In the garden

I love it when the silver lace vine starts to creep over the front door:

and when things start to get overgrown:

purple and red and orange and yellow go together:

the swans don't mind ...

... when strange things start to bloom:

metalcat is ready for showers:

the daisies are going to town:

even the hydrangeas are giving it the old college try:

and Mr. Z rides herd over it all.

I wonder

So, after the Aurora shootings, the gun nuts were all, "If only someone else in that theater had been armed ..."

And after Sandy Hook, the NRA was all, "If only the teachers had been armed ..."

So why, I wonder, haven't I heard right-wingers saying, "If only Trayvon Martin had been armed ..."

Of course, according to Zimmerman's defense attorney, Martin “armed himself with the concrete sidewalk.”  Well.  I guess that settles THAT.   Kid just wasn't quick enough on the draw, evidently.  Because everybody knows that sidewalk=gun. Duh.

More stuff I did last week

- got another C-diff infection.  Okay, this is getting really old.  On the plus side, I found out that Tig Notaro had C-diff!  I have something in common with a famous person!  I can only hope that my life trajectory does not further mirror hers; after being hospitalized with C-diff, her mother died, she went through a breakup, and she found out she had cancer.  Yeah, I'll pass.

- stopped at a kids' lemonade stand after being accosted on the street by a pint-sized huckster.  The brownies were excellent.

- bought all kinds of faaaaaabulous stuff for myself for my birthday and Christmas. And I found a close runner-up for The Most Awesome Store in the World.  While the Ithaca Antique Center still holds the crown, there was a great little shop on the Commons that is running a close second right now.  If I could just remember the name ...

- performed my annual "Step on a bee and get stung on the bottom of the foot" spastic ballet.  In front of the neighbors.  I hope they were entertained.

- realized there was a problem when even the CATS were all, "Ewwww, what's that SMELL?" in the bedroom.  Turns out it was a half-eaten mouse that SOMEONE (Tinks, I'm lookin' at you) had stashed under the bed "for later".  This food hoarding has got to stop, dammit. 

- and then, last night, during a rainstorm, Tinks came bursting through the pet door, soaking wet, with yet another frog in his mouth, racing straight for ... yep ... under the bed.  TINKS!  I netted the frog, set him loose outside, and gave Tinks a stern talking-to.  Not that it'll do any good. 

- realized that my trumpet vine is actually going to BLOOM this year.  It's a miracle!  I transplanted that vine, which was propagated from cuttings from a total stranger years ago, from my old place.  It never bloomed there, and it never bloomed here, except, a couple of weeks ago, a light bulb went off in my head, and I FERTILIZED the poor thing.  Voila!  Blooms!


So that's what's going on in my neck of the woods.  What are your cats dragging in? 

Stuff I did last week

I took a few days off work last week, because it's July.  And I found time to do all kinds of things:

- dropped my work-issued cell phone into Choconut Creek.  Sorry, boss!  On the plus side, I found out that the rice-in-a-bag trick really does work.  Whew!

- found the elusive Ingraham Hill quarries.

- bought a dress at the Sal that looks like something Anita would have worn in West Side Story.  It's AWESOME.

- had some mighty fine brisket with cornbread and a double side of salt potatoes.  Salt potatoes is one of those summer foods, isn't it?  So are pasta salad and jello and soft-serve ice cream. and watermelon. Am I missing any?

- used an outhouse.  Yeah, I'm getting kind of old for this stuff.

- asked a neighbor, "So, have you seen the fox yet?" and was dismayed when he replied, "Yes!  Have you seen the bear?"  That's it.  I'm movin'.

- got the lowdown on my neighbor B., who is not improving with age.  His driving skills have gone to sh*t (they went quite a while ago, if you ask me), and he totaled his car driving back from Wilkes-Barre. His wife now does all the driving, which is not necessarily a good thing, as she's the one who drove over the fire hydrant at the end of their driveway last summer.


Oh boy, I've got lot's more.  I'll continue this next time ... what have you guys been up to lately?

Abandoned

A little ways past the cemetery on Ingraham Hill, there's an abandoned building.

I'm not sure what it was.  At first I assumed "barn", but it looks more like some kind of former residence, especially since there's a big concrete raised porch area on the front of the building, and the last I knew, cows weren't particularly keen on climbing stairs.  And there's no barn door per se; just regular people-sized doors on the front and back.  Then I thought "church", but there's no steeple on top.

I tried to peek in through the cracks, but it was a bright sunny day and the building was boarded up, so all I could see was this:

So then I got the brilliant idea of sticking my camera in and hitting the flash (durrrrrr ... I'm a little slow on the uptake):

I dunno guys, what do you think?  The woodwork and the ceiling (the parts that hadn't collapsed, at least) look a little fancy for a barn ... and it IS just up the road from the cemetery ... was it a church?  Something else?  I'd love to find out.

No. Just No.



If a loved one dies, and this is the only photo that you can find to submit for publication with the obituary?

Just skip it, okay?  Jeezus Christ.

I've discussed this before.  If your deceased relative was so disconnected from the rest of the family that NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON can cough up a good photo of him/her,. just don't bother.  It's not like the dead guy cares.

THAT'll wake you up in a hurry

Five a.m. this morning.  The natives are restless, as the sun is rising.  I get up and go to grab their food bowls to get their breakfast.  In the water bowl?  A frog.

*sigh*

This kind of thing doesn't even  faze me anymore.  I took the water bowl, with the frog splashing happily in it, out to the ditch and dumped it.  Came back in, filled up the water bowl, filled up the food bowls, and went back to bed.

Sometimes I feel like a camp counselor. 

Except I don't get paid.

My worst fear

The day I visited the Ingraham Hill cemetery, I also went looking for an abandoned quarry that I know is up in there somewhere.   Following the transmission towers in the area, this was as close as I got:

I was on the upper edge of the quarry (or at least as close to the edge of the quarry as I dared to get), looking down.  Obviously, I'd picked the wrong trail.

But I did see the first Indian Pipes of the season:

 And my goodness, those towers sure are high:

And here?  Here is something for which you could pay me a million dollars and I would not do:

Do you see those men?  Those men waaaaaaay up on that tower?

No.  Nope.  Not for all the tea in China.  No way.

Cemetery, Part 2

Okay, so, in the comments of that post the other day I was talking about stealing tombstones, which, I WOULD NEVER DO, if only because I know karma would strike me dead.

And there are some tombstones that are too damn ugly to steal, anyway, like this little prize, seen in the same cemetery as that other post:

I know I've talked about tacky tombstones before, but here I go again.  No disrespect to the people interred underneath this monstrosity, but ... what?  Mom is a saint and Dad was a ... car?  WTF?  Oh, I know these things are common, but that doesn't make them any less tacky.  Christ.

This is more my style of tombstone:

You can't really tell, because I'm a crappy photographer, but this tombstone was a tree trunk, with flowers around the bottom, and a book on top.  I'm guessing it's supposed to be the Bible, although doesn't it look like it's ... upside down?  or reversed?  It just seems to me like the binding should be on the left.  Do you think the grieving family paid for the stone, and waited patiently for it to be carved, and then showed up at the tombstone place and were all, "Whaaaaaat?  The book's UPSIDE DOWN!  FIX IT!"  and the tombstone carver dude was all, "errrrrmmmmmm ... sorry."  Maybe the carver dude was illiterate and didn't KNOW that the book was wrong?  Maybe I think too much about this stuff?

Yeah, I think it's probably that last one.

Hey! Fox! GET OFFA MY LAWN!

So!  The whole fox thing took less than a week to go from "Too. Cool." to "Now it's war".  I think I set some kind of personal record, there. 

Bottom line is, while the fox IS cool and awesome and handsome, what is NOT cool and awesome and handsome is Pony and Tinks exploding through the pet door and into the house at ten o'clock last night, all afloof and "Mom!  Mom!  Mom!  Holy sh*t Mom there's a FOX out there a freakin' FOX and Mom! Mom! Mom! Holy sh*t!"

*sigh*  So I grabbed a flashlight and headed out back in my PJs and sock feet, to find that yes, indeed, there WAS a fox in my backyard, and he was not at all dissuaded by my flashlight and my yelling and my waving my arms around and my searching for rocks to throw and finding nothing, leaving me to tear up clumps of GRASS in frustration and throwing them at the fox who was at least sixty feet away, which the fox freaking LAUGHED at before he finally turned and moseyed back into the brush, pausing to give me the old side-eye a couple of times on the way.

Foxes are not much scared of people.  I'm fairly certain they find us amusing, which let's face it, if I was a fox being confronted by a fifty-year-old woman yielding a flashlight and throwing clumps of GRASS, yeah, I'd find it pretty freaking funny too.

So!  Thankfully, the cats have enough presence of mind to be frightened of the fox.  And they're all just about as big as the fox is, and fully equipped with teeth and claws, and also adept at fighting other cats (judging my the amount of cat caterwauling outside my bedroom window on warm summer nights) so I'm fairly certain they are not about to become fox dinner.  (And if you are hovering over the comment button right now, all ready to share stories of neighbors' pets who got eaten by foxes, just ... don't.  Just don't, mmmkay?)

However, I don't want my cats to live in fear of the new bully on the block every time they step outside.  So!  I am mounting my plan of attack.

Step one:  Finally turn on the backyard floodlight which I have never bothered to use once since I moved in four years ago.  I think it's time.

Step two:  Bucket of rocks, to be kept by the back door.  Because that grass thing was pretty ridiculous, even for me.

Step three:  Air rifle, aka BB gun.  It will be seen whether I can, indeed, manage to put my eye out.  (No, I am not going to kill the fox.  I don't think it's even POSSIBLE to kill a fox with a BB gun.  I do hope to put some fear into it, though.)


Dear fox:  I love you.  I do.  You are awesome and handsome and cool.  Just ... GET OFFA MY LAWN!



(p.s. Dudes, I MEAN IT about the no "pets-eaten-by-foxes" stories in the comments.  DO NOT EVEN.)

Cemetery

Last weekend, I paid a visit to the Ingraham Hill Cemetery, which is a couple of miles from my house.  It was founded in October of 1862.  The oldest headstone I could find was from February of 1863:

There were, of course, headstones from the Civil War, although most of them were pretty dilapidated:

Here's a closeup of that marker:

I did a little research on "GAR", and here's what I found:

"The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army who had served in the American Civil War. The successor organization is the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW). Founded by Benjamin F. Stephenson on April 6, 1866 in Decatur, Illinois, the organization was based partly on the traditions of Freemasonry, and partly on military tradition, being divided into "Departments" at the state level and "Posts" at the community level; military-style uniforms were worn by its members. It reached its largest size in 1890, with 490,000 members. There were posts in every state in the U.S., and several posts overseas."  - Courtesy of the Civil War Militaria For Sale website.

Here's another marker, for the I.O.O.F, or International Order of Odd Fellows.  According to their web site, FLT stands for Friendship, Love, Truth.  Awwww ... I need a hug.

The children's headstones are always heartbreaking:

 

He died in 1894, "Aged 4Ws 7Ds, Gone but not forgotten".  Jeezus.

 And then there are the forgotten headstones, the ones the woods have taken over:

I dunno.  I kind of like the idea of a headstone out in the middle of the woods, surrounded by trees.

Flags on the Fourth

This is for Birdie:

It's hard to tell because the flags are small, but there were about a billion of them in my yard.

The cats decided to celebrate by doing some patriotic wrasslin':

"Hey!  Hey! No fair!"

"You give?"  "Yeah.  YOU give?"  "Yeah".

Boys will be boys.

Dudes. Duuuudes.

Pics or it didn't happen?  Here ya go  ...

Don't worry, I was using a zoom - he's about a hundred feet away at this point.  He sure did spook Sodapop, though ...  Soda came zooming up the backyard, which is when I saw the fox and grabbed the camera.

He (or she) usually shows up about six-fifteen, cutting  across my back-backyard on his way back into the brush line:

Too. cool.

Stuff I've done so far today

Set up nine billion tiny American flags on the front yard.  I'm a patriot, dammit.

Caught the ginormous dragonfly that Soda brought inside and released it back into the yard.

Cut my own bangs.  I never learn.

Popped into the office briefly and spoke with the municipal lawyer for a neighboring town, who has a commercial building about to fall over in her downtown.  Ooops!

Bought the National Enquirer AND the National  Examiner.  Shut it.

Picked up the ingredients for Alpo, aka the World's Finest Sandwich Spread.  I'll give you the recipe if you ask nicely.

And it's only one-thirty ...

Random

I splurged and bought a pair of swimming-pool-blue tights at Crapmart the other night.  When I went to put them on this morning, I discovered that they were not tights but leggings.  What the hell, Crapmart?  There is a difference between tights and leggings.  Please label your products accordingly.

Little girls look cute in leggings.  I?  Do not look cute in leggings.


I am still sick.  I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.  Dear C-diff:  F*ck you.


It started raining about a week and a half ago, and with the brief exception of Sunday afternoon, has not stopped since.  Last night we got an inch of rain in an hour, and Tinks, for reasons I cannot fathom, decided that he wanted to be out in it.  He came in soaked.  I do not understand that cat.


Remember the lily I planted?  The one where I suspected the labeling was wrong, and would thus have to wait until it bloomed to see what color it was?  Yeah.  The deer ate almost all of the buds off of it.  I swear to GOD I'm gonna buy a gun.


My neighbor T. brought donuts over to share on Sunday.  It's nice to have a neighbor who is willing to share her donuts.


I usually take some time off this time of the year, but not knowing if my vacation is going to be pre-empted by hospitalization is putting a crimp in my plans.  Dear C-diff:  F*ck you.


Every Sunday afternoon, around four, a pickup-truck full of teens pulls into the park next door.  They head into the woods, come back out after around an hour, and leave.  I would say "party", but there's no loud noise, no coolers, and they're never there for very long.  Meth lab?  D&D?  I'm gonna have to go poke around down in there, because now I'm getting curious.

This post is supposed to be sung to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Yeah, good luck with that.

On my thrift store trip to Ithaca, the junk gods gave to me,

One giant wicker thing:

Two big-ass lawn swans (cat not included):

A blinged-out horse hat:

A seventies wooden bird:

A Saint Francis of Assisi, a black Jesus, a Madonna planter, and a phoenix something:

And all for thirty-five dollars!

(Yes, yes, there is indeed one born every minute.)

(Many thanks to the Open  Door Mission thrift store in Owego, the Ithaca Salvation Army thrift store, the Ithaca Thrifty Shopper, and the Ithaca Antique Center, aka The Greatest Store Ever in the History of the World.)

Summer TV, Part 2

So! Yesterday I was talking about my TV viewing guilty pleasure, America's Next Great Baker or whatever the name of it is.  And then, last night, I settled in with two hours of my OTHER TV viewing guilty pleasure, Intervention.

Do you guys ever watch Intervention?  It's the one on A&E where they film a drug addict under the guise of making a documentary about drug addiction.  So the FIRST part of the show is all, drug addict spiraling out of control, which is quite frankly FASCINATING.

And they interview family members about the drug addict, and they interview the drug addict himself, and of course, according to the drug addict, it is always, ALWAYS someone else's fault.

"Dad was never around."  "Mom was too busy to care about me." "My uncle abused me when I was a child."

This part is INFURIATING.  It's like, STOP BLAMING EVERYONE ELSE, YOU A**SH*LE.  YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF.

Ahem.  Sorry.  I tend to get a little carried away watching this show.

ANYway, next comes the intervention, which is always messy and awful, and then the drug addict gets shuttled off to rehab.  Like, RIGHT THEN.  Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not get high one more time, BAM!  You're on a plane.  To rehab.

And then they interview the drug addict WHILE he's in rehab, and he's always, "Yeah, I'm doing so much better now ... I'm nothing like the person I was ... I'm in control of my life now ..." blahblahblah, except this part is always amazing because they always look SO MUCH BETTER once they've got several weeks of rehab under their belts.  They look healthy, and happy.

And then ... and then comes the last minute of the show, where the screen goes to black, and a message appears that is something like this:  "Three months after completing rehab, Jamie relapsed on meth.  He left his parents' house and his whereabouts are currently unknown."

And even though you KNOW it is coming, that part always hits you like a punch in the gut.  I mean, you watched this guy (or woman) when he was a useless, manipulative drug addict.  And then you watched him in rehab, where he miraculously metamorphosed into a caring, clean human being.  And then ... you find out that he threw it all away.

It sounds depressing, and oh yeah, it is, but every once in a while?  The end of the show comes, and the screen goes to black, and a message appears that goes something like this:  "Sue completed rehab and is now working full-time.  She has been clean since November 2011."

And that?  Is why I keep watching Intervention.  Every once in a while, there's a happy ending.

Ah, summer TV

Last night I watched The Great American Bake-Off or whatever the hell it's called.  I kind of got hooked on it back when I was cuckoo-ill, and now I find myself watching every week.

I think the reason I like it is because unlike so many of the reality shows, there's no YELLING on this one.  Oh, sure, there's some tears, and I felt really, really bad for Effie when she got kicked off last night, but nobody's screaming at each other.

Well, yet, anyway.

Oh!  And the other thing I like is that there's some pretty spectacular baking failures in there.  Some of the chefs display a really amazing refusal to follow printed directions, and other just f*ck up, like when poor Effie forgot the SUGAR in her souffle last night.  Oh, Effie, honey, I feel for you.  Lots of stuff comes out of the ovens undercooked, or overcooked.  And the men, especially, struggle with what the judges call "presentation", meaning, I think, that it's supposed to look good before you dig in.  And the judges dig right in, too!   It's pretty funny watching them try to give their critiques when they've got big ol' mouthfuls of cake.

So!  That's my guilty viewing pleasure this summer.  What's yours?

I fought the law

So!  I am currently arguing with my health insurance provider over who is going to pay for my recent urgent care visit.  The whole thing is just so ridiculous:  The insurance company says that according to their billing department, the urgent care place is a "non-participating provider".  Which is interesting, because the SAME GROUP who runs the urgent care facility I visited also employs my primary care physician, and also runs other urgent care facilities which *are* participating providers.  The SAME DOCTORS staff both "participating" and "non-participating" facilities, and I call bullsh*t.

GOD, this kind of crap makes my blood boil. 

Maaaan, I should have been a lawyer, because once I get ahold of something like this, I'm like a dog with a damn bone.  I will argue this mo-fo all day long.  I've taken claims that I should have lost and won them, just because the other side got so damn tired of fighting with me.

Will I win this one?  I do not know.  But you bet your butt I'm gonna try.

Purty

I've got a shed in my backyard.  It's just your standard shed, composed of some kind of metal, I'm guessing aluminum.  It's fairly good-sized, maybe 10 x 10, and it's my understanding that during the flood of 2006, it relocated itself to the back of my neighbor's yard and had to be hauled back into its current position.  A travelin' shed.

I put a trellis up against one side of it and put in some honeysuckle and trumpet vine, but the trumpet vine has produced a grand total of one bloom in the past four years, and the honeysuckle ain't doing a lot better.  I thought about putting some ferns in along that side of the shed, but after observing the space for the past couple of weekends, I think it gets too much sun for ferns to thrive.

So I went down to the creek last weekend to see what I could find.  I found some daisies about to be taken over by the murderous knotweed, so I liberated them from their position of doom.  I went to the garden center and picked up a lily for 20% off.  I have a sneaking suspicion that the ID tag stuck in the lily's pot may not belong to that particular plant, so what color it will be when it blooms is anybody's guess.  A surprise!

Remember Our Lady of the Really Big Dress?  She'd been leaning up against that shed for quite some time, so she and her larva baby got the place of honor.  Then I went back to the creek for some flat stones to keep weeding to a minimum, and voila!

Shed chic.  It's my specialty.

Add "fox"

... to the list of wildlife I've seen in my backyard.

Of course, there's always the deer.  I discovered today that sometime last night, the deer had come through and  buzz-sawed the garden phlox.  The phlox that is approximately two feet away from my house.

And let's see, there's turkeys, and pheasants, and of course the raccoons.  And hawks.  And rabbits.  And woodchucks.

And then, tonight, I was looking out the kitchen window when I saw a fox crossing the yard.  He popped out of the brushline, and the lowering sun illuminated his red-gold fur, spotlit his bottle-brush tail, and turned his ears translucent as he swiveled his head around, observing, before he headed back into the brush.

Ain't life grand?

These people are flat out of their minds

I read a lot of blogs.  Fashion blogs, political blogs, lifestyle blogs, blogs that mock other blogs - I read a lot of them. 

And it always knocks me out when a blog can putt-putt along, day after day, then suddenly take a sharp right turn into crazy land.

Witness this recent post on Life in a Shoe:

Giants in the land

I ... I can't. I just cannot deal with this level of crazy.  These kinds of posts at first make me laugh out loud, and then, as I read the comments and find more and more people who agree with the insanity ... it worries me.  It's like finding out there's a whole subgroup of people out there who actually believe in the Easter Bunny.

Now, I live not far from the scene of the Cardiff Giant hoax, so this stuff is not new to me.  But ... but ... people actually believe this shit?  Holy cow.  That's all I can say.  Holy.  Freaking.  Cow.

And the best part?  (Or the worst, depending on your point of view?) - The woman who wrote this is a homeschooler.  Oh yeah.  *sob*

"Small wet bottom shoo-fly pie" ...

... read the label on the dessert I picked up at the grocery store today.

I ran up to the store on my lunch break to pick up some more Kefir, which, I KNOW, gag gag *spit* *spit* *spit*, but I have discovered that the flavored varieties are actually marginally drinkable, as opposed to the vile plain sh*t, and in my efforts to keep the "Summer of C-diff" from turning into the "Summer of Hospitalization", I am pulling out all the stops.

So!  Anyway!  I head into the store, and there's a display of desserts right up front, because OF COURSE, and a sign saying "shoo-fly pie."

Now, thanks to the mighty mighty Vanco, I am, at least temporarily, able to eat.  Which is leading me to eat all the food ever in the world, because who knows how long this is gonna last?  And while I'd heard of shoo-fly pie, I don't believe I'd ever actually eaten any, so I bought a little mini shoo-fly pie.

Ingredients list?  Flour, sugar, water, molasses, pure vegetable shortening, leavening.

Well, it didn't SOUND particularly appetizing, but what the hell. 

The taste?  It mostly tastes of pie crust.  Light, crumbly, sweet pie crust.  And on the bottom is a darker layer, which I am assuming is the molasses, except it really doesn't taste like molasses.  Much.

I dunno.  The whole thing is kind of a big meh.  Except this is not exactly a gourmet grocery store or anything, so maybe there are versions of shoo-fly pie that are fanTAStic, and this store just messed it up.

So?  What are your experiences with shoo-fly pie?  Good?  Bad?  Indifferent?

Enquiring minds want to know.





 

C-diff update!

... because I know you're all waiting with bated breath to hear the latest on my gastrointestinal distress.  Ha.

Bottom line?  After suffering through two loooooong weeks of Flagyl side effects, it didn't work.  The Flagyl did not vanquish the dastardly C-diff.

So!  It was on to Vancomycin.  I knew, from my half-assed research, that Vanco was going to cost me.  A lot.  I started calling around to pharmacies.  A lot of them don't even carry Vanco, because evidently it is a speshul prechus drug.  The ones that DID carry it?  Wanted money.  A lot of it.  In the twelve-hundred dollar range.

Finally, in desperation, I called the pharmacy affiliated with my doctor's practice.  They are ALWAYS the highest price pharmacy around, but what the hey, right?  Give 'em a call. Their cost?  Seventeen-fifty.  "Seventeen ... hundred ... dollars...?" I stammered.  "Oh no, no!," the girl laughed.  "Sorry about that!  It's seventeen dollars and fifty cents!"

This had to be a mistake.  It HAD to be a mistake.  Had someone misplaced a decimal point?  Needless to say, I went screaming over there and handed them a credit cart before someone figured out the screwup.

Once the transaction had processed, I had to ask.  "So ... tell me," I said.  "How is it that this pharmacy is charging a HUNDREDTH of what other pharmacies are getting for the same drug?  How is that possible?"

"Well," the girl said.  "It's complicated.  But basically, because the network that runs this pharmacy also runs a local hospital, we're able to get a lower price.  We had to go through quite a bit of paperwork, and we're enrolled in a special program, and some of the drug pricing formularies are proprietary so I can't really explain it to you, but ... yeah.  This would cost you at least a thousand bucks anyplace else."

Jeezus please us.

So!  Ten days of Vanco.  Every six hours.  C-diff,  I will climb down in there and yank you out MYSELF if it comes to that, so you might as well surrender to the mighty Vancomycin.  Meet your new overlord, you son of a b*tch.

Recently Read

yeah yeah yeah, skip it if you wanna.

1.  Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon by Debbie Fuller Thomas - Novel about babies switched at birth.  A quick read, although I was a good way through it before I realized it was Christian fiction.  Still, an entertaining book.

2.  The Turn of the Screw by Henry James - Histrionic governess sees dead people.  Or maybe not.  F*ck if I know.  I got tired of all the hysteria and gave up about halfway through.

3.  Movie review time!  Searching for Sugarman is a doc about a couple of guys looking  for a Detroit musician who was once huge in South Africa, but then fell off the face of the earth.  Interesting.

4.  Happens Every  Day by Isabel Gillies - Memoir of a divorce.  Seen one, seen 'em all.

5.  Waiting for the Apocalypse  by Veronica Chater - Memoir of a woman raised in a hard-core Catholic family.  Interesting.  I remember that she did a segment on This American Life years ago about climbing a tree after her pet bird and the catastrophic injuries she suffered when she fell out of said tree.  Anyway, the book was good.

6.  Tara Road by Maeve Binchy.  What can I say?  It's Maeve Binchy, bitch!  I love her books.

7.  Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts - Murder-mystery.  Meh.

8.  Methland by Nick Reding - History of meth, focusing on one small Iowa town.  Very informative (I had no ideas that all sides in WWII were feeding their soldiers crank to keep them going) and interesting.


How about you?  Read anything good lately?

Overkill

Last weekend, I was listening to Prairie Home Companion (which should give you an idea of just how sick I've been), when I heard Colin Hay doing an old Men at Work song, Overkill.

I remember when the song first came out (THIRTY YEARS AGO OMFG), and how catchy it was, but I don't ever really remember paying a whole lot of attention to it, until last weekend.

Here it is (not the actual Prairie Home version, sadly, I could not find that, but a very similar version):



Maybe it's just speaking to my state of mind right now ("Holy sh*t, maybe my mother really IS going to outlive me!"), but that is one fine song and one fine artist.

It's sour milk, is what it is

So!  In my ongoing battle to beat back c-diff, I started taking probiotics.  "Probiotics" is one of those annoying f*cking healthy-living Jamie Lee Curtis words to me, but hell, any port in a storm.

I bought some probiotic pills ("Culturelle" is the brand name, which sounds like some kind of douche or something), back when I first started the Flagyl.  And then a friend recommended something called Kefir.

"What the hell is Kefir?," I asked, which is why I have so many friends.

"It's like ... liquid yogurt!," she said.  "Like a smoothie!  And it's got ninety billion active cultures per serving!  You should try it!"

Because I evidently cannot see a practical joke when it's staring me right in the damn face, I bought some Kefir.  Shook it up, poured a big ol' glass, took a slug, and

it's sour milk.  IT TASTES JUST LIKE SOUR F*CKING MILK.

Holy Mary Mother of CHRIST, I'm sick as a damn dog, my stomach is rolling, and my friends are telling me to drink SOUR MILK.

well, they *were* my friends. Ha.

And plus, every time I see the word "Kefir", all I can think of is "Kieffer", Janelle's old boyfriend on Teen Mom, and how Janelle's mom was always whining to Janelle about "Keeeeeeeeeefer, your no-good booooooyfriend" (she was totally right).

But hell, at least that makes me laugh. Unlike spending three-forty-nine on thirty-two ounces of spoiled milk.

Salt Springs

On Sunday, I dragged my sorry carcass to Salt Springs.  I knew I'd feel better once I got there.

No matter what's going on with the rest of the world, it's always beautiful there.

The Chronic

Okay, guys, I've been sitting on this post for a day or so now, not sure how to hit "publish" without coming across as some kind of jerk, but here we go. 



So!  I am currently nearing the home stretch of my fourteen-day, three-mega-pills-a-day antibiotic regimen.  I'm now on Week Three (or maybe it's Week Four?) of  the Summer of C-diff.  I've been sicker, most memorably as a young girl, but I don't know as I've ever been this sick for this long before.

(Insert standard First World Disclaimer here:  Could be worse, could be in sub-Saharan Africa, could be dying of dysentery, etc.)

I do have some experience with chronic pain - I have a mucked-up jaw that periodically goes berserker - So I know what it feels like to have pain grind on, and on, and on, week after week, until you get to a point where

you stop railing against the machine.  Yeah, you continue to pursue cures, and painkillers, and the elusive "treatment that may actually work", but after a while?

You've got a New Normal.  You don't really believe that you'll ever feel any better, because you can't really remember not feeling sick.  And you learn to work within the new parameters, because the alternative - exhausting yourself bemoaning your situation - becomes too tiresome to deal with after a while.

And I don't really know how to say any of this without inviting a "You haven't BEEN sick until you've been sick with *insert name of terrible disease here*" backlash, and frankly, it would be deserved.  Because I HAVEN'T had cancer or MS or any of the nine million other nasty diseases that would make me sicker than I am right now.

All I know is my reality, and my New Normal.  And right now, the New Normal includes the fact that it is summer outside, and I have got to drag myself out of my pity party and get moving.  Whether or not I "feel like it".  Yesterday I got some peonies and lilies planted, and went to Salt Springs to mosey around for a while.  Doing laundry, however, seemed to be beyond my limited capacity.  Go figure.

When one door closes, another one opens

The last of the Spectacular Six, Bianca and Smoky, were adopted today.

They were adopted together, which makes my heart happy.  They will have their entire lives to be each other's best friends.

With their adoption ends my involvement with the rescue for which I have spent the last few months volunteering.  Come fall, or possibly before, I'll be with a new group, with new kittens to show off here and new tales of crazy cat people.

And of course in the meantime, there will be other stories to tell. 

Goodbye kitties, I'm gonna miss you.  Have fun!

Three donuts for a dollar?!

I was on my way to work this morning when I realized that donuts had FINALLY come up in the rotation of "Things that might taste good to me".

I mean, in normal times, donuts would ALWAYS taste good to me, but with illness comes compromise, and with this particular illness comes a struggle to find something that I can eat without tasting one bite and having my taste buds flat-out rebel.  Scrambled eggs have been a front-runner for quite a while now.

But it turns on a dime; the other evening, I decided that nothing but a tuna sandwich would do for dinner.  I was too tired to actually MAKE some tuna salad (oh, the WOE), so I ran down to the sub shop and picked up a tuna sub.  By the time I got it back home and unwrapped it, a span of about ten minutes, I realized that I could no more eat that tuna sub than I could fly to the moon.  Tuna?  TUNA?  *gag*

Yeah, I've been spending a lot on groceries lately.

But!  Back to the story!  (YAAAAAY!)

Donuts sounded good this morning.  So I stopped at the grocery store, grabbed a chocolate-frosted Boston Creme, and went up to the register.

"That'll be thirty-four cents!," the cashier chirped.  "It's National Donut Day!  All donuts are half-off today! You can buy three donuts for a dollar, or a dozen for four dollars!"

And I swear to God I felt like Homer Simpson, standing there.  HAAAALLLLFFFF OFFFFFF DOONNNNNUUUTTTSSSSS!  What to do?  Go back and grab a dozen?  TWO DOZEN?  Are donuts freezable?  Donnnnuuuuuuttttttttsssssssss ...

In the end, I paid for my Boston Creme and left.  Because after all, by the time I actually have a chance to eat it, scrambled eggs will have probably come round again in the "things that might taste good to me" rotation.

Oh, for ...

I was watching The Voice the other night (yes, the sh*t TV streak is continuing), and that brother act was singing "Wagon Wheel", which was introduced as "a Darius Rucker song".

EXCUSE me?!

I'm pretty sure that Ketch Secor (the lead singer of Old Crow Medicine Show) and Bob f*cking Dylan, who are the ACTUAL co-authors of Wagon Wheel, would be either bemused or enraged, either response would be totally appropriate, to learn that Wagon Wheel is now a "Darius Rucker song".

Jeezus CHRIST.

It's like when they say that "I Will Always Love You" is "a Whitney Houston song".  NO.  NO IT IS NOT.  It is a Dolly motherf*cking PARTON song.

It doesn't matter who SINGS it, people. It's who WRITES it that counts.

Random notes from while I've been away

Overhead in Walmart:  "Kayak?  KAYAK?!  I've got FIVE KIDS! What would I do with a KAYAK?!"  I couldn't help bursting out laughing.  Thankfully, the woman who made the comment did as well - for a minute there, I thought she might punch me.

I was in Walmart to buy flowers.  When ill, flowers are always in order.  I got some petunias, a white peony, and a gorgeous red lily.  Now I've just gotta get them in the ground. 

Every time I call my doctor's office, my "Primary Care Physician" has been called away on a "family emergency".  Puh-lease. The only way that dude could have more "family emergencies" would be if his last name was Kardashian.

Little League season in the park next door is almost over.  Thank God.  If that baseball mom in the gigantic red SUV parked in my front yard one more time, I was gonna punch her. Or key her monsta-mobile.  Either one.

It's funny how an illness will suck the strength right outta ya.  I mean, my intestines are a mess, but the rest of me is theoretically fine, so why am I so weak?

Angelina Jolie going public with her double mastectomy?  Awesome.  Michael Douglas going public with "Cunnilingus gave me throat cancer"?  Doesn't have the same zing, somehow. 

Because I have NO IDEA where I picked up the c-diff, now EVERYPLACE is subject.  I was thinking about stopping at the store and picking up a donut this morning, then I was all, like, "What if the dude piping the filling into the donuts has c-diff?"  Fresh fruit is pretty much out of the question.  Who KNOWS how many people touched that fruit before I bought it?  *shudder*  And I'm pretty sure I'll use a public restroom again ... never.  I will walk outside of a store and pee in the got-dam parking lot before I ever, ever use a public restroom again.

I'm still struggling with the fact that I watched an entire episode of "America's Next Top Baker" (or whatever the hell it's called) last night, followed by a chaser of "Long Island Princesses".  I ... have no explanation.  I think the c-diff has gone to my brain.  I can think of no other earthly reason for why I would find Jeff Foxworthy not only tolerable but actually mildly entertaining. 

I WAS sleeping peacefully this morning ...

... until a squirrel started squawking like Daffy-Duck-having-a-coronary outside my bedroom window.

SODA!!

That. cat.

So!  I am still alive.  After brief honeymoon period, the Flagyl started kicking my butt.  Evidently, it's gonna be one of those "the cure is as bad as the disease"  type things.

*sigh*

Tell me, what are you all doing this weekend?

Survey SAYS ...

... Dengue Fever.

Haaaaaa, not really, it's C-diff. 

D'oh!

Doc-lite called me last night to give me the news, and he's all serious, but luckily I knew enough not to be too freaked out, thanks to what you guys already told me, i.e., CURABLE, which is the operative word with any disease, as far as I'm concerned, and he's, all, "I'll call the prescription into your pharmacy now," and I'm, all, "Okay, thanks, I'll pick it up in the morning," and HE'S all, "No, no, you really should start this tonight," and I'm all, FINE, I'll go drive down to the drugstore TONIGHT, jeez, so then I get there, and he'd called in the prescrip with the wrong date of birth, thankyouverymuch, so I STILL don't have my prescrip.

I'll tell you what, health care around here is about as well-organized as a car full of drunken frat boys.

So now I'm supposed to call my REGULAR health care provider, and THAT ought to be a fun phone call.  "Oh hai!  Remember me?  The one you told that there was a lot of this going around, and it was cool to tough it out?  Guess what!  It's C-DIFF, motherf*cker!  How do you like me NOW?" 

Ha.  I need to get some "C-diff for the win" t-shirts printed up.

Oh, and I just tried calling my doc, and nobody picked up the phone.

*sigh*

So yeah, Flagyl it is, and I hope it's not too damn expensive, because while I DO have health insurance, I DO NOT have prescription coverage, so ... it's a good thing I got that raise, huh?  hahahahahaha sob.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Division of Labor

First off, I managed to make it into the office today.  Before you guys bite my head off, here's my reasoning:

1.  I knew it would be a slow, paperwork-catch-up kind of day.   Nothing too taxing.

2.  The weather is cold and rainy.  If it was hot and sunny, you'd better believe I'd be home.  Or rather, out in the backyard, snoozing on a lawn chair.

3.  Hell, I feel like sh*t.  I might as well get PAID while I'm feeling like sh*t.  Why feel like sh*t for free?


Okay, so.  Here I am at the office.  Doin' my job.  And I got to thinking about how the cats have divided up the labor around the house while I've been sick.

Tinks has taken over bed-companion duties.  Whenever I've decided that I've been upright long enough and crawl into bed for a few hours, a few minutes after I hit the sheets, I hear the "thunk" of Tinks hitting the side of the bed as he attempts to jump up on top.  "Try again, honey," I murmur, and then I feel the thud of him landing next to me.  (No, he doesn't need "pet steps".  He just needs to learn how to judge his jumps better.)  Then he circles around a couple of times, finally coming to rest with his butt directly in my face, naturally.  I gently prod him until he finds a better resting spot, i.e., one that doesn't involve his butt and my face, and we both drift off.  When I wake up, inevitably he is sleeping on his back with his paws waving lazily in the air, and I'm sorry, if there's anything cuter than that, I do not know what it is.

Soda has taken over recliner chores.  Whenever I'm ensconced in the recliner, Soda curls right up in the crook of my arm.  I'm sure he's just trying to suck the heat out of my body, but it is comforting.  And every once in a while, he'll jump down and race a few turns around the living room, just to crack me up.  Oh!  And he is maintaining his status quo as hunter-in-chief; he brought a mouse in just this morning.  Although judging by the number of leaves attached to said mouse, it had been dead for quite a while, but hey!  It's the thought that counts.

Pony is my cat-in-waiting.  When I am sleeping in the bedroom, he snoozes in his pet bed at the foot of my bed.  When I'm sleeping in the living room, he lies on the floor next to my chair.  Any time I move around, he's shadowing me, making sure I don't ... I don't know, wander away and leave him without anyone to open up his cans of cat food or something.  Pony's not taking any chances, here.

How about your pets? Do they act differently when you're not feeling well?

"C diff"? What the f*ck is "C diff"?

So, I was hoping to tough out my stomach bug, but by last night, when THREE BITES of pancake resulted in HOURS in the bathroom, I had to admit defeat.

I went to the walk-in this morning,  along with all the other poor motherless sadsacks in town who found themselves at the walk-in on a holiday Sunday, and talked to a doc lite.

"Eleven days, hmmm?", he said.  "And you were on antibiotics right before that?"

"Actually", I said, "I was still  ON the antibiotics when I got sick!  Isn't that crazy?"

"Weeeelllllll ......", he said.

And that's when he started mentioning  "C diff", whatever the hell that is because I refuse to Google it, and how it may have been CAUSED by the antibiotics (THANKS,  PETEY), and here's your handy little take-home stool sample kit

bwahahahahahahaha KILL ME NOW.

But then he's all, like, "But on the bright side, you don't have a fever, and you're not vomiting, and ya don't LOOK sick!"

Gee, thanks, doc.  I don't LOOK sick,  so obviously everything's  FINE.  Good to know.

I dunno, guys.  I just miss food.

Remember Petey?

First off, I did call my doctor's office this morning.  I thought it might be wise to get checked out, because a week-and-a-half of the runs is a little extreme even by my standards, and I wanted to make sure I'm not, like, dying of dysentery I contracted on the Oregon Trail or something. 

So!  I talked to the nurse, who explained that, unfortunately, there is a particularly virulent viral strain of Yuck currently working its way through the area's intestinal tracts.  She advised me to keep hydrated, and to call back immediately if I got the dizzies or started hurling; she said that otherwise, the Yuck should be leaving its temporary home in me within the next few days.

So.  There.  I called the doctor's office.  Now I just tough it out.  Pass the Immodium, please!

I had actually started to feel a little better, the last couple of days, until four o'clock this morning, that is, when everything went right back to hell in a handbasket, thus prompting the doctor call this morning.  *sigh*


Okay! And, one more thing, before we get to the main thing:  My spellcheck has gone missing.  Just up and disappeared off the toolbar. So, if things are a little more confusing and grammatically screwed around here than usual, talk to Blogger about it.  I mean, yeah, sure, I could copy and paste into another format to spell check, but ain't nobody got time for that sh*t around here.  Sorry.




Now!  On to the big news!

Remember Petey?  Petey, the cat who tried to chew my hand off?  Well, here's what his new owners have to say:

"Hans Thomas we named him. Absolutely adore him. He is very comfortable in his space right now and approaches us. Almost able to pet him. Rotisserie chicken has opened new doors. Thank you so much for saving this guy. Loves his ping pong ball. Plan to expand his whole territory to the whole house this weekend. Will send some pictures soon."

I think these people get the "Adopter of the Year" award.  I don't care if it's only May.

Sadly, I cannot recommend this method

I had to weigh myself at work yesterday in order to figure out the shipping weight for a FedEx package (don't ask), and I discovered that I've lost seven pounds since the last time I was weighed.  Two weeks ago.

Normally, I'd be all, "whoo-hoo!  Stomach bug for the win!", but oh, MAN, this stomach bug is kicking my butt.  (I was going to put "Literally." right here, but I will refrain. You're welcome.)  I finally decided to double down with the meds, taking both Pepto AND Immodium and ... yeah. No. Blergh.

I mean, I COULD go to the doctor, but I've BEEN to the doctor for this exact same thing before, and all he'll tell me is to eat a bland diet and wait it out.  So I am waiting.  and waiting.  and waiting.

And!  You know how it is when you're sick, and nothing tastes good,  most certainly NOT the BRAT diet that the doctor recommends, and you keep trying and trying and TRYING to think of something yummy to eat?  Yesterday, I kept trying to think of something good, and you know what my whack-a** mind finally settled on?

Fried chicken.  and pasta salad.

Yerrrrp.  Greasy, crispy-skinned fried chicken, and oily, hot-peppered pasta salad.  THAT is what my insane mind decided would taste good, as my stomach churned in protest.

So I bought some.  I even went with the store-made fried chicken, instead of the Banquet boxed crap I usually buy.  And I bought store-made pasta salad, too, instead of the Suddenly Salad boxed stuff I usually cheap out on.

See what getting a raise does to you?  It makes you throw your money around like a mad woman, is what it does.

So!  I ate that fried chicken and that pasta salad last night, and my poor, riled-up stomach said, "Eh.  Whatever.  I'm so sick right now that a little grease and oil ain't gonna make any difference."  Rock on, fried chicken! 

But today?  Today the THOUGHT of fried chicken is making me want to hurl.  Today I'm thinking ice cream ...

I don't know what they think they'll do with one if they CATCH it

This morning, in the park next door:

Soda decided that Canada Goose would make a fine breakfast.  He enrolled his buddy Tinks to help him out:

And they were off to the races:

Oooops.  Got a little too close .... RUN AWAY!  RUN AWAY!  (it's hard to tell, but Soda is hauling a** back toward me at this point):

Time for a meeting on the mound:

Tinks says, I'm goin' in:



But it ends, as cat v. goose always does, in a draw:

I swear, these guys are more fun than an amusement park.






Disclaimer:  No geese were harmed in the filming of this blog post.  Trust me, the cats never, ever get the goose.

Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherf*cking ants in this motherf*cking house!

A couple of weeks ago, I had my annual spring ant infestation at the house.  Not the cute, little brown ants - the ones we used to call "sweet ants" when I was a kid - but the big, black variety - the ones who crunch when you step on them.

I went and bought ant traps, like I do every year, and spent a couple of days squishing ants, finally bringing a roll of toilet paper out to the kitchen (Klassy!) because it's cheaper than Kleenex when it comes to wiping up ant remains.  Then, when a few days passed and I STILL had ants, I went and bought MORE ant traps, scattered them around, and finally seemed to get rid of the Great Ant Infestation of 2013.

Last night, I had to get up to use the bathroom (thanks, stomach bug!  YOU HAVE WORN OUT YOUR WELCOME), and when I laid back down,

OUCH!

Something had BITTEN me on the NECK!

I grabbed my neck and JUMPED out of bed, turning on the bedside light, and what was there in my bed?

A GIANT ANT.

MOTHERF*CKER!, I yelled, grabbing a shoe to flip it off the bed and crush it.  and crush it.  and crush it.

I mean, the upside is, it could have been worse.  It could have been a spider.  Ants are skeevy, but spiders are creepy, and in the moment before I hit the light, I was actually all, "don't let it be a spider.  don't let it be a spider."

But what the F*CK was a giant ANT doing in my BED?  I have had enough with the motherf*cking CRITTERS in my motherf*cking BEDROOM!   First it was the raccoon, and then it was the nine thousand MICE that the cats bring in and deposit under the bed "for later", and now it's ANTS.

Welcome to warm weather, I guess.  GOD.

How it all went down

Yesterday, I asked my boss for a raise. 

Timing is critical in this kind of thing, and I figured that if I was willing to go in to the office on a Sunday morning to get a project out the door, that would reflect well on my chance of succeeding.

Also critical to success in this sort of thing?  A couple of factors:  You have to be willing to fail, and you have to do your research.

As far as the failure thing goes, you need to go into salary negotiations cognizant of the fact that you may well walk back out with no job at all, much less a raise.  I have actually SEEN my boss fire someone who asked for a raise.  It wasn't pretty.

And that's where the research comes in.  I didn't just wander in, all, "Gee, the cost of gas keeps going up, and it's been a while since my last raise, and, well, I really deserve more money ..."

First, I compiled my salary history.  As someone who is not really money-motivated, other than the fact that having enough to pay my bills is nice, I actually could not remember the last time I had a salary increase, other than that it had been a while.  So I put together a quick spreadsheet.

Then, I looked into cost-of-living increases for the past few years.  There are all sorts of numbers you can go with; I try to pick something middle-of-the-road.   I was actually surprised to find that the cost of living had not increased as much as I thought it had, gas prices notwithstanding, so I adjusted my expectations.  This kind of research is really important to keep you from looking like an uninformed jerk when it's time to start talking.

Next, I researched comparable salaries for my position in my area.  There are all kinds of bogus numbers out there, so you really do need to dig a little to get some actual, real-world figures, and not some vague bullsh*t like the nationwide average salary for a position that may or may not resemble the one that you actually occupy.  I generally go straight for the online hiring sites, to pull real-time positions currently available in my area that compare to the position I perform.  And you need a bunch, not just one or two.  The boss may or may not ask to see the information, but you need to have it.  This information also requires a little digging, as most companies are hesitant to put exact numbers on line for the world to see. 

So!  I had my numbers, and it was time to talk.  I actually almost backed out yesterday, because I've picked up some nasty little stomach bug and am feeling somewhat green-ish around the gills, but again, I had to use my in-the-office-on-a-Sunday advantage, so I plowed ahead.

After the work was done and the project was wrapped, I asked my boss if I could speak with him, took in my numbers and my spreadsheets, and presented my case.  You really, really should NOT get emotional, no matter what happens.  I explained what I had contributed to the company since my last salary increase, including those weeks a year ago when I was running the place while my boss was hospitalized.  I pleaded my case, and then sat back, waiting for the boss to ask me how much I wanted (or to show me the door).  Instead, he had a few questions about my numbers (yes, you HAVE to do the research), then he started running his own numbers, and came up with a number that was ...

... twice what I was going to ask for.

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition, Rocky got a raise.

So, here I am, at 10:30 on a Sunday morning ...

... sitting in the office, getting paid time-and-a-half to blog.  Oh, and to research comparable salaries for my position, so that when the boss finally does manage to wander in so we can get our work done, and after the work is finally finished, I can hit him up for a raise.

"Don't do it!," you say.  "The economy sucks right now!," you say.  "There are lots of people looking for work!"

Yep.  It does. There are.  And I haven't had a raise in an embarrassingly long time, and the boss has been such a pain in the a** lately that I'm not happy here ANYway, and my research shows that I could walk out that door and get a higher-paying job in fairly short order should it prove necessary, and

I'm going for it. 

If the boss ever actually shows, that is.

Wish me luck!

Random

By switching stations on my office desk radio, I can listen to NPR's "Morning Edition" three times in a row.  Which is three times more than necessary, most days.

Email I got from Netflix:  "Has The Queen of Versailles arrived?"  Ha.  Yeah, she's in the bedroom, powdering her wig.

I must have stork legs, or T-Rex arms, or both, because Downward Dog just ain't happening for me.  Pike position is ... not achievable.

Do you ever eat something just so it will be gone and you can't eat it anymore?  Like, say, cake?

Okay, so, a while back, we were talking about names.  Does a name ever get spoiled for you by its owner?  When I was a kid, there was a girl in elementary school named Liz who treated me shabbily.  The name "Liz" is now forever associated with "Jerk" in my mind.

I had to give the kittens their first dose of Coccidiosis meds last night.  It tastes (yes, I tasted it) kind of like melted cookie dough ice cream.  Bianca and Hannah were, like, "YUM!  Overnotes of vanilla with an almond base!  More, please!"  And Smoky and Boots were, like, "Auugggggggggh!  This stuff is POISON!" *spit* *spit* *head shake*    Those boys are SUCH drama queens. 

Oh!  And in other kitten room news, Bianca is limping.  I guess kitten room play got a little rough overnight.  Please send kind thoughts to Bianca's leg.

Sometimes I like tater tots.  Does that make me a weirdo?

Is anyone surprised that Candice won American Idol last night?  Wasn't that, like, a foregone conclusion?




Okay, that's my Random for today.  Feel free to add your own in the comments.