A couple of people have asked why the SAM-e voting thing is no longer at the top of my page.
Basically, I lost interest. The voting has been going on and on and ON and isn’t slated to end until November 3rd or 6th (I don’t remember which), and then there’s a whole second section to the “competition” where you have to make a video and people vote AND the SAM-e people get a say in the matter. So it’s not a popular vote sort of thing, it’s a popular vote AND the SAM-e people deciding who would be the best spokesperson for their supplement (which may be the best thing since sliced bread as far as I know; I haven’t bothered to research it at all), and I’m stretched kind of thin between the kittens and the two blogs (though to be fair, all I do most of the time over at Love & Hisses is cut and paste what I wrote about the kittens here), so I’ve lost interest.
Also, I might find it hard to be THAT positive all the time. Sometimes a girl’s gotta bitch, right?
I say we all vote for Suzanne McMinn. I’d really like to see her get the job!
The goddamn lady asian beetle invasion has begun. It’s not as bad yet as it will get, but it’s a little worse every day. They climb in my window, crawl all over my curtains leaving their nasty stinky orange trail behind, and then they die and I get to clean up the mess.
Fucking things.
At this point, only a few days in, I’m just sweeping them to a corner ’til the evening, then vacuuming them up and tossing them. I’m wondering if weatherstripping around the windows would help keep them out.
It’s certainly worth a try.
Along with the lady beetle invasion comes the wasp invasion. They seem to come inside when the sun hits the house and warms it up in the afternoon. I’m not sure where they’re getting in, but I suspect it’s at the top of the fireplace in the dining room. The other day I killed 17 wasps in the course of about an hour. (They’re not aggressive wasps – they don’t fly at you, they fly away from you. Mostly, they fly at the window trying to figure out how the hell to get back outside.)
The cats are excellent wasp detectors. If I walk into a room and the cats are all staring at the ceiling, I know it’s time to get out the vacuum cleaner. I only use the vacuum cleaner to catch them when they’re up high. The rest of the time, I grab them with a piece of paper towel, squish them ’til I hear a cracking sound, and then either toss them in the toilet or out the door.
For the first thirty-something years of my life, I was TERRIFIED of flying bugs. In my 20s, I ran screaming out of my parents’ garage because there was a DRAGONFLY flying around. I once took a shower huddled at the end of the shower with one eye on a HUGE spider because I just knew it was going to fly up and chew my face off. When my sister and I were teenagers, we found a huge spider in my room, and instead of squishing it or smacking it with a magazine, we sprayed half a can of furniture polish on it (that’s how much furniture polish it took before the damn thing stopped moving).
It seems that the way to get over that fear is to have to deal with bugs on a daily basis. The first year we owned this house (before we moved in), I’d smack at the wasps with a magazine and then run screaming from the room. A few months later, I’d go after the wasp with the vacuum, and run screaming from the room after I heard the “SLOOP” sound of the wasp being sucked into the vacuum. Last year and this year, I’m using a piece of paper towel and squishing them. Who knows what I’ll be doing next year?
Probably catching and squishing them with my bare hands.
::Shudder::
I didn’t get the calendars created last weekend, obviously. I swear upon all that is holy that I’ll get them available by Monday. It’s my one big goal for this weekend! Pinky swear!
And if I don’t get them done by Monday, you have my full permission to harass me about it every single day.
So, the dropping off of Terry and Sookie went okay. As well as could be expected, I guess. They only howled half the way there, then settled down and snoozed the rest of the way. They were mostly curious about the cat room at Petsmart.
Until I opened the cage Lafayette and Bill were in, that is. Bill and Lafayette ran over to Sookie and were all “Hey! Hi! Howyadoin’?!” and Sookie was all “EXCUSE me, I do not KNOW you, please stop sniffing my butt!”
I let them all run around and mingle for a good long while, and the hisses from Sookie and Terry kept coming, but they weren’t quite as adamant about it. Finally, I gave them all hugs and kisses, put them in their cage, and left. I ran some errands and then stopped back by Petsmart after they’d opened (I needed to stock up on cat food. Don’t I always?!). I stood at the end of the aisle where the cats couldn’t see me, and watched them.
Bill and Lafayette were all sprawled out on the floor of the cage, sound asleep. Terry and Sookie were sitting up on the shelf staring down at them, clearly thinking “What fresh hell is this?”
My poor babies.
“Did I mention DO NOT SNIFF ME?”
Bill did not want to be held and kissed. Bill wanted to run! And play! And run some more!
Lafayette, in a rare moment of stillness.
The Wonkas are doing well. They’ve gone from that round baby kitten stage, to the long ‘n lanky stage. They race around like little wild things, but when I come into the room they pile on me and I LOVE it. Nothing like having a lap full of sweet purring kittens.
Sweet until they start smacking at my eyelashes or grabbing at my mouth with their sharp little claws, that is. We trimmed their claws the other night, and life in the Wonka room is now a little less painful for me.
I don’t think anyone was actually even touching him here, he was just being all drama queen-y.
I got this cheap little basket at (I think) the dollar store with the intention of storing cat toys in it. The cats ADORE hanging out in it. When I clean and vacuum their room, I pile all the toys in this basket, and within ten minutes of setting them free in their room, they’ve got the basket emptied and someone’s sitting in it.
Fightin’ brudders.
I just love the white whiskers against the dark fur.
“Belly rub, please?”
I have no pictures of the Cookies to share today, because I’ve been lax about taking the camera into the room with me. I’ll try to remedy that later today!
Elwood, annoyed.
Previously
2008: My poor Poo.
2007: I have no idea on earth how we’d ever tell if a chicken was insane, since they seem to lean toward The Crazy even when they’re (we assume) perfectly normal.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: In case you were wondering, we are officially Crazy Cat People.
2003: I always look like a fucking lunatic when I take my own picture.
2002: (Is it just me who always thinks of Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally saying “I would be pleased to partake of your pecan piiiiiiiiiiiiie” when I hear, say, or read the word “partake”?)
2001: (For the record, her verdict was that the real-life prostitutes were “creepy”.)
2000: No entry.
1999: And going blind would just suck.