Jilli, have you tried corn starch on Matriarch Trinian? It's astounding how well that stuff breaks up mats. Of course, everyone, the furniture, and everything else will have corn starch on it, but the cat will be amazingly soft and fluffy.

I had never heard of this! Trinian is pretty badly matted, though. But if I do get desperate enough to try the corn starch method, I promise to film the chaos.

Why do I feel like I haven't gotten anything done?

I got up, read a little, read the internet, read some more, ate too much food...and then went to see a movie with a friend and had some dinner with her. And then got a cupcake. And checked out the new gym that's only two blocks away, as opposed to my current gym which is FOUR blocks away.

Also, my enthusiastic "I'm running! Go Couch to 5K" from yesterday has resulted in me being crippled and barely able to walk today. OW. OW. Stupid calves.

Oh, dear God. I am so unready for parenting a school-age child. We just finished a 3-hour epic bout of homework. The homework consisted of drawing a baby panda, copying a sentence I'd written at her dictation ("My favorite part of I Am A Little Panda was when the panda was born"), and writing her name in one corner. Three hours of delaying, dawdling, procrastinating, squirming, sighing, groaning that she was bored/tired from all the moving ("Doing homework IS moving, Mom!"), tangled up in a grocery bag, achy, afraid, sad, hungry, poopy, and I don't even remember what. Finally Hec had to come in and bully her into copying down the last couple dozen letters. AGONY.

Dear God, someday we're going to have to shepherd her through term papers and theses and college applications. Maybe we'll luck out and Western Civilization will have collapsed by then.

She's very fuzzy, and hates being brushed, so she gets mats.

My parents have one of those in Sputnik. And the thing is, this is a cat you cannot contain (dude, she climbs walls!) They have to surreptitiously go at her mats with an envelope opener (where the razor is set in a v of plastic.) And if they get one a day, that's miraculous. She really doesn't like being messed with AT ALL.

I'll have to mention the cornstarch option to them.

PERKINS??

I know Perkins has done some packing stuff, because she emailed me about some items to see if they wanted to come live with me.

I got a fair amount done this morning, but I seem to have stalled out, because I kind of feel like crap. I'm hoping dinner will make me feel better.

Continued nudging appreciated though, just to make me get off the sofa.

Oh, dear god, JZ, that's awful. You have much sympathy from me.

Me, I'm ready to send my sister's puppy to a good home, so long as it isn't this one. I just caught her with a lipstick. And then with a dishcloth, and then with a plastic bag of cereal.

And the big dog is downstairs and unhappy about it: he just keeps barking. But I'm not letting him back up--it takes ten minutes and a cheering section to get him downstairs again, and it's not worth it.

I made bread and fed my parents coq au vin and walked the dogs another two miles and washed up, and I have hardly done anything today--wait, I lied. I bought tickets to go to Spain with my niece! Yay!

Expensive, but wth. One only lives once, and how often do college age nieces ask you to travel with them?

I am so unready for parenting a school-age child

I feel the same way. It drives me crazy how much of MY time is required for homework.

I think I might need to make another trip to the clinic. My ear hurts when I chew. And not even congested! But ...feh.

You know, that cornstarch thing makes some sense. Poor Trin of Fuzzwhumpia...

If you want to put up information that's a little more secure than posting it right here, you can put it temporarily in your profile. Only registered users can see that.

That's a really nifty idea for times we want to post something "we" can see for a span of time but don't really want posted on a really public board. Thanks!

Also I just realized why my profile addy was broken and since it was my fault, fixed it. Voting might be easier now.