Mimi Sitting On Things For About The 100th Time

She is indeed a sit upon cat. I've been working on stuff out in the living room lately, which makes a big mess but since I sleep in what was once my workroom now, and the computer sits on what used to be my workbench now, there just isn't enough room anywhere else to work. So, I set up a card table and use the table that used to sit behind the couch as my cutting table, and out in the living room I go. Where I make a big mess but I can watch TV or listen to the radio and don't feel like I'm working in some dark room shut off from the world.

Anyway, my paper cutter was sitting on the couch table thing which is not behind the couch but against the window and the sun really shines in that window in the afternoon so Mimi decided it would be a good place to sit.

And, speaking of silly spots cats pick to lay around in or on, Buddy is currently laying in the hallway with his head on the threshold of the bedroom door. Right where I have to step over him.

Now, how is the separate sleeping arrangements thing going, you might ask? I know it's a dirty little secret that married people don't want to admit to, not sleeping in the same bed or even in the same room as their spouse. What about togetherness? What about intimacy? Well, what about snoring and snorting and tossing around and having your sleep disturbed night after night after night? We are both guilty of snoring and making weird noises that keep the other awake, not to mention the tossing around. Keith says he gets a little lonely sometimes, but we both sleep much much better without worrying about keeping someone else from getting a good night's sleep. I highly recommend it if you can't sleep at night.

Mimi Sitting On Things Again

I was doing a little cleaning up the other day and put some papers of Keith's on the counter, papers that I figured might be important and maybe if they were on the counter he would put them where they belong. Which usually ends up being on top of his dresser, where there is a huge pile of papers, papers he shuffles through each time he is looking for something extremely important, because Keith is even more disorganized than me. I usually put my important papers on the fridge under a magnet or shoved in between the telephone and my pens and pencils mug.

Anyway, papers put on the counter, and not ten seconds later, and she must have a sixth sense that tells her something has been laid down somewhere, here is Mimi sitting upon those papers.

Because anything laid down anywhere needs sitting upon.

A Few Ups and a Lot of Downs

I'm starting to get almost as stressed out as Keith is. He went to Fresno on Sunday afternoon and was all worried and anxious on Monday waiting for his turn to take the switching scenario test. They didn't get to him that day so he had to stay another night and do the test on Tuesday. He did really well with only one mistake, and came home with renewed confidence in himself so I was thinking that maybe, just maybe he will get through all this. Then yesterday he went down to the yard to do a study group with some of the other guys, with only a few of them showing up, and found out that he still had some computer modules to get through and it's all on things that he has no clue about. So, he comes home all worried again and spent the rest of the evening trying to study this stuff that he is somehow supposed to know.

I think a lot of the problem is that he has always worked under other people where he was told what to do each day and didn't have to really think about what he was doing, just get the job done. This railroad thing is just so different and you have to think every minute about what you are doing, and then this whole having to use the computer to do just about everything else thing is just really messing him up. He HATES computers and HATES having to use them.

Anyway...

When he got home on Tuesday he unpacked and left his little suitcase on wheels thing on the floor, and you guessed it, perfect spot for Miss Sit Upon Things Mimi. It's been a while since she has sat on something, but I just looked down where I have a plastic box sitting on the floor, and guess who is sitting on top of it? Yep.

I've decided that I am just about sick of summer and sick of being hot and sweaty all the time. I'm ready for some cooler weather, which can't be too far down the road because when I was in Target today getting a few things for dinner I noticed that the Halloween candy is starting to appear on the shelves. I couldn't resist a bag of s'mores flavored candy corn. I have not tried it yet, but am certainly looking forward to it!

I Guess

I've been busy or something because it's been almost a whole week since I posted anything. Either that or there is nothing to post about.

Today is Keith's Friday, which is fitting since it actually is Friday. He's been getting home about 10:30am, totally exhausted. The job he is on this week is out at a gas plant or something outside of Shafter, where they go pick up tanker cars, shuffle them around, block the road for the commuters early in the morning and make people really angry, shuffle more cars around, and sometimes just sit in the cab of the locomotive waiting for clearance to get on the tracks. He is learning a lot but there is still a whole lot more to learn. I'm just hoping that he can make it through all of this, it is not an easy job and the weird hours make it even harder.

I've been trying to keep the house fairly quiet in the afternoons/evenings when he is trying to sleep but I can't control the many many gardeners with leaf blowers that seem to be blowing constantly.

The cats are all kind of confused and a little mad at me because they are no longer being let outside in the mornings. They sit there by the back door and stare at it, like hey lady, what's up with this? Buddy had been acting very weird this past week, snarling and hissing anytime we got too close to him, then going off into the hot garage to hide. I figured he wasn't feeling good for some reason but he wouldn't let me get close enough to him to see what was bothering him. The day before yesterday I did notice that his face looked a little swollen around his jaw and thought maybe he had gotten stung or bitten by a bug. Then that evening after Keith left for work I was sitting at the computer and happened to look behind me where Buddy was sitting on the bed and I see blood drops on the bed. He had blood on his chest and leg and on his paw, and was licking his leg, so I'm thinking he had some sort of wound on his leg. He ran off before I could check him out, so I went to bed a little worried about him.

The next morning he seemed to be feeling better and let me pet him and as I brushed my hand along his body I could feel something under his chin. He had dried blood under there, so what I figured happened was that he had a wound under his chin that turned into an abcess or scab and he scratched it open, hence the blood. He won't let me get close enough to wash it all off and take a look at it, but he will let me pet him and isn't all hissing and snarling anymore.

So, no more going outside because this is the second time he's gotten wounded since we have been letting them all go out. They'll get used to it after a while, they do have small brains after all, and probably will soon forget about the great big outside world.

I've been having fun working on cupcake and cake toppers, with matching pins or magnets.

Mimi is still sitting on things, I had my file box of paper out in the living room and of course it makes a perfect thing to sit on.

Bugs And Sitting Upon Things Cats And Some Sunflowers

This was the view I had the other day when I was sitting at the computer desk working on some stuff and using the paper cutter.

Only it's difficult to use the paper cutter when there is a sit upon things cat sitting upon it. With her rear end in your face.

I almost sat on a bug because I thought it was a leaf. I tried to scoot the bug off of the chair and it dug in it's claws or feet or whatever it is that bugs have on the ends of their legs and WOULD NOT MOVE. Can you imagine being a little leaf bug just sitting on a chair minding your own business and than seeing this extremely large posterior headed your way, blocking out all sunlight, and IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD BUG!

See how it's leg is all bent in the first picture? That is his digging in and I'm not moving because I was here first let's get ready to rumble pose.

And, we have sunflowers! Totally accidental sunflowers. We had noticed all of these little seedlings coming up in the pile of dirt that is sort of supposed to be a compost pile in the side yard, dirt that Keith had used some of in making new planter boxes on the side of the house. So, all of these little seedlings are coming up in the planter boxes and the compost pile and while we pulled them out of the planter boxes, decided to leave them in the compost pile to see what they were because we did have suspicions that they might be sunflowers. I think they came from the bird feeder seed, but how they got across the yard from the bird feeder I'm not sure. Birds carrying them around, I suppose,

So, here is the compost dirt with small sunflowers since we didn't thin them out.

And, please disregard the sorry state of our side yard, trash cans and all. If you look closely you can see Bear's rear end there in the back of the picture. These two sunflowers started growing in the middle of the pathway, the one on the left actually starts under the brick and curved itself up to get the sun.

In other happenings, Joe came over last night to help Keith figure out the computer system for work, something that was frustrating the heck out of him. I asked Joe more about the pay scales, because Keith's trainer is filling their heads with huge pay figures, and it's a little misleading, the big pay doesn't come for quite some time and depends on a lot of different factors. But, Keith still should be making a little more than he used to but not twice as much like we were being told. Anyway, he starts training outside of the classroom next week, with yard jobs and the start of the weird hours. He had forgotten that next week was the 4th of July and he's like oh yeah, I have to work on holidays now. Not that we ever did anything special on the 4th, it was just a day off.

Bugs and Cats and Stuff

I woke up to some cranky cats this morning, snarling and hungry and in general being very disagreeable (Buddy, I'm talking about YOU) so I fed them and then opened up the back door to let them run off some of that I've been stuck in the house too long energy.

If you see your cat (Buddy, I'm talking about YOU again) staring at the molding around the back sliding door, cocking its head quizzically and staring some more, by all means go investigate and see what they are looking at. Could be frogs like that one time they brought one in. Fortunately it was not a frog this time but rather a line of ants going up the molding and across the plastic thing that 'hides' the top of your window blinds. Where they were going I don't know, because I don't think there is anything to eat on top of the window blinds, but out came the ant spray and away went the ants.

And then there is the whole cockroach thing. We DO NOT have cockroaches in the house, but we do have them in the yard. In every yard in Bakersfield, actually. And they like to get into the garage where Buddy (He's always the troublemaker) finds them and brings them into the house to play with them, GROSS. Well, I've been letting the cats into my room at night instead of shutting the door on them and for the most part they have been pretty well behaved but this morning I find a thankfully dead cockroach in the middle of my floor, GROSS.

And here is Mimi sitting on and in things again. I had just put this empty box on the shelf under my workbench, and of course she found it right away and it's just the right size for a Mimi cat, sort of.

I had also bought some paper earlier in the day and it was still in its bag on top of a box that was on top of the bed and hey! a bag of paper is the perfect thing to sit upon! Yay!

Happy Mother's Day and Mimi Sitting Upon Things (Again)

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, whether your kids are human, feline, canine, or a combination of some or all. Fur kids can be just as demanding and time consuming as the human ones, but at least you don't have to buy them a car. And they don't talk back as much.

One of my fur kids gave me a great Mother's Day present, a present other than the pile of vomit that Genie left for me on the back patio this morning. The gift was actually my fault and cost a pretty penny. We had been giving the cats some semi-premium dry food and the last time we went to get more of it, we saw that the same brand had some with no grains in it. We had been under the false impression that less grains was better and so bought some of the food. The cats loved it, despite it being really stinky, so we bought even more of it. Well, when the dry food has no grains it it (fiber) all that protein makes your cat constipated. I had noticed that Pepper was pooping out hard little balls (gross, sorry!) and then on Friday she was leaving the cat box while still pooping, leaving hard little balls on the carpet. Stupid me still did not make the connection between high protein and cats not being able to poop, and now in hindsight, I realize that Pepper was associating the cat box with pain in her ass, so she was leaving the cat box and the pain it was causing her while still pooping.

Well, yesterday morning (actually well before morning) Keith was woken up with snarls and growling from Pepper, who was extra extra cranky and didn't want any other cats around here because she couldn't go poop and her stomach was hurting and I know exactly how she felt because I've been there. Her whole belly area was hard and she was just miserable. So miserable that she couldn't even eat. So, Keith called the 24 hour vet that we took Genie to last summer and we got an appointment for 8 am, and shoved poor Pepper into the cat carrier which she really didn't like, and off to the vet. Who gave us three options, each one costing more, one was to just give her laxative meds and send her home, the other was to take an x-ray to see how much poop was backed up inside her, then sedate her and give her an enema or two, and the most expensive was blood work, x-rays, removing the poop, etc. We went with the second option and saw the x-ray of poor Pepper's blocked up colon, and then while we were still discussing things in the exam room, Pepper started acting weird and trying to jump from the exam table to the nearby counter where the sink was. Turns out she was looking for a litter box, because whadda know, the trauma of being held down and having your belly x-rayed caused her to go poo right there on the exam table. Not all of the poo that was inside her of course, so we still left her at the vet to have her enemas, and went back to pick her up yesterday afternoon. All to the tune of aboput $250.00. But she feels much much better and we came home with some stool softening meds and we got rid of the constipating food and bought some high fiber food for fat cats and I guess I learned a very expensive lesson on cat care and feeding. The food that we got is actually called Fat Cat, how appropriate, considering Pepper weighs over 16 pounds, which is like a human who should weigh about 150 weighing over 200. No wonder she is so cranky! So, diet time it is because all of the indoor cats are kind of pudgy (like their owners, only not just kind of pudgy, plain old pudgy) and we all need to lose weight. Part of my plan is to pick up all the cat food dishes after they eat, no more grazing. Which is something I need to do with Keith because he is so bad about constantly snacking. We went out to eat last night and he had a big dinner, but then not an hour later is eating chips and popcorn.

Well, hope the Pepper and her poop story didn't gross you out too much on Mother's Day, here is a cute cat picture to take your mind off of it.

I was working on stuff yesterday and had my box of scrapbook paper on the bed and of course if something is laying somewhere, somebody absolutely has to sit on it.

Happy Birthday Jennifer Mimi Sitting Again and The Evils of Splenda

First off, Happy Birthday Jennifer!

Here is a cat picture for you. Yeah, gee thanks, Mom. Just what I've always wanted!

I was going to do some dusting this morning since I still haven't cleaned our knick knack cupboard in the living room after the dust storm on Sunday, and got as far as putting a cleaning rag on the counter. I came back later to find Little Miss Must Sit On Things sitting on it. It's a folded up cleaning rag so only a small part of her actually fits on it, but even small things must be sat upon apparently.

You can just barely see a corner of it under her.

And now for the Splenda part of my post. I've been using Splenda instead of sugar for quite a few years now and have also been gassy for quite a few years, something I just assumed was a part of getting older or eating too much fiber or whatever. But, the past few weeks I've been having really bad stomachaches and extra bad gas and cramping and just not feeling well. I'm of course thinking stomach cancer or some other horrible disease of the digestive system but then got to thinking about the splenda. We had discussed whether or not it gives you gas in the past and had googled it and yes, it can. I had tried some other sweeteners, stevia and monk fruit, but the generic knock-off splenda is a lot cheaper than those so I went back to it. Much to my stomach's distress, I guess. I threw away the splenda and got a stevia/sugar blend that tastes good and whaddya know, my stomachaches are largely gone and I'm not so gassy anymore.

Moral of the story? Sometimes it's better to pay more and not have a stomachache and gas.

Sitting on Things (again)

I fixed the ugly slipcover thing yesterday. I really really disliked my bargain doesn't fit the couch right slipcover and every time I walked into the living room and saw it my dislike grew. So, I pulled it off yesterday and got one of our bargain quilts and put that on the couch instead to see how it looked. Our bargain quilts from Walmart, made by Better Homes and Gardens that only cost $25.00. And, it looked good on the couch. Now, the bargain quilts have been in use all winter, being on the beds where cats lay all day, and I'm too lazy to take them to the laundromat to wash them, so they are a little funky. I went back to Walmart to see what other bargain quilts they had and found one in more suitable living room colors that also looks good on the couch. I was going to get some new throw pillows, but didn't like any of the small selection that Walmart had, and then I saw a display of pillow covers and went, hey!

I got three pillow covers in colors to coordinate with the quilt, and came home and redecorated my couch. I like it much better and don't cringe and look away from the couch when walking into the living room now.

And, in other sitting news, Mimi the Sit Upon Cat struck again. Sitting upon a magazine that was on the counter this time.