See, for some reason the window frame/sill in my office is left partly unpainted. No idea why. Didn’t notice it on the house’s walkthroughs, but once I’d seen it, I couldn’t un-see it – and anyway, there were a number of places in the molding and trim that really needed a good once-over. Most of the problem areas occurred in the wake of some distant electrical updates, and the more recent smear mistakes some clumsy moron amateur* made while painting over an Unfortunate Yellow room with a Pretty And Sensible Lavender/Gray.

Since our home is an older house, and the previous owners were all about doing “period appropriate” stuff, I went to Lowes and found an “antique white” that was allegedly certified in some ridiculous fashion as being historically valid (no doubt some kind of marketing scam, I know) … and it looked about right. I mean, it’s white, right?

Ha.

Got the paint home and it was, in fact, not nearly the right white. So I fussed and fumed, and wandered up to the attic to stash my now-useless quart of not-the-right-white paint, and I discovered a row of old paint cans. Hooray! These must be the colors used in my house! Thank you, previous sellers!

Of course, all these paint cans were dry as a bone, but that was okay. They had the formulas on the top – and when I found what MUST be the right white for pity’s sake, I copied down all the info on the top label. Yes, all of it – all the little numbers that made no sense whatsoever to me, but clearly indicated a color formula to a better-educated eye than mine.

Then I went to Ace, because it’s much closer than Lowes. I asked the nice (actually, rather amusingly cranky) lady at the paint counter if she could help me.

She said, “Nope. That’s a proprietary brand and formula for Home Depot. You’ll have to take it to them – unless you can get us a paint chip about the size of a quarter, in which case we can color-match it, but we might not be able to match the texture, depending.”

So I went out to Home Depot, figuring this would be a slam dunk. I had the paint’s brand. I had its weird number formula-thingy details. I had a debit card and a willingness to fork it over.

Ha again.

When I got there, the paint woman was being badgered by an older lady who couldn’t be compelled to understand that she could not merely describe a color she totally saw this one time and expect the paint woman to pull it out of her ass. This conversation went on for probably fifteen minutes, during which I did verily salute the paint woman for her continued patience, because if it’d been me, I’d have grabbed a rifle and climbed a tower.

But finally the old lady wandered off in a dissatisfied fashion, having learned nothing except that the paint woman wasn’t a wizard, and behold: It was my turn. Smugly, I thought that I would be an easy customer. A pleasant chaser to a difficult situation.

Eh.

The paint woman agreed that I had copied all the appropriate information required for her to recreate the paint in question, except that (a). they no longer made that precise type of paint with its attendant qualities, and (b). the paint can from which I’d copied this intel had apparently been whipped up during the last ice age – for it was so dreadfully old that the entire system was now on a different set of formulas.

But thank God for paint woman, who (it turned out) actually was kind of a wizard. She jiggered the formulas around, found me a comparable paint, and then sought about shaking me up a can of The Correct White.

At which point the machine locked up, and had to be rebooted/restored/reprogrammed with help from some specialist from some other end of the store.

Long story short, it took over an hour for me to get my gallon of paint – which I now cherish with an unreasonable fondness, because get this: It’s The Correct White.

Or if it isn’t, bugger all if I can tell the difference.

Since I was on now a roll … back up into the attic I went, hoping to find matches to the rest of the spots in the house which required touching up – namely, the kitchen and The Nice Bathroom.** Nope. Just dried up gallons of Unfortunate Yellow and a rusted-out pail of whatever someone had used in the living area.

But encouraged by my hard-won success with the Correct White, I went back to Ace (they’re close, remember?) with a peeled strip of bathroom paint.

(Why was the bathroom paint peeling? Suffice it to say there was an incident involving a clumsy moron amateur,*** a mirror, some double-sided sticky tape, a cast iron tub on which one should not balance whilst wearing socks nor at any other time, and the house’s previous owners who apparently didn’t prime before using glossy latex in a bathroom. Ahem.)

The adorably cranky paint woman at the Ace counter performed some magic, and gave me a quart of paint. Ladies and gentlemen and the otherwise affiliated: IT WAS PERFECT. I did a little dance, right there in the bathroom. (But not on the edge of the cast iron tub. In socks. Fool me once, etc. etc. etc.)

And then I turned right around and went hunting for a place from which to swipe a paint chip in the kitchen, which is a pleasant shade of green – yet featured an unpleasant, unpainted set of plastered-over bits left over from some electrical work. Eventually, back behind the washing machine (laundry nook = same color) I found some painted-over tape buckling up. EXCELLENT.

I snipped the tape, ran to Ace, and was home again in twenty minutes with a quart of Precisely The Right Green. Or, again – if it isn’t Precisely The Right Green it’s The Green Which Is So Freaking Close That Cherie Isn’t Running Back To Ace Anytime Soon Because She Sure As Shit Can’t Tell The Difference.

And anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. Driving all over town trying to Do It Right, and eventually getting it About 99% Right Which Is Probably The Best I’m Going To Do And I’m Okay With That.

If you’re curious about how the office turned out, well, that probably means you don’t follow me on my Twitter feed – where I’ve posted about it already. But that’s okay. Here’s what the room looked like in progress, half lavender/gray and half Unfortunate Yellow.

And here’s what it looks like now – two views: one, and two. (Yes, I have a daybed in there. I have back problems, and prefer to work with my legs/feet propped up – and with a lot of lumbar support. So I improvised.)

Anyway. That’s all there is to tell about my painting adventures (for now), except that I am very lucky the previous owners used the same semi-glossy white on just about everything they wanted white. So there’s that. And now I have the correct and modern formula, so if I run out, I can ask the nice Home Depot paint woman to wizard me up some more.

And now I’m going to see about making myself some supper. In my kitchen that still smells very, very faintly of paint.

Therefore, to begin on a positive note: The UMB is a rather large bathroom (relative to my experience); it is open and clean, with Jack-and-Jill sinks; everything is in good working order, with no mold, mildew, or rust to be seen; it is adequately lit and ventilated, and conveniently connects to the master bedroom.

But compared to the rest of the house, it is inexcusably ugly.

To the best of our knowledge, the UMB was last updated in the late eighties – and all the fixtures, bulbous Flashdance vanity lighting, and color scheme strongly support that sad speculation.* And as it turns out, the 1980s clash painfully with the 19-teens.

Behold, my real estate agent Andy Bond** – gazing with abject horror into the prison-tiled abyss. It was pretty much the last room we saw – and well played, sellers … well played.



But here. Let me give you a guided tour, starting with the bathroom entrance.

What happened is this – sometime in the early 1930s, the back porch was closed in and the bathroom + another bedroom were added. That sick putty-colored wall that looks like it’s covered in exterior siding … is in fact covered with exterior siding.

By the way: LOOK UPON OUR FESTIVE DISCO PARQUET. There’s only a few square feet of it; the rest of the place has proper oak flooring. It really IS as if the fug in this bathroom managed to contaminate everything for a couple of yards in any direction.

(You’ll also see our alarm system in that photo. I’m trying to teach it not to freak out like a giant digital cricket when it spies motion in the den area at 3:00 a.m. We have a cat. She makes motion. We would prefer to sleep through it. When I log off in a few minutes, I’m going to sit down and study that system’s manual like I have a test on it. And I do. Every night around 3:00 a.m.)

Right. So.

Upon opening the door you’ll see the following – tricked out with all our own belongings, and not those of the sellers. All subsequent trashiness is ours and ours alone.



I’ll start with the small things.

How small? This small: scads of empty holes. In everything. At some point, I assume these holes held toothbrush holders or drawer pulls or cabinet hardware … but they’ve been empty as long as anybody knows, and it drives me crazy.

I suppose I could find hardware to fill the miniature voids, but since I want to rip the whole room out and set it on fire, that seems like a waste of perfectly good energy.

Now here.
Come in a little closer.

How close? FLOOR CLOSE. Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket, you guys. I know it’s supposed to look like “marble,” but all I can think is “prosciutto.”

GAZE UPON THE HAM FLOOR YE MIGHTY, AND TREMBLE.

Are we all done trembling?
Okay, good.

Because immediately beside the patch of floor where I captured the HAM FLOOR picture … you’ll find an unassuming white closet with double doors. “Linen closet,” one might think. “Broom closet,” one might guess. Mais non.

FUSE BOXES, BITCHES!

Okay, switch boxes – which I mostly don’t show in that shot. Because honestly, the boxes are not the ugliest thing hiding in that-there closet. See that old siding? Peeling, graying, and undoubtedly chock full of tasty, tasty lead-based paint? Yeah. That used to be the outer wall of the house.

I suppose if the power goes out while I’m peeing at night, I’ll know just what to do. Hm. On second thought, maybe I should stick a flashlight by the toilet.

Then again, it might not help; after all, one of the switches is labeled “WTF.”

I know, I know. Someone has crappy handwriting, and it’s probably short for “water heater.” But I kind of like the idea that there’s a MYSTERY SWITCH that if I flip it then NO ONE KNOWS what the hell will happen. CTHULHU MAY RISE.

I bet the Old Ones could really heat up water like nobody’s business. If those who sleep beneath R’lyeh can save us money on our energy bill, maybe we could strike some kind of deal. Or maybe I’ve had enough of these tasty hard ciders for one night, and should not open yet another one before I continue.

Hang on. Gotta get … uh … something. From the kitchen.

Okay, I’m back.

Next to the Cabinet of Electrical Mystery we have the actual linen closet. It is mirrored. I like mirrors. There is no other point to the image below.

Now in this next shot, you can see the poor attempt at linoleum camouflage I call a rug, plus a handful of Aubrey Beardsley prints I thought might class up the joint … and the aforementioned sinks.

Jack and Jill. Hard molded plastic. Shaped like shells. With wee little ledges upon which to rest one’s soap.



Or, wee little ledges upon which to whack one’s forehead while trying to wash one’s face, if one is as catastrophically nearsighted as yours truly. Cough cough.



Perhaps right about now you’re thinking to yourself, “Self, that’s not so weird and/or bad. That Cherie sure has a talent for exaggeration.”

But wait.
There’s more.

What if I told you … that these sinks … LIGHT THE FUCK UP!!???

THEN HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?

Oops, I mean: THEN HOW CRAZYPANTS WOULD YOU FIND THIS BATHROOM?

I, for one, am trying to look on the bright side. Or perhaps the somewhat drunk side. Which is to say, in lieu of a bathroom flashlight for making ridiculous spooooooky faces, one can simply TURN ON THE SINKS.

And on that note, I suppose I’d better hit “post” and call myself done for the night.

[:: waves cheerfully ::]
[:: and spooookily ::]
[:: goes looking for the alarm manual ::]

[:: GIANT DIGITAL CRICKETS ENSUE ::]

My husband and I have spent the last decade living in apartments smaller than 800 square feet (and sometimes as small as 430 sq. ft.), so you can safely deduce that we didn’t have a lot of furniture to start with … or, um … any furniture except our bedroom set. So for most of this week, it’s been an echo chamber up in here. We’ve had to run out and buy an entire household.

I never thought I’d see the day when I was sick to death of shopping; nay, the hunting and gathering instinct is strong in me. But right now, I am utterly wiped out by the hypothetical prospect of even darting down to the Walgreens (I know, I know, some things never change) for some face soap. I just can’t stand the thought of it.

Therefore, I sit on this awesome new couch instead, trying to type around the fluffy round ass of a freshly flea-bathed house cat. But that’s another story. I’ll circle back around to it.

Yes, well.
We moved in.

Some lovely friends showed up to help us unload the truck, and in the wake of that, we spent a few days unpacking everything we’d unloaded; and then we bought more things to put places, and figured out all the small, weird, unexpected things we still needed; and then we went out and bought those things too.

The husband had a few Requirements, and I had made some Promises with regards to our lifestyle upon our return to Tennessee – not least of all that he could have the house’s parlor for his study, complete with wingback chairs and whatnot; and also I vouched for the inevitability of a porch swing, since we have a lovely wrap-around porch to accommodate that sort of swinging.

Naturally, the chairs and the swing were the most grueling items to acquire. Wingbacks because they’re a bit out of date, and the porch swing … shit, I don’t know. You tell me! This is southern Tennessee at the start of summer – yet whenever we inquired after a swing, people acted like we’d asked for some crayons so we could make soup.

Eventually we found our way to a big patio-specific retail location, and we unlocked achievement: porch swing. But it shouldn’t have taken four days, fer chrissake.

The wingbacks I eventually found in a truly hilarious showroom out near the mall. I’ve driven by it a million times, assuming it was closed – an inexplicably abandoned piece of prime real estate, with a huge parking lot in which I’d never seen another car. But Thursday, on a whim, I thought I’d give them a try.

The salesman who greeted me was a charmingly cadaverous older fellow, a genteel southern Lurch in an ascot. I told him I was looking for wingback chairs. He nodded slowly, lifted one long finger, and curled it – telling me to follow him.

I did follow him, wending my way through a tasteful collection of what might best be described as “new old-fashioned” fine furnishings.* (I don’t mean to sound disparaging, because that isn’t the intent – what I mean to say is this: I love old-fashioned styles, and I was thrilled to see that someone, somewhere, still makes these things.) And there, in that weird gallery that felt peculiarly out-of-time, I found the husband’s dream chairs. We bought them. They arrived the next day. And now the whole parlor smells pleasantly of good leather.

Yesterday, our bed arrived. This was somewhat momentous, because in the entire time the husband and I have lived together, we’ve never had a proper bed.** Best of all, we didn’t have to put it together! I say “best of all” because I’ve long said that I would be a Real Grown Up on the day I owned furniture I hadn’t been forced to assemble. The bed was the last major item, and so far, we haven’t assembled a damn thing.

[:: fist pumps ::]

Around dusk, I met a couple of our next-door neighbors – a guy about our age and his toddler daughter. They brought cookies! They came inside for awhile, and then we went out on the porch and watched bats fly out of the belfry at a nearby church. It was delightful.

But yesterday wasn’t all wine and roses. Yesterday we learned that the house’s previous owners – a lovely couple who we liked quite well – left us one … icky … little … present. By accident, no doubt. But it’s the gift that keeps on giving. To our cat.

Fleas.

The kitty had been acting weird since shortly after we arrived, but hey, no shock there, right? She began shedding like a fiend, and horking up hairballs so massive I swear to fucking God this one time I thought she’d eaten a bunny. Of course, it’s late spring/summer here, and she’d been losing her “winter coat” even in Seattle; and obviously there’d been a lot of upheaval in her recent life. We thought she was stress-grooming.

Nope. Fleas.

I discovered the fleas while my husband was out running errands. So I called him (repeatedly) trying to walk him through the supplies required to rid her of the problem. Apparently I’m the only dumbass on earth who didn’t know you could get Advantage at any petstore these days, so thanks for bringing me up to speed, Twitter and/or Facebook. The name-calling really wasn’t necessary, but up yours, too, haters.

Eventually the husband returned with a bottle of good flea shampoo, some spray, and a six-month supply of Advantage For Large Cats. (Over 9 pounds, that is.) The For Large Cats bit is important, because Spain weighs almost 12 pounds – as we know for a fact, given that we just took her to the vet less than a month ago.

Not that I could convince anyone of it. Not with pictures like these. It’s funny, how much tinier she looks when wet – but I promise you, that is a very large sink. And she is, in fact, a total fatty. My husband’s big-ass hands are just hiding the folds of tummy chub.

Before long, the worst was over. She recovered her dignity swiftly, and seems much happier today. Mission accomplished.

Hm. What else?

Well, I painted my office – which once was a kids’ bedroom, and a shade of yellow that I just wasn’t “feeling.” It’s now a soft lavender, with a lot of black and gray and white furnishings, and an awesome daybed. Frankly, it’s an eldergoth paradise. I am proud of my handiwork.

The Perplexing Back Room will remain a game room/guest space/whatever for awhile. Our plans to yank out the carpet, throw down hardwood, and make a formal dining room came into conflict with our budget, but such is the way of things. Right now it’s The Cat’s Room, and also the room where we store everything we’re too lazy to tote all the way out to the garage.

The Unfortunate Master Bath remains unfortunate. But you know what? Everything works, and it’s a large space with a spacious linen closet and also, um, the household fuse boxes. Not the first place you’d look for fuse boxes, no, but the house was added-on-to in the thirties, and the bathroom used to be the exterior wall of the house. So we have fuse boxes in the bathroom, okay? They’re in a closet. We keep the closet shut. It’s not an issue. It’s just kind of funny.

My next post will probably be about the Unfortunate Master Bath. There will be pictures. Undignified pictures. Stay tuned.

But for now, I think this post has run long enough. Thanks for being patient with me, and thanks for reading; thanks for all the well-wishes and congrats, and I’ll be back online tomorrow. Still playing catch-up, sure. But I’ll be back.

:)

** Proper bed: Mattress, boxsprings, headboard/footboard. We’ve never had anything but the mattress/boxspring on rails, except for one brief, unpleasant foray into one of Ikea’s low-slung, boxless sleeping systems. Which was awful.

Next on deck: Lawn/garden supplies, including but not limited to such diverse elements as a lawnmower and a porch swing; yanking out the carpet in the add-on area and swapping that out for hardwood (will try to get a quote next week); conquering the framing shop and getting some of my copious prints addressed; rounding out the last of the Oh Shit We Didn’t Think Of That supplies; and inviting Agent: Daddy down to check out our Unfortunate Master Bath to advise us with regards to the eventual remodel.

Oh yeah. I need to take some pics of that thing. Must be seen to be believed.

But not now. Now, I return to my unpacking marathon. I just didn’t want anybody to think we’d driven off a cliff someplace in South Dakota. If in fact they have cliffs there. I don’t remember. (It was a long-ass drive, that’s all.)

[P.S., the cat is fine. Still a little wigged out by all the empty space - like I said, not a lot of furniture yet - but by and large, she's just dandy.]

Of course, we’re almost out of stuff to box, too. We don’t really have that much; ten years of living in less than 800 sq. ft. has kept our worldly possessions to a relative minimum – and this time we’re moving down three flights of stairs instead of up, thank God. Even so, I expect that tomorrow will suck.

But then … then we hit the road. And in 3-4 days, we’ll be back in Tennessee, moving into our house.

(An old friend of mine said that this house reminds her of a “haunted mansion” themed screensaver I had on my computer back in college, and she’s totally right. Will I be a daffy southern broad with flower baskets and a porch swing? Oh, you bet. But I will also have the best damn Halloween candy on the block, and I just might invest in a fog machine.)

Anyway. My apologies for being so quiet this week, but it’s been a 6-day study in havoc as we closed down accounts, sorted out business, set up utilities, chased down paperwork, ran our errands, got our car fixed, packed every-damn-thing we could, and tried to catch all our local friends for last-minute shenanigans.

I will miss you guys. All of you.
Let me be clear about that.

But, yes. Tomorrow we head east. We won’t have internet in Tennessee for a day or two after our arrival, so you can safely bet that this will be a pretty quiet page for yet another week. I’ll try to keep the world abreast of our progress via Twitter and Facebook, but blogging by phone is a hassle.

Right. Well then. Here we go.

But it was good to see everyone – to hang with the usual suspects, and meet a few new ones. I even got to nab Joe in person for the first time ever, when he unexpectedly turned up on the convention floor to sign for an hour or two. I’ve known him online for ages, but had never actually been in the same room with him until this week – when I overheard him speaking somewhere behind me, recognized the voice, and homed in to say “hello.”

Lovely man, that. Can’t recommend him enough, and I even scored a signed copy of his new (semi)YA book, Edge of Dark Water. I’m looking forward to diving in … though diving in might take a bit.

For you see, we’ve begun packing things up.

As you know by now, we’re moving at the end of this month. More specifically, we’re getting the moving truck on the 28th, so we are now in the terrifying home stretch of a cross-country drive with all our stuff and the Angry!Cat accompanist. Tomorrow, we take said Angry!Cat to the vet for a last-minute checkup/vaccination update/certificate of health, which will be an absolute joy, I am quite certain; and then Sunday night we’re joining friends for a going-away supper, which I expect to be much less stressful.*

Today I received the keys to the house in the mail, and suddenly it all felt very, very real.

Should we encounter one another at this event, remember that I am surrounded by a 10-ft. “No Shyness” zone. If you want to say hello, come say hello! Bring books. I’ll sign ‘em. I also keep a black Sharpie and a silver Sharpie on hand, for those of you with e-readers who want them/their covers signed. I AM PREPARED, PEOPLE, so don’t worry that you’re “bothering” me. This is literally what I’m there for – to be accosted.

But gently, please. I’ll be on West Coast time, and the early morning panels might have me a little scrambled in the Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed department.

Yes, when I get back to Seattle on Thursday night, I’ll have juuuuust about a week to finish packing up my household and getting everything/everybody ready for the Big Move to Tennessee. Therefore, I do hope you’ll pardon the intermittent radio silence leading up to that … um … more prolonged radio silence, while my husband and I drive a few thousand miles over the course of a week. (With Angry!cat along for the ride, as heavily sedated as is medically safe.)

Meanwhile, watch for me over on Twitter. 140 characters of lazy updating, performed during nap intermissions, airport delays, and bathroom breaks. Come and get it!

Project: Ninja Planet
Deadline: Sooner or Later
New words written: 1374 (boo.)
Present total word count: 33,556 words



Things accomplished in fiction: Bad things. Aliens grow bored with keeping their distance, and come in for a closer look. This doesn’t go well for anyone – particularly not anyone in or around the Bonneville salt flats.

Things accomplished in real life: Went to the post office; went to Walgreens; scanned some contracts for reference’s sake and sent them off to my agent; conducted other assorted misc. bits of Writer Business; tided apartment and would’ve cleaned the bathroom but decided against it for now; also skipped laundry but that needs to happen this weekend; argh this is turning into a to-do list, not a did-list.

Other: Logged onto Google+ to find it redesigned beyond recognition. Felt like an idiot because I couldn’t figure out how to post anymore. Did eventually figure it out. Still felt like an idiot. But you know, I never do anything but cross-post links to blog updates over there … so I might just scrap the account. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Bride of Other: I do not always react very well to change.

In fact, just last night she and I (and Kat and Liz and Melissa-who-must-remain-unlinked-at-this-time.) took the Seattle Ghost Tour. The tour itself was actually a lot of fun; I was familiar with only a few of the stories, and I learned some nifty nuggets of story fodder which I have filed away for later.

After the tour we stopped at one of the places we’d actually visited while on the tour – an Irish pub/restaurant in an allegedly haunted building. Yes, well. We pressed our supernatural luck.

Didn’t encounter any ghosts. Did encounter some wholly unexpected hilarity.

Picture it: a table of five women, all married, tipsy, most of us old enough to have children of bar-visiting age. (Technically. Mind you.) Now picture an uncommonly attractive, terribly young body-builder in a very-tight shirt, sauntering up to our table to ask what we were drinking …

…whereupon we reached the 100 PERCENT REASONABLE conclusion that this must be our new waiter.

Reasonable conclusions are not always foolproof.
Oh no. Mr. BouncyPecs was trawling for sexytimes.

Now look – we all agreed that it took significant testicular volume to approach a table full of women in such a fashion. We didn’t intend to laugh at him or send him slinking away, a puddle of mortified man-ooze. Far from it! As we told him, we were flattered – very flattered – and we appreciated his interest. But I do confess, some measure of giggling might’ve occurred as we all displayed our wedding rings.

It was just … Jesus, you have to understand: By the time we realized he was trying to pick us up (individually or en masse – however it shaped up), it was entirely too late to pretend this wasn’t awkward. We’d already asked about the specials!

So we thought we’d made ourselves clear in a friendly but firm fashion – but we were wrong about that, too. Because then he asked in all seriousness: “You’re all like … married married? Not even, like, married … but with some gray area?” Repeatedly. While “leading with the wang,” if you ladies know what I mean.

Finally, Liz suggested that if he was that desperate to buy us something, he should mosey over to the bar and bring us a dessert menu. Hey, our spouses prefer a little junk in the trunk! Help a sister out, Captain Ticklepants!

He declined, and wandered off.
So we bought dessert ourowndamnselves.

It was an excellent night, with excellent company.

Lately I haven’t done enough writing to warrant mentioning it, so I’ll skip the word metrics for now. In my defense, this whole “planning a big-ass move” thing can really eat up brain cells, I tell you what – even though we’re still over two weeks away from showtime.

I know this will all be worth it in the end, but I am not looking forward to carrying big heavy boxes. I am not looking forward to the drive.

And I am especially not looking forward to making the drive with one outraged, indignant animal on board.

Spain the Cat is terrible in a car. Every waking moment in transit, she acts like she’s being beaten with a sock full of pennies – when in fact she is riding in a spacious, sturdy, well-ventilated carrier* … snuggled on her favorite Comfy Blanket^TM and surrounded by some of her most reassuring squishy toys.

Here. I give you a voice post from the road in 2006, at the start of my journey to Seattle. BEHOLD the HELLCAT. And yes, she did that the entire time she we were on the road. I kept thinking her voice would give out eventually, or she’d get tired and take a nap. Nope! It was all cat protest music, all the time, all the way to Washington.

For this trip, we’ve come to our senses – and we’re heading to the vet to nab some kitty knockout drops. NAY, ALL OF THE KITTY KNOCKOUT DROPS. I want this little monster to snooze halfway to the Mississippi River, and I’m sure my husband will be happiest that way too – after all, he’ll be stuck with her at least half of the trip.

I am only human, and I’ve already had to do this once, coming west. I cannot seriously be expected to have her riding shotgun all the way back east, too.

And now for one of my peculiarly popular and utterly pointless television roundups. Ahem.

Still not interested in Once Upon A Time anymore, which frankly pains me. I wanted to care about it, but the characters just don’t make a damn bit of sense and now I’m bored. So I’m officially calling my interest in that one All the Way Dead.

But I’m back on the Grimm bandwagon, much to my own surprise. I skipped it for a few weeks, then caught a new episode and kind of liked what I saw. This having been said, if it were up to me, I’d kill off Nick and Juliette both, and make the show about Monroe and Rosalee running that fabulous little store together – solving mysteries and fighting crime among the supernatural population of the Pacific Northwest. I would watch the shit out of that.

In other news, the husband and I finally caught up on Justified and hot damn, I love that show. I avoided it for a long time, mostly because I didn’t really care to watch Hollywood make fun of Appalachia for an hour at a time … since that’s how I assumed it’d play out.

But no! It’s clever, funny, tense, and surprising. I love how it’s not actually the Raylan Show, and no one is more confused by that than Raylan. I love all the badass women. I love Limehouse. I love Boyd, and if you’d told me I’d come to love Boyd after I’d seen only the first couple of episodes, I would’ve laughed in your face.

And that’s mostly what I love: I love how this show has a knack for subverting my expectations. I am hopelessly charmed by it, because every time I say, “Man, I hope the writers know what they’re doing,” it turns out that they do. Which makes for a happy, happy Cherie.

Except that now we’re all caught up, and we have to wait for new episodes like ordinary mortals. Ah, well.