The mastermind of chaos and dissent just burned her lunch. Who the hell walks away from eggs frying on the stove? It's a good thing I like them crispy.

I may be an instigator at times and even a practitioner of dissent, though hardly a master. Bunny is the last person I would have suspected anyone would think I was in collusion with. She thinks I'm a whiny little bitch and that's me in a nutshell. I'm ok with that. I am insecure. I will agree on that. Envious at times, yes, but not jealous. To me jealousy connotes anger and the desire to hurt the other person. I bear no ill will at all. Towards anyone. But envy, that's another story. I envy my mother's ability to grow any damned thing she sticks in the ground. I envy my husband's ability to tune things out and not worry about the little things. And I envy Camille's charisma. Some's got it. Some ain't. I don't hate her for it. That would be stupid.

I am insecure in my ability to maintain relationships. Whenever I post I feel like Stacy. Just blathering away and I can just feel the breeze kicked up by all the rolling eyes. One liners are all I feel really comfortable with and I'm always afraid someone will take it the wrong way.

I was Queen of the Nerds back in highschool. I never ate lunch because the cafeteria was too claustrophobic for me. After awhile a couple of other loser-types joined me. Pretty soon there were 5 or 6 of us that hung out. One of the girls was so awkward and nervous she would puke under stress. It's a wonder she was able to function at all. We hung out for about a year and then she snapped out of it. Somewhere during the summer she got some confidence. I think basically once she got her braces off she got laid. Suddenly it was really uncool to hang around us loser-types. Typical high school stuff, right? So, I guess I have abandonment issues as well. Maybe that's why I felt the way I did about the admin stuff. It felt like the hookabitches were leaving me behind.

wow. I really need to work on that.

It should be. I'm sick and tired of being lonely all the damned time. I've been trying to find some kind of local groups to meet people. Other moms in particular.
There's a new group for displaced yankees 50 and over. I'm a displaced yankee but I'm only 44.
There's a group for moms of toddlers and preschoolers. My kid is in 2nd grade.
There's a group for people new to the area but only within the last two years. I've been here for seven years now.
Moms Club was a joke.
Mothers & More didn't have any vacancies. That was four years ago but I'm on the list. Right.
I don't belong to a church.
That's about all there is. It sucks. I'm in that awkward stage of no longer hip but not quite in AARP land.
I wonder if there are other mothers in the area that don't quite fit anywhere? Square peg mamas? Maybe I need to start a group myself. That's a scary thought.

Yesterday was a bust. I paid my $20 copay to see the doctor who was going to remove a cyst. She wouldn't do it. She said it was too large and I needed to see a surgeon. Great.

I went to the grocery store and back home to clean the house. Busted ass actually. The mother, who approached me at the busstop and asked to come over, didn't show. Dd went over to their house instead. Fine. Would have been nice to have a head's up though. She'll probably show up today when the kitchen is currently destroyed. I'm working on a craft project for the in-laws and there's crap everywhere. I've also got a cheese pie in the works and laundry going.

Made a giant score at the grocery store yesterday. I had to have dd's prescription refilled. It costs $3.35. Kroger was giving $5.00 off groceries per prescription. I made money already. I also had a coupon from Rite Aid for a $20 gift card on transferred prescriptions. Kroger honours them so I got $20.00 put on my Kroger card.
I got a cart load of stuff, used a bunch of coupons and BOGOF coupons, and paid with the rewards checks that Kroger sends me occasionally for using their mastercard. I ended up putting $3.06 on mastercard and walked away with groceries for a week. I love shopping like that! The people behind me in line weren't too thrilled because it takes a long time to check out. I always get stuck with this one lady who can't comprehend the Buy One Get One Free concept. Then she had to have someone show her how to run the rewards checks. Again. And then I always get this one chick that bags my groceries. I'm all for hiring the mentally challenged but I wish they would please please please teach their baggers that they don't put a gallon of milk on top of a bag of grapes. For real. And she always rolls down the top of the bags so when the cashier has to see if I actually got a certain item for a coupon the bags have to be opened one at a time to find the object. It's exhausting and I can feel the animosity like a tsunami from the people behind me. But... I still walked away with a cartful for $3. ;)

Dd has a playdate this afternoon. The house is a wreck. I've got a 9:30 appt this morning to go "under the knife". I have no idea what to expect but I know it's going to hurt like hell. And for some reason the master bath smells like a greyhound terminal men's room. Not to imply that I've ever been in a greyhound terminal men's room but I'm sure it couldn't smell much worse. At least my feet aren't sticking to the floor.
My dad is sick. My friend's mom is having a liver biopsy. Another friend is pissed at me beyond reason. Dh is nagging me about starting the tiling. And I haven't started working on my anthology project.

Kill me now.

I wonder what happened to my parents. I remember back in the 60's my mom would take art lessons, she was a den mother for the cub scouts, and she had friends. We had a house that could have graced the pages of any architectural magazine. It was quite a showplace and my dad built it. I remember we used to visit the Grosses at their greenhouse and the Martin's up the hill. The Baker's and the Reiling's. Right across the dirt road, Black Brook Road, was the house where dad was born. A mile down the road there was a dairy farm.
Then one day someone bought the tract of land next to our place and built a house right on the property line. Then the Bowers' sold their dairy farm to a housing developer and a huge subdivision was carved out of the fields. My parents decided to move.
We bought a farm in upstate PA. 437 acres. The nearest neighbour was exactly one mile away. Our mailbox was two miles away. Interestingly enough the Reilings had also moved to the same area a year or two before. We met new people. The Barkers. The Cornells. Most of the families were related somehow. Mom would have a craft day so the little Cornell girls could come over and I'd have someone to play with. But that didn't last too long. Pretty soon it was just me and my pony. I can't remember spending too much time with my brother. After that it was a flurry of moving back and forth. NJ, PA, VA, NC. Somewhere along the line my mom started taking art classes again. The old neighbours from the house in Jersey, the Grosses and the Bakers, all live within 30 minutes of them now in VA. My NJ cousin's widow lives about 45 minutes away. My mom's sister and her huge family live about 45 minutes away. And my cousin, from NJ, lives probably 20 minutes from me here in VA but hasn't spoken to me in years.
It's weird how we were surrounded by the same people throughout my lifetime no matter where we moved.
The irony of this is that my parents do not consider any of these people friends but merely acquaintances. Exactly how many years does one need to socialize with someone before they are considered a friend?
So, how did my parents get to where they are now? They have isolated themselves and have no "friends". They have become hoarders despite having moved umpteen times. I don't get it.

It's been nearly two years since I started a novel during NaNoWriMo. I think I'm finally ready to get back to it and see if there is anything there. The old novel is still in the back of my mind but it's not going anywhere. It's hard for me to get inspired by cadaver dogs and floaters these days.

So...I joined a writers' group today. They were holding a meeting at the central library and I sat in. They have a formal meeting once a month but try to have informal coffee chats twice a month as well. The main goal is to produce a finished work. Right now they are working on an anthology and the deadline is November 15th. I'll be deep in the throes of NaNoWriMo again at that time. I hope. Last year I didn't make it past the first week. Pitiful. This year I have no other time suck so I should be able to pound out 1,000 - 1,500 words a day. I might not be able to do it on the weekends when dd and dh are monster distractions but maybe if I stay up late after they all crash I could get something done. I would love to get back into the habit of writing everyday. I think I'll start tomorrow with some exercises. Hopefully someone will kick me in the butt should I stop.

I've recently been handed some lemons. I'm not sure what to do with them.
Should I make lemonade and see it as a freeing experience?
Or should I eat them whole and shiver in their sourness?
I'm really not sure.
No more responsibility. No more peer pressure. No more stoicism when coworkers are losing their shit. Sounds good, but there is a price. I hate to admit that I've wasted yet another large chunk of my life. That's what stings. To be so completely buffaloed after all that time. And, yes, I do feel cheated. All that time...all that effort...all that stress. For absolutely nothing. I never expected the venom to be so vile. I tricked myself into thinking that I truly belonged because I wanted to so badly.
So, I'm back where I started and probably none the wiser. Determined to try harder but probably even more cautious and armor clad than before.

I have cable. I have had cable here for seven years. Comcast decided that they needed to add some kind of box on the back of my house. Apparently it was a new law or building requirement or some other crap that the cable had to be grounded before it entered the house. Ok. I can understand that. But...my cable works.

The cable guy came out, talked to me like I was four years old, and proceded to mash my irises into paste. Totally obliterated them. He damn near took out my new pieris japonica, too. The daylily bed looks like an elephant took a casual stroll thru it. The last time the guy came out he had to use my phone. This time I had to go scare up the big extension cord....the big orange monster. I think he just didn't want to walk back to his truck. I left him to do his thing and next thing I know he's just strolling thru my house. I ask him what he needs and he just says "Can I go out this door?" Yeah buddy. Don't let it hit you in the ass.

He left and I went outside to view the carnage. He left the fence gate open. The dog was gone. He just left the extension cord laying in the daylilies. He left his cable spool on top of the heat pump. And destroyed the flower bed.

Verizon and the electric company came out today to mark their buried cables. The verizon guy plowed thru the same freaking flowerbed and snapped off a 3 ft stalk from my cardinal flower. Not just snapped. Twisted and snapped. And their line isn't buried there.

I got on the phone with comcast and repeated the same thing that I said to the cable guy when he was here a week or so ago. There is no need to lay a cable from the road to my house and thru all of my landscaping. There is already a cable there that worked just fine. Connect to the old cable and run it under the house (where I have nothing growing), to the new box and then back to the tv where the psycho drilled a hole up thru the floor...thru the berber carpet. Asshat. Did he remove the old cable that came in thru the wall? No. It's still there. Not attached to anything. Lovely.

Of course the customer service rep couldn't help me.

That's what my breasts feel like now. Mudflaps. Yesterday was bloody awful. And I get to repeat it all again in 6 months. They found two cysts that apparently have a bit of junk in them. Rather than heading straight for a biopsy they are going to remeasure them in 6 months to see if they have gotten bigger or "louder".

The mammogram that I had last month was a walk in the park compared to what I got yesterday. I wish I could make a joke about how it felt but I can't. It just wasn't funny.

Vulgar, yes, but true.

This has been one suck ass week. Sunday evening we went next door for a cookout with our new neighbours. It was quite nice actually. Dd was well behaved. A stellar moment in her brief life thus far. Sunday night the headache arrived. It pounded and stabbed and gouged at the back of my eyeballs.

Ok...since I started writing this dd has interrupted me to whine about being hungry so I gave her a banana. I sat back down and before I could put fingertips to keyboard she was back whining because she couldn't get the banana open. (3:08)

On Monday morning I still had the headache. I got up and watered my plants outside as it promised to be a humdinger of a day. Never made it to the garden. Cramps doubled me over. Excruciating cramps. Cramps like you wouldn't believe. Then came the nausea. All the while dd was begging to play anything I would agree to.

I had to stop and load a dvd for dd. It wasn't working. We ended up putting Shiloh in instead. That's right. I parked my kid in front of the tv (3:23)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. (4:02)

Uhmmm. So, cramps, nausea, headache. I had to lay down for a little while. Dd was able to make her own lunch. She brought me a glass of cranberry juice and I was able to take some ibuprofen. I must have taken a dozen that day. I called dh up and asked him to come home early. My legs began to hurt like an infected tooth. A steady pain. My RLS kicked in and I had to keep moving my legs or they would hurt even moreso. Dd came in to read me some stories and keep me company. I was so weak. My arms felt like lead and I could barely stand. It was at least 80 degrees in the house but I had chills. Dd said I was hot. Dh came home around 3:30....earlier than expected. He fixed dinner for himself and dd. I couldn't eat. I drank some more cranberry juice and ate some more ibuprofen. It just wasn't taking the edge off. Taking a shower was shaky business. I decided to watch some House since I couldn't sleep. Dh and dd were watching it in the livingroom so he helped me settle in the lazyboy, got me a bite or two of a baked potato (which I couldn't finish) ............(10:42)

Tuesday I woke up with the headache. Dd and I laid around all day watching tv. TCM was showing Louis Jordan (sp?) movies beginning with GiGi. I had ibuprofen for lunch. Yummy, but still not working. I took an alka-seltzer cold at bedtime and I was out for the count. I swear that stuff works better than Lunestra.

Wednesday I awoke with the same headache but no more muscle aches, no more nausea, but I still cramped whenever I ate something other than ibuprofen. Guess how much weight I lost over those three days. Go ahead....guess! I gained two pounds.

Thursday hasn't been bad. The headache is flitting around on the edges of my brain. I'm able to eat again. In fact I thought I'd have a square of my $3 candy bar and a freaking damned earwig ran out of it when I opened the wrapper. Pissed ain't the word.

Tomorrow morning I have to get up bright and early and go back to radiology and get my boobs flattened again. Very unflattering. I can't imagine that job. Handling other people's sweaty boobs all day. I don't even want to handle my own. ick. I have to get a bilateral ultrasound, too. I guess they have to see if the "suspicious" areas are fluid filled or have garbage in them. I'm very anxious and agitated over the whole thing. Dh had made plans to go fishing with his buddy tomorrow leaving me high and dry with no support. The guy's infant got sick today so he took off work but will make it up tomorrow thus cancelling the fishing trip. Lucky me. I swear the outpouring of love and concern is suffocating me.

Well, that's it. I think I'll go eat a few alka-seltzers and see if I can find Mash on tv. (11:02)

It's 12:31, June 15th. The last day of school. Dd gets out 2 hours early today at 12:50. She'll be bursting through the door around 1:15-1:20. I'm so not ready for summer vacation.

Well, I'm sitting here waiting for the cable guy to show up. Could be a long wait. I shant hold my breath. You would have thought something catastrophic had occurred Monday night when dh discovered that we no longer had all of our beloved cable channels. He was pulling plugs and switching boxes and fiddling with this, that, and the other to no avail. "DAMN IT!" punctuated the otherwise quiet house nearly every 30 seconds. He was very adamant with his instructions this morning as he left for work: Stay by the phone. They will call before coming out. If you go out to the garden TAKE THE PHONE WITH YOU.

There are very few things that rattle dh's cage. The cable going out is the biggie. He goes nuts when the electricity goes out but that's only because the television doesn't operate without it I suspect. His other biggies? Ok, since you asked.

1. Ketchup
2. Mayo
3. Being late

Not necessarily in that order. But when the power goes out......holy hell! We have a phone specifically for calling the power company when the power goes out since our cordless won't work without electricity. It's #1 on the speed dial. Nope, not poison control, hospital, or fire department. Not even Mom. The power company. The keeper of the eternal flame. But what is electricity without television? In our household they are one in the same. If there is power and dh is home then the tv will be on. A very simple equation. Power + dh = television. Man, if they don't show up today dh may have a stroke.

I got less than 5 hours sleep last night. I really just want to crawl back into bed but I have way too much to do. I had planned on painting the wall in the kitchen and doing some additional spackling in the hallway but that may need to wait.

Yesterday I poured the preslope in the shower. That was a tough job. My hands still hurt. I'm glad I put down a layer of thinset mortar first. The 1/4 inch gauge came in handy for getting the pitch right. The pitch isn't equal all the way around but it'll have to do. As long as the water finds it's way to the drain if the membrane should fail is all that matters. I don't know how long it's going to take to cure. It's rather humid so it may be awhile.

I need to go get my vitamin D prescription refilled. I should do that today. I haven't had one in a couple of weeks. I need to go to Petco and get some advantage for the animals. The cats are scratching a lot and I don't need any ticks loose in the house. Those little beastie cats are all over the neighbourhood anymore. I had four join me on my walk back from the schoolbus this morning. Grendal is the only one who will walk with dd and me to the bus. The others wait until she's gone.

This is the last week of school and three of those days are early release. I'm trying to set up some activities for the kid for summer but having very little luck. I registered her for Junior Rangers at Pocohontas. I think we may sign up for ice skating camp as well. We'll see. She's all excited about our upcoming trip to D.C. We'll be going to the zoo and Smithsonian. She's been drawing pictures of the Washington Monument and the mall and reading about the Lincoln Memorial. She's ready, lol! Dh wants to go to the Holocaust Museum and I want to go to the Botanical Garden. I guess we'll be there for 3 or 4 days. Dh just called and said he's booking the room today. We'll be going to Williamsburg for a week in July and Kitty Hawk for a week in August. I guess we have summer nailed down.

Busy, busy, busy.

I finally caved. I went to the imaging center on 5/25 and had a mammogram done. It was unpleasant. But not as unpleasant as getting a letter in the mail reporting that the "examination showed a finding that requires additional imaging studies". Lovely. They want me back in as soon as possible for additional xrays and an ultrasound.
I also had my foot xrayed. They found nothing wrong with it. I don't know why it still hurts to walk on it if there's nothing wrong. Maybe they got my xrays mixed up and they found a greenstick fracture in my left boob.

Watching LOST last night made me think of all the different realities that may have occurred had I done things differently in my life.

What if I had stuck it out with Tom and we eventually got married? I'm certain we would be divorced by now. Quite possibly HIV positive or some other nasty STD to boot. I'd probably still be tending bar somewhere in Roanoke and renting a crappy apartment and pining away for 3081. Dodged that bullet.

What if I had stuck it out with David? We'd be living paycheck to paycheck. Living on the boat and camping out in the woods. I'd have a crappy job and he'd spend all of our money on drugs or engine parts. I wouldn't be able to hang out with my friends because he wouldn't be able to control me. Dodged that bullet.

What if I had stuck it out with Wayne? I'd be living in a really nice house overlooking Smith Mountain Lake. We'd go skiing in BC. We'd have wild parties in the summer for the college students in his classes. I'd miss my cats terribly since he wouldn't let me keep any at the house. And I'd always wonder if he was sleeping with one of his students. He'd probably arrange a job for me. I'd be babysitting his grandchildren. His son is older than me. Not my idea of a good time.

What if I had stuck it out with Mike? Moot. I would never have stuck it out with Mike. He was a wacko.

What if I had tried to make it work with Jimmy? I'd still be living at my beloved Sweet Apple. I'd have chickens, ducks, goats, a horse. I cry sometimes with the loss of that house. I never should have sold it. I wouldn't have gone to Greece and Italy. I don't want to think about this particular "what if" anymore.

What if I had stayed in New Jersey at my programming job? I'd be knocking down some serious bucks right now. I'd be paying for outrageous car insurance and rent. I'd be stressed out. I'd be hanging out with my brother and drinking heavily no doubt. Money isn't everything.

What if I had married Doug? I'd be renting a crappy little mill house. I'd be raising his son from a different marriage. I'd still be working for that sexist asshole...no...I'd have quit anyway or been fired. I'd probably still be pining for Jim in the real estate office and wondering "what if" he had fallen in love with me instead. There would have been no reason for Doug to stalk me. And he would have never married his current wife in retaliation. Another wacko.

What if? What if? What if?

Well, as it turns out Jim in the real estate office did fall in love with me. Thank God! He hates cats but he knows they make me happy so he allows himself to be surrounded by them. We live in a nice house where I pretty much have free rein to do whatever the hell I want with it. I come and go as I please. If I want to go back to school I can. If I want to get a job I can. We're raising our daughter together and he pitches in whenever he can. I can bitch about how he does everything half-assed....like....he never completely unloads the dishwasher....or, he only gets his stuff out of the dryer or only folds his clothes...or, helps out in the garden only to create more work for me... but that is piddly ass stuff and in the grand scheme of things doesn't mean squat. I wouldn't trade this reality for anything.

How does thy garden grow? It's raining. Again. My garden is woefully lacking this year. The peas just started to bloom and look absolutely beautiful. I think I'll have a really nice crop this year. The tomato plants aren't exactly busting loose. I planted 13 (shit I'm so brain dead anymore) Italian drying tomatoes. Principe Borghese. Cripes. I just spent 5 minutes trying to remember that name and then POW it's right there. Two of them withered up and died immediately. The rest are just poking along. I really don't need that many plants because I still have quite a few left over from the last harvest but Rocky (our hen) will dispatch quite a few I'm sure. I think I'll try something different with the way I stake them this year. The spiral tomato stakes were a big joke last year. I was thinking of getting some rigid PVC pipe, drilling some holes thru it, and feeding a clothesline wire (the plastic coated kind) thru it. Kind of like espalier or however it's spelled. It would keep the fruit off the ground at least. PVC is cheap and won't rot. Tomato cages just don't work with them.

I also have lemon cucumbers growing up a trellis this year. The boxwire fence didn't work out very well last year. Too vertical I think. I broke apart the old compost bin (?) that was rotting behind the garage. Half of it was still in pretty good shape so I lugged it over to the garden. It is spanning the path between two of the raised beds so hopefully the cukes will climb up one side and squash will climb up the other. It looks like a couple of volunteer lemon squash came up just in the right place. They are also heirlooms.
Oh gak. The cat just puked. Lovely.

I also planted a dozen pepper plants. They are doing well. The brussels sprounts are just not doing anything. The cabbage is tattered since the chicken enjoys it so. I only had a tiny bit of spinach germinate and it had just gotten to a nice picking stage when the chicken found it. It was succulent and I was already salivating over it and then it was gone. Completely. Evil bird. She doesn't seem to think too much of the lettuce. I've got plenty of that. I planted a single row of string beans the other day. I saw Rocky down in the garden this morning so I imagine it has sprouted and she was tasting them. I called her to the house. She slowly walked in my direction until I rattled the cheese cracker box and then she was airborne. She's a cracker ho.

Not much else in the garden. I planted some dahlias down there. I had some volunteer cosmos show up. A single volunteer marigold. A very sturdy volunteer sunflower. I moved some iris down there as well since it was being overrun in the border garden. I have one bed left that is covered with black plastic and I really need to get my squash planted. I'm thinking I might just cut holes in the plastic and have at it. The weeds are almost gone. It sure would make harvest a breeze. But then I'd have to mulch the hell out of the plastic so the plants wouldn't cook. Either or. This, of course, is dependent upon the rain and if I'll ever be able to get into the garden again. I've been putting pine needles on the paths but it still floods down there. I think I need to invest in some hip waders. Or maybe just switch to hydroponics.

What's worse than a wet dog? A longhaired cat soaked to the bone that wants to cuddle.

My head is splitting. Dd pushed me over the edge yesterday and my head started to pound. I took a bunch of ibuprofen but it didn't touch the pain. Since dh is doing the BOE (Board of Equalization: where homeowners bitch about their assessments and present their case to get it lowered and dh explains how he arrived at their assessment) thing this week I had to take dd to soccer practice. The last soccer practice of the season. All the parents who showed up were supposed to scrimmage against the kids. I declined. "The Crane"'s mama showed up late and I don't think she grasped the concept of the scrimmage. She jumped right in and promptly kicked my kid and knocked her down. Dd is 7. Dh was playing, too, and having a great time. Meanwhile, the mama's 4 yo dd decided to entertain me. I should have just left.

I took the long way home to clear my head and some punk ran a red light and nearly hit me. I slammed on the brakes and he drove away oblivious as hell. Not my day.

Woke up this morning with the same headache. I think dd must have sensed how close I was to the edge and decided to leave me alone. Dh must have read the riot act to her yesterday on the way home from practice because she didn't give me any grief at all this a.m. She even made her bed without being told. Not that my telling her to do something would mean it got done. Quite the contrary. Her friend Lauren is having a birthday party in a couple of weeks and dh must be dangling that over her head. I doubt she'll be attending. She won't be able to help herself. I doubt if she can maintain the whole day. I'm too much of a temptation for her.

What else? I'm on Vitamin D therapy and it's making me sick. I don't know if it has anything to do with my headaches or if the headaches are making me nauseated instead of the pills. I take one 50K iu pill a week.

I'm also on a diet. I had gotten down to 132 (with a target weight of 125) but since I started the diet I'm back up to 137. Go figure.

I haven't heard any peepers yet so I guess not. Three times thru glass according to some old wives.

Made a sponge cake this morning. Pineapple/orange. Not even a hint of carob. I'm sure dh will find something wrong with it anyway. He's good at that.

In the process of making bread sans bread machine. First time I ever used the dough hook on the KA. They sure got a workout today. I had both going on the sponge cake. I dragged out the kneading board that Dad made. I love that thing. It has a lip that grabs onto the edge of the table so when I knead the dough the board stays put.
I'm making English Muffins. first time. I'm quivering in anticipation.

I must have an ear or sinus infection again. My teeth are killing me and my ear is itching like crazy. Ibuprofen isn't touching the pain. It's going to make eating the english muffins interesting but I'm willing to grimace and bear it.

Little squirrel wasn't very enthusiastic with brekkie. He's sleeping now and I haven't heard a peep. It's about time to reheat the rice pack. I hope the little bugger pulls through. Nibble the cat climbed up the sweet gum tree to get a squirrel and ran across the nest and babies quite by accident. The mama squirrel tried her best to lure Nibble away but he wasn't playing. He raked the babies out sending them plummeting to the ground. He picked them up and carried them to the azalea clearing and munched down on one immediately. The other he decided to play with for a bit. He soon grew tired and walked away.
On the way to walking dd to the school bus I checked out the carnage and found the little baby still alive with relatively few injuries. I don't expect it to make it unfortunately. It's been eating the puppy formula I've mixed up but not with any great gusto. It's just so tiny. The eyes haven't opened yet and the ears are just starting to open. Baby is still hairless as well. I wish there was some way to get mama and baby back together.

You're gonna cringe when I say this but here goes: I've got 8 cats in the house right now. Yes, I said 8, E I G H T.

• Grendal
• Smudge
• Pip
• Toast
• Orville
• & Wilbur

They are the kittens that I picked up down the road on Halloween. There presence was enough to send Tootsie packing. She moved next door. The new neighbours had just moved in and they left the door open since it was such a nice day... to air the house out and all. Tootsie saw it as an invitation and moved on in. They found her asleep in their bed. That didn't last long and she soon became an "outdoor" cat. She would thumb her nose at us occasionally but keep her distance. Two nights ago it started to sleet and snow. It was really cold so she decided to grace us with her presence once more. It's still cold out. She's currently in the bedroom in her old bed and loving every minute of it.

Nibble doesn't want to sleep in the house that dh built for them either. He's asleep on the chair behind me. Nibble and Tootsie hate each other so they have to be kept separated. The kittens reside in the sunroom most of the time but are allowed to run rampant thru the house when the other cats are outside. They have to stay in the sunroom when Tootsie is visiting. They love Uncle Nibble and won't leave him alone to eat which pisses him off. Literally. He'll start marking his territory throughout the house if all the kittens are out. He tolerates Toast though. Which is good because Toast doesn't like to stay in the sunroom and will throw himself against the french doors repeatedly until I either spray him with water or let him out because he's becoming waterlogged.

And that's how it is at the House of Dander.