Trophy Kills

This morning, as I was stumbling to the bathroom in a near catatonic state - I noticed something in the hallway.  I couldn't quite make it out - I had yet to wipe the sleep from my eyes.  In the dawn's early light, the something was dark and lumpy.  And possibly rodent-shaped.  And I'm not talking a mouse - I'm talking teenaged-rat-size.  I took a tentative step or two closer.   Actually it wasn't that lumpy.  It was kind of uniformly... dome-shaped.  Again, being half asleep I'm wondering how the cats managed to get a small turtle  into the house.  Wait there was another one!   Another step closer...

Okay, so you know how a lot of sports bras have those padded, smoothing inserts to add support and hide your nipples?  (Cause we all know how excited gals get while exercising...)    I wash them separately in little meshed lingerie bags so that they don't disappear into the realm of lost socks.  They usually end up stacked on the shelf in the laundry room, depending how many of those sports bras I use during the week.

So what I woke to this morning?  Was a trail of sports bra insert kills from the upstairs hallway to the laundry room.  Which, when my first thought had been a trail of rodents?  Way better. 

Astronomy 101 with Rissa

We are coming home late.  The stars are brilliant in the night sky.

Rissa says, "I know Orion's Belt."

I say, "I really only know the Big Dipper.  And maybe the North Star."

"Well, that one?" Rissa says.    "That's the, um... triangle... and over there is the octagon constellation and that one... is the irregular trapezoid constellation... OH MY GOD!  That one looks like a boob!"

"Does it have a nipple in the centre?"

"It does!  And that one there looks like a dog eating a duck."

And here is a picture of Rissa pointing to the Bala sign "Everyone's been to Bala..."

It's an honour to be nominated...

I have been nominated for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award by Menopausal Mother - very kind of her indeed!  Please check out her blog! 

These awards encourage bloggers to read each other's blogs and to let the public at large know about the blogging community.

I am, in turn, nominating 15 other bloggers.  It's like a Blog Hop but with pretty pictures attached and more patting on the back!

Fresh Parsley
T-Rex Trying
Ugly Renaissance Babies
My Drunk Kitchen 
Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber
That Artist Woman
Twin Dragonfly Designs
Soul Pancake
Improv Everywhere
Daily Grommet
Girl's Gone Child
Dooce
Kate Inglis
Blog Con Queso
Fin Slippy

 

 

The rules for this award are the same:

1.  Link back to the person who nominated you.
2.  Post award image on your site.
3.  List 7 random facts about yourself.
4.  Nominate 15 other bloggers.
5.  Notify the bloggers that they have been nominated and link back to their site.

7 Random Facts about me:

1. I have a NO-FAIL sound that will make all babies laugh.
   
2. I dressed my younger brother in my old clothes and called him Cynthia when he was too young to know to stop me.
   
3.  I was a surrogate for another family.
   
4.  I have been known to eat peanut butter on hotdogs.
   
5. I lived in California for 2 years and came back beige, not tanned.
   
6.  My husband made a list of all the qualities he wanted in a woman before he met me.  I meet all those qualities except for "healthy."
   
7. I am fiercely loyal to friends and will fight dirty to protect them.

Kitty Litter Cloud

From canitbesaturdaynow.com

We have three cats.  We have three boxes of kitty litter.  You'd think that would mean that each cat would use its own box.  You would be wrong.

Two boxes are used for number one and one box is used for number two.  Which means that one box is mostly dry with stinky bits of poop and two boxes are somewhat wet with rounded balls of cat pee.  And no matter what anyone tells you?  The clumping kitty litter doesn't really stay clumped.  It's more like disintegrating kitty litter that can't really be sifted, but needs, rather, to have the top layer skimmed to take all the grody, stinky wet stuff out.

And the one kitty litter box that holds the number two?  When you sift it to gather ye olde cat poop, there is this cloud of kitty litter that then permeates the air. Which means that when one is leaning over said kitty litter box, the hazy fog of odour that you can practically taste, tends to cling to one's clothing and hair.  Which makes the cleaning of the kitty litter job even more pleasurable, on account of the fact that when you leave the basement with three tidy boxes of kitty litter left behind you, you can smell the stench of feline feces on your person. 

At first you don't notice it; you're pleased with having accomplished the kitty litter chore.  But then, as you make your way through the house... there is this niggly sensation... something on the tip of your tongue - and seeing as what's on the tip of your tongue is a cloud of kitty litter, that's when you start the dry heaving...  that's usually when you need to either have a full-on shower or at least immerse yourself in a vat of baby powder to remove said stench.  On the bright side?  The kitty litter cloud serves as a particularly pungent reminder of when you have to completely change the litter from the one box that holds the number two.

Panty Liner Soccer

I love watching the cats play.  Steve and Lola are batting something all over the kitchen floor.  They're having so much fun.  Galloping to and fro - the epitome of feline friskiness.

I throw a glance their way - can't quite make out what they're playing with.  White and... pink??  What are they playing with?  It looks like a wad of toilet paper maybe?  Nope.  A paper towel?  Noooooope.

It's a panty-liner that they've stolen from the upstairs bathroom waste basket.  It's a panty liner that Steve is now carrying in his mouth.  Thankfully, it's a panty liner that has been rolled onto itself, thereby trapping any residual... (insert inappropriately descriptive imagery here) in its centre.  And all I could think was this:  Thank God we flush tampons.

Crazy-Ass Hand Veins

When did I start having these crazy-ass hand veins?  How did that happen?!?  I'm 44 with the hands of a grandmother.  I want to raise my hands above my heart so that all the blood rushes from them and I can pretend they are still young and pretty and not all  blue and bulgy and veiny.

The last time I was under a general anesthetic?  I didn't have bulgy veins for several weeks.  It was fantastic!  My hands looked like a teenager's.  Does your blood get thinner with a general?  If I had elective surgery every little while, would my hands look younger too?  They could give me a shot of botox for my forehead lines, but do it while I was under a general and I'd wake up with a young face AND young hands. 

My hands totally give me away.  My face, from a relative distance, appears young - full of vim and vigour.  My hands?  Might be mistaken for the Evil Queen's from Disney's Snow White.  I shall endeavour to turn this into a 'glass 1/2 full' moment... If I were to be hospitalized, they'd have NO problem finding a vein for the IV.  There, see?  Always a bright side.

Although, when I'm having sex, I do try to leave my hands over my head so that David doesn't think that he's giving an octogenarian a good rogering.

Got me by the short and curlies!

Curly hair.  Not every stylist gets it.  You just can't cut curly hair the way that you cut straight hair.  It has a life of its own.  You lose length when it dries.  It SPROINGS.  My regular stylist - Amanda - the one who can cope with curly hair, is off work, expecting her third child.   She obviously doesn't understand her importance to me.  When you only get trims on a quarterly or half-yearly basis, you need someone who knows what they're doing.  She abandoned me in my hour of need.

I asked the new stylist (whom I was assured could cut curly hair) for several shorter pieces to give the top layers some bounce.   Amanda does this all the time.  This is what I ended up with:

Yes, this shank of hair is 5 inches shorter than my shortest layer.

I want Amanda to come back.  I want her to quit having kids and going on Mat Leave.  Although, by the time I go for my next trim - she'll probably be back and my hair will have grown out again.  So I will chalk this up to a learning experience.  And next time?  When I'm booking my appointment? When I ask "Can the stylist cut curly hair?"  and they say yes... I will have a follow-up question.  "REALLY?"