My Spidey Senses Said "Run!"

I was sitting at my desk on Sunday morning trying to catch up on some blog posts for the time we're in Romania (because when I get back it will be all Romania, all the time for awhile) and looked out our front window to see a big honking spider. I went out to take pictures of the thing, and I'll tell you the entire time I was taking the pictures I was thinking "what if this is a trap set by a WAAAY bigger spider?" and I kept looking over my shoulder as though an extra-wombo spider was waiting to pounce.

At least this wasn't as scary as my last spider experience. Ugh, I shudder just thinking about it.

The boy was irritated with me and wanted to come outside. He probably just wanted a big spider meal. Double-ewww!

(yeah, I know this post was boring, but come on, what else do I have going on in my life?)

The Kids

Most of my friends have human children. I have fur babies, and at this point in my life, I'm happy with that, except when they are vomiting, flinging their litter around or, horror of horrors, spraying pretty much everything in sight (damned Yukie). So I wanted to share some pictures of the little cuties. They really are a joy to have in my life, despite their fur and nagging. They are all unique and I hope that when I have human children they take on some of the characteristics of these little guys. I might have already posted this photo. I don't get many of Lily because she is pretty much always doing the same napping pose and when I get close she wakes up and makes a sleepy cute face. Pretty much every picture. Mircea walked into the kitchen a couple days ago only to find Fernie up in a basket that sits on top of the cupboards. So cute. She was pretty much yelling at us while we took the picture. All the cats do this, but I happened to get this picture of Fern during her dinner where she pretty much had her head buried in her food dish. They love that Fancy Feast.Yukon getting "in" to the catnip. They were wild that night. I have a video to post later.Yukon is a Steelers fan, which can be a problem in a Colts-Eagles household, but we manage. He grew up in a Steelers house, so I thought it was only fair that he could represent. So I bought him a little hankerchief which he proudly wears on game days. So cute, with the exception of my stringy wet hair and glowing red eye scaring up the photo.He fell asleep about halfway through the game. He has his own room, which is the bathroom, and all that stimulation from the game got him going. I often have to touch him to make sure his is breathing because he is always just sort of zonking out and he really gets some deep sleep.



Hope you enjoyed the dorky photos!

Cat Pictures for the Lot of Them!

I have been taking some pictures of the "kids" lately because they've just been so darned cute. Especially that darned Yukon. He really is my teddy bear. Speaking of him, he is scheduled to go to the Vet on Wednesday to get the "knot" on his face looked at. It may be a tooth abcess, but it may be a tumor, which would be horrible, but I need to talk myself off the ledge as he is 15 years old and has lead a great life. Sure hoping it's the tooth. Enjoy the pics-and if you don't like cats, I'm sorry...but come on, they are so cute!!

Crappy Blogger

That's me. Its been hard for me to think about anything but this house adventure so there really isn't much that I want to talk about, let alone anything else on my mind. We were supposed to find out today if it was ours, but we haven't found out yet. It is listed as "under contract" on the Multiple Listing Service, but we haven't heard yet if our contract has been ratified. At the very least this is over, either we got it, or we didn't, but I'm looking forward to finding out which way the cookie crumbled. It turns out the Realtor was trying to screw us over with that $5k "discount" so who knows what is going on, you know?

I made cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for Mircea's birthday. They were really good and I'm currently on a sugar high. They were FAR from low fat though, so I will have to stay away from them. Mircea will take them to work tomorrow to share with his co-workers. And he told me he couldn't tell that they were vegan. I didn't take pictures because they weren't beautiful because I had none of the supplies I thought I had. I didn't even have my muffin pan, and just cooked the cupcakes in the pan liners...with nothing holding them up. They are sort of a weird shape, but pretty darned tasty. And the super fattening frosting-AWESOME!! My tummy hurts a little from all the sugar, but I'll live. And yes, I'll share the recipe...that is, when I have a picture because I'll definitely make them again.

We found a lump on Yukon's face today. It is sort of like the tumor that Squeaky had on her face, so we're pretty nervous. We're going to watch it tonight and tomorrow and if it doesn't go away (it might not be a tumor) I'll take him to the vet on Friday. My baby!!!

Quick Update, Much More to Come

First of all, thanks to everyone who told me that I need to go out on Saturday night while Mircea was out with the bachelor party. The bachelorette party was great, I didn't get pissy drunk, and I danced the ENTIRE night. The other girls were in and out of the bar (most of them smoke) and back and forth getting drinks, but I danced with two guys the entire night (at the same time, that's right, there's enough booty to go around) I was just proud of my confidence and had to share. At the end of the night I said to the bride that I felt bad for dancing all night with two strangers (who knew I had a boyfriend, one of them was married) and she was like "our men are looking at naked breasts and @$$ right now" so then I was ok again.

Now for the bad news. We got Yukon's test results back and my little man has diabetes. Of all the prognoses we could have received that was actually the best (it was FIV, heart worm, etc.) but it is something that will change our household immensly. He will be on insulin, and we'll learn tonight about dosage, injection sites, etc. I just don't want to see my little boy's face in pain when I give him a shot. I'm not a big fan of seeing my wallet in pain when I buy all the meds, but I really just want my baby to be ok. I know he's "just a cat" but he's ours and we love him. I know the girls are going to be upset too because they will no longer have the "all day buffet" in the front room and will have to eat their meals before Yukie can get in and scarf the extra food. Believe me, I'll be updating, because this is just an interesting journey for our little family to embark on. We've just had a rough year for kitties...

My Boy

Yukon is really enjoying the nice weather outside. I've been over at Mircea's helping him with his boat (and doing homework, lots and lots of homework) and Yukon has been helping too. I have some pictures of all the help he's given.

He was very tired after playing football. He's really cute out there with us. He'll cry and beg for attention, and then he'll just zonk out on the grass, in the flowers, etc. He just loves being out in that sun. We let him "help Daddy" on the boat last week and he ended up stepping in some glue while Daddy wasn't looking so I had to cut the fur on his paws. What bad parents we are.

Oooh Oooh Havahart

We have a lot of nocturnal visitors in our yard and it is becoming a problem. Our little Yukon (did I say little?) has been in several fights with other animals, one of which left him bruised and bloodied, so we're on a mission to clean our yard of "friends". It has been an adventure. When Yukie first started going outside (mind you, I do not like that he goes outdoors but he was raised that way and I can't change his lifestyle after 12 years. Plus he pees on the doors if we don't let him out and frankly this is a better option) we caught a raccoon and a possum and Mircea let them loose at his work (which has a huge forest adjacent to it). No big deal. Lately we've had a string of great catches.

On New Year's Day we caught a sweet little raccoon. He was drawn to the root vegetables left over from some soup we had made, and when we drove him off to the beach to let him go, he seemed to want to stay with us forever. The next day we caught another possum, and this gigantor could barely turn around in the cage. When we took him to get dropped off, he waddled off, his fat "butt cheeks" swinging back and forth. We didn't catch anything for the next few days (despite a trap full of burned taquitos) but a couple days later I woke up to the sound of someone screaming "help". I jolted out of bed and realized that it wasn't a person...it could only be a peacock with a yelp like that. With my bleary eyes I peered out to the Havahart cage and saw this sweet, puffy little black and white cat. I figured she wasn't making the noise, so I walked out to release her from the cage (they get released back into the yard and we assume they'll be too scared to return.) and I heard the loudest, most shrillest sound ever. The peacock was this cat! I have never heard a noise so earth shattering since I last put SoftPaws on Little Fernie. I'm trying to release the cage and she is just screaming into my ear. The poor little thing was so scared (but full of taquitos) and she just raced off into the woods. On Tuesday night after a roving internet game of Guitar Hero with Marc, I found another cat in the cage. This little guy had eaten some old bologna (none of this is rotten) and he was pretty agitated too. He seemed to want to come inside with me, but with three other cats I just couldn't risk it.

This morning I was awakened from a dream about Peyton Manning (we were making chili for his brother's football game this weekend) with this terrible scratching sound. In the dream it was the crockpot malfunctioning, but in real life it was a rabid animal freaking out in the cage. Apparently it really liked the celery and additional root vegetables that we'd left out there. Mircea dropped that off at work this morning, but he said it wasn't without a fight. Interesting.

I tell this long, drawn out story because I also caught something else in the Havahart. Something I hadn't expected and something that really didn't want to be caught.

My poor Yukon was probably locked in that cage for about an hour. I'd let him out because I was vacuuming and he was begging at the door. I was taking some recycling outside and I looked for him in his usual spot and he wasn' t there. And then I heard it. The cries of a my little baby. Apparently he's lost the taste for cat food and had a hankerin' for some bologna and carrots, and had himself caught in the cage. I had to take some pictures (and a little movie with my high pitched voice) of him before I released him. My poor, poor little baby. He's such a little piggie that I'm sure he couldn't resist the additional vittles. I brought him inside and he cuddled up with me all day and slept in front of the fire all night. Silly boy!

I've Been Swamped

• Last Thursday was the funeral for my co-workers baby who died the week prior. I don't know which was worse; seeing the tiny casket or hearing the poem about how the little boy was watching his parents from heaven. It was heart-wrenching.
• I'm traveling to North Carolina this weekend to see my Dad and stepmother for an early Christmas. Although I'm not looking forward to the drive, I am looking forward to spending some time with them and enjoying the holiday.
• Mircea bought a fireplace for his house and I helped him install it. I'll post pictures soon, it is really nice and I'm sure that one of the kitties is going to burn themself in some capacity.
• I bought Yukon a Santa suit. He hates it and it is really tight, but I'll try to get a picture of him in it.
• Just read this article on CNN. Has anyone at the jail seen The Shawshank Redemption?
• Going home to make some cookies for work. Have a yummy recipe that I am bringing into work and I figure I'll bring some cups and a gallon of milk for all to enjoy. And I'll enjoy a few myself. Yummy!

An Interesting Couple of Days

First of all, the reason I posted the picture of Yukon was two-fold. He ran away on Saturday night and we didn't find him until yesterday. We spent many days calling his name in the woods, leaving out food (only to find out that we have a raccoon friend) and spending many nights awake being sad that he was gone. I also made several trips to the animal shelter and put up fliers around town. Yesterday, we went on a door-to-door neighborhood canvas, and talked to people and got varying stories on the whereabouts of our baby boy. At one house, this mom and her little girl were talking to me and the little girl said "Well, I saw this kitty at the bus stop this morning. He was headbutting one of the kids in the leg". I asked her where this was and Mircea and I headed over there. There was Tons-of-Fun, just chillin' under a tree, looking as relaxed as could be. That quickly changed as we came towards him and he ran like the dickens off into the woods and eventually this nice little girl said "He just ran under that house". After lots of searching, we found an entrance that was "people sized" to this crawlspace, and Mircea went in to find himself faced with a total of three cats, one of whom was our baby boy. We scooped him up and took him home. He was so sweet in the car, giving kisses and headbutting. I gave him a bath and we just hung out the rest of the night. He was so cuddly! I love that little boy and I'm so glad that he is home. The girls were all ok with him being back, and Fernie was sniffing him like "what in the world is that stench?" Lily is the only one who complains. She has taken to sleeping under my desk...which is about 6 inches off the ground (the little footstool part). She's a weirdo. But all three girls slept with us on Monday night, so it was an interesting couple of days.

Mircea's birthday was Tuesday and we had a good time. His mom had a steamed crab feast at her house for him, and we had a blast. The food was super yummy and great. I'm sort of going backwards in time. On Friday of last week, I finally bought the Prius! I love the car. Love love love love love it! I didn't get gray like I wanted (Fernie colored), but it's white and it's beautiful and it has bluetooth in the car so I look like a crazy person talking to myself but I love it! Love it!!!!!!!!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I had the worst week I've had in a long time, but I'm on cloud 9 now. Woo hoo!!

My Tubby Baby

Mircea and I are in love with little (not so little) Yukon. I have much more to write, but just wanted to post this picture because my happy little boy was on my mind.

I'm Baaaaaack!

It has been a long three weeks out of the office and today was a day for catching up and trying to organize my life. 400 emails later, I'm finally able to address some of the issues, but thought I'd take a little lunch break and update my wonderful friends on the happenings. There are a lot of topics to write about, but the main one is my roadtrip to pick up Yukon this past weekend. On Saturday afternoon, I went up to Lindsay's house and after a day of shopping we retired early so we could get up at the "ass-crack" of dawn. We left her house at 5 am and drove the 600 miles to Ohio to pick up Yukon. After a yummy lunch at Skyline Chili, we put the big boy in the car and headed home. My favorite quote of the second leg of our trip was "You know, I don't want to complain, but I think I have more fur on me then Yukon does." I looked over and Lindsay and she was, indeed, covered in fur from head to toe. It was so gross, and so so so so funny. Yukon was in love with us, so happy to have the attention, and just a sweetheart. That is until last night. I brought him home on Monday (after sleeping over at Lindsay's again) and he has a new crush. He is in love with his Daddy. And Mircea is in love with him. I can't pull them away from each other. They were cuddling all night long and Yukon got two kisses goodbye this morning (and I only got one). I'm so jealous of their man-boy love. I'll post some pictures later. I don't have my camera here at work. Watch for more updates!!!