The Kitties Are Behaving!

They are, in fact, using their flea spray. They are working out diligently on their scratching posts to keep their nails filed. They come when called, kill the scary bugs and let the lady bugs out the front door; they put their dishes away after dinner. I have seen no evidence of plagiarism in their recent writings. So, as I promised, I am going to let them repost some of their favorite entries from the archives. (Not, of course, the ones that caused that National Security Issue, and set off the whole Plagiarism Scandal. Those have been shredded. [I attached them to the scratching posts and had the Kitties do it themselves.] And, just to be safe, we shredded the monitor and hard drive, also. I think I will make the scrap into jewelry.)

Remember these? (Insert that dreamy harp music and some wavy lines to indicate a flashback, like on reruns of The Brady Bunch, here:)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Your Mom

Oh, the nuggets of wisdom we glean from our moms. Roll the curlers under, not up; where the salad fork goes; bourbon, honey and lemon for a cough (hmm...do I detect a little tickle in my throat?); the "secret" family recipe for macaroni and cheese; how to hang spoons on your face (well, maybe I should save that for another entry...); the list goes on and on.

And sometimes you're not quite sure what to do with your mother's wisdom.

Like the day your mom calls to tell you she thinks there is a "dead thing" in the basement.

"How do you know there's a 'dead thing' in the basement?", you ask.

"Well, it smells."

"OK, there's a 'dead thing' in the basement and it smells. Have you looked for it so you can remove it?"

" Yes, your father looked. He couldn't find it, so I looked. I couldn't find it. We looked together, but we still couldn't find it."

"Do you want me to come over to look?"

"No, you won't find it. We looked everywhere."

"Why don't you call on of those critter catchers to get rid of it?"

"Well, it doesn't smell as bad as it did yesterday. I think I'll just spray some FeBreeze down the vents."



Friday, March 14, 2008
Nothing Cures The Blues Like a Trip to the Dentist!

So, I broke a crown. On the most valuable tooth in my mouth, at that. This tooth bought my last dentist a Lexus. That man did everything to my molar except move it to the other side of my mouth. To my credit, when he made that suggestion, and I noticed the treads on his Lexus tires were looking a little ratty, I took my cash cow of a mouth elsewhere.

And landed squarely in the practice of...a standup comic. More fun than Tim Conway and Harvey Korman with Novocaine; no laughing gas necessary.

A call to the combination Dental Office/Comedy Club yielded (after a fair amount of rearranging our respective schedules) a "work-in" appointment. I would park in a chair and be attended to while other patients rinsed their mouths and paid their bills and watched infomercials about veneers.

A vignette:

The sweet Xray tech puts the film in my mouth, positions it just so, asks me if I'm pregnant (haha, and she's not even a comedienne), covers me with the 40 lb lead blanket, positions the camera just so on my cheek, tells me to be veryveryvery still, and steps back to push the Xray button just as

my dentist (from the next cubicle, where she's seeing a rather nervous teenage girl with cavities) starts telling me a story about how her son skipped school so she took his glasses away from him for a week and made him wear his sports goggles instead and he is now known as Steve Urkel.

When that happens to you and you are trying to be veryveryvery still and you have an Xray camera pressed up against your cheek and a big wad of plastic and film between your jaws and YOU DON'T DARE LAUGH; well, snot comes out your nose, and you move, and you have to take the picture again.

Three hours, forty jokes, one temporary crown, four wax impressions a couple thousand dollars, and an appointment for another crown in two weeks later, I walk out of the office into a gorgeous sunset. Life is good when you get to spend the afternoon with your dentist.

If she only served margaritas.