Yesterday, I finally got around to taking all the recycling stuff to the recycling center, and after that I ran to Wal-Mart because I had some clothes to return.
One of these days, I’ll learn that buying clothes without trying them on first is never a good move for me.
So I returned the clothes, and went back to grab a shopping cart. As I approached the area where the greeter stands and the carts are kept, I heard her talking to a man sitting in a wheelchair. It sounded like she was talking about a lightweight wheelchair, one that was easy to fold up and put in the back of a car.
“I’m going to need one of those when I retire,” she said. “I have artificial legs.”
There are people in this world who can hear a sentence like that and NOT go all bug-eyed and whip their head around to get a gander at this woman’s legs. I call these people “not me.” I took a good long look at her legs before I could help myself.
They looked perfectly normal (ie, non-artificial to me), but that could be because she was wearing slaaaaacks, and I couldn’t see her actual legs for myself.
If I had a job where I was around the public all the time, I bet I’d play games where I’d wait ’til an unsuspecting nosy-looking person came close, and then I’d casually slip in a sentence guaranteed to make them turn around and look. I’d make it a game where I awarded myself points for every double-take I could rack up in eight hours.
“He loved his cat so much he married it. It ain’t right, if you ask me.”
(The clothes I returned almost completely paid for two bags of dog food. Yay!)
In case you were wondering how to make your cat yodel:
(Fred sent me that link yesterday, and I made the mistake of taking a drink of water while watching it. Shooting water out your nose = painful.)
I found a kitten who the vet says is about five weeks old. I’ve never had a cat that young. After I fed her, I showed her the litterbox ( I have another cat) and she sniffed around, climbed out, and immediately disappeared into one of the many hidey holes that are in my basement, which is partially finished and totally cluttered. After several hours, we found her and were able to grab her, and I brought her upstairs where she snuggled and purred and played and slept and seemed quite friendly. After she ate again, I brought her down to the litterbox again, and she pulled the disappearing kitty act again. That was last night, and she hasn’t come out since, excpet once to wail for food, but she darted behind the wall where we couldn’t get her. There is food down there, but I’m not sure if at 5 weeks old she’ll know to come out and get it. Can a kitten that age be expected to be able to negotiate a flight of stairs to get to her food and litterbox, or, when I catch her again, should I put her in some kind of cage until she’s older. I want to inculcate good litter box habits early, and all the other kittens i’ve ever had got it if you plopped them in the box right after feeding them, but they were all at least 8 weeks. Do you think I should contineu to give her the run of the house, or is she too little for that?
My recommendation would be to confine the kitten to one or two rooms if it’s possible, or if it’s not, then by all means put her in a cage when you’re not actively playing with or cuddling her. I think she’s probably still a little young to remember where everything’s located – when we get fosters that young, they stay in one room (well, a room and a walk-in closet) for the first couple of weeks, then they gradually get more room to roam. When I got Beulah & Bessie and their brothers, they were about seven weeks old and not really *quite* to the point where they were using the litter box all the time. I think you’re going to want to give your baby a few weeks of having the litter box and food right by her before you give her the run of the house.
I hope that helps, and let me know if you have any questions!
I would trade the banner for the threaded comments anyday but that is not a request just an opinion.
Well, we’re not giving up – Fred thinks there’s a way to make it so we can have this design and threaded comments, but it’ll have to wait ’til he has a change to mess around with it.
You’ve probably seen this but if not:
I had not – but now I’m thinking that next time we have a large litter of kittens, it’d be fun to give that a try! My favorite are the ones who are like “Fuck this, I’m outta here!” and they crawl out and run off. TOO CUTE.
First time commenting, long time reader. DON’T store your homemade bread in the fridge. It dries out faster and gets stale (hard) faster. You’re better off storing it at room temp and using it in 3-4 days or freezing it and taking it out as you need it. I know PITA. You can add lemon juice, bottled it fine, to the dough when you make it (you won’t taste it at all) and that will make the bread stay fresh a couple days longer. Use 2 tsp. per loaf or 1Tbs. for a double loaf batch.
We actually ended up putting the extra baked rolls in the freezer. We tend not to eat that much bread, so the bread we have sits and sits, so I think it’s better to have it in the freezer and need to thaw it out rather than have it sitting on the counter molding. I’m going to try the lemon juice trick next time, though. Thanks for the suggestion!
Do George and Gracie like to be brushed? My girl Siberian loves to be brushed but I have to brush my boy while he eats his food otherwise I can’t get him to stay still!
Oh boy, DO they like to be brushed! I need to make a movie of Fred brushing them – they LOVE it. They grin and roll around and kick their feet in the air and if they were cats, they’d be purring up a storm!
Hey is it just me or does the Crested Polish chick have a serious “the Donald” comb-over???
Ha – yeah, he kind of does. And I sense a new chicken name!
Hey! So. I just wanted to pass this on. My brother’s girlfriend, visiting from Mexico, says that back home she regularly goes to the market to buy chicken heads for her cats, and they LOVE it and eat it ALL. Can’t remember if you ever mentioned giving the chicken heads to the cats after Fred does the deed, but thought I’d mention it. It’s supposed to be good for them, and they seriously eat the entire head *shiver*
While I actually think it’s somewhat funny to see the pigs running around with chicken legs sticking out of their mouths, I can’t imagine a cat being able to eat an entire chicken head. You’d think they’d choke on the beak! The pigs usually get the leftover chicken parts – and it’s likely that that practice will continue. 🙂
Robyn, Every time I hear your voice it startles me because it sounds exactly like me. Today my son came by before work and I played the first video for him. He gave me a weird look and said, “That sounds like YOU!”. Now I know it was not just my imagination. Hee! We are voice twins!
You have my sympathy. 😉 Maybe next week I’ll make a movie of myself yelling “GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM!!!!” and you can play it for him. Heh. I always wanted a low, husky, whisky voice like Ellyn from Thirtysomething.
Have you had a chance to see the RHNY Reunions and the RHWNJ episodes yet? All I can say is WOW-differnt kind of catfights. Bethany’s blog on Bravo’s website and the comments are interesting too. Great trash/guilty pleasure reality tv. I have lived in NJ for 29 yrs. and have never heard the term buhbees used-boobs,breasts,tits,hooters,tatas even but never buhbees. What are they three years old? Oy!
Yeah, I sure have!
The RHNY reunion: I still love the hell out of Bethenny and Jill, I liked that Luann got down and dirty with Kelly (but she’s SO FULL OF IT when she claimed that the Countess title doesn’t mean that much to her. It means a LOT to her, make no mistake!), Alex really seems to come across as reasonable and thoughtful (hated her makeup at the reunion, though), and Kelly is a freakin’ whackjob. I thought before now that she had to have a serious drug problem, but now I think she lives on her own planet. She just strings words together that make NO SENSE. I can’t stand her! If she’s not back next season, I won’t miss her. Also, I think Jill (was it Jill?) was right when she said she thinks Mario’s trying to get more air time. BINGO.
The NJ Housewives, so far: Jacqueline is a sweetheart but might be a bit of a pushover (not a good thing when she’s got those sisters-in-law!). Dina’s kind of a pain in the ass when she’s in “bitch mode”, but she’s also kind of funny and she looks strikingly like a young Lorraine Bracco to me. Caroline (is that her name? The oldest one?) seems okay, maybe a little overbearing and all up in everyone else’s shit. If I have to hear her sputtering about how she and her family is “thick as thieves” one more time, I might be annoyed into an aneurysm, though. Danielle is UGH. I don’t need to hear about the phone sex she has, I don’t need to see her trying to drag some guy into the bathroom, and if you have to say the words “I’m so bad”, know what? You’re not bad, you’re just trying too hard. Annnnd last of all, Teresa? Honey? Stop carrying that cash around with you. You’re asking to be smacked over the head and mugged. Also, god bless you for thinking your husband is – how did you put it? Juicy and delicious? I will guess that you’re the only woman in the world who thinks so. And no one is fooled when you claim not to be a stage mom.
The NJ cast has to be the looniest cast so far, I swear to god.
Well, I *thought* I was a master bread baker, but I’ve never frozen bread/roll dough so I’m not sure how it works. I just bake the bread/rolls and as soon as they’re fully cooled, wrap each tightly in a little sheet of foil, place in big plastic freezer bag and freeze. We only thaw what we’re going to eat right now and they retain that just-from-the-oven flavor and texture. Surprisingly, the crispy crusted rolls are still crispy crusted, but soft inside, when I thaw them (I thaw them in the foil wrapper).
Y’know, the only reason I thought you could freeze bread dough is because I’ve seen it in the grocery store. I think this weekend I’ll have to thaw out the dough, let it rise, and bake it to see if it works that way! If it’s a dud, at least I’ll know, right? I’ll report how it goes!
OMG a kitty smaller than Miss Beulah.
Holy cow! Beulah’s already bigger than that little cat!
Now that you have had George and Gracie for awhile – do you like dogs more than you have ever thought you would?
Well, I’ll say that I like George and Gracie a lot more than I expected I would, I don’t know that that would necessarily hold true for all dogs. I still wouldn’t want a dog in the house, but I do like going out to visit with George and Gracie a few times a day. When someone’s that happy to see you coming, well, it’s awfully hard not to like them!
So my question for you and your peeps. We live in a very quiet neighborhood. Nice homes on small ponds. I have the windows open this morning and am being subjected to not one but two sets of neighbor music. It is very upsetting to me as one of the sources is our HOA president (let’s call him Bob okay?). I think the second source is doing a little passive aggressive move on the president. We have listened to Bob’s music for 3 years now and I am tired of being forced to listen to his mood music and for having this lovely quiet setting screwed up with Samfir and Marc Anthony. Not that I don’t like that music, I have the same MA album actually, it is just, as they say, the principal of the thing. Any suggestions on how to get these people to keep their music to themselves. I find this social offense particularly offensive.
I know that if it were Fred and I, we’d passive-aggressively bitch about it to each other and blog about it, but would we say anything to him? I suspect we wouldn’t. Has anyone ever said anything to Bob about the music? And who the hell are these people who feel the need to subject those around them to their music, anyway? Want me to send Mister Boogers up there to kick some ass?
Obviously, I’m no help here – Bitchypoo readers, give Elaine some advice!
When you get your next pigs butchered, you could have the butcher save the fat and make lard, and make your own “suet” cakes! Some butchers will even make the lard for you but I think they are few and far between now. You are so domestically talented, you could figure it out! As long as you don’t have to leave it in the oven to dry out : )
Actually, I will be keeping the fat when our pig is slaughtered in the next few months, and intend to render it to lard so I can make suet! I haven’t done any real research on rendering fat into lard, but I think it might be as simple as melting the fat. Which is something I’ll be doing in a pot on a hotplate OUTSIDE, thank you very much.
Robyn, what do you think about people who are scared of cats? I just don’t understand it. What’s scary about a cat? I don’t get it.
Are there truly people who are frightened of cats? Because all I can guess is that those people suffered some sort of childhood cat-related trauma and they’re still carrying it with them. I can’t imagine being honestly scared of cats.
Does anyone out there know someone who’s scared of cats? Tell me their story! I wanna hear!
I realized yesterday (though I know some of you realized it before I did) that Beulah totally looks like a real cat. A SMALL real cat, but a cat nonetheless. She doesn’t really have the tiny bug-eyed alien look going anymore. Also, she has the softest, silkiest fur on earth.
Yesterday morning at 3:30, Spanky started howling. I’m pretty sure he’s part Siamese (a conclusion I reached years ago, given his chatty ways) and sometimes he just wants to hear his own voice. She he howled and howled and howled. I finally yelled at him to put a sock in it, and I’m not sure whether it was Spanky’s howling that set them off, or hearing my voice, but Bessie and Beulah wanted out of the cat room and they wanted out RIGHT NOW. So I opened the door for them and went back to bed.
Bessie, being a heat-seeking missile, climbed up into bed with me, located my upper arm, and started kneading. She started out gently, not using her claws, but she got happier and happier, and soon enough she was like – as Fred said – the Phantom of the Opera playing the organ, and I had to tuck the comforter between her paws and my arm lest she shred me to bits. She sure is a cute little thing. Well, really – they both are!
Okay, I’m taking the girlies off to the pet store in a little while. Send some happy adopting thoughts in the direction of North Alabama, won’t you? It’s going to be awfully quiet around here without them!
“Hello, good-looking!”
Bessie in the sun.
Bessie does her daily kitten yoga.
Gigglin’ Beulah.
“Made in China, you say?”
Lookin’ smug.
Oh, how she LOVES her sleep.
“WOMAN, do NOT come over here and sniff my harbl again, I’m warning you!”
Previously
2008: This machine keeps beeping, and it’s harshing my buzz, man.
2007: I am so old.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: More proof – not that you need it – that I am the ruler of the Kingdom of Dumbassery.
2002: What’s worse, an asshole, or an asshole who won’t stand behind what he says?
2001: We dropped Jeff off at his office, and it was then that I found out – to my relief – that the long, low farting sound I’d heard was the scary door opening by itself.
2000: The moral of the story is, don’t even think about fucking with me, or I’ll give you a really mean look.