Rajah versus The Solstice

Thank you, LilBro 1 and LilBro 2.  Thank you for asking Jenny what Mike would like.  Thank you for listening to her advice about how he loves all things mechanical and remote-controlled.  Thank you for providing The Kitty Den with the unutterably wicked and gleeful delight that we have captured here:

P.S. Please, please don’t sic PETA on me.  We love our kitty.  That’s why we humiliate him and post the record for the world to see.  It makes perfect sense, does it not?

For my 24 fans

Which makes it sound like I have exactly twenty-four fans, i.e. readers.  Ha!  I’ve got at LEAST twenty-five who read on occasion.  So what if twenty of them are probably related by blood?

To wit: I’ve mentioned before that I have a hatred for 24 that lives deep within me like a flaming, golden hawk.  However, I know that there are people out there who don’t recognize the inherent danger and menace inherent in each season.  Like my fiance, for example.

So I shall prove it:

First Jack Bauer came for the terrorists, and I didn’t speak up because I hate damn terrorists.

Then Jack Bauer came for the hippies, and I didn’t speak up because hippies smell.

Then Jack Bauer came for his semi-hot co-worker, and I didn’t speak up because I always found that stupid bint annoying.

Then Jack Bauer came for the Christmas trees, and I didn’t speak up because — well, can YOU watch without busting out laughing??

And then Jack Bauer came for me . . . and all I could say was, “I TOLD YOU NOT TO WATCH THAT FREAKING SHOW!!”

(YouTube reference from 15 minute lunch; check out his Favorite Posts, they’re hysterical.  I recommend this post and this one, myself.)

12.5 pounds of Who-Roast-Beast

This post is dedicated to Jay G, whose magnificent blogger-bash I was forced to miss for fear of ungodly wrath from four parents. (Also, I had it scheduled for this coming Saturday. Because I lack Teh Organizational Skillz.)

Anyone who has not yet presided over the melding of two families can’t understand the amount of friendly-yet-o-so-delicate negotiations that went into Saturday’s little dinner party. It started out with Mike’s mother (MM) and her sincere sadness that I refused to have a bridal shower. (All my old friends live way out-of-state; there’s no way I’d ask them to come all the way to Lissaville, Home of the Evil Conservatives, just to give me MORE swag. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who had to buy a plane ticket to come to the wedding is excused from present-buying. Also, I think bridal showers are unnecessary for someone like me — Mike and I have lived together for a little while now, we both had apartments before we cohabited, we have enough toasters and microwaves and glasses and sets of china. And, yes, I have enough risqué underwear, not that you would ask!)

Anyway, despite my vehement opinions on the subject, MM was really afraid that if I skipped out on the bridal shower I’d regret it for the rest of my life. (I have this old-fashioned goal of having this marriage with Mike last me “until death do us part.” I know, how quaint!) So she scurried about emailing with my sister and tried to arrange a bridal shower during the Christmas season, consisting of our extended families. First, we were going to have it in a hotel in Westborough. Then we were going to have it at Mike’s uncle’s house. Then my mom offered to have all twenty-ish people to her cozy little house in Liberalville. Then we were going to have it at Mike’s other uncle’s house. Then we considered just renting out the tent from Barnum & Bailey, keeping the buffalo and tigers for entertainment, naturally.

It didn’t take too much wrangling to figure out that the best solution was to have a family dinner at The Kitty Den. True, my folks had to travel all the way from Liberalville to Lissaville, Home of the Evil Conservatives — about two hours each way, ACK — but it gave Mike and me the responsibility of cooking and cleaning and decorating and serving and organizing, and that was the way it should be. After all, we’re kind of the reason for such a family gathering to occur, you know 🙂

Long story short, it went GREAT. BETTER than great. We’ve got Chinese blood on my side and Italian on his, so our idea of enough food is everyone eats enough that they consider dying but only if they can have ONE MORE BITE FIRST and then sending home leftovers. Mission accomplished! Between the cheese and crackers, bread and pepperoni, carrots and grape tomatoes and fat-free-Ranch-dip, chocolate and pretzels, Tostidos and salsa, we had more than enough . . . for appetizers 🙂 (Considering my family missed hors d’oevres, damn good thing we scotched the bacon-wrapped scallops and the pigs-in-a-blanket!)

Mike was in his element, cooking meat with fire. Rawwwrrr! He picked up a magnificent-looking bone-in twelve-and-a-half pound tenderloin roast (is that right, Mike?) from our local butcher shop and roasted that sucker PERFECTLY. I mean BEAUTIFULLY — seared on the outside to keep in the juices and wonderfully, wonderfully medium-rare on the inside. YUM! Then Mom brought a vat of homemade chicken lo mein (it does NOT taste the same as your generic Chinese restaurant, thankyouverymuch), and I added gravy for the roast and tomato-pesto pasta nests and green beans stir-fried with bacon and freshly-baked pesto bread and HAVE YOU ALL KEELED OVER AND DIED YET? HAVE YOU??

I hope not. Because for dessert we had made-from-scratch chocolate decadence cake and pecan brownies and homemade chocolate and orange-date tea bread (all from Mom) and Jenny brought a cheesecake sampler platter and a tiramisu and YES, THANK YOU LISSA, WE JUST DIED. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, B*TCH? ARE YOU??

Anyway, the parents got along fabulously, my older sister was her most charming self, my younger brothers were on their very best manners, and everyone left happy.

And as soon as they did, I turned to Mike and slapped him vigorous high-fives.

We’ve had our first grown-up dinner party, y’all. And nothing got burned, and no one died, and no one broke anything, and no one ended up in tears. HALLELUJAH!!!!

I most sincerely hope that y’all’s holidays and families went as smoothly and enjoyably as mine did. I couldn’t ask for any better, and I’m so grateful that Old Man Murphy was apparently face-down in his eggnog that night.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!

Rajah the sharp-clawed Reindeer

 . . . had some very valid fears

that if you ever saw him

you would want to nom his ears.

All of the other kitties

used to treat him like a rat

Because they knew his owners

had a penchant for cat hats.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve

Rajah saw the light

“If they make me wear this sh*t

Then their fingers will be bit.”

So then the kitties liked him

And they all meowed with glee,

“Lissa may take her pictures

But only if she likes to bleed!”

Totally worth it!!!

P.S. Actually, I’m kidding; our cat doesn’t have any dignity whatsoever.  The price of those pictures was about five cat treats.  No blood.  🙂

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, to each and every one of you!  May your holiday season be full of joy and happiness and warm fuzzies and kittehs and bunnies pooping marshmallows and rainbows. 

P.S.  You know why Santa’s so jolly?   Because he knows where all the naughty girls live . . .

Ahhhhh, friends

Good food, good wine, good company, and a killer snowstorm encouraging you to stay inside all day.  What more could you want?

Well, you might want this*, actually.  Because nothing says “good friends” like having Team America on and all four of you chanting in unison, “America, F**K YEAH!”

Shoothouse Barbie, lovely to see you and bf!

*If you don’t get it, you can email me and I’ll explain.  While they don’t check it on a regular basis, my family members DO have this blog address, so I try to maintain a PARTICLE of decency.  Just a little.

Stuck in the office. In a blizzard.

Isn’t this how everyone likes to spend their Friday afternoons?

Oh well.  At least the view is pretty:

UPDATE 45 minutes later:  Awwwww, sh*t.  This is going downhill awfully quick, y’all . . .

Good thing I wore these boots for my commute today . . .

In which I shamelessly bait my cat

As well as shamelessly cat-blog.  This should surprise no one.

Rajah (my beloved, attractive, dumb-as-a-sack-of-bricks kitty) has a very bad habit:  he likes to bite me.  He’s not vicious, at all, but he YEARNS to nom on his mommy.

I have a very bad habit of my own.  I like to allow him to TRY to bite me, because he cries when I rebuff him, and his sweet, sweet cries of anguish — well, pique and angst and burning desire, anyway — I find hysterical.  You will too, trust me.

Al Gore is a welsher, a pansy and a cheapskate

To quote Mike:  “But what about my global warming?  Al Gore PROMISED me!!”

Needless to say, this might put a tiny crimp in Shoothouse Barbie’s plans to come stay with me this weekend.  Also, I’m going out on a limb and guessing that Strong-arm Jones’ (love the nickname) plan to arrive at Logan Airport in the wee hours of Saturday morning is f*cked six ways to Sunday.

(Veronica Corningstone voice) “You have broken my heart, Mr. Gore.  You have BROKEN my HEART.”

If I don’t post all weekend, it’s either because 1) the entire city of Boston and its surrounding neighborhoods have lost power, we’re huddled in Foxboro Stadium and we’re LITERALLY STARTING TO EAT EACH OTHER, or . . . 2) I’ll have guests and usually don’t post on the weekends anyway.  One of those two, for sure.

To my fellow New Englanders . . . WHY, exactly did we sign up for this again?  (Besides, of course, escaping spoonbread.  Nasty stuff, that!)

UPDATE: Tam points out that “any weather is good training weather!”  I don’t disagree (although even if I did, would I be stupid enough to argue gunnieship with Tam?  Ha!) . . . and so, the question becomes:  If it were really cold outside and you licked your gun, would your tongue stick to it? 🙂

A very special Christmas, er, special

Believe it or not, I’m not a huge fan of Christmas specials.  I think I saw It’s a Wonderful Life once when I was younger, but all I remember is the bell ringing.  Likewise, I’m pretty sure I watched the part of A Christmas Story where the little kid licks the flagpole, but the rest of the movie is a blank.  I don’t think I’ve ever watched A Charlie Brown Christmas; I’ve got no idea what that one’s about.  My idea of a Christmas special is Scrooged, seriously.  It’s not that I’ve got anything against any of those movies, but I think it’s similar to the Beatles — if you were exposed at a young age, you often love (or DESPISE) them for the rest of your life.  I neither love nor hate the Beatles; I think I could name you three or four songs they sang, but that’s it!  So be forewarned that I don’t have any classical or high-faultin’ taste in Christmas shows.

That being said, I give big Christmas (and Chanukah) mistletoe berries and stars to the NCIS Christmas special I watched last night (it ran on Tuesday). 

We all know I have a thing for Ziva, but the show in general deserves its own laudatory post.  Like CSI and Law & Order SVU, each episode can stand alone.  There are overarching story lines, sure, but you’re not kept on tenterhooks for the next FOUR FREAKING MONTHS or so.  (Damned, DAMNABLE 24; I only watched the first season, on DVD, and I avoid current showings like the plague.  Or Barbra Streisand.)  But unlike SVU, they don’t make an effort to infuse politically correct debates into the show; rather than arguments about whether the death penalty is moral, or abortion is evil versus only-common-sense, NCIS just concentrates on catching the bad guy.  What a blessed relief!

But there’s more.  Marines are portrayed as moral and upstanding people, not monsters (good God above!).  Military folks are to be emulated, not despised (Halle-freaking-lujah!).  It’s taken as a matter of course that everyone reveres the recipient of a Medal of Honor, because he is a hero (omigod you don’t say!!).  It’s a given that the Medal of Honor recipient loved his wife of sixty years and mourns her loss (it’s like he’s an ACTUAL PERSON OR SOMETHING!).

That’s not to say that the show portrays military folks as demigods.  After all, a decent portion of the time the bad guy turns out to be military as well.  Gibbs has been divorced three times, for goodness’ sakes.  DiNozzo was a misogynistic womanizer for the first few seasons.  And Abby is a freak.  (An adorable, endearing, cute-as-a-button freak, mind you; no knockin’ on Abby!)  But the bad guys in the show are the CRIMINALS, not conservatives.  Sometimes that feels like a really nice change 😉

I’m not going to give any spoilers on the Christmas episode, since I know a lot of folks won’t have seen it yet.  But I definitely recommend it; set your Tivo!  It’s a lot of fun, and it reminds you of what’s important around the  holidays. 

P.S. Does anyone else get teary whenever Gibbs’ lost family comes up?