Tales of a Shoebox Princess

When I was a kid, my dad had a book 101 Uses for a Dead Cat  that I found amusing. I'd probably still find it funny, except for last Saturday, when we found that Servo had gone to make his kitty Maker. Under the couch. He'd been sick for a while, skinnier than was good for him, in fact, on Friday, I petted him and thought him frighteningly skinny. He vomited later that evening and Jim and I discussed taking him to the vet on Monday to have him put to sleep. He vomited nearly every day for the last several weeks. He didn't seem in pain, but what do I know? Servo would just hide after he vomited, which I attributed to not liking our reaction to his vomiting. He didn't refuse food, but judging by his weight loss, he was not getting any of the nutrients into his system, but probably vomiting the food back up. Sigh.  My tribute to Servo: You have been a good kitty. You were good around new people in the house, in fact, I'd say you were curious about them and liked t...

The baby of the family is a senior now. When I started this blog, he was a chubby-faced 9 year old in whatever grade 9 year olds are in--third? So now he's a senior, last one at home. The day after Labor day was our last day of the first day of public school. Last Friday was the last first football game any of our kids would march in. Pretty much anything related to school will be a last time. It's ok with me, but I can't help thinking all those years of raising naughty, loud, disobedient, and yet hilarious children went by pretty quickly. Matt's last first marching band performance in pictures: You have no idea which one he is, do you? He's not on the ladder, directing. Think short, with a bunching of extra pant around his feet.  It's obvious in this picture which one is  Matt. Always making sure he's heard by the audience. Jim and I were at the game and I was taking pictures right and left, hoping that one of them would have Matt in ...

I have loved Weird Al's music since I was in high school (a long time ago). For a long time I had only one cassette tape of his music, and wasn't exposed to his other albums, so when the UHF album was released, even though I'd actually seen the movie, I was unaware that the song "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" existed, until Jim and I went to a Weird All concert in late 1996. Of course Weird played a Minnesota song in Minnesota. Ever since then, I have wanted to see the twine ball. And have been too lazy to do so, even though it is LESS THAN TWO HOURS from my house. Thanks to Katie, (child numero uno), who suggested a fangirl trip to the twine ball, I have now seen it. Katie's mother-in-law, who lives close by, also wanted to see this product of one man's obsession with baling twine. So we packed up Katie's kids and drove on Friday. We sang the Weird Al song on our way. We missed the last turn, had to turn around, and then, THERE IT WAS, rig...