Author: Robyn

One Coffee With, by Margaret Maron. Finished last night: Meet Me on Platform 8. Good book – which surprised me, because I’m a total snob, and the fact that Kelly Ripa was quoted on the cover of the book put me off. I’ll never doubt you again, Kelly Ripa. I promise! I feel like I’m always saying “It was a good book, which surprised me…” and “It was a good movie. I was surprised that it was so good!”, which makes me sound like I spend all my time sitting around grumbling “This movie is going to suck. Why bother even trying to watch it??” and “God. WHY did I buy this book? I don’t want to read it!” Um. Actually, I DO do that an awful lot. I guess I’ll just shut up now. Movies we’ve liked lately: Paparazzi, Dragonfly, The Woodsman, and After the Sunset. We tried to watch Suspect Zero this weekend, but got so bored that we turned it off about half an hour in. We also started Hotel Rwanda, but we were having such a hard time understanding what everyone was saying that we turned it off. We’ll probably give that one another try in the future. I haven’t seen The Notebook yet, but so many people have said it’s good that I’ve actually moved it to the top of my Netflix queue so I can watch it soon. Also, I have Birth, which I haven’t watched yet. Hopefully it won’t suck. Oh, and if you haven’t watched any episodes of Eyes, you oughta. I liked it so much that I convinced Fred to give it a try, and he liked it, too. It’s the absolutely perfect role for Tim Daly – who gets hotter and hotter with age.

* * * Spot and Miz Poo had to go to the vet yesterday, because they both needed their immunoregulan shots, and Spot was due for his annual checkup and shots and everything. After Friday, I’ve sworn off trying to get Spot in the box, so I told Fred he had to get the cats in the box before he left for work. Our vet opens to let people drop off their pets starting at 7, so I intended to leave the house exactly at 7, drop off the cats, and then go back and pick them up when the vet had seen them. We live very close to the vet, thank god. So Fred brought both the cat carriers upstairs. One was a cardboard carrier that we got ages and ages ago at either a vet’s office, or when we adopted Tubby or Miz Poo. It’s similar to this one. Fred opened that cat carrier, grabbed Miz Poo, and before she could even whimper he had her in the carrier, with it closed. Spot was locked in the bathroom, because Fred is a smart, smart man. He knows that the best thing to do when dealing with a neurotic, VERY FAST cat like Spot is to lock him in a small room and then bring the cat carrier into the room, so that the cat has very few places to run and hide, and there’s no danger of a bastardly Booger jumping into the carrier and fucking things up. So Fred grabbed the other cat carrier – it looks like this – and went into the bathroom. I sat in bed and listened, sure that Fred would walk in, pick up Spot, push him in the cat carrier, and walk out. All in the space of ten seconds. Instead what I heard was Fred speaking soothingly to Spot. “Come on, buddy, that’s a good buddy, this won’t hurt,” he soothed. And then I heard loud thumping noises, the sound of the carrier sliding across the floor, and the sound that I imagine a demon from hell would make. An UNHAPPY demon from hell. For the next five minutes all I could hear was: Fred: Speaking soothingly. ::thumpthumpthump:: ::demon from hell:: ::the skidding sound of plastic on slate:: Fred: Speaking soothingly, but not sounding quite so calm. ::thumpthumpthump:: ::demon from hell:: Repeat about thirty times. Believe you me, I was sitting on that bed laughing my ASS off. Because I got zero, zilch, nada sympathy when I told my tale of Spot-chasing woe to Fred last week, so I figure turn-about is fair play. As I was sitting nekkid on the bed, the sheets wrapped around me, laughing so hard I was almost crying, Fred called out to me. “Bessie!” he said. “What?” I said. Long silence. “He peed all over the carrier.” Long silence while I try to figure out what I’m supposed to suggest. Spot let out a sad, drawn-out demon-from-hell sound. “I think you’re going to have to take him to the vet and then come back and get Miz Poo,” Fred said. “Take him to the vet… in a carrier filled with cat pee?” I said, confused. By now I’d put my nightgown on and was standing outside the bathroom. “No, we’ll let Miz Poo out of that carrier, put Spot in the carrier she’s in, and you can take him, buy a carrier from the vet, and come back to get Miz Poo.” I thought that over. “Okay…” So I let Miz Poo out of the carrier – she slunk under the bed, her eyes dark, and gave me a look like “What the hell was THAT all about?? – and took the carrier to the bathroom. Fred opened the door, Spot in his arms, and put him in the carrier. “I used these towels to clean the pee off him,” he said helpfully, pointing to the sodden pile of urine-soaked towels, which were reeking so badly that you could actually see the stink lines coming off of them. He left the room, plastic carrier in hand, and I picked up the stinky towels, put them on the washing machine, and cleaned the spot where the towels had been. In the cat carrier, Spot howled mournfully. Under the bed, Miz Poo gave me the stink eye. Mister Boogers sniffed around the carrier, and then stood up, pushing down on the top of the carrier. He’s broken Miz Poo out of the carrier before using this exact method – he pushes down the top enough so that the cat inside can push his or her way out – so I knew to shoo him away from the carrier before Spot could escape, because if that had happened? I would have refused to ever take him to the vet again. Fred came back upstairs, grabbed Spot (he was going to leave the box in the garage so we wouldn’t have to worry about the Bastardly Mister Boogers), kissed me, said “For a few minutes there, I understood how you felt on Friday”, and left. From her spot under the bed, Miz Poo gave Fred the stink eye. I got dressed quickly and headed downstairs to grab Spot and leave for the vet, when I glanced at Miz Poo – who had come out and was, for some reason, hanging out in the spud’s bedroom – when I got an excellent idea. Rather than take Spot to the vet’s, buy a carrier, and come back to get Miz Poo, why not get one of the thirty-three thousand boxes out of the garage – shipping boxes, not cat carrier boxes – put her in that, and ask them to put her in a cat carrier after her exam? Guess what? It worked perfectly. Miz Poo is scared of the cat carrier, but not of regular plain-old boxes, so when I carried a box upstairs, she glanced at it, saw that it wasn’t a cat carrier, and continued sniffing the spud’s shoes. I picked her up, and by the time she realized I was going to close her in the box, the box was already closed. Of course, the part that sucked was that it was a big box, big enough that all four of the cats could have fit in it and stretched out without touching, but I managed to carry that box in one arm and Spot in his carrier in the opposite arm. So now we have two cardboard carrier boxes that are easy to get cats into (as long as no Bastardly Booger is blocking the way) and no crappy plastic carriers that are impossible to get fully grown cats into. I’m thinking we need to buy a couple more of the cardboard carriers though, because first of all if something happened (fire!) and we needed to get all the cats out of the house (though let’s be honest, if there was a fire, all the little dumbasses would be hiding under beds and couches and would be impossible to find), we’d be screwed since we only have the two carriers. And secondly, if Spot pees all over one carrier when he goes back to the vet Friday, we’ll need to have a backup. I mean, we have a second carrier, but Spanky’s also going to the vet for his yearly checkup on Friday, so we’d need a backup other than that one. My god. This sure is fascinating, isn’t it? * * * A few weeks ago, we got a card in the mail from B3llSouth. A year ago we switched our phone service from B3llSouth to M-C-I, because M-C-I is cheaper. At this point, all landline phone service is pretty much alike, so why not go with the cheapest? So anyway, the card from B3llSouth begged us to come back to them, and said that if we did, we’d get all the bells and whistles – 3-way calling, caller id, call waiting, so on and so forth – for $49.99 a month. What really caught my eye, though, was that included in the $49.99 per month was unlimited long distance. UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE FOR $49.99 A MONTH. Since we were paying M-C-I about that, without the unlimited long distance, I left the card on Fred’s desk and instructed him to call B3llSouth and make the change. Except instead of calling B3llSouth, he called Knol0gy. We get our cable and internet through Knol0gy, and they offer multi-service plans wherein if you get more than one service through them, you save money. So he called Knol0gy and told them what B3llSouth was offering, and the Knol0gy guy countered with the exact same thing, and since we’d be going with the multi-service thing, the phone bill part of it would cost about $35. $35, and we get every special feature you could ever possibly imagine AND UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE. Now, that is just awesome. I mean, I don’t really make all that many long distance calls, but I have an easier time hearing on the landline phone than I do on my cellphone, so this will make Sunday calls to my parents much, much easier. Also, I can talk to Debbie without using up either of our cellphone minutes! “Yep, minding my own business…” “Hey, what’s that?” “What-what-what… WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED HERE?” (The look on his face cracks me UP.) * * *]]>

E’gar up, he and I need to have a serious talk. For those of you keeping track that’s not once but TWICE Fred came to the rescue on Friday. My hero!

* * * First they check out the birdies flying overhead… And then they go for a run! * * *]]>

reading: Let’s Meet on Platform 8. Last night I started A Charge to Keep, at Fred’s recommendation. About twenty pages in, I looked at him and said “Does the entire book read like a campaign speech?”, and he gave me a dirty look and said “Maybe you should read something else.” So I am. It’s an extremely rare political-type book that can hold my interest. Finished last week: Summer in the Land of Skin and Death in Bloodhound Red.

* * * Friday sucked ass for the following reasons: 1. I had to get up at 4:50 so that I could exercise before my 8:30 appointment on the other side of Huntsville. 2. I had to drop Spot off at the vet around 7:45, so they could give him his immunoregulan shot at some point during the morning. I had exercised, cooled off, showered, dressed, and blow-dried my hair, and the entire time I was doing all this, Spot was hanging out in various places within my view, completely relaxed and chilled out. Well. As chilled out as he gets, anyway. The instant I brought the cat carrier upstairs, he disappeared. Using my skills of deductive reasoning, I decided he was under the bed in my bedroom. I shut the door, bent down, and directed the can of compressed air under the bed. Spot shot out and ran around in twenty or thirty frantic circles before running into the bathroom. I cornered him in the bathroom, picked him up, and spoke soothingly to him. I walked out into the hallway, to find that THAT FUCKING SHITHEAD MISTER BOOGERS had jumped into the cat carrier. “Stumpy, get out of the carrier!” I said. He just stared at me. I bent down and attempted to put Spot in the carrier and simultaneously pull Mister Boogers out of the way. Mister Boogers and Spot both flailed around, making my task impossible. I stood back up, trying my best to hold onto Spot, and picked up one end of the cat carrier. “Get out of the carrier, dumbass!” I said to Mister Boogers. Who responded by going flat and staring up at me with dark eyes as though I was implementing a fun new game. Spot flailed around until he got two of his back claws in the front of my shirt, and then he kicked, tearing the shirt and leaving a nasty clawmark across my boob. I could no longer hang on to him, and he leaped to the floor and bounded away. I lost my shit. “GET OUT OF THE CAT CARRIER!” I bellowed at Mister Boogers, who went impossibly flat. He was like liquid cat, spreading to fill every bit of the floor of the cat carrier. “GET OUT! GET OUT!” I bellowed, picked up the cat carrier, held it upside down, and shook it. He went starfish, all limbs straight out to hold him in the cat carrier. I could see nothing but a fluffy little stump of a tail, waving in the breeze. “GET OUT!” I yelled, putting the cat carrier on the floor. “OUT, YOU FUCKER! OUT! OUT!”, and finally Mister Boogers hopped lightly out of the carrier and looked up at me, head cocked to the side and eyes glittering. For the next fifteen minutes I rampaged through the house like an asshole, scaring the holy fucking hell out of all the cats except for Mister Boogers, who followed me around from room to room and watched me with not an iota of fear on his face, although he did duck when I turned in his direction. I chased Spot from room to room, and then suddenly he disappeared and I couldn’t find him anywhere. He wasn’t upstairs under any of the beds, and as I made sure each room was clear of his presence, I slammed the door closed so he couldn’t go in there. “THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK, BUDDY!” I shrieked. “YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE VET! GET IN THE FUCKING BOX!” Like he was going to suddenly come to his senses and see reason, running from his hiding space and hopping willingly into the carrier. Miz Poo huddled in terror under my desk, her eyes hugely dark, and Spanky hid behind a box in the library, peering out from time to time to make sure I wasn’t coming after him. I bellowed the entire time, curse words I’ve never even heard of before; I have no idea where they came from. I’m amazed the neighbors didn’t call the cops. I finally found Spot under the loveseat. I lifted it up to look underneath – I was imbued with Superman-like strength in my rage – and he cowered for a moment, and then fled out of the living room. I tried to corner him in the computer room, but there are two doorways in the computer room and neither of them have doors, so he basically ran in one door, through the room, and out the other door with me in hot pursuit. He ran upstairs and into my bedroom – I’d stupidly left that one door open. He ran under the bed, and when I leaned down to spray compressed air at him, he ran out from under the bed, down the stairs, and under the loveseat again. I chased him the entire way, swearing at the top of my lungs. I lifted up the loveseat and he shot out of there like a greased pig. I was so pissed off, I threw the can of compressed air at the wall, and it left two nice-sized dents before the plastic parts of it shattered all over the floor. At this point I was absolutely seeing red, but I knew in a tiny little corner of my mind that if I got my hands on Spot I was going to hurt him, and I had to stop chasing him, and just leave the house. Which I did. I left the house twenty minutes later than I’d intended and ten minutes later than I should have if I wanted to be on time for my appointment. I called Fred when I was sitting at a red light, and we talked for a few minutes. He told me I should just give it a try later on when I got home from my appointment, and I expressed my certain belief that there was no way on god’s green earth Spot was ever going to let me within twenty feet of him again, let alone allow me to pick him up and put him in the cat carrier. When I was almost to my appointment, the phone rang. “Pick Spot up on your way home,” he said. “Huh?” “I’m taking Spot to the vet’s to drop him off. You can pick him up on your way home.” Fred had left work and driven the ten minutes from his office to the house. He walked into the house, grabbed the cat carrier, located Spot under the loveseat, picked him up, put him in the cat carrier, and left the house. All in the space of two minutes. Because he is a fucking fucker. * * * My god, that got long. The rest of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day will be up tomorrow. * * * “If she starts stomping around and swearing at me, I’m going to poop my pants.” * * *]]>

reading: Death in Bloodhound Red. Finished last night: Watch Me. Not a bad book for one that’s almost ten years old. The main character has a laptop, and all I could think was “My GOD, I bet that thing was huge!” Certainly worth a read, if you get it for 50 cents at a garage sale, the way we did.

* * * Reader Aly sent this to me and it cracked me up: I can’t imagine why it made her think of me, though! * * * Pet store kitty pics from this morning are here. * * * And with that said, I’m taking the rest of the week off from the journal. Yes, everything’s fine – it’s just that there’s really not much going on to write about (not that that usually stops me!), and I still haven’t completely caught up on my television-watching (priorities, you know!). Also, this house needs some serious cleaning, so I’m going to spend the rest of the week cleaning and cross-stitching in front of the TV. I’ll be back next Monday – but until then, I leave you with what is undoubtedly the best cat picture I have EVER taken. It’s even better in the huge full-sized version. ]]>

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English 15% Yankee 10% Dixie 10% Upper Midwestern 0% Midwestern As I was taking the test to see what kind of American English I speak, I was reminded anew of just how much I loathe it when people call grocery carts “buggies.” Oh my god, I hate that word. I want to smack the hell out of people when they use it. And here in the south they do it ALL THE TIME. Ugh. * * * Y’all, I have no clue what’s going on with the notify list. I guess I’m going to give it a week to get its butt back into shape, and then I’ll start looking at alternatives. Stupid notify list. It would probably be easier if you all just sent me your phone numbers, so I could call you and say “Hi! My entry’s up! Go read it!” every day, don’t you think? * * * Fred’s still sick, but he’s feeling a little better. His fever is coming and going (he’s on the Advil, 4 every 6 hours), and I thought he might not feel like going to get groceries, so I went this morning to get enough stuff for the weekend. He hasn’t shaved in two days, and he’s looking like one badass, scruffy motherfucker. Mwrowr! Hopefully by Monday he’ll be back to his usual non-sick self. One hopes so, anyway! So I was wandering through the grocery store, through the ice cream section on my way to the meat section (I always secretly hope that Ben and Jerry’s will come up with an ice cream with all the flavor of their full-fat ice cream, but zero calories, zero fat, and 60 grams of fiber for the entire pint). A pint of Haagen-Dazs Light Vanilla Bean caught my eye, and I had to stop to look. Half a cup? 230 calories. “Light” my ass! I guess this means the full-fat version probably has 460 calories per half cup, huh? Gah. * * * From my comments: Robyn, do you usually finish books, even if they bore you to death? Actually, it depends on the book. The only reason I finished reading An Isolated Incident is because it wasn’t until about the last sixty pages that I started thinking “Come ON, get on with it, would you?!”, and I really wanted to know who the killer was. (Turns out I could have just flipped to the very last page!) I used to read every single book I started, because I felt compelled to, since I’d usually paid good money for the book and would have felt bad about not reading it. However, I finally decided that life is too short to read crappy books, so I’ll generally give a book 50 pages or so to grab my attention. If it doesn’t by then, chances are good that it never will, so I stop reading it. I’ve been looking for a welcome mat, and have been thinking about one on the site you ordered your “The cat don’t take too kindly to strangers” a while back, and now I don’t know where that is…. could you post the url for me?? That mat was made by High Cotton, and they have a page here. I took a glance through the mats, but didn’t see “The Cat Don’t Take too Kindly to Strangers”, so they may have stopped carrying it. I might have simply missed it, though. Robyn, what do you do with your mischievious little kitties while you go away for a weekend? Fred’s mother and stepfather live about two minutes away from us, so they come over a couple of times to feed the cats, scoop the litter box, and check to make sure there were no break-ins. On the rare occasion they go out of town, we do the same for their cat. We don’t have them come over every day we’re gone, though. I think this time we left on Thursday and they came on Friday and Saturday, but to be honest I think we could have just had them come over once, and everything would have been fine. Actually, I have a funny story. Fred’s mother called on Sunday to make sure we’d made it home okay, and while she was talking to Fred, she told him that she’d been walking through the house to check that everything was okay, and she noticed that the door to one of the computers was open. She thought that maybe one of the cats had knocked it open, she told Fred. When Fred hung up the phone, he told me what she’d said. “She said she thought one of the cats knocked it open?” I repeated. “Yeah.” “That seems like a strange thing to be concerned about,” I said. “Well, I don’t know that she was really concerned about it. She just mentioned it in passing. That one of the cats might have knocked the door open.” “Oh.” I thought about it for a minute. “She didn’t mention that one of the cats might have knocked a great big dildo into my underwear drawer, too, did she?” When he was done guffawing, Fred said “No, she didn’t mention that.” (Note: I’m kidding. There’s no great big dildo in my underwear drawer. Or is there? You’ll never know! Ha!) Those are some kick ass pictures. What kind of camera are you using for them? It’s Sony DSC-V1. We actually have two of them now, so that Fred and I can each have one. We were talking about getting a new camera back before Christmas so that I could carry one in my purse at all times – we were talking about the T1, to be exact – but after reading a bunch of Amazon reviews about each camera, we ended up getting another of the V1s. Now we each have our own camera, and I still don’t carry mine in my purse at all times, because I suck. They take kick-ass pictures, though. Especially when they’re set on the highest possible resolution. * * * Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here. * * * The Booger lurves his daddy. ]]>

Watch Me. Finished last night, FINALLY, An Isolated Incident. Some books are like a meandering country road. They go on and on and on. If you’re lucky, there are enough interesting and compelling things to look at during the drive down the road to make the trip worthwhile. And sometimes it’s boring as hell, and you just wish the damn drive was done and over with already. The latter is what An Isolated Incident was like. I don’t recommend it.

* * * Fred is sick. He’s SICK, I say! Sick! He hasn’t been sick like this since before he started losing weight five years ago, except for the time when he had Hepatitis A. I believe it’s a proven theory that if you are male, whining about how crappy you feel makes you feel much better (but NOT all the way better!) almost instantly. The more you whine, the better you feel. He went to the doctor’s office yesterday and they did a flu test, diagnosed him with the flu, and prescribed a prophylactic dose of Tamiflu for the spud and I. Fred got home from the doctor’s office just as the area schools got out for the day, and I took the prescriptions (Tamiflu for all three of us, Tussionex for Fred) to the grocery store. Thank god I remembered to bring a book, because I ended up being in the grocery store for 45 minutes. The doctor had prescribed 7 pills each for the spud and I but our fucking insurance will only cover 5 pills at a time. Fuckers. So I filled the prescriptions, picked up some ice cream and double stuf Oreos for Fred (“I’m sick; I’m allowed to eat whatever I want!”, is his theory.) and went home. Where I felt his forehead many times and reported on the state of warmth. (“Cooler than it was, but still warm!”) He’s feeling a little better today, but still too crappy to go to work. I’m sure there are going to be naps in his future. I, on the other hand, will be spending my day doing laundry and watching some of the ten thousand shows I’ve DVR’d. * * * I’d like to point out that ever since last summer when I realized that Mister Boogers was trapping birds under the platform feeders I had on the ground, and I made it so that both the platform feeders are hanging instead of sitting on the ground, there has not been one single, solitary bird in this house. Of course, Spring is still young. I suppose that when the baby birds are born in a few weeks, some of them might still end up in the house in the jaws of the mighty hunter. * * * Hey, remember how my New Year’s resolution for this year was not to buy any books until I’ve read what I have? Yeah, that’s a resolution that is good and broken. We got our state tax refund back earlier this week, and decided to split it – Fred would use half for whatever he wanted on Amazon, I’d use the other half for whatever I wanted on Amazon. I’ve got about twenty books on the way to me right now. I had stuff on my wish list that had been on there so long that they’d gone to paperback, so I ended up buying mostly paperbacks. In fact, I think I actually bought nothing but paperbacks. I’m not sure I’m going to have room on the bookcase for all those books! Why do I bother to make New Year’s resolutions, I ask you? * * * Miz Poo kneads and kneads and kneads for twenty minutes before she feels the time is right to curl up in her bed. Maybe kneading is her form of exercise, and the reason she’s lost half a pound! I think she’s planning on writing a book. “Knead Your Way Thin.” She and Mister Boogers are already planning the infomercial. ]]>

web page address, so I grabbed one. I’m still thinking about getting one, but I can’t quite decide which one I want, and exactly how I want it to look. Here are some possibles:

* * * So, the other night I was trying to explain something that I wanted – something computer-related – to Fred, and I swear to god he looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. This conversation went on for at least ten minutes, and Fred would do something and then show me, and I’d be like “Um… yeah…” and he’d say “You don’t look happy”, and I’d say “Because that’s not what I was talking about!” We finally got it figured out, though we about had to resort to line drawings and pantomime. It’s very frustrating when you’re dead certain that what you’re saying is making sense, and the person you’re talking to looks at you like they don’t have a clue what the hell you’re trying to say. * * * It appears that some of you on the notify list just aren’t getting your notifies. I don’t know what the holy hell is going on with the notify list, but you might want to try un-subscribing and re-subscribing to the list (go here for both of those – unsubscribe at the bottom of the page; if you don’t remember your password, you can have it emailed to you); sometimes that fixes it, for some unknown reason. If it still doesn’t work for you, try joining the Yahoogroups notify list, which is linked at the bottom, here. I’m sorry some of you are having problems with the notify list; it seems to act kind of flaky sometimes for no apparent reason. * * * When we were in Gatlinburg (“JEEZUS, Doris, why the hell did you think I’d like this woman’s journal? ALL she does is babble about that redneck paradise in the mountains!”), we made our usual trip to The Pepper Palace so that Fred could pick up some hot sauce. On a side note, I just flat-out don’t care for hot and spicy stuff. Even when Fred pulls his BULLSHIT “Oh, it’s not spicy at all, Bessie! It’s flavorful and fruity! Try it, you’ll like it!”, I hate it. It makes my mouth burn, WHICH I DO NOT LIKE, and it leaves a nasty-ass taste in my mouth. And yet, knowing this, Fred has not given up his quest to force me to adore hot and spicy foods. Last night he held out a little bit of beef jerky for me to try, and I did, and THEN I found that it was hot and spicy beef jerky, and I ended up spending the entire evening burping up nasty spicy beef jerky AND IT SUCKED. Anyway. So we were in The Pepper Palace, and Fred was talking to the manager of the place. I saw some hot sauce, the name of which cracked me up, and I whipped out the camera to take a picture. The manager sidled up to me and said “We don’t allow pictures in here…”, and I apologized and put my camera away, and he told Fred some story about how someone had taken pictures of hot sauce and put them up on a web page and faked a webstore, and people thought it was run by the Pepper Palace people, and so they don’t allow photography. I thought, but did not point out, that all I’d need to do was buy some of the sauce (which I did) and take a picture of it (which I will), and there was really nothing he could do to stop me if I had nefarious purposes in mind for the picture of the hot sauce (which I do not). Then the manager turned and smiled politely at me. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked. “Oh, she’s with me. They both are,” he said, gesturing to the spud and I. “Well,” the manager said with a smile. “Aren’t you the lucky man -” And I had to walk away, because I knew that “To be accompanied by two such beautiful women” or something similar was going to be the last part of that sentence, and PLEASE, I have NO PATIENCE for that ass-kissing bullshit. If I’d had to be witness to the end of that sentence, I would surely have rolled my eyes so hard they would have popped out of my head and bounced across the store. There are men who can carry off a line like that without making me want to gag, but this guy wasn’t one of them. * * * I just felt something on my foot and got freaked that it might be a SPIDER crawling up my LEG, and so I moved my foot frantically as I pushed my chair away from my desk, and as I flailed my foot around, I kicked Miz Poo, who gave me a wounded look and stomped away. Apparently it was her tail on my foot that I felt. Poor Miz Poo. I better go beg her forgiveness. * * * In the month since she went off the steroids, Miz Poo has lost half a pound. Clearly she’s thrilled about it. ]]>

An Isolated Incident, still. Not a bad book, though the love scene I just read was a wee bit hokey. In less than a minute, they had rid themselves of the remainder of their clothing, and then there was no more need for words as their bodies began to communicate with one another. Um, yeah. Hokey.

* * * So when you’re walking the parkway in Gatlinburg, there are these booths every so often, and these booths are staffed by people whose main goal is to get you to attend a 2-hour informational meeting about buying timeshares in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. You’ll be walking along minding your own business, and the people in the booths will be all “Ma’am! Ma’am! Are you planning on attending any shows? I can give you tickets to see the shows for free!” Now, I ignore these motherfuckers, because you know what? I’m NOT INTERESTED in what they’re offering, I’m not interested in buying a timeshare, I’m not interested in being sucked into a dialogue with them. Fred, however, politely smiles and says “No thank you!” every single time, and he thinks I am the RUDEST PERSON EVER for ignoring the people in the booths. This is the way I see it: it’s MIGHTY FUCKING RUDE to try to sell me shit I neither want nor need, when I am wandering along the sidewalk minding my own business. And this is, last time I checked, a free country. Just because the fuckers are talking to me doesn’t mean I’m obligated to listen to their bullshit, does it? What are they going to do, have me arrested for ignoring them? Fuck those fuckers. I know they’re just doing their job, but since their job is to part me from money I don’t need to be spending on something I don’t need to be buying (not that that usually stops me!), as far as I’m concerned, they can go jump in a lake. So can telemarketers and door-to-door salesmen, for that matter. * * * Fred and I slept in THE SAME BED in Gatlinburg, did I mention? GASP! The first night sucked, because Fred just couldn’t get to sleep, and ended up hanging out in the living room, watching TV, and getting only about three hours of sleep. The second and third nights, though, were just fine. We both slept the whole night through, and slept well. I think it helped that the bed was king-size, and the mattress was pretty hard, so that if one of us moved the other couldn’t really feel it. I won’t lie, though: we were both really happy to get home to our own beds. It’s much easier to sleep when you don’t have to worry about waking up the other person in the bed. Also, once Fred goes off to his own bed, I can turn the light back on and read until I’m ready to go to sleep. Two thumbs up for separate beds! * * * The thing about going on vacation to a place in the Eastern Time Zone when you live in the Central Time Zone, just a week after Daylight Savings Time goes into effect, is that your body has no fucking clue what’s going on. I got up at 6:30 yesterday because I had to go feed the cats at the pet store, but on non-pet store days I like to sleep in until 8ish. This morning, though, I woke up when Fred was getting his clothes out of the dresser, stayed awake while he was in the shower, said goodbye to him, and made a good-faith effort to go back to sleep, but by 6:50 decided I might as well give it up. It’s 11:30 and I’ve done two loads of laundry, exercised, answered email, checked the checking account online, vaccumed the entire house, took my shower, got dressed, blow-dried my hair, went to the post office to mail a box, got a large Diet Coke at Burger King (mistake: it’s not nearly as good as McDonald’s Diet Coke), and now I’m halfway through my entry. Pretty good, I’d say. * * * The people in the post office – both customers and employees – moved so freakin’ slow this morning that after ten minutes I became pretty sure that Ashton Kutcher was going to pop out with his big,dumb, goony Kelso grin and tell me I’d been Punk’d. * * * I thought I’d killed Mister Boogers last night. I was laying on my stomach, and he was laying on top of the covers, between my legs – he just loves to pin me down like that. I half woke up and decided to roll over onto my side, only because I was still half-asleep I didn’t think it through, and so rolled over onto my side with Mister Boogers still between my legs. Basically, with the covers, I made a Booger burrito and sealed it closed with my legs. I was almost asleep again when Mister Boogers started frantically flailing around. Obediently, I rolled back onto my stomach, and he was exposed to the air again. Before I could come up with a good way to get onto my side without smothering Mister Boogers, I went back to sleep. About an hour later I woke up and decided to push Mister Boogers from between my legs so that he would be laying beside my leg – that’s usually what I do when I want to move from my stomach to my side, and he usually gets pissed off, chirrups at me, and stomps off to find a place to sleep, usually with the spud, who LOVES AND CHERISHES HIM in the manner to which he has become accustomed. I hate to upset the Booger, but I CANNOT SLEEP ON MY STOMACH ALL NIGHT LONG, PEOPLE. It hurts my BACK. Anyway. So I used my right leg to push the Boog over my left leg, and he just kind of slid over my leg and laid there without moving, as though he were DEAD. That woke me up, believe you me. I sat up and petted him. He woke up, gave me a confused and annoyed look, and stomped off to find a place to sleep where people wouldn’t wake him up by checking to make sure he wasn’t dead. I’m pretty sure I heard him mutter “Annoying goddamn people” under his breath as he went. * * * We keep the cat carrier under the desk by the garage door, because Miz Poo has to go to the vet regularly for her immunoregulan shot (for her lip). Every night, without fail, when we sit down to watch TV, I hear a thump, and look over to see The Boog hanging out in the box, waiting to see if we’re going to take him somewhere interesting. But we never do.]]>

An Isolated Incident. Recently finished: Country Comes to Town, Do You Want to Know a Secret?, and She’s Come Undone. To my great surprise, She’s Come Undone was better than I remembered it. I still think I Know This Much is True is better, though. Maybe I should reread that, just to be sure!

* * * So yes, we’re back from Gatlinburg! We left early Thursday morning, got there at lunchtime, and then left for home Sunday morning, getting home at lunchtime. It was a last-minute decision, spurred by the fact that we needed new Corelle dishes, and there’s a Corelle factory store in Pigeon Forge, and another in Sevierville. Plus, I was flat-out looking for an excuse to go to Gatlinburg. We couldn’t go over Memorial Day weekend, because my friend Liz will be visiting, and I remember that the year we went over the 4th of July, it was miserably swelteringly hot. So I looked at the calendar, picked a weekend, and harassed Fred until he agreed we could go. We rented a house this time – we were going to rent a room at our usual motel, but all the suites were taken – and it was absolutely perfect. It was a small house with two bedrooms, a hot tub, a two-person whirlpool tub off the living room, another (smaller) whirlpool tub in the master bedroom, two bathrooms, a sauna, and an absolutely kickass view. The view from the deck. I highly recommend staying at that house if you’re looking to rent a chalet in Gatlinburg. If you need more than a 2-bedroom, I highly recommend Mountain Rentals. We’ve rented from them three times so far, and it’s always been a good experience. The only downside is the scary drive up and down the mountain, and that you have to drive down the mountain and pay to park if you want to spend the day walking up and down the Parkway in Gatlinburg. The first thing we did when we hit Pigeon Forge was have lunch at The Alamo. While I was eating, I glanced up and saw a creepy sight: If that ain’t something to have nightmares about, I don’t know what is. All through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, there were these huge, fat bumblebees hovering. I mean, they were EVERYWHERE; I almost ran face-first into more than one. It was fun to watch the people walking down the street and then see them dance around, trying to get away from the bee. I took ten thousand pictures of the redbuds on the road between home and Gatlinburg because I was going to post the best, and ask y’all what it was called – we see them every Spring and talk about how pretty they are – but when we got home, Fred did a Google search and figured it out. On Friday, we visited Pigeon Forge – we always spend part of a day in Pigeon Forge – and walked by The Mill. From there, we walked down the street to the Smoky Mountain Cat House, where we petted a bunch of kitties, looked around, and bought some toys for the cats. I got pictures of some of the cats inside, which I’ll put up eventually, but the best picture I got was of a cat hanging around outside. He was a very sweet and friendly guy. While we were in Pigeon Forge, we went into the Corelle factory outlet to look for new plates. I knew that Corelle carries yellow plates and that’s what I thought we’d get, but my GOD, the PRICES on those plates! We opted, instead, to get a set of dishes that were on clearance because they’d discontinued the pattern. I wasn’t all that disappointed to not get yellow dishes, because I like the pattern on the plates we got, and we do have a set of yellow Fiesta plates and bowls. Which we never use, because I know that either the spud or I will drop a plate – or several plates – on the floor and will find glass shards for years and years to come. But the blue is pretty enough, and it’s a nice change from the black-and-white dishes we had before. (And no, the old dishes aren’t going on the giveaway page, because I am NOT going to deal with trying to ship the fuckers.) Saturday morning we left the house pretty early, and drove the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. We actually drove it on Friday morning to check it out, and decided to go back Saturday morning when it would be sunny and we could get good pictures. I took about ten thousand pictures, some of which I’ll put up on a separate page at some point in the next few weeks, but I’ll share some of them with you today. Parts of the road were very very VERY scary, because they were so narrow, and on one side there’d be a steep hill, and on the other there’d be a seriously frightening sheer drop, and Fred drives LIKE A MANIAC, and I thought for sure we were going to go driving over the side and we’d all end up dead and y’all would never know what had happened to us. This picture doesn’t do justice to just how scary the road was, believe you me. And those pictures don’t even come close to doing justice to how beautiful and peaceful it was on that motor trail. We were watching The Corporation Saturday night – good movie, but long as hell; we still haven’t seen the last half-hour yet – and this guy came on the screen. I said “Hey look, baby! That guy has my eyebrows!” And Fred guffawed for ten minutes straight. There’s apparently a Fuccy Hauling Incorporated, and this truck had “Fuccy” on one side of the back of the truck, and “Fuccy” on the other side, and so every time we saw a Fuccy truck, Fred or I would say “Look! Fucky fucky!” Yes, we ARE 10 years old at heart. This good ol’ boy was riding in the back of a truck. He kept going from one side of the truck to the other, looking happy as hell, his ears flapping in the breeze. He was adorable. And that is my account of our trip to Gatlinburg. I left out the ten tons of candy we ate, but you can fill in that part on your own. Our big discovery this time was Bennett’s BBQ. We stopped there for lunch on a whim Friday, and liked it so much we went back Saturday. I highly recommend the pork shoulder and the fried green tomatoes. We also gave Texas Roadhouse a try, and the rolls and honey-cinnamon butter were VERY good. You can check out Fred’s account of our trip (and pictures) here. * * * “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m glad to have you home. Whatever.”]]>

Bontasia, who stole it from Say, who stole it from This Mom, who stole it from Bitchalicious. * V I T A L S * Name: Robyn Gender: Female Location: On my couch, in my living room, in my house, in Madison, Alabama. Height: For years I’ve been saying I’m 5’5 1/2″, but on a recent trip to the doctor they measured my height, and I found that I’m actually 5′ 4 1/2″. I’m shrinking! Hair color: Dark brown. Like this:

Yes, I am AWARE that I need to have my eyebrows waxed, thank you. Eye color: Sometimes bluish, sometimes greenish, sometimes in between. Is your hair long or short: It’s shortish, I guess. It’s a little longer than chin-length. Tattoos you have: I don’t have one, but if I were to get one, it would be a happy face on my right hip. * S C H O O L * Are you still in school: No, thank god. Favorite subject: Study hall! Least favorite subject: Math. Do/did you buy lunch or bring it: I usually make lunch at home (though I don’t have to bring it anywhere but from the kitchen to the table). A few times a week I get a Sonic grilled chicken salad. Yum! * F A V O R I T E * Number: 26 Clothing: My two-sizes too big Big Dog sweatshirt (dark blue), and my sheep pajama bottoms my sister gave me for Christmas. TV show: Desperate Housewives, Amazing Race, The Shield, Lost, Survivor, and Grey’s Anatomy. Fruit: Clementines. Movie: When Harry Met Sally. Scent: Vanilla. Ice Cream Flavor: French Vanilla. Color: Yellow! Season: Fall Holiday: Christmas! Thing in your room: My bookcase, with all the books I haven’t read yet. Author: Stephen King and Jennifer Weiner. TV channel: ABC! Shape: Uh… Nothing comes to mind! Time: 6:45 am on the mornings when I don’t have to get up until I want to, and can roll over and go back to sleep. State: Maine! Disney character: The Little Mermaid. I must have watched that movie ten million times when the spud was little. Scary movie: Oh, I’m not crazy about scary movies. I guess I’d say The Ring. * T H I S O R T H A T * Hot or cold: Cold. Winter or summer: Summer. Spring or fall: Fall. Shakira or Britney: Britney. MTV or VH1: VH-1 Country. Rollerblading or skateboarding: Uh… neither? I’d like to give rollerblading a try one day, though. Black or white: White (it shows the white cat hairs less) Orange or red: Orange. Yellow or green: Yellow. purple or pink: Purple. Cell phone or pager: Cell phone. Powerpuff Girls or Charlie’s Angels: Powerpuff Girls. I have a soft spot for Buttercup. Scooby Doo or Dino: Dino! * Y E S O R N O P E* Are you a vegetarian: No. Do you like cows: Sure. Are you a bitch: Sometimes. Are you artistic: No. Do you write poetry: Not seriously since I was in high school. The last poem I wrote was in February of 2004, in an attempt to illustrate the term “treacly poetry” and it went as follows: the poo, she howls a mournful sound the sky is gray and i am blue Can you ski: Barely. Are you British: Nope. Are you straight: Yep. Are you evil: Sometimes! Is Britney a whore: No, she’s just misguided, poor thing. * P R I V A T E * Have you ever been in love: Yes. Do you smoke: Not since I was 18, inhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke and coughed so hard I’m surprised my lungs didn’t go flying across the room. Why anyone would continue smoking after feeling pain like that is a mystery to me. Do you smoke weed: Nope. Crack, heroin, anything else: Nope. Beer good or beer bad: Beer sucks. I cannot stand the taste. Are you the sissy who drinks wine coolers: I’m the sissy who drinks Diet Coke. * T H E L A S T * Thing you ate: A sirloin chef salad from Steak-out. Thing you drank: Diet Coke. Place you went: To the post office to drop off giveaway packages. Thing you got pierced/tattooed: Uh.. my ears when I was 13. Song you heard: El Cerrito Place, by Charlie Robison. Person you instant messaged: God. I think it must have been Jane, last week or the week before. Person you laughed with: Fred, I’m sure. * N O W * What are you eating: Nothing. I just ate lunch an hour ago. What are you drinking: Water. Any shoes on: No, I’m wearing slippers. Hair: Um… what about it? It pretty much looks like that picture above, still. Listening to: The most recent Grey’s Anatomy. Talking to anyone: Nope. * L A S T * Last Cigarette: 19 years ago. Last Alcoholic Drink: I can’t for the life of me remember. I think Christmas of 2003 when I bought a 4-pack of Jack Daniel’s cocktails. Last Car Ride: A few hours ago, when I went to the bank and post office. Last Good Cry: It’s been a few months. Last Library Book: I don’t remember – it’s been a few years. Last book bought: I don’t knowwwwwwww. I belong to the Red Dress Ink book club, where I get two books from Red Dress Ink every month; I got my latest shipment last week. Last Book Read: Sammy’s Hill. Currently I’m reading She’s Come Undone. Last Movie Seen in Theatres: Something at Christmas time. National Treasure, I think. It wasn’t bad! Last Movie Rented: I’m waiting for Closer, The Corporation, and Sideways to come from Netflix; I think they’ll be here today. Last Cuss Word Uttered: Fuck, as in “What the fuck, Miz Pooty?” Last Beverage Drank: Last beverage finished: Diet Coke. Last beverage slurped: water. Last Phone Call: To Fred, to ask what our accountant’s last name is. He didn’t know, so I had to look at our tax return. Last TV Show: Grey’s Anatomy (it’s currently playing). Before that, a rerun of The Practice – the series finale. Last Time Showered: 9:30 am this morning. Last Shoes Worn: A pair of blue Keds slip-ons. Last CD Played: Bob Guiney – 3 Sides. (Shaddup) Last Item Bought: Stamps. Last Download: Don’t Break my Heart Again, by Pat Green. Last Annoyance: Miz Poo, carrying a toy from the other side of the house, keening the entire time. Last Thing Written: An email to Nance and Jane. Last Key Used: The key to E’gar! Last Sleep: Last night. Last Ice Cream Eaten: A McDonald’s ice cream cone. If you can call that ice cream. Last Chair Sat In: The one to my desk. Last Webpage Visited: The Usual Suspects. * * * Hey, remember back in October when I told y’all if there was something you wanted to see a picture of, to leave a comment and I’d take a picture of it? And then I never did anything about it? Well, here are some of the pictures I took months ago and never got around to putting up: My closet. The fridge and freezer. Click here to see the bigger picture. The front of the house. A scene in my town/ a shot representative of Madison. And across the street from the Kohl’s located in the middle of a cotton field, my favorite new place in Madison, because it’s adorable. It looks like a little cartoon building: Mojo to GoGo. Fred says the coffee is good, and that they have smoothies, too. The laundry room; you can see a corner of the container that holds the litter box over there on the right. Someone wanted to see the medicine cabinet. We don’t actually have a medicine cabinet; we use a shelf in the kitchen as our medicine cabinet. Me, vacuuming with the Dyson. Someone wanted to see my shoes. I wasn’t sure if they meant the shoes I own, or the shoes I was wearing. Above are some of my shoes. More shoes. The shoes I was wearing at the time. Under the kitchen sink. See here for the full-sized picture. Pictures that will be coming in the upcoming weeks: Me putting on my socks (I don’t know which of you freaks want to see THAT one) The house, from the back fence The inside of my purse The spud’s room Closeup of my desk and the surrounding area 3 new Tubby pics My favorite store My favorite place to eat If there’s something you want to see, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do. ]]>