A couple photos...

...from today, as I wash dipeys, do other laundry, maintain the fire, plan Christmas, wish for a 1.5 hour block of time to get a haircut in the next 2 days (chya, right), watch the Thursday Night lineup, keep this boy dry as he seriously fights to be the ONLY laptop in the house...ever update and upload with your arms around 40 pounds of squirm that wants to help with the keyboard, oh my aching nerves!



Dilly Beans (and peppers, thanks M!)



Chilling in his undies, reading his newest favorite book--the Toys R Us catalog.



Geoffie, my eldest (17.25 years!)



Working on a tough puzzle.

I lied about washing diapers. I haven't even started them yet (waaaah!) and now Mr. Fine Motor Skillz is un-casing DVDs that are supposed to be out of his reach, and he just made his "I'm Pooping Hard" face (eyebrows and mouth go in opposing U-shapes.) My right eye feels like Don Knotts, why must night owls produce night owlets?

HOOT!

What's Black & White & Tragic.

I'm at work with not a lot of time to describe my recently deceased cat or profoundly grieve his loss. This morning I learned of his death, I am of course sad but life must go on, right.

It's when life does go on that it really SUCKS. I was sitting between calls, catching up on Eileen's blog when she mentioned the mouse that can no longer invade her pantry, when my mind zipped to just last week, when I heard a faint clank of JUNK that Bessy didn't knock off the frigerator top as he jumped down from it, dangling a mouse between his teeth. Like a jedi, he moved. He wasn't brave and he wasn't social and he wasn't smart but what a loss we're suffering without our "special needs" kitty, our mouse-catching savant.

And then I went to log into a particular program. My mind flapped through the 1001 different logins we have to use here, and uh oh, my stomach sank. This was the one I knew would haunt me. I knew I should never use a pet's name as part of a login, but there he was. Every other day it was just keystrokes and a number that flew across the keyboard, but not today. How could I have not cherished him while he was here? How come I didn't think of him everytime I logged into SYSTEMX??? WAAAAH, Bessy!!!! Why did you eat that fiberglass??? :ugly workplace sobbing: WHYYYY????!!!?

The Backyard Backscratch

I like how cats + people have it all figured out. If we feed them, keep them warm, they'll kill rodents for us. I scratch your fur, you *whoosh* scratch me if I don't let you out when you want.

Out of 4 cats, Stephanie is our only killer. She's the only girl, we call her The Huntress, she loves to hunt small rats, big mice, or tiny baby hairless ones, she doesn't care. She leaves them outside our back door and usually when we catch a fresh one we can't help but notice that it's still breathing, or screaming. She's not shy about fatally wounding creatures, and then leaving them with something to think about. Ugh.

Lately the mice have been absent or disappearing from the back porch, I wasn't quite sure what was going until the other day Wally came whisker-to-whisker with a porch possum, we recon this possum is the culprit in the case of the invisible mice, and that our little back-scratch circle is complete. We feed Stephie, she maims mice, the possum sweeps away the mess. Yaaay! However, as much as I like this cycle, I do feel a little guilty that it SUCKS REALLY BAD for the mouse.