Over 12,000 words so far!

I’m not really a machine, but I’m trying to get the bulk of the writing done before Mr. Demonic comes back to town tomorrow night. Then it will be payroll, holiday, limited Christmas shopping and playing with the new dog. (I forgot to tell you, I got a dog! Will post photos next week!)

Here’s another photo in the meantime. It’s Maxx. I’m reading all y’all, just not commenting all the time.

I feel kind of lazy today so I thought I would post a photo of Maxx in my piano. He has taken to sleeping on the bass strings.

Stealing a page from Dr. Bibey’s blog. Thanks for jogging the memories.

I was in college when I found Shanti Kitty. She was a tabby gray cat, and the best pet I ever had. I can’t remember how I got her. I think my aunt’s cat had a litter and I inherited Shanti. She had a sweet disposition. I don’t know what it is about pets, but you can tell right away if your personalities are going to click. Shanti was perfect for me at the time.

When I was in college, I majored in art. Shanti was not only a very nice kitty, she was really easy to draw, too. Unlike the spazz cat I have now, Shanti’s favorite thing to do was sleep.

I loved her so much, I explored her being in many mediums. Pencil, pen and ink, acrylic. I even put her into my self-portrait.

Like many cats, Shanti also liked to go outside. I was a dumb college kid back then, and I didn’t realize that for kitties, going outside can be a treacherous business. I lived on a busy street in a busy city. One day, I went to the bar across the street from my apartment to meet some friends. It was summer. That’s where I learned Shanti had entered the open back door of the bar, and was chased out through the open front door, and was run over by a car.

Animal control came and got her, so I never got to say goodbye. They didn’t even take off her blue rhinestone collar.

That night, I went home (drunk) with Mike Waltz. Let’s just say it wasn’t a pretty sight and I did some things I shouldn’t have.

After that, I was depressed for months.

This post sounds really sad and depressing, but I’m glad I had her for the short year and a half that I did. She was entertainment and inspiration. She was a leg warmer in the frozen Tundra. She listened to my problems and didn’t sass back.

She was perfect.

Our adorable little tuxedoed kitty, Max, stealthily slipped outside yesterday.

Bad, bad kitty.

I’m not exactly sure when that happened. He was there at lunch time, waiting by the back door, basking on his back on his usual spot the rug where a beam of sunlight was directed. I brought in my dry cleaning, but thought I had sufficiently shooed him away from the door.

For weeks now, he’s been positioned at the back door, making ready his escape. Unlike our last big fat cat, Buster, who was afraid every time the door opened and would run away to hide, Max actually wants to go outside to play. He likes watching squirrels, and we have a lot of them in our yard. However, we’ve sentenced our little kitty to being an indoor cat. Part of the reason is that he has no claws, but a huge part is because I don’t want to find him as road kill some day. We live outside of a major city and that’s a definite possibility. Plus, we once had a cat infect our home with fleas. It took about a month to fully rid the house of them, and we all suffered through bites.

We didn’t realize Max Attacks was gone until dinnertime. Where was the little dude? His usual modus operandi is to dive bomb our dinner, and he was conspicuously absent.

By bed time, my daughter was distraught and my husband went outside with his flashlight to look for him. I caught holy h*** for allowing this to happen.

Luckily, he heard us calling and came back.

We declined to give the dude solitary confinement, even though he deserves it. Instead, his human roommates will have to practice their diligence.

I’m not really at a loss for words today, but I’m busy.

So here is Max, or as I like to call him “Mad” Max.

Sometimes I call him “Max Attax!” That’s when he’s really goofy.

He’s really cute, isn’t he?

1. It’s really cold. No, I mean, really cold. Think of your freezer. It’s colder than that outside.

2. I’ve decided to name our Kittycat “Max.” Now that we know she is a he, we are all looking at her/him differently. Max fits his general temperament. He’s nuts. He’s smart. He’s a little lion in a kitty tuxedo.

3.  I’ve decided that black and white movies from the 40s are the best. I’m sort of watching one now. I say, sort of, because I’m not paying attention to most of it, and only glancing up when something happens. It’s Gaslight, with Ingrid Bergman. Ingrid is just ready to be “gaslighted” any time now. I might have to break away for that.

4.  I’ve been on a sort of a diet and exercise program for a few weeks. It’s not really a diet, per se. I am eating cereal when I feel hungry. Or fruit. I’ve cut back red meat to one day a week. Of course, only one cup of coffee per day. Since the temperature (see #1) is so cold, I’m doing lots of green tea. I’ve found I haven’t really missed the bad food. I haven’t lost any weight (from the exercise, which has been just walking or elliptical machine) but I haven’t gained any, so that’s a plus.

5. Spring can come any day now. I have plans to expand a piece of my yard into an Asian garden. I’m thinking of all the rocks I’ll have to move and all the sod I’ll have to dig up. I’m thinking that it will take me about two months of heavy weekend work to complete. The sooner the better. My daughter graduates from high school in  May and that doesn’t leave me a lot of time once the snow melts.

6. I still suck at the violin. I’d better go and practice now.

My tiny little kitten, the one we rescued from the animal shelter, has grown into a sleek but large kittycat. While we love darling little tuxedoed Kitty, all of us in the family have grown weary of being the scratching post for the animal’s long claws. Since Kitty is going to be an exclusively indoor cat, it was time to take her in for some declawing and spay.

I have two cardboard carrying cases with which to transport my little beast. Kitty must have sensed something was going to happen, because instead of climbing up my leg yesterday morning, as is her normal agenda, she was hiding. I went through the house calling her name, trying to get her to show herself. After ten unsuccessful minutes, I thought I might have to reschedule my vet appointment. Kitty, meanwhile, was stalking me as I was looking for her. She jumped out at me from behind a chair, and I almost fell over on her.

Soon enough, I captured poor Kitty and wrestled her into the larger cardboard carrier. Then I went to put my coat and boots on (it had only snowed six inches the night before). In that brief time, Kitty managed to chew a hole into the side of the box and made her escape. This led to another cat-and-mouse game where I looked for her (again) all over the house, unsuccessfully, I might add. After climbing two flights of stairs several times (with my coat on),  I was whipped. I sank into the chair again, and waited for Kitty to come out. She did, and with gusto. She tried to bite my foot. This time I lassoed her and put her into the smaller cardboard box. Although the box left little room for her to turn around, that aspect of it was a good thing in my eyes.

The vet is only a few blocks away, but Kitty managed to howl the entire time, even though I was trying to comfort her with my words. “There, there, Kitty… It’s not so bad! Please stop crying…” When I stopped the car, she stopped. Since there was a massive snowfall and it was a snow day, only one person was there at the vet’s office to open up. I bounded through the drifts of the unplowed lot, Kitty bouncing right along with me in her little shoebox of a crate.

Another patient, a big black Lab, entered at the same time, full of fun and loud barking. I freed the top of the box so Kitty could look out, but she stayed inside. Soon we were in an examining room, where I let Kitty out. Her back hair was sticking straight up and her tail was as big around as a corn dog. She was scared. I bid goodbye after going through the list of things they were going to do to her: blood tests, fecal swab, shots, and finally declaw and spay. Kitty was to be picked up on Saturday, and they would call after the surgery to let me know how it went.

Yesterday afternoon, the vet’s office called with good news and bad news. The good news was that Kitty had made it through the surgery just fine. The bad news is that Kitty is not a “she” but a “he.”

How this terrible mistake could have been made is beyond me. True, we didn’t know Kitty’s gender when we sprang him from animal control back in November, but Kitty has had not one but two visits to the vet since then. The doctor looked at him both times. Why didn’t she notice that Kitty was a boycat?

This leads to a big problem. We’ve been referring to Kitty with a girl’s name. Now we’re going to have to figure out a more masculine name for our little tuxedoed dude.

I hope he doesn’t suffer long term from this case of gender confusion.

Once there was a kitten, a very usual looking kitten. She was small and black and white, with a little smudge on her nose. She looked like she was dressed in a tuxedo but had a brief accident with a Sharpie marker. Her eyes were translucent blue, the color of the sky on a spring morning just after the rains came. The kitten’s name was Frida Celeste, but she was usually just referred to as “Free.” After all, Frida Celeste is a lot of syllables to spit out all at once.

Free was a typical kitten except for one thing: she was from outer space. Most of the time, she kept her cover well. She would eat, sleep and purr contentedly just like an Earth kitten. As per her instructions from her Mother Planet, Free’s job was to blend in with Earth people and to propagandize her earthly keepers. After proper indoctrination, the earthly keepers would be zapped up to the Mother Planet. Free didn’t know what the exact reason was for the transporting of the humans, but she assumed it had to do with the need for slaves to keep the other space kitties in the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed. It has been known throughout the galaxy that earthlings are well suited to being the slaves of space kitties.

While Free was very adept at keeping her secret, every once in a while, she would be overcome by an urge to act celestial. Her pools of blue eyes would glaze over and she would become crazy. She jumped at shadows and tackled dust bunnies under the bed. Her lapse into prior behavior only lasted a few minutes, and she would tire of the fun. Most likely this was due to the lack of oxygen on Earth. Then Free would be content to purr, upside down, and fall asleep.

Her mission was almost accomplished. Her earthly keepers were almost ready to be zapped back to the Mother Planet.

Now that some of my gender are discussing the women they would totally sleep with, I thought I would take this moment to discuss some of the women and other things I would totally NOT sleep with. Let me preface this by saying I’m not a lesbian, but as you will see later on in this discussion, that’s not the least of it. I can keep my options completely open and still draw some parameters as to bedtime partners.

The list of women and other things I totally would not sleep with:

1. First of all, need I say it? Britney Spears. I couldn’t sleep with her. Frankly, I don’t know when she sleeps, but she can’t be on the same circadian cycle as me. Plus, she doesn’t wear panties, and that might be one late night surprise I don’t think I’d want to delve into. The mental picture of me unconciously sliding my hand over her naked ass, well… yech! I don’t want to go there… Also, I don’t want to sound shallow, but her body is horribly out of shape. Instead of having the washboard of a pop princess, her stomach sort of looks like… well, mine.

2. Hillary Clinton. Again, I must be shallow. Hillary was no beauty queen at Wellesley and she’s packed on a few pounds since becoming a senator. Perhaps she shouldn’t eat at all on the campaign trail. Also, she couldn’t keep her man happy, time and time (and time and time) again, so I can only deduce that she’s unimaginative in the sack.

3. Rosie O’Donnell. ‘Nuff said.

4. Dogs. I’m a cat person. I can sleep with cats, especially if they’re well behaved and don’t like to pull pranks when you’re sleeping. It’s disconcerting to have your eyelids licked or your earlobes munched on, but these are minor inconveniences, considering 1 through 3 above. Besides, dogs smell.

5. Rocks. I’ve slept with small TVs in my bed, with fast food wrappers (I was younger!), with books, telephones and sketch pads. When my son brought a large hunk of gold ore into the bed, I had to say “no” to that.

6. My children. As long as we are talking about what the children bring into bed (donuts, potato chips, pop tarts, cookies, etc.), let’s also discuss my children. The last time the three of us shared a bed was about ten years ago at my sister’s house. She had a huge king sized bed and we thought it would be big enough. It wasn’t. My son, who is now twenty, tends to sleep on the diagonal. Yes, even now. My daughter kicks, and kicks hard. I can sleep with other children in my bed, just not MY children.

7. And finally, the ultimate deal breaker. A dead person. I definitely could not sleep with a dead person in my bed. At first I was going to limit it to skeletal remains, but I think any dead person would negatively affect my sleep. This includes zombies, vampires, and those who spontaneously combust.

A girl just has to draw the line somewhere.