There is nothing I could possibly care about less than the “Celebrity Sleaze Minute.” I’m largely out of touch with who’s who in Hollywood or on the Top 40 (well beyond the point where most kids are mortally embarrassed by their parents). Worse, I’ve never settled whether listening to celebrity gossip is immoral. Spreading gossip about people I know would be immoral, of course, and listening to gossip about people I know borders on it, but people who intentionally make their lives the subject of gossip — well, it’s up for debate on the morality, but I don’t feel comfortable.

Because I’m pulling into the lot, I can’t turn it off until I’ve heard the first sentence or two. Things like, “And now for the Celebrity Sleaze Minute! Is Justin Bieber going to get a new haircut…?”

That’s the point where I turn off the radio and take over with the Heavenly Sleaze Minute. Because Heaven must have its own celebrities. And those Heavenly celebrities must do things.

“And now for the Celebrity Sleaze Minute! Did the Archangel Raphael really pray for a sick little girl in Potato Springs, Arkansas? There are unconfirmed rumors that Raphael was visiting the First Church Of Potato Springs to deliver a blessing when a little girl in the back row caught his attention! She’d been suffering unexplained headaches for years, and when Raphael saw her, unnamed sources say he placed his hands on her head and prayed until her headache went away. We asked him if it’s true he now prays for the girl every day, but he only said, ‘I think we should give the glory to God, don’t you?’”

Because the irony is that (although I may have been lucky so far) these Celebrity Sleaze Minutes never really get more scandalous than Justin Bieber deciding on a new hair style. I’ve seen sleazier things on the subway.

But I find myself  wondering why gossip focuses on the negative, and why the neutral stuff masquerades as salacious. Why don’t they gossip that that Justin Bieber volunteered at a children’s oncology ward, or that Yoko Ono donated five hundred warm jackets and backpacks to the homeless teens at Covenant House?

So until that day, I’ll keep substituting my own Celebrity Sleaze Minute, heaven-style.

“Are the rumours true that the Archangel Gabriel will get a new haircut? Sources close to the Archangel aren’t talking, but several saints claim they heard him observe to God that the Archangel Michael really looked good with his new haircut. Can a new ‘do’ for Gabriel be far behind?”

It’s probably harmless, but I like mine better.

He’s not territorial at all. He really, really wants the other cats to play with him, but he knows the older cat only barely tolerates him (she has never attacked him, but I guess the way she looks at him is intimidating enough) and the younger cat is skittish of him.

It turns out the cerebellar hypoplasia isn’t that big of a deal. In fact, 95% of the time he’s fine, fine, fine. I’ve only seen him tremor a few times, and at other times he might stand with his legs splayed out, or stagger a bit. But in effect he’s just klutzy. Klutzy and very attached to humans. The people who fostered him must have had him in-arms and talked to him constantly, because he just loves being with people.

He learned immediately that TV time is prime cuddle time,

even if he happens to fall asleep because TV is boring.

Of course, sleeping is good when you have someone to cuddle up to.

And have I mentioned how much he wants the other cats to love him?

(Psst — if you’re from the animal shelter, both those guys came to us through you. This is the perfect picture to put in your newsletter. Just saying.)

Oh, and that name thing. We still didn’t have a name for days, despite everyone’s awesome suggestions in the combox. Finally I lost my temper and said I was going to call the kitten Seattle until everyone buckled down and came up with a good name for him. And after much arguing, they did.

The kitten is now Orion. Our mighty hunter.

I figured it would never happen, but this morning, this was what I was able to see from the kitchen table. (You can click on the picture for more snowy goodness.)

I’ll be back later with pictures of the new kitten, who now (also FINALLY) has a name.

Kiddo4 hates having his hair cut. His first haircut went really well, but his second one — not so much. I snipped one little bit off and he started to sob. “Put it back! Put it back!”  So I had to dutifully pretend to put it back on his head, and from then on, whenever his hair has gotten down to his ankles, I’ve had to resort to foul treachery.

That’s an old picture, but still. And it’s always worked out fine, except for the times he’s awakened when I rolled him over to get the second side, and for several hours he’s walked around wearing half a haircut.

And he never questioned it even when he found the fistful of hair in the garbage can. I guess he figured hair just sheds.

Ah, but now he’s going to school.

I cut his hair on the 8th of January after he had developed an amazing resemblance to Cousin Itt.

He didn’t seem to care. (Please note: I’m posting this now without the AFTER picture in an attempt to magically make the camera cord reappear.)

Hey, look -- the household magic worked!

On Tuesday, after I took him home from preschool, he said to me, “Do I have a haircut?”

It hadn’t occurred to me that half the reason he didn’t object to these sleep-shearings was that no one ever mentioned them to him. If they said anything at all, they said it to me. Ah, but now he’s going to school, and people are talking directly to him. “Oh, Kiddo4, when did you get that haircut?” “Hey, Kiddo4, nice haircut! Did you get that over Christmas vacation?”

Suddenly he needs to respond to a change in something he can’t see. And thus, after four days of this, he started asking and asking, accusingly at the dinner table, “Did I get a haircut at vacation?”

Mom’s treachery has been discovered. Sort-of. I’m still not sure he understands what I did to him, but he knows I did something, and he’s pretty sure if he could figure out what it was, he wouldn’t like it very much.

I said, “I’m sure we will.” Except five days later, we still haven’t.

But first let me back up a bit. Kiddo2, fully in love with the Erin Hunter “Warriors” series, has decided she wants to be a veterinarian, and she will start by volunteering at the shelter that helped us catch Cat Number Two. The shelter (wisely) won’t allow a ten-year-old to volunteer, but they suggested she cut out hearts and make decorations for Valentine’s Day. We took a trip over so my daughter could talk about what they needed.

And…we saw him. She saw him, rather. You can write the rest of the story.

They call him Cranberry, one of a litter of six orange kittens, the only one not adopted out right away. Cranberry developed tremors in his hind legs when he was about six weeks old, and after several vet visits and treatment attempts, he was diagnosed with cerebellar hypoplasia. This means his brain didn’t develop properly and therefore he can’t control all his movements properly.

Kiddo2 put together an information packet for her father, outlining what accommodations we’d need to make, what ramifications the cat’s condition would have both on himself and the other cats, and how she intended to meet his needs. She made a clear, cogent argument, and my Patient Husband agreed. We would adopt a special-needs kitten. Three days later, he was home.

Here’s where it gets interesting: since being here, the kitten’s tremor is gone. Sometimes his back end wanders off in a different direction than his front end, and sometimes when he’s really excited to pounce, his back end starts shaking. But he’s moved from the category of “disabled” into the category of “klutz.” He can jump on the beds. He can hide behind a sock in order to stalk the other cats (who, for the record, are not amused.)

The name they gave him at the shelter was Cranberry; the six kittens were found around Thanksgiving and all got silly Thanksgiving-themed names, like Pilgrim and Atlantic. For the past five days we’ve tried to name this kitten, but no one can agree. Personally, I like “Gabriel” (shot down) and “Sal” (shot down) and “Nugget” (shot down.)  Kiddo2 wants Firestar or Fireheart or something Erin-Hunteresque. (I did suggest Hunter. Shot down.)  We tried out Star Trek themed names (Kirk? Scotty? Shot down.) My Patient Husband likes Flame.

Right now the kitten’s name is “Hey, no!” as we try to pull him out of the spider plants or “Hey, no!” as we detach him from the wallpaper and “Hey, no!” when we remove him from stalking one of the other cats.

I’ll post some of our own photos tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have any name suggestions, fire away. We could use them.

The person who told the story said approximately the following:

T’was the night before Christmas when she and her daughter were wrapping gifts for family members. They had a cat, and the cat was also going to get a present, a catnip mousie with strong-smelling catnip. They wrapped it, and the daughter wrote the cat’s name on the tag. With all the gifts under the tree, they shut the lights and went to bed.

In the morning, she awakened to hearing thumping downstairs. She and her daughter went down to the tree and found the cat with the catnip mouse, going to town in that wide-eyed-and-spacey way cats get when they’re totally high on the catnip smell. The cat had shredded the paper the catnip mouse was packaged in, and wrapping paper bits were everywhere. All the other presents were untouched.

The mother stood there saying to herself, Stupid, stupid, stupid…

Beside her, the daughter gasped in awe. She whispered, “Mommy! I didn’t know Mittens could read!“

Our 1 day boxing day 40% off special is now on. Our code is on homepage of our bookstore:

BDAY2011DEC

Code is to be placed in our bookstore before moving on to PayPal.

This is through the publisher’s website only, not through Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords or any other storefront that sells the book. My book’s page is at http://tinyurl.com/jlebak

It’s $4.50 Canadian before the discount, so about $2.50 Canadian after discount.

If you’re brand new to my weblog, The Boys Upstairs is about a cop who finds himself trying to help three young children only a few nights before Christmas, and the only one who can help is his estranged brother, a priest who’s become known for helping children the world already gave up on. The book earned the Catholic Writer’s Guild Seal Of Approval in 2011.

Have a peace-filled and holy Christmas.

2) I was a little discomfited yesterday by hearing my son sing “I’ve been lighting up the caaaaandles / on this Hanukkah night” because it feels like Judaism should get better treatment than filking in a kid’s song. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t sing “I’ve been fasting for Mohammad / all this Ramadan!” (also the tune of I’ve Been Working On The Railroad). But maybe that’s the level that preschoolers understand. I kind of wish they’d used an actual Hanukkah song.

3) I just spent the last twenty minutes blowing bubbles with my son. At first we were outside, but he got tired of the wind, so then we blew bubbles in the bathroom. He likes getting the bubbles caught in his hair. “Bubble head! Bubble head!”

4) I cut five inches off my hair yesterday, and so far only my Patient Husband has noticed.

5) I am going to the Thursday pilates class without having recovered from the Tuesday pilates class. Owtch.

6) My husband’s family never wrapped Christmas gifts until at least 10PM on Christmas Eve, often wrapping until three in the morning. As a result, we have a family tradition of our own: get everything wrapped before the 23rd. That means if you’re wondering where I am tonight, it’ll be in the basement, wrapping gifts.

7) Our Christmas newsletter may be the only one to use the words “Robot Apocalypse.” A relative called yesterday to thank me for the lovely newsletter, and I blurted out, “Did you read it?”

8 ) If you need a last-minute gift for someone, you can send them a Kindle copy of my book The Boys Upstairs for $4 from amazon.com. Yes, that’s crass, but it’s my blog and I can shamelessly self-promote as well as anyone else. I just don’t do it that often. Pretend I gave you the link as a helpful service to make your life easier! See how selfless I am?

“There’ll be scary ghost stories
and tales of the glories
of Christmases long-long ago.”

I figured the “scary ghost stories” was a reference to A Christmas Carol, which social message aside is very much a ghost story.  But a few people in the last few weeks have said something like “What do ghost stories have to do with Christmas?” How do you guys interpret that line?

2) I felt very proud of myself when I realized Weird Al Yankovic’s “Christmas At Ground Zero” is an inversion of the chords of “A Holly Jolly Christmas.”  Is that something everyone already knew, and I’m totally late to the party?

My Patient Husband tells me Weird Al’s explanation for that song was that his record label asked him for a Christmas tune. “I don’t think that’s what they expected,” added Mr. Yankovic.

3) Am I the only one who doesn’t feel like “advent” until the majority of the Christmas preparation is done? I know the real preparation for Christmas should be spiritual, but the physical preparations (sending cards, planning and getting gifts, mailing them) overwhelm me. I don’t even want to hear Christmas songs until most of that is out of the way. It feels as if everyone else looks forward to Christmas music on the radio in early November and can’t get enough of it. Am I really the only one?