A Normal Family? What is That?

My daughter once asked me if we were a normal family. Normal? Hummm. Good question. I didn't have an answer for her, but the question got me thinking about what makes a family normal or not normal. I started thinking about my own family and the things that make us, well, us. I figured that once I put some thought into it, I could decide if we were normal or not and give her an answer.

We have a lot of pets which include a whole mess of fish, a Russian Tortoise, two cats, and about 60 crickets. In the past, we have had an entire gaggle of hamsters, two stick bugs, a dog, a frog, and a moth. The crickets gross me out, but I don't mind them as long as my son catches them when they escape. But, I do draw the line at snakes and spiders as both scare the heck out of me. My daughter once wrote a letter to Santa and asked for a spider, so ever since then, I have had to put my foot down.

Sometimes, we take our tortoise outside for a walk. I imagine it must be a pretty funny sight to see the three of us walking down the street with our tortoise. My son is working on making her a leash, that ought to be a sight.

Every Tuesday we have spaghetti night. My son hates spaghetti sauce so he puts applesauce on it. I know, gross, but he loves it. I keep hoping he will outgrow this in a few years. My daughter, on the other hand, loves ketchup. She loves it so much, she even dips her bananas and strawberries in it. Ewww.

My daughter loves to put her clothes on her cat. The cat, well, she doesn't love it so much. If she could shoot darts out of her eyes at me for allowing my daughter to parade her around the place in a dress, I would be a dead ten times over. Sometimes the kids give their cats baths and there is nothing funnier than a wet cat shaking off its little paws all the while glaring at you. You just can't help but laugh when they are all skinny, ticked off, and shaking off. They always end up just fine and smelling so much better, so, glare all ya want kitties.

We sometimes wake up and decide to drive to the snow; or go for a hike; or go to the movies; or visit with friends; or or or...whatever we want! We almost always have a good time as we are all goofballs and laugh and joke around. Sometimes we turn up the music and dance around with the lights off and the disco ball spinning; or snuggle on the couch and watch a movie; or climb a tree; or look at the stars with a telescope. Sometimes we have those Saturdays where we want to do absolutely nothing, and we sit home and do just that, a do-nothing day, my personal favorite.

Getting back to wondering what makes a normal family, I don't know how to answer that. I think as long as the family has fun together, can laugh together, and enjoys being together, then that would be my definition of what makes a normal family. If I am wrong, then I don't want us to be normal.
(c)2007 Cindy Breninger. All Rights Reserved.

Ever See a Cat High on Catnip? It's Bad News!

Oh my word, one of the funniest and oddest things I have ever seen is going on in my place right this minute. We have two cats, Elvis and Daisy May. They are pretty peaceful, laid back, and prefer to sleep most of the time. I don't know a whole lot about cats, so I am lucky they are low maintenance. They are brother and sister, two years old, and I have always thought they seemed pretty normal, nothing out of the ordinary, like say, a drug problem...or so I thought.

I was at the pet store today and bought a cardboard scratch board type of thing. I brought it home, took it out of the box and left it on the floor and went about my day. Normal enough, until Elvis, the boy cat, started sniffing around. I swear, if cats could smile, he was smilling from ear to ear. He put his nose up to the cardboard and wouldn't move, like his nose was glued to it or something.

The girl, Daisy May, was over near the outer box trying to rip it apart. What the??? What is up with the cats? They rarely move and now they are both acting like crazies. I took the outer box from Daisy May and inside was a little baggie containing some dried green leaves. It reminded me of the bags of marijuana that the police take from the bad guys on the show Cops. I re-read the box the cardboard came in and it said it contained one bag of "Catnip".

I had never seen Catnip and actually thought it was something that was made up; however, my cats knew what it was. They were acting like junkies trying to get high. I swear, they were smellin', lickin', and eatin' the cardboard thing. Geeze, hand them a lighter and I bet they would have smoked it. I mean it, they were trying to eat the cardboard to get to the catnip, or the smell, as that must have leaked onto the cardboard. Daisy May put her nose up to the board for another hit, er, smell, and Elvis full on smacked her on the head as if to tell her it was his stash and to go get her own. They were ready to fight over sniffing the cardboard. What happened to my sweet, mellow cats? They were fighting over a hit off the cardboard.

Even now, as we are about to go to bed, Elvis is sleeping on the drug laced, er, catnip laced board. Every time Daisy May goes near him, he hisses, and I swear, he about makes a fist giving her a warning that it is his cardboard. If he had a knife, I swear he would pull it on her. Good thing cats can't have guns. I am beginning to think he is an addict. If he starts following his paws around in the air seeing tracers, I am taking that cardboard back.

I think I am going to take them to Narcotics Anonymous tomorrow as they need to get clean. This stuff is bad news. Ever see a cat's brain on catnip? It is just like that commercial with the fried egg. Bad news.
(c)2007 Cindy Breninger. All Rights Reserved.

DaisyMayRosesPrincessPiggy

Mouse. Mouse 2. Mouse 3. Mr.Bitey. Jr. Jeff. Princess. Elvis. DaisyMayRosesPrincessPiggy.

What the? What are those? In my house, they are the norm. In other homes, not so much. Those are names my kids and I have given our pets. At first glance, they might seem normal enough, but let me explain why they are not.

MOUSE. Mouse was a hamster that we named Mouse. Yes, we named our hamster Mouse.
Mouse 2 and 3. When the original Mouse died and we replaced it, the next two were also Mouse with the number. Again, they were hamsters.

MR. BITEY. He was the only pet we have had that his name made sense. He was not my favorite for one reason, hence the name, Mr. Bitey. Ouch!

JR. Jr. looked exactly like Mr. Bitey and he was also a biter. He, also, wasn't my favorite.

JEFF. Ok, Jeff is a Russian Tortoise. Not only is Jeff a Russian Tortoise, but Jeff is a FEMALE Russian Tortoise. My kids liked the name Jeff, so now our female Russian Tortoise is forever branded with the male name of Jeff. People in the neighborhood call her The Jeffers. Much better. Uh-huh.

PRINCESS. This would be a cute name for a female hamster, but ours was not so lucky. Ours was a male hamster named Princess. Poor guy.

ELVIS. I love Elvis and named one of our cats Elvis. One of my kids wanted to name him Balloons, so I took over on this one. We also named our 11 fish Elvis as it made it easy to point to the tank and say, "Oooh, look how pretty Elvis is," you can never go wrong. I know, I am a genius, go ahead and say it, it's ok. I also named them all the Swimming Elvises, or is it Elvi?

Last, but not least, is the cat with the hundred dollar name. That would be Ms. DaisyMayRosesPrincessPiggy. My seven year old couldn't decide on just one name and she said her cat was so special it needed several names, so, DaisyMayRosesPrincessPiggy is the name. I just call it Lazy, or Crazy, or Getoffthecounter, but the cat prefers Heresyourfoodeatup.
(c)2007 Cindy Breninger. All Rights Reserved.