5/18/11 – Kitteh Wednesday

Last week, Val said: OK – I’m getting sweet Dorothy and Alice confused. Can you please post comparison pictures so I can get them straight in my head!! Sure, twist my arm why don’tcha? šŸ™‚ Dorothy: discovered in our neighbor’s driveway the day after the tornado swept through our area. Sweet little torbie, about 10 … Continue reading “5/18/11 – Kitteh Wednesday”

Last week, Val said:

OK – I’m getting sweet Dorothy and Alice confused. Can you please post comparison pictures so I can get them straight in my head!!

Sure, twist my arm why don’tcha? šŸ™‚

2011-05-18 (1)
Dorothy: discovered in our neighbor’s driveway the day after the tornado swept through our area. Sweet little torbie, about 10 weeks old.

2011-05-18 (10)
Alice: discovered eating from the food bowl on our side porch a few days before Christmas. Evil little calitabby, will be a year old on June 6th.

2011-05-18 (5)
Dorothy: likes to watch the birds through the side door.

2011-05-18 (6)
Alice: ditto.

2011-05-18 (14)
Dorothy: sweet little handful who loves everyone.

2011-05-18 (2)
Alice: more than a handful (I really think she’s going to be close to normal sized rather than the tiny little morsel we originally thought she’d be), and loves her daddy with a passion. If Daddy isn’t around, I’ll do. But really she prefers Fred. O HOW SHE LOVES HIM.

2011-05-18 (4)
Dorothy: Not a permanent resident.

2011-05-18 (12)
Alice: Permanent resident, because no one shall ever tear her away from her beloved Daddy.

2011-05-18 (1)
Dorothy: Inside only.

2011-05-18 (8)

2011-05-18 (9)
Alice: Recently figured out the cat door to the back yard.

2011-05-18 (3)
I had to put this one in here, because I can’t believe Spanky’s putting up with this. They slept together all afternoon!

If I were quick enough with the camera, I’d have a picture here of Dorothy smacking Elwood on the head and then chasing him down the hall. She puts those boys through their paces, and has no fear at all.

Actually, that’s another way Dorothy and Alice are alike: they’re small, but they have NO fear when it comes to the other cats.

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And yesterday, Alice asked: Robyn, I don’t think you ever gave us the full story on Jake and Elwood (or maybe you did and I just can’t remember!). How did those two ever come to you, anyway? They’re so full of character, I just love them. šŸ˜€

In 2009, about six weeks after Mister Boogers died, we spent a Saturday on a road trip up into Tennessee. We were gone until early in the afternoon, and when we got home, we found two gray kittens playing around our side stoop, and a Cool Whip container full of cat food sitting on the steps. We brought them inside, and we got permission from the shelter manager to make them Challenger’s House cats, but it was probably less than 48 hours after we met them that we decided they were staying.

They looked so much like Mister Boogers that Fred was sure they were little troublemakers sent by him from the afterlife to wreak havoc, and of course one cannot look gift demons in the mouth as the fire and brimstone of their breath would singe your eyebrows right off your face.

2009-10-23-09
The day we met them, August 15th, 2009.

I think keeping them was a really good choice on our part, because they make us laugh just about every day.

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2011-05-18-02
“Hallo. I am Macushla. I am not, as That Lady likes to call me, ‘Koosh ball.’ I don’t know what a Koosh ball is, but given the way she snickers at her own wit, I suspect it’s not a compliment.”

2011-05-18-01
“I am very talented, and so I would like to show you my talented tongue. First, the simple slurp move.” ::thlurrrp::

2011-05-18-03
“And then, I can make my tongue very very long. See?”

2011-05-18-04
“Also, wide. Isn’t that a wide tongue? How do I fit it in my mouth? It’s a mystery!”

2011-05-18-05
“Now, NOT wide. It’s like magic, first wide then not wide!”

2011-05-18-08
“Now NO tongue! Where’d it go? I don’t know!”

2011-05-18-06
“Snake tongue!”

2011-05-18-07
::thlurrp:: “Thank you very much. That was my tongue. And I am Macushla. Good day.”

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2011-05-18-Corbie
I lub my Corbie. (Yesterday, Fred was about to leave for work, and Corbie was sitting in the back yard by the fence, and Fred said “Corbie’s very pretty. Look at him, sitting in the sun. No, look! He’s really striking, isn’t he?” and I was like “Have I not been TELLING you this?” Like, DUH. I KNOW how beautiful he is, I’ve been saying it and saying it, right?)

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Previously
2010: I DO NOT LIKE it when they talk shit about each othersā€™ kids.
2009: Joe Bob just kept smiling.
2008: No entry.
2007: Ten.
2006: I walked over to them and threw Cheerios at them, and they looked at me as if I were mentally disturbed.
2005: Which he proved by dancing lightly about the room once Iā€™d said we should just stay home.
2004: He asked questions, he really listened to the answers, and he was just really a nice guy.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Sheā€™s obviously picked up her motherā€™s bad attitude.
2000: My day in pictures.

5/17/11 – Tuesday

After almost two months of owning it, I have to confess: my smartphone is not working for me. I was so excited to get it, so excited to use it, and it’s a neat phone and all, but honestly? Half the time I don’t get a signal, and even when I do get a signal, … Continue reading “5/17/11 – Tuesday”

After almost two months of owning it, I have to confess: my smartphone is not working for me. I was so excited to get it, so excited to use it, and it’s a neat phone and all, but honestly? Half the time I don’t get a signal, and even when I do get a signal, it takes forever to connect to whatever I’m trying to connect to. Also, I’m hardly ever more than half an hour from home, and it’s just more phone than I need.

(Also, I continue to be bitter that I cannot play Snood on it. I have perused and tried all the games I can download onto the Optimus, but none of them have captured me the way Snood immediately did.)

All I really and truly need to keep me happy, cell phone wise, is a phone that makes calls and sends and receives texts. So I’ve ordered a less intelligent phone – dumbphone! – from Virgin Mobile, and will be selling my Optimus on eBay.

Of course, in a perfect world I’d be able to get an iPhone and only pay $25 a month for service, which would remove the necessity for an iPod Touch, but I guess you can’t have everything, can you?

(I may be replacing my iPod Touch with an iPad pretty soon, though. WOOT.)

Speaking of my iPod Touch, I have to tell y’all that during the first 6 weeks after I had my plastic surgery*, I had my iPod Touch within reach at all times. In fact, when I started sleeping in my bed rather than downstairs in the recliner, I would sleep all propped up with my arms on pillows and a pillow under my back, and always had my iPod Touch laying on my chest. I wasn’t sleeping the whole night through, so I’d snooze for a while, then wake up and pick up my iPod to check Twitter and Facebook and my email, then go back to sleep.

Speaking of surgery, I finally saw my plastic surgeon again yesterday. I originally had a follow-up appointment scheduled for three weeks ago, but I rescheduled because I was SO not in the mood for the drive. That rescheduled appointment ended up being two days after the tornadoes came through, and since the office didn’t have any power, they called and rescheduled me again for yesterday. I still wasn’t in the mood for the drive, but sucked it up and went anyway.

I will tell y’all this – I am pleased with the results of the breast lift, though directly after surgery I said to Fred “Do you suppose they’re actually supposed to be located in my armpits?” With time, though, I’m more pleased with the results. They look pretty normal to me, I think. Whyn’t y’all send me pictures of your boobs so I can compare whether mine look normal? (I KID. Please don’t.)

I’m mostly pleased with the results of my upper arm lift, though around my left elbow is, as the plastic surgeon said, “full.” In other words, I’ve got chubby arms. I know that if I was really bothered by it, he’d do a revision, but I will tell you this: I am never ever ever going to have elective surgery done on my upper arms ever again, ever. That was the worst part of the whole recovery, and while I like the results, I don’t want to have to go through that again. Though my arms look chubby, the surgery has taken away all the damn extra skin that was hanging there, and if the sleeves of a short-sleeved t-shirt don’t come all the way to my elbows, it doesn’t bother me. I haven’t actually worn a tank top while working outside yet, but I’d be mostly comfortable wearing one, I think.

My neck lift, though? I am displeased. There’s still too much of a wattle there, and the surgeon agreed. He said that it’s a loose skin issue rather than underlying fat or loose muscles, and his nurse should be calling in the next day or so to talk about a revision. Unless he can do it very soon, I’ll likely put it off ’til the Fall. I want it done, but I don’t want recovery to interfere with all the shit I need to do in the next little while (not least of which is GARDENING), even though the recovery from this won’t be nearly as long or involved.

Perhaps one day I’ll actually get around to taking some (clothed) after pictures so y’all can see that, well, I probably don’t look any different to anyone else, but I look different to me. And honestly? That’s what matters.

*GET AWAY FROM THAT SEARCH BOX, I had plastic surgery on February 10th whereupon I had my breasts, upper arms, and neck lifted, you damn skimmers. (Or newbies.) No, there are no before and after pictures for you to stare judgmentally at. I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet. I’ll do it some day.

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I got home from running errands on Saturday, and as I walked from the driver’s side of the car to the trunk, Fred opened a window in the front room.

“I need your help!” he called. I ran toward the house, wondering what the hell could possibly be going on. When I walked into the front room, Fred was standing near the subwoofer, holding a trash can.

“There’s a squirrel under here,” he said, pointing to the subwoofer. The subwoofer is a square about 20 inches by 20 inches, that has legs about 2 inches tall.

“Of course there is,” I said. Turns out, Fred had been walking down the hall toward the kitchen when he heard the distinctive squeal of an angry squirrel, and a moment later Elwood came in through the cat door with a young squirrel in his mouth.

Who ever expected Elwood to be fast enough to catch a squirrel? Not me.

After some discussion, Fred lifted the subwoofer enough to spur the squirrel into action. He feinted left, eyeballed me, and then ran straight ahead instead. Directly into the trash can Fred had set down on the floor.

2011-05-17-Squirrel01
Someone needs to clean that nasty-ass trash can.

We took the trash can outside, Fred turned it over on its side, and off the squirrel went.

2011-05-17-Squirrel02

It certainly could have gone worse!

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Rufus has not been adopted yet. However, I went by to see him at Petsmart over the weekend, and not only was he NOT hiding in his litter box, he was in fact flopped out on his bed, sound asleep. I went in to see him and pet him, and he just lay there and purred like mad. I snapped a few pictures with my phone.

2011-05-17-Rufus01

2011-05-17-Rufus02

Somehow, I’d forgotten just how silky smooth his fur is.

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2011-05-17-08
“HI MAMA!”

2011-05-17-07
::CHOMP::

2011-05-17-06
Oh, his little face just kills me DEAD.

2011-05-17-05
Don’t give ME that look, young lady. It’s not MY fault they’re such little ruffians!

2011-05-17-04
When we brought Maggie home, I stuffed a pillow in that kitty condo so that Maggie wouldn’t go in there and give birth. Then I left it in there so the babies wouldn’t go in there and pee in it. But being cats, of course they figured out that they can get in there anyway, and they do it often. I’d take the pillow out, but I suspect that that would ruin the fun for them.

2011-05-17-03
“MY toy. You hear me?”

2011-05-17-02
Macushla in my lap. All the McMaos are snuggly, but he’s particularly so.

2011-05-17-01
Fergus Simon, sneaking up on his brothers. “Be vewwy vewwy quiet!”

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2011-05-17-10
Elwood in the window.

2011-05-17-11
Jake, enjoying the sun if it kills him.

2011-05-17-12
Jake in the guest bedroom, Elwood at the bottom of the stairs.

2011-05-17-13
Jake on the platform in the kitchen. I love his loony little face.

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Previously
2010: I always pee and progesterone at the same time. It makes me feel efficient.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: ā€œGoddamn!ā€ I said. ā€œIā€™m going to have them haul your ass away to the nursing home! YOU WERE THERE WITH ME AND PICKED OUT THE GODDAMN SKIRT FOR ME!ā€
2006: Sorry, no real entry today.
2005: Fucking cats. They sure are a money pit.
2004: Oh, look. It must be a day that ends in ā€œy.ā€
2003: No entry.
2002: You know, this whole band shit drives me nuts.
2001: The spud’s band is having another concert tonight.
2000: I would put a sign announcing the name of the house: Horseshit Alley.

5/16/11 – Monday

Last week, I got an email from… Robyn Anderson. Seems that Robyn Anderson was sending herself pictures from work. You’d think she’d know her own email address, wouldn’t you? She works at Target, by the way. I’d post the pictures here and mock them, but there was nothing particularly mockworthy about them, so I’ll refrain. … Continue reading “5/16/11 – Monday”

Last week, I got an email from… Robyn Anderson. Seems that Robyn Anderson was sending herself pictures from work. You’d think she’d know her own email address, wouldn’t you? She works at Target, by the way. I’d post the pictures here and mock them, but there was nothing particularly mockworthy about them, so I’ll refrain.

These Robyn Andersons, I tell you what. Who doesn’t know their own email address? She’s not even the first Robyn Anderson to send herself an email and sent it to me instead!

Thus far, we’ve got Irish Robyn Anderson, Illinois Robyn Anderson, Mormon Robyn Anderson (whose annoying goddamn family keeps trying to add me to their relatives on “We’re Related”, whatever the fuck that is), and now Target Robyn Anderson, who all are either giving out the wrong email address, or sending email to themselves at my email address. Oh, there was Canadian Robyn Anderson, too.

(I’m sure when they talk about me, I’m Cat Lady Robyn Anderson.)

Last year when Illinois Robyn Anderson signed up for frequent flyer miles and used my email address, I was so annoyed that I logged in and changed the password to the account. O YES I DID. She doesn’t apparently fly all that often, though, because there weren’t many frequent flyer miles and she hasn’t used the account since.

(Well, maybe because she doesn’t have the password? Duh.)

Fucking Robyn Andersons. They’re all pains in the ass, if you ask me.

Oh, lord. I just went and looked at my sent mail for that email address, and found this exchange from April, which I had forgotten about:

Robyn Anderson,

I still haven’t decided on which potential tenant to rent the house to yet. Sorry for the delay. I will make my decision before 8pm tmr.

Also, can u confirm that if you are able to move in on May 1?

Do you have animals?

Regards,

Warren
Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Warren –

I am not looking for a house to rent, therefore I’m pretty sure you have the wrong email address for a different Robyn Anderson.

And I have 14 cats, two very large dogs and 70+ chickens.

Sincerely,

Robyn Anderson

Robyn,

Sorry about sending u the wrong email. Why do u have so many animals?

Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Warren –

Because I can.

Sincerely,

Robyn Anderson

And then, back in March:

Hi Robyn:
Congratulations on becoming a grandma. That is so exciting. It’s a shame they live on the other side of the country!!! But I’m glad you got to go see the new baby and your daughter and son-in-law.

Bro. Hickey the Stake financial clerk has been nagging me about getting some sort of closure on the checks that were sent out for camp. I doubt you still have receipts, but if you could possibly send me a short written statement of expenses, signed and dated, that will do. It can be very general. This needs to be done in case of auditing, so they know where the money went.
Thanks so much and Happy Thanksgiving
Suzanne

(I simply emailed her back and told her she had the wrong email address. But then I forwarded it to Fred and said “You think she knows something I don’t?”)

And then this from last September:

Our records show the following for ROBYN ANDERSON:

Next Preventive Appointment: 10-15-2010 at 8:00 am

Notes: Just a friendly reminder that you have a cleaning appointment coming up in our office. If the time listed is not convenient please call us as soon as possible to reschedule.

To which I responded: Please cancel this appointment. I’ll need to call and reschedule at a later date. Thanks.

(I’m an asshole, but I’m snickering about it all these months later.)

About a year ago, Robyn Anderson sent me (I assume intending to send it to herself) :

email and print calendar
do expenses
vegas selling day
order gwps
az travel update

Robyn Anderson
Southwest Regional Coordinator

I said: Don’t wanna. How come *I* have to do all the work?

(But never heard back from her. Robyn Anderson, Southwest Regional Coordinator is humorless, I think. Or embarrassed. I should have said “The GWPS is backordered. Should I order something else instead?”)

This reminds of when, several years ago, Fred sent a picture of the spud sleeping with her eyes open to what he thought was her email address. As it turned out, he got a very polite email back from the person he actually sent it to, letting him know he had the wrong email address.

I guess Robyn Andersons aren’t the only dumbass Andersons.

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PS: My favorite wrong-email that I’ve gotten at that address is below. I responded to it with “You have the wrong email address” because I didn’t even know where to start even though I’m curious as shit to know why the front desk kept issuing key cards to people who weren’t booked for the room. I’d certainly like to know what “supposed wife of Edgar” means, and why that would afford her the privilege of having a card to a room that isn’t hers. But I decided to play it safe and not even try to get involved in that mess.

Ind/Robyn

I am using this email address from now on since Jannett knows about my Yahoo account and has my email address for that account. There’s no telling what that psycho would come up with.

I am at the hospital right now. I came down this morning to see if I could meet with the chaplain but he only works on weekdays. I will need to come back to see him at 8:00 on Monday morning.
I managed to find his office and got the office number. He can be reached at the Pastoral Care number : [redacted]. His office is actually on the second floor of the hospital building.

Mom and I went to Jannett’s place last night ([redacted]). She and the kids were not there so we stayed and made supper anyhow…..just to pretend all is normal.

When she finally came home with the kids and the twins who just flew in….we learned that they had been at the ICU visiting Edgar. I am so scared as to why she wanted all his children to see him
in that state. I pray to God she did not do that so that she can later instruct the doctors to pull the plug. She did not bother to invite us to come along with them to visit Edgar. What’s worse…she did not offer to fill us
in on how Edgar is doing. There was another guest from the Fisher House who was asking her infront of us about how Edgar was doing. She ignored the lady and later dragged the lady into the laundry room to update her on
how Edgar was doing. So she obviously does not want us to know anything about how Edgar is doing. I bet she is calling her ex-husband everyday to let him know how my brother is doing.

On another note the twins did come to stay at the Navy Lodge in our room that mom and I are sharing. Just as i thought would happen……they tried to let themselves into the room WITH YET ANOTHER KEY THAT JANNETT GOT FROM THE FRONT DESK!!!
There is a total of 4 keys/cards for that room now and it’s only mom and I who were booked for that room….. I think that is so outrageous. I understand that as the supposed wife of Edgar she has certain privileges but mom and I have many issues with that. Besides the privacy issues we fear that she can go in there and do Lord knows what.
The girls showed up at our room at 12:30 last night and said that they were coming from the hospital and had been visiting Edgar at that hour. She obviously is not interested to have mom and I visit Edgar at the ICU. I will take mom to visit him today and
I just hope and pray that she has not given them instructions not to let us in to see him.

If you girls ever try to call me on my cell and can’t reach me then it’s because i am around her or her kids. Just try on the hotel line and if we are not there then i will just call or text you back. I do not want her or any of her kids to know
about the cell phone i have. I will keep you posted.

Later

Carla

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2011-05-16-11
Miss Dorothy in the sun. (Current nicknames: Fred calls her Dottie and Dortsy. I called her Dorfy and when I was looking for her Saturday evening, I called her KittyDorfin’ and then EnDorfin’. Oh, we amuse ourselves so very much.)

She is such a sweet and well-adjusted girl. I love to see her chasing Jake down the hallway, and she even got Miz Poo to chase her a little on Sunday!

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2011-05-16-01
“Am… under… attack… SAVE YOURSELF!”

2011-05-16-02
“Who, ME? Climbing the cat tree? NO. What a ridiculous question!”

2011-05-16-03
“HI MAMA!” (Please ignore the scattered litter in the background. I hadn’t swept yet.)

2011-05-16-04
“I find that simply amazing, my good woman.”

2011-05-16-05
“I… did not touch the Kong Wubba. Why? Did someone say I did? Pay no attention to that paw.”

2011-05-16-06
“Cowabunga!”

2011-05-16-07
“Dude, it’s okay. I’ve got it covered.”

2011-05-16-08
“HI MAMAAAAAAAAA!”

2011-05-16-09
::chomp:: Her eyes are so neat right now – I love the way the permanent color is moving outward from her pupils.

2011-05-16-10
Miss Maggie doesn’t miss a thing.

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2011-05-16-12
Newt, thinkin’ deep thoughts.

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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Getting ready for surgery.
2007: Theyā€™d surely have fabulous gay parties and invite their fabulous gay friends and give my inner Mrs. Kravitz something to spy on.
2006: Iā€™m READY FOR SUMMER, THANK YOU.
2005: I like cats. Theyā€™re good to eat.
2004: No entry.
2003: Weā€™re some calendar-loving motherfuckers, thatā€™s right.
2002: Kitty meeting.
2001: Soā€¦ I guess we could probably sell your shitholeā€¦
2000: It sounds like thereā€™s a lot to do in Gatlinburg, so it should be fun.

5/13/11 – Friday

Fred had part of yesterday off from work, so when he got home, I suggested that we go out to lunch. I was thinking of Applebee’s so I could get a salad, but he wrote down two restaurant names on a piece of paper, held each in his hand, and made me choose between the … Continue reading “5/13/11 – Friday”

Fred had part of yesterday off from work, so when he got home, I suggested that we go out to lunch. I was thinking of Applebee’s so I could get a salad, but he wrote down two restaurant names on a piece of paper, held each in his hand, and made me choose between the two hands. We ended up going to a Chinese buffet in Madison.

I wasn’t too upset – Chinese food is one of my favorite kinds of foods, and who doesn’t love a buffet? – and the food there was really pretty good. Until I got to the last thing on my plate, a few pieces of Black Pepper Beef.

Oh, it was NASTY. I chewed on it and chewed on it, thinking I could just swallow it and be done, but the more I chewed it (and it was very chewy), the worse it tasted, and finally I had to spit it out into a napkin.

“It tasted like feet,” I told Fred.

Or what I’d imagine feet taste like, in any case. Dirty, sweaty feet. Gah.

Other than that, though, the food was pretty good. I think I would have been better off with a salad, though. The Chinese food had me all bloated and full all afternoon long, and I ended up needing a short mid-afternoon nap.

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Robyn, do you or your readers have a recommendation for a lightweight vacuum? We have the dyson, but I wanted something for the stairs. We adopted an elderly golden retriever and now we are a 3 dog, 2 cat household. We have tipped ourselves into pet fur taking over kind of household. I’ve tried a couple of handhelds like the Dirt Devil and the Shark, but they were never great. I would like an upright so I am not hunched over like Quasimodo every time I need to do the stairs. Any thoughts?

I have no suggestions myself (I either use the canister vacuum on the stairs or Swiffer it and use the vacuum at the bottom to get up whatever was pushed down the stairs), but I’ll be watching suggestions with interest! Who’s got a good suggestion, y’all?

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Wait…..I just noticed in your sidebar that Corbie is a permanent resident. When did I miss that? I remember when Coltrane arrived but I can’t remember when you decided to keep Corbie?

We made it official back at the end of March. I made everyone sad by announcing that he’d gone to his forever home and then announced that THIS is his forever home. Ya damn skimmer. šŸ™‚ (But it wasn’t ’til earlier this week that I realized I hadn’t put him in the sidebar. What the hell? I’m such a slacker.)

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Do any of your cats get into noisy late night fights? I know some like to stay outside at night.

I will, very occasionally, hear a couple of cats get into it under my bedroom window. They probably also fight late at night on the side stoop, but since that’s nowhere near my window, I don’t hear them. The worst late night fights we hear are when Jake or Elwood get too close to Stinkerbelle (ie, within 10 feet), and she has the most hellacious hellcat scream. Somehow, despite the fact that it happens in the kitchen, right under Fred’s bedroom, he always sleeps through it. Luckily, she only does it once in order to scare the bejesus out of all of us (except Fred) in the house, and make whoever’s bugging her back off.

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Have you seen this? I have saved this as a link on my computer so that when I need a giggle, there it is.

That is WAY too cute. I think I might have to find a tarp and carry it up to the foster room!

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So – how are the hands doing with 6 sets of baby teeth and 12 pairs of needle like claws around? Or actually if you count Dorothy – you need to add another set and pair to the total.

The hands are holding up fairly well. No terrible scratches yet, just a million tiny ones. We finally clipped the McMaos’ claws yesterday, which helped quite a bit!

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I had a Ms. Poo dream. I dreamt she gave birth to a litter of puppies. The puppies came out the size of Yankee candle. For some reason, they were put into diapers and bottle fed like babies. Ms. Poo was treated like the Queen of Sheba but she did not have anything to do with the puppies/kittens. Oh and she had them under my bed. I don’t know what the heck was all that about, but I know you like it when we dream of Crooked Acres peeps.

I do love it. I love it quite a bit. And the idea of poor Miz Poo birthing puppies the size of Yankee candles makes me simultaneously cringe in sympathy and laugh. I can just imagine the look on her face if that happened!

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Maybe start a second compost pile you don’t really need to use, throw some tomatoes in there, and then completely ignore the tomato plants that grow in there… until it is time to harvest them, of course.

I think I said that last year for the first time I had gorgeous tomato plants that produced soooo much fruit. I had them in pots previously and threw all the yucky ones in the corner behind the pots. I have tried year after year to grow the stinkin things and the leaves turn yellow and don’t really produce much. Letting them bloom where they aren’t planted and ignoring them seems to be the trick for me. I did spy and spotted some plants coming up but I won’t let on that I know they are there and will ignore them for now.

I’ll admit, I kind of wish that I’d just left the compost tomato plants where they were – did I mention one of them has a flower already? There are more plants on the compost heap that I’m going to leave (we do plan to start a second compost pile) and just see how they do. I’ve also got a couple coming up in my raised beds (one or two with the carrots and at least one with the romaine) and I’m going to leave those as well and see what happens. The happier the tomato plants are, the more they’ll produce and the happier I’ll be, right?

The happiest tomato plant I ever had was the second summer after we moved in. Originally, we had 12 chickens and their yard was a corner of our back yard. They LOVED tomatoes, and got tons of them. By the second summer, the chickens had been moved to the blue coop yard, and in the early part of the summer, Fred pointed out that there was a tomato plant growing where the chicken yard had been. We left it, and mostly ignored it, and that was the happiest tomato plant I’ve ever seen, and it put out tomatoes until well into the Fall. It got so big that the cats would even hang out underneath it in the hottest part of the day.

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I’ve been looking at the last few entries and it occurred to me that Tiny Alice isn’t really so tiny any more!

Is she catching up now, do you think? (yay!) Or is it that Rufus is tiny as well?

Rufus is kind of a small cat, but I do think Alice is starting to catch up. She’s not nearly the tiny thing she was when we first got her. I mean, I expect her to remain on the small side, but she’s no longer abnormally tiny.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

If you don’t bring those plastic bags home – what do you scoop the litter boxes into? If there is a better method, I’m all for it.

I buy biodegradable poop-scoopin’ bags off eBay. They work pretty well, though I did have to go to a smaller scoop, because the big scoop I was using wouldn’t fit into the bags, and stuff was falling on the floor, and yeah. I wasn’t going to let that happen on a regular basis.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

So when the wee McMaos curl up in your lap, do you stay there, or do you eventually have to move? Because I always feel so guilty I end up sitting still until something goes numb.

I can sit for a pretty long time with my legs crossed, but yeah, eventually one leg goes to sleep and I have to move around. They’re pretty forgiving, but occasionally they look up at me and give me the sad little heartbroken meow, and I want to throw myself out the window for daring to disturb their rest. šŸ™‚

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Good luck Rufus! Did he ever take a “non-cute” picture? Whoever adopts him will be very lucky; I think he’s a special kitty. And I trust your judgment Miz Robyn; I know I couldn’t do what you do. I would keep every kitty. BUT you have encouraged me. I am going to foster two cats this summer!

I don’t believe Rufus ever took a bad picture, no. And YAY! The world can always use another awesome foster parent!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Those kittens are cute enough to eat! so scoop up-able and kissable and squishable – aaww…!!! Are they eating solid food on their own now?

Indeed they are. In fact, they now know what the sound of a cat food tin opening means, and they cluster around my feet and howl at me. For a while I was giving them all canned food just about every time I went into the room, but that had to stop and now they get canned food (mixed with baby food – which I guess I can stop doing any time now, too. But they love it so much!) in the morning and evening, and have kibble available the rest of the day. The only kitten who isn’t interested in canned food (weirdo) is Finnegan, and so when everyone else is bellied up to the plates, he just follows me around and supervises what I’m doing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

I dreamt about the McMaos last night… At one point I had Declan and another baby, and was walking them on leashes. Clearly, I am obsessed with the babies.

I would like to see what Declan would do if I put a leash on him!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

*pets Rufus* Good luck to you, pretty boy! May a forever home with a fondness for soft, snuggle-able kitties turn up in a hurry. What color is he, anyway? I’m not sure I ever knew.

Rufus is a medium-hair gray tabby with white. Also, he’s SO PRETTY that I expect he’s going to find a home soon. I hope so, anyway!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

I’d like to hear more about the Pouty Princess and what she does to make herself seem pouty. I’ve thought all that she’s the most beautiful of this litter and to hear about her personality would be awesome!

The Pouty Princess is actually not all that pouty. She’s a little bit of a drama queen – she was always the hissiest of the bunch, and if you pick her up and she doesn’t WANT to be picked up, she will cry like a sad little princess. But she’s a sweet girl, and she was actually the VERY FIRST baby McMao to purr for me. That just happened a few days ago! Oh sure, they purr like mad for their mama, but for me they had nothin’. But then earlier this week I picked up Ciara and petted her, and she thought about it for a moment and then began purring softly. Then the next day Finnegan did it!

There’s nothing sweeter than a purring kitten.

Ciara also loves her mother with a passion, and can often be found giving her mama a look o’ love. She will happily play fight with her brothers, and she gives as good as she gets. She’s not much of a climber, but she’ll climb every now and then when the mood strikes her. And her favorite toy is the Kong Kickeroo – she very well might be taking after her mother, who always did like a good sniff of the catnip-containing Kickeroo.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

The photo of Alice on top of the cabinets reminded me of my favorite tumblr. Check it out, if you haven’t seen it already- it’s called Get out of there cat and features photos of cats in all sorts of crazy places, and typical places, like boxes and on top of doors. šŸ™‚

I’ve seen that site several times this week and kept meaning to link to it, so thanks for the reminder! It cracks me UP.

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I just need to make sure y’all have seen Kitten Vs. Tennis Ball. I wouldn’t want you to miss it!

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We’ve been giving Miss Dorothy limited time out of the guest bedroom to explore and meet the other cats. She thinks it’s pretty neat to have all that room to run.

2011-05-13-01

2011-05-13-02

2011-05-13-03

2011-05-13-04
Sugarbutt did not care for this tiny little girlkitty getting all up in his grill, and a moment after I snapped the picture, he smacked her. She wasn’t too perturbed by that, and just ran past him.

Then she gave him a look like this:

2011-05-13-05

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2011-05-13-06
I love Finnegan’s stripes.

2011-05-13-07
Declan. How did they get so grown up?! He doesn’t even have any blue left in his eyes!

2011-05-13-08
“Yeah, come on down here! BRING IT ON!”

2011-05-13-09
“That didn’t quite work out the way I’d intended.”

2011-05-13-10
“HI MAMA!”

2011-05-13-12
Finnegan contemplates.

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2011-05-13-13
Happy Friday the 13th! ::cue scary music::

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Previously
2010: Itā€™s like a big loaf of stink, rising and expanding to fill all available space.
2009: In self-defense, I had to do the unthinkable.
2008: Hereā€™s a hint: Mister Boogers? Not the man.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Oh, itā€™s FUN to be a girl, ainā€™t it?
2004: Am I not stylin’?
2003: Like I repeatedly said to him yesterday, “I’m GLAD you’re ENJOYING my pain!”
2002: Momma don’t do food-related or cleaning-related stuff on Mother’s Day!
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

5/12/11 – Thursday

Yesterday was another of those really busy days where one minute it’s 9 am and the next it’s 1:00 and you don’t know what you’re going to have for lunch. I got the recycling taken to the recycling center, went to Publix to stock up on a few things, got home, ate breakfast, and then … Continue reading “5/12/11 – Thursday”

Yesterday was another of those really busy days where one minute it’s 9 am and the next it’s 1:00 and you don’t know what you’re going to have for lunch. I got the recycling taken to the recycling center, went to Publix to stock up on a few things, got home, ate breakfast, and then headed outside to get some more mowing done. Fred got all the mowing except the back yard done over the weekend, so I told him I’d do that part. I imagine it would have gone a lot faster if I’d used the riding lawnmower, but that thing annoys me, with all the backing up and going around stuff I have to do, so I used the push mower. It took me about 45 minutes to get that done, I took a break, and then headed back out. Fred did the side yard (in front of the garage) last week, but he wasn’t able to do the whole thing because it was terribly soggy. It was looking shaggy and kind of annoying me, so I wanted to get it cut. It was another pain in the ass, not as bad as the swamps in the pig yard or blue coop yard, but a pain just the same.

Once that was done, I glanced behind the garage and decided that that area was annoying me, too. It doesn’t get cut very often because it doesn’t usually need it very often, but I figured since I was out with the mower, I might as well get it done.

Let me tell you, a gum ball (from a sweet gum tree, not the kind that you chew)(though I guess you could chew it if you really wanted to) that flies out from under a lawnmower, hits the back of the garage, and then hits your calf at approximately 73 miles per hour STINGS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER.

But I persevered and got it done.

Then I came inside to cool off, went back out to hang my laundry on the line, and then went upstairs to take a shower. I was in the shower when I was pretty sure I heard a knock at the door. I finished showering as quickly as I could, threw on some clothes, and went downstairs to find… nothing. I don’t know if someone knocked and got tired of waiting, or if I was just hearing the cats running around, or what.

I went in and hung out with the McMaos for about an hour, cleaning the room while I was in there (I’ve almost got all the litter boxes in the closet, yay!), and then had lunch. Then I made dinner (Fred likes to eat dinner at, like, 4:00 and I prefer to wait ’til a more normal hour. If I make dinner ahead, then he can eat when he wants, and so can I.) and put it in the fridge.

(Chicken and dumplings. But I didn’t have to cook the chicken first; I used chicken that I canned last Fall.)

I went out and got the hose I bought at Walmart the other day out of my car, and stretched it from the spigot to my little enclosed garden behind the back yard. Then I watered my raised beds, the herbs I planted last weekend, and the bale of straw we bought Tuesday.

(Katherine sent me this link about bale gardening, and I decided on the spur of the moment to give it a try with one bale. Why not, right?)

And then (can you contain your excitement? Is this not the most fascinating glimpse of my day? I should totally do a picture version of this thrilling step-by-step description of my day.) I went in and vacuumed the house. I brought in my laundry off the line and put it away (god knows how many wasps were in that laundry and are now angrily waiting for me to come along.), and at some point in there the air conditioner guy came.

As seems to happen about this time every year, the air conditioning unit for the upstairs went on the fritz. Luckily we haven’t hit the truly hot part of summer – not by far – so with my ceiling fan turned on high, it wasn’t too terribly hot during the night. The air conditioning repairman came, looked at it, put freon in, and left.

Fred got home and ate dinner. I got all the garbage together (Thursday being trash day), Fred took it out to the street. I planted the catnip I bought at Walmart the other day and put mulch down around the blueberry bushes in the back yard. I snuggled kittens and kissed Maggie and held Dorothy like a baby and kissed her on her nose.

Today, I tell you what, I’m laying my lazy ass on the couch and getting caught up on TV. I’ve got like 20 episodes of House on the DVR calling to me, and an episode of Sister Wives, and I have no desire to do anything but veg.

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F2011-05-12-15
Still recovering from the tornado, I think.

F2011-05-12-16
A volunteer maple tree-in-the-making amongst my purslane.

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F2011-05-12-14
A last shot of Rufus.

Rufus was fine on the drive to Petsmart the other day. I had a bit of a struggle getting him into the carrier (he fought me and got away, but all I had to do to recapture him was call to him, and he flopped right over on his side to be petted. Didn’t I feel evil, snatching him up to put him in the carrier!) He settled right down in the carrier and didn’t make a peep on the ride to Petsmart.

He was a little scared when I let him out of the carrier into the kitten room, and ran off to hide while I got his cage ready. I put some of his favorite toys in the cage, and then snuggled with him for a long while before I put him in the cage and left.

He, of course, because he wanted to break my heart, went right into the litter box to hide. They always do that at first – in fact, I don’t think Reacher ever came out of the litter box during his stay at Petsmart. Usually, though, it only takes a day or so before they adjust to their surroundings.

Adoption hours weren’t held Tuesday night because the power at Petsmart went out. I’m hoping that by the time adoption hours take place on Friday, he’ll be more relaxed.

You know I’ll let y’all know as soon as he’s adopted!

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F2011-05-12-13
Cillian swipes! He misses! (And that’s an odd angle, so it looks like he has long ape arms.)

F2011-05-12-12
Practicing the song and dance for the big show!

F2011-05-12-11
“Hi! What? Nothin’.”

F2011-05-12-10
They sure do like this little cat tree. It makes me want to get a big one for them.

F2011-05-12-07
Maggie gets a moment to herself so she can relax. But only a moment…

F2011-05-12-08
“HI MAMA! HI!”

F2011-05-12-09
“Make room, Mama!”

F2011-05-12-05

F2011-05-12-06
“Mama, your armpit smells good. You’re so pretty! I love you.”

F2011-05-12-04
A loud car went by on the road outside, sending all the kittens running to the safety of the closet. Finnegan and Ciara were in charge of checking stuff out to make sure it was safe for everyone else to come out.

F2011-05-12-02
“Is it time to eat yet?”

F2011-05-12-03
“Mama is HUNGRY.”

F2011-05-12-01
Pretty Macushla.

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F2011-05-12-17
No, Alice, it’s okay. Go right ahead and hang over the side like you’re going to jump to the floor from there. You won’t give me a heart attack or anything.

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Previously
2010: It’s a Jakeapalooza!
2009: And when the wily snugglicious runt has determined that no smackdown is coming her way, what does she do?
2008: Andā€¦ that was my weekend!
2007: No entry.
2006: Where the hell did the year GO?
2005: If my nose is cold, the rest of me is cold.
2004: I guess this is what we get for living in the Bible Belt, isnā€™t it?
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Ah well. Maybe next life.

5/11/11 – Kitteh Wednesday

Tom asked yesterday if we’d considered building a structure in our yard so we could handle more cats. We did, last summer, decide that we were going to convert the (now unused) blue coop into a “kitten coop” so we could have more fosters, but that hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think it’s going … Continue reading “5/11/11 – Kitteh Wednesday”

Tom asked yesterday if we’d considered building a structure in our yard so we could handle more cats. We did, last summer, decide that we were going to convert the (now unused) blue coop into a “kitten coop” so we could have more fosters, but that hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think it’s going to. I really prefer to have the cats and kittens in the house with us, and after our tornado scare from a couple of weeks ago, I worry that if we had some kittens upstairs in the foster room and some out in the coop and maybe one or two in the guest bedroom, there’s no way on earth that I’d be able to get all of them in the closet under the stairs (or in the storm shelter, once we have it put in) and our own cats as well. That might change – the only consistency around here is me declaring one thing one day and then suddenly declaring the opposite the next – and of course if it does, y’all will be the first to know!

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Dorothy would like to say “hi” to her adoring public.

Note that it’s not until I compliment her dramatic eye makeup that she starts kneading and purring. Clearly her affections can be bought with flattery!

2011-05-11-01
Sweet miss Dorothy.

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Sleepy, sleepy McMaos.

2011-05-11-14
::chomp::

2011-05-11-15
::chomp::

2011-05-11-16
“Hey, guys, c’mere! This foot taste funny to you?

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2011-05-11-03
“I can sit in your lap please?”

2011-05-11-04
::sniff::

2011-05-11-05
::sniffffffff::

2011-05-11-06
::slurrrp:: (The little smile KILLS ME DEAD.)

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2011-05-11-11
“Close your eeeeeeyes and goodniiiiiiight…”

2011-05-11-12
“Go to sleeeeeep little brudderrrrrrr…”

2011-05-11-13

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2011-05-11-07
::thlurrp::

2011-05-11-10
“What?”

2011-05-11-08
“That’s right, I ate all the Tender Turkey Feast. You’ve gotta learn to move faster next time. I ate it all and I’m NOT SORRY!”

2011-05-11-09
“So there.”

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Rufus enjoyed a little outside time before he went off to Petsmart yesterday.

2011-05-11-02

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2011-05-11-17
Loony Jake in the sun.

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Previously
2010: Life with Fred.
2009: Blessed are the pure in het, for they shall see Dog.
2008: No entry.
2007: Mister Boogers doesnā€™t have opposable thumbs and finds it too difficult to text anyone ā€“ he gives up and stomps off in a huff after texting a few LOLs.
2006: Which to ME means ā€œIā€™m not interested,ā€ but to the operator apparently was code for ā€œI might be interested. Try harder!ā€
2005: Now, I donā€™t know. I think that if your life is SO BUSY that taking the time to put a little pill in your mouth throws your entire schedule off, then perhaps itā€™s time to reorganize your life.
2004: You canā€™t have genius every day, yā€™know.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: SHE WAS FIXINā€™ TO GO DOWN THE HILL.
2000: Poor overworked, abused childā€¦

5/10/11 – Tuesday

The temperatures around here have gone from in the 50s last week to in the 80s this week. (I’m not complaining.) We’ve had several partly sunny days in a row, and there’s no chance of rain for the foreseeable future. I’m beginning to have real hope that our property will actually dry up, at least … Continue reading “5/10/11 – Tuesday”

The temperatures around here have gone from in the 50s last week to in the 80s this week.

(I’m not complaining.)

We’ve had several partly sunny days in a row, and there’s no chance of rain for the foreseeable future. I’m beginning to have real hope that our property will actually dry up, at least the swamp in the blue coop yard and the swamp in the pig yard and the swamp in the side yard in front of the garage.

Since the weather’s been so nice, I’ve been hanging our laundry on the line to dry. One day last week, Fred took a t-shirt out of his drawer – a t-shirt I’d washed at least 5 days prior – and put it on. Then he was promptly stung by a motherfucking wasp.

Hardy creatures, those motherfucking wasps. Needless to say, it didn’t last long after it had stung him and dropped to the floor; he stomped on it and tossed it in the trash.

So I’ve been particularly careful when I get dressed in the morning. I shake out the shirt of the day and look inside the sleeves before I pull it over my head.

Yesterday I did just that, pulled the shirt over my head, and then levitated about three feet off the floor when something dropped onto my foot. It turned out to be a piece of straw. How it got inside my shirt, I have no idea. I was stung by a wasp last year for the first time in my life, and it hurt like a motherfucker. I’d prefer not to repeat the experience.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Tammy asked if Fergus Simon (heh, I almost called him “Rufus Simon”!) allows belly rubs. Indeed he does – but if there’s too much of it, he’ll eventually sink his teeth and claws into your hand and he’s got a strong little bunny kick that could probably tear your hand to shreds if you’re not quick enough to pull away.

Rebekah asked if the kittens ever squeal when they’re in the litter box. Some of them cry a little when they first get into the litter box. They cry, dig a little, get into position, cry, dig a little more, get into position, cry, and so on. Once they’re actually doing their business, though, they’re usually completely silent. I like to imagine they’re thinking about what good boys (or girl) they are, using the litter box like they’re supposed to!

Thus far I’ve only seen one litter box accident when, I imagine, the kitten couldn’t get to the litter box on time. At this point in time, I am slowly moving the litter boxes toward the closet, a few inches every day. My ultimate goal is to get all the litter boxes in the closet and (I hope) confine the litter scatter to the closet.

Someone – a couple of someones, maybe – asked if Dorothy could/ would become a permanent resident. She will not and can not, because have I mentioned we have 14 cats? Dorothy will go up for adoption after she’s been spayed in a few weeks. Rufus is also not going to become a permanent resident, as space has opened up at Petsmart and I’ll be leaving here in a little while to drop him off.

I’m going to miss Rufus (well, and Dorothy when she goes, of course). Can you believe we’ve had Rufus here for two months now? This is the part I always hate, because I’m pretty sure that in his mind Rufus believes he’s home already; he doesn’t know (and we can’t explain to him) that it was just a stop on the way to his forever home.

2011-05-10-01
Such the pretty boy.

2011-05-10-02
So tense, though. I wish you’d relax, Rufus!

2011-05-10-03
“I’m borrrrrred. When can I bust out of this clambake?” Soon, pretty girl.

2011-05-10-04
Declan, in the process of catching and killing a North American Gray Hoodie. What a smart boy!

2011-05-10-05
Macushla, waiting patiently for the belly rub.

2011-05-10-06
Declan and his fancy white bathing suit.

2011-05-10-07
“Pardon me. You has a snuggle for me?” (Finnegan)

2011-05-10-08

2011-05-10-09
I love how, at this age, when you rub their bellies, they think about it for a moment, then begin vigorously grooming themselves.

2011-05-10-10
“I KEEL YOU!”

2011-05-10-11
“Okay, I’ll let you snuggle me. BUT I WON’T LIKE IT ONE LITTLE BIT.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

2011-05-10-12
Miz Poo, taking a snooze in the sun.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Previously
2010: Why do I bother buying cat toys, again? (Oh, right. Itā€™s an illness!)
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: I call you people SKIMMERS, because we have SOLD the house, fools.
2006: I NEED MY VEGGING TIME, PEOPLE!
2005: We call himā€¦ FANG!
2004: Who has more fun that me, kids? Thatā€™s right, NO ONE!
2003: No entry.
2002: I think Iā€™ll call him Fredriq, and make him talk in a French accent and squeal with excitement while heā€™s doing it.
2001: Your shoes are not lined up exactly, and whatā€™s this?? A PIECE OF GRASS ON THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SHOE??? TO THE DUNGEON WITH YOU!”
2000: Exhausting!

5/9/11 – Monday

Man, what an active (for me) weekend I had. It’s going to take me all week to recover! Saturday morning we left the house a few minutes before 9:00. The local high school sells vegetable plants every spring, and though we’d discussed telling the garden to go to hell this year and buying all our … Continue reading “5/9/11 – Monday”

Man, what an active (for me) weekend I had. It’s going to take me all week to recover!

Saturday morning we left the house a few minutes before 9:00. The local high school sells vegetable plants every spring, and though we’d discussed telling the garden to go to hell this year and buying all our produce at the local farmer’s market, in the end we really like growing our own veggies. So rather than start from seed again, we decided to see if the high school had the plants we wanted.

We ended up buying 12 tomato plants (Celebrity and Park’s Beefy Boy), 6 cucumber plants (most of the cucumbers I planted before the storm made it through, but a couple hadn’t, so I wanted to fill in where the dead ones had been), some cayenne peppers (luckily, most of the jalapenos we planted before the storm were still standing), yellow squash, zucchini, and eggplants.

We stopped by Lowe’s to buy a few things, stopped by the Co-op to buy seeds so Fred could replant the corn and beans, and headed home. Once we got home, I pulled the push mower out of the tractor shed, and mowed around the raised beds where I’ve got spinach, radishes, purslane, romaine, carrots, and radishes growing. Fred put up a fence around those beds a few weeks ago so that I don’t have to worry about Maxi, Newt, and Coltrane using them as litter boxes, and the grass had gotten pretty high.

It was so pleasant, working outside, that I told Fred I’d mow the back yard if he wanted, but he suggested that instead I mow around the perimeter of the back forty, next to the fence. He usually mows that with the riding lawnmower, but can’t get close enough to the fence with that, and the resulting weeds at the fence line annoys us both.

I took the push mower out to the back forty (which is about two and a half acres) and did three circuits around, followed the entire time by Gracie. Then I cut the grass in the maternity chicken yard, and I was just thinking about mowing the pig yard when Fred came out. He hauled the lawnmower into the pig yard for me, and we talked for a moment. He turned to leave, I took a step back, and my boot was immediately grabbed by the quicksand-like mud in a wallow the pigs we had last Fall had dug, and for a moment I thought I was going to be stuck there forever and ever.

(Or until I pulled my foot out of my boot.)

Fred grabbed my arm and held on while I pulled my boot out, and then he headed on his way while I started mowing the pig yard.

WHAT A FUCKING NIGHTMARE.

The pigs we’ve had in that yard have done so much rooting and digging that there’s not a bit of flat land to be found, so I was continually getting stuck. And pretty much the left back quarter of the pig yard is swamp, and I was doing my best to cut the grass there despite the calf-deep mud, and after I’d made one circuit around the outside of the pig yard, I was all “FUCK THIS” and gave up. I think it took me about 45 minutes of struggling to get that much done, and the sweat was pouring off me, and my face was bright red.

I was so exhausted from the pig yard ordeal that after I ate lunch, I took a shower and changed clothes, visited with the McMaos, and then took a 45 minute nap.

We didn’t do much but watch TV Saturday night.

Sunday morning I got up and immediately got dressed, did all the usual morning scooping and feeding, and then headed outside. I filled five containers with soil, put them in the fenced area where the raised beds are, and planted a different kind of herb in each container. Garlic Chives, Dill, Cilantro, Lemon Basil, and Lemon Balm are all planted and I’m ready for them to sprout, the sooner the better. I also have a packet of catnip that I need to plant, but didn’t have enough containers (or soil, for that matter), so that had to wait.

Then, because I am a blithering idiot, I asked Fred if he wanted me to mow the yard around the blue coop (newishcomers, the blue coop is what used to be our chicken coop until Fred made a much larger coop and fenced in the back forty so they’d have more room to roam. The blue coop is still there – and a sturdy building – and we were talking about finishing it out and making it an extra space for foster cats, but I don’t know that we’re going to do that. I really prefer to have fosters in the house with us. But in any case, the blue coop yard is still fenced in, and hadn’t been mowed in a long time.) He said that would be great, so off I took my stupid self to mow the stupid blue yard.

The swamp in the back third of the blue coop yard makes the swamp in the pig yard look like…. well, okay, maybe the pig yard swamp is worse, but the blue coop swamp was bad enough, and I mowed as much of the blue coop yard as I could before I told Fred I was done. Part of the problem there is that there are a lot of branches down in that yard, and I had to mow around the ones I couldn’t move, and it was a huge pain in the ass.

Then I planted the tomatoes and cucumbers we’d bought. As I was planting, I discovered that four of the tiny tomato plants I’d planted before the tornado were actually standing – but still pretty tiny – so I left them where they were, and planted around them. After I planted the tomatoes we’d bought, I went over to the compost heap and dug up three of the volunteer tomato plants that have popped up (one of them already has flowers!!!) and planted them at the end of the row.

I have 18 more tomato plants coming this week (I’ve gotta have my Sungolds!) and may dig up a couple more volunteers from the compost heap. So despite the fact that I said repeatedly last week that if we were going to replant the tomatoes we were not going to replant 45 of them because that’s far more tomatoes than we need, it looks like we’re going to end up with about 44 plants.

Way to make a stand!

What can I say? I like tomatoes! We haven’t really had a decent tomato harvest yet, but hope sure does spring eternal.

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen, and making dinner before settling down for the evening in front of the TV.

Now I need to make a run to Sam’s and maybe Walmart, need to take all our recycling to the recycling center, and need to swing by and pick up a few groceries.

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Sweet little Dorothy is still in the guest bedroom for the time being. She’s being treated for parasites, poor girl, and despite the fact that she’d dearly like OUT of her room and Jake and Elwood and Rufus would dearly like IN her room (more because of the kitten food that’s in there than out of their desire to see the kitten), we have to wait to introduce them ’til the medicatin’ is done.

However, Rufus is a stealthy little man, and one day last week he apparently snuck into the room when I was leaving it, and I didn’t realize it.

I went in about ten minutes later to find this.

2011-05-08-11

The little hussy.

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Despite my insistence that they stay tiny little babies forever, the McMaos seem determined to grow up. They practically grow right before my eyes, and I DON’T LIKE IT.

2011-05-08-04
Cillian is particularly long. Hee. He’s like a kitty dachshund!

2011-05-08-03
“But… I WANNA grow up to be a big boy and kick the butts of all other cats!”

2011-05-08-02
Ciara decided my foot belonged to HER, and spent a good five minutes rubbing her face on me.

2011-05-08-07
Serious little Cillian.

2011-05-08-08
An idea forms…

2011-05-08-09
Stage 1 of implementation…

2011-05-08-10
Total capitulation. Well played, little man.

2011-05-08-06
I know it’s rude to post a litter box picture, but the thousand yard stare makes me giggle every time.

2011-05-08-05
Fergus Simon of the spotted belleh.

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2011-05-08-12
Sugarbutt, recovering from his vigorous weekend of sleeping.

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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: She just didnā€™t want to start eating food until SHE wanted to and once she decided she was ready, there was no problem.
2007: Cleaning is my favorite thing ever, you know, so it was a happy, happy day for me.
2006: 18. Have you ever been in a fight? Nothing stronger than a slap-fight. Are you kidding? Iā€™d shit myself and pass out before anyone got a chance to hit me.
2005: NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT COREY CLARK.
2004: No entry.
2003: You know youā€™re hormonal when the video for Reba McEntireā€™s ā€œFancyā€ (hee! I almost typed ā€œFancypantsā€) makes you all teary-eyed.
2002: It rocked. I loved it. I see a strong love for sushi in my future.
2001: Iā€™ve managed to stay strong.
2000: Poor, poor pitiful me.

5/6/11 – Friday

I guess yesterday was the day they got the tornado sirens fixed, because in the middle of a bright sunny afternoon, the tornado siren sounded for about 30 seconds before abruptly shutting off. A couple of hours later, it happened again. You’d think there’d be a way they could make sure it was working without … Continue reading “5/6/11 – Friday”

I guess yesterday was the day they got the tornado sirens fixed, because in the middle of a bright sunny afternoon, the tornado siren sounded for about 30 seconds before abruptly shutting off. A couple of hours later, it happened again. You’d think there’d be a way they could make sure it was working without actually having to run the damn thing and giving everyone in the county a friggin’ heart attack.

If I never hear another tornado siren, it’ll be too soon.

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I went and got a few groceries yesterday, and the store was completely out of odd items. First, no Baked Lays at all. Then the Keebler cookies that were buy one, get one free were completely gone, the shelves empty and the “buy one, get one free!” signs wafting mockingly in the breeze.When I went down the baby aisle, there was one lone jar of Gerber Chicken and Gravy baby food. I looked at the other chicken baby food on offer, Chicken Noodle Soup, or something along those lines. But that one had onion powder in it (you can’t feed onions or onion products to cats), so that was no good.

(I’ve been mixing a jar of chicken baby food with a can of kitten food to convince the McMaos that they want solid food. Some of them seem more convinced than others, but of course all babies won’t wean at the same time. I wasn’t out of baby food, but I was getting low on it, and had hoped to stock up.)

I actually guess I understand why all that stuff was out of stock – they’re all shelf stable products (unless you have a partial jar of the baby food), so people probably stocked up on it while their power was out.

And while I’m thinking of it, Huntsville Utilities announced yesterday that 100% of the power has been restored, yay!

So I got the stuff on my list that I could get, and I went to check out. I always carry at least three reusable bags into the store with me, no matter how long my list is, because I figure it’s better to have too many bags than not enough. In addition, I have three more bags in my purse at all times, and when I’m buying a lot of stuff, I say “I have more bags, let me know if you need them.”

SIMPLE ENOUGH, RIGHT?

I’ll be damned, when I got my cart to the end of the line, if I wasn’t greeted with my three reusable bags and two planet-killing plastic bags. I kind of wanted to pluck the bagger’s eyeballs out of her head and kick them down the ice cream aisle. Instead, I pulled a reusable bag out of my purse and repacked the stuff from the two plastic bags into the reusable bag.

(If I were Fred the Over-Explainer, there would have been a 10 minute dissertation on how I prefer not to have plastic bags in my house because I swear to god I CAN LITERALLY HEAR THE PLANET GASPING FOR AIR WHEN I USE THEM, but I just smiled at her.)

(I hate plastic bags. They are my own personal bugaboo AND I AM NOT JUDGING YOU FOR USING THEM SO DON’T GET ALL DEFENSIVE AND UP IN MY SHIT, Mother Earth knows I love her more. (Hee.))

She apologized for forgetting that I’d said I had more bags, and I said it was no problem, and she took the two plastic bags I handed her.

And she threw them in the trash can.

Whereupon I plucked her eyeballs out of her head and kicked them down the ice cream aisle and then I had a stroke.

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Did you see the new program that is going to be on Animal Planet? Don’t know the name of it but they are going to follow 3 litters of kittens from birth to 8 weeks of age. I thought about your pictures immediately. Anyone who has followed your blog has seen birth-8 wks. several times! Love it!

I had not heard of that show, but I went looking and found that it’s called Too Cute! Kittens, and it is FOR SURE my kinda show. I’ll be setting up the DVR to catch that, believe me.

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Am I alone in this or does Kara look like Wilfred Diabeetus Brimley?

You’re definitely not alone in that – someone mentioned it back in January and I agree!

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Do you just get lucky with the pictures or do you take thousands daily?

I take a LOT of pictures. In fact, recently, my favorite camera setting is the one where you just hold down the button and it takes picture after picture. It means I have to spend a lot of time going through pictures, but it’s given me some good ones!

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Do you build a separate building for the shelter? Or is it more like reinforcing one room in your house to make it storm proof?

The kind of storm shelter we’re talking about are the ones that look like a big bubble – they’re all one piece – and they dig a hole in the ground and sink the shelter under there. Like this.

Our front porch is concrete, and I think it would be ideal to have a storm shelter dug under there, with a doorway to it in the floor of the front room, but I think that would be prohibitively expensive. Which is too bad, ’cause it would be so much easier to run tornado drills with the cats if they didn’t have to go outside to get to the shelter. šŸ™‚

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I live in Oklahoma (tornado alley) and there are very few houses with basements here. I’ve heard it’s because the clay is so hard to dig through to build one…don’t know about that. Most people have storm shelters (fraidy holes).

I cannot wait to have our own storm shelter so I can refer to it repeatedly as a fraidy hole! (Also, “Fraidy” would be an excellent kitten name.)

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I love the quilt that Elwood and Corbie are on. Is that hand made by someone? I used to make quilts like that.

2011-04-22-11

No, I got it at Kohl’s. Quilting is one of the things I’d like to take up, but it’s toward the bottom of a very long list of stuff I’d like to do!

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Robyn – I don’t know if you’ve seen this but I thought it did a bang-up job of explaining cat colorations and patterns.

Not only have I seen it, I liked it so much, I ordered the poster and it’s hanging on the foster wall right now!

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Has anyone ever mentioned to you that “mao”, when said in a flat* tone, is the word for CAT in Mandarin Chinese?

* This is the 1st of four tones, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th being up, down/up, down

No one had mentioned it to me – but knowing that makes the McMao name that much more perfect for them, doesn’t it?

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Wait — Miz Poo has issues beyond the most obvious one, her name? Sorry to hear that.

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE NAME “MIZ POO,” I’ll have you know. It’s a perfectly fine family name that was passed down for generations!

(Okay, maybe not. I don’t have a clue where the name “Miz Poo” came from, but if it makes you feel any better her “legal” name is Scrappy.)

Miz Poo is our money pit cat – there’s always something going on with her, and it’s never anything cheap. She has issues with rodent ulcers in her upper lip, she’s got dandruff, she’s neurotic and licks constantly, several years ago she had a blockage in her intestines and we had to cancel a Florida vacation to pay for it (and because I didn’t want to be away from her, truth be told). About two years ago, she had a cyst by her tail that burst (we didn’t even know it was there!) and she had to be knocked out so they could clean it out and stitch her up. When she was little, she had problems with her eyes. It’s always something, she’s always needing to go to the vet, and it’s truly a miracle that she’s the sweet lovebug that she is. I’ve told her she has to live to be 30 (she’s 11 1/2) to repay us for having spent so much on her.

She’s worth every penny.

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But if they stayed this little, Robyn, you’d miss them climbing your legs stage and the resulting, most attractive AAA road map look for your gams! ;-D

I tell you what, I don’t wear shorts in that room, EVER. Even if it’s a warm day out, I put on a pair of jeans before I go in there. Those little claws are SHARP!

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2011-05-06-02

2011-05-06-03

I wish you’d relax a little, Dorothy!

What the pictures don’t show you of Dorothy is that she’s got this tiny little stubby tail. It’s not cut off or in any way shortened, it’s just not as long as you’d expect it to be. It certainly adds to her charm!

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2011-05-06-01

If you look closely at Rufus, you’ll see that a patch of fur on his back got wet and then dried. As if someone drooled on his back (JAKE) while they were curled up asleep on the shelf in the upper left of the picture.

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2011-05-06-04
Ciara on the scratcher.

2011-05-06-05
“Guys! Seriously, guys! It’s amazing!” (Cillian)

2011-05-06-06
Fergus Simon in my lap, peeking up to see what’s going on.

2011-05-06-07
“Tell it to the paw, bro.”

2011-05-06-08
Fergus Simon fell asleep while I was holding him. And then I died from the cute.

2011-05-06-09
Macushla. He’s totally my favorite.

2011-05-06-10
“Guys, come on over! The climbin’ is fine!”

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These little monsters sure are lucky their mama is so patient. The look she gives me at about 30 seconds cracks me UP. Like she’s saying “This is all YOUR fault!”

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2011-05-06-11
Gorgeous Corbs, I love you so.

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Previously
2010: AS MUCH AS I LOVE THESE KITTENS, I DO NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN
2009: If you ever thought of mother chickens as being sweet and maternal, get that thought right out of your head!
2008: I choose to believe it recovered and took flight.
2007: ā€œGodDAMN Iā€™m good-looking. Why am I taking orders from this old hag? Am I making enough money to put up with this over-polite shit*? I think NOT. GodDAMN Iā€™m good-looking.ā€
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Questions answered, and a meme.
2003: Once again, pot-kettle-black.
2002: You can imagine the temper tantrum that followed.
2001: I would have preferred a candy bar, but unfortunately, we don’t got none o’ them ’round these parts.
2000: No entry.

5/5/11 – Crooked Acres Thursday

Sights from around Crooked Acres. We finally got a couple of blueberry bushes to go with the one we already had, and Fred planted them in the back yard. They’re still tiny, but it looks like we’re actually going to get a handful of blueberries this year! Too cool. It looks like the tree would … Continue reading “5/5/11 – Crooked Acres Thursday”

Sights from around Crooked Acres.

2011-05-05-15
We finally got a couple of blueberry bushes to go with the one we already had, and Fred planted them in the back yard. They’re still tiny, but it looks like we’re actually going to get a handful of blueberries this year! Too cool.

2011-05-05-21
It looks like the tree would have eventually fallen on its own, tornado winds or no.

2011-05-05-19

2011-05-05-18

2011-05-05-11
I thought for sure some or all of the baby chicks would have washed/ blown away in the storms, but no. Every one of them is present and accounted for!

2011-05-05-22
The Rock Star. I think she is the most beautiful chicken, ever.

2011-05-05-17
Pretty much every day is the best! day! ever! as far as Gracie’s concerned.

2011-05-05-16
A roving band of tree-cutter-uppers showed up, cut up the tree which had fallen across the ditch from the church property next door, and then kept on movin’.

2011-05-05-20

2011-05-05-23
Chicken yard after we carried off as much of the greenery and smaller limbs as we could. Where those big logs are laying is what used to be part of the chicken yard. We’re going to need professionals to come cut up the rest of the wood and cart it off – Fred’s chainsaw is a good one, but not THAT good.

2011-05-05-10
One of the burn piles. There’s another near the garden.

2011-05-05-12
I can’t get over just how happy these pansies, growing on the compost heap, are doing.

2011-05-05-13
The state of the garden as of yesterday. You can see about six shriveled looking tomato plants (the other 38 are completely gone). The peppers, in the middle of the picture, are hanging in there.

2011-05-05-14
Honeysuckle growing in the back yard. This stuff smells heavenly.

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Hackleburg, Alabama is about 80 miles from us. They were hit hard by the tornadoes, and when I called and talked to the shelter manager about Dorothy and where she could have possibly come from, Susan joked that “Maybe she was blown up from Hackleburg!”

Imagine my surprise yesterday, when I was walking around taking pictures, to find a packing slip laying in the yard.

2011-05-05-24

The VF Corporation distribution plant in Hackleburg was destroyed; one employee was killed.

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Someone asked at some point whether the babies are still hissing at me. They stopped hissing right around the time their eyes opened, and I haven’t heard a hiss from them (toward me, anyway) since. These days, when they see or hear me, they come running over, start climbing my legs, and howl their little heads off.

I’ll try to get that on video for you. It’s quite the cacophony, let me tell you.

2011-05-05-06

2011-05-05-05
I love how Ciara is flopped over the top of Maggie, getting to her food that way.

If you’d like to compare, here they are the day they were born:

2011-04-02-17

And at three days old:

F2011-04-07-07

2011-05-05-04
Deep in thought.

2011-05-05-03
Cillian says “::thlurrrrp::”

2011-05-05-02
Pouty Princess is all “WHAT is going on over there?!”

2011-05-05-01
I love how Fergus Simon is keeping his eye on his brother, all “This is MINE, you get your own!”

2011-05-05-07
“Come on in, the water’s fine!”

2011-05-05-08
All teeth and claws at this age, I’m tellin’ ya.

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2011-05-05-09
“How YOU doin’?”

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Previously
2010: ā€œI YAM A FEARSOME MONSTER! HEAR ME ROAR!ā€
2009: And speaking of our house and smells, whoever thought it would be a good idea to put the air intake vent for the downstairs air/ heating system directly across the hall from the bathroom?
2008: If that man cripples me with the sledgehammer, yā€™all make sure he gets me the LUXURY wheelchair.
2007: No entry.
2006: ā€œMotherfucker say WHAT? You wanna prance?ā€
2005: Did you know you could use it to relieve muscle soreness, as a plant fertilizer, and as a laxative?
2004: Okay, girlfriend? Just how fucking stupid ARE you?
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: God, please tell me when I was 19 I didnā€™t sound that much like an airheadā€¦