Month: November 2010

Since I’ve got nothin’ going on and just can’t think of a thing to write about, y’all are stuck with nothin’ but cats for today. Maybe something exciting will happen tomorrow! (Noooot holding my breath.)

The other night, we were hanging out with the kittens before bed, and Greg Brady was climbing up the front of Fred’s shirt.

“Have you ever noticed that Greg Brady always looks like he wants to cut a bitch?” I said. Fred laughed and laughed, and now every time he sees Greg Brady he laughs again, because it is TRUE.

“Is Greg Brady gonna have to cut a bitch?”

I think that things with Jan and Bobby are improving. There’s still plenty to clean up in their cage when I go in every few hours, but they’re actually using the litter box now, thank god. Last night at their evening snack time, Jan bellied up and ate a lot. She showed some of her old attitude, running around with a toy, tossing it in the air, picking a fight with Greg. I gave both she and Bobby baths last night, but they only needed their feet and tails cleaned off a little, which was a HUGE improvement.

(These pictures are from last week, still.)

Jan in the Jan Cave, with Marcia approaching.

“Paws up, y’all!”

“I SAY, ‘Paws up, y’all!'”
(Bobby’s all “Come ON, I want my turn!”)

Jan and the mouse. She LOVES that mouse, can you tell?

Jan and Greg.

Jan puts Greg in his place. (Peter, in the background, tries to pretend nothing’s going on.)

Bobby at the water bowl. How many bowls do you think these guys tipped over before I realized they were basically laying across the side of the bowl to drink water? (Way too many, is the answer.) And it’s not because the water level was low or anything – they just like to be comfy when they’re drinking!

Marcia and Greg, conspiring.

“Where shall I make trouble next?”

That Cindy Brady (looking up at me) just cracks me up. She’s the sweetest, most laid-back, loving little girl. (Her head doesn’t usually look quite so round. I believe she was wearing a collar and it was pushing some of her fur upwards to give her that basketball-head look.)

All the super-comfy cat beds in the house, and these two fight over who gets to sleep on the corrugated cardboard scratch pad. Weirdos.

Previously
2009: Jesus, what am I, 95 years old?
2008: No entry.
2007: MOOOOOOOOOM! Make the shirt stop touching me!
2006: That’s really a bitch of a way to start the day.
2005: “Au contraire,” said the ringleader. “We found a SESAME SEED!”
2004: I give it two weeks before someone barfs on the new comforter.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: “What will I do now that I don’t have to clean dust off my ball?”
2000: I’ll just not think about that.
1999: When she came to a stop, she sat up and swayed back and forth, blinking sleepily up at me.

Remember Hank, the young Lab in Georgia who needs a home? His owner is moving in with his nephew on Friday, and unfortunately the nephew’s not allowed to have pets at his apartment. Hank still needs a home, and soon! Pass the word!!!

We had a quiet weekend, and it flew by pretty quickly. We ended up leaving the house several times on Saturday (I know! O the humanity!) for various errands. Otherwise, we hung around the house, I did – I’m not even exaggerating – at least 20 loads of laundry, mostly poopy cat beds and blankets, and Fred got a lot of reading in.

On Saturday, I watched Sex and the City 2, and those of you who have seen it will feel deep sympathy for me when I say that I WATCHED THE ENTIRE GODDAMN THING.

“Is it almost over?” Fred asked about an hour in, coming into the living room an hour after I started the movie.

“NO,” I said. “It’s still got a goddamn hour and a half to go!”

Fred expressed horror.

“But I can’t turn it off. I want to see what happens, even though I’m DYING OF BOREDOM.”

Y’all, I truly do not recommend this movie, and I say that knowing that those of you who are die hard SATC watchers like me will watch it anyway, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I’m going to go ahead and just refer to it as Sex and the City 2: Assholes in Abu Dhabi.

I don’t want to be a stickler for details, here*, but I’m pretty sure that Samantha went through menopause after she had chemotherapy in the last season of the show. Whyyyyy is she going through menopause a second time, I mean other than providing a super HIGHLAAAAAAAAAAARIOUS** plot point?

We’ve hit the point where all the women are caricatures of themselves*** – especially Samantha – and I’m not sure you could pay me enough**** to watch Sex and the City 3, wherein Samantha gets laid, Miranda frets, Charlotte judges, and Carrie couldn’t find happiness if she had a map and a six-week course in doing so. And you KNOW there’ll be a SATC 3, 4, 5, infinity, because I’m pretty sure Michael Patrick King has something really juicy on some bigwig in Hollywood and has ensured that he’ll be pounding out SATC movies until they bury him.

*That’s a lie. I love to be a stickler for details. I THRIVE in the stickler-detailed environment. My tagline should be “Detail-sticklering since 1968.”

**Not.

***Okay, shaddup, I know that happened sometime during the last season of the show.

****Lie. You know I’m going to go watch it because I’m a loser, baby.

Also, we watched the Nightmare on Elm Street remake with Jackie Earle Haley as Freddie Krueger and Mrs. Coach as the main character’s mother. It wasn’t bad – if you like a horror movie that makes you jump a bunch of times during the movie, then this is the movie for you.

On Sunday, Fred came upstairs to the kitten room where I was cleaning up poop (more on that in the kitten section) and said “I just let Rhyme in the side door.”

In other words, Rhyme jumped the fence and managed to end up on the side porch (thank god, because who knows how long it would have taken for us to realize he was missing?). This means that of the four Bookworms, everyone but Corbie is now collared up. I’ve convinced Fred that we should at least get a fence company out here and find out how much it would cost to have a professional fence (with cat barrier at the top) put up. None of the barrier methods (heh heh) we’ve tried will keep cats who aren’t wearing collars in the yard if they’re of a mind to escape. I’d feel a lot better if I knew they couldn’t get over the fence and run away. And if the cats simply couldn’t get over the fence, they wouldn’t have to wear those damn collars, which uglify up the pictures I take of them during the day.

We’ll see what we find out, anyway. Chances are pretty good that it’ll cost too much and we’ll have to figure out some other way to keep them in (like a cat fence), or just buy more damn collars (did I mention that they RUIN my damn cat pictures?).

On Saturday, we took Jan and Bobby to a vet in Decatur because the diarrhea was NOT STOPPING. It’s not even just diarrhea, these poor babies are just dripping poop everywhere they go – it’s like they don’t even realize they’re doing it, and it’s getting all over their back legs and feet. I would LOVE to go back to last week when my only problem was that they were having diarrhea in the litter box, then stepping in it and tracking it all over the place. After I walked into the room Saturday morning and found poop everywhere, I decided to put them in a cage to contain it (which really I should have done sooner – it sometimes takes me a little while to realize the obvious).

They’d both lost weight since Tuesday, and I didn’t think they should wait ’til Monday to see a vet. Luckily, Fred found a vet that’s open on Saturday and was willing to fit us in. The vet did a fecal and found that in addition to the coccidia (which was apparently not knocked out by the medication we’d given them), they had tapeworms and roundworms. We brought them home and gave them dewormer, and it was a few hours later that the tapeworm poopin’ began.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that Jan passed at least 12 inches worth of tapeworm. It was horrifying and yet so fascinating I couldn’t look away.

Unfortunately Jan and Bobby are still dripping, so they’re still in the cage. I’m keeping them as clean as I can, giving them full-on baths in the morning and again in the evening – I’m not sure whether it would be best to bathe them every couple of hours just to keep them as clean as possible, or if that’s bad for their back ends. Their behinds are horribly swollen and painful and nothing I’ve tried – hemorrhoid cream, Desitin – seems to help (I am absolutely open for suggestions, you guys. It’s painful for me to LOOK at their poor back ends, I can only imagine how painful it is for them).

They’re all on a bland diet, which none of them are particularly crazy about (except, surprisingly, for the wisp-thin Peter Brady, who thinks that rice and chicken is THE BOMB), and I’ve given both Jan and Bobby doses of Nutri-Cal. I hate how thin they look, and I hate how they just sit there and look miserable. I’m keeping them warm (the room has a heater set at 72, and they have a heating pad in their cage.)

I feel like if the damn diarrhea dripping would just STOP, their back ends could heal. I’m a worrier by nature anyway, and you can just imagine how much sleep I’ve lost in the last several days, worrying about these guys. If you could spare a good thought in the direction of two sweet little kittens in Alabama, it would certainly be appreciated.

(On an amusing note, of course they pooped up the carrier on the way to the vet, and the vet tech took them off to bathe them. I said to Fred “Oh, good! They’ll be nice and clean when she brings them back!” because, well, they’re professionals and they know what they’re doing, amiright? I’ve been giving them baths, but I’m no professional – all I do is get them as clean as I can, which is not so easy even though they hardly weigh over a pound, because a kitten who doesn’t want a bath could give Schwarzeneggar a run for his money. I like to use the “hot tub” method, which is where I soak them in one little bucket of warm water for a minute or so, clean their feet and tails with gentle baby wash, rinse them in the same bucket, and then rinse them a second time in a second bucket, wrap them up in clean towels, and put them on a heating pad on low (or if Fred’s giving me a hand, he’ll hold them on his lap in front of the heater). ANYway, the vet tech came back with them, and it looked like all she’d done was spray the worst of it off them, and dried ’em with a towel. HA.)

I haven’t taken any pictures of the kittens in the last few days, because I hate how pitiful they look, but luckily I took a ton of them early last week when they were feeling okay, so those are what you’ll see.

Bobby Brady, shoulder monkey. (He hasn’t climbed up on my shoulder since the middle of last week. Though, considering how much he’s dribbling, I suppose I should be grateful. Or invest in a pair of overalls made out of some sort of easy-wipe material!)

I am truly not quite sure what Greg Brady’s doing here, but it kinda looks like he’s about to take a big ol’ bite out of his own leg.

Cindy Brady. She’s such a sweet little laid-back monkey.

Marcia haz herself a complaint or twelve.

Jan. “I can walk! I CAN WALK!”

Cindy in the front, Jan in the back.

Jan, playing with a toy mouse.

Wild Jan.

Did I mention she’s wild?

“How YOU doin’?”

Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: Why can’t I just buy bubble clothing that only touches me at the neck and knees? WHY?
2006: On my way to somewhere important, I’m sure.
2005: Perhaps I’ll make it my New Year’s Resolution to not fill my house with crap in 2006.
2004: Ever had one of those days when you just can’t remember the name of anything?
2003: No entry.
2002: I keep wanting to use the phrase “Sweet crappin’ Jesus!”, and just haven’t determined the right moment to do so. Maybe in the middle of sex?
2001: Her name is Brady James.
2000: If I knew whodunnit, I’d beat that $300 right out of his ass, the little bastard.
1999: They all tend to sound alike, you see, and hearing basically the same sound over and over ain’t the thrill at 31 that it is at 11.

There’s a sweet lab in Georgia who needs a home, and I think he’d make a fabulous Christmas present for your kids! Or your husband. Your mother?

Go check out this cutie pie!

(And spread the word!)

Those of you who contributed to the ChipIn for Heaven, who maxed out her credit cards to pay the vet for her beloved cat Dirty Feet, Heaven would like to say thank you.

In fact, she said:

I want you to say THANK YOU in the most MASSIVE way to all your readers who contributed…every one of them is AWESOME <3 THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU MEAN IT MEAN IT MEAN IT <3 <3 <3

Then she invited you all to Thanksgiving dinner! Really! Okay, no she didn’t. But she did say to thank you all – so thank you!!! Who has the most awesome readers? That would be me. Who are the most awesome readers on the internet? That would be you! So if you contributed, take a moment and pat yourself on the back. You are awesome. 🙂

Also, if you’re Facebook friends with Heaven, go watch this short video she made when Dirty Feet was a wee baby. It KILLS me, and I think I’ve watched it 130 times.

I think I’ve probably told y’all that in our kitchen, some of the cats like to hang out on top of the cabinets. Stinkerbelle, especially, spends a lot of time up there. Recently, we’ve had issues with Elwood or Sugarbutt getting up there and hanging out. Since Stinkerbelle’s favorite place to hang out is at the end of the cabinets as far as possible from the refrigerator, which is how the cats get up and down, she gets stuck there. She doesn’t like to go past the other cats to get to the refrigerator so she tries to intimidate them with hissing and growling and eventually screaming her hellcat scream. They’re not terribly intimidated by her, at least most of them aren’t, so it doesn’t work very well for her. One day last week she JUMPED from the top of the cabinet to the floor, which cannot possibly be good for her joints or her bones. I know for sure it’s not good for my heart, because I just about keeled over from a heart attack when I walked into the room just as she jumped.

Fred has been talking about making a second way down from there, and after I saw Stinkerbelle jump, I demanded he do it sooner rather than later.

So he put a board across the top of the doorway between the kitchen and laundry room. And he put a board across the top of the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. So Stinkerbelle – or any of the cats – could walk across either of the boards and jump onto the top of the 5-foot-high cabinet on that wall, and then onto the floor.

What happened next was something unexpected. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but Jake isn’t able to jump as high as the other cats – he’s never been able to – and he’d never been on top of the cabinets. He’s only been able to watch the other cats run around up there, and chatters excitedly at them. After Fred installed the boards, he put Jake on top of the one between the kitchen and dining room, and Jake absolutely lit up. He walked around on the cabinets, and it was like a whole new world had opened up to him.

Fred considered the situation for a few minutes, and then back out to his workshop to make it so that Jake could get on top of the cabinets whenever his little heart desired. An hour later, we showed Jake the new way to get up there, and he took to it like a duck to water.

(That shelf to the right goes to just under the top of the cabinet where Stinkerbelle spends most of her time.)

Have you ever seen a happier cat?

He spends a large amount of his day in that cat bed (which is hooked to the wall so it can’t go sliding off), and loves watching us from his new favorite perch.

(Those three unfinished shelves are going to be painted white this weekend, by the way.)

Tommy approves.

I’m pushing for the next project to be a walkway around the top of the front room. Fred’s not convinced yet, though.

Buster and Rhyme: Brudderly Love.

“What?”

Rhyme’s all “I LURVE my brudder!”

Buster’s apparently decided that the only way to get away from Rhyme is to do the ol’ stretch-and-roll out of the bed.

Peter and Cindy, playing.

Shoulder monkey BOBBY! BRADY! asleep. I always wondered what they made hooded sweatshirts for.

Jan and Peter, fighting.

Greg in the front, Cindy in the back, and Jan over there licking her lips. Oh, and someone mentioned in my comments that Jan looks like she has particularly big and pointed ears. She certainly does – they’re very pointy, and they actually turn out a little on the end.

“Greg Brady will cut you if you try to turn Dad’s den into a swinging bachelor pad. Greg Brady has dibs. Greg Brady is hip and groovy, man.”

I’m pretty sure I washed kitten feet at least 20 times yesterday. Why why OH WHY must they walk through their poop?

Kitten diarrhea is the bane of my existence. (But I have to confess, the face they make after you put medicine in their mouth to deal with what’s causing the diarrhea cracks me UP. I need to take the Flip video into the room next time I medicate them.)

Maxi demonstrates her overbite. It just adds to her charm, if you ask me.

Previously
2009: I REALLY LIKE CHECKING THE MAIL. IT’S THE HIGH POINT OF MY DAY.
2008: Google is such a goddamn know-it-all.
2007: Questions, answered.
2006: No entry.
2005: I think I need to go eat some deviled eggs to assuage the pain.
2004: And I just glared at him and thought to myself Just because you’re too stupid and scatterbrained to read and watch TV at the same time doesn’t mean I am, jackass.
2003: “Purring? You don’t like the sound of them purring?”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Just a little more knowledge o’ Robyn y’all can add to your notes.
1999: No entry.

Randomness:

1. Yesterday, I thought I found a lump in my left breast. As it turned out, it was a tube of Terramycin (eye ointment for cats). What? You trying to tell me you don’t store things in your bra? Liar.

2. And then I thought my left breast was oozing some sort of strange liquid, but it turned out that the cap had come off the tube of Terramycin and leaked inside my bra. It was quite the day for my left breast.

3. “Is that Pink on the radio?” I asked Fred.

“No,” he said. “That’s Justin Bieber.”

“Oh.”

(Later) “Is that the new Sara Bareilles song you were telling me about?”

“No,” he said. “That’s Justin Bieber.”

Why the fuck is Justin Bieber all over my radio, and how the hell does Fred always know that it’s him? Never mind. I don’t want to know.

4. There are many things that sound exactly like wasps hitting the window. When one of the cats sits on the cardboard scratcher, it shifts and makes that crumply-paper-buzz sound, for instance. But I can hear that sound from three rooms away, and I always immediately grab a piece of paper towel and start looking for the wasp. Yesterday morning I stepped out of the house, and as I locked the door I heard what sounded like a THOUSAND wasps hitting the window, and almost had a heart attack. It turned out to be leaves falling from the tree.

5. I was sitting at my computer and heard the distinctive sound of something big and scary buzzing by my ear. I pushed back from the computer, flailing wildly at my face and ear. Spanky, who had been sound asleep on the cat bed next to me, levitated and then flew out of the room.

“What the hell?” Fred said.

“I think a wasp fly by my head!” I said, then looked down at myself and gasped. Clinging casually to the front of my shirt, looking ugly and malevolent and ready to sting was A GODDAMN WASP. “It’s ON ME!” I squealed, then brushed at it with my hand. It fell to the floor, and I stomped on it ’til I heard it crunch. Now I think I’ve got post-traumatic stress disorder, because every time I hear that goddamn sound, it makes me want to dive to the floor and cover my head.

6. After an evening of watching TV, Fred and I were walking to our computers, and Fred said “That toy I just stepped on almost felt like a bug.” Then he kept going. I turned the light on to see what toy he might be talking about, and found a wasp. Oddly enough, it wasn’t until I told him it was a wasp that he realized he’d been stung on the bottom of his foot.

7. I was sitting at my computer last night, and suddenly felt a tickling sensation on my knee AS THOUGH I HAD A WASP ON ME, and I FLEW backward, and several cats went scattering, and Fred said “I think you ran over a cat with your chair”, and as it turned out, the tickling sensation was Reacher’s whiskers. Whoops.

Annnnd that’s all I’ve got. Well, except for some kitten-related news in the next section. WOOT!

On Friday, Starsky and Hutch (now Jack and Percy) went to their new homes in Indiana. On Saturday, Fred decided he wanted to go out to lunch. We were just sitting down to lunch when my cell phone rang. I grabbed it and saw that it was the shelter manager calling.

Three hours later, we had in our possession some sweet little 6 week-olds. Six of them, to be exact. And when Fred checked them and it became clear that we had an even number of boys and girls, well, our naming scheme was immediately clear to us.

Meet…

(“Adios, Johnny Bravo!”)
Greg.

(“Hey you guys – ooh! My nose!”)
Marcia.

(“Porkchops and appleshauce.”)
Peter.

(“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”)
Jan.

(“Mom always SAYS not to play ball in the house!”)
Bobby.

(“Baby talk, baby talk, it’s a wonder you can walk!”)
Cindy.

The Brady Bunch is my all-time favorite show, so it was only a matter of time (and having the correct number of girls and boys) before we got to have our very own bunch of Bradys.

Left to right: Marcia, Peter, Greg (in front), Cindy (at the water bowl), Jan, Bobby.

I don’t know where they originally came from. The man who turned them over to me got them from his grandmother, who had them kind of dumped off on her by a family member. They were in pretty good shape for the most part, though a couple of them have goopy eyes.

We put them in the foster room when we got them, and showed them where the litter boxes were (in the closet) and where the food was, and then left them alone to get used to their surroundings. A couple of hours later Fred opened the door to go in, and called to me to bring some paper towels because there was poop in the middle of the rug. And then he stepped further into the room, and it was like everywhere he looked, there was more poop. They’d pooped in every single cat bed, and the room just smelled horrific. I got it all cleaned up, and moved the litter box from the closet into the main part of the room, and set up another smaller, lower litter box in case the problem was that they couldn’t get into the litter box. There have been a few more accidents since then, but for the most part they seem to have gotten the hang of the litter boxes.

Yesterday, I took them to the vet and dropped them off for their COMBO testing. They all tested negative (yay!), and after I picked them up I had to go to the shelter to pick up a few things. I was driving down the road, and I smelled the smell of fresh poop and glanced back to see that all three girls were traipsing through it. Because I’ve learned to never ever take ANY cats ANYWHERE without about three times as many cleaning rags and replacement blankets for the carrier than I could possibly ever need, I was able to pull over in a parking lot and clean the carrier and the kittens with no problem.

Five minutes later down the road, THAT SMELL again. I stopped and looked. The carrier of boys had one little pile of poop in it, and all three boys were at the opposite end of the carrier staring in horror at the pile. That was a lot easier to clean up.

I’ve been experiencing a real Poopapalooza, is what I’m saying. Hopefully that’ll end soon!

They’re all very sweet and friendly kittens and start purring as soon as you pick them up. They’ve all displayed their own little personalities quite nicely, especially Bobby Brady. If Bobby Brady (I can’t help it, I HAVE to call him “Bobby Brady” rather than just “Bobby”, for some reason) were a person, he would speak in ALL CAPS! AND MANY! MANY! MANY! EXCLAMATION POINTS! The instant I enter the room and sit down, he climbs up on my shoulder and rubs his face against my cheek and purrs and talks. He’s a shoulder monkey. Cindy Brady climbs into my lap and just lays there and purrs and would probably just lay there and let me pet her forever.

Marcia is HUGE compared to the other kittens. She’s at 1 pound 10 ounces, and Cindy, Bobby, and Peter are all at one pound. Marcia’s a calitabby (I think that’s what you’d call her) and she has that very soft and silky Siamese-like fur. She’s a bit sedentary and doesn’t mind playing, but she won’t, you know, get up and go across the ROOM to play or anything. She’s probably conserving her energy for trips to the food bowl. She’s also a bit of a drama queen – the first to hiss and the first to complain if you pick her up when she was doing something. Greg’s a wild child and just plays plays PLAYS. Jan’s very playful and if you pick her up she’ll purr, but she doesn’t really ask for attention the way the three smallest do.

Peter, oh – what can I say about Peter? Just like the real Peter Brady (or rather, I guess I should say, Peter Brady the character from the show), he’s destined to break my heart (I was sure I was going to marry Peter Brady, you know). He’s a sweet, quiet little man who will sit with one paw on my knee and stare at me, clearly hoping that I’ll pet him. He purrs and purrs and purrs.

Since these guys are still so little, they’ll be around for a while – so you’ll get a chance to fall in love with them as much as I already have!

Pretty, pretty Reacher.

Something has annoyed the Rhyme.

“I haz a box.”

Buster Brown gets around.

When I walked into the kitchen the other night to put a glass in the sink, I was startled to see Newt laying there. I know cats like sinks – there’s a whole site devoted to it, after all – but I’ve never actually had any of the cats take up residence in that sink! He slept there all night, and hasn’t been back in the sink since.

Previously
2009: I am entirely VERY FUCKING TIRED of cats trying to put their assholes directly on my face.
2008: No entry.
2007: The woman did 9/10 of the work to be done, and I was NOT complaining.
2006: No entry.
2005: I think he might be half skunk.
2004: I do love, love, love the gmail!
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: If you look closely at the picture, you’ll note that it’s very close to the color of bile.

On Saturday afternoon, as I was trying to get the damn house vacuumed because it had been three days since I had last vacuumed, the goddamn Dyson shit the bed.

Now, to be clear (because I don’t think I ever wrote about it): one year and one month ago, I bought the then-brand-spanking-new Dyson model, the Dyson Animal DC25. I’d had the DC07 for six years, and although I was cleaning the filter and canister religiously, it really wasn’t working as well as it should. And to be honest, the fact that it didn’t fit all the way under the cupboards in the kitchen really bugged me.

So I got the DC25, and loved it at first. And then a month later I vacuumed something up that caused a big hole in the hose (which is totally NOT the Dyson’s fault, I know that), and had to buy a new hose. And then the plate on the bottom chipped and had to be replaced, and then something else broke and had to be replaced, and then it worked okay for several months. On Saturday I was doing the vacuuming, and the roller bar stopped turning, and I fucked around with the goddamn thing for an hour, getting more and more pissed off, and I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on, and then I hit my FUCK THIS wall and just like that I fell out of love with all things Dyson.

I put the Dyson in the garage and got the old one – the DC07 – out of the closet and used that, and it was still the clunky dinosaur that made me buy a new model last year. And it didn’t do nearly as good a job as the DC25.

So for now I’m going to use the Kenmore canister vacuum cleaner that’s been living out in the garage (we bought it when we were renovating the house, when Fred was refinishing the stairs, because the Dyson just refused to suck up all the dust, and Fred’s father recommended the Kenmore for the job.) and I’ll likely take the Dyson to be repaired as a backup vacuum cleaner (you hear me, Dyson? YOU ARE MY BACKUP, NOT MY MAIN SQUEEZE ANYMORE. YOU DONE DID IT TO YOURSELF WITH YOUR ROTTEN ATTITUDE, YOU FUCKER).

Granted, I KNOW I’ve been hard on the damn thing, I know that sucking up 63 pounds of cat hair, stray litter and dust three or four times a week is bound to put a strain on a vacuum, but really. You pay that much for a fucking vacuum, you expect the goddamn thing to MAN UP AND WORK RIGHT.

One thing I learned this weekend when I demanded people recommend vacuums to me – something I really should have known – is that there’s really not one answer. Some people still adore their Dysons, some people love their cheap $35 vacuum they got 15 years ago at the flea market, it really all depends on the person and their requirements. You’ll see tons of recommendations for something like the Miele, and then plenty of people saying they don’t think it’s all that. It’s kind of a crapshoot, is what I’m saying.

(But those of you who suggested your vacuum on Facebook Saturday, thank you. I spent more time Googling information about various vacuums than I could ever have imagined – and found it strangely interesting!)

Starsky and Hutch have gone off to (drumroll please!) Indiana! A reader of thishere site fell in love with them and adopted them. She drove down Friday to get them – we met at the shelter – and reports are that they are doing just fine. There are two older cats in the house AND a dog. They’re okay with the cats, but aren’t thrilled about the dog just yet. I knew they’d be fine, but of course you worry, especially when they’re half a day’s drive away. Once I met Jennifer, though, any concerns I had were pretty much put to rest because she’s AWESOME, and I loved hearing about how excited her 11 year-old was at having kittens in the house.

They’ve got new names (for the record, when I come up with names for our fosters, I always assume they’re going to be changed when they’re adopted.) – Hutch is now Percy, and Starsky is now Jack. (Jack’s one of my favorite names EVER, but Fred’s stepfather’s name is Jack – thus the reason we don’t have any cats named Jack!)

Jennifer said she’d send some pictures in the future, and I expect it will be very cool to watch the boys grow up.

So that’s the story of where Starsky and Hutch are now! And yes, we do miss their silly little faces a lot.

Oh, how the Bookworms love Jake and Elwood! Reacher, especially, loves them. You can usually find Reacher about three inches from one or the other (or both) of them.

Reacher has reached overload, apparently.

Corbie and the grays.

Coltrane hanging out in the (heated) cat shelter on the front porch Saturday morning. He’s been back inside the house a few times, but doesn’t stay for long. Tommy feels the need to sit and stare at him. Coltrane finds it a bit disconcerting, and asks to go back out.

Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: And then last night I was informed that people would start showing up between 9 and 9:30 (for a meal that will take place at noon), so I spent two hours cleaning the house whilst shooting hate rays at Fred.
2006: Barium scars a motherfucker for life.
2005: But I could manage a paper cut/ in the name of love
2004: “Oh, my heart,” I moaned.
2003: This perpetually surprised look of Michael Jackson’s makes me laugh until I wheeze.
2002: “YES, JESUS CHRIST! I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS GOING TO BE SUCH A FRIGGIN’ BIG DEAL!” I bellowed. “I NEEDED TO BE AT MY COMPUTER, BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE THE PHONE NUMBER WAS! JESUS!”
2001: No entry.
2000: I’ve visited Wal-Mart three times in the last five days. I think they’re about to name a parking space after me.
1999: F: In Michigan, you can take this bottle to the recycling center and get ten cents for it.

Attention, those of you in the North Alabama/ Tennessee area: the North Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic is having a fundraiser this weekend in the form of a Plea Market (they had one last year, you might recall.) They’re looking for donations (which are tax deductible!) – you can go here to read more about what they’re looking for, when and where you can drop off your donations, and when the Plea Market will be open to the public.

This event is sponsored by 13 animal welfare groups in the area. The money raised will be used to buy a transport vehicle to assist people in rural areas to get their animals spayed/neutered. Volunteers will be needed on Thursday & Friday (11/18-19) to help set up and also on Saturday, the day of the sale. Donations of saleable items will be accepted both days at the Jaycees Building on Airport Road.

The North Alabama Spay Neuter Clinic charges $35 for feline neuters, $45 for feline spays, $55 for canine neuters, and $65 for canine spays. The only cost above the basic charge is $10 for the rabies vaccination if you cannot provide proof that your animal has been vaccinated in the past 12 months.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ANYONE CAN USE THE SPAY AND NEUTER CLINIC. You do NOT have to qualify! There is no extra charge for weight or if the cat/ dog is in heat.

You remember Coltrane, yes?

For those of you who don’t, Coltrane showed up here at some point in the Spring/ early Summer. Once he discovered that there was food on that thar porch, he hung around pretty regularly. At first we couldn’t even dream of touching him, but after a couple of weeks, Fred was able to pet him, and shortly after he’d let me pet him, too.

It got to the point where he’d show up first thing in the mornings, and then again in the evenings, hang around long enough to eat, and then vamoose. I truly don’t know if he belongs to someone who lives in this area or not – he certainly wasn’t neutered, and as soon as we could, we took him to the vet to be tested, then neutered and vaccinated.

Lately, it’s started to get rather cold at night, and Fred’s been concerned about Coltrane’s comfort. We have a little house on the front porch that Fred built the first winter we lived here. It has a heat lamp in it, a cat bed on the floor, and Coltrane’s been pretty content to sleep in it. But Fred wanted more. Fred wanted Coltrane to come inside.

“QUIT it!” I said, when Fred would open the door and try to coax Coltrane inside. “You are going to upset the delicate balance of cat harmony going on in this house, and we’ll be awash in cat urine!”

“She doesn’t love you,” Fred would tell Coltrane sadly before he closed the door.

“Knock it off!” I said, when Fred coaxed Coltrane six inches, one foot, two feet inside the side door. “Joe Bob and Elwood will pick on him, and we will be flooded in cat urine!”

“Sorry, buddy,” Fred would say to Coltrane as he shut the door.

Two nights ago, I was laying on the couch in the front room reading, and Fred called to me.

“You better come see this,” he said.

“I am going to kill you,” I said.

But I had to laugh – because Coltrane, who was so super-skittish when we first met him, was completely laid-back about being in the house. The other cats approached him, and Coltrane would sniff at them, and then just lay there and let them sniff him. He was not concerned about them at all. I mean, THEY were concerned about HIM, but he was all “Whatever, dudes.”

(What amazes me the most is that all that smugness is able to fit in one single cat bed.)

With no hesitation whatsoever, Hutch climbed into the cat bed with Coltrane. Coltrane seemed rather pleased to have the company, and the two of them napped together.

Fred took Coltrane into the laundry room and put a bowl of food in front of him. Coltrane bellied up to the bowl, and then Corbie wandered in to see what was going on. When he spotted Coltrane, he walked over and sniffed him, then sat and watched him for a few moments. At one point, Corbie rolled onto his back and reached his front paws toward Coltrane, who kept a wary eye on him as he ate.

Reacher came in to see what was going on. When he got too close to Coltrane, Coltrane reached out and tapped Reacher on the head. Coltrane’s a laid-back boy, but he’s not a DOORMAT, for god’s sake.

Eventually, Coltrane wanted back outside and Fred let him out. Last night Fred let him in for ten minutes or so, but after a few minutes he wanted back out.

I have no idea if he’ll ever turn into a cat who’ll stay inside with us on the coldest nights, but Fred’s opened the door and now Coltrane is at least aware that there’s a shangri-la for cats with warmth and comfy beds.

I’ll be stocking up on cat urine odor remover because I am SURE we’ll be needing it. I’m sure our cats will be expressing their displeasure beginning any moment now.

And I will NOT BE THE ONE CLEANING UP THE CAT PEE, DO YOU HEAR ME, FRED?

Previously
2009: “I wonder if that’s the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of China,” Fred joked as we drove by on Sunday.
2008: Fred snorted “You should just start wearing overalls!”
2007: Hey! I was decluttering last year at this time, too!
2006: Here’s Doctor Robyn’s list of diagnoses.
2005: Cat hair on the seat of your pants! It’s the Next Big Thing!
2004: Do you suppose that cats realize that when we kiss them, it’s a sign of affection?
2003: NAS-TAY.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Thanks, y’all, for your emails regarding hamster sex.
1999: So, I didn’t get the kitten.

In my comments yesterday, devil mentioned check writers as the bane of the supermarket checkout experience.

AMEN TO THAT.

Last Saturday morning Fred and I made our usual weekend run to Publix. We usually get there on Saturdays just as they open, but Fred had processed chickens that morning, and then we had to go to Lowe’s, which meant that we got to Publix about an hour after they’d opened.

It was fucking BUSY. We’re not the only ones who want to get our shit done first thing Saturday morning, I guess.

So we went our separate ways, each grabbed a few things from the list, and then met at the front of the store to check out. There was only one lane (aside from the “10 items or fewer”) lane that was open, and there was a slow couple slowly putting the stuff from their cart onto the conveyor belt, and then the cashier slowly rang everything up, and the entire time she was slowly ringing everything up, she and the woman were chatting it up. Everything was rang up and bagged, in the cart and ready to be taken out to the couple’s car.

“That’s $83.45,” the cashier said. The woman started digging around in her purse. And she dug and dug and dug some more. Then she pulled out her checkbook.

I turned to look at Fred. Now, look – when it comes to this sort of thing, I’m pretty patient (even more so when I have my iPod with me and can play Snood on it while I’m waiting), so my impatience the other morning was unusual for me. For the most part, I figure there’s no use in getting all worked up about slow people because THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. It’s usually only when I’m running late (or haven’t eaten and am dying of the starvation and JESUS CHRIST WILL YOU HURRY UP THEY’RE GOING TO STOP SERVING EGG MCMUFFINS IN TEN MINUTES) that I get impatient.

HOWEVER.

Fred is the least patient person on earth. He is pretty sure that the Earth is his and his alone and no one should ever be in his way and he should never have to wait for anything and no one should ever require him to do something he has no interest in doing. And when he gets all princessy and impatient, it stresses me out.

So when the woman finally pulled her checkbook out of her purse, I turned to look at Fred just to make sure the top of his head hadn’t popped off and his brain hadn’t gone bouncing into the ice cream section. Which is when I saw the woman standing in line behind him lean past him to put her groceries on the conveyor belt behind our stuff, and in her leaning, she got into his space, and I saw him cut his eyes to the left, all ALERT! ALERT! SOMEONE IS IN MY SPACE! SOMEONE HAS BREACHED MY SPACE! SOMEONE! IS! IN! MY! SPACE!

And I couldn’t help it, it was like he was in his own personal version of Hell, between the check writing lady and the lady all up in his space and me with my reusable grocery bags (he HATES the reusable grocery bags because they collapse when you’re trying to put groceries in them – what the fuck?), and I laughed and laughed.

But on our way out to the car after the check-writing lady had finally written her check, he said “Do people still WRITE checks?”

So devil, rest assured that you’re not alone! People do still write checks and, as I told Fred, “Did you know that not only do people still write checks, they also can’t write out who the check is to, or the date, or sign the check until they know the total?”

Speaking of our Publix trips, all summer long, every time we made our Saturday morning trips, the same guy was always stocking the dairy section. Every single time, there he was. He’d greet us, occasionally ask if we needed help finding something, and then go back to his stocking.

And then, two weeks ago, NO ONE was stocking the dairy section.

“Dairy guy wasn’t there,” I told Fred.

“Huh,” Fred said.

AND THEN.

We were walking down the aisle of chips and sodas and I looked up and THERE WAS DAIRY STOCKING GUY.

NOT in the dairy section!

I had no idea that was even allowed. We passed him, then I nudged Fred and said “THAT WAS DAIRY STOCKING GUY!”

“I know,” Fred said.

“NOT IN THE DAIRY SECTION!”

“Yep.” The man could NOT have been less interested, damn him.

Hmph.

Starsky likes to pick fights with the big cats. He’s lucky they’re so tolerant of his shenanigans.

Not a great picture, but do you see how long Reacher is? He’s one long cat!

This chicken feather came in on the basket of eggs one evening, and Starsky spotted it and claimed it as his. He sat there and licked it. Then he glared suspiciously at any cats who came near, and then he decided there were too many cats around, so he picked it up and carried it into the other room and licked it some more.

These kittens crack me up – Starsky always looks like he’s suspicious of whatever’s going on, and Hutch has that sweet, open face. He reminds me a lot of Orange (aka Lorna Doone) from the Cookies, not only in temperament (sweet, willing to snuggle, friendly, and did I mention sweet?) but with the open little face. They are just the sweetest little monkeys.

(Did I say “sweet” often enough up there? THEY ARE SO SWEET SWEET SWEET.)

Loony Jake. Here’s something I don’t think I’ve mentioned about Loony Jake: he’s a growler. If he hears a sound that he doesn’t recognize, he growls. When I snapped this picture, we were upstairs in the foster room (when the fosters are given the run of the house, our cats LOVE it, because they really like hanging out in that room, playing with the toys, climbing the cat tree. All the fun stuff they can’t do when the door is closed!). The garbage truck was going by, and the entire time they drove by the house, stopped at the driveway, and picked up our garbage, Jake was growling. It’s not a hysterical growl or a particularly loud or scary growl he does, it’s almost under his breath, a warning growl. If the doorbell rings or someone knocks on the door, you can depend on Loony Jake to growl.

Previously
2009: Because I am such an utter badass, I ran in place and screamed.
2008: No entry.
2007: “I am NOT ‘ratty looking’ and YOU, M’dme, are a pure-d grade-a gutter slutting WHORE. Good day to you.”
2006: He’s such a know-it-all motherfucker.
2005: Elizabeth Wurtzel strikes me as spectacularly self-absorbed (pot! kettle! black!)
2004: Stuff I’ve bought.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: “Hey!” I said, shaking the cage. “Stop that!”
1999: No entry.