Pussies.

My hands and hair are covered in white paint. Just returned from spray-painting all the Normal props. If ever you are alone in an abyss, still alive and needing to pass the time I highly recommend trying to spray paint a jump rope.

My kitten was out on the balcony when I arrived home. I saw him blazing- an orange blob-from the street.

I was reminded of the time my evil childhood kitten Warbucks climbed a tree and was eventually convinced to let go of the branch. He dropped about 12 feet into my mom's beautiful light pink dress with white collar. That dress spun very beautifully. I remember being very impressed by that.

I had a lot of attempts at having a cat over the years.

First I had Buffy. I don't remember where we got him from, but he was GORGEOUS long haired gold and white puffy cat. He was therefore stolen. My dad was livid. As was I, but I just felt he hadn't liked me very much because I was so determined for him to like me. Whenever he sat with me I would be so excited when he would purr because I thought that meant he was pleased, so I would keep doing exactly whatever patting I was doing. But then he would leave, and I would be left in my plastic chair on the back deck wondering why the kitten did not have an emotional connection to me. I felt sure I was a failure regarding animals.

Then I had Puff.

Puff X.

(Nothing more really needs to be said regarding that. The above is the most succinct sentence every uttered. And utterly true. But just for reference- Puff was a beige ball of gelatin and love who was the CUTEST kitten EVER and then one day I went with my grandma to Maryland to see a large show that I remember nothing about except rifles being fired and my being horribly upset. When I arrived home I asked after Puff and was informed that Puff had decided to take a nap in a choice location. The engine of the car.)

Puff X. X.

Then I think was Warbucks. I got him right after I did Annie. He was a tabby, white on bottom, gray on top. He was hateful and wanted to eat me. He tried. One day Warbucks just wasn't there anymore. I still think my parents drove him out to the side of Rte. 10 and left him there. As that is a good thing to do when a cat tries to lunch on your daughter. My parents maintain this is not the case.

Then Misty. I wanted a Persian SO BAD. Cause they are angry and fat. So my dear grandma found an ad for persian kittens in the paper and got me one. So excited. Turns out the people who posted the ad just desperately wanted to be rid of their kittens, so what I ended up with was a morsel of a late-stage kitten embryo with leaking eyes from a trailer park with a complete inability to eat anything other than breast milk. Gray. Wasn't weaned. Died.

Also wasn't a Persian.

Then a large orange tomcat started hanging around at my Dad's work, so he brought him home for me. His name was Toby and he was a fine, fine fellow. Everything was great for a few weeks. Then one day I couldn't find him, so I went walking looking for him. Walked down to the end of the street where there is a dock and a forest and noted to my left in the mouth of a drainage pipe the eroding skull of a cat. Decided Toby had died in war with a raccoon. This was sad.

So bad cat luck so far. (That made me think of potluck and want macaroni.)

Then I made friends with Laura (who has amazing legs) and Ed (who is devastatingly handsome and plays piano like a madman). They took my brother and I to Applebee's all the time.

Laura's cat Pandora had kittens. I got one. Named her Jazz. I was very pleased with this name until my friend Lesley from middle school came over and said she would have named Jazz Sundae because she was white on her body with splotches of dark brown and caramel on her head with a pink (cherry) nose. Irked me.

I still think Jazz a much more appropriate name.

Anyway, you couldn't kill Jazz with a steamroller. Still can't. Has to be at least 30.

She kills everything and gets on very well with all of our parade of dogs and likes me. She is a good woman.

Jazz lives at my parents' house.

When I moved in with Joseph we began raising kittens who had been abandoned by their mothers before they were old enough to eat or poop on their own. First we raised Kara and Jenny. Who then became Kara and Bocouscous. WE LOVE Bocouscous. Tubby pale orange tabby who is dumb as a wall and sits in your lap like a human toddler. He had a fun belly to jiggle. He called Joseph Dad and pooped under my bed once. Kara was a tortoiseshell who was a flaming hateful maggot. 

We gave her to Matt Shofner. She liked him. He took her to New York where he renamed her Rosalitas and she contracted a horrible skin disease. There is a picture of her smoking a hookah.

Then I wanted another one because I have a problem with this. I got my way because Joseph loves me a lot. So he brought home from rehearsal one night a gray furious female kitten in a box. It was immediately clear that she was a spy for the Russians named Norah Natalia Simonavich. And once she developed her swingy flabby gut that cats develop it was clear that that was where she stored the assault rifles she was packing.

We gave Norah to Natalie. She is now fat and sits down all the time.

Then delivered unto Joseph and I was a tiny tiny 3 day old kitten that was found in in a shipment of Nabisco crackers at a train station. I am still not convinced that this kitten was not a cobra.

He was that dark gorgeous swirly tabby. I named him Danforth as it was during The Crucible and he was clearly the lord of darkness. Well- he was totally fine until one day I was feeding him on my shoulder standing up on the hardwood floor and he JUMPED to the ground. Joseph maintains I dropped him. Which is probably true, but regardless. We fetched him up, his neck was quite clearly snapped and he was leaking fluid from his face. So we rinsed him off and then he was fine. So it was quite clear that he was back from the afterlife in hell. From then on he HATED us. Would never scratch or bite, just gave us LOOKS. His favorite thing was to curl up inside one of those large plastic bins of pretzels like a snake and observe us for hours. 

One day he leapt up off the couch, raced into the bathroom and leapt directly into the toilet. Soaked. Leapt directly out again. Very amusing.

Bocouscous and Danforth both went to live with an elderly woman in Petersburg who had recently lost her dear pets and had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Then someone gave us a found newborn black kitten who had clearly been attacked and was missing half his skull. That one died in a pink towel later that day.

Then someone gave us THE MOST ADORABLE KITTEN OF ALL TIME. He was black and white and puffy and had round blue eyes and smelled so good. And I couldn't tell you what he smelled like. Just good. And had the dearest, roundest little paws. Oh Lord. Anyway- we were convinced he was blind as he rarely moved and when he did he would just smack directly into the speakers. So Joseph took him down to the clinic in Petersburg where our friend the vet Debby dangled a string in front of him to test for vision. He immediately commenced batting at the string and darting around in hot pursuit. What a jerk.

But we loved him. Cannot remember what we named him. Gave him to Emily and Michael Mason, who gave him a name we did not approve of.

THEN (this is getting long) someone gave us three gray brother kittens who needed raising. One of them we definitely named Buffalo. You should really see their tennis ball guts when they finish their meals. The other two were non-descript. Again given away. One given away as payment for a headshot session.

And then came Mary Elizabeth Paris von Tubbybitch.

The internet doesn't have the space.

My current kitten is the orange one who goes insane periodically throughout the day and devoutly pursues Wilson's rectum. You can always tell when the insane is coming because he pupils become enormous. He is the same one who chewed an inch of flesh and bone off his own tail and thus had to undergo a tail amputation. Now just has a creepy lively nub. 

I love him. He's bonkers.

This was going to be a post about how I went to New York this week and took naps and ate soup, but oh well.

Blarp.

So today, I plopped out of bed at 6:03. I had set my alarm for 5:45 with all the best intentions as I do most nights. (Not for 5:45, but for some respectable hour that will allow me to get a brisk start to the day.) But whenever my alarm goes off that early I invariably miss most of it and then slowly awaken wondering what the heck that noise is. 

I also always decide the night before how much time I should allot myself to accomplish whatever it is I need to accomplish before I am supposed to be wherever it is I am going. I always think I am leaving myself just enough time. Then I discover in the morning after I have slept in for an additional 30-45 minutes that I can still accomplish whatever it was I had set out to do. 

I am scarcely aware of what I am typing right now. I am pooped. Schnockered. Swaplummed. Making some of these up. I enjoy being punchy though. I apparently type faster when pooped.

So I picked Maggie up and we went to Arlington. The only thing I remember before we arrived at the stretch of highway with all those tall street lights is a brief discussion of the merits of gluten-free bagels and the gluten:smooshiness relationship.

And her bagel smelled like butter.

We stopped at Wawa cause I wanted gas and a banana.

There was an elderly woman in front of me at the register purchasing a salad, cigarettes, and pound cake. A very interesting combination I thought.

So we kept going. We very nearly arrived on time and then a garbage truck appeared in front of us and remained stationary for about eight minutes. 

It was pretty there. A library, a cake store, and a smoothie store. Also a movie theater featuring FILMS OF SUFFERING AND DEEP DEEP MEANING. This week showing: Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, The Wrestler, Schindler's List, The Agony and the Ecstasy, etc.

Oh- we got lost first. 

Went a goodly ways down Glebe Road then called Maggie's mom and turned around.

Then we decided to go to Old Navy to get me a camisole because a smidge of my bra was showing. We called information, Maggie's mother, and Joseph and finally managed to acquire an intersection. So we find it, only by turning around several times and skunking around behind the Dick's Sporting Goods. 

A huge Old Navy like a mirage on the hill. We go in. There is a maternity section for heaven's sake. Never heard of such a thing. I try on and enjoy a lovely purple gown. The Maggie decides I should wear something that fits me, so she stylists herself around and selects me a red skirt and a black tank top. Which I get. Also vanilla lip gloss because I was hungry.

By then I am having a piercing headache and experiencing spiders in my eyes because I drank an extra large Monster with only a petite banana.

So we return, we discover that it is fun to bounce on bar stools and raise them up and down. 

I stand at the front door which CLEARLY states "Door Opens Automatically" or something.

So I stand there for, oh, awhile. It does not open. 

Ridiculous.

Also- what is the difference between bananas and plantains?

Also- why is Ben Franklin's called Ben Franklin's?

Also- crap. I cannot remember the other one at the moment.

But here's another one- In that commercial with the porky Chinese girl-child of about four who airbrushes the picture of her piranha to email to her parents- where is she? Where are her parents she is emailing? She appears to be in a house. It would appear to be hers, as I don't know why she would be so familiar with the computer in someone else's house? I don't understand where her parents are.

So we eat pancakes at the Silver Diner. I had never been there. Each table we passed eyed us suspiciously as Maggie was bearing a strong resemblance to Carrie Bradshaw and we were at a diner off the side of the freeway.

Then we go get as many of the props for Normal as we can. We succeed for the most part. Except Ford's thong. 

I don't want to address that.

We drop them off at Stage 1, where we are graced with an interesting story about a turtle and urination.

Then I go home, change my socks, walk to Kuba Kuba and eat a dry sandwich much too big for my mouth. 

We go to the Strawberry St. Market, which is WONDERFUL and has cherry fruit snacks, my favorite kinds of ice cream, corn dogs and quiche.

While we are there I ask Maggie to give me a reason not to get ice cream. She stares at me and asks if I have any chopsticks.

I consider this and say no, and ask her is that her reason for me not to get ice cream.

She says she just wants them for her lips.

At which point I realize she had said CHAPSTICK and dissolve into giggles and staggers for about three blocks.

We pass by the Strawbettery (och, I'm tired) Strawberry St. Cafe on the way home and I spy Scott Melton's dashing profile in the window. We immediately identify Robin Arthur's luscious burgundy bob and I wink lasciviously at Scott. 

It is my job to always let Scott know that he is never out of the watchful eye of the Gladyses.

Robin sloooooooooowly turns in her seat and sears us with a look that says we will be fruit spackle if we do not move along and leave her to enjoy her peas in peace. 

We move right along. 

We love her.

I upset a large brindle pitbull on the way home with my impression of an elderly golden retriever who had nearly bitten my front off a couple of weeks ago. Now my throat hurts.

And we are watching Big Love.

I should go back and read this. Not sure what any of it says.

I will be riding Bucky.

"We don't believe in showing lots of anus" is an EXCELLENT lyric substitution. For anything really. But one show in particular. I will not mention it. 

Now, tomorrow I am going riding with Jan and Nora. I am very excited. I found out tonight I will be riding a buckskin named Bucky. 

Bucky has apparently been selected for me to ride because his dominant characteristics include: laziness, immobility, and gluttony.

I am sure we are going to best friends.

So tonight I wore to the theater my cute dress with my winter hunting socks and my snow boots to see if Jan thought them appropriate to ride in.

No one should have that much beef in a chunk that is on the Thickburger. Looks like tires.

I am beginning to accumulate a scab on my knee from when I fell in a hole last Monday. 

This is also very exciting, as it provides me with something to do during the scenes in which I have fewer lines.

Tonight Scott sang songs in the car as a meatball for thirty minutes. 

Joseph's beau is featured in this week's Us Weekly as an onlooker behind Sarah Jessica Parker in a picture where she is wearing what appears to be the hide of a crocostritch. 

Jackie Jones made us cookies? I don't know what they were. They resembled shavings of a coral reef. They were delicious. Jan says she is pretty sure they have butter in them. Butter, sugar, breast milk, and cheeks.

She did not think those last two things were in them. I don't think she is that weird.

Diane Lane ought to have been on Little House on the Prairie. She just screams for calico and gingham.

I used to really want to adopt an orca as advertised before "Free Willy." But then I was disappointed that I would not be able to pat it.  I think you ought to at least be able to meet something you adopt.

I really want to go see that movie about Monsters vs. Aliens.

Because two of my boyfriends are voices in the movie, and Reese Witherspoon as well. Brett likes her. I think she has nice legs and an interesting chin.

Jason and I will go see together. He likes to go see all those animated movies.

Pop Tarts are SO much better than toaster strudels.

I like the name "Brett." I think it is nice that Brett has that name.

The girl playing "Wednesday" in the NuvaRing birth control commercial is a stitch.

My stars. I just saw a commercial for "Duplicity" that did not feature a shot of Julia Roberts opening her mouth wide enough to moisten a hippo.

My parents are coming to see my show tomorrow night. I am very pleased. I am now to that point where one begins to really appreciate their parents so very much. And be so proud to be their child. 

Also my Dad has a rakish Indiana Jones hat which he pulls off with great panache.

And my mother is elegant and beautiful and has such style. 

That remains to kick in as far as I am concerned. Well, that certain brand of style anyhow. 

I think Robin Harris-Jones should get a puppy. I will help walk it until it grows up.

Go sit down, Scott.

What reason is there for requiring food users to tear the paper off the biscuit roll before you thwack it against the counter? Why not just print the instructions on the under part? And WHY is the flimsy little paper so strong that it can prevent several pounds of biscuit mightiness from busting forth?

I raise this question because the other night I assigned myself to invade the O'Willard's and make them dinner. 

BECAUSE- Ginnie, with a masterstroke of deception, successfully made Robyn go into Lowes. In Lowes, they got a working oven. This has been widely broadcast on facebook. Old news.

And I have been hankering to sculpt a souffle with my chefinary muscles for quite some time. (Which means ever since Ginnie told me I couldn't make one at her house because her oven didn't work.)

I thought it would be difficult to pull off, so I would feel supreme when I did so.

Anyhow, I decided to make all of dinner.

So I made a chicken pot pie-ONLY AFTER- I had dumped a giant bag of mixed frozen vegetables into what appeared to be a giant taupe saucer and (by hand) sorted out all the peas from the rest of the mix.

I am not the party that suffers from pea snobbery.

So that all had to get really hot in one of those pans with a handle. (Brett just informed me they are called "skillets.")

During this portion of the evening Ginnie trotted in to alert me that she smelled burning plastic.

This did not really alarm me because earlier I had decided against pre-heating the oven before I began pea-sorting, which proved to be a brilliant decision because I later discovered that the O'Willard household stores all of its' pots and pans INSIDE the oven. DISASTER. 

So when Ginnie scented the plastic, I knew at least it wasn't from anything dying in the oven.

I later discovered that the fabulously exciting tall salt grinder (I highly recommend, hours of entertainment) now bore a strong resemblance to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Apparently the top of the stove gets hot when the inside of the stove gets hot.

I am not sure that this is normal.

So you dump all those vegetables and soup and some milk all hot into a pot. Then you are to cover the surface of the dish with those pull apart breakfast biscuits.

Robyn was home by this point, and in the kitchen with me. (Don't know why Ginnie allowed that to happen.)

I was holding the cylinder of biscuits, considering using the can opener, when Robyn made the astute observation that this was the sort of biscuit container that should be opened by joyfully hurling it against any nearby stationary object. Such as the counter, the floor, or their orange tabby.

So I gleefully commence hurling. (The biscuits.) (Well, that still didn't clear anything up.)

I dent the paper and work up a healthy glow of sweat but no popping biscuits.

Robyn takes it from me and has a few solid whacks. 

Nothing.

After about 45 seconds of this, Ginnie, with I'm sure an enormous rolling of her eyes, figures out what our problem is and comes into the kitchen and teaches us a lesson.

(After she reminded me I remembered that I used to know that.)

So that dish turned out well.

Then the souffle. 

It was a brownie.

Tom bet it was going to a brownie the moment I mentioned I was planning on making it.

Joseph met Tyra Banks yesterday. I am very excited for the impressions. I told him to tell her for me that I took great offense to her bitchy brush-off of the correct pronunciation of Katarzhyna's name in cycle 10. Had circumstances been reveresed, Katarzhyna would have had a weave so far up her rump she could craft socks out of her nostrils.

I think I will watch Atonement now. Have wanted to see that for a while. Am not sure I will like it. I should, I think. But I tried reading the book and was unable to get past page three due to overzealous descriptions of things like the radishes and the marble swirl pattern on the underside of the toilet bowl.

Watched Men for 74 hours.

Well, last night Brett asked me out on a date to see Watchmen. Which he had seen the night before. This is humorous because the night before that I had asked him if he had any interest in going to see it and he emphatically said no. He has no memory of this.

So we stroll into the lobby and there is Scott Wichmann standing there in the center of the enormous lobby ogling the picture of the choo choo train on the wall. He and Brett had a very manful discussion of engineering and locomotion and whatnot and then we got popcorn. Scott by this time is vibrating with excitement. You can see his calves shivering. He got coffee, which I was sure was entirely unnecessary.

We sit in those special set-apart seats that always make me feel important. The boys are unsure about this due to the battalion of 16 year olds in sheer tops and cutoffs stationed directly behind us. 

This was a long movie. Pretty dramatic. 

Let's see.

This movie is about a group of folks who took years of tai' chi and had lots of money to blow on ill-designed Halloween costumes. I think one of their fathers once owned a watch- hence the title.

In a surprising tribute to Miss Saigon, the burliest, hairiest member of the bunch guns down a pregnant Vietnamese woman in a bar shortly after his friend Dr. Evil- who is blue and conceited- has just won the war by very self-importantly strolling through the jungle and vaporizing millions of extras.

Other members of their bunch include the star of The Full Monty (sporting a tubby chin), Xena Warrior Princess and a fellow who I am fairly sure is supposed to be of some European descent as he is blond and wears lilac. We'll refer to him as Chase. 

(This is in no way because of Europe or lilac. Just because when we see movies and the character who is obviously devastatingly attractive and popular comes out he is sometimes referred to as Chase.)

So everyone is gamboling around having lunch and wearing lots of eyeliner when President de Bergerac announces that nuclear annihilation is imminent according to the cardboard clock with only five numbers on it.

Meanwhile, Chase decides to take over the world from Dr. Evil, who is striding around on the moon in the nude constructing over-sized sundials in an extraordinarily complacent and homosexual manner.

There is sex in a souped up go-cart hovering high above Manhattan following an inexplicable prison riot during which Xena has the good sense to change into her practical flats to beat the tar out of everyone.

Next comes the "touching" scene featuring a handshake and then everyone ships off to Antarctica where Chase is ensconced with most of the set from "The Ten Commandments" and his fuschia house cat.

That's pretty much it. Odd. 

I ate about three bags of M&Ms.

There is a problem in my nose.

Everyone should know that there are two da-(ok, I do not know how to spell this word, be right back)- dachshund puppies living in the deli case at my corner market. Swear. Named Balki Bartakamos and Larry Appleton from Perfect Strangers. 

There are no sandwiches in there or anything, just puppies. And puppy toys. I got all excited hoping there were going to be kittens, but to no avail. I don't like that kind of dog. Also that kind of dog bit my mother's ankles when she was little. So them x.

I have been charged to come up with a fabulous menu that I will be baking on Sunday night in a new oven. At least two of the courses are going to be souffles I've decided.

I have a new backpack on loan. Cause someone I know got a brand new bright shiny blue waterproof one. This new backpack makes me feel as though I am athletic and inspires me to do things like stride briskly across the nickel bridge.

I would like to have a Canada goose. Just in my den. Sitting austerely on the ottoman.

Obviously Michelle Obama, Jan Carl. That is an unmistakable silhouette. Bangs.

Want to go to Europe. Mostly just Ireland. And purchase a small cottage like Robyn and Ginnie's and it will have a pony in the front yard, and I will sit my elderly self on the porch with my cats and my tea and watch the water and feel the wind. Until I get cold and crabby and go inside.

There are rocks in my cleavage.

I have been lecturing my kitten on how rude it is not to attend my openings. I enjoy imagining looking out over the front row and seeing person, person, person, person, my kitten, person, person...

And he would be sitting up tall, not lounging about.

I want some macaroni and cheese.

Steve Perigard offered me a bite of his fried green tomato.

Tonight the Droops and I are having an evening out at the new cinema on the Boulevard.

I have decided to arrange an outfit of all blacks and browns. Preferably with lots of tasseled shawls. And a beret. Then I will go to the wine bar and order a diet soda.

The outfit is because we are planning on seeing "I've Loved You So Long," which according to the previews features lots of wrinkles and french sobbing.