These Kittens Are Trouble

Cute trouble, but trouble.

I took them to the vet yesterday afternoon because they needed shots.  As soon as I released them from their carriers in the exam room, they were on the chairs, knocking things off the windowsills, batting at the cords for the blinds, and generally making a big nuisance of themselves.  Luckily for me, the vet is a very nice man with a good sense of humor.

Both of them are looking good. Bingley is up to 9 pounds and change, and Darcy about eight and a half.  The vet says they’re probably 2/3 grown, so they will be big boys, probably 12 to 15 pounds. I actually expected the weight difference between them to be bigger because Bingley looks so much bigger. Guess my husband is right and it is just fluff!

Bingley, who seems to be one of the more placid cats on earth, cooperated very well for his shot. No fuss whatsoever and I actually had to pick him up afterward to move him off the exam table since he was just lying there like a king!  Himself thinks they missed giving him the shot for all his fluffy fur.  I hope not!  I can say for sure that Darcy got his shot, however...when that needle went in, he started a very loud, pissed-off, yowling commentary, probably relating to the parentage and upbringing of both the vet and his tech.  :)  

Then, on the way home, I hear a zipper and see a paw emerging from one of the carriers, followed by a nose.  Bingley made a break for freedom and actually got completely loose in the car while I was driving!  Fortunately, only half a mile or so from home, but he ended up in my lap.  Imagine me driving with one hand and restraining a cat with the other.  Drove into the garage, shut the door behind me to prevent a serious escape, then grabbed the cat with both hands and unceremoniously dumped him inside the house.  Close call!  Guess I will be locking the zipper on that carrier from now on.  The good news is that they don't have any more vet appointments for a year now!

Only Out Here

We returned home a few days ago from our annual trip to the Left Coast to visit my parents and were greeted by bone-chilling cold.  Ugh.  Through no fault of theirs whatsoever it was a far more stressful week together than usual, and to have it capped off by an eight-hour flight delay (and 2AM arrival home) was the proverbial icing on the cake.  On the bright side, the stupidity of some of the decisions made by United as they bungled our way home was so epic that even they admitted it after the fact, and gave us a $1500 credit toward future flights!  Guess there's something to be said for all those years of business travel for my husband...when a previously uncomplaining million-mile flyer of twenty-odd years sends an email *that* irate, they acknowledge it.  

Anyhoo.

The Christmas season being a bit overwhelming at the best of times, and being thoroughly done with this one, I decided to spend the last couple of days putting away the decorations and cleaning things out so as to start the New Year fresh.  Thanking all the gods once again for my tall strong son, as one of the final chores I enlisted him to help me take down the empty Christmas tree and haul it out onto the driveway.  One of my girlfriends sent her son over to collect it in his pickup truck, and it is now being eaten by her goats!  Circle of life, rural-style.

Hoping you all are having a peaceful start to your New Year...

-Mama D

It’s All In Your Perspective

As far as I can tell, the purpose competitive swimming plays in my life (bear with me here, it has one) is to make me realize that travel soccer could be a lot worse!

My best girlfriend has two daughters who swim like my kids play soccer.  Which is to say, constantly, everlastingly, and generally not close to home.  Both of us spend hours a day in the car driving somebody to and from practice.  However, as much as I bellyache about soccer, I’d pick it over swimming in a hot second.

For starters, each sport has a month of the year that is generally pretty slow.  Yes. A single month.  Ugh.  For swimming, that’s August.  Soccer is December.  Can you even imagine how much of a nutjob I would be if I had to spend December at soccer fields somewhere instead of getting my Christmas stuff done??  My girlfriend spent the entirety of a three day weekend (Dec 15-17!) across the state at a swim meet with her older daughter and finally found time to put her tree up on the 23rd.  That same daughter has training out of state starting tomorrow and running through New Year’s.

A downside of soccer is that it pretty much kills the end of summer (tryouts and training are intense in July/August.  That said, the school soccer season is over by Halloween—two months of the season are over the summer when you aren’t trying to deal with school as well.  School swimming is a winter sport and tryouts are November for a Nov-March season.  Loads of fun when you are juggling in end-of-semester testing with school and club swimming practices.

Oh, and last but not least: you can pretty much rely on a soccer game taking a specified period of time, after which you can go home.  Exact duration depends on the age of the kid and the league, but generally speaking, within 90 minutes you’re done.  None of this meet that lasts all weekend and your kid swims a grand total of fifteen minutes in three days but you still have to be there all three days stuff.  Yikes.

Somebody once said that if you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.  I’ve been warned and hell will freeze over before my kids become swimmers!

Oh, What A Lift To My Day

I always get cranky by this point in the season, sad to say.  Trying to get everything done and keep everything clean and fulfill everyone's holiday expectations just overwhelms me.  Wish I could just let things go, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards.  Anyway, it came as a tremendous surprise when I received the following text out of the blue from a dear geocaching friend.

Santa left something for you and your mom at (latitude and longitude coordinates near my house.)

Intrigued, I hopped in the car as soon as I finished making the kids' lunch.  The coordinates took me to the base of a big tree at an intersection three quarters of a mile or so north of my house.

There, I found this.

When I opened it, I found two small packages wrapped in festive red and white paper.  One was addressed to me, and one to my mother.

This was in my package.

It may be difficult to tell from the picture, but that ornament is handmade from cherrywood.  The technique is called fretwork.  This particular friend is a retired shop teacher and a master woodworker.  He and his wife frequently eat lunch at a restaurant near my house; I am going to guess that they dropped off the gift on their way.  I do know what is is my mother's package, but I won't show it here since she reads my blog.  Mom, you will love it though!!

Merry Christmas to me (and Mom) from a very kind friend who lifted my soul today and reminded me of the true spirit of the season.

What Facebook Desperately Needs...

...in addition to the options to unfriend someone or hide their posts, is a third option to only hide the posts of theirs that contain a certain word or words.

An otherwise dearly beloved aunt of mine is constantly hovering on the verge of being either unfriended or hidden because her posts from pro-conservative sites are bad for my blood pressure.  The ability to filter out any post of hers containing the word “Trump” would go a long way.  :(

Now What???

I went to the drugstore today to pick up a few things, including a lighter.  The long kind you’d use to light a candle or fire, not the stubby kind used for cigarettes, for the record.  As the cashier rang up my purchases, she said she needed my birthdate to complete the transaction.  Startled, I asked why, since my purchases didn’t include cold medicine or any other stuff from which drugs can be made—the usual flag.  Apparently the lighter was the issue.  I’ve never been carded for that in my life, and given that I am 44, ain’t no way she thought I was anywhere near 18, which I gather is the age I need to be to buy a damn lighter.  Enough with the enforced bureaucracy already.

Here We Go Again

If there’s a more frustrating thing to shop for than pants for preteen/teenaged boys, I don’t know what it is, unless maybe it’s shorts for the same age group in girls that don’t leave their buttcheeks hanging out.  Ain’t gonna happen in this house.

Anyway, there’s been some serious growing among the boy children lately, necessitating the purchase of new pants (it’s cold out.)  Thing One is now solidly into men’s sizes at least, although he still wears a weird one that has to be ordered online because he is six feet tall with long legs and a toothpick waist.  Thing Two is in that awkward borderline phase where some of the largest boys’ pants still fit but some of the smaller (also weird-sized, generally online only) men’s pants do too.  This week has been an adventure in trying to find new pants for him before the holidays!  After several forays into all the stores in town and the Web, I have finally discovered which size of pants currently fits him.  Much like his brother, he is tall (I’m guessing probably 5’6”-5’7” right now) and slender with long legs.  What makes me laugh is that his new inseam measurement is the same as his father’s and he is 12!!  Thing One’s inseam is already four inches longer than my husband’s.  Given that my husband is an absolutely average-sized man, we are growing some giants here!  The boys wear size 11 and 13 shoes respectively, too.

He jokes that he married me to bring height into his genepool.  Looks like he succeeded!