Published November 9th, 2008
Cat Starves While Mother Selfishly Sleeps
In what can only be described as utter cruelty, Ziggy had to wait more than 8 hours for his next meal while his mother spent the entire night sleeping. He was so incensed, he woke up at 4 a.m. and walked across his mother’s head 46 times. When that garnered no response, he proceeded to eat her hair, convinced she would then see his desperation. Despite his efforts, he was left to starve until 6 a.m. When asked what he plans to do about it tonight, Ziggy replied, “I’ll probably try to stand on one of her kidneys, or maybe couch up a hairball on the bed. Whatever I have to do to make her life a living hell is worth it, as long as I get fed.”
Husband Identified as “Clueless”
After arriving home on his wedding anniversary, Clueless Husband presented his wife with a lovely bouquet of flowers. She was at once delighted and then disturbed when she noticed the bag .
Wife: ”Does that bag say “CAR WASH” in big black letters?”
Clueless Husband: (Beaming a clueless smile) ”Yep.”
Wife: ”Did you get these flowers at a car wash?”
CH: (Still beaming cluelessly) ”Yep. It was pretty cool. I mean, I show up for a car wash and there are these flowers right there.”
Wife: ”Uh huh. And you didn’t think to hide the bag? Maybe pretend you actually made a special stop at a flower shop to buy me flowers for all the years I’ve put up with you?”
CH: (frowning in confusion) ”Why would I do that?”
Wife: ”Is there no part of you that wondered if giving your wife flowers from a car wash might seem a little tacky?”
CH: ”Hey, those look just as good as the flowers you’d find at any gas station.”
Wife: (In a tone of wonder) “You really are clueless, aren’t you?”
CH: ”I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Missing Socks Generate Massive Search and Rescue
After her last load of laundry today, Paige noticed four of her socks were missing. An exhaustive search of the washer, the dryer, the cobwebbed, lint-covered floor behind the dryer and even the couch cushions did not uncover the missing socks. ”I just don’t know where they could be,” she said, throwing up her hands in frustration. ”I mean, I know I washed them and my mother always said it’s not like they could just get up and walk away by themselves, you know?” After further searching, Paige finally found the socks under the bed in a configuration that could only mean one thing. ”All I could think was that Milo was making some kind nest with them,” she said. ”I know it’s cold, but stealing my socks? I feed him, I pet him, I clean up his poop and this is the thanks I get? I just feel betrayed, you know?”
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Published November 3rd, 2008
Things you shouldn’t accidentally leave in the washing machine:
Cough drops
Things cats don’t understand:
Daylight saving time
Closed doors
Things husbands can’t comprehend:
That it takes less energy to put the shoes in the closet than it does to step over them 400 times
Things I’ll never figure out:
Why my computer will not ‘close the data file properly’ and why I should care
How to train my cats to give a damn
Why the sight of a woman bobbling around on 6-inch heels is considered sexy and not bizarre
Quantum physics
Things I feel bad about:
Not blogging more often
Turning on the dryer 8 times rather than actually folding the clothes
Forgetting to water the plants for the third day in a row
Avoiding work by blogging about nothing
Feeling confused and indecisive sometimes
My neighbor’s unfortunate haircut
Breaking a wine glass and blaming it on the cat
The general state of my hair
The fact that a friend just sent me a card wishing me a happy anniversary and I had no idea it was my anniversary
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Published October 8th, 2008
I could tell it was going to be one of those days when I couldn’t get out of my driveway because of the gigantic truck blocking it. This truck was sitting there, waiting for Godot perhaps, and it was apparently a lot of work for the guy to back up so I could get to work. Excuse me for living in my house.
Driving through the obstacle course that has become my street (because they’re installing new sewer holes but maybe ran out of money to finish so now we have these giant craters peppering the road) felt normal, as did training my client. But what happened was that I had a lunch date that I completely forgot about. Not even a wisp of a thought as I heated up a nasty Lean Cuisine and, zombie-like, ate my 275 calorie meal. Only when I checked my cell phone, which I’d left in the car and saw numerous messages from my friend, who thought I was dead, did I realize I’d forgotten.
Maybe this headache I’ve had for a few days really IS a brain tumor.
I apologized and probably made up a lie (forgetting just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason) and then tried not to be bothered by my mental lapse. Only, on my way to the coffeeshop to do some work, I ended up going back inside the house three times to get things I forgot. I spent 10 minutes looking for my keys, which were in the car for some reason and then I got to the coffeeshop and realized I’d forgotten to bring the very thing I was going to work on.
I admit, I’m on cold medicine, which could be a contributing factor but I’m still concerned about the brain tumor thing.
And reading over what I just wrote, I realize I sound eerily like my mother, who has spent her life losing things and, occasionally, finding them.
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Published October 4th, 2008
After avoiding my blog like one would avoid looking at their crazy, shirtless neighbor who cuts his grass wearing Daisy Dukes and black socks (Hi, Tony!), I decided to check in and saw Kim’s suggestion that I write about a spider spinning a web.
It just so happens that a spider sits way up in the corner of my office. He’s a little guy, which is one reason I’ve allowed him to stay up there. I also think he’s new to this whole web-spinning business, because he’s created this wadded up cotton-candy-looking ball that seems pretty useless as far as catching dinner goes. He may even be stuck in his own wadded up cotton-candy-looking ball, because I haven’t seen him move in awhile.
Sometimes, Milo sits under the spider and yells for me to get it down. I often retrieve spiders for Milo’s ingestion because I know how boring life must be for a kitty on the inside where the most exciting thing that happens is Ziggy coughing up a hairball or Mother moving a chair three inches to the left, which requires everyone to stop and sniff and gaze into the blank spot where the chair used to be because something has changed, making this place wholly unrecognizable.
Moving the chair back will only confuse the issue.
If the spider is big and brown, I become convinced it is a brown recluse. I remember watching a show where a man was bitten by a brown recluse and didn’t know it for, like, 3 days or something and then his leg rotted off. In the re-creation, they showed this big brown spider skittering across the floor. It crept up this guy’s boot and then went under his pants where it then skittered up his leg and bit him.
Man. I’m not sure there’s anything creepier than a bug of unknown origins crawling inside one’s clothes.
Wait, I just caught a glimpse of Tony cutting his grass.
Definitely creepier.
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Published September 16th, 2008
I’m a terrible, terrible person who never updates her blog.
There, I said it.
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Published September 4th, 2008
I’m always looking for ways to waste time, especially on a rainy Thursday-which-should-be-Friday. So, I’ve decided to take Kim’s tagging challenge, which requires me to post 6 unspectacular quirks of mine:
1. We have a chipmunk who lives in one of our drainpipes. I’ve named him Barney and, sometimes, I put nuts on the front porch for him. My husband thinks I’m insane.
2. I read while I brush and floss my teeth
3. I hate tomatoes
4. I listen to books on tape obsessively and refuse to do chores of any kind without my iPod attached to my head
5. I let my cat sleep on my lap while I work on the computer, even though it is thoroughly un-ergonomic and irritating
6. I wish I could quit my job and play Rockband all day long.
Now, I have to tag 6 other bloggers so they can participate in this thing we call tagging. I don’t know 6 bloggers, but I know 3: Monica, HATamaran and Theophany.
Here are the rules:
1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.
There.
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Published August 24th, 2008
I’ve decided to get over the mean Internet people who leave ugly comments. After all, not everyone has a soft kitty belly to bury her face in and, without that, is life really worth living? I would be mean and ugly as well if not for kitty bellies.
I’ve also decided to get over the junk drawer. It is just not possible to organize a junk drawer, nor is it possible to change a junk drawer into something else. I tried to make our junk drawer (and, in fact, we have 3 or 4 of them) into a steak-knife-chopsticks-corn-cob-holders-and-wooden-spoon drawer. But, it only took about 3 days for other things to drift in there - batteries (are they still good?), buttons (where did they come from? I might find the matching garment any day now), random power cords (I don’t know what they once powered, but they seem too important to throw away), an earring (might find the other one), scratched sunglasses (having a backup is always a good idea) and a half-chewed toy mouse (how did that get in there?).
I hereby give up on trying to reassign the junk drawer. It is for junk…junk that you might need. I know, of course, that none of this junk will be useful until I actually throw it away. That is the moment I will find it’s purpose.
I really wanted to get into this junk drawer idea, but my husband just got up and started playing Chicago in his office. Specifically, he’s playing the song “Hard Habit to Break.” How is anyone supposed to concentrate under such circumstances?
I give up.
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Published August 20th, 2008
Last week, I made the mistake of posting an article about fitness fashion. The article was lighthearted, covering some of the more outrageous fashion mistakes to avoid at the gym (not wearing underwear, falling out of your skimpy clothes, wearing flip-flops, etc.). I make this distinction because the comments I’ve received on this article were, without a doubt, the most vicious I’ve ever gotten. I’ve written about a variety of controversial topics - fat burning pills, gastric bypass surgery, discrimination against overweight people, etc.
But, fitness fashion? I might as well have shouted “Jesus SUCKS” or “Abortion for everyone!” for all the crap I got.
I mention this because it took me a long time to turn the corner and arrive at a place where I could look at some of these comments and see how ridiculous they were. Usually when I’m criticized, it takes about a day to get over it. But, the fact that the comments kept coming and coming had me stopping to question myself, my job and my ability to do it.
Which makes me mad.
Because I was writing about fitness fashion. A superficial topic? Absolutely and not the sort of thing I usually cover, but was it really deserving of the bitter hate I received? No. It’s a much-needed reminder that:
1. Some people are mean, bitter and angry.
2. The Internet allows me to meet more of these people than I would ever meet otherwise.
3. Sometimes, turning off the Internet and burying my face in Ziggy’s belly is the only way to handle these kinds of situations.
Once again, Ziggy saves the day.
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Published August 12th, 2008
I talk about my cats a lot and it’s probably annoying. It’s even more annoying to post pictures like this one:
Or this one:
I’m a crazy cat lady.
Enough said.
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Published August 5th, 2008
With my mother safely at home in Nashville, I was able to wake up this morning and NOT do any of the following:
1. Find a coffee cup (in the same cabinet as the coffee cups have lived since the day you got here, some 6 days ago), spoon (also in the same drawer as the last 6 times), creamer (on the counter, directly under your nose) or any other coffee paraphernalia for anyone other than myself
2. Walk anyone through the basic steps of working a computer (turning it on would help), finding missing files (the ’search’ capability works wonders) or setting up new contacts in an address book (hitting the ‘add contact’ button is usually how I do it, but what do I know?)
3. Discuss any topics such as why that woman is wearing her pajamas while walking her dog (maybe because it’s 6 a.m. or because she likes walking around in pajamas or because that’s the latest fashion trend), why someone would write such a long, boring article in the paper about the Cubs (maybe because we live in Chicago where baseball is life) or why someone would have the nerve to be overweight and go outside where others can see them (perhaps because they’re human beings that way).
I also didn’t have to go shopping at IKEA, The Worlds Largest Storage Facility for Weird, Cheap Crap, nor did I have to go to 900 furniture stores to find a new living room chair or sit in my office and try to answer emails while shouting instructions across the house for everything from locating laundry detergent to the correct operation of the TV remote control.
I have to say, despite the annoyances of having a guest for more than a week, my mom and I had a good time. It was actually fun to have someone to do things with and, despite her issues with anything related to technology (cell phones, televisions, light switches), she’s quite fun to be around. Also, she played Rockband, which was totally cool of her, especially since she didn’t know many of the songs.
When she left yesterday, I was good and depressed for awhile even as I was kind of relieved just to have some quiet and a little time to catch up on all the things I didn’t do last week. I’ve decided that I wouldn’t mind living in the same city with my mom. The same house? Not so much.
The other depressing part is getting back to the Work Routine and figuring out what I’m doing. It’s kind of annoying that, after all these years, I’m still not sure what I’m doing or what I should be doing or what I should plan to do or what I should’ve done. Doesn’t practice make perfect? And if I practice living and breathing and working every day for more than 37 years, shouldn’t I be better at this whole Living Life thing?
Apparently not.
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