A day in the life

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Change the fur color to "basement cat," the floor tile to off-white hexagons, and the wall covering to badly outdated wallpaper and that's our house.

am home

I have a kitten sleeping on my chest. She is putting me to sleep.

I got home at 9:30 last night after a very long drive. But part of that drive took place on twisty-windey roads through the mountains, so I was pleased. Today I'm just tired. 

I am waiting on a call from my gynecologist's nurse re: Diva. I want to talk to her before I make an appointment. 

Had a marvelous time in Baltimore. Really like spending time with Indigo. I miss him now. I'm glad he'll be here in 5 weeks. 

I don't have anything else to say right now. I'll post some pictures and write some more when I'm not so sleepy. In the meantime, I'll take a nap. Gawd, I love naps.

uh

What is it, Tuesday already? If it weren't for garbage pick-up I couldn't keep track some weeks. 

Let's start with a cute Scheherazade picture. She's hiding in the bookshelf and having a bit of a wash-up.

This afternoon she's been walking across my desk, but when the door opens she darts into the shelf to hide from any would-be cat nappers. This means specifically Sproing, and a bit less specifically Diva. They like to play with her, but on their terms, not hers. Sometimes she's willing, often she hides. 

Do you remember a couple of months ago I said I'd gotten some new dish washing liquid, and it smelled like fresh fish? I'm too lazy to look it up and link to it, so hunt the archives yourself if you're that interested. At any rate, many of the commenters suggested I toss the stuff and get something else, since it smelled so bad. 

I didn't. 

We finally used it up. Everyone disliked the smell, but we used it until it was gone. See how pretty the bottle is?
Just goes to show you can't judge a detergent by its bottle.
Even if the bottle is so pretty that I took lots of pictures of it. 

You'd think I had nothing better to do, huh?

OK, moving right along, let's talk about the weather. Now I know some of you live in more northern climes where winter stretches out long and lazy over the landscape. Here in South Carolina we don't get significant coldness. Rather, we get significant hotness and very short winters, comparatively. Spring is exercising her options already. It's a bit early, and I know we aren't finished with cool weather entirely, but it's warm. 77F warm. That's 25C. It isn't too bad in the shade with a slight breeze, but this sun is intense already. We haven't even gotten to the solstice yet, and already the sun is blazing. 

For those of you who may be joining our story in progress, let me just explain that I don't do heat well. I don't do heat with any grace, that's for sure. One might wonder why the hell I live in South Carolina! I've been wondering that myself, more and more over the last three years. 

And speaking of three years, that's how long it's been since I started my homophile transformation. Three years ago this month C moved into our house. A lot has happened since then! He and S have their own place now. They moved out of our house in December. The room they lived in is now my office and Light's bedroom when she's home from college. I'm in college now myself, working toward a degree in psychology with an eye toward grad school. My eventual (though still ephemeral) goal is to work in some capacity with the GLBT community, possibly in a counseling setting. 

I think that's about all I have to say today. I know there was more, as there usually is, but I've been so distracted that I've forgotten. If it's that important, I'll post it later. I doubt it's that important. 

OH!! Wait!! I remember now! My semester is half over now, so mid-term grades (or grade estimates for those less-organized professors) are posted. I have an A in each of my classses except the one that is graded Pass/Fail. I'm passing that one. So far so good!

Scheherazade kitty update

Scheherazade is growing, as kittens are wont to do. She is an endless source of amusement. She likes to curl up on my breast/stomach while I'm on the computer, and that is so soothing! Her purr is very loud. She likes me to rub her neck. 

Samhain is our other cat. I may have mentioned him before. He's a solid black cat with short silky fur. We got him as a kitten a couple of years ago. He's just old enough to not exactly be a kitten, but still have some playful tendencies. He is far enough away from kittenhood, though, to be really annoyed by Scheherazade. And she's a mean little sister! She loves to pick at him. Sometimes she'll stick her nose in his face when he's trying to sleep, but she usually jumps on him in a full out attack. He gets her back, too. It was a bit frightening at first to watch them wrestle, as she is so small and I was afraid she'd get hurt. She starts it every time though, so I figure she deserves what she gets, and she hasn't been injured yet. She certainly does put up a fuss, though. Whenever he grabs her she hisses, growls, and bares her teeth at him. He doesn't say a thing. He's too busy fighting. 

Scheherazade makes some interesting noises. My favorite is the trill she sings when she is about to eat. It sounds like a combination meow and purr. Very cute.  This afternoon I locked her out of the bedroom so I could sleep undisturbed. When I let her back in she walked toward her food bowl but was not singing her food trill. She was meowing firmly, if that makes sense. Not loudly, exactly, but with emotion. She then turned to look at me over her shoulder and meowed directly at me. I got that message. Who knew cats could cuss?

Samhain has his spot at the foot of the bed on my side. I suspect he prefers my side because my feet aren't as big nor my legs as long as Superman's so Samhain has a little more room to sleep. He spends the mornings there when he can, and sometimes he'll sleep there at night. Scheherazade usually sleeps with us, also, though she moves around a lot. I sleep on my side, and she likes to climb on my ribs and curl up against my arm as it rests on my hip. Or she sleeps on my hip. Sometimes she's on Superman's chest. It usually works out pretty well until around 4 in the morning. That must be the catting hour or something. When she's the only one sleeping with us she'll climb on top of the headboard and knock things off the shelf onto our heads, or pounce on our fingers or our feet. If Samhain is in the room she attacks him. We woke up earlier this week to both of them having a royal wrestling match between us on the bed, and chasing each other under, then over, then back under the bed. He's bigger than she is, and if they aren't too fast or I'm not too asleep I can tell which one is jumping on my ribs. 

She helps me study.

She makes a beautiful bookend, but isn't very efficient at it.

Superman built a hutch for my desk. He also, as you can see from the picture above, sanded the old paint and varnish off the top of the desk. It actually looks nice under all that paint. 

She likes to climb on the shelf and look over the edge of the hutch.

I got many comments when we first named her about what sort of nickname she'd end up with. Well, she's been around for nearly four months and rarely is she called Scheherazade. Superman was the first one to come up with a good nickname for her. She's small and fuzzy and black, and when she hunkers down on the floor lying in wait to attack the Toes of Doom she looks like a smudge on the floor. So he calls her Smudge. Especially when it's dark she really does look like a spot of something smeared on the floor, though less so now that she's getting bigger. 

I frequently refer to her as the small cat, and Samhain as the big kitty. 

Twitch is our primary name-giver. He has a gift for it, actually. He named our (late) dog Ruby. He has named almost all the cats who have ever wandered into our lives. He is particularly fond of cats, and uses many pet names for our two. I've been surreptitiously making a list of the different things he calls Scheherazade. You know "Scheherazade" isn't one of them! I present to you The Names of the Cat:

kitty-boo

mao-mao

mew-mew

adorable

fuzzy

fuzzy-butt

ki' ki'

pookums

boo

floof-butt

goof

(and my favorites)

Smudgemous

ScheheraSmudge 

With the light of the camera's flash it is easy to see the black cat on the black seat of the black chair. 

My chair is between the desk and a rather dark corner of the room, and without a spotlight on the chair it's difficult to tell if there's an extra cat-cushion on it. The silly kitten doesn't voluntarily move, even when it becomes apparent that she is in danger of being squished. 

She's giving me "the look"

Even fuzzier out of focus. She likes to crawl into nooks like this shelf beside my desk. 

High is good. Her balance here is noteworthy.

Basket Kitty!!

She was not amused that my photography interrupted her nap.

And that's my kitten update. I will try to update more frequently so as not to have so much to cover in one post next time. 

Spring Break '09, day 1

It has been a lovely day. I've done a lot of nuthin'. Yesterday afternoon after classes Superman and I came home and had some "lunch." Then I took yet another nap. I have read two books since yesterday afternoon. They're just little romance novels, nothing deep. However, I started Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own last night. That is much more substantial than formula romance novels.

I recently purchased a few books from Amazon. Don't you just love Amazon.com? I'm going to get through Virginia Woolf here in the next day or so, perhaps this evening if I feel motivated. Next on my list is Sex as God Intended by John J. McNeill. He's a former Jesuit who has spent the last 30+ years teaching and writing about God's love for gays and lesbians (per the book cover). As for sex, he's for it as far as I can tell from reading the cover. We shall see. Updates as the situation warrants. 

And can you believe I've never read Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique? I know! That's another new one I bought. It's on my list for this week. 

I discovered a new musical artist today. Y'all are going to roll your eyes and say "Where have you been for years, Java?" Well, I've been under a rock, mostly. I don't get out much. I have told you this. Superman played Coldplay's Viva la Vida for me this morning. He was out shopping this afternoon and picked up the CD album. I'm listening to it now. Wow. Here, check this out: 

Lyrics | Coldplay lyrics - Viva La Vida lyrics

Cool, huh? 

It was tempting to stay in all day. The weather has been deliciously rainy since late yesterday morning. I've spent most of the day in my little nest on the bed clothed in my flannel nightgown. But I've been walking around a lot recently, what with going to school and all, and I've built up some stamina for that walking thing. I'd hate to blow it this week by sitting on my fat ass doing absolutely nothing. So Superman and I went on a nice long (for me) walk this evening. The rain had stopped but there was still water dripping from the trees. The sky was gray with clouds and dusk-ishness. We had a loverly time! I feel pretty good about the whole thing. Virtuous, even. It might not seem like much to you, but it's pretty big to me. 

That's about all for now. I hope to soon post a picture-rich exposé of my sweet little kitten. You remember the one. She's not quite so little anymore. I know you're all dying to know what we call her now, "Scheherazade" being quite the mouthful for everyday use. I'll tell ya' later. ;) 

More randomosity, as my brain seems incapable of focusing on any one task for a significant amount of time

• I am disillusioned with my old brand of dish washing liquid, so I got a couple of different brands. The first bottle advertises a light citrus scent. To me it smells like fresh fish guts. Fresh fish guts smell better than old fish guts, nevertheless it isn't an odor I want to endure as I wash my dishes. The second bottle says something about "free and clear." I promise you it wasn't free, but it is clear. I haven't used it yet, as I want to finish the first bottle before opening the second. I'll let you know my impressions of that one when I get to it. 
• I registered for classes at Lander yesterday. I will post a separate entry detailing that excitement.
• The kitten acts much like a kitten. She is very playful when she isn't sleeping. It has been a very long time since I had a kitten (or since a kitten owned me). I'm more of a dog person. I didn't remember how much like puppies these cats are in their desire to chew stuff. Stuff like my fingers, for instance. And my toes. While I'm trying to sleep. I was sitting peacefully at my computer on Sunday with my ear-bud headphones on, listening to pretty music while trying to ignore the annoying screech from my children. Scher was on my lap underneath the desk. All of a sudden my music went from stereo to mono, then to barely an echo. The little sneak chewed into my headphone wire severing the connections. It wasn't a little cheap $5 set, either. Perhaps that's what I need to get, though, until her need to chew abates. 
• Our weather has been decidedly spring-like. We're getting a lot of rain, and temperatures this week are in the mid to upper 60s F (18-20 C). My Bradford Pear tree is once more threatening to bloom. We had some freezing temps last week for a couple of nights, but nothing extremely cold. The buds are still small and tight enough that I think they survived last week. But the forecast this week is for this warmer wet weather, our lowest low for the foreseeable future being 30F (-1). It will be interesting to see what the pear tree does. 
• 'Tis time to take down our Christmas decorations. Since we didn't put up the not-a-tree until Christmas Eve, I am not finished enjoying it. I don't really want to take it down yet. But it is time. 
• I went to bed at 6:00 last night. It started as a post coital nap, but extended until 4:30 this morning. I felt great when I woke up! I got up, took Scher with me into the kitchen. (She was being very playful and bite-ish, and I wanted to let Superman sleep. She didn't.) I used the 5 over-ripe bananas we had on the table to make two small loaves of banana bread. Twitch, the silly boy, doesn't like pecans. I made one loaf without pecans and used the full recipe allotment of pecans in the second loaf. That's some good banana bread!! I sliced the fresh hot banana nut loaf, buttered a couple of pieces, and took those and a pot of fresh coffee to Superman who was still in bed. By this time it was 6:45, way past time for him to be awake. He makes breakfast and coffee for me almost every day, and it was fun to return the favor.
• Scher had a wonderful time in the kitchen this morning. I had to shoo her off the table a couple of times, but there is so much junk on the floor she was plenty entertained down there. She found a small paper sack. OMG cute!! She kept running from one side of the kitchen near the refrigerator all the way across the room and into the utility room at the other end. She was pouncing at everything from paper towels that had been dropped and not picked up, to the bags of garbage waiting by the back door, to my feet. Totally adorable.
• I walked and stood a lot yesterday morning. It took all morning to get all the loose ends tied up so I could register for classes. I had to go from the psychology department to the registrar's office, to admissions, to financial aid, to the English department, back to psychology, back to admissions, back to the registrar. It's a small school, and all these offices are in the same building. I made use of the elevator. Nevertheless that's a lot more activity than I am used to. (Sedentary describes my normal activity level) All I carried was my purse and a clipboard. Plus the extra weight I'm wearing, which is considerable. I am 100-150 lbs heavier than I want to/should be. The sedentary lifestyle isn't helping. Yesterday afternoon and this morning I notice that my hips and pelvic area are sore. Most of my weight is around the abdomen (the most dangerous for heart attack risk, they tell me). My pelvic girdle holds a lot of weight, and that's where it hurts today. I hope I can build up strength and stamina, and perhaps lose some weight before I injure myself walking around campus carrying heavy books. Oy. 
• Light and Superman have pretty much finished preparing the other bedroom for her occupancy. It needs a bit of touch up painting in a couple of places where she did a sloppy masking job. I can do that pretty easily. I need to move all of her stuff and my sewing stuff out of her former bedroom that Sproing is now sleeping in. That, and taking down the Christmas decorations are my tasks for today. Right now I'm sitting here playing on my blog instead of moving things around. Hmmm. Time to get off my ample ass and get to work! 
• Happy Tuesday everyone!

Random bits of this and that

Either my keyboard is wimpy or I spend too much time typing.

I may have blogged this one before. I love it. Twitch wrote this on our kitchen whiteboard. I think he got it from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
Scheherazade helped me start up my computer yesterday. I didn't get the camera out in time to capture her licking the touch pad. She was, indeed, moving the cursor around. Usually she does her computing by walking on the keyboard. 

Diva gets the words "ketchup" and "syrup" confused. She knows what each one is, but often gets the words mixed up. Last night we had blueberry pancakes for supper. She said something about putting ketchup on them while reaching for the syrup jugs. Silly girl.

Indigo left early this morning. I miss him. We had a very pleasant visit. He thinks Superman is terrific for, among other things, his accepting attitude about my friendship with Indigo and my other blog buddies. Indigo and Superman get along famously.

My washing machine is currently washing a load of sheets. The replacement part came and Superman just installed it. He is my hero!

What did Java do last week? Where has Java been?

Christmas happened. I'm glad the day is done, now I can go about enjoying the season. There is way too much expectation for the 25th. 

We have a few family holiday traditions. I like to be unique, to make traditions over in my own warped image. One of my favorite things to mess with is the traditional Christmas Tree. I like the fresh tree scent of a live tree. (A formerly live tree? It isn't exactly alive if it has been chopped down) I'm not fond of artificial trees. If a tree is going to look like a tree, then it ought to be a tree. An artificial tree shouldn't look so much like a tree, IMHO, if it isn't really a tree. 

So our family compromises on this tree issue by alternating live trees and not live trees every other year. The not live trees are my creations. Muahahahahahaha!!! My goal in developing a tree-like thing is to capture the essence of treeness, the function of The Christmas Tree, but to inject some whimsy and my personality into it. 

I usually try to maintain some semblance of the cone shape, and often stay with the green color theme. This year I had an idea in mind, but couldn't figure out how to make it work. Then just a few days before Christmas I had another idea. Superman, being the super man that he is, put this together for me.

He made this diamond shaped frame from scrap wood he had around the house. Diva helped me paint it. We had a blast.
Oh, look! I got a "new" couch, too. We haven't had a couch for half a year, since the last one gave it's final tuft of stuffing in an epic battle with my children and the dog. Have I mentioned my furniture philosophy for this household? I buy disposable furniture. The couch pictured above cost $30 from a local thrift store. Our previous couch was from the same thrift store and cost about as much. I figure $30 every 6-12 months for a couch is a pretty good deal, and I don't have to stress too much over what happens to it. 

But I digress. 

Here's the not-a-tree hanging from the ceiling. May I direct your attention to the shape? It is conical from two directions, from the top down and the bottom up. Which translates into a vague diamond shape. The family agrees that it looks like a giant ornament. 

Note also the wall behind it. This is what my living room wall has looked like for 2+ years. It had some bug-ugly wall paper on it when we moved in, but I removed that. Turns out the wall paper was covering old panelling. When I removed the wall paper I also removed the sturdy wall lining paper that masked the panelling groves. I want to paint the wall and did not want to buy more of the lining paper, so I thought I'd just fill in the groves with spackle. That turned into more of a job than I bargained for, and it stayed like that for over 2 years. Stuff like that disappears into the background of my mind and doesn't usually bother me until brought to my attention again, like when I'm making a measly attempt to decorate for Christmas. 

Back to the not-a-tree. Superman punctured his fingers getting the frame covered with chicken wire, and put the colored mini-lights inside the frame. We have hung ornaments from the chicken wire. I like the fuzzy effect of the lights in this shot.
Diva helped a lot with the decoration. Here she is standing beside the not-a-tree, showing of her handiwork and her new skirt. 

Note once again the wall behind the ornamentation. Yes, while I was accomplishing things I covered the wall with more spackle. Actually, it's drywall mud. Joint compound, officially. One of the reasons I haven't done anything with the wall for so long is that I didn't know what I wanted to do. I recently decided to add more texture to it rather than trying to smooth it out. So I slapped a bunch of joint compound on the wall, leveled it out with a gloved hand, and rolled over the damp compound with a textured paint roller. It looks pretty nifty now. Next task is to knock off the high points of that texture (very easy to do with a putty knife and a bit of pressure). Then I'll do some interesting paint technique involving a few different light colors in hopes of making it look like stucco or plaster or something vaguely Tuscan. I'm not real clear on the details just yet. 

The angel that hovers over the guts of our not-a-tree

The loot, still wrapped and mysterious.

As you can see we have added a lot more ornaments to the not-a-tree. It's rather unbalanced, artistically. Ornaments hang better from the lower half than the upper half. 

Superman got the book I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like by some author person (I can't read it from this picture and don't remember otherwise) from our literate Light. I haven't looked through the book yet, but I love the title. 

Obligatory cute Scher kitty pictures (one of which includes a cute Sproing also)

All in all it's been a pretty good holiday and weekend. 

Indigo is here now. That's always a lot of fun. He just got here yesterday after a very long drive from Baltimore. We exchanged some gifts last night, watched a movie. This morning I slept late, but he got up and the kids entertained him. We've been sitting here beside each other for the last couple of hours both of us with our computers in our laps. Parallel play. Sometime soon lunch will happen. It's already 2:40 and he's getting hungry. 

Updates as the situation warrants. 

Seasons confused

I had to put up a new post. The look that cat was giving me is starting to creep me out. So of course to replace that mad cat I present Scheherazade looking adorable. It's what she does best. Her second best is digging her claws into my flesh. Kittens are like that. My toes may never recover.So, about the seasons. I mentioned last week that our temperatures have been unseasonably warm. My fears are realized: our Bradford Pear has started to set buds. It's not in full bloom or anything, and only a few of the buds are in the large pre-bloom stage. I fear that they are large enough to be damaged by a hard freeze, however, and predicted low temperature tonight is 22F. Recently our temps have been 22C. Big difference! 
Looking at the tree from the driveway it is obviously starting to bud. I'm not sure if this picture really shows it well, though. Perhaps embiggened it would. 
I tried to take some close ups of the buds but all I got was out-of focus closeness with detailed branches beyond. I also took some nifty trunk shots, but I'm to impatient to wait for more pictures to upload. 

I find it interesing that on the shortest day of the year my pear tree wants to bloom. 

Time for more kitty pictures!

Cat Care Tip #57- Let sleeping kittens lie.

Scheherazade is getting little bits of soft fur all over our bed. She's cute enough at this age that I don't mind too much. 

Here she is hiding behind the lump of sheet. She's preparing her for her attack.

"Wait, what was that?"

Faster than lightning, cuter than cute, she attacks! This time she got Light's fingers. My fingers are all chewed up, too.

She's a blur

Play is serious stuff. She must attack this roll of tissue.
Hail the conquering hero!She deigns to let me hold her for a moment.

We have another cat named Samhain. He is approximately 2.5 years old. He is a sleek black cat, very regal and proud when he isn't being silly and kittenish. Samhain likes to play, too. But Samhain isn't sure what to think of Scheherazade. She wants to play with him, but he is wary. For about an hour they eyed each other from different sides of the box on the right. They both got too tired to watch each other and each fell asleep. This is as close as they got to each other yesterday. Today they actually touched noses momentarily. 

"Scheherazade" is a mouthful of name to say everytime we refer to her. I still like the name, and use it when I don't call her kitty. Superman, on the other hand, likes to call her Smudge. He says she looks like a black smudge on the floor.

Addendum: How about Cher for a nickname, but spelled Scher? Since Scheherazade begins with Sch. I've had a few votes for Cher already. thinking with fingers, here, maybe sCher. Looks kinda funny, but when has that ever stopped me?

My boys and the kitten Scheherazade

My 17 year old son Twitch views life from an interesting perspective. He's always been a unique boy. He quietly observes the world around him (when he isn't too self absorbed to be oblivious to it). Sometimes he shares his point of view with the family.

I have a white board hanging on the wall in our kitchen. It's a wonderful place for messages, notes, lists, and tirades. Twitch put this on the white board recently.

Members of the household are represented on the left. S and C are of course our gay couple. The D and M are for Dad and Mom. Next he shows himself (Twitch) then S-Sproing and D-Diva. The red line represents Courtesy, green is Productivity, and black is Respect. Along the bottom of the chart we see his terms for the levels of each virtue. In ascending order we have suckish, poor, fair, good, and parent.

He qualifies the chart here, saying "figures based on distant observations." Why distant I'm not sure. He's right here and sees it all. But this is Twitch's opinion of how well each family member shows courtesy, productivity, and respect. I'm glad Superman and I define the standard. That's as it should be. 

Sproing wanted me to take his picture. He posed for me. He thinks he's hot sh!t, so he gave me some bad a$$ poses. This was the only one I captured. He was thrilled. Sometimes he is very easy to placate. He is lots of fun!

And here are some pictures of our sweet little kitten, Scheherazade. She snuggled up to Superman for some scritching. She's really getting into this petting stuff.The first few days we had her she spent most of her time hiding under the furniture in our bedroom. We have her food, water, and the litter box in our bathroom, and I've been trying to keep the bedroom door closed so I at least know what room she's in. Whenever she saw us she'd hiss and run away. It was tough to catch her! We had to catch her at least twice a day to give her the antibiotic. Once we held her and pet her she purred like a little outboard motor. She loves it. But then she'd hiss next time we got close to her. Hey, make up your mind, Little One!But since the weekend she's been much more social. Here she is on our bed playing with a little catnip toy I bought for her. She's so cute when she bats that thing around! She has learned how to climb up onto our bed. To give some explanation, Superman built our bed. The mattress is nearly 3 feet off the floor. Our grown cat, Samhain, can jump up on the bed with no problem. Scheherazade is way too tiny to do that yet. However, there's enough junk piled up on the sides of the bed for her to climb on until she's close enough to jump. Yep, time to clean the room. :)

Here's a close shot of the catnip toy she was playing with. It's on the floor now, as she batted it off the edge of the bed. Now she's on the floor looking for it. You can see it. You can also see her back as she looks elsewhere. What a silly little girl kitty!She's doing much better. She uses the litter box consistently (that was hit and miss the first couple of days). She's eating and drinking well. The antibiotic seems to have worked pretty well on her respiratory infection, as she isn't sneezing and coughing anymore. However, her left eye isn't getting any better. If anything it's getting worse. I need to take her to the vet again to have him take another gander at that eye. Her eye is producing a lot of icky gunk, and the sclera (I think that's what it is) is inflamed.