July 2009 – Page 3

7/7/09 – Tuesday

Ever have one of those days when there’s ONE thing you really need to get accomplished by the end of the day, but at the end of the day, it remains undone? I had one of those days yesterday. I did laundry, then had to use the dryer instead of hanging it out to dry … Continue reading “7/7/09 – Tuesday”

Ever have one of those days when there’s ONE thing you really need to get accomplished by the end of the day, but at the end of the day, it remains undone?

I had one of those days yesterday.

I did laundry, then had to use the dryer instead of hanging it out to dry because it looked like it could rain.

I chopped cucumbers and onions to make sweet pickle relish – good god, what a time-consuming pain in the ass, but I didn’t want to use the food processor, because I like my sweet pickle relish to have those little cubes rather than shreds. I could have used my Vidalia Chop Wizard, but that died a few months ago in a tragic “GODDAMN IT, YOU WILL CHOP THIS ONION, WHY ARE YOU BEING SUCH A PAIN IN THE ASS???” accident that might have involved someone putting it on the floor and stepping on it, then bouncing up and down to force it to chop the Teflon-skinned onion someone was trying to chop. After chopping and chopping and chopping for hours yesterday, I ordered a new Vidalia Chop Wizard so that in three years when the 6 half-pints of sweet pickle relish I made yesterday AND the five half-pints I made a few weeks ago are used up, I won’t have to chop by hand (although I’m sure my Chop Wizard will have died again by then. Don’t they make a version of that thing that is NOT made of plastic?).

I paid bills and balanced the checkbook, which I’d been putting off since the middle of last week.

I ran over to the post office to drop off a box and to mail my bills.

I got home and checked my mail, to find that a book I’d dropped in the mail box at the post office on Friday was over 13 ounces, so they attached a “Bitch, I don’t even think so. You have to hand this to a person. IT MIGHT BE A BOMB AND HANDING IT OVER TO A PERSON IN PERSON WILL ENSURE THAT IT IS NOT A BOMB.” sticker to the front.

I went through the buckets of vegetables Fred had brought in from the garden on Sunday, picked out the oversized zucchini to feed to the chickens (they adore that zucchini), washed off the cherry tomatoes and put them in a bowl to finish ripening (the majority of them tend to have just a tinge of green when Fred brings them in. Sitting on the counter for a day usually takes care of that), washed off the remaining zucchini and summer squash, and looked balefully at the ONE partially-ripe tomato sitting on the counter. We have 50-something tomato plants, and have gotten just a handful of tomatoes. I suspect that in a week or two, I’m going to be awash in mostly-ripe tomatoes and I cannot WAIT. I’m planning to make my own ketchup this year!

I put laundry away and threw a load of towels in to wash.

I had to go to the bank to deposit checks and of COURSE I didn’t think to bring a magazine or book with me. And of COURSE I didn’t think about actually going inside the bank to make my deposit until after I was trapped in the drive-thru. So I sat there for 15 minutes and cleaned out my purse, used a wet wipe to wipe down the dashboard, looked in vain at my pocket calendar, checked my phone for games to play (there are no games on my cell phone, damnit, except for a trial version of Ms. Pac Man) and just generally cursed this whole fucking antiquated business where people write on pieces of paper, necessitating that you have to take said pieces of paper TO THE BANK to get your money, and what is this, 1734? Can’t they just mentally zap the money into my checking account or something? GEEZ.

Since I was in that end of town anyway, I decided to go check the PO Box. I don’t check it that often, because I’m usually not expecting anything, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, and I figured at the very least there’d be magazines I have no desire to read so that I could get annoyed by the previous owner of the PO Box for not filling out the card to have her mail forwarded. I wasn’t quite sure what my exact PO Box address is (I haven’t memorized it yet), so I called Fred and made him check my contact page so I could be sure. Then I went into the post office and my fucking key would NOT open the box.

I called Fred and double-checked to be sure I had it right. I did, I tried it again, and the key would go in, but it wouldn’t turn. I stood in line for 10 minutes, told the lady at the counter my problem. “Oh,” she said. “Your rent must be due. Would you like to pay it?” I said I would, and she went to bring up the account for me, but since I wasn’t within 30 days of the bill being due, I couldn’t pay it. In other words, the rent? Not due yet. She went back and looked at the box and checked with someone, then told me that she’d pull “the green stick” (I didn’t ask) out, and I should be all set.

I went back, and again the key went in and wouldn’t turn. I went back and stood in line for another five minutes so I could tell her that it wasn’t working. She went off to consult with someone, who eventually came out and went to the box with me, saw the nonworking nature of my key, and went back into the back to see what the hell was going on. It appears that the issue of Garden & Gun magazine that Douchey McGee, the previous box owner, was subscribed to had been pushed up so that it was under the turning mechanism, thus stopping the turning mechanism from, well, turning. I’ll be writing to those goddamn magazines (Douchey McGee also received her monthly issue of Entrepreneur as well as Parenting. Well-rounded interests, that Douchey.) to stop the subscriptions from arriving.

I had hoped to be home from my errands by noon – by the time I got home, it was almost 1:00. I went out and gave the dogs their mid-day snack (shaddup), tossed scratch to the chickens, checked for eggs, and then came inside and ate lunch. We had BLTs for dinner the other night – the bacon from our most recent pig; we took them to a different place for processing this time around, and they smoked the bacon for us and HOLY CRAP was it good – and there were two pieces of bacon left over, so I had a BLT for lunch.

It was fabulous.

After lunch, I drained the chopped-up cucumbers/ red and green bell peppers/ onion, made the syrup for the pickle relish, boiled the whole mess for five minutes, canned it all up, put it in the water canner, and then cleaned the kitchen while the canned pickle relish boiled merrily for ten minutes. I think I mentioned that I ended up with 6 half-pints of the stuff. The perfect addition to chicken or egg salad! And best of all, I think we can skip a year of cucumbers, unless the gherkins I’m going to make next week (assuming I have enough cucumbers) are so good that I need to make more next year.

Once the canning of the relish was done, I pulled the zucchini and summer squash out of the fridge, sliced up a shitload of it, dipped and coated it, oven-fried it, let it cool, and then put it in the freezer (still on the baking sheets) to freeze. Once it was frozen, I piled up all the slices and popped them in a freezer bag. This winter, all I’ll have to do is bake those ’til they’re heated through, and we’ll have ourselves a decent side dish with whatever the hell we’re eating.

We are some squash-loving motherfuckers.

While the squash was cooking, I pulled the ears of corn out of the fridge and started cutting the kernels off the cobs. Fred harvested a load of corn last week, and I boiled up a couple of ears and it was really good, so I froze the rest of it. Then he waited too long to harvest the rest of the corn, and it got past the point of being any good, which we discovered on Saturday when we were eating corn on the cob with our burgers. It was chewy and just plain gross. Since we can’t toss ears of corn on the cob into the big chicken yard lest George and Gracie snatch them up, eat them, and then require $63 million in vet care (eating the cobs can cause intestinal blockages), I decided to cut the corn off and toss the kernels in the big chicken yard, and the leftover cobs in the little chicken yard (there was enough corn left on the cobs to make it worth their while for the chickens to peck at the cobs).

I’d just tossed the cobs into the little chicken yard and the kernels into the big chicken yard when someone pulled into the driveway. I looked at the time and cursed Fred’s existence. Someone was stopping by to buy hatching eggs, and Fred KNEW that, but it was just after 3:30 (he’d told them he’d be home at 3:30), and where was Fred? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, THAT’S WHERE. I answered the door, made sure it was the egg-buying guy (it was), then called Fred on his cell phone to find out how many eggs they were buying, and how much. When he sells eggs on eBay, he sends out 14 eggs to allow for egg breakage in shipping, so I wasn’t sure if he maybe gives in-person egg buyers 14 eggs as well. (He does not.)

As the egg buyer was pulling out, Fred pulled into the driveway. We talked for a few minutes, then he went out into the garden to make more work for me because he’s a hateful motherfucker. I puttered around the kitchen, and eventually started dinner.

For dinner last night: sausage browned with onions and chopped-up zucchini, mixed with spaghetti sauce, served over spaghetti squash. Side dishes: roasted pattypan squash (sliced too thin, as it turned out) and oven-fried sliced okra. It was pretty freakin’ good, if I do say so myself – and we’ll be eating it again tonight, this time with thicker roasted pattypan squash.

After dinner, I dealt with the produce Fred had brought inside, then sat in front of the computer and Googled pattypan squash recipes. I got a sudden brilliant idea – why not dehydrate zucchini slices, which I could rehydrate in the future to use as lasagna noodles? So I Googled around about dehydrating zucchini slices and found a bunch of information about dehydrating shredded zucchini, which you can then rehydrate and use in zucchini bread, or just toss into soups and stews. So today, I’ll be running the dehydrator!

I had enough time before I was due to do Snackin! Time! to go out and fill up the bird feeders and refill the bird baths, so I did that. By the time I was done with that, I had a few minutes to do a little more reading on Google about dehydrating zucchini slices (to blanch or not to blanch first, that is the question I am pondering), then it was Snackin! Time! I fed the cats, scooped the litter boxes, cleaned up the kitchen (the cats make more of a mess in a five minute Snackin! Time! session than I make all day long, I swear to god), and then it was Snackin! Time! for Fred and I, and we settled down in front of the TV. He put in a movie, and I surfed on my laptop.

(Side note: We’re working our way through Season 7 of CSI (Vegas), and I have to say that if Sara Sidle says ONE MORE THING that she thinks is clever and then PURSES HER GODDAMN LIPS TO INDICATE HER SEXY, SEXY WIT, I will go through the TV screen and I will throttle her.)

(Other side note: I’ve told Fred that Gil Grissom is totally the weirdo at Thanksgiving dinner. So when he goes off on one of his informative tangents, lecturing to his fellow CSIs, I say, in a whiny kid’s voice, “Mooooooooom, Uncle Gil is DOING IT AGAIN!”)

(Other other side note: It drives me crazy when one CSI finds a weird piece of evidence and says, basically “Golly, I wonder why that is?” so that the other CSI can condescendingly explain what’s going on so we stupid, stupid viewers won’t be left in the dark.)

(Last side note: All bitching aside, I really do enjoy the show. I swear!)

We went off to bed at 9, and guess what? The one thing I woke up wanting to get accomplished that morning didn’t get done. This house desperately needs to be vacuumed in the worst way.

Guess I know what I’ll be doing today!

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This rooster cracks me UP. He’s part Crested Polish, thus the mohawk. I love his devil-horns comb!

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I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before – Dwight is a sniffer. Every night while we’re watching TV, he climbs up on Fred, and he sniffs Fred’s breath. Then he tries to stick his nose up Fred’s nostril. He’s not picky, though – usually a couple of times a day he’ll approach me and try to stuff his entire head in my mouth, wildly sniffing the entire time. I don’t know if he’s doing a breath check, checking to be sure we’ve brushed our teeth, or hoping to find some food in there, or what. It’s seriously cute.

Phyllis and Creed are both sniffers, too, but not to the extent that Dwight is. They’re hobby sniffers – Dwight, on the other hand, would like to make it his career. I wonder how much a breath-and-nostril sniffer makes these days?

She is SUCH a pretty girl.

“What?”

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Note the droplets of water on his nose.

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Previously
2008: Here’s a tip: if someone teases you about being a Housewife of Doom and a perfectionist, it is difficult to refute that assertion if you’re caught in a compromising position.
2007: No entry.
2006: Damn freaky cats.
2005: “It’s cancer,” Fred said. “That’s a tumorous lip if I’ve ever seen one!”
2004: I didn’t tell her that I think scars are badass and it can scar up all it wants.
2003: God, I hate people.
2002: No entry.
2001: So the house situation, oh what a story it is.
2000: This week, the devil won.

7-6-09 (Monday)

Thanks, y’all, for your kind words and thoughts about Mister Boogers. We are missing him an awful lot these days – more than we expected, I think. With Spot and Tubby, at least they were sick for a while before they died, so it wasn’t unexpected (especially with Spot), but Mister Boogers was young and … Continue reading “7-6-09 (Monday)”

We both keep finding ourselves surprised anew by the loss – and every now and then one or the other of us sighs and says “Poor Boogie.”

Good ol’ Boogie.

It’s so strange – Mister Boogers’ personality was so large that with him gone it’s like our cat population has halved. Things are so quiet around here, and the other cats seem to know that something’s not right.

If you haven’t donated to the shelter in his memory and wanted to, there’s still time! (For that matter, if you were offended by the Boogie hetred, you could donate NOT in his memory. The shelter can always use the money, especially now that they’re aflood in baby kittens.) I suspect Mister Boogers would pretend to be horrified that people were remembering him in such a way, but secretly? He’d be pleased. He’s looking up at y’all right now IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

They accept donations by mail (check or money order), by phone (Mastercard/VISA), or select the button below to donate through PayPal.

Challenger’s House

112 Tristian Rd.

Toney, AL 35773

Phone: 256-420-5995

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So on Friday, after I went to the pet store and cleaned out cat cages and gave extra love to all the cats there, Fred and I set off on an errand. I know I mentioned that the pigs went off to freezer camp a couple of weeks ago. As always, once the pigs were no longer there for us to feed our kitchen scraps to, I missed having a convenient bucket to toss everything into. When we’re pigless, I toss everything into a Ziploc bag and keep it in the freezer ’til it’s full, then move it out to the garage so that when we have pigs again, we’ll have scraps on hand to feed them (they get pig chow as the main part of their diet, but we supplement it with food from our kitchen, the garden, and Fred’s mother saves their leftovers for the pigs, as well).

After a few moments of discussion (doesn’t take much to convince me), Fred decided to call the pig man and see if he had any small pigs he could sell us. He did – he just had to trap them, which took a few days – and they were ready to go. Since Fred had Friday off, we decided Friday morning was the perfect time to go pick them up.

The drive up to the pig man’s house is always a pleasant one. While Fred and the pig man went off to get the pigs (you can read more about that here WARNING GRAPHIC VIOLENCE), I walked around and took some pictures.

Great Pyrenees puppies (no, we didn’t come home with puppies!) and a kitten.

Momma cat (the slightly larger orange and white is the Momma) and some of her babies.

Kittens (they didn’t let me get close to them at ALL).

This one wanted to be friends in the worst way, but she was just a little too scared of me to let me pet her.

One of the many dogs around the place.

“Pet me! Pet me! PET ME!” (I did.)

Momma pig heard her babies squalling and came running. Right through a barbed wire fence. All I could do was stand there and stare – she slipped through so close I could have touched her. (I didn’t.)

Happy pigs.

“What?”

Guineas sure are ugly.

New pigs. Thus far, Fred has attempted to woo them with food. He hasn’t been 100% successful at getting them to connect him with food, but with the help of Piggerdoodles, he’s getting there.

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Saturday – well, what did we do on Saturday? I know I got up early and went to the pet store to clean cages again. To my utter delight, Belle got herself adopted! I cleaned out the cages and then let the kittens – and there are a lot of kittens right now – run wild. I swear to god, if I could bottle 1/100th of the energy those kittens have, I could rule the world.

I left there and went to Sam’s Club to stock up on important household items (2 gallons of white vinegar for less than $4? Yes, please!), and I think I was only in there for about half an hour. I wasted some time at Target, walking around looking at stuff ’til Michael’s opened, then browsed in there for a while before I headed back to the pet store (which was now open) and bought some cat food.

I was home a little after 10, I think, and then I did a lot of puttering around the house getting veggies (which Fred had helpfully picked while I was off running errands) cleaned and put up.

We had a pretty simple Fourth of July meal – hamburgers, horseradish potato salad, corn on the cob, and cherry tomatoes with blocks of mozzarella (always my favorite part of summer. Well – that, and the raw green beans, straight from the vine. Nothing tastes more like summer to me!).

The best part of dinner was dessert – holy MOLY was it good. I ran across a recipe for Paula Deen’s Strawberry Cream Shortcake last week some time, and printed it out. Instead of using just strawberries, I bought some blueberries on sale, and used strawberries on the first layer, and blueberries on top. SO GOOD. I highly recommend it.

(So do the pigs!)

Out of curiosity – do any of Paula Deen’s dessert recipes NOT call for a can of sweetened condensed milk? Not that I’m complaining!

Speaking of good food, I made Quesadilla Pie for dinner last Friday, and it was a big hit with both Fred and I. I did make each layer a lot thicker than I should have, so it ended up being higher than the pie dish, and lasted for several meals. Next time, I’ll make the layers shallower and see how that goes. It’s a good recipe to use up leftover chicken, extra summer squash and zucchini – I imagine just about anything tossed in would be good!

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Creed, Dwight, and Phyllis are such funny little kittens, racing around the house, jumping on each other (and us!), fighting, and then falling in a heap to sleep for hours and hours before resuming the racing around again. They’re sassy little monkeys, and Creed especially is a love bug. He adores climbing up on Fred in the evenings, sniffs wildly at Fred’s mouth, rubs his face along Fred’s cheek, and then settles in to sleep.

(Unless, of course, he hears a strange noise at the other end of the house, in which case he goes racing off to investigate.)

At this point, these three are ready to go to PetSmart, but there are so many kittens at the shelter and more coming in all the time, that it could be a while. And to be honest, I’m fine with that! They’re no trouble, and they’re certainly entertaining.

Phyllis, sound asleep with her eyes open. Kinda creepy!

On the mat by the door, among the shoes, is Dwight’s favorite place to snooze.

“We are trying to sleep. Go ‘way.”

He just REFUSED to lay so that the hat would sit on his head properly. So I hung it off his ear, and he could not have cared less.

Sweet boy.

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Stinkerbelle thinks about taking on the Mantel of Hetred.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: What can I say? I’m a freak.
2006: If the vet tells me that Tommy’s overweight, I’m going to say, with great dignity, “We prefer to call him ‘portly’.”
2005: Mia.
2004: There were a couple of parts that had me laughing so hard I could barely breathe – especially the line “I see you have a little swimming mouse”.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Have I ever mentioned that I’m kind of a dork?

7-1-09 – Wednesday

Mister Boogers June 15, 2003 – June 30, 2009. & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & Yesterday afternoon as I was eating lunch, I thought that it was odd that I hadn’t seen … Continue reading “7-1-09 – Wednesday”

Mister Boogers
June 15, 2003 – June 30, 2009.

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Yesterday afternoon as I was eating lunch, I thought that it was odd that I hadn’t seen Mister Boogers all day. With as many cats as we have, that happens from time to time – Mister Boogers usually spends his mornings wandering around the back yard and his afternoons in a cat bed on my desk. Sometimes he prefers to sleep on the bed in the guest bedroom, or even occasionally disappears upstairs and hang out in the foster kitten room.

I made a mental note to look for him, and then immediately forgot about it.

An hour later, I was bringing in laundry from the clothes line, and I glanced to my right, toward the side yard that leads to the street. A bit of white caught my eye. I looked closer and saw a lump that was obviously Mister Boogers laying under the big tree in the side yard. It was definitely him – his color, his white feet, his red collar. He looked like he was laying half on his side, snoozing comfortably in the shade of the tree.

We have an electric fence around our back yard and the cats who are prone to jump the fence – Mister Boogers, Tommy, Sugarbutt, Joe Bob, and Kara – wear collars that will beep a warning when they get too close to the fence. If they keep going, they’ll get a short zap. This is enough to deter them 99% of the time, but occasionally (rarely) even with the warning beep and the zap, Mister Boogers would withstand the zap enough to get over the fence. Every time he did it, we tried yet another tactic to block him from getting over the fence. Usually the tactics worked – but he was a smart one, our Mister Boogers.

I put my laundry down and walked to the nearest gate, promising myself that Mister Boogers was in TROUBLE when I got my hands on him. I went through the gate and walked toward Mister Boogers, and it was when I was about twenty feet from him that I saw a small swarm of flies around him. I walked a little closer and looked at him.

He wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing. I was pretty sure he was dead.

I turned and walked back to the back yard and into the house, intent on getting to a phone and calling Fred.

“Hmm,” I thought. “I’m really handling this pretty well!” I dialed Fred’s work number and went to the side window at the front of the house and looked out at Mister Boogers.

When Fred answered the phone, I burst into tears. I managed to ask him to come home, told him I thought Mister Boogers was dead, and he said he’d be home soon.

I spent the next half hour, walking from window to window, looking out at Mister Boogers, hoping to see him move, twitch, breathe, but there was nothing.

(I couldn’t bring myself to go out and get right up to him. I was too afraid that he’d been attacked by something and would be all chewed up. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing him like that.)

An eternity later, Fred got home. He went over and looked at Mister Boogers, picked him up while I watched through the window.

Mister Boogers was dead.

Fred examined him closely, and determined that something big had gotten hold of him. He had a hole in his side, and the fur surrounding the hole had very clearly been wet and then dried – you know that look fur gets when that happens. He’d been dead for hours, without a doubt.

We have stray dogs that wander through our property from time to time to get to the food bowl on the front porch (there’s no longer a food bowl on the front porch, and never will be again). We’re theorizing that one came through, got hold of Mister Boogers, and killed him. I don’t know how long he was there under the tree, dead, before I saw him. If I hadn’t seen that bit of his white paws, I might never have noticed him.

I hope that he died quickly. I hope he didn’t lay there and die slowly, in great pain, while I wandered through the house not so far from him.

Last night we buried him next to the boxwood, the one covered in honeysuckle, a few feet from his old buddy Spot.

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On October 10, 2003, we adopted Mister Boogers. His name wasn’t Mister Boogers then, though – in fact, the shelter had named him “Paw Paw” and it just so happened that I’d seen the picture on his Petfinder page and thought it was so funny that I showed it to Fred.

A few weeks later Fred decided it was time to bring another cat into the house, and we went to the shelter. We met lots of cats, but didn’t fall in love with any of them. Fred remembered seeing the picture, which led him to ask if “Paw Paw” was still at the shelter. He was, but he was in quarantine due to an upper respiratory infection. We got to see him, and when Fred picked him up, he started purring, and because he had an upper respiratory infection, his cheeks puffed out as he purred. We knew immediately that he was going to be ours.

We had a really hard time coming up with a name – Fred wouldn’t agree to “Stumpy” or “Stubby” (which I suggested due to the fact that Mister Boogers was lacking in the tail department – I’d say he had about a third of your average tail; I could never imagine what he’d look like with a full tail) because he said it would be making fun of his “handicap.” We tossed names around for a long time before settling on Stanley.

(I cannot believe we ever thought his name should be “Stanley.” SO not his name.)

He settled in and made friends quickly – he and Tubby got along very well and were fast friends. His face settled into that baleful glare which always made us laugh, and which led to the whole “Mister Boogers hets you” thing; he always looked like he was sitting around thinking about just how much he hated everything.

But here’s the secret – though he always had that malevolent glare on his face, though he always looked like he’d cut you as soon as look at you, Mister Boogers was, at heart, a sweet guy. Always up for a petting, always up for a kiss behind the ear. All you had to do to get him to purr was greet him with “Hey, Boogie.” He’d start purring immediately – sometimes he’d answer your greeting with a grumpy sound (a sound we called a “grump.”).

He always had a soft spot for Tommy and Sugarbutt, from the time they were tiny. They would snuggle up to him, and he’d look grumpy, and then he’d purr and clean the tops of their heads. He was like the grumpy old man with a heart of gold.

Last night, I was laying in bed trying to remember if he’s been a character his entire life, or if he developed into one. I’m pretty sure he was a character from the very beginning. He had what we called a “war cry” when he wanted to fight, and he’d sit there and cry his war cry over and over again. The war cry usually last longer than the fights did.

Here he is, a few months ago, crying his war cry at Joe Bob, who had the utter nerve to be in occupancy of a box Mister Boogers thought should be his own.

He loved to be outside – OH, how he loved to be outside. Every morning he’d wait impatiently to be collared up so he could go outside, sniff around the perimeter of his territory, and then flop down on the cement pad in the back yard. He’d go outside from time to time during the day, I guess just to make sure things were as they should be, check on Tommy and Kara, and then come back inside to sleep off all that hard work.

At night, he’d get up on the couch next to Fred, and grump at him ’til Fred moved over to make room for him. Our Boogie was not terribly demanding, but when he wanted something, he wanted it NOW. At dinner time, he’d sit by Fred and howl for food. Fred would give him a little piece, he’d sniff it, turn his nose up at it, and stomp off. It was never what he thought it was going to be, I guess.

At bedtime, he’d come upstairs with us, and often he’d dig at the sheets until Fred held them up. He liked to get under the sheets with us, flop down on his side, and press his cold, cold feet again our bare skin. That cat had the coldest feet I’ve ever felt on a cat. The best part would be when one of the other cats, not realizing Mister Boogers was under the covers, would tromp across him. He’d lay there and let out this part-whine, part-growl, part-complaint that sounded exactly like this:

Sometimes he’d smack at them through the covers.

Sometimes he’d make his part-whine, part-growl, part-complaint noise at me if I moved my leg or displeased him in some other way, and I’d always kick him off the bed when he did that. He learned quickly that Momma didn’t put up with that behavior, but sometimes he just couldn’t seem to help himself.

He had the heaviest walk of any cat I’ve ever had. You could hear him walking down the stairs – sometimes he’d walk so heavy I’d think a person was coming down the stairs or across the dining room. I guess all that personality weighed him down.

He was SO patient with us. He’d let us carry him around like a baby, he’d let me put hats on him. He’d grump and glare at me, but the entire time he’d be purring and waggling his stump.

He was such a character – you’d think that in a house with ten cats, an absence of one wouldn’t be so noticeable. It is, though; the absence is huge. I keep expecting him to walk into the room, announce his presence with a grump, and waggle his stumpy tail. I keep remembering that he’s gone, and there’s a sense of disbelief every time. He was larger than life, our Mister Boogers.

Bye, Boogie. I miss you.

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If you’re of a mind to, donations can be made in Mister Boogers’ name to Challenger’s House, the shelter I volunteer and foster for. We got Mister Boogers from Challenger’s House in 2003, and all of our cats since then (except Maxi and Newt, who came with the house) have come from there. It’s a no-kill cat shelter, and they do good work.

They accept donations by mail (check or money order), by phone (Mastercard/VISA), or select the button below to donate through PayPal.

Challenger’s House

112 Tristian Rd.

Toney, AL 35773

Phone: 256-420-5995

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I’m taking the rest of the week off – I’ll be back on Monday with a Comment-Answering Extravaganza, so I’ll see you then.

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Previously
2008: I find that I’m filled with hatred a lot these days.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: That Tom Cruise. What a fuckin’ loon, huh?
2004: Jesus christ. After almost five years of marriage, wouldn’t you think he’d KNOW that there are only two ways to answer that question?
2003: And then she vaulted her portly ass across me to say good morning to him, cracking three of my ribs in the process.
2002: We went to see Minority Report on Saturday, and though I really liked it, I did NOT enjoy sitting next to Billy Bob ShutTheFuckUp, who was compelled, when not clearing his throat loudly and phlegmily, to remark upon each and every plot point.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.