Category: Life

3/26/10 – Friday

I vacuumed the hell out of the house (well, the downstairs at least) yesterday, and not ten seconds after I put the vacuum cleaner away, Joe Bob and Sugarbutt got into an altercation in the dining room, and tufts of cat hair went floating through the house, messing up my perfectly clean floor. I just … Continue reading “3/26/10 – Friday”

I vacuumed the hell out of the house (well, the downstairs at least) yesterday, and not ten seconds after I put the vacuum cleaner away, Joe Bob and Sugarbutt got into an altercation in the dining room, and tufts of cat hair went floating through the house, messing up my perfectly clean floor.

I just cannot have anything nice, EVER.

Fuckers.

 

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A smile for you 🙂

LOVE IT!

 

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I just literally laughed about the poop spoon until I cried.

The best part of the story is one I forgot to tell. You see, Jake and Elwood were hanging around outside the guest bedroom door when I came out with the spoon full o’ poo. Every once in a while, if the fosters don’t finish their plate of food, I’ll let Jake and Elwood eat it, so they’ve gotten it into their heads that every time I come out of that room, there’s a very strong possibility that I’ll have FOOD for them. I walked out of the room with the spoon in my hand, and they saw that I was carrying something, and they started hopping around, CERTAIN I was going to give them some food and perhaps they might not starve completely to death.

(They are the biggest fucking hogs, these two.)

I thought for a moment of holding the spoon down for them so they could sniff it and give me the Face o’ Disgust, but even I am not that cruel.

 

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In the picture of Rhyme, the wood grain to the front right of the picture is very similar to the striped pattern on his head. I bet you didn’t even do that on purpose, did you?

I assure you that on the rare occasion that something cool like that happens, it’s by complete accident. I am no photographer.

 

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“and then it shit the bed”

You’d think I’d’ve heard this before now, but it made me LOL and spray breakfast all over my own computer. Consider it stolen.

Also, I would like to hereby formally request The Rest of The Story behind “earlier this week it came to my attention that I am having RAGE issues over the stupidest shit.” I love your pissed-off stories.

Oh, I don’t have any specific examples, just drama queen THE WORLD IS AGAINST ME temper tantrums. Like, I couldn’t connect to the internet for a little while and I was all bellowing at my computer, “OH OF COURSE THE INTERNET IS DOWN, IT MUST BE A DAY THAT ENDS IN Y, GOOD THING I ALWAYS PAY THE BILL ON TIME, I HATE OUR INTERNET PROVIDER I WISH THEY WOULD ALL DIEEEEE!”, when in actuality, our internet access has been down very little in the last few months.

Just, uncontrollable rage over the stupidest shit that even while I’m raging about it, the calm and reasonable voice in the back of my head is saying “You know you’re being unreasonable, you need to walk away and calm down” and my response is “SHUT UP YOU GODDAMN VOICE OF REASON I HATE YOU I WISH YOU WOULD DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

That sort of thing. It makes me a joy to be around, I’m sure.

 

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I was stuck in St Louis for 8 days relying on free wi-fi sources for Internet. Robyn, you’ll be proud to know that, in their infinite wisdom, the St Louis County Library system blocks access to Bitchypoo, while McDonald’s does not. Btw, this batch of kittens is ADORABLE.

If there was one thing I could go back ten years and change, it would be my domain name. I get my ass blocked all over the place just because of the name of my site. I OBJECT. THE MAN IS HOLDIN’ ME BACK! (The other reason my site gets blocked, you’ll be amazed to hear, is because of the language. What the fuck, man?)

 

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WAIT! Stinkerbelle isn’t givin’ you the stink-eye in that picture! Is she goin’ soft???

Nah, she was just taken by surprise. I’m sure that in the next second, she had a good Hate-on going. Although, now that I think of it, yesterday I leaned past her to open the blinds in the front room and she did NOT squeal at me and run off or squeal and swipe at me. Maybe she IS going soft!

 

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Someone should tell Newt that he can have the even bigger box behind him!

Silly – he KNEW the bigger box was there, but that’s not the box he wanted, because no one was using that box. He specifically wanted Joe Bob’s box for the reason that Joe Bob was in it. Once Joe Bob was no longer in the box, it became much less appealing to Newt.

 

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Oh My God. Now see, if I were you and I had this site, it would’ve ended right after “… small black bird with white speckles …” because I’d’ve been filling out change of address cards. Well, after I changed my pants, that is.

I think birds are fine IF they are sitting nicely OUTSIDE. Not inside. Outside. Not flapping. Sitting. A bird in my house? I can’t imagine it. Fortunately my elder statesman cat (who doesn’t go outside anymore because we are moving and I’m afraid that if he goes outside once we move, he will try to return home to the old house, 25 miles away, so we are trying to convince him he was never an outdoor cat) was never a crackerjack hunter so he only once in a while brought home a slightly stunned vole, and we always checked his lips before we let him in (the cat’s lips, not the slightly stunned vole’s lips) so nothing got in the house. (Run-on sentence, much? Geez.)

When we had a dog, many many moons ago, she once brought home a completely dead bluejay that she had not killed (Golden Retriever. incapable of harming anything) but had found and joyfully brought us. I hid behind a living room chair until my husband dealt with it.

I very much admire your quick thinking with the window. I’d still be cleaning my pants.

This comment made me laugh out loud for real. I should start doing like June and have a comment of the week!

(But I probably won’t.)

 

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Newt and Elwood, huh? I never would have imagined them cuddling. You should draw up a chart one day of which cats will associate with which cats. For some reason I would like to see and know which ones have cuddled with which and which ones they want nothing to do with. Not including the fosters of course. Well, unless you want to lol

I shall work on this and post it next Friday!

 

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Is Maura sitting on your purple velour pants or do you have a purple velour cat blanket? She looks cute and I agree she should rest up and hold out as long as she possibly can.

She was laying on/ against my purple velour pants. She seems to really like those pants, and I very well might just let her have the pants as a blanket. I’m all about making the kitties happy!

 

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how on earth do you tell Rhyme and Corbett apart? Sure can’t tell from the pictures. They are adorable — tabbys are my fav too 🙂

I’ll try to get a better picture of the two of them, side by side, but in short this illustrates it pretty well. Corbett, in the back, has a lot of tan coloring in his face and body. Rhyme is all dark brown. Both are equally squeezable, though. Just looking at that picture makes me want to go pick them up and squeeze the stuffing out of them!

 

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I just overheard one of my co-workers telling another that if you have over 2 cats, you qualify as a “crazy cat lady”. If that’s true, you’re in deep trouble!!! ha ha ha 🙂

and

I object. I have 3 cats but am not crazy; I swear!! I’d say over 5 is “CCL” material. 😉

I don’t know what the number is that determines crazy cat lady-hood, but I’ve got to say that two can’t possibly be the number. That’s hardly even cat PERSON level, right there. Five is probably approaching the crazy cat lady neighborhood, but it’s a moot point for me – I don’t think anyone would deny that when you have cats numbering in the double digits, you’re loony for cats. We hopped on that particular crazy train lonnnnnnnnnng ago. I can live with it. As long as you don’t walk into the house and say “Holy CRAP, how many cats do you HAVE?” from the smell, I’m okay.

 

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I’ll one-up your poop story with tales of Mia, our very timid little kitteh.

First vet visit after adopting her. Drive over is ok. Driving home we got less than a mile from vets office and I smell something nasty. Realize poor girl has peed and pooped in the carrier (luckily a hard one). Husband is driving so he pulls over and we grab some napkins that we luckily had in the truck to take care of the mess. He takes off his Tshirt so I can put it in the bottom of the carrier because she was a bit wet from the pee and we only had so many napkins.

Second trip go through whole vet visit and I’m paying the bill. Look over at Mia and she’s cowering over in the corner of the carrier. She’d peed and pooped again. One of the vet techs cleans it up saying they’re use to it.

Third trip (yes there’s more) on the trip over less than two blocks from home, you guessed it pee and poop! Hand the “sample” over and tell them it doesn’t get much fresher than that! It was still warm!

After that trip the vet gave us some sort of anxiety drops to try next time to maybe prevent it. Keep your fingers crossed. Beyond that I’ll go armed with paper towels and plastic bags!

Two years ago, I took Kara’s babies to be spayed and neutered, and they vomited all over their carrier. I had nothing but one single handy wipe to clean up the mess. Since then, before I walk out the door with a carrier of kittens, I make sure I have a big handful of dry cleaning rags and a baggie with a couple of damp cleaning rags as well. That saved me last summer when I took some of the True Blood 6 to the vet, and someone pooped in the carrier. Cat poop can be one of the most vile substances on earth, only outnastied by cat pee.

Wait. Why do I have so many cats again?!

 

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Bolitar’s all “What, lady? What you want?”


Rhyme on my slipper.


Reacher seriously needed those eye boogers cleaned off his face. I cleaned them off, then called him “Boogers McGee” for the next few hours. I amuse myself far too much.

>
“Madame, I don’t appreciate your tone.”


Reacher and Corbett scale Mt. Carrier.

 

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I’m beginning to think that Maura may even have a few more weeks before she drops these babies. I’m still not seeing or feeling any movement, and as Fred pointed out last night, Maura’s not nearly as huge and uncomfortable as Kara was the day we got her (which was also the day before she gave birth). Don’t get me wrong, she’s definitely getting bigger, but she’s got a little way to go, I think.

She’s LOVING the twice-daily canned cat food snacks and personal attention, believe me. Really, who wouldn’t?

 

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Kara, peering over the end of my bed.

 

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Previously
2009: I am the High Priestess of Litter Box Scooping, Pig Treat Making, and Kitten Butt Wiping.
2008: It took me a few weeks, but I finally finished The Washingtonienne and today I am announcing that bitchypoo.com, in conjunction with vituperation.com, is awarding The Washingtonienne the title of The Most Vapid Book of This Century.
2007: I was filled with a black hatred for the goddamn lights and my goddamn husband and every goddamn thing that ever was.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Another reason I love the man: he makes me laugh every day.
2003: I’ll tell you what, he’s lucky I didn’t go get the cleaver and chop that fucking finger right the fuck off.
2002: My mind is blank…
2001: It’s just the little things that get to me, y’know?
2000: Married people! Having sex in the middle of the day! What IS this world coming to?

3/25/10 – Thursday

First things first – stumbling around the internet, I came across an article about Denis Leary (well, really about his family and their home in Connecticut and their many animals) and from there I found Ann Leary’s blog, and she is funny as hell, and from THERE I discovered that she’s a writer and has … Continue reading “3/25/10 – Thursday”

First things first – stumbling around the internet, I came across an article about Denis Leary (well, really about his family and their home in Connecticut and their many animals) and from there I found Ann Leary’s blog, and she is funny as hell, and from THERE I discovered that she’s a writer and has published two books.

So I bought ’em.

I finished the first one, An Innocent, A Broad, yesterday, and let me tell you – she is HILARIOUS. Any book that can make me laugh out loud (and I did that a lot) and tear up just a few pages later is a book that gets two thumbs up from me.

 

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This whole section right here is just flat-out NASTY. If you’ve a weak stomach, are a wimp, or are eating, I HIGHLY recommend you skip down to the cat pictures. Don’t whine at me if you get grossed out – I warned you.

I had my six-week followup visit with the gynecologist yesterday. I expected to be cleared to resume all activities, but before that could happen, she had to peer up and see how things were healing. She informed me that while the healing was going well, my internal incision was like a cake.

I nodded, befuddled, wondering whether that was code for something. Saying “What does that mean?” would have been too obvious, so I just lay there in silence and waited.

Not done in the middle, is what she was saying. People heal at different rates, and I wasn’t healed completely. She directed the nurse to hand her a Q-tip with silver nitrate on the end.

I’m familiar with silver nitrate because back when I had the mole on my abdomen removed, it started to get a little infected, and the doctor cauterized it with silver nitrate, and while the cauterizing of the infected mole wasn’t painful, the idea of it was painful. Before I realized what was going on, she’d applied the silver nitrate to the slowly healing section of my incision (the incision at the end of my vagina, people, try to keep up), and while I was just starting to think “Isn’t silver nitrate what they put on my mole and it bubbled and looked gross?”, she’d applied a second Q-tip of the stuff, and was done.

It didn’t hurt while she was doing it or while I was getting dressed or making my appointment to go back in two weeks, but once I got to the car, I started having cramps that approached the worst period I’ve ever had. Apparently my innards do not care for silver nitrate and were beginning to protest.

A couple of Tylenol took care of that, though.

She told me that I’d probably have discharge that would have black flakes in it and maybe even a little blood. I never threw out my maxi pads, THANK GOD, because I’ve been discharging like nobody’s business. I turned over in the middle of the night last night, and I swear it felt like there was a three-liter bottle of water up there, emptying out, glugglugglug.

(You’re welcome.)

I asked her if I could start lifting heavy objects again, and apparently I took her by surprise because she sputtered for a moment and then said “Such as?”

“Forty pounds buckets of litter – cat litter,” I said.

She looked confused and then like she wasn’t looking forward to telling me that I couldn’t lift them, so I said “Well, I don’t have to, I can get my husband to lift them for me.”

She looked bemused and said, “You don’t buy them in smaller sizes at all?”

And I said, “We have a lot of cats.” Which, ha HA, THERE’s an understatement if there ever was one.

In the end, she said to take it slow and work up to it.

So I promptly left her office, went to Sam’s, and loaded 10 40-pound buckets of litter into a cart.

I AM KIDDING. Don’t email and yell at me, I did go to Sam’s, but I didn’t lift anything heavier than a bag of rawhide bones for the dogs.

I swung by Petsmart to check out the cats, then ran over to Target, then stopped by Publix.

Wednesdays have GOT to be Senior Day at Publix, because that place was PACKED, and there wasn’t anyone under the age of 73 in the place. I dropped off my prescription for estrogen, bought a few things, and went back to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription.

“Your doctor wrote this for a three month supply at a time,” the pharmacist said. “And I do have enough to fill the prescription, but if you get all three months right now, it will cost you $120.”

“I’ll just take one month then,” I said.

I came to the decision a couple of weeks ago to start cutting my estrogen patch in half and perhaps eventually wean myself off estrogen completely, but earlier this week it came to my attention that I am having RAGE issues over the stupidest shit, and thus I have gone back to the full patch. (Yes, I am also on a progesterone cream.)

I paid for my prescription, left, and finally got home a little after 11:00. I put groceries (and Sam’s purchases) away, called Fred, puttered around the house, and then went in to feed the Bookworms. They ate, and then Rhyme went into the litter box.

Now, before I go on, let me tell you that I realized Tuesday that Rhyme and Bolitar both had pretty bad diarrhea, so I added some Forti-Flora to their food, and I dabbed some hemorrhoid cream to poor Bolitar’s swollen backside, and Wednesday morning things seemed to be better. Then after I fed them, Rhyme went into the litter box and had explosive diarrhea. I looked around frantically for something to scoop it up with (so I could take it to the vet for testing), and when I had found a spoon to use (I hope it’s needless to say, that spoon will never see the inside of our utensil drawer again), I leaned down to scoop it out of the litter box. Before I could scoop anything, Bolitar climbed into the litter box and hunched down, and so I just held the damn spoon under his butt, and got the best sample in the history of poop samples.

(Pardon me while I go add a grossness disclaimer to the beginning of this section.)

I called the vet’s office, they said I could bring it in, and off to the vet’s office I went, sample in tow.

I dropped it off, let my number, stopped at Publix again to buy replacements for the plastic dish I’d used to store the sample in (OY the old people. I had no idea that store gets THAT busy. Seniors love their discount; who can blame ’em?), and got home a little before 2:00.

I was going to eat lunch and maybe even watch TV, but I was in the middle of doing something on my computer, and had to reboot, and that was all she fucking wrote. The latest version of Firefox had downloaded, so after I rebooted, Firefox did the updating thing, and then it shit the bed. For the next hour, I swore and raged at my computer, rebooted 300 times, had to resort to using Internet Explorer, and threw myself upon the mercy of the geek I’m married to.

He eventually fixed it, but in the course of rebooting this goddamn computer (DON’T LOOK AT ME, YOU FUCKING THING, YES I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU) I fried my Sansa Clip mp3 player and nothing I did would bring it back to life. Yes, I have an iPod, but I actually prefer using the Sansa Clip, because (1) It cost $10 at Woot, so I’m not worried about dropping it and breaking it, the way I’m worried about dropping and breaking the iPod, (2) It’s a lot smaller and lighter than the iPod, (3) It goes down my playlist in order of the shows I’m listening to, and I don’t have to mess with choosing a show and hitting “play”, it just does it automatically.

I’ll be keeping an eye on Woot and will buy the hell out of a new Sansa when it comes around, believe me.

Annnnd… that was my day. It was lovely and sunny and warm yesterday while I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and today it’s going to still be warm, but it’s raining like hell. I am going to be one vacuuming fool, believe you me. You have no idea how excited I am to be resuming my vacuuming schedule.

That’s right. You know you envy my super-exciting party ways!

 

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The boys are now on Panacur, have been since last night. They did not appreciate this “medication” business, but they got over it quickly enough. They’re far more interested in getting OUT of their room. I go into their room and feed them, and they’re happy enough to eat and to snuggle with me, but once I leave the room, they (Bolitar, especially) stand at the door and howl. And howl. And howwwwwwwwwwl. They have got the most piercing little voices, and I’m pretty sure that one day they’re going to drive me straight out of my mind with those piercing howls. They do eventually give up and go play and sleep and such, but the ten minutes or so that they howl at the door is ETERNAL.


Bolitar, slurping up water.


Reacher, snuggling.


Corbett and Rhyme, fighting.


::CHOMP::


“BRING DOWN THE HAND FOR THE BELLY RUB!”


Gorgeous Rhyme.

 

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::Slurrrrp::

Still no defined kitten heads or movement seen or felt in the Maura belly region. She’s no dummy – she’s like “I have plenty of food and water, toys, and a cat tree to climb. Why on earth would I want to have BABIES to mess it up?”

 

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Maxi keeps an eye on the goings-on from the safety of her box.

 

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Previously
2009: For they are fearsome creatures.
2008: “My flabby sections” would be an excellent band name.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: The spud is officially licensed.
2004: Ain’t it always the way that when you call someone names in your journal, secure in the knowledge that they’ll never see it, they always do?
2003: (And before you say it, yes. You shouldn’t give a shit what I think, either.)
2002: Is it just me?
2001: No entry.
2000: If you knew you’d get $341 million for being treated savagely and cruelly for 7 years, would you do it?

3/23/10 – Tuesday

One day last week, I was walking around the house opening the blinds. In the front room, I opened the blinds at the end of the room near the TV, and realized I could hear a cat growling. I looked down and saw Jake sitting there staring loonily at the corner next to the TV, … Continue reading “3/23/10 – Tuesday”

One day last week, I was walking around the house opening the blinds. In the front room, I opened the blinds at the end of the room near the TV, and realized I could hear a cat growling. I looked down and saw Jake sitting there staring loonily at the corner next to the TV, and looked to see Elwood hunched behind the big square thing that has something to do with our surround sound. The growling was coming from him.

For a moment, I thought that he was growling at Jake because he was tired of getting his ass kicked (Jake is half the size of Elwood, but he can kick some serious butt when he wants to), but then I looked closer and realized that there was a bird hanging from his mouth.

A small one. A dead one.

I reached for Elwood, who responded by running behind the couch. I shot a blast of compressed air behind the couch, and Elwood ran out from behind the couch, and down the hallway. I chased him down the hallway into the dining room, where he outmaneuvered me and headed back to the living room. Back behind the couch. Another shot of compressed air. Back down the hallway. I finally caught him in a corner of the dining room, and picked him up, bird and all, and carried him to the back door. I stepped out onto the top step, forced his jaws open, and took the bird from his mouth.

He hissed at me, then ran back into the house.

I couldn’t figure out where the hell the bird had come from – Elwood doesn’t go outside. I went back to the front room, finished opening the blinds, and then went into the guest bedroom to open the blinds.

(This was before the kittens took up residence in that room.)

As I opened the blinds, I realized there were tiny feathers all over the guest bedroom. Then I realized there were tiny feathers all down the hallway. Also all over the side of the front room we never use. All I can guess is that one of the other cats brought the bird inside, and Elwood took it from them, and probably every cat in the house stampeded after Elwood, and he was tired of them trying to steal his bird from him, and thus the growling.

The entire time, I had to have been sitting in front of my computer, oblivious. Oblivious is my default state, apparently.

AND THEN.

Last night, I was scooping the litter boxes in the laundry room, and I heard the oddest sound, a high-pitched squeal. That’s weird, I thought to myself. I’ve never heard the cats make a sound like THAT before. I started to stand up, and a small black bird with white speckles came flying through the door from the kitchen. He was closely followed by a melee of cats, and my response was to scream (my response is ALWAYS to scream), and the cats scattered.

The bird flew directly to the window by the dryer, and flapped helplessly there.

“BIRD!” I yelled to Fred. “THERE’S A BIRD!”

I considered the flapping bird for a moment, wondered how we’d capture him since I was sure he’d end up behind the dryer when he saw us coming, and then the obvious solution came to me. I walked over, unlatched the window, and opened it. The bird flew outside. I closed the window. Problem solved.

The question here, however, is where the FUCK that bird came from. All the doors were closed, the cats were inside, and the bird didn’t look like he’d been at the paws of torturing cats all day long. My first thought was that perhaps one of the cats had brought it inside during the day, it escaped, and waited until it thought it could make a break for it (which is likely giving that bird too much credit). The problem with that is that there’s no place in this house that the cats can’t go – all the high places are available to them, the bookcases, the top of the cupboards in the kitchens. Had a bird been biding its time atop one of the bookcases, the cats would have found it.

All I can guess is that it came down the chimney in the front room and flew from the front of the house to the back. Which, I don’t know how plausible that is (that fucking chimney in the front room is a nightmare. We had a cap put on it so that birds couldn’t get in, but the fucking cap flipped off and the guys who put it there are no longer in business. Swallows build their nest in the chimney, and then the fucking baby birds fall down the chimney, nest and all, USUALLY while we’re sound asleep, and either die or are chomped upon by cats. Ugh.).

Or maybe the birds are getting in the same way the wasps are. It’s a fucking mystery, is what it is.

 

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Yesterday evening, Fred had to put down a Black Copper Marans hen. She was born with something wrong with one of her legs, but she got around okay, so we let her live. (Here at Crooked Acres, the crippled and lame chickens tend to live longer lives than the perfectly healthy ones, because we feel sorry for them – see Charlie and her twisted-up toes.) Yesterday, he realized she didn’t look right, and when he brought her out of the coop, she went a few steps and then laid down in the mud. He put her back in the coop and came in to discuss with me whether he should wait and see if she improved, or just go ahead and put her down.

We ultimately decided that he should put her down.

Our decision to have a flock of Black Copper Marans was the dumbest move we’ve made since we moved here, bar none. We ordered 40 hatching eggs last Spring, and we now have five of the goddamn things. They were going to be our moneymaking flock, because people pay something like $60 per dozen fertile Marans eggs (it may even be more, I don’t remember). AND NOW I KNOW WHY THEY PAY SO MUCH. Because we get, perhaps, one egg every other day.

I’m trying to convince Fred that we should just move all the chickens out to the big yard, so we can have ONE chicken yard instead of having to deal with two yards, and since George and Gracie are out there to protect the chickens, we could actually go out and stay out after dark without having to be too concerned about the chickens.

Fucking chickens. Fucking moneymaking schemes.

 

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You can’t see Bolitar’s face, but he’s there!

We’ve now hit the point where when we get up and leave the room, the kittens – even if they’re paying no attention to us and are off playing with each other or a toy – try to follow us out the door. Bolitar, especially, runs for the door when I leave. He’s made it out once or twice, then he just stands there and looks around like “It’s a whole new world!” until I pick him up and set him back in the room.

Then he howls at the door. OH does he howl. Sometimes another kitten will join in on the howling, and OH their hearts are just breaking at the injustice of not being able to get through the door, they are PERSONALLY insulted at this turn of events.

Luckily it doesn’t last for long, and then they toddle off to play or sleep or whatever.


Corbett.


Lap o’ kittens.


::maniacal laughter::

 

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“Babies? No. There are no babies in there. I accidentally swallowed a basketball. It’ll go away. Seriously!”

I have to get a shot of Maura from above – she seriously looks like she swallowed a basketball. Her appetite seems to have ramped up – before, when I’d bring her her plate of canned kitten food in the morning and evening, she’d come over and greet me and rub up against me, maybe inspect my litter box scooping technique, and then wander over to the plate. Nowadays, she dives right into the plate of food and doesn’t come up for air until it’s gone.

I guess she needs plenty of food to grow those babies. I mean, that basketball.

 

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Newt would like Elwood to stop hoggin’ the box. (Those ears at the bottom of the picture belong to Miz Poo, who was sitting on my lap.)

 

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Previously
2009: IT IS SPRING AND IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE HUMID, AND I STRENUOUSLY OBJECT TO GETTING ZAPPED BY STATIC ELECTRICITY IN MARCH IN ALABAMA.
2008: No entry.
2007: No offers yet though, damnit.
2006: “Hookers and blow!” he crowed jubilantly.
2005: Also, there’s that whole pesky “dealing with people” thing, and I don’t like that sort of thing at ALL.
2004: The spud passed the test for her learner’s permit, THANKYAJEEZUS.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Fred and I chose the names of our future child/ren way before we ever met – Seth Forrest and Samantha Jayne.
2000: On the other hand, I was shopping in Wal-Mart, wasn’t I? What’d I expect, diamonds and furs?

3/22/10 – Monday

We had a very quiet and low-key weekend ’round these parts. I suspect we would have gotten more accomplished if it hadn’t been RAINING and overcast and ugly and cold(ish) most of the weekend, but OH WELL. Spring? What Spring? The high today’s only supposed to hit 49. Also, it’s currently 37 and spitting snow. … Continue reading “3/22/10 – Monday”

We had a very quiet and low-key weekend ’round these parts. I suspect we would have gotten more accomplished if it hadn’t been RAINING and overcast and ugly and cold(ish) most of the weekend, but OH WELL.

Spring? What Spring?

The high today’s only supposed to hit 49. Also, it’s currently 37 and spitting snow. I OBJECT.

I could use some warm weather, I’m telling you.

Saturday, we got up and headed out later than Fred would have liked. I was making him get groceries with me since I have not officially been cleared to lift stuff, and I like having company at the grocery store, so I was milking it for all it was worth. I expect next weekend I’ll be on grocery duty all by myself. We stopped by Lowe’s first because the light over the sink had gone out, and we needed a replacement bulb. We also needed a new light for the laundry room. I guess three years is about how long those fluorescent lights last, which I’m thinking isn’t bad, especially considering that the kitchen light gets a lot of use.

As we walked into the store, I said “You have the gift card, right?” Fred got a Lowe’s gift card at Christmas, which he hadn’t used and I’d rediscovered Friday afternoon, and which I immediately gave to him to put in his wallet.

“Oh,” he said. “No, you didn’t remind me.”

Remember in the last season of Jon & Kate Plus 8 when Jon went somewhere to buy a shower head for the new house, and he got home and Kate was all “Did you use the coupons?” and he was all “No, I didn’t take any coupons with me” and before our very eyes, she turned into a shrieking harpy, her voice went up sixty-three octaves and she screamed “YOU DIDN’T USE THE COOOOOOOOOOOUPONS?!” in the same tone you or I would scream “YOU THREW THE CHILDREN INTO A CAGE OF HUNGRY TIIIIIIIIIIGERS?!” and yanked open the coupon drawer and held out a handful of coupons in shrieking appeal to him, all “WHY DO YOU THINK WE HAVE THE COUPONS IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO USE THEM?!” and he shrugged and wandered off (that could be a summary of Jon Gosselin’s role on that show, shrugging and wandering off), probably thinking to himself We bought a three million dollar home and I’m a man whore who sleeps with any 19 year-old skank who’ll have me, and your issue is that I didn’t save $1.99 on the shower head?

Anyway.

So I got all shrieking harpy, “WHERE did you PUT the gift card? WHY do you think I gave it to you? WHY wouldn’t you just put it in your wallet when I handed it to you?” and he shrugged and wandered off.

As it turned out, Lowe’s had the laundry room light, but not the one we needed for the kitchen, so we bought what we needed and left. PAYING CASH FOR OUR PURCHASES BECAUSE THE GIFT CARD WAS ON HIS DESK AT HOME.

Hmph.

We went to get groceries, and it was a quick trip, because these days our grocery lists tend to be pretty short.

Once home, Fred made breakfast (over the past few weeks, we’ve gotten into the habit of having a bacon-sausage-eggs breakfast on Saturday mornings), we ate, and then I spent a good long time with the kittens and with Maura.

Saturday afternoon, we headed out to get dinner and to stop by the dollar store. The only place I’ve been able to find simple clay litter around here is at the dollar store. (With kittens, you need to start them out on clay litter, because they tend to try to eat the litter at first, and eating clumpable litter is a bad thing when it comes to tiny digestive systems.) We went into the dollar store, Fred loaded up a couple of bags of litter, and then we stood in line.

We stood in line for, literally, ten minutes. There were four or five people in line in front of us, and in that ten minutes, only one of them finished their transaction and left. (Some issue with the PIN pad or a food stamps card or something, I wasn’t paying attention.) Finally, Fred turned to me and said desperately “Can we go to another dollar store?” I said we could, he put the litter back, and we left.

In town, we stopped by one of the myriad dollar stores to buy litter, and although it was a lot busier than the first dollar store, we were in and out of there pretty quickly. We picked up dinner, and came home.

We spent the evening watching a couple of episodes of the second season of Breaking Bad (we’d started watching that season, but about three episodes in, we switched from one satellite cable provider to another, and we currently don’t get whatever channel Breaking Bad comes on – AMC, maybe?), then hung out with the kittens and then with Maura.

Sunday was a day where we really did nothing at all. It was crappy and rainy out, so we decided to spend the afternoon watching TV. We finished off the second disc of Breaking Bad, and then at Fred’s suggestion, we watched The Girl Next Door. This is not, as you might think, the craptastic Elisha Cuthbert movie, but rather the movie based on the book by Jack Ketchum. Fred read it last week, and said it was “disturbing” and decided he wanted to watch the movie. Since it was available instantly via Netflix, we watched it.

It was disturbing, I’ll give you that, but it was also horribly acted and I really don’t recommend it. At least it was only an hour and a half long.

Annnnd… that was our weekend! Exciting, no?

 

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Check out this video – it made me laugh out loud.

 

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The Bookworms are doing just fine. They’re down to getting a bowl of (watered-down) formula two times a day now. They could probably go without, but I want to be sure, since they’re not eating canned food, that they get enough liquid in. There’s a bowl of water in the room, and they’ve all sniffed at it, but they’re not terribly interested in it just yet.

They are just the sweetest little guys, I can barely stand it!


Corbett, considering whether he wants to climb up into my lap.


Active little monkeys – Reacher’s biting the stuffed Mama cat. Rhyme is biting the bed. And Bolitar is fighting with the carrier.


Bolitar, scaling the carrier. They ADORE this carrier – they like to hang out inside and fight with each other. They also like to climb up to the top of it and then go back down the other side. It’s particularly funny when three of them are hanging off the carrier.


Sweet, innocent little face. Don’t be fooled!

 

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“What babies?”

 

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Sugarbutt and Tommy: brudderly love.

 

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Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: “What’d you do, come up with some new exercise plan?” he asked.
2006: Why do I feel like an ass all of a sudden?
2005: Damn. He saw through my wily scheme!
2004: She stood and let it sink in, then turned and flounced off.
2003: No entry.
2002: Cat pee, by the way, is the vilest-smelling stuff on this planet.
2001: Don’t you hate it when someone tries to be reasonable in the midst of your tightly choreographed hissy fit?
2000: “Of course they do, they like soft toilet paper. It’s the mafia, babe!”

3/19/10 – Friday

Okay, this is annoying me – it used to be when I hit the scroll button on my mouse to open a link in a new tab, it would open the new tab at the end of the row of tabs (I always have several tabs open at a time). Now, it opens the tab … Continue reading “3/19/10 – Friday”

Okay, this is annoying me – it used to be when I hit the scroll button on my mouse to open a link in a new tab, it would open the new tab at the end of the row of tabs (I always have several tabs open at a time). Now, it opens the tab in a new tab directly to the tab I’m in. (Could I have said “tab” more often? TabTabTab!)

Anyone else having this issue and anyone have an idea how to fix it? It’s really bugging me!

Edited to add: Go here, and follow the directions. Fixed! Yay!

 

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We had two Great Pyrs, one just crossed over the Rainbow Bridge, but the hair they leave behind is unreal. You would think they would be bald. most people do not realize that they are nocturnal. They sleep during the day as the animals that prey on their keep are nocturnal too. So they are ready and waiting for that fox that lurks during the night.

I’d never thought of it that way before, but it makes sense – that would certainly explain why George and Gracie spend a LOT of time barking at night!

 

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Ran across a website today I thought you might enjoy:

Strange Maine

From the intro: Founded 2005! Freaks. Weirdos. Unmapped roads. Whispering rocks. Deadening fog. Ghost pirates. Lonely islands. THINGS in the WOODS. Home of Stephen King & Glenn Chadbourne. A place where the 4 seasons really know how to live. Maine: the way life should be! This site is a nexus for conversation about Maine’s unique strangeness, people who love it, people who have experienced it, & people who are intrigued by it. History, mysteries, legends, current events, cryptozoology, & more.

The writer has a deal in works for a book based on his blog. Interesting.

Very neat – thanks for the link!

 

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Lee left this comment that made me laugh out loud.

1) when my friend’s husband got a vasectomy, he decided to make him a bouquet of condoms filled with helium (we used to own a party supply company until party city moved in across the street!).

i bought a box of a dozen cheapo unlubed (cuz gross!) at wal-mart. after she rang it up, she leaned across the bagging area and whispered, “honey, do you want to put these in your pocketbook for later?” UM NO! I THINK I WILL HAVE PROTECTED SEX IN FRONT OF YOUR REGISTER!

2) i used to work for a company that filled commissary orders from jails. when we would run out of things between shipments, we would buy stuff at the little discount place down the street- they were open to the public but we could use for bulk orders at a discount. i was down there one day doing a pick up and the check-out line was extremely slow. i was shooting the breeze with the woman in front of me and i told her i didn’t care how long it took because i was in no hurry to go back to work.

the woman looked down at the stuff in my cart and looked up at me with the crazy eyes.”where exactly do you work?” she asked.

i looked down at the basket and realized i was pushing a cart with 4 CASES of medicated douches in it!

i explained it to her, we laughed it off and finally i made it to the car with my purchases.

then i got that thought that makes you laugh so hard you almost pee your pants: if i needed 196 medicated douches to get through my day, i would probably, in all honesty, would REALLY be in no hurry to get back to work!

 

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Is derogative a word? It sounds like a marriage between “derogatory” and “pejorative.”

Damn it, Jane, how am I supposed to depend on you to reliably answer my grammar and punctuation questions when you don’t know that derogative is, indeed, a word? Dictionary.com defines it as lessening; belittling; derogatory. But when I first read the comment, I was like Joey in Friends after Chandler says that “supposably” isn’t even a word. I was all “Derogative. Derogative. Sir, that is a derogative term!”

And of course, the more you repeat a word the more made-up it sounds. But it’s a real word! I swear it!

 

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I remember that you quit drinking soft drinks after having weight loss surgery. I thought that meant giving them up for life but it sounds like you’re drinking them again. How long did you go without diet coke (nectah of the gods!)before drinking them again?

I did give up Diet Coke for a while after surgery. When it comes to soda, weight loss surgeons are in two camps. One camp says that drinking any soda will stretch your pouch out, the carbonation will do it. The other camp says it’s fine in moderation, because if you think of your pouch as a balloon with an opening at each end, it’s impossible to stretch out with carbonation because the gas created by the carbonation will escape from one end or the other. My surgeon is in the first camp…. and I’m in the second.

I actually sent out an email in July of 2006 – so, six months after I had surgery – saying that Fred and I were at the movies and he had gotten a Diet Coke and offered me a sip of it, since it was kind of flat. I took a sip… and it tasted HORRIBLE. I was like “Why on EARTH did I ever drink that stuff?!”

Over the next six months or so, I slowly went back to drinking Diet Coke, and I’ve been drinking it ever since. I still drink lots of water – about 2 liters a day – and I occasionally drink other flavored stuff, but the problem is that I was never able to find anything with flavor that I loved as much as I loved Diet Coke.

Of course, this is MY experience and I’m not necessarily recommending it for anyone else. You should never go against your surgeon’s advice, of course. Ahem.

 

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Glad you’re back in action but please, Robyn, DON’T overdo. We’ll all get really peeved at you if you’ve got a litter of kittens you can’t photograph because you’ve had to return to bed. Just remember, you have a responsibility to your readers to satisfy their prurient kitteh-gazing interests. 😉

I am absolutely not overdoing it, I promise, I’m fully aware of my responsibilities to y’all! Yesterday, in fact, I took it super-easy, did nothing but hang out with Maura, snuggle and love on the new guys, and the rest of the time I caught up on my TV-viewing.

Less than a week, and I should get clearance from my doctor to resume normal activity, yay! I swear, I will vacuum this house 100 times once I’ve got the okay to do so!

 

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Thanks, you guys, for your kind words yesterday. I do know that the mama cat wasn’t alone at the end, and even if I’d been there, it wouldn’t have meant anything to her, but I still felt bad. I still do, a little, but I told her boys about her yesterday (they seemed unimpressed, but it made me feel better!) and what a fighter she was, and what an awesome mother for taking such good care of them. I’d like to say that they looked wisely at me as though they understood, but their reaction was more along the lines of “O HELLO, IS THIS FINGER EDIBLE?”

 

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Okay, they’re named. Please keep in mind that Fred was the namer this time around, so I wasn’t ignoring your name suggestions; he was. Heh.


Meet the Bookworms.


That’s Rhyme (as in Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme) in the front, and Corbett (Robert McCammon’s Matthew Corbett series) in the back.


Reacher (Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series).


And Bolitar (Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar series).


Corbett bites Rhyme’s behind. Rhyme does not appreciate this.


Rhyme and Corbett, lookin’ guilty.

The Bookworms are doing well. They’re definitely older than the Wonkas were when we got them – they’re already lapping formula out of bowls, and though they’re showing no interest in eating canned kitten food, they’ve all been spotted belly up to the bowl of dry kibble. For now, what I do three times a day is put a couple of bowls of formula in the room, leave while they lap it up, then go back into the room after about ten minutes to offer them the bottle. They’re still taking the bottle, but they’re not desperate for it or anything – they’re like, “Oh, there’s a bottle? Well, okay. I suppose I’ll chew on it for a few minutes.”

They’re all using the litter boxes, and except for the first day, I’ve spotted no accidents. Of course, NO ONE ever goes to the litter box alone, even if they want to. Yesterday, Reacher was in the litter box, and one of other kittens was sitting outside the litter box swatting at him.

Thus far, I’ve only had to give one bath (Bolitar was kind enough to tromp through someone else’s poop), so that’s pretty good, right? I feel like I was bathing the Cookies every single day. Of course, the Cookies were a few weeks younger when we got them, too.

I’m declaring these guys to be about five weeks old, which gives them the birth date of February 8th. If you were wondering. 🙂

 

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“Okay, lady, I’ve been thinking. If I were to actually give birth to these babies I’m carrying around, then I’d have to start with the cleaning and feeding and all that. I really like my current life of leisure. If I want to sleep for six hours, bat a toy ball around, and then sleep for another six, there’s no one to stop me. No one screaming to be fed, no one needing a poopy butt cleaned.”


“So I’m just going to NOT give birth, okay? That a problem for you?”

 

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Snugglin’ Newt and Elwood.

 

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Previously
2009: Someone’s always fucking up the risotto, sending Chef Ramsay into apoplectic rages wherein he bellows at whichever hapless fuckup is in his crosshairs.
2008: That Pioneer Punk is a bad, bad influence.
2007: I am such a prize, I really am.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: “Have you noticed that it smells like the bodies of fifteen [gentlemen of Chinese descent] laying in a pile in the ditch, rotting?”
2003: Always something, you know?
2002: “I’m starving to death. Meh. STARVING, I’m STARVING. Meh.”
2001: My baby’s growing up!
2000: No entry.

3/18/10 – Thursday

To answer cat-related questions (the regular Comment-Answering Extravaganza will be up tomorrow): I must ask why on earth do you allow Maxi and Newt to ‘free-roam’. All I have ever heard is that free-roamers have shortened lives with all the horrible things that could happen to them. You evidently have a large property and you … Continue reading “3/18/10 – Thursday”

To answer cat-related questions (the regular Comment-Answering Extravaganza will be up tomorrow):

I must ask why on earth do you allow Maxi and Newt to ‘free-roam’. All I have ever heard is that free-roamers have shortened lives with all the horrible things that could happen to them. You evidently have a large property and you equip your other cats with electronic collars so why not these two?

Maxi and Newt came with the property, and when we put them in the bedroom with Maxi’s kittens (before the kittens were adopted out, and before we got Maxi and Newt spayed and neutered), they lost their minds – dug at the windows incessantly to get out, and stopped eating. Back then, we didn’t have a fenced back yard, so there wasn’t a way to contain them while still allowing them to be outside. At this point, they’re okay with coming inside and staying here overnight if the weather is bad (or they just want to), but they move pretty regularly between our house to the house two doors down, and probably spend almost as much time in and around their house as they do ours.

 

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I wonder if they have the same mom as the Wonka’s did – same spot makes me think maybe.

Bob – the guy who spotted both sets of kittens – also spotted the mother cat both times, briefly, and was pretty sure she was the same cat.

 

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Regarding name suggestions: Like I said, Fred’s in charge of naming these guys. I passed your suggestions along to him, but he’s going to take his time deciding on names. I can tell you that they won’t be named after the Three Stooges (and Shemp), because those names have been used for shelter cats in the past. John, Paul, and Ringo hadn’t been used (I was actually pretty surprised by that!), but George has.

I didn’t even suggest to him that he use Irish names, because he thinks my whole Irish naming scheme is goofy. Hmph. And he’s unimpressed with the Organs suggestion. He’s no fun, basically. (I did save all your Irish name suggestions, though I was already pretty sure that if there’s at least one boy, he’s going to be Fergus, most likely.)

A future litter of kittens (when it’s MY turn to name them!): Dither, Ponder, Discuss, and Swagger. I’ll call them The Verbs!

 

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I googled cat gestation: 63-65 days. 9 weeks. so by your estimation, she’s got a couple more weeks to go yet?

That’s my guess – but again, I’m no expert when it comes to pregnant cats, so I could be way off base. She actually climbed into my lap yesterday and laid there for a long time, her belly against my leg, and I concentrated as hard as I could, but still felt no movement against my leg. She seems to be getting bigger, though – I swear, it seems like I can almost watch her grow. I read that her appetite will decrease in the few days before giving birth, and right now she’s getting half a (3 oz) can of kitten food in the morning, and the other half at night. She’s got a bowl of kitten kibble available to her at all times, and of course fresh, clean water. She’s not eating a lot of the kitten kibble, but she’s loving the canned food.

All of this is to say, basically, I dunno. If she gives birth tomorrow, I won’t be surprised, and if she gives birth in three weeks, I won’t be surprised (though I might be VERY impatient!).

 

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Are the kittens staying in a separate room from Maura?

Yes. Maura is upstairs in the foster bedroom. The new kittens are downstairs in the guest bedroom. I had promised Fred that we wouldn’t have two batches of kittens again, but I guess promises are made to be broken? I don’t particularly like to have kittens in the guest bedroom, because there’s no carpet for them to warm their feet, and I don’t know – it just seems like an uninviting room to me as far as kittens go. The new guys seem to like it just fine, though. One of them expressed his approval yesterday morning by peeing on the floor under the bed, little brat.

 

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oooh, i LOVE mckittens! is mcmao pronounced “mc-mayo”? cause that’s HILARIOUS!

That IS funny, but no – the Mao part of McMao rhymes with cow. At least, that’s how I’m pronouncing it – I’m hoping that’s how you meant it, MsDarkstar!

 

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I notice your cats have large collar attachments. Are these for an underground fence or a cat door?

The collars are for an underground fence – only Sugarbutt, Tommy, Joe Bob, Jake, and Elwood wear the collars. Aside from Maxi and Newt, the other cats who go outside – Miz Poo, Spanky, and Kara – have never attempted to go over the fence, so we feel safe in leaving them collarless. When she first started going outside, Kara wore a collar, but like I said, she’s never attempted to go over the fence.

It’s actually a little silly for us to put a collar on Elwood, since he doesn’t go outside (we’ve taken him out into the back yard once or twice, but he’s scared and immediately runs right back inside). I’m sure he’ll figure it out sooner or later, and it’s best to be prepared.

 

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What are you going to do about the momma cat, will you still try and trap her so she can be spayed?

I’ll tell you all up front that this is not a story with a happy ending. I know some of you read this site with your kids, so you may want to skip down to the pictures.

When Fred got to work yesterday morning, he went over to check the trap. There was a medium-haired tuxedo cat inside the trap, and he loaded the trap into the car and called me. It was too early to call the vet’s office, so I told him to put the trap in a corner of his office, put a towel over it, and try to keep his office quiet. He said she was pretty wild when he approached the trap, and that she didn’t look well.

When the vet’s office opened, I called and talked to one of the women who works there. She told me to go ahead and bring the cat in, so I drove to Fred’s office, he loaded the trap (cat and all) into my car, and I got my first look at the girl who’d given us Mike, Gus, Violet, Veruca, and this new litter. Fred was right, she didn’t look well at all. There was blood around her nose – both dried and fresh – her coat was ratty, her eyes were clouded.

The shape she was in blew me away. I didn’t – still don’t – know how on earth her kittens could be in such stunningly good shape (well fed, immaculately clean) when she was in that condition.

I was worried that we’d gotten the wrong cat, so Fred held up the trap a little bit so I could try to see if she was clearly a nursing mother. I wasn’t really able to see anything, so off I went to the vet’s office.

Once there, I talked further to the women who worked there, told them her story, and that I feared she was likely positive for FIV. Given that the Wonkas had tested positive initially, I was pretty sure she had to be positive as well. They got her out of the back of my car and took her to the back. They needed to sedate her before they could take the blood to do the test, so the nurse gave her a dose of sedative.

Fifteen minutes later, they reported that she was still bright-eyed. They waited another ten minutes, then gave her a second dose of the sedative. Fifteen minutes later, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They decided that they’d try to get the blood from her, since surely the sedative must have had SOME effect, but (I didn’t witness this, they told me afterward), she was as full of energy as any cat they’d seen. They said she actually bounced so high she just about hit the ceiling – so needless to say, they weren’t able to get blood from her yet.

They gave her a dose of a different sedative, and waited for it to work. This time it did, and they were able to draw blood.

Ten minutes later, the vet came to give me the news – she was FIV positive. I had hoped that by some fluke she might test negative, but wasn’t surprised at the news.

Please know that I didn’t make this decision lightly: I asked them to euthanize her.

Had she been negative, I would have had her spayed and her ear tipped, treated her for whatever made her look so ill, and released her. But releasing her, knowing that she was positive, would have been irresponsible on my part. Though FIV doesn’t spread as easily as FeLV, it is still transmissible to other cats, and I couldn’t put an FIV+ cat out there to potentially infect other cats.

They asked if I wanted to sit with her while they euthanized her, and I said no. At the time, I was thinking that since she was so feral and scared, having another person there would just serve to scare her more. I paid and left.

On the way home, I realized that she was probably so sedated that she wouldn’t have been very aware of my presence, and I regret that I didn’t stay. I wish I had. She didn’t deserve to die alone.

I can – and will – honor her memory by taking the best possible care of her kittens until they’re older, and then they’ll be adopted into homes where they’ll be cherished.

 

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Previously
2009: I don’t know what on earth ever made him think that my desire for plastic surgery has anything at all to do with the level of love he might feel for me, silly man, but bless his big bald pointed head for giving it the ol’ college try.
2008: Sadie’s like the older, tolerant sister who puts up with the brat.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No doubt she wishes I’d leave her the hell alone and just let her SLEEP, GODDAMNIT.
2004: I’m known for my dumbassery, though.
2003: Get your cart OVER TO THE SIDE SO I CAN GET PAST YOUR STUPID ASS.
2002: Good riddance to boring characters, I say.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

3/17/10 – Wednesday (kittehs!)

Thanks, you guys, for your suggestions yesterday. I hope none of you were offended by my suggested use of “The Micks” as a name to call Maura’s litter; I didn’t intend to offend anyone. I always thought the term came from the fact that so many Irish surnames start with “Mc”, but after reading further, … Continue reading “3/17/10 – Wednesday (kittehs!)”

Thanks, you guys, for your suggestions yesterday. I hope none of you were offended by my suggested use of “The Micks” as a name to call Maura’s litter; I didn’t intend to offend anyone. I always thought the term came from the fact that so many Irish surnames start with “Mc”, but after reading further, I realized it ain’t necessarily so.

In any case, I’ve decided to go with “The McMaos,” as suggested by Ms. Darkstar. KarmaCat suggested I go with O’Malley as a surname, pointed out that that would make Maura’s initials MOM, and I was going to go with that ’til Ms. Darkstar popped in with McMao. Which just cracks me up every time I say it out loud!

Other suggestions I liked included “The Shamrocks”, “The Clovers”, “The Hooligans,” and “The Lucky Charms.”

Also, as a correction to my entry yesterday, I got an email from the shelter manager regarding spaying pregnant cats:

Yes, we do spay pregnant cats and yes we have spayed them right up pretty close to term. Every spring we get call after call about pregnant cats. Although we do spay many of them, most of us hate to. So early in the “season” the first couple pregnant cats we take are left to have their babies. When foster homes are full and there is no more space available then it becomes necessary to spay them while they are pregnant.

After I posted yesterday’s entry, I realized that there was just no way all the shelters in this area could hold all the pregnant cats and their litters – it’s not possible, given how many people don’t spay and neuter their cats.

Which is to say – SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR DOGS AND CATS, PEOPLE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

(I knew y’all knew that – I just had to say.)

 

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Okay, sit down. Are you sitting? (Or were you standing over your computer reading this quickly because if you’re not sitting down, you’re not really on the computer? I do that, too, especially when Fred’s all annoyed because he wants to watch something on TV and I can’t tear myself away from my computer. “I just have to check this real quick, I’ll be right there, I’M NOT SITTING DOWN THEREFORE I AM NOT ON MY COMPUTER!”)

So, sit down.

On Monday, I was talking to Fred on the phone, and he said “I have to read you this email from Bob. You’re not going to like it.”

“Oh god,” I said. “What?”

Bob is the guy who spotted Mike, Gus, Veruca and Violet outside his office window back in October. Who called Fred and told him, which made Fred go running over with a box to rescue that awesome litter and bring them home to me.

::Sigh:: I miss Mike and Gus!

Anyway, the email said, in short “There are more kittens over here. I saw the mother cat briefly, but haven’t seen her since I spotted the kittens.”

“I hate him,” I said to Fred.

We discussed and dithered and discussed some more. The thing is, we wanted to try to trap the mother cat so we could get her spayed and either find her a home or release her to go forth and bring no more babies into the world. But if Fred went and took the kittens right then, the mother cat wasn’t going to keep coming around. I made Fred call the shelter manager and ask for her advice. Her advice was to leave the kittens, bring the trap to work with him the next morning, and set it up using mackerel as bait. We have a Havahart trap which we’ve actually never successfully used before. (Something was getting into the garden, I think, and Fred was trying to trap it, but it never caught anything, and thank god for that!)

So yesterday morning, Fred set up the trap (he gets to work before it’s light out), and went back to check on it during the day a couple of times. He couldn’t set the trap up where the kittens were, since they were under low-to-the-ground Holly bushes, so he set it up nearby. When he left work at 3:00, there was nothing in the trap. He rebaited the trap with fresh mackerel, and then the first kitten came running out from under the bushes to greet him.

He picked it up and pushed it back under the bushes, and it ran right back out with another kitten behind it. The kittens refused to stay put under the bushes and he was worried that they’d wander into the parking lot and get hurt, so he decided to bring them home.

Is it weird that I was just a tiny bit disappointed that none of them look anything like Gus or Mike?

I believe they’re about a month old. They are SUPER healthy looking and acting, just like the Wonkas were. They’re at that age when they’re on the cusp of everything – just about ready to eat solid food, just about ready to use the litter box, just about to figure out that whole “playing” thing. Only one of them is the tiniest bit timid, but they’re very friendly. Oh, and all four of them are boys. I’ve never had an all-boy litter before! All girls, yes, but never all boys. First time for everything, I suppose.

Pardon the crappy pictures – I hope to get more later today.


The super friendliest of the bunch.


The one on the right is the slightly timid one – but even he was climbing up into my lap this morning.


Checkin’ out one of the litter boxes.

Fred’s in charge of naming this bunch. He suggested a few possibilities, but he’s still thinking about it.

 

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Still no babies from Maura today. I had kind of hoped she’d birth those babies on St. Patrick’s Day – I swear, every single time I go into the room, she’s gotten visibly larger – but I’m not going to hold my breath.


“That is not a baby head, that is a rib.”


“That’s my liver, dummy.”


“Annnnd that’s my spleen. Now that we know all my internal organs are intact, is it time for a snack?”

 

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Newt had us worried. He disappeared for five days (for those who don’t know, Maxi and Newt are our free-roaming cats. They came “with” the house, were originally supposed to belong to a neighbor, but decided they liked us better. We say they’re not OUR cats, but even we don’t believe that anymore. They spend a lot of time in our house, but basically come and go at will.). Maxi’s disappeared for a few days before, but Newt never has. When it had been three days, Fred started assuming that Newt had shuffled off to Buffalo (I’m sorry, I just laughed out loud after I typed that. It’s the height of dorkiness to laugh at your own joke, I know, but I can’t help it).

This morning, Newt was casually waiting at the door to be let in and fed. He’s perfectly fine. I guess it being Spring (at least by the calendar, though the temperature sure doesn’t make it feel very Springlike), he decided it was time to go walkabout.

 

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Previously
2009: Just imagine a great big bald head with Fred’s face on it, and you’ll get the picture.
2008: Guess who flew to Pennsylvania so she could eat cupcakes with Nance and Rick, snuggle the cutest dog on Earth, and reunite with Maddy?
2007: No entry.
2006: everyone’s Irish today, right?
2005: Guess it must run in the family.
2004: The cats are on my fucking NERVES.
2003: You KNOW you’re fascinated!
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: The Big Butt Fairy visits us every year though. Just like clockwork.

3/16/10 – Tuesday

Yesterday I had my semi-annual dental appointment wherein they glare at my teeth, tell me to stop drinking soda, inform me that I’m a teeth-grinding motherfucker, and then poke at my gums with sharp and shiny instruments. After my appointment last Fall, I decided it was time to get the hell serious about this brushing … Continue reading “3/16/10 – Tuesday”

Yesterday I had my semi-annual dental appointment wherein they glare at my teeth, tell me to stop drinking soda, inform me that I’m a teeth-grinding motherfucker, and then poke at my gums with sharp and shiny instruments.

After my appointment last Fall, I decided it was time to get the hell serious about this brushing and flossing thing, and made a concerted effort to brush my teeth twice a day and floss every morning. It didn’t happen every single day, the flossing thing, but it happened more often than it had been. I was sure I’d go into the dentist’s office, the hygienist would get the pretty bib on me, take a look at my teeth and gasp in admiration.

Yeah, not so much. She did allow that the area of my gums (front left, as I do not know any dental location terms) was slightly less red, but that I needed to try to floss more often (apparently I am not the best flosser on earth, what a shock), stop drinking soda, and wear my bite splint every night.

I’m such a grinder of teeth in my sleep that the pointy parts of my back teeth (molars?) have worn down and may eventually need fillings.

I don’t actually think that I grind my teeth in my sleep anymore, though – Fred hasn’t heard the squeaking sound in ages. He also doesn’t have to come into my room to get to the bathroom the way he did at the previous house though, so it’s entirely likely that I’m grinding away every night and he just isn’t hearing it.

My next appointment is at the end of September. Now pardon me while I go floss.

 

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I have a freakin’ cold. It started off last Thursday – I felt fuzzy-headed and sleepy all day long. I also had the beginnings of a sore throat. Friday the sore throat got worse to the point where I was slightly concerned that I might have strep throat.

Instead of going to the doctor, I just decided to wait and see. “Wait and see” is my favorite move when it comes to feeling poorly. I highly suspect that when I shuffle off this mortal coil, it’ll be because I had a blinding headache and decided to wait and see if Tylenol would help an aneurysm go away.

Over the weekend I was fuzzy-headed and sleepy, then yesterday the fucking cold moved into my chest. I’m not coughing much at the moment, but when I take a deep breath, I can feel all the crap in there waiting to come out. Also, I’m a snotty motherfucker and have been blowing my nose like crazy.

At least the fuzzy-headed feeling is gone.

The only thing that would make me feel better is if the damn sun would come out.

That, or kittens.

 

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I decided yesterday to name the new Momma kitty Maura. I think it fits her nicely – I thought about adding an Irish-sounding last name, but couldn’t decide on one. I liked the sound of Maura Ryan or Maura Murphy or Maura O’Reilly or Maura McGillicuddy – really, the problem is that I couldn’t decide which one I liked, so I just went with Maura. I have a nice list of Irish names for both girls and boys, so I think we’ll be okay when the kittens come.

Of course, I don’t know how I’ll refer to the litter as a whole – I thought of calling them The Micks, but thought that might be offensive, since according to Urban Dictionary, it’s a derogative term. (Really, spell check? You’re putting the red line under “derogative”, but can only offer “derogation” as an alternative?) I myself have some Irish blood in me and find it an affectionate term rather than a derogative one – but how ’bout it, y’all? Any Irish readers out there who find it offensive?

Every time I go into the kitten room, Maura meows at me once or twice, and I say “Give me those babies!” She seems intent on holding on to them for the time being, though. Yesterday she rolled around on her back for a few moments and allowed me to gently touch her belly. I felt what very well could have been the head of a kitten. Last night, Fred said he thought he felt a kitten head in a different location. Who knows, though? We’re certainly not experienced with the pregnant cats. Kara gave birth the day after we got her, and she was very restless, so I didn’t get much time to examine her underside before she popped out her babies.


“Them wasn’t baby heads. Them was my liver and kidneys, STUPIDS.”

She certainly is happy to see me when I go into the room. She meows at me and then waits for me to sit down, and then she walks back and forth, rubbing against me, purring like crazy. Sometimes she settles down against me briefly before she gets up and starts pacing again.


“Why do you keep feeling my liver, lady?”

She really seemed to like the purple velour pants I was wearing yesterday (don’t judge! You know you covet them.) and kept kneading on my leg. At one point she even sat in my lap, but again that was just for a brief moment in time before she had to get up and get moving.

Amy asked yesterday, if you can’t feel the babies, and don’t see them moving, how do you know that she is pregnant?

I only know because people who are more experienced than I told me that she is. Otherwise, I’d likely just think that she’s kind of porky. Lisa asked if her nipples were prominent and dark pink yet (um, Maura’s nipples, that is. I suspect Lisa would know the state of her own nipples. HEE.), and they don’t appear to be, but we can feel the milk sacs forming. Maybe Maura will allow me to take a closer look at her underside today, and I’ll know better the state of her nipples then!

Meg asked, Okay, I guess I’ll be the one to ask: Your shelter doesn’t spay pregnant cats? I don’t do rescue anymore, but we used to spay everyone, regardless of pregnancy. It’s difficult and heartwrenching. We just had so little resources, not enough foster homes, not enough money, and basically not enough good homes. As far as I know, as long as the mother is healthy and a foster home can be provided for she and her babies, the shelter doesn’t spay pregnant cats. I can’t imagine having to know that a healthy pregnant cat was going to be spayed, I think that would break my heart. 🙁

Speaking of pregnant cats and spaying, here’s one last story for you (I can go on and on when I’m talking about cats, obviously). When we bought this house three and a half years ago, Maxi showed up in our back yard one day. She had clearly given birth and was a nursing mother, but we didn’t know where her babies were, or if she belonged to anyone. She came around more and more often (lured, I am sure, by the food bowl on the front porch), then Newt began to join her. (We originally called Newt “Daddy”, because we assumed he was the father of her litter, but when they both went to the vet for spaying and neutering at a later date, the vet said she thought he could be from an earlier litter of hers – therefore, her son rather than the father of her babies. Obviously, we don’t know for sure, though.)

It was probably a month after she first showed up that I was working on something inside the house, and Fred told me to follow him. We walked out on the porch, and there were Maxi, Newt, and four kittens.


Please note Fred standing there, trying to get his hands on those kittens.

When we finally determined that Maxi, Newt, and the kittens didn’t actually belong to anyone in the neighborhood, we snatched them all up, brought them into the house, had the kittens spayed and neutered, and adopted them out through Challenger’s House. (We named them Fezzik, Westley, Inigo, and Princess Buttercup.) They were adopted out pretty quickly (despite their initial skittishness, they warmed up pretty quickly), and then we needed to have Maxi and Newt spayed and neutered so there’d be no more babies. I made the appointment, and then the night before they were to go, Fred said as he was feeling Maxi’s belly, “Oh no. I think I feel a kitten head. I think she’s pregnant!”

We were positive we were going to end up with another litter of kittens to foster, but when the vet examined Maxi it turned out that she wasn’t pregnant.

Obviously Fred was feeling some internal organ and mistook it for a kitten.

We should totally name a litter of kittens after organs, don’t you think? Surely someone would want to adopt sweet little Kidney! Ha.

 

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Sugarbutt does NOT approve of this “kitten” nonsense.

 

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Previously
2009: In an alternate reality I was bellowing “Well NO ONE INVITED YOU TO DINNER, PRINCESS!” and smacking her upside the head.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: It’s like I’ve never met myself before or something. “Yeah, I’ll let the spud take the car to school, and I’ll be stuck at home, thus NATURALLY I will feel compelled to do housework!”
2005: Old pictures.
2004: (Bwahaha! That’d be the shortest study in the history of mankind, eh?)
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: Takes all kinds, I guess.
2000: A life of excitement, thrills and chills, lemme tell ya!

3/12/10 – Friday

It’s raining again. ::sob::   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *   What will be the next product for Crooked Acres? You could take the brushings from George and Gracie, spin them into yarn and … Continue reading “3/12/10 – Friday”

It’s raining again.

::sob::

 

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What will be the next product for Crooked Acres? You could take the brushings from George and Gracie, spin them into yarn and crochet it into… kitty sweaters? knit it into afghans? sell the yarn to your weirdo readers who might use it for nefarious purposes?

I cannot imagine actually trying to gather all the fur we get off George and Gracie and clean it then spin it into yarn. At this point, while Fred’s brushing them, he tosses the fur onto the ground. It eventually disappears, but I don’t know whether it blows off into the next yard or birds gather it for their nests, or what. All I know is, I don’t have to deal with it, and that’s A-OK with me!

 

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Love you.
Love the cats.
But I REALLY love them pups.
What can I send Gracie and George for Easter? Baked goods? Toys? Donations to their favorite charities? (And those charities BETTER be dog-related 😉

If it MUST be a dog-related charity (hmph!), George and Gracie request a donation to Daddy’s Emergency Animal Rescue Fund provides assistance for dogs who are victims of abuse or violence, man-made disasters (hoarder and puppy mill rescues), and large-scale natural disasters (hurricanes, fires, and other natural catastrophes). They think that Cesar is a pretty great guy, and they both had doggy crushes on Daddy before he passed away in February.

Also, they would like you to come cover for them with the chickens. They have been working SO hard that they could use a vacation, maybe a trip to the Bahamas. I mean, honestly – LOOK how hard they work every single day, protecting those chickens!

Please note that Gracie, back there laying amongst the piles of discarded dog fur, doesn’t so much as stir the entire time I’m out there shooting pictures.

 

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I have 6 cats and I do one Petsmart run a month which entails 5 cases of Friskies canned and the bigger bag of Purina One. I always get the questions! Why do we feel obligated to explain ourselves?

Good question! And really, I’m not sure why people feel the need to ask, either – are they going to go home and say “Honey! I saw this woman buying 400 pounds of litter at Sam’s today, and she told me she has FIVE cats!”? I mean, what do I care whether some complete stranger knows that I have 11 cats or not? What’s the DIFFERENCE whether they know? Why do I feel so embarrassed when they ask?

 

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Not EVERYONE likes to carry things like stool softeners around in semi-transparent plastic bags. Hmmf.

NOT THE CORRECT ANSWER. I carry my own reusable grocery bags, so no one could see what the hell I had in there! (Of course, I guess they could be so accustomed to asking that it was just an automatic question, right?)

 

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I LOVE pickled bologna. It’s my Down Home Ohio treat every time I’m there.

I don’t like any kind of bologna, pickled or otherwise, but it’s certainly intriguing. They’ll pickle anything in the South, won’t they?

 

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I got all excited when you mentioned Fuddrucker’s in Fort Walton Beach, FL. I was there visiting a friend just last summer (she lives in Fort Walton Beach, not Fuddrucker’s). Which Fuddrucker’s was it? If it was the one with the alligators, I have a picture of me holding one of them (they made me hold one of the younger ones with his mouth taped shut. wusses). If it was the other one, my friend lives in one of the tall condo buildings just down the road. She lives on the 6th floor with a great view of the beach. All you have to do is take the elevator down to the first floor and you are on the beach. Heaven. The sand there is so beautiful. Blindingly white and so soft.

Apparently, I was mistaken. It was a Fuddrucker’s we went to in Fort Walton Beach, FL, it was Fudpucker. Seriously, what the hell?

Next time we go to Florida, I’ll make a point to visit the Fuddrucker’s with the alligators, because I’d love to hold one!

And I agree, the beach in Fort Walton and Destin is absolutely dazzling.

NOW I WANNA GO BACK TO FLORIDA!

 

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I went to college in a small town near a big city, and back before I went there, the little grocery store in town apparently kept all the condoms behind a locked glass cabinet. So, if people wanted condoms they had to go through a bunch of hoops. I never understood the religious right’s mindset that preventing people from using birth control is a good idea, I mean, aren’t abortions 10x worse than just using birth control? /tangent

Well, OBVIOUSLY, if one does not know (1) ABOUT sex (via sex education) and (2) how to PROTECT oneself from pregnancy, one will NOT have sex, and if one does not have sex, one cannot get pregnant. Like, DUH.

 

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The do you want your stool softeners in your purse is cracking me up. Cashiers need to mind their own business about those things. I guess a kid would have no clue how slow acting stool softeners are. Can you imagine if you bought the glycerin suppositories? I used to carry an extra bag to work and was known to have Tylenol and antacid in it. One day a coworker called me on the intercom to ask me if I had a MEDICATED DOUCHE in my bag. She felt an infection coming on and wanted to douche in the bathroom right there at work. EWWWWWW!!!! Doesn’t everyone carry an extra Vinegar Massengil in their tote bag?

Dude, seriously. Even if I DID carry a medicated douche in my bag, I wouldn’t tell ANYONE that I did over the damn intercom!

 

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Squee! I was just looking through the cat photos submitted to Pioneer Woman and saw Newtles!!! I hope you get picked!

These are the pictures I’ve submitted to Pioneer Woman‘s photography contest this week, and yet I have received no PW love. Ah well.

HOWEVER, Christine, who does my banners almost every month, DID get chosen – this one! – so keep your fingers crossed for her!

 

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Is Kara a Countess, what with the darling and everything? Oh how I hope you watched RHNYC! What a total bitchfest!

Kara WAY outclasses that damn Countess, let me tell you. I did watch the first episode of RHoNYC, but I haven’t watched last night’s episode yet. The Countess is far too impressed with herself and not nearly as classy as she thinks she is, in my opinion, DARLING.

I watched the first part of the OC reunion last night, and two things struck me – (1) Gretchen, the college graduate, does not know the definition of “karma.” Allllrighty. (2) Lynne thinks she’s the best mother she could possibly be. You know, Lynne. Whose daughters poured alcohol into their water bottles right in front of her and she didn’t notice. Whose daughter has repeatedly said that she can get away with anything, because her parents will never ground her. Yeah, that Lynne.

(Also, Tamra needs a haircut and some sort of defrizzing solution.)

 

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Has anyone seen Zombieland yet? I’m dying to see that. The preview looks good.

We saw it, and enjoyed it, it was a fun movie. How can you NOT enjoy any movie with Woody Harrelson in it, right?

 

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I LOVE recap sites! That is a fun one and I added it to my Reader … got any others you’d like to share??

I can’t think of any other recap sites, but if you guys have any to share (not necessarily just the Housewives, any fun recap site would be welcome!), leave the link in the comments, would you? I like Pretty on the Outside because it’s not a pages-long blow-by-blow recap site – it covers the show without requiring three hours of your time!

 

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Just wait until you try pork chops in the Ronco (did you get a basket with it?) We have also done a small roast in ours.

We did get a basket with our Ronco Showtime Rotisserie, and I’m looking forward to trying pork chops and roasts and this summer there’ll be rotisserie’d veggies galore!

 

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Are those daffodils coming up by the tree?

In the pic of Sugarbutt from yesterday, those are definitely daffodils coming up by the tree. It’s a testament to how long and cold our winter was this year as opposed to last year, that they haven’t bloomed yet. In pictures from last year at this time, we had daffodils blooming all over the place. Today, they’re not even budding yet.

Also, our Winter Honeysuckle bushes (by the front porch) are just now blooming – the past two years, they’ve bloomed in December and January!

 

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Spanky, in the back yard on a rare sunny day.

 

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Previously
2009: And then I realize that baby wasps grow up to be adult wasps, and I electrocute the shit out of those fuckers.
2008: “You realize,” I said to Fred as I watched Tommy diligently lick the top of Miss Stank’s head, “Even if we wanted to, we could never get a divorce.”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I’m a total freak.
2003: She’s home!
2002: Of course, my sympathy for him will only last until he poos in the hallway instead of the litter box again.
2001: I am the dumbest dumbass in the whole wide world, I really am.
2000: Sometimes, they lay on the floor and perform for us.

3/11/10 – Thursday

Jackie D. and I were talking about the Real Housewives in my comments yesterday, and then Katherine reminded me that I have never linked to the BEST Housewives recap site EVER. David Gilmore runs a site called Pretty on the Outside, and not ONLY does he do some awesome recaps of the show in writing … Continue reading “3/11/10 – Thursday”

Jackie D. and I were talking about the Real Housewives in my comments yesterday, and then Katherine reminded me that I have never linked to the BEST Housewives recap site EVER.

David Gilmore runs a site called Pretty on the Outside, and not ONLY does he do some awesome recaps of the show in writing – he also does some incredible art to illustrate the show.

I mean seriously, go look at this picture and tell me it’s not dead-on!

I don’t remember how I found it, but I’ve been reading it since at least last year. It’s one of my favorite things to do, read his recaps and guffaw at his pictures. He is so talented – AND he sells his artwork on Etsy, in case you ever needed your very own picture of Vicki to entertain you!

So go check out Pretty on the Outside – you might have to scroll down to get to the Housewives stuff (Housewives are not the ONLY thing he does – he’s multi-faceted and multi-talented!), but you won’t be sorry. And for sure, check out the comments, too – some of them are almost as good as Gilmore’s posts themselves!

 

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Several years ago, my sister and I gave our Dad a Ronco Rotisserie for Father’s Day or his birthday or possibly Christmas (I don’t remember exactly, obviously), and when I visited later that year, we had a rotisserie chicken for dinner, and it was goooooood.

Ever since, I’ve kept in the back of my mind that I wanted to get our own rotisserie oven, and so when I logged onto Woot one day last week and saw that they were offering them for $19.99 plus shipping, I jumped on it.

For some reason, I thought it would be the full-sized oven, but when it came, I realized it was the Junior version. Which was actually fine with me – there are only two of us, how many chickens do we need to cook at one time, right?

Sunday, I sent Fred out to the garage freezer to find me a chicken to cook in the rotisserie (it needed to be a chicken with the skin still on, which is how he processes the younger chickens. The older chickens always need to be stewed or cooked in the crockpot because they can’t really be roasted – the legs are so tough they’re pretty much inedible when you roast them.), and then for dinner that night, I cooked it.

And it was AWESOME. I highly, highly recommend the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie. It’s simple to use, the cleanup is pretty easy, the results are very, very tasty, and if the day ever comes when we get the pantry into the house and in position, it won’t take up much space in the pantry.

It was a real Crooked Acres meal, in fact – chicken, born and raised here, green beans born and raised and canned here, and a pint of Pioneer Woman’s Best Baked Beans Ever, made by me and canned at some point in the Fall. Two thumbs up!

 

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While I’m talking about awesome stuff we’ve bought recently, I think I mentioned at some point that our Blu Ray player is set up to work with Netflix. We just needed a way to connect it to the internet so it could access my Netflix stuff.

Fred looked around and told me we needed one of these. So I ordered it, it arrived, and then Fred set it up.

And then we completely ignored it for a few days, as is our way.

Last weekend, we needed something to watch, we were out of movies and out of recorded stuff, and finally Fred went and looked around on Netflix, and we decided to give Quarantine a try. We were a little concerned that the picture would be crappy, but the picture was just fine. It wasn’t Blu Ray quality, but there was nothing wrong with the picture, it was perfectly watchable.

The movie itself wasn’t bad, if a tad creepy. If you like creepy movies that make you jump, this might be the movie for you.

(Also, Jennifer Carpenter is not nearly as annoying in this movie as she was in the first season of Dexter.)

 

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Um. What? YOU don’t have a trash can laying in your back yard for the cats to hang out in? What do your cats do when it’s raining out?


“What?”

 

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Previously
2009: (Nance calls it “Fredding.” HA.)
2008: “The chickens are here!” he said.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: OR MAYBE I JUST NEED A NEW COMPUTER.
2003: So, there. That’s my day so far.
2002: I’m a total calendar-having fool.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.