January 13, 2005.

Elizabeth Murray’s page and looked at her pictures, but didn’t see that particular one. I looked at art.com and that picture didn’t come up under her name, though Fifi in Monet’s Garden did. So to make a long story short, I have no idea who the artist is. I can tell you where to get the picture, though. Fred bought the picture for me from Paragon Gifts; every time I get their catalog, I’ve been drooling over that picture. You can get it already framed, here. You can get it with just the mat at allposters, here. And Portal Cards has varying sizes – go here, click on “search” (at the top) and search on “Cat in garden”. As for the other pictures, you can find the cat in the tub at Portal Cards also (just search on “Tub Cat”) and the wet cat, too (search on, surprisingly enough, “Wet Cat”). Allposters also has Tub Cat and Wet Cat. Who loves their readers more than me? That’s right, NO ONE.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So I slept in this morning because I didn’t have any appointments or errands to run. I rolled out of bed around 8:30, did a little laundry, and got dressed to work out. I wandered downstairs, sat in front of my computer for a little while, and was just about to stand up and go exercise when the tornado sirens started going off. I glanced out the back window to see a very dark sky, and turned on the television set to see if I was about to die. The really bad weather was apparently going into towns nearby, but wasn’t headed directly for Madison, so I left the TV going while I got some journal reading done. After a while, when the dark sky seemed to have pretty much gone away, I decided to get my butt in gear and get the 30 minutes on the elliptical out of the way. As I stood up to turn the TV off, the weather guy said “We just got an email from someone who wants us to put Regis & Kelly back on the air!”, then went into a long (and defensive) explanation about how they’re trying to help, that if a tornado was coming toward the email writer, he’d certainly want to know about it. It made me laugh, because how many times have Fred and I bitched and whined about the fact that the local weather guys have cut in on one of our shows (almost always Survivor) to tell us about the bad weather and then staying on for a good half hour, thus messing up the show for us? About a million times, that’s how many! I had this vision of a cranky old guy sitting in front of his TV yelling “Shut the fuck up! I don’t care, there’s no tornadic activity headed toward me! Put Regis and Kelly back on! Mary, where’s the WebTV controller? I’m going to email that weather-spouting bastard!” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ While I’m on the elliptical, I like to watch movies – I know I’ve mentioned that before – and yesterday I finished watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’d never seen it before, and after I read Mo’s review of it, I added it to my Netflix queue. I enjoyed the movie, and most importantly it took my mind off what I was doing, and that’s the kind of movie you want to be watching while you’re on your brand-spanking-new ass-kicking elliptical trainer, believe you me. (More about the elliptical in a minute) Anyway, I enjoyed the movie because Audrey Hepburn is just mesmerizing and has the most beautiful eyes. George Peppard was a hottie in his day (he was pretty good-looking in his later years, too, for that matter), but Andy Mickey Rooney’s character just made me cringe. Because, ugh. Now, when I read Mo’s review and read the bit about the cat, I was all “Oh, silly Mo. It’s just a movie! You can’t get that upset about a movie!”, but you know what? When Holly opened the cab door and pushed that cat into the FUCKING RAIN and the cab drove off with that POOR FUCKING CAT sitting there in the rain looking confused, I really wanted to haul off and smack Holly really really hard. That poor fucking cat! One minute he’s cozy and dry and the next he’s shoved out into the cold rain because Holly has to make her point. Poor Cat! I have to say that that was one mighty well-trained cat, though. If I ever wanted any of my cats to sit calmly in the rain, I’m sure they’d suggest that I go straight to hell. Anyway, it was a good movie; I recommend it. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ So remember how, back in December, I went on an exercise strike because the elliptical was squeaking and I couldn’t stand it? Well, we now have a new elliptical. It’s a LifeFitness X9i, and compared to what we had before (a NordicTrack something-or-other) it’s incredible. Going from the NordicTrack to the LifeFitness was like going from a broken-down secondhand rusted-out car (you know, the kind you have to add half a quart of oil to before you go anywhere) to a brand-new Cadillac. (I’d assume, anyway – I’ve never driven a Cadillac.) This machine is NICE. It’s quiet, it’s sturdy, it has a ton of programs, or you can create your OWN program. The stride is comfortable, there’s plenty of places to put your water and the TV remote, and it has TWENTY intensity levels. And it kicks my ass. I’m sure that part of that is because I took time off from exercising, but probably part of it is because it’s a better machine than the one we had. At this point it’s only been a week since I started back exercising and I’m only doing a simple program where I stay at the same resistance through the entire workout, but I’ve improved some in that today was the first time I didn’t need to stop and rest my legs halfway through the workout. I think I’m going to give it a few more days before I actually do one of the interval programs. So anyway, two thumbs up to the elliptical trainer. It’s quiet, I have no trouble watching the TV (or hearing it), and it’s sturdy as hell. It was expensive, but at this point I think it was definitely worth it. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Is it just me, or is Mister Boogers not really into smacking at that toy? It’s like he’s humoring Fred. “Yeah, okay, Dad. I’ll smack at the toy. WhatEVer.” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~]]>