Three birds, one post

I have long wanted to join this blogger in the Random Tuesday Thoughts posts that this blogger put together. And this blogger has started a fun Fill In The Blanks series. And I have a half-dozen half-started blog posts (including one that somehow includes both Michael Crichton’s art collection and the Times Square bomber. I know, right?). So in the interest of posting something new, here are my Random Tuesday Thoughts via Fill In The Blank:

1. My guiltiest pleasure is really trashy chick-lit novels. Also gossip mags at the hairdresser (where I’m headed tomorrow night to get the roots done).
2. I can't wait to watch both Glee and Lost tonight (nerd alert)
3. The last song I listened to was something by Mountain that my boss was playing a little too loudly in his office. I curse the day I introduced him to Pandora. Not because of Mountain, but because of the constant onslaught of music I didn’t pick. I don’t know how he gets anything done.
4. You really can't beat a good book. No relation to #1 above.
5. My least favorite sound is the cats trying to break into the bedroom (plaintive meowing and standing on hind legs to rattle the doorknob. Obnoxious) at 5 am looking for their breakfast when it is clearly not breakfast time. Also see #3 above. I love the sound of the Italian language. Too bad I don’t understand a word of it (except the ones related to food and wine).

Ciao, bellas. More Random Tuesday fun at the UnMom.

For Sherri: Le Chat Botte

When I posted the original version of this video, Sherri said he looked like he needed a monocle. Apparently someone else thought he needed a whole outfit and a Mexican sidekick:



I find this particularly amusing because for a recent charity fairy tale costume ball, The BF went as Captain Hook (reprising this costume) and I went as Puss In Boots. I wore more clothes than Monsieur Le Chat above though, and everyone thought I was a pirate or a musketeer. Didn't matter, we had a blast.

Thanks to Papasan for the link.

First they stand upright, then they grow opposable thumbs, and before you know it they are smoking and drinking

I used to have a cat who would stand at my front door like this—for hours—checking out what was going on in the neighborhood. She couldn’t balance this well; she needed to lean her front paws on the bottom of the storm door window, but you couldn’t tell from behind. She looked oddly human. Or maybe alien. And like she forgot her pants.

Meanwhile, The Lounging Party can barely rouse themselves from sleeping to do anything more strenuous than take a nap.

Miss you Casper…

Very superstitious

I scheduled a maintenance appointment for the server at work today and everyone was freaking out because it is Friday The Thirteenth. My normally sensible co-workers appear to throw logic out the window when it comes to old wives' tales. I was temped to bring in a ladder, a broken mirror and The Lounging Party just to freak them out some more (because why have one black cat when you can have two?). At least with The Lounging Party there would be entertainment while the entire computer system is down.

{The Lounging Party, doing what they do best}

Very superstitious
Writing's on the wall
Very superstitious
Ladders bout' to fall
Thirteen month old baby
Broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck
The good things in your past


When you believe in things
That you don't understand
Then you suffer
Superstition ain't the way


PS - is Spring here yet?


Sorry for the long absence, I was caught up in the whirlwind of preparation for the Two Ladies' wedding, and then in the aftermath of having neglected the rest of my life. Things are almost back to normal and I will be visiting you all and commenting soon.

Robin, the Red-Eyed Reindeer

Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you be my eye tonight?

Actually, I don't need Rudy, as I've been sporting a nice red eyeball since Friday, along with what I thought was a Christmas Day Cold but the nice doctor tells me was a sinus infection with a side of pink eye. I'm sure I picked up these germs while Christmas shopping at the fifth gate of hell mall on Christmas Eve eve. I've never been sick over the holidays before, and it bites. I had big plans -- Big Plans, I tell you -- for these two weeks. Visiting with faraway friends in town for the holidays, visiting with local friends that I haven't seen in weeks, closet cleaning, magazine purging, dinner party-throwing. Not to mention the BF is a teacher and this is one of the few times during the year that he has time off and I my work schedule allows me to take time off to match.

But enough whining. In between coughing fits, cabin fever (from which Meg & Mo have been so good about trying to rescue me), daily chats with Mumsie, and The Lounging Party's favorite activity (cat-naps), I've had lots of time to catch up on reading. Two books, a dozen magazines, the daily paper from cover to cover, and blogland. My Google Reader was overflowing with long-unread posts -- some of you are prolific and I've been really bad about keeping up.

Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine I am feeling better and am hoping to make a brief cough-free, red-eye-free appearance at a New Year's Eve party and then cram some fun times (and perhaps some of that closet-cleaning) into what's left of my vacation. Wishing you all a fabulous New Year's!

(photo from ABC)

Faster Pussycat, Vote, Vote

Simon and Zoe would like to remind you to exercise your right to vote. They came thisclose to being shelter kitties (incredible moment of stupidity by somebody else, not me, but we don't talk about him anymore). And not the good kind of shelter either, but the Hotel California kind (you know, where you can check in any time you want, but you can never leave). As self-elected sovereign rulers of The Lounging Party, they are putting their catnip where their mouths are by voting daily so other kitties (and dogs too, like our new neighbor Tully) can have a better life. The Animal Rescue Site and Petfinder.com are having a $100,000 shelter challenge. All you have to do is vote daily (or when you remember) for your local shelter and in American Idol fashion, grants ranging from $25K to $1K will be awarded to the shelters with the most votes. If you have no idea what shelter to vote for, please consider voting for Our Companions, a no-kill shelter in the Hartford, CT area. Many thanks to She Knits By The Seashore for bringing this to The Lounging Party's attention.

Think of this as a warm-up for voting on November 4. And if you are not yet registered to vote in the election that will make a difference for humans (although no cash will be given away), you'd better hurry up, as the last day to register in many states is TODAY October 6.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

If you have, know or love a cat (or an engineer) you will appreciate this video.

My purple heaven

{Iris at work in the woods, originally uploaded by zenera}

When I was a little girl, my dad (who was a self-employed carpenter) was doing some work at a very, very old white house, owned by a very, very old woman named Mrs. Parrott (you know how when you are 7, you have no idea how old "old" really is? She was probably only 70, but to me she was at least 110). Since the house was ancient, it needed quite a bit of work and she kept my dad pretty busy.

Sometimes my mom would take my sister and I there after school or on weekends while my dad was working on the house. Mrs. Parrott's property was as neglected as her house, and so whatever garden there had been in the past had melded into the woods behind it, and everything was overrun with wild concord grapes. When they finally came to bear, the air hung heavy with the foxy, heady scent of ripe fruit. If purple has a smell, this is it. My mom and my aunt picked baskets and baskets of grapes, and we were eating home-made grape jelly for, it seems, years afterward.

Across the road from the house was an old red barn that housed an even older cow and a white horse with blue eyes. Both were gentle (or just old and slow) and didn't mind my dad fishing in their cow pond for sunnies or my sister and I running around. How I longed to ride that horse! Of course I had never ridden a horse at that time (that would come later, at Girl Scout Camp), but what little girl doesn't want a pony?

The best part about Mrs. Parrott's house was the cats. She gave new meaning to the term "cat lady". She had hundreds of cats. Some were in the house, some were in cages in the garage, but most were loose on the property. She told us that people would drop them off for her to watch while they went on vacation and they would never come back to get them. I suspect she had become a defacto humane society and folks knew she would take little Mittens or Smokey or Fang off their hands and not ask any questions. Now, we had always had a cat at home, and it was pretty tolerant of a the "affections" of two little girls. But this was like winning the Cat Lottery. My sister and I reveled in the abundance of fuzziness. Tiger, tortoise, tuxedo -- it mattered not to us what color or size, all that mattered was here was a cat to be held and petted. And another. And another. This cat is tired of being "loved"? Just put him down and pick up that one.

Fast-forward almost 20 years. I am wandering some back roads in an effort to skirt the traffic on the way to a new job in the same town. I find myself sitting at a light on a side street, looking at a boarded-up old house in an overgrown patch of woods, maybe a half acre; it was all that remained of a once-larger estate that had obviously been sold to a developer. Behind it was a large shopping plaza, and across the road was a small office park. Lounging about on the weedy "lawn" of the house were a couple of marmalade cats. Next to the garage are a couple more, white with small patches of orange. And suddenly I realized where I was... the cat-filled purple heaven of oh-so-long-ago!

It was so sad to see it in that state, but I understood the reality of the situation - I don't think Mrs. Parrott had any children, and the town had undergone booming growth at that time. Every farm, hill and meadow had been or was being developed into an office park, shopping strip, or McMansion farm. But here was a last holdout, tangled with grapes and guarded by some hardy felines who would not give up their spot and surely were so feral as to be vicious to anyone who wanted to rip down their paradise.

Sadly, they failed in their mission. There's a Staples there now...