So long 2007

This is a year I will not miss. 2006 & 2007 proved to be kind of tough and unpleasant. I have high hopes for 2008. Thank god it's the last year of the idiot despot's regime. It can only get better once he's out, so I'm really looking forward to 2009.

I got out of the shower and went into my bedroom to find Jasper in my bed cuddling a new friend. He usually likes to cuddle up to Luciana's old piggy, Ruby. Ruby lives on our bed, because Jasper always seeks her out and snuggles up for his naps. Well this morning, I noticed Ruby was by herself and Jaspy was snuggled up to someone and purring away. Upon closer inspection I found his cuddle buddy was a beheaded doll. Nice. I called both girls into the bedroom to a) have them enjoy the strange yet funny sight; and b) find out which of them was behind it. Dejanique's game face only held up for about 10 seconds before she started laughing uncontrollably. Mystery solved. She first gave it to Oliver, but he showed no interest. He prefers to cuddle up with Luciana's little ponies. Then she tried Jasper, and he took to it right away, rubbing his face on it and lying down next to it.

Now this begs the question of why we have this beheaded doll with her body painted in rainbow colors. L. found this miniature American Girl doll at Borders a few years ago, and we gave in a bought it for her. Nothing AG makes is cheap, so even this tiny six-inch doll was $20 or $25. Some time after that, my children came out of D's bedroom giggling and sporting a new necklace they had made together. Hanging on the necklace was the defiled head of Samantha, the AG doll. They did strange things to her eyes and it made a very Marilyn Manson-ish looking necklace. I was very annoyed that they had destroyed a very expensive collectible to make this stupid necklace, BUT they did it together, got along, and were laughing. Quality sister time was had by both, and that is priceless. I forgot about the doll. I had no idea the headless body (decorated by Luciana) was still around until it appeared this morning.

We will be going to my parents' for New Year's Eve celebration, as usual. D. will not be joining us. We eat chili and lots of good baked goodies, watch a movie, and play games. I try to catch little pieces of the Twilight Zone marathon throughout today and tonight. The girls, Mark, and I enjoy and look forward to it. I'm really sad that Dej won't be with us, but I understand that at 17, such a sober, boring New Year's Eve would be torture. She is attending a party at Brandon's (her ex-boyfriend) and taking a date. She will spend tomorrow with us, though, at least, having my dad's homemade pizza.

Our cockatiel, Ginger, has been sick--still is, although she is improving. We spent a good chunk of Saturday at our avian vet in South Beloit. There's always a long wait for him. As I had suspected, she has a respiratory illness, which is often fatal in birds. Usually, by the time they show any symptoms, it is too late and they are almost dead. I was very concerned that she wouldn't make it. We got a couple of prescriptions from him, and she has been showing tiny improvements each day. We have to keep the birdroom between 75-90 with 35% humidity. We've been running a steam vaporizer around the clock for her. I do know that birds should have a year-round temp of 75-90, but I've been trying to be more green and lowered my thermostat from 75 to 72. I'm trying to find ways to keep the bird room at 75 or above without having to keep the whole rest of the house that warm.

I'm so deeply sad and angry that Tatiana, the SF Zoo tiger, was killed because of human stupidity. How many zoo and circus animal 'attacks' do we have to have before people start to admit that this will always exist when animals are kept in captivity. They are not meant to live in cages, be on display, perform tricks. It's cruel, and they are angry. I personally feel that every single one of the animal to human 'attacks' is justified under the circumstances. Abused, captive animals are angry, and often insane, as we would be under similar circumstances. It's sickening that the first response is to unquestioningly kill the animals. How dare a mere animal take a precious human life--we are the chosen ones. Killing them for exhibiting natural behavior, when we are the ones who forced them into close proximity with humans--yeah, that's a fair solution. It's even more frustrating in the case of Tatiana, because the damn idiots taunted her and climbed over her wall. How dare she be killed because she was tormented and the very small area she could call her own was invaded. I feel no pity for the three humans involved in her justifiable 'attack'. None. The only thing they are worthy of is a Darwin award. The human gene pool could certainly use a lot more purging!

Whew!

We made it through another exhausting holiday season, well, through the craziest part anyway. New Year's is a pretty mellow event for us. The girls did well with their presents. We cut xmas back quite a bit this year, and we both felt much better for getting away from some of the materialism of the season. We were pleasantly surprised that our girls didn't complain--didn't even seem to notice. They were very happy, so we were very happy!

I spent the entire day, yes the ENTIRE day of the 23rd cooking. It was unpleasant, but it was wonderful to get up on xmas eve day and know that all my cooking was taken care of and all the wrapping was done. As per our tradition, Denny came over in the afternoon for our pre-family-party party. We had butterballs, as always. I had a migraine, which seriously impaired my ability to enjoy any part of the day or night. It was really crappy timing! Anyway, the butterballs were particularly delicious, if I do say so myself. We all went over to my mom's for the big family party. Again, other than the horrible migraine, that went well. As always, once the extended family left we had our xmas with Michael and family. They still had to drive back to Appleton that night, so they didn't stay too much longer. All the kids got to open their gifts from each other, and Michael's family opened all their gifts. We stayed a bit longer and then came home so the girls could each open their one gift and get to bed in time for Santa.

Luciana left a picture and a delicious chocolate vegan cupcake on the mantle for Santa.

Jasper supervises the gift opening from the newell post. He always relaxes in the weirdest positions!

L is eager to dig into the gifts!

Xmas morning, my parents came over for our traditional breakfast of tofu scrambler, biscuits & gravy, and sweet rolls. My children didn't eat much, as they were ready to get to the presents. Santa disregarded my wishes, as he so often does, and brought Luciana the moon sand that she has been wanting for so long. She was thrilled and has played with it quite a bit already. It is as messy as I feared--but fun. Dej was thrilled to receive the iPod she desperately wanted. Yes, another iPod. This time, however, we also gave her a hard acrylic case to protect it. In the spirit of cutting back, Mark and I didn't get gifts for each other. We got the LOST season 3 DVD set as our joint gift to each other, but we didn't exactly wait until xmas to start watching it. Luciana made wonderful gifts for both Mark and I, and Dej picked out nice gifts for us as well. My best gift, however, was a small piece of folded paper with a bow on it. I opened it to find a note from Mark stating that he was now a vegan. It's not an easy step at all to go from vegetarian to vegan. Now I only have to pick on Dej for eating pus cream and other such delights.

Dej gives me her ugly, fake camera smile, even though she is ecstatic about the iPod.

While we watched our traditional xmas movie, "A Christmas Story" (love it!!), Libby and Camille (two of my parents' cats) watch a rogue fly on the ceiling.

L. wearing a new outfit from Grandma C. & Grandpa J., posing by her triple doll beds. Grandpa (my dad) made these for her three American Girl dolls. They can be taken apart and stacked several different ways or left free standing. We went out tonight with her JoAnn's giftcard (again, from my parents) to select fabric to make bedding with.

The day after xmas, Mark and Luciana went to his parents' and just returned today. I stayed home to work on a consulting project. I spent some time trying to reclaim my messy house, but I still have work to do on that front. It's SO hard for all of us to leave town together, because of all the animals. My parents get stuck with tons of work. I feel guilty that they are stuck with the work and guilty that the animals aren't getting the attention and exercise they are used to and that they need. I really, really missed having my little girl around. It's especially hard at her bedtime, when I'm so used to reading and cuddling at that time. I talked to them (M & L) on the phone a couple of times. She told me she thought of me 13 times that day, mostly about funny things I do sometimes. I might want to get to the bottom of that one. I can't think of 13 funny things that I've done, so it makes me wonder what she was thinking about.

Lila got her stitches out, so she doesn't have to wear the collar anymore. She was so happy to have it off and hasn't slowed down since then. No more bobble-headed kitten to provide comic relief. Her little mouth ulcers seem to be clearing up, too, which means she's not super stenchy anymore. I'm so hoping she doesn't get them back. My mouth, however, has a new crop of nasty painful canker sores. They really suck. Here's a shot of our little bobble head relaxing in the xmas wrap box.

Holiday kindness

Please remember this holiday season, and throughout the cold weather, life is very hard for our outside friends. You can help make their lives infinitely easier by providing a little extra sustenance for them. Of course full birdfeeders are always helpful and greatly needed. The squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, possums, racoons, mice, voles, etc., all need to survive, too. Just throwing out a little extra food can make the difference between life and death, or even misery and comfort for a critter who is working their hardest to stay alive. I find the most consistently (and quickly) eaten are the peanut butter crackers I put out each night. I make 3-4 sandwiches, using multi-grain saltines and a very thick layer of peanut butter. This is healthy and provides much needed fat for them. Any past-prime bread, crackers, popcorn, etc. will be enjoyed. A lot of the slightly past-prime fruit and veggies are good too. I've had luck with apples and carrots. It takes so little time and energy, less than five minutes a day, to save and drastically improve someone else's quality of life--so why not?!

Also think of the shelters, especially this time of year. Any little extra you could spare makes a huge difference to them, and again, may mean the difference between life and death to an animal. Simply foregoing two or three Starbucks' (ridiculously priced) drinks gives you an extra $10. That's not much to most of us, but really adds up to those organizations who are providing shelter, food, and care to our homeless animal friends (who are there, of course, because of OUR species and not due to anything they have done). Almost all of us could scrape together a little extra to help others, with very little (to no) sacrifice required on our parts. If you aren't ready to make this a monthly occurence or way of life, at least try to do this over the holiday season. PLEASE!!

Luciana and I made our first batch of cupcakes from our "Vegan Cupcakes" book. We started out very simple--a chocolate cupcake with a fudge buttercream frosting. I'm suprised to say that they are good! Not that I doubted the book, but I doubted my ability to produce anything that looks that perfect and delicious. I've never made cupcakes, let alone made them from scratch. L. was a great helper. She was really looking forward to frosting the cupcakes, as we were using a pastry bag with a decorative tip. As it turned out, though, she didn't quite have the hand strength yet to make it work. I helped salve her disappointment with frequent frosting squeeze directly into her mouth. I'm pretty sure since they are vegan, they're not fattening. ;D

Tomorrow I will spend the entire day cooking for the xmas eve party at my mom's and for xmas breakfast, which is at my house. I'm hoping I can draft L. to help me, as it's so much more fun to have her with me than to spend the day in the kitchen alone. We'll be making swedish 'meatballs' (over pasta), and the gravy for them, tofu scrambler, biscuits and gravy, and sweet rolls.

We got the girls' gifts wrapped and under the tree today. It will be very nice not to have to worry about dealing with that on xmas eve!

Scraps, our latest adoption. She loves to sit on the couch with us; loves it even more if we pet her or give her forehead kisses!

Look at that adorable little face!

And here's Thumper, peeking out from his favorite little cave.

Birdroom art

Luciana drew this picture last night while we were in the birdroom. The bunny featured front and center is Scraps, holding a carrot. Scraps has a little fluffy pouch under her chin, which Luciana captured nicely. She is also white on the front half of her body and black on the back half, as shown here. Standing on Scraps' head is Tooky, our lovebird. Notice the detail L. captured in showing Tooky's right leg and foot, which grows sideways and twisted. In the upper lefthand corner is the window which looks into our birdroom from our living room. Hallie, our cat, is looking in the window watching everyone. She does this quite frequently, as do many of the cats, and she was peeking in while L. was drawing this picture. From there, we leave the reality-based portion of the picture and head into the creative license that the artist took. We do have a tree in the birdroom, but it doesn't look like this tree. L. has really gotten into drawing evergreens lately and is enamored with the way they look. She also added a waterfall. She works these into most of her pictures, and while I wish we had one in the birdroom, we do not. Then if you look carefully, right above Touky, she added Thumper to the picture. She didn't have a gray colored pencil, so she used blue. She also gave Thumper wings--not sure why.

I was at my parents for the evening, having our final consultation with Dr. Krebsbach, the cat behaviorist. She was quite pleased with the amazing progress Emmy and Camille have made. My parents will continue their hard work to keep the girls moving in the right direction. We are all so happy with how well the cats are doing. If you have any cat behavior issues, I would highly recommend Dr. Susan Krebsbach of Creature Counseling.

Rest in peace, our sweet Annabelle

Today has proven to be a very sad day! When Mark went into the birdroom tonight to refill water bottles for the rabbits & guinea pig, he found that our sweet little piggie, Annabelle, was dead. She died, seemingly peacefully, in her favorite purple igloo. She was old for a guinea pig, but had no visible signs of illness or even aging, really. We will all miss her, but Thumper and Luciana will suffer the greatest loss. L. was devastated of course, and it's always really hard to take when there was no warning or inclination. I hope that means her little heart just stopped and that she didn't suffer at all. We will have to wait until spring to select a special tree/plant for her and bury her under it. I feel horribly guilty, as I always do when we lose one of our babies. I wish I had known. I wish we had been with her at the end. I'm glad Thumpy was, but I still feel rotten. I also feel rotten because I have been meaning to take a really good picture of her and just never got around to it. She was a long-haired guinea, and I had to trim her rear 1/4, so it didn't get tangled and nasty. The last haircut, a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't find the good haircutting scissors (I'm sure they are in the abyss of Dej's room somewhere), so I had to use different scissors. She ended up looking rather choppy, so I thought I would wait for it to grow a bit before the photo session. Now it's too late.

Prior to that, we were having a nice family night. L. & Mark built an FM radio while I was cleaning up from dinner. Uncle Dan got it for L. for xmas. M's family was here yesterday, and being on top of everything as they always are, they brought all the xmas gifts. They were even wrapped this early! I have never been ready for xmas this early! Anyway, we let her open one gift from Uncle Dan & Beth and one from Grandma & Grandpa. She couldn't wait to assemble her radio, as she's really into electronic parts and disassembling and reassembling components (not reassembling them the way that they were, though!). They got it built, working, and were able to find several different radio stations on it. She is very excited to show Hunter--her partner in the gadget "repurposing". The gift she opened from Mark's parents was a game called Math Dice. It was invented by a sixth grader who wanted other kids to share his love of math. It's a very neat game. The three of us played that after dinner, and L. did quite well.

SUNDAY

Sunday was spent with Mark's parents, brother Dan and his girlfriend, Beth. They came up to visit and arrived around lunchtime. L. enjoyed playing games with everyone. Mark had to leave at 3 to start up the light show (Rotary Gardens' Winter Wonderland Walk). Carolyn brought enchiladas for dinner, which we ate after M. left for work. L. just wanted to get through the meal so she could get to the pumpkin bread that Carolyn brought. L. loves it! Ooh, and Beth brought us a gift of homemade chocolate candy. She's won my heart now! ;D After dinner, we all headed out to the light show. Dej met us there for a few minutes after work, but she wasn't dressed appropriately for the outdoor light show, so she went on home when we went outside. The lights were fabulous as always. We came in after we walked through the gardens, and L. had hot chocolate, while we all sat inside and visited. L. finally got the nerve to go visit Santa, after asking us all a zillion questions about him. He may or may not be the real Santa, as he had a real white beard and looked very Santa-like. We told L., that when you order a Santa from the Santa Network, you probably won't get the real Santa, but there's always a possibility. After chatting with him for quite a while, she thought he might be but probably wasn't because he referred to the woman taking photographs as "the boss". As she didn't really look the Mrs. Santa part, we didn't explain to her that "the boss" was his wife. The mystery is so much more enjoyable. She couldn't really think of anything she wanted to ask for for xmas, but she apparently chatted with him at length about the habits of all of our animals.

SATURDAY

We had a date night, and a snow storm. We were supposed to go to our friends' (Mike & Jim) holiday party in Madison, but the weather was very bad, and I wasn't feeling confident in the wisdom of going. Mark was up for the drive though, and it turned out fine. We went out for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant (in Madison), and it was very good. I think I prefer Thai food in general, though, as it's more spicy. From there we went to the party. We were the only breeders there. How embarassing! Even the (only) other straight couple there doesn't have children. I did impress Mike by drinking a whole beer, instead of my normal water. I figure if I have to stand out for being straight and a breeder, at least I could drink beer with them! :D I think Mark drank me "under the table" with his 2.5 beers. At about 10:30, I got a cell phone call from Dej, who was out with her friends.

Dej: OK mom, here's what happened. We're okay.

Me: What!

Dej: Well, we were in Chris' car, going to get some food, and he was turning, but it was slippery and he kind of slid into another car.

Me: But everyone is okay?

Dej: Yeah.

Me: Was anyone ticketed?

Dej: Ummm. Chris was for going too fast for conditions.

Apparently Chris' dad was not happy. Dej returned home (well actually to Grandma's where she was spending the night). Evening ended. UGH! Back to the party, but somehow not feeling very festive after that.

Saturday morning I was able to go pick Lila up from the vet. She was happy to see me and very happy to get back home. After about 10 minutes, it became clear that we had a problem. She was obsessed with chewing her stitches out. Not licking--chewing! Since Dej. was out xmas shopping already, I asked her to stop by the vet's and pick up an e-collar for our little girl. I've taken it off a few times since then, but she instantly goes right back to chewing the stitches. So for now, my poor tiny kitten is stuck in this big lampshade that she hates. It's heavy enough that her little head bobs from side to side when she walks. It's really very cute, but I feel so bad for her having to wear it. It has kept her out of the xmas tree, though, so for that small thing, I'm grateful.

Aaaaaww...How could anyone stay mad at Petey

My cute kids loving each other --->

And after he gets his love and cuddle fix, he can resume destroying the tree with Lila. Speaking of Lila, she goes in tomorrow morning to get spayed. I go through tremendous stress and nervousness whenever one of my babies has to go in for surgery. I especially worry about Lila, because she's so little and because of her respiratory problems. I will have to call throughout the day, to remind the vet assistants to clean out her eye and her nostrils so she can breathe. It really scares me for her to be anesthetized. I know the spay is necessary for her health and happiness, but I hate hate hate it! And the worst part is, she will have to stay overnight there. She's never been away from home or alone. We will visit her tomorrow night, but it doesn't help the sick feeling I get when I think of my little girl lying alone in a cage wondering where her family is.

We just got a call tonight about two kittens who come to Burger King, in Beloit, every night. The staff feeds them and thinks they are from a house nearby that burned down recently. We will try to work with them to catch the kittens before they freeze to death (or grow up and make more kittens) and are trying to line up foster care for them. It makes me heartsick to think of those cold babies, begging for scraps in a crappy area of a not-so-nice town.

Oh, and here's a special little tidbit I caught on the news yesterday. A four-year old boy shot and killed a very large black bear. This tiny boy, at four, has already used a large rifle of some kind (okay, so I know next to nothing about guns) and stole the life from a fellow being who was merely trying to survive. His family is so proud, they are going to have the bear stuffed. I'm sure it will look lovely in their trailer of inbreeding. Is this even legal to let a four-year old child hold and fire a GUN???!!! Oh, and where did this repulsive deed occur? Not in Wisconsin (though it wouldn't really surprise me). It was in ..... wait for it...

Arkansas. How very special. I'm sure our little warrior can look forward to a future job torturing and kicking chickens to death in one of the booming Tyson factories there.

Early winter--how long until spring?!

Luciana and the dogs have been in heaven with all the snow. They all love to frolic and roll around in it. L. enjoys eating snow and icicles and the dogs enjoy eating the special crunchy bunny "treats" that they find under the snow. They are very weird dogs. Dej is learning how to really drive in Wisconsin. We've had more snow and ice so far this year (and it's not even officially winter yet!) than we have for several years in the past. If she makes it through this winter safely, she'll be an old pro by the end of it. I worked from home today because the ice storm made the interstate to unsafe to travel. I have to go in tomorrow, though, so I'm hoping the plows and salt trucks work all night long!

I've spent the last two days steaming over the Michael Vick slap on the wrist. 23 months. He will serve 20 months. He will spend 20 months in prison, which is not nearly enough of a hardship for any violent criminal. He will be adored and worshipped by all the small minded immoral freaks in prison. Oh, what a "punishment". I'm shocked and appalled that the judge didn't even give him HALF of the maximum sentence of five years. Five years wouldn't even be close to enough for all the violence and cruelty that used douchebag has inflicted. The judge had a perfect opportunity with this high-profile case to send the message to society that the animal cruelty of dog fighting is completely inexcusable and will not be tolerated. He blew it. When you consider the number of dogs he had fighting, and the ridiculously high number of bait animals used to train all these fighting dogs, he is probably serving less than a day for each life he cruelly ended. I find it also quite disgusting that the use of bait animals was barely addressed, let alone considered in his slap on the wrist punishment. Yet another injustice goes basically unpunished. I am suffering more than the douchebag ever will. I have incredible amounts of rage and sadness as a result of this case and yet again nothing to do with it but keep it inside and let it slowly kill me. He, with no conscience, goes basically unscathed. What we as a society are missing with this is that he is an extremely dangerous person. He is callous and cruel and a sociopath. He is a danger to EVERY living being--all species. People who are capable of committing such atrocities never, ever limit the atrocities to one species. I'm willing to bet my life that he has left several battered women in his wake. I hope to god he is never left alone with children. Someone capable of inflicting pain and cruelty on the most innocent and helpless of beings will not come out of prison in 20 months as a better or reformed person. He will be more dangerous and more difficult to catch next time. What is wrong with the human species that we actually enjoy watching others suffer and die? What is wrong with the black community that they, who have been so intimately acquanted with oppression, powerlessness, and violence, that they would ever defend someone who put another being through that. I would expect the reaction to be more along the lines of: 'it is not acceptable to make any living being feel that way', not: 'it is not acceptable to do this to us, but we have the right to do it to others.' Yet again, I'm left shaking my head, saying WTF! UGH! Time to shut up, as I'm starting to ramble out of anger and frustration.

Spoiled Youngsters

Spent today redecorating the tree that we just got up yesterday. It looked really nice for about 20 minutes yesterday, but now that it's been demolished and repaired several times--not quite so nice. It's going to be a LONG holiday season, with both Petey and Lila hellbent on using the tree as their own personal playground. It's much, much worse than I anticipated it would be.

I helped Luciana make her holiday presents for people this evening, while Mark worked at the light show (freezing his arse off) and Dej gave new meaning to the phrase "lying around". She was so inactive today, after her weekend of debate and a friend's birthday party, that I believe she may have started to grow mold.

Got this in an e-mail and it amused me:

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways.yadda, yadda, yadda! And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter ...with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ's usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids' and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE.

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel;and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire..... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled!!!!!!!!! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Oh yeah, and a seatbelt was Mom throwing her arm across your chest every time she hit the brakes.

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

I just have to add my own little editorial to this, as there were some glaring differences between my childhood and the author's. Let me just say:

NO cable. Four channels. Rabbit ears!
Corded phones!

Oh, how I suffered.

Scraps, our new baby

With the virus from hell that has plagued our household and the subsequent catching up as a result of the VfH, I haven't had the chance to mention our newest adoption, Scraps the bunny. Scraps' family was moving cross country and unable to take her with, so we adopted her as a friend for Thumper. So far however, Thumper is being a bit of a spoiled brat. Although Thumpy has free reign in the bird room, he spends a good portion of his time in the large (hard plastic kiddy)pool with Annabelle, the guinea pig. They have quite a sweet relationship. He does manage to find time in his busy day, however to jump on the back of the couch, seemingly to stare at and taunt the very interested cats who like to watch through the window. Anyway, Thumpy rudely chases Scraps when she gets into the pool. Annabelle is very sweet to Scraps of course. He didn't attack or hurt her, but it did frighten her. So for now, she is in her very large cage when we are not in the room with them. We spend a lot of time in there with her/them, so she gets lots of cuddles and play time. I HATE leaving her in that cage when we aren't there, but until we get their relationship established, it's not worth the risk of a fight or fear induced heart attack. Rabbits are so delicate! Scraps doesn't seem to mind, but I sure do. Soon--very soon hopefully--she will be out and free all the time, and then I will feel much better. She's black and white, a dwarf--just like Thumper, very cute, and she loves nose and forehead kisses. I will get pictures of her soon, but with so many changes, I don't want to freak her out right now with a flash.

Tomorrow we are planning to put our tree up. We all finally feel well enough to tackle that. I have a bad feeling that it's not going to go well this year with Lila the naughty kitten. Normally the tree holds up fairly well, as long as we accept as fact that every single morning we will have to rehang most of the ornaments on the lower 1' of the tree, and a few random others that proved too tempting for the cats overnight. We're okay with that, it's like a newly decorated tree every day. Okay, it's really a PITA, but having seven cats requires us to have the ability to put a positive twist on the frequent disasters they cause and redecorating they do. Lila, at six months, is at about the peak of naughtiness, and I'm not sure the holiday decorations can withstand her. It will be an adventure, no doubt. On that note (and because I haven't had a chance to upload the latest pics from my camera) here's Ivan a few years ago. He has always enjoyed climbing up inside the tree, lying down, and peeking out, as if he were an ornament.

We're still alive!

And we've almost recovered from one of the nastiest stomach viruses we've ever had. Now I just have to catch up on housework, life, and all the other stuff that's been neglected throughout our sickness.

Here are the last of Dej's senior pics.