More were requested, and I've been remiss in blogging in general (seriously, it's nuts here. Don't expect anything until the New Year's questionnaire.) But this was funny and quick, so here you go.

Sal's been getting up half an hour early lately and going running. For a while I just slept in, but then started to feel like it was a good idea except that I hate running. So I started getting up at the same time and doing the first 15-20 minutes of this random yoga dvd I have (it's "for flexibility and stress release" which are two things I can get behind). The first exercise is cat pose:



You can see where I'm going with this, I'm sure.

When I get up I don't change clothes or anything so I'm doing all this in flannel pajama pants and a large t-shirt. Usually the cats gather to watch the freaky human pretty quickly during this first pose, which I thought at first was kind of cute. After that comes "active cat pose" which I can't find a picture of, but which is similar but with a leg lift and then sort of a push up where you lower your chest toward the floor with your leg still up.

I think Strange decided either a) cats are not active so therefore I'm doin it rong, or b) my chest wasn't getting anywhere near the floor given my wimpy human arms and therefore I'm doin it rong. So what does he do? He crawls up my shirt. Since it's so baggy, when I'm on my hands and knees the bottom of it hangs down quite a bit, allowing easy access for the little bastard, who then weighted down my whole torso for the remainder of the exercise.

Charm just seemed sort of confused about the whole thing.

Also, they for some reason get really concerned about downward-facing dog position.

I'm having another one of those weeks/months/whatever where trying to do anything feels like slogging through pudding (both physically and mentally). I was at home most of today working on my lab meeting talk for tomorrow and waiting for the maintenance guy to come by (we got fancy new toilet and shower heads), trying my hardest to concentrate. I did get a little done, but more often than not the second I started working in earnest, something like this would happen this is from the computer's eye view-- I heart Photo Booth).



In other news, this week sucks. Lousy luck abounds for me. Add that to aforementioned pudding slog and the fact that my one major accomplishment of the week was to schedule what will hopefully be my penultimate thesis committee meeting (defense being the last) for December 18, reminding me how little I've actually gotten done and causing me to wonder exactly how much crack my advisor is on if he thinks I can easily graduate next spring, and you get one thoroughly demoralized Robin.

And I still don't get an actual day off (sure, I've got fun things, but I don't have time to just sit at home and recharge my introverted little brain, catch up on to do lists and the like) until... November, actually. Turns out Sal's parents are coming into town this weekend which means it's oh-crap-clean-the-house time (after I finish the lab meeting talk and paint the cornhole set for Saturday's tailgate). I'm exhausted just thinking about it. I need a lab minion stat.

No really, that's her official full name. We let Dad pick it, way back at the end of 1993 when we brought the tiny little tabby kitten who was the only female in the litter and was so cute beating the hell out of her brothers. She was so small! In hindsight we're not sure she was quite old enough to leave her litter but boy howdy were we excited to have her.

She lived a long (VERY long) and full life, got to live in two states, and has just about the best parents a cat could ask for (except for the occasional game of Sockhead perpetrated by Dad). She even managed to cohabitate with Shelby's exuberant pit-mutt for a while! She'll be missed.

Oh, and these aren't bad pictures of her, she actually did always look that annoyed. It's one of the things I liked best about her. She sure had character.

Because we knew from the moment we met them that the cats would be difficult to keep from weaseling out doors, we constructed what we lovingly refer to as a catlock (like an airlock, but for cats). Two makeshift doors swing out and close off our front entryway and latch together.

Lately, Strange has been running into the entryway ahead of us whenever it looks like we're going somewhere. He'll sit or lie down in front of the door and look at us as if to say "where we going, guys?" It's cute and all, but we pretty much just remove him and then secure the catlock door.

This morning, we were heading to the front door to leave for work and I noticed Charm was lounging in the entryway next to the mirror. He got up as we approached and tried to slink toward the door sneakily. As we were watching the whole time, we grabbed him and set him back in the dining room, Sal latched the catlock door and I opened the front.

That's when Sal yelped, and fortunately my response was the correct one: to close the door quickly. Strange, the little bastard, used his brother as a decoy to try to get out the front door with us. While we were busy removing Charm, he hid under the card table that's folded up against the wall. It's like those scary spitting dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I don't like where this is headed.

I mean, it's all fun and games until they start refining uranium. Which one of them will do while the other rolls around on his back asking for demanding belly rubs as a diversion. So if you don't hear from us for a while, get ready to welcome your new tabby overlords.

I present (no, not Nathan Fillion in a kilt again, though that can be found here) the Matrix: Reloaded Burly Brawl as performed by common household pets:



In other news, I AM SO OVER THIS COUGHING CRAP. Wonder when my trachea will get that memo. Dry coughing fits HURT.

Some new pictures are up, but more importantly, video!

So, our cats are a bit odd. Strange is uninterested by all the toys we have, and Charm couldn't care less about kitty treats (which meant we couldn't reward him after giving him medicine). Today we stopped by Petsmart, grabbed a couple little toys just as a test, and a bag of treats (crunchy this time, in case it was the texture that Charm didn't like). The rattly, fuzzy green mouse was a big hit with Strange and he spent most of the day batting it about and carrying it proudly around the apartment. Sadly, the treats were a flop with Charm. I suppose it's not a big deal, just kind of weird-- and like I said, it makes bribery very difficult.

But they're lovely. I still have occasional moments where suddenly it doesn't seem real that we actually have cats of our own. Then again, I have those moments where it seems impossible that I'm married to Sal, so sounds like it's a personal problem.

The rest of the weekend consists of more brain-melting busy work. I really should have done it literally years ago, and it'll be good to have it done, but compiling all the data from every experiment in the current version of my paper (which is currently 10,000+ characters and one figure over the Cell limit, which is really saying something) is a long and irritating job. I spent all friday doing it, and by the evening I was sure my brain had atrophied. I had a decided craving for Shakespeare in an effort to jump start the synapses. I had hoped BSG would help as well, but... yeah, not so much. Not the best episode ever.

There's also the continuing problem where I started playing Final Fantasy VII....

Anyway, I am being very distracted by BBC America, having finished a quite good episode of Doctor Who (Catherine Tate was really amazing in an almost entirely Doctor-free episode), and now enjoying Dawn French and Jackie Chan on the Graham Norton Show. Very distracting, so I'm going to call it a night on the bloggery. Allons-y!

In the interests of my sanity (hah!) I spent most of yesterday and today finally watching Arrested Development (I'm halfway through season 2 now), playing with the kitties, tidying the apartment and messing around with my paper's figures and organization. Today I had my cute circuits blown not once, but twice. First, earlier this afternoon I went looking for the little crepuscular beasties, and eventually flipped up the couch cover to find this:



Gah! With the cuddling! And the tango arms! Yes, I know I should have let them be, and not flashed the flash at them (a few times) but... really, what am I supposed to do?! Again, the squinting has more to do with the flash than with the irritation that I admit is pretty clear on their faces. I think.

Then later I was folding laundry on the bed, where Charm had been napping, when Strange hopped up and went to bother his brother. There was mutual grooming and I think the pitch of my squeal probably isn't even audible for dogs. It's ridiculous. I said "Sal, you must get in here right now!" And the second he sticks his head in the doorway, both cats look up at him with this clear "what? we didn't do anything!" look, and all I could say was "you jerks." Strange eventually flopped down rather unceremoniously half on top of Charm and both went back to sleep.

Anyway, to bed. Throat still hasn't gotten any better and now for some reason the insides of my ears itch, which may be the most infuriating thing I can think of. Gr.

I'm hard at work organizing both a paper (maybe possibly to get published pleez?) and my sort-of-annual thesis committee meeting. Which is a nice way of saying I've been shuffling stuff around in photoshop and illustrator for the last three solid days. It's tiring, and it's not moving very quickly. On the plus side, I'm halfway through the first season (of the new batch) of Doctor Who via a site that i_knowkungfu told me about. Good times, that.

I made a tasty meatloaf last night for dinner.

And on the excitement front, we're basically committed to the whole cat thing. Obviously it's not irrevocable at this point, but we're cautiously moving forward. Given that a) both Sal and I work, and b) it seems most groups around here require you to adopt two cats together OR have a cat at home to play with your new one, we're likely to get two. There's a local group that hangs out at our local Petsmart (the one near Costco and the comic shop... I could live there!) that seems the most likely source for kittenage. Not all their cats are on the website, but I have to admit I was drawn to Kitty. And even more so when I saw that her sister (who she should be adopted with) is named Lydia. Austen FTW. We're still probably going to give them our own names (seriously, Charm and Strange!) but that's some quality foster parenting there! We don't have our hearts set on any particular cats (meeting them in person will be crucial) but as the match.com commercial says, it's okay to look ;)

The thought for now is to visit the adoption faire a few times after Thanksgiving, meet the cats they have, talk to the foster parents, and start the process (they're very thorough in vetting (har) prospective parents). Hopefully we'll choose our new family members shortly before Christmas, and have them delivered (this group delivers too!) as soon after New Year's as possible. Then we can extend our break just a few days so that everyone can get used to each other. We'll let you know when everyone's ready to receive visitors ;)

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for all the helpful advice and encouragement left on my previous post. And keep the tips coming! I'm not sure there's such a thing as *too much* preparedness. My current project is to look into local vets, since that seems like it would be important, yeah?

And back I go to the slides. Boo, hiss. Want kitty.

yesterday sal and i took a big step: we went to petsmart to visit rescued kittens in order to adjust to the possibility of maybe preparing to get a cat. of course, we're kind of terrified. so what do we do? same thing we do every time we're scared of something big: we bought a book about it. i did this when we got engaged, and you'd better believe i'm going to do it if/when we decide to have kids. i just want to have all the information. the complicating factor being that there's no real hard-and-fast cat-parenting rules. i'm sure the book we got disagrees on at least a few things with all the pet parents we know.

so. any current cat owners have any suggestions? there are three main things i'm concerned about:

• one or two? since sal and i work full-time i feel like it would be nice for them to have company, and sal suggested the names "charm" and "strange" which i love. however, the book we got says if you have two cats you absolutely positively must have two litter boxes, and we don't have room for that. i don't think i know any two-cat households that have separate boxes though....


• what about our friends with allergies? we don't want to exile people we like by making it so they can't breathe in our house. my rule is short-haired cats only, will that help?


• adjustment time. the book says the best thing is to get the cat when you have "a week or two" to spend getting used to each other. needless to say, unless i'm magically writing a thesis in the near future, i don't think that's going to happen. is 4-5 days enough? i was thinking we could choose the kittie(s) before christmas, then pick them up on new years day (post-party of course) or jan 2, then take a couple extra days of break. i just don't want to press my luck on the matter!

well, those and the generalized "you can't go back again" feeling i always get at times like this. gotta love the irrational "will this fundamentally alter the landscape of my life [implication being in a negative and/or unfixable way]?" gr. neurosis city, population me.

so there's this dog. in my parents' house.

i guess thats a rather banal opener, but it came as something of a shock to me. luckily the dog wasn't here when sal and i arrived here last night, since that might have been odd (for us, and the dog!). but this morning mom and dad went out and came back with a startlingly large (okay, startling to me, i like smaller ones typically) cow/sheepdog mix named dodge.

he's quite friendly, but not overly exuberant (coughdukecough) but pretty nervous about the change of scenery. he lived mostly outside at his foster home, so being in the house here is making him antsy. we're working on acclimating him to the dog bed/cage, as well as to the cat. he barks at zarkon (who seems more than a little put out at her demotion from only-pet status), but in a playful rather than hostile way. we think he just wants to play. she won't, but at least he doesnt seem to want to eat her.

we played with him in the backyard during a dry spell (good lord can it rain around here when it puts its mind to it!). he's only about a year old, so his training isnt great. he couldnt catch anything we threw for him-- didnt even try to catch it, actually. but he did seem perfectly content to scamper along beside the flying object. he was particularly fond of bounding (literally, a gait in which only the front paws or the back paws are on the ground at any given time) alongside a frisbee. the bounding part was interesting, since according to resident animal gait expert sal, dogs dont bound. squirrels, sure, but this was a bit surprising.

the whole thing has me a bit tweaked to be honest. i like dodge-- he's friendly, and soft and has the most wonderful perky ears, and he's nice to me. but... well, i havent really had a chance to adjust to reggie being gone. i know my parents have-- they've been in this extra quiet house for a month now, and i know they've thought hard about the decision to get a new dog. but since i only visit here a couple times a month, a part of me still expects to see reggie when i get here.

i know its silly, but im a little resentful of dodge. its purely internal, and im sure ill get over it in the next week. but his name is so similar (we used to call reggie "reg" which sounds to me a lot like "dodge"), and he gets along so well with dad (i havent seen dad this animated since reggie died). instead of making me miss reggie less, it makes me miss him more.

maybe im overthinking. ive been in an odd mood today, sitting on the couch with the christmas tree lights on (no ornaments yet), watching the baryshnikov nutcracker on pbs (i forgot how great a staging it was, even when reminiscing about it earlier this month!). i had one of those surreal moments where the past seemed to blend with the present. so im still in something of a dazed state, but we'll see how the rest of the week goes. christmas lends itself to that sort of thing.