Hey, Ashton...

This morning when I was dodging claws and cold nose to try to get an extra five minutes of sleep, I realized that I've been a servant to a big-eared small-brained rather-annoying dude who's never held a real job since before you'd heard of Barack Obama because he hadn't gotten Jack Ryan thrown off the Illinois Senate ballot yet.



I can only handle one. Y'all gotta take a number.

Promote a culture of awareness of mentoring for the education of awareness of reduction of ignorance!

Buzzed surfing is drunk surfing

Oh boy.

The RCA Dome is being demolished to make room for more Convention Center stuff now that The Luke is completed. Pieces of the Dome were sold off to raise money for Colts Charities (and I never did find out what happened with the lawsuit...).

I remember buying a plaque with a piece of the roof.

I don't remember buying this:


That's a 2' x 3' piece of the 20-yard line.

I don't know what the heck I thought I was going to do with it. I have to find a plastic container to store it in, because it's shedding sand all over my living room and the cat can't leave it alone.

I'm just glad I didn't buy the urinal.

Ah, feminists.

They're having psychological issues because conservatives are "violating" Rosie the Riveter. Example: Ellen Goodman in a snit. I fixed this key graf for her:

After all, Sarah Palin Nancy Pelosi may yet be is the fulfillment of an old feminist prophecy that Texan Sissy Farenthold once described with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek. We will have achieved equality the day mediocre women take their place beside mediocre men. Check that one off the to-do list.

There. Now it's true.

And look what they were selling at the Milwaukee County "Victory Center" (my model was uncooperative, something about Palin's lack of interest in Feline-American issues):


Much less vulgar than the "contemporary feminist" version. I hope I annoy them. I also bought a "Nobama '08" button for my ham-sammich-Dem-but-making-an-exception-this-year best friend. :P

(I have a ticket for the rally in Waukesha, but I don't yet know if I can get out of work on Thursday. I'm taking some time off later in the month and I'd hate for them to realize they don't really need me. The GOP could get Obama-like turnout every day if their members/voters didn't work for a living...)

Happy FUZZ Day

Today marks four years since the cat moved in/took over.

You know how Rush Limbaugh does that "everything I know about women I learned from my cat" bit? I have learned invaluable lessons from FUZZ that I may be able to apply to men:

• They can be won over with food.
• They love toys.
• If they look like they're listening, don't be surprised if they don't remember anything you're saying.
• If you never let them go outside without a harness and a leash, they can't run off with another woman.
  

I should write a book and get on Oprah.

"We've picked up a weirdo... "

My roommate is obsessed with licking plastic bags. Ziploc bags, stiff shopping bags, the plastic bags that hold shredded cheese...

Don't ask him about it.

Expect O to add "free dog food" to his list of social programs...

I don't know why this is relevant, but it's interesting. Pet owners prefer McCain, others prefer O.

(This post is a pretext to run a photo illustrating why I never get anything finished:
)

In which I consider gender-reassignment just to avoid derision by association

DEAR ABBY: I dress my Siamese cat, "Belle," in clothes and pajamas. (Yes, they make apparel for cats.) I also push her around in a stroller. My friends think I'm crazy, but I consider Belle to be my daughter.

One time, a teenager came up to me as I was pushing Belle in her stroller and asked, "Where's the baby?" I told her that Belle was like my baby.

Is it nuts to treat a cat like a child? -- MOM OF A FUR KID IN N.Y.

DEAR "MOM": Nuts? No. A bid for attention ... perhaps.

Dear Abby and Not A Mom:

You're both pathetic, deluded, insensitive assholes. Please stop making the rest of us barren spinsters with cats look even sadder, crazier, and despisable (despicable?) than we really are.

Peace/Love/Arugula!

Radish

P.S. Nobody is fooled by the phrase "Fur kid." See below for handy educational diagram:



The one on the left can be left home alone all day with a bowl of water and some crunchies. If you do that to the ones on the right, better hope you get arrested before their actual Mom (or Grandpa or Aunt Radish) find out about it and come looking for you. See? Not the same.

When I woke up, I thought it was Wednesday...

According to Lileks, today is Old Maid's Day. YES! I have a DAY! Until there's a "Divorcee Day" I can finally hold my head up when being ridiculed by my bitter betters for my failure to become a Real Woman on a Special Princess Day Where Even Though He Was A Lying Cheating Bastard At Least I Had Public Proof I Wasn't Completely Worthless like every other woman over 30 who isn't a *cough* secret practitioner of the Sapphic arts (no, seriously; when did women who are not attractive to men become expected to mate with other women instead? "A is false" does not imply "B is true"!), because I have a DAY! In your face!

It's also Hug A Cat Day, which didn't go over so well at Radishhof. Choose the cat you plan to hug very carefully, and timing will also be a consideration. Hug first, THEN open the tuna. Ow.

Unpacking

I'm never really certain if he's angry I left or angry I came back.

Gratuitous cat photo

FUZZ, a.k.a. Satan's Little Helper:

Lazy cat.

Dangit, those pieces aren't going to sew themselves...



So much for setting up a sweatshop in my apartment.

Best Black Thursday ever!

I spent Valentine's Day eating steak with six men who adore me. That's never happened before...

OK, I was out with some geeky gay and asexual (not a dig, they're just not interested in dating/relationships) because it was a co-worker's birthday, and they adore me because I bake cakes from scratch when asked nicely. Dark chocolate with peanut butter frosting, upon request--and it was a hit with all and our waiter as well. My mother will be pleased the Future Homemakers of America training wasn't a waste, after all. *snicker*

I also got a miniature rose bush (thank you, Bryan!), although I'm not sure how long I can keep it alive:



The cat asked for ranch dressing. He got gooshyfood.

Well. This is disturbing.

In the mornings, I start the coffee and then hit the shower. When I emerged this morning, I caught Satan's Little Helper licking ground coffee off the scoop. Last thing I need, a caffeinated cat...although he seems to be napping right now. No doubt he's recharging for major mayhem after breakfast.

(Two Lumps was relevant this morning, too.)

I'm taking a personal day due to snow, after calling some people already into work about the roads and calling some others who said they were staying home. Which sucks because lately I feel a need to make maximum money this year to save for living expenses after the Clinton/Obama/McCain/Huckabee 2009 Tax Hike leaves me unemployed and/or without enough post-tax income to pay my way (which is what they want--more people dependent on government for basic needs). OTOH, if I crunch my car (more likely, if someone who didn't clear the snow off their windshield or turn signals before driving 60 mph down Teutonia crunches my car), it will cost more to fix than I'd make today...

Anyway. I'm going to clean the kitchen and bathroom now, so at least I won't enjoy my break from pressing buttons.

Would anyone like a cat?

I went to Cabela's today for some new boots and got a fur-lined hat with earflaps.

By the time I finished all my errands in the sun all afternoon, I had a raging headache so I left all the stuff in the living room and went to bed with some Advil.

Y'all know what happens next, right? Fuzzy bastard senses the rabbit fur, wrestles the hat out of its plastic shopping bag, and eats a hole in the front trim. When I found it, dragged halfway down the hallway, it was still damp, and the cat was hiding under a rack of clean laundry.

And of course the hole is right in front--my ears and brow will be warm, but I'll look like a moth-eaten dork (instead of the usual sophisicate who goes about with earflaps, I know).

I also got sunburned.

Brains....brains....brains....

I had a friend out for the weekend, and while he hassled entertained der Dämonkater with toys on strings, I tried to get some action shots.

I am easily amused.

And if I don't post in the next few days, please send someone to look for the shredded remains of my body. The cat is never amused.

Random Aside: The cat's main name is FUZZ, which is short for "You Fuzzy Bastard." As you probably surmised, he chose that name for himself, rejecting "Reggie Miller", "Fred Hoiberg", and even "Ken Dilger" (when he moved in, I was saving "Marvin Harrison" for an actual firstborn). He is not named for Packer Fuzzy Thurston, who is the only Valpo alumnus to play in the NFL and who spoke at my graduation (I spent a lovely evening once around the turn of the century drinking with friends at his bar in Green Bay). But that would be a much better story, wouldn't it?