Baked Kitties

Every now and again we give our kitties catnip. It's a special-occasion drug pulled out when neither Steve nor myself feel like laser-pointing and ribbon-bouncing or ping-pong throwing. We've got a little pouch and some loose weed and we dribble the loose on their scratching post and toss the pouch on the floor and they go to town. Think Lions on a fallen Gazelle. If weed bled our floors would be saturated. They tumble over each other to get the best bit and then after several minutes they wander away to fall into a stoned coma. That's where they are now.


Ever notice that people who don't have kids talk about their pets as if they are children. Not in the "my baby got an A" way but in the "here's a funny anecdote about my dog/cat/parakeet/komodo dragon" way. It's amusing and something almost everyone can relate to. Because unlike children, if you don't have a pet of your own you know someone who does and they're completely whacked about it. Case in point: my parents inherited robokitty (Steve's name for Patience the grey cat) from a friend who met a guy on the internet and moved to England to marry him. It was supposed to be for a few months and turned into several years. The cat passed away at my parents house of plain-old-age (and she was up there - pushing the two-decade mark) and then the cats owner, who called on a regular basis to catch up with my parents and talk to the cat , asks for the ashes of the cat. At one point there was even discussion of saving the DNA so she could clone robokitty and have her favorite cat again. This was a serious conversation. You can't make this up.

I'm going to make m&m chocolate chip cookies today, as soon as we go to the store and pick up eggs. These, plus the pumpkin muffins, will be my dessert contribution to the Mexican-themed Christmas Eve Dinner at the in-laws. I'd rather make sopapillas, but those don't travel well and using the in-laws kitchen is something I'm loathe to do.

Sister-in-law posted a blog on her myspace bemoaning her hair. We've all been there. That's another situation everyone can relate to. I've got a wild-hair to do something different and drastic and yet I don't want to hate it next week because I went and did something rash. I have the solution - a cute style worn by Julia Stiles a few years ago. It's on the cover of the Aug 2002 Elle. How do I remember this? Because not only did I convince my sister to chop about a foot off of my hair not long after that, but I still have the magazine. That spread makes me want to chop my hair again. I'll settle by vicariously chopping it via SIL. ;-)

I'm feeling rambly and chatty this morning (clearly) but we've got present to deliver and I MUST do something about my nails. Oh, and there are cookies to bake. And now that I think about it, I like that I'm too busy to write an in-depth blog. And it's all fun-busy today.


PS - next year I'm sending out a letter in our Christmas cards next year. And I think we'll expand so that everyone gets a photo card rather than just immediate family. We'll pick a less-formal picture for next year, too. Something everyone will enjoy....... ;-)

Baking and Martinique

So this afternoon I'm going to do some baking. M&M Chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin muffins, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Might even try that peppermint bark again. :-)

This week has been crazy but it looks like it might be lightening up. Demanding clients are in Florida, miraculously actually leaving rather than canceling their trip to stand over the subcontractors like they did last time. (That was hellacious.) And I've just purchased the last of my Christmas gifts. Insert WOOT and imaginary glass of celebratory Emily Cocktail (champagne, pomegranate juice, cosmo mix, seeds for garnish) here. :-D

The Alaskan cruise has been put on hold - primarily because it costs more than we want to spend. Alternatively, a villa in Martinique in July (the off-season due to hurricanes) is going to be much less expensive. Especially when split with 6-7 other people. It'll be a 30th birthday on the beach :-D I'm considering chartering a yacht for a day so we can go wild-sea-life watching. Want to come? All you need is a passport, airfare, and whatever your share of the rent is. There's a full kitchen so I figure we'll let the men do some grilling and the women do some whipping up and go out a couple of nights, but it's better than spending tons of money on overpriced mediocre hotel food. And after my many hotel and hospital stays....let's just say I'm burned out on cafeteria food :-D

That's all I've got for now, so I'm going to go throw in Elf and make some cookies! Happy Day!

The Googlepage is caught up!

Until babies are born, the Alaskan Cruise is taken, and more happy hours occur, that is ;-)


http://emily.steve.googlepages.com/annualholidaysleepover

Baby Shower Pics Up

Please see:

http://emily.steve.googlepages.com/babyshower

Just Call Me Sleeping Beauty...or Einstein.

Last night I crash at 8. It's 8:20 now and I'm thinking that bed looks appealing. And not for anything other than sleeping, so get your mind out of the gutter. What time do I wake up? Anywhere between 7 and 7:30...on a good day. Yup, you did that math right. 11 hours. ELEVEN HOURS. Am I 3? I take comfort in two things: 1) it's the drugs and I'm only on them for three more weeks. 2) Einstein needed 12 hours of sleep a night. And he did great things. Maybe I'm resting up for greatness.

I have Jury Duty in the morning. To completely change the subject. I'm soooo looking forward to it. I've got magazines and a book for the waiting time. I'll take my pathetic excuse for an outline and work on it a bit there. Or probably I'll leave the outline and just take a blank pad so I can get the bare timeline down. The first step (after the creation of the main characters) is a very thin plotline. Then the timeline, then the outline, then the writing and multiple revisions. Then greatness. In theory. I have a thin plot -- this one is a "novel of suspense" rather than a "mystery" so there's not really the threat of Spoiling it. Here's how it ends: they get together or they don't. He lives or he dies. She lives or she dies. His wife forgives him or leaves him or dies. I could pull a Tarantino/Shakespearean tragedy and have them all die. That would be awesome.

Speaking of tragedies -- I watched the first four episodes of Entourage and quickly removed the rest of the dvds from my queue. I usually don't dislike things as much as I disliked this. It was so highly recommended and hottie boyfriend from Devil Wears Prada is in it....but I liked exactly one character and had little sympathy for 2. The 4th (hottie boyfriend) I could have grown to like but it wasn't worth watching to find out. Whoever called this Sex and The City for men has clearly never watched Sex and The City. Yes - 4 single women/4 single men. Yes there are parties and booty calls and fashion....but Entourage has something Sex and the City lacks: morons. Morons as main characters. Who started this trend of men being morons -- men in Role Model positions being morons? Why have we lowered the bar? Why is only 1 in 4 men a viable option? Maybe my standards are just too high.....(insert smugness: if, in reality, 1 in 4 IS the option, then 3 of my friends are going to be very sad......)

Ah, in case you're wondering - the baby shower went fabulously. Sister in Law is stocked for BW and everyone got to see her and ooh and aah over her belly. I took 96 decent photos, which will get narrowed down and put up on the google page. Eventually. I'll let you know when that happens.

Dude. 8:31. The End.

Drink Up, Me Hearties, Yo Ho

Um...yeah. Watched Pirates 3. So glad I got it on Netflix instead of sitting in the theatre. The rest of the audience wouldn't have appreciated what Steve and I did to it. It started with an explosion scene reminiscent of Apocalypse Now and contained waaay too many Elizabeth Swann speeches - one of which made Steve say "What? This isn't Braveheart!" All Hail the Mighty Johnny Depp who carried the movie with great pizazz. He is very talented and were it not for him I wouldn't have lasted more than 10 minutes into the movie.

Moral of the story? Unless you need closure, don't waste your almost THREE HOURS. Seriously. And if you need a Johnny Depp fix, come with me and we'll see Sweeney Todd. Which will, of course, rock.

(PS - for good Bill Nighey, watch Love, Actually. With some insulin on hand ;-))

Anyway, I'm off to bathe - have a new stash of goodies from Lush that I adore - and mentally prep for what is going to be a very long weekend. Birthday dinner, Baby shower. In that order. There will be pictures of the latter on the googlepage.

Happy Weekend!

Withdrawal Sets In...

On Saturday I officially stepped down my dosage of the anti-seizure medication that is regulating the headache caused by the brain-swell. So far, not so bad. I did take an hour and a half nap instead of working out, though. But, man, do I feel rested. It was pretty sucky before I gave in with the nap.

My cats have reached new levels of genius/irritation. They've actually started peeling bark off the trunk of the tree and are now batting it around. Sheesh.

I've started building up the secondary characters for my next novel. And I've got some current contacts for agents for the first one. So that's good. I get all tense when I think about actually sending it out. The first couple of queries I launched don't count because I didn't have current info and then when I dug a little further, those agents are no longer working. At least not in fiction. Of course then I remind myself that I write because I can't not write (as evidenced by my immediate need to start researching the next one before the ink was dry on the second revision of the last one...) Writing is a way of life and if I happen to make money from it, then that's an added bonus. I do, after all, have a day job to keep me in sunglasses.

I did collect a nice little story at lunch today, and since I've found my commonplace book (lost for about a year...sad :-( ) I wrote it down. It will go in there somewhere. It pertains to wooden indians and made me chuckle. The first part of the book has descriptions of customers from when I worked at Counter Culture for a month and a half. You can tell I was reading Palahniuk at the time. And a bit of Graham Joyce, too , I believe. The Facts of Life -- given all of my blurbs about blitzing.

Here's a good one: "It's barely lunch and she's already drunk. She's let her poorly-dyed red-wine hair frizz around her head. She decided purple glitter eye and lip make-up would compliment her too-small purple lame dress. She spent our time together talking nonsense and laughing too loudly while she clumped around in too-big white heeled sandals."

Obviously the grammar needs a bit of work, but for something written surreptitiously between customers, I don't think it's that awful. And also I remember exactly what she looked like and I remember the sound of her laugh - braying like a donkey. You get all kinds in Deep Ellum.

ok -- I'm sure there's something else that needs doing, since I slept the afternoon away....

I'd like to offer moral support, but I have questionable morals

So this weekend was fun. Picked up the girls on Friday evening, had some delivered sushi (Bubble had a baked potato) and then there was card making, ornament decorating, and Santa Claus 3 watching. That movie made me sad I can't drink right now.

We crashed out and then Saturday morning camped out on the sidewalk to be stepped on and watch the parade. Many many pictures coming to the googlepage for that one. I dropped them off Saturday evening and was once again glad that when you actually have kids you've got nine months to prepare and you generally don't get 3 at a time. I would have slept all day except I've actually had to work this week and so there's too much to do.

I don't feel bad for not doing a whole lot of it, though. Steve just came into the office to vacuum and got distracted by the Eve game he hasn't logged out of all day. Apparently there's a lot of autopilot and he's playing with a friend who lives in New Jersey and is currently experiencing a "Wintry mix." Bastard. It's 75 degrees here. I'm in jeans and I'm hot. Guess I should do laundry.

We watched a movie called Vitus last night (http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/vitus/) about a wunderkind. It takes place in Switzerland in nowish time. The kid who plays Vitus (pronounced vee-tus) is actually a talented Pianist himself. According to the onimscient IMDB.com, he's played with the Tokyo New York City orchestra this year. At the ripe old age of 15. He's generally a genius in other ways and has a hard time with it so he tries to fly and hits his head and that solves the genius part. It's quite good.

It started and we saw this 6 year old boy play the piano as if he we a well-trained adult and who then did higher level math In His Head and I looked at Steve with the horrific thought: we both come from a long line of ridiculously smart people. Having a smart child is almost a foregone conclusion -- but having a musically/athletically/whateverally talented genius child? That's too much pressure on all of us.

Anyway, you should watch it. I've got to go corral my retarded five year old of a cat (he's 2, really, but you should treat your pets as though they're retarded 5 year olds -- all of emotion but none of the brains. They'll never get any smarter than they are) off the table, where he's eating ribbon.

tchuss!