For the last couple of days, I’ve felt that there was something about today’s date. “Is there something happening, or something happened on this date?” I asked Fred. He shrugged and said he didn’t think so. Did someone die? Was I supposed to do something? Go somewhere?
And this morning I realized what it was, why this date is stuck in my head: it’s been nine years since I started this journal!
Nine years!
Nine years of writing five days a week, most weeks. Nine years of writing about my life. Who the hell knew it was going to last so long?
NINE YEARS.
That’s a long fucking time, ain’t it? What kind of freak writes a daily journal for nine years?
Some of you have been reading me every day since way back then, and some of you showed up at various points along the way, and some of you read for a while then disappeared but then COULD NOT RESIST THE LURE OF THE KITTEHS and came back, and some of you check in occasionally, and some of you read every single day, and some of you are brand-spanking-new to the Bitchypoo experience.
To all of you, I say: Thank you. I might still be writing even if none of you were reading, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun!
Here’s to another nine!
This is pretty neat:
I’d do something like that with our webcam, except I have NO desire to see what I do or look like while I’m sleeping!
Is Newt as soft as he looks?
Actually, he’s not! He looks like he’d be cottony soft, but he’s got coarse, wiry hair.
I just have to say, I love hearing about Newt. He’s such a cutie. Serial-killer instincts and all.
He really is an awfully good boy. And considering how skittish he was when we first met him (almost exactly two years ago!), he’s come a long way, baby. For those of you who weren’t reading back then, when Maxi showed up with Newt in tow, we thought he was her friend. Then, a few days later when they showed up with a bunch of kittens in tow, we thought he was the father of the kittens, so we called him “Daddy” for a long time. When he and Maxi went to be spayed and neutered, I had to come up with a name to give the vet, and I glanced at the TV and saw Newt Gingrich, and a name was born.
Yes, he’s named after Newt Gingrich.
After he was neutered, I talked to the vet and she asked if we thought he could be Maxi’s kitten from a previous litter (he was obviously not fully grown, and when I look at pictures of him from back then, I’m amazed at how little he was. Not that he’s a big cat now, but he was clearly not grown up when he first showed up.), so we’re assuming now that they’re mother and son.
But anyway, Newt is perfectly happy to come inside these days, and he often spends the night inside. The other night I came downstairs after Fred went to bed, and Newt was laying on top of the kitchen cabinets, sound asleep. He’s really made himself at home here!
He still hasn’t figured out the cat door, though.
Other interesting fact about Newt: he has the highest-pitched meow I’ve ever heard from any cat, as evidenced by this video:
I never ever have to wonder who’s meowing when it’s him, it’s such a distinctive meow. It’s almost ghostly sounding, especially if I’m sitting at my desk and he starts meowing to be let out – he always sounds alarmed, and it raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
Last interesting fact about Newt: even though he’s no longer skittish and seems to trust us, he always has this look on his face when we approach him that indicates that he suspects we’re about to torture and then murder him. Seriously, he always looks PETRIFIED. He doesn’t shy away from us or act scared of us, but it’s like that last remnant of wild cat in the back of his brain just KNOWS we’re out to kill him.
For anyone wanting to watch current tv shows on premium channels- check out www.surfthechannel.com. They have uploads of just about every show you can imagine premium and non-premium channels. Thats where I watch Dexter, Weeds, True Blood….
I went back and added this into my entry last week after Lisa posted it in my comments, but I wanted to post it again in case anyone missed it. I think this is AWESOME!
“they may have belonged to the people who sold us this house. I’d love to get my hands on them to at least have them neutered, but the few times they’ve caught sight of me, they’ve run off immediately and ignored my calls.” The DOGS, right? although I’m guessin’ that the previous owners could use it hehehehe
Yeah, the dogs. Although if neutering stopped people from abandoning animals…
(Would you believe I actually proofread that entry? I rarely do, which is probably obvious!)
I had to watch it a couple of times to be sure, but I am almost positive that that is not a spider at the end of the video. I think it may be a camel cricket/spider cricket/cave cricket. They get into my garage every fall and hide behind things on the wall. I HATE THEM WITH EVERY BONE IN MY BODY! You can probably hear me for miles screaming like a ninja and slamming my broom down on the floor to kill them. SHUUDDER….
Yeah, that’s a cave cricket. I hate cave crickets because they look like a cricket/ spider hybrid to me, and they are CREEPY. You don’t want to come down here and visit us in the summer, that’s for sure – when Fred would go outside at bedtime to go to the garage, there’d be hundreds of them popping around near the stairs to the side door. There’s a bird feeder hanging there, and the cave crickets were eating the fallen bird seed.
On the up side, chickens really like eating cave crickets, so Fred would catch one and toss it in the brooder then watch one of the chicks snatch it up and run around with it.
The next time you are buying a ton of cat stuff and someone asks you how many cats you have, tell them none and then just stare at them…..
and
My husband’s answer: “How many do you need?”
and
Next time someone asks, just say, “Well, I foster cats and kittens while they’re waiting for adoptive homes, so right now I have [number].” They don’t need to know that none, or very few, of that [number] are fosters… and the “so” could mean “if I had fosters right now there’d be more” just as easily as it could mean “if I didn’t have fosters right now there’d be less.” (Fewer?)
and
you could finish up the answer of “None,” with “haven’t you tried the turkey and giblets dinner? It’s delicious on a Ritz.” 🙂
All very good answers, especially if you follow up the “None” with a puzzled look like they’re weird for asking. Also, I know that last comment was a joke, but I have to say, if I were starving to death there’d be worse things to eat than Fancy Feast Medleys. Some of that stuff looks really good! (No, I’ve never eaten canned cat food and I don’t plan to start. I’m just saying!)
We just got a kitten a few weeks ago, and this is my first cat. He is adorable and teeny and I blame my weakness entirely on you, but he’s cute so it’s okay! Anyway, he is scratching the hell out of my chenille couches, and I want to get him some softpaws. I just had a few questions, and I hope you don’t mind answering them. First of all, from what google has shown me, declawing is pretty inhumane, correct? Is that complete declawing, or is it okay to remove their front claws? Second of all, if I put softpaws on him, will he still be able to climb up the furniture like he loves to do? It’s part of the way he plays, when he’s “attacking” things, so I am a little nervous about taking that away from him. Finally, do you put the caps on all four feet, just the front, just the back, what? I trust your experience more than the softpaws website so that’s why I figured I’d ask. Also, we have two dogs; one of them just loves him but the other one isn’t very friendly, so that’s another reason I was a little nervous about putting the caps on. He can swat and run away, but is that enough?
Declawing is widely considered to be pretty inhumane, yes – they say it would be like having your fingers removed at the first knuckle.
I think you can put SoftPaws on all four claws, but we only do the front claws, because that’s where most of the damage (furniture-clawing) comes from. The cats can absolutely still climb furniture with Softpaws on – in fact, Tommy and Sugarbutt almost always have SoftPaws on their claws, and if there wasn’t something around the tree in the back yard to prevent it, they’d easily be able to climb the tree; as it is, they climb up the tree to the barrier and just hang there for a surprisingly long time before they drop to the ground and run off. Cats use their back paws for climbing much more than their front. Also, cats can still swat with the SoftPaws on, even if there’s no claw behind it, and I would bet that a swat on the nose with an angry paw would still deter your cat-hatin’ dog.
If you’re planning to use SoftPaws, it’s best to start earlier (so he’s used to having his paws dealt with) rather than later. Oh, and you might not find this information on the SoftPaws site, but I’ve found that when you first start using the SoftPaws, they tend to fall off often (every few days), but if you keep on using them, they stay on longer and longer. I honestly don’t know why that is, whether the cats shed their claws more slowly if they’re not using them, or what, but I know that Tommy had a cap that lasted for close to three months before it came off and had to be replaced.
Don’t know if you’ve seen this or not, but it cracked me UP!!!
I think it’s the voice that really makes that video!
Dangit, I am no good at searching the website. I know you’ve mentioned it two dozen times, but what do you use to get the cat pee stink out? Fortunately (knock on wood) my cats haven’t peed inside, but my sister has a suede couch that her cat has peed on and she is thinking of getting rid of it. I thought the stuff you use might help her save the couch. This stupid couch she loves so much that when I came to visit her she wouldn’t even let me SIT ON IT.
It’s called “Stink Free“, and I got it at P3tSmart. I used to use this stuff called Axi-Dent (which you can only find online), but Stink Free works just as well – it’s been months since I first used it on our couch, and there’s been no reappearance of the smell. The Stink Free itself has a light, pleasant smell (it kind of smells like laundry detergent) that eventually goes away. I highly recommend it!
When I read that Fred had started “fencing in the back forty,” I pictured him all in white with a face mask, En Garde-ing all over the place. I’m a dope, I know.
Oh, I’m sure that’s the next thing! Heh.
I can’t say enough how great y’all are doing with Crooked Acres. The layout, everything , and you did it yourselves! I love hawks but it’s one of those love/hate relationships. They’re beautiful but they can be lethal.
Thank you! Although, we’re working on moving our chickens for the third time in less than two years, so maybe we should have thought about the layout a little more!
I think hawks are gorgeous and I love watching them soar, I just don’t want the bastards to get hold of our chickens!
Is a Roomba pointless if I have wall-to-wall carpet?
I think – and the rest of you Roomba owners can feel free to jump in here – that it depends on the kind of carpet. If it’s Berber or relatively low-pile, the Roomba works well on it. I have a low-pile rug in my bedroom. I run the Roomba in there every so often and it does a great job. If you have the really thick, luxurious stuff, I don’t think the Roomba would work very well, though.
Roomba can talk? Seriously? Our little Roomba seems broken. It is on an scheduler and when it turns itself on, it undocks…goes 3 feet, turns red and returns to the base. I am guessing the battery pack has essentially died. But I have never, ever heard it talking! And there have been many times where it gets stuck, lost, or just plain fails to dock. Must be a newer version. And yes, it would scare the crap out of me to hear a voice in another room if I were home “alone” with a bazillion cats.
Mine is the Roomba 560. Usually it doesn’t talk to (bellow at) me, though if it’s in the middle of vacuuming it might stop, making a sad sound, and when I hit the button to try to get it to go again, it’ll tell me what the problem is (“Please remove and clean Roomba’s brushes!” or “Please clean Roomba’s cliff sensors!”)
By the way, my favorite sound the Roomba makes is when I put it on the dock and it makes that happy “I’m recharging!” sound.
Didn’t you have an actual name for your Roomba – like Maria? I remember it cracked me up when you’d call her by her name. Please remind me.
Lupe! I named her after the housekeeper on Arrested Development.
Does anyone else find it highly amusing that Robyn is feeding the chickens scrambled eggs? ANYONE?
We used to feed them chicken, too, when we were still eating chicken from the store. Now that we’re eating our own chicken (and let me point out here that we don’t eat nearly as much chicken as we used to!), I refuse to feed leftover chicken scraps to the chickens, just because the idea weirds me out. The pigs get THOSE leftovers.
I keep hoping that you and Fred will decide to keep Kara. I think that it’s different when fostering kittens, but an adult cat might think she’s found her forever home, so I’m going to keep hoping that you’ll keep Kara. She’s entertainment, too, as she’ll lay the smack down on any cat who gets out of line. She’d be the Regulator! You NEED a Regulator!!
I know, I felt horrible leaving her at P3tSmart yesterday. And I did hint around about it a few times when talking to Fred, but the truth is that we’ve really hit our limit with nine cats. Our nine permanent cats work fairly well together (with occasional moments of assholery), and adding Kara to the mix even for a few months put them off-balance. Last night, Stinkerbelle was almost giddy that Kara wasn’t around – she raced around, she played, she sharpened her claws on the cat tree. I know that Kara will find a good home with someone who loves her whole-heartedly.
We did miss her last night and this morning, though. Along with being the Regulator, her job was apparently that of the Upstairs Greeter – it was strange to go upstairs and not have her at the top of the stairs to greet me.
Robyn, everybody knows you shoot at hawks with a SHOTGUN! 😉 You need a spray pattern, not a single bullet! Ha ha ha.
Uh huh. ‘Cause I’m a gun and rifle expert, you know. Heh.
Here’s a gun story for y’all: earlier this week a hawk kept coming back and swooping through the chicken yard and freaking the chickens (and me!) out. I was bitching about it (via email) to Fred, and he said I should go out with a gun and fire it into the ground, that hawks will understand the noise and it will chase them away. And though I’ve handled and fired guns before, I have a healthy respect for them, and I refused to do it, because I just knew that I’d attempt to fire the gun into the ground and end up shooting my foot, a chicken, or a passerby because that’s just how my life goes!
I have never heard of an assassin bug. Wonder if they are a southern thing. I live in Indiana and I have never seen one here that I can remember. Saturday I was out in the yard and felt something crawling up my leg and it was a praying mantis. I looked at it and said “Hey, I am not a tree or a bush” I got it off my leg and put it in the bush beside the porch. It had a huge stomach so I am thinking it was getting ready to lay eggs. Do you know if this is the time of year for them to do that and the eggs lay dormant until Spring?
I had never heard of them before this year, either. The juvenile ones look a lot like praying mantii (?) to me and the bigger ones kind of resemble shield bugs to me.
According to Wikipedia, the mating season for praying mantii in temperate climates is in the Fall, but it doesn’t say whether the eggs lay dormant ’til Spring. It seems like they would, but I don’t know for sure! Anyone out there know?
I was wondering, has Maxi been chasing the chicks anymore? Since Newt is the mighty mighty hunter, it is surprising that he has left them alone. *knocks on wood* Good boy Newtles! Be a good boy and leave the chickies alone.
We actually moved them to the little coop in the chicken yard so they’re not as accessible to her, but they’re also bigger now, too. So she hasn’t been showing too much interest in them, thank god, and hopefully they’re big enough that she’s not really interested any more.
When I got home from running errands the other day, she came running across the driveway with something small in her mouth. It was squeaking, and at first glance I thought it was a hummingbird.
“Miss Momma!” I gasped. “Bad!”
So she dropped it, and that’s when I realized it was a little mouse. It tried running away from her, but was clearly badly injured – I think probably its back was broken – so I said “Carry on”, and she snatched it up and ran off with it.
Circle of life, don’tchaknow.
Newt has shown little interest in the chicks, but he’s such a mighty, mighty hunter that I think he prefers something with a little challenge to it.
You can set up your site the way you want, but don’t most people who visit Bitchypoo do so in order to hear about your life with your cats? I know I do. The more cats the better! I don’t get tired of the photos either. If I did, I wouldn’t bookmark your site. Anyway …
Would you believe that I have readers who don’t care for cats at all? In any case, the main reason for my starting up Love & Hisses is that I wanted to have all my foster entries in one place so that if I wanted to remember at what point, for instance, Maddy started eating solid food, I wouldn’t have to wade through all the non-cat entries to find that out (of course, before that happens, I also have to get all those foster kitten entries copied & pasted, too!). I also wanted to have a G-rated place (okay, PG? Maybe PG-13?!) for people to see pictures of our foster cats and information about them without having to wade through the “Fuckity fuckity FUCK FUCK FUCK!” stuff.
By the way, while I was working on setting up Love & Hisses, the tagline in the title bar was “Love & Hisses: Your source for the sweetest pussy on the internet.” (I changed it, though. See above about trying to keep it PG-rated.)
Are there any restrictions there on pet ownership? Here we are not supposed to have more than 5 cats and/or dogs total. Not sure why but when it is discovered that you have more it is enforced.
Luckily, there are no restrictions at all! I worry that our little town will be annexed by Closeville and restrictions will be imposed, but even if that happened (I don’t think Closeville is really interested in annexation of Smallville), I’m hoping our animals would be grandfathered in.
I make quiche all the time sans crust. At this point my preferred method is to make it in nonstick mini pie pans, for portability and portion control, but in general I advise using a nonstick cake or loaf pan – it pops right out, and it makes the outside of the quiche tough enough to hold together but not inedibly hard. Glass or porcelain don’t work as well, no matter how much you grease it. I like cheddar, bacon, and salad shrimp quiche the best.
Cheddar, bacon, and shrimp quiche sounds like HEAVEN to me. I really like the idea of using mini pie pans for single-serving quiches, I’m going to have to give that a try!
Do the pigs ever get sick from food that you give them? Sounds like they’ll eat just about anything!
So far, they’ve never gotten sick from anything we’ve given them – I hear that pigs have cast-iron stomachs and you can really give them just about anything and they’ll eat it. At this point, the only things we’ve given them that they absolutely refuse to eat are raw carrots (they sat there for days before Fred scooped them up and tossed them on the compost heap) and raw okra. Everything else, they eat. They have their favorites, of course, and sometimes stuff will sit there for a while before they eat it, but usually everything gets eaten eventually.
OMG keep the Newtles pictures coming. so cute. Do you think he’d like a california vacation?
I think Newt needs to visit California and go surfing!
Does the ‘troll under the stairs’ ever reach out to swat at unsuspecting feet? And is there video of that?!
No, there’s never any swatting from the troll. She’s a benevolent troll – unless one of the other cats gets all up in her space (which Joe Bob and Mister Boogers like to do), in which case there’s a lot of hissing and growling. The troll under the stairs needs her space!
I’ve heard that cats, who have had multiple UTIs, can actually develop thick walls in their urinary tract. This can cause multiple infections. One of my co-workers started her cat on glucosamine supplements along with antibiotics per her vet’s instructions to help with this. She says her cat is doing really well. This is only something I’ve heard secondhand, but it does sound interesting.
I’ll have to check with our vet about that – it certainly does sound interesting! If glucosamine supplements meant that Joe wouldn’t have to deal with UTIs, I’m all for it!
Do you think Fred might like the girl pigs better if you put lipstick on them?
You betcha!
Spanky has a box. But not just ANY box, a PRIORITY box.
This pleases him.
Previously
2007: “Because you’re a spineless, self-indulgent, self-absorbed narcissist, DUH.”
2006: As of today, I’ve been journaling for seven years.
2005: What I’m not going to miss is the rotten-egg gas Sugarbutt’s been suffering from lately.
2004: Off to Myrtle Beach.
2003: Instead, we should probably go for “Shizzle M. Andersizzle.”
2002: Why I journal.
2001: No entry.
2000: Okay, enough of that mushy crap.
1999: So. Welcome to my journal.