Category: Life

* * * I know you all know the story of Mia, but I’m going to tell it again. Because she deserves to be remembered as she was, and I think there were facets to her personality (cattitude?) that I don’t think quite came across. I first saw Mia in a carrier with her five tiny kittens. She had been living at an auto parts store (for some reason I was under the impression it was a junkyard, but it was actually an auto parts store), and when it was discovered that she was pregnant the owner didn’t want her any more. He turned her in to a nearby vet clinic, and a woman who worked at the vet’s kept Mia on her enclosed back porch until a foster home could be found. When Mia’s kittens were three and a half weeks old, I brought her home. Like I said, she was in a carrier with five scared kittens, and on the drive from the vet’s office to my home, she did her best to comfort them. She sniffed at me and was a little frightened, but didn’t seem to consider me a threat to her or her kittens. When I got home and opened the carrier, Mia came right out, rubbed on me, and let me pet her. She kept a watchful eye on her babies while she explored the room, and I left after a few minutes to give her time to get acclimated to her new home. A few hours later when I went back into the room, she’d moved the kittens out of the carrier and into a box I’d lined with a towel. She was a good mother. She was extremely protective of her babies, but she never considered humans to be a threat to them, and always greeted us at the door with a meow. She always purred like mad; she liked having us come in to visit her. She was a good and patient mother. Even when all five of the kittens were crawling over her, demanding to be fed, she just lay there and let them nurse as long as they wanted to. If they needed nudging in the right direction, she’d do that. She cleaned them, and fed them, and kept an eye on them to make sure they didn’t get themselves in trouble. I don’t think I ever mentioned this, but she liked Fred. I mean, she liked me, but she REALLY liked Fred. In the evening when we’d go into the room where she and her kittens lived, she’d greet me, and then look expectantly at the door. If Fred didn’t come through the door pretty quickly, she’d start howling and wouldn’t let up until he came in. Then she’d rub on him, and purr, and flop down next to him. He’d pick her up like a baby, and she’d lay there and purr and look up at him with the Eyes of Love; I can guarantee you she wouldn’t have put up with that from anyone else! She also had a playful side. As her babies got older, she started to do less worrying and watching and grooming of them, and more playing with them. The first time she chased one of them down and held him down to nibble on his stomach, I don’t think he had any idea what was going on. They thought her tail was the Funnest! Toy! Ever!, and she loved to tease them with it. She’d lay on top of the box in front of the window, and twitch it back and forth until they came running over to swat at it. Then she’d twitch it so it was out of their reach, and I swear that she laughed to herself as she watched them run back and forth trying to catch her tail. She liked to sit and look out the window at the birds as they flew by. If someone walked by on the street below, she’d growl quietly at them, so they knew she was here to protect her kittens and if given the chance I’m sure she would have protected all of us, as well. She wasn’t crazy about strangers, but I think she would have ended up being a really good cat for someone who didn’t have any other pets. She was a loving cat, and a good mother, and even though we knew we wouldn’t keep her, that she was going to be adopted by someone who could see how special she was, we loved her like one of our own. Some of you have suggested that she held on until she knew that her kittens would be okay. Maybe that’s anthropomorphizing, but I’d like to think it’s true nonetheless. That she waited until she knew her babies would be okay without her, that we’d take good care of them, that we’d love them as much as she did. The room where she spent her last few days feels strangely empty now. But last night when I walked by, I swear that out of the corner of my eye I saw the slightest hint of a tiny golden-eyed spitfire, sitting in front of the window, watching the birds fly by, and purring to beat the band. Rest in peace, sweet girl.

* * * I’d like to collect donations to give to the shelter in her memory, partly to offset the vet costs for her care, but mostly because the shelter always needs more money, and to donate a large amount – I’d like to shoot for $1,000 – in her name would be a nice way to remember her. Edited: We ended up collecting almost $2,200 as of July 31st. If you’d like to make a donation to the shelter in Mia’s memory, email me and I’ll tell you how to make a donation directly to them. Thank you so much to everyone who donated. * * *]]>

* * * Dear Neighbors (the ones in our neighborhood): You know what I said yesterday about how much I hate you for leaving fireworks shit all over the yard? I take that back. I’ll happily put up with the fireworks shit, since you’re nice enough to get your fireworkin’ done at a decent hour. If you could arrange for a painful accident to happen to the assholes in that other subdivision, that’d be great, m’kay? As ever, Robyn

* * * Dear readers: Okay, I’ll shut the fuck up about the fireworkin’ mofos in our neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods. At least ’til next year! Ha! As ever, Robyn * * * I know you guys like to try to figure out this sort of thing, so I thought I’d ask for help. Reader LC is trying to find out the name of a book she read back in the early ’90s. It doesn’t sound familiar to me, but maybe one of you know the book she’s reading about. Here’s her description: What I can remember is this. I found this book in a public library in the the early 1980s, so the chance of it being a Harlequin or Silhouette romance is slim to none. The library I went to didn’t carry those. It was a hard cover book, I remember checking it out with a Gail Godwin and a Susan Issacs, so I am thinking the author was in the F-G-H-I area of the fiction area. The main female character is a woman who was either an abandoned wife or divorced (same thing, I guess,) with a couple of small children. The story takes place in contemporary California. I remember this because one of the things she does is take her children to Taco Bell, which we didn’t have in in the area of Phoenix I lived in then. She meets a male hairdresser. She thinks he gay. He helps her out, they become friends. Her friends are appalled. He’s helping her make curtains for her apartment and she learns PDQ that he’s quite straight. They end up being a couple and living happily every after. I know it sounds cheesy as hell, but the book made such an impression I am still thinking about it 20 years later. It could also be I am not remembering the quality of the book well, but I’d like to find it and re-read it. I’ve asked my other romance-readin’ friends if they had ever heard of it, and all they can say is “He’s not bisexual?” Anyone know what it might be? Leave a comment or email me! * * * Fred bought some honey maple Boar’s Head ham at the deli of our grocery store on Saturday and OH. MY. GOD. that is some fine, fine stuff. Between the two of us we ate almost a pound of it over the weekend (Fred had a ham sandwich for breakfast yesterday, even), and I had to buy some more when I went yesterday so I’d have something quick and easy for lunches this week. (I’m all about the quick and easy, wink-wink-nudge-nudge-har-har.) I also wanted to pick up a box of Children’s Benadryl Fastmelt because I read about them somewhere over the weekend, and I realized a few weeks ago that I’ve been taking an adult dose of Benadryl on Mondays before I go to the petstore, and it makes me drowsy and lethargic (“How do you know the difference from how you USUALLY feel, Robyn? Ha! Ha!”) and kind of blue all day long. So I thought I’d go with a dose actually intended for children, and so I turned down that particular aisle to look for the stuff, and what did I find? Why, that all the Benadryl was in a locked case, and there was an article taped to the front of the case stating that as of a particular date (can you tell I skimmed?), products that contain pseudoephedrine and ephedrine will be kept in a locked case and sales will be limited to two packages at a time, because pseudoephedrine and ephedrine are used to make meth. But then, interestingly, after I looked around some more I found a selection of Benadryl out in the open, and I located a box of Children’s Benadryl Fastmelts, so I put them in my cart and was on my way. And then? When I was checking out? I started feeling guilty as if, perhaps, I was intending to use the box of Children’s Benadryl to GO HOME AND MAKE METH. I’m such a freak. * * * You know, originally we were supposed to go to Florida this weekend, but we canceled the trip because we didn’t want to spend the money, but mostly because I didn’t want to have to find someone to cover for me yesterday morning at the pet store. So I said to myself “Self, I better find something to keep me occupied, or it’s going to be a long, boring-ass summer!”, and that’s when the opportunity to foster Mia and the babies came along and I took it. All in all, I had a better time this weekend snuggling baby kittens than I would have had spending 10 – 12 hours in the car driving to and from Florida and listening to Fred bitch about the traffic. Except, that is, for the two hours we spent in the Emergency Vet Clinic yesterday, and the fact that Mia doesn’t seem to be doing very well. She was okay, if a little agitated by the fireworks, Sunday night. Fred spent a little time with her before bed, and she seemed okay, if a little less inclined to purr. When he went in yesterday morning – I think I mentioned this in yesterday’s entry – there were several small puddles of what appeared to be nothing but bile. She was lethargic, and was clearly not feeling well – cats get a certain look around their eyes when they aren’t feeling well – so we gave her a dose of the anti-emetic we have, and Fred coaxed her to drink some water, and she let him pet her for a while, and we decided to check on her every now and then to see how she was doing. When I went into her room at 12:30ish, she was laying under the spud’s desk and she looked at me, but didn’t come out to be petted, didn’t meow at me, just lay there and looked at me. Finally she came out, and her legs seemed a little shaky. She let me pet her for a few minutes, then moved away from me and settled down to sleep. I called Fred (who was off on a hike) to tell him how she was, and we thought that maybe the anti-emetic was making her sleepy. I went off and took my shower, checked on the (extremely rambunctious) kittens, then came downstairs to check my email and all that good stuff. Fred got home from his hike a few minutes later and we ate lunch, then he went upstairs to check on Mia and take a nap. He came right back down to tell me that he’d tried to get her to come to him, and she took one very shaky step, but couldn’t go any further. I sent him back upstairs to box her up, and tried calling the lady who runs the shelter to let her know what was going on. I couldn’t get ahold of her, so I left a message letting her know that we were taking Mia to the emergency clinic – and thank GOD we live near a city where there’s an emergency clinic – and we left the house. Luckily, due to the holiday, the traffic was pretty light and we got to the emergency clinic quickly. We sat in the waiting room for a little while, and the lady who runs the shelter called to find out what was going on, and then they took us back to the exam room. To cut a long story short (too late!) they did all sorts of tests on her, and found that she had a great deal of blood in her urine. Her blood tests came back showing that her BUN, Creatine, and Phosphorus levels were very high which, the vet told us, indicated that there was a toxin in her blood, and her kidneys weren’t clearing it out of her system. After a bunch of questions from Fred, he admitted that he didn’t know exactly what was going on, told us that they were going to give her IV fluids and a shot of antibiotics and an anti-emetic, and that she needed to see her regular vet. We brought her home and for a few minutes she seemed a lot better; she hopped out of the carrier when Fred opened it, and she purred and rubbed on him. Then she flopped down on one of the cat beds, and Fred checked on her every so often through the night, but she apparently didn’t move at all during the night. He checked on her this morning, and she was still in the bed, and when I went into her room she was still there. She had clearly not had anything to eat or drink, and she didn’t use the litter box. I boxed her up and drove her to Ardmore, to the vet that the shelter uses. She didn’t meow once the entire way. The vet looked her over – Mia could barely summon up a halfhearted growl as she was being examined – and basically told me that the fact that Mia hadn’t used the litter box overnight after having IV fluids was worrisome, because when a cat’s kidneys start to go into renal failure they urinate a lot, but when they don’t urinate at all, that could indicate end-stage renal failure. Everyone asked if there was anything she could have gotten into, something toxic that could be making her so sick, and we’ve been wracking our brains, but there’s just nothing. She spent the first several weeks in the guest bedroom with the kittens, and there’s nothing in there except cat toys, cat beds, and towels to sleep on. I went over the study – where we put her after we separated her from the kittens – with a fine-tooth comb, and there’s nothing at all that could be dangerous to her, nothing. I mean, all our cats used to hang out in that room, and of course we’re very careful not to leave anything around that could harm them, so it’s driving us crazy. I don’t know, y’all. It doesn’t seem like it’s looking very good for Mia. They’re keeping her at the vet’s for now, and I’m not sure how they’re going to treat her; Fred’s going to call and check on her this afternoon. If you can spare a prayer or a good thought aimed at a sweet little gray and white spitfire who’s in Ardmore, Alabama right now, I’d appreciate it. Edited to add: Fred just talked to the vet, who said that there’s nothing they can do for Mia. They’re going to put her down. The vet believes that Mia may have gotten into antifreeze when she was living at the auto parts store, before she had her babies. Antifreeze can apparently take a while to build up in their system and make them sick. Poor Mia. I know that we took good care of her and she was happy here for a while and it helps to know that, but this just really, really sucks. * * * The kitten pictures. Peanut’s ready to begin his lucrative boxing career. “I see you, paw. Don’t try anything funny, or I’ll kick your ass…” Oy, chewing on a toy. Or trying to, at least, if he could just get hold of it… “The wimmins like it when I sit like this.” “I like to sniff Snoopy’s tail. It tells me where he’s been.” “Pbblllt. Why does my paw taste like kitty litter?” “Heeeey, macarena!” You cannot resist the cuteness. Oy poses prettily. “I like to smell my foot. Is that weird?” Tellin’ secrets. Or, brotherly love. * * * Miz Poo is outside and wants to come in, but every time she heads for the cat door, Mister Boogers runs over and won’t let her come in. Because he’s a mean little bastard. * * * 2004: If you set off fireworks for three hours straight, starting at 7:30, you are not only an asshole, you live near me. 2003: No entry. 2002: A bunch of links that are probably no longer good. 2001: Pictures from Maine. 2000: Unfortunately, I forgot that when I say things like “Let’s go skinny-dipping and watch the fireworks”, what I actually mean is “Let’s go skinny-dipping and watch the fireworks”, but he hears “Let’s go swimming naked and get frisky in the pool under the fireworks.”]]>

* * * Dear neighbors: Yes, yes, it is QUITE an amazing thing that you can buy fireworks every three feet during the summer season here in lovely Madison Alabama, and it is so very fortunate that you live on a street that ends in a circle, so y’all can gather up a large group of friends and set them off directly across from my house. And I didn’t bitch – much – about the fact that you were setting off fireworks last night, or that you were scaring the holy shit out of the half-feral mother cat we’re fostering (though the kittens certainly thought the fireworks were the bee’s knees), because as Fred pointed out, y’all usually stop at a reasonable hour. And you did. You stopped well before 10:00, and even the fuckheads in the other subdivision stopped not long after 10:00, and even though I know y’all will be setting off fireworks again tonight, I’m sure you’ll stop at a reasonable hour again. And yes, the fireworks are pretty and cool and all that. So I even admired them for a moment, despite the loud noises they make. But I predicted to Fred last night, I said “There’s going to be fireworks shit all over our lawn and driveway tomorrow morning, I KNOW IT.” and then I said “Is it wrong to hope that they blow something off?” and then I felt bad and said “Well, not an arm or a leg, or an eyeball. Maybe just a pinky finger. No one ever uses the pinky finger.” As far as I know, no one blew any body parts off with the fireworks last night, but on the lawn and driveway? Fireworks shit. In the street? Fireworks shit. And I know you fucking lame-os won’t go so far as to PICK THE FIREWORKS SHIT up or even send your kids around to do it. No, you’ll just leave it there to be driven over and rained on and kicked at, and eventually it’ll either be ground into nothing or kicked down the gutter, so why should you be bothered to pick that shit up? I thought I was lazy and rude, but I’d never leave shit all over someone’s lawn, because that’s beyond rude. That makes me want to smack you, really hard. I swear to god, I will NEVER live at the end of a circle, ever again. Fuckers.

* * * Currently reading: How I Stole Her Husband, by Liz Ireland. Finished over the weekend: Eleven on Top, by Janet Evanovich. Gotta love that Stephanie Plum. Anyone else envision The Rock as Ranger? I can’t think of who would be perfect to play Stephanie, though. Suggestions? Also finished, late last night: Family History, by Dani Shapiro. I absolutely could not put this book down. I highly recommend it. * * * It has suddenly occurred to me that since they’ve been fixed, the kittens – and Mia! – are available for adoption, even though there’s no room at the pet store. If anyone in the area (or willing to drive to the area) is seriously interested in adopting one of the kittens, let me know. You’ll still have to contact the lady who runs the shelter and fill out an application and everything, but I sure would rather have as many of the babies adopted and going straight to homes where they’ll be loved than sitting in a cage at the pet store, you know? * * * Just for the record, if you send me an email and show an unnatural (read: any) interest in my feet and the sandals that gave me a blister on top of my feet two years ago, and follow said interest up by requesting pictures of my feet, guess what? You’re not so much going to get a reply, as a shudder and a deletion. * * * Speaking of shoes, these are the best investment I’ve ever made. They’re incredibly comfortable, I can do a lot of walking (as in, shopping – I haven’t tried them on exercise-type walking) in them, and they’re holding up well. I probably ought to get myself a pedicure, however, because my heels are cracked and dirty (because I prefer to walk around without shoes on) and hideous. I’ve never had a pedicure, though, and the thought of someone touching my feet fills me with terror. Also, it’s not the sort of thing I’d want to do alone. Is that weird? * * * So, when you’re watching a television show or movie, do you find yourself distracted by small details? For instance, I was watching (“Califorrrrrnia! Califorrrrrrnia! Caaaaaaaaaaliforrrrniaaaaaaaaa!“) The O.C. while I was exercising the other day (IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE VALENTINE’S EPISODE OF SEASON 1, SKIP THIS. POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!) I was watching the Valentine’s Day episode of Season 1, and at the end Sandy and Kirsten walked into their bedroom and it was filled with candles and rose petals and a big-ass box of chocolates, and my first thought was* “Who the hell lit the candles and set up the bedroom?” Because it sure wasn’t Sandy, because he was at the dance-shindig-thingy, and it wasn’t Ryan, because he was at the dance-shindig-thingy too, and it sure as hell wasn’t Seth, because he was off talking to Summer about their bad sex, so who? Does one ask one’s housekeeper to do that sort of thing, or what? *Actually, my very first thought was “Hey. I never get lit candles and rose petals and chocolates!”, and then I realized we could never have that many lit candles because we have very nosy cats with tails that would catch on fire (no one on The O.C. has any sort of pet, have you noticed?), and I further realized that I’d eventually get pissy about having to clean up the rose petals (and I don’t like the smell of roses, anyway, because they smell JUST LIKE BEER to me, for some reason), and god KNOWS I don’t need any more chocolate in my life. I’m the ultimate romantic, aren’t I? * * * We watched Troy Saturday night because Fred had seen it and thought I might like it, too. Not a bad movie, but Fred wished there’d been more naked Brad Pitt. On an interesting sidenote, the actress who played Helen of Troy – Diane Kruger – and the actress who played Briseis – Rose Byrne – were in the suckalicious Wicker Park together. It was bugging the hell out of me that Briseis looked so familiar to me, and that was why, because I’d seen her in (the horribly boring) Wicker Park. And on another interesting sidenote, the messenger boy who walked in to the tent at the beginning to wake up Brad Pitt looked familiar to me, and guess what? Jacob Smith! Owen, from Party of Five! Also, Nan from Circle of Friends! Hamish from Braveheart! HOLY SHIT. Brian Cox is playing Dr. Finch in the movie version of Running with Scissors! And Joseph Fiennes as Neil Bookman! Sorry. I get a little caught up in the Internet Movie Database sometimes. * * * The kitten section. So, the kittens are doing well. Mia, on the other hand… See, Saturday night as Fred and I were laying in bed, we started talking about Mia and how we felt so sorry for her, because every time we went into the room she’s in – which is next door to the room the kittens are in – she would run out into the big box we have blocking the way so she can’t escape into the rest of the house, and she’d howl in the direction of the kittens’ room, and one of them would hear her and meow sadly, and she’d start digging at the box and trying frantically to get to them. So every time we went in to see her, we were feeling really bad for her, and we started talking about it in bed Saturday night – as I mentioned – and we decided to put her back with her kittens. So we – Fred – bundled her up and took her into the room with the kittens, and they came over to sniff at her, and she purred and licked them, and we felt glad that we’d reunited the Momma and the babies, and we went to bed. And then Sunday, every time we went into the room Mia would run out into the box and lay down and give me a look like “What the fuck did I want to go back in there for, again?”, and she wasn’t purring, and if the kittens would come over to her she’d push them away. So we boxed her up and took her back into the other room, and she seems okay, though I don’t think she’s feeling good. She threw up a few times last night, which I suspect was brought on by stress – the fireworks were really freaking her out – so we gave her an anti-emetic and loved on her a little, and I guess we’ll just see how it goes. Fred did try to introduce Mister Boogers and Mia, to see how – if – they’d get along, with the idea that we’d just let her out into the house if they were okay with each other. Mia was okay, but Mister Boogers was a great big baby, so it doesn’t seem that that’s a very good idea. Poor Mia. “So then he said… hehehe!.. he said… bwahaha!… he said…’The Aristocrats!’…” “Bahahah! Hahahahaha! ‘The Aristocrats!’…” “Hehe…ha…whew! That joke just never gets old!” “Hee! I’m sticking my tongue out at her, but she can’t see me! Also, woman who brings me food and tries to give me too much love, that is one HAIRY-ASS leg you’ve got there. Nasty pedicure-needing foot, too.” “Hey, you guys! The litterboxes are clean! Last one in is a pile of stinky poo!” “If I stick this one claw out really far, I can pick my nose.” “Nyah!” “Wazzuuuuuuppp!” Oy smiles again. I have no idea what this expression means, but it cracks me UP. * * * Spot knows that if he sits on the arm of the loveseat, his Daddy will eventually come along and give him lurve. * * *]]>

logo! This one was created by the lovely and talented Bonnie, who somehow knew that I was considering putting out a call for a July-themed logo, and sent me one! Thanks, Bonnie. You rock!

* * * Currently reading: Eleven on Top, by Janet Evanovich. I sure do love this series. Finished the other night: Inconceivable, by Ben Elton. I didn’t much care for it, because it was slowwwwww reading, and the author felt the need to include every excruciating detail of every instant of this couples’ life, and I ended up skipping about 80 pages in the middle, and didn’t miss a single thing. I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you’re dying and want to make the time last as long as possible. (Edited to add: I like how I bitch about the book going on and on about every excruciating detail, and then go on to write 63,000 words about taking the cats to the vet. POT. KETTLE. BLACK.) * * * That Tom Cruise. What a fuckin’ loon, huh? * * * Ever notice that on the rare day when your hair looks pretty good (for once) and you have to run errands, the INSTANT you step outside the house, it begins to rain cats and dogs, and doesn’t stop until you get back home, looking like a drowned rat? Fucking mother nature. * * * Stuff I need to buy for myself: Over 25 percent of human genes are the same as those of a banana. Get over yourself t-shirt. Too many idiots, not enough villages button. Everything is funnier with the word fuck in it button. (That should be my motto) I am the center of the universe sticker. Does my fat ass make my ass look fat? sticker. You mean shopping for more useless crap isn’t the meaning of life? sticker. I do love the Sticker Giant site. * * * The kitten section. So I took Mia, Flossie, and Peanut to be spayed and neutered yesterday. It was quite an experience, because I walked into the vet clinic, Mia saw a passing puppy, and lost her SHIT, hissing and growling and yowling. Apparently Mia is no big fan of dogs. I had to take her out of the carrier to be weighed, and I won’t lie – I was pretty scared to do so, because Mia hissing and growling is something that scares the bejeebers out of me. A hissing, spitting, growling kitten? Cute. An 8-pound ball of pissed-off Momma? SCARY. But she came out of the carrier and growled a little, but let me pick her up and put her on the scale. She’s gained almost a pound since she was at the vet’s three weeks ago, but she’s still a skinny cat. The biggest surprise to me was when I picked Peanut up to weigh him, and he hissed and growled at ME. The little fucker. So I weighed him – he’s 2 pounds, 9 ounces, which makes him the biggest porker of the bunch at the moment – and the front-desk lady weighed Flossie, who was hissing at HER, and then we put Mia in a cage in the “cat ward”, since she’d reacted so violently to the dog, and we put Flossie and Peanut in another cage, and then I had to leave pretty quickly, or their sad little meows would cause me to take them back out of the cage and run away with them. I came home, I puttered around the house, and after I uploaded my entry for the day, I went upstairs to herd Larry, Curly, and Moe Oy, Edgar, and Snoopy into the study so I could clean the cat room. Spot, Spanky, and Mister Boogers were already hanging out in the study, and they didn’t take the influx of little kittens with ANY kind of good humor at all. Spot squalled and ran like hell, and Spanky pretty much did the same thing. Mister Boogers sniffed the kittens and then hissed, then yowled, then hissed, and then raised his paw to hand out some Smacks o’ Doom, so I shooed him out of the room. It took me about half an hour to completely vacuum and air out the room – still smells like a stable in there, but at least it’s a CLEAN stable – and then I went into the study to get the kittens. Who were having a grand old time sniffing around, and I turned around to shut the door, and Mister Boogers appeared out of nowhere and ran into the study. So I shut the door and sat down to watch the show. For the most part Mister Boogers left the kittens alone, though Oy kept going over and sniffing at him, and he could hardly stand it, and he would growl and raise his paw to smack that kitten across the room, but then I would say “Mis. Ter. Boog. Ers.” in my Mad Momma voice, and he’d put his paw back down and walk away. I never let him have any damn fun. I eventually herded the Stooges kittens back to their room and gave them a little love, then checked on them later to see how they were doing – sleeping, is how they were doing – and left the house after 4:00 to pick up Mia, Flossie, and Peanut. When I got to the vet’s, the front-desk woman told me that the shelter owner was leaving the shelter at 5 and was coming to the vet’s, so I could hang out and wait, and we could do the vaccinations here. It was about 4:45 when she told me that, and I looked at the clock and considered, and figured I probably couldn’t get to the shelter before five – maybe I could, but not definitely – so I sat in the waiting room and waited. But first I went back to the cat ward to see Mia, Flossie, and Peanut, and Mia looked at me with her big, dark eyes, and she hissed at me in a desultory manner. Flossie and Peanut, on the other hand, wanted to come out of their damn cage and sniff all over the place, and I let them for a minute, and then put them back in and went back out to the waiting room, because I couldn’t stand to look at their sad, confused little faces. Forty-five minutes later, Shelter Lady showed up with a cat to be spayed and another to be tested, and we went in the back of the clinic, and I took Peanut out of the cage and brought him out, and Shelter Lady gave him the shot, and he hissed and growled and swiped at me with his little paw, and would not be comforted. I put him in one of the carriers and grabbed Flossie. She clung to me and howled, then howled some more while she was getting her shot, then howled some more when I opened the carrier to put her in with Peanut, and he hissed and growled at me, then swiped at me with his little paw. “Cut that out,” I said sternly to him. He wasn’t impressed, and growled and hissed some more while I put Flossie in with him and shut the carrier. “Okay, let’s do Mom,” Shelter Lady said. “Oh,” I said, surprised, “We need to do her, too?” “Well, yeah,” Shelter Lady said. “We haven’t done her yet…” Talk about feeling like a dumbass. “We can probably just do her in the cage,” she said, and we opened the cage door, and Mia growled and hissed and yowled, and I grabbed her by the nape of the neck, and she fought back pretty hard. So we spent the next few minutes with me trying to grab her, and Shelter Lady suggesting ways that I could grab her, and I’m SURE she thought I was the biggest fucking wimp on the face of the earth, as I stood there and said “Mia kinda scares me…” Because she does! She scares the shit out of me when she gives me the crazy eyes and growls with her mouth wide open. I can deal with the scratching, but the biting REALLY FUCKING HURTS, and I wasn’t up for being bitten. We ended up deciding that we’d wait on giving her her shot, and I put her in her carrier (an easy job that entailed holding the carrier up to the cage and pushing on Mia’s butt. Mia ran into that carrier like the hounds of hell were after her). “Did they tell you that you need to keep the Mom and the babies separate?” Shelter Lady asked. “Uh. No…” I said. “Is that – are you going to be able to do that?” “Yeah, we’ve got a room where we can put her…” I said. “Okay, good.” I put the carriers by the front door and said “So… are we next in line for the petstore?”, knowing that Fred would want to know, because he’s worried that he’ll have to take care of the kittens while I’m in Maine. “No, not really… There are the kittens that are already there, and then someone else has five kittens, so it could be a little while. And the Mom and the kittens probably won’t be going to the store at the same time.” So I left, and called Fred on the way home to ask him to set up the study for Mia with food and water and a litter box, and when I got home he took Mia into the study and I took Flossie and Peanut into the cat room, and he said that as soon as he opened Mia’s carrier, she came out, meowed at him, and rubbed up against him. Flossie and Peanut were okay. Flossie was pretty sleepy for the rest of the day, but Peanut popped around like he had a firecracker in his butt, picking fights with the other boys, and chewing on my hair like it was a can of tuna. I feel so, so, SO bad for Mia, though. Because she’s alone in that room, she’s no doubt hurting, and she has no idea what’s going on. She howls on and off, and when we go in there to keep her company, she runs over and howls and rubs on us and purrs. This morning, she could hear a kitten meowing in the room – which is next door to the room she’s in – and she got all excited and ran over to the wall and meowed. I realized when I got home that I hadn’t asked whether she needed to be separated from the kittens for just a few days, or for good, so I emailed the Shelter Lady, who emailed me back to tell me that for good would be best, and she’d adjust in a few days. Poor Mia. We’ve actually discussed letting her out into the house with our other cats during the day, but I’m afraid that if she went outside she’d run away, and I definitely don’t want that to happen. Maybe we’ll start letting her out for a little while in the evening – unless we introduce her to our cats and it doesn’t go well, I guess. Can you tell that looking out the window is a favorite kitty pasttime around here? Mia likes to look out the window and growl at people as they walk by on the street. Flossie snuggles with my foot. “Like, oh my GAWD! No she DI-IN’T! No way!” “Are you there, god? It’s me, Mia. Please make these rotten kittens stop trying to nurse, PLEASE.” Oy is just the smilingest kitten. We used this bowl to put on the kitchen scale to weigh them, and they liked hanging out in it so much that we just left it in the room, and every now and then someone will sit in it and fall asleep. “Oh, about this tall. Very whiny. Kind of cute, likes belly rubs. Have you seen him?” Snoopy and Egg shnuggle. “Wazzuuuuuuup!” Peanut, chewing on my hair. Apparently hair is a delicacy in Catsville. Edgar and Oy, sleeping. “Have you tried the hair this evening? It’s quite good. Fresh directly from the head, with just a soupcon of hair gel. Tasty!” No toy is more fascinating than the Momma’s tail. Sleepy Egg. Flossie on my shoulder, sniffing my nose. Oy and Mister Boogers check each other out. Neither seems all that impressed. * * * Da Poo.]]>

Hobbies Cats. Can caring for and falling in love with the sweetest little kittens in the world be called a hobby? I think it can. If lovin’ the babies is wrong, I don’t a-wanna be right. Reading. You knew that. Cross-stitching. I spent the first five months of the year working on these little ornaments (which will be put up on the giveaway page in the next few months), and since I finished the last one, I haven’t cross-stitched at all. I’m trying to decide what I want to do next, is my excuse. I always do this – cross-stitch like mad for months and months, and then stopping for a long time before picking it up again. This website. That website. That one, too. Oh, and that one. Hey, I never said I was talented at it. In fact, that’s one ugly website right there, but it serves its purpose. Worrying. At the moment, I’m worrying about Flossie, Mia, and Peanut, who are at the vet being spayed and neutered. I’ve spent more time fussing and worrying over these kittens than you can imagine, but when they go to be adopted, I’ll find other things to worry about. You might think you worry, but I, my friends, am the worrying queen. I worry about things going on in my life, but I also worry about things going on in YOUR life (if you have a blog or journal, that is). And if a character in a book is fucking up his life? I practically get ulcers, I worry so much. Actually, I’m surprised I don’t have ulcers. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Jumping to conclusions. (Fred’s desk) Resisting temptation… and giving in, all too often. Singing. Badly. Very, very badly. I couldn’t carry a tune if I had a bucket to put it in. Ignoring housework that badly needs to be done. Taping cheesy shows and watching them… …and taping good shows and never quite getting around to watching them. Buying cat toys. Which the cats scatter all over the house, and then ignore. Taking pictures. I know I get some really good pictures, but I’m not really all that skilled at it. If you give a monkey a camera and teach him to snap pictures at random, I can guarantee you he’ll get some good ones, almost by accident. I probably erase two – if not more – for each one I keep. It’s the ones that come out really good that keep me taking pictures. Thank god for digital cameras, that’s all I can say. Using an HTML editor to teach myself basic HTML. Unfortunately it goes in one brain cell and out the other. I tend not to retain the knowledge I gain. Yelling at the cats to get off the table. And pretending they’ll listen. Missing the ocean.]]>

* * * Before I tell this story, I have to say that I don’t care about Hillary Clinton one way or the other. I mean, I think she takes a lot of crap because of who she is, but also I think that anyone who seriously wants to be a politician – especially those who want to be president – has to have a screw loose somewhere. I don’t think she’s the monster some people would have us believe, nor is she any kind of saint. She’s somewhere in the middle, I think, like most people. So. I was in Sam’s yesterday, and whenever I go into Sam’s I have to check out the book selection, because they have pretty good prices on hardcover books, and although I have far too many books already, I still have to look and see if there’s anything I want to read, so I can buy it and it can sit on the bookcase for two years before I get around to reading it. Some women buy shoes, some women buy jewelry, I buy books. Anyway, I checked out the book selection, and saw a book with the title The Truth About Hillary : What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She’ll Go to Become President. With a name like that, you know it’s going to be a hatchet job (I’m surprised they didn’t just name it The Hatchet Job on Hillary, and be done with it), and when I saw that it was written by Edward Klein, I knew I wasn’t going to buy the book (well, I knew before then that I wasn’t going to buy it, because I have no interest in reading a hatchet job, and even less interest in politics, but when I saw Edward Klein’s name, I REALLY knew I wasn’t going to buy it), but I picked it up anyway to check out the flyleaf and the pictures inside. I didn’t get to the picture collection, though, because first I checked out the flyleaf. And I read: She’s a wife, but she shows no wifely instincts. She’s a mother, but she isn’t maternal. She’s a feminist, but she rode to power on her husband’s coattails. She’s strong and assertive, but she has abetted decades of chronic infidelity. She inspires fierce loyalty among her followers, but she frequently stabs them in the back. and I got to the third line, and I said “Oh, fuck YOU, Edward Klein. Fuck you up your stupid ass.” and I put the book back down – though to be honest, I wanted to buy them all so I could build a bonfire with them, but that would be shooting myself in the foot, because Fuckward Klein would still get the money from the sale of all those books, and I’m sure he doesn’t give a shit what happens to the books once they’re bought. I mean, what kind of bullshit is that? She doesn’t show wifely instincts? WHAT THE FUCK ARE WIFELY INSTINCTS? No one told me I was supposed to be showing wifely instincts, where the hell do I get a pack of those at? And as for being “a mother, but not maternal”, What. The. Fuck? Seriously, what the FUCK? How the fuck would anyone but Chelsea Clinton – THE CHILD of the woman purported to be unmaternal – know whether Hillary Clinton is maternal or not? Also, what a LAME allegation to make. I’ve forbidden Fred from bringing anything by Edward Klein into this house – thus showing that I might not have wifely instincts, but I certainly have bossy instincts – because I’m afraid the mere presence of lame bullshit like that would bring down the collective IQ of the residents of our home. And we can use all the IQ points we can get.

* * * I was ranting about the above to Fred last night, and he said “Welcome to last week’s news”, and I said “You shut up, motherfucker, or I’ll unleash my wifely instincts on you” and he said “Shut your unmaternal mouth, woman.” And then Miz Poo stomped across my hair, and the conversation was forgotten. * * * We were watching TV the other night, and Fred turned to me and said “I think I might have to start buying songs on iTunes. All the songs are basically a buck, right?” And I said, “Yeah, ninety-nine cents.” “Which is basically a buck,” he snarked at me. “What the fuck?” I said. “I WAS CLARIFYING IT FOR YOU.” “I didn’t need the exact number,” he said bitchily, smirking at me. “I just wanted to know that it was basically a buck.” “THEY’RE NINETY-NINE CENTS!” “I KNEW they’re ninety-nine cents. But it’s easier to say basically a buck,” he said. “There are less syllables in basically a buck than there are in ninety-nine cents.” “I don’t think so.” “Bessie, please,” he said, and then held out his hand so he could count syllables. “Ba-sic-al-ly… well, no, you really say ba-sic-ly, right?” “Yeah.” “Ba-sic-ly-a-buck. Five,” he said, looking at me to see if I’d gotten it. He held out his other hand. “Nine-ty-nine-cents… Shut up.” I only smiled. “Not allowed to write about it!” he said, pointing at me. “Nooooot allowed to write about it!” Ha. That’s what you get for snarking at me, motherfucker. * * * Okay, this is driving me CRAZY. I was doing errands this morning when the line “Country don’t mean dumb” popped into my mind, and I cannot for the life of me think of who said it. It was in a movie, and a man said it, and he might have punched someone before he said it, but maybe not. I can hear the voice, but I have NO IDEA whose voice it is. Help me before I go crazy from racking my brain, won’t you? * * * Them kittens. Snoopy, Edgar, and Oy are home and just fine. They were very indignant when I first picked them up from the vet’s, and they kept sticking their paws out of the carrier and meowing at me. They’d just started to settle down when I got to the shelter, and then they milled around in the carrier for a few minutes, ’til I actually walked through the door, and then they quieted right down, because there was a big slobbery dog there, and other cats, and they were so freaked out that they all ran to the other end of the carrier and huddled up together, and stared out at the dog and the other cats with big dark eyes. They were indignant again when I took them out, one by one, to have their vaccine shot, and when I took them back to the car they took turns meowing at me, telling me what an awful woman I am, but about five minutes after we left the shelter they were snuggled up in a pile, sound asleep. I expected them to be kind of loopy and out of it when we got home, but as soon as I opened the carrier, they all came bounding out, and ran around like their little butts were on fire. It’s going to be fun (NOT) taking Mia, Flossie and Peanut to the vet tomorrow, because Mia and Flossie are both pretty vocal, and I expect that by the time I get to the vet’s office, I’m going to want to poke a stick through my eardrums. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for room to open up at the pet store… and is it wrong that I hope it takes a looooong time for that to happen? Yoga kitty. “I wike to put my tongue over to the side, like this. It makes me wook cool.” Peanut, who cannot keep his tongue in his mouth. Flossie, bathing. Which is cuter, the toes, or the little pink nose? I can’t decide. Love that Flossie. Oy, posing. Edgar (I’ve taken to calling him “Egg” all the time, now), with Mia in the background. * * * Mister Boogers sure does love his daddy. ]]>

here you go, they were there last week – and when I walked into the cat room, Miss Priss was laying on her side, and Christopher was… nursing. Or attempting to nurse, since I don’t suppose she was producing milk. I hope not, anyway. She was laying there patiently, and he was kneading and nursing for the LONGEST time, and it was extremely disturbing. I don’t know WHY I was so freaked out, it wasn’t like it was a sexual thing, but it just seemed WRONG. I thought about calling the lady who runs the shelter, but I’ve called her an awful lot since we got these kittens, and Fred likes to jokingly (I think he’s joking, anyway!) say “If you don’t stop calling her every day, she’s not going to let you have any more kittens!” Besides, I have a feeling she’d just tell me it’s a normal thing, that kittens who are taken from their mother too soon or weaned too soon tend to do it. It’s still freaky, though.

* * * I’m so helpful. Oh, and I own but haven’t yet read What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal, Eleven on Top, and Gods in Alabama. I read The Weight-Loss Diaries in October of 2004 and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in May of 2004. (I gave them five Poos and four Poos, respectively) (I haven’t seen the movie version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants yet, if that’s what you were wondering.) And as for the Bullshit episode we were on (you probably found that with the search, but just in case…) you can read about our experience here, and we were on the episode entitled Eat This! You’re welcome. * * * I had a damn busy morning today. I got up when Fred left for work – 6:45 – so I could do some laundry, take a shower, get dressed, and wrangle three of the boy kittens. Today’s neutering day for three of the boys, and I couldn’t decide which boys to take, so I cleaned out the litter box and looked them all over, and then finally decided to just grab the three closest boys and toss them in the carrier. I ended up with Snoopy, Edgar, and Oy. Once that was done, I had to make the half-hour trip to the vet. I was dreading the drive, because little kittens have surprisingly loud meows when they’re scared, but except for a few sad little “Why do you hate me?” meows from Oy, they were pretty quiet. At one point I stupidly stuck my finger in the carrier so they could feel… I don’t know, comforted? Which sounds stupid when I really think about it, ’cause why exactly would a finger comfort them? “Oh, look a finger! I feel so relaxed and unfrightened now…” Anyway, one of them decided that a good reaction to the finger would be to sink a claw into the end of the finger – you know, where all the NERVES are – and I ended up driving down a country road screaming loudly while the man in the truck behind me probably wondered whether I’d been drinking. I dropped the kittens off at the vet – and the vet assistants immediately fussed over how cute the kittens are, which means I LOVE the vet assistants – and drove back to Madison for a 9:00 hair appointment. I was about ten minutes late, because I’d made the vet appointment without realizing I had a hair appointment, and the vet appointment was at 8:30, which didn’t give me a lot of time to get to the hair place. I did call and leave a message that I’d be a little late, so all was okay. The woman who cut my hair did her usual faaaaabulous job. She’s pregnant and due in a few weeks, and I think she’s really ready to get this whole pregnancy thing over with. We spent the whole time talking about her kids, my kid, the kittens, and various other things, so the time flew. I left the hair place, put gas in my car, and went to Sam’s to pick up a few things – bottled water, gum, trash bags – and for probably the only time in my life, left without spending over $100. That almost never happens, so I gave myself a high five in the parking lot (not really), and headed for home. Where I am now. Waiting for the vet’s office to call and tell me I can pick up the kittens. After I pick them up, I have to run them over to the shelter so they can get their vaccinations (the lady who runs the shelter – and I need to come up with a name for her, don’t I? – offered to show me how to do it, but I’m such a klutz I’m sure I’d only end up vaccinating myself, and since I’m not (so far as I know) in danger of developing feline leukemia, I’d rather have her do it). So yeah, it’s been a busy day for me. I’m not complaining, though – I like the occasional busy day. I just don’t want every day to be a busy day, because I’m too damn lazy to deal with that. * * * After Fred went to bed last night, I turned on the laptop and settled into the chair in the corner of the bedroom, and finally, finally, FINALLY got caught up on my email. It took me about an hour and a half, and there were actually emails that had been waiting for a response since the END OF MARCH (god, I suck), but I got every last one of them answered. The later it got, the chattier I got, so there were a couple of emails that people had sent just a paragraph or two, and I responded with pages and pages of yammering. I’d like to say that I intend to keep caught up on my email from here on out, but even I don’t believe me when I say that anymore, so I’m sure sometime mid-Fall I’ll be talking again about how I just got caught up on all my email again… * * * Now. I’m not much of a jewelry wearer, except on special occasions, you know how it goes. When I heard that Bonnie and Suzanne were going to be selling their stuff online, I took a quick look and liked what I saw, but never got around to ordering anything. Yesterday, I went to the post office, and what do you suppose was sitting there waiting for me? Bracelets. YELLOW bracelets. Now, like I said, I don’t usually wear any jewelry at all, but these bracelets are so cute and comfy and very much ME that I’ve been wearing them since I got ’em. (They also sent me something for the spud, but I won’t show a picture of that, ’cause the spud reads this journal and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.) Do I sound like a cheesy commercial? Because I don’t mean to, but these bracelets are so cute and well-made that I think y’all should go order one. Or a pair of earrings, or even an earring and bracelet set. You know, whatever strikes your fancy. Go on, go check ’em out. Don’t forget to come back, though. I’ve still got cute kitten pics to share. * * * Those darn cats. The vet’s office just called. Oy, Edgar, and Snoopy are just fine, and I can pick them up in a few hours. Poor babies, they’re going to need a lot of snuggling tonight, I bet. Flossie in front of the window. Fightin’ kitties. When I see pictures like this, I realize just how much the kittens have grown. I mean, compare that picture to this one: Amazing, isn’t it? Snoopy, trying to nurse. He was unsuccessful. I’ve become just a piece of furniture to these kittens. Here, we see Peanut and Flossie sitting on my shoulder and fighting with each other. Snoopy on my shoulder. Peanut and his toes. Is she yawning… or is she screaming? “Momma, your feet stink.” The Floss-monster shows that ball just who the boss is around here.]]>

Inconceivable, by Ben Elton. Finished over the weekend: The Innocent, by Harlan Coben – kickass as usual – and Dry, by Augusten Burroughs, which I enjoyed so much I stayed up late to finish it even though I knew I had to get up early (for me) this morning. I don’t know why it is that I was less enamored of Running With Scissors, but I really liked both Magical Thinking and Dry a lot. If pushed, I’d say that Magical Thinking was my favorite of the two.

* * * So I was in Target this morning looking for toilet bowl cleaner (and, may I ask, back before toilet bowl cleaner, what did people use to clean their toilets? Oh, right. People used outhouses back then, didn’t they?) and I walked past the tub and shower cleaners, and I stopped and stared at the Scrubbing Bubbles, seriously tempted to buy a can. When I was a kid, I watched the damn Scrubbing Bubbles commercials, and I thought that when you sprayed the Scrubbing Bubbles onto the tub and shower, the little bubbles would come out looking exactly like they did in the commercial: And I harassed the shit out of my mother to buy a can of Scrubbing Bubbles to use for cleaning, because there is NOTHING ELSE IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD I wanted than I capture one of those scrubbing bubbles and keep him as a pet. I’m still a little bitter at the memory of my mother spraying the tub with Scrubbing Bubbles, and my disappointment when all that came out was cleaning product. Not a damn smiling scrubbing bubble to be seen anywhere. Can I sue for emotional distress? * * * I’m afraid I’m going to have to divorce my husband. He told me that he thinks the foster kittens are ugly because – and this is a quote – “their markings are asymmetric and random.” He went on to defend his point of view, saying that as a computer geek, he wants everything to have symmetry and logic and a pattern, but I was so busy spluttering like Sylvester the Cat that I couldn’t come up with a decent response. I mean, I’m sorry. How can you see this: and think “ugly”? It baffles me, it really does. * * * Fred went to the movie store and rented Hostage, Hitch, and The Jacket yesterday. We watched Hitch in the afternoon, and Hostage last night (then followed it up with a couple of episodes of Scrubs, because that is one fine damn show). To our surprise, they were both pretty good. We were disappointed that Hostage was dumbed down a little – we both read Hostage earlier this year and it kicked ASS – but all in all it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday evening. Only, except, remember back when I said that Autumn Chiklis – daughter of Michael Chiklis, star of The Shield – was possibly the worst young actress in all of Hollywood? Yeah, well, Rumer Willis is definitely in the race for that title, for sure. Hollywood nepotism at it’s best, I suppose – putting young, extremely untalented kids in roles that should have gone to kids who don’t have their mommies and daddies to pull strings for them. And yet they’re confused as to why movie attendance is hitting record lows. * * * The kitten section. So Friday night Fred and I were hanging out in the room with the kittens, and Mia started rolling around on the floor making a lot of noise, and every time either of us would touch her, she’d immediately raise her butt in the air. “Bessie,” Fred said. “I think she’s in heat.” We watched her for a while longer, and she got even more agitated, and rolled around on the floor even more. “Well, shit,” I said. “What the hell do we do?” “We can’t do anything. And she’s going to get loud.” Fred once had a cat who went into heat, and she was so loud all night long that he spent the next morning calling vets and begging them to spay her that very day. So we came downstairs where I called and left a message for the lady who runs the shelter to ask her if there was anything special I needed to do – separate her from the kittens, perhaps? I mean, I have NEVER dealt with a cat in heat before. I did some looking around online, and found mostly unhelpful advice that the way to keep a cat from going into heat was – can you guess? – have her spayed. She’s scheduled to be spayed on Thursday. Figures, right? I did run across a page where they offered up the suggestion to relieve the cat’s distress with a q-tip, and then I passed out from the sheer horror of the thought. We went to bed and discussed it some more. I said, “Well, should we separate her from the kittens? I don’t want them to be mentally scarred for life from seeing their mother in the mood for love!”, to which Fred replied “We should send Mister Boogers in there to take care of business!” I don’t know. Can neutered cats even get it up? We decided that we’d just keep an eye on her, and if she got aggressive with the kittens in any way we’d put her in the study for a few days. You’ve probably figured this out by now, but when we went in Saturday morning, Mia showed no signs of being in heat at all. AT ALL. In fact, she hasn’t shown any signs since. What the hell is up with that? I mean, not that I WANTED her to be in heat, in fact, I’m quite grateful that she’s NOT, but we were really sure she was, Friday night. There’s a new kitten movie up, here. It’s a fairly short one, of the kittens being teased by Fred with a toy. As always, it’ll only be up until I upload a new movie. Snoopy. That boy sleeps like a rock. Sleepy babies. A rare picture with all five of them (you can’t see Snoopy’s face, since Oy and Edgar are laying on top of him, but he’s there!). This picture cracks me up because of the stretching kitty paw over Flossie’s head. It looks like someone’s doing “jazz hands”! Heh. It’s a rough life, it really is. “I think I’m in Hell. I’m in Hell, right? In a small room with all these little wild kittens? Yeah, I’m in hell. I wonder what I did wrong…” Edgar, mid-lick. It looks like he’s showing us a trick, doesn’t it? “Look, I can make my tongue go in one direction, and THEN I can make it go in the OTHER direction!” Oy, cleaning. I sure do love this little guy. He’s little, but he’s scrappy. * * *]]>

reading: The Innocent, by Harlan Coben. Finished last night: Fat Girl. I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it, but I just didn’t care for that book. Part of it is that I have no patience with long passages of lovingly-described food – it bores the shit out of me, to be honest, which is probably not what you would expect from a lifelong fat chick – and part of it is that it’s such a fucking downer of a book, and part of it is that my heart has not the ability to bleed for someone who’s always struggled with their weight yet has never crossed the 200-pound mark. I guess that’s my own personal prejudice, and I know that the struggle’s the same whether you need to lose 20 pounds or 200, I do intellectually understand and accept that, but in my heart I just can’t cry for someone who talks about how grossly obese they are when I outweigh them by 50 or 100 pounds or more. Because I think, “If that’s what you think about yourself, what on god’s green earth must you think to yourself about ME?” (And I know that the answer to that is probably “I think nothing at all about you, because you are NOT the center of the universe, even though you APPARENTLY think you are, and are under the impression that all everyone ever does is think about YOU.”, but I think we can all agree that the truth is that I’m the center of my universe, and so I think I should be the center of YOUR universe, even though YOU are the center of your universe, and SHE is the center of HER universe, and so on and so forth.) My beloved Andrew Vachss gave this book a rave, though, so perhaps I’m blinded by my own prejudices. In fact, I’m sure I am. But I’m not giving the book another shot – I’m going to release it into the wild one of these days so that someone else can give it a loving home.

* * * From my comments: Robyn, here is a non-cat question. You had mentioned you have read Marian Keyes & Anna Maxted – can you suggest any other similiar (fun, fluffy, Brit, chick lit) authors I can check out. I have exhausted all Keyes & Maxted’s books and now I am bored! Thanks. I’m going to throw this one to the rest of my readers, because honestly no one else is coming to mind, though I KNOW there are more authors out there. I just can’t think of them at the minute. If you have a suggestion for Natalie, leave a comment, eh? Robyn did you read Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich? Do you know if this is going to be a new series and when the next comes out? Have you read Eleven on Top yet? I did read Metro Girl, and I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a new series or not, so I checked out Janet Evanovich’s page, and stumbled on her tour and release dates page. According to that, Motor Mouth(Metro Girl #2) is coming out next March, so it does appear that it’s going to be a new series. Yay! I haven’t read Eleven on Top yet, only because I’m waiting for it to arrive – I ordered it from the book club I belong to. I’m definitely looking forward to it, though! That Janet Evanovich is one hard-working woman, isn’t she? * * * The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development. For the record, that’s the sort of thing that gives me a fucking stroke. LOCAL GOVERNMENT can seize your home for PRIVATE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. Joe-Bob Dumfuck can decide a Wal-Mart would look right nice where your house happens to stand (yes, I’m simplifying – BUT PROBABLY NOT BY MUCH), and you haven’t got a goddamn legal leg to stand on. I’d say this country is going to hell, but that handbasket sailed a loooooong time ago. * * * Fred sent me an email yesterday letting me know that it appears the former Judge Roy “I am a law unto myself” Moore will be running for governor. Then he said we might have to move out of the state if that happens. That bastard, he just looooves to tease me. Think I could convince him to move to Maine? There are no poisonous snakes in Maine, you know. At least not ’til Fred shows up and they follow him into the state, that is. * * * There are four things I really hate doing when I’m sitting at my desk. The first is keeping our checkbook (which I keep in Quicken) up to date. We use our debit cards an absolute criminal amount, never save receipts, and having to sit and figure out what’s been entered already and what hasn’t is a huge pain in the ass. The second thing I hate doing is paying bills, which is why our absolutely stellar credit status shocked me so much when we refinanced the house a few months ago. I know it’ll only take me a few minutes to write a check or move the money online, but day after day I think “I need to pay bills”, then “Eh. I’ll do that later.” and never get around to it until the day I force myself to sit down and get it done. Our bills are very rarely paid late, but it’s not uncommon for me to run to the post office at the last minute to mail off a payment or stop by the bank to make a credit card payment. The third thing I can’t stand doing is cleaning off my desk. I always have piles of shit everywhere (though I can’t blame my lack of bill-paying on that. I’ve TRIED, but I can’t bullshit myself, much as I try.) and it’s always a pain in the ass to find anything, but I’d rather just let the piles grow taller and taller and yell at Mister Boogers when he gaums* around on my desk and knocks shit over. It isn’t until I’m pissed off enough to do something about it – like when Mister Boogers knocks the same pile of shit over six times in a row – that I actually DO something about it. And the fourth? Email. I love getting email, love reading it, love pondering the questions you ask, the advice you give, but answering? Um, yeah. Not so hot at that. Which you know if you’ve EVER emailed me. So on Sunday, I came up with a brilliant idea. BRILLIANT. This brilliant idea is that I can stand just about anything for five minutes. And so, I suggested to myself, why not start a five-minute dealie once a day where I spend five minutes doing one of the four things I loathe doing so much, or a little of each of the four things for five minutes, and when the five minutes is up, I go on my merry way, guilt-free, to surf to my heart’s desire. I attempted the five-minute dealie almost as soon as I thought of it on Sunday afternoon, and ended up spending half an hour paying bills and balancing the checkbook. Good enough. I mean, after all, the rule is that I CAN give up after five minutes, not that I MUST. Monday afternoon I spent five minutes cleaning off my desk, and even went and got the spray bottle of ammonia and scrubbed the surface of my desk where I rest my arms most of the time, and let me tell YOU, that was one nasty, dirty desk. Tuesday, I completely forgot about the five-minute dealie until Fred had gone off to bed and I was settling in with my book. I groaned and fussed, then forced myself to come downstairs, where I spent five-ish minutes checking our checking account online to make sure the debit card hadn’t been used since the last time I looked on Sunday (it hadn’t), threw a few pieces of paper from my desktop to the trash, answered an email that had been sitting in my inbox for six weeks (I suck), and went back upstairs to read. Wednesday, I spent about a minute and a half rearranging the pens in my “How much shit could a dipshit dip if a dipshit could dip shit?” mug, and filed a couple of bank statements. Thursday? No five-minute dealie. No two-minute dealie. No ONE-minute dealie. No dealie at all. I couldn’t even make it an entire week. I am the lamest lame-o that ever lamed. *According to dictionary.com, “gaum” is defined as “To smudge or smear.”, but my mother always used it as a substitution for “klutz” or “klutzy” – ie, “What a gaum.” I think it works well in the sentence “…when he gaums around on my desk and knocks shit over”, don’t you? * * * PS: Did you know that Guam is developing new tourist attractions? I would SO love to go back to Guam someday – did I ever mention that we lived there for two years when I was a kid? I could go back and smack myself for not appreciating the beauty of the place, but that’s just not the sort of thing an 8 year-old does, I guess. PPS: Psst! Fred: Guam covers an area of 212 square miles (549 square km), and is about 30 miles (48.39 km) in length with a width of 8 1/2 miles (13.71 km) at the northern tip and a maximum width in the south of 11 1/2 miles (remember when we were talking about it the other night?) PPPS: Psst! Fred: There’s apparently a big snake problem on Guam. Also, there’s hiking. Lots of it. Lots of difficult hiking. Isn’t it too bad it’s 20ish hours away by plane? PPPS: I only bring this stuff about Guam up because when I Googled “gaum”, the ever-helpful Google suggested that I might be a dumbass and possibly what I REALLY meant to type was “guam.” * * * The kitten section. The kittens are exactly two months old today. My lord, I’m such an idiot. In the mornings when I go into the cat room, I tend to leave the door to the room open, because the big cardboard box is there blocking Mia and the babies from the rest of the house, and they like to run out there and sniff around, and rather than chase them back into the room, I let them stay out there for a little while if they want to. What’s the harm, right? Well, this morning I heard a loud thump and when I went to investigate, I found that one of the kittens had figured out that he could pull the cardboard away from the wall a little, and slip through to the other side. I was a bit freaked out that Mia might try to run through the gap – though she was flopped over on her side and wasn’t even paying attention to what her kittens were doing – and so I picked up the can of compressed air that I leave sitting right by the door, and I herded Mia and whichever kittens were in the cardboard area back into the cat room. I shut the door and then went after the kitten who had escaped, who happened to be Oy. He might be little, but he’s smart, that one. So I found Oy in the spud’s bathroom, with Miz Poo sniffing at his butt, and when he turned around to look at her, she hissed and backed up. The reaction of our cats to the kittens – especially Miz Poo and Mister Boogers – is hilarious, because these kittens are a tenth the size of either of them, but they react like they’re seeing the most threatening things ever put on the face of this earth. I grabbed Oy up and took him back into the cat room and stayed for a few more minutes until Edgar pooped in the litter box, then tromped through it, and then bounced across the room to bounce across my leg and leave a big nugget of poop on my pants leg. I can take a hint, plus I had errands to run, so I said goodbye to the kitties (and yes, I ALWAYS say “hello” and “goodbye” the kitties.) and came downstairs. I spent a few minutes checking my mail, made a quick phone call to Fred, and headed for the door. As I was almost to the door, I heard a loud bang from upstairs, and I paused and thought about going to check it out, but then remembered I’d started the washer and decided that was what I’d heard. I went to the bank and the grocery store and then to McDonald’s for a Diet Coke. When I got home I started putting away the groceries, when I heard a loud wailing sound from upstairs. “What the – ?” I said to Miz Poo, who was looking more than a little freaked out. She shrugged at me, and I went upstairs to see what was going on. What was going on was that Snoopy was sitting outside the door to the cat room, every piece of fur on his body fluffed up as far as it could fluff, wailing to be let back in with his family. “What happened, baby?” I said to him, and he turned and saw me, and ran toward me as fast as his little legs could carry him. He was TERRIFIED. I guess it had been fun to wander around for a little while, but when it came down to it, he really wanted to be with his brothers and sisters and his Momma. I took him into the cat room, where he immediately started running around and jumping on his siblings. Then he saw Mia laying on the floor, and he ran over and started trying to nurse. She wasn’t up for that, though, and walked away. He kept following her, until she turned around and smacked him, which is when he decided that the kitten food in the bowls was just fine with him. Poor baby. I don’t know if he got out when Oy escaped and I just didn’t realize it, or if he ran out of the cat room when I was leaving and I didn’t see him, or what. I guess I need to start counting kittens before I leave the cat room, huh? He’s such a Momma’s boy. He follows his Momma around a lot. When he’s not chasing his siblings around, that is. Hugging his Momma. He LURVES his Momma. But Momma can only take so much love before she has to flee the interview premises. Oy is such a sweet little brat. Snoopy grabs for the camera. Don’t mess with Miss Flossie. “You lookin’ at ME?” (Edgar) “You puts your paws in the AYER like you just don’t CAYER!” The damage those kittens do. ]]>

* * * Hel-LEW. Did y’all not SEE the Best. Picture. Ever. in yesterday’s entry??? She looks like she’s having a good laugh at your expense, doesn’t she? I’m half-tempted to use CafePress to make myself a Flossie shirt, and underneath the picture it would say “You’re wearing… THAT?”

* * * So we – and when I say “we”, you should know, of course, that I mean “Fred” – have been giving Miz Poo oil for the last three weeks or so. Fred did some looking around online, and found that what Miz Poo has – her puffy lip – is called a rodent ulcer, and that people have had good results treating it with omega-3/omega-6 fatty acid oil. So we – he – started giving her the oil, and for a long time nothing happened, and we wailed and gnashed our teeth (or maybe just shrugged and shook our heads), and then in the last few days all of a sudden, her lip has gotten much, much smaller and has started to look a lot healthier. We’re cautiously optimistic, because in the past a lot of the stuff we’ve tried has worked really well, but only for a short amount of time. But if this oil is the answer, I’m going to be thrilled. THRILLED, I say, because we’ve been dealing with the puffy lip for years now, and even though the lip never seems to cause her pain even when it’s at the puffiest, just looking at it causes US pain. Keep your fingers crossed that the oil keeps working, eh? Boy, that’s not a flattering picture, is it? I’m lucky she’s not human. She’d kick my ass for putting up such a horrid picture! * * * What a difference five weeks makes, huh? Then: Now (well, last week): Have those babies grown, or what? How about this: Then. Now. They grow so DAMN fast. Her eyes went from that gorgeous blue to green, and I didn’t even notice it happening! * * * It’s a good damn thing I decided to start wearing a sweatshirt into the cat room, because right now every damn one of those kittens love to launch themselves across the room onto my back, and then scale the Robyn Mountain to sit on my shoulder and chew on my hair. Snoopy. And my hair. Which he loves to chew on. Sometimes he gets so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of hair that he sinks his sharp little claws into my scalp and tries to eat my head. Oy’s favorite place to be. He sits juuuust right so that he can see the other kittens running around, but just far enough back that I can’t turn my head and kiss him. Brat. Miss Flossieeeee….on my shoulderrrr… makes me happyyyyy…. * * * Not every night, but every few nights, I give the kittens a can of kitten food. It’s a nice change from the Science Diet Kitten they get all the time, and they seem to really like it. I open the can, put the food on a couple of plates, and they all stop what they’re doing to come belly-up to the trough. I love the way Miss Flossie can’t quite seem to decide which plate she wants to eat off of. She’s in kitty heaven. And once they’re done eating, they sit around for the next half hour and lick their lips. ]]>