MeeeeOW Kitteh!

First, let me placate the grandparents with a cute one from the Madee files.
We have been trying on our winter hats, to get a handle our gear for this next season.

Madee likes this one.

Look at those lips. They look like candy. Those lips are why I am now a lipaterian.

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When Charlie and I first started looking for a 4X4, I had one requirement. "It needs to be something we can run into other stuff with."

See, I grew up and learned how to drive in the most snowless place in America, and if I knew anything about snow driving, it was that I didn't know anything about snow driving.

Except that it is slippery.

So I figured there was a chance I could end up slipping into something, and I wanted a hard framed, no airbag sporting, dressed down badass vehicle that could eat snow for breakfast and climb her way over anything.

And that scared Charlie.

Until he met her...


Just one look and he was smitten. Her putty gray metal, her hungry huge tires with earth gripping tread, the sweet sweet roar of her gas pedal revving the engine.

She reeked of gas and oil and dirt.

She was beautiful.


When you wrap your hands around this balding fuzzy steering wheel cover, you feel like you have the reigns of a beast at your fingertips.


With all the hiking and playing she does, it isn't easy to keep The Kitteh clean. But it is easy to keep her gorgeous.

It just comes naturally to her.


She is a natural Mountain Girl, a stomper. And, like the rest of the Van Derven family, she has some unique little quirky characteristics.

I know this picture was posted before, but look closely at her light configuration. Everything illuminates. But one is in upside down.



Her front bumper sports the most gnarliest of hooks. Top left of the above picture.

Yeah, there's only one. I don't even know what something this wicked is doing on The Kitteh, but we decided that when Madee gets ready for the tooth fairy we are going to tie one end of a string to this hook and the other end to her loose tooth. (Insert evil laugh here.)


The Kitteh used to be decorated like Mexico, with lots of red and blankets and pillows. I wish I had a picture. When she was my primary vehicle, she was spoiled.

She still gets decorations. My favorite are magnets, because she is SO old that she has real metal inside and you can actually make them stick. Unless it is cold.

Which is why I have none to show you now. They fell off in winter.

So if you have any magnets you need to recycle you can send them to me. They will have a good home.

Anyway, I find stuff all the time that ends up sprinkling The Kitteh with fashion and grace to set her apart among other 4X4s in the basin.

Behold: The Dinosaur

He just seems right in that little spot on the dash that some previous owner's cup glue ripped up.

Madee and I found this little guy in our shopping cart at Raley's the other day, and he fit just perfectly on the key release toggle.


And Charlie is pretty sure that it was Brian that stuck this golf ball up in the ohcrap! handle.


My favorite story about Kitteh:

She has been in two minor skirmishes.

One day Andrew and I hit some black ice and slid and skid around a curve in the road and the Kitteh rubbed her butt up against a guardrail in the spin.

First of all I can tell you firsthand she is very good at running into stuff.

Also black ice is very dangerous!

In the end Kitteh's bumper was grabbed by the guardrail and pulled it out into this hideous wretched hunk of a metal hand that would grab you and scratch you as you brushed by it.

Guardrail 1, Kitteh 0


We had located a few other bumpers, considered replacing it, tried hammering it back in, but mostly just resigned ourselves to the fact that this was just what she looked like now.

Then this past winter Charlie backed into a stump when we were out stomping in the snow. We could both tell it was a pretty big hit, and were a little nervous to get out and look.

Charlie had backed the bumper right back into place.

Tie Game.


And for the record, Charlie has certainly taken advantage of the fact that she is good at running into stuff waayyyyyyyyyyyy more than I have.

Meow Kitteh. You are toight. Like a toiger. Raaahhhrrr.