2003-04-08

* * * Several houses up the street is a nice, unassuming little house. Surrounding this lovely home is a yard, of course. And the grass in this yard is still dormant and has not yet started growing this year. But all over the yard for the past month or so, in huge, huge clumps, were growing wild onions. It had gotten so bad that I kept feeling the urge to grab my scissors and chop down the onions. But what if they were deliberately letting them grow? What if they had plans for those onions? Better to leave them alone, I supposed, even if they were knee-high. Finally, last Friday, they cut down their onions with their lawnmower, and then apparently did something to their back yard, because the next time I drove by, there were at least 15 trash bags waiting by the curb to be picked up by the people who do that. Is it awful that I don’t have a clue who picks up yard clippings and leaves? All I know is, you bag your clippings and leaves and leave them by the street, and sooner or later they get picked up. Like magic! Anyway, they cut their onions and did something to their back yard (unless there are bodies in those bags, in which case I’ll be the redneck-looking woman on the news saying “But they were so nice and quiet! Kept to themselves! Never had a problem with them!”), and today – Tuesday – I drove by, and the damn onions are 6 inches high already. Damn onions.

* * * Fred planted a couple of tomato plants, a strawberry plant, and a jalapeno plant yesterday. I’m interested to see how it goes, since he planted in the flower bed the cats seem to think of as theirs. I’d love it if the tomato plants flourished and we could make our own salsa this summer. I mean, we can make our own salsa whether we grow our own tomatoes or not, but it’ll be cool if we could use tomatoes we’ve grown ourselves. We’ll see. * * * Poor Tubby. Trying to fit his portly butt in the tiny little cat bed. I actually thought about getting the bigger size instead of this one, but this one was cheaper, and I had no idea whether any of the cats would actually be all that interested in it, so I opted for the smaller, cheaper one. And it turns out that they’re ALL interested in it. So I went back to the pet store today and bought a bigger one. The smaller one is currently on the couch with Miz Poo curled up in it but I think I’m going to move that to my desk. Or maybe I’ll just leave it on the couch, I don’t know. I bought another one (a larger one) to replace the nasty-ass pillow on the trunk under the window in the master bedroom, and Spanky freaked out a tad, because new things always freak him out. And then he curled up for a snooze. Spot and Tubby eyed Spanky jealously before sleep overtook them, as it always does. * * * I don’t remember if I mentioned it last week or not, but Fancypants recently peed in the corner of the computer room, behind the chair. He also peed on the chair itself at some point, and I’ve been all but ready to send him packing (of course I wouldn’t actually, but it calms me down to think I could). We treated the area with Nature’s Miracle and sprayed some Feli-Way (hee!) in the area as well. All seemed to be going well, until yesterday morning. Not long after I took the picture of Tubby squeezing his ass in the little sheepskin bed, I walked into the computer room to see him, ass toward the wall, sniffing around. “Tubby,” I said. “What are you doing?” And then I saw what he was doing. THE FUCKER WAS PEEING AGAINST THE WALL. I yelled at him and chased him out of the room. When I got a chance to think about it, I couldn’t decide whether I felt bad or not, because all along we’ve been blaming Fancypants for peeing in the corner of the room and on the chair, and I’ve been thinking hateful thoughts about Fancypants, when it was apparently Tubby’s fault all along. Or maybe they’ve been working together “You pee on the chair, I’ll get the corner!” So I bought a huge container of Nature’s Miracle, and we’re going to saturate the area and hope that helps with the smell, because I DO NOT want to be one of those crazy cat people whose house smells like cat pee all the time, it’s bad enough that sometimes if you go upstairs directly after someone’s used the litter box and not covered their pile o’ poo, it reeks. And for the record, no. I don’t think Tubby has a bladder infection, because every now and then he feels compelled to pee on something and then pees on it, and then doesn’t do it for a long enough time that we forget it’s him that does it. Damn cats.]]>