It wasn't coffee

For me, one of the hardest parts of writing is deciding where a story started. Take this morning, for example. It would be simplest to say that I ended up licking cat blood off of my arm because of a cat fight that took place at 6:40 AM... but I don't feel like that tells the whole story, or even a significant part of it. Because, normally, I don't lick strange substances off of my own arm... so I need to back up and explain why I was unusually tired this morning and in a state where licking a strange brownish substance off my own forearm seemed logical.

So I'd go backwards and start the story last night around 10:30 when I got a text message from my sister in Nashville and decided to get up and call/text with her rather than sleeping--- which meant I didn't fall asleep until after midnight.

But that doesn't quite do it either, because the fact that I heard her 10:30 text is a bit of an anomaly, 'cause my phone was accidentally set on vibrate and, normally, I'm asleep WAY before 10:30 and I wouldn't have heard my phone.

So I take a step back and explain that I was up so late because of the FedEx man. Julie and I purchased a Groupon for $150 worth of wine for only $53 bucks- a fantastic and delicious deal. We'd been tracking our wine all day (nope... no problems here!) and knew that it was supposed to be delivered that day. In the past (because we often have wine delivered...) they have just left it on the doorstep, despite the fact that they are supposed to have a signature, but we still were anxious that they'd take our wine back and not deliver it. When we got home from the gym around 7 and there was still no wine, we decided not to worry about it and wait for the morning. Which is why we were a bit surprised when the FedEx guy showed up with 3 giant boxes (2 Pampered Chef and one wine) just a few minutes before 10. He didn't ring the doorbell, but I had heard/seen his truck and headed down the stairs. He left the first box and went back to the truck and, while he was away, I grabbed the box and brought it inside. Didn't turn on the porch light or anything. That's when I realized that he was coming back with a second box and was probably going to notice that the first giant box had disappeared. So I did what any self respecting adult would do and waited for him to leave the second box, slightly confused, and grabbed it the minute his back was turned. Which was, of course, when we realized that he was coming back to the door a 3rd time. The final trip brought our wine and we turned on the light and signed for it (dude thought we were nuts). And then went to bed.

But that doesn't quite do it either, because I would not normally have seen the Fed Ex truck pull up at 10 o'clock at night, had I not been in M's room trying to get her to wake up enough to drink a glass of water. I would have been asleep.

So I take a step back and explain that M fell asleep in the car on the way home from the gym today, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. When we go to evening classes, we usually leave her and her dinner with her grandparents just around the corner from the gym. Normally they give her her dinner, play with her a bit and let her watch TV while we are tortured for an hour. Yesterday, however, was the first day that the pool in their development was open, so her Papa took her swimming instead of feeding her. Which is why she was eating her dinner in the car on the way home at 7 PM when she fell asleep. With part of the sandwich still in her mouth. Which is why I was in her bedroom at 10 trying to get her to drink water because, while I'm pretty sure she had swallowed it by then, I was having mini panic attacks about her choking. Which is why I heard the FedEx guy. Which is why I was still awake when C texted me. Which is why I was able to talk with her for a few hours last night. Which is why I got less than 5 hours of sleep. Which is why I was exceptionally tired this morning. Which is why I needed my coffee. Badly. Which is why I was showing such poor decision making skills in licking up (what I believed to be) every last drop of coffee that I could. Which is why I now know that cat blood and human blood are indistinguishable on the palate.

So in the end, it looks like I can blame my in-laws for this one.

Picking myself up and dusting myself off...

So much for a post a day, right? Revised purpose of this blog... to post stuff occasionally. I tried. Life did not see fit to furnish me with that much uninterrupted time on a daily basis.

What brings me back today is Pierre's current obsession with puppets. For the record, I don't like puppets. Blame it on too many Chucky movies as a kid or that RL Stein book about the puppet that keeps coming back to life or my failed attempt at being a ventriloquist when I was 9 or the fact that I just flat out suck at doing voices unless I'm reading a story... whatever works. But Pierre currently LOVES puppets and our family has been more than happy to indulge her iterest. It started around Christmas when she got a beautiful set of finger puppets from Aunt R. Two of them struck an immediate chord with her- King Lion and Queen Elephant. She just wanted them to talk to each other while she listened. Didn't matter what they talked about, so long as they did it in a British accent. Several times a week she would pull them out and insist that I make them talk and I would manage to play for a few minutes before wandering off to unload the dishwasher or schedule an elective root canal. (Julie, on the other hand, is an AWESOME puppet player and loves this new development!) Then, about a month ago, my MIL bestowed upon us a collection of Disney puppets (Mickey x 2, Minnie and Goofy) from Julie's childhood. Suddenly, everything had to be done through Mickey- it was like Pierre had hired her own personal bodyguard/secretary/bouncer to deal with me.

"Pierre! Your lunch is ready!"
"Tell it to Mickey!"
"Pierre! Time for school!"
"Tell it to Mickey!"
"Pierre! Clean this up!"
"Mickey will do it!"

Just as I got used to spending hours a day with my hand up Mickey's ass, talking in a squeaky voice, a package arrived from Aunt C.

Any guesses?

A puppet, you say?

Well yes! A puppet indeed. A large pirate puppet with a stick to help him move his hand and gesture as he talks. A puppet that struck just a wee bit of fear in Pierre's heart and garnered immediate respect. On the first day she would not touch the puppet, but wanted to talk to it, warily, from a distance while Julie brought him to life. If she misbehaved, we would threaten to tell the pirate and she would lose it. This seemed like a puppet scenario I could deal with. Then, midway through the pirate's first day in our house, we struck gold. For some reason we're still not clear on, Pierre decided that should could impress the pirate by peeing on the toilet without having to be told (she's been potty trained for over a year, but seldom goes spontaneously. We always have to drag her there and put her on the toilet.) The moment she was done she insisted Julie animate the puppet so she could tell him that she had peed. And the pirate praised her to high heavens. And then this became a thing. For days she has been going to the toilet on her own and then running to the pirate for praise. We don't know why, but the pirate did it. He finally got Pierre to notice when she has to use the bathroom. We'll never quite understand this, but we are incredibly grateful to him. (We'll also never understand why Pierre occasionally taunts the pirate by pointing out quite smugly that he has no feet.  It's a complex relationship.)

Today Pierre has been unusually intense about the puppets and has been introducing them all to one another. Mickey, meet King Lion. King Lion, this is the Pirate. Pirate, meet Minnie. Seal, this is Giraffe. At some point, my brain started to go numb. That was when Goofy noticed Dudly.

...So much better now...

Ok, back to venting about children's television.

Doc McStuffins

This episode (The Bunny Blues?) is clearly the training wheels for TLC's "Hoarders". A children's equivalent of the old Ikea commercial with the crying lamp.

In the course of what passes for a regular day in Doc McStuffins land, Doc comes across Pickles the Bunny, her neighbor's beloved toy, in a box that has been put out at a garage sale. Pickles feels that she is no longer loved because her nose has fallen off, and she is depressed and heartbroken that the little girl no longer wants her (the no-longer-desired, depressive toy is a common theme on the show). Doc and her team help fix the problem by reconfiguring a nose for the bunny and, in the end, she is discovered by her owner who, despite appreciating the new nose, never intended for her to be out at the yard sale anyway. It was all a mistake and Pickles is taken back inside. To be loved forever and ever.

Nothing wrong with that, right? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the message of the show. Perhaps its a very non-consumerist message about how items in general, and toys in particular, are not simply disposable- that we should fix, reuse and recycle our possessions before simply acquiring more of them. (I mean, check out the dearth of the Doc McStuffins merchandise available- that must be it!)

Or the message is a little more emotionally damaging. That all of those toys you love but no longer play with, all of those toys that don't work, all of those toys that you've outgrown are sitting in a box or a closet somewhere crying for you. Physically crying for you and wondering why you don't love them any more. That if you were to give or sell those toys to another child, one who would play with and love them, those toys will feel inadequate and abandoned. That you will be damaging the very fiber of their anthropomorphized beings and forever endangering their self esteems. So perhaps you'd just buy a second house to keep your things in. So they never feel sad. And buy them some friends to keep them company. So they never feel lonely.

I'd apologize... except for the fact that I'm not sorry

I really wasn't a kid you wanted in your class. On the surface I was a good girl... apparently well behaved, pretty bright and polite as a pin. But, when the teacher's back was turned, I was a sly, manipulative little demon with quick fingers and an even quicker imagination.

In kindergarten, our teacher hated tattletales, and there was a girl who tattled ALL THE TIME. We rode the same bus and, for some reason that I still don't know (and that lasted all the way through high school), she hated me quite a bit. Rather than telling the teacher that she was picking on me, I found ingenious ways to bait her. I'd take multicolored beads to schools in the pockets of my blue and white striped overalls and show them to her, knowing that they looked like M&Ms. She'd tell on me for having candy, and she'd get sent to time-out. I'd tell her that the teacher said she should go to the block area because it was my turn to paint, and she'd get sent to time-out for being in the block area when it was closed-- and then for telling the teacher that it was my fault. I'd wait for her to finish cutting out her shapes and then quietly steal one so she'd get in trouble for being careless. Etc, Etc, Etc...

In 1st grade I hated my teacher because she loved the well behaved, nicely dressed little girls who colored in all of the superflous pictures on the dittos and dotted their "i"s with hearts. I'd wait until she was gone for lunch and get a pass from the cafeteria to the bathroom and stop by the classroom to empty the shavings from the pencil sharpener into her bag or onto her desk or just onto the floor. When we got back from lunch the entire class would be punished, and then she'd ask for a helper to clean it up-- offering a cookie as a reward. No matter how many times I voluenteered to help clean up, I don't think she ever appreciated my help. The same year we had little plastic baskets that held our crayons in our desks. She HATED it when they spilled on the floor- so she would offer us a class reward- a cookie each- for every day that no one spilled their crayons. If we got too close to earning a cookie at the end of the day I'd tip mine out just to ruin it for everyone else. For some twisted reason, I found the disappointment of my classmates far more satisfying than a Chips Ahoy.

In 2nd grade I moved to all out vandalism. I carried a permanent marker with me whenever I went to the bathroom and left a hip-high squiggly line along the wall. Once I got there I would trash the place. Crawl under and lock all the doors. Wads of wet toilet paper on the walls, mirror and ceiling. Dry toilet paper decorating every surface. One day a sign appeared in the entryway that read "If you are locking the doors or making the bathroom a mess, we are watching you." The two "o"s in "doors" had eyes in them. It was kinda menacing. I didn't think they really had cameras in the bathroom, or they would have come for me by then. It occurred to me to check out the boys' bathroom- there was no sign in the entryway there. I decided to start sneaking in there and doing the same thing, just to mix it up a bit. Sure enough, the same sign appeared a week later-- in blue this time. (The original was pink.) While I liked my 2nd grade teacher, I was hooked on the thrill of surreptitiously disrupting the class. I began stealing flimstrips from the box in the back of the room on Fridays (the day we watched filmstrips) and flushing them down the toilets (wouldn't ya know... the damn things started to clog!). In all honesty, I was kinda torn about this. I really wanted to watch the filmstrips.

My 3rd grade teacher totally lucked out. I was a gem-- too distracted by my first all out crush to make any mischief.

I might have just kept riding my 3rd grade high, but 4th grade landed me in the class of one of the meanest, most burned out teachers I've ever encountered. It was her last year before retirement and she really couldn't have cared much less what we did in class, so long as we left her alone. She called in sick nearly every Friday, let us play outside most afternoons, fed us the answers to our standardized tests and would often abdicate her authority, putting another 4th grade student (albeit the one who was eventually our valedictorian) in charge of the teacher's manual. One of the perks of her hands-off teaching style was that we never got our own texts books. There was a stack of text books for every subject under the windows and whenever we needed a book someone would pass them out at random. Since she didn't care, I didn't really care either, so I took the year to hone my emerging understanding of how to properly use foul language. I was the kid who filled the books with "Go to page 35... go to page 67... go to page 104... go to page 68...." and so on until you eventually got to the final page and found a string of oddly assembled expletives. Or an inaccurate picture of male genitalia. Or giant boobs made to look like eyes.  Or, in some random cases, a riddle with no answer. Inevitably one of my classmates would raise his or her hand to tell the teacher that someone had been writing in the books and class would be disrupted and I would look up from my current treasure hunt to feign interest with the rest of the kids.

Once I left elementary school I kinda went underground and found other outlets for my "creative" tendencies... though these antics never complete subsided (just as my grad school Mercy College friends about the time a security guard interrupted our class looking for a "teenage boy" who had been hanging unsanctioned political fliers in the hallway...). I can honestly say that, as a teacher, my past has left me one step ahead of my "bad" kids... if they're thinking of some kinda stunt, I'm probably thinking of it too. I'm also acutely aware that the "bad" kids really aren't all that bad at all. Most of them actually have some pretty amazing potential.

So why, with the wisdom of time, am I not sorry? Looking back, I can see how desperate these actions were and how dilligently I was doing the classic, "crying out for attention." I think about the number of teachers who probably suspected I was up to something and didn't call me on it, the number of teachers (right up through my senior year of high school) who figured something was going on and turned a blind eye. I'm sorry for the money I cost my school to repaint the halls and replace the materials I destroyed. I'm sorry for the individual frustration my teachers must have felt as they cleaned pencil shavings out of their hair brushes, searched in vain for lost filmstrips or believed me while they were searching for that paper I INSISTED I'd handed in. Mostly, I'm sorry that no one stepped in and tried to figure out what was going on.

"The Deed is Done. Let's Start Day 1. You're Stuck With Me!"

I guess the day officially started at 5:12 AM when the phone rang and Julie couldn't figure out how to answer the damn thing until the 4th or 5th ring. In reality it had started at some point between 1:17 AM  ( when Mickey woke up and needed backrubs to fall back to sleep) and 5:12 when the extremely perky prerecorded voice of Julie's Superintendent informed her that there would be a 2 hour delay- because it was between those hours that it started snowing. Though, in the end, the snow is really just the icing on the cake.

Today we brought home Princess.

We were prepared for this-- sort of. We have blankets. Cat food. Water. Litter. What we didn't have on hand or have ready I was going to prepare during the 3 hours that Mickey was at nursery school. I would pick her up, give her a bunch of easy-to-eat lunch items for her car seat, drive down to Mount Vernon (an hour away), get the cat and head home. Challenging. Overwhelming. But do-able.

Two hour delay, huh? Ok. What we didn't have on hand I was going to prepare in the 1 hour while Mickey was at nursery school. Fixing her lunch was out, so we'd pick up something on the way and then drive down to Mount Vernon, get the cat and head home. More challenging. More overwhelming. But still do-able.

Step 1- Get home and prepare. Check.

Step 2- Get Mickey from nursery school. Check.

Step 3- Pick up food. This is where thing started to get interesting. First, I forgot that between Step 1 and Step 2 there was supposed to be Step 1.5- Get Gas. So I squeeze that in before Step 3. So, back to Step 3. Pizza is out, because I'm not carrying my giant shears, and she will only eat pizza cut into tiny squares. Chinese food is out because she won't eat it. There are no good bagel places near where we live, or in the direction we're going, so we can't do that. She doesn't eat sandwiches and I'm afraid she'll choke to death on an apple or hot-dog while strapped backwards into her car seat, so that's out too. This leaves me with only one logical solution. Greek Food. The kid won't eat a chicken nugget or grilled cheese, but she's nuts for pita's and Taziki sauce. We arrive at the awesome Greek place (that I just happen to love too) and I discover that at some point between Step 2.5 and Step 3 she has taken her shoes AND socks off and flung them to far corners of the car. With my ass hanging out into busy main-street traffic I find the shoes and socks and get them back on her, telling her that I'm angry. She bursts into tears and doesn't stop sobbing until a waitress brings her the pita. Then she wipes her tears and tucks in.

Step 4- Drive to Mount Vernon. Check. Turns out I still know my way around the old 'hood.

Step 5- Pick up cat. So we arrive at the least inviting animal shelter I think I've been to and go in to get Princess. When the lady at the desk sees me walk in carrying a cat carrier I think she nearly has a heart attack- they are under order from the city not to accept any more cats, to get rid of or euthanize the ones they already have (Princess was on the chopping bloc, hence our insane decision to adopt her). I explain that I've come to take a kitty and she recovers and sends a volunteer back to get Princess. He returns with her, nudges her into the carrier and closes the door. No introduction. No petting her or saying hello. Nothing.

At this point, Mickey realizes that there is a real, live crying cat in the carrier and it is COMING HOME WITH US!!! At this point they also ask me to sit down and fill out a whole pile of paperwork. Not surprisingly, this doesn't go so well. Mickey spends the next 5 minutes trying to shove disgusting, dirty cat toys through the vents in the carrier and I totally blank of the name of ANYONE in my life who I could use as a reference to the fact that I am not a cat-sacrificing nut-job because I'm too busy trying to keep Mickey from catching fleas. At one point she tries to shove a tennis ball through the front of the carrier just as I start muttering to myself and crossing off reference names and I SWEAR the two women running the shelter were about to tell me that the cat was better off being euthanized than sent home with me. (I put down the pen, picked up the toddler, gave her a lollipop and threatened her with eternal time out if she moved again and then assured the women that they were not sending this sweet elderly cat home to the house of a crazy toddler who was just going to torture it. They both laughed a little too quickly.) Another 10 minutes go by and we are ready to go, paperwork filled out, cat hesitantly packed into my car.

Step 5- Text references and let them know that an animal shelter might be calling them.

Step 6- Call vet. We were not initially planning on taking her to our own vet, but once I had her in my car I couldn't help it. I called them up and asked if there was any chance they had an appointment for... say... now? I explained the situation and they said they had an opening at 3:30. I checked the clock- 1:45. That should be fine, I told them. We might be a bit early? No problem, she said.

Step 7- Drive to vet, cat screaming, toddler threatening to escape from car seat and come up front to pet the cat.

Step 8- Arrive at vet. It's barely 2:40. Drag toddler and cat inside, apologize for being so early, fill out health information sheet by answering "I don't know, we just met" for every question-- Kinda like on House when Thirteen is hooking up with that chick and she has some kinda seizure and Thirteen drives her to the emergency room where House works?

Step 9- Visit with vet. Right away he says that there is no way she's 12. Maybe 10. Probably 8. Oddly, I feel like I've been duped. Eyes are clean, nose is good, ears are a mess and she probably has mites, teeth are a disaster and she needs dental care. The rest of her is fine, her nails are like talons and they cut those for me. She just keeps trying to rub up against me and purr. Mickey is starting to fade and gets up set when they hold her down so she can check their ears, so I have to hold her down while she screams at the doctor, "LET HER GO!!" I give her a packet of yogurt in a squeezy pouch, put the cat back into the carrier and go out to wait for my bill. While I'm digging for my credit card Mickey runs away and climbs onto the "Large Dog" scale in one of the exams rooms. Turns out she weighs 31.1 pounds with sneakers and jacket.

Step 10- Back in car, head for home. We finally arrive, more than 4 hours after I left. Wrangle Mickey and Princess out of the car and onto the front steps. Despite the snow on the ground and the plummeting temperatures, I strip Mickey down to her socks and underwear before putting her into the house because I'm afraid she has picked up rabid monkey disease or something similar at the shelter (she was crawling around on the filthy floor). Dress half naked kid in pink leopard print pants, turn on DragonTales, release screaming traumatized cat into the bathroom that will be serving as Administrative Segregation for at least the next 3 days and we are home free.

Seriously? Piece of cake...

Burn Baby, Burn!!!

I kinda hate Max and Ruby (the Nick Jr show, not the books). It is loud, repetitive and extremely annoying-- especially before 7 AM.

For those who aren't familiar, the show is based on the books by Rosemary Wells and follows two little bunnies (Max, the 3 year old brother and his 7 year old sister Ruby) who have no parental supervision (in fact, parents are never seen, though there is a grandmother who pops in from time to time). Ruby is a prissy self-important princess and Max is the stereotypically annoying little brother who is either a genius or a manipulative sociopath. Not surprisingly, each episode is about the ways in which they clash as Ruby tries to do something that she thinks is important while Max constantly interferes. Throughout the episode she talks a blue streak and Max interjects with mostly repetitious single-word utterances- for example, in one episode, the only word he says might be "candy." In each case, this one word generally starts out as something Max wants (or is interested in) and, in the end, is the lynchpin to solving some sort of problem that Ruby is having (so in the candy example, Ruby is helping the owner of a candy store take inventory so that she can earn a "Bunny Scout" badge, and Max keeps pointing to things and asking for "Candy!" Ruby keeps telling him no and giving him fruit, while stuffing herself silly with candy, claiming that she has to try everything. In the end, she is sick and the owner of the candy store asks her what's wrong. "I think I had too much," Ruby begins and Max interjects, "CANDY!".) Similar scenarios play out in every episode. Once in awhile the word changes, but it's rare. As teachers we started out suspecting that Max might be somewhere on the autism/aspergers spectrum, but the only thing that really supported that was his repetitive speech and his seemingly ingenious way of knowing so early on in the episode what the seceret will be to solving the overarching problem. After watching a ridiculous number of these, I'm now firmly in the psychopath camp. I mean, look at those eyes...

There's an even creepier look he gets when he's angry with Ruby... If I was her, I'd start looking into where our parents had gone.

So, along these lines we're watching an episode right now where it is still too early tell how it's going to end, but Max's word-of-the-episode is "Fire Truck!". Ruby is trying to practice playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the piano for a recital and Max keeps interrupting by yelling "FIRE TRUCK!" Ruby's getting annoyed. Max is getting frustrated.

I'm kinda hoping that he's gonna just torch the place.

And one more makes 8?

We've sworn that we've got a 1:1 human:cat ratio in this house. That 3 is enough. That there's no mor room on the Queen size bed for another kitty-- even Klakky has moved into Doc's room. That we are paying more than enough for Wellness and litter in this house and that we couldn't possibly support another furry mouth.

Then, on Saturday, Julie read that the Mt. Vernon Animal Shelter will be putting down any remaining sick/aggressive/elderly cats because they have lost permission from the city to keep cats in the shelter because they went over their maximum capacity in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. And on Sunday I was stupid enough to go out to their website and take a quick look around for any elderly female cats who were still looking for a home (after our experience with Mishi we have sworn off kittens). And there I found Princess.

Princess is a 12 year old kitty who was abandoned in her apartment when her family's lease was up or they were foreclosed on or something. She is supposedly, sweet, docile and more of a warm furry lump on a piece of furniture than anything else. Currently she lives in a tiny room with several other kitties where she has grounds privileges for good behavior. Like Mishi  she seems to be a rather tortie leaning calico who is a bit small in stature. The majority of cats have been adopted out to families or sent to other shelters, but no one wants to take her because she is so old. She's got a few days before they have to euthanize her.

One e-mail led to a phone call, which led to another phone call, and another phone call and another phone call, and today Princess went to the shelter's vet to make sure she is up to date on her shots and healthy enough to, potentially, be introduced into a house with 3 healthy cats. We are awaiting word from her "case worker" (a volunteer who has taken a personal interest in her). We have agreed to nothing. But she should be ready to go to a theoretical home on Wednesday.

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/21100765