That’s the face. The face I get before he starts talking…
Mraaahhhh
Yes.
Mraaahhhh
Uh-huh.
Mraaahhhh
Okay.
Mraaahhhh
Yep.
Mraaahhhh
I know.
Mraaahhhh.
I know.
Mraaahhhh
I KNOW.
Mraaahhhh
I heard you!
Mraaahhhh
Enough!
Mraaahhhh
Stop.
Mraaahhhh
Stoooppppp.
Mraaahhhh
Oh god shut up.
Mraaahhhh
What? What do you want?
Mraaahhhh
Anything, anything to make you shut up…
Mraaahhhh
What do you want from meeeeee?!?
Mraaahhhh
Mraaaaahhhhhhhh!
If you have cats, you probably have experienced what we call ‘Now, where the hell am I supposed to sit?’ wherein said cat(s) immediately curl up in the space your warm butt has just vacated. Spot is a master at this, taking only seconds to claim as His the butt-heated chair/cushion/couch/bed.
So. A few months ago, I obtained a slightly ripped, slightly dirty but still brand-new duvet. As I had no real need for it myself, I folded it up and put it into Neko’s bed, because it is an old dog bed and rather thin on the padding.
(round one of seasonal “blowing the coat”. No freakin clue why she does this in the middle of winter)
Considering how much fur she has, Neko still likes a nice warm and soft bed to sleep in. Until she gets too hot and lies on the wood floor, of course.
How do these two stories become one evil cat-habit?
Spot has learned that if he tries to sleep with (or on) Neko, she gets irritated and gets up out of her bed. I’m sure at first, Spottie just wanted doggie cuddles. Once she left the bed, he suddenly had kitty-acres of warmth all to himself. After a few days, Spot had realised he could make Neko leave her own bed, and he now does it every night. Several times a night. Neko got so disgusted she actually left our bedroom and slept downstairs, the poor thing!
(before Spot copped on and they were “sharing” the bed)
I’m still trying to figure out a way of breaking this habit without having to wake up several times…
I had something unusual happen to me this afternoon. Something that’s never happened before, something I have never even heard of in my over-40 years on this planet…
When I went for my usual 12:30 smoke break, my lighter wouldn’t light. It’s a disposable one, and it was sparking just fine so the flint wasn’t gone. I could see their was still fluid in it, too. Sometimes a cheapo lighter won’t light when it is too cold, but it was 10 C out, so that wasn’t the problem either.
I kept trying, as you do, while looking around for a fellow smoker to bum a light from if my lighter was truly dead. One two three four five six… suddenly there was a glob of something sticky and wet on my sparking-thumb. It looked like a bloody blackened booger (bogey).
“What the fuck?” said I, as I wiped it off on the wall. On further inspection, there was something slimy and brown on the roller wheel of my lighter. I had a tissue in my pocket and wiped the goop off, and as I did so I saw something inside my lighter.
In there. (Chapstick tube for scale)
Now, I’ve found pocket-lint in that little space, but I have never seen legs before.
Legs that once belonged to a spider that got sucked up into the wheel and smushed onto my thumb.
I have to wonder how it got in there, and when. Overnight seems most plausible, which means it may or may not have survived a lot of small fires before I sparked it to death. But I suppose it could have crawled inside in the hour since my last cig. Wee spidereen could have fallen into my hi-vis vest pocket, and decided to hide in the smallest place possible.
But in any case: I had a spider just inches from my eyes, nose and mouth that could have – should have! – jumped out to safety onto my face.
If that won’t make any arachnophobic smokers quit, I don’t know what will!
Sadly, I’m rather fond of spiders, and my smokey-treats.
I’m hoping this will be a comment-heavy post. I think we’ve all experienced what I want to talk about, but I can’t remember anyone discussing it before. So off we go!
‘Ruined aromas.’ By that, I mean when a favourite (or at least pleasant) scent has been destroyed in your heart/mind/nose forever by an association that you just can’t break.
My examples that made me write this:
Back in my mid-twenties, I used to really like a certain spray air freshener. Forget what it was, something totally artificial and weird. Cranberry-mulberry or some shit like that. Thankfully, nothing that is found in nature after what happened to ruin it forever for me. In any case, I liked it, and bought it for light use at home – to cover smoking stink, dirty cat litter wafts, and various and numerable dog-smells.
Until…. someone bought it for use in the bathrooms at work. Now, while our own poo doesn’t smell of roses (if it does, you should see your doctor or change your diet), the smell of a stranger’s shit is just plain disgusting. The smell of a stranger’s shit with half a can of air freshener sprayed on top is worse. Oh so very much worse when that spray is familiar and a scent you used to) like. I tried to enjoy it again at home, and the smell-memory just wouldn’t leave me. Tossed in the bin – and you all know I hate wasting anything.
More recently, we got some lemon-scented antibacterial cleaning spray. It smelled nice; a light lemon scent.
Then the dog shit all over the spare room for two days and our only cleaner had a nice, light lemon scent. Let me say that the two odours didn’t combine well, and now I can’t use the stuff at all anymore without imagining that I also smell dog diarrhoea. You can also thank me for not describing in detail the visuals I also recall on smelling this particular cleaning product.
My disgust seems to center around poo. Hmmm.
While I probably border on being a super-taster, and super-smeller, I am sure that this has happened to you, too. Let’s hear it, and remember you can tell me all the really gross stuff and it will be fabulous!
I still have leftover Halloween sweets/candy. Last night I was sitting in front of the fireplace, my Siamese boy Lokii on my lap (as always when fire is nearby), and I had a rare hankering for sugar. I displaced Lokii long enough to grab a Chupa Chup lollipop (or sucker, whatever you call ’em) from the kitchen, and returned to warm our mutual arses in front of the lovely fire.
Lokii – being a feline stomach on legs – wanted to know what I kept sticking into my mouth. So I let him have a sniff.
He was interested. The flavour was strawberries and cream, after all.
Most of us have heard that cats cannot taste sweet. So I wonder what, exactly, made him want my sucker so badly? What did he think it tasted like?
Because he loved it.
He looks like a demented Orc from the Lord of the Rings films.
Nom nom nom!
Hubby has been cooking this evening. He’s now making dinner, but earlier it was a low-carb pumpkin bake thingie.
After his earlier effort, he is now well into his habit of talking to things that aren’t able to answer.
Shall I type up some of the nonsense he is saying? Yes, yes I will:
O M G, W T F, B B Q! (Yes he said each letter)
Well, I’m talking to chicken now, brilliant! (This is because I was teasing him about being the Man Who Talks to Cheese)
Nothing for cats! (He’s cutting up raw chicken; we give the good bits to the cats and whatever is left to the dog)
Spotty, watch your little paw, fucking hell cat! Spotty! Fucking hell dog-cat-whatever-your-name-is.
Not much for kitties but I’m working on it.
Shhh, I’m coming (whispered to Lokii who also never shuts up) shhh, bits for kitties… Shhh
Oh it’s gonna be less than…oh (garbled) seven minutes…it’s okay. Shhh, coming. (I think this means he heard me light a smoke, which takes me 7 minutes to finish. It was oddly silent so he could hear the lighter spark)
Just wait, alright? Coming. (To Lokii, again) shhh.
Spotty watch your little paw, I’m cutting stuff. Heeeeeeeeee. (Very unmanly giggle)
Fuk fuckit.
That’s my fucking hand, you idiot! Sure didn’t the baby Jesus tell you not to bite the hand that feeds you? Sure no he didn’t.
More for cats, nearly gone…
Alright Spotty that’s it, I’m not going through all this goop. A little more. Oh, Spotty! You want more? That’s it, that’s it. (Calling for the dog) Neko! Oh Spotty you want more? There is no more! Here take that, for fuck’s sake cat! Here.
I’m not spending the evening cutting up human food for cats! Okay Mrs (me), any time you are ready! (Because I’m in charge of the sauce part)
Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into what it is like to live with a man who talks CONSTANTLY.
Love you anyway, iDJ!
They canceled for lack of participants. Heartbroken, me.
Next year… heavy sigh.
Here’s a pic of Lokii looking sad on my behalf.
A quick one – got my iPad back finally and while it isn’t perfect, it isn’t annoying, either.
Poor Neko gets less attention here than the cats (sorry, they are just way more adorable) so I want to share a pic of Herself for a change.
Okay, so she has laser-eyes. Okay, so I really really need to cut her toenails. Okay, so there just happens to be a skull on the floor behind her… Still, isn’t she dammed cute as she kills that toy?
I’m cheating again. I actually do have an idea for a mythical being, based off the comments on my last blog post, but I’d have to be a hell of a lot drunker than I am now. SuperVagina – yeah, you’d have to be wasted to draw that!
I know, I know, it’s Friday and I should be celebrating it! But I’m just too exhausted. So – cheater’s version of the Challenge!
Here’s a Thing I drew a while back, instead of SuperV.
Do you ever have so much going on that you want to share that you shut down entirely and say nothing? That’s been me, lately. I don’t know where to start so I … haven’t started. But there’s one thing I want to talk about, and I’ve been holding off because I don’t want to accidentally offend anyone. I’ve been put in that position recently on the blog, and now I have to write with my tiptoes. As you can imagine, those contortions aren’t comfortable.
A not-funny thing happened, that led to something funny, that led to a not-funny thing. I feel a rant of sorts coming on…
There was a clog in our big outside drain pipe. It was my fault. So of course I should be the one to fix it.
I have a plumbing snake, but it was too short to reach the clog. Being creative and not willing to either give up or pay someone, I electrical-taped an old shower hose to the snake, as an extension. It was still too short! So I electrical-taped a new shower hose to the old shower hose that was taped to the snake. Good thing I keep things like two unused shower hoses, eh? You just never know when random junk around the house might come in handy! Hoarder? Naw, just prepared for any eventuality. I choose to believe that. Nahnahnah I can’t hear you, Socks…
In any case, in the process of being shoulder deep in a big drain pipe, I got shit-water on me. I got it on my arms, on my hands (despite the gloves I changed about nine times in the course of my work), on my pants, on my shirt, and on my FACE. Yeppers: Poo-soup, on my face.
That’s funny, to me. I rather deserved poop all over me: I caused the problem. How, I will not detail. It was an attempt to save myself work that backfired badly. If it got in my eyes or mouth – maybe not so funny!
What really isn’t funny: someone saw me doing the work and asked about it. After I explained I was told, ‘That’s a man’s job. You tell your husband I said so!’
It wasn’t even physically challenging, unless you count kneeling on concrete for ages (ow). I didn’t explain why it was me doing the job beyond the simple answer that I’m plain-old-better at this sort of job. Hubby and I each have our talents, and this is one of mine, such as it is. I can deal with poop-soup on my face and clothes way better than he, and I deal with the frustrations of how long it takes to clear a big clog more calmly, too.
This is not to say that I don’t have a horrible temper that rockets off into incandescent rage for what seems like no reason (to anyone but me). Plumbing issues aren’t one of the things that piss me off – I don’t know why (or why not).
But this wasn’t a “man’s job”: it was a dirty, smelly, disgusting job. I have never believed that just because I don’t have a penis, I should be automatically exempted from doing dirty, smelly, disgusting work. I’m pretty sure every mom out there would back me up on that. Also: every female pet owner, every female carer for an elderly person, every female doctor or nurse – I could go on. How much excreta of various kinds and from various species do women deal with on a daily basis? I can’t imagine just because it was flushed it means it is less icky, can you? Hell, at least I knew who pooped the poop – a stranger’s poo would likely make me gag.
I’m not angry at the person who made the comment – he didn’t give me time to think about and explain why it was sexist. To be honest, I doubt I would have bothered, because I feel the comment was sexist toward men, too. I’m just as tired of hearing that men should be the ones to do all the physical work as I am at hearing that women shouldn’t do any of it.
Has anyone else had a moment like this? What did you do or say? I think next time it happens, I’ll say a lot more in response, myself.
heretherebespiders 