Things My Cats Will Chew On

I love this song.


Edison:
-bathtub chains
-pennies
-electrical wires
-necklaces
-magnets
-fingers
-metal cutlery
-nails
-bells
-space heaters
-sink faucets
-bobby pins
-cans
-bottlecaps
(will eat ice cream but no other human food.)

Nina:
-ballpoint pens
-Bic lighters
-Styrofoam packing
-plastic cutlery (of which there has been a lot of in my house recently)
-straws
-USB cords
-plastic bags
-Nuva birth control rings
-plastic shower curtain rings
-Qtips
-the tops of takeout coffee cups
-plastic spatulas
-toothbrushes
-broken glass






PS If you're still stuck for a Halloween costume, I think you should take Christine O'Donnell's advice

"She pointed to a cardboard box in the kitchen—the kind that 12-packs of Coca-Cola come in—and told him to cut a hole in the middle and put it on top of his head. We weren't sure what she was suggesting.
"You can go as a cokehead!" she said, bursting into laughter."

The Evil Sheep Man Took My Baby, and Buried It in the Permafrost

So, some cat news. Yippee.

1)We have finally consolidated litter boxes in my house. I was worried, because I had heard two cats should always have two boxes, and these particular two cats try to assassinate each other nightly. But then I observed both cats, on two separate occasions, DIVIDING UP THEIR WASTE between the boxes. Like, peeing in one, then going in the other to poop. And then going back to the first one, just to maybe pee some more, probably just seeing if there was anything to shake out. So I decided that instead of murdering my cats, which was the first impulse, I would just take one box away and they will learn to deal. Which they have, handily. They are lucky I am counting on them to dispose of my body when I die, because otherwise they are USELESS.

2) the picture below is what Nina has done to my shower curtain. And by curtain, I mean, the curtain for the window in the shower. Why are there always windows in showers in old houses? There is a whole wall without a window in my bathroom, why couldn't they have put the shower there? Now everytime I take a shower at night, I feel like my next door neighbors can see everything, even though I would only be a blurry blob thanks to the frosted glass. However that's MY blurry blob, and I don't think the lady next door needs to see it. Or wants to. Also, she now knows how often I shower and how much I hate the Earth. It's bad enough that I keep my garbage on my upstairs back porch, so the possum can't get to it. Now she thinks I'm a possum starver and a water waster. Nina's favorite game is to hide out in the shower and jump through the shower curtain to attack you when you sit down on the toilet. Or to try and climb up the shower curtain, a feat she has yet to succeed at, but I imagine her final purpose is aerial attack. Good for her. Points for determination. She is also very fond of trying to get in every kitchen cabinet I own, but exceedingly bad at it, so that really it's just her banging the damn cabinet door for an hour while I throw stuff at her from my computer.

I was terribly sick yesterday. Migraine, cold, nonstop phlegm, ect. It's because my "time" is coming up, and instead of getting cramps, I get terrible sensitivity to smells and mega-allergies and pizza face. Not to be crass, but lets just point out that being really sensitive to smells and bleeding from your nether regions do not really go together well. Hence my vendetta against our species fresh water supply. Luckily, by chance, I had an ample supply of alcohol. Does alcohol deaden allergies? Cause I feel like it does. Someone find out for me. Then keep it from me.

Buddy turned me on to these vegetable steamer packets at the grocery store, and now I'm in the habit of just eating a whole one for lunch every day. For instance, below is my lunch from yesterday. And listen, even though eating a bunch of broccoli and only broccoli, sounds super awesome healthy for you, it's not. As you can see, it's coated with processed cheese sauce. It's like Kraft box Mac and Cheese, only camouflaged. And the corn I'm going to eat today might as well be covered in movie theater butter. But it feels like I'm doing something good. That's what really counts, right?

Everything is pretty good though. It's all settled into a winter routine. Movies, and tv, and food, and bills, and stresslessness. I still itch for exploring, but no one will go with me because it's so cold (and they are all wussies), so I'm saving it all up for the first hint of Spring. It's snowing intermittently, the Boy is coming over tonight to watch a movie, and the groundhog apparently saw his shadow, so whatever, it will be Winter forever. It can't touch me. I have control over my inside crazies, I am storing them up in safe secure emotional bunkers to use as reserves when the grass starts to grow. God, I even vaccuum on a semi-regular basis now.

Now if only we could teach Carly to control her crazies, and use them for good, instead of this. Do not skip this. Watch it. All of you people who tell me you just don't pay attention to politics, because what's the use? THIS IS THE USE.

I fucking love people. You are all batshit insane.

P.S. I totally call that Halloween costume for next year.

Nina

Your Fuzzy Wuzzy Quotient for the Day

Disclaimer: Even though, yes, I am posting pictures of a cat here, and yes, he's adorable, and yes, that is why I'm posting these pictures of him, I am not a crazy cat girl. This isn't even my cat, swear. I'm cat-sitting for The Ex. In fact, I think I'm even less of a crazy cat girl because I haven't even shown you a picture of Nina, who is at this very moment tearing apart my legs because I won't play with her, because I'm busy writing about someone else's cat. So there.

This past Saturday was that great Cleveland holiday known as Sweetest Day. A day entirely absolutely created by the candy industry, in a marketing move to dupe those dumb Lake People into having another reason to buy chocolate covered strawberries. And it has worked so completely, that if I'm alone Valentine's day, I'm okay. But on Sweetest Day, with every boyfriend, even if we're broken up I expect an honorable mention. And I have yet to be disappointed in this thing I had no right to expect in the first place. In this way, with many others, I am a true example of the Midwest Girl.

There are some things you learn about flowers by the time you're thirty. One, you should always get flowers. Even if they are daffodils picked from someones front yard, flowers are one of the best things a guy does for you. He may buy you other things, or make you mix cds, or do your household chores. He may in fact be one of the sweetest guys in the whole world. But if he has never brought you a bouquet, there is something missing in his soul, a light that either hasn't flickered on yet, or has already flickered out.

Second, flowers mean lots of things, and they are maybe not always welcome things. But you always say thank you. Flowers are not something you should over think. If you are not gracious about it, you can be the one that turned off flowers for another future girl. Flowers are emotional, in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense. They link together all sorts of weird things; dignity and beauty and fragility and fucking. When you are in a room with a guy, and there is a vase sitting there between you, there are very few situations where you are justified in throwing them in his face - physically or figuratively. And you accepting them gracefully does not denote surrender or forgiveness. You don't have to take him back. But there should be acknowledgment. This is why flowers are known as the standard universal "please forgive me" or "thank you" or "I love you". Other gifts don't produce the same aura of vulnerability that they do. They make you soft. It's good to be reminded you can be soft.

And then there's chocolate - which is so obvious that a fifteen year old virgin wouldn't misconstrue that message. But look how pretty they are! (note: chocolates are like diamonds). I love Lilly's.

That pistachio one, by the way, was really fucking good. And so was the cranberry one in the pink plaid.

I know, alright, we'll stop talking about flowers and chocolates. My point is though, that you should never ever date anyone who doesn't give you both. Not every week. But sometimes when they don't have to, and it doesn't gain them anything.

Sunday was a lazy fall day. I drank some vodka from the night before. I watched bad cable. Lead Paint Cookbook took me and Really Bad Cleveland Accent to brunch. Which I invited my friend Alli to before I knew LPC had a gift card, and for which I have to take her out to dinner some point soon. Just let me know what day dear, or let me buy you lots of absinthe? Which, by the way, if you read this, that's 10/30, not this Friday.

So it was a very pleasant brunch, because those three girls are the girls you wish you had known right out of college, before you fell in with that Wiccan guy. They would have never allowed that to properly happen. I actually did know Alli then, but she lived far away before the Wiccan guy showed up. So it's not her fault.

So it's cold, blustery, rainy, sometimes sunny. I need some sneakers with better tread and no holes in them. I need an actual coat. I need a wine cellar, a fireplace, and some sedatives for my cats. I need blankets and a mattress all to myself, and more time to sleep that doesn't interrupt my fast-paced tv watching lifestyle. I tried to find a building to go to this morning, Charity was waiting for me, but I had no luck. Everything I looked up was bought by Chinese firms or torn down two years ago. The season is ending for improv, now I have to settle down for winter planning. I think it's very funny Pandora just put Tegan and Sara next to Johnny Cash. Start going to Pat Catans more. Start cooking again and driving my friends crazy by taking pictures of food. It's time to nail the shutters closed. I'm proud of myself because at this point last year I was thinking how fast everything seemed to be going by. Now I feel like this year took it's good old time, and I think that's a good sign.

If I had, as I often wished, been born an actual bear, required to hibernate for months, I think I've would have figured out a way to stay awake. Maybe eating college students?