Ruby Tuesday

Thank you for hanging in there with me during the crazy past week. In the past seven days, I have:

• Cheered at four soccer games (3 wins, 1 loss)
• Witnessed two high school musical productions
• Traveled to an out-of-town state level high school choir competition
• Watched an elementary school math competition and realized I had NO idea what these kids were doing (Even more impressive? My kid scored 2nd place in the school district... and was somewhat disappointed because she won it last year. Her math genes clearly come from her father)
• Stood in various lines for over an hour while my son was measured for his high school marching band uniform (HIGH SCHOOL????)
• Made a snare drum birthday cake from scratch for the soon-to-be high school freshman's 14th birthday
• Hosted TWO sleepovers on consecutive nights

All of the above occurred between:

• Completion of the repairs to the upstairs bathroom which created a tornado of dust that I am STILL cleaning from around the house
• An overflowing toilet in the downstairs bathroom that flooded not only the bathroom but the back hallway to the house while the kids were home alone (Let's just be grateful that it was CLEAN water)
• Water seeping in my basement during the April monsoon that visited Michigan last week
• Copious amounts of bad words being used indiscriminately

So on Sunday night, I crashed.

On Monday after the kids got on the school bus, I took a 3 hour nap.

Thank goodness this week's calendar appears to be a bit more manageable. I'm ever so glad to be back here with you.

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Ruby Tuesday

*13 Things That You Might Not Know About The Roo*

1. Ruby was born on Monday, September 3, 2012. Besides being conveniently born on Labor Day, her birthday is also another important holiday in our household... Charlie's Gotcha Day! We brought Charlie home from the rescue on Sunday, September 3, 2011. 

Something tells me that they expect a big party on Tuesday, September 3, 2013. (They might just get it too, considering it will be the first day back to school for the kiddos after a looooooong summer. Yeah, I know that already).

2. Ruby had two sisters and two brothers (two Siamese points and two tabbies). Oddball Ruby is a torbie, or a tortoiseshell tabby. She has stripes on her legs, face, and tail, but spots on her side and belly. She also has an orange "angel kiss" on her forehead and an orange stripe down her side. As our vet said at her 8-week-old check up, "This one doesn't know what she is, does she?"

3. That orange "angel kiss" on her forehead came from the late, great Madame Einstein (the previous torbie in residence) and you can't convince me otherwise. Or perhaps it's just a wonderful accident of genetics. Sadly, her "angel kiss" is growing smaller in proportion to the rest of her head as the head grows bigger.

4. Ruby is full of torbie-tude and isn't afraid to flash it when necessary. She freely hisses and growls at cats twice her size or larger in order to establish dominance. Those it hasn't worked on? AbbyCadabby and Chanel, Cruz Adams, Lincoln Quincy-Adams, and Levi Madison.

He looks SO scared of her, doesn't he?

As did the rest of the litter...

 Someone it has intimidated?

Mama Madison would rather hide out than deal with Ruby Roo.

5. Despite her torbieness, Ruby is not as grumpy as she appears to be (or as grumpy as I portray her in the blog because she looks so stinking grumpy in every photo I take). Rather, she is a sweet baby kitten who purrs ALL.the.time. She is the ultimate lap kitty who loves everyone and everything.

6. Ruby is the only cat in 10+ years to tame Simba. Mr. Grumpy Pants inexplicably has a soft spot for the Roo.

This is why she got to stay. Well, that and she made us keep her.

7. Simba and Ruby engage in a nightly ritual that involves chasing, screeching, and wrestling in the upstairs hallway every night at 10:30. 6-pound Ruby regularly defeats 16-pound Simba.

Simba thinks she cheats.

8. Ruby greets everyone (human, feline, canine) by launching off her feet and rubbing on whichever body part she comes into contact with. On Simba, it's his chin. On Charlie, it's his lower leg. On Norman, it's usually the floor because he quickly ducks out of her way.

Norman is far too distinguished for such nonsense.

He also had a clear preference for Abby.

9. Ruby canNOT pass the track ball without going at least three or four rounds with it.

10. She also kills every feather teaser within reach.

I'm still finding purple feathers in my bathroom.

11. Ruby did NOT learn her lesson about the stairs (if you'll recall that when she was still a foster named Willie Rae, she avoided adoption hours by doing a swan dive through the railing from the second floor to the first floor down below). 

We pull her back onto the landing pretty frequently when she gets too interested in what's happening downstairs. And... She has never EVER walked down the complete set of stairs. She prefers to take a shortcut through the railing roughly 4 steps from the bottom.

12. No matter what you might think, your straw belongs to Ruby.

She dares you to make something of it.

13. Ruby is obsessed with water. She carries on for fresh water first thing in the morning while the others beg for breakfast. No cup is safe from the machinations of a marauding Ruby. She LIVES to dump your water on the floor. She hangs out near the sinks and the bathtubs waiting for her chance to splash.

Although she prefers to remain OUTside the tub, thank you very much.