Claire Notes, Cat Humiliation

The following is a post from my personal blog from Monday:

Every night before we put Claire to sleep we do the following: I lie on the bed, Claire picks out a book, slams it dangerously down on my stomach, then, while I'm still reeling, jumps up onto and over me, kneeing me in the stomach or groin, before laying down on my left side, where she complains that she doesn't have enough pillow. Then Kirsten slides onto my right side and I read both of them a story. Usually Claire stops me with bizarre non sequiturs or to demand that she be allowed to say the lines of the female characters, and I stop her from time to time to tell her to stop walking her feet up the wall and quit chewing her hair. Then, around the last few words of the story, Claire springs up and makes mischievous eye contact with Kirsten before they descend on me and tickle the dickens out of me. I fight back the best I can, usually too hard, bruising Kirsten in the process, and then jump off the bed and get the heck out of there.

That's the routine.

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Last night, we were reading Curious George and Claire pointed at an exclamation mark that was part of some of the artwork and said: "Look, an Eskimo point!"

I said, "Yeah, an exclamation mark."

She said: "Yeah, an Eskimotion mark."

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On Father's Day I suppose I had the right to take a day off from any major projects, but for some reason I decided it was a good time to give the cats their summer hair cuts. Shaving cats in the summer was a tradition in my house growing up. The cats freak out when you're doing the shaving, but afterward they snuggle you for days because they feel great. And it cuts way down on loose hair in the house.

I get a little better at this every year. I learned to clip their nails beforehand, and during the reign of Keith, I started padding myself with sweatshirts to cut down on the amount of blood he could draw from me. This year we threw tranquilizers into the mix, with leftovers Kirsten had gotten from the vet to knock Lucy and Tobias out on the long trip from Chicago to Detroit.

Still, even using tranqs, it's a hot, stressful job that involves locking myself in a stifling bathroom with an annoyed feline while I chase it around with an electric pair of clippers like an idiot and cat hair flies around the room like feathers in a pillow fight.

When I emerged from the bathroom Sunday night, covered in sweat and cat hair, there was a folded piece of paper taped to the door. It was a hand-made Father's Day card from Claire to me. Claire had instructed Kirsten to dictate her exact words: HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD DAY. LOVE CLAIRE.

To be honest, I was touched, but feeling a little mental from my marathon shearing session, and didn't totally process the card. I thanked her and hugged her though and told her I loved it. She must have sensed my absentmindedness and so asked Kirsten which side of the bed I slept on. Kirsten told her and she taped the card on the wall above my pillow, where it still is. Later, after Claire was asleep, the piles of cat hair had been cleaned up and I was calmer and cooler, I reread Claire's card when climbing into bed. Besides the note, I took a closer look at the picture, which was in yellow marker (she knows yellow is my favorite color). It was a picture of a car. And then my stomach sank and I recalled the following conversation from an hour earlier:

I was rifling through the drawers in Claire's room, looking for something, and she was kneeling on the floor drawing.

Claire: Dad, do you like cars?

Me: No, not really.

Claire: Really, you don't like cars?

Me: Um. I mean, not really. I know. Most boys do. I guess I'm just different.

Claire: Really?

Me: Well, I don't know. I guess maybe a little.

Lucy being led to her shearing.

Tobias before: Fur Manatee.

Tobias after: Looking svelte.

After reading my blog, Scott sent me the following picture. Apparently his family likes to submit their cats to the same humiliation:

Stephen Is Not Old/Chris Weds Jessica... Again

Two items of big news today:

Stephen turns 50. It's a young 50, not at all old.

Chris and Jessica are having their wedding ceremony tomorrow (they did the Justice of the Peace thing a while ago).

Make phone calls and send cards accordingly.

Update on Team Stephen

Stephen talks about his family's continued acquisition of every dog within a 20-mile radius, Nathan's transformation into a yuppie, Karen's version of Girls Gone Wild and learning to live without a stomach but maintain that oh-so-desirable, post-cancer-surgery girlish figure as he turns 50.

Kristen is still working at the salon but is looking for a better job. She just adopted a rescued Pug and needs more money to care for it. The little dog is named Charlie and she rescued him at the right time. He's very thin and you can tell he was used to foraging, as he eats anything and everything laying around. He ate some tulip bulbs from Karen's flower garden. He ate some aspirin Kristen dropped. He is lightning fast and eats whatever falls before he even knows what it is. Poor guy. But he's very sweet and good-natured. And Kristen has a bigger heart than pocketbook, so donations are gladly accepted.

Nathan is a working stiff in corporate land for the summer. He went from ripped jeans and t-shirts to dockers and dress shirts--but his hair's the same, long. He is getting a good taste of the business world and likes the money they pay. But I think more than anything, he's learning he doesn't want to end up doing the work they're doing forever. He's pretty bored and it's not using all he's learned in engineering. But he keeps talking about how it's way better than pushing carts at Menards.

Karen is getting ready for her yearly trip to Jellystone in Indiana. She and several of her friends and relatives go there every year for what amounts to reliving summer camp, vacation bible school, and third grade dances all rolled together. The adults act as crazy as all the grand kids, nieces and nephews, so they have a great time. This year's theme is "cowboy" so she's busy putting together a line-dancing sound track. They rent some cabins on the grounds and become the envy of the entire campground as they put on their evening events. They have a great time and then talk about it all year long.

As for me, I am just continuing to heal and get back to working. I am up to four good days a week in the office. I work from home once or twice a week if I can--just to relieve myself from the commute. Overall though I feel like I am making steady progress. I see a nutritionist this week to get some help on my diet. I need to keep this newfound figure in good shape. I'm also painting some again so it feels like some sense of normalcy is returning. And this week I hit the big 50--so I have a lot to be thankful for!

Lastly, Lilly is getting big enough to push Lola around. Otis hides from them both. Elmo just goes with the flow. And Lola just keeps trying to be the boss of them all.

It's a zoo at the Thompson house. Our email is thompsonzoo@ameritech.net.

Chris's Summer Update

Chris dictates:


Well Jessica and I are getting remarried this weekend. We already got married at the court, but wanted Matt to marry us too, and this was the only weekend he could come up. One pic of me and Jessica is of the day we got hitched.




Sepporah is doing great. She starts kindergarten next year and graduated from preschool. She had her first ballet performance last week and she was so beautiful.




On sunday me, Sepporah, Brian, Matt, Cole, and Joe all went to the tigers game for fathers day. It was a lot of fun and the Tigers won!



The Pic of me and the team I coach (Troy High School) is after we won the regional championship for Class1A baseball. We went on to win quarterfinals and then eventually lost in the state semi final game. It was a good run.

Steve? Hey, It's Steve.

This was in a letter Stephen wrote to my mom. I hope he won't mind me putting it here:

So did you hear that Steve Jobs, of Apple, called me? A friend contacted him
because he had the same diagnosis and lack of treatment as me. She didn't
think he'd ever respond but he did--asking for my number. And last Friday he
called me and we spoke for about 5-7 minutes. I was shocked--but encouraged.
Seems we're a minority with this disease and I guess he felt good about
sharing insights with another like himself. He basically gave me advice
about pacing myself, eating, doctors, digestion, enzymes, etc. I was pretty
skeptical after the call--thinking someone was playing a joke on me--but he
was way too knowledgeable about my type of cancer. He was either a doctor or
really Steve Jobs. But I listened to a speech he gave with my eyes closed
and I am sure the voice matched--it was him. How cool is that?

Pentwater Pictures

Last weekend Matt, Mary, Cole and Titus had their annual summer getaway at Pentwater, in northern Michigan.

To see/download larger versions of the pics, click on the image.

Welcome, Crazy Thompson Family

So I've decided the Thompson family needs a home base on the Web (Grandma, I'll explain to you all about the internet privately...) and I've taken it upon myself to create us a blog.

In short, Thompsons (you) will send me pictures, stories, audio and video files at my email address - black.pianos@gmail.com - and I will post them here. Then, whenever you feel like seeing what the rest of your clan is up to, you can, by going to: thompsonmadness.blogspot.com

The important thing to remember is that you will NOT get a notification that there has been a new update to the site. You're responsible for checking it yourself. If you're reasonably computer-friendly (i.e. the opposite of my mom) you can get up-to-the-minute notifications by subscribing to the RSS feed of this site. The rest of you old-schoolers can just write down the url on a sticky note, paste it to the front of your computer monitor, and try to remember to check back periodically.

That's about it.

Okay, to get things started off in style, here are some pictures of Claire and I taken this past Father's Day, just before leaving for the park. Behind us is my new ride, a 2000 Jeep Cherokee that I just bought to replace the car I totaled last month. It's a sweet vehicle, but it has a million miles on it and I'm just enjoying it while it lasts.

Hi Grandma