Since I only whetted your appetite for cat yesterday, here are some additional pictures of Heather and Paul's cat Spike, in an embarrassing hat.
It stayed on for like a microsecond. It was a cruel god indeed that made cats hate costumes.
Yay, Heather is a pregnant Miss Congeniality. Look at those cupcake umbrellas in the background. They were delicious.
Mark and I had a mystery bowling shop awhile ago and in the second game I almost beat him. True story.
Well, I think my old camera has finally given up the ghost. There's this weird purple haze over the viewscreen and the battery monitor is wonky. But it lived a good life and got to travel, so RIP Canon olde timey Powershot.
I've been borrowing Daniel's sporadically and I took it over to Mark's last night to get quality pictures of the world's most lovable and least photogenic cat ever. Behold:
Those eyes! The devil's eyes!
But of course he could be cute and wonderful.
As are we, of course.
He just won't let Fishie go!
Heh, Levi is learning to read.
Here it looks like he is beginning a terrifying slide into obesity.
I love his face in these two pictures.
Hee!
Omigod kitty pictures! Yay for cats!
So Daniel and I were walking to the Upper East Side when I spotted a kitty tree in the trash on the corner of 107 and Amsterdam. Just out in the trash! At first I was like, "it probably has rabies" but then I realized that those kitty trees are like a hundred fifty bucks and maybe I should inspect this a bit more closely. It looked okay, just a bit furry. We dragged it up to Mark's room and closed the door so the cat wouldn't catch anything and after Mark came home later he de-furred it.
What did the student cat ask for after he had FIV? A de-furral.
Anyways, Levi loves this tree. He spends all of his time there now in the top perchy bed and looks out the window for those pigeons.
I love it when his legs and tail hang down from the middle hole.
And man oh man, he still loves Fishie. He broke Fishie about a month ago so there's no plastic wand anymore, but he'll carry it up to the top level in his mouth and then let it dangle for awhile. Now it's even easier to run after so Fishie has earned a permanent spot in the toy rotation.
Hee!
And was I surprised the other day to walk past St. John's Cathedral and see a white peacock just strutting about. A peacock! On church grounds! Wow!
Tal and her boyfriend Alex came up from Philadelphia for a rainy Halloween, but that didn't stop us from risking life and limb to get to the top of my friend's apartment building and watching the soggy parade.
Tal was a cowgirl, Alex was Zorro, and Mark kept getting asked if he was a zombie investment banker. He wasn't. Just a zombie.
And I was the Hamburglar! You wouldn't believe how many people have not heard of it.
In front of McDonald's, of course.
I found this science experiment in a book and realized I haven't done enough vinegar-based tricks. So I put an egg in a cup of vinegar and waited a day.
Goodbye shell! This is what's left.
Eggy eclipse.
So I'm here in the lovely town of Charlotte, which is startlingly clean and aseptic. The American Association of School Librarians is jam packed with ladies who look exactly like school librarians. I met this lady at the Days Inn this morning and she and I wandered around the conference center until we saw EBSCO doing a presentation that included a free lunch, in which we gleefully partook. Salad! Breadsticks! Vegetable lasagna! Green beans! Carrot cake! Tea! Water! Coffee! Wow!
I'm stuffed now, and waiting for the opening session at 3:30 featuring the infamous danah boyd (of Brooklyn, I believe). The exhibit hall opens right afterwards and my goodness, I had no idea that librarians were so bloodthirsty for all that cheap swag. People brought like three suitcases to cart it all home.
I had an embarrassment at work on Halloween. I was so nervous about it raining (which it did) that I kept checking to see whether or not the customers had umbrellas out. One man stepped up to my counter soaked right through his shirt. "Oh no!" I said, "Did it start raining outside?". "No..." he said. That's when I realized that he was just really, really sweaty. Ew!
Daniel and I were about to head out on a walk the other night when we saw a huge cat tree just discarded out on 107 and Amsterdam. Knowing full well how expensive those can be, we lugged it over to Mark's apartment and set it up in the bedroom so that Mark could de-fur it when he got home. He reports that Levi is both excited about having a perch and very interested in smelling the old cat.
I promise you that I haven't been avoiding writing out of spite. I'm going to fall back on the 'but I'm so busy!' line which is true. James Spader, that hunky devil, was in my concession line at work. Same with Rosie O'Donnell. True! I put my laundry in at 2:00 today and completely forgot about it until 5:00. The amazing thing is not just that my soggy clothes were undisturbed in the washer but that my detergent was still there. I suppose those hours are not the most popular.
Mark wants to give Leviathan a Happy 1st Birthday party on Halloween, and I suspect that is only so he can put Levi in a birthday cone hat for a millisecond and take a picture.
Oh by the way, this darling cat wants to say Happy Halloween!
HE LOVES THAT HAT. LOVES IT!
And look how shiny he is! Mark is going out tonight to buy him his first adult cat food (XXX!) instead of the kitten stuff.
My very first baby shower is on Saturday and Mark was supposed to come all the way out to Hamilton, New Jersey with me but he just heard that he might have to go to Massachusetts, but maybe not, it's all up in the air, so the gist is that he may or may not come out with me. The point is that we'll have to wait and see. I bought very practical presents.
One thing that was disappointing at the beginning of the semester was that I was promised all online classes but hey, when I looked at the syllabus for one of them it said we met in person on Wednesdays. Pain. So I had to rearrange my work schedule (I worked Wednesday nights) and change it to Monday, and dread going all the way out to Queens Campus each week.
But to make a long, tedious story less long and tedious, it turns out that the lady at the office put me in the wrong section and now I'm in two online classes. Which is great news. Hours of my life have been saved. Hours!
I didn't switch back shifts at work because there was really no reason to. So now I work Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and have this big stretch of time during the week where I go to the library a lot.
Mark took me to some gaming meetup yesterday night at a bar on the Lower East Side and we met some weird guy that immediately came up to me and asking all about how I am in relation to the gaming world and not even acknowledging Mark even after he spoke. Uh, uncomfortable! But it wasn't bad and I managed to sweet-talk an iPhone case for Mark from this promotion guy.
After that we walked over to Little Italy for the San Gennaro tacky street fair. Mark got me a, hm... bruscoli? Broccoli? Bruschetta? (or, as the spell check recommends, Brushstroke?) Something like that, I think. Anyway, it was a lot of meat with onions on bread. A+. We split zeppoli for dessert and it was tasty.
Tonight we're finishing off the hamburgers that his roommate left in the freezer and pairing them with lettuce and tomatoes left over from the terrific salad he made the other day. It's nice when everything works out like that.
I've been rearranging my clothing in preparation for the upcoming cold weather. Right now it's at that perfect temperature that would be appropriate for all kinds of outfits. However, I know this is not to last and I'd better pull all of those jackets out of hibernation.
I wrote this during the seven hour bus ride home to Pittsburgh. Enjoy!
This day has been full of busy. Daniel woke me up at 7:30 indavertently and just laying on the couch wasn’t much fun so I got up and realized that I hadn’t really packed anything useful for my fun trip to
Rob came up yesterday! All the way from
Do you know what made it even more delightful? We got to use the SlapChop! Oh yes indeedy! The thing actually works like it shows on TV! My favorite, however, is the “but wait, there’s more” Graty, which grates cheese like whoa and cleans up so easy. Mom and I came up with the idea that Mark and I should go as Vince Offer and a hooker for Halloween – Mark can carry around the SlapChop and have a headset in, and I’ll have a palm print on my face and wear nothing but a ShamWow. We’re classy devils.
Anyway, since we’re wild and crazy in addition we went out after dinner for a walk and met Pat for drinks. I’d love to be all adventurous and try different bars but we ended up back at Rancho’s for their pricey, decent margaritas. I didn’t end up going to bed until about 1:45.
Back to my tale, so we get up and my stuff is thrown into the suitcase and I manage to dress myself AND make omelets for my boys (with cheddar, spinach, and mushrooms). We went to the West Side Market to grab some snacks for this bus ride and then Rob drove me to work so I was twenty minutes early.
Work was great, in that few people were there and those that were had small appetites. I’m about halfway done with The Cider House Rules and can’t put it down. John Irving is one of those authors that I really, really like reading and then immediately forget after I finish the book.
So, the plan was to meet Mark at the
It’s now about 5:10, and we’re three odd miles away from where we’re supposed to be. Not the end of the world, just grab a taxi, right? Well, not only is there bumper to bumper traffic the ENTIRE way with stoplights every five feet, you can’t get to the far end of Canal Street without turning down some convoluted alley and cutting across East Broadway and turning back up again. Our poor cabbie had the unfortunate experience of me saying “I reeaaaaaaaaaaally appreciate that you’re helping us get there fast. Really. Did I mention that we’re in a hurry? Oh yes we are.” He was a super nice guy though and I believe that he husted as fast as one could hustle in a traffic jam. As soon as we got somewhere near where
But we’re here! En route! I think we’re around…
Mark is alternately a good and boring travel companion. He sat up and chatted for awhile and then his throat started to hurt so he retreated back to his set of seats (the bus isn’t full so we got greedy) and did some stuff on the computer. I managed to sleep for awhile and when I got up he was fiddling with his phone. Next I knew, he was asleep and has been for the past two hours.
Man, I hate sleeping on buses. I always feel like I’ve slept for several terrible, noisy hours but it’s usually only about thirty-five minutes. And there’s always someone talking on their phone right in front of me.
Oh oh OH! Three things shocked me towards the beginning of the trip. I looked up at the front of the bus and a: the driver was SMOKING, b: he didn’t have a single window open, and c: I couldn’t smell a thing. There must be a remarkable air filtration system in place. Smoking! In an enclosed vehicle! Wow!
Now he’s outside smoking but I don’t know why he is bothering.
