I doubt they'll ever be snuggly, but at least there's been no bloodshed.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
New Addition?
A couple weeks ago the neighbors adopted a couple new kittens. This would have absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever, save for when I go over there when they're out of town to clean litter boxes and let their two dogs out. Except that they talked Ben into taking one of their cats that wasn't enjoying the loss of space (it's one of six cats and two dogs living under one roof with two humans). Ben's always wanted a Siamese cat so I relented, under the same stipulation that went along with our other inside only cat, i.e., Ben has litter box duty. We took her on a trial basis because we had misgivings about how our cat Dori would react, having been queen of the domicile these past four years. To be honest, we didn't want her going psycho like our first cat, the one we had before Dori.
Yes, for those of you who don't know, Ben and I were the owners of a psycho kitty. It was our first real pet, aside from the goldfish somebody gave us for Christmas one year that died after a few days. Since Ben had never in his whole life gotten to name a pet, I let him name her Smeagol. You, know, after the scary weirdo in Lord of the Rings. Anyway, Smeagol was a perfectly normal cat for a year and a half or so until we moved into our house. Oh, the irony of that name. Just like in the book our innocent cat turned into a creature of evil. Ben took her outside a couple times and one time she got a look at the neighbor's cat and went crazy. After that Smeagol would randomly attack us, turning from a puring lap cat into a squalling ball of fur and claws, lacing right into our feet. Scary and not fun. I took to wearing my shoes all the time. We really loved Smeagol, aside from her evil alter ego, and tried some behavior modification that seemed to work. Whenever she'd get the crazy eye and poof up we'd just ignore her and she'd go back to normal. Then one day she attacked Ben's mom and Ben intervened and got bitten pretty bad and had to go to the doctor. I had just had Henry, so as much as we loved her, we decided that Smeagol and her craziness had to go. It was very sad but pretty much our only option was to have her euthanized because none of the cat rescue places would take surrenders, and she'd just end up getting put to sleep at the pound anyway. Ben was pretty sad, so his mom bought him Dori. It took me a few months to fully trust her and to stop being paranoid when I walked barefoot beside the bed. She's turned out to be a good, laid back cat who's only flaw seems to be occasionally puking up her cat food. So now you see why we were nervous about taking in another cat.
We've had this cat, Coco, a couple weeks now and she still won't willingly venture downstairs. For the first week she hid under the bed in the guest room. She's very affectionate, but she's the biggest chicken of a cat I've ever seen. I tried to take her down to the living room the other day and got a scratch on my arm as a result. Then I wrapped her in a towel and tried again. She stayed for about two seconds and ran back upstairs. It's really annoying beacuse I want her litter box in the basement with Dori's so I never have to see the thing. But if I can't even get her to downstairs there's little chance of her going into the basement. Speaking as the Queen of Laze, if she doesn't conform to my wishes soon, I have a feeling we'll have to give her back to the neighbors.
Yes, for those of you who don't know, Ben and I were the owners of a psycho kitty. It was our first real pet, aside from the goldfish somebody gave us for Christmas one year that died after a few days. Since Ben had never in his whole life gotten to name a pet, I let him name her Smeagol. You, know, after the scary weirdo in Lord of the Rings. Anyway, Smeagol was a perfectly normal cat for a year and a half or so until we moved into our house. Oh, the irony of that name. Just like in the book our innocent cat turned into a creature of evil. Ben took her outside a couple times and one time she got a look at the neighbor's cat and went crazy. After that Smeagol would randomly attack us, turning from a puring lap cat into a squalling ball of fur and claws, lacing right into our feet. Scary and not fun. I took to wearing my shoes all the time. We really loved Smeagol, aside from her evil alter ego, and tried some behavior modification that seemed to work. Whenever she'd get the crazy eye and poof up we'd just ignore her and she'd go back to normal. Then one day she attacked Ben's mom and Ben intervened and got bitten pretty bad and had to go to the doctor. I had just had Henry, so as much as we loved her, we decided that Smeagol and her craziness had to go. It was very sad but pretty much our only option was to have her euthanized because none of the cat rescue places would take surrenders, and she'd just end up getting put to sleep at the pound anyway. Ben was pretty sad, so his mom bought him Dori. It took me a few months to fully trust her and to stop being paranoid when I walked barefoot beside the bed. She's turned out to be a good, laid back cat who's only flaw seems to be occasionally puking up her cat food. So now you see why we were nervous about taking in another cat.
We've had this cat, Coco, a couple weeks now and she still won't willingly venture downstairs. For the first week she hid under the bed in the guest room. She's very affectionate, but she's the biggest chicken of a cat I've ever seen. I tried to take her down to the living room the other day and got a scratch on my arm as a result. Then I wrapped her in a towel and tried again. She stayed for about two seconds and ran back upstairs. It's really annoying beacuse I want her litter box in the basement with Dori's so I never have to see the thing. But if I can't even get her to downstairs there's little chance of her going into the basement. Speaking as the Queen of Laze, if she doesn't conform to my wishes soon, I have a feeling we'll have to give her back to the neighbors.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Ben And Sarah Through The Ages
Last week was our ninth anniversary. Miraculously I remembered, but neither of us felt like going out, so we hung out at home with Henry. Yes, we're super romantic, I know.
Our story:
Ben and I met in 1992. That year I was very grumpy because my parents decided to move halfway through the second semester of my junior year in high school. We moved an hour from the town I grew up in to the even more podunk town of Ramseur. Maggie and I were in the same chemistry class and instead of letting us be lab partners, the teacher made me sit next to a tall skinny strawberry blond kid named Ben Tilley. We were going over balancing equations, something I hadn't done yet at my old school, so I asked Ben how to do it. He said he didn't know how to explain it, and that was pretty much our last real conversation of the year. The next year my sister Beth took an interest in him and they started dating. Ben and I became friends after that and drew comics and joked around a lot in our physics class at the expense of the teacher, Howard Johnson. For some reason I told Ben about seminary and the hilariously bad church videos we got to watch. The next thing I knew he started going to seminary. He and Beth were pretty much set on getting married, and in May of 1994 Ben got baptized. The next year Beth and Ben broke up and I didn't hear from him in a while. We were still friends and started hanging out, but not dating or anything. Then right before he went on his mission he confided his amorous feelings for me, which I'd honestly been oblivious of. I wasn't quite prepared to hear what he had to say and had no idea what to say in turn. Ben took it as a rejection and left for his mission not knowing if he'd ever see me again. I felt pretty lame about the whole thing, so I wrote him a letter while he was in the MTC and explained myself. Then I went on my mission the next year and we wrote each other until I got home in October 1998. He proposed in February 1999, we got married in the Washington, D.C. temple August 7, 1999. After I survived three weeks of marriage in our one room studio and didn't kill Ben or myself, I realized I hadn't made a horrible mistake after all.
A few weeks ago we were watching some home improvement show on TV and these guys were moving a big glass door and one is explaining, "This door is three hundred pounds, it weighs a ton." Ben and I both opened our mouths and said pretty much the same sarcastic thing, "No, it weighs three hundred pounds."
Yes, we were made for each other.
Our story:
Ben and I met in 1992. That year I was very grumpy because my parents decided to move halfway through the second semester of my junior year in high school. We moved an hour from the town I grew up in to the even more podunk town of Ramseur. Maggie and I were in the same chemistry class and instead of letting us be lab partners, the teacher made me sit next to a tall skinny strawberry blond kid named Ben Tilley. We were going over balancing equations, something I hadn't done yet at my old school, so I asked Ben how to do it. He said he didn't know how to explain it, and that was pretty much our last real conversation of the year. The next year my sister Beth took an interest in him and they started dating. Ben and I became friends after that and drew comics and joked around a lot in our physics class at the expense of the teacher, Howard Johnson. For some reason I told Ben about seminary and the hilariously bad church videos we got to watch. The next thing I knew he started going to seminary. He and Beth were pretty much set on getting married, and in May of 1994 Ben got baptized. The next year Beth and Ben broke up and I didn't hear from him in a while. We were still friends and started hanging out, but not dating or anything. Then right before he went on his mission he confided his amorous feelings for me, which I'd honestly been oblivious of. I wasn't quite prepared to hear what he had to say and had no idea what to say in turn. Ben took it as a rejection and left for his mission not knowing if he'd ever see me again. I felt pretty lame about the whole thing, so I wrote him a letter while he was in the MTC and explained myself. Then I went on my mission the next year and we wrote each other until I got home in October 1998. He proposed in February 1999, we got married in the Washington, D.C. temple August 7, 1999. After I survived three weeks of marriage in our one room studio and didn't kill Ben or myself, I realized I hadn't made a horrible mistake after all.
A few weeks ago we were watching some home improvement show on TV and these guys were moving a big glass door and one is explaining, "This door is three hundred pounds, it weighs a ton." Ben and I both opened our mouths and said pretty much the same sarcastic thing, "No, it weighs three hundred pounds."
Yes, we were made for each other.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Let's Go To The Movies
The other day I took Henry to the movies. I decided to do this knowing full well from previous experience that it wasn't going to be 100% fun making Henry stay in his seat, prevent him from running all over the theater, and keep him from bolting at the end and getting lost in a crowd of a hundred kids. Well, the movie was an older one but it was free, so I figured why not. Seeing how the theater lures people in with the free movie so they can make money on their overpriced candy and popcorn, I felt like I should be a jerk and not get anything, but Henry, having been to the movies with his grandmother recently, ran right up to the concession stand so I caved and bought some popcorn and raisinettes. I ordered a cup of water, because we all know what happens to Henry when a little soda is added. The chick asked me if I wanted a bottled water and I said no, tap water in a cup could be fine. Who wants to pay for freaking water? So we met up with our friends and I secretly was hoping that they'd want to see Wallace and Gromit because I've seen it already and can stomach it, crossed my fingers that they'd already seen Alvin and the Chipmunks, because having seen one scene from that movie in a McDonalds made me want to puke. So we end up going to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Yeah. I didn't complain too much, I was mostly busy keeping Henry in his seat and making him sit back down, stop bothering the people in front of us, stop sitting next to the teenager at the end of the row, find his missing shoe ("Mom, my shoe is missing! Mom, my shoe is missing! My sock is getting sticky!"), retrieve his cup of water from underneath the seat, grab him and make him sit in my lap, all while trying desperately not to scream "This movie sucks!" at the top of my lungs. Then to my immense relief the screen faded to black.
I turned to my friend, "Oh, man, I didn't think I was going to make it." And then another scene comes on and there was a few more minutes of annoying chipmunk agonies to endure.
It was kind of funny when Henry yelled at the top of his lungs about six times, "That girl looks like a hippy!" And his loud obnoxious laugh whenever anyone got smacked in the head or a chipmunk farted. So I guess torture can have its moments. And yes, I'd probably do it again, just to see him have a good time, even at my expense.
Then when we got home Henry found the receipt in my pocket and I glanced at it when I took it away from him and noticed that the concession stand chick had charged me a dollar for a freaking paper cup of water.
"That (insert biblical swear here)!" Whoops, I guess I shouldn't have let that one slip out. Henry laughed and repeated it like five times. I apologized and explained that I shouldn't say stuff like that even though I was angry. A dollar for a paper cup of tap water...
Next time we go to the free movies I'm smuggling in my own snacks.
I turned to my friend, "Oh, man, I didn't think I was going to make it." And then another scene comes on and there was a few more minutes of annoying chipmunk agonies to endure.
It was kind of funny when Henry yelled at the top of his lungs about six times, "That girl looks like a hippy!" And his loud obnoxious laugh whenever anyone got smacked in the head or a chipmunk farted. So I guess torture can have its moments. And yes, I'd probably do it again, just to see him have a good time, even at my expense.
Then when we got home Henry found the receipt in my pocket and I glanced at it when I took it away from him and noticed that the concession stand chick had charged me a dollar for a freaking paper cup of water.
"That (insert biblical swear here)!" Whoops, I guess I shouldn't have let that one slip out. Henry laughed and repeated it like five times. I apologized and explained that I shouldn't say stuff like that even though I was angry. A dollar for a paper cup of tap water...
Next time we go to the free movies I'm smuggling in my own snacks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)