Rugs.

We have a couple of long runner rugs that are perpetually rolled up, wrinkled, and very rarely stay where they belong. Both rugs have heavy rubber backing and are designed to stay put, so their continual disarray was something of a mystery.

Dog Breed Fangirl.

Every time I see an unusual breed of dog I feel compelled to squeal about it like a teenager at a boy band concert.

I can't help it, I've been reading about dog breeds since I was a small child. Seeing a rare breed in person is like meeting a celebrity.

Except that the dogs don't really know why I'm so delighted to see them, and the owners usually appreciate it when somebody actually knows what kind of dog they have.

Meow.

This happens every day.

Our Sweaty Mailman

Despite my best efforts, Awesomedog has an undying vendetta against the mailman. It's hard to blame him when this individual invades every day and is then successfully warded off with an explosion of barking. Awesomedog can identify the official uniform of the U.S. Postal Service.

And also postal vehicles.

But these pale in comparison to our sweaty mailman. Normal mail carriers travel their routes at a fast walk, but not Sweaty Mailman. No, he runs. Always. The only thing more exciting than a mailman is a running mailman. I'm not sure if Sweaty Mailman is trying to finish his job early, or has too much to do in too little time, or is trying to get into shape, but he's definitely ...odd. Every day he comes panting and gasping down the street, bag trailing off one arm, long greasy hair plastered to his forehead, shirt buttoned lopsided, sometimes with an undersized cardigan sweater stretched around his shoulders. Awesomedog is convinced he's going to kill us all one day.

Stuff.

The other day while a friend and I were playing Diablo 3...

And then he suggested I could prevent this sort of occurrence by simply having less stuff. This sort of thing is exactly why I have so much stuff. I have some really cool stuff.

Babies twitch.

My sister has a baby. He's about two months old, meaning he is pretty much just an external fetus. Newborns creep me out.

They twitch. They gurgle. Their eyes don't focus, and every body movement they make just screams "SOMETHING IS NEUROLOGICAL IS WRONG HERE!" Of course, they move like that because their brains aren't fully developed yet. It probably says something about my life experiences when a newborn immediately sets off the 'brain damage/defect' bells in my head rather than the reverse.

When Evilcat Almost Died

The end of 2009 sucked for us. A lot. Z got sick, I got Swine Flu, my horse colicked, cars broke down, and we had a disaster a week for almost three months. In the midst of all this, our townhouse was going into foreclosure and the owner was desperately trying to sell it, so we had realtors attempting to show the place and occasionally trying to break in. We were house-hunting and then packing and moving while trying to cope with everything else, and that is probably why we didn't realize that Evilcat had stopped eating until she was very, very sick.

When Evilcat collapsed in the middle of the night we realized something was wrong and rushed her to the state-of-the-art emergency vet. They got her stabilized and hydrated and then came in to talk to us.

Evilcat's food strike had led to fatty liver syndrome, and the only cure was to get her to eat. Although we could convince her to eat one bite from a freshly-opened can of food, it wasn't enough. The vet wanted to surgically implant a tube that would extend from her stomach to an opening in her neck, so we could tube-feed her for the next 8 weeks. This sounded like a recipe for horror and disaster. I had just begun a two-week vacation from work, so I decided to try force-feeding her.

It took a little bit of adjusting, but I quickly figured out that she couldn't spit out wet cat food if it was watered down sufficiently and squirted into the back of her mouth via syringe. If I gave her more than a teaspoon at a time though, she would puke it back up almost immediately. In order to get a can and a half of food into her every 24 hours, I had to pry the cat open and shove food down her every 30 minutes around the clock. For a week.

My sister and her newborn baby got more sleep. However, Evilcat's strength returned, and soon she was able to fend off my attempts to cram calories into her. Fortunately, this was also when she started eating on her own again. Clearly evil is directly proportional to health. Evilcat has made a full recovery, but Z is now convinced that she is on the brink of death every time she ceases her ferocity for a moment.