Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

Our cats are always on the search for the Freshest Water Available.

This has led to some interesting conflicts with their humans, as you can imagine. When the Triplicats were kittens, the water dish was more than sufficient for their needs. I refilled it every morning and every evening, and all was well in their world.

However, as they got older, somehow... this did not satisfy any longer.

They started knocking the water dish around, as if they had to, I don't know, rough it up a bit before they could drink it. Nothing like freshly jostled water, you know? Only problem was, it tended to make the floor wet, and the we were always getting our socks wet when we stepped in it, or the ballistic missile that is the Impossible Son would hit it and slip during one of his circuits of the house, resulting in howls of pain and indignation.

So, I started cleaning and refilling their water dish more frequently. I started with three times a day. Then four. Then five. Then I got to where I was pretty much refilling the water dish every time I walked by it.

It wasn't enough.

Then the cats started noticing that we drink water, too. In containers. Containers that we often set on tables and counters. Containers that the younger two tended to forget and leave sitting on tables, counters, and occasionally, the floor.

That's when we started holding our glasses in our hands almost constantly, because the moment you set the thing down, a cat would be there like a shot, either trying to shove their whole head into the glass to lap at the water, or dipping a paw in to drink daintily from their toes.

Until Yuki got too frustrated to do it that way and started knocking the glasses over so she could lap it straight from the table, or the floor.

And if the glass didn't have water in it, they'd knock it over just to be spiteful.

Damn cats.

Then Yuki started hanging around my feet when I washed dishes. She could hear me turning the water on. It... tantalized her. It sounded so... splashy, so liquid, so... fresh... And one day, she finally jumped up on the counter, and saw the water pouring from the faucet and unable to resist, she jumped into the dry side of the sink and tried to lap from the stream of water pouring down.

HOT!! HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT!!!

She didn't try that again for a while, though she would sit on the counter and watch me wash dishes with a disgruntled look on her face. And pretty soon, Calcifer and Muta joined her. It made me kind of paranoid, to tell you the truth, having three cats in various places on the counter, all eyes fixed resentfully on me while I played (in their view) with water too hot for them to drink! Even washing their water dish out while they were watching and refilling it and putting it back in its spot didn't help.

It didn't take Yuki long to discover that we use cold water when we brush our teeth.

Next thing we know, we're jockeying for space to spit the toothpaste out with a cat determined to get to the faucet and drink. I swear they were all but laying in the sink with their mouths open like a college kid on a bar, waiting for an open mouth tequila shot.

You'd think we never gave the damn cats any water!

You couldn't even wash your hands without three cats suddenly leaping up to the counter and crowding you out for a shot at the faucet! There was a time when they all had toothpaste spots on their heads from them slipping into the sink just as we were spitting out!

I drew the line when Muta started jumping into the shower with me. He won't let me bathe him, but he would jump in the shower to sit between my feet and bat at the water drops. He's a huge cat, with impressive claws. I do not relish the thought of trying to explain to an emergency room doctor how and why my legs got sliced up by my cat. "Well, you see, Doc, it was like this..."

No thanks.

So... we bought a cat water fountain and that solved our problem for about... two and a half years. They loved the cat water fountain. It circulated the water through a pump that took it through a charcoal filter, and then spilled it back out into a bowl where it went right back through the cycle. The cats drank very happily from the spill, and all was peaceful in Burrow-land.

Until Calcifer started the pawing thing.

*sigh*

First, he simply pawed at the floor. He would make scratching motions for a minute, then circle the fountain until he'd gotten it and himself at juuuuuust the right angle... and then he'd drink.

It was weird, but mostly harmless.

Until he started putting his paw in the fountain's bowl.

He didn't paw the water... yet. He simply put his paw in and then licked it, then put his paw in, then licked it, until he was satisfied and then... he'd circle the fountain until he'd gotten it and himself at juuuuuust the right angle... and then he'd drink.

This meant cleaning the bowl almost every day because... everything on his paw got into the water and thus would clog up the filter. But okay, fine, I did that.

Until Cal started pawing the water and the bowl, which resulted in water sloshing everywhere, and then the fountain wouldn't have enough water in it and the motor would start growling and grinding and I'd have to clean it and refill it and mop up the water that was all over the floor. The wood floor.

And then Yuki started doing it, too. And since she pawed even more energetically than Cal, this meant that water was spread even further around the floor, and there was the added bonus of the fountain sometimes becoming unplugged. Which would lead to them pawing the water even more enthusiastically, because now it wasn't being refreshed like it had been before, and... AAAAAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!!!

So... I resurrected Max's old water bowl. Max was the Labrador Retriever who is responsible for our having cats in the first place. The Husbandly One and I got him right after we got married, and had him for eleven wonderful, crazy years before we lost him to skin cancer. His water bowl was huge, because he was a big dog living in a hot climate and he drank insane amounts of water which he shared with his cats very lovingly. Yes, you read that right. They were his cats.

Anyway, I got out his old water bowl and filled it ... and put it in the bathtub. Why? Because I was tired of mopping up water. If the water bowl is in the bathtub, the cats can paw and slosh to their heart's content, and it won't hurt anything but their dignity. If they start acting like they're dying for water, I pour it out, and simply turn on the faucet and refill it. If someone wants to take a bath, they take the water bowl out of the tub and set it on the tile floor, which is easily mopped up. When they're done, the bowl goes back in the tub, or they face the Wrath of Mama.

I'm fine with it. At last, I can brush my teeth without fighting a cat for the faucet!

OMG, I am a geek and a nerd because... I want THIS...



The Camera Lens Mug at the Photojojo Store!

I have a Tumblr account, LunchNotes from Mom that I'm working on, just putting up the lunch notes I put in the kids' and THO's lunches, and I was noodling around when I saw that mug and found myself with a serious case of nerdy want.

*dies*

And don't you know I would always be half in horror when it needed washing that I was putting my real zoom lens in the sink?? Instead of the mug??

Want!! Want!!

Yes, I am a sad, sad, materialistic little greedy thing...

want, want, want, want...

The Husbandly One surprised us by ordering Ponyo, the newly redone My Neighbor, Totoro, and Castle in the Sky, so we sort of had a Miyazaki weekend!

I convinced him to pull the couch around so it was facing the TV (we used part of the income tax return to buy a new flat screen TV, which is all kinds of awesome), and we all crowded onto it to watch Ponyo Saturday night, in Japanese with subtitles, which was incredibly cool, and of course, changed the story completely for us.

Then last night, we did the same thing, except I made a huge bowl of popcorn for us all to share, and it was like being in our own personal movie theater! We watched Totoro, then Castle in the Sky.

I shall have to write Miyazaki-san and tell him that his animation is so realistic, it had one of our cats charging the TV! It was a scene in Castle in the Sky, where one of the main characters is playing a trumpet while a flock of homing pigeons fly around their tower. Calcifer saw that, saw the birds, and I guess in his little cat brain he was thinking, "HOT DAMN! BIRDS IN THE HOUSE!! NOMS!!!" and the next thing we knew, he had taken a flying leap toward the TV!! Thank goodness he didn't knock it over!!

What was even funnier is that he kept prowling around the TV, or he'd get in our laps and stare us intently in the face, then leap down and prowl the TV again, to the point where he got Yuki and Muta involved as well. Then he got behind the TV, poking around in all the wires, and we had to chase him out. It didn't occur to me until this morning why he was doing all that.

HE WAS STILL LOOKING FOR THE BIRDS!!!

*dies*

Even now, that ridiculous cat is curled up on the couch, eyeing the TV suspiciously! The other two have decided he's crazy and gone back to the more important pursuit of the Morning Nap. Not Calcifer. He knows, he knows that somewhere, the birds are still lurking... near the tv....

And this is why Auntie sometimes finds her cats much more entertaining than television!

Every once in a while, the pathway between Auntie's brain and her mouth short-circuits, and gives her family fuel for entertainment for months, possibly years to come.

There was an open house at the Impossible Son's school this evening, and afterwards, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. It was on the way home from the grocery store that the discussion turned to Halloween and costumes. The Impossible Son asked me if I was going to dress up this year. "I dunno," I said tiredly, because I've got the Migraine of Doom. "What do you want me to go as?"

"I don't know," he said. "What do you want to go as?"

I wasn't in the mood to ride on that particular merry-go-round, so I sighed and said, "Maybe I'll just go as a hippie."

"No, I don't like that," he said and you could just hear the frown in his voice. "I don't want you to go as a hippy, Mom."

Great. "Okay, how 'bout I go as Molly Weasley?" I said. That shouldn't be too hard, right? I mean, she's a mom, I'm a mom, I just have to dress eccentrically and carry a wooden spoon and look harried. In other words, just... dress and look normal, and maybe a poofy red wig or something. And add a British accent.

"That would be AWESOME!!" said Mr. Impossible. "Do it! Do it! And Papa can be Mr. Weasley!"

I looked over at my husband and his tattoos and said, "Um, no, maybe he should be Charlie..."

"No!" said the Impossible Son. "I'm going to be Charlie Weasley!"

The Impertinent Daughter snorted at this, but didn't say anything.

"Okay," I said, willing to go along with this, and thinking about what pens I could use to draw "tattoos" on his arms. "You can carry your toy dragon under your arm to, and when you go up to people's porches, you can say, look! I'm handling my dragon!"

The moment that popped out of my mouth, I knew, instinctively, that I had Dropped A Brick. There was shocked silence in the van for about... oh... I'd say about maybe 9 nano-seconds that lasted approximately two thousand years... and then they all died laughing.

"MOM!!!" said my daughter, trying to sound outraged while nearly suffocating herself laughing. "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT!!!"

"Wow, honey," said the Husbandly One, snorting and guffawing, "that's... wow! That's way beyond your usual!"

"What?" said the Impossible Son, lost for about ten seconds, and then, "OOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!! MOM!!! GEEZ!!! That's just... WRONG!!!"

See? Even with a migraine, I'm pretty damn entertaining... most especially when I don't mean to be!!

I'm sure my face will stop burning at some point. And I hope they will let me live it down sometime before I'm eighty!

*goes to hide*

An addendum at the end of softly_sweetly's post this morning made me laugh somewhat ruefully and think of something that is an everyday irritation around here.

Whenever I need a pen... I have no problem finding one. Seriously, there are pens and pencils all over the place here. What I have a problem with is finding one that works!

The bottom shelf of one of our kitchen cabinets has several jars filled with pencils and pens. Whenever I'm presented with a permission slip, or some form or other that needs to be signed, I open the cabinet and begin the process of finding some sort of writing implement that works or isn't broken. I kid you not, there have been times I have ended up signing a health form in crayon.

That's not even including the two drawers with pens and pencils, and the majority of those pens don't work, and the pencils are all broken. And yes, I have tried to throw the non-working pens out, but I have to be very sneaky about it. If I do it where the Husbandly One can see it, he immediately grabs it, frowns at it, scribbles on some paper with it, and throws it back in the drawer with a "I can get it to work, I just need a few minutes with it. I'll work on it later." And I'll go back a few days later to grab that same pen and it still doesn't work!!

Meaning I have to toss them when he isn't home.

One of these days, I'm going to get a wild hair and sharpen all the damn pencils, too. I mean, it's sad to want to sketch something, or write something down... and all the pencils have broken leads!! And even the mechanical pencils are... empty!!

Happens most often when I'm on the phone. If someone calls me, say from the soccer board, I have to write whatever they are telling me down or... I'll forget it. See, if I hear something, I tend to forget it, but if I read it, I'll remember it because... I remember everything I read.

Sad, isn't it?

So there I am, with plenty of paper, mind you, scrambling for a pen, pencil, anything to write down what I'm hearing, asking the caller to please wait a minute while I find something to write with because... nothing works. I have actually had to resort to carrying a little zippered pouch in my purse of working pens and pencils. And believe me, I guard my little pouch with a ferocity usually attributed to mother wolves protecting their cubs. I know the pens and pencils in my pouch work, and I am not parting with any of them, so get your dirty mitts OFF!!

Sad, sad, sad.

Of course, I have sharpened all the pencils before. Want to know what happened? I went back ten minutes later to grab a pencil, confident that I would find a fully sharpened, unbroken pencil lead... and pulled out a broken one. Why? Because my daughter had come in, taken all the sharpened pencils, and replaced them with all the broken ones that were in her room.

Then she wondered why I was sitting at the table with a handful of broken pencils, chin quivering and tears running down my face!!

Hmmmm... maybe today I'll go through all the pens and winnow out all the ones that aren't working. Tomorrow is trash day. If I bag 'em all up and toss them in the bin outside and put a few bags on top of it, THO will never know!! Unless the kids rat me out.

Guess that means I'll be baking cookies today.

Who, me? Bribe my kids??

You bet your bippy!!

*sigh* The things I do for a working pen!!

I needed a profile picture for my Ravelry page, so the Husbandly One obligingly took one of my hands as I worked on a bag...



Yes, I have a bandaged finger. Blame it on excessively dry skin and leave it at that.

And here is the Husbandly One. He's letting his hair grow out, and I promised my mother a shot of him with his ponytail. *squee* He's getting ready to leave for soccer practice, as he has a 3v3 team for a summer tournament in July.



Why, yes, I do find him irresistibly sexy and mouthwateringly hot... why do you ask?

Yes, Random Auntie is random!

On the morning drive to school...

Impertinent Daughter, musingly: "I wonder what we're going to do in Athletics today?"

Auntie, suddenly seized by mischievous impulse: "Maybe you'll learn how to defeat the invading Mongol hordes!"

ID, blinking: "That's... that... would be totally awesome!! Swords!! Spears!! Bashing people! I could do that!"

Impossible Son, piping up from the back seat after the daughter is dropped off at school: "I know how to defeat the Mongolly Horns!" (because he has Auntie's hearing glitch)

Auntie, trying not to laugh: "Oh yeah? How?"

Impossible Son, beaming: "Give them your chocolate chip cookies! You are going to bake some today... right? Right?"

I guess I know a hint when I hear one!

I'm supposed to be resting right now, but I just can't do it. Too keyed up, I guess. I finished the Antibiotic From Hell yesterday, so hopefully, I will start feeling more like myself, and less like something flattened in the road by a Mack truck.

By the way, I've somehow managed to lose about 11 pounds. Not that I mind, but I can think of better ways to lose weight, you know?

Soccer season is starting up soon. Sign-ups finish this week, and try-outs for the select teams is Thursday afternoon. Miss Priss is split on that. She'd like to try-out for the select team, but... she also wants to play with her friends. I can understand that. I know she's also worried about me. You see, the select teams travel, not just to Austin, but to Corpus Christi, Victoria, etc. And since the Husbandly One will be once again coaching the Impossible Son's team, this means that I will be the one who will be driving the Impertinent One to those away games, and seeing how sick I've been, I know they're all worried. They should know better. I'm a tough old bird. In fact, I plan to be hitting the track before the end of the week, because all this sitting still is getting to me.

I even went out to turn the compost pile this morning, and yeah, it wore me out but you know what? It was nice to have a reason other than being sick to be worn out.

On a side-note, the Impertinent Daughter says things that convulse me, and a lot of times, it's not stuff that anyone but me would find funny. Like this morning. We're in the car, tootling along to school, and I've got one of my own personal mix cd's in the player, and L'Arc En Ciel's "Neo Universe" is on. I look over at her and say, "Want me to change it?"

"Nah," she says, looking out the window. "It's okay."

I'm not fooled, because I already know this song is favorited on her music player, and she knows all the words and has been singing along with it. "Okay," I say, and keep driving. The song ends, and she reaches over to change before the next song can play, because it's one she can't stand, A Perfect Circle, I think. She doesn't like the song after that, and pushes the button again and grimaces when another L'Arc En Ciel song pops up, and then Gackt when she pushes it again. "Great," she mutters as she tries again. "That's all I need to listen to first thing in the morning. A bunch of guys groaning and moaning in Japanese."

I nearly had a wreck. I started laughing, and that made me start coughing, and she had to start thumping me on the back. When I could breathe again, she grinned at me. "Yeah," she said, laughing, "I know, Mom, that was all kinds of wrong, wasn't it?"

Then there was yesterday, when the kids were searching out their soccer balls to air them up, and check them over. The Impossible Son was being an Irritating Little Brother, and I heard her say in exasperation, "No! I don't want to play with your balls, I want to play with mine!!"

You know, squirting Coke out of one's nose can be acutely painful.

I've never seen her face so red, I must say! She looked up and stared at me for one horrified moment, then fell over laughing. She's lucky her papa didn't hear her say that, because he'd never let her live that one down!

She also had a boy she doesn't know come up to her at school to tell her a horrendously bad joke (what is a cow's favorite song? Moooove along!), stare at her in terror, squeak, and rapidly flee the area, leaving her with no clue who, what, or why. "Why do they do that, Mom?" she asked, completely flabbergasted.

"I have no idea," I said, trying not to grin. "It may have to do with wanting to impress you, and having it sound so much better in his head, and then having the reality of how awful it truly was hitting him right after he actually said it. And all he could think of was getting away before you either started laughing or screaming in terror."

She snorted. "Okay. Whatever."

"They're boys, dear," I said, trying so hard not to laugh. "Their little egos are so fragile right now."

"Ew, Mom, that's disgusting! I don't want to know how big or little their ego-thingies or whatever you're calling them this week are!!"

I stared blankly at her for a moment, then nearly swallowed my tongue. OMG!!! It took me a while to straighten that one out!! And it makes me wonder if I'm up to the challenge of dealing with a teenaged girl.

No wonder I'm so tired all the time!!!

This is the kind of banter that goes on between myself and the Impertinent One. This is the kind of skewed humor we have.

So, I'm driving her to school while the Impossible Son is trying to wake up in the back seat. The radio is on, and I'm complaining about how much my head hurts ("It feels like someone's been scrubbing the inside of my skull with a Brillo pad, for reals!" "Aw, poor Mom!"), and we've just started frantically stabbing at the radio buttons because the station we were listening to has decided to start TALKING and we want MUSIC!! The big, giant, county-sized SUV in front of us starts weaving, and we slow down. Now, it's early, we're on a very straight, non-busy street, yet this person is driving as if there are... elephants... sitting at intervals on the side of the road. Miss Priss and I look at each other and she says, "Um... maybe they're avoiding the bumps??"

Except... this road is flat, no bumps yet.

"I suspect the person in front of us is experiencing an alternate reality at the moment, honey," I said, and then I grin.

She sees it and says, "Uh-oh."

"Perhaps they're avoiding Orcs," I say.

She blinks, then says, "Well, you know, hitting Orcs with your car is the worst. I mean, the mess it makes."

"Yeah," I said. "All over your hood, your tires, it's disgusting!"

"Entrails everywhere!" she says, and snorts, trying not to laugh. "And when it dries, it's like, virtually impossible to get off, it ruins your paintjob..."

"And then there's the smell," I said, my face hurting because I'm struggling not to crack a big grin.

"You practically have to use a hammer and chisel to get them off," she offers. "Clang, clang, clang!!"

"Yeah, and man, you have to hope you don't crack your windshield."

"I KNOW!" she says. "And then, the arms get tangled in the windshield wipers every single time!! It takes forever to get them out!! You turn them on and it's like your car is waving ugly arms at people..."

"True," I said, "But you know what the worst part is?"

"What?" she asked breathlessly, eyes sparkling because she knows it's coming.

I look at her, struggling not to laugh, and manage to keep my face straight, but just barely. "The squealing."

She died laughing. "Good one, Mom!!"

The the Impossible Son, finally waking up from the back seat, chirps, "What Orcs??"

I love my kids!!!

You know, every time I make Kool-Aid for my kids, I suddenly remember that some twenty odd years ago, when I was in my late teens, early twenties, we used to mix Kool-Aid with conditioner to color our hair. Because you couldn't go out and buy green or purple hair dye. You had to make it yourself.

And my kids are drinking this.

O_o!!!