Monday

The weekend is, in my mind, a whirlwind of errands, a ridiculous county convention (I cast my delegate vote--as awful as it seemed, four hours of local government candidate speeches, disorganized counting, and painfully annoying arguments about wording on various 'planks' was a small price to pay for representing someone I believe in), cleaning like crazy for an impromptu in-law visit (I didn't realize how filthy the house had gotten, squalor hidden by denial), and then an impromptu Great Redoing of Our Taxes with my mother-in-law.

Also, of course, Cab was bad. When I shooed the dogs downstairs because wrestling on our tax documents was getting old, my in-laws requested that Monk stay up with us. Monk is a good dog, they said. Monk was not always a good dog, however, and I'm standing by a belief that Cab will not always be a shithead.

This week my husband is on spring break. It's 7:21 a.m. and he is in bed. Monk also decided to stay in bed (Monk would sleep in every day, and also would go be in bed by 6:00 p.m. after a full day of napping if Cab didn't force him to, gasp, play.) I got up at six, followed by Cab. We went out. Cab watched me pick out clothing, he watched the bathroom door while I showered, he watched me put on make-up and fix my hair. And then he sighed and went back to bed. Also, the cats are sleeping upstairs, and blinked crankily when I flipped on a lamp.

They are all obviously jerks.

I think I feel more tired now than I did Friday evening, but it will be a good week. J will get to stay home and write, the house is actually sort of clean, Artemisia is coming, work suggested I take Thursday off to be able to spend more time with her, I mopped my studio floor, and think I will be able to finish two paintings that have been looming over my head. Both are gifts, and I get a bit cantankerous when I am trying to make a piece of art for a friend/relative, because I will feel bad if they hate it and think they should pull it out of a closet only when I visit. One is for my sister. When I was about half-way done I called my mom to ask if my sister had anything in her house in the main color of the painting. My mom thought for a long time and said, "No, I don't think so."

Whoops. (Hi, sister! Sorry! You can always hide it in a closet. That's what closets are for. Closets are also designed to be pissy cat escape tunnels. Just a tip.)

And finally, to wrap up this ridiculous post, yesterday J and I trimmed the cats' claws and put new SoftPaws on them. Coltrane, as usual, was a bit horrified and shed wildly. After her ordeal, which was painless and took all of two minutes, she ran to my closet. This closet has a little panel in the back, which covers an opening to the bathtub plumbing. Also, it opens down to the basement, above the washer and dryer, assuming you are tiny and insane and willing to jump. Coltrane realized the panel had fallen open and made a ridiculous escape. So she was in the floor/ceiling, and I think maybe it explains a lot. Like how she gets so dusty, and how sometimes I can not find her to hug her.

Oh! Also, this is how she is about J. Yesterday morning I got up first, and was sitting on the couch. Coltrane was sitting pissily beside me, sort of angrily squawking if I tried to pet her. The usual. When we heard J get out of bed and start to walk around upstairs, she looked up at the ceiling. This soft, creepy expression of evil love crawled across her face. Her eyes closed halfway, she started purring loudly, and breathing quickly. She was purring at the ceiling, at his foot steps.

Pets again!
black sheeped