Ways NOT to start your morning

I love my cat.  She's orange and white and loving and aloof and likes to sleep on my lap.  But she has one really horrific habit which I'm sure served her well when she was forced to fend for herself before we adopted her, but now is totally unnecessary: she is a fabulous hunter.

Apparently her mother must have taught her well, because she continues to hone her technique every day when it's above freezing outside.  We've gotten used to the various mouse and chipmunk and even occasional bird carcasses on the garage steps.  Even the bloody remnants of such don't phase me anymore.  We just put whatever's left in the trash can, because it's usually not much anyway.  Girl doesn't kill just for sport, she eats it every time, despite the fact that she's grossly well-fed by us.  

But this morning when I let her out, I didn't expect her to show up at the back porch door carrying some sort of furry creature ten minutes later.  Initially it looked like a hedgehog, with it's dark hair ticked with cream.  When she saw me and dropped her offering, I saw the ears - a small wild bunny.  It wasn't a baby, but it wasn't a full-grown adult either, which means there are probably still more of them out there for her to mow down.  Usually when she brings us her kill I just scratch her ears and let her inside so I can get rid of it without her seeing.  But today I couldn't keep her inside.  She kept escaping and walking around it, stepping over it, sniffing it, pawing at it.  I ended up cuffing her ear a couple of times to get her away from it so I could pick it up with the shovel and take it back to the woods to bury it.  Luckily, after I picked it up, she lost interest and went off to find something else to hunt while I cursed the ground for being so damn hard and full of rocks.  The grave ended up being about ten inches deep because the shovel refused to go any further.  I'm sure Soldier could have done better with his manly biceps and muscular back but he's at work and this had to be dealt with before the kids saw it.  The last thing I need is a houseful of children traumatized by the spoils of the seemingly-sweet-as-pie cat's morning affairs. 

I'm still kind of traumatized myself.  That bunny was a little of over half the size of my cat herself.  It's poor sweet little body was so limp it almost brought me to tears.  I don't have much sympathy for the mice or birds because frankly, I don't much care for either, but bunnies are such precious, soft little innocents that I found this morning's hunt rather wanton and heartless, although I'm sure that's not how my cat saw it.  She saw what amounted to a Christmas ham, for her.  But there was no way I was going to allow her to tear into it; I'm just glad I happened to see it before she had the chance. 

It's all part of country life, I suppose, but not the best way to start your morning.  

Never do this

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER tell anyone how great your day is going.  Don't say it, don't write it, don't text it, don't even THINK it, because if you do, you are absolutely bound to get knocked upside the head so hard you'll fly sideways.

Learn from me, people.  I did this very thing today and less than 20 minutes later the baby hit his brother on the temple with an aluminum baseball bat.  It was an accident, of course, but it's the kind of accident that stops your heart for a few beats.  Luckily, licensed medical professionals in white coats determined that he was fine (at least for now) and sent us on our merry way with instructions to watch for symptoms and wake him every couple of hours tonight.  I decided it was ok to start breathing again, so we came home and had pizza.

Spring and today's agenda

What do you do on a beautiful, blue-sky-with-no-clouds-and-60-degrees-day? Why, take your monkeys to a movie, of course.

It's unseasonably warm here, as it has been in most of the country this year.  Our weatherman told us yesterday that we would have "May in March."  Which sounds marvelous.  But if we're having May in March, then what will we have in March? July? and if we have March in July, then we'll have August in June, which can only mean that in August we'll have Hell. I'm a fan of warm weather, don't get me wrong, but when the mercury tops triple digits for several days in a row, it's not so much fun at the pool anymore, and you end up at the library instead.  Or the movies.  Which is where we're going today on this lovely afternoon that we should be spending outside because I told my older two we'd go see The Lorax this weekend, and this is the last day of the weekend and I refuse to pay anything but matinee prices for the movies anymore.  This afternoon's excursion will top out somewhere around $40.

Then I get to take them all to the sporting goods store to pick up a new glove, pants, socks, and shoes for the middle one, who starts baseball again this Saturday.

I'm just going to have to bitch about something here for a minute: his practices are on Fridays, from 6-8, and Saturdays, from 12-2.  This is enough to make me want to pull him out of baseball entirely.  Not only are they making us give up our Friday nights, but then they take it one step further and destroy any hope of doing ANYTHING AT ALL on Saturday by scheduling practice in the exact middle of the day.  Thus, because he is only seven and I can't just drop him off and pick him up, my two favorite days of the week are now completely screwed for the next two months.  Supposedly, the coaches didn't choose these practice times, they were assigned them, which I admit is believable, given the extreme incompetency of our kids' league out here.  (The coupons for free fast food that were handed out with the candy-bar fundraiser stock expired months ago, for one example.  Bit of an obstacle there when said coupons were supposed to be used as a selling point to move the chocolate.)  But frankly, there could not possibly be any worse time to have practices. At. All.  I am seriously going to file a complaint with the league, and probably piss off a lot of people, but you know me.  If you're going to destroy my Friday night availability to go out for dinner or to Barnes and Noble or even just play on Pinterest while my kids watch the newest Clone Wars episode, then you better damn well leave my Saturdays free.  I HATE this league, but since we live out in hillbilly country, it takes too much time and fuel to drive to another town two or three times a week for practices and games.  Besides, he's seven; it's not like he even cares how good the league is.  He just wants to PLAY.  The kid is a natural athlete, in the true sense of the word: he just loves to be outside, with some type of ball in hand.  I'm not going to deny him that, even if it means putting up with the ABSOLUTE WORST kids' league I have ever encountered.  But I am exceedingly mad about it.  My older son even elected not to play this year, because last year the league officials thought it would be hilarious to put all the naturally gifted boys on the same team and farm the rest of them out among the other six, which is unfair enough, but for some reason, they set the schedule such that my son's team had to play the gifted team FOUR times.  And predictably, lost all of them.  They also got rained out six times and ended up playing two triple-headers.  Nine-year-olds can't play triple-headers.  They get dehydrated and exhausted and stop caring. The last straw was when he swung with every bit of force in his body and got an incredible hit that would have been an out-of-the-park home run (it had that much force behind it) had not some kid in the outfield from the gifted team (who was confirmed to be two years older, by the way) reached waaaaaaaaay up and caught it before my son had even had a chance to reach first base.  That was it.  He was done.  With the entire sport.  I can't say I blame him.  Everything about last season was totally and completely unfair to his entire team.  His coach was ok, but the league destroyed any hope of any of the kids enjoying the season at all.  When they handed out trophies to all the kids at the end of the season, he almost gave his back.  He didn't want it.  I convinced him to keep it, but let him put it up where at least he wouldn't have to look at it.  It meant less than nothing to him.

His little brother, on the other hand, was seemingly oblivious to the (even worse) atrocities visited upon his own team last year, including the fact that they were not even allowed to play on a real field as they were told they would, but instead relegated to an empty expanse of grass and given cheap lightweight foam bases and a four-foot-tall chain-link three-paneled portable backstop to use for games.  Every single parent had a fit.  The league president did nothing but shrug his shoulders and say "that's all I can do."  He ended up quitting, no doubt from the onslaught of parental fury, but I can't say the new guy is much better so far.  But amidst all this mayhem, my son's only complaint was that they wouldn't let him run the bases.  He could hit the ball strong and hard, and run like the wind, and they always made him stop at first base, because "it would be unfair to the other kids if he was allowed to get home run after home run."  Lest you fall out of your chair at the outrageousness of this policy, let me assure you that they applied it to ALL the kids in his level, which was coach-pitch.  And now you probably have not only fallen out of your chair but also thrown your laptop or tablet against the wall at such ludicrousness.  As did we.  But there was nothing we could do about it, and since his coach felt his pain, he was allowed to play catcher, which he loved, and which made up for it somewhat.  This year I've confirmed that, in machine-pitch, he will be allowed to play by regular rules and rack up as many home runs as he can hit.

If I can get through the next two months without shredding someone at the league, it will be a miracle.

Has it really come to this?

 I know it's hard not to be bitter when dealing with a person who lies and/or cheats. But ladies, please, take the high road.  Don't go online or take out an ad in the paper or staple notices on the local utility poles about how much you hate the guy, or drag out every little detail of his infidelity, or list all the lies he told you and/or everyone else.  I have to say, I am shocked a website like that is actually permitted to exist.  The potential for slander is so extreme on that kind of a website that I cannot believe it hasn't been shut down, to say nothing of the immaturity level it displays.

Yes, yes, I know, the supposed point of the website is to "warn" other people about these individuals and their bad behavior.  And some people, indeed, seem like they ought to come with a warning label tattooed on their faces.  But if what they've done isn't considered illegal or a threat to someone else, but just hurtful and/or stupid, don't air it to the world.  Remember that Golden Rule you heard at some point while growing up?  This is a good time to follow it.

Some people do stupid things.  Some people do stupid things with abandon.  Some people do stupid things and regret them.  Some people don't do stupid things, but have bitter, shallow exes who enjoy ruining other people's lives by making up falsehoods about them.  And I can guarantee that all of these kinds of people are well-documented on that website.  

Look, if you've been (or are currently) with one of the first two types of people on the above list, you have two choices: take it or leave it.  Literally.  Either put up with it or walk away from it, but whichever you choose, shut up about it.  No one besides your mother, sister, or best friend is going to care about what he did anyway, and spouting off to the public at large only makes YOU look like the fool, not him.   If you must vent, (and we all must from time to time), there's a time and a place for it, and that's in a private conversation with your therapist, mother, sister, or best friend.  

If you've been (or are currently with) one of the latter two types of people on said list, you have no business dragging their name through the mud to begin with.  If you publicly shred someone's character with falsehoods, you'd best expect the same fate yourself.  

I don't really empathize with either party in this guy's lawsuit (they both seem childish and vengeful), but I do hope it brings about the end of such blast-your-ex forums as the one she posted on.  It's bad enough when people take to facebook to rip someone apart, but at least that's (usually) limited to a select group of people, and not searchable on a major search engine.  Just because the tabloids get away with defaming someone's character (and they don't always get away with it-they lose plenty of lawsuits themselves) doesn't mean you will.  Even if what you write is true, it still makes you look petty for making it public, not to mention the revenge acts that might follow.  

I know, politicians and Charlie Sheen tear people apart publicly all the time.  But before you're tempted to follow their shining examples, remember what the majority of people think about them.  And ask yourself if that's how you really want to be seen as well.  

Why yes, I'll take some of that...

Today's forecast:  partly sunny, 87 degrees.

....oh wait, that's Turks and Caicos, where I wish I was today.  Where I actually am, there's a 4 degree wind chill.

Looking at the weather for tropical vacation spots is like watching weather porn.

Obviously.

I could have told you that. 

Please, my fellow ladies, don't prove it wrong.  

So, yeah.

I don't have anything important to discuss; I just felt that since it's been so long since I wrote a blog post, I should at least write something and stick it up.

We went to Oklahoma for Christmas and had a pretty good time.  I can never decide which I miss more, Tulsa or Norman; I'm always sad to leave either of them.

While I was there, I tried on bridesmaids dresses for my sister's wedding.  She's decided to go with short, strapless ones.  Which admittedly I like, but these arms and legs of mine have some serious toning to do.   Argh.  Soldier wrote our weight loss goals on our bathroom mirror so that it literally stares us in the face several times a day.

Because I plan on wearing some kick-ass heels with that dress and I want to look awesome.