There were no Lost Kitty signs anywhere in the neighborhood, so I put up several Found Kitty notices, and when the SPCA opens this afternoon I'll call to see if I can bring her over so they can scan for a microchip. I know this cat belongs to someone; she's far too well cared for, and is too affectionate to be a stray. We think she's been loose for a couple of days and hadn't eaten based on how much she inhaled when we fed her--but she's obviously a normally well fed little girl.

I feel bad she's stuck in the garage, but we figured that was better than being outside all night where it was in the 30s. If we had a logical place inside to house a kitty away from Max and Buddah, we'd put her there, but this house lacks a good kitty hideout.

She's a good example of why even indoor kitties need collars and tags. This would be so much easier if we knew who she belonged to...

How to disappoint your former neighbors:

Call them to ask if they ever found their lost kitty.
When they say no, tell them you have a little girl kitty in your garage, and it *might* match the description of theirs.
Have them come over, only to find out it's not theirs.

So now we have disappointed former neighbors, and someone's little kitty in our garage. She's a very pretty and very friendly kitty, too...I'll scour the neighborhood in the morning for lost kitty signs, but if I don't find any, I suppose I'll take her to the SPCA. A third kitty would be fun, but Max would eat her for breakfast first chance he got.

OddzNEndz #9,432,123.6

• Last night I had a dream that one of my best friends came to visit. During her stay the Spouse Thingy determined there was something wrong with one of her eyes, and declared that she must have it removed so that he could figure out what was wrong, because it could be eye cancer and if it was left in, the cells would migrate and become brain cancer. So she allowed this; she checked into the OR and he removed her eye, filling the socket with gauze and Strawberry Shortcake Bandaids. After the surgery he took her eye to the lab where he would analyze it...but she left before he could come back and tell her it was all right, it was just an infection. So I out the eye in an empty yogurt cup, got on my bike, and rode all the way to Wisconsin, where I put it back in her head for her. I'm pretty sure the Spouse Thingy cured the infection before I took off...



• Apparently, I should just give up anything computer related. My desktop as refusing to play nicely--rebooting on a whim, not running most of the software I needed--so I wiped it back to factory specs. And ya know what? You should really make sure you have the software to re-install a wireless card before reformatting...now it can't play with the Internet. If you were a CD-ROM, where would you be hiding?



• If the short lines in all the stores I went into this weekend are indicative of the season, it doesn't bode well for retailers. While I enjoyed getting in and out quickly, it kind of bothered me, ya know?



• This is my new craving. This is going to either pull off one more more caps or just pull a tooth right out of my gums, and it's all the Younger Niece's fault, because she let me taste a piece of hers on Thanksgiving:

nom nom nom nom nom nom...

If you manage to get in and out of Walmart in about 15 minutes on Black Friday, is that a sign that the end is near...?

"Asking a guy if you can ride his bike is like asking him if you can ride his wife. It's just not done." ~hundreds of bikers, as read online~


As I left Borders today--got a ton of work done, was a happy productive day in spite of the noise level inside the cafe today--there were a couple of teenage boys standing near my bike, apparently admiring it.

One of them lifted an arm, stopped by the other when he said "You can't touch it. That's like touching someone's girlfriend!"

The kid very lightly poked the headlight with his index finger.

"Does that mean I just touched her boob?"

"I think it means now you have to buy it dinner."

I should have demanded gas money...

If, upon waking, you hear your Spouse Thingy on the phone saying, "I'll grab Donna...she's twenty six or twenty seven," it's probably not what it sounds like.

In fact, he might not even be on the phone. He might be playing City of Heroes, talking to a game buddy on Team Speak, and he might be talking about his 26 or 27 level character Donna daDead.

If you would go to bed before 2:30 in the morning, you might be clear headed enough to figure that out right off the bat, instead of wondering who the hell Donna is...

Dear Lady in the Jack In The Box parking lot who picked the bees off my sweatshirt and didn't laugh at my near panic attack when I realized I had BEES on me and WAS GOING TO DIE,

Thank you!

Sincerely,
I'm only a wuss where those little suckers are concerned..

"Every morning I'm surprised when I wake up."

There were at least six unoccupied tables in the Border's cafe, but Mr. Miller asked if he could sit with me for a few minutes; his grandson had to "make use of the facilities" and didn't want him to sit somewhere alone. I was in the middle of trying to figure out where the hell chapter 16 went to--I couldn't find it on my hard drive or the jump drive to which I routinely save my work--and I was in need of a distraction before I picked up the laptop and flung it across the room.

(very old laptop; if it breaks I shall not cry...too hard.)

He asked nicely and I had no reason to say no, even though I could have kept an eye on him if he'd sat at another table. And it's not like I could really do anything if he clutched his chest and face-planted onto the floor; it made his grandson feel better, and it wasn't a problem, so what the heck. He introduced himself as his grandson (whom I later learned was actually his great great grandson) scurried off to the men's room.

I said the only intelligent thing that popped into my head. "My grandmother was a Miller. Well, really, she was a Mueller."

Duh.

Mr. Miller--I did not get his first name, nor did I ask; if a man old enough to be my grandfather introduces himself as Mister, then Mister it is--informed me he was going to celebrate his one hundred second birthday in a week. That's when he mused about the surprise of waking up every morning.

It's a happy surprise, he says.

I asked how many grandkids he's got, and he laughed. He had five kids of his own, but lost track of how many grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren they've given him. The grandson escorting him today was seventeen year old Brian, who has lived two streets over since he was born. Or he did until Mr. Miller realized he needed to move into a facility, where there would be cute nurses to keep an eye on him.

"Some of those nurses," he muses, "aren't very cute. If I had known half of them were men, I might have moved in with my daughter."

His grandson returned, and offered to buy him a coffee. Mr. Miller nodded, and said to me, "There are six of my great grandkids that live here. They take turns driving me to the places I want to go."

Brian added with a laugh, "We fight over who gets to take him."

"So they say," Mr. Miller said.

"Mark is going to drive you tomorrow, Grandpa. I asked him if we could all go see that movie together."

"Why don't you just take me?"

"It's Mark's turn. He'd be mad as hell if I took his turn."

Mr. Miller tapped the table with his fingers. "Now you know why it's a happy surprise."

Brian helped his grandfather up from his chair, and picked up the coffee cup. I watched them as they walked away, Brian with one hand at his great-great-grandfather's back, Mr. Miller nudging him with his shoulder. As they moved beyond where I could see them, I could still hear them laughing.

Dear Buddah Pest,

Why, please tell me, are you suddenly opposed to my reading a book? Why is it that I can't curl up in bed with a book at night without you launching onto the bed, pushing it away, and then dropping your 12.5 pounds onto my chest, your face a mere 2.2mm away from mine? Why can I not sit in a recliner in the living room with a book in hand without you tearing across the room to pounce up my lap, where you head butt the book so that I cannot see the page.

You have no problem with me watching TV or sitting here with the laptop open as I blog surf and laugh at the kitties on I Can Has Cheezburger? It doesn't seem to bother you if I st at my desk and work. In fact, you pretty much ignore me unless it's either time for a crunchy treat--and I do admire your ability to know when it's 11:15 p.m.--or until I decide to read something for fun.

You're a cute little chit and I enjoy your episodes of Commando Cuddling, and I comply upon request...but why does this need strike you when I have a book in hand? What do you have against books? It's not like we ever beat you half to death with one.

Please let me finish at least one chapter tonight. I swear, I'll give you all the head and chin skritches you want after that.

Let us all place our hands together and applaud, for the optometrist did not have bad breath today, which made for a fairly enjoyable round of "One or two? Three or four?" Well, except for writing the check for new glasses for both the Spouse Thingy and I. That kind of sucked.

All hail good insurance, though, or else that $360 would have been $1400...

The dead guy has been speaking to me again. I can hear him mumbling in my backpack, wanting out, wanting me to get off the procrastination wagon and finish writing is story.

He's a little egotistical, since it's not really his story, but what the hell, at least I hear him again.

I pulled out the 150 pages I've written and took the manuscript to the library today; I haven't looked at it in s long it was like seeing it all new (other than the bloody red scribblings on every page) and surprisingly, I didn't hate it. I didn't hate it enough that I suspect this year's NaNoWriMo will be a total bust, because I want to get back to the dead guy.

I also plugged in my very old, very cranky Gateway laptop. The battery no longer holds a charge and it has a fairly slow processor, little RAM, and a small hard drive, but I wanted to see if it would still boot up. After a year or more of not being powered up, it still booted up...and I found a battery for it on eBay for cheap.

Yes, I have another laptop...but I want something I don't really care about to shove into the tail bag on my bike, something that if the vibrations destroy I won't cry buckets over. I can take the old laptop with me and still ride my bike to the library or to Border's where I will finish writing the Best Book With A Dead Guy Ever. And then I'll get all rich and famous, but I'll still talk to y'all, so no worries there.

I know you've been worried about that.

Wherein Age and Cunning Overcome Youth and Strength

Three nights ago, Max was running through the house like his ass was on fire; every 20 minutes or so he thundered into the bedroom and meowed at the top of his little lungs, then turned around and ran back out.

I was pretty sure this was a deliberate attempt to keep me from sleeping, and it worked. Either that or he was trying to sucker Buddah into a rousing game of Thundering Herd Of Elephants, which apparently can only be played after all the People have gone to bed, because Thundering Herd Of Elephants is only enjoyable if it wakes and annoys at least one human being. So perhaps his behavior was dual-purpose: keep the Woman from sleeping, and get Buddah to play.

Buddah didn't seem interested; while he likes it when Max wants to play, lately he hasn't bent to Max's will very often, and there have been a few overtures of I Want To Be The Big Kitty Now on his part.

After the 4th or 5th time of Max's Mouth pulling me from sleep, I was ready to get up and take his furry little butt downstairs, where I would duct tape all of his considerable mass to a chair. It was after five in the morning, and I was tired. All I wanted was to sleep uninterrupted for at least 3 hours, but he showed no signs of stopping.

At 5:15 I heard him in the hall just outside the bedroom door, meowing in a pathetic little voice; I lifted my head and squinted, but all I could make out was a mass of black against the light carpet. Given the change in his tone--from HEY HERE I AM! to Hey, I need help--I reached for my glasses, now concerned that he'd hurt himself.

The mass of kitty turned out to be both of them: Max was on his back, his belly exposed to Buddah, who was standing there like an Authoritative Feline, willing the elder cat to do his bidding. Max wiggled and squirmed, using his back paws to push off the wall to get closer to Buddah, all the while offering that tender, exposed kitty tummy.

I sat on the bed, trying to be very quiet, wondering if I was seeing the final push in Buddah becoming the Alpha Cat, thinking that maybe Max had finally realized that Buddah was younger, stronger, and not willing to take any more crap.

Max wiggled a bit more, meowing in a tiny voice, and as Buddah stepped closer, I was sure I was seeing the tide turn.

That's when Max reached out with his front paws, grabbed Buddah under his furry little armpits, and launched him down the stairs.

Max then sat up and began grooming himself.

There have been no more overtures on Buddah's part. Last night he even sat still while Max gave his head a thorough licking.

Part of me feels bad for Buddah, but another part of me totally appreciates Max's cunning and guile.

But mostly, I was glad I could finally get some sleep, and they've left me alone at night since then.

It's the first 30 seconds you wanna see...



Local morning news team, Halloween, ... 'nuff said.
LOL

Two days into NaNoWriMo 2007, and I've written a grand total of 0 words.
Ohyeah, I'm gonna win...

For My Mom :)