Chester's First Hair Cut

Remember Chester?



The cat of very little brain?



The one who once tried to play with a candle and got wax all over the place, including on her own face?

Yeah, her.

She's sweet.  She's cute.  She has a lot of fur and a really puffy tail.



This evening, my kids have friends over and Boo and her friend were busy at work, creating all kinds of things out of duct tape.  We were all down in the basement and Chester had been resting quietly, but decided she needed to investigate the closet as soon as she heard me open the door.  I ruined her evening by closing the door before she could get lost deep in the depths, so she had to find something else interesting.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her suddenly take off and noticed something white attached to her tail.  It took a split second for me to survey the scene, process and realize that she had gotten duct tape stuck to her tail.

Crap.

She came flying back into the room and performed a quick STOP, DROP and ROLL to dislodge the offending tape.  Of course, that only made it worse.  She ran a few steps, stopped and tried licking it off.  When that failed, she just took off in a panicked sprint as if she was going to run so fast, it would just fall off.

Knowing the situation was dire, I sent the kids to corner her before she made it any worse.

(I laughed a lot too.)

I knew there was no way were were going to rid her of her duct tape demons without scissors.  And I hoped that it wasn't going to require trimmers.

It's a good thing the dumb cat is so docile.  Between KJ, Boo and I, we managed to hold her still and cut the duct tape out of her tail without anyone bleeding.



I hope she's learned her lesson, but I am not going to hold my breath.

Evil Genius

Chester. Allegedly a short-haired boy kitten. Turned out to be a long-haired girl kitten. Named for the brilliant cat from the Bunnicula series.

  Look at her. She doesn't look like the sharpest pencil in the box, does she? Maybe only playing with 48 cards. Elevator's not making it to the top floor. You get the idea. We routinely catch her with her tongue hanging out. I look at that face and I think how sweet she is. And how dumb she is. And my heart swells and I just want to hug her and love her and call her my own.

And then 5:30 am comes along and she shows her true colors.

I am a sleeper. I love and cherish my sleep. If I wake up one minute before my alarm goes off, I am completely irritate. I don't get up a single minute before I have to. My love of sleep is part of the reason I only had two kids. Call me a quitter, but it's the truth.

Chester thinks that she should eat at 5:30 am. I think that's bull(you-know-what.) I can normally sleep through anything. I slept through a tornado once.  It went down our street and knocked down the tree in our front yard.  But I can't sleep through my iPad being knocked off of my nightstand.

It all started a few months ago. She would come in and gently paw the plastic bag in the garbage can, making that annoying crinkly sound. I got the better of her. The garbage can now sits on top of my tall dresser. Score one for Shannon. A few days later, I heard her next to me, making this flopping noise that I could not identify. I did NOT want to open my eyes, because once she sees the whites of my eyes, it's game over. I finally figured out that she was picking up the corner of the area rug and letting it flap back down on the hardwood floor. And looking at me expectantly. I'm not sure if she is smart enough to be proud of herself, but that furry little face sure looked smug. 

She has figured out how to make noise in any way she can. She paws at the closet door. There's a shoebox under my bed that she has started eating. If you don't think listening to a cat chew on cardboard (smack, smack) at 5:30 am is annoying, I would be happy to let you cat-sit Chester for a while. Barrettes and bobby pins are a favorite. They make a fun little tinkling noise when they hit the hardwood floor. My glasses make an ever bigger noise when she knocks them off.

Locking her out of the bedroom helps, but then she just goes in and annoys the kids.  I have too much mommy-guilt to let that happen.

The morning that I thought I might kill her was the morning she knocked the iPad off the nightstand. I chased her down the stairs, muttering incoherent threats. She hasn't done that again, but I only think that is because I keep it farther from the edge.

  It hasn't kept her from trying to eat it, though.

KJ and the Deere

Let's start off with a couple of facts:

1. My lawnmower hates me.  I am quite sure that my neighbors stare and laugh as I spend 20 minutes trying to get it started, barely keeping myself from kicking it and then finally doing a happy dance when it sputters to life.  
2. It does not behave that way for my husband.
3. My husband is in India for business.
4. It has been a bizarre spring and the grass is thick and luscious and really needs to be cut.  It is March 25, 2012, for the record.

Before JJ left for his trip, I asked him is he thought there was any way the mower would run.  He looked at me like, "Not a snowball's chance in hell," but humored me by spending 30 minutes working on it before he did the other three thousand things he had to do before he left.  It did not start.  No big surprise.


Cue this beautiful Sunday and my lawn is out of control.  Rather than buy a new mower, which is what I really want to do, I instead went to my neighbor to borrow one.  My neighbors are awesome.  And sitting in the driveway is a little green John Deere riding mower.  Now, my yard is approximately 10 square feet and takes my son 20 minutes to mow it with our push-mower.  A riding mower is overkill.  But, my neighbor only had the riding mower, and was more than happy to let KJ use it.  Mind you, KJ has never driven a riding mower before.  He's really good at Mario Kart though, so this was bound to be successful.

My neighbor gave KJ a quick lesson on how to drive the thing, taught him how to turn the blades on and off and away he went.



I could not stop giggling.  First of all, I told you the lawn was thick and luscious.  Look at that grass fly!



Secondly, the mower uses two levers, not a steering wheel.  KJ drove it, not in a straight line, but more like he was testing its turning radius by weaving in and out of cones.  At top speed. At this point in time, I am howling as he tried to navigate the tiny front lawn with this lawn mower that was way too big for the job.  Start.  Stop. Back Up.  Knock over some landscaping blocks.  Turn again.  Weave across the yard.  Try not to fall off of the driveway.

As we were walking home from DQ tonight, he told me the front lawn looked like ocean waves.  I tend to agree.



One of the lessons my neighbor gave him was to pay attention to the direction the grass is coming out of the mower and try to blow it back into the yard.  That obviously worked.



Now KJ wants a riding mower so he can get the yard done in 4 minutes rather than 20.  Well, that's not bloody likely.  He did a good job for his first time, but he does need some more practice.  There are several tufts in my front yard, and my garden did not escape the wrath of KJ and the Deere. But, all in all, it was a good experience for KJ.  Now he knows the joy of choosing a tool that is way too big/powerful/fancy for a particular job.  He's on his way to manhood.

Life Lessons

See that purple splotch on the inside of KJ's mouth? That's a bruise.
How in the world does one get a bruise on the inside of one's mouth?

The answer:
Be an eleven-and-a-half-year-old boy and start finding that it is hard to control your temper.
Miss a few shots while playing basketball in the backyard.
Get totally hacked off.
Bounce the ball as hard as you can.

Forget to move your face.

To his credit, he hasn't complained once. He knows it was a bone-head move. I'm just glad it didn't get him in the nose.

I amuse myself.

We went to Great America last weekend. We have the pleasure of going every other year when J's company rents it out for an employee-only bash. It's fantastic, except for the fact that it has spoiled my kids and they have never had the soul-crushing two hour wait to ride a 90-second rollercoaster.

We always get to go as they are setting up for Fright Fest. When you first walk in, you get to walk through the "Seven Sins Cemetery." Oooooooooohhh. Our DD has always had a bit of an anger issue, and humored me enough to let me take her photo in front of the ANGER crypt.









Obviously, I then had to take a photo of DS in front of one of them. Pride sure seemed appropriate for an almost-11-year-old boy who love loves loves sports.

















So, then we kept walking and I saw the "Lust" crypt. And I thought it would be HILARIOUS if J and I took a self-portrait in front of that one. Mainly, because with both of us working, two kids involved in multiple sports and activites, an old house that needs lots of work, who has time for lust? Let's be real here.

I darn well couldn't ask the kids to take this one. So, please forgive the bad angle. It was a self-portrait, taken with my P&S, trying to do it as quickly as we could before one of the kids asked, "Hey, what's Lust?"

I am not ready to go there.