Published January 4th, 2009
Putting a cat on a diet is one of the worst ideas ever conceived.
I appreciate my vet, who is very good at his job and knows much more than I do about all things feline, but as a man who runs a cat clinic, how could he possibly suggest feeding a cat less food?
Ziggy is overweight and Milo is also getting a little tubby. Who wouldn’t if they spent 22 hours of each day sprawled across the floor, the back of the couch, the recliner and my lap, sleeping? And it’s not like you can take a cat for a walk, although I’ve seen some neighbors try it and it was entertaining, if nothing else.
My vet suggested I feed them less and play with them more to help them lose weight, which sounds reasonable. I brought them home and immediately found all their toys and started throwing them and shouting in my kitty-voice, “Who wants to play!”
Anyone with cats can imagine the response. Ziggy’s head did move to follow all the things flying through the air and landing at his feet (a ball, a stuffed mouse, a q-tip), so I suppose that could be considered an activity of some kind. Milo, on the other hand sat quietly by his food bowl wondering why I hadn’t given him the treat I usually gave him after a visit to the vet. When I left the room, I heard one cat possibly chase one of the balls, but when I looked, both were lying on the floor, staring at me with their dead eyes.
That night I gave the kitties a little less food and they seemed fine with that until around 2 a.m.
That was when Ziggy dragged his starving body onto the bed and began his campaign of torture by standing on my vital organs for several minutes. Then he put his face very, very close to mine, just to the point where his whiskers lightly touched my nose, making me feel like bugs were crawling all over me. He tried to suck the soul out of my body with deep, huffing breaths. When that didn’t work, he trampled over my face and crashed onto the pillow where he very carefully separated one of my hairs and began to eat it with loud smacking sounds.
Throughout the course of the morning, Ziggy alternately walked across my face, sat on my head, bit my ears, licked my cheek, ate my hair and howled madly.
At first, I was committed. No matter what the cat does, I am NOT feeding him. I am the master. He will not win.
But, Ziggy doesn’t have to get up in the morning and go to work. Ziggy doesn’t have to function in any way. In fact, Ziggy’s only tasks on any given day include eating, sleeping, pooping, scratching the furniture and, on occasion, barfing. Those tasks can easily be performed without much sleep, unlike my tasks which, sometimes, require actual thinking.
The diet lasted about 6 hours, I think. I’m amazed that I made it that long.
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Published December 21st, 2008
Husband: (as he flips through the channels) Hey, can you look up the bet I made on sportsbook?
Wife: (logging onto sportsbook, gasping) Are you seriously betting against the Titans?
Husband: (in a condescending tone) The Steelers are favored by two points. I know you think the Titans are good because they’ve only lost a couple of games, but the Steelers have had the…
Wife: (cutting in with an eye-roll): I know, I know, they’ve had the toughest season all year, blah, blah blah
Husband: (in an offended tone) I will not have you disrespect my team in such a manner.
Wife: Your team? I think the Steelers would be quite surprised to know that they belong to you.
Husband: Use your sarcasm to dull the pain, if you must. It would be easier if you just admit that my team is going to win. (pausing to scratch at a red bump on the top of his foot) Hey, can you look up pictures of spider bites? I think have a spider bite on my foot…oh, hey, I think that’s actually ketchup!
Wife: (sighing) Whatever you’re betting, I’m doing the opposite.
Husband: It’s your funeral.
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Published December 11th, 2008
It snowed again, so I’m going to complain again because it’s in the single digits, temperature-wise, and because my husband is once again out of town so I have to shovel.
Again.
The end. There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?
I’m sure I have other things I could complain about, like the fact that my windows are frozen over and the fact that Milo keeps knocking things off my desk and trying to walk on my computer or the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing today.
But why complain when the sun is shining, I have thick, warm socks on my feet and I can frequently stop working to check on the progress of our governor’s scandalous arrest?
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Published December 6th, 2008
Of all the precipitation available to us, I admit that snow is my favorite. It’s the only one that can actually change how the world looks – well, except for things like hurricanes or tornadoes, which can also change how the world looks but, usually, not in a good way.
Snow makes the world pretty. There, I said it and I only said it because my husband doesn’t read this blog and, therefore, cannot throw that comment in my face when I complain about how cold and snowy and miserable it is outside.
That said, snow-prettiness is only a temporary phenomenon. We got our first real snowfall last Sunday and it was pretty. It wasn’t just pretty because it was pretty, but because we were inside the house and it was Sunday and we didn’t have to go anywhere.
On Monday morning, it was also pretty for approximately 37 minutes, which was the moment I had to shovel it to get my car out of the driveway. The giant, slushy pile at the bottom, left by Mr. Snowplow, was particularly heinous.
It’s snowing now and it’s very pretty for all the same reasons – I’m inside the house, I don’t have to go anywhere and my husband is in town to do most of the shoveling (a rare phenomenon). It’s also nice that it snowed on a Saturday instead of Sunday night, which is when it usually snows, thus leaving you with the Monday morning clean-up.
I miss the good old south where a snowflake is cause for a city-wide shutdown and no one expects you to go anywhere should there be actual accumulation.
I miss Hawaii too. And pretty much anywhere I’ve been that does not see snow.
Having gotten the complaining out of the way, I feel that I will have at least a few days before I start complaining about the weather again. Unless it keeps snowing, or it gets really, really cold or I continue breathing.
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Published November 27th, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
So, I got food poisoning while I was in Las Vegas more than a week ago and I’m still having some problems, which forced me to do something a person should never do – look up their symptoms on some ridiculous symptom-checker database. After entering in my symptoms, I’ve concluded that I have one or more of the following:
- Electrolyte abnormalities
- Acute kidney failure
- Abdominal abscess
- Accidental eye injury
- Acquired angioedema
Anyway.
I’ll probably have to go to the doctor at some point because my major issue is that I can’t do anything that creates an imbalance in my suddenly delicate hydration system which includes at least two of my favorite things: drinking coffee and drinking alcohol.
Today, we’re going to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner where they will have copious amounts of food and alcohol – two things I’m not all that thrilled about on a day when one should stuff one’s face and drink one’s self into oblivion. My plan is to drink some gatorade and hope I can enjoy all the copiousness of this day.
Also, the Titans are playing Detroit, which is kind of awesome. Wait, did I say that? I don’t even care about football. Except my team is almost undefeated and, suddenly, I like them, fair-weather fan that I am. Also, you may be wondering why this looks like a big mess with no paragraphs to separate my often abrupt changes of subject. Frankly, I can’t figure out why my word press entries are so screwed up on my new computer, which happens to be a Mac. My spacing doesn’t show up as typed and I would go off and research the problem except that I may have an Accidental Eye Injury and I wouldn’t want to make that worse. I did figured out that I have to look at the code view and then put lots of space between paragraphs, which makes no sense and, then, only works in preview. How can apple make the world’s most amazing computers, but then screw up so badly on the details – like how Safari sucks and how their word processing program blows or how this simple blog application doesn’t work right? So, if everything is crammed together, I apologize and suggest you have a drink. Have several. It helps.So, Happy Thanksgiving. And all that crap.
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Published November 23rd, 2008
Food Poisoning Ruins Vegas Trip and, Possibly, Life
In what can only be described as cruel fate, Paige spent the last two days of her Vegas vacation in the fetal position on the hotel bathroom floor. “I learned a lot about that bathroom,” she said. “The marble floor was exquisitely done and, when you have the hot sweats that accompany food poisoning, there’s nothing better than a cold marble floor to rest your head against.” When asked what she ate, she covered her mouth and fled the room.
Body, Mind and Spirit Walloped by Food Poisoning
Several days after “The Tragedy,” Paige is still feeling pretty awful. “I’m grateful that I’m over the worst of it and that I’m not lying against the cold marble floor anymore, but this fatigue and indigestion are killing me.” When asked his opinion, Ziggy replied, “My mother is sick? Wait…you mean she left town for 4 days? Huh. I never even noticed.”
Leaves Will Not Rake Themselves
On a frigid Sunday morning, Paige stood surveying the sea of leaves in her yard and imagined she was Samantha on Bewitched and that she could twitch her nose and the leaves would whirl up into a little tornado and place themselves neatly inside the leaf bags. Then she imagined Matt Damon showing up with an industrial sized leaf-sucker-upper and a bottle of wine. Her fantasy was interrupted by her husband’s loving comment, “Well, are you going to rake the leaves or what?”
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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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