I always worry about this...

Woman Jailed for Loud Sex.

...fortunately, my neighbours seem to be pretty tolerant. Another plus to living in HoodLite.

Best comment from a spammer, ever

buy viagra has left a new comment on your post "Rocking the Rock Chick": "hello friend excellent post about Rocking the Rock Chick thanks for sharing!!"

I, of course, passed the comment on to Diva, author of said guest post, to which she responded: "Good old Buy Viagra. and he/she is welcome."

Seems like the person behind the spammer couldn't resist Diva's sex toy review!

Marketing

I couldn't resist giving money to the guy on the street with the sign, "Too ugly to prostitute. Too honest to steal."

With marketing like that, he'll be a millionaire (in change, of course) in no time.

Baby love, ma baby love

Remember my foster kitten, Frankie? If not, this is what he looked like in August:

My name is Frankie and I have freakishly long whiskers.

I know foster moms probably shouldn't choose favourites, but Frankie was my favourite foster kitten. He was such a mellow little dude, and I loved him even though he thwarted my attempts at making banana bread by lounging in the mixing bowl:

No banana bread for you!

So, I was pretty excited when a friend of mine saw Frankie on my Facebook page and wanted to adopt him right away. Not only would he get an amazing forever home, but I'd also get to see him anytime I wanted! It was perfect.

Not too long after that, Cinder the foster kitten (who happens to be Howie's sister) came to stay...for less than a week, because she got adopted right away. The sweet gal who took her home was so excited to adopt Cinder that she had a tag engraved with the kitten's name before she even met her.

The only picture I had time to take of Cinder, all curled up in my blankies.

After Cinder went to her happy new forever home, Ren came to play. My former roomie and I named him that because he had stumpy legs (he was still a kitten and his legs hadn't caught up to his body yet), which led to Stimpy, which led to Ren. Ren was pretty shy at first, but Levi won him over.

Kitty 69!

For the first three weeks, Ren seemed to be adjusting well, and then it was like something broke in his brain, because he started peeing everywhere - the cat beds, the dog bed, the couches, my bed, my laundry...there weren't many things in my house that weren't coated in cat pee. At first, I thought it was the dog (she gets blamed for everything), until I caught Ren squatting on the couch.

I felt horribly guilty, but I couldn't deal with having a cat with "issues" in my house, because his pee could inspire the other animals to join in, and then I would not only be the crazy cat lady who lives down by the tracks, I'd be the crazy cat lady who lives down by the tracks and smells like pee.

Fortunately, the animal rescue people understood and acted quickly, finding these animal behaviourists who could deal with Ren's pee issues and rehabilitate him.

(According to them, he was unable to soothe himself when he got stressed out, which led to the peeing issues. They taught him coping skills to be able to manage his anxiety in these situations. Who knew you could teach cats self-soothing coping skills? Anyway, they fixed his brain up and he was just adopted by a nice lady who has two other cats for him to play with. Hooray!)

Just before I was going to get all my furniture professionally cleaned, I got a frantic phone call from the friend who had adopted Frankie. It turns out Frankie had been pissing and shitting all over her house for the entire three months he had been living there. Her cat didn't want him there and was quite mean to him, and I guess Frankie didn't know how to "self-soothe" in this situation or how to escape from the Diva cat. My friend tried everything to make it work - feeding them in separate rooms, giving them separate litter boxes, and taking Frankie to the litter box at set times each day. Nothing worked. She was at the end of her rope and felt absolutely horrible about having to let him go.

The weird thing is, I got kind of excited when she told me her problems with Frankie. Because I wanted him. And for some reason, I knew that if he came back here, it would work out and everything would be okay.

Sure enough, when I brought him home, he ran through the cat door into the basement and immediately peed in the litter box. Then, he rolled around on the cement floor for awhile and ran to another litter box and pooped. And he hasn't had any problems since.

Eight-month old Frankie, lounging and posing

It was like he had decided he was home. And that's all it took for me to decide that I was adding a fourth cat to my brood (something I swore I was never going to do.) What added to the feeling that he just belonged here was the fact that the other animals accepted him right away. Even the mean black and white cat, who is always a jerk to new arrivals. Not even one hiss. It took him almost a year to accept Levi as a permanent fixture of the house, but only two weeks to cuddle up to Frankie.

Methinks my black and white cat is a racist.
Only wants to hang with his own kind.
Prick.

In many ways, it was like Frankie had never left. He still thwarted my attempts at domesticity.

Same cat, bigger bowl.

And he still loves to lounge.

This is supposed to be the dog's bed, but Frankie doesn't care.

The only difference is that his name is now the more formal Franklin. You know, in case he needs to apply for a job or something.