Mr. Rogers didn't live in my 'hood

This post was inspired in part by the amazing and fantabulous Princess Andy. It's entirely possible her posts aren't for the prudish or faint of heart but they sure as hell are for me.

Anyways, she posted a couple of days ago about a nightmare involving stuff gushing from her bathroom ceiling. This reminded me of a story involving the bathroom in our first apartment after Joe and I were married. Which then reminded me of another story involving that same apartment. I allowed Andy to pick which of the two she'd prefer me to share first and so of course you shall first be blessed with the story involving my nakedness. Just a warning that this post may have a "squeamish" quotient that has nothing to do with aforementioned exposure of my body.

Here goes...

It was May of 1999. Joe and I had lived in this craptastic awful little apartment since our wedding in August of the year before. After almost a year of obnoxious neighbors, fire alarms, attacks by killer bees, kids peering in our bedroom windows, seepage from the ceiling and almost being electrocuted by our stove, we were thrilled to be moving soon to a newer, nicer apartment.

A week or so before the move, our "home" an obstacle course of boxes, Joe was at the sink shaving when I stepped into the shower. I turned on the water and reached up to adjust the shower head. This is because Joe is much taller than I am and just like he never puts the toilet seat down, he also never readjusts the shower head. Anyways, I reached up and the shower head felt... fuzzy. Wait, what? Fuzzy?

As I pulled my hand away from the offending fixture, I realized there was a millimonster on my hand. I don't know what other people call them but I call them millimonsters. They are furry and have eleventy bajillion legs and they run like Olympic sprinters.

I did what anyone would do in my situation. I screamed like the girl I am, flicked that beasty off my hand, stepped in the toilet on my way out of the shower, grabbing my towel mid-stride and demanded that Joe take care of the situation IMMEDIATELY. He gallantly killed the savage predator and then scooped it onto a fly swatter to dispose of it outside. I, of course, followed him, still ranting and raving like a lunatic someone whose very life had been threatened by a ferocious foe.

"OMG I hate it here. I am so glad we are moving out of this HOLE of an apartment!!! This place SUCKS!!!" I screamed at him as he tossed my assailant into the yard across the parking lot.

It was at this point that I happened to realize I was outside, in my towel. Also outside? A small U-Haul, a young girl, and what appeared to be her mother. The girl sort of waved. "Hi, I'm moving into 3a".

What other response was there? "I'm sure you'll love it here."

P.S. My most heartfelt apologies to Andy for making her think she had missed something serious and throwing her into a tizzy. And I totally mean that because I have been in exactly that situation before and it is not fun.

MeowCHOO!

A bird was outside my window screaming today and I totally thought it was a kitten. Because that's what I need in my life, another cat. But no, it was just a bird. An annoying, obnoxious bird. That needed to die fly south for winter immediately.

And speaking of cats, yes, Tonya (she of the "all the cat hair you can eat") is sick. She was quite sick last fall as well, back when none of you were reading my blog. And since I had just started out, I didn't give a final update on that situation because I was afraid this was going to become the crazy cat lady blog. Anyways, last fall, she started sneezing then she became congested and couldn't breathe out of her little speckled nose. When cats can't smell their food, they quit eating it. And when cats quit eating, they kinda forget to start again, becoming anorexic and causing possibly severe and permanent damage to their kitty kidneys. Or is it the liver? Maybe that's if she drinks too much. Whatever it was, it cost us about a zillion dollars but after a week of not eating, the vet gave her a shot of valium and we spent the next few days hand-feeding her baby food until she returned to her usual crazy self.

So this time, she started sneezing towards the end of last week but we kept an eye on her. The appetite is amazing. But by Tuesday of this week, I could hear a bit of congestion and her eyes were watering. Since the vet is terrified of Tonya is familiar with Tonya's history, they gave me meds for her without bringing her in for an appointment. Three pills a day for seven days, 21 pills in all. It's like we're being punished. As I write this, five pills have successfully been crammed down the kitty throat. And only one bandaid applied to the human.

And to answer the questions posed in yesterday's post by TMC:

• Tonya only gets a runny nose, not boogers though some cats do
• her meds are pills, not liquid
• Rusty's pissed that she's receiving extra attention and what he thinks are treats but are really antihistamines and antibiotics

Also, they don't have an online presence (anymore, except for the catcams). And it's entirely possible that Tonya is a drug dealer. Hey, it's a tough economy and her crunchies aren't cheap!

Ok, enough of being the crazy cat lady blog. Tomorrow I'll be posting about the bathroom in our first apartment, assuming Princess Andy quits being all princess-y and tells me which post she prefers. Otherwise, you may just get another post full of cat hair.

Guest Post: Travels with Return to Rural

Today's brilliant post is brought to you by TMC @ Return to Rural who so gallantly answered my plea for help last night. See, I have a sick Tonya-cat. I'll probably update on that tomorrow. But in the meantime, trust me that this is way better than any of the brain vomit I was coming up with for today's post. And please, go visit her blog. You won't be sorry because her posts are full of awesome and booyah. Including this one.

Greetings! I've stepped in to save the day help out with today's post while Cate's off wiping cat snot or collecting stool samples or whatever it is cat people do that non-cat people wouldn't. Feel better, Tonya!

Cate asked me where I would go if I could simply pack my bags and head off, money being no object.

Interesting.

Since I'm an over-thinker by nature, I'll set aside all the theoretical questions related to my theoretical free vacation and just assume that she'd arrange for things to be taken care of at work and home in my absence. I'll also assume that money's no object because I'm travelling on HER tab, which would make the trip all the more pleasant; I'd be eating well while she'd have to resort to finding ways to spruce up store-brand spaghetti sauce for every meal for the duration.

Where would I go? Well, one might guess that I'd go to Tibet where I have a house and family. Or over to the west coast where the weather is always good and where the other half of my family lives. I could pick a handful of other places I've never been but want to go. But if I had to pack and leave RIGHT NOW, because of where my head is and because I have a hankering (yeah, I said it) for motion and quiet, I'd go to Canada. More specifically, I'd take the 26 day VIA Rail Odyssey of Opulence by Cruise & Rail. It goes from one end of Canada to the other, through some of the most pristine land in North America. I've never been on a cruise, but I have been on countless train trips and I love train travel. With Cate & Joe's life savings in my grubby hands I could travel comfortably in my own cabin, venturing out only occasionally to people-watch other travellers in the dining car, to see the staff expertly sway with the movement of the cars, never spilling a drop of water or losing a basket of bread.

Oh dear. I hope there's wi-fi available!

I find that I write well on trains. Something about the perpetual movement syncs up with my creativity and I miraculously get things done. Thoughts become clear when all you have to do is feel yourself travel through time while staring out the window at an expanse of land in which one could get lost and never be found if desired. Ideas bloom from seeds to flowers to full-on bouquets with direction and purpose and a aesthetic that makes sense (unlike this sentence. Clearly I'm NOT on a train now.) I once took the train from Los Angeles to Seattle, in coach, and wrote a BIC crystal bone dry. I filled a 500 page notebook with sheer brilliance that has since been lost as I've grown up and moved from one place to another. I'm confident that it was brilliant, though. I remembered having such a sense of accomplishment and sharing exerpts of my "work" with friends. Anyway, on a train I could maybe get some of the story ideas out of my head. On a train I could sleep all day and stay up all night, writing and internetting and somehow finding ways to get from just dreaming to actually doing so many of the things that I know I could do if I had the time and space to think them through.

By now I'm sure your mind has wandered and you're thinking "How's Tonya? Do cats get boogers? Did she get pills or liquid medicine? Does Rusty care that she's sick?"

I don't know. I've never met Tonya or Rusty so you might just have to see if they've got a FaceSpace page where they're posting hourly snot-watch updates. Perhaps Tonya's not really sick and is instead building a cache of prescriptions she sells to neighbourhood cats during the day while Cate & Joe are at work. I'm told cats are very crafty like that. I wouldn't know. I'm a rabbit person.

Thanks for coming along on this imaginary rail trip with me. If I ever do get to go on my Canadian journey, you can bet you'd all get postcards and maybe a blog post or two (or 50) along the way.

But hey, maybe rail travel isn't your thing so tell us... where would you go with just a packed bag on Cate's dime?

*Photo is from the VIA Rail site.

Respect the butter

During family vacation (Ha! You thought I was done babbling about that!), I discovered several key areas in which I'm much different from my family. One of which can be summed up by the state of my butter when I returned home.

As part of our effort to bring a lot of basics since we had more room in our vehicles, I brought along a lot of condiments. And a big tub of butter. Hear me out, folks. I'm going somewhere with this!

When we arrived back home after the trip, I pulled the butter out of the cooler and found a disaster. The butter was full of jagged edges. And CRUMBS!!! In fact, it was quite obvious that someone had wiped their knife on the inside edge of the tub!!! Can you imagine?

Now, I treat my butter like a lady. Smooth edges, even layers. No big gashes out of the center, no ridges from knives. And certainly no crumbs. My family ravaged my butter, leaving it in a very sorry state.

But as I said earlier - this lack of respect applies well beyond the butter. There's no respect for much of anything. Staying in a rented house (a house rented in Joe's name, for the record, making him liable for any damages), they routinely used the hot tub and pool without rinsing the sand off from the beach. In fact, this is how they chose to rinse the sand off. Never mind the conveniently-located outside shower!

There was also no respect when it came to keeping things picked up inside the house. Partially-eaten bags of chips, half cans of soda, wet towels, and other belongings were left everywhere. This made me a bit nuts - with that many people living in such limited space, I craved a bit of order. And none was to be found.

When I returned to the sanctity of my own home, I also craved butter. But first I had to heal it from the atrocities afflicted upon it by my family. I'm sorry, butter. It won't happen again. I promise.

P.S. - Maybe you think I'm a little over the top about my dairy products. But it's not just the butter. It's what it represents. It's much bigger than the butter.

P.P.S. - Respect my butter, respect me. Don't respect my butter, don't expect holiday gifties. Or fresh muffins.

Zombies

This weekend, I officially became a zombie.

Jealous?

I know you all want to be cool like me so here's my secret: Sleep a total of 3-4 hours each night, ranging from 30 to 90 minute intervals. Try to be productive. In public even. Lather, rinse, repeat until maximum zombie-ness has been reached.

You'll know you've reached the optimum zombie-level when the cashier at the shoe store looks like he might call security because you're standing in line totally talking to yourself. And when he asks if everything is alright, you laugh so maniacally that even your husband is alarmed and refuses to leave you unsupervised in public for the rest of the day.

For bonus points, fall asleep while standing up in PetSmart holding a 40lb bag of Tonya's gourmet crunchies. (That one is totally Joe's fault for taking too long to compare prices and brands of kitty litter. But I still allow him to buy me things love him.)

The good news is that I've seen improvement in my sleep the last two nights. Bit by bit, I may return to the land of the living. Though zombies are pretty cool too...