Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Search Results for: lizard, cat

Now Playing At The House Of Ryan: One Woman, Three Cats, And A Lizard:

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“The guts and the glory”.

It was only by the grace of God that “the guts” did not win, (although not from any lack of trying on Tigger’s part), NOR did I have to touch a lizard.

Although that was a close one.

Me (on an emergency phone call with my husband who, unhelpfully, is at work): “OK, I’ve gotten the cats out of the bedroom, and the lizard is trapped under the dirty laundry on the bathroom floor.”

My husband: “OK, well, can’t you just scoop it up?”

Me: “No, I can’t ‘just scoop it up’! I’M NOT A BOY!”

Week In Review A La Twitter

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Sunday

The zipper refuses to stay up on my new shorts. Nothing like finding out you’ve just bought yourself a new pair of slutty pants.

Monday

My Relentless Emails Of Terror have triumphed victorious!, and husband’s business trip to Mexico has been canceled.

Feline pill pockets are my boyfriend.

Tuesday

Dear Future Me: Days with fibro pain are NOT the optimal times for “growing your business”.

Wednesday

Hey Lizard! I’m trying to help you live, but you’ve gotta meet me halfway here, and stop running TOWARDS my cat. That won’t end well for you

I just explained the concept of object pronouns IN Spanish AS the fibro meds kicked in AND made sense. I am a rock star .

Thursday

To my slutty pair of shorts: It’s just me and the cats here so it’s really not gonna do you any good to continue randomly unzipping yourself

Friday

As the school year draws to a close I must now take up the mantle of my summer job: Person Who Protects Porch Lizards From My Cat, Tigger.

Saturday

Just heard that next door neighbor’s BDay party includes a “reptile wrangler.” Because apparently, they hate me.

Just Because You’re Paranoid, That Doesn’t Mean They’re Not After You

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I’m fast arriving at the conclusion that my husband and I need to start communicating with each other in some kind of secret code, because I’m pretty sure that all of our conversations are being tapped. Not by another person, but by all the appliances, bath fixtures, and automobiles that surround us.

Because last week my husband had to go on a business trip, again, and as soon as he was out the door and on the plane, something broke in our house-again.

I don’t understand how they are able to time these things so perfectly. I can only imagine that, late at night when all the mammals are asleep, they call together their little coven of destruction for a planning meeting.

“Hey,” hisses the ice maker, pretending to form cubes, “he’s leaving again tomorrow. What’re we gonna do this time?”

“Hm,” muses my laptop. “How about mysterious brown goo seeping out of the washing machine?”

“No, we did that one already.”

“I know!” yells the kitchen faucet triumphantly. “How about a inexplicable loss of power affecting only the back 3 rooms of the house, leaving her uncertain as to whether or not everything is fine, or whether or not the house is only minutes away from exploding in a Giant Fireball Of Death?”

“Nope, did that one too.”

“Tiny lizard head popping up under her ottoman at the moment his plane lands in another state?”

“Already done.”

“Exploding transmission as she’s hurtling down I-85?”

“Well we tried to do that,” says the ice maker, shooting a dark glance in the direction of the garage, “but when it happened he was with her and he took care of everything. So, no more car plans.”

(The Explorer hangs its head in shame.)

And on and on it goes.

But this time they crossed the line, because this time, THIS TIME, they went after my bathtub.

And of all the appliances and fixtures we have here in our house, the bathtub is the one thing that has helped keep me sane and brought me some measure of relief during this season of excruciating pain. I REALLY NEED MY TUB.

That is why, when the mysterious hissing noise began, I was unable to deal with the possibility that something was wrong with my beloved bathtub. So instead I fell back on my Number One Rule For Dealing With Life:

“When in doubt ignore it, because it’s probably not as bad as you think it is; plus, it will probably go away on its own.”

Incidentally, this is the reason I’m no longer allowed to be by myself, alone and unsupervised, when my husband goes out of town on business. Which means we have a lot of conversations like this:

My husband: “So my mom will be here tomorrow afternoon, and will stay with you until I get back on Friday.”

Me: “You know, I was going to tell you that I really don’t need your mom to come down after all, because I was sure that I was a lot better.”

My husband: “Oh, really?”

Me: “Yeah. But then I was too tired to put the ice packs back in the freezer all by myself, and so I’ve spent all afternoon waiting for you to get home so that I could get some new ice for my joints. So then I thought, maybe I won’t tell him that after all.”

My husband (exhibiting an HEROIC ability to control his sarcasm): “Good thought.”

It’s just that I have such a hard time being in so much pain so often, and so lots of things (such as The Truth) get a little garbled between the time I experience them and the time I express them to other people.

Some people refer to this as, “being a lying sack of shit,” which is often the case. But I don’t think that’s the only explanation. I think that part of the problem is also that, somewhere along the line, my measure of what is reasonable and unreasonable got a little skewed, and is not actually scaled for humans, but rather matches up to some other kind of creature, like a woolly mammoth, perhaps, or a velociraptor.

This is the only thing I can think of that could possibly explain why I endured severe diarrhea and dehydration FOR TWELVE DAYS last year before seeking medical attention, because, to my mind, it was “probably not a big deal.” (“Well, stegosaurus wouldn’t go to the doctor for something silly like this.”)

Happily, I found a plumber who made emergency house calls, much to the chagrin of all my appliances (“T Rex wouldn’t have called a plumber for something as silly as this!”), my husband was able to fix the water damage, and we’re down to about 4% remaining musty smell. Which has freed up tons more time for me to grossly overestimate my level of wellness, and concoct completely insane plans for how to spend my days (“Hey, you know what sounds like fun? Triathlons!”).

But first, I could really use a nice, hot bath.

Thursday Thirteen #10: 13 Things I Find Myself Saying With Alarming Frequency

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Thirteen Things I Find Myself Saying With Alarming Frequency

1. Ew, Pip’s making out with my chair again.

2. Tigger, you have PLENTY of food!

3. The couch/the carpet/my leg is NOT a scratching post!

4. Pip, get your head out of my shoe!

5. And you better not have left anything gross behind!

6. Tigger, stop humping Pip!

7. You don’t even have those parts anymore, dude!

8. Tiggers DO NOT go in washing machines.

9. Um, hello, you’re not supposed to be up here.

10. PPBBLLFFTT! (Cat ass in the face.)

11. Are the aliens poking you guys with sticks again?

12. Tigger, what did I say about bringing lizards inside the house?

13. Ow! Your tiny claws are very painful!

(leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)



Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Hot Sticks

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As I believe I’ve mentioned here once or twice, we live with three cats. We love them for so many reasons, not the least of which is that they provide us with so many hours of entertainment with the wacky things they do, and then we get to say things like, “Well, it looks like the aliens are beaming messages into their brains again.” Because really, what other explanation is there for those times when they awaken from a dead sleep because, “My God, I must lick my own ass 75 times in a row RIGHT NOW!”

Additionally, having cats gives us the opportunity to refer to other creatures in the third person, as in, “The Bailey just pooed in the tub again,” or, “The Tigger just captured another lizard and is ‘playing’ with it in your office.” I have no idea why we do this. Perhaps it’s not actually the cats’ brains that the aliens are after. (Mwa-ha-ha! We’ve gotten the humans to refer to the felines in the third person. By next month they will be referring to them as, “Your Royal Highnesses, The Supreme Rulers Of The Universe”!) [Read more…] about Hot Sticks

Great Imponderable Mysteries of the Universe #3

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This is our screened in porch, where the cats spend most of their time.

tail

This is our backyard.

tail

Notice the absence of any large bodies of water.

tail

This is our screened in porch from the outside. See how there’s nothing underneath it?

tail

So having shown you all of this, I know that when I tell you that recently I was unable to make the cats come into the house because they were fascinated with a creature who had come inside our porch to visit with them, you will of course say, “Well clearly that visitor was a frog!” And you would be right! (Apparently all the local lizards were busy that day.)

Because an enclosed porch in the middle of suburban Atlanta with no water in sight is The First Place a person would check when they are looking for a frog.

Not.

(PS-As awesome as it would have been to get a picture of this, I was unable to due to my freaking out at the appearance of wildlife on my screened in porch and my yelling for my husband. And while I could have then snapped a quick shot once my husband was in control of the situation, the poor frog had been covered with so much cat hair that we were afraid it was suffocating, and my husband had to dunk it in the birdbath as quickly as possible in order to revive it.)

Not So Much Funny As Cool

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, my husband and I live outside of Atlanta, in one of the many suburbs here in Northern Georgia. We do see a lot of wildlife here, but it is all pretty much what I consider to be Regular Wildlife. Things like dogs, cats, birds, squirrels (the bane of my cat, Tigger’s, existence), lizards, rats, and snakes. Anything else I classify as Exotic (what can I say? I’m a city girl.)

Once when he was mowing the lawn my husband found a turtle and called me outside to come and see it. I was fascinated with the turtle, and stared at it for a very long time, much like an infant who has just discovered that, “Wow! Not only do I have a foot, but I can put the entire thing in my mouth whenever I want to!” I insisted on taking pictures of it before we released it into the wild (AKA-the other side of our backyard fence), and I often wonder what happened to it and where it went after it left us.

However we do live next door to a great couple with a fabulous backyard garden. I refer to it as “The Corn”, because to me it is exactly like the magical cornfield in the movie, “Field of Dreams”: you never know just what might come walking out of there.

When we first moved into our house 7 years ago, before they built the neighborhood behind us, it was not uncommon to see the occasional deer amble by my window. And (and this is my favorite), there are rabbits that live back there. One of my favorite moments each year is the first time I see the bunnies again in spring. Unfortunately for my husband, this year’s moment occurred while we were talking on the phone. “BUNNIES!” I announced, causing him to temporarily lose all hearing so that the rest of our conversation had to be conducted via smoke signals.

I love the rabbits, especially when they come over to our backyard for a visit. So much so that all last summer I did nothing but watch as they devoured Every. Single. Hosta in our backyard. My attitude was not so much irritation as fascination: “Can they really fit an entire hosta leaf in their mouth all at once?” (Important Side Note: Yes, they can!)

So yesterday I was once again sitting in my office talking on the phone, when I saw something out the window that caused me to utter a very loud expletive. One that would have been appropriate if, say, masked intruders had suddenly entered my home and forced me, at gunpoint, to work on a math problem. Because all of a sudden, from out of The Corn there appeared…A Fox. A FOX! Right here in my suburban neighborhood!

It was so cool, and when I told my friend on the phone she thought it was cool too. But she lives in Colorado, and in my mind I imagine that (being part of The West) as a place where you can routinely find foxes ambling down the street, along with tumbleweed, coyotes, and men in chaps with big gold “Sheriff” stars pinned to their leather vests.

And the best part? She said that, to her knowledge, they are not carnivores. But they might eat rodents. And possibly even the occasional snake.

So there you have it. Our own little circle of life.

And The Universe Laughed

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Yesterday I decided that I had had enough of the muscle in my leg that had been twitching non-stop for two days. Since the “doing nothing” option really hadn’t helped it at all, I thought that maybe doing some yoga and stretching it out might. However practicing yoga always means I need a special strategy for dealing with the cats because, in addition to watching us clip our toenails, yogurt, and swaggering through the house knocking over all our trash cans, they are obsessed with my yoga equipment. I have absolutely no idea why this is; all I know is that there is a substance on earth more seductive and alluring to cats than catnip, and it is The Material That Yoga Mats Are Made Of.

But my practice yesterday was, for some reason, surprisingly cat-free. “How nice,” I thought.

“A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” That was the sound of the Universe laughing, because the Universe knew something that I did not.

Specifically it knew that my husband was about to call me, and that at the exact moment I picked up the phone to hear him tell me that his plane had landed safely in a whole other state, I would see peeking out from under the ottoman the teeny, tiny, terrified head of a lizard that my INDOOR cats had somehow found, caught, and brought inside for a play date.

Fortunately my husband has a PhD in Talking His Hysterical Wife Through Difficult Situations Over The Phone, and was able to guide me through capturing the lizard and releasing it back into the wild. Although I have to say that it pretty much undid all the good relaxation work I had just done in my yoga routine.

And you know how lizards have that defense mechanism where they can detach their tails in order to escape predators? (Important Side Note: Although I have to say, from my extensive experience over the past year, that that feature is apparently completely useless when facing cats.) Well, when I finally got the little guy back outside I noticed that he was very stubby looking, due to the fact that he was missing his entire back end. And I still haven’t found that part of him yet.

But I will definitely be needing something a little more powerful than yoga when I do.

Jenny’s Second Law of Feline Dynamics

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I found this “official” definition of entropy on a physics website the other day: “Entropy is the measure of the disorder or randomness of energy and matter in a system. Both energy and matter in the Universe are becoming less useful [and farther away from perfect order] as time goes on.”

Here’s what entropy looks like if you live with cats.

Entropy: A Layman’s Definition-“The perfect order you create in your home to welcome weekend guests will immediately begin to increase in randomness and disorder as you are forced to deal with one cat who poos in the tub, one cat who throws up on the kitchen table, and one cat who runs through the house brandishing what looks like a lizard’s tail, all before 11:30 in the morning.”

Can You Hear Me Now?

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Over the last few days I’ve had a number of encounters with lizards. This is unusual for me because, one, I stay inside a lot, and two, I generally only notice the cute and furry kinds of animals, like kitties and bunnies. But all of a sudden lizards are turning up everywhere, both literally and figuratively.

Last week I was talking to one of my coaches about how much I love summer, saying that I felt like a lizard just lying on a rock and soaking up the sun. The very next day I was walking down my driveway, and suddenly I came upon a lizard, just lying on the concrete and soaking up the sun. It was very synchronistic and deeply meaningful, right up until the time my husband came home from work and declared that it was not actually sunning itself, but in fact was dead.

So I kind of forgot about lizards until they came up again today, twice. Then I thought that maybe someone, somewhere was trying to send me a message, so I did a little research on animals to see what lizards represent.

However the entertaining part of this story is not in the actual message itself, but rather in the method of its delivery. Apparently whoever was sending me this message decided that I wasn’t listening very well, so they decided to “kick it up a notch”-or two-on the drama scale.

First we discovered that the driveway lizard was actually alive, when he leaped into the air and ran away the moment my husband touched him with a shovel, in preparation for burying him. Then this afternoon, as I was talking to another coach on the phone and sharing my whole me-as-a-lizard metaphor, I saw my cat, Tigger, triumphantly trotting inside with a lizard dangling from his mouth.

Rather than dwell on just how creeped out I was, I will hasten to assure you that the lizard was unharmed and was safely returned to the wilds of suburban Atlanta, although it did involve a very frantic lizard rescue operation, and I may never feel comfortable walking barefoot in my kitchen again.

I’m definitely paying attention now.