New house – Page 7

12/4/06

Cool new logo from reader Kitty, who responded to my plea. Thanks, Kitty!!!

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Hmph. Those polls always make me feel like a, as much mother used to call someone she worked with, “fluff bunny.” Clearly polls are not trained to recognize my subtle badassery. * * * Good god has it gotten cold outside all of a sudden. One day it was in the 70s, the next day I walked outside and the tip of my nose froze off and bounced off across the yard to areas unknown. Fred got all kinds of worried about Newt and Maxi and wanted to bring them inside the (Smallville) house so they wouldn’t freeze to death. I had to tell him “Look, if you do that, you might as well leave them inside, because they’re going to be our cats and I didn’t think you wanted to have eight cats, but since you clearly do, they need to be inside cats like our OTHER cats and shouldn’t be accustomed to being outside all the time.” Besides, it’s not like every outside or feral cat in existence freezes to death every time the temperature drops to 30, right? And most outside or feral cats don’t have a cozy warm HEATED (from the top AND the bottom) cat house in a sheltered area where they can retreat if it gets too nippy outside. Besides. They are NOT OUR CATS. They have owners, damnit, and they’re not us! Yeah, yeah. Shaddup. * * * So it was cold this weekend, but it was also not rainy or particularly crappy (though it was a bit windy, at least in Smallville), so on Saturday and Sunday we worked inside for most of the morning and outside during the afternoon, after it had warmed up (HA) a little. We started working on the computer room (we decided to start at the back of the house and work our way forward) Friday evening, and continued working on it Saturday and Sunday. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be able to finish it out tomorrow. All in all, it went pretty quickly, and I have a feeling that the rest of the downstairs will go pretty quickly as well. Fred did most of the painting in the computer room and I helped him measure and hang the crown molding (that is, I held one end of the crown molding while he nail-gunned it in place), and in between the times when my help was needed, I spent a few hours in the hallway closet pulling down the paper that lined the walls. I’m not sure when the paper was nailed to the wall or why, exactly, but it had started to rip in several places and needed to come down. This is what it looked like when we first saw the house, for the record. I finally got all the paper ripped down and the pieces of wood that had been tacked in place to hold the paper up (I assume) yanked down, and now all that needs to be done is that a zillion small nails need to be removed, then I’m going to paint it and the door, as well. The door has been painted, of course, but only on one side. I had to leave the house a couple of times on Saturday (more on that in a bit), and I came back just in time to watch Fred cut down the maple (?) to the side of the back yard. We spent the afternoon dealing with that tree (which was rotten to the core and had a nice infestation of carpenter ants; I’m sure Fred will provide pictures at some point). Fred cut the tree in pieces and then split the pieces, and I hauled them over to the concrete pad and stacked them. (Eventually we’re going to build some kind of wood shed, but for now, the concrete pad is probably the most convenient place to put the wood.) We also added to our new burn pile. Sunday, more of the same – I finished yanking stuff down in the closet, Fred worked on the computer room, and then Fred cut down another tree and we spent the afternoon tossing the smaller branches on the burn pile and adding to our wood pile.

Brush pile.

Wood pile. Fred’s thinking he might stop cutting down trees until we have a wood shed to stack the wood in, but we’ll see about that. During our time at the house, I noticed that we’ve finally got birds visiting our bird feeders. I’ve had them up for a few months and the bird seed has slowly gone down, but I guess now that it’s cold, they’re visiting a little more often. The cool thing is that the bird feeders they’re visiting are hanging right outside the computer room (there’s a branch hanging in front of the computer room doors (to the outside), and it was the only branch I could reach to hang feeders from). I intend to keep that area a bird-feeding area because not only is it right outside the computer room door, which means I’ll have a good view of the visiting birds, but it also won’t be in the fenced-in area, so our cats won’t be able to pounce on unsuspecting birds and bring them inside.

Female woodpecker.

Chickadee. My mother has a whole flock of chickadees she feeds, and I’ve come to love the feisty little birds, from watching them at her house.

Anyone know what kind of bird this is? Before we left the Smallville house on Saturday I noticed that one of the bird feeders needed to be filled, so I carried the ladder outside and asked Fred to hold on to the ladder so it wouldn’t wobble or fall over. Everything went well (even though I was higher than I like to be when perched on a flimsy ladder that will only hold twice my body weight), I filled and rehung the bird feeder, holding onto the end of the branch as I rehung it. “Don’t fall,” Fred warned. “You’ll pull the branch down with you and that’ll hurt worse than just falling ’cause it’ll hit you on the head.” “Har har,” I said darkly. “Just shut up and hold the ladder.” The bird feeder hung, I started back down the ladder. I’d gotten one foot on the middle rung, when something hit me VERY HARD on the back of my head. “OW!” I yelled, stopping and looking around. “What the fuck?” Fred laughed and laughed and laaaaaaughed. Because a piece of the branch I’d hung the feeder on had broken and fallen, hitting me in the back of the on its way to the ground. Fucking trees.

The branch that bonked me. AND IT HURT. Two days later, the back of my head still hurts a little. Hmph. * * * So I had to leave the Smallville house on Saturday because the shelter manager called and told me that there was room at the pet store for the foster kittens, and could I send her some pictures and their names, and take them to the pet store later? Even though we’d only had them about twenty-four hours, I was more than willing to take them to the pet store because the sooner they go to the pet store, the sooner they get into loving homes, that’s how I see it. Momma kitty would be staying with us a few more days, because spaying is a bigger deal for older cats and they need a little more time to heal. I drove to Madison and sent the shelter manager pictures of the kittens and their names, went back to Smallville for an hour, then went BACK to Madison, picked up the kittens, and took them to the pet store. Oh, their names. Thanks, you guys, for your suggestions, I loved ’em all! I was particularly taken with Beth from Long Island’s suggestion of naming them after Beatrix Potter characters, so I settled on Mopsy, Flopsy, and Cottontail for the girls. I named the boy Seamus because I think all orange kitties should have Irish names (what can I say? I’m weird.) (Stub would be a good name for a bobtail, wouldn’t it?) So anyway, the kittens went to the petstore, and Seamus (the buff tabby) and Cottontail (the dilute calico) were adopted on Saturday. The two Calitabbies, Mopsy and Flopsy were there this morning and I gave them tons of love and kisses before I put them back in their cage and left. They seem to be adjusting pretty well, and I suspect that they’ll be adopted before next Monday because they are SO FREAKIN’ CUTE. On to the pictures!

Seamus the love bug.

Mopsy. Doesn’t she look like a fox in the face, in this picture?

Cottontail.

I love the look on her face, like she’s saying “Do you BELIEVE this?” Because those kittens, despite eating solid food and being pretty much weaned, would still try to nurse. She’d let them for a moment, then get up and walk away.

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All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2005: No entry. 2004: It is FUCKING cold downstairs in our house. 2003: And then I got the Best Picture EVER Taken. 2002: Fluff? Perhaps. But very entertaining fluff. 2001: “Who’s Robyn?” said the realtor. 2000: “You little bastard!” I yelled, and then ran at him 1999: Through three moves and a name change, they’ve managed to keep up with me, sending address labels all the way.]]>

11/27/06

I’m a bit of a pyromaniac (really, who isn’t?), so my eyes twirled and glittered like Beavis’, and I had to restrain the urge to yell “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

We left the house around 4 on Friday – earlier than usual – because I had to box up the foster kittens and take them to the pet store. I didn’t want to, but it was that or adopt them, and like I’ve said in the recent past, ten cats running around the house is just too freakin’ many cats. Christina and Izzie adjusted pretty well to being put in a cage (though Christina gave me the “What the-? Lady, get over here and get me out of here!” look), but Meredith Grey didn’t care for the new situation at ALL, and immediately went to hide in the litter box. O’Malley seemed pretty calm, just stood and looked around at all the people walking by his cage. I know they’ll go to a good home, I know they’ll go to a good home, I know they’ll go to a good home… I thought this was supposed to be easier, the more I did it! (As of this morning, Christina and Izzie had been adopted, both by the same person, and O’Malley and Meredith Grey are still at the pet store. Naturally, I let them out to play first, and gave them lots of lurve.) Saturday we got up and going early, stopped for breakfast on the way to the house, and then when we got to the house, Fred headed back to the back fourty to start the BIG fire. There’s a big-ass pile of crap that was there when we bought the house, and we’ve hated seeing it back there and planned to burn it at some point. After our successful burning of the day before, Fred decided that the time had come.

I watched him start it burning and helpfully added a few things to the pile, then went off to do my own thing. My own thing, I’d decided the night before, was going to be to finish clearing out the ditch FINALLY, even if it took all day. It took close to all day, because this is what it looked like before:

For a couple of hours I went along the ditch, using the hedge trimmer to cut down the overgrown weeds and grass on the sides and bottom of the ditch then switching to the chainsaw to cut down the bigger bushes and saplings. Things were going well until I hit a particularly thick section of weeds while using the hedgehog and I came across the metal frame that had been holding the political sign I’d thrown away earlier, and it bent the goddamn motherfucking FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING blade of the hedge trimmer.

(Third from the top, on the left) I trudged out to the burn pile where Fred was reorganizing things, moving wood from one section to another, trying to get everything burned up. “Can you talk me through fixing this?” I asked, because I had bent the hedge trimmer blade before, and he’d had to take it apart somehow and hammer it straight. He talked for about three minutes straight about how it was going to take a couple of hours and I had to use the (something) to do the (something) and the (something something something something) and I finally just shook my head and walked away, saying “Nevermind.” I was going to give up and just say FUCK IT THE FUCKING DITCH CAN JUST FUCKING STAY OVERGROWN ASK ME IF I GIVE A FUCKING FUCK, but after a break and some kitty-petting*, I got my second wind and said FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING DITCH, YOU WILL NOT CONQUER ME, I WILL CONQUER YOU AND I WILL KICK YOUR OVERGROWN FUCKING ASS. So I went back to the ditch, and I used the chainsaw to cut down the rest of the overgrown weeds and saplings and then used the push mower to cut the grass growing along the sides and I kicked that ditch’s ASS. And after I kicked that ditch’s ass, I raked all the weeds and leaves into five big piles, and I burned three of those piles. AND THAT WILL TEACH THAT FUCKING DITCH TO GET ALL OVERGROWN AGAIN, DAMNIT.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon raking the side yard and the other end of the ditch (the already-cleared section), and ended up with several fairly large piles of leaves. At one point I went back to check on Fred’s fire, and he pointed to the middle of the burn pile. “I don’t think this is going to burn,” he said. “Why’s that?” I asked. “Because it’s DIRT,” he said. “You are SHITTING me,” I said, and shook my head and then we cursed the names of the family who’d sold us the Smallville house, as we are wont to do at least once every weekend. Not only was there a huge pile of dirt in the burn pile (they were the ones who’d told us that it WAS a burn pile, it’s not like they told us they were tossing garbage out in a pile with no intention of burning it), there was wire fencing, big pieces of tin, and various and sundry other things that – at least on OUR planet – aren’t known for burning easily. Or at all. We didn’t leave the house ’til 5:30 on Saturday (I usually prefer to leave by 5 at the latest), and when I got home I realized I smelled very strongly of smoke, so I hopped into the shower, put on my way-oversized sweatsuit, and spent the evening on the couch ignoring the movie Fred was watching (Slither) and reading. Sunday we left for Smallville fairly early again, and again spent most of the day burning shit, which is starting to be my favorite way to spend a day in Smallville. Fred got the big burn pile going again and I started burning the rest of the piles I’d made the day before. I think I had four piles going at once, but I was keeping a close eye on them, and had the hose close at hand, and they burned down nicely.

I spent the rest of the day doing various things – checking on Fred’s fire, raking leaves over by the house (and burning them), painting a door inside the house, and painting the cat house.

Okay, so it’s not the most gorgeous, professionally done house. Someone report us to Ty! Not badly built for a man who’d never built anything before AND didn’t have a table saw, and not badly painted for someone who’d never painted before we bought this house, I think. (It’s not the finished finished product, actually – I need to put a second coat on it, and sand down the edges of the roof.) It serves its purpose nicely, though, and Maxi and Newt seem to really like it. We left Smallville a little after 3:00, because we’d run out of things to do outside and we’d been working hard all weekend, so decided that we deserved a bit of a break. And that was our exciting weekend! *Not a euphemism for sex. * * * Oh, and the spud’s surgery went just fine on Wednesday. I finally understand why it is that Fred always laughs at me when I’m in Recovery and they bring him back to see me. Because I was sitting by the spud’s bed after she’d had surgery and I’d ask her a question and there’d be silence… silence… silence… silence… and I’d decide she’d gone to sleep when she’d answer my question. “Spud? Do you want some more apple juice?” Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. “Yeah….” She didn’t have much pain (in fact, I think she only took the one hydrocodone from the prescription the doctor gave us because both Fred and I told her she should before she went to sleep that night), and she was fine at Thanksgiving the next day, and what’d she do Friday? Went SHOPPING. I guess we’ll save that hydrocodone for a rainy day (ie: it’ll sit in the cupboard for a couple of years until I clean out the cupboard, note the date the prescription was filled, and toss it). * * *

Evil Momma Maxi kicks Newt’s butt. She does that a lot.

Fred has taken to calling Maxi “Mom Cullen” because she looks and sounds so much like Tommy.

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“Bob! Hey BOB! I hear you’re the guy to know!”

* * * Previously 2005: No entry. 2004: No entry. 2003: You were always what I needed. I thought you always would be. 2002: Then I snorted. “But *I* am not going to do ANYTHING with the turkey, ’cause it’s not MY job!” 2001: Thankyajeezus for hooking me up with a geek. 2000: I’m going crazy with wanting you, and crazier still to know that I can never have you. 1999: spud: Momma let her go into heat!]]>

11/17/06

Thank you to everyone who’s donated so far! The rest of you – get to donating! Whatcha waiting for? You can donate to the shelter directly via PayPal now, too.

* * * Every time I go to type in “livejournal”, it comes out as “liverjournal” instead. Now THAT would be a fascinating journal, wouldn’t it? 11/16/06 Today I processed some Tylenol. I told her she wasn’t supposed to be taking Tylenol because it makes Me work too hard and I am a fragile organ, but the bitch never listens to Me. I think I’ll turn dark-gray and make her start having diarrhea just to fuck with the bitch. * * * Questions and comments, answered: You know what I found the funniest thing about your day. That you actually RANG your husband from outside the house. LOL! What, I’m supposed to go inside and get him? That’s WAY too much effort for me! I’ve actually been known to call him on his cell phone when we’re both inside the house, me upstairs and he downstairs, just to ask him a question or remind him of something. * * * Here’s a random question (that you’ve probably addressed before, but in the years I’ve read, I don’t think I’ve seen): We know how you & The Spud came to AL to be with Fred, but I’m curious to know if Fred is originally from Alabama? And if so, does he speak with a southern twang? Obviously I’ve never spoken to him, but from his pictures he doesn’t look like someone who speaks with a drawl. Fred’s lived in Alabama his entire life, bouncing back and forth between Huntsville (where his Dad lives) and Decatur (where his Mom used to live). He does have a slight Southern accent, but he decided as a child that he didn’t want to have a strong drawl, so he trained himself to talk without one – or mostly without one, actually. * * * Do the kitties wander up and down the steps as the sun moves? That’d be too funny if they did. No, that’s too much effort for them. They’ll flop down in the biggest sun puddle and fall asleep, but if they wake up and are no longer in the sun, they’ll go climb in a cat bed or up onto my desk to fall back asleep. * * * Isn’t Lisb0n High School where Stephen King graduated? I played basketball in high school and remember traveling to LHS for games and seeing/hearing that somewhere. Yep, Stephen King is a Lisb0n High School graduate. In fact, several of my high school teachers went to school with him, and although probably none of them ever gave him a second look while they were actually IN high school with him, they’d talk about him to us like they were his best friends. * * * I like your new t-shirt but it seems to me that it would be more accurate if it said that the world was annoying YOU, one idiot at a time…. thus necessitating your move to the country, and the way you hate to stand in checkout lines, and all the other ways the public pisses you (and me) off. If I ever see a “World, you’re pissing me off, one dumbass at a time” t-shirt, I very well might have to buy it. * * * I think I mentioned that I listen to my iPod while I’m working at the Smallville house. I’m doing my best to get caught up on Keith and the Girl podcasts, though I seem to be falling further and further behind, despite the fact that I usually listen to several hours on Saturdays and Sundays. The Girl – Chemda – briefly had a song popular in the clubs a few years back. Her “club name” was Caprice, and at the end of one of the podcasts, they played her song. I liked it a lot, and immediately came home to download the song. Except it wasn’t available on iTunes, and I couldn’t find anyplace online to download it. Finally, I thought to look on eBay, and found the CD for sale with something like seven versions of the one song. I bought it for a couple of dollars, and when it arrived I immediately took it out to my car so I could listen to it while I was doing errands. I LOVE that freakin’ song. LOVE IT. I listen to at least one version every time I drive anywhere, and just can’t get enough of it. Another song brought to me by Keith and the Girl (one that’s actually available in the iTunes store) is Summertime, sung by Brother Love. That’s another one I’ve started to really like – every time I open iTunes, I listen to it at least once. (In fact, I just went and started it playing. And now I’m wondering why I have not one, not two, but THREE versions of Britney Spears’ Me Against the Music. What the hell?) Anyway, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – if you’re looking for an entertaining podcast, I recommend Keith and the Girl. * * * I’m so not looking forward to tomorrow. We’ve got a guy coming out to leave a dump truck in our driveway (I always mistype “driveway” as “driveaway” and have to go back and fix it. Grrrr.), and we’re going to spend the day loading up all the shit laying on the ~~driveaway~~ driveway into the dump truck, along with things like the carpets from the upstairs rooms and whatever bushes I can get cut down before the guy comes to take the dump truck to the dump. I suspect that, come Sunday morning, I’m going to be one hurting motherfucker. At least my hip is feeling better. It was feeling much better yesterday morning when I woke up, though it still hurt a little. I was pretty relieved, because I’d decided I had (a) Rapid Onset Hip Cancer, (b) Rapid Onset Hip Arthritis, or (c) A Broken Hip (broken in a way that apparently didn’t involve falling in any way). Apparently what it really was was (d) A Pulled Muscle, Dumbass. Who, me? A hypochondriac? Right. Like YOUR mind doesn’t immediately go to the Big C whenever you’re having the slightest bit of pain. Here’s Doctor Robyn’s list of diagnoses. Who needs to get dressed and go to the doctor’s office? Headache? Brain tumor. Blurred vision? Brain tumor. Diarrhea? Ass cancer. Constipation? Ass cancer. Tar-like poo? Ass cancer. Normal poo? Ass cancer. Back pain? Spinal cancer. Coughing? No, that’s not cat hair caught in your throat. That’s throat cancer. Wrist pain? Ankle pain? Leg or arm pain? Bone cancer. Aching tailbone? Tailbone cancer. Ringing in your ears? Ear cancer. Frizzy hair? Flat hair? Curly hair? Hair cancer. That’ll be a hundred dollars, please. Don’t make me send the bill collectors after you! * * *

With all the comfy cat beds spread throughout the house, why NOT sleep on a hard, cold mantel?

Brudderly love. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2005: Cat hair on the seat of your pants! It’s the Next Big Thing! 2004: Do you suppose that cats realize that when we kiss them, it’s a sign of affection? 2003: NAS-TAY. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: Thanks, y’all, for your emails regarding hamster sex. 1999: So, I didn’t get the kitten.]]>

11/15/06

Thank you to everyone who’s donated so far – I have more than $500 in my PayPal account; I can’t wait to write that check to the shelter! The rest of you – get to donating! Whatcha waiting for? You can donate to the shelter directly via PayPal now, too.

* * * People, please. For the love of all that is holy, it is NOT “You’ve got another thing coming.” It’s “You’ve got another THINK coming.” THINK. NOT THING. Thank you. * * * Sometimes when we drive back from Smallville, we take a different, less country road, route. On the way, there’s a stand that sells apples. A few weeks ago we passed the sign that said “Fresh orchard apples” and I said to Fred, “Doesn’t that sound like a euphemism for cow shit?” and he laughed and agreed. Now I can’t pass that sign without thinking “I wonder how much they’d charge for a bushel of cow shit?” * * * I think I mentioned the other day that Fezzik, Westley, and Princess Buttercup had been adopted when I went to the pet store. Poor Inigo was in a cage all by himself, and when he saw me walk into the room, he started howling and pushing his little face against the cage. I usually start by cleaning out the cages on the bottom, letting the cats out of each cage as I get to it, so that when the most cats are out running around, I’ve got the bottom cages all cleaned and am working on the top cages, which they can’t run in and out of and get in my way. However. Inigo was one of my BAYBEES, so I wasn’t about to make him stay in his cage until I got done with the bottom cages. I opened the door to take him out, and he threw himself at me, purring, and let me hold him for the longest time before he demanded that I put him down so he could go play. I basically let him stay out and play the entire time I was at the pet store, and he played very nicely with the other cats. I thought about putting him in a cage with the kitten he seemed to be having the most fun playing with, but there were no big cages available, so I didn’t. The entire time I was cleaning, he’d play and play and play, and then come over and politely tap at my leg as if to say “Please, ma’am, may I have another?” and I’d pick him up and cuddle him for a few minutes. When it was time for me to leave, I popped him in his cage and booked it out of there before he could give me the betrayed look and howls of rage. It was actually easier for me to leave him than I thought it would be. Last year when I left Jodie and Rambo and had to come back the next day to clean, it was very difficult to leave them, because they – Jodie, especially – were so scared. The fact that Inigo was pretty much taking it in stride made it easier to leave him. I hope like hell he gets adopted before next Monday, though. * * * Note to myself: Do not give Miz Poo medicine on your desk. Because when she fights the medicine – and she WILL – it will go flying all over the damn place, and you will end up with little splatters of medicine all over your monitor, your desk, and your keyboard, and that medicine is some sticky-ass shit. (Mister Boogers, Spanky, Miz Poo, and now Sugarbutt appear to have developed Upper Respiratory Infections. According to the ~~know-it-all~~ front desk lady at the vet’s office, kittens can be carriers of Upper Respiratory Infections while not actually getting sick themselves. I think she just hates kittens and is a big fat LIAR.) * * * We went to the house last night, and I intended to get the rest of the switches and plugs in the upstairs changed out, but it was already too dark by the time we got there, so I’ll have to wait and do it this weekend. Fred spent a little time out on the roof of the house dealing with something that was causing a leak (I wasn’t listening all that closely when he explained it to me), and I started cleaning the paint spatters off the stairs. It took me an hour and a half to get down to the landing, and then Fred wanted to start rehanging the doors in the upstairs, so I never did get the lower half of the stairs cleaned. The cleaned stairs, by the way, look pretty damn good. We’d pretty much decided not to paint the stairs (since so many people in Fred’s comments were opposed to it) and thought we might stain them, but actually I think they look just fine the way they are, so we might just leave them alone. We started hanging doors upstairs, which quickly turned out to be a bit of a cluster fuck since we hadn’t made any attempt to keep the correct hinge with each door/ doorway. We got the door to one of the spud’s closets hung, but then it wouldn’t close, so we had to take it back down and start comparing hinges to find the right one for the door. We finally did, and Fred was so frustrated that he snapped “We are NOT taking ANY MORE doors down!” When I thought of how crappy the doors would look, he gave me a long-suffering look and said in his “Look how patient and long-suffering I am” voice, “I’ll paint them.” Yeah, well, I’ve seen the paint job he’s done on a door we left standing in place and I WAS NOT IMPRESSED. But I bit my tongue and said nothing. It is my considered opinion that I don’t pull my weight when it comes to renovating the house because I can’t cut or hang crown molding (though I can help hang it), I suck at painting, you DON’T want me to replace lights (trust me), and it’s taking me forever to replace the switches because it’s hard to get the wires out of the back of the switch thingy. I feel like I spend a lot of time wandering around, listening to my iPod and half-assedly swiping at things with a cleaning cloth, and doing dumbfuck things like slicing through the extension cord with the hedge trimmer. So when Fred says something that indicates that he thinks I’m not pulling my weight, it makes me squawk indignantly. As I mentioned, though, I bit my tongue and didn’t say anything, but a few minutes later when he was trying to put the screws in the bottom of the door to the spud’s room and he said, impatiently “Hold the door UP a little!”, because I’d held the door up a little and then apparently let it go back to where it was without realizing it, I squawked indignantly “I AM!” and he said “No you’re not, you let it go back too close to the wall!” and I squawked indignantly “NO I’M NOT!” and he laughed at me and I ~~killed him and buried him in the back forty~~ told him to shut up, and then felt better about it. Today, my hip is KILLING me. I have no idea what I did to it, but it hurts to lift my leg, and I’m walking with a limp. I’m sure it’s Fred’s fault. * * *

* * * Previously 2005: “Fascinating.” 2004: All your frog are belong to us. 2003: No entry. 2002: I am freezing to death. 2001: I think I need to get a life… 2000: In other words, Robyn is a total spaz about her eyes, comprende? 1999: On the way into work, and the whole time I worked today, I reconsidered that reconsideration.]]>

11/14/06

Thank you to everyone who’s donated so far – I have more than $400 in my PayPal account; I can’t wait to write that check to the shelter! The rest of you – get to donating! Whatcha waiting for?

* * * While I’m thanking people, I’d like to thank Vix again, who helped me with a super-secret project, and rocked at it. * * * There’s this guy Fred knows named Tim Thompson. Everything Tim does turns immediately and irrevocably to shit. When we have bad days where everything goes wrong, we refer to it as a “Tim Thompson day.” Sunday was a Tim Thompson day for me. First, I had to paint. And I don’t like to paint. Painting makes me make this face:

I’m not a good painter, I hate painting, it bores the shit out of me. Fred is a fast painter, he’s a good painter, and he’s allllllllways trying to get me to paint. Before we bought this house I had never painted anything, ever, and since we’ve bought the house I’ve painted more than I ever want to paint again in my life. So Sunday morning I began painting the trim in the stairway. To me, the paint job I did looked like crap, but Fred told me it looked perfectly fine (a lie, I’m sure -he probably went back over and fixed it). Then Fred decided I was in the way, sitting on the stairs and painting, so I went upstairs and worked on the trim in the hallway. There are pictures of the finished hallway and stairs here, by the way. After lunch I was released from my painting duties to go outside, where I really fucked up. I’d spent Friday afternoon raking the side yard and I thought I could just run over the leaves with the riding lawnmower, pick them up in the grasscatcher and then dump them in the mulch pile we’ve started. Running over the leaves didn’t do much but crunch them up and toss them all over the yard, so I raked them back into a pile, and on Sunday I used a shovel to shovel the leaves into the grasscatcher and then hauled them to the mulch pile. That went okay, and then I decided to run over the pile of leaves behind the shed. First, I ran over some huge metal thing with the riding lawnmower. Didn’t hurt the mower, but scared the shit out of me. I pulled it – whatever the hell it was, some big metal ring – out of the ground and tossed it on the trash pile. Then I started running over the pile of leaves, and about went deaf from the sound of twigs and gumballs hitting the metal underneath of the mower. At one point a gumball hit the side of the shed and bounced up, hitting me in the cheek. Could have been worse, I suppose. It could have hit me in the eye. After a few trips back and forth across the pile of leaves, I hopped off the mower to look in the grasscatchers to see if they were full. They weren’t full – in fact, there was nothing in either of them. I pulled the tube thingy off the side and found that it was crammed full with crunched up leaves and grass, and who the hell knows what. I called Fred on his cell phone and asked him to come out and help me. He did – bless his heart; he had to climb down off his tall-ass ladder and come outside to help his fuckup of a wife – and then I shoveled the rest of the pile into the grasscatchers and hauled the whole mess out to the mulch pile. After that, I decided it was time to work on clearing the ditch. There’s a ditch on the boundary between our property and the church’s property next door. It had gotten very overgrown and full of trash and weeds, and I wanted to get it cleared from the street to the point where there’s a fence post even with the side of the shed. I had cleared a good part of the ditch with the riding lawnmower and the chainsaw, but my extension cord would only reach so far and Fred needed his extension cord on Friday, so I couldn’t use it to work on the weeds and shrubs near the road.

This is the ditch. This picture doesn’t properly illustrate just how much brush and crap there is to clear away from the ten feet of the ditch leading up to the culvert. On Sunday Fred didn’t need his extension cord so I could add his to mine and work on the part of the ditch nearing the road. I dragged the extension cords, my chainsaw, and my hedge trimmer out to the ditch. The hedge trimmer did a pretty good job of chopping down the weeds that had grown, and I got about two feet of the ditch cleared when suddenly the hedge trimmer stopped working and I didn’t know why. I unplugged and re-plugged the trimmer. Nothing. So I decided, okay. Maybe I ran the hedge trimmer for too long at one stretch and it was overheated and needed a rest. So I’ll use the chainsaw instead, right? I got the chainsaw and plugged it in and… nada. Nothing. Wouldn’t work at all. I stood in one place and swore up a storm (quietly, though – I didn’t want the people in the church parking lot to hear me, it being Sunday and they being Of God and all that shit), trying to figure out what was going on. I went into the shed and checked to see if the extension cord in there was plugged in. It was. I followed the cord to the end to see if the light on the other end was on, and it was. I went back to the chainsaw to try it again, and it didn’t work. And then I glanced down at the second extension cord and saw. I had cut through the goddamn motherfucking extension cord. I CUT THROUGH THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING EXTENSION CORD.

“You,” I told myself. “Are a goddamn motherfucking idiot.” I grabbed the now-useless extension cord and carried it around to the trash pile. “What a fucking idiot,” I said to the extension cord. “I’m sorry you’re DEAD and USELESS because I’m a goddamn idiot.” It seemed to have no opinion on the subject. I put the hedge trimmer in the shed and decided to use the chainsaw to cut down some of the bushes around the fencepost. I had cut down three fairly big bushes when I accidentally hit the fencepost with the chainsaw and the chain came off. “Oh, GODDAMN!” I said, louder than I’d intended. Luckily, there were no Of God people in the church parking lot, so no one was around to hear my blasphemy. And then I muttered a litany of very bad words under my breath as I put the chainsaw on the porch and stomped inside the house.

“I give up!” I yelled at Fred. “I fucking GIVE UP!” Fred put down his paint brush and followed me into the kitchen. “What happened?” he asked. “I’m such a GODDAMN FUCKUP! I quit! The house wins! You WIN, you stupid house! I give up! Let’s sell this fucking house and buy a soulless McMansion on three feet of lawn in the heart of goddamn Yuppieville!” “What happened?” Fred said again. “I CUT THROUGH THE GODDAMN EXTENSION CORD AND THEN I MADE THE CHAIN COME OFF THE CHAINSAW!” There was a long silence. Fred stared contemplatively at the ceiling. His lips twitched. When he spoke, his voice sounded very strained. “You cut through… the extension…cord,” he said. “YES.” I sent hate rays directly into his brain and was surprised that he didn’t immediately fall over dead. “You cut through… the extension cord,” he repeated. “YES.” “HOW did you… cut through the extension cord?” he asked, covering his mouth as if I couldn’t see his shit-eating grin. “I DON’T KNOW,” I snarled. And he lost it, falling over onto the counter and laughing loudly, the fucker. “Do you want me to fix the chain on your chainsaw?” he offered. “NO,” I bellowed. “I want to SELL this goddamn house and buy a MCMANSION in the HEART of YUPPIEVILLE!” “Oh Bessie,” Fred said comfortingly. “You’re just having a Tim Thompson day.” I looked at the clock to see if I could possibly push for going home early, but it was only 2:00 and I knew Fred would never go for it. “I suppose I’ll go mow the lawn,” I said grudgingly. I went out and started the lawnmower, and began a circle around the side lawn. When I’d made two trips around I stopped to see if the grasscatchers were full. There was nothing in the grasscatchers. “OH COME ON!” I yelled. “What the FUCK?” I pulled the tube thingy off at the bottom and found that it was crammed full of grass and leaves. I pulled all the crap blocking up the tube out and then tried to put the tube back in place. I had no luck. “Oh, I GIVE UP!” I yelled, and stomped back into the house. Fred was standing on the stairs, painting. “Where do you want me to paint?” I asked in a low kill me now voice. After some prodding, I told him that the grasscatcher wasn’t working. “Was it ever working?” he asked. “Yes, I mowed around the tree near the mulch pile and it worked fine, so I emptied them and went and I -” here the link between my brain and my tongue went down for a moment and I mixed “did” and “do” – “I do’d two trips around the yard and there was nothing in the grasscatchers!” “You do’d two trips, huh?” Fred said, and laughed. “I’m going to throw something at you,” I threatened. In the end, he dragged me outside, pulled the crap out of the tube, fixed it back where it was supposed to go, and took two trips around the yard on the lawnmower. “Now I do’d two trips around the yard!” he said, grinning. ~~So I killed him and buried his body in the back forty.~~ “It stopped spitting grass into the grasscatcher about halfway through your first trip,” I told him. He cleared it out again, raised the blade a couple of inches, and this time when he made a trip around the yard, everything worked just fine. And that was the end of my Tim Thompson day. I mowed the front and side yards, which took a little more than an hour, and when I went back inside Fred was mostly done with the stairs. I did a little cleaning up, waited for Fred to take his pictures, put some canned food on a plate for Maxi and Newt (what? We can’t let them STARVE!), and then we came home. I love this house and I’m excited about it still, but I could do with a few more victories and a few less fuckups on my part. On the up side, it’s entirely possible that we could be done with the inside of the house by the end of the year, or shortly thereafter! * * * The other things I did over the weekend:

Began switching out switches. Naturally I didn’t get an “after” picture of the process.

Put the doorknob mechanism back on the door with NO HELP WHATSOEVER. Am clearly genius.

Painted crown molding. And then Fred and the paint guy he had come out to the house MOCKED MY PAINT JOB. Fuckers.

Took a trip around the back forty several times. The leaves, they are a-changin’.

Spotted a praying mantis – the first praying mantis I’ve ever seen as an adult. We’d see them in Guam all the time, but I hadn’t seen any since. This one looked at me like she wanted to leap at my face and suck my brains out through my eyeballs.

Spotted a strange bug. Fred called it a “stinkbug.”

Bought a candle and put it on the mantle. When I went to blow it out as we were leaving, I saw a wasp floating around in the melted wax. I found it both creepy and mesmerizing. Check out the full-sized version.

Newt lurrrrrves his Momma.

LURVES her.

We’re going to have to start calling her “Missus Boogers” if she keeps giving us these looks.

No dignity at ALL.

And lastly, swept up dead wasps. It was a slow weekend for wasps. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * * Previously 2005: Senator Stanley J. Boogerton. 2004: No entry. 2003: So I’m not reporting that. At all. Never happened! 2002: Riley’s response? “Nuh uh!” 2001: Dr. Phil looked at me judgmentally, and I began to babble. 2000: And I don’t even like cherry Poptarts! 1999: Fred has agreed to let me adopt the kitten! ]]>

11/10/06

can teach an old Fred new tricks.

* * * Comments: Where did you get that cat hair mug??!! I have to HAVE one! I got mine on sale at Parisian, but you can find them online at Our Name is Mud. It’s become my favorite mug, ever, and I’m thinking of rounding out my mug collection with a couple of the other mugs the same company offers, ’cause they crack me UP. * * * How do you feel about the neighbors who took the 2 adults cats in, letting them roam loose? Our cats never go outside. I remember our vet saying the average life span of a male cat outdoors was only 2 years. I’m not thrilled about it, but apparently Maxi and Newt were so miserable inside that they felt they didn’t have a choice. I know that during the several days we had them inside our house, they howled until they were hoarse, and I’m pretty sure they tried to dig their way out (via the windowsills). * * * Man, that picture is scary — reminds me of the sick sister in the movie Pet Semetary. Does your spine stick out all crazy, too? My spine does NOT stick out all crazy. Give me a few years, and maybe I’ll develop myself a Dowager’s Hump and it’ll be a different story. * * * Robyn! Good lord woman, what are you doing up and writing a journal entry at THIS time of morning?! I mean, I’m glad to hear from you and all, but… good lord. Is this some sort of new leaf you’re overturning, or somethin’? I was up early yesterday because I had an early appointment on the other side of Huntsville. Believe you me – I didn’t WANT to be up that early, and I’m not usually up that early if I can possibly avoid it! * * *

My favorite new t-shirt. * * *

And I always wonder why there’s so much cat hair on the stairs… * * * Previously 2005: Can’t a girl be a dumbass without the whole world going into an uproar about it? 2004: For once, he had no good comeback. 2003: “Oh yeah. I hate this feeling. I should have just had a Diet Coke.” 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry. 1999: Can you tell this irks me? ]]>

11/9/06

do know that before we move into the Smallville house, we’re going to have a pest control person come out and figure out where they’re coming from and how to stop them. I could probably handle a wasp sting okay (with perhaps copious amounts of whining), but I’d hate it if one of the cats was stung by one of them and got sick. Fucking wasps.

* * * Okay, confession: Possibly once or twice while I was killing wasps last weekend one of them MIGHT HAVE flown at my face, causing me to run like hell through the house (up side of losing all that weight: I can RUN and not fall over from the exertion) squealing like a little girl, sure that my number was up. “I found her dead on the floor like that,” Fred would inform the cops in his usual earnest manner. “I don’t know what happened, I only know that the entire house shook and someone was squealing, and then she crashed to the floor and I thought she was kidding around so I didn’t check on her for fifteen or sixteen hours. By then, of course, she was good and dead.” And the cop would look at me and shake his head. “Too damn bad,” he’d say. “We get more people scared literally to death by wasps than you’d believe.” Then he’d scoff and shake his head again. “Damn pansy-ass city folk.” “She always was a bit of a wimp,” Fred would say, conveniently forgetting that he’d been pointing out wasps for me to kill all weekend long.” “Well, I’ll send out the medical examiner, but I’m sure he’ll say her death was caused by the face that she was a complete and utter spaz,” the cop would say. Fred would nod in agreement. Only I was FAST LIKE THE WIND and the damn hypothetical wasps never caught up to me. So there. (Also, I fully expected Fred to come down and say “What the fuck are you doing?”, only he never even noticed I was crashing through the house like a bull in a china shop. Nonexistent ghosts, he hears. Me running from one end of the house to the other sounding like a herd of elephants, nada.) * * * And last night as we were at the house and I was painting (KILL ME), I felt a tickling in my boobal area, so I looked down and found not one, not two, but three of those damn ladybug lookalike bugs crawling around in my shirt. I did a little dance and flicked them off me, squealing, and then stomped on them. You thought I was going to say I found a wasp down the front of my shirt, didn’t you? If that had happened, I’m not sure I’d have lived to tell the tale. * * * I’m about three weeks behind in watching my TV shows. I’m pretty much up to date on Lost (I still need to watch last night’s episode, though) and Grey’s Anatomy, but I have two or three episodes each of ER, Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, and Breaking Bonaduce to watch. I watched Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters yesterday afternoon (is it just me, or is every man on that show except Uncle Saul just impossibly good-looking? Also, is it just me or is Sally Field reprising her role she played on ER as Abby’s crazy mother?), but then picked up an episode of Lost, a Dr. Phil, a Junk Brothers, and a Biggest Loser. I am NEVER going to catch up. * * * Hey. If one of you photoshoppin’ geniuses could take this picture and photoshop the toys and the carrier in the background out of the picture (and make sure you keep the picture full-size), I would appreciate it so much I’d link to you and give you big internet smooches. Thank you, Vix!!!! and Suzie!!!!! (I’m making a t-shirt for my niece for Christmas and think it’d look better without the stuff in the background.) * * * How lame am I for laughing at something in my entry from a year ago? I read I did threaten to name him “Doo McGillicuddy” and just call him Sugarbutt, but Fred wouldn’t go for that. and laughed out loud. I mean, for god’s sake. How perfect a name is “Doo McGillicuddy”? (I giggled again just typing the name.) Don’t be too surprised if the next foster kitten gets that name. * * *

Doesn’t Tommy look thrilled?

Maddy in mid-leap.

Dance, Maddy. DANCE! All of today’s uploaded pictures are here. * * *

Miz Poo sniffs out the situation. * * * Previously 2005: as a customer and a HUMAN, I outrank the computer, and I’d like a little RESPECT, thank you. 2004: All this cleaning is making me lightheaded. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: Little things make me happy. 1999: Guest entry by Fred.]]>

11/8/06

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland “You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The South
The Inland North
The Northeast
Philadelphia
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Good voice for TV or radio my ass. * * * Faith Hill claims that that whole thing at the Country Music Awards was a joke. I don’t know if it was or not, but since I’ve only ever heard good things about the woman – everyone is always talking about how sweet and kind she is – I guess I’ll choose to believe it was a joke. I bet she’s regretting it, though. Must be a slow news week, eh? Isn’t there an election coming up soon or something they could focus on? * * * So Princess Buttercup, Westley, Inigo, and Fezzik are gone. I emailed the shelter manager on Monday to ask her about getting their shots, and she told me that they could get their shots that day, and they could go to the pet store anytime before Tuesday adoptions began. Like I’ve said before, the smaller the cats are, the faster they go, so I ran them out to the shelter and got their shots on Monday. Monday evening we let them out of the room to roam. And late yesterday morning I took them to the pet store. They’re such sweet cats, but I’m sad because I feel like we didn’t really get a chance to bond with them. We didn’t want to let them out of the cat room too soon (we were worried our cats would catch giardia from them), and that’s how our foster kitties always bond with us, by exploring the house and hanging out with us. Fred said that it’s probably a good thing they went to the pet store so fast, because they were such sweethearts that we might have ended up with four more cats. Fred loves kittens who are about three months old because (he says) they don’t develop a personality before then (I disagree and offer up the example of one Maddy). And when I went into the kitten room this morning and Fezzik, Inigo, and Westley just about knocked each other for the privilege of flopping over on my feet, well, ya gotta love the little cuties. I hope they’re all adopted by Monday, when I go to the pet store again. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand them sitting in their cages looking sadly at me.

Fezzik got a little too close to Spot. Spot hissed. Fezzik hissed back. Is there anything LESS scary than a hissing kitten?

Break my heart, why don’tcha? * * * We went out to the house last night. Fred got off work a little earlier than usual, so we were at the house before 4:00. I’d hoped to spend time outside clearing more of the side yard, but it was gray and rainy and just plain yucky out, so that didn’t happen. I slapped a coat of paint on a couple of doors then we ate dinner, and for the rest of the evening I yanked the coving (?) from the top of the baseboards in the upstairs hallway, scraped the wallpaper hiding behind the coving, and then taped the hallway and started on the stairs so Fred will be able to start painting tomorrow or this weekend. Hopefully it’ll be nice enough outside on Friday that I can work outside most of the day. Not that I’m particularly an outdoorsy kind of gal, but if it’s between busting my ass clearing some of the weeds and overgrown crap from the land or painting, I’ll happily bust my ass every time. Fred spent most of the evening puttying in the holes in the walls of the upstairs hallway and the stairwell. He also worked on the cat house (as mentioned in the middle of this entry) for a while. Maxi and Newt went to the neighbor’s house last week. When we showed up to work on the house this weekend, who was sitting there on the front porch waiting for us? Why, Maxi and Newt. They’ve been there almost every time we’ve been out to the house since. They don’t always stay on the front porch – sometimes they disappear for a while (we found Maxi in the back forty on Sunday; I assume she was out there hunting, despite the fact that there was a bowl full of cat food on our front porch because IF THE CATS HAD TO GO TWO HOUSES DOWN THE ROAD TO EAT THEY MIGHT STARVE TO DEATH). If we don’t see both of them at some point during our time at the house, we worry. We didn’t see Maxi last night until just before we left, and we were able to leave happy to know that she was safe. In fact, when Fred heard her outside howling he went out to greet her, then brought her inside to say hi to me. Y’all just shut UP. We do NOT have eight cats. (Though I told Nance that if these cats don’t end up inside cats – inside OUR house, that is – before the winter is over, I’ll eat my hat.) I can’t imagine why they’re hanging around our house so much. Maybe because we always feed them and have water for them? Maybe because Fred was so worried they’d get cold that he put a box on the front porch for them to sleep in. Maybe because Fred insisted that we bring an electric blanket from home to put in the box. I KID YOU NOT. Maybe because we always give them a can of wet cat food before we leave. Maybe because they’re aware that Fred is building them their very own house, which will sit on our front porch and which will have a HEATING SYSTEM (“Are you going to put crown moulding on the inside of the house?” I snarked at him last night. “No,” he said. “It’d take too much room. Maybe I’ll save that for when they decide they need more room and I add on to the house.”). Maybe they just like us. Who knows? That Newt is going to be the death of me, he’s such a sweet little monkey.

* * * To prove that I have NO PRIDE WHATSOEVER, I post for your enjoyment a picture Rick took of me. He snapped a picture of me and I said “Oh, great, take a picture of me with my mouth hanging open. I always look like an idiot in candid pictures!” And to illustrate the idea of looking like an idiot… well, take a look yourself:

Nance is sitting there frozen in horror that I’d actually post the picture, I bet. Heh! NO PRIDE, Nance. I have NO PRIDE. * * *

“Waiter, there appears to be a kitten in my soup.”

Deceptively cute.

Maddy the mouth-breather. (More pictures of Maddy and Maxi’s kittens here.) Previously 2005: It’s a fucking mystery. 2004: I seem to be a tad less fluttery today. 2003: No entry. 2002: Pictures. 2001: Fred in the dog house. Literally. 2000: I said “It’s a good thing you put your first AND last name, PLUS ‘your daughter’, otherwise I’d never have known!” 1999: Oddly, even though he’s had two doses of the antibiotic, he’s feeling worse instead of better. ]]>

10/30/06

Thursday morning I got up early, packed Maddy up in her carrier, and took her to the vet. She hit two pounds on Monday and the person who’s adopting her (who is not, for the record, ME) wants to adopt her this weekend and I was hoping I could get her spayed before that happened (it’s the shelter’s policy not to adopt out kittens ’til after they’re fixed), and was pleased to see that her recent voracious eating had brought about the needed weight gain. So it was off to the vet for Miss Maddy, who also got an ID chip. I dropped Maddy off at the vet, then drove from Ardmore to Smallville – a drive that took me about 25 minutes. In Smallville I went into the house and fed the stray Momma cat, the Daddy cat, and the kittens. Did I even mention that Fred lured them into the house Tuesday evening, and they’d been staying in the master bedroom? They adapted pretty well, which was probably helped by the fact that we got into the habit – a BAD habit, probably – of taking canned food to them a couple of times a day. All the cats were suffering from diarrhea, which made the litter box situation pretty nasty (and WAY smelly, as you can imagine), so I took a third litter box with me, bought some new litter (made for “small spaces”), and dumped out the old litter from the other two boxes, cleaned the boxes, and refilled them with fresh litter. The car of a crazy cat lady. I fed the cats, swept the floor of the master bedroom, and headed back to Madison. Thursday being the spud’s birthday – her 18th birthday, even – I wanted to make the actual day kind of special, so earlier in the week I’d ordered a balloon bouquet to pick up Thursday afternoon. Then I took it to the spud’s school and left it in her car, so she’d be surprised when she got out to the parking lot to go home. Not only did she get a balloon bouquet from us, she got 18 roses from her grandparents in California and a bouquet of carnations from her father and his wife. It was a bouquet-filled kinda day, which I think she really appreciated. Thursday evening I went to pick up Maddy, brought her home and let her out of her carrier, worried that she might be in pain and need to be put in her room, away from the boys and their rambunctiousness. Instead, she bounced out of the carrier, bounced around the room, jumped on my mother’s feet, jumped on Mister Boogers, and howled to be fed. I’d say she wasn’t too traumatized. Friday I had to get up bright and early again, this time to go to the Smallville house and box up Momma Kitty and Daddy Kitty. They had an appointment to be tested, get all their shots, and be spayed and neutered. I was worried that it was going to be really hard to get them in the carriers, but all I had to do was walk through the door with a plate of canned cat food, put it down on the floor, and as soon as they came running over, I picked up Momma and Daddy and put them each in a carrier and close the door. They freaked OUT, running around in circles and trying to dig their way out of the carriers. I felt like a total jerk, traumatizing the poor things first by locking them in a room, and then putting them in carriers. Either they’d never been in carriers before or they HAD and knew that bad things happen after they put you in a carrier. They calmed down pretty quickly, and I put the carriers in the back seat placed so that they could see each other. Then I drove from Smallville to Ardmore in the pounding rain, which was OODLES of fun. To add to the fun, Momma Kitty howled most of the way, with Daddy Kitty chiming in every now and then. At the vet’s office, I told them the story of Momma Kitty and Daddy Kitty, and when we went back to weigh them, found that they both weighed just under 8 pounds. Since all the And3rson kitties weigh 9 pounds or more, you can imagine how little Momma and Daddy Kitty look to me. I had to give them names for the cats, and since I would have felt like a dork telling them that the names were Momma Kitty and Daddy Kitty, I named them on the spot. Maxi. And Newt. Isn’t it nice that I named cats that aren’t mine? Anyway, I asked them to call me after the testing (they test for Feline Leukemia and FIV) to let me know what the results were, and then I left. As I walked through the door at home, the phone was ringing and my mother held the phone out to me. “I didn’t know who it was, so I didn’t answer it,” she said. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was the vet’s office, and my heart sank. I was POSITIVE it was bad news. I called them back, and they put the vet on the phone with me. The testing came back just fine, AND it was the vet’s opinion that Maxi wasn’t pregnant. Fred and I were pretty sure she was, because she’d started to get kind of barrel-bellied recently, and Fred thought when he’d picked her up the day before that he could feel the head of a kitten. If the vet had determined that she was pregnant, we were going to let her have the kittens and then have her spayed when they were weaned. I’ve gotta say – I was WAY relieved to find out that she wasn’t pregnant. We talked about what shots Maxi and Newt needed, and the vet told me that I could pick them up after 5:00. A few hours later, the phone rang. It was the vet’s office again, and the woman I talked to told me that (1) They’d come through their respective operations just fine (2) Newt had giardia and (3) They both had ear mites. They told me that slippery elm bark could help soothe their digestive systems while they were being treated for giardia, and so instead of hanging out in the living room reading, I spent the next two hours going from store to store looking for powdered slippery elm bark. Which I found at Garden Cove, the health food store in Huntsville. Around 4:15, my mother and I went to the vet clinic and picked up Maxi and Newt, who regarded us warily, and drove from Ardmore to Smallville, where we went to the house and put Maxi and Newt in the laundry room with a litter box, bowl of food, water, and a couple of cat beds. We’re keeping them at the house until they’re done with their giardia medication – which will be tomorrow evening – and Maxi’s incision has gotten a good head-start on healing before we take them over to the neighbor’s house. Oh, an interesting side note: the vet estimated Maxi’s age at about two years. When I asked her about Newt, she paused and said “Is there any reason to think they might not be related?” We had thought that maybe he was her kitten from a previous litter and I told the vet that, and she said that was pretty likely. He’s not fully grown yet, though she didn’t really give me an estimate on his age. The kittens are going to be spayed and neutered (did I mention there are three boys and one girl?) tomorrow, so I’ll have to leave the house early, go to Smallville, put the kittens in carriers, drive to Ardmore, drop them off, drive to Madison, pick up my mother, and take her to the airport. Then in the evening I’ll pick the kittens up at the vet’s, take them to Madison (where they’ll take over Maddy’s room – how RUDE, to be displaced like that) and get them settled in. You could say I’m using up a lot of gas lately. Oh, and the kittens have been named, courtesy of Fred. Meet… Fezzik. Inigo. Westley. And Princess Buttercup. Yeah, Fred’s a Princess Bride fan. Saturday morning I went out to Smallville, scooped litter boxes, talked Fred through what medication to give which cats (the kittens are now being treated for giardia as well), swept the master bedroom (those kittens can scatter that kitty litter all over the place), and went back to Madison, stopping to fill up my gas tank on the way. My mother and I left Madison at noon, and ended up in Nashville on Music Valley Drive almost exactly two hours later. I didn’t think we’d be able to check in so early, but I asked (can’t hurt, right?) and since they’d just finished cleaning the room, they let us check in. It was the Comfort Inn Opryland, nothing fancy or anything, but I’ve ceased in my old age to be much impressed by any hotel rooms (but maybe that’s just because I haven’t stayed at a really nice one?) and as long as it’s reasonably clean, I don’t much care about anything else. We unpacked, then went out to find a convenience store so we could stock up on water and snacks (the downside to the room was that it didn’t have a refrigerator!). We didn’t have to go far, and then went back to the hotel where we read and talked. We had dinner at a Tex-Mex steakhouse I can’t recall the name of. I had the shrimp; she had a steak. There were far more people in the restaurant than we’d expected to see at 4:00 on a Saturday, so we figured the majority of them were going to the Opry as well. After we ate, we went back to the hotel room and killed time until 5:00. There’s a bus that stops at all the hotels on Music Valley Rd, and for $5 round-trip, they’ll take you to the Opryhouse and back to your hotel afterward. We were told that the bus would show up between 5 and 5:30, but it didn’t show up until almost 5:45. Which wasn’t a big deal – the show didn’t start until 6:30, so we had plenty of time to get there and find our seats. The place was PACKED, and we killed time watching the people go by. Then the show started, and just like last time I went to the Opry, it was one hell of a show. Apparently on Saturday nights they televise the Opry from 7 to 8 (central time) on GAC. I text-messaged the spud and told her to call Fred and tell him to tape it in case any of the pans across the audience captured us. She didn’t get the message in time, though, so he didn’t tape it. Oh well. The 7 – 8 pm portion of the show was hosted by Barbara Mandrell – you should have SEEN my mother’s jaw drop when she saw Barbara Mandrell walk onto the stage – and it had Suzy Bogguss, Lorrie Morgan, and Randy Owen featured, singing songs from the Barbara Mandrell tribute CD. I hoped like hell that Barbara would sing I Was Country (When Country Wasn’t Cool), but she didn’t sing at all. Apparently she no longer performs in public, damn her.

Rodney Atkins (in the cap).

Lorrie Morgan. I LOVE HER.

Barbara Mandrell.

Suzy Bogguss. I LOVE HER.

Barbara Mandrell and Randy Owen, from Alabama. Barbara said that she was in the studio when Randy Owen taped the song for the tribute album and “It literally melted my heart.” Someone better call Dr. Preston Burke and report the medical miracle that is Barbara Mandrell walking and talking after her heart melted out her body.

One of the sponsors. Sounds like a gentlemen’s lounge, doesn’t it? Apparently it’s not. It was, all in all, a very good show. I wish we’d been more front and center than several rows back on the left side of the stage (left side facing the stage, anyway); next time I’ll have to get tickets a little more in advance. There were a lot of acts I didn’t know at all, but the last act was Rodney Atkins, who sings Watching You and If You’re Going Through Hell – which, no coincidence, happened to be the two songs he sang. The thing that’s awesome about the Opry is also the thing that sucks: each act sings, at most, three songs. When you don’t know or don’t care for the act, it’s good that they’re not onstage, but if you like the act, you’d like to see more. When the show was over at 9, we went to the gift shop, but it was so busy and everything was so expensive (I mean, come on. Fifty bucks for a freakin’ sweatshirt?!) that neither of us bought anything, and we headed out to find our bus. Which we did easily, and when the bus driver pointed out that tips were accepted in the guise of thanking those who had tipped her, my mother and I rolled our eyes at each other, but I still tipped the woman a couple of bucks on my way out of the bus. In the hotel room, my mother took a bath and then she and I read until almost midnight. I slept fairly well, only getting up a couple of times to go to the bathroom. When we were both awake, I asked what time it was, and was shocked to find out it was 8:00. (Well, actually 7:00 because of the turning-the-clock back, but we’d gotten 8 solid hours of sleep, so I was shocked. I never sleep that well in a strange bed!) We were checked out of the hotel by 9, and went off to have breakfast before heading for home. We had breakfast at Cracker Barrel (GOD I love the Cracker Barrel gift shop. I picked up a Christmas present for my youngest nephew while I was there that just cracks me the hell up.) and then hit the highway. The trip home went well until we took our exit off highway 65. We had just turned onto the exit when a deer came FLYING out of the woods next to the road and ran directly in front of the SUV in front of us. My mother and I both gasped “Oh no!”, and I instantly stomped on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. The image I remember most is watching one of the deer’s antlers break off and go spinning down the road. It happened so fast that the next thing I remember is looking up to see the deer caught under the SUV. “He’s still alive!” my mother said, and I said “He can’t be!”, but I looked at the deer and could see him moving, trying to stand up. The driver of the SUV clearly had no idea what to do, so hit the gas and basically dragged the deer down the road until the SUV’s back tires went over the deer. The deer twitched and tried to stand, then was still for a few minutes, then tried again to stand. I called 911 (in restrospect I should have called 411 and asked for the Ardmore, TN police department, but I was pretty freaked out) and reported what was going on. They connected me to the police department and I told them what was going on, and whoever it was who’d answered the phone told me they’d send someone out. I thought about sticking around until the police showed up, but I suspected that they’d end up shooting the deer to put it out of its misery, and I really didn’t want to see that, so I pulled up and told the driver of the SUV that I’d called the police and they were sending someone out. I think I shook for about an hour afterward. I thought about calling Fred, but was afraid I’d burst into tears (I’m such a softy that I loathe the thought of ANY animal being terrified and in pain) and didn’t want to go to Ugly Cry while driving down the road with my mother beside me. And that was pretty much it. We got home a few minutes after noon, hung around the house, I went through my pictures, made unfried chicken for dinner, and then my mother and I ran out to Smallville so I could give the cats their medicine (the kittens LOATHE the metronidazole I give them for the giardia) and scoop the litter boxes. I noticed that Newt’s eyes were red and painful looking, so I put antibiotic ointment in his eyes. If his eyes don’t look better when I go out the house a little later, I guess it’ll be back to the vet for him! In closing, check out the slippers my mother bought for herself. She bought me a pair, too (which I don’t get until Christmas), and I told her the other day that they look like Muppet slippers, as if perhaps they were made from the skin of a slaughtered Grover.

Maddy seems to like them.

* * * Oh, and while my mother and I were off hanging out in Nashville, Fred was working his ass off, and finished another of the upstairs rooms. **************************************************

Meester Boogers, he hate you. * * * Previously 2005: No entry. 2004: List of fives. 2003: (Also, Nance called me “nice.” That bitch!) 2002: But I don’t guess that introspection is the forte of that particular diva. 2001: Who tells stories about you? 2000: This morning, red and goopy. 1999: (Side note: I did nothing, and that just pisses me off. I wish I could go back and smack the shit out of that jerk. I hope his life is hellish).]]>

10/24/06

reading: Stop Dressing Your Six Year-old Like a Skank, by Celia Rivenbark. With a name like that, it’s got to be good, right? I hope so – I’m only a few pages into it.

* * * One important thing I learned on Saturday is that being lazy is no excuse for wearing a sweatshirt over your t-shirt and sweatpants and knee-high black rubber boots on your feet to push the push mower around the hilly parts of the lawn so you won’t have to go inside and upstairs to change. By the time you’re done pushing the push mower around the hilly parts of the lawn, you’ll be dripping sweat all over the place, and there is little doubt that you will forever be known as “That weird woman who was wearing black rubber boots to mow the lawn” around your soon-to-be hometown. Also, I have painful spots on the backs of my upper calves where the boots rubbed and made raw spots. Ouch. * * * I got up early yesterday morning (I am really and truly not a morning person. I might get up early most mornings, but I still have one hell of a hard time dragging my ass out of bed, unlike you crazy morning people who bound out of bed with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart) to get dressed and go do my thing at the pet store. When I got home, my mother was up and dressed, watching TV and talking to my father. I put the groceries I’d bought away (she’d asked if we had any yogurt on Sunday, and I told her we didn’t, but later found out that we did, indeed, have yogurt. With an expiration date of September 10th on it. Blech.) and then went upstairs to let Maddy out of the kitten room. Maddy IS a morning person, and always runs out of the kitten room at full speed, pounces on my feet, pounces on Tommy or Mister Boogers (the only two who’ll really play with her; she’s a little scared of Miz Poo, and Sugarbutt’s a little scared of her. Spanky and Spot are just cranky old men who won’t play.), pounces on various toys, and then runs at full speed down the stairs to sit in the kitchen and whine about how hungry she is until I give her a little canned cat food. (Spoiling her rotten, I’m sure, so it will make her new mommy’s job just THAT much harder.) I took a shower, folded some laundry, and cleaned the kitchen a little until about 9:30, when the spud, my mother, and I left the house to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel. The spud didn’t have school because of “parenting day”, so I though the best way to parent her was to fill her full of fatty, high-calorie food for breakfast, and then drag her out to the Smallville house. Breakfast at Cracker Barrel was good – of course – and then we headed out to the Smallville house. I wanted to see if Momma and Daddy Kitty and their kittens were hanging around so I could lure them inside, but they weren’t, so I just dropped off the supplies I’d brought out to the house for the day when we are able to lure them inside (litter boxes, litter, toys, deworming medication), and swept the floor of the master bedroom (that was where we were keeping Maddy the last few times we took her out to the house with us, and she scattered litter all over the floor) and the kitchen. My mother pointed out the windows in the dining room (the ones on either side of the fireplace, as seen here) and actually suggested that we make them bigger – long, skinny windows was her idea, I think – and I pretended that I thought it might be a good idea, but HELLZ NO I’m not going to make those long, skinny windows – I LOVE those windows, the way they are. The dining room with the big fireplace and the windows on either side are one of my favorite things about the house! (Okay. I have a LOT of favorite things about the house, I cannot lie.) When we were about to pull out of the driveway going left toward home, my mother said “What’s out that way?”, and so I took a right instead, and we went down some long country roads before heading for home. Once at home, my mother sat in front of the TV and read, and I puttered around doing this and that, and eventually I went upstairs, Maddy in hand, to read for a few minutes and then ultimately take a nap. I swear to god, I never ever take a nap ordinarily, but whenever I’m on vacation in Maine I take one almost every day, and when my parents are visiting I do as well. My mother tends to nap every day when she’s visiting, too, so I don’t know if it’s a vacation thing or just a way to escape, but in any case, I should be well-rested by the time she leaves next week! This morning I’m taking Miz Poo to the vet, and then my mother and I are headed to Unclaimed Baggage to see if we can’t find some bargains. Or something to sell on eBay for a profit. Either would make me happy! * * * For those of you who requested pictures of me in more “form-fitting” clothes, I’ll have 9-month progress pictures up next Tuesday or Wednesday, over at OFB. Speaking of clothes and the like, when I was folding laundry yesterday, I came across a couple of pairs of the spud’s jeans. She wears a size 14 (though honestly I think they’re a little big for her), and I wondered briefly if I’d fit into them. So I tried them on – and they fit. Not comfortably (they’re too tight through the thighs), but I was able to get them fastened and in a pinch I could probably wear them in public and not get any weird looks. Not that I would (I’m still most comfortable in cotton pants), but it was neat to be able to fit into the jeans of someone I was sure is much thinner than I am! Also, last week when Fred and I were at the Smallville house, we were changing into our grubbies – well, I was changing into my grubbies; he was changing into his new flannel shirt and fancy farmer’s pants – and at first I told him to take his pants off so I could try them on, but then I changed my mind and tried on the shorts he’d taken off. This is what I do for fun these days, you know. I try on other people’s clothes.

And his shorts not only fit, they were a little big for me. Not flattering, but they fit! * * *

* * *

Tommy keeps a wary eye on my mother. * * * Previously 2005: “That makes me want to get pregnant and have a baby, just so I can name it Lavernicus,” I admitted. “That WOULD be an excellent name.” 2004: No entry. 2003: It took two days from the first time I called Stanley “Beanie-bean” in front of Fred before Fred started doing it too. He’s such a copycat. 2002: “She was giving me a handjob under the water, and I didn’t stop her, even though I’m not attracted to her, BECAUSE I AM ONLY HUMAN.” 2001: Fred is a freak. 2000: “Uhhhh….” I said, casting around for something smart-ass or impressive to say. 1999: My desk is a total shitheap, because I’m Robyn and I’m a slob.]]>