Thanks for the suggestion

Now, if I ever get the damn car back (yes it's STILL at the garage), I'll be all set.

And in other news, I stumped those damn deer!





First, I tired mixing up some home-made deer repellent and spraying it on the plants. Which evidently was the equivalent of adding salad dressing, because it did not deter the deer.

They were all, like, "nom nom nom ..... mmmmMMMMMmmmmm ... what is that piquant little extra zing? It's deLIcious!" Dammit.

So I resorted to the less-picturesque but far more effective option:





Deer netting. From a few feet away, you can't even see it's there - you have to get right close up in order to see it. And it's keeping the flipping deer off of my hibiscus. Mission. Accomplished.

Time Suck Central

For some reason, tonight the song "Isn't It Time" by the Babys started running through my head. I haven't heard that song for about thirty years.

Yeah, I'm old.

And despite the fact that I have nine million things to do right now, and have already shoved a lot of stuff plumb off my to-do list because I simply DO NOT HAVE THE TIME (sorry, cookies for the bake sale - no can do), I just spent a chunk of time tracking down that song on Youtube.
Oh, that song.

"I just can't find the answers to the questions that keep running through my mind ... Baby - isn't it time?"

Yeah, time for me to get my ass in gear. Jeez.

Hoopty-doo

Look at my new ride, guys! I traded the Kia for a '92 Buick LeSabre!

hahahahahahahaNOT.

Oh. my. God. Talk about a grandma car. This? Is the kind of car you see on the evening news wedged into the lobby of a drugstore because Nana hit the gas instead of the brakes. The thing is twenty years old and only has eighty thousand miles on it. "Grandma! I've got your car!" I popped open the glovebox to find a bunch of cassettes (yes, cassettes) of big-band music from the forties. If this was a Stephen King book, I'd be waking up in a malt shop. (Whaaaa? Where am I? Why is there a jukebox? And why is Tommy Dorsey playing on it?!)

Oh, and like I mentioned, it doesn't have a registration sticker, so I'm probably going to jail. And the brake light is on, AND the check-oil light, and the paint is peeling off the roof and the quarterpanels are rusting AND it rides like a Buick, which is to say, like a piece of sh*t (so ... BOUNCY! wheeeee!), but your grandma would love it. Or maybe your great-grandma.

And it's FREE to drive while my car is in the shop. Shutting up now.

Three Days? THREE DAYS?!

It's going to take the garage THREE DAYS to get in the parts to fix my car?!

Goddam m*therf*cking c*cks*cking KIA. *kicks tires violently*

At least - at least! - I can keep the loaner. But taking a look at the calendar, three days means that the parts will get to the local dealership on Friday. What TIME on Friday, I do not know. And then the garage has to get the parts from the dealership, and INSTALL the parts, which ... it may not get done on Friday, especially considering it's the Friday of a holiday weekend. And - AND! - there is a big adoption event this weekend, and I was supposed to haul all kinds of crap to the venue Friday and Saturday using my roomy Kia, which currently sits at the garage, waiting for parts.

*sigh*

I know I need to calm down. It's just ... I can handle the car breaking down. I can handle paying a three-hundred-and-fifty dollar repair bill. *gulp* But to have to wait THREE DAYS for the flipping PARTS?

That shit ain't right.

And yes, I looked into it. Kia is as much of a dick about parts as Saturn was - you can't just run down to Advanced Auto and pick up some generic aftermarket stuff. You've gotta order the stuff FROM KIA, and of course, there is no Kia warehouse anywhere near here, so they've gotta ship it to the flippin' DEALER, and then the mechanic has to go pick it up from the goddam dealership, and

... stopping now.

The world will not end because my car is in the shop. All will be well, and I need to count my blessings and shut up.

grrrrrrrrrrrr

and then the f*cking CAR BROKE DOWN

Thankfully, it was in my driveway. You know when you notice a puddle under the car and you're all, like, "Oh PLEASE let that be rainwater Oh PLEASE let that be rainwater" ... yeah. It wasn't rainwater.

I managed to limp it in to the nearest garage this morning, and they agreed to squeeze me in and take a look at it, and they even gave me a loaner! Who DOES that?! It's a beatermobile, but still. I love going to a new garage - they treat first-time customers like royalty because they want you to keep coming back. The gouging doesn't usually start until the second or third visit, so I should be good. *fingers crossed*

Wish me luck!

Oh Hai. GET A JOB.

I got home the other day to find a flyer in my door for a bottle drive. Not unusual; the boy scouts come around a couple of times a year to raise money for their summer camp. And the mail carrier collects food for the local pantry a couple of times a year, also.

But this solicitation gave me pause, because it was for an individual. A local high school student who wants to go to a one-month art-school program and is raising money for expenses. She wanted everybody to leave cans at the end of their driveways on a certain date so she could take them and cash them in.

I ... don't know. I mean, if it was a fundraiser for a local kid who had cancer or something, OF COURSE. But a high school junior who wants to attend a special art-school program? Raising money door-to-door? Without, like, selling candy bars or something? Just, "Give me your cans! Because!"

Call me a curmudgeon, but it just seems wrong. For one thing, I live in a well-off school district. It's not like it's some kid from the projects or something. Maybe little princess should ask daddy to sell some stocks or something instead. Or go get a damn job at McDonald's. Yeah, how about you work for the money, honey? And second, this feels vaguely like the firemen with their damn BOOTS at the INTERSECTIONS, which I also despise. DO NOT SHOVE YOUR BOOT IN MY CAR WINDOW, FIREMAN. I WILL CUT YOU.


Holy crap, it sure is Monday, isn't it? Get off my lawn.

It was six years ago today

Six years ago today, I started this blog. Nineteen hundred posts ago.


Six years ago:

I was still on the low end of my forties, as opposed to the high end.

Rocky was still alive.

I lived in an apartment building.

I was driving a Saturn. Aye-yi-yi.

I smoked. A LOT.

I hadn't met any of you guys.



I wonder what my life will look like, six years from now? Hard tellin'. Stick around and let's find out.

In which I channel the Vintage Vixen

It's pretty rare that I find actual *vintage* in the local thrift stores, as opposed to the usual White Stag Walmart crap from five years ago, so when I found this seventies-era maxi dress, even though I know I'll probably never wear it, I gladly paid three bucks for it.

Because does this scream "Vintage Vixen", or does it not? And even though her personal style is not my personal style, she's reminded me that it's okay to HAVE a personal style, so this little number will make me smile every time I see it hanging in my closet.

Look at the fabulous detailing! (and not at the boobs. *cough* DO NOT STARE AT MY BOOBS IT'S CREEPY.)



And who knows? Maybe on one of my "oh-screw-the-world" days, I'll actually wear it.

Although I'll have to be careful to stay away from open flames, because that thing is pure synthetic (so ... slippery!), and I don't want to sacrifice my life for fashion. I'm not THAT dedicated.

Screw wearing purple when I get old. I'm wearing hippie.

Future-Me

Future-Me would like to tell Current-Me not to worry so much.

I wish Future-Me had told Then-Me not to marry that boy just because I was worried I'd end up alone.

I wish Future-Me had told Then-Me to go ahead and go to the community college, even if it wasn't as prestigious as the Ivy League schools my guidance counselor had told me I could get into. Dad wouldn't pay for Ivy League, but he would have paid for community college. I cut off my damn nose to spite my face, right there.

I wish Future-Me had told Then-Me to start The Runt on the heart meds.

I wish Future-Me had told Teenage-Me to be nicer to my parents. Jeezus Christ, I was Kid #6. I could've cut them a break.

I wish Future-Me would tell Current-Me to stop beating myself up over being snotty to my parents as a teenager. We all did it.

I wish Future-Me would tell all the Me-s that it will all work out, one way or another. It always does.





What do you wish your Future-Me would tell you?

Afterbath

Boys will be boys, and after the sweetness of bathtime comes the afterbath ...

They sure do like to wrassle.

Of course, Sodapop needs to get in on the act as well:

And sometimes props are used:

*biff* *bam* *ouch* "Mooooooooommmmm!":

Oh, boys.

"For the love of Christ will you leave those f*cking cats alone!?"

I swear, I am going to KILL the neighbors' granddaughters.

So! The weekend! I kind of thought I'd be in Florida, but my sister-in-law had been adamant in insisting she did not want a funeral service, and my brother was adamant that he didn't want anybody flying down, so ... I was home. I'm hopeful that at some point I will be spending time in Florida with my brother, but per his wishes, it's not going to be right how.

Saturday we had an adoption event, which ... oh lord, there's some entertainment value, right there. From the Russian immigrants who cannot understand why the cats are not free ("In Moscow, you just go out in the street and scoop one up! And then it's your cat!") to the woman who held kitten after kitten after kitten, wailing that "None of them love me!", to the woman who had her cats declawed "because I'm 74, and when I go, my son will be taking my cats, and he has leather sofas!" (OH PLEASE), and we couldn't figure out who she looked like, until I finally decided it was a cross between George C. Scott and Katherine Chancellor from The Young and The Restless ... well, it's never boring.

And then I had to go home and mow, which ... by this time of year, I am just OVER the whole mowing thing, you know? It's, like, grass, you can STOP GROWING NOW. YOU'VE GROWN ENOUGH THIS YEAR.

And Saturday night Soda brought in a bird, which appeared to be BRIGHT GREEN, and I'm all, Oh my God did he kill someone's PARAKEET?, until I realized that the bird actually had sprigs of leaves in its wings, which ... was it garnish? Was Soda auditioning for Master Chef? I have no idea.

And then! Sunday was Tinks' (approximate) birthday, so ham and chicken and catnip were enjoyed by all. And a good deal of time was spent in the backyard. And the neighbors' ten-year-old twin granddaughters WOULD NOT stop chasing the cats, until I finally yelled at them. No, I didn't use swear words, but yes, I yelled. Yeah, that's me, earning brownie points in the neighborhood.

And then, on one of those news shows on TV, a shocking expose revealing that ... carnival games are rigged! NO. I HAD NO IDEA.

So ... how was your weekend?

Yeah, I'd have to see the science on that one

Courtesy NBC News:

"A Republican Senate nominee found himself in hot water on Sunday for suggesting that instances of "legitimate rape" rarely results in pregnancy.

Rep. Todd Akin, a Republican who's locked in a hard-fought campaign in Missouri to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, was answering a question regarding his position on abortion rights in instances when a woman is a victim of rape.


"People always want to make it into one of those things — well, how do you slice this particularly tough ethical question," Akin said in an interview on KTVI-TV, video of which was circulated by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," Akin said. "

Yeah, that's right. My body can somehow differentiate between "legitimate rape" and other sex, and decide whether I get pregnant or not.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH oh wait that's not funny.

p.s. Thank you for your condolences. It means a lot.

and she was

My sister-in-law passed away yesterday.


She was a fine, funny woman who never had a bad word to say about anyone. After her mother got Alzheimer's, she brought her mother into her own home for several years, with all that entails, and never complained. She sure did enjoy a beer or two once in a while, and once she'd had a couple, oh lord, she could tell a story, but she was so soft-spoken you really had to lean in to listen. She had two different colored eyes - one blue and one green. She was always in a good mood - I never saw her angry or heard her raise her voice. She and my brother, her husband, raised a beautiful, caring daughter. My brother loved her dearly. I'm not sure how long they'd been married, but it must have been over forty years.

Good-bye, Diane. I will never be as fine a person as you were. And I'll miss you dearly and remember you fondly.

More bathtime

These pictures just slay me.

Tinks is a groomer. After he's done cleaning his own long, white fur, he'll grab whoever's closest for a little more bathtime.

Maybe it's because he's the youngest of the three. He'll be a year old this weekend. Sodapop was a year old in June, and Ponyboy was a year old in January.



Clean 'em up, Tinks.

Buttermilk Falls

Saturday, I snuck into Buttermilk Falls. I wasn't gonna pay seven bucks to see waterfalls with NO WATER IN THEM:

Happily, there WAS water further up the gorge:




You can see how the water has eroded the rocks over the centuries:

And Pinnacle Rock is always cool:

And then, as I was tooling around Ithaca, I spotted this:

Whaaaa? Let's take a closer look:

That is Ithaca, right there in a nutshell.

I know I can make this work

Okay, first off, scroll down, where I talk about my doughnut addiction and the junk jewelry I bought on Ebay.

Now, in an inexplicable turn, I am becoming a fashion blogger for a day. Here is what I'm wearing to work tomorrow:




Yes, I pick out my outfits the night before. It saves time when I am inevitably running late in the morning. Now, I know this outfit is a little ... out there, but I'm getting bored with my work clothes lately, and it's time to mix it up a little. I have to say, a recent find and absolute inspiration is Vintage Vixen, who cares not one whit what others think about her personal style.

So! Turquoise and mixed prints it is. Yee-haw.

Oh Danny Boy, the Doughnuts, the Doughnuts are calling ...

I had a doughnut Saturday morning. It was a Boston Creme, from Dunkin Donuts, and I ate it in the car on my way up to Ithaca. And that creme stuff that they fill them with, well ... it's sure not anything found in nature, and it's probably a hundred percent chemicals, but that doughnut sure tasted good. With the chocolate glaze on top ...

And now, all I can think about is doughnuts.

I had to run up to the grocery store and pick up a few things on my lunch break, and I actually stood in front of the doughnut case, staring, like a little kid in front of a toy store.

I didn't buy a doughnut. Oh, I thought about it. Hell, I thought about buying a DOZEN doughnuts. "For the office!" Yeah, right.

I mean, I could buy some doughnuts. It's not like it would break some cosmic rule if I ate a doughnut. After all, I had one on Saturday. But you know what? I'll bet you I could eat six doughnuts right now. One jelly-filled, one glazed, one creme-filled ... OH YUM. I'll bet I could give twelve doughnuts a run for their money right now. And again, so what? I could eat ten thousand calories worth of doughnuts RIGHT NOW and it wouldn't make a flip's worth of difference in the grand scheme of things.

It's just ... they're just empty food. Not much nutritional value. Pure sugar, practically. Sugar and fat and OH MY GOD THEY TASTE SO GOOD.

Hi. My name is RockyCat and I'm a doughnutaholic.

Stuff I bought on Ebay this week

Lizard ring $5.51 Bracelet $2.46 Bracelet $1.29

Antler ring $1.00 Flower ring $1.04 Seahorse necklace $1.29

Bow tie ring $.99

And all those prices INCLUDE shipping!

Yes, I'm aware that these are coming straight outta China. And yes, I should feel bad about that. All I can say is, if I want to buy overpriced crap from resellers, I can always go to Etsy. And this stuff is cheaper than the thrift store!

Ah, TLC ...

...Restoring Destroying my faith in humanity, one show at a time.

Lately they've been upping the ante. There was "Little Rabbit Foo-Foo", or whatever the hell it's called, about a Southern family so language-impaired they had to close-caption it.

Tonight we have "United Bates of America", which appears to be a clone of The Duggars. Now I will be the first to admit, I do love The Duggars, because they're a fascinating mix of sweet, wholesome and batshit insane. I'm afraid that the Bates will just be a pale imitation.

And! Following the Bates tonight, we have "Big Tiny", or whatever the hell IT'S called, about some dwarves little people. I'm pretty sure I fulfilled my little people viewing quota by watching countless reruns of Little People, Big World, which I finally soured on when Matt turned into pretty much a dick.

Good ol' TLC. Single-handedly providing me with all the abysmal crap TV I could ever want to watch.

hahaha you guys I am NOT EVEN KIDDING

So! One-thirty this morning. I'm sound asleep. Something - a sound, a motion, something, wakes me up. I see something moving by the bedroom door.

Is it a cat? That's a pretty good guess, around here. But no, no, it wasn't a cat ... at least it wasn't one of MY cats.

It's not really that unusual to have a cat visitor. I have a pet door, and it's not unheard of for neighborhood cats to pay a visit to my place from time to time, mostly to see how much food they can scarf out of my cats' bowls before I shoo them back out the pet door. So when I saw what looked like a cat, but not one of MY cats, at my bedroom door, it wasn't a huge surprise.

But no, it's not a cat. It's too big for a cat. And at this point, I'm desperately trying to struggle out of sleep, and fumbling for my glasses on the nightstand, and glad that I sleep with a nightlight (SHUT IT), because at least I can see a little bit.

Maybe it's a dog? Did one of the neighborhood dogs somehow get loose and get in the house? Geez, it doesn't really look like a dog ...

Okay, so I've got some of the fog cleared out of my head, and I've got my glasses on and at last I can finally see ...

HOLY SHIT IT'S A RACCOON.

Oh my God you guys, not just a RACCOON, but a GREAT BIG RACCOON, I'm guessing thirty pounds easy, and - TA-DA! I'M IN YOUR BEDROOM, LADY! OH HAI!

Oh shit.

There is a RACCOON in my BEDROOM and I have NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. Tinks was about ten feet away from the raccoon, crouched down uneasily, and at this point I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm gonna get the GIANT RACCOON out of my house, and

the raccoon started shuffling toward the living room.

I cautiously got out of bed and started following it, keeping in mind that even a raccoon is a WILD ANIMAL and can do some damage to your ass if it so chooses. I actually passed up an opportunity to move a snapping turtle out of the road on Saturday, because a snapper will TAKE A FINGER OFF, NO QUESTION, if you screw around with one, and I could not see any way of that scenario ending well, so I left the snapper rescue for one of the many, many road bicyclists out on that road on Saturday, and ... where was I? Oh yeah ...

THERE IS A GIANT RACCOON. IN MY HOUSE.

And here is where I thank my lucky stars, because that raccoon shuffled through the living room, through the kitchen, and right back to the pet door.

Where there was a nervous moment because I swear, I was not sure that that raccoon was gonna FIT back through that pet door, but

out he went.

Dudes. DUDES. I had a GIANT RACCOON inside my house last night, and lived to tell the tale. Amen. And I swear to God, this shit only happens to me.

Yet another sign of old age

David Rakoff died yesterday.

Every time I read the obit of someone who was younger than me, and who obviously accomplished a lot more with their life than I have managed to do with mine to date, it gives me pause.

Like, "Jeezus Christ, what the hell I am DOING with my life?"

Ha.

Obviously I'm never gonna be Mother Teresa, and the odds of me finding a cure for cancer are not real good, but I would hate for my obit to read, " She ... drank a lot of beer. And she read lots of books! And she tried not to be overtly MEAN to anybody ..."

That's one of the reasons I started volunteering. To beef up my obit. Kind of like padding the old resume. And let's face it, I've got some work to do, because I spent most of my twenties and thirties and, hell, half of my forties pretty self-absorbed.

Time to get a move on!

I think I might've gotten hosed

But then again, maybe not.

A few weekends ago, I went to the local flea market. I know, I KNOW! I talk all the time about how cheap I am, and then I go blow money at the flea market. Go figure. At least I'm not betting it on the ponies.

But! I picked up a cat carrier for four bucks, and I really needed one, seeing as how I just recently came to the realization that I now had three cats and only two carriers. Yeah, I'm a little slow on the uptake. In my defense(!), the whole three-cat thing IS taking a while to sink in.

And! I got three CDs for five bucks. One of which is Celebrity Skin by Hole, which I'm pretty sure I already have, except you know how you're standing there in front of the used-CD booth, and suddenly you can't remember which CDs y0u already own? Yeah, that happens to me, too. But I needed a third CD to round out the three-for-five deal, so I may now own twice as much Courtney Love as anybody ought to have. Sue me.

And, let's see, I've been on a seahorse yen lately, so I picked up a tacky little seahorse statue for a dollar, which I guess everybody came out even on, 'cause when I took it home and flipped it over, it had a Dollar Tree sticker on it. Vintage! ha.

And then, and then, there was this little statue of Mary, at the booth of the dude who sells the animal pelts, and I circled around it a couple of times and picked it up and it weighed, like, twenty pounds, so I'm thinking, "doorstop!", and the dude says that it's bronze (sure it is) and he's asking thirty bucks. I said, "oh, that's nice, it's a pretty little statue," and started to move on, and the dude's, like, "make an offer!" and this is why I'm terrible at flea markets, because I said, "Nah, I can't offer anywhere near that," and the dude's, all, "come on, MAKE AN OFFER! Go ahead!" So I blurted out, "ten bucks," and he said, "Gimme the money" and that's how I came home with a bronze (Like I am so sure) Mary doorstop.

I kind of thought I got hosed on the deal, but a quick ebay search shows similar items going for anywhere between thirty and seventy bucks, so maybe not so much. Then again, that's what they're being OFFERED FOR on ebay, I have no idea if anybody's actually SELLING any at those prices, so who knows.



Such is the flea market. *sigh* I love that place.

Me and my bony ass

aka, "Baby got (no) back"

I think my butt is shrinking.

I've never been particularly well-endowed in the back end area, and as I get older, I find I need more and more padding in my chairs to sit comfortably.

Even if I've been sitting in a padded chair, it still feels like I've been sitting on a metal folding chair. Ouch! My butt aches!

Yet another consequence of aging that NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT. What the hell else am I gonna find out as I get older? Are my toes going to fall off as I age? Are my eyes going to cross? I'D LIKE A LITTLE ADVANCE WARNING, DAMMIT.

Recently Read

yeahyeahyeah, skip it if you wanna.



1. The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon. Novel by the author of "Riding the Bus with My Sister". It's about two mentally disabled people who fall in love - good.

2. Velva Jean Learns to Fly by Jennifer Niven - Novel about, well, a woman who learns to fly in the forties. Started out good but then bogged down. Didn't finish.

3. The Orchard by Adele Crockett Robertson - Memoir of a woman who tried to save a family farm during the Depression - good. She was one tough cookie.



4. We Thought You Would Be Prettier by Laurie Notaro - Humorous essays. Meh.

5. Land of a Hundred Wonders by Lesley Kagan - Novel about a mentally handicapped woman trying to solve a mystery. Oy. Did not finish.

6. The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner - Semi-autobiographical novel about a family in the early 1900s - great big sprawler of a book. Interesting, but the lead character (the father) was pretty much a dick, and I didn't like the narrator (the son) much better.

7. All My Patient Have Tales by Jeff Wells - Memoir of a veterinarian - Lighthearted and interesting.

8. Oral History by Lee Smith - Novel about several generations of an Appalachian family - Interesting.

9. Mudbound by Hilary Jordan - Novel about a woman raising a family on a farm during the latter part of WWII. Okay.

10. Satan is Real - The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers by Charlie Louvin - I'd never even heard of the Louvin Brothers before I read this book, but the cover art drew me in. It's a memoir by a country-western/gospel singer who was big in the fifties - Really entertaining.



So! That's what I got. How about you - reading anything good?





Oh, and I broke down and bought 11/22/63, but all of the reviews are so good that I don't want to start it just yet - I might save it for my birthday IN NOVEMBER - ha - I am crazy.

The first rule of holes

This is a post in which I go all ranty-pantie about something that's bugging me. You've been warned!

I've been fostering a couple of kittens in my spare room, to give the FC (foster coordinator) a break while she prepared for and recovered from surgery. Some of the other volunteers have taken on extra fosters, too, to help out.

Last Wednesday was surgery day, so I checked facebook last Thursday morning to see how the FC made out, only to find an entry about three more kittens she had taken in that day.

And I really, really wanted to comment, "You're going the wrong way! You're supposed to adopt them OUT, not keep taking them IN!"

I then checked the website. The rescue group currently has seventeen kittens and nine adult cats we are trying to find homes for. Some of the kittens are starting to age out, meaning they are looking less like kittens and more like adult cats, and are thus much less likely to be adopted. Adoptions have been slow this summer, the group has taken in more cats than it can find homes for, and all of the shelters and rescues in the area are full.

And the FC just had surgery.

And she just took in three more kittens.

THIS is what makes me crazy about cat people. THIS is why rescues get overwhelmed and shut down operations, forcing other local groups to take on a sudden influx of cats when they are already full. THIS is what is wrong with rescue people: They don't know how to say no.

Look, I get it. What the hell are you SUPPOSED to do when somebody calls up and tells you they just found a box of two-week-old kittens by the side of the road? When you know that all of the other shelters and rescues are full? When you know that the kittens will probably be abandoned if you don't take them in? I get it. I do.

But I also know that a lot of the time when someone calls saying they "found" a litter of kittens, those kittens actually belong to them, because they never bothered to get their female cat spayed, and now they just want to unload the kittens. I know, too, that the FC currently has nine adult cats and several litters of kittens at her house. It's almost impossible to keep sick ones properly quarantined in that kind of situation, and when cats are overcrowded, Mother Nature has a way of taking care of that by sending down a nasty virus that kills off most of them.

That's horrifying, I know. I don't like to think about it, and I certainly don't wish it on anyone. But that's what happens when rescue situations get out of control. You don't hear about it, because it certainly isn't publicized, but it happens all the time, everywhere. Either disease sweeps through an overcrowded rescue, or the rescue head gets overwhelmed and closes up shop.

And it could happen here. Because the head of the rescue group doesn't know how to say no. And that makes me sad.

Women in bikinis

So, I've been kind of switching the TV over to the Olympics every once in a while, just to see if there's any equestrian events on (I KNOW), or maybe that young woman from Flint who is boxing, or heck, even some synchronized swimming.

Nope. Women's volleyball.

And I mean, I get it. Kind of. Women in bikinis.

I mean, obviously, NBC wouldn't be showing nine trillion hours of women's volleyball if it hadn't proven to be a money-maker. If it didn't bring in the ratings.

But ... really? When porn is available so readily on the internet, 24/7? Men are getting off on watching women's volleyball? It's like back in the day when the ladies' underwear section of the Sears catalog was stashed under Junior's bed.

I don't know. I just don't get it.

Leo and Lilly

Leo says, "Hey! Why hasn't anyone adopted us yet?!"

Lilly says, "We are the cutest kittens in the WORLD! Come adopt us!"

Yep, the kittens are still visiting while the FC recovers from her surgery. (And the day AFTER her surgery, she took in MORE KITTENS, which ... stay tuned for one pissed-off post, is what I'm sayin'.)

Leo and Lilly have made themselves right at home, and because they have had all their vaccinations, they are able to mingle with the other cats.

Ponyboy is CONVINCED that the food in the kitten room is the best food in the WORLD. (It's the exact same thing he gets in his own bowl, but he believes otherwise.)

And here's the kittens with that perennial favorite, the Undercover Mouse.

Anybody want a couple of adorable tabbies? The rescue group's running a buy-one-get-one-free special! Get 'em while they're cute!

Pancakes

We went out for lunch yesterday. Although usually, we have breakfast instead. When I was a little girl, sometimes she'd make breakfast for dinner - pancakes and eggs and bacon - and it seemed like a magical thing.

And also, frankly, at noon on Sunday, I'm more ready for breakfast than I am for lunch, and mom likes pancakes, so there ya go.

She speaks softly in a kind of stream-of-consciousness way these days, all, "... and there's a red one, and a blue one, and a yellow one! ... exit ... that sign says exit ... and there were birds! Big birds ... so then I told her, "No, YOU behave!," and we all laughed ... and there's another bird, over there ..."

And all the time, I'm cutting up her pancakes for her, 'cause she can't seem to grasp the mechanics of silverware anymore, and I'm putting the cream and sugar in her coffee and stirring it up, and I'm listening to her talk about birds and exit signs.

And I mean ... it is what it is. She once was one person, and now she's another person. And I am sure there are other people yet to come. I just hope that in the next phase, she can see the future or tell me some winning lottery numbers or something. Wouldn't that be cool?

Heck, the cats and I can share, right?

My neighbor L. knocked on my back door last night.

"I brought a treat over for your kitties!," she said.

"Oh, how nice!," I replied. "What is it?"

"Smoked salmon! I did some on the grill tonight, and B. and I couldn't eat it all, so I thought I'd bring the leftovers over for your kitties!"

And she handed me a foil-lined paper plate, with about a half a pound of grilled smoked salmon on it.

"Wow, L.," I said. "Are you sure you won't eat it for lunch tomorrow?"

"No, no," she said. " I want your kitties to have it!"

Man, I couldn't help myself. "Is it okay if the cats and I share?"

"Whaaaaat?," she asked. "It's just leftover salmon! But sure, sure, enjoy it with your kitties!"

Thankfully, the cats agreed to share with me. And that was some damn fine salmon.

Trying to put it politely

Okay, first off, I want to say thank you to ~~Silk, for standing up for me over at that Dooce post. You know, I wrote that (admittedly somewhat juvenile) post a long, long time ago and then moved on, and it amazes me that the nutjobs are STILL having a field day over there. Whatevs, you crazies. And thanks again, ~~Silk. You're a good person.

And in other news, my ankle STILL hurts. I've decided that I've been the victim of some kind of bizarre apian revenge plot, wherein this year's crop of yellowjackets saved up all of their venom for me, in retribution for killing their ancestors two years ago. Karma's a bitch.

Now. On to business. I usually drive a busy highway to work, but that road has been under construction all summer and will be for the foreseeable future, so I've been driving a quiet little two-lane rural road most of the way in. The speed limit on this road is 30 mph, and you really don't want to go much faster than that, because there's lots of curves and hills and deer standing in the middle of the road that you have to honk your horn at until they mosey off.

Oh, and it's double-solid-yellow-line all the way, meaning no passing. But the road's only a few miles long, meaning you're on it for, like, ten minutes, max, so no biggie, right?


Wrong. At least half of the time, there's some asshole in a giant pickup truck right off my back bumper, going apoplectic because I'm *only* doing 40, and he's got something important to get to GOD DAMMIT!

Whenever I can, I pull over to let Joe Asshole go get to his very important thing, which he then arrives at an entire THIRTY SECONDS SOONER because I got out of his way. But these f*cktards are giving me a headache, and the other day, when I was on my way home with some dipsh*t in a giant SUV so close behind me he was practically on top of me, I started thinking up possible bumperstickers, to give the assholes some reading material while they were right on my bumper. At first I thought of,


BACK OFF, ASSHOLE

But that seemed a little ... hostile. And not suitable for viewing by children. Maybe sweeten it up a little?

BACK OFF, BUTTERCUP

Hmmm ...

BACK OFF, SWEETIE-PIE

Maybe go the humorous route?

BACK OFF - I don't know you that well

BACK OFF - I'm just not that into you

BACK OFF - Don't make the nun get out her ruler

That last one's my personal favorite, but I don't know if Joe Neanderthal in his Dodge Denali would get the joke.

I don't know - what do you guys think? Any ideas?

Goddam motherf*cking c*cks*cking son-of-a-bitch BEES

The bees got me again.

Two summers ago, I mowed over a nest of yellowjackets. It hurt.

Last night? It happened again.

And I will tell you what, those stings HURT. I got nailed on the ankle last night, and it STILL hurts this morning. I slept with an ice pack on it last night. Call the waaaaaambulance. Sheesh.

Unlike last time, when I ninja-d up before attacking the nest, last night I just waited for dark, grabbed the can of napalm from the garage, and emptied that sucker into the hole.

Goddam motherf*ckers sting ME? I ANNIHILATE your asses.

F*cking bees.