Mondrianyone

I saw Kedi on the big screen when it first came out. You don't have to be a cat person to love seeing the spectrum of personalities in all the featured cats and the wonderful humanity of the people who care for them (which seemed to be everyone in Istanbul!). It was very sweet to see that the same is true in Antalya. Every cat that Alina interacted with looked healthy and well fed.

Is that the salad Sunny made in the style of Katie? I wasn't paying attention. That's a huge glob of anchovy paste!

I think I'd watch a show about the Family Sumit where Mama plots murder behind a fake smile and Sumit Jr. is always on the spot for new excuses not to marry. Some sample titles occurred to me: Sari Not Sari Calcutta Bitch Don't Worry, It's Just Curry! or maybe Cash & Curry Kill Her with Kindness I'll keep working. And Bini must really want to get to the US by any means necessary, because those Ethiopian women are gorgeous. And he chose Ari for her . . . intellect? talent? innate decency?

They tested the heck out of Sarah Kieffer's original cookie recipe on Food52 with every conceivable variation and determined that it comes out crinkly even if you don't bang the pan. Plus, the original doesn't call for banging as often as Ina did, and there's salt on the cookie in Food52's version, so that doesn't appear to be Ina's innovation, though she said it was. Maybe she just likes a lot of banging.

He's a 25-year-old man who calls it "skoodlypooping," for God's sake. How much you want to bet he doesn't even know how sex works? (I love your screen name, by the way. Incorporates two of my very favorite things.)

Capitalism is really something. On a whim I Googled "gallbladder souvenir," and you wouldn't believe how many hits I got. This is just a random example. There are also greeting cards on the gallbladder theme for those occasions that don't rise to gift-giving. I think I'd give her a different one for every birthday and holiday until she begged me to stop.

That reminds me of a hilarious old SNL sketch--except in reverse. The setting was a Knights of Columbus event at Christmas. After the benedictions by all the local clergy were over, they started singing Christmas carols. And each song, the Catholics would know the first few lines and then trail off. The only voice booming out the whole song would be the rabbi's. I'm half and half, so I know all the lyrics to all the songs. Shpilkes . . . 🐕

I've never seen a male so in love with his own hair. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Feebio!

Yikes! My cat was just a sadist. Yours is a bloodthirsty savage! But she has a very cute name. Genius giving them all Yiddish names. Call me when you have a minyan. (You may have to ask your friend again. And I can't find an emoji with a yarmulke.)

We have no idea how she worked up that technique. We suspect she trained at a North Korean prison camp before she came to live with us. Pink is definitely her color. Get better soon, sweetie.

It's probably worth remembering that spring forward means he gets fed an hour early. So I wouldn't worry too much about that time of year. I'm so jealous you have a cat named Shlomo. That name's been on my wish list forever. Mora, one of our dear departed cats, had the most diabolical method of waking us up I've ever experienced. She would do the more normal stuff first, like tap you on the arm, for example, or lick your hand. And when that didn't work, she'd escalate. She'd put a paw against your face. No results, she'd extend one claw and slowly press harder and harder into your cheek. And finally she'd climb onto your shoulder so she could insert a single whisker into one of your nostrils and start to rotate it. I defy anyone not to wake up screaming from the one-whisker torture.

It's even worse if you do the math. At a population of 1.4 billion, we're talking about 2.8 billion nostrils and 4.2 billion diarrheas, figuring a conservative average of 3 diarrheas a day per Indian person. Pretty mind-boggling. Maybe they need to think about some kind of dietary adjustment to bring down the mucus count and boost fiber intake. 🍛

I'm pretty sure that's a rhetorical question, yes? How devoid of intellectual resources are Kenny and Armando that they can't come up with a way to solve the sunset-wedding dilemma when I can come up with about 27 ways? But more to the point, isn't sunset the wrong metaphor for a wedding between a 30-year-old and an almost-60-year-old? A sunset is the ending of things. If Kenny were capable of any kind of thought, he'd be pushing for sunrise vows. You might not have as much of a crowd present, but you are on TV, for fuck's sake.

My cat (also big-boned, and we're thinking of getting her a kitty treadmill), told me to ask--delicately--if Quirk is also quoss-eyed. Which actually makes her more adorable, if so. We had a Price-Pfister faucet until recently. And my dad worked for Pfizer. Plus I had a friend named Pfefferman. I think that's the Pfat trick.

You can also do a statewide search for Montana on the Best Friends site. And if that fails, try this: https://www.dogloversdigest.com/montana-low-cost-spayneuter-resources/. It's not just for dogs, despite the site name.

I'm just trying to report life as accurately as possible. Trust me, he's no saint of anything. But the birds seem to like him, and apparently his influence with them is starting to extend to me. I have a suspicion they now think that anyone who looks vaguely human is a source of nuts and seeds. As for the mice, though, I won't be driving any of them around in the foreseeable future.

Twinsies! There was a lot of wing traffic when I went out just now, so I shot some video, but the email program on my phone said it was too big to send to my laptop (awkward way of sharing images, I know). So here's a still photo. While I was on the deck, a bird came right up next to my arm. I thought it was my husband's boyfriend the nuthatch, but he says the description is off. So we apparently have some pretty ballsy birds around here. Anyway, congrats on the feeder! If you see any squirrels actually climbing it, they should get a tryout with the Olympic team.

Here's my favorite way to seal chip bags, freezer bags, etc. The one I linked to isn't the brand I have, but same principle. You just hold the gizmo closed and run it across the open part of the bag. Voilà, heat sealed! And you really just need one. Ours has a magnet on the bottom, so it lives on the side of the fridge. Some have built-in cutters to open the bag, but most of the time you can just pull the seal apart. Easy peasy.

No, we use chicken lozenges for that.

Zinc lozenges.

You have to admit the name is great, though.

If the raccoons aren't properly grateful, I'd be happy to have their share. Our favorite jack-o'-lantern was a guy we called Mr. Silverman, the Cross-Dressing Pumpkin. He was almost no work at all. I cut out his eyes using an apple corer. I cut his mouth deliberately cock-eyed so he looked like he was sneering. I bought a cheap blond wig and plopped it on his head and stuck a big cigar in his mouth. We admired him till he rotted away on his plate. Sometimes it's just the idea that counts, and the hell with the execution. 🎃 I'm sure the kids would've loved your imperfect pumpkins anyway, @Anela.

It's so sweet of you to mention this, @ABay! I'm really glad you like the feeder pole. We like ours, too, even though the squirrels may hate it. (They get fed in other ways.) That's the best squirrel baffle we've ever found, and we love that there are lots of arms to hang feeders from. Can't wait to see the photos! Very happy to have been of help.

I buy candy every year just in case we get kids at our door, but except for the first couple of years we never have. We're pretty remote, and the kids down the road who were brave enough to risk our scary driveway are grown up now. But hope springs eternal. As does candy.

Zhuzh. It's been around since the 1970s. Ya know what I'm sayin'?