As per usual, our personal heads here at the Offices of I, Asshole have been firmly planted up the respective owner’s asses. In other words, I’ve been busy.

On Friday, Captain Vimes went in for his ballectomy, which was a success!!! Unfortunately, having him de-balled now makes no difference about whether or not he will pee in the house in places other than his designated poopidor (not to be confused with a humidor, though some cigars have reminded me of cat pee). When we went to Oregon last weekend, we closed every door in the house, except the door to the basement, which leads to his poopidors. So while we were gone, the Captain developed the charming habit of peeing down the heating vent in the kitchen. HORRORS.

Our resident ol’ lady cat-grump is partly to blame, because I happen to know she’s often in his way, growling at him. I think the other part of it is laziness and convenience. To combat this problem, I laid a piece of cardboard about the size of a record over the corner where the vent is, and covered it with loops of sticky packing tape, which of course most cats will never walk on, let alone pop a squat on. We have not had another accident, and I take him downstairs if I see him looking sniffy. Most the time he’s just sniffy, but occasionally he’s like, oh yeah, I gotta potty.

The shaved area around the incision makes his junk look extra-protuberant, just like a porno actor with shaved pubes to add that critical extra inch. Good times. I have to say, the Seattle Pound was mighty affordable, although I’m 95% certain they gave him a case of ear mites. Our other cat doesn’t have them, and doesn’t come near enough to him to transmit them anyway, and he’s still an indoor cat. So, hooray, another thing for my to-do list.

In Other News: Now I Can Rock Out with My Cock Out

Our new MP3 player came in the mails on Monday. I love my mailman here as much as I hated the one in Crown Hill. My new mailman always has a funny quip or something to say, especially since I have been getting so many packages lately. He confided to me on Saturday that he’s permanently scarred from our house because “there use to be a mean dog here and he would try to bite me when I pushed the mail through the mailslot.” How much does that suck? It explains why he flinches when I open the door sometimes.

It is awesome to have an MP3 player after wanting one for so long. I am hoping that the speakers will come today. For years, my stereo has been my computer, but now they are ensconced in the basement, so I have been suffering with Companion’s old ghetto blaster. Which, I may add, is technology I would have killed for in 1993 or so.

The drag is that I realize I have been very, very lazy, and have not been diligently ripping every CD to my computer like I should have been. Usually, if I throw something on, I rip it as I listen, but not always. To get all my records to the new player in the most expedient way possible, I need to have them all on my computer, because ripping from CD to MP3 player takes approximately 38 years per CD. For the past two days, when I can get away from the children, I have been running downstairs and switching CDs. I have a stack of about twenty left and Windows Media Player is chapping my fucking ass because it keeps making my mouse driver shit the bed, so I am in alt key/keyboard command hell. I have discovered that I can’t think very well without my mouse. Is this why some men are always touching their dicks? I’m just asking. And notice I said some men. I knew a guy who couldn’t decide what to have for lunch without consulting his personal mouse, but my friend said he was good in bed so I guess it all evens out. (For her. I didn’t believe her.)

Also, I have discovered that if someone actually saw the list of all my albums, they would probably think that the owner of the collection was severely confused at best, and suffered from multiple personality disorder at worst. I don’t think they’re calling it multiple personality disorder anymore, but I can’t be arsed to alt-tab, mouse wiggle, Windows-key my way over to Google. I think you should know I usually look these things up when I write.

Anyway, Radio SJ should be pretty interesting. Do I want to just hit “shuffle” if John Blow could be followed by Nine Inch Nails, which could be followed by The Long Winters and then The Jazz Messengers? Discordant much? When I was a superior record store snob, I really hated people like me. Now…eh. I guess I will smarmily snap back to my eighteen-year-old self that it’s okay to have different moods.

And now, after my rampant buying spree of an MP3 player, little pants for it to wear so it doesn’t get scratched up, and speakers, I, with dread in my heart, looked at our bank account online today to see how burned we were. And you fucking know what? We weren’t burned at all. Because it was In Our Budget.

I have spent so many years cringing when it’s time to look at the accounts that it’s ingrained in me, probably for forever. It was just early 2003 that I was deciding to not feed myself so little toddler Franny could have breakfast before I went off to grad school and she went off to Supa’s house, who fortunately, had food. I remember writing entries back then with my stomach growling, and wanting to tell you, but I was too embarrassed to commit the words to the Internets that would say that my husband just wasn’t going to work. I almost applied for food stamps.

And this morning, after looking at the accounts and seeing that we can buy groceries and go to the farmer’s market to buy some fruit, where just last year at the point Companion and I would pay bills, buy food and have five dolla and nineteen cents left over, at which point we would say, “Shall we tonight experience the delights of counting the cracks in the ceiling again while the baby howls?” I tell you, I cried this morning when I saw there was enough for food and then some.

Companion observed that I cry both when we have enough money and not enough money, which I suppose qualifies me as being a Difficult Woman. I tried to take advantage of the fact that I was crying and he was comforting me.

Me: *sniff* Will you buy me a chinchilla coat?
Companion: (Stops patting my back.) What? A chinchilla coat? Isn’t that basically rabbit fur? Are you serious?
Me: Lil Kim has one. And Paris Hilton.
C: These are arguments in FAVOR of me buying you a chinchilla coat? What is chinchilla, exactly?
Because we are librarians, there was an immediate scuffle for the dictionary.
Me: Says here it’s a South American rodent with grey fur.
C: So, basically, a South American rat.
Me: Maybe I could just hunt my own, and sew a coat myself. But I would get bored with my project and just end up with a cape, I’m sure.
C: Do you really want one?

I love this guy. Still trying to ascertain if I’m serious after all the Paris Hilton and cape business. I couldn’t have invented a better straight man if I worked at it for twenty years.

In conclusion, being poor makes you weird forever, but FUCK A DUCK PEOPLE, I could probably fill a book with the ways I am not normal already.