Sophie

(Warning:  If you are opposed to sappy pet memorials, you might want to skip to the end of this post.)

This is normally about the time I'd be putting up a new post.  I know you were all probably expecting something funny, and I'm sorry.  If you don't have a pet or don't like pets or have a similarly unfriendly disposition toward animals, you probably won't get this at all, but the cat I've had since I was eleven years old, Sophie, is having kidney failure and will probably die within the next few days.  She's lived at home with my parents since I moved to North Carolina four years ago, but I still consider her partly mine.  They've been keeping me posted as Sophie went through what we thought was a series of severe urinary tract infections, which didn't respond to antibiotics.  On her last vet visit, they finally determined it was irreversible kidney failure.  My mom now faces the task of deciding when it's time to end it.  Sophie is in pain, and it's only going to get worse.  I asked her not to tell me when she decides to do it… I'd really rather not know until it's over.  So even though I had some ideas for posts for this week, I just don't feel right working on them.  I think I need to take a day and just do nothing. 

I've literally known this cat since the day she was born.  Her mother was a stray that we'd been letting sleep in our garage, and one day I got home from school to discover she'd had a litter of kittens in the little bed we'd made for her.  It was November, and it had been getting pretty cold at night, so we brought the kittens inside and bottle-fed them.  They all got in the habit of sleeping in my bed at night (once they were big enough), but Sophie in particular would always be sitting at the foot of my bed when I came in at night, waiting for me.  Eventually, we found homes for her two siblings, but we kept Sophie.  As she got older, she started standing guard outside my bedroom door when she wasn't sleeping with me, making sure our other two cats weren't stealing her spot in my bed.  For no real reason, I got in the habit of calling her Sophie-Jo.  She'd be twelve years old this November. 

Here are some pictures I took of her when I was home last month.  She's a Siamese mix.  In the last few years, she's also had thyroid problems and has gotten really thin, but she's always been a tiny cat.  She was the runt of her litter.  People have always mistaken her for a kitten.

I'm sad that I won't see her again, but I always knew she wouldn't live forever, and my family gave her an awesome life.  She and I had a great human-cat friendship, and she knows she has always been and will always be loved.  It sounds ridiculous, but I talked to her on the phone this morning, and I like to think even though I wasn't able to make it home to see her one last time, maybe she's aware of the fact that my voice mysteriously spoke to her out of a weird little box.

(End sappy pet memorial.)

Conveniently, in this week that I don't feel up to writing an original post of my own, MOV over at Mothers of Brothers tagged me in another fun viral blog-thing.  This one doesn't involve promoting any of your own stuff, but just tagging other bloggers that you feel deserve the attention.  So if you're disappointed by my lack of content, try these guys in the meantime.

Mothers of Brothers - Thanks for including me and making me feel special!  MOV is… like… the coolest Mom ever.  She has a super top-secret medical job where she gets to wear scrubs, and did you know she majored in architecture?  =)
Just Inappropriate - I didn't get to tag this one last time in the Blog Challenge, since she was the one who nominated me for that.  Everything she writes makes me laugh.  She definitely deserves some attention.  Be sure to tell her how pretty she is.
GweenBrick - I just started reading this one a few days ago, and it--is--funny, you guys.  Some of it is the kind of funny where you feel like you really shouldn't laugh, but then you do, and it's so wrong, yet so right.  Just read it.  You'll see.

I hope you enjoy checking out those blogs.  Thanks for bearing with me and not leaving any mean comments about my lack of a real post (because if you do I will post a blog about how you made me cry, and everyone will get mad and call you a meany-head and probably some other names).  I promise to be funny again by the end of the week.  If you're a cat person, keep Sophie and my mom in your thoughts.

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Zombie Bob Gets Fired

You might remember Zombie Bob from the last two frames of The Apocalypse Will Be Awkward.  I've decided to give him his own segment, which I will write mostly whenever I feel like it, but more than likely once a month.  So now, without further ado, I introduce... Zombie Bob!

Tune in next month(ish) to find out where Zombie Bob's adventures take him next!

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ANOREXI-Os!

Brought to you by ANOREXI-Os, the delightfully tasteless cereal for Fatty McFatpants who still need to eat.

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The Blog Challenge

Guess what, guys… I got some attention!  Yay!  You know how much I love that.

Mary at Just Inappropriate nominated me to do this blog challenge thing.  At first, I almost cracked under the pressure of a cool blog noticing me, but now I think I can manage to do a decent job with it.  Here's how it works.

1) Blogger is nominated to take part.  (Check!  omigosh you guys!)

2) Blogger publishes 7 links on his/her blog – 1 link for each of the following categories:

• Your most beautiful post
   
• Your most popular post
   
• Your most controversial post
   
• Your most helpful post
   
• A post whose success surprised you
   
• A post you feel didn’t got the attention it deserved
   
• The post that you are most proud of
  

3) Blogger nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part and publishes links to their blogs in the same post.

Here are my seven links.

1.  My most beautiful post:  And That's How My Great-Grandmother Invented Communism
I'm trying to steer clear of really recent posts since I have lots of older ones that could use some love, but I think this one is most beautiful because it's so recent, which seems like a good thing to me.  When I look back over this post, I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of all this blogging business, both with my writing style and my illustrations.  The writing is concise (compared to a lot of my other rambling nonsense, anyway), and the drawings are a good indicator of what I'd like my blog to look like as it matures and develops.  At any rate, I think they're way better than my earlier drawings.

2.  My most popular post:  The 5 Stages of Eating at a Mexican Restaurant
This one got a lot of attention when I originally posted it, which is saying something, because I wrote it back when I hardly had any followers.  (Speaking of which, I could still use some more.  Join my cult.  You know you want to.  There might be a space ship.  Or there might not.) 

3.  My most controversial post:  Weddings
I'm going to assume this one is a little controversial, because it's always at the top of my most-viewed, yet no one ever comments on it.  That might mean you guys are living by the old adage, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."  It could also mean people click the link because it's at the top of the most-viewed, but then it's really just not that funny of a post.  Either way, it gets an odd vibe.  Sorry for not liking weddings.  Or baby showers.  Or babies.  It's just not how I roll.

4.  My most helpful post:  A Driving Lesson
I hope everyone who drives a car in the cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee will read this.  It wouldn't do you any harm either, Massachusetts Turnpike.

5.  A post whose success surprised me:  The Toilet Paper Spool Was Clearly Meant to Be a Stand
When I started writing this, I thought, "This is going to be random and awesome!"  Then I finished and thought, "Everyone is going to think I'm lame and weird."  But then I posted it anyway, and I actually had people private message me to tell me their own views on toilet paper storage and propose solutions to my toilet paper quandary.  Now I'm really excited about the small toilet paper cult I've got going.  Thanks for supporting me, my little toilet paper minions!

6.  A post I feel didn't get the attention it deserved:  Infinite Loop of Awkward
Seriously.  I was expecting this to be one of those posts people respond to saying, "I know exactly what you mean!" or "That happens to me all the time!" or maybe even "I'm so glad I'm not the only one!"  Instead, this post was met with stony Internet silence.  Maybe it's one of those things that's just funnier in my head.  Or maybe I'm really the only person on the face of this earth who has ever experienced an infinite loop of awkward.  In which case… the very existence of that post is, ironically, by the posts's own definition, an infinite loop of awkward.

7.  The post I'm most proud of:  The Apocalypse Will Be Awkward
As soon as I had the idea for this one, I was like, "This one is actually going to be funny.  I can just feel it."  I was so afraid of not doing the idea justice that I didn't even attempt to write it for a couple of months.  I think my favorite part of the finished post is the little skeletal figure running past the bunker in flames.  He makes Hubs laugh every time.

And here are the five blogs I'm nominating to take the challenge.

1.  Blogging Dangerously
2.  Blurbs and Other What-Not
(Carina is already doing a 30-day blog challenge, so I'm not sure she'll be able to do this too, but you should still skip on over and give her page some love.)
3.  Blue Country Magic
4.  Wardrobes and Whimsy
(I used to work with this girl!  Woot!)
5.  Confessions of a Cashier
(If you've worked in retail or even customer service in general, you will like this.)

I don't know if those people read my blog often enough to see this or even know about my blog, but you should still check out their blogs, because they are good, and I like them.

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Virtual Wasteland

I recently discovered that I possess a solemn and terrible power.

I can hide people from my Facebook newsfeed.

The first thing I did with my new power was to scroll through my newsfeed, gleefully hiding all the people who post too many baby pictures.  After that, I was satisfied... for a while.

Then the other night, Ari was complaining about someone posting melodramatic statuses, and I shared my new power of online destruction with him, too.  Then I said, "[unnamed friend] always posts really emo statuses in my newsfeed, but I feel kind of bad hiding her."

"You should do it."

"Okay." 

(I get on Facebook.) 

"Ugh, [other unnamed friend] just posted a really long status.  S/He always does that."

"BANISH THIS PERSON."

"Okay."

Apparently, this power is just too great for Ari and I to wield responsibly.  The list of people exiled from my newsfeed has now grown to include people whose statuses are too long, people who use too many emoticons, people whose statuses are too emo, people who post too many forwards, and people who are more successful than I am.

If Facebook were real life, our world would probably look like this right now:

Yes, it is lava.

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And That's How My Great-Grandmother Invented Communism

I want to start telling more stories about my family on this blog.  This story has nothing to do with me and happened about 60 years before I was born.  My great-grandmother told it to me last month when I visited her in Alabama, and I thought it was really funny.

My great-grandmother's name is Lucy.  She was born in 1918.  In the 1920s, she and her family lived in the small settlement of Tarkio, in the northwestern corner of Missouri close to the Iowa and Nebraska borders.

Lots of her extended family also lived in Tarkio, including her maternal grandmother and some of her cousins on her mother's side.  All the kids went to the same school a few miles away, and they walked there together every day.  One cousin in particular was a strikingly pretty girl of about Lucy's age.

This girl was their grandmother's favorite.  Their grandmother liked to give this particular grandchild gifts, and not give any gifts to her other grandchildren because they weren't as pretty.  One of the most lavish gifts she gave her was a ring with her birthstone in it.  None of her cousins had ever owned anything this nice before, and this girl knew it.

She used the ring to subject her cousins to slow emotional torture whatever chance she got. 

One day, she and Lucy were walking home from school together when she shoved the ring in Lucy's face and started teasing her about it.

And Lucy snapped.

The ring landed in a huge, sandy field overgrown with tall grass.  No one ever found it.



Lucy's mother wanted to (and I quote) "whup" her when she found out what had happened, but Lucy's father stepped in and said, "That girl deserved it."

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