Deja Cat

You know how once you notice something, or think it up, all of a sudden whatever it is is EVERYWHERE? Like when you're looking for a baby name and you come up with the most beautiful, perfect, unusual name ever and then you find out that everyone in the free world just named her kid that? Or say you are considering a certain car or wall color or coat or purse or stroller and suddenly you see YOUR car or color or coat or purse or stroller every time you turn around. Tres irritating, right?

As it turns out, this strange phenomena also applies to dead cats. There's probably even a fancy name for it that I could find if I was a better Googler but I'm just going to call it deja cat. I suppose someone has already thought of that, too. Anyway, here I thought I was all clever and unique to name my blog after a dead cat and now the universe is mocking me. First comes Amanda with her real-live actual dead cat story. Then, I picked up this Thomas Lynch book that contained an essay called Y2Kat, which is about you guessed it, a dead cat. Well, not exactly, but I don't want to ruin it for you, because you really need to read it.

No sooner had I finished marveling over the most recent strange dead cat coincidence, I was browsing the book section at a dingy little Goodwill and found this little gem called '101 Uses for a Dead Cat'. I highly recommend it; it is hilarious, as well as thought provoking. Check out the Amazon reviews for a laugh or two. Apparently, some people find cartoons about expired felines offensive! And they don't hesitate to share their thoughts, fortunately for the rest of us. Finally, while I'm on the topic of great ideas for any dead cats you might have around the house or in your purse, read The Bloggess' to learn about her brilliant invention called Kitten Mittens.

Don't you think deja cat is freakishly weird? Though presumably one could make a solid point that if one were to waste enough time on the internet and/or at the thrift store, one might find all manner of dead cat related items, hmmmm? I guess the moral of this story is that once again, there is nothing new under the sun and someone else has already taken all the good dead cat ideas. Meeeeooooow.

Vacation

You might possibly have noticed I haven't posted anything all week. This is because I am on 'vacation'. We flew a red-eye to the east coast and are visiting Lloyd's family, just for funsies. We flew through the night because circumstances forced us to, and I was really dreading it. It was about what you'd expect, not very fun, although the kids slept the entire time. I was really surprised to see tons of people traveling with kids in the middle of the night. What are they, CRAZY?!?!?!? Come on, people! There were pajama-clad children EVERYWHERE!

And now, here we are, hanging out with the relatives. They are a bunch of characters, for real. The first night we were here, we had salmon loaf for dinner, and the dog had steak. The second night, we had beans with hot dogs (or bologna, your choice!) and the dog had steak. Then, we went to visit another relative, who unbeknownst to me, entertained the boys with Nickelodeon and a sack of sticky candy: Tootsie Rolls, gumdrops and the like. Sticky candy that I just found smeared around the inside of the dryer of yet a third family member who was generous enough to let us use her laundry facilities. Once. And that's all I have to say about that.

Sadly, marital fealty precludes me from really delving into the... ummm, 'personality quirks' that abound in this little corner of New England. Unless you take me out for many margaritas. Today. CALL ME.

Sunday linkies

Happy Sunday! Today I have two fabulous blog links to share. First, from my friend Amanda, comes her 'Dead Cat in my Trunk'. I always say we all have a dead cat somewhere, so feel free to share your story, too. I'm definitely a sucker for a good dead cat tale. Thanks, Amanda! Oh, and make sure to take a good long look at the picture that goes with her post.

And, for a nice change from dead cats, check out my mom's new blog, Doraville. She has done a ton of work researching her family history and is putting it up. It starts with her grandfather, Josef, coming to America to escape being sent to prison on some phony charges (according to him, natch). He eventually came to Rainier, Oregon and homesteaded there. One of her brothers still owns and operates the original farm and I used to spend summers there picking strawberries when I was a kid. Take a look for some really interesting pioneer history. There are a couple of installments up already, and she has a LOT more in the pipeline.

Book

Look how fancy I am! LOOK, LOOK, LOOK!!!!!! It's my very own BOOK! Well, it's not a REAL book, of course, like Monica and Alexa have. But it's cool enough to make me think that maybe, perhaps, possibly, I could have a real book one day too. After all, I did enough writing to fill a 438 page book, see? SEE?

I got it from Blurb and they automatically slurped up every single Story from Korea and put them all into a slick and glossy book. They really liked it and said I was a fine author and they would be pleased to publish my fantastic book. Oh, and also I gave them approximately one hundred dollars worth of Lloyd's hard-earned money.

It was super easy and took less than an hour, and I definitely recommend it to all my bloggy friends. If I had a little more patience I could have really cleaned it up nice. But then, if I had a little more patience, maybe I would be writing an actual book for which I might get paid and which might be read by other people, now mightn't I? I mean, if I had a little more patience and also constructed proper sentences with the appropriate number of dependent clauses. But guess what? My new pals at Blurb don't give a rat's ass about my badly structured sentences, and neither do I. Because.... SEE MY ENORMOUS BOOK??!?!?!!??!?! None of that boring patience and hard work foolishness for me, so take that, all you fancy real book writing blog people. Oh, but if you don't mind, put in a good word for me with your... what do you call them? Editors? Yeah, yeah, that's it. Editors! I'm not really sure what they do or nothing but it seems like you gotta get some of that editing stuff. Not that I care, you know, but Lloyd says we can't afford any more of my books.

Discombobulated

Wow, my head is spinning. I've been back here in the states for a whole month now and I thought I was doing pretty well. I am no longer shocked when I go to Safeway for milk and see that they have several organic varieties, in stock ALL THE TIME, and I haven't blown through a stop sign without slowing or looking for WEEKS. But today we paid our first visit to a stateside base, other than the ill-fated trips to the ER for boil treatment, that is, and can I just say, it was freakishly weird.

The BX was at the top of the order, and first of all, it is HUGE. I was never much of a BX-goer before we moved to Osan so I don't know if it's abnormally large or not, but I almost hyperventilated. I swear, you could put the Mustang Mall at Osan in there at least ten times. I feel bad going on about it, knowing some of you are probably reading this from Osan where you can hawk a loogie from one side of the BX to the other, and I still can't stop myself. Row after row of shoes! Aisle after aisle of toys! They had stacks of Yellow Tail wine for $2.99 a bottle, and even had a pinot noir, which I had never seen before. I started frantically calculating ration points and tossing cases into my cart until I remembered that now I can buy however much hooch I can drink, or however much I can afford anyway, and that if I go back next week, it will still be there. And the week after that, and even the week after that, until infinity. Every time I went around a corner, I looked up expectantly to see who was there, and I felt strangely deflated when everyone was totally unfamiliar. The Commissary was similar, enormous and full of people I didn't know. Bizarre.

After that, we drove by the thrift store, which is open FOUR days a week and chock-full of castoff goodness. I got there twenty minutes before it closed and I barely had time to briefly inspect the previously loved wares. But did I mention it's open four days a week? I can go back tomorrow! Just in time to hit the BX for another load of wine. God bless America, my friends. And the thrift store. And cheap Australian reds.