Picture Entries – Page 2

2/22/10 – Monday

I have to leave for an appointment with my gynecologist in a few minutes (she’s way on the other side of Huntsville), so here’s a picture to tide you over, and I’ll see you tomorrow! Until then, may all your tunes be loony. * * * * * * * * * * * … Continue reading “2/22/10 – Monday”

I have to leave for an appointment with my gynecologist in a few minutes (she’s way on the other side of Huntsville), so here’s a picture to tide you over, and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Until then, may all your tunes be loony.

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Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: I’d hate for him to be able to CLIMB things.
2006: HOT MONKEY SEX, that’s what.
2005: I can tell you this – I’m not terribly fond of my mailman right now.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: Not bad, since it’s been ten years or so since I read the play, eh?
2001: Resolutions for 2001.
2000: Well, apparently “coke” sounded like “coffee” to the Einstein taking my order.

2/19/10 – Friday

“SHE asked me to post something to let YOU know that she’s alive and doing fine and is just taking it easy today. She hasn’t even rolled her lazy ass out of bed yet.” “She’s all ‘Ohhhhhh, I’m still recovering from surgery!’ and ‘Ohhhh, can you get that heavy pan and put it on the … Continue reading “2/19/10 – Friday”

“SHE asked me to post something to let YOU know that she’s alive and doing fine and is just taking it easy today. She hasn’t even rolled her lazy ass out of bed yet.”

“She’s all ‘Ohhhhhh, I’m still recovering from surgery!’ and ‘Ohhhh, can you get that heavy pan and put it on the stove?’ and ‘Ohhhhhh, I can’t lift that, it’s too heavy, can you do the laundry, can you fill the cat waterer, can you do the dishes?’, real dramatic-like. THEN she says to The Man, ‘If my uterus were a cat, it would be Stinkerbelle!’ and he was all ‘And The Grays would be your ovaries, dancing around her, pissing her off.’ and they laughed and laughed. What the fuck does that even MEAN?!”

“I hate her.”

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Previously
2009: Hello, Gorgeous.
2008: “And the next, you and Franklin are being chased across the back forty by a really pissed-off injured pig who has slop in her mouth and murder in her heart.”
2007: We’ll be spending all day at the house.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: Bet I was a cold splash of water in HIS night.
2003: Poor Miz Poo.
2002: Give me a guy with a great smile any day.
2001: Yeah, I know, it’s goofy.
2000: No entry.

1/28/10 – Thursday

It is ABOUT GODDAMN TIME Elizabeth Edwards left that fucking douchebag. And that’s all I have to say about that. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I gots stuff to do, so in … Continue reading “1/28/10 – Thursday”

It is ABOUT GODDAMN TIME Elizabeth Edwards left that fucking douchebag.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

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I gots stuff to do, so in lieu of a real entry, I’m clearing out another folder I discovered in my /tmp folder. I named this one “Let me in/ let me out”, so guess what it’s about.

I think all the pictures are from last March, judging by the date stamp on them. And there’s a special appearance by da Boog!

Anyway, here you go:

Let me IN
Let me OUT

“I am in, and Newt is out. Therefore, I want out.”

“IN, PLEASE.”

“HELLO HI IN IN IN DID I MENTION IN?”

“Um. Did I say ‘in’? I meant OUT.”

“I SAID OUT, PLEASE. If you don’t let me out, I will take this drill and I will DRILL YOUR BRAIN until you let me OUT.”

Newt’s all “In, out, whatever.”

“Hi.”

“Boogie, let me in.”

“BOOGIE. Stop teasing. Let me IN, so I can hiss at you and box your ears!”

“Well, shit. How’d I end up in here?”

(Please note that there IS a cat door in the back door, leading into the back yard. And she and Newt know PERFECTLY well how to use it, but they much prefer to make us let them in and out ALL FUCKING DAY LONG.)

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The brudders, snuggling on the chair in the kitten room. The last few days, Steely Dan’s been wandering around the house for most of the morning, then asking to be let into the foster room with Fagen around 1:00 or so. He spends a few hours in there (usually Jake and Elwood go in there, too), and then comes back out when Fred goes up to check on them at 3:30, when he gets home from work. After dinner, we throw the foster room open, and Fagen is allowed to wander around the house for a few hours. The first night, Fagen was extremely skittish. Last night, I was laying on the couch reading a magazine, and he jumped up on me and asked to be petted. Definite progress!

Dan and Jake & Elwood love hanging out in the foster room for the afternoon because the sun shines through the windows, and it gets nice and warm in there. They snooze in the sun and could not look any happier.

Fagen and Elwood (Elwood’s got a complaint!)

It’s tiring work, carrying around all this fluff!

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“Hellew.”

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Previously
2009: Today marks a year since Spot died. And yesterday marked ~~four~~ five years since Tubby died.
2008: Yes, he is a good dog. No, we’re still not keeping him.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Yesterday marked one year since Tubby died.
2004: Tubby is dead.
2003: No entry.
2002: Signs of spring.
2001: No entry.
2000: Some work day, huh?

1/14/10 – Thursday

Today, because I have a hair appointment in a little while, followed by an eye appointment, and because I’ve got nothing else for you anyways, since I’m spending all my time sitting around waiting for it to be time to have my uterus dragging, kicking and screaming, from my abdomen, I present to you a picture entry, spurred by (1) A number of pictures saved in my “tmp” folder that I’ve been meaning to share with you, and (2) A request yesterday (and previously at some point also) for some pictures of the Anderson kittehs instead of all those stupid fosters. So, random pictures. For you. Try not to be too excited.

The cats got a huge-ass cat tree (from us) for Christmas. This thing is HUGE, 7 feet tall, and I got it from eBay in order to put in the foster room, but then I got the package this tree was in and the smaller tree (the other Christmas present for the cats) mixed up, so the fosters have the smaller tree. And when I tried to convince Fred (after he’d put this monstrosity together) to help me carry it up to the foster room, he was all “NO WAY! The fosters always get the good trees! OUR cats are gonna get this one!” Fucker. In any case, they really like this tree, especially the seat way at the top, as you can see.

Outside Mama, aka Maxi. Gorgeous, yet evil.

Upstairs Mama, aka Kara. Also gorgeous and badass. We have two female cats who previously gave birth. Both female cats are completely fucking nuts. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Crazy Jake in his Playcat centerfold pose.

Sugarbutt blends nicely with the leaves in the back yard.

Tommy in HIS sexy Playcat centerfold pose.

George and Gracie – you can see that he’s quite a bit bigger than she is. She’s the brains of the operation, though.

Kara in the back yard. She’s In A Mood.

Dressing up cats in a chicken hat: always lots of fun. For us, anyway.

Stupid Sugarbutt jumped up on the mantel in the front room, where my Willow Tree collection is (WAS) kept, and knocked this one off onto the floor, where it broken into two pieces. I would have glued it back together, but a shard went missing, and it would look funny, so I bought a replacement off eBay. I was surprised to see that Willow Tree figurines are not solid all the way through.

We brought this temperature/ humidity gauge into the front room to see just how cold it gets in there. It’s been at 59 most mornings lately. The fucking unhappy face is because the humidity’s so low. Shut up, stupid judgemental humidity gauge.

Jake (left), Elwood (right). Elwood’s quite a bit bigger than Jake. That, and the fact that Elwood’s tail is shorter than Jake’s (and Jake’s tail has a crook at the very end), not to mention the super loony nutball look Jake’s always got on his face is how we tell them apart.

See what I mean? Total lunatic, this one. Good thing for him he’s so sweet.

Stinkerbelle has no love for you.

Maxi would like to know where her bowl of food is. (Answer: I took it away because Elwood would jump up on Fred’s desk, knock one piece of cat food out of the bowl, knock it onto the floor, and bat it around for several minutes before eating it. Then repeat. And it was driving me NUTS.)

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Does anyone have advice on how to get adult cats to get adjust to each other? A reader has two 17 year-old cats and recently added a 2 year-old to the mix. There’s fighting, but the worst part is the marking. Here are the details:

We have already tried letting the new guy have his own place upstairs, and only letting them interact when one of us was here. They kind of slink around each other at this point, sometimes growly and hissy, sometimes scrappy. New guy has been here almost 10 days. Starting Monday, we left the upstairs door open (upstairs is carpeted, down is not, so up is where the pee is and we have closed all but the new kid’s doors) and it looks like they sleep during the day (what else?) and get riled up when we get home from work and feed them. It appears as though they are all using ALL the litter boxes (4 of them, do I need more maybe?). When I get home and start scooping the 2 older ones follow me around so they can pee in the fresh litter. The younger one would too, I think, but that’s when the snarling and growling begins. The occasional scrap, fewer now, but sheesh, even the littermates (bro and sis) fight with each other now, which never happened before. Oh yes, one of the older ones has gone deaf, so yelling his name doesn’t get a reaction.

I’ve never introduced an adult to other adults – only kittens to adults already living here and that went smoothly. These two older ones are the last kittens we adopted since we had (before we adopted these two) 2 other cats, who lived to 25 (died of old age mostly) and 20 (renal failure, but lived 3 years after the initial diagnosis). Heh. I thought *I* was a crazy cat lady with 4! Indoor! Cats! until I read you.

Honestly, I had no advice to give her (aside from maybe giving Feliway a try).

If y’all have any good advice (or even just halfway good advice!), please leave it in the comments!

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A few of you have asked what the story is with Steely Dan and Fagen. They were found in a storm drain with their feral mother. The boys were turned over to Challenger’s House, and their mother is going to a great cat haven in Florida.

I suspect that their mother very well might be a tortie – Miz Poo pushed her way into the foster room the other day when Fred and I were in there (the door wasn’t latched), and both boys went running over to her, chirped at her, and rubbed up against her. When we brought Tommy in, they weren’t interested in him at all. Yesterday I brought Miz Poo in again, and again they ran right over to her. Too bad she just smacked at them and went to check out the food. Heh.

So anyway, yesterday I went into the foster room, picked Steely Dan up off the cat tree (he resisted for a second, then gave in), and sat down in the chair with him in my lap. He purred and purred and purred while I petted him, and finally Fagen couldn’t stand it anymore, and had to jump up to see what was going on. I petted him too, but he didn’t stay long.

Steely Dan climbed onto the back of the chair, and I petted him a few times, then stopped.

And he climbed back down into my lap.

Sucker!

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Previously
2009: George and Gracie are home from the spaying and the neutering.
2008: Negative. Good news or sad news, I wonder?
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: Y’all rock.
2004: So many books, so little time.
2003: Ah, good times.
2002: So, you know what I hate?
2001: No entry.
2000: I was a tad peeved.

5/25/09

Happy birthday, Nance!!! & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & In the interest of clearing out my “post these someday” folder, I’ve got three picture-only entries for you guys this week. Well, maybe four, we’ll see. Or maybe … Continue reading “5/25/09”

Happy birthday, Nance!!!

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

In the interest of clearing out my “post these someday” folder, I’ve got three picture-only entries for you guys this week. Well, maybe four, we’ll see. Or maybe I’ll save some of those for next week. Stay tuned!

These pictures were actually taken in March of 2008 and have been languishing on my hard drive ever since. What I find most interesting about the pictures is how different it looks back there in just a little over a year – in these pictures, the back forty isn’t fenced in, and the big coop hasn’t been built (the pig yard is there, though, you can see the fence to the side). Also, the cat tree and platform hasn’t been built yet. Funny how you forget the way things used to be, isn’t it?

“No, Boogie, I am the king of the world! Not you! See how I’m at the top and you are NOT?”

“Sure is a long way down…”

“Seeya, dude. I got places to go.”

“Go get the ladder, Joe. GO GET THE LADDER. I’m a portly cat. A jump from here would kill me!”
“Really? You pick on me all the time, you want me to do you a favor? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.”

“I am so going to break a leg jumping from here…”

“Get the ladder, Suggie. GO GET THE LADDER!”
“I don’t see that happening, dude. You get stuck up there, I get your snack. WORKS FOR ME.”

“That’s cold, dude.”

“Toms away!”

“I was stuck up there for HOURS, everyone was like “Don’t jump, Tommy! Don’t! You’ll hurt yourself! Stay there ’til Momma comes to rescue you!”, but it was almost SNACK TIME, and I was so hungry! I had to jump, even though I’m a portly cat and could have hurt myself seriously. But I’m fine! Well, my leg hurts a little when it rains and I’m in excruciating pain all the time, but I’ll be fine! I’m okay! They’re saying I might get a medal from the President for my bravery!”

& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & &

Sheriff Momma and her security force.

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: Goofy cats.
2005: Grackles are kind of evil-looking and have great big beaks and I’m sure their bite is far, far worse than their bark.
2004: I sure am MIGHTY FUCKING TIRED of going to the FUCKING doctor’s office all the damn time.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.

5/19/09 (Tuesday)

There’s not a whole lot going on around here, and it’s supposed to be a beautiful day outside. I’m going to do laundry, clean the house, and walk around outside and marvel at the sunshine. Here are some Crooked Acres pics to tide you over! This is how we’re growing potatoes this year (well, we … Continue reading “5/19/09 (Tuesday)”

This is how we’re growing potatoes this year (well, we have a row of them in the garden, but we’re also doing this). As the potato plants grow, you add boards to the side, and put soil on top of the potato plants. In the Fall, you take down the boards and hopefully dig through the soil to find a bazillion potatoes. Similar to growing potatoes in a tire, only with boards instead of a tire!

The co-parents, keeping an eye on their three babies.

New Momma.

Chicken George and her baby.

Michelle, the head rooster in charge.

Michelle surveying his wimminfolk.

One of the little Brahmas (we think) that we got from the hatchery a few months ago. I’m looking forward to seeing what they look like when they’re grown – I think they’re going to be very pretty.

Another little pretty one. I think we hatched this one ourselves, but honest to god, at this point I’m not sure.

Sassy, the one true Crooked Acres free range chicken, partakes of the compost heap.

Mommas and babies – and right in the middle, Charlie.

We got a Crested Polish chick from the hatchery a few months ago. He’s looking very Flock of Seagulls lately.

“Who, us? Eating the pig food from the trough? No, not at all! Why would you ask such a strange question?”

Checking the area in case of snacks.

George, eating dog hair and then spitting it out. I don’t know, he seemed happy and he wasn’t swallowing the hair so we didn’t ask questions.

Gracie, dancing with Fred. You can’t see George’s face, but trust me – he disapproves.

Gracie loves her daddy.

“Oooh, it’s the snack lady! I like the snack lady. She gives me snacks.”

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I recently made up a song about the Mommas (Upstairs Momma, aka Kara and Outside Momma, aka Maxi) that goes “Porkin’ along, singin’ her song, it’s Out! Side! Momma!” OR “Hissin’ along, singin’ her song, it’s Up! Stairs! Momma!” and it cracks me up every time I sing it, and when I snicker, Fred tells me I need to get a life. Hmph.

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Previously
2008: With my bionic legs and arms I’ll just be able to prove it much more easily.
2007: No entry.
2006: And we might have expected Mommy/ Whatever to tell the Little Prince “no” and, well, we can’t have THAT.
2005: We’re foster parents.
2004: Because WHY HAD IT NOT OCCURRED TO ME TO THROW MYSELF DOWN THE MOUNTAIN TO AVOID THE CONCERT???
2003: The words “ass ugly” were invented to describe these shoes.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: She hasn’t claimed boredom since.

5/15/09 – Friday

Y’all, the Comment-Answering Extravaganza will be back as of next Friday. Several people have said that they miss it, so what I’ll likely do is answer comments in the comments (I do adore my new threaded comments!), but since plenty of people don’t really go back and read the comments, I’ll cut and paste them … Continue reading “5/15/09 – Friday”

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Warning: possible Grey’s Anatomy spoilers ahead. It’s just the engagement of one character to another. It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention, but I thought I’d warn all y’all. If you’re less than a month behind in your Grey’s Anatomy viewing, you should be okay.

Dear Dr. Phil,

Oh, Phil. Phil, Phil, Phil. There was a time when I watched every one of your shows with wide-eyed enthusiasm but after, say, the first year and a half your overblown nonsense made my head hurt and I had to stop watching. How many times can a person hear something along the lines of “A wet dog won’t hunt!” come from your mouth before they start to suspect you’re just opening your mouth and slapping words together and pretending they mean something?

So I’ve avoided your shows and I usually skip past your column in O, the Oprah-Worshiping Magazine, but imagine my surprise when I ran across a column in the most recent TV Guide. The “Is It Just Me?” columnist felt the need to pose the following question:

Is it a bad sign that Meredith won’t wear her engagement ring on Grey’s Anatomy? Mer didn’t want to don the heirloom bling that once belonged to Derek’s mother. “Does it bother you that I don’t want to wear it, because I could?” she asked before placing it on the bedside table. “I don’t want you to wear it – you’re not a ring bride,” Derek conceded. Sounds bad to me. And Dr. Phil agrees!

(We’ll not address the fact that OF FUCKING COURSE Meredith and Derek are going to end up divorced (if, in fact, they actually get married in the first place) because hello, how else are we to whip up some drama?)

And you, Dr. Phil, do you have an opinion? Well, of course you do, the day you don’t have an opinion on something is the day we discover that wet dogs WILL hunt, despite your assertions to the contrary.

You had this to say:

“The ring is not just for you. It’s for him,” says Phil, who watches the show with Robin, his wife of 32 years. “It’s what he wanted you to have. So rejecting it is rejecting a part of him. With Meredith, this is a bad start. Why didn’t she just say ‘I love you and I’ll marry you, but let’s go pick out one that I want’?”

Okay, so let’s see if I have this right. Meredith said “If you want me to wear the ring, I will” and Derek said “Nah, you’re not the ring-wearing kind. Whatevs.” Where in that discussion did you get the impression, O wise and bloviating doctor of bullshit, that Meredith’s issue was with the ring itself? Because what I got from those words – granted, I don’t have a degree or a semi-popular talk show, so I might be talking out of my ass (I often do; hey look, there’s something we have in common!) – is that Meredith isn’t so much the jewelry-wearing type. And Derek knows this because he pays attention to these important facts, and he knows it would be out of character for her to wear rings, and I am sure he appreciates her offer to wear the ring anyways, but he’s okay with her not wearing it. He knows that her failure to wear the ring he gave her is not a rejection of HIS VERY SOUL, but a rejection of the annoyance of wearing a ring.

Derek does not so much strike me as a man not in touch with his feelings, Dr. Phil. Did I miss the tear-filled eyes and the glance at the camera wherein he was thinking “Dr. Phil knows how I REALLY feel about this!”? I’m fairly certain that if it deeply bothered Derek that Meredith doesn’t wear the ring despite her acceptance of his proposal, he’d say “I would really like it if you wore the ring like you just offered” and Meredith would wear the ring and then she’d resent him and then they’d get divorced and she’d throw it in his face, like “You know I can’t stand wearing rings BUT YOU INSISTED ANYWAY, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!” and he’d be all “YOU SAID YOU WOULD IF I WANTED TO!” and then passionate kissing and the divorce would be canceled ’til next time Sweeps comes around again.

Also? Hi. Meredith is a SURGEON. And surgeons have to scrub the ever-loving shit out of their hands before surgery, and Meredith would have to take the ring off, scrubscrubscrub her hands, and then put the ring back on. Except probably she could NOT put the ring back on because the diamond would cut through her surgical gloves, so she’d have to hand the ring off to a medical student, who would immediately lose it, and then?

DIVORCE. Obviously.

So I think you’re full of shit on this one, Dr. Phil.

BUT. Let me tell you a story, and you can tell me how soon this particular couple would be divorced. Because I know how you like to leap to conclusions given only a two-sentence summary of a couple’s problem accompanied by an outline drawn up by the office intern.

There’s this couple. We’ll call them, oh, Bobyn and Ed. Obviously they are NOT anyone I know, just some people I heard about. On a message board. Or something.

Back before Bobyn and Ed got married, back before they got engaged, back when they were only living in sin (and only had three cats (!!!)), they discussed the possibility of getting married. And a woman can often tell when a proposal is drawing near, so Bobyn began casually mentioning her ring preferences.

“Nothing fancy,” Bobyn said. “A small diamond. But definitely not gold. White gold or silver. Possibly even platinum, but NOT yellow gold. Right?”

“Okay,” Ed said. “Gotcha. Whatevs.”

And time went by, and Bobyn mentioned thirteen thousand more times that yellow gold was not her thing. I mean, obviously, if it were a family heirloom or something, yellow gold would be okay. But Bobyn was just really not a yellow gold gal, it just wasn’t her thing.

So when Ed went out and chose a simple engagement ring with which to propose, of course first he looked for a diamond solitaire, and he looked carefully at all the diamonds to check out the color, cut, and clarity. And when he found the prettiest, clearest diamond ring, he bought it.

And it was on a yellow gold band.

Bobyn liked the ring well enough, aside from the fact that it was yellow gold and she? Not so much a yellow gold girl. She wore the ring until she had weight loss surgery and the ring became too big (or rather, her finger became too small), and then she put the ring in her dresser drawer, intending that when she reached her goal weight she’d have her engagement ring – and her matching gold wedding band – sized to the correct size.

I am certain that this is the point, Dr. Phil, where you would jump in and declare that Bobyn’s failure to wear her engagement and wedding rings were a cold-hearted betrayal of Ed. That Ed’s heart surely broke a little every time he looked at Bobyn’s left hand and saw no ring upon her finger. That despite his assurances to the contrary, he cared very deeply that her left hand remained bare.

And then, last Christmas season, Bobyn – who kind of missed wearing her engagement and wedding rings – came up with a good idea. She’d see if she could find a ring in the silver or white gold family, have it sized to fit her, and wear it. And she would choose the ring herself, because Ed does not care about jewelry in the slightest. OR SO SHE CLAIMED.

So Bobyn stumbled across a Vintage 1950’s Diamond Engagement in White Gold ring on a web site. And she liked it quite a lot. It wasn’t expensive at all, and it was actually already a size 6 1/2. She ordered that ring, and then she surfed on over to Overstock.com and bought a white gold wedding band to go with the engagement ring.

And they arrived, and Bobyn wears them sporadically – she LOVES her rings, but she takes her rings off when she’s washing dishes (and she washes dishes a LOT) and sometimes they hang on the hook over the kitchen sink for a couple of days before she spots them and grabs them and puts them back on.

Obviously, though he hides his pain very well, Ed must be DEVASTATED first by Bobyn’s rejection of his heartfelt gift, and secondly by her refusal to consistently wear the engagement and wedding bands she coldheartedly bought to replace the originals.

My question for you, Dr. Phil: since divorce is clearly in the future for Bobyn and Ed, should she have a lawyer on retainer already? Is it time to start deciding who gets which cat?

Breathlessly awaiting your reply,

Robyn And3rson.

PS: Also, they sleep in separate bedrooms. Do you think they’re just pretending to have any kind of marriage at all, and we should all just pretend to believe the lie they’re living? Or should we call them on it? I mean, they’ve been married for nearly 11 years. Isn’t it time to end this lie??

PPS: Also also, Ed once said “If you’re not going to wear the yellow gold engagement ring and wedding band, we should sell them and buy more chickens!” Was he joking to hide the tears in his heart?

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Scheming.

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“Is it… SNACKIN’! TIME! yet?”

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Previously
2008: “Yes, that’s correct. I AM the man.”
2007: Random pictures.
2006: Mystery solved, I guess.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: So far, I believe she’s ahead in the fart wars.
2002: That damn PTA. I will NOT be suckered in again by them, damnit!
2001: Realtors.
2000: New eyes, new hair – I’ll practically be a whole new woman!

5/12/09

I think I’ve mentioned in the past that when we started fostering kittens, it was my deep-down hope that Miz Poo would get in touch with her maternal instincts (hey, she’s female, right? She MUST have maternal instincts, right? ALL WIMMINS WANT BABIES, RIGHT?!), and she’d act as a mother to the little fosters. Like, … Continue reading “5/12/09”

Like Charlene Butterbean.

Alas, it was not to be. By the time we started fostering, Miz Poo was five or six years old, and set in her ways. If a kitten came into her personal space, Miz Poo would hiss and smack. And if a kitten tried to rub up on her, you’d think given Miz Poo’s reaction that they’d committed the most appalling of sins.

So time went by and Miz Poo put the smack down on any kitten who came close, though she did relax her standards just a tad, to the point where if a kitten walked up and sniffed at her, she’d allow them to touch noses with her for a few seconds before she commenced with the hissing and the smacking.

So we got the point: Miz Poo is not a great fan of kittens. Just doesn’t care for them, whether they’re cute or ugly*, friendly or feral, playful or sleepy. NO kittens were allowed to invade Miz Poo’s personal bubble, and woe betide any kitten who didn’t observe that rule.

And then yesterday, I walked into the computer room and saw such a strange sight that all I could do at first was stop and stare.

How… how did this happen? I stepped closer and examined the situation from all angles. I would have guessed that Miz Poo was sleeping on the blanket and while she was out cold, the kitten had climbed up next to her and fallen asleep. Except…

Except that Miz Poo is clearly laying to one side of the blanket. And if I know anything about cats, it’s that when they find a blanket or a cat bed, they don’t lay to one side of the cat bed or blanket. No, they stretch out diagonally across the area so as to lay claim to the blanket or cat bed, so that no cats who wander by will think “Oh, there’s space for me right there!”

The only conclusion I could draw was that the kitten was asleep on the blanket and Miz Poo was so desperate for a cozy place to lay her weary head that she relaxed her requirements just this once.

And the two of them snoozed together, occasionally touching, all afternoon long before the kitten got hungry and wandered off in search of sustenance.

An aberration, clearly. A one-time thing, this snuggling of Poo and kitten. Once does not make a pattern, as we’re always told. The world will not crack open because just this one time Miz Poo did not stick to her this-is-my-space-do-not-enter requirements.

Once is not a pattern.

But how about twice?

First the wily runt climbs into the cat bed with Miz Poo, who just SITS THERE and does nothing. No smacking. No hissing. No temper tantrums. No, she just SITS there.

And when the wily snugglicious runt has determined that no smackdown is coming her way, what does she do?

She wiggles around so that she can get some real snuggle action going on.

AND MIZ POO JUST SITS THERE AND TAKES IT.

Frankly, I don’t understand what the heck is going on.

I think the world might be ending.

*Ha ha! Trick sentence! No such thing as an ugly kitten!

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Say good-bye to Ezra and Elijah, who are just about to go back to the pet store – hopefully to be adopted very quickly!

(I imagine the trip to the pet store with Ezra howling the entire time will be pleasant.)

No, really, brats. Make yourselves at home!

I think the cat bed is filled beyond capacity. She’s gonna blow!

The look on Beulah’s face is cracking me up. I think I got her right after a yawn.

Helping with the laundry.

Of course, with 300 cat beds in the house, why not curl up on the dirty doormat by the back door?

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Previously
2008: And… that was my weekend!
2007: No entry.
2006: Where the hell did the year GO?
2005: If my nose is cold, the rest of me is cold.
2004: I guess this is what we get for living in the Bible Belt, isn’t it?
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Ah well. Maybe next life.

4/30/09 (Thursday)

Swine flu may have hit the area. They’ve closed all the schools in Madison ’til Monday. Fred said it was like a ghost town on the way to work. I blame these guys. “That’s RIGHT, we started the Swine Flu! Would this have happened if you gave us all the cookies we wanted, like we … Continue reading “4/30/09 (Thursday)”

Swine flu may have hit the area. They’ve closed all the schools in Madison ’til Monday. Fred said it was like a ghost town on the way to work.

I blame these guys.

“That’s RIGHT, we started the Swine Flu! Would this have happened if you gave us all the cookies we wanted, like we demanded? It would NOT. You have no one to blame but yourself, lady! Three cookies in the evening is hardly enough to survive on!”

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For today, a picture entry consisting of pictures that are taking up space in my “to post” folder. You’re welcome!

Little Polish chick is getting head feathers. I love the way it looks like a flat top.

Check out the leg fuzz!

Charlie, in a nest box with one of the broody mommas. The broody mommas are endlessly patient with Charlie and if they’re outside with their babies and Charlie comes close, they don’t get fierce and protective the way they would if any other chicken came close to their babies. I guess they don’t consider her a threat.

These guys love to hang out on the coop steps. (Nance, these are some of the ones who hatched when you guys were visiting!)

Silkie Momma’s babies. Fred particularly likes the one with the tan face.

Poor fucking bluebird. I found him dead by the back steps yesterday. I TRIED to convince him not to hang out in the back yard, but he was stubborn about getting worms from the back yard. He said they were tastier ’cause they’d marinated in the het of Mister Boogers.

After I found the bluebird, I called Fred and demanded that he come home and kill all the cats, but he refused. Hmph.

Polish cross, about 10 weeks old. We moved all seven of the chicks from that batch out to the big chicken yard. They seem to have adjusted well, but Tuesday when I walked by the maternity/ little chicken coop, this one had escaped the big chicken yard and was trying to get into the maternity yard. I let him in and he hung out there for the rest of the day, then we moved him back out to the big chicken yard where he appears to be willing to stay. For now.

“THTOP calling her a bad mother! She is a good mother! I luff her!”

Saturday, Fred was working on the shade structure on the big coop (something I still need to get a picture of), and I was inside puttering around. He came in and said “Did you see the show?” I said “No, what happened?” Apparently he’d been up on the ladder, lost his balance, and FELL. Right on top of the ladder. He hurt his elbow and bruised up his leg, but the worst bruise by far is the one on his ass cheek.

You know you’ve been dying to get a good look at his ass.

The bruise is about the size of a softball, but as is always the way, it’s the areas that aren’t as badly bruised that hurt the worst.

We’re getting to the point (AGAIN) where we’ve got too many roosters. They sure are pretty. It’s too bad they’re such assholes.

“GIVE TO US THE FOOD AND NO ONE GETS HURT.”

For a while there, we had such wet weather that there was nowhere for the chickens to take their dust baths. In desperation, some of them started doing it inside the coop. Fred caught this one on camera.

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What I love about having little kittens: watching them curl up and sleep with each other. So cute I go into sugar shock every time.

Bed capacity: holds four.

I love how he’s holding on to her like she’s a stuffed animal.

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Joe Bob saw Newt run up the Poltergeist Tree and decided to join him. Then he wasn’t quite sure what to do. In the end, he had no problems getting down. Newt stayed up in the tree and took a nap.

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Previously
2008: It smelled like evil.
2007: I think you can imagine our happiness.
2006: No entry.
2005: Always/ Sometimes/ Never
2004: Erin should be more concerned with the fact that he’s been killing people and burying them in the back yard and less with his lying.
2003: I believe there’s a seat in the ass-singe section with my name on it.
2002: Sucks to be her.
2001: “Fuuuuuuuuck,” he said.
2000: Don’t come back here looking for no entry, my friends.

4/15/09

Sights from around Crooked Acres: The Crooked Acres Bluebird. (I told my father that we had one Bluebird hanging around. He said “They don’t hang around singly, they’re in pairs!” I told him I’d only seen the one – yesterday, I realized that female Bluebirds look quite a bit different (in fact, they look like … Continue reading “4/15/09”

Sights from around Crooked Acres:

The Crooked Acres Bluebird. (I told my father that we had one Bluebird hanging around. He said “They don’t hang around singly, they’re in pairs!” I told him I’d only seen the one – yesterday, I realized that female Bluebirds look quite a bit different (in fact, they look like Mockingbirds to me), so it’s entirely possible (probably likely) that there’s a female around, I just didn’t realize it.)

Baby chickens – two weeks old, I think? The others had been pecking at this one’s head, causing her to bleed, so we had to put Blue Kote on her to disinfect the wound and stop the other chickens from pecking. So far, so good.

Such pretty little things.

What I love about chickens is that I see the pretty little ones like this, and I say “I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s grown!”, and I don’t have to wait years and years to find out, only a few months.

Polish cross with a mohawk. This one’s gotta be a rooster.

“You has food for us?”

Fred and my father built a longer, less steep ramp for Charlie, the chicken with the twisted-up toes. Yes, that is correct – our chickens now have a handicapped-accessible ramp. The chickens who are pretty, and the chickens who are friendly are doing it wrong – apparently engendering pity in your owners is what gives Crooked Acres chickens a longer life span.

Twisted-up toes and Blue Kote on her neck. She’s a mess, god love her, but she’s the queen of the baby chicken/ maternity coop and yard.

Broody mamas, each sitting on three or four eggs. The Silkie is due to start hatching this weekend. Hopefully Silkies really are the good mothers they’re purported to be!

Rooster in the sun.

It appears that Michelle – formerly the head rooster of the chicken yard – has been toppled from the throne by this pretty Buff rooster. It makes me sad to see the other roosters chasing Michelle off – and Michelle sleeps in a nest box rather than roosting with his wimmins. I hate seeing it. Poor Michelle.

Michelle performs the maneuver we refer to as “umbrella neck.” The wimmins seem unimpressed.

This white rooster (one we hatched ourselves last Fall from a batch of eggs we got in Amish country in Tennessee – therefore, we call him “The Amish Rooster”, of course) seems poised to kick the Buff rooster off his throne. I have to say, I’d like to see him kick some Buff butt.

Still love the rock star.

This might be Mr. Friendly – who isn’t as friendly as he used to be. In fact, when I check for eggs, he comes and supervises and gets all up in my space. He’s not showing me the proper respect, and I’ve told him that he better stop harassing me, or we’ll be eating Mr. Friendly stew.

I’m not impressed by the umbrella neck, Mr. Friendly.

This rolled-up fencing lives in the wood shed ’til the time comes that Fred needs it.

They’ll build nests anywhere, won’t they?

This tarp covers a rain shelter by the littlest (unused for now) coop. This bird built a nest in it, and I assume she’s sitting on eggs. I snapped this picture, then the bird freaked out and flew off and scolded us, so I left it alone. I want to get better pictures, but I don’t want her to abandon her nest, so I’ll behave. Maybe. (I don’t know what kind of bird it is – I think it might be a Nuthatch.)

“You has food for us?”

Such good puppies, waiting for their treats.

Did I mention pretty?

“Do ya feeling lucky, punk? Well? Do ya?”

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Naturally, as soon as I said how we were going to deal with letting the kittens out into the rest of the house, that changed. Yesterday morning I went up and let them out of their room, and they promptly went to the bottom of the stairs and meowed sadly at how all they wanted in this world was to be let out into the rest of the house, but that mean lady wouldn’t let them.

I can only stand so much sad meowing from tiny kittens, so I caved pretty quickly.

Everyone except Beulah immediately came down and spread out through the house. Our cats were NOT impressed with the tiny interlopers, but they didn’t actually smack anyone, just hissed a lot.

After a couple of hours of the kittens exploring and sniffing at the big cats and eating some of their food, I realized it was pretty quiet, and then I heard an inquisitive meow. Miss Beulah had figured out those stairs and come to see where everyone else had gone. Where was everyone? All curled up in a cat bed, looking kind of scared and lost.

I put them back in their room for a few hours, and then let them out again in the evening. When they’d been out for a few more hours, we decided to put them back in their room (so we wouldn’t be racing around trying to find them at bedtime), and we located everyone but Phinneas and Beulah immediately.

We could not find Beulah and Phinneas ANYWHERE. We looked in all the nooks and crannies of the house, called and called for them, and nothing. I wasn’t worried, because I knew they had to be in the house somewhere, but I WAS very confused.

I was looking around in my room, then suddenly heard a wee meow. I turned around, and Beulah was coming out from behind my laundry basket, looking sleepy. So now we had everyone but Phinneas, and after five more minutes of searching, he just kind of appeared in the middle of my bedroom.

In retrospect, I think that he and Beulah had gotten behind my bookcase – there’s a gap between the bookcase and the wall – curled up in the hollow place under the bookcase (you can’t see under the bookcase from the front, because there’s wood there) and gone to sleep.

Kittens find the most amazing places to curl up and hide, don’t they?

Kittens looking through the screen at Miz Poo, who cannot be bothered to even look their way.

Possibly this would be a better picture if I could ever hold the camera straight, ya think?

Snoozin’ Jasper.

“Tryin’ to sleep here, lady!”

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She has such intense eyes. She scares me a little.

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Previously
2008: It just looked like a great big blob of tumor, is what it looked like.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: “Light” my ass!
2004: An odd duck, that one.
2003: Unfortunately, he lived.
2002: 10 Things I Learned Last Week
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.