Cat Drama, Car Drama and Kid Drama

If you are in need of a good laugh, then this is the blog post for you!!!  These sorts of things only happen in Left Field....
*Disclaimer:  No kitties, children or cars were hurt in the writing of this blog.  Okay, okay, maybe the cars were hurt a little bit......


Cat Drama
Remember Jethro Jenkins Furr, one of our Left Field Kitties?  Well, he's a year old now, weighing in at 15 pounds.  He's still a nut job (to put it nicely; if I were to not put it nicely, I'd just say he's an idiot) and loving life.  Most days he still tries to tell me he is not meant to be an indoor kitty, but I've won that argument.  He's a good snuggler and still very humanly expressive at times.

Jethro almost had to have exploratory surgery last week (and I'm pretty sure he did not learn his lesson).  Avery brought a balloon home from his playgroup, which Jethro quickly claimed as his own new toy.  He caught the ribbon in his teeth and ran around the house with it.  At first, I thought it was cute.  Then I realized it was a dangerous mistake.  Jethro was eating the ribbon; by the time I got to him (leaping the dining room table--why do we have a dining room table?--shoving the children out of the way--why do we have children?--tripping over the dog--why do we have a dog?), he'd eaten a good 6 inches of it, clipped the ribbon, causing the rest of the ribbon and the balloon to wrap around the ceiling fan in the sunroom.  It all happened with that "NOOOOOO!" feeling of slow motion that you can only watch but can't do anything to stop or control.  I called the vet (I'm thinking, "Stupid cat." She's thinking, "Stupid owner.") and was told to induce vomiting (oh joy) with hydrogen peroxide.  Half a teaspoon (Shawn said, "Did you tell her this is a FIFTEEN POUND CAT?!") down his throat, wait a half hour, then another half teaspoon.  The cat refused to puke, but he did plenty of glaring.  It turned into a game of "wait and see."  Jethro clearly did not feel well and I did not sleep well that night, getting up every time Jethro waddled off the bed to follow him and check on him.  No puke, no poop, but he wasn't twisting in pain or complaining either.  I ended up taking him to "work" with me the next day because I was scared to death of coming home to a dead cat.  Chaplain Liz was so sweet, allowing me to bring him inside as long as he stayed in his carrier.  Naturally, he complained, howling pitifully.  Chaplain Liz left on an errand and my dear little old ladies did their best to convince me to let him out of his carrier!  I gave him 2 tsp of flax oil later that afternoon in the hopes of "encouraging" the process, but to the best of my knowledge, nothing big happened.  Jethro is doing fine now, back to his idiotic self.  I never did find evidence of the ribbon, but I'm just glad it's over!

Oh, and I also managed to rescue the ceiling fan before Shawn came home!  I'm still not sure which he would have preferred, the expense of a new ceiling fan or the expense of feline exploratory surgery!

Car Drama
It never ends.  I'm positive Shawn's car is out to get me, I just know it is.  My mom says I'm giving it too much power, but you know, it's one of them new fancified hybrid 'lectric cars, so you just never know what those things are up to.  We had to swap cars the other day and when I got back to it after having been away from it all day, it locked me out.  No lie, the little button key thing wouldn't work.  By the time I finally figured out how to get the actual key out of the thingamajig and get the door unlocked that way, the car wouldn't start.  Of course, there's no place to put an actual key in this car.  You just have the key on your person (we've been down this road before...), push the button and hope the car likes you.  In this case, the car hates me.  With a passion.  I had to call Shawn to come rescue me from his man-eating car.   Don't worry, I kicked the tires a few times before he got there (and yes, this time I had the right car!). Turned out, the car had been left on all day, by SHAWN, when he had come out to pump the tire up for me, so the battery had died.  And when the battery dies in these cars, you can't get in, you can't get out, can't get anywhere.  We couldn't even figure out how to get in the trunk (no keyhole...) to get to the battery.  This is where I'd like to thank God for blessing us with Asperger's.  We turned Noah loose in the car and he found the anti-kidnapping latch on the inside, popped it from there.  :)  

Later, Shawn was backing my jeep out of the garage and took the refrigerator out with the fender flare.  I now have a nice little wrinkle in my bumper.  He was able to pop the fender flare back in, thank goodness.  This is the 3rd fridge to have an accident in our garage.  Not sure if this was Freudian on his part or not.....


Kid Drama
And what would one of my posts be without a Noah story?!  Incomplete!

I still forget how literal Noah is.  I'm not sure I will ever learn this lesson.   On some of my more frazzled days, I have, on occasion, threatened to leave my children on the side of the road.  I would never actually do that; the threat alone seems to do the trick.  Coming home from the grocery store the other day was one such occasion.  Unfortunately, it was also a day I had to make an "emergency landing" on the side of the road right after making such a threat.  Oops.  Avery's car seat straps became uncomfortably twisted and he started screaming, then he started struggling with the straps, making them more twisted.  There really isn't a safe place to pull over on the highway I was traveling, so when I found a place, I had to quickly slam on the brakes and just pull over.  I looked in the rear view mirror just in time to see the look on Noah's face: "Oh no, she's lost it.  We've done it now.  She's really gonna leave us on the side of the road!"  Before I could get two words out to explain what was happening and what I was really doing, he started crying and begging me, "I'm so sorry we're being bad!  Please at least leave us with your phone so we can call Daddy or the police to come get us!"  Well, there goes my Mother of the Year Award again this year.....