A post in which I have dinner out

I had a rough start to the day today.  I found that the cat currently coveting a place in my garden window over the sink (which is full of Depression Glass) is now Jinx.  Crooner tends to be agreeable most of the time, but Jinx is contrary to her bones.  I was up at 4am when she started moving the glass around to get in the window.  I ran her out and went back to sleep.  I was then back up at 5am when she knocked one of my favorite bowls off the shelf.  Fortunately it didn't crack or chip.  Telling her 'no' is just throwing down a gauntlet.  Something has to be done.

Since I was up and too agitated to go back to sleep anyway, I decided to get some things done.  I had left over spaghetti sauce for lunches the rest of the week but needed to make the pasta to go with it and pack it up.  Since I was eating the last lunch that was ready to go today, and would be out tonight and tomorrow night, I had no idea when I would actually do this, so I guess happening to be up was fortuitous.  There was no pasta in the house.  After finding out that the grocery store near the house was not yet open, I detoured through CVS, got my pasta, and headed home.  I cooked the pasta and put lunches together.  Then I started getting ready for the day. 

One of the reasons the cats are so disruptive lately is that they have fleas.  God alone knows how they contrived to get them - they never go outside - but they have them.  I have some flea stuff at the house, but I have two different kinds.  One kind worked and the other did not.  After checking and finding no expiration date (I bought it last year) I put it on the cats.  Jinx immediately started licking hers off, counter to the instructions.  The instructions say that you are supposed to keep the cat from licking it off.  I don't know if the people that write that stuff are actually trying to get a career started in stand-up, or just have never seen a cat, but good luck with that.  It mainly involved me chasing her around the house going 'NO'.  She of course had no idea what it was she wasn't supposed to be doing.

Before I left for work, I shut the cats up in the back room.  I hated to do it.  I would really love for them to have the run of the house, but of late that involves trying to break my stuff, leaving big messes of hair and other catritus on my kitchen counters and stove, and barfing up hairballs.  I reflected that there were starving kitties in India who would be thrilled to have a whole comfortable room to live in.  It is a quarter of the house, after all.  Confident that I was not a cat-abuser, I shut them in and left for work.

I still have no further RSVPs on the bear dinner - even from the guy that suggested it in the first place.  I emailed RBL to see if they were coming.  I also sent Justin a text to ask for dibs on Danny when he's done with him.  I won't snake Justin, but I am surely not to proud to ask, or to date a slightly-used boyfriend, being a bit-more-than-slightly-used boyfriend myself.

After work I headed to El Matador to meet Dad and Eve for dinner.  I love that place.  Of course Eve had insisted that they get there before I even got off work, so by the time I got there they had been waiting on me for over a half hour.  I don't get it, but I've just come to accept it.  I got there as quickly as I could, but I don't stress over that any more.  The food tonight was as good as always.  I just had a chimichanga (they do an excellent one there with Jack cheese and spinach).  Theirs are a little small, but I have to start cutting back.  I had to wear my fatty-fat-fatfat pants to work today, and I wore the shorts from the same collection to dinner last night.  Sigh.  Something has to give, and I don't want it to be my waistband.  I'm supposed to be back on the market, after all (Yeah. 'cause THAT'S going well...). 

After supper we went back to the house for a visit, which went well.  Dad talked to me very seriously about a dilemma he's having, and surprisingly it's a similar one that I am having over Cindy.  I was touched that he would speak to me so frankly.  I didn't have any super advice for him, but I could commiserate. 

I went home, let the cats out and fed them.  Jinx made a bee-line for the kitchen counter.  Immediately.  So I yelled at her and spanked her.  I hardly ever do that.  But she is smart enough (unlike Crooner) to know she isn't supposed to be up there.  She didn't hold a grudge, and came to seem me in bed as soon as I turned in.