Month: January 2010

Behold, I liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!!!!!

When I got up Thursday morning, I thought I felt tired because I hadn’t slept well the night before (damn cats), and when I was sitting in front of my computer I thought I was cold because I hadn’t put socks on as soon as I got dressed (which I always do because otherwise? I end up cold!). Before I left for my hair appointment, I was practically sitting on top of the space heater I keep by my desk during the winter, and still wasn’t warm.

On my way to the appointment, I stopped in Madison to pick up a lab slip from my doctor’s office so I could have blood drawn to have my thyroid levels checked –

Oh! That’s another reason I thought perhaps I was tired, because over the previous almost-week, I’d had my blood drawn for blood tests three times (for pre-op testing, my yearly appointment with my wls surgeon, and my three-month appointment with the hematologist). None of them took much blood, but when I realized I would be stopping for my fourth bloodletting in less than a week, I wondered if it might be making me tired.

I told the lab tech who took my blood on Thursday that I’d had blood taken three times before, and she said it wasn’t a problem.

I went to my hair appointment, and the entire time I was having my hair cut, I was FREEZING.

I left the hair appointment and ran over to Kohl’s where I bought a purse (THE PERFECT ONE, I am sure.) and a knit hat because did I mention I was FREEZING?

The entire time I wandered through Kohl’s, I swear it felt like I was walking through quicksand, and I was like “Those stupid cats! Climbing all over me and fighting with each other all night long and making me sleep poorly! I’m going to just start kicking them out of the room!”

Duh.

I headed for Huntsville for my eye appointment, and I stopped in the parking lot of Target because I had half an hour to kill, and there was nothing on earth I wanted to do LESS than wander through Target for half an hour, and then a big light bulb went on over my stupid head.

I called Fred. “I think I’m getting sick. I’m getting SICK. GODDAMN I AM GETTING SICK.” Then I whined about how I had half an hour to kill before my appointment, and I hadn’t brought a book with me (STUPID) and I didn’t want to walk through Target and Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii didn’t feeeeeeeeeeel good. And then after my eye appointment I had to wait around for anoooother hooour to wait for my new glasses.

(I figured, it had been three years since my last eye checkup, so surely I’d need new glasses.)

Fred suggested that I go settle my ass in the waiting room of the optometrist’s office and maybe they’d take me early. I figured, if nothing else they’d have magazines for me to read, so I did as he suggested.

Their magazine selection was small and old, but I leafed through an Entertainment Weekly from last year (now, who’s this “Jon Gosselin” fellow, again?) and they did end up taking me about five minutes early. As it turns out, my eyes are in a holding pattern. They have gotten neither better nor worse in three years, and I don’t need reading glasses yet. The optometrist told me that I didn’t really need to get new glasses, the old ones were fine, but SOMEONE mocked my eyeglasses when last I visited (okay, they ARE kind of small. Shaddup.) and so I felt I should get some new ones.

I glanced at the glasses on display, but I truly could not stand the idea of waiting around for an hour or having to come back on Friday to get my finished glasses, so I said fuck it (quietly, to myself), and left.

Then I stopped by Petsmart to pick up a few things, and got home as fast as I could.

I should add that this entire time, I had the heat on full blast, and it must have been 95 degrees in that car, but I was FREEZING.

When I got home, I added up the symptoms – headache, chills, spaciness, achy lungs, all-over general achiness, and to me that added up to the flu. I took my temperature and the thermometer reported that I had a fever of 100.5 (which is more of a fever than it might sound like – my normal temperature tends to run around 97.9). I took a Tylenol, went out to gather eggs and say hi to the dogs, came inside, ate lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch dozing on and off.

I considered calling my doctor’s office to see if I could get in that afternoon, but I was still (stupidly) hoping that it was just a fluke, that I’d wake up in the morning feeling fine. I do occasionally have days where I feel a little flu-ish one day and then fine the next. But those days never come with a fever.

I slept shittily that night and woke up not sure whether I felt better or not, ’til I got out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. I showered, got dressed, waited for my doctor’s office to open.

I got an appointment for late morning with the nurse practitioner, then snoozed on the couch ’til it was time to go.

Once there, after I had my vitals taken (hint: one way to get the nurse’s attention is to tell her your temperature’s been at 105 when you mean to say 100.5) I got to go through the flu test. Have you had the flu test? Oh, it is DELIGHTFUL. They take a six-foot long q-tip and cram it up your nostril, spearing it through your brain until they hit the underside of the top of your skull, and then they twirrrrrrrrrrrrl it around while slowly counting to five.

“One,” the nurse said.

“Two,” the nurse said.

And then you know how in movies they slow down someone’s voice until it gets all draggy, and each word is dragged on and on and on until it ceases to have any meaning?

“Threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” the nurse said.

“Fouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur,” the nurse said.

Then I think she took a call and maybe sent a few text messages.

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive,” the nurse said.

She paused.

“Did I skip four? I did, didn’t I? Just kidding!” And she yanked that fucker out.

She told me it’d be a few minutes to get the results, and I leafed through a copy of Time magazine about the Man of the Year for 2009, and I’m pretty sure it was some financial guy (yes, a quick check of Google informs me that it was Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve), but I swear to you, during the ten minutes I read the profile of him, the one and only thing I retained for longer than zero seconds was that he had $85 in his wallet. It’s like everything else was written in Greek, and not only because it was financial stuff. Even the stuff about his family went over my head.

The nurse came back in to tell me that the flu test was negative (dashing my dreams of coming home to quip via Facebook and Twitter that I suspected my uterus had been out nights kissing pigs in hopes of giving me the H1N1 and making me postpone surgery), and that she needed to take blood for a CBC to see what was going on. I uncovered my right arm – the arm I’d had blood taken from for the thyroid level check the day before – and only then realized that it was all bruised up LIKE I WAS A BIG OLD DRUG-SHOOTING JUNKIE.

(Okay, truthfully, I don’t know how this works. Do junkies shoot up in a vein? They do, right? I seem to recall movies involving them tying off and being unable to find a vein.)

I told her I’d had blood taken the day before (sounding like A GUILTY JUNKIE I AM SURE), and she asked where and I told her (in the lab next door), and she wondered if they could piggyback a CBC on the thyroid test, and I stared blankly at her, and she decided to just go ahead and take the blood since they wanted to get the test done before the lab guys left for lunch. She took my blood, and I tell you what, it didn’t hurt in the slightest, but I immediately started seeing little black dots and felt incredibly nauseous. I had to lay down ’til it went away. The black dots went away, but the nausea remained to keep me company.

End result: they thought it was a virus, but my white blood cell count was on the high end of normal and if it was a virus my white blood cells would have been low, not high, so they thought it was a bacterial infection, gave me antibiotics and an anti-nausea medication, told me to come back if I wasn’t feeling better, and off I went.

I dropped off my prescription, found out there was a long wait, and called Fred and asked him to pick it up for me on his way home.

Then I went home and slept the afternoon away.

Friday was definitely the worst day, with the nausea that wouldn’t go away and the fucking CHILLS, god how I loathe the chills (well, also I hate the nausea). I had my electric throw wrapped around me from chin to foot, on high, all afternoon long.

And, hmmm. Look at that, we’re coming up on 1700 words about poor, poor me and my horrific four-day illness. WOE IS ME.

Let’s just say, I’m feeling MUCH better.

I did call the gynecologist’s office on Friday to tell them what was going on, and they opted to reschedule the hysterectomy. Then we had a ten minute round of figuring out what day and time we could do it, and so now I’m not going for surgery ’til February 10th.

FINE, YOU STUPID UTERUS, YOU GOT YOUR WAY. HAPPY NOW???

I can feel my stupid uterus in there, gearing up to make my next three weeks a bloody living hell.

I SHALL PREVAIL IN THE END, HOWEVER, HAVE NO DOUBT.

 

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On Friday, Pink and Keebler were adopted – TOGETHER!

That leaves Hydrox, cooling his heels in the adoption center. I was worried that he’d be lonely (I’m sure I’ve mentioned that despite his size, he was always the biggest baby of the bunch), but they put him in with another lonely only, so they have each other for company. I’m going to swing by Petsmart while I’m out today and see how he’s doing. I suspect he’ll be just fine.

 

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Steely Dan and Fagen are coming around a little more every day. One day, I went in to hang out with them, and Steely Dan jumped up on the cat tree and looked expectantly at me, clearly waiting for me to pick him up. Another day, Fagen (the more scaredy-cat of the two) actually climbed up into my lap when Steely Dan was NOT already there. Usually, he waits until I’m holding Steely Dan, because it makes him feel safe to have his brother right there.

Fred discovered the most amazing thing. If we take Miz Poo into the foster room with us, the boys completely lose their fear of us. They’re so excited at seeing her, that they’ll let us reach down and pet them, without flinching away. They purr and rub up against her, and she mostly puts up with it though she’ll smack at them if they get TOO much up in her face. We don’t take her in with us every time (don’t want to have to depend on her to get the boys to come to us), but every once in a while it’s nice to take her in there. She’s not interested in the kittens, but she knows if she goes in, she can sit in our laps and be petted, and she’s ALL about that, so it works out well!

“Who, US? We weren’t doing anything, honest!”

“DO I want to come up for some pettin’?”

“I guess so. Don’t get used to it, though, lady. I might bolt at the slightest provocation.”

 

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Newt, in the kitchen. Probably waiting for Jake or Elwood to wander by. He loooooves to hold them down and bite their necks!

 

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Previously
2009: Fred is, as I have mentioned before, an overexplainer.
2008: No entry.
2007: “Oh!” he said, with a big smile. “You’re pregnant!”
2006: A SHELL ON A STICK.
2005: Every movie and every show we watch, he’s in there deconstructing it.
2004: Memes.
2003: A day in the life of Spot J. And3rson.
2002: No entry.
2001: Blech.
2000: I now officially have too damn many books to read.

Pretty sure I have the flu. Headache, aches, chills, fever. I woke up feeling like crap yesterday, but it wasn’t ’til early afternoon that I realized this probably wasn’t just a matter of being cold and sleeping poorly the night before. Duh.

I have a doctor appointment later this morning. In a perfect world, she’ll put me on TamiFlu and I’ll be over it by Monday and can go ahead with surgery on Wednesday. Not holding my breath, though.

I’ll be back when I feel better.

“Flu, my floofy tail. She’s just lollygagging! Get in here and give me my pettins, woman!”

Yesterday, I had to leave the house at the crack of dawn, practically, to make it to my 8:00 appointment with the nutritionist. I’m coming up on four years since I had weight loss surgery and so it’s time to make the rounds of meeting with the nutritionist and having blood drawn and meeting with the surgeon.

It’s a round of appointments that I loathe – not because the nutritionist isn’t perfectly pleasant, but because it’s so goddamn boring and pointless and I have never learned anything that I didn’t already know, even at the very first appointment.

I got my imaginary degree as a nutritionist from, well, years of weighing over 300 pounds (don’t even try to fucking tell me that any fat woman doesn’t know more about nutrition – and I’m not talking FAD nutrition, okay? I’m not talking the fucking “Blood Type Diet”, for instance – than your average doctor) and from my stint at Google University.

I loathe my appointment with my surgeon because there’s a definite lack of personality on his part, a long wait no matter what time my appointment, and some resentment on my part. Last year when I spoke of eating fewer processed carbs, he scoffed and said “So you’re going to eat more UNPROCESSED carbs?” and I am SO VERY easily flustered when I’m under the gun that I always lose my words, so I just sputtered and don’t even remember what I said. If I had a time machine, I’d go back to that exact moment and say “I guess they didn’t teach you at Self-Important Douchebag Surgeon school that fruits and vegetables are carbs, huh? BOY I GUESS IT’S A GOOD GODDAMN THING YOU’RE NOT A NUTRITIONIST, YOU DOUCHEBAG.” I hope when he pulls that shit at home, his wife KICKS HIS ASS ALL OVER THE PLACE.

So, not a fan.

The only reasons I don’t blow off the appointments with the nutritionist and the surgeon are because (1) the nutritionist has this handy-dandy machine that supposedly tests your body fat and muscle distribution, and I like looking at the printout. Of course, this year I’ve fucking lost muscle since last year, and the test tells me that I need to lose 25 pounds, and may I just say my ASS do I need to lose 25 pounds given that I am very happy with where I’m at at the moment, thanks stupid machine WHO IS NOT THE BOSS OF ME. I also have some doubts as to just how accurate the machine is, but like I said, I like to look at the printout. (Note to myself: start lifting weights LIKE YOU SAID YOU WERE GONNA LAST YEAR.) and because (2) I feel a responsibility to help provide long-term numbers as a member of the weight loss surgery community (gag), and I assume that there’s some magical central location that collects the information of surgical weight loss patients and collates them and then sends them out to media outlets so that on a slow news day the media can be all ” (Cue scary music) WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY! DOES IT WORK, LONG-TERM?! MORE AFTER THESE MESSAGES! (Cue Burger King commercial, cue Wendy’s commercial, cue Hardee’s commercial, cue scary music, cue pictures of fat people from the neck down.)”

I live to serve, is what I’m saying.

The appointment with the nutritionist went fine (he’s a very nice guy) and then I stopped at the surgeon’s office (which is just down the hall) to ask for lab orders because I have to have lab work done before I see the surgeon so he can poke at the numbers and APPARENTLY completely miss the fact that my iron levels are completely whacked (which they MUST have been last year, surely they weren’t perfectly fine in January and then I desperately needed an iron infusion in… whenever the hell they did the iron infusion. September? Yes, September, ’cause that’s the day I got the Wonkas!) given that along with NOT being a nutritionist, he’s apparently also NOT a hematologist PLEASE GOD GIVE ME THE BALLS TO BRING THAT UP AT MY APPOINTMENT.

Do not depend on your surgeon to do anything but cut, is what I’m saying, people. But try to find one with personality. If there is such a thing.

Anyway. Where the hell was I going with this? Oh, right, asked for the lab orders, and they looked up my appointment, which was for the 28th, and noticed that I was the only one on the schedule. Which I’m assuming means he won’t be there that day (or maybe that I’m so super-snowflake special that after dealing with my fabulousness he has to go home and lay down for the rest of the day), so rescheduled for the 19th, got my lab orders, had my blood drawn, and headed for home.

I stopped at Sam’s because I used up the very last bucket of cat litter for the new fosters on Saturday, and I never EVER run out of litter, and being out of litter makes me nervous, because I know it’s just asking for trouble.

I bought 10 40-pound buckets of litter, which means that I lifted 400 pounds of litter three times – from the shelf to the cart, cart to the car, car to the garage. Can I count that as weight lifting? (I was CAREFUL, I used my legs, don’t lecture!)

And then I made and canned quart jars of spaghetti meat sauce.

It was a full day, let me tell you.

Today, I have my pre-op appointment with my gynecologist (hysterectomy next week, don’t tell Fred I told you!), tomorrow I have an appointment at the hematologist’s office to have more lab work done, Thursday a hair appointment and eye appointment. Next Tuesday, appointment with the hematologist’s nurse, and then the appointment with my weight loss surgeon.

It’s a busy week and a half, let me tell you. I’m going to need surgery just to force me to recover from all this running around.

 

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Oh, speaking of surgery and running around and lifting, the other night Fred and I were laying in bed talking, and I was making plans for meals to make ahead that Fred could just pop in the oven, since I won’t be lifting for a little while after surgery.

(I will have an incision in my abdomen – the scar tissue from my c-section/ lower body lift requires the hysterectomy be done that way rather than laparascopically or vaginally.)

I said something about him needing to get groceries occasionally, since I couldn’t be lifting stuff, and he said “Well, nothing we get for groceries is that heavy. You can’t lift a bag of salad?”

“I’m sure I can lift a bag of salad,” I said. “The problem will be lifting a grocery bag that has salad and apples and milk and whatever else in it.”

“Oh,” Fred p’shawed. “They have baggers who will be happy to carry your bags out to the car!”

“And how am I supposed to get them into the house?”

“I’ll come out and get them and bring them into the house,” he said.

“You,” I said. “Are an asshole. I’m recovering from surgery and you’re LOUNGING YOUR FUCKING ASS AT HOME because you hate to get groceries?! You wouldn’t come WITH me to lift stuff?”

He had no defense – though he did say that rather than accompany me, he’d just go get groceries himself so I wouldn’t slow him down.

Fucker.

 

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I’m late in saying this, by the way, but thanks you guys for your birthday wishes! (And I know even those of you who didn’t say anything were well aware of it, it being a national holiday and all. I hope you celebrated appropriately.)

We didn’t really do much to mark the occasion, since Fred was gone part of the day and I was breaking my own heart by dropping off the Cookies (then healing my own heart by picking up the new guys and hearing that two Cookies had already been adopted!) and getting the new fosters settled and doing laundry and such.

Fred kept asking me (in the days leading up to my birthday) what I wanted, and I couldn’t really think of anything specific, so I finally told him that as long as he promised we could go shopping for a new console for the TV (THIS WEEKEND, FRED. I am not kidding!), I’d consider that gift enough. We went out to eat – I’ve been craving Olive Garden for a while, but since both of us had been into Huntsville and back again, neither of us wanted to make the drive, so we settled for a new diner in Closeville that I do believe is going to become our new favorite place to eat (on the rare occasion we actually eat out, that is).

We came home, had cake, and watched movies.

Not a bad birthday, all in all.

 

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Steely Dan and Fagen are making progress, slowly. Well, slowly in my opinion, since there’s nothing I’d like more than to walk into the room and have them run over and climb into my lap. So far, I’ve gotten to the point where when I walk into the room and they’re in their bed, they’ll stay there (well, sometimes Fagen will run into the closet and hide, but he comes back out after a few minutes). I sit in the chair (on the opposite side of the room) for a few minutes, then slowly get down on the floor on my stomach and kind of slither across the floor. They let me pet them, and we play with a straw (me holding it out, them batting at it), and that’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I don’t want to rush them.

Fred, on the other hand, goes into the room, picks one of them up, and settles in the chair. They purr and let him hold them (usually it’s Steely Dan), and eventually jump down and run away. Well, until last night that’s how it was going for him. Last night, Fred walked into the room, picked up Steely Dan and sat down in the chair and petted him. Then Fagen dithered for several minutes before jumping up in the chair with Fred to be petted.

Hmph.

He’s always better with the skittish ones, because he’s more patient than I am. And more willing to pick them up. I’d rather they come to me (like I said, I don’t want to rush them), and will bribe them (hellooooo, baby food!), and both ways work; just apparently his way works better with these two.

Ah well. I’m not jealous. (Much.)

Steely Dan looks a lot like Mister Boogers here.

Fagen looks especially like Mr. Fancypants in this picture.

 

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Lots and lots of finches around here lately.

Miz Poo, Joe Bob, and Sugarbutt, enthralled with the birds who are SO close and yet so far away. (Please to be ignoring the mess in that corner of the room. I’m in the process of organizing. Story of my life.)

 

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Previously
2009: My mother and Nance are all about feeding the addiction, obviously.
2008: No entry.
2007: I don’t know what it is about Lowe’s that makes me so gassy.
2006: Right now, Fred’s thanking his lucky stars that I don’t have this much Christmas stuff, because it would drive him NUTS.
2005: (YES, GODDAMNIT! I HAVE CONFIRMED THAT YOU CAN, IN FACT, BEGIN WRITING THE FUCKING CHECK BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY HEAR WHAT THE TOTAL IS, YOU IN-MY-WAY MOTHERFUCKER!)
2004: I need to go crack open a beer, watch the game, scratch my balls, and think about what this means.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: “Yeah, so you‘ll be the one with the big head blocking everyone else’s view.”
2000: No, I’m not on any drugs, why do you ask?

Things my husband has recently done to make me laugh.

(That is, he didn’t do them with the intention of making me laugh, but they did.)

1. We were watching. Um. What the fuck was the name of that movie? Oh, right – Extract. We were watching Extract, and there comes a point when the guy who’s causing a kerfuffle at the extract company is sitting in his living room with his uncle or cousin or someone. They’re watching TV and Uncle Cousin is drinking directly out of a 2-liter Pepsi bottle. I think this is to show you just how white trash they are, that they can’t be bothered to drink out of cups, just carry the 2-liter bottle to the living room and guzzle it down while watching trashy TV.

“Hmm,” I thought to myself. “Sometimes Fred drinks directly out of 2-liter bottles of Diet Pepsi.” I considered this for a moment, and then turned to look at Fred, sitting across the room on his couch.

Drinking out of a mostly-empty 2-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi.

Oh, if I’d only had my camera.

(He would like you to know, I’m sure, that he only does that when there’s just a little left in the bottle and he doesn’t want to dirty another cup.)

PS: My opinion on Extract: Meh. Skip it and rent Office Space.

2. We give the cats their Snackin’! Time! every evening when it’s starting to get dark – these days around 4:30, 4:45. This means that if we go anywhere near the kitchen after about 3:00, the kittens excitedly decide it’s Snackin’! Time! and gather in the kitchen. Sugarbutt gets his Snackin’! Time! on the counter near the sink (I SCRUB THE COUNTER AFTER SNACKIN’! TIME! IS OVER, DON’T JUDGE ME.), and so if he decides it’s that time, he jumps up on the counter and rubs against whoever’s standing there.

On Friday, Fred and I were both in the kitchen doing something not Snackin’! Time! related, I don’t recall what, and Sugarbutt was all purrpurrpurr ohmygodiloveyouwhenyougivemefood purrpurrpurr and he was in Fred’s way, and out of frustration, Fred said “Would you GET your motherfuckers out of the way!” and I was instantly unreasonably irate* because I assumed he was talking to me, and my “motherfuckers” were the cats, and I was all “HEY! I didn’t call them in here!” and then I realized he wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to Sugarbutt.

I’m guessing that the “your motherfuckers” were Sugarbutt’s legs and he was requesting that Sugarbutt move them.

Even just typing this now, I am GUFFAWING. Sometimes things just hit your funnybone, you know?

*”Instantly unreasonably irate” should be my tagline.

3. Saturday morning when I got home from the adoption center, Fred had already left to attend a wake. I walked into the kitchen to put a pot of water on to boil (with it being so cold, the chickens’ waterers tend to freeze, requiring that we go out regularly and kick them to break the ice. Friday, I decided that it would be smarter to add hot water to the waterers to melt the ice and keep new ice from forming too quickly. It works like a charm. By next winter we should have electricity run out to the back forty so that the waterers will have electric heaters to prevent the water from icing over), and I hit a slick spot on the floor and slid a bit. I turned to see what the hell I’d slipped on, and couldn’t see anything. After I put the pot of water on to boil, I walked to the other end of the counter, and slid on another slick spot. I did a general “What the fuck?”, still didn’t see anything, and then forgot about it.

Later, after he got home, Fred walked into the kitchen and slid on the first slick spot.

“I slid on that earlier, too,” I said. “I don’t see anything, but maybe I dropped a little bit of oil or something.”

Fred laughed and confessed that when he was getting ready for the wake, he saw that his shoes were all dusty, and so he brought them into the kitchen and sprayed PLEDGE on them, and he didn’t think about holding the shoes over the sink or trash can, just held ’em out over the floor and sprayed ’em with Pledge. Some got on the floor, and voila – slick spots.

Yesterday morning he skated across the slick spot on one foot, looking much like Gumby.

“I wiped at it really well with my sock this morning,” he said earnestly. “I can’t believe it’s still so slick!”

I looked at him.

“I mean, I wiped a LOT!”

“You wiped your sock back and forth against the slick spot,” I said. “And you expected that this would take care of the slick spot and make it not slick.”

“Right.”

“All you did was POLISH the floor,” I told him. “To make it unslick you need to spray cleaner on it and wipe THAT.”

“Oh.”

This morning? Floor still slick.

4. This isn’t recent, in fact it’s been ongoing for yeaaaaaaars, but it always makes me roll my eyes at him. Several years ago, we were sitting down to dinner. Fred had made dinner, and it included baked potatoes. As I began eating dinner, I noticed that my potato smelled pretty dirty.

“Did you wash the potatoes?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said.

“With the scrubby?” I said.

“Well, no. I ran water over it and rubbed it with my hand.” He held up his hand to demonstrate, as though I might not be quite sure what a “hand” was.

“You ran water over it and rubbed it with your hand,” I said.

“Yeah.”

I did not eat the rest of that potato.

Since then, I’ll occasionally asked him if he washed a dish with soap and water, or just his “magic hands.”

 

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We watched Paranormal Activity Friday night, and about ten or fifteen minutes into the movie, when the main characters had been dealing with noises in the night and the very annoying female lead was all “Why the fuck are my keys on the floor?!”, I turned to Fred and said “I know what the problem is. Obviously they have CATS.”

If every thump and shriek in the middle of the night woke me up or freaked me out, I’d get VERY LITTLE FUCKING SLEEP, believe you me. Especially when Maxi’s inside for the night. She was inside one night last week and I was laying in the living room reading, and she came hauling ass down the hallway, snarling and snorting like a Tasmanian devil. Cookies spilled out of the hallway into the living room like a tiny school of fish swimming frantically away from a shark, and she paused in the doorway and snarled and snorted some more, adding in a few hisses for good measure.

I can’t imagine freaking out because my keys had been knocked onto the floor. I’d just figure the cats had done it. I ALWAYS figure the cats did it. If I walked into the living room and all the furniture was floating up at ceiling level, a pentagram was drawn in blood on the floor with Fred’s head laying in the middle, and blue flames were shooting out of the fireplace, I’d be all “GODDAMN IT, like I have NOTHING BETTER TO DO than clean this shit up! I’m going to get towels to clean up this blood, and if the furniture isn’t back where it belongs by the time I get back, I’m going to kick your asses! ELWOOD, STOP DRINKING THE BLOOD OFF THE PENTAGRAM, YOU ASS.”

 

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I completely forgot – someone asked in my comments the other day if the other Cookies had caught up, weight-wise, to Hydrox. I didn’t know, so the last night they were here, I weighed them all.

Orange was the lightest, at 3 pounds 9 ounces.
Blue, Pink, and Keebler were all right under 4 pounds.
And Hydrox? Hydrox blew them out of the water at a hefty 5 pounds! He is going to be one big boy, I’m telling you.

Awww, man, I MISS ORANGE!

“Hellooooo, laydeez!”

Snugglin’ Orange and Blue.

I love it when they sleep like this!

Orange and Crazy Jake. I always say to Jake “Your tunes are looney.” Does he look like a complete nut, or what?

Friday night, watching TV. It gets cold in the front room, so I always have my electric throw over me. The Cookies (and Miz Poo) appreciate the electric throw, too! (All five Cookies were on me!)

This is when you know you have too many cats in the house – when you’ve got six cats on you, and you think “WOW, that’s a lot of cats!” and then you realize there are an additional TEN cats in various places in the house. Oy.

I really missed the Cookies a lot yesterday – I kept wishing they were still here, because it was awfully nice to be able to snatch one up, flip him or her on his (or her!) back, and rub their belly, and just have them lay there and smile up at you while purring to beat the band.

Here’s a short movie of Hydrox, up close and personal:

And Pink haz a complaint (“She’s TOUCHING me!”):

 

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So, the new guys. They are scaredy cats, these guys. They’re both boys, and they’re about three months old. I hadn’t intended to have more fosters so soon – I’m going in for surgery next week – but at this age, they’re pretty easy to deal with, and they need some attention to get them over being so scared, so I told the shelter manager I’d take ’em. They were already named when I got them, so let me introduce you to…

Fagen.

And Steely Dan.

A couple of people have mentioned that Fagen looks like Mr. Fancypants, our cat who disappeared 7 (!) years ago. He certainly does – he doesn’t have the Fancypants sass just yet, but give him time, I’m sure an attitude will develop.

Steely Dan, markings-wise, reminds us of a long-haired Mister Boogers. And check out that first picture of him, above – looks like he’s got a case of the het going on!

They’re both pretty skittish, but they’re certainly not the most skittish kittens we’ve had. They’ll allow us both to pick them up and hold them and they’ll purr. They haven’t approached us yet, but it’s still early. I have high hopes for these guys.

 

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Miz Poo is patiently waiting for Sugarbutt to leave the cave, so she can steal his spot.

 

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Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: If you could solidify body odor into a spice, it would taste exactly like cumin.
2006: Oh, how I love my books.
2005: I need a nap.
2004: Stuff I bought in Maine.
2003: No entry.
2002: Firsts.
2001: You rock, maaaaaaaan!
2000: I’m blue.

God help me, I think I kind of like Miley Cyrus’s music. I was listening to a Keith and the Girl podcast the other day, and they played Party in the USA (I think they were talking about the top 10 songs of 2009), and then Chemda mocked it (she’s no fan of Miley Cyrus; I love it when she imitates her) and then the damn tune ran around in my head for two days.

It’s hard to sing along with a tune in your head when you don’t really know the words, y’know?

I also really like The Climb.

Don’t judge me.

 

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Rumor has it there was some football game in California yesterday that involved the Crimson Tide, and I think we won. I actually knew there was going to be a game involving the University of Alabama team, because when I was in the airport on Tuesday meeting up with the lady who took Mike and Gus to Portland, a teenager wandered up to the ticket counter to check in, and told the ticket agent she was going to L.A. and then asked the guy standing next to her “Are you going to the game?”

While I stood and waited, I pondered whether she might be talking about the Superbowl, but I was pretty sure that doesn’t happen ’til the end of the month (see? I pay attention! Kind of.), so I had no idea what game she might be talking about. When I got home later, I said “Is there some game going on in California this week?”

Fred asked for more information.

“That people from Alabama would be attending?”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, Texas and Alabama are playing the BCS game.”

ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL TIDE! and all that. You go with your badass selves, college football players! We won! We won! I’ll be waiting over here for my National Championship ring, thank you.

Anyway, the teenager who wandered up to the counter had a big-ass bulging suitcase, and when she put her suitcase on the scale, it was over the weight limit. She didn’t want to or couldn’t afford to pay the over-weight fee, so she sat down on the floor, opened up her suitcase and started taking stuff out.

“My mom is going to give me such a hard time!” she said, pulling out pajamas and high heels and a couple of stuffed animals. “She told me I was packing too much!”

She’d pull one or two items out of the suitcase, put the suitcase on the scale to check, and then have to take it off, open it up again, and take more stuff out. She only had a small purse to carry on the plane with her, so eventually the ticket agent gave her this huge plastic bag that, I am pretty sure, you could fit a body in.

I couldn’t stand the idea of her walking onto the plane with that big-ass plastic bag, hitting her fellow passengers in the head, stuffing it into the overhead compartment, and annoying everyone on the plane.

“I have a tote you can use to put all that stuff in,” I offered. “It’d be better than that thing!”

She grinned at me. “No thank you, I’m okay, this bag works fine.”

At least she had a good attitude about it and wasn’t all princessy. I’m sure if she did get on the plane and bonk people on the head with her high heel-filled body bag, she would have apologized with that adorable grin, and they’d forgive her immediately.

Sorry, passengers on the Chicago flight Tuesday. I tried!

 

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I was catching up on Melting Mama‘s site the other day (I’m perpetually behind in my blog reading, have I mention?) and I ran across this entry right here about those Fiber One bars, and I laughed and laughed.

And then I went and read the comments here, and I laughed some more.

Those Fiber One bars look and taste fabulous, but I am not kidding you, the gas is noxious. And painful. It’s so bad, it drives the cats out of the house, just about. And the worst thing is that I bought a box of them a few months ago (because they look SO good) and I ate one, cue the painful gas. Then a little time went by, I forgot about the painful, soul-killing gas, and ate another one. Then last week, having forgotten once again about the gas, I ate another.

There are two more of them in the cupboard, and I believe I’ll use them as a threat when Fred won’t do something I want.

“Oh, you don’t want to work on the pantry? Well, okay. I think I’ll just settle down in front of the computer with a Fiber One bar. Say goodbye to your nose hairs!”

Seriously, the Fiber One bars – don’t try them. It’s horrific.

 

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We are gearing up to say goodbye to the Cookies tomorrow. There’s lots of snuggling going on, believe me. In the mornings, when we let them out of their room, Hydrox’s always the first one to climb into bed with me. He rolls around on his back and purrs and kneads on my arm, and purrs some more. He’s such a big baby.

They sure are kissable, these kittens.

Awww, look what I found on my hard drive! It’s a shot from when I was trying to take a picture to use for next year’s Christmas card, and all the cats gathered ’round. That’s Gus over there to the left, fighting with a Cookie. My favorite part of this picture, though, is this look:

That little face is cracking me UP.

Cookies on the cat tree in the front room. All five of them!

 

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Back in December, I bought this Room with a View from Jeffers Pet Supply. They were running a Christmas promotion where every day something was marked way down. The Room with a View was half-priced, and I was thrilled to get one.

Last week, after it had sat in the front room, ignored, for a few weeks, I decided to bring it into the computer room to provide yet another place for the cats to sleep. They ignored it for a day, and then Miz Poo climbed inside and declared it good.

And then Sugarbutt climbed inside and he also declared it good.

So now, it’s almost always occupied. Usually by Sugarbutt, but sometimes Miz Poo gets a turn. Also, every now and then Jake or Elwood climbs in and hangs out, too (only one cat at a time, though. I can’t imagine what Sugarbutt’s reaction would be if Jake or Elwood tried to join him in there.)

I’m going to declare the Room with a View a hit with the kitties.

(And I highly recommend Jeffers. They’re awesome!)

 

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Previously
2009: Look who’s here!
2008: No entry.
2007: Jake has found a new home.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday.
2003: How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday.
2002: How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday.
2001: One more day ’til my birthday! Whoo!
2000: No entry.

Yesterday morning, I spent a few hours cleaning the foster room. I got that room SO clean, nicely vacuumed, the litter cleaned up off the floor of the closet (it’s a walk-in closet, where we keep the litter boxes), all the toys neatly put away, and half an hour after I was done, the Cookies and Jake and Elwood had messed it back up again.

Ah well.

I had a few errands to run, so I left the house and headed for Decatur. I browsed around the PetSmart for a while and actually DID NOT BUY ANYTHING from there (feel free to faint now!). I’m getting low on snackin’ food for our cats (the Cookies get a different kind of snackin’ food, one meant for kittens), but after doing a price comparison on it (Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys, if you’re dying to know) at PetSmart and Target, it’s still cheaper to buy it in bulk on eBay. I save 4 – 6 cents per can over the store price AND there’s free shipping, and since we use a can and a half each evening, buying in bulk is the way to go. Occasionally the 12-packs go on sale for a good price at Target, in which case I stock up, but for the most part eBay is the better buy.

After I left PetSmart, I went over to Target and browsed around the store for an hour. I guess the Target in Decatur isn’t a SUPER Target like the one in Huntsville, because it’s much smaller (the funny thing is that when Fred and I were at the exact same Target last weekend, he said “I always forget how big this store is!”, and it’s much smaller than the one in Huntsville.) and thus the grocery section isn’t nearly as complete as in a SUPER Target, but I managed to get everything on my list anyway.

I have found a down side to the Kindle: it’s just not as fun to browse through the book section because they (obv.) don’t sell the Kindle version of books. NOT THAT I NEED ANY MORE BOOKS, I’m just sayin’.

I bought a new purse, because suddenly the Healthy Back Bag isn’t working for me anymore. This happens every few years, so I make an attempt to find THE PERFECT PURSE (hint: no such thing) and leave my Healthy Back Bags in the closet for a few months until I come to the decision that nothing works as well for me as the HBB. Even though I know, going into it, that I’m going to end up with a Healthy Back Bag slung over my shoulder again in a few weeks or months, I still have to attempt to find the perfect purse (no such thing!).

Ah well.

What else did I buy?

OH. I bought some dill pickle cashews. Now, don’t make that face at me – my sister sent some of these for Fred at Christmas, and he made me try some, and they are surprisingly good! I was afraid with a name like that, they’d be overwhelmingly dill-tasting, but the dill flavor’s not at all overwhelming. It’s quite pleasant, and I’m not usually a huge fan of dill. This review describes them pretty well, actually.

So, I stocked up on dill pickle cashews.

Bought a big bag of bird seed, a smaller bag of Nyjer seed (we’ve got a ton of finches hitting the finch feeder socks right now) and a bag of sunflower hearts and chips that had been marked way down.

I eyeballed a pop-up cat carrier (I’m planning to stock the house with the pop-up carriers because they work so incredibly well, and move the hard carriers out to the garage), but they’re more than $2 cheaper at Walmart, so I refrained.

(Note: Several reviews at Target.com of that pop-up cat carrier mentioned an issue with the zipper. I haven’t had any problems with the zipper on mine, but I also don’t zip it all the way open, so I’m not sure if that’s what the issue is. Alls I know is that it works fine for me, it’s MUCH lighter to carry than a plastic carrier, and the cats seem to like it.)

I finally finished looking around, checked out, and headed for home. I stopped at Wendy’s for a cheeseburger because for some reason I have been craving the hell out of Wendy’s cheeseburgers lately. I got a single with cheese, took it home to eat it, and realized once again that I could only eat half of it. That’s something I have to relearn every time I go to Wendy’s – which is usually only about twice a year. I need to get a kid’s meal next time, I guess. (The chickens enjoyed my leftovers; they always do!)

I spent the afternoon cleaning the guest bedroom. That’s the room where the Cookies were raised and have been spending their nights, and since the upstairs foster room was now free, I decided it was time to move the Cookies up there and let the guest bedroom revert back to its intended use.

And then I vacuumed the entire downstairs and spent the evening vegging in front of the computer!

Exciting, no?

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Tuesday, Fred went to the butcher -the guy who processed our most recent set of pigs – and picked up our half cow. Let me tell you – 172 pounds of cow makes a LOT of ground beef. I think we got around 60 pounds of it, if not more.

Between the chickens Fred’s processed lately, the half pig, and now the half cow, there’s no excuse on earth for needing to buy meat at the grocery store -and I like that.

Of course, we still have quite a bit of ground beef left over from my trip to Costco a few months ago. I decided we need to finish up the ground beef we already have before we start on the good stuff, so we had meatloaf a couple of nights this week (DAMN that stuff is good), and we’re having hamburgers tonight and tomorrow. With what’s left over, I’m going to can sloppy joes, spaghetti meat sauce and (if there’s any left over), taco beef. I’ve never canned any of that stuff before, but my trusty book (written by Jackie Clay) has recipes for all of those, so I might as well give ’em a try!

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

So, the Cookies.

Brace yourselves, folks – the Cookies will be going to the adoption center on Saturday (as long as the weather cooperates!).

I do believe they will be adopted so quickly it’ll make my head spin. That’s what I prefer to believe, anyway! I mean, look at these little faces – how can you not fall in love?

Keebler keeps an eye on Crazy Jake.

Keebler’s so busy keeping an eye on The Crazy that he doesn’t even notice Elwood reaching down for a tap.

Keebler and Elwood, fighting. Note that Keebler had to climb up to where Elwood was before the fightin’ could start – and of course, he was QUITE indignant that Elwood had the upper paw.

Fightin’ Cookies.

Keebler and Hydrox.

Hydrox in the sun.

“STOP PICKIN’ ON ME, I AM JUST A WITTLE BABY!”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

While it might look like Sugarbutt is in mid-leap, in actuality he’s hanging there. His back feet are on the horizontal bars of the window, and his upper paws are clinging to the horizontal bar in front of his face. See that finch sock hanging right outside the door? That thing is loaded down with finches all day long (there’s another sock further out, hanging from a tree), and it drives Sugarbutt CRAZY. He leaps up, clings there for several seconds, and then jumps back down. I’m pretty sure he believes that one day he’ll actually be able to get those birds. Hope springs eternal in SuggieWorld.

 

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Previously
2009: So yeah, almost two weeks after Christmas, I’m finally in the Christmas spirit.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: What I hate most about flying is how incredibly fucking boring it is.
2003: Damn 8 Mile.
2002: I think we can agree that I’m all about the politeness
2001: The story of how Fred & I met.
2000: Fred: Well, what’s 8 times 1? Spud: 10?