Back Home Again, In Indiana (Almost)

It's birthday trip time. Last year my birthday vacation was spent moving Jay and all of our stuff to Connecticut from Dallas. This year I find myself in Louisville, Kentucky.

Today, I got to see my nephew for the first time. He is much cuter in person than in his previous appearances on this blog. This trip also marks the first occasion when my niece Emilee called me by name while running to give me a big hug. Last time I got out of the car she was a bit confused and called me Mommy.

I've been travelling since about 6:30 this morning and have been in aunt-mode since my arrival. I am a bit weary to say the least. My best aunt move today was entertaining a very tired Emilee with some homemade bubble solution. Blowing and popping bubbles helped to distract her from her cranky mood.

I'm going to bed to rest up for tomorrow.

A Sock Confession

I did not make the Sockapaloooza deadline. I wasn't anywhere close to making it. Between my wrists hurting and my chronic case of procrastinationitis, there was no hope for me. My sockpal did not suffer from these same shortcomings and I recieved my socks in the mail days after the deadline.

That yellow package was the wet cat tail in the middle of the night that makes you shoot out of bed to make you check to make sure the toilet seat is down. Or more simply put it was a clear motivation for me to get my socks finished. I decided that I was not allowed to see my socks until I had finished my required pair.

I forgot to tell my wonderful sock pal of my plan so I'm sorry Dierdre for any stress I may have caused you by leaving this key component out of my plan.

My plan hit a bit of an annoyance because Jay couldn't deal with waiting. The annoyance went something like this:
"Come on open your socks."
"No, I have to finish my socks."
"Well, I'm going to open your socks."
"Please don't."
(Jay leaves room with package. Comes back.)
"Wow, your socks are cool. Do you want to know about them?"
"No, I don't. . . . Are they cooler than the ones I'm making?"
"I don't know they might be. You should look and see."
"Please go away."

I finished up my pair this Sunday with minimal damage to my wrists, thanks in part to regular doses of aspirin.

Sunday evening I was able to reopen my socks and this is what I found:


Jay was right. They are pretty awesome and they match most of my favorite fall clothes.

Zissou is quite taken with them as well. He couldn't keep himself from biting, nuzzling, and pawing at my feet.


These are the socks that I made and sent to Texas, after trying at least three different patterns and as many yarns. Once I correctly finished my first heel on the second try and completed my happy heel dance, knitting these socks was a blast. Hopefully, I can make some for myself after giving my hands a few days rest.


And a close-up of my stitching.


Thus ends the saga of the socks.

Zissou's Midterm: Does Not Play Well With Others of the Same Species

When we met Zissou at the shelter he was living in a cage. The woman explained that since he was new to the shelter, he had to do his time before he could be allowed to mingle with the rest of the feline population. This sounded like a good policy to us and he seemed to be such a sweet cat that we had no reason to doubt her veracity.

Recently we've been thinking that she wasn't being completely honest with us. First of all, there was the partially healed scratch on his chest which upon closer inspection turned out to be a bite-like puncture wound. Most recently there has been this:

Meanwhile in Kentucky

Jay and I had a surprise planned for this evening's post but due to technical difficulties you will have to marvel another day. To make up for the delay I present to you the newest pictures of John Tyler.

Mom said these pictures make him look less chunky.

(You are not food, therefore I am not interested.)

(Not only inedible but blocking clear path to food.)

(I grow weary of your presence, insolent frog.)

A Late Night Exchange

"Hey Jay, what's this on Zissou's belly? I think it's a wart or something."

"That's a nipple."

"No it's not. Men don't have nipples."

The Ants Go Marching

I did the March of Dimes walk this weekend with some people from work. These are some of things we passed on the way.





If you would like to see more you can start here.

I was definitely the tourist of the group. I thought we were going for a leisurely and enjoyable stroll but the group ethic was definitely fast-paced and frantic. I had to run to catch up a few times because breaking from the group would have confirmed my outsider status. Besides I needed a ride home.

We had a wonderful day for walking and photos. We got lots of free food, too.

Oh yeah, we saved babies, too.

El Gato Diablo

As perhaps you have inferred from the title of this post, cat-owning is not going as smoothly these days. Zissou has become devil-possessed and taken to violently attacking feet between 3 and 5 a.m., specifically Jay's feet (I tend to sleep through these attacks. Or at least the cat part of the attacks. I'm usually awakened by Jay yelling and cursing the cat).

Jay tried sleeping with his feet outside of the covers because when body parts go under the covers they become unidentifiable prey for the cat. This phenomenon also works in reverse. when the cat goes under the covers everything that moves is a fair target for pouncing/clawing/hunting.

As you might imagine the cat just started attacking the parts of his legs that remained covered. Shin bites are just as, if not more painful than the foot variety.

Next we tried sleeping with a double layer of blankets. That way even if he bit us we wouldn't feel it. If we didn't feel it then we wouldn't react and he would eventually stop the behavior when he didn't get his desired result. That was my reasoning anyway. It works with two's so why not cats?

Turns out that if biting feet doesn't work the cat is willing to attack hands and will even resort to pouncing on stomachs to get his point across. Plus Jay gets really cranky when his feet get too hot.

So in the end, the cat got himself locked out of the bedroom at night.

The fatal flaw in this solution is the meowing at the door. The loud, persistent, and annoying meowing at the door which is impossible to sleep through.

Does anyone have any recommendations or advice? I know that cats aren't known for their trainability but if I can teach 2-year-olds to put caps on markers then this is definitely doable.

Hopefully.

Birds Do It . . .

Most of the male bravado has settled down and the courtship before nesting has really begun. We often see the males feeding their mates and what says love more than a nice back scratch?