And on the 17th Day (of May) There Were Kittens.

My friend Kendall has a friend who works at a vet office. Her friend recently came into some kittens. As in, the kittens were dropped off at the vet office by a person saying they had been abandoned.

These kittens are just darling. They are adorable little mewing balls of fluff that are wobbly and playful and, apparently, semi-gymnasts (judging by the sweet back flip one of the accidentally performed). They are adorable and I want one.

I'm aware that money is an issue, but I fell in love with the little black one with blue eyes and white paws. She's so sweet and feisty. I will probably end up adopting her. For some strange reason, I think her name is Clementine.

I am moving the majority of my things this weekend. My parents are going to be in town (the first time I'll have seen them in a year), and they're going to help me move the things I don't really need every day. I'll officially be in the apartment the week after. This would, of course, be an ideal time to get a cat. It would be easier to have happy kitties if they both move in at the same time, instead of trying to get Cat to adjust to a baby. This would be a good time to adopt Clementine.

I'm trying very hard to be positive about this, but it's hard. I feel displaced and like I don't belong. I know I don't belong in the house, but I feel like I don't belong anywhere.

I don't belong in Tulsa, and I don't belong in California and I don't belong anywhere.

I do belong in Tulsa though. I have a job and friends and an Oklahoma driver license.

I feel lost right now. I don't know what my future holds for me, and that frightens me. It frightens me that I don't know how I'm going to manage living by myself and living paycheck. It frightens me that I currently don't have health insurance. It frightens me that I might fail. If I fail, that would mean moving in with family, and feeling like I've let my family down (though I know they're proud of me for even trying) and, most importantly, letting myself down.


But I could get a kitten named Clementine. And I could grow a balcony garden, and grow catnip for Cat and for Clementine. And I can try, even though I have no idea what I'm doing or how I'm going to pull it off.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So.

It's been quite awhile since I've posted. For the last few months, all of the things that have been going on were thing I needed to keep on the down-low for a variety of reasons.

Most of my friends probably already know this, but I started really looking for a new job in January. I had a few interviews in February and March, and I was eventually hired at JD Young. I have been there for two weeks, and I effing love it. My coworkers are awesome, I'm totally rocking the new job, and I get (among other things) business cards, my own desk (with a window!! And a snack drawer!), paid parking, and casual Fridays. I love to corporate world! We're getting along quite well.

This job is different from the hotel, but not really. I'm still doing customer service, only now I'm scheduling service calls for people and ordering toner for them. I'm also doing some new stuff (billing and invoicing orders, which BTW makes me super nervous). It's also an 8-5, which means I get an hour long lunch, which is pretty damn cool.

I am still at the hotel on Saturdays though. I like the people I work with there, too, and I could use the extra money every month because I'm moving out.

Boyfriend and I broke up. Which is to say, Boyfriend broke up with me. I guess I should call him Ex-Boyfriend now. We're still living together, just in different parts of the house, but I'll be moving at the end of May. It's... awkward. Awkward completely embodies this whole situation. We make pretty good roommates though, so that does simplify the whole thing.

I kind of tried to keep the break up quiet, but I don't think I was very successful. I do this thing where I let my emotions show, so that makes hiding stuff hard. I'm not exactly OK with the situation, but it is what it is and, unfortunately, I can't change it.

I am kind of excited about moving out though. I'll be in my own apartment on my own for the first time ever. I've had roommates before, and with one exception, they, I mean it, was a disaster. Huge disasters. So I'll be decorating and buying (used) furniture, which is kind of exciting. Eventually I will buy a big girl TV. I'm really excited about that.

It will just be me and Cat though, which understandably makes me nervous. If she kills me on the weekend, she'll have a few days to eat my body before anyone finds me. Which is my cue to stop watching scary crime shows.

Especially when I'm living alone. I think I'm going to go buy some pepper spray. Or twelve.

So when it comes down to the right thing versus the fun thing,

I buy the fun thing.

So, my laptop is 4 1/2 years old. It's really slow, and at this point I've gone through 2 hard drives and at least 1 motherboard, and had to get new hinges which ended up meaning a new case. Sadly, I have what is generally considered a good computer, I think I just got a bum machine.

My laptop was never really fast enough or good enough for playing Sims 3 though (first world problems?), and the most recent expansion pack doesn't really work that well. The graphics don't work, but then again my graphics card wasn't even close to good enough for the base game and I couldn't have metallic things in the game. Now, however, the animals have spikes, yes, spikes, all over and they all have scary bug eyes. In essence, if a little kid saw one of these they'd have nightmares for weeks.

Plus, there's the whole part where I really want Windows 7 and a keyboard where all the keys work. Maybe I should thank Cat for ripping some of the keys off my keyboard (which makes it very hard type, btw) because last night I bought a laptop. A new shiny laptop that will work and I'll be able to play Sims and the keys won't pop off if my finger nail catches on them and it has a pretty screen too. I'm very excited about this, despite the fact that last night I freaked out about spending more than $20 on something. But I did it and this weekend (I hope) I'll have my laptop. I need to come up with a name for it.

By the way, the responsible thing to do with that money would have been to buy a night guard so I'll stop damaging my teeth by grinding them in my sleep. I rationalized it by saying that if I could play Sims without issues I'd be less stressed/angry and I'd probably stop grinding my teeth. I'm pretty sure it will work, and even if it doesn't I'll have more fun while I work on saving up my money for the night guard. I think I made the right decision.

Also, this entire post is one big example of first world problems. Also also, I love how annoying that phrase is, and I will probably be saying it obnoxiously for the next few weeks until I stop thinking it's funny.

Edit: Apparently I'm not getting that computer. It's back-ordered, so I'm not quite sure when I'll be able to get one. I'm pretty pissed about it, actually.

Baby it's cold outside (so shut the damn window)

I feel barfy right now. It might have something to do with the pie I just ate. Maybe not the pie itself but the quantity. Either way, I feel barfy and I don't want to do anything tonight.

Really, I didn't want to do anything anyway before I ate the pie. Side note, Cat pulled some of the keys off my keyboard yesterday, and now the "h" key keeps getting stuck on my finger and almost flipping off. Time for a new computer. But anyway, I didn't want to do anything tonight. Something about spending my day working with people and all of their frustrating habits (not listening, being rude, being selfish, etc.) I come home and just want to avoid people. My uncle pointed out today that most of my family dislikes people. Well, not people in general so much as stupid people. People who do idiotic things or are kind of just jerks are not looked upon favorably by my relatives. A few years ago my mom went to school to be a pharmacy tech and I was shocked, because that requires dealing with people, especially sick people (horror for a germaphobe).

Anyway...

Since I started working at the hotel I feel like I've become more hermit-ish. I don't want to spend time with the people I care about, because I spend so much time with the people that I don't like, the customers. I actually really like my co-workers, because they make going to work fun. But sometimes, the way people treat me, I just want to go home and spend my days off on the couch watching TV and playing Sims or running errands and basically doing things that don't involve actually spending time with people. Being social feels draining now, which is a shame. I used to spend a lot of time with people, even when I worked at the Youth Mentoring Program, where I arguably had a lot of really good friends, people I spent time with outside of work (I don't spend time with my current coworkers outside of the hotel). Maybe the difference was that we were all college students who had tons in common (classes, finals, boys, drinking) and now at the hotel we all have different interests and lives. I don't know, but I end up feeling disconnected.

I guess the point of this was to make sure that my peeps know that I don't avoid them because I no longer like spending time with them. I love you all and I really need to spend more time with you. I just kind of fail at that right now. My schedule will hopefully end up being a little more regular in the next few weeks (although I've been saying that for months) and my birthday is coming up, so hopefully I'll get my shit together and start being social again. Because I miss having you in my life, and I've got some seriously good work stories for you. Like, stories that top ANYTHING I've ever told you in the last 5 years. No, for real, yo.

My pets are a little special.

Each of my pets companion animals is a little weird. I mean, I've never met an animal that wasn't weird in some way, but I grew up with cats and dogs (and rodents and fish and chickens) and I have never had as eclectic a group of pets as I do now.

Cat has this love of fast food wrappers, especially the ones that have sausage flavor on them. Because I am not very good at making breakfast, and I frequently wake up so hungry I feel like vomiting, I eat a lot of fast food breakfast sandwiches, which in turn means that Cat gets to play with one on a regular basis. She goes ape-shit over them. This morning, in fact, I chucked one to her and she flat-out batted it out of the air. She's kind of a ninja when it comes to anything with meat on it. She'll run around with it in her mouth, and kill it repeatedly until she gets distracted by something else to attack or all of the meat flavor is gone.

Zorro is a whore for catnip. He loves that shit. We have this cat toy that has a track with a ball that a cat (or small dog) can WHACK and send it around and around the track. It also has a scratch pad in the middle. My favorite thing to do is to sprinkle catnip on the scratcher and wait for Zorro to smell it. And then he licks the pad, sits on it and won't let the other animals near it, bats at the ball, and then starts runningaroundlikeapossessedanimaloncrackandattackingtoysandfurniture until he either wears himself out or gets the munchies. He seems to love it, so I give him catnip once a week.

Dog really likes rawhide bones. Dingo bones seem to be her favorites, but she can eat one in about 10 minutes. She can eat a Dentastix in about 5. As you can imagine, those aren't very helpful numbers if I'm trying to distract her for a long time so I can give the cats a treat or put away groceries or something. For Christmas, I got her some rawhides from PetCo that look like peppermint sticks. It takes her HOURS to finish one. In fact, she's still working on that I gave her yesterday when I didn't have enough dog food for her breakfast. I try not to give her too many in a week, but it's keeping her occupied or her getting in my way and annoying the cats and me.

Don't get me wrong, I love them. All three of them. But sometimes they can be a little intense. Right now, for instance, Zorro is laying on top of my arm and he gets angry when I try to move him. He has to be laying on one of use at all times. If Chris and I aren't around, he makes Dog cuddle with him. Dog is laying on the couch too. If I didn't have a computer and she wasn't sleepy from running around the backyard for an hour, she'd be laying on top of me and trying to lick my face. Cat is somewhere in the house, either sleeping or plotting to kill me.

Our animals run my life, and I totally allow it. They annoy the snot out of me on a regular basis, but I love them too much to care.

Merry Christmas!

Dinosaur air-plants! RAWR!

The past month has been crazy. Ca-razy I tell you!

I've been working a lot and so is Chris. I feel like I say that every time I write something, but this time is more true than the others. The hotel just got a new operating system, so there was a week of training followed by a very long string of shifts I was working. My next check will be awesome! That meant, though, that I slacked off in a lot of different departments. I cleaned the house for the first time in almost a month last week. I finally went grocery shopping and cooked in the last few days, because we were living off fast food so there weren't any dishes or any more work that needed to be done. I also haven't called my little in almost 3 weeks. That needs to change but I feel weird about calling on a holiday.

Speaking of holidays, this was my first Christmas that I didn't go home for. I've missed the last 5 Thanksgivings, but Christmas? Christmas is where we make loaves upon loaves of pumpkin bread and dozens of cookies and at least 2 pies. We fry a turkey, and last year we got drunk and it took 2 people to make the mashed potatoes, while my aunt and I picked most of the skin off the turkey. I'm pretty sure my parent's neighbors think we're trashy. Oh! We also have way too many Christmas decorations. My mom has tons of snow globes, and knick knacks and ornaments and a leg lamp. Watching A Christmas Story is a very important part of our Christmas tradition, and we have a small leg lamp. That leg lamp probably sealed our neighbors' poor opinion of us. Whatever. They're missing out on turkey. And probably more fun than they've ever had. Losers.

This Christmas I had to work, so I wasn't able to go home. It was weird. Boyfriend and I have very different holiday traditions, and we were trying to mesh them together (which actually worked pretty well, I think) and our microwave is broken so making dinner was a pain and then the kitchen was too small for two people, so I made cookies all by myself instead of with someone. It was just weird.

But it was a lot of fun. Boyfriend and I bought each other gifts and ate tamales and gave our pets presents. Cat and Zorro each got a toy and 2 cans of cat food, while Dog got some raw-hides shaped like candy canes and a new tug-of-war toy. I won $2 on a scratch off that Chris gave me, and I gave him at least a 2-day supply of candy. It was fun.

Work is going to be slow tonight, but when I go home I can play Sims 3 Pets and eat a cherry pie. It will be wonderful!

I hope all of you are having a Merry Christmas surrounded by people that you love. I know that I did.

My cat has awful manners.

It all started when Boyfriend and I went on our 3-week European and cruise extravaganza of a vacation. Cat is picky as hell about grooming. Until recently, Cat barely allowed us to pet her, let alone brush her. We were certainly never allowed to brush her stomach, and other people definitely aren't, which can be a problem when said cat is a Maine Coon mix. She weighs 13 pounds, and roughly 5 of that is fur. she's just fluffy, literally. Suffice to say, I'm constantly picking out mats. Before we left, I tried really hard to make sure that she didn't have any mats, especially on her stomach. Apparently, I missed some. Either that, or they grew freakishly fast.

So while Boyfriend and I were in Italy eating pizza and shrimp risotto and croissants and drinking espresso, and in Spain eating paella and buying awesome red shoes, in Portugal going to wineries, on a cruise ship eating shrimp and steak and getting drunk every night, and swimming off private islands in the Bahamas, Cat was growing an epic mat on her stomach.

This mat covered her stomach from her neck all the way down to her tail. There were smaller ones on the backs of her legs and under her collar. I'm pretty sure it had a mind of its own. It's mostly Cat's fault, anyway. If she wasn't so protective and semi-wild, this wouldn't have happened.

This morning, I tricked Cat into a carrier, and took her to the vet. I warned the vet assistant that Cat will attack to protect herself. And apparently, Cat did exactly what I said she would. She came home with a fur-less stomach, clipped claws, and a dopey eye from the sedation (which they had to give her because she's crazy). My cat likes to try to kill people who are helping her, and then she growls at them.

My cat has no manners.