, who reacted by hissing and slapping at him, and then the little fuckers had a slap fight atop my head. “GodDAMN!” I bellowed. “You fucking fuckers! Get the fuck off of me!” and I flailed about until Miz Poo and Mister Boogers ran off, and then I said “You goddamn piece of shit! STOP IT!” to my arm, and pulled as hard as I could on my arm, until it slid out from between the headboard and mattress, causing a nasty scrape on the back side of my arm, DRAWING BLOOD and leaving a nasty bruise that is just now starting to really heal. And Fred laughed his fucking ass off when I told him about it, because he’s a fuckfuck. * * * This morning was a busy one for me. I left the house at 8:45 and didn’t get back until almost 1:00. I had a hair appointment (I’ve gone back to long layers, though to be honest you can’t much tell the difference from how it looked before), then had to go to the bank and make a deposit, to the pet store to look for something to put cat food in (we already have one thing to put cat food in for our cats, but now that they eat two different kinds of food, I wanted to get a second container) and a new water bowl for the living room (the old one is metal and ugly and was getting on my nerves); to Target to return something and buy kitty litter (we use Arm & Hammer kitty litter, and it’s cheapest at Target – $9.94 for 35 pounds; it was over a dollar more at Walmart); to Walmart to return the monitor I bought last week and buy a new kitty condo (the old one in the kittens’ room has so much poo on it that I can’t even fathom trying to clean it, so it’s a new cheap condo for the kittens!); to the post office to check the PO box (reader Kristin, your thank you note is on the way!); and by Wendy’s for a Biggie Diet Coke, since I was dying of thirst. I’m not sure how that ended up taking me more than four hours to accomplish, but it did. Probably the fact that I go into a daze when I step foot into Target and Walmart and end up wandering around the store for far longer than I need to has something to do with my errand-running taking up so much of my day. * * * Tomorrow the kittens go to be spayed and neutered. It’s going to be quiet around here, but at least it’ll give me a chance to go around the entire upstairs and spot-clean with the steam cleaner. They’ll probably be able to come home late tomorrow afternoon, and by then the carpet will be mostly dry. Bear’s starting to do the thing Rambo used to do, jump up and sink his claws into my back, then climb to my shoulder and jump onto my desk so he can sniff around. I had a bunch of really cute pictures of he and Smitty sleeping on Miz Poo’s bed, but my camera’s being a pain, and somehow those pictures got deleted. GRRRRR. Bear investigates, while Smitty supervises. The look on Bear’s face cracks me UP. This one cracks me up, too. I don’t know why Sugarbutt’s licking the toy, but he’s certainly serious about it. Bear investigates the new water bowl. Apparently it met his approval, because he started drinking water like it was going out of style. “Who, me? No, I wasn’t going to climb into the fireplace. Nope, not me!” It took her about 10 seconds to notice the condo and claim it for herself. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here.]]>

reading: Eyeshot, by Lynn S. Hightower. Finished late last night: Faithless, by Karin Slaughter. The more I read of Karin Slaughter, the more I like. For some reason, Lena absolutely fascinates me.

* * * Fred called me from work yesterday. With no greeting or anything, he said “It’s time.” “What time is that?” “Time to sell the house.” Which is when I about had a heart attack and fell over dead. Like I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s always a possibility that his job will disappear in a round of government budget cuts, and we’ve talked numerous times about what we’d do if his job went away. The first step is always putting the house up for sale and buying a much smaller, less expensive house with a much smaller mortgage. “Why?” I said when I could manage to breathe again. “Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, fired in 2003 for disobeying a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse, announces his decision to run for governor of Alabama in 2006,” he read. He paused. I said nothing. He said nothing. “So clearly we need to sell the house and get the fuck out of Dodge!” he said. He paused again. I said nothing. He said nothing. “You gave me a FUCKING HEART ATTACK,” I finally said. “I thought your job had been cut! You fucker!” I pointed out that Maine is far, far away from the Bible Belt, but he seems to be stuck on the fact that it snows in Maine. Like he’ll melt in the snow or something. So far, my pointing out that Maine has ocean (for me) and mountains (for him) hasn’t persuaded him. * * * My brother called yesterday while I was vacuuming the upstairs. Of course I didn’t hear the phone, so he left a message. I didn’t realize he’d called, so I didn’t listen to the voicemail until I’d actually talked to him a little while later. The first thing he said when I talked to him was that I have the clearest speaking voice he’s ever heard on a voicemail message. And then we started making fun of my parents’ answering machine message, because when their answering machine picks up, all you hear is this long, long silence, and then my mother sighing before she starts with the “You’ve reached our answering machine” spiel. It’s funny as hell, because the first few times I heard it, I thought that either my mother had picked up the phone not realizing someone was on the other end, or she was distracted by something else she was doing and wanted to finish doing whatever it was before she said “Hello.” Anyway, my secret to a clear and friendly-sounding outgoing voicemail message? I smile while I’m speaking. If you’ve ever had a job where you had to deal with people over the phone, you’ve probably had an annoying supervisor who insisted that you smile while speaking to the customers, because they can hear the smile in your voice. I hate to say this, but it’s true – try it yourself. Say something, and then smile and say it again. Hear the difference? I’m sure there are people who can fake the voice-smile without actually smiling, but I’m not one of them. Annnnnnnnd that’s just a little glimpse into the dorkiness that is my life. * * * Have you ever had a dream that disturbed you and made you a little bit sad all day long, and then you start to tell someone about it, and you realize it’s SUCH an idiotic dream that you can’t believe you spent the entire day feeling SAD about it? I had a dream Sunday morning that (and I know it’s boring to hear about other peoples’ dreams, I’ll make this as short as possible) I was part of a helicopter rescue team that couldn’t rescue a bunch of people in a huge boat that was capsizing, and the boat turned over and started going under water, and we were in radio contact with one of the people on the boat and trying to reassure him that we were on our way, even knowing that there was no way we could rescue them. AND THEN The dream shifted, and I was on a huge houseboat belonging to a country singer (I can’t remember who, but it was a woman) and we were riding up the Tennessee river, and we were beset upon by pirates, one of whom was William Shatner, and he and his gang rounded up all the animals on the boat (an oddly large number of yellow labs were on this boat), and they would put each animal on a little round raft, and push it out into the water, and then they’d shoot at the raft until they hit it, and the raft would sink, while the animal frantically whimpered, and Dream-Me was horrified and had a round piece of glass that I was dragging back and forth over the cement floor of the boat (yes, a cement floor on a boat) to sharpen it into something I could kill the bad guys with. And like I said, I was sad all day long about the dream, but that evening when I was telling Fred about it – specifically the animals on the little rafts part of it – I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. Then I realized how idiotic it was to feel sad about such a stupid dream, and I got over it. * * * When we were eating dinner yesterday, Spot kept sitting by the front door and giving us looks to indicate that he might want to go outside. Once I let the babies out of their rooms, I keep the cat door closed so they won’t take it into their little heads to venture outside, so unless one of the adults – usually Mister Boogers – indicates (by being a pain in the ass and rattling the blinds) that he wants to go outside, all the adult cats end up staying inside as well. Anyway, Spot was sitting by the back door, looking at the door, at us, and back at the door. It was a pretty clear signal, so Fred got up and opened the door, and the ever-skittish Spot responded by running to hide under the couch. Fred shrugged, shut the door, and sat back down to dinner. Within minutes, Spot was back at the door, looking at us, at the door, and back at us. Finally, I said “Just pick his ass up and put him out there!”, and Fred did so. An hour later, Fred realized he didn’t see Spot anywhere, and went out to call for him. No Spot. “Fuck this,” Fred said. “He’ll come home when he wants to.” Spot is, shall we say, less than the family favorite. If it were Mister Boogers we’d be roaming through the neighborhood calling for him, but with Spot, well, not so much. “Did you look under the shed?” I asked. He hadn’t, so he went and looked, and hiding under the shed was Spot. Fred called and cajoled, but Spot wouldn’t come out. Fred got a can of compressed air out of the living room and sprayed it under the shed. To our amazement, Spot still didn’t come out from under the shed. “You don’t think he’s gone under there to die, do you?” I said worriedly. “Oh, who the fuck knows?” Fred said grumpily. “He was moving back and forth pretty vigorously when I blew the air at him.” Fred thought for a moment, then went into the shed and pulled out the leaf blower. He plugged it in, and smiled at me. “This is like the can of air times a thousand!” he said proudly. He turned it on and stuck it under the shed. No Spot. Fred scratched his head and then turned the leaf blower back on, stuck it under the edge of the shed, and began circling the shed. When he was on the back side of the shed, Spot came flying out from under the shed, his tail as big and puffy as I’ve ever seen it, hauled ass across the yard, and tried to go in through the cat door. I opened the back door and called to him, and he ran from the cat door, along the house, and in through the back door. I have no idea what was going on with him, whether he thought we’d forget about him if he hid under the shed, and then he could spend the night stalking around the yard killing small bugs, or what, but if it happens again I vote that we leave his ass under the shed. Bastard. “Who, me?” * * * I hesitate to say this, for fear of jinxing the situation, but it appears that Sugarbutt has gotten the hang of using the litter box and then cleaning himself instead of walking around with a poo-covered rear end. HALLELUJAH! Yesterday afternoon Callie jumped up in the recliner located in the corner of the computer room. Bear was already there sleeping, and Callie sat and washed herself for a few minutes, and then started rooting around Bear’s back end area. “Uh-uh-uh,” I said warningly, and she stopped… and looked at Miz Poo, who was sitting on her bed on my desk. Callie thought about it for a moment, then started sniffing around Bear’s butt again. “Uh-uh-uh,” I said again. And Callie looked at Miz Poo. It happened a third time, and Callie finally gave up and moved to the other side of the chair, keeping a wary eye on Miz Poo. Made me laugh, it did. Callie cleans. Bear licks. Smitty poses. Sugarbutt looks less than happy to be snuggled. “Bwahahaha! ‘The Aristocrats!’ That joke ALWAYS gets me!” That’s Sugarbutt on top, Smitty below. Apparently Sugarbutt wasn’t going to let Smitty get in his way. You can see by comparing the two so closely that Smitty is darker and less stripe-y than Sugarbutt. Look guilty, don’t they? All of today’s uploaded pictures can be seen here. * * * Previously 2004: ARRRGH. 2003: No entry. 2002: Wow. Apparently I’ve been doing the pet store thing for three years now. 2001: Day Zero. 2000: I’m back!]]>