oh the weekend the weekend. friday night we picked up the new cat, batcat. she and wonderkitty did not hit it off. she's a 6-month old grey tabby who is most concerned with exploring every corner of the house and knocking stuff over. wonderkitty is incensed (INCENSED!) that we have brought this other cat into her fiefdom. she has morphed from lovely chirpy purr-y cat into terrible hissy-face growling cat.

we had been keeping batcat locked in the bathroom so that we could control access to both the hidey holes in the house and wonderkitty, but batcat had enough of that yesterday and escaped! the bathroom. she went all a-wandering up and downstairs, leaving wonderkitty to sit in a corner and hiss hiss hiss. eventually they chased each other around, batcat exploring and being good-natured about everything and wonderkitty swatting at her every chance she got. hell, at least they both got some exercise.

the only thing i worry about wrt batcat is her litterbox behavior. right now, she's using a low-sided disposable litterbox since she's being kept separate from wonderkitty, and that may be causing the problem. she (a) likes to lay in her litterbox, (b) likes to scoop it out all over the floor, and (c) has shown at least once that she doesn't have the greatest aim in the world. she had karl and me in stitches yesterday as she pooped, managing to only just barely keep it off the floor. when she finished, there was a tower of batcat poop standing straight up right on the edge of the cardboard litter tray. she looked at it and diligently pawed litter in its direction. looked back to make sure she'd covered it and was unpleasantly surprised to find she hadn't. so were we, by the way, because CAT POOP SMELLS BAD. REALLY BAD. over and over she scooped litter toward the tower of poop, and over and over again only succeeded in piling it on the floor outside the litter box, leaving the tower of poop brown and bare. karl and i stood there laughing at her, our tears dropping into the litter and making little clumps. i think she would have continued at it all night, but we finally ended her misery by removing her from the room.

the other big project of the weekend (besides making friends with batcat) was starting to paint the bedroom. last weekend we'd bought all the supplies, and this weekend the plan was to clean the windows and walls, tape off the floor, and paint the ceiling and trim.

the cleaning and taping went ok on saturday (a day which also saw everton win away against birmingham 1-0, off a penalty kick by graveson that was given because a birmingham player, muzzy izzet,* momentarily thought he was the goalie and used his hands (ATTENTION MUZZY: SOCCER IS A NO-HANDS SPORT) to tap the ball over the top bar, thus getting himself red-carded and giving everton a spot kick) and sunday started off bright and shiny. then we realized that the 2 quarts of semi-gloss finish "shore" (aka white) paint that we had bought for the trim was actually matte. so off i went to low*s, hoping they would agree to take back these cans of tinted paint ("no returns on tinted paint!" says the can) and give me new ones. the return/repurchase went smoothly, thank god, and i even got some minor entertainment from the woman ahead of me in line who gave the paint dept employee a sheet of 10 paint chips that she needed mixed which were ALL SHADES OF WHITE. 10 shades of white! i'd love to see this lady's house.

so, karl painted the ceiling (there is nothing less satisfying that repainting a white ceiling) and i painted the window trim (damn our windows have a lot of trim), and we just didn't get to the baseboards, closet doors, or main door. feh. right at the beginning of the painting

* muzzy izzet, if careers were assigned to fit one's name, would have to be in a scrappy punk band from east texas.

update on the piggy eyeball: it's getting better, with the corneal ulcer reduced to a small white spot in the middle. the rest of her eye has cleared up. in other piggy news, she has learned to hop up to the top level again! her cage has a "loft" made of plywood which is where i like to put her food, so that it isn't sitting in her bedding. but she's not the most coordinated of piggies, and a couple months ago she hurt herself scrambling up there. usually when that happens (once every other year or so), i give her a month or so to recover from the strain or whatever by putting her food downstairs, then move her food back up. but this time she just didn't seem to be getting better, and every attempt to jump up was timid and messy. but, last week, i put some apple upstairs, figuring if she was better, she'd jump up there for her favorite food. i'd been re-training her by kind of helping her up. and, after a minute or two, i heard the distinctive patter of piggy feet on plywood and cheered my little piggy! hopping up and down and keeping her old lady muscles in shape! let's hear it for the piggy!

jokes to end on:

a surgeon goes to his usual after-work bar for a drink. the bartender says "your usual?" and starts making the surgeon's almond daiquiri. he realizes, however, that he's out of almonds, and looks around for another nut he can use. the only thing he's got are hickory nuts, so he makes the drink with those. the surgeon takes a drink and asks "what's this?" the bartender says, "it's a hickory daiquiri, doc."

a termite walks into a bar and asks "where's the bar tender?"

what do you get when you cross the atlantic with the titanic? ... halfway!

damn, i love groaners.