LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Drawings

Fine, except for the attempted murder

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So, the Illinois presentation is done. I didn’t barf, and the people I presented with, Thad and Annette, carried me along so all was well.

Except for almost killing Kim.

Kim was getting a ride with us from Lincoln, as she was giving her own presentations and we like her very much. Annette drove for quite a long way, but when we stopped in Shelbina, which is by Shelby and Shelbyville*, she said someone else could drive.

Anyway, in Shelbina I volunteered to drive. We stopped for gas, got some snacks, and got in. I heard noises from the back that I thought were doors closing, and started to drive away.

Um…… Kim was not in the car.

Well…..her head was, but not the rest of her.

Annette’s yell brought the car to a screeching halt and all the blood drained from my body as I looked back and saw Kim’s rightfully shocked face.

Dang dang dang.

She is the most forgiving person on earth, though, and even came up to the driver’s side door, opened it, and gave me a hug. (Thad thought she was doing it to deck me.)

Sooooooo….. Aside from nearly killing an educational treasure, yeah – it was a good trip.

* They are not super-original about naming their towns around here. We passed by a Mechanicsburg. Really.

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Curiously ineffective

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So, that water gun I bought that is so amazing? Well, it turns out that it is nearly as useless as the squirting dinosaurs as far as the kittens are concerned. They just take it, soaking up squirts and squirts, then lazily climbing down to lick it off, saying, “Thanks for the drink, lady.”

Lloyd’s comment is, “Great, we’re raising cats who aren’t afraid of water.”

By the way – I am aware that the second kitten in that drawing looks like a monkey. Or a squirrel.

Drawing is hard.

Not all they’re cracked up to be.

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Had you asked me as a little girl if I’d like to have a cat who had
kittens, I would have gleefully jumped and down and perhaps squealed.

Had you asked me as an adult three months ago – same reaction.

When I actually had Princess Batman, crazy unstable cat? Still hopeful.

Now?

Oy.

It is not all that it is cracked up to be. The messes – oh, the
messes. Yes, I understand that they are just babies and this is a
phase and soon many of them will be gone and I will look back on this
time with the pleasant gift of amnesia and remember it fondly, but
currently I am living in a high state of rage most of the time.

The big factor now is that a few weeks when it was cooler and humid,
we left the windows open all the time, and the humidity must have
released uncleared Cricket pee smell from the subfloor in the play
area, and PB found it and was peeing there at night. GAAAARRRR! Now NO
ONE comes to the upper level until this is fixed. Carpet out, doses
and doses of specialized cleaner and a coat of primer tomorrow.

Carpet, pad, and baseboard out. Three soakings of enzyme cleaner. Primer tomorrow.

Then there is just the constant little stuff, like how they decide –
as a group – to start screaming for no reason:
“What do we want?”
“We don’t know!”
“When do we want it?”
“NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!”

Or, screaming when they poop. Honestly. “I’m pooping! I’m pooping! Meow! Meow! It’s coming out of my butt! Alert! Alert!”

We have been using World’s Best Cat Litter (Multiple Cat formula), but
bought a couple of bags of regular formula last week, and all of a
sudden it started to smell like vomit on Saturday, which threw me into
yet another weeping rage fit. (I’m a little hormonal, too, so it’s not
just the cat stuff.) It was all dumped and replaced with different litter. ‘Bye, money. Hello, cobbled-together fan system.

Here is the kennel, with a fancy new ventilation system.

Oh, and I can’t sweep the floor (once a day) or scoop the litter boxes (three times a day) without five demon ‘helpers’ leaping and attacking my cleaning implement. “Get it! Get it from her hand! Give us back our poops, copper!” “Just take them out of the room,” I hear you say. Well, you try getting five kittens to stay anywhere, even with a door between you! Take two out, close the door, take two more, edge door open and set them out, one darts back in. See how this math works?

Oh, and the counters. They are locked in the bathroom at night but get to run around the first floor during the day, because five kittens in a bathroom 18 hours a day would be cruel, so they get on the counters. I can squirt them with a dinosaur when I’m here, but have to rely on tape loops when gone. Tape loops, you are letting me down.

They leak.

Oh, and Princess Batman, who has stomach issues, still doesn’t cover her poops. Neither does Christopher Robin, who has inherited her mother’s stupidness, scratching at the sides of the litter box, thinking that it’s getting the job done. (Princess Batman lives in the basement during the day so she doesn’t corrupt the others.)

So, while there are steps being taken to make it all better, surely I’m
allowed to have a little pity party with my First World problems, right?

Be vewwy vewwy qwuiet….

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Yep, that’s an old drawing. I’m recycling the picture from 3 1/2 years ago. Hi, dead Pfennig. A new mean cat is about to explode kittens all over your house. Sorry.

My stomach has been trying to kill my throat the past week, and my voice is paying the price. (I’ve been off my medication for a month. First it was just laziness and not refilling the prescription, then it was thinking that I had this GERD thing beat. Nope. I suspect it might be the yoga. I’m bending over and dumping acid into my esophogus. Oh, the quandry!!!)

Lloyd is visiting his folks this weekend so I am having a voiceless 48 hours and gettin’ stuff done. I think I have a real shot at getting the house clean in a Lloyd-is-a-robot-maid kind of way!

What are you doing today?

Pfennig’s about to roll over.

Shopping here is frustrating

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I love my job, don’t get me wrong, but if there’s anything more frustrating than playing Uno with preschoolers, it’s having a 3-year-old with a toy cash register.

They hold all the power, and they know it. (fist shake) They can play the game and make it go on forehver.

A typical scenario will go like this. We’ll use Hunter, since you’re familiar with his work.

Hunter (plunks down the cash register across the table from me): You wanna buy someting?

Me: Sure. What do you have? (I always ask this because I’m never sure what kind of store I’m in. Plus, I know what’s coming.)

Hunter: We have food, toys or Legos.

Me: Legos, please.

Hunter: We’re out of Legos.

See what he did there? They all do that. If I just ask for something, they’re out. If I ask ‘What do you have’, whatever it is on the list that I want – they are out of it. They outgrow this by 4, but the 3’s are positively drunk with the power of making me wait for my goods and/or services. Let’s try Evie at her restaurant:

Evie: What do you want to drink?

Me: What do you have?

Evie: We have coffee, milk, pop and juice.

Me: I’ll have some coffee, please.

Evie: We don’t have any coffee.

Me: Ok, milk then.

Evie: We’re out of milk.

Me: What do you have again?

Evie: pop, milk, juice, coffee

Me: I’d love some juice.

Evie: We’re out.

Me: …..Can I speak to a manager?

I do eventually get to buy something, but the price is astronomical. My Legos, when I eventually got them, were five money. Hmmmph. I remember when you could get them for one money.

Terrible Memories with Lauren – The Hallway

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For a while when I was a kid, my bedroom was at the far end of the hallway in our ranch-style house. (Our family switched bedrooms around during our time there, but this was where I slept for the largest life-scarring portion of my childhood.) Across the hall was the bathroom…

…. and then…

… at the end of the hall….

…. was the living room.

Oh, that terrible dark, vast space with its shadowy danger – so full of monsters and murderers! Why, oh, why did I have to pee so bad?!? If I had known how to curse, I would have cursed my teeny-tiny bladder and its inability to hold my Kool-Aid until morning. I’d try and run across the hallway, but become paralyzed by fear, tottering along as slow as shark chum.

The worst part was how some idiot architect thought it would be a great idea to put the light switch to the bathroom out in the hallway, costing an extra life-risking second of fumbling in the dark. No quick door slam of safety for me, no sir. That beam of light was going to spotlight me for the bloodthirsty ghouls and make easy pickings of my little Holly Hobbie-clad butt.

I should have just wet the bed.