Profiles in Kittens

While the kittens are at the vet's today having measures taken to ensure that they do not beget kittens of their own, I thought I'd jot down a few memories. Hard to believe that they're six months old already.

The Runt:

When The Runt was younger, he was the instigator of the litter. He'd stir up trouble with the other kittens, then saunter out of the room, leaving them to take the rap.

He has really large ears. When he was teeny, he looked more like some kind of alien being than like a kitten. And now he's really long and lean.

He will tolerate being held, although he doesn't really seem to enjoy it. If I pet him, he gets up and moves, which - honestly? Hurts my feelings, just a little. He only purrs when spending quality time with his nuk-nuk towel.

Little Girl:

She likes to sleep curled up against my head at night, which is fine until I roll over in my sleep and get a face full of kitten. And lately, her favored play time seems to be four a.m., when she wakes up, goes down to the foot of the bed, makes a flying leap, and lands square on my head. Her attitude seems to be, "If I'm awake, everybody's gonna be awake!"

When you first pick her up, she lets out a wail, like she's saying, "oh my doodness! OH MY DOODNESS!" Then she calms down and starts purring.

She still has googly eyes. I'm hoping these straighten out, as it's really disconcerting. Although as I've said, it doesn't seem to bother HER at all, so I guess I should just calm down.

The two of them:

They both love to be outside, running around the backyard as fast as they can. They will chase anything that moves, including rabbits bigger than they are. Oh, and The Runt finally seems to be learning "the rules" about tree-climbing, i.e., don't climb any higher than you can turn around and jump down from.

When they are together, I can easily tell them apart. The Runt is bigger and has darker fur; Little Girl is more compact and is lighter and more stripe-ier. When they're apart, well, honestly? I have a hard time telling which one's which. Sorry, guys. They're now wearing different-colored collars, which should help some with ID.

They remind me of my sister Alabama's sons, V and M, who are eight and ten years younger than me. I swear that V was born with a furrowed brow; he was a serious, worried little kid who grew up into a serious, worried man, sometimes taking breaks from the seriousness of it all to get himself into almost unbelievable amounts of trouble. M, on the other hand, was a smiling, friendly little kid who grew up into a smiling, friendly man. When he was younger, we used to joke that he would grow up to be either a bank robber or a bank president, because he could talk himself out of just about anything. (For the record, he grew up to use his powers for good.) The Runt is very much like V - Serious, with splashes of "oops!". And Little Girl is just like M - smiling and sunny and very likely to have a trick or two up her sleeve.

They are both fearless. They are not afraid of loud noises, of water, of anything. They are not even afraid of the vacuum cleaner.

How they got their names:

These two were part of a litter of four, with their mama, whom I started fostering when they were four weeks old. None of them had names when they came from the shelter, and I had to call them something. I named their sister and brother Fluffy and Tuffy, for the obvious reasons. The Runt was the smallest of the litter and the first to get kicked to the curb when they were all nursing; thus, "The Runt". Little Girl was the last to be named, and I really never did come up with anything formal. I just started calling her "Little Girl", and it stuck.

And incidentally, I really thought about calling her Sandy, because her fur is the color of a Pecan Sandie cookie, but everytime I thought "Sandy", I got a visual of John Travolta singing, "Oh Sandy baaaayybeeeeeee, soommedaayy, when high-eye-school is through...." from "Grease", and that sort of scotched that idea.

Good luck at the vet's today, guys! Full food bowls and a warm bed await you when you get home.

Vetted

The Runt and Little Girl have been safely delivered to the vet, where they will have their bidness taken care of.

And they were so good this morning! They were obviously perplexed by the lack of breakfast, but happily played with their laser toy instead. When I put the carriers up on the bed, they hopped into them before I could even get the towels in.

Goooooood kitties. See ya tonight!

Ho, ho ....... ho?

There was a "Party City" flyer in the paper yesterday, with a section of "Christmas Costumes". And I was thinking, why on earth would anybody dress up in a costume for Christmas? And then I was all, well, yeah, if you get roped into playing Santa at the company Christmas party, you'd need a costume. And the flyer showed some elf costumes, and I was, yeah, okay, if it's a BIG enough company Christmas party, the head honchos might want some elves to go along with Santa. And there were shepherd costumes, presumably for the kiddoes' Christmas play. But then, tucked into the middle of the line-up, was this lovely costume:





It's Tiffany, the Christmas Ho!

I don't even know what to say about this. It's got all the classic "skank costume" elements: Low-cut, lace-up bodice; skirt that you don't want to bend over in (although, if you're actually wearing this, you probably DO want to bend over in it), thigh-high, horizontally-striped leggings, and f*ck-me pumps. Oh, and Party City? I think maybe whoever designs your costumes is a tad misogynistic, because anybody who weighs more than, say, one of the Olsen twins is NOT gonna look sexay in horizontally-striped leggings. Just sayin'.

I've been trying to think where one might wear such a costume (outside of the boudoir, that is), and ......... yeah. I got nothin'. Although I WOULD be willing to wear it to Christmas dinner, just to watch my sister TIB's face turn purple. Totally worth it.

Nervous and Jerky

So! The Runt and Little Girl go to the shelter vet on Thursday to get neutered and spayed, respectively. And while I am immensely relieved to be getting this over with (they ARE, after all, a boy and a girl, and from what I understand, cats don't really have a taboo about incest), I am also a little nervous.

First off, let me say that the people at the local shelters are doing great things. They are EXTREMELY dedicated, considering that they are (almost) all volunteers.

That said, these people are also EXTREMELY disorganized. It's like a Chinese fire drill, all the time. Nobody knows who's doing what, nobody knows what's already been done and what still needs to be done, etc.

So I'm just a little nervous about leaving the cats there on Thursday for their operations. I am sure everything will be FINE, and other than printing my name in Sharpie marker on their carriers I'm not sure what I could do to make the process smoother for them. And so I'll be nervous and jerky for the next couple of days.

Oh! And I've got a question: What is the recovery time for neutering/spaying? I remember when I had Rocky neutered he was basically fine once the anesthesia wore off, but the last time I had a female kitten spayed, many years ago, I seem to remember that she had a much longer recovery time.

Nervous. and Jerky.

Finding New Ways to Get into Trouble

On Saturday night, The Runt came around the corner from the kitchen into the living room with a piece of yarn in his mouth and a funny look on his face. You know when little kids get into trouble, and they realize they've got to tell their parents, and they get that look on their face, and they go, "ummmmmm.........mom?" Yeah, that look.

So, I went over to see what was up. I figured maybe he wanted to play with the piece of yarn he was carrying. This yarn string is several feet long; the cats like me to drag it around the house so they can chase it.

Can you see where this is going? I tugged on the yarn, gently, and discovered that The Runt had swallowed some of it. So I pulled again, very gently, and pulled, and pulled, until the several inches of yarn that The Runt had swallowed were safely outside of his body again. I felt like a magician (a furious magician, heh, sorry, Dooce) pulling scarves out of somebody's pocket.

The LaSouer Pea Syndrome strikes again.

Ha! I TOLD you so!

On Friday's Young and the Restless, Marge's ghost showed up at Katherine's funeral. And then went to the riverbank where Katherine's body lay undiscovered*, and somehow, well, incorporated herself into Katherine. And the last thing they showed on Friday was Katherine's hand, twitching just a little bit.

So now the question is whether Katherine will come back as Katherine, or as Marge. And I hope it's not Marge, because the actress who portrays Katherine/Marge (and god bless her, she's been on the show for thirty years) cannot do a Southern accent for shit.

Such duh-rama!


*Not pretending to understand this. Nikki and Jill found the body, for Pete's sake. Oh, and wait! According to the local paper, "Jill got news that Katherine died in a car accident, unaware that it was really Marge." Huh?

It's Been Seven Hours and Fifteen Days ........

Since they took my floor away ........


*sigh*

The Young and the Restless

I kicked my Y&R habit several months ago, but I had heard that this week was going to be Katherine's funeral, and they were going to be bringing back some old characters, so I watched a couple of episodes.


And here's the thing about soaps: Nothing ever really happens. And when something does happen, they draaggggggggg it out. A fistfight between two characters can last, like, a WEEK on a soap opera. I expect that Katherine's funeral will last a month or so.


Which makes me think of my favorite line from a TV show, ever. On an episode of The Golden Girls, one of the women was talking about a soap opera. And one of the other women says, "Why, I haven't watched that show in years! What's been happening?" And the first woman says, "Well, it's later the same day ............" Heh.


Oh, but there is one MAJOR exception to this rule: Rapid Aging Baby Syndrome. Take, for example, the character of Noah on Y&R. When I last tuned in, a few months ago, he was around 10 or 11 years old. When I tuned in this week, he was 15. And in Paris with his girlfriend, who turned out to be Michael Baldwin's long-lost half sister. And that's another thing about soaps. Unknown relatives tend to spring out of the woodwork. ALL THE TIME, like once a week or so.


Oh! And let's talk about Victor for a minute. The character of Victor Newman has been on Y&R since the beginning. And a few years ago, Victor started to, well, expand. Now, the actor who played Victor prided himself on his physique, and they used to show him on the show all the time working out in the gym. Evidently as a little treat for teh ladies. But! When ol' Vic started to pack on the pounds, pretty soon they weren't showing him at the gym anymore. Then they weren't showing him in profile in any of his shots. At his, well, weightiest, they were only showing him from a distance. And they'd put him behind chairs and stuff. I shit you not. But I guess the producers sat the actor down and had a little chat, because lately they've been showing the whole Vic again. And he's definitely lost some of that weight.


But! I was amazed to discover that Victor and Ashley are back together. Bleeearrrggghhh....


Now, I have no intention of re-upping with Y&R. As I said, I'm just watching this week for Katherine's funeral. But here's another thing about soaps: Even death cannot kill these people. I mean, you can have a character get blown up in a nuclear blast, and a few years later they'll come back on the show, suffering from amnesia and explaining how they woke up in Spain and had to regain their identity but ......... here they are! Good as new!


So even though they showed Katherine's dead body in the car crash, and the funeral is this week, and they will presumably bury a casket with Katherine in it, it's anybody's guess as to whether she's actually dead or not. She may show up in a few days or weeks or months or years, brushing the dirt off her shoulders and wondering why everybody's so freaked out to see her.


Or, she could come back as a ghost. Hey, it worked for John Abbott! (Another Y&R character who passed away and is currently haunting his son, Jack.)


Oh, and Katherine has an alter-ego, as well - Marge, I think her name is. A gum-chewing, wise-cracking truck stop waitress. I wonder if Marge is dead now, too, or if it's just Katherine who croaked. Hmmmm....

Hee

I just ordered myself a birthday present. (Why, yes, I DO buy myself birthday presents. Hey, SOMEBODY'S gotta do it. SHUT UP.) (And no, my birthday is not today. No need for birthday wishes. It's in a few weeks.)

Anyway, I went to Cafe Press and ordered myself a sweatshirt with this logo on it:





I just made my day!

Dear Rocky,

It's been several months now, and I just wanted to let you know that I miss you and think about you every day.

I have your ashes in a pretty container in my living room, along with some photos of you and a clipping of your fur.

It was a good fifteen years, wasn't it? All the adventures you had, and we had together. You were the best cat I ever had. I hope you enjoyed having me as an owner as much I enjoyed having you for a pet. You were truly one in a million, and I love you very much.

Love,

Me

Smelly

There is a client in our office right now who is wearing SO MUCH PERFUME it is making me gag. And it's that perfume, I can't think of the name right now, that smells like lilacs, but with a little, well, acrid tinge to it, so if you wear a little of it, it smells pretty, but if you BATHE IN IT, it smells like bllleerrrrgh.

Helpful hint from RockyCat: When you are putting on perfume in the morning, spray a little bit of the perfume into the air in front of you, and then walk forward through the spray. THAT IS ALL THE PERFUME YOU NEED.

Excuse me while I go open a window.

Blog Etiquette

Or would that be, "bletiquette"?

Anyway, I was reading someone's (honestly, I don't remember whose) blog the other day, and she was talking about people who read her blog but never comment.

Oh! And let me say first off, I was FUH-REAKED OUT when I first discovered that you could put a thing on your blog that would tell you who was reading it, and when, and for how long, etc., etc. Because sometimes I will click on a blog, and the phone will ring, and a client will come in, and the computer will go to screensaver, and I'll come back, like, two hours later and still be on that blog. And now I'm all, like, "Oh my God! These people think I'm insane! They think I've been reading their blog for, like, two hours!"

And also, sometimes if I get really really bored, I'll start clicking on random blogs over and over, just to see if anybody's updated in the last, oh, half-hour or so.

So when I found out that PEOPLE KNEW WHEN I WAS READING THEIR BLOG, I was all, "Great. Just great. Now they think I'm an insane stalker who reads their blog for HOURS and checks back nine million times a day."

But! Well! Okay, back to the bletiquette thing. I'm relatively new here, and obv I still don't know all the rules, because I had NO IDEA that if you read someone's blog, commenting was mandatory. I thought you could just read along, la la la, and if a post really spoke to you, or if you had something of value to add, then you could comment, but it was strictly optional.

And while I do comment on some of the blogs I read (hi, guys!), I don't comment on all of them. I don't think I do, anyway. Actually, it never even occurred to me to keep track, until now. And I almost never comment on the really popular blogs, like Dooce, unless they're running a contest or something, because honestly? Comment #853? Who cares?

Oh! And also! Having you ever been reading a blog, and the blogger will post a pic of, oh, I don't know, their butt-ugly nephew or something, and you want SO BAD to comment something along the lines of, "That's the ugliest damn kid I ever saw! What did your sister do, mate with a freakin' MONKEY or something?!" No? That's just me? Okay, then. Moving on ........



Or what about when someone is making a reallllly bad decision (I can claim my fair share of those, believe you me) and all of their bloggy commenters are supporting them, and you just want to comment, "Nooooooooo! Don't listen to them! They're idiots!" But you don't, because you know that all of those other commenters will turn around and shoot you down in hot hot flames. Folks, believe me, if you see me about to commit a grievous error (and like I said, IT HAS BEEN KNOWN TO HAPPEN), please let me know.


So! Well! Okay! Running out of steam, and time, here. So I guess here's my bletiquette question for the day: If you read a blog, are you SUPPOSED to comment on it? Or is it optional? And how often are you supposed to comment? Every time you stop by? Or just once in a while?


Oh, and for the record, I do not have one of those site meter thingies here. Frankly, I don't want to know who's coming here, and why, and how many times a day, and for how long, and which search terms they used to get here. Even though this is my personal blog, I somehow oddly feel like it's none of my business if you're stopping by, and so I'd just as soon not know. Ignorance is bliss, and all that.

Five Months

I just looked out my window, and it is snowing out. And it is quarter to four, and already getting dark.

I loathe winter. I despise winter.

Earlier today, I had to run an errand for work. I looked out my window, and it was sneeting out. (Sneeting = snow/sleet combo. The word sounds cute, but trust me, SNEET IS NOT CUTE.) A co-worker happened by and said, "you've got the saddest look on your face!" I am sure it was true.

Here in upstate New York, drivers lose their ever-lovin' minds the first time it snows. It's like they totally forget how to drive in the snow, when let's face it, the last time it snowed was not all that long ago.

I will have hat hair for the next five months. It will snow and be dark and cold for the next five months. I will not be truly, truly happy again until, oh .... April.

Bah.

Weekend Stuff

I had sweet potato pie for the first time - it tastes just like pumpkin pie!


After watching the latest installment of "Crossroads", I am in love with Taylor Swift's butt. I do not ordinarily spend a lot of time looking at women's butts, but the cameraman kept swinging around behind her and, well ..... that's one cute little butt!

If you get a chance to see "Young @ Heart", please do. It's a documentary about a senior citizens' choir doing songs like "Schizophrenia" by Sonic Youth. It's touching, sad and uplifting - the best thing I've watched in while. If you don't cry at least once watching this, you're .... well, you're not me, 'cause I cried twice. ("Forever Young" and "Fix You", for the record.)

Because my apartment did not have enough crap in it already, I picked up this at a local thrift store:

I'm pretty sure that I paid money for some elementary-schooler's art project, but that's how I roll. And after getting this thing home and realizing the crap overload potential, I rounded up some other stuff and took it back to the thrift store. Recycling!

Mom and I continued our World Tour of Local Diners yesterday. And here's the thing: I had always thought that the word "gyro" was pronounced "hero". But a while back we were at a diner, and I overheard a waitress pronounce it "gyro". So! Because I would much rather look like an idiot for asking than look like an idiot for mispronouncing, yesterday I pointed to the word on the menu (oh yes I did! I'm one of those people - you know, bumpkins) and asked the waitress how to pronounce it. Her response was a cross between "hero" and "euro". Sort of "heeuhrow", with a rolled "r". So now I know. Except I'm not gonna roll the "r" when I say it. That would just sound pretentious. A greek waitress sounds cool when she rolls her "r"s - I would just sound like a jerk.

The Runt loved the leaf piles so much when I raked the other weekend that I raked one up yesterday just for him:

He likes to tunnel around in it, surfacing periodically to look for things to chase.

Oh, and I think I may have killed my camera. I downloaded some pictures this morning, and now it refuses to turn on. I'm going to try new batteries tonight, but if that doesn't work, I think I'm screwed.

And you may not want to order a greek hero sandwich unless you really, REALLY like feta cheese. Word.

Procrastination

I was out walking last weekend when I saw this little guy fluttering around:



Better get a move on, fella!

THAT'S Entertainment!

There was a knock-down, drag-out FIGHT downstairs last night.

P., the only current downstairs tenant, had a bunch of his drinking buddies over. Which is usually not a problem, because although they may hoot and holler, they're a bunch of lightweights, and everybody's usually passed out by ten or ten-thirty, and then all is quiet again.

Well, last night, they all got drunk and loud, a disparaging comment was made about someone's sister(!), and the shit hit the fan.

And! Due to the odd acoustics of the building, if I go into my bathroom I can hear EVERYTHING that goes on downstairs. Although, granted, listening to a bunch of drunks argue tends to get old pretty fast.

But! Then! There were crashes and bangs and cries of "look what you did to my door, you m*therf*cker!", and then the fight SPILLED OUT into the front yard and I was sure the cops were gonna show up any minute, but then two of the drunks went running off down the street, P. hopped into his jeep and took off, and all was quiet again.

I noticed this morning that P.'s storm door has been completely kicked in. I don't know what the inside of his place looks like, but I think he's gonna have some 'splainin' to do to the landlord.

And, truly, there's something ..... well ....... ridiculous about grown men punching each other out. I mean, really, guys? REALLY? You couldn't find ANY OTHER WAY to settle your argument other than to punch each other's teeth out? Come on!

A Little Scare

(Note: My oldest sister's pseudonym on this blog is "Texas". So when I talk about "Texas", I'm talking about my sister, not the state.)


My sister, Texas, accidentally left her phone off the hook.

For FOUR DAYS.

I got an e-mail from her friend Mo, who lives in North Carolina, yesterday afternoon. Mo explained that she had been trying to call Texas since Sunday and kept getting a busy signal. She wanted to know if I had the phone numbers of any of Texas's local friends, so that someone could go and check on her. (I live in upstate New York and Texas lives in, well, Texas; it's not like I could just pop over to her place.) She had an e-mail address of one friend of Texas's, but she didn't know how close that person lived.

I didn't have any of Texas's friends' phone numbers, so Mo said she'd try the e-mail address that she had. In the meantime, I had the phone company test Texas's line; the test showed that a phone was off the hook. Which was not particularly reassuring; who leaves a phone off the hook for FOUR DAYS?

I went online, did a reverse address search, and got the names and phone numbers of some of Texas's neighbors. Then I got the number for the local PD, just in case.

Mo e-mailed back right before I left work and said if she didn't hear from her e-mail contact in a couple of hours, she'd give me a call at home and we'd go from there.

Right after I got home last night, the phone rang. It was Texas.

It turns out that Mo's e-mail contact actually lived over an hour away from Texas. But! She had e-mail addresses for some of Texas's golfing buddies, so she e-mailed them and one of them went over to check on Texas and tell her to put her damn phone back on the hook, for Chrissakes!

All's well that ends well. But, Texas? Buy a new phone. Please.

What Lies Beneath?

Okay, first off, I would like to congratulate President-Elect Obama. Mr. Obama, we are counting on you.

One thing that he said last night stuck with me. He said, "I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face."

And you know what? I believe him. I didn't believe a word that came out of George Bush's mouth, but I believe Obama. Of course, I believed Bill Clinton, too, and we all know how THAT went, but I think that Obama is going to treat the office of the presidency a little less, well ..... cavalierly than Clinton did. And I believe that he will try his damnedest to get this country headed back in the right direction.

Now: Back to our regular blog schedule: Kittens, whining, and malfunctioning bathrooms!


What lies beneath?

Why, THIS. THIS is what lies beneath my bathroom carpeting:




Stunning, no? I particularly like the nine million nails that have been randomly pounded into the linoleum. And the different-colored tiles. And the carpet-backing remnants that refused removal. Look at Little Girl in that pic; she's like, "Oh, SNAP, that is one fucked-up floor!"

On Saturday, the toilet-fixer-person came over. What's that, you say? He was supposed to come over last Wednesday night? Why yes, yes he was. Did he show? Do you even have to ask at this point?

But! He did finally meander on over on Saturday afternoon, bringing a "helper" with him. As far as I can tell, the only thing the "helper" did was pull up the toilet-fixer-person's pants, when they had slid SO FAR off his butt that they were in danger of falling off entirely. (I know we have talked about this before, but WHY do these men REFUSE to wear belts? I think there's some passive-aggressive exhibitionism going on here.) And after installing a THIRD wax ring underneath the toilet, the toilet-fixer-person decided to pull up the carpeting to judge the state of the floor underneath it, which has been water-saturated for, oh, SEVERAL WEEKS now.

And lo! He determined that the floor was shot. And would have to be replaced. But not on Saturday, oh, no. And not Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday either, because his "guys" are really busy. Maybe Wednesday. Oh, but wait. TODAY's Wednesday. Possibly NEXT Wednesday?



*sigh*

I Voted!

And I felt like I was helping make history.

And I felt like I was on the side of the angels. Like I was voting for joy and hope, instead of anger and vindictiveness and spite.

And my dinky little polling place, which is usually deserted, was swamped with people.

And it felt great!

I voted - now it's your turn! Go vote for the candidates of your choice!

Quick Question

A lot of states now have early voting. What happens if you "vote early", and the candidate you voted for drops out of the race (scandal, illness, whatever) between the time you voted for him/her and the actual election day itself? What happens to your vote? Does it just not count? Does it go to whomever steps in to take the (former) candidate's place?

Just curious.

Updated to add: Okay, I've had a little time to think about it, and I guess that was a stupid question. I mean, say I'd already voted, and this afternoon the person I voted for went batshit crazy at a campaign event, did something unspeakable, and dropped out of the race. Of course my vote would not count, because the candidate I'd voted for was no longer running.

But what happens then? Does the VP candidate automatically become the presidential candidate? Do they just scratch the whole thing and start all over again?

Recently Read

Standard disclaimer: Feel free to skip.


1. Verbena by Nanci Kincaid - An enjoyable light read, but I could have used more ... explanation ... about the ending. What, exactly, was Lucky's illness?


2. Beautiful Children by Charles Bock - Novel about a boy who disappears in Vegas. Downer subject, but interesting book.


3. The Rolling Years by Agnes Sligh Turnbull - First published in 1936, this is a good, old-fashioned read which I thoroughly enjoyed.


4. Once Upon a Day by Lisa Tucker - Novel about a man who "disappears" with his two kids, and what happens when the kids grow up and discover the world - very good.


5. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brasheres - Sure, I'll admit it - I read this one, and it was enjoyable, if slight.


6. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff - Novel about polygamist Mormons. It got good reviews, but it didn't hold my interest. I got a hundred pages in, realized I had four hundred more to go, and gave up.


7. In a Pickle by Jerry Apps - Novel about farmers in the 50s - meh.


8. Made in the USA by Billie Letts - Novel about two kids in Vegas - darker than her other stuff - entertaining.


9. Away by Amy Bloom - Novel set in the 20s. The main character, who is trying to get to her young daughter, whom she thought was dead, sticks with you. (Sorry about that mess of a sentence. I'm too lazy to clean it up.)


10. The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews - Novel about an aunt taking her niece and nephew on a road trip - good.

The Good Little Witch

This photo was taken on Halloween in 1967, when I was almost five. My Mom made this witch costume, and I LOVED it. It had orange appliqued bats and cats, and orange fringe, and a hat with a buckle - what's not to love?


I have no idea what I was doing with my hands in this picture - maybe Mom told me to "act witchy", and that was the best I could do. Hey, I was four years old - cut me some slack!


Also, check out the haircut. No wonder my Dad called me "bowl bean".


Oh, and that bush on the right? We had bushes like that all across the front of the house. They grew to Olympian size and had to be trimmed back a couple times a year. And they would grow little red fruit-things in the fall, and my sister TIB would grab a handful of fruit-things, tell me they were poison, and then chase me around the yard, trying to shove them in my mouth.



Happy Halloween!

That's why the lady is a tramp

Back when I was a kid, "tramp" was a popular Halloween costume. (That's my sister TIB on the left (the one in a tramp outfit, holding a BEER CAN (how prescient is THAT, is all I'm sayin')), and me on the right, circa 1966 or so. I have no idea what the hell my costume was; it looks like there's a cartoon rabbit on the front, but I have no clue what that red thing on my head is supposed to be.)

The "tramp" or "hobo" costume was ideal for last-minute trick-or-treaters; you just threw on some of your dad's old clothes, rubbed some charcoal on your face, and you were good to go. If you wanted to go into a little more detail, you could take a pillowcase, stuff it with some towels, and tie it to the end of a stick for your "belongings".

And looking at this picture, I wondered if kids still dress up as tramps. But then, I realized that yesterday's "tramp" is today's "homeless person", and it's probably not very politically correct to dress up as "that bum who lives under the bridge and panhandles in the K-Mart parking lot" for Halloween.

Then again, if Metrodad can dress his little girl as an underage Chinese Olympic gymnast for Halloween, I guess anything goes!

Nuk-Nuk

Both The Runt and Little Girl were hair-suckers when they were younger. As in, they liked to suck on MY hair while I slept. I'd wake up to the pain of paws kneading my scalp, and disturbing slurping noises, and two little kittens attached to my head like barnacles. And it was CREEPING ME OUT.



And it was all really weird, because I had always heard that the reason cats would pretend-suckle was because they were weaned too early. And I knew that these guys had not been fully weaned until they were, like, eleven weeks old, which is not too early.


But! I had the problem of the hair-suckage. So I did what any self-respecting cat owner would do and went out and bought pacifiers. For my cats.


They were not interested in the pacifiers, and after a couple of weeks, Little Girl seemed to grow out of the whole hair-sucking thing. Which left The Runt, who would still happily suck away whenever he got the chance, i.e, whenever I fell asleep. Or sat still long enough for him to get to my head. And did I mention that it was CREEPING ME OUT? The only reason I can figure for this behavior is that, as the runt of the litter, he was always the first to be shoved out of the pack when they were all nursing. Maybe he's making up for lost time.


I finally hit on the thing that seems to be working: A fringed towel. Now I keep a towel on the bed, and The Runt is content to suck away on the towel fringe, while kneading his paws against the pillow and making nuk-nuk noises.

Hey, at least he's happy. And Jeesus, at least he's not sucking ON MY HEAD.

Questions I will have for the toilet-fixer-person* tonight

1. Hey, third time's the charm, right?

2. Is my brandie-new toilet supposed to make ominous gurgling noises every time it's used?

3. Could you please make it so I don't have to remove the top from the tank and yank up the float to make the damn toilet stop running?

4. For the love of God, can you please, please, PLEASE just fix this thing so it stops leaking water all over the bathroom carpeting?

5. Could you please wear a belt? PLEASE? Your plumber's crack is scaring the kittens. And me.


*I call him the "toilet-fixer-person" because I think it's been pretty well established that no matter what he may CALL himself, he is NOT a plumber. And really, even "toilet-fixer-person" is a misnomer, as he has yet to actually FIX anything.

Easiest Halloween Costume EVAH!

I was at the grocery store on Saturday morning, and some of the employees were dressed up in costume. My cashier, a guy, had on a black suit, black tie, black shoes, white dress shirt, sunglasses, and a small flag lapel pin - Secret Service guy!


Is that not the best easy Halloween costume ever?


Here's another easy one: Oversized flannel shirt, untucked and unbuttoned, worn over an undershirt, along with ripped/dirty jeans and unlaced sneakers = Kurt Cobain! If you have a guitar, take it along. If you wear glasses, tape black "x"s over the lenses and go as Dead Kurt Cobain.



You're welcome!

......And Boy, Are My Arms Tired

So! Yesterday, I raked leaves. Wet, heavy leaves. It rained all day Saturday, and even though the rain stopped by Saturday night, by yesterday morning, those leaves were still soaked. And yet I went ahead and raked anyway, even though I had made up my mind that I would not rake wet leaves.


Why, you ask? Because I have a maple tree that hates me in my backyard. Truly, this tree is evil. It's huge, and it waits until the last possible moment to drop its leaves. long after all the other maples in the neighborhood are bare. And when those leaves finally come down, it's a good four-hour project to get them all to the curb.


I decided to outsmart the tree this year. I decided to rake once when about half the leaves were down, making it an easier job, and then rake the remainder in a couple of weeks, avoiding the palm-blistering, shoulder-aching four hour marathon.


But! I forgot to factor "wet, heavy" leaves into my equation. And so what should've taken me a couple of hours yesterday took me three and a half hours. And I'll still have to rake again when the rest of the leaves come down.


Evil tree wins again. But watching teh kittens jump around in the leaf piles was pretty entertaining.

Ruh-Roh

It's Friday afternoon, and I just realized that my weekend plans are to ....... um ......... wait ....... I have no weekend plans.

I was going to rake leaves, but it's supposed to rain all day Saturday. Which means the leaves will still be soaking wet on Sunday, so ........ no raking leaves.

If it stops raining by Sunday, I could go for a walk ......... I guess.

I think I'll try a new scalloped potato recipe. (SUCH excitement! *sigh*) And I need to put that Artscape stuff on the bathroom window. Has anybody tried that? It's like stained glass film for your windows? I was reading the instructions last night, and I foretell an upcoming clusterfuck of enormous proportions.

I could try to get some more (picture) painting done, but I just don't know if I'm feeling it. Lack of talent is a great stifler of enthusiasm.



See, here's the thing. I'm one of those annoying people who must have plans. If I don't keep my time structured, I tend to get into trouble*. And the idea of an entire weekend of crappy weather and nothing to do .......... frankly, it's a little scary.



So! What are you doing this weekend? Any plans (that I could steal)?





*And by "trouble", I mean the wasting-half-a-day-at-the-mall-buying-bullshit-I-don't -need kind of trouble, NOT the heroin-and-crack kind of trouble. Sheesh! You guys!

First! Catnip! ZOMG!!11!1!

All Hail Queen Texas!

After winning the Garden Cup Championship, tradition dictated that my sister Texas promenade around the country club with a tiara, sash and bouquet of roses while doing a "queen wave". Oh, and she got a kick-ass crystal trophy, too!

Rock on, Texas!

Poser

Especially at this time of year, health care professionals keep telling people to "wash your hands, wash your hands, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD wash your hands" to prevent illness.


Here's the question: Is this supposed to prevent ME, the hand-washer, from getting sick, or prevent THOSE AROUND ME from catching my (possible) illnesses?


Because it seems to me like I could wash my hands all day, but if I then walk into a germ-filled office, I'm screwed.


So is this supposed to be, like, a collective effort? If we ALL wash our hands, nobody's getting sick? Because, I mean, I wash my hands anyway, but I never realized I could be doing it for purely altruistic purposes, i.e., preventing other people from catching my (theoretical) illnesses.


And I swear I am the ONLY PERSON in the office who washes their hands after using the restroom, which is kind of nausea-inducing if you think about it. I mean, these guys are handing me paperwork and stuff! Bleeecccchhhhh.

I'm gonna have to rake the leaves ......

...... just so I can find the kittens!

Where is that Little Girl?

Oh, wait, I think I see her .....

There she is!

The Way My Mind Works

So, I was sitting here bemoaning the fact that it was dark out when I got up this morning, and it will be dark out again just a couple of hours after I get home from work. (I'm not even gonna mention the fact that it's currently 39 degrees out. That's just wrong.) And pretty soon, it will be dark out on my drive to work, and dark out on my way home.

And then I was thinking, I could handle the snow and the cold, if it just wasn't so damned DARK OUT all the time. And then, I was all, like, wait a minute. If we can do the Daylight Savings Time thingie in the summer, so it's still light out at nine at night, why can't we just do that all year round? Just keep jiggering the clocks so that it's light out later.

And then I realized, well, duh, all the clock-jiggering in the world isn't gonna change the fact that this part of the planet only gets about nine hours of daylight in the middle of winter. So while we could, technically, jigger the clocks so that it's light out at nine at night, that would mean that the sun would be coming up at about noon.

And then I realized that I'm an idiot.

*sigh*

Movie Reviews - "Baby Mama" and "Superbad"

First up, "Baby Mama". I finally got around to watching this one, several months after everyone else in the free world saw it. Hey, I'm retro! Anyway, I really wanted to like this one, and it got pretty good reviews, but ..... well...... I thought it was just "meh".

Next, "Superbad". I taped this one (on my VCR! Because I am ANCIENT) the other night when it came on Encore at, like, three a.m. And I had really low expectations, because I'm not real fond of the whole "American Pie" genre. But "Superbad" cracked my ass up. Seriously, I was laughing out loud. When Seth throws a tirade at the Home Ec teacher? I think everybody who ever had to take Home Ec can relate to that. And then, when he's making .... well ..... obscene gestures behind the back of his classmate ........ HAHAHAHAHA!! And the dick illustrations that rolled with the end credits ..... I want to know WHO DREW THOSE, so I can shake his hand. Because I am, evidently, a twelve-year-old boy.

So! "Baby Mama" - meh. "Superbad" - Excellent! I would definitely watch that one again. Oh! And speaking of watching again, there are some movies that I call "time suck" movies. These are movies that, if I happen to find them playing while flipping through channels on a Saturday afternoon, I will end up watching all the way through, almost against my will, even though I've seen them (several times) before. "Parenthood" comes immediately to mind. I have no idea how many times I've seen that movie, but it's ..... well ....... lots. It just sucks me in, and I HAVE TO WATCH IT.

Does anybody else have movies like that? Movies that suck you in and make you watch them?

(Oh! Also! "Sixteen Candles". Must ........ watch ......... Sixteen Candles.)

Ooooohhh....Spoooooooky.......

First, a little backstory: I live in an apartment building. My apartment and the apartment next to mine both have access to the attic, which is plywood-floored and is used for storage. There are two lights in the attic; bare bulbs in fixtures attached to the rafters, one on each side of the attic. The lights are turned on and off by pull cords.

So! On Sunday afternoon (after the Bills WON, holy shit they're having a winning season; it's like a MIRACLE), I went to put some stuff up in the attic. I went up the (pull-down) stairs, turned on the light, and noticed that the light on the other side of the attic was also on. I thought that was kind of weird, as that apartment's been vacant for a while now, but I knew that workers had been over in that apartment, and I figured that one of them must have gone up in the attic for whatever reason, and then forgotten to turn off the light.

So the light was on. And then, as I watched, it sort of ........ browned out. Just faded out, until the light was off. "Huh!" I thought. "It must have just burned out, just then".

And then the light came back on again. And then went off. And then back on.

And then I hightailed it back down the stairs.



Here's the thing. I grew up in a haunted house. You can call bullshit all you want, but I know whereof I speak. I am intimately acquainted with things that go bump in the night. And that's why I can't watch those ghost-hunting shows on TV; I lived that shit. And I don't want to EXPERIENCE IT AGAIN.

So: Dear possible-ghost-in-my-building: I am warning you. If you come anywhere near me, I will kick the living shit out of you. Just knock off the bullshit with the attic light RIGHT NOW, and go find somewhere else to live. Someplace whose occupants will find your antics amusing, or at least intriguing. Because I HAVE HAD IT WITH GHOSTS. And I WILL kick your ghost ass if you don't leave me alone. Got it? Good. Now GO.

Buddies

That I Would Be Grateful

My week so far:

Sunday/Monday: The Runt stuck up tree.

Tuesday evening: Take cats to vet for shots. Which, thanks to an emergency case which came in right before I got there, and an extremely thorough vet, took an hour and a half. And I actually had to leave the room when they gave Little Girl her shots, because she pitches such a fit and I couldn't bear to watch. (Also, frankly, I wanted to be out of the line of fire when she went berserker.)

Wednesday: I was supposed to leave work early and meet the toilet-fixer-person at my apartment at five. Guess where I was at five? Stuck at work. Rescheduled for six, and then had to stay as far away from the bathroom as possible, because of the truly alarming amount of plumber's crack on view. (I really, really wanted to snap a pic and post it here, but my camera has a rather loud shutter, and I couldn't figure out how to get a shot without alerting the subject.)

Wednesday evening: Call the shelter to schedule spaying/neutering. Am told that I cannot do it over the phone; I must come to the shelter in person to schedule. Sigh......... Realize I am out of readable reading material; resort to old Playboys that are sent to our office for an employee who no longer works there. (Srsly, there are some good articles in Playboy. And the "advice" column cracks me up. I think Bill Clinton writes half the questions: "If she goes down on me, it's not really sex, right?")

Last night: Made appearance at shelter to schedule surgery. Was told the earliest opening was for November 20. Expressed fears that the cats may become, well, active before then, and was told not to worry; they could do an abortion if necessary when they spayed Little Girl. Sheesh - I thought these guys were trying to save teh kitties. Stop at library for something to read. Go home and check to see if bathroom carpet is still soaking wet ......... that's a yes.

And I could go on and on and on, as I so often do on this blog. And then I thought about some of the bloggers I read who are going through really hard times right now. Dealing with things like recalcitrant children, and divorce, and illness, and death. And I thought, what right do I have to complain?

But then I thought, there is always going to be someone out there worse off than I am. Does that mean I can't complain at all? Because, frankly, this blog is a huge outlet for my venting. And just because I write it, doesn't mean anyone has to read it.


So what do you think? Is it okay to moan and whine and complain, knowing there are people out there much worse off? Or should I be all Suzy Sunshine and only write about the good stuff? Because frankly, I don't want to forget about the bad stuff. It's all part of life, right? Hmmm.... Maybe it's okay to complain, as long as I remember to count my blessings as well.

Don't Lie To Me

So, I watched (some of) the debate last night. And as I was watching, I knew that the first thing I would do when I got to the office this morning was go to factcheck.org (thanks, Exador, for letting me know about that site) to see what was real and what was bullshit.


And some of what those guys were saying last night was bullshit. On both sides.


I know that McCain and Obama have advisers who help them formulate their platforms, their speeches, etc. And so someone probably said to McCain, "Hey, under Obama's plan, Joe the plumber's gonna have to pay a penalty if he doesn't insure his workers". Now. Did McCain not check to see if that was true, before he flung it out there last night? Because it wasn't true. And when Obama said that 100% of McCain's ads had been negative? Not true. And at one point during the campaign, Obama was actually running a higher percentage of attack ads than McCain.


Here's the thing. If these guys are just repeating what their advisors told them, without bothering to find out if it's true or not, that's disquieting. But if they KNOW that what they are saying is untrue, and they're saying it ANYWAY, that makes me furious.



I don't want to vote for a Lying McLiarPants.

Peak!

On Saturday, I walked the Cascadilla Gorge:

On Sunday morning, I went to the local nature preserve. The fog was still burning off when I got there:

Pretty soon, the sun was out in full force, and the leaves are spec-TAC-u-lar:

I have a love-hate relationship with fall. The foliage is beautiful, but we all know what's coming: six months of cold, crappy, miserable weather, with extra doses of darkness. If only fall were followed by spring, instead of winter.

Valuable Lessons

1. What goes up, must come down. Sooner or later.

2. If you are inside watching TV and drinking a beer and you hear your neighbors out in their backyard calling for your cat, you need to go out and join them. Even if you think it's useless and that the cat will come down when it's damned good and ready. After all, it's YOUR cat. And if THEY'RE nice enough to be out there, YOU need to be out there as well. And no, you don't get to finish the beer first.

3. The reason that cats can get up a tree but can't get back down again is because of how their claws are shaped. Their claws come out from the paw and curve down and back, making them excellent for use as grappling hooks on the way up, but useless on the way down. The cat has to figure out that he needs to turn around and back down the tree. And cats don't like to back up.

4. If your cat needs to go to the bathroom badly enough, he WILL do so in mid-air. Stand back, is all I'm saying. If you thought getting crapped on by a bird was bad, well ........

5. See Number 1 above.

The Runt Has Landed

My neighbors pulled out all the stops last night, launching a spectacular rescue effort that included a twenty-foot ladder, an extension pole with tuna smeared on the end, and a very brave man who is not afraid of heights. And about half an hour after we had given up for the night, The Runt came sauntering home.

He is currently safely INSIDE.

And in other news.........

Grumpy McGrumpAss still has not been back to fix my evidently-improperly-installed, leaking-all-over-the-floor toilet. I called him last Tuesday, and he said somebody would be over in a couple of days. Hmmppff. I guess there's been some kind of warp in the space-time continuum, because "a couple of days" have come and gone and come and gone again, and still no toilet-fixer-person.

Yesterday, I had to return DVD/VCR Number 3, as it ceased operation after three weeks of use. I am now on DVD/VCR Number 4, all in less than two months. On the bright side, if you need me to come over and hook up your DVD/VCR, I can do it in about thirty seconds flat. I've had lots of practice.

And the icing on the cake:

GIANT SPIDERS are invading. Great. Just great.

How is this even possible?

The Runt's up a tree. Again.

Roadside Memorial

It's not just a southern thing - they do them up here, too.

A person who was much beloved by the local biker community ran his bike into a tree at the entrance to a local park. (You can double-click the pics for a closer view.)

I like the hand-painted rock. That's a bottle of Rolling Rock beer in the lower left corner. Which is kind of ironic, because if he met his maker the way most of the local gone-before-their-time bikers do, he was drunk off his ass when he hit that tree.

And you know, these kinds of displays tend to be put up by lower-income folk. I mean, if my boss crashed his Mercedes into a tree, I kind of doubt that his friends would be painting rocks and arranging plastic flowers.

And why is that? Truly, I'm not trying to start something nasty here, but why is it the poor people who tend toward these displays? Is it because they have poor taste? Less brains?

And keep in mind, I used to belong to the low-income demographic. If it ever occurred to me back then in the bad old days to paint roadside memorial rocks, I don't recall. Hmmm.

Above and Beyond

The Runt is down.

And have I got a story for you .....

On Monday night, my neighbor's (two doors down, diagonal to my backyard) dogs treed The Runt in their backyard. I did not discover this until Tuesday morning, when he had not come home and I went looking for him. My neighbor and I spent all day Tuesday trying to get The Runt to come down. No luck. The neighbor placed a twenty-foot ladder against the base of the tree, hoping The Runt would come down far enough so we could reach him, but he stayed too high up.

Oh! and have you ever seen a cat poop in a tree? I have. Turns out that they pee in trees, too. Stand back.

Wednesday morning, The Runt was still up the tree. I had to go in to work, but my neighbor said he would keep trying to get The Runt down. He was keeping his dogs out of the backyard, afraid they would scare The Runt worse.

When I got home Wednesday afternoon, The Runt was out of the tree! I went over to profusely thank my neighbor*, who had spent as much time trying to help The Runt out of the tree as I had.
When I asked him when The Runt had come down, he said, "Welllll, he didn't come down." I gasped and said, "did you ..........", and he said, "Yep. I went up after him."

This guy, whom I did not know from Adam before my cat met his tree, had climbed to the top of the twenty-foot ladder, called to The Runt for half an hour until he got close enough to grab, and then one-armed him down the ladder, getting scratched in the process.

There are still good people out there. You just have to meet them.


*(And yes, there was a thank-you card and gift involved. I'm not a complete heathen.)

The Runt

The Runt went up a neighbor's tree Monday night.

He's still up there.

Any ideas?

Victorious!

Congrats to my sister Texas, who is this year's Garden Cup Champion of her golf club! After a two-day tournament, she finished two strokes ahead to win it all. You rock, sis!

More Gratuitous Cute Kitten Pics

For those just tuning in, these are The Runt and Little Girl, the "feral"-formerly-fosters turned permanent household members.

They're getting bigger .......

Do you remember, in the very first Waltons movie, when Elizabeth is in the barn and she decides that if she just keeps squeezing the sides of her head, she'll alway stay small and never grow up?

(I'm not saying I'm squeezing the sides of their heads (!), but still ....... )

Click Here

I was going to write about last night's vice-presidential debate, but as usual, Chez over at Deus Ex Malcontent said it much better than I could.

Click on the title above (where it says "click here" .... yeah ..... that's the ticket) to get his take.

I Cannot WAIT For Tonight

I hope Biden mops the floor with Palin.

I don't think Palin is stupid. Vindictive, petty, manipulative, stubborn: Hell, yes. But I don't think she's stupid. So I'm sure she's been cramming like crazy for this debate. And if Biden's not careful, this whole thing could backfire, with him coming out looking like the big bad meanie who unnecessarily shredded his poor defenseless opponent.

But if Palin performs as she has in interviews, winking and smirking and avoiding the questions and repeating meaningless phrases, she's gonna be in trouble.

And I cannot WAIT.

Pissing Me Off Right Now ........

1. My boss, who has spent the last two days dicking around with his amended 2004(?!) tax return, as opposed to doing any actual work-related work. Oh, and he's not taking calls, which means I get to deal with all the irate clients waiting for their reports. And then, he called at ten this morning to let me know he had overslept. Know what, boss? How's about just getting your butt in here and doing some work, mmmkay?

2. The lady interviewed on the local news last night who was waiting in line for free food at a food pantry. With a bluetooth in her ear. How about cancelling the cell service and buying your own damn food, honey?

3. The nurse at the doctor's office yesterday who acted like she was doing me a big favor by deducting two pounds for my clothes when she weighed me. For the record, I am 5'-5" and weigh 112. Don't act like I'm overweight. Please.

4. The dude on the way to work yesterday who was slaloming his shitmobile in between cars like it was a skills course. Don't make me hold my breath waiting for you to crash, buddy.

5. Grumpy McGrumpAss, the repair guy, who apparently FAILED at replacing my toilet, as now the bathroom carpeting is soaking wet. Grrrrrrrr.........



Okay. I feel (a little) better now.

My White Trash Weekend

Okay, okay, so actually only one part of my weekend was white-trashy, but it was a doozy:





On Saturday, the repair guy came over to fix my malfuntioning toilet. I had successfully repaired it with a twist tie earlier in the summer, but this time it refused my efforts, and just ran and ran and ran. And the shut-off valve was stuck, so I couldn't even turn it off.

So! Grumpy McGrumpAss came over Saturday afternoon, and monkeyed and monkeyed, and finally said, "I'm going to have to replace this toilet".

Yay! So he went and got a new toilet, almost gave himself a heart attack lugging it up the stairs, and decided that rather than try and lug the old toilet back down the stairs, he would simply pitch it over the second-floor deck railing.

And so he did. Which is how briefly, on Saturday afternoon, I had a broken toilet in my back yard, with kittens crawling in and out of it. White trash, indeed.*

On Saturday night, the Boy Toy made one of his periodic phone calls. I haven't been screening my calls lately, so I actually picked up the phone. And I was polite, and spoke with him nicely, seeing as how he was calling at 9:30 p.m. instead of three in the morning like he usually does.


So! Guess who showed up on my doorstep Sunday afternoon? AAARRRGGGGGHHH. Time to start screening calls again.


And in kitten news, they're still doing the "bunny hop" down the stairs. Their front legs go right, left, right, left, down the stairs, but their back legs go hop hop hop together. It's the cutest thing.


Oh, and on Sunday morning, I don't know who was worse: Me, or my Mom. Me, for waking up twenty minutes before I was supposed to pick her up to go to lunch, or her, for being pantsless when I arrived.



But! The Bills won their fourth game in a row, giving them their best start in sixteen years, so all is well with the world.

Oh! And I just did the math, and it turns out that the Boy Toy is now ......... thirty-six years old. ** Which means that I really should come up with another name for him. "Man Toy" just sounds ...... skeevy. Any ideas?

*And let me tell you, that toilet left one helluva divot in the backyard.

** I first became "involved" (blleerrrch - I hate that word) with the Boy Toy when he was twenty-one. Which means I've been taking his three a.m. drunken phone calls for ........ fifteen years!?!?!. Oh my gaawwdd.

Happy Birthday, Texas!

Today is my sister Texas's birthday! I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for always being there for me. Texas, if you're reading this, you have no idea how glad I am that you're not just my sister, you're also my friend. My best friend.


Time for an old photo!





From left: Texas, my Mom, Ditzy and TIB. If Mom doesn't look too happy, that's probably because she was schlepping a bunch of kids around a Florida theme park. And yes, Texas has a cast on her leg. It's from a terrible car accident that almost killed her.


So, Texas, I'm so glad you're still around! And golfing up a storm! Happy, happy birthday!





P.S. Oh, and Texas? Push the button.

Adventures in Kittenhood

"Hey! HEY! Check it out! There's a hole! In the ground!"

"OMFG! There IS a hole! In the GROUND!"

"Hey! Let's check it out! Me first!"

*sigh*. Little boneheads.

Should Be An Interesting Day ......

The hillbillies who live in the house next door to our office building have been trying to live-trap a woodchuck who lives in their yard.

When I pulled into the parking lot this morning, there was a full-sized skunk caught in the trap.


Updated to Add: I should point out that the fine folks next door are idiots. None of them are employed, and if you put all of them together, you'd come up with someone who had the intellect of a moron. Their previous attempts at woodchuck eradication included blocking off one of the woodchuck's holes with a cinderblock and waiting around the other hole with sticks, so they could ......... hell, I don't know ......... jab it to death?

The Name Game

I got married in 1984, two weeks before I turned twenty-two.

(Go ahead ......... do the math. I'll wait. La la la la la ............ All done? Yes, I am officially that old.)

I left my husband in 1989. I'm not going to go into details; I packed my stuff and left. I think that the last time I saw him was maybe ...... 1990? I'm not sure; I don't remember.

I did not ask for alimony; hell, I'm lucky that he didn't ask for alimony from me. (I made more money than he did, which is almost laughable, considering the piddly amount I was making at the time.) As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, we never even officially divorced until 2000, due mainly to the fact that he refused to pony up his half of the divorce fee, which he had agreed to when I left. So, in 2000, eleven years after I left him, I finally went ahead and paid for the divorce.

ANYWAY, when I married him, I took his last name. And after I left him, people kept asking me if I was going to take back my maiden name. And I would always say, "I don't know", because really, I didn't care very much either way. My maiden name was a very common one; my married name was a very common one.

But lo these many years later, people STILL sometimes ask me if I'm going to take back my maiden name. And I'm kind of like, why bother? I've had my married name now longer than I had my maiden name. What's the dif? Who cares?

But I've gotta ask, are you SUPPOSED to take back your maiden name when you divorce? I mean, I always thought it was optional, but I didn't think it was a necessity. But some people seem to think it ....... well ...... odd that I still use my married name.

Oh well. It's no odder than lots of other stuff I do on a daily basis, I guess. Heh.

Freak Out!

Awww.... le freak ...... c'est chic!


(Anybody besides me remember that song? Anybody?)


So, the cats had to go to the vet's last night for a check-up and more vaccinations (rabies, feline leukemia, distemper). And all was well throughout the exam, until it was time for the actual shots themselves.

And those cats went insane.

Little Girl spat and snarled and hissed and shot halfway across the room when the first shot was attempted. So they tried again. They wrapped her in a towel, the vet tech gripped her firmly, the vet went in with the needle, and ......... FAIL.

And The Runt wasn't much better, when it was his turn. It took several attempts to get those shots into those cats.

The vet reassured me that it was okay, they saw this every day, it was part of their job, the cats were frightened, blah blah blah, but I have to say, I have never seen a cat react that badly to getting shots. And we have to do it all again in three weeks. *sigh*.

But! The Runt is up from four pounds to six (!), and Little Girl is up from three pounds to four. All in less than a month. And I swear, there's not an ounce of fat on these guys. They're lean, mean, kitten machines ........

And I got sent home with a ton of swag, courtesy of Purina.

Oh! And there's a technical name for googly eyes! I asked the vet why their eyes sometimes seemed to wander off in different directions (yes, it's as disconcerting as it sounds), and she explained that it was due to the muscles around their eyes, which may strengthen as they get older. The technical term is divergent strabismus. I prefer "googly eyes".

Don't Make Me Break Out The Whistle

One of my jobs here at work is to answer the phones. And yes, it sucks just about as much as you would imagine that it does.

But the thing that sucks the worst about answering the phones is the telemarketers. They call, and call, and call and call and call, and nothing I say or do seems to deter them. Oops, wait a minute, the phone's ringing ........

Okay, I'm back. And that was an ACTUAL CLIENT. Thank God.

Here's the thing: There are ways to tell when it is a telemarketer calling. The "000-000-0000" on the Caller ID is a dead giveaway. For those, I just pick up the handset and hang it back up again. "Unavailable" is usually a pretty sure bet, but not always; some of our clients have programmed "Unavailable" as their Caller ID. (Which makes me wonder if they're in the Witness Protection Program or something, but whatever ........)

A "state", such as "Massachusetts" or "California", on the Caller ID is a pretty sure tipoff, but again, not always, as we do business with some state agencies, and you don't want to piss off the guy reviewing your project by picking up the phone and hanging it right back up on him.

Dead silence on the line when you first pick up is a pretty sure Telemarketer indicator. However, we have some ..... erm ........ older clients who take a minute to get their shit together when they dial a number and somebody actually answers their call, so I can't rely on the dead silence thing.

So, inevitably, sometimes my screening fails, and I end up actually talking to a telemarketer. For as long as it takes to discern that they ARE a telemarketer, anyway, and then I tell them we are not interested, and hang up the phone.

And then they call back. Again. And again. I once evidently pissed off this telemarketer in New Jersey, because she told all her co-workers in their little dungeon to CALL MY NUMBER, and the phone rang off the hook for two days. Seriously, like every twenty seconds, FOR TWO DAYS, the phone rang and rang and rang and rang. And you can't just, you know, switch off the phone, in case an actual client calls.

Oh, and you know what kills me? When you politely (through clenched teeth) tell them you are not interested, and as you are hanging up the phone, you can hear them yelling, "Well, F*ck you, bitch". Charming. Often it is ME who would like to be swearing at THEM, but I'm not sure how well that would go down in an office environment. Although judging by the amount of profanity my co-workers and MY BOSS use, I'm pretty sure they'd be okay with it.

And what totally slays me is when they claim to be legit. Telemarketers call ALL THE TIME claiming to be an account rep from the phone company we use. When I ask them which account number they are calling regarding, they stutter and stammer and say, "Oh, well, I'm not actually FROM the phone company ............" Grrrrrr. I want to KILLLLLLLL them.

So! What I really want to do is get a whistle, and blow their little eardrums out. But I know that some of them are just trying to make a buck the best way they can, as opposed to the telemarketers who are truly evil (i.e., F*ck you, bitch). I need to figure out how to differentiate between the two .....

The Way You Curl Your Tail .......

Both kittens can curl their tails into little circles, which cracks me up. And they're multi-taskers - this is Little Girl simultaneously planning her assault on the finch feeder and curling her tail at the same time.

(And yes, that is a deck railing she is perched upon. A second-story deck railing. *Sigh*.)

Weekend Pics

On Saturday, I went to a local nature preserve, where the deer are very friendly:

I could have reached out and petted that deer, which does not bode well for her future come hunting season. The deer are safe in the preserve, but if they go off the property, they're fair game. And believe me, the adjoining property owners have put up tree stands mere feet from the property line. Which hardly seems sporting, somehow: Wait for the deer to step over the line and KA-BLAM!!

This is a fall crocus that one of my former neighbors planted several years ago. The neighbor is long gone, but the crocus keeps blooming:



On Sunday, I went to a nearby state park. The turtles were busy soaking up the last of the summer sun.

"Grandpa, what was it like when you were a little turtle?"

Finally, a butterfly. Because it's pretty.

Quick Question

I need to send some long-distance flowers next week. I used FTD the last time and got hosed. Can anybody recommend a good long-distance florist? Is Teleflora any good? How about 1-800-flowers?

Better Late Than Never

A while ago, I promised an exciting tale of flip-flops and Aldi's bags! And then I got busy and I may have forgotten and ....... um ......... erm .......... Here it is!

I went up to Watkins Glen this past summer and took a guided tour of the gorge. The first day I went, we met up with the tour guide at the bottom of the park just as the clouds started to darken and it started to sprinkle and thunder started to rumble. And still, people were walking past our group and starting up the gorge trail.

Our tour guide (whom I may have had just a little bit of a girl crush on; she was adorable and cute and looked JUST like Reese Witherspoon, except without the alarming chin) said that we should wait to see if the weather cleared before we started up. Someone asked her if it was safe to be in the gorge when it was storming, and she was like, "well, no, the rocks get really slippery, and when lightening enters the gorge it tends to ricochet around, and, well, actually, it's REALLY REALLY DANGEROUS ......", and all the while people were walking past us and starting up.

So! Our tour was postponed until the following day. I had just started out of the park when the skies opened up and it was lightening-ing like crazy and the rains were pouring down ........ and I wondered how all those poor idiots people made out who decided to go up the gorge in the storm.

The next day I went back, and took the tour. There were about fifteen people in our group, but of course there were lots and lots of other people there too, just enjoying the gorge. I had on hiking boots, as did a lot of other people, and some people had on sneakers, and ........... some people had on flip-flops. To hike a total of three miles round trip, on a trail that included eight hundred shale steps which get extremely slippery when wet (which is basically all of the time; spray from the falls keeps them that way.)

And! There were women wearing heels! And people with babies in strollers! Yeah, I want to haul a flippin' stroller up eight hundred steps. And I guess I'm being judgmental, but jayzus, show some common sense here, people. Especially since there were signs ALL OVER THE PLACE alerting people to the fact that they were about to climb up a gorge.

Lots of people had day packs to carry their water and stuff. But this one couple really took the cake. Flip-flops? Check. Baby in stroller? Check. Day pack? Oh, nooooo. These guys just crammed a bunch of crap into a plastic Aldi's grocery bag for their little trip up the gorge. I was gonna take a picture, but I didn't want to be, you know, rude or anything. (ha!)

But! I did take a picture of this little guy:

He was just hanging out on the cliff wall, right on the main trail, watching hundreds of people walk by. And nobody noticed, except this one guy who stopped to take a picture of the seemingly-not-particularly-interesting side of the gorge wall, which alerted me.

I wonder why his momma picked that particular spot for the nest - talk about life in the public eye!

Look at Me; I'm as Helpless as ...........

........... a kitten up a tree?

Yep.

Last week, it was Little Girl; last night, it was The Runt.

I need some meds.

I Need a Bailout

Dear Federal Government:

Unlike all those predatory lending agencies and related firms who are discovering that maybe giving out all those NINA (no income, no assets) mortgages wasn't the best idea in the world and are now crying bailout, I have actually been very fiscally responsible. However, rising fuel and heating prices mean that soon I may be having trouble making ends meet.

Unlike AIG, I do not find myself $85 billion in debt. I am not in debt at all, but I may be in the future, so just send me a couple mil and we'll call it good, okay?

Kthnxbai!

Movie Review - "Into The Wild"

Caution, there are MAJOR spoilers ahead! Do not read further if you don't want to know how this movie ends!




Okay, you've been warned.

I really liked this one. The soundtrack (Eddie Vedder, I believe) and cinematography were excellent. As far as the (true) story goes, well, in one way this guy was doing what we all dream of doing from time to time - ditching it all to go exploring.

Unfortunately, he headed into the Alaskan wilderness with basically just a parka and a knife, and he starved to death. Ooooops.

In a way, this guy really pissed me off. I mean, at least take some food or something, will ya?! But then again, I guess his "point" was to see if he could make it with no supplies. And it wasn't clear (to me, anyway) if this guy had all his marbles or not. By the end it seemed like he was pretty much off his rocker, but that might have been the starvation talking.

So! This was basically a movie about a guy who did what he wanted to do, and died doing it. But really, it wasn't sad at all. You just felt bad for the poor kid. You really wish he'd made it, just to see what he would become.

I Need Some Coordination Here, Please

On Saturday, I was playing with the kittens in the kitchen. I made a grab for one of them just as the other one squirted between my feet, making me lose my balance, and the next thing I knew, I had CLONKED my head so hard against the corner of the stovetop that I saw stars, and a giant goose egg instantly rose on my forehead.

And my poor forehead was SO SORE that I couldn't even put ice on it. I can't even TOUCH my forehead, at all, without extreme pain.

Oh yeah, and I've got a REALLY ATTRACTIVE giant bruise on my forehead. Thank God for bangs; at least I don't have to try to explain to anyone how I almost KNOCKED MYSELF OUT playing with kittens.

*sigh*

Worst Job Ever?

I worked for a few (okay, okay, several) years in fast food. And really, I enjoyed it. It was not a bad job. If it didn't pay so piss-poor, who knows? I might still be working there. God forbid.


But there used to be a guy who would come to the restaurant a couple of times a year. We called him "the etcher". Because his job was to come in at night just before we closed. He would spend the night cleaning the grout in the tile floors with muriatic acid. Which will eat your flesh down to the bone in a heartbeat if you are not careful.


And I always thought that had to be the worst job ever. You're there, all by yourself, in a closed restaurant, in the middle of the night, using highly corrosive stuff to clean several hundred square feet of tile grout. And then you move on to another restaurant and do the exact same thing the next night. And the next.


So I got to thinking about what my "worst job ever" was, and I have to say it was working for my Dad when I was right out of high school. He owned a machine shop named, I shit you not - Progressive Tool. Hahahahahahaha!


I started out at the bottom, in the deburring room. Basically, deburring involves taking a more-or-less flat piece of metal which had lots of holes punched in it and was usually about the size of your hand or a little bigger, and using a grinding wheel to take the sharp edges off. It took a while to get the hang of it, but once you did, it was absolutely mindless work.


And here's the thing: You would get in a new order, and you'd grind the first piece, and each piece took a set amount of time - maybe fifteen seconds, maybe five minutes, depending upon the complexity of the part. And each order would be for thousands of the exact same part. You could sit there for weeks doing the exact same thing, over and over and over again, for eight hours a day. And at the end of the day, you would have tiny little metal shavings in your clothes, in your hair, in your nose ....... you get the picture.


And the people in the deburring room had worked there for years. The woman who trained me, Doris, worked there basically her entire adult life. I have no idea how she stayed sane. I lasted just a few months before I couldn't take it anymore and quit. (Sorry, Dad.)


I know that there are worse jobs than that, but that's my personal "worst job ever". What's yours?