I was going through some of my music the other day and got a laugh about how much music I have that is there purely because someone told me "You won't like this. It's offensive/dirty/rap." And most of these musical suggestions were offensive or dirty or rap, but that doesn't stop me from knowing all the words. So here's my top 5 songs that I can't play in front of my mother. None of these are really work safe.

1. AMG - Bitch Better Have My Money

My high school boyfriend and his best friend were snickering over a Walkman one afternoon, and refused to let me listen to the tape that was playing. After 2 days worth of pestering him, my boyfriend finally gave in and let me listen to the song they said would horrify me. It turned out that I totally loved the song and know all the words to this day.

2. Tenacious D - Fuck Her Gently

This one actually ended up getting played with Mom in hearing distance. A bunch of us were driving to Salem, MA a couple of years ago and Eddie was driving and had me grab a handful of CDs to listen to during the 2 hours drive. This came on, and I don't think I've ever seen my mom and her friends laugh so hard ever.

3. Insane Clown Posse - The Dating Game

I don't remember who introduced me to ICP. I don't know if I should thank them or rip off one of their arms and beat them senseless for it.

4. Coolio - Ugly Bitches

I can't find an actual video for this one. That doesn't make it less awesome to me. This was another one of those songs that my high school boyfriend told me was highly offensive and that I'd hate it. He didn't know my musical tastes that well.

5. NWA - Automobile

Blame Eddie for getting this one on my playlist. He actually played this while we were running the Flames of Hope 5k when I was lagging a little bit.

Bonus Track: Ludo - Love Me Dead


Not offensive really, but I don't think I've ever heard another song using the phrase "finger-banging my heart". On the list because of mental images the lyrics conjure up.

We've enjoyed the past week with Mal, and he's getting along pretty well with Chaucer. They're a team when it comes to using the litter box: Mal takes a poo, and Chaucer comes in and covers it up for him when he's done. Pickle continues to chase Mal around and Mal retaliates by running full-tilt at her and then jumping over her. Pickle also likes to engage in the sloooooowest chases ever. She goes really slowly up to Mal, and then tries to bite him. They're still being supervised, although not as much as last week.

The only issues that we seem to be having is a slightly constipated kitten and another cat who won't use his own damned litter box. It's a territory thing I think. That doesn't make it less annoying when we have to clean Chaucer's ginormous shits out of the tiny kitten-sized litter box. Oh, and the fact that for the last few days they wake us up in the wee hours of the morning. Most of the time it starts because Mal will get up to use the box and Chaucer will get up and scare him in the bathroom, which then becomes Mal chasing Chaucer and Chaucer turning around and chasing Mal around the house. This morning it was just Mal, who was enjoying racing up the bed, onto my night table, then back down the bed as fast as he could.

I've forgotten how fun and tiny kittens are. When we got Chaucer he was already almost 4 months old, so he was never teeny to us. Mal, according to the vet, was under the 10 weeks they told us he was at the shelter, and he's just a little 2.5lb ball of energy. He never walks. I mean, why walk when he can run, right? He jumps onto us, and onto the couch, and onto Chaucer's tail. He stands by your feet and begs you to pick him up, and when you do he snuggles up close to you like he never wants you to put him down again.

In non-cat-news, Eddie and I did the jump from 2g to 0g jewelry. Ouch. It's a hurty jump.

Yesterday morning, Eddie wrote down a bunch of addresses and hours for a few of the RI animal shelters. We were also going to hit a couple of the pet stores as well, since a lot of them have adoption centers in them for a couple of hours every day. We hit the West Warwick animal shelter first, since it was closest, and the logic we had was that we'd start closest to home and work our way out so that if we wouldn't be making two trips across the state if we found someone we liked. The West Warwick shelter was small, with a tiny cat room the size of our computer nook. They had several cats around 7 months old or so, as well as some slightly younger little calicoes that I wasn't very interested in (one was feral and the other had some funky eye problems), and one fantastically mushy long-haired orange and white cat who seriously just needs someone who will allow him to be a lap cat 24/7.

From there we hit Petsmart's adoption center, where much to my delight there were 4 tiny kittens waiting for adoption. Alas, they were waiting until TODAY, and since we were there YESTERDAY, I started making plans to camp out in their parking lot to be the first one into the store and in the adoption line this morning. I was also annoyed with the fact that it seemed as though the shelters required more paperwork than we had for Eddie's visa. Notarized permission from a landlord, 7 years worth of history as a pet owner, essay questions regarding your opinions on declawing and indoor versus outdoor cats. Plus, several of the shelters had crazy fees for adoption. For instance, one of them charged a $90 adoption fee for a kitten, plus another $80 or so for the animal's medical expenses incurred while in the shelter, the state's required $20-$40 spay/neuter deposit (returned when your vet supplies proof of the procedure), and a mandatory $20 donation to the shelter. Let me repeat that, for those of you who read fast and don't pay attention: a MANDATORY DONATION. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd always thought that a donation is something given freely. A mandatory donation was what we made when we paid the guy at Spike's for a couple of junkyard dogs for lunch.

On the way home from Attleboro, Eddie pointed out that we might as well stop at the Pawtucket animal shelter since we weren't too far from it. With nothing else to lose, we used the GPS in the phone to direct us to Slater Memorial Park and then followed the signs that eventually brought us to a building that was the polar opposite of the West Warwick shelter. It was huge, open, clean, airy... everything the other one wasn't. They had a big wall of cats and kittens. I immediately start pointing at this tiny little solid black kitten sleeping in a cage, and Eddie is down the line a little bit and tells me that I need to go see the one in the cage by him. I resume pointing at the little black one and he keeps telling me to come see the one next to him, so I walk down there. And there, in a cage with a tiny little gray and black tiger striped ball of energy, is a teeniest, most perfect little Siamese kitten with massive blue eyes. I'm in love because she's just so cute, and Eddie pokes his fingers at her and she tries to shred his hand into ribbons from inside the cage. I mean, she's going all Mr. Fantastic on him, stretching her paws out through the cage door to rip him apart.

At that point, another guy comes in with one of the animal control officers and he's saying that his girlfriend had told him there was a little Siamese that she thought was very cute. Eddie steers me out towards the lobby so that I can try to lay claim to her first, and the animal control guy out there asks if we're interested in her and we go back to the cage and have a showdown with the other guy over who gets the kitten. After Eddie decides not to be a tie-breaking vote, I tell the guy he can have her since his girlfriend had sent him down to get check her out before we even got there, and I'm thinking "oh god, that little beasty would eat every animal in the house."

We head out to the lobby to do the paperwork on the little black ball of fur. The paperwork consisted of a sheet of paper that had several questions followed by a check boxes for "yes" and "no". Questions such as "Do you have any other animals?" and "Do you have permission from your landlord to have this pet?" and "Do you agree to be responsible for this animal?" Never once were we asked to present vet records for other pets, vet names, landlord names, etc. We get everything signed and then we get to the adoption fee: a whole $15, plus the refundable $20 neutering deposit. The only hitch was that they didn't take credit cards, so I had to go find an ATM, getting lost in Pawtucket because I ended up going out on the wrong side of the park. We had the carrier ready, so once I handed over the money we went and picked up our kitten and took him home.

As we were heading home, Eddie told me that the little Siamese had she left that poor guy's hand dripping blood and managed to escape and leap off a counter top three times while I was out searching for money. We talked about names, since it was my turn to name the new animal. I had been thinking of trying to keep up with the theme of authors as cat names and only came up with Dickens as being a cool name, and then I was thinking of just going simple and calling him Q, and then going all science-nerdy and calling him Zero (black = absence of color = zero color), Eddie suggested naming him after one of the characters from Firefly, and I really liked Phineas. Eddie had to go out and buy some stuff for dinner and told me to come up with my top 3 names.

And when he came home, the kitten was Christened Mal, after Nathan Fillion's awesome space cowboy. At this point the name is very appropriate, since we have a very cocky little kitten who just swaggers with attitude. He's spent this morning alternating between sleeping on me and running up and down the house, with little bites of food in the middle. At this very moment, he's trying to sleep on my shoulder while I type.

This week went by much faster than last week. The easiest way for me to get it all down is in list form. Sorry for my lazy-ass posting.

Thursday: I sat down in the living room and designed three pumpkins. Eddie had searched for some tiny pumpkins, but wasn't able to find any. He came home with a trio of those weird white "ghost pumpkins". I promptly declared that they would be carved into Da de los Muertos "sugar skulls" and sat down with a Sharpy to draw out their designs. And then I watched Vampire Diaries.

Friday: I was very, very grateful to wake up and realize that it was Friday, because the rest of the week had been bloody awful. I carved 2 pumpkins on my living room floor, which I don't recommend doing if you have nice carpet and own an animal who is determined to get underneath whatever you have on the floor to protect the aforementioned carpet. Now, I'll admit that I don't have nice carpet, but when if you're wielding a battery-operated power saw device, the last thing you need to be worried about is whether or not your ferret is being squashed under a 10lb gourd or if she's managed to slip inside the giant-sized plastic trash bag you've spread out to protect your nice carpet. I managed to carve two of the pumpkins that night, which left me with 6 more to do on Saturday, with the hope that I could get them all done before it got too dark to set them up outside.

Saturday: The plan for Saturday was that we were going to go out and get me some new pants. I hadn't bought any new pants in easily a year, and not only were the ones that I had wearing thin in the chub-rub areas from when I was heavier, but they didn't fit anymore. To be honest, they probably didn't fit very well in the first place, as I'm one of those girls who prefers pants to be tighter rather than looser, so it's debatable that they were a proper fit when I bought them. Either way, they were too big NOW, and I was constantly pulling them up. A few weeks ago it started to pour outside as soon as I got to the doors to leave work, and I had to hold them up as I was running across the parking lot. And so Saturday I ended up with 3 new pairs of jeans, 2 sizes smaller than the ones that were getting thrown out, which means that I've probably lost 3 sizes since I started running.

After shopping, we had liverwurst and cheese sandwiches for lunch. Don't hate. It's delicious. Then we spread another trash bag on the floor and proceeded to disembowel 6 pumpkins in record time. Pickle stuck her entire head into one pumpkin as I was opening it up, surrounding her upper body in pumpkin guts and getting herself damp and sticky. A few hours later, we had 5 orange pumpkins and 3 white ones all carved and set up outside, lit from inside with a 100-bulb string of orange lights. We didn't have nearly as many kids at the door as we've had in the past, which left us with a shit-ton of candy that I'm trying very, very hard to ignore.

Sunday: I allowed myself to be dragged to the Raynham Flea Market for the last time this year. I didn't see anything that I absolutely had to have, and we went out for Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch. It was pretty tasty. From there, we headed to East Providence, to Rumford Pets so that my mother could get the water tested in her TANK OF DEATH. Since that takes a little while to do, Eddie wrangled a puppy out of the puppy room, and he and Mom sat in the little playpen and played with a wall-eyed little shih-tzu. After a little while they gave him back, then got confirmation that the fish tank is still TANK OF DEATH.

Monday: I got a random text message from my mother saying, "I'm going to get the puppy after work." Thus began Eddie's passive-aggressive silent treatment of Mom during dinner, because every time he'd mention getting a kitten or a dog she'd say no more animals. I've wanted another ferret for some time now, and Eddie's been wanting a dog, so we're compromising and looking for a kitten. We also begin tossing out potential names for the as of then unnamed puppy, but Mom won't let us call him Wall-I or Flounderpuppy.

Tuesday-Friday: The stupidity of some of the people that come into my store is damned near palpable sometimes. It's as though you can feel it in the air, it wafts through the store ahead of them as a warning of what we're going to deal with shortly. Such as.... the guy who came up to us yesterday and asked, completely serious, "Can you tell me where the medicine is?" It was all we could do not to slap him and scream "YOU'RE IN A PHARMACY. THERE IS MEDICINE EVERYWHERE." We also had the woman who told me that I looked intelligent, and that I must be smart because I worked in the pharmacy, and maybe I could tell her how to do "hanging cliff footnotes" on the reference page of her term paper. And let's not forget the heart-stopping moment when our district manager came in and got to see my hair for the first time since I dyed it. It no longer can be considered any shade of red, it's magenta and bordering on fuchsia. The DM took one look at me (cue heart stopping in my chest) and, rather than telling me to go store-use a box of black dye, asks "Crystal, where's your name tag?"

Today? Today we're going to some local animal shelters to try to find a kitten. We've emailed a few people on Craigslist about them, but either they've flaked out or we've changed our minds on getting them. We're looking to get one while it's really young, so that it can be brought up knowing that Pickle isn't food. Wish us luck on the kitten hunt!

It's been one of those weeks. It's gloomy, it's rainy, it's dismal and raw outside. It sucks.

This is the type of weather that completely saps my motivation to do anything at all. I go to work, I come home, sometimes I pick up a book and read, sometimes I watch whatever we've got on the DVR. I'm not running, I'm sleeping in, I'm the poster child for sloth right now.

It's really not fun. I hate it a lot, actually.

On a brighter note, over the weekend I bleached my hair and dyed it what was supposed to be red. According to the "news footage" on the TV in the office at work, the employee who won employee of the year for the entire company was presented a check for $5000 by the CEO, and her hair was bright pink. After I heard that, I decided that I was going to go back to my favorite bright reds. The dress code says hair is supposed to be a conservative color, and if she can have bright pink then I shouldn't have a problem with red. The swatch was red, the label read "Red Wine", and it's really more of a purpley-pink-cranberry. Quite fetching really.

I walked into work on Monday and my boss took one look and said, "Stickin' it to the man, I see." No one has said anything about it as of yet. The district manager for the front store and the loss prevention guy for the district were in this afternoon and neither of them came back and said anything to me. Customers have loved it so far. It's like I'm "me" again.

I love The Muppets. I loved it when I was little, and when Eddie bought me the first season on DVD a few years back, I discovered that there were a whole lot of jokes that I would never have understood when I was watching it all those years ago. To me, the best part of the show was seeing what would happen when Gonzo blew the last note of the opening theme, followed closely by the musical acts. So here, in no particular order, are my favorite musical bits from the show.

1. The Gambler - Kenny Rogers

This is one of the ones that I've always remembered. I think it was when I was catching the show on re-runs when I was around 11 that I finally figured out that the gambler died in the end.

2. Mah Na Mah Na

I don't think that there is any song known to man that will stick into a person's head as easily as this one will, and I don't think that I've ever met someone who doesn't know this bit. I distinctly remember trying to sleep when I was around 4 years old and singing this to myself.

3. Lime in the Coconut

This is another one that I remember watching when I was little. I don't remember how young I was when I first saw it, but I was young enough that I found it a little creepy when the room changes.

4. Marvin Suggs - Witch Doctor

Watching this just now, I snickered just as much at the end as I probably did when I first saw it.

5. Bananaboat Song - Harry Belafonte

Classic. That's the only way to describe it. I think this is even better than the way it was used in Beetlejuice.

6. Elton John - Crocodile Rock

Elton John. Muppets. By their powers combined.... singing crocodiles and a gay man dressed as a tropical bird in a swamp.

I've ignored posting for a week or so. I'm going to blame Eddie, since he gave me a copy of the latest in Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" series. I finished it the other night and spent a day or so seething over the ending, so I guess that I can post some more again.

We're slowly whittling down the amount of prime time shows we're recording on the DVR. Heroes was the first to go after just an episode, since it really hasn't been any good since the 2nd season. We dropped Fringe last week, since the episodes drag on for 45 minutes and then there's a big 15 minute climax. The problem is sitting and focusing on the TV for those first 45 minutes of it. Dollhouse was on the list of shows we thought were just sort of "meh", but the last episode redeemed itself and it's off the list for the time being.

Also back for another season on our DVR are House and Castle, because they're just fantastic and made of awesomesauce. We've picked up Rescue Ink on National Geographic, because it's got people and animals but doesn't make me bawl like Animal Police will do. We've finished the latest season of L.A. Ink and the last season we could get of Skins on BBC America, and we're eagerly awaiting the time when we manage to record episodes of Torchwood and Doctor Who that we haven't seen yet. We get the sitcoms and stuff thrown in the mix as well - Big Bang Theory, Accidentally On Purpose, and How I Met Your Mother.

Of course, we do have a dirty little secret on the DVR. We record The Vampire Diaries because it's an ever-loving train wreck. Think Twilight was bad? The Vampire Diaries makes it look like Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre. It's bloody awful, and I can't stop watching it just to see what part of Twilight they rip off every week.

So what's on your list of must see TV?

Another shot of Providence Place Mall
Probably a 2sec exposure. The odd lights on the right are the glowsticks and tiny light-up doo-dads being sold by a street vendor.

Over the weekend my ever-so-supportive hubby and I ran the inaugural Flames of Hope 5k Run/Walk in Providence, RI. Super fun, wicked laid back, and we were joined by my mom and her cousin. I shaved about 4 minutes off my time at the CVS 5k last month, which I think was mainly because Eddie wouldn't let me slack off like I did while doing that race, and I know I would have been even better if I'd remembered my inhaler this time around.

The race itself was good. It used the same route as the last one I ran, so I had an idea of where the mile marks were and where to expect the little hills and uneven pavement that's all over Providence and didn't need to run with my eyes on the ground the entire time like the last time. The overwhelming majority of runners were women; the race being part of the fundraising for the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Research Foundation (try fitting that on a donation check, I dare you). A lot people had on the race tees, so it was just a HUGE sea of pink. There was a booth that was selling pink wigs, so we saw quite a few of those, but not one to be content with the easy way out I'd bleached out our hair and dyed it the most awesome shade of pink so we got a huge amount of cheers just for that. A lot of people were walking, and a lot of people were doing the same run/walk thing that Eddie and I were doing.

Mom and aunt met us at the finish line, which surprised us because they were walking. It turned out that my aunt decided that she couldn't make it, so they cut through the park around the 1 mile mark and went back to get pictures of us crossing the finish line. Unfortunately we don't have official times; while we had numbers and there was a big giant clock, there were no d-chips and I don't think they had anyone keeping track of timing us. We're figuring our time to be around 45-46 minutes, which is much better than my last one, but I'm still working on running more than I walk.

We went home for a bit, had some lunch, and then rested for a little while before we went back downtown for the second part of the day, the actual Flames of Hope celebration where people who've donated or raised a certain amount of money get to carry a torch in memory of someone who has dealt with breast cancer. We'd raised just over $1000, which was enough to get a torch, and were EXTREMELY surprised to wake up yesterday to a donation of $510 from someone who wanted to remain anonymous. My mom carried a torch in memory of my Nan, who died from cancer 2 years ago, and I was all weepy throughout the entire thing (which I blame on the fact that they were playing Enya nonstop, finishing off with a double shot of sap with "Wind Beneath My Wings" and "My Heart Will Go On"). The highlight of everything being the lighting of the RI State House in pink lights.

And at that point it was around 8pm, and we were all starving, so we went to Denny's and gorged ourselves on cheese fries.

I think this was a 2 or 3 second exposure.
Providence Place Mall, Providence RI