Stray Cat Maternity Ward

Well, only about a month after 3 kittens showed up and started eating at our house, courtesy of their stray mother who doesn't seem to like us humans much yet continues to eat our expensive cat food as though she were entitled to it, another litter arrived via yet another stray who won't let us touch her but eats at our house. There were 4 of these, 3 born in the Igloo pet house under our deck, and the runt born on the other side of the deck and for unknown reasons left there until my father found him and returned him to his mother.

Long story short, I have become a mother. The newest litter's mother is herself only about 6 months old and seems completely bewildered as to how this happened and why those large male cats were chasing her around in the first place. She abandoned two of the kittens, leaving them in the Igloo and moving the other two maybe 20 feet away. My mother and I watched for a while, and when it became clear that she was determined to no longer take care of them, I kidnapped them and have now become their full-time mom. Believe it or not, I am bottle-feeding them kitten formula every 3 hours, even in the middle of the night, soothing their upset stomachs, and letting them poop and pee on me without getting mad. Who would've known motherhood can change you so much?

It's one boy and one girl, both now 4 days old, and I haven't named them yet, as I haven't come up with anything I really like. Right now Flower and Thumper are my best choices, but I figure I have until they're at least a week old to think of something. And even though I don't really enjoy waking myself up to heat a bottle, it's really not as bad as I would have anticipated.

Forget the plums...

This is just to say
I didn't read the book
I was supposed to.

Forgive me,
I had no time left,
And sleep seemed more important.

Sanity Status Update

2 presentations and 1.5 papers down, 4.5 papers to go!

I had a group presentation yesterday on the Chinese American Experience for my novels class (we're reading The Joy Luck Club). Unfortunately this was perhaps the most politically incorrect group our professor could have possibly put together, and many of our group meetings consisted of Matt expressing his frustration with the cashier at the Rice Bowl not understanding his need for 20 pairs of chopsticks and Carolyn doing a pseudo-Asian dance to the theme song of Amy Tan's cartoon TV show about her "Chinese Siamese Cat." I could feel us losing point by the minute.

I also had a presentation this morning on the differences between English and French syntax. A thrilling topic I assure you, but at least one that I knew enough about to not have to spend entire days in the library. According to Roommate Laura I spent the whole presentation trying to push my rather short hair behind my ears. This is my standard in-front-of-people-anxiety habit, as evidenced by the multitudes of VHS tapes of me in plays--the donkey at the stable tugging on her hair, Alice in Wonderland flipping her hair behind her ears, Auntie Em attempting to pull the errant strands from her bun behind her ears. I thought I had conquered this issue, but apparently not.

Meanwhile, I have in fact managed to stay somewhat ahead of the game in this end of term madness. I wasn't up 'til 2 am this morning finishing my presentation, and those 1.5 papers I've completed aren't even due until Monday! (Nevermind that there are another 2.5 due that day too.) And I have a fairly solid idea of what I'm going to write about for the 2 papers due Wednesday. In fact, I think I'm so ahead of the game that now would be a delightful time to take a nap to congratulate myself. I mean, that's what all my friends who are already out of school are probably doing right now.

Summer Reading List

This is the list of books I am forcing LaurenFrances to read this summer. You should too.

Much Ado About Nothing : Shakespeare
The Sun Also Rises : Hemingway
The Color Purple : Walker
The Awakening : Chopin
My Sister's Keeper : Picoult
Maggie, A Girl of the Streets : Crane
The Handmaid's Tale : Atwood
How the Irish Saved Civilization : Cahill

That should do you for now. List of books I plan to read this summer will be posted once I have figured out what they are.

Kristen the Evil Technological Genius

I have just downloaded a ringtone of Sara Evans "Born to Fly" for my cell phone. This is my first ever purchased ringtone. Shh, don't tell my parents, to whom the bill will go. And parents, if you read this, ignore that last sentence and I owe you $3.

Hicks, Jesus, Beer, and BBQ

I have to admit, one Brandon Kinney handed me that title on a silver platter at the concert Saturday night. He was the opening opening act, and he wandered onto the stage wearing a plaid flannel shirt and a backwards baseball cap. It was a promising start.

He sang a total of four songs, before each of which a woman in a bikini top and the tiniest daisy dukes I've ever encountered strutted around the stage waving a big piece of posterboard with "Song 1/2/3/4" written in black magic marker. I swear I'm not making this up.

His first song was an ode to hickdom, creatively titled "We're Hicks."
The second song was about how Jesus must be coming back soon.
The third song was alternately about how good or bad life is and thus he needs a beer.
(Postlude to the third song--bikini girl made an extra appearance to bring him a bottle of beer and mop down his face with a towel.)
And finally, the fourth song was an innuendo-packed love song to a barbecue smoker. This is a direct quote:

I knew I had a winner
When I stuck my meat in her
For the first time.

No, I'm not kidding. And I can assure you that wasn't the worst of it. I can no longer hear the word "barbecue" without twitching.

After all this pain and suffering, we were rewarded with a spectacular performance from Sara Evans. To the persons who planned the concert line-up: she would have been a "real fine place to start," thank you very much.

Adventures in Nashville!

Yes I am indeed writing this post from my FABULOUS hotel room in Nashville, also known as The Room that Almost Wasn't. Story soon to follow.

This was yesterday: Went to class, walked back to the apartment where I packed (and later realized didn't pack my pajamas), then piled into a car with 3 other wonderful Furman females, and embarked on the 6 hour journey to Nashville, TN, where Laura the Roommate and Boy (Laura's fiance) ran the Country Music Marathon this morning.

So of course there was your typical fun long car ride that involved belting out assorted show tunes slightly off-key. Good times. Then we got to Nashville and registered for the marathon and proceeded to head to the Embassy Suites to check-in before dinner. After hauling our luggage inside, we were informed that No, there were no reservations under our name or confirmation number. Oh goody. And since there were 30,000 people running in this marathon, plus all their companions, plus a significant number of small children competing in a soccer tournament and their families all trying to cram into Nashville's normally-abundant hotel rooms, there was literally not a vacancy in the city. We know because we had 2 sets of parents and one boyfriend at home checking the internet, plus we'd called at least 10 hotels and stopped by 3 to beg in person.

At 9:30 PM (10:30 Eastern time), with no plan and no hope, we stopped at Jack-in-the-Box, where Laura called her mother to get her Tennessee cousins' phone number in the hopes that they would give us a place to stay. Several panicked phone calls, one vanilla milkshake, and 3 cheese sticks later, Laura's phone rang, and lo and behold, we were informed that our reservations were not at Embassy Suites at all, but at another Nashville hotel just a couple of blocks away. Apparently, Laura's mom was at her Supper Club and told those in attendance about our distress, and one of the other Supper Club ladies called up her friend, the wife of the Dean of Admissions at Vanderbilt, who talked with her husband, who was able to tell from our confirmation number what hotel we were supposed to be at. You can imagine how the wind from our sighs of relief shook the cash registers.

Now I ask you to remember the How I Almost Didn't Get to Paris story. Tell me, do I have a travel jinx on my head? I'm trying to shift the blame to Laura and Boy by talking about that other time they didn't get a hotel room... Yeah. Not my fault, I swear.

Thank God for almosts.

The HOTTEST thing in town...

So I had to go home today for a positively de-light-ful dentistry experience that involved digging holes in my gums, but before the reclining chair accompanied by sharp objects, there was...

CHINA STAR! Laurens's brand-new and wonderfully not sketchy Chinese restaurant.

Now you have to understand that previously Laurens had maybe 7 restaurants total, only one of which you would venture to take a guest to (the new-last-year Mexican restaurant), and the rest of which only true Laurens-ites dare to patronize. But then came China Star...

There is a buffet, complete with sneeze guards! And blue walls! And booths with the stuffing still in! And a soft-serve ice cream machine!

Needless to say, I ate a LOT.

What I am most confused by though is that there are apparently Asians in Laurens. I think lunch today was the first time I had encountered a person of Eastern descent in my alternately redneck/ghetto hometown. Although unlike most ethnic-food establishments, the China Star hires a wide variety of skin colors; I counted at least one each of Asian, Hispanic, and Pale. Quite PC of them.

And as a side note, Chinese donuts = sugary coated goodness.

Tragedy

Our prayers are with you, Virginia Tech.

Bad news for my future

So I was working on my SAT essay grader training today for Kaplan, and out of the 10 sample essays, I gave exactly 1 essay the same score as the professional graders. One. And that's because it was just horrible so you pretty much had to give it the lowest possible score.

Now recall that I am studying to be a high school ENGLISH teacher who will be grading lots and lots of ESSAYS. This is bad, this is very very bad.

New career goal: Busking in the London Underground with my trusty sidekick, Barnaby the Wonder Duck.