ok, so it's been many days since i've posted a single thing and that's not a very good start. but A LOT has happened since my last entry, including but not limited to major surgery and college graduation. so now that i'll be recovering for a few weeks, i figure i'll have plenty of time to bore everyone with the little details of my life. for now, i'm going to play trivial pursuit with my husband, my mom and my dad, who were kind enough to drive a thousand miles to help with my recovery (as if i could stop them). i'll end this short post with one of my most favorite pictures taken on a very happy, if not physically painful day (graduation was three days after my release from the hospital...) it's a picture of me and my biggest fan, the love of my life. i am so lucky...

butter houdini

i went ahead an bought my cats harnesses and leashes, the 15 foot long variety, so they could go outside without running off and getting hit by a car, or being dragged off by wild dingos.

needless to say, they are not a big hit. actually, my little tabby, ramona, doesn't mind it too much because if the had to throw on a top hat and saddle shoes and tap a little jig just to go outside for three minutes, she'd do it.

but my big orange fur ball, butter, feels differently. in the past, we've let him outside and he just kind of lingers by the door for a while before he dares to feel the grass with his little tootsies. before long he's back at the door meowing for a rubdown and a slice of lasagna. but dammit, i want him to act like the big twenty pound male cat that he is! i want him out there standing on the nearest fence, singing to the moon and getting shoes thrown at him (under my watchful eye, of course).

so i put the harness on him, fitted it as best i could, and this was the end result:

he lied there, with the 15 feet of nylon rope stretched just as far as it would go, and pouted. no stalking birds, no eating grass, no rubbing his back on tree, nothing of the sort. he just lay there, too busy being pissed off to worship the sun. every once in a while he made a little grumbling noise just to remind us all that he was none too happy.

i tried it again another day... we tied him to a post in the backyard thinking if he were surrounded on all sides by grass and nature that he'd have more fun. we turned our backs for like a minute and when we turned back, the empty harness was laying on the ground at the end of the nylon rope, and butter was sitting on the bottom step leading the the deck. he looked at me as if to say, "i can't believe you make me work this hard..."

the best day of my life...

you can try, but you will probably not find any person on the face of the planet who is happier about being married than me. just ask my friends, they'll confirm it. i totally love my husband and i love being his wife. my wedding day was, by far, the best day of my life and i relive it over and over in my daydreams. even though the month or two (or six) leading up to the big day were torture (sorry hon, but you know it's true) it was worth every minute and we're stronger for having gotten through it together. did i mention i love being married?

that's why i think it's total crap that gay marriage has not been legalized. why should people be deprived of their right to wedded bliss just for loving a person that you wouldn't? how self-centered do you have to be to think that's ok? i don't like celery. does that mean no one should be allowed to eat "ants on a log"? i don't like rush limbaugh (duh), does that mean nobody should be allowed to listen to him? (but really, nobody should, it's for their own good. sorry, i digress...) it just makes me sad, i can't imagine if i were not allowed to marry my husband. it would be like a huge part of me would be missing. like my heart or my lungs. would you really want to take away a person's heart and lungs? they would die. but i guess that just doesn't bother some people...

oh, is it noticable? (you idiot...)

on the heels of a riveting post written by our good friend sam, let me ask a question... why is it that i am the ONLY PERSON at target who is required to move their cart out of the way for others? or the ONLY PERSON who has to wait patiently while a bunch of oblivious butt heads cut in front of me to rush off to grab the latest office supplies. whatever. in the parking lot i waited for ten minutes with my reverse lights on while car after car drove passed me; come on! show some common courtesy! i know your life is much more important than mine, but throw me a crumb here so i don't end up hating the entire human race...

also, in case anyone out there doesn't know...usually if a person is limping, they don't need it pointed out to them. it's RUDE to do so. especially if you don't know this person from a hole in the wall. i limp. i have degenerative disc disease and it causes my discs to herniate. i'm actually having back surgery this coming tuesday (again-it's my second one) so i am obviously aware that i walk like lurch from the addams family. ok? no need to point it out to me, thank you very much. i swear, who raises these people?! wild animals? probably not, i actually like wild animals.

i think i dated alfie...

this is by far one of my most favorite songs currently. and why can't i look like lily allen? (because with that much cuteness to support, the world would implode on itself and i can't be responsible for that.) did i mention that she reminds me of a disney character who smokes cigarettes a swears a lot? awesome.

careful, it's contagious...

is it just me or does this kid's laugh sound like he starts the day with a smoke and a jigger of scotch?

somewhere in the not-so-distant future...

i love flea markets and second hand stores. the old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" could not be more true! i also love to decorate, or should i say, daydream and scheme about decorating. i don't have the extra money or time right now, and even if i did, we don't own a house, but someday we will. when that day comes, my husband has generously agreed to let me decorate the entire thing, sans one room which he will call his own (and undoubtedly line the walls with beer steins and minnesota twins memorabilia). more power to him.

my style is more of a shabby chic, big on shabby, small on chic. i like junk, but not just any junk, cool and vintage junk is the best. i like old stuff, i like stuff period. i'm kind of a pack rat, but not in that creepy "the-paramedics-had-trouble-getting-to-the-body" kind. i like to search magazines for ideas and clip them out and save them in a file. i like to search the internet for ideas and save them to my "favorites" in order to access them with ease. i like websites about decorating and crafting stuff. if i had my way, i would spend half my days at flea markets and second hand stores (with kids in tow, of course) and the other half at home decorating, crafting and playing games with the children. my house would be so homey and awesome. (i'm also under the illusion that i will eventually be talented enough to sew all of my kids' clothes. i'm sure they'll love that when they are teenagers.)

till then, i will continue to clip and save my ideas. some of them i'll share with you. this is one of my favorites:

some smarty decided to cover a fridge in magnetic chalkboard paint. how awesome is that? magnetic chalkboard paint! you could jot down phone numbers and grocery lists all while proudly displaying your children's latest van gogh with your favorite vacation themed magnet! i am definitely going to do this if i ever have my own kitchen, though it'll take some wrestling with the mr. he seems to think the entire house would be covered in chalk dust and we would be walking around with our lips sticking to our teeth and blowing dust from our noses ("cough, cough, i think i've got the black lung..." ala zoolander). is it just me or does that seem a little overly dramatic?

on the subject of decorating...here are a couple of my most favorite "idea" books.

i'd love to hear about your decorating styles. what kind of ideas do you have?

name that tree...

does anyone know what kind of tree this is? it's very tall and full and has these gorgeous flowers all over it. it's growing in my very own backyard and since i look at it everyday, i'd kind of like to know what to call it. my own personal master gardener japhiel was stumped (and he knows almost everything there is to know about flora). anyone?

another brick in the wall...

so does anyone remember the scene in pink floyd's "the wall" where pink is sitting in the hotel room kind of comatose looking, and the groupie is there and she keeps talking and he says nothing and she keeps asking him if he's ok? and then suddenly he freaks out and starts yelling and trashing the place and she scared and screaming and he acts like he's going to kill someone?

change location: from hotel room to vet clinic. change main character: from bob geldof to my cat, the most psycho little tabby on the planet. i'm pretty sure if she weren't declawed in the front there would be a lawsuit in action. by the way, i know declawing cats is horrible and inhumane and all i can say is when i did it twelve years ago i was very naive and if i had it to do again, i wouldn't. so get off my case. anyway, having her declawed twelve years ago probably saved a couple of lives today.

she had been vomiting for the basically the entire week, which sounds very bad except that she's a regular puker anyway. at least once week i step in a cold, wet pile of something (and if i don't, my husband does, and that goes less well). i watched her for a few days and when there was no improvement, i made an appointment, which of course caused her to be completely cured. so i cancelled the appointment, which caused her to start barfing again. i really, really love my cats and watching her hurl and walk around looking embarrassed about it was breaking my heart, so today i bit the bullet, called the vet and brought her in.

about five casualties and a hundred bucks later, we have concluded she had a particularly nasty hairball. yes. i said hairball. now mind you, were just guessing because if anyone knows anything about cats it's that you will never truly know anything about a cat. so were assuming her little innards were irritated by the hairball from hell and are treating it symptomatically. bland food, hairball gel, pepcid and some smelly liquid that i have to shoot into her mouth with a syringe. ya. that went well. haven't even tried pilling her yet, though i did have a nightmare about it during a fitful nap this afternoon.

tonight she seems perfectly fine and our other cat can't figure out why he doesn't get the "special" food. i said i'd give him some for a hundred bucks.

and so it begins...

i'm always threatening to start a blog and now i've gone and done it. i'm not sure why i think people would be interested in reading about my life, though stranger things have happened. for the most part, this blog will be a way to get some of the thoughts out of my head that are taking up much needed space, although i'm hoping magical things will happen as well (ie: people will discuss my whitty stories and commentary amongst their friends at cocktail parties). at the very least, my friends (hi japhiel!) will read it once in a while and post feel-good comments (who doesn't need that!) and maybe i'll elicit an eyeroll from my hubby that doesn't have to do with the cats (aka my fur children). anyway...

a couple of things you will quickly realize. 1) i'm lazy and don't like to capitalize or worry about proper punctuation. which is a teensy bit scary considering i'm a teacher (or will be once i finish student teaching in the fall). but i can kick it into high gear when it matters most and won't let this bad habit rub off on the children, they are the future. 2) if this bad habit of non-capitalization and non-proper punctuation bothers you, I DON'T CARE. this is my blog and i get to do what i want. sorry. that was my inner child and she's hard to shut up. maybe that's number 3. no wait, 3) i love my husband and my cats. i will probably talk about them too much.

that's it, for now. welcome to andrews avenue.