Living with Grinches

This evil spawn looks so convincingly innocent, but she’s not. She jumped up on the desk and started chewing on my bamboo knitting needles, so I said, “Hey you, knock it off!” and threw a sock at her. So she looked me dead in the eyes – seriously! – and then batted my glasses off the desk, sending them sailing across the room. It was the most intentionally spiteful thing I’ve ever witnessed from an animal.

Evil Spawn

She’s not the only one being a terrorist, though. Sebastian found himself locked in a closet by an annoyed B. at 5am because he wouldn’t shut up. He was carrying on like a banshee with his meowing. He’s such a talker, and usually it’s endearing, but not nonstop at 5am.

Almost can’t believe there’s only two weeks until Christmas. Where is the snow? When I moved here, it was with some seriously romantic notions of white winters, but so far I haven’t seen much snow at all. Is it too much to ask for enough snow to build a snowman or go sledding at the park?

Life is boring lately – not much else to report. Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.

What luck

I seem to have hit a streak of good luck (if I believed in such things).

Two nights ago, I was crawling around under our bed sweeping out dust and cat hair. Normally, I would use the vacuum for such undertakings, but it was a spur of the moment cleaning prompted by a very wet Noe hiding under there collecting dust. (Bath time happened for the princess. She’s ok, but I have several deep scratches and bruises.) Anyway, back to my story: I wasn’t expecting to find anything more than perhaps a stray poo when something glimmering caught my eye. Could it be? Could it really be? It was! I found the lost half of the pair of gold earrings I bought for graduation. I was certain I rinsed it down the shower drain, but there it was, dusty, but no worse for wear. 

How fortuitous a find it was, indeed, because the next morning I received an e-mail asking if I could come in for an interview at 3:00pm. I did interview, of course, wearing my lucky graduation earrings. The interviewers seemed to like me; they said they will let me know within a couple of weeks. I’ll tell you more about that if I actually get the job.

Sitting atop the Big C, taking pictures of Berkeley below. Summer 2011.

Nostalgia for the Prime Primate

Not so good:
I’m still unemployed. Apparently I’m not even “qualified” to be a dog handler. So insulting.
Noe’s breath smells like an untreated syphilis infection, and Sebastian somehow pooped all over himself.
No more refills on my birth control prescription and no health insurance. Eugh.
I really want to relive my childhood with a Super Nintendo and Donkey Kong Country and I can’t.
Diploma frames are $160.

Not so bad:
TheCanaryReview loved my post and asked me to be a regular contributor.
Every season of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix
Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme Eggs
Shooting B.’s Nerf gun at the cats when they’re misbehaving (or when I want a good laugh).
B. whistling the Super Mario tune while he plays Portal.

F’ing MARVELOUS:
My diploma finally arrived! Three and a third months I waited, very impatiently, for this glorious piece of paper.

It’s even more beautiful in real life.

Everything You Didn’t Want to Read About My Cats’ Poop

This morning when I woke up, Bobby heard me stirring (by which I mean groaning, “B? Beeeee?”), so he came over to the bed and we’re sitting there being all couple-y, rubbing noses and such. This lasts approximately 30 seconds, until I look down and spot something brown on our white duvet cover that totally ruins the mood.

“B, what is that? What is that?!”
“Um… poop?”
“SHIT. It’s shit. Take it off! Take it off! Take it off now!”

CAT SHIT.

I mean, damn, as if tracking litter from their filthy little paws into our bed isn’t enough, now they are bringing their actual poop? WTF. It’s got to be Sebastian with all his dingleberries that he won’t let me remove. Cleaning dingleberries is one of the many things you don’t think about when you’re picking which little ball of fur to adopt. Let this be a lesson in cat adoption: think about the poop, because dealing with it is 85% of cat ownership.

Don’t be fooled by his sweet face because his other end is covered in crap.

But poop in the bed isn’t even the worst thing they do. The worst is when Noe, who thinks she doesn’t need to cover her shit, just backs her ass up over the lower part of the litter box, drops her crap, and then bolts. What kind of etiquette is that? The whole room starts to smell like shit, and if you have a cat (or a baby or a gross roommate), then you know what that smell is like. It’s rancid. And it lingers. And if you’re not home to catch it immediately, your whole room will reek like poo for days, long after the turd is buried.

Which, by the way, you’ll have to do yourself, because your precious little princess isn’t going to help with that.

I’m shaming Noe with this picture of when I had to shave her because she wouldn’t let me brush her.