What's worse than a Sharknado?

My daughter is visiting from Tuscaloosa this week.  Her classes are finished and her summer job hasn't started yet. She came (with her cat and dog) to see me for Mother's Day and decided to spend a few days with us.

(Granddog: Sophi, Grandkitten: Nala. Not pictured: Nala's Megacolon)

Yesterday morning I gave my grand kitten her medicine that she has to take for her Megacolon.  Megacolon is a real-live honest digestive problem and not a SyFy made-for-TV movie starring Brooke Hogan and Eric Roberts (MEGACOLON VS. SHARKTOPUS!)   It takes many, many American dollars to diagnose and then further treat Megacolon.  Nala (my grand cat) has had megacolon for about a year. If Nala doesn't get her medicine, she ends up constipated and has to be given an enema. Or three. This does not make ANYONE happy. 
Have you ever had to give a cat a bath?? Now imagine giving one an enema.

So anyway, it's in everyone's best interest to keep the mail moving (if you get my drift) and give her the regularly scheduled dosage of cisapride, her "motility" medicine. It's a liquid that she takes surprisingly well (much easier than an enema for sure).  It does, however, produce toxic poop that should probably be reported to the Department of Homeland security so that it never, ever falls into the hands of America's enemies.  Still better than giving a cat an enema.

Unfortunately, after giving her the medicine, I didn't get the cap back on good and one of my heathens knocked it over, spilling all of it.  All $65 of it, to be exact.  And there I was, knowing that I was dealing with an extremely time-sensitive situation with potentially dire, dire consequences.
We got in touch with the vet that I use here in town, and while they did not have any cisapride on hand, they put me in touch with a compounding pharmacy that not only whipped up a batch of colon-cleansing miracle drug, they asked if Nala preferred bacon, beef or chicken flavoring.
So...thank you, thank you, thank you to Cheaha Animal Hospital and to Cheaha Compounding Pharmacy for helping to prevent a (literal) shit-storm.

Quirky, but cute

Every animal in my house is quirky. (Am not discounting the two legged ones either.)

Today's blog post will be discussing the latest developments of "quirk" in my cat Maxx:

Maxx, as you can tell, is a laid-back dude.

Despite his overall zen personality, he has always had a penchant for bags and wrapping paper.  He has always loved lurking among them and jumping out at passers-by.

Or, if lurking gets too tiresome, making himself a nest and sleeping on purchases.  (Because there aren't beds, couches, chairs or soft cat beds available to sleep on.)

We've had Maxx for almost 4 years now.  He's always been fairly chill with every other living thing in the house. Honestly, he's always been very loving. To me. To Jeff. To the other cats. To the dogs. But for some reason, over the past few months, he has developed an abiding and visceral hatred of our oldest cat, Kendall (she's about 16).  I have no idea why.  Kendall really doesn't do a whole bunch since she's so old.  She just sleeps a lot.  But if she DOES get up, Maxx chases her and kicks her ass.

I've seen him lie in wait for her to go to the litter box.  It's gotten to the point where I have to escort her twice daily to the facilities and stand guard while she does her business.

I don't know what-all transpires while we're at work, but she's taken to somehow opening the cabinet where we keep the plastic bags, crawling in there and sleeping where he can't get to her.



(She doesn't always make the most elegant withdrawls).

Jeff's theory over why Maxx has taken to beating up poor Kendall is because over the summer, our grand-kitten, Nala was at our house a good bit of the time while Mileena was not actively taking classes at college.  Nala pretty much ruled the roost while she was there, chewing gum and kicking butt...and she was all outta gum.  She took Maxx down several times (even though he outweighs her by 6-8 pounds).  Jeff thinks that well, as he puts it "shit rolls downhill" and so that's why he started terrorizing Kendall.

In addition to Kendall, Maxx has taken his frustrations out on the clothes hamper.  I don't make the connection, but CLEARLY, something about this wicker hamper demands swift, brutal, and immediate punishment. (Excuse the photo quality. As soon as I started trying to get a picture of my hamper, every beast in the house tried to get in the shot):

Simba, the golden retriever is doing a butt photo-bomb.

Libby, the chaweenie, photo bombing from the bed.

Not only has the hamper had its structural integrity so compromised that is about to implode from its own weight, but hamper giblets have been strewn liberally about the entire house.

This have to be picked up by hand so they don't destroy the $600 Dyson. (And what, I ask you, is the point of having a nice vacuum cleaner that I saved up for YEARS to buy if I am having to manually pick crap out of the carpet???)

I am now in the market for a Maxx-proof hamper.

And suggestion as to how to make him be nice to his sister.

Kinky (no, not like that.)

So. I had the vertical gastric sleeve thingy a year ago. Lost over 80#, which is great. Lost A LOT of my hair, which was not. My hair has been coming back in for the past couple of months. And the new hair is curly. Which is...strange. 

My entire life I have had STRAIGHT hair. Like, super-duper, advanced straight.

Back in the 80's I tried a "spiral perm" that held for about 6 days before my hair fell absolutely straight again. The amount of teasing and aqua net I had to put into play back then to have nominally "big" hair was astounding.

And now I have patches of 1-2 inch long kinky-curly hair interspersed with my regular old hair that didn't fall out.

I went to see my friend and hair-wizard, Jennifer yesterday to see what we could do about this mess.

She gave me a trim (I was all for cutting it all off and letting it all grow back together, but Mileena is getting married in 10 months and it doesn't have time to get back to a decent length by then).

She also gave me some advice. "You have curly hair now. Embrace it."

So today I tried "scrunching".

And I need to know, is this a look I can pull off?

Outside the Box

I don't how to go about marketing this...but it is apparent to me that I have something potentially lucrative on my hands.


I'm not even sure where it came from (besides the vehicle for delivering something via "Priority Mail") but apparently, I have in my possession, the grandest box in all of Christendom.


Behold my panel of experts:

Daisy Faye in the box

Izby in the box

Kendall (with her jacked-up ear following her ba-jillion dollar auricular hematoma surgery) in the box.


And finally:

Maxx, who gives the best representation of the awesomeness of this box.
Maxx is an eighteen pound Maine Coone who has successfully (and a little spitefully) stuffed all of his bigness into the awesome, fantastical, magical box.


Ownership of the box is an ever changing and very contentious topic in our household.  But all involved are agreed.  The box is a thing of wonder and delight.


Surely it is worth some money. Right?

El Chapo

Over four years ago, I had another of my many failed "fosters." Some jerk had dropped off a young Chihuahua/dachshund mix (a chiweenie, if you will) in the after-hours cage outside of the county animal control facility. 

You see, our county animal control facility (which is NOT a shelter, people!) used to allow people to drop off unwanted animals just whenever they wanted...they wouldn't even have to look another human in the eye when they did it, either.

The control facility was right outside the gate into the plant where I worked.  Usually, if there was an animal in the cage (which we referred to as the "kill cage" since the animals dropped off there were usually only kept 24-48 hours before they were put down...again, animal control facilities are not shelters, folks) I, or one of my co-workers would stop and get the animal out and then try to find a home or at least a no-kill shelter to take it to.

On day, my co-worker, Jan, had stopped and liberated this little lady:

Jan found a no-kill shelter about an hour away that could take her in about a week, if someone could foster her for that long.

Yeah...we all know where this leads.  By the time I took her home, took her to the vet for shots and spaying, she had made friends with all of the cats (believe it or not) and had wiggled her little chiweenie self into our hearts.

And for the past four years we have all lived in harmony. Libby has been an inside during the evenings when we're home, outside during the day while we're at work dog.  We have a lovely fenced back yard with access onto a glassed-in porch that has a padded bench, a dog bed, a heater during the winter and a ceiling fan during the summer.  Not bad accommodations, if you ask me.

Then, the other day...right out of the blue, I drove up to my house and saw this:

She looks quite pleased with herself, doesn't she?

Jeff and I looked around the back yard and discovered that one of the gates had a gap in it big enough for her to squeeze out of, so we put a rock in the gap.

 

The next day, we get home and our neighbor comes over with Libby under his arm.  He said she kept getting out and coming over to his house while he was working in the yard, so he just kept her with him until we got home.

 

Jeff added some cinder blocks, a 2 x 4 and some rail road spikes to our would-be chiweenie barricade.

 

It looks quite elegant, no?

 

A few days pass, and then the little turd goes on walk-about again.  I took her inside and talked to her about this new wander-lust that has suddenly struck her after over four years of contentment in the back yard.

 

 

Back outside, I saw no disturbance of Jeff's handiwork.

 

I did a quick perimeter search and found where she'd gone under a section of the fence that had a shallow depression under it.

 

Jeff drives in another railroad spike to hold the fence in place closer to the ground:

 

And this greeted me upon my return from work the following day:

 

Annnnd Jeff tries more spikes.

 

My guess is that she can dig faster than he can set spikes.

 

And I am coming to my wits' end worrying about my sweet little rescue dog that hasn't got the sense to know that the back yard is where she needs to be.  Nothing's going to run over her or tote her off.  She has food and water and toys and a great big Golden Retriever brudder to play with in the back yard.

 

Any suggestions out there for keeping my Alabama El Chapo from continuing to tunnel out?

Tinder is the night

I've been married to the same man for over 25 years.  So I was out of the dating scene WAAAYYYY before the era of online dating and Tinder and stuff.  And thank God for that.

I do have some single friends that have perused the interwebs in search of true love.  They occasionally share some of their better finds with the rest of us.  Below are some of the more bizarre submissions.  My apologies if any of these are relations of yall's.

First up, Cedric.

Cedric, dude slow down.  Breathe.  And punctuate.  Because I am unsure of the context of the phrase "to touch" without some sort of grammatical guidance here.

Kevin, Dating tip: try not to use the word "horrors" when you're trying to attract the ladies.

Greg, most women do not appreciate a man who's cleavaging more than they are.  I'm not saying that it isn't great that you're in good shape...just maybe you don't wear a pink-striped blouse with a plunging neckline.

Doesn't this guy look like a great big barrel of happy?  Nothing says "Good times" like a beer and a cigarette...in his..... um, unfinished basement??? Where he's taken his other victims? I mean, dates?

Maybe this is an attempt to show that he's not afraid of commitment?

Yes, just ignore the shake n' bake meth lab I've got going.

Does your mother know that you've been talking to girls?

Cute dog.  Not sure why we feel the need to take selfies in the walk in closet, however.

I'm just going to let my (unnamed) friend's comment stand on its own for this one.

Then there's Scottie. Scottie....Scottie scares the shit out of me.  I think he may have multiple personalities, and thus he felt that he should have photo representation of each.

Scottie#1 "It rubs the lotion on it's skin"

Scottie#2 "It's not the size of your gun, but the number of your bullets."

Scottie#3. This.

He has taken a picture of his cat peeking up though his drawers while he sits on the toilet.

Now, I know that there are few among us that have indoor cats that have not experienced a feline's tenacity when it comes to wanting attention whilst one is on the can.

But Scottie...Scottie decided to take a picture and then USE IT ON HIS TINDER ACCOUNT.

Finally, this guy.

I don't even have words.

I'd advise you not to read his min-bio there if you're the least bit squeamish.

If the leggings fit...

These are the leggings I wore to work on Tuesday.

I like them.  They are warm and comfy...the waistband doesn't rub my barely-healed incision where I had my laparoscopic hernia surgery last month.  And with a tunic-length sweater and boots I don't look too bum-ish.

Most days I don't have to interact with a lot of people at my job.  But when I do, it's usually lots of people from far-flung places.

Tuesday was the second day of a visit we were having with a bunch of foreign nationals.  All from different nations...Serbia, India, Russia, England, Czechoslovakia, Malta...etc.  And I was playing the part of Girl Friday...fetching and running and escorting (not like that) and copying and faxing, etc.  Did not use a lot of my Mechanical Engineering skills for this visit, but still, it was a necessary function and I was happy to assist.

All of the people in the group were very pleasant to work with, even if there was an occasional language barrier.  English was not the mother tongue of any (except the Englishman) but was the only common language to all.

So when the guy from Serbia was trying to find me...what he wanted to say was..."what is the name of the lady in the colorful leggings."

What the final translation was?

I have officially been called, "Ms. Crazy Pants" at work.

Awesome.