Category Archives: Spoilt

Jailbreak

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Until recently, I had left Gus and Scarlet in my bedroom suite when out of the house so that I did not return to find them patrolling the top of the upper cabinets in my kitchen.  I’ve heard that animals like to be somewhat confined anyway.  Maybe somebody feeling guilty about leaving his/her animals in a small space made that up, but I was going with it.  My cats had all of my bedroom, hall and bathroom to roam and they had all the food they could eat, water they could drink and litter box they could…well you know what I mean.  They were all set.

Imagine my surprise one night when I come home from work and am greeted at the front door by two 15” tall furry creatures eager to see the world beyond the front door.  I quickly closed the door and stood there for a minute, amazed that they could have gotten out.  I have small French doors that must be very forcefully pulled open and closed for the spring to lock.  How a 13 pound cat without thumbs or considerable muscle mass can open a door I struggle with on a daily basis is beyond me.  I thought maybe this was just a fluke and that perhaps I hadn’t closed the doors all the way.  But lo and behold, the next day, I was again welcomed home/hounded for food at the front door.

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When my parents were here a couple of weeks back, we decided to run an experiment to see how long it takes them to get the door open.  I closed the cats in my bedroom and headed out to work, leaving my mom in the living room.  My mom texted me not 20 minutes later that she had company.  Those little rascals.

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I also used to close my bedroom suite a night to keep the cats from standing on the stove and potentially scorching a tail or two.  In the middle of the night after the first few daytime escapes, I would hear the rattling of the door and then all of the sudden a click sound as the spring released and the door opened.

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Turns out Miss Scarlett is the brains and the brawn of this operation.  Gus doesn’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’.

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I have relented and let them roam the place as they please when I am gone now.  Although the other night, I had my hands full of groceries as I walked in the door and little Mr. Gus waltzed right out into the breezeway.  I shuffled groceries at lightning speed and grabbed Gus by the tail to drag him back inside.  I almost had a heart attack because there would be no catching that little booger if he got out and were beyond my reach.  Ever since, I stick my foot in the door first and Gus has learned not to stand so close. In fact, the novelty is beginning to wear off and there are times Gus and Scarlett decide it’s not worth their energy to get up from their cozy perches to welcome me home.

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I’m slowly losing control.

Y’all send reinforcement,

Sugarlump

Cause for Alarm

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This week has been full of surprises.  Tuesday evening, I went to ladies’ night at a shooting range and got second place in our bullseye competition.  Everybody watch out.

Early the next morning, at approximately 3:00AM, I awoke to tornado sirens.  This was the first time I had heard them in person since moving to Tennessee so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on.  My weather channel alerts on my phone confirmed that we were under a tornado warning and needed to take cover immediately.  I grabbed my phone, the cats, two cushions from the sofa, and my laptop and closed us in the bathroom as I set up a little fort with my cushions in the bathtub.  I then decided I needed a flashlight and a bottle of water.  Maybe I should have thought through my tornado plan a little bit more.  In my defense, it was JANUARY(!) and tornado season doesn’t usually start until spring.

Anyway, as we waited out the very strong winds and tracked the radar on my laptop, the cats could not have been more confused/annoyed.  They kept looking at me like I was crazy and tried to dig a hole under the door to get out of the bathroom.  Apparently tornado safety does not apply to them.

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Thankfully, other than some seriously violent winds, we were alright.  There were, however, a few tornadoes within 50 miles of us that damaged several buildings and pulled roofs off of homes.

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Less than 48 hours later, the temperature had dropped nearly sixty degrees from the low seventies into the teens and it was snowing.

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It’s a beautiful, sunny day here as long as you’re indoors.  It’s a whopping 17 degrees at the moment and with the wind chill, it feels like single digits.

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There is still snow on most roofs and school was canceled, which I thought this was pretty silly, given that we got about 2 inches of snow.  New Englanders wouldn’t bat an eye at that kind of snowfall.  But then I discovered that there was still some dangerous ice lurking around as I tried to speed out of the gate at my apartment complex earlier this morning.  I spun in place for about 10 seconds until my Jeep finally slid forward, narrowly avoiding the gates as they began to close.

Like the weather, my garbage disposal has been acting backwards this week.  The other day, as I ran the water and turned on the disposal, instead of the water easing the food down the drain as the disposal ground it up, all of the food and water spun violently up and out of the drain and onto me and the counter.  The maintenance man just found a metal spear approximately the size of a chopstick jammed in the pipes, courtesy of the previous tenant.

It’s been a strange couple of days.

In other (likely related) news, I’m back to drinking coffee, but just a small cup.  Hopefully, things will now return to normal.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

What Next?

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This weekend, it was over 70 degrees on Saturday and part of Sunday.  A cold front moved in and by Sunday afternoon we were under a tornado warning as it stormed violently.  Yesterday, it was sort of snowing/sleeting with a winter weather advisory in effect.  Today, we are under an ice storm warning.  It wouldn’t surprise me if tomorrow brought a heat advisory or pollen alert.  Hang tight.

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It started to get icy in the afternoon.  Schools closed early.  I had the day off and have spent most of it under several blankets on the sofa, catching up on months’ worth of the food network.   It was the laziest I’ve been in a while and it was great.

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The cats are so confused that they have been snuggling with each other in the same cat bed even though there is one for each of them, SIDE BY SIDE.  I’m not sure Gus is as pleased with situation as Scarlett is.

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Oops, she heard me.  Not pleased with my commentary.

I think I’ll go out for a Mexican dinner to spice things up a little bit.  I lived in the Northeast nearly my whole life, so I’m not afraid of venturing out in the wintery weather.  (I apologize to my grandmothers if you’re reading this. I promise I’ll be careful.)

Stay tuned for the next spell of bizarre weather.  Get your bikinis ready.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Puss in Loafers

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My cats have a well-documented history with shoes.  They just can’t get enough.

When my parents were visiting a little while back, Gus found himself trying on some loafers.

Maybe he thought these smart looking shoes would increase his IQ.

He does look awfully serious.

Trying to look natural.  I guess he thinks he’ll grow into these, physically and intellectually.

He has a long way to go.

The poor dear.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Furball Fate

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I vacuum almost every day.

And yet, my apartment is in a constant state of fuzz.

…thanks to this little guy…

…and this heifer…

Until I figure out how to make my cats self-vacuuming, I’m afraid this is my fate.

At least my cats have cute little feet.

Upon closer inspection of this photo, I noticed yet another furball lurking to the right of Gus’ foot.

Don’t give me that look.

That’s not my fur on the sofa, sir.

His furballs frustrate me, but then he gives me the puss in boots eyes.

And the intense stare-down.

And a scowl.

Sometimes I forget whose apartment this is…and thankfully my cats are here to remind me.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Young and Fabulous

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I’ve been going through old family photo albums lately.  Now I know why people take so many pictures and put them in albums: it’s absolutely hilarious to look back in time.

While looking through these old albums, I discovered that when I was young I was pretty fabulous.

I wore hot pink jelly flats, floral tops and patterned band aids.   I must have been subscribing to the “more is more” philosophy of dress.

This shot was taken at the front row of fashion week…in Granny and Papa’s den.

I wore sunglasses in the house and Mary Jane’s on a regular basis.  In hindsight, I might have opted for some sheer black stockings instead of the white tights, but we all fall victim to toddler fashion trends at some point in our lives.

Hopefully, it’s while we’re toddlers.

I wore sunglasses at night.  My theory on this obviously practical choice is that posing in my sunglasses after my bath prolonged having to go to bed.  My mom was eating it up.  It was genius.

I rocked white faux fur.  The paparazzi (my dad) caught me leaving the house in it Easter morning of what looks to be 1991.

This was my parents’ first home, purchased in the era of the high-teen mortgage rates.  And, bless their hearts, they still managed to keep me stylin’.

I wish I were as fabulous now as I was then.   I’m not sure that I could pull off any of these things now.

More to come on the first decade on my life.  Brace yourselves.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Handy (Wo)man

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This precious little furball is a real trouble maker.

She gets into EVERYTHING.

And almost always leaves evidence.

“Who, me?”

I mentioned before how quickly she took to my new drapes.  I thought she was just cuddling up on them, but I should have known better.  This is Scarlett we’re talking about after all.

She likes to cocoon herself in the drapes and then have a crazy spell, which invariably results in tangled drapes.  The other day, however, she took it too far.  Literally.  Scarlett got caught in the drapes and decided to take them with her, thus pulling the drapery rod bracket out of the wall.

As the only member of the household with opposable thumbs, I had the privilege of buying new wall anchors and installing them to fix the drapes.

I also bought a new vacuum cleaner yesterday while I was out buying wall anchors.  Talk about an annoying way to spend several hundred dollars.

After I played handyman again and put the vacuum together, I got Scarlett back for her destructive behavior by running my new airplane engine of a vacuum for about 10 minutes.

Scarlett does not like the new vacuum cleaner as well as the new drapes.

Y’all hurry back,

Sugarlump

Batcat

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Gus may appear to be a little short on brain cells at times, but I’ve always suspected that he had some secret powers.  My suspicions were confirmed the other day when I saw Gus’s shadow. He was lounging in his … Continue reading →

Miss Thang

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This cat is something else. 

I point the camera at her and tell her to “Say ‘Cheeeeeese’” and this is what I get from Scarlett.

 

I say “Smile, little muffin-pants!” and this is what I get.

Maybe she thought I was calling her fat?  I said muffin-pants, not muffin-top.  There’s a big difference.

 

“Fat?… I’m just furry..…in all the wrong places.”

 

Gus walks by and cuts the tension with his tail.

 

“Is that a bowl of unattended salmon?”

This is her best angle.  Please notice that it is a headshot only.

 

“I wonder if I could reach that bug on the ceiling….”

Fat chance.

“Oh, hi. I wasn’t plotting anything mischievous; I swear,” (whiskers crossed).

 

“Are you calling me a liar? First I’m fat and now I’m a liar?…. Oh no you diiii-in’t.”

She’s about to go all Jerry Springer on me.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

New Drapes

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I had another one of those serendipitous shopping moments last week.   I think, after a while of coming up empty-handed and discouraged, you build up good shopping karma and exactly what you have been looking for everywhere appears right before your eyes.  I had this moment in Bed Bath and Beyond.  I had looked a couple months back and there was nothing that excited me as I searched for drapery panels for my main living area.  My ceilings are 9 feet tall so I needed 108” length panels because I wanted them to puddle slightly at the bottom.  You almost never see this length available in the store.  Normally they have the 84” and 95” stocked and then the “extended lengths” are available for order online. 

Having given up on finding something readymade in the textured woven oatmeal-ish genre, I looked into custom drapes, which would likely be 3-4 times as expensive and take 3-4 times as long to arrive.  I just wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that kind of money on drapes for an apartment that is likely temporary and full of abnormally large windows.  I also wasn’t sure I would have a use for 7 long panels of something very specific.  And I’m impatient. 

My solution to this whole dilemma was to ignore it for a while.

It was very effective.   Except when I was in my apartment and able to see my naked windows.

Then, one fateful day last week, I stepped foot in Bed Bath and Beyond for the first time in months with low expectations and a glimmer of hope.  I didn’t even grab a cart or a basket as I sped toward the drapery department.  I walked through the first isle and saw nothing but dreadful polyester in 84” length panels.  I headed down the second isle, sure that my drapeless fate was sealed.  I reached the end of the isle and saw some drapes that had a nice, chunky woven texture like I had been searching for.   And they even had a color that could work: a sandy, oatmeal-y, taupe-ish color.  I figured I would have to order them online, but as I pulled back the sample curtain, there lay at least a dozen of the panels in the color I wanted in 108” length!  I nearly fainted.  Then the adrenaline kicked in and I sprinted (almost) around to the front of the store to grab a cart.  I tore around the corner on two wheels in the direction of the drapery section.  Thankfully, no one had scooped up all of the panels in the 13.4 seconds I was gone.  I quickly pulled out 7 packages and violently threw them into my cart like I was on Supermarket Sweep and headed for the registers. 

I only had 1 coupon with me and it was for 20% off one full-priced item.   The nice lady at the register asked me if I had any more because I could “save a bundle.”  I had had other coupons, but they had expired and I was pretty sure I’d recycled them already.  One lady behind me in line had a handful of coupons and offered me a couple of hers.  It was so sweet of her but I told her I couldn’t take her coupons from her.  The cashier said if I found any more coupons that I should come back and get my receipt adjusted.  Wouldn’t you know that I dug around in my car for my coupon folder (I have to have this otherwise I always leave my coupons either a) in my house or b) in a different purse that I am not carrying that day) and found a coupon for 20% off my ENTIRE PURCHASE (read: $84 plus tax in savings). The only issue was that the coupon had expired at the end of July and it was now the first week of September.   I know some stores will still take coupons after they have “expired” so I went back into the store and played dumb like I couldn’t read the large print indicating that my coupon had expired on 7/31/12.

It surely was a fateful day because instead of the surly, gum-chewing 20-something woman at customer service, I was called over for service at the register of a nice young man.  I gave him the coupon and my receipt from earlier in the day, telling him that I had found my 20% off my ENTIRE PURCHASE coupon I had meant to bring in when I made my purchase.  No problem.  He was going to take care of that for me right away.  And he did.  

And I got exactly the drapes I had been looking for, for ¼ the price I had considered spending, in the correct length and color, AND I was able to drive straight home and put them up in 30 minutes.

To say I was/am pleased would hardly cover it.

To say Gus and Scarlet are pleased would hardly cover it.  Though it took them weeks to warm up to their new, plush cat beds, they took to the drapes immediately, even before I had them hung on the rods.

If you need me at any point in time for the next few years of my life, I will be lint-rolling and vacuuming these drapes.  

 But at least I have drapes.

I mean, Scarlett has drapes.

If you need Scarlett, she’ll be snuggling with/guarding the drapes.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump