Month: June 2008

Holy crap, Nance and Trey are going to be here tomorrow, and I haven’t scrubbed the baseboards or put a fresh coat of paint on the downstairs bathroom!

(Ha!)

I’ve warned Nance that the house is a pig sty, but I don’t think she believes me.

I had a busy and productive Saturday, which allowed for some slacking on Sunday. I love it when that happens. Not only did I have 3,000 pounds of summer squash and green beans to process, I also had to clean the kitchen and move some stuff around and… hm. I sure did think I got a lot more than that done, but at least my kitchen is clean and kind of organized.

Fred suggested that I use the dressing in the 3-Bean Salad recipe to make a 3-squash salad out of some of the summer squash, zucchini, and cucumbers we had. I cubed everything up, added half a sliced onion, and dumped the dressing over it. I made it in the morning and let it marinate all day before we had it at dinnertime. It was really good, but my digestive system disagreed with that assessment, and I got up so many times early yesterday morning to use the bathroom that at 4:30 I finally said FUCK THIS and just got up instead of trying to go back to sleep.

By 9:00 I’d done some laundry, some more kitchen cleaning, taken the recycling to the recycling center, and gotten groceries and was home again. I spent the morning cleaning the kitchen, including both refrigerators, and cleaning out the last couple of cabinets I hadn’t gotten to on Saturday. I moved some stuff around on the counter tops in an attempt to declutter, moved the furniture in the front room around, vacuumed the downstairs, and then spent the rest of the day kind of slacking, along with hanging out with the kittens and doing some more laundry.

One of the things I did on Saturday was make my own laundry detergent. I used this recipe, and it was really pretty easy. For a few dollars, I ended up with two gallons of detergent. I haven’t used any yet (I want to use up the old stuff before I do), but I’ve heard it works well. I didn’t add any scent to mine, because the smell of the Fels Naptha soap is kind of pleasant.

Foods which I have recently made:

Lemon Crisps. They’re like small lemon sugar cookies. They’re supposed to be round, but the whole “roll dough into a tube, refrigerate for three hours, then cut into nice neat thin round cookies” is apparently beyond my skill set. They were good, despite their odd shapes, with a very light lemon flavor. I had thought that they’d be crispy, considering the name, but they were soft. Maybe I did it wrong, I don’t know, but in any case they were damn good.

Sweet Potato-Pecan Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. These were very reminiscent of carrot cake (maybe because of the cinnamon and nutmeg). I liked them, but Fred LOVED them, declaring the recipe a “keeper”. The pigs also gave them two grunts up. (What? The recipe made two dozen cupcakes. We can’t eat two dozen cupcakes by ourselves, so the pigs – as usual – benefit.)

Also, the three-squash salad I referenced above was really good – I’d probably add a handful of lightly steamed green beans next time – though as I also mentioned, my digestive system wasn’t a fan. Stupid digestive system.

It was with great joy (NOT) that we realized, Thursday evening, that Kara had gone into heat. How, you ask, did we know such a thing? Well, if the super-friendly rolling around and purring wasn’t a clue (she’s always been, after all, a friendly girl), and the yowling didn’t clue us in, the fact that any time we touched her anywhere near her tail she crouched down and presented her back end was what made us realize what was going on.

I think you can bet that by bedtime Thursday I was kicking myself for not taking her to be spayed after her first mini-bout of being in heat a few weeks ago. The yowling of a female cat in need of some attention is ear-piercing, to say the least. I called Friday morning to make an appointment to have her spayed – and made an appointment for the kittens at the same time – and the first available time they had was Wednesday. I went ahead and made the appointment, but told Fred that if Kara got too loud at night, we’d have to set her up in the garage overnight.

Luckily, she’s been settling down at night and not yowling THANK GOD. We’ve taken up the gate at the bottom of the stairs so she can be downstairs with me if she wants, and on Saturday she drove poor Spanky crazy. She’s apparently latched onto the idea that he’s the big stud in the house (poor lonely Momma cat and a houseful of neutered males!) and if she’s in the mood for love and sees him, she’ll flop down in front of him and present her back end. He just looks at her like “I don’t know what you want, but I wish you’d be quiet about it!”

She got going with the yowling and low crawling Sunday afternoon and Tommy (who was laying in a cat bed on my desk) got up and jumped to the floor. Fred said “He’s going to go take care of her!” A minute later, I saw Tommy stomping across the back yard to the patio, looking for some peace and quiet.

Our cats are being remarkably patient with her – there have been some dustups, but interestingly they only happen when one of our cats ventures upstairs during the day when Kara and her kittens are out of the foster room. On Friday I was in the kitchen and heard a loud noise, Miz Poo came flying by all puffed up, and I went upstairs to see Kara all puffed up and sending hate rays toward the stairs. It appears that Miz Poo had gotten too close to a baby, and Kara had to show her that that was NOT okay. Saturday she went after Mister Boogers and scared the shit out of him.

He’s not as badass as he’d like to think, apparently.

So anyway, Kara and the kittens are going to be spayed and neutered on Wednesday (welcome to Crooked Acres, Nance and Trey! Here, listen to a cat in heat! Accompany me to the vet first thing Wednesday morning! Do we know how to PARTY here, or what?!) and then it’s just a matter of waiting until room opens up at the pet store.

(I’m in no hurry for them to go. For the record!)

They’re still occasionally nursing (if you look by River’s (the gray tabby in the middle) right ear, you’ll see Kaylee’s orange ear sticking up). Because I was curious, I timed them this time to see how long she’d let them nurse before she got up and walked off. 90 seconds is all they got – and I managed to get a ton of pictures of them during those 90 seconds. I always grab the camera when I see them nursing, because I always think it’s going to be the last time!

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

::HET::

Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: Must be ’cause I’m so approachable.
2005: Hobbies.
2004: Fred calls Miz Poo “Musty.”
2003: He sighed. “Because everybody knows that 256 (the total number of pages in the book) is 2 to the 8th, which is 2 to the 6th times two squared, which is 64 times 4, so you should print four blocks of 64 pages.”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Folks, it’s Dumbass Day.

So, I had my five-week follow up visit with the plastic surgeon yesterday. They took some “after” pictures, and then the nurse inspected my incision and found a few stitches (which were supposed to dissolve) that had worked their way to the surface of the incision. I’d noticed them recently (they just look like little pieces of string sticking out, nothing painful I ASSURE YOU, you big babies. You think I don’t see you there with the “Ewww” face on right now?) and so she got her tweezers and pulled them out. They were mostly just little pieces of string (and I couldn’t feel her pulling them out), but she showed me one that she got from my back, and it was about an inch long. I was impressed that she’d pulled that out and I hadn’t felt it!

And THEN, the surgeon came in and looked me over and cleared me for regular activity (though I need to work up to lifting stuff slowly) and he checked out my incision and we looked at my “before” pictures, and he told me that he was pleased with my results, and asked if I was. I assured him that I was very happy, then we discussed the “scar massage” I’m to begin immediately.

Scar massage, basically, is where you use unscented lotion, put it on the tip of your finger, and rub firmly along the scar line. It breaks up and softens the scar ridge under the incision line. They gave me a sample of Mederma and a sample of Eucerin. I picked up a tube of Mederma at Target, and apparently you can use it on old scars. I’m going to do an experiment on the scar on my stomach – the one where I had a mole removed several years ago – and see if it really makes any difference in the appearance of the scar over the next few months. I mean, I don’t really care how dark my scars are, I’m not going to be exposing my scars in public or anything, it’s just a matter of curiosity.

As the surgeon looked at my incision line, he pointed out a scabby area to the nurse and said he thought there might be some “suture material” there and asked her to take a look. He told me to come back at the 9-month mark, and left the room. The nurse had me lean back, and she got her tweezers out, and she started pulling on the scabs (there were two small ones) and we were both like “No, just looks like scabs…” and THEN this three-inch long piece of suture came out, and I was like “OOH, GROSS!” and the nurse said “Are you okay?” and I said “Yeah, I meant gross in a cool way!”

You weren’t eating, were you?

So ANYway, I asked about my binder, and she said that I could start weaning myself off the binder usage slowly, that if I suddenly started going without, it would put a lot of stress on my abdomen and would hurt. After my shower this morning, I’m going to go without the binder for a few hours and see how it goes. I do have a couple of Flexees “Waist-shaper panties” that I might wear for a while, too. We’ll see, I’ll play it by ear. Or by abs. HA.

The nurse said, “So are there any clothes you’re fitting into that you weren’t able to fit into before?” and I told her the story of my size medium shorts from Wal-Mart, and then I said “Actually, this t-shirt I’m wearing, I used to try it on and wouldn’t wear it because it was tight on my stomach, but when I was looking for something to wear this morning, I decided to give it a try!”

And she gave me a high five. Heh.

Here’s me in my Wal-Mart shorts and size L t-shirt (you can’t see the front, but there’s a pink flower, and it says “Maine” below it). I am fully aware that y’all are going to tell me that the shirt is too big, but what you need to keep in mind is SHUT UP. I didn’t go out and buy it, it was in my closet, and a smaller size would have shorter sleeves and in such a case y’all would be looking at my upper arms and no one needs to see that. Trust me.

This past weekend, Fred decided he was caught up on his chores around the place, and he walked inside a little after 11:00 and announced “It would take very little to convince me to drive up to Lawrenceburg. I don’t want to work outside anymore, it’s too damn hot out there.”

“You know what I was thinking?” I said.

“What?”

“We should drive up to Lawrenceburg!”

And so we did. I mentioned that I wished that we could trust his truck to get us up there, because there are a few areas in the house where I’d like to put simple tables, and the Amish furniture I’ve seen has been the kind of stuff that would work perfectly. This apparently put the idea in his head that he should get a new truck (something he’s been talking about on and off recently), and so we drove through Closeville and eyeballed some trucks before we headed for Tennessee.

We were both starving to death by the time we got to Amish country, so we stopped at The Brass Lantern in Lawrenceburg, and we had the BEST burgers on earth. When we went into the restaurant, they seated us at a small table with four chairs. I had the utter nerve and gall to sit on the side next to Fred instead of across from him, and we were sitting there looking at our menus and my arm brushed against his and he said “You’re all up in my space, aren’t you?” and I said “Well, do you want me to move?” AND HE SAID “Do you mind?” So I called him a princess and got up and flounced to the other side of the table and apparently the people sitting behind us got a kick out of that.

Did I mention we had the best burgers ever? SO GOOD. I ate the other half of mine for dinner that night, and it was just as good reheated. NOM.

I tried to convince Fred we need one of these for the tree in the front yard. He wouldn’t go for it. Hmph.

Then we got in the car and headed for the Amish community. We passed about 10,000 used car lots on the way, stopped at a produce store to buy a few things, drove through the Amish community without stopping (the Amish peoples are so scary and flat-gazed and unsmiling that we rarely ever stop to buy anything, because we’re great big scaredy-cats) and then we stopped at a furniture gallery to look at the tables. I didn’t really see anything that was perfect (though I did point out a table to Fred, and he said “I could build something like that!”, so I snapped a picture of it. We’ll see if there’s any actual building done in the future. I AM SKEPTICAL.)

We stopped and looked at another zillion and thirty trucks (I suspect you can imagine just how interested I am in the whole truck hunt. PLEASE GOD MAKE IT STOP.), and then we went to the R3d T0p B@rgain B@rn, which is this, well, barn that’s crammed full of cheap crap. Imagine Big Lots, only not as classy. We stopped there because Fred likes to buy cable ties there; they’re apparently better than the ones he got at Big Lots.

As he checked out, the lady running the cash register looked at his shirt and laughed and pointed it out to the other woman working there.

“I like his shirt!” she said. “‘That’s what she SAID!'”

(Side note: Fred sent me an email the week before last with this link. Since I thought it was a t-shirt he needed (not that he really needs any more t-shirts, but y’know.), I ordered it. I also got him this one while I was at it.)

When we went out to the car, Fred said “I wanted to say, ‘That’s not what it says! It says That’s what SHE said!'”

We were headed back to the highway, cutting down a shortcut, when I saw a small animal by the side of the road, and then looked closer, and lost my shit.

“Stop the car! Stop the car! STOP THE CAR!” I yelled. I swear to god, Fred moseyed down the road for three miles before slowly coming to stop. “Turn around! Go back! THAT WAS A KITTEN!” He finally turned around, but he wouldn’t stop where the kitten STILL was because it was on a blind curve or something that he TOTALLY MADE UP and eventually he pulled over and I got out of the car while he was still slowly slowly SLOWLY coming to a stop.

The kitten, naturally, was no longer by the side of the road (I should note here that it didn’t seem to be hurt, was moving around just fine, but I didn’t think a kitten who appeared to be about the size of our fosters should be wandering around next to a road where the traffic moves pretty quickly) and I searched around in the brush and called for it. I could hear something moving off in the distance and when I called out, an adult cat meowed back at me, but after ten or fifteen minutes of searching I couldn’t find anything and Fred made me give up.

“You were like Arnie in Christine when he sees the car,” he said, then mocked me. “‘STOP THE CAR! STOP THE CAR! STOP THE CAR!'”

Fucker.

We stopped at the Bodenham General Store, which is our favorite store in Tennessee, and bought a few things, then headed home.

Sunday, since Fred still had that bug firmly up his butt about needing a new truck, he finished up what he’d wanted to get done outside and then asked if I wanted to drive into Huntsville to look at trucks. Since I had nothing pressing to do, I agreed, and we headed out.

I made him stop at the pet store so we could buy some cat food, and I looked at the cats in the pet room and holy COW there are a lot of kittens right now.

“I don’t know. It matches my collar, but it sure does use a lot of gas…”

We drove through the parking lot of a bunch of dealerships, but a lot of them were closed and Fred got annoyed and decided we should head home, but on the way home there was this used car dealership with a nice-looking truck out front. Fred checked it out and we eventually took it for a drive. When we got back to the lot, the salesman was sitting on the front porch of the house (it was originally a house, was a “Candle Cottage” for a few years, and now it’s the office for a used car dealership). I hate everything that goes along with the process of buying a car, so Fred went up to talk to the guy, and I went to wait in the car.

Fred got in the car (which surprised me, I thought for sure he was going to end up buying the truck.) and I said “I don’t like him. He looks like a douchebag.”

“Oh, he is.”

(Fred wrote more about it over on his site.)

So we ended the weekend without a new truck which surprised me, really. We did go up into Closeville earlier this week to look at a truck Fred had seen, but he decided it was more than we want to spend. He’s made noises, since then, that we don’t NEED a new truck and it’s foolish to spend money on something like that that we don’t NEED, but I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling. We’re going to end up with a truck, believe me. He’s a man on a mission.

Fred has taken to picking up Kara and walking around the downstairs with her. Yesterday, he let her out into the downstairs hallway so she could walk around. Miz Poo was in the vicinity. Kara sniffed around and then rubbed on Miz Poo, and then she apparently realized she was rubbing on Miz Poo, and started a smackdown.

Poor Miz Poo.

So Kara has decided that she’d like the freedom of having the run of the whole house, pls, and so she sits at the bottom of the stairs and occasionally howls and I blame Fred for this annoying turn of events. If I could trust that she wouldn’t kill any of the cats who looked sideways at her kittens, I’d be more inclined to let her run free. As it is, for now she’ll get short periods of freedom.

“YOWZA!”

There are a bunch of really good kitten pics uploaded today over at Flickr.

“I am Suggie J. Sugarton, and I disapprove this message.”

Previously
2007: I figure it’s the goddamn circle of life and all that.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: I know I did the same lazy-ass, stupid-ass shit, and in retrospect she didn’t beat me nearly enough.
2002: Fred: Hey. You’re married to an old white man.
2001: No entry.
2000: I’m having a klutzy day.

Yesterday morning I realized at some point that I had no internet. Since our internet provider is also the provider of our home phone service, I picked up the phone. No signal. I picked up my cell phone to call Fred, which is when I found that I’d received a text message the night before from a local number I didn’t recognize.

The message: I love u dearly.

Immediately I decided that it had come from an older gentleman – mid-50s at least, I named him Jasper in my mind – because kids these days don’t use the word “dearly.” They don’t love dearly. They love WTF-ly, OMG-ly, and ROFL-ly, but dearly? No. I imagined a white-haired old man painstakingly picking out the letters, taking 15 minutes to type out his message, sending it and then… nothing. No reply from his dear love. Was he texting his wife, his daughter, a new love?

I immediately typed out That’s very sweet, but you have the wrong number.

No reply. And then, half an hour later, another text from Jasper, asking only Who is this?

I didn’t answer – I was busy with something – and when I hadn’t answered after ten minutes, I got another identical text.

Robyn And3rson, I texted. And decided that, in a novel, this would be the excellent beginning to either a romance or a murder mystery. I hoped Jasper wasn’t too terribly embarrassed that he’d professed his dear love to complete stranger. Maybe he was worried that he’d texted his doctor’s office or an acquaintance. Maybe a poker buddy – MAN they’d be mocking him at the next game, those bastards.

Five minutes later, another text: i guess i do have da wrong nunber. im shawn.

There went my sweet older man theory. Sweet older men do NOT do “da” instead of “the”. At least Jasper doesn’t.

I was taking pictures of the kittens yesterday when I realized I could see myself in the mirror on the closet door. So I snapped a picture to see how my hair REALLY looks. I mean, I can see it in the mirror, but many times I’ve thought I looked okay in the mirror and found out later via picture that I was incorrect.

Eh. Looks okay, I suppose.

I was actually scheduled for a cut and color on the day I ended up having surgery, so I had to cancel the appointment. Which means I’m almost 4 weeks overdue for a cut and color. I bought a couple of boxes of semi-permanent hair color with the idea of using it a few times, letting my hair grow out a little, and then deciding what I wanted to do. Maybe waiting ’til the Fall to go back for a cut and color, you know?

Eh. Looks okay from this angle, I guess. This picture, by the way, looks the most like me to me than almost any picture I’ve ever taken.

And then of course, I had to take a picture with Zoe, who I always call “My Peanut” because she’s so tiny. And from this angle… the hair is messy, but DAMN. What’s up with the lines on that forehead? Did I say I was anti-Botox? Because I’m thinking I might need me some. Also, I am very shiny. Oh well – my Peanut doesn’t care. She just wants me to get that damn camera the hell away from her.

My viewing of the Sex and the City movie makes me ask this: Who the hell uses white bed sheets, and why the hell would you use white sheets instead of colored or patterned? White sheets seem like a pain in the ass (especially considering my cats and their grimy little feet) to wash, they seem like they’d get kind of dingy pretty quickly, and like they’d require a lot of bleach.

Do you use white sheets? And why, for the love of god, when colored sheets will hide stains and grimy cat footprints?

Also regarding Sex and the City, I SO don’t need one of those house-shaped key covers I mentioned in yesterday’s entry – I have a car key, a house key, and a post office box key. They’re all easily distinguishable from each other, so it’s a good thing I wasn’t able to find the key cover when I was looking, because I don’t NEED it. Damn me and my impulse shopping tendencies.

Kitten movie! This one is just of them hanging out. At the end, Zoe sniffs the plate of food Kara is eating, then scratches at the floor to cover it. CUTE. You get to hear someone covering and covering and covering something in the litter box. And the reason I say “Did you come over here to wipe your butt on me?” is because earlier in the day, Kaylee had used the litter box then run over to climb on my leg, thereby wiping her butt on my leg in the process and leaving a streak behind. GROSS.

See it here in MPG format.

I left Kara and the babies out of the foster kitten room all day yesterday – even left for half an hour to take a trip to the recycling center – and no one died. I do need to get another baby gate to make sure the entire doorway at the bottom of the stairs is covered and no one can climb over. I wouldn’t want to see THAT carnage.

Their favorite place to hang out seems to be in my bedroom, whether playing under the bed, chasing each other up the back of the recliner, or napping on my bed. They seem a little more willing to be cuddled these days, as long as I don’t try to do it for too long. They kill me with the cute, these kittens.

Inara and the camera lens cover.

Sleeping Kara.

“Okay, seriously? They’re almost nine weeks old! When does my body become MINE again?!”

Actually, I think Zoe’s 9/10s of the way to being weaned. She didn’t get much nursing in before Kara stood up and went along her way. Also, after eating baby food for the last several days, Zoe has now moved on to eating a mix of baby food and canned food. I think she also may have eaten a few pieces of hard cat food. She’s definitely hungry in the morning and at night when I give them their canned food/ baby food combo, so hopefully she’s ready to get moving on to the crunchy stuff.

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

“Did someone say… KITTENS?”

Hey, look – it’s her majesty a year ago:

I can say that a year after we got her and I believed she was completely feral, I still wouldn’t dare to try to pick her up, but every morning when I go around the house and open the blinds, she’s either sitting on the top of the cat tree in the front room, or on the guest bedroom bed, and she lets me pet her, writhes around and purrs, and grabs my hand when I pull it away. It took us a year to get to this point. Maybe in another year I’ll try picking her up and see how that goes. Then again, maybe I’ll wait more like five years before I try that particular maneuver.

Previously
2007: What can I say, they’re cats. This sort of thing doesn’t occur to them.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: All I heard on the other end was laughter.
2003: “Motherfucker. He never told People how he was soooooo in love with me when WE were together!”
2002: A world where smiley faces and “fuckity fuck-fuck-fuck!”s will abound. I can hardly wait!
2001: Why, just this morning I was thinking to myself Why is Ben Affleck stalking and following me dressed like a Frenchman?
2000: No entry.

First things first, I LOVED the Sex and the City movie. All it was, was a super-sized episode of the show with some endings and some beginnings and it was exactly what I expected and hoped for.

I actually kind of hate the fact that we know Big’s name now, though. Also, if you’re going to have a movie hinge on the fact that emails are coming from john@jjpny.com, hello? Should you maybe be sure that there’s a WEB SITE at jjpny.com, maybe? They at least threw something up over at CarrieBradshaw.com.

I adored Jennifer Hudson in this movie.

Almost every time Charlotte came on the screen I teared up because I LOVE CHARLOTTE.

I preferred Carrie’s apartment before the redecoration.

I am astounded that Bag Borrow or Steal is a real thing.

And lastly, they were only shown for a brief instant, but I believe that Carrie had something over the ends of her keys to differentiate them from each other – ie, the key to her apartment had a little house-shaped thingy that slipped over the end of her key. Did anyone else see that, and do you know where I can get that sort of thing? ME WANT.

Someone asked if I watched the show when it was on – I did, I watched every episode. Seeing this movie was like seeing old friends and I loved it. I’m seriously considering going to see it again. I didn’t want it to end.

I was the ONLY one in the movie theater, which makes me think that Monday afternoon matinees might be the way to go from here on out. Maybe I’ll start going to the movies every Monday. Movie Monday! Why not, right?

The only down side is that the friggin’ theater was SO FUCKING COLD. Like 55 degrees. I thought to bring a sweatshirt but didn’t think to bring socks, and I ended up with the sweatshirt pulled down over my knees and alternated tucking my feet up underneath me.

Oh right, the whole bullshit “Samantha gains 15 pounds, the horror!” storyline. Please. And that whole throwaway “Well you’re fabulous of course at any size, Samantha, that goes without saying, but my CHRIST, when you gained the first pound and a half, how were you able to LIVE with yourself?!” line. PLEASE.

That bullshit could have – should have – been cut completely from the movie. Because I’m sorry, who the fuck notices when someone else gains 15 pounds? SERIOUSLY? I assure you, if I see you in real life on any kind of regular basis, I am far too self-involved and concerned about the size of my own ass to notice the size of yours. And I can monitor the size of my own ass quite well, thank you, I don’t need you to monitor it for me. Shove it up your ass, if you don’t mind, CARRIE BRADSHAW.

I can just about guarantee that if you’ve gained less than 50 pounds, I haven’t noticed. And if you’ve gained more than 50 pounds, I might notice there’s something different about you. Maybe you got your hair cut? And even if I did notice that you’ve gained weight, I probably figured that you might have realized it and didn’t need me to point it out SO VERY HELPFULLY to you. I can’t remember one time in my entire life when it was pointed out to me that I was fat that I didn’t want to go on a stabbing rampage.

BUTTONS BEING PRESSED HERE, CAN YOU TELL?

I figure the size of my ass is my business. If you don’t get to see it unclothed on a regular basis, there’s no way on god’s green earth it can possibly be any goddamn business of yours. (And I recognize the ridiculousness of someone who has written extensively about her own weight saying such a thing. But I share what I choose to share. Or that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

To quote Pepper, When my wife’s aunt asked if I had gained weight, I asked her what kind of social rules she lives by that make that question acceptable.

So, I stopped by TJ Maxx on my way to the movies yesterday, because I need a new comforter. I love the one I got from JC Penney a few months ago, but the problem is that I have CATS who are ASSHOLES and their claws get caught in the threads of the comforter and it’s just a big freakin’ mess. So I stopped at TJ Maxx to look for a new one. The new TJ Maxx is in Madison (they closed the one I used to go to in Huntsville near the mall), and I have to say, I liked the old one better. They had a better selection of comforters and bedspreads; now they’ve got nothin’.

From TJ Maxx, I went over to Kohl’s. I needed to pick up some shaping undergarments (after my appointment with the surgeon next week, I get to go from the binder, which is ANNOYING THE SHIT OUT OF ME because it won’t stay put, to shaping undergarments) and look at the comforters and pick up some sheets for the guest bed. I found a comforter I liked, I found the shaping undergarments I wanted, and I found some sheets.

The total at the register was a bit more than I’d expected, but I paid it and when I went out to the parking lot, I looked at my receipt to see what was up, and I found that the two – TWO – pillow cases I’d bought to go along with the set of sheets I’d bought were THIRTY-FIVE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS. For two pillow cases! What the fuck?!

I actually said that out loud in the parking lot “What the fuck?!” I said, and then was greeted by a disapproving harrumph from an old man sitting in a nearby car. I wanted to say “Go fuck yourself old man, if you’d just paid THIRTY GODDAMN FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS for two pillow cases, you’d be swearing out loud in the parking lot, too!”, but I didn’t. Those pillow cases and sheets will be going back to Kohl’s, believe you me. That’s fucking ridiculous. The pillow cases cost as much as the sheets!

Unreal.

So I went to the movies, and after the movies I went to Sam’s to pick up more packets of Splenda and some other stuff (including the new Lincoln Rhyme and Jack Reacher books, woohoo!), and then I stopped by the post office (I really need to get a PO Box closer to home) and then headed home.

There is a long country road between Madison and Smallville that is the most direct and quickest way to get home. Except that it is a long country road and many times there is farm equipment driving down that long country road. And despite the fact that there’s a lot of commuter traffic going down that long country road at 4:50 on a Monday afternoon, it was apparently deemed a Very Good Idea for some big fucking piece of fucking farm equipment to take a mosey on down that road. I generally drive down that long country road at about 50 miles per hour. Yesterday, I drove the majority of that road at 20 miles per hour. There were 15 cars between the fucking piece of fucking farm equipment and my car, not to mention plenty of traffic coming from the other direction, so there was no passing to be done. I should have turned off and taken the long way home at any number of turnoffs, but I was SO sure that the goddamn farm equipment-driving asshole would either pull over or turn off at any minute that I just kept on chugging along.

It never pulled over or turned off, and I was ready to have a fucking stroke by the time I pulled into my driveway. I parked the car as close to the side stoop as I could, and I got an armload of stuff to carry inside (a light armload, don’t lecture me), and I walked up the steps and reached out to open the door but OF COURSE it was locked. Despite the fact that Fred was home and within view of the house (he was cutting the back forty with the tractor.), he’d locked the side door. I had to juggle the shit I was carrying and unlock the door, and as soon as I stepped over the threshold, everything I was carrying went tumbling to the floor.

I swore a blue streak, threw my keys across the room, and stomped out to get the rest of the shit that needed to come inside. And then I retrieved my keys and parked my car in the driveway in front of the garage.

“Oh OF COURSE the side door would be locked, oh of course, because apparently EVERYONE IN THIS GODDAMN TOWN cannot wait to get INSIDE OUR HOUSE, according to MY HUSBAND, oh they’re DYING to get inside the house and there’s just a LINE of people ready to bust into our house and steal our shit with him right there in clear view of the house! OF COURSE. And I don’t CARE if he spent Sunday cleaning out my side of the garage so I can park in the garage. I DON’T WANT TO PARK IN THE GARAGE AND HE CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF IF HE WANTS ME TO PARK IN THE GARAGE!”

And then I was putting the stuff I’d bought away and he came in all happy and greeted me and I went off on him and he laughed at me and then we ate dinner and I felt better.

But once the Hate Train gets rolling, it’s hard to bring it into the station and leave it there, so I spent the rest of the evening swearing about pretty much everything, including the fact that Tommy refused to come in at Snackin’! Time! (I went to the back door, all the other cats milling around me excitedly, and I was all “Tommy! Snackin’! Who ready for the snackin’!” and he looked at me and yawned and I yelled “Fine then, fuck you!” and slammed the door shut. And then I was pissed because I always give each cat their snack in a certain spot so they each have enough room and aren’t all up in each others’ shit, and EVERY FUCKING NIGHT they’re all “Where my snack? My snack over here? This must be my snack NOM NOM NOM!” and I have to push Joe Bob away from Sugarbutt and Tommy’s snack and show him where HIS snack is, EVEN THOUGH I DO IT THE SAME EVERY GODDAMN NIGHT, and we always talk about how Spanky is the dumbest cat we’ve ever known, but EVERY NIGHT he waits patiently in his spot for his plate o’ snack while the other fuckheads mill around stupidly.

And then, I don’t know. I hated on credit card companies and banks and what assholes Big Banks and Big Business are (this hatred brought on by a viewing of the first half of Maxed Out) and then we went out to put the chickens up and one of the babies was wandering around making a sad cheeping noise like “I think I’m lost? Hellew? Where my Momma?” and The Cute put me in a good mood, and then we went for a walk around the back forty, stopping to see the pigs, and to feed them some chocolate we bought for them over the weekend at the Russell Stover store* and they were all “You has for us the chocolate to nom?”, and they got all drooly and happy when Fred fed them their chocolate and GODDAMN they stink, but they’re certainly entertaining.

So the day ended up pretty good, which it usually is around here. Just sometimes, you’ve gotta bitch. Y’know?

*Lest you think we only feed those bastards chocolate and cake and crappy food, let me tell you that 9/10ths of what they eat is Pig Chow and vegetables left over from last year’s harvest and leftovers from Fred’s mother and stepfather. But they like chocolate and I like our future food sources to be happy, so what can I say?

Today’s kitten movie is of them playing on that cat toy I got from another shelter volunteer. It came from Target, and they think it’s the best thing EVER.

You can see it here in MPG version.

Over the weekend, Fred started feeling really bad about the fact that Kara and her babies have been stuck in one room (well, one room and a very big closet) for the past eight weeks. We wanted to let them out into the house, but Kara’s still so protective that seeing our cats stresses her out and puts her in fight mode (see: the kicking of Mister Boogers’ ass). So we started brainstorming, and I was all about the idea that we should build something to put at the top of the stairs to prevent our cats from coming upstairs and Kara and her babies from going downstairs, and then I was all about the idea of putting a door at the top of the stairs, and then Fred came up with the most obvious, simplest solution (that wouldn’t require anything permanent to be mounted): baby gates.

After I got groceries on Sunday, I swung by Wal-Mart and made the purchase. When I got home, we tried it out.

To say that it was a hit would be an understatement. The babies LOVED having more room to race around and more things to climb (my bed, the recliner in my room, the bottom shelf of the bookcase; they love to get into the bathtub and chase each other around), and Kara just flat-out loved being out of that damn room. In fact, she was so super friendly and happy that I thought she was going into heat (false alarm, it turned out).

Sunday and yesterday, I let them out for a few hours in the morning and another few hours at night. I would have let them stay out all day yesterday, except that the gates don’t totally cover the doorway and Sunday night Tommy tried to climb them and I was going to be gone for a few hours, and didn’t want to think of the tragedy of Tommy climbing over the gates, going upstairs and getting his ass killed.

Today, I’ll probably let them stay out all day and see how that goes. So far, the pattern seems to be, I let them out, they race around for an hour, and then lay down in various places (my bed being a popular place) and go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After I let them out this morning, I put the Roomba in the foster kitten room and let it do its thing. The girls scattered, but River decided he was the big, strong man and needed to keep an eye on things. From a DISTANCE, that is.

There was so much cat hair embedded in the carpet that I had to empty the dustpan twice before it could finish the room. And it is NOT a big room!

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

Newtie say, “Hellew.”

Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: And I so desperately wanted to say “Did I see? Yes. Do I care? No.”
2004: Ten
2003: I’ve never been the patient sort.
2002: Damn YahooGroups.
2001: No entry.
2000: I’ve always felt that I have a lucky life.

Lisa mentioned in my comments on Friday that your RSS feed through Bloglines hasn’t updated since June 3..

From what I read over the weekend (at Swistle, among other places), Bloglines seems to be having some sort of issue wherein a lot of RSS feeds aren’t updating. So I’m guessing it’s a Bloglines issue, not a Bitchypoo issue – which is a relief, because I’d have NO idea how to fix it if it was my fault.

I myself use Google Reader and haven’t had any problems with it at all. I recommend it!

While having a recent email discussion with someone regarding Botox, I remembered something I’d recently read in a magazine – something that made me laugh out loud – and I had to go look for it to share with y’all.

Making Faces

The first time I got cosmetic injections, my eyebrows dropped down my forehead until I looked like a cave woman. Apparently the dermatologist had injected the wrong muscle group. My coworkers elected a spokesperson to tell me to never do it again. They called me “angry eyes.” I even had to have my company-ID photograph reshot. When I went back to the doctor, he told me I was going to have to wear sunglasses for a month, until the effects wore off.

That’s from Real Simple magazine, the May ’08 issue.

Something about the nickname “Angry Eyes” just makes me laugh and laugh.

Fred had Thursday and Friday off, which gave him a four day weekend. Somehow, those four days just FLEW by. He spent most of Friday and Sunday working outside, but on Saturday after a relaxing morning of cutting up half a tree and hauling it over to the burn pile, he decided to take the rest of the day off. He watched a loud movie, took a nap, hung out with me, we took a drive to buy some tomatoes (since it seems like it’ll be forEVER before ours are ripe), and then he watched another loud movie while I sat in the recliner and read.

We got a buttload of rain on Friday, and I know we needed the rain (and the garden, especially, loved it), but I just hate how muggy it gets after a hard rain. Not to mention, the FLIES seem to triple.

Ugh, the flies. I know I’ve got no damn room to talk about the damn flies, since it should have maybe occurred to me that 49 chickens and two pigs just might attract a fly or two. We don’t get a ton of flies in the house (thank god), and even when we do I can kill them pretty quickly (I’m not terribly skilled with the fly swatter, but I find that flailing around like an idiot, swatting at the fly 130 times will eventually get the job done. I think sometimes the flies feel sorry for me and fly extra slow so I can get them.), but there are just SWARMS of flies over at the chicken yard.

Last year, I bought those bags that come with fly attractant in them. You break the fly attractant open inside the bag, fill the bag with water and hang them, and the flies will be attracted to the, uh, attractant and fly into the bag where they buzz around, get too tired to fly any more, and then drown. I never used them last year, but this year I got annoyed by the huge number of flies so Fred and I got a couple of them out and put one in each chicken coop. They attracted plenty of flies, but a lot of the flies that were attracted didn’t go into the bag, just swarmed around them. Fred finally got annoyed with the bags (and the attractant, which smells like rotting garbage, and the chicken yard smells bad enough as it is thank you, especially when it’s hot and humid out) and took them out of the coop. One of them he tossed on the ground by the fence; the other, he hung from the fence.

Ever since he did that, a couple of chickens started hanging out by the bags, which were always covered in flies, catching and eating flies. At least they’re getting plenty of protein, I suppose. The fly population hasn’t died down any, unfortunately.

I het flies.

Sunday, I went and got groceries and then swung by Wal-Mart, then got home and puttered around the house. I decided to clear out the freezer – I froze a LOT of summer squash last year, and this year’s bounty has started coming in, so I needed to make room. Also, I froze a LOT of okra last year, and this year MY GODDAMN HUSBAND planted TWO rows of the stuff. I like okra, but we do NOT eat enough okra to make it necessary to plant twice as many this year, especially considering how much we have left over from last year.

Anyway, I pulled out the majority of last year’s leftovers, threw half of it in a big pot, and boiled it for a few hours for the pigs. They’ll eat summer squash and okra, but they prefer it cooked. I mean, they’ll EAT the raw stuff, eventually, but it’s grudging and they act like they’re doing us favors.

Spoiled bastards.

I did laundry, I hung out with the kittens, I cleared the pile of crap off my dresser. Just puttered around the house, like I said. I played a LOT of Scrabble on Facebook, and I even managed to get one or two big-point words. That, my friends, is a red-letter day.

Now I think I’m going to take myself to the movies. I’ve been wanting to see Sex and the City, so I’m gonna. I have a few errands to run over in the direction of Huntsville, so I’m going to run them, then go sit in the nice cool theater, eat some popcorn, and make fun of Carrie Bradshaw’s ugly-ass clothes.

New kitten movie! This one is mostly River and Inara (mostly River, really).

Or download it here in mpg format.

“Bleh.”

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

A moment in the rough, rough, ROUGH life of Master Joseph Robert And3rson.

Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: Anatomy of a Snooze
2005: This is the story of how my husband is a fucker.
2004: As you can imagine, I’m in a REALLY good mood.
2003: After much persuasion, he confessed that he’d seen the movie ratings poster on the wall and thought there was going to be a movie about the ratings system.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: When I think about the incredibly stupid things I did as a teen, it makes me cringe.