Author: Robyn

Fred thought he might have to work late yesterday, but when I hadn’t heard from him by 4:00, I picked up the phone and dialed his cell phone number. A moment later, my cell phone rang.

I picked up my cell phone to see who was calling, and saw that “Home” was calling.

I had a “THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE! THE! HOUSE!” moment, and then I realized that I’d dialed my cell phone number rather than Fred’s.

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Okay, who here can tell me whether or not I should be excited that they’re putting a Sav-A-Lot about 10 minutes from here? Is it worth checking out, or should I stick to Publix with the occasional foray into Walmart (and Target, when I’m in that area)?

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Sunday for dinner, I made a white chicken chili that was okay, but Fred liked it more than I did, so I told him to package up the leftovers to take for lunches. Then yesterday, I couldn’t think of what to make for dinner, so I stood and stared into the freezer and decided that nothing in there was too exciting. Then I looked in the fridge, and ditto. I was thinking of just making scrambled eggs and oven-fried potatoes, when I remembered that I’d recently seen a recipe for an oven-baked omelette at Hungry Girl, so decided I’d make that, and instead of the oven-fried potatoes, I’d make Pioneer Woman’s Crash Hot Potatoes.

Turned out to be a pretty damn good meal. I made changes to both recipes, of course. I don’t do “egg substitutes”, so I just started cracking eggs into a 2-cup measuring cup until I had 2 cups’ worth (10 eggs, as it turned out). I don’t do bell peppers, so I left those out and increased the amount of onion I used. I don’t like big chunks of vegetables, so I chopped everything into small pieces. And I sure as hell don’t do “parmesan-style grated topping”, so I used a sprinkle of shredded parmesan. I also used a 9-inch square dish instead of a round casserole.

Really, it’s kind of amazing that it turned out so well – but it ended up being REALLY good, and I know that this summer when we’re awash in eggs and have lots of veggies straight from the garden, I’ll be making many an oven omelette. I don’t know if it was due to my using real eggs instead of the egg substitute, but when I pulled the omelette out after 30 minutes to sprinkle parmesan on the top, it was done, so I didn’t have to cook it another 20 minutes.

I mostly made the potatoes by the recipe, except that I used a lot less olive oil (when it comes to Pioneer Woman’s recipes, I pretty much reduce the butter, oil, and bacon grease by at least 3/4, if not completely) and I never use any herbs on the potatoes, just salt and pepper, then sprinkle with the tiniest bit of parmesan 3 minutes before the potatoes are done.

Despite this pile of ever-growing recipes on my desk, I am compelled to ask y’all: I’m always on the lookout for good recipes. What have you made for dinner recently that turned out better than you expected? Or alternately, is there a recipe you want to share? Gimme!

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Okay, these are the last of the Brady pics I have (unless I stumble some that I’ve stashed away in a folder and forgotten about – that’s definitely happened before!)

Jake and Bobby Brady.

I was laying under the heated throw on the couch, catching up on some vital television viewing (if you want your foster kittens to truly appreciate the nutty “Real Housewives”, you’ve gotta start ’em early!) when I realized that most of the Bradys had climbed up to keep warm. No dummies, these guys. At the end is Peter Brady (sitting next to him, Rhyme), then Cindy and Jan snuggled up, and then (I think) Marcia. Greg Brady was present, but you can’t see him in this picture because he was curled around my neck, purring to beat the band.

Bath time for Cindy Brady.

Alice, rolled up in a bed. She sure puts up with a lot from Fred. That’s because she looooooves him. When I get up in the morning, she plays for an hour or so, then snuggles up somewhere upstairs and I don’t see her again until it’s almost time for Fred to get home from work. At 3:00ish, she comes down the stairs, blinking sleep from her eyes, and wanders around the house until Fred gets home, whereupon she runs to him, gets her hugs and kisses, and then runs off to find something better to do.

Yesterday, she snuggled up for a nap with Rhyme. And at bedtime, we spotted her rubbing up against Reacher. It seems that, despite herself, she’s turning into a sweet, friendly, well-adjusted little girl!

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Coltrane, hanging out on the Bootsie’s Bunk Bed in the computer room. Have I perhaps mentioned that he’s made himself at home?

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Previously
2010: No pig shit fish for me, THANK YOU.
2009: No entry.
2008: Yes, he’s cute. No, we’re not keeping him.
2007: That damn sponge will never glare malevolently at me again, I’m sure of it.
2006: “Thy-y-y-yme is my crack! Yes it is!”
2005: He emailed me back immediately. You’re already too old to die tragically young.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: And Mildred and Myrtle were hanging out merrily in their very sheer bright yellow bra, waving at all and sundry.
2001: Just thinking about it makes me grumpy.
2000: Y’all stay warm, now!

I posted an entry on Saturday with a Starsky & Hutch (now Percy & Jack) update!

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I just spent at least two minutes talking to a cat who was sitting under my desk, up against my foot. I talked to it, petted it with the foot it wasn’t laying up against, and then finally peeked under the desk to see just which cat it was.

It was a slipper. No wonder it wouldn’t purr.

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I had a productive day on Saturday, cleaned the hell out of the kitchen, vacuumed the entire house, put a lot of stuff away. By the end of Saturday, I was looking around the house, pleased and feeling a sense of accomplishment.

And then Sunday morning I walked downstairs, skidded through a pile of cold cat barf, and found half a pound of litter kicked out of the litter boxes in the laundry room.

You just can’t have anything nice with these damn cats around, I’m telling you.

Sunday morning, we went to Lowe’s as soon as they opened, and bought four pieces of wood. When we got home, Fred unloaded the truck, and then made a raised (garden) bed out of the wood. Behind the back yard, there are now two raised beds, which are the property of me myself and I, and this summer I will have an herb garden, I’ll grow some tomatoes, and I haven’t decided what-all else. I’ll probably give catnip a try again. Fred’s promised to fence in my two raised beds so that cats can’t use them as litter boxes this year.

Next weekend we’re going to fill the raised bed (and top off the other beds) with compost and soil, and then when planting time starts, they’ll be all ready for the planting. I wanted to get them done and ready for planting, since I’ll have about six weeks after surgery where I won’t be able to lift much, and will have to take it easy. When I’m able to lift again, it’ll be planting time – or just about – and I won’t have to fret about getting the raised bed built and filled, it’ll be all ready for me!

Oh, and speaking of the surgery, I had my pre-op appointment with the plastic surgeon on Friday. I had to have my pictures taken for their before-and-after files, and got all my instructions on when to show up, got my prescriptions, a list of what to buy beforehand to have at home.

I need to buy a zip-front sports bra in a NON-cotton material to wear for a few weeks after surgery. This might be a spectacularly stupid question, but feel free to weigh in: how the hell do I know what size to buy? I assume there’s going to be a difference in my bra size after surgery, but I didn’t think of asking the surgeon for an estimation on what cup size I’ll be after surgery. Right now I’m a 36DDD. Should I assume I’ll go down to a C or D, and go by that assumption? What y’all think? Suggestions, opinions? (And, yes, I’ll call and talk to the nurse, but it’s hours yet ’til the office opens and I wanna know NOW.)

When I left the plastic surgeon’s office, I went to a testing center near the hospital to have my blood drawn. Now, last Wednesday when I had my physical, my doctor knew I was going to be having blood drawn as part of my pre-op hijinx, so she gave me a lab slip to give to the lab tech, so I’d only have to be stuck once. When I signed in at the testing center, I told the lady at the front desk that I had two lab slips.

As it turned out, the tests ordered by my primary doctor are covered by insurance and the tests ordered by my surgeon are not (he has a contract with the testing center, so it cost me $50 out of pocket for those). No one at the testing center knew what the hell to do about my two lab orders from two different doctors, how to enter them into the computer (together? separately?), and so there was much conferring and side glances in my direction. It didn’t help that my primary doctor hadn’t dated or signed her lab orders, so they had to call her office and get them to fax over new orders.

In the end, the lab tech took 10 vials of blood, told me that since both doctors had ordered a CBC, he’d put that under my primary care doctor’s name, along with a note for them to fax over the results to my surgeon.

I predict lots of confusion this week as my primary doctor’s office and the surgeon’s office try to figure out what the hell is going on.

Tomorrow, I have my mammogram. If something’s going to show up on my labs or mammogram to fuck up surgery, this’ll be the week.

Thank god the 12 inches of snow they were predicting for Tuesday night/ Wednesday is now no longer supposed to arrive here in Alabama. Last Fall, Fred told me that he’d read somewhere that we were supposed to have a fairly mild Winter. NOT SO MUCH, we’re finding out.

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Friday night, Greg Brady was adopted – and his new Mom left a comment here, yay! Things are going well, and Greg Brady is now Riley, and has charmed his new family. That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, because he was certainly a total lovebug when he was here!!

No Bradys were adopted on Saturday, which means that Bobby, Jan, and Peter are still at Petsmart. I think that three adoptions in less than a week is pretty good, and I don’t doubt that the other three will go quickly.

Some more Brady pics from my hard drive:

Sweet Cindy Brady.

Cindy, snuggling with Peter. LOVE the stretching toes.

Cindy, Bobby, Greg & Peter, on the Ham-Mick in the front room.

Cindy, on the Ham-Mick in the computer room, playing with a toy mouse (you can see the pink tail of the toy mouse by her front paw).

“If I don’t look at them, they aren’t there…” (Miz Poo with Alice and Jan.)

Cindy and the sparkly ball.

Since the Bradys have left the house, Alice has really come out of her shell. She was getting playful while they were here, but now she’s SUPER playful. Every night, you’ll see her run into the front room at top speed followed by Jake or Reacher, and then a moment later Jake or Reacher runs out of the room followed by Alice. She’s got a favorite sleeping spot in every room, and she’s turned into the friendliest little girl. She loves to be held, she loves to be petted, and she particularly loves to be kissed.

She’s been doing this thing, pretty much ever since we got her, where she sounds congested several times a day. At first we thought it was an upper respiratory infection, so treated it with antibiotics. Then we thought it could be due to worms, so we treated her with dewormer (which we would have done anyway). Both of those helped a little, but didn’t eradicate the problem. Lysine and chlorphenaramine made it worse. Friday, we took Alice to the vet.

The vet checked her over and pronounced her healthy (Alice now weighs 4.5 pounds – the vet doesn’t think she’ll get much bigger), and after talking to us for a while, said that she wanted to rule out a polyp. Alice needs to have a tiny tube threaded up her nostril so that they can see whether she’s got a polyp growing behind her soft palate and if there’s one there, they’ll pluck it out. Unfortunately, the vet we usually use for Challenger’s House cats doesn’t have the equipment to do that procedure, so we’ll have to go elsewhere. Hopefully that’ll happen this week.

In the meantime, Alice doesn’t seem the slightest bit concerned about her occasional snarfling, but it certainly bugs ME.

Alice loooooooves Fred.

Loves to BITE him, that is!

Smug little face.

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Last night, I had a vivid dream that I received an email from someone who was desperate to adopt Corbett and promised to do whatever it took.

I woke up excited, thought perhaps it was a prescient dream, and ran to check my email.

Alas. No such email. No one dying to adopt Corbie.

I’m offended on his behalf. Hmph.

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Maxi does her Tony Soprano imitation. Really, you just don’t wanna mess with her.

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2010: Update on Gus & Mike (now Topher & Dorian)
2009: No entry.
2008: The Annoying of the Poo, a step-by-step instructional guide.
2007: I’d sell all the kitties into kitty slavery for an iPhone.
2006: “Y’all shut UP. I don’t hear you complaining when you run around FARTING on everyone.”
2005: Letters.
2004: No entry.
2003: I swear, I have no control over my body sometimes.
2002: The shithole on Goddard Street.
2001: Lucky for her I’ve calmed down to a growling grumpiness, or it wouldn’t be a very good time to be the spud.
2000: We’re a pathetic lot, aren’t we?

I have no Crooked Acres pictures today, unfortunately, so you’ll have to put up with me yammering about a variety of topics, and then cat pics.

But I know that’s how you like it, you naughty readers.

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On Tuesday morning, I left the house at 6:30. I had an appointment at the hematologist’s office in South Huntsville to have blood drawn (they have a lab on-site in the office) at 8. When kittens are going to the adoption center, I like to take them as early in the day as possible so that they can have several hours to adjust to being in a cage and having people walk by, and all that. So I got to Petsmart, got the kittens settled in, and then headed to the hematologist’s office. I got there right on time, went and signed in, and then settled in the waiting room with my iPod.

People were moving through the waiting room at a pretty quick pace, so I figured I wouldn’t be waiting long to be called back to the lab. Eventually, a small group came in, sat down, and then the woman went back for her treatment, leaving a grandfather and grandson behind. I don’t know how old the boy was – I’m as bad at aging humans as I am at aging kittens – but I’d guess maybe 5ish. He had some toy that looked like a pretend laptop, and was playing a spelling game on it. After he’d played a couple of games, his grandfather asked if he was hungry, and they went off in search of a vending machine.

They came back a few minutes later, and Grampa opened a bag of chips and handed it to the boy.

I glanced at the clock on my iPod to see the time, and thought judgmental thoughts about feeding a little boy potato chips at 8:30 in the morning.

And then I thought “WTF, it’s 8:30? What the fuck is the holdup?”

(Yes, yes, I see you there, your hand up in the air, all “Ooh, ooh, Mister Kott-air!” No, Horseshack, I’m sorry, I DID have an appointment (I called the day before to double-check) and the receptionist DID see me, because after I signed in, she told me I didn’t have a co-pay. So sit the hell down and let me tell the story.)

The little boy, who had a case of ants in his pants, fidgeted all over the place, then knelt down on the floor so that he could use his chair as a desk. The trumpeting sound of a fart came a moment later, and he laaaaaughed and laughed. I glanced up at him, and it was all I could do not to laugh along with him, but I managed to keep a straight face.

(Can I help it if farts are funny?)

For the next half hour, people kept coming into the waiting room and were then called back within three or four minutes. There I sat, getting more and more pissed off, and at the one hour mark, I got up and walked out of that goddamn waiting room and vowed never to return. When I got to the parking lot, I called Fred on my cell phone, and as I stomped across the parking lot my voice got louder and louder, and I don’t even remember what I said, but there were many many instances of “fuck” thrown in. (This is notable because – probably contrary to how y’all think I am – I don’t generally swear in public, not unless it’s under my breath to the person next to me, and not unless I actually KNOW the person next to me.)

Fred agreed that they were motherfuckers and told me to go get something to eat. So I hung up the phone and continued my mini come-apart in the privacy of my car.

My doctor referred me to the hematologist/ oncologist in the Fall of 2009, and I’ve been to that office probably 7 or 8 times. Never once – except for a couple of the lab appointments – have I gotten out of there in less than an hour and a half. One memorable time, I spent three goddamn hours waiting to see the doctor, and saw him for a grand total of about seven minutes.

Now, I KNOW that my life is not such that I have a large number of SUPER important things to do, and I know my time is NOT SO VALUABLE to anyone but me. I know that I don’t have cancer and perhaps my little iron-level check is not so very important in the grand scheme of things, but JESUS GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST ON A TASTY RITZ CRACKER it is incredibly fucking offensive to me that EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN TIME I’ve been to that office, they’ve let me COOL MY FUCKING HEELS for hours and then come in WITHOUT APOLOGY and spent the minimum amount of time required so that they can bill my insurance company hundreds of dollars for the honor of being in the presence of a hematologist/ oncologist (oh, except wait – SOMETIMES I get to cool my goddamn heels for hours and saw the nurse instead. I wonder if they charge the same whether I see the doctor or his nurse? Bet they do.) and I have fucking SAT THERE AND SMILED AND TAKEN IT AND RETURNED TO THAT GODDAMN OFFICE REPEATEDLY.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I offer to you: FUCK THAT SHIT.

So I pulled myself together, and I went and got myself an egg mcmuffin, and I headed to wherever the hell I went next.

Where the hell did I go next?

Oh, right. I went to my gynecologist’s office to pick up estrogen patch samples. Because when I was there last week, she sent me to have blood drawn to have my estrogen levels checked since I’d taken myself off the estrogen. As it turned out, I have just about no estrogen in my body (“I don’t know why you aren’t having hot flashes,” she said to me on the phone. I don’t know, maybe not everyone who goes through surgical menopause has hot flashes? Perhaps?) and blah blah blah SO YOUNG and blah blah blah IF YOU WERE 53 INSTEAD OF 43 and blah blah blah lowest dose of estrogen, let’s give it a try.

So I picked up the patches and drove to Petsmart to see how the Bradys were doing, and then I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and browsed for a bit. I headed into Madison, and stopped by TJ Maxx to kill some time, and then I headed to my Primary Care doctor’s office for my 11:30 appointment.

I got to that appointment at 11:15, told the lady at the desk that I knew I was early, paid my co-pay, and had barely sat down when they called me back to be weighed and have my blood pressure checked and all that. My doctor came into the room about five minutes late AND SHE APOLOGIZED FOR MAKING ME WAIT, and began the physical.

Since I’d seen the gynecologist the week before and am having a mammogram next week, it was mostly a matter of going down the checklist and making sure everything was in order before she had me undress and did a skin check. She recommended that I wait until after my plastic surgery next month to restart the estrogen patches because starting them can cause breast tenderness and increase clotting, and you don’t want that to happen during surgery. So wait I shall.

Then she said “And you’re having iron infusions, right?” and I said “Well, now, THAT we need to discuss.”

I told her of my issues with that particular doctor’s office, and I got all worked up again, only I didn’t swear a single time (I bet you didn’t know I could do that, did you?) and I finished with “Since the iron infusion in the Fall of 2009, I’ve been fine. Can’t you monitor my iron levels?”

“I certainly can,” she said. “And if they drop and you need to see a hematologist again, I’ll refer you to another office, because there are plenty of them around!”

I really really love my doctor. A lot. She is The Awesome.

She said that ordinarily she’d have blood drawn, but since I’m going for my preop appointment with the plastic surgeon on Friday, she’d just give me a lab slip, and they could do all the blood tests at once.

Then I ran over to Publix, bought a ton of stuff, and came home.

It was almost 1:00 when I got home, and BOY was the house quiet without a big bunch of Bradys running around. Alice was curled up in a cat bed on the guest bed and looked very satisfied with herself. I spent the rest of the day trying to recover from the rage headache that had sprung up as I stomped out of the hematologist’s waiting room, took a nap on the couch, and did very little else.

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I got up early yesterday morning, puttered around the house, and decided that it was time to make the vanilla bean scones I’ve been thinking about making since I first saw the recipe last week. I made them, got them in the oven, and then decided to go ahead and make the macaroni and cheese with shrimp I was planning to have for lunch. (I had half a vanilla bean scone with my breakfast, and it was blah and bland and just generally a great big motherfucking disappointment.)

This mac and cheese with shrimp is what I had to buy a ton of stuff for at the grocery store on Tuesday. It takes half a pound of feta, half a pound of gruyere (which was so expensive I wanted to cry, but I was dying to try the recipe), fresh parsley, and fresh dill. It was an involved sort of recipe that required shredding of the gruyere, crumbling of the feta, making a white sauce, making a topping of panko bread crumbs, and chopping the hell out of parsley and dill.

After all that work, the shredding, the chopping, the yanking the tail off the shrimp and fighting off every cat in the house who went on alert when they smelled shrimp, after all that, the mac and cheese with shrimp?

It kinda sucked. There was too much pasta, not enough shrimp, and the fact that there was lemon zest in the recipe made it just taste plain weird. I usually like lemon quite a lot, but it didn’t taste right in this particular dish.

I ended up picking out the shrimp and eating that and a little of the pasta, and dumping a lot of pasta in the pig bucket.

All in all, a very disappointing day on the cooking and baking front. The pigs really liked their vanilla bean scones and cheesy pasta, though!

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Lisa, who was doing adoptions Tuesday night and adopted Marcia and Cindy out, sent me this picture of the boys in their cage (and that’s Jan in the front, all “Why are you looking at THEM instead of petting ME?”)

Are they not the cutest little snugglebugs?

“Well, well, well. Now that those little brats are gone, I guess you’re stuck taking pictures of ME, lady. WOE IS YOU.”

More pictures of the Bradys from my hard drive:

Jan in action.

Greg, keeping an eye on things.

Cindy, watching the birds. You should have seen her tail whipping back and forth!

Would you look at Cindy, being all bratty? “Lady, we is tryin’ to sleep! You go away!”

Playful Bobby. Who says he can’t entertain himself?

I love it when they put their ears back like that.

“Who, me? Playin. With this toy. Why you ask?”

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“I can’t believe you took that hussy Jan Brady away from me. Who’m I gonna snuggle with NOW?”

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Joe Bob, resting up and conserving his energy for picking on Stinkerbelle.

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Previously
2010: THAT DAMN MAN LOVES TO KEEP ME OFF-BALANCE.
2008: I tend to assume if someone wants to know something specific, they’ll ask.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: I think I took my first steps toward being an adult yesterday.
2005: Who the fuck knew?
2004: A Kitchenaid mixer!
2003: “My ass. Please let him go for my ass, and not my throat or my eyes, I’ve got plenty of ass to spare.”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Double ear infection, thankyouverymuch.

Oh, you guys. I know, I know you want us to keep the three remaining Bookworms here, believe me I know it. But it’s not going to happen because we’re at our limit. If it was just a matter of keeping one of them, that would be one thing, but all three? No, we really can’t.

I especially want Rhyme to find a forever home, because he’s such a sweet, friendly boy who loves people, and I’m afraid that he doesn’t get enough attention. That is, I’d like to see him in a home with perhaps a FEW less cats vying for the attention of the humans. Reacher and Corbie are also sweet and friendly, but perhaps not quite as 24-hours-a-day-snuggly as Rhyme is.

I came to the realization that it’s not so much strange people that Reacher has a problem with as it is strange situations. Once he had a few minutes with the strangers on Sunday, he did relax, and he liked being petted and held. I think that being at the adoption center, with strange people coming and going all the time, is not something he could handle. Or maybe he could handle it, given enough time, but I know that he’d been at the adoption center for at least a few days when the day came that Lisa was doing adoptions and held him for a long time, and he shook and hid his head the entire time.

I actually think that Corbie will be okay at the adoption center, because he’s the kind of cat who takes his cues from the cats around him. Rhyme was perfectly fine for the time he was at the adoption center with Buster, and it was only because we were out running errands and I wanted to stop by and see them that we ended up bringing them home. (Fred can’t stand to see cats in cages, especially the ones we foster. Which is why he’s never the one to take them to Petsmart!)

So when room opens up at Petsmart, I’m going to give Corbie and Rhyme a chance. Maybe someone will come along who’ll fall in love with them, and maybe no one will. I’m not planning to leave them there forever, you know, I just want to give it a try for a while, in hopes that the perfect person will come along and fall in love with them.

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I dropped the Bradys off at Petsmart yesterday morning, early. I don’t know that they could have been less scared or worried. There were a few tentative meows on the way, but no terrified howling. When we got into the cat room, I let them out to run around, and they explored the cat room, sniffed at the other cats, ran around some more, climbed the scratching post, drank some water, ate a little food, and ran around even more. When I was done getting their cages ready, they were all in one cage already, checking it out. I put Cindy and Jan in a small cage together (since they’re the two smallest), left the other four in the big cage, and shut the doors.

They just kept on playing, barely even noticed me when I left.

I went back by Petsmart two hours later and peeked around the corner at them, and they were perfectly fine. Not scared in the slightest, just hanging out, doing their thing. Cindy was very interested in watching people walk by, and Marcia was stretched across the big cage, grabbing the legs of her brothers as they went by. I really like it when kittens react so well to being at the adoption center -but jeez, Bradys. You could miss me a LITTLE, you know!

(PS: Marcia and Cindy were adopted last night! Not together, but that’s okay – I have a feeling those two will be just fine!)

There seems to be some sort of theme in the pictures I’m posting today, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is…

Good lord, if Jan developed the muscle control to flap those things, she could circle the Earth in no time flat.

“Waiter! There appears to be a kitten in my bed!”

Cindy: ::weak with laughter::
Greg: “I don’t get it.”
Bobby: ::looking to the heavens for help:: “Okay, Bobby, tell it ONE MORE TIME, maybe Greg will get it THIS time.”

“::giggle:: Okay, okay. ::giggle:: What’s br- (hehehe) what’s brown and sticky?”

“A STICK!” ::gigglesnort::
Greg (offscreen): “I… No, I still don’t get it.”

“He never was the brightest bulb.”

“Hey, quit! That tickles! I’m still trying to figure out what a “stick” is…”

“The basket is mine! THE BASKET IS MINE! Mine, mine, mine, and no one else can have it, ’cause I’m the best joke-teller EVER!”

“And the bed is too soft, and sometimes Marcia makes me share it with her, and it’s purple and I don’t like purple and I don’t know why you treat me so horribly, I don’t require much, I’m just a poor sweet bebbeh, and ALL I WANT IS WHAT I WANT.”

“That’s all I want, to be treated decently, DO YOU HEAR ME?”

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“If ONE more kitten comes and tries to convince me that that joke is funny, I WILL BEGIN THE SMACKIN’ AND IT WON’T BE PRETTY.”

“All y’all, hush UP! Loony Jake needs his sleep!”

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Previously
2010: Behold, I liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!!!!!
2009: Fred is, as I have mentioned before, an overexplainer.
2008: No entry.
2007: “Oh!” he said, with a big smile. “You’re pregnant!”
2006: A SHELL ON A STICK.
2005: Every movie and every show we watch, he’s in there deconstructing it.
2004: Memes.
2003: A day in the life of Spot J. And3rson.
2002: No entry.
2001: Blech.
2000: I now officially have too damn many books to read.

Vote for Moxie in the Bissell Most Valuable Pet contest!!!

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I’ve got a busy week planned. I’ve got to go to South Huntsville to have my blood drawn (which I regularly have done for the hematologist), then I have my yearly physical, and then I’ll be taking the Bradys to Petsmart. Then tomorrow I’ll be scrubbing down the foster room, because it’s been a good long time since the room was scrubbed down, due to my lazy nature.

Actually, now that I think about it, it’s more that today’s going to be a busy day for me, the rest of the week isn’t going to be THAT busy. I just have something planned for each day. Pre-op appointment with the plastic surgeon on Friday! Friday’ll be three weeks ’til I have surgery, WOOT!

Anyway. It’s a banner week when I have to leave the house more than once (which isn’t to say that I don’t leave the house more than once in the course of the week, just that it’s unusual that I have more than one appointment in a week).

You know what? I’ve got nothin’. I’m going to finish up the entry with some cat talk and pictures, and call it good enough, howzaboutthat?

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A really nice couple came to the house on Sunday to meet the three remaining Bookworms. They liked Corbett, and then when they found out that he had two brothers, they thought they might want to adopt two of them. I talked to them briefly on the phone, and then invited them to come out and meet the boys.

I put the boys in the upstairs foster room, and they were immediately suspicious and wanted right back out of that room. They sat at the door and put their arms under the door and tried to stick their faces under the door. I distracted them by giving them some canned cat food, and then slipped out of the room.

When the nice couple showed up, we took them upstairs to meet the boys, and I tell you what – it was embarrassing, how many cats went scattering as we walked through the house. The Bradys – who were given the run of the house during the day starting Friday – went running in all directions, Sugarbutt and Spanky went flying in another. I felt like I was maybe in an episode of Hoarders and perhaps Dr. Robin “Crazy Eyes” Zasio and Cranky Matt the organizer were going to be knocking on the door at any moment.

The boys were freaked out by the strangers and clustered around the door trying to get out, but they eventually relaxed and allowed themselves to be picked up and petted. I was actually surprised that Reacher didn’t freak out more than he did. After they left, Reacher and Rhyme eventually came slinking downstairs, and for a while we couldn’t find Corbie, then I found him under the couch. He came out shortly after and resumed sleeping on my desk, where he’d been before I snatched him up and locked him in the foster room.

Though I really liked the couple who’d come to meet the boys and they really liked the Bookworms, it unfortunately didn’t work out, which was disappointing. It doesn’t always work out, that’s just the way it goes. It means it just wasn’t meant to be, I think.

I did decide, though, to ask the shelter manager to put Rhyme and Corbie in the queue to go to the adoption center when there’s room. It won’t be soon – there are other cats ahead of them, including the Bradys – but I would really like to give them a decent shot at being adopted. I’d like to send Reacher, too, but he was so scared the last time he went that I can’t bring myself to put him through that again. I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that someone sees his picture on Petfinder or in the book in the adoption center and falls in love with him the way it happened for Buster.

Sweet Corbie McGee.

Reacher.

Rhyme and Loony Jake.

Rhyme again. Don’t the Bookworms have the prettiest eyes? I could look at ’em all day long.

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I’ll be leaving here in a little while to take the Bradys to the adoption center. The six of them will be going, but Alice will be staying with us for a bit longer. She’s got some sort of congestion issue, so we need to get that cleared up before she’s ready to go. She was going to be going into a cage by herself, anyway – she gets along okay with the little ones, but if they get in her space for too long, she loses patience with them – so it won’t be a problem for her to wait a while.

Having the Bradys run around the house during the day this weekend was pretty fun. They really liked the toys scattered throughout the house, and when they got tired, they’d pile up on one of the couches. I walked into the front room Friday evening while Fred was playing some game or another on the Xbox, and they were all laying on him in various stages of drowsiness.

Too cute.

The big cats have been very patient with the little ones, and as it turns out Jan Brady is a bit of a hussy. Saturday morning she climbed into a cat bed with Jake and kneaded on him for about 20 minutes before he got tired of it and stomped off. And then she climbed into the cat bed where Reacher was sleeping, and found a somewhat more receptive audience.

“That is correct. We are snuggling. What of it?”

“The young ladies have always had a particular liking for the Reacher Creature.”

::slurrrrrrp::

::slurrrrrrrrrrrp::

::slurp::

“Okay, little miss. Stop kneading on my belly and let’s take a nap.”

Okay, off I go with the Bradys. Don’t worry – you’ll be seeing pictures of them for at least the rest of the week. I still have a ton to share with you!

Keep your fingers crossed that these little monkeys get adopted quickly. I suspect they will!

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Eight cats in one picture! From left: Reacher, Corbie, Rhyme, Elwood, Tommy, Jake, Sugarbutt, and (closest to the camera) Newt, keeping an eye on the birds.

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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: (Now that I’ve said that, you can expect an entry next week about how we adopted another cat, I’m sure.)
2007: Just call me Nicole Richie!
2006: I’d be a lobster, ’cause they are yummy, and I would be bringing joy to someone after I die a horrible boiling death.
2005: Saturday I spent at least two hours – conservative estimate – finding and downloading a ringtone that sounds exactly like the “internal call” ring on 24.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: I’m quite the stylin’ bitchypoo, I really am.
2000: It’s the period that never ennnnnnds! Yes, it goes on and on my friends!

Vote for Moxie in the Bissell Most Valuable Pet contest!!!

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I think I’ve mentioned before that when our home phone rings, the phone will announce who’s calling. It doesn’t sound at all natural, the way the phone stiltedly announces “Call. From. Fred’s. Cell.” or whatever. My favorite thing is when Fred’s sister calls. She’s listed as “R. Herlastname”, and the phone pronounces it as “Arrrr Herlastname.” It always cracks me up, and last month I was messing around with the phone, and changed her name in our phone book (if the person calling isn’t in the phone phonebook, the phone will announce the name as listed with the phone company. This is particularly fun when “Out of Area” calls.)

So I changed her name in the phone book, and then she didn’t call for a long time.

The other day, I was hanging out on my bed with the Bradys, and the phone rang. I didn’t figure it was for me, so I didn’t bother to get up to answer it (Fred was downstairs). After the second ring, the phone announced who was calling.

“What the fuck?” I said to Cindy Brady. “Who’s calling? R McGee, is that what she said?”

Cindy Brady had no opinions on the matter, and I puzzled over it for a few seconds before I remembered changing the name in the phonebook.

“R. Matey” is what I changed it to, because the “Arrrr” sounded pirate-like, and why not go the whole hog, am I right?

And once I realized what the phone was saying, OH how I laughed and laughed.

I amuse myself so.

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This weekend, I made a batch of Cinnabon-clone cinnamon rolls, using this recipe. I made them right up to the point where they needed to go in the oven, then put them in the refrigerator Friday night. Saturday morning, before we went to get groceries, I took them out to bring them to room temperature, and then when we got back, I baked them.

They were very very very very VERY DAMN good. The only down side was that Fred doesn’t much care for cream cheese on top of a cinnamon roll – he prefers a glaze – and I think I feel the same. Though, of course, that cream cheese didn’t stop me from shoving plenty of these rolls in my mouth, you understand.

Next time, I’ll try them with just a simple butter-sugar-vanilla glaze.

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I’ve been giving the bread maker a workout lately, actually. Other than the cinnamon rolls, I happened across a recipe for oatmeal bread and it’s really good. So good that I made it twice in the space of a week. (Recipe is here.) It’s good to make sandwiches with (I had an open-faced egg salad sandwich) and also good just toasted with jam on it.

(Fred toasted a piece of the bread and then got a jar of JAM FROM THE STORE out of the fridge. I was all “Are you fucking KIDDING ME? All the jam I’ve made, you want to eat JAM FROM THE STORE? I’ve got pineapple jam, I’ve got strawberry jam, I’ve got strawberry lemon marmalade and cherry jam. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.” I don’t even know where the hell that store jam came from (I mean, I KNOW. The STORE. DUH. But I don’t remember buying it, which means either it’s really old or SOMEONE ELSE bought it! The nerve! But that bastard ate that store jam on that piece of toast because he didn’t want to be WASTEFUL. Hmph.)

So my question to y’all – and I am SURE I asked this same damn question when we first got the bread maker – what’s your favorite bread maker recipe? I’m kind of enjoying using it lately!

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Guess who’s going to the adoption center very very sooooon?

Back to front: Jan, Bobby, Peter.

Bobby, working on his “I’m a sweet, innocent baby, don’t you wanna adopt meeee?” look.

Another sweet look from Bobby.

Stretchin’ Jan.

Bobby’s all “There appears to be a Cindy FAR too close to me!”

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Suggie, in the Sug cave.

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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Even though I never did look ratty, and she’s a whore.
2007: An entry in pictures.
2006: I’m not germ-phobic or anything, but GAG ME.
2005: Stuff I Bought.
2004: No entry.
2003: Frequently asked questions.
2002: I love me some messing around with the camera.
2001: I was being subjected to porn without realizing it!
2000: Ben and me, we had sex in the back of a van.

I had my appointment with the gynecologist yesterday, and everything was fine (it was just the boring old yearly exam). She was a little like this:

when I told her I’d stopped using the estrogen patch because I didn’t think I needed it (I started cutting the patch in half, and things were fine, and then I forgot to switch out the patch when I was on vacation in July and I was fine, so I was all “Well shit, I don’t need this!” and never put another patch on again. Haven’t had a single hot flash, for the record.) She sent me over to the lab across the way to have blood drawn to have my estrogen level tested, and prescribed a mammogram, since it’s that time of the year again.

I scheduled the mammogram (the week after next, if you MUST know), then drove over to the lab, signed in, and took a seat in the waiting room.

A few minutes later a woman came in accompanied by a man and two small children. I was absorbed in playing Bookworm on my iPod (DAMN YOU, JEAN), so I didn’t look up at them or really pay much attention to them. The man sat down with the two small children and started gruffly telling them to behave if they squirmed or complained or wanted to turn the TV to cartoons. The woman sat down next to me, and settled in, then told her husband she was going to check in with someone, and pulled out her cell phone.

She got someone on the phone and told her “Colitis. Yeah, the colitis flared up again and blah blah prednisone. Well, he wanted to know who’d diagnosed me with the colitis and the scleroderma. He thinks I have Raynaud’s, he wants to test me for that. He really thinks I have Raynaud’s, he’s convinced that I do*. (Silence) Well, because I have abnormally small hands.”

Now, seriously. I thought I was going to have to actually PUT MY HANDS over my eyes to prevent myself from going all bug-eyed and whipping my head around to stare at her abnormally small hands. Her husband was sitting facing me, and I just KNEW that if I caaaasually glanced down to see these tiny infant-sized hands at the ends of her wrists, I was going to then have to caaaaasually glance at the man married to the woman with the monkey paws, and he was going to be sitting there glaring at me, and he was probably going to give me the narrowed eyes of I SEE YOU, YOU JUDGMENTAL FUCKING BITCH and then I’d go up in flames.

So I didn’t look. I didn’t glance. I didn’t stretch and look at the TV and smile at the kids and then cut my eyes to the side all super-quick like to get an eyeful. I didn’t. I kept my eyes glued to my game, and when they called my number, I picked up my purse and I turned away from Madame TinyPaws and I never even looked in her general direction.

(Now I’m really really wishing I’d looked, because I’m DYING to know just how tiny they were!)

*The conversation might not have gone exactly like this. I know she definitely was having a colitis flare-up and I know that both Raynaud’s and Scleroderma were discussed at length, but I’m not seeing anything online that links tiny hands to either, so who the hell knows? I had my damn iPod there, I shoulda been transcribing it word for word!

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If you’re Facebook friends with me, you may have already seen this, but if you aren’t, you may not have, and to miss this would be a sad, sad thing. This cracked me UP.

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You should buy a herd of pygmy goats because that would be fun for us!

and

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment! And in fact, I can think of a lot of other things you should do because they would be fun for us. Pygmy goats, sheep, peacocks, perhaps an ostrich or two… I’ll get back to you and let you know when I expect you to get started, okay?

I’ll tell y’all what. Should such a day come that we win the lottery and can buy 100 acres, I will seriously consider not only buying a small herd of pygmy goats, but also letting y’all name them. How’s that?

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I’m totally disagreeing with everyone. PF Changs is horrible. The sauces are way too heavy and they wouldn’t know a subtle flavor if it smacked them on the head, kicked them in the crotch, and cut off their left foot. It’s how I imagine Chinese food would taste if it was made by people who had never had actually eaten Chinese food and only had it described. I say, skip it.

Given my contrary nature, this makes me want to eat there more than anything anyone else has said. 🙂

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But I do know if it’s a new book he’s working on then I won’t be able to resist reading it even though he’s done with it all. And that goes for both The Dark Tower and The Shining.

Oh, I’d never NOT read a Stephen King book, and no doubt I’d enjoy it too – but I’d still grumble and gripe about it!

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I thought for sure you and Fred were going to bring home that baby llama. If she had been friendlier, do you think you would have?

Oh, hell NO. She was an adorable little thing, and I love the drama queen nature of grown llamas (they have such sass!), but I want a llama running around the back forty less than just about anything I can think of at the moment.

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Oh, that sucks re: Fred’s site. I was going to get on him about his Phat Man story. I’ve been following you guys since 2002 or so and I would love to hear how Fred’s doing keeping his weight down, fitness level up, etc so on and so forth. Do you guys still work out? Or does maintaining Crooked Acres keep you in shape?

Fred works out – lifts weights, uses the elliptical, does a lot of outside stuff – but I haven’t seriously worked out in a long time. I keep saying I’m going to get back to it (especially lifting weights, because I do NOT want to be a doddering old lady, and old age is coming at me like a freight train), but it hasn’t happened yet. I like to think that lifting 40 pounds of litter at a time and working in the garden is keeping me fit (I’ve stayed right around the same weight for three years running now), but I really do need to get on an intentional exercise regimen.

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Here’s another Wilfred Brimley cat.

Wilford Brimley Looks Like a Cat.

Love it!

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I thought of you when I read this article:

Will Game-Playing Cats Now Dream of Electric Mice?

I actually knew that they were putting out games for cats, and I was telling Fred about it – about a blogger whose cats play on her iPad – and he got SERIOUSLY disapproving. Turned out, he thought she’d bought the iPad FOR the cat. Which she hadn’t. Heh.

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I thought Alabama was supposed to be damned hot?

Other random question, did you plant winter veg? Did I miss you saying how it was going or gone or what?

Alabama’s damned hot in the summer, and we’re SUPPOSED to have relatively mild (though wet) winters, but this snow stuff is very much out of the norm for us. This entire area shut down for at least two days, and most of the schools in this area were closed for the entire week. Hell – we don’t even own a snow shovel! (I plan to buy a damn snow shovel – Fred shoveled the driveway with a coal shovel.)

I didn’t plant any winter vegetables, no. I did plant some Fall veggies – carrots and radishes in the raised beds and some cabbage in the big garden, but the cabbage never got any bigger than marbles (maybe I’ll try them in the raised bed next year), the carrots never really took off, and the radishes did really well, but the cold weather snuck up on me and froze the damn things before I harvested them. Had they been in the ground, it might have been a different story.

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Robyn, that color looks totally natural with your coloring – you have great skin and glowing eyes. You look quite Celtic! What is your ethnic heritage, btw? Oh man, I’ll never get my PhD in Bitchypoo at this rate! 🙁

I’m kind of a mutt – Irish, Scottish, British (I think), a touch of American Indian. There are others in there, I think, but that’s the bulk of it. 🙂

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“mild expletive”

Emphasis on the mild. If you hadn’t warned me ahead of time, I might not have registered that as a cussword, it was said so nicely.

Mine usually come out like a Navy captain barking orders. Appropriate, I guess, since I’m the daughter of a sailor.

and

I’m with Adrith – I had to play it back to figure out where the cussword was.

My video would have been, “SHITSHITSHIT! Son of a bitch, that motherfucker was headed right for the fucking door! Cocksucker SCARED me. Fuck ALL!”

I should probably have joined the Navy somewhere along the line…

When I’m startled or scared, I lose my words. 🙂

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I made bolognese sauce over the weekend and as I was skinning the fat off the top all I could hear in my head was ‘SKIMMERS!’

Have I mentioned that I love it when I infiltrate your day-to-day lives?

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As for snow…my father’s family was from Canada (Saint Ephrem) and they poured maple syrup over everything…I guess it would help that they had a maple syrup production facility on their property. Snow, eggs, bread…I love maple syrup but after my last visit there in high school, I couldn’t touch the stuff for months.

When I was in 5th and 6th grade, we lived in Aroostook County in very northern Maine. I made at least one trip to a maple sugaring facility (probably several) with school trips and Girl Scout trips and such, and my favorite part was always when they’d pour the syrup over fresh snow and let us eat it. I don’t eat a lot of maple syrup these days, but when I do, it always makes me think of that stuff.

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Don’t know how it compares, pricewise, but I’ve tried a bunch of other cat litters and I can’t ever stand any of them and always go back to my old standby: Tidy Cat Scoop Breathe Easy (though Instant Action works in a pinch). I got lucky last week and found big huge tubs of it at the local grocery outlet.

I picked up a bucket of Tide Cat Scoop Breathe Easy and a container of Ever Clean when I was out running errands yesterday. I haven’t tried them yet (I’m going to wait until the litter boxes need to be emptied and cleaned), but I’ll try to remember to report back on how they worked for me. The Ever Clean is going to need to be some amazing stuff – a 20-lb (or thereabouts) box of it costs the same as a 40-lb bag of Precious Cat.

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All I can see is how wide those cat asses are looking out the window. They don’t miss many meals do they??

Not if they can help it!

I have to say, though, that Jake (3rd from the left) and Corbie (5th from the left) are both very thin cats – you just can’t tell that from this particular angle and position.

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Have you ever used this box or heard of it? I’m thinking about getting one for the two cats.

Omega Paw Self Cleaning litter box.

Since you have so many kitties I was just wonder what you thought about it.

and from Elayne:

Karen, I have two of them, the large and the medium. They work really well, but I found they were a bit small for my grown cats. Also, I prefer to use the crystal litter instead of clumping, and too much of the crystals were winding up in the disposal tray, so I went back to regular boxes. They were super easy to use, though – I have back trouble, and the constant bending, and/or staying bent over, gave me trouble. With the Omegas I could just flip them over with my foot and then bend over once to empty the tray.
I don’t know that they would help much with odor, though; if you’re cleaning your litter boxes every day (full-on cleaning?) and still noticing odor, you might need to try a different litter.

Should also clarify: “My grown cats” refer to my two oldest, both of whom are bigger than my other cats, and both of whom are #1 finicky about the litter box and #2 a bit on the portly side. My other cats are full grown and fit fine, but by that time I had decided I was wasting too much of the crystal litter. If your cats are, say, Maine Coon cats or are heavyset or demand a huge box, the Omegas might be small, but if your cats are normal-sized they should be okay.

What about the rest of y’all? Anyone try the Omega and have an opinion? Share!

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Miss Alice, curled up in a cat bed inside a cat bed, on top of my bed.

Bobby Brady, with attitude.

Alice again, at the end of my bed. You’d think I turn my electric blanket on during the day so they can keep warm or something.

Sleepy Bradys (sweet Cindy Brady, making sure Jan stays clean.)

Tiny Cindy Brady. Oh, she makes me want to squeeze the stuffing out of her.

Cindy, flopped across my feet. Peter, sniffing my feet.

Greg and Marcia.

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Two videos today, both of them Jake-centric. The Bradys are present in both videos, too. That Loony Jake sure can jump!

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Rhyme and Tommy, keeping warm.

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Previously
2010: So, random pictures. For you. Try not to be too excited.
2009: George and Gracie are home from the spaying and the neutering.
2008: Negative. Good news or sad news, I wonder?
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Y’all rock.
2004: So many books, so little time.
2003: Ah, good times.
2002: So, you know what I hate?
2001: No entry.
2000: I was a tad peeved.