Category: CAE

So, on Wednesday I went into Huntsville, and I drove the extra way to Costco to get a membership there. Over the weekend, Fred and I read this article in the NY Times and basically what we took away from it was that Costco tests trimmings for E. coli before grinding. Publix and Sam’s, my prior sources for ground beef, do not.

We don’t eat that much ground beef, but we do eat it from time to time, and I’m thinking I’d rather buy it from a source that actually tests for E. coli rather than one that’s all “Test for it? Why would we do THAT?”

Anyway, the Costco is a pain in the ass distance away, but it’s the only one in the area, so I sucked it up, and I drove the extra distance there and got myself a membership card, and then I took a walk through the store.

Hey, guess what? It’s SAM’S CLUB, only they call it COSTCO. I swear to god, almost everything I saw in Costco, I’ve seen in Sam’s. I picked up and considered buying a pack of heads for my Braun toothbrush, but ended up putting it back. I had hoped that the selection of frozen fruit at Costco would be better – or even different – than the selection at Sam’s. Nope – they have the exact same frozen fruit as Sam’s. What the fuck?

Ah well – I suppose it’s good that if I need some non-tainted ground beef, I know where to get it!

 

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did you get the turkeys solely for meat, or do they lay eggs as well? If so, what do turkey eggs taste like?

I was under the impression that we were getting them just to eat, but then Fred started talking about breeding them, so fuck if I know. We haven’t had turkey eggs yet, because they’re still too young to lay, and I don’t know if one is supposed to eat turkey eggs or if they taste too turkey-y, but I imagine I’ll find out sooner or later. If I eat a turkey egg, I’ll certainly report back. Also, we don’t actually know yet whether any of our turkeys are female, so there may be no eggs at all.

 

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Where do George and Gracie go when it’s raining or it’s really cold outside? I know they have heavy coats that provide a lot of protection but do they seek shelter in the chicken coop or what?

Back when we knew we were going to get them, we bought big-ass Dogloos for them. It was an experience fraught with worry and concern – Pyrs get big, so we wanted to be sure to get Dogloos that they’d fit into. I seem to recall Fred actually getting into a Dogloo at one point, but I’m not sure if that really happened. It might be wishful thinking. George and Gracie would have NONE of those damn Dogloos, wouldn’t even consider going in them. Most of the time, they’d sleep out in the middle of the field, but then it got cold and we started getting all that goddamn rain, and George and Gracie would go under the coop to get out of the weather. I couldn’t stand the thought of those poor wee puppies having to slide under the nasty chicken coop (it’s probably not really nasty – not any nastier than the actual chicken yard, anyway), so Fred built a dog house on the back of the chicken coop. It worked well for about ten seconds, they’d sleep in the (very solid, very warm) dog house, which was piled high with straw. Fred would even go out there and lay down in the dog house with them, and they thought that was SUPER FUN. Then, after about two weeks, that was it. No more going into the dog house. They had no desire to go in there, and they refused to go in there, and that was that.

Now, they go under the coop if they’re hot, or if it’s raining, or they just want to. The coop’s open during the day, and they can go in there to get out of the weather. If it’s supposed to rain, we leave the coop open at night, too, so they can go in and keep dry. Most of the time, they seem to prefer going under the coop, though.

 

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Have you guys named any kittens after the characters from Friends yet? (You’ve had so many now that I can’t keep track!)

We haven’t, but I think that’s probably because most of the names have been used before. I’ll have to double-check that!

I’m suddenly struck with the urge to name a foster Chanandler Bong.

 

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I have always been scared of roosters. Do they chase you a lot? Do they seem to sense fear?

Our roosters aren’t aggressive towards us at all – if they were, they wouldn’t be around for long. There’s no room on Crooked Acres for roosters who think they’re in charge. If they showed the slightest bit of aggression toward either of us or someone who came to visit, they’d be next in line for processing.

I’ve had one or two roosters act like they might be up for chasing me around the chicken yard, but I find that turning and looking at them and saying “What are you doing, fucko?” stops that bullshit right away. And if you don’t run, they can’t chase you. 🙂

 

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Is Floofy Gus going to be a longhair?

I think so – and won’t he be gorgeous when he’s full-grown with that long hair floofed all over the place?

 

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I wonder if next time instead of roasted asshole, you could make asshole nuggets? Or asshole fingers? With Dippin’ sauce! 🙂

Mmm, asshole nuggets. That sounds tasty!

 

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Do you watch Food Network? Do you hate “Cooking for Real” as much as I do? That show is worthless, and I’m sick of the host’s wig. She makes nothing worthwhile, and name-drops every five seconds. EUGH!

I don’t watch Food Network, and in fact I’m not even sure if it’s one of the channels we get. But I’ll tell you what – you certainly do make me want to check out that show!

 

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So you and Fred don’t watch The Amazing Race anymore? I still enjoy it, the only reality series that has kept my interest over the years. I gave up on Survivor a couple seasons ago.

No, we missed the first episode of this season, and then part of the second, and then Fred said “You know? I just don’t really care.” and I said “Me either.” and so we stopped recording the show. I think we might be getting close to reality TV’d out. We haven’t even turned the TV on since… Sunday, I think? We’ve been spending our evenings reading.

 

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I missed the chicks in a jar, but that’s because I was busy trying to figure out what the things are on the top left. Is that dehydrated zucchini chips? And is that mushrooms next to them?

Yeah, to the left are dehydrated zucchini chips, then mushrooms (I buy the big-ass can of mushrooms at Sam’s, then re-can them), and then cinnamon pickles, yellow squash pickles, and some other kind of pickles. I put up a lot of pickles, considering we rarely eat them.

 

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Ok, so when I saw the line “I like pumpkin in pumpkin pie, and that’s about the only place I like it”, the FIRST thing I thought of was, “I mean, I like cheese….just not on a salad.” And then I laughed and laughed some more…..

I also do not like pumpkin on a salad… or a burger!

 

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You and Fred are coming very close to what we Alaskans call the subsistence lifestyle. You produce your own meat and veggies, now if you could just make your own kitty litter…

If I could make my own kitty litter, I would be thrilled beyond belief. Imagine how much money I’d save!

 

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Any chance of one of those turkeys making it to your table come November 26th?

No, they won’t be big enough by then. We’ll have to think ahead for next year!

 

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The True Bloods accompanied the Wonkas and I to the vet yesterday. They (the True Bloods) were due for their last vaccinations, and since I was headed that way, anyway, what better time?

They did not enjoy the ride. Hoyt, in particular, complained all the way there and all the way back. He has such a distinctive voice, and he always makes me laugh when he starts up.

They got their vaccinations, and when we got home, they crashed for the rest of the day. This morning, they’re back to their wild ways. I love how quickly they recover.

I’m thinking, one more kitten tries to squeeze in that bed, it’ll explode.

Lafayette. This boy cracks me UP. See the sutures sticking out from either side of his mouth? They look like jaunty whiskers (don’t worry, I trim them if I think they’re going to be a problem. The sutures, that is, not his whiskers!)

I show you this picture so you can see the wonkiness of Terry’s paw. Doesn’t it look like a mitten?

I bought a FroliCat BOLT Laser Cat Toy after seeing an ad for it in Cat Fancy magazine. We have a laser toy that I bought at PetSmart a while back, but it just moves the laser around and around in the same circle, and the cats get bored with it fairly quickly. When I saw that the BOLT does the laser in random patterns, I knew I had to give it a try. The kittens LOVE it. Well, all except for Sam. Notice that everyone else is like “Where did it go? WHERE DID IT GO?!” and Sam’s like “Oh, a tasty gray tail for me to chomp on!”

Lafayette’s staring hopefully up at the wall, and Terry’s leaping across the floor.

Sugarbutt says “I don’t know what they’re doing, but I don’t think I approve.” (I love how they’re all lined up, staring up at the wall.)

Playtime’s over, now it’s time to nap. This must have been one of the days when I was in the kitchen all day making jam. I love that Sam and Elwood are curled up together in a box that my canning jars came in, and Jake’s under the canning cabinet (which I use as a pantry), all “This is MY bed. Why do I gotta SHARE?”

 

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Okay, so. The Wonkas were Combo tested at the vet’s yesterday. They came up negative for Feline Leukemia – but positive for FIV.

Since they’re so young and (according to what I’ve read) it’s unusual for an FIV positive mother to pass FIV to her babies, I am confident that when they’re retested in 60 days, they’ll come up negative.

What sucks is that since they’re positive, they have to remain segregated from the other cats. I had hoped that after they hit two pounds and were spayed and neutered, that we could let them out into the rest of the house. That can’t happen, because we can’t take the chance that they’ll get into a spat (or even a play fight) with the other cats and pass along the FIV.

I’m going to stick my head in the sand, here, and believe 100% that they’ll come up negative when they’re retested in December. I won’t even consider any other outcome. They’ll be my own personal Christmas miracles!

So, they’re going to come up negative, I just know it, and in the meantime I get a little more time to love and snuggle with them. What a hardship for me!

“WE IS TRYING TO SLEEP!”

::thlurrrrp::

Who is the smarty pants who figured out how to get up on the bed? Who who who? Why, smarty pants Mike Teevee, of course! He was SO proud of himself! (Do not be fooled by this picture – he looks all long and lanky like a real cat, but in actuality he’s really a round little ball of floof.)

 

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“HELLEW. You has a snack for me?”

 

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Previously
2008: This is such an appetizing topic, isn’t it? I draw you in with talk of clam chowder and quiche and then hit you with litter box talk.
2007: Further proof, in case you needed it, that I’m a dumbass.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: I’ve SEEN Deliverance, and I have no desire to be forced to squeal like a pig.
2002: Well, duh.
2001: No entry.
2000: We like our fast food, we do.

New month, new logo! This one was created by the wonderful Christine, isn’t it awesome?

Aly also created an October-themed one, so I’ll put that up around mid-month.

Thanks, Christine!

 

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After spending all summer canning green beans and tomato sauce (not much tomato sauce, though – have I mentioned that the tomatoes were a bit of a disappointment this year?) and chicken and various other things, my canning cabinet is close to bursting.

 

(Yes, there are bottles of Ragu hiding behind the tomato sauce. Don’t judge me.)

I guess there’s still room for more.

Yesterday I spent several hours making jams. The day before, I made hot sauces. I have a few more batches of jam to make, and then there’ll be Crooked Acres jams and hot sauces up for sale soon, probably over the weekend. Those will be for sale ’til we run out of habaneros – and I froze a lot of habaneros over the summer (and they’re still growing!).

 

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I was dead asleep last night at 11:30 when I was awakened by a banging noise. I turned over, took out my ear plug, and listened. More banging. I decided that it was coming from the foster kitten room. I hoped it would stop, but it didn’t, so I grabbed the can of compressed air sitting on my bedside table (you know, the can of compressed air you guys ALWAYS think is a can of whipped cream!) and went out into the hallway. Jake (or maybe Elwood) was sitting by the door to the foster room. They love to sit outside the room and stick their paws under the door. I figured there was a kitten on the other side of the door who’d decided he’d had enough of this being in one room nonsense and was determined to dig his way out.

I shot a blast of air at the door, and heard the thumping sound of a running cat. I waited, and didn’t hear any more banging, so went back to bed. Naturally, as soon as I sat down, the banging started again. I got up, shot a blast of air at the door, then went to the bathroom. The banging started up again, and I finally decided that I’d open the door and see if it was just one kitten (I suspected Hoyt) trying to get out, and if it was, I’d let him out into the house. I don’t want all six of them running around all night, because I value my sleep, but one kitten would probably be okay.

I opened the door, and Sugarbutt came slinking out.

Apparently when Fred gathered up the True Bloods to put them up, he hadn’t noticed that Sugarbutt was hanging out in the room, and so Sugarbutt got locked away with the babies. Kudos to Suggie for toughing it out for two and a half hours before frantically digging his way out.

Of course, when I opened the door and Sugarbutt came out, Elwood went running in because he has decided that the True Bloods are His People, and he always wants to go in their room at night. I let him stay in there.

Then at 4:23, I was awakened by Elwood’s very identifiable questioning meow. He’d had enough of this one-room nonsense and wanted out. I got up and let him out, and a few minutes later Fred got up, and we started our day, with the feeding of the baby cats and such.

I’d say it would be NICE to get a full night’s sleep every once in a while, but I usually sleep pretty well with few distractions, so I’m not going to complain.

 

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Since there isn’t much on today’s page, I will share a link for The Animal Rescue Site.

Once you click you can then scroll down and vote for any animal shelter to hopefully win some money!

I of course vote for Challenger’s House daily! Even though I live in New York!

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/shelterchallenge.faces?siteId=3

I’ve been meaning to link to this for ages and ages – thanks for the reminder, Debra!

You might need to do a search for Challenger’s House in Alabama to get to the place where you vote for it. So, go vote for Challenger’s House, y’all!

Speaking of Challenger’s House, did y’all know that there’s a Facebook page for the shelter now? One of the other foster moms runs it – go friend Challenger’s House, she puts up lots of cute kitten pics (and there are pictures of Ike on there!)

 

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I notice that you don’t have the recipe for the Caramel-Apple jam posted in Nom on This….is it available?

I got the recipe over at Suzanne McMinn’s site, in this post. I think the Caramel-Apple Jam is fantastic, but I prefer mine with small chunks of apple (as in the original recipe) rather than with apple puree. With apple puree, it’s more of an apple butter than jam. It all depends on what you prefer.

 

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I was wondering if you ever had people that want to adopt the kitties you foster. Is or has that ever been a possibility?

I’ve had several people ask, recently, about adopting fosters. It is possible for readers to adopt them – Nance adopted Maddy a few years ago, and Katherine adopted River and Inara (now Nate and Dora) last summer. Anyone who’s interested in adopting any of the fosters will have to go through Challenger’s House – you can call and speak to Susan, the shelter manager. There’s a procedure that includes filling out paperwork, and there’s an adoption fee.

 

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Do you wear men’s long sleeve T’s in the winter, for around the house? I’m looking for something reasonable have some spotted at gap, but are there any other suggestions.

I have a large collection of long-sleeved t-shirts I’ve picked up at various places (a few years ago when I visited Maine, we went to Reny’s (GOD I LOVE RENY’S) and I ended up buying some Life is Good t-shirts for $5 apiece. They didn’t have the design on the front, and some of them had weird dye marks on the front, but I was buying them just to wear around the house, so I didn’t mind how they looked.

I usually either wear one of those long-sleeved t-shirts around the house, or a short-sleeved t-shirt with a zip-up hoodie over it. I love my hooded sweatshirts, but the sleeves get in the way if I’m cooking or doing some intensive cleaning.

(HA HA HA “intensive cleaning.” As if I EVER do that.)

 

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I don’t know if you like anchovies and garlic, but if you do, I cannot say enough about Nigella Lawson’s bagna cauda recipe. I don’t have it to hand, but from memory, you mince 15 anchovy filets and 8 garlic cloves, and cook in a quarter cup of olive oil until the anchovies melt (yes they do) and everything is all gorgeous. I know it sounds way over-the-top, but it’s delicious. (I believe Nigella’s recipe also calls for butter, but the authentic way has only anchovies, garlic, and oil – I am told.)

I ADORE garlic, but would you believe that I have never once had a single solitary anchovy? I’ve only ever heard of them being referred to in a joking manner, like something gross you’d find on a pizza. So, would I like anchovies? I like most fish and seafood. Readers? What say you?

 

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I found a humorous piece on a joke website, just thought you and all cat/dog lovers would enjoy it. Here’s the link:

Pet Diaries

That always cracks me up!

 

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My sister’s name is Kristi Ann, she has 3 kids. I’m a goober, I call her “Kris-ann-the-mum”.

I think that’s adorable, personally. (And I’m glad I’m not the only goober around!)

 

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Sam is a “Kitler“!

Fred calls him Adolf. (Last night we were watching TV, and Fred said “Which kitten is it that looks like Hitler?”, because he can never keep their names straight.)

One of the kittens from our very first batch of fosters was a Kitler, too, little Flossie:

Though actually, I think that’s more of a Clark Gable ‘stache than a Hitler. I have no doubt that if she’d been a boy, Fred would have insisted on naming her Adolf.

I still use that picture as an avatar in a lot of places. And it’s the picture that’s been (as far as I know) most stolen and used without permission or attribution. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to send out copyright violation emails to have it removed. Everyone loves a Dr. Evil kitten pic, apparently.

 

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From Rachael:

http://www.spaysnotstrays.org/

Watch this for a few seconds and the cool stuff starts.

That is so neat!!

 

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So, on Tuesday I called and made an appointment to take Lafayette, Sam, Hoyt, and Bill to the vet so that she could look at their eyes and determine whether they’re ready to go to Petsmart for adoption. I waited until about three minutes before I needed to be on the road, then snatched them up (they were all snoozing on my desk) and put them in the carrier.

(I really should have put them in two carriers, but I was also taking Sugarbutt with me, because the rodent ulcer on his upper lip was acting up again, requiring a shot of steroids. Two carriers, I could just about handle. Three? Not so much.)

We were within sight of the vet clinic, which is a 25 minute drive from here, when either Sam or Hoyt pulled a pungent maneuver known as “Had I known you were going to snatch me up and keep me confined for a long road trip, dear lady, I would have used the litterbox before we left.”

Good LORD, the smell.

But by happenstance, I had actually stopped for one moment and thought before I left the house. The last time I had the kittens in carriers, when I took them to the shelter for their vaccinations, Sam vomited on Hoyt. So just in case, I grabbed a handful of cleaning rags to take with me.

I pulled into the clinic parking lot, and went to the back seat to see just how bad the damage was.

Whoever’d pooped in the carrier had been kind enough to do it at the end where the door was, and he’d done it so neatly that the bed in the carrier was untouched.

(But good god, the STENCH.)

I used the cleaning rags to clean up the poop, and then I dug through my purse for a wet wipe, and cleaned it up some more.

Then I took all the dirty rags and shoved them into a plastic shopping bag and left it in the car.

(As you can imagine, when I came out and got into the car, I was very much wishing I’d thought of a better place to put the poopy rags. I immediately drove to McDonald’s and deposited the bag in one of their trash cans.)

The vet looked at the kittens first, picking up each of them and looking them over carefully. She said that she wished Bill and Lafayette’s grafts had taken a bit more before peeling off, but they all look really good. The goal of the surgery was not to make their eyes look perfect, but to make them more comfortable. If Bill’s anything to go by, they are definitely far more comfortable than they were before.

She said that, in her opinion, they’re ready to go. They should still have ointment in their eyes once or twice a day, and it wouldn’t hurt to send a tube of it home with whoever adopts each cat, to use as needed. The ones with the worse eyes – Bill and Lafayette – might need ointment on and off through their lives, it’s kind of a wait-and-see thing.

When I got home, I emailed the shelter manager and told her what the vet had said, but made sure to let her know that there is NO hurry as far as I’m concerned.

So that’s where we stand right now – when room comes available at Petsmart, the first four will be going.

(HOW HOW HOW am I going to give up my sweet Bill, who has quietly wormed his way into my heart?? AGH.)

I bought this SnooZzy Cat Cave because I’m a terrible impulse shopper, even when I’m shopping online. When it arrived, I took it out of the box and put it on the floor. Terry came over and flopped down on top of it, so I put him inside it. He loved it and stayed in it for a couple of hours. Since then, I can’t convince a single cat to stay inside. They all prefer to sleep on top of it.

The kittens check my groceries to see if there’s anything in there for them, while Hoyt supervises.

Hoyt’s complaint of the day: “I WAS LAYING HERE SOUND ASLEEP AND ALL OF A SUDDEN EVERYONE ELSE CLIMBED ON THIS BED WITH ME AND THEY’RE SQUISHING ME AND PINCHING MY TAIL AND I WANT THEM TO STOP!”

::thlurp::

 

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The Wonkas are doing well. Veruca had us worried earlier this week, because she wasn’t eating much at feeding time, and she’d actually lost the ounce and a half she’d gained since we got her. She seemed to spend most of her time in the meatloaf position, watching her brothers and sister play, and she just didn’t look right to us. Fred stopped and picked up some canned high-fat cat food on Wednesday, and when he got home we mixed it with formula. He fed it to her with a needleless syringe, and she seemed to like it quite a lot. She ate a bunch more on Thursday morning, and then when I went in later to hang out with them, I took a plate with the food (mixed with formula) on it, and she said “GET OUT OF MY WAY!”, and just about dove face-first into the plate, and ate every bit of that food.

She’s perkier, she’s running around and playing, she’s using the litter box like a champ (they all are!), she’s doing just fine. The only danger is that I might squeeze her to death because she is SO CUTE.

Veruca kills me with how CONCERNED she always looks.

Veruca demands to know just what the heck is going ON here.

“NO, this are MY belly rubbin’ time, you go away and wait your turn!”

 

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I call Jake my little lunatic, because he’s always got this loony grin on his goofy little face.

 

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Previously
2008: Mostly because that Bella girl is SO FRIGGIN’ ANNOYING.
2007: Crazy Eyes say, “I am a fearsome creature.”
2006: Frying pan in the front flower bed.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: She seems a little wishy-washy about it. I think she might secretly like the book.
2002: (He always calls when I’m in the shower or eating. I think he has a hidden camera somewhere in hopes of catching me with my non-existent luvah-on-the-side Juan.)
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

You know how you wake up in the morning and you think your day is going to go one way, and it becomes obvious from pretty early on that the day has plans of its own?

I woke up this morning and my plan was to get my entry up and written, run to Wal-Mart to buy everything on my extensive list, get home before 8, get some baking done, maybe make a batch or two of jam. Instead, as I was looking through pictures trying to decide which ones to post, Fred called from work. We had a lengthy discussion about the riding lawnmower he recently bought from L0we’s, which he’s only used a few times and which has already broken. I reminded him that he’d gotten the extended warranty, and since the thing was broken, it was time to call L0we’s and see what they were going to do about it.

He asked me to scan the receipt for the riding lawnmower purchase, so I did that, then went back to looking at pictures. A few minutes later he called back to report that they were going to replace the mower. Good news, right?

Except guess who had to go out and push the riding lawnmower out into the driveway so they could come get it?

I did that, put all the booklets and spare parts that came with the damn thing out there with it, and then came back inside to work on my entry some more. Fred told me that the manager told him that it would be about an hour and a half, and that they’d call first.

So I was working on my entry, and Sookie was laying in a cat bed on my desk, and she decided she needed to be on the other side of the desk. I shit you not, I had JUST typed the part about how the True Bloods are pretty good about staying off my keyboard (you’ll get to it eventually if I ever get this fucking thing posted) when she reached one little paw out and hit a key that made everything go black. I was pretty sure she hit the “sleep” key, so after some fiddling around, I got everything turned back on and began working on the entry again.

And then I realized I had no motherfucking internet. I fucked around with that, ran a diagnostic whateverthefuck, and the computer threw up its (figurative) arms and said “Fuck if I know.” I called Fred and growled at him, told him what had happened, said I was this close to tossing my computer out the door, and found out that he’d gotten himself the blue screen of death on his own work computer not ten seconds before. He told me to reboot the router, and told me how to do so. I did, and since our internet provider also provides our phone service, the phone went dead.

Somehow, I managed to not throw the phone against the wall.

I rebooted my computer three times, and on the last time it connected to the internet.

I began working on my entry YET AGAIN when the driveway alarm went off. I hadn’t received a call from L0we’s, but then again the phone had been down for a few minutes, so maybe they’d tried. I went out, and they had backed the truck into the driveway and were lowering the lift. I pointed out the old mower to them.

“What’s it been doing?” they asked.

I shrugged. “I have no idea. You’d have to ask my husband.” I’m sure Fred told me what was going on with it, but it had gone in one ear and out the other. I’m sure I wouldn’t have understood it even if I could remember what he’d said.

One of the guys started the mower and drove it up to the truck. He drove it onto the lift – the back tires hanging off the lift, and the other guy hit the button to raise the lift.

That, I thought to myself, does not look very safe. But I guess they know what they’re doing.

One instant later, with the lift halfway raised to the back of the truck, THE GODDAMN MOWER FELL BACKWARDS OFF THE LIFT.

WITH THE GUY STILL ON IT.

FELL.

OFF.

THE.

LIFT.

I reacted as I always do in an emergency. First, I gasped loudly, and then I raised my hands to my cheeks, and stood there staring in horror, my mouth hanging open. The other guy ran over and started pulling the mower (which was resting on its back end and had leaned backward so that the guy on the mower was kind of pinned), and after a long, long moment of not being able to think of what to do, I first ran a few steps toward the house to get the phone and call 911, and then stopped and ran up the driveway to help pull the mower off the guy.

By the time I reached them, the other guy had pulled the mower up enough so that the other guy could roll off it and get to his feet, and he stood there, shaking his head and brushing dirt off his pants. I was SURE he had to be hurt – at least a broken leg! – but he assured the other guy that he was fine.

“I braced myself when it started falling,” he said. (I don’t care what that man says, he’s going to be HURTING tomorrow morning.)

“JESUS,” I said, hand to my chest.

They pushed the mower onto the lift, and the other guy (the one who hadn’t been on the mower) held it on the lift while the lift raised, and then they pushed the mower onto the truck.

They left, assuring me that they’d be back with the new lawnmower and the paperwork (“Don’t forget the worker’s comp paperwork!” I wanted to say.), and now I wait. I wonder if I’ll be able to get my entry finished and posted before they show up? That would be too bad. I’d have to write a whole other entry about how they unloaded the lawnmower and one of them was crushed to death by it.

Edited to add: They just showed up and delivered the new lawnmower, and as far as I can tell, no one was crushed in the process (though I also haven’t looked at the driveway. I’d just rather not know.) Now I can’t go run my errands because the babies will need to be fed in about half an hour. DAMN YOU FRED ANDERS0N THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.

 

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Of COURSE after I said yesterday that I hadn’t had a midday slump since the iron infusion, I spent a good hour snoozing on the couch in front of the TV. Figures, doesn’t it? It might have something to do with that whole getting up at 4:30 thing.

I worked my way through my recorded episodes of Oprah yesterday afternoon. I don’t know the last time I watched an entire episode of that show, I usually fast forward through until I see what I want to see, then delete it. I did end up watching almost the entire episode with Mackenzie Phillips.

If you’re not up on the gossip, Mackenzie Phillips has written a book. In the book, she alleges that she was raped by her father and that it eventually turned into a 10-year “consensual” sexual relationship. I didn’t watch the show because I wanted the details about that – I’d read enough online about it already – but because I was most interested to know what her siblings thought of the allegations. Oprah didn’t ask that particular question until almost the end of the show, and the answer seems to be that they have an issue with it.

Two of her stepmothers have denied the allegations, but I actually think that Michelle Phillips’ denial lends credence to what Mackenzie Phillips says. Michelle Phillips says that in 1997 Mackenzie told everyone in their extended family about the sexual relationship, then called her the next day and said “You know I was just kidding, right?” Sounds like she got a taste of what the fallout from sharing that secret was going to be, and it made her back off for a long time.

I have no idea if Mackenzie Phillips is lying. It’s an odd thing to lie about, and it’s certainly not something that makes her look better to anyone – that it went on for so long is disturbing.

I don’t know if Mackenzie Phillips is telling the truth or if she’s so damaged from so many years of drug use that she doesn’t know what the truth is. Most of the time when a quasi-celebrity puts out a tell-all, it annoys the hell out of me because they’re so clearly desperately looking for a piece of the limelight. (I tend to leaf through celebrity autobiographies at the store to check out the pictures, but don’t buy them.) But Mackenzie Phillips claims she’s sharing her story because if it happened to her, she can’t possibly be the only one, and she wants to bring light to the topic. That actually seems believable to me.

Who knows?

It surprises me that I’m willing to believe Mackenzie Phillips, actually, because I don’t really like her. Her interview with Oprah didn’t change that – she was twitchy and weird and off-putting (which, to be fair, I’m sure being on Oprah and talking about her book can’t have been stress-free).

I guess I’m not sure what my point is, here. I guess I hope that whatever peace Mackenzie Phillips is looking for, she finds. I don’t know that writing a tell-all book and then promoting it on Oprah is so much the way to go, but good luck to her.

 

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Boy, I’m so glad I never had a cat that pulled the TP off the roll. I have one that occasionally needs a bite of TP – must be low on fiber, but he just takes a bite and runs away. He runs because he knows if I can reach him, I will take the paper out of his mouth.

Is it wrong that the image of a cat running up to a roll of toilet paper, frantically grabbing a bite and then running off to chew it makes me laugh and laugh?

 

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Hi Robyn! I never see you blog about it, but do you ever have problems with the older, established cats and improper elimination? (aka pooping and peeing outside the litter box). My cat has been pooping next to or close to her litter box every day for months now. I have tried everything – new litter, cleaning more often, extra praise, you name it. I am now trying Feliway. Nothing has changed and she only pees outside the box occasionally. Any advice?

We had a problem with Mister Boogers peeing outside the litter box, and let me tell you – I miss the hell out of that cat, but I surely do not miss the peeing outside the litter box. If I had to guess, maybe there’s something about the litter box itself that she’s not liking. Is it a covered litter box? Some cats don’t like those. Is the litter deep enough for her? I know you’re cleaning more often, so I’m guessing cleanliness isn’t an issue. Is she the only cat, or could she be objecting to sharing a litter box with another cat? Have you tried Cat Attract litter at all? (I’ve never tried Cat Attract myself, so don’t know for sure whether it’d help or not). Does she have any problems getting in and out of the litter box? If she’s older, it’s possible she’s developing joint issues that you may or may not already know about.

Those are the only things that come to mind – readers, feel free to jump in here!

 

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Who’s the kitten in the box? CrAZy eyes!

I’m pretty sure that’s Jake. What I love about Jake is that he really looks like such a little lunatic sometimes. He’s got the crazy eyes down pat, for sure!

 

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Oh you silly woman, that’s not a box. It’s a cat trap.

Shhhh, the cats might hear!

 

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Robyn, I ran across this website and immediately thought of all your kitten pictures!

Oh lord, you guys are so bad for my Google Reader. SO FREAKIN’ CUTE.

 

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Why aren’t you supposed to read while eating?

Because THEY say that if your attention is on what you’re reading, you’re not paying enough attention to what you’re eating, and it’s easy to overeat.

But seriously, what are you supposed to do, just sit there and EAT? What the hell? How boring is THAT?

 

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A bakers dozen so far and the months not over!

Debra, I have pondered this comment from every direction, and I swear I don’t understand what you mean. I thought at first you meant the number of fosters in the house, but there are 10 of them now. And then I thought, well, you meant the number of KITTENS in the house (Jake and Elwood still being kittens), but that only comes up to 12. With the other permanent residents added in, that makes (gulp) 21 cats on the premises, so I’m at a loss. Did you miscount or am I missing something?

 

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I just counted 21 cats that you have in residence right now. Can that be right?? I don’t know whether to be scared or jealous… LOL!

Be very very frightened. Heh. Actually, it’s really pretty neat to have so many of them running around (well, to be fair only 17 of them are running around – the little ones are contained in a cage most of the time). Fred has really warmed up to the True Bloods now that they climb all over him and flop over and beg for love, and he doesn’t have to go upstairs to spend time with them.

Last night, he had six cats on the couch with him, and I had three with me. The others were off racing around. As long as they don’t tromp on my keyboard (which they’ve been pretty good about, knock wood), I really like having them out and about.

My only objection is that Terry flopped down on Fred’s lap last night, when there was PLENTY of room on my lap. And then Bill went over and curled up against Fred. What the hell? They’re supposed to love ME most of all, damnit!

 

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I woke up with a baby spider crawling down my comforter and it was oh, so much more effective than an alarm clock in getting me UP.

The day after the spider crawling down my face woke me up, I was making my bed and found a dead baby cave cricket RIGHT WHERE I HAD BEEN SLEEPING. What the fuck is up with all these bugs in my BED all of a sudden??

And, how is The Hour I First Believed? I’m getting it from the library and was wondering if it’s worth it.

The first half of the book was very good. And then it just kind of dissolved into a mishmash that I like to call “I’ve been working on this goddamn book for 9 years and just want to get the fucking thing done.” I recommend the book for the first half, but don’t recommend the second half (though of course you have to wade through the bullshit to find out what HAPPENS).

I think Wally Lamb, bless his heart, has hit the level of fame where his editors aren’t editing him enough any more.

That’s just my opinion, of course. I know a bunch of you have read the book, what did you think of it?

 

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Oh, lordy, have you seen this video yet?!

Y’all are trying to kill me with the cute, aren’t you?

 

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Robyn, lots of people all over the world have had their iPod hard drives corrupted after installing the new iTunes version. There’s a forum discussion on the Apple Support home page but people aren’t getting responses from Apple or if they call support, they are being told to just buy a new one if theirs is out of warranty. All report theirs were FINE before installing new iTunes version. Same here. Now mine makes clicking noises, says there is NO MUSIC, no nothing and people who have restored theirs say it doesn’t work. Please ask your readers if this has happened to them and, if not, tell them not to install the new iTunes version especially if they have an iPod Classic. My 160GB bought just over a year ago is DEAD. I’ve had 5 different sorts of iPods and nothing like this has ever happened.

I haven’t connected my iPod to my computer in about a week and a half, I think, and now I can’t remember whether iTunes has updated itself recently or not. I can tell you that if my iPod dies, it’s going to be the last goddamn iPod I ever own. I really, really like being able to watch TV shows on my iPod, but the majority of the time, I use it to listen to podcasts, and it doesn’t need to be an Apple product for that.

Anyone else out there having this issue?

 

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I was wondering if you own a Kindle? I know you are a big fan of Amazon and such an avid reader. I really want one but am torn about it for some reason. I would be interested in your opinion of it whether you have one or not. Thanks.

I don’t own a Kindle, but I’ve played around with Nance’s Kindle and I liked it quite a bit. Fred and I were recently discussing buying a Kindle, actually. He doesn’t like the fact that books are so expensive (and you can’t buy them used!), but I did point out to him that a Kindle isn’t a replacement for real books, but rather a supplement. It would be super handy to have when I’m traveling and to keep in my purse for when I’m stuck in line somewhere, but I imagine I’d still trade books at Bookmooch and browse through book stores.

Maybe I’ll see if I can’t talk Fred into buying a Kindle as our Christmas present to each other this year.

 

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The Wonkas are doing well. They’ve all been using the litter box because they are BRILLIANT. None of them but Gus are much interested in food versus formula from the bottle at this point. We’ll give it a little more time before we get pushy about making them eat food.

Fred is amazed at how quickly they’ve adjusted to us. Mike will still spit at us, but even he comes over to be petted occasionally. They’re all purring for us, and Gus has turned into such a love bug. This morning I held him like a baby and rubbed his belly for a long, long time.

I bought a cat condo (with a shelf!) at Petsmart ’cause I didn’t think we had enough cat furniture. ::snort::

Mike approves of the condo.

Something’s got Gus disturbed.

Miss Veruca’s got something to say (and in the background, Gus is all “You tell her!”).

Three of the four (Mike is off to the left, snuggled up under that big stuffed Momma cat).

“What you MEAN ‘no more belly rubs’?!”

“Rub mah belleh, or I will mess you UP with these little needle-sharp claws!”

 

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The True Bloods are living the life, having the run of the house from about 7 am ’til 9 pm, racing around, falling down in a heap of kitten cuteness to snooze the day away, then getting up to do it all again.

They have no complaints (well, except for Hoyt. Who ALWAYS has something to say!).

There are literally six kittens on my desk right now (including our Jake and Elwood), and Lafayette and Terry are in my lap. I just tossed a pen across the room to see if they’d run over to check it out and let me get this entry posted without interference, and they sent an investigator (Bill) to see what it was. He went over, sniffed at it, and then announced “Just a pen, guys, nothing to worry about.” and climbed back up on my desk.

They love to hang out under the couch and smack at each other.

Well, of course. There ARE only 200 cat beds in the house. Why not snuggle up to the boots to sleep, Sookie?

“DID I MENTION I HAS A COMPLAINT?”

 

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Miz Poo says “If I don’t look at him, this is not happening.”

 

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Imagine if a very industrious person took all the milk in the world, put it in one location, and let it spoil.
2006: I blushed, even though he couldn’t see me, and no doubt as a GI he’s elbow-deep in shit the majority of the time.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: I’m sure my tendencies toward dumbassery has something to do with it.
2002: Sometimes when I’ve just finished doing my Firm tape, I feel like my brain is leaking out my ears.
2001: Maybe I should just shave my head.
2000: No entry.

I got a lot of stuff done yesterday – canned chicken, made cookies for the pigs, finally got the damn bird feeders filled and the hummingbird feeders filled with fresh nectar – and it was nice to get all that stuff done.

Today, I only have to run to the bank, to Big Lots, and to the recycling center. Other than that, I don’t need to go anywhere, and I intend to take full advantage of that!

That’s right, more canning.

I buy the big-ass cans of canned mushrooms from Sam’s Club, and then recan them into half-pint jars. I’d give you all the exact numbers, but I’ve lost the sheet of paper where I wrote them down, so you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that by buying the big can of mushrooms and recanning them rather than buying the small cans of mushrooms here and there whenever we need them, I save $10.

(Which I’m sure I immediately blow on buying books I don’t need. But hey, a girl’s gotta have priorities!)

The chicken canning went well yesterday, right up until I was taking the jars out of the canner. The first and second jars were fine, but when I went to lift the third jar out, it broke.

ARRRRGH.

That’s one entire chicken, gone to waste. I can’t recan the chicken, because I’m not willing to take the chance that there are shards of glass in and amongst the chicken, and I can’t feed the chicken to the dogs or the pigs for the same reason.

Ah well. I’ll be canning another five chickens this weekend – hopefully I’ll get no more broken jars, damnit!

(And for the record, one deboned and shredded chicken fits nicely in a quart-size canning jar.)

 

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Bill’s just crying blood like any good vamp cat.

Considering how hard Bill can bite sometimes, I’m thinking he really might be a vamp cat!

 

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I think Stinkerbelle took over the look o’ “het” from Mister Boogers.

I don’t know, I think she’s been pretty filled with hetred since the very beginning!

 

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Have I skimmed over the part where you guys started using the term “eyelips”? 😀

I mentioned that Fred came up with it in this entry:

So far, Sam’s doing fine. His eyes looked a little rough to me yesterday, and I made Fred come upstairs and swear to me that they looked okay and his eyelids weren’t going to come popping off and go bouncing across the room (also, he referred to them as “eyelips”, and I laughed and laughed).

but you were probably distracted by the beauty of Jake and Elwood.

 

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Also, I was curious (tho I think it impossible), will their eyelips ever have fur?

Yes, no, maybe? At this point, I don’t know. When she took the pieces off their lips, she took the inner part – the mucous membrane part – of the lip to use underneath their eyes. The outer part went on top, and it had fur attached. The bit of graft that sloughed off Sam’s eye doesn’t appear to have grown fur, but who knows what’s going to happen? All we can do is wait and see – and actually, his eye looks good enough that if fur doesn’t grow there, I doubt many people would even notice.

 

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I didn’t realize that you got new pigs??

We got ’em back at the beginning of July – there was kind of a lot going on back then, with Mister Boogers passing on, it was easy to skim past, I think.

 

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So here I thought I knew absolutely everything there was to know as far as tips and tricks while browsing the internet, but the scroll wheel new tab thing is TOTALLY news to me and also now my favorite internet tip. Just like that. How have I survived the last several years of tabbed browsing without it?

Is it not the BEST tip ever? And Fred acted like I was an idiot for not knowing this particular tip (for those who missed it the first time around – if you click on the scroll wheel of your mouse while hovering over a link, the link will open in a new tab), so I’m glad I wasn’t alone in not knowing!

 

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Stinkerbelle is not allowed outside????? No wonder she’s a stinker.

She’s allowed to go outside – she’s just too much of a scaredy-cat to actually go out there.

 

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Do you have any experience with cats with arthritis? I think my Poo-clone may be developing it, and I’m wondering how much I need to rely on the vet for treatment.

I don’t have any experience with cats with arthritis, though I know there are over-the-counter Glucosamine supplements you can get on the cheap at Wal-Mart, rather than pay the inflated price at the vet’s office.

I know at least one of my readers has experience with an arthritic cat or two – readers? Advice?

 

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Robyn did you see Kate Gosselin’s new hair? I think it’s a big improvement-she looks a lot softer. Guess she got tired of all the jokes about her old style.

I did! I think it looks a lot better, but I really wish she’d grow the back out a bit. I’m not terribly fond of the reverse-mullet thing.

 

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I just saw this on my sister’s facebook page. It made me think of you. I don’t have cat’s cause I can’t breathe when they are around. But, I have seen many cat things on your page, but never something like this!

I really, really like the considering look the cat gets on his face when he’s dunked his head under the stream of water and he’s lapping up… nothing. That is hilarious!

 

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I made pumpkin muffins last week that were a complete and utter fail. My first thought was “I wouldn’t have to throw these out if I could feed them to pigs”.

Pigs: BEST kitchen implement ever! Not only do we feed them our kitchen waste, Fred’s mother saves up their kitchen scraps as well, and those are some well-fed (and not picky!) pigs! I think everyone should have a pig or two in their back forty.

 

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All that talk of blood and his cold hands made me wonder if that doc is not a vampire. Then again maybe I have been watching too much True Blood. Heh.

Nah, he was out in the daylight, and in fact sat in a beam of sunlight. That would certainly be a good job for him, though, wouldn’t it! “Let me just get a few vials of blood from you… okay, I’ll go, uh, EXAMINE this blood, be right back!”

 

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I also thought you were talking about canning the cats. Just for a second.

It only saddens me that I don’t have a canning jar big enough to put a kitten in and take a picture to post to respond to this. 🙂

I like to browse through your “previously” links and 2 years ago Thursday you had the sweetest picture of you and Mister Boogers. Does seeing random pictures like that unexpectedly make you all misty-eyed?

It does – and I see a LOT of random pictures of Mister Boogers. My screensaver shows pictures from my “cat pics” folder, and at least once a day I see a picture of Mister Boogers pop up on my screen as I walk by. Even now, when he’s been gone for more than two months, it still occasionally takes both Fred and I by surprise that he’s gone. We never ever expected that we’d lose him like that, and he had such a large personality that he left a huge hole behind when he went.

Good ol’ Boogie.

 

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I showed up at the vet’s office bright and early yesterday morning to drop off Sookie and pick up Terry. When I walked in, the receptionist looked at me and said “Thank god you’re here!”, and a moment later one of the nurses came out, holding Terry in her arms like a baby.

It appears that Mister Mouth had howled and howled and howled at the top of his lungs until they couldn’t stand it anymore, and took him out of his cage to give him love. From the nurse’s arms, Terry gave me the smuggest look.

“TERRY,” I said. “I thought I was your true love! I thought you loved me best, and now you’re laying in her arms like you could just lay there forever!”

And he said “Have we met?”

BRAT.

His eyes look amazing. This will sound silly, but I almost don’t recognize him. I’ve gotten so accustomed to the way his lids were before, kind of jagged, and now to see a smooth eyeline on him is odd – I’ve mistaken him for Sookie more than once since I got him home.

I know he’ll look worse before he looks better, that as his eyelips heal, they’ll get scabby and kind of gross looking. But now I have some idea of what he’ll look like when all is said and done, and I think he’s going to be a real little heartbreaker!

Every afternoon for a while, we pile up on my bed and take a nap. Well, THEY take a nap. I just lay there and watch them sleep, and pet them and listen to them purr. This was yesterday, when Sookie was at the vet’s office, or she’d surely be in there with them. Lafayette’s not in the picture because he was curled up behind my knees. (Pardon the camera strap.)

I dropped Sookie off in the morning, and at 3:00 (as I was laying on my bed with her brothers, as a matter of fact), the phone rang. The vet’s office was calling to let me know I could come get her. I left immediately to get her, and that little girl howled allllll the way home. Oddly, despite the fact that her eyelids required less work than Terry’s, she actually looks worse than he does.

Don’t they look sore?

She was fine, though, racing around and snuggling up to her brothers, and eating like a horse.

When we’ve hit the two-week mark after surgery for Terry and Sookie, I’ll feel like I can relax a little. Until then, I’ll be casting many a worried look at them, I’m sure!

(I’m keeping my fingers crossed that next week brings zero trips to the vet. I’m ready to NOT make that trip for a little while!)

 

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“What?”

 

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Previously
2008: Nepotism in Hollywood is alive and well and stinking up the joint.
2007: Okay, birds – time to start paying a LITTLE better attention to your surroundings, please.
2006: *Of course I want my daughter to be in a relationship with someone who treats her well, isn’t a criminal, and is carrying no communicable diseases. But I flat-out do not care whether that person has a penis or a vagina.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Dirk is a happy, happy man. Dirk is very close to orange.
2002: Instead of finding it cute and amusing, I am, instead, bitter that I’ll never get that 94 minutes of my life back.
2001: (he’s a dumbass, she’s a dumbass, they’re dumbasses, wouldn’t you like to BE a dumbass too?!)
2000: No entry.

I had to have blood drawn yesterday (they took four fucking vials! This was regular blood work ordered by my doctor to go along with the physical I had last week.) and it made me think of a question – how come when you have blood taken, they sometimes tell you not to lift anything heavy with the arm they took the blood from for a few hours? Will my vein pop out and go shooting across the room or something if I lift my purse (in which I regularly carry 45 pounds of change)?

Just curious.

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Can everyone see the names of the cats under their pictures in the left sidebar now? Any other flaws in the design you guys notice, or does it look good enough?

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I’m glad I’m not the only avocado lover – you guys and your suggestions were having me drooling yesterday! Using mashed avocado in place of mayo? You KNOW I’m trying that! I had another scrambled eggs, chopped tomato, and chopped avocado rollup for lunch yesterday and holy COW was it good!

My only question – exactly how does one grill avocado slices? It seems like they’d be too soft for that. Would you use a veggie basket or something similar?

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I’m sure the other book you enjoyed that was written by a blogger was Fred’s book, right?

This was in response to something I said in my comments the other day – that I find that books put out by bloggers, except for Dietgirl’s book – which I thought was fabulous – (and possibly one or two others I couldn’t remember at the moment), tend to be kind of boring. I don’t think, for the most part, that blogs translate to books very well. I used to buy almost all books put out by bloggers to Support! the! Cause! (“What cause?” you ask? The cause of Shut Your Face, is what cause.), but I got burned so often that I don’t any more.

And yes, of course I enjoyed Fred’s book – is it sad that I didn’t even think of his book when I typed that? (But then, I don’t think of him as a blogger, either, I just think of him as Fred!)

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When will the Crooked Acres Jams and Hot Sauces be available again (and yes, I’m on the auto mailing list, but I have friends – and friends of friends – that want to know.) :)))

It’s my goal to start jamming and saucing it up ’round these parts on or around October 1st. It could happen sooner, but it’ll definitely start that weekend. I need to stock up on canning jars and sugar and fruit and such, but once I start making the jams and hot sauces, I should have enough habaneros to keep going for a good long time.

I also intend to start experimenting with Splenda this time around, too.

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URI is uniform resource indicator and URL (uniform resource locator) is a subset of URI…TMI for me!

FYI!

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Which of the cats are still outdoor kitties? You don’t talk about the older ones much any more. For instance, how is Sugarbutt’s foot doing? Hope he’s out of his collars!

Most of them – except for Stinkerbelle and Jake and Elwood – are allowed out into the back yard. Other than that, Maxi and Newt are our “free range” cats who aren’t confined to the back yard. Newt is always around, and spends his days wandering in and out of the house. These days, he likes to hang out on the chicken processing station (which has been cleaned since it was last used, let me assure you):

Maxi’s been around less and less lately. I think the fact that she and Joe Bob hate each other so much is keeping her away from the house, I’m sad to say. She stops by the side porch every once in a while during the day to eat (and at Snackin’! Time! I put a plate out there for her), but we can rarely get her to stay inside at night. I believe she’s spending a lot of time hanging out with the kids two doors down.

Sugarbutt’s foot is FINALLY – thankyajesus! – healed. We went from the two-collar system to the Bite-Not collar paired with a “boot” made of gauze and tape to cover his foot. When we found that he was leaving his foot alone, we kept the “boot” off and when his toes were healed, we took the Bite-Not collar off, and he’s been racing around like his ass is on fire ever since!

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I think the current great minds of usability say that users can choose to open links in a new window with a key or click (or mouse action, for advanced users), so there’s no reason to dictate that action in the code. It really only gets done these days on bad commercial websites that don’t want users abandoning their pretty, pretty ads, and invariably mess it up so that every page of their site starts opening in new windows and gah, that sucks.

CTRL- (or Command-) click is your friend.

Myself, I’m fond of right-click/ open link in new tab but I may have to give this fancy new CTRL-click a try.

In a perfect world, I’d be able to find a WordPress plug-in where, if someone wanted the links to open in a new page, they could check a box over in the sidebar. I haven’t found it yet, but I also haven’t spent a lot of time searching, either.

Edited to add: OH JESUS CHRIST. Did you know that if you hover over a link and then click on your scroll wheel (on your mouse) that it opens the link in a new tab? DID YOU KNOW THAT? I did not! Fred just called and mocked me for not knowing that, but I ask you – how the fuck am I supposed to know this stuff if no one ever TELLS ME?!?!?

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Have you ever heard of the cat breed Chartreux, otherwise known as the smiling blue cat of France? I swear your boys have the look!

I had never heard of the Chartreux. I actually think they look more like the Russian Blue, they’re built sort of long and sleek. Their eyes are more yellowish than the accepted Russian Blue, and I don’t think they have the wideset ears of a traditional Russian Blue. Actually, I thought yesterday that they’re long and sleek, and they are in the body, but they do kind of have short legs. It’ll be interesting to see what they look like when they grow up!

I recently read that they can do DNA testing on dogs to figure out what breed they are, but I haven’t seen the same thing for cats. Too bad, ’cause I’m certainly curious to know what their genetic background is comprised of. of what their genetic background is comprised.

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I have had people ask me if my Sookie was like this or that because she was a Calico. I don’t think people know that Torti and Calico are coat colors and not breeds. I find it fascinating that people find them to be more vocal. I haven’t found it to be so with my Calico(s) but my Siamese it has always been true.

It would probably be sexist to point out that Calicos and Tortis are female and thus more prone to talkativeness, wouldn’t it?

I agree with the point about Siamese – I’m pretty sure both Spanky and Stinkerbelle have Siamese in their backgrounds, and they are some TALKERS when the mood strikes ’em!

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After my RNY WLS I was still allowed to take anti-inflammatories (I’d been taking them for about 3 years for back pain), but had to take them with a Losec tablet (not sure what Losec is called in the USA) and some food like yoghurt first to line my pouch. It took about 5 months for the back pain to finally stop and I don’t take them any more. Just thought I’d say that these things are possible, despite what the Drs say!

Very interesting! A Google search shows that Losec is another name for Prilosec. I’ll have to discuss this with my doctor, because if I could take an anti-inflammatory, I bet it would help my elbow quite a lot!

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Your toe in the turkey poop story made me laugh out loud. The other morning I was up early in the computer room when my husband walks in and tells me he thinks our dog puked in the bedroom. I happen to be right in the middle of eating and I am chewing as I get up and walk in the bedroom. I look at this small, palm-sized object laying at the end of the bed. As I look closer, I realize it is just one of her rawhide chew toys and I proclaim, “Hey! It’s just one of her rawhide chew toys!” and I go to pick it up. Unfortunately, my fingers slide right through the “toy.” It IS puke! Thank god I am a nurse because it didn’t even phase me and I continued to chew my food as I went to wash my hands. Three years ago, I would have puked myself. Eeew!

Isn’t it amazing what we can get used to? I could probably get up from dinner, go scoop out a super-nasty litter box, and sit back down to dinner without missing a beat.

I do make a very loud (profanity-laden) exclamation of disgust when I step in a pile of cold cat puke, though.

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So I am just curious…how much bacon do you get from one pig?

I actually had to ask Fred for the answer to this. He said that it depends on the size of the pig (of course), but an entire pig would bring about 20 – 30 pounds of bacon. That’s a lot of bacon for two people! (We’ve given a lot of bacon and pork cuts to various family members, which is the only reason we have ANY room in our freezer!)

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I’m not generally a skimmer… But did you ever post how much we collectively donated for the Mr Boogers memorial?

I sure didn’t, I completely dropped the ball on that!

Almost $625 was donated to Challenger’s House in Mister Boogers’ name, and thank you so much to everyone who donated!

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What is keening?

It’s a constant, low, howling noise that the cats make when they feel the need to announce that they’ve caught something. Here’s Miz Poo doing it a few years ago (you really have to crank your sound to hear it, though):

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Awww… look at the Tubby movie I found when I was looking for that one of Miz Poo!

Good ol’ Tubby.

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i’m gonna die from all that cuteness! how did you get them all on the chair?

It involved Fred, a stick with a feather on the end, and a LOT of missed shots.

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Just wondering…do you have pet insurance for your own cats? I took my one cat, Snickers, in for a checkup,and rabies shot this week and it was $80.Considering that I only have one cat, that’s not too expensive, but your crew would cost a fortune, especially when other health problems come up once in awhile, too.

We don’t have pet insurance on the cats, though we’ve discussed getting coverage for them as they reach a certain age, maybe 10. (Hopefully there’s no qualification physical, because Miz Poo would never pass!)

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Because I saw this and thought of you and Fred, of course!

Turkey cam! I think we need one of those.

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Do you realize you and Fred have the perfect life ~ the “American Dream”? You are lucky in love, staying home taking care of the homefront, the garden, the kitties, the cooking, the internet writing – as you happily make your way through the day. While your brilliant husband makes enough for you and him to live moderately and creatively and happily! Congrats and thanks for sharing with us and letting me dream of what you do!

I do love my life an awful lot. I know it’s not everyone’s dream, what we have, but it’s the perfect life for me, and believe me – I’m grateful every day for it!

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So, after I went back and looked at the pictures of Sam the day after he had surgery, I’m thinking that Bill’s eyes look about right. I didn’t remember Sam’s looking so red and sore, but they certainly were.

I also decided that the fact that Bill’s been so quiet and is mostly sitting around watching his brothers and sister play is completely normal – because that’s what he did before surgery. He’s always been a quiet observer, whereas Hoyt has always been the spazzy bigmouth. They both seem to be healing just fine, feeling okay, and that’s all we can ask for!

And now I’m about to leave to take Lafayette to the vet for his new eyelips. Send good thoughts in his direction, would you?

Sam, a week after surgery and lookin’ good!

Hoyt, a day after surgery. Fred came upstairs to help me with medicating Hoyt, Sam and Bill last night, and he picked up Hoyt and looked at him and said “This isn’t one of the ones who had surgery yesterday, right?” and was surprised to find out that he was. That’s how good he’s looking!

Bill, one day after surgery.

Bill, still squinty. He may just be a squinty kinda guy. Maybe I should have named him Clint Eastwood.

Snuggly Hoyt.

Sam, up close. Lookin’ good!

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Snoozin’ Poo.

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Previously
2008: GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.
2007: I can’t help it if giant forks make me happy.
2006: Does it make me strange that I can handle the thought of field mice in the house, but the idea of ants in the house just REALLY infuriates me?
2005: No entry.
2004: My Gram.
2003: If I had a brain I’d be dangerous.
2002: What I’ve been doing.
2001: I’m wise to your stalker ways, Margaret!
2000: No entry.

Put some money in the jar for the babies. Don’t be a Heartless McGee!

*Edited to add: We’ve received over $2,950 in donations in less than two days! That’s more than enough to pay for the surgeries for ALL of these kittens, thank you all so much! You guys are so amazing!!!

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Warning: I’ll be working on my site design over the weekend, so if things look wonky ’round here, that’ll be why. I’m likely going to go back to the updated version of this theme. I’m having issues with this version because it’s so old, and when I used the updated version a few months ago, my only problem was that some of you couldn’t see the entire banner at the top of the page. I promise you I’ll do my very best to fix that problem, but when it comes down to it, it may just be something you have to deal with. With the current version, I can’t even edit my right-side column because according to the theme editor, there’s no such thing. Grrr.

On the up side, we’ll get back the feature where you can reply directly to another comment! Yay!

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So, this is how my mornings have gone, recently.

I’m generally awakened around 5:30 by Fred, who’s in the downstairs bathroom. He doesn’t intentionally wake me up at 5:30, but he blows his nose so fucking loud that elephants in the deepest parts of South Africa pause, lift their heads and say “Was that Bob?”

Since I’m awake, I roll out of bed, toss on my nightgown, and then go to the bathroom to pop my contacts in. I stumble down the stairs and into the kitchen. Usually by the time I’m to the bottom of the stairs, Fred is out of the shower, and he joins me in my journey to the kitchen. He goes through the kitchen and out the back door into the still-dark morning, while I stay in the kitchen and start preparing medicine.

A few minutes later, he comes back into the kitchen with The Maestro.

The Maestro.

He noticed, about a week ago, that The Maestro was holding one eye closed. When he picked her up to examine her, he realized that she was wheezing pretty badly and had an upper respiratory infection. We started her on a twice-daily regimen of Terramycin in her eye and a liquid antibiotic down her gullet. He always holds her so that I can apply the ointment to her eye – you can imagine how much she enjoys THAT – and then hands her over to me, and I hold her while he shoots the antibiotic down her throat. And I’m sure you can imagine how much she enjoys THAT, too. Then he takes her back out to the coop.

While he’s out putting The Maestro back in the coop, I prepare another syringe of medication. A few minutes later, he comes in with Hjonkie in his arms.

Hjonkie.

Less than a week ago, Hjonkie stopped acting like himself – he wouldn’t make the sound that gave him his name when he saw Fred, and he wouldn’t jump up on Fred’s arm. Also, the feathers around his neck were sticking out instead of laying flat. According to Fred, that’s an issue and he was afraid Hjonkie was getting sick. So he start Hjonkie on a twice-a-day antibiotic regimen, too.

I think you can imagine how a big-ass turkey fights having antibiotic squirted down his throat. I get to hold the damn bird while Fred does the squirting. Then Fred takes Hjonkie back out to HIS coop, and I begin preparing more medication.

Fred comes back inside and wrangles Jake and Elwood, then holds each of them up so that I can squirt medicine down their throats. Elwood’s usually pretty good about it, but Jake acts like an ass, fighting and kicking and make a face like he’s being tortured. (It’s kind of entertaining, to be honest, he’s such a little drama queen.)

Then, while the other cats meow and twine around my feet, I prepare Snackin’! Time! plates for the foster kittens. They’re healthy, but still kind of having litter box issues, and the thing that seems to help the most with that is powdered Slippery Elm Bark, both sprinkled over their wet food (they get a mixture of Gerber chicken and gravy baby food and Iams kitten food in the morning and in the evening with a healthy sprinkle of powdered Slippery Elm Bark mixed in with it all) and some extra given to each of them in a syrup (“syrup” = powder mixed with water and heated until it’s thickened; can be refrigerated for up to a week) via an oral syringe. So I get the syringes and the snacks ready, and then Fred goes upstairs with me to assist. We put the plates down on the floor the kittens surround the plates, and then Fred picks up the kittens one by one and holds them as I squirt the syrup into their mouths.

Then Fred leaves for work and I go off to take my shower and by the time I’m showered and dressed, it’s light enough so that I can open the maternity coop and turkey coop without fear of nighttime predators (possums, raccoons) coming along and eating a chicken or two.

So, that’s the first 45 minutes or so of my morning, every morning for the past week. The excitement yesterday morning is that when Fred brought Hjonkie into the kitchen, he first hissed at the kittens (I had no idea that turkeys hissed!), and then he registered his displeasure by shooting out a great big Turkey poop on the floor.

“Thank god he got it on the floor and not on the rug,” was my only response. And then Elwood ran over and began vigorously sniffing the turkey poop, and I was afraid he’d start eating it (cats are just the nastiest creatures on earth), so while I was holding Hjonkie and Fred was trying to pry Hjonkie’s beak open, I reached out with one bare foot to push Elwood away from the turkey poop. And managed to SCOOP my big toe through the poop and then at the far point of my kicking trajectory, the poop that had attached itself to my toe plopped off and landed on the rug.

Luckily, it was somehow a DRYish kind of poop, and with a cleaning rag and the application of some cleaning spray, you can’t even tell it was ever there.

You know you want my life.

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Will you make turkey bacon from your turkeys eventually?

Though of course I’ve learned to NEVER say “never” (see: “Oh, we’ll never have dogs.” “Oh, we’ll never have more than, say, 20 chickens.” “Oh, we’ll never have more than 5 cats.”), I can say that at this juncture, I do not plan to make turkey bacon.

(At his desk at work right now, I suspect that Fred is cackling and rubbing his hands together. I’m sure he has OTHER plans.)

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Kate is just being phony and playing it up, the left behind, innocent, sweet person who did nothing to make him want to leave. That’s what I see. I can’t see her being that different that easy. Yes divorce hurts and is rough, but I doubt that she is just little miss sweet butt all of a sudden now. Just for the camera of course.

I think that Kate realized that she was coming across as a complete bitch, and decided that she was going to remedy that by being Upbeat! and Positive! and Happy Shiny Kate! and it rings completely false.

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Does Miz Poo “talk” a lot? I have a torti cat {for almost a year, come October}, and she is the chattiest cat I’ve ever met!! I’m wondering if it’s the breed?

Miz Poo is the talkingest cat I’ve ever known. If something disturbs her (and EVERYTHING disturbs her), she’s gotta talk about it. And talk about it. And talk about it some more. She’ll follow you around and howl at you. She’ll pick up a toy and carry it from one end of the house to the other, keening the entire way. It’s been my experience that calicos and tortis tend to be talkers more often than other cats.

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A funny note… I was wondering how “the one who invented blogging” was staying in business because I had not seen an ad on her page for nearly a year. Imagine my surprise when I fired of Firefox and saw all the ads. Also, I didn’t know PW had ads on her site either, they were not showing up on my dinosaur version of IE. I must say, I could do without the ads… especially the ones that scroll down the page as you go. Annoying!

If you read her in Google Reader, you never ever have to see the ads. 🙂

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Our dear older cat, Kitterz, is 19 years old. He’s actually in pretty good shape, has a full set of teeth, sleeps a lot (isn’t that his job?), but can still jump up on to the couch, and he likes to go outside in the backyard to sit in the sun. Eating and drinking are normal.

Last time I took him to the vet for a check-up, I half-jokingly mentioned that I am planning to get new furniture as soon as our cats go to kitty heaven, and the vet said, “Well, don’t plan on it for awhile…”

The only thing is that he has slacked off in the grooming department over the past couple years, and I know that is normal for aging cats. But he smells a little off these days … and I don’t know what to do. It’s not a urine odor (he’s not incontinent at all) and not really a poop odor, just a musty old-man cat smell. We’ve never really bathed him, as he’s always kept himself very well groomed … and I’m afraid if we tried to bathe him now, he’d have a stroke or something.

Any suggestions?

I really like Jen’s suggestion:

We have an older cat with grooming issues too. He’s not as old as Kitterz – a mere 13 and most of Fred’s problems are due to girth. He’s a bit of a chunk and simply can’t reach most of his back. He can get a bit niffy sometimes in summer – though he washes the bits he can get to really well.

Our 3 cats have a ‘loves and cuddles’ session before being shut in the kitchen for the night. I started brushing Fred as well as stroking him and when he’s chilled out, use an old face cloth (folded and stitched so its a bag to put your hand in, like this he can still feel my hand and your body temperature keeps it warm) and dampened with warm water, to wipe him over with. Depending on his mood, I might only get to wash him installments. He doesn’t get soaked and dries naturally. And smells better.
He’s only had one experience in getting wet and soapy- after my son, who was 3 at the time, decided to coat the cat in butter ( a whole pat, rubbed well in – picture toddler and cat loose in the kitchen, lumps of butter everywhere – on child’s PJs, in hair,all over the floor and rubbed well into cat fur – good morning mum, did we wake you? here’s some fun for 5am ). It took 4 baths that day to get it all out. Fred still remembers and won’t willingly go into the bathroom.

I can’t even imagine having to give a cat 4 baths, Jen – you have my sympathy!

Anyone else have suggestions for keeping Kitterz clean?

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Thought of you and wondered if any of your cats would be so patient!

I actually think that Tommy might be pretty patient, at least for a little while.

What’s surprised me in the last week is that Jake and Elwood have gotten the hang of Snackin’! Time! (it generally takes perhaps three days before they completely understand what the Snackin’! Time! call means), and so I’m giving them their own plate of snack. But if I’m not fast enough with their plate, they’ll belly right up to the plate with Kara or Spanky, and I am AMAZED that neither Kara nor Spanky hisses or smacks or reacts in any way. Unheard of!

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So we have a strange situation going on here. Tell me what you think is going on. We are in the process of taking out a Home Equity Loan to do replace our deck and also roll a car loan into the loan for a lower rate. So We get a call from an appraisal company to set an appointment for a walk through appraisal. No biggie, we were expecting it. They are supposed to come today. Last night we get a call from company B appraisal company trying to set up our appraisal appointment. Hmm, we already have an appointment with company A. We called the bank and they do not know anything about company A and only deal with company B. The bank is concerned and company B is concerned and frankly we are really concerned. Anyone else ever have this kind of issue? We are thinking we are getting scammed. Bank thinks so too. Question is, how did company A know what we were up to?

I was all kinds of freaked out on your behalf, Elaine, ready to scream “Fraud!” and “Scam!” and “Identity Theft!” but then Hannah came along and had to be all reasonable about it:

To answer Elaine: Maybe you shopped for the loan with more than one Loan Officer and the one you didn’t choose didn’t know they aren’t doing the loan for you so they ordered the appraisal?

Or, when you applied for the loan, the credit company (Kroll Factual Data) sold the info that you are shopping for a mortgage (inquiries into your credit record what kind of credit you are shopping ie: car loan, revolving credit, mortgage.) It’s common for them to sell this “lead” to a company – this is why you may get people calling you even if you only ever spoke to one company about your loan. Perhaps the appraisal company buys these leads and knew you were shopping. I think the first option is more likely.

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Help me save a trip to the Dr. – Did the Dr. say what to expect from the tendinitis? I imagine the pain patches will help – but will it resolve itself? My elbow has been hurting for several months. I am wearing one of those straps around the forearm and it helps a lot. But man, one day without it and my world comes crashing down from the pain. It probably doesn’t help that it is my ball-throwing arm and I simply can not let down the dog on her weekend runs.

I just don’t know what the Dr. could do other than prescribe more medications. I am ready to amputate! Anyone else have any suggestions (aside from not throwing the ball! Other things make it hurt too – any lifting or grabbing. There are many times when I can not even lift a can of soda. Pathetic!)

She said that wearing the elbow strap would allow the tendon to “heal”, so I assumed (though she didn’t say it directly) that it would resolve itself eventually.

Fred actually stumbled across this article yesterday and told me to order a couple of those rubber bars. He’s got the same issue – he takes an anti-inflammatory for it; I can’t take anti-inflammatories in pill form since I had weight loss surgery – and if a simple exercise will solve the problem, we’re both all for it!

Any other tendinitis sufferers out there with words of wisdom for us?

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Why do they have to have your car for two days? I don’t like being without mine for any length of time either. One time I put it in on Thursday and they were going to try and have it back by Friday. It turned out to be Tuesday! And over the weekend I had a horrible time getting people to come and get me to do things.

They had to keep my car for two days because they had to do an oil change, check to see why I had a leak in the leg area of the passenger’s side (under the dashboard), and checked to see why my engine was running in fits and starts (when you put it in reverse, it almost always acts as though it’s going to stall. In fact, sometimes it does stall.).

We took it to a new (new to us) place just up the road, one run by a couple of brothers, and they did the oil change, fixed the blocked hose that was causing the leak, and told us to put some of that engine cleaner stuff in the gas tank. For this, they charged $60. The “big” place we usually use? We’ve never gotten out of there for less than $200.

I think we’ll keep going back to that “small” place.

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You guys are AMAZING. By 3:00 yesterday afternoon, you had sent donations to Challenger’s House that totaled almost $1,100. When Susan told me that, I was floored. You guys are THE BEST. Thank you so much for your donations and your blog, Twitter, and Facebooks links!

*Edited to add: We’ve received over $2,950 in donations in less than two days! That’s more than enough to pay for the surgeries for ALL of these kittens, thank you all so much! You guys are so amazing!!!

Once the first couple of eye surgeries are done we’ll know better exactly how much the surgeries will cost, but this vet is willing to do them for a very low price, and I think that with the donations Challenger’s House has received, we’re about covered.

And the kitties would like to thank each and every one of you. Or at least they would, if they had any idea what was going on. They’re kind of busy running around like their butts are on fire, though, so I’ll thank you in their place.

Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you!!!!

(I’ll do my best to get you an updated total donations by Monday!)

Did I mention they’re busy racing around like wild things?

Terry can’t decide whether he wants IN the bed or OUT of the bed. He’s afraid he’s going to miss something.

They LOVE to chew on these cat beds. Something about the fabric must feel good between their teeth.

Bill is cross-eyed – which you can never usually tell in his pictures, because 99% of the time his eyes are mostly closed. Doesn’t slow him down, though!

The Beast Between the Pillows pops out to show Sam who the boss is. (Hint: it’s not Sam who’s the boss! In case you wondered!)

All day long, they claw their way up the comforter to my bed. I imagine that one day I’ll pick up one side of the comforter, and it’ll just disintegrate into a million pieces.

Okay, we’re off to the vet, Sam and Hoyt and Bill and I. Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well, would you? I’ll post over at Love & Hisses first thing in the morning to let y’all know how it went.

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Annoyed Newtles.

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Previously
2008: Who knew we’re such cranky motherfuckers?
2007: On my way back home.
2006: And I thought Fucker, at least they don’t leave me to cool my heels for over an hour without bothering to let me know they’re running late.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: These kids need someone to come organize their lives is what they need.
2002: “What the hell?” I said, amazed. How far could the fucking thing have gone?
2001: Gah. I’ve got that unsettling panic-causing “waiting for the other shoe to drop” feeling, and I don’t know why.
2000: “An E-scort. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of those. I wonder if they’re new.”

I don’t understand the question.

Why do they keep asking me how many cats I have?

What makes them think I have a lot of cats??

Ha.

That’s eight 40-pound containers of Fresh Step kitty litter weighing down the back of my car. Also known as 320 pounds of litter.

We were down to less than two 40-pound containers of litter, so I decided that a trip to Sam’s was in order, and I stocked UP. Needless to say, I didn’t get away with spending less than $100 at Sam’s this time around – but we’ve got enough litter for at least a couple of months (we don’t go through litter as quickly as you might think, really).

Then I stopped by Target and stocked up on canned cat food. And then I stopped by Publix and stocked up on baby food (which the fosters lovelovelove). Between the litter and the cat food, I should be all set for a while.

Unless someone dumps 30 more kittens on the doorstep. (That is not an invitation, Universe.)

With all that litter and cat food buying, I fully expected someone to give what I was buying The Look and then give me The Look and then say “How many cats do you HAVE?”, and I had a response all ready to go. Actually, I had two.

I was either going to put on my confused face and say “I don’t have any cats.”

OR

I was going to say “Just the one. But she poops a lot!”

But no one asked. Damnit.

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Look what Aly made! It makes me laugh – I very well might have to use that picture to link to Jake and Elwood in the sidebar (whenever I get around to making them their own page, that is!)

Thanks, Aly!

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Speaking of swooning, have you watched “Hung” on HBO yet? How is it possible that I have been unaware of Thomas Jane’s existence up until now? I sort of knew he was Patricia Arquette’s husband, but ho-ly crap! That man is SMOKING hot! I don’t even care that his umm…appendage may not measure up to his character’s (although a girl can dream).

I haven’t seen Hung, ’cause we no longer have HBO (we got rid of it because eventually all HBO shows end up on DVD, and we can sit and watch the shows to our hearts’ content), but it’s certainly on my future to-watch list!

I love Thomas Jane. He’s adorable!

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Is it just me, or do the kitten’s eyes seem to be improving? I wonder if they could actually sort of “grow out of that?” They certainly look happy and healthy!

Their eyes do look a lot better since they’re not infected and goopy any more – but they’re not going to grow out of their eye issues, they’re all missing at least part of their upper eyelids. I suspect that they won’t all require extensive surgery (still waiting to hear back from the vet about that), but at least some of them will.

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Wait, what? I’ve read some of the books that Bones is based on and I’m so sure she was never in a foster home. Did they veer pretty far away from the character from the books, then? (I saw 15 minutes of one episode, and that was all I could take. There were maggots. Apparently I can read about maggots but can’t bear to look at them.)

I read the first couple of Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan novels, but I don’t really remember much about her personal history. In the show, her parents went missing and she and her brother ended up in the foster care system for a short period of time until her grandparents (I think) found out and rescued them. I don’t know why they felt the need to add that into the storyline, unless they thought maybe it added a darker, more tortured edge to the character (though you’d think that having her parents disappear would have been enough…)

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About Firefox…

The new version has something I think they call “tab tearing”. If you click and pull down on a tab, it will “tear” it off into a new window. If you want to turn it off, there’s some instructions here: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/07/08/how-to-disable-tab-tearing-in-firefox-3-5/

Thanks for that link!

Several people have recommended Google Chrome as an alternative browser to Firefox. I’m having such issues with Firefox lately that I think I’m going to give Google Chrome a try. I’ll report back on how it works for me!

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Never realized how cool grey cats are. Those boys are adorable together. Wish I could see the intro to the general population. I’m sure you’ve done this in the past. Is there much growling, puffing up and hissing? That would be amusing to watch.

There’ll be lots of growling and hissing on the older cats’ part, I’m sure. It’s all going to depend on how submissive Jake and Elwood (I keep wanting to call him “Elroy”) are to the big cats. If they roll over and submit when the big cats get all hissy and smacky, things will probably go more smoothly than if they fight back.

I’ll see if I can’t get a picture or two of the new guys facing off with the big cats. It’ll certainly be an entertaining weekend!

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“We had several hours of good, steady rain yesterday (I’m not complaining – we really needed it)” WOW! After all the rain you had this year, I never thought I’d hear you say that.

I never thought I’d have to say it either! But after that spring/ early summer of rain rain rain, we got a long stretch of no rain at all, so at this point we’ve needed the rain we’ve gotten this week. I’m never happy, you know – either I want it to stop raining, or it to rain!

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I had trouble with my cat “Snickers” chewing on my lamp and telephone cords. I read somewhere on the net that to cure him of the habit to rub Ivory dish soap on the cord. I did that and he hasn’t been back to chew again.

That’s an excellent suggestion – I’m going to pick up some Ivory dish soap later this morning, and treat all the cords with it. With the new guys about to be running wild, I don’t want to lose any more cords to chewing! Fred lost a phone a few months ago because the kittens (Beulah and her siblings) chewed through the cord.

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While I adore the show Bones (David Boreanz!!), I cannot stand Dr. Brennan. She’s gotten better through the seasons (the first two were really sort of awful), but I find her character so annoying I just want to bitch slap her and her wide-eyed, socially retarded self. Because, seriously, how can someone who supposedly knows so little about regular people and how to interact with them accessorize so well? Her nerd-like, research driven, self would NEVER know how to put together the necklaces and earrings she wears.

I never even thought of the accessorizing angle – that’s a really good point!

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You’ve actually given me a boy name to consider – our son’s name is Jackson, and we have another player that needs to be given a name… Samuel perhaps?

I ADORE the name Jack (the only reason George and Gracie aren’t Jack and Diane is because Fred’s stepfather’s name is Jack!), and i ADORE the name Sam.

Now, can I interest you in “Bitchypoo” as a potential middle name, perhaps?

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Unless Larry and/or Erica are over 6 ft. tall, I doubt either one of them will respond to Dad. I had to look at “>the pic a lonnnnnggg time to even find the note!

The picture doesn’t really show it, but the post-it is pretty eye-catching. I’m only 5’5″, and it caught my eye immediately as I walked to the post office door.

Maybe I should take some post-its to the post office and write “Larry! Erica! Read this!” and post it at eye level, then draw arrows on a couple more post-its leading up to the note!

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“Life is too goddamn short to sit in the drive-thru for 20 minutes, especially when you’ve got shit to do and kittens at home that need some love.” I read this as “Life is too gd short to sit in the drive-thru for 20 minutes, esp. when you’ve got to shit.” Heh. Thought you were getting a bit personal there.

You are not the first person to misread my “shit to do” as “need to take a shit.”

PEOPLE. I do not discuss my bowel issues, I promise, and further I would not put it in such a rude and crass way. I might primly allude to having to go to the bathroom, but as for details, well, those are better left to the imagination, I think.

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Hooray! All kinds of great name suggestions in the comments. I was wondering, though, were the kittens just loose in your yard? Were they just hanging around the cat food? They obviously knew somehow to stay put and wait for their entrance into Cat Nirvana!

One of them was curled up on the door mat, and the other was playing with something under the steps. As we approached the stoop, whoever was under the steps ran out to greet us, and the kitten on the door mat stood up and stretched and came over to greet us. We were concerned that perhaps there were more than just the two, but we didn’t see any more of them in the vicinity, and no more have shown up (thank god).

You’d think they would have put the kittens in a box, wouldn’t you? We’re pretty close to a busy road, and Jake and Elwood are young – they could have gotten seriously hurt!

Now I’m getting pissed off again, just thinking about it.

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Robyn – Forgot to give my own suggestion for a podcast to listen to. One of my favorites is called
How Much Do We Love – its about 2 BFF’s who talk about things they love. Ive found so many great things I like just from hearing these 2 talk about them.

It just so happened that I got this comment at the perfect time – when I had time to go check out the website and download a few podcasts – and I like it a lot! I’m slowly working my way through the archives (I think I’m up to show #15), and it’s the perfect podcast to listen to when I’m doing housework or driving somewhere.

Thanks for the recommendation!

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We went to see Julie and Julia this weekend. It is about a blogger who decides to cook everyone one of Julia Child’s cookbook recipe in one year. This is her first time blogging and I thought about you when she was starting her blog. Did you get crazy or kinda freaked out when you got your first comment?

Way back in the dark ages of 1999, I don’t believe there were such a thing as comments on journaling sites, though some people had forums to encourage discussion of posts. I’m pretty sure that a few weeks after I started my site, I asked if anyone was reading (though I knew there WERE some people reading – I kept an eagle eye on my stats via Sitemeter) and got two or three emails from readers. And I was THRILLED.

I read every comment I get, and I still love getting comments. I’m not so great at responding to them, because I suck, but I love getting them!

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75 things you can compost, and thought you couldn’t.

Plus, have you ever tried ‘Chicken Poop Lip Balm?” Google it, I think it is funny.

The only thing that really surprised me about things you could compost was urine. I had no idea! I don’t know that I’m going to start collecting my urine in a jar to toss on the compost pile or anything, but it’s certainly interesting.

That Chicken Poop Lip Balm cracks me up!

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Have you watched A&E’s new series, Hoarders? If not you can see it on their website. There is a woman who hoards food, if you wanna get into “should I eat this” I really really encourage you to watch. It’s a trainwreck!

I haven’t – A&E is another channel we no longer get – but I’m definitely going to check it out! It sounds like my kinda show.

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Looky looky who’s about to go be tested, vaccinated and neutered!

Look at that smile and those long monkey toes!

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Craaaazy kittens!

Bath time for Sammy.

I don’t know which I love more – the folded-back ears on the kitten in the back (Bill, I think), or Sam’s thrown up “I surrender!” paws.

Annoyed Sam.

Wild Hoyt.

Is it wrong to love it when they fight?

Kitten in a bowl!

Lafayette’s all “I’m trapped! I’m in prison! I can’t get out of here!” and Terry’s all “Hold on, brudder! I’ll break you out!”

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Spanky does not approve of this business where he’s inside and his people are outside. He sits at the door and watches us, and occasionally he howls his displeasure.

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Previously
2008: I am SO PISSED at myself, because I do fumble-fingered shit like that all the damn time.
2007: No entry.
2006: Pictures, you ask? Why of COURSE I have pictures.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: You say tomato, I say fuck you.
2002: “Cats don’t have lips, you freak.”
2001: “…and we’re willing to give this to you – coupons worth two HUNDRED and twenty-five DOLLARS! – for only $19.95!” he said, aflutter with the thrill of it all.
2000: Does the phrase “Through a lovely laxative effect” strike fear into your heart?

I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one with a secret Two and a Half Men lurve going on. The show cracks me up every time – and is it just me, or is that the dirtiest show on TV? I’m constantly surprised at what they get away with on prime time.

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Hey Robyn – for those of us who listen to podcasts can you share the suggestions you were given? Maybe the rest of us out here would like to find new ones to listen to as well. Maybe you need a link to a podcast list or something.

I believe this is a complete list of all the podcasts y’all suggested (if I missed any, leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list).

That’s What She Said (a podcast about The Office)
Fresh Air from NPR
Stuff You Should Know
Drink ’til We’re Funny
Kevin & Bean
Dan Savage
The Moth
StoryCorps
Radiolab
The Sound of Young America
Never Not Funny
Jordan Jesse Go!
Geek.Farm.Life
CraftLit
Forgotten Classics
Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
The Porn Identity
The Splendid Table

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Hey Robyn, where did you end up finding your ceiling swag lamp you mentioned yesterday? I’ve been looking for something like that for a while now, and a google search didn’t yield anything as inexpensive as you mentioned.

On eBay, of course! The one I got looks a lot like this one (that link may not be good for long – just go on eBay and search on “hanging lamp swag”).

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Come to read the antics almost every day. We use a product called Blue Coat. We get it at the Hen Yard (our local feed store). It has multiple uses including ring worm of all things. I use it on the horses, chickens, cats and sometimes on the humans in our house. Does the trick almost every time. They also make a Red Coat . . . but I haven’t tried that one yet!!

We use Blue Kote on our chickens, but it specifically says not to use it on dogs or cats – is there a kind that’s okay for use on dogs and cats?

I made Fred call the vet yesterday to ask what the blue stuff they used on Sugarbutt’s toes was, and found out it’s called Methylene Blue. Applying it to bloody, scabby toes is apparently an off-label use for the stuff – they asked us to let them know whether it helps his toes or not. So far, it seems to be doing well!

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Given that the majority of your wildly adorable group of fosters (and I’m more than happy to join you in the squeezin’ of the stuffins) have some sort of physical issue, is it possible they might be the result of… um… how to say this delicately? An “unwholesome familial relationship” perhaps? Is anything about their parentage known?

As far as I know, there’s nothing known about their parentage, and god only knows if they’re the product of inbreeding (I certainly wouldn’t be surprised). For more information about what’s going on with their eyes, scroll on down to the foster kitten section.

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I have a chicken question please. With larger livestock, manure is always an issue. My sister has horses and “shit shoveling” is just one more routine chore around the farm. What about chicken shit? Does it have to be cleaned up? Or does it just lay there and degrade? Does it build up? Thanks!

The stuff that ends up on the ground around the coop and through the chicken yard basically stays there and degrades – it starts off pretty dry to begin with, so it doesn’t take much time until it’s turned to dust. In the coop, Fred keeps a thick layer of shavings on the floor. The chickens kick the shavings around, so most of the time the chicken poop ends up mixed in with the shavings and the smell isn’t terribly bad. A couple of times a year, Fred cleans out the chicken coop, puts the shavings and chicken poop on the compost heap, and puts down fresh shavings.

With all that chicken poop around, you’d expect it to smell worse than it does, but honestly it’s not so bad. The flies that it attracts is annoying, and I bought some diatomaceous earth to sprinkle around the coop to help get rid of the fly population, but I haven’t done that yet (and we haven’t tried it in the past, so I can’t say for sure whether it’ll really help or not. I’d like to think it is, but diatomaceous earth is one of those miracle things that supposedly cures all ills, so I’ve got a healthy dose of skepticism going on as far as it’s concerned).

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I’m wondering what cat food you guys use and also what’s served at snackin’ time. Love the fosters.

We have two large plastic storage containers where we store cat food. In one of the storage containers is Taste of the Wild cat food. That gets scooped into two food bowls (there are a total of four filled food bowls in the laundry room area at all times). In the other storage container is a mix of Purina U/R (I think that’s the name of it) – it’s a urinary tract health food. I mix that with Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care for Seniors. That mixture gets scooped into the other two bowls.

We give them the Purina U/R because of Joe Bob and his weird bladder issues, but the Taste of the Wild and the Nutro, they get solely because I think it’s a fairly good quality food and they like the taste of it.

At Snackin’! Time! I used to give them Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys, two cans split between them all. That got to be a little more than I wanted to spend, so we’ve tried several different kinds, and are currently bouncing back and forth between Nine Lives and Friskies, one can split between them all (the Friskies and Nine Lives cans are much larger than the Fancy Feast cans. In case you were worried that I’m starving the little bastards.) They all seem to like the Nine Lives and Friskies, so we’ll probably stick with those for now.

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I listen to KATG because of you. Have you shared the pictures of the foster kitten namesakes with them? The “Brother Love” cat sniffing the other cat’s (Patrice, I think) butt cracks me up.

I emailed them when I had the first bunch of KATG kittens, but I’m sure they get a ton of emails a day, and I never heard back. I didn’t email them when I had the second bunch, but in retrospect I’m thinking (since I named some of the kittens after regular forum post-ers) I should have posted something in the forum!

Is this the picture you’re thinking of?

That’s Brolo and Chemda, I believe. Speaking of Patrice (the kitten), Nance totally fell in love with her, and still occasionally mentions her from time to time!

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I have bats that move into my attic space every May to have their babies. And move out in October. So at least once a summer there has to be a bat rescue. Best piece of advice I ever received… Bats need to be up off the ground to take off… so what ever I’ve captured them in goes up on the ladder outside… Wind beneath their wings and all that I suppose !

I had no idea – but it makes sense! I’ll keep that in mind for next time (while hoping and praying that there will BE no next time!).

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Does the black chicken meat taste different from other chicken meat? I’ve seen them in Asian markets but never bought one. Can you disguise the color in some kind of sauce, like cacciatore?

and

That meat looks completely bruised! How does it taste?

We haven’t eaten it yet – I have to get up the nerve to cook it, it’s currently sitting in the freezer. I’m told by Fred (who was told by people on a forum he frequents) that it doesn’t taste any different from other chicken. But we shall see!

And yeah, I’ll likely cook it in a way where the color of the meat is covered by some sort of sauce.

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Just an FYI, I was recently told (after a dog attack) that if a pet animal has EVER had a rabies shot, that the likelihood that they will ever contract rabies is damn near zero percent. We overvaccinate to be on the safe side, and it’s important to keep the vaccinations up-to-date, but yeah, they won’t get rabies. 🙂 This is just to set your mind at ease the next time the cats get into some critter. 🙂

I recently read that too, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I read it. Alabama law decrees that cats have to have rabies shots every year, but since other states allow once every three years, I was just making sure all our cats had gotten theirs in the last three years (and they had!).

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Fred didn’t touch the bat with bare hands, did he? I ask because a close friend had to go through rabies shots earlier this year when she accidentally touched (just touched with her hand) a bat who was hanging out the outside of a cereal boxes on top of her fridge. The bat didn’t bite, but she was told that rabies can sometimes be transmitted through skin contact, not just a bite or scratch. I never knew that before that happened to her.

I didn’t think he did, but I double-checked with him, and he says no. I think he was using a stick or the edge of the bucket to move that bat around.

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J’s first day of school was today – I have a 4th grader and a 4yr old Pre-K kidling. Made me wonder, how’s the Spud and her studies?

She’s doing fine – is working full time and taking two or three classes at a time. She likes some classes more than others (don’t we all!), and is thinking of going into social work.

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Does Mr. Wonky Paws (Terry) have 4 toes and a dew claw or 5 toes and a dew claw? If it’s the later, he is polydactyl and that’s just plain cool. I always wanted a polydactyl kitty – I was a “polydactyl” baby. I had 6 fingers in each hand when I was born. In humans isn’t not called polydactyl, but I want to be just like a cat so call me Ms. Polydactyl.

I think actually what he has is three toes and two dew claws – that’s what it looks like to me.

I must hear more about the 6 fingers on each hand! Were they real fingers, or just little finger nubbins that couldn’t really be moved like regular fingers? Did they remove the 6th fingers immediately, or did they wait ’til you were older? (I’m assuming they were removed.) Man, I could use a couple of extra fingers. I bet I’d be the fastest typist EVER.

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Have you and Fred ever watched the series Freaks and Geeks? Jason Segel is one of the stars, and it was such a great show. This is one of my favorite DVD series ever!

We actually tried watching Freaks and Geeks, but it didn’t click with us. Don’t take that personally – sometimes it takes repeated viewing of the first episode of a show before we fall in love with it. I know we had to try The Office a few times before we even thought it was funny, and now we adore it. We’ll give Freaks and Geeks a few more years, then give it another try! We did watch (and like) Undeclared, which is where we first saw Jason Segel and immediately liked him.

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Okay, so. These kittens. After a few days of putting Terramycin in their eyes, and the goopiness going away, I came to realize that there was something odd going on with their upper eyelids. It’s hard to describe, but they kind of looked like there were pieces missing – like something had taken chunks out of their upper eyelids, or they’d gotten torn – but their lower eyelids were just fine. I made an appointment with the vet on Monday and took them in.

As it turns out, they all have something called “Eyelid Dysgenesis”, which basically means that their upper eyelids began forming correctly*, but at a certain point they stopped – so where it looks like there’s a chunk of eyelid missing, there’s no eyelid, just fur growing down to the very edge. They all have it, some more severe than others. Terry’s the worst of the bunch – he can’t actually close his right eye all the way, which isn’t good for the eye; it gets dry and you can see that already his corneas are cloudy. There’s obviously some sort of damage to his vision at this point, but he still manages to get around pretty well. Bill’s the second worst, then Sam – and then the other three have much milder cases.

Right now, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. The vet is going to consult with an ophthalmologist and see where we need to go from here; possibly there’ll be surgery for some if not all of them. For now, I have to put artificial tears in all their eyes to be sure that their eyes stay moist.

So, that’s what’s going on with these kittens and their eyes. Poor little Terry is just a mess, between the hernia, the wonky paw, and the eyes, but he is just the sweetest little guy on earth, and I do believe that all it’s going to take is someone to spend a few minutes with him and fall in love.

*FYI, “Eyelid Agenesis” would have if they had no eyelids at all.

Lafayette’s right eye is normal, but he’s got a spot on his left upper eyelid, if you look closely.

Hoyt’s left eye is pretty normal, but if you look at his right eye, you can see about halfway across, the fur grows right down to the edge; there’s no eyelid on that half. Here’s a really good closeup picture, if you want to see detail.

Bill’s got it pretty bad in both eyes. Add to that that he’s pretty cross-eyed, and he’s a mess. He’s a sweet little lovebug, though.

You can see how bad Terry’s got it, too (you can see this picture large if you really want to see the detail). He’s the sweetest boy on earth, though.

Sookie’s got it on her left eye, but her right eye is pretty normal. Is she not adorable?

I managed to not get a closeup of Sam, but he’s got it on both eyes – not nearly as badly as Terry and Bill, though.

And to hear the sad and demanding way Terry howls at me when I’m petting him:

Wah! Wah! I’m a baby kitten, pet me! from Robyn Anderson on Vimeo.

And if you can’t see Vimeo videos, here’s the YouTube version:

The video itself isn’t that great, but you get the full sound effect of poor baby Terry objecting to my teasing him.

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NOT a look o’ love I’m getting from Tommy.

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Previously
2008: (Upon looking at Alan Cumming’s Internet Movie Database profile, I read this interesting fact: Has his own cologne called “Cumming.” and snickered like a 12 year-old boy.)
2007: I said “I’d find their plight more interesting if they weren’t quite so ugly.”
2006: DON’T YOU HATE IT WHEN A JOURNALER SAYS THAT?
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: “Motherfucker!” was Fred’s response.
2002: Why yes, it IS a rough life, thanks for asking.
2001: No entry.
2000: Because I was so overworked over the summer, you know.

Yesterday morning, I met up with Katherine (I’ve mentioned her before as the lady who adopted Kara’s kittens (then River and Inara; now they’re Nate and Dora)) at her barn. For most of the summer we’ve been talking about doing a garden tour, and finally we got our schedules together so I could see her garden and meet her horses.

I got some really good gardening ideas for next year – stuff that will really help save a lot of time in the garden next year – which was worth the trip alone. But THEN I saw her barn and learned some interesting stuff about horses. We waited to see if the horses would come back to the barn so I could meet them, but they were apparently enjoying their foray into the back of the field, so since the mountain(s) wouldn’t come to Mohammed(s), Mohammed(s) jumped on an ATV and went to the mountain(s).

I have never been on an ATV before in my life and holy CRAP was it fun!

We went out to the horses, and they came over and snorted at us and then when they realized we had no treats for them, they gave us the eyes of “Really? Are you kidding me?” and then went back to grazing. They sure were gorgeous.

I got to meet Sarge, Katherine’s sweet 25 year-old horse who recently came back to them. Did you ever imagine that horses can get sunburned? I had no idea! Sarge needed some sunblock smeared on his face, and he was such a sweet, patient guy while it was going on. But once the sunblock was applied and it was clear that we had no treats for him, he was like “WhatEVS. I have grazing to do. YOU ARE DISMISSED.”

“I have to have sunblock smeared on my face AND you brought no snacks for me? What fresh hell is this?”

I didn’t drive the ATV this time around, but she’s promised that next time around I’m totally going to drive it!

(Yes, that shirt is two sizes too big for me. What’s your point?)

(We joked about dying in a tragic ATV accident and how Fred, upon hearing the news, would be saying “But I thought you were just going to look at a garden!”)

It was way too fun. I’ve told Fred we need another 20 acres so we can justify buying an ATV.

Barn cat, of course. This is Bonnie.

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I’ve never weeded a garden, so I take your word for it that it’s boring. I wear my ipod when I have a boring chore to do. Gets me motivated to do it, and keeps me motivated to FINISH it. I use the little band that holds the ipod that goes around your arm (same one I use to work out with) so both my hands are free to scrub the toilet, vacuum, chase down cat-hair tumbleweeds….whatevs. Maybe weeding would be less boring if set to music!

If I didn’t have my iPod to listen to while I was weeding, I would absolutely refuse to weed. I listen to podcasts while I’m weeding (or doing housework or canning), and it makes the task more bearable – but it’s still super boring!

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Every time I see pics of Nance, I can’t help thinking that she looks like a young Christine Baranski.

I can kinda see that!

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I was reading your entry from 8/3/2001 and you mentioned a reporter from Newsweek contacting you about your experience with Pirate’s Booty. What was that all about? Were you actually mentioned in a Newsweek article about Pirate’s Booty?

What happened was that the reporter emailed me, and then I gave her my number (or possibly I called her, I don’t remember) and we talked for about fifteen minutes. Then she called back a few weeks later to confirm a couple of things I’d said.

And then September 11th happened, and I don’t know if they didn’t run the article or if just missed it, or what. So it’s possible that there’s an article about Pirate’s Booty out there that quotes me, but if so I’m not aware of it!

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How is Maxi’s oozey ulcer doing?

Maxi’s nasty head wound seems to be completely healed. She finished her course of antibiotics, and the hole in her head (heh) has scabbed over and looks pretty good. Her face is no longer swollen around her eye, and she’s still got the flat, dead Tony Soprano eyes, she shows up at snack time and picks fights with Joe Bob, so I’d say she’s back to normal!

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I’ve always used “vice-a versa”. Please don’t hate.

I have a different set of expectations for people who misuse phrases in the course of their day to day life than I do for the people who are paid millions of dollars to come up with super-annoying commercials designed to convince me that I need to cram 1/3 pound of nasty-looking meat in my face. In other words, you I will not boycott. McDonalds? I boycotted them for an entire two days until I was driving by one, starving to death, and stopped for an ice cream cone. THAT SHOWED ‘EM.

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Hey Robyn, where’d you get that really cool peace sign/heart t? I love it.

The peace sign/ heart t-shirt I’m wearing in the Dumbversation videos, I got at Kennywood. Nance was looking for a t-shirt and just didn’t like any of the ones she saw, and then I saw the heart/ peace sign one and pointed it out to her. She snatched it out of my hands and ran off with it, but luckily I found another one. So now Nance and I BOTH own those shirts. Too bad she wasn’t wearing hers when we were making the videos, then we REALLY could have looked like the dorks we are.

(Oh, and I haven’t been able to find the t-shirts on the Kennywood page. I guess you have to go there if you want one!)

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I about peed when I saw the pic of the boat! As I said on Fred’s site, is it for when the back 40 floods so you can still access all your property? 🙂

Fred told me we should dig a moat around the back forty, so we can motor around it in the boat. Ha!

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New babies are too cute!!! HEY! Next time you get a batch of girls, you can start naming them after Housewives!!!

I’d love to do that, but someone’s already done it, and the shelter prefers that we use names that haven’t been used in the past. You’d think we’d run out of names, but so far we haven’t – though if I start naming the kittens “7348” and “9845”, you’ll know that we did.

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But to use the boat Fred is going to have to LEAVE Crooked Acres on his own free will. Can he DO that? 😉 Have a blast with it! Wish we had one this summer.

and

I’m totally jealous of the boat, but shocked (SHOCKED, I say!) that Fred would even consider a pastime that took him away from his precious Crooked Acres. What the hell is going to happen if y’all are out past dark??

Fred would like y’all to know that he leaves Crooked Acres sometimes! (And then I said “Yeah, to go to work!” and he had no good reply to that. Heh.)

I do not imagine we will ever be out on the boat after dark – most of the time I’m sure we’ll be using the boat on the weekends, leaving the house at the crack of dawn and coming home mid-afternoon. Although, I half expect his next declaration to be that we should extend the back forty to encompass the maternity yard so George and Gracie can protect those chickens as well, in case we’re out past dark.

He did say the other day that it would be neat “In a few years when the farm is under control” to drive down to Florida and put the boat in the ocean and spend a few days there. The problem is that I don’t know the farm will ever be “under control” as long as we keep adding animals to it. It would be cool, though!

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So, will we be seeing the cats with life saving vests on riding on the boat? Water skiing perhaps???

Fred has mentioned several times that it would be neat to have a cat to take out on the boat with us. I cannot imagine even our most laid-back cat (Tommy) putting up with that, though.

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Favorite all time ever boat name is OSIBAB. I thought it was a foreign word so tried to google it and found out it means “Oh Shit I Bought Another Boat”

LOVE IT.

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“So, hoist up the Stanley B’s sail/See how the mainsail sets/Send for the Captain ashore, let me go home!”

🙂 Honestly, it was the first thing I thought of!

Yeah, Fred’s been alternately singing and whistling that song since I declared that the boat was now the Stanley B.

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The cross-eyed cat is so cute, but its freaking me out. Will he grow out of it? How can he function like that, and I hope someone will adopt him. (i’m a worrin about the little fella)

I don’t know if he’ll grow out of it, but I can assure you that it’s not slowing him down at all. He’s able to see just fine, he runs around like his butt is on fire, and he doesn’t stumble or weave when he runs, either.

I suspect that he’ll be one of the first from his litter to be adopted – the crossed eyes just adds to his charm, and he’s pretty cute to start out with!

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I sure hope life jackets come with that new boat!!

But of course – along with a wake board, a tube, and a bunch of other stuff we won’t use. 🙂

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Thanks to a suggestion from misscrankypants, the kittens are now named! We went with a “True Blood” naming theme this time around, and we have Sookie (the girl, obviously), Lafayette (the black kitten), Terry (the kitten with the diamond shape on his nose), Sam (the biggest kitten), and Hoyt and Bill (the two brown tabbies I can’t tell apart!).

The kittens are ever so slowly warming up to me. Last night Terry let me hold and pet him for a long time, and he even purred for a little while. Lafayette came over and flopped down next to me and demanded a belly rub. The others aren’t actively seeking out being petted, but when I pet them as they run by, they don’t shy away from me, either.

Their eyes are slowly getting better each day – Hoyt and Bill’s eyes are the worst, but I’m treating them multiple times a day with ointment, and I expect by the end of the weekend they’ll be running around with big, bright eyes instead of squinting around with goopy eyes.

I suspect they’ll be glad when I’m no longer trying to put ointment in their eyes, too!

Lafayette. Look at that goofy little face – how can you not love him to bits?

Sam’s the laid-back sweetie pie of the bunch.

Sookie. She’s a bit skittish and she HATES it when I pick her up to put ointment in her eyes, but at least she’s not hiding under the chair all the time now.

“Did you hear that?”

“Banzai! This kitten condo will be MINE!”

I love how Lafayette’s trying to take the condo, and the other two are like “What is he doing?”

He’s hanging on for dear life…

“I meant to do that.”

Sam and his Paw of I’m the Boss.

Hoyt or Bill. Check out the size of that paw!

Kitten pile-on.

Terry gives the Paw of I’m the Boss a try.

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The cats would like me to know it’s Snackin! Time! and I need to get my butt in there and fix them their snack, damnit. (This has been sitting on my hard drive for a while – if you look to the very left, you’ll see Mister Boogers’ angry little face.)

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Previously
2008: Ungrateful fuckers.
2007: Just because we CAN grow something doesn’t mean we SHOULD.
2006: Maine recap.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Well, except that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird and all that.
2002: No entry.
2001: I bet the cats are counting the minutes (if cats could count) until we have the yard fenced in and they can go out there.
2000: No entry.