Dr. Bentley, We'll See You Next Week

When poor darling Fatty has to go to the vet, she gets very very very upset. 

Fatty is (thankfully) afraid and respectful of me as her most present, large, and loud authority figure, so she'll comply with me when I have to shove her into her Fatty carrier and put her in the car for her appointment.  However, from a specific incident involving 2 parents, a Desperate Housedaughter on vacation in California, and a non-compliant feline who ran and hid under the bed at the sight of her carrier being pulled out mere minutes before the vet appointment, I have learned that I must take out Fatty's carrier ahead of time.  Specifically, at least one week in advance for her to see it, acclimate, and then be shoved into it at an unknown and random time.  I just took it out today for her appointment next week, in fact!

Lest you find this method cruel, please try it yourself.  It works amazingly.  The element of surprise is critical.  Poor Fatty doesn't see it coming, and it's hilarious!!!!  Getting her in requires one firm shove, and then it's over.  Truly miraculous!

En route to the vet is when Fatty is the worst.  She meows the entire way there, and by meows I mean great big loud moans of disgust and horror like a baby whale dying.  The production only gets more intense as we stop the car, head into the waiting room, and then inevitably hang out for a bit until they're ready for her.  She wails so loudly that the people behind the desk look at me the way I look at moms of 4 year olds in the grocery store checkout line.  Sorry ladies, I get it now and will stop judging.

After we're escorted to the exam room, the vet tech attempts to lure Fatty out of her carrier, with no success as Fatty has now smushed herself to the furthest back point in the container and cannot be reached.  Super!  So then we just go with the flip the carrier on its side "dump-and-let-gravity-do-the-work" method, and the cat has no choice but to slowly slide down and plop onto the stainless steel exam table.  She shoots me an angry stare but then focuses her attention on the vet tech and hypervigilance.  I've watched enough Cesar Milan to know that I shouldn't coddle Fatty while she's at the vet, so I just ignore her and discuss the appropriate percentage of protein that should be in her diet.

When the vet tech leaves to get the doctor, Fatty makes sure she sits with her back fully turned to me.  I attempt to console her with the result that she turns her fluffy face toward me, unleashes a string of meowing profanity, and clearly wills me dead with what she wishes were her eye guns.  I never get a look so injurious from this animal except in this exact scenario, and she wants to make sure I know that what is going on here is UN. AC. CEPTABLE.  The look she's giving me implies the feeling I have anytime Fatty wakes me up at 5 AM (when I'll often mentally picture her bursting into a furry ball of flame).  She'd like me to go up in smoke and go to hell, in whatever order.

Then the doctor comes in, and BAM!  Fatty turns the tables big time!!  The loathing-filled creature of 15 seconds ago has been replaced by a sweet Southern belle greeting Dr. Bentley like she's a long lost relative.  Maybe it's her defense mechanism, but Fatty is so freaking nice to the vet that I have to stop and thank Jeebus for sending me a lovely fluffpuff like her.  I used to have one of those cats that unleashed fury and madness on the vet, clawing and attacking and injuring before escaping onto the highest shelf in the room, out of reach for at least 30 minutes.  Once a vet had to get stitches because of him.  Trust me, vets hate you after that. 

Not Fatty, though!  She's a sweetheart.  She gets felt up, told she's fat (not unlike my own doc appointments), and then is allowed to leave.  My fluffy baby jumps back in her carrier as soon as its made available, and she's generally quieter on the way home.  As soon as we get home, she runs and hides for hours, giving me the cold shoulder until her next meal or she reaches forgiveness, whichever comes first.

Tell me about your pets, readers!  I love a good going to the vet story. 

The Funk of 40,000 Years

I have a storied and somewhat ill-evolved history with squirrels.  For over 25 years, whenever someone called them rats with a fluffy tail, I defended their fluffy cuteness.  When walking through the Public Garden, I would often stoop down to feed one of them a potato chip directly from my hand.  When I would see one crossing the street, I would slam my brake and swerve to avoid hitting them.  In short, I was a squirrel's friend and a real delight.

Then came San Francisco.  Behold the photographic evidence:

See that little grey blur right in the middle of the picture?  That's a squirrel charging at me in Golden Gate Park.  That little bugger not only chased me down, it also climbed my pant-leg to get to my chocolate chip scone.  I shook it off, but not without severe emotional trauma. 

Look, I was so pro-squirrel, even after this event, that I just laughed at the cherished memory of it scaling my leg past my kneecap in order to swipe food from me.  But squirrels, you have done me wrong now.  Very very very wrong.

The date:  this past Monday night.  The time:  9 PM.  The scene:  Me going to the fridge to eat something despite the fact that I wasn't hungry.  Scene:

DH:  "Mom, WHAT is that smell????????????"

Mom:  "Your dad ate some canteloupe [sidebar:  I hate canteloupe and it smells like horrible rancid crap to me, so this was a likely scenario.]

DH:  "NO no no no no no no this is WAAAAAHAAAY worse than that.  EW!  [sniffs air while fridge door swings shut]  It's coming from there [points toward study, two rooms away]!!!!!!"

DH and Mom walk towards study, stench gets severely worse and very very overwhelming.

DH:  "Ewwwwwwwwwwwww WTF it reeks in here!!!!!!!!  It smells like DEATH.  I told you we have critters in the attic!  The effing pest guy came and everything!  It must have died in the wall!!!!!!  BLECH."

Mom:  "I don't smell it."  [ calls dad over]

Dad:  "I don't smell anything."

DH:  "BBBRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!"  [calls fire department]


The fire department came over and told us, yes it's a dead squirrel somewhere in the wall, stinking up our house for conceivably the next 4-6 weeks or more until it decomposes and gives us respite from it's disgusting malodorous body smell. 

In short, squirrels of the world, I'm SO OVER YOU.  You've lost an ally this week.  I might just go buy this mug:

Update:  As of right now, 8/4/11 at 11 PM, the smell has VANISHED.  WTF??????

Reveeeeyahhhh BEACH!

Here's a delight for your Monday morning, my lovely blog readers!  Last evening I went to the Revere Beach Sandcastle Competition to view the creations, and let me tell you, even at 8:30 PM, the crowds were abundant.  Although it was my idea, I credit my generally very enthusiastic mother for dragging the combined dullness of me and my father out of the house.  The above sandcastle was actually strung with holiday lights and itself was about 5 feet tall, and it was perched on a 5 foot tall mountain of sculpted sand that I didn't get in the picture.  It was eeeeenormous.

I overheard some ladies saying this next one was the winner, but I have no idea.  It was the most striking, however.  The whole inside of the shell was hollowed out!

Have a lovely Monday!  And if you want a tinge of bitterness to your Monday, just think about how these sandcastles will be destroyed by today's thunderstorms!  I almost wish I could be there to watch it. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Brains do the Darndest Things

This morning I woke up and looked at the clock to see "7:30" in glowing red digital numbers.  I promptly rolled over, closed my eyes, and seconds later re-opened them to the glow of "9:00."  What happened inside my head and behind my eyes during that hour and a half was possibly the best, most 90s, most odd, and most awesome dream of my life.

I had watched a few episodes of "HUGE" before bed which I blame for my throwback to high school state of mind, but beyond that, I can only credit my brain for coming up with such an amazing bit of dreamworld.

I arrived at the Family Matters home of characters Harriette and Carl, which in my dream was a bed and breakfast.  I booked my usual room there and proceeded to their family room which promptly turned into a giant cavernous room and began to fill with some of my childhood favorites.  First, in walked the New Kids on the Block, then my best friend from childhood, then one of my gay husbands from college.  The room slowly filled with more of my childhood friends and tv family such as all of the cast of TGIF, The Backstreet Boys, and various other late 80s and 90s sitcom characters.

I remember turning to my best friend and telling her, "If the New Kids on the Block sing 'The Right Stuff,' I will pass out!"  She agreed.

The scene then turned into a giant dessert bar, and we all gorged to our hearts content (that I'll blame squarely on my pre-sleep tv watching) and suddenly our surroundings were a lush tropical porch in Hawaii.

I woke up then, notably forcing my body awake at the ridiculous thought of Chicago, IL suddenly becoming Maui.  Apparently that threw me over the edge mentally, not the idea that Steve Urkel's neighbor's house was really a B+B I frequented.

Tell me your funniest or most memorable dreams in the comments, creative readers!

Craigslist Transactions are Shady by Nature (Not Cause I Hate Ya)

I have tons of sh** to sell.  Coming off of many years of being a spendthrift (I'm newly inititated into the "Do I REALLY need that?" mentality), I have amassed a certain, well, prodigious collection of purses and other girlish accoutrements that really needs to be whittled down. 

I do not particularly enjoy the usage of ebay if I can sell things more locally.  Ebay requires packing items for shipment, convincing the post office that sending perfume via ground is legal according to their website, and giving Ebay a cut of the profit which itself requires money and time and drives to the post office.  To that I say, NOPE.  Instead, I enjoy when I meet someone around the corner at the bagel shop and sell them $300 worth of old jewelry.  Thus began my relationship with Craigslist.

Craigslist has been fine for me over the years while apartment hunting and giving things away for free, so I figured, let's give it a shot with all this stuff I need to sell.  Most of the people that contact me have been thus far average and not scary, so I would say that Craigslist is still being good to me.  That said, here are some of the gems I have come across (none of these are spam) in attempting to sell via Craigslist:


In seeing a purse in person:

DH:  "Here you go, it's the Calvin Klein."
Customer:  "You said this was silver in the ad.  It's really more of a grey with a shimmer and some metallic inflection."
DH:  "So, in other words, silver."
Customer:  (15 minutes later)  "Yeah, I really am looking for something darker silver than this."


In negotiating price:

DH:  "Great!  So that'll be $200 as we discussed.  That is 50% off retail value."
Customer:  "Will you take $75 for it?"
DH:  [Inhaling deeply with eyes closed] "No.  We already discussed price via email, didn't we?  We came to an agreement?"
Customer:  "Yeah, I'm really only looking to pay $75."
DH:  [Shoving back chair and standing up] "Thanks for letting me know now instead of before.  Buh-bye!"


In picking a meeting spot:

DH:  "Let's meet at the bagel shop in the town center."
Customer:  "Let's meet in the rear of the Whole Foods parking lot in the center."
DH:  "There's no Whole Foods in my town."


In providing too much information as to why a particular item is desired for purchase:

DH:  "The shoes are size 11."  (What?  I have big feet.)
Customer:  "Great!  Would you be willing to sell to a man with a shoe fetish?"
DH:  "TMI, bro!  If you'd just said, 'I want to buy them,' we wouldn't have had a problem!"


Upon discovering via Google that the customer has a criminal record:

DH:  "Holy ****** ****!  WHAT IS WITH PEOPLE????"
Fatty:  "MRROOOW!"

Craigslist, I do love you most of the time, but I needed to get this off my chest.  Please help me find some more real customers and less freaky deaks.  Oh, and darling readers, if you're in need of any new purses, perfumes, or jewelry, please do get in touch!  I have many for sale.

Mon Jardin des Plantes

Friends, don't be jealous!  I have a container garden (raising the roof - you can't see me, but I'm doing it).  That's right, this is the kind of crap Desperate Housedaughters get excited about when they don't have things like jobs and boyfriends. 

Please voila my gorgeous lettuce container:

Also, please enjoy one of the members of my herb garden:

Mr. Mint has been repotted to a much larger container since this picture was taken, and let me tell you, it is satisfying to have a little jardin des plantes on my deck.  Iranians eat herbs by the handful (as opposed to delicately sprinkling them over meats and veggies like white people), so it'll be great to grow piles and piles of mint and basil for us to eat. 

Container gardening is kind of cool, even posh!  I like the idea that it's not in my yard where I'd have to do things like weed the garden and fend off bunnies (one of my friends has a gorgeous outdoor garden and tells me all kinds of tales about squirrel/tomato robberies), and I also like that sweet Fatty can go luxuriate her fat self underneath the shade of the Heliotrope. 

I will say, though, that the number of strange and somewhat unattractive insects I've encountered on the deck throughout the potting of said garden is ICKY.  I will spare you photographs, but suffice it to say that adult jumping spiders are approximately tarantulas that are the size of a quarter.  And about an inch tall.  YEAH.

Do you all keep container gardens?  If so, what do you grow?  I need an excuse to go to Home Depot and buy more potting soil so the cutie dude there can carry it out to my car for me.

Dinner Expectations

Dinner.  It's what's for dinner.  Wait, what?

Cooking dinner is part of the housedaughter equation of expectation which looks something like this:  Desperate Housedaughter + free time + no job + vague household skills = dinner.  Each and every night, I receive two phone calls, usually in this order:

4:30 PM - Dad calls.  "Housedaughter, what's for dinner tonight?  I'm on my way home on the train."

Me:  "Dad, WTF?  I'm so sick of getting these calls about dinner!  I can't make dinner every single night!  I already do all the laundry, 75% of the dishes, [blah blah prattling and whining about all the housework], so I don't feel compelled to make dinner, AGAIN!"

Dad:  "Fine I'll eat bread for dinner."

Me:  "FINE!"


5:30 PM - Mom calls:  "Housedaughter, what's for dinner?"

Me:  [Turning red with rage] "PFFFTTTTTT WHAT?"

Mom:  "What.  Is.  For.  Dinner?"  (She's adorable and thinks I didn't hear her.  I love optimists!)

Me:  "Thanks, I heard you.  Tacos.  From last night."

Mom:  "Ok, I'll just eat a muffin from the grocery store."


Oh dear.  I try hard to avoid the carb-loaded dinner fate for my parents, but let's be clear - I hate cooking.  Baking is fun and enjoyable, but cooking, NOOOOO!  I don't find anything about it fun.  So when dinner is laid squarely on my shoulders all the time, I get exhausted.

In the last 7 days, I've made dinner a shocking 3 times!  BBQ burger/veggie extravaganza, tacos, and spaghetti and meatballs (well, I only made the meatballs).  When my Dad makes dinner just once every 3 months, he gets mad if we ask him to make dinner again during that time.  And I laugh at him copiously.  What gives, people? 

It's good to be a housedaughter in a way, because now I know (unless I married some super rich dude who regularly bought me Prada and we had a prenup) that I could never be a housewife.  The expectation of dinner is just too much for me.  It tosses me over the edge.  Alas, I must now take my leave of you to go make my breakfast oatmeal.  Let me confess that cooking breakfast is an exception to my cooking hatred.  I make a delicious breakfast, so come on by anytime before 10 AM!  But please don't ask me to make you dinner.  Ever.