You can't have any new ones until the old ones are gone

We have an understood rule about pets and owning them. You can't have a new one until the old one passes away. I really, really, REALLY want another bird (he died a few years ago) to talk and sing with and teach bad things to but I don't want to deal with the mess. So we're birdless.

The other neighbors got two new puppies and they might as well be the Sun and Husband is Icarus. The puppies are miniature beagles and holy cow, they are SO ADORABLE! They're still in the "when I wag my tail my whole body shakes I'm so happy!" stage and that makes them VERY contagious. "I want one!" he says. "We have a dog." I say. "But they only cost $50!" he whines. "Well, when Mya checks out, you can have one." I insist.

But I think I can offer him a trade and we'll both get what we want.

He wants this:

and he can have it if I can have this:

more cat pictures

But I guess I'll need a pantry before I can have an Evil Pantry Kitteh. And the kitteh must be truly evil, no substitutes!

What the hell is in those jars??!! Looks very, very scary!

When Animals ATTACK!!

Go ahead, click on it. Would YOU survive?

These numbers are about me surviving. My wolf odds are looking pretty good. I've known about the cat for years. In fact, I've been whooping his ass on a regular basis the past few days. He is old, 14ish this summer I do believe. He's starting to walk like an old man. And his gut is HUGE so he's got a lot to tote and he often looks "stove up" when he struts around. I found some "hey your cat has old bones" pills at Wally World last weekend so we dropped $8 (!!) for a 60 day supply. He's not really down with taking the pills but I have opposable thumbs and the will to put some pep in his step. And its working, he strolls smooth like a pimp now.

Now Mr. Tat Cat has lived outside for the most part of his life. He'll come inside and hang out for a bit, especially on hot days (he's old and fat, remember?) but he usually wants to spend his time outside and I'm cool with that. He doesn't get fleas, maybe a few but nothing like a manifestation. He's long haired and it's very thick. I think the fleas give up trying to eat him thru all his fur. I don't bathe him often because he tries to kick my ass when I brush him out. Tat doesn't quite understand that if I brush him, I'll get those loose hairs off of him and he won't spend so much time hacking up dang furballs all over my porch, walkway, yard, driveway, etc. Tat just thinks of it as an opportunity to smack me around. Some gratitude!

When we moved into the new house I tried to keep him inside, at least for the first few days so he could get comfortable with our new area. That meant Tat had to take a bath. I didn't want dirty cat butt dragged all over my carpet. I was nervous. I think the last time I'd bathed him was about 5 years ago. And he fights brushing - no water involved - so I was REALLY nervous and I made sure Husband knew how to get to the hospital from our new location. I just knew I was going to need some stitches after Tat's bath.

After I worked out all the pre-bath fretting I filled up the bathtub. I scooped Tat up and we headed for the bathroom. He gave me a "Where do you think you're taking me?" look and I tried to explain how he's pretty dirty and I don't want him bringing dirt or possibly fleas into the new house. He just closed his eyes and looked away. And I put him in the water, expecting him to jump up onto my face and claw my eyes out but that didn't happen. He just sat there, all still and quiet and let me bathe him. LET ME. Then he spent a good 6 hours pouting and hiding under my bed.

Of course, the next day when I thought "Hey, let's put him in the back yard (it's fenced in) and see how he likes the ground." BAD MISTAKE! He squeezed his large ass thru the gap between the fence and the house and ran like hell. We didn't see him for almost two weeks. Every day I'd go outside shaking the food dish and yelling for him, "Fat boy! Here kitty kitty." He finally showed back up and was he ever skinny! I'd never seen him skinny, at all, EVER. He's well back to his non-fighting weight now.

Tat likes living on The Circle. He's got no nuts so he doesn't chase or kill much anymore. He's only brought me one set of mole hands since we've moved here. He used to leave me all kinds of lizards, birds and mice at the old farm. He doesn't even chase the birds who come eat at our eleventy feeders.

Good kitteh!

In the final laps of Sunday's race...

I was not in the pool. The race was in Callie Fornie so it was a late start. Too much cold water, overcast skies and intermittent sprinkles made it hard to swim. In fact, we didn't get to swim all weekend.

But we did talk during the final laps of the race, Her and I. She did not have good news. She laid down her Shock and Awe on me. I kissed baby goodnight, hugged Husband tight and drove to Her.

I stayed for about an hour. She filled me in on what happened and we began to make a game plan. We were interrupted by a phone call and a visit and at Her request, I left. She had business to tend to.

I can't believe what just happened. Completely out of nowhere and everywhere at once. Very close to home, my fingers are tracing old childhood scars. I know I came out of it, on the other side, the good side - well maybe the OK side on a bumpy road. I shamefully repeated the cycle to my own child. I sure am worried about my girls.

It will not be easy but it will get better. I will be a good friend. I will be a good godparent. I will be a good marksman if need be.

Tiger Woods is no Dr. Phil

It's 4:25ish and the work phone rings. TV goes on mute, it's now "safe" to answer the phone. (I was watching CNN like a good little girl.)

Me: Good afternoon, NAME OF MY WORKPLACE.

Her: Are you watching TV?

Me: Yep, it's on.

Her: Are you watching Tiger Woods?

Me: Why would I be watching Tiger Woods? He's not a race car driver.

Her: They're playing today, the playoff!

Me: Ok, channel 6, right? (I know this because Dr. Phil is not on today. Stupid golf.)

Her: Yep.

Me: Some dark guy in a red tshirt is on the green. Wait, both guys are dark...AND wearing red shirts!!! (Again, if this was racing, they'd at least be wearing different numbers!!!)

Her: That's probably Rocco.

Me: No, it's Tiger. He's fake swinging his putt. He fake swings again. Ok, he hit it this time...and .... it's going to be JUST SHORT!

Her: NO WAY!

Me: Yes way! And he's ON HIS KNEES in anguish! (Could golf be any more exciting?)

Her: Has the other guy shot?

Me: Nope, he's up next. But they're showing the replay of his reaction to Tiger's play and he and his caddy both laughed when Tiger missed. Golf asses!!

Her: Bastards!!

Me: Ok, here he goes. Fake swing, fake swing, HIT! OH, he waaaaaaaaay over shot!

Her: Oh no! I wonder if they're still tied?

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This is where the light bulb finally switches ON and blinds me with ... science.
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Me: The damn TV is still on mute. (unmute TV) Yes, Tiger won.

Her: WOO HOO!

Me: Damn, I'm an idiot. If I realized the TV was on mute I could have let you LISTEN to what was going on the whole time instead of relaying a play-by-play of a NASCAR fan watching golf.

Her: Well that's been bothering me since my lunch break, thanks for checking it out for me.

Me: You're welcome, talk to you later!

Ahhh...the benefits of friendship. I am SO calling her from the swimming pool on Sunday with 4 laps to go in the race. Let's hear golf girl make the play-by-play on the race!!

Iiiiiiiii just want to fly

Yesterday evening we spent some time at the cool neighbors' house so Junior could play and we could recover from our exciting and very hot day. When I decided it was time for me to go water the plants, the cat and I headed back for home (he always follows us and will wait for us to go back home). Mr. Tat Cat immediately spots this little guy:

And for an old, fat, lazy cat, Tat is pretty quick to investigate and start licking his chops. So I run and scoop up 20 pounds of cat and get him back home so he won't eat baby Mockingbird. Can you see his downy fluff on his head? Baby is so cute!

When I go back outside I can hear mama Mockingbird screaming her head off and I also notice that someone else had tried to cross the road:

Yes, that poor small bump in the road is baby's brother. And now...guess who's running straight for the road??!! Baby!! Mother is still screaming her head off and baby's just running full-tilt. No flapping of wings, just running.

Besides the obvious danger of the road, there are about 3 carnivorous kittehs across the street. Sometimes these kittehs will stalk my bird feeders and I have to bust out the air-soft machine gun. Don't worry - they only shoot small plastic BBs and it's powered by 4 AA batteries so it's not even close to being lethal. I only use it as a "get the hell out of my yard" tool and the sound is much worse than the hit. But it is a MACHINE GUN and the boys modified the safety so you just pull the trigger and fire like crazy and watch those bird eaters (or stray dogs, or devient teenagers) scatter! And I'm getting way off topic, back to the story.

Husband and neighbors notice I'm doing some kind of crazy dance in the spare lot and come over to investigate. I put them on cat watch and go inside for something to shoo baby back away from the road. I grabbed the TV Guide thinking if we flapped the pages open and closed at him, baby will be scared and run away.

Not exactly. Husband flapped pages and this made baby just sit there. He tried again and baby gave him his best little aggressive hop, shake and "If you don't go away and leave me the hell alone I WILL KILL YOU" hiss with his open mouth. It was enough to make Husband and I both jump back and I HATE that I missed that pic! Very funny. Trust me, I do not want to come to that kind of ending. What an obituary that would be, "died tragically while trying to save a baby mocking bird."

Neighbor man decided to scoop up baby and move him back near the possible nest tree.

Which really didn't do a lot for mama Mockingbird. She raised A LOT of sand and we all kept an eye on her but not once did she try to attack us. Maybe she knew we were trying to help.

I can't wait to get home this afternoon and see if the drama repeats itself. I'm praying there will NOT be another bump in the road.

Wish You Were Here and those bugs were NOT chasing me!

I was trolling the Woot! boards over coffee this morning. They're having a "change an album cover to amuse us" contest. (http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=2301691)

I always remembered the Pink Floyed Wish You Were Here cover. (No dad, I NEVER EVER played your records but I did look and admire them often.) I always used to think, why is this guy on fire? And who wants to shake hands WITH a guy on fire? So I loved this cover, note the fireman standing off to the side. Cracked me up!

See original albumb cover here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(album)

This from the kid who used to think giant outerspace beetles were going to fall out of the sky EVERY SINGLE TIME I heard the song Frankenstein and it came to that break in the song where it goes: WOO woo woo woo woo. Wiki says the noise is a synthesizer. Yeah - a synthesizer full of giant outerspace beetles!

That's 30 some odd years my parents' music has been torturing me! I look to the sky WITHOUT FAIL when that song comes on. Clearly I do enjoy the jam but I'm certainly keeping one eye up there...because you never know! It didn't help that those Winter boys are way creepy looking too.

Tingly Summer Skin

Been a busy morning here at work. Finally went out for my first smoke break. The sun is HOT out back this time of day and I'm wearing a sleeveless shirt. When I came back into the office, the cool a/c air snuggled all up on me and it felt soooooooo good! I love that summery feeling. Almost as good as jumping into a swimming pool on a hot day.

Our cool neighbors finally opened up their pool last weekend. (We don't just hog their pool all summer, we did help get the ground ready AND we ran a waterhose from our house to help fill it up.) We took Junior for a swim and even though it's only his second season swimming, he remembered it all. That brave little boy swims like a fish I tell ya! We were all impressed and after we got home to get cleaned up he kept saying, "I not a fish, I a wimmer."

Wim on with your bad self little boy. Wim on!