Month: April 2011

First a couple of videos, both starring Declan.

Declan says “hi” :

and Declan gets sassy:

Cillian, amazed by… everything!

Declan, looking thoughtful. His skinny little neck and his great big ears crack me up.

“Double rainbow all the way!”

Cillian always laughs at his own jokes.

Team Edward!

“Dude, come on. You’ve gotta lift it a little higher if you want me to get ’em clean. If you go to bed with dirty toes, Mama is going to be SO MAD!”

“Those were some dirty toes. I feel faint. Who knew pouty princesses could get so dirty?”

“Um. Nothin’. Why?”

Macushla, just waking up and looking mighty rumpled.

“I see dead people!”
“That’s not dead people! That’s the paparazzi! You go ‘way, lady! We’re talkin’ ’bout important secret things!”

“And dude, I kid you not. DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKY! It. Was. AWESOME.”

Rufus senses the approach of evil.

“Madame, please. I beg of you, stop sniffing my hindquarters. It is so RUDE.”

For his troubles, Rufus gets a smack from Alice before she goes flouncing off.

Jake presents the top of his head to Newt.

Newt looks around…

Considers licking Jake’s head…

Goes for the neck bite instead…

Then really chomps down…

And Jake stomps off in a huff.

Previously
2010: I ask again: what the fuck?
2009: Yes, I APOLOGIZED to her for not keeping my account. I guess that showed THEM.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: I have no skillz, but I’m a quick learner!
2005: Spot let out a sad, drawn-out demon-from-hell sound.
2004: Meme-licious.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: I live to please you, my beloved readers.

My computer is reformatted and it all went pretty smoothly, thank god. Except that I couldn’t get Quicken 2001 to install, so had to buy a version that isn’t 10 years old. Not a big deal, though – so far everything’s working well.

When I wasn’t fighting with my computer, Fred and I went out and finally got the vegetable garden planted. I ended up planting 45 tomato plants. Some of them very small plants, and I’m hoping like hell that the bad weather we’re expecting doesn’t destroy them. I also planted 35 jalapeno plants, and a mere 13 cucumber plants. Fred did all the other stuff, the zucchini and squash and corn and beans. Yesterday morning when I woke up, the backs of my thighs were screeeeeaming since I’d spent about 2 1/2 hours bent over in the garden on Sunday, but the pain lessened as the day went on.

I also planted my brussels sprouts and cauliflower seedlings in my fourth raised bed. Really, I feel like I’m way behind in the planting of those, and of the carrots (which are just starting to come up), romaine, spinach, radishes, and purslane, but maybe next year I’ll get to it earlier, since I won’t be recovering from surgery.

Friday I went into Huntsville to help set up for the Cat Tales benefit and spent a couple of hours lifting and unpacking boxes. Then I drove home, took a shower, and Fred and I went back for the actual benefit. Challenger’s House has this benefit every year, but this was the first time we’d actually attended. It was fun! There was music, lots of food, and lots of good company. The only downside was that Fred was cramping my desire to spend money (heh), so I didn’t bid on or buy nearly as much as I wanted to.

(Next year I’ll leave him at home!)

I got to meet the people who adopted Kaylee (one of Kara’s babies, all of whom turned three this year!), and they showed me some pictures of her. She has grown up to be absolutely beautiful. Did I think to ask them to email me a couple of pictures? I did not, of course. They clearly dote on her, and told me that they think Kaylee’s half spider monkey.

I’m so lame that I started yawning at 8:00, and by the time we got home at 9:30, we were so tired we went straight to bed.

We live the party life, yo.

I got a lot of stuff done around the house on Saturday, and at the end of the day I felt a sense of accomplishment, but I can’t remember a single thing I did.

On Sunday, between the formatting of my hard drive and the gardening, I made Fred help me move some heavy furniture around. We moved the bookcase that I was using for storage in the bathroom from the bathroom to my bedroom. Then we moved the cabinet I’d been using for storage in my bedroom from the bedroom to the computer room. THEN we moved the bookcase that had been in the computer room out to the garage. I wanted something with doors on it to put in the computer room, so we could store our shoes in the cabinet without fear that the cats would pee on them.

(Not that the cats have peed on them in the past, but it’s a risk here in Asshole Cat Central that if you leave something on the floor, it very well might get peed on as payback for your NERVE. Ask Nance, who had a sweatshirt peed upon during a visit here, but didn’t realize it ’til she got home. Or ask Liz, who left the door to the guest bedroom open for a brief moment while she grabbed something out of the bathroom, and had her entire suitcase peed on by the late Tubby, That Bastard. Aren’t you just DYING to come visit us?!)

The other heavy lifting I did over the weekend: I took a 42 pound bag of Fresh Step out of the garage, opened it up, and then dumped it (well, 40 pounds of it anyway) into one of the old Fresh Step buckets. Then I dumped it from that bucket into another bucket. Then I dumped it back into the first bucket. All told, I dumped 40 pounds of litter from one bucket to the other six times in an attempt to get rid of some of the dust. When I cleaned the litter boxes out and dumped the fresh new litter in, it didn’t really seem less dusty to me.

All that work for nothin’, damnit.

Can you believe the McMaos are THREE weeks old? Well, really, three and a HALF weeks old. They’re so mobile and fighty and licky and explore-y right now. Everything is utterly amazing to them (especially Cillian, who always looks like he’s just finished partaking of the catnip and is hiiiiiigh) and now when I walk into the room, they (especially Declan) start howling and walking across the room to me. When I pet them, they fall over onto their sides and lick their paws while I rub their bellies. They are the cutest little things on the face of the planet right now.

They’re spending very little time in the McMao cave and most of their time either piled up in the cat bed in front of the cave, or in various places on the rug. Maggie keeps a casual eye on them, though yesterday when Declan ended up behind the litter box and she could hear him moving around but couldn’t see him, she got pretty worried. Over the weekend, Ciara spotted Maggie across the room and got excited, ran over to her, and then started rooting around. Maggie was laying on her belly, and Ciara just could not figure out how to get to the milk. Maggie wasn’t inclined to move to allow her access, and after Ciara snuffled around for a minute, she gave up and ran off to bite one of her brothers.

“One…”

“..two…three…!”

“Hey, you guys, I haz THREE FEET, and you don’t got none! Ha ha ha!”

Pouty Princess is pouty.

“TOES. I haz them!”

“This isn’t going quite as I’d hoped.”

Fergus Simon (left) is staring in amazement at the ceiling fan.

“Whoa, y’all, it just. keeps. SPINNING!”

Grumpy doesn’t quite appreciate all the toes in his face.

They’re getting the hang of bathing themselves and each other.

Declan, in a brief non-exploring moment.

Rufus, hanging out on top of the kitchen cabinets. He looks like he’s hiding here, but he’s turned into a total lovebug. Sweet, friendly, playful – someone’s going to end up with one really awesome cat.

Jake keeps an eye on the goings-on.

Previously
2010: Yesterday I told Shelly (whose husband found work after 10 months, yay!) that I’m trying to embrace my inner frugal bitch.
2009: No entry.
2008: An impromptu Saturday entry to share cool links with y’all.
2007: (What I wanted to say: YOUR MOTHER. Now go to bed!)
2006: So, in essence, the fucking DVR TATTLED on me.
2005: E’gar goes into the shop.
2004: I must be mumbling or something today. Everyone I’ve spoken to has looked at me like I’m speaking French and they can’t understand what the hell I’m saying.
2003: No entry.
2002: Blah blah blah.
2001: No entry.
2000: “Um… you mean, she lies on your butt to muffle your farts?” he ventured.

Today I’m posting a bunch of pictures in an attempt to clear out my tmp folder, because tomorrow? Tomorrow I reformat my hard drive, and there’s always the possibility that it’ll take longer than I expect and thus I am declaring that there’ll be no post on Monday because I’ll either be desperately trying to figure out what I did wrong, or possibly just recovering from the whole experience.

As you can see, with the addition of a cat bed to the area directly in front of the McMao cave, the McMaos are able to get in and out pretty easily.

Declan the explorer.

Ciara (front), Fergus Simon (in the process of coming out of the cave) and Finnegan.

Oh Declan, I love you so.

Paws up, y’all!

“What?”

“Dude, your breath. It’s magical.”

“NO! You get back. It are time for MY belly rub, you can just wait your TURN.”

“I carry all my stress in my neck, lady. You need to move a bit higher.”

“Ahhh, yes. That’s the spot.”

Maggie has some quality time with the Kong Kickeroo.

“High? Me? No. Why would you think that?”

Alice Mo has the longest tail in the house. Seriously – look at that thing.

“Hey! Shaddup! Stop talking about my tail! You’re making me self-conscious!”

Previously
2010: That seems like an awful lot of work.
2009: No entry.
2008: Being woken up by the phone in the middle of the night = FUN.
2007: Things I should have done this weekend but did not:
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Fred and I came up with the perfect name for a rapper: Skid Markee.
2003: Damn that Rob Rummel-Hudson. Damn him straight to hell. He gave me The Pink Eye!
2002: Note to self: Get life.
2001: how the hell did I ever get everything done when I was working full-time? (I still wonder this)
2000: I had hoped to see Tom Cruise’s penis, so I could pause the movie and look closely at it.

Declan and Ciara, scoping out the situation and trying to determine whether it’s worth it to escape the McMao cave.

McMaos in the McMao cave.

Goofy babies, rolling around.

Maggie, chilling out away from the babies.

Fergus Simon, exploring (that’s my camera lens cap his front paw is on).

Finnegan, rolling around.

Cillian. Everything is absolute, stunningly amazing to this little guy.

Declan.

Fergus Simon, looking around. This one misses NOTHING.

“My paw smells funny.” (Declan)

Sweet Miz Poo.

Previously
2010: Five! How the hell did we even know we HAD cats with such a small number of them??
2009: Two long rows of tomatoes for two people. That’s not too much, is it?
2008: No entry.
2007: “Baby, I think someone in my comments just called me a complete idiot.”
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: So, to sum up: for almost a year, they’ve spent time staring up their property line, ostentatiously walked up and down it, yet it’s never occurred to them to come knock on the door and say “Hi, blah blah our side of the property line, blah blah, stop? Thanks!”
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: “If we manufactured bon-bons, I would have sent you a package of those. Instead, this package should assuage the pain and horror of not working while you lay on the couch and watch Oprah and the soaps.”

In case you missed it in yesterday’s comments, Cat let us know that the Extreme Coupon-ing “mustard lady” J’aime was committing fraud, and you can read more about it here. Innnnteresting. And like Aimee said, no WONDER J’aime was so nervous at the register!

It never occurred to me that you could commit fraud like that with coupons – and it amazes me that anyone thinks you can get away with anything EVER these days.

Yesterday I did a run to Sam’s to stock up on the many things we’ve run out of in the two months since I had surgery. I left the house at 6:45 am because I have the super-special-fancy “business” membership, and we “business” and “gold” members can go into a relatively deserted Sam’s Club and wander around for a full three hours before the regular “household” account-having peasants can get in. It is SO DAMN NICE to be able to go into Sam’s, get what I need, and get the hell out of there without having to dodge other people.

When I left Sam’s, I had to swing by Target to buy a few things, and I got there just as the store opened (I think. I’m assuming it still opens at 8.) I browsed a little, picked up a few things, put a few things back, and then stood in line to check out.

The cashier, to my dismay, was feeling super chatty. She commented on each and every item I bought, she asked how many cats we have (I was buying a couple of cat beds SHUT UP IT WAS A GOOD PRICE) and I lied and said we had three (I usually lie, because it’s nicer than telling the questioner that it’s none of their damn bidness, unless I’m caught off guard), then she started telling some long and involved story about how she had cats when she was growing up, but she was really more of a dog person and so she had two dogs and they were (some sort of breed I am unfamiliar with) and they like to (do something fascinating) and she likes to (laugh/ cry/ take pictures and send them to her friends) and I enjoy a nice chat with complete strangers and all, but it was getting on toward 8:45 and I was starting to get hungry, and all I wanted to do was check out and go home (which is a half hour drive) and eat breakfast.

What the voice in my brain really really wanted me to do was say “Lady, this has ceased to be interesting to me” and then walk away. And I was concentrating so hard on NOT saying or doing that, that I completely lost the thread of what she was yammering about, and the next thing I knew, she was smiling expectantly at me. All I could do was smile brightly, and say “Well! That sounds fun! You have a great day!” and turn and walk off.

This is the sort of thing that really worries me. When I’m 80 years old and I’ve lost the ability to stop the obnoxious stuff I’m thinking from falling out my mouth, people are either going to hate my guts (“Did you HEAR what that old lady said to me? What a rude bitch!”) or think I’m funny as shit (“Did you HEAR what that old lady said to me? What a hoot!”)

I am, of course, hoping for the latter.

Yesterday, for the first time in two and a half weeks, I vacuumed the foster room. The amount of loose cat hair in there was just appalling. I hadn’t vacuumed before yesterday because I didn’t want to traumatize the babies or Maggie. But I was getting desperate, so I figured it was time. It was pretty simple – I just went in, picked up the McMao cave, carried it into the closet (it’s a big closet). Maggie followed us in, I turned on the light, and then closed the door. It took me about ten minutes to vacuum the room, then I put the cave back where it belonged, Maggie followed me back out, and I closed the closet door again. Mission accomplished!

Someone asked in yesterday’s comments when the kittens’ ears will stand up on their heads. I did a quick glance back through Kara’s kittens’ pictures, and this was River (who is now Nate) at three weeks old:

So I’m going to guess that it should happen in the next week or so.

Someone else asked when it’ll be time to offer the kittens a slurry to help them wean. I’m going to start offering them canned kitten food around four to five weeks, since mothers generally starting weaning their kittens at five to six weeks. Maggie gets some canned kitten food in the morning and again in the evening, so if any of the kittens show interest before that, I’ll of course offer them some.

This right here is Declan. Declan is the explorer of the litter. When I walk into the room, he immediately comes to the “door” of the McMao cave, and sticks his head out. The threshhold of the doorway is just a bit too high for them to get out, but he tries. Then he looks sadly at me until I lift him out so that he can explore.

Explorer Declan discovers the pink feathered cat toy.

It smells purrrrty.

Fergus Simon and the belly rub.

“What you doin’, lady?”

I love how happy they get when they discover Maggie.

I wouldn’t ordinarily post this, as Jake’s just a blur, but the look on Tommy’s face is CRACKING ME UP.

The gray boys sure do love that Tommy.

Previously
2010: Today, I slack.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: “I’m not looking smug, I’m looking RUEFUL,” I said.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: “Bessie, Jayson Blair is black.”
2003: No entry.
2002: I hate it when there’s a web page touting some wonderful product, but you CANNOT place an online order.
2001: SIR! RECRUIT BITCHYPOO IS DONE WITH HER ENTRY AND READY TO POST IT, SIR!
2000: we watched the ultra-crappy End of Days last night

Sunday afternoon I was folding Fred’s laundry and putting it away, trying to get the chore done and over with so I could go upstairs and hang out with the McMaos, when the goddamn alarm went off. Our doors and windows are alarmed, and the alarm system is somehow tied into the smoke detectors so that when a smoke detector goes off, so does the whole house alarm.

So the alarm system went off and I was all “WTF?”, and went into the dining room to turn the alarm system off. It turned off, but the smoke alarm kept blaring, and I was all “Where the fucking FUCK is Fred?!”

Truly, I don’t know how on earth he does it, but every fucking time there’s something going on in the house where I can use his help, he is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.

Then I thought “Well, crap. I hope that smoke alarm isn’t going off because, y’know, there’s a FIRE.” It was the one upstairs, so I ran up to make sure nothing was burning and to get the goddamn smoke alarm to shut the fuck up. As it turned out, I’d lit a candle in the bathroom, and it was smoking a tiny bit, but certainly nothing that should have set off the fucking smoke alarm. I blew out the candle and grabbed a towel and tried waving the towel at the smoke alarm, in hopes that it would cause any smoke around the alarm to dissipate and perhaps the alarm would shut itself off, but nay.

Do you suppose there’s anything at all in the upstairs of our house that I could drag under the smoke alarm so I could yank it out of its mooring and pull the batteries out? AGAIN I SAY NAY.

I ran downstairs and stepped onto the side stoop and bellowed “HEY!”, and because my bellow is a loud bellow, Fred popped up from the other side of the compost heap and was all “Wha?” I bellowed “Could you COME IN HERE PLEASE!”, and then I shut the door and went into the dining room and grabbed a chair and hauled it upstairs. Then I grabbed the goddamn smoke alarm and pullled both batteries out of it, and finally the ear-piercing scream of the smoke detector was silenced.

Then I carried the smoke detector, the batteries, and the dining room chair back downstairs, and as I reached the dining room, Fred finally moseyed through the door.

While I was bitching at him about the fact that when there’s some emergency requiring his presence inside the house, it would be much appreciated if he’d pick his pace up from a mosey to perhaps a saunter IF IT WOULDN’T BE TOO MUCH DIFFICULTY, I somehow failed to mention that it was the candle I’d been burning that set off the fucking thing in the first place.

What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?

(And when I went in to check on the McMaos, sure that they’d be freaked out by all the noise, they were all sleepily rolling around with not a care in the world.)

So? Has everyone been watching Extreme Couponing? I set the DVR to record it, and one day last weekend when we were looking for something to watch, Fred expressed some interest in watching that show, which surprised me. We watched a couple of episodes, and it was oddly fascinating.

I occasionally use coupons (though I tend not to go out of my way to get them), and have even once or twice scored some pretty awesome deals. I’d LOVE to spend $50 for $600 worth of groceries, but I just don’t have the patience to devote the amount of time to figuring out the deals the way some of the people on that show do. If I spend $30 at Publix and save (according to the receipt) $15 or more, I’m usually pretty happy with that.

I do follow blogs that figure out the deals for you – if you go to my links list, there’s a “frugal” section over there on the right – but I’m always so far behind in my blog reading that the majority of the time I glance at the post titles to see if there’s anything that grabs my attention, and then hit the “mark all as read” button without reading them.

I would usually vow to do better at figuring ways to save money, but given that we have freezers full of our own veggies and meat and don’t eat much canned stuff, I’m going to declare that I think we’re doing just fine.

(But given that we’re down to our last two rolls of toilet paper in the entire house, I’ll be dragging my ass to Sam’s soon. Y’all let me know if you run across any awesome deals on Scott Tissue toilet paper, would you?)

Comfy Rufus.

Rufus, fangin’ it.

Can you believe these babies are two weeks old?

First, the videos. In the first, Fergus Simon and one of his brothers (I’m not sure who) flail around and bite each other.

In the second, you can see how they get around. Not bad for two weeks old!

The amazed face over there on the right is cracking me UP.

Fergus Simon and his serious little face.

The pouty princess (Ciara) and Fergus Simon.

Cillian seems worried.

Macushla, giving me a bit of the ol’ attitude.

Finnegan, wandering.

Sweet Declan, wondering what’s going on.

The Anderson kitties (and Rufus) are nuts for ham.

Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Kara’s birth story.
2007: I don’t know that I’ll know how to act when I’ve got internet whenever I want it, it’s been so damn long since I’ve had it!
2006: No entry.
2005: Taking the week off.
2004: No entry.
2003: Fred: That was a cowardly yellow-dog liberal DEMOCRAT thing to say.
2002: Things are getting back to normal.
2001: One of these days I’ll get my ass in gear; I just never know when that day will be.
2000: Squooshiness begets squooshiness, you know.