Category: Life

10/12/05

You Should Get a MFA (Masters of Fine Arts)

You’re a blooming artistic talent, even if you aren’t quite convinced.
You’d make an incredible artist, photographer, or film maker. I think not. I have no l33t artistic skillz. I hate those stupid tests. I always think I’m going to find out some deep, hidden truth about myself, and then I get “Oh! You should be an artist! You’re the artistic type!” Bah.
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I ended up making a last-minute trip to Wal-Mart yesterday. Not because I particularly care for Wal-Mart, but when I was there last week returning the security monitor I’d bought (the one I got to keep an eye on Callie back before we were letting them out to run around the house during the day) I started looking around and bought a couple of inexpensive fleece baby blankets to sew together to make a cat pillow. (Shaddup. I’d ended up stealing several cat beds for the kitten rooms, and there was no bed in the corner of the room where Spot likes to sleep. Spot is old and decrepit and deserves to be comfortable. He DOES.) At the same time I bought a couple of cat beds that looked interesting and, according to the package (but then, you can never really trust the package, can you?) they “hold heat” and cats like them because cats like warm things. So I bought the cat beds and put one temporarily in the corner of the room where Spot sleeps, and the other downstairs near the window. And the one downstairs was a huge hit with the kittens, because it’s a light bed and they could crawl under it and pretend it was a tent, or they could get on their sides and kick at the bed, and move it across the room to wedge it under the couch where it would stay for days and days because I never did quite get around to pulling it out and smoothing it down so it would fit many kitties. The problem with the downstairs bed is that the kittens were kind of ripping it apart, and there were bed guts strewn across the floor. Oh, this is what the bed looks like:
See the little piece of bed gut over there to the left? Anyway, the cat beds stayed on the floor, and the baby blankets I’d bought to sew together stayed on top of my dresser where I’d set them when I got home from Wal-Mart that day, and a week or so passed. Spot was sleeping on the cat bed in the corner of the room, but he shot me very clear “I’m only sleeping on this stupid thing because this is where I sleep, and this is where this ugly cat bed is, and don’t think FOR ONE SECOND I like this stupid bed!” Finally, Sunday I decided to go ahead and make the baby-blanket cat bed, and I spread the blankets out on the bed to see exactly how big this bed would be, and I caught sight of Spot’s bed in the corner of the bedroom, and a lightbulb went on over my head. “Self,” I said. “I could basically sew the blankets together with the cat bed inside, and that would solve the falling-apart problem, and would make the cat bed more comfortable for rickety old Spot, and it would look a whole lot better!” So I measured the blankets and cut them to an appropriate size (I only had to cut about two inches off), pinned them together, and started sewing. I sewed three sides of the blankets, turned them inside out (or outside in), put the cat bed between the blankets, and sewed the fourth side. I would provide you with a picture, but the cat bed is upstairs and I am downstairs and I don’t love you that much. Okay, maybe I do. Check out the crappy sewing job and uneven seams:
While I was sewing the blankets together, Smitty and Bear noticed that I had something potentially comfortable on my lap, so they jumped up and settled down and batted at the thread I was using. Altogether, it took me about two hours to sew the damn thing together, because I’m a horribly slow seamstress, also not a very good seamstress, and when the thread you’re using makes a little black kitten go wild-eyed and wild with the batting at the thread, it tends to slow you down. So the bed seems to be a hit with Spot, since he’s been sleeping on it. But then again, probably if I put a little bed of thorns and nails over there, he’d still sleep on it. A creature of habit is our Spot. The trip to Wal-Mart was supposedly so I could grab another couple of baby blankets to put over the cat bed downstairs, but really I was craving Jack Links Prime Rib Tender Cuts. I discovered those when I was at Wal-Mart last week and between Fred and I (but to be honest, it was more “I” than “Fred”), we polished off two bags in less than a day. Hey. We NEED our protein, you know. So I grabbed a couple of bags of the Jack Links Prime Rib Tender Cuts and wandered back to the baby section, where I realized that the only cheap fleece baby blankets that were left all had, well, baby designs on them. The blankets I’d gotten last week were both plain blue. I finally ended up grabbing a couple of blue and white check baby blankets, then went over to the craft section of the store to buy matching thread. I ended up looking around for a while, and ran across a kit that included a large piece of fleece and ties so you could make your own pillowcase – basically you cut slits around the edges of two matching pieces of fleece, and put ties in the slits (with an end result of something like this). For less than the two baby blankets, I could buy the kit and get a big-ass piece of fleece and ties (which I didn’t need, but they came with the kit), and have plenty of material to cover the cat bed. I put the baby blankets back and bought the kit. I haven’t covered the cat bed yet, but when I do, I’ll make sure to take a picture for y’all, so you can laugh at my crappy sewing job.
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Currently reading: Not Tonight Honey, Wait ‘Til I’m a Size Six, by Susan Reinhardt. I’m about halfway through it, and it’s pretty damn funny. Finished the other night: Wish You Were Here, by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. Good book (I mean, when one of the main characters is a cat, you KNOW I’m going to like it!), but I don’t know that I’m going to go out and buy the rest in the series. Maybe when my current book inventory goes down a little I might consider it, because I really did enjoy it.
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Pet store kitty pics from Monday are here.
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Okay. Don’t get excited about this and jump to conclusions. On my desk right now as I type this: No, we aren’t adopting him. Yesterday, a few hours before I was going to take the whole bunch to the pet store, I noticed that Bear wasn’t acting like himself. I picked him up and held him like a baby – which he usually loves – and he let out a growly little hissing noise, and struggled to get away. I just figured he wanted to go play, but a little while later I noticed that if any of the other kittens approached and wanted to play (he was laying on the cat bed in the living room), he’d growl at them. I picked him up again, and again he did the growly-hiss thing. All he wanted to do was lay on the bed and sleep, and at one point he got up and walked over to the water bowl and was moving slowly and not quite, but almost limping. I called the shelter manager, and she offered up a few things that it could be. I asked if it would be okay to take the other kittens to the pet store and keep Bear here to keep an eye on for a day on, and if he didn’t improve, or got worse, I’d take him to the vet. Of course she said that was fine, so when I took Smitty, Sugarbutt, and Callie to the pet store, Bear stayed here. All I’ll say about leaving the three at the pet store – the boys in one cage, and Callie in a cage by herself – is that it sucked as usual, and it didn’t help that Callie was scared and meowing pitifully for me to come rescue her. I cried a little on the way home, because it really bothers me that she has to be in a cage by herself. I didn’t feel too bad for Sugarbutt and Smitty, because they at least had each other, but Callie all by herself, scared, made me very sad. So for most of the rest of the evening Bear slept on the cat bed in the living room, though he did get up a couple of times to drink water – which made me happy, because at least I knew he wasn’t going to get dehydrated – and for a little while he jumped up and snoozed on top of me (I was laying on the couch). We put him in the kitten room when we went upstairs, but when Fred came downstairs for a minute and then back upstairs, Bear heard him (the stairs go right by the kitten room) and started scratching and meowing to be let out. I felt sorry for him and suggested that we let him out of the room for the night. Fred let him out, and brought him into my bedroom, where for the next half hour or so, Bear snuggled up next to me, under the covers, and snoozed. Then he jumped down and went to get some food and water, and Mister Boogers was right on his butt, sniffing and making his “I’m disturbed” noise. Bear ate and drank, and then actually batted at a toy for a few minutes, then went out of the room to explore. Mister Boogers continued to follow him around making his “I’m disturbed” noise and after about fifteen minutes of that, I went out to see what was going on, and Bear was sitting on the top stair looking a little scared and Mister Boogers was being a pain and all I could think was, “I’m tired and I don’t want to listen to this all night”, so I scooped Bear up, gave him a kiss on the head, and put him in the kitten room and shut the door. He meowed pitifully a few times, then settled down and (I assume) went to sleep. This morning at 8:00 when I opened the door, he was sitting right by the door, and he looked up at me and purred and pranced out of the room and trotted off to check out the food situation in our bathroom, and played and touched noses with Mister Boogers. In other words, he acted like his old self. He’s limping a little bit, but he’s acting like himself, so we suspect that he just landed wrong on one of his legs while he was playing or something, and had a sore leg. I’m going to keep him here for a few more days just to be sure he’s okay, and then Friday he’ll be going to the pet store. I think he’s a little bored with us, since he doesn’t have any other kittens to play with at the moment. Torties in the sun. Callie in motion. Nothing scared her, I just happened to snap a picture when she felt like running across the room. “Give. Me. THAT.” Flyin’ Bear. I love the little spread-out claws. All of today’s uploaded kitten pics are here.
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Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: TV talk. 2000: I’m about the laziest chick in the world, I think. 1999: Yeah. I’m a bitch.]]>

10/11/05

Last night, Pollo Sudado. It’s a Columbian dish. And it’s apparently – according to the spud, who takes Spanish – pronounced “Poyo”, not (as the pedestrian amongst us might attempt to pronounce it) “Paul-o.” I wasn’t witness to the Spanish pronunciation lecture the spud gave Fred, but apparently it’s pronounced that way because it has two ls… or something. He wasn’t real clear on the whole thing. Having never made it before, I had no idea what it was supposed to look like when done. It ended up being somewhat watery, and Fred and I discussed whether it was supposed to be watery, or whether the broth was supposed to thicken, or what. Finally, when the chicken had been cooked through and was so tender it could be shredded easily (though you’ll note in the picture that I didn’t actually shred it) Fred put forth the idea that we could add some cornstarch to the broth to thicken it a little. I told him that would be a good idea and told him to do it (that way I could blame it all on him for not putting the cornstarch in correctly) and went to make the honey-mustard dressing for my salad. When the dressing was done, I turned around and I swear to god, he’d dumped at least half a cup of cornstarch directly into the pan. I couldn’t help myself; I gasped. “Oh!” he said guiltily. “Is that too much?” “Well, I – no, maybe not!” I said, my eyes big as saucers. He began scooping out as much cornstarch as he could, dumped spoonfuls of lumpy cornstarch into the sink. “Perhaps next time,” I said judiciously, “We could stir the cornstarch into a small amount of water to prevent lumps.” When he’d removed about a third of the cornstarch he’d added, he stirred the rest of the cornstarch in the best he could. And in the end, it worked out pretty well. The broth thickened nicely, and there were only a few small lumps of cornstarch left. There were two thumbs way WAY up to the Pollo Sudado, and we’re actually going to have it again later this week instead of Curry-Cajun Chicken, because we both liked it so much. I don’t like cooked tomato in… well, anything, but I was okay with it in this dish. The kittens liked it, too.

(There was only a small amount of the broth left in the bottom of the bowl, and they came running from all corners of the house and fell upon the drippings as if we’d been starving them to death for weeks. When they were done, that bowl was spotless. I could have put it back in the cupboard (NO, I didn’t) and no one would have been the wiser. Well, except maybe for that little whisker someone left as a calling card.)
Yesterday we (by “we”, I mean Fred and the spud, because I can no longer stand the taste of taco seasonings) had Taco Burgers. They had Taco Burgers, I had regular burgers, and we were all happy. Fred declared the Taco Burgers to be a keeper, too. That’s two new recipes in one week. Did you feel the earth shake too?
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You know how I mentioned last week that we talk about disgusting things at the dinner table (ie: cat poop and the consistency thereof) and it doesn’t bother any of us at all? Well, last week we were eating meatloaf for dinner, and Fred said “How about that E. Coli story, huh?”, referring to a story he’d read online about how some bagged salads were recalled due to some of them having E. Coli contamination in them. As soon as he said the words “E. Coli”, I couldn’t eat any more. I came thisclose to gagging. Just the THOUGHT of E. Coli absolutely grosses me out, and I don’t know why I’m okay with poop discussion, but E. Coli discussion absolutely takes away my appetite. Yeah, I’m a freak.
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I played a major game of phone tag yesterday. I was sitting in the dining room playing with the kittens when the phone rang. I let it go to voicemail, knowing that I could just check caller ID when I was done playing with the kittens and call whoever it was back. Fifteen minutes later, I checked caller ID and saw that it was my brother. I settled on the couch and called him back, but there was no answer. I thought for a moment, then decided to call my sister and see what she was up to. There was no answer at her house, but while I was trying to decide whether to leave a message (“Hi, just called to see what you were up to, nothing important!”), my call waiting beeped, and I looked at the caller ID to see that it was my brother, so I clicked over to that call. I talked to him for a while, and at some point the call waiting beeped. I glanced at the caller ID to see that it was my sister, and let the call go to voicemail, figuring I’d call her back after I was done talking to my brother. When I was done talking to my brother, I checked my voicemail, and found a message from my sister. I decided to call her back after dinner. And promptly forgot. Around 6:30, my mother called and said “You need to call your sister, because it’s raining outside and she can’t stand out there and talk to you on her cell phone, and she was wondering why you called her.” “Oh,” I said. “I was just calling to see what she was up to.” I hung up and called my sister and we gabbed about everything under the sun for like half an hour. After all that time on the phone, I think I need to take to my bed for a day just to recover. Heh.
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The kittens are going to the pet store this afternoon. I am going to miss them SO MUCH. They’ve been so sweet and cuddly lately (well, ever since we got them, really) and I’ve really enjoyed always having a kitten climbing up into my lap. Mostly I’m going to miss Sugarbutt, noxious gas and all. Y’all, hope and pray they get adopted this weekend. I don’t know if I’d be able to stand it, going in there Monday and seeing them still there. When does this get easier, again? It’ll probably take me through the end of the week to get all the pictures I’ve taken of them up, so y’all will still be able to see them for the next few days. Sugarbutt in the sun. Sugarbutt in motion. Smitty in the sun. Climbin’ kitten. Smitty snoozes in the box of giveaway stuff. Callie, up close. Callie, in the box top. “Mooooom! My toy mouse went under the fridge, and I can’t REACH IT, and Smitty keeps TOUCHING ME with his TAIL!” All of today’s uploaded kitten pics are here.
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Previously 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: No entry. 2000: My breasts are strawberry scented. 1999: I was ambitious today.]]>

10/10/05

very first journal entry. After spending a couple of weeks going through tons and tons of old entries, I have to say that sometimes it amazes me that so many of you are still around. But thanks to those of you who did hang around – let’s see if I have another six years’ worth of entries in me, shall we?

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It ended up being a good thing that the spud and I didn’t go to Virginia this weekend to meet up with my mother, sister, and nephew, because their flight got canceled and they couldn’t get it rescheduled in a timely manner, so they ended up not going. I guess those of you in the Norfolk area were having some bad weather over the weekend, huh? I can’t imagine how peeved I would have been to get halfway to Virginia and realize that my shopping partners weren’t going to be there. I suppose we could have just hung out with my dad, though. Ah, well. Moot point!
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I got caught up on my email last night for the first time in about three weeks. If you emailed me in the last month or so and expected a response, re-send it, would you? It’s possible I got delete-happy at some point, since I was up until about midnight getting caught up.
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To celebrate the 6th journal-versary of this journal, I gotta say: I’ve got nothin’. Nothin’ to write about, not a damn thing. Nothing’s going on, no spud-gossip to share, nothin’. So I’m going to toss up some kitten pics and call it an entry. Fair enough? Oh, hey – if you used to read OnePhatMan, it’s back. Just in case you didn’t know, and weren’t on the notify list, thought I’d mention that.
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The kittens are going to the pet store tomorrow afternoon. The shelter manager emailed me over the weekend to let me know that I could take them in today or tomorrow. Since they don’t do adoptions on Monday evenings, of course I opted to let them stay with us until tomorrow afternoon. Man. I’m going to miss the little brats. What I’m not going to miss is the rotten-egg gas Sugarbutt’s been suffering from lately. We were watching The Amityville Horror yesterday (Ryan Reynolds sounds JUST LIKE John Ritter) and I grabbed up Sugarbutt. He fell asleep on his back and the noxious fumes coming from him were just horrifying. Good thing for him he’s so cute. Speaking of Sugarbutt, I fully believe that if he were a dog, he’d be a bulldog. He’s bowlegged and barrel-chested and watching him run from one side of the room to the other just cracks me UP. Oh, how I’m going to miss his stinky little butt! Barrett waited until Miz Poo fell asleep, and then snuck right in there. With Smitty (left) and Sugarbutt (right) side-by-side like this, you can really see the difference in their faces. Like Callie, Smitty always looks like he’s smiling. Smilin’ Callie. This would be a better picture if my big dorky slipper wasn’t right there in the background. Gigglin’ Callie. Gigglin’ Smitty. Last night, Callie started out on my leg. Miz Poo was sleeping next to my leg. As Callie slept, she slid down my leg and ended up spooning with Miz Poo. Miz Poo was displeased, but you’ll note she didn’t jump down and run away. What my lap looked like last night. I don’t think I could have fit another cat in there anywhere. I think I see tonsils. Smitty and Sugarbutt tussling. The look on Sugarbutt’s face cracks me up. Check out the closeup: Also, Fred took this one Saturday afternoon: Awesome picture, no? All of today’s uploaded pictures (there are a ton of them today, because I took a bunch over the weekend) are here.
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Previously 2004: Off to Myrtle Beach. 2003: Instead, we should probably go for “Shizzle M. Andersizzle.” 2002: Why I journal. 2001: No entry. 2000: Okay, enough of that mushy crap. 1999: So. Welcome to my journal. ]]>

10/7/05

Jolene‘s place. 1. Name someone with the same birthday as you? Richard Nixon, Joan Baez, Jimmy Page. Borrrrrrrring. 2. Where was your first kiss? Sitting on the picnic table in my parents’ back yard the summer I was 16. 3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else’s property? Nope, never. 4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? I smacked Fred with a spoon the other day. Does that count? 5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? HELL no. I wouldn’t want to subject them to the pain. 6. What’s the first thing you notice about the preferred sex? If he’s wearing tight jeans, I notice his butt. Otherwise, his smile. 7. What really turns you on? NOT THIS QUESTION, that’s for sure. 8. What do you order at Starbucks? Anything that’s not coffee flavored. I think the last thing I had was a strawberry-creme something-or-other. 9. What is your biggest mistake? Immediately believing what I’m told without standing back and thinking about it. 10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose? No. 11. Say something totally random about yourself. I smacked the holy hell out of my foot with the carpet steam cleaner and it HURTS. My foot is throbbing right now. I might have broken something. Send chocolate. 12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity? Years ago when I worked part of a day at a temporary job, someone told me I looked like Mama Cass. JOY. Oh, and everyone always tells me how strongly I resemble Ashley Judd. IN MY DREAMS. 13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows? Nope. 14. Did you have braces? I did, but not for very long. They tightened them the day before Thanksgiving, though, and I couldn’t eat Thanksgiving dinner because my mouth hurt so badly. 15. Are you comfortable with your height? I guess so; I wouldn’t mind being a few inches taller, though. 16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you? None o’ your bidness. 17. When do you know it’s love? You just do. 18. Do you speak any other languages? I could probably cobble together a half-assed conversation in French if given enough time. 19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon? Nope. 20. What magazines do you read? People, US, Marie Claire, Jane, TV Guide, Consumer Reports. There are more, I’m sure, but I can’t think of them right now. 21. Have you ever ridden in a limo? My Junior prom, a bunch of us got together and rented a limo. 22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away? My grandmother, a little more than a year ago. 23. Do you watch mtv? Rarely, though we tape Punk’d sometimes. 24. What’s something that really annoys you? Mister Boogers tapping at the blinds on the back door when he wants to go out and the cat door is closed. It makes me want to commit Boogicide. 25. What’s something you really like? Diet Coke. Lost. The sex scenes on Nip/ Tuck. Little purring kittens. Big purring Miz Poo. When Mister Boogers “talks” to himself. When Spanky lays in the sun and rolls around. When Fred calls me from work during the day for no real reason. When the spud shares the school gossip with me. Being able to sleep in on the weekends. ROAD TRIPS. 26. Do you like Michael Jackson? Ugh. No. 27. Can you dance? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII can’t dance! IIIIIIIIIIII can’t sing! I’m just standing here selling ev. uh. ree. thing. 28. What’s the latest you have ever stayed up? When I was a teenager and worked at McDonald’s, I got home from work after closing at about 2:30, stayed up and went back in to open at 4:30. A couple of people called in sick, so I ended up staying until 4:30 in the evening. When all was said and done, I was probably up for about 36 hours. 29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room? No, thank god. 30. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out? I do!

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I’ve got three kittens laying on the pillow on my desk, and they’re taking turns farting and OH MY GOD is it a nasty, nasty stench. Nasty kittens. It’s lucky for them they’re so damn cute.
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I went to the grocery store this morning, as I usually do on Friday mornings. Well, I usually hit the grocery store on an average of four days a week, because there’s ALWAYS something I need to pick up. Anyway. I was in the grocery store this morning, and I was checking out. The cashier, who recognizes me because I’m in there so often, greeted me and made some conversation. She was handing me my receipt when she glanced downward, and got a look of disgust on her face. I glanced down at the front of my shirt to see if I had dribbled something down the front of me before I left the house. There was nothing, and I glanced up at her, and she still had the faintest look of disgust on her face, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Hmph,” I thought and I walked out of the store. “What’s HER problem?” I did the few other errands that needed to be done, and then when I got home I put everything away, greeted the kittens, and sat down in front of my computer. I’d only been home a few minutes when Fred called and said “I need our checking account routing number.” I went into the kitchen and leaned down to grab my purse. And then I saw it. Dried cat puke on the side of my purse. No wonder she made the face of disgust. I’m making the face of disgust right now, because walking around with dried cat puke on your purse? The height of classy. Goddamn cats.
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Currently reading: Wish you were Here, by Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie Brown. It better be good, or I’m coming after whoever recommended it. If I could remember who that was… Finished last night: Vanish, by Tess Gerritsen. SUCH a good book.
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It got cold overnight. I think it might be time to get the space heater out again, because HOLY SHIT am I cold right now. Even though I have a pile of kittens over on the side of my desk I could probably warm my hands on. Probably it doesn’t help that I’m sitting here with wet hair, either. Oh! Before I forget this, I have to recommend something to y’all. I was at Cracker Barrel with Liz while she was visiting, and they sell lotion in the gift shop, and I picked up a 4 ounce bottle of Dionis lotion in the scent called “Love”, and oh MY. I LOVE this lotion – not only does it smell good (it SMELLS like LOVE), but it also sinks in quickly, so you’re not wandering around with greasy hands. SO AWESOME, this lotion. I highly, highly recommend it. And while I’m going on about things that smell good, have you ever ordered a candle from Say? Because I have, and I currently have a Wildberry Pancakes jar candle burning, and it smells so good I want to go over there and eat the candle. I have to keep reminding myself that it won’t taste like it smells, though. It makes me want to go to IHOP for breakfast. And lastly, speaking of good-smelling things, when I was shopping at the mall with my mother when she and my father were here last month, we went into the Yankee Candles store, and I ended up buying a couple of electric air fresheners. Now, the electric air fresheners came with one bottle of scent, but you could also buy refills in sets of two. I really wanted to get the lemon zest scent, but while you could get refills in that scent, you couldn’t get the electric air freshener with that scent. So I got two air fresheners with a cranberry-scented bottles, and a couple of boxes of lemon zest refills. When I got home, I plugged in the cranberry-scented refills, and they smelled… okay. Fred thought they smelled like grape. To me, they smelled like wine. And I’m not crazy about wine. A month went by, and finally I noticed that the cranberry scented bottles were empty, so I dug out the lemon zest refills, plugged them in and thought nothing more of it. That afternoon when Fred got home, he went into the bathroom and yelled “Something smells really good in here! What is it?” When I told him it was the lemon zest air freshener, he told me he thought it smelled like Froot Loops. I’ve got one air freshener upstairs and one downstairs, and they’ve both got lemon zest refills in them, and my house smells FABULOUS. Yankee Candles Electric Air Fresheners with Lemon Zest refills, highly recommended.
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The kittens are home and doing fine. Bear was the only troublesome one, because apparently one of his testicles was undescended and they had to dig around for it. ::wince:: Right now, they’re running around like their butts are on fire, as if nothing ever happened. I don’t know if it was the drugs, or what, but Sugarbutt was twice as feisty last night as I’ve ever seen him. On to the pictures, eh? When you rub his belly, Sugarbutt basically puts his paws up in the air and kneads. It’s severely cute. WHAT is THAT?” Mister Boogers looking out the window. > Da Boog unaware that trouble approaches. Putting the smack down. Callie. She breaks my heart, this little one. She’s so standoffish, but as soon as you pick her up she purrs and purrs. But then she wants to be put down, and off she goes again, being standoffish. “Bleh.” Warm little pile o’ kitties. A particularly good shot of Sugarbutt. And kitten toes! All of today’s uploaded pictures (there are a ton of them today) are here.
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Previously: 2004: Reader requests. 2003: Why have kids if you aren’t going to make them do the scut work? 2002: You know, I don’t even have the words. 2001: No entry. 2000: No entry.]]>

10/6/05

reading: Vanish, by Tess Gerritsen. It’s very, very good so far. I intended to go to sleep at 11:00 last night, but ended up staying up until midnight because I just couldn’t put the book down. Also, she’s got a site, and a blog she updates regularly. I love it when authors I like have blogs! I really like her Creepy Biological Facts section, too.

* * *
I woke up at a little before three this morning, turned over, and realized that there was a light on. As I pondered who would be up at that time, turning on lights, it went off. A moment later the air conditioning kicked on, and I thought that maybe Fred had woken up sweating and decided to turn the air down a little. This morning after Fred left for work, I snoozed for a little while. After snoozing for ten minutes or so, I looked at the clock and realized it was 6:40. I further realized that I didn’t hear the spud up and moving around, and she’s usually up by that time. I got up, put on my nightgown, and walked over to her room. She was laying in bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. “Are you planning on getting up?” I asked. “Yeah. I don’t have to take a shower,” she said. “Why’s that?” “Because I got up at 2:30 and took my shower.” “Why?” “I thought it was 6:00.” “Oh.” When I was a few years younger than she is, the phone rang in the middle of the night. I woke up, thought my alarm went off, turned it off, got up, got dressed, and walked into the kitchen to look out the window. My mother, standing in the kitchen, said “What are you doing?” “Seeing if it’s snowing,” I said. “Why?” “So I’ll know whether I need to wear my thermal underwear,” I said. To explain: I had a morning paper route, and let me tell you, delivering papers in the winter sucked ASS. I walked back across the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of Cheerios. “What are you doing?” my mother asked. “Eating breakfast before I deliver papers,” I said. “At 1:30 in the morning?” “Oh,” I said. And went back to bed, where I overslept because I’d turned my alarm off. (The phone call? A girl calling for my brother.) When I told Fred this morning what the spud had done, he thought it was the funniest. thing. ever. I forsee a lot of spud-teasing this evening.
* * *
My sister and nephew and mother are flying to Virginia Beach tomorrow. My father’s currently working in Norfolk, and they’re going down to visit him and check out the area. When I was talking to my mother earlier today (she seems to have a sixth sense about when I’m trying to get some housework done, ’cause that’s when she always calls. Today I was grateful for the break, though, since I’d just finished scrubbing out five litter boxes with bleach and hot water when she called and my back was starting to hurt.), she said “You know, it’s not too late to change your mind and drive up to stay with us!” I’d be tempted if it wasn’t twelve hours away. But then, I did a 10-hour drive to and from Myrtle Beach last year, didn’t I? It’s probably a good thing I’m covering for someone at the pet store next Tuesday morning, or I might seriously consider driving to Virginia.
* * *
The kittens are currently at the vet’s, waiting to be spayed and neutered and chipped and vaccinated against the rabies. They were all excited when I opened the doors to their rooms this morning, far earlier than I usually do, and then confused when I tossed them all in the carrier. They’re such good monkeys; they didn’t howl even once on the way to the vet’s office, and in fact they curled up together and slept most of the way, except when I was singing along with Natalie Merchant (Beloved Wife always just gets me right HERE), and then they sat up and looked at me and said “It’s not enough that you’ve thrown us all in a box and are driving us over a bumpy road to an unknown destination, you also have to SING? Our young and tender ears cannot withstand your caterwauling, lady.” So I stopped singing. At the vet’s, I helped the woman running the front desk weigh all the kittens. Callie was far and away the heaviest, at 3 pounds 3 ounces, Smitty and Barrett were each 3 pounds, and Sugarbutt was the lightest at 2 pounds 6 ounces. On a side note, Fred called when I was leaving the vet’s, and I said “Sad Eyes weighed the least. He’s only gained about 2 ounces since he saw the vet last week.” And Fred said “Who?” “Sad Eyes,” I said. “Who is Sad Eyes?” “Oh. I mean, Sugarbutt.” “His real name is Sad Eyes?” “Yes,” I said. “What an awful name. No wonder you gave him a nickname!” Heh. If everything goes well, I’ll be picking the little brats up late this afternoon, and tonight they’ll probably be running around like their tails are on fire as if nothing ever happened. I spent the morning cleaning the house, and cleaned all the nasty little marks they’ve left on the carpet in both rooms. Between the clean carpet, the clean litter boxes, and the fresh litter, they won’t know what is going on. Smitty’s such a little poser. I cannot help kissing Bear atop his little noggin. Clearly he doesn’t enjoy it as much as I do. Every evening, Bear and Smitty jump up on the pillow on my lap and sleep all evening long while I watch TV. If I move around too much, Smitty gets annoyed and jumps over to the love seat. Now THAT’s a long tongue. Callie and Bear fighting. Callie looks like a little devil kitty. Check out the closeup: Pure evil. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here.
* * *
Previously 2004: Phil Hellmuth is a whiny little bitch. 2003: “And then he told me he likes to have sex with you in the break room every day at 11!” he lied. 2002: No entry. 2001: Recovery. 2000: No one ever said I had a long attention span!]]>

10/5/05

* * * At dinner the other night, the spud told us about a couple of kids she knows who are dropping out of school. Immediately, I puffed up and got very disapproving. “If MY kid was dropping out of school, she’d ALSO be dropping out of MY HOUSE, because I’ll be DAMNED if my kid is going to drop OUT of school and continue living in MY HOUSE!” and I turned to her and gave her The Eye. On the other side of the table, Fred gave her The Eye as well. We were double-Eyeing her. Because it’s a good thing to let your kid know where you stand on the dropping-out-of-school issue. Pre-marital sex? Not so much, but definitely dropping out. She responded by rolling her eyes. “I KNOW,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about THAT, I have no intention of dropping out of school.” “Damn straight,” I said. “Damn straight,” Fred echoed. There was a time when I hoped that the spud would never realize that college wasn’t an option, that we’d just present to her that everyone goes to college and she’d accept that as a given fact, but she seems to be doing this “growing up” thing, and when kids “grow up”, they at some point start “talking” to “other kids” and somehow the information that kids can drop out of school and PAR-TAY is distributed amongst them, and the dropping out spreads like wildfire. Little fuckers. Why can’t they just listen to what their parents tell them ’til they’re 18? What’s with this “mind of their own” shit?

* * *
Last weekend Fred was out hiking, and the spud was still sleeping, so I went in and visited the kittens (who were still spending all their time in the room and not out running around the house). While I was in there, I noticed that one of them was spending a lot of time chewing on the cords that went to the phone base plugged in on the far side of the room. The phone base belongs to the cordless phone that the spud uses (the phone plug in her room and the guest bedroom don’t work), and she only leaves the phone on the base to charge when the phone has gone dead and needs recharging. Got that? Good. So I noticed the chewing of the cords by the kittens, and decided that rather than letting them chew through the electric cord and be electrocuted, I’d plug in the phone base in our bedroom where no kittens could get to the wires, and all would be well. All I’d need to do is plug one of the numerous line-splitters we have scattered around the house into the phone line in our bedroom and then I could plug our phone in, and the spud’s phone in as well. The phone plug is located at around knee level, behind our bed. I got down on the floor and reached for the plug, but couldn’t quite reach it. I assessed the situation, and decided to pull the mattress away from the wall, then reach in from between the mattress and headboard, unplug our phone, plug in the line splitter, and then re-plug in our phone and the spud’s phone. I reached in and did all that without much of a problem – though it was still a bit of a reach for me – and after everything was plugged in, I began to pull my arm out… and it was fucking stuck. I mean, STUCK. It was stuck at that point right above the elbow, where that bony part is, and no matter how I tugged I couldn’t get my arm out. I tried moving to the side of the bed, with the idea that I could slide my body onto the floor and use my other arm to pull the mattress further from the wall and then slide the stuck arm out. Only, when I started to move toward the side of the bed, apparently the space got smaller and I wasn’t able to move more than a few inches. I tried moving to the other side, and the same thing happened. So here I was, in my big stupid-looking pink nightgown (pictures at a later date, if I think of it) (of the nightgown, I mean, not me in the nightgown), sprawled across the bed with my arm stuck between the mattress and headboard. What’s worse is that I had started the shower before I began with the unplugging and plugging, so I was sprawled across the mattress in my oversized ugly pink nightgown, arm stuck between the mattress and headboard, with the shower running. And then Miz Poo jumped up on the bed and settled down in the middle of my back. To recap:
  • In ugly pink nightgown.
  • Sprawled across bed.
  • Unshowered.
  • Shower running.
  • Fat cat snoozing on my back.
  • No adults around.
  • Teenager sleeping like the dead on the other side of the house who wouldn’t wake up if a nuclear bomb hit. And even if she would, she’s not strong enough to move the mattress with me lying on it.
    • And then the last straw came along and broke the fat woman’s back. Mister Boogers jumped up on the bed and sniffed at Miz Poo, who reacted by hissing and slapping at him, and then the little fuckers had a slap fight atop my head. “GodDAMN!” I bellowed. “You fucking fuckers! Get the fuck off of me!” and I flailed about until Miz Poo and Mister Boogers ran off, and then I said “You goddamn piece of shit! STOP IT!” to my arm, and pulled as hard as I could on my arm, until it slid out from between the headboard and mattress, causing a nasty scrape on the back side of my arm, DRAWING BLOOD and leaving a nasty bruise that is just now starting to really heal. And Fred laughed his fucking ass off when I told him about it, because he’s a fuckfuck.
    * * *
    This morning was a busy one for me. I left the house at 8:45 and didn’t get back until almost 1:00. I had a hair appointment (I’ve gone back to long layers, though to be honest you can’t much tell the difference from how it looked before), then had to go to the bank and make a deposit, to the pet store to look for something to put cat food in (we already have one thing to put cat food in for our cats, but now that they eat two different kinds of food, I wanted to get a second container) and a new water bowl for the living room (the old one is metal and ugly and was getting on my nerves); to Target to return something and buy kitty litter (we use Arm & Hammer kitty litter, and it’s cheapest at Target – $9.94 for 35 pounds; it was over a dollar more at Walmart); to Walmart to return the monitor I bought last week and buy a new kitty condo (the old one in the kittens’ room has so much poo on it that I can’t even fathom trying to clean it, so it’s a new cheap condo for the kittens!); to the post office to check the PO box (reader Kristin, your thank you note is on the way!); and by Wendy’s for a Biggie Diet Coke, since I was dying of thirst. I’m not sure how that ended up taking me more than four hours to accomplish, but it did. Probably the fact that I go into a daze when I step foot into Target and Walmart and end up wandering around the store for far longer than I need to has something to do with my errand-running taking up so much of my day.
    * * *
    Tomorrow the kittens go to be spayed and neutered. It’s going to be quiet around here, but at least it’ll give me a chance to go around the entire upstairs and spot-clean with the steam cleaner. They’ll probably be able to come home late tomorrow afternoon, and by then the carpet will be mostly dry. Bear’s starting to do the thing Rambo used to do, jump up and sink his claws into my back, then climb to my shoulder and jump onto my desk so he can sniff around. I had a bunch of really cute pictures of he and Smitty sleeping on Miz Poo’s bed, but my camera’s being a pain, and somehow those pictures got deleted. GRRRRR. Bear investigates, while Smitty supervises. The look on Bear’s face cracks me UP. This one cracks me up, too. I don’t know why Sugarbutt’s licking the toy, but he’s certainly serious about it. Bear investigates the new water bowl. Apparently it met his approval, because he started drinking water like it was going out of style. “Who, me? No, I wasn’t going to climb into the fireplace. Nope, not me!” It took her about 10 seconds to notice the condo and claim it for herself. All of today’s uploaded pictures are here.]]>

    10/4/05

    reading: Eyeshot, by Lynn S. Hightower. Finished late last night: Faithless, by Karin Slaughter. The more I read of Karin Slaughter, the more I like. For some reason, Lena absolutely fascinates me.

    * * *
    Fred called me from work yesterday. With no greeting or anything, he said “It’s time.” “What time is that?” “Time to sell the house.” Which is when I about had a heart attack and fell over dead. Like I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s always a possibility that his job will disappear in a round of government budget cuts, and we’ve talked numerous times about what we’d do if his job went away. The first step is always putting the house up for sale and buying a much smaller, less expensive house with a much smaller mortgage. “Why?” I said when I could manage to breathe again. “Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, fired in 2003 for disobeying a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse, announces his decision to run for governor of Alabama in 2006,” he read. He paused. I said nothing. He said nothing. “So clearly we need to sell the house and get the fuck out of Dodge!” he said. He paused again. I said nothing. He said nothing. “You gave me a FUCKING HEART ATTACK,” I finally said. “I thought your job had been cut! You fucker!” I pointed out that Maine is far, far away from the Bible Belt, but he seems to be stuck on the fact that it snows in Maine. Like he’ll melt in the snow or something. So far, my pointing out that Maine has ocean (for me) and mountains (for him) hasn’t persuaded him.
    * * *
    My brother called yesterday while I was vacuuming the upstairs. Of course I didn’t hear the phone, so he left a message. I didn’t realize he’d called, so I didn’t listen to the voicemail until I’d actually talked to him a little while later. The first thing he said when I talked to him was that I have the clearest speaking voice he’s ever heard on a voicemail message. And then we started making fun of my parents’ answering machine message, because when their answering machine picks up, all you hear is this long, long silence, and then my mother sighing before she starts with the “You’ve reached our answering machine” spiel. It’s funny as hell, because the first few times I heard it, I thought that either my mother had picked up the phone not realizing someone was on the other end, or she was distracted by something else she was doing and wanted to finish doing whatever it was before she said “Hello.” Anyway, my secret to a clear and friendly-sounding outgoing voicemail message? I smile while I’m speaking. If you’ve ever had a job where you had to deal with people over the phone, you’ve probably had an annoying supervisor who insisted that you smile while speaking to the customers, because they can hear the smile in your voice. I hate to say this, but it’s true – try it yourself. Say something, and then smile and say it again. Hear the difference? I’m sure there are people who can fake the voice-smile without actually smiling, but I’m not one of them. Annnnnnnnd that’s just a little glimpse into the dorkiness that is my life.
    * * *
    Have you ever had a dream that disturbed you and made you a little bit sad all day long, and then you start to tell someone about it, and you realize it’s SUCH an idiotic dream that you can’t believe you spent the entire day feeling SAD about it? I had a dream Sunday morning that (and I know it’s boring to hear about other peoples’ dreams, I’ll make this as short as possible) I was part of a helicopter rescue team that couldn’t rescue a bunch of people in a huge boat that was capsizing, and the boat turned over and started going under water, and we were in radio contact with one of the people on the boat and trying to reassure him that we were on our way, even knowing that there was no way we could rescue them. AND THEN The dream shifted, and I was on a huge houseboat belonging to a country singer (I can’t remember who, but it was a woman) and we were riding up the Tennessee river, and we were beset upon by pirates, one of whom was William Shatner, and he and his gang rounded up all the animals on the boat (an oddly large number of yellow labs were on this boat), and they would put each animal on a little round raft, and push it out into the water, and then they’d shoot at the raft until they hit it, and the raft would sink, while the animal frantically whimpered, and Dream-Me was horrified and had a round piece of glass that I was dragging back and forth over the cement floor of the boat (yes, a cement floor on a boat) to sharpen it into something I could kill the bad guys with. And like I said, I was sad all day long about the dream, but that evening when I was telling Fred about it – specifically the animals on the little rafts part of it – I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. Then I realized how idiotic it was to feel sad about such a stupid dream, and I got over it.
    * * *
    When we were eating dinner yesterday, Spot kept sitting by the front door and giving us looks to indicate that he might want to go outside. Once I let the babies out of their rooms, I keep the cat door closed so they won’t take it into their little heads to venture outside, so unless one of the adults – usually Mister Boogers – indicates (by being a pain in the ass and rattling the blinds) that he wants to go outside, all the adult cats end up staying inside as well. Anyway, Spot was sitting by the back door, looking at the door, at us, and back at the door. It was a pretty clear signal, so Fred got up and opened the door, and the ever-skittish Spot responded by running to hide under the couch. Fred shrugged, shut the door, and sat back down to dinner. Within minutes, Spot was back at the door, looking at us, at the door, and back at us. Finally, I said “Just pick his ass up and put him out there!”, and Fred did so. An hour later, Fred realized he didn’t see Spot anywhere, and went out to call for him. No Spot. “Fuck this,” Fred said. “He’ll come home when he wants to.” Spot is, shall we say, less than the family favorite. If it were Mister Boogers we’d be roaming through the neighborhood calling for him, but with Spot, well, not so much. “Did you look under the shed?” I asked. He hadn’t, so he went and looked, and hiding under the shed was Spot. Fred called and cajoled, but Spot wouldn’t come out. Fred got a can of compressed air out of the living room and sprayed it under the shed. To our amazement, Spot still didn’t come out from under the shed. “You don’t think he’s gone under there to die, do you?” I said worriedly. “Oh, who the fuck knows?” Fred said grumpily. “He was moving back and forth pretty vigorously when I blew the air at him.” Fred thought for a moment, then went into the shed and pulled out the leaf blower. He plugged it in, and smiled at me. “This is like the can of air times a thousand!” he said proudly. He turned it on and stuck it under the shed. No Spot. Fred scratched his head and then turned the leaf blower back on, stuck it under the edge of the shed, and began circling the shed. When he was on the back side of the shed, Spot came flying out from under the shed, his tail as big and puffy as I’ve ever seen it, hauled ass across the yard, and tried to go in through the cat door. I opened the back door and called to him, and he ran from the cat door, along the house, and in through the back door. I have no idea what was going on with him, whether he thought we’d forget about him if he hid under the shed, and then he could spend the night stalking around the yard killing small bugs, or what, but if it happens again I vote that we leave his ass under the shed. Bastard.
    “Who, me?”
    * * *
    I hesitate to say this, for fear of jinxing the situation, but it appears that Sugarbutt has gotten the hang of using the litter box and then cleaning himself instead of walking around with a poo-covered rear end. HALLELUJAH! Yesterday afternoon Callie jumped up in the recliner located in the corner of the computer room. Bear was already there sleeping, and Callie sat and washed herself for a few minutes, and then started rooting around Bear’s back end area. “Uh-uh-uh,” I said warningly, and she stopped… and looked at Miz Poo, who was sitting on her bed on my desk. Callie thought about it for a moment, then started sniffing around Bear’s butt again. “Uh-uh-uh,” I said again. And Callie looked at Miz Poo. It happened a third time, and Callie finally gave up and moved to the other side of the chair, keeping a wary eye on Miz Poo. Made me laugh, it did. Callie cleans. Bear licks. Smitty poses. Sugarbutt looks less than happy to be snuggled. “Bwahahaha! ‘The Aristocrats!’ That joke ALWAYS gets me!” That’s Sugarbutt on top, Smitty below. Apparently Sugarbutt wasn’t going to let Smitty get in his way. You can see by comparing the two so closely that Smitty is darker and less stripe-y than Sugarbutt. Look guilty, don’t they? All of today’s uploaded pictures can be seen here.
    * * *
    Previously 2004: ARRRGH. 2003: No entry. 2002: Wow. Apparently I’ve been doing the pet store thing for three years now. 2001: Day Zero. 2000: I’m back!]]>

    10/3/05

    new logo! This very Halloween-y one was created by the awesome Sharon. Thanks, Sharon!

    * * *
    So last weekend (not this past weekend, but the one before), we were having bad weather and the tornado sirens were periodically going off (and we were ignoring them), and Fred and the spud were having spaghetti for dinner. Fred’s spaghetti involves ground turkey, and I just do not do ground turkey. The thought of eating ground turkey makes me want to gag, because I swear I look at the stuff and I can just SEE the salmonella crawling all over it. The salmonella crawling all over the boneless chicken breasts we eat at least twice a week is apparently A-OK with me. Anyway, Fred likes to have spaghetti every few weeks because, well, first of all because he likes it, but second of all he also gets several lunches out of it to get him through his work week. He likes to take leftovers for lunch rather than having to deal with making sandwiches. So Fred was in the process of making dinner for he and the spud, and I decided to go out and get a grilled chicken salad from Sonic for dinner. I really like the grilled chicken salad from Sonic, and I also like to get a Route 44-sized Diet Coke from Sonic because there is just nothing on earth like Diet Coke from the fountain. When I win the lottery, I’m going to buy a Diet Coke fountain machine, and a good-looking 19 year-old gardener to mow the lawn shirtless and bring me fountain Diet Cokes whenever I’m running low. But I digress. I left the house to get my salad, and as I was pulling out of our street, a tornado warning came over the radio. It said (and, of course, this is a paraphrase of the actual message): “Blah blah some place in Nashville has issued a tornado warning for Madison County until 5:03 pm. If you’re out driving, find a secure tornado shelter, blah blah blah. As a last resort, take cover in a culvert, ditch, or low-lying area, and cover your head with your hands.” Immediately, I laughed. Cover your head with your hands. I imagined myself on the five o’clock news, all covered in mud. “I done saw a twister touch down, an’ it picked up muh car, and it done tossed it RIGHT AT ME. I could’ve been KILLT! But I ‘membered what the feller on the radio said, an’ I covered my head with my hands, and even though the car landed RIGHT ON ME, I was okay! Because I covered my head with my hands! And the twister was going to pick me up and toss me around, but it said to itself, it said “That ain’t no person. That’s just a body with no head. Who wants a body with no head? NOT ME.” and it kep’ on going! Thank god for that feller on the radio! If I hadn’ta covered my head with my hands, I might be DEAD right now!”
    * * *
    I was in Wal-Mart last week (yes! I went into Wal-Mart, because Target didn’t have what I needed!) and I was walking around in a daze like I always am when I go into Target or Wal-Mart, because there’s SO MUCH STUFF I didn’t even know I needed, and I vaguely heard an announcement that went along the lines of “Heather, you have a call on line three. Heather, line three.” and I thought nothing of it. Until two minutes later when a man’s voice came over the… announcement thingy… and he said “Please repeat the message for Heather.” And I swear upon all that is holy that he sounded EXACTLY like Pete in O Brother, Where Art Thou, saying “Do. Not. Seek. The TREASURE.” I waited for a few more minutes for someone to come over the loudspeaker and say “We thought you was a toad!”, but apparently Delmar wasn’t working that day.
    * * *
    I am pleased to announce that the poo situation is one THOUSAND times better than it was on Thursday. I left Sugarbutt in the cage for the rest of Friday, and then Saturday morning he had improved so much that I gave him a bath and let him out into the room with Callie. He stayed out of the cage for the rest of the day and then Sunday morning things were looking so good that I gave him a quick bath to wash the dried poo off of him, and let he and Callie out of their room, and Smitty and Bear out of THEIR room, and let them run around the house until bedtime. I wouldn’t say that Sugarbutt’s butt is at 100%, but it’s so much better than it was last Thursday that I’m not complaining. He’s still on antibiotics, so hopefully it’ll improve even more. The kittens are going in to be spayed and neutered on Thursday, and will get their microchips and rabies shots at the same time. Once they’re healed up from the spaying and neutering, they’ll be ready to go up for adoption, it’ll just be a matter of space opening up at the pet store. We’re not going to get to keep these guys as long as we did the first and second batch, but I’ve still gotten really attached to the little brats. Wahhh! I love this picture, ’cause you can see Mister Boogers’ fangs, and that always cracks me up. Bear flops across the vast expanse of my midsection to snooze while I watch TV. Smitty claims Mister Boogers’ cat bed for his own. You can imagine how that went over with Mister Boogers. Pictures of cats licking their lips always makes me laugh. Miz Poo and Callie touch noses. AND THEN NO SMACKDOWN ENSUED. Will wonders never cease? All of today’s uploaded pictures are hither.
    * * *
    “And so Javert, you see it’s true That man bears no more guilt than you! Who am I? Two four six oh…..” “…oooooooooooooooooone!”]]>

    9/30/05

    Something in your house that isn’t where it should be. Booger. On the counter. Slurping chicken goo off the cutting board. I swear to god, you can’t turn your back for ONE MINUTE. Damn cats. Something you broke, but kept it. Strictly speaking, I didn’t break her – she came already broken, or at least with the eye and lip problems, we just didn’t know it at the time. But we kept her! Food that you have in your house that you never eat (or drink). Fred drinks the Luzianne; the spud drinks the Crystal Light Peach Tea. I cannot stand the taste of tea, so I never drink either. (I do like the taste of peppermint tea, but that tastes less like tea and more like a liquified peppermint candy, so it doesn’t really count as tea, as far as I’m concerned)

    * * *
    Holy shit. It’s the last day of September! I think I missed the first day of Fall. Is the first day of Fall in September, or October? Okay, the calendar says the first day of Fall was on the 22nd. The calendar also says that that’s the day we were supposed to give Miz Poo and Mister Boogers their last dose of medicine for that weird gagging-coughing thing. I know you wanted to know that. I am in some FUCKING PAIN today, people. I guess spending an hour and a half bent over shit spots on the carpet takes a toll on your upper back and shoulders. That, or carrying 60 pounds of litter up the stairs. At one time.
    I’m a badass, that’s right. What I don’t get, though, is why my feet hurt so much. I don’t think I did an inordinate amount of standing. I actually scooted around the room on my ass as I cleaned the poo spots out of the carpet, so that wouldn’t make my feet hurt. It’s a mystery. We were discussing Sugarbutt at the dinner table last night and his poo problems (What do YOU discuss at the dinner table?) and I compared him to a (grossout alert) soft-serve machine someone hasn’t quite turned off (/grossout alert) and the spud, rather than being grossed out, laughed and kept eating her dinner.
    * * *
    For the record, every single Bitchypoo entry ever, is now converted to WordPress. Going through entries and stripping out formatting is some boring-ass work, let me tell you, and now that it’s done, I swear upon all that is holy, I’ll NEVAH go hungry do it AGAIN! Since every entry’s in WordPress, and because Freefind took it upon themselves to impose a limit to how many pages I can have indexed through their site (uh, not that they’re targeting me directly, or anything. I just had no idea before last week that there was a limit. Bastards.), I’ve taken down the Freefind link, and left up the WordPress plug-in link (look over there in the sidebar, directly under the calendar), so you can use that to search the site if you’re of a mind to.
    * * *
    Do they sell hand towels at the dollar store? I’ve been using towels to line the bottom of Sugarbutt’s cage and the kitty condo I have in there, but I don’t really need full-size towels to line the top and inside of the condo, because they’re really too big. I had Fred go through his old t-shirts and pick out the ones he doesn’t really wear anymore, and I’ve started using those, but I think I’d rather use hand towels, since they’re the right size. I also could use some hand towels to wrap around Sugarbutt after I give him a bath, because a full-size towel is way more towel than I actually need. I think I’ll take a trip to the dollar store this weekend. Or maybe I’ll visit all of them – within a twenty minute drive, I could hit four different dollar stores. I’d be snide and disapproving about that, but I do love the hell out of the dollar store.
    * * *
    The spud overslept this morning, and came frantically running into my room at 7:15, still in her pajamas, yelling “I overslept! My alarm didn’t go off!” I told her to get dressed and I’d take her to school, and I did – sitting in traffic for about fifteen minutes to get there – and when I called Fred to tell him about the unexpected beginning to my morning, he said “Her alarm went off. I heard it as I was coming upstairs after working out!” She must have gotten up and turned it off and gotten back in bed without even waking up. God knows I’ve done that plenty in my life.
    * * *
    I just got the first three discs of Undeclared via Netflix. I must’ve been asleep at the wheel on that one, because we’ve got so many shows to watch lately that I don’t know when we’re going to have time to watch Undeclared. It’s taken us more than two weeks to watch Navy Seals Buds Class 234, and we still have one episode left to watch. I think we have about 30 episodes of South Park on the other DVR, and we haven’t watched any of those in weeks. I finally went in and deleted the episodes of The Practice I taped back in March, because I figured if I haven’t watched them in the past six months, I’m not going to. And I still haven’t watched this week’s Lost, which is a show I love and adore. I’ll most likely watch it this afternoon. Speaking of Lost, I was mostly annoyed by Kate last season, but she’s starting to grow on me a little, for some reason.
    * * *
    Currently reading: Faithless, by Karin Slaughter. Finished late last night: Goodnight Nobody, by Jennifer Weiner. Really good book – that girl knows how to write. This one reminded me more than a little of… oh, hell. What the hell is her name? The writer… who wrote the book about the housewife solving a murder. The book was out twenty years ago. WHAT IS HER NAME? Susan something? This is driving me fucking nuts. I know I have a book upstairs by the author whose name I can’t think of, I’m going to go look for it. Susan Isaacs! For some reason, the only name I could think of was Susan Abrams, and I knew that wasn’t it. Compromising Positions, by Susan Isaacs, that’s the book I was thinking of. Also a good book, and worth reading.
    * * *
    Things are going well on the Sugarbutt front (or should I say, on the Sugarbutt BACK. Ha!). He’s still a little more poo-covered than I’d like, but he’s doing WAY better than he was this time yesterday. I gave him a bath last night and smeared a dab of Preparation H on his poor swollen behind, and the leaking has pretty much stopped. I’m going to leave him in the cage another day, but if he continues to do this well over the next day, I’m going to let him out of his cage. He’s such a pitiful little thing, sitting in his cage and getting all excited when you walk in the room. It was a good idea to put Callie in there with him, because even though they can’t snuggle, they can play through the cage, and keep each other company. We let Smitty and Bear out to play last night while we watched TV, and they basically just ran in one direction as far and fast as they could, then stopped, turned around, and ran in the opposite direction as fast as they could. We also let Callie out to explore while I was giving Sugarbutt his bath and cleaning out his cage last night, and she had a good time. There was one moment when I looked at her, and wish I had the camera. We have this small garbage can in our bedroom that lays on its side so Mister Boogers can hide in it, and he was laying in the garbage can, she was laying on top of it, and she and Spanky were touching noses. I almost died from the cuteness. I pray for Sugarbutt’s poo issues to resolve, because I’d love to be able to let all four of them out to explore at the same time. Maybe in Monday’s entry, I’ll be telling stories about having all four of them race around the house all weekend. “Hey, lady. You gonna let us out of this room so we can go make trouble, or what?” “You woke me up for THIS?” “Okay, enough of the snuggling, I’ve got better things to do.” Despite the fact that she has her own bowl on the other side of the room, Callie loves to reach through the cage, pull food out of Sugarbutt’s bowl, drag it out onto the floor, and sit there and eat it. In the cage, Sugarbutt eats too. I guess it’s their version of eating together. “Why you hate me, lady?” Callie plays in the cube.]]>

    9/29/05

    Warning: This entry contains much poop talk. Not that I describe the stuff in loving detail or show pictures or anything, but if the talk of poop grosses you out, you’ll want to skip down to the pictures and call it a day, ‘k? So, yesterday. What a day, I tells ya. I thought I was going to have a chance to sit down and write an entry, but round about 11:00, it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen. The night before last, I was sitting in the kitten room snuggling with kittens when I watched Sugarbutt get into the litter box, pee, and then get out, sit down, stick his hind legs in front of him, and pull himself along the carpet with his front legs. It was simultaneously amusing and horrifying, because if you’ve never seen an animal “scoot”, as they call it, it’s a funny sight. On the other hand, he was, basically, using my carpet for toilet paper, and suddenly it explained all those brown streaks on the carpet. Nas. Tay. I kind of shrugged it off, thought that maybe there was an itchy butt issue, so I gave him a quick bath and put a dab of Preparation H on his behind. Later that same evening, the spud and I were sitting in the kitten room, and he did it again. Clearly, it wasn’t a one-time thing. I emailed the shelter manager and told her what was going on, and asked if there was something I should be doing. Then I did a Google search, and most of the links I found indicated that scooting is caused by itching due to worms. I gave him Drontal last Wednesday as a deworming medication, though, so surely that wasn’t the problem…? While I was Googling around, I got an email from the shelter manager. She told me that scooting is usually caused by either worms or an inability to get clean. She said that since Sugarbutt’s got a prolapsed rectum, it might be due to that, but if I was worried, I could run him to the vet. So I got up around 7:30 with the intention of showering and getting dressed, running to Target for litter (I’ve bought my weight in litter lately, I swear), then being home so I could call the vet shortly after they opened at 9, to see if I could get an appointment for Sugarbutt. What actually happened is that I started some laundry, cleaned out our cats’ litter box, went in and let Callie and Bear out of the cage, cleaned out the litter boxes in the kittens’ room, did some kitten snuggling, and by the time I stepped into the shower, it was 8:30. Once out of the shower, I got dressed and decided to wait to hit Target until later. I ran to McDonald’s for a Diet Coke (mmmm, fountain soda. Nectah of the gahds.), did some more laundry, and then called the vet’s office. They had an appointment available at 4:30, so I took that, went upstairs to check on the kittens, and then headed out to Target. I know y’all know the issues with Callie and her suckling urges, and how I feel too bad to keep her in the cage all the time. My idea at first was to get a webcam set up, and let her stay out of the cage as long as she was behaving herself; I’d keep an eye on the situation via webcam, and when I saw her rooting around I could run upstairs and put her in the cage. Only, webcams can be kind of expensive and Fred wasn’t showing much interest in setting something like that up for me, so I got a better idea. While I was at Target, I went into the baby section. Did you know that they make video baby monitors? Target only had one kind of video baby monitor (not this one, but very similar to it), and it wasn’t priced too badly, so I bought it. I got home, got it out of the box, and plugged it in only to find that it wouldn’t work. I fiddled with it for half an hour before giving up, putting it back in the box, and calling Fred to whine about it. “I’m over this,” I told him. “I’m just going to let her into the house to run around, and her brothers can stay in the kitten room, and then I won’t have to worry about her causing irreversible damage to him.” But you know what letting her out to run around the house means, don’t you? It means that I’d have to set up another litter box for her to use, because the litter box we use for our cats is kind of big and hard for a little kitten to climb into, I already feel like I spend my entire day dealing with poop. Kittens, in case you’ve never been told, are little poop machines. They will poop and pee all the live long day, secure in the knowledge that someone else will clean out the litter box. While I was pondering the situation, I went upstairs, where I cleaned out the litter box in the kittens room for the second time. And I sat down to get some kitten snuggles, and as soon as I sat down, the kittens lined up to use the litter box. I got a firsthand view of how everyone’s bowels were moving. AND THEN I CALLED FRED TO REPORT WHO HAD DIARRHEA AND WHO DIDN’T. What have I turned into? I wasn’t this fascinated by my own child’s bowel movements when she was three months old, but with these kittens I can barely tear my eyes away while they squat in the litter box. So I scooped out the litter box again (good thing they’re so cute), and snuggled with them some more, and then I decided to go back to Target to return the baby monitor, then run to WalMart to see what they had for baby monitors. So I did, and when I got to the baby section of WalMart, would you like to hear what I found in the way of video baby monitors? Nothing. Nada. ZIP. I couldn’t believe it, because if you go on their webpage, they have scads and scads of them. Okay, scads or ONE. You choose. I thought about it for a while, tossed a couple of cheap fleece baby blankets in the cart (I’m going to make a cat bed for Spot because he’s getting old and creaky, and deserves some extra comfort), and then headed over to the electronics department. My thinking was that since a video baby monitor is an electronic gadget, maybe that’s where they’d keep them. They had all kinds of monitors, actually. They had a webcam! Alas, it wasn’t a wireless webcam and I’m not up for 60 feet of cable running through my house, so I kept looking. What I eventually ended up with was a monitor that consists of a camera and a little tv-looking monitor (which can actually be used as a TV if you so choose to use it that way), and basically it was the same exact thing as the baby monitor I’d bought at Target, only it was cheaper. It wasn’t as pretty, but who needs pretty? The kittens don’t care what the camera looks like. As long as it did the job, I was going to be happy. It was a Homeland Security camera and monitor, by the way. (Here’s where I’d make an inappropriate joke about keeping Smitty’s homeland secure, but… oh, wait. I just did, didn’t I? I imagined it being funnier. Or even funny at all.) So I left Wal-Mart, went home, and ate lunch before dealing with the damn thing. I got the camera and monitor plugged in and set up… and no picture. NO PICTURE. I was royally pissed off, and looked over the incredibly unhelpful instructions and swore and stomped and swore some more. And then I realized that there was a cap on the camera. SIGH. I took the cap off the camera, and instantly got a picture. I plugged the monitor in by my desk (but I can carry it from room to room with me, as long as there’s a plug nearby) and went upstairs to set up the camera. I got it set up, had it knocked over by the kittens, set it up again, and then a third time before they lost interest in it. I went back downstairs and read for a little while, glancing over at the monitor every once in a while to see what was going on. They played for a while, then settled down to snooze. I watched, wondering if Callie was going to do her thing, but she fell asleep on top of the condo, and I didn’t have to go up and toss her in the cage. Later, right before I left for the vet, they settled down to sleep again, and Callie jumped on Smitty and started sniffing around, and I ran upstairs, put her in the cage, put Sugarbutt in the cat carrier, and left. My appointment, as I mentioned, was at 4:30, and I got there a few minutes early. The woman who runs the front desk saw Sugarbutt and oohed and aahed over him, and told me how cute he was, and asked if she could hold him. He was so good – the entire time he was in the carrier, he just looked around and checked everything out. When she took him out of the carrier, he purred and looked around. She took him over to weigh him – 2 pounds, 4 ounces, which means he’s gained 5 ounces this week – and we discussed the fact that he doesn’t look anything like a three month-old kitten usually looks (but then, he IS the runt), and then I sat for a while waiting for an exam room to open up. Sugarbutt continued to be his sweet self. I’d glance down at him, and he’d be looking up at me, his head tilted to one side, and when I’d speak to him, he’d start purring and kneading. After about half an hour, an exam room opened up, and we went in. I opened the carrier, and he came to the door of the carrier, checked out the table, and decided that instead of walking around on the cold exam table, he’d stay in the carrier. The vet came in, asked what the problem was, and said he’d take a stool sample to check for… oh, all the stuff they always check for. But he got a look at Sugarbutt’s butt, grabbed a baby wipe and said that he thought Sugarbutt might have infected anal glands. He did something with the baby wipe that probably involved squeezing of said anal glands, and Sugarbutt’s response was to cry and claw his way up the front of my shirt. “Infected anal glands,” said the vet. “I’m going to take him in here and” something. Squeeze them, I guess. I called Fred to let him know what was going on, and I could hear Sugarbutt crying loudly in the other room. Poor baby. A few minutes later the vet and his assistant came back in the room with poor traumatized Sugarbutt, who immediately ran into the carrier and hid at the far end. The vet told me that he’d squeezed Sugarbutt’s external anal glands, but because Sugarbutt’s so small, he couldn’t get ( ::shudder:: ) inside to do the internal ones. He prescribed antibiotics, gave Sugarbutt an anti-inflammatory shot, and after talking to the shelter manager who was at the store to do Wednesday night adoptions, I picked up some cat food for our cats, and we headed for home. I got home around 6:10, and Fred immediately came out to get Sugarbutt and take him up to the kitten room. Apparently while I was gone, he’d let Callie, Bear, and Smitty out of the kitten room for a while and let them sniff around the upstairs. When I went into the kitten room to see how Sugarbutt was, Bear ran out, and I just shut the door behind him, figuring I’d let him run around while I was hanging out in the kitten room. Sugarbutt was belly-up to the food bowl, and there was a trail of little poo drops from the cat carrier to the food dish. I cleaned them up, and then gently used a Tuck’s pad to clean his behind. I went up again to check on him a few minutes before 7, and there were still more poo drops, and his butt needed to be cleaned. “Do you think the universe thinks I don’t deal with enough poop already?” I asked Fred, who had no good response. I cleaned up the drops, cleaned up Sugarbutt, and hoped aloud that the poo drops would STOP ALREADY. I went downstairs to check my email one last time before we started watching The Amazing Race, and glanced at the monitor to see Callie attempting to misbehave. I ran up, put her in the cage – and she sat looking at me with an expression that clearly said “HOW does she know?” – and went back downstairs to watch TV. After The Amazing Race was over, Fred and I headed upstairs. I leaned over to turn the monitor off before I went upstairs, and saw Fred’s legs cross the kitten room. When I went up, he was standing there holding Smitty, and I saw… I can’t possibly do justice to the sight. Take a large handful of cat food, toss it up in the air so that it lands in a scattered fashion on the floor. Now imagine that each piece of cat food is actually a DROPLET OF POOP. There was poop EVERYWHERE. STINKY poop.I spent the next half hour using rags soaked in bleach and hot water to clean up all the droplets. I thought about giving Sugarbutt a bath, but settled for wiping off as much poo as I could with Tuck’s pads. When I was almost done wiping up the droplets – and make no mistake, I wasn’t actually getting the carpet CLEAN, I was just wiping up as much as I could, with the knowledge that this morning I was going to have to bundle them up into the carrier and spend an hour spot-cleaning the fucking carpet – Sugarbutt jumped into the litter box, did his business, and then dipped his butt down into the litter so that it would coat just about his entire hind end. THEN he jumped out and ran around the room, dropping litter-encrusted pieces of poop wherever he ran. I thought about putting him in the cage for the night so his nastiness would at least be a little bit contained, but then I’d have to leave Callie out with her brothers, and over the past few days it’s become clear that if she can’t get to Smitty, Bear will do – I am an evil woman, who put poor little Bear in a cage with a very aggressive penis-sucking kitten. – so that wasn’t an option. I considered putting Callie in the cage by herself, and putting Sugarbutt in the downstairs bathroom, since poop is – I imagine – much easier to clean off a hardwood floor than a carpet, but I felt like it would be mean to separate him when he’s feeling (PUN INTENDED) poopy. I decided to wait and see if he was continuing with the poo droplets when I went in after Fred went to bed (I wait until as late as possible to put Callie in the cage, because I feel mean doing it). When I went in, there were a few droplets, but not nearly as many as I’d been worried there would be. I cleaned them up, cleaned Sugarbutt’s butt, snuggled with all of them for a while, and then when Callie started sniffing around Bear’s butt, I put her in the cage, gave each of the kittens a kiss goodnight, and went to bed, hoping that I’d get up this morning to find that the poo dropletting was done and over with. Believe it or not, rather than spending the entire night waking up every hour or so to think about the fact that a potential poo bomb was going off in the other room, I slept like a rock and actually forgot about the whole situation until I woke up a little after 7:00. I thought about going back to sleep until 8, but the more I lay there, the more awake I got, and I finally rolled out of bed and put my cleaning clothes on (a bleach-stained t-shirt and a pair of shorts) and went in to see what was going on. The drops of poo weren’t as numerous as the night before, but there was poo all OVER the cat bed (actually, the towel I’d put on top of the cat bed) and smears all over the floor. And in a corner of the room, one of the kittens (not, I assume, Sugarbutt) had left a pile of poo. The kittens gathered around my feet and squeaked at me, and I picked up Sugarbutt to assess (ha! ASSess!) the situation, and found that his back end was covered in poo. Smitty had poo on his tail, and (ugh) on his whiskers. I had to step out of the room to catch my breath and decide what I was going to do. I decided to get Sugarbutt clean first, so I gave him a bath – and let me tell you, dried poo? So easy and simple to get out of a cat’s fur. NOT. – and then put him in the cat carrier and put him to one side of the landing. Then I put the other three in the cage and half-carried half-dragged it out to the landing. Then I went in and sprayed every single spot of poo with a good soaking of Oxi-Clean and water. While I let that soak in, I carried out the litter boxes and dumped them, dumped the bowls of food, carried all the towels and cat beds into the laundry room, and during all that I had to shoo Mister Boogers away from the cage of kittens, because he kept running over to them, sniffing at them, and then hissing/ growling at them. He’s such a pain. Once the Oxi-Clean had had a chance to soak in, I got the carpet steam cleaner out of Fred’s room (Fred’s room is basically the place where we put all our stuff that has no other place to go), went into the kitten room, shut the door (so the noise wouldn’t hurt their ears) and spent the next hour and a half going from spot to spot with the hand attachment and cleaning every single spot. Some of those spots were extremely difficult to get up and required numerous soakings with Oxi-Clean. After an hour and half of cleaning, the rug looks pretty good. Not perfect, but MUCH better, and it smells a lot better in there. When I checked on Sugarbutt, there were three or four little piles of poo in the carrier with him. I felt bad for him, but there was just no way I could put him in the cage with the other kittens while he was pooping everywhere. I cleaned him up with a wet rag and left him in the carrier. By this time, the vet’s office was open, so I called Fred and said “If the vet wants to see Sugarbutt, can you come get me?”, and we embarked upon a five minute coversation wherein it was discovered that Fred was in the middle of a crisis and then that there was a misunderstanding in that he’d thought I wanted him to come get me, go to the vet with me, and then bring me home, whereas what I’d really meant is that he should come get me, I’d take him back to the office, and use his car. So I called the vet and told the woman at the front desk what was going on, wildly exaggerating the number of poo drops I’d had to clean up (I said 300, because it sure FELT like 300, but in actuality I’m sure it was no more than 75). She sounded shocked and went to talk to the vet, came back to ask me a few questions, then finally told me that the vet said he thought the problem was that Sugarbutt hadn’t been pooping because it hurt to poop, and now that it didn’t hurt so much, the poop was coming out. She said that it might continue for a few more days, and that I should put him in a confined area until it was done. If he wasn’t better in a few days, bring him back in. I was, to say the least, relieved. Because I’d worried that he’d just lost control of his bowels, and who is going to adopt a kitten who has no bowel control? I called Fred again to let him know what the vet had said, and we talked about what we could do. Clearly I had to put Sugarbutt in the cage, but I couldn’t put the other kittens in the cage with him, and I couldn’t put them back in their room, because the carpet was still damp from the cleaning I’d done. Finally, we decided that I’d put Sugarbutt in the cage, in the kitten room (the cage has a bottom to it, so he wouldn’t be on damp carpet), and we’d put the other three in the guest bedroom for the time being. I spent another 45 minutes setting up the guest bedroom for Bear, Callie, and Smitty, and cleaning out the cage, dragging it back into the kitten room, and setting it up for Sugarbutt. And then giving Sugarbutt another bath, which he didn’t care for, holding him (wrapped in a towel) for a little while, and finally putting him in the cage. While he got settled, I scrubbed out the litter boxes, scrubbed out the cat carrier, and started a load of poopy towels (on hot, with bleach). I checked on Smitty, Bear, and Callie – they were fine – and came downstairs to eat breakfast. Sugarbutt seems okay in the cage, though he’s not thrilled to be there. If I keep the door to the room closed, he howls, but if I leave the door open he’s quiet. Mostly because our cats – especially Mister Boogers – keep going in there to check on him, and he’s very interested in the big cats. Now I have to go vacuum the entire upstairs, throw the cat beds in the washer, and take a shower. Did anyone actually read this entire thing? If so, bless your heart. You must be really bored today, eh? Edited to add: I went in to check on Smitty, Callie, and Bear, and she was misbehavin’, so I let her out into the house to run around. She ran around and explored while I took my shower and did some laundry, and then Sugarbutt was howling so loudly and incessantly that I took her into the room with him (the carpet’s mostly dry) to see if that would quiet him down. It did, so I made sure she had litter, food, water, and toys, and closed the door. So now Sugarbutt’s in the cage, Callie’s in the room, the door is shut, and Bear and Smitty are in the guest bedroom. It keeps Sugarbutt quiet and Callie away from temptation, so I guess I’d say it’s working out well for the time being. Please send happy healing un-pooping thoughts to Sugarbutt, won’t you? Uh, yeah. THIS doesn’t make me feel mean or anything. Callie jumping down from the end of the bed to attack her brothers. Fightin’ brudders. Smitty finds the most comfortable spot in the room. (Does that afghan look familiar, Nance?) All of today’s uploaded pictures are here.

    * * *
    Previously 2004: Which makes me think he’s out there talking shit about me, of course. 2003: He’s an awfully cute little kitty. 2002: No entry. 2001: I swear, my work is NEVER done. 2000: No entry.]]>