Because I love cats, people have always gotten me cat statues or cat posters for gifts. They’ll say: “Here, this made me think of you.” This tradition has resulted in my perfectly rational hatred of cat statues and posters. I have become afraid of letting anyone know how much I like cats, lest they give me a ceramic cat for Christmas.

Now, I should note that I don’t try to hide my deep and melting love of felines from sensible people – just the ones who know me so poorly that a ceramic cat seems like a good idea. For example, Chris (a friend of ours) got me a bobble-head Kuroneko-sama from Trigun one year. This was, of course, an acceptable gift because it was a cat from an anime that we all watched as a group. It had meaning and memories behind it. (Plus it was dang cute.) Chris knew that I liked anime and that I liked Kuroneko-sama and he took appropriate action.

This brings me to the real point of the ceramic cats – why, when you get married, do people give you all sorts of things to put on tables, but never give you any tables? I’ve found, as we have unpacked, that we have more useless things to go on surfaces than we have surfaces. Partly, this is because I didn’t sign up for any furniture, because we had a furnished apartment when we got married. But the other thing is that people think that getting you something that they especially picked out for you is better than getting you something you’ve asked for. Like it’s the thought that counts.

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So Alex’s best friend practically lived with us this last week. Mostly, this is because he was our only form of entertainment. But now we have cable.

Quick run-down on stuff:

Graduated with 3.88 GPA (I was surprised and pleased) and a BA in English. *high five* And, of course, the wrong color tassel on my hat. Yellow instead of white. ^_^

Packed up and moved to New Jersey. Not as easy as it sounds.

Comcast sent someone who was incompetent, didn’t do his job, then started charging us for cable and Internet that we weren’t getting. This was bad mostly because Alex needs the Internet to do his job. We called and were nicer than we wanted to be, and they sent someone competent. Today, we got Internet and Alex can start working again. Soon we pick up the cat we adopted. Pictures of him are on their way. ^_^ I’m also planning on, once we get well settled in, volunteering at the local animal shelter. I’ve always wanted to work with cats, and I’m sure they’d let me play with them. And I’d be willing to handle some paperwork too. . . . But it’s likely I’ll have to scoop some litterboxes. *sigh* I’ll deal.

We’re going to start looking for a nice church this Sunday. Wish us luck!

In true female form, I bugged my husband to tell me what he likes about my looks.

He said: “I like . . . that your teeth don’t fall out of your head . . . the subtle play of a full head of hair . . . the longevity of your nose . . . and the fact that you have skin.”

As opposed to dentures, going bald, my nose falling off, and being skinless.

*sigh*

I’m afraid of tornados.

Rephrase: I’m irrationally afraid of being hit by a tornado.

This fear presents itself in minor terrors, such as fear of thunder that rolls like a freight train, fear of violent storms, fear of cars without mufflers driving by during a violent storm, and fear of living in places where tornadoes are possible.

“It sounded like a freight train,” said the fine Arkansas specimen below. And so say most people who have been in tornadoes. I know. We had to watch a video about tornadoes in Earth Science, aptly titled: “It Sounded Like a Freight Train.” So that we wouldn’t forget, I guess.

Then you have the fact that Alex and I are on the second floor and I really don’t know how he could get our queen-sized mattress over the tub before a tornado hit.

The last time the tornado siren sounded in town, I made Alex hide with me in the bathroom until it stopped. He thought I was overreacting, but he humored me because I was scared.

Bleh. I can’t wait to move where we’ll just have blizzards instead of tornadoes.

The trouble began in the planning process. We left it till the last minute, so of course that was fun (not really). We were planning the cat-bathing for Monday, but we had to reschedule for some reason (maybe Alex was exhausted? Maybe I was emotionally drained? I don’t remember). So we scheduled it for Wednesday. Then Ms. Linda’s relative died and she called to ask when the project was due. I said “Friday” and she paused for a second and then said, “Yeah, go ahead and come. I’ll make dinner.”

She always makes dinner when we go over there. We hadn’t been the whole semester, but we used to go over every Thursday, along with Tom and Susie, and we’d have a Survivor party and eat Ms. Linda’s tasty home-cooking (she’s the mother of one of my husband’s best friends, who was off at law school). But then her relative got sick and she couldn’t really do the Survivor thing anymore. And I missed her terribly! She’s so cool!

So when Alex came home, I was all stressed out and one of the things I sniffled out to him was, “. . . and Ms. Linda’s relative just died today and I don’t know if we’re going to be an imposition instead of a help and all like, ‘Yeah, let me come over and get a good grade!’ when her relative just died! I’d rather bathe Princess on Saturday and take a loss on my grade.”

So he said, “Your teacher would understand if we postpone it until the weekend, wouldn’t she?”

And I blew my nose and said, “Probably.”

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