Messy, Messy, Messy

We are in the middle of messy season. That's the time of kitten weaning.

Kitten weaning goes something like this.

Kitten is hungry. Ravenous. Remember, we haven't fed it in ages (at least an hour), so it is on the verge of starvation. It wants that bottle yesterday!

So you approach the kitten, which is big enough to start learning to drink from a bowl, with a bowl of formula, a spoon, and a full bottle.

First, you try to get the kitten to lick formula off the end of the bottle. Confused kitten doesn't understand, and starts to get frantic. You keep trying. Once it licks a bit off the end of the bottle, you lower the bottle toward the bowl. Kitten doesn't follow, instead looking up, mews and steps in the formula.

You grab the offending paw out of the bowl and make a futile attempt to wipe it off, and the other kittens walk through the bowl and spread formula all over the floor.

It's time to try a spoon. You pry the kittens mouth open a bit with the end of a spoon that has some formula on it. Kitten likes the taste but is still confused. Finally you convince it to lick from the spoon, and bring it toward the bowl. Kitten stops at the edge of the bowl and tried to bite the bowl You start over.

When you do finally get one to drink from the bowl, it has to put its from paws in, and then track the formula everywhere.

Continue to do this over and over, at every feeding, with four kittens.

The good thing is, once one of them really gets it, the others follow suit a few days later.

Until then, it's a mess. Please don't judge me by my floors. It's hard to mop that fast and that often.


In honor of National Humor Month:

What do you get if you cross an elephant and a kangaroo?
Big holes all over Australia!

Boudreaux had moved to Ireland, and one day he walked into a bar in Dublin, ordered three pints of Guinness and sat in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finished them, he came back to the bar and ordered three more.
The bartender said, "You know, Boudreaux, a pint goes flat after I pour it. Wouldn't you rather I pour fresh pints for you, one at a time?"
Boudreaux replied, "Well, you see cher, I have two brothers. One is now in Nova Scotia and the other in France, and me, mais, I'm from Louisiana. When we all left home, we promised we'd drink this way to remember the days when we drank together."
The bartender admitted that this was a nice custom and left it there.
Boudreaux became a regular in the bar and always drank the same way: He ordered three pints and drank them in turn. One day he came in and ordered two pints. All the regulars noticed and fell silent, speculating about what might have happened to one of the absent brothers.
When Boudreaux went back to the bar for a second round, the bartender said, "Hey, Boudreaux, I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your great loss."
Boudreaux looked confused for a moment and then a light dawned in his eye, and he laughed and said, "Oh, no, no, no, arrybody's fine. I've just given up beer for Lent!"



Today is

Boston Marathon

Beginning of the Independence Movement -- Venezuela

Dutch-American Friendship Day

John Parker Day -- many US States

King Mswati III's birthday -- Swaziland

Landing of the 33 -- Uruguay

National Amaretto Day

National CPA's Goof Off Day (they deserve to!)

National Garlic Day

National Hanging Out Day

National Stress Awareness Day (appropriate for the day after paying taxes)

National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day

Oklahoma City Bombing Commemoration Day

Pesach (Passover) -- Jewish

Primrose Day -- UK

Republic Day -- Sierra Leone

St. Alphege's Day

St. Leo IX's Day



Anniversaries Today:

Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI by Proxy Marriage, 1770
Cheyney University is founded as The Institute for Colored Youth, 1837
Grace Kelly marries Ranier III of Monaco, 1956


Birthdays Today:

Maria Sharapova, 1987
Hayden Christensen, 1981
Kate Hudson, 1979
Luis Miguel Basteri, 1970
Ashley Judd, 1968
Al Unser, Jr., 1962
Paloma Picasso, 1949
Tim Curry, 1946
Dudley Moore, 1935
Jayne Mansfield, 1933
Dick Sargent, 1930
Hugh O'Brian, 1925
Eliot Ness, 1903


Today in History:

Sir Francis Drake sails to Cadiz and sinks the Spanish Fleet, 1587
Because he has no male heirs, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, assuring Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would go to his daughter, Maria Theresa, 1713
Captain James Cook sights Australia, 1770
John Adams secures Dutch recognition of the United States, and his home in The Hague becomes the first American Embassy, 1782
Venezuela achieves home rule, 1810
The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom and Luxembourg as a Grand Duchy, 1839
Charles Duryea claims to have taken the first automobile built in the US for a spin, 1892
The first Boston Marathon is won by John McDermott of NY in 2:55:10, 1897
Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump, 1919
The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published, 1928
Burma (now Myanmar) joins the United Nations, 1948
The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders, 1961
Sierra Leone becomes a republic, 1971
India's first satellite, Aryabhata, is launched, 1975
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168, 1995
The German Bundestag returns to Berlin, the first German parliamentary body to meet there since the Reichstag was dissolved in 1945, 1999