Fostering – Page 24

5/28/11 – Saturday

“Hmm… this seems to be about the right size for me!” “A little tight, but comfy.” The perfect vantage point to see what’s going on… Bath time. Checking to be sure he didn’t miss anything… So sweepy. Ciara investigates… …then keeps on moving. Room for Cillian? Guess not. “Eh?” Zzzzzz. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ … Continue reading “5/28/11 – Saturday”

“Hmm… this seems to be about the right size for me!”

“A little tight, but comfy.”

The perfect vantage point to see what’s going on…

Bath time.

Checking to be sure he didn’t miss anything…

So sweepy.

Ciara investigates…

…then keeps on moving.

Room for Cillian?

Guess not.

“Eh?”

Zzzzzz.

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Sugarbutt hopes y’all have a nice, relaxing Saturday.

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Previously
2010: I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN HOVER OVER THE PAN TO MAKE SURE THE ONIONS DON’T BROWN.
2009: I traumatized Fred by telling him I was going to have it professionally framed.
2008: Now that I have only the one drain, which will be tucked under my clothes, I don’t have to worry about the kittens puncturing anything and blood spurting all over the place.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: Today I’m still burning with curiosity, and I wish I’d asked anyway.
2002: So yes, the vacation rocked.
2001: If vacation pictures aren’t your thing, I’ll see ya tomorrow.
2000: I’m so so SO glad to be home.

5/27/11 – Friday

Goddamnit, Robyn, I was going to suggest you name your pigs Pork and Mindy, but since you’ve got a third one, that doesn’t work. I cackled loudly when I read this. We tend not to name our pigs (usually there’s a “big pig” and “not-so-big pig”), but I’m going to have to keep Pork and … Continue reading “5/27/11 – Friday”

Goddamnit, Robyn, I was going to suggest you name your pigs Pork and Mindy, but since you’ve got a third one, that doesn’t work.

I cackled loudly when I read this. We tend not to name our pigs (usually there’s a “big pig” and “not-so-big pig”), but I’m going to have to keep Pork and Mindy in mind for the future!

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Since you turned me on to Snood a few years ago, I’ve always been grateful! I recently got a new computer so downloaded the latest version 4.10. Oooh! There is a puzzle preference option where you can pick puzzle games made by other snood players! SOooo much fun! Thought I’d tell you in case you didn’t know. I only like the easy/medium ones not those evil evil levels!

I tend to stick to the medium level because I am a lazy ass and prefer not to be challenged in the slightest. Every once in a while I try one on the “evil” level, but then I go fleeing back to medium. I sure do love the hell out of Snood, even after all these years.

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If they ever make a Crooked Acres Movie, they need to get Jack Nicholson to voice Loony Jake.

LOVE IT.

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Here in The Little Lair, we call that lounging on the back of the chair thing being a “lard doily”…

Nice to know our house isn’t the only one with lard doilies!

HA – lard doilies! We have many lard doilies in our house, Sugarbutt and Tommy chief among them.

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I’m visiting my mom this week and in her MASSIVE collection of garden catalogs, I found this and wanted to make sure you saw it: Asian Ladybeetle Traps.

I couldn’t remember if you’d already solved your ladybeetle invasion problem. 🙂

The year before last, I got two of those traps and put one in each of the worst locations (ie, where those awful Asian Ladybeetles were coming in the most). I didn’t notice it making much of a difference that Fall, but the following year (last Fall), the invasion wasn’t nearly as bad. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the traps or if it just wasn’t such a bad year, but I’ve decided to believe it was due to the traps. And they’re a little expensive, but since they last for 2 – 4 years, I think they very well might be worth it.

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I’ve been curious about this, and I can’t remember if you mentioned it before – why does the shelter not like to repeat names? I get that you don’t want twenty kittens named Spot running around at once, but it must be hard to think of names after a while.

and

What happens if the shelter gets a cat that HAS a name, and it’s a name that’s already been used? Like, someone adopts Uniquenamecat and in their home he becomes (say) Rufus. Then two years later something happens and they have to return now-Rufus to the shelter – since he’s been Rufus for so long, would the shelter continue calling him Rufus even though there was already a Rufus I? Or if, for another instance, a stray was found with a collar that had the name “Rufus” on it but no contact info. Would they make an exception to help (I would think) make the transition(s) easier on the cat? I’d think it’d add to the stress to suddenly have a new name on top of everything else.

Oh, the things I think about, trying to get myself to go to sleep…!!

(The name “Rufus” is now nonsense to me, by the way.)

The shelter prefers to use names that haven’t been used in the past just because it’s simpler for record keeping purposes – if there are 15 black and white cats named “Spot”, it’s hard to know who’s who after a while. I know that after a certain amount of time, or if a cat passes on, the name is allowed to be used again, so it’s not like once there’s a cat named Spot, it is NEVER used again.

I’m honestly not sure what happens if the shelter gets a cat with a name that’s been used in the past – if, say, I turned Sugarbutt in to the shelter and there’d already been a Sugarbutt, I suspect that they’d probably just list him as “Sugarbutt Anderson.” Or if a cat showed up with a name that had been used before (this is just a guess on my part), they’d either keep the name as is (assuming that the previous cat or cats with that name weren’t the same kind of cat) or add a second name.

There are ways to get around the whole naming thing – for instance, I was pretty tied to the idea of naming one of our then-fosters “Cara”, but since that had been used before, I went with “Kara.” Had “Dorothy” been used in the past (can you believe it hadn’t been?), I would have gone with “Dorothy Gale.”

I’m forever surprised by names that haven’t been used, and as of yet I haven’t had a terribly hard time coming up with names. I actually have a whole email folder of names that I go and look through if I’m stumped. There are a lot of names out there. I name kittens expecting that they’ll be renamed when they’re adopted and go to their forever homes, so I don’t get TOO attached to the names, and I’m never ever insulted when one of my fosters is renamed.

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The mom wants to know if you ever take a crummy shot…she can’t imagine it. LOL.

I take a MILLION crummy shots. Seriously, earlier this week I spent some time in the foster room with Maggie and the McMaos, taking picture after picture. When I got to my computer later and plugged it in, I had just under a thousand (THOUSAND) pictures on the memory stick. Of that almost 1,000, after I went through and deleted all the blurry shots and all the duplicates, I went through them again and deleted the ones that weren’t so hot. In the end, I had less than a hundred left. So when I say I keep about one of every ten pictures I take, I am totally not kidding. Thank god for digital cameras – if I had to pay to have all those pictures developed, I’d be one broke woman!

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Is it me or Maggie looks smaller now? I know she gave birth but she is smaller than what I expect she after she gave birth.

and

Hey, looks like Mama’s tummy is starting to tighten up! How is she doing with weaning the kittens? Are they nursing much now, or is it mostly when they pounce her and she goes along with it? I remember pictures of Kara sort of getting up abruptly with an irritated expression on her face, haha.

Maggie is much, much smaller now – in fact, I think she’s too thin. Every time I go into the room, I give her a can of kitten food or some other sort of treat, because she really does need to put some weight on.

The kittens are still nursing every now and then, but Maggie doesn’t think twice about getting up and walking off if she decides she’s had enough.

From earlier this week.

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I was at an estate sale early this morning that had an hors d’oeuvres dish, but it was Spode and it was $40. Sorry! 🙂

What, my babies aren’t worth it? Hmph!

I kid, of course. I’d KILL anyone who spent that kind of money on something like that for my babies. I thought about buying a deviled egg platter, but in the end just putting seven blops of food around the edge of a dinner plate is working out surprisingly well.

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Further to the divided-dish discussion, you might consider a Seder plate — seriously!

I actually saw a couple of really cute Seder plates, but I was worried that it might be considered, y’know, offensive or something.

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Miss Maggie McMeowball is a brown tabby herself, isn’t she? I can never remember.

Indeed she is! And a very pretty one, too, if you ask me. 🙂

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Love the teenage pics of George and Gracie! I remember you’ve said before that they keep your chickens safe. How did you train them to do that? Are they just super smart and intuitive, or did you have to specially instruct them in protecting your animals?

Their parents were working livestock guardian dogs, and they grew up (for their first few months, anyway) around chickens.While they were still awfully young when we got them, they apparently got and understood enough of the training from their parents that they became good protectors.

A few days after we brought them home, I was in the back forty gathering eggs. When I stood up and turned around, I saw someone standing at the fence, and it startled me. I gasped and said “Oh!”, and George and Gracie immediately got between me and the fence, and the entire time I stood there talking to the guy and his wife (they wanted to buy eggs, I think), George and Gracie barked at them.

Then, a few days after that, someone we knew stopped by while Fred and I were out in the back forty, and we stood and talked to them. George and Gracie barked a few times, but what I found most telling is that they stayed between our visitors and the chickens at all times.

They’re awfully good pups.

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Does Fergus Simon have the longest whiskers of the bunch as well?

No, his are pretty comparable to the rest of the litter’s whiskers.

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I just noticed the little round mirrors low on the wall (reflecting the kicker-roo). Do the kittens like them?

They do – every now and then I’ll see a kitten looking at himself or herself. Here’s Ciara checking out the view:

And Maggie:

“How do I get into THAT room?”

“I bet THOSE babies would be nicer than the brats in this room.”

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Little Miss Dorothy is going to grow up to be one gorgeous cat.

(Are her legs a little short, or is it just the angle of the photo?)

It was just the angle of the photo. Miss Dorothy is perfectly proportioned!

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So, Miss Dorothy has been spayed and got her ID chip and was tested for parasites (negative! Yay!). She’s all set to go, and for the time being she’ll cool her heels here, play with the permanent residents, and just basically make herself at home.

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“High five!”

Declan is very daring little BatCat.

Cillian swings! He misses!

There’s that Ferguson latte you ordered. I hope it didn’t get cold.

“You forgot the catnip sprinkle on top. AS USUAL.”

“WHAT?”

The McMao babies are going next Thursday to be spayed and neutered. They’re all over two pounds, and will be eight weeks old, and so it’s time. This means, of course, that the time is drawing near where they’ll be going off to Petsmart to be adopted – I mean, it’s not like they’ll go off immediately or anything, but we’re counting the time in a matter of weeks rather than months – so y’all start preparing yourselves.

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Yesterday, after I dropped Dorothy off at the vet for her procedures, I had breakfast with the shelter manager and other friends.

(There was a baby there. He was tiny, and his Nana said “Guess how old he is!” and I demurred, saying “I’m as bad at aging humans as I am at aging kittens!”, but I was thinking “Six months?” Yeah, no. That baby was two months old. I am SERIOUSLY bad at aging babies! Also, a while later after the baby had eaten and fallen asleep, they were putting him in one of those car seat carriers, and he looked so comfortable that I turned to the shelter manager and said “Don’t you wish they made those for humans?” Then I realized what I’d said and was like “I mean ADULTS!” You really can’t take me out in public, I’m afraid.)

The shelter manager was talking about these kittens that had been abandoned at a local business, and how she really didn’t have room for them but what are you gonna do, right? They were about five weeks old and all girls, a calico, a calitabby, and a brown tabby. We commiserated about the total flood of kittens going on right now, and ate breakfast and talked and so forth.

When we left the restaurant, she headed off to the clinic to pick up those kittens (who were being tested), and I called Fred. Then I went to the clinic.

Would you like to meet The Spice Girls?

This is Clove. She’s a brown tabby, and the tiniest of the three (just under a pound). She’s also the sassiest of the three, and is the first one to greet me when I walk into the room.

Cilantro is a calitabby. She’s almost as friendly as Clove, and very very playful (they all are, but Cilantro’s especially so).

Coriander is a calico. She was a little bit nervous at first, but warmed up pretty quickly and now when I walk into the room, all three of them run over to be petted.

They are all three very sweet, friendly, playful girls. They’re in really good shape, and I looked them over carefully, but didn’t see a single flea or tick on them. I would like to offer, given how friendly and in what great shape they are, that they were probably living in someone’s house (they’re not scared of people) up until they were abandoned.

By the way, when I got home with them, I moved Maggie and the babies down to the guest bedroom (it’s a bigger room), and put The Spice Girls into the foster room (after I cleaned it). Dorothy, given that she’s parasite-free, is now out in the house 24/7. She’s not sure what exactly is going on, but I do believe she likes having her freedom!

*Edited to add: Yes, I know that Coriander and Cilantro are the same thing – or rather, that Coriander is the seed and Cilantro is the plant. That’s why I thought it was so cute, although Coriander & Cilantro might have been better mother-daughter names now that I think about it!

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::slurrrrp:: Tommy, sauntering across the back yard.

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Previously
2010: I’d like to think this is a play on words (“So stainless it’s a steal!”), but I kinda doubt it.
2009: So we moved George back out to the big coop, and George’s baby could not possibly care less, he’s staying up late and making prank phone calls and eyeballing the girl baby chickens, and I think he’s going to be nothing but trouble.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: I have renewed faith in my fellow man.
2004: No entry.
2003: “AT LEAST THEY KNOW I DON’T HAVE A BOMB IN MY SUITCASE!”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: The man is full of compliments, ain’t he?

5/26/11 – Thursday

Today Fred turns 44! (It probably doesn’t surprise you to read that I had to stop and do the math to figure that out. One day last week I said “I’m forty… how old am I? Forty-two?”) Happy birthday, baby!!! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ … Continue reading “5/26/11 – Thursday”

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Last weekend, we finally got our pigs for this year. We went with the intention of getting two, but a couple of people at Fred’s job expressed interest, so we ended up with a third. The man we get our pigs from is known as “Egg”, as some of you know, so here are some sights from around Egg’s farm.

Cute little baby pigs (these guys were too small to be separated from their mama yet. I did get a shot of their mama – who kept giving me the “Don’t you think about touching my babies!” eyes, but it didn’t come out.)

<
Puppy, keeping an eye on the pigs.

Our pigs, not sure what on earth was going on.

What’s a farm without a barn cat or two?

White donkey, hangin’ with the cows.

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And, of course, sights from around Crooked Acres.

One little,

two little,

three little girly pigs.

Thus far, one of them will take a cookie from Fred’s hand, but the other two are too skittish. They wait ’til Brave Pig takes the cookie from Fred, then follow her around, trying to take the cookie from her. They’ll learn soon enough – they always do!

That’s Gracie in the front and George in the back.

“Hallo, shweetheart.”

Even though George and Gracie never come into actual contact with the pigs (the pig yard is fenced off), they still get excited when we get new pigs.

This is inside the pig shelter (before Fred added straw, not that it’s been cold enough for them to burrow down inside the straw lately, but still) a few days before we went to get the new pigs. This hen decided this was a good place to raise some babies, so she made a nest, laid a clutch of eggs, and sat on them looking angry when anyone came close. Fred moved her to the maternity yard, and she decided she didn’t want babies after all, and abandoned her eggs.

Mamas and babies.

They’ve hit their gawky stage.

If you look closely, you’ll see Gracie inside the fence and Coltrane outside the fence, on the other side of the ditch. He comes and goes constantly, and the dogs completely ignore him.

First fresh veggies from the garden for 2011 – baby romaine, purslane, and radishes.

Happy Hydrangea.

Pansies have taken root in the cracks on the front steps. I should probably pull them up, but they’re so pretty I don’t want to!

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Dorothy loves to pick fights with Jake, and he puts up with her shenanigans for far longer than you’d expect him to, but eventually he snaps and fights back. Then she gets all “Oh, wah! I am but a wee baby! Please save me from this horrible beast who would pick on a tiny helpless baybeeeeee!”

Dorothy is off to the vet today to be spayed and ID chipped and all that. I’d say y’all should wish her luck, but she will be perfectly fine, and I expect she’ll be racing around here tonight like nothing ever happened.

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Oh Cillian, how I love your worried little face.

If you couldn’t guess, I was waving the feather teaser around wildly, and they were pretty interested in what was going on.

He leaps! He misses!

This is a pretty good shot of all six of them.

And this.

Declan and his toes.

Ciara really likes to hang out underneath this cat bed for some reason.

Maggie’s been getting some alone time this week – not every day, but about every other day, I put her in the room at the other end of the hall and leave her in there for two or three hours. She doesn’t really care for it, I think it worries her to be away from the babies, or possibly she just doesn’t like being in a strange room. The babies don’t even notice that she’s not there until I bring her back in, which is when they gather around her like “Mama! We missed you! WE THOUGHT YOU WAS A TOAD!” and she gets a look on her face like “I wanted to come back in here why, exactly?”

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Snoozin’ Spanky.

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Previously
2010: “Zip it. ZIP it. ZIP. IT.”
2009: I HATE HAVING TO DEAL WITH STRANGERS, HAVE I MENTIONED THIS?
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: He’s such a liar.
2005: But by the time I was about three words in to the text message to the spud, I was using “u” and “2″ and “gd” with abandon, and it STILL took me 4-fckng-eva 2 get th gd msg typd n & snt.
2004: I started to answer her, when I realized to my horror that Fred was leaning forward, CUPPING HIS HAND TO HIS EAR to illustrate that he hadn’t heard what she said.
2003: “I breathe oxygen!” “Me too!”
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Our first trip to G’burg.

5/25/11 – Wednesday

Happy, happy birthday, Nance!!!! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ For those of you who asked where I got those adorable plates in yesterday’s Snackin’! Time! pictures, here’s a closeup of them: I got them at Petsmart, quite … Continue reading “5/25/11 – Wednesday”

Happy, happy birthday, Nance!!!!

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For those of you who asked where I got those adorable plates in yesterday’s Snackin’! Time! pictures, here’s a closeup of them:

I got them at Petsmart, quite some time ago. It just so happened that I had seven of them on hand. I don’t use them for snack time for the McMaos because it’s a huge pain to try to carry 7 plates at once, just used them the once so I could get some pictures of all of them in a row. These days I’m doing what I thought of last week: I mix up their snack (one can of kitten food, one jar of Gerber chicken and gravy baby food – they don’t need the baby food, but they like it, and I like to make them happy as I’m sure you’re shocked to hear) and then put seven blops of food around the edge of a regular sized (human) dinner plate, and that works out really well.

I need to get a picture of that, too, while I’m thinking of it!

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Poor Maggie. She sure does put up with a lot from those bratty little brats.

“Hi Mama! ::thwap::”

“HI Mama! Make way!”

Note, please, that he’s standing ON her.

And now he’s biting her tail. She just lays there and puts up with it.

That look on her face epitomizes ::SIGH::, doesn’t it?

“HI MAMA! Hi!”

“You takin’ a nap? You takin’ a nap, huh, Mama? You gonna take a nap? You want me to take a nap with you? Huh, Mama, huh?”

“Lord help me from killing this mouthy little child.”

“Just a little bite on the side of his neck will make me feel so much better.”

“HOLD STILL, child, I’m gonna bite you.”
“No, Mama, noooooo! Mama! Hi Mama! Hi Mama, what you doin’?”

“Come on, guys, Mama’s drinking water! That means WE need to drink water, too!”

“Hi Mama, hi! Hi Mama!”

“MAMA! I said HI! HI Mama, can you HEAR me?”

“Mama, I smack you on the face! I smack you, Mama! Hi!”

“Mama, I’m hungry. Is it time to eat, Mama?”

Note that she’s holding Declan down with one paw while she bites Fergus Simon on the neck. She’s multi-talented!

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Boy, someone’s a little crankypants and apparently missed her afternoon nap.

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Miz Poo in the Poo Cave.

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Previously
2010: Now they need to have a follow-up series, LOST: Life After the Island.
2009: “Go get the ladder, Joe. GO GET THE LADDER. I’m a portly cat. A jump from here would kill me!”
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: Goofy cats.
2005: Grackles are kind of evil-looking and have great big beaks and I’m sure their bite is far, far worse than their bark.
2004: I sure am MIGHTY FUCKING TIRED of going to the FUCKING doctor’s office all the damn time.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

5/24/11 – Tuesday

So, I didn’t lay on the couch and watch TV all day yesterday as I thought I might, but I got a lot of small tasks accomplished, so that’s good. But don’t worry – I know you were worried – I got caught up on some of my reality TV while I went through the three-foot stack of paper that’s been sitting next to my desk for ages. The stack was comprised of mostly recipes, and I ended up dividing the recipes into several different categories and paper clipped each category together, then stuck a post-it on the front page of each so I’d know which stack belonged to which category.

It was all very harrowing, as I’m sure you can imagine, trying to decide whether frozen hot chocolate (these are recipes I’ve never made, by the way, once I make the recipe I either toss it or commit it to a recipe card in the recipe box – and that one’s been sitting in my stack of “make this someday” recipes for about a year) belongs in “breakfast” or “dessert.” If I called it “drinks”, it would have been in a category by itself. Oh, the dilemma!

(I put it in “dessert.” You know you wanted to know.)

I also found a large number of printed out comments from last year when some of you gave me some gardening advice, and maybe this year I’ll actually take some of that advice now that I know where it is!

(In the “gardening” category, obv.)

Speaking of the garden, yesterday I saw that there are flowers on the tomato plants that were planted before the tornado went through. And there are tiny little tomatoes-to-be on a couple of the tomato plants I transplanted from the compost heap to the garden. The corn and beans Fred planted are coming up nicely and the squash plants… well, they’re hanging in there.

We just may have a decent garden this summer after all!

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I got my dumbphone from Virgin Mobile last week, and it’s working out pretty well for me. I got the Samsung Restore and so far the only thing I don’t like about it is the way it “threads” text messages. Well that, and the fact that the pull-out QWERTY keyboard is bigger than the one on my Kyocera Wild Card was (which is what I had before the LG Optimus V), and I find it awkward with my tiny doll hands and short fingers to type messages on it.

Never happy, am I?

(I admit, I miss my Wild Card a wee bit, but the camera on the Samsung is better, and I can check my email on the Samsung too, so I guess I’ll learn to deal.)

Also, I charged the new phone on Thursday and didn’t have to charge it again ’til Sunday EVEN THOUGH I sent and received text messages IN THE DOUBLE DIGITS. Go, Samsung Restore!

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Alice is all “If I wasn’t so sleepy, I would NOT be putting up with this, you little upstart.”

“Dorfy sweepy too. I can haz a snuggle?”
Alice: “Don’t push it, whippersnapper.”

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More snackin’ time for the McMaos. Note that even though Maggie has her very own plate, she goes up the line partaking of the kittens’ snacks.

I can’t swear to it, but I think the lineup is, left to right: Macushla, Cillian, Ciara, Fergus Simon, Maggie, Finnegan, and Declan. It’s hard to know for sure from this angle.

The McMaos tussle.

Maggie takes a breather.

They really really love this little basket. Sometimes one of them will sit in it and another one will bat at them through the openings. Also sometimes we put the basket over the top of one of them, and the others gather around and mock him.

Finnegan makes with the crazy eyes.

Cillian. Don’t you want to kiss his little nose?

Fergus Simon, about to tip over backwards.

Macushla in my lap.

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Loony Jake is annoyed.

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Previously
2010: One thing y’all do not know about Fred And3rson is that when it comes toward clothing, he gravitates toward the bright, flamboyant colors.
2009: No entry.
2008: One of the many things I don’t get: sour cream.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: WHERE’S THE SENSE?
2004: ”It’s HOT in the SOUTH in the SUMMER?! You don’t say!”
2003: No entry.
2002: I hope you’re planning on marking the occasion with style and panache, people.
2001: And so on until it’s lunchtime and I’m so excited at the thought of Lime Jello for dessert (it being Tuesday and all) that I hang up on her and go hobbling out to the lunchroom with all the other old people.
2000: Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.

5/23/11 – Monday

On Saturday, after taking a road trip to Tennessee that took up most of the morning (and somehow, I managed to not take a single picture while I was up there, wtf??), we swung by Egg the Pig Man’s place and got ourselves some little pigs. I took a bunch of pictures around Egg’s place … Continue reading “5/23/11 – Monday”

Egg is always having issues with his back, and it hurts me just to see him walk. He’s 78 years old, and it’s been a rough 78 years. His wife’s trying to get him to give up the piggin’ business (and probably the cow business as well), but I think he just loves it too much. The day after the tornadoes went through (he had no damage to his property), he was checking his fence, and got his boots stuck in the mud and couldn’t pull them out, so he was barefooted. He was pulling himself up with his arms and got tangled in his electric fence, and when he got zapped by it, he pulled back and twisted his back which made him fall, and he busted his hand up when he fell.

Last week, he forgot his truck was in park and started to get out, then got his head stuck between the steering wheel and rearview mirror, and got a bruise on his head.

Poor Egg.

In the past, Egg’s always been the one to wrestle the pigs we were buying into the carriers, but this time he let Fred do it. We had told him that we wanted two pigs, but on the way up there we got to talking, and Fred’s got a couple of people at work who want to buy pigs (or rather, half a pig). We decided that if Egg had another pig around the same size as the other two for sale, then we’d buy a third. If not, then the people who want to buy pigs from us would have to wait. (We determined, after the other two pigs went to be processed in February and it was a godawful mess getting them into the truck because it was so wet in the back forty, that we’re only going to have pigs once a year from here on out.)

As it turned out, Egg had five little pigs for sale, so we got that third pig. Then he and Fred talked about how we should buy a sow from him and raise our own pigs, and yeah. I don’t think so. Especially after Egg casually says things like “She had about twelve of them, but she mashed a couple.” I’d rather not have to see any piglets who got mashed by their mama rolling over on them, thanks anyway.

There was a mama pig there with a large number of tiny little piglets (much smaller than the three we ended up getting) and I would have dearly loved to touch a wee piglet, but mama pig was giving me the “I will mess you UP, lady” eyes, so I didn’t even think about trying that.

We got home and then carried the carriers out to the pig yard and set the girls free, and they immediately ran around and ate grass and chased each other. They are certainly cute girls, but we realized that one of them has a bulge in her mid-section and that means one of the following: (1) It’s a boy OR (2) It’s a hernia OR (3) It’s an umbilicus (this is a Fred And3rson theory, and I don’t know what the fuck he could possibly be talking about, the pigs are NOT newborns, but he says it with enough self-assurance that he seems to think it’s a real theory, so I’m going to leave it in) OR (4) It’s a hermaphrodite pig. After much quality time spent staring at Bulgy’s back end, Fred is pretty sure that she’s a she and that the bulge is a hernia because it’s not pointy enough to be, y’know. Male equipment. The last time we dealt with hernia-having pigs, it didn’t work out so well and we ended up taking the pigs back from whence they came, but Fred doesn’t seem inclined to do that with this pig, so I don’t know. Whatever. Pigs are his area of expertise, not mine, so I’m going to let him figure out what he wants to do as far as that goes.

Saturday evening, I was wiped out (I think due to a Zyrtec I’d taken earlier in the day. I felt sleepy all day long, and that’s what I’ve decided to blame it on.) and we put in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 and I watched it when I wasn’t dozing.

Sunday morning I was awakened bright and early (5:45!) by Fred, who came upstairs to tell me that he’d seen the possum who eats out of the food bowl on our side porch, and the poor guy doesn’t have a tail anymore. We discussed what could have happened to it, then Fred told me something else that I don’t recall, and he went downstairs.

Since I was awake, I got up and got dressed, then went into the foster room to give the kittens and Maggie their morning snack and scoop the litter boxes. I found a kitten pee situation that required getting all the McMaos out of the foster room so I could do a thorough cleaning, which took about half an hour. I got all the litter boxes scooped and took a few minutes to relax before I headed out to start working in the garden.

I spent the next couple of hours cutting empty pig and chicken feed bags open and cutting a slit down the middle of each so that I could put a bag around each and every tomato plant so I won’t spend my summer weeding. While I did that, Fred got out the tomato cages and put one over each tomato plant. We took a break to eat breakfast, then he started driving T posts in the tomato row and tying twine along the row of cages, attaching the cages to the T posts.

It was all very exciting, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Then I put drip hoses along each of my rows of tomatoes and one along my row of onions and cucumbers, mowed the grass around my raised beds, planted two tomato plants in my straw bale (it’s an experiment), and declared that I was done working outside for the day. I went inside, took a shower, and then proceeded to putter around the house for a few hours. Fred’s father and stepmother stopped by and we spent about an hour chatting with them before they headed home.

It was a fairly productive weekend (well, Sunday) for me, but I have so much more on my to-do list that all I want to do is lay in front of the TV and do nothin’.

Sounds like a plan!

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As the oldest cat, Spanky thinks that what to watch should be HIS decision.

“But *I* wanna watch those wacky Real Housewives!” says Dorothy.
Jake: ::facepalm::

(Dorothy won. She always does.)

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Seven weeks old! Can you believe it?

Ciara goes for the butt bite as Cillian attempts to flee up the cat tree.

Declan (left) and Fergus Simon (right) in my lap. They’re looking all wild-eyed because the camera strap is hanging down, tempting them.

Their little faces crack me up (please note the foot-sniffer in the background).

Macushla and his fangs.

Finnegan at play (note to self: someone really needs to paint those baseboards.)

“I feel skeered, but I don’t know WHY.”

Ciara, hanging on the cat tree while Cillian’s over there all “I don’t know why you’re taking HER picture, she’s not doing anything all THAT impressive. I can hang there like that. I can hang there from only ONE paw. She’s nothin’ special. Hmph.”

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the Bat signal, and I am BatCat!”

“::sigh:: Picking that up would be SO much easier if I had opposable thumbs.”

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Are we comfy, Suggie? (Sugarbutt and Tommy love to lay like this on the back of Fred’s chair.)

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Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Home! Will post when I can, don’t know when that will be.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Yes, a child’s dose of Benadryl on an empty stomach, and I’m about ready to dance on the bars and twirl my bra over my head.
2004: No entry.
2003: He’s a badass motherfucker, that’s right.
2002: Little baby piglets!
2001: “This is our song, Robbie,” she said.
2000: I can’t believe I’ve been doing this journalling thing for over 7 months now.

5/20/11 – Friday

Have you ever heard the This American Life story “Squirrel Cop”? This is one of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard. This is totally worth the 15 minutes to listen to. The longer the story goes, the funnier it gets! The “Squirrel Cop” story from Jack OnFlickr on Vimeo. I LOVE This American Life, but … Continue reading “5/20/11 – Friday”

The “Squirrel Cop” story from Jack OnFlickr on Vimeo.

I LOVE This American Life, but hadn’t heard that story before! It does just keep getting funnier, doesn’t it?

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A new video! Be sure to watch to the very end!

That is a very catchy song! Heh.

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I got an email last week about someone doing the photography at my wedding. She broke down how much her fees were by each set of photos, including one that said she’d charge ‘a little extra’ for the sitting with the mother of the bride and mother of the groom, seeing as they ‘do not care for each other or approve of the marriage at all.’

I emailed her back and told her that would be the highlight of the job and she could probably get some very candid shots of the two of them fistfighting, as that is what they do best when in each other’s presence.

And then at the end of the email I told her I was just joking and that my name was not Kim and she had in fact, emailed the wrong person.

You made me LOL. 🙂

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Your squirrel reminded me that the radio station I listen to posted a video about a little girl playing with a dead squirrel. It’s actually kind of funny. Poor squirrels!

OH MY GOD, CHILD, PUT THAT FILTHY DEAD RODENT DOWN!

Pardon me while I go take a Silkwood shower.

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I’m sure you’ve Eddie Izzard’s bit on printers. I totally thought of this as I was reading 🙂

LOVE it!!!

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I don’t have a printer yet. My laptop is still on the kitchen table. I did have problems with gmail and lots of things freezing all the time. If I didn’t like the colorfulness of igoogle so much I’d switch to yahoo. I know too little but feel better when you say it’s acting up for you too so I know it’s not just me.

Rest assured that it is never EVER just you. If I took the amount of time I spend swearing at my computer on a daily basis and spent it doing something productive like studying science, I could probably have cured cancer by now.

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Forgive me if this is too nosy a question, but how will they handle the billing for the revision? Are you going to have to pay for everything twice? That’d piss me off, even though I understand the mechanics of medical billing.

Y’know, originally I thought that there’d be no charge at all, then after I read your comment, I was like “Oh, fuck me. Am I going to have to pay for this again? Because if so, there’s going to be no revision in my future, I cannot handle the thought of having to pay again!” But then yesterday my surgeon’s nurse called to talk to me, and told me that it wouldn’t cost anything and I just needed to tell her when I wanted to have it done. After finding out how long the recovery would be (about two weeks of not lifting anything heavier than 5 or 10 pounds), I told her it’d either need to be right away or put off until the Fall. The soonest it could be scheduled was for June 13th, so it looks like it’ll be this Fall. She’s going to talk to him to be sure there’s no problem putting it off ’til October (she expects that to be fine) and should give me a call back later today.

With the gardening revving up (FINALLY), I just thought it made sense to wait ’til I could afford to sit on my butt for two weeks.

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Have you seen this? I love the very end when he says “cheese”….

Awwww.

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My husband had a dream that we were animal control officers, and we would trap animals of all kinds and the city would pay us per animal to euthanize them. What the city didn’t know was that we would secretly in the middle of the night, load up the truck and take all the animals out to live with you and Fred. Thanks for helping us cheat the city and save the animals. 🙂

Oh, it’s our pleasure. 😉

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Apart from scooping poop most of the day, do you spend the rest of the time brushing the herd? They all seem to have amazing coats.

I brush the ones who’ll put up with it, because I LOVE using the Furminator on the cats. It’s so satisfying to get so much fur so quickly! Some of them – especially Spanky – don’t care for being brushed, though, and in fact will run when they see the brush. Which always makes me laugh – you’d think I use the thing to beat them with instead of helping to get that annoying loose fur off their bodies!

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In the kitten photos, are those double bowls attached to each other? Close up photo and purchasing information, please.

They certainly are! Here’s a closeup:

I got them at Old Time Pottery (I always want to call it “Old Tyme Pottery”) last year sometime. When you have a large number of kittens, it’s easier to use the attached bowls rather than trying to balance 6 individual dishes at snack time. I was actually looking for one of those hors d’ oeuvres dishes, one of the round ones with several individual bowls around the plate? That apparently doesn’t exist except in my own mind, since I can’t seem to find an example online anywhere. But now that I’m thinking about it, a deviled egg tray might work pretty well.

Actually, what would make the most sense would be to take a regular dinner plate and put blops (that’s the scientific term) of canned food around the plate and let them figure it out. It’s not like they stick to their own plate anyway, is it?

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The Andersons know NOT the insane amoount of photos I have stolen from them…I just use them as inspirations of future art works, nothing untoward!

I just would like y’all to know that as long as you aren’t using my pictures to make money, or claiming that you took them yourselves, feel free to use them as wallpaper or whatever it is you want to use them for – it makes me happy to think of my babies making y’all happy!

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Do you mean to say that that cheeky Alice has worked out how to exit the backyard? Why else would she be wearing the “special” collar?

The collar is just a preventative measure. She’s actually small enough that I don’t think she could get over the barriers we’ve put in place around the fence posts, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. Fred would be very sad if he lost his bratty little princess!

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For some reason, I didn’t think Miz Poo ever went outside. She looks extra-lovely in the open air!

She doesn’t spend as much time outside as the other cats, but except for Stinkerbelle all the cats go out into the back yard from time to time. For that matter, Stinkerbelle could go out into the back yard, but she’s never quite figured out the cat door, and since she’s what we refer to as our “house feral”, I’d rather not have to worry about her getting outside and then figuring how to get over the fence, so I’m okay with her being inside-only.

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Oh wise (and slightly crazy) cat lady, I need your help.

For a few weeks, one of my 4 cats has been pooping in the corner of one of the bedrooms. Doesn’t matter if the litter boxes are clean or not. Keeping the door closed solved that problem. Then, on Monday, my husband decided we needed a dog. He’s an outdoor dog, the cats are both indoor and outdoor. None of the cats are happy about this at all. And now the oldest of our cats, an 11 year old male is spraying (I didn’t know fixed cats could do that!), peeing and pooping on all the bathmats/bathrooms in the house. Short of never letting him in the house again, what do I do? I promise to send you cookies if you can solve this problem for me! we are pretty sure the bedroom pooper is the same cat, but have no proof.

I’m sure there’s advice out there to be had – and anyone with advice, do feel free to leave it in the comments! – but despite the timing I’d still suggest you take the offending pooper to the vet to be checked over, just in case. The fact that the pooping started before you got the dog indicates that it could possibly be a health issue, especially given his age. If he checks out as healthy, all I can suggest is to try Feliway (the plug-ins and the spray).

I’m sure someone out there has more/ better advice for Jennifer. Chime in here, folks! (Note: Jennifer, make sure you check over at Love & Hisses, I’m sure there will be advice in the comments over there, too.)

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Gracie and George are the prettiest puppies ever. Do you have any baby pictures of them?

Have you met me? 🙂 OF COURSE I have baby pictures of them. Well – toddler pictures, I guess. They were about four months old when we brought them home.

There are a TON more of them, of course, over at Flickr.

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Someday soon, could you post individual photos of the McMaos and point out their distinguishing features? I know it’s a lot to ask, but they’re so darn cute!

I’ll have you know that I didn’t even have to go take more pictures to fulfill this request – the amount of pictures I take of these kittens is absolutely ridiculous – but I can’t help it! So in no particular order, here they are.

Declan:

Before I taught myself which kitten was which, I secretly called Declan “nostril” because one of his nostrils is black. In a comment, McFinn said Declan has always been the Batman kitty to me since he looks like he’s wearing a dark (tabby) cowl that comes down to his nose, exposing his lower face. Even has the bat ears going on. I can definitely see the resemblance, and now I like to hold him up and say “I’m Batman!”, which he does not appreciate in the slightest.

Macushla:

Macushla has a black nose and white whisker pads. He’s also a snuggler, and he and Fergus Simon are almost always either in my lap or about to climb into my lap. Macushla and Ciara are the darkest kittens.

Ciara:

Ciara’s the only girl, of course. She’s got the pink nose and then all that white on her face, and then the very dark fur. I’d almost call her black and white except for the brown tabby stripes on her sides and legs.

Finnegan:

Finnegan also has a pink nose, but his dark fur is a lot lighter than Ciara’s. He’s always the first one to run for the closet if startled, usually closely followed by Cillian. Finnegan plays really well with the other kittens, but is also just as happy to play with a toy by himself.

Cillian:

Cillian has that pretty clay-colored nose with the dash of white above it. He has such a serious little face, and he always looks like he’s worried about something. Whereas the other kittens jump right into playing, Cillian will observe what’s going on before he joins in. I call him my little detective, because he misses nothing.

Fergus Simon:

Fergus Simon is my little lovebug, and will usually fight with Macushla for dominance of my lap. He likes to sit in my lap and swipe at the other kittens as they race by (though he’ll eventually be overcome with the need to fight, and will go racing after them).

Can you believe these little monsters are 7 weeks old as of tomorrow? The time has flown by! I weighed them the other day (I don’t know that my scale is all that reliable, though, given that it told me Dorothy was over 2 pounds when we got her, and she was quite a bit less at the vet’s!) and except for Ciara, they’re all right around 2 pounds. Which means it’ll be time to spay and neuter the little monsters in a couple of weeks. But no hurry, we can wait a little while to be sure they’re all solidly over 2 pounds before I take them to the vet.

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Miss Dorfy, hanging out in her favorite cat bed.

::maniacal laughter::

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Stinkerbelle, atop the kitchen cabinet, keeping an eye out for her beloved Tommy.

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Previously
2010: Sights from around Crooked Acres.
2009: Way to look ferocious and defend those chickens, puppies.
2008: And I’m sure there’ll be plenty o’ bitching.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: It is, in fact, a happy-go-lucky-shpadoinkle-dy daaaaaaaaaaaaay.
2004: First day with the new brain, you know.
2003: So, Fred got it into his head a few weeks ago that he wanted a kayak.
2002: And further, you don’t get to be indignant and hurt when they act pissed off and boo you off the stage.
2001: No entry.
2000: Yesterday, I sneezed twenty-three times in a row. Fucking allergies.

5/19/11 – Crooked Acres Thursday

Okay, those of you who use Google Chrome as your browser and use Google Reader as your, uh, Reader: are you having an issue with Google Reader freezing? I was having that problem, and I was about ready to unplug my computer and toss it out the side door (I am so not kidding), and after Googling frantically around the internet, someone somewhere (sorry to be so specific) said that it was an extensions issue. So I checked my extensions (wrench –> tools –> extensions) and found that Avast had installed an extension without my realizing it (or who the hell knows, maybe I installed it and didn’t realize it. What I’m saying is that I didn’t know it was there ’til I looked at my extensions.), so I uninstalled it. I won’t tempt the fates and swear that it solved the problem, but I’ll say that Google Reader hasn’t frozen on me since I did that yesterday morning.

Also in computer issues, over the weekend I got a new (to me) computer. Fred installed Windows 7 on the computer we used as a server last year, and I moved all my important stuff over to the new computer. The problem came when I wanted to print something and we realized that the “new” computer didn’t have a printer port. I ordered a printer port-to-USB adapter, but when it came and I hooked up the printer, the computer recognized the computer but it wouldn’t work. When I went to download the drivers from the HP site, it said “STUPID, the driver is already on Windows 7!” and I was all “But it’s not working!” and the site was all “DUH, update your Windows shit!” so I did, and got a great big fail-whale on the HP driver download. I tried it again, and still the FAIL.

So I said “Fuck you, you fucking printer, I am OVER YOU” and ordered a new printer that will be here on Friday.

The printer we had is probably close to 10 years old (if not older) and it’s worked well for us lo these many years, but it’s gotten slower and slower as time goes on, and it’s been past time to upgrade for a few years now. I ordered one of these because all I need is a black and white printer and I like the fact that it prints on both sides, which will save me some paper in the long run since I print way too much stuff out.

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Sights from around Crooked Acres.

We planted some grapes in the back yard. So far, they seem pretty happy. Maybe in ten years, we’ll be able to drink some of our own grape juice!

Squash flower! Maybe we really will end up with some veggies this summer. Fingers crossed!

Rooster, flappin’.

Mama chicken and some of her babies.

Meredith Gray, strutting with attitude.

Gracie’s always trying to goad George into playing. Sometimes he indulges her, sometimes he doesn’t.

Happy Gracie.

Can you tell there was some Furminating going on out here?

Silly girl.

Snack time!

Furminating in progress. Gracie LOVES to be brushed, and she’ll flop over on her back and roll around, she’s so giddy with delight.

“Nyah.”

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Yesterday I got word that Rufus was adopted on Tuesday! He spent a week at Petsmart, and honestly I don’t think that’s bad at all.

Yay, Rufus!

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Snackin’ Time for the McMaos.

Note that Maggie works her way down the line, elbowing kittens out of the way. Like I said to Fred the other night, “You know how they say a mother is a person who, seeing there are only 4 pieces of cake for 5 people, promptly announces she never did care for cake?”

“Yeah?” Fred said.

“Maggie is a mother who, seeing there are only 4 pieces of cake for 5 people, promptly announces ‘You kids don’t need cake, anyway.””

You can hardly blame her, I guess – the babies are almost 7 weeks old, and can still be seen nursing several times a day.

I still think it’s about the sweetest thing ever. We’ve talked about moving Maggie to another room for a few hours during the days just to give her a break from the kittens and to give them some idea that life goes on even if Mama’s not right there. I may start doing that this weekend and see how it goes.

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Miz Poo would like to know just what I think I’m doing out here in the back yard.

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Previously
2010: The many faces of Gavin.
2009: Sights from around Crooked Acres.
2008: With my bionic legs and arms I’ll just be able to prove it much more easily.
2007: No entry.
2006: And we might have expected Mommy/ Whatever to tell the Little Prince “no” and, well, we can’t have THAT.
2005: We’re foster parents.
2004: Because WHY HAD IT NOT OCCURRED TO ME TO THROW MYSELF DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO AVOID THE CONCERT???
2003: The words “ass ugly” were invented to describe these shoes.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: She hasn’t claimed boredom since.

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? 🙂 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? 🙂

Dorothy: discovered in our neighbor’s driveway the day after the tornado swept through our area. Sweet little torbie, about 10 weeks old.

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.

Dorothy: likes to watch the birds through the side door.

Alice: ditto.

Dorothy: sweet little handful who loves everyone.

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.

Dorothy: Not a permanent resident.

Alice: Permanent resident, because no one shall ever tear her away from her beloved Daddy.

Dorothy: Inside only.

Alice: Recently figured out the cat door to the back yard.

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. 😀

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.

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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“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.”

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

“And then, I can make my tongue very very long. See?”

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

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

“Now NO tongue! Where’d it go? I don’t know!”

“Snake tongue!”

::thlurrp:: “Thank you very much. That was my tongue. And I am Macushla. Good day.”

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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 others’ 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 I’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: She’s obviously picked up her mother’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”

(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.

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.

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.

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

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“HI MAMA!”

::CHOMP::

Oh, his little face just kills me DEAD.

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

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.

“MY toy. You hear me?”

Macushla in my lap. All the McMaos are snuggly, but he’s particularly so.

Fergus Simon, sneaking up on his brothers. “Be vewwy vewwy quiet!”

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Elwood in the window.

Jake, enjoying the sun if it kills him.

Jake in the guest bedroom, Elwood at the bottom of the stairs.

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: “Goddamn!” I said. “I’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!”
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 “y.”
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.