Fred had part of yesterday off from work, so when he got home, I suggested that we go out to lunch. I was thinking of Applebee’s so I could get a salad, but he wrote down two restaurant names on a piece of paper, held each in his hand, and made me choose between the two hands. We ended up going to a Chinese buffet in Madison.
I wasn’t too upset – Chinese food is one of my favorite kinds of foods, and who doesn’t love a buffet? – and the food there was really pretty good. Until I got to the last thing on my plate, a few pieces of Black Pepper Beef.
Oh, it was NASTY. I chewed on it and chewed on it, thinking I could just swallow it and be done, but the more I chewed it (and it was very chewy), the worse it tasted, and finally I had to spit it out into a napkin.
“It tasted like feet,” I told Fred.
Or what I’d imagine feet taste like, in any case. Dirty, sweaty feet. Gah.
Other than that, though, the food was pretty good. I think I would have been better off with a salad, though. The Chinese food had me all bloated and full all afternoon long, and I ended up needing a short mid-afternoon nap.
Robyn, do you or your readers have a recommendation for a lightweight vacuum? We have the dyson, but I wanted something for the stairs. We adopted an elderly golden retriever and now we are a 3 dog, 2 cat household. We have tipped ourselves into pet fur taking over kind of household. I’ve tried a couple of handhelds like the Dirt Devil and the Shark, but they were never great. I would like an upright so I am not hunched over like Quasimodo every time I need to do the stairs. Any thoughts?
I have no suggestions myself (I either use the canister vacuum on the stairs or Swiffer it and use the vacuum at the bottom to get up whatever was pushed down the stairs), but I’ll be watching suggestions with interest! Who’s got a good suggestion, y’all?
Wait…..I just noticed in your sidebar that Corbie is a permanent resident. When did I miss that? I remember when Coltrane arrived but I can’t remember when you decided to keep Corbie?
We made it official back at the end of March. I made everyone sad by announcing that he’d gone to his forever home and then announced that THIS is his forever home. Ya damn skimmer. 🙂 (But it wasn’t ’til earlier this week that I realized I hadn’t put him in the sidebar. What the hell? I’m such a slacker.)
Do any of your cats get into noisy late night fights? I know some like to stay outside at night.
I will, very occasionally, hear a couple of cats get into it under my bedroom window. They probably also fight late at night on the side stoop, but since that’s nowhere near my window, I don’t hear them. The worst late night fights we hear are when Jake or Elwood get too close to Stinkerbelle (ie, within 10 feet), and she has the most hellacious hellcat scream. Somehow, despite the fact that it happens in the kitchen, right under Fred’s bedroom, he always sleeps through it. Luckily, she only does it once in order to scare the bejesus out of all of us (except Fred) in the house, and make whoever’s bugging her back off.
Have you seen this? I have saved this as a link on my computer so that when I need a giggle, there it is.
That is WAY too cute. I think I might have to find a tarp and carry it up to the foster room!
So – how are the hands doing with 6 sets of baby teeth and 12 pairs of needle like claws around? Or actually if you count Dorothy – you need to add another set and pair to the total.
The hands are holding up fairly well. No terrible scratches yet, just a million tiny ones. We finally clipped the McMaos’ claws yesterday, which helped quite a bit!
I had a Ms. Poo dream. I dreamt she gave birth to a litter of puppies. The puppies came out the size of Yankee candle. For some reason, they were put into diapers and bottle fed like babies. Ms. Poo was treated like the Queen of Sheba but she did not have anything to do with the puppies/kittens. Oh and she had them under my bed. I don’t know what the heck was all that about, but I know you like it when we dream of Crooked Acres peeps.
I do love it. I love it quite a bit. And the idea of poor Miz Poo birthing puppies the size of Yankee candles makes me simultaneously cringe in sympathy and laugh. I can just imagine the look on her face if that happened!
Maybe start a second compost pile you don’t really need to use, throw some tomatoes in there, and then completely ignore the tomato plants that grow in there… until it is time to harvest them, of course.
I think I said that last year for the first time I had gorgeous tomato plants that produced soooo much fruit. I had them in pots previously and threw all the yucky ones in the corner behind the pots. I have tried year after year to grow the stinkin things and the leaves turn yellow and don’t really produce much. Letting them bloom where they aren’t planted and ignoring them seems to be the trick for me. I did spy and spotted some plants coming up but I won’t let on that I know they are there and will ignore them for now.
I’ll admit, I kind of wish that I’d just left the compost tomato plants where they were – did I mention one of them has a flower already? There are more plants on the compost heap that I’m going to leave (we do plan to start a second compost pile) and just see how they do. I’ve also got a couple coming up in my raised beds (one or two with the carrots and at least one with the romaine) and I’m going to leave those as well and see what happens. The happier the tomato plants are, the more they’ll produce and the happier I’ll be, right?
The happiest tomato plant I ever had was the second summer after we moved in. Originally, we had 12 chickens and their yard was a corner of our back yard. They LOVED tomatoes, and got tons of them. By the second summer, the chickens had been moved to the blue coop yard, and in the early part of the summer, Fred pointed out that there was a tomato plant growing where the chicken yard had been. We left it, and mostly ignored it, and that was the happiest tomato plant I’ve ever seen, and it put out tomatoes until well into the Fall. It got so big that the cats would even hang out underneath it in the hottest part of the day.
I’ve been looking at the last few entries and it occurred to me that Tiny Alice isn’t really so tiny any more!
Is she catching up now, do you think? (yay!) Or is it that Rufus is tiny as well?
Rufus is kind of a small cat, but I do think Alice is starting to catch up. She’s not nearly the tiny thing she was when we first got her. I mean, I expect her to remain on the small side, but she’s no longer abnormally tiny.
If you don’t bring those plastic bags home – what do you scoop the litter boxes into? If there is a better method, I’m all for it.
I buy biodegradable poop-scoopin’ bags off eBay. They work pretty well, though I did have to go to a smaller scoop, because the big scoop I was using wouldn’t fit into the bags, and stuff was falling on the floor, and yeah. I wasn’t going to let that happen on a regular basis.
So when the wee McMaos curl up in your lap, do you stay there, or do you eventually have to move? Because I always feel so guilty I end up sitting still until something goes numb.
I can sit for a pretty long time with my legs crossed, but yeah, eventually one leg goes to sleep and I have to move around. They’re pretty forgiving, but occasionally they look up at me and give me the sad little heartbroken meow, and I want to throw myself out the window for daring to disturb their rest. 🙂
Good luck Rufus! Did he ever take a “non-cute” picture? Whoever adopts him will be very lucky; I think he’s a special kitty. And I trust your judgment Miz Robyn; I know I couldn’t do what you do. I would keep every kitty. BUT you have encouraged me. I am going to foster two cats this summer!
I don’t believe Rufus ever took a bad picture, no. And YAY! The world can always use another awesome foster parent!
Those kittens are cute enough to eat! so scoop up-able and kissable and squishable – aaww…!!! Are they eating solid food on their own now?
Indeed they are. In fact, they now know what the sound of a cat food tin opening means, and they cluster around my feet and howl at me. For a while I was giving them all canned food just about every time I went into the room, but that had to stop and now they get canned food (mixed with baby food – which I guess I can stop doing any time now, too. But they love it so much!) in the morning and evening, and have kibble available the rest of the day. The only kitten who isn’t interested in canned food (weirdo) is Finnegan, and so when everyone else is bellied up to the plates, he just follows me around and supervises what I’m doing.
I dreamt about the McMaos last night… At one point I had Declan and another baby, and was walking them on leashes. Clearly, I am obsessed with the babies.
I would like to see what Declan would do if I put a leash on him!
*pets Rufus* Good luck to you, pretty boy! May a forever home with a fondness for soft, snuggle-able kitties turn up in a hurry. What color is he, anyway? I’m not sure I ever knew.
Rufus is a medium-hair gray tabby with white. Also, he’s SO PRETTY that I expect he’s going to find a home soon. I hope so, anyway!
I’d like to hear more about the Pouty Princess and what she does to make herself seem pouty. I’ve thought all that she’s the most beautiful of this litter and to hear about her personality would be awesome!
The Pouty Princess is actually not all that pouty. She’s a little bit of a drama queen – she was always the hissiest of the bunch, and if you pick her up and she doesn’t WANT to be picked up, she will cry like a sad little princess. But she’s a sweet girl, and she was actually the VERY FIRST baby McMao to purr for me. That just happened a few days ago! Oh sure, they purr like mad for their mama, but for me they had nothin’. But then earlier this week I picked up Ciara and petted her, and she thought about it for a moment and then began purring softly. Then the next day Finnegan did it!
There’s nothing sweeter than a purring kitten.
Ciara also loves her mother with a passion, and can often be found giving her mama a look o’ love. She will happily play fight with her brothers, and she gives as good as she gets. She’s not much of a climber, but she’ll climb every now and then when the mood strikes her. And her favorite toy is the Kong Kickeroo – she very well might be taking after her mother, who always did like a good sniff of the catnip-containing Kickeroo.
The photo of Alice on top of the cabinets reminded me of my favorite tumblr. Check it out, if you haven’t seen it already- it’s called Get out of there cat and features photos of cats in all sorts of crazy places, and typical places, like boxes and on top of doors. 🙂
I’ve seen that site several times this week and kept meaning to link to it, so thanks for the reminder! It cracks me UP.
I just need to make sure y’all have seen Kitten Vs. Tennis Ball. I wouldn’t want you to miss it!
We’ve been giving Miss Dorothy limited time out of the guest bedroom to explore and meet the other cats. She thinks it’s pretty neat to have all that room to run.
Sugarbutt did not care for this tiny little girlkitty getting all up in his grill, and a moment after I snapped the picture, he smacked her. She wasn’t too perturbed by that, and just ran past him.
Then she gave him a look like this:
I love Finnegan’s stripes.
Declan. How did they get so grown up?! He doesn’t even have any blue left in his eyes!
“Yeah, come on down here! BRING IT ON!”
“That didn’t quite work out the way I’d intended.”
“HI MAMA!”
Finnegan contemplates.
Happy Friday the 13th! ::cue scary music::
Previously
2010: It’s like a big loaf of stink, rising and expanding to fill all available space.
2009: In self-defense, I had to do the unthinkable.
2008: Here’s a hint: Mister Boogers? Not the man.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Oh, it’s FUN to be a girl, ain’t it?
2004: Am I not stylin’?
2003: Like I repeatedly said to him yesterday, “I’m GLAD you’re ENJOYING my pain!”
2002: Momma don’t do food-related or cleaning-related stuff on Mother’s Day!
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.