Author: Robyn

Since I know you have many cat-loving readers (and you and Fred are cat experts at this point!), I was hoping that you or your readers might be able to help with a problem I’m having with my two cats, Smudge and Spooky. They are just about seven years old, both males, and have been living together with me since they were both about 8 weeks old. They aren’t litter mates, but they grew up around each other, and have always gotten along pretty well. In the last few days, though, Smudge (who has always been alpha cat) has begun to growl and hiss at Spooky with growing frequency. They’ve even had real fights – as opposed to the play fights that they used to have – that have drawn blood. They’re both indoor cats, and our apartment is set up so that I can’t really separate them without confining one to a very small space (the bathroom). Nothing has changed in our household – we’re home as much as normal, no new pets or visitors – nothing. The only thing I can think is that perhaps the neighborhood prowler, a big tomcat who likes to torment Smudge and Spooky by hanging out by “their” windows, might have begun marking the house, and the scent has somehow gotten to Smudge. But if that was the case, wouldn’t Spooky be freaked out too? I’ve ordered some Shake-Away for the perimeter of the house, just to see if it will keep the tom away. In the meantime, I’d appreciate any ideas you might have – I love both my boys, and don’t want either one of them to be stressed out like this. I’ve never had to deal with anything like that, but I’ll be interested to hear what y’all might suggest. If you have any helpful suggestions, leave ’em in the comments, eh? Thanks!

* * * So yes, I didn’t put up an entry on Friday. I didn’t ’cause it was officially a holiday and I just didn’t wanna, not because I was actually doing anything, because I wasn’t. Saturday, Fred woke me up a little after 8 (I sleep ’til 9 on the weekends, usually) and asked if I wanted to drive up into Tennessee into Amish country. I did – it was a beautiful sunny day, and I didn’t want to spend the entire day inside – and so I got up, exercised, and showered. We left a few minutes after 10, and ended up being gone for a total of 5 1/2 hours. By the time we got home, my hips were KILLING me from all the time spent sitting in the car. Fred wrote an entry about part of the trip, by the way. Make that two The entire way up into Tennessee, the entire time we were in Tennessee, and the entire trip home, Fred pointed out every fucking hawk he spotted. And yes, hawks are cool, but after you’ve seen 63,000 of them soaring in the sky, they become a little less fascinating. For most of us, anyway. Fred couldn’t possibly get enough. EVERY time he saw a hawk, he’d get as excited as if he’d just won the lottery. “Bessie, look!” he’d gasp. “Look, it’s a hawk! No, two! THREE!” “Fascinating.” Also for every minute of the trip, the sun was shining directly on me. It was glaring down on me on the way to Tennessee, and again on the way home. I’m surprised I didn’t end up with a freakin’ sunburn. As it is, my lips are painfully chapped and dry, and nothing I do to them makes them feel better at all. Grrrr. Sunday I got up and exercised and vacuumed the house and was laying on the bed bonding with one of the cats – there are so many of the goddamn things now that I don’t even remember which one it was – when Fred came upstairs and announced that he wanted to go somewhere, but didn’t know where. We brainstormed for a few minutes, and then decided we should kill a few hours shopping for a new couch and loveseat. Why, yes. Yes it HAS only been four years since we got the current set. But that set was so much smaller than the set we had before and, well, I have probably never mentioned this before, but Fred and I are floppers. Which means that when we go to sit down on the living room furniture, instead of delicately lowering our asses to the furniture, we flop down. In case you were wondering, it’s not so good on the furniture if you flop down on it, especially if you flop down on it while you’re a fat chick. Or a fat man, I suppose, but we’ve got no fat men in this house. Aaaaaaaanyway, at some point in the past few months I flopped my fat ass down on the couch and heard something make an unappealing very loud creaky noise in the depths of the couch and the back of the couch went from firm and springy to un-firm and sunken in, and I did what I usually do when I don’t want to deal with something – I shrugged and went about my business. I did mention to Fred that there was an issue with the couch, but since it didn’t really involve him (he sits on the love seat), he pretended to listen and immediately allowed the information to flow out of his other ear. Fast forward to last Wednesday, when Fred came inside after he worked out, and flopped down on the couch to hang out with the kitties. He flopped down on the middle cushion, and the couch responded by making a huge popping noise, and he went backwards and thought he was going to fall onto the floor. He told me about it, and since it doesn’t involve me – I sit on the right-hand side of the couch, not in the middle, so why should I care that there was a problem with the middle of the couch – I shrugged and went about my business. But it apparently startled him enough that he decided we needed a new living room set pretty quickly, thus the reason we went shopping on Sunday. My initial suggestion was that we go to South Huntsville to a consignment shop where we’d visited back in the Summer when we were looking for a bedside table for the spud’s room. It was a very nice little shop, and everything we looked at was reasonably priced, and though I didn’t think we’d find anything we’d really want there, it was worth a try. Fred didn’t think it would be open, but he was willing to make the drive, so off we went. He was right, the store wasn’t open, and as we turned around and headed north, we discussed where we could go next to look. I suggested that we look in the unfinished furniture store where we’d gotten our old kitchen table (the one that has since been replaced) and the spud’s tv cart. He didn’t think that place would be open, either, but as we drove by it, I pointed out that it was, in fact open. “You want me to turn around and go back?” he asked. “Only if it’s not too much of a pain in the ass,” I said. I suspected that anything they’d have in the way of living room furniture was going to be more than we wanted to pay. He got off at the next exit and turned around. “There’s another furniture place, but it’s closed,” he said. “There’s one right there, and it looks like it’s open,” I said. And it was, so we pulled into the parking lot and went in. We were greeted at the door by a man who handed us a flyer and asked if we needed a salesperson. We told him we were just going to look around, and proceeded to do so. This place was HUGE; I’ve never seen a bigger furniture store in my entire life, and everything they carried was fairly reasonably priced and didn’t appear to be crap. We wandered around for close to an hour – and the only thing this place had more than furniture was salespeople; the shoppers were outnumbered by salespeople by 2 to 1, I swear – and finally decided on a couch with recliners at each end. Upon talking to the salesman who’d been following us around, we found that the loveseat was only $20 less than the couch, so we ended up buying two couches instead of a couch and a loveseat. And they’re good solid couches, too. Hopefully I won’t break ’em with my Ass of Doom. This here is the couch we got, in that color and everything. It’s verrrrrrry comfortable, and I can’t believe we have to wait 2 to 4 weeks before they’re going to be delivered! It’ll be worth the wait, though. I guarantee it. We left the furniture store – after Fred put the smack down on the cashier, who was trying to bully him into getting the extended warrantee – and headed for Fred’s favorite use book store. It took us maybe 20 minutes to each come up with three books we wanted; I got a couple of Perri O’Shaughnessy books – I’ve never read anything by that author, so I hope I’ll like ’em – and Catch Me. Fred got a couple of Greg Iles books, and another one I can’t recall the name or author of. Used book stores rock, by the way. So all in all, it was a pretty good weekend of spending time together and shopping. I was a little pissy on Friday because we ended up not going away for the weekend (I was pushing for a trip to Gatlinburg), but I think we ended up having a better time this way. * * * Did I mention that we have too many cats? I don’t know when the last time was that I slept straight through the night. The main reason I get woken up 63,000 times a night would be due to the antics of one Sugar J. Buttocks. He loves to lay on me – LOVES IT – and is prone to climb up on my arm (I lay on my right side for most of the night, with my right hand tucked up under my pillow, and he likes to lay on the part of my arm that’s right there, making a little bed for him) and then get so overwhelmed with love for me that he purrs and kneads and farts simultaneously, and let me tell you – it’s not terribly conducive to sleeping. Sometimes he kneads on my face, and I can handle that for a few minutes, but after a while, even though I trim his claws, it starts to REALLY HURT. So I put my hand up so that he’s kneading on that, and Sugarbutt, overcome with the need to touch me in some way, will start licking my neck. This morning at around 5:00, after being awakened every ten minutes from 2:30 on, I decided I’d finally had enough, and I grabbed the can of compressed air (that conveniently sits by the bed), and I sprayed it at Sugarbutt, who had jumped down and gone off to eat or use the litter box, and was coming back for another attack on me. I ended up spraying the air in his direction no less than ten times before he gave up. Good thing for him he’s so cute, I suppose. Four of the six. Sugarbutt, sunbathing. “Who, me? I didn’t do anything! Nope, not me…” All of today’s uploaded pictures can be seen here. * * * Previously 2004: All your frog are belong to us. 2003: No entry. 2002: I am freezing to death. 2001: I think I need to get a life… 2000: In other words, Robyn is a total spaz about her eyes, comprende? 1999: On the way into work, and the whole time I worked today, I reconsidered that reconsideration.]]>

knack for pointing out hypocrisy. LOVE that man.

* * * Currently reading: Shoveling Smoke, by Margaret Maron. Finished last night: Chore Whore, by Heather H. Howard. I really, REALLY liked this book, because I felt like I was getting an inside view to the way Hollywood stars act like asses to the “help.” I recommend it if Hollywood-insider stuff is your thing. * * * I went to the bank yesterday morning to visit the ATM. I had a hair appointment later in the morning, and I needed to get money. Sure, I could have written a check for the cut and color, but I’m trying to drastically cut down on how many checks I write; I’m paying cash for more stuff, and trying to pay as many bills online as I can, so that I don’t have to wait for checks to clear. I don’t know why it drives me so nuts to wait for checks to clear; I just hate it that it can take a week or more for the mortgage check to go through. I have, lately, kept a closer eye on the checking account, because it’s been my practice in the past to use the debit card many, many times, then when I sit down to see how much money we’ve got in the checking account, it takes me an hour to make sure everything’s been entered into Quicken. I love Quicken, by the way. So in the last few months I’ve made sure to go online and check the checking account, and make sure any debit-card transactions have been entered and everything’s up to date. ANYWAY. So I went to the credit union yesterday to hit the ATM. And as I put my debit card in the ATM, I realized that I had no idea what my PIN was. I get a new debit card every year (er. Maybe every two years?), and along with the debit card comes a new PIN. I thought I’d memorized it, but apparently not. I ended up punching four different PINs into the ATM, and none of them were right. I cursed myself, shrugged, and went home. Before I was even home, the fraud detection department had called and left a message at the house, and then called Fred at work to let him know that there’d been “suspicious activity” on the account. Good god. Can’t a girl be a dumbass without the whole world going into an uproar about it? * * * I spent a LOT of time on the phone yesterday. I ended up touching base with just about every member of my family at one point or another during the day. Thank god for unlimited long distance calling! Speaking of phones, we’re counting down the days until we can cancel our T-Mobile phone service and go with Verizon. When Fred goes hiking – in the middle of Madison, mind you – we invariably get cut off by crappy cell phone service. He called T-Mobile the other day to see when our contract with them expires, and while he was talking to them – while the customer service rep was trying to convince him to stay with T-Mobile, even – the call got dropped. Yeah. I think that’s a pretty good clue that we need to go ahead and switch, wouldn’t you? * * * Poor, tortured Booger. Fred thought this one was funny ’cause you can see the Poo fangs clearly. He looks more like a baby giraffe than Yoda here, I think. Every night at snack time, I put a packet of wet food on a plate, and the kittens and Miz Poo share it. They get VERY excited at snack time, believe you me. Note that one Miz Poo is about the size of Sugarbutt and Tom Cullen, combined. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2004: For once, he had no good comeback. 2003: “Oh yeah. I hate this feeling. I should have just had a Diet Coke.” 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry. 1999: Can you tell this irks me? ]]>

cat page? I added Tom Cullen and Sugarbutt the other night. I’m not done by a long shot – I need to add my sister’s cats to the “Kitty relatives” section, and I need to do a page for Mia’s babies, but other than that, I think I’ll be all set. Oh, and I think I’ll add a page for the spud’s cat who died years ago, because she counts. For that matter, I probably ought to do a page for the cat we had when I was growing up. But if I do that, I’d need to do a page for my very first cat, Suzie, and my favorite cat – the cat who made me love orange tabbies more than anything in the world – Charlie, who was one of Suzie’s kittens. Oh, it’s a slippery slope.

* * * Thank god for the internet. I had to drive to Ardmore yesterday afternoon to go to Miz Poo’s vet. When we were there last week, the vet prescribed Clavam0x for Miz Poo in liquid form. The problem is that Miz Poo loathes the taste of the Clavam0x and has been drooling it back out as soon as Fred shoots it in her mouth. Then she runs around and drools and shakes her head so that drool goes everywhere, and as the person responsible for cleaning the floors she splatters her drool all over, I was less than pleased. So I called this morning to see if we could get the medication – or something similar – in pill form. They told me I could come get Am0xicillin, and I had to wait until the afternoon because the spud had custody of the car. ANYway. I headed for Ardmore, and about halfway there, the road was blocked off by several police cars and a fire truck. A policeman was shooing cars off to the left, so I turned down that road, and just basically tried to head in the correct direction. Only, after a while I had no fucking clue where I was or how to get back to highway 53, so I called Fred, who consulted Google Maps and sent me in the right direction. All in all, it took me almost an hour and a half to get to the vet and home again, when it usually takes me about an hour. It was okay, though. I had some good music to listen to. I might not have any clue what the song MEANS, but Gavin DeGraw’s Chariot is a really good song. * * * Over at Smart and Sassy, someone asked if she needed to tip at Starbucks every time she got coffee, and in the comments Jane was like “What the fuck? I’m supposed to tip everyone who makes minimum wage?”, and I – well, first of all I laughed, because that Jane, she’s funny. Then I got lost in a daydream where the entire world was made so that we could tip everyone. For instance, if I’m at Sam’s and there’s someone with their fucking cart blocking the entire aisle, I can say “Lady, I’ll give you a buck to get your ass out of my way”, hand her a buck, and get her the hell out of the way. Of course, the problem there would be the people who saw an opportunity and exploited it. People could probably make a living hanging out at Wal-Mart and being a pain in the ass. Now, they just do it for free. * * * I had to call Blu3 Cross yesterday to check on a claim, and apparently in the few months since I last called there, they’ve instituted a voice recognition system, where you talk to the computer on the other end of the line like it’s a real person, and I don’t know. It felt kind of weird and freaky and wrong. I had to tell the computer my contract number, and she it heard a “b” as “t”, and when it repeated the contract number back to me, it said “Right?” at the end, and I thought that was odd and far too casual for a fucking computer who’s talking to a customer, because as a customer and a HUMAN, I outrank the computer, and I’d like a little RESPECT, thank you. Anyway, I said “No”, and believe you me sister I really REALLY wanted to say “The number is WRONG, bitch!”, but I didn’t, because they probably could have figured out who I was, and the next thing I’d know there’d be a computer pounding on the door, trailing its wires down the street, saying – in a scary, mechanical, bitchy voice – “WHO YOU CALLIN’ A BITCH, BITCH?” I don’t like that voice recognition shit. Next thing you know, the computers will be taking! over! the world! * * * Someone in my comments yesterday pointed out that we’ve had six cats before, so this should be nothing new to us. Actually, the most cats we’ve ever had up until now, was before Fancypants ran away, and we had five cats. We got Mister Boogers to “replace” Fancypants, and then when Tubby died, we didn’t adopt another cat (it being Fred’s idea to let the cat population dwindle down to two cats. Ha! Ha!). So we have six now, but it really seems more like ten. There are cats EVERYWHERE, especially because most of them like to follow me around, particularly when I’m in the kitchen. (Sugarbutt and Tom Cullen particularly enjoy hanging out in the kitchen, because they hope food might magically fall from the sky). Right now I’ve got Tom Cullen draped across my right foot, Miz Poo in the cat bed to the left of me, Sugarbutt in the cat bed to the right of me, Mister Boogers on the recliner in the corner of the computer room, and Spanky in the middle of the floor. We are definitely going to officially name him Sugarbutt, because it’s just a perfect name. I did threaten to name him “Doo McGillicuddy” and just call him Sugarbutt, but Fred wouldn’t go for that. Oh, and in response to a few of you who asked, yes. Sugarbutt and Tom Cullen play with Mister Boogers. Sugarbutt plays with him most of all, but they both definitely play with him at different times. Mister Boogers just adores pinning Sugarbutt down and grooming him. “Hi, Boogie! Hi!” The positions they end up sleeping in, I just don’t know. How can that be comfortable? Brudderly love. All of today’s uploaded pictures can be seen here. * * * Previously 2004: All this cleaning is making me lightheaded. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: Little things make me happy. 1999: Guest entry by Fred.]]>

Gotta vacuum the house. Gotta clean the bathroom. Gotta watch some of the shows on the DVR. Gotta scrub out the litter box. Gotta clean the kitchen. Gotta finish my book. Gotta make a dent in the pile of magazines I read every month. And the list is endless. But I sit in front of the computer, and I keep on clicking, and I don’t know why. I really don’t think it’s a procrastination thing, because I do it whether there’s housework to be done or shows to be watched. At some point I’ll stop and I’ll say to myself “What is it? What are you looking for? WHAT?” And I never know. Sometimes I think I’m looking for a connection, and I think about turning on MSN Messenger, or finding a chat room to lurk in, but that’s not it. But I don’t know what I am looking for. It’s a fucking mystery.

* * * I read somewhere that Nicole Richie may be joining the cast of The O.C. Please, god, let it NOT be true. That girl annoys the holy fuck out of me. And she’s not even cute! She’s like an animated cadaver. I mean, I don’t care if she wants to be skin and bones, but it pains me to look at her. She was slightly cute during the first season of The Simple Life (not that I watched past the first episode of that show), but anyone’s going to look cute next to Paris Hilton, really. Speaking of Richies, I turned the TV on the other morning when I rolled out of bed – I like to listen to CMT when I’m putting in my contacts and getting dressed and all that – and imagine my surprise when I saw Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie on the Grand Ole Opry stage together, singing Ruby. Well, Kenny Rogers was singing the bulk of the song, and Lionel Richie would do the “Don’t take your love to town/ I still need some company/ Don’t take your love to town/ God sakes turn around” lines. It was funny as hell (maybe you have to be a Kenny Rogers fan, I don’t know. I thought it was funny as hell.) because Lionel Richie was totally mocking the deep, overdramatic tone Kenny Rogers used in those lines. Kenny Rogers looked pretty amused, too. I’d offer up a link of the video, but a cursory Google search gives me nothin’. I love Kenny Rogers. I just went and looked at his website, and was reminded anew of just how many songs he has that I love. I may end up spending the afternoon downloading some of them. (Side note: I was a kid when Lucille came out, and there’s a line in the song that goes “You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille/ Four hungry children and a crop in the field”, and for the longest time I thought it was “Four hungry children and they crap in the field.” and I could never figure out why the adults in the room thought that Kenny Rogers singing about children crapping in a field was okay.) * * * Currently reading: Chore Whore, by Heather H. Howard. Recently finished: Velocity, by Dean Koontz, and Gone, by Lisa Gardner. Both very good books that kept me up well past midnight because I could NOT put them down. * * * Ever since I went and got Sugarbutt and brought him home from the vet’s, Fred has made it clear to me that we were NOT adopting him. I’d say something about how cute Sugarbutt was, playing with Tom Cullen, and Fred would say “Yeah, Tom Cullen sure is going to miss Sugarbutt when he goes to be adopted!” Over the last week, I’ve stopped saying anything about the possibility of Sugarbutt (I was really dropping very broad, very strong hints about it), in hopes that without any pressure from me or anyone else, Fred would come to the conclusion that we should adopt Sugarbutt all on his own. Every day I dreaded opening my email, afraid that there’d be one from the shelter manager telling me that it was time to take Sugarbutt to the pet store. And every time y’all left a “PLEASE adopt Sugarbutt!” comment, I cringed. Because Fred? Doesn’t like the peer pressure. AT ALL. And I was afraid he’d be all “You can’t tell me what to do! Sugarbutt GOES!” Which is why, you might or might not have noticed, I didn’t respond to those comments, in hopes that if I didn’t bring any more attention to them, Fred might not really notice them. Anyway, last night we were laying down after dinner, chatting about this and that, and I just got the feeling that it was time for a serious discussion. “Can we have a serious discussion about something?” I said. “If we must,” he said. “What can I do to convince you to adopt Sugarbutt?” I was willing, y’all, to do ANYTHING. I was willing to get a job, to swear to stop buying books forever, write the novel he’s always pushing me to write. ANYTHING. He sighed. I steeled myself to hear him remind me that I’d sworn, back when we started fostering kittens, that I wouldn’t beg to keep any of the kittens we fostered. I thought maybe he’d say “Have Miz Poo put to sleep, and you can keep Sugarbutt” (not that he really wants Miz Poo put to sleep; he just knows there’s no way on god’s green earth I’d agree to that. She’s my BAYBEE!). I didn’t know what he’d say, but from the sound of that sigh, it didn’t look good. “Please. I decided a week ago we were going to adopt him, I’ve just been torturing you.” WHEW! Then he went on to say “But no more foster kittens again, ever.” and when I pushed him he said it was because he was afraid we’d end up with 20 cats, and I swore that if I ever seriously tried to get him to let me adopt another foster kitten, he could pack up Miz Poo, drive me to the vet, and I’d take her in and have her put to sleep myself. He relented, but I have to put the promise in writing and sign it. So Sugarbutt is joining the family! And I still get to foster kittens, though not ’til sometime next Spring! Woohoo! “SUCKERS!!!!!!” All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2004: I seem to be a tad less fluttery today. 2003: No entry. 2002: Pictures. 2001: Fred in the dog house. Literally. 2000: I said “It’s a good thing you put your first AND last name, PLUS ‘your daughter’, otherwise I’d never have known!” 1999: Oddly, even though he’s had two doses of the antibiotic, he’s feeling worse instead of better. ]]>

Internet Predators. And it was STUNNING. Dateline rented a house and wired it with sound and cameras, working hand in hand with the online vigilante group Perverted Justice. Volunteers for Perverted Justice were posing in chat rooms as teens, and saying they were home alone and ready for sex. It was STUNNING how many men sent pictures of themselves in compromising positions, pictures that SHOWED THEIR FACES, and then showed up at a strange house to have sex with what they thought would be a 13 or 14 year old girl or boy. STUNNING. I mean, for the love of god, how fucking STUPID do you have to be? And then when the reporter stepped out and told the men (the ones who stuck around – several of them took off running) to sit down, he heard the exact same bullshit from every one of them. “I’ve never done this before.” “I wasn’t coming to have sex.” Bullshit. BULL. SHIT. At one point I had to have Fred pause the show so I could rant “JESUS CHRIST, are there ANY normal men left in this entire fucking world? Between the ones who try to hook up with 13 year-olds on the internet, and the horror stories you tell me about guys you know, and the ones going to other countries to have sex with 7 and 8 year olds?” (That from an Oprah show I’d watched earlier in the day) These men showing up were just average guys, guys you’d see living next door to you, guys you’d see in your every day life, a Special Ed teacher, a military guy, there was even a RABBI who’d sent extremely explicit pictures of himself to what he thought was a 13 year-old boy, and when he showed up, he sputtered the same tired bullshit. I’ve never done this before! I wasn’t coming to have sex! Someone needs to write these assholes new excuses. This makes me want to wrap my child in bubble wrap and lock her in her room until she’s 35. Not that internet predators are going to target her, after all – at 17, I’m sure she’s FAR too old for them. I mean, seriously. WHAT THE FUCK is going on? Has the entire world gone completely fucking nuts? PS: And apparently these idiots are learning that there are consequences to their actions. My heart fucking breaks for them.

* * * Know what pisses me off? (NO, not “everything”.) The fact that you can only buy O.B. Silk Ease Tampons in multi-packs. According to the O.B. page, the Silk Ease tampons are better than the regular tampons because with the Silk Ease ones, you can “say good-bye to the ouch factor.” I’m not going into details (you’re welcome!), but after two experiences with the “ouch factor” this past weekend, I’m tossing the regular tampons and only buying the Silk Ease ones. BUT. The only kind of Silk Ease tampons you can find in the stores or online are in multi-packs. And since I’ve been on the Seasonale, my periods have been very light (you’re welcome!), and I can get through most of it with regular tampons. Thus, the two larger sizes included in the multi-pack are a waste.

Thank god for eBay. On eBay, there’s someone selling the Silk Ease in the regular size. I seriously considered the 300 Silk Ease tampons for a “buy it now” of $45, but I really don’t need to have THAT many tampons laying around. (Although the cats really enjoy batting the (do I really have to say “unused”? I’m sure I do, or someone will misunderstand.) unused tampons around.) eBay rocks, that’s all. * * * I called in a couple of prescription refills on Saturday (Toprol XL and Seasonale, if you must know) with the intention of picking them up when I was in the grocery store this morning. Last night, the phone rang and Fred answered it, then handed it to me. “Hi Robyn,” the woman on the other end of the line said. “This is (someone) from (your pharmacy). You called in a couple of refills on November 5th?” “Right,” I said, thinking that she was going to tell me there was some kind of problem. “Well,” she said. “They’ve been filled, and you need to pick them up before the 17th, or we’re going to return them to stock.” “Goddamn, woman!” I said. “Give me time to pick them up! It’s only been a day since I called in the refills!” Okay, I didn’t really say that. What I meekly said was “I was going to pick them up tomorrow.” “Okay, see you then!” she said. I hung up the phone and said to Fred, “What the fuck? It’s not like I make a practice of calling in refills and then never picking them up!” I wonder if this is a new policy the pharmacy has, to call and remind customers to come get their prescriptions. If so, I’m already annoyed. * * * The spud, when she goes to the mall, like to eat something called honey chicken. She’s had it several times, and every time she’s had it, it makes her stomach feel funny. Yesterday, she barely made it home before she was running upstairs to throw up. “Why have you continued to eat it if it makes your stomach feel funny?” I asked her last night when she was feeling a little better. “Because it’s REALLY good!” she said. She thought about it for a moment, then added “I don’t think I’m going to eat any more of it, though.” I think that’s a good call on her part. * * * “Mom, look! Mom! MOM! Look, Mom, I’m pretending like I’m dead! Like I died with my eyes open! Don’t I look like I’m dead for real? I’m not, though, don’t worry, Mom. But I could be! But I’m not. I’m not, Mom. Take a picture Mom, quick! I can’t hold this pose for long!” “Mom! MOM! Look, I look like I died with my tongue hanging out of my mouth! Like Sugarbutt choked me! I look real dead, don’t I? You should put up this picture in your journal you write about me, and tell everyone I died! With my tongue hanging out of my mouth! That would be funny! But I’m not dead, Mom. Remember, I’m not dead.” “Bob! BOB! Bob, over here! I spend 23 hours of my day on this bed, why are you looking all around like you don’t KNOW where I am? All “Duhhhhr? I don’t know where that voice is COMIN’ from! Is it god? Is it satan? Am I goin’ crazy?” Bob, bring me some of that primo catnip, wouldya? Yeah, I KNOW you’re not my errand boy, GOD, just BRING IT HERE or I’ll send Tommy to kick your BUTT, and you know he’ll do it. That boy’s crazy. Got them crazy eyes.” Tom Cullen on the back end of a yawn. Best. Picture. EVER. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: Meme. 2002: “How fucking much is that goddamn bread? A dollar ninety-fucking-five? Okay, put a couple of the motherfuckers in my cart, would you, fuckwad?” 2001: I briefly considered making a citizen’s arrest. 2000: (ie, “It’s all the fault of that fat bitch you married!”) 1999: I woke this morning at 2:30ish, feeling something wasn’t quite right. ]]>

reading: Velocity, by Dean Koontz. Finished last night: Girl Boy Etc., by Michael Weinreb. Bor-ring. I don’t recommend this book; I had the hardest time finishing it because it didn’t hold my interest at all. And all the stories were girl-boy relationship-type stories, which usually interest me. Not this time. This is the first Red Dress Ink book written by a male author, and I think Red Dress Ink screwed the pooch on this one.

* * * Since I’ve not got a damn thing to write about today, I’ll go through the comments I’ve saved and answer some of them. Why do men have nipples? I will assume that is Fred’s…the fucker 🙂 That’s regarding this picture: Actually, Why Do Men Have Nipples? is my book. I bought it after I read about it in a magazine, ’cause I thought it sounded interesting. And the answer to why men have nipples: we all start out in a similar way in the embryo, following the female template until around 6 weeks, when a male embryo’s male sex chromosome kicks in and it starts to develop its male characteristics, which is why men have nipples and also some breast tissue. I haven’t actually read the book, but I’m sure I’ll have more interesting tidbits to share with y’all along the way. I found this site, which says your blog is worth a LOT more than $25,000.

My blog is worth $40,082.34.
How much is your blog worth?

I got another email from someone claiming to be interested in buying Bitchypoo.com. I emailed both of the people back and told them that, depending on the terms, I’d entertain any offers over $25,000. Surprisingly, I haven’t heard back from either of them. Heh! How do you get those great pictures of the cats yawning? They are the best! Mostly, I hang out where the cats are sleeping (actually, they sleep where I spend the day, so it works out well!), and when they start moving around after they’ve been napping for a while, I get the camera ready, because have you ever seen a cat wake up and NOT stretch and yawn? I should point out again that for every picture I post, I probably delete three. Thank god for digital cameras, because if I had to pay to have every picture I took printed – like back in the olden days – I’d be constantly broke. You guys originally decided to keep M-O-O-N for the enjoyment of Meester Boogers, but you haven’t really said if they’ve hit if off yet & are playing together & Sugarbutt, too?? Tom Cullen and Sugarbutt play with each other the majority of the time, but Mister Boogers gets in there and tussles with them, too. I think that now that the kittens are getting bigger, Mister Boogers isn’t scared he’ll break them. I’ve come upon Mister Boogers play-fighting with both Tom Cullen and Sugarbutt recently, and I’m pleased to announce that both the kittens were able to hold their own. I noticed you’re an avid reader. Is anything you are reading close to how Jennifer Weiner writes. I love her books and am out of something to read so I thought you might have a suggestion….. I very highly recommend Conversations with the Fat Girl, by Liza Palmer (who, by the way, has a blog!). I almost never keep the books I read (if I kept every book I read, there’d be no room in this house for people OR cats), but I’m keeping this one. I also really enjoyed We Thought You Would be Prettier, by Laurie Notaro – it made me laugh out loud several times, and I actually think it’s the best of her books. Other books in the Chick Lit genre I’d recommend: The Next Big Thing, by Johanna Edwards, Horseplay, by Judy Reene Singer, Cold Feet, a book of short stories by various authors, and anything by Janet Evanovich. If anyone else has recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments. If you’re looking for Chick Lit, Red Dress Ink usually puts out some pretty good stuff. Sometimes they’ll put out a clunker (see above regarding Girl Boy Etc.), but for the most part I usually enjoy most of the books they put out. Hmm. Those are the only comments I was saving, apparently. If anyone has a burning question they must have answered (or something you’re just curious about) feel free to leave a comment, and next time I’ve got nothin’ to write about, I’ll answer it! * * * Last night I woke in the middle of the night, and I had Sugarbutt draped over my head, Tom Cullen perched on my hip, Mister Boogers curled up behind my knees, and Miz Poo curled up in the small of my back. I guess it’s a good thing that Fred and I sleep in separate beds; there’s no room for him in mine! Nicknames we’ve given Sugarbutt lately: “Shoogie” (to rhyme with “Boogie”, which is what we call Mister Boogers sometimes), and “Doo McGillicuddy”. Don’t ask. Also, we’ve referred to Mister Boogers as “Boogerbutt” more than once recently. Well, well, well. Look who’s a big tough talker, but when the can of whoopass is opened and a little orange kitten gets to smackin’, guess who cowers like a great big girly-man. Smackdown in action. One should always stretch well after a smackdown is completed. Well, really. What better place to take a bath? All of today’s uploaded pictures – including more Sugarbutt vs. Mister Boogers pictures – are here. * * * Previously 2004: Apparently I had nothing to write about last year, either, ’cause it’s all meme and comment-answering. 2003: No entry. 2002: Now, THAT is a church name! 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry. 1999: She thought “gauze” was plural, so obviously the singular would be “gau”!]]>

* * * As I mentioned above, I’ve started working out regularly again after some slackery, and am even lifting weights again. I haven’t lifted weights in at least a year, possibly two, because I was getting bored with the weight-lifting. Anyway, Tuesday morning I did lower body weights, working out my quads, hamstrings, calves, and abs. Tuesday afternoon I said to Fred “My legs are all noodle-y still. I expected the noodliness to go away.” And he said “So what you’re saying is that you have noodly appendages?” Clearly I’m the Second Coming of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Worship me!

* * * Huh. I was wondering why Tom Cullen was snooping around in the stamp drawer… * * *Completely unrelated to the above, did you know that if you’re right-handed and you try to write with your left hand, it really starts to hurt after a few sentences? A lot. I think I’m going to make it my resolution for 2006 to learn to write as well (or at least legibly) with my left hand as I can with my right. * * *Taking Miz Poo to the vet yesterday was pretty uneventful. The vet confirmed that she thought it was a rodent ulcer, and after having Miz Poo’s usual vet fax over her records, she said that she wanted to try giving her Depo-Medrol shots, one yesterday, the next in three to four weeks, and the next three to four weeks after that (I think). She also said that it very much seemed infected, despite the fact that Miz Poo finished a course of Clavamox last week, and so she prescribed Clavamox for two weeks. If this doesn’t work, she said she’d like to refer Miz Poo to a dermatologist in Nashville. Oh, lord. Please let this work. The idea of having to drive two hours to Nashville with Miz Poo howling sadly the entire way does not fill me with joy. In case you’ve ever wondered what a cat with a rodent ulcer looks like, here you go: Poor baby. Have I mentioned that Sugarbutt is a little pig who’ll eat anything that isn’t nailed down? Every time I step foot in the kitchen, he’s in there getting under my feet, acting like he’s starving to death. I think he’s about doubled in size in the last three weeks – I need to weigh him and see how much he’s weighing these days, just out of curiosity. He’s definitely bigger than Tom Cullen now. He’s not the runt of the litter anymore! Appearances to the contrary, I assure you they’re not kissing. “Hey! This is the kitchen! And there’s food in the kitchen! And I’m starving to death! IT MUST BE FATE!” Snoozing Tom Cullen. Kitten with a ‘tude. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2004: The spud and I stood patiently by while the man chattered at the school employees for several minutes and then my head exploded, scattering brain matter everywhere. 2003: “Jessica Lynch!” I said. “Isn’t she the only POW we’ve ever had in all of history?” 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry. 1999: She went in and treated the whole office to a very loud gagging sound (she gets that from her mother), and came out a few minutes later a little less green. ]]>

The Brown Bunny and it was such a piece of godawful crap that I fast-forwarded to the dirty part, and was so grossed out by the thought of Vincent Gallos penis that I had to turn the fucking thing off. Yet this, where he’s offering up his sperm for 1 million bucks, is apparently for real. Oh yeaaaaaaaah, I know that I’d want to birth the fruit of Vincent Gallo’s loins. Pardon me while I gag at the thought. He’s a class act, that Vincent Gallo: Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr. Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration. In fact, for the next 30 days, he is offering a $50,000 discount to any potential female purchaser who can prove she has naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who can prove a direct family link to any of the German soldiers of the mid-century will also receive this discount. I get that he – or whoever wrote the page – is attempting to be funny, but I think he just comes off as a shithead. In other words, my opinion of Vincent Gallo has not changed in the slightest.

* * * On a side note, I always get Natasha Lyonne and Chloë Sevigny mixed up. * * * Yesterday afternoon, Fred came home early because the network at work was down. After we’d both eaten lunch, we went for a drive around our neighborhood so that he could show me a house that was for sale just down the street from the house we came very close to buying before we ended up buying this one. And then we drove through our favorite subdivision in Madison to see if there were any new houses for sale. There was, and it was very affordable, but way too small. This whole looking-at-houses thing doesn’t go very well with our plan of putting this house up for sale the spring of 2007 and buying a house in the country, on a lot more land. Not that we’re seriously looking or anything, but just looking at cute houses always gets us all excited and we start to rethink whether we really want to move out of Madison, and then I get excited about the possibility of buying a particular house, and then Fred says “Nah. I’m not really that interested. I was just talking.” In other words, I think he does it to fuck with me. Fucker. * * * This afternoon I will be driving up to near the Tennessee border to take Miz Poo to the vet. Her lip, which had gone back to normal once we started giving her oil every night has puffed up to horrifying proportions. We’ve tried the whole gamut of stuff – steriods, antihistamines, lip cream – but nothing has made a dent in the size of her lip. The last few times Fred took her to the regular vet, he just kind of shrugged and said he didn’t know what it could be, so I’m taking her to a new vet. The vet I’m taking her to is one of the vets who does a lot of the care for the shelter kitties. This is the vet I take the foster kittens to when it’s time for them to be spayed and neutered. I haven’t seen her face-to-face much, except for the time I took Mia in when she was very sick (and ended up having to be put to sleep), but I got a very good vibe off her. A getting a good vibe from a vet is worth the 25 minute drive to get there, even if Miz Poo will be howling the entire way. * * * Such a pretty poser. Tom Cullen spilled right out of the cat bed. This is what happens when two growing kittens try to fit in the same little cat bed. Tragic. Fun with hair scrunchies. More fun with hair scrunchies. The long-suffering look makes me laugh until I wheeze. He just sat there and made no attempt to get the scrunchie off his head and gave us this look, like “What are you doing to me now?” All of today’s uploaded pictures (including more “Fun with scrunchies” pictures) are here. * * * Previously 2004: “Squee!” it reiterated. “Squee! Squee! Squee!” 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: Is it just me, or do you get pissed off when you’re the victim of unexpected pain? 2000: No entry. 1999: Damn that Halloween candy!]]>

new graphic! This one created by the wonderful Lisa. Thanks, Lisa! If anyone wants to create a December logo with a Christmas-type theme, I could use one.

* * * We had more trick-or-treaters than I thought we would last night. I bought three huge bags of candy (two of Twizzlers, one of Skittles, since I was under orders not to get anything chocolate), and the spud handed out almost all of it. They started showing up sometime before 6, and right before 7:30 we turned the light off. Now I can’t believe it’s freakin’ November 1st. And it’s gray and rainy outside. And the house desperately needs to be vacuumed from top to bottom, and the kitchen floor needs to be scrubbed, and the upstairs bathroom needs to be cleaned. And I don’t WANNA. I suppose I’ll at least vacuum the entire house (the downstairs hasn’t been done since last Wednesday. How nasty is that?) and clean the kitchen floor. The rest can wait for another day. * * * We watched The Machinist and Bewitched over the weekend. The first was surprisingly good, and the second was cute, but needed to be at least half an hour shorter. * * * I’ve got nuttin’ to say. I’m going to babble on about the kittens and toss up some pictures and call it an entry, eh? * * * Tom Cullen and Sugarbutt are now out of the kitten room all the time. It’s working… okay, I suppose, except that at some point in the middle of the night, they like to get up on the bed and play, and keep me awake with the cuteness. And one night, I woke up while Tom Cullen was climbing on my head, and I snoozed for about ten minutes with him draped across my head, but he was purring so loudly it was making my brain rattle, and so I moved him so he was draped across my hip, which ticked him off and made him stomp off and look for a better place to sleep. The next step is to take the litter box out of the kitten room – which I did this morning – because they both know exactly where the other litter box is, and I’ve seen them both use it. I think that the litter box in the kitten room is getting more use from the older cats rather than the kittens, and if I’m going to clean out the litter box twice a day, I’d rather only do one instead of two. My brother emailed me and told me that I should get a Litter Robot, because he had tried the Litter Maid, but it would jam up because one of his cats was peeing so much, but he got the Litter Robot and it seems to be working well for him. I went and checked out the page and read the FAQ, and when I saw that kittens under 5 pounds won’t set off the sensor, I got a mental image of Tom Cullen stepping into the Litter Robot and getting tossed around and it made me laugh. I don’t think we’ll get a Litter Robot just yet, for the single reason that Spot and Spanky are so skittish that they’d probably start peeing in the closet and I’d have to kill them both. Plus, it’s kind of expensive. I guess when I get to the point where I’m sick to death of cleaning out the litter box, I’ll start harassing Fred to let me get one. Surprisingly enough, I’m not sick to death of cleaning out the litter box. YET. I cleaned out the pie plate and filled it with fresh water (it was getting nasty, with all the food and dead ants floating around in the water), and Sugarbutt decided he was more interested in the water than the food. Craaaazy eyes! (That bubble wrap? BEST TOY EVER.) “Please, sir, may I have another?” Brudderly love. “The paper comes out here…” “But where does it COME FROM?” All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2004: Fuckin’ yawnsville. 2003: No entry. 2002: Bob Riley’s campaign strategy is to say “Nuh uh!” 2001: Did you know that they make foam cups in espresso size? 2000: No entry. 1999: Such appetizing topics, eh?]]>