MadMup.com

When I get home after work, Nutmeg comes to greet me from wherever she’s been scheming.

Less than a minute after I get in my bed at night, Dala has hopped up on the bed (if she wasn’t there already). Nutmeg’s there within five minutes.

When I open the bathroom door after I’ve showered in the morning, both of them push their way in.

These things happen every. single. day.

My apartment has a utility room right off the kitchen. The washing machine, dryer, water heater, and airconditioning/heater unit are in there and there’s a door to the room. I decided before even moving in that the room would be perfect to house the litter box and the food and water dishes. That way if I ever needed to lock them up for a while they’d have everything they needed all in one room. They’d still freak out about being locked up, but at least they wouldn’t die.

I feed them every day at both 6:30s (or thereabout), a half-cup of food per time. This, too, has become part of their schedule, though they’re not exactly right about it. At night they start pestering me for food about an hour and a half before the actual time. In the morning, Nutmeg starts batting at me and purring as loud as she can about a half hour before it’s time. When I head downstairs, they almost trip over themselves hurrying to get to the cabinet where their food is before I do. They’ll stare at cabinet door and meow, pacing back and forth like expectant fathers. Once I get the food, they bolt for the utility room, and I can barely pour the food because their heads are in the way.

A few weeks ago I moved their food and water dishes out to the end of the counter in the kitchen, maybe eight feet away from where the dishes have been for the past year and a half. I did this for a couple of reasons:

1. Most “cat experts” tell you the food and the litter box should be in different areas. Makes sense. I don’t think I need to explain the thinking behind this one.
2. Sometimes feeding time intersects with laundry time. I’ve noticed during these times that Nutmeg won’t eat. The noises scare her. And while Nutmeg could stand to not eat and Dala could stand to have more unmolested access to the food, I still feel bad that Nutmeg gets scared.

A funny thing has happened. When I get their food from the cabinet, they both still head for the utility room. I realize they have brains the size of a walnut, but it’s been a couple of weeks with this new setup, and I’d have guessed they would have figured this out by now. It’s become a lab experiment of sorts, and when Dala actually did head to the end of the counter the other day, I got the same sort of thrill you might get when your team scores a touchdown. Sadly, the next day she was back to the utility room.

It’s particularly odd because to get to the food cabinet, they go right past the food dish. You’d think that they’d see it on their way and remember, “Oh, yeah, the dish is over here now,” but I guess a starving cat isn’t so much concerned with little details.

They’ll eventually figure it out, I know, I’m just surprised it’s taking them so long. But then it strikes me that I’m exactly the same way. It’s no surprise to anyone who’s read this blog for more than a week that I’m one for ruts – I do things the way I’ve done things and that’s how it is. I get the same things at the same restaurants, I drive the same routes, I do the same things over and over. For me, there’s comfort in familiarity. For as much as I like Star Trek, I’d make a lousy space explorer. Spock would alert me to sensor readings indicating a never-before-seen lifeform on a nearby planet and I’d say, “Yeah, but… we’re headed to that other planet and besides, the lifeform’s probably dangerous and most certainly ugly. Let’s skip it.”

Some habits are good to have and keep – brushing your teeth, making your bed, being nice to other people. Other habits aren’t so good, and just like the origin of the phrase “stuck in a rut,” it becomes next to impossible to get the covered wagon up out of it and on to a new course.

Note those words “next to.” It’s hard, but it can be done. About two years ago, I changed what hand I use to brush my teeth. I know, it’s such a weirdly random thing to do, but I read an article that talked about different things you could do to exercise your brain and that’s the one I remembered. I’m a righty and have brushed my teeth with my right hand for however long I’ve been brushing my teeth. Switching to my left hand was hard and felt awkward and I wasn’t so good at it for a long time, but it eventually became natural. In fact, these days I can’t brush my teeth with my right hand. Now it feels weird and awkward.

My brain’s slightly larger than a walnut (but still smaller than a watermelon), so it should be easier for me to make these habit changes, especially if the habit’s destructive. If the cats never figure out the food dish thing, the only problem they have is two extra seconds of walking when they hear or see me pour the food in the bowl. My bad habits could cause infinitely more damage, so why’s it so hard to change them?

I think tomorrow I’m going to start re-training myself to brush my teeth with my right hand.

Labels: cats, life

7 comments

I'm at Best Buy two, three times a week. It's got stuff I like to look at and stuff I like to buy. I enjoy buying stuff there and they seem to enjoy me buying stuff.

So why is it, pray tell, that any time I have to return something it's the worst experience a person can have and makes me never want to set foot in the place again?

Labels: grr

7 comments

Today is my dad's 61st birthday. It's not likely you'll run into him, but if you do, wish him a happy birthday, won't you?

After his behavior on his 60th last year, I'm kind of wondering what he's got planned for today.

Happy birthday, Dad! I love you!

Labels: family

3 comments

9:48 p.m. - That's pretty much it. It's time for bed. Still feeling pretty lousy, I have to say. Good night, folks.

9:03 p.m. - Home again, having orange juice.

8:28 p.m. - Headed "into town" to get more NyQuil and orange juice.

8:17 p.m. - Finished and submitted my Ghost Rider review.

8:01 p.m. - Crying at this movie, even though I've seen it before.

7:07 p.m. - Eating Cinnamon & Brown Sugar Pop-Tarts and a bottle of lemon raspberry water for dinner. Review is coming along.

6:09 p.m. - Okay, I bought, downloaded, and played through the TMNT game, and still have made very little progress on this Ghost Rider review. I've now put in the movie Stranger Than Fiction and will focus on getting this review done. Sickness update: my throat's getting sore now. Blegh.

4:12 p.m - Am officially not going to improv rehearsal tonight.

2:30 p.m. - Got distracted by the Viva Piñata demo. Haven't made any headway on the review. Feeling kind of lousy. :(

12:44 p.m. - Pizza has been eaten, an episode of Heroes has been watched, and the reason my new TiVo was so cheap has been discovered. The audio on the TiVo cracks and pops and cuts out completely. This is not good. Also, I've not made any headway on my game review because I'm chatting with people again.

11:34 a.m. - Pizza has been delivered: thin crust, half cheese, half bacon. Mmm! I am also downloading the Viva Piñata game demo and have started on my overdue Ghost Rider game review. I am also applying a dose of Zicam - are you familiar with this stuff? It's goopy gel-like stuff that you apply to the inside of your nostrils to fight a cold. So gross. I'm trying it out to see how it does. So far what it's done is gross me out.

11:16 a.m. - No food to speak of in the house, so I've ordered pizza from Monical's to be delivered. Get this - they only take cash at the door or credit over the phone! No checks! Doesn't make sense to me. I mean, they're going to the place, right? So they know where the person lives, right?? As much as I didn't want to give my card number over the phone, I'm hungry, so I did it. Gotta tip the dude in quarters now. Speaking of quarters, I am downloading the demo version of TMNT, which I suspect will make me buy and download the full version. This seems as good a time as any to remind you there's a new TMNT movie coming out on March 23.

10:54 a.m. - Finally done with surfing. Chatting with people I don't normally get to during this time of day because I'm at work made it take a bit longer. Now I'm headed downstairs to see what there is to eat since I am starving. I'm thinking about starting a movie, but I'm aware that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released for Xbox Live today, so I might just download and play that.

9:02 a.m. - Nutmeg had been batting at me for an hour or, so I got up and fed the cats. Now I'm having a bottle of Archer Farms Lemon Raspberry Spring Water (because liquids are important, don't ya know) and I'm checking my daily blogs, comics, and forums.

3:06 a.m. - The best part of the NyQuil has worn off (the part that keeps me asleep) and I'm stuck with the worst part of it (the part that makes my brain feel like it's been packed with cotton.) Not only does it feel like everything's in slow motion, but my nose is runny and stuffed up at the same time. Back to bed for me.

Labels: sick

11 comments

I'm taking the day off work tomorrow - it's a sick day, but I actually took a vacation day because I've got more vacation days than sick days. Follow?

I'm about to take NyQuil, so I'll be asleep 'ere long, but since I'll be home tomorrow, I thought I'd take a stab at liveblogging. That means exactly what it sounds like it means: I'll be blogging all the minutiae of my day throughout the day. It'll be one entry that keeps getting updated, and I apologize in advance to anyone who follows the site with an RSS reader - I'm sure this will mess it all kinds of up.

So tune in tomorrow if you want to know just exactly what time I hack up a lung or feed the kitties.

Labels: meta, new things

3 comments

I knew it was too good to last. I've gone from having no neighbors to apparently having 1,000 of them. I'm not sure how they're fitting all of those people in the apartments next to mine, but I know exactly how those people are getting from wherever they go during the day to back here: in one of the 8,000 cars parked in front of my apartment.

Seriously, if I get back later than, oh, say, 7 p.m.? No place to park at all. Up until last week I could choose any of about ten spaces, and now? Nothing. I'm parking in front of apartments I didn't even know were apartments.

Grrrrrr.

Funny thing is, this is what it's taken for me to start seriously thinking about buying a house. A lack of parking. That's what it took. Even in my frustrations there's a quirk factor that can barely be believed.

Labels: grr

16 comments

I don't know if this is the sort of thing a person ought to mention on their blog or not. I worry a lot about appropriateness, if you hadn't noticed. I like for people to have a pleasant experience when they show up here, and I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

But this seems like kind of a big deal, so I thought I'd chance it.

I'm not even sure how to put this, so I guess... well, I guess I'll just say it like this, separately spaced, centered, and bolded:


It's taken me some time to come to this point, but I'm finally ready to announce it. Sure, it might not mean much to some of you - most of you, even - but for a select few, it might put a spring in your step, a gleam in your eye, or a flutter in your heart. To those select few I say this: contact me. My email address is in the upper-left corner, the comments section is open - I'll even give you my phone number if you want. Just give me a holler.

We'll have fun, I promise you. Oh, there'll be rough times, but if we work through them, we'll come out on the other side of them a better team, more prepared for the next challenges. But if you're up for it, so am I. With enough work, maybe we'll eventually be able to take a crack at something a little scary, very difficult, but ultimately rewarding: "Freebird" on Expert.

Considering I'm just now starting to try songs on Hard, it might take a while. But if you're available to work on it, I am, too. So if you wanna play some Guitar Hero until your fingers fall off, give me a holler.

I'm totally available. For playing Guitar Hero.

Labels: life, music

18 comments