Author: Robyn

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which came out on video today. I wandered around the store searching in vain for the DVD before giving up and grabbing a tape. Once I arrived back at the office, Fred told me Lucas isn’t releasing any of them on DVD ’til they’re all made. Would’ve been nice to know! Who’s the Einstein who decided it would be a good idea for Diane Sawyer to interview Elian Gonzalez? And further, which Einstein on the Gonzalez side allowed her access to the poor kid? Why don’t they just send the kid back to his father and be done with it, for crying out loud. Diane Sawyer is so uncomfortable around kids, it’s laughable. What, she’s a woman so she’ll have a good rapport with kids? Anyone who’s seen her with the Dilley sextuplets knows how untrue that is. Those Dilleys sure are cute, though. So, can someone define middle-class for me? Fred swears up and down that the neighborhood we live in is a lower-middle-class neighborhood, and to me that’s far from correct. We live in an almost 3,000 square foot house, and while we have the largest model the builder offered at the time, the houses around us are far from tiny. To me, it’s an upper-middle if not lower-upper class neighborhood; everyone who lives around us has two or more vehicles, and they’re nice ones, too. The car I had when we moved into the house – a ’90 or ’91 Ford Tempo – was far and away the only crappy car in the neighborhood. And, besides: we have a POOL. I’ve always thought I grew up in a solidly middle-class home and neighborhood. There were four of us kids, and we may not have always had every single thing we wanted (unlike a very spoiled spud), but we never came close to starving or going around in ratty clothes (unless we wanted to, of course). My father kept a strict eye on the thermostat in the winter, and we had a wood stove in the basement, so if you were upstairs in my room you’d be cold, but if you were in the basement, you’d be sweating your ass off. We didn’t go without, but my parents didn’t buy unnecessary things, either. They didn’t have a snow-blower the entire time I was growing up, because – hell – they had kids to shovel, didn’t they? Not that I remember doing all that much shoveling; I think my Dad took care of most of it. When first we moved into the house where I lived from sixth grade on, the driveway was a dirt driveway. My parents had the driveway paved eventually and didn’t we think we were the shit, skating back and forth on that driveway. I recall my cousin Kim spending the night once, and our parents went out to eat, so Debbie, Kim and I skated around on the driveway in our nightgowns and struck hitchhiking poses as cars drove by. The house we moved into had three bedrooms, one bathroom, and an unfinished basement. Debbie and I shared a room for a few years. Eventually, my father finished the basement with pine wood walls, and Debbie and I had our bedrooms down there. Tracy, being the oldest (six years older than I, eight older than Debbie) was responsible for watching us while my parents worked. For the first year we lived in that house, now that I think about it, my father was finishing out his last year of service in the Air Force. So it was the four of us and my mother. Ah, I’ve rambled off the point once again; I do that a lot, don’t I? I don’t know what my point was supposed to be actually, maybe a simple comparison between what Fred considers middle class and what I consider middle class. Of course, his father lives in a huge house on the mountain and was able to retire at the age of 55, so what does he know? 🙂 I think I’ll probably be putting most of my archives back up this weekend; I don’t want to wait until the end of April. People are coming to the site and not finding old entries to poke through, so they aren’t staying long; I don’t like that. So I’m going to toss the old entries back up (the cd was behind my desk, under a stuffed Coke reindeer; told you I’d find it! – and almost everything not backed up to disk was on my computer at work. Let me tell you, I was RELIEVED.) this weekend. ]]>

High Art with Ally Sheedy. I know the role was a real departure for Ally Sheedy – she hasn’t acted in forever, has she? – but despite the photographer-lesbian-drug addict role, she was still very much Ally Sheedy. She had all the same mannerisms, the shrugging one shoulder, the looking sideways while she talked, the same impish smile. I was very aware while I was watching it that she was Ally Sheedy – she didn’t get lost in the role at all. It wasn’t a bad movie, though. Speaking of people who get lost in roles, when we watched The Sixth Sense last week, I still couldn’t believe that the kid at the beginning was Donnie Wahlberg. The first time I saw the movie, in the theater, I had no idea it was him. This time, even knowing that it was him, I still couldn’t believe it. He looks nothing like himself – and he doesn’t even really sound right, either. He must have lost a lot of weight for that role, and I think they did something to his eyes, too, contacts maybe. Hell, while we’re on the topic of movies, Fred and I watched Drive Me Crazy last weekend. Yes, we love dorky high school movies, what can I say? So we were watching this very formulaic movie (halfway through, I guessed that Dee was the computer chick) and something happened that surprised Melissa Joan Hart’s (who we still call Clarissa, no matter what she’s in) character, and she made a face, spurring Fred to note, "She sure does go all slack-jawed and stupid-looking when she’s surprised, doesn’t she?" I couldn’t have put it better myself. Lord. While I was looking for those movie links on IMDB, I noticed that Melissa Joan Hart is slated to star in a remake of The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. That’s gotta be interesting. So while we were on IRC at work this morning, another regular – let’s call him Del – who hangs out in the channel (it’s a programming geek channel, but I like the people – most of the time, anyway) was telling us that a headhunter he’d been e-mailing with had e-mailed Del and told him that he (Del) needed to change the message on his home answering machine, because it wasn’t "professional." How rude!, was our response. What does the message on your answering machine say? Del said that it was his wife saying, basically "We can’t come to the phone right now ’cause we’re ALL TIED UP, but leave a message after the beep, and we’ll give you ALL the attention you deserve." Sounds pretty harmless and kinda cute, doesn’t it? Well. Fred called me back to his office and used his speakerphone to call the Del’s home phone so we could listen to the message, and it sounds like the answering service for a sex line – she’s got a low, breathy voice, and the message is interspersed with lots of heavy breathing. As I told Fred, "What the hell is she working three jobs for? She could get a job as a sex-phone chick in ten seconds flat!" Anyway, Fred helped Del write an email to the headhunter telling him, basically, to go fuck himself. I’ll be interested to find out what the headhunter has to say to that. Y’all have a good evening, and please excuse any mis-spellings or typos; I don’t have time to proofread, because That ’70s Show is about to come on. God, I love that Hyde! Night, all. —–]]>

First for Women, I came across a story about three women who did various things to combat aging, from a chemical peel, to a makeover, to a facelift. First likes to present every story from three sides – or, I guess I should say, they like to present three ways to deal with a situation. At the beginning of each story was each woman’s eye-opener, what happened to make them realize they needed to do something. (No, I don’t know why I subscribe to this magazine either; I think it’s the three ways of dealing with marital problems they present each month which interests me) Anyway, the first woman One night, my husband of 20 years walked in the door and announced "You’re not pretty anymore. You look like an old hag. I want a divorce." This is where I, personally, would have brought up the fact that he had a tiny dick (always go for the obvious shot below the belt, I say) or just hit him over his self-righteous head with a frying pan. Not this woman. No, Barbara Beck, web site designer, went in for laser and chemical peels. Happy ending: a man in his late 20s hit on her. Next: One day I was standing in my boss’ office as she spoke to me in hushed tones. "Diane, you’re starting to look old, and it’s hurting your image. If you can’t do something about it, I’m afraid you’re going to be out of a job." Did this marketing director tell her boss to go fuck herself, or sue the company for ageism? Nope, Diane Briskin, marketing director, went the makeover route. Happy ending: she got a much better job elsewhere, hopefully telling her boss to go fuck herself on her way out. And, last: Church was over, and I was walking to get coffee with my daughter, Tashya. Across the room, I saw a woman I hadn’t seen in years smile and walk toward us. "And this must be your granddaughter," she said. Face lift. This is why I would never say to someone "So, this is your granddaughter?" I always, always err on the side of caution. Even if the woman looked 95 and was accompanied by a 5 year-old, I’d say "So, this is your daughter?" or even "So, this is your sister?" Oprah Winfrey once asked a woman when she was due, and the woman said "I’m not pregnant." I never mention a woman’s pregnancy unless I know for sure she’s pregnant, or unless she mentions it first. Anyway, Margaret Kowalski, bakery owner, went for a facelift. Happy ending: she showed one of her customers a picture of her daughter, and the customer said "You two could be sisters." Hell, I’m not against plastic surgery; if you can afford it and it makes you feel better about yourself, go to it. My gripe is that each of these women was spurred into making major changes (not, I guess, that a makeover is that much of a change) by the insensitive remarks of another person. I, myself, am so contrary that if Fred said "You’re not pretty anymore, you’re a hag" (yes, hopefully he knows better) I’d not only not have a facelift or chemical peel, I’d stop brushing my teeth, plucking my eyebrows, and whatever else I could do to make myself that much more hagg-ish. Well, I’ve got magazines to read, and naps to take. I’ll see y’all tomorrow. —–]]>

blah blah to the blah blah blah (ie: geek stuff I don’t understand). I stopped by the movie store on the way home, picked up lunch for the spud and I, and then came home. I puttered around the house for the better part of the afternoon, getting laundry done and planting the last of my lily bulbs (yes, yes, awfully late to be planting them, I know). Fred finally got home around 3 or so, and we hung around talking about work and everything before we went our separate ways, he to his computer and I to mine downstairs (not the laptop). Upon checking my email, I had three emails from readers informing me that they couldn’t seem to access anything on my page. Worried, I connected to my host, and what did I find? Everything was gone. Not moved, not placed temporarily elsewhere, just gone. Vanished. When I called my host, what helpful information did I glean? Jeez, ma’am, there’s just nothing we can do… Hey, thanks. Twenty bucks a month to have you randomly delete my shit – what a bargain! Robyn, you’re saying, smiling comfortingly, just re-upload everything from your backup files! It’s that easy! Well, yes. Yes, it would be. Except that I can’t find the cd I burned all my entries to back at the beginning of March before I deleted them from my hard drive. And since about March 1st I’ve been updating from work, then deleting the files from my hard drive… *sob* I swear, I kept meaning to back everything up, I just never got around to it. All I have on my hard drive are the main files – the main and cast pages, and that stuff. Okay, enough of the wallowing. I’ve been meaning to re-vamp this whole site, and I guess now’s the time to do it! I think for now I’m going to leave things as they are, because remodeling is a bigger task than I’d like to think about, and I really don’t have the heart for it ’til I’m done at DI and get to it for a couple of full-time days. Can y’all live for four more weeks without my archives? The rest of the page is pretty functional as is, and I think between what I did back up to cd and what’s on my computer at work, I should be able to put it together with only a few holes. Ah, well. Anyway. Fred took the kitten to have her stitches out, which took all of a minute. Now she’s walking around with her little tummy-sack hanging down. She’s full of piss and vinegar, though – more than before we took her to be fixed, even. She loves chasing the big boys around and kicking their asses with no provocation whatsoever. All the cats have been spending a lot of time outside, rolling around in the sun. Tubby in particular has been rolling in the dirt, and so his face is always stained red. Maybe I should toss him in the washer with a cup of bleach and a cup of dishwasher soap? (Note to the clueless: I’m kidding. Don’t be posting messages about my cruelty to the kitties)(Christine’s the one who’s cruel to kitties; any cruelties were influenced by her. She’s a bad influence!) I smell really good today, a combination of the shirt I’m wearing, which was dried outside, and a squirt of Sand and Sable. Sand and Sable’s been my favorite perfume for years, but I had to retire it for a few years so I wouldn’t get tired of it. Now I’m back around to using it – it and Dark Vanilla are my favorites – and every now and then I get a whiff of it, and it makes me feel nostalgic. Okay, I’m out of here, ’cause Fred and the spud are yelling at me to come watch Idle Hands. I may or may not post an entry tomorrow; if I don’t see you tomorrow, I’ll see you Monday. Y’all have a good weekend! —–]]>

Okay, I’m leaving in half an hour to go home, since I waited so long for the plumber to show up yesterday, so this one will be short and sweet. As a side note, the woman they’re hiring for the Office Manager position is perfect, so far as I can tell. And she’s been using Quickbooks for years, so hopefully she can go back and fix all my fuckups. Okay, I’m going home. Yes, this is a lame, short entry, but since y’all love me, you’ll be back. Right? Uh…right? Oh, I almost forgot! If anyone wanted to see or tape the Ally McBeal from Monday night, they’ll be running it again due to popular demand on April 10th at 9 pm ET. I’m sure I’ll be there, sobbing hysterically again. —–]]>

The Sixth Sense last night, and it was as excellent as I had remembered. I was deathly afraid that Fred would figure out the ending halfway through the movie, but – like me – he didn’t. There’s this interesting drain hole in the floor of the bathroom nearest my office. Sometimes it doesn’t drain the way it should, and it gets stinky in there, and we have to call the maintenance man to come flush it out. Today, the smell of fresh feces wafted through the entire office, leading Fred to ask one of the employees what he was eating for lunch (the employee, might I add, who always eats the crappy frozen dinners at lunch). Now imagine Fred and Mr. Frozen Dinner wandering around the office following their noses. Guess what they found? No, not the drain lookin’ stinky. No, this time they found actual feces rising out of the drain. Which they (being men) decided to cover by spraying most of a large can of Lysol all over the place. Our maintenance man came and looked, proclaimed the toilet backed up, and called the plumber. Who, three hours later, has yet to show up. Who wants to bet it’s me who’ll be waiting for him to show up? I think I’ll go do some surfing (and not think about the fact that I haven’t peed since 9 am and have had three Cokes and a cup of water) while waiting for the evil plumber show his ass up. I can only hope he’ll flash me some butt cleavage. —–]]>

Ally McBeal last night? My god, that last half hour was brutal. I cried and cried and cried – and I’m not talking just getting teary-eyed, I’m talking tears dripping down my face for the entire second half. I cried hardest, I think, when Ally told Georgia that the last thing Billy said was "Tell Georgia I love her", because that’s what I was hoping she’d do. That’s what I would have done. Then of course, I read Melissa’s entry, and just the memory of the show made me cry again. I think I’m unendingly an optimist, because even when Billy was talking about how much he loved Ally, I thought he’d collapse and they’d rush him to the hospital and operate and he’d be okay, except I thought maybe they’d have hit something during the surgery that erased his memories of Ally, or his memories of his entire marriage to Georgia, and it’d end up being another wacky plot device, you know? It was heartbreaking. And I’m in for more crying tonight, because The Sixth Sense finally came out on video, and Fred stopped and bought the DVD on the way home, because he hasn’t seen it yet. When I saw it in the theater, the ending so disturbed me that I sobbed all the way home from the movie theater. My only fear is that we’ll watch it tonight, and I’ll wonder what I loved so about it. Speaking of movies, I watched Random Hearts yesterday, finally, because I’ve been trying to rent it for weeks now, and Hollywood Videos always has them all rented out. Sadly, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the movie, much as I like both Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas. My biggest problem, basically, was that once "Dutch" found that his wife and "Kay"’s husband had been having an affair, he went to Kay. Why would he do that? What’s the point? It was needlessly cruel, and the whole "affair" that resulted was ridiculous. My other problem was with the fact that "Kay", who was supposedly a Congresswoman from New Hampshire, was so accessible to "Dutch." Excuse my ignorance, but do Congresspeople really go wandering around all over the place like that, without any security people or anything? ‘Cause, y’know, in that case, I’ve always wanted to meet me a Kennedy. I’ll just go to Washington, sit in the park, and wait ’til Teddy comes by during his daily jog. I was a movie-watching fool yesterday; I also watched Joan of Arc: The Miniseries last night. It was pretty good; that Leelee Sobieski is something, ain’t she? Though it was humorous that in a movie about a French icon (uh…saint?) everyone sounded 100% American except for the times Leelee broke out with the "mon Dauphin". (Upon looking for info about Joan, I find that she is in fact a saint, though she didn’t become one until 1920.) Okay, it’s almost time to go home and plant my daffodil bulblings, so I shall bid adieu. Adieu, adieu!
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Once upon a time, some months ago, the spud and Fred were watching a movie wherein some characters were smoking pot, and she asked Fred what they were doing, and he told her "Smoking weed." Which she misunderstood as "Smoking wheat." Since then, Fred and I, predictably, have referred to smoking pot – when seen in movies – as "Smoking the wheat." Here’s a picture of Tubby, after he spent some time sniffing the kitty wheat contained in that sock he’s laying on.

He looks pretty wasted, doesn’t he? That’s our Tubby, the drug kingpin of BitchyLand.

So it’s Spring Break for the spud, and since she threw such a huge temper tantrum about not wanting to go to camp this summer (I don’t recall if I ever told y’all about that), I also didn’t sign her up for the Spring Break session they have, and as a result, she’s bored, bored, bored. When you were a kid and you were bored, did you expect your parents to entertain you? No, I didn’t think so. I avoided telling my Mom I was bored, because she’d either find something for me to do (never anything fun, trust me), or she’d make the ever-popular suggestion "Why don’t you go out and run around the block?"

One summer, Debbie and I were home alone most of the day for at least part of the week, and lordy, didn’t we manage to have fun. We had a decrepit old riding lawnmower we enjoyed riding around the lawn, and I somehow lost control of the lawnmower one day and went into my Mom’s garden (the one by the steps, Deb, remember?) and since the blade was going, a handful of plants got chopped to bits. Debbie helped me pick up the bricks around the outside of the garden, and helped me pick up the chopped bits of flowers, and if Mom ever noticed, she never said anything.

Speaking of the riding lawnmower, we sometimes used it to haul wood from one side of the yard to the other (no, we’re not talking any great distance, but it kept us entertained, so hush up), and one brisk Fall day we were hauling wood – or maybe something else, I don’t really recall – and the end of the scarf I was wearing got caught in the engine and instead of the engine stopping, it continued to pull the scarf in, and naturally I had the scarf knotted tightly around my neck, and instead of doing the normal thing, like turning off the lawnmower I just sat there and let the engine yank my head closer and closer, and just as my nose touched the engine casing, the engine ground to a halt. Have I mentioned that I’m useless in an emergency?

So my Dad came and helped me escape from the evil lawnmower engine, and Debbie expressed her concern (even then she was a nice gal), and I went inside to recover from the shakes which had overcome me, and I showed my Mom the mangled scarf which my Dad had pulled from the engine, and her exact words were "Oh, JESUS CHRIST, Robyn!"

Oh, and then of course there was the time I was hauling wood by myself, and as I went down the hill I was afraid the little trailer would come forward and, well, I’m not sure why I didn’t want the little trailer to come forward, but I didn’t, so I put my right hand back to hold it back, and it came forward as I reached back and smooshed my right index finger between the trailer and the back of the lawnmower, and it was smooshed so badly I could see bone (well, almost), so I sat on the front steps waiting for my mother to get home from work, and when she did, I held up my bloody, nasty-looking, extremely painful finger, and through tears told her I’d hurt my finger, and what was her loving motherly response?

"Oh, JESUS CHRIST, ROBYN!"

What else sort of trouble did we get into, Deb? Oh, there’s the time when I was 15 and had my permit, and we wanted to take Tracy’s car – which Mom and Dad were storing for him – joyriding, and I started it up, but couldn’t figure out how to get it in gear (I found out later that Dad took the top of the gearshift, the part with the little map on it, off and hid it somewhere, isn’t that mean?), and I had the clutch in, and the car went forward about five feet, and then we couldn’t get it back where it was, so you called Dennis and Ricky, and they ran up the street and pushed it back into place for us, thankyajesus.

And of course, let’s not forget the time Mom and Dad went out to eat, and (I still only had my permit) we took the car out joyriding, and we were cruising by some guy (was it Tony whatshisface, Kerry’s boyfriend?) and I wasn’t paying attention, didn’t stop at the stop sign where 196 veers off to the right from School Street, and someone almost hit us, and I kept driving, and they came right up on our ass, and I kept saying "I think it’s a cop! I think it’s a cop!" and you peered out the back window and said "It’s not! It’s not a cop!" and we gave up and went home, where Randy and Sandy were watching TV and eating miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups from the freezer. Then y’all were downstairs watching TV or something, and I was upstairs alone, and the cops came and I met them at the door, and they pointed at the car and said someone had reported it as running a stop sign, and I smiled calmly at them and LIED to them, I LIED to the cops, I flat-out LIED TO THEM and said "No, it’s been in the driveway all night" and they shrugged and left.

Then when Mom and Dad got home, I told them the cops had stopped by and said someone reported the car as having run a stop sign, and Mom immediately thought it was a someone trying to set Randy up, and Dad shook his head, but after that he always locked the keys to the car in their room when they went out. And Mom told Randy what had happened, and he came in my room and said "The cops were really here?" And I nodded, and he said "Did you run a stop sign?" And I smiled and nodded, and he said "What did you tell the cops?" and I said "I told them it was in the driveway the whole evening" and he looked kind of impressed, even as he pointed out that "They could have just touched the car, and felt that it was still warm." But they didn’t, because – let’s be honest – I’m sure they didn’t much give a flying fuck.

Oh, and the time you asked me to forge an excuse for you for a day when you’d skipped school, and I did only after you swore you’d never give me up if you got caught, and you DID get caught, and you never said a word, because you were so much more honorable than I, and I would probably have rolled over on you in half a second if the situations were reversed.

What other interesting childhood experiences am I forgetting, Deb?

Today’s ride down Memory Lane is now concluded. Please put your tray tables up and make sure your seat backs are in an upright position. Remain seated until the Captain has turned off the seatbelt light. Thank you for flying Bitchypoo Airlines, and please take a complimentary Coke on your way out. Buh-bye, now!

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I dreamed, early this morning, that I put myself in a large box and shipped myself via UPS to an unknown location. At some point, riding along in a UPS truck, the UPS man figured out there was a person in there, and stopped his truck, hauled the box off his truck, and opened it, then took off, leaving me there. I was in Austin, so I tried to find Pamie, but woke before I was successful. I went back to sleep and dreamed that the spud and I were hitchhiking from Alabama to Maine, and then the guys from Party of Five were with us, neither of whom had money, and we were living off my emergency credit card. I must’ve eaten something really weird last night. So a couple of months ago, Fred put me on his American Express account, and they sent me a shiny new card to put in my wallet and only use in case of emergency. The problem is that it was so shiny and green, smiling at me from my wallet, and the devil on my shoulder whispered "Just use it; it’s not like using a REAL credit card, ’cause you can pay it off at the end of the month!" So I used it for gas, I used it for garden stuff, I used it for birthday presents, and I used it ’til it was smoking and no longer smiling. I charged up $400 and some change, to be exact. (Yes, I’m aware that that’s an incredible amount. Please don’t lecture. Thank you.) To give you some background, I – from time to time – am in the habit of lecturing Fred on his American Express usage, because the balance can really get up there, and since we’re paying off the Amex from last month, we have less cash to use on this month’s purchases, and it’s a vicious, vicious cycle. Therefore, Fred is thrilled that I charged the hell out of the Amex this month, because, according to him, "You can no longer lecture me about my Amex usage!" Sigh. Fred and the spud went swimming yesterday. Yes, that’s correct, they went SWIMMING. The water was somewhere between 62 and 64, and not only did they GO in the water, they STAYED in the water for something like an hour. An hour and a half after they came inside, Fred was still cold to the touch, so he made me take my clothes off and spoon with him so he could leach heat from me. Yes, it led to sex. Don’t tell anyone, or they’ll take away our marriage license. Married people! Having sex in the middle of the day! What IS this world coming to? Y’all enjoy the rest of your weekend. See you tomorrow! —–]]>

I think I’m going to fall into a deep depression and take to my bed for a few weeks. Paul McCartney has found a "new love." Damn, aren’t there any good men who lose the woman they love to some horrid disease and spend the rest of their life in mourning? Paul and Linda never spent a night apart (at least, that’s what I recall reading), and here he is two short years later finding a "new love", as People terms it. What the hell’s up with that? Since I intend to die before Fred (you think I want to be around for his funeral, watching his mother throw herself on his coffin and his sister accusing me of killing him, then having to go on with my life as the crazy cat lady widow? I think not, thank you), chances are good he’ll go on to fall in love again. I mean, personally I’d prefer that he mourn me like the protagonist in Bag of Bones, but I don’t think the boy is set up to feel so down for so long. Hell, he’ll probably bring a date to the wake. Yes, I’m kidding. Mostly. I’m sure he’ll miss me a little. Let’s move on before I get in trouble. Did you hear that a US judge has declared Iran owes Terry Anderson $341 million for "savage and cruel treatment"? Who thinks he’s actually going to get one thin dime? Though, here’s the interesting question: If you knew you’d get $341 million for being treated savagely and cruelly for 7 years, would you do it? According to the judge, "Anderson was chained and blindfolded, fed only bread, cheese and water, moved from cell to cell numerous times, and feared many times he would be executed." I don’t know, I think I could deal with that. Keep your eye on the prize, and soldier through. Yeah, right. I’d be screaming for mercy and sobbing hysterically from day one. So I was talking to my sister on IRC and listening to FoxNews (yes, that’s my source for daily news, that and Fred’s online sources, and you fine people), and I heard that Kate Moss is in the hospital again, this time with liver trouble. Of course, the first thing that popped into my mind – I don’t know about y’all – was "I’ve always heard that once your body uses up it’s stores of fat, it starts cannibalizing itself." Mrowr!

The kitty is doing well – I know y’all were wondering – except we had a bit of a scare earlier today. We left the back door open, and the kitten and Fancypants were outside. We were out there for a little while with them, and then we came inside, Fred to take a nap and I to do laundry. I put clothes in the dryer, more in the washer, and sat down for a while to read my email. After half an hour or so, I went back upstairs and saw that all the cats except for the kitten were laying around the living room. I went outside and looked for the kitten, and she was nowhere to be seen. I went back inside and looked in all of her usual spots, and she was in none of them. In desperation, I grabbed the package of kitty treats and shook it, hoping to lure her out. It brought all the other cats on the run, but not her. I was starting to get really nervous, and walked around the house calling "Little kitty! Kitty kitty!" Finally, I went downstairs and woke Fred, telling him I couldn’t find her. He joined me in the search, looking outside, in the upstairs closet and under the bed, and then out of nowhere she appeared at the top of the stairs. She’d been napping in the laundry basket, apparently. Naturally, the one place I didn’t look. Y’all have a nice rest of the weekend. I will be planting gladiolus bulbs and doing various other things to prettify the outside of our house. See you Monday! —–]]>