Caturday: Scary Clown Edition

My kids are more creeped out than amused by clowns. They must have got it from me. One of my worst childhood memories dates from when I was 10 or 11. I was in the church basement with my Sunday school class, watching a movie in which a white-painted, bald mime was pursued by a [...]

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Literally Squeezing the Joy out of Fashion

I really appreciated Melissa’s fierce post on fashion earlier this week at Shakesville, wherein she pillories the industry for selling shame as much as clothes. She laments long-mothballed bridesmaid dresses and this recent shopping tribulation expedition:
We go to a plus-size store. Immediately upon entering, I feel overwhelmed and anxious. I hate shopping. I hate clothes. [...]

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Endless Backlog Caturday

My dear departed Grey Kitty was the queen of hairballs. No sooner had she ejected one than another was in the works. My husband used to liken her digestion to a busy airport.
That’s an unfortunate but apt description of my endless pile of grading. No sooner have I ejected one set of papers … well, [...]

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My Adventure As an Electro-Pincushion

If you’ve been reading Kittywampus for a while, you know that I’ve had some weird health problems ever since Inauguration Day (a coincidence that still amuses me, when I’m able to laugh about my problems). For a while there, I thought I was losing my ability to think straight. Maybe I did lose it; you [...]

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Things Fall Apart, the Center Does Not Hold

And what’s mere anarchy, compared to my life at the moment?** I’ve got three classes, two kids in soccer four nights a week, one brain (that last stat is a rough estimate, generously rounded upward), all pitted against a stack of grading that approaches infinity asymptotically. Throw in multiple friends and students in crisis, a [...]

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Caturday is Escaping Me (and That’s Not All)

Actually, everything is getting away from me. And it’s doing so a lot less cutely than this, which my boys pronounced the Funniest LOLcat Ever. I didn’t quite LOL along with them – maybe because it’s just, um, a hair’s breadth from being a metaphor for my life?

From I Can Has Cheezburger?

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Keep the Internet Catty!

Yesterday this important Emergency Message appeared on I Can Has Cheezburger?

We here at Kittywampus will NOT cave to the demand for a cat-free day on the Internet. As you might have noticed, today is 09-09-09. Now, remove the zeroes. Turn the number upside down. The truth is revealed: a day without [...]

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My Day Out As a Big Blogger

Most days, Kittywampus is fairly sleepy (as befits its patron cat), but yesterday traffic on my blog just exploded. You might have thunk it was my post on erotica for women that drew a crowd, but no … it was my half ranty, half wonky post on health care. WordPress put it on their front [...]

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Caturday Meets Wingnuttia, Jonah Goldberg Edition

At Alternet, Tara Geneva reports that Jonah Goldberg says we can stop planning for global warming and start readying ourselves for a far more likely catastrophe: a big old asteroid striking the earth! (By the way, wasn’t Reagan’s Star Wars program supposed to cover that threat? Yikes, we’re back to the future!)
Here’s Goldberg’s scenario:
The year [...]

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Parenting *Inside* the Box

This has been my kids second-favorite toy this summer, topped only by the decrepit typewriter they unearthed while we were in Berlin.

It’s the box from our beloved front-porch furniture. The kids have turned it into a house, of course. Two months later, the porch furniture is still wonderful, but the box has achieved a state [...]

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Sparkly Caturday

One of Berlin’s less charming features is the prevalence of dog poop on the sidewalks. The poop density actually seems to have decreased since last summer, but the kids still need to get used to watching their step. For the Tiger, this is an all-too-welcome opportunity for poop talk. We’re trying not to encourage it. [...]

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Yodeling and Gardening Caturday

I am having the best day I’ve experienced since January 20, when I got sick. I spent most of the past week feeling like crap, and today I feel almost normal. As if the Ceiling Cat herself were smiling upon me, the sun is out and the air is perfectly warm and dry. The kids [...]

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Happy Caturmomday

I hear this is a high holy day for mothers in some parts. Here, the kids are squabbly. The laundry is piled sky high. I’ve got a conference paper to finish before I leave town on Tuesday (um, yeah, that’s the day after tomorrow). I’m also trying to get some planting done before I leave [...]

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My Friend Henry Is Famous

Just when I was about to close down my computer for the night, I saw that my friend Henry of Henry’s Travels has just gained her 15 minutes of fame! Well, for kittehs it might be more like 15 seconds. There’s that attention span thing, you know. Anyway, Henry has made the front page of [...]

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Caturday Theology: Or, The Ceiling Cat Is Watching Me

Sistine kitteh from I Can Has Cheezburger?
No, I’m not hallucinating – or seeing visions of angels – from too much grading. (Though I am still buried under heaps of term papers and exams.)
Verily, the Ceiling Cat has cast his beatific feline glance upon me.
He really does see everything. At least, he saw this post about [...]

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Found: Twitter’s Divine Feline Use

First, you have to get over your chimera-disgust at the idea of cats tweeting. Really, it can be quite natural! Not monstrous at all!
Second, you (well, I) have to get over our anti-Twitter biases.
And then you can enjoy the application for which Twitter was obviously made in the first place: the tweets of the Ceiling [...]

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The Fall Unemployment Forecast, Minus One

Motivational kitteh from I Can Has Cheezburger?
Maybe I don’t have it quite as good as this LOLcat, but I do have a job I love. For the past several months, though, it hung in the balance as the university awaited Obama’s stimulus plan and then the contours of the Ohio state budget. At one point, [...]

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A Kiss Is Just a Kiss? Men, Women, and Oxytocin

Kissing kittehs from I Can Has Cheezburger?
One of the hallowed traditions of Valentine’s Day is polishing up all the old chestnuts about men, women, and romance. So when I saw a headline in yesterday’s Columbus Dispatch proclaim “Kissing a stress-buster for both men, women,” I was pleasantly surprised not to get a rehash of the [...]

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My LOLcat Alter Ego: Happy Cat

Kittywampus has suffered a severe frivolity shortage lately. Today’s antidote: taking the “What LOLcat Are You?” test.
I came out as Happy Cat, the original “I Can Has Cheezburger?” kitteh.
Your result for The Which Lolcat Are You? Test …

Happy Cat

64% Affectionate, 55% [...]

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Caturday Health Update: Having the Dumb

Empty-bubble-brained kitteh from I Can Has Cheezburger?
I’m happy to report I’m doing better than this kitteh. My head keeps getting a little clearer, day by day. Oddly, I can pinpoint just when the fog started to seriously lift: 5:30 Wednesday, following a few Advil and a nice phone chat with a friend while reclining comfortably [...]

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