Author: Robyn

* * * Not only am I still stricken with a horrid cold – although I was running a temperature of 101� last night, which according to Fred sounds more like the flu – and not only am I having my period (which is weirdly light this time around. You’re welcome), but I am beset with the worst case of pimples in recent memory. Of course, that’s not really saying much, since I’m not all that pimple-prone, but the pimples that have popped (ha!) up over the last week have been noteworthy in that they appear in the places most likely to catch the attention of passersby. Currently, I am sporting a zit on the END OF MY NOSE, and another one on my forehead, that is red and angry, with no head in sight. Between the zit on the end of my nose and the redness caused by wiping my nose every 64.5 seconds, I look like friggin’ Bozo.

“Why, god? Whyyyyy?” I’m happy to report that my cold is traveling down my body, probably with hopes of setting up camp in my lungs, so I’m looking forward to coughing up great gobs of phlegm for the next few days. Maybe I’ll even develop bronchitis or pneumonia. Oh, a girl can dream… * * * 1. What is your most prized material possession? You know, nothing really comes to mind. If the house caught on fire, as long as Fred, the spud, and all the cats were out of the house, I’d be willing to let it all burn. If the house were to burn down, I think I’d miss my photo albums the most, so I guess there’s the answer. 2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest? It’s a tie. It’s either this stuffed frog: (His name is Kermit, and I got him when I was 5 or 6), or this quilt, on the side of the chair: My mother made it around the same time, and it’s my favorite of all the quilts we own. My mother thinks it’s horrible and hideous and is aghast that I still have it, but I love it. 3. Are you a packrat? Not at all. I may have packrat tendencies, but I fight them pretty successfully. That’s not always a good thing, though – there are things I’ve gotten rid of that I wish I still had, but that’s what happens when you don’t have a huge attic to store things in, I guess. 4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum? I think that a little clutter is necessary, but we don’t really like too much clutter around here, so it’s a delicate balance. 5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there? It’s pretty much a mixture of knick-knacks here and there, though I guess the overall theme would be “cats”, with an underlying theme of “yellow” and “smiley faces”. * * * This is what happens when there are a bunch of cats, high on catnip, laying around feeling high, and a slipper is somehow thrown into the blinds, making a very loud sound. Not that we would ever do such a thing. Heh. * * * Our back yard has turned rather swampy over the past week of what seems like constant rain. It’s gotten so bad that the library floor, which is hardwooded, is covered in muddy little footprints, and this after I cleaned the floor Wednesday. Fancypants has started sitting by the patio door, meowing to be let in, because he doesn’t want to walk through the sopping-wet grass. I don’t let him in, though, because I’d rather have muddy footprints on the hardwood floor than the beige rug in the living room. * * * The bird feeders were filled Monday. This picture was taken yesterday – note the almost-empty feeders. This is where Miz Poo sits for many hours a day, making chattery sounds at the birds. Birds, birds, everywhere. And they look malevolent, as if they’d like to peck your eyes out, don’t they? This was pretty cool, I thought – I happened to take the pictures as something startled them, and they all flew off.]]>

* * * I love that Trista picked who she picked last night on The Bachelorette, and that’s all I’ll say about that. Except that I think the runner-up should be a Bachelor in a future installment of The Bachelor.

* * * Okay, y’all can stop harassing me. I made my lab appointment for next Tuesday to have my thyroid levels checked, okay? And I’ll let y’all know what’s going on as I know. * * * Yesterday Fred stopped by the petstore and bought something for the cats. We’d actually talked about getting something bigger, but cat furniture is so incredibly expensive, and god knows that one of the porky cats would get up on the top shelf and topple the thing over, that we thought we’d start with something small and see what they did. They freaked out. Well, Miz Poo didn’t. She was the first to approach the thing once we set it in the living room, and once Fred coaxed her inside, she seemed to enjoy hanging out in it. Encouraged by his success, Fred picked up Tubby and carried him toward it. Tubby, who does not enjoy being carried around, flailed around, and when Fred put him on the top of the bed, he responded by flailing some more, then falling off onto the floor. Miz Poo came out to see what was going on, and hissed and swatted at poor Tubby, who ran off, because he’s a smart boy, and knows better than to tangle with the Poo. Later, Fred tried it with Spanky, and Spanky lost his mind, flailing and trying to get the hell away from Fred. When Fred put him on top of the bed, he immediately bounced off and high-tailed it upstairs, where he probably hid under the bed and tried to still his pounding heart. I was in front of the computer when he tried it with Fancypants, so all I heard was the sound of Fancypants skittering across the floor and flying out the cat door. He stayed outside for the rest of the evening, hanging out on the patio, until Fred went out and brought him in when it was time to shut the cat door. I suspect that the cats think they’re about to be tossed into a carrier box and carted to The Scary Place, but I don’t know for sure. We took it upstairs with us, and put it in a corner of the bedroom, and Miz Poo slept in it for a good part of the night. None of the other cats have been anywhere near it, though maybe they’ll calm down a little once it’s been around for a little while. Our cats are such freaks.]]>

* * * Poor Miz Poo. She’s just the most defective cat I’ve ever seen. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Last week, we noticed that she had a gaping wound (exaggeration) on her neck where, earlier in the week, some zit-like bumps had been. Apparently she’d gotten annoyed with the itchy bumps, and scratched them off. We put a dab of Neosporin on the spot, hoping that would help. The next day, more gaping bloodiness. By this point, it was the weekend, so we discussed taking her to the vet Tuesday, and thought no more of it. Monday morning, while I was snoozing in the bed after our trip to the pet store, the phone rang. Fred answered it, and a few minutes later came upstairs. “Who called?” I asked. “The vet!” he told me. Apparently it was time for Miz Poo to have another steroid shot for her lip, and they were calling to remind us. Now, let me just say that ordinarily having the vet’s office call to “remind” us would probably strike me as a tad pushy, but I really REALLY like this vet, and god knows that if I’d been on my own in remembering when to take her back, I never would. So Fred made an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. She’ll live – the vet gave her a shot and us some antibiotics to give her (oh joy, yet another thing to shove down her throat), and we can continue with the occasional dabs of Neosporin, but she spent the rest of the day casting a wary eye at Fred and running away whenever he approached her. He made it up by giving her some catnip to play with. I think she’s starting to get the idea of what catnip’s for, because last night she was looking more than a little high.

* * * Okay, since I haven’t done this in a while, let’s do a few FAQ questions, shall we? Reader Pam asks: Didn’t you go to the doctor and discover that you had a thyroid problem? What ever happened with that? And Reader Daphne asks: What’s the latest with your thyroid? Okay, first of all, y’all aren’t allowed to email and yell at me. Here’s the story: I went and had my blood drawn to have my thyroid levels checked a few days after my doctor appointment last April. Several days after that, I got a call from the doctor’s office, wherein they told me that my levels were above borderline levels, and it was up to me whether I took the Synthroid or not, and to come back in 6 months. I decided, since I had the prescription and the pills weren’t that expensive, to go ahead and take them, and see if it made any difference. For six months I took the pills, and noticed no difference in the way I felt (I hadn’t been feeling poorly to begin with, of course). When the six months was up, I went off the pills and kept forgetting to call to make an appointment to have my levels checked. I knowww I need to go back; I’m just not looking forward to it. But I did just call to make an appointment. Unfortunately, the doctor’s office is closed from 11:30 to 1 for lunch every day, so I’ll have to call back. And I will. I promise! And I’ll let y’all know if anything of interest comes out of it. Several of you suggested, last time I bitched about how cold I was, that it could be due to my thyroid. It could be, but I doubt it. I think what it’s really due to is the fact that my desk is located 10 feet from a cat door, and in the winter the bottom floor of our house tends to be about 15 degrees colder than the top floor. My preference for ice-cold Diet Coke probably doesn’t help, either. Have a burning question you’d like answered? Just ask. * * * It’s difficult to balance this much bulk on such a small couch back, but give the boy kudos for trying! Spanky hangs out in the box. The box. It’s a box of Spanky, yes it is. SPANKY’S box is what it is, and he’ll cut you if you even think of trying to sit in his box… Or maybe he’ll just run away like a big chicken at the first sign of a Poo smackdown.]]>

* * * This little section will be a discussion of last week’s Survivor. If you haven’t seen it yet, skip down to the next section. So, how cool is it that they finally went ahead and made it girls vs. boys this time around? And yet, how embarrassing that by the end of the show, the girls had no shelter. I get the definite feeling that no one wanted to step up and take the “leader” role, because they’d be seen as annoying and bossy, but geez. The guys were so fucking obnoxious with “little ladies” talk that I had no choice but to root for the women, and to have them come from behind and win the immunity challenge was awesome. The whole thing with the women not making any effort to be sure that Christy knew what was going on really got on my nerves – how difficult would it have been for them to turn to her and tell them what they were going to do? It would have taken very little effort at all, and no one seemed to even think of it. The part where the women caught that little fish and then cooked it and split it had me cracking up. Hey, ladies? How about boiling the fish to make a kind of stew, or even just use it to flavor the mush? Heh.

* * * So, did y’all have a happy Valentine’s Day? We had a very low-key one. Fred actually suggested going out to dinner (with the spud) that night, but I said “Are ya NUTS? It’s going to be totally crowded in all the restaurants that night!”, and so we stayed home. Fred and the spud had Sonic for dinner, and I had a sub from Publix. We exchanged cards and ate M&Ms, and it was a kick-ass evening, all in all. Because M&Ms rock, and so does my husband. Just don’t tell him I said so, he’ll get a big head. I went to Wal-Mart on Friday, and one of the things I needed to buy while I was there was a bag of birdseed, because the bird feeders had been empty for a few days, and the visiting birds were so pissed off that there was no food that they started taunting the cats (“Yeah, come GET me, fatass!”) and making threatening noises every time I walked by the window (“Give us food, fatass!”). I’d intended to pick some up at the grocery store, but it’s too expensive there, so I made a mental note to pick up a bag at Wal-Mart. I picked up not one big bag, but two, and when I got home from Wal-Mart I filled the bird feeders, and the birds were happy. By Monday morning, the feeders were empty again. I think it’s fair to say that the feeders have been absolutely covered with birds of all kinds, almost constantly. It’s driving the cats nuts, which I always enjoy seeing. Between the cats and the birds, we’re going to go broke, I swear. * * * I am going to be taping the Michael Jackson thing on Fox Thursday night, and I’ll be watching it with interest a day or two after that. Because what kills me is that Fox is acting like the fact that Martin Bashir said flattering things to Michael Jackson about his parenting means something. I’ve been involved in exactly two interviews in my life, and even *I* know that an interviewer saying something flattering means nothing at all. It’s a way to get you to relax and trust them, for god’s sake. Does the fact that Martin Bashir said (something like) “You have an amazing relationship with your children” mean that Michael Jackson didn’t say that he still sleeps with children, that he wants to buy adopt a child from each country, and other creepy things? Hell, I’m sure that when Martin Bashir was saying “You have an amazing relationship with your children”, he was probably thinking “amazingly CREEPY, that is!” You have to forgive me – most of the time I forget that Michael Jackson even exists, so when he does things that bring his existence to my attention, I get even more appalled and creeped out than I would if I held the knowledge of his existence in the back of my brain, instead of locked into the “scary things” vault located in the side of my brain, over my right ear. * * * And to end this entry on a non-creepy note, I’d like to thank one Bald Moses (whose birthday is Friday!), who sent me a pair of pan-tays for my birthday. They have a picture of a kitty on the front, and they’re adorable, and I would take a picture of them, but the camera ran out of battery power, and I haven’t recharged it yet. Also thanks go to Kathy (in Kansas!), who sent me the coolest smiley-face pen, that lights up when you use it. Whee! I’ll try to take pictures of that stuff next time the camera is recharged, but knowing me, I’ll forget. Does early-onset Alzheimer’s start showing up this early? (That’s a rhetorical question. :)]]>

* * * This entry’s going up later than usual today, due to the busy, action-packed day I’ve had. Between the getting up at 7 to help Fred with the pet store cats, to the going back to bed for two hours, to the sex, to the doctor appointment (which has nothing to do with the sex, just so you know), to the sitting on my ass in front of the fire… well, that’s a busy day, yes indeedy. The doctor appointment was because I’ve been experiencing some foot pain for, well, months and months now. I did some research online and decided it was probably plantar fasciitis, so thought I’d try a few things before going to see the doctor – I tried inserts, and all they did was add arch pain to the mix. I tried putting ice on the foot and taking aspirin, and while that helped decrease the pain, it still hurt when I walked on it. My last attempt at healing (heeling! Ha!) myself was to buy some heel cups and try those for several days. The last straw was when I started walking Saturday morning, and the pain radiated up the back of my leg. That was a big enough clue that I needed to call the damn doctor, because this foot pain crap is interfering with my preferred form of exercise, and let me tell you, folks: an hour on the stationary bike is a definite form of ass torture. My ass is still killing me a day and a half later, damnit. But, hey – at least I went 16.3 stationary miles! That’s got to count for something, right? Even though I had to stop every 15 minutes to let my ass de-pain? Anyway, I was right – plantar fasciitis it is, and Dr. Ashley gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and told me to keep on keepin’ on with the heel cup, the ice, and gave me a pamphlet with exercises I need to do each day, twice a day. Oh, and I can’t go back to walking for exercise until this is taken care of. Wah! Gel seat cover, here I come.

* * * Okay, that’s it for today, folks. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what we did for Valentine’s Day (woohoo!), and talk about last week’s episode of Survivor. Can I tell you that I’m mighty excited to see the end of Joe Millionaire tonight? Why, yes, I AM a dork, thanks for asking!]]>

Friday Five. 1. What did you have for breakfast this morning? If you didn’t have breakfast, why not? I had a fried egg on an english muffin, and half a cup of black seedless grapes, along with a can of Diet Coke. I usually have a slice of fat free American cheese on the egg and english muffin, but I only had one slice left, and needed it for lunch. 2. What’s your favorite cereal? Frosted Lucky Charms. They’re Magick-ly delicious, you know. I haven’t had any in a long time, I but I miss them fondly. My second favorite cereal would be Fruity Pebbles. Mmmmm. 3. How often do you eat out? Do you want that to change? Once every other week or so, maybe less. Friday nights are “free” nights for us, eating-wise, so every now and then the spud and I will go to Applebees or another restaurant, and on the other weeks, we get fast food or order pizza. I would probably eat out every night if given the chance, but I’m sure I’d quickly gain back that 100+ pounds I’ve lost, so it’s better to stick to one “allowed” night a week. 4. What do you plan on having for dinner tonight? Got a recipe for that? I’m thinking McDonald’s, but I’m not sure what exactly – maybe a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, or McNuggets. And a Diet Coke, of course! 5. What’s your favorite restaurant? Why? Applebees. Because they have a decent selection of food, and also because they have Apple Chimicheesecakes. Mmmm.

* * * I’m pleased to announce that I’m feeling better today – I know you were up all night, worried! By the time bedtime rolled around, I was feeling just fine, and ended up watching the first half of ER while folding clothes and putting them away. I came to realize that if you wear two pair of underwear every day (what, you think I’m going to wear the underwear I wear while exercising for the rest of the day? Ew.) and don’t do laundry for almost a week, you might come pretty damn close to running out. I was down to my ratty back-of-the-drawer purple underwear yesterday, which gave me the heads up that the laundry needed to be done. Anyway. Enough about my underwear. We taped the Michael Jackson thing to watch at a later date, so don’t ruin it for me. I want to see myself what a freak he is. Actually, we flipped channels a couple of times, and watched Michael Jackson from 7:30 to 8:00 instead of watching the Friends rerun. I turned to Fred while Michael Jackson and the reporter were walking through that store (?), and he was pointing to hideous things and saying “I want this and this and this and this. Oh, did you get this? Excuse me, this too!”, and I said to Fred “If I ever have so much money that I can buy crap like that, I have too damn much money. And bad taste.” Heh. * * * Poor, poor Fancypants. He keeps going to the window and sadly looking outside. The cat door is open, but it’s so damn cold out there that he won’t go out. But he wants to go out, and thus the dilemma, which is solved by sitting and staring through the window and sharing his pain by meowing his sad, sad high-pitched meow. I’m about to go toss his ass out the cat door if he doesn’t shut up. * * * Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting in front of my computer (like, duh!), when I saw the mailman coming. He stopped in front of my mailbox, put the mail in it, and then sat there for a few minutes, looking through boxes. I got excited, because I thought that perhaps I’d ordered something and forgotten about it. I waited and waited for him to come put the box by the front door, and then got sidetracked reading something. When I looked up again, the mailjeep was up near the end of the street. I got up and went out to get the mail. To my surprise, when I opened the door, there was no package there. It had been raining on and off through most of the day, so I decided he must have put it by the garage door, where there’s more shelter. I went out and grabbed the mail from the mailbox, and then walked over to the garage. To my further surprise, there was no package there, either. After some looking, I decided that maybe the package had been for someone else, and I thought no more about it. This morning when I came down the stairs, there was a dark shape in the window to the left of the front door. “What the hell?” I said. I opened the front door, and found a package from Amazon, tucked into the frame of the window. I’d like to believe that there’s no way on earth I would have missed seeing that package if it was there yesterday, but I walk around with my head in the clouds so much of the time, that I probably looked right at it and just didn’t see it. It was another birthday present – Twelve, from the fabulous Bald Moses (and Frank!), and I’m really looking forward to reading it. Whee! Me love books, have I mentioned? * * * Speaking of books, I’m listening to Me Talk Pretty One Day on tape when I walk (which hasn’t been much lately, thanks to the crappy, cold weather, and where the hell is spring, I’d like to know), and it cracks me up. I was listening to the title story and laughing out loud this morning – I’m sure I was quite a sight, bundled up in my long johns, sweats, jacket, hat that Heather made me, and a pair of Fred’s huge, oversized gloves, laughing my ass off. God, I love David Sedaris. * * * There are things that make me cry for undefinable reasons. I watched an episode of Sports Night a few weeks ago, The Quality of Mercy at 29K, and when Dana got back from seeing The Lion King and said The lights went out, and this woman, with a voice like thunder, this woman, she summons all the animals of the jungle to appear and honor the birth of the new lion king. She summons the animals with her voice. I teared up. Sometimes when I come to the end of books I start crying. When I saw The Sixth Sense, the ending made me burst into tears, and I sobbed all the way home. All this to tell you that yesterday I was reading God-Shaped Hole, a book that I foolishly thought was going to be of the light-hearted Zany Chick variety. What happens at the end is made clear from the beginning, and it happens even though you don’t want it to, and even though you hope against hope that it won’t. I was a few pages from the end (and hoping against hope for a resurrection) when I read the line But Joanna wouldn’t understand the incredulity of my grief. And I burst into tears. Even just thinking about it makes me tear up, and I have no idea why. I have no clue why that one line affected me so strongly, maybe because it sounds like the truest thing I’ve ever read. the incredulity of my grief]]>

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Say sent me this candle for my birthday, and it smells so good that I keep going and sniffing it. It’s making me crave oatmeal raisin cookies – and I don’t even like oatmeal raisin cookies! Well, I like oatmeal cookies, but I don’t usually care for raisins in my cookies. Y’know, if it’s not one damn cat trying to steal my afghan, it’s a damn ‘nother! Right after I took this picture, Tubby lifted his head and meowed bitchily at me. Taking a nap looks like a good idea. Move over, Fancypants!]]>

Is it a ghost? A ghost in front of a door? Oooh, scary! And arty, don’tcha think? Why… it’s the inside of the closet door! We have a rack JUST like that. We keep our spices on it. Great minds apparently think alike. And… the inside of the closet! Uh. Foam noodles to the left, plastic cups to the right. It doesn’t get any more exciting than this, folks. Look! More closet! “Hey,” I said. “That looks like Florida!” Fred agreed. Another shot of the beach. Which I can’t really make fun of, since I took 45,000 pictures of the beach when we were in Florida last year. Someone on the phone… And still on the phone, this time without the flash. Someone heading to the water, apparently. We had a sign like this on our balcony when we were in Florida, too! Apparently all the hotels have the same signs. (The only reason I know it isn’t the same hotel is that the comforter is different, and there are cabana-type things on the beach, instead of chairs and umbrellas) Someone has painted her toenails, and is proud of that fact. Another shot of the beach. They wrote something in the sand, but I can’t tell what. It includes “Nick”, though. “Honey, take a picture of the sign on the back of the door!” “And the hideous curtains, too!” A ceramic snail. At least I hope it’s ceramic, ’cause if it’s real, it’s a big one! Flowers! On the table! I wonder where the closet is in relation to the table… An open tin of oysters! “Honey, DO NOT forget to get a picture of the top of the tin after it’s opened!” “And the can opener, too!” Tinned oysters on crackers with a nice cold beer? Yeah, baby. After all that artsy-fartsy picture taking, someone needs a nap.

* * * Heh. Y’all weren’t REALLY expecting exciting, amazing pictures, were you? Suckers! I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed – and confused. Why was a roll of pictures from Florida dropped on a mountain in Alabama? It’s a mystery, is what it is. After Tubby kicked ass the other day, I expected that word would spread to all the neighborhood kitties – “Don’t go in their yard! The fat one will kick your ass, and then the humans will come run you off!”, but I had just gotten out of the shower this morning and was putting lotion on my face when I heard the distinct sound of a growling, hissing, yowling cat. I came out of the bathroom, lotion in hand, and saw (I thought) all the cats sitting at the top of the stairs. I pushed through them and as I went down the stairs, I heard the same yowling, growling, hissing sound again. “Hey!” I yelled, and the sound stopped. I got to the bottom of the stairs, came through the computer room, and saw Fancypants sitting by the cat door, all fluffed up, peering out the window. I walked over to him and saw an orange cat slinking away. I could see his shadow as he climbed the fence, and then I went out back to be sure he’d actually left the yard. He was sitting atop the fence, and when he saw me, he growled and hissed. “Hey!” I called, waving my arms. “Go on, get out of here!” He continued growling and hissing. I didn’t want to have to walk across the wet lawn in my bare feet, so I repeated the motion, and he repeated his. I gave up and ran across the lawn toward him, calling “Buddy, you don’t live here! Go!” He held his ground, growling and hissing at me. I stood and considered my options. I thought about tossing my bottle of lotion at him, but that stuff is too damn expensive, so I walked back to the house, grabbed the hose, turned it on, and turned it in his direction. Like a shot, he was gone. I guess I’m the hero this time around.]]>

* * * We’ve taking Miz Poo off the Elavil. After four days on it, she turned into a total zombie. Instead of harassing me 14 times a day for love and affection, she’s been sitting around staring off into space, never purring, never chirping, and just plain not acting like herself. Since the constant grooming had pretty much stopped by the time we started her on the Elavil, we’ve decided that it was really the essential fatty acids that helped, by getting rid of the dry skin and thus the need for grooming. After being off the Elavil for two days, she’s starting to perk up a bit, and did quite a bit of chirping this afternoon. Of course, if the constant grooming and scratching starts up again we’ll rethink our decision.

* * * Since I’m feeling amazingly uninspired, writing-wise, these days, let’s fall back on some FAQ questions, shall we? Reader Liz asks: And, oh and does fred annoy you? Not any more than I annoy him, probably. 🙂 The lovely Andrea asks: I already know this, and I know you wrote an entry about it somewhere, but maybe people want to know how you & Fred met? I did write about it, but it’s been a few years (two and a month, to be exact), so you can find that here. It’s a tad sappy, be warned! Okay, after re-reading it, I’m back to warn that it’s not a tad sappy. It’s dripping with sap! * * * On Christmas day, Fred, my father, and Brian went for a hike to double-check a geocache Fred had placed. While they were hiking, they found a roll of film that someone had dropped. Naturally, they brought it home, and it sat on my desk for a month before I finally sent it off for processing. We were all a-twitter, wondering what could be on it. Porn? Death, destruction and mayhem? Childbirth? Cats? We were thrilled with the possibilities. Yesterday, the developed roll of film arrived in our mailbox, and we excitedly ripped the envelope open. Leafing through the pictures, our eyes widened and our jaws dropped. “What is that?” I said, and then turned the picture sideways. “Is that….?” Fred said, holding another picture under the light. Eh. You know what? It’s getting late and I don’t have time to scan them before American Idol comes on. Come back tomorrow to see them, y’all. Mean? Me?]]>