Crazy cat lady in the making

A couple weeks ago, I became the temporary advocate for a tiny kitten that scampered into my life.

While I was waiting for the Humane Society to open (that's right, it opens at NOON here), I snuck the kitten in my room, unbeknownst to my allergic roommates.

You're going to hear me talking, but I PROMISE I never speak to real people like this.  This voice is reserved for babies, animals and more often than not, my food.

It's 13 seconds.  Humor me, won't you?

Ten hours in a Honda

I received an e-mail from my mom with these pictures.

I think they kind of sum up how I go through life:










Tomorrow morning, I'm leaving for Indiana and cow poop.

And since I'll be in the car for 10 hours all by myself, I can fart all I want.

Back off, PETA

I've deduced that my cat has abandonment issues.

This morning, I was rudely awakened by a noise I will liken to that of a prairie dog getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

Given that I was deeply entrenched in my REM cycle, I did not take kindly to being ripped out of it. Plus, I was having a perfectly ludicrous dream... which I can no longer remember (I hope I was visiting the crayon factory again). The reason this scared the cotton balls out of me is that Stella very rarely makes any noise, so this yowling that took place outside my door was very uncharacteristic. And obnoxious.

Also, by nature, she's not a very affectionate cat. When I was in college, we had a strict morning schedule. I would wake up and she would allow me to pet her for about 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes was up, she would usually bite me and then we were both free to start our respective days.

Lately, however, if she had her way, I would wake up at 5am, pet her for 4 hours and then we would repeat this process at about 9pm later that night. In fact, as I'm writing this, she is pacing in front of me and staring me down. I'm choosing to ignore her because I'm still pretty pissed that I was up before the sun this morning.

Oh, back to abandonment issues. Well, when I went to China, I thought it best to leave Stella with my parents. When I came home, she wasn't having it. She was pretty hostile (moreso than usual) for the first week or so but eventually, I was allowed to sleep in my bed again.

Then, I went to the Netherlands. Upon my return, I was expecting an unfriendly reception, but was pleasantly greeted with a warm welcome from the Mistress of Calico. Slowly, the sweetness turned into insistence and the insistence turned into mild obsession and the obsession turned into Kathy Bates.

The worst part of all of this is that I'll be moving out eventually (third time's a charm!) and chances are, I'll leave Stella here with my parents and my dad's cat, Cindy. Stella and Cindy have an odd but effective relationship. They play/fight for a few hours, ignore each other for a few hours, nap and repeat. It works quite well as Stella is mean and Cindy has the IQ of packing peanuts.

I just noticed that Stella is currently getting lit off of a catnip toy, so I'm going to take this opportunity to use the restroom without her watching (judging) me.

Christmas tree or scratching post?

I have gray hair. Frick.



I'm 23 years old and pushing 24 (does that mean I get to start telling kids to get off my lawn?) and I have little gray hairs next to my ears.

This hardly seems fair as I can't blame it on the stress of my job (don't have one), the exertion of raising children (nonexistent, thank God) or keeping the family orchard safe from apple thieves (if only).

This weekend, I chose to distract myself from the early onset of old age by helping my mom decorate our Christmas tree.



The IU mug and the Purdue fleece may seem like a conflict of interest, but that's kind of the house we live in.

Anyway, we only got to decorate the top 2/3 of the tree due to the fact that both our cats decided the Christmas tree is one big cat toy, constructed purely for their pleasure.





Because of these two furballs, since Sunday, most conversations in this house go a little something like this:

Sara: Are you hungry?
Dad: Yeah, what do you want for- Cindy, get out of the tree! -dinner?
Sara: I thought- Stella! No! -you were going to make chili.
Dad: I could make chili. When is your mom getting home?
Sara: I just talked to her and- Cindy, stop chewing on baby Jesus! Spit him out! - she said she should be home in about- Cindy, I said spit Jesus out!- 20 minutes.

Here is our finished tree, complete with homemade ornaments from my brother and I, circa 1989. (The breakables will stay in the box this year thanks to Spazzy McGee and Lady Eats the Tree.) I even got to put the angel on top of the tree! Sort of!


It's taller than it looks.

Tomorrow, I will be going to the airport to collect my good friend, Lisa, from the Indy airport. She has many nicknames, like Lisa-Pants, Lises Pieces and my personal favorite, Love Chinchilla (don't ask me to explain that).



I imagine a blog full of all sorts of shenanigans and poppycock will show up very soon. And I warn you, most of it will involve eating... because that's what we do.