I was about a third of the way through a new post for today when I realized it was kind of heavy/mildly depressing for a Friday afternoon. And nobody wants that on their Friday afternoon! Save that shit for first thing Monday morning, as the gods intended! Instead, here's another thing that nobody wants or asked for. Boring, self-indulgent photos of my pets! Finn and Rey and Fostercat finally seem to have settled into an aloof-yet-peaceful coexistence. I've been trying in vain to get a photo of all three of them together -- between the gray tabby, black cat and a big ol' orange tom, we've pretty much got the perfect moggie trifecta here -- but so far I've only managed to catch two of them at a time. Tormund: "If I don't look at her, it's like she's not really there." Rey: "Derp?" Tormund: "I will stretch alllllll the way out over this giant tiger face to assert my size dominance, even though I'm actually terrified of everything including vacuums, power cords, loud noises, my own tail sometimes, and honestly maybe a little bit of the cat behind me who is barely half my size." Finn: "Yeah but look... Read more →

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS: Jake! Is doing absolutely amazing! And available for adoption! He's officially the calmest and best-behaved animal in my entire house, so you're getting a great deal there. I will miss his super-happy-to-see-you-OMG-butt-wiggles!!! greeting every morning so much. He's such a loving, gentle creature and I am beyond honored to have played a small part in giving him the loving, pampered life he totally deserves. SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS: This door. Which apparently sucks. It's Ezra's. This is absolutely SCANDALOUS language for Ezra, so you know he means it. He's referring to the fact that once upon a time, Ike enjoyed locking doorknobs before leaving rooms, resulting in several hopelessly locked-from-the-inside doors that required the whole-ass removal of the doorknob. Several of these doorknobs were then re-installed by Me, and thus no longer quiiiiiiite right, because obviously. His door can now be opened even when it's locked, if someone (IKE) pushes on it hard enough. He just wants a #*@%ing properly installed doorknob, god#&*@it. THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS: If you haven't taken advantage of the AMALAH30 offer at thredUP yet, they've actually extended the offer so you still can! Go buy something. Treat yo self. FOURTH ORDER... Read more →

The boys brought the first cold of the season home approximately five minutes after returning to school in September. I've been stuck with a nagging, persistent cough ever since, which this week decided to dig in even deeper and turn into bronchitis. (Although that was a relief to hear, as I'd totally WebMD'd myself into thinking I had pneumonia.) So I've spent a large part of this week in bed, and an even larger part of this week coughing my fool head off. (Although the largest part of this week was spent refreshing Google News because WHAT the SHIT is HaPpEnInG.) I am so tired of coughing. So is my cat, who still insists on sleeping on my chest and then bites my face a little bit every time I cough to let me know I've disturbed her. I'M SORRY YOUR DUMB MAJESTY. I did get out of bed last night for dinner, but I wasn't all that hungry sooooo. SPEAKING OF DOGS AND ALSO INSANITY, we have applied (and been approved) to be a foster home for Poppy's rescue!! We're going to foster a senior pittie, because seeing sad little old men and ladies in the kill shelter listings... Read more →

Who's done with this week? I am DONE with this week. What I am NOT done with, on the other hand, is the faces my cat makes into the front-facing camera. ME: when I turn on the front-facing camera by accident. ME: opening up Google News and just, like, the headlines alone these days ME: on a late-night Wikiwormhole about serial killers. ME: reading the comments when I know I shouldn't be reading the comments ME: when I feel cute, might delete later tho Read more →

So. Moving on! We had Ike officially assessed for dyslexia last week, and lo and behold, he is indeed dyslexic. Classically, wildly so. I'm not at all surprised, but now we're stuck in that annoying treading water period between diagnosis and treatment. We're waiting for a spot to open up at a private reading center, and an IEP meeting with the school is scheduled for later this month. I'm not super optimistic about the services the school can offer, and while I think we've found an amazing program that Ike will respond to really well, it's intensive and face-punchingly expensive. But of course we'll do it, because OUR BABY CAN'T READ GOOD. (Does anyone have any experience with Patreon? What do y'all think of that as opposed to say, a GoFundMe or just a PayPal donate button somewhere? Basically, what's the least tacky way to blog-grift nowadays, is my question?) (I'm taking on more work from several corporate clients already, before anybody tsk-tsk about getting a "real job." I have one! I have several! Also several painful neuroses and deep-seated anxiety issues about money and finances that my therapist says are okay to just acknowledge sometimes!) Anyway, back to the... Read more →

It's been a long week. Yesterday I took 40 photos of my cats having a turf war over a cardboard box, but none of them turned out as amusing as watching the actual thing unfold, which was still, like, only barely. But I have determined for certain that Rey is incapable of meowing like a normal, non-dented cat. She follows me around meep-morping like a very high-pitched robot who has a lot of questions about the nature of her existence. "Blorrrrp? Mrrrreee? Yeeeep?" I am in a box. Take me to your leader. She shrieks every time she gets picked up, even when she's come over and given you every indication that yes, she would like to be picked up. "Purrrrrr? Pllllluuuuurrrr?" she hums as she rubs against your legs, but the second her paws leave the ground she lets out a surprised and slightly-panicked sounding squawk. "BRRRRRMMEEEEEEEEEPP!!!!!" Nice upper thigh reflection, self. Sounds that startle all the other pets and send them scattering -- the vacuum, the coffee grinder, etc. -- elicit almost no reaction from her. (She definitely hears them, but simply turns her head curiously in their direction, like ah, yes, another transmission from my home planet.)... Read more →

In other non-home improvement news, Poppy ripped open almost-new bag of cat food yesterday and promptly horfed the entire thing down in under five minutes. Or however long it took me to go from, "hmmm I don't like the sound of that" to finding this in the living room: (AND OF COURSE: It was a bag of expensive specialty cat food. Rey's on an elimination diet as we're trying to pinpoint what our vet thinks is a protein allergy. She is one high maintenance dumbass, but she's like, my high maintenance dumbass, you know?) (TANGENT: I had a doctor's appointment yesterday in Baltimore and not long after I got there Jason texted me asking about Rey's whereabouts, as someone on Nextdoor reported seeing a stray black cat on the road right by our house. She'd been on our bed when I left and for the life of me I couldn't think of a single rational explanation for how she could possibly have gotten outside but you KNOW I came up with several irrational ones* and was low-key terrified until I got home and could confirm that yes, she was still right there on the bed.) (Then I got in the... Read more →

I've been working from/in my actual "office" every day for the first time in awhile, to better bounce back and forth between laptops (three) and email addresses (four), and to have room to spread out piles of documents and keep everything separated by client (five) and basically not rely on keeping everything straight in my head, oh god no, let's not do that, that's how things end up forgotten about and/or on fire. I haven't worked down here in awhile because one time, not long after we adopted them, the cats hid in the closet and got accidentally trapped overnight, and both of them panic-peed on the carpet. And unlike the Lego bins, getting cat pee odors out of carpet is basically impossible. We've managed it PRETTY well, with both professional cleanings and buying our own carpet deep cleaner and using it regularly (like pretty much every time we vacuum), along with throwing just about every pet stain/odor related product on earth at the problem. So it usually smells just fine (though I think vaguely carpet-cleaner-ish), but other times the smell starts emanating from the padding below and I'm just like, I'm out, I'll be working from the couch again... Read more →

Most Patient Cat of the Week, Who Knows On Some Level That I Could Put a Stop To All This If I Wanted To: Photogenic Cat of the Week, Whose Handsomeness Cannot Be Overshadowed By a Nearby Rando Laundry Basket: And Yet, Counterpoint, This Glorious Idiot: (Bonus points for Kermit finger puppet that has been claimed as a cat toy seemingly pondering the horror of his new torturous existence.) And Finally Some Random Non-Ladybug Nature That Happened, Because I Am Sometimes Still Surprised To Realize That I No Longer Live In the City, Even a Full Decade Later: WE'RE IN UR SUBURB, EATIN' UR SHRUBBERIES Read more →

Last night a friend of ours came over for dinner and brought his two (2!!!) sweet and friendly Labrador Retrievers. Beau thought it was the best! dinner! party! ever! and not just because Jason fed him some of the chicken. He was just SO happy and excited to have those other dogs here. But now today I can't shake the feeling that my Beau Bear is sad, and misses his new friends. All morning he kept whining and begging to go outside to see if they were out there, somewhere. He seems to realize now that they are not. Maybe it was all just a dream -- a wonderful, waggy-tailed dream. AND YET, DESPITE ALL THIS EVIDENCE THAT BEAU NEEDS A BIG-DOG FRIEND, negotiations with my husband have stalled, because he won't even have them with me. (Although Rey's all, I SEE UR INNERNET HISTORY AND THINK U SHOULD CHILLZ, WOOMAN.) Read more →