Category: Fostering

Yesterday morning I realized at some point that I had no internet. Since our internet provider is also the provider of our home phone service, I picked up the phone. No signal. I picked up my cell phone to call Fred, which is when I found that I’d received a text message the night before from a local number I didn’t recognize.

The message: I love u dearly.

Immediately I decided that it had come from an older gentleman – mid-50s at least, I named him Jasper in my mind – because kids these days don’t use the word “dearly.” They don’t love dearly. They love WTF-ly, OMG-ly, and ROFL-ly, but dearly? No. I imagined a white-haired old man painstakingly picking out the letters, taking 15 minutes to type out his message, sending it and then… nothing. No reply from his dear love. Was he texting his wife, his daughter, a new love?

I immediately typed out That’s very sweet, but you have the wrong number.

No reply. And then, half an hour later, another text from Jasper, asking only Who is this?

I didn’t answer – I was busy with something – and when I hadn’t answered after ten minutes, I got another identical text.

Robyn And3rson, I texted. And decided that, in a novel, this would be the excellent beginning to either a romance or a murder mystery. I hoped Jasper wasn’t too terribly embarrassed that he’d professed his dear love to complete stranger. Maybe he was worried that he’d texted his doctor’s office or an acquaintance. Maybe a poker buddy – MAN they’d be mocking him at the next game, those bastards.

Five minutes later, another text: i guess i do have da wrong nunber. im shawn.

There went my sweet older man theory. Sweet older men do NOT do “da” instead of “the”. At least Jasper doesn’t.

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I was taking pictures of the kittens yesterday when I realized I could see myself in the mirror on the closet door. So I snapped a picture to see how my hair REALLY looks. I mean, I can see it in the mirror, but many times I’ve thought I looked okay in the mirror and found out later via picture that I was incorrect.

Eh. Looks okay, I suppose.

I was actually scheduled for a cut and color on the day I ended up having surgery, so I had to cancel the appointment. Which means I’m almost 4 weeks overdue for a cut and color. I bought a couple of boxes of semi-permanent hair color with the idea of using it a few times, letting my hair grow out a little, and then deciding what I wanted to do. Maybe waiting ’til the Fall to go back for a cut and color, you know?

Eh. Looks okay from this angle, I guess. This picture, by the way, looks the most like me to me than almost any picture I’ve ever taken.

And then of course, I had to take a picture with Zoe, who I always call “My Peanut” because she’s so tiny. And from this angle… the hair is messy, but DAMN. What’s up with the lines on that forehead? Did I say I was anti-Botox? Because I’m thinking I might need me some. Also, I am very shiny. Oh well – my Peanut doesn’t care. She just wants me to get that damn camera the hell away from her.

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My viewing of the Sex and the City movie makes me ask this: Who the hell uses white bed sheets, and why the hell would you use white sheets instead of colored or patterned? White sheets seem like a pain in the ass (especially considering my cats and their grimy little feet) to wash, they seem like they’d get kind of dingy pretty quickly, and like they’d require a lot of bleach.

Do you use white sheets? And why, for the love of god, when colored sheets will hide stains and grimy cat footprints?

Also regarding Sex and the City, I SO don’t need one of those house-shaped key covers I mentioned in yesterday’s entry – I have a car key, a house key, and a post office box key. They’re all easily distinguishable from each other, so it’s a good thing I wasn’t able to find the key cover when I was looking, because I don’t NEED it. Damn me and my impulse shopping tendencies.

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Kitten movie! This one is just of them hanging out. At the end, Zoe sniffs the plate of food Kara is eating, then scratches at the floor to cover it. CUTE. You get to hear someone covering and covering and covering something in the litter box. And the reason I say “Did you come over here to wipe your butt on me?” is because earlier in the day, Kaylee had used the litter box then run over to climb on my leg, thereby wiping her butt on my leg in the process and leaving a streak behind. GROSS.

See it here in MPG format.

I left Kara and the babies out of the foster kitten room all day yesterday – even left for half an hour to take a trip to the recycling center – and no one died. I do need to get another baby gate to make sure the entire doorway at the bottom of the stairs is covered and no one can climb over. I wouldn’t want to see THAT carnage.

Their favorite place to hang out seems to be in my bedroom, whether playing under the bed, chasing each other up the back of the recliner, or napping on my bed. They seem a little more willing to be cuddled these days, as long as I don’t try to do it for too long. They kill me with the cute, these kittens.

Inara and the camera lens cover.

Sleeping Kara.

“Okay, seriously? They’re almost nine weeks old! When does my body become MINE again?!”

Actually, I think Zoe’s 9/10s of the way to being weaned. She didn’t get much nursing in before Kara stood up and went along her way. Also, after eating baby food for the last several days, Zoe has now moved on to eating a mix of baby food and canned food. I think she also may have eaten a few pieces of hard cat food. She’s definitely hungry in the morning and at night when I give them their canned food/ baby food combo, so hopefully she’s ready to get moving on to the crunchy stuff.

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

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“Did someone say… KITTENS?”

Hey, look – it’s her majesty a year ago:

I can say that a year after we got her and I believed she was completely feral, I still wouldn’t dare to try to pick her up, but every morning when I go around the house and open the blinds, she’s either sitting on the top of the cat tree in the front room, or on the guest bedroom bed, and she lets me pet her, writhes around and purrs, and grabs my hand when I pull it away. It took us a year to get to this point. Maybe in another year I’ll try picking her up and see how that goes. Then again, maybe I’ll wait more like five years before I try that particular maneuver.

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Previously
2007: What can I say, they’re cats. This sort of thing doesn’t occur to them.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: All I heard on the other end was laughter.
2003: “Motherfucker. He never told People how he was soooooo in love with me when WE were together!”
2002: A world where smiley faces and “fuckity fuck-fuck-fuck!”s will abound. I can hardly wait!
2001: Why, just this morning I was thinking to myself Why is Ben Affleck stalking and following me dressed like a Frenchman?
2000: No entry.

First things first, I LOVED the Sex and the City movie. All it was, was a super-sized episode of the show with some endings and some beginnings and it was exactly what I expected and hoped for.

I actually kind of hate the fact that we know Big’s name now, though. Also, if you’re going to have a movie hinge on the fact that emails are coming from john@jjpny.com, hello? Should you maybe be sure that there’s a WEB SITE at jjpny.com, maybe? They at least threw something up over at CarrieBradshaw.com.

I adored Jennifer Hudson in this movie.

Almost every time Charlotte came on the screen I teared up because I LOVE CHARLOTTE.

I preferred Carrie’s apartment before the redecoration.

I am astounded that Bag Borrow or Steal is a real thing.

And lastly, they were only shown for a brief instant, but I believe that Carrie had something over the ends of her keys to differentiate them from each other – ie, the key to her apartment had a little house-shaped thingy that slipped over the end of her key. Did anyone else see that, and do you know where I can get that sort of thing? ME WANT.

Someone asked if I watched the show when it was on – I did, I watched every episode. Seeing this movie was like seeing old friends and I loved it. I’m seriously considering going to see it again. I didn’t want it to end.

I was the ONLY one in the movie theater, which makes me think that Monday afternoon matinees might be the way to go from here on out. Maybe I’ll start going to the movies every Monday. Movie Monday! Why not, right?

The only down side is that the friggin’ theater was SO FUCKING COLD. Like 55 degrees. I thought to bring a sweatshirt but didn’t think to bring socks, and I ended up with the sweatshirt pulled down over my knees and alternated tucking my feet up underneath me.

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Oh right, the whole bullshit “Samantha gains 15 pounds, the horror!” storyline. Please. And that whole throwaway “Well you’re fabulous of course at any size, Samantha, that goes without saying, but my CHRIST, when you gained the first pound and a half, how were you able to LIVE with yourself?!” line. PLEASE.

That bullshit could have – should have – been cut completely from the movie. Because I’m sorry, who the fuck notices when someone else gains 15 pounds? SERIOUSLY? I assure you, if I see you in real life on any kind of regular basis, I am far too self-involved and concerned about the size of my own ass to notice the size of yours. And I can monitor the size of my own ass quite well, thank you, I don’t need you to monitor it for me. Shove it up your ass, if you don’t mind, CARRIE BRADSHAW.

I can just about guarantee that if you’ve gained less than 50 pounds, I haven’t noticed. And if you’ve gained more than 50 pounds, I might notice there’s something different about you. Maybe you got your hair cut? And even if I did notice that you’ve gained weight, I probably figured that you might have realized it and didn’t need me to point it out SO VERY HELPFULLY to you. I can’t remember one time in my entire life when it was pointed out to me that I was fat that I didn’t want to go on a stabbing rampage.

BUTTONS BEING PRESSED HERE, CAN YOU TELL?

I figure the size of my ass is my business. If you don’t get to see it unclothed on a regular basis, there’s no way on god’s green earth it can possibly be any goddamn business of yours. (And I recognize the ridiculousness of someone who has written extensively about her own weight saying such a thing. But I share what I choose to share. Or that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

To quote Pepper, When my wife’s aunt asked if I had gained weight, I asked her what kind of social rules she lives by that make that question acceptable.

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So, I stopped by TJ Maxx on my way to the movies yesterday, because I need a new comforter. I love the one I got from JC Penney a few months ago, but the problem is that I have CATS who are ASSHOLES and their claws get caught in the threads of the comforter and it’s just a big freakin’ mess. So I stopped at TJ Maxx to look for a new one. The new TJ Maxx is in Madison (they closed the one I used to go to in Huntsville near the mall), and I have to say, I liked the old one better. They had a better selection of comforters and bedspreads; now they’ve got nothin’.

From TJ Maxx, I went over to Kohl’s. I needed to pick up some shaping undergarments (after my appointment with the surgeon next week, I get to go from the binder, which is ANNOYING THE SHIT OUT OF ME because it won’t stay put, to shaping undergarments) and look at the comforters and pick up some sheets for the guest bed. I found a comforter I liked, I found the shaping undergarments I wanted, and I found some sheets.

The total at the register was a bit more than I’d expected, but I paid it and when I went out to the parking lot, I looked at my receipt to see what was up, and I found that the two – TWO – pillow cases I’d bought to go along with the set of sheets I’d bought were THIRTY-FIVE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS. For two pillow cases! What the fuck?!

I actually said that out loud in the parking lot “What the fuck?!” I said, and then was greeted by a disapproving harrumph from an old man sitting in a nearby car. I wanted to say “Go fuck yourself old man, if you’d just paid THIRTY GODDAMN FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS for two pillow cases, you’d be swearing out loud in the parking lot, too!”, but I didn’t. Those pillow cases and sheets will be going back to Kohl’s, believe you me. That’s fucking ridiculous. The pillow cases cost as much as the sheets!

Unreal.

So I went to the movies, and after the movies I went to Sam’s to pick up more packets of Splenda and some other stuff (including the new Lincoln Rhyme and Jack Reacher books, woohoo!), and then I stopped by the post office (I really need to get a PO Box closer to home) and then headed home.

There is a long country road between Madison and Smallville that is the most direct and quickest way to get home. Except that it is a long country road and many times there is farm equipment driving down that long country road. And despite the fact that there’s a lot of commuter traffic going down that long country road at 4:50 on a Monday afternoon, it was apparently deemed a Very Good Idea for some big fucking piece of fucking farm equipment to take a mosey on down that road. I generally drive down that long country road at about 50 miles per hour. Yesterday, I drove the majority of that road at 20 miles per hour. There were 15 cars between the fucking piece of fucking farm equipment and my car, not to mention plenty of traffic coming from the other direction, so there was no passing to be done. I should have turned off and taken the long way home at any number of turnoffs, but I was SO sure that the goddamn farm equipment-driving asshole would either pull over or turn off at any minute that I just kept on chugging along.

It never pulled over or turned off, and I was ready to have a fucking stroke by the time I pulled into my driveway. I parked the car as close to the side stoop as I could, and I got an armload of stuff to carry inside (a light armload, don’t lecture me), and I walked up the steps and reached out to open the door but OF COURSE it was locked. Despite the fact that Fred was home and within view of the house (he was cutting the back forty with the tractor.), he’d locked the side door. I had to juggle the shit I was carrying and unlock the door, and as soon as I stepped over the threshold, everything I was carrying went tumbling to the floor.

I swore a blue streak, threw my keys across the room, and stomped out to get the rest of the shit that needed to come inside. And then I retrieved my keys and parked my car in the driveway in front of the garage.

“Oh OF COURSE the side door would be locked, oh of course, because apparently EVERYONE IN THIS GODDAMN TOWN cannot wait to get INSIDE OUR HOUSE, according to MY HUSBAND, oh they’re DYING to get inside the house and there’s just a LINE of people ready to bust into our house and steal our shit with him right there in clear view of the house! OF COURSE. And I don’t CARE if he spent Sunday cleaning out my side of the garage so I can park in the garage. I DON’T WANT TO PARK IN THE GARAGE AND HE CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF IF HE WANTS ME TO PARK IN THE GARAGE!”

And then I was putting the stuff I’d bought away and he came in all happy and greeted me and I went off on him and he laughed at me and then we ate dinner and I felt better.

But once the Hate Train gets rolling, it’s hard to bring it into the station and leave it there, so I spent the rest of the evening swearing about pretty much everything, including the fact that Tommy refused to come in at Snackin’! Time! (I went to the back door, all the other cats milling around me excitedly, and I was all “Tommy! Snackin’! Who ready for the snackin’!” and he looked at me and yawned and I yelled “Fine then, fuck you!” and slammed the door shut. And then I was pissed because I always give each cat their snack in a certain spot so they each have enough room and aren’t all up in each others’ shit, and EVERY FUCKING NIGHT they’re all “Where my snack? My snack over here? This must be my snack NOM NOM NOM!” and I have to push Joe Bob away from Sugarbutt and Tommy’s snack and show him where HIS snack is, EVEN THOUGH I DO IT THE SAME EVERY GODDAMN NIGHT, and we always talk about how Spanky is the dumbest cat we’ve ever known, but EVERY NIGHT he waits patiently in his spot for his plate o’ snack while the other fuckheads mill around stupidly.

And then, I don’t know. I hated on credit card companies and banks and what assholes Big Banks and Big Business are (this hatred brought on by a viewing of the first half of Maxed Out) and then we went out to put the chickens up and one of the babies was wandering around making a sad cheeping noise like “I think I’m lost? Hellew? Where my Momma?” and The Cute put me in a good mood, and then we went for a walk around the back forty, stopping to see the pigs, and to feed them some chocolate we bought for them over the weekend at the Russell Stover store* and they were all “You has for us the chocolate to nom?”, and they got all drooly and happy when Fred fed them their chocolate and GODDAMN they stink, but they’re certainly entertaining.

So the day ended up pretty good, which it usually is around here. Just sometimes, you’ve gotta bitch. Y’know?

*Lest you think we only feed those bastards chocolate and cake and crappy food, let me tell you that 9/10ths of what they eat is Pig Chow and vegetables left over from last year’s harvest and leftovers from Fred’s mother and stepfather. But they like chocolate and I like our future food sources to be happy, so what can I say?

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Today’s kitten movie is of them playing on that cat toy I got from another shelter volunteer. It came from Target, and they think it’s the best thing EVER.

You can see it here in MPG version.

Over the weekend, Fred started feeling really bad about the fact that Kara and her babies have been stuck in one room (well, one room and a very big closet) for the past eight weeks. We wanted to let them out into the house, but Kara’s still so protective that seeing our cats stresses her out and puts her in fight mode (see: the kicking of Mister Boogers’ ass). So we started brainstorming, and I was all about the idea that we should build something to put at the top of the stairs to prevent our cats from coming upstairs and Kara and her babies from going downstairs, and then I was all about the idea of putting a door at the top of the stairs, and then Fred came up with the most obvious, simplest solution (that wouldn’t require anything permanent to be mounted): baby gates.

After I got groceries on Sunday, I swung by Wal-Mart and made the purchase. When I got home, we tried it out.

To say that it was a hit would be an understatement. The babies LOVED having more room to race around and more things to climb (my bed, the recliner in my room, the bottom shelf of the bookcase; they love to get into the bathtub and chase each other around), and Kara just flat-out loved being out of that damn room. In fact, she was so super friendly and happy that I thought she was going into heat (false alarm, it turned out).

Sunday and yesterday, I let them out for a few hours in the morning and another few hours at night. I would have let them stay out all day yesterday, except that the gates don’t totally cover the doorway and Sunday night Tommy tried to climb them and I was going to be gone for a few hours, and didn’t want to think of the tragedy of Tommy climbing over the gates, going upstairs and getting his ass killed.

Today, I’ll probably let them stay out all day and see how that goes. So far, the pattern seems to be, I let them out, they race around for an hour, and then lay down in various places (my bed being a popular place) and go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After I let them out this morning, I put the Roomba in the foster kitten room and let it do its thing. The girls scattered, but River decided he was the big, strong man and needed to keep an eye on things. From a DISTANCE, that is.

There was so much cat hair embedded in the carpet that I had to empty the dustpan twice before it could finish the room. And it is NOT a big room!

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

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Newtie say, “Hellew.”

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Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: And I so desperately wanted to say “Did I see? Yes. Do I care? No.”
2004: Ten
2003: I’ve never been the patient sort.
2002: Damn YahooGroups.
2001: No entry.
2000: I’ve always felt that I have a lucky life.

Lisa mentioned in my comments on Friday that your RSS feed through Bloglines hasn’t updated since June 3..

From what I read over the weekend (at Swistle, among other places), Bloglines seems to be having some sort of issue wherein a lot of RSS feeds aren’t updating. So I’m guessing it’s a Bloglines issue, not a Bitchypoo issue – which is a relief, because I’d have NO idea how to fix it if it was my fault.

I myself use Google Reader and haven’t had any problems with it at all. I recommend it!

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While having a recent email discussion with someone regarding Botox, I remembered something I’d recently read in a magazine – something that made me laugh out loud – and I had to go look for it to share with y’all.

Making Faces

The first time I got cosmetic injections, my eyebrows dropped down my forehead until I looked like a cave woman. Apparently the dermatologist had injected the wrong muscle group. My coworkers elected a spokesperson to tell me to never do it again. They called me “angry eyes.” I even had to have my company-ID photograph reshot. When I went back to the doctor, he told me I was going to have to wear sunglasses for a month, until the effects wore off.

That’s from Real Simple magazine, the May ’08 issue.

Something about the nickname “Angry Eyes” just makes me laugh and laugh.

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Fred had Thursday and Friday off, which gave him a four day weekend. Somehow, those four days just FLEW by. He spent most of Friday and Sunday working outside, but on Saturday after a relaxing morning of cutting up half a tree and hauling it over to the burn pile, he decided to take the rest of the day off. He watched a loud movie, took a nap, hung out with me, we took a drive to buy some tomatoes (since it seems like it’ll be forEVER before ours are ripe), and then he watched another loud movie while I sat in the recliner and read.

We got a buttload of rain on Friday, and I know we needed the rain (and the garden, especially, loved it), but I just hate how muggy it gets after a hard rain. Not to mention, the FLIES seem to triple.

Ugh, the flies. I know I’ve got no damn room to talk about the damn flies, since it should have maybe occurred to me that 49 chickens and two pigs just might attract a fly or two. We don’t get a ton of flies in the house (thank god), and even when we do I can kill them pretty quickly (I’m not terribly skilled with the fly swatter, but I find that flailing around like an idiot, swatting at the fly 130 times will eventually get the job done. I think sometimes the flies feel sorry for me and fly extra slow so I can get them.), but there are just SWARMS of flies over at the chicken yard.

Last year, I bought those bags that come with fly attractant in them. You break the fly attractant open inside the bag, fill the bag with water and hang them, and the flies will be attracted to the, uh, attractant and fly into the bag where they buzz around, get too tired to fly any more, and then drown. I never used them last year, but this year I got annoyed by the huge number of flies so Fred and I got a couple of them out and put one in each chicken coop. They attracted plenty of flies, but a lot of the flies that were attracted didn’t go into the bag, just swarmed around them. Fred finally got annoyed with the bags (and the attractant, which smells like rotting garbage, and the chicken yard smells bad enough as it is thank you, especially when it’s hot and humid out) and took them out of the coop. One of them he tossed on the ground by the fence; the other, he hung from the fence.

Ever since he did that, a couple of chickens started hanging out by the bags, which were always covered in flies, catching and eating flies. At least they’re getting plenty of protein, I suppose. The fly population hasn’t died down any, unfortunately.

I het flies.

Sunday, I went and got groceries and then swung by Wal-Mart, then got home and puttered around the house. I decided to clear out the freezer – I froze a LOT of summer squash last year, and this year’s bounty has started coming in, so I needed to make room. Also, I froze a LOT of okra last year, and this year MY GODDAMN HUSBAND planted TWO rows of the stuff. I like okra, but we do NOT eat enough okra to make it necessary to plant twice as many this year, especially considering how much we have left over from last year.

Anyway, I pulled out the majority of last year’s leftovers, threw half of it in a big pot, and boiled it for a few hours for the pigs. They’ll eat summer squash and okra, but they prefer it cooked. I mean, they’ll EAT the raw stuff, eventually, but it’s grudging and they act like they’re doing us favors.

Spoiled bastards.

I did laundry, I hung out with the kittens, I cleared the pile of crap off my dresser. Just puttered around the house, like I said. I played a LOT of Scrabble on Facebook, and I even managed to get one or two big-point words. That, my friends, is a red-letter day.

Now I think I’m going to take myself to the movies. I’ve been wanting to see Sex and the City, so I’m gonna. I have a few errands to run over in the direction of Huntsville, so I’m going to run them, then go sit in the nice cool theater, eat some popcorn, and make fun of Carrie Bradshaw’s ugly-ass clothes.

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New kitten movie! This one is mostly River and Inara (mostly River, really).

Or download it here in mpg format.

“Bleh.”

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

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A moment in the rough, rough, ROUGH life of Master Joseph Robert And3rson.

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Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: Anatomy of a Snooze
2005: This is the story of how my husband is a fucker.
2004: As you can imagine, I’m in a REALLY good mood.
2003: After much persuasion, he confessed that he’d seen the movie ratings poster on the wall and thought there was going to be a movie about the ratings system.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: When I think about the incredibly stupid things I did as a teen, it makes me cringe.

Thank you, my peeps, for the bra recommendations. Reader Kathy pointed me to LadyGrace.com, where they had MY bra on sale for under $15, so I ordered a buttload (and then I think I offered to marry Kathy, who ROCKS). And now that I can stop worrying about finding a good bra, I’m going to start looking for replacements, which I can take my time about.

I hear those of you who recommend the Lane Bryant Cacique and the Wacoal bras. I will definitely be giving those a try in the future!

I absolutely refuse to be measured by a professional, because the most recent time in my life when I was measured by the so-called “professional” bra fitter at JC Penney, a woman who came highly recommended, she measured me and then gave me these little lacy bras and I tried them on, they didn’t fit worth a shit and I had flabby skin hanging out in all directions. I don’t remember much about the first time I was measured by a professional at a fancypants bra shop, but it was a similar experience for me.

I measured myself using this page, and I tried six or seven bras, and when I discovered the Olga I’ve been wearing for the past few years, I thought my troubles were ALL OVER.

Not so much. Hmph.

I know it’s going to take some looking, and I’m willing to keep trying on bras ’til I find what works for me. And did I mention thank you, y’all, for your suggestions? You guys always come through. Who’s got better readers than me? NO ONE, that’s who!

When I win the lottery, I will buy each and every one of you the bra of your dreams. Promise!

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I measured the rest of me the other day, because I need to buy a shaping garment like such before my next appointment with the surgeon (after 5 weeks, I get to discard the binder, woot!). So I was curious what size I’d need, and so I measured my hips and my waist.

My waist is a size 2X on the Flexees size chart, and my hips are a size large. I look kind of hourglass-y to myself when I look in the mirror, but apparently I’m more of a rectangle.

Yeah, I’m still swollen and I can’t really depend on those measurements as yet, but still. Hmph.

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By the way, I’ve consolidated and moved my links page to make life easier for me. It’s here now, and it’s updated (as of yesterday), but as always there are probably sites I read that aren’t listed. I’ll add them as I think of it! The link on the left sidebar has been updated as well.

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Things that happened while I was recovering from surgery that I never told y’all about:

1. We got a new septic tank. Apparently the field lines in our old septic tank were shot and the guy who’d pumped out our septic tank was all “Oh hai, may I have some moneys?” And Fred was all “If I gives you the cash, a price break?” And the guy was all “Oh hellz yes, pls.” And then Fred was all “The sooner the better!” And the guy was all “Hold up there, hoss, I cannot be tied down! Maybe by the end of the week!” Then time went by, the pages flew off the calendar and Fred was all “WTF? Whyfor, when we’re all HERE HAVE SOME MONEY! do the contractors vanish into the distance?” and he called the guy and the guy was all “Uh, I was waiting! For a part! Yeah, a part! Maybe Wednesday!” and they worked it out so that when we were at the hospital all day, the guy would be here installing the septic tank and field lines, and so by the time I got home Friday mid-morning, it was pretty much done except for the smoothing of the dirt, which he finished Friday. And Fred put grass seed and straw in the front yard to encourage a lawn to grow, and it’s slowly, patchily growing in.

2. The Saturday after I got home from the hospital, Fred put out a sign indicating that we had “Fresh Eggs $2.50”, and a family stopped and they wanted both of the dozen eggs and they just happened to ask if we had any chicks they could buy so they could take them home and have their own source of fresh eggs in a few months. Fred thought about it, and decided to sell them five of the chicks we’d hatched ourselves, and then he came in and told me about it, and here’s the kicker: we felt (and still feel) kind of bad about selling those chicks. And what’s STUPID is that those chicks are going to live longer in their new home than they would have here, because those chickens came from the batch of chicks we decreed would be our meat chickens, but still – who knows what conditions they’ll be living in? THOSE POOR DAMN BABIES.

3. I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned it or not, but Fred has been selling eggs on eBay. Not for eating, for hatching. Eggs! On eBay! Have you ever heard such a thing? He’s sold, I think, four dozen eggs, maybe more. And he carefully wraps each egg in bubble wrap, then wraps the egg carton in tape and buries the whole thing in styrofoam peanuts. Eggs have gone to Washington State, Milwaukee, and New York. The woman in Milwaukee actually bought a second dozen from Fred. It’s kind of neat that there are babies from Mclovin and the girls being born all over the country, but at the same time, I’ve gotta wonder – are fertilized eggs really at such a premium that people need to buy them on eBay from some weird guy in Alabama?

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I bought blueberries on sale at the grocery store on Monday, and like ten minutes after I bought them they started growing mold, so I was able to make one blueberry coffee cake out of the one non-moldy pint of blueberries I had, and ended up tossing the other two pints to the chickens.

There is seriously nothing cuter on earth than little bitty baby chickens running around with blueberries in their beaks, shrieking their “I HAS FOOD! I HAS FOOD!” sound.

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Very important words of advice from Mia regarding the Tylenol/ Advil combo:

On the tylenol/advil combo. My assvice to you, from someone who works in pharmacy is to be very careful about how much tylenol you’re taking between the combo and the vicodin. You should never take more than 4000mgs of tylenol in a 24 hr. period. Your vicodin may have 325mg or 500mg per tablet plus whatever strength tylenol you take in the combo. People are under the assumption that tylenol being otc is that it’s safe, that’s why some people use it as a choice for a “call for help overdose” problem being is that it doesn’t take much before you end up on the liver organ donor list. That’s the end of my pharmacology lecture.

Thanks, Mia!

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I made a kitten movie last night, and when I was done and it was processing, I found that it was SEVEN minutes long. I can barely bear to sit and watch a two minute movie; I’m not going to subject anyone to a SEVEN minute long kitten movie. So I made it shorter and I’ll post one a day for the next week or so.

Wild Things playing:

I actually shot this last week, so they were 6 weeks old at the time, even though they’re… well hell, they’re 8 weeks old today!

You can also download it in mpg form, here.

I call this series…

Drama Kitten is Very Dramatic.

She will be appearing in the local Catspearean production of Romeo & Juliet. Above, she’s practicing for her big death scene.

A few more Zoe-in-bowl pics over at Flickr.

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Happy Joe.

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Previously
2007: “nom nom” is HILARIOUS.
2006: He’s such a nosy little fucker.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Wouldn’t it be funny if as soon as we put all the flyers out in the neighborhood, he came swishing home?
2002: “NO,” he said with great certainty. “That was YOU!”
2001: But look at that little face. How can you not see it and just grin like a fool?
2000: Which is better than it could have been – we were afraid his foot was slowly rotting off.

Last week when I was at Wal-Mart, I took a mosey through their bakery section, and I eyeballed their blueberry muffins, and I came very close to buying some blueberry muffins, but then I thought twice about it, and I realized that never once in my life have I bought blueberry muffins at a store that were even a tenth as good as the blueberry muffins I can make at home, even the low fat, reduced calorie ones. I think I’ve decided that when it comes to muffins, I’d rather make them myself than buy a substandard muffin at the store.

I’m kind of a blueberry muffin snob, I guess. I can make better cakes, cookies, meals, salads at home, but I’m willing to buy that stuff already made. When it comes to blueberry muffins, though – most muffins, really – I don’t want to compromise. I know I’ll never go home and make the damn muffins myself, but if it’s a matter of buying the crappy stuff at the store or going without, even if I’m having a blueberry muffin craving, I’d rather go without.

What – and I’m not just talking about food, I’m talking about anything at all – gets your snob mojo flowing?

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On Saturday, as he was headed out to do something in the blistering-hot sun, Fred said “Do we have any more sunblock? I just finished that tube of Clinique you gave me.”

I went into the kitchen to dig for another tube of Clinique I’d put in there at some point in the last few months.

“I wouldn’t mind something that costs a LOT less than Clinique,” Fred said prissily as I dug.

“Well, I didn’t get the Clinique for YOU, princess,” I said, then handed him the tube and stomped back into the computer room.

Next time I go to the store, I’m going to get him the shitty, greasy $1.99 stuff, and when it clogs up his pores and makes him break out and he feels like he’s smothering because it’s just sitting on his skin and not absorbing easily and quickly like my lovely Clinique does, I will say “Well, we can’t really afford to provide Clinique for EVERYONE, so I guess you need to just SUCK IT UP, PRINCESS!”

Fucking ingrate.

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Is it just me, or does this picture of River:

Look a lot like this picture?

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Anyone on Facebook want to play Scrabulous with me? I suck, as anyone who’s ever played against me can attest, but I don’t mind losing! Start up a game against me, I’ll happily play you ’til the cows come home.

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Over the weekend, when we had Kara sequestered away from the kittens, we took the opportunity to bring Tommy in to see the kittens and see how they’d react to him.

What we forgot is that Tommy, much as he’s the Goodwill Ambassador, is always a wee bit hissy when he first comes face to face with new cats. We let him into the foster room, he came face to face with Zoe, and he hissed. She got a little, shall we say, kerfluffed.

After they hissed back and forth a few times, Inara – who was hiding under the dresser – started wailing. She sounded so scared that I decided it was time Tommy vacate the premises, which he happily did.

The entire time, Kaylee and River stayed sound asleep on the cat tree.

First visit: not such a rousing success.

A few more kitten pics over at Flickr.

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Miz Poo in the sun. Time for a bath!

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Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: You are SO jealous of my life. I can tell.
2004: I’m going to drag myself kicking and screaming into this century if it’s the last thing I do, dagnabbit!
2003: “She was over there looking at stamps a minute ago. She did – she cut in line!” he said, and then tsked in disapproval.
2002: I am NOT picking that up, I thought definitely.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

This is kinda neat:

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We left Crooked Acres for just over two hours on Saturday, and SOMEHOW the place was still standing when we arrived back home. Before we left, Fred brought Kara down to the guest bedroom and set her up, and then we both visited with her, and with the kittens, and Kara seemed mostly puzzled and uncertain whether she was being punished or rewarded.

So we left the house at 10:00, stopped by the post office, the recycling center, and then the movie store to return some movies. Then we headed out to the shelter I volunteer for to pick some things up for the kittens. We tried to determine the quickest way out there, and Fred decided to try a new route that got us there fairly quickly and, on the up side, avoided the worst of the traffic between here and there. We stayed at the shelter for a few minutes (one day last week the shelter accepted and processed (tested and vaccinated) FOURTEEN kittens. In one day!) and then headed into Huntsville. We stopped a shitty little grocery store to pick up a few things (when I say “a shitty little grocery store”, what I mean is Pigg ly Wigg ly, which is all over the place around here, but never fails to make me shake my head when I’m leaving the store.) and then we swung by the pet store to drop off a few things from the shelter and I found to my utter delight that HG had FINALLY been adopted.

HG went to the pet store a few days before we got Kara, which means he’d been there for about seven weeks. I kept checking the shelter web site to see if he’d been adopted, and I was starting to try to convince Fred that if he hadn’t been adopted, we should bring him home for a few months to give him a break from the pet store until after the busiest part of kitten season had passed. Luckily I didn’t have to go for the hard press on Saturday, since HG had been adopted on Tuesday. He is SUCH a good boy, I’m so glad the right people finally came along and fell in love with him!

We bought a few things at the pet store and then headed home. We stopped at our favorite grocery store, bought what we needed, and finally a little more than two hours after we’d left the house we were home again, and Fred could stop complaining.

Since it was the first time we’d separated Kara and the kittens, we decided that four hours apart was long enough for the first time, so Fred took her back upstairs to the foster kitten room, and when she was reunited with her baby, I expected her babies to look at her with relief and love. I expected slow-motion runs across the room to their Momma and Kara to nuzzle and groom them and maybe tell them all about those mean humans who would separate them. Instead, the babies looked at Kara and were like “Oh. Her. Whatevs.” and went about their business kicking each others’ asses. Kara was all “Oh, shit. Babies. Bleh.” and went over to the food bowl to eat.

I suppose I appreciate the lack of drama, but damn. DON’T YOU CATS LOVE EACH OTHER AT ALL?!

Since I spent so much time sitting on my ass in the car, I was wiped out and took a nice hour-long nap while Fred was outside busting his ass mowing the lawn. DID I MENTION I JUST HAD MAJOR SURGERY, DAMNIT?

Speaking of my major surgery, since I’m only having drainage in the little spot where the drain was removed, I taped some gauze over that spot, then I put on a tank top I bought at Wal-Mart last week, and then I had Fred pull the binder tight around me (and that man can pull a binder SERIOUSLY tight. My eyes about popped out of my head.) and it was more comfortable than having the binder directly against my skin.

Um. What else? Oh, right. While we were at the pet store, I remembered that I needed to buy a new block of corn for the squirrel bungee cord feeder I’d bought a few weeks ago. The idea is that the squirrels will eat off the block of corn while bouncing around at the end of a bungee cord and leave your bird feeders the hell alone. What actually happens is that the squirrels decimate the block of corn and then go back to monopolizing your bird feeders.

It works well for them.

So I looked around, and I found a block of corn that would screw onto the end of the bungee cord feeder, and so I bought it.

It’s not just any block of corn, though. No, not for OUR squirrels. What we got here, y’all, is a Kob. But not just ANY Kob.

It’s a Big Ol’ Kob. Of course.

Thus far, the squirrels seem unimpressed, but the Blue Jays like it. I have no doubt that the squirrels will find it one night, and the next morning it’ll be completely gone.

Sunday morning, when I asked Fred if he was ready to move Kara into the guest bedroom, he said he’d been thinking about it, and why not just put her in my room? My room’s much closer and wouldn’t require him to carry a carrier and a litter box down the stairs, and because he’s A MAN he won’t bring her in the carrier downstairs and then go back up to get the litter box, instead he prefers to carry her in the carrier and the litter box balanced on top, and that’s just asking for trouble.

So anyway, we put Kara in my room for the better part of the day, and she was again confused, but I went in and laid down and petted her and read and she paced and talked and paced some more, then sat and looked out the window, then paced, etc. It was easier spending time with her when I could lay down on the bed rather than sit on the floor. We moved her back in with her kittens after about eight hours, and she was all talkative and they were “Hey, hi, it’s the Momma!”, and Inara and Zoe followed her around and tried to nurse from her while she was standing in front of the food bowl, and Kara was all “I AM NOT A COW, get away from me, chilluns!” and then eventually they started fighting with each other and left her alone.

Fred finished his farm chores (ie, mowing the lawn and back forty) early Sunday afternoon, and to my utter shock, decided he was NOT going to do any more work for the day, since it was so hot outside he couldn’t stand the thought of being outside all afternoon long. I opened my mouth to spout off the list of things that need doing around the house, but he beat me to the punch and allowed that he thought he wanted to spend the afternoon watching a movie. So I sat in the living room with him as he watched the first Indiana Jones movie (we’re possibly going to the theater to see the latest one later this week) and flipped through magazines.

Sunday evening Fred harvested our first summer squash and eggplant, and we had vegetable medley, which consisted of sauteed onion, sliced summer squash, sliced eggplant, dehydrated cherry tomatoes from last summer, and a sprinkle of crushed red pepper. That, along with ears of corn from last summer (we have exactly four ears of corn left from last summer – good thing we’re growing four times as much corn this year, eh?) and chuck roast direct from a day on the smoker made Sunday supper pretty damn good.

It was a pretty damn good weekend, all in all.

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So, all the bebbes are doing well. The kittens have had their first vaccination and will be having their next in another three weeks, at which point they’ll be ready to be spayed and neutered and soon after that, go to the pet store.

WAHHHHH!

After two days of keeping Kara and the babies apart, I decided to stop separating them, not because it’s too hard on them but because no one seems to notice, one way or the other. I still have yet to see Zoe eat any solid food, but she certainly eats the hell out of baby food if I offer it to her, so I imagine that she could eat solid food if she wanted to, she’s just not particularly interested. She seems to be a little behind her siblings, development-wise, so I’m not going to worry too much about it. She’s gaining weight, she’s healthy and curious and bright-eyed and a bitey little brat, so I think all is well with her.

The look on River’s face (the gray tabby on the right) is cracking me up, because he’s clearly thisclose to yawning (which, naturally, I didn’t catch with the camera!)

Truly, how can you resist that goofy little face?

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

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“You rang?”

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Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: Who else would put up with this sort of bullshit?
2005: Teen labor: I highly recommend it.
2004: The quarry.
2003: You can’t tell I’m PMS-ing with a vengeance, can you, with all this talk of food?
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: So, have I mentioned that I’m an idiot?

For the record, I am completely out of new Bitchypoo logos, which is why you’re seeing last month’s up there, still. If anyone’s feeling creative, I’d love to see what you come up with!

(Edited to add: New month, new logo! Thank you, Kari!!!)

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I’ve recently started watching Gossip Girl – I downloaded the first six episodes before I visited Nance and Rick a few months ago, with the intention of watching them on the plane, but couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the plane, so didn’t – and I have to ask. Am I correct in believing that the actress who played Blair’s mother in the first episode was not the actress who played her in subsequent episodes, Margaret Colin? Because I know who Margaret Colin is – I remember her from As the World Turns, as Margo Montgomery Hughes, back when I was a soap watcher – and I’m pretty sure I would have noticed her in the pilot.

Annnnd, never mind. After some digging around on IMDB, I see that Eleanor Waldorf was played by a completely different actress in the pilot. Weird.

I have to say, I’m enjoying Gossip Girl, though I don’t know why on earth anyone would be interested in Nate because he is BORING.

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Thank you to reader Jen, who sent me the link to a video of all the Arrested Development chicken dances in ONE PLACE

TOTALLY made my day, it did. And I might have gone back to watch it once or twice or a hundred times.

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Also, reader Teri C. left the link to this movie in my comments the other day:

That is about the neatest thing on earth, honestly. Go check out The Cat House on the Kings web site. Like Fred said, after I told him about that place, “I bet when she yells ‘WHO READY FOR THE SNACKIN’?!’, she REALLY gets a reaction!”

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I’m glad to hear you’re doing so very well. I am a tad bit jealous, though. Not only did I have FOUR drains from my surgery, but the two they left in nearly four weeks were the ones in the groin area and it was not pleasant at all. PLUS my binder was actually a full-length compression garment that was horrible to wear in the Texas June heat.

I was really, really surprised to find that I only had two drains and that they were on my hips. Fred had two drains (I think?), and he was only cut on the front. His were in his groin area, which as you can imagine is a fairly sensitive area, which is probably why they bothered him so much and why the second one hurt so much when it was removed.

I actually – skin irritation aside – kind of like my binder. I get Fred to pull it plenty tight, and I feel like it gives me extra support. I just wish it were made of more comfortable material.

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Your new stomach looks great already. Does this mean you and Fred will have matching scars ? Or do they do a man’s incision differently?

I think our scars will be about the same, although his is only in the front, and mine goes all the way around. You actually have to look closely to see his scar these days, it’s faded so much.

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Hey — didjoo get a new bellybutton, or is that the same old belly button y’always had? (Not that I would recognize the difference, ‘cuz it’s not like I ever had a chance to see it, right?)

It’s a new belly button, and I have a confession – it seems to me that it’s higher than it should be. I’ve asked Fred several times if it looks too high for him, and he swears it’s where it’s supposed to be, so what I guess is that where my belly button was before (much lower, and surrounded by skin and fat) is not where a belly button ordinarily is.

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Damn, Robyn, that is a gnarley looking incision. I feel for your pain!!!!!! Will you have a nasty scar from that or will it fade? Damn that looks like it hurts!!!

It’ll fade over time – and it looks a lot worse than it feels, I promise! I took Tylenol Wednesday before we went to the surgeon’s office, just because I was afraid of the drain-removal pain, but other than that, it’s been two or three days since I’ve taken any Tylenol for pain. I have the occasional shooting pain in random spots, and overall I feel like I lifted weights and overdid it (and I have bruising from where liposuction was done), but other than that, I feel great! If I’d realized I’d be feeling this good at two weeks after surgery, I would have worried a whole lot less beforehand.

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Edited to add: The incision picture is here, you damn skimmers. I linked it last week.

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That binder is SEX-AY — does it come in a thong style?

I don’t believe so – and I cannot imagine that the material the binder is made of would be comfortable on ones nether regions. I go commando anyways, because there is just no way to wear underwear with this binder and not have it be annoying and in the way, so without underwear I go.

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Can you take some tylenol PM or something? It might help.

I never did need to take anything to help me sleep, since my sleeping pattern straightened out once I was able to sleep in my bed. I am remarkably without sleep issues; I’m the only one I know who has no problems getting to sleep and staying there.

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By the way, do you have a little bell to ring for service from your nurse Fred?

and

Is Fred taking excellent care of you and the kitties?

and

Is Spud going to be home over the Holiday to visit and nurse her Mommy???

Fred took perfectly good care of me while I was recuperating, and he’s continuing to clean out the litter boxes (though he grumbles). I never had a little bell to ring, and Fred’s not really the hover-over-you-and-ask-if-you-need-anything type. For the first few days I spent my days snoozing in the recliner in front of the TV, and he went and worked outside, occasionally coming in to yell at me to get up and move around. Bastard.

The spud didn’t come home to “nurse” me, because I didn’t know I was having surgery until a week and a half beforehand, plus she’s got her own life, plus I walked around for the first week and a half in nothing but an oversized man’s button-up shirt with my ass hanging out the back, and no child needs to be scarred for life by seeing THAT.

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Robyn, how are you keeping the kitties from jumping on you? Mine use me as their personal playground!

When I sit in the recliner, I have a pillow across my abdomen to protect me, I sleep with a pillow over my abdomen, and I have a finely honed sense of when a cat is on the verge of jumping up on me, and I am skilled in saying “NO!” like I mean it. Occasionally in the middle of the night Miz Poo will still try to climb up on my stomach, but when I push her down, she just settles down next to me happily enough.

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did all the poop questions make you think of scrubs singing, “Everything comes down to poo...”

Sadly, it never entered my mind. Next time, I’ll start singing it, though. That song cracks me UP.

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Also, (and I’m really not trying to be a snooty know-it-all) the reason they keep asking about your bowels is that when you are put to sleep for surgery it stops the natural wave like movement that your bowels do 24/7. They like to make sure it starts back up, cuz if not, it would be very not good. I only butt in with my unsolicited third rate medical k-nowledge because you are planning to have another surgery and they will probably drive you crazy again. I’m glad the surgery went well for you!

I honestly did not know that my bowels are doing the wave constantly, but I am oddly charmed by the idea!

Other comments of interest:

I’m going to echo what LeighC said about the BM thing. I’m a RN working on an orthopedic floor primarily with elderly folks who have broken their hips. If the poop don’t start moving within a few days pos-op it can lead to a life threatening bowel obstruction so that’s why we all seem to take such an interest in the frequency, size, colour and consistency of your poop!

and

Sharon is right…everything does come down to poo. I’m a fairly new nurse, and, aside from the surgical complications, I have come to learn that people are obsessed with their bowels. It is either flying out of them or stuck. I cannot tell you how I breath a sigh of relief when my patients tell me they are regular. Regularity is a beautiful thing. Embrace it.

I love my readers! Y’all educate and amuse me every damn day!

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Has it really been 4 years since the famous quote, “I like cheese, just not on a salad” ?

Hard to believe, isn’t it? For the record, Fred continues to like cheese, just not on a salad. Or burger.

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I have a kitteh question, not a surgereh question. Kara was an outside cat I think? She’s been an indoor cat while with you but has had her paws full with her family — do you think she can continue to be an indoor cat? Won’t the shelter want to adopt her out as an indoor cat?

I don’t know if she was an outside cat, or if she became an outside cat due to being abandoned (grrrr), but yeah – the shelter will adopt her out as an indoor cat. She’s adjusted well to being inside (though I think she’s a little bored, being in that room with those kittens). I don’t know if she can continue to be an indoor cat, but I think signs are good. She doesn’t try to escape the foster kitten room – she comes over to greet us when we walk in, but she doesn’t try to run out – and I would think that a cat determined to go outside would be more aggressive about escaping. It’s going to be a try-it-and-see sort of deal with whoever adopts her, I think.

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OK, you gotta tell me what that big round fabric thing is in some of the kitten pictures! It looks like a lot of kitten fun!

I wasn’t sure which thing exactly you were talking about, so I took pictures of anything in the cat room that could fit the bill!

This is most likely what you were talking about. It’s a… big round play thing? I don’t know what it’s called, but you can see that there’s a bed in the bottom. The kittens like to sleep there. The top is separated into two parts, and they like to get so that one of them is in one compartment and another is in the other, then they fight through the hole between the two. They enjoy the hell out of that thing. Another shelter volunteer had it, and her cats were never interested in it, so she asked if I wanted it. I brought it home, and almost every set of fosters we’ve had since have really enjoyed playing on it. The kittens especially like to climb up the outside and sit on the top like they’re the king (or queen) of the world.

This is a cat basket, actually. It’s upside down here – I turn it over so it’s the way it’s supposed to be, and they just flip it back over. They sleep on it like this, they sit and watch their siblings, and they also like to jump from it to the cat tree.

Kitty pyramid. The kittens moved from the nesting box to the pyramid a few weeks ago, and occasionally they’ll still sleep in there. I earned it with my Fresh Step Paw Points, so all I had to pay was $5 in shipping. Woot!

Kitty condo. We’ve had this forever; it started out belonging to our cats, then eventually was brought upstairs into the kitten room. They love to play inside it, love to sleep on top, and love to climb up the side and hang there. It’s all-purpose!

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Have you considered sequestering Zoe? She may be reacting to some covert runt eradication behavior.

I’ve watched the kittens when I spend time in there, and I honestly don’t see that she’s being picked on or anything – she and the next size up kitten (Kaylee) fight with each other all the time, but she’s the instigator most of the time. I’m just going to keep an eye on her. It’s possible that she’s just not developing as fast as the other kittens, but she seems to be developing normally, so I’m not too worried.

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[On Roseanne]Now someone tell me, whatever happened to Darlene’s baby that was born early?

If I remember the last episode correctly, the baby turned out to be just fine. I didn’t watch the show as religiously once it got weird and they won the lottery and all that.

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I can’t be the only one who wants to know how you euthanize a turtle.

I’m just going to cut and paste from Fred’s entry at the end of January, when we picked up the injured baby owl by the side of the road:

Soak several paper towels in ether, which is commercially available as diesel or gasoline engine starter at any auto parts store. Put the paper towels into a sealed container large enough to hold the animal, and leave them for several minutes. This lets the fumes build up to lethal levels. Put some dry paper towels down over the wet ones, and lay the injured animal on them (probably you would want to make sure you didn’t inhale any fumes). Reseal the container. In very short order, the animal will go to sleep, then die quietly. Make sure you leave the animal in there long enough for the ether to do its job.

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I tear up every time I see Momma hen #1 with just two babies. It is so sad, I wonder if she misses them. How did the dead turtle get out of its’ shell? Did an animal eat it where it was Or did Fred pull the dead body out of its shell in the back 40? Put the turtle shell in your flower garden as an ornament.

I don’t know that Momma Chicken #1 misses her missing babies (those of you who don’t read Fred’s journal, a raccoon got three of her babies, you can read about it here), she seems perfectly fine to me. Chickens aren’t the most intelligent animals, and it’s possible that she’s sad and misses them, but I think that we humans are probably sadder about it than she is.

No, Fred just put the dead turtle, shell and all, at the back forty; we assume some wild animal ate the inside.

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OK, I hope this isn’t insensitive or anything, because that is such a pretty, lovely place for Spot to be laid to rest. But the way the grass is growing around the marker makes it look like it says “POT” instead of Spot, kind of like ya’ll are growing a big old crop and wanted to mark your garden. Drug raid at Crooked Acres! Video at 11! Heh.

It’s just to distract THE COPS, so while they’re poking around by the Spot spot looking for pot, we can run out to the back forty and hide the REAL pot plants!

(Kidding, of course.)

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Do you think it’s okay for a woman to pass gas in front of her husband/significant other?

No, I think it’s a divorceable offense.

HahahahahHA!

While I don’t think it’s IDEAL for a woman to pass gas in front of her significant other (and vice versa!), I also don’t think it’s realistic to expect a woman who’s having gas issues to get up and go into the bathroom every time she has to belch or fart. I say, let ‘er rip! Of course, that doesn’t work in all marriages/ relationships, so your mileage may vary.

Other comments regarding that topic:

Sammi – definitely it is okay to pass gas in front of your spouse, not like they think twice about it! I saw a study in the local newspaper awhile back (they actually studied farts and no this was not on April 1) and it said that women actually have more and stinkier gas than men so I say we live it up!

and

Jen, I wonder if the reason women have stinkier farts than men is because we actually have more shame than men, and will hold our gas until an appropriate time so the gas has more time to ferment in our colons??? I’m just sayin’.

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So while I was out yesterday (did I mention I was cleared to drive, so I drove to the post office and stopped at the grocery store then came home and took a nap?), I picked up a few jars of Gerber #2 Chicken and Gravy baby food. As far as I can tell, kittens will eat most any meat-based baby food, but have a special fondness for the chicken and gravy. I went upstairs into the kitten room, opened up the jar, dipped my finger in and held it out to Zoe, and I thought she was going to take my finger off. She LOVED that stuff. She ate a bunch (it’s hard to know exactly how much, because her siblings were raaaaaaaaaaaather fond of the stuff, too), and now that I know she’s at least interested and able to eat something other than her mother’s milk and water, I know I can work with her on getting on the solid stuff.

Did I mention he’s a Momma’s boy?

The troublesome little runt herself. Don’t you want to squeeze her to death?

I’m sorry, the row of tiny little teeth on the bottom is KILLING ME.

Doesn’t he look like he’s whining about something? “I just wanted to sniff her tail, and she smacked me, wah!”

Kara’s all “Really? We’re still doing this, seven weeks later? REALLY? Are you KIDDING me?”

More kitten pics over at Flickr.

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“You has come to rub my ears, pls?”

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Previously
2007: Mister Boogers wiggled frantically, slid through the hole, and ran off across the yard.
2006: HOW ABOUT SOME MOURNING, PAUL?
2005: Dumbass things I have done today.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Ass in the Past will be the name of my 14th novel.
2000: Ah, the heart warms.