Man, I love Portland

Mick sent me this picture he took with his phone while stuck in traffic yesterday afternoon. You wish you lived here.

Peace

My uncle died this week. I haven't seen him in about 20 years, but I am pretty sad about it. He was only 52.

He was the coolest uncle when I was a little girl. He was funny and kind and patient. He was a doctor. He knew all the answers to Trivial Pursuit, but if he was your partner, he made you feel like you knew them, too. He was in the army. I remember when he was officially discharged. He had a big smile on his face and a beer in his hand and he said that he'd made his very last phone call to check in and he was officially out of the army. He was pretty happy. He was a good dad to his kids and seemingly a good husband to my aunt. He liked to hear about what I thought and what I was reading. He made me feel smart and important. I remember he went on a road trip with my family before he married my aunt. He drew the short straw and had to ride in the back of the pickup with the kids. He never once acted annoyed, even though my little sisters and I played "smother him with kisses" the whole way to wherever we were going. We were little. We didn't know how annoying we were. He didn't sit in the back after that, though :)

Then, one day when I was in my teens, it all changed and I never saw him again. He chose a different life and struggled with addiction. I wrote him a letter once but he never wrote back. I was sad, but kind of understood. He probably thought I wanted to try to bring him back and he was happy where he was. Or maybe he didn't want me to be a part of that world. I don't know if I am happier because the only memories I have of him are the happy ones or if I am sad because I missed him all those years. Well, Uncle Dan, I love you. May you rest in peace. You were a light in my life and I will always remember you that way.

Save Fatty

Kitty's holding strong at 16 lbs this week. Go Kitty!

Save Fatty

I know that I am late reporting on Kitty's weight, but this measurement was actually taken last Friday, even though I am only reporting it now. Kitty was at 16 lbs! Go Kitty!

Kitty loves to eat. I usually feed Kitty twice a day, once when I wake up and once when I get home from work. This was all very fine for a long time. Kitty would just meow at me when I got up and when I got home. Then, for the past year, I was having troubles with insomnia. This meant that I was getting up and going back to bed at odd times during the night and sometimes the day. This meant that Kitty thought that all of those times were feeding times. He would meow and meow. I would try to trick him by touching the food that was in his bowl, but that wasn't good enough. I had to get some "fresh" food out of the container before he would shut up. Also, I wasn't exactly my most patient self since I wasn't getting enough sleep, so I gave into him more than I should.

Luckily, I seem to have mostly gotten over my insomnia. I only occasionally can't sleep now. However, Kitty had not gotten over it. He liked to sit outside my bedroom door and meow for food (Mick doesn't like to sleep with Kitty) periodically during the night and frantically in the hour before I normally get up. I resisted him for the most part, but it was really annoying as you can imagine.

I was surfing the web the other day and somehow ran into a blog or message board where someone was talking about their cat meowing and pestering them for food. They said they bought an automatic cat feeder that operated on a timer and that it really helped. I INSTANTLY went to the pet store and spent way too much money on an automatic feeder. I also bought some "lazy kitty" "senior kitty" food. This past week I have been feeding him from the auto-feeder and feeding him 1/2 regular senior cat food and 1/2 lazy senior cat food. I am happy to report that he has not been meowing frantically outside my door for food. He still meows a little when I get home from work, but not as desperately. I tell you, when he hears the wheel rotate on the feeder, that cat is off like a gun running for the food. It's really funny.

I attribute kitty's weight loss this week to the lazy senior kitty food (actually "indoor senior" cat food) and the automatic feeder.

In case you care

Thanks to Sarah, who left a comment about the bird who kept bonking itself into my windows , the bird is no longer exhibiting OCD behavior on my house. She said that people she knew with a similar problem had put plastic bags over the bonking targets. This sounded like a good idea to me, so I taped some plastic bags to the outside of my windows where the bonking was occurring, and the bonking ceased immediately. Thank you, Sarah.

I forgot to give you an update on my moss experiment. Now, the grass seed I planted in the places where I killed the moss with baking soda has sprouted and my lawn looks great. Well, there are quite a few dandelions in it, but at least the grass is nice and thick and there aren't big bare spots.

I also had problems with moles in my yard. I tried all sorts of things to get rid of them (except killing them, because I just can't bring myself to do it). The thing that works is predator pee. I got some dehydrated bobcat urine off the Internet and followed the directions and Lo and Behold, the moles went away. So, go forth and get your pee in a jar and be mole-free like me.

Save Fatty

Fatty weighed in at 16.2 lbs today. I got some lower calorie food for him. It's senior indoor food. Perhaps that will help.

This picture is of me wanting to know why my window wouldn't close and finding out it was Kitty's fat rear end that was blocking it.

Kitty Pr0n

I was at a conference a few months back and was a little sleep deprived. We'd been working really hard to get our demo ready; I was finishing up my dissertation proposal at the time; and, in addition, I was going through a rough bout with insomnia.

That said... I was showing some people pictures of my cat on my phone. The very fact that I was doing this shows that I was sleep-deprived. I mean, I realize that no one wants to look at multiple pictures of my fat cat. The pictures I was showing were of Kitty on his back spread-eagled, showing the full glory of his tummy. I said, "Ha, I have kitty porn on my phone." I didn't even realize how close that sounded to "I have kiddie pr0n on my phone" until I said it several times in a loudish voice. When I realized it, I tried really hard to make sure that everyone in earshot knew that I was talking about my cat. Oh, man.

Okay, but look at that picture. Look at the seductive look in his eyes. If that's not kitty pr0n, I don't know what is :)

P.S. The picture is wonky like that because I was trying to cut out as much of my dirty floors as possible. Don't judge. If Ben was your dog, your floors would look like mine.

Not the fittest

I realize that this is not the best picture ever taken; in fact, you might not even be able to tell what it is. It is a picture of a bird outside my dining room window. In order to get this picture, I had to crawl commando-style on my carpet, only making movements when the bird was busy SLAMMING ITSELF INTO THE WINDOW.

Yes, you heard me. For the past several days, this bird has been repeatedly bonking itself into two windows in my house, one in the dining room and one in the basement. The dining room window is directly above the basement window, but there is a large porch floor between them. I keep scaring the bird away, but he keeps coming back to the same two windows. Thunk... thunk... thunk... all day. Very strange.

How sad is it ...

So, Mick is not the kind of guy who brings home flowers. I drop hints all the time that I love them and that they would be a nice surprise, but it never happens. I swear I am okay with this. However, it's pretty sad that I occasionally buy some flowers for myself at the store and pretend they're from Mick. And even more sad is that my best flower vase is an old Pace picante sauce jar.

Save Fatty

Kitty must be yo-yo dieting. He's up to 16.6 lbs this week. I think I need to get even lower calorie food for him.

April Fool

Mentaljr april fooled me last night. He came home from his shift and Burger King and was hanging out in his room. I went down to his room to ask him about his day and to make sure that he put his uniform in the wash. When I asked, "How was your day today?" he said, "I got fired." I said, "I'm so sorry, sweetie." I have been dreading that he will be fired soon. One reason is that he lasted only 3 weeks at his former job, and the other reason is that he was told by his BK managers that he is stinky. He said, "APRIL FOOL!" It turns out that one of the other employees at BK had april fooled mentaljr, by telling him that he had overheard the managers saying that they were going to let mentaljr go at the end of the week. Now, mentaljr is not a shy one, so he went directly to his managers and asked them if he would be fired. They sighed and said exasperatedly, "You were april fooled!" He was quite happy to hear that.