What the Chuck???

So much going on. So much going on. . .

It's been a very eventful weekend.

Chuck the Pug

J.T., Karen's non evil brother, came to visit from Dallas. He brought with him both a girl and a dog.

Other than the fact that the girl stole my room and shut the door so I couldn't go inside and take a nap in her suitcase, I have no serious beefs with the her.

She seems nice.

However, the pug is a different story.

Chuck is a PUPPY. He kind of looks like a drunken Gargoyle. He runs about chasing things. Sometimes when he moves with stuff in his mouth he runs into furniture. He chews on things. Thankfully his attention span is nil, so he doesn't chew long enough to destroy or damage much.

Chuck chases his tail, that is, until he is distracted by something random.

He tried to eat tissue paper. I could not make this up. Who does that?

I can't believe Karen's parents would allow a DOG in their home. It just isn't civilized. The dog even pooped on the rug by the back door. That's utterly disgusting. Even Sadie wouldn't do that.

Sadie, by the way, is hiding underneath the bed in the spare room. She comes out only when she's sure Chuck is in his kennel. Period. Then she takes care of all her business at once and goes back into hiding.

Thankfully, Chuck has a healthy fear of me and is too small to jump on the couch. So I'm pretty safe as long as I stay on furniture.

Karen told me I needed to "be nice" to Chuck.

Whatever

Chuck ate some of my food, I think. I didn't actually see him do this, but I could sense his dog stench by the bowl.

So I ate some of his.

Done

Rush Limbaugh and the Celebrated Stalker

I've taken a slight hit at the blog counter. For this reason, we are returning to our original format of dropping the name of Rush Limbaugh in the headline.

To the right is a picture of my problem.

This is Sofie. She comes over during the day between the hours of nine and noon. During this time I live in the most serious fear for my life. Sofie is a dangerous stalker, obsessed with my celebrity status. She follows me around the house, squealing and shrieking with delight. She tries to pull my tail, poke my eyes, bite my ears, etc.

She licked Sadie. I could not make this up. This is even more disgusting knowing the fact Sadie sheds to the point it is amazing she has any hair at all. (Karen and I've discussed waxing her, but Karen thinks that would be "cruel"-- whatever.)

As a celebrated writer, it is very difficult to produce under such stressful circumstances. Due to Sofie's "cuteness" Karen is only minimally sympathetic. She did say that as soon as the house sold we'd buy another one and then Sadie and I would move back in with her.

Actually, I'm kind of digging it here at Karen's parent's house. The house is like four times the size of Karen's. They have lots of places to hide and Karen's mom does a far better job with fulfilling all of my general needs.

I just would like a restraining order against Sofie, who is probably planted here by her father, the evil Jeff, just to terrorize me.

Anyway . . .

Our House

Our house if finally officially on the market!!!

Karen asked me to use my notoriety for marketing purposes. I'm going to put some pictures in a photobucket slide show and display it on ye ole blog in the sidebar. Anyway, if you like what you see shoot me an email (penelopeandsadie@aol.com) and I'll get you in touch with the right people.

In the meantime, it's now five after nine. I have to get upstairs before Sofie gets here.

Go 'Stros

"Pimple on the Arse of Journalism"

I totally stole this from my good friend Billy Pilgrim, as I love "pimple on the arse of journalism" almost as much as "asshats", which I haven't figured out how to use in a sentence yet, but still I am looking for a way to work it into daily conversation.

Being that I am providing you, the educated reader of discriminating taste with a plethora of knowledge, I have decided that I am a journalist.

Karen begs to differ.

"At best you are a editorialist," she told me. "Occasionally you would fall into the category of satirist. Mostly, I'd say you are a critic."

"I can't call you a journalist because you offer too many opinions," she informed me. "Besides you do virtually no investigation and don't even leave the house."

"Furthermore, journalists don't sleep eighteen hours a day."

How does she know what a journalist does?

Whatever. But what if my opinions are right? Could that give me any credibility?

"An opinion can't be right. It's just an opinion."

Oh please. Karen clearly is misinformed.

So what else can I tell you???

Congratulations to Our Blogger Friend

Speaking of journalists . . .

Our good friend Reid Kerr, at Reid About It (see link list) just got hitched.

Isn't that great???

You guys should all go over to his site and send your kudos.

More About Me and My Troubles

I am still at Karen's parent's house. Sadie takes refuge most of the time under Karen's parent's bed. I prefer to hang out in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Mostly things are very quiet. The spawn of evil Jeff hangs out with us only for a few hours in the morning and since she does not roam upstairs, I am very capable of keeping myself safe. Karen comes by every day or two to visit.

Sometimes I miss her. Right now I'm exploring other options though. I mean, Karen's mom does a pretty good job of feeding us and, quite frankly, she does a hands down better job of keeping the box clean. I'm not saying I'm planning on replacing Karen just yet, but if she refuses to take me seriously as a journalist, I think I might need to consider other options.

A really cool thing about Karen's parent's house: the birds.

They have these birds that are very arrogant and get right up on the front porch really close to the door. Karen's mom gripes about the bird crap on the door frame constantly. All I'm going to say is this: just give me just one shot at those birds and the bird poop problem is over.

Totally

Tim Russert is No Ordinary Cat

Today I am foregoing the shameless name dropping of Rush Limbaugh for the purpose of blog hits. I think it's important for us to recognize one of the greatest men in modern American journalism.

FYI: The photo is of Luke Russert, son of Tim Russert. It was taken by Alex Wong and provided by Reuters.

I did not pay for this, as I am a cat and have no money.

Now back to the show . . .

Tim Russert

For my entire life I spent almost every Sunday morning while Karen flipped between Face the Nation and Meet the Press. It's just what we do here at I Don't Pretend to be an Ordinary Cat.

Sunday's broadcast brought back so many memories. My personal favorite was Russert nailing Chertoff (who I swear looks like those Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Art when their faces are being melted off by the Ark of the Covenant) over the slow assistance after hurricane Katrina. I also like the "is there anything in your past which would make your nomination for presidency an embarrassment" question to ole slick Willie circa 1991.

I don't want to repeat what everyone else is saying. But let's face it: Tim Russert was by far the fairest interviewer in the American media. We have lost more than what we realize.

Youtube has the Sunday's show if you'd like to see it.

Anyway . . .

Have you heard about this?

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/13/ap-sues-blogger-too-long-excerpts

Does this mean I can't cite articles from Associated Press anymore?

What happens if I continue?

Are they going to sue me?

What do they expect to get? I'm a cat. I own nothing, as I am far too important for property responsibilities.

I guess they could sue Karen.

"Don't even bring me into this," Karen said to me. "My name better not be affiliated with your blog if I'm going to be sued over a violation of fair use."

Whatever

S0, fellow bloggers, what are your plans? How do you guys interpret this ridiculousness?

Anyway . . .

More on My Circumstances

So as you know I'm temporarily living at Karen's parent's house. This is OK, except for one thing:

The small one.

Every morning the small one (who they call Sofie) comes over. This wouldn't be a problem except she is very predatory and I spend most of those hours looking over my shoulder, hoping that she isn't behind me, making an attempt at my life.

It just isn't fair. She's allowed to come after me, going for my tail or ears, but if I so much as hiss in response, I'm the "bad" one.

There are just some things I don't understand.

"And so we go on, boats against the current, borne ceaslessly into the past . . . "

Rush Limbaugh at Studio 54

The news right now is very boring. I am tired of HillBilly, Barack or Barry, or whoever.

But I caught this story right out of jolly old London and I totally think it's great:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/threelinewhip/june2008/borisalcoholban.htm

Evidently, up until the beginning of this month it was perfectly OK to drink in the London subway. I was not aware of this. Although I've never been to London, I can't imagine that it would be a good idea to drink openly on public transportation.

Maybe that's just my puritanical American side coming out, I don't know.

Anyway, some Londoners, celebrating the "last days of disco" and posting it on YouTube, made the public transportation a real adventure. Some of the footage is put to Abba's "Dancing Queen" and some of the footage is just raw.


In the background of some of the footage you can hear drunken Londoners shouting "Boris is a wanker". (Boris Johnson is the mayor of London).

That's classy.

I wonder what Bridget Jones would say about this?

Anyway, so if you were planning a trip abroad this summer, just remember, leave you liquor back at the hotel, as you can't consume in the tunnel.

Sex and the City . . . Not So Much???

I read somewhere that the Sex and the City Movie, which was the number one grossing movie its premiere weekend, has an audience of 85 percent women.

Why is this surprising?

What surprises me is how passionately men feel about:

a. Not seeing this movie

b. Sarah Jessica Parker being positively unattractive

Actually, I get A. It was a television show geared to women; why would the movie be any different? Karen, who saw all of two episodes during the entire run of the series, isn't planning on seeing the movie because she never identified with the characters.

"It's like the seventies came back and bought expensive shoes," Karen pointed out, regarding the promiscuity.

Operation Rush Limbaugh
OK, I'm working on the email.

Does anyone have Mr. Limbaugh's address?

When it's finished I'll be sure to let you see it.

Enough about other people who really don't matter-- I want to talk about me

Karen is almost done with the house-- finally.

This has been very uncomfortable for me, by the way. First of all, she's packed up a lot of our stuff. Second, she keeps moving the cat box around the house, so it doesn't "mess up" the part of the house she considers "finished". So basically, when I have to go, I have to hunt down the box. Since the carpet guy is coming Saturday morning, she decided that Sadie and I needed to stay at her parent's house.

I am so put out.

So here I am like a refugee in the home of Karen's parents-- indefinitely. Karen will come and visit half of the time.

"So who will feed us?" I demanded from her before we left. "Who will take care of the box? Who will clean up the Sadie vomit?"

Karen promised her mom would feed us regularly. She also promised to see me at least every day or two and promised that she would clean the box and any vomit that may occur.

On the bright side, Karen's parent's house is four times the size of our old home. They also have lots of places to sunbathe and their bed is set up in a way so that when I crawl under it, Karen can't drag me out easily.

Karen told me that she expected me to "be nice and helpful" during my time visiting. This is obsurd, obviously. First of all, I've never been "nice" at Karen's parent's house. Why should I "be nice" now? It would confuse them. Furthermore, Karen's parents don't want my help any more than I'm willing to offer it. They should be greatful that I'm honoring them with my presence. I'm sure their life will be much more enlightened now that I'm staying with them.

A Request from Karen
Several months ago, Karen read about a saint you were supposed to bury in the yard for good luck when selling the house. Which saint was it? Where can she get one?