Month: June 2010

From Jess in Bedford, Texas:

I found a stray calico cat a couple months back and brought her home, unknowingly she was pregnant. I found out too late for a procedure and have hand raised the kittens in an attempt to get them into a better home.

I’ve tried freecycle, no kill shelters and even the people who work with petsmart but everyone is full here and I just feel sick about the thought of taking healthy friendly kittens to the shelter.

Edited to add: HOLY COW, THEY’VE BEEN ADOPTED! AND they’re all going to the same home! That was fast! Thank you, Grace, who passed the message along to Angie, who’s adopting them.

I love the internet. 🙂

George is a female.
George is my fearless wanderer..
she’s the first out of the box and into the new areas of the house.

Snip is a male.
Snip is more quiet and laid back than the others..
but he likes to be held and petted when things are calm.

Ollie is a male.
He’s the biggest, and he’s the most gentle..my eldest son wraps him up in his
linus blanket and carries him around like a baby and Ollie loves it. Ollie
just adores being played with. He’ll hang around my son and drape
himself across his lap for attention so I just let them play…so long
as Ollie doesn’t act like he minds I figure that they are doing fine.

If you or someone you know is in the Bedford/ Fort Worth, Texas area and are interested in adopted one (or two…or all three?) of these sweet kittens, please let me know ( mizrobyn AT gmail DOT com) and I’ll pass your email along to Jess.

I’m probably a day late and a dollar short in mentioning this – no doubt y’all already know this – but Amy let me know that there’s a recall of Iams canned cat and kitten food due to low thiamine levels. You can find out more information here.

Remember the feral family of bobtails that SNAP needed funding for so that they could spay/ neuter and relocate them?

I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the Grant bobtails. They have all been trapped, treated, fixed and gone to their new barns! There were 5 girls and 2 boys so you can imagine the kittens we saved in the long run! Thanks so much to all of you!!!!!

How amazing is that?! Thank you so much to everyone who donated, who spread the word, and who sent good thoughts for these cats. Because of you there are 5 girl kitties who won’t be bringing more kittens into the world!

Thank you to the wonderful Katie, who created this button to help spread the word about Simon, Sammy and Joey!

By the side door lives a container of cheap cat food. I keep it there to refill the food bowl on the side stoop which feeds the occasional stray who comes around (okay, and Maxi and Newt partake as well, occasionally). The Bookworms are OBSESSED with this container, and every time they hear me getting a scoop of food to put out there, they come running like a herd of elephants.

Yesterday, Bolitar got to the container while I was in the process of scooping, and without hesitation, well, you’ll see what happened.

::NOMNOMNOM::

You better believe I make sure that container is latched and locked at all times!

::thlurp:: “I bet it’s almost Snackin’! Time!”

“Hey Sheila, don’t you think it’s about Snackin’! Time!?”

“Lady, where my snack?”

I’m always trying to get a good picture to show the size difference between Jake and Elwood. Elwood is HUGE and Jake is pretty small.

Elwood on the left, Jake on the right.

Last weekend, one of the other cats dug up a mole in the back yard (Fred said last night “I feel like moles are the bane of my existence!”) and then Elwood took it away from whoever caught it (or whoever caught it got bored and abandoned it, is the more likely scenario) and was playing with it. Jake decided HE wanted the mole, but Elwood wouldn’t give it up.

This was Jake’s solution.

“Give me the mole!”
“No!”

“GIVE me the mole!”
“No! It’s mine!”

“GIVE ME THE MOLE!”
“NO!”

“I will stand here and bite your neck until you give me the mole!”
“Fine by me! I’m not giving it up!”

“Mooooom! Elwood’s got a mole and he won’t SHARE!”

(Eventually they both got bored and wandered off without the mole.)

Previously
2009: Then we had dessert.
2008: Something about the nickname “Angry Eyes” just makes me laugh and laugh.
2007: No entry.
2006: Anatomy of a Snooze
2005: This is the story of how my husband is a fucker.
2004: As you can imagine, I’m in a REALLY good mood.
2003: After much persuasion, he confessed that he’d seen the movie ratings poster on the wall and thought there was going to be a movie about the ratings system.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: When I think about the incredibly stupid things I did as a teen, it makes me cringe.

You know what I don’t quite understand? Why people keep saying that Bethenny from The Real Housewives of NYC hasn’t forgiven Jill and that she’s being petty for not having forgiven her. As I see it, Bethenny has forgiven Jill just fine – perhaps she hasn’t said the exact words “I forgive you”, but I believe she’s displayed via her words and actions that she holds no ill will toward Jill (poet! Knowit!). Is it because she prefers to not have Jill in her life? Does accepting an apology obligate Bethenny to be friends again with Jill to “prove” that she’s forgiven her?

I watched Bethenny’s new show on Thursday – I’m a Bethenny fan, but I don’t care for the title of the show, it’s goofy; will they call the second season “Bethenny Still Married?” or “Bethenny Having Another Kid Despite Her Past Protests to the Contrary?”? – and I liked it. There was no manufactured over-the-top drama, and it was interesting to see more of her life and to learn more about her.

Jill must be grinding her teeth to tiny little nubs at the idea that Bethenny’s doing well without her. When Bethenny says of Jill “I wish you the best”, I believe it. When Jill says the same of Bethenny, I don’t.

Next to the NYC ladies, the Jersey ladies are total snoresville this season thus far.

Money can’t buy you cla-ass.

(That fucking song has been bouncing around in my head since Friday. GAH. Last night I sang “I’ma kick you in the a-ass. Snackin’! Time! is EARNED, mah friends. Snackin’! Time! is EARNED, oh yeah.” to the cats.)

I’m a total lemming when it comes to stain and odor removal stuff. I really like the stuff I’m currently using for cat pee (Out!), but when someone mentioned how much they liked Bac-Out Stain and Odor Eliminator, I had to go look it up and see what the general consensus was.

The general consensus was that it’s the best thing since sliced bread. While I was looking around for information about it, I stumbled across the directions for using it:

For Pet Stains & Odors: Remove excess waste, spray Bac-Out directly on stain, let sit for 5 minutes or more, blot (never rub) with dry rage, reapply and leave on. Repeat process if needed.

When I find cat pee somewhere in the house where it ought not to be, believe me – I have plenty of dry rage to go around. Blotting up the Bac-Out with some dry rage should be NO problem at all.

(I amuse myself far too much, I know.)

Yesterday I started clearing out the brush and gone-wild wisteria that had grown up between the two trees next to the wood shed, just meaning to clean it up a little so you could walk by those trees without having to weave and duck to get through that area. By the time I was done an hour later, I had hacked back just about everything but the two trees.

I discovered a broken glass bowl, a canning jar, and a plastic bag, beneath which was a large colony of ants. When I moved the plastic bag, ants started swarming everywhere, frantically carrying ant eggs in a desperate attempt to save the baby ants (or baby queens or whatever the hell are in those eggs). I’ve had some decent success killing off ant colonies with diatomaceous earth, so I intended to sprinkle some before I came into the house, but completely forgot. Knowing my luck, I’ll go out there tomorrow and find that they’ve completely taken up residence in the wood shed.

I got my raised bed of catnip planted, finally, because my get up and go is never anywhere to be found in early Spring, when all the planting should be done. It only moseys onto the scene when it’s way past time to plant stuff from seed. I had five packets of catnip seeds and I planted every damn last one of them. We’ll see if they even bother to grow or if I’ll have to get my ass in gear next year and plant earlier.

The tomato plants that are in two raised beds (the 4th raised bed is an herb garden, and those herbs are not happy campers) are doing well. I ended up transplanting four volunteers from the big garden, and bought a Better Boy plant and a Big Beef (heh) plant from Lowe’s. They’re very happy and lush and green and are finally giving me some flowers, so I’m hoping they’ll give me tomatoes soon.

This Fall I’m going to try my hand at growing carrots and cabbage in the raised beds. We’ve had no luck growing those in the big garden, but hopefully the raised beds will be different. Fingers crossed, ’cause I love me some carrots!

Franco does his best to look innocent.

::SIGH:: “There’s nothing to DO! I’m borrrrrrrrrred.”

Pardon the blur, but the look on Garrity’s face is KILLING ME.

“What WAS that pink feathery thing?!”

Sheila’s SO calling this one in. She’s all “Oh, ow, you’re right, you’re the biggest and the strongest. Oh, ow, you’re hurting me. You are totally the boss, yeah, yeah. Hmmm… how long has it been since I painted the ceiling, anyway?”

::CHOMP::

“What?”

Rough life, boys.

Corbett and Rhyme. They sound like a couple of detectives, don’t they? “No one’s solved the case of the missing catnip yet?! Someone call Corbett and Rhyme!”

“Hallo, laydeez!”

Despite appearances to the contrary in this picture, Miz Poo DOES have a chin. I swear it!

Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: Which reminds me, last time I had a sit-down with The Lord, The Lord informed me that doing what might lead to business on Sunday is FORBIDDEN, but abandoning as many of His Creatures to be hit by cars and lay dying on the side of the road, or as possible is A-OfuckingK with Him! It’s in the Bible!
2006: Not to mention that I woke up three separate times with my tongue COMPLETELY DRY.
2005: Due to Poop Watch version 2.0, there is no entry for today.
2004: Damn weather!
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: It’s the wild monkey sex, I must confess.
2000: “It’s NOT a cult, Mom!”

You’d think I’d have gotten all sorts of things accomplished on my week off from journaling, wouldn’t you?

Not so much.

I did some gardening, I got one of the raised beds planted with herbs, I filled the last raised bed with soil and nagged Fred to put a fence around it (which he did yesterday, in a jury-rigged sort of way), I organized a few closets, canned a few things, spent some quality time with the chickens.

You know – all the stuff I usually do, only last week I didn’t write about it.

Trust me, you missed nothin’.

You might have missed Friday’s entry, actually, wherein I reported about the kitten who showed up in the culvert at the edge of our property. Actually, that describes the incident perfectly, so you don’t have to go back and read the entry. Unless you’re dying to, I guess.

Things I intended to accomplish last week and did not: organizing the garage, organizing the clothes storage thing in my bedroom*, polyurethane-ing the pantry doors, sweeping all the dead bugs up from the upstairs in the garage, getting the wood shed (which doubles as a garden tool repository) organized, doing SOMETHING about the front flower beds. I’m sure there’s more (scrubbing down all the baseboards), but I can’t think of them at the moment.

I did manage to go out to the chicken yards and sprinkle diatomaceous earth in the coops, around the coops, and in the pig yard in an attempt to do away with some of the staggering number of flies. The flies this year are horrendous. The diatomaceous earth might have made a difference for a couple of days, but they were back in full force by Friday. I got some of those fly traps at Lowe’s and set them up, but I don’t know how much of a difference those will make.

Fucking flies.

(I know about the trick where you fill a plastic bag with water and hang it in the sun and it confuses the flies and makes them commit suicide. I’ve tried that – it didn’t work for us. Maybe our flies are smarter than the average fly?)

Are my tomatoes ever going to ripen? For the love of god, I NEEDS ME SOME TOMATOES.

The cucumbers have started coming in. The crookneck squash and zucchini and green beans are coming in nicely, too. I’ve blanched and frozen 16 pounds of green beans – my goal is to freeze 40 pounds before the plants stop producing. Yesterday I went down the row of okra and thinned out the plants. There were far too many of them, and they were way too close to each other. I must have yanked up about 150 plants, and we have 28 plants left. We’ll still end up with far too much okra, since a single serving a year is plenty of okra for me.

Last night for dinner I didn’t feel like cooking (trick statement! I NEVER “feel like” cooking.) so I had half a bagel with cream cheese and slices of cucumber, and raw yellow squash on the side. Despite the humidity (which is kicking my ass), I love this time of year.

*For someone who literally wears the same five outfits over and over again, you’d think I’d need maybe half a shelf for my clothes. Not so much – I have way too many damn clothes, even after I went through my closet and got rid of a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I know, wahhh, these diamond shoes are hurting my feet, woe is me.

PLEASE TO BE PAYING ATTENTION. THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM RHYME.

Dear Peoples of the Internets:

Please to be telling your cats of this very important change in the rules. This is VERY IMPORTANT, and all members of the feline persuasion must follow these instructions very carefully in the future or FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.

When you have the horrible runny poopies that makes the Momma Lady (or perhaps you have a Daddy Man, I’m not judging you) despair, this is what you must do:

First you gets into the litter box, and you digs. You digs and digs and digs, and then when you think you might be done digging, you digs some more. There is no such thing as too much diggings. If you want to get fancy, you can start to get into poopin’ position and then decide to do more diggings.

When you has gotten the desire for diggings out of your system, you gets into the hole that you has dug. Now, VERY IMPORTANT, you must have your back feets at the lowest part of the hole you dug. SUPER IMPORTANT, this point.

Then you poops. You knows how to do that. Hopefully. ‘Cause Rhyme ain’t coming to lick your behind to get you to poops. If you were wondering.

So then, because you is standing at the lowest point of the hole, the horrible runny despair-inducing poops will run down into the hole.

Because your Momma Lady (or Daddy Man) has been standing there because she thinks it is somehow her (or his) business what your poops look like (perhaps the Momma Lady/ Daddy Man needs to get a life), she will react by perhaps gasping or saying “Oh no!” and she will lean down to gently lift you from the poopin’ box before you gets poops all over your feet.

But it will be too late.

PLEASE TO BE PAYING ATTENTION THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT PART OF RUNNY POOP RITUAL.

You will have runny poops on your back feet and if you have done this correctly you will have LITTER-ENCRUSTED runny poops on your back feet. As your Momma Lady (Daddy Man) lifts you, you must wait until your back feets is above the level of the poopin’ box. And then you must call upon all your acting skills. You must look all wide-eyed like you are thinking “Le gasp! I has something on my back feets! Kitteh cannot have something on his back feets!” and with all your strength you must SHAKE first one back feet and then the OTHER back feet, so that litter-encrusted poops goes flying EVERYWHERE.

“GAH!” your Momma Lady (Daddy Man) will say. “GAH! AGH! AHHHHH!”

Now quick like a bunny, shake BOTH OF THEM FEETS AT THE SAME TIME. More poopins will go flying! All over the place! The point is to get as much poopy litter to cover as much of the room as possible!

If your parental figure is anything like mine, there will be many very bad words flying around in the air.

Now wriggle! WRIGGLE WRIGGLE WRIGGLE so that you cannot be contained and must be put down. And then run. RUN! RUN LIKE THE WIND! Get as much runny poop smeared all over the floor as you can before she comes to her (his) senses and grabs you by your scruff to contain you.

(Ugh, the scruff. SO UNDIGNIFIED, being contained by my scruff!)

Now, I is sorry to tells you that you has to suffer through the final act of the Runny Poop Chronicles when your Momma Lady/ Daddy Man gets out the gentle baby body wash and washes your feet and back end and anywhere else the poop might have gone. It cannot be helped – you just has to suffer through it. Practice your sad face, and it will make them feel bad.

(But they might use more very bad words when they walk around cleaning up all the poop smears you left behind. Serves them right, I say.)

Sincerely with love and is it Snackin’! Time! yet?,

Rhymbus T. Bookworm

Lieu is fitting in quite nicely in the Rescuees’ room. At first he was a little skittish and scared of them and of me, but he came around pretty quickly. By yesterday, any time I went into the room he’d crowd around my feet with the rest of his new litter, howling for love and kisses and snacks.

He’s got a tiny crush on Sheila. He seems to always be near wherever she is, and he ADORES playing with her tail. She puts up with him for a while, then puts the smack down. I’ve seen him play-fighting with all the other Rescuees.

When I’m laying on the floor, he loves to come over and butt his head against mine, then flop down for a belly rub. Such a sweet little guy, that Lieu.

Look at him, all appalled. “WHAT are they doing?!”

Trying to figure out what’s going on.

Keeping an eye on the feather toy.

Keepin’ clean.

“Hey. Who’s the NEW GUY?”

“I don’t like him. He’s not quite buff, he’s not quite orange. He’s indefinable, and I DON’T LIKE IT.”

Garrity likes him. Garrity likes everyone.

Maxi would like you to know it’s not the heat. It’s the humidity.

Previously
2009: Brian graduates.
2008: No entry.
2007: “UGH. I HAVE A DEAD BIRD IN MY HOUSE AND I TOUCHED IT!”
2006: Do I know how to live large, or what?
2005: It took me a minute to get it. Duh.
2004: Have I mentioned that I have a big ol’ crush on Roland? Yeah. There’s me, being geeky again…
2003: Still no Fancypants.
2002: Well, did you feel the earth crack open?
2001: I guess not everyone is as much a wimp as I.
2000: I feel like I spent all day running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off and got nothing accomplished.

This blog hiatus briefly interrupted for reasons that will become clear as you read.

Wednesday evening, I was going around the house gathering up trash (Thursdays are garbage day here – mark your calendars with that fascinating bit of info!) and Fred came rushing into the house.

“There’s a kitten!” he said.

“What? Where?!”

“In the culvert under the road!”

I dropped the bag of trash I was holding and went out the door. He was behind me a moment later with two flashlights in hand. As we approached the ditch at the side of our property I could hear the very loud meows of a scared kitten. Fred went to the mouth of the culvert, leaned down, and looked in.

“Can you see him?” I asked.

“No, the culvert kind of bends. I’m going to go to the other side of the road.”

As he headed across the road, I fought my way down to the mouth of the culvert.

(That thing is so overgrown. SOMEONE ought to do something about that, don’t you think? I took MY turn three years ago, I think it’s Fred’s turn!)

I got onto my knees and looked in, and as I did, Fred leaned down at the other end of the culvert and we both shone our flashlights into the culvert to see one scared looking little kitten. Every time a car went over the culvert, the poor thing howled louder. And then he’d occasionally howl just to let us know he was scared.

He had one loud voice, that kitten.

I called, but the kitten just sat there and howled.

Fred tossed pebbles at the kitten in an attempt to scare him into running out my end of the culvert. The kitten just sat there and howled.

I was starting to worry that he’d been hit by a car and dragged himself into the culvert and was laying there, paralyzed.

“Would water work?” Fred suggested. I told him I thought it couldn’t hurt, so he went to the house, and I stayed and talked and called to the kitten. I wanted and was willing to crawl in to get him if need be, but I had a mental image of getting to the kitten, grabbing him, and then getting stuck. The fire department would have to come out and tie something to my feet to drag me out.

Ten bucks says I would have made the news if that had happened.

He came back with a bucket of water, and dumped it into the culvert. The kitten gave me a look like “Really? My life’s not hard enough, now you’re going to drown me?”, howled even louder, and then finally ran toward me.

So, meet Lieu.

(“Lieu” is short for “Lieutenant” – we couldn’t think of a better “Rescue Me” name, although Fred suggested “Probie.”)

I’m guesstimating him to be around the age of the Rescuees, and since he tested negative yesterday morning at the vet (THANK GOD), he’s joining the Rescuee litter. I introduced him to the rest of the litter, and there’s been some hissing and smacking, but overall it’s going well.

He’s a perfectly healthy kitten. He had a couple of fleas on him, but otherwise he’s fine. He wasn’t starving, not skin and bones.

What I’m saying is that there is NO WAY this kitten wandered off from a feral litter. He’s scared and a little skittish, but he’s not feral. Fred talked to some neighbors, and learned that the corner across the street from our house is a place where cats and dogs are often dropped off. There’s a big field across the street, and I’m sure idiots believe the animal they’re abandoning will run free and happy and live long lives. Instead of, you know, wandering out in the road to be hit or out into the field to starve to death or be attacked and killed by predators.

I won’t go off into a rant, though (too late!), I’ll just tell you that Lieu and the rest of the Rescuees are off to be spayed and neutered next Thursday!

Mocking the Fresh Step cat. “Do I look vapid enough?”

Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m back on hiatus ’til Monday. I have kittens to snuggle, y’know!

Previously
2009: Hello from RI!
2008: (PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AND IF YOU TAKE ANY KIND OF MEDICAL ADVICE FROM ME WITHOUT CONSULTING, AT THE VERY LEAST, DOCTOR GOOGLE, IT IS NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY. THOUGH IF YOU’D LIKE TO SUE ME FOR A CHICKEN, FEEL FREE.)
2007: I was cross and felt at loose ends yesterday.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: WAS IT REALLY FUCKING NECESSARY TO CLOSE THE POST OFFICE ALL DAY TODAY?
2003: Fancypants goes missing.
2002: Look! It’s PMSing South Park Robyn!
2001: Poor people are so funny, aren’t they?
2000: No entry.

I’m taking the rest of the week off from journaling. EVERYTHING IS FINE, I just need a week to catch up on stuff around here. Or be lazy. One or the other. 🙂

Some links for you to check out if you’re in the mood to help some poor kitties. I was going to say that the need is strong this time of year, but honestly the need is strong all times of year.

The sweet kitty with the eye issue in NC still needs a home.

There are three cats here in North Alabama whose owner died and are desperately in need of a home. They’re scaredy-cats and will take some time, love, and lots of attention – go read about them here.

SNAP is trying to raise funds to spay and neuter a family of bobtail cats.

Last but certainly not least, meet Hope. There’s so much to sweet Hope’s story that I could never summarize it in a few sentences, so I’m going to just link to her Facebook page and encourage you to go read about this sweet girl yourself.

And from reader Nicole:

Please vote for my friend Sue’s daughter Holly! There can only be one vote/email address. As of June 16th, there will be a run-off of only the top ten in the bid to win a week of volunteering in Africa. Holly keeps moving back and forth between 10th and 11th place. PLEASE HELP 🙂

Vote here.

RIP, Roscoe.

I had hoped, this week, that I’d be able to tell you about the stray cat who showed up suddenly. Who looked like he hadn’t had a good solid meal in a while. Who we started feeding (of course – please, have you MET us?), and who stuck around as a result. Who peed on everything. EVERYTHING. If there’s a single blade of grass, a single inch of our property that he HADN’T peed on, it’s not because he didn’t WANT to pee on it, it’s just that he hadn’t gotten to it yet. He must have had to drink two gallons a day to keep up with the output. An unneutered male, covered in ticks and battle scars. It took time for him to trust us, and the first thing we did was put Frontline on him to kill the ticks and fleas. The second thing we did (after a few days) was to grab him up, toss him into a carrier, and take him off to the vet to be tested, examined, neutered, and vaccinated.

He was on track be another “not ours” cat. Because god knows we don’t have enough of THOSE.

Such a beautiful, sweet, personable boy – of course he tested positive. He was already sick. And for the second time this year I gave the order to euthanise a cat who wasn’t ours.

You know, I’m pissed but I don’t know exactly WHO to be pissed at. He was friendly enough after a while that it was clear he wasn’t feral. He belonged to someone at some point in the past. Did they dump him off in the country assuming that he’d take care of himself? Did he wander off and get lost? Does he belong to someone in the area? Who the fuck knows?

So rest in peace, sweet Roscoe.

(I had him cremated, and we’ll scatter his ashes near the garden. He enjoyed hanging out there.)

RIP, Charlie with the twisted-up toes.

On some farms, if a chick developed twisted-up toes and had to hobble around, they’d put her down immediately. Here at Crooked Acres, if she’s got a funny, sweet face and doesn’t seem to be in pain, we keep her around and make her one of our mascots.

Charlie was two years old (she came with our second batch of chickens in March 2008) and we unfortunately didn’t realize that her toes were all twisted up. I understand there are things you can do to straighten out a chick’s toes before they stay permanently twisted, but we didn’t notice in time.

She was a funny little hen – I know I’ve mentioned that the mother hens in the maternity yard didn’t see her as a threat at all. They weren’t bothered when she was around their babies, they allowed her to sleep in the nesting boxes with them – just Friday night, Fred looked in the blue coop to check on a hen who’s sitting on eggs (due to hatch in another week or so, I think), and Charlie was in the nest box with her, happy as could be.

I won’t go into details, but it became obvious Sunday afternoon that it was Charlie’s time to go, so I said goodbye to her, and Fred put her down.

I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. No, we didn’t eat her. WE DON’T EAT OUR PETS. We talked about burying her under the pecan tree near the garden, where we buried the kittens last July. We talked about burying her where Spot and Mister Boogers lay. But ultimately, Fred buried her in the yard near the blue coop, because that’s where she was the happiest.

Good ol’ Charlie.

Are they not the happiest little monkeys?

Reacher’s eyeliner looks particularly dramatic in this light, no?

Well of course, Bolitar. There are 300 cat beds scattered in various locations through the house, so naturally you’ll want to curl up on the dirty door mat by the back door. (Bolitar loves to watch the other cats come in and go out the cat door, but has never once attempted to go out that door himself. UNLIKE HIS BAD BROTHER.)

“Hey, WHAT’S IN HERE?”

“What’s OVER THERE?”

Such nosy little brats.

Remember how just a couple of weeks ago we were worried because Sheila was clearly not feeling well and she’d lost a few ounces and was at just over a pound? Well, the little miss rallied. Last night she weighed in at just a smidge over two pounds! The boys all weigh well over two pounds, so they’ll be going soon to be spayed and neutered (I’ll give it another week so that Sheila’s not quite so close to the two-pound mark. My scale’s good, but it doesn’t always agree with the vet’s scale. Just like my personal scale doesn’t agree with the doctor’s scale!)

They love this hammock on the cat tree. One of them is always in it when I walk into the room.

“I HAZ A COMPLAINT. I YAM SMART ENOUGH AND DO NOT NEED TO BE TUTORED.”

“I’m smarter than he is. I’ll take no tutoring, thank you.”

“Tutoring…. Hm.”

“I am highly suspicious that you could possibly teach me anything. But I HAVE always wanted to become an Astrophysicist!”

“What? Just hanging out waiting for Jake to come along so I can knock him down and chew on his neck. That’s all, nothing to see, move along now.”

Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: Hey look, it’s been three years since we first met Stinkerbelle! (She was Maryann then.)
2006: Pictures.
2005: She’s a bad influence, that one.
2004: I have faith in you!
2003: Things that sucked.
2002: Here’s the thing. If you get yourself involved with a man you know full well is married, a man who doesn’t file for divorce until 6 months after he’s met and started dating you, then you don’t get to play the victim.
2001: My very first House Anxiety dream!
2000: Ah, world traveler, me.

It is oddly gratifying to say to a medical professional, “I’ve never been the sort of person who bruises easily, but last Monday I weeded the garden, and my arm pressed against the tomato cages a few times, and -” then yank up the sleeve of your shirt to display the result:

(It’s much uglier in person.)

and have the reaction be a pained wince of sympathy rather than a shrug and a “Yeah, we see bruises like that ALL the time.” I got the sympathetic wince from the nurse AND my doctor, thank you very much. Both times, I got to follow up the display of the above arm by saying “Then on Saturday I weeded the rest of the row of tomatoes, and did THIS”, and pull up the other sleeve to show a similarly bruised arm.

I didn’t actually make the appointment so I could show off my bruises. I’d made the appointment a few weeks before when I called and said “If I wanted a referral to an endocrinologist, do I need to come in and see the doctor first?” and of course the answer was “yes.” I had finally decided it was time to stop fucking around with the hormone replacement therapy myself and seek the help of a professional who is not someone who has the “Just slap that goddamn patch on there and shut the fuck up about it” mentality that I suspect my gynecologist has, and decided to start out with my primary care physician since I like her a lot and find her easy to talk to.

She ordered a bunch of blood tests to be done and once the results are back, we’ll decide where to go from there, whether it’s with an endocrinologist or a nurse practitioner she knows who is particularly skilled at figuring out a hormone balance.

Also, she ordered tests to figure out what’s up with the bruising. My prediction is that it’ll end up being either (1) nothing at all, or (2) low iron, because I missed my lab appointment in April (and didn’t realize it until last week) and likely need an iron infusion.

I know what you’re thinking: leukemia. Like that wasn’t the first thing I thought of? Please. I have none of the signs of leukemia and a history of low iron, so probably what it’ll end up being is lung cancer caused by litter dust inhalation.

Have I mentioned I went to the Medical School of Google-ology?

While wandering around the internets last week, I stumbled across this post, and then I laughed and laughed. Because if some woman were hitting on Fred, and her lips hit his ear, he would respond in one of the following ways:

1. Freezing in terror
2. Screaming and then giggling like a 6 year-old because he is ticklish

He would not, as his wife might HOPE, spring away from the offending flirter and bellow “UNHAND ME MADAME, FOR I AM MARRIED AND DEEPLY IN LOVE* AND REQUIRE NOT THE TOUCH OF YOUR WHORISH LIPS TO MY EAR!” and then furiously splash sanitizer about his face and neck.

A few weeks ago, on the way back from the vet, Fred and I stopped at Walgreen’s so he could buy Stridex pads for Spanky’s zitty chin, and… something else. Something for a cat. I don’t remember what. Oh! The Zantac for the kitten to quell her nausea. So he left the car running, and me in the car with the cats in the back, and I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more, and then I hit the “JESUS GODDAMN FUCKING CHRIST IS THIS ROCKET SCIENCE WHAT THE FUCK IS TAKING SO LONG” wall, and I went stomping into Walgreen’s to see what the fuck.

He was meandering up toward the front of the store, his Stridex pads and off-brand Zantac in hand, and I snarled “What the fuck?!” and he mumbled about something being hard to find, and he went to stand in line while I stood and perused the sales flyer. As he reached the front of the line, I went to join him, and the cashier -an adorable college-aged girl – said “Good afternoon! How are you?”

Fred said, “Great! How are you?”**

She smiled hugely and said “Much better now that you’re here!”

And I wanted to laugh out loud, because he froze in terror, and the alarm bells in his head were clanging so loud that I could hear them and his internal alert system was wailing WARNING! WARNING! DANGER! WIFE IS IN VICINITY! WILL MOCK MERCILESSLY! ABORT! ABORT!, and I knew he was THIS close to tossing the boxes of Stridex and Zantac-alike over his head and running for the door.

But he just gave her a strained smile, paid for his purchases, and high-stepped out of there as fast as he could.

*Fred was talking to our next door neighbor last week, and in the course of their conversation she told him that it was clear that he and I are deeply in love. “How can she tell THAT?” I pondered after he’d told me. “Maybe she saw that one time I gave you a hug on the way back from the back forty, before you sprung away from me bellowing ‘NO PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION!'” In any case, it amused both of us for some reason.

**These days when Fred and are somewhere and someone says “Hi, how are you!”, we invariably chorus “Great! How are you?” It’s not a deliberate cutesy-pie thing we do, but I fear that it comes across that way. The other day Fred turned to me and said “You need to find something else to say, COPYCAT.” Also, can I request that we banish the whole “Hi, how are you!” bullshit from strangers? Because honest to christ, they DO NOT TRULY CARE how I am. If I start saying “Oy, my hemorrhoids are killing me!” often enough, will they stop?

Fightin’ Bookworms.

Jake, Reacher, and Corbett snuggle up.

I think all my Bookworms are beautiful, but there’s something about Corbett’s caramel-colored belly and striking dark stripes that appeals to me an awful lot. He’s particularly gorgeous, that one.

It’s just too bad that he’s a BAD BAD BOY. When Fred gets up and gets ready for work, one of his tasks is to put the collars on all the cats who require them, and then open the back door. Recently, we’ve both been finding Corbett outside several times during the course of the morning. We react by flinging open the door and telling him to come inside, and then when he gets inside the door, we spray a blast of compressed air at him to scare him further into the house. He runs into the house, but it isn’t long before he’s back out the door again.

Finally, on Saturday, I came up with a plan. Any time we found Corbett outside, we’d pick him up, put him in the guest bedroom, and give him a “time out” for ten minutes. Oh, how Corbett DOES NOT LIKE being locked in the guest bedroom AT ALL. He would howl and howl at the door, “Let me OUT of here! I want out! Oh, release me from this dungeon with a big, comfy bed and my own litter box and all the food and water I could ever want! Let me out! OUT I SAY!”

We’d steel ourselves against the pitiful howling, and at the ten minute mark (or thereabouts), we’d let him out, and OH the joy on his little face. He’d purr and purr and rub up against us, and follow us wherever we went until we picked him up and reassured him that we loved him.

After three days of time outs, I can report that yesterday, he didn’t even go near the back door. I’m not saying that the problem is over, I’m sure he’ll test us a few more times, but if I can convince him that he wants to stay inside, I’ll worry about him a little less.

Jake went running into the foster room yesterday when I went in to hang out with the Rescuees. Gavin, Garrity, and Franco were mildly interested in Jake, and they sniffed at him. Garrity smacked at Jake’s ears a little.

Sheila, though. Sheila went ::FLOOF!:: and just stood there, in her floofed-up glory, and glared at Jake. Who wasn’t paying any attention to her at all.

Jake hung out with the Rescuees for about fifteen minutes before they overwhelmed him, and he growled at them and asked to be let out of the room.

I think the Rescuees are still a bit too small to let out into General Population just yet, but it won’t be too much longer.

Sheila will be one busy little girl, having to show ALL those big cats just who the boss is!

“I am but a poor wee kitteh!”

“No, I am but a poor wee kitteh!”

“You’re both wrong – I am but a poor wee… Okay. Not even I believe that one. I’m a butt-kicking bad girl, and big kitties cower at the sight of me!”

“I don’t cower at the sight of you, little girl, and you do NOT want to mess with Sheriff Mama!”

Previously
2009: Sights from around Crooked Acres.
2008: I suggest that you expect entries to be incredibly light on content for the foreseeable future.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I need to invest in shirts that are low in the back so I can show off my badass scar.
2003: I’m about to enter the PMS Zone
2002: What I’ve done since Thursday
2001: No entry.
2000: God help me, I’m going to go upstairs and strangle Spanky if he doesn’t stop that infernal fucking howling.

Okay, how about now? Can you see the pictures now??? If not (or they look odd), please let me know.

(And Lori pointed out that the calendar is off – apparently WordPress doesn’t think May has 31 days. I’d explain that, but I have no idea why that is. Very strange!)

Up close and personal with Franco!

“Hello, I am gorgeous.”

Slurping at the water fountain (they LOVE this thing).

“I said NO PAPARAZZI!”

::slurrrrp::

You make kitty scared.

“I can SEE the food, I can SMELL the food, but I cannot GET to the food.”

Inspector Franco inspects.

Franco just kills me with what a sweet little cuddlebug he is. I wondered, when we threw him in with Gavin and Garrity and Sheila, if he’d develop a bond with them. Within a day, he was best friends with Gavin and he spends lots of time snuggling with all three of them. Gavin, Garrity, and Sheila are the fighters, Franco’s the lover.

(Which is not to say that the rest of them don’t enjoy a good snuggle, because they certainly do.)

Sometimes I worry that I’m going to squeeze the stuffing out of Franco, because he just lays there and purrs and purrs when you’re holding him, and he’s so soft and smushy and squeezable. Pardon me while I go grab him up and give him a quick cuddle, would you?

The Bookworms illustrate just how terribly difficult and grueling their sad little lives are.

Honestly, should anyone have to live a horrible existence like this? Save the Bookworms from their torturous lives!

And movies!

First, the Bookworms at almost two months and then at almost three months, playing. If I’d had some footage of them playing now at almost four months, it would have made the movie complete. Oh well.

And secondly, Bolitar likes water; he doesn’t care where it comes from!
Edited to add: That’s Reacher, not Bolitar. I don’t know where my mind was at!

Tommy, keeping an eye on the back yard.

Previously
2009: I think Aunt Jodie and Uncle Kevin are douchebags for giving interviews pretty much to anyone who asks.
2008: I assume if I were on the verge of death, someone would have come running in to save me.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: “I like cheese, just not on a salad.”
2003: Now, how motherfucking stupid does the man think I am?
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

New month, new banner!

I LOVE it – and I am REALLY wanting to go to the beach these days. I can’t seem to convince Fred to run down to Florida for a day or two, though. I’ll just have to keep harassing him, I guess!

Thanks once again to the wonderful Christine!!!

CeraVe lovers, CeraVe products are on sale at Walgreen’s through the 5th. $3 off the cleanser, cream AND lotion. Now’s the time to stock up!

(Thanks to Jean for the heads up!)

I’m uploading my pictures a different way this week – actually using WordPress to do it – so if you guys can’t see the pictures or they look odd to you, please let me know.

Remember how last year I was bitching about those two old ladies digging through the bins at the recycling center, and how I was all “They’re not supposed to take stuff out of the dumpsters! The sign says so!”

Yeah, well.

Someone who looks like me might have spent three hours weeding around the tomato plants last week and decided “Fuck THIS SHIT, I’m putting down newspaper around the tomato plants, because this weeding shit is FOR THE BIRDS.”

Someone who looks like me discovered that when you pay $1.50 for the Sunday paper, you don’t get nearly enough newspaper for that $1.50, and surely there’s a better way to find newspaper to use? Like, FREE newspaper? Somewhere? Ya think?

Someone who looks like me might have convinced her husband to drive by the recycling center.

Someone who looks like me might have been seen at the recycling center, digging through the newspaper bin and pulling out piles of newspaper.

Someone who looks like me might have grabbed as much newspaper as she could reach, tossed it in the back of the truck, and then told her husband to floor it

Someone who looks like me just might have spent a few hours laying newspaper down around the tomato plants.

Not me, though. Nope. I’d never dig newspaper out of the recycling bin. The signs say not to! Wasn’t me, Officer. Just someone who looked like me. Really!

On Saturday, I got up and spent an hour and a half weeding around the tomato plants. I’d done the first half of the row Monday and found it rough going. Fred said, at some point during the week, that the weeds might come up easier if I did it the morning after it had rained.

He was right. Those weeds just about pulled themselves out of the ground when I grabbed them.

I got one of the raised beds set up behind the back yard and then I came inside and took a shower, and washed all the mud off me. I’m not the sort of person who enjoys getting muddy ordinarily – usually I’m like those little kids who have a screaming fit if they get a little spot of mud on them, “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF ME!” – but this time around I kind of enjoyed it.

Later Saturday morning, Fred’s parents came over and brought us all their cat stuff. Their cat Sam died Thursday evening – they knew it was coming, it wasn’t unexpected, but that didn’t break their hearts any less – and they both said that they didn’t want to ever have another cat.

By the time they arrived on Saturday to deliver all their cat stuff to us (carriers, cat beds, left over cat food), Fred’s father had gone from never wanting another cat to not wanting another cat for a couple of years.

I’m still a little surprised that they left without any kittens, to be honest. Fred said he should try to convince them to take Franco and Garrity (or “Mini-Tom” and “Mini-Sugarbutt”, as he calls them).

Saturday afternoon, we waited for the rain to arrive (it never did), had Chinese food for dinner, and snoozed on the couch.

Sunday morning we both got up feeling lazy, considered just doing nothing all day, and then ended up going to Walmart to look for soil for the raised beds (there are going to be a total of four raised beds behind the back yard. One’s got three volunteer tomatoes transplanted from the garden, one will be catnip, one will be other herbs, and I’m not sure what I want to plant in the fourth bed, but I’m thinking I better figure it out soon.) As we were walking through Walmart looking for a mug for Fred to use at work, this couple came up behind us, and I was pretty sure for a moment that they were going to walk directly up my asshole. I had to duck into a side aisle to lose them.

Fred has no patience for Walmart at the best of times, and not being able to find inexpensive topsoil for the raised beds OR a mug for work (he wants a 20 oz. Bubba Keg mug to replace the one that’s falling apart) OR whatever the third thing we wanted to buy (I don’t remember what the hell it was) just confirmed his hatred for the place, and he requested that we “Get the fuck out of this shithole right now, please.”

We left Walmart and went to Publix to pick up a few things for his lunch, and then headed to Lowe’s. We had a list of stuff to get, and he headed one way to get his stuff, and I headed the other to get my stuff, and then we met up and went into the garden section so he could look for a tree to replace the apple tree that had died. Not only did he get his apple tree, we also ended up buying a Key Lime tree and a Satsuma Orange tree because they were on sale for an amazing price.

Later that afternoon, we went back to Lowe’s and got a Kumquat tree and a Tangerine tree. They’re all rated to 20ºF, so maybe they’ll live through the winter. If they don’t, it’s not like we lost a fortune – it’s worth the gamble, as far as I’m concerned.

(Now, if we could just find a mini lemon tree that we could bring inside the garage for the winter, I’d be happy!)

Monday morning we were originally planning to go up to the flea market in Tennessee. They have the flea market every weekend, but Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekends they’re four days long (they’re regularly only there on Sunday and Monday, the rest of the year) with a lot more vendors there selling their wares. But when we got up, neither of us was really that into the idea, so we opted not to go.

I transplanted three volunteer tomato plants from the garden to one of the raised beds I’d set up on Saturday, then went into the garden and put down newspaper around the tomato plants. I swear, I thought I had more than enough newspaper to do the entire row of tomatoes, but as it turned out, I only had enough for half the row.

I guess SOMEONE will have to go back by the recycling center and steal more newspaper from the bin.

Fred grilled hamburgers and pork steaks and pork chops on the grill, and I made potato salad and coleslaw, and we’ll be eating that stuff for the rest of the week.

We ALSO had our first serving of green beans fresh from the garden. Fred picked enough green beans from the garden that I could boil half of them to have with lunch yesterday, and saved the other half to make green beans Pioneer Woman-style with dinner tonight.

The canned green beans we’ve been eating all year are okay – but they are NOTHING like fresh green beans straight from the garden. I’m surprised there were enough green beans left over to do anything with, because while I was snapping the ends off the beans, I kept showing raw beans into my mouth.

YUM.

The rest of Monday, we did nothing much. Pulled out the dryer because the freakin’ hose keeps coming out of the hole and thus on the rare occasion I put something in the dryer to dry, that whole end of the house becomes super humid and hot. Fred fed the hose back into the hole and then slapped duct tape on that fucker to keep it in place. We’ll see if it works. I did laundry, hung out with kittens, the usual.

I love long, relaxing weekends where we actually get a few things accomplished ’round these parts.

All four in one shot!

Fred leaves his briefcase on top of the chair near the door.
Rhyme thinks it’s a pretty great place to hang out.

Have you ever seen a happier kitten?

Elwood’s all ::slurpslurpslurp::
Corbett’s all ::PURRRRRRR::
Rhyme’s all “I cannot watch this.”

Rhyme. Is he a beautiful kitten, or what?

Corbett and Reacher, fighting.

“Bleh. This mouse tastes funny.”

Sheila’s all “BRING IT ON, SONNY!”

Emo Sheila.

Sheila says “Yeah. Apparently nothing interesting going on up HERE, either.”

“AM TRYING TO SLEEP PLZ LEAVE ALONE THANKYOO.”

Previously
2009: This is why it’s a good thing I’m not licensed to carry a gun.
2008: No entry.
2007: Damn gardeners, always laying down on the job.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: It’s just a good thing the air traffic controller didn’t start talking about the plane’s phalanges.
2003: Anatomy of a Smackdown
2002: No entry.
2001: Lovely ‘do, eh?
2000: I don’t want to sound like a nosy know-it-all.