In more than one sense, this is what I do.

When I saw this ad during the Super Bowl nine or ten years ago, I nearly peed myself from laughing so hard. Thankfully, it's still on YouTube, and still hilarious.

Towering clouds

These huge clouds were a spectacular sight from Mom and Steve's front yard. No rain, but on my way home I saw a fantastic light show from lightning leaping all around this thunderhead and its neighbors.

Friday Kittehs: 8/27/10

Joy keeps the chair warm while I'm away from the computer.

Armageddon draws nigh.

And it's disguised as 1986!

Boston Proper, while sometimes a little too trendy for my tastes, still offers some interestingly-seamed knit tops and some cute dresses in unexpected fabrics and color combinations. So imagine my utter dismay when I found this travesty in their latest print catalog:

Why, God? WHYYYYYY?!?!?!?!

But wait! There's more!

Must-Have Ponté Stirrup Leggings. Those first two words are entirely subjective. Adding ponté brings sophistication to the copy. After all, a French word here and there can make even a colonoscopy sound chic: Ma biche, aide-moi avec ce lavement évacuateur. Demain, j'irai à l'hôpital pour une coloscopie.** But not even the language of sophistication, glamour, and romance can change the fact that these are STIRRUP PANTS.

Remember the toe-splaying, foot-folding, oh-dear-God-get-me-some-Epsom-salts-and-hot-water cramps you'd get from having a tight band of elastic pulling on your sole all day long? Or how the elastic wore out so much faster than the pants, leaving you constantly tucking back into your boots the legs of pants that were designed so you wouldn't have to tuck them back into your boots? Or how quickly they looked dated and faddish?

Then again, this might just be a brilliant retail coup. The women who'll buy and wear these things weren't even born in 1986, and as such have no individual or collective memory of how awful they were the first time around. Retailers will long have cashed the checks by the time these unsuspecting fashion victims are hobbling around with foot cramps. And, of course, we'll have the photos from 2010 for future blackmail use.

**Honey, help me with this enema. Tomorrow, I'm going to the hospital for a colonoscopy.

Friday Kittehs: 8/20/10

Beignet is a portrait of pure hatred this morning.

We interrupt E&P to bring you the first week of Fall Semester

Folks, I apologize for the lack of decent posts lately. Fall Semester began yesterday, and my classes meet for the first time today. More posts and pictures of critters when things settle down a bit!

In the strangest places

In the last week, I've visited the Small Town Coin Laundry twice. This is the second Trollope novel I've seen in the waiting area. (Once I get home, I'll look up the title of the first one, which I saw Tuesday morning.) Tuesday morning, I found a well-worn paperback copy of Doctor Thorne sitting on the laundromat table.

Friday Kittehs: 08/13/10

Today's Friday Kittehs are all Mom and El Seebeno's beautiful (Mom says "annoying") cats.

The late, great Hobbes—may she rest in peace

Domino claims the dresser as hers

Fluffy "helps" Mom finish a Double Wedding Ring quilt while my sister tries to brush her

Rotten fruit on the cat tree

Yoda & Lenny would like a pork chop, kthx

Squiggy, with an old picture of El Seebeno in the background

Calvin sits in Steve's lap whenever he's home

Oliver, in front of the staircase-closet door

Bad-ass Squirt, at the edge of the driveway

Clarence loves sitting in the living-room window

My box of patterns is Yoda's favorite nap spot

I am officially in WUV.

Put a blanket in the kitty carrier and gas up the car! We're heading to Mobile, Alabama!

Pattern Conversations

ME: I got this one on Etsy, too.
MOM: How many pieces?
ME: [looking at back of envelope] Hmm—says 11 pieces. Could be worse.
MOM: I don't see how.

Somebody explain this combination.

Because I'm still not sure what the pop-up has to do with this movie review. Ideas, anyone? Anyone?

A Saturday laugh from Anchor Dairies (UK)

Friday Kittehs: 8/6/10

Indeed, this has been a tough summer, what with all the cats who've passed away around here in the last few weeks. Perhaps these pictures of a few of the HKC's outdoor kittehs will cheer us all up.

Smokey, taking a bath

Stripe, waiting on breakfast

Ernge, also waiting on breakfast

Ernge also loves a good head-skritch

Davy, being sweet for once

Kamakura, yawning—whether from sleepiness or boredom, I'm not sure

Kamakura, being pretty (with Ernest trying to hog the picture)

Orson: 5 Apr 2008 - 4 Aug 2010

Mom and Steve's beloved Orson died early this morning. A neighbor on her way to work saw his fluffy jet-black body at the very edge of the road, across from Mom's driveway, and called with the sad news.

Orson, as you might recall, was one of teenage kitty-mama Stripe's six kittens, born on April 5, 2008.

Here, my sister plays with him in the little storage shed where he and his litter mates grew up. Orson was the silkiest, softest cat imaginable. Sure, his brothers and sisters had soft fur, but his long, luxurious coat stayed soft and glossy even after he was fully grown. Orson was also a very large cat—not fat, but large. He weighed around 18 pounds, nearly all of it muscle; from his nose to the tip of his tail, stretched out in the floor, he was well over three feet long.

He was a beautiful cat. He also loved living dangerously.

No matter where in the house Mom and Steve would store the table saw, Orson would find a way to sleep on it.

Lying in the kitchen window with Oliver, his little brother, was one of his favorite hobbies. However, Orson insisted on being an outdoor cat—nothing else would do but for him to be outside. Once he got a taste of life beyond the house's walls, he didn't care to return to the house-kitty world, fleas and big dogs notwithstanding. As a mother, though, Mom blames herself for what happened to Orson. Mothers do that, even when something involving their kids isn't their fault. But it was Orson who did everything in his feline power to get outside, including tearing up window screens and knocking people over. Mom, you're an awesome kitty-mommy, so please don't blame yourself.

Orson, we love you...and we miss you already. One day, we'll meet you at the Rainbow Bridge.

Hail, no.

I don't even know why this Weather Channel radar map is showing that cluster of storms east of Atlanta. Forty percent chance of showers? Try 100% chance of bullshit. Maybe it's hallucinating like the rest of us in this God-awful heat and humidity.

Current conditions in Small Town, Georgia, as of 11:00am (and I quote): Sunny, 85°. Humidity: 80%. Feels like: 102°. Oppressive humidity.

Well, "oppressive" is a nice try, but I don't think it's a strong enough adjective. Maybe they should reword it: Feels like: 102°. Humidity: Saddam Hussein.

Yesterday's heat index was 109°, and unfortunately I was out in it—helping a few students at the D2U library, then off to buy groceries and cat fuel. By the time I arrived home and had lugged all my purchases into the house, I was soaked with sweat and completely exhausted, and spent the rest of the evening naked as a jaybird in front of the air conditioner.

At first, today was looking like a repeat of yesterday's activities, but when I realized that it already felt like 102° just an hour before noon, I canceled my appointments. Dammit, I've got things to do, but getting heatstroke while traveling from Point A to Point B is not going help in the least.

Sewing with Mom

MOM: So you're going for the Joan Crawford look.
ME: C'mon! This is a killer pattern! How can you look at such awesomeness and say no?
MOM: Easy. [stares intently at pattern envelope] NO.

"Southern baking" takes on a whole new meaning

Today is yet again another scorcher here in Small Town, Georgia, and across the Deep South. According to Desktop Weather (which no weather geek should be without), it's currently 90 degrees in Small Town, with 69% humidity—it feels like 105°. But that's not the end of it! By 5:00pm, the heat index will be around 108°.

The Happy Kitten Cottage (HKC) has central air conditioning, but I haven't used it in years. It's at least as old as I am, and very inefficient. Instead, I have a small (5,000 BTU) window A/C unit in the bedroom, and it cools my sleeping area as well as the adjacent room. In the rest of the house, however, it's just fans—the den's 20-year-old window A/C unit pooped out a couple months ago, and my paltry summer teaching paychecks haven't allowed for a replacement. This sustained hot weather has made me realize, though, that I'm just going to have to suck it up, tap my emergency fund (aka Mr. Visa), and hit Home Depot for a new, larger window air conditioner to help cool down the kitchen, bathroom, and den. It's a little after 11:00am and 88° here in the den. The box fan behind my computer chair is set to "high," and I am stark naked...and still about to roast. (No, there will not be any nekkid Miss Kitteh pics. My Jaguar Lounge days are long behind me. Well, unless readers are throwing $100 bills. Then we'll talk.)

Yesterday evening found me at Mom's house, where I mowed most of her lawn (on El Seebeno's riding lawnmower, thank heavens). For the first time in my nearly 37 years on this planet, I think I got too hot. I've had a pounding headache since 7:00 last night, and have felt tired and woozy. Staying in front of the A/C and drinking lots of fluids have seemed to help.

What's more, the writers' group of which I am a member has a meeting at 2:00pm today in a nearby city. I am vice-president of this group, but they're going to have to do without me today—not even for love of the written word am I going to spend two solid hours round-trip in a truck with NO air conditioning, and with the driver's side of the cab in the full, blazing sun. NO.

What are you doing today to escape the heat?