Author: Robyn

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So I grabbed the next book off the top shelf of my bookcase, looked at it, and groaned. “What?” Fred said. “LOOK at this book!” I said, and held it up. “It’s chick lit – Red Dress Ink – but it’s four hundred and fifty pages long!” “Damn.” “Chick lit should NOT be that freakin’ long. It shouldn’t be any longer than… like… three hundred and twenty pages!” Fred laughed. “That’s a pretty specific number.” “And it should only be longer than three hundred and twenty pages if it’s by an author I really, really like. This author, I’m not crazy about.” “So don’t read it.” “But I feel bad for not reading it. I bought it, I should read it!” “Bessie,” Fred said, and then uttered the truest of the true. “Life’s too fucking short to read books that suck.” And so I tossed in the box of books we’re donating to the library and picked up the next book on the bookcase. Because life IS too short to read books that suck. It really is! (The Myron Bolitar series would be an example of books that rock. In case you were wondering. I’m currently reading The Final Detail and only have another two books in the series left to read. This makes me sad, because I wish this series could go on FOREVER.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ There’s no Cold Stone Creamery here in the Madison area, but Fred and I went to the book store one day a few weeks ago, and I found that they’ve put in a “Marble Slab Creamery”. If that’s not an obvious ripoff of the Cold Stone Creamery, I don’t know what is. In fact, the name – Marble Slab Creamery – just makes me laugh. (Edited to add: Apparently Marble Slab Creamery came first. Who knew?) I haven’t given it a try yet, but I’m sure I will one of these days. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I spent quite some time on Netflix the other day, and found that – holy mother of god! – Season One of The Brady Bunch is coming out on DVD! In fact, I went through all the TV shows on DVD and now my netflix queue is 226 long. Man, that’s going to take me forever to get through! While I’m waiting for Netflix to send me the first disc of Season 4 of Coupling to watch while I’m on the elliptical, I’ve been watching the first season of Sex and the City. Man, I miss that show. The first season was back when Carrie dressed NORMALLY instead of the hideous way she started to dress after the show became a hit. Oh, there goes my Netflix queue. I just added seasons 2 – 6 to it… ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ We had curry-cajun chicken for dinner last night. As always, it was faaaaabulous. We always have it with brown rice, and use the sauce from the pan to put over the rice and it is DAMN fine. And I don’t usually care for the taste of curry, but this stuff is good. Speaking of cooking, the spud has to make flan to take to school for her Spanish 2 class tomorrow. The other kids got to make easy-to-make easy-to-transport stuff like cookies, and my kid gets flan. How fair is that? No fair, man. NO FAIR. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ We watched Napolean Dynamite last weekend, and ever since I’ve been having a craving for tots. Sonic actually sells them with – if I’m not mistaken – chili and cheese on top. I can’t decide whether that sounds really good or really gross. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Apparently that little fucker saw his shadow last week. Bastard. It’s getting COLD again, after several days with the temps in the mid-fifties. I don’t WANT it to get cold again, I want it to get WARM again and STAY WARM, damnit! I need to just suck it up and move to the Bahamas. Anyone want to finance that for me? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Is that a happy looking cat, or what? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

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Save Oscar! Come on, how can you resist that little face? He’s adorable!!! If you’re in the area or somewhere near the area and are interested, either leave a note at the bottom of ArtImp’s entry, or email me and I’ll pass your email along to her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Horrifying links Fred has sent me lately: (Warning: NOT safe for work; lots of naked boobs) Ugly Breast Implants. These are just scary, folks. Ever wondered what an adult Star-Nosed Mole looks like? Warning: It’s incredibly freakin’ creepy, folks. See it here. Like Fred said, something with a cute name like that, shouldn’t look like THAT. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I’ve been an absolute reading fool lately. Part of it is because I’m currently reading Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series and I LOVE me some Myron (also, I have a secret crush on Win). Part of it is just because I’ve been in a serious reading mood. And part of it is that I have so many freakin’ books to read that they barely fit on a six-foot bookcase and I swear to god they’re multiplying at night while I’m sleeping. I finished Shopaholic & Sister the other night and enjoyed it, but I’ve gotta wonder – how many books can Sophie Kinsella write wherein the main character spends the first third of the book fucking up royally, the second third dealing with the fallout and the last third fixing it all? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty good formula, but after awhile – say, another four books – it’s going to get tired and readers will be placing bets with themselves. “I bet that in the next twenty pages, Our Heroine will watch helplessly as the shit hits the fan!” Recommended for chick lit lovers, and people who are as addicted to US and PEOPLE as I am: Laura Caldwell’s The Year of Living Famously. It kind of gives you a new perspective on the whole paparazzi thing. I know that I’ve always thought “Well, you WANTED to be famous, this is the price of fame” and “Just ignore the photographers and live your life!”, but can you imagine having paparazzi swarm all over you, no matter where you go? Not being able to have a single private moment in a restaurant or store because people are staring at you? I’m sure it might be kind of fun at first, having a ton of people hang on your every move like you’re the most fascinating person on earth, but after that? Eh. Fuck that. I’ll take my anonymous life, thank you. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Hey, if you’re wanting a Gmail invite and are too shy to ask, please don’t be. Every time I give more than 20 invites away, Gmail gives me even more invites. Don’t be shy, ask for an invite! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So far, the electric fence seems to be deterring the Boog. I was afraid he’d never go outside on his own again, but yesterday afternoon he saw Spot out there, and the thought of Spot out there was enough to drive him crazy. He went out and was out there for ten or fifteen minutes, and I thought to myself “Oh shit. Did he figure a way out of the yard?” and went to the window to look for him. He and Spot were near the fence on the side between our yard and the neighbor’s yard, and as I watched, Mister Boogers looked up at the top of the fence as though he was thinking “Hmm. I could jump!” He moved a little closer to the fence and crouched down as though he was actually going to jump, and then he apparently got zapped, because he did a twisty jump and ran away from the fence. This is the system we bought, by the way. Pricey? Maybe a little, but if it keeps that little bastard’s ass in the yard, it’s very much worth it. Someone asked in Fred’s comments if getting zapped was actually causing the Boog pain. I don’t think it’s painful – I think it’s just very unpleasant. As Fred mentioned, I tried out the collar. I had my fingers directly on the electrode… thingies (I don’t know if they’re actually called “electrodes”, but we’ll call them that) and when I got zapped it was very, very unpleasant and I’d be perfectly happy to never ever feel it again. Hmm. I’m coming up with an idea… What if I wore a collar that zapped me every time I looked at junk food? That would be a pretty good deterrant. I’d be a supermodel in six months! Or, y’know, not. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Y’all have seen this, right? I can just imagine Mister Boogers doing that. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ From my comments: I don’t know why, but when you called Mr. Boogers, “The Boog,” I started cracking up, and so did my boyfriend. The bad thing is, I showed him your entry while we were in class and he had to try really hard not to laugh – almost to the point of a constipated face. Mister Boogers, I am sad to say, has a long list of ever-evolving nicknames. When he’s being BAD, like when he is smacking at the blinds because he wants out and we won’t let him, I call him “Stumpy”, because it’s easy to yell and makes clear my displeasure. Lately I’ve been calling him “The Boog” when he’s being fluffy and cute. Also, “Boogity-Boog” when I’m talking to him. “Dat Booger” comes into use when I ask him what he’s doing – ie, “What Dat Booger doin’?” (He never tells me, though.) The spud calls him “Boogie” sometimes (which always makes me think of the “joke”, if you can call it that – How do you make a hankie dance? Put a little boogie in it). And, as always, when he’s picking on the other cats he’s “Knock it off, Shithead!” Also from my comments: So did you actually drive thru the drive thru and forget to get the Diet Coke? This is regarding my entry last week when I was having “One of those days” and went out specifically to get a large Diet Coke, drove to McDonald’s, and home again without getting one. No, I didn’t actually go through the drive thru – I just basically drove by McDonald’s and home again. My head was obviously totally in the clouds that day! Hey there Robyn! I was wondering if there is any way that I could see/find the special on Penn and Teller..the one you were on of course! I’d LOVE LOVE to see it!! You can rent the first season of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! at your local movie store or through Netflix. The episode we were on was episode number 13, which (I’m pretty sure) is on disc 4. The title of the episode is Eat This! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Bwah! Look at the face he’s making! I think this calls for a closeup of the face! I have no clue what he was attempting to do here, but that face is cracking me UP. ]]>

latest entry for a description of how we’re keeping the Boog in the back yard these days. Also, a very funny movie that I can’t stop watching – and it always makes me laugh until I wheeze! I suspect that Mister Boogers will do his best to figure out how to get around it at some point in the future, but right now he’s a little scared to go outside at all. We put the collar on and open the cat door every morning and leave it open all day long, and Mister Boogers will stick his head out there and chatter at the birds, and with some coaxing he’ll go outside and check things out, but he doesn’t quite dare to stay out for long. Hopefully he’ll eventually figure out that he only gets zapped when he goes near the fence, and that the rest of the yard is fair game. But even if he’s too scared to go outside, I’d rather have him inside and alive than outside hopping the fence and going god knows where!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I bought a bottle of Aveeno lotion and a bottle of Aveeno Very Gentle Shower Scrub (or something like that), because my skin is so freakin’ sensitive that if I so much as think about using any kind of lotion I immediately break out into hives. Seriously, I’ve tried Curel, I’ve tried Eucerin, I’ve tried every kind of unscented safe-for-eczema-ridden-people lotion in existence, and they always make me break out. I was using hydrocortisone – Cortaid – as a lotion for a little while, and then Fred bought some lotion with hydrocortisone in it for Spot – who’s been grooming his belly and legs to the point where they were hairless – and he bought an extra bottle for me, and I gave it a try and it seems to work just fine. Yes, I use the same kind of lotion as my CAT. What, you didn’t already know I was a freak? But anyway, I bought this Aveeno lotion because it was extra-strength lotion for the hands and claimed to last twenty-four hours through many handwashings and all that, and since my hands are on the verge of becoming crepey old-lady hands, I bought a bottle. I gave it a try and it’s pretty good, though to be honest I think the Bath and Body Works Hand Repair lotion is better and lasts longer, but you have to put up with the scent, and the Hand Repair lotion doesn’t come in my favorite scents. So, anyway. The Aveeno. I put it on and rubbed it into my hands, and then I sniffed it. Because unscented lotion isn’t really unscented, you know? Everything’s got a scent, even the unscented stuff. Curel and Eucerin are unscented and for sensitive skin, but they each have their own distinctive scent, because – like I said – everything’s got a scent! Not this Aveeno lotion, though. It had no scent at all. I put my nose right down to the lotion and sniffed as hard as I could, and there was no scent at all. It’s kind of freaky, really. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So Friday I got around to watching a Dr. Phil show that I’d taped earlier in the week. It was a follow-up to the series he’s calling The Doctor, The Wife, and The Mistress. If you haven’t caught it before now, here’s a quick description of what it’s about: Kandi and Ed have been married for 12 years, they have three kids, and he started having an affair with a nurse he works with; he told his wife (Kandi) that he’d been having the affair, and guess what? The mistress is pregnant. The husband in this case – Ed – is such a slimy asshole that every time I see his smug fucking face I want to punch him. UGH. Anyway, Kandi was on the show last week, but Ed wasn’t because he didn’t like what Dr. Phil was telling him. Also, he’s a slimy asshole. Have I mentioned? Kandi updated Dr. Phil that she finally kicked Ed out of the house and he kept calling and coming over and telling her that he’d broken up with the mistress and she could have him followed, because he was telling the truth. And she had him followed – to the mistress’s house! Let’s amend that description to STUPID slimy asshole, shall we? Anyway, all this is to say that until she was on Dr. Phil the other day she had no idea what the mistress looked like, and then Dr. Phil provided her with a picture (though we didn’t get to see it, and may I just say? NO FAIR!), and Kandi looked at it, and she laughed, and she talked about how ugly the mistress is, and Dr. Phil agreed, and they laughed some more, and Kandi said (paraphrased) “It’s obviously not about the looks with Ed! It’s got to be about the sex!” and she and Dr. Phil giggled some more. So what I’m thinking is that what Dr. Phil and Kandi are trying to do is goad the mistress into appearing on the show. Does anyone else get that impression, too? Also, Kandi? You don’t need to be talking about the mistress being so ugly, when your slimy asshole husband has been hit with a great big ugly stick. You, however, are adorable. But stop being a doormat. Ooh! Today’s show is about “Invasive In-Laws”! I love stories about horrible in-laws, probably because I’ve always been lucky enough to have pretty good in-laws. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “This is how I feel about that friggindamn collar they keep putting on me. One day I’m going to shove it down The Momma’s throat, and then we’ll just see HOW HARD SHE LAUGHS, won’t we?” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

Send me an email with Gmail in the subject. If you requested a Gmail invite the other day and didn’t get one, you might want to check your spambox, because the invites sometimes get marked as spam, especially by Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL. If you check your spambox and didn’t get one, let me know and I’ll resend your invite. I’ll take this down when I have no invites left.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So, the house appraiser (as someone predicted in my comments yesterday)was here about fifteen minutes, if that. She walked around the house, measured things, came in and asked a few questions, wandered around the house a little, and then was on her way. I should totally become a house appraiser, because I wouldn’t be stuck in an office all the time, and I’d get to tromp around peoples’ houses and see their stuff and how they have their house decorated. That sounds like an awesome job. How does one become a house appraiser? When the doorbell rang, all the cats except Miz Poo scattered. She huddled on her cat bed on my desk, her eyes all big and dark, and looked scared to death, as if the house appraiser was going to fly at her and begin beating her about the head. The other cats spent the rest of the day hiding under beds until they could be sure there was no longer a stranger in the house. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Speaking of cats, we watched Shrek 2 last weekend, and when Puss in Boots was barfing up that hairball, Fred laughed so hard I thought he was going to pass out. Also, when Puss in Boots had his leg hoisted over his head, and was grooming himself, we laughed pretty hard. We weren’t much looking forward to watching the movie, but we certainly enjoyed it anyway. Last night we watched The Forgotten. Not a bad movie, especially since we got to see Lee Tergesen (AKA Beecher from Oz), whom we love to death, and always excitedly exclaim “It’s Beecher!” Also, Linus Roache was heating up the joint; I’ve loved him ever since I saw him in Priest almost ten years ago. I would really have liked to see a different explanation for what was going on, though. The explanation we got was a bit cheesey. (Those of you who’ve seen it will know what I mean!) I have 100 movies in my Netflix queue. That just amazes me – oh wait, I just added Priest, so that makes 101. We currently have Collateral on the way to us, need to send The Forgotten back, and I have 7 Up still to watch. So many movies, so little time! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I picked up my mouthpiece from the dentist’s office the other day. It looked different than I expected – the old one looked like this: It was made of plastic, and as you can see, it went all the way around my teeth. The new one looks like this: It doesn’t cover my front teeth, and it’s made of a much harder acrylic. When I have it in, you can’t even tell I’m wearing it, except that I lisp a little more than usual (did you know that I’m a lisper?). It goes across the roof of my mouth, and I thought I was going to have a problem with that, but I’ve worn it for three nights now, and have been just fine; in fact, once I get it in I hardly notice it’s there. Until the morning. When I wake up in the morning, I usually lay in bed for a few minutes before I get up. I’m fine just laying in bed, but if I sit up and still have the mouthpiece in place and don’t get it out of my mouth fast enough, I gag and almost throw up. Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that. I guess I need to start taking the mouthpiece out of my mouth BEFORE I get up, huh? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I had a dream the other night that Victoria from The Amazing Race and I were driving along in my Jeep, and the engine went kerflooey, and we ended up in the river. We both escaped just fine, and then she disappeared – probably to be berated by her asshole of a husband – and some homeless guy showed up and offered me a blanket. AND THEN GAVE ME THE QUILT I KEEP ON THE CHAIR IN MY BEDROOM. Thief. I’d say that the dream was my subconscious telling me that the Jeep is on its last legs (wheels?), but my conscious is pretty well aware of that. Maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me I should donate my beloved quilt, which I’ve had since I was 7 or 8, to charity, and it’ll come back to me tenfold? Fat chance. Speaking of cars, I’m really liking the Suzuki Reno lately. I saw one in the mall yesterday and it’s reminiscent (at least, to me) of the Toyota Echo. It doesn’t come in yellow, but it does come in a kicky burnt orange color. Hmmmm. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pardon the blurriness, but this picture cracked me up so much I just had to post it! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Ch@se Manhatt@n must know that we’re in the process of refinancing the house because we’re suddenly getting all kinds of calls from them wherein they try to get us to sign up for some lame-ass promotion so that they can suck even more money out of us. Fuck THAT. So yeah, we’re refinancing. We thought about doing it last year but decided not to for some reason. But earlier this week Fred talked to a guy (a refinancing guy, of course!), we decided that it would be worth our while. Thus, I’ve spent the last week filling out the somewhat confusing paperwork and making copies of bank statements, investing statements, W2s and the like. Fred handed over the package to the guy this morning and a little while later the guy’s assistant called to let me know she was looking at the packet and everything was fine, except I’d forgotten to provide my social security number. Duhr. Someone’s coming to appraise the house in a little while. Since I’ve never had a house appraised, I’ll be interested to see what it’s like. What I’m hoping is that she’ll just wander through the house and won’t require anything of me, because I have no desire to follow her around from room to room. I can’t believe I’m involved with things like “refinancing” and “house appraisals”. I guess this means I really am an adult, eh?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I had a total Jessica Simpson moment the other night. We were sitting down to dinner and Fred said something about the Kale being too salty, and then we had a discussion about how much salt was on it. “Sea salt,” I said. “1/3 of a teaspoon. Maybe you just took the Kale from the area of the pot where the salt landed. I’m not sure I stirred it in very well.” I thought for a moment. “I thought all salt came from the sea,” I said. “Not all of it,” Fred said. “Some comes from salt flats.” “How do they grow salt?” I asked. SERIOUSLY. Let me repeat that. “How do they grow salt?” I knew, as the words came out of my mouth, that I was asking a question of epic stupidity. Fred gave me the same look Nick gave Jessica when she said “Is this fish or chicken we’re eating?” “Salt is a mineral.” “Oh.” Next I’ll be turning down the buffalo wings because I don’t like buffalo. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Kale, by the way, is awesome. Not only does it have a flavor that reminds me of chinese food (when cooked with garlic and a little olive oil), but if your digestive system is a little sluggish, it gets things moving along. Two thumbs way, way up for the kale. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I went outside yesterday to fill the bird feeders – which have been empty for almost a month because I am horrible at actually getting my ass out into the back yard and filling the feeders – and of course Mister Boogers had to go running out the door as soon as I opened it. I decided that rather than chase him down, I’d let him sniff around while I was out there, and then I’d take him inside when I was done. A moment later Miz Poo came outside and started sniffing around, and so I puttered around outside for a while, letting them sniff. Then I got cold, so I walked toward Mister Booger, who apparently realized I was about to pick him up and take him inside, because he got this oh-so-casual look on his little face as if he was thinking “Hmm. What’s over here? I should sniff over this way!”, and he started quickly walking toward the side fence that he likes to hop over. “Mister Boogers!” I said in my no-nonsense Mommy voice, and he stopped and looked up at me. “Why you being bad?” I asked. He made a grunting noise at me. “That’s right,” I said, and picked him up. Miz Poo watched from the patio, and I tried to shoo her inside, but she was having none of it. So I leaned down, Mister Boogers still in one arm, and picked her up. Now, she’s a portly Poo. She’s gotten even portlier since we started her on the steroids to make her lip go un-puffy, so portly that Fred has taken to calling her “Tubby.” NOT FUNNY. My point is that she’s so portly that it’s not really possible to pick her up with one arm. You need two arms to pick her up, and I had the Boog in one arm. So I had to kind of squish them together while picking them up. The Boog reached over and sniffed Miz Poo’s back, and Miz Poo reacted as she usually does, by hissing hysterically and smacking him upside the head, and then he reached over and bit her on her back, and she flailed and hissed and smacked some more. But I got the little shitheads in the house and got the door closed, so there was no fence-hopping for the Boog. He’s been absolutely wild ever since we shut the cat door. He wants OUT and when we won’t let him out, he runs around like his little stumpy tail is afire. Fred bought a small bag of Kitten Chow last weekend because the container of Kitten Chow we had was about empty. (I’ve mentioned before that we give Spanky, Mister Boogers, and Miz Poo a few pieces of Kitten Chow as a treat every night, right? They LOVE it. Spot’s not usually interested, but every once in a while he’ll eat some). So Fred put the bag of Kitten Chow in the bathroom closet, and a few days later he left the closet door open, and Mister Boogers hauled ass in there because he loves like hell to hang out in there. Naturally when he saw the bag of Kitten Chow he decided to do his best to get into it, and started ripping the bag open. Fred took him out of the closet, but every time either of us has opened the closet door in the past few days, Mister Boogers has run right in and done some more ripping. This morning I decided to put the bag on the shelf so he couldn’t reach it (yes, it took me almost a week to figure that out. Nothing gets by me!) and when I picked the bag up, about half a cup of Kitten Chow fell out and scattered all over the bathroom floor. Mister Boogers and Miz Poo were in hog heaven. I went downstairs to exercise, and when I came back up, every single piece of the Kitten Chow on the floor had disappeared. As much as Mister Boogers eats, I’m surprised HE isn’t a little portly. I guess he burns it off with all the spazzy running around. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Something hath disturbed the Boog. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

logo for February was done by wonderful reader Cally. It cracks me up, because just about anything that involves Mister Boogers cracks me up. Heh. Thanks, Cally!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Toe update: Fred went to see Dr. J yesterday, and when he told her that the other doc he saw last week said it was best not to poke a hole in the toenail because it might cause a bone infection, she said “What an idiot”, heated up the toenail-hole-poking tool, and poked a hole in his toenail. Fred said it was instant relief. I could actually see the difference in his toe; it was much smaller, and less discolored. It continued to bleed slowly for the rest of the evening – even more after he took a long, hot bath. He kept dabbing at the blood and leaving bloody paper towels all over the place, and then finally just wrapped a paper towel around his toe, and that seemed to work well enough. It stopped bleeding at some point last night. So, here’s the part of the story from yesterday’s entry that I didn’t share with y’all: Fred actually did try to heat up a paper clip and melt a hole in his toenail. I made him get out of my line of sight to do it, because the thought of watching him do it and seeing a big line of blood shoot across the room made me feel ooky. I was sitting on the couch and he was behind me at the kitchen table and I crouched low on the couch and put my hands over my ears. “WHY do you have your hands over your ears?” he asked. “So that when you scream your high-pitched girly scream, it won’t shatter my eardrums.” When I had relaxed a little and taken my hands away from my ears – because we were, after all, watching 24 – he made a hissing sound, as if perhaps he’d punched that hole just a little too vigorously. “Ahhhh!” I yelled, and flailed around the couch with my hands over my ears, because I didn’t want to hear the high-pitched girly scream I just knew was coming. Instead, he laughed. Because he’d been FAKING. Fucker. He never was able to make a hole in his toenail; we figure it’s because he just couldn’t get the paper clip hot enough. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Speaking of ooky feelings, from my comments, from Kay: Ooooh I must share my story..well it is my sister’s but it is true..straight from the goopy toe diaries. She let a toe go like that for, say, 7 months and when she finally went to a doctor, it had gotten so bad they did surgery then and there and it had ATE THROUGH THE BONE (the infection that is) and they took half of her big toe bone off and scraped and scraped and.. Fred..are you listening??? If THAT doesn’t make you want to scream and run around in circles, I don’t know what will! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ More from my comments: I know you like to change the logo on your page periodically; I just want to say that I will really miss the one you have there now. It makes me giggle out loud every time I read your page. I had actually decided last night that I’m going to use it again in June, so you’ll be seeing it again! Hey girl! I finally saw the Penn & Teller special. You guys looked great. You certainly came across as the rational, sensible people amidst the diet fakers and scammers. Do you mind re-posting the entry about the special? Or writing about it again? You can read about it starting here, and then click on the “forth” link at the bottom of the page to read the rest. Hi, Robyn. This is totally off topic from today’s discussions, but what happened to the OneFatBitchypoo site? The link is no longer working. It was down for a little while because Diaryland switched servers or something, and since I hadn’t done an entry in two months (two months as of today!) I had no idea. It’s back up and running here, and the archives through the end of 2002 are here. I need to get the rest of the archives up so that I can move everything from diaryland over to OneFatBitchypoo and start posting regular entries there; hopefully that’ll happen this month. I’ll probably have an OFB entry up in the next week or so. Not that I have anything to report, just a “state of me” kind of entry. Has Meester Boogers been neutered? Yes, he was actually neutered before we adopted him. The shelter we adopted him from (the one I volunteer for) won’t adopt out cats until they’ve been neutered. I think that’s a pretty good policy, and hopefully it’ll help cut down on all the unwanted kittens! oh my god, my cat has that same pink mouse… I’d recognize that thing anywhere! It’s his FAVORITE toy. Gotta love the company that makes those things. But, I must say, when I have to retreive it from under the couch… there have been times I’ve been afraid it’s a real mouse… eeek! (Regarding the pink mouse in this picture and this one) A few months ago Fred was looking for Spot, and he got down on the floor and looked under the bed. “Oh my god!” he said. “There’s a dead mole under here!” “Are you kidding me?” I said. “Where?” I got down on my hands and knees and looked, too. I looked and looked, but didn’t see any dead mole. “Hold on,” Fred, who was wrestling Spot down to give him some medicine. “It was over toward the side you’re on.” “Where? I don’t see it. Maybe it wasn’t dead, and it’s running around!” I said, nearly levitating at the thought. “Right THERE,” Fred said, pointing toward me. “Baby,” I said. “That’s a TOY MOUSE, not a MOLE.” “Oh.” It was the same mouse as the one in those pictures, only it was a gray one. Our cats LOVE those mice, and every year at Christmas I send a few to my sister’s cat, who immediately chews the ears (or is it the arms and legs, Deb?) off. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Amy’s back! Yay! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Mo posted a link to this page in yesterday’s comments. How funny is it that not only is she a dead ringer for Mister Boogers, but her name is Bean? New readers might not know this, but for a while I was calling Mister Boogers “The Bean”. I think one of you should go adopt that kitty right now! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Mister Boogers absolutely adores being carried around like this. In fact, I’m sure he’d let Fred carry him around like this all day long if Fred was willing. (Fred is wearing the t-shirt the spud bought him in California last summer). ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ What the hell is “California cuisine”? They’ve been building a restaurant around the corner from us, and we had heard that it was going to be an Olive Garden, which had us both pretty excited because we like Olive Garden, but not enough to drive alllll the way into Huntsville to eat there. It’s nearing completion and I drove by it yesterday to find out that it’s not going to be an Olive Garden at ALL, but that it’s going to be a Silver Point Restaurant, and under the name of the restaurant it says “California cuisine.” I don’t know what “California cuisine” is, but I suspect (no offense, Californians) that it involves a plate fancily decorated with some kind of sauce, a lettuce leaf atop the sauce, and a single shrimp atop the lettuce leaf. And that they’ll charge $88 for it. There’s no information online at all about any Silver Point Restaurant, so I guess it’s not a chain. I imagine that “California cuisine” might be a bit more froufy than the area calls for. Yes, we live in a very yuppie city, but judging by the line I see by the barbeque place, a line that goes across the parking lot and usually down the highway a little, tastes ’round here run more to good ol’ southern food than California cuisine. I could be wrong, though. It could turn out to be a smashing success, especially since I really don’t know what California cuisine IS. I have a suspicion that the restaurant will go out of business in a year or less. And then maybe Olive Garden will buy the building and set up shop!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Fred’s toe (read about it here, if you don’t know what’s going on with it) has gotten even more swollen than it was. If you look at his toe from the end, you can see the toenail lifting up. “We should pop my toe like a zit, to relieve the pressure!” he started saying last night. And, “I should melt a hole in my toenail to relieve the pressure!” And “Damn my toe hurts. I’m going to drill a hole in my toenail!” Every time he said something about his toe, I had to flail around and curl my toes and be grossed out, because the thought of popping it like a zit? YUCK. The thought of him trying to melt a hole in the toenail and pushing a little too hard and putting a hole in his toe? UGH. The thought of him trying to drill a hole through his toenail and pushing a little too hard and drilling THROUGH his toe? UGH and YUCK. He didn’t do anything to relieve the pressure, but just hearing him talk about it freaked me OUT. Ugh. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “I love to annoy my mother by rubbingrubbingrubbing my nose on her hand until she runs screaming into the night. Good thing I’m so cute, right? Uh…. right? Oh, shut up. My mommy loves me anyway.” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>

Amy. 1.) WHAT’S THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF MUSIC FILES ON YOUR COMPUTER? 1.55 GB in my “My Music” folder. Is that a lot? 2.)WHAT WAS THE LAST CD YOU BOUGHT? Kenny Chesney, When the Sun Goes Down. 3.) WHAT WAS THE LAST SONG LISTENED TO BEFORE GETTING THIS MESSAGE? Fall to Pieces, by Velvet Revolver. 4.) WRITE DOWN FIVE SONGS YOU OFTEN LISTEN TO OR THAT MEAN A LOT TO YOU. 1. Beloved Wife – Natalie Merchant. 2. Angry All the Time – Tim McGraw 3. Breakaway – Kelly Clarkson 4. Black – Pearl Jam 5. El Cerrito Place – Charlie Robison 5.) WHO ARE YOU GONNA PASS THIS STICK TO (THREE PERSONS) AND WHY? 1. Nance 2. Mo 3. Everyone! ‘Cause I’ll be interested to see their answers, of course, that’s why! Amy was curious as to whether I spend as much money on music as I do on books. I don’t, really, because I tend to download the songs I like online (LEGALLY, at iTunes, usually) rather than spend the money to buy an entire album full of songs that I might not like. I spend, at the most, five dollars a month on music, though that varies. I spent about fifteen dollars of my birthday money on iTunes downloads. (Thus the reason I was sitting here listening to I Fall to Pieces by Velvet Revolver!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ From muh comments: Robyn, do you or anyone else know about the cat net like tunnels that one poster mentioned?? (in this comment: How about one of those netlike cat tunnels for outdoors? I’ve seen those, and they are not too expensive. You could attach it temporarily to the cat-door, so the cats could go outside, lie in the sun, whatever…and then come back indoors. Then you could detach the netting till the next day.) I have two cats and one of them is always trying to escape… I’d love to have one of those thingies if its like I imagine it to be…. I don’t know where to find them, but I know I saw them somewhere… once upon a time. But I don’t remember when or where I saw ’em. I glanced at the usual pet store pages but didn’t see anything. Can anyone help out, here? Hook a sister up! Edited to add: Nevermind! Grace posted a comment that answered the question. FYI – the cat fence is at catfence.com. Tunnels (portable outdoor enclosures) are at drsfostersmith.com although you may be able to find them cheaper with a search. When I lived in Huntsville the Neighborhood Nazis didn’t so much care if changes to your house (fence, paint, etc.) couldn’t be seen from the street. In Houston they do care vary much – so anyone who’s wanting to do the fence thing should probably check with their POA. (Thanks, Grace!) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Oh, and thanks for the suggestions on what to do about That Damn Booger-Bean. I quite like the idea of tying him out on a long leash, but only because imagining him getting all caught up in his leash and leaping about like a little Beanie Frog makes me giggle. We had thought about putting a really tall fence right around where the cat door comes out – like the fences you see dog runs made out of? – but Fred would have to mow around it, and he wasn’t looking forward to that. We do think we’ve come up with a good solution, but we’ll have to see if it works. I’ll tell y’all more about that idea once it’s up and running, assuming that it works. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Thanks, also, for all the beef stew recipes, y’all! I got a ton of them. I made one this weekend, a recipe I got from reader Renate that was easy as hell and damn yummy, too. Fred wasn’t looking forward to the beef stew at ALL (because he’s a bastard), but he liked it a lot (even more once he’d added a great big dash of tabasco – I swear, the man would eat a turd as long as you put a bunch of tabasco on top of it!). Next time I make it, though, I think I’m going to cut the veggies a little bigger and cook it a little longer, just because the carrots I sliced up were so skinny that I had a hard time getting the carrot pieces on my spoon. And I love me some cooked carrots, yes indeedy. The meat was perfectly tender, though. Stew was a perfect meal to have yesterday, since it was cold and rainy and icky out. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Speaking of carrots (like I did in the previous paragraph), here’s a carrot story for you. When I was in (I think) fourth grade, we were allowed to bring a snack to school to eat in class mid-morning. It had to be a healthy snack, though – no cookies or Twinkies or anything. (BASTARDS. Ha. Like my mother would have let me take a cookie to school for a snack, anyway. Sh’yeah!) I always took carrots, because I have always loved the hell out of carrots. So one day at snack time I turned to my friend, whose name I cannot recall. She had brought a tomato for her snack (yes, a tomato. I don’t know, don’t ask me.) and she was about to bite into it like it was an apple until I said “Hey! That looks like a BUTT!”, because it was creased just so, so that it looked, well, like two butt cheeks. She was so grossed out by the thought that she couldn’t eat her tomato and went and threw it away. She got me back, though. After she’d tossed her tomato, she said “Oh yeah? Well, that carrot looks like A BOY’S THINGY!” I couldn’t eat carrots for a good two years after that. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Hey, can you eat raw kale? I mean, is it okay to, or will it make me spend all night in the bathroom afterward? I had Fred get some kale when he got groceries on Saturday. I found a simple recipe on how to cook kale, but there’s so much of it that I thought I might like to toss some in my salad to add a little extra flavor. Thoughts, opinions, suggestions? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Check out this smiley that Georgina made for me, based on the picture I put up last week: For comparison purposes: Well done, Georgina! (She made it here. Go make your own!) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I bet when we’re not around, they actually SNUGGLE. ]]>

Georgina thought I looked like Sandy the squirrel from Spongebob Squarepants in my picture yesterday. I can see the resemblance. Fred, however, thinks I look like someone else entirely…

I’m sad to say, I agree. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Hey, look what was waiting for me at the post office this morning! It was created by the owner of this cool site, and you can order your very own! Man, I’m totally going to order some of those for Christmas next year. Also, Valentine’s Day is coming up. Hmm…. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Speaking of Hawaii, did I mention that my parents are going to Hawaii again? My father leaves at the beginning of February, and my mother’s going over two weeks after that. They’ll be there about three months. I’m not going this time – the flight would kill me. I can’t take another 12 hours in a plane! – but seeing pictures like this sure does make it tempting! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Yesterday marked one year since Tubby died. It seems like it’s been longer, but it also seems like it just happened. We sure do miss that cat. For a little while we thought we were going to mark the occasion by losing another cat – Mister Boogers, to be exact. Mister Boogers recently figured out that he could jump the fence. We found this out a couple of weeks ago as we were sitting in the computer room, turned around so we were facing each other. Fred had offered me a bite of his Ben & Jerry’s (it being a Friday and all) and I had just put a spoon full of Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch in my mouth when I glanced out the window and saw Mister Boogers casually slinking through the front flower bed. All the color drained out of my face, I’m sure, and my jaw dropped, and I shoved the pint of ice cream back at Fred and went flying out the front door. Fred followed as I chased Mister Boogers across the front of the house and told me to go back in the house. Mister Boogers ducked under my Jeep, and then rubbed his head on the muffler when Fred spoke to him, and eventually came out to be picked up, scolded, and carried back into the house. We spent the rest of the afternoon (well Fred did, anyway) looking up ideas on how to keep cats in the yard when they’ve figured out how to jump the fence. He finally came across this cat fencing stuff that is, basically, just netting that goes across the top of the fence, with brackets every so often to hold the netting out. The cat jumps up and gets repelled by the netting, and voila! Can’t get out of the yard. So instead of paying way too much for the “official” cat fence, Fred went to Lowe’s and bought netting, some brackets, and a staple gun. He put it across the top of the fence going from our house to the neighbor’s part of the fence, and then along the side fence that separates our yard from the neighbor’s. Since the side fence actually belongs to the neighbors, he didn’t put any brackets up, because he needed to make sure it was okay with them. We let Mister Boogers (and the other cats) out a few times and everything seemed to be okay, until one afternoon this week when I stepped out into the back yard to check on Mister Boogers, and when I glanced over toward the fence between our yard and the neighbor’s yard, Mister Boogers was sitting atop the fence. When he saw me, he jumped down and ran into the house, because he KNEW he wasn’t supposed to be doing that. We kept the cat door closed for a few days, and then one day Fred opened the cat door and watched to see what Mister Boogers would do, and then he discovered how Mister Boogers was going through a gap in the fence between our yard and the neighbor’s yard, a gap we’d thought was too small for any of the cats to fit through. So Fred stapled some netting along the gap, and a few days later Mister Boogers managed to get into the neighbor’s back yard again, and Fred decided he hadn’t covered the gap enough, so he stapled some more netting over the gap. Which brings us to yesterday evening, when Fred went to the doc-in-a-box to see about his toe. As soon as Fred left, I heard the cat door swinging as Mister Boogers went outside, but I didn’t think anything about it. I ate dinner and goofed around online, and when it had been about 45 minutes, I went out back to check on him. And the fucker was nowhere to be seen. I took the flashlight out with me, and a toy, and I shook the toy (which makes a rattling sound) and I called and called and called for the Booger, but nothing. Nada. Zilch. I called the spud downstairs and told her to occasionally go out into the back yard to call for him, because I was going to drive around to the back of the fence (you have to drive out of the neighborhood to get to the back of our fence) and see if I could spot him. I got to the end of the street and saw some glittering eyes going across someone’s front yard and I thought for a moment “How the FUCK did he get all the way down here?” before I realized that it was a cat with a tail rather than a stump, so couldn’t be our Booger. I drove around the neighborhood and down the road that runs along our back fence, and didn’t see a thing. When I got home, Fred was home, out in the back yard calling for the Booger. Nada. Fred walked around the front of the house and called for him, and I walked around the back yard and called, and still nothing. We finally decided to drive around to the back of the fence and park and walk along the road to the culvert a few houses down, and call for him. We spent about ten minutes calling for him, and I had just gotten back into the car while Fred looked a little more, when my cell phone rang and the spud was calling to tell me that the Booger had come home. As soon as we got home, we shut the cat door, which pissed off Mister Boogers, who spent the evening howling and jumping on the other cats, and smacking at the blinds on the door to the back yard. At this point we’re trying to figure out what exactly we want to do, but I feel bad that none of the cats can go outside just because Mister Boogers is a fuckhead. If nothing else, having Fancypants run away was a good lesson for us. We thought he’d be okay, because he could take care of himself. With Mister Boogers, we know better. I’d rather have him in the house and miserable than let him out and have him go missing. Besides, he has such a tiny brain that I bet after about three days he’ll forget he was ever allowed out into the back yard at all. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “Lemme out! Lemme out! I want OUT!” ]]>