Three quick positives

In an effort to dispel the idea that all I do is complain about my boss, I need to mention the fact that while I do have many problems with him, he mostly means well. Today I was feeling sick and decided to leave work early. (Since I'd finished all my work for this week by about 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, I really didn't see any point in sticking around.) I told my boss and mentioned that since I hadn't taken a lunch, it would be two and a half hours of sick time that I was using. He thought about it for a second and said, "How about I just put down two hours but you still leave right now?" I appreciated that, and it just goes to show that even though he can be really anal about dumb things, he still does care. So I wanted to let all y'all (what, five of you?) who read this blog know that I do appreciate things my boss does on occassion.

Two other positive things have happened (though not work-related) that I wanted to mention. The first is that I got to go to Enrichment twice this week -- once at my ward, and once with my mom to my home ward. That was lots of fun because I not only got to hang out with my mom, who is the coolest ever, but I also got to see all my friends from my home ward who I don't get to see very often. I also got to see my two youngest sistahs and we had fun going through Mom's old jewelry and telling her how much it would all sell for at an accessories shop. (My youngest sister likes to wear some of the necklaces to school and all her friends are jealous of her neat necklaces. My mom remains skeptical about the appeal of her "old-lady necklaces," but is glad to know that she is sitting on a goldmine if she ever chooses to declutter the old jewelry drawer.)

Third and very momentous for me, I found some good Camembert at the grocery store. This is big because it was one of my two favorite cheeses in Paris and I haven't found any here since we got back. So I bought it and ate it and it made me very happy. And on that note, I am going to go to bed and dream pleasant, Camembert-induced dreams.

Meet the newest additions to the family

No, no, no, I didn't suddenly and secretly give birth to twins.

Please give a warm welcome to Tobey and Gus! (And Shallow Man's leg and laptop, but they're not really the important part of the picture.)

Partly as a birthday thing for the Shallow Man, partly because of odd websites, and partly just because I felt like it, we decided to get a cat. So we wandered on over to the Humane Society and ended up coming home with two. (It was a two-for-one special on cats anyway.)

We actually ended up going to the shelter twice, because when we went the first time on that Friday night it closed before we had a chance to find a cat we really liked. This turned out to be lucky for us, because we had barely stepped in the door on Saturday morning before these two jumped out at us -- almost literally.

They hadn't been out the day before (still recovering from certain medical procedures), so we hadn't seen them. Once we saw both of them we knew we couldn't split them up, since they're from the same litter and, as you can see, simply too cute together.

They were nine weeks old when we got them three weeks ago and are just absolutely adorable. They're joined at the hip and very sweet with each other when they're not trying to lick, bite or pounce each other's ears off.



They are both white with black spots -- the same number of spots but differently dispersed. Tobey has a smudge on his nose, too.

He's the more cuddly of the two. He likes to snuggle up on my lap whenever I sit down and tends to sit by my feet meowing to be picked up and loved if I spend too much time paying attention to things other than him. He has figured out how to jump into the sink and his favorite wrestling move is the kangaroo kick.



Gus is a lot more independent but can be snuggly when he's in the mood. He loves to explore and has to be spritzed with the "discipline water" a lot more often than Tobey.

He, thank goodness, has not figured out how to jump up onto the counters, although he does very well at climbing up people. He thinks his tail is possessed by demons and likes to exorcise them while sitting on my shins as I'm typing on my laptop with my feet on the coffee table. This, of course, means that I can't wear knee-length skirts until he figures out clawless exorcism, because my lower legs are covered in beautiful bright red scratches that are set off very well by my pasty white skin. He is also a technocat who has figured out that he can change things on the laptop screen by pouncing on the keyboard, and manages not to do anything horribly wrong. (Tobey is not so adept; he also loves the keyboard, mostly for the warmth, but also accidentally deleted the "Finder" on Shallow Man's Mac...) Gus' favorite wrestling move is the Matrix pounce. I swear he defies gravity more than half the time. He also could probably make it in the wild since he's got a fairly good grasp on the hunter mentality.

Tobey, on the other hand, acts tough but would probably die in the first ten minutes because he's pining away for snuggles.



I'm really enjoying this whole pets thing. I never really had pets growing up because my mom was allergic, although we did have fish for awhile. I'm not quite sure why that ended... Shallow Man grew up with cats so he's been extremely helpful in showing me the ropes and all that. He also has kindly agreed to do all the litter box-related duties if I monitor the food and water bowls.

The best part about having the kittens, though, is that they are very therapeutic for me to come home to after a long day of listening to my boss enjoying the sound of his own voice. They're keeping my rage way down and helping me to control the Fist of Death.

Plus, they're just so dang cute.

Watch out, you other kittens out there, 'cause you are totally going DOWN!

Happy, happy

Happy Birthday to the Shallow Man!

Love you, honey!

Okay...

I feel a bit better about this whole thing now.

This statement was released by Disney's Seven Dwarves today in response to Pluto's demotion:

"Although we think it's Dopey that Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet, which has made some people Grumpy and others just Sleepy, we are not Bashful in saying we would be Happy if Disney's Pluto would join us as an eighth dwarf. We think this is just what the Doc ordered and is nothing to Sneeze at."

At least someone is sticking up for the underdog.

I was rooting for you, Pluto!

Astronomers, man. Weird people.

Always doing crazy things, those astronomers are. When they're not moving in and trying to steal each others' observatories and fending each other off with microscopes, they're messing with the solar system.

I mean, for heaven's sake. My very energetic mother just served us nine? Don't leave us hanging like that! I mean, it was bad enough when we were potentially talking about how my very energetic mother couldn't just slice up nine pizzas, comely xenophobe. Of course, we weren't even sure that would work because nobody could make a definite decision on whether the series would end in "X" for "Xena" or "U" for "2003 UB313." (Huh. Speaking of dumb planet names...)

So the crazy astronomers took the lazy way out. Rather than persevere until an answer to the X/U debate could be found, they just cut corners... and cut Pluto.

Why couldn't they just leave my very energetic mother and her pizzas alone? All we wanted to do was have dinner as a family. Who cares if maybe you have two or three friends over now and then? Just because you don't want to let Ceres, Charon and...whatshisname live in the house doesn't mean you have to kick out little brother Pluto. There were nine in the system and the astronomers said, "Roll over, roll over!" So they all rolled over and Pluto fell out...

I mean, we haven't even known about Pluto for a full day of Pluto time. I suppose this means Pluto's fifteen Pluto minutes of fame are over. Just goes to show you how fleeting celebrity is these days. Poor little guy.

Apparently, for crazy astronomers at least, size does matter.

YOU'RE NEXT, MARS!


RIP Pluto: 1930-2006

Crying while thinking of Margo

So it's grovelling season on PBS. This makes watching TV (the PBS variety, that is) rather tiresome and trying because they keep interrupting it every five or six minutes, trying to make me buy a CD for $60.00. I don't know how dumb they think I am, but I'm still pretty sure that CD's don't cost that much. So, like the spamalope, I remain calm but wary, and try not to be too distracted.

Because I just can't help watching PBS during the Grovel-a-thon, because that's when they trot out the fun stuff. You know, the stuff you'll sit through the CD spiels for.

Victor Borge just seatbelted himself to the piano bench after telling the audience about his deal with the soprano: "She doesn't touch my piano; I keep my hands off her coloratura." Which makes me, in a roundabout way, think of my amazing friend and roommate Margo. (No, not the coloratura part.)

Margo and I could have used a seatbelt for that one chopsticks duet she patiently tried to teach me. I like to think I faked my way through it well enough to not embarrass myself too badly. (My piano skeelz are adequate but definitely pale next to those of My Margot.) Of course, that would have made switching places mid-scale kind of hard, but I like to think we could've worked our way through that one, too, if it came to that. It made me even more excited to do the duet thingy five the talent show twonce I saw that it was dedicnined three Victor Borge.

Few things make me laugh as hard as I do at Borge's inflationary language (see above; and you thought it was only gas prices that were going up!), unless it's his phonetic punctuation, which really can't be done on a blog.

Of course, I doubt I could even really type it anyway, since I'm now laughing so hard that I'm crying and can't really see the keyboard. The tears are streaming down my face and I only wish Margo were here with me, so she could laugh and cry, too.


Margo - it's coming up on four years that we've known each other, and I can't believe it's only been that long. Love you always and miss you bunches, and hope we find a good excuse to be in the same state at the same time before too many more years go by.

Ahhhhh....

This afternoon I had a chance to relax a bit after a very stressful day at work (and my boss is on vacation, even...) and unwind with three of the greatest inventions known to man (or woman, as the case may is):

1. Thunderstorms
2. Cherry Chocolate Cake
3. Spongebob Squarepants Michael Buble

The only* things that can top that are Jane and a foot massage.

(Shallow Man, are you taking notes?)


*Assuming that snuggles with the hubby are not on the menu