We Shaved The Kitty!

I've always been wary of cats. When my husband suggested we get one, I balked. Cats are fluffy. I hate fluffy. When we had a chow mix, I personally shaved her to the "needs sunscreen" level every three weeks. My aversion to wooly textures causes me much squirming and hand washing.

If cats came with reptile skin and ornate bumpy patterns, I'd own a fifteen acre kitty farm. But, they don't, so adding one to our houshold two years ago was a big deal. I took baby steps. I started with LOLcats. Fifty pages of cute captioned cats melted my heart. I began to look for the perfect companion.

I found her at the Petsmart Adpot-A-Pet Giardia Center. Pearl, aged five, was not the loveliest cat, but she had extra toes, snaggly teeth and a sweet disposition. When I met her for the first time, she shed clumps and handfuls of white fur. The Animal Rescue staff assured me it was due to stress. She'd been at the center for months. I loved her. Instantly. She purred and rubbed on me, and I shook off the hair without thinking.

So, the cat my husband wanted became the cat my husband complained about. Kitty Pearl does not excel at grooming. I brush her, but I cannot tackle the dense fur on her bottom or poochy tummy. Every morning, cottony clouds of kitty fur breeze across our wooden floor.  I prefer to groom Pearl professionally, but it is expensive. Saturday morning, a cup and a half of kitty hair clumps greeted us.

My husband and I bickered over what to do. We settled on a butt and belly shave. Pearl was sweet and compliant through the whole process. Egor held her as I shaved off two quarts of hair. We removed the bulk of her problem fur.  When she sat or laid down, you could not tell she's been trimmed. Otherwise, she looked as if she sported a scruffy tutu.

This morning, we woke up to find the same quantity of fur littering the floor. Perplexed, my husband speculated that she must have a plastic bag of fur she scatters just to vex us.

Rage Comics and Social Rules

The plan for an easy Spring break was foiled by foul weather and an outbreak of a stomach virus at our favorite childcare place.  I realize that Tyoma will eventually get whatever bug is circulating in southern NH, but I just don’t want to spend our vacation week sick.

Sadly, I needed to start my day with a bit of shopping. I won't be  shopping at Market Basket again. People swarm there as early as 7:30, leaving me  feelingly squeezed and assaulted.   inadvertent experience, I learned that singing softly to myself and playing keyboard on the cart handles keeps a number of people at bay.

After a day of shopping and   my attention between mom and Tyoma, I feel beyond brain dead.  Crashed out on my bed (hubby and I do have separate beds). I  up my little brain to my computer looking for entertainment. Enter Failblog.

Once upon a time I purused the LOLcat directory--cute, but glurgy. Failblog is worth a chuckle, but mostly I show up for Ugliest Tattoos. I can’t think of a more profound way to reveal your character than to display something permanently on your person. Looking at a gallery of shocking and delightful tattoos gives me a secret thrill.   the same sweet little rush I get when I see blue nail polish or a dyed goth princess. So I chuckle and smile my way through the absurd winged genitalia, disturbingly placed for public consumption. However, after the third Technicolor armpit monstrosity, it does get a bit passé.

So I pop on over to Know Your Meme (KYM) ,  to see what Bear Grylls is up to today. I visit rarely, but when I do, I really dive in.  While I never visit the anarchy that is 4chan or tumblr, I do like the whole Mad Magazine feel of KYM. It’s a guilty sort of pleasure that should belong to young men of a certain age, but it absolutely transfixes me.

So meet Rage Comics. I’ve seen the drawings, so I dedicated an evening (Saturday night) to learning all about them.  Last night, I noticed that there is an actual section at FB devoted to the comics.  So I must have read 150 of them.  they vary in quality, certainly, but overall, I think I have a good deal in common with the young men that make them. it seems that we are equally confounded by the same world and take pride in the same things. Liberating.  A mid-fortyish woman with the mind of a 24 year old man with nothing better to do.

I like the Rage Comics for their unusual blend of humor,  brevity, and poignancy. I like short stories for similar reasons.Direct and generated with agreed upon symbols Rage Comics make me laugh over something I share with a stranger.

And thus, my second search.  I finally joined Wrong Planet.  True to form, I lurked endlessly, not contributing a word.  But I found the most awesome forum, xxx. I read about seven pages of posts, smiling and nodding.  It felt so right to be there, knowing that I am not alone in being awkward and clueless.  Between the excellent forum and Rage Comics, I felt connected and content.

Easter Sunday

Peeps! With sweet little button eyes!

Our Easter was mellow, punctuated by ten minutes of frenetic Easter egg hunting downstairs.  We skipped candy and settled for toys in plastic eggs, conspicuously placed for easy retrieval. E got most of the jumping and screaming on video, including a cameo by me and my oily locks. I noticed that my comfy house dress is fading. Sigh.

As I promised yesterday, Mom and I took Tyoma to Wasserman park.  When we arrived,   a purplish and heavy aura loomed, the kind of atmosphere that brings hard rain. I was pleased to see that we had the park to ourselves--I half expected the place to be populated by celebrants of an  Easter egg hunting jamboree. T ran off to rotate giant number logs, and I spent my time splitting my attention between him and mom.

After twenty minutes, we had company. A couple arrived with two kids and a fat, slobbery lab.  I do like dogs, but they should be leashed in a playground.  The mother hollered at me, “Is it okay to have our dog here?”  I felt like hollering back, “No! And could you and your family please leave because your presence freaks us Aspies out?”  but instead I walked over and said, “My son has autism and if your dog approaches him, he might become upset. I am okay with dogs and will work with my son.”

Heh.

Tyoma spent the next fifteen minutes loudly asking questions about the dog.  When the dog actually approached him, he crouched into a ball and begged me to save him from the dog.  The family finally put the dog on a leash, but Tyoma continued his harangue.  “I can’t go down the slide!  The dog is there!”  “The dog is on the steps! He’s going to get me!” and so on.  "The dog has a knife!"  I kid you not, he actually said this. Embarrassed and a bit irritated, the family left. Then Tyoma asked me, “Where did the dog go?”  “To the beach, buddy,” I replied. “Hm. I want to go to the beach and see the dog.  I liked that dog.”

Sigh.

I think in Tyoma’s mind the whole thing was a bit of a game. He was anxious about the dog, but curious, too.  I totally get that and wonder how to do things better next time.