Gross toes

I am from the south...and bitch as we do about the humidity, it serves a purpose. It keeps us from drying out and shriveling up. I have been in Pueblo Colorado this week. Besides being the Federal information pamphlet Mecca, it is the driest place on the planet. Every day has had triple digit temps and single digit humidity. Just look at my damn toes. I'm going to try to go in for a pedicure this weekend. I expect you will see shrieking little Cambodian women fleeing in the streets.

From there to here: Part Deux

Okay, so where were we? Let's see, when we left off at my last blog post, we had thankfully avoided adopting Not-Oscar (aka Puddin' 3).  Things were quiet for awhile and drifted from Fall into winter, when, lo and behold, this showed up on the day after Christmas:



 This dog wandered around in our neighborhood for a couple of days.  He had a collar on, but no identification.  After seeing him narrowly miss becoming nothing but a greasy spot in the road, the kiddo insisted on letting him into the backyard to avoid creating a new speed bump on our street.  We put out flyers, made sure he was well fed and watered...and...nothing.  No one called to claim him, no local Vet's office recognized him.  I didn't want this dog...and honestly, he didn't seem to really want us.  He was an older dog, and whatever language he was used to hearing, it apparently wasn't ours.  Nothing we said to him: "Food" "Stay" "Come" "Go" produced anything but a blank look.  He ate our food, drank the water we gave him, but wasn't really interested in any other interaction.  He had zero personality and zero interest in becoming anyone's friend be it human or animal.  Oh...but he did have a remarkable ability to somehow squeeze through the cat door on the back porch and somehow find any source of electricity available and shock himself into a seizure.  I'm not kidding.  We found this dog behind the counter on the porch where there was this 2 1/2 inch gap and he'd dislodge the cord for the heater and try to fry himself.  The lights inside would dim and we'd find him on the porch convulsing.  This happened at least 3 times.  We tried three different barricades before we could stop the idiot from doing that.  Naturally, we took to calling him "Sparky".  Not that he ever answered to it, or anything else we said...but it was descriptive and more polite than "Damn dog."

Sparky was with us for a couple of months when one day he slipped out of the fence...I saw him rounding a corner of the across-the-street neighbor's backyard.  I yelled for him...he never flicked an ear.  We honestly scoured a half mile radius looking for a dog that everyone in the house (other animals included) were completely ambivalent about for days but never found a trace of him.  Our hypothesis is that he finally remembered whatever non-English-speaking home he had come from and high-tailed it back.

The equilibrium of our household returned.  But only momentarily.  These next couple of entries, I'm afraid, are all on me.

The place where I work is very close to the county animal control center. Animal. Control. Not Animal shelter.  This confuses a lot of people...they assume that this facility is there to help find homes for animals.  You can adopt there...if you move fast enough.  Sometimes this place doesn't wait a full 24-hours before putting the animals it collects (or are dropped off) down.  Also?  There had recently been an investigative piece in our local paper where they uncovered all kinds of atrocities going on there.  Not kidding...I'm talking criminal indictments were made.  But folks CONTINUE to drop animals off in this horrible cage right outside the gates.  Several of us at work had taken to stopping and rescuing any animal we saw in there while driving in to work and putting out a call for someone to adopt them, or at least finding a no-kill shelter to take them.  One day, one of my co-workers stopped and got this little lady out of the Death Pen:



She appeared to have recently weaned a litter of puppies.  She was some type of Chihuahua/Dachshund mix.  She was sweet as pie and stank to the high-heavens.  My co-worker was about to leave for the weekend, but thought that on the up-coming Monday, she could probably find a place for her in a no-kill shelter if I could foster her over the weekend and run her by the vet's office that we'd been working with that would give our rescued animals a once-over and basic shots for a very discounted rate.  I took her home, bathed her a dozen times and took her to the vet.  He assessed that she was about three years old and would never weigh more than ten pounds.  I brought this "foster" dog home for the weekend.  The hubby had her in his lap the whole first evening.  The next morning, after she climbed off of our bed, she went to curl up with all three of the cats.  By that afternoon, she was Simba's best friend.  By the second night, the daughter had named her Libby. Sigh.

(For those keeping score:

Dogs: 3

Inside cats: 3

Outside cats: 1)

I once again declared: "No. More. Animals! This is it! Period!" Even though I was the one who had brought the latest one home. 

A few months later, there was Maxx. This too was all me:

Maxx, when I still thought I was "fostering" him.

Maxx today.  He's ginormous, BTW

I had never, ever intended to have FOUR cats inside.

However, sometimes we get what we need, whether we intend for it or not.  Not long after we formally adopted Maxx, we started to notice Baby (Jeff's funky old yard cat) failing.  While going through the long, long fight to get Baby to rally, I am so thankful that we had Maxx.  He was loving and playful and just what all of us needed while we faced the inevitable with Baby.

We had our 3 dogs. We had four inside cats (Maxx was getting so big, you almost had to count him as a cat and a half.)

And then what happened, Marianne?  Well...the kiddo was out selling ads for the upcoming year's football program (she's a cheerleader...also known as free labor for anything football-related).  While making her rounds, she came across this tiny, precious, helpless, wee little thing:



"Absolutely not!" I said. "Right Jeff?" as I walked into the living room to find her perched on his shoulder, purring her little kitten purrs into his ear.

"Um, yeah, of course not."

I addressed the child using her first, middle and last names, "You'll have to take her back where you found her tomorrow!" I said this while the little poot hopped down to run and play with Simba who immediately turned her into a little white and black spitball (she was clearly having the time of her life...as soon as he quit, she'd rub around on his legs until he did it again).

"I don't care how cute she is!  Five cats in the house is crazy talk!"

"Mew!" she said to me in her little kitten voice.

"But I can't take her back there!  I'll try to find her a home.  We'll just keep her until I find her a home!"

And here we are.  She's still not named...but I've been out-voted on this one.  She IS the most precious little thing you've ever seen.  Everyone loves her.  The other cats don't even get in her way at feeding time.  And usually, they act like a bunch of psychotic, furry piranhas that haven't seen food in a week at dinner time.

For the record, names that have been suggested and rejected at this point:

Aphrodite

Persephone

Rosaline

Penny

Venus

Lyndsey

Carmen

Beverly

Ariel

Zelda

Ophelia

Also for the record, the count is

Dogs: 3

Cats: 5

Sigh.

Update:

Fine.  Her name is Daisy.  Daisy Fay (as in the Great Gatsby).  Daughter wanted something literary and she DID read the The Great Gatsby recently (she's also a sucker for anything Leonardo DiCaprio in it)

From there to here...Part One

Hi.
I know. I KNOW. I swore never, ever again. And yet, here we are. With another damn cat…not even A YEAR since I took in the last one, swearing that he was ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY the last new animal to cross the threshold.
To recap:

We had a fully functioning baseline of animals to begin with…

Rosie, the three legged dog (inside/outside):

Three indoor cats:


Pluto and Kendall:

And Jaxamoe:

(Spooky picture, right?)

Outside, the hubby’s funky old yard cat, Baby:

For a few years, we had a ferret as well…but Janie went to ferret heaven after only 5 years due to thyroid issues.


We rocked on with our well established eco-system. Everyone was happy. Everyone knew their place…I was reasonable high in the pecking order, so I was content.


Then, one fateful day in May of 2009, this happened:

My daughter found him over at her friend’s house…the runt of the litter who had been abandoned by his mother. He was all gummy-eyed and sickly…but how could I not agree to take him in? He weighed 7 freaking ounces, for crying out loud! He was so small that we couldn’t really tell what he was…assumed we had a girl and named him Isabella…a couple of days later when the vet confirmed we had a male, we changed it to Izby. It took us several months to get him into perfect health…we had a couple of real scares where he got sick and we rushed him to the Animal ER. He’ll always be a small, wee kitty, he will always be bow-legged. But he fit into our family quite seamlessly…

 

We lost Jaxamoe not long after to a virus that his breed (Bengal) is particularly prone to catching, so we only had 4 inside cats for a little while…during which Izby never broke 3 lbs. By the time Izby reached his full growth of 7 whopping pounds, we were once again at three indoor cats.


We passed almost two whole years without any animal additions. Then the kiddo got old enough to date…and along came a boy that wanted to show her the depths of his affection by bringing her this:

I freaking DARE you to tell me you could have resisted him. Even though I KNEW he would not stay a little ole fur-ball forever, that he would one day be big enough to counter-surf and set off the seat-belt alarm in the car…even though I knew the reputation of Golden Retriever puppies for chewing on everything in sight…one look into those liquid, big brown eyes and I was completely owned by that dog. We welcomed Simba into our fold as an indoor/outdoor dog like Rosie. I will say…he surprised me very much with the chewing thing…he never put tooth to anything that wasn’t food or one of his allowed toys. He is, however a retriever breed. Which means he likes to retrieve things. All. The. Time.

Pictured here: six of the eleventy-dozen tennis balls Simba has. We had to put them on the mantel to keep him from trying to retrieve all six simultaneously. (He could get two into his mouth, but would lose one when he’d try to go for three. He was obsessive/compulsive about trying) Simba came to us very young, and was half-raised by cats. He’s never really embraced the concept that he can’t do everything that the cats can do…and has no real concept of how much bigger than a cat he is.


So okay…we now stand at:


Indoor/outdoor dogs: 2 (or 1 and 3/4)


Indoor cats: 3


Outdoor cats: 1


That’s reasonable. I mean, I know it’s more than most people would really want…but we weren’t in any danger of an animal planet police raid or a staged intervention or anything. I declared that we were at capacity. I even managed to hold strong through several attempts by the child to breach my defenses:

This is a cat. His name is definitely not Oscar. He was looking for a home, but it was not mine. My daughter found him starving outside of the 32degree yogurt place and because I am a great, big, huge SUCKER with absolutely NO backup from my husband, not-Oscar was brought home to stay in the kiddo’s bathroom while I frantically tried to find him a permanent home. He was INCREDIBLY sweet and very purr-y. I could feel myself caving when…only a couple of hours into the second day, my friend Annette found not-Oscar a home. A guy she worked with had a liking for yellow tabbies. His original yellow tabby, Puddin’, had been around about 8 years and apparently weighed 15 pounds…his second yellow tabby had actually just started hanging around his house and coming in through his cat door on his own…for several days, he and his wife thought Puddin had just developed the ability to open the space/time continuum and appear in two places almost simultaneously. When they realized the fact that it was just a Puddin doppelganger, they took to calling him Puddin 2. This couple had no children and spoiled their yellow tabbies rotten. Not-Oscar was crated and taken by these kindly people…off to begin his new life as Puddin 3.


I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I realized what a bullet I had dodged. I set the kid down and told her IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that we weren’t taking in any more animals…To be continued… 

A glimpse of my own mortality

Guys. I just filled out a mail-in rebate form to receive $10 off my latest purchase of vodka. My lameness has reached a new level.
I wonder when I'll be eligible for a senior citizens' discount at the liquor store

26 Minutes

26 Minutes.  For those of you out there wondering how long my house could stay clean, the answer is 26 minutes.  No sooner had I posted "Cleaned the whole house today!  Quick!  Someone come visit me!" than I walked into my kitchen, opened the pantry and spilled an ENTIRE. BOX. of cocoa powder onto my kitchen floor.  And friends and neighbors, cocoa powder is insidious.  I spent about 30 minutes chasing it all over my kitchen tile (with the various and sundry animals tracking all through it) before I got it cleaned up.

Prom is a 4-letter word

I really don't believe that proms used to be this crazy.  Back in my day, you went to the prom with whatever guy you were dating...you got a dress a couple of weeks before prom, he rented a tux.  You guys bought your prom tickets the week before prom ($25 per person or $40 per couple). Then on prom night, the guy borrowed whatever cool car someone in his family had (Jeff drove his mom's Cadillac), you went to the school gym that was kitted out in whatever tacky prom "theme" package the Student Council had purchased, you took your picture, sashayed around the room a couple of times and then you and your date went to eat at Baby Doe's in Birmingham. The end.  Here are me & the hubby our Junior year.  The theme was "Swan Lake" or some shit.

Note the crepe paper flowers...note the tails on the tux...note the silver lame' bow as big as my head.  I remember that Jeff actually had to BUY his tie and cummerbund because back then, no one would rent lame' stuff because it couldn't be dry-cleaned.  I think it cost him an extra $50.  My dress was a little over a hundred bucks and the only reason I was able to get it is that my sister promised to wear it the next year.
Folks, lemme tell you, times have changed.  Here's a re-cap of what the past oh, 6 months have been like in my household, pre-prom.

First, the kiddo is dating a guy that goes to another school (we'll call him #1)...his prom is in March, so in December, she wants to go dress hunting.  I stress REPEATEDLY that anything over $200 will have to be worn to BOTH proms.  She finds a dress that she LOVES for $300.  We buy it, but don't take it home because A: With all of the beasts currently residing in our house, it's just safer the longer it can stay in a nice, fur- and claw-free environment. and B: I'd never hear the end of it from Jeff because I bought the dress so early when we have a kid that changes her mind more frequently than her socks.
Of course, she breaks up with #1 in less than a fortnight after the check clears the bank from the dress purchase.  And now she hates the dress that she bought with him in mind.  Because the dress has never actually left the store AND because I snivelled and begged to the owner (with whom I went to high school) to please, please, please let us put that dress out on the floor and get another one, we had to go dress shopping again.
In the meantime, the kiddo decides that she's just going to agree to go to prom with a friend...a person she's known for years who is a friend, just a friend and will forevermore remain a friend, forever and ever, world without end, amen (#2).  That seems reasonable...that way no matter who each of them is "liking" or "talking to" or "texting" or whatever, we are spared the drama of worrying about prom.  We pay the HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLAR prom fee (yes. $180 American dollars. Per junior.  The whole racket made no damn sense to me whatsoever.  $180 would cover a couple...as long as the date wasn't another junior...then EACH of them had to pay $180. RE-FREAKING-DICULOUS.) Oh, AND this prom fee is due in January for a prom that's not being held until May. Does ANYONE at this high school remember that we are dealing with teenagers?  Asking them to make a nearly two hundred dollar committment 5 months in advance? Is the prom board high?  Are they smoking crack, because this is insane. Ahem.
We go back to Bow-Ties to look for another dress and what do you know?  The kiddo finds one that she LOVES and it does look fantastic on her and it is just to-die for and it makes her forget ALL about whats-his-name (#1) that she broke up with last month.  I am ashamed to even print here what I paid for this dress.  I will say this...it is the single most expensive piece of clothing I have ever bought.  And that includes my wedding dress.  However, since $300 of it is already paid, it is slightly more bearable.  Of course, the purchase of this dress promptly inspires her good friend, we're-going-to-go-to-prom-together-as-friends-and-just-friends-no-matter-what (#2) to change his mind.  I won't even get into the whys of that right now...but I'm fairly sure it was largely due to the fact that the child had started dating someone else (#3).  Who gallantly stepped up to say that HE would be thrilled to take her to the prom.  Of course, it's not that easy, because you can't just agree to go to prom. Nosireebob, you have to have a PROMPOSAL.  I shit you not.  The guy has to have some incrediably complicated, romantic, original way to ask a girl to the prom and it has to be the envy of every other girl across the breadth of every social media known to humanity...Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.  Yes.  Girls really expect all of that from some 17-year old boy who has to be reminded to sign his Mom's Mother's Day card.  Because we all know how sappy and sentimental 17-year old boys are.
We are now within 7 weeks of the prom...the kiddo is stressing out that #3 isn't ever going to "officially, officially" ask her to prom by having sky-writting planes fly overhead of the school or whatever when it happens.  THEY break up.  At this point, even the kiddo is sick to death of the constant upheaval that is prom planning. 
Not only are we having all of these stupid boy issues, but there's the whole prom bus issue.  I guess now a-days, instead of borrowing your older brother's awesome convertible, everyone gets together and rents a prom bus.  These things transport about 20-40 kids to and from their prom and whever they're going to dinner.  Since everyone usually goes to either Birmingham or Atlana (60 and 90 miles away respectively) it's probably a good idea so that the kids aren't driving themselves and wrapping older bro's car around a guardrail.  However, prom buses are a political quagmire unto themselves.  We went through so many itterations of "I'm on a prom bus!" and "They overbooked that prom bus!  Now I'm going to die!" and "Nevermind, I found a group that's taking a limo!" and back to "Oh, wait, someone dropped out of the prom group, I'm back on the bus!" that I lost count.  She decides to ask another friend (#4), one who graduated last year, if he wants to go with her.  Again...just as friends.
In the meantime, she starts dating another guy...who is just as happy as a clam that HE doesn't have to go to prom.  He (like many, many others of the male species) would rather eat a bug than get dressed up in some fancy-dancy monkey suit and be forced to DANCE and to HAVE PICTURES TAKEN and all of the other stuff that the girls love and that the boys hate.  Everyone seems to be on the same page.

Quick re-cap for those who are still counting:
Number of prom-dates so far: 4
Number of dresses so far: 2
Prom bus plans: too many to count

Okay...we get to within a WEEK of actual prom...the #4 has ordered his tux and...he suddenly loses his damn mind, decides that he wants out of the friend zone RIGHT NOW even though it has been made explicitly clear that they are only friends and besides which, she's been dating her new beau for a whole entire month and is pretty nuts about this guy. Sigh.  The kid and #4 agree that it would be just too uncomfortable to go to prom together NOW.  My child declares that she's just going to go to prom by herself because hey, at least she's on a prom bus.  But with 5 days left on the prom count-down clock, her current BF, being the sweetie-pie that he is, asks if he can take her to prom.  Whew!  Thank God!

Crap.  I forgot about the alterations drama as well.  We take the dress that cost the unmentionable amount of money to be altered.  The kiddo needed it shortened (she's a really short lil ole punkin) and taken in at the waist.  Poor chile has the genetic combination of my boobs and her daddy's no butt. That puts her jean size at a 0 but her bra cup at a D.  Yeah, I know, such tragedies.  We had bought the dress to fit up top, which meant it was really loose through her waist and hips.  We take it to a lady that comes highly recommended...come back a week later...and it does not even COME CLOSE to zipping up at the top.  I don't know what happened there, but the alterations chick told us not to worry...even though it was a fully beaded dress.  We both looked like we wanted to cry when we left...fortunately, the second fitting was perfect.
Thank God.

Finally, we have arrived at the evening before prom.  Her dad & I had given her a gift certificate for a mani-pedi to a local spa.  She had decided to use it for her prom nails.  She made her appointment for the evening before because she didn't want to be rushed getting her hair and makeup done.  She spent THREE HOURS getting her nails done and they looked like this:

(BTW, note how they BUTCHERED her thumb. I??? Was not a happy momma). Thankfully the kiddo's date's mother is a freaking MIRACLE WORKER was able to repair them:

The next morning FLEW by with hair and makeup and etc., etc. and finally, FINALLY they went to prom:

Her date was a handsome, well mannered, polite sweetie-pie.  They enjoyed their dinner.  The wheels did not run off of the prom bus.  There were no catastophes worth mention for the rest of the entire evening.  And I was so very, very thankful.
Next year I am seriously considering offering her a weekend trip to the beach in leiu of prom.  It would be cheaper and would HAVE to be less complicated!



Something blue

Okay...help me out here. I have been seeing this every day on my way to and from work.
A while back, someone spray painted three blue balled penises (peni?) on this building. They were there for several weeks. Then, apparently, someone else (the owner?) decided that they needed to do something about the obscene graffiti and set out to un-vulgarize it. So they got some badly-matching paint and spray painted over the penis heads. JUST the heads.
I have driven past this building dozens of times. Each time I do, I wonder anew at what exactly they were thinking. Not whoever originally defaced the building...but whoever thought they were making it better by trying to erase just the heads.
Thoughts, anyone?