I just got an email from Paul, stating that my cat wants me home. How did he know? Well that's easy!!!!


Now all you cat lovers probably think this is just a normal think for a cat. Not for Caramel. For Caramel, her daily exercise is having to reach up with her front legs to eat her nightly treats off the coffee table (she gets them each night at 9:30 - and believe you me, if they aren't there at 9:30, I know...) Her jumping onto ANYTHING is a chore, so it's usually followed by a lengthy nap. I'd estimate she spends about 85 percent of her day laying/napping. An occasional burst of energy will see her chasing something imaginary through the kitchen for roughly 90 seconds. In the exhibit above, you can see she had yet another burst of energy, as she has full on jumped onto the coffee table, obviously under the delusion that she missed one of the treats last night. She did not. That didn't stop her from entering full on tracker mode....Note her stomach dragging on the coffee table. We wanted to buy her a Snuggie for Pets, but they didn't come in "husky" size.

You - Yes You

Are you reading this? Chances are you or someone you know will get the Swine Flu.

Now calm the fuck down, you'll be fine.

That's all.

Duh

I was driving home today thinking about a conversation I had with my cousin Jack this past June. He is five. We were at Walking with Dinosaurs. I was sitting in my chair thinking "how the heck are they going to keep all these kids entertained for 90 minutes?" cause God knows if everyone paid 35 bucks and it was only an hour, there'd be anarchy. So I decided to ask around, thinking the kids had probably seen something about it from hours of Cartoon Network watching.

Me: "I wonder what's going to happen?" (this was to all three kids but my own kids were ignoring me)
Jack: "The dinosaurs are going to walk around."
Me: "Oh."

I'm not saying a WORD when we are at the circus tomorrow.....

Hello Kittens!!!!!

Well I know you've been on the edge of your seats waiting for me to post something new, so I thought I'd throw ya'll a bone. Here we are, end of August and I haven't posted a damned thing since June. Sad.

Here is an update. The adoption is complete - finalized on July 28, 2009. We went to the courthouse on a blazing hot Tuesday and parked in a very scary ramp underneath the Main Place Mall. All other ramps around the courthouse were filled on accounta some rat bastard scheduled the Bar Exam to be administered at the Convention Center on the same damned day. Assholes. Anyway, we parked, got to the court, went in, pulled all our jewelry off to get through the metal detectors and waited. I went through. They saw my camera and said "Oh you can't take that in" and I said "Oh sorry I thought we could take a picture when it was done." Then I get the "where are you going?"

Me: "Surrogate court?"
Her: "Oh that's across the street."
Me: "WTF???"

I run out of the building yelling "kids, follow me." Paul tries to keep up but can't as he's taken his belt off to get thru security and his pantaloons are falling off. He makes me stop and I get my bearings and see where we have to go. I find it and run into traffic because I'm scared of being late. This bitch almost runs into me with her car and I give her the meanest look I have - which is pretty mean cause I'm stressed out at that point. Yeah she had the right of way but come on, I'm late, doesn't she know? Meanwhile Jessica is carrying around her blanket, Pinky, dressed in a shirt. Yes folks, a shirt. We get to the CORRECT courthouse (didn't think there would be so many to choose from in B-lo did you) and she asks me "should I put Pinky on the belt?" I freak RIGHT the hell out and go "PINKY IS A BLANKET SHE DOESN'T NEED TO GO THROUGH THE METAL DETECTOR!" The security man looks at me very strangely and calls me "mam" in his voice that he most likely uses on the irate folk.

Man with gun: "Mam, where are you going?"
Me (in my nice voice): "Surrogate court and I'm worried we're going to be late."
Man with gun: "OK it's upstairs, you go through here, you have plenty of time."
Me: "WTF do you know? You are down here, can you see through my fake leather purse material and read the letter telling me what time I have to be there? (This part is in my head)
Man with gun: "Bitch, they are letting you adopt someone? (Also in his head)

Well it all worked out in the end, we got upstairs and had HALF AN HOUR to spare. I guess they like to tell you to get there at 9:30, when the actual thing doesn't start until 10. I cleaned up the sweat from my brow and went in and shazam, it was done in like 50 seconds, no lie. Then, this:

Me: "Come on kids, let's get you home so you can scrub the floors with a toothbrush and beat the rugs with a stick."
Them: "GULP."

In other summer news, we went to Cedar Point where I braved some exciting rides this year - the always popular Tilt a Whirl and the Choo Choo Train. I would have gone on the boat but we had an appointment with Snoopy to see his Ice Show and I couldn't miss it because that is where I get my mid-day nap which is as traditional on this trip as is stopping at the 2nd rest area in Ohio to eat our sandwiches at 10:45 a.m. Apparently the man and woman driving through Ohio from Maine who were eating a snack at said rest stop didn't get the memo about our traditional sandwich stop, because they were sitting at our bench when we arrived. Don't worry, my dad explained to them that it was "our" bench, and kicked them out. I told him to leave a reserved sign for next year. My brother almost died of sheer embarrassment. See he's been away from my dad for a long time, on accounta him living in Vegas. Not me. Takes more than THAT for Fran to embarrass me...

We also went to Sunset Bay for the week, and somehow ended up with the ONE NICE WEEK this entire summer. My cousin Kathy is a miracle worker for picking that week. Rained once on Sunday for 1/2 hour, then stopped for the rest of the week. It was in the 70s-80s the entire week and sunny on all but one day. Who's complaining about Buffalo summers? Not me!

Right now, we are cat sitting for a friend. He has three cats who are currently in one room in the basement on accounta my one fat cat can't deal with anyone else in her territory and has taken to not only hissing at the other cats, but hissing at US if we even blink in her direction. She wouldn't get out from under the kitchen table, so we had to move her litter box and food upstairs, and now every few minutes I hear this strange "meow" noise. Not her normal "feed me" meow, but a "how could you do this to me, I trusted you sons of bitches and this is how you repay me" meow. I hope everything works out, cause these cats are here for 10 days!

Coming up: the new school year. Duncan will be playing the saxophone this year in the band. I have purchased the "large" pack of earplugs, so we should be good for at least the fall.

Hopefully I'll be updating more, but you know my Facebook and Bejeweled Twist addictions suck up a lot of time...stay tuned.

I Hope Great Doesn't Mean A Good Read

So some of you might not know, but I am adopting the kiddies. There is a LOOOOT involved, so the process has been going on for six months. I blame some of that on our slow ass attorney. That's neither here nor there, since by August, they'll be mine (insert maniacal laugh here).

In ANY case - Paul and I had an investigator come to the house last week to talk about the adoption, ask questions about us, where we grew up, how we met, when we got married. She took pictures of the kid's beds (don't worry, we moved the beds upstairs from underneath the basement stairs - a la Harry Potter.) She let us know that once she received your criminal reports from the state, that she would write her letter of recommendation. Here is where I have to laugh.

She emailed me last week to say that she received our criminal reports today and "they were great!" By great, I sure hope she means "clean" in lieu of meaning "an awesome read that had me on the edge of my seat."

"Gee Lori, do you think it was really OK to steal those paper clips from Depew Middle School?"

"Well they were just on the desk, I thought they were for the taking..."

"And Paul - that room service tray in the hall wasn't yours..."

"But, but, it was just sitting there, finders keepers!"

The Culprit

Now We Know Who to Blame!

Oink Oink Oink Oink

I'm coming for you. In FLU form! Mooohaaaaa