Mighty Hunters

This morning as I stumbled blearily from bed at Beanie's summons, I came about *this close* to stepping on a dead mouse that lay outside my bedroom door. Yeah, I was shocked too. At first I thought it had to be a cat toy, but thankfully we don't have any that are that realistic. Uck. I also thought, until this morning, that we had no mice other than our cat named Mouse.

As I've seen no trace of mice, I think this one must have been a "special" mouse who wandered in here by accident. This is a house full of cats, so the mouse couldn't have been in his right mind to come in here. A mouse with a death wish? A mouse on a suicide mission? Or just a really, really stupid mouse?

Then again, looking at my fat, lazy, prissy bunch of indoor cats, maybe the mouse (like me) thought there was no chance any of them were mighty hunters... And we were both unpleasantly surprised to learn otherwise - that's for sure!

All I can say is... thank God they didn't put it in bed with us. I repeat - thank God they didn't put it in bed with us! Every morning I wake up with cat toys in bed with me - offerings from my cat benefactors. Somehow they sensed I wouldn't appreciate a real dead animal in bed with me - lucky them. The word is now out in our house - the first cat who puts a dead animal in bed with me is going to be very, very sorry. I have access to a bathtub and know how to use it.

Quityerbitchin!

Pronounced "quit-cher-bitchin" but allfastandruntogetherlikethis.

Call me Pollyanna, but I like to look on the bright side. Look for the silver lining. See the glass as half full. Insert your favorite cliche' here. I find that life is just a whole heck of a lot easier if I keep focusing on the good stuff. Not in a stick your head in the sand kind of way - that usually ends in grabbing your ankles to kiss your butt goodbye when it catches up to you - but in a why be pissed off/upset/mopey and generally just really unpleasant to be around all the time? kind of way. (I know Grammar Police - this post is grammatically atrocious. Deal, you negative nancies!)

My life isn't perfect. Parts of my past could be turned into a Lifetime movie. I have my issues and definitely my moments of self-pity. It just seems like some people don't want to be happy. Ever. If you say it's a sunny day, they bring up melanoma statistics. If something bad happens to you, something worse (and way more dramatic) has happened to them. If life gives them lemons, they don't make lemonade, or even squirt lemon juice in their enemies' eyes - they squirt it in their own eyes so they have something new to complain about!

Me? I'm happy. I have an awesome, imperfectly wonderful life. And that's good enough for me.

In Case of Emergency

I'm learning new things about myself all the time (some good, some shall we say fall into the "needs improvement" category). One (good) new thing I've learned recently: I'm damn good in a crisis.

For example:

When the the Flood of 2011 occurred, I was able to joke about my new indoor swimming pool while rolling up my pants to wade in and deal with it. 

When Josie turned into the perpetual font of projectile vomit on our road trip, I only screamed the first time. Just a little.

When we got caught in a really bad storm on the return side of the same (eventful!) road trip, I kept it together even though being buried alive in storm debris is way high up there on my list of fears. Right up there with serial killers and spiders. (Side note: when spiders are involved, all bets are OFF. I am not good in that particular crisis. I turn into a babbling, squealing, hand flapping eejit and I can't help it.) While hiding in a Target fitting room with the hubs and Beanie, I prayed and sang silly songs for them and daydreamed a little bit about cool Target merchandise falling from the sky and everyone being so happy we all survived the storm that they let us keep whatever we wanted. It was a lovely dream, but alas, the storm blew over without "redistributing" any wealth. When they released us from the fitting rooms, I even had the wherewithal to spot a really cute (and much needed) sun hat for Beanie. There really IS always a silver lining to every storm cloud!

Unfortunately, life is chock full of crises - some little, some not so little, and some mind-blowing. My current crisis is a common and lingering one. How in the heck am I going to have the time to do everything I need and want to do? I could use a few more Me's to go around. For instance, as one Me writes this blog, another Me could be cleaning up the nasty hairball one of the cats just yakked on the carpet. And yet another could be dealing with the crisis du jour.

Sounds good to me.

Have Baby, Will Travel

We went to Virginia to visit with the hub's family this weekend. It was a fun weekend full of learning experiences. Allow me to share:

1) My daughter is an exceptionally good traveler for being 14 mos old. She's patient, cheerful, easy-going - a dream traveling baby. Just don't let her fill up on milk and skip breakfast before starting out on an all-day drive. The start of a very long (hot, sunny) day in the car is not the ideal time to discover her ability to projectile vomit several feet or the copious amount of liquid her seemingly small tummy can hold. Three outfit changes later...

2) Never listen to a man when it comes to packing for a trip. The hubs always gives me a hard time about bringing too much stuff for short trips, but I like to plan for the unexpected - such as carsickness in a child who's never gotten carsick before and requires THREE OUTFIT CHANGES just on the drive to our destination. Unfortunately this time I had listened to him and didn't bring nearly as much as I normally would have - and therefore Josie almost ended up meeting some family members for the first time ever wearing a garbage bag (not really, but it sounds dramatic, doesn't it?)

3) When traveling with kids, even really good travelers, you can automatically add at least 2 hours to whatever time estimate Mapquest or the GPS gives you. In the days before Josie, we liked to pride ourselves on making "good time" on trips (meaning we stopped only for gas and played "bladder chicken" and treated the speed limit as more of a suggestion). Those days are over. Barf notwithstanding, diapers need changing and little tummies need filling and little bodies need a break from the confinement of car seats (especially car seats that smell like barf).

4) You really have to watch what you say around kids. Josie has a new word - barf. I told her she was cute even though she smelled like barf, and she promptly laughed and repeated, "barf". So ladylike. Which brings me to...

5) My little girl is not a prissy girly girl (thank God!) - at least not at this point. She spent the weekend crawling around in grass, mud, sand and dirt with her cousins out in the country - and could not have been happier. She ruined several more outfits and left a black ring in the tub after her bath, her knees are scraped up and her super sensitive skin is covered in a mystery rash and bug bites, but she had a blast that was worth it all. I'm utterly exhausted from chasing around behind her to prevent her from diving head first over 6 foot high walls and eating bugs and things of that sort - but that was worth it too.

6) As much as you adore your child, sometimes there is nothing.better.in.the.world than when Daddy takes them off to do something fun for a while and you get to put your feet up and read the newspaper and drink fruity wine coolers and eat cupcakes and not even have to talk. Which describes exactly what my fellow mom and cousin-in-law and I did with one lovely, decadent, kid-free afternoon while the dads and grandmas took the little ones on a hike. Pure bliss, I tell you. Pure bliss.

7) Men never listen. Somehow or another the hubs hurt his back. Maybe on that hike. Our hotel room had a jacuzzi in it - serendipitous, no? But the big doof didn't want to use it. He'd never been in one before in all of his 36 years and didn't see how it would help. I couldn't stress enough the powerful magic that is hot water propelled by jets, and finally convinced him to stop being a Mr. Tough Guy and give it a try. An hour later, pruney and blissed out, I had to convince him that he couldn't sleep in there due to drowning risks. Now, he's convinced we must buy one for our house. Hallelujah!

8) Traveling with a 14 month old is ridiculously exhausting and overwhelming and frankly, probably not really a sane thing to do - but we did it and we survived and we had enough fun to make it all worth it. Now if only I could get that smell out of the car and sleep til next week...

Cowardly Kindness

Today, while loading groceries into the back of my car, I was approached by a young woman pushing a little girl about Beanie's age in a stroller. She very politely asked me if I could spare a dollar because she was stranded there with her daughter, waiting for a friend to come pick them up, and she wanted to buy her some milk but was short on money. I promptly gave her a dollar and wished her good luck with everything, and off she went. Situations like this always leave me afterward with all these misgivings and doubts and guilt though.

Did I just get taken by a con artist with a really good sob story and even better "prop" (i.e. the little one with the big old eyes staring up at you)? Possibly. Maybe even probably. Is she really going to use that money to buy milk (or anything) for that baby girl? Hopefully, but it could as easily be for drugs or alcohol or anything. I will never know.

Should I have done more? Offered them a ride (I even had an open car seat as Beanie wasn't with me)? Given more money? Asked if I could help them in some other way? Given her some of the food I just bought but probably didn't need?

And that little girl... I am overcome with gratitude that MY little girl has a safe place to live, plenty of food to eat, good medical care when needed, tons of people who love her and protect her from harm, a whole lifetime of opportunity ahead of her. I pray I'm never in a position where I have to take her with me to ask for spare change to buy her milk. And I pray that little girl really got her milk, and a ride to a safe, cozy home full of people who love her.

I feel like a coward for not doing more, and a schmuck for possibly falling for a con, all at the same time. So, as I drove away, all I could do was pray for them. And wonder. And doubt. And hope - always that.

I Have Too Many Cats

I have too many cats. It's an inescapable fact that the cats in your household should never outnumber the humans - and ours have us beat 2:1. For those who don't calculate quickly in their heads, that means we have 6 of the little furry barbarians. I work at an animal hospital. I volunteer with a cat rescue. And I have a blinking neon sucker sign on my forehead. It's no excuse, but there it is.

Today, my personal overpopulation of felines caused me to wreck my car. I had been boarding them at work since the Great Flood of 2011. Last night the clean-up was finally done, so today I shoved gently placed the fur-butts into their plastic portable prisons cages and loaded them into the back of my car. Allow me to note here that I've been parking in the exact same spot at work everyday for 11 years now. In that 11 years, I don't think there has EVER been a vehicle parked behind me. Today, when my vision was severely impeded by cat carriers, and my sanity even more severely impacted by the piteous wailing coming from said carriers, I kinda forgot about the BIG BRIGHT RED TRUCK parked behind me. I didn't so much hit it - I just sort of sidled up a little too close to it like one of those mouth-breathers who don't know what a personal space bubble is do when they're standing behind you in the check-out line. It made a hideous screech-y sound (like I do to get rid of the mouth-breathers) and for a brief moment even the cats were quiet in that pregnant "oh shit" pause.

To say I wrecked my car was a bit of hyperbole (gotta do something to keep you interested, Dear Readers). I scuffed my car's shiny finish in a couple of small areas. The ginormous red truck was likewise scuffed, but the roofers it belonged to were pretty nice about it. It could be the $10,000 my boss is paying them for the new roof that made them so forgiving, but whatever it was, I'll take it. They used their sweaty roofer t-shirts to buff the evidence of my mishap out of the finish of the huge-gantic truck and I doubt anything more will need to be done. My ego is another matter. I had to talk to hottie manual laborers in sleeveless t-shirts with the Great Zit of 2011 growing out of my chin about the fact that I kinda forgot to look behind me before I backed up into the biggest brightest reddest truck ever. With 6 caterwauling cats in my car. Nah. I didn't look like a loon. Not. at. all.

On the way home, one of the cats decided it was a mighty fine time to take the stinkiest poo ever. It must have been an urgent need - otherwise why would you do that to yourself? You're then trapped in a small box with your own stinky offal. I was, unfortunately, trapped in an only slightly larger box with the stinky offal. It was cold, but I chose death by hypothermia over death by poop asphyxiation and opened all the windows. I turned up the radio and laughed my ass off. Because, really? What else was there to do at that point?

The Flood of 2011

I haven't posted in a while because it feels like I've been too busy to string two sentences together - let alone write a whole few paragraphs of my usual awesome cleverness (right?? ha!)

Lately we've been dealing with the joy of home ownership. Namely, we've been trying to keep our house 1) standing and 2) livable. First, the window wells started filling up with water, which then leaked into our basement. The floor was wet (and gross) but the water made its way to the floor drain and out of the house while we waited for a crew to come install some drains in the wells for us. Until, that is, the floor drain got clogged (probably by cat toys since we learned that for some reason it had no grate on it... oops.)

I came home from work to find my poor cats stranded on "high ground" (the Skittles table and workbench) unable to reach the stairs to escape or their litter boxes (which were floating... eww doesn't even begin to cover it.) There was about 3 or 4 inches of standing water in the basement, which to a cat constitutes a flood of epic, build-an-ark proportions. I of course had to wade in to rescue them. This is why even a fashionable woman (which I'm not) should own a pair of Crocs - they do have their uses. I wear mine in public too, but let's not get into that. Anyway. My cats reminded me of Hurricane Katrina survivors, waiting on their roofs for the rescue helicopter. Which made ME said rescue helicopter. Which meant that as soon as I was within leaping distance (pretty far for a thoroughly freaked out, wet, smelly cat) I was tackled. Little furry, wet and smelly spider monkeys with sharp claws clinging to me for dear life - it wasn't pretty. Especially when you figure in my literal "high waters", unshaved legs and the aforementioned (hot pink) Crocs.

After the cats were carried to safety and peeled from my flesh, I called a plumber to come out and snake the drain. The first one I called left me with a headache to rival my stinging cat scratches. Stupidity has a way of bringing on a throbbing behind my eyes that tempts me to gauge them out with dull pencils. But I digress.Our conversation went as follows:

Perky Lady Who Answered the Phone: How can I make you smile today?
Me: Well, since you asked, it would make me smile if the floor drain in my basement were unclogged ASAP so the water standing in my basement can drain.
Ms. Perky Pants: Okie dokie. But is there standing water in your basement?
Me: Yes...(thinking, didn't I just say that?) About 3 inches.
Not So Perky Anymore: Ohhhh... Well, the water will have to be drained before we can unclog the drain.
Me: Um. Okay. But the DRAIN is CLOGGED. Which is why the water is there. So... How do I drain the water when the drain is clogged? (At this point, I thought surely we were just having a misunderstanding. Alas, we were not.)
Ms. I Know This Sounds Stupid, But They Pay Me to Say It: Yeah, uh, well, you can suck it out with a shop-vac. (uncomfortable pause)
Me: A shop-vac? Do you know how many shop-vacs full fit in a basement? What about the whole water and electricity thing? Are you serious???
Ms. Apologetic/Sheepish/Wishing She Didn't Get My Call Now: Um, sorry. Our plumbers won't come in if there's standing water. Policy (mumble mumble) Sorry (mumble mumble) Hire someone (mumble mumble)
Me: Thanks anyway. I'm going to go find a dull pencil now. Goodbye.

So, I called Roto-Rooter. They sent someone out in under an hour, who sloshed right through my standing water and unclogged my drain. I wanted to hug him, but I'm pretty sure that would have been weird. I probably will hug the people I hire to clean the basement though. They'll need the reminder of their humanity after cleaning the dark, smelly, cat litter-y hell my basement has become. Did I mention litter boxes float (and unfortunately, not being designed to be seaworthy, capsize)? Eww.

On an up note though, the drains are now installed in the window wells, for $400 less than expected, and once the basement is cleaned it will actually be usable again. Maybe someday we can redo it as a playroom for the Bean.

I can't do a whole blog entry without mentioning the Bean, of course. She learned a new word the other day. Grass. Which unfortunately comes out, "ass". And she gets really, really excited about it because the kid LOVES being outside, in the "ass", er, grass. So she yells it, over and over and over. Yeah. Even on the worst days, I always have a reason to smile.