Monthly Archives: August 2017

Adventures in ‘Adulting’, With Cats.

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1. Walk into room to put away clean laundry.

2. Step in very large, very wet, puddle of cat puke left on a hoodie that was half on the bed, half on the floor. Coat entire sole of foot with moist, chunky, squidgy, barf.

3. Pick up hoodie and hop carefully into the bathroom to wash off foot.

4. Put foot in tub, turn on water, knock shampoo bottle into tub. Sigh. 

5. Wash foot and complain to yourself about the slimy feeling. Wash off shampoo bottle and replace on edge of tub.

6. Look for towel. Realise they are all in the current load of laundry now sudsing away happily downstairs. Sigh.

7. Do a yoga pose called ‘reaching for hand-towel across the room with dripping foot’.

8. Dry foot. Smile with relief that you have two non-slimy feet again.

9. Rinse hoodie. Complain to yourself about how slimy it is and how that shit is gonna stain for sure and who the hell buys a baby-blue hoodie and leaves it on the bed when they have cats?

10. Try to find a place to hang heavy wet hoodie without it breaking anything important or dripping on something else important.

11. Gain a cat audience – in the tub. 

12. Grab wad of toilet paper to remove giant-ass hairball from tub drain.

13. Realise there is also a giant-ass human hairball in plug drain (long-haired people problems). Sigh. 

14. Grab nasty old toothbrush left on edge tub for the sole purpose of removing human hair clogs. Splash a fabulously disgusting concoction of drain water and cat puke on your face. Growl. 

15. Flush that shit down and hope like hell the toilet doesn’t clog – again.

16. Tell cat that is now sitting in the tub that he is about to get wet.

17. Rinse out tub.

18. Watch cat with wet feet do cartoon-skids on the floor as he tries to exit bathroom. Feel bad as it wasn’t HIS puke.

19. Wash slime off of face.

20. Give up on adulting and drink a beer.


One innocent, one guilty! 

“Stapelia gigantea, its smell is terrible”

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And it is.

My carrion flower has bloomed again, this time with some hilarious results.


Monday. About to pop open, but no seams visible. I did warn Himself…


But as usual, he didn’t hear me, somehow. Can’t imagine why not, we’ve only been married 12 years… 

This is his version of the same bloom, with quote: “Went to shut the blinds & was greeted by this! Yes, I shrieked, it wasn’t open this morning! It’s our carrion plant. Smells like death! Yes, really! (You have to put your nose into it, else there’s no scent at all thankfully) HDR photo for scariness ;)”

I don’t really see the ‘scary’ difference, except he turned our white windowsill purple! But I do find it hilarious that it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve been feeding him Stephen King and he actually did make an unmanly sound when he saw it last night. 

For size comparison, the plate that the plant sits on is a side plate; it is not a dinner plate. Maybe what, about 8-10 inches across? I’m not getting close enough to measure the bloom! I’m a super-smeller and to me it smells like bad meaty cat breath. Urgh. Pretty, and pretty strange, however! 

Kingly Gifts

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I probably don’t need to say again that I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I think I first read one of his books (either Cujo or Firestarter) at age 8, and I’ve never regretted a moment spent in the company of his characters.

I’ve read everything he’s published, I’m nearly 100% sure of that. Maybe a short story or three have gotten past me. Definitely have read every novel, novella, collection of short stories, and his nonfiction works.

Easy to say, then, that the way to my heart is through Sai King! 

Hubby got me these as a thank you for taking care of him when he was so poorly.


I hadn’t asked for Christine, but she is awesome! 

Then this month, I had a birthday. As you hope to do every year! This one came with my first vinyl ‘toys’ – Funko Pop figures.


Pennywise! Yay! And a small part of my King collection in the background. A very small part!


Roland Deschain and Walter Padick aka the Gunslinger and the Man in Black. My favourite series of books, ever, hands down.

This is King’s year – a remake of IT and The Dark Tower are or will be in theatres near you. The series The Mist has been on for a bit, and Mr Mercedes started last week. I must warn you, Mr Mercedes is NOT for kids or anyone who is sensitive; and we’ve only seen the first episode. It’s a wow, for sure, but horrible and chilling, also. They put on screen much worse things than my imagination cooked up when reading the books. Yikes. Ark – avoid

Anyone else a Stephen King Constant Reader? 

Piggy Peggy

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I finally caught up with her. She isn’t doing well.


She is so skinny.


Really, really skinny. I could feel all of her ribs, and her hip bones were protruding. Her still-nice fur covers up a lot. 


These are mites, and I expect they are the ones that cause mange. I cannot tell you how horrified I was, last Thursday, to see that she is crawling with them – especially as I saw them as I was cuddling her to my chest and giving her kisses. She seemed very tired at the time, but still happy to see me. I wasn’t so happy and scrubbed myself down with alcohol wipes afterwards. And had a major case of the “fleabee jeebies” for hours.

We got Advocate for her on Saturday, but despite looking for her about every hour and a half every day, she didn’t show up until today. And she is not herself at all – not playful, not energetic, and despite her thinness? Not very hungry, slow walking, and very lethargic. 


Bits of cheese from my lunch scattered in front of her. She used to enjoy digging every tiny bit out of the gravel if a morsel went astray. Not today.

I did get the Advocate on her, all of it, but I don’t know what else might be wrong. Worms? No sign of a respiratory illness. But now I’m afraid to touch her as I don’t want to bring anything home to my boys.

I don’t know what to do. She is nearly impossible to find, and when she shows up to see me, she arrives out of nowhere. I don’t want to put a cat covered in bugs into my car, either. I kept hoping someone was caring for her as she tamed so easily…but this is not proper care. I do think she had five kittens, as of last Thursday, but have seen them not at all. I no longer think she is nursing – maybe because she has nothing left to give. And there is a big wild tom hanging around again…

Spheksophobia

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Hope you don’t have it!

Spheksophobia is the fear of wasps. 


I still have strawberries growing – and apparently they are super sweet! I haven’t been able to find out about the last few because something else has been eating them first. 

I knew it wasn’t slugs, or beetles, or birds, or even earwigs. Wasps are eating my strawberries, and loving them! 

Oh well. If they are fat and full they won’t bother sour old me, at least. Not that I’m afraid of them: I’m very much live and let live unless one is in the house and one of the furry ones is about to get stung. Then there might have to be an emergency squishing.