So the other day my friend Dave made an official page on Facebook for the Lady Jessop. You can find it here. Like it? Don’t mind if you do! In the meantime I’m trying to figure out how to get one of those fancy-assed Facebook fan boxes on the side. Facebook has the HTML code and WordPress has a widget, neither of which works for me which I am still trying to figure out. If the next time you come to ladyjessop.com and you see this now you’ll know why:
Mrs. B and I are always engaged in some form of battle of wills. Unfortunately the most recent one escalated to heights I never 
imagined.
It started a few weeks ago when I fed her Top Kat, cheap food from the 99 Cents Only Store. I told Jerry it was a mistake but Mrs. B showed me up by going straight to the food when Jerry poured some into her bowl. They were both pretty smug about it.
A few days later I noticed that the food begging increased. First it got earlier in the day and then gradually increased. Even after her nightly ration of wet food Mrs. B was not happy, evidenced by her extreme neediness and inability to make a decision. She wanted to go out…she wanted to come back in…she wanted to stare at the window…she wanted to sit on my lap.
One morning I finally realized that the Top Kat was the problem. The bowl was always full because Mrs. B rarely touched the stuff.
“Ah ha! I told you!” I finally got to say to Jerry. However by this time my cheap nature kicked in as well. No way was I going to let this cat force me to toss a cheap bag of food. Instead I mixed in some Friskies for a Friskies/Top Cat mix. “She’ll never know the difference.” I bragged.
It worked for like a day. Then I started noticing pieces of dry food scattered outside Mrs. B’s dish. That bitch was picking out the Friskies and spitting out the Top Kat!
I persisted and refused to cave. The begging became constant and more intense. Sometimes she even pulled out claws. I retaliated by pulling out the vacuum but Mrs. B ultimately prevailed with her own V-class weapon: vomit.
She waited for a calm Saturday morning while I was innocently curled up on the couch with my coffee and a book. Mrs. B wandered into the room and as I listened to her crunching her food I smiled triumphantly, not yet knowing that her attack was about to begin. She regally marched to the middle of the floor and calmly licked her paws and cleaned her face. Then, as I was reaching for a sip of coffee, she crouched over and puked on the floor. She then jumped up on the couch and puked again. At my feet.
Horrified, I realized I was a victim of a real life revenge puke. I was defeated.
Although we was immediately kicked outside, Mrs. B was ultimately the victor in our battle. An hour later when she came back in all traces of the the Top Kat were removed from her bowl and I promised to never make her eat it again.
Never mess with a cat’s Class-V weapon.
While I believe it may be a toss up between coffee and booze, I think I have to go with coffee. Don’t get me wrong, giving up booze would be hard as hell. Unfortunately giving up coffee would be harder. I know this because I’ve tried it.
Giving up booze would basically entail making behavioral changes like ordering a diet coke instead of a cocktail when I’m out or relaxing in the evening with a cup of tea instead of wine. I’ve tried all this before and as long as I’m mentally motivated it’s not too hard. Giving up coffee would mean more than behavioral changes like waking up each morning with a cup of decaf or tea. Giving up coffee would also mean dealing with a headache.
Even though I know the caffeine withdrawal headache is only supposed to last for a few days I am not willing to put up with that simply to live without coffee. I’ve tried it before. Tylenol will only get you so far. Eventually the caffeine headache wins out and I give in because I absolutely can not tolerate a headache.
Luckily my caffeine addiction is not that bad. I do not drink diet Coke or other caffeinated soft drinks and I rarely drink more than a cup or two of coffee per date. I’m not into all those fancy-ass coffee drinks either. I like a plain cup of brewed coffee with milk and no sugar. Considering childhood I think this is a feat in an of itself. When I was a kid my dad used to lower a newly opened coffee can down for me and my brothers to smell. Delicious! My grandmother used to pour a tablespoon of hot coffee in our milk so we could have a taste.
I was raised to be a coffee drinker and I’ll never give it up.
I discovered Maureen Johnson a few months ago when she live tweeted the “rapture” on May 21. If you read nothing else by this 
brilliant author read that. (But good luck finding it. There has got to be some tool on the internet that will collect and categorize past tweets but I have yet to find it.) If you want more and you are a fan of teen lit, I would suggest her second novel, The Bermudez Triangle.
The Bermudez Triangle is the story of three friends, Mel, Nina and Avery. It takes place in upstate New York, the summer before their senior year. While Nina, the smart one, goes away to a special college program for smart kids at Stanford University, Mel and Avery hook up. Yes, Mel and Avery are girls. Yes the story is about young lesbian love. No, it’s not graphic.
What happens when two teenaged girls hook up? Pretty much the same thing that happens with a teenaged boy and girl hook up. They become inseparable and make out a lot. The challenge for Mel and Avery is that they keep their relationship a secret from almost everyone, including Nina who only finds out after she catches them kissing in the dressing room of J. Crew.
While Nina is somewhat shaken by this discovery about her two best friends she takes it a lot better than I would have at 17. Her character lends her as the stabilizing force for the three friends as the story progresses. She is also the subject of my favorite line in the book:
She tried to strike a balance between party wear and casual, but she’d ended up dressing like a paralegal.”
The Bermudez Triangle is a great book that I would recommend to anyone is a fan of teen lit. If you know a gay teen who wants to look like a paralegal, even better.