Meowy Catmas?

Y’all know I’m a cat lady and that we have several cats. I’m an old pro at introducing cats to Christmas trees and dealing with the occasional ornament on the floor. All of our ornaments are shatter-proof so, no big deal. Then, Roxie joined our clowder.

The reason we can’t have nice things.

Roxie may look like a Calico, but she’s actually a kleptomaniac. Nothing is safe since she joined the family. I have yet to find half of my fridge magnets. Among the things I have caught her carrying around: a 9mm shell casing, a screwdriver, and a roll of film. I didn’t even know we had any undeveloped film rolls!

Last year, I almost didn’t put up a tree because I didn’t want my ornaments getting lost and/or destroyed. I finally put the tree up a week before Christmas but didn’t put any ornaments on it. That worked okay, but I didn’t want to go that basic again this year.

This year, I decided to start introducing Roxie to the concept of ornaments. To keep from stressing, I’m only using “filler” ornaments – the ones that I won’t be upset about if something happens to them.

So far, things are going about as I expected. Roxie has spent a lot of time in the tree and on the floor swatting at ornaments. At least three ornaments are no longer on the tree, and I have no idea where they are.🤣 As a matter of fact, our tree looks a lot like the ones when our sons were young – most of the ornaments are on the upper half of the tree.

This is my life now.

Those of you with cats – or other pets – do they interact with your tree?

Friday Funnies

Custom shirts are an awesome thing.

Kenn has been suffering from chronic idiopathic urticaria (chronic hives of unknown origin) for three years now. The poor guy takes a LOT of medication to keep the hives under control. We both love his allergist; she is awesome. Kenn went in for a checkup earlier this week, and part of the conversation went like this:

Dr. B: You are hands-down my most refractive patient. (Refractive meaning he doesn’t respond to traditional treatments.)

Me (turning to Kenn): I’ll get you a shirt.

Kenn: Most refractive urticaria?

Me: Yep.

Dr. B: It needs to have a trophy on it, too.

Me: Done.

As soon as we got home, I researched custom printing sites, selected uberprints.com, designed, and ordered the shirt shown.

I was planning to wait and give it to him at Christmas, but I couldn’t wait that long; I gave it to him as soon as it arrived. (It actually shipped the day I ordered it. Mind. Blown.)

The end of an era.

It’s the middle of November which usually means I am in the middle of participating in NaNoWriMo. I made the decision not to participate this year a few months ago; several days out-of-town during the month and Thanksgiving made the event a no-go before it even started. I also decided I can no longer support an organization that has become such a dumpster fire. Organizations come and go, but it’s rare to have the opportunity to watch one die a slow, painful death at the hands of the ones who should be trying to save it.

Image from depositphotos.com

The problems began with complaints that one of the forum mods was grooming children – a big problem which took far too long for the board to resolve. The latest in a long line of bad decisions is a statement from the interim director basically saying that disabled writers need AI in order to write, followed by a statement calling anyone who disagreed with that statement (including all of the disable writers who complained) ableist and classist. After a year of one fox up after another, the entire board resigned. The last I heard, there are now only three people on staff at NaNo: the interim director, an intern, and a part-time IT person. There’s a whole Google doc detailing all that has gone wrong. If you decide to read it, I suggest you don your comfy clothes and grab some popcorn; it’s long.

NaNoWriMo meant a lot to me. I have always been a bit of a misfit. However, the first time I got together with the local NaNo group, I knew I had met my people; these people got me. It’s great when you meet a group of people whose weird compliments your own. The camraderie of the NaNo experience is a part of what made the experience fun. The loss of what the experience once was makes me sad. I have uploaded my NaNo stats to TrackBear and will use that site for any future projects unless NaNo can pull out a miracle. (IMO, the best thing they can do at this point would be to replace the interim director; her inflexibility and unwillingness to listen to any voices other than her own are a good part of why the organzation is where it is now.)

I guess as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. For me, the only thing left at this point is to mourn and move on. Any other Wrimos out there? How do you feel about the state of the organization?

Cutting the (wireless) cord

I know, I know. Cell phones don’t have cords – hence the whole “wireless” descriptor. But, sometimes my brain settles on a title and there’s no changing it. Such is the case with this post.

I may have mentioned in previous posts that Kenn is not a fan of change. When decisions need to be made, I do my research, make my decision, and am ready to act. Kenn, on the other hand needs days/weeks/months to come to terms with the pending change. Admittedly, life doesn’t always allow a lot of time for decisions – some need to be made right. now. But, when a decision can be postponed without major consequences for us, they can drag out seemingly forever. Seriously. It took years for me to convince Kenn we no longer needed a landline.

Another potential change that has been dragging out for years is changing cell service providers.We have been with Verizon Wireless for twenty years and have been paying through the nose for that honor. We have discussed changing providers ad nauseum. One of the biggest hindrances to making a change was our concern about coverage when we travel. However, as the years have passed, the difference in coverage between the various providers has become minimal. And, no matter the coverage, this is a big country and there are still plenty of areas where there is no cell service.

During our trip to Saint Augustine, we had yet another discussion about changing providers. I finally put my foot down. I didn’t want to talk about this any more. We either needed to pick another provider and change or just admit that we were going to stay with Verizon regardless of the cost. Kenn then took it upon himself to do some research. (Yay!) I’m always glad when he does this. I can give him all of the information in the world, but doing some of the research himself helps him be more willing to move forward with the change.

I am pleased to announce that, after years (and years) of discussion, we are no longer with Verizon. We are now Mint Mobile customers. Kenn changed over about a month and a half before I did so we could compare his Mint coverage to my Verizon coverage in the areas we visit most often. We were both surprised that in some areas of South Carolina near our kids, he had a stronger signal than I did. I made the change approximately a month ago and have had no problems. The best part is that I can pre-pay for 3 months of Mint for both of us for roughly what I was paying for one month of service from Verizon; this makes both me and our bank account very happy.

Just to be nosy – what cell provider do you use? How long have you been with that provider?