you turn the music up

maura @ 11:10 pm

This past Monday was pretty crappy. I was still sick, the cat barfed, and I didn’t get much work done on the article or conference presentation I’m working on. Can someone please tell me why, exactly, our weird cat likes to eat the plastic from window envelopes? (Also I’m still sick — who can fix that for me?)

But something very good happened, too: the new Tracey Thorn CD, Love and Its Opposite, came in the mail. Yay! You may remember a few months ago when I complained that I couldn’t possibly be expected to wait til it was released. And then suddenly here it is, in a lovely package from Merge Records with a poster (for my office wall!) and a sticker (for my bike! or computer, haven’t decided yet).

I imposed a media blackout on myself and didn’t read the review in the New Yorker or anywhere else until after I’d had a chance to listen to the record all the way through a couple of times. It’s different than the last record, not techno-y at all, which I initially missed a bit (even though when you look at the whole of her/EBTG’s career the dancey stuff is not in the majority by any means). On this records there’s lots of piano, the songs are mostly quiet, and some are just achingly sad and gorgeous. But there’s some rolicking good times in there too, including the most enjoyable song about menopause *I’ve* ever heard (don’t know about you, though).

Just like with the last record there won’t be a tour, and I’m surprisingly un-unhappy about that. I’ve written before on my mixed feelings about live music these days: I miss it, but more in a nostalgic way than a run-right-out-and-go-to-a-show way. So in some ways it’s easier when there’s *not* a tour, then I don’t need to feel guilty or lame about not going. I feel g + l enough about missing The Primitives at the Bell House earlier this month, and of course I will also be missing Unrest at same in July.

But all’s not lost: from what I’ve read there will be videos of Tracey Thorn performing these new songs from time to time. Scroll down on her website to see the first one: the new single. I do miss the strings from the recorded version, but it’s lovely all the same.

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updates, in list form

maura @ 5:32 pm

1. We did manage to make it to the BBG today. What’s more fun than traipsing through the botanic gardens with a sullen, complaining 8 yr old? Same plus nearly every other resident of our fine city. I have rarely seen the gardens so crowded on a non-event day. We actually had to cut the trip short because the crowds were getting to all of us.

2. Here’s the flower report:
Magnolias: mostly finished
Tulips: full bloom
Grape hyacinths: full bloom, like a bluish-purple carpet
Lilacs: mostly not open, but a few bushes have started, eep!
Cherries: a mixed bag, some trees are full on, and some just have buds. Seems like the trees with whitish blossoms open earliest:

It’s like a crazy nature fast forward over there, even the azalea bushes have a couple of blossoms opening. Looks like Gus will have to endure a few more awful weekends of floral viewing. We’ll be consulting the cherry blossom status map to plan our viewing strategy.

3. We did have ice cream bars, phew. And as you can see, even the non-treat time wasn’t all bad:

Nothing like a muddy stream to really cheer a kid up after being dragged to see boring old flowers with his boring old parents.

4. Have you seen my to-do list? It’s gone missing, which has completely thrown me for a loop because I need to update it for this week and I usually start with the old list when I’m making a new one. I’ve got a couple of piles of work- and research-related stuff on my desk and shelves, and it’s not in any of them. I *just* had it yesterday, and I can’t for the life of me imagine what’s happened to it.

Maybe the cats stole it. I’ve been talking trash about shaving them lately because with the warm weather they are shedding like mad. This could be their devilish revenge: wig out the control freak by stealing her list! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

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all this pushing and shoving

maura @ 10:46 pm

WARNING: this post is about cats. Even though the internet is made of cats*, I don’t spend a lot of time writing about ours. But tonight that’s all going to change, so if cats aren’t yr bag you might want to come back next time. I promise never to talk about cats for 2 posts in a row, scout’s honor.

* Link not entirely safe for work, just so’s you know.

We have had a bit of cat drama around here recently. Kind of an escalation, if you will, of bad behavior.

So, a little while back we started to have some issues with pooping outside the box. And the thing about that is that it’s not at all like thinking outside the box. It’s much much MUCH smellier and (potentially) more inconvenient.

At first it was just the one cat, and it was happening in the bathtub. So we started filling the tub with a few inches of water. There was one hilarious incident with a jump and a surprised “meow!” and then it stopped for a while. And then it started again, except on the floor. And then the other, stupider cat was like, “hey, this is fun for me, too!”

I looked on the internets, where all the crazy cat people live. Advice is, as you may imagine, plentiful, though never exactly what you want to hear. Why no, we are actually NOT going to have 3 litterboxes for 2 (smallish) cats in our 2 bedroom apartment, why would you think that?

Finally this week we took the main offender to the vet. (And his poop, too, because what’s more fun than collecting cat poop in a container in the freezer?) She doesn’t know what’s wrong but gave us some antibiotics to try. Wrestling the meds into the cat is taking us back: it’s just about as much fun as it was to try to get Gus to take antibiotics when he was a toddler. We finally resorted to vanilla ice cream for Gus, even for breakfast, but not sure what this cat would like since he’s not a fan of canned food.

The weirdest thing is this: the other cat has been totally, completely FREAKED OUT since the pooper came back from the vet. It must be the smell of the antibiotics, but I’ve never seen anything like it. He’ll walk over to the pooper, take a sniff, then hiss mightily and run away to hide! It’s a very weird feline showdown thing. The pooper is unfazed, and in some ways seems to be enjoying the freedom — the other cat is usually dominant when it comes to food and preferred spots for hanging out.

Hopefully the antibiotics will fix everything right up, because I have to admit that this is getting a little old. I like the cats, really I do, but I am tired of the shenanigans!

(That’s my instant make-Gus-giggle statement these days: he can’t get enough of my old-lady complaints about being tired of the shenanigans.)

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insistent and furry

maura @ 11:03 pm

The cats seem to have missed us while we were away. Dreadfully, achingly, pathetically missed us, if their behavior the past few days is any indication. The needy one can’t go an hour without sitting next to one of our chairs and mewing pitifully to be picked up, or flinging himself down on the floor in front of us as we try and walk through the apartment, to lure us into petting his soft underbelly. Even the stoic one is following us around and Will Not Stand for closed doors. And they’ve woken us up before dawn the past 2 days with meowing and sitting on us + purring (needy) and jumping onto the bedside table to sniff my head (stoic).

Gus, too, has not been a great sleeper since we returned. Sometimes he suddenly decides that something he used to find hilarious is actually quite scary, which seems to have happened on Sunday night with the awesome (and very cute, really!) game Plants vs Zombies, which Jonathan just got for the iphone. Honestly it’s not creepy at all, but for some reason it struck a nerve with the kid. He was up at every miniscule creaking floorboard and clanging radiator pipe on Sunday night, and we were up, too.

I’m tired. I think I need a sleep vacation.

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two unrelated things

maura @ 9:36 pm

1. Yesterday I spent an oddly large amount of time talking about cats. Not just any old cats, but mine and the cats owned by the other people I was with. First the subject came up at a meeting I was in, though I can’t quite remember how. Then cats came up again last night, when Jonathan and I were hanging out with some pals from my old job. Both conversations were pretty much the usual cat suspects: complaining about all the annoying stuff they do, wondering whether we’re giving them too much/too little/wet/dry food, interactions in multi-cat households, etc. I do love our cats, but still I was happy to hear that many folks had similar complaints to us about the weird stuff cats do. In the past sometimes I’ve gone looking on the internets for answers to cat questions, and you KNOW that is just a mistake.

As a cat-related aside, here is Gus + my most favorite kitten video on YouTube: kittens on a roomba! Guaranteed to cheer you up whenever you’re crabby.

2. Only 2 episodes of Dollhouse left until the bitter end, and it’s making me sad. (We haven’t watched last night’s ep yet, will tonight.) It’s intense and even kind of exhausting to watch a show that’s been canceled. There’s no filler at all, just episode after episode featuring hard-charging mythology plots.

(Not that the occasional monster of the week episode is at all bad; one of the best Buffy episodes ever was a one-off [The Body, when her mom died -- so amazing]).

I’m still pretty bummed out that Dollhouse was canceled. The episodes since the cancellation have been a little whiplashy as they try and get things wrapped up before the end of the series. But they’ve also been great, relying much more on the ensemble cast than just Echo, and bringing back teh awesome guest stars (Amy Acker! Summer Glau!).

Sigh.

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they are not amused

maura @ 9:23 pm

Do you think cats are pleased or annoyed by the rise of YouTube and LOLcats? Sometimes they look so pissed off, but sometimes I think they are secretly enjoying it and just seem grumpy because they know we want them to be annoyed.

Today after dinner Jonathan and I made a rap about/with Caramel. We’re not really in the YouTube demo (except for those awesome library tutorials I made over the summer), so you’ll have to read the lyrics all old school:

I’m Caramel Kitteh
I look so pretty
I like to live
in the big bad city

(beatbox interlude)

All the ladies in the house say meow!

Yes, we are a little tired + punchy here, apparently.

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working on your master plan

maura @ 10:21 pm

I hadn’t planned to when I woke up this morning, but as it turns out I caulked two sinks and the base of one bathtub today. Like most things, it’s the cat’s fault. Yesterday we got home from our week @ the beach with most of my family* to discover that one of the cats had picked at** a bit of the caulk that joins the bathroom sink to the wall.

* 7 adults + 6 kids under 8 = chaos! But fun, too. I actually kind of miss it.

** And maybe eaten? Hard to say, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Since Caramel ate 1/2 a ribbon the last time I wrapped a birthday present (and pooped out a bow-tied treat later, eew), I’m betting he’s the culprit. Lucky for him he’s so soft + pretty or he’d be out on his kitty behind, I tell ya.

I spent most of the morning walking around in a post-vacation stupor, doing piles of laundry and feeling grumpy.*** After which I helped triage Gus’s school forms + supplies list (which gets longer every year, it seems) and felt grumpy. Every so often I went into the bathroom, and each time I saw the gaping hole in the caulk I sighed a big sigh.

*** Why is re-entry so difficult? I like my house, my bed, the relative quiet of my family of 3. And I’m cool with going back to work tomorrow — the semester starts this week and my research project is starting in earnest, too. Still, I moped around today like someone kicked me in the shins, seriously.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. A few weeks ago I’d up and caulked one of the bathtubs, so we had some caulk left over from that adventure. What I hate most is the decaulking — it’s always much more work than you think it will be to pry it out and scrape it off. But for some miracle reason this old caulk pulled free quick as a flash. A little masking, a little caulk, a little smoothing, and then it was time to cover it with a plastic bag so it can cure ’til tomorrow. Good times!

Then I was on a caulking roll. The caulk on the section of the backsplash near the kitchen faucet looked kind of grotty, so I scraped that off too and slapped on some shiny new caulk. I thought that was it, but then I noticed a bit of a weird spot in the other bathroom where the tub meets the tile floor. I stupidly gave it a tug and a huge chunk of caulk came off there, too. And who can leave a clean spot? Not I. So I scraped + slapped again.

Now there’s lots of caulk under plastic bags in our apartment, and I’m having a beer and feeling much less grumpy. Not bad for day 1 post-vacation, not bad at all.

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january, february, march april may

maura @ 10:16 pm

It’s been a while since I blagged about the cats, and I know how much you’ve been wondering about them. Yes, even you!

Well they’re certainly bigger, which means that they’re hairier and poop more. Caramel is still needy, though he’s thankfully stopped waking us up in the early morning hours. He does still meow pitifully at breakfast time, as if he can’t quite bring himself to believe that we are actually going to feed him (which of course we do every day — he’s not so smart). Gummy is still somewhat aloof, though he’s been following us around a bit more lately. He’s very picky about where you pet him and wants you to sit on the floor with him (no couches or bed) and pet him while he walks back and forth.

Not to excessively anthropomorphize them, but we’re making some changes around here related to cat products and I feel like they’ve both been sort of crabby about it. I am about to lose my mind with the cedar litter we have that gets tracked all over the apartment (it’s very light and clings to their fur easily) so we are trying to switch them to these pine pellets (which are cheaper and sold at our food coop so don’t require a special trip to the pet store). We are trying to do the switch very slowly so hopefully they’ll be cool with it.

We’re also changing their food. We used to do canned food in the AM and dry in the PM, which was very generous of us, I think, given how awful the canned food smells. But Gummy’s never been very interested in the canned food. He used to eat just a little bit then walk away, and Caramel would trundle his (fatter) butt over and polish off the rest. When we finally figured that out we started sequestering Gummy’s food and bringing it out later while Caramel was closed in the bedroom. Which is just kind of an insane amount of hoop-jumping for cats in the morning when we are trying to get the people to school + work.

So we’re going all dry food all the time (which is cheaper, too). Gummy seems nonplussed; he clearly eats to live. Caramel, on the other hand, is practically despondent in the mornings. We weaned them off over the course of a week but he still cries every morning while I’m making Gus’s breakfast. On the plus side, he’s much less interested in the dry food so I think he only eats his own portion and not Gummy’s, too.

The other weird thing about Caramel is the chewing — cords, chopsticks, the handle of their brush — but I think I’ve bored you with enough cat talk for one evening.

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three things about today

maura @ 7:50 pm

1. Today is St. Patrick’s Day and I accidentally wore green. Usually I don’t — green is my favorite color so I wear it lots of other days, and also since I am 15/16ths of Irish descent I figure is it really necessary? Except that today I forgot about the date and picked a green blouse primarily because it’s short-sleeved and it’s been 100 million degrees at work recently and I had a class which meant I’d be pacing and waving my arms around for 75 minutes. And then I got to work and remembered and thought: doh.

2. When we got the kittens last Memorial Day they were about 2 1/2 months old, so we arbitrarily decided that March 17th is their birthday. Happy Birthday cats! They are still mostly bundles of fun, except when they chew electrical cords and eat Gus’s lima bean plant and scratch my record jackets (which I noticed this morning and which MUST STOP).

A couple of weekends ago we went to a giant pet store to get them some new toys. The best is a long feather on a stick that is very serpentine when wiggled. There’s also a small blue mousey thing with catnip that has already inspired growling and dirty looks. Rock on.

One of the toys came on this helpfully labeled card:

Duh.

3. Today is also the birthday of my job. Happy Birthday, job! The past year has gone by almost in an instant. And I still love it. Definitely worth the investment in tuition to library school. Go, nerds!

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i won’t tell you, but if you only knew

maura @ 9:37 pm

On the heels of last night’s longish post, well, here’s a cop out. I had some insomnia last night and I’m tired, and I want to read the (fiction!) book I got from the library last weekend. It’s a kids book w/a gorgeous cover written by a fellow citizen of the CUNYverse; hope it doesn’t disappoint.

So I leave you with this, which is apparently what happens every day after Jonathan gets home from the coop and leaves his backpack open on the floor as he’s unloading it. And today he took a picture.

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