The end of an era

I write this final NaPoBloMo post from Shawn's laptop due to the fact that he turned off my computer. Because he wanted the Christmas Tree lights to go through the Kill-a-watt thingy.

What we learned?

That the Christmas tree uses the equivalent wattage of 4 computers. FOUR!

Well then, we won't be turning THAT on very often this month.

Gingerbread Cookies

Kristie,

Thought I'd let you know, the cookies turned out pretty darn good. I ended up frosting them because I used too much flour in the "roll the dough" stage. But they are soft. and they taste good, and THAT is what matters.

Thanks so much.

Almost Done

So, we're at the end of the month, which means that we are almost finished with the posting of pointless crap everyday and we can recommence with the posting of pointless crap a few times a week instead.

Anyhoo... We've decided to do a secondary Thanksgiving meal tonight to use up left overs and some other things that we have laying around (like the butternut squash and potatoes). Of course, this means that I have to make an apple pie. Because well obviously I have to make an apple pie--because nothing can be simple for holidays as evidenced two years ago.

Black Friday

So there was no getting up at 4 am for us (thankfully). We did venture out to do some shopping, and pretty much Shawn realized that the airbrushing paint gun he wanted wasn't what he needed, the stuff I'm buying for my mom and sister would be better shipped through the company than by me buying it and shipping it, and we stopped off at the Woodcraft Store so Shawn could pick up some dyes for his new drum set coming on Monday.

I also took Quaz to the vet to have his drain tube removed. That was fun--what with the fighting to get the cat in the carrier so we could go to the vet, and then, after getting to the vet, fighting with the cat to get out of his carrier. silly little beasties.

Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day!
i'm about to start with gingerbread cookies. Then I will move into making some jello. and finally I will make the sweet potatoes that we are taking over to Lon and Daniella's tonight.

Tomorrow, we will, in all likelyhood, get up earlier than we ever would deem necessary and go hit the early morning sales. Then, we will come back home, Shawn will nap, and I will make a baby project for my coworker whose wife just gave birth to a 9 lb. 12 oz. boy yesterday.

Poor kid...this means his birthday will ALWAYS be around Thanksgiving. Which: Cool because you will always get out of school around your birthday, but Suck because you'll likely never actually have a birthday party with your friends on your birthday.

But, having your birthday around Thanksgiving is much better than having your birthday around Christmas I'm sure.

Vet visit

I dropped Quazi off this morning as a bloody/pus-y mess, and then, at 5:30, I picked up this:


All for $325.

He's got a drain tube which will be removed on Friday. Stitches that will be removed 2 weeks from today. The black patch is dead skin. He's also got some pain meds to get him through the night, and possibly tomorrow as well. The vet did give him a long acting antibiotic shot so we don't have to give him pills every day.

On the plus side he's been entertaining us by alternately falling asleep while sitting like this and walking around like he's drunk.

Going to the Vet

Sigh.

We have to take Quazi to the Vet tomorrow.

He manages to lick his wound raw every time it starts looking better. stupid stupid.

Marching Band

I never really equated marching band to being all that of a difficult thing to do...especially when you took the instruments out of the whole thing and all you were doing was marching in a straight line.

Apparently I was wrong (video at the bottom of the post...seriously, watch it):
Marching to the beat of his own drummer

Andy Dehnart at Reality Blurred has said that Dan's "limbs moved as if someone had severed part of his spine" and M. Giant of Television Without Pity likened him to "a palsied Muppet"

Whatever it was, Shawn and I spent the night attempting to march across our living room like Dan. The only problem was that apparently we don't march in a way that would make Igor, lord of the zombies, proud.

Candied Yams

This year, I am in charge of making the candied yams for Thanksgiving. Candied yams are something that my family doesn't eat, so I called my mother in law to get the recipe.

Since 90% of sweet potato recipes involve the marshmallows on top, I figured it'd be an easy enough request. After talking for a while on the phone, I brought up the candied yam recipe request. She told me she had to find the recipe and she'd get back to me.

She called back about 15 minutes later and told me the recipe she was about to give me is a recipe that everyone who has ever had it has RAVED about. She also said that my father in law requests it every Thanksgiving and usually she pooh-poohs the idea because it takes more effort than the normal recipe.

This ultimate candied yam recipe contains pineapple, maple syrup, pecans and dried apricots. It decidedly does not involve marshmallows.

When Shawn and I went to the store for our weekly shopping trip, I sent him off to get some foods and I went off to get other items. When we met up in the meat aisle, I said the only thing left on the list was dried apricots. He looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "And WHAT in God's name are those for?!"

"Your mom's sweet potato recipe."

"Are these pecans for that too?"

"Yes, and half that can of pineapple"

"I have never had this recipe ever in my life. I don't know what my mom was thinking. Just make the marshmallow version, okay?"

And this is why you'll be served the normal marshmallow version. Though to be fair, I was going to make the two versions and bring both of them...I mean really, variety is the spice of life, is it not?

Post 439

Quazi has been relegated to wearing 2 socks and a harness.

He had been without the sock for about a week when he went crazy and licked open a new wound. Which also did nothing but agitate the other one that was healing.

Because he managed to work himself around 1 sock, I added another to the mix, but he even managed to get around those this morning so I had to put his harness on him (it stops the socks from rotating and therefore allowing him access to his bald patch).

Poor cat was slinking all over the place today.

Turkeys

So, this video is a little disturbing.**

**Fair warning, the video is an interview that Governor Palin did recently in Alaska. It is an interview done right after she pardoned a turkey from becoming Thanksgiving dinner. The backdrop chosen for the interview shows a guy killing 2 turkeys. On camera.

It gets really disturbing when you get to the part at the 2:35 mark and Palin says "I was happy to participate in this...you need some levity in this job." And again at the 3:02 mark: "Certainly will probably invite criticism for this too, but at least this is fun."

Not to say that you can't take joy in your meat being killed for you while you wait, but you probably shouldn't say it on camera.

Still Sick. Still Pissed off about it

Though, I must admit, I'm not as pissed off as I expected to be. You see, I think I'm getting worse instead of better.

stupid sick! :::shakes fist at the heavens:::

So I did what any normal person would do under the circumstances. I caught up on my Heroes comic reading. I also rewatched the last 2 episodes of Heroes. And I would have watched the cast commentary too if NBC played nice with Linux, but they don't.

Anyhow. The new thing for Heroes is that you're supposed to go online and choose a side to be on--either the villians or the goodguys.

So far, the rosters are as such:
Villians: Arthur Petrelli, Miss Strauss (Ali Larter's new character), Flint, Knox, Sylar, and Elle.
Goodguys: Nathan, Peter, Mrs. Petrelli, Matt Parkman, Claire and Daphne.
Undecided: Hiro, Ando, the Haitian, Meredith, HRG, and I'm sure there are some others...

I don't know...I think I'm rooting for Sylar, Elle, Nathan, Daphne, and HRG. They shall be a new group. The group called "The interesting ones"

Extended Family

Today, when I got home, I went to get the mail. A pretty normal occurrence, I must admit. On top of the mail in the mailbox there was a blue envelope.

I pulled it out and looked at the return address.

It said Cherie and Mike.

And I thought, "Who the heck are Cherie and Mike? I don't know any Cherie and Mike."

I looked at the town, and state and thought, "Well, that's where Shawn's aunt and uncle live. But who are these Cherie and Mike characters?"

This went on for the walk from the mailbox to the kitchen.

Then it dawned on me..

Cherie and Mike. Cherie as in Shawn's cousin. Who's getting married to Mike in July of next year. DUH.

Sicky

So I stayed home sick today.

I slept from 11pm last night to 1120 am today. I teleworked from home for an hour.

I'm thawing chicken and chicken stock (from the chicken enchiladas) in the fridge and expect to have chicken noodle soup for dinner.

Now, I'm off to take a nap before Shawn comes home.

blah

starting to get sick.

just took nyquil

must go sleep.

hopefully I'll get better sleep than I did last night.

I woke up 6 times that I remember.

That means I had to have woken up at least 18 times.

The Birthday Party

So, after thinking about it, and going through my sewing notions, I found that I had a long piece of white fabric, and various amounts of brightly-ish colored fabric (all this, of course, bought back when I went crazy buying all the stuff for baby projects). So, this is what I decided to wear:Since I had to stop off at the store first, I decided it would be easier to just take the fabrics along with me and put it on at the party.

However, I got to the party and then didn't feel like putting it on. I don't know why. The funny part was that just about everyone else TRIED to at least wear something that could be considered Nicaraguan. Except for me. So there you have it. Me being different just because I can. I had actually gotten to the point where I was going to go put on my 'skirt' but then new people arrived and I didn't want the lady to think I was trying to copy her...I mean, you never know what the people from the internet will do to you if they see you trying to copy them:



And look! to prove I do have work friends and I'm not just making them up, there is photographic evidence:

Birthday Party

I am going to a birthday party tonight. A party in which I'm supposed to wear this:
Yeah...I don't own anything that looks even REMOTELY like this. So I don't know what I'm going to wear.

The funny thing about this whole thing? That I can make a simple broom skirt and in fact have done this in the past...which theoretically should mean that since I had all day, I could have easily made myself a costume.

But why make yourself a costume when you can be the only one at a costume party not dressed up?

No Name

It is windy.

Shawn is off hosting another NI wannabe. Again.

I ate at a restaurant by myself because I wanted Sopapillas that badly.

Now I plan on watching Life on Hulu.

At the Mall

I got suckered into listening to the spiel of one of those kiosk guys. Here was our conversation:

"Do your nails normally look like this?!"

"what, chewed down? yeah. that's normal."

"Oh. How frequently do you get manicures?"

"Never."

"Do you know why you don't get manicures?"

"uh...no...why?"

"Because they're expensive."

"And here I thought it was just because I chewed my nails down to nubs."

All full circle-like

Behold, for I am pretending to be Amalah. I am drunk, and I post pictures of shoes.
I guess I should explain the drunk (god, it just took me a minute to type that): we had dinner last night. A dinner that required 1/2 cup of red wine. Which I dutifully added. I expected Rick to help drink the wine, and so I threw away the cork (oh right, I didn't live-blog about Rick. Well, Rick showed up last night to help eat Lamb Ragu and Bastardized Peach/Blueberry cake). Since Rick didn't help drink the wine (okay, he had like two tablespoons), it left me to drink almost a whole bottle of Chianti. Good Chianti, I tell you what. Anyhow, last night, since I was getting up and walking around so much I knew how much I had to drink. And that left half a bottle.

So I had the remainder tonight with my Blazing Thai Noodles. The difference being that I wasn't standing up and walking around, so I didn't know how drunk I was. Until I decided to take a picture of my new shoes.

Glorious.

Veteran's Day

1:00 am: Wake up because my stupid watch somehow had the alarm set. Take 3 minutes to figure out what that beeping is. Insist on thinking, for at least 2 of those minutes, that my alarm clock is crazy and is making this weird beeping noise. Eventually realize that when I lean toward the alarm clock, the beeping gets quieter, not louder. Figure out it's the watch. Easily get it turned off. Become obsessed with making sure this never happens again and get up at 1:05 to find the instructions for the watch and un-set the damn alarm.

1:15 am: Go back to bed

7:30 am: Wake up because Shawn has to get up for work. Have a glass of juice and convince self that going for a jog is a good idea. Get dressed in jogging clothes.

7:45am: Decide to start live blogging. Spend the next 10 minutes doing this instead of jogging. Must go jog so I can come back and take a shower.

7:55am: let Quazi outside.

8:00am: realize it's raining out. leave to go jog anyhow. Because I am nothing if not stupid. Besides, now I truly know what it means for it to be suffocatingly muggy. It is because you can't breathe. It's like you're actually suffocating. Or, that could just be the jogging. I'm not sure. to be on the safe side, I should probably refrain from jogging ever again.

8:45am: get back home. Surf the internet for 30 minutes. Learn important things about why the housing market still hasn't hit bottom, why you shouldn't always trust "best of" lists, register Shawn for the No-Call list (he's been getting phone calls letting him know that the warranty on his 1982 Volkswagon is about to expire), and finally, check email.

9:15am: clean bathrooms and kitchen. Tidy up the rest of the house.

9:20am: Let IV outside

9:21am: Huge clap of thunder

9:22am: Let IV inside

9:23am: Starts pouring rain

9:30am: The Prodigal Quazums returneth and subsequently leaveth butt-print and footprint all overeth the place where food cooking commences:











9:50am: Return to cleaning the house.

10:02am: Let IV back outside

10:03am: Let Quazi back outside

10:39am: House if finished being tidied up. Now I need to get to the actual cleaning. boo.

11:36am: Cleaning the bathrooms. yippee

12:05pm: Finally finished cleaning. Now to clean myself. Yes, the life of a housewife--maybe taking a shower in the afternoon.

12:54pm: Go shoe shopping. No, really I did this.

1:30pm: Leave store sans shoes because they don't have the size I need. Must order shoes online.

1:35pm: walk into tea shop to get a drink. OOO Ginger brew! that sounds good. it must be like ginger ale!

1:37pm: OH GOOD GOD! this stuff is HORRID! It's like my mouth is on fire, but not! egads, who would even like this stuff?!

1:46pm: Throw away rest of ginger brew and leave The Domain. Drive to Whole Foods.

1:54pm: What the hell do you mean they don't have peaches? Yes I realize that it's not peach season any more, it's also not blackberry season, but you're still selling those! But the HEB is still selling peaches, so I guess that means I have to go to 2 grocery stores. DAMN! But, to be fair, the Whole Foods had their pineapples for $2.50--the HEB is still selling them for $3.99.

2:27pm: leave Whole Foods ($30 worth of food), and head off to the HEB to get the remainder of my ingredients for dinner tonight. spend another $50 on food and wine.

3:03pm: g0 home, unpack groceries.

3:04pm: NO! I forgot to buy the pasta?!?! CRAP! Well, let's see...I've got some penne in the cupboard, and pasta wheels, and elbow mac...surely one of those will work. But the little corkscrews would have been so nice...

3:07pm: mix ingredients for cake. Decide it's not worth it to get out a mixer, and decide to mix everything by hand.

3:10pm: Well...now I know why all those little old ladies have arthritis in their hands. Also, I realized I do not have 8 or 9" rounds. Well, I do have them, but they are old and rusty and disgusting looking. So I threw them away (I don't feel bad about this either since I bought them for $0.25 at the ARC when I was a sophomore in college...that was like 5 years ago. Besides, as I said disgusting). I must remember to add these to my Christmas wish list.

3:12pm: put cakes in oven to bake. Now I ought to work on the insides of the cake (roasted blueberries and peaches).

5:24pm: Finished making the insides of the cake, and immediately moved onto making the lamb ragu, which is now simmering away on the stove. I managed to only cut myself 2 times (one didn't bleed at all...I should probably have that checked out). this is the first time I've ever made the carrot/celery/onion tiny pieces mixture. so, we'll see how that turns out. I also decided to take the liberty of altering the cake recipe: 1) it told me to make a vanilla cake. So I bought a boxed version. 2) it told me to cut the cooked cake in half, fill in the innards, put the top half on and refrigerate. But lo, I don't feel like doing that so I just spread the innards on the top of the cake. I shall call it roasted peach and blueberry upside down cake. And it shall be delicious. Actually I don't know if it will be delicious. Mostly because it says I need to refrigerate the cake for a minimum of 8 hours. And it will only be refrigerated for a total of 2.

5:29pm: must find how to roast garlic for garlic bread.

5:33pm: Well, that was easy...and I can't start that until about 6:30...I guess this means I need to go clean up the federally declared disaster zone that has become my kitchen.

6:15pm: attempt to buy shoes online. Notice I said Attempt.

7:39pm: Dinner is served.

9:41pm: Cleanup commences (I transfer dirty dishes from the table to the sink, then wipe down the countertop and rangetop).

9:44pm: Watch Two and a Half Men

10:26pm: Get ready for, and go to, bed.

Connecticut

Connecticut

On Laziness

Okay, since someone ::cough, cough, Kristie, cough:: thinks I need to post about something shiny, I have some news:

I will not post about anything shiny.

I will, however, attempt to liveblog my day tomorrow since I will be home. and cleaning. and making an actual meal for once. one that includes things like vegetables. and possibly even fruit.

Of course, this liveblogging thing would be so much easier with a new phone...perhaps one of the G-persuasion.

Keep your fingers crossed.

New York City

New York

Vermont

Vermont

Boston

Boston

Presidential Pets

According to various sources, the Obamas are looking into getting a rescue dog. Which is awesome. I'm just wondering why I had to go to the BBC to find that out as opposed to our own free press.

I suspect it has something to do with if the press says "Adopt a shelter dog!" then all those breeders will get angry. But hey, it'd at least be responsible for the press to say "Adopt a shelter dog!" if not only because it's been proven that when a specific breed is in the eye of the public, EVERYONE has to have one. It happens when presidents get pets (especially if their public rating numbers are high--so the Obamas getting a dog before getting to the White House is going to be MUCH more influencial than say Bush getting a dog right now), it happens when movies come out starring our furry friends (didn't Dalmatian demand double when 101 Dalmations came out?--the live action movie, not the cartoon), it even happens when there are news reports about specific breeds.

So, here's your public announcement for the day: If you're going to adopt a pet, please, please, please think about adopting a rescue. If you want a specific breed, good news! they have these things called 'breed specific rescues' which means you can get a pure bred pet that is a rescue.

And yes, I know what you're going to say--rescues are damaged goods. But there's no guarantee that the pure breed you're going to get is going to be any better than a rescue. As with all things that come from sexual reproduction, it's really all a crap shoot.

Socks:

The new style for cats. Coming Fall '08.


Really, he isn't as pissed as he looks. He's the tolerant one. Actually, IV attacked my foot tonight because Quazi was too close to her. Amazingly she's never attacked people outside "The Family".

Enchilada Chicken

OH RIGHT, The CHICKEN!

I boiled a whole chicken (sans gizzards) for about an hour (with some sea salt, ground pepper and garlic powder) and then picked it out deboned and deskined it, then put all the bones and skin back in the pot to boil for a little longer (hey man, delicious, delicious chicken water). The edible part of the chicken went in the crockpot along with one can of Mexican Style Tomato Sauce, some smoked salt, a minced clove of garlic, a seeded and minced habanero, 2 diced smoke-dried tomatoes, a quartered onion and more ground pepper. I added some of the chicken water to make it kinda soupy so it didn't get all dried out while slow cooking the next day.

I then had a fiasco with the chicken water. I strained the water into a zip-top bag which I had put in a smaller pot for stability purposes. After I strained it and cleaned out the chicken stock pot, I went to grab the zip-top bag and realized there was a hole in the bottom so it was all leaking out. Thankfully it was all leaking out into a pot...but still, now I was going to have to clean THAT pot too. I then got out a brand new zip-top bag--one that had never been used before (yes I reuse my zip-top bags), and then poured the chicken stock into that one. As far as I know it didn't have a hole in it...I guess I should really go check the freezer, eh?

I put the crockpot full of delicious enchilada chicken into the fridge for the night and got it out this morning. I thought about adding a little more water, but decided against it because I didn't want it to get too soupy.

I should have added some water.

And it totally isn't my fault it got burned.

See, I put the crockpot on the counter, plugged it in, turned it on low and went to work. Shawn got home about an hour and a half before I did. Normally when he comes home and we're doing crockpot stuff, he'll turn off the crockpot, or at least turn it to the 'warm' setting when he comes home because it's been cooking for 8-9 hours at that time. This time he didn't do that. He even went into the kitchen, looked at the chicken, thought it looked good and then went and played on the computer for about an hour before he thought that maybe he ought to turn off the pot. When he went back into the kitchen, the top of the chicken was all black and crusty. Sigh. Thankfully it didn't taste bad and we were able to avoid the largest blackened parts.

It was MUCH better than the last time we tried this recipe (I think the key is to use a whole chicken), but it still wasn't very spicy. Next time, we'll probably leave the habanero seeds in.

Writer's Block

I'm sorry, I really must apologize for the crappy posts. I guess my heart isn't into NaBloPoMo like it was last year.

So, let's see what's in the news today:
-Obama is the new president
-80 billionty articles about how he won it and how McCain lost it. The election, not his marbles...though he is getting up there in years, maybe he ought be concerned about losing (sorry, the old geezers prefer I call it "misplacing") things.
-Michael Crichton died
-A lady ran a mile with a rabid fox attached to her arm, and then drove herself (and I assume the fox as well) to the hospital so she could get rabies treatment. This is why I don't jog. (also I just checked the BBC, this made world news)
-Duct tape was used to restrain an unruly passenger on an airline flight. It really CAN be used for everything.
-And finally, Ladies have more bacteria on their hands. I suddenly feel the need to go wash my hands.

In other news, after my post last night (or rather early this morning) I had to fashion an E-collar for Quazi. As mentioned earlier, the cat got in a fight and had a puncture wound, which was healing quite nicely. Apparently it reached the "itchy" stage of the healing process and the cat managed to lick the surrounding area bald in 24 hours. And he wouldn't stop licking. Because it started making the wound look abscessy, we decided we had to get him to stop licking, but couldn't think of how to make an E-collar with a sock, some string, half a coconut (ha, yeah right), a piece of cardboard and a collar. I ended up taking the sock and cutting the toe of off it (so now it's a sock-tube) and then strung the normal collar through that and then put it on the cat. HA! McGyver's got NOTHING on me!) Now he's got a sock bib, which occasionally gets turned around so it looks like a sock cape. But, the point is, it works. Except that he keeps drinking water and getting the sock all wet. Good thing we've got like 60 billion socks that have holes in the heels or toes.

Barack Obama: 44th President of the United States of America

1. I thought McCain's speech was very good.
2. I thought Obama's could have been a little better--in the enthusiasm department. I mean, I understand that he is inheriting a war (or two), a crappy economy, a housing crisis, and a major health care issue, but still, some happiness could have shown through. Also, his grandma died. Until further proof, I will assume that the somberness of the occasion was because of his grandma
3. Also, since the girls get a dog, I sure hope they adopt one from the pound as opposed to a pure breed. Perhaps I should write a letter to the new president telling him as such. I mean really, if he wants to show that he's for the downtrodden, the less fortunate, then he ought to start with his dog.
4. I had to call my mom and wake her up from her nap to let her know that she now lives in a blue state. A few years ago (4 to be exact), she wanted to move to New Hampshire so she could for once, just once, live in a blue state instead of a red one.
5. I don't really have a 5, I just thought the list seemed incomplete with only 4 points.

Live Blogging

I could live blog the election results, but really, what's the point? The newscaster types seem all excited about the initial reports showing that Obama and McCain are in a neck to neck race. They of course never point out that only "less than 1%" of districts are reporting. Which means that it means NOTHING until you get to at least 50% of the districts reporting.

I could also live blog boiling a chicken. But it's boiling a chicken. It's like watching paint dry.

Well, if my chicken turns out (and therefore the enchilada chicken that I'm making tomorrow), I'll let you know.

Because I'm a Total Band Geek

Today, while reading about Iron Chef America, and subsequently learning about the Iron Chefs, I learned that Mario Batali and Vic Firth worked together to create a line of Pepper Mills, Salt Grinders, and Wooden Rolling Pins.

Well, now I know what I'm getting Shawn for Christmas.

Babysitting

So I babysat last night. Which, as mentioned yesterday, consists of me sitting on the couch and watching TV since the kid I babysit is always put down for bed before the parents leave. This means that I watched two episodes of "It's me or the dog", an episode of "law and order: SVU", an episode of "little people, big world", one episode of "Trading Spaces", and one episode of "Iron Chef: America"

And it made me realize two things. 1. Alton Brown looks like a douche with his hair grown out like that. I realize that his old style was very 1990's, but still, it worked on him, and as mentioned before, it didn't make him seem like a douche.

And number 2. The "Chairman" in the American version is Mark Dacascos. Otherwise known as Mani from Les Pacte des Loups. Now, that's Hott.

NaBloPoMo

That's right ladies and gents. It's time for me to blog every day. EVERY DAY. So, prepare to be bored by...probably Monday. Yes, I know, I set my standards VERY high.

On some days, don't be surprised if I just send you on over to my garden blog. Mostly because I am lazy and I will count blogging on either as my blog entry for the day.

Now, I'm off to go babysit. I fully expect to sit on my ass and watch TV all night. While eating left over Halloween candy. And possibly working on my Christmas Stocking. That's right. It's been over a YEAR that I've been working on Shawn's Christmas Stocking and it still is not finished. Once again, it's because I set the bar VERY high.

Open Wounds

Tonight Shawn and I were sitting on the couch watching our TV shows (I want to say it was Criminal Minds) when Quazi jumps on the couch and starts snuggling with me.

This normally doesn't happen (Quaz isn't much of a snuggler), so when it does, we capitalize on it. So I'm petting him all over and scratching his neck and everything when I notice there's some matted fur on his upper right shoulder area. As I try to figure out what it is, it started falling apart and then I noticed the cat had a bald spot. And in that bald spot is a red puncture wound. It isn't infected, and it isn't bothering him, and it explains why he's smelled like ass the last coupld of days.

We cleaned it up and then started discussing when it would have happened since he hasn't been outside most of the week. That's when we realized it probably happened when he lost his collar last Saturday. It also explains why he has been sleeping more than normal and being more snuggly.

Stupid cat needs to seriously stop picking fights with other cats. Those collars and tags cost like $12 every time he loses one.

On a side note, because Quazi was getting so much attention, IV freaked out and attacked Shawn's foot. Yeah, she's got misplaced agression issues. I just find it funny how quickly Ivsie can go from being a lubby-dubby Iver wivers to a horrible she-bitch that is growling and hissing and attacking anything that comes within a foot of her.