CafeChatNoir

That’s a nice amount of zeros.

Taking the cash option, then taxes, then splitting it with my brother, I’d be sitting on 80 million dollars.  Of course I bought a few tickets.

Knock off a couple of million for a beach house and some remodeling to this house.  Maybe upgrade the car.  Throw the rest into a CD ladder and even after taxes on that income, the costs of maintaining two households, I’m figuring about 30K a month in disposable income.  I honestly am having a hard time figuring out how I would spend it.  (Though really, I should be given a chance to try.  Really.)

I just can’t see much different in my day to day life.  Maybe more dinners at fancy places in DC, cause I could also afford getting a car & driver to get me to DC.  Some traveling.  Get a suite instead of a cheap room when I go out of town.  No more flying coach, ever.  More champagne.

Even with 4 expensive trips a year, there’s still a lot left over – easily 20K.  I think there would be a LOT of people I could help with that.  Now, THAT would be fun.

ETA: In further fantasy math, the lump sum option is $462M and after all the machinations and if I threw it all into a 7 year CD with my bank at 2.5% instead of a ladder, it’s more like 118K disposable income a month…

And this one has actually has nothing to do with me and my grandmother!

Every other year we’ve been in PHX for Christmas, we leave on the 30th in the morning, and as such, we miss the influx of bowl game fans coming to whatever bowl game is being held at the UoPHX Stadium next to the hotel.  Given that I am not leaving until tomorrow morning and even though the Fiesta Bowl isn’t until the 2nd, there has been a decidedly noticeable increase in hotel guests who have decided to make a long weekend of it with pre-game golfing and such.

Not a shocking development by any means – heck, I’d do the same if GMU somehow found itself in the Fiesta Bowl.  And as such, the college football fans have arrived.  (Has the Fiesta Bowl always been on the 2nd?  I thought it had been a New Year’s Day game – is this the BCS continuing to screw things up or am I just remembering wrong?)

So, there is an influx of fans deciding to make a drinking and golfing weekend of it leading up to the game and staying at the hotel.  Can’t say I blame them, the weather is pretty decent.  I will tell you right now, if there were any Stanford fans staying at the hotel, I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup, cause they’re just quietly enjoying the weekend.  Can’t quite say the same for the Oklahoma State fans – several of which I ran into this evening during my postprandial Cabernet.  The Quote Of The Night goes to the gentleman to my right who said, “We’re from West Texas, you have to grade us on a curve.”

No shit, Sherlock.  Still, no biggie.

However, there was also a wedding reception this evening at the hotel.  A Muslim Ethiopian/Somali wedding reception.  With some of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous dresses I have seen in my lifetime.  Seriously – when I headed out for dinner, a half dozen ladies were walking in and I was just stunned by the dresses and I got caught just staring like an idiot and one of the ladies said, “Hi! Happy New Year’s!” and I found most of my voice and (likely sounded like an awed 8 year old) – “You have the most beautiful dresses I have EVER seen!  They’re just… GORGEOUS!”  They were more than happy to tell me that they were traditional Ethiopian dresses (though they really need to add “formalwear” to that “traditional” tag, cause I’m fairly certain these don’t get worn while getting dinner together.)  Seriously, these dresses crossed the lines from “lovely” to “works of art”.  (In talking to some of the younger gals later in the courtyard, I have now discovered that there is a pretty big Somali community in PHX.  Never would have guessed it.)

Now, let’s consider the “grade us on a curve” group and “happy wedding reception”…

Yes, there were some snarky comments from the West Texas contingent as some of the wedding party went back & forth through the lobby.

In a true moment of clarity, I realized going with what would be considered the “Northern Liberal Elite” (of which I am only 2 of the 3) route would do nothing, and my brain said, “It’s time for the ‘Bless Your Heart’ approach*” – cause any southerner knows it means, “You dumbass.”  When the next snarky comment came up, I just went, “Now darlin’, you just need to HUSH!  They are having a wedding and everyone deserves a fun wedding and reception and they’re just all having fun.  So you just hush up now.”

And damned if that didn’t work – if in no small part cause the wives then piled on to boot.  +1 for basically going with “Sheldon Cooper, don’t make me call your mother” maneuver.

Seriously folks, different doesn’t mean anything but different – and if you take the time to talk to people, you’ll find more similarities than you realize, like when I joked with the first ladies I saw this evening that they outclassed my jeans, they said, “But your jeans are more comfortable!”  Or when I was talking to the gals in the courtyard, I was helping them lookout for relatives that would be annoyed that they were hiding out and smoking.

We’re all just people mucking our way through the same mess.  So, be nice.

*While I don’t technically qualify as a Southerner and as such cannot legitimately use the “Bless Your Heart” approach, I spent enough summers with my grandparents in Atlanta to learn how to use it…

So, over the course of the last week, I think everyone knows that Britain’s Prince William is now engaged to Kate Middleton. Good for them!

Now, I don’t know much about Miss Middleton, other than she can really rock a big hat, and apparently she is “new money” vs “old money.” OH, THE HORROR! Though that is hardly a UK issue – I’ve seen that nonsense in the US over the years, and honestly, who truly gives a crap? If you’re in love, you’re in love and net worth really shouldn’t come into the equation. (And yes, I know it does anyway.)

However, I’m quite sure I will know more than I ever wanted to know about Miss Middleton over the next several months. But, I hope she is truly smitten with William and should his Grandmother & Father disown him that she would still be just as smitten with the young man without his pedigree.

I distinctly remember Charles & Diana’s wedding – mainly because it was in the middle of the summer, so school wasn’t an issue, and we were up early to see the wedding. (Looking back, it does seem a bit stalker-ish. Sorry about that.) What still sticks in my mind the most was not the dress, the 25 foot train, the pomp & circumstance – it was the carriage. Mind you, I was 9 years old at the time, and I had been told it was a glass carriage. Having seen Cinderella multiple times by that age, I knew EXACTLY what a glass carriage should look like. And damned if the Royals didn’t heartily disappoint me on that count.

All I ask of the newlyweds is this: If you’re going to tell the world that you’ll have a glass carriage, you’d better have a Cinderella worthy ride. If not – feel free to go get hitched in Vegas. The Bellagio has a lovely chapel. (And carriage or not, I wouldn’t blame you for a minute if you went to Vegas anyway.)

Today I went to brunch (very good) then walked over to Aria to cash in a couple slot tickets from the other night, walked to CVS, then back to the Bellagio, watched the fountains (awesome!) and then came back up to my room to chill out a bit before going to Cirque du Soleil this evening.

Somehow this has taken me ALL DAY LONG.

Now, if you had to look at these two photos (cell phone snaps, so forgive quality) – which one would make you think you should sleep with one eye open?

The Lily Monster?  The loud, brash bruiser, who were she were human, would likely be a redhead?

Or the Carmenator, the quiet little grey puffball who evokes images of Helen Mirren, and still isn’t really sure about the whole ceiling fan thing?

If you answered Lily, I wouldn’t fault you for it, especially given the general consensus that redheads are all insane.  However, you would be wrong.

There’s a reason that Helen Mirren is playing a top-notch wetwork agent in the upcoming “R.E.D.” movie.

It would seem that my little grey puffball Carmen Sandiego is a rather effective mouser.  I was sitting in the living room earlier, minding my own business, when I heard a bit of a noise in her general vicinity.  I look over and see that she has something – not quite sure what, but she has something and she appeared to be quite over and done with it all.  I say, “Carmen, what on earth have you got over there?”  And then get a closer look.  “Oh lord…Um, thank you?!…Good girl?!….But you need to drop that now, OK?  Please?”  Thankfully, Moxley came over to be the enforcer and she dropped it, and then I had to make *him* drop it. (He has a habit of taking the cat toys away from the cat.  Unfortunately I couldn’t convince him to pick it back up and take it outside.  I tried.)

Yes, Carmen had done an excellent job of quickly and cleanly dispatching a house mouse* that made it beyond the threshold.  However, as I was gathering multiple plastic bags to dispose of the body, I couldn’t help but have some minor flashbacks and was seeing my obituary reading something along the lines of “death by zombie house mouse” much like the thoughts I had on the potential zombie squirrel that Mox brought in winter before last.  (We had a conversation a bit later about cement shoes.  I don’t think she was listening.)

But, the more I thought about it, if I had to pick one of my two felines to be the ninja assassin – it would be Carmen.  Not that Lily isn’t capable, but if Lily did it, it would be loud, messy and hardly quick.  And there is the old adage that cats with big ears make good mousers.  When Carmen was a kitten, I feared she’d not grow into her ears, much like I worried that Lily wouldn’t grow into her feet.  I feel I can no longer give Carmen a hard time about her sleeping habits, because she is obviously working hard when we’re not looking.

I will say that Moxley is looking at Carmen with a somewhat wary eye this evening.

*Perhaps I should be more flipped about a mouse in the house, but I’m not.  Mice get into houses.  And as my brother pointed out, once every three to five years, a mouse gets in here.  This time around, we had the Carmenator to deal with it – and she did so quite masterfully!

Tonight, I hit the local grocer for sleep aids. Those without pets may be thinking, “Unisom, Sominex, Benadryl” – not unreasonable assumptions by any means. Perfectly acceptable over the counter pharmaceutical options for getting a decent nights sleep.

Those with cats, dogs, puppies or kittens have a completely different answer…

Tonight that answer was, Iams for Cats Avec Poulet (no, I don’t know why I manage to get the bags in French, but I do) and fortunately it was just as well received as the Iams Avec Poisson.

One thing I have learned with free-feeding felines is that if you want to be able to sleep through the night, you will have the food bowls filled and available for snacking at 4AM if you value an uninterrupted night of sleep. My brother has learned this lesson taking care of the monsters while I have been out of town, and I was very recently reminded of that little rule the other night when I neglected to check the level of the bowls before I went to bed – at around 3:30AM I was treated to the wonderful sounds of “things being chucked off the counters of my bedroom furniture.” Fortunately, I don’t keep anything actually breakable on my dressers anymore. (Thank you Snoopy & Target for that lesson, and for eventually watering it down to “stomping all over me in bed”.)

But, the food bowls are near-overflowing for the little monsters, and there is also a brand new box of biscuits for the AwesomeDog in the morning. All the critters are happily pacified for the time being.

And for all the studies that I have read about animals being color blind – yes, they may very well be color blind, but by god, they can distinguish shades of grey and shapes of boxes. There is no other way I can explain the cats recognizing the orange food bag, or the dog recognizing the red biscuit box. Trust me, they ALL knew what I brought into the house this evening.

And I am not even talking about being extricated to Phoenix because my grandmother managed to crack her pelvis by the mere act of standing up. That right there was more than enough reason to go to ground until at least Thanksgiving.

However, The Fates/Karma/their various partners in crime felt I needed a little more adrenaline in my life! I started the evening at home watching the Redskins/Cowboys game, no plans to hit the pub whatsoever, cause it gets just a tad obnoxious. (I am a die hard Skins fan, but I am also realistic. I am happy when they win, sad when they lose, but I do not claim to be Super Bowl Bound when they win two, or even ONE game.) My brother had already gone up for a pint or two, and called me en route letting me know that the main feeder road off our street was closed off by the police, and said law enforcement professionals were standing around with shotguns. Oh, and there was a police helicopter circling overhead. Well, isn’t that SPECIAL??!?

I checked the locks on all the doors and windows and pulled the curtains, and wished my arsenal consisted of more than a Ruger-22 revolver that had been left with me for safekeeping. (As it is, I much prefer a 10+ clip. I don’t want to do the Dirty Harry move of “were there 5 shots or 6?” – I want to say, “Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?”) Finally the creep-out factor got to me way more than the “dealing with drunken Skins fans, win or lose” factor and I scanned the side yard, grabbed my keys, dashed out the door, locked it and leaped into my car – I figured my car was the biggest and best weapon I had should I see some unsavory character running across the street.

WTOP and Twitter failed me greatly, as did every other news site about. It wasn’t until the (very late) 11PM news came up that we had any idea what had been happening – A home invasion. Even then I couldn’t find any more info on the net other than the Washington Post blog entry – and that was only via a Facebook friend. Fan-fucking-tastic. I still didn’t know if it was safe to venture back into my neighborhood.

So, I called FCPD non-emergency dispatch and said, “I live in the neighborhood where the Field Master home invasion happened, and I have been out watching the Redskins game like everyone else. Has a suspect been apprehended, and if not, is it safe to go back to my home?” The answer was that yes, they felt it was OK to go home, as there were still multiple officers on scene, and they felt the suspect was no longer in the area. (Sorry for those *not* in the area where this creeper might be) I might have mentioned my willingness to run over any suspicious types with my car – the gentleman in dispatch just asked that I call 911 first. Fortunately he understood my comments to be nervous outbursts, and not an actual threat against any random person crossing the street.

FINALLY, I heard on WTOP that the shooter was known to the victim, and the Post blog was updated accordingly (with no mention of this being new information – DAMMIT, when you edit a blog post with anything beyond a grammar or spelling correction, YOU SAY IT IS AN UPDATE.) – which made me feel a fair amount better. And I shouldn’t feel “better” about any crime like this, but to know it wasn’t completely random, well, it did make me feel better. Quite the jackass for feeling it, but better.

Still, I don’t need this crap to worry about – it really makes me think more than a few times about selling everything I have and buying a little cottage at the beach and putting in some grass seed for the pup and really becoming the beach bum I know I was meant to be.

In my last post it apparently sounded like I felt completely trapped by the “can’t walk away from grandma” situation. I was actually trying to articulate the realization that while, no, I cannot walk away from the situation with my grandmother, I **CAN** walk away from other things that are really not working for me in my life – with no horrid repercussions!! I had simply let the “can’t quit!” mentality go oozing into the rest of my life, which isn’t super healthy. The “Whoa…” title was actually a Keanu Reeves-like reaction to the realization that I had *LET* myself feel trapped in ALL situations, when in fact I can simply say, “This ain’t working for me!” and walk away! And the vast majority of the world would say, “Well, yes, you should walk away!”

In short (too late) – I was celebrating breaking away and warning those to not let themselves decide that “can’t quit” must encompass all parts of ones life. It seems it was a horridly written post – but it did and still does make perfect sense to me, but then again, I did write it, so I’m quite biased. Regardless, the support was incredibly heartwarming – even if it might have been very lovingly misguided by my lack of clarity with my words.

Second, I am bouncing about like a PE class red-rubber-dodge-ball between “this will be fun” and “holy crap, this is the worst idea I have had in a while” when it comes to my high school reunion this weekend. If nothing else, there is an open bar for a couple hours and I have booked a room at the hotel, so hey, breakfast in bed on Sunday morning! No matter what, I suspect some fun will be had. :)

And finally – I joke about being the mother hen to my little chickadees that are at the pub when I am there, but at the same time, I’m pretty damn serious about it. These were the folks that were there for me as I came in for late-night bacon cheeseburgers & beer and explained that the reason that I was back in the neighborhood was cause my Mom died and I was moving back into the family homestead, and they provided shoulders to lean on and ears to listen when I needed them. And for that, I am very, very protective of my friends at the pub, and there is nothing that raises my ire faster than someone – anyone – messing with them. If you are someone I count among my friends, there is good reason that you are there – and that is why I get very upset when someone is messing with anyone in that circle. So, note to all – don’t screw with my friends, OK?

I will fully admit that going through 2008/9 being on call 24/7 with my grandmother, and her taking 125% advantage of said situation really left me in a state of paralysis. I couldn’t quit, couldn’t walk away, couldn’t consider other paths. Had that whole scenario been a regular job, after about 6 months I would have walked up to my boss and said, “I am really sorry, but I totally suck at this, I am not an asset to this project by any stretch of the imagination, and it’s beyond time for me to go, because there are folks out there that are MUCH more capable than I am. Nice knowing you, but it’s time for me to go.”

But, eldercare doesn’t come with an HR department or sane employer. So, you’re kind of stuck.

The stuck part will ooze it’s way into other parts of your life and you won’t even realize it, and you keep trying to power through it, because your brain has gone into “can’t quit” mode. Thing is – you may not even realize that it’s gotten it’s hooks into you – lord knows I didn’t until today.

In a completely and separate part of my life, I realized today, “This isn’t working. I need to just walk away.” It wasn’t some massive life changing portion of my life, just something relatively minor that I kept feeling the need to just power through instead of considering going another direction rather than running through the roadblock. I just hadn’t even considered the option of going another direction before today.

I swear, the minute I realized I was on the hook 24/7 with my grandmother (until I such time I could pass it on to *competent* caregivers,) I should signed up for 3x a week therapy so I could figure out how to keep it from getting into the rest of my life.

Let me be your cautionary tale: Don’t let yourself be trapped.

Thank you, West Wing:
“You want to tempt the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?”

Apparently I did when I joked about buying a new fridge vs. cleaning the drip pan. Honestly, I thought it was just a gunky, disgusting drip pan overflow, and I was truly kidding about buying a new fridge vs. cleaning up the old one.

Except the drip pan theory was the wrong theory. And it took us a while to figure that out.

Night before last there was a small puddle of ‘god knows what’ next to the corner of the fridge. My brother & I both looked at it, and he said, “Cat puke, and I’m pretty sure it’s Carmen.*” I have had cats for 26 of the 27 past years, and cat puke is a very reasonable explanation for many kinds of ‘god knows what’ that may show up on tile or carpet. And we asked Carmen to not puke in the kitchen in the future, and it was cleaned up, and we thought that was that.

Except we were wrong. Which was the point where I though, “Ahhh, gunked up drip pan! We live in a house with 2 cats, a fluffy dog, and ME. Quite likely the coils are in need of a vacuuming, and the drip pan needs to be emptied and hosed off.”

Wrong again. Wherever the drip pan is, it ain’t at the front of the fridge. And we looked again, and again. Donald had already looked at the innards of the freezer in an attempt to find some item that had exploded/leaked or such and found nothing. And we then looked again. Oh crap. The leak had been melted ice cream, that had melted out of the (CLOSED!) container, onto the bottom of the door shelf, under the gap between the shelf and the “shelf wall” then down the interior of the door, and into the INSIDE of the door seal, and then dripping out the bottom of the door – which manifested itself as a leak from the underside grate, because I just couldn’t see exactly where the “leak” was coming from.

Well, I am fairly certain that melted ice cream is NOT a good sign. And then I noticed the ice in the ice tray had melted and refrozen. Not good either. (The fridge is still nicely cold for the moment.)

So, tomorrow is fridge/freezer hunting. Fortunately, little bro has said, “the kitchen is your domain, don’t go cheap, go with what you want” – while I will still be very conscious of price, at least I don’t feel that I have to go look for the cheapest fridge/top freezer combo on the planet, and we will again have a freezer-on-the-bottom-combo.

But really, I was just kidding about buying new vs. cleaning the drip pan!!! Totally joking! Seriously, it was a total goof to say it…

Here’s to helping the economy with a new fridge.

*I have apologized to Carmen. I think Donald still owes her an apology as well.

Not that all my other days suck by any means, but there are so many days where things are off to a good start and then something or someone incredibly stupid comes along and just shoots the day all to hell. Well, not today!!

- First, I woke up before my alarm clock, and NOT because of the trash trucks coming through!* It was one of those, “roll over, realize I’m awake, and I am totally OK with the fact that I am awake” moments.

- Despite waking up before my alarm, I felt GREAT! Can’t remember the last time I had such a spectacular night’s sleep like last night. (And I wish I could say I’d done something different before bed, but I didn’t.) It’s much more fun to have entertaining dreams when you’re running about with Raylan Givens** blowing things up in the name of law enforcement than having dreams where your dead relatives are showing up saying that they’re “taking Grandma to go shopping” and you wake up wondering if that was some otherworldly sign that Grandma is dead…

- When I came downstairs, the dog was exceptionally mellow. Lately, he’s been a bit hyper in the mornings, and he was quite content to go out, come back in and just chill out while I checked my emails and paid bills.

- Carmen was just hilarious today with her reaction to the rain. She was an ANGRY little sleeper. (As it is, she naps with great passion.) She came downstairs, FLUNG herself into my lap, scrunched up her face and slammed her head into my knees and went back to bed in my lap. When Lily came around to see what she was up to, Carmen shoved a foot into her face. Not so awesome for Lily, but hilarious for me.

- I LOVE my new phone. (I went with the Android, and it was the right decision.) So many very spiffy and shiny apps to play with! So far I think my fav is the whitenoise app – nice to go to sleep with the sound of the ocean! (And I’d used it before last night, so I can’t say it was the surefire reason for my excellent sleep, but it could have been a contributing factor.)

- Realizing that this particular phone can easily replace my aircard – I returned the aircard, and being within the 30 days of when I had to replace my previously exploding & catching fire aircard – no termination fee! (That surprised the gent at Radio Shack, but hey, 30 days guaranteed satisfaction is 30 days, and I beat it.)

- Got some cute shots of the kitties today with the phone. (Still kills me that my PHONE now has a camera with as many megapixels as my “good” camera, which is huge and weighs a ton comparatively.)

- Got all the “I really WANT to get this done today” stuff DONE.

- Chicken salad on croissants for dinner. (And lunch tomorrow.) ‘Nuff said.

- Joe Saunders pitched a complete game! No, I’m not an Angels fan, but he went to my high school, and it’s always nice to see a local kid do well. :)

I won’t hold my breath that tomorrow will measure up, but it could still be a fair amount worse and still qualify as decent.

*Seriously, I’d be exceptionally OK with once a week trash pickup if for no other reason than to cut down on noise pollution. Or 5:30 AM wakeup calls.
**Watch Justified on FX.

One day last fall Carmen decided that she would only hang out in the parlor or dining room. By the end of the day I figured out that she had spied the ceiling fan in the living room and felt it to be a nefarious predator from above. Being the complete softie that I am, I turned the fan off. (That and I missed my lap kitty and didn’t want her hanging out elsewhere for any longer than she already had.) After a few days, she came back into the living room.

Well, now it’s summer and we’re having one of those August-in-June heat streaks, so the fan really did have to go back on. This did not sit well with the little princess, and she sequestered herself in the upstairs hallway and the dining room for the better part of the past two days. (And it’s damn hot upstairs for normal creatures. For me, it’s lovely.)

Well, it seems that in the last couple hours, Carmen went to ManUpCamp. I was sitting on the couch and heard a “Mrrp, mrrp, mrrp!” and looked over and she had ventured into the living room and was making her way to me across the back of the couch.

She had decided “Screw the fan, I need lap time!” and we had a nice snuggle session and she’s now draped over the back of one of the chairs. And I know overcoming the ceiling fan was a Big Deal for her with all the fur she left on my shirt, but it seemed that she must have believed it at least one of the times I told her, “Come August, you are going to be SO happy we have these ceiling fans!”

I am seriously so happy she’s back downstairs mainly because it just breaks my heart when any of my pets are scared of anything. I’m glad she’s over it.

Well yes, Memorial Day weekend and 90 degree days do tend to indicate summer has arrived. But in my household there are a few definitive signs.

First being the damn ants. They’re a little late this year, but they are here. They’re the teeny-tiny sugar ants and I can’t for the life of me figure out where on earth they’re getting in the house, but on the upside, they only appear right around the kitchen sink. (I suppose that means they are getting in somewhere around a plumbing conduit, but I couldn’t tell you which one.) The irony of this nonsense is that I have a bottle of “earth-friendly” grapefruit multi-surface cleaner that doesn’t clean for shit, but it will kill ants like nobody’s business. (I suspect it is just a matter of the force from the spray nozzle, but I still find it somewhat amusing. And the sink area is extra clean due to the ant massacres.) Ant trap/killer things are on the grocery list for the next trip to the market. (A couple years ago when I was buying ant traps at the store, the clerk said, “Oh, you must live in Burke! It’s ant season!”)

Second – Moxley has got the seasonal itchies. Every year it is the same – a hotspot on one of his front legs and a incredibly itchy stomach. This year, I told him, “Mox, we’re gonna conquer this without having to go to the vet!!” I was confident in our abilities to take care of this on our own. I went to PetCo and got some non-steriodal treatments and we were gonna kick this without veterinary assistance. (Not that I don’t love our vet, but Mox is getting a touch older and I’d like to avoid steroids if we can for the AwesomeDog.) I wouldn’t put my approach at epic fail, but partial fail. I got some lidocaine/antiseptic/antibite spray which has worked quite well for his leg – it’s already healing quite nicely. For his tummy I got a Vitamin E/B and Oatmeal anti-itch/soothing spray. I didn’t use the other spray because I think if I asked 10 guys, “Is it OK if I spray lidocaine all over your genital area?” I’m pretty sure the answer would be, “Oh HELL no!” Hence, the herbal/organic solution for that. While he isn’t biting his leg anymore, he’s still decidedly itchy elsewhere. (I can’t say how thrilled I’d be if Dr Alt said, “Sure, you can use the lidocaine spray on his stomach.” But if not, whatever makes him less itchy. The biggest problem is that the lidocaine spray is not for dogs *and* cats – and the cats do enjoy attempting to groom him.)

The newest sign is Carmen chilling in the dining room rather than the family room. It was quite hot today and I had to turn on the spinning blades of death from above in the family room, aka the ceiling fan. Last year when she first noticed it, she decided she was perfectly content to hang out in the dining room, but it broke my heart that it scared her, so I turned off the fan. (It was fall, so it was no biggie.) After a couple days, she was fine again. I’m hoping she can get over this with in about the same time with the fan *on* instead of off, cause I really don’t want to try to get through a DC summer without a ceiling fan. (I will if I have to, but I’d like for her to discover the wonder of a ceiling fan in August.)

The final sign is that I am itching (sorry, Mox) to get to the beach. The checks have been cashed, the linen order is in, and I am so ready for an extended change of scenery. We have the same house as last year and it’s an adorable little place (or as I like to say, Cindy-sized) and I am just beyond ready for the salt air and napping on the deck and talking with people who do not give a rat’s ass what I do (or don’t do) for a living. I also realized tonight that now that my grandmother’s situation has been really stabilized – I won’t be that gal sitting on the beach answering her cell phone every 5 minutes – which is something I could not say about the last two years when we hit the beach. (Selfish? Yes. Do I feel guilty? No. Two years of being on call 24/7 cured that.)

Now, if I can just figure out how to not have summer end, I’ll be set.

Upon reading that, I’ll admit that the cynical, sarcastic part of my brain said, “Well, NO SHIT, Sherlock!!”  Then the slightly less cynical and more rational part of my brain said, “Not everyone has the same close up and personal experience with Alzheimer’s and/or Senile Dementia that you do – this might actually be news to some people, and those people might be able to do something about it, so stop being a snarky bitch.”

The article is here: Alzheimer’s costs to soar without effective drugs
The Alzheimer’s Association Report referenced is here: Changing the Trajectory of Alzheimer’s Disease: A National Imperative

Alrghtly then, I’ll attempt defer to my less bitchy side, but I cannot make any guarantees that by the time you finish reading this that you won’t be thinking, “Good grief, this woman needs some intensive therapy on many, many levels.”

The report by the Alzheimer’s Association estimates that “the number of Americans 65 and older with Alzheimer’s will increase from 5.1 million today to 13.5 million by mid-century.” ie, 2050, when I will be 78 years old. Well, again, No Shit Sherlock, we have a Baby Boomer generation who is approaching a little thing called old age, and yeah – a chunk of them will outlive every other thing that could have killed them first.

Personally, I have come to the conclusion that Alzheimer’s is what gets you when nothing else has been able to kill you first. (The exception being early-onset Alzheimer’s – 5% to 10% of all Alzheimer’s victims are just screwed no matter what.) My grandmother is 87 years old and she has never had a healthy habit in her life – I don’t have a memory in my brain which doesn’t have her lounging on a sofa with either a cup of coffee or a beer or glass of wine in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. (As one of my cousins once asked at a young age, “Does your Grandma ever sleep?” He seriously thought she was a vampire.) Exercise? Oh hell no, it might have mussed her hair or nails! Eating healthy? That was for hippies! She didn’t have any particular aversions to salads, but “cholesterol” was never in her vocabulary. Honestly, despite the fact that she makes me completely batshit crazy, I love my grandmother, but the fact of the matter is – she should have been dead at least 10 years ago. Having escaped all else, Alzheimer’s has come in for it’s final revenge.

The only thing that will keep these potential costs and # of patients down is that the current BB generation is willing to try new things that might kill them before Alzheimer’s hits, such as skydiving and basejumping. (If I live to be 70, I will be taking up basejumping or some similarly suicidal hobby. I am not kidding.) The other thing the BB’s have going for them is that they know this is a definite possibility for their future and they know the more active you keep your brain, the more you can slow down their brains turning to cement. Kids, keep playing Scrabble and Sudoku and doing those NYTimes crossword puzzles – even if you have to occasionally black out empty boxes to make the words fit.

There is a line in the article that really hit me right upside the head: “They estimate that a drug that delays the onset of Alzheimer’s by five years would decrease the total number of Americans age 65 and older with Alzheimer’s from 5.6 million to 4 million in 2020. And if a drug were discovered by 2015 that slowed disease progression, it could cut the number of people in the severe stage of Alzheimer’s disease in half to 1.1 million by 2020, and 1.2 million in 2050, down from the projections of 6.5 million.”

How do I say this nicely? Well, I’m pretty sure I can’t. The rest of the first of the above sentences is “and by putting off Alzheimer’s by five years, we are going to save some serious coin because there’s a damn good chance that something else will kill them first, and much faster than a terminal illness that takes 5-7 years to run it’s course and requires intervention damn near immediately once symptoms present.”

I can see how some may cry “death panels!!!!!!” But it’s not that. Take a minute and think about it. If you could have 2 years with a loved elderly relative who was in the present and loving life and they kicked off while walking out of a salon with a perfectly coiffed ‘do and lovely manicured nails (as my great-grandmother did) vs. having that relative around for another 3 to 5 years beyond that where they essentially ended up no more than a zombie – which would you choose? And if you were said elderly relative? As much as I’d love to see things from the zombie side of it all, I’m not down with it if it entails my family going through hell on earth.

The part of the report that bothered me the most is the fact that unpaid family care amounts to roughly 20 hours a week per Alzheimer’s patient – with no consideration of what people have to give up to provide those 20 hours a week. If you have a 20 hour a week commitment creeping into your life while trying to hold down a 40 hour a week job, well guess what – in this economy, your ass is going to get bounced out of your 40 hour a week job. So not only are you providing a 20 hours a week, $20/hour service for free, you’ve also lost any income to offset it from your 40 hour a week job. Were my mother still alive when things went south with my grandmother, she would have had to quit her job, and tend to my grandmother at no charge. She would have been down $92K a year. Had I still been working, I would have only been down $72K a year, cause my Mom pulled down more a day than I did. The only reason I didn’t have to quit my job when my grandmother went off the rails was that I had already decided to take some time off from Corporate America due to burnout and the fact that I was still trying to cope with the fact that I didn’t have a Mom anymore. And I was in a situation where I found that I couldn’t even reasonably consider even the most intriguing offers of employment – because I couldn’t say, “Well, I’m kind of on call 24/7 for my grandmother, can you handle that?” and expect any level of interest in my copious random skills. So, while the 12.5 billion hours of “free care” for 11 million people a year may be accurate, the full costs of providing those 1136 hours of care per year aren’t taken into account.

The costs of Alzheimer’s will certainly explode, but I don’t think anyone is taking into true account the cost of not just “free” caregiving by family members, but the cost of caregiving plus everything else that has to be given up to provide said caregiving.

That being said, I will still sell everything I have to make sure my grandmother has the care and comfort she needs in whatever time she has left on this mortal plane. I just don’t like the idea of anyone thinking it is “free” in any way, shape or form. It takes it’s toll not just on checkbooks, but on everyone’s mental health and well being that is involved.

And yes, were there a magic drug that could have staved off Alzheimer’s until some other ailment quickly kicked my grandmother onto the next stage of whatever it is that comes after life, so she could enjoy her time left on this earth without being paranoid about her taxes and bills being paid and terrified if there was ever a mistake? I’d be calling her every day at 5PM to make sure she took her pills.

Just got off the phone with Tom at Sierra Wireless who conveyed on many levels what I had been needing to hear, which was in essence, “Holy crap it did WHAT?”

He agreed that an exploding battery was not good, not normal, certainly unsettling and they genuinely did want to look into it and figure out what happened.

They’re sending me paperwork so I can send the whole thing back to them so they can test it and see if they can’t find out what on earth went wrong here, and they said they’d keep in touch with me to let me know what they found out.

What an exploded and flaming battery looks like after you’ve dumped about 10 ounces of Coke on it to extinguish the fire and then dumped it in water to make sure it’s really out:

To see if FB has decided to stop beign a bitch or not.

Grey, cool and drizzly day today. Discovered the one thing I do not have in my car is an umbrella, but at least my windbreaker has a hood. Good day for doing a lot of walking without roasting. Headed out the door, said good morning to the horse and sheep and headed down the street to Bassett Hall.

This is the house that was owned by the Rockefellers and they would come and stay a couple times a year during the restoration/reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg. (Well, and after too, as Mrs Rockefeller adored the place.) They’ve kept the interior the same as when they owned it, so rather than being particularly colonial in it’s decor, you get to see how Mrs Rockefeller chose to decorate everything. When they died, the kids donated the house and contents to the historical society. The gal doing the tour talked about how great it was that they donated all the contents of the house – I suspect there was a teeny-tiny bit of, “If we give it to the historical society, we don’t have to figure out where else to put all this stuff.”

Then into the Historic Area and Tarpley’s Store to start off. Will be returning to shop tomorrow. :)

On to R. Charleton’s Coffeehouse. Not a veiled version of Starbucks. It’s a recent reconstruction, has a dining room where people would read or talk or play games, and was also used for organized dinners. THen the actual coffee area with little tables & chairs and such where the coffee, tea or chocolate was actually served. The folks working these two areas were in character, and in the coffee area, we had a gentleman (whose character name name escapes me now) who was in the House of Burgesses and told us of some issues he was having with his older sister. Seems she left the Church of England, became a Baptist and refused to go to court to get a license to do so, and as such she was then fined 5 shillings a month for failure to attend church. He then says, “And guess who has to pay the fine?” I replied, “That’s what little brothers are for.” His response: “I see you know my sister.”

Then finally off to yet another room where we could actually get some of the aforementioned coffee or chocolate. (I assume the Health Department has something to do with the location of the samples.) Got some chocolate – OMG, sooo good. Dark chocolate with some cinammon and nutmeg and perfect for a rainy day.

Then to the Raleigh bakeshop for a ham biscuit and a Kings Arms Tavern ginger ale – both quite good. Then to the silversmith – little restraint needed, as most of the jewelry I love there, I already have. (Dad bought my Mom a lot of stuff there over the years.) The milliner cracked me up. Two ladies working on a dress, talking about types of dresses and such and I look over in the cabinet at a shelf filled with bolts of fabric to spy one bolt of leopard print fabric…

Across the street to the Blacksmith. Still awesome. They were knocking away at something and there were sparks and fire and all that fun stuff that makes it great.

Print Shop & Bindery – I love both of these. Did you know it takes 60-90 minutes to set a page of type?

Then I wandered down to the Courthouse. If the gentleman giving the talks had a script, he through it out the window about 10 minutes after arriving for work today. He was just talking about anything and everything as people came and went – while I was there, we hit on the court system, bail/bond system, education, oligarchys vs monarchies vs democracies and how they can all lead to tyranny, the fact that humans are flawed and therefore government will always be flawed, and that lawyers were pretty much dirt cheap back in the day and everyone could afford one. Would have loved to stay all day just to see where else the conversation went.

THen down the street to the Getty House. I’m not 100% sure if this is a restoration recently opened to the public or a reconstruction, but it was neat. This is one of the only homes open that was owned by a middle class resident of the time. He was a silversmith, but it seems that times were very good for him up until the war as there was some fairly expensive joinery work in the house, as well as a harpsichord for his daughters. As the guide said, he was certainly showing off a bit when he had the house built.

Wandered down to the Governor’s Palace and went through the gardens (still gorgeous) and the maze (still get lost) and then the house tour. I still love that you walk in and the entry hall is covered in weaponry. (Pretty much all of which were stolen from that hallway during the war. It would seem no one had considered keeping them in an armory of any sort…) There was one of the most squirrley guides there I have ever encountered (thankfully not ours.) As we walked through the main hall getting ready to go upstairs, there is a room off to the side, and I was standing next to it, so I poked my head in to look around and she literally hissed at me and said, “You can see it when you come back downstairs!” And I swear, she skittered off like Gollum in a colonial dress. (The room wasn’t off limits, either.)

I then went down to the Randolph house, and that had to be the best exhibit/house/talk all day. It was the house of the Speaker of the House of Burgesses and his wife. It wasn’t so much about the house itself (though they did hit on architecture and decor and all) but what it took to run the house – 27 slaves. For two people.

In the past, slavery has been acknowledged in the exhibits, but not much beyond that – this was much more thorough and incredibly fascinating. (And a bit mind bending – can you imagine being one of the slaves that would stand at the ready in the dining room listening to debates about breaking away from England and hearing the phrase, “We will not be slaves to the King!”?) Eight of their slaves left to join Cornwallis in the war, having been promised freedom in exchange for their fighting. (No one seems to have an answer for how a third party could promise freedom to them, especially if he wasn’t buying them and then granting their freedom. Apparently the promise was enough.)

The lecture was neither apologetic nor harsh – quite matter of fact about the whole thing, and while it was simply how things were done, it did pretty much suck for a lot of people. I had less trouble with the slavery issue than I had trying to wrap my head around the idea of needing 27 people to tend to a house with 2 residents. (This was just for the house – a house that isn’t a whole lot larger than my own house.) While the ameneties we have today would require less people to be sure, it still seems a ton of people to me. As I said, “With 27 people, my house would be clean in an hour and then I’d have no idea what else to have anyone work on.” I know they have a ton of documentation on the slaves that were owned by the Randolphs – I should do some poking about and see if they have descriptions of what they all did. Going through the myraid of tasks required to run a house, I can still only come up with 18 people at the most.

The day also left me with the question of – why on earth would any wealthy woman get married in that period? Men pretty much all married up, because whatever their wives had became theirs the minute they said “I do.” When Mr Randolph died, his wife got everything and didn’t remarry – well, no shit, I certainly wouldn’t either if it meant losing everything I had, especially if it included a nice house with several acres and three plantations. Same with Christiana Campbell – her husband died and she was able to buy and open the tavern in her own name – and did not remarry as she liked what she had going.

Great day followed up by a great hockey game!!

Tomorrow, hit the stuff I missed today, and Kings Arms Tavern for dinner.

Got to the hotel (a place whose name I recognized, the photos on the website I recognized, but when I arrived I realized I have absolutely NO recollection of actually staying here) dumped my stuff, hit the Visitor’s Center (missed the last showing of Story of a Patriot) drove around a while to orient myself, only to repeatedly realize I had no idea where I was.

When I asked my brother if he remembered the place where we stayed down here when we were kids, we agreed it was the Patrick Henry Inn. He mentioned that it was right next to the historic district, just cross the street and follow the split rail fence. I didn’t remember that at all, but he seemed to remember it quite clearly.

Then I was driving down Lafayette and saw the place where I *know* we stayed on multiple occasions, which of course begged the question – where the hell was I going? Got to the hotel, recognized it, but couldn’t remember ever actually staying here. And there is a huge field right across the street WITH HORSIES!!!! I think I’d remember that. Maybe the rest of the family came down and I was somewhere else. But it is just a block from the historic district, so it’s all good.

Went over and visited with the horses while killing time before dinner. I wish people didn’t look at me strangely when I talk to animals. We were having a lovely time, thankyouverymuch.

Then off to dinner at Christiana Campbell’s Tavern. Walking distance is a lovely thing. Saw SHEEP!!! in the field next to the horses on the way over. (Again, stop looking at me that way!) Didn’t get lost, despite the fact that it is only a block and a half away, I am shit with navigation, so I was pleased. Haven’t been there in at least 20 years. They seem to have updated the menu, and are heavily seafood now, but it was all awesome. Sweet potato muffins, sherried crab stew, SPOON BREAD!!!!!!!, beef tenderloin & salmon, and a port for dessert. “Ms. Campbell” came in the dining room for a bit with a short history lesson, which was cool, and then a minstrel came in for a few minutes. (Thankfully only a few minutes.) You can never find an olive loaf when you really need one.

I love PFCU. I’ve never had any significant problems with them, and when anything has gone wrong, they have fixed it straightaway. But I recently opened a second checking account and damn if it hasn’t been complete comedy of errors.

Last month, I opened a second checking account online for the Avon stuff. Seemed simple enough, website said it wouldn’t be active until they got the signature card back.

Well, within a day things went sideways. Unbeknownst to me, the debit card from my main checking account had been attached to the new checking account, which had a whopping $25 in it to start off. And a charge went through from a couple days earlier, meant for the main checking account, hit the new account, threw it to a negative balance which then triggered a $30 late fee… (Mind you, the new account was supposed to be attached to my TSC account for overdraft, which has no fee when used.)

At this point, I’d not even gotten the signature card in the mail to return.

Get on the phone, get the debit card re-attached to the main account, got the overdraft charges reversed, and they assured me that the account was in fact now also attached to the TCS account for any accidental overdrafts.

Got the signature card, filled it out and took it to the branch for delivery. Teller looked it over to make sure that everything was filled out properly, confirmed I wanted checks and a debit card and I went along my merry way.

As of the end of last week, I’d still not gotten the checks or the debit card for the account. Called this morning to see what the delay was.

They don’t have the signature card. The one I dropped off in person. OH MY GOD ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????

To my credit, I didn’t freak out on the nice lady on the phone. My reaction was something along the lines of, “Um, well. OK then. So, why don’t I go back to the branch and fill out another one and watch them enter it into the system?” She seemed genuinely releived that I didn’t freak out, so I feel like I’ve done my good deed for the day by not going postal on some poor gal in the call center.

So, I’m off to the bank again.

Which is something I really thought that the Coca Cola Corporation would have figured out after the New Coke debacle. (I was in Atlanta with my grandparents when this abomination came about, and it was BAD.)

Quite some time ago when I was living in Centreville, the QuikEMart had a cooler at the front of the store with glass bottle Coke. At the time, I didn’t really take much note of the fact that the label said “Refresco!” on it. I just saw glass bottle Coke and happily grabbed as many as I could carry and went along my merry way. And those Cokes were awesome.

At the time, I didn’t realize the formulations were different*, but DAYUM, it tasted like summer in Atlanta at my grandparents’ house way, way back in the day.

Today while walking through the soda section of Costco, out of the corner of my eye I saw the words, “Hecho en Mexico” – well, I damn near snapped my neck to see if it actually meant what I thought it did – glass bottle Mexican Coke w/cane sugar**. My happy suspicions confirmed, I tossed two cases into my cart (damn near giving myself a hernia in the process.)

Cans, plastic bottles, lighter bottles, etc, etc, have all be heralded as improvements. But really, there is nothing like a good glass bottle Coke in your hand on a hot day. It is designed to exquisitely fit in your hand and it has a perfect heft that cannot be reproduced by a plastic bottle or a can on any day of the week, plus it stays colder for longer than any other packaging. Add in real sugar instead of HCFS and you have a perfect pause that refreshes any day of the week.

Seriously, Coke, bring back lovely the 12 ounce contour glass bottle with real sugar for VERY wide release in the US. The fact that you have customers actively hunting for the import version of it should be a sign that it’s a greatly loved commodity in the US should be some sort of sign that there is some very real demand for it.

Sometimes it’s better to go back to your roots than try to make everything “better”.

*HFCS wasn’t really part of the day to day vocabulary at that point.
** I’d only heard of Mexican Coke showing up in SoCal Costcos – I’d not stumbled upon it in NoVa until now.

Dear Moxley,

I know things have been a touch more challenging since the WonderTwins showed up, and for the most part, you have done a spectacular job dealing with the youthful miscreants that are galloping about your home. (Trust me, I do see that look in your eyes every now and again that says, “You know, I thought it was perfectly nice when it was just you, me and the boy.”) You did so well with Snoopy & Target, but you had no idea that they were elderly, and you had no reason to believe that Lily & Carmen would be anything other than smaller versions of their predecessors, rather than the insane torties that they are. (Color us both surprised on the insane part.)

I know there are times that you love to bark at the cats simply for the immense joy of barking at the cats. I can give you a pass on that. That joy certainly doesn’t change because we have two relatively new kitties in the house. I also realize there are perfectly reasonable reasons to bark that have nothing to do with the feline interlopers.

However, I feel we need to have a refresher course over appropriate and inappropriate times to bark.

Appropriate times to bark:

– Cats getting up on the counter where they are not allowed. (Really, try it instead of just staring at them.)
– Cats trying to crawl into kitchen drawers where they may get stuck. (Again, this would be a huge help to me.)
– Squirrels. I have seen them throw things at you, and I understand.
– When you’re sitting at the back door and want to come in. Really. Give it a go. I don’t always see you in my peripheral vision from the couch and don’t realize you’re standing at the back door. A little vocalization in that situation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Inappropriate times to bark:

– When anyone is in the bathroom and the cats are standing outside the door. They won’t kill us upon exit, I promise. This goes extra for guests in the bathroom.
– When one of the cats is lounging by the closed and locked front door. They can’t get out via the gap in the weatherstripping. They have never been, and will never be that small.
– When a houseguest wakes up before I do. You are bigger than the cats and can certainly muscle your way through the crowd to say good morning without making noise. Your barking makes our guests feel like they have inadvertently set off a doggie alarm clock by the simple act of waking up.
– When the cats are lounging on the floor in the middle of the kitchen.
– When the cats are lounging on the stairs.
– When the cats are drinking from the communal water dish.
– When you feel the cats are “in your way” despite the fact that you can easily step over or around them, given that you outweigh them by 2.7 to 4 times depending on the cat.

I will always be incredibly grateful for the fact that for the most part, you are a pretty darn quiet dog. It is what contributes greatly to your AwesomeDog status. But if you can do some rearranging of when you bark according to the guidelines above, that would be spectacular.

Much love and sloppy kisses,
The girl with the biscuits.

It was supposed to be a fairly boring day. Bank and then the grocery store. So simple.

Hit the new-to-me PFCU branch, hit the ATM machine, then went inside and dropped off a signature card for a new account. Grocery store, get Easter goodies, hit the checkout and open my wallet to get out my debit card.

It’s not there. @*!(*##(*@!!! Be thankful that I pulled cash out of the ATM machine, and check out. My mind is whirling at whether or not I am going to be able to get back the card assuming the machine ate it at the bank, and I didn’t drop it somewhere. Make my way to the car, unload the groceries and discover that I no longer have a wallet. At this point I look at the sky and yelled something along the lines of “Goddammit, Karma, you need to sit your ass down and take a breather!! You sent me grandma’s Alzheimers and I dealt with it! I WON. So stop screwing with me!”

As you might expect, this will get you some odd looks in a grocery store parking lot.

Back into the market where thankfully I had just left my wallet at the checkstand and not dropped it somewhere else. Get home, Avon order is here. Excellent – except that I have to unload groceries and call the bank to find out if I am SOL or if I can get the card back. Thank you PFCU for not having ATM machines that destroy captured cards. Back to the bank, get card.

Home again, break down Avon order, discover we will be having a houseguest this weekend, zip up to Glory Days to make deliveries and confuse the hell out of everyone as they normally never see me during daylight. Back home, breathe for about 5 minutes, collate catalogues and samples. Get rest of samples, demos and supplies slightly more organized.

Finally get things all settled, and find that the afternoon probably wouldn’t have felt like quite such a marathon had I not had the adrenaline rush of losing debit card, losing wallet, retrieving wallet and retrieving debit card.

I am also now realizing that I don’t think that I have eaten today, and I should probably do something about it.

I will fully admit that I am unabashedly in love with Jeremy Clarkson, James May, Kevin McKidd, and Craig Ferguson.  Looking at that sentence, it may just be that I have a thing for guys from the UK, but whatever.  Hell, it’s not exactly a secret that my list of issues could keep a therapist in business until his kids graduated college.

But I ADORE Craig Ferguson.  And on 4/20/09 he did an absolutely hysterical opening to his show.  After watching it repeatedly (it makes me giggle like a maniac every swinging time) I finally had to ask my brother, “Was it just aired on 4/20 and they didn’t care, or is there some pot reference I am missing?”  The answer was, “Stoners really like the puppets.”  Well, I am not a stoner (despite my unemployed slacker status) but the puppets do slay me every single time.  So, whenever I’m feeling a bit low, or extra silly, this is my go-to video on YouTube. (And really, the puppets had the easy lines – this took some work for everyone to know the song.)

Seriously, if you’re in need of some giggles, this should do it for you:

It was the weekend while I was waiting and waiting AND WAITING to get Carmen & Lily home and I was flashing their shelter website photos to everyone, cause OMG BATMAN, I HAD KITTENS COMING HOME!

The cat people were very excited for me.  The non-cat people at least saw all the crazy happy going on and nodded and smiled and looked at the pictures and said they looked pretty cute.  And then there was the gentleman who was a vet tech who said, “Torties are insane, just so you know.”

I thought, “Pfffft.  Cats are cats.  I’ve had a Calico, and that’s kind of like a Tortie and we got on swimmingly.  And I’ve had 3 other cats since Patches.”  Little did I know how ridiculously right he was.

These two are nuts.  NVTS, nuts.  It does not diminish my love for them, it actually enhances it, because it is a wonderful lovable crazy.  Today Lily managed to not only get to the top of the curtains on the back door, she got to the curtain rod.  The problem with this is not only that she is a curtain climber* (she is the first) but that my first reaction is, “Damn, well done!” quickly followed by, “No, wait, Bad Kitty!  You’re not supposed to be up there!”  I had to grab a cushion from the patio furniture for her to jump down on – really, I can’t blame her for not wanting to jump into two small hands.

Lily also likes to burrow.  The other day Moxley was standing outside his crate, visibly upset.  (He willingly and happily naps in his crate.)  I looked in, and Lily had burrowed inbetween the blanket layers and pretty much tucked herself in.  The sight of a disembodied cat head resting at the back of his crate was a little more than Mox could handle.

Carmen is also nuts, perhaps a compensation issue for the fact that she is a petite six pounds.  She will jump and sit on the dog’s tail if it is within reach at any time.  She also has been known to punch the dog.  No, not swipe at the dog, but curl up her little blue & blonde paws and punch him in the face.  She is also the cat that I fear will figure out that the lever on the toilets is what makes the water go all swirly.  If that happens, I will have the water bill of an apartment complex.

Donald is also in the process of teaching her to do a barrel roll on command.  He’s almost there.  She also has a weird obsession with wet washcloths.  A dry washcloth, I could understand – it’s a little kitty sized binkie.  But no, it’s a cold, wet washcloth from the shower.  Not even warm because she snagged it right away after shower time.  I have lost count of the nights I have walked upstairs only to encounter a cold *squish* under my feet.

I’ve only been given the honor of their presence for a little under 5 months, but yes, these two are absolutely and completely insane.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

*In her defense, it is a heavy duty insulated curtain that she can’t hurt.  She does take the time to test the structural integrity of all fabrics before climbing them.  Which is why I am safe when I wear my flannel PJ pants.  Water doesn’t faze her, so a squirt gun would be a waste of time and 99 cents.

Round 1 was easy – just a path through the backyard for the dog.  Headed out for Round 2.

Got outside, most of my neighbors were out, which made it more tolerable.  (I can’t quite say “fun” but not as bad as being out there by myself.)  My neighbor on the left had snowblown the sidewalk all the way down to the edge of my driveway.  Three of my neighbors from across the street came over and we all started working on the snow berm from hell. We all commented on my brother’s managing to escape this nonsense.  (Though he’s in the thick of nasty weather as well, and likely helping there.)

My right hand side neighbor was back out with his snowblower as well.

Now, I have no idea what my sweet southern neighbor went and said to snowblower neighbor, but next thing I know I look up and he’s snowblowing the entire sidewalk, does my driveway and then hits the berm.  We all then trooped over and dug out snowblower neighbors car, so I think it all came out even in the end.  Then I went back over the sidewalks from the driveway to driveway on either side and did my own driveway again – it was already covered again in the time it took 4 of us to dig out a car.

We’re still going to get another 8-10 inches of snow today, but at least I should be able to keep up with it now.

The animals reaction to all this?

Moxley:  You have got to be shitting me.  Again?  SERIOUSLY?

Carmen:  Do you see that?  There is stuff FALLING from the sky!  DO YOU SEE IT??!?!

Lily:  Hey, are you gonna finish that sandwich?

A visual of Moxley’s feelings on the storm:

As you know, I am the Chairman and CEO of “Keep Grandma Out Of A Nursing Home, Inc.” Like any startup, the first 18 months were hell – one cranky client, no suppliers, on call 24/7 and spending most of my time beating my head into a wall and tearing my hair out. Then, things finally started to come together, reliable help was found, I get to sleep through the night again, and things are running almost in a manner that could be considered “smooth”. This is the point in the business cycle where another enterprise comes along and buys me out for a ridiculous sum of money.

UnitedHeath and HCA – I’m looking at you guys. You both made some nice profits last year, and after all – I am your competition! Let the bidding wars begin.

In other news, my neighbor just called and asked, “So, do you know where your dog is?” “Um, I’m betting he’s not in the backyard like I think he is…” Seems the side gate blew open and he had himself a little adventure. At least he doesn’t go far afield when this happens, and it was just a matter of opening the door and saying, “Ohh, Moxley?” and he was back in and barking at the cats.

ProTip: If you have less than great depth perception, and lack grace & coordination – stay away from things that can hit you in the head – like doors. My temple is STILL hurting from whacking my head on the door yesterday. (Seriously, how the hell do you walk into a door?)

Christ, in what I can only describe as being seriously self obsessed, the Australian arm of the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken has had to withdraw an advertisement after accusations of racial insensitivity from AMERICANS who saw the ad on the internet.

It showed a white cricket fan trying to pacify a group of rowdy West Indian fans by handing around fried chicken.

Good grief, way to be morally superior and absolutely idiotic at the same time for not being able to take into account the fact that THE REST OF THE WORLD ISN’T LIKE US, and not everyone is offended by the same things we may be offended by.

Oh and the fact that the team in question WASN’T FROM the deep south of the US*, and therefore any unfortunate stereotypes of African Americans & fried chicken most likely don’t even apply in the first place.

I will not even enter the debate over KFC itself. It’s awesome in it’s own perfect way. (The number of times I have sent out SO’s or family members for a 3 piece with mashed potatoes & coleslaw when I’m feeling under the weather is proof itself.)

*I’m not saying that there aren’t cricket clubs in the states that are considered the “deep south” of the US. I have no doubt that there are cricket clubs all over the United States. But this ad didn’t have a team from Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina or any other state that might be considered the “deep south” in the United States. It was the WEST freakin INDIES.

And sometimes that means rescheduling Christmas.  This certainly isn’t the first time it’s happened, as I seem to recall being signed out of school sometime in February/March one year with my mother signing the “reason for absence” as “Going home to have Christmas.”  (Mind you, we were in a predominantly military area and the lady in charge of the book didn’t even blink an eye over it, as she knew which boats were coming home and when.)

Tomorrow is our Christmas.  And I’ll fully admit that I am positively bouncing off the walls over it tonight like a six year old.  The stockings are overflowing and I have not one but TWO presents that little bro didn’t have on his Amazon.com wishlist.  (Not that he would mind getting nothing but items that were on his wishlist, but it’s really fun to find things that he hasn’t called out ahead of time!)

We’ll be doing Christmas brunch with hashbrown casserole, bacon, egg casserole, and Mimosas.  (From what I have heard, 2 casserole/hot dish items might make us Lutheran – if that is the case, so be it – I do love a really good hot casserole.  Kelly – you can tell me for sure on this aspect!)  And later as we watch college football and ACC basketball (and possibly the arrest of my godmother*)  there will be sausage cheese balls, pastrami/swiss pinwheels, and given how hungry we are, spanokopitas, mini quiches, mini crabcakes, and pigs in blankets…  (I tend to ensure there is about 6x more food than we actually need for any holiday eating event.)

If there is stuff under the tree for me tomorrow – AWESOME!  If not?  Who cares??!?  Cause I get to be Santa for my brother and my pets.  (Yes, the pets get Christmas presents – it’s the only way I can use the “Santa is WATCHING!” excuse to get them to behave.)

I think it was sometime in high school or college that Christmas went from “OMG, getting cool stuff!” to “OMG, giving cool stuff to everyone else!!!!” and I’m so glad that it flipped over whenever it did.  Cause Christmas became SO MUCH MORE FUN when I hit that point.  And looking back at every Christmas when my parents said, “I think we went overboard this year,” I really do understand – because it’s so ridiculously fun to go overboard for everyone else!

Merry Christmas, all – even if it is a tad behind schedule.

*She claims her potential appearance on Centre Court is legit – we’ll know for sure if the announcers do/do not speak of a “fan disturbance” incident.  :)

Music of the Moment: Bob Dylan, Must Be Santa.

So yes, the snow is coming down like gangbusters here in the Metro DC area.   There is 6 inches on the back deck right now, and my brother and I are debating whether or not this is the worst of it.  I see a bunch of precip still off the NC/SC coast coming up at us, he thinks that band will veer off – I’m not so sure.  The weather reports say the snow will continue to come down all day tomorrow and possibly into Sunday morning.  So, we shall see.

Put the cats in front of the back door tonight so they could see what real snow looked like.  They were entranced.  Nothing like a “WHOA…” expression from a kitty cat.

Mox has proven via his pawprints that he has serious leaping ability.  You can’t really see it as well when there is no snow, but for a small dog, he’s got some really springy legs.

Not sure what is going on with VDOT, there have been at least 3 trucks that have gone by the house, and yet the feeder roads in the neighborhood are in better shape than the main drag in town.  (Yes, I went out.  Last chance I have before being trapped in my house tomorrow.)

And as a result of all this, all the animals are quite riled up, and every time Carmen does her roly-poly thing on the floor, Moxley completely freaks out.  I can only think it’s cause Snoopy & Target never did that in front of him, and he thinks Carmen is having a seizure or something.  I think there might be a LOT of barking this evening…