very random but verbose babbles

1.) yesterday there was a cat in our yard. Doesn't look like a stray. It's a young male cat, maybe a year or two old. We had a male cat who was fixed when he was a baby. So he didn't look very male cat-ish. But this one does, and the kids said, "what's wrong with its rear?" because it didn't look like the one we had. Ha ha, I'm glad the Grand Lunar was the one out there to field that question. He handled it smoothly. He's good. So anyway, the cat didn't leave. It hung around all evening while I was hacking up our lawn into deep channels to try to drain the sidewalk oceans. Which of course didn't work, but maybe added some landscaping interest? When I tried to come in, the cat walked right at my feet and tried to come in. Cats can be very slithery and fast, but I already knew that so he didn't sneak in. I was on to him. This morning I told the Grand Lunar about it, and he was surprised the cat had hung out so long. And then guess who greeted him on the way to the garage?

Don't try to tell me the cat's come to us, to take Mogh's place. He hasn't. The kids said they saw a van calling for the cat. We are not getting another cat. Especially a growing up boy cat. No way.

2.) Did you know that Mauritius and Mauritania are not the same? Not only did I not know they were not the same, I didn't know there was a Mauritius. I was putting a little fancy brown sugar in my oat bran and saw that it was from Mauritius. I was excited, because I've been reading a blog whose writer lives in Mauritania. I assumed they were just different spellings, one in English and one in ... Mauritanian. You know, like "Germany" and "Deutschland" ... But I was smart and looked it up before I made some stupid comment on her blog, which would've been especially embarrassing since I mostly just lurk and don't really know her, so I would've felt even dorkier than usual when coming out of lurkdome to say something incorrect. Because Mauritania is a country in *West* Africa, in the Sahara desert, that used to belong to France. Which I mostly knew, because I really do pay attention when I read blogs. Well, sometimes. Don't quiz me on your blog. Even if I pay attention, I also have a leaky brain. Many things just wash right back out. But Mauritius turns out to be an Island nation near Madagascar, in the Indian ocean, and was formerly a British colony. And French and Dutch before that. So my sugar comes from there, not from Mauritania, which makes sense anyway since I wasn't really sure how they were farming sugar in the desert. I don't know much about agriculture, but that one just didn't seem right. So you learn something new every day. Or at least every month or so.

3.) at the gardens yesterday we saw a place where they'd chopped up and tilled under broccoli. In big chunks. I guess those chunks just root and grow, we saw little broccolis poking up through the dirt. And some of the ornamental cabbages were looking like they were going to just pick up growing where they'd left off after being buried in snow and ice for months, their middle leaves were fresh and crisp. But their outer leaves were wilted and stunk like old cooked cabbage, and we exited that fragrant area quickly.

4.) Every morning I go to the back bathroom, off the back room, to take my shower. And it's always cold back there. So I turn up the heat a little first. And the furnace is right below the back room, and the back bathroom is small and enclosed, and so it heats up pretty fast. And by the time I'm done with my shower I'm always roasting and exhausted and feel like I can't breathe from the heat. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but still.

5.) Last night I did a prenatal yoga DVD. And the whole time I was doing it, my brain was saying, "this is so corny" ~ the lady even pronounced "exhale" as "ehks - ssale" and it was weird. So I figured I probably undermined any psychological benefit because my brain was working so hard trying to squelch my corny alerts.

6.) I'm late for school and late for inspecting jobs, but I can't find my inspection report page, someone misplaced it. I know who, but I won't name names. But it wasn't me. I'm going to re-interpret my instructions given yesterday on where said child should've put it to see if I can guess what (he or she) thought I meant. But I really don't want to do school and work today. I want to curl up in a ball and finish knitting my sock before all my children have grown too big for it.