Lessons Learned This Week

1) If you are actively trying to lose weight, possibly due to the impending presence of a 20-year class reunion in June, do not, for even one second, get off your diet. Because it is FUCKING HELL trying to get back on it.

2) If you are actively trying to lose weight, resist the urging of those around you to open yet another box of Girl Scout Cookies. (See #1 above.)

Also, if you are trying to not eat carbs, DO NOT impulsively buy any of the indescribably delicious new whole grain walnut bread at Central Market, the Pano Nociato. (Whole grain, schmole grain. It's not good for you if you eat the ENTIRE LOAF, dumbass.)

3) If one's very adorable younger daughter has a fever and is complaining of a tummyache, DO NOT give in to her pleas to lie on your chest on the couch and hug you. Otherwise, you, your hair, and the couch may be suddenly and unexpectedly covered in the vomited-up remains of breakfast (a scrambled egg and yogurt, as it turns out).

In retrospect, I am convinced she was just setting me up.

4) When in Petco - and this is very important, please listen up - DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, allow the lady up in the front of the store to shove any waify little shelter kittens into your arms. You, too, may end up with an unexpected and ill-advised development, such as this:

He was an impulse purchase for OG. She has been so fragile lately, and so desperate for someone to hug and love on, and to sleep with her all night long. (My crotchety, emotionally disturbed twelve-year-old cat Molly has been the focus of her attention for several months. When I recently noticed all of the the claw marks on OG's hands, I knew I had to save both of them.)

I was just beginning to investigate getting her a small-breed puppy; in fact, the trip to Petco was a fact-finding mission regarding doghouses and doggy doors after I had made my first tentative trip to the Humane Society. (They didn't have any small dogs, or the ones they had looked like they might have had pit bull in them. I know, I know, everybody knows this one pit bull mix that's very sweet, but I'm hesitant around dogs anyway, and I just can't take that risk with a two-year-old in the house. I hate to think I'd ever own a purebred, but I'd really like a Shi Tzu or something along those lines.)

Anyway, this little wretch was thrown into my arms yesterday, throwing a monkey wrench into those plans. His name is Kirby*, and he was rescued from an animal shelter in Gonzalez. You can throw him over your shoulder like a mink stole or carry him around like a satchel; he doesn't care. When you pick him up to hold him on your lap, he melts into a big puddle of kitty butter, and doesn't move, ever. (The Man and I wanted to call him "Lumpy," but OG refused such an undignified moniker.) He cries when OG leaves the house, and appears absolutely unafraid of her.

Urgh. We're back to owning five cats. (Hey, but lest you think we're crazy cat people, one lives in the garage that we don't officially "claim," though he's been here like eight and a half years.)

* adorably misspelled by OG as "Curbie," as evidenced by little nametags that have been mysteriously taped all over the house at some point in the past 48 hours.

Come to think of it, that's probably a more appropriate spelling for this sub-quality stray cat, anyway. He was probably found on a curb somewhere, after all. "Kirby" sounds like some preppy boy you'd meet at an expensive summer camp.