Category: Life

6/8/05

Be Cool yesterday – after trying to return movies to the wrong movie store; talk about feeling like a dumbass – and we watched it last night. It was a good movie, though it felt a tad too long. I’m happy, though – I got to make my “Twinkle, twinkle, baby! Twinkle, twinkle!” wav and have it set up so that whenever I get email, it plays. I’m sure I’ll get tired of it at some point, but right now it makes me giggle like the fool I am. That girl who played Linda Moon – Christina Milian – is just cute as a button. I was positive she had to be a singer I had heard of before, but her name isn’t familiar to me. She has an awesome set of pipes, though. The Rock was hilarious, and when Fred was looking through the extras he found that there was an entire video of The Rock singing You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man. Lordy, it was AWFUL, but funny as hell.

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Fred is currently in the process of being approved for a security clearance, because apparently those in charge of your tax dollars feel that after he’s been doing the same job for 13 years, it’s time that they do a background check. He met with the background investigator yesterday and called to tell me that the investigator told him that he’d need to meet with me to ask me some questions. Apparently they usually forgo meeting with the spouse and family of the person being investigated, since obviously there’s some bias there, but they have to have a certain number of “social contacts” when they do an investigation, and since Fred’s daily social contacts outside of work consist of me, me, and – oh yeah! – me, the investigator needed to talk to me. I was on my way home from Sam’s when the investigator called on my cell phone, and we made plans to meet at the house at 2. I was just finishing lunch at 1:45 when he arrived. We sat down at the table, and he asked me questions for fifteen minutes or so and I answered them. The first question? How we met, and how our relationship progressed from then to now. And I suddenly got extremely nervous and began to sweat AND THEN COULDN’T REMEMBER OUR ANNIVERSARY FOR AN ENTIRE MINUTE. I did this frantic mental dance where I was all “Did we get married in March? June? December? WHEN? WHEN?” At some point – I think the question was about how reliable Fred is – I yammered on and on about how we’d been watching White Noise Saturday night, and Michael Keaton’s wife (character’s wife, that is) went out with a friend and midnight came and went and he was mildly concerned, and Fred turned to me and said “We must be weird. If you were, like, TEN minutes late, I’d be worried.” and I said “I’d be worried if YOU were ten minutes late, too.” Because he’s so good about letting me know where he is and when he’ll be home, you see. And I finished up the story with “Because he’s always where he says he’ll be, and if he’s going to be late, he calls.” By this time the investigator’s eyes had glazed over, and he was clearly thinking “This has WHAT to do with reliability?” and he pretended to write down what I’d said, but clearly was writing something like No wonder he has no other social contacts. His wife cannot be let out into polite society because she is clueless about how to answer a simple question, and so he must spend all his time keeping an eye on her stupid ass. But all in all, it wasn’t too traumatic, and he was only here for about fifteen minutes. At the end of the interview (“He’s fleein’ the interview!”), we had a short discussion about whether our neighbors would be home – they have to speak to our neighbors on either side of us, you see, the ones with whom we’ve traded about ten words total in the 3 1/2 years we’ve lived here – and I pointed to one side of the house and said “She might be home, I’m not sure what her schedule is like”, and he said “What’s her name?”, and I had to say “I have no idea.” I should have added, “But their dog’s name is Bruiser!”
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So as I mentioned up there somewhere, I went to Sam’s yesterday. And did you feel the earth shift on it’s axis? Because for the FIRST TIME EVER, I walked out of there having spent less than $100. I’m still a little dazed and shocked. Who knew that you could get a bunch of bottled water, a big-ass box of Splenda, and a pack of sponges for less than $100? WHAT A BARGAIN.
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The kitten section. You know why we’re not going to keep any of the foster kittens? Because there is NO WAY ON EARTH I could pick just one or even just two of them. Every time I think I’ve got a favorite, another one does something that just steals my heart. Today, my favorite is Oy. He comes over to me, bites my hand until I roll him over onto his back, and then kicks his legs while I rub his belly. He loves to pretend he hates the belly rubs, but he keeps on coming back for them. The other kittens have fur that feels like cotton balls, but Oy’s is soft and silky. Also, Oy is one of the two kittens (Snoopy being the other one) that has purred when I held him. He doesn’t purr every time, and he doesn’t purr for long, but he does purr. And then I see Flossie’s worried little face, and I think “She is just unbearably cute. SHE’s my favorite.” And so on. Peanut, doing the cute-n-cuddly thing. These kittens just adore my feet. I have no idea what’s up with that. Flossie, being chewed upon by Edgar. Oy, taken by surprise. Sleepy little Snoopy. Three seconds after I snapped this picture, he struggled out of my arms and bounced across the room to sink his teeth into Flossie’s belly. Oy. Everything surprises him. Oy, playing with his very favorite toy. These plastic rings were probably the best investment I’ve ever made. “Awww, Momma, come down! We’ll be good! I won’t bite your tail again, I promise!” Today’s movie is here. I call it “Momma Love.” There’s a weird jump in the middle where I screwed something up, but it’s hardly noticeable. I’m such an ace filmmaker. New movie up tomorrow.
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Is there anything happier than a Spanky in the sunshine? I think NOT. ]]>

6/7/05

* * * You know, I have wondered in the past who Deep Throat was, and I was pretty excited when the story broke last week. But I have to say that I always hoped that the truth would be… well, a little more exciting than it’s turning out to be. Yawnsville.

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Meme, seen every-damn-where. 1. Are you happy today? I am. I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life. 2. What is your occupation? Professional slacker. 3. What are you listening to right now? The traffic on the road behind our house, Miz Poo snoring, and the foster kittens racing around in the room over my head. You’d think they wouldn’t make much noise, since they’re so light, but they make a surprising amount of noise. 4. What was the last thing you ate? A tablespoon of Udo’s Choice Oil Blend. Before that, a small bowl of Cheerios. 5. Do you wish on stars? Rarely. I did when I was a kid. As I recall, I wanted to have the magic powers of Isis. Hasn’t happened yet, THAT I’M AWARE OF. 6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Bright yellow, of course. 7. How is the weather right now? It’s overcast and threatening to rain. I want my sunny days back! 8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Fred. 9. Do you like the person you stole this from? I don’t remember who I stole it from. Lynda, maybe? Yeah, I like Lynda. She’s a peach! 10. How old are you today? 37. I had to sit and stare into space for like fifteen seconds before I remembered. Gah. 11. Favorite drink? Diet Coke. Water. One or the other. 12. Favorite sport to watch? If I had to watch a sport, it’d be ice skating, but I don’t usually even bother to watch that. 13. Have you ever dyed your hair? Yeah, pretty regularly since I was in my mid-20s. If I were to let my hair grow out, I’d probably be more than half gray. I get my hair colored every six weeks. 14. Do you wear contacts? Yes. I want to get some colored contacts, though. I’d love to have blue eyes. 15. Pets? Bwah! Yeah, there are a FEW. Spot, Spanky, Miz Poo, Mister Boogers. Also, the fosterkitties. But they’re temporary. YES THEY ARE. God, I’m such a fucking dork for admitting this, but I had a dream that the shelter came and took the fosterkitties away because they were turning them over to another foster family so we wouldn’t get too attached (too late!), and I cried like a fucking baby. In the dream. Not in real life. I DID NOT WAKE UP TEARY-EYED. Shut up. 16. Favorite month? April or October. 17. Favorite food? Anything sugary. I’m surprised I don’t eat sugar straight, I’m such a sugar fiend. 18. What was the last movie you watched? We watched White Noise Saturday night. It was good, though a little bit stupid. We tried to watch Boogeyman after that, but it sucked so hard that we shut it off after 20 minutes. 19. Favorite day of the year? I don’t really have one. Maybe the day summer turns into Fall, and you walk outside and feel that crisp edge to the air. That always makes me feel nostalgic. 20. What do you do to vent anger? Swear extremely loudly. Fred’s never heard me do that. He thinks he has, but he hasn’t got a CLUE the volume I can reach when I’m really pissed off. 21. What was your favorite toy as a child? The only thing that comes to mind is a little Rudolph (the Red-Nosed Reindeer) toy that I had when I was very little. I loved that damn thing, but then one day we went shopping, and I left it somewhere and it was never seen again. ::sob!:: 22. Fall or spring? Both. 23. Hugs or kisses? Hugs. Definitely. 24. Cherry or Blueberry? Blueberry. I like the occasional cherry-flavored food, but I don’t like cherries themselves. I have no idea why. 25. Do you want your friends to email you back? I think so… why wouldn’t I? 26. When was the last time you cried? Watching the new LeAnn Rimes video, Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way. SHUT UP. I didn’t SOB or anything, I just got teary-eyed. SHUT UP, I say. 27. What is on the floor of your closet? Um. Carpet? Shoes? A hamper? Probably a cat or two. Mister Boogers likes to hang out in there. 28. Who is the friend you have had the longest nonstop? My sister, Debbie. We weren’t really friends when we were kids, but we are now! 29. What did you do last night? Watched TV. We watched Entourage (taped Sunday night), an episode of Yes, Dear (shaddup, we like it), and Hell’s Kitchen, which is an awesome show. I have to say, though, that when Gordon Ramsay says something nice it’s very disconcerting and disturbing. 30. Favorite smell? Cake. 31. What inspires you? Fuck this question. It’s too broad. 32. What are you afraid of? What I’m afraid of is so deep and wide and broad that I couldn’t possibly begin to create a list that encompasses them all. Fuck this question, too. 33. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Cheese. I like cheese on my hamburgers. Some freakish freaks do not, but I do. 34. Favorite car? I’m really liking the new Mustang, actually. And it comes in yellow! Maybe I should aim for that when it’s time for me to get a new car, eh? 35. Favorite dog breed? VINCE! 36. Number of keys on your key ring? Four. That surprises me, I thought I had more. The key to my car, the key to Fred’s, my PO Box key, and the house key. 37. Favorite time of the day? 6 pm. 38. Favorite musical artist, band or group? Del Amitri. 39. What kind of bagel do you usually get and what do you put on it? Usually blueberry, and I almost always have peanut butter on it. 40. Do you now or have you ever had braces? I had braces when I was in second or third grade. They tightened them up the DAY before Thanksgiving. Needless to say, I wasn’t eating much turkey that year. 41. What is your middle name? Leslie.
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The kitty section. When will these little monsters let me snuggle them? WHEN? All they want is to play, to jump on and bite each other, to have me rub their bellies while they kick and bite at me. They love to attack my feet and bite my toes (my own fault for not wearing socks, I guess), but snuggling? No. Not unless I happen to go in when they’ve just woken up, and then they’ll drape themselves over my legs and let me pet them, and Snoopy will even let me pick him up and kiss him, but that’s only for a short amount of time. Hmph. I made an excellent purchase at Target yesterday. They had the Shark Cordless Mini Hand Sweeper on clearance for $12.37. Mia has been kicking some serious litter all over the room, which necessitates boxing Mia and the babies up and taking them out of the room so that I can vacuum in there almost every other day. I wanted something I could use with them actually in the room that wouldn’t be as loud as the Dyson. I bought the Shark yesterday thinking that I could give it a try and if it was a piece of shit I’d just return it. It’s a pretty good little vacuum – I mean, it’s not powerful by any means, but it’s pretty quiet (though the babies don’t much care for it, but it also doesn’t scare them) and it picks up litter very well. Two thumbs up to the Shark! Today’s movie is here. I call it “Smackdown.” The kittens were not terribly impressed by the camera, and Flossie and Edgar needed to show it who the boss was. There’s about five seconds of dead air after Edgar goes between the bag of litter and the bucket of litter. I didn’t realize that was there until after I’d created the movie, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to go back and edit it out. One of these days I’ll get out the book and really figure out how to use this software, I swear it. Anyway, enjoy. It’s a big one, so right-click and save it to your hard drive, if you would. There’ll be a new movie up tomorrow. Oh, and if I recall correctly, my feet make an appearance in this movie. I am AWARE that I have horribly ugly feet and desperately need a pedicure. I DON’T NEED TO HEAR IT, THANKS. Peanut regards his paw. Snoopy, trying again to get that damn toy Fred likes to hold just out of reach. Mia gets high off the catnip-filled mouse. The Snoopsta. Edgar pops up to see what’s going on. Snoopy’s about to bite Peanut’s foot. In case you were wondering what was going on. Edgar looks a little crazy, here. I think he’s about to go into belly-rub overload. When the kittens get to be too much, Mia escapes where they can’t get to her.
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The boys would like to hang out in the sun in the guest bedroom LIKE THEY USED TO, but that room has now been taken over by little yummy-smelling kittens. Mister Boogers would like to get his paws on a baby kitten, but he’s been stymied. Perhaps one day… ]]>

6/6/05

logo. Well, not so much “new”, because I’ve used it before – in January – but it’s such a summery-looking banner that I wanted to use it again. Thanks again to talented reader Beth for creating it!

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Apparently today is going to be a day of dumbassery for me. Dumbass things I have done today: * At 7:15 AM, in my car (which was located directly outside the bedroom window of the next door neighbor), I decided to wipe down my dusty dashboard, and when I reached for the farthest part of the dashboard, my boobs took it upon themselves to honk the horn. Really loudly. You better believe I threw that damn car into reverse and got the hell out of there. * Stepped on the tail of a most adorable kitten at the pet store. Talk about feeling like an asshole. * Smacked my head really, really hard on the corner of a cage at the pet store. That’s gonna leave a bruise. * Put Mister Boogers’ collar on him and opened the back door so the cats could go outside. Then opened the cat door. When I left the house to go to the pet store, I closed the back door, because I don’t like leaving the house with the door open. When I got home, I realized that although I’d opened the cat door, I hadn’t opened the window behind the cat door, which means that none of the cats who were outside could come inside. And further, the boy Fred called to mow and edge the lawn (for $23, and SO worth it) had arrived while I was gone, and while he was working on the lawn, left the gates open. Miz Poo was sitting frantically at the back door, eyes dark, and when she saw me she howled her fool head off. I ran to the cat door to open the window, and when I got back to the back door, Miz Poo had given up on me and was running wildly toward the shed. When I opened the door, she turned around and ran at me, howling all the while. A second later, Spanky came out from under the shed and hauled ass for the front door. I called for Mister Boogers, worried that he’d been so scared by the kid mowing the lawn that he’d jumped the fence, zap or no zap. Mister Boogers did not appear, and I put my shoes on to go check the other side of the shed, when he popped out from under the shed and ran as fast as his little legs could carry him. Poor terrorized kitties. Perhaps I need to just go the hell back to bed and call it a day before I trip over my own feet and crack my skull open on the floor and slowly bleed to death while the cats slurp up my blood, purring all the while.
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Currently reading: Sushi for Beginners. Finished while Liz was here: The rest of the Margaret Maron Sigrid Harald books (I liked them – some of them more than others – but I have to say that I much prefer the Deborah Knott series), and Persepolis (good book, quick read – but I was surprised to find that it was a graphic autobiography. When I opened the book and found narrated drawings instead of text I rolled my eyes and thought “Oh, THIS is gonna suck…” but it was really well done).
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So yes, Liz has come and gone. We had a good time while she was here, though she didn’t feel well a few nights. One night she went to bed at 8:00 and I didn’t see her again until noon the next day. I was just starting to wonder if she’d died in her sleep when she rolled out of bed. Tuesday, we drove to Nashville, attended the Grand Ole Opry, and spent the night. Quit rolling your eyes, goddamnit. It was a DAMN good show, and I hope to go back again. We also chose a pretty good hotel – the Radisson Opryland – and I highly recommend it. First, I’ll show you the pictures from the Grand Ole Opry, and then I’ll tell you a story that illustrates just what idiots Liz and I can be when we get together. Porter Wagoner. As Liz kept saying, “He’s old-school country!” Connie Smith. I had no idea who she was, and still don’t. She was a hoot and sang a bunch of songs I didn’t know. Shelly Fairchild wasn’t even listed in the program, so we weren’t expecting her. She totally kicked ass, though, and I’m thinking about buying her CD. When I saw Mel McDaniels’ name on the program, I said “Who the hell is that?”, but when he came out and started singing, I knew every single song he sang. Louisiana Saturday Night, Help Me Make it Through the Night, and – of course! – Baby’s Got Her Bluejeans On. He absolutely kicked ass. He rocked the house! Sherrie Austin is australian, did you know that? I had no idea. She’s also tiny, tiny, tiny. I had hoped she’d sing Jolene – which she recorded a few years back, and which I have on my very own computer – but she didn’t. She opted to sing Son of a Preacher Man instead, and I can’t complain. She kicked ASS. This cameraman spent the whole show wandering around the stage, and he was very distracting. Ignore the blurriness of this picture and note the fact that Darryl Worley is very clearly looking DIRECTLY AT ME, and he’s giving me A Look, the meaning of which escapes me. Perhaps the message he’s sending is “Are you going to stop taking blurry pictures and just enjoy the show, or what? Bitch?” Anyway, Darryl Worley – wait for it – ROCKED THE HOUSE. He sang the two songs he’s got out right now, Awful, Beautiful Life (love that song!), If Something Should Happen, and also Whistle Dixie, which is on his current album. If you ever happen to be in the Nashville area, I suggest you give the Grand Ole Opry a try. Sure, the average age of the attendees was about 73, but it was a truly awesome show. There are more Grand Ole Opry pictures here.
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So, Liz and I got to our hotel around 4, checked in, and settled in to watch TV for a little while. The hotel provides a shuttle to the Grand Ole Opry show, which would pick us up around 6, so we had plenty of time to relax before we had to get ready to go. We headed down to the lobby a few minutes before 6, but before we went I noticed that we were extremely low on toilet paper, and had no replacement roll. “We need to call Housekeeping when we get back, and ask for more toilet paper,” I said to Liz. After the show, we had dinner at Applebee’s (I had my very first – and last – Cosmo ever. It tasted like cough syrup to me. I think perhaps I need to just accept the fact that I’m not a drinker, I don’t like the taste of any alcohol at ALL, and move on with my life.) and then walked back to our room. Naturally, as soon as we got back to the room, I had to pee, and used up the last of the toilet paper. “Hey, call down to Housekeeping and ask them for more toilet paper, will you?” I yelled to Liz. She did, and they said they’d send someone right up. We spent the next ten minutes giggling about how she should have said “We just had a big meal. We need that toilet paper STAT!” Housekeeping finally delivered our toilet paper, and I went into the bathroom and put it on the – what the fuck is that thing called? The roller thingy that you put the toilet paper roll on? Anyway, as I was setting up the toilet paper, I glanced into the toilet and saw a tissue sitting there. Since I can’t stand to have anything in the toilet, I hit the lever to flush. Only instead of flushing, the toilet water rose and rose and rose to the top of the toilet bowl, and then just kind of sat there, little pieces of tissue swirling around in the water. “Oh, Liz,” I said. “What did you DO?” “What?” she said immediately. “I didn’t do anything!” “The toilet’s plugged up! It was fine when I was in here earlier, and you’re the only one who’s used it since!” So I made her call housekeeping again and tell them that the toilet was clogged up. They sent someone up to fix it – I guess he snaked out the toilet, I was hiding in the corner with my face in a book so I wouldn’t have to see what was going on – and while he was in there fixing it, Liz hissed to me “At least there’s no poop in there!” Amen to that.
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The section with the kittens. I forgot to mention this in my entry last week, but if you click on the “movie of the week” link over there in the sidebar under the “other” heading, there’s a short movie of the kittens playing. In addition, I’m going to put a movie up each day this week, but it’s only going to be up until I put the next movie up; once I put up a new movie, I’m taking the one from the day before down. Got it? Good. Go see today’s movie: Don’t Mess With Momma. It’s a longish one, so right-click and save it to your hard drive, mm’kay? In it, first Peanut and then Flossie take on Mia. The kittens are continuing to grow, as kittens do. We weighed them on Thursday, and to our surprise Snoopy’s now 1 pound, 9 ounces (he’s the heaviest, still), but Edgar’s the one who gained the most weight – he went from 15 1/4 ounces to 1 pound, 8 1/2 ounces. Oy’s still the smallest at 1 pound, 3 ounces, but he makes up for his lack of size by being a feisty little shit. They’re all feisty little shits, actually. If I want a few minutes of snuggling, I have to go in there when they’re all just waking up. Then Snoopy will let me hold him for a few minutes, and the other kittens snuggle up to my legs. Invariably, though, they start fighting and chasing each other around after a few minutes. If I could just bottle that energy… Poor Mia. She just wanted to hang out and be petted by me, but Peanut came wandering up to nurse, and Flossie climbed on top of her and rolled over. Snoopy, upon waking. Doesn’t he look sleepy? Yoga kitty! (Edgar) Flossie and Peanut get into it. Is it just me, or does Flossie look like a mouse here? She’s about to pounce, clearly. I have no idea what Peanut’s licking, here. Maybe the end of his tail? Hee! Look at the little Oy fangs!]]>

5/30/05

hushpuppies and it’s the first thing she wanted to have. It was practically dinner time, so we stopped and ate there, and she got her hushpuppy fix. We stopped at Sonic after that and got ice cream, and then we went home. I showed her the kittens – she wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was; she’s not much of a cat person, though she could certainly see the appeal of little meowing fuzzy round-bellied kittens – and then we sat on the couch for the rest of the evening and watched episodes of The Surreal Life, the one with Christopher “Peter Brady” Knight and Da Brat and Verne Troyer, and it was interesting in an I-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-this-trainwreck kind of way. Then Fred came in and sat down, and we spent the next few hours watching rerun episodes of Yes, Dear and South Park. At 9:00, Fred and I went upstairs and played with the kittens and then lay down and talked until about 10. Then he went off to bed, and I came back downstairs to spend time with Liz. We watched the Surreal Life 4 Reunion (and whoever did that makeover on Chyna sure did a good job – and she looked like she was off whatever drugs or alcohol she was on during the filming of The Surreal Life) ’til 11, and then went to bed. I was pretty tired for some reason, and knew I had to get up this morning to go to the pet store. I kept waking up through the night, and had a truly bizarre dream about being on Survivor and Jeff Probst and Julie Berry getting married, only she was half bird (?) and gave birth to a flock of birds (not seagulls, though.). Truly weird. I was up and out the door by 7:30, and then home again by 8:45. Once again, I forgot to take my Benadryl until I was about halfway to the pet store, and it didn’t really kick in until I’d been in the cat room for about half an hour. And when it kicked in, I got really sleepy. I ended up coming home and snoozing on the couch for almost an hour before I forced myself to get up and take a shower. Liz ended up sleeping ’til 11:30ish, and then we watched Britney & Kevin: Chaotic (or whatever the official title is). It was a… less than interesting show, I guess I’d say. Britney’s a little too into the making-faces thing which is funny once or a hundred times, but beyond that gets a little old. You can tell that she’s very, very young. We’ll leave it at that, shall we? I don’t know that I’m going to bother to watch the second show, but if I get bored enough, I might. After we watched that, Liz went and took her shower and we went back to Captain D’s, ate lunch, and then went to the movie store and grocery store. We rented some movies for this afternoon – which we didn’t actually watch, but they’re not due back ’til Sunday, so we’ve got plenty of time – and then we bought the stuff for Liz to make pork adobo (I don’t think her recipe is exactly like that one, but it’s similar) and bought a few more things (she was hungry last night, and we didn’t have a single damn thing to offer her. How embarrassing!), and then came home. We watched TV for a little while, and then she got a headache, so she went to lay down, and I went to clean the cat room. I know – we haven’t done much exciting stuff, but it’s nice to have someone to do stuff with, you know?

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I’ve been intermittently text-messaging with the spud since she left. Every time I type in “u” instead of “you”, I die a little inside.
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The section about the kittens. In the past few days, those kittens have gotten WILD. They’re little playing machines. I walk in the room and they rush at me. If I don’t immediately sit down on the floor, they give me the sad kitten eyes and sit on my feet and wait impatiently for me to get my ass on the floor. When I finally sit down, they climb all over me, and kick and bite at me, and then they jump on each other, and then they run across the room with their ears back, and let me tell you – it is UNBEARABLY fucking cute. Flossie, especially, is turning into a real spitfire. She runs across the room and jumps on her brothers, she stalks them and jumps on them, and when they jump on her, she kicks their asses. When I pick her up to kiss her atop her fuzzy little head, she has been known to dig her needle-sharp claws into my cheeks and try to bite my lips. She’s also EXTREMELY possessive when it comes to her food. Fred has been bringing a small handful of Kitten Chow into the room with him at night – they have Science Diet kitten food available to them all the time, because that’s what they’ll be eating when they’re up for adoption at the pet store – and the kittens and Mia LOVE IT. Fred put a small pile down in front of Flossie, Edgar, and Oy, and when Edgar and Oy tried to eat some of the food, Flossie growled fiercely, and then PUT HER PAW on the pile of food so they couldn’t get to it. My god, it was cute. Yesterday, she was eating some food out of the food bowl – the Science Diet Kitten food – and Snoopy went running over to eat, too. He tried to eat out of the same bowl (we have three different bowls of food), and she growled and smacked her paw down over the food so he couldn’t get to it. I laughed my ASS off. Speaking of Snoopy, he’s getting to be a big one. I’m looking forward to deworming and weighing the kittens on Thursday so I can see how much he weighs now. He clearly weighs quite a bit more than the other kittens.
Edgar in the litter box. I swear – one day, they had no idea how to use the litter box, and the next day they did! Snuggled up in the cat bed. This picture was taken before the kittens all turned into devil kitties and started spending all their time jumping on Mia and biting her tail. A cat in the hand is worth two in the litter box. Is that the sweetest little face, or what? Serious little Snoopy. Snoopy in mid-run. Flossie, in mid-run. I love the one closed eye, like he’s taking aim. Little cat, great big tongue. Deceptively sweet-looking Peanut. Looks like Peanut’s having some deep thoughts, doesn’t it? Flossie stalking Snoopy. Oy (I think). Doesn’t she look sweet? She’s two seconds away from biting my toe. Fight! Fight!
As always, there are tons more kitty pics over at Flickr.
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No idea when I’ll update again – it’ll happen when it happens, mm’kay?
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5/27/05

The Right Jack. I got about fifty pages into Maneater, and decided to stop because I flat-out didn’t give a shit what happened in the book. I don’t care if the author IS married to Brian Grazer – being married to a big-time producer apparently doesn’t magically bestow upon you the ability to write an interesting book. I’m disappointed, though. I was hoping for some good Hollywood gossip.

* * *
At some point in the past year or so, I became aware that when the spud was washing her hair and then brushing it, instead of taking the loose strands of hair and putting them in the trash, she was putting them in the sink and running the water, so that the hair was going down the sink. Since her hair is about to the middle of her back and she sheds worse than a cat in spring, that’s a lot of fucking hair. I told her to stop washing her hair down the sink, and she promised to stop, but the sink in her bathroom was draining very, very slowly. Since Liz is going to be here on Sunday and she’ll be staying in the spud’s bedroom and using her bathroom, I knew that something needed to be done. I suggested to Fred that we might think about taking the pipe under her sink apart and pulling out any hair that was stuck in there. Last night I was eating dinner – sushi for dinner, YUM! – and was just about finished when he called down to me from upstairs. I went up to see what was going on, and I realized that as soon as I hit the top of the stairs, it smelled like a great big huge nasty stinky fart. “Look at this,” Fred said, indicating the spud’s under-sink area. I looked, and saw two pieces of pipe with a great mass of hair spilling out, covered in a sludgy, stinky mold-and-mildew mixture. “God, what an AWFUL SMELL!” I said, almost gagging. And we spent the next half hour pulling sludgy, nasty hair out of the pipes, cleaning the pipes with a very strong bathroom cleaner, and then putting it all back together. Then I text messaged the spud, told her what we’d done, and told her I’d beat her if I ever saw another hair in her sink again. She text messaged me back and said “At least my sink will drain now!” Brat. She’s just lucky she’s in California (“California! California! Caaaaaaaaaaaaaliforrrrrrniaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”) and not here where I can give her hell to her face. Giving her hell via text message isn’t quite as satisfying.
* * *
The week before last, I spent some time online looking for a new comforter for the spud. I just bought her a new one last year, but it wasn’t really one that she much liked, and she spends so much time sitting on her bed that her comforter was pretty grimy – plus, apparently every time she shaves her legs she seems to scrape off about a three-inch piece of skin, so there were plenty of blood spots on the comforter, too. I found several comforters that I thought she might like, sent her the links to them, and let her pick her favorite. I told her that if she didn’t like any of them I’d take her shopping for one, but she liked this one, so I ordered it and hoped it would arrive before Liz got here. I got notification that the comforter had shipped, and when I looked at the UPS tracking, saw that it was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. Tuesday came, and in the evening I was sitting in the computer room and glanced up to see the UPS man walking back to his truck and leaving. I was puzzled that he hadn’t rang the doorbell, but when I went to the door to get the package, there was no package. I went and checked the garage in case by some chance he’d decided to leave it by the garage door, but there was nothing there either. I went to my computer, looked up the tracking number, and saw that according to UPS the package had been delivered. I puzzled over it, decided the UPS guy had delivered it to one of my neighbors by mistake, and put it out of my head for the time being. Because if he’d done that, surely whoever he’d mistakenly delivered it to would bring it by, or come over to let us know, right? Right. Riiiiiiight. Wednesday came and went, and I spent a good part of the day hoping to see someone walk to the door with a big box, but no one ever did. I didn’t worry about it too much, because I had a box of pillows from Overstock scheduled to be delivered – those for the spud’s bedroom, too, because she hasn’t had new pillows in as long as I can remember – and I figured I’d just catch him when he delivered that box and say, you know, “Yo, motherfucker, what the fuck?” Only that UPS man is a FAST MOTHERFUCKER, and I was in the kitchen making dinner when he showed up, and I ran for the door but by the time I got it open he was driving away up the street, and I wasn’t about to go chasing after him. So I sat down at my computer and went to the UPS page and was looking for the number, so I could call UPS headquarters and bitch about my missing comforter, when the doorbell rang. I looked out the window and saw a truck in the driveway, a man at our front door, and a box on the ground in front of him. It appears that UPS had delivered the box to a house with the same number, only on a street with a name that isn’t anything at all like our street name. It wasn’t even near our street. I have no idea what that UPS driver was smoking, but he’d fucked up in a big way. And this nice, nice, NICE man had gone out of his way to deliver the box to the right address. He said he’d thought about calling UPS, but didn’t think it’d be worth the hassle, that it would just be easier to bring it over himself. What an awesome guy. I thanked him profusely, he said it was nothing, I thanked him again, and he was on his way. I have renewed faith in my fellow man.
* * *
So, Liz is going to be here on Sunday. I have no idea what my schedule is going to be like next week and whether I’ll have the time or inclination to update. If I do I will and if not I’ll see you after she leaves. Fair enough?
* * *
The section about the kittens. I am pleased – nay, THRILLED – to announce that as of last night, every single kitten has used the litter box at least once. When Fred and I were in the room last night, I said “I haven’t seen Edgar or Oy use the litter box yet…” and as if he’d heard me and wanted to prove himself, Edgar went over to the corner and pooped in the litter box. And when he was on his way out of the litter box, Oy climbed in and pooped too! By god, I think they have the hang of it. They’re all eating kitten food now, too, and nursing as well. I’m sure Mia’s going to wean them in the next few weeks. They’re getting more playful, too, with the jumping and the running and the climbing. I need to find some stuff to take in there that they can climb on – maybe a scratching post – and maybe some small boxes they can hide in. This morning Edgar ran at Peanut, who reacted by humping up and running sideways. It was about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. By god I love these kittens, can you tell? Today’s pictures were all taken by Fred. You can tell, because they’re not BLURRY. Mia was feeling playful last night, and Fred rolled her onto her back. Miss Flossie, with her usual worried look. Peanut, creeping slowly over Fred’s leg. Snoopy gets a cleaning from Mia. Oy. That’s my leg in the picture – you can’t really tell from this picture, but my legs and arms have tons and tons of little scratches caused by these little monsters. Fred gives Edgar a belly rub. Edgar pretends not to enjoy it.
* * *
We moved this dresser out into the hallway – Fred didn’t want a bunch of little kittens scratching it up and peeing on it, go figure – and I set this blanket on top of it because I’d just taken it out of the dryer, when Miz Poo spotted it and settled in. I’d say she spends two or three hours of every day hanging out on that blanket, now. I guess I’m going to have to wash it again to get rid of the cat hair! ]]>

5/26/05

baby! He insisted that I should get him nothing for his birthday, but please. As if! If he doesn’t know by now that that sort of thing doesn’t fly with me, he never will. Happy birthday, baby. You don’t look a day over 43! (Ha! That joke just neeeeever gets old!)

* * *
Currently reading: Maneater. I had no idea until I read the bit about the author on the backleaf that this was written by Brian Grazer’s wife. I’m not very far into the book, but so far it seems tolerable. The main character seems to be an all-surface-no-depth kind of gal, and so I suspect the whole book’s going to be very tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not sure which this one will be. Finished yesterday: Other People’s Dirt, which was sent to me by awesome reader Dawn. It’s not a bad book – it reads very fast – but I think I would have liked a bit more in-depth gossip about the people the writer cleans for. Worth a read, but I’d get it from the library, a second-hand store, or borrow it from a friend rather than going out and buying it new.
* * *
The spud is on her way to the O.C as I type. Actually, she just text messaged me that her plane had landed in Dallas. She has a 2-hour layover in Dallas, and then a three-hour flight to Orange County. Until now we’d forbidden her to use her phone for text messaging, because those babies cost 5 cents a message, and T-Mobile doesn’t appear to have a plan that includes unlimited text messaging (another reason we’re switching to Verizon at the end of the year – though the main reason is that Consumer Reports ranked it the highest, and I am ALL ABOUT the Consumer Reports these days. Even though they has NO USE for my kind of car. Fuck you, Consumer Reports! You don’t run my life!). But there is a 1000 text messages per month for $6.99, and since she’s going to be gone for just about the entire summer, I told her she could text message her friends – and me! – while she was gone. So we did a test run with text messaging while we were waiting for her plane to leave. I got her text message just fine, but when I tried to respond, the fucking predictive text input HORSESHIT made it impossible to figure out how to type in the message I wanted to. So I told her I’d check the book I got with the phone when I got home, and text message her while she was in the air. I did check the book when I got home, and I got all frustrated and swore at the phone, and then I figured out how to set it so that only what I typed in showed up (fucking pain in the ass phone), and I text messaged her. And here’s something you might not know about me – I hate it when people use “u” instead of “you”, “2” instead of “two”, “gd” instead of “goddamn”, etc. in email. Because there’s no reason for it! It really and truly and honestly does NOT take that much fucking longer to hit the extra keys. I just find it extremely annoying. But by the time I was about three words in to the text message to the spud, I was using “u” and “2” and “gd” with abandon, and it STILL took me 4-fckng-eva 2 get th gd msg typd n & snt. Then, after I’d sent the first message, I remembered that I hadn’t actually signed her up for the 1000 text messages per month, and I went online to do so, and realized that I didn’t know her password, so I had it sent to her phone, and went to text message her to let her know that she needed to send it to me so I could sign her up for the plan. And THEN I remembered what the password was, so I text messaged her AGAIN to tell her nevermind, and so when she landed in Dallas, she had three text messages from me and one from T-Mobile with her password, and I’m sure she was thinking “Oh, HELL NO. She’s not going to be doing THIS every fucking day, is she? Because I wanted the text messaging so I could send and receive text messages from my FRIENDS, not my clingy fucking mother. CUT THE CORD, WOMAN!” Oh, she just called. She thought it was funny that I’d text messaged her so many times. Heh. She found her gate with no problems, and actually asked a woman in a uniform for help. Now she has almost two hours to kill before her flight to the O.C. leaves. Another five hours, she should be in California (the theme song for The O.C. is playing in my head right now) and I can stop worrying!
* * *
I just spent half an hour text messaging with the spud. My last message to her was “K, call asa u r n cali. Luv u!” I think I’ve officially reached the highest level of dorkdom. Though a truly proficient text-er would have said “ca” instead of “cali”.
* * *
She flew out to California (“Califorrrrrnia! Califorrrrrrnia! Caaaaaaaaaaliforrrrniaaaaaaaaa!”) on American Airlines this time – Independence Air doesn’t fly to Orange County – and the agent who checked her in asked if I wanted to pay the $75 to have a flight attendant take her to her gate in Dallas. It was with great pleasure that I said no. Because the tickets were expensive enough – I had no desire to add $150 ($75 each way) to the total. I think the spud would have preferred me to pay the extra money; I know she was a little nervous about being responsible for finding her own gate. To be truthful, I think if she had her way I’d be paying the $75 ’til she’s 32, but I think she’s old enough and smart enough to figure it out on her own. And she did! Since she was traveling as an unaccompanied minor, I was able to get a pass to go to the gate with her. The security line wasn’t long at all, and we got through the metal detector pretty quickly, but apparently they felt the need to run my purse through the x-ray machine a second time (perhaps it was the bottle of Benadryl?), and people started piling up behind me while I was waiting for my purse, so I had to move to the end of table. Now, the whole process of putting my purse on a conveyer belt so that it can be x-rayed and then passed even further along a conveyer belt is something that fills me with a bit of anxiety. I don’t like being so far from my purse, and I especially don’t like the bit where my purse has to ride along the conveyer belt, because any yahoo could come along and distract me while someone else grabbed my purse and took off with it. I always have my cell phone, all my keys, and my wallet (which includes my driver’s license, credit cards, and – most importantly – my Gold Crown (Hallmark) card), so if I lost my purse I’d be a tad screwed. And I know security keeps an eye on things, but I haven’t got much confidence in them. Because I know things at the airport are SECURE and all, but let’s be honest – things have relaxed more than a little in the last 3 1/2 years. When Fred and I flew in the summer of 2002, they all but gave us enemas and analyzed (ha! ANALyzed!) the contents before they’d even let us through the metal detector. These days? Things are a bit more relaxed. I know it, you know it, and the terrorists know it. Thank god we have Jack Bauer to keep us safe! So I stood at the end of the table (which was next to the conveyer belt) and saw my purse come out of the x-ray machine, and I glanced up the conveyer belt, and I realized that there are in fact two sides to the conveyer belt, and so I walked along the back of the conveyer belt in hopes of grabbing my purse. Which is when Barney Fife popped up from his station behind the woman running the x-ray machine, and bellowed “MA’AM! PLEASE STEP AROUND TO THE FRONT OF THE CONVEYER BELT TO RETRIEVE YOUR ITEMS!” And then he put his hand on his skinny hip as though he might be required to pull a gun on me and shoot me three times in the gut and twice in each kneecap, just in case. I put my hands up, said “Oh! Okay!”, and backpedaled as fast as my stupid ass could move. Then I went around the front of the conveyer belt, elbowed my way to my purse, and grabbed it. Then I rolled my eyes, shook my head (BECAUSE I AM A REBEL) and pulled the spud toward the escalator. And yes, I felt as guilty as if I’d been planning to hijack the nearest plane. Because all you have to do if you are in a position of authority – or think you’re in a position of authority – is glance at me with some suspicion, and I’m ready to confess everything down to the time I was driving the riding lawnmower around the front yard and ran over some flowers in my mother’s front flowerbed (because I am a KLUTZ) and then pretended I had no idea how that had happened. SORRY, MOM!
* * *
The section about the kittens. Yesterday afternoon I was hanging out in the room with the kittens, rubbing bellies and kissing little heads and just generally having a good time, when Snoopy, who’d been attacking my feet (these cats have a real thing for feet and the attacking of) got a strange look on his face. He backed away from my foot, thought for a moment, and then walked toward the corner of the room which is located behind the door. And then DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID? He climbed INTO the small litter box which was located as close to that corner as I could get it, and he hunkered down, and he BEGAN TO POOP. Y’all, I was so proud, I about burst. Then I noticed that Snoopy was having some problems. I don’t know if he was constipated or what, but he climbed back out of the litter box and the poop didn’t stay behind IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. I watched him, and he wandered around with a somewhat pained look on his face, so I picked him up and put him in one of the big litter boxes and rubbed his belly, then squeezed him gently, in hopes that that would help coax the rest of the poop from his poor little system. What? WHAT? Oh, shut up. Constipation is hard enough if you’re an adult; if you’re a month-old kitten, I’m sure it’s about excruciating, because you don’t know WHAT THE FUCK is going on. I was just trying to help. Snoopy hunkered down again, and he gave me a look as if to say “What the holy fuck is going on here, woman?”, and then he started to climb out of the litter box, and I said “Momma, are you going to HELP THAT POOR BOY?”, and she looked at me disinterestedly, and I had to leave the room, because if I had to watch that poor baby walk around the room with an inch of poop sticking out, I don’t know what I would have done. When Fred got home from his hike half an hour later and headed upstairs to change his clothes, I asked him to look in on the kittens and let me know if there was poop everywhere, because I needed to know whether or not to take a bucket of warm water and lots of rags to clean up poop the next time I went in there. He reported back that there was no poop to be seen, and Snoopy had not a smidge of poop on him anywhere. After dinner, I went back up to do some more visiting. The kittens were wild last night, jumping on each other and biting, then jumping on me and biting, and running around and jumping some more. While I was holding Flossie (whom I have taken to calling “Miz Flossie”, big shock), I looked up to see Snoopy walking toward the litterbox with purpose in his step. He climbed into the litterbox, hunkered down, and pooped with no problem at all. While he was doing his business, Peanut climbed in next to him, looked him over, and I swear I saw a little lightbulb go on over his head. Ten minutes later, Peanut climbed into one of the big litterboxes, peed, ate a piece of litter, and climbed back out to attack one of his brothers. This morning, Flossie peed in the litterbox. It appears that they’re getting the hang of it, THANK GOD. Oy’s lookin’ a little wild. Edgar shows off one of his sharp little teeth. Flossie cracks me up when she eats. She always looks so intent. Eating is HARD WORK, PEOPLE! Peanut wishes he had a paper to read. Did I mention that the kitties love to attack feet? Flossie always looks worried, doesn’t she? “Somethin’s not right, but I don’t know what it is…” He is the POOPIN’ KING! Another yawn pic! King Oy looks down upon his subjects. And then he jumped on them and bit their tails. This picture makes me laugh until I snort. More – lots more – kitten pics over at Flickr, and there’ll be more going up later. Speaking of Flickr – can someone tell me what exactly a “set” is? Yeah, I know, I’m a dumbass. But should I be posting these fosterkitties pics to a set rather than using tags? Use small words and speak slowwwwly, if you would.
* * *
Apparently there’s a nest of young swallows around here somewhere, and every morning several of them like to hang out on the ledge directly outside the study room (the room upstairs where the spud’s computer is). They drive Mister Boogers cuh-ray-zee, because they’re SO CLOSE and yet so far.]]>

5/25/05

Nance, who turns 53 today! Doesn’t look a day over 48, does she? (I KID. She’s actually turning THE BIG 4-0.)

* * *
This morning after I was showered and dressed, I headed down the stairs. I could hear blinds clattering in either the dining room or living room. Mister Boogers smacks at the blinds when he is displeased about any random thing. “Mister BOOGERS!” I yelled, as I stepped into the foyer. “Cut it OUT!” My eye was caught by something nasty-looking on the wall by the front door. At first I thought it was a dead bug that someone had killed and left there, but then I took a closer look and decided it must be from a cat barfing up some grass he or she had eaten outside. Our cats adore taking turns going outside, eating a ton of grass, and then coming inside to barf it up in a nasty rug-staining puddle. “How the fuck did it get so high?” I wondered. Because this little bit of black-green nastiness was at eye level. I theorized that at the end of his or her barf cycle, the cat had shaken his head and sent the grass-barf flying. I began looking on the floor for the rest of the barf pile. Mister Boogers rattled the blinds some more. “Mister BOOGERS!” I bellowed. “STOP! IT! NOW!” More blind-rattling. And then I heard a fluttering noise. And then I understood. I walked into the dining room to see Mister Boogers, crouched on the floor, his eyes wide and dark. On the other side of the room, Spot was doing the same. Against the window fluttered a HUGE grackle. He could see the outdoors, he could SMELL the outdoors – he just couldn’t GET to the outdoors, and it was driving him nuts. “SPUD!” I yelled up the stairs. “Bring down your hamper!” Did I mention that this was a huge fucking grackle? Grackles are kind of evil-looking and have great big beaks and I’m sure their bite is far, far worse than their bark. The spud brought down her hamper, and I yanked the cord so that the blinds were out of the way. The grackle flew into the window and fluttered his wings. I held the hamper up so that the open end was around the grackle, and the grackle fluttered some more. I had no idea what to do. “I need… something,” I said, with the half-formed idea that I’d put a magazine over the top of the hamper and carry it to the back door, two rooms away. “Why don’t you just open the window and push the screen out?” the spud suggested. Since it was an excellent idea – go, spud! – I did just that. When Mister Boogers saw me open the window, he knew what was going to happen next, and he ran out the cat door to sniff at the bird through the screen. I pushed a corner of the screen out, and the bird flew into the screen and grabbed on for dear life. “No, dumbass. Go. Go out THERE, buddy!” I said. I pushed at him a little bit, and he caught sight of freedom, and flew off. Mister Boogers ran after him, but wasn’t even close to catching him. The interesting question is how the grackle got into the house. Did a cat catch him and bring him in, or did he come through the cat door on his own? I almost believe it’s the latter, because he was a big fucking bird and Mister Boogers didn’t seem too inclined to grab at him when he was fluttering against the window. The funny thing is that just last night Fred’s mother and stepfather came over to check out the kittens (and bring us a loaf of sourdough bread, aka MANNA FROM HEAVEN), and his stepfather asked if we’d had any possums in the house this spring, and Fred indicated that we had not, and I said “We haven’t had any birds in the house, either!” Famous last words.
* * *
This is the section about the kittens. Thanks, y’all, for your advice about the kittens. I got some advice from the lady who runs the shelter, too, and basically all I did was put out more litter boxes – in the corners where a few of them peed – and covered the spot behind the door (where a litter box won’t fit) with a towel so that if they pee, at least it won’t go on the rug. We have officially named all the kittens. Meet: Edgar. Flossie. Oy. Peanut. Snoopy. Mia. Yes, that would be two names – Oy and Mia – from the Dark Tower books. Just be glad we didn’t name one of them Roland of Gilead. I finally figured out how to tell Edgar and Oy – the black and white kittens – apart. Edgar. Oy. Edgar’s white stripe, in the middle of his face, is narrower than the white stripe Oy has. Also, the black comes down farther on the right side of Edgar’s face than it does on Oy’s. Also, Edgar has a little freckle under his chin, but that doesn’t usually show in the pictures I take. We weighed and dewormed the kittens last night. Snoopy is the heaviest, at 1 pound, 1 ounce – which is appropo, since we named him after Tubby (“Snoopy” being Tubby’s “real” name). The smallest cat is Oy, at 12 1/2 ounces. I almost wish we’d weighed them when we first got them so I could have some idea of how much they’ve grown in the last week, but it never occurred to me. They’re definitely bigger, though – they’re growing so fast you can practically see it. Peanut has learned, in the last day, to jump. He jumps! from one spot to another. He jumps! over my ankle. He jumps! onto his brother. Jump!Jump! Jump! I need to remember to take the camcorder upstairs with me one of these days.
* * *
“Those stupid kittens can have their stupid room. I have MY DADDY.”]]>

5/24/05

reading: Crisscross, still. I’m enjoying it, but I haven’t done a whole lot of reading lately. Fred said last night “F. Paul Wilson isn’t the best writer, but Repairman Jack is the BEST character!” True, that.

* * *
I spent three hours cleaning this morning – the master bathroom, doing laundry, vacuuming the upstairs, vacuuming and mopping the entire downstairs, dusting the upstairs – and I swear to god the house doesn’t look any different. There are already kitty footprints across the dining room floor. Imagine that.
* * *
The spud came downstairs yesterday afternoon – she had a half day of school and was home before noon – and said “Do you have any errands I can run?” “Like what?” I asked, to see if she had anything particular in mind. “I don’t know… Maybe check the PO Box?” Then I remembered that Diet Coke was on sale at the grocery store, and I said “You can do TWO errands for me! Go check the PO Box, and then go to Publix to buy 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke.” We had a ten-minute discussion on exactly where Publix – the grocery store she’s probably been to ten zillion times in her life – is located. I gave her money, told her to buy 6 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke, and off she went. She called to let me know she’d arrived at the post office, then asked if she could get Diet Cokes at Kroger instead of Publix. “No,” I said. “They’re probably not on sale at Kroger.” As an aside, how fucking ridiculous are we that we get all excited when Diet Coke is on sale? The regular price is $1.39, and they’re currently on sale for $1.09. That’s a savings of $1.80 for six bottles. And yet I’ll happily pay $1.51 for a large Diet Coke at McDonald’s a couple of times a week. WHERE’S THE SENSE? Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. “Um,” said the spud. “Where is Publix? Is it past Winn-Dixie?” “That depends on which way you’re going,” I said. “I’m in the Winn-Dixie parking lot…” “Do you see Lowe’s?” “Um… yeah?” “Publix is in the strip mall on the other side of Lowe’s. It’s in the same mall as Staples,” I said. “Oh,” she said. She was home again ten minutes later, Diet Cokes in hand, everything just fine. I have no idea how she managed to miss Publix. She had to have driven right by it! But I think the less questions I ask, the better. Today, she drove my car to school and then home again. No problems. Wednesday, she’s going to drive a little further afield, to the mall. Hopefully she’ll make it home with no problems. If she gets lost, she’ll have her cell phone with her. My lord, this whole business of being the parent of a driving teenager is mighty nerve-wracking.
* * *
THIS IS THE SECTION ABOUT THE KITTENS. Okay, those of you who have dealt with kittens this age before – I need your help and advice. Leave it in the comments, would you? The kittens are starting to pee on the rug. I had no idea this was going to happen – how dumb am I? (Don’t answer that!) I thought Momma was going to teach them to use the litter box. What the hell is going on? I’ve caught a couple starting to squat, and put them in the litter box, but they couldn’t be less interested in using the damn thing. We thought about putting the litter box where they’re peeing, but their favorite spot is behind the door, which would make it impossible to open the door. Is there something I can use to repel them from the places where they’re peeing (usually the corners of the room)? Every time I find a little puddle, I clean it up and spray Nature’s Miracle on the spot, but that doesn’t stop them from going back. Am I spending too much time in the room with them? I go in there four or more times a day and spend probably half an hour each time. Am I interrupting Mom’s training-the-babies schedule? Mom and a couple of the babies were sitting at the food bowls eating, and one of the as-yet-unnamed black and white kittens (we’re naming them tonight when we weigh and deworm them) LAID DOWN A GREAT BIG TURD IN THE FOOD BOWL. The food bowl HIS MOMMA was eating out of. And she just DID NOT CARE, she just kept on eating ’til I took the bowl away to remove the GREAT BIG KITTEN TURD. That was pretty damn nasty. Anyone who’s dealt with this kind of situation before, I would VERY MUCH appreciate your suggestions and comments. Thanks! Now, on to the pictures… Flossie, hanging out with Mom. “No, no, guys, LISTEN! You gotta listen to this! You won’t believe it! You will SHIT when you hear this story!” Baby bellies and baby TOES. Could anything be cuter? “Heeeeeeeeey, lady with the flashy thing! You wanna stop that shit? It makes me see dots!” Flossie. I think she’s one of my favorites. Actually, they’re ALL my favorites. I brought in something for them to sharpen their needle-like little claws on, and they all spent a long, long time sniffing it. I guess it smells like our cats. Aren’t I nice, taking toys away from our cats for the foster kitties to play with? Flossie again. I KNEW that sooner or later I’d get a yawning pic! Yay!]]>

5/23/05

calorie-burning motherfucker, that’s right.

* * *
I took a child’s dose of Benadryl this morning on an empty stomach (I put the bottle of Benadryl in my purse, by the way, and it came in handy when I remembered halfway to the pet store that I needed to take some.) and I think I’m a little bit buzzed. Yes, a child’s dose of Benadryl on an empty stomach, and I’m about ready to dance on the bars and twirl my bra over my head. Sad, ain’t it?
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On my way to the pet store this morning, I realized that my air conditioning wasn’t working. It was blowing out air, but warm air, despite being set on the coolest setting. I fiddled around with it for a while and still couldn’t get cool air to come out. I picked up my cell phone and called Fred. “Why me?” I said when he answered. “Because god loves you?” he suggested, and then asked what was going on. I told him, and he sighed and then laughed. “Maybe I just need to set up a standing monthly appointment at the dealership,” I said. “Want me to call Salesguy?” he offered. “HELL no, what the hell would he do? Tell me to take it to the service bay!” I asked and answered. We talked for a few more minutes, and then I arrived at the pet store and went in to do my thing. It was a pretty light day – there were three empty cages due to adoptions over the weekend – so it took me about an hour to do all the cleaning, feeding, and snuggling. When I was done, I went out, got into the car, and turned it on. “This is just the PERFECT FUCKING TIME for this to happen,” I muttered to myself. “I can’t take it in today, because the spud has half a day of school and I might need to go pick her up. Tomorrow’s no good, because I told the spud she could take my car to school tomorrow*. Wednesday, I have a doctor’s appointment in the late morning, Thursday I have to take the spud to the airport, and next week Liz will be here!” As I finished my woeful litany, I glanced down and immediately felt like the idiot I am. The “air conditioning” button wasn’t on. I pressed the button, and a blast of cold air immediately hit me in the face. Duh. *Eek!
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I roasted a turkey yesterday, and it smelled so damn good by the time it was done that I was ready to gnaw my hands off. The only downside is that I over-roasted it, and it was dry. Still damn good, though. Especially the dark meat. I know it’s fatty and not good for you, but DAMN I love the dark meat of a turkey. I think maybe this summer I’ll try brining a turkey and see how that turns out. Love to eat turkey… love to eat tur-ur-ur-ur-key…. And the best part is there’s plenty left over to make turkey soup!
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The kittens are doing well. We had an unexpected problem, though, with the mother. I know I’ve mentioned that she’s extremely protective of her kittens when she sees other animals. The problem is that she flies into protective-Momma mode whether the cats are near enough to hurt her babies or not. Friday night, Fred and I were hanging out in the room with the kittens for a little while, and when we got up to leave we started walking out the door together. Unfortunately, dumbass Mister Boogers and dumbass Miz Poo were hanging out on the landing right outside the room, and when the mother saw them, she lost her fucking mind. She was howling, she was screaming, she was hissing, she was spitting. Fred managed to catch her before she could get out the door, and as he pulled her back, she grabbed the back of my pants and held on for dear life. I’m pretty sure if he’d let go of her, she would have climbed over me to get to Miz Poo and Mister Boogers. Who were scared shitless and cowering by the top of the stairs, by the way. I don’t blame them – Momma sounded like a wild cougar. A wild pissed-off cougar, even. Fred finally got the mother to let go of my pants, and I went out and shut the door. He stayed in there for another ten minutes or so, but every time he started for the door, she was there ahead of him. He finally had to grab a blanket we’d put in there, toss it over the top of her, and run out of the room. We talked about it for quite a while, but couldn’t come up with a good solution. Because dealing with a hissing, spitting, howling Momma cat is not something I wanted to worry about every time I went in the room. “What we need is something like a decompression chamber!” Fred said. And then he came up with a plan. Saturday morning, after he’d gone hiking with some coworkers, he stopped by UHaul. There, he picked up one of their wardrobe boxes. He brought it home, split it down one side, and set it up in front of the door to the guest bedroom. Basically, it’s like a big cardboard screen. When we’re going into the room, we step in front of the door and pull it around us so that it’s sitting on either side of the door. It’s like a little room outside the door – our cats can’t get in, and even if the Momma cat came running out of the room, she can’t go anywhere but into the little box room. Is my husband fucking smart, or what? I would NEVER have come up with that on my own, I can guarantee that. It’s working out pretty well so far! Want some pictures? Sure you do… This is my favorite nursing picture so far. Snoopy apparently had so much to eat he can’t even move. Snoopy. These kittens LOVE to have their little bellies rubbed. See those sharp little teeth? I don’t blame Momma for trying to convince them to eat regular food. Snoopy in a contemplative mood. Flossie gives me a beseeching look. “You want a piece of me? You WANT a piece of me? I will LICK YOUR FACE OFF, and you’ll wish you’d never been born!” I love the way they walk, with their little tails stuck straight up in the air. Snoopy joins Momma at the food bowl. Such pretty eyes. Peeking around the box at the other kitties. “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” Peanut is far and away the most sociable of the kittens. It’s gotten to the point now where if I go into the room and sit down, he stops whatever he was doing (unless he was eating. Because NOTHING will stop him from eating.) and comes over, climbs up on my leg, and waits for me to put my hand around him so he doesn’t fall off. Then he rolls over onto his back and waits for me to rub his belly. When I do, he wiggles around and cleans himself and stretches. These kittens are so freakin’ cute that I’m pretty sure I’m going to bite my tongue clean off one of these days. There are more kitten pics over at Flickr, and in Fred’s entry for Saturday.
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Not impressed by kittens. ]]>

5/20/05

reading: Crisscross, by F. Paul Wilson. Finished yesterday: Crash Diet. I didn’t particularly care for it.

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So, the kitties. We really, really, really aren’t going to keep any of them. I know y’all don’t believe me, but it’s true. The only way I could get Fred to agree to let me foster them is to promise I wouldn’t beg to keep one (or all!) of them. I know it’s going to be really hard to give them up, but I know that they’re going to go to good homes, so it’ll be worth it. I think I mentioned yesterday that we cleared out the guest bedroom – and I mean cleared it out completely. We moved the bed out, and it’s leaning against the wall in Fred’s bedroom, the dresser is now in the hallway, and the table is in the hallway as well. The only thing in there is the leaf to our table, which I left in there because I’m going to have to weigh the kittens pretty regularly, and I’ll need a hard surface to put the scale on. We’re not going to let the mother cat and kittens out into “general population” (heh), because the mother is extremely protective, and when she sees our cats sitting out in the hall, she loses her shit. She went after Mister Boogers yesterday, and scared him so badly that his tail was puffed up for the rest of the day. Poor Mister Boogers. As far as naming them goes, I got a list of names from the shelter – names that they’ve used in the past – and the idea is to use names that haven’t been used before. We’ve tossed names around, but have only named two of them for sure so far. This is Flossie. So named because she has markings like a Holstein cow. Yes, we thought of naming her “Bessie”, but I like “Flossie” better. It’s just lucky coincidence that this one ended up being the girl (at least so far as we can tell), because we really wanted to use a cow name. If she’d been a boy, I was thinking of naming her “Moo”, actually. Heh. This is Peanut. The spud named him. We haven’t definitely come up with names for the other ones, but we’re probably going to name one of them Oy. We briefly considered naming them Roland, Eddie, Jake, Oy, and Susannah (Fred got really excited when he came up with that. “It’s the perfect ka-tet!” he said.), but most of those names have been used before. We also thought of using Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer, but again – they’ve been used. Nance thought I should name them Elliot, Paco, Fred, and Rick. Heh. We’re also probably going to name the one with the little speck on his nose – the one I was holding in yesterday’s entry – “Snoopy”, because that was Tubby’s “official” name. Also, we might name one “Edgar”! Give me suggestions for names for the mother, would you? She doesn’t have a name, either, and I can’t come up with one that fits her. Fred suggested “Mrs. Boogers”, but as Mister Boogers has proven himself to be a chicken little pansy-ass when it comes down to it, I’m not sure that really fits her. This one is the one that might be “Snoopy.” So damn cute. Snuggly kittens. They’re always so damn hungry. Poor long-suffering Momma. You can see more pictures of them in Fred’s entry for yesterday, or over on my Flickr page. I’m sure I’ll be uploading pictures at Flickr for as long as we have the babies, so I’ll add a link in the sidebar at some point, hopefully this weekend. This morning there was baby poop all over the damn place – all over the towel in the box they sleep in, all over the babies, and a tiny little baby turd on the floor. I replaced the towel with a clean one and picked up the poo on the floor, but left the babies for Momma to deal with. If they’re still dirty tonight, I’ll wipe ’em down with a damn cloth. God knows Momma must be tired to DEATH of licking up baby poo. I also need to take a good look at each of the kittens and see how the hell I’m going to tell them apart. I’m okay with all of them except the two black and white ones. I’m sure their markings aren’t exactly the same, but I haven’t noticed any obvious difference yet. Okay. Enough about the kittens.
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We watched Team America: World Police last night. It was pretty damn good, and every time the Matt Damon puppet exclaimed “Matt Damon!”, I laughed my ass off. We noticed that Kim Jong Il sounded very Cartman-like several times (Fred would point it out by yelling “I’m thankful for stuffing and pah!”). The music, of course, kicked ass. Fred’s favorite was Pearl Harbor; I have a feeling we’re going to be owning the soundtrack before too long. As always, watching anything Trey Parker and Matt Stone have done makes me want to watch Cannibal! The Musical again. It is, in fact, a happy-go-lucky-shpadoinkle-dy daaaaaaaaaaaaay.
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“Ah shmells kittens…” ]]>