Old School Breakfast

Mrs BigKat made me some toast and asked me what I wanted on it.

This is what popped into my head, so I told her I wanted some...

I don't think she thought it was as funny as I did though.

I still don't understand how this could happen...

Mrs. BigKat was at the computer this morning. It was a little cold so she was tapping her feet up and down on the floor.

BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM...

Now what would you say in that situation? I bet you would say exactly the same thing that I said:

Her feet: BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM

Me: FLASH!!! A-aaaaaahhhh!!!

Savior of the universe!!!

And it would be funny, right? WRONG! Mrs. BigKat had NO IDEA what I was talking about! SHE HAD NEVER HEARD OF FLASH GORDON!

I still don't know what to say about this...

Here's the song in case you spent your childhood in a hole in the ground like my wife apparently did:

Underwear

The kids usually take their baths/showers in the evening. Which means that this is when LilKat2 changes his underwear. Well, it seemed as if LilKat2 was running out of clean underwear more quickly than he should. We found out that the reason for this was that he was changing his underwear right when he woke up in addition to after his shower. Mrs. BigKat told him that since he took a shower in the evening, he didn't have to change his underwear again in the morning. That way, he wouldn't run out of clean underwear so quickly in his underwear drawer.

Unfortunately, I think he took this underwear conservation concept a little to far. The other day, he says 'Mom, guess what...I think I've worn this same underwear for FOUR DAYS!'

I hope he at least turned it inside out after day 2...

Darrel

A couple of weeks ago, my cat Darrel died. He was 13 years old. We have a bunch of cats at our house and Darrel was my favorite.

Here's why:

• He was the most dog-like cat I know. When I would go out, he would wait at the front door for me to come home. Mrs. BigKat said that he really missed me when I left. When I went on business trips, it would drive him crazy.

• He was smart, but he used his brains for evil. If he was a person, I think he would've been Lex Luthor. Okay, maybe he wasn't really evil, but he did like to do funny things just to bother people.

Here's an example: A long while ago, I had a roommate, Lisa. When she left for school/work in the morning, she would close the door to her room. Sometimes, Darrel would quickly run in and hide in before she had a chance to shut the door. Then she'd have to spend the next 10 minutes searching for him. One time, she was running really late and didn't have time to catch Darrel. She asked me if I could go in there and find him for her, so I said sure. Right after she drove away, I looked over and saw Darrel slowly walking out of her room. I think he just loved getting a reaction out of her. But she left and the game was over, so he went to go find something else to do.

• He loved to get into places where he wasn't supposed to go. Okay, maybe this wasn't always good, but it made for some funny memories. Here's a picture of when Darrel got into one of the cupboards. Mrs. BigKat was cleaning out the kitchen. She left one cupboards open that was pretty high up. Darrel saw his chance so he got in (I'm not exactly sure how he did it. He must've got onto the stove and then took a superleap into the cupboard. I guess he just wanted to know what was in there). It kind of surprised her.

Here's a picture of Darrel when he got on top of the refrigerator. Again, I'm not sure how he got up there. One time, Mrs. BigKat and I were sleeping and we heard this huge CRASH downstairs. Now some people might think that maybe there's a robber, or that maybe the noise came from outside. But Mrs. BigKat and I both thought the same thing...Darrel...

It turns out we were right. He had gotten on top of the refrigerator and knocked off this huge glass bowl.

• He loved being on top of my head. When I met him at the animal shelter, the first thing he did was climb on my head. He loved being up there. I used to wear a hooded sweatshirt when I worked at home. When he was little, he would go inside the hood behind my back and lie down in there while I worked. Or sometimes, he would just go on the top of my chair. When he got larger, he couldn't really fit on the top of my head very well, so he would often just try to climb up me and sit on my neck or back.

• He had very soft fur. I mean really soft. It's much different than any of our other cats. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed petting him so much was because of how neat his fur felt.

• He would do things to drive me crazy. Here's one of my favorite Darrel stories. When he was little, I used to get into work really early. I'd get in at around 4am, which meant that I had to get up around 3am. I tried to get to sleep as early as I could, but it wasn't always easy. You see, Darrel had this thing where he wanted to stick his nose up into my nose and ears. Now, he didn't do this all the time, only when I wanted to sleep! So I had to try and sleep with my covers pulled over my head and tucked under my body. But Darrel would still try and shove himself himself under the covers so that he could get at my face. If I accidentally had the covers too close to my face, he would just try and bite my nose through the covers. Eventually, I'd have to stick my head out so that I could breathe and he would immediately go attack my face. This would go on for hours, with me pleading with him to leave me alone, and him happily purring away. One time, I got smart and brought a squirt gun with me to bed. It worked for a little while. I'd squirt him and he would run away. But then he got smart. Once, he let me squirt him and just stood there and took it. I squirted and squirted until I ran out of water. When I had no more water, he continued with trying to stick his nose in my ear.

• He was a big huge cat (I think 16 pounds at his heaviest) and acted like a tough cat. But he never hurt anyone. In fact, you could totally manhandle him and he would never fight back. Our children have grabbed him and picked him up in all sorts of undignified ways, and he never once got angry at them. Sometimes if I grabbed him for too long, he would start huffing and puffing at me (something I've never seen any other cat do), but I always thought it was cute so it would make me grab him for longer. I think he was just pretending to be angry, but was really happy with all the attention. Here's a picture of him with a baseball cap on his head. He probably wasn't very happy with the hat on his head, but he let me do stuff like that to him and wouldn't complain (too much).

• We loved being around each other. With our other cats (and probably cats in general), it seems like they come to get petted when they feel like it, and then walk away when they're done. Darrel liked being with me pretty much all the time. He'd hang out with me all day while I worked. He would sometimes sit at my feet (recently, he had a new trick where he'd lie down behind my office chair. It was sneaky because it would trap me in my desk. I couldn't stand up without moving my chair. He knew I couldn't move it backwards because I would smash him. But when I'd try to nudge him out of the way, he'd just lie there, ignoring me). When I'd come home tired from basketball and collapse on the floor, he'd rush over and lie down with me (and try to stick his nose in my armpits, which I didn't like so much). The night he died, was was sleeping in my work chair. He never did that. I'm guessing that he knew he was going to die and laid down in a place where I sit most of the time. Maybe he went there because he knew I would find him. Or maybe he just wanted to be in a place that he associated with me. It makes me happy to think that he was thinking about me during his last moments.

I miss Darrel. I told Mrs. BigKat that I don't want any more pets after our cats all die. But if I saw a cat that was exactly like Darrel, I'm pretty sure I would buy him again. The other cats seem like they are trying to make things easier for me. A couple of them have suddenly turned a little Darrel-like. Alice has recently been waiting around for me when I leave the house and will often follow me around when I'm at home. Bill has been sitting at my feet while I work, and today wanted to sit on my lap just like Darrel used to do (it wasn't the same though because Bill kept wanting to bite my fingers when my hands would get near him. Plus he farted a bunch and made it stink).

I'm not sure what happens to animals when they die. There's not really anything mentioned about it in the Bible that I've read. If I had to take an honest guess, I would say that God made animals different than he made people, so there's probably not a cat heaven like some people would like to think. But who know. Either way, I feel blessed to have been able to spend 13 years with the best cat the world has ever known, my friend Darrel.

Deal of the Century!

I was on slickdeals.net last night and saw a great deal on basketball shorts. They were on sale for $6 each. Plus there was a 10% coupon and a free shipping coupon as well! I ended up buying 15 pairs of shorts and 2 shirts for $95! That's like $5.50 per item!

I was going to toss some stuff out of the shopping cart, but Mrs. BigKat made me buy everything. I don't buy clothes very often (some of my clothes are at least 10 years old. According to Mrs. BigKat, that's too long), so for some reason, it was important to her that I get a big pile of new clothes.

The really nice thing about basketball shorts is that because I work at home, they serve as my work clothes as well my basketball clothes. Plus they're made with stretchy waists so I can get really fat and still fit into them. Now I should be set for clothes until at least 2020.

Like Father, Like Son

Want to know how brave LilKat2 is? Today, he had to have an Ear The Cow. Which is kind of crazy to me. I had never even heard of this insane procedure before. Now, our family has had 2 in 2 months.

Recently, it has seemed like LilKat2 has been ignoring us sometimes. We talk to him and it just seems like he's not listening to us at all. He's actually gotten in trouble for it a couple of times. Well, it turns out he really isn't listening. Because one of his ears was all clogged up. I noticed that when we were praying together, he would start praying while LilKat1 was praying. That clued me in that something was wrong with his ears. So last night, I gave him a little hearing test. I had him close his eyes while I made little sounds around his ears. His job was to wave his right hand if the sound was on his right and wave his left hand if the sound was on his left.

He failed miserably (and yes, afterwards, I felt really bad for scolding him for not listening to me).

So today, he went in to the doctor's and got his ears checked out. The doctor saw that one was clogged (so clogged in fact, that for the first few shots of the Ear The Cow, no water actually went into his ear). And he bravely sat there while they squirted water into his head. The nurse was very impressed! She said that most kids try to run away and hide in the corner. Not my son! He just sat there with his eyes closed until they were done (which is pretty much what I did too).

More Lemonade

Hey, remember this? Well, guess what! Pretty much the exact same thing happened again today. Except this time, instead of $25, I got $100!

And once again, I went right out and ordered another pile of boardgames (not for me though! They're gifts! I'm serious! Ok, a couple are for me. And one expansion. But the rest are for other people! Really, I'm not being boardgame-greedy! Well, maybe a little. Just a tiny bit boardgame-greedy. But I just got a free $100! What do you expect?).