New Year's Bloody Eve
The Baron decided he wanted a party in our new house.
So yesterday he invited a few people over. And then he told me about it.
I sighed, and mentally started planning. Drinks, food, kitty hidey holes, and cleaning.
Then he announced that he invited his fucktard brother over, and his wife.
Fucking great. Just the morons I want to welcome 2005 in with.
He went to work, I prepared for the party.
And tonight he announced that it is very likely that his fucktard brother will be staying over.
Wish me luck. I am going to need it to avoid starting New Year in prison.
Happy 2005, folks!
Cat-astrophe's
Frankie has been avoiding the pond like the plague and I can't say that I blame him. Charlie tried to push him in earlier, which sent Frankie running for the safety of my bed.
Hollie appears to have the plague, and is wandering around the house vomiting.
Willow has spent the day at war with her tail.
Harvey lived up to his reputation as Guard Cat and completely intimidated our visitor. He got him into the corner and growled menacingly. Once Harvey decided the threat had passed (in fairness to the cat, our visitor was an ex-Para, albeit a very small one) he allowed him to sit down, but kept him under control with a ferocious stare. Said visitor didn't stay too long.
Ellie has been Ellie. So she has eaten part of her favourite plant, chewed my book case, knocked down the candles and snorted a lot.
Charlie tried to push Frankie in the pond. He seems to have developed a very mischievous streak of late, culminating in him absconding at lunchtime with my iPod so that he could chew through my one and only pair of ear plugs.
So nothing too unusual here.
Back to normal
Things are indeed back to normal.
The tree and decorations are down. The turkey is gone - into bellies (human, feline and canine), stock and into the freezer.
My conservatory is once again a workshop. The Darth Vader water feature will soon be joined by a Boba Fett water feature. Stylish, or what?
The cats are scooting around the house like mad things. They haven't been out too much of late due to the weather, since they hate the cold, and due to the need to guard the turkey. But they are back in fine and demented form.
So as I say, it has been really cold. Today the pond froze over. I let the cats out this morning, and waited the obligatory five seconds before they realised that in fact, it was below freezing and a better course of action would be to reverse and go to sleep under my quilt.
Except Harvey saw the pond. And had to investigate............
So two minutes later Harvey was sat in the middle of the frozen pond, looking very very pleased with himself. Frankie and Ellie were fascinated (from the safety and warmth of the woolly blanket on the sofa and were watchng with huge eyes.
Harvey got up and walked around, in the middle of the pond. He realised the fish were still swimming under the ice. So he started to tap the ice with his paw.
It held. He continued to watch the fish.
Frankie could no longer contain himself and had to see how Harvey was performing this miracle of standing on the ice. He saw Harvey sit down on the ice. He then saw the fish under the ice that Harvey was sitting on.
And so he pounced.
At Harvey.
On the ice.
Harvey's eyes grew big. And he launched himself a clear six feet up in the air when he saw the black monstrosity flying towards him at full speed. He landed with grace next to the pond and ran for safety.
Frankie crashed into the ice. And then immediately crashed straight through the ice and into the frosty depths below. The fish scattered. Birds scattered.
He emerged several seconds later looking extremely shocked. He jumped out of the pond, and without a backwards glance flew into the house and hid.
Six hours later, he still looks shocked.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas!!!!
I have my hat on, the presents are opened (the Baron's parents gave him nose hair trimmers!) and the turkey is cooked.
Nothing else is, but never mind.
It is five minutes to the Queen's speech
My parents are here, and I am as pissed as a fucking fart.
So Merry Christmas!!!!!
My head is swimming
The Boy is staying overnight, to test the sofa bed out. In return, he is going to help with the preparations for the big lunch.
He is the next room talking to himself. It is 11PM and I have had enough of trying to get him to go to sleep, so he is just amusing himself.
All day I have answered a never ending stream of questions:
"Auntie, do you think I should keep my squidgy bum? Girls like squidgy bums, don't they?"
"Auntie, are there reindeer in the field (behind the house)? Can we catch one?"
"Auntie, you know that Trojan horse thing? How did they get in it?"
"Auntie, did you know my mummy is your half twin because you are sisters with different birthdays?"
Interspersed with conversations on Greek mythology, science, Harry Potter, mobile phones, religion, cake, and litter tray habits.
Is it any wonder my head is spinning?
The muttering from next door has stopped. I am hoping he is asleep now, as I would quite like to go to bed myself without any surprise visits from small blonde boys.
Harvey is standing guard outside his door. Harvey loathes him, so this isn't for the Boy's protection. It is to make sure the little bugger doesn't come out again.
I love my cat.
NTQ
Dear Right Ovary,
Please ovulate NOW. You are killing me.
In eager anticipation,
Rest of Body
3
I really would prefer the slow orgasmic death, but since no-one else has opted for that route yet.....
Three names you go by: Sarah, Pen, and Mouse.
Three screennames you have: dmouse007, penfold007, and themadcatlady.
Three things you like about yourself: eyes, my ability to talk to absolutely anyone and my love of animals.
Three things you hate/dislike about yourself: my weight, my inability to dye my hair to to the colour I intended and the fact I cannot stop my nails from breaking off.
Three parts of your heritage: Norman, Russian and Polish.
Three things that scare you: the current US administration, guns and snakes.
Three of your everyday essentials: mobile phone, Grinders and a bottle of water.
Three things you are wearing right now: glasses, catfur covered jumper and battered old jeans.
Three of your favorite bands/artists at the moment: Stone Temple Pilots, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Incubus.
Three of your favorite songs at present: Band Aid Feed the World, By the Way and The Reason.
Three things you want to try in the next 12 months: sticking to the speed limit, successful gardening and volunteering for cat rescue.
Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given): fun, trust and damn good sex.
Two truths and a lie: I can pick up any music instrument and play it (although not necessarily that well). My nose is pierced. I like the Baron's brother.
Three physical things about the opposite (or same) sex that appeals to you: Hands, eyes and height.
Three things you just can't do: Draw, cook well done steak and eat cheese.
Three of your favorite hobbies: Reading, cat stuff and learning my bass guitar.
Three things you want to do really badly right now: Piss, have a cup of tea and a brownie.
Three careers you're considering: My current career is more than enough.
Three places you want to go on vacation: Fiji, Iceland and South Africa.
Three kids names: Lily, Charlie and Alfie.
Three things you want to do before you die: Drive a race car, travel to the moon and see my hundredth birthday
Three people who have to take this quiz now or die a slow orgasmic death: Amy (although I think she'd definitely prefer the slow orgasmic death), Shelly and Stacey.
Procrastinating
So far today I have:
roasted a chicken;
started making some soup;
thought about writing a report;
given Charlie a very extensive haircut;
been bitten several times (see above);
done the washing;
thought some more about writing a report;
cleaned the kitchen;
played Spider Solitaire;
de-cat-furred the house;
got my laptop out in preparation for report writing;
baked brownies;
cleaned the bathroom;
thought a little more about writing a report;
chased Harvey around the neighbourhood;
played my guitar; and
given myself a manicure and a pedicure.
Bet you can't guess what I am putting off here!
Darth Take Two
Again, not brilliant, but you get the gist.
Fairly unique, I'd say!
Darth Vader
Here he is. It isn't the best shot, since it is about minus thirty outside and I have no shoes on. Water really does shoot out of his mouth, much to the goldfishes disgust.
He will shortly be getting a helmet and a lightsabre (which will also shoot water).
The lightbulb was painted red by the Baron to give our pond that whole Dark Side atmosphere. And from the conservatory, it does indeed appear as if our pond is evil.
This Week
Willow has been diagnosed with Feline Hyperesthesia. Which is a fancy way of saying she has a highly sensitive tail, which drives her to distraction. She has almost bitten the end off. The vet feels it may have been injured in her accident, and suggested mild sedatives if she persists in attacking it. I suggested a tranquiliser dart gun. I think it would make a great Christmas present.
The Baron has relinquished the conservatory at last. Leaving behind a totally ruined pine dining table.
He also relinquished his hair again, to reclaim his status as Slap Head.
The Boy phoned up to sing the Twelve Days of Christmas to me. It probably would have been better if he knew some of the words. It also would have helped if he could actually say "partridge". He prefers the little known version of the pear in the pear tree. He hung up when he had a giggling fit.
The Baron did some remodelling of the pond. We may be the only people in the world with a homemade Darth Vader water feature.
Spot the doggy
One of those cute little puppies is Lila. Future maniac in the house of Monsters.
Latest news from the DMouse House
- I've done most of the shopping. This includes replacing the bought item we lost whilst doing the damn shopping.
- Our puppy has been born. Delilah (or Lila for short) will be joining the Monsters in February. She is named for her future lover, my parents dog Samson. Not that the patter of tiny dog paws will be heard, since she is going to be losing her girly bits at the appropriate time. We will have enough claws in the house.
- The Boy did not shoot the Christmas Star at this year's school play. Au contraire, he was very good. He did audibly direct most of the play, from his vantage point of "Man in Crowd" on stage.
- The Baron bought me a ring. Romantic? Sort of. He bought me a 50p mood ring from a joke shop. According to my ring, I am lucky. Clearly - I have a man who thinks I am worth 50p!
Memoriam
Little request
Please light a candle and join bereaved families worldwide at 7 PM for one
hour on Sunday, December 12, 2004, for The Compassionate Friends Worldwide
Candle Lighting. Please do this to honor and remember all children who have
died too soon
. . .that their light may always shine.
(reprinted from Grief Digest, Centering Corporation, Omaha, NE 402-553-1200www.griefdigest.com)
This is an e-mailed request from Cecily, and it is the least I can do.
Amy, I am so sorry for your loss.
Consider the candles lit.
My head hurts
The scarlet hair fiasco was bad enough.
Fucking scarlet hair, but not all over. No, it was streaky. With reddy orange highlights, to provide that multi-tonal look.
I had to resort to a dark brown to cover the damage.
But that faded. To reveal the immortal streaky red. Which had not faded.
So I re-dyed it last night. Bloody L'Oreal again. It looked so good on the box. Chocolate brown with blonde hightlights.
They had a representative in the shop when I bought it. So, in the interests of not having hair that could light the way in a dark alley, I consulted her. She looked at my hair, and asked what I wanted.
I explained my situation and L'Oreal phobia, and she picked out what she called a "foolproof" colour for me - the chocolate brown with blonde highlights. It would be fine with my already coloured hair, she said.
So last night, I armed myself with the dye, some old towels, vaseline and I covered the mirror. Didn't want to scare myself.
The base colour went on beautifully. Then it was time for the highlights. I mixed it up and set to work. My carefully defined streaks were in place and I went off to play on the computer for the requisite 20 minutes whilst my streaks developed.
In my youth, I once decided that I wanted to be blonde. White blonde, to be precise. So I bought my bleach and set to work.
It turns out I do not have hair that likes bleach. It sort of lightened. Pelican crossing orange was not quite the look I was aiming for, but it was the best my hair would allow.
10 years later, my hair has not changed from that original stance.
I did not get chocolate brown hair with blonde highlights. I got chocolate orange hair with fucking orange streaks. That infernal fucking scarlet lives on.
But not for much longer.
In 15 minutes my dark "Brazilian Brown" will have had its alloted time and the fucking scarlet will be hidden once more.
Until the next time.
Take two
It is hair dyeing time.
The fucking scarlet is somehow showing through the chocolate brown I put on to hide it. How I do not know.
So it is time to hit the bottle again.
I am nervous.
Enough
I am not the only one struggling with the urge to batter my live in annoyance to a bloody pulp with a blunt object. See? And see?
I went to bed having left a tidy kitchen. I awoke to find the Baron had eaten half of the contents of the fridge. But had he put the remains in the fridge? Bollocks.
He had piled them on the counter directly above the cupboard that houses the bin.
He refuses to clean the cat litter trays. He doesn't clean the toilet. He doesn't even replace the toilet paper. He doesn't turn his socks out for washing, or empty his pockets. He has never ever done a load of washing.
All he does is work on his clay modelling project. Don't get me wrong, it is really good, but it is taking over the fucking house. The conservatory is completely unuseable as a room as he has taken it over. The house reeks of fiberglass filler. There is kitchen roll strewn about.
And this is after I asked him at the weekend to get it all into the garage. He spent the weekend fartarsing about, supposedly cleaning, yet nothing actually happened. The room is still unuseable.
And the final straw? He turned the thermostat up last night to help his model dry. I didn't know. I couldn't sleep because I was so hot. I finally got up as I was so miserable, and went downstairs to get a cup of tea.
The fucker had turned it up. Right up. The whole house was heated to 95F.
I have had enough.
My house looks like a brothel
It does. Honestly. Well, a cross between a brothel and a really bad eighties disco.
Someone, no names mentioned, may have got just a little carried away with the Christmas lights.
There is a tree this year, and despite the best efforts of six cats, it is still standing tall. It came with lights, which left all the more free to decorate the house with. Plus that same nameless someone also bought some lights for the willow tree outside and a string of angel lights because they looked cute.
Still, having a house that looks like a brothel isn't all bad.
It is colouful.
It is cheerful.
It gets you in the mood.
Harvey
This picture sums up the essence of Harvey.
Harvey is an evil cat. He hates people, and spends a lot of time plotting their downfall. He likes to hurt people.
He likes me. He snuggles in my arms like a baby. He puts his paws around my neck and purrs into my shoulder.
But make no mistake. He bites me too.
Frankie
We got Frankie to keep Harvey company.
Frankie was a very scrawny and smelly cat when we got him, mainly as he had been fed on sardines and kitten milk only.
Harvey didn't take well to the intruder. Frankie, coming from a place where he was the youngest of 15 cats, was quite accepting of Harvey as the boss.
Something that hasn't changed to this day.
Harvey and Frankie adore each other. But Harvey is the leader and of that there is no doubt.
Frankie is much bigger than Harvey and weighs a good three pounds more. But he meekly trots up to Harvey, pushes his face into his and asks for his face to be cleaned.
And Harvey does.
Frankie is a sweetheart of a cat, who just wants to be adored by everyone. He loves to be stroked and held and he purrs if you even look at him. He has a rusty red belly, and he folds his ears back before he grooms himself. He steals earplugs. He grooms my eyebrows.
He is a bugger to take a good picture of though.
Evil Ellie
Ellie was the sweetest little kitten. All fluffy and big blue eyes. Partly because it turns out she wasn't nine weeks like we were led to believe. No, she was five weeks old and far too young to be leaving her mother. Very cute, though.
Sure, she gave us a huge health scare by developing hypothermia and going into fits before lapsing into a coma, but she was a lovely little cat.
She never used her claws, she didn't bite (much) and she adored Frankie.
She never left his side. He nursed her, he groomed her, he taught her how to use the litter tray. and she worshipped him.
Then she started teething.
The nursing stopped. The destuctive phase had begun.
First the blinds. Then the bookcase. Then the bed. Then the next set of blinds.
After that she settled down somewhat. She took her latent aggressiveness out on the hapless Frankie and the catnip mice.
She accepted Charlie without too much fuss. Lots of hissing and puffing up, but since she does that at the hoover too, it doesn't mean that much. She allows him to groom her and chase her.
Same deal with Willow's arrival. Minus the grooming and chasing at the moment. We are still in puff up territory.
Another health scare later, and we have on our hands a very lively little lady. We await with bated breath the next Ellie adventure.
Evil Ellie
Lard Arse
Charlie came to me the day before my birthday.
We went for a drive that day. We bought some lunch, and realised we were near the RSPCA centre. I thought it would be nice to go and look around.
Being a little loopy, I took the wrong turning on the roundabout and ended up on the motorway heading home. But I really wanted to go, so got off at the next junction, turned round, and went back. Making sure I took the right exit.
I didn't see Charlie right away. We went through both wings of the cat centre and I wanted to go back to the first again. The Baron wanted to go home.
We saw the cage at the same time. It had a notice on it asking people not to touch the glass as the cat was very nervous of people. We went over, but we could see no cat. We saw a huge lump under the blanket.
Some children came in the centre and the door slammed shut. The blanket moved to reveal the biggest, and most evil looking cat I had ever seen. I looked at him, and he looked balefully back at me, thinking I had made the noise.
I looked at the Baron. He nodded.
We asked to have him taken out of the cage so we could meet him properly. We were refused. Charlie had bitten too many of the staff, and he was not allowed to be handled for health and safety reasons.
I said I would take him. I just wanted him out of that cage.
The assistant looked at me as if I was mad. "He bites, you know".
The home check was waived. They bundled him into a cage and let us take him straight away.
We didn't get on at first. He didn't like me, and he let me know it. With bites, scratches, hisses and spitting.
But now, nearly ten months on, Charlie is my special boy. He sleeps with me. He lays in my lap. He purrs like a rusty old motor. And he lets me rub his huge fat belly.
I love my Lard Arse.
Lard Arse
The One Eyed Wonder
I fell in love with Willow when she still had both her eyes. She had been hit by a car and suffered face injuries. Her eyes was inflamed and infected. She had signs all over her cage saying "I am beautiful", but people kept walking past her cage. There were kittens next to her so she didn't stand a chance.
I saw her and she marched up to me and headbutted the glass.
The Baron was with me, and said I could not have another cat. I said I was going to ask if they had any more information on her - whether she would lose her eye, whether anyone had shown any interest and what her blood test results were.
The Baron moaned and groaned. I was not to have another cat.
The RSPCA took my number so they could call me with her blood test results. No-one had shown an interest in her.
Days passed. The Baron pretended that we had not seen her.
The call came that she would lose her eye. She would need to stay in for a fortnight to recover and then I could take her home. Time to convince the Baron.
I used my feminine charms. Begged. Pleaded. Did a few things. And confirmed Willow's pick up date.
The day we arrived home from holiday, we picked up our newest kitty cat and brought her home.
The One Eyed Wonder
Introducing......Hollie
Here she is!
She has finally got brave enough to come out from under the bed. Right now, she is sat next to me, gazing up at me and rubbing her head on me to stroke.
She has a few problems, such as a bald belly from stress related overgrooming, but she is putting those behind her and is sporting a sweet fuzz.
Hollie came to us, because her owner couldn't keep her anymore. She was pregnant, planning to emigrate, and her partner was emphatically not a cat lover. Given Hollie's age (6-10) and her temperament (exceedingly shy and retiring) a shelter would not have been in her interests. So I said yes.
The Baron had steam coming out of his ears when I told him that I had agreed. He was furious.
I showed him her photo. He was smitten.
Which is unfortunate, as she is terrified beyond reason at his mere existence.
And that completes my pets.
For now.
The Boy
The Boy was in one of his sweet moods this evening. He cuddled up to me to read his school book, and stayed there to watch the Simpsons.
Every so often he would pat my hand and tell me that he loved me very much.
I love my little nephew.
