Author: Robyn

10/18/06

fallentree We were DAMN lucky. fredtractor2 fredtractor fredtractor3 So instead of spending all evening painting, we spent all evening dragging the tree to the back forty, next to the burn pile. Well. I myself dragged six or seven (big! heavy!) branches back to the burn pile, then spent lots of time standing around watching Fred work. And playing with Momma and Daddy Kitty and their kittens, who appear to have taken up residence in our garage. Seeing as how possession is 9/10ths of the law I think that means they belong to us and we could take them in to be fixed, right? Yeah, Fred didn’t see it that way, either. He’s still going to talk to the cats’ owners. The cats and kittens would come out, play on the fallen tree, then run away when Fred came back with the tractor to drag some more of it to the back forty. When he was done, Fred said “I sure am glad I didn’t kill any cats while I was doing this. I was afraid I was going to!” Momma and Daddy had been keeping a close eye on the kittens, though, and made sure to chase them away from the tree if there was any danger. They’re good parents, those two. At one point Fred was using the chainsaw to cut a limb, and Momma Kitty went running by with something in her mouth. I looked closer as she ran by and realized she had a seriously mangled dead squirrel. She ran into the garage and wandered out again a few minutes later. “Um. Whatcha do with that squirrel, Momma?” I asked. She blinked at me and strolled away. Later, I found the squirrel hidden under the stairs in the garage. Like Momma was saving it in case there was a hungry time in the future and no cat food in the bowls. Seriously. If Momma Kitty’s using the stairs under my garage as storage, doesn’t that mean she considers it her home? “Nope, I didn’t do it. Really! It was… um… the squirrel! The squirrel did it! Which is why Momma had to kill him.”   I guess they’re not completely weaned. And doesn’t Momma look thrilled about it! Poor Momma. Those kittens are practically as big as she is!   As it got dark, Fred yelled for me to come to the back yard and pointed to the back forty. Low-lying fog was starting to roll in. It looked pretty neat. fog2 fog acorn fall unfallentree Fred’s eventually going to cut this tree down. When the other tree was standing, it looked okay because they were next to each other, but now that the other one is gone, it looks kind of funny. Plus it kind of looks like it’s ready to keel over at any second anyway. Once it was too dark to get anything else done outside (Fred managed to get the entire tree dragged (drug?) back to the burn pile area of the back forty (and I need to get a picture of the burn pile. That fucker is HUGE.)), we went inside where I started painting a door and Fred started painting the room that was going to be his room, but is now likely going to be the guest bedroom. I hadn’t even finished ONE SIDE of ONE DOOR when he came in, said he was done painting the room (just the walls, not around the trim) and ready to go because he was tired and starting to get sore. He helped me finish the ONE SIDE of ONE DOOR, and then we left. Tonight we plan to do nothing but paint. Fred will probably get the entire downstairs, garage, shed, and outside of the house painted. Maybe I’ll get ONE SIDE of ONE DOOR painted. I’m a slow painter, but a careful one. Those doors will be somethin’ to look at, that’s for sure. I hope I mean that in a good way. I’m not sure yet.

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  I haven’t managed to get a picture of it yet, but Maddy’s new favorite game is one she plays by herself. She’ll lay on her back, kick herself in the face with her back foot, and whine like someone’s picking on her. I think she’s hit the “dumb teenager” stage of her life. “Foot! Leave me alone! Or I will kick your butt!”   “Pillow! Leave me alone! Or I will kick your butt!”   Quite clearly it is a rough and difficult life for Maddy. Please, won’t someone save her from the daily torture and strife?   More pictures are here.    
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Previously 2005: For at least five full seconds a big cartoon question mark appeared above my head and my brain flipped frantically through the instruction manual trying to figure out just what the fuck was going on. 2004: Myrtle Beach recap. 2003: No entry. 2002: Poor, deformed Miz Poo. 2001: Ya gotta love the Poo. 2000: Remember that episode? 1999: I just love it when I don’t have to cook.]]>

10/17/06

Nicole 1. The phone rings. Who do you want it to be? Well aside from the fact that I want it to not ring in the first place, I guess I’ll say I want it to be Fred or the spud or Debbie. 2. Do you take compliments well? I try to smile and say “Thank you”, but a lifetime of scoffing at compliments is a hard habit to break. 3. Do you like to ride horses? Unfortunately, I don’t. I wish I was a horse person, because we’ve got enough land for one or two of them, but I’ve just never been into horses. Though when I was a teenager I was, and when we were on a family vacation we went horseback riding where my horse kept walking so close to the horse in front of us that the horse in front of us kicked and his hoof caught my knee. And it fucking hurt. And then later, I was sitting in the saddle and it started going sideways and I’d never really been on a horse before, so I had no idea I could have stood up in the stirrups and put my weight on the other side so the saddle would straighten out, and I fell onto the ground. 4. What was your favorite game as a kid? DOCTOR DEATH AND MISTER ALIVE! It was a dorky game my brothers made up wherein one of them was Dr. Death and the other was Mr. Alive, and if Dr. Death got us we were “dead” and could only come to “life” and rejoin the game if Mr. Alive came along. Or something like that. 5. Can you speak another language? I know very few words in French. Not even enough to carry on a conversation. So, no. 6. What is your favorite children’s book? The Little House series. I saved up my allowance for ages to buy those damn books, and I still have them all. 7. When was the last time you were at Olive Garden? I… don’t know. Maybe around Christmas time? Debbie and Brian and my mother picked us up and we went out to lunch. I don’t know if that was at Christmas time or last Summer or just exactly when the hell it was. 8. What are your keys on your key chain for? One to the house, one to the car, one to the PO Box, and one to the new house. I think that’s about it. 9. What’s your favorite color? Yellow, though I have a definite fondness for blue, too. 10. Where is your current pain at? I’m feeling no pain. 11. Do you look like your mom or dad? My Dad, at least according to my mother. 12. What movie do you want to see right now? At this point, I can’t think of a single movie I want to see. Mostly because I don’t know what’s out, I guess. 13. Do you put lotion on your dog or cats? We used to put lotion on Spot (they make a hydrocodone hydrocortisone lotion for animals) because he was overgrooming his stomach and we thought it might be because of an itching issue. 14. What did you do for New Year’s? I… don’t know. Went to bed before midnight, I’m sure. 15. Do you think The Grudge was scary? Not terribly so. 16. What was the cause of your last accident? My incredible clumsiness, I’m sure. 17. What do you buy at the movies? Usually just a bottle of water. I sneak weight watchers candy in with me, and steal some popcorn from whomever’s with me. 18. What do you wear to sleep? Not a damn thing. Unless you count the inevitable cat draped over my hip. 19. Anything big ever happen in your hometown? Stephen King grew up across the river and went to my high school. It hosts the Moxie Festival every year. I think that’s about it. 20. Do you use cuss words in other languages? No, but that sounds like something that would be fun to take up. Y’all teach me how to say fuck, shit, and goddamnit in other languages, eh?

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Yesterday after I got home from the pet store, I took a shower and decided it was too goddamned cold in the house to be running the air. Our thermostat is from the ancient ages where you have to have it on either “heat” or “cold”, along with the temperature you want to keep the house at. If you have it on “cold” and the temperature drops to like 55 degrees, you could freeze to death waiting for the heat to come on. That’s how it is at the new house, too, and I’ve decreed that come hell or high water, SOMEONE is going to install a thermostat you can set so that if it goes below 68 the heat will come on, and if it goes above 72 the air will come on. I don’t care if I have to pay a professional, it’s gonna happen in the new house, because this time of year it’s a pain in the ass to always be switching it back and forth between “heat” and “cold”. Anyway, I stopped at looked at the thermostat and saw that the current temperature on the stairs (where the thermostat is located – one of the things I hate about this house is that it doesn’t have separate thermostats for upstairs and downstairs) was 70. I decided I’d turn the dial thingy to 70 and switch it over to heat. I went downstairs, ate breakfast, puttered around, and thought “GodDAMN, why am I still so cold?” I wrote my entry and got colder and colder. When the tip of my nose was about ready to turn blue with how stinkin’ cold I was, I went upstairs to get my slippers. Usually if my feet are warm, the rest of me tends to stay warm, too. On the way up, I stopped and looked at the thermostat. Not only had I NOT set the dial thingy on 70, I’d set it several degrees below 70 AND I’d forgotten to click the thing over to “heat”. No wonder I was so goddamn cold. I set the dial thing to 75 and clicked it over to heat, and was toasty warm for the rest of the day.
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Oh, I forgot to mention my doctor appointment on Friday. As I mentioned, it was with an orthopedic surgeon, about the “possible Osteochondromas” on my hips. The surgeon told me that they were, indeed, Osteochondromas, and that they treated it by doing nothing. Since I was having no pain or symptoms and they weren’t bothering me, it wasn’t necessary to remove them, but I should come back if I started having pain or they started bothering me. He did say that in some cases they could turn cancerous, but the chances of that were slight and if it did happen it wouldn’t be until my 70s or 80s. And since I’ll be dead long before then from (1) PSC, (2) Weight Loss Surgery (3) Heart Murmur or (4) Throat Chewed Open By Crazy Wild Cats, I’m not going to worry too much about it. He did show me where the Osteochondroma on my left side is and the fact that it’s on the left side, not the right, and a lot higher than where I thought it was, probably explains why I couldn’t find it on my own. Duhr.
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“Hahahah! Ha! Ha! Mom, you are SUCH a dork!”   “Hahahahah! Ha! Ha! Mom, you are SO funny!” (Maddy learns the art of sarcasm)   “Bring your hand down here. I won’t bite. Promise!”   More pictures hither.    
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DSC01231 Nothing makes him happier than airin his harbl. * * *
Previously 2005: And I like Nicole Kidman and I loathe Sean Penn and didn’t want to see him rubbing his liver lips all over her. 2004: No entry. 2003: Poor Stanley. All he wants to do it play, and none of the big cats will play with him. 2002: That’s a lot of poop to scoop. 2001: “I don’t like it,” he said haughtily. “It’s not even REAL lemon juice. It’s citric acid!” 2000: Now I just have to decide what to spend it on. 1999: When I got to the top of the stairs I found Tubby huddled there soaking wet, and Mr. Fancypants circling him in a hostile manner. ]]>

10/16/06

reading Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen and enjoying it, but there was this one bit toward the beginning of the book that had me howling: I’m sure Evan had never encountered anyone like Meghan before. Evan’s parents are the quietest people on earth. When she’s feeling froggy, his mother will say, “Oh, you,” to her husband, and he’ll squeeze her forearm. That’s the equivalent of all hell breaking loose in the Grater household. Laughed my ASS off.

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Speaking of books, the new Stephen King comes out on the 24th! I’m sure I’ll be in a mall at some point that week (my mother arrives this Saturday) so I’ll for sure be picking it up.
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So we’ve spent another weekend working on the house, feeling alternately like we were getting nothing accomplished and getting tons accomplished. I felt like I got a lot accomplished in the yard; Fred felt like he got a lot accomplished in the house. Friday I worked in the yard until it got dark – mostly raking and hauling crap to the mulch pile – and then I went inside to play with Maddy and then find out what I could do in the house. Fred asked if I’d wet down the walls in his bedroom so he could scrape the wallpaper backing off, so I spent some time doing that, and then he suggested that I go around the room and scrub the glue off from around the bottom, because he didn’t think paint would stick to the glue. So I did that until it was time to leave, and it was FUN. Not. It was cold as hell in the house, we weren’t running the heat because we had a window open and a fan in the window because Fred didn’t particularly want us breathing the dust from the crap he was scraping off the wall. So it was cold and noisy and I had to wear a stinkin’ face mask. “Stinkin'” to be taken literally, here. That thing fucking REEKED. At one point Fred was wearing his respirator (since he was doing most of the work in the room) and I was wearing my face mask, and he said something to me, and I leaned over toward him and took my face mask off and said “Huh?”, and he laughed his ass off. It’s like when you’re in the car and you smell something, so you turn down the radio and sniff harder. (Yes, I do that.) Dsc01928 We got home late Friday night and went straight to bed. Saturday morning I had thought I might sleep in, but I was up and wide awake at 6:30, so I got up and did my usual morning stuff, and we were out the door by 8. Once we got to the house, we turned the heat on, and then I went into Fred’s bedroom to finish what I’d started the night before. That didn’t take long, so I spent the rest of the morning taping the spud’s bedroom and vacuuming up all the crap off the floor, and other things I can’t seem to recall at the moment. After lunch, Fred suggested that since it was such a nice day out, we spend some time working in the yard. I was ALL for that and at some point we made a trip to Lowe’s so Fred could get a new toy to make working in the yard that much easier. Chainsaw You can imagine my concern. While Fred chopped down some trees and the fence posts behind the shed I walked around the yard and picked up some more crap, then got on the lawnmower and cut the yard in front of the garage (the side yard, I call it). It took me longer than I’d expected (mostly because I had to keep stopping and picking up stuff I hadn’t seen when I was walking through the yard), but when I was done the yard looked pretty damn good. Well, except for the hilly parts I’ll need a push mower to cut, that is. I didn’t relish the thought of taking the riding lawnmower up on the hilly parts and having it roll over on top of me. Naturally, I forgot the damn “before” and “after” pictures, so here’s a shot of Fred yanking down a tree. FredTractor After he’d done some Manly Man work, Fred went inside to prime the walls and trim of his bedroom and I stayed outside and dug more chunks of concrete and bricks out of the lawn next to the house. We left somewhat early on Saturday and were home before dark, which I think is a first for us. Sunday morning we were out the door early, too, and because we’d left the heat turned down to 55, it was FREAKIN COLD when we got there. I immediately turned the heat up to 68 (downstairs) and 65 (upstairs) and we got to work. I taped Fred’s bedroom so he could paint and then set to priming the closet in that bedroom. The closet is HUGE; it could practically be another room, or a nursery or something, so it took me all morning to finish. I was almost finished with one wall when Fred appeared and said “Come here, and bring your camera.” That’s always something I like to hear, so I grabbed my camera and followed him. Now, I know I’ve mentioned the little black cat – “Momma Kitty” – who first appeared a few weeks before we bought the house, who had clearly recently had a litter of kittens. She’s shown up several times since, both alone and with a male buff-colored cat who we’d taken to calling “Daddy Kitty.” Well, Momma and Daddy had come a-callin’. And they weren’t alone. Altogether, there were four kittens – two black and white, one brown tabby and white, and one gray tabby. Two of them were friendly, but the other two were a little skittish. Momma Kitty is friendly and Daddy Kitty tends to be skittish, so I guess their kittens took after both of them. We spent quite a bit of time on the porch hanging out with them, and they ended up spending almost all day hanging out on the porch sleeping and playing. We wondered if they were homeless, but they were all in really good shape, clearly not underfed, clean silky fur, and had obviously spent time around people. I suggested to Fred that I call the shelter manager today and see if we could foster at least the kittens until space opened up at the pet store. They’re obviously old enough to be away from their parents and eating solid food. All they’d need is to be fixed and to get their shots. I was all ready to foster the kittens when Fred went over and talked to our next door neighbor and found that they belong to the people on the other side of him (the neighbor, that is). The worst part is that we’re pretty sure Momma Kitty is pregnant again. I fumed and fussed and said “I don’t CARE if she belongs to someone, if she’s pregnant again I’m bringing her inside until she has those kittens, and when they’re weaned I’m going to have her fixed and then I’ll let her back outside again!” Did I mention she has worms? Fred said “You can’t do that. She’s their cat, you can’t save the entire world of cats!” We talked some more and decided that we (I nominate Fred) should talk to the neighbors and offer to (1) find homes for the kittens through the shelter and (2) offer to have Momma Kitty and Daddy Kitty fixed. Yeah, #2 might make them feel like jerks and could possibly offend them, but Momma Kitty needs a break from the whole creating-life giving-birth thing! I’ll report back how that conversation goes. So after I finished priming the closet and Fred finished painting the spud’s room, we decided to do some work in the yard. Fred went off to cut down some more trees, and I went into the front yard to clear the pile of crap around the big tree next to the house. It didn’t look like that much, but what I ended up with were piles of leaves and branches and wood that took Fred five or six trips with the tractor so I could load up the frontloader and he could carry it back to the burn pile. I would have just run over the leaves with the lawnmower, but there were so many branches – very thick ones, too – that I was afraid I’d end up breaking the lawnmover blade. I don’t know if that’s something that could happen, but it seemed like it might. While I was clearing out the pile of trash, I found some interesting things. Found1 Rusty axe. Because where would one put a rusty axe? Under the tree in the yard, of course. Unless maybe a serial killer dumped it under the tree on his way out of town. And now my fingerprints are all over it. Uh oh! Found2 Free kitten’s what? Kitten’s mittens? Kitten’s toes? Kitten’s kittens? Found3 Air rifle. I only know it’s an air rifle (and not, say, a BB gun) because it says “Air Rifle” on it. I don’t know what one does with an air rifle (does it shoot air?), but I know this one’s going on the pile o’ crap we’re tossing into a dump truck this weekend. I think we’d intended (at least, I intended) to leave the house around 5, but it was almost 6 by the time we pulled out of the driveway, because it took me longer than I thought it would to mow the front yard. It looks really good – at least, I think so – but again, we need to bring the push mower out so I can mow the hilly areas. And that was our exciting house-working weekend. This week I want to get the other side of the house and the back yard cleared of rocks, concrete and bricks, and then mowed. I also have to start painting the doors that go to the spud’s bedroom and the guest bedroom. Fred took them down and I’d intended to start painting them over the weekend, but just didn’t get around to it.
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Spidey While recovering from his brush with Malevolent Madeleine, Spidey keeps an eye out for trouble. * * * UglyBug2 Ugh. These things are everywhere. * * *   Zombie cat!   I need a bigger desk. Miz Poo isn’t going to take the usurpation of her bed by that stinkin’ kitten very well.   Soda tickles her nose.   More pictures here.    
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Previously 2005: No entry. 2004: No entry. 2003: “That’s because it fucking HURTS!” I yelled. 2002: TV talk. 2001: Is it just Fred and I that immediately think “Chrissie-anthemums”, or did y’all see that episode of Three’s Company as well? 2000: The Spider Dance.]]>

10/13/06

quite a bit accomplished. He is SUCH a handyman.

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Questions answered, comments responded to: I was just wondering if you are keeping up with the couple living in Dr.Phil’s house and what do you think? I saw the first two episodes featuring them, and good LORD are they a dysfunctional family. What I just don’t get, what I will never understand, is why the husband is so enraged at the “other man”, and why Dr. Phil encourages that. To my way of thinking the “other guy” may be a slime for taking up with a married woman, but he never made any vows to the husband. Is it maybe because Dr. Phil wants the husband’s rage to be directed at someone he’s NOT trying to build a life with? I stopped recording Dr. Phil and Oprah for the time being, though – I just never had the time to catch up on them, and they were filling up the DVR. I’m sure I’ll catch every single episode in reruns, though. Speaking of Dr. Phil – did anyone who saw the episode where they featured Jay’s marriage get a distinct icy vibe between Robin McGraw and the new Mrs. Jay McGraw, despite all the talk about how much they loved each other?
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I meant to post this earlier – I saw a license plate the other day that said “MZPOOH” and I totally thought of your cat 🙂 In case you were ever thinking of getting her vanity plates, it fits nicely. I was thinking about getting vanity plates for my new car, but opted not to. I think MZPOOH would have worked out pretty well for me. I’ll have to keep that in mind… Speaking of vanity plates, when I was in my 20s, my friend Liz wanted to get LIZBTCH on her license plates because we had a friend who called her Elizabitch. She tried to convince the lady at the DMV that her boyfriend’s name was Butch, but the woman wouldn’t go for it. Hmph.
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Wow, 7 years of journaling — that’s awesome. A friend just told me about your site in July, and I’ve been reading you everyday since, including archives. You even inspired me to start my own. Now if I can just figure out how to get people to read the dang thing! Any suggestions? The only thing I can suggest is to take up posting in a popular forum and include your url in your signature. I did that back when I started, and got a lot of traffic from that. Other than that, just keep posting and commenting on other peoples’ journals/ blogs with your url, and eventually people will be interested enough to check you out!
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1 What color of blue is that? I like. I don’t know – I’ll check tonight when we go to the house, and report back. 2 Is that the Sweet/Sour Strawberry gum? I love that stuff. That too doesn’t keep it’s flavor very long. I don’t know! I feel like it was maybe banana/ strawberry, but I can’t remember. It had a little pocket of flavor in the middle of the gum, and it was very good but the flavor just didn’t last long at all. I hate it when gum loses its flavor fast.
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Okay– why bag and move the leaves? Mow over them and use as natural soil amendment. Yes– I am a greenie. Mostly because I wanted to get that area of the yard cleared out so I could see what was under the leaves. Once the leaves were sucked up with the mower, I found a lot of rocks/ small chunks of cement/ crap/ 10,000 acorns, so I raked those up and dumped them, so I’ll never have to worry about hitting a chunk of cement with the mower and putting an eye out. When more leaves fall, chances are good I’ll just crunch them up with the mower and leave ’em.
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Your “poison ivy” looks like it might be Virginia Creeper. It doesn’t really look like poison ivy, does it? I’ll have to take a closer look tonight when we’re at the house, maybe a closer picture, too.
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Great job on working at the house! You all are making sooo much progress!! If you don’t mine me asking..do you think your weight loss has helped you in doing the work on the house/yard. I think my weight loss has absolutely helped me in doing the work on the house and yard. For one, I could never have spent so much time standing and cleaning when I was at my highest weight, because my feet would have been aching after about 45 minutes of it. I’m more flexible than I was before, which makes it easier to get in weird positions for long periods of time (ie, on my hands and knees priming the shelves in the closet) without too much pain. I’m not sure I could have done half of what I’ve done in these past two weeks at the house if I hadn’t lost so much weight.
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And the results of the CT scan are? From the abdominal portion of the CT scan: Lung bases are clear, viewed portions of the heart appear normal, liver appears normal, gallbladder surgically absent, (“Gallbladder? Gallbladder? Gallbladder?” “Um, it’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Gallbladder pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.”) pancreas, adrenals and spleen appear normal, kidneys are well perfused with no obstruction, small and large bowels do not appear obstructed; no free air or free fluid is present. From the pelvic portion of the CT scan: Urinary bladder is normal, no free air or fluid seen within the pelvis. The bony abdomen and pelvis are notable for osseous prominences at the posterior iliac crest. These may represent osteochondromas. No frank bony destruction is seen. The viewed lumbar and thoracic spine are otherwise unremarkable. In other words, the “bony abnormality” my doctor saw on my x-ray before she sent me for a CT scan could be – probably is/ are – osteochondromas, which according to my best friend Google are benign tumors which they usually either treat by (1) Observing via x-ray or (2) Removing. What’s interesting is that the tumor I had removed from my right knee when I was 14 was a giant cell cystic tumor. They didn’t know until they operated whether it would be benign or cancerous; it turned out to be benign. But my point is that many of the sites where I read about osteochondromas also mentioned giant cell cystic tumors. In any case, I go to see an orthopedic surgeon later this morning. I’ll report back on Monday. Don’t be freaked, because I’m not. God knows how long they’ve been there – they don’t hurt, and I can’t really even tell where they are unless I’m laying down and poking around both my hips at the same time. I wonder if the orthopedic surgeon will be impressed with my Google medical degree? I sure do wish I was going to see Callie Torres and not some old guy.
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Since you mentioned loud kitties, mine (5 or 6 yrs old) are SO LOUD! Constantly meowing. Seriously, CONSTANTLY. Any ideas to put an end to it? The only thing that will shut a howler up – in my experience – is getting yourself a spray bottle of water or can of compressed air and shoot it at them when they start howling. However, they may smarten up and just move to another room, where they will howl even louder. LIKE SPANKY, THAT BASTARD.
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I’ll vote for the biscuit law… Do you think it’s too late to get it on November’s ballot? It is NEVER too late to introduce the Biscuit Law. This is AMERICA, after all, land of ridiculous, useless laws. Surely a nonridiculous, useful law like the biscuit law will pass with flying colors. Who doesn’t love biscuits, after all? UNPATRIOTIC PEOPLE, THAT’S WHO. I foresee a whole new economic boost with the passing of the Biscuit Law. Door-to-door biscuit vendors! Biscuit carts in the parks! The United States will become a Biscuitopia, the envy of all the world. Chicagoans will claim that their biscuits are the best. New Yorkers will swear you can’t get a good biscuit anywhere but in NYC. But Southerners will know that the truth is, you just can’t get a biscuit like you can in the South. Biscuit Law supporters, unite!
Dsc02681 “I’m Senator Phineas J Spotsworth, and I approve this message.”
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Lisa and I were chatting the other day and decided you should use Spiderman as a regular guest in your entries. Oh, I’m sure Spiderman will be showing up again in the future, have no fear. There are all KINDS of malevolent, evil, stinkin’ beasts he can fight with here in the And3rson household.
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I was walking through the living room the other night. The TV was tuned to CNN, but was muted (once I turn the TV on to watch something, we leave it on because it’s not good to keep turning it on or off. Or maybe I made that up. Who the hell knows?), and I glanced at the TV and thought “Oh, what’re they talking about Tony Blair for? Is he weighing in on the small plane that hit the high rise in New York City?” Then I took a closer look, and the picture on the screen wasn’t Tony Blair. It was Pat Buchanan. Yeah. Might be time for another eye exam. I don’t know what I love more – the little extended claws, or the little striped pot belly.   I FINALLY got her yawning!   More pictures here.    
* * * Dsc02650 “Hellew.” * * *
Previously 2005: Does this mean I’m getting old? 2004: No entry. 2003: Bringing home Mister Boogers. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: All about the cats. 1999: I certainly am bitching a lot today, aren’t I?]]>

10/12/06

2 Words meme, seen many places, most recently on my brother’s diary. The idea is to answer each question in two words, but I’m too damn lazy to work that hard, so I’ll use AS MANY WORDS AS I WANT TO. 1. When was the last time you shaved? Tuesday morning. 2. Explain what ended your last relationship. Divorce! I’d say we just grew apart and had very little in common. 3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.? I was either feeding Maddy, or in the shower. 4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Looking at my CT scan results. 5. Are you any good at math? Not “good”, but competent in the day-to-day dealing with numbers. 6. Your prom night? Which one? My Junior prom, I hung out with a lot of friends, went to the prom with a guy I had a crush on, and had a decent time. My Senior prom, my date (upon whom I had a crush; different guy than the Junior prom guy) and I went with another couple, and it was a fairly crappy time. 7. Do you have any famous ancestors? I AM the famous ancestor. In generations to come, they’ll be talking about the Crazy Cat Lady and her penchant for boring others online with her daily musings. 8. Have you had to take a loan out for school? I did. 9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile? I don’t have a song on my myspace profile, but if I did, I’d probably know the words to it. At this point I have no desire to add a song, though. 10. Last thing received in the mail? A bunch of magazines. 11. How many different beverages have you had today? Two – water and hot cocoa. 12. Do you ever leave messages on people’s answering machine? Yes, but no one ever listens to them (DEBBIE), they just call and say “I saw you called. What’s up?” With everyone having caller ID, no one even needs voicemail or answering machines anymore. 13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to? Great White and Judas Priest. Unless you count Shaun Cassidy, which I don’t really. 14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? Nope; never have. 15. What’s the most painful dental procedure you’ve had? Having my wisdom teeth out 12 years ago. 16. What is out your back door? In Madison, a yard, a couple of trees, and a fence. In Smallville, a ton of land, a bunch of trees, and a pond. 17. Any plans for Friday night? Working on the Smallville house. It’s like date night! 18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair? Yeah, I kinda like the windblown look. 19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns? Yes, and they’re AWESOME. Haven’t had one in many years, though. 20. Have you ever been to a planetarium? I’m sure I have, but I retain no memory of it. 21. Do you re-use towels after you shower? Yes. We reuse them for about a week. Why not? You’re CLEAN when you step out of the shower and dry off, after all. 22. Some things you are excited about? Cats, books, the new house. 23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO? I don’t really care for JELLO, but if forced to choose, maybe strawberry. 24. Describe your keychain(s)? Nail clippers, #1 Mom, a light-up Maine keychain, and a metal keychain with an image of Miz Poo lasered onto it. 25. Where do you keep your change? In a gallon-size water jug. Well actually, in a smiley-face mug near my desk, and when that fills up, I dump it into the gallon water jug in the kitchen. 26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people? I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember, I’m sure my voice got all shaky and I sounded like an idiot. 27. What kind of winter coat do you own? A yellow jacket I got from Land’s End a few years ago. I couldn’t wear it before now because (although it was supposedly big enough for me) it didn’t fit. Now it’s too big, but I’m still going to wear the damn thing. It’s yellow! 28. What was the weather like on your graduation day? I don’t for the life of me remember. 29. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed? I start out the night with it cracked open, but the cats run back and forth and knock it all the way open.

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Yesterday morning I opened the blinds in my bedroom windows as I do every morning, and then I stood and looked out at the yard. As I always do. Over by the fence I saw something white, and I stared down at it, wondering what it was. I decided that perhaps I was seeing a yellow leaf that had fallen from one of the trees, and it just looked white, and then I shrugged and my mind wandered off and I followed it and thought no more of the white thing. After I’d eaten lunch yesterday, I was settled in at my computer looking at bras (I think I’ve found the perfect bra, but I cannot say for sure until I get more of them and can make sure the one I have that fits perfectly isn’t just a fluke. I will report upon this when I can reliably say that it’s the perfect bra.) when Spot came running inside and stopped behind me and made a funny squeaky noise. I turned, and he had something on the floor in front of him and was chewing on part of it. “Whatcha got there, buddy?” I asked, and he looked up at me with a guilty face. I went over to investigate, and found what appeared to be the bottom part of a McDonald’s biscuit. “Dude, that’s gross,” I said to Spot, who didn’t care and gave me a nasty look as I picked it up and threw it away. “Don’t give me the dirty look,” I said further to Spot. “You shouldn’t have brought it inside if you didn’t want it taken away from you!” And then my mind wandered off and I followed it and thought no more of the fact that there had been a biscuit in our back yard for some reason, though last time I checked, biscuits don’t belong in back yards. But this is Alabama. Possibly they’ve passed a law stating that there must always be a biscuit within two hundred feet of your residence and I just didn’t hear about it. Later, after Fred got home from work and we lay on the bed talking, I thought to tell him about the biscuit. “I bet some fucker walking by our back yard, or driving by our back yard, threw a fucking McDonald’s biscuit into our back yard,” I said, immediately incensed at the thought. “Fucking fuckers!” “Maybe so,” Fred said, unconcerned, his mind clearly wandering. A few minutes later he went outside to play with his new tool (heh. Sounds dirty, doesn’t it?) and I said “Look over by the fence and see if you see anymore signs of a biscuit or wrapper or anything.” A few minutes later he came back inside and said “I think I found the top to that biscuit.” and he threw it away. Now I ask you. You’re wandering or driving along with a biscuit, and you suddenly realize you don’t want it anymore. WHY THE HOLY FUCKING HELL would you toss it in someone’s back yard? Fucking fuckers.
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Last week I was upstairs, just out of the shower, about to blowdry my hair, when I heard what sounded like Spot downstairs meowing. Now, I know I’ve mentioned before that Spot has a weird, squeaky meow because when he was a bitty kitten and showed up at Fred’s back door he howled and howled and howled, and did damage to his vocal chords, so now all he can do is squeak out a weird, eerie meow. Anyway, the sound I heard last week sounded like that meow, only much louder. I heard it a second time. “Spot!” I yelled, hoping to shut him up. I heard it a third time, and it dawned on me that there was something going on and I should check it out. I walked out of the bedroom to find Sugarbutt and Miz Poo sitting at the top of the stairs staring down toward the first floor, their eyes dark. Another meow. I walked past Sugarbutt and Miz Poo and started walking down the stairs. I heard the sound I’d thought was a meow yet another time, and that’s when I realized it was the sound of a pissed-off cat screaming, and then Tommy went flying by me, and I knew exactly what I was hearing. There’s a black and white cat who lives somewhere in our neighborhood, and he apparently exists solely to irritate our cats. He’ll show up in our back yard, get them all freaked out, and as soon as Fred or I steps into the back yard, he flies over the fence and away from us. Actually, when he first started showing up, I think he wanted to be friends with us, but we didn’t want to encourage him to hang out in our back yard, so we’d shout at him and wave our arms, and he quickly came to realize that we weren’t interested in being friends. Really, when it comes down to it, we’re very protective of our cats, and this black and white cat looks like he could kick some serious ass. So last week when I heard the sound of a pissed-off cat screaming, I knew without a doubt that the black and white cat had come into the house through the cat door. The idea scared me (like I said, I think he could easily kick some And3rson kitty ass) and I screamed and picked up the pace. I FLEW down those stairs, y’all, and ran toward the room we call the library (because it holds nothing but a couple of bookcases and Fred’s grandmother’s secretary), and as I approached the doorway between the hallway and kitchen, Mister Boogers went flying by me, and the black and white cat flew into the living room. “Get out of my house!” I said, like a great big fucking idiot, because how was he supposed to get out of the house? The back door wasn’t open, and I was between him and the cat door, and he was a little scared of me (though not as much as he SHOULD have been). So as he stood as far away from me as he could, I opened the back door and I waved my arms and reiterated, “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!” And he did. And I didn’t see a single damn one of our cats, who were most likely cowering under various beds and other bits of furniture, for at least two hours afterward.
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I think I’m going to cross-stitch “There aren’t any extra points for suffering“, frame it, and hang it somewhere where I’ll see it every day.
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I let Maddy stay out of her room almost all day yesterday, and she survived the experience. In fact, I do believe she started a fight with Tommy at one point and he just good-naturedly swatted at her ’til she went away. She gives Miz Poo a wide berth, though – I guess she’s learned you don’t mess with the cranky old lady of the bunch. One of my (many) favorite things about Maddy is the dot of gray above her mouth and the dot below. It looks like she’s got a little kewpie-doll mouth.   I love her tangle of whiskers in this shot.   More pictures here.    
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DSC01257 Such a rough life. * * *
Previously 2005: I hate those stupid tests. I always think I’m going to find out some deep, hidden truth about myself, and then I get “Oh! You should be an artist! You’re the artistic type!” Bah. 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: TV talk. 2000: I’m about the laziest chick in the world, I think. 1999: Yeah. I’m a bitch.]]>

10/11/06

  The little black Momma kitty we first saw a month or so ago was back, this time with a friend. Possibly he was the father of her babies – he was definitely a “he”, anyway!   He got a little too close, and Momma Kitty let him know she needed her space. I finished mostly with the closet in the spud’s bedroom Friday night – just had the walls to wipe down – and so Saturday when we got to the house I finished completely with the one closet, and then cleaned the cedar closet, which wasn’t too bad, since it was just a couple of shelves and a dirty, messy floor. I scrubbed the floor a few times, and then told Fred I was ready to do whatever he needed me to do. What he suggested I do – since we’d talked about it the night before – was start priming the trim and doors in the spud’s bedroom. I’ve never painted anything before in my life and so we decided that priming was a good place to start. I think I must be the slowest painter on earth, because it took me the entire day to do the baseboards, the trim around the closets, the trim around the windows, and all three doors. (In my defense, those doors are a bitch – they have inset sections where it’s hard to get the paint into the inset part.) I left the inside of the big closet for Sunday, knocked off a little early, and went in to play with Maddy and document the adventures of Spiderman Vs. Malevolent Madeleine while Fred kept working on the guest bedroom. TractorNextDoor This tractor in the front yard of the house next door (the brother of the woman who sold us the house lives there; the tractor is the one Fred almost bought from the owners, but decided not to) get a LOT of attention. At least four times a day we’ll look out the window to see people – always men, what a shock – looking over the tractor. Hasn’t sold yet, though. Sunday when we got to the house, Fred went into the guest bedroom, and I started priming the inside of the big closet (not the cedar closet – we’re leaving that as a cedar closet, of course). Would you freaking believe it took me ALL DAY to prime the inside of that damn closet, and when we left, I still had a section of wall left to do? I did make the time pass a little faster by talking to my sister on my cell phone, and I said to her “Life would be a whole lot easier for me if I had a cell phone that was Bluetooth compatible and I could wear a headset and talk to you. I could just paint and talk to you all day!” I did manage to balance the cell phone on my shoulder and paint while I talked to her, but yeah – would have been easier with a headset. All weekend long I had been saying “When I get (whatever) done, I’m going to go out, walk the yard, pick up all the bricks and chunks of concrete, and mow the lawn!” Saturday I said “When I’m done priming this room and the closet!”, not having any idea it was going to take all day just to do the room. Sunday I said “When I’m done priming the closet!”, not having any idea it was going to take all day just to do the closet. Monday I said “When I’m done with this section of the closet!”, and so I finally got to go outside and start walking around the yard, picking up bricks, chunks of concrete, and various other pieces of (not literal) crap. Luckily I didn’t have to pick up each piece of concrete or brick or whatever and carry it over to the pile I’d started on the driveway, because Fred and I had to go to Tract0r Supply Saturday (or maybe Sunday? It’s all a blur.) and while we were there, we bought a wagon. YellowWagon We bought it for the size and price, NOT the color. Really! So I’d fill up the wagon – or fill it up enough that it got to be too heavy to pull easily – and then go dump it out on the driveway. I spent about an hour doing that in the side yard, and finally I had to give up. Because the side yard is located under two very large trees, and what are trees doing right about now? Yeah. Dropping leaves. So although I was getting a lot of stuff picked up, I couldn’t see under the leaves and couldn’t be sure I was getting all the rocks and concrete up. PileOJunk Fred came out to tell me to come in and check out the light he’d just finished putting up in the guest bedroom, and I roped him into taking me to the Co-Op to buy a rake. While we were there, we bought a shovel as well, because we thought it would come in handy in the future. Back at the house, he went back inside, and I started raking the side yard. I found a fucking TON of rocks and concrete chunks and tossed them into the bucket I’d found amongst the crap piled by the side door (the one without steps). I also picked up the bigger branches I came across, because I didn’t particularly want to run over them in the riding lawnmower. I don’t know how long it took me to rake the leaves from the side yard into a pile, maybe two hours, but rather than picking the leaves up and bagging them, I took Fred’s suggestion and started running over the leaves with the riding lawnmower. RobynsLawnmower We have a grass catcher on the back of the riding lawnmower, so it would be easier to run over the piles of leaves, then drive out to the back forty and dump them, right? Right. I ended up making six or seven trips to the back forty to dump the grasscatcher bags, and then it got to the point where all I was doing was blowing the chopped-up leaves and crap around the yard. But there was more crap in the yard then I wanted to have there, and so what I ended up doing was raking everything into a pile, then using the shovel to dump it all into the grasscatcher bags, drove the lawnmower back to the pile I’d started, dump everything, then back to the side yard for more raking and shoveling. It was some serious hard fucking labor, folks. You have NO IDEA how good it felt, though, to be shoveling and doing some real physical labor for the first time in I don’t know how long. I think I made about ten more trips back to the pile before Fred came out and told me he was about ready to leave. MulchPile The pile, with my glove atop it to give you some idea of the size. I think I made another three or four trips after I snapped this picture. CleanedYard The side yard. Yeah, I didn’t get much done in five hours of working my ass off, did I? You’d be more impressed if I’d snapped a “before” picture, I assure you. And keep in mind all those bricks and chunks of crap in the picture up higher in the entry were from this one little piece of yard. I don’t have a clue what we’re going to do with this section of yard. It’s located under trees that block the sun – is there some kind of grass that doesn’t need much sun to grow? Any suggestions will be much welcomed, guys! MowingRobyn Happy Robyn on the lawnmower. MowerWheel But there’s no horn on my lawnmower! SadRobyn Fred’s tractor has a horn! How come HE gets a horn and I don’t? What if I need to get someone’s attention while I’m on the lawnmower? ToolsOfTrade The tools of my trade. That rake held up really well for all the stress I put it under, considering it cost less than $6. By the time Fred came out to tell me it was time to go, I was starting to feel a bit lightheaded from the unaccustomed physical labor and definitely ready to go. Monday night while we were laying in bed I started scheming about how I could sneak out to the house and do some work in the yard on Tuesday while Fred was at work. I didn’t – after that long weekend, we both needed a break from working on the house – but I was seriously tempted! Tonight I’m going to do some work in the yard, and then probably start priming the baseboards in Fred’s bedroom, and the closet as well. I’ve about convinced him that we should take the doors off and put them on a dropcloth downstairs, where I can prime and paint them. I think it would be one hell of a lot easier to paint them that way, rather than having to do it while they’re standing. It’d also make it a lot easier to prime and paint around the doorway, for sure. BarrelBottom This appears to be the bottom of a cut-off barrel, filled with water. I’m not sure what its purpose was – maybe to water the chickens? In any case, it’s going to go. Katydid Fred says this is another Katydid. It’s a lot less creepy than the one from last week, that’s for sure. Mushroom There are several of these huge mushrooms in the yard between the garage and the street. When I first saw them, I had no idea they were mushrooms, they’re so big. I don’t know why, but I thought they were ostrich eggs someone had tossed in the yard. I’m a dork. PoisonIvy The only things turning a lovely shade of red on the property is the TON of poison ivy. Too bad it’s so evil, ’cause it sure is pretty. (And if that’s not poison ivy, someone tell me what it is. I was told it’s poison ivy, and since I couldn’t identify the stuff with a three week course on it, I went with it.) Saw Saw, found in the yard. Hey! We needed a saw like that! SwissArmyKnife Swiss Army knife. I brought it home to clean it up and see what kind of shape it’s in, but now I don’t know where the hell it is. BarbiePants Somewhere a Barbie is going without her camouflage pants, the damn hussy. Yesterday, Miss Maddy Mack weighed in at 1 pound, 4 ounces. She’s starting to eat hard kitten food when it’s mixed up with the soft stuff – and sometimes on its own – and when we were at the Smallville house over the weekend, I looked over to see her drinking water out of the water bowl! Clearly she’s a genius. She’s getting feistier by the day and can pretty much hold her own with the older cats, so I’ve been letting her stay out for longer periods of time. She likes to spend the evenings sleeping on me. She’s such a pretty princess. Also, she can kick Spiderman’s butt! What more can you hope for from a kitten? I adore – ADORE – this picture. She was squeaking at me because I kept holding the mouse just out of reach.   More pictures (and there are some good ones!) are hither.    

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DSC01210 Sugarbutt loves you.
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Previously 2005: Did you feel the earth shake too? 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: My breasts are strawberry scented. 1999: I was ambitious today.]]>

10/10/06

check it out here. Next up: The spud’s room.

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As of today, I’ve been journaling for seven years. Who the hell knew it would go on this long? Happy journalversary to me – and thanks, all of you, for reading! Now someone go buy me a hot pink Razr phone to celebrate. (I KID. I should buy you all hot pink Razr phones to thank you for reading!)
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In lieu of a real entry today – since it’s getting late – I’m going to put up a faux entry, and tomorrow you’ll get the miles-long thousand-picture entry about the weekend, okay?
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After being rescued from the air register, where he was forced to breathe the dust and fumes from a less-than-clean house, Spiderman took a little while to relax and unwind.   “Lady, you can suggest it all you want, but Spidey don’t clean. Spidey’s a CRIMEfighter, not a GRIMEfighter. Cleanin’ ain’t no fun! I’m bored. I’m going to go hunt down some crime, and fight it.”   “The only crime here is how good-lookin’ I am.”   “The only crime here is how fast that gum loses its flavor. But I can’t take on the Trident Corporation! I’m only one small spiderman!”   “The only crime here is how well that Goof Off stuff works!”   “The only crime here is how gorgeous that blue paint is! Uh.. oops. Need a little caulk here, Fred!”   “My spidey senses are tingling. There’s a fearsome beast around here somewhere, and I must find it!”   “It is! IT IS a fearsome beast! I thought the mythical Malevolent Madeleine was a myth, but here I see her, in her lair atop Momma Mountain!”   “This is almost too easy! I’ve got her pinned down!”   “Wait… she’s got my arm in some sort of superbeastly grip. I can’t get away from her! Not that I’d want to, being the superhero stud that I am. But if I did want to, I couldn’t get away from her!”   “She’s pulling me ever closer to the fearsome Jaw of Doom. If I were a mere mortal, I’d be terrified right now!”   “I… OWWW! NOT MY SPIDEY ARM!”   “Malevolent Madeleine, I beg mercy! Not my brain! I NEED MY BRAIN!”   “Brains… leaking… out my ears…”   “She’s got me on the ground! I cannot stand this torture much longer!”   “Relent, fierce beast!”   “NO! NOT MY HARBL!”   Spidey is lain upon a bed of catnip where it is expected he will die slowly and painfully. But while Malevolent Madeleine’s attention is drawn elsewhere…   Spiderman escapes.   “You beat me this time, Malevolent Madeleine, but it will not happen again. I WILL return and make you beg for mercy, you horrid, filthy, stinky, beastly feline!”  
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Previously 2005: What I’m not going to miss is the rotten-egg gas Sugarbutt’s been suffering from lately. 2004: Off to Myrtle Beach. 2003: Instead, we should probably go for “Shizzle M. Andersizzle.” 2002: Why I journal. 2001: No entry. 2000: Okay, enough of that mushy crap. 1999: So. Welcome to my journal.]]>

10/6/06

* * * Questions answered, comments responded to: Do you think we’d take better care of ourselves if we didn’t have medical insurance and everything had to be paid out of pocket? That’s a nice thought, but I have a feeling that rather than taking better care of ourselves, we’d be a nation of “Well, I’m going to die SOMEDAY, I might as well have fun until I do!” Or maybe that’s just me!

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Will your cats be free-range on the farm, or will you still have the collars and electric fence? We’ll still have the fenced-in yard and the electric fence and collars. I worry too damn much about the cats to let them out to wander around, especially on the back forty where god knows what kind of vile creatures lurk.
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When a frog has toes like that, doesn’t that mean it is a tree frog? Looked like you have great trees out there so maybe there is whole tribe of them just waiting to greet you when you move in. From the toilet, how charming is that! and That’s a tree frog and each evening we have 1-10 on our windows. We have great big tree frogs and little bitty tree frogs; I think they are awesome. We also have a regular ol’ frog that lives beside the pond. He’s neat to watch. Those are regarding this picture: Dsc01186 And the first thing I said when I saw him was “Isn’t that a tree frog?”, but Fred never answered me, so I thought I might be wrong. I’m glad to know I wasn’t – and I kind of hope to see a few sticking to the window when we move into the new house! How the heck could a frog get in the pipes? Do you have town water in Smallville? We have county water, but I’m thinking the frog might have come up through the septic system rather than through the water pipes.
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Your fostering days are over, I can’t see you giving this baby away. Oh and do you ever get any updates on the kittens you have fostered in the past? I’d love to hear/see how they’re doing. Oh, you unbelievers. I swear I’ll be able to give her up – but I promise it won’t be easy! Occasionally the shelter will get an update on cats that have been adopted, and the shelter manager forwards them, but so far I haven’t seen any on any of my foster babies. I’d love to know how they’re all doing and that they’re happy and healthy.
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The tractors made me start thinking of that show, Green Acres. Are you going to give your new home (ranch) a name like that. It’s funny that you should ask – years and years ago (in my mid-20s, I think), I swore that if I won the MegaBucks lottery, I would build a huge house at the end of a tree-lined driveway, and I would name it Horseshit Alley, and I’d even have a sign up at the end of the driveway announcing the name of my house. When Fred and I knew that we were going to end up buying the Smallville house, we actually talked about naming the house Horseshit Alley, but we decided that probably we don’t want to offend our neighbors and since we’re next door to a church (and yet somehow we visit the house without our flesh boiling right off our bones. The Baby Jesus clearly approves!), it would be wiser not to. Don’t be surprised if I refer to it as Horseshit Alley in the future, though. And why “Horseshit Alley?” I don’t know. It just came to me.
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You know that when you have adorable baby kitten pictures/stories that the rest of what you write ends up being just like the grown up voices in Charlie Brown? We hear “whaah whaah whaaaaaaaH” until you either post pictures or give us kitten details. She is to-die-for cute!!! I understand completely. You all have my full permission to skip the boring stuff to get to the cute kitten stuff.
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I got gas Sunday for $2.01 at the very same kind of pump. Sam’s right? Actually no, I usually get my gas at a gas station called Kangaroo’s. It’s pretty much the cheapest gas in Huntsville, though the last few times I’ve been there, there’s been a note by the pump that you have to go inside to pay, or that their system is down and they aren’t taking debit cards, so I’ve roared out of the lot in disgust and gone elsewhere.
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Mr. Boogers is such a bad ass! Oh yeah! Does he still growl in (terror) fierceness in the doorway where Maddy is? Enough time has passed that he’s not completely terrified of her anymore. In fact, he’s been known to chase her down and lick her on top of her little head. I wouldn’t say he LIKES her, but he’s not scared of her (much) anymore.
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Are her (Maddy’s) eyes o.k.? In the carrier picture, she seems a little wall-eyed. I had a kitty with a lazy eye; he had a few issues with walking into walls for a while. She seems to be a little bit wall-eyed (not as bad as she was when we first got her), but she hasn’t had a problem walking into walls yet.
* * *
What does Maddy think of the big cats? Is she scared of them? She’s scared of Miz Poo – I think she’s been smacked upside the head by Miz Poo a few too many times – but she likes to sniff at and play with Sugarbutt and Tommy and isn’t scared of either of them at all. Mister Boogers will play with her (he likes to get a little rough, though), so she’s not scared of him, and Spot and Spanky avoid her at all costs so they aren’t an issue. Although last night, Spot was laying on the back of the couch and Maddy climbed up and sniffed at him, so he hissed at her. She didn’t seem too perturbed, but she did leave him alone after that.
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You “fed Maddy and put her up”? Put her up where? Put her upstairs in the kitten room. I’ll let her run around when I’m keeping an eye on her, but if we aren’t here, I leave her in the kitten room so I don’t come home to find little kitten pieces all over the house.
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Can you tell us where we can watch missed shows online? I know you mentioned it before and I had book marked it but then the hard drive failed. and Question: BitTorrent. You mentioned in one post that you finally figured out how to use it. Care to share the knowledge? I tried finding some tv shows, not whacky esoteric 40 yr old shows either, and couldn’t get a single results. I also couldn’t find any tutorials either. The three places I download shows from are Mininova, Meganova, and Fulldls. You need to download a BitTorrent client to help you download the shows (I’m not sure, to be honest, what a BitTorrent does, exactly) – I use Azureus and it works really well for me.
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You look great in the picture with the two man-blurs, but why are flames shooting out of your head? So I totally get the blurred guys, but you have a lightning bolt or something on your head! That’s regarding this picture: And the flames/ lightning bolt are due to Fred’s shaky hand taking the picture. Apparently there were lights back there, and his hand shook a little when he hit the button to take the picture, thus making the lights blur. OR I’m a secret superhero. One or the other.
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That narcissist article was really, really depressing. Although I was glad that she could pick out problem boyfirends before she got involved, I really wanted there to be a positive resolution between her and her mother, not just “and that’s the way it is.” I guess I should go read a Red Dress Press book to make up for it, huh? Yeah, I was hoping for a happy ending, too. Like “So I said ‘Mom, you’re a narcissist!’ and she said ‘Crap! You’re right! I’ll stop, right now!’, and we lived happily ever with a warm, close mother-daughter relationship that every woman dreams of.” instead of “So I learned to keep my distance and not get caught up in the bullshit, and now she’s dead.” Red Dress Ink books are always good for cheering you up!
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When are you planning to go to the Opry? Chris Young who won Nashville Star this year is there Oct 7th. He is so good. Not ’til later this month. I always look at the Opry page and think “I need to start going to the Opry more often!” I’d love to see Dierks Bentley at the Opry – and I see he’s going to be there on the 7th as well. Think I could convince Fred to blow off the house and go to Nashville? Yeah.. probably not!
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I’m glad to hear that you FINALLY have a diagnosis of what’s going on with your liver. Take care of yourself and make Fred do all the housework. Use “my liver hurts” as your excuse! I TOTALLY say “Stop it. You’re making my liver hurt.” when he’s doing something annoying. I’ve also said “Can you grab me a bottle of water out of the fridge? I’d get it myself, but my liver hurts.” and “Can you clean out the litter box? Ow, my liver.” I try to use it sparingly, though, or else he might think I’m faking it. Which I would never ever do. Even to get out of cleaning the litter box. Really!
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There are a lot of us walking around with medical degrees from google. I googled and found this blog. I TOTALLY need to make up a “I earned my medical degree from Google” t-shirt!
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I think I told you before but in case I didn’t a co-worker who is also a very close friend just had a liver transplant this past Spring. She had non-alcoholic cirrhosis. Her Dr. told her that the biggest bug-a-boo was Tylenol! She used to take it by the handfuls when she had boss from hell. The first thing they told me way back when they thought I had hepatitis was to stop taking Tylenol. I’ve taken it maybe twice since then, for headaches, but I do my best to stay the hell away from it, because I sure don’t want to stress my liver!
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Hey is Big B0b Gibson’s the restaurant I have heard about on the food network that serves white barbeque sauce? I actually made the sauce for a cook out over the summer and it was good. Also I was reading a Southern Living Magazine this morning on the way into work and thought of you! I know you are acquiring new things for your country abode and there was something I thought you might be interested in. Go here. Yep, Big B0b Gibson’s has the white sauce – but I think most barbeque places down here have it now; most of the ones I’ve been to do, anyway. It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never had it, but it’s really good! As for the Highway 411 yard sale, I think we’re going to have to miss it this year, but I’m sure I’ll be dragging Fred to it next year. I love me a good yard sale!
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When you said pretty pretty Wentworth Miller, it made me think of the way T-Bag always calls him pretty. With that disturbingly slimy southern drawl, “well hello there Pretty” (while he looks him up and down and licks his lips). I love that show! I actually have been known to call Maddy “Pretty”, and EVERY TIME I do it, I think of T-Bag. Who gives me the creeps, but the actor does such a good job of making the character loathesome that he’s almost likeable. Does anyone else think that Wentworth Miller’s eyes are so huge in his face that he looks like anime?
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What is up with the eyes on those goats??? Do goats always have eyes like that? Not that I have a lot of goats in my life, but I’ve been to petting zoos and all…I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes like that before. Do they look like that live, or only in the pictures? That freaked me out a little, not that they’re not cute…they are. But kind of creepy too. I think that goats always have eyes like that – help me out here, y’all, do goats always have the creepy eyes? They’re cute, but the pupils are freaky as hell.
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And, Robyn, I have to admit I am totally impressed with your ability to use the word “bush hog” in a sentence. Are you expanding your vocabulary as the closing of the country house gets nearer? Don’t be too impressed – I picked it up from Fred, who was using it in every single sentence for a while. It would have been impossible NOT to pick it up, actually.
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Regarding this picture: Am I the only one who doesn’t know why it’s called a harbl? I didn’t really know, which is why I didn’t respond, then someone said: For the girl above who didn’t know what the hairbl was it’s like his hairy balls…. right???? Or am I just some perv? That’s kind of what I was thinking, but then Ginny was smart enough to check out Urban Dictionary, and found this: Harbl – It is used mainly to refer to the male reproductive organ, although it can sometimes refer to the female reproductive organ. It is usually used in the cliché 4chan sentence structure of “I’m in ur ______, ______in ur _______” I’m on ur radiator, heatin’ my harbl. I’m in ur washmashchine soakin’ my harbl. (Thanks, Ginny!)
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Question for ya: What cleaner/cleanser did you use for the wooden kitchen cupboards? Just warm water and a bit of PineSol. I would have used a bit of ammonia instead, but Wal-Mart was out when I was shopping for cleaning supplies that day!
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In the picture of Maddy telling the stick joke, does she have brown spots on her knee and tummy? Yeah, she has spots on her belly and parts of her legs. It’s one of my favorite things about her!
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Are you sure it’s not the flashy camera wielding person the Boogs isn’t hatin’ on? The Boogs LOVES HIS MOMMA.
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Just one thing about leaving out cat food…. wildlife will also eat that food, even if it makes them sick or even kills them. Skunks for example, love cat food, but it causes their kidneys to fail and they then live very short lives. I know most people would be happier without skunks, but I love them! I had no idea! I’m no fan of skunks, but I sure wouldn’t want to hurt them. I think I’ll just wait ’til the cat shows up before I feed her, rather than leaving food out all the time.
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Ok, I gotta know – what’s with those round and rectangular clean areas on the bottom shelf? It looks like they had the same things sitting on the shelf for 50 years, and the dirt just accumulated around them. Do you have any idea what caused that? and I’d say the shelves have not been cleaned since the house was built. It looks like there was hatboxes and other boxes on the shelves and they were moved and the grime stayed behind. I think the idea of hatboxes is probably right – when I first saw the clean areas, I said to Fred “What, did they have doilies here or something??”, but I bet they were hatboxes. That room was most likely the master bedroom when the house was built, so yeah – hatboxes, probably.
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Is it possible that these people had just piled magazines and newspapers on the shelves and they just kind of stuck to them when they tried to move the piles? That would seem to make more sense. That’s entirely possible, too! I just wish there’d been a date on the newspaper/ magazine page I cleaned off the shelf the other night – I’d be interested to see how old it was.
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If it were me, I might just tear out those suckers (shelves) and go buy new shelves and stick ’em in there. The shelves are original to the house, and we’re trying to keep as much original stuff as possible. Fred is actually going to paint the shelves when he paints the closet, and probably I didn’t need to scrub quite so hard, but the idea of all that dirt under nice clean paint kind of ooked me out.
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Will you come scrub my house next??? Oh silly, silly, SILLY readers. You all want me to come clean your houses, but how freaked out will you be when I actually show up on your doorstep with my bucket o’ ammonia? SO FREAKED OUT. Cleaning houses would be a good job for me, really, because I like to look around peoples’ houses and see how they have them set up. I just wouldn’t want to clean the same houses over and over – which is why our current home is such a mess!
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Oh, and are you cleaning instead of exercising lately? Unfortunately, yes – I haven’t exercised regularly in quite some time, and I keep saying I’m going to get back to it, but my days feel so rushed since we closed on the house that I just.. haven’t. No excuses, just sheer laziness!
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May I just say that you are way less lazy than I am? The scrubbing, the taping, the painting, the going to Lowe’s, AAAARGH! Where’s the sitting around time? My sitting around time has severely decreased and it’s made me cranky! I did get a little veg-on-the-couch time yesterday afternoon (caught up on Desperate Housewives and deleted all those episodes of Dr. Phil and Oprah I’m not that interested in), but as with all good things, the more you get, the more you want, and I’m not getting enough ass-sitting time!
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About your Dyson. I am seriously looking into buying one (the same one you’ve got, Dyson Animal DC07), and I would like to know how long you’ve had yours, does it still work as well as it did when it was new, if you’re still loving it, does it really pick up cat hair (especially those fine little downy white belly hairs?) and anything else you could think of about it. I ADORE my Dyson. I’ve had it for about two and a half years now, and it’s still going strong. It really does an awesome job of picking up cat hair (except in the corners, where I’m too lazy to pull out the awesome attachments and suck up the cat hair – which is hardly the fault of the Dyson. I’m sure it would be thrilled to get up that cat hair if I gave it a chance!). My only real gripe about the Dyson is that it’s shaped in such a way that it won’t get underneath the kitchen cabinets – you know the part near the floor, where there’s a bit of an overhang? Well, the Dyson won’t fit under there. It’s not a huge problem, I just vacuum the middle of the floor, then use an attachment to get under the cabinets, but it is something I’d like to see changed. Anyone else who has a Dyson and has anything to add, feel free to leave a comment!
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By the way, Fred could build a nice little brick barbecue grill on that concrete slab in the back yard. He actually keeps mentioning that very idea, but I don’t know that we grill outside often enough to make it worth it!
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Miss Maddy is doing well. I’m letting her run around the house as much as I can today, since we’re going to take her to the new house with us tonight, so she’ll spend most of the evening locked up in a room with nothing but herself, her litter box, and six thousand toys for company. I just walked into the living room to check on her, and she was using the litter box (I keep a little litter box downstairs for her, because I think it’s beyond her to understand the idea of going upstairs and using her usual litter box if she has to go) and all the big cats were gathered around, watching in fascination. Then she hopped out of the litter box and started attacking my slippers. She kills me, that little ball of fluff. Last night she climbed up into Fred’s lap and fell asleep like this.   More pictures hither.    
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Dsc02394 Mister Boogers hates you… DSC02402 …but in honor of the holiday weekend (he’s a Christopher Columbus fan), he only hates you a little.
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Previously 2005: I forsee a lot of spud-teasing this evening. 2004: Phil Hellmuth is a whiny little bitch. 2003: “And then he told me he likes to have sex with you in the break room every day at 11!” he lied. 2002: No entry. 2001: Recovery. 2000: No one ever said I had a long attention span!]]>

10/5/06

Dsc02339 A “before” shot of one side of the closet. DSC02354 This top shelf is the last one I did before we left. Took me about 45 minutes. This is before… DSC02352 They appear to have glued old magazine or newspaper articles to random places on the shelves. I didn’t see a date anywhere, but they’re old enough that the phone numbers are listed 5-5555 instead of 555-5555, or even (256) 555-5555. DSC02356 Clean shelf. When I first went into the closet, I thought a quick wipe of the shelves with a wet rag would clean them up nicely, but like I mentioned, there was a ground-in dirt issue. I got out the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (which I invariably refer to as “magic sponges”, because please. They’re sponges!) and that helped get up the grime, but it was taking forever to get one little section done, and those sponges don’t hold up all that well. I was going through them pretty quickly. I got Fred’s keys and went to Wal-Mart for a second bucket and some of those Scotch Brite scouring pads. By the time I got back from Wal-Mart, it was 7, so we took a break and had snacktime (another apple for me – I love it when apples are in season) on the front porch. Oh, and I should point out, I didn’t spend all the time until snack time scrubbing shelves – I took a break to tape around the trim in the spud’s bedroom so that when Fred’s ready to start painting in there he won’t have to wait. Anyway, after snack time we went back inside and I broke out the scouring pads. They worked a lot faster than the magic erasers had, and so for the next hour and twenty minutes or so, I scrubbed the hell out of the shelves. By the time we left, the top shelves were clean around the entire closet, but I still have most of the middle shelves to do, and all of the bottom shelves. Guess I know what I’ll be doing on Friday, huh?

Dsc02355 “So, when they put up the December 1953 calendar, do you suppose they were unaware that December 1953 was going to end, and then the calendar was going to be useless?” “Not very forward-thinking of them, was it?” Dsc02358 The rags used on that closet: ONE MEELLION. DSC02359 We found these old cans of floor cleaner in the guest bedroom closet. I don’t know how old they are – there’s no date on them – but there’s still liquid in both cans. Not that I’m going to try to use them. God knows what the stuff inside has turned into! DSC02346 There was apparently a ladybug orgy at some point in the past. They didn’t care that their houses were afire and their children alone, I guess. DSC02344 Abandoned dirt dawber nest in the guest bedroom chimney access. DSC02343 Spiderman might protect us from the evil bugs, but does he clean? NO HE DOES NOT.
Tonight we’re taking a break from house-cleaning and -painting to sit on our asses at home. Well, except that the lumber yard will be delivering a load of crown molding and corner molding at some point this afternoon, so one or the other of us will have to go out there and meet them. Then tomorrow we’ll be out there after Fred gets off work until late, all weekend, and Monday as well. Hooray for holiday weekends!
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Maddy continues to grow and be a little feisty, wild thing. She’s learned bouncing, so now she goes bouncebouncebounce across the room, and then she scares herself and fluffs up her fur and runs sideways and is so damn cute I have to pick her up and kiss her, which makes her want to bite me. She’s a bitey little monster. Warning: cat cannot hold her licker.   If I had mad Photoshopping skillz, I’d totally Photoshop that sproingy thing out of the picture so it looks like Maddy has troll hair.   More pictures are here.    
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Yawny pet pics!
Laura says, This is our cat, Norman. He’s a big tomcat that loves to play. Six years ago, Paul picked him up from a guy he works with, his name is Norman, so Paul decided to name him such. He’s the best cat ever. I love how it looks like Norman is yelling “GOT IT!” Teri says, This is my kitty yawning pic. This is Claire and she is Trouble with a capital T (and that rhymes with C and that stands for Claire!)(yes, I sing to my cats all the time!) Anyway, she thinks she rules the house…ok, she DOES rule the house and our other two cats. You… sing to your cats? We NEVER do that. Ever. Really! Heh. Miss Pink Ponsonby says, Here is the Back of the Head yawn by Mackie! And also, I know you would like to take up quilting but let me assure you, the amount of eager ‘help’ you would recieve would make it darn near impossible to ever get a quilt made. Witness THIS: (notice what he is crushing beneath his rhythmical feet), and this (my blog archive entry in which I get a LOT of assistance in making an apron) I hadn’t even thought about that. Considering how “helpful” they all are when I’m trying to cross-stitch (sometimes it’s more than they can bear, and suddenly I’ve got a cat in my lap with a length of thread in his mouth because I’ve apparently been teasing them with the back and forth of the thread), I’m sure it would take me six years to get a lap quilt finished! Maren says, I thought I would send you a yawning picture of my son’s kitten Freddie – he’s 5 months old & is a real cutie. I must have chased him around for weeks trying to get a decent yawning picture of him. He’s feeling pretty puny today as he spent part of the morning at the vet’s with vomiting & diarrhea. Turns out he has roundworm! UGH! Poor Freddie. Worms are the worst! We’ve seen Amy‘s Zoe before, but Zoe was nice enough to pose for another yawny pic! Such a thoughtful girl, that Zoe. Brenda says, My Yenta is a talker, been talking since the day we met her and she and I have running conversations all the time. When we first brought her home from the shelter, and realized just what a talker she is, I told me hunny we needed to come up with a name for someone who talks all the time. He replied ‘oh, a yenta’ which is Yiddish for a female gossip. Well, that was just perfect. She’s my little Yenta. The smaller picture shows her in mid-speech, not yawning. The second pic shows her in her favorite spot on top of my old monitor. She thoroughly disapproves of my new flat panel monitor, especially after leaping onto it and discovering she had no purchase. Was scary and hilarious at the same time!! I LOVE that monitor picture – I could totally see Sugarbutt doing something like that! Jupe says, This is my mom’s cat, Pasha. Do you think he has enough toys? He was also found at about 3-4 weeks old and bottle fed before my mom adopted him. He is now almost 20 pounds. One year he absconded with a Christmas ham almost as big as he was (thankfully still wrapped), and had it halfway up the stairs before he was stopped. There’s no such thing as enough toys for a cat! I can totally see Tommy stealing a ham and dragging it up the stairs!
Laura, Teri, Miss Pink, Maren, Amy, Brenda and Jupe, thank you for sharing your cat pictures with me! Thanks to everyone who’s shared their cat and dog pictures with me. That’s it for this go-round – I’ve posted all the pictures I received; let me know if you sent me one and I didn’t post it – maybe we’ll do it again in a few months!
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Previously 2005: And then the last straw came along and broke the fat woman’s back. 2004: Because he’s a skinny bastard. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: Day One. 2000: So obviously I don’t know nothing’ ’bout picking out no paint.]]>

10/4/06

* * * People, I just don’t get it. I don’t get how the previous owners of our new house lived in it like that. Because seriously, the paint job makes my teeth hurt. There’s a spot in the yellow bathroom where they apparently needed to do some touch-up painting, and what color paint did they use to touch up the yellow bathroom? Why, orange. OBVIOUSLY. It was my hypothesis that the previous owners and their five (!) kids moved into the house and thought they’d be there for years, and that they could take their time to get the house looking the way they wanted. Then her mother went into a nursing home and they wanted to be closer to her, so they had to give the house a lick and a promise and hoped to sell it to people who could recognize the lovely underlying bones of the house. Like us. If I could point to one single room where the paint job was anything better than slapdash, I might be able to stand behind my hypothesis. However, I cannot say “The master bedroom (or the living room or the computer room or ANY room) is well-painted and the trim is neatly painted. Obviously they finished off this room and then realized they were going to have to move.”, because there ARE no rooms like that. And it isn’t like the rooms were carefully painted and it’s just the result of wear and tear that they look like they do now. On the ceiling in at least one of the rooms, the ceiling is painted pretty well, but they painted up TO the light fixture, and then there’s this whole area around the light fixture that is unpainted. Then there’s the dirt. See, I really like the previous owners, and they seem like nice people, but the fact that I spent an hour and a half cleaning a CLOSET last night (scrubbing the floor twice to get it somewhat clean, the walls, the ceiling, the shelves) makes me wonder what was going on. He seems to work long hours and she’s a stay-at-home mom with five kids (the oldest three being college aged) and I’m sure her life is a busy one, so did she think the kids were keeping their rooms and closets clean, but they were just shoving everything in the closet and when it was time to move it was just like “Oh good lord, just pack everything up and we’ll let the new owners worry about cleaning the closet!”? I don’t know. But I must say, it’s more gratifying to clean a filthy closet than a mostly-clean one, because you can see a huge difference when you’re done. I was originally going to help Fred put a second coat of primer on the walls in the guest bedroom, but Fred ended up determining that one coat was enough, so after we went and registered my car, we went to Lowe’s and decided on a paint color, and when we got to the house Fred carried everything upstairs and I went upstairs to look and get my painting mojo going, but then I opened the closet and LORD. “Oh, NOTHING’S happening in this closet ’til I clean!” I declared. And like I said, I spent the next hour and a half cleaning the closet, taking down nails and screws, and scrubbing the floor, twice. (And I still feel like it could use a third scrubbing.) Once the closet was done, I taped around the baseboards and doorways so Fred could do around the trim without painting it blue (a lovely smokey blue is what we decided on for the guest bedroom, by the way), and then we took a break and sat on the front porch in the dark and had a snack (I had an apple, and it was good) and we watched the cars go by. So then he went upstairs and painted around the trim and I took the blinds and went into the other room and cleaned each and every slat of the blinds, and then I scrubbed the baseboards around what will be the spud’s bedroom, which took us past eight o’clock, so we headed for home. Tonight, I’m cleaning the closets in what will be the spud’s bedroom (there are two!), which are even worse than the closet last night (and tonight I’m taking the camera with me to show you!), and then I have to tape around the baseboards and doorways so Fred can begin with the primering priming of the spud’s bedroom. I feel like we’re making really good progress. Originally Fred was going to primer the entire house before he started painting, but now he’s thinking he’ll completely finish out one room at a time, instead. I can’t wait to show you pictures of the guest bedroom, once it’s finished!

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Because when I have the radio going, it’s usually country music, I generally hear Paul Harvey at least once a day. I like Paul Harvey enough, I suppose, I usually hear at least one interesting tidbit of news each time I listen to him. But he annoys me a little, too. For one, he likes to say “Half a hundred” instead of “fifty.” Why? WHY, Paul Harvey? “Fifty” is so much more timesaving than “half a hundred” and so much less ANNOYING, too, why be pretentious? WHY? And the other thing he does that invariably annoys me enough so that if I realize it’s coming I’ll turn the radio off or to another channel, is the bit at the end, where he tells a story that is – at the most – mildly humorous. Then he signs off the broadcast by saying “Good day!”, but he says it with this sound to his voice like he is THIS CLOSE to busting out laughing, because the story he told? SO FUNNY. SO SO SO FUNNY. Paul Harvey can barely contain his hysterical laughter at such a funny story, but because he is a PROFESSIONAL, he will contain himself, though you should know that the instant he signs off the air, he will fall over backwards and hold onto his gut and he will let forth gales of laughter. This reminds me of the people online who use LOL as a punctuation mark. Now, I’m not a fan of LOL, but I do realize that it’s gone from meaning “I am sitting here laughing out loud so hard I’m PEEING MY PANTS, JANE!” to “I think that is kind of funny and it made me smile, possibly even laugh quietly to myself, so here is notification of that fact.” At least, that’s how it SHOULD be used. But then there are people who just randomly LOL out of nowhere, for no reason. Like it’s a punctuation mark. “Dear Robyn – Hi, how are you? LOL! I was just thinking that I should email you and tell you I love cats, too. LOL I live in California, and it’s pretty nice, weather-wise, lately. LOL I was wondering, could you tell me when you had gastric bypass surgery? I can’t seem to find the exact date in your archives. LOL Sincerely, Suzie Q.*” Don’t get me started on ROFL. Anyway. What was I saying? Whatever. Paul Harvey? Annoying but informative. LOL? Unnecessary and annoying. LOVEYOUBYE! *Fictional email, totally. But you get the idea. LOL!** **I couldn’t resist.
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All is well in Maddy-ville. She’s getting feistier and more playful by the day. She can go up and down stairs (though that last step down makes her a little leery, since she’s going from carpeted step to wooden floor) and can climb up onto the couch. The big cats are starting to play with her, and since everywhere she goes, she goes at a run, Mister Boogers likes to chase her around like she’s a toy. Or prey, one or the other. Bitey McBiterson strikes again.   More pictures here.    
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Caren says, Since you are crossing over (to the dog side) you have to see my dog Abby. She is yawning in the picture but I swear it looks like she is screaming “I can’t take this crazy place any longer”. She does! Or like she’s screaming “Make the lambs stop screaming…” Heh! Bev says, This is my kitten, Stanley. My hubby found him standing in the middle of a highway. He’s ADORABLE!! This is pretty much my favorite picture of him. EXCELLENT picture! Don’t you love it when all the stars align and you happen to have your camera handy and ready to go and get a picture like this? Chris says, This is my 13 year old cat named Katie. Katie is a tiny little thing but she’s got no less moxie than the biggest cat in the world. The poor thing was rescued by my husband when she was about 4 weeks old and weighed less than a pound, and we brought her in to a home with two other dogs. She held her own and is still doesn’t take any shit off of them now. She does love to snuggle with them and we swear she laughs at their antics, but don’t tell her I told you that. Anyway, I think she’s actually meowing here, but we like to think she’s laughing at another thing those damn dogs did. It looks like a yawn right? Andria says, You said you liked pictures of cats with their tongues out, so I thought I’d send you my favorite picture of my cat Chile, from when she was a kitten. Chile looks a LOT like Tommy did when he was a wee one, before he grew into the behemoth he is today. I love it when cats are at the rumpled stage before they grow out of their kitten-ness. t0rie says, Ever since your request for yawning kitty pics I’ve been trying to get a picture of our cat, Inca, yawning. Sneaky thing yawns all the time, but not in front of the camera. Finally caught one, but it’s not the greatest shot. (Hey – it’s a camera phone, whaddya expect!) But here you go. And had to attach a couple other Cute Kitty Pics of Inca, who is our rescue Burmilla from Mallorca. (Long story, but involved a long weekend in Mallorca then flying back with extra hand luggage of her at my feet on the plane!) What gorgeous green eyes! She reminds me a little of Fred’s old cat Poot, for some reason. Maybe the eyes! Thank you Caren, Bev, Chris, Andria, and t0rie, for sharing your pictures!
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DSC02333 Not as innocent as he looks. * * *
Previously 2005: Annnnnnnnd that’s just a little glimpse into the dorkiness that is my life. 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!]]>