Oh, you guys, I don’t even have an excuse for all this non-blogging I’ve been doing. This is probably the sixth or seventh post I’ve started in the last couple weeks – I just can’t get interested in it. But boy howdy, enough is enough and I’m gonna give it a solid try. Like, posting every single day. So. Here we go.

The Dork Lord and I are on week three of a three week cleanse. Which means… well, it means many things, but primarily it means that it’s been over two weeks since I’ve had a cup of coffee. No sugar? No big deal. No alcohol, bread or dairy? Eh, okay. But coffee? Even on a normal, non-restrictive day, I could shamelessly open-mouth kiss a cup of really good coffee in front of a crowd of impressionable school children, so you can imagine how lusty I feel right about now. Two weeks ago, I was feeling a little more murderous than lusty, but thankfully, my desire to stab people has decreased exponentially with each passing caffeine free day.

I know, I know. What kind of weirdos go on a cleanse during the holidays? These weirdos. The ones who were breaking zippers and on the verge of investing in wardrobes based solely on elastic waistbands. The ones who packed on 20lbs since they got married a short six months ago. And right after we wrap up the cleanse and our innards are free of toxins, we hop right into a 30 day fitness program and hopefully, be wearing our elastic-free jeans by New Years having celebrated every major winter holiday on lean protein and lots and lots of organic vegetables.

Meanwhile, I lick your empty coffee cup when you step away from your desk.

No, I don’t. But I think about it.

This week Midge got very sick, I had an MRI, Midge got better, the Dork Lord got a 96 on his calculus test, we had 14 trick-or-treaters and two extra cats joined us on the patio for breakfast this morning. Two large males. Pretty sure I’m not going to be able to relieve them of their testicles by petting them into submission so the ante in this little Control the Feral Cat Population game has just been upped.

We also got word that my brother-in-law, whom we have not met, will be visiting us next weekend while he’s stationed in Oklahoma City for training. I’m so excited! And not because he looks like My Military Ken Doll or anything. But come on, that’s hard to beat. Even my two-year-old niece Penny, who can parrot the names of each of her aunts and their spouses, has chosen the new guy as a clear favorite. She now answers, “Shane!” to the question, “Who is Heather/Audrey/Joyce married to?”  Nevermind the guy is married to my sister Nora. Naturally, it’s the uniform.

At any rate, the Dork Lord loves when a brother-in-law sleeps over – it means staying up late talking about computers/sports/video games and whatever other things I mostly nod and smile about – so we’re pretty excited.

Now that we have Midge back operating at 97% Obnoxious, our household should be relatively chaotic (which is our version of calm) for a while. On Sunday, she crawled up on the couch with us, snuggled into the down comforter and went to sleep. And then she didn’t move all day. Our evening went a little something like this:

Living Room,  6PM

Me: Something’s wrong with Midge.

Him: Nothing is wrong with Midge.

Me: But she hasn’t moved! All day!

Him: She’s fine. She’s a cat. They’re lazy. It’s what they do.

Me: Okay.

Living Room, 7PM

Me: Something’s really wrong with Midge. Hal sleeps all day. Midge wreaks havoc. She’s not wreaking havoc. Cats can’t say “I don’t feel so good,” they just stop being normal.

Him: Midge. Is. Fine.

Me: Nuzzles kitten. This cat has a fever! Midge has a fever. Feel how warm she is!

Him: She’s been sleeping in a down comforter. Of COURSE she’s warm.

Me: Okay.

Living Room, 9PM

Me: Bursting into tears. There’s something wrong with Midge and you’re NOT PAYING ATTENTION! Cry, cry, blow nose.

Him: Would you like me to take her to the vet in the morning?

Me: Okay.

Vet’s office, 8:30 AM the following morning

Him: My wife is not happy. I want to make my wife happy.

Vet: Yes, let’s do that. Examines cat. Your cat is very sick. She has a 105 degree fever.

I have held off on the I Told You So routine that would ordinarily accompany this kind of situation because one) knowing that the kitten was indeed very sick did not make me feel gloaty and two) he already owed me an I Told You So about something else so I figured eh, let’s call it even.

Besides, when she was sick, he made a down comforter nest in the middle of our bed and plopped her cat carrier down in it so we could co-sleep with her while she was getting well. Ten points for Gryffindor.

I talk about cats a lot. People who stumble on the blog or twitter have started to get the notion that I’m some kind of cat hoarder. Then they send me emails about how I need to get out of my house and how I will, inevitably, die alone. I kid you not. So, should you be one of those stumblers and feel inclined to send me such a message, this post is for you.

We were a one cat household, not some cat hoarder den of crazy. Well, actually, until January, we were a one cat/one dog household but we lost the dog to the tragedy of old age.

When we bought our home in the spring, we didn’t move in for almost two months while we undertook some rather ambitious renovations. During this time I one, got very good at using a caulk gun and two, happened to notice that we were surrounded by cats. Feral cats. Not strays – these cats (with the exceptions of a gigantic white male who can be seen in possession of a collar and tag as well as a giant set of kitten-makin’ balls) had never been anybody’s pet and were likely born in the same yards they now prowled.

One day in early May, while we were scraping paint for what had to be the 70th hour, I looked out the window and saw the cutest little ball of fluff bouncing around in the bushes. Immediately I knew I needed to hug this little ball of fluff so outside I ran to introduce myself to its mother.

“Hello, Mama Cat!” I said, crouching down and offering a hand. “I’m very nice and I would like to hug the guts out of your baby.”

Somehow it had escaped me that a feral cat wouldn’t be all that enthusiastic about letting me do anything to her baby, much less give it the Lennie treatment. I got the clue, though, what with all the hissing and growling. When we moved in a week or two later, I started putting out dry cat food for the angry Mama Cat because I wasn’t certain whether she had a predictable food source and a nursing mother should have at least that. She ate the food but she was not my biggest fan.

Two weeks later when we got home from our honeymoon, I spotted that same ball of fluff, laid out on the concrete in the heat of the day, moving only when the mockingbirds began dive-bombing her from the trees. Enough, I thought. All it took was an outstretched hand and that little kitten came running. She was bones and fleas. Off we went to the vet and when we came home, my husband called her Midget; at six weeks old, she weighed less than a pound. And that’s when Midge came to live with us and we became a two cat household.

That’s also when I decided to do something about the uncared-for cat population on our street. And I would start with Mama Cat. I contacted a local rescue, KittiCo, who told me that I could borrow a quote/unquote humane trap, catch her, bring her in and they would spay and release. But after I emailed back for details, I never heard from them again. Which was all fine and dandy – I couldn’t bring myself to frighten an animal by trapping it in a metal cage. I don’t see that as humane and I didn’t have it in me. But I also couldn’t stand the idea of Mama, who couldn’t have been a year old, popping out litter after litter.

The best thing about the timing, though, was that Mama Cat was already working on another litter. Ha. Ha. Haaaaaaa. Yay.

Anyway, I decided when I took Mama to the vet, it would be because she let me pick her up and take her there. When my vet heard my plan, he was not thrilled.

“Be careful,” he said. “Feral cats can be very tough.”

“Whatever,” I thought. “I can be very tough.”

What I meant was stubborn. Every morning and every evening for the next several weeks, I sat on our driveway and fed Mama Cat from a bowl that I started out by placing six feet away, then four, then two, then right at my side. By the time she was eating next to me, she was also letting me scratch her back. Then she introduced me to her babies: two seriously cute little ladies (around four weeks old, by my guess) who were not so thrilled to be called to dinner while I sat nearby, but they were not given a choice. Morning after morning and night after night I sat on the driveway being eaten alive by ants and mosquitoes and sweating through my clothes. The heat of the summer drove us all to do some desperate things, and Mama was no exception – by the end of July, a combination of hard earned trust and desperation made her willing to lie belly up on the driveway and let me rub ice water into her fur. She began waiting for me at the front door, sometimes calling for me to come out.

Mama Cat became Mama Cass. Today, she lives on our back patio and not only lets me pick her up and hug her (okay, “lets” is a strong word. She tolerates it), she sits in my lap, nuzzles me and as of this week, has started leaving me presents. Two very dead, very neatly displayed robins.

Back in the second week of August, one of Cass’ kittens got sick. I found her dying in the bushes. And that’s when Vera came to live in our bathroom, then master bedroom and then, lucky thing, permanently at my mother in law’s house.

And then there was one. One totally effing terrified-of-humans kitten, who was still nursing. When she had weaned that final kitten, I calmly picked up Mama Cass, put her in a cat carrier and took her to the vet. Because she let me.

But until a few weeks ago, the last baby cat (who we cleverly call The Baby Cat) wouldn’t even climb onto the patio to eat until I was back inside the house, watching from the utility room window. That’s when I started giving her the Mama Cass Treatment. Every night and every morning, I sit on the patio, food bowls at my knees and I do not move until she has finished. I built them a shelter out of a re-purposed storage bin and got downright gleeful when I watched Baby Cat crawl out of it the next morning, stretching and yawning. I began sneak-attack petting. And then sneak-attack hugging. And this morning, I picked her up, plopped her into a cat carrier and took her to be vaccinated and spayed. She, uh, sort of let me.

“This,” I told the kitten as I petted her nervous little head, “is what they call winning.”

(Unless, of course, you’re speaking financially, because I don’t know how winning my husband would say it feels to have spent almost twelve hundred dollars on cats who are not actually your pets but it’s like I told him: “doing the right thing isn’t usually convenient. Besides, you were warned. For every time you re-watch the NBA finals, I will rescue another kitten.” He told me I’d better start looking for a cat lady scholarship.)

And I know, believe me, I know that these feral cats are not my pets. But despite all the knowing and how often I repeat “they are wild animals,” my attachment to them is very deep and I was awfully relieved when the vet just called to say all has gone very well and that we can bring her home this evening.

“Does she have a name,” he asked.

“Oh, um, Baby Cat?”

“Well, why don’t you work on a name so we can get her rabies vaccination registered.”

So, taking my cues from Dirty Dancing, our “Baby” has just been named Frances  – after the first lady in the cabinet. Or Frances “Baby” Houseman. Whatever. It’s a real grown up name.

Today is the first day in eleven that I haven’t had a headache and I’m celebratin’ with a blog post.

Two Sundays ago, I got knocked down with a migraine so gnarly that the sound of my husband making chocolate milk at the other end of the house felt like that spoon was bouncing around tink, tink, tink inside every bone of my face. Then it never really went away. On Thursday, after a second migraine (this time, at work) that made my left foot go numb, I went to see a neurologist, who ordered an MRI and prescribed some sort of miracle, migraine killing drug. The kicker is, the drug is a compound only made at two pharmacies in the whole of Dallas/Fort Worth and wouldn’t be ready until… today. And in the meantime, I had to stop taking over-the-counter crap because, get this, it causes “rebound headaches.” So with ear plugs jammed into my ears and bags of frozen Brussels sprouts pressed into my left eye socket (what? the ice packs never resurfaced after our move) I watched the World Series and waited for the MRI that has to be approved and scheduled by my insurance company. I expect that to happen sometime around retirement.

What’s most frustrating, I mean, aside from constantly being able to feel my heart beat in my brain, the headaches do a really good job of making me stupid. I lose my train of thought, can’t seem to remember work-essential vocabulary words and I get so busy reminding myself to breathe in and out, basic literacy escapes me. It is not pretty.

But today I feel normal. And since any paranormal powers in the Universe responsible for jinxes and related silliness are all tied up in baseball right now, I think it’s safe to risk saying the headache is gone.

And speaking of baseball…

How’d you like that transition? Thanks. I worked hard on it.

With the Rangers in the World Series, I’m listening to a lot more sports radio on the way to work instead of my iPod. This morning, I happened to catch a segment the Ticket calls, “Women Say the Darndest Things About Sports.” The gem of this 5 minute trip down Condescension Street was an email from a dude who says he put a bunch of effort into coercing his wife into watching sports with him – with the singular goal that she say something revealing her lack of sports knowledge, thus giving him material to submit to the show. So he can have 45 seconds of fame. By making fun of his wife.

Wow, guy. Just wow. We’ll check back in on your marriage in a few years and see how it’s holding up.

The incredibly patronizing “Women Say” segment did a great job of highlighting what I don’t like about sports broadcasting and fandom:

1. Sports knowledge does not equate to intelligence. I’m always a little baffled by the Sports Genius who is ignorant about so, so many other things (world events, finances, literature, HOW TO OPERATE SMALL HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES) and yet behaves as though his sports knowledge makes him somehow erudite. You big scholar, you.
2. Many, many sports rules are not logical. When the Sports Naive asks why something happens the way it does, the Duh tone that accompanies the answer is absolutely ridiculous. I give my Dork Lord much credit for never, ever assuming the Duh tone with me. You don’t get to be patronizing about a past-time that fully supports wearing seven-day-dirty drawers as a talisman against losing. You just don’t.
3. Sports broadcasting often panders to sexism. Because it can. Because bucket loads of sports fans don’t see anything wrong with it. They’re likely the same ones still screaming feminine pejoratives at the TV when their heroic sports icon doesn’t quite live up to his bazillion dollar pay, too. That’s one of my favorites. A wide receiver with too many dropped passes doesn’t just really suck at his job, he’s a pussy. If he’s down too long after a hit, he’s not engaging in histrionics, he’s a whiny bitch. In sports, when a man is under-performing, he’s equated to a woman. Nice, right? All I can say is, may the good lord bless you all with daughters. And someday, may some poor fool go on national radio and talk about your little girl like she’s a halfwit.