Author: Robyn

* * * The spud’s appointment was at 8:15 this morning, and we left the house at 7:45, because I wasn’t sure what the traffic would be like at that time of day. It wasn’t bad at all, so I actually had time to stop and get gas on the way. We got there, I signed the spud in, and we’d no sooner sat down than I looked up and saw Fred’s mother walk through the door. It’s funny how often I’m seeing her lately – I saw her at the mall a few weeks ago, at the pet store last Monday, and now at the doctor’s office. She was coming in for a checkup, and we talked for a few minutes before she was called back. It took all of about two minutes for them to draw the spud’s blood, and we were at the school by 8:30. I hadn’t checked her in or out before, so I wasn’t sure if I could just park by the sign that said “Student check in/out” or if I needed to park in the parking lot. I circled the parking lot for several minutes, concluded there was no way in hell I was going to find a parking space, and pulled up next to the sign. I accompanied the spud inside, and had the misfortune to be behind a VERY talky looking man and his daughter or niece or something. The spud and I stood patiently by while the man chattered at the school employees for several minutes and then my head exploded, scattering brain matter everywhere. Very messy. When Chatty McShutTheFuckUp was on his way, we stepped into the office and I discovered that I needed to get a doctor’s note for the spud. And if I’d had doctor’s note for her, I could have just dropped her off with the note and not had to come inside. Good to know for next time, I guess. So I signed her in and was on my way. Luckily I have a doctor’s appointment at 9:45 at the same office, so it won’t be a big deal to get a doctor’s note. Because if I had to make a special trip, I wouldn’t be a happy camper. Not that I’m a happy camper anyway, but you know what I mean.

* * * What the hell do they keep going on about on TV? Was there an election somewhere or something? Ha. I am so looking forward to hearing about this for the next two months. NOT. Oh. Kerry conceded. Well, damn. What the hell am I going to bitch about now? (I’m sure I’ll find something!) * * * “You. Come. Rub mah belly.” * * *]]>

5ive Days to Midnight last night when Fred said “Look at Stumpy.” and pointed toward the window. I turned and looked, and saw Meester Boogers standing outside the living room window peering at us. As we watched, he meowed at us, and then sat down to watch us. I can only imagine how fascinating it must be to sit and watch The Momma and The Daddy through the window watching TV, because the cats seem to love it, and take turns doing so every single night. If we look over at them, they look all pathetic and sad like “Why would you lock me out of your fun TV watching? Why? Whyyyyy?”, as if they’ve forgotten that a mere 15 feet from where they sit is the cat door through which they travel ten thousand times a day. If they look sufficiently sad and cute enough, one of us (read: Fred, because as far as I’m concerned, they can sit there and look sad ’til hell freezes over before I’ll get up off my comfy couch) will open the door and let them in, and they always look overwhelmingly grateful. Not two minutes later we heard the thump of the cat door opening and closing, and then we heard the sound of an angry small animal. “Squee!” it said angrily. “Squee! Squee! SQUEE!” Fred and I both jumped up to run into the other room, but before we could get very far, Meester Boogers hauled ass into the living room, his jaws firmly clamped around the body of what I thought at first was a bird. It sounded a lot like the baby cardinals that have been brought into the house. “Squee!” it reiterated. “Squee! Squee! Squee!” “Stumpy!” I said loudly, and clapped my hands at him to make him drop the poor thing. “DON’T CLAP YOUR HANDS AT HIM!” Fred said, and bent down to grab Meester Boogers. “I think it’s! It’s not a bird!” “What the hell is it?” I asked, and ran over to open the door. “I don’t know! Some kind of mammal!” Now let me digress for a moment to say that I spent many minutes taking shit for having clapped at Meester Boogers last night, and yet “some kind of mammal” is the height of brilliance? Hmph. Fred ran out the door with Meester Boogers in his hands. “Squee!” said the mammal in Meester Boogers’ mouth. “Squee! Squee! Squee!” Fred dropped Meester Boogers and Meester Boogers dropped the squealer, and then Meester Boogers was a blur as he went after the little mammal and caught him again, clamping his jaws around the mammal’s stomach. “Oh my god!” I said. “Is it a chipmunk?” It seemed to have the tail of a squirrel or chipmunk, but seemed too small to be a squirrel. “Squee!” said the little animal angrily. “Squee! Squee! Squee!” Fred yelled at Meester Boogers and reached down and grabbed him and shook him a little, and then Meester Boogers dropped the squealer and Fred hung on to Meester Boogers, and the squealer ran away. “It’s climbing up the side of the house!” Fred said in amazement. “Yeah…?” “Up the bricks! It’s climbing the bricks!” I went over to where Fred was standing, holding Meester Boogers, and looked up to where he was pointing. Sure enough, the mammal was running quickly up the side of the house. I went in and got a flashlight so we could see it more clearly, and we decided that it was a young squirrel. It stayed there near the top of the house for an hour or so, and then when Fred went out to see if it was still there, it had disappeared. He checked the ground beneath where it had been to make sure it hadn’t died and fallen to the ground, but it was nowhere to be seen. Upon talking about it later, we decided it was a pretty damn good thing that Meester Boogers hadn’t dropped the squirrel when I clapped my hands at him, because the idea of chasing a little squirrel through the house is not one that fills my heart with joy. He was awfully cute, though. I hope he’s okay. I’m sure that next, That Bastard Meester Boogers will bring a skunk into the house.

* * * The spud and I had to go to her school last night after dinner to order her high school class ring. I don’t think I got my high school ring until I was a Junior and the spud is only a Sophomore, but at least this way she’ll get to wear it for a few years before she realizes that anyone who wears their high school ring past, say, the first year of college is a big goober. She chose this ring, if you were curious. We ordered it in Celestrium, which is the least expensive metal offered. I do love my child, but I don’t love anyone enough to lay out the $450 for 14K gold. That’s just ridiculous, y’know? Anyway, we got to the school right after 5, because the Balf0ur reps were going to be there from 5 – 7. There were a good number of people already there, but most of them were clustered around the display case of rings, so the spud and I went and stood in line to wait for the next available rep. You know, people are just such a huge pain in the ass. See, when the spud told me it was time to order a class ring (or asked if she could have one, anyway – it’s not like she said “Time to order a class ring. Pay up!”) she brought home the order form and booklet, and anything you needed to know was contained in that booklet. Yet people showed up with NO FUCKING CLUE about what they wanted and the sales reps were having to fill every friggin’ square in the order form in for these dumbasses. THEY DIDN’T EVEN HAVE THE COMMON DECENCY TO FILL IN THEIR NAMES AND ADDRESSES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. It took each parent/ child combo ten to fifteen minutes to have their stupid, stupid forms filled in by the rep. Know how long it took once the spud and I sat down in front of a rep? Three minutes. BECAUSE WE HAD OUR FORM FILLED OUT. All we needed to know was what size ring the spud wears and then the rep took the rest of the time to add up what we owed (my god, those rings are expensive. And the spud chose a nice average-priced ring, not one of the expensive ones.) and asked “Did you want to pay it all at once?” and I said “Yes” and she checked the “Pay all at once” checkbox, and then that was it – I didn’t even have to write a check because I had already written the debit card information in the correct place. Three minutes, folks. We waited 35 minutes for the idiots in front of us, and it took us all of three minutes. You know, it would never occur to me to show up at something like that unprepared. Because there’s no friggin’ reason you have to sit there and spell out your name and address for someone else WHEN YOU COULD HAVE DONE IT YOURSELF. Yet people show up all half-assed and “Oh. Was I supposed to fill out the form myself? I had no idea. Because I’m a half-assed idiot.” What the hell is that about? Always be prepared, people. Don’t be an annoying half-ass or one of these days I’ll snap and hit you over the head with my purse. And I have a heavy purse, oh yes. * * * The hunter. The mighty, mighty hunter. * * *]]>

New logo this month, this one created by the lovely Pinky. Adorable, no?

* * * Stephen King’s new book is coming out November 21st. It’s entitled Faithful : Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the 2004 Season and he wrote it with Stewart O’Nan. Now. You know I love the hell out of Stephen King. But I can’t really think of anything less interesting in this world than a book about baseball. Fuckin’ yawnsville. I’m going to break my record of buying every Stephen King book that ever comes out, I guess. * * * I’m not going to tell you to vote tomorrow, because either you are or you aren’t and me telling you to vote isn’t going to make you jump up and yell “Holy crap! She’s right! I do need to vote!” and then run out of the house to do so. But, still. You know you wanna. * * * Yesterday, our anniversary, how did we celebrate? Why, Fred took Spot to the emergency vet while I stayed home with the spud. Spot, who was on medication for ringworm, an antidepressant, and an antibiotic, was looking more and more like a zombie as the week went on. Toward the middle of the week, we realized that he didn’t seem to be eating very much, if at all, and Fred thought that was due to the fact that he’d twice caught Spot in by the food bowl and grabbed him up to give him his medicine. Fred started doing things like opening cans of tuna, putting a little in a dish and carrying it to wherever Spot was. Spot wasn’t interested, but as soon as Fred would walk away one of the other cats would dive in and gulp down the tuna. Spot also wasn’t interested in baby food either, but Miz Poo lost her mind when she smelled it, and howled until Fred gave her some. When I was cutting up raw chicken on Thursday, Spot came out from his hiding place under the couch and came into the kitchen, where he howled at me until I started giving him pieces of chicken. He ate more than I’ve ever seen him eat before – usually he’ll eat a piece or two of chicken and then go along his merry way, but he probably ate three ounces of raw chicken altogether this time. We worried about him a little and talked about him, and Fred got up every ten minutes to check on him, but we figured the medicine was just making him loopy. Fred skipped a dose of the antidepressant on Saturday and Spot perked up a little. But Sunday his color just didn’t look right, especially around his mouth and he was moving so slowly that it was painful to watch. He was visibly thinner, and he’s not an overweight cat to begin with. Fred finally decided to take him to the emergency vet and I offered to go with him, but he suggested I stay home since we had no idea how long it would take. An hour or so after he’d left, he called to tell me that the vet tech had told him Spot had a bad heart murmur – a 4 on a scale of 1 – 5. He said it was something he was born with, but that it could probably be treated. When the vet came in, she said that it was really a 3 on a scale of 1 – 6 and again, it was something he’d been born with. Now, I have a hard time believing that over the course of 9 years, 5 vets, and regular checkups, not one single person has said “Did anyone ever tell you he has a heart murmur?” I mean, come on. I made dinner for the spud and went out to get a salad from Sonic (dinner was spaghetti made with ground turkey and I cannot abide the idea of eating ground turkey. I used to eat it just fine and then one day my gag reflex kicked in and I could no longer even stand the thought of it. So when Fred and the spud have spaghetti, I get a salad from Sonic because Sonic salads are excellent and also that awful Ami mentioned the awesome Sonic ice in a thread over on the Smart and Sassy forum and I had to see what all the fuss was about, and now I’m addicted to the Route 44 Diet Cherry Limeade. Damn you, Ami!) for myself, and then I talked to my mother for half an hour or so, and the entire time I was waiting for the phone to ring and Fred to tell me that Spot had irreversible liver damage, was in horrible pain, and the vet had made it clear that someone who loved their cat would put it to sleep. But the phone never rang, and then I heard the garage door go up and I walked into the kitchen. Fred walked through the door with a handful of paper and an x-ray, and it looked for all the world like the carrier was empty, and my heart just sank. He just looked at me and then went upstairs and I looked through the pile of paper he’d left on the table and saw “enlarged heart” and “heart murmur”, but didn’t see the word “euthanasia”, so I considered that a good sign. I finished up the conversation with my mother and went upstairs to see what Fred was doing, and he pointed to Spot, and I could see that already Spot looked like he was about 100 times better. His color was much improved, and he didn’t look quite as skinny. Fred said they gave him quite a bit of fluid via IV. “So, did they figure out what was wrong with him?” I asked. “They think he was reacting to the medication,” Fred said. Well, hell. I could have told them that. So for now we need to keep him off the medication and keep an eye on him. Hopefully he’s going to be okay, though the vet did say that his heart murmur might get worse as he gets older so that’s something to keep an eye on. Oh, the kitties. How they do like to make us worry! * * * Spot in the sun. ]]>

Happy 6th anniversary, you walnut-farting motherfucker. I love you, you goofy bastard! (And they said it’d never last).

* * * And how funny is it that no sooner did I answer a Smart and Sassy question about giving other people anniversary presents, saying Oh please, some people will use any damn excuse to expect gifts from other people. than my sister made and sent Fred and I an anniversary present? No wonder about a month ago she was asking what year Fred and I got married. Thanks, Deb. You rock! * * *]]>

List of fives. The five things I can hear right now. 1. The friggin’ plow on the other side of my fence. NOW they’re digging something back up. Fuckers. 2. Miz Poo quietly wheezing. 3. Meester Boogers hanging half out of the cat door, making whiny chattering noises at the birds. 4. The icemaker in the fridge making some weird kind of draining sound. 5. The birds in the back yard fighting over who gets to perch on the bird feeder. My current obsessions: 1. The Warren Brothers 2. Desperate Housewives 3. Lost 4. Thinking I hear one of the cats bringing a bird into the house, and running to check. 5. Diet Coke My favorite sad songs: 1. Dagger Through the Heart – Dolly Parton 2. You Were Mine – Dixie Chicks 3. Cold Day in July – Suzy Bogguss (Dixie Chicks do a good version, too) 4. Angry All the Time – Tim McGraw 5. Be My Downfall – Del Amitri My other favorite sad songs: 1. Changes – Olivia Newton-John 2. Black – Pearl Jam 3. I’m Not Supposed to Love You Anymore – Bryan White 4. You’re Gone – Diamond Rio 5. I Miss My Friend – Darryl Worley (I could have done a list of about 50 of these! I do love me a sad song.) My current favorite songs (sad or otherwise): 1. The Lucky – The Warren Brothers 2. Runnin’ out of Heroes – The Warren Brothers 3. Goodbye to Neverland – The Warren Brothers 4. Trouble Is – The Warren Brothers 5. Between the River and Me – The Warren Brothers (Can you tell what CD is in my car stereo?) The songs that always make me think of my sister: 1. Silent Lucidity – Queensryche 2. You Could’ve Been with Me – Sheena Easton 3. All Cried Out – Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force 4. Friends in Low Places – Garth Brooks 5. Anything by Travis Tritt The last five sites I visited: 1. Nance 2. Jane 3. Amblus 4. The Smart and Sassy forum 5. Scalzi – The Endorsement Five things that might (but probably won’t) surprise you about me: 1. I am pro-choice. (No, you won’t change my mind) 2. I am pro-gay marriage. (No, you won’t change my mind) 3. I am pro-stem cell research. (No, you won’t change my mind) 4. I think that anyone who seriously makes a black-and-white “All Republicans are”, “All Democrats are”, “All gay people are”, “All Christians are”, “All Southerners are”, “All Yankees are” statement is an idiot of the first degree with a strong need to pigeonhole people by their beliefs. 5. I’ve always been able to see both sides of most issues and it makes me feel like I come across as wishy-washy. I know what I believe, but I mostly understand why other people think the way they do, too. Five things I’d change about this house (money being no object): 1. I’d hardwood the stairs 2. I’d put up a wall between the kitchen and living room 3. I’d put the master bedroom on the front of the house to get the morning sun 4. I’d hardwood the entire house, come to think of it. 5. I’d put a hot tub and pool in the back yard. Five places I want to visit: 1. North Carolina (I’ve been to SC, now it’s time to go north!) 2. Scotland 3. Australia 4. Arizona 5. The Bahamas

* * * “Yeah. Whaaaaatever, Mom.”]]>

Lost yesterday. My god, that is such a good show. If you’re not watching it, you’re missing out! Also, Fred and I watched Wife Swap last night. Another excellent show. I think Wednesday night on ABC has turned into my own personal Must-See TV night. But who are these people who clean for five hours a day? Who? I can’t even imagine. Also, who are these people who cater to their child’s every whim? Breakfast in bed? Three perfectly matched outfits to choose among? You are not doing your kids any favors by spoiling them rotten, people. On the other side, who on earth, knowing that another woman will be spending two weeks in their house, doesn’t clean? I spend an hour cleaning just when we’re having Fred’s parents over to watch a movie with us. If I knew another woman was going to be spending two weeks in my home, I’d spend a week beforehand scrubbing the entire house from top to bottom. Okay, TV talk is over for now.

* * * I think something’s wrong with my sense of smell. Miz Poo just farted and it smells like pineapple. Maybe all those years of picking my nose has finally done some damage. * * * Oh, nevermind. It’s apparently a candle sitting in one of my desk drawers. I guess that makes a little more sense than a pineapple-scented Poo poot. * * * So, if you’ve ever flown before, chances are good you’ve come across the SkyMall catalog. If you’ve never flown before or haven’t explored the pouch on the back of the seat in front of you, woe betide you, because SkyMall is awesome. When I flew home from Maine in September, I was bored with whatever it was I was reading, and I picked up the SkyMall catalog, which I usually prefer not to look at, because it is filled with many a wondrous thing. This time, though, I did look through the entire thing, and by the time I’d landed in Huntsville, I’d marked half the pages as having something on them that I desperately needed to have. When I got home, I tossed the catalog in my desk drawer where it stayed for a month or so, and then a few weeks I was cleaning out the drawer and came across the catalog, and remembered how desperately I needed this stuff. Which is how it happened that a huge styrofoam-peanut-filled box was left in front of my door by UPS earlier this week. When I opened the box, I found an item I’d ordered not for me, but for the cats. Before I tell you what it was, let me remind you of how we used to have a sweater dryer sitting under the table in the master bedroom. It was there because once upon a time I actually used it as a sweater dryer, and then Miz Poo discovered it, and then various and sundry other cats discovered it, and it became not so much a sweater dryer as a kitty hammock. Tubby used to love laying on it, only he was so heavy that once he settled his big ass on it the one side of the dryer that was attached via velcro would come undone, and I’d have to fix it. The other kitties liked laying on it, but Tubby loved it most of all. A few months ago I looked at the sweater dryer and realized that it had gotten pretty nasty and torn, because Meester Boogers had come to enjoy getting under it and kicking it with his back feet, and sometimes I’d walk across the room in the middle of the night and find that the little bastard had knocked the sweater dryer into the middle of the room. When I say I’d “find” the sweater dryer in the middle of the room, what I mean of course is that I’d stumble across it, and swear up a storm and get myself so worked up and annoyed that I’d have a hard time falling back to sleep. Anyway, I took the sweater dryer apart and tossed it, because it was in such bad shape, and I vowed that I would look for something else to put there. Then I read the SkyMall catalog, and voila! Exactly what I wanted, and for an excellent price! SkyMall is the shit, yo. So I ordered it and after a few weeks of waiting it arrived and then sat in a huge styrofoam-peanut-filled box for a few days before I got around to unpacking it (and spilling those frickin’ peanuts everywhere. What I hate the most about those damn things is how they stick to you. Grrr!). Wednesday I finally unpacked it and took the pieces of the dog bed out of the box and got a screwdriver and sat myself down on the living room floor to put it together. And half an hour later I stomped out of the living room and called Fred to bitch about how the bed was a “worthless piece of shit” because I just could not get the fucking thing put together. Fred talked me down, promising to put it together himself when he got home. He was true to his word, and he didn’t swear or yell at the stupid dog bed in frustration or throw anything across the room, and he had it put together in ten minutes flat with very little problem even though one of the pieces was warped, because he is a bastard. We left it in the middle of the living room so the cats could sniff at it and get used to it and be freaky and all that. Spanky was the first one to try it out, because it was sitting in a spot of sun. He seemed to approve. Miz Poo was the next to give it a whirl Thursday afternoon while I was sitting on the couch cross-stitching. Then last night Meester Boogers came sniffing around. First he sat under it, trying to decide if this was a new Stump Cave. Then he chewed on the fabric. Then he chewed on the metal. After we were done watching TV, I carried it upstairs to the master bedroom and put it under the table the TV sits upon. Meester Boogers spent the evening hiding under it and smacking at the other cats as they wandered by. In case you were wondering, we are officially Crazy Cat People. We have 8 cat beds in this house and only four cats. How fucked up is that? * * * I have to say, I really REALLY want a pet stroller, because helLEW, how stylin’ and cool (also completely fucking goofy and nutty) would I look, strolling down the street with Meester Boogers in a stroller? I’ve tried six ways to Sunday, but I just can’t justify the $129 cost, though. Damnit. Maybe I could make my own pet stroller with an old stroller and some netting! Yeah, I’ll get right on that. * * * Pet store kitty pics from Monday are up, here. * * * Fred saw this car in the parking lot of our grocery store and came home to get a picture of it, just for me. I’d seen it before, though. It belongs someone who works at the store. Very “me”, don’tchathink? * * *]]>

* * * TV talk in this section (I still haven’t gotten around to figuring out where to put up the Couch Potato blog. Maybe this weekend.). If you’re not interested in The Swan or The Biggest Loser skip to the next section, ‘k? We actually watched The Swan Monday night, since I didn’t trust the DVR to tape it and not delete it before I’d watched it. Also, there was nothing else to watch. The first hour was a recap of all the “Swans” from last season, including how they’re doing/ what they’re doing today, how their relationships are going and the like. I enjoyed it, because I always enjoy that shit, and Fred pointed out several times that they all look much better in their real life when they’re not all made up and wearing beaded gowns. They played the clip of Rachel Love Fraser’s husband saying “She’s a little average”, so Fred was happy. I was actually a little surprised at how many of the women I remembered, though there was one or two that made me say “Who the hell is that? I don’t remember her!” Is it just me, or do they tend to pair up a gung-ho woman with a whiner as often as possible? That woman who fought them the entire way, not wanting to eat the food, whining about working out, not wanting to talk about her Issues – what the hell is up with that? Why would you go on a show like The Swan and then fight them on every issue? Ingrate. They did a really good job on both the women this time around, though I wasn’t crazy about the extensions. Do they let anyone get away without extensions? We watched The Biggest Loser while it was on last night because, again, nothing else was on and we had nothing taped to watch. Here is my question – how can these people, being overweight, not know about water weight? Did they truly and honestly believe they were going to lose as much the second week as they did the first? For the love of god, people! You cannot lose twenty pounds one week and then expect to lose another twenty the next! I was a little surprised that Mo didn’t lose anything at all, though. I still think they’re overdoing the exercise. When they were voting on who to eliminate and that guy said “I’m sorry Dave (big pause, then he showed his vote) I’ve voted for Lizzeth!”, what an asshole. How could he think that was funny? I mean, I know they’re not curing cancer, Captain Asshole, but you don’t need to go out of your way to be cruel. Jeez. Is he the same one who said “What took you so long?” when the other team had to vote off a member? Because he’s not funny at all. What a jerk. Yeah, I guess I’m hooked on the show. I liked the way the trainers told their teams to just stay the course and they’d start losing again. The baking-and-selling challenge was a little goofy, but I was impressed that not a single person licked frosting or batter from their fingers while they were cooking.

* * * There is a special seat deep in the bowels of Hell for those motherfuckers who invented styrofoam packing peanuts. I hate those goddamn packing peanuts like I hate nothing else on earth. And now I have a huge box filled with them. What I should do is mail the whole box of peanuts back to the fucking company they came from. Fuckers. * * * From my comments: So, DVR. Yeah, I’m supposed to have the cable company come and set me up with that on Wednesday. I’m wondering if I should save myself the headaches that you’ve been having and order TiVo instead. One question though, why does Fred not want to get TiVo? I’ve been wondering what the pros and cons are of each and haven’t heard anything to really sway me either way. The only reason I decided to go with DVR is because I have to get cable hooked up anyway, so I thought it would be easiest to just get the DVR at the same time. Should I re-think this? Thanks! We opted for the DVR over the TiVo only because of the cost – there’s a low monthly fee for the DVR, whereas with the TiVo you have to buy the TiVo and then also pay a monthly fee for service, or come up with $300 for lifetime service. What I really like about the TiVo (having never used one, only from reading online) is that it learns what you like and will tape things for you it thinks you might like. That, to me, is very cool. I will say that for what we pay for it every month, the DVR is worth it. We haven’t really had that many problems with it – when we first got the DVR we got two bad units in a row, but once we got the box we have now, it’s been working just fine. If I recall correctly, this is really the first big snafu we’ve had with it, and I’m mostly just pissed that last week’s ER got deleted, but I do know that I’ll surely see that episode in reruns at some point in the future. Trust me, though – whether you decide to go the DVR route or whether you decide to go the TiVo route, you will get so accustomed to the pausing and rewinding of live TV that when you’re in front of a TV you can’t pause or rewind, you will compulsively say “What did he say? Rewind it!” to the other people watching with you, and you will drive them nuts. (Edited to add: Yeah, apparently our box is in the process of shitting the bed and we’ll need a new one – it locked up at least twice on us last night. TiVo users who’ve had your unit for at least a year – have you had a problem like this at all?) Hey Robyn! I’ll show you my cross-stitching if you’ll show me yours…. I’m still working on this picture for the spud (she picked it out). I got the statue done (obviously), now I just have to do the flag. I put it down for a few days because I’m not looking forward to doing the flag. Hush, of course I’m not anti-flag – I just always have to take a little break when I go from doing one big piece of a picture to another. I’m looking forward to getting this done, though I think the outlining is going to take forEVER. * * * When I get up in the morning and am puttering around the house putting in my contacts and making the bed and all that, I tend to turn the TV on to CMT and listen to the videos while I putter. Which is how I discovered that there is this new absolutely horrifying Shania Twain video. Now, before I get into the complaining about the video, I should say that for the most part I like Shania Twain just fine. I like her earlier stuff more than her most recent stuff, but I also haven’t hated anything she’s put out recently. Until now. There’s this video for a song called something like “Party for Two” and it starts with her talking on her cell phone while she struts along, and she says in the most annoying breathy voice that has ever crossed my ears “Hhhhhey, Billy” and then there’s a whole conversation wherein she tries to get him to come to the party or some shit. I cannot stand this song. I cannot stand this video. I am filled with extreme hatred every time I happen across either the song or the video. Sometimes when there’s nothing on TV and Fred is flipping channels, he’ll flip to the country music video stations and every once in a while that video will be coming on and I scream “Change it! Change it! CHANGE IT!” and he never quite moves fast enough to change the channel and some of the horror enters my brain and I die a little inside. If I just so happen to die in my sleep one of these nights, y’all are in charge of suing Shania Twain. Got it? * * * “Hey. HEY! That’s my toy. Put it down. PUT IT DOWN, Spanky, or I will come over there and kick your ASS, you understand? You want a fight? Yeah, that’s what I thought, tough boy. * * * ]]>

The spud lets her Southern roots shine through. Sixteen years ago right this very second, I was sitting in a hospital room with my then-husband and my mother, waiting to be taken back to the operating room. An examination and ultrasound the day before had shown that my body wasn’t planning on going into labor anytime soon, and the child I was carrying was estimated to be 10 pounds 6 ounces. “I think you’ve got a moose in there,” my OB/GYN told me. He told me that he’d like to schedule a c-section the next day; I agreed. I went home and cleaned like mad. I packed my bag. My then-husband and I went out to buy a few last-minute things, then went out for Chinese food (and the spud’s favorite food has always been Chinese. Coincidence? I think not!).

I got up early the next morning, showered and dressed, and had my picture taken, and then we were on the way. My parents and sister met us at the hospital, and my mother and husband went into the room with me to wait. While waiting, I could feel the baby moving entirely from one side of my body to the other. And I had to get up and pee about a thousand times. It’s a blur now – they got the IV started and took me away to the operating room. I said goodbye to my husband, parents, and sister, and before I knew it I was counting backward from 100. What seemed like a minute later, I was coming to. The nurses told me the baby was perfectly healthy, and all I could think to say was “Does she have a lot of hair?” and when I asked they laughed and said they guessed she did. I was in and out of it for a few hours. While I was out of it, the spud’s father filled out her birth certificate (luckily we were in agreement about her name) and he held her for the first time. My parents hung around for a while and then left. When I was finally mostly awake, the nurses brought her to me, and I looked at her and said “Oh my god, she’s so tiny!” This, about a 10-pound 2-ounce baby that looked like she was six months old. And the next feeling I had, after that feeling of wonder had passed, was pure abject terror. “Oh my god,” I thought. “What have I done? I can’t do this. I can’t be somebody’s mother!” I’m still a little terrified about that, to tell the truth. She’s a sweet, funny, inquisitive, intelligent, sympathetic, ditzy (like her mother), awesome kid; I’m not sure how that happened, but I’m not complaining! * * * I hope you never lose your sense of wonder, You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger, May you never take one single breath for granted, God forbid love ever leave you empty handed, I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens, Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance, And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. I hope you dance…. I hope you dance. I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, Never settle for the path of least resistance Livin’ might mean takin’ chances but they’re worth takin’, Lovin’ might be a mistake but it’s worth makin’, Don’t let some hell bent heart leave you bitter, When you come close to sellin’ out reconsider, Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance, And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. I hope you dance…. I hope you dance. I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens, Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance, And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. Dance…. I hope you dance. ]]>

* * * Tomorrow I will be the mother of a sixteen year-old. How is that possible, I ask you?

* * * Last week at some point we looked at Spot (we don’t look at Spot a lot, because it makes him nervous. Also, he hides in the extra bedroom a lot, so we don’t happen across him all that often, either.) and realized that the bald spots caused by overgrooming on his legs had gotten worse and that basically he was balding from the waist (cats don’t have waists, but you know what I mean) down, on the front of him. Since Fred had to take Miz Poo to the vet on Saturday anyway (yes, he is a prince among men, and he is MINE) he called and made sure it was okay to take Spot as well. Saturday morning he packed Spot up in one carrier and Miz Poo in the other. Spot was making the saddest, scariest, eeriest noises I’ve ever heard, and it was freaking out Spanky and Meester Boogers, too. Meester Boogers was sniffing at Spot’s carrier with his ears back and just generally looking freaked out. When Fred came back from the vet’s an hour later he had three different medications for Spot along with an estimate from the vet regarding Spot’s teeth, which apparently desperately need cleaning. The medication was an antibiotic because the vet thinks Spot has a skin infection, medication for ringworm (he has a small spot behind his ear), and some kind of antidepressant medication so he’ll stop with the incessant grooming. I don’t remember the name of the antidepressant off the top of my head, but it was the same stuff we gave Miz Poo last year or the year before when the vet suspected she was overgrooming and that that’s what was causing her lip to puff up. We had her on it for two or three days and had to take her off it, because it turned her into a total zombie. She didn’t act like herself at all, just sat there and stared off into space and was completely passive when we gave her medication or picked her up or whatever. After two days on it, I’d say it has the same effect on Spot, too. He’s always been the kind of cat who will purr really loudly if you talk to him or pet him, but Fred scratched him behind the ears last night, and not a purr was heard. I guess we’re going to keep him on it for now, just because the sight of his skinny, balding legs is painful to see. Hopefully this will help stop the overgrooming and let his fur grow back. At the age of 10, he’s now considered a geriatric cat. That just sucks to think about, to say the least. * * * When I came downstairs this morning, I glanced over at the cable box, and my heart just sank. The cable box flashed “Boot” at me a couple of times, and then went blank. I turned everything on, and it gave me the blue screen for a minute, and then claimed to be on channel 2, but the screen was black and I couldn’t change the channel or look at my list of recorded stuff. After about two minutes, the box turned itself off, flashed “Boot” at me, and then turned itself off. I called and bitched at Fred for a minute and he had me disconnect the power supply and cable to the box. I did so, waited a few minutes, and then plugged them back in. It did the same thing, I told him exactly what was happening, and he said he’d call the cable company. While I was on my way to the pet store he called me on my cell phone to tell me that the cable guy would be at the house between 11 and 2 on Wednesday. I commenced to bitching about the fucking cable box and the fucking cable company and what bastards they all are and how I should just start taping everything with the VCR because I HATE THE CABLE COMPANY. “No one I know who has a TiVo has ever had all the problems we’ve had with the friggin’ DVR!” I told him. “I should just go get us a TiVo!” He wouldn’t go for that. “Well, how the hell are we supposed to watch TV tonight?” I asked. “We’ll move the cable box from one of the other TVs into the living room,” he said. “And when the host of The Swan is saying something inane and I didn’t hear what she said because you were TALKING, how the hell am I going to rewind so I can hear her?” I demanded. “Bessie,” Fred said. “We used to watch TV without being able to rewind it. We can do it again!” “But I don’t waaaaaant to,” I sniffled. When I got home from the pet store, the cable box was up and running. I was able to turn it on and change channels and everything, but everything I recorded since last Wednesday and hadn’t watched – CSI: NY, ER, Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal – was gone, gone, gone. Thank god Desperate Housewives reruns on Saturdays, but everything else is long gone. Stupid cable box. Stupid cable company. The question now is whether the cable box just had a hiccup, or if it’s starting to break down. And now I have nothing to watch this afternoon while I’m cross-stitching. Fuckers. * * * “I don’t care that you were sitting here first. You got up and now I am sitting here. And if you try to move me, I will cut you. Capisce?”]]>