Overly Verbal

So on Friday Mouse and I went to the vet, and Mouse didn’t get to come home with me. I’ve never made such a painful decision before, hope never to have to again, but I know what I did was right. Mouse led a good, long life, filled with every pleasure he could have desired, and he knew he was loved. I think that’s all you can ask out of life, heck, probably more than you can expect, and while my house is sort of empty now, after having had the best roommate of all time for some eleven years, it’s also filled with memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Like this one:

And I know that many of you knew and loved Mouse as well, having cat-sit for him, or lived with him, or just hung out on my couch with him, and I’m glad about that, but I’ve decided that after all the difficulty I’ve had in simply writing about this, reading stories about how well we all liked Mouse and how sad we are to see him gone will just make me cry, which is something I’ve been doing entirely too much of lately. So I’ve turned the comments off on this entry, even though some of you have offered to add something and I would certainly be touched by your kindness. I don’t mean to deny anyone, but sometimes saying nothing at all is the right thing to do.

In fact, I wish I could have said nothing at all about this now, but I miss him already, and my blog is going to be just that much less fun without him. Molly and I are asking that you bear with us as we adjust to our new situation, and promise to return again just as soon as we’re up to it.

I am seriously getting tired of doing everything myself. Therefore, I would like someone to:

• Think of a clever pun with which to respond to Randy’s last comment
• Do my laundry
• Find a watchband to fit my favorite watch before I just go ahead and buy an entirely new watch (same as the old watch)
• Answer all my e-mail
• Do the dishes
• Find my checkbook, an envelope, and a stamp (which would be ever so much easier if someone would also)
• Finish rearranging my living room for me, because there are baskets of yarn, assorted knickknacks, and at least 225 books stacked on the floor and every other available horizontal surface, and I am suffering from a motivation deficit (You know that person who once said something like “The perfect is the enemy of the good”? That person, whoever they were, can kiss my ass.)
• Decide once and for all whether the cats look better sleeping on the polka-dotted or the plaid side of the new reversible comforter,* because I’m a little bored with flipping it over again and again – here’s a visual aid:

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in these matters.

_____
* “They look equally adorable on each surface” is not an acceptable answer. I can get that sort of response just by doing things my own damned self, thank you very much.

So I finally broke down and bought a new camera. It took me a while, because I had to make sure this new camera was sleek and stylish enough to suit me - I’m a little broken up about having to break up with my old camera, which, while beautiful, was just not doing the job anymore.* So I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that future pictures of the shopping carts in my neighborhood will be much more focused. It hasn’t been my photography skills that have failed you - it was the equipment I was using. To wit:

Old camera:

New camera:

And I couldn’t resist these, because if there is something more lovely than the noses of my cats in extreme close-up, you’re going to have to tell me what it is.

In other news, oh what a pleasant weekend I have had. I’ve got a new 7-11 story to tell you later, I met a new person and before I even knew it he’d taught me a new word,** and I had a glorious nap - this whole new camera thing is just icing. I’d like to say that you can expect an actually interesting entry soon, but I wouldn’t like to lie. (It’s really taking all the energy I’ve got not to wake the cats up and make them make adorable noises so I can capture that digitally and share it with you.)

_____
* I think the one thing we can all agree has been missing from this blog is video of the cats, but you may now rest assured that videos (with sound!) are forthcoming.

** Micaceous - might come in handy for Scrabble, don’t you think?

So a week’s gone by, and while I might in fact have things to write about (no, really, I do), I don’t feel like it right now.

In fact, I sort of feel like Mouse:

Kindly leave us alone. We’re sitting in our boxes, and it’s nice and clean in here, plus it smells good, because I just made cookies. (I’d share, but that would require your coming over, and that seems unlikely. More for me!)

We’re trying to sleep here.

Together.

Because we’re friends!

Why do these two look so grouchy?

Hey, let’s build the suspense by putting the next picture below the fold!

[Pretend this is a fold.]

I can’t believe I was ever worried that these two wouldn’t get along. Would you look at how cute they are? (And also, how very difficult it is to photograph two cats at the same time?)

So say you wanted a pizza for lunch, so you made some pizza sauce, then made a pizza crust, and then realized that if you were to make an entire regular size pizza, that would be too much pizza. Then say you realized you could make a pepperoni pizza with half of the crust, and then make another pizza with the other half, but instead of pizza sauce you could use cream cheese mixed with powdered sugar and vanilla extract, and instead of pepperoni you could use thinly sliced apples, and instead of sprinkling the top with cheese you could sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar. Then you would have two smaller pizzas, each equally delicious, except you might want to mix honey into the cream cheese instead of powdered sugar next time. And lemon juice instead of vanilla extract might make it better too. And while it’s more rustic looking if you don’t peel the apples, you might want to peel the apples. This sure is a long paragraph just to say that I’m glad I decided to stay in last night so I could wake up early today and go to the grocery store. (And now I’ve got something to bring to work for lunch tomorrow, which is nice, because I am seriously tired of eating at each of the four places to eat within easy walking distance of my work, because none of them is McDonald’s.)

In other news, I’m afraid there is still no other news. I mean, I could write another paragraph about the delicious ham casserole I made for dinner, and about my concern that it may just be time to come to grips with the fact that I don’t trust people who don’t eat pork, even though I count some of those people among my closest friends. (Oh. I guess I just did.) I do hope to have some sort of job news in the next little while, which will bring to an end my freedom to leave work whenever I damned well feel like it, which I am not looking forward to, but getting a real job will set into motion a chain of events that will likely please me no end. (When it’s been more than 40 degrees outside during my lunch hour I’ve been walking around the neighborhood, looking at apartment buildings, imagining what it would be like to be able to walk to work.)

So I guess that’s all. I aim to please, however, so here’s an extra picture of the cats:

Okay, so my blog should be twice as much fun now that I have two cats, right?

Here’s something I can’t figure out. If you have two cats, and they’re not both asleep, how do you photograph them both at the same time without one of them having demon eyes?

See what I mean?

(Speaking of photographs, I think I’ve mentioned before that I bought a camera that (while a major brand name) was exclusive to Walmart, because it was a) little, b) cute, and c) cheap. Sometimes I make silly decisions, but I love my little camera, and if all I’m going to do with it is photograph shopping carts and the cats, it’s perfect. Or it was, until it started malfunctioning. It doesn’t have a proper battery, but charges with a USB cable. So I plug it in, it charges just fine, shows a full battery, but then I can only take 5 pictures before the battery dies. This makes me sad. It cost less than $100 and is a year and a half old, but still. I took it apart to see if I can fix it myself, but I clearly can’t. So it seems to have a limited lifetime warranty, and I guess I could send it somewhere and have a better functioning camera sent to me, but I might want to consider getting a new camera. A pink one. That also takes video. And has a megapixel count greater than three. Does anyone have any recommendations?)

My cats sure do match nicely, don’t they?

So it looks like everyone in my household got what they wanted for Christmas.

Mouse wanted a nap:

Molly wanted a house where she could live, and it’s just icing on the cake that there happen to be squirrels to look at out the window:

I wanted the little ones to be friends:

(Okay, and I also want a guy to come to my house and fix my heat, because it’s starting to get cold in here. But three out of four ain’t bad.)

Here’s hoping you and yours got everything you wanted for Christmas.