The Jas Says. . .

Since Destiny has to be on a special diet, it’s just easier to feed both cats the special food.  And that means they rarely get canned food.  I usually only give them canned food when they have medication that needs to be given, and can be added to food.  And, since they don’t get canned food all that often, once a trend is established (i.e. canned food two days in a row), if I even step near the kitchen, both cats follow me.  If I happen to touch the plastic bowls that are used exlusively for their canned food, they go ballistic.  I had forgotten to take the bowls off the floor last night, and this morning, I accidentally kicked one of them.  Both cats SHOT into the kitchen, mewing frantically, climbing over each other to get the canned food that, sadly, did not materialize.  Their medicine cycle is over – no more canned food.  It will take probably a week for them to stop expecting it.  In the meantime, they’ll hover casually around the kitchen, just in case.

They do, however, have a new treat added to their diet.  They now get a dose of malt-flavored, anti-hairball goo once or twice a week.  This is like candy to cats.   Hopefully, it will ease the strain of not getting canned food.

P.S. – The medicine was for hairballs, nothing major.  They had been puking every. single. day. for about a week.  I know cats puke a lot, but not like this.  I took them to the vet to discover that both of them had actually gained weight since the last appointment (a week prior), and there was nothing obviously wrong.  No parasites, no poisoning.  The verdict was hairballs.  We’ve been giving them the meds and the goo and the throwing up is way down.  I guess it was hairballs, despite the lack of hair in the puke.  Weird.

This is an e-mail I sent to Special Op B today.  I loved Michael Jackson when I was young.  Thriller and Bad were two of my favorite albums – hell, they still are.  I can’t stay that I like where his life took him in later years, but no matter how freak-show it got, it couldn’t erase the awesomeness of his earlier work, and I think that says a lot.  Anyway….

So, I thought about you yesterday when I heard that Michael Jackson had died.  Do you remember dancing around in your bedroom to Thriller with all the lights off, except the one lamp that we had a red scarf or something on so it made the lighting all spooookay?  And memorizing the little monologue at the end because it was so creepy?  Or dancing to Beat It and Billie Jean?  Or singing Man in the Mirror out in the woods when you were living in Caro for that year?  He got so creepy in the last 10 years, but man he was such a force in our childhood.  I miss that.

I miss the Michael Jackson I had a crush on back in the day, when my parents were still married.  But, I’ve been missing that Michael for a long time.  It’s almost like he was murdered by the crazy dude who’s been masquerading as him for the past decade or so.  Now, it’s just acceptable to mourn his death.

Happy Father’s Day to Dad, Eric, Grandpa (I miss you), The Charming Crusader, and Rod.  Thanks for putting up with me, accepting me, teaching me some things, letting me learn some other things for myself, fixing my cars, fixing my house, being there, standing back, all the hugs, all the time, all the laughs, and basically for being there.  Love you!

Every time I glance over the headlines on CNN.com and see an article that references “Rollins” saying this or that about the state of the world, I just for a minute think, “Wow, Henry Rollins sure is being taken a lot more seriously than he used to be”.  Today’s headline happened to be entitled:  “Rollins: Iran cries out for freedom”.

You’d think by now my brain would have clued into the fact that this is ED Rollins, the politico, and not HENRY Rollins, the punk rock, spoken word guy.  But, no.  Every time, I think Henry Rollins is now a political contributor for CNN.  Not that I wouldn’t like to see that, but is it likely?  I think Henry Rollins cusses too much for CNN.

Guess what, y’all?  We went up north…during Tick Season!  I know!  I’m as astounded as you are.  All I said to The Man was, “I’d really like to go up north and see everyone, and see how Mr. Ted is doing”.  And two days later, we were on the road, it being June notwithstanding.  Crazy.

We spent a long weekend up at Dr. Mom and Moll’s, and we had a very good time.  I took them up a set of four napkins that I had made, to make up for the fact that I didn’t feel like baking a pound cake to bring up.  I got to meet the new calf, Hannah, and the new baby goat, Liebchen.  Well, Liebby was only one of three new goats, but the other two were all grown up, so not as cute.  However, I took ZERO pictures, so you’re going to have to take my word on Liebchen being cute.

I also milked goats for the first time in a long time.  I didn’t want to milk the cow, though.  I’ll stick to things that are smaller than I am, thanks.

Anyway, I didn’t get a single tick on me, and The Man only saw one, I believe.  And that one was already dead, so it doesn’t count.  I did end up instigating a mass dog bathing episode, simply because I told Mr. Ted he was too dirty to pet, and needed a bath.  So, after I bathed him, Dr. Mom bathed all three of the other dogs.

On our last night there, The Man and I were left all alone in the house, because Moll had gone to Alpena for work, and Dr. Mom had gone to Marquette for work.  The Man and I were going to do the chores in the morning.  Dr. Mom asked if we’d sleep in their room with the dogs.  We weren’t going to, initially, but when I went upstairs, Mutt (being 14 years old), heaved herself upstairs after me, because she was lonely.  Talk about a guilt trip.  I told The Man that I wasn’t going to make a rickety old dog sleep on the floor because she wanted company.  So, I went back downstairs and we began the process of putting the dogs to bed, and it is a process indeed.  Three of the dogs sleep on a couch that is pushed right up against the wall.  The bed is then pushed right up to the couch.  Here’s how to put the dogs to bed:

1. Apricot has to go first.  She’ll put her front paws up on the couch, and you have to lift her back legs up for her.  She’ll growl, but only because she’s arthritic and it hurts.
2. Now Teddy has to be lifted onto the couch OVER Apricot up into the corner by the wall.  Teddy is like…sixty pounds or something.  The Man couldn’t quite make it and dropped him on the bed.  Oh well.  Teddy must be used to it, because he bumbled into his spot with no trouble.  Apricot growls at Teddy, but that’s just because she’s mean.  She won’t fight on the bed.
3. Then Mutt crawls  herself up onto the end of the couch.  She doesn’t need any help, thankfully.
4. Frisbee sleeps on a dog bed on the floor.  He doesn’t need any help either.
5. Now, you can get into bed.  But, at some point, Mutt (who is a boxer-like size and weight) will crawl into bed with you and take up more than her fair share of the space.  Plus, she snores.  Plus, she farts.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well that night.  But the good part is that we were both up bright and early, and got all the barn chores done sooner than we expected to, which meant we got on the road sooner than expected, as well.   We’ll go back up again in August, and Lucky and Galleta will also be there.

I’m working on getting the laundry done now.  That is the worst part of coming home from a trip.  Bleh.