Week 3--The Whole Story...

Just in case you found your way here in search of, shall we say, "grown-ups only" material, let me be the first to tell you that the only thing you'll find is, at best, a random sort of mommy-blog with (I hope) some good stories about my crazy life.

Now, onward with what should clear up some delightful ambiguities regarding my Facebook posts referencing "Nipples."
Which is actually kind of funny, because the story begins on Facebook. Sort of. The story really began in late 1995 (my freshman year of college), but for purposes of brevity let us start with about three weeks ago, when an old college friend posted on Facebook that she was looking for a home for her two Bengal cats, as they'd just found out about asthma & allergies with her youngest kiddo.

You may recall my posting about Pim and his unfortunate demise a while back. At the time we decided, instead of enabling Zoe's constant and annoying habit of chasing down kitties, we would get a second dog to keep her company. This is how we got Max.

The only problem was that the Cat Daddy really is more of a cat person than a dog person, and he really does enjoy being a cat daddy. I like cats, but not as much as dogs, and I detest dealing with litter boxes, so I kept fending off his hints and outright suggestions (he even got His Highness to bat his eyelashes and tell me we needed at kitty). But I knew that the Cat Daddy really, really wanted a cat.

And as we swing back around to my friend and her Bengal cats, three things should also be known: the Cat Daddy has long-dreamed of someday owning a Bengal cat, and since I named Pim it had been more or less agreed upon that he would get to name the next cat, and his name of choice was Nipples.

Which brings us full-circle to my friend's post, hopefully demonstrating that, clearly, there was little I could do to thwart the kitty gods on this one. We couldn't take both cats, but as it turned out another friend had popped up who could also take only one cat. Badda boom, badda bing--homes for both kitties.

The only remaining hurdle was the fact that my friend is in Phoenix and we are in Wyoming, complicated slightly by the frigid winter temperatures that were cold enough to result in a ban on shipping animals, even in the heated cargo comparents.

So, of course, the answer was to hop a plane to Phoenix, pick up the kitty--lovingly chauffeured to the airport by my friend, his previous owner--and fly back home again. All within the same day, so as to minimize the chance of conflicting with the Cat Daddy's work commitments.

Kind of silly, but in fact comparable in cost to shipping him, and for this busy mom, not a bad way to take a little break for a day. As a bonus, my folks and grandma met me at the airport and treated me to lunch...and Phoenix Sky Harbor airport is big enough that lunch included real food instead of, like, hot tamales candy and half-warm soda from one of those old school machines that spit it out in a cup. So it was nice. They stayed long enough to meet their new grand-kitty (Mom's word) before heading out to a weekend shindig and sending me thru security to catch the flight home.

As for the name. My friend named him Aldo, which I think is a spectacular cat (or dog) name to begin with, but it is also a family name for my friend. The Cat Daddy is of course bent on changing it to Nipples, and while I'd previously been afraid that people wouldn't let their kids to come over & play at a house with a cat named Nipples, I have to say the response has been primarily one of amusement, rather than horror. So in the spirit of compromise I suggested we make his official name Aldo Nipples, and agree that people can call him either name.

At least for time being. I'm still on the flight home, and the Cat Daddy has already had a nametag emblazoned with "Nipples," so we can all think forward to a year from now and guess what everyone, myself included, will be calling him...

2011--Week Two

Today we were a family of hardcore joggers. There is a high school wrestler in town who got injured & is now paralyzed from the neck down--some folks organized a race to raise money to help with his medical bills and ongoing recovery and all that. Kids from all the high schools in town were there either as participants or volunteers. High schoolers are always fun at a race because (a) they are fast, but not in my age group, (b) they--particularly boys--are not afraid to do dumb stuff like running shirtless together as a team in the 30 degree weather, or dressing up in crazy outfits, or whatever (full-grown adults dress up in crazy outfits for races like the Boulder Boulder & Muddy Buddy, which is probably why I enjoy those races so much).

The great thing about being in a smaller town is the kind of turnout this sort of thing can produce. I'm an easy target for running in a race--"Hey Skerrib, there's a race this week, wanna run in it?" "Heck yes!" But lots of other folks who wouldn't normally participate in a race came out to either run a 5K or walk the mile (and a half?) course in support of the injured wrestler. We got to see lots of friends & acquaintances, which is most always good for perking up a somewhat dreary Saturday morning.

Even the Cat Daddy, who would normally recoil and twitch at the thought of running a 5K, ran today. He's been trying to improve his run times for work so he had an ulterior motive, but I'll take what I can get. We pawned off the boys on some friends who were doing the walk, leaving us free to run like the wind, which we did.

Well, long story short, neither of us won a prize, but I came in at 25:43 which I was very pleased with. I also beat the Cat Daddy which always pleases me, even though he is adamantly a sprinter and really couldn't care less about any distance longer than a mile and a half, and that's only 'cuz he's required to care about it for work.

As for the photo, I will offer a quick explanation of what each person was thinking at that moment. I, of course, was grinning a dumb grin of glee, having finished well and enjoyed myself immensely. The Cat Daddy was happy to be done, and was ready to go home and get on with the day. His Highness had cold hands and really wanted his mittens, but mean Mommy made him wait a few minutes and have his picture taken with the fam first. The Littler One, having just woken up from a snooze, was pleased that I had arrived at the finish line to hang out with him.

And finally, in the interest of full disclosure, this photo was taken with my phone, as I didn't even think to bring my camera to the race. Go figure...

2011--Week One

I sure hope the rules of this photo-blogging thing don't state that I absolutely must post a photo I took on the same day. If I did that, today's photo would be of a blank wall, because my entire family is asleep and I'm enjoying the resulting quiet of such a situation. Hmmmm...come to think of it, let me set forth the rules as I see them--

--The photo of the week must be from within the past week
--The photo of the week must be taken by the camera I received for Christmas
--I can break either rule if I have a really good reason for it, and if I explain it in my photo description

So there you have it.

This photo is from this past Tuesday morning, in between family visits. The Cat Daddy's mom was here for Christmas itself, and left Monday evening (12/27). My folks came the next evening, 12/28, and left this evening, 1/1/11. It has been a whirlwind time of family and fun, mostly for the kiddos and their grandparents because, oh my goodness, they pretty much all thought each other were the greatest thing since sliced bread. The Cat Daddy and I had our own versons of fun of course--my favorite was going to bed early several nights in a row, in heavy protest of a lingering cold.

Long story short, Monday starts us back to the regular grind, which I'm looking forward to at the moment, but I suspect by about 2pm Monday I'll wish I could rewind about 5 days or so, because I'm just that fickle sometimes...