Category: Life

* * * A few months ago Fred worked out a little too hard, and he was having some muscle soreness. Being the nice wife that I am, I stopped by the drugstore and pick up a container of epsom salt. Last night after he went to bed, I was taking a bath – it gets cold in our house sometimes, and nothing warms you up like reading in a hot bath for half an hour or so – and I looked over at the back of the epsom salts. Apparently epsom salt is a miracle drug. Did you know you could use it to relieve muscle soreness, as a plant fertilizer, and as a laxative? I had no idea. I guess you really do learn something new every day, eh?

* * * It’s a day that ends in “y”, so clearly it’s time for another slapfight! ]]>

published aw-thor! Anyway, the book came out a few days ago. Because I am bone idle, instead of going to the store and having to look for it, I ordered it through Amazon. Yesterday, it came! It was very cool to look through a book and see my name, I’ll tell you that. Miz Poo is clearly impressed. Also, just laying near the book makes her look thinner! Buy a copy of Tales from the Scale and YOU, too, can look ounces thinner! I wrote that! I even came up with the chapter title, and giggled at my own wit, which I am sure is the very definition of lame. The chapter Nance isn’t allowed to read. In fact, none of you are allowed to read it. Did I really write a chapter about my sex life? Eek! What was I thinking? ::blush:: I happen to be in the middle of reading a book already, so once I finish that, I’m going to sit down and read Tales from the Scale from cover to cover. I can’t wait. Hell, maybe I’ll throw caution to the wind and read Tales from the Scale BEFORE I finish the other book. That’s me, living life on the edge!

* * * So, every week or so I reindex the search engine for this site so that if you’re looking for something you’ve read recently you’ll be able to find it. And when I set up the reindexing, I like to check and see what y’all have been searching for. To the person who searched on fat fuckin slob yesterday: I don’t ever use the word “fuckin”. I either spell it “fucking” or “fuckin'”. I’ve also never used the phrase “Fat fucking slob”, either, so I’m not sure what you were looking for, but I hope you found it. The most popular searches: Cat pee cleaner, cat odor, carpet odor cleaner: It’s called Axi-dent, and you can get it here. I promise, one of these days I’m going to put a link to that in the sidebar, or do a “recommended” page so y’all don’t have to do a search. living will: Actually, I didn’t use the phrase “living will”; I used “advance directive”, and that entry is here. camera, camera model, digital camera: It’s a Sony DSC-V1, and I LOVE IT. The only thing that pisses me off is that when I’m using the flash, it hesitates before it takes the picture, and I’ve lost a large number of awesome pictures due to the hesitation. beef jerkey: I bet you were searching on the beef jerky I raved about back in January, weren’t you? It’s Jack Links Beef Nuggets, and I actually bought a couple of packages of the Beef Nuggets on Monday at Target. That stuff is like CRACK, and after polishing off two packages in as many days, I’ve decided that’s the sort of thing we really can’t have around the house. Damn that stuff is good, though. I’ve never tried the teriyaki flavor, though – just the original beef steak nuggets. chickpea: The recipe is here. * * * The spud actually WENT OUT AND DROVE BY HERSELF last night. First, she drove to the school and back with Fred in the passenger’s seat. Then she dropped Fred off at home, and drove to the school and home again by herself. Fred got so worried and antsy that he went out and started driving toward the school to make sure she hadn’t gotten into an accident. She made it there and home again just fine, though. Which is good, because tonight she’s going to drive herself to church and home again. I wouldn’t put it past Fred to drive to the church and follow her home, though. He’s such a nervous nellie. * * * I stumbled across defective yeti yesterday – I think I was on Jan‘s page, and checked out her links; defective yeti was at the top, and I clicked on the link. That was all she wrote – I spent the afternoon reading through his archives. Some of the conversations he has with his wife sound EXACTLY like conversations Fred and I would have: Vital Signs, Rock the Poot, Constructive Criticism, Gotcha, and I’m pretty sure we’ve had the exact same conversation as the one in Locke Jaw. Awesome blog – check it out! * * * The saga of why we don’t currently have a VCR in the living room: 1. Buy JVC DVD/ VHS player/ recorder. 2. Exchange non-functioning DVD/ VHS player/ recorder. 3. Two weeks of functioning DVD/ VHS player/ recorder. 4. DVD/ VHS player/ recorder stops functioning, with Netflix DVD inside. We cannot get it out without breaking it. 5. Fred calls JVC to see what the hell we’re supposed to do. They instruct him to send the DVD/ VHS player/ recorder to a certain address in Lawrenceville, GA. They are adamant that the instruction book and remote must be enclosed with the machine. 6. Receive JVC DVD/ VHS player/ recorder in timely manner. Take out of box to set up, and realize there’s no instruction book OR remote control enclosed. 7. Fred calls customer service. Customer service woman is confused. “You asked them to send the remote and instruction book back, and they didn’t?” Fred says “No, we didn’t specifically instruct them to return the remote and instruction book. WE ASSUMED THEY WOULD.” Customer service lady says she’ll send our request for remote and instruction book along to the pertinent people. 8. Box arrives Monday afternoon, return address JVC in Lawrenceville, GA. I leave it on Fred’s desk. He puts it on the floor and we ignore it. 9. Yesterday, I suggest that Fred set up the DVD/ VHS player/ recorder. He hands me the box and tells me to dig out the remote. I open the box to find it crammed with styrofoam peanuts, WHICH ARE THE WORK OF SATAN. At the bottom of the box? The instruction book. Not included in the box? The remote control. The invoice in the box lists the remote. Which is not in the box. “I don’t fucking believe this,” I inform Fred. Fred puts the invoice by his wallet so that he’ll remember to call JVC customer service, which is open from, like, 11:58 to 12:01 on even days. 10. Today, he calls customer service. They inform him that the remote and instruction book were scheduled to be mailed out in separate shipments. “You could save a lot of money by not shipping out a huge box of styrofoam peanuts and an instruction book, and instead send the remote in the same box,” Fred says to the customer service lady. Who does not care. 11. The remote is supposed to arrive today. I’ll believe that when I see it. Later today I’m supposed to stop by the dealership to have the remote entry fob programmed and handed over. I fully expect that my car will explode spectacularly in the midst of the programming and I’ll catch on fire and run screaming around the parking lot. But if things go right (which I expect they won’t), I’ll never have to see Salesguy ever again in my entire life. Which will be too damn soon. * * * “Look. I don’t have opposable thumbs like you do. How else am I supposed to clean it?” ]]>

here. I’ll leave it up ’til the end of the month. By the way, Fred took that picture, as well as the smackdown pictures from yesterday. But he was using my camera, so I claimed them for my own. Ha!

* * * Currently reading: Hissy Fit. Finished last night: Couldn’t Keep it to Myself. Good book – and very, very sad. * * * Kathy sent me this link a few weeks ago, and I’ve been going and giggling at it regularly, so I thought y’all might enjoy it, too. Go, Socky, go!!! And Vena sent me a link to Kittenwar. Whereupon I spent an hour looking at the kitten pictures and voting. Total time-suck – but I cannot resist the adorable kitties! * * * E’gar is home, FINALLY! Remember how I said that the woman at the dealership told me that she thought E’gar would be ready last Wednesday? Well, Wednesday came and went with no phone call, and when Thursday had half come and gone, Fred called to see what the hell was going on. The woman who runs the service department wasn’t in, so Fred told whoever answered the phone that he’d like to know what was going on, and then he (nicely) gave them hell for not keeping us informed, and because they also hadn’t kept the woman running the rental car place informed, so she called me on Tuesday and wanted to know what the hell was going on and why I hadn’t returned the rental car. So whoever Fred talked to apologized profusely and left a note for the woman who runs the service department. Friday, when we were sitting in the waiting room, before Fred had his vasectomy, the service department woman called and was apparently pretty defensive. “I told your wife it would be about a week!” she told Fred. Um, no. What she said to me was “We’re going to have your car for a little while”, and I said “How long is a little while?”, and she said “Wednesday.” Now, doesn’t that sound like “Your car should be done Wednesday”? It does to ME. But apparently what “Wednesday” meant was “We’ll get the part on Wednesday.” She told Fred she thought the car would be ready on Monday, and it was. Thank god, because I was getting pretty tired of driving a station wagon around. Not that there’s anything wrong with a station wagon, but it AIN’T MY E’GAR! I was about halfway home when I realized that the remote entry fob was NOT on the keyring they’d given me, despite the fact that Fred had called Salesguy a week before to let him know that the car was being serviced. Salesguy, in response, told Fred he’d “Take care of it”, but I think we all know by now that Salesguy is as full of shit as they come. Therefore, the remote entry fob hadn’t been programmed and left in the car as we’d expected. I had just picked up my cell phone to call Fred, when he called me and told me that Salesguy had just called him and told him that I’d “zoomed out of” the parking lot before he (Salesguy) “could get to” me. Which means – you guessed it! – I get to go BACK TO THE FUCKING DEALERSHIP YET AGAIN. I tried to convince Fred to take my car to work with him today and deal with Salesguy himself, but he wouldn’t go for that. Hmph. This is never ever ever going to be over, is it? I RUE THE FUCKING DAY I decided to buy a car from this guy. RUE IT. * * * Boog in a basket! Spot in a basket, under the Boog’s supervision! * * *]]>

Bonnie sent me the Easter design, so I switched things around. Thanks again, Jolie!

* * * This is how Fred spent a good part of the weekend recovering: We dragged the chair from the computer room to the living room, so he could kick back and watch TV and snooze. Of course, we moved a piece of furniture in the house, which had the cats ALL interested, so he wasn’t sitting alone in that chair for long. And, as always, when those two are within a mile of each other, there inevitably came time for some smackage. First, Mister Boogers approaches Miz Poo to let her know that he thinks he’s the boss of her, and could kick her ass without thinking twice… …and then she smacks the shit out of him, and he closes his eyes and smacks blindly at her, never ever ever landing a single smack on the portly Poo. We watched the first season of The Office, and really liked it (I liked it more than Fred did, but he’s willing to watch Season 2 with me). We watched a bunch of Yes, Dear reruns and enjoyed them as well. Sunday, Fred and the spud watched Blade: Trinity, and I went upstairs and watched Birth. For a movie that feels like it’s 63 hours long, Birth wasn’t bad at all. I like Nicole Kidman and think she’s gawjuss, so I didn’t mind the slo-mo closeups of her. It probably helped that I spend the first 45 minutes of the movie answering email on the laptop, too. I’ll be glad when Fred is all healed up, because he spent the entire weekend either with his hands down his pants, adjusting himself, or picking at a jockstrap-induced wedgie. Not a pleasant sight. * * * Meme, seen everywhere. I don’t even remember where I stole it from. Name four books on your bookshelf: I bet this would be easier if I listed four books that aren’t on my bookshelf! Okay, from memory, there are: Alone, by Lisa Gardner Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress, by Susan Jane Gilman Dry: A Memoir, by Augusten Burroughs (also, Magical Thinking and Running with Scissors) Fat Girl: A True Story, by Judith Moore Name four DVDs in your collection: Xanadu Sex and the City (Season 1) Once and Again, Season 1 (Season 2 is coming out in August! Whoo!) Jesus Christ, Superstar (J�r�me Pradon as Judas absolutely kicks ass) Name four things on your walls: (This is better done through pictures, I think) The “Mad Bluebird” picture Debbie cross-stitched for me Christmas of 2003. One of the last pictures taken of Tubby. The first picture of Miz Poo, taken with the camera we currently have. (Nance printed it out, framed it, and sent it to me!) One of my favorite spud school pictures. Last year? Maybe the year before. Adorable, isn’t she? Name four things in your wardrobe: (Another one better shown than described) I wear this to the pet store every Monday morning. The light gray doesn’t show cat hair too badly, and it’s a cat-themed t-shirt. The top square says “This is your brain”, and the bottom says “This is your brain on drugs.” That’s the 9 Chickweed Lane cat. The MOST comfortable sweatshirt EVER. It’s about two sizes too big for me, and when I’m cold I put it on and warm up immediately. Nope, still haven’t gotten rid of my crappy, hole-y nightgown. I just can’t bear to part with it! I know I’ll have to one day soon, but it’s the most comfortable nightgown I’ve ever had. This is an old man’s button-up shirt that’s too big for me. When I’m cold I put it on over whatever I’m wearing. Can you tell that the key word when describing my wardrobe is “comfort”? Name four artists in your music collection: Del Amitri Jude Cole The Warren Brothers Tori Amos Name four real life stores you shop at regularly: Publix The Dollah Store Target PetSmart Name four things in your bag: My wallet A tube of Blistex My calendar (which Nance sent me – but I put my favorite picture of Fred and I to cover the picture that was already on the front of the calendar. Heh.) My cell phone. As long as I have those four things, I’m all set. * * * “HOOOOOOOOOly CRAP! You weren’t kidding about his breath!” * * *]]>

always dream about living on the ocean. Sometimes I bring up realtor.com and look for houses on the ocean in Maine. A few months ago I found a house in northern Maine, an old schoolhouse located next to a quarry. I think chances are good that I’ll never live near the ocean again. Unless I win the lottery. But then, I almost never play the lottery, so I imagine it would be difficult to win. I always leave the pet store on Monday mornings feeling as relaxed as if I’d had a massage. Sometimes I wish I’d called Fred and whined and whined and whined at him until he gave in and let me adopt the cute-kitty-of-the-moment. I never do, because I’m afraid he might give in. Sometimes I wish I’d had another kid a few years after I had the spud, so that she’d have a brother or sister; I know she’s sometimes lonely as an only child. Whenever I see a baby in a store, or pictures of an adorable baby online, I wait to get hit with the I-want-a-baby-ouch-my-uterus blues. I never do. Sometimes I wonder what kind of weirdo writes about her life online for more than five years straight; this online journaling is such a strange thing. I always wonder if the day will come when I decide to stop journaling; but I never thought I’d still be doing this five years later. Hell, I never thought I’d make it one entire year. It is, by the way, a point of pride for me that I’ve never torn down this site and quit briefly, then come back. I suspect that the first time I do that will be the last. I don’t intend to do that anytime soon. I sometimes wonder who you are, the people who read this site. I always love to get your emails and pictures of your pets, your family, you. I always love to hear your stories, and I always promise myself that I’ll keep on top of my email. I never do, and sometimes you never get a reply from me. I always feel like an asshole for archiving email without responding to it, but when months have gone by, I feel like the time to respond has passed. But I always read your email, even if I never respond. Same with the comments. I always check out the TUS forum first thing every morning, and always read the Pop Culture and Television boards before anything else. I almost never post, though I sometimes start to, then reconsider and delete it before I hit the “continue” button. Someone else has always said what I wanted to say, only they put it better. Sometimes I think about putting up my own mini-forum to discuss TV shows so I won’t have to discuss them in entries. But I don’t follow through with that – god knows I’d probably never keep up with it, any more than I kept up with my Couch Potato blog. When I read a particularly heartfelt or difficult entry on someone’s blog or journal, I always feel like a jerk for not commenting or emailing the journaler/ blogger. I just never know what to say! Sometimes I post something lame, but mostly I don’t say anything. Doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of and concerned about them, though. I always greet the cats when I walk into a room. Sometimes they respond. Sometimes I’m so overcome with affection for them that I’m afraid I’m going to pick them up and squeeze them ’til their guts come out their eyes. I never do, but don’t think I’m not tempted. I always wait ’til the end of the month to do my WordGoddess collab, have you noticed? Sometimes I think, as soon as I get the email telling what the collab topic for the month is, that I’ll get it done as soon as possible. I never do, though. I’ve always been a procrastinator.

* * * I was out in the back yard last weekend taking pictures, and when I leaned over to take a picture of Da Boog, Miz Poo hopped up on my back and just sat there until Fred came over and took her off. * * *]]>

Couldn’t Keep it to Myself. Finished this morning, sitting in the waiting room (see the next section): One Coffee With. Love that Margaret Maron, but I have to say that so far (this is only the first book in the Sigrid Harald series) I prefer her Deborah Knott books.

* * * So, Fred has now been officially neutered. And who would bring a camera to a vasectomy? That’s right, MY HUSBAND. He did an entry about it, even – read it at your own risk. There’s one picture that made me scream and run around in circles (skip his entry if you have a weak stomach, or are eating), but if you scroll to the bottom you get to see… well, his bottom. For a while when we were sitting in the waiting room there were several other men sitting in the waiting room with us, and I said to Fred, “I imagine this is how a man sitting in a gynecologist’s waiting room must feel.” He’s upstairs taking a nap right now; hopefully he’ll recover quickly (he always does) and will be fine come Monday morning. * * * I don’t think I mentioned the fact that I bought tickets to Maine this summer for the spud and I. Independence Air was having a kick-ass sale – tickets were $79 one-way – so I got round-trip tickets from here to Maine for myself, AND a one-way ticket for the spud from Maine to here (she’s flying to California at the end of May, spending three weeks there, and then flying to Rhode Island to spend a few weeks with her father, then going up to Maine for a while before I fly up there, and then she’s flying back with me) for less than $300 altogether. That’s pretty damn good, if you ask me. When she goes out to California, she’s flying… United? Continental? One of those, because Independence Air doesn’t fly to the O.C. They fly to L.A, but the amount of money we’d have saved on the tickets would have been negated by her grandparents having to make a longer trip to a bigger airport. This will be the first year the spud is required to get herself from one gate to another during a layover in… Ohio? Atlanta? I don’t remember where the layover is, and I’m too lazy to go look at the itinerary. So the idea of her getting from one gate to the other has me a little worried, but luckily she has a two-hour layover, and I’ll drill it into her head that if she can’t find where she needs to go, she should ask a FEMALE in a uniform for help. (That’s right, males. I just dissed your entire gender! I’m going to teach my child that you cannot be trusted to help a cute 16 year-old girl find her gate BECAUSE IT’S BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY.) And if nothing else, she’ll have her cell phone with her, and she can call me, and I can scream and run around in circles and overreact, before I look up a map of the airport online and tell her where to go. On the up side, she has a nonstop flight from California to Rhode Island, so I won’t have to worry quite so much when she takes that flight. * * * Hey, look! It’s Badass Southpark Robyn! Make your own, here. * * * Hey. Has anyone read anything by Ayelet Waldman? I watched the Oprah show she was on the other day, and she seemed really likeable, and defended her essay pretty well, I thought. I know this is absolute blasphemy and I’ll probably get strung from the nearest tree, but I tried reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by her husband – Michael Chabon – and got about thirty pages in before I was so incredibly bored that I gave myself the gift of putting it in the library box instead of trying to get through the entire book. Fred really enjoyed it, though. Clearly he’s the one with taste. * * * Today’s my mother’s birthday. I had to sit and think a good long time before I could figure out how old she is. For a good two or three minutes, I actually thought she was 87. I seriously sat here and thought “She’s 87, right? That’s right, isn’t it…?” Well, NO, that’s not right, dumbass. My mother’s only 25 years older than I am; my grandmother‘s the one who was 50 years older. The day I figured out that my mother had me when she was 25, and HER mother had HER when she was 25 was a great day, because I could stop trying to remember the years of their birth. I remember most everyone’s age by knowing how much older or younger than me they are. My oldest brother’s 6 years older (well, 5 1/2, but I always add 6 to my age, and subtract a year depending on whether he’s had his birthday or not), my other older brother is 4 years older (3 1/2, depending on the time of year), Debbie’s 2 years younger, my mother’s 25 years older, and my father is… two years older than her. I think? For some reason, I can remember that my father was born in 1941, but I don’t remember anyone else’s birth year. Except for the spud, of course. I know how old she is, but sometimes I have to do some mental gymnastics to figure out how old Brian is. “The spud was almost three when we moved to Rhode Island, which was just after Brian was born, so that makes him almost three years younger, and she’s 16, so that makes him… add the six, carry the one, subtract the 7, divide by 5… thirteen? And a half? When the hell did he GET TO BE A TEENAGER?” Some people would write down things like the year important relatives were born, but not ME, baby. I prefer to live life on the edge, yes indeedy. On the other hand, almost nine years after our divorce, I can still remember my ex-husband’s social security number and date of birth. Funny how the memory works, huh? * * * *WARNING: POSSIBLE AMAZING RACE SPOILERS; SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE YET* From my comments: Complete change of subject – are you still watching the Amazing Race? Was it just me or would you have pushed The Beauty Queen out of the car when she said her fiance became a POW to get out of the army??!!! I actually said to Fred that if we were that couple (me a beauty queen! Ha! I don’t own nearly enough lip gloss!), I could imagine saying something like that to him, just to be funny. Because that’s the sort of stuff we’d joke about. But she certainly appeared to be serious there, didn’t she? I have to say – and this might get me hung for treason – I find Ron and Kelly to be completely unlikeable, and I’d hate it if they won the race. At this point I’m hoping like hell that Uchenna and Joyce or Rob and Amber win, because I’m not crazy about Meredith and Gretchen either. He’s okay, but her voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me, and I feel like they’ve bumbled their way through the race so far. I have no idea on earth how they managed to get this far. It’s funny that I’m kinda-sorta rooting for Rob and Amber since they annoyed me so much on Survivor. I really hope Uchenna and Joyce win, though. * * * *WARNING: SURVIVOR SPOILER AHEAD; SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE YET* So they voted off the only non-annoying girl left on Survivor. NICE. Every one of those girls left annoy the holy shit out of me, and if Jennifer, the blandly boring blonde wins this season, I’m going to have to rethink my devotion to this show. (And I’m sure my decision will be “Oh, I’ll give it one more season!”) I’m pulling for Tom or Ian to win, but I’m not holding my breath. * * * Slap fight. ]]>

periodontitis. They showed me a different way to brush my teeth – angling the toothbrush so that the bristles would go under the gumline – and told me to come back in three months. When three months was up, I didn’t even get a chance to call and make an appointment, because they called me first. I had that appointment last week, and the hygienist poked around in my mouth for a few minutes before declaring that the periodontitis hadn’t gotten any better. “It’s not real bad,” she told me. “We caught it early!” And then she went on to suggest that I have something called Scaling and Root Planing done, and she started a movie about periodontal disease and how Scaling and Root Planing helps to control periodontal disease, and when the hygienist came back, I told her to go ahead and make the appointment for me. Did you know that periodontal disease CANNOT BE CURED, only controlled. KIND OF LIKE HERPES. All those nights of half-assedly brushing my teeth before bed were coming back to roost, I guess. So my first Scaling and Root Planing appointment was yesterday, and from the video the hygienist had shown me, it was going to consist of very painful scraping with a dental instrument to get all the crap out from under my gumline. Believe you me – I was SO looking forward to THAT. Sharp dental instruments digging around in my gums? GIMME SOME OF THAT. Except that MY dentists are directly on the cutting edge of all that is cool and awesome – I mean, they have little TVs in every single exam room! – and instead of using sharp dental instruments, the hygienist used an ultrasonic instrument that basically shot medicine-tasting liquid into my gumline and cleared all the crap out of there. First, though, she had to take measurements of my gums using – you guessed it – sharp dental instruments. She poked at the gums in front of every tooth, and then in back of every tooth, calling out numbers that didn’t really mean anything to me, so that someone else could write them down. And then she gave me the Rota-dent, which is a dentist-recommended toothbrush-type instrument. She opened the package, discussed ways of taking care of the Rota-dent, and then had me open my mouth and showed me how to use the Rota-dent. Did you know that Only the Rota-dent� has patented microfilament brush tips designed to reach underneath the gum line and in-between the teeth? I bet you didn’t know that. She showed me how to hold the Rota-dent – at an angle to the tooth so that the bristles can reach under the nasty, nasty gumline – and when she turned the Rota-dent on and held it to one of my teeth, this really nasty foamy stuff came out from under my gumline. “That’s plaque,” she said. And it was nasty. But cool. And I felt like a dirty, dirty whore. I mean, who can’t brush their teeth well enough to prevent periodontal disease? ME, that’s who! And along with the nasty foamy plaque came blood. A lot of blood. Practically a geyser of blood. Every tooth she held the Rota-dent against bled like it was going out of style. After she’d brushed a few teeth, she handed over the Rota-dent and let me give it a try. Apparently I’m a natural at the Rota-dent. After a few more instructions on the care of the Rota-dent and telling me that they sell the heads to the Rota-dent there at the dentist’s office – of course they do – she put the Rota-dent back in the box, and got started on the cleaning of my nasty, nasty gums. I don’t know how much crap she got out from under my gums, but I saw a lot of stuff fly up into the air when she was doing the back gums. There were places where it hurt, but the experience wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be – like I said, I thought there was going to be a lot of scraping with sharp objects – and once it was over I only had the slightest bit of gum tenderness. She only did half my mouth yesterday, though. I have to go back in two weeks so she can do the other half. And in the meantime I get to brush all kinds of nasty crap out of my gumline with the Rota-dent, using some kind of medicated fluoride stuff that tastes really nasty, every single day. What could be more fun than that?

* * * This week, the spud has been going out and driving with a driving instructor from a local driving school. (Could I have used the word “driving” any more often in that sentence?) He’s been teaching kids to drive for 33 years, and I guess he really knows what he’s doing. He actually took her to the scariest place in all of Huntsville to drive – the 565 to South Parkway interchange – and said she did pretty well. Apparently there was quite a lot that her driver’s ed teacher didn’t teach her, but she’s learning now with the driving instructor. Last night, he told Fred that he thought she’d be ready to drive by herself after she drives with him on Friday. The idea of her driving by herself scares the hell out of me, but if we waited ’til I was ready for her to drive by herself, she’d probably be 35! * * * What I’m doing today: Waiting for the delivery people to come, to take away our television and replace it. This is the second time we’ve had the television replaced; this time it’s because the television has been randomly turning itself off for no apparent reason. Speaking of electronics, we bought a VHS/ DVD player/ recorder when we bought the television and speakers. It didn’t work, so Fred exchanged it. The one he exchanged it for didn’t work – the VHS side of it, that is – so we sent it to JVC for repair or replacement. When he spoke to the customer service person, they were adamant that we needed to include the remote and any booklets with the machine. We did, and we got the fixed DVD/ VHS player in the mail last week… only, they didn’t send the fucking remote back with the machine. This whole new TV thing has been a nightmare from beginning to end, really. The one single thing we bought that didn’t have to be returned was the printer/ scanner/ copier. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, though. E’gar is still in the shop. Fred called to see what the hell was going on, since last Friday they told me they expected the car to be ready on Wednesday. The service person he talked to said that they’d been waiting for the part, which arrived today. And now they have to take the engine entirely apart to replace the sensor. This does not give me the warm fuzzies. They expect E’gar to be ready to come home tomorrow. I’m getting tired of driving the gold station wagon, let me tell you. E’gar better shape up. * * * Miz Poo cools off her belly. Mister Boogers lays and considers the fact that he has the biggest feet in all of catdom. I think he might be part rabbit. * * *]]>

One Coffee With, by Margaret Maron. Finished last night: Meet Me on Platform 8. Good book – which surprised me, because I’m a total snob, and the fact that Kelly Ripa was quoted on the cover of the book put me off. I’ll never doubt you again, Kelly Ripa. I promise! I feel like I’m always saying “It was a good book, which surprised me…” and “It was a good movie. I was surprised that it was so good!”, which makes me sound like I spend all my time sitting around grumbling “This movie is going to suck. Why bother even trying to watch it??” and “God. WHY did I buy this book? I don’t want to read it!” Um. Actually, I DO do that an awful lot. I guess I’ll just shut up now. Movies we’ve liked lately: Paparazzi, Dragonfly, The Woodsman, and After the Sunset. We tried to watch Suspect Zero this weekend, but got so bored that we turned it off about half an hour in. We also started Hotel Rwanda, but we were having such a hard time understanding what everyone was saying that we turned it off. We’ll probably give that one another try in the future. I haven’t seen The Notebook yet, but so many people have said it’s good that I’ve actually moved it to the top of my Netflix queue so I can watch it soon. Also, I have Birth, which I haven’t watched yet. Hopefully it won’t suck. Oh, and if you haven’t watched any episodes of Eyes, you oughta. I liked it so much that I convinced Fred to give it a try, and he liked it, too. It’s the absolutely perfect role for Tim Daly – who gets hotter and hotter with age.

* * * Spot and Miz Poo had to go to the vet yesterday, because they both needed their immunoregulan shots, and Spot was due for his annual checkup and shots and everything. After Friday, I’ve sworn off trying to get Spot in the box, so I told Fred he had to get the cats in the box before he left for work. Our vet opens to let people drop off their pets starting at 7, so I intended to leave the house exactly at 7, drop off the cats, and then go back and pick them up when the vet had seen them. We live very close to the vet, thank god. So Fred brought both the cat carriers upstairs. One was a cardboard carrier that we got ages and ages ago at either a vet’s office, or when we adopted Tubby or Miz Poo. It’s similar to this one. Fred opened that cat carrier, grabbed Miz Poo, and before she could even whimper he had her in the carrier, with it closed. Spot was locked in the bathroom, because Fred is a smart, smart man. He knows that the best thing to do when dealing with a neurotic, VERY FAST cat like Spot is to lock him in a small room and then bring the cat carrier into the room, so that the cat has very few places to run and hide, and there’s no danger of a bastardly Booger jumping into the carrier and fucking things up. So Fred grabbed the other cat carrier – it looks like this – and went into the bathroom. I sat in bed and listened, sure that Fred would walk in, pick up Spot, push him in the cat carrier, and walk out. All in the space of ten seconds. Instead what I heard was Fred speaking soothingly to Spot. “Come on, buddy, that’s a good buddy, this won’t hurt,” he soothed. And then I heard loud thumping noises, the sound of the carrier sliding across the floor, and the sound that I imagine a demon from hell would make. An UNHAPPY demon from hell. For the next five minutes all I could hear was: Fred: Speaking soothingly. ::thumpthumpthump:: ::demon from hell:: ::the skidding sound of plastic on slate:: Fred: Speaking soothingly, but not sounding quite so calm. ::thumpthumpthump:: ::demon from hell:: Repeat about thirty times. Believe you me, I was sitting on that bed laughing my ASS off. Because I got zero, zilch, nada sympathy when I told my tale of Spot-chasing woe to Fred last week, so I figure turn-about is fair play. As I was sitting nekkid on the bed, the sheets wrapped around me, laughing so hard I was almost crying, Fred called out to me. “Bessie!” he said. “What?” I said. Long silence. “He peed all over the carrier.” Long silence while I try to figure out what I’m supposed to suggest. Spot let out a sad, drawn-out demon-from-hell sound. “I think you’re going to have to take him to the vet and then come back and get Miz Poo,” Fred said. “Take him to the vet… in a carrier filled with cat pee?” I said, confused. By now I’d put my nightgown on and was standing outside the bathroom. “No, we’ll let Miz Poo out of that carrier, put Spot in the carrier she’s in, and you can take him, buy a carrier from the vet, and come back to get Miz Poo.” I thought that over. “Okay…” So I let Miz Poo out of the carrier – she slunk under the bed, her eyes dark, and gave me a look like “What the hell was THAT all about?? – and took the carrier to the bathroom. Fred opened the door, Spot in his arms, and put him in the carrier. “I used these towels to clean the pee off him,” he said helpfully, pointing to the sodden pile of urine-soaked towels, which were reeking so badly that you could actually see the stink lines coming off of them. He left the room, plastic carrier in hand, and I picked up the stinky towels, put them on the washing machine, and cleaned the spot where the towels had been. In the cat carrier, Spot howled mournfully. Under the bed, Miz Poo gave me the stink eye. Mister Boogers sniffed around the carrier, and then stood up, pushing down on the top of the carrier. He’s broken Miz Poo out of the carrier before using this exact method – he pushes down the top enough so that the cat inside can push his or her way out – so I knew to shoo him away from the carrier before Spot could escape, because if that had happened? I would have refused to ever take him to the vet again. Fred came back upstairs, grabbed Spot (he was going to leave the box in the garage so we wouldn’t have to worry about the Bastardly Mister Boogers), kissed me, said “For a few minutes there, I understood how you felt on Friday”, and left. From her spot under the bed, Miz Poo gave Fred the stink eye. I got dressed quickly and headed downstairs to grab Spot and leave for the vet, when I glanced at Miz Poo – who had come out and was, for some reason, hanging out in the spud’s bedroom – when I got an excellent idea. Rather than take Spot to the vet’s, buy a carrier, and come back to get Miz Poo, why not get one of the thirty-three thousand boxes out of the garage – shipping boxes, not cat carrier boxes – put her in that, and ask them to put her in a cat carrier after her exam? Guess what? It worked perfectly. Miz Poo is scared of the cat carrier, but not of regular plain-old boxes, so when I carried a box upstairs, she glanced at it, saw that it wasn’t a cat carrier, and continued sniffing the spud’s shoes. I picked her up, and by the time she realized I was going to close her in the box, the box was already closed. Of course, the part that sucked was that it was a big box, big enough that all four of the cats could have fit in it and stretched out without touching, but I managed to carry that box in one arm and Spot in his carrier in the opposite arm. So now we have two cardboard carrier boxes that are easy to get cats into (as long as no Bastardly Booger is blocking the way) and no crappy plastic carriers that are impossible to get fully grown cats into. I’m thinking we need to buy a couple more of the cardboard carriers though, because first of all if something happened (fire!) and we needed to get all the cats out of the house (though let’s be honest, if there was a fire, all the little dumbasses would be hiding under beds and couches and would be impossible to find), we’d be screwed since we only have the two carriers. And secondly, if Spot pees all over one carrier when he goes back to the vet Friday, we’ll need to have a backup. I mean, we have a second carrier, but Spanky’s also going to the vet for his yearly checkup on Friday, so we’d need a backup other than that one. My god. This sure is fascinating, isn’t it? * * * A few weeks ago, we got a card in the mail from B3llSouth. A year ago we switched our phone service from B3llSouth to M-C-I, because M-C-I is cheaper. At this point, all landline phone service is pretty much alike, so why not go with the cheapest? So anyway, the card from B3llSouth begged us to come back to them, and said that if we did, we’d get all the bells and whistles – 3-way calling, caller id, call waiting, so on and so forth – for $49.99 a month. What really caught my eye, though, was that included in the $49.99 per month was unlimited long distance. UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE FOR $49.99 A MONTH. Since we were paying M-C-I about that, without the unlimited long distance, I left the card on Fred’s desk and instructed him to call B3llSouth and make the change. Except instead of calling B3llSouth, he called Knol0gy. We get our cable and internet through Knol0gy, and they offer multi-service plans wherein if you get more than one service through them, you save money. So he called Knol0gy and told them what B3llSouth was offering, and the Knol0gy guy countered with the exact same thing, and since we’d be going with the multi-service thing, the phone bill part of it would cost about $35. $35, and we get every special feature you could ever possibly imagine AND UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE. Now, that is just awesome. I mean, I don’t really make all that many long distance calls, but I have an easier time hearing on the landline phone than I do on my cellphone, so this will make Sunday calls to my parents much, much easier. Also, I can talk to Debbie without using up either of our cellphone minutes! “Yep, minding my own business…” “Hey, what’s that?” “What-what-what… WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED HERE?” (The look on his face cracks me UP.) * * *]]>

E’gar up, he and I need to have a serious talk. For those of you keeping track that’s not once but TWICE Fred came to the rescue on Friday. My hero!

* * * First they check out the birdies flying overhead… And then they go for a run! * * *]]>

reading: Let’s Meet on Platform 8. Last night I started A Charge to Keep, at Fred’s recommendation. About twenty pages in, I looked at him and said “Does the entire book read like a campaign speech?”, and he gave me a dirty look and said “Maybe you should read something else.” So I am. It’s an extremely rare political-type book that can hold my interest. Finished last week: Summer in the Land of Skin and Death in Bloodhound Red.

* * * Friday sucked ass for the following reasons: 1. I had to get up at 4:50 so that I could exercise before my 8:30 appointment on the other side of Huntsville. 2. I had to drop Spot off at the vet around 7:45, so they could give him his immunoregulan shot at some point during the morning. I had exercised, cooled off, showered, dressed, and blow-dried my hair, and the entire time I was doing all this, Spot was hanging out in various places within my view, completely relaxed and chilled out. Well. As chilled out as he gets, anyway. The instant I brought the cat carrier upstairs, he disappeared. Using my skills of deductive reasoning, I decided he was under the bed in my bedroom. I shut the door, bent down, and directed the can of compressed air under the bed. Spot shot out and ran around in twenty or thirty frantic circles before running into the bathroom. I cornered him in the bathroom, picked him up, and spoke soothingly to him. I walked out into the hallway, to find that THAT FUCKING SHITHEAD MISTER BOOGERS had jumped into the cat carrier. “Stumpy, get out of the carrier!” I said. He just stared at me. I bent down and attempted to put Spot in the carrier and simultaneously pull Mister Boogers out of the way. Mister Boogers and Spot both flailed around, making my task impossible. I stood back up, trying my best to hold onto Spot, and picked up one end of the cat carrier. “Get out of the carrier, dumbass!” I said to Mister Boogers. Who responded by going flat and staring up at me with dark eyes as though I was implementing a fun new game. Spot flailed around until he got two of his back claws in the front of my shirt, and then he kicked, tearing the shirt and leaving a nasty clawmark across my boob. I could no longer hang on to him, and he leaped to the floor and bounded away. I lost my shit. “GET OUT OF THE CAT CARRIER!” I bellowed at Mister Boogers, who went impossibly flat. He was like liquid cat, spreading to fill every bit of the floor of the cat carrier. “GET OUT! GET OUT!” I bellowed, picked up the cat carrier, held it upside down, and shook it. He went starfish, all limbs straight out to hold him in the cat carrier. I could see nothing but a fluffy little stump of a tail, waving in the breeze. “GET OUT!” I yelled, putting the cat carrier on the floor. “OUT, YOU FUCKER! OUT! OUT!”, and finally Mister Boogers hopped lightly out of the carrier and looked up at me, head cocked to the side and eyes glittering. For the next fifteen minutes I rampaged through the house like an asshole, scaring the holy fucking hell out of all the cats except for Mister Boogers, who followed me around from room to room and watched me with not an iota of fear on his face, although he did duck when I turned in his direction. I chased Spot from room to room, and then suddenly he disappeared and I couldn’t find him anywhere. He wasn’t upstairs under any of the beds, and as I made sure each room was clear of his presence, I slammed the door closed so he couldn’t go in there. “THIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK, BUDDY!” I shrieked. “YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE VET! GET IN THE FUCKING BOX!” Like he was going to suddenly come to his senses and see reason, running from his hiding space and hopping willingly into the carrier. Miz Poo huddled in terror under my desk, her eyes hugely dark, and Spanky hid behind a box in the library, peering out from time to time to make sure I wasn’t coming after him. I bellowed the entire time, curse words I’ve never even heard of before; I have no idea where they came from. I’m amazed the neighbors didn’t call the cops. I finally found Spot under the loveseat. I lifted it up to look underneath – I was imbued with Superman-like strength in my rage – and he cowered for a moment, and then fled out of the living room. I tried to corner him in the computer room, but there are two doorways in the computer room and neither of them have doors, so he basically ran in one door, through the room, and out the other door with me in hot pursuit. He ran upstairs and into my bedroom – I’d stupidly left that one door open. He ran under the bed, and when I leaned down to spray compressed air at him, he ran out from under the bed, down the stairs, and under the loveseat again. I chased him the entire way, swearing at the top of my lungs. I lifted up the loveseat and he shot out of there like a greased pig. I was so pissed off, I threw the can of compressed air at the wall, and it left two nice-sized dents before the plastic parts of it shattered all over the floor. At this point I was absolutely seeing red, but I knew in a tiny little corner of my mind that if I got my hands on Spot I was going to hurt him, and I had to stop chasing him, and just leave the house. Which I did. I left the house twenty minutes later than I’d intended and ten minutes later than I should have if I wanted to be on time for my appointment. I called Fred when I was sitting at a red light, and we talked for a few minutes. He told me I should just give it a try later on when I got home from my appointment, and I expressed my certain belief that there was no way on god’s green earth Spot was ever going to let me within twenty feet of him again, let alone allow me to pick him up and put him in the cat carrier. When I was almost to my appointment, the phone rang. “Pick Spot up on your way home,” he said. “Huh?” “I’m taking Spot to the vet’s to drop him off. You can pick him up on your way home.” Fred had left work and driven the ten minutes from his office to the house. He walked into the house, grabbed the cat carrier, located Spot under the loveseat, picked him up, put him in the cat carrier, and left the house. All in the space of two minutes. Because he is a fucking fucker. * * * My god, that got long. The rest of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day will be up tomorrow. * * * “If she starts stomping around and swearing at me, I’m going to poop my pants.” * * *]]>