Cheer, Goodwill, and Embarrassments: Ms. CrankyPants' Holiday Letter!

Happy holidays, everyone! It's been quite a year! There have been some highlights, and many, MANY embarrassing lowlights, most of which I've shared with you. If you need a refresher, just click here or here. Oh, hell, click on any post in my blog; it's nearly all embarrassing.

Everyone knows that the very BEST holiday letters are all about bragging highlights, so let's get started!

• I'll just get the biggie out of the way first: I now have 10 followers! It's taken close to a year, but 10 new people actually like me! Or at least, the Ms. CrankyPants version of me. For all you know, I could be a colossal ASS whom you'd hate in real life. (After all, I just used the word "whom.")

Thanks, 10 followers!

• I haven't had an MS relapse in...ages. Is it the Copaxone? The Swank Diet? Is it because I don't really have MS at all but some other horrible disease? Or, could it be that strange "agreement" I made with the mysterious silver-tongued chap with the red tail and horns who showed up that one night with a contract? Dunno. Whatever. I've been feeling good. (Note: I've just officially jinxed myself.)

He LOOKED friendly enough...

• Our fantastically wonderful family is growing! The cat-adoption stork brought us a little bundle of joy (LBOJ) named Pepper Anne! 

Pepper Anne, in one of her 4,872,810 adorable poses.

• Our existing cats hate aren't especially fond of are slowly getting used to our LBOJ!

Capt. Nap: "I can't even look at her. She's HIDEOUS!"

• In other exciting feline news, Squeaky the Cat just graduated Magna Cat Laude from Big Jerk Cat University and has received her Ph.D. in Cat-Assery. She is so skilled! She can now hiss/growl at Pepper Anne and Capt. Nap WHILE guarding her toys, food, and the communal water bowl. Oh, and also all four litter boxes. She's so talented! We are so, so proud. That tuition money was well spent indeed. 

"Who the hell are you calling a jerk? Cover my head at once, minion!"

• Capt. Nap is also doing really well! He hasn't had an explosive vomiting session since September. Plus, remember his adorable POO PAWS that so delighted me back in January? He's taught l'il sis Pepper Anne how to actually walk in her poo before burying it. What a good big brother! Now we have two cats with the occasional poo paw. We couldn't be happier! (By the way, who wants to come over and lie on our carpet? First come, first served, friends. There's only so much carpet to go around!)

I call this section of carpet. (Sorry, homeowners get first pick.)

• Husband is continuing to support me in my efforts to stave off disability via the Swank Diet! He's a wonderful cook! But, really, how can you go wrong with products like TOFURKEY sausage?

OOPS! Wrong picture.

You can see why I got confused.

• I may have big boobs! Yes, friends, according to a highly trained expert at a local bra shop, I have spent most of my adult life wearing a way-too-tiny bra size. This was some of the best news in all of 2013 for the fabulous CrankyPants family!  

• Back to our kitty cats! They have really impressed us this year by scorning every single product we've introduced in an attempt to toilet train them. Stubborn little kitties! I do love a cat with his or her own personality! Oh, and not to worry: they've promised to pay us back the $3,176 we spent on ridiculous devices designed to make scooping their litter boxes a task of the past. 

"Kwit the litter? NEVER!"

• It sure was a great Halloween this year! We managed to significantly reduce the number of trick-or-treaters harassing us! No, it wasn't the unwrapped hard candies or the miniature boxes of ancient raisins we'd been passing out. We suspect it was because our neighbors saw my husband mowing the yard in the snow! "Why, those cat-loving, kid-less people are NUTS!" we think they might have said on the neighborhood shared social media platform that we imagine exists and to which we've not been invited. "I wouldn't send MY kids there this Halloween." Mission accomplished! 

This isn't my husband. I've been forbidden to use that picture. This is the mayor of someplace in Iowa. But you get the idea. And in his defense, my husband was not wearing shorts. 

• Thanksgiving 2013 was a tremendous success! No four-legged attendees vomited or did a poo anywhere! Pepper Anne jumped on the dining room table and lurched toward the turkey only once! (Maybe twice.) (Okay, fine, thrice.) (And, yes, I just said "thrice.")

We look forward to the new year, new embarrassments, and, ideally, new carpet. May you and yours have a very happy holiday season! 

Toilet Training (Cat Edition)

If you have a cat, you know this to be true: cleaning a litter box sucks. Tremendously. If you don't have a cat, you can say smugly to the dog panting at your feet, "Yep! Yet ANOTHER reason why I do not have a cat. Isn't that right, Spot? You don't make icky messes that Mommy has to clean out of a disgusting box in the house, do you? No you don't, little Smoochie Spottums!" Never mind that Smoochie Spottums makes messes that you are, in theory, supposed to collect in a little baggie attached to your hand. But wait! Before anyone gets up in arms, this is not a cats vs. dogs post. I've had the pleasure of sharing my life with both species, and each has its considerable charms. No, this is a post about How to Train Your Cat to Use a New, Exciting Type of Litter Box (alternate title: HAHAHAHAHA, Dumb Human).

I've had the distinct (sooooooo tempting to make a "stink" joke here) pleasure of scooping litter boxes for several years now. My cats are indoor only, so I can't thrust them into the neighbors' flower beds and hope they'll relieve themselves there. Not that I would want them to, mind you, that's just kind of what I picture outdoor cats doing. In case you did not know, there are several exciting choices when it comes to litter boxes. Allow me to illustrate:

Okay, sorry, this is NOT one of the exciting choices referred to above. It's a standard old litter box. It's to be used as a frame of reference as I get to the truly Exciting Choices.  

I don't know where I heard of Exciting Choice #1, THE LITTER KWITTER, but let me say I was immediately delighted by the enormously clever title. (I also love anything made with "krab" and all things sold in "shoppes.") So I ponied up the $50 in the hopes that, as promised on the box, I would soon  -- "EIGHT WEEKS OR LESS!" -- be smell, mess, and germ free!  (Well, technically, *I* might still be smelly and germy, but you know what I mean.)

That cat totally is like, "What the *(&$ are YOU looking at? Are you actually watching me go to the bathroom? What kind of a creep are you?! See my left paw? I am two seconds away from scratching out your creepy prying eyes!!!"

For $50, you don't get just the LITTER KWITTER, you also get a training DVD! My husband and I settled in eagerly to watch how this device would transform our cats from dull, ordinary litter-box-using cats into ultra-clever toilet-using cats. The way this little gem works in theory is through a system of rings placed at different training stages into a toilet-shaped bowl. Er, see, in Stage 1, you place the adorably toilet-shaped bowl on the floor, and insert the first of three rings. This stage is designed to get the cats used to going into the the bowl. A rather shallow bowl. A bowl that is far shallower than the good old-fashioned box they've been using. The cats and I didn't make it past Stage 1. (For the benefit of those who don't have cats: when cats do a wee or a poo, they bury it, sometimes with great vigor. A normal litter box, with its tall sides, contains forcefully buried "business" quite well. The LITTER KWITTER, with its stupid shallow bowl, does not.) I promptly kwit the kwitter.

Sadder but wiser, I resigned myself...OH, WAIT! No I didn't! Undeterred and, apparently, flush with cash (haha, "flush") I shelled out even more money for Exciting Choice #2 (haha, "#2"), the CAT GENIE. No silly rings and toilet training. No, sir! This system promised to be far superior. This setup has deep bowl (see "wiser," above) and, even better, attaches via some complicated-looking nonsense that I let my husband deal with to the plumbing. Instead of ordinary litter, you fill the bowl with washable granules that, after your cat has soiled them, are sifted and cleaned by some complicated-sounding process I didn't pay much attention to. All I cared about was that, in theory, the CAT GENIE would spare me the odious task of scooping once and for all.

This annoyed-looking cat that I suspect has been Photoshopped into the Cat Genie is not mine. This image is from the Cat Genie website. Wanna know why I can't use an original picture? Because mine won't get in it! 

Maybe it's called Cat "GENIE" because if there was a genie floating around, you'd have to waste (haha, "waste") one of your precious three wishes to get your cat to use this thing. As you can see from the picture above, even the creators couldn't find an actual cat that will get in it. At least they chose an irritated cat (note the flattened ears and frowny face) to Photoshop into the device. So that's pretty accurate.

My cats were both irritated and alarmed by the Cat Genie. I vaguely recall that the instructions say you shouldn't turn it on at first while they're in the room, but I ignored that and did a test wash while they peered around me curiously. Once that baby kicked in and started whirring and clacking, the cats tore away in a panic. So, technically, it's probably my fault that now, about a year later, only Capt. Nap will use it -- rarely. Squeaky avoids it altogether.

I refuse to give up hope, though. If I can get them to use it, life certainly would be easier. I've rededicated myself to "training" them, this time following the instructions to the letter. The results so far have been...not so encouraging. But it's been only a week. I know Capt. Nappy Sweetiekins and SqueakyWeekie Cutiepie can do it for Mommy! Can't you, my wittle kitties?

"Hey! Go away! Can't we have a little privacy? We're trying to go to the bathroom!"