RockyCat

Romeo's heart

2012-01-27T08:25:00.000-05:00

So THAT'S why they named him Romeo.

Great news! Romeo and Mouse, after less than a week at the adoption center, are getting adopted this morning! All paperwork has been completed, and their new family is coming to get them at 9 a.m. I stopped at Petsmart on my way in to work to say a quick goodbye. Bye-bye, guys! Have fun in your new home!

Oh, and in other cat news, Molly was SUPPOSED to go to the adoption center this morning, but she presented a mighty struggle against the carrier and I was not able to take her in. *sigh* Your turn is coming, Molly. Your turn is coming.

The trouble with Molly is that she does not want to be picked up. She LOVES to sit in your lap and purr, but as soon as you try to pick her up, she flips out. I don't know if her former owner, an elderly lady, picked her up and dropped her once and now she's scared, but a cat who can't be picked up presents a bit of a problem, so they are going to have to work with her at the adoption center on that little quirk.

Provided, that is, I ever manage to get her into a carrier to get her to the center. I think reinforcements are going to be needed.

Oh, and if anybody has any suggestions on how to pick up a cat who does not want to be picked up, thankyouverymuch, please let me know.

Common questions I get at the adoption center

2012-01-26T09:15:00.000-05:00

When I am volunteering at the adoption center, I get lots of questions. And I love it! I love being able to talk with people, answer their questions, and of course, look at cell phone pictures of their cats. Well, that last part not so much, but it's part of the job. Ha. Here's some of the most common questions and the answers I give. (Or, the answers I'd LIKE to give, in parentheses.) If you think I'm doin it rong, feel free to chime in. After all, I'm new at this.

Q. How did the cats end up here?

A. They each have their own individual story. Is there a cat you're interested in? I'll tell you his story. Unfortunately, none of the stories involve fulfilling a cat's lifelong dream of ending up in the care of an animal rescue group. (No, that is not my actual response. But it's what I'd LIKE to say, sometimes. Often, people seem to believe that there must be some HAPPY reason the cats are in rescue care.)

Q. I want a declawed cat. Are these cats declawed?

A. (Oh my God do not get me started.) No, the cats are not declawed. And no, you may not adopt a cat and then declaw it. If you are adamant in having a declawed cat, I will help you find cats in local shelters who have already (unfortunately) been declawed. Our rescue group strongly disapproves of declawing. (VERY strongly). Would you be interested in a pamphlet on the declawing process and its effect on a cat? (I know, I know, I sound like some kind of PETA weirdo, here, but jeezus CHRIST declawing is brutal.)

Q. I like that cat, but I'm not sure I'm ready to adopt. Would it be mean to go in and visit with it, and then not adopt it?

A. Absolutely not. Come on in! The cats get bored here, and they can use the company. They won't hold it against you if you visit and then don't adopt. You might go home with a little cat fur on your clothes, though. Oh, and only one child at a time, accompanied by an adult - we don't want the cats to get overwhelmed. (And if your child is afraid of cats, this is really NOT the time or the place to try to work through that fear. Do that with a cat you actually KNOW, please. Our cats are not guinea pigs.)

Q. There was a cat here a few weeks ago who isn't here anymore. Did it get adopted?

A. It may have gotten adopted, or it may have gone back to its foster home for a stay. We don't like to keep the cats here for too long in these cages. After a couple of weeks here, they go back to their foster homes for a break. If you can remember the name of the cat, or its coloring, or even just the cage it was in, I can let you know if it was adopted or if it is on break.

Q. Why are the cats so expensive? They're just strays.

A. (cough) The adoption fee is eighty-five dollars. That includes spaying or neutering, all their required shots, testing for feline diseases, a full vet check-up, and microchipping. If you were to
price that out at a local vet, it would be at least four hundred bucks. Plus, some of the cats are ill or injured when they come to us, and require extensive and sometimes expensive medication before they are healthy and ready to be adopted. In the best of circumstances, the adoption group breaks even, and that's not even counting the food while they are in foster care.

Q. The cats don't stay in those little cages, do they? Do they go into bigger cages at night?

A. They stay in the cages you see until they are adopted, or until they go back to a foster home for a break. They do get one-on-one time in the back with volunteers, when volunteers are available, and the volunteers let them out into the visiting area to stretch their legs and play. But no, there are no "bigger cages" in the back. (And THIS is why I am conflicted when my fosters go to PetSmart. The odds of them being adopted skyrocket, but ... little cages.)

Q. Why are there so many older cats here?

A. Many older cats come to us when their elderly owners have to go into a nursing home. It would be great if people would think about who would take their pets if something happened to them, because a lot of the time, the pets end up here.

Q. Why aren't there any kittens here?

A. In this part of the country, there is a "kitten season", which runs from spring into fall, when kittens are available. Few cats get pregnant in the fall, as this would mean having kittens in the cold winter, which is an evolutionary "no-no", so there aren't very many kittens available in the winter time. (That's why the odds of getting your daughter a kitten for Christmas aren't actually all that great.) The few kittens that do come through this time of year are adopted almost immediately.

So! There's some answers to some of the most common questions I get asked. Please keep in mind that I am by no means an authority, and feel free to correct any of my answers in the comments. I'll do another Q & A post as I get more questions - hopefully I'll get some doozies soon!

Last night

2012-01-25T09:08:00.006-05:00

Okay, first of all, I just got done with another AWESOME experience in the dentist's chair *cough*, so I'm a leetle out of it this morning. But I've been thinking about Obama's speech last night ...

I like the man. I voted for him. I will vote for him again. And I truly believe that he is trying his best. But I'm beginning to wonder if he isn't a little bit too worried about his legacy. I think maybe he needs to stop trying to play nice, and start doing the nut-busting it's going to take to accomplish his agenda.

On that note, I think Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York, is going to run for pres in 2016. And I think he's got a good shot at it. Because he's the grab-you-by-the-throat-and-f*ck-you-up-if-you-don't-do-it-my-way type of politician the Democratic party needs. Sad but true.

Oh! Jackie Bray! The woman in the audience whom Obama pointed out as a rags-to-riches story? Veneers.

It seems kind of odd that the President is just a year older than I am. And my dentist is YOUNGER than I am. By quite a bit. When did I get so old?

So that's my thoughts on last night. Yours?

Okay, NOW they're just f*cking with me

2012-01-24T10:12:00.002-05:00

At work, I am responsible for compiling data for the Federal and State tax forms. It's just one of those many, many things that were not part of my original job description but have somehow mysteriously landed in my lap over the years, mostly because nobody else wanted to do them, and shit, if there's something you don't want to do at work, just dump it on the secretary! Bah.

And the thing about the tax forms is that they change every goddam year. Shit, sometimes every quarter. They're always tweaked, just a leetle bit, just enough so you have to learn a bunch of new shit just to be able to figure out what particular information they are asking for.

I love the (tax) code! NOT. CHRIST.

So here I am, filling out this one particular yearly form, and you've got to take the payroll numbers and subtract this and multiply by that and simple, right?

Except this year they've added a twist. This year you've got to take your final numbers, then divide it into the first half of the year and the second half of the year. You have to reverse-engineer the numbers.

And for the love of GOD I cannot figure this out. The numbers are NOT complying. They are NOT adding up, no many how many times I work it through.

And why did they do this? Why did they split the year, causing my brain to melt? BECAUSE THEY CAN.

I think for my next career I want to work for the IRS. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?

*sob*

Cats in cages

2012-01-23T08:33:00.005-05:00

On Saturday, the rescue group I volunteer with held an adoption event at the local Agway.

It's so funny - the first thing a lot of people do when they see the cats is whip out their cell phones and start taking pictures. So, of course I got out MY camera and took a picture of THEM. I wonder if someone was taking a picture of me taking a picture of them taking pictures of the cats?

The weather was awful and the roads were terrible, so I was really surprised at the number of people who came out. And we got adoption applications on three kittens! Yay! Unfortunately, none of them were for Romeo and Mouse. Boo.

So it was off to Petsmart with the boys. Oh, I felt awful. I DO NOT LIKE seeing cats in cages, especially young ones. But I did a shift at the adoption center on Sunday, so I was able to take them (and the other cats there) out of their cage so they could play for a while. Lots of people were interested in them at Petsmart. If they don't get adopted after a couple of weeks, they'll come back to stay with me for a while. Of course I'm torn. I WANT them to get adopted, but geez, the house sure is quiet ...

and how is Molly? Oh, it took Miss Molly all of about two minutes on Saturday to decide that she liked the house MUCH BETTER without those annoying damn kittens in it. I even got her chasing like crazy after the laser pointer - a ten year old cat playing like a maniac. THAT was fun. She's still pretty grumpy a lot of the time, poor old girl. And she gets overstimulated - If I pay attention to her for too long, she'll start to hiss and swat at me. Easy, cat!

Here she is on my lap:

Let's see if I've got a better shot of those pretty green eyes.

There. Green eyes.

So there's your weekend cat update. You're welcome. Heh.

Look Back

2012-01-22T19:00:00.000-05:00

'

'

Six months ago today ...

A hundred and three outside. Eighty-eight inside. At six twenty-one in the evening.

Man, I miss summer.

Doin' the Kitty-Cat Shuffle

2012-01-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

Betty Sue, my most recent foster, was feeling poorly. (Don't worry - Nobody dies in this post.) Sometimes she'd act okay, and sometimes she'd sit all hunched up, like she was in pain. She was on steroids for suspected IBS, but the vet wasn't sure that was the correct diagnosis. And when it got so she was hardly eating, I called the foster coordinator. Who decided that Betty Sue could use a little observation. So Betty Sue went back to the FC's for a visit. And in return, I got Molly.

Molly is ten years old. Her elderly owner went to live with a daughter who owned dogs. Molly did not care for the dogs. And so, BAM, into the foster system she went. *sigh* I would like to expound a little bit on the necessity of having a contingency plan for your pets should something happen to you, but I'll save the lecture for another post. Aren't you glad?

Like most new fosters, Molly spent the first twenty-four hours or so hidden under the bed in the spare room. And then she started making furtive exploratory forays out into the rest of the house. I think she may have cataracts - her eyes have an almost-cloudy, sorta-scratchy look. But it doesn't seem to bother her. So far Romeo and Mouse are giving her space, unlike poor Betty Sue, whom they delighted in tormenting. So far ... we'll see how it goes.

And poor Molly, I'll try to stop singing "Good golly Miss Molly, sure likes to ba - oops, sorry honey" to you. Honest. I need another song with the name "Molly" in it. Anybody got any suggestions?

No more magical thinking, dammit!

2012-01-19T12:45:00.001-05:00

Okay, first of all, I feel pretty stupid blogging about this, but then again, I don't think you guys come here expecting to find a Rhodes scholar pontificating, so here we go.

Hello. My name is Rocky, and I have OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

At least, I think I do. I've never actually been diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure that if you think you have to tap the toaster - with all five fingers of your right hand simultaneously - sixteen times exactly to prevent something awful from happening, you've got OCD.

Sometimes it gets worse, and sometimes it's better. When I'm under a lot of stress, it can get pretty bad. But I cope.

But it can get tiring, thinking that you have to open and close the shampoo bottle a certain number of times or else something bad will happen.

And the "something bad" in the OCD scenario was almost always something involving The Runt and Little Girl. As much as I tried to tell myself that it was ridiculous, that it was just some short-circuit in my brain wiring, that there was NO WAY that something bad would happen to the cats if I didn't open the fridge X number of times, I still kept doing it. Better safe than sorry!

And then two things happened. One, I heard the phrase "magical thinking" used to describe this kind of behavior. And to me, the term "magical" evokes unicorns and fairies and other things that DO NOT EXIST. And whenever the OCD would kick in (pat the side of the couch eight times. Now eight more times. Now eight more times ... ) I would say to myself, "Cut out the magical thinking, already." and it helped.

And then the second thing happened. The Runt and Little Girl died. Yep, the worst thing happened. The thing that all that stupid, ridiculous OCD crap was supposed to prevent ... happened. And I was just as sure as I've ever been sure of anything in my life that it was not my failure to shut the front door five times on some random morning that caused their deaths. They died. Of heart disease. A congenital medical condition that was NOT CAUSED by my slipping up and forgetting the check the hall light twenty times one night before I went to bed.

And the OCD got better. Better than it's been in YEARS. The relief of finally, truly BELIEVING that I could not stop disaster by stepping on each porch step two times was incredible.

Am I cured? Naw. Every once in a while, I catch myself thinking, "If I just shut the bathroom medicine cabinet four times, I won't get into an accident on the slippery roads this morning", and then I tell myself, "This is ridiculous. STOP with the magical thinking, already", and I'm able to rein myself in.

Baby steps, peeps. I've been doing this behavior since I was in junior high, and it's not going to go away overnight. But I am taking baby steps.

There. I fessed up. I feel better now.

Dooce is getting a divorce. And I'm glad.

2012-01-18T11:57:00.006-05:00

Because evidently I'm a spiteful, jealous person.

Look, I used to really like Dooce. She was one of the first bloggers I read regularly. And then she got famous. And rich.

And instead of blogging about her day-to-day life and the random shit we all deal with, she was blogging about flying to New York! to sign a book deal! And going to Africa with supermodels! And buying a new humongous house! And she was showing photos of her fabulous new furniture! And her incredibly, unbelievably expensive wallpaper!

And I couldn't relate. It wasn't even interesting to me, because if I suddenly got famous and rich I would do things differently than she. Humongous houses and wallpaper so expensive it might as well be made out of hummingbird wings are just not what trips my trigger.

The same thing happened with Pioneer Woman. I used to read her every day, until she got famous and rich and became One Of Them. Instead of one of us ... er ... me.

And so when Dooce, who has blogged extensively about how her husband is the greatest man ever in the history of the world, and about how she loves him SO MUCH, and about how if your marriage hits a rough patch, you just need to go for counseling and everything will be ALL BETTER, God, didn't you already know that? - when she announced that she and hubs were splitting up ... I was glad.

Because she is One Of Them. And I am not. Schadenfreude, baby. Sometimes it just feels damn good. And if that makes me a bad person, well, so be it. I never claimed to be Mother Teresa.

25 or 6 to 4

2012-01-17T13:50:00.001-05:00

Remember that old "Chicago" song?

"Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say" ...

I always wondered where the title came from - what the heck did "25 or 6 to 4" mean?

So I finally did some digging, and here's what I found:

From Songfacts.com -

"This was written by Robert Lamm, who is a keyboard player and singer for Chicago. It's about trying to write a song, with the title referring to the time of day: either 3:35AM (25 to 4) or 3:34AM (26 to 4). Lamm explained on The Chris Isaak Hour: "I was living with a bunch of hippies up above Sunset Strip. One of the advantages of this particular house was that it was in the Hollywood Hills and I could look out over the city late at night. I wanted to try to describe the process of writing the song that I was writing. So, 'waiting for the break of day, searching for something to say, flashing lights against the sky' - there was a neon sign across the city. That song came from the fact that it was 25 or 6 to 4am in the morning when I looked at my watch - I was looking for a line to finish the chorus.Most songs that were written, especially in the early days, whenever I got them to the band and we started rehearsing them, that's when the songs took shape - once these guys got hold of them. There was definitely a lot of raw material, I thought it was a song when I wrote the words down, I wrote the changes down and I brought the charts to rehearsal, but it wasn't really a song until they all played it.""

Ohhhhh. NOW I get it.

Holy shit I almost killed my mom

2012-01-16T10:13:00.005-05:00

So! I took mom out to lunch and shopping yesterday. If you've been here for a while, you know that my mom has Alzheimer's. It's kind of like taking a zombie out to lunch and shopping - She's not really there, you know? There's something there, a shell of a person, but it's not my mom.

She forgot how to use a knife to cut her food a while back, so I have to make sure when I order our food that I get her something fork-able. Oh, and she can't really read any more - I mean, she can read individual words, but she doesn't understand what they mean, so I just ask her what she'd like to eat (Chicken and biscuits? Spaghetti? Grilled cheese?) and then order for her. She'll drink coffee, but you have to be quick and put the creamer in fast to cool it down, or she'll grab it and take a great big diner-hot swig. Because she's forgotten that she likes her coffee with cream.

You know, I knew that Alzheimer's was a snot, but I guess it never even occurred to me that someone could forget how to eat. Although they say that a lot of Alzheimer's patients die when they forget how to breathe, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

So, anyway, after lunch we went shopping. She can't figure out stairs any more and escalators are out of the question (hoo boy are they EVER), so we usually go to the local mall. There's only one escalator and that's in Sears and who shops in Sears anyway, right?

The red sweater. Every time we go shopping, she wants to get a red sweater. So about the first fifteen times or so, I bought her a red sweater, until one day I was at my sister's house (my mom lives with her) and I asked my sister what mom did with all of those red sweaters. "I don't know," my sister said. "They just seem to disappear." Ha ha here's another fun fact about Alzheimer's patients - If you buy them new clothes, even if they are THERE when you buy the clothes, they don't recognize the clothes as belonging to THEM, so they throw the clothes away. Isn't that fun?

Yeah, so we leave the mall and head for home, and we're doing 65 down Route 17 when I look over and notice that mom does not have her seat belt on. Every time mom gets in the car, I remind her to put on her seat belt, because that's another thing she's forgotten. Every. blinking. time. she gets in the car, I tell her to put her seat belt on.

Except yesterday, leaving the mall, I forgot. Probably because it flustered me when she forgot how to shut the car door, but still, I forgot. So we're going down Route 17, I tell her to put her seat belt on, and

she reaches for the door handle. She was going to open the door. She had no seat belt on. We were going 65.

Holy. f*cking. shit.

I SLAMMED my hand down on the master lock, right before she grabbed the handle.

Crisis averted.

Except holy shit I almost killed my mom.

Are we having fun yet?

Flag

2012-01-13T13:01:00.001-05:00

So, where WAS she?

2012-01-12T08:12:00.002-05:00

Recently, my Mom (87; Alzheimer's; lives with my sister) spent a week in a nursing home, as a kind of trial run. When my sister and brother-in-law went to pick her up, they got out into the parking lot, and brother-in-law asked her how she liked staying there.

"I didn't stay here", she replied, a little huffy. "I've never SEEN this place before."

Man oh man. An entire week, she had just left the place, and she had no memory of it at all.

That Alzheimer's is some weird shit.

More Random

2012-01-11T10:00:00.002-05:00

Another day, another gigantor check written to the dentist. It's like adding insult to injury - You walk in there of your own free will, they do terrible things to you involving drills and cement and itsy-bitsy rebar and strangers' HANDS in your MOUTH, and then you write them a huge check on the way out the door. I think THEY should be paying ME.

I think the worst job ever would have to be notating the sheet music for Rush songs. Those dudes change times/keys every other beat.

I was watching Miranda Lambert on an old Austin City Limits a while back and she was rocking out in four-inch stilettos. All I could think was "ouch". That's gotta hurt.

In the two-and-a-half years since I bought my place, only one other home in the approximately sixty-house neighborhood has gone on sale. I'm beginning to wonder if I unwittingly bought into a Twilight Zone episode. ("Oh, you'll love it here ... we've been here FOREVER ...")

Evidently this is going to be the year without a winter. It's supposed to drop into the twenties this weekend, and then right back up to the forties next week. I'm so damn glad I could cry.

What's up with YOU? I could use a little distraction from my aching jaw right about now.

Well, Hello, Betty Sue

2012-01-10T08:10:00.000-05:00

Meet the latest inductee into RockyCat's Kitty Weight Loss Camp, Betty Sue:

Betty Sue, along with another cat and two dogs, was dropped off at a local emergency pet shelter which opened after the September flooding. The owner came back for the dogs, but left the cats behind, and repeated attempts to contact him have been unsuccessful. Bastid.

I was told that Betty Sue was being bullied by the other cats in her foster home, including the cat she came in with, and I was asked if I would take Betty Sue, to give her a little reprieve. Okay, I said, as long as it's on a short-term basis. (I'm not doing long-term care at this time.) Betty Sue also has some medical issues (IBS) which need to get straightened out before she's adopted.

So on Saturday, Betty Sue came to my place, wherein she evidently underwent a complete personality transformation, because now she's the bullier. Poor little Romeo and Mouse were terrified at first, but now they're learning to stand up for themselves. It's actually pretty fascinating to watch the dynamics at play, as the cats learn each other's boundaries. The boys just want to play, which Betty Sue, being older, is wary of. If anybody gets too near she throws a hissy fit, which scares the crap out of the boys. At first Romeo and Mouse wouldn't even be in the same room with Betty Sue unless I was there, but things are improving. I only step in if things get nasty. And I'm going to break Betty Sue of this bully-business right quick, because being a bitch won't help her any when she goes to a new home. Of course, all cats need to define and defend their ground, but there's no need for bloodshed. Betty.

And yeah, she's on the weight-loss plan, too. You can't really tell it by that pic, but her face is tiny. Tiny. You can tell she was meant to be a petite gal, and instead, well ... when I pick her up I grunt. Not to worry - we'll get her back to fighting weight.

Bad-ass Betty. Heh.

You tap on that glass one more goddam time ...

2012-01-09T08:09:00.006-05:00

... I'm gonna tap on your head. And it's gonna hurt.

So! Yesterday was my first day volunteering at the adoption center at PetSmart. And it was ... interesting.

It's very good people-watching, if you're into that sort of thing. I talked to a lot of people, some of whom wanted to visit with the cats.

And these cats are from a different foster group than the one I work with, so I had a whole new crew to meet. Most of whom were, well ...

... oh boy, here I go getting in trouble again ...

... Most of the cats up for adoption are fat. Like, really fat. And I just don't understand it. I mean, I could see it if they had just come into the system, and their former owner was a little old lady who just couldn't resist feeding Miss Bootsie one more piece of chicken. But most of these cats, the older ones especially, have been in foster care for quite a while now. Why are they so fat? I mean, I guess I can understand how some of the foster parents would be, like, "oh, poor leetle abandoned kitty, let me give you another dish of food", but you know what?

It's not doing the cat any favors.

Shit, when Romeo and Mouse first came to me, they were overweight. At five months old. I immediately started food restrictions, keeping in mind that they ARE growing kitties and NEED a certain amount of nutrition, and you know what? They're slimming down. They no longer look like little kitty sumo wrestlers. And they're more active. And Romeo's wheezing and breathing problems seem to be improving.

And oh my God, I've got another inductee into RockyCat's Kitty Weight Loss Camp, which I will tell you about tomorrow. Promise.

But it made me kind of mad to see all those fat-ass cats at the adoption center. A common comment from people stopping by: "Oh my God that cat is HUGE!"

*sigh*

Other than that, it was a fun afternoon. I'll be doing it two afternoons a month, unless someone from the adoption center reads this, in which case I'll probably not be doing it again. Heh. Guys, somebody's got to speak the truth, am I right?

Oh! And the glass-tapping! Oh my God the glass-tapping!

The cats are in plexi-glass fronted cages, so that passers-by can see them. And EVEN THOUGH there are SIGNS ON THE DAMN GLASS saying DO NOT TAP ON THE GLASS, do you know what I heard all afternoon?

taptaptap. taptaptap hey kitty kitty taptaptapTAPTAP KNOCKKNOCK

Poor kitties. To their credit, they seemed to be used to it. But still.

DON'T TAP ON THE GODDAM GLASS, GODDAM IT.

Oh, and come see the kitties! They'd love to see you.

Sign o' the times

2012-01-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

So, last weekend I went to Oakley for a walk. Trail signs range from the rustic:

To the more recent plastic disks:

But I have to admit, Sunday was the first time I've seen these in the woods:

A metal highway sign, out the middle of several hundred acres of state lands. At first I thought it was a joke, but as I continued walking, I saw a bunch of them, used as trail markers. I don't know, maybe they're more cost effective, but it seems like a giant metal sign has got to be more expensive than a little plastic disk. And somehow it just takes away from the ambiance, ya know? If I want to look at highway signs, I'll head for I-86. Sheesh.

What's next? Traffic lights? Crosswalks? Oh man.

Questions. I haz them.

2012-01-05T08:25:00.000-05:00

1. What the heck is a "charger plate"? A plate to put your food plate on? Why?

2. If I haven't been working out for a while, and then I start up again, on Day 2, I'm so sore I can barely get out of bed. Why do they never show Day 2 on The Biggest Loser? Here's a bunch of overweight, out-of-shape people, working out on Day 1 until they puke, but you never see them all moaning and groaning and crawling out of bed the next day. I wonder why?

3. Do you work out when you're sick? I mean, obv, if you're flat on your back with the flu, you're not up to working out, but what about if you've got a head cold? And what about if you're injured? Do you work out anyway?

4. Similarly, do you go to work when you're sick? Not talking about throwing-up kind of sick, but just general feeling-like-shit kind of sick. My work does not offer sick days, so I generally prefer to dose myself up with Dayquil and go make some money rather than stay home and have to take a vacation day. How about you?

5. Okay, since I can't seem to get off this particular subject, how about Mental Health days? Do you ever skip work? Maybe I'm confessing my dweebiness, here, but I've never done it. Have you? Was it amazing? Did you feel guilty? Were you all, "Hell YEAH, let's do it again tomorrow!"?

6. Ever quit a job?

Okay, let's get off the sick-and-work thing.

7. Ever broken a law? I mean, other than the bullshit ones, like underage drinking and smoking pot and ... whoops. Shutting up now. Feel free to comment anonymously on this one.

Okay, I think I've duggen myself a big enough hole, here. Let's hear some answers!

Because I'm a big fat PUSHOVER, that's why

2012-01-04T08:26:00.005-05:00

Last night, for the first time since Little Girl died, I opened up the pet door that leads from the outdoors into the garage.

I know where all of the cats I see in the neighborhood live. The big white cat lives three doors up. The cow kitties live one street over. The old tuxedo cat lives five houses up and across.

But there's one cat, a big ol' long-haired gray cat, who started hanging around a few months before Little Girl died. Sometimes I'd see him in the garage in the morning, and a couple of times I found him in the house at night. (There's a pet door that leads from the garage into the house.) Little Girl didn't seem to mind him, though, so I just started putting her food up at bedtime so that gray cat didn't think he could get free meals at my place. I was pretty sure he belonged to someone, because he'd only come around once in a while, and he looked healthy and of good weight. A little tubby, actually. And after Little Girl died, I shut the pet doors. No more gray cat.

But last night, well, it was supposed to get down into the single digits. And I wasn't absolutely certain that gray cat had a home. And I kept thinking about Mouse and Romeo, my fosters, who, if it wasn't for a network of volunteers, would have been huddled out in the cold last night.

And I opened up the pet door from the outdoors into the garage. I KNOW. I know that I might come to regret this in the spring, when I've suddenly got fifteen freaking ferals out in the garage. But I figure as long as I'm not feeding gray cat, just giving him a space to get out of the elements, it's okay. Right? Is it okay? Yeah, you can see I'm a leetle conflicted on this one.

Did gray cat come in the garage last night? I don't think so. Which actually makes me feel good, because that means he has someplace else to go. Will I leave that pet door open for the rest of the winter? Possibly. Because evidently, I'm a big fat f*cking pushover.

And Oh! Oh! I have GOT to ask! Did anybody watch The Biggest Loser last night? That kid named, I shit you not, "Chism"? Am I the only one who thinks that's an awful name for a kid? Can you IMAGINE what he got called on the playground? Is there some big movie star of whom I am unaware who is named "Chism", thus making the name okay? Because I'm thinking that naming your kid "Chism" is NOT VERY NICE. Sheesh.

Oh, and 2011? ...

2012-01-02T09:04:00.006-05:00

... don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

I will tell you what, 2o11 just about did me in. I know that there have been harder years, but they were a long time ago and faded in memory. 2011 is just as vivid as can be, unfortunately. I'm just glad it's over. Whew! Over over over. And I've come to the conclusion that emerging from 2011 still hopeful for the future makes me either incredibly resilient or really, really stupid.

So! Did anybody go out and tear it up for New Year's Eve? I quit doing that many, many years ago, when I woke up one New Year's Day and realized that (a) I had no idea how I had gotten home the night before, and (b) I had no idea where my car was.

Lesson learned!

This New Year's Eve, I spent the day in Ithaca.

Here's Buttermilk Falls:

The trails were closed for the winter, but some intrepid souls were going up anyway. Better them than me, is all I've got to say about that.

New Year's morning was bright and sunny, so I headed for Oakley Corners. By the time I was done hiking, things had taken a dark turn:

Ha! talk about Dismal Swamp.

If you had an awful 2011, I hope your 2012 is better. If you had a great 2011, I wish you more of the same for 2012.

Happy New Year!

Prettyboys

2011-12-30T08:10:00.001-05:00

Yep, they're coming out of their shells, thanks to the most fantastic cat toy ever (at least as far as the cats are concerned), the Undercover Mouse:

Not long after I took these pics, they became my first fosters ever to actually break this toy; one of them managed to snap the wand right off at the base. I glued and duct-taped it back together and ordered another one, which is on the way. I hope the replacement gets here before the old one breaks for good; if not, I predict anarchy.

I have never, ever had a cat who could withstand the charms of the Undercover Mouse.

Look at Mouse's (the cat, not the toy) ringtail! I'd never even noticed it until I looked at this pic. You can't really see it in natural light - the flash from the camera brought it out. Awesome!

Oh, and I should probably warn ya: That toy goes through batteries like shit through a goose. I'm hoping they come up with an electric version. Get on that, cat toy makers, would ya?

They stare at that dang toy with the intensity I usually associate with men and p*rn.

Of course, it's not all Undercover Mouse, all the time - I reserve it for times when I have stuff that I need to do without kitties in the way. You know, cleaning, getting ready for work, the boring stuff. It's like plopping toddlers down in front of a TV. Or, you know, men in front of p*rn. Heh.

So, yeah, the boys are doing fine. They're slimming down - you would not BELIEVE the amount of food these guys would EAT if I didn't limit it - I've never seen anything like it. They are friendly-ing up nicely, and hopefully soon they'll find their homes. Fingers crossed!

Maybe I'm not human. Maybe I'm a sociopath.

2011-12-29T08:20:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I think it's possible that I'm going to regret hitting the "post" button, but I've been mulling something over for a while, so here goes ...

There are a few bloggers I read who are currently mourning the loss of a parent. And I mean they are GRIEVING, HARD, with post after post about how much they miss mom or dad and how sad it is and how they'll never ever get over this loss and ...

... when my Dad died, in 1999, I was sad. He passed away just six weeks after his cancer diagnosis. The doctors had given him six months; I think he just wanted to get it over with. I was scheduled to fly down to Florida to visit with him and Mom, but he died before I got there. I was sad about that; that I didn't get to see him one last time. But his death was not altogether unexpected; he'd been a heavy drinker and smoker his entire life, and he did make it to seventy-six. So I was sad, but I wasn't heartbroken. Everybody dies ...

... except, apparently, for my Mom, who is now eighty-seven. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease eleven years ago, not long after my Dad died. Mom just keeps fading, and fading, and fading. She doesn't know where she is or who anybody is. Sometimes I think she recognizes me, and other times I'm pretty sure she doesn't. Right now she is in respite care in a local nursing home for a week; a trial run, as it were. I'm sure that soon she'll be in nursing care full time, as she is less and less able to function. Ironically, other than the Alzheimer's, she's healthy as a damn horse - I could see her easily going another ten years, a husk of who she used to be.

And will I be sad when she dies? Yes. I'll be sad that she missed out on so many years, there in the fog. I'll miss the woman she used to be, before her brain started getting eaten away by disease. Will I mourn, will I grieve? Maybe, but I don't think so.

Does that make me a bad person? That I won't be falling on my knees, rending my clothes, sobbing my eyes out at her funeral, like all those other bloggers? I hope I'm not a bad person. But maybe I am. Because you know what? I mourned the passing of my cats more than I grieved the loss of my father. My cats were part of my everyday life, and I only saw my Dad a few times a year, due to geographical distance. My cats loved me dearly, and my Dad? Well, I'm sure he loved me, but he was a typical Dad of his time, and shows of affection were not something he did. Put simply, we weren't very close.

So yeah. I cried more over my cats than I did my Dad, and I don't think I'm going to be too awfully broken up when Mom dies.

Man. Maybe I really AM a shit.

Feral cats and skunks, living together

2011-12-28T08:20:00.001-05:00

At the adoption event/fundraisers I volunteer at, people love to stop and chat. Hoo, boy, I'll tell you what - the key part of working these things is being a good listener. Nobody wants to adopt a cat - they all want to tell you about their cats. Which is fine. And you hear some interesting stuff.

Like the man who stopped by and informed me that feral cats will often pal up with wild skunks. No, really! According to him, cats and skunks hang out together all. the. time.

The only experience I have with cats and skunks is that one time Rocky came home after being sprayed by a skunk, but hey! Maybe it was an accident. Maybe the skunk was just trying to be fraynds.

Oh, and then there was the dude who told me that you can get rid of fleas by pouring salt on your carpets. Actually, it turns out there is a little bit of truth to that one, but frankly, I think I'd rather have fleas than have to walk around on crunchy carpets.

You hear about the cats who have been left behind when people move. About the people down the street who have fifteen mangy cats. And about how when the local shelters are called for help, people are told "no". Unfortunately, around here at least, that tends to be the rule rather than the exception. As long as people think that a female cat has to have "just one litter" before she's fixed, as long as people think you can wait until a cat's a year old to get it neutered, as long as people like that awful blogger I stopped reading think it's funny for their cat to impregnate half the cats in the neighborhood, the shelters will continue to be overwhelmed. (The foster group I work for always tries to help - we often do not have a space in foster care for the cats, but we will provide food and, if possible, medical care until space opens up.)

And! you get to hear the stories about how people adopted shelter cats. Or about how they took in the stray that showed up on their doorstep and spent months and thousands of dollars nursing it back to health. One lady talked about how when she adopts a shelter cat, she always picks the "senior citizens", because she knows they don't have much of a chance. And isn't that what you hope will happen - that there's somebody out there who takes the older cats? Turns out, there is.

And now I've got to go google "cats and skunks". I don't think it's true, but hey! Who knows?

Recently Read

2011-12-27T08:20:00.000-05:00

So! I hope everyone survived the holidays intact. Here's a Recently Read - skip it if you wanna.

1. Strip Club by Lily Burana - Memoir of a stripper. Interesting.

2. Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout - Novel about an uptight mom and her teenage daughter. Both of the main characters were so clueless that it made me cringe, although that may have been what the author was aiming for. Meh.

3. Nickel Mountain by John Gardner - Novel about a diner owner. Bo-ring.

Let's do some movie reviews!

4. Iron Maiden: Flight 666. Documentary. I stumbled across this one on VH1 Classics one night. I was never a big fan of Iron Maiden, until I watched this doc. I didn't know that it was them who did that song "Run to the Hills" - you know, the one that VH1 (or was it MTV) used for an ad, with the still-frame kitten?

Okay, it was VH1. ANYway, this was a really entertaining doc, and the lead dude can flat out SING.

5. You Think You Really Know Me - The Gary Wilson Story - documentary about a local musician popular in the seventies who kind of fell off the face of the earth. Interesting for the local references.

6. Super 8 - Oh, man, this got really good reviews. The first half-hour or so is fantastic, but the rest of it was WAY too Goonies-ish for my taste. I can imagine that pre-adolescent boys LOVED this movie, but me? Meh. And the ending? Don't get me started.

Okay, let's go back to books.

7. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall. Novel about an orphan's adventures. Man, I tried, I really did, but I finally gave up on page 318, with another hundred still to go.

8. Here We Go Again by Betty White. I love her, and I thought this would be a memoir of her personal life, but instead it was more like a history of television. I guess it would be interesting if you're into that sort of thing.

9. World of Pies by Karen Stolz - Not as good as "Fanny and Sue", another book of hers, but still charming. A quick read.

So! That's what I've been reading. How about you?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T09:08:00.001-05:00

Christmas Day, 1966. That's me in the front. Ha! Little Bowl Bean.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas etiquette is tricky shit: Now with an update!

2011-12-23T09:00:00.001-05:00

So! The other weekend, my neighbor T., the one who I helped out after the flood, gave me a $15 gift certificate to Panera. Isn't that nice?

And almost immediately afterword, I found out that the foster group was having a fundraising bake sale, and could I bring anything?

Well, I'm not really a baker, but I DID have a gift card to Panera, so ... yeah. Which actually was kind of a waste, because never having been to Panera before, I didn't know that they were charging TWO BUCKS A COOKIE. Which is flippin' highway robbery and a total rip-off, as far as I'm concerned.

Now. At some point between now and New Year's, T. will be inviting me and some of the other neighbors over for coffee and cookies. And I know - I KNOW - that she will ask me if I'd enjoyed using the gift card.

Do I tell her the truth? That I used the card for the bake sale? Or do I lie and tell her I used it for myself, which was her intent? And let's not forget that the LAST time I lied to her, the infamous pizza incident, I felt AWFUL afterward. But I don't want her to feel bad that I used the card for something else.

Gah. This holiday shit is confusing.

Update! I've got another one for ya - I just got a letter informing me that the IRS owes our company three hundred bucks. Good news, right? Except the reason they owe us three hundred bucks is because way back in August, I transposed some numbers on a tax form and overpaid them. The boss is not gonna be happy that I (accidentally) overpaid. Do I fess up NOW, upon receipt of the letter, or wait until next week, after the Christmas bonuses have been distributed?

Honestly? I'm gonna tell him today. I don't want that hanging over my head all weekend. But am I being a schmuck? Should I have waited? You be the judge!

... because if a goddam ROOT CANAL won't get you out of work early, what the hell will?

2011-12-22T08:05:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I totally pulled the root canal card yesterday afternoon.

Wait a minute, Rocky, you're saying. Didn't you just HAVE a root canal?

Why, yes, yes I did. And here's where things get squicky, so if you don't want to hear about dental stuff, turn away. I hear Pioneer Woman's got pics of a bassett hound up today. Oh wait, that's every day.

What I had done on the Monday after Thanksgiving, f*ck you very much tooth gods, was an emergency pulpotomy, where they pull the nerve to stop the pain. Unfortunately, that is not the total root canal package, as it were, so I had to go back yesterday morning for Step 2 of 4.

Over two hours in the chair. Granted, some of that was due to my glass jaw and having to take a break every fifteen minutes or so, but still, two hours of unspeakable dental shit is a long damn time.

Still all jacked up on novocaine, I made it back to the office, where I promptly informed my boss that I would be leaving early.

You know, it can be kind of risky taking time off in the week before Christmas, considering that we get our year-end bonuses on Christmas Eve, but hey. Sometimes a gal's gotta take that chance.

So I left early, went home, popped a Flexeril, and God only knows what happened after that, 'cause I was OUT.

Best decision I've made in a while.

The Boys Are Back In Town

2011-12-21T08:12:00.005-05:00

After their whirlwind, multi-county tour, Romeo and Mouse are back visiting with me.

Their whistlestop engagement started last Saturday, when we had an adoption event at the local Agway. They did remarkably well, mostly just sleeping in their crate as people oohed and aahed over their royal selves. A lot of the attention was directed at another foster cat there, a giGANtic orange named Lawson, who walks on a leash like a dog. No kidding!

Then, they were off to the foster coordinator's home for the rest of the weekend, so that they could go to a clinic in a neighboring county on Monday to have a little *cough* "work" done. Yesterday morning, they went to the vet to get, well, vetted, and yesterday afternoon they came to my office for a couple of hours, and then we all headed home.

Whew!

When we got to the house, they playplayPLAYED for about half an hour, and then - out like trout. They slept so hard I was half tempted to dress them up in the Santa hats and take some incriminating photos, but they'd had a hard few days - I gave 'em a break.

So! Mouse and Romeo, back for a visit. Welcome, guys! Rest your paws awhile.

... and boy, are my arms tired

2011-12-19T08:55:00.001-05:00

Last week, I hand-addressed the company's Christmas cards.

All one hundred of them.

Every year, I hope that the boss will forgo the Christmas card ridiculousness. I mean, we send out a SHIT-TON of cards to vendors and clients, and every year we get, like, TWO back. Waste of freaking time.

But every year, some time around Thanksgiving, he brings up the cards. And of course, it's MY job to come up with card options for him to choose from. I always give him a tasteful choice of cards, with cards featuring our profession, and cards featuring a charity, and cards with interesting graphics. And every year, he overrides me and chooses ...

Cards featuring Labrador puppies. From Ducks Unlimited.

Now, I like dogs as much as the next pers- okay, that's a total lie. I hate dogs. I hate that they smell and they're too freaking stupid to clean themselves, so you have to give them baths. I hate that they're too damn dumb to cover up their shit, so you have to clean up after them. I hate that they're so idiotic that if you let one out the door it can't find its own damn way home, so you have to walk them. On a leash. I hate flippin' dog OWNERS, who assume everyone else on the planet loves dogs and wants to be bowled over by an out-of-control dog. Blech. And I hate having to look at pictures of dumb-ass dogs, over and over again, as I'm stuffing the envelopes.

Okay. Change the subject.

So. The cards had been chosen and ordered. Next up, I compile a list of potential Christmas card recipients, based on the previous year's list, and give it to my boss for review. And he promptly places it on his desk and ignores it. For weeks. Until, a couple of weeks before Christmas, I just grab the damn list and start doing cards, because obviously, my boss, the one who INSISTS we do cards every year, cannot be bothered to give a shit about who the cards actually GO to.

Ha! You know what? I think next year I should send cards to, like, NAMBLA or whatever that pedophile group is. And Hitler Youth. And Devil Worshippers United of Central New York.

I'll bet at least we'd get some cards in return. And I bet they'd be really, really interesting cards, too. Merry Christmas, and lock the doors!

ho ho ho!

I swear to GOD this shit only happens to me

2011-12-19T08:20:00.000-05:00

First! The foster group got an email from Sammy and Deli's new parents - They are both doing fine and are busy exploring their new home - they've even made friends with the family's golden retriever. Way to go, kids! Also, send kind thoughts to Romeo and Mouse, who are going to the vet today to have their *ahem* snip-snip done. Sorry, guys, but trust me - it's for the best.

Now, on with the story.

I had to run downtown the other day to pick up some papers from a client. I go into his office suite and explain my purpose to the receptionist, who goes and gets the client's secretary, who comes out with the paperwork. I turn around, start back through the offices, and hear someone call out, "Hey Rocky!*"

It's a woman who I SWEAR I had never seen before in my life.

"How have you been?!" she asks.

"ummmm, great!" I reply. "How have YOU been?", frantically searching my brain because oh my God who IS this woman?

"Oh, I've been good," she says, "Are you coming to the Christmas party?"

(long pause)

"Gee, I don't know!", I say. Is it someone new from the foster group? A neighbor's kid? Someone I used to know from someone else's office who is now working for this client? Who IS she?

"Oh, you've GOT to come," she says, describing the party.

"Well", I say, "Sounds like I'd better not miss it, then!"

"Okay, see you later!", she says, as I make my exit.

You know, it sounded like kind of a lame party, anyway. Just as well that I won't be there.

*Not my real name.

Meet the new kids ...

2011-12-16T08:35:00.001-05:00

... who finally came out from under the bed in the spare room. And are now driving me crazy.

Here is Romeo*:

And here is Mouse:

Doesn't Mouse look like a chunkier version of Dumplin'?

And speaking of chunky, it is a mystery to me how these kittens, rescued ferals, came to me as candidates for Weight Watchers. I mean, I know a kind lady was feeding their colony, but what the heck was she feeding them, Twinkies and steroids? And yes, they have been wormed, so it's not worm-weight. Did I just squick you out? Sorry. You would be amazed at the amount of worms one kitty-belly can hold. Whoops - sorry again.

Look at those fat faces! Look at those big necks! If you look at them from above, it's like looking at the freaking Goodyear Blimp. Blimp. That's what they should have been named: Blimp and Zeppelin. Geez. Needless to say, they are on diets. RockyCat's Kitty Weight Loss Camp diet. No treats for you! Okay, maybe a leeetle one. Now, on to the exercise machines!

In the last week, they have friendlied-up sufficiently so that they will be going to an adoption event tomorrow. And you know what finally turned the tide? Toys. I started out with the "good" toys, the battery-operated ones that spin around and squeak and move, in the spare room where the kittens were hiding. A couple of days after they started venturing out from under the bed to play, I moved the toys into the hallway. Then into the far end of the living room. Then right in the middle of the living room, so if they wanted to play with the awesome toys, they had to tolerate my presence. And petting. And it worked!

Ha. All it took was an Undercover Mouse, and they broke. Patsies.

So anyway, wish us luck for tomorrow! And let's all hope that nobody gets food poisoning from the cupcakes I made for the bake sale.

* I DID NOT NAME THESE KITTENS. I am NOT the one giving the kittens these horrible, awful names, I SWEAR TO YOU. It is not I.

Grinch

2011-12-15T08:15:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season for the Salvation Army bell-ringers. Who make me uncomfortable for two reasons:

1. They look like they're freezing their asses off. Here in upstate New York, standing outside a grocery store ringing a bell for hours at a time is NOT where you want to be this time of year. I feel guilty as I rush by them, all bundled up, to get into the nice warm store.

2. Okay, here's where the Grinch in me really comes out. I'm sure that the Salvation Army does many, many good things. And one of the good things is that they have a residence hall, not far from my office, for homeless men. That's good, right? Except, every freaking time I drive past that place, there's a bunch of the guys from the hall out by the curb, smoking.

Now. If somebody wants to smoke, well, that's their right. I did it for many years. But. These are the homeless men, whom the Sal has given a place to live. Where are they getting the money for the cigarettes? In this neck of the woods, cigs are now, like, NINE BUCKS A PACK. Shit, one of the reasons I quit smoking was because it was getting so expensive.

And I've got a sneaking suspicion that the money for the cigarettes? Is coming, directly or not, right out of the bell-ringers' red kettles. Oh, I'm sure the residence hall director isn't exactly saying, "Here, Joe, here's ten bucks, go buy yourself some smokes", but realistically? These homeless men are being supported by the Sal. And are somehow able to afford cigarettes. And I put two and two together, and, well ... it's been a long time since I've put any money into those red kettles.

Just call me Grinch.

Anything about Christmas that ticks you off?

Aaaaaaand ... they're off!

2011-12-14T08:03:00.004-05:00

I was invited to attend Sammy and Deli's adoption last night, so OF COURSE I went. I took along a CD of "baby pics" I had made for the new parents, which you may think is dorky, but hey, my middle name is "dork", so whatever. And I'm pretty sure that saying "my middle name is "dork"" just further confirmed my dorkiness, so I'd better quit while I'm ahead, here.

The new parents were very excited to take Sammy and Deli home and get to know them better. I'm sure it's a great match all around. The new mom actually hugged me when they left, which was pretty cool.

Bye Sammy! Bye Deli!

Lay off the booze, okay?

Bye, guys! Have a great life!

Before! After!

2011-12-13T08:12:00.002-05:00

First off, in case you haven't been following the comments on the previous post, Sammy and Deli are getting! adopted! tonight! Yay! They will be going together to their home. Yippee!

Now, I'm pretty sure I do this every year, so here we go -

Before!

After!

Hey, folks, I do the best I can.

And because I was feeling kind of down, and missing Little Girl and The Runt, I decided that more lights were in order:

Yep, I'm pretty sure the neighbors were about ready to call the fire department. More! lights! This is the first year I did outside lights - they do look cheery, don't they?

Oh, and here's a little bit of random:

That's a turkey, in case you can't tell. Sorry about the crapola pic - I took it through the car window facing the sun.

There's a spot on a local road where the turkeys cross all. the. time., and they have absolutely no fear. Every time one strolls out in front of my car, all I can think of is that video of the reporter frantically trying to avoid the menacing turkey. Dun dun DUUUUNNNNN! I'll tell you what, these suckers are BIG, and if one started toward me I'd probably run, too.

Just call me chicken. Bwahk bwahk bwahk.

The Angels Sang

2011-12-12T10:20:00.001-05:00

First off, an update on Thug Life - They are both coming out of their shells. Progress! Robyn had the excellent idea of separating them so they can't feed off each other's fear, and I will try that if they don't continue to improve. Thanks for the advice, Robyn!

And now! On Saturday, I happened to be at PetSmart. I had been there earlier in the day, visiting with Sammy and Deli (I miss them so much!), and I had to stop back later that afternoon to fill out some volunteer paperwork.

Oh! And in case you were wondering, I asked the foster coordinator if it was okay if I visited with the fosters at PetSmart. I didn't want to upset them, but the f.c. explained that no, the kitties would enjoy having familiar company, and I could visit all I wanted. So unless I learn otherwise, that visiting does bother the fosters, I'll continue doing so. They sure seemed glad to see me on Saturday.

So! I was at PetSmart. There were a couple of people there, a man and a woman about my age, looking at the cats in the adoption center. I couldn't help but overhear the woman saying how she wished there was someone there to show the cats (the volunteers working that day had stepped out for a minute and people can't access the animals when volunteers aren't there), so because I can't seem to mind my own business (cringe), I asked who they were interested in.

"These two", the woman said, pointing to Sammy and Deli.

Well.

You just KNOW that I had to start chit-chatting, explaining that I had been their foster mom and talking about the cats, while we waited for the volunteers to come back and open up the adoption center. The woman explained that they had had a cat who had just passed away, and they were looking for one or possibly two kittens to adopt. They had a golden retriever who got along well with cats, and they were really, really looking forward to taking in a kitten or two.

So I kept on talking, telling them how sweet Sammy and Deli were, and how they loved biscuits and peas and pasta, and how they liked to sleep next to each other, and the woman kept saying, "I can't believe you just happened to stop by. It's like it was meant to be. What are the odds? It's like, the angels are singing because you came by just now."

And she was laughing and a little bit teary, and when I left, they were in the adoption center visiting with Sammy and Deli, who were being their adorable selves.

Now. A lot of weird, weird things happen in foster world. Who knows? They may have visited with Sammy and Deli and decided that they weren't the cats for them. But they looked awfully happy when I left.

Fingers crossed, guys, fingers crossed.

Thug Life

2011-12-10T13:20:00.000-05:00

So! Sammy and Deli went off to PetSmart so their new owner could find them. And in return, I got two new kitties, Romeo and Mouse.

Peeps, I swear, it's like two old, cranky, fat-ass senior citizen cats have been somehow placed into kitten bodies.

They haven't tried to shiv me in my sleep yet (as far as I know), but these are the two most non-kitten kittens I've ever met in my life.

You know how most kittens are friendly and playful and adorable? Yeah. These two are terrified of people and spend ninety-nine point five percent of their time underneath the bed in the spare room. They only come out long enough to eat and use the litterbox (as long as I'm not anywhere near, natch). Oh, once in a while one of them will make a brave foray into the hallway, where they sit and shoot a death-glare at me in the living room, until I happen to look up and notice, at which point they make a mad flail to get back under the bed again.

Day-um.

I've dealt with ferals before. Heck, The Runt and Little Girl came from a feral litter, and were deemed "unadoptable" by the shelter I was volunteering for at the time. But Romeo and Mouse? They give new meaning to the term.

They were part of a small feral colony in a local town. A woman who has been feeding them contacted the rescue group, who managed to catch Romeo and Mouse. Romeo and Mouse are estimated to be about four months old, which means time is running out, kitten-shelf-life-wise. If they don't calm down and friendly-up real soon, it's going to be awfully hard to get them adopted.

Oh, kitties. Come play with me! I am friendly! I promise! And unless you want to go be barn cats (which can be a glorious life but, unfortunately, often a short one), you need to learn to trust people.

They are supposed to go to an adoption event next weekend. I've got my work cut out for me. Wish me luck, guys.

Samson and Delilah's Big! Adventure!

2011-12-09T08:11:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was hectic, as space unexpectedly opened up at the PetSmart adoption center, and off Sammy and Deli went so that someone can see them and fall in love with them and give them a home.

Goodbye, Sammy!

Goodbye, Deli!

Don't worry, I won't put those embarrassing pictures of you guys in Santa hats up on the internet or anythin ... whoops.

Okay, readers, cross your fingers and send good thoughts this way. These guys need a home.

The hits just keep on comin'

2011-12-08T08:58:00.002-05:00

This past summer, my brother's wife was diagnosed with lung cancer. She started treatment up here, and then they went back home to Florida where she continued treatment. She was responding well, and getting ready for a break from the chemo.

On Tuesday, I got an email from my brother titled "Cancer Update". And you know how there are some emails you just don't want to open? The ones where it's hard to click on?

Yeah.

My brother has been diagnosed with throat cancer.

Shit.

This good, fine, funny, gentle man has been diagnosed with cancer.

They are hopeful that it's curable, but the treatment is going to be ... not pleasant. Thirty-three consecutive sessions of radiation therapy.

The kicker, of course, is that after being a life-long smoker, he quit. Over two years ago. It wasn't soon enough.

You know, I always had a laissez-faire attitude about smoking. Hell, I did it myself, for almost thirty years. But now? No. This is too hard. It affects too many people. There are no benefits.

Shit.

Weather Report

2011-12-07T15:06:00.004-05:00

It's snowing outside right now, big fat flakes mixed in with the rain that's been coming down all day. We're supposed to get more snow tonight. How much? Who knows? Anywhere from 1 - 3 inches to 2 - 4 inches to OMG ARMAGEDDON STOCK UP ON GROCERIES 4 - 6 inches, depending on which radio station you're listening to.

I guess I'm ready.

If it's going to be December and dark by four o'clock in the afternoon, we might as well have snow. This has been a weird fall - last weekend, I was out putting up the outside Christmas decorations in fifty-degree temps, which just seemed ... wrong. As much as I hate winter, I can't get amped for Christmas without some cold weather. And I'm gonna get it - By this weekend, when I will (hopefully) be getting a tree, the high is supposed to be thirty degrees.

Of course, cold weather means icy roads which means that everyone who has forgotten how to drive in the nine months since we last had snowy weather, i.e., EVERYONE, will be sliding around and skidding into each other and deck the halls and call your insurance agent on your cell from the side of the road.

Winter? Well, it's gonna get here, whether I like it or not, so we might as well get it over with. I guess.

Ho ho ho?

Don't EVER wake a sleeping baby

2011-12-06T09:05:00.001-05:00

Lest anyone think that fostering kitties is all sweetness and light, let me paint you a picture of last Saturday, when, after the cats had broken a lamp, knocked over three houseplants, and repeatedly tried to scale Mount Rocky by climbing up my pants leg, I finally put them in Time Out.

Gah.

Oh, I know they just wanted to playplayPLAY, but it was like someone had unleashed a couple of whirling dervishes in my house. If I could only harness up their energy, I could probably heat the place with it. Now, with The Runt and Little Girl, when they got a case of the crazies, they'd just go outside to run off some steam, but of course, with the indoor-only fosters that's not an option, so I finally just ran them around chasing a feather duster until they weren't quite so frantic.

And then they slept. Oh, boy, did they sleep. Right past dinnertime, as a matter of fact. And did I wake them up? HELL, NO. Every parent knows that the first rule of survival is don't EVER wake the baby.

But did I see a chance to enact some revenge? Well, maybe ...

Payback, amigos.

I call bullshit

2011-12-05T08:40:00.000-05:00

You may remember my niece L., the one in her mid-thirties with pancreatitis due to chronic alcoholism. Yeah, that one.

I haven't seen her recently, so at Thanksgiving I asked her dad how she was doing.

"Oh, well, she's still drinking", he said. "But just beer now. No more of that vodka. It's the hard stuff that caused the pancreatitis. Beer's okay."

Well. All you have to do is google "pancreatitis diet" to know that beer is not "okay" when you have pancreatitis.

Evidently my niece has convinced her family, and possibly herself, that she can drink oceans of beer, and as long as she stays away from the "hard stuff", it's "okay".

I guess denial is a powerful thing. And so is addiction. This niece's boyfriend claims he "has" to keep drinking, because when he stops, he has seizures. And if he keeps having seizures, he'll lose his job, so, he says, drinking is actually job security.

I used to know a barfly who had to have a couple of beers first thing in the morning in order to get her hands steady enough to put on her eyeliner.

And oh, man, I knew a guy who woke up one morning after a historic bender and couldn't remember his name.

I think I know too many drunks.

(More) things that are driving me crazy.

2011-12-02T08:45:00.001-05:00

1. People who say "Me no likey." Stop it. Just stop it. See also: People who declare someone to be their "brother from another mother", "sister from another mister", etc. JUST STOP. IT'S NOT FUNNY.

2. People who don't let other people merge into traffic. See also: People who start to merge three miles before a lane closure. UR DOIN IT RONG. You are supposed to use BOTH LANES of traffic up to the point of the closure, BOTH LANES, and then take turns merging. If you merge three miles back, thinking that you're being a good doo-bee, and then refuse to let anybody in at the point of closure? YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.

3. Calling people "ginger" instead of redheads. "He's a ginger." I don't know why this grates on me so much; it just does.

Okay! Must be I'm getting mellow in my old age, because I can only think of three things right now. How about you? Anything driving you crazy this morning?

Cards here! Getcher cards here!

2011-12-01T09:30:00.002-05:00

Because pinched nerves, root canals and a couple of highly entertaining kittens are evidently not enough to keep me busy, I'll be doing Christmas cards again this year!

So! Here's the deal: If you got a card from me last year, you are on the list for this year. If you did NOT get a card from me last year and you would LIKE a card, email me (rockycat24 AT yahoo DOT com) and you'll go on the list for this year. If you DID get a card from me last year and you now hate me and are not speaking to me, email me (that doesn't count as speaking, heh) and you'll go OFF the list.

Got it? Personally, I'm kind of confused. Bottom line? If you want a Christmas card, and you haven't gotten one from me before, email me. Rockycat24 AT yahoo DOT com. Most of the cards will be homemade, and as I am quite possibly the least-crafty person on earth, prepare to receive a card that looks like it was made by a third-grader. Peeps who got cards in previous years, you KNOW what I'm talking about.

Let the gluing-together-of-the-fingers begin!

Sam I Am

2011-11-30T08:20:00.001-05:00

"What? You dare to impugn the integrity of my sister?"

"PREPARE TO DIE!"

Yeah, I'm bad.

So! Emergency root canal!

2011-11-29T08:13:00.003-05:00

Yeah, that was fun. Or not.

And the thing is, it will (hopefully) stop the god-awful toothache I had over the weekend, but it's not gonna touch the underlying jaw pain. But with the tooth going south in a hurry, I really didn't feel like I had a choice.

Because you know how it is - when a tooth starts to pound, all of the sudden the dentist is your best friend. I practically cried on the phone yesterday morning when the receptionist said they could fit me in. (Oh! And my dentist had a girl! That makes four boys, two girls. So far.)

And OH MY GOD why is that root canal shit so expensive? By the time I get done with the permanent root canal and the post and the crown and the fittings and the blahblahblah, we're talking - and I almost hate to say it - two grand.

TWO GRAND! For a TOOTH! Oh, they woulda pulled it for ninety bucks, but "hillbilly" is not really the look I'm going for.

So! I bid two grand! Anybody wanna top it?

You know how ... Now with an update!

2011-11-28T09:51:00.005-05:00

You know how your car can be making a funny noise, so you take the car to the mechanic, and then the car won't make the noise?

yeah. This morning, in desperation, I called my dentist's office. My jaw blew up over the weekend, and when I could no longer eat or brush, I realized it was time for help. Oh! But my regular dentist is out on maternity leave (Kid #6! Go doc!), so I had to schedule with another dentist in the practice.

And sure enough, after several days of dental pain, virtually as soon as I hung up the phone, the hurt abated.

I'm keeping the appointment anyway. In, let's see, half an hour. Let him poke and prod and piss my jaw off. It deserves it, the motherf*cker.

I'll let you know how I make out.

Updated to add: It turned out to be a tooth in need of a root canal. F*ck.

Look who came back for a visit

2011-11-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

Remember back in October, when I was doing foster care? Well, the kittens got bigger, and restless, and they were no longer happy in my spare bedroom. Because the littlest one had not yet been leuk-tested, I couldn't let them out into the house and risk exposing Little Girl, and so they went back to the foster coordinator's home.

And then, well, Little Girl passed away. And the house was awfully, terribly quiet. Dumplin got adopted (yay!), but Samson and Delilah were still waiting for a placement. And so, until they find their forever home ...

... they're baaaaaaack!

Jeez, Deli, why so tense?:

Sammy says, "gaze into my eyes":

Welcome back, guys.

Pinched Ow

2011-11-22T09:05:00.001-05:00

In what is perhaps a bit of karmic comedy, I, possibly the laziest person on the planet, have somehow managed to exercise my way into a pinched nerve in my back.

(Of course, at the first sign of pain, I'm all, like, "Oh my God, it's cancer!" Because once you have been a smoker, "cancer" will always be your first thought when something goes wrong, health-wise. Yet another reason to not smoke.)

But anyway, yeah, pretty sure it's a pinched nerve.

F*ck you, Jillian and your thirty-day shred. We're not friends anymore.

I have had pinched nerves before, and it is NO FUN. But they never lasted more than a few days, and I knew that when the pain started to migrate around, the worst was over.

This time, it's a week in and counting.

I am sure that some if not most of this is due to the stress I've been under. I'm tighter than a piano wire, and I CANNOT seem to relax enough to start things on the mend. Combine that with the weight-lifting exercises I had been doing (evidently, not doing CORRECTLY) (not kidding, Jillian - we are THROUGH), and I am basically screwed.

Badass Nature Girl was kind enough to give me some advice on OTHER exercises (not Jillian - dear God, not Jillian) I could do that may help, and I am giving them a shot.

In the meantime, I sure could use some good drugs, if anybody's got some to spare. (KIDDING.) (Okay, not really.) (Help meeeee.)

Ouch. Jillian, I'm going to put your DVD out in the front yard and set it on fire. We are OVER.

Anybody got an ice pack to spare?

Recently Read

2011-11-21T08:07:00.004-05:00

First, thanks to all of you and your kind comments. The loss is great, but your nice thoughts are making it easier to get through.

Now, let's do some Recently Read. Yeah, that's all I got. Skip it if you wanna.

1. Moll Flanders by Daniel DeFoe. This was supposedly one of the first "novels", and this dude really could have used an editor, because the sentences run on and on and ON. And it's boring - he couldn't even make a brother/sister incestuous relationship interesting. Hell, even V.C. Andrews knocked it out of the park with THAT subject matter. I didn't finish it.

2. The Bucolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell - Memoir about two hipster guys who buy a farm. It starts out funny, then turns into an ad for their business about a third of the way through. Then it gets better at the end. An okay read.

3. Fanny and Sue by Karen Stoltz. Novel about twins growing up during the Depression. Charming, full of period details, and G-rated. Give it to your grandma for Christmas - she'll love it. Very good.

4. Good Grief by Lolly Winston. Novel about a woman whose husband dies unexpectedly - meh. I gave up about halfway through.

Let's do a movie review! Burlesque with Cher and Christina whats-her-face. Frankly, I wasn't paying that much attention, but what I saw seemed awfully derivative of "Chicago", which was a much, much better movie. Watch that instead.

Another movie review! Ballou is a documentary about a high school marching band going for the championship - ahh, memories. Really good if you're into that sort of thing - which I am.

5. All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison - Novel about a teenage boy with a crush on his stepsister. It got good reviews but I didn't find it that interesting.

6. The Night Train by Clyde Edgerton. Novel about growing up in the sixties in the segregated South. A quick read.

7. In Zanesville - Novel about an adolescent girl growing up in the seventies. I could relate. Good book. The description of the slumber party - Well, I could have been there. Heck, maybe I was there.

Okay, anybody reading anything good?

The End of an Era

2011-11-18T08:30:00.003-05:00

I first met The Runt and Little Girl when they were part of a foster placement I was taking care of for a local shelter. There were four kittens: Fluffy, Tuffy, Little Girl and The Runt:

Oh, and let's not forget their mom, Evil Momma:

When the kittens were old enough, I took the whole crew back to the shelter to be adopted out, and I accepted another foster assignment. There was just one small problem: I had fallen in love with The Runt and Little Girl. And so I adopted them.

There is, of course, more to the story. So much more.

Thanks for the memories, guys.

What happened

2011-11-15T08:36:00.005-05:00

Thanks for all of your kind comments.

Little Girl died of heart failure, the same thing that got her brother. Evidently the medications were enough to give her a few more months, but not the years that the vets and I had wished for. She did get one more summer of hunting mice and chasing leaves.

I found her on Saturday afternoon in the backyard. It was a beautiful warm fall day, and she died with the sun in her fur and the grass under her paws.

Her neighborhood kitty friends all came to pay their respects on Sunday, and I am not even kidding. I had a backyard full of cats.

Goodbye, honey. You'll be forever young.

Little Girl

2011-11-13T11:48:00.004-05:00

May 2008 - November 12, 2011.

Oh, honey.

I love you. Always.

Oh, man, I just can't let this go

2011-11-11T08:04:00.003-05:00

So, I was talking to my boss yesterday about the whole Penn State scandal. And he was all, "Well, when Joe Paterno found out about it, he told his superiors, right? So why is he getting fired? I mean, legally, he's not responsible, right?"

Hoo boy.

And I'm getting that attitude from a LOT of people around here. (We're not that far from Penn State. Heck, my brother is a Penn State alum.) And let's not forget, those kids down in State College weren't overturning news vans because a coach is a pedophile and the University covered it up. They were rioting because their beloved JoePa got canned.

Here's the thing. If I had a neighbor who started a charitable organization to aid young men, and then one day I looked out my kitchen window and saw him giving a kid a hummer in his backyard, well ...

The shit would hit the fan.

I'd call the town cops. I'd call the county sheriff. I'd call the staties. I'd call the DA. I'd call the media. And then I'd head next door with a baseball bat. Hell, if I had a gun, I'd take that.

But here's everybody whining, "But JoePa TOLD his supervisors. He DID his duty."

Duty? Well, there's legal duty, and then there's moral responsibility, and sometimes those are the same and sometimes they aren't. But the fact remains that ol' Joe KNEW what was going on, even if he didn't actually witness it, and once he discovered that evidently the powers that be were going to cover it up, he went along. He went along, as young boys (probably) continued to be abused because he knew and he didn't do enough.

Oh, it wasn't just him. Evidently there's plenty of blame to spread around down in the ol' Happy Valley lately. LOTS of people knew what was going on, and said nothing, or told someone higher up and then let it drop.

Sometimes doing something isn't doing enough. And sometimes you have to up your game to make sure justice is done. Sometimes you have to go out on a limb, and say things that could cause you discomfort and unpopularity. Hell, maybe the crowd's going to turn on YOU. But sometimes you have to do it.

Because right is still right, and wrong is still wrong. The last time I checked, anyway.

Exercise your right to vote! Or, you know, stay home

2011-11-10T08:20:00.003-05:00

On my way home from work on Tuesday, I stopped by my polling place to vote. I was number 200 for the day. There are 730-ish people in my voting district, so that's not a super turnout, but then again it was an off election year.

Although there was an important office up for grabs - Town Supervisor. For reasons related to the recent flooding and also some other issues, hello NEPOTISM, a lot of people (me included) really wanted to see the current supervisor booted out. So I made sure to stop and vote.

And yes, yes indeed, I am one of the sanctimonious jerks who stroll out of the polling place all, "I voted! I am a good citizen! Go me!" Yeah. Somebody give me a cookie.

I USED to be one of those annoying assholes who'd bug everybody to go vote on Election Day. But I don't do that anymore. For one thing, a lot of people are really alarmingly uninformed on the issues. I was talking to my boss, who lives in the same town I do, on Tuesday, and he wasn't even sure who was running. Then when I started listing the candidates and their platforms, he stopped me at "Shaeffer" and said, "Oh yeah! I think I voted for him!" So. My boss had ALREADY gone to the polls and voted, yet he wasn't sure who was running and he couldn't recall who he had actually voted for.

And then I was talking to a co-worker, who ALSO lives in my town. He asked where my polling place was, and when I told him, he said, "Okay, so that's where I go to vote, right?" I told him it depended on what voting district he lived in, and he was flummoxed. No idea. Sheesh.

Look, it's okay to be uninformed. Just stay home on Election night, okay? Leave it to the people who care. Don't just go blindly filling in little circles, because you could do some inadvertent damage.

Oh! And while I'm on a little rant, here, it's OKAY to cast a vote for some things and leave other things blank. For example, you can cast a vote for mayor and for alderman, but if you're really not sure who the best candidate for treasurer would be, just LEAVE IT BLANK. It's okay!

Ahhh. Rant over. I feel better now.

JoPa gets the bum's rush

2011-11-09T10:10:00.001-05:00

So, it looks like Joe Paterno's gonna be out as head coach at Penn State. Turns out you can't let the people who work for you diddle little boys in the locker room and not report it to police. Geez, there's a shocker.

Oh! And now there's a big brouhaha about how Herman Cain's latest accuser is, for lack of a better term, a grifter. You know, I'm not sure that her past should necessarily have anything to do with what she's accusing Cain of doing. Then again, your past matters. Just ask Cain.

And in the whoa-now-THERE'S-a-big-surprise department, Mamma Duggar is preggers again. You know, at the age of 45, and with what she went through with the LAST kid, I'm not sure that this is the best decision, but it is, in the end, HER decision. I guess the only thing that nags at me about this is the REASON she keeps popping out kids, which is basically to provide an army for the upcoming war between the Christians and everybody else. Don't believe me? Check out the Quiverfull movement, of which she is an adherent.

Oh! And then! And then! They had a special episode of Nineteen Kids and Totally Insane on last night, where viewers got to ask the Duggars questions. And somebody asked Jim Bob how he could justify having so many children when the planet is already overpopulated.

And do you know what he said? Do you know what he said? Oh my God, this is priceless. Here is what Jim Bob said:

"The whole world's population could fit into the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida."

ahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh really, Jim Bob? REALLY?

Look. I have no idea how many square miles are in Jacksonville, Florida - no wait. I just googled it. Answers vary, but evidently it's somewhere in the vicinity of 800 square miles. And good ol' Jim Bob says the entire population of the planet, which I understand to be around seven billion people, can fit into that space.

Okay, math majors, do your stuff. How many people would there be per square mile if seven billion people were living in 800 square miles? I'm guessing it would be a little, well, uncomfortable.

Oh! But wait! Maybe he only means Quiverfull people? Maybe he's talking about after the upcoming war between the Christians and the non-believers, and after all the non-believers are slain, the Quiverfull people all go to Jacksonville to live?

Oh, Jim Bob. You're so earnest. And insane.

Don't those damned things ever SLEEP?

2011-11-08T09:00:00.005-05:00

At four o'clock this morning, a time with which I am intimately acquainted thanks to Little Girl's habit of bringing me live mice in the middle of the night (thank you very much, LG - now CUT IT OUT), there was a big ol' doe out in the front yard, not fifteen feet from the front door.

As I blearily prepared to live-release LG's latest gift (I DON'T EAT MICE, Little Girl), I noticed movement in the front yard. I switched on the porch light and there she was, a hundred pounds of venison on the hoof, and she wasn't moving. The brazen hussy just stood there and looked at me. She finally ambled off into the brush when I opened the screen door and started toward her.
Last weekend, I deer-netted the side garden and the part of the front garden that's closest to the brush line. But if the deer are going to start hanging out in the damn front yard, I'm gonna have to deer-net all the gardens, which will be a pain in the ass, but really it's my only option, because in case you didn't know, deer eat EVERYTHING.

There they are, down by the creek, in their happy little deer-world, all pretty and peaceful, surrounded by acres and acres of nom-worthy plants, and what do they do? They come eat my lilies, that's what they do. And my peonies and my hibiscuses and every other living thing they can get their soft little muzzles around.

And NOW, as it that wasn't bad enough, I evidently have insomniac deer in my neighborhood, coming to raid the proverbial fridge, i.e., my gardens, in the middle of the damn NIGHT.

Christ. Pour yourself a glass of warm milk and go back to sleep, freakin' deer. Leave my flowers alone.

The Closing Dress

2011-11-07T08:10:00.001-05:00

So! A few weeks ago, I pulled a dress out of my closet. It's one that I only wear a couple of times a year, mainly because it's black (which says fall/winter) but also short and sleeveless (hello spring/summer).

I figured it was okay for a warm day in October, so there you go.

Oh! And it's The Closing Dress.

It's the dress I wore the day I bought my house, July 30, 2009. And every time I pull it out of the closet, I think of that day.

It's not the only item of clothing I own that I associate with one specific event. I have an old flannel shirt of my dad's that I always wear when I'm putting up/taking down the Christmas tree. And, of course, there are the lawn-mowing clothes - ratty old clothes that I wear when I'm mowing. And I have a pair of socks that I wore when ... when ... well, that's a post for another day.

So! Do you have a Closing Dress? An article of clothing that you associate with one day? (Other than your wedding gown, obv.) I hope I'm not alone, here.

Random

2011-11-04T08:40:00.002-04:00

After years of pinching pennies until they squealed, I am finally beginning to be able to spend money on things that are not absolute necessities without going through a massive guilt trip. This is worrisome. I sure hope I don't end up at the track, blowing my life savings on the ponies.

Highly recommended: Hell on Heels by the Pistol Annies. Both the song and the CD. I'm no big fan of country, but this is ear worm material of the best kind.

I tried watching that new reality show, Long Island Medium, about the woman who supposedly talks to dead people, and ... I just can't. God knows I do love some reality TV, but to pretend to be talking to someone's dead Uncle Bob ("He wants you to go to the salon more often!") just seems cruel.

And speaking of reality TV, I was sad to learn that The Little Couple's surrogate mom had a miscarriage. The Little Husband seems like kind of a douche, but I was sorry for The Little Wife, who appears to be a sweetie-pie.

And because I seemingly cannot STOP speaking about reality TV, am I the only one who thinks Nineteen Kids and Totally Insane would be a much better show if they would just lose Jim Bob? Just ... drive him out into the woods and drop him off or something.

Coming trends: Mermaids. Barn swallows. Trapper hats. Trust me.

For two cents I'd skip putting up a Christmas tree this year. But I can't. I'm trapped by societal norms. *sob*

Did I tell you guys about coming home one day to find a bunch of pickup trucks in my backyard? No? This was courtesy of my neighbor B., he of driveway fame. He was trying to mow out in his backyard and got his riding lawnmower stuck. So he called one of his sons, who drove across MY yard to get to his dad's lawnmower in order to tow it out. Unfortunately, his son got his TRUCK stuck, so he called his brother, who brought over HIS pickup and drove it down my side yard. By the time I got home from work that day it looked like a mud-bog rally in my backyard. And they STILL haven't fixed the damage.

I think it's time for a new front door. The old one is starting to bug me.

Oh, man, one of my co-workers just walked in with a birthday cake his girlfriend made for him. It's red velvet. Gotta run.

How about you? Do you have any random to share?

Hoo boy

2011-11-03T08:25:00.001-04:00

Evidently, somebody talked my neighbor L. into doing one of those neighborhood "stop cancer" letter-writing campaigns. You know, where people stuff their neighbors' mailboxes (illegal) with requests for money to go to a certain charity?

I mean, it's pretty harmless, and once or twice a year I get a form letter from one neighbor or another asking for money for the American Cancer Society or the Red Cross, which I promptly toss. I prefer to pick my own charities, thankyouverymuch.

Except L.'s recent request for money caught my eye. Mainly because on the form letter she had crossed out about three different names before she wrote in mine, making me pretty sure I'm not real high on her begging priority list, which is excellent.

So I brought the letter in to work and ran the charity through Charity Navigator, which gave it a very low rating. And the reviews were equally damning, with stories of elderly people being given the hard sell to donate.

And I have to wonder - there are so many good, needy charities out there - why is L. shilling for a "charity" that is the equivalent of a Nigerian bank collapse e-mail scam?

It's a mystery. Maybe I'll ask her.

Then again, judging by all the names she crossed out on the letter before she wrote in mine, evidently she's not real sure who I am, so maybe I'll just leave well enough alone.

She's still got it

2011-11-02T08:22:00.003-04:00

Even though it was her brother who was (justifiably) famous for catnip-plate dancing, Little Girl wants you to know that she's no slouch, either.

Here she is, finishing off the catnip:

Just getting warmed up:

Go, Little Girl, Go!

Yeah, she still likes to party. Rock on, Little Girl.

I don't know why I let blogworld get to me like this

2011-11-01T10:22:00.008-04:00

A while back, I wrote about a fairly popular blogger who begged for money on her blog (nothing wrong with that, I guess, if you've got the balls to do it), and THEN she wrote about how she spent a bunch of money on bullshit (nothing wrong with THAT, either, unless you want to piss off a bunch of people who believed you when you said you needed money to pay your mortgage).

I'm not going to give the name of the blog here, because I don't think she needs any more attention, but let's just say that it rhymes with "my, my, my", and leave it at that. (Oh, and email me if you can't figure it out.)

So, after the whole give-me-money-so-I-can-buy-garden-gnomes thing, I almost stopped reading her. But I didn't.

A few months ago, she got a couple of kittens. Because God knows that when you're broke as a joke, adding more pets to the household is always a good idea. So she got the kittens. And then, a few days ago, she writes about hearing a ruckus in the backyard. As it turns out, one of her now-grown kittens was out there impregnating a neighbor's cat.

Yep. She didn't have the cats neutered. And she let them go outside. And now there are going to be a bunch of unwanted kittens, who knows how many litters' worth, in her neighborhood.

And she thinks it's funny. She's writing about her cat "sexing up the neighborhood", about how he's looking for "hot chicks", like it's a f*cking joke.

That's it. I'm done. Bookmark deleted.

Some things aren't funny.

Oh, I can't let this day pass ...

2011-10-31T15:32:00.004-04:00

... without bringing you my Halloween story.

Click here. For the true story of growing up in a haunted house.

Happy Halloween!

An early snow

2011-10-31T09:09:00.004-04:00

Saturday afternoon, the snow started to fall. By Sunday morning, all was white:

I woke up with Little Girl sleeping on her back (TOO cute) beside me, and I looked out the window and saw that the trees were all covered with snow. I grabbed my camera, threw a coat on over my PJs, headed outdoors and started taking pictures.

By March I'll be cursing this stuff, but right now it's beautiful.

Oh, and Happy Halloween from a snow-covered vampire bat.

Because I am twelve, that's why

2011-10-28T08:15:00.002-04:00

Parsons Mobile Homes. Parsons Tour-ette. Tour-ette? Tourette? I'm picturing a road trip with lots of swearing.

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about

2011-10-27T09:21:00.002-04:00

I actually had a good experience with customer service yesterday.

*gasp*

I KNOW!

Backstory: Ever since I bought my place, over two years ago, I've had a problem with the lights flickering. It only happened sporadically, and usually when the wind was blowing, so I figured that the problem was with the electrical wiring passing through the tree branches out front. Every once in a while it would get bad for a few days, and I'd get ready to call NYSEG (the utility company) but then the problem would stop and I'd forget about it again. Besides, who wants to have to call customer service, and get the runaround, and take time off work to wait for the crew to get there?

Except ... I got to wondering. What, I wondered, if the problem ISN'T with the lines outside? What if there's some kind of SHORT in the HOUSE wiring and ohmyGod I'm going to burn to a crisp ...

I called NYSEG yesterday morning and left a message. And - get ready to faint - somebody CALLED ME BACK. Who SPOKE ENGLISH. And last night? A very nice NYSEG man came to my house, and got up in his cherry picker in the dark and the rain (bless his heart) and FIXED MY PROBLEM.

And the angels sang.

Oh NYSEG, I love you. You may charge the highest utility rates in the country, but right now I am ready to forget all that because when I called, you came.

As opposed to Verizon. When our offices flooded, it took goddamn Verizon a MONTH AND A HALF to get our phones back up. They'd miss appointments, show up when no one was at the office, and generally dicked around for SIX WEEKS. F*ck you, Verizon.

NYSEG, on the other hand? I want to marry NYSEG. Right now. Let's get a ring and a date!

Squirrel Car

2011-10-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was at Salt Springs, and came upon this:

There are lots of old cars out in the woods. Evidently, back in the day, when people got done with a car, sometimes they'd just drive it out into the forest and leave it.

Let's go for a ride!

Hmmm ...

I'm guessing it's a Chevelle.

Sunday in the Park

2011-10-25T08:23:00.003-04:00

Once Labor Day weekend is over, the local parks empty out. Here's the parking lot at Greenwood on Sunday:

Helloooooo! Anybody home?

I've gotta tell ya, everybody who begins hibernating in early September is starting way too early. There's still plenty of passable weather left before winter settles in. It's not too hot, so you don't get all sweaty hiking, and the gnats and horseflies and mosquitoes are gone. The deer are moving through the woods; I saw a HUGE buck on Sunday.

The trees may be past peak, but they're still pretty.

And the forest just glows this time of year.

Once the people leave, the geese settle in.

I never really understood the phrase "as slick as goose poop" until I started hiking at Greenwood. Man, that shit is slippery. The trick is to avoid the geese-ful areas.

They are calling for snow here on Thursday *shudder*, but I'm sure there will still be good days left. And the woods are calling. I can't turn 'em down.

After

2011-10-24T08:58:00.005-04:00

A month and a half after the flood, entire neighborhoods not far from my house still look like this:

House after house, with the contents out at the curb.

And I remain so, so grateful that my house stayed dry. I cannot even imagine sitting here at the end of October with a gutted house.

If your house is gutted and empty and waiting for the FEMA money to start rebuilding? I'm very, very sorry. I can't even imagine.

If your house is warm and dry today? You might want to give a little thanks.

Hidden urp talents

2011-10-21T14:01:00.005-04:00

First off, you've got to scroll down to the earlier post, where I'm still waiting to hear what everybody's favorite books are.

Now, on with the show. Okay, so there's this very nice blogger who put up a post about five things she's good at, and asked her readers to do the same in the comments. And they're all being very courteous and self-affirming and it's all very, very earnest. I really didn't want to crash the party over there, so without further ado, here are five hidden talents of my own.

1. I can drink a f*ckton of beer and not get drunk. Seriously, I can drink ANYBODY under the table, as long as we stick to the beer. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, my friends.

2. I can lie my ass off when necessary. I endeavor very hard to never HAVE to lie, because then you have to KEEP lying, and that's a pain (see also the whole "not very moral" thing), but when the chips are down and I've gotta pull off a good excuse, pronto? I'm golden. Well, except for the pizza incident. One of these days I'm gonna come clean about that one.

3. I'm very good at ignoring people's opinions of me. You think I'm priss, a weirdo, I laugh too loud? F*ck off - I don't give a shit.

4. I can watch an amazing amount of reality TV, and forget what happened five minutes later. I know that SOMEBODY got kicked off Survivor Wednesday night, but I have no idea who. This comes in handy, as the next wave of reality TV is heading for the shore and I need a clean slate.

5. I can eat an astounding amount of junk food in one sitting. Put a heaping plate of nachos in front of me and I can scarf that bad boy down. And not feel any guilt about it whatsoever, which is the REAL talent.

That's it! Five hidden talents of my very own. I'm so damn proud of myself. *urp*

Okay, since we're getting all book-ish up in here ...

2011-10-21T08:44:00.003-04:00

... what's your favorite book?

I've got a whole bunch. Here's a few:

The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

And I know I'm gonna get laughed at for this one, but for sheer enjoyability, I've got to give a big thumbs-up to The Stand by Stephen King.

Okay! Your turn!

Hey! Let's depress the shit out of some little kids!

2011-10-20T08:35:00.000-04:00

While we're talking about books ...

One of my favorite books is "Hard Living on Clay Street" by Joseph Howell. It's about two families living in poverty, and I just found it really, really interesting. I've re-read it a few times over the years.

I was noodling around on line the other day, and I decided to try and find some books similar to "Hard Living". I googled "books about poverty", and you know what I found? A bunch of kids' books!

Here's the description from Amazon:

"Kindergarten-Grade 3-After her father died, eight-year-old Zettie and her mother left Jamaica in search of education and a better life in America. They now live in an old car. Zettie's daily routine includes waking up to blaring sirens and flashing lights, washing in cold water in a park rest room, being bullied by boys at school, and feeling hungry and resentful. Spending time with a friend who is also homeless, and a reassuring encounter with a concerned policeman bring comfort at crucial moments, but the girl's life is not an easy one. Not since Maurice Sendak's We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy (HarperCollins, 1993) has a picture book dealing with homelessness maintained such emotional intensity. The illustrations call to mind images by Georges Rouault. Pedlar's figures are defined with thick black lines; exaggerated features and the expressionistic use of color accentuate the family's suffering. In the end, Mama's successful day helping at a Health Fair and the promise of a job lead to a bed and shower in a motel-and hope. Children will be moved by Zettie's plight and relieved that there are options. "

Wow. Just ... look. If you are in KINDERGARTEN, you need to be singing songs and playing with blocks and learning your one-two-threes. You do not need to learn right away that there are people so poor they live in their f*cking CARS, for Pete's sake. And parents, if little Amy comes to you with a question about the boy in her class who wears dirty clothes, all you have to do is tell her that the little boy is not as fortunate as she, and that she should treat him kindly. You do not have to give her a dissertation about the finer points of poverty, complete with a picture book to SHOW her what living in a car is like. Christ.

exaggerated features and the expressionistic use of color accentuate the family's suffering. Whoopee!

But wait! There's more:

"A Kids' Guide to Hunger and Homelessness"

"Tight Times"

"Uncle Willy and the Soup Kitchen"

and my personal favorite:

"The Lady in the Box"

You can't make this shit up. You just can't.

Recently Read

2011-10-19T08:35:00.001-04:00

Skip it if you wanna.

1. Highway 50 by Jim Lilliefors - Memoir of a road trip. It was interesting, although I got the feeling that the author didn't think very much of the people he met along the way, which was a little off-putting.

2. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King - short stories. This reminded me of that apocryphal story about Picasso, where a family with a young child is traveling abroad and stops for lunch at a little cafe. They strike up a conversation with the man at the next table, and as they are getting ready to leave, the man scribbles a doodle on a cocktail napkin, hands it to them, and says, "I'm Pablo Picasso, and this just paid for your child's college education." Anything Stephen King writes is better than most of the stuff out there, but sometimes I feel like he's publishing stuff just because he can, not because he necessarily thinks it's very good. Although maybe I'm just jealous.

3. At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon - Novel about a minister in a small town. Too predictable - I didn't finish it.

4. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen - Novel about a family of women with unusual gifts - a little bit on the magical realism side - interesting.

5. Flophouse by David Isay - Documentary/photo book about the men living in NYC's Bowery district - good.

6. The Little Friend by Donna Tartt - Novel about a 12-year-old girl trying to find out who murdered her brother. Starts out slow, but I guess you kind of have to when you're swinging for 500 pages. The ending is a rip-snorter, although it won't satisfy everybody.

Movie Review! "American Teen". This is a doc about high school, and the moral of the story is, high school is just as clique-centered and disorienting as it was when I attended, 30 years ago. Oh, but there is one modern update: Do not ever, ever email a pic of your boobs to someone, unless you want the whole world to see it.

7. Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch - Novel about three hermit-like brothers, and what happens when one passes away under (possibly) criminal circumstances. Told through several different viewpoints and time frames, which would normally have driven me crazy, although this author nailed it. Based on real-life events in a town not far from mine. Good.

Another movie review! "I Like Killing Flies". Doc about a Greenwich Village diner owner. Quirky and really good.

8. The Bride's House by Sandra Dallas. Novel about life in a western mining town in the early 1900s. I like all of Sandra Dallas' books, because they're comforting and easy to read. "The Persian Pickle Club" is probably my favorite of hers.

So! That's what I've been reading lately. How about you?

Random

2011-10-18T08:30:00.000-04:00

My mom (87; Alzheimer's) is convinced that there is a family living in my sister's poolhouse. (Trust me; there isn't.) She was chatting away on Sunday about how they just had a new baby boy. It's kind of spooky.

I cleaned and refilled the hummingbird feeder for the last time on Saturday. I haven't seen any hummingbirds since the end of September, but I'll leave it up for another week just in case. Cleaning that thing out once or twice a week is a pain in the ass, but taking it down in the fall means that winter's coming. I'd keep cleaning it out year-round if it would just stave off winter.

I've been saying/thinking "knock-knock, motherf*cker" an awful lot lately. I think I've been reading too much of The Bloggess.

I started to put up Halloween stuff on Saturday but I didn't finish it; I just didn't have the heart for it, remembering how last year The Runt helped me out:

My God I miss that cat.

I saw a thing on 60 Minutes about Vincent Van Gogh. It turns out he completed most of his paintings in a day; sometimes only a few hours. So, is "The Starry Night" still a masterpiece if he knocked it off in an afternoon? It's really funny; I always thought that the great painters took weeks and months to complete an important piece, but turns out old Vincent there was cranking 'em out in the time it takes me to eat a bag of chips. Who knew?

I just bought the most fantastically awful soapdish EVER. I really should save this for a future Freaky Friday, but it's too good not to share:

It's a boy. On a dolphin. Painted gold. Holding a soapdish. For some reason, I'm picturing this in a Kardashian bathroom. What can I say? It was three bucks. I couldn't resist.

Big Nothin'

2011-10-17T08:23:00.011-04:00

You guys! I had this big post all ready to go about how Delilah! got! adopted! on Saturday.

Except she didn't. Well, she KIND of did ... let me explain.

The foster coordinator called me on Thursday. A woman had seen Delilah on line and wanted to adopt her! She had filled out all the paperwork, passed the home inspection (!), and wanted to adopt. So on Saturday, the foster peeps came and got Delilah. Bye-bye, Deli-Belly! Enjoy your new home!

A couple of hours later, I got a phone call. The woman's four-year-old boy was scared of Delilah. She would have to go.

Now, I am not going to comment on someone only giving a healthy, friendly cat two hours before returning it. If she felt that strongly about it, it's best that the cat come back. And I don't know, maybe her kid has special needs or something. But I WILL say that two hours may set some kind of record for shortest. adoption. ever.

Besides, her buddies missed her terribly while she was gone and were very happy to have her back.

Prepare to gaze upon the countenance that scared a four-year-old:

Eeeeeeeeeeeek!

Don't worry, Miss Deli. Your family will find you.

How teeny is Dumplin?

2011-10-14T08:50:00.004-04:00

This teeny:

THIS teeny:

Teeny.

Who DOES that?!

2011-10-13T12:50:00.006-04:00

Okay, so, on my lunch break today I had to run up to the Dollar General (ew) to pick up a couple of things, and the lady ahead of me in line (they're always ahead of ME, dontcha know) was having a FIT because they wouldn't let her use multiple manufacturer's coupons for the same purchase.

Bottom line: She had three manufacturer's coupons for buy-two-Tide-products-and-one-Febreze-product-and-get-a-dollar-off. So she bought two Tides and one Febreze and was HIGHLY OFFENDED that they wouldn't let her use all three coupons.

"Ma'am", the store manager said, "You can't stack manufacturer's coupons. It's against Dollar General policy. You could combine one manufacturer's coupon and one Dollar General coupon, but you can't use more than one manufacturer's coupon per purchase."

"WELL!", she said. "The OTHER places I shop let me do it!"

Oh no they don't, I'm thinking. Not unless your cousin's the cashier, they don't.

Look. If they let people do that, people would collect, like, thirty coupons for a tube of toothpaste, buy one tube, and make a bunch of money off the deal.

IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT, LADY.

So in the end she abandoned her cart and huffed out of the store and I was glad. Because people like that drive me CRAZY.

How about you guys? Any crazy shopping people to report? A friend of my niece's got punched in the nose one time in the Walmart parking lot ...

TV alert! TV alert!

2011-10-13T08:43:00.005-04:00

The second season of Work of Art started on Bravo last night. Oh, how I love this show. They take a bunch of artists working in different styles and media and give them challenges each week.

On last night's show, the artists had to take flea-market type art (bad paintings, etc.) and put their own twist on it. And they have a limited amount of time to do it, so they can't dick around endlessly dithering about what they're going to do. And that's the most interesting part to me, watching how the artists actually decide on what they're going to do and then create their work.

And of course, they're "artists", so most of them are whack jobs. There's this one gal named Jazz-Minh (oh PLEASE), and a dude who calls himself "Sucklord", which is pretty hysterical when the judges are critiquing his work. "So tell me, Sucklord, why did you choose that particular color?" hahahahaha

Last year, if I remember correctly, they had a gal on who like to photograph herself nude, so who knows what'll happen this season? And one of the final three was a guy who was so mentally fragile that I STILL worry about him and hope he's okay. Also last season, the person who won SHOULD NOT HAVE WON, in my humble opinion, so we'll see what happens this time.

Work of Art! Wednesdays on Bravo! It's artistic.

Ridiculous

2011-10-12T10:02:00.003-04:00

Last night, I ... I ...

I bought some air. In a can.

I KNOW. I am old enough to remember when bottled water first became popular, and I would laugh at the idea that people would PAY for WATER. What's next, buying AIR?

Yeah. Last night I bought some air.

I can explain!

You see, the kittens are being kept in the spare bedroom. I put a screen door on the frame so that I could check in on them, and I put a latch on the door so they could not get out. But it got so every time I came to the door, they would charge it, and when I OPENED the door, they'd all go flying out into the rest of the house, which is really not good since they are supposed to be in quarantine until all their leukemia tests come back negative.

So! I'd have three manic kittens tearing around the house, and I'd pick up one and plop it back in the room, then pick up ANOTHER and open the door to put IT back in the room and Kitten #1 would go flying out again, and ... yeah. A regular three-kitten circus.

I thought about squirting them with a water pistol when they charged the door, but the idea of cleaning up wet carpeting several times a day didn't really appeal to me. And I didn't want the kittens getting wet and possibly cold. And then I remember reading somewhere about somebody who used a can of compressed air - the stuff you use to clean computer keyboards - and spraying the kittens with air to discourage them.

So! After work I stopped and bought a can of air (sob), and went home, and went to the kitten room, and when they charged the door I gave 'em the old air. Psssssst! Psssssst!

Well. Samson and Delilah just stood there, stunned, for a second, and then flew under the bed. Dumplin, bless his heart, stood his ground, all, "aaahhhhh! A refreshing breeze!" So I psssst'd him again, and this time he scooted.

Success! But then I felt like an axe murderer, because when I went in the room, the kittens were all, "What WAS that? Why did you DO that to us? You SCARED us!"

So, I guess I'd have to call it a qualified victory. Yes, it gets them away from the door, but it also scares the shit out of them.

Plus? The air? Is, like, SEVEN BUCKS A CAN. For AIR.

Whoever thought of THAT is making a fortune.

Poetry in motion

2011-10-11T08:49:00.002-04:00

You know how all those foster cat bloggers get tons of great action shots of their kitties? Ones that show every little whisker as the kittens leap into the air after toys? (Robyn, I'm looking at YOU.) Yeah, here's what happens when I try that:

Let's see, that would be black blur in the lower left, gray blur, and Delilah, looking blurrily away from the camera.

I've tried the action setting on my camera, which generally works great for motion shots, but I just ... can't ... get the pic.

Gray blur and Delilah, almost in focus:

Gray blur again ... oh, heck, you get the blurry picture. I'm starting to feel a little seasick, myself.

You know when's the ONE time that the cats stop moving for TWO SECONDS so I can get a non-blurry picture?

Yep. Dinnertime. Bon appetit, guys.

Kitten Sittin'

2011-10-10T13:30:00.001-04:00

So yeah, I decided to foster again. Because I am INSANE. And here is what the kitten truck delivered to my door:

That's Delilah. She is twelve weeks old or so. She and her brother were found by the side of Route 12, a busy road. She is a brat, a drama queen, and too damn cute. Look how the polka-dots on her side swirl into a circle! Too. Cute.

Here's her brother, Samson:

Sammy is everybody's buddy.

And here's little Dumplin:

Dumplin is only six weeks old.

(Oh! As an aside, I did not pick these names. They were named by the foster coordinator. If there are three names that I would be LEAST likely to name a cat, it would be these. Plus, every time I try to say "Dumplin", it comes out "Pumpkin" or "Bumpkin" or "Dumpin", so there's that. Cut me some slack.)

So! Dumplin is six weeks old. He weighs ... nothing. Okay, okay, maybe he weighs ... as much as a feather. Seriously, it's like picking up a handful of furry air.

And how is Little Girl dealing with this invasion, you ask? Little Girl has chosen to believe that there are NO KITTENS IN THE SPARE ROOM, oh no there are no kittens in there at all nononono. Kitten? What's a kitten?

She's doing okay. She gives the ol' stink eye to the spare room every time she goes near it, because she can SMELL and HEAR that there's something in there, but I put up a screen door in the spare room door frame and covered the bottom half with posterboard, so she can't actually SEE that there are k-words in there. And that's the way she prefers it.

And there you have it. Samson, Delilah and Dumplin. All available for adoption right here in Upstate New York, so come get your kittens! They're waiting for you!

(and you can change their names once you adopt. I PROMISE.)

Sneak Peek

2011-10-10T08:16:00.000-04:00

Let the games begin!

Headstones

2011-10-07T09:30:00.002-04:00

Seen in my neighborhood cemetery:

Okay, so Wife Number 1 dies first, then Hubby, then Wife Number 2. Who decided on the pecking order on the gravestone? At first I assumed it was Hubby, but he was not the last to go; Wife Number 2 was. But I can't imagine Wife Number 2 being fine with Wife Number 1 being on there, so now I'm just confused. As always, you can click on the pic to enlarge it.

This was the oldest stone I found on this visit:

One thing that strikes you about old cemeteries is the amount of people who died really, really young back then:

I think there's as many kids buried in this cemetery as there are adults. Life was tough in the old days. Oh, and you might want to give these headstones some thought the next time some nutjob starts raving about the evils of vaccination.

The mushrooms shall inherit the earth

2011-10-06T08:15:00.000-04:00

That thing's as big as my dang head. Yikes.

I'm just waiting on a friend

2011-10-05T08:15:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, three little kittens will be coming to visit with Little Girl and I.

Wait! Wait! I can explain!

If you've been reading here a while, you may recall how The Runt died suddenly in April. And then Little Girl was diagnosed with heart disease, the same thing that killed her brother.

And then Little Girl went on meds and improved tremendously, and I decided to try to find her a cat companion, as she missed her brother so.

Well. A couple of disastrous attempts at adoption followed, and I decided to give it a break.

And then I read about a new cat-rescue group starting up. And they were looking for foster homes for kittens. And I thought, that could be a possibility. If I fostered, Little Girl would get a chance to meet potential companions on a limited basis. If she didn't like them, they would go on to the adoption center. If she DID like one, I could adopt it as her new companion. Hmmm ...

I KNOW, right? Trying this again is like going back to an asshole ex-boyfriend. You know you shouldn't do it, and you're embarrassed to admit it to your friends, but you just can't help yourself.

I called the rescue group. I explained the situation with Little Girl and I. They were willing to meet my terms.

And so on Saturday morning, Samson and Delilah, two twelve-week-olds, will be coming to visit. Along with Dumplin*, a six week old boy, who evidently became attached to the other two when they were staying at the foster coordinator's home. They need a place to stay until the adoption center has room for them. They will be staying in my spare bedroom while Little Girl gets to know them. If she doesn't like them, if they scare her, if she starts to stress out, they will move on. If she DOES like them, well ... one may be staying. But I'm not counting on that at all. I'm not counting on anything right now.

And I can just SEE you guys out there, shaking your heads in disgust, wondering what in the hell is WRONG with me for trying again.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I just know that I have to try.

Another crackpot scheme, about to hatch.

*WHO picks out these NAMES? Gah.

The M Word

2011-10-04T10:22:00.003-04:00

Okay, menfolk, we are going to talk about lady stuff this morning, so you've been warned. Go leaf through an issue of Popular Mechanics or something.

So! I had to go to the doctor today for my annual lady-parts exam, which had extra-added-fun-ness because they were working on the building's heating system and it was FREEZING in there.

And! The nice lady doctor oh-so-delicately broached the subject of

of

oh hell I'll say it

MENOPAUSE.

dun dun DUNNNNNNNNNNNN!

Wow. Just - I can't possibly be old enough for that shit yet, right? RIGHT?

Right. Probably not yet. But she ran some ... tests... and said that there are some indicators that that particular choo-choo is heading down the tracks.

Which - yay, right? I mean, I've been on depo all these years because the great, overriding blessing of depo is no menstruation. And with menopause, no more periods! yay!

But then again, that means I'm old, right? Too old to pop out any kids, that's for damn sure. Although I spent my entire adult life avoiding getting pregnant, so there's that.

I just seem too ... young, somehow.

And now you guys are all howling with laughter and getting "old geezer" t-shirts made up to send me, I know. Ha!

Shit. I don't mind getting old. I guess. It beats the damn alternative, that's for sure.

Well I tried to make it Sunday ...

2011-10-03T08:36:00.004-04:00

... but I got so damn depressed, that I set my sights on Monday and I got myself undressed.*

Man, I'll tell you what, I just spent a weekend in the dumps.

I don't know why I was so blue ... Oh, I suspect the never-ending rain had something to do with it, but that can't be all of it. I just couldn't shake myself out of being down.

But! The alarm clock went off as scheduled this morning, and I swear, sometimes I think having a job to go to every morning is the only thing that keeps me from being a complete nutcase, so here I am, at my desk and feeling much better, thank you.

Maybe it's the time of year. I DO NOT LIKE getting up in the dark. Blech.

How's everybody else this morning? Feeling fine? I sure hope so.

*Sister Golden Hair by America. Like you didn't know that already.

They're goddam LOCUST trees, goddam it!

2011-09-30T08:25:00.001-04:00

Conversation I had with my neighbor, Crazy Old Driveway Guy, the other day:

CODG: "You know, those are ash trees in your front yard. We used to have some in OUR front yard. You oughta get some of those purple bug traps, before the beetles take them over."

Three things:

a. They are not ash trees. They are locust trees.

b. The "beetles" he is referring to are emerald ash borers, which are infesting ash trees. Just not in our neck of the woods yet. And the "purple bug traps" are specialized devices being set out by the DEC, in an attempt to track the borers' progress. It's not like you can go to Agway and buy one. I think he had the ash borer traps confused with Japanese beetle traps.

c. The emerald ASH borers are infesting ASH trees. I do not have ash trees. I have locust trees.

Okay! Back to the conversation:

Me: "I'm pretty sure they're locust trees, not ash trees."

CODG: "Nope, they're ash trees. We had some in our yard."

Aside: After I bought the house, I got a tree book out of the library to identify the trees in my yard. The willow was obvious, but I did not know what the trees in the front were. As I found out from the book, they are locust trees. They are not ash trees. One difference between ash trees and locust trees is the amount of individual leaves in each ... cluster or whatever the hell you call it ... and these are locust trees. LOCUSTLOCUSTLOCUST.

Me: "Oh, well, I guess I'd better go get some of those purple traps, then! For my ash trees! Thanks for the advice!"

I think I've finally got this dude sussed. He has to be right ALL THE TIME. And if he is NOT right (see the driveway saga), he will just keep blustering through, until you finally agree with him, just to be nice, and to avoid watching him stroke out from the thought that he might be wrong.

Look. Dude's eighty years old. He knows nobody's gonna contradict his crazy-ass ideas. He knows he can say whatever the hell he wants to, and nobody's gonna tell him he's wrong. And I'M not gonna be the one to push him over the brink. As much as I might like to, I am not going to be the one to say, "Hey, look, gramps, you're full of shit. Jeezus Christ, what a f*cking MORON." He's basically a good guy. So I just nod and smile and go along.

His plan is working.

He's a damn genius.

They're f*cking LOCUST trees, dammit.

Spelling Police

2011-09-29T09:20:00.000-04:00

... sigh ...

Apparently, the reward for a trip to the dentist ...

2011-09-28T15:11:00.003-04:00

... is an entire box of powdered mini-donuts.

*urp*

What's that? Why no, no, I DIDN'T share them with my co-workers. What are you, high or something?

Actually, that would explain the box of mini-donuts, but I have not engaged in THAT particular vice for lo these many years now.

Usually, the reward for a trip to the dentist is lunch at McDonald's (I KNOW), but evidently times are a changin'. Today, nothing but powdered mini-donuts would do. Lots and lots of powdered mini-donuts. (and no, I was not at the dentist's because of the powdered mini-donuts. I like to eat, but I also like to brush my damn TEETH, thankyouverymuch.)

And to those of you who say you should not use food as a reward, I say, "huh"?

What else is there?

I mean, and still keep it legal. Ha. Hell, I can go buy myself a bracelet or a new pair of shoes or go to the movies any time I want to. When I have just voluntarily plunked myself in the dentist's chair for a nice long session with the drill?
GIVE ME FOOD. LOTS OF IT.

Thank you.

and pass the donuts.

So! THAT was fun.

2011-09-28T09:22:00.002-04:00

Warning: This post contains dentist stuff. Just so you know.

I spent some quality time at the dentist this morning, undergoing some exploratory drilling. Yeah. And you know, it's not the needles that bother me, or the drills, or even the indignity of having my mouth propped open for way too long.

It's the smell. That smell of burnt ... bone. Burnt ... tooth. Just ... ick.

Oh! And in other news, there is - wait for it - a FLOOD WATCH in effect for this area through tomorrow.

Holy Mary Mother of God, haven't we had ENOUGH, here? What are we, JOB or something? Jeez.

And! Yesterday I was filling out an application on line, and I proofread it carefully, and then printed it out to proof it again, because I'm a hard copy kind of gal, and I finally said okay and hit send, and then I noticed that ... I spelled my name wrong.

hahahahaha I am not even kidding you I SPELLED MY OWN NAME WRONG.

Bonehead, that's me. Burnt bonehead, this morning.

It's! So! Exciting! Part 2!

2011-09-27T10:43:00.002-04:00

First off, it's not too late! Hurry hurry hurry to the Better World Books sale, today only!

Here's what I got:

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (awwww)
Saving Grace
Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story
The Grail Bird
I Will Not Be Broken (self-help - yikes! Hey, it's just in case.)
So Late, So Soon
Wishin' and Hopin': A Christmas Story
The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk (nothin' like a good, depressing tale)
It Takes a Village Idiot
The Hour I First Believed
The Road
Fanny and Sue
2gether 4ever: Notes of a Junior High School Heartthrob
Black Mountain Breakdown
Long Past Stopping
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
All About Lulu
Amy and Isabelle
Scared Santa: Scenes of Terror in Toyland (how could I resist?)
Land of a Hundred Wonders
Requiem for a Paper Bag
The Dollmaker (I love this book. But it's SO SAD.)
Sloppy Firsts
The Big Rock Candy Mountain
When Angels Rest
Hunter's Horn

Sorry I did not include authors - time is limited around here.

But! I got - let's see - 27 books for ... drum roll please ... $54.55! Normally, spending fifty bucks on anything not absolutely need-related would send me into palpitations, but ... it's books! Books! And not just random 25-cent books from the library book sale, but books I actually want to read! Two bucks a pop!

And that poor mailman is gonna shit when he sees the size of the box he's gotta deliver to my house.

Go! Go to the book sale! Today only!

Holy SHIT I'm excited.

It's! So! Exciting!

2011-09-27T08:12:00.003-04:00

Dudes. Duuuuuuuudes.

Better World Books is having a blowout sale, today only! Fifty percent off ALL bargain books! FREE shipping! Go! Go! Go!

Needless to say, I am not being compensated for this post. Better World Books, along with the rest of the universe, has never heard of me. Regardless, as someone who loves to read, I felt compelled to pass this news on.

Now go buy some books!

I'll be back later to tell you what I got.

How 'bout dem Bills?

2011-09-26T09:40:00.003-04:00

So! The Bills are now three in a row. It's like a miracle or something.

I have followed the Bills, for, well, forEVER, or at least it feels that way. When you back a perpetually losing team, the seasons tend to drag on. Every year they break my heart, sooner or later. Usually by mid-season they've got more guys on injured reserve than they do actually playing, and they have a nasty habit of falling apart in the second half.

But! It is a new season, and yesterday they actually managed to beat the insufferable Patriots. I did a leeetle dance as the game ended. Holy shit - three in a row!

How about you? Who's your favorite team? Who's your LEAST favorite team?

Oh! Speaking of least-favorites, I cannot even watch Tiger Woods any more. Just ... ick. And I mean, what he did/does in his personal life is his own personal business and blahblahblah, but just ... ick.

Perseverence

2011-09-23T08:05:00.004-04:00

Two weeks ago, the hibiscus garden was covered with rushing floodwaters.

After the water receded, I picked the left-behind flood detritus off the plants. I rinsed the leaves off with buckets of (clean) water to clear off the creek crud, propped them up from where they had gotten beaten against the ground, and hoped they would come back next year.

This morning?:

And in other yard news:

It's a crabapple tree.

The deer won't even eat the fruit.

Anybody want some crabapples? I've got PLENTY.

The hygienist's revenge

2011-09-22T08:13:00.003-04:00

I had to go to the dentist the other day (thrilling, I know), and while I was there the hygienist checked my blood pressure, which was through the roof.

I explained that I was having problems with an extremely bothersome client (read: asshole) whom I was about to kill, and she said, "You know what amazes me? Is when patients are rude to ME. Here I am, with a tray full of extremely sharp instruments, and I get people in that chair giving me a bunch of attitude. I feel like telling them, don't you know what I could DO to you if I wanted to?"

Um ... wow.

So the moral of the story is, be nice to your hygienist, OR ELSE.

Oh! And in other dental news, I have heard that my long-ex-husband is getting false teeth. HA! I don't know why that pleases me. BUT IT DOES. Stock up on the Poligrip, buddy-boy.

Another spooky tale from the haunted bathroom

2011-09-21T10:25:00.001-04:00

Remember the mysterious o-ring? The o-ring that appeared out of nowhere in my shower?

Well.

Yesterday morning, I was showering away, when I looked down and saw ... blue. Splotches of blue, like blue paint, on the floor of tub. Splotches that had not been there when I got in the shower.

Bright blue. I actually looked up, to see if bright blue paint was somehow leaking through the ceiling above the tub.

Nope.

I touched one of the splotches with my toe, and it smeared, just the way paint would.

I'm estimating there were thirty splotches, bright blue splotches, ranging in size from the eraser on the end of a pencil to dime-sized. They just appeared, while I was showering. I always, always do a quick scan of the tub and the tub surround before I get in, because spiders love my bathroom, and there were no blue splotches before I got in the tub.

I do not use any type of product in the shower that is blue. No blue shampoo, no blue body wash, no blue nothing.

I used my buffy-puff-body-wash-sponge thing to scrub at the splotches. They smeared and faded, but they're still there, faintly.

Ideas? Back when the mysterious o-ring appeared, I thought it was funny. And I think I finally figured that out - the o-ring had a hairline crack that allowed it to fall off the showerhead. But bright blue splotches? Out of nowhere? Appearing on a tub floor while I am showering?

Okay, this is kind of weird.

Roller Derby!

2011-09-20T08:15:00.000-04:00

I wanna be in the Roller Derby!

Ha! Who am I kidding? Those ladies would make mincemeat out of me.

Sweetie Pie

2011-09-16T12:50:00.000-04:00

When I got back from my enforced time off due to flooding, I started wading (ha!) through my emails.

Here is a confession that will come as a surprise to absolutely none of you: I buy some weird shit. On ebay. My saved searches include the following:

"1977 New York State Field Band Championship"

"full size carousel horse"

"vintage mermaid"

"why don't I fit in"

and

"trailside".

Ah, Trailside. Many, many years ago, PBS aired a series by that name. It was all about trail hiking, obv. And they filmed an episode about eighty miles away from where I live, at a not-very-well-known hiking area where I had actually been many times before, because it was close to the family cottage.

What's that? Why yes, yes, I DO HAVE A POINT. I'M GETTING THERE.

So! On the Saturday afternoon when that episode was going to air, I was not going to be home, but I set my VCR to record the show. (I TOLD you it was a long time ago, OKAY?) (I still have the VCR. I still have tapes. I still play them. I am old.)

I get home later that afternoon, and I'm all excited to watch the Trailside people hike in an area where I had been, and I rewind, and I start watching the show, and it's almost to the part where they're going to be at the place where I had hiked, and

you guessed it.

The VCR had stopped recording RIGHT. THERE.

Agh! The wailing and the moaning and the gnashing of teeth. All over a stupid TV show, I know. I was inordinately upset over the whole thing. And my local PBS station soon stopped airing Trailside, so I never DID get to watch the end of the show.

Flash-forward many years later, to the internet and ebay and the saved search. And people were selling many, many copies of many, many episodes of Trailside, but never the one that I wanted. One person even listed what she said was a "complete set" of Trailside, and it did not include my episode, which made me wonder if I was going crazy or something. Maybe I dreamed it?

Until I got back from my time off, going through a week of email, and there it was, in my inbox, a saved search notification that MY EPISODE of Trailside was up for bid.

And the auction had ended several days before.

*&^%!)*#

Poor me. Last night, I'm at home, stewing over my almost-found-but-once-again-lost episode of Trailside, wondering how many years it will be this time before someone puts one up for bid.

And then. I had an idea.

I got into work this morning, pulled up that ended-auction notification, and emailed the lister. I asked her if the tape had sold, and if not, did she still have it, and if so, could I possibly buy it?

Readers, SHE STILL HAD THE TAPE. And she re-listed it, just for me, and you know what she charged for it?

Ninety-nine cents.

She had me over a barrel, and she knew it, and she STILL let me have the tape for a buck.

It restores my faith in humanity. It truly does. And now, very soon, I will get to see my long-ago episode of Trailside.

*sniff*

I CAN'T WAIT.

Some Flood Numbers

2011-09-16T08:19:00.003-04:00

23,139 - Number of people evacuated in my county. There were another 20,000 evacuated in an adjacent county.

6,000 - Structures impacted.

2,365 - Structures damaged.

43 - Structures destroyed.

8.7 - Inches of rain that fell in a 24-hour period at the airport. I got 10.4 inches at my house before the rain gauge overflowed.

39 - Square miles flooded.

$25,000.00 - Amount of money Petco donated to local animal shelters in a desperate attempt at damage control. (They evacuated their employees but left the animals behind.)

Isn't it ironic

2011-09-15T08:45:00.003-04:00

The apartment building where I used to live, which is not in a flood zone, flooded. Well, my old apartment didn't flood, because I lived on the second floor, but the building itself did.

My house where I live now, which IS in a flood zone, did not flood.

Go figure.

Oh! And in other news, when the local utility company was working to get gas service restored to the neighborhood, they were going door-to-door explaining that when they were able to turn the gas back on, they'd have to come back and check everyone's gas appliances for flooding before they could turn the service on to individual houses. I asked one of the guys what would happen if I wasn't home when they came back, and he said, "Well, we'll put a tag on your door with a phone number on it, and you can call to schedule another appointment, but honestly? With the situation in this area, it might take quite a while to get somebody back out here. If you feel comfortable doing it, it would be a lot quicker to just leave a note on your door explaining how to access the appliances, and then we can go ahead and check them when you're not here."

Ha! And that's what I did. I left a note on my door explaining which door was unlocked, and go on in, guys!

But seriously? That's some pretty shit advice, if you ask me. All it takes is one enterprising criminal to go door-to-door, looking for notes on doors to see which houses are begging to be robbed. I never would have left the note, except I don't have anything worth stealing. Oh, and plus, my neighbors watch my house like a damn hawk, so there's that.

Then again, if they stole my nineteen year old TV, at least I'd have an excuse to go buy a new one.

Oh! And in OTHER other news, a protest is being organized for tomorrow in front of the local Petco, where they evacuated the employees but left the animals behind. The CEO of Petco paid a visit the other day, doing damage control. Evidently there were no cats or dogs in the store, but there were rodents, reptiles, birds, and lots and lots of fish. People on local message boards are all, "fish have rights, too!" Um ... yes ... they have a right to be on my plate with some tartar sauce and fries on the side. Sorry. I just ... isn't a flood kind of like the best-case scenario for a bunch of fish in tanks? "Here we go, guys - the water's rising - FREEDOM!"

Man, I'm going to hell for sure. If I believed in that kind of thing.

RockyCat

Romeo's heart

Common questions I get at the adoption center

Last night

Okay, NOW they're just f*cking with me

Cats in cages

Look Back

Doin' the Kitty-Cat Shuffle

No more magical thinking, dammit!

Dooce is getting a divorce. And I'm glad.

25 or 6 to 4

Holy shit I almost killed my mom

Flag

So, where WAS she?

More Random

Well, Hello, Betty Sue

You tap on that glass one more goddam time ...

Sign o' the times

Questions. I haz them.

Because I'm a big fat PUSHOVER, that's why

Oh, and 2011? ...

Prettyboys

Maybe I'm not human. Maybe I'm a sociopath.

Feral cats and skunks, living together

Recently Read

Merry Christmas!

Christmas etiquette is tricky shit: Now with an update!

... because if a goddam ROOT CANAL won't get you out of work early, what the hell will?

The Boys Are Back In Town

... and boy, are my arms tired

I swear to GOD this shit only happens to me

Meet the new kids ...

Grinch

Aaaaaaand ... they're off!

Before! After!

The Angels Sang

Thug Life

Samson and Delilah's Big! Adventure!

The hits just keep on comin'

Weather Report

Don't EVER wake a sleeping baby

I call bullshit

(More) things that are driving me crazy.

Cards here! Getcher cards here!

Sam I Am

So! Emergency root canal!

You know how ... Now with an update!

Look who came back for a visit

Pinched Ow

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The End of an Era

What happened

Little Girl

Oh, man, I just can't let this go

Exercise your right to vote! Or, you know, stay home

JoPa gets the bum's rush

Don't those damned things ever SLEEP?

The Closing Dress

Random

Hoo boy

She's still got it

I don't know why I let blogworld get to me like this

Oh, I can't let this day pass ...

An early snow

Because I am twelve, that's why

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about

Squirrel Car

Sunday in the Park

After

Hidden *urp* talents

Okay, since we're getting all book-ish up in here ...

Hey! Let's depress the shit out of some little kids!

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Big Nothin'

How teeny is Dumplin?

Who DOES that?!

TV alert! TV alert!

Ridiculous

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