Author: Robyn

Would you look at that face? Polite interest and a bit of surprise, all “You want what? Babies? Don’t believe I’ve ever heard of those, sorry I can’t help you. BUH-bye!”

She is JUST SO PRETTY.

A shot from above so you can see the spread. (Heh.)

We were gone for two hours last evening, having dinner with Fred’s parents and sister and her husband. I hoped I’d come home and find Maggie in the midst of birthing 73 babies, but NOT A ONE.

“MAGGIE,” I said. “GIVE ME THOSE BABIES!”

“Nyah,” she said, and then head-butted my hand and demanded I scratch her behind the ears.

Obviously I have a thing for brown tabbies. Hello, pretty Corbie.

Rufus is not only coming out from under the couch more and more, but yesterday afternoon we found him on top of the cat tree in the front room, curled up asleep. I’m glad he feels safe enough to do that now.

When we put him in the guest bedroom at night, I only have to sit down and call to him once, and he comes right over to me for petting and kisses.

“You gonna kiss me, lady?”

Sugarbutt snuggles up to the new bed I bought him at Walgreen. Something about the fact that a cat is snuggled up to sleep in a bed shaped like a dog amuses me for some reason. It doesn’t take much, obviously.

Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Your comments, my answers!
2007: Turns out Maxi had found herself a desiccated frog and was chewing on it.
2006: Whereupon Nick Stokes, Ace Detective and CSI Genius jumps in and says, a dark scowl upon his face, “What is that, some kind of nickname?”
2005: Because there’s nothing worse than having your eyes scooped out with a spork when you’re not quite dead yet, believe you me.
2004: No entry.
2003: Your “shit” discussion is now over. You may move on.
2002: “Momma!” he cried “Momma, I’ll be good! Let me in Momma, let me in!”
2001: “Owowowowowow,” I whined, hand over my eye, and then stomped my foot in frustration.
2000: When I saw it in the theater, the ending so disturbed me that I sobbed all the way home from the movie theater.

Last night, we had to chase Rufus down so we could put him back in the guest bedroom for the night. He spends most of his time during the day under the couch in the living room, and I sit down by the couch and visit with him and stick my hand under the couch to pet him. If I stick a straw under there, he’ll grab at it, and I can hear him batting at toys under there, too. He seems pretty happy, and if he needs to hang out under the couch for a few days to feel safe, that’s okay with me. I just like to put him in the guest bedroom overnight so that he can have a little time without the other cats glaring at him and stealing his food.

The problem is that riiiiiight before bedtime is when he’s at his most curious, and so instead of hanging out under the couch, he’s slinking around the kitchen or down the hallway – last night he ran upstairs and hid under my bed. I was letting Fred chase him down, but when it appeared that he was having a hard time catching Rufus, I went to help.

“First of all, there’s a wasp,” Fred said, pointing to the cord to the blinds by the window. Hanging there, glaring malevolently, was a red wasp. I headed back out of the room.

“Are you not going to help me?” Fred said plaintively.

“Let me kill the wasp first,” I said. I got a piece of paper towel, grabbed the wasp with it, and then squeezed ’til I heard that crunching sound that always makes my metaphorical balls climb up into my body. I tossed the crumpled piece of paper on my dresser, and went to help Fred. We had Rufus several times, but he managed to get away from us, and then we had to chase him back downstairs and ended up upstairs again, finally catching him and putting him in a carrier to take him back downstairs.

It’s always fun and games at our house, y’know.

So this morning Fred woke me up before he left for work, and we discussed Rufus for a few minutes and then discussed the lack of baby kittens in the foster room (MAGGIE), and then he left for work and I tried to get back to sleep, but couldn’t. I finally got up and took my shower and got dressed for the day (did I mention that I’m finally back to wearing regular clothes during the day instead of the comfy, comfy sleep pants and t-shirt I wore for the first month after surgery?).

I was walking back into my bedroom to make my bed and open the blinds, and I glanced over at my dresser, to see the crumpled piece of paper towel sitting there. I remembered that I hadn’t flushed the dead wasp the night before, so I picked up the paper towel and headed into the bathroom. I uncrumpled the piece of paper towel…

AND THE WASP WAS NOT THERE.

I went back into my bedroom and looked on the dresser, on the floor, behind the door. NO WASP.

So what I’m saying to you is that there’s an ugly wasp on the loose in this house, and he’s got murder in his heart and my name on his waspy little lips. If I disappear, please start looking for me. I’ll be the sporting a full-body wasps’ nest.

My computer seems to be slowly shitting the bed, and thus I am writing this on Fred’s computer because I’m too damn lazy to go upstairs and get my laptop. His fucking keyboard is like a mile and a half from me, I can barely reach the fucking thing, even with it pulled as far toward me as I can pull it. How the fuck does he reach this thing? His arms must drag the ground when he walks. You’d think I would have noticed that. Also, it’s a shitty keyboard. Also also, he runs Linux instead of Windows, and the goddamn clock is in the upper right corner and I keep forgetting that, and so I look in the lower right corner AS GOD INTENDED to see what time it is, and then I find myself confused, and I look all over the place, all “Duhr? What TIME is it?”

Also, his chair is huge and uncomfortable. I feel like I’m sitting in one of those ridiculously oversized giants’ chairs. Sugarbutt keeps climbing up behind me and laying down and pressing his back feet against me in a vain attempt to push me off the chair, and Tommy keeps jumping up on the back of the chair and smacking at Sugarbutt, and Elwood keeps sticking his ass in my face, and I’m about to vote all their asses off the island.

***SURVIVOR SPOILER; SKIP IT IF YOU DIDN’T SEE THE EPISODE FROM TWO WEEKS AGO***

Was it not hilarious when Russell got his ass handed to him by Matt and reacted by sobbing like the little bitch he is? LOVE IT.

***SURVIVOR SPOILER OVER; RESUME READING WHINY POST***

Did I mention that his keyboard sucks? His mouse, too. There’s nothing about this computer and desk and chair that I don’t hate. WhineWhineWhine.

No one should have to live like this. THE HORROR.

NAME ONE OF MAGGIE’S BABIES!

Go here to find out how.

And here to see the spreadsheet.

The most popular day as far as guesses go is this Saturday. I hope y’all know something I don’t, because I can’t wait to see these babies.

Note: If you entered the pool, please take a quick look at the spreadsheet to be sure I entered you under the right day and time, would you? (Unless you entered last night, in which case I haven’t had a chance to enter you on the spreadsheet yet!)

Nope, not yet.

“Tell them I can totally be bribed.”

Rufus in the sun.

Rufus in his favorite spot on the cat tree.

Rufus carefully sniffing Jake so as not to rouse his ire.

Despite challenges from Corbie and Jake, Elwood would like to assure you that he remains king of the scratcher. He knows you were worried.

Previously
2010: What babies?
2009: You’d think it’s not such a big decision, but I AM a master ditherer, so dither I shall.
2008: And then they tried to say that I was calling Rick’s feet “dainty”, so in one short day I managed to insult everyone in the house.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: I. Am. PISSED.
2004: “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t believe I quite understand. Could you explain this “spoonful” word to me via pantomime again?”
2003: That, or she’s a stalker-reader.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Some people just have a smack-me face, don’t they?

Okay, I’ve had several people suggest that I start a pool regarding Maggie birthin’ those babies and/ or how many babies she’s going to have. So here’s the deal – there’s now a pool. For $5 per guess, you can guess the day and time she’ll deliver her first kitten AND how many babies she’ll have. All money collected will go to Challenger’s House. There’s a Paypal link below that goes to my Paypal account. When Maggie’s had her babies, I’ll send the total amount to Challenger’s House (along with a printout so that Susan knows I didn’t go on a shopping spree or anything!).

The winner of the pool will get to name ONE of Maggie’s kittens. Caveats: name must be Irish-ish (Irish, Celtic, Scottish would all work, I know that sounds ignorant to you Irish and Scottish types out there, I apologize for being a dumb American (of Irish and Scottish descent, do I get bonus points for that?)), and the name can’t be on the list of names that have already been used by the shelter. The winner will get to choose which kitten he or she names.

Here are the rules:

1. One entry costs you $5, two is $10, 3 is $15, and so on. Make sure you include the date/ time/ and number of babies with your entry. The most important part of the guess is the date and time – the number of babies is just a fun tie-breaker in case, for instance, one person guesses 2 pm and one person guesses 4 pm, and she delivers the first one at 3 pm. In such a case, the person who guesses the correct number of babies (or comes closest without going over!) is the winner.

2. If you don’t or can’t send the money via Paypal and you still want to play, then send a check to Challenger’s House (address at the bottom of the page here) and then email me (mizrobyn (at) gmail (dot) com) with your number of guesses, and the date/ time/ # of kittens for each guess. I’ll assume you’re an honest person who wouldn’t liiiiiiiie about mailing a check, because you know and I know that if you were lyyyyyyyyyyyying about such a thing, it would make the wee baby kittens cry. You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?

3. You don’t have to guess a number of kittens if you don’t want to. Just keep in mind that if you have the correct date and time and your number of kittens guess is wayyyyy off, you still win.

4. I’ve started a spreadsheet at Google Docs where I’ll list the guesses in order of date, then time. Your name will be next to your guess(es), and I’ll list you by first name and last initial, unless you’d prefer to be listed otherwise. That spreadsheet is here.

5. If we go to bed one night and Maggie hasn’t gone into labor, and then we wake up the next morning to kittens, we’ll make our best guesstimate as to when she delivered the first one. Or, if that’s too hard for us, we’ll go with whoever was closest (without going over!) to the number of kittens.

I was going to just take entries through the weekend (assuming she doesn’t birth ’em before that), but I truly do not have the slightest clue when she’s gonna blow (I really thought she’d have them last weekend!), so as long as she hasn’t gone into labor, entries are welcome.

Further down in the entry there’ll be pictures of Maggie in her current physical state, along with some description of how she’s doing/ acting, which may help you make an educated guess. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll add them (and the answers) to the list.

Okay, I think that’s it. Y’all let me know if you have any questions about this!

(If the above Paypal button doesn’t work for you, you can log into Paypal and send the money (don’t forget your date/ time/ # kittens info, too!) directly to me at mizrobyn (at) gmail (dot) com I’ll know it’s meant for the Maggie Pool, but you can certainly include a note to that effect if you’d like.)

It’s been almost three years since we had our very first pregnant foster cat. That was Kara (who later became a permanent), and she was only in the house about 24 hours before she went into labor. (You can read her labor story here.) She had four kittens – River, Inara, Kaylee and Zoe. Two of them – River and Inara – were adopted by longtime reader Katherine in Madison. River’s new name became Nate, and Inara’s became Dora.

This is what they looked like then:

Dora

Nate

Nate (far right) and Dora (next to him).

Well, they grew up beautiful, as you can clearly see.

Nate

Nate (left) and Dora.

Dora in the back, Nate in the middle, stretched out, and their big sister Bailey, on the heated tiles.

Aren’t they beautiful? Katherine and I always say that Nate needs to be a model!

It’s been about two years since we had Creed, Phyllis and Dwight (you can read about them here).

They were all adopted pretty quickly, but unfortunately it turned out that the 8 year-old in Creed’s new family was very allergic and getting worse. They tried bathing and the anti-dander solution, but nothing worked, and Creed had to be returned to the shelter.

This is what Creed looked like when he was our foster (and in fact the picture that always comes to mind when I think of him!)

and this is what he looks like now:

The family who adopted him had only the highest praise for him and were very sad to give him up. I remember him as being a real sweetheart when he was here, and he continued to be just as sweet in his new home. He went right to Petsmart after his re-test, so hopefully he’ll be adopted quickly.

Okay, here’s the Maggie section. First, the pictures.

(So RUDE, snapping a picture of a poor pregnant lady from behind!)

“VERY rude, lady. I oughta smack you. But I need to go back and eat some more.”

As of last night, she was still eating a lot. I gave her a can of food yesterday afternoon, and I’m pretty sure that had my hand been in way, she would have wolfed that down, too. She seems restless – I have to be very patient if I want to put my hand on her belly, because she mostly paces back and forth and lets me pet her. She has to be in the mood to flop over for a belly rub, I guess.

Her nipples are prominent but not swollen as though they’re filled with milk. Her belly is huge. I can feel babies moving around in her stomach, but I have to concentrate. I’ve also been able to see her belly moving a few times, but I have to concentrate on that, too.

She really likes to sharpen her claws on the cardboard scratcher, which probably has nothing at all to do with anything, just thought I’d throw that in there.

She weighed 9.9 pounds at the vet the day I picked her up, and a week later she weighed 10 pounds, 14 ounces on our scale. I don’t know how close our scale is to the vet’s scale, but I imagine it’s probably within a couple of ounces.

Annnnd that’s all I can think of. Let me know if you have questions!

Elwood (left) and Jake, hanging out in the back yard.

Previously
2010: Oblivious is my default state, apparently.
2009: IT IS SPRING AND IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE HUMID, AND I STRENUOUSLY OBJECT TO GETTING ZAPPED BY STATIC ELECTRICITY IN MARCH IN ALABAMA.
2008: No entry.
2007: No offers yet though, damnit.
2006: “Hookers and blow!” he crowed jubilantly.
2005: Also, there’s that whole pesky “dealing with people” thing, and I don’t like that sort of thing at ALL.
2004: The spud passed the test for her learner’s permit, THANKYAJEEZUS.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Fred and I chose the names of our future child/ren way before we ever met – Seth Forrest and Samantha Jayne.
2000: On the other hand, I was shopping in Wal-Mart, wasn’t I? What’d I expect, diamonds and furs?

I have loved the crap out of my web host since I switched over last Fall after a horrifying attempt at hosting our own web sites for several months. Here’s a tip for you if you’re thinking about doing that: if your internet goes down, so do alllllll those sites you’re hosting. When I think about how often our internet service went down when we were with PCL Cable (which was bought out by Knology just before we went screaming to Charter), it makes me mad all over again.

HOWEVER, for the past three Mondays, my sites (which are all hosted on the same damn machine) have been down for a couple of hours. It’s getting on my NERVES, and when I put in a trouble ticket yesterday, I made the subject “It must be Monday.”

They got it fixed – they always do – but OH how it pisses me off. Which, I know, first-world problems and all, but EXCUSE ME, WEB HOST, THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO NEED TO KNOW IF MY FOSTER CAT HAS BIRTHED SOME KITTENS YET!

Also, I usually write my entries the night before and set them to publish at 6 am (my secret is out! Are you horrified?), so that’s why this is going up so damn late.

If you were wondering.

I have an utterly idiotic question that I’m hoping you guys will just answer and not judge me for: is Guinness Extra Stout something I can buy in the grocery store? As I understand it, it’s beer? Is it something I’d find around here, or must I go somewhere special? I’m wanting to make a batch of this, because I sense it’s something Fred would enjoy.

Any tips (or alternate recipes for spicy mustard!) would be appreciated.

I think I mentioned, didn’t I, that I planted radishes, carrots and cabbage last Fall? As it turned out, the radishes were ready to be harvested, but because I’m a dumbass I didn’t harvest them before it got cold out, and they froze. The carrots never got big enough to harvest, and the cabbage didn’t either – in fact, there are three or four cabbages still sitting in the big garden trying valiantly to get big. The winter didn’t kill them, so we’re going to let them grow and see if we can actually harvest a couple of them, which would be pretty neat.

The carrots are still in the raised bed where I planted them, and when I pulled a couple of them up last weekend, there were these tiny little carrots on the end of the stalks. I think I’m going to leave about half of those in the raised bed and see if they grow to harvesting size, and then plant fresh carrot seeds in the other half.

I kind of hoped that maybe the radishes survived the winter, but when I started pulling them up, there was nothing on the end of the stalks but some radish skin; I guess the radishes pretty much composted themselves over the winter.

Okay, enough yammering about the garden. Let’s get to the kittehs.

!!!!!!!!!!!

Last week on Facebook I linked to Barking Deals, which is one of those sites like Groupon or Woot, where they offer daily (actually, I don’t think it’s every single day, but it’s several times a week, at least) deals on dog snacks and toys. At the time, I said “They need to have a site like this for cats.”

WELL HELLO, MEOWING DEALS! Do you hear the beep-beep-beep of the money truck backing up to that web site (not that a truck can actually back up to a web site, since web sites are made of glitter and magic, but you know what I mean.) When I claim poverty in a couple of months, you’ll be able to trace it directly back to this moment.

Love & Hisses now has its own Facebook page, here. If I did it right, you can see it without having a Facebook account or being Facebook friends with me (not that I don’t think you should be FB friends with me, just not everyone wants to be friends with everyone, or so I’ve heard.)

Do you see this face?

And this?

He looks SO relaxed, but we couldn’t lure that boy out of the guest bedroom for anything. I’ve let cats in to visit with him (Alice spent pretty much the entire day in there with him yesterday and Corbie went in several times) and he seems to like seeing them. So when I left the door open yesterday afternoon, I expected he’d be out exploring in no time.

Not so much. In fact, he stayed as far away from that door as he possibly could, and even though I left it wide open for two hours, he stayed on his bed and just watched the cats come and go.

Last night I said to Fred “I think I’m going to just leave the door open all day tomorrow and see if he’ll venture out.” What Fred heard was “Please open the door before you leave for work tomorrow morning and don’t tell me that you’ve done so, so that when I get up, I’ll see the door open and go on a frantic search for Rufus, finally finding him huddled under the couch.”

He’s still under the couch at the moment. If he’s still there in a couple of hours, I’ll pull him out and make sure he knows where his room (ie, the litter box and food bowls) is located. Hopefully he’ll see the other cats running around and won’t be able to stop himself from coming out to play with them.

Oh, Maggie. When you gonna give us those babies?

She certainly likes the belly rubs, but I always feel bad for her when she flops over on her side and I immediately put my hand on her belly to feel the babies moving. She’s more than a baby machine, you know! She has hopes (“You’ll bring me snacks?”) and dreams (“You’ll hold the scratcher so it doesn’t slide while I sharpen my claws?”) too!

“This is so undignified. Just for that, I’m going to hold on to these babies for another week!”

Tommy (left) and Elwood (right) snuggle up for the evening.

Previously
2010: “YOU DIDN’T USE THE COOOOOOOOOOOUPONS?!”
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: “What’d you do, come up with some new exercise plan?” he asked.
2006: Why do I feel like an ass all of a sudden?
2005: Damn. He saw through my wily scheme!
2004: She stood and let it sink in, then turned and flounced off.
2003: No entry.
2002: Cat pee, by the way, is the vilest-smelling stuff on this planet.
2001: Don’t you hate it when someone tries to be reasonable in the midst of your tightly choreographed hissy fit?
2000: “Of course they do, they like soft toilet paper. It’s the mafia, babe!”

Three more episodes of House watched on Friday, three more suggestions of Amyloidosis. For the love of god, do they mention it in every single episode and it just took me a super-long time to notice?

On Saturday we went for a drive. Fred shopped for XBox games (but ultimately decided it would be cheaper to buy them from Amazon) and I wandered around the dollar store, then we picked up lunch and came home. We both puttered around the house for a few hours, and then he went into the living room to play a game on the XBox, and I went upstairs to visit with Maggie and read for a little while. After about 20 minutes of reading, I could barely keep my eyes open and ended up taking a two hour nap.

I was out cold for most of that two hours, and it was a GOOD nap.

Of course, Saturday night I couldn’t fall asleep to save my life, and when I was still tossing and turning at 1:30, I thought “I should just take a painkiller. THAT would knock me out!” So I did, and it did.

So let’s just say that Sunday, there was no nap in my afternoon, no matter how much I wanted it.

Before lunch, Fred loaded up the wheelbarrow with compost and potting soil and wheeled it over to the side porch, which is the perfect height to use as a potting station. I looked through our bag of peat pots and starter pots, and I did some math, and I concluded that we didn’t have enough peat pots and starter pots for the (doing math….) 80 plants I wanted to start (plus another 20 later this week – I’ve got tomato seeds on the way).

I thought and pondered, and then I remembered.

When Fred’s sister got eggs from him on Friday, she gave him egg cartons that she’d been saving. Some of them were styrofoam 18-egg containers.

I have no comment about the fact that Eggland’s Best eggs come from hens who are fed vegetarian diets despite the fact that hens are omnivores. Our hens will cut you for a worm.

And so I started my seeds in the styrofoam egg cartons despite the fact that I loathe styrofoam because our recycling center refuses to take it and thus it ends up in the landfill. Hey, at least this way it’s serving a useful purpose, right?

Fred, watering.

Fred’s got his work cut out for him next weekend – it’s time to top off my small raised beds and fill my large raised bed and put up a fence to keep the cats out of my raised beds, because I’m ready to plant my carrots, radishes, purslane, romaine, and spinach.

This is totally the best time of the year.

Finally finally FINALLY I got my LG Optimus V from Virgin Mobile! So far, I think I like it. It was nice to be able to peruse Facebook when I was waiting for Fred to come out of GameStop the other day.

One thing is that the battery doesn’t last for shit. I’ve had to recharge it every single night, and I haven’t spent THAT much time on it. Another thing is that there’s apparently no damn such thing as Snood for the android NOR is there Bookworm, and those are my two favorite games. DAMNIT. This phone was supposed to make it so I didn’t need to carry my iPod Touch everywhere with me, but if I’ve got an appointment or will be sitting in line at the bank, I need my Snood and my Bookworm to keep me occupied.

On the other hand, the SWYPE texting tool is fairly easy to use, even for me, and flipping back and forth between screens is fairly easy for me to figure out.

I’ll try to remember to report back when I’ve had the phone a bit longer and have used it for real. I did talk to my brother for about an hour on it, and could hear him perfectly fine, so that’s a plus.

::slurrrrp::

::slurrrrp::

“Lady, I find your food offerings tasty, but I’m not quite sure they’re good enough to induce me to provide little squalling poop machines for you just yet. I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

No babies yet – BUT, I can report that between Saturday and Sunday, I went from being able to feel faint movement in Maggie’s abdomen, to being able to feel very strong movement. I can also see her belly moving if I watch very closely.

Her appetite MAY have dropped off some. Fred and I were in there with her for a while yesterday afternoon, and she just let him rub her belly and never went over to the food bowl to eat. That’s a first!

So, we’ll see. I’m hoping it’s soon, but I’m not holding my breath!

Saturday, I tested out the camcorder function on my new phone. Takes a pretty good video, as it turns out.

I also took a couple of pictures with the camera and posted them on Facebook – you can see them here and here.

I’m not sure why it is, but if I go in to visit with Rufus during the day, it only takes a minute or two for him to get up and come over to me and flop against me. However, if I go in to visit with him at night, he just lays where he is – usually under the bed – and watches me. Doesn’t come to me. MIGHT allow me to pet him, but then again maybe not. I’m not sure what’s going on in that little head of his.

“I likes to keep you guessing, lady.”

I really think Miz Poo has a bit of a crush on Alice. The two of them can be found play-fighting, and I always thought Alice was the instigator, but the other morning Miz Poo kept following Alice around…

Alice flopped down for a bath, and Miz Poo flopped down next to her.

Then Miz Poo got flirty.

Then Miz Poo got grabby.

Then Miz Poo got all “I AM THE BOSS OF YOU!” and stomped off.

Later, Miz Poo was laying in the middle of the living room watching House with me (she really likes Wilson, and I can’t say as I blame her, hubba hubba) and Alice came running into the room, threw herself at Miz Poo, sat on her head, bit her on the shoulder, and then ran off while Miz Poo was still flailing around trying to figure out what happened.

I’m pretty sure the lesson here is that you don’t go messing with Alice or she’ll get you back when you least expect it.

Previously
2010: I love me some Bookworms, if that wasn’t already obvious!
2009: No entry.
2008: “I think you mean ‘oaf’,” I said.
2007: That is a monster shredder.
2006: Someone kill me now. NOW.
2005: And THEN in the car on the way to Mom and Dad’s, I was thinking “Well, THAT was rude, to tell her she was being too loud!
2004: No entry.
2003: Miz Poo has an infection.
2002: And if you unsubscribe from the notify list? A reason for the unsubscription is neither necessary, required, nor desired. Thanks so much.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

Hey, Maggie, you gonna give me those babies today?

“Well, lady, it’s like this.”

“Today’s not your day, and tomorrow’s not looking so hot, either.”

Those of you who’ve asked whether Maggie’s really pregnant, all I can say is that they checked her over at the clinic and told me she was ready to pop at any time. Last year, Maura was tested, but I don’t think she was actually examined. All I can say is that Maggie’s nipples are way more prominent than Maura’s ever were and that I spend way more time than I would have ever believed possible discussing a cat’s nipples. Fred has counted Maggie’s nipples and informed me that there are eight. Which is nice to know. I think.

Only time will tell whether she’s really pregnant; I believe she is. But how likely is it that I’d end up getting TWO cats that I thought were pregnant but really aren’t, after all?

(Oh, wait. We’re talking about ME, aren’t we? That certainly increases the odds!)

Princess Alice of Smugonia in her favorite tongue-and-fangs pose.

Previously
2010: “Wait and see” is my favorite move when it comes to feeling poorly.
2009: In an alternate reality I was bellowing “Well NO ONE INVITED YOU TO DINNER, PRINCESS!” and smacking her upside the head.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: It’s like I’ve never met myself before or something. “Yeah, I’ll let the spud take the car to school, and I’ll be stuck at home, thus NATURALLY I will feel compelled to do housework!”
2005: Old pictures.
2004: (Bwahaha! That’d be the shortest study in the history of mankind, eh?)
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Takes all kinds, I guess.
2000: A life of excitement, thrills and chills, lemme tell ya!

AS OF LAST NIGHT, THE LG OPTIMUS V WAS AVAILABLE AT VIRGINMOBILE.COM! IF YOU’RE WANTING ONE!

(Of course, it’s $149.99 plus tax, which is kind of expensive, but I’ve ordered mine and I wanted to let y’all know.)

So, as soon as I reported last week that I was sleeping really well, I immediately started having problems falling asleep. So Friday night I took a melatonin before I went to bed and I slept like a rock, but I was really damn sleepy all day Saturday. Then Sunday night I thought I should give it another try to see if it really had that effect on me or if it was more that I was tired because Fred woke me up early (5:30! God!). As it turned out, I spent most of yesterday lazing in the recliner in front of the TV, so either I need to cut my melatonin dose in half (I took a 3 mg pill each night) or maybe melatonin just isn’t for me.

I’m going to tempt fate by announcing that most of the time, I’m luck that I don’t have any problems falling asleep or staying asleep.

(This time next week I should be telling y’all that I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time since I wrote the above.)

I’m back to doing the cooking these days, for which Fred is thankful, I’m sure. All the meals I cooked ahead of time worked out really well, and we even have some chimichangas left in the freezer. Sunday for dinner I made a pork roast, spaghetti squash, mashed summer squash with onions and garlic, and oven roasted okra. Except for the spices on the pork roast and the onions and garlic in the mashed summer squash, everything was grown here. And that was one tasty meal!

I’m planning pork chops, corn on the cob, and baked beans for dinner tonight and tomorrow (didn’t grow the baked beans here, but I canned ’em myself!), and then Thursday will be a New England Boiled dinner, which I make every single year on St. Patrick’s Day. LOVE that stuff!

Last weekend, we bought some of the seeds for the garden, and Fred started his pepper seeds. We’re growing Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Chiles), Cayennes, and a LOT of Jalapenos for a friend who has a particular fondness for sweet pickled Jalapenos. It’s a long way from here to the point where the Jalapenos will be ready for picking and pickling, but it’s the first step!

As always, I did what I say every Fall I’m not going to do. I get so caught up in the different things we could be growing, that I buy way more than we really need. New things we’re growing this year include purslane, butternut and acorn squashes, garlic chives, cilantro, dill, and brussels sprouts. We’re also going to make another run at growing sweet potatoes (this time with real seed sweet potatoes rather than a sweet potato from the grocery store. That one grew pretty well, but gave us very bland sweet potatoes.) and I’m thinking about growing potatoes in straw. Oh, and onions!

See how I am? The more I think about it, the more I want to grow! This year I’m taking a more active role in the gardening than in previous years. Last year I mostly took care of the tomatoes and peppers and occasionally picked some okra, but this year I want to keep an eye on all of it!

I have about six different kinds of tomato seeds, too. Last year I said “We do NOT need to plant so many tomatoes!”, this year I’m saying “We have the room. Shut UP, 2010 Robyn!” I read an amazing post somewhere (I don’t remember where, though!) where someone saves the ends from her tomatoes when she’s canning, and she dehydrates them and grinds them into powder, sifts out the stem ends, and then when she needs tomato paste she adds some water to the tomato powder and voila!

This is totally the best time of the year – revving up for gardening season is awesome!

Corbie’s afraid you might have forgotten how beautiful he is.

Goofy Corbs.

Thanks, you guys, for your kitten name suggestions! I have to weed through them and pick out my favorites, then double-check that they haven’t already been used before I enter them into my serious-consideration list.

STILL no babies, and Maggie is still eating like a horse. Is it too much to hope that she’ll wait ’til Thursday? Because that would be kind of neat. I mean, not that it matters what I want (GOD, Maggie, so selfish!) or anything, she’ll birth ’em when she wants to.

Every time I go into the foster room, I say “Where are my babies, Maggie?”, and she talks to me, then comes over to be petted, flops over for a belly rub, and then moseys over to the food to graze.

We set up a big carrier in one corner of the room, and put a towel over it to make it nice and dark. I lined the bottom with several towels to make it comfy, and yesterday when I went up to visit with her, she couldn’t hear me coming because it was raining outside (otherwise she would have met me at the door), and I found her hanging out in her cave. I got kind of excited, but she came right out to greet me, and there were clearly no babies nor did she spontaneously go into labor or anything.

What makes me think that perhaps she’s got a little way to go is that when I rub her belly I don’t feel bumps and points like I’d expect, just solid muscle mass. You’d think I’d remember what it was like when Kara had her babies, but that was three years ago, and one of my charms is that after about two weeks any kind of knowledge I have about pretty much everything goes right out of my brain.

I do know that I felt the very faint movement of a kitten in her stomach, so that was neat. Felt like a muscle spasm.

“That was gas.”

Such a sweet girl.

Yesterday, for the first time, Rufus actually climbed into my lap. I wasn’t expecting it, and in fact wasn’t even trying to get him to climb into my lap (usually what I have to do is pull him into my lap, then he stays there, perfectly happy), but he was sitting there letting me pet him, and he was purring like mad, then suddenly he’d climbed into my lap!

We can occasionally hear him in the guest bedroom playing with the toys in there, but I haven’t been successful in getting him to play while I’m in there. I guess that’ll be the next step, when he’s comfortable enough to play while I’m in there.

Such a sweet boy!

Tommy looks like he’s startled here, but he was actually in the process of kneading. When he kneads, he does it for a long, long time. He stares off into space and just kneads and kneads. I always announce “Tommy’s begun the long, slow march to nowhere! Still marching. Stillllll marching,” etc.

Previously
2010: “GIVE TO ME THE PREGNANT CAT!”
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: Mad Boog disease!
2005: MY BOX!
2004: (”He sighed at me, your honor, and then I had to kill him.” “Case dismissed!”)
2003: No entry.
2002: Bastards.
2001: You’re thinking If you had a clue how to tell which hamsters are girls and which are boys, you wouldn’t have this problem in the first place!
2000: Yes, I’m a goober, I think we all know that.