Be careful what you ask for

I sure got me a lover kitty, all right. Miranda has climbed into my lap several times in the last couple of days, which isn’t surprising-- except I’m talking about while I’m sitting on a drafting stool, painting on a scroll. I’m here to tell you, a drafting stool doesn’t give you much of a lap. Occasionally she thinks the end of the brush is doing fun things and bats at it, but mostly she just wants to sit there. What’s funny is that twice she has gone to sleep, draped all over my lap and left arm, totally limp. I’m re-learning how to do things one-handed. When you have a young child sitting on your hip, you get really good at that. I know I keep rediscovering things, but do I have to re-learn long-lost skills, too? And Miranda has already discovered the let's-knock-this-off-the-table game. She doesn’t limit herself to pens and pencils the way Nic did. Once the object of her attention is on the floor, she plays a good game of hockey with it, so it’s likely to end up three rooms away. Ambitious little critter. Both Carmen and Miranda like walking through my paint pans, too.

The scroll painting is coming along. I told Nia the other night that I’ve gotten to the point where I think I’ll never get it done, and she laughed at me and said it must be going well. Sigh. She knows me too well.

Last night I thought I’d try something. I dunno, maybe watching The Big Lebowski on TV the other night inspired me or something, but I got to wondering if catnip might act like dope does on most people and mellow Miss Molly out. Like, duuuuuuude! Sad to say, Molly reacts more like she’s had a six pack of Bud and a pint of cheap bourbon. She is a mean drunk! She growled and hissed and batted at the kittens and made sure they stayed a good distance away from her. The kittens certainly got a cheap thrill out of the bits of catnip she didn’t inhale, and the whole thing provided me with entertainment for a good while, but I can tell you it didn’t have the desired effect. Live and learn.

I got some good answers to my “What do you call a collection of drama queens?” question. Melisande suggested “cast” which is pretty appropriate, and the delightful hissandtell wrote: Okay, here are some of my suggestions for a collective noun for drama queens: a dissimulation, an artifice, an ostentation, an inexactitude, a titillation, a quiver, an exaltation, a wrack, a clamour, an extravagance, an affectation, an excess, a delirium, a frenzy, a derangement, an aberration, a flurry... oh, fine; I'll stop now. Damn, now I need to think of a good reason to write about a collection of drama queens. I particularly like “ostentation” and “quiver.” And “frenzy.” Heh. Oh, wait. Not that I know any drama queens. Of course not. Cough. Cough.

Well. On that note, maybe I’d better hie myself off to my mystery and my bed, and get rested up for another day of painting one-handed.