reading: Eyeshot, by Lynn S. Hightower.
Finished late last night: Faithless, by Karin Slaughter. The more I read of Karin Slaughter, the more I like. For some reason, Lena absolutely fascinates me.
* * *
Fred called me from work yesterday. With no greeting or anything, he said “It’s time.”
“What time is that?”
“Time to sell the house.”
Which is when I about had a heart attack and fell over dead. Like I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s always a possibility that his job will disappear in a round of government budget cuts, and we’ve talked numerous times about what we’d do if his job went away. The first step is always putting the house up for sale and buying a much smaller, less expensive house with a much smaller mortgage.
“Why?” I said when I could manage to breathe again.
“Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, fired in 2003 for disobeying a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse, announces his decision to run for governor of Alabama in 2006,” he
read.
He paused. I said nothing. He said nothing.
“So clearly we need to sell the house and get the fuck out of Dodge!” he said.
He paused again. I said nothing. He said nothing.
“You gave me a FUCKING HEART ATTACK,” I finally said. “I thought your job had been cut! You fucker!”
I pointed out that Maine is far, far away from the Bible Belt, but he seems to be stuck on the fact that it snows in Maine. Like he’ll melt in the snow or something. So far, my pointing out that Maine has ocean (for me) and mountains (for him) hasn’t persuaded him.
* * *
My brother called yesterday while I was vacuuming the upstairs. Of course I didn’t hear the phone, so he left a message. I didn’t realize he’d called, so I didn’t listen to the voicemail until I’d actually talked to him a little while later. The first thing he said when I talked to him was that I have the clearest speaking voice he’s ever heard on a voicemail message. And then we started making fun of my parents’ answering machine message, because when their answering machine picks up, all you hear is this long, long silence, and then my mother sighing before she starts with the “You’ve reached our answering machine” spiel. It’s funny as hell, because the first few times I heard it, I thought that either my mother had picked up the phone not realizing someone was on the other end, or she was distracted by something else she was doing and wanted to finish doing whatever it was before she said “Hello.”
Anyway, my secret to a clear and friendly-sounding outgoing voicemail message? I smile while I’m speaking. If you’ve ever had a job where you had to deal with people over the phone, you’ve probably had an annoying supervisor who insisted that you smile while speaking to the customers, because they can hear the smile in your voice. I hate to say this, but it’s true – try it yourself. Say something, and then smile and say it again. Hear the difference?
I’m sure there are people who can fake the voice-smile without actually smiling, but I’m not one of them.
Annnnnnnnd that’s just a little glimpse into the dorkiness that is my life.
* * *
Have you ever had a dream that disturbed you and made you a little bit sad all day long, and then you start to tell someone about it, and you realize it’s SUCH an idiotic dream that you can’t believe you spent the entire day feeling SAD about it?
I had a dream Sunday morning that (and I know it’s boring to hear about other peoples’ dreams, I’ll make this as short as possible) I was part of a helicopter rescue team that couldn’t rescue a bunch of people in a huge boat that was capsizing, and the boat turned over and started going under water, and we were in radio contact with one of the people on the boat and trying to reassure him that we were on our way, even knowing that there was no way we could rescue them.
AND THEN
The dream shifted, and I was on a huge houseboat belonging to a country singer (I can’t remember who, but it was a woman) and we were riding up the Tennessee river, and we were beset upon by pirates, one of whom was William Shatner, and he and his gang rounded up all the animals on the boat (an oddly large number of yellow labs were on this boat), and they would put each animal on a little round raft, and push it out into the water, and then they’d shoot at the raft until they hit it, and the raft would sink, while the animal frantically whimpered, and Dream-Me was horrified and had a round piece of glass that I was dragging back and forth over the cement floor of the boat (yes, a cement floor on a boat) to sharpen it into something I could kill the bad guys with.
And like I said, I was sad all day long about the dream, but that evening when I was telling Fred about it – specifically the animals on the little rafts part of it – I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. Then I realized how idiotic it was to feel sad about such a stupid dream, and I got over it.
* * *
When we were eating dinner yesterday, Spot kept sitting by the front door and giving us looks to indicate that he might want to go outside. Once I let the babies out of their rooms, I keep the cat door closed so they won’t take it into their little heads to venture outside, so unless one of the adults – usually Mister Boogers – indicates (by being a pain in the ass and rattling the blinds) that he wants to go outside, all the adult cats end up staying inside as well.
Anyway, Spot was sitting by the back door, looking at the door, at us, and back at the door. It was a pretty clear signal, so Fred got up and opened the door, and the ever-skittish Spot responded by running to hide under the couch. Fred shrugged, shut the door, and sat back down to dinner. Within minutes, Spot was back at the door, looking at us, at the door, and back at us.
Finally, I said “Just pick his ass up and put him out there!”, and Fred did so.
An hour later, Fred realized he didn’t see Spot anywhere, and went out to call for him. No Spot.
“Fuck this,” Fred said. “He’ll come home when he wants to.” Spot is, shall we say, less than the family favorite. If it were Mister Boogers we’d be roaming through the neighborhood calling for him, but with Spot, well, not so much.
“Did you look under the shed?” I asked. He hadn’t, so he went and looked, and hiding under the shed was Spot. Fred called and cajoled, but Spot wouldn’t come out. Fred got a can of compressed air out of the living room and sprayed it under the shed.
To our amazement, Spot still didn’t come out from under the shed.
“You don’t think he’s gone under there to die, do you?” I said worriedly.
“Oh, who the fuck knows?” Fred said grumpily. “He was moving back and forth pretty vigorously when I blew the air at him.”
Fred thought for a moment, then went into the shed and pulled out the leaf blower. He plugged it in, and smiled at me. “This is like the can of air times a thousand!” he said proudly. He turned it on and stuck it under the shed.
No Spot.
Fred scratched his head and then turned the leaf blower back on, stuck it under the edge of the shed, and began circling the shed. When he was on the back side of the shed, Spot came flying out from under the shed, his tail as big and puffy as I’ve ever seen it, hauled ass across the yard, and tried to go in through the cat door. I opened the back door and called to him, and he ran from the cat door, along the house, and in through the back door.
I have no idea what was going on with him, whether he thought we’d forget about him if he hid under the shed, and then he could spend the night stalking around the yard killing small bugs, or what, but if it happens again I vote that we leave his ass under the shed. Bastard.
“Who, me?”
* * *
I hesitate to say this, for fear of jinxing the situation, but it appears that Sugarbutt has gotten the hang of using the litter box and then cleaning himself instead of walking around with a poo-covered rear end. HALLELUJAH!
Yesterday afternoon Callie jumped up in the recliner located in the corner of the computer room. Bear was already there sleeping, and Callie sat and washed herself for a few minutes, and then started rooting around Bear’s back end area.
“Uh-uh-uh,” I said warningly, and she stopped… and looked at Miz Poo, who was sitting on her bed on my desk. Callie thought about it for a moment, then started sniffing around Bear’s butt again. “Uh-uh-uh,” I said again. And Callie looked at Miz Poo. It happened a third time, and Callie finally gave up and moved to the other side of the chair, keeping a wary eye on Miz Poo.
Made me laugh, it did.
Callie cleans.
Bear licks.
Smitty poses.
Sugarbutt looks less than happy to be snuggled.
“Bwahahaha! ‘The Aristocrats!’ That joke ALWAYS gets me!”
That’s Sugarbutt on top, Smitty below. Apparently Sugarbutt wasn’t going to let Smitty get in his way. You can see by comparing the two so closely that Smitty is darker and less stripe-y than Sugarbutt.
Look guilty, don’t they?
All of today’s uploaded pictures can be seen
here.
* * *
Previously
2004: ARRRGH.
2003: No entry.
2002: Wow. Apparently I’ve been doing the pet store thing for three years now.
2001: Day Zero.
2000: I’m back!]]>