Check the pigs for wings!

Well, it's finally happened. Jon has come out of his 6-month blog hiatus! It's common knowledge that getting the two Jo(h)ns of the family together will inevitably lead to a spirited debate. My brother (John) has been working on a paper for class about Darwinianism and its effect on the church. I'd be very interested to read the paper. In the meantime, John posted some questions on his blog to initiate discussion. I left my meager response in his comments, but Jon wrote two posts on his own blog in response. So check it out! And then add your own thoughts!

Hm...not a bad idea....

As I try to finish up my large list of to-dos for work, I'm feeling a bit like this.

(There should be three panels to the comic. If you don't see all three, click on the strip to see the rest. Though, in my opinion, the first two are the funny part.)

And on the sixth...

So, here's the deal:

Open your pictures folder

Go to the SIXTH folder

Go to the SIXTH picture

Publish it to a NEW POST and tell the story of the photo.

Technically, this is the third photo in that folder, but it makes for a great story. This was March 16 of this year, my birthday. We were all at John and Karen's house to celebrate birthdays (their birthdays are right before mine). Jon and I had a little secret (and a big announcement) that day. Holding our then-one-month-old nephew, Ian, Jon's winking because no one knows that we'll be returning the favor of a nephew before the year is out!

And, to satisfy my obligation, here is the sixth photo:
Though it does slightly look like a method of torture, this is how to burp a baby when he can't yet hold his head up. John's cradling Ian's head while patting his back.

The Good and the Bad

I love my cats. I know it'll be different when Caleb comes, but Bonnie & Clyde are my babies. In lots of ways they act like children: They love keys, they pull hair and jewelry, they barge into the bathroom unwanted, they whine at the door when it's closed, and they make me laugh. They really are the best.

Sometimes I wish I were more like Bonnie. She sleeps all the time. Occasionally, I can't resist the urge to pet her while she sleeps. Which of course wakes her up, but she never seems to mind. Unlike my crabby self when awakened, she just stretches a bit, lets out a little purr, and drifts right back to sleep. Sometimes she wakes up as if reminded of the possibilities, and moves to my lap for better petting. She's never upset, but accepts the unasked-for gesture for what it is: a gesture of love. Sometimes she's fast asleep and Clyde pounces on her. She leaves (understandably), and he steals her spot. What a punk Clyde is. But Bonnie just wanders to another favorite spot and goes right back to sleep. Yep, I should be more like my kitty.

1: Bonnie Girl sleeping

2. The Clydester attacks!

3. Now who's got the nice warm spot?

I really think cats are the greatest. As I've listened to the stories of other cats, or of dogs and puppies, I've been a little smug about the fact that I have cats who are so great and adjust to things so well.

All of that came to a screeching halt Friday morning.

Jon was cleaning out the litter box. He moved it from the storage closet where it resides out into the room for better cleaning. Clyde promptly went back into the storage closet and started peeing where the box should be. Not just a little pee. A LOT of pee. I hear yelling from the back room, and Clyde comes flying out. Jon's asking for the old towels, which we'd conveniently put away in the garage when we were organizing. Convenient only when not needed. (Our garage doesn't have a door connecting from the house, so you have to go outside and go through the large door on the front.) So Jon does his best with paper towels, but eventually we have to go get the towels from the garage. As we are moving back and forth around the house, I notice that Clyde is very busily cleaning himself. Poor guy was probably still peeing when Jon shooed him out, and made a mess all over himself (though I didn't find any in the rest of the house).

As Jon was spending this extra bit of time on the floor of the storage closet, he came across a discovery. We had put an open box full of kitchen towels on the bottom shelf of the closet. I don't go through towels that often; I usually just wash the ones I have out and put them back in rotation. So we hadn't accessed this box since Labor Day. What Jon found was towels soaked in ammonia-heavy pee...with piles of poop scattered on top. PILES of poop.

GROSS!! Nasty!! Disgusting!

The whole box went straight into the trash can outside, and all the rest of the towels (all the normal bath towels are on that same shelf) were given a nice long run through the washer! The litter box was moved out into the living area, and the storage closet door firmly shut forever to the cats.

The only thing I think could have happened is that one of the cats got picky about the state of the litter box one day, and decided to try somewhere else. Since we didn't notice it, the scent remained there, and it became a permanent litter box from that point forward.

Moral of the story: rotate dish towels out more often, clean litter box more often, and don't feel smug about other people's pet woes.

Lesson learned!

Clyde was in the dog house for a couple of days. Bonnie probably should have been, too, but Clyde started the incident with the pee on the floor, so he had to take the brunt of the blame. But then, how can we stay mad at such a handsome kitty??