Thanks to John and Adam for asking me to join the distinguished group of key-holders. I feel at home already, having had John step on one of my guest posts and having enjoyed all your animals since John slipped on the ice with Lily. That’s about when I found Balloon Juice.
I understand that a placating offering is required for a smooth relationship, hence this post. I’m a morning person and not good at smart stuff at night. I’ll do another introductory post tomorrow or on the weekend. But let’s get to the important stuff.
Zooey is on the left, Ric on the right. The shelter called them Zuppa and Ricotta, and I wanted better names, but I didn’t want to change them too much. Their backstory is that they were picked up by Animal Control and nobody came to claim them. The shelter wanted them adopted together, and I wanted two cats so that they had companionship. They are about two and a half years old, and I brought them home in early February. They are indeed best buddies and presumably littermates, although nobody has done a DNA test.
I’ve had cats most of my life, but when Chairman Mao, an applehead Siamese and The Best Cat In The World, died, I was traveling a lot. It wouldn’t have worked for me or a new cat. Last fall I brought home a ten-year old tabby, Max, whose owner had to give him up. Unfortunately Max was not well and was with me only three months.
Although their coloring is similar, they have distinct personalities and body types. Ric is wirier and expects more pets, and Zooey is a little bigger and more aloof. Both love human visitors and amaze them by meeting them and demanding affection. I think their time at the shelter has something to do with that. They were in a kennel in the shelter’s second-hand store, so they met plenty of people. They also had the run of the store at night.
Zooey is currently sitting behind the monitor.
Mnemosyne
Tuxedo cats!
All right, you’re in. Welcome aboard. ?
amk
Pets blogging. Nice opening move to tame the hyenas here.
Sonoran
Welcome to the zoo, Cheryl. Looking forward to your posts!
Felonius Monk
Welcome, Cheryl. And Zooey & Ric.
seaboogie
Grrrrlllll…you know how to do this and have our number! I also enjoy following you on Twitter – it makes me feel smarter ;-).
Goku
Aw, they look like twins. And Welcome to our humble blog!
Major Major Major Major
Oh well aren’t those a couple of cats who are friends. Welcome aboard!
Anne Laurie
Welcome, Cheryl!
It’s always awesome to add a new
set of hands to clean out the spam filtervoice to the front page, and your guest posts have been very informative.Hard to tell from one photo, but Ric & Zooey might have some “Oriental” (Siamese-style) genes. As you know, meezers are big personalities and they have no shame demanding an audience to appreciate their many amazing qualities. Also, your buddies seem to have the triangular heads and vaguely kangaroo-shaped bodies that those Oriental genes bequeath. Such cats are famously ‘easy keepers’, prone to put on weight, but when they do, their wiry frames tend to pack the pounds on their back halves, rather than turning them into ordinary pudge-balls.
Confirming trait: Do they have strident Siamese voices, which they use all the time?
Kristine
Welcome! Lovely kitties.
I follow you on Twitter, too, and have enjoyed your posts and comments here.
Suzanne
That’s so adorable, how they MATCH! My pets always look so different.
Do they match your decor? That would be awesome.
Cheryl Rofer
@Anne Laurie: They have no Siamese coloring at all, but Zooey is quite vocal. He’s practicing now, because it’s almost my bedtime and his late-night kibble time. Ric’s body shape, now that you mention it, is somewhat Siamese. He meows at odd times – I’ll explain that more as the story develops.
Cheryl Rofer
@Suzanne: They do somewhat match my decor. They look very good on my red sofa and loveseat.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Welcome! The final step in your initiation is posting the voice recording of Zooey and Ric calling the VOICE hotline to complain about the bananafish. MmmmmreeeeeeeoOOOOOWT!
JCJ
After such a nice intro with such nice cats I wonder of anyone will be rude enough to give you the traditional balloon-juice greeting?
Eh, who am I kidding. I’m sure one of the jackals will.
Another Scott
Welcome aboard, and welcome back!
Cheers,
Scott.
jacy
Kittehs!
Welcome, Cheryl.
OT of kitteh, just set up a meeting with the evil ex and The Whore and me and The Boyfriend, ostensibly to discuss the kids’ summer schedule. The boyfriend and the ex have met for approximately 35 seconds previously at one of the kids’ plays. We are meeting at a pastry shop on our territory that also serves alcohol, so The Boyfriend and I can have a couple of drinks before they get there. The Whore has insisted on this meeting and that we all attend it, which is very weird, so who knows what the hell will happen. I’m considering live-blogging in case there’s bloodshed. I hope that if reincarnation is true, I come back to a life less colorful than the one I currently have.
Suzanne
@Cheryl Rofer: We need a glamour shot of the cats on the furniture.
Also, I hope you have nicer end tables than John. (That’s not a euphemism or a double entendre.) If you don’t, I would be happy to point you toward some expensive furniture that offers no storage.
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
I hope it works out and no murders occur. I’m sure that your therapist has already told you this multiple times, but the only way to deal with a narcissist (or, worse, a pair of them) is by setting firm boundaries that you never permit them to cross, no matter the provocation.
My watchwords while dealing with my NPD sister in law were “transparency and consistency.” I realized there was no point in even attempting to lie to her since she’s a much better and shameless liar than I am, so I would stick to the letter of the truth at all times. I would also set my boundaries ahead of time and decide which ones were completely firm and which ones I could let her feel she’d won.
Cheryl Rofer
Thanks for the welcomes above. I’m going to bed now, but FIRST I MUST FEED THE KITTEHS. See you all tomorrow.
Suzanne
@jacy: I gave to have those meetings with my ex and his current girlfriend. I give their relationship 18-24 more months before she realizes that he sucks irredeemably. At the last meeting, the girlfriend told me that I was being contentious, after I said I was going to have my ex sent to jail for non-payment of child support.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
Hmm. Now I’m wondering if the personality we detect in Charlotte is some Oriental. She’s very vocal (she sometimes seems to try out new meows just for her own amusement and to see how we react) and her chunkiness seems a little unusual, though that may be because the other two are very fuzzy and she’s a shorthair.
rikyrah
Welcome to BJ
opiejeanne
@jacy: Doesn’t the whore have a kid who goes to school with your kids? Or was that someone else.
I think it’s smart to meet at a place with booze because you need the drinks afterwards as well.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: Contentious? Why do these people even exist? I don’t understand what they add to the gene pool.
Suzanne
@opiejeanne: Sigh. I ask myself that question frequently.
CaseyL
Welcome, Cheryl, and the lovely Matched Pair kittehs! (Collect the whole set!)
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne: How much undercoat does Charlotte have? That’s another ‘Oriental’ trait that carries down much more effectively than the points-and-blue-eyes; Siamese cats are supposed to have ‘silk satin’ coats with little or no undercoat. (Which is one reason they look so duck-downy & ridiculous as tiny kittens.) But the easiest ‘tell’ in adult cats is: if the path from the top of Charlotte’s eyes up to the base of her ears is so sparsely furred it’s obvious, that’s the ‘Oriental’ style.
(Also, looking at our Rocket reminds me — does she have gargoyle paws? Combination of fine wrist bones & long ‘fingers’, so when ‘Oriental’ cats splay out their paws, they look like cathedral grotesques!)
jacy
@opiejeanne:
Her kids did go to school with my kid (same class!) while the affair was happening. But I took my kid out the school, and her kids were subsequently kicked out the school because they’re little psychopaths. They now go to a Christian Dominionist private school. Fun! My kid is happily ensconced in a nice secular private school where the kids eat granola and all his friends’ parents voted for Hillary.
Adam L Silverman
@jacy: Neither of you should drink anything alcoholic for 24 hours prior to this meeting. Nothing, nada, zippo. You don’t want anything to happen, have accusations made, and wind up having to claim that “no your honor, I wasn’t impaired, I only had a couple of glasses of wine before the meeting”. Stay sober, stay calm. You can get hammered and vent when it’s all over and you’re back home.
Anne Laurie
@opiejeanne:
Semi-serious answer: To ensure further genetic spread. Narcissists are so demanding / annoying, their clanmates have to keep expanding into new territory to satisfy them.
Or else they’re such pests that part or all of the clan eventually packs up & moves where the narcissist can’t find them!
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
She is currently lazing about in her cat bed for her pre-bedtime nap, so I’ll have to look after she gets up. She doesn’t have much of an undercoat and she has that “kangaroo” look, but I’ll have to check for the other signs.
ETA: The cat on the right of the photo could be her twin.
jacy
@Mnemosyne: @Suzanne:
My therapist dearly wishes she could be at the meeting. We’ll be okay. I’m actually glad that The Whore insisted that The Boyfriend attend — he’s got a very strong, no-nonsense personality and he’s not going to countenance the usual steamrolling tactics. He’ll sit quietly until someone gets out of line and then quietly shut it down.
Since you both deal with narcissists, you’ll find this story funny: Over Spring Break the ex took the boys to Disneyland. They said if The Whore was going, they weren’t going, and he promised she wouldn’t be there. But they had secretly been planning this vacation for months to “unite” her with the kids. But since the kids balked, they went separately and carefully arranged so nobody would run into anybody else, because they couldn’t cancel and get their money back. The only way the boys found out she was there was when they woke up early and heard their dad talking to her on the phone and realized she was at another hotel. So they spent all this money on a “family” vacation, only to not even be able to see each other when they were there. Which of course, just plays into their victimhood fantasy. But at least the boys had a good time!
Suzanne
@jacy: That is crazy fucking shit.
cain
Welcome, I see you’ve made friends already. The cats will soothe our “DIE MORTALS!” mentality! :-)
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: There are times I really, really, really need to recc a comment. Yours is one of those times.
Yarrow
Welcome! Your kitties are adorable. Love how they match. Looking forward to your posts.
efgoldman
@jacy:
Let us know when you set up the GoFundMe for your bail.
jacy
@Suzanne:
They are crazy fucking people. Like I said, I’d like a less colorful life. Maybe I could change my name, become a lighthouse keeper and just take the one cat and the one dog. I’m thinking of calling it the Lighthouse Protection Program.
cain
@Adam L Silverman: Spoilsport. :P FINE! I’ll drink for them! Is that alright?! @jacy, let me know the time and date, and I’ll have a bottle ready.. goddam the things I do for people.
ETA – actually I stopped drinking, it was screwing up my daily routine… life is so much better at the moment, – more focused too. But hell, I’ll take one for the team!
efgoldman
@Suzanne:
Did he pay? If not, have you asked the court to issue a warrant? It’s better than the sumbitch deserves.
jacy
@cain:
Who was it who didn’t have a pet? Was it little Freddie deBoer? I seem to remember that. Can’t trust people who don’t have pets……
Suzanne
@efgoldman: He hasn’t paid yet. I will be petitioning the court next month.
Yarrow
@jacy: That is hilarious and crazy. Good for your boys. They sound smart.
jacy
@Suzanne:
Aargh. My sympathies. Dealing with family court is horrendous. Why can’t people just be decent?
@efgoldman:
I’m coming up with a disguise in case I need to flee the country.
cain
@jacy:
yeah, I don’t remember who it was.. it could have been him.. it kind of went south after they admitted they didn’t have a pet. :)
Yarrow
@Suzanne: Good for you! Way to be “contentious.” Ha.
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
And I’m betting that it was all your fault for “turning the boys against her.” Sigh.
I’m actually on the Devil Woman’s good side right now, because my taking her kids to Disneyworld allowed her to get her sugar daddy to take her to Costa Rica. I’m trying to figure out my next move — see if I can take them on a visit to their grandmother or have them visit out here with no contact with the family members she’s pissed at? ?
Mike in NC
Trump back to threatening bombing of North Korea tonight. Deranged asshole is deranged.
jacy
@cain:
You have to admit, with little Freddie it would have gone south pretty quickly, pet or no. I think he was the only person on BJ I ever got really nasty with, and that was only because he was a front-pager and not a drive-by troll.
Chet
Quoth the blogmeister upstream:
Just this evening I was sprinting towards a writing deadline for tomorrow. At 11pm I went up to the bathroom to take a pee. I sat back down at the computer in the dining room and thought I heard rain. I kept writing, wondering why that rain was getting louder. I glanced up from my screen and saw water streaming out of the kitchen lights onto the floor.
I took the stairs up two at a time and found water all over the bathroom floor, too. The toilet had overflowed (luckily it was clean). Water was dripping through the bathroom floor and into the gap between the floor and the kitchen ceiling.
Shut off the water, plunged the toilet, mopped up the floor. Went back downstairs, found wastebaskets and pots to collect the dripping water. It was also coming out of a hole in the crown moulding. Mopped up the floor, brought wet towels down to the basement laundry, found water dripping through the basement ceiling. It must have found its way down into the wall cavity. Figured out how to pop out the recessed lighting kits, let the water drip out as much as I could, and…well, I went back to work.
It’s a good thing the lights are on a GFCI circuit. That wasn’t intentional; it just happened to be the closest circuit when I installed them. The interrupter tripped so I didn’t electrocute myself when cleaning up.
I can’t believe I didn’t wake up my wife with all the cursing and running around I did. In the morning I will have to explain why the papers on the kitchen counter are all waterlogged. But hopefully we won’t have to replace any drywall.
ETA: can’t tell if this is an open thread and the new frontpager forgot to mark it as such, or if I’ve made a faux pas and gone off topic. Sorry, just in case.
Aleta
@Cheryl Rofer: Zooey and Ric, shooting to stardom. Cheryl, it’s fantastic you’re writing here. Thanks for doing this.
jacy
@Mnemosyne:
They’re very lucky to have you. It must be terrible to be a kid dealing with narcissists, because kids have so little power. I content myself with thinking that they gain valuable coping skills that will help them deal with all the assholes they’ll run into as they move out into the world.
Suzanne
@jacy: My ex-husband is just…….ugh. Recovering addict, depression struggles, whatever, but he’s just got a victim complex that won’t quit and an anger problem. He is outraged that I make more money than he does. OUTRAGED! Never mind that he can’t keep a job because he is a lazy, irresponsible shit.
jacy
@Chet:
Egads. Hope the damage is minimal. Yeah, home ownership is a bitch. Nice, but a bitch.
efgoldman
@jacy:
I never had pets. My mom thought they were unclean, or something. mrs efg grew up with four siblings, a sequence of dogs, about a zillion cats, and assorted other fur-bearing animals.
I’d like to get a dog, both for companionship in my old age and for granddaughter to play with when she visits, but mrs efg sensibly says we should wait until we relocate out of fairness to the animal.
jacy
@Suzanne:
I’m so sorry. It never ceases to amaze me when men freak out because you make more money than they do. You’d think it would be a positive, but it never seems to be. My ex will absolutely not drive up to my house. We have to meet elsewhere. He’s so pissed off because after he left he ended up in a shitty divorced-guy fourplex where he sleeps on the couch so the boys can each have a room and I bought a really nice house with a huge yard. He literally said, “I’m not going to drive to THAT house.” Victim complexes are amazing things. And of course it’s your fault for being successful without them.
Suzanne
@Chet: Awwww shit. Any way to get a fan in the plenum space to dry it out? That sucks. Hard.
jacy
@efgoldman:
So long as you promise to get a dog when you relocate…. And at least you can be secure in the knowledge that you’re a thousand times a better man than Freddie deBoer, pet or no.
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
They’re about six years apart (11 and turning 17) and they had a running joke that the older one is the younger one’s real mom. It was heartwarming and yet depressing to know that the older one is stepping up to do the emotional work that her mom is incapable of doing.
efgoldman
@jacy:
We have a spare room/bed. From where you are, I don’t think Rhode Island is considered part of the country.
fuckwit
@Adam L Silverman: +1 for this.
Chet
@Suzanne: Maybe. The holes for the lights are only four inches in diameter
efgoldman
@Mike in NC:
I hope to fuck that Mattis and McMaster are telling him several times a day that the first ::BOOM:: in North Korea leads immediately to Seoul being wiped out within hours.
Not that he could even find it on a map, but maybe the concept will get thru.
Or maybe they just “lose” the order.
jacy
@Mnemosyne:
That’s so weird — my boys are 11 and 17. (The younger will be 12 in a few weeks, and the older just turned 17). But it’s nice that there’s a camaraderie there — it will serve them well in the future. The bonds forged in situations like in childhood are some of the strongest.
@efgoldman:
I’ve always wanted to visit Rhode Island! I’ll keep you in mind, should something untoward happen.
Suzanne
@jacy: My ex has lived off of the largesse of every woman he has ever been with, including me, not that I had much largesse at the time. So when I told him that he needed to pay me what he owes (never mind that I have taken far less in child support than I am entitled to), he told me that I don’t “deserve” any money because I live in a house he deems too spendy and bought a new car two years ago and saved up my money for two years to take my family on vacation in Italy and Greece.
Never mind that we bought a foreclosure at the absolute bottom of the market, and I only replaced the car when the old one was fifteen years old and stranding me on the freeway in Phoenix summer, and that my kids and I agreed not to have Christmas presents for two years so we could go on the trip. And never mind that he shows up at my house with new clothes and gadgets and tattoos and talking about the opera tickets he just bought, but declined to take a job until he found one that paid him as much as he thinks he is worth—which took over a year.
efgoldman
@jacy:
My last three managers, two of my last three directors/VPs, one of the heads of our division, and now the president of the whole Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, all women. I’m an old fart guy. Never bothered me in the least. In fact I became good friends with both of my last two managers.
Worst manager I ever had was a hipster bro.
jacy
@Adam L Silverman:
No worries, Adam. The Boyfriend is hyper-responsible, which is good, because I’m the flighty, emotional one, prone to fistfights and secret plots. He’s the steadfast Last Boy Scout.
efgoldman
@jacy:
I thought Adam was.
jacy
@Suzanne:
Your ex and mine have similar problems. The Whore is filthy rich, and I mean filthy. She just built a 9 million dollar house. But he can’t pay me any child support because I make more money than he does. Doesn’t stop him from buying toys for himself, while telling the kids he can’t afford lunch money. (He just bought a brand new car last month) While I work 16 hours days 7 days a week and haven’t been able to repair my car since November, and still have $10,000 in medical bills from the cancer. But he’s made feeling sorry for himself a full-time job. You kind of just have to accept that they’re assholes and live your life.
@efgoldman:
That’s because you’re a proper fella, and not one of these layabouts. You’re a Boy Scout too, albeit a cranky one. :)
Aleta
@efgoldman: I think I know that guy!
Comrade Mary
Oh hey — hi! I’ve been following you on Twitter for a while. Welcome to Chaos Manor!
Betty Cracker
Welcome, Cheryl! I’ve enjoyed your comments and tweets for some time and am happily looking forward to your contributions here. And also more photos of those lovely cats! ?
joel hanes
Cheryl
Been reading your excellent stuff elsewhere for years; will be glad to see it here regularly.
My best friend used to be the golf course supervisor at Los Alamos, and I was there frequently for a while, both before and after the big canyon fire — developed a serious dependence on Hatch chilis.
I’ve always wondered : Did Los Alamos employees play Half Life ?
(I’ve got a Black Mesa parking permit on my car, and a What Would Gordon Freeman Do crowbar bumpersticker in a drawer somewhere … )
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: That’s the way it was with the kid and her sister, their dad was going though a series of relationships while they were growing up.
ArchTeryx
Welcome to the snarling (and snarking) jackal pack. :-)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Comrade Mary:
I always think of this place as Crackerbox Palace*.
*H/T to George Harrison.
joel hanes
@Comrade Mary:
Welcome to Chaos Manor!
Every single person who frontpages here is less of a bullshitter than Pournelle.
By large multiples.
Elizabelle
Welcome, Cheryl.
And: does anyone have a link to the article about Suzanne’s architectural project? Saw it discussed; would love to read. Thanks.
cain
@jacy:
Despicable.
sharl
@Elizabelle: Here is the AZCentral piece featuring Suzanne’s work. (From Suzanne’s Comment #9 in this post.)
Elizabelle
@sharl: Thank you, sharl.
Brrrr. Chilly but sunny morning here.
Edward Marshall
I used to work for Bruce Blair at Global Zero. I love your work Cheryl and I follow you at nucleardiner.com I’m a huge fan and I’m incredibly excited to see you here.
Anne Laurie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Why not Liberty Hall — in its original, British sense?
Leto
Welcome! Adorable kitties.
I’ve been reading your blog since Adam introduced it here, and can’t wait to read more here.
sharl
I shoulda turned in a while ago, but I’ve been riveted by this thing I just learned about:
The schadenfreude is running fast and strong with the young leftie/socialist crowd on twitter, as they watch their fellow Youngs from the other side of the tracks suffer the consequences of what at best is incompetence, and what at worst has been a scam. (Well done, Ja Rule!)
Seriously, I hope everyone comes out OK, but at the moment the twitter hashtag #fyrefestival is…something else. The only thing missing is someone like the WKRP character Les Nessman showing up to report on this live, a la the helicopter turkey drop at the shopping center.
Elizabelle
@sharl: Oh Gawd, that’s hilarious. The exclusive catered meal!
If Ja Rule and others were experienced grifters, they would have canceled before festival-goers arrived, absconding with the cash and blaming local authorities for not approving permits/foiling them at every turn. Big government!
Blink-182’s cancellation letter is also really good.
NotMax
Deepest sympathies on that. Maybe you’ll grow out of it.
Aleta
@sharl: models!
`Aleta
I have a niece who’s a model. She used to be an actual model but now her work = her life, sitting in pop up restaurants, getting together a posse to sit in a club, mentioning brands in a blog that’s mainly photos of herself on a NYC street in front of a brick wall wearing new sneakers, and talking her uncles into investing in after-club breakfast venues.
I looked at the many articles placed in semi-respectable outlets over the winter to promote the fyre festival … as though they confused that with the physical work needed to organize their imagined festival. Show me what america looks like … this is what america looks like.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Same here. I’m hoping she’s going to be the one to announce that Trump & Co are being dragged off in manacles. But in the meantime, cute cats!
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: This is so true. A judge will consider one party’s drunkenness a potentially mitigating factor to another party’s bad behavior, either as a provocation or as a less than trustworthy witness to what happened. Drink afterwards.
hedgehog mobile
Welcome! Looming forward to your posts. Lovely kittehs!
Bg
belated welcome. I’ve been following you on twitter for a while. I usually just lurk here. Awfully glad you’re here.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
And it’s a perfect day for bananafish!
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@jacy:
He was so god damned pretentious and pleased with himself. As noted before, anything that could be said in five words took him fifteen.
Jay C
Welcome, Cheryl!
And thanks for starting off your FPer tenure with cute-kitteh pics. Always appreciated.
Comrade Mary
@joel hanes: AAAAAHHH! #tears brain out# AAAAAAAAAHHH! That’s where my bastard unconscious got it from. NOOOOO!!!!!
Yes, @?BillinGlendaleCA: Crackerbox Palace is MUCH better.
(((CassandraLeo)))
A bit late here, but welcome. Nice kittehs.
joel hanes
@Comrade Mary:
Oh, I am so sorry.
I had foolishly thought it intentional. My mistake.
Wolvesvalley
Faithful lurker and once-in-a-blue-moon commenter here.
Since this is at least partially a pet thread, I think the Juicers might be interested in this story, which appeared in the Detroit Free Press on April 15 and was just reprinted in my local paper today.
I’m thinking of sending Silver Muzzle Cottage a donation in memory of Walter.
mr_gravity
@sharl: Sounds like Ivanka’s idea of Woodstock.
Dalai Rasta
Welcome, Cheryl!
Zooey and Ric’s mutual grooming session reminds me of Bella and Noel, though Noel can get a little aggressive with her grooming.
stinger
Hip-hip-snarl! Hip-hip-snarl! Hip-hip-SNARRRRRLLLLL! Welcome, Cheryl!
MomSense
Hooray!! Great addition to our den of vicious jackals. Not sure if tradition dictates I should say welcome or fuck you. Probably the latter.
Anyway, happy you are here.
J R in WV
@sharl:
Thanks, Sharl !! I too wanted to see it…
ellie
We have a white kitty with black spots my husband named 2% because said kitty looks like a dairy cow. Your kitties are just beautiful and look so soft.