go check her out!
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Things that have recently made me laugh:
1. Fred emailing me this picture, saying “This is how I feel today.”
2. This picture, because “nom nom” is HILARIOUS.
3. An email from reader Jennifer, who said
When I saw the picture of your new foster kitty, I thought she reminded me of someone. I was on perezhilton.com and figured out who it was. I don’t know if it’s the pouty smirk or what- but they look alike to me.
(That’s Ashley Olson) Clearly Maryanne is the missing Olson – they were triplets, not twins!!!
4. When my parents were visiting, my mother, the spud and I went shopping one day. I ended up in Steve & Barry, looking at the t-shirts. I saw one that was just perfect for Fred, but I didn’t buy it, because I knew he’d never wear it, but he
talks about his so often that I took a picture and sent it to him instead.
5. I realized this morning, as I was responding to an email, that when I type a smiley in an email, I actually smile in real life. I think this makes me a dork of the highest order.
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Cool ways to spend your money:
1. Buy a
Susan G. Komen for the Cure Promise ring.
2. In Darfur, Sudan, many women living in refugee camps have no choice but to put themselves in the path of government-supported militiamen, Janjaweed, as they rape and slaughter their way across the region. “To fuel their traditional cooking fires, women spend as much as seven hours a day foraging for scarce wood, and while they’re out searching, they’re vulnerable to rape. The men can’t go instead because the Janjaweed kill them outright. And the women have become so desperate, they’re selling their food rations to buy wood.” Energy analyst at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Christina Galinsky, worked with her colleague, Ashok Gadgil, to develop a simple stove that reduces the amount of fuel consumed in cooking by up to 75%. There are 2.2 million refugees in Darfur who need about 300,000 stoves. (O Magazine, June ’07). It costs
$30 to donate a stove to a woman and help keep her safe.
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Recent questions and comments:
Can we have a beagle update pleeeeeease?
I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the beagle, which I guess means she hasn’t escaped. The woman was so happy to see her when Fred and I brought her over there, that I assume the beagle’s living a very cushy life and probably has the run of the house.
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Why aren’t you using a hoe to chop the weeds out by the roots?
Because I’m weeding between the plants, not between the rows, and there isn’t enough room between the plants for a hoe. Even weeding by hand (and using a hand cultivator), I’ve managed to accidentally pull up several plants; I can only imagine how much damage I’d do with a hoe.
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ACK! Still not separating your hanging-out clothes??!!?? It’s all about the aesthetics, girl! A well-hung line 😀 is a thing of beauty and as good as a hen house any day! Give it a try and stand back and admire your creation! And … you’ll have the admiration of all your neighbors as they drive by! Fred will beam with pride!
Nope, still not separating my clothes, still not planning to do so. I mean this with love and all, but you laundry nazis kinda need to get a life. How can whether I separate my clothes or not have y’all in such a tizzy? Fred couldn’t care less whether I separate the clothes (and if he did care, I’d invite him to separate them to his heart’s content), and if he started beaming with pride over laundry, well, he’d need to get himself a life. If he has clean laundry in his dresser, he’s happy.
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Is that a red toaster?? Where, oh where, did you get it? I’m a complete sucker for red appliances.
I got it on Amazon, of course. When I moved into this house, I didn’t want to bring the old toaster with me, because it was (1) A piece of crap and (2) white. Since my kitchen colors are red and yellow, I’m slowly moving all the appliances over to be red or yellow (when Fred’s black coffee maker starts to go bad, I’ll likely get a red one to replace it), and it’s a lot easier to find red appliances than yellow (my yellow KitchenAid mixer being the exception, of course).
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Damn that cookie looks good, was it?
It was very good – I used
this recipe – but the frosting left a little to be desired. I was making basic buttercream frosting, when Fred mentioned at the last moment that he wanted chocolate frosting, so I just dumped a bunch of cocoa powder in the frosting. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great.
I used Ghiardelli milk chocolate chips in the cookie, which only made the cookie better.
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Someone recently asked about the Litter Robot and how it’s working for us. It’s working out okay, I guess. I did what the literature (and some of y’all) suggested and let the regular litterbox get all kinds of nasty so the cats would be kind of forced to use the Litter Robot. The reaction there is that someone – I suspect either Spanky or Spot – registered their displeasure by peeing on the rug in the dining room. Since I don’t want the house to smell like cat pee, I started cleaning out the regular litter box again, because I learn quickly. At this point, the three youngest cats – Sugarbutt, Tommy, Mister Boogers – will use the Litter Robot, but the three older aren’t interested. I clean out the regular litter box every morning, and empty out the Litter Robot “drawer” at the same time, and since I’m only having to do it once a day rather than twice, I’m happy. In a perfect world they’d all use the Litter Robot, but they won’t, and I’m just happy that we have enough room in the laundry room for the Litter Robot and the regular litter box.
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No foster kitten pics, sorry – I didn’t really have a chance to get pictures today, I’m sure there’ll be plenty tomorrow. The kittens are doing okay, except that they’ve all got upper respiratory infections, which means we have to treat them with doxycycline, which tastes NASTY* and thank god I’ve got Fred to help me, because there’s no way on earth I’d be able to medicate those kittens on my own. As it stands, Fred has to grab them by the nape of the neck, we wrap a small towel around them to stop the claws from gouging us, and I squirt the medicine in their mouths and they turn into wildcats, Fred puts them down, and they run away hissing.
Only five more days of this! Urgh.
*Good christ. They can do FACE TRANSPLANTS, but they can’t make doxycycline palatable to kittens? That’s fucked up.
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Previously
2006: He’s such a nosy little fucker.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Wouldn’t it be funny if as soon as we put all the flyers out in the neighborhood, he came swishing home?
2002: “NO,” he said with great certainty. “That was YOU!”
2001: But look at that little face. How can you not see it and just grin like a fool?
2000: Which is better than it could have been – we were afraid his foot was slowly rotting off.]]>
Oh, now you’ve done it.
Some gardener is going to post about how our shit is planted all wrong if you can’t hoe between the plants.
Hamilton Beach makes appliances in yellow- including toasters, coffee makers and blenders. It’s called pineapple and on amazon.com, they look a little pastel-ish, but hard to say what they look like in person.
Count me in as one those who could not possibly give less of a shit about how y’all weed the garden or hang your laundry.
However, I noticed that the pattern on your rugs from vacuuming is ALL WRONG. I have to admit, I’m a little freaked out about it.
Ok, no, not really. I don’t care how you do it, I’m just impressed that it’s all getting done. Because, let’s face it, chores suck.
Hi Robyn,
We’re fostering right now too… this is our first go at it. A mama (Gracie) and her three little girls (Sera, Lucy, and Bella). I just wanted to say thanks for sharing all your fostering escapades with us, as it encouraged me to be added to the list as a volunteer. My daughter is loving the experience and learning pretty quick that there’s a level of work and responsibility involved.
http://picasaweb.google.com/artibeem/CatFostering
And wtf is up with the laundry crazies? I, for the most part, don’t sweat it either. I’m anti dryer-sheets too, which is appalling to my mother.
Michelle
Your talk of the kitties hating the medicine makes me wonder if that taste-good stuff you can buy at drug stores to put in kids meds would help (and be safe for the kitties). Just a thought. Rock on with your non-laundry sorting self.
Thanks for the link to that toaster. It’s the cutest red toaster I’ve ever seen. I’m sending “Die, die!” thoughts to Fred’s coffeemaker for you. Hee!
Oh, and Fred, y’all were absolutely right to place plants close to each other because eventually that helps cut down on weeding. It’s more efficient use of space, too. NOT that I’m a weeding Nazi, and I’m sure as hell not a laundry Nazi. Anything that cuts down on laundry work sounds smart to me.
If you don’t mind my putting in a plea for another organization- Solar Hot Pots has been trying to get the UN interested in their products for Darfur for Years. Women would not need to have to collect wood at all for these stoves.
http://www.she-inc.org/hotpot.php
When we rescued Zimmy and Mia (now affectionately known as Ginger) from my husband’s office’s alley the worst part was giving them medication. They both had eye infections and I had to squirt that neosporin stuff in their eyes a couple times a day. I had to wrap Mia in a towel, getting her in the towel was half the work, and she growled the whole time. I still think that’s why she never grew fond of me, I was the evil medicine lady. Zimmy turned out well though, he loves me to pieces.
Enjoying reading you – found you via the link from Jackie about Darfur. Also enjoying reading Aly, so thanks for that link!
I don’t do dryer sheets – I use white vinegar in a second rinse to soften the fabric and help get more detergent out.
I’ve heard it said that cats don’t hold grudges, and ours usually didn’t growing up. But my cat Henry avoids me for a couple of days after every vet visit.
Landry nazis–heh!
I’m just amazed you don’t have pink underwear. I own way too much red to have the cajones NOT to separate. So, in that vein—I’m sure the Nazis are just JEALOUS! ;D
I LOVE red appliances too! (There’s a theme to this post, no?) Thanks for the amazon tip.
Okay… I’ve been known to be rather anal about many household chores. I do sort my clothes when I wash them, but what on earth does it matter how they end up on the line?? That’s just all kinds of fucked up in my mind!
The only reason I would ever separate clothes on the line would be to make it easier to take them down, because I am the lazy kind of slob who’ll leave them out on the line for weeks or until I want to wear/use them (we hardly ever get rain here), and then put them in the dryer for 20 minutes with a damp washcloth to de-crispify them. But if they’re “organized” then it’s marginally easier for me to take them down because I can trick myself and say, “Okay, I’m just going to take down the towel section. The hang-up clothes can stay till tomorrow.” Then once I’m there, I know I might as well get it all down.
Fortunately for me, I neither have nor am permitted a clothesline in my current house. (We get 350+ days of sunshine a year, and they don’t want to allow clotheslines? How dumb is that? But I know that rule is in place because of lazy slobs like me, who leave their clothes on the line for so long that they get little bleached lines from where they were pinned.)
I should point out here that I don’t care if other people separate out their laundry, because really I just don’t care about anyone else’s laundry. Just don’t give me a hard time about mine!
(Elayne, I have totally left laundry on the line for so long it got bleached out by the sun. Also, I tend to leave the sheets out for an extra day or so, so they especially smell like outdoors. Towels, too! And I guess I should point out that I don’t separate out my CLOTHES by color, but I wash towels separately, as well as sheets. I do have SOME pride, I guess!)
You could always try a little vanilla yogurt with the kitty meds. It covers up the yucky medicine taste, and it also helps avoid upset tummys.
I sent some $ for one of those stoves. I have to say those type of stories really get me. Murder and rape for want of something as simple as cooking wood! They could use some help with their website, though, it took me 4 tries.
The first and last time I washed my clothes at my in-laws while visiting I almost fainted. I saw my husband’s stoic stepfather rooting through the basket to organize our underpants by style (boxer, brief, french cut, thong is the proper order apparently) as he hung them on the line. I tried to get to the washer before one of my inlaws did, but I was too slow. Perhaps they feared accusations and recriminations from neighbors if I hung them out randomly! The shame!