Running Uphill

Ugh, today is the first day this week that my body has resisted the idea of running before work. I'm going to try and make it happen, and hopefully this "mind over body" experiment will continue happily. Maybe my grouchiness has something to do with the cat meowling as I tried to fall asleep this morning, and being awakened by same cat (and same meowling) this morning...

First Impressions

Got in yesterday, and promptly hit the town (the town being Chapel Hill). I must say, The Philosophress has done quite well for herself out her without me, and I mean that as a very sincere compliment. She introduced me to lots of fascinating people (she must not have told them *all* the details about me), but it was nice to hear people say they've been looking forward to meeting me.

The apartamento (as they say in Spain) is fabulous (but not ghetto fabulous), and I think the cats were confused to have me around, although they did not mind the fact that I was giving out head scratches in large quantities.

This seems like such a healthy place, where I don't have to worry about a dirth of quality people, where The Philosophress can thrive in her own element, and where I can come in and get myself comfortable with people and surroundings that make sense to me. So now I just have to lay the smackdown in tomorrow's interview and hope for the best. And yes, a picture of Irish Elvis will be making its way into my 10-minute PowerPoint presentation. This presentation will be memorable either way -- I'm doing my best to give the interviewers an easy decision. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly.

Playing the Game

So I'll be back in the Golden State soon, but not before making some random notes. First of all, the Texas wedding was fantastical (time off is always good, and awesome conversation with friends is super as well). I already know how Thursday's conversation at work is going to transpire:

"How was the wedding?"

"It was great!"

"Was it humid?"

"Oh gracious, yes! I mean it was terrible and sticky! Walking outside was like walking into a sauna!"

"I know! I can't imagine how anyone would want to live in that weather!"

One of the Life Lessons we've learned is that humidity is a small tradeoff to actually having great conversation, good community, and an environment that does not expect perfection. I'll accept the responsibility of doing laundry more frequently if it means we're surrounded by people who don't demand a facade.

Plus, all that humidity gives my skin a healthy glow.


And here's what happens when friends get together and show YouTube clips...

Adventurous!...or is it "Adventuresome"?

Either way, it should be phenomenal. Dallas for the De Leon wedding, Louisiana to visit some friends, do a little night fishing, and recall what humidity feels like. Good times! Here's to thunderstorms all week...I'm not exactly sure what The Philosophress and I have done to deserve such amazing traveling weather, but it must have been something serious.

Oh, and the little valium helper to keep the cats calm while driving? Apparently it made them howl/drool for 14 hours straight today. I didn't want to suggest swerving into oncoming traffic; I think The Philosophress might have considered it...

Big Wheels Keep On Turning

Finally, finally.

The Philosophress is winding her way East, and the past week has been an exhausting whirlwind for both of us. Ironically, we had a fantastic time with friends last night -- packing up stuff in moving cubes -- the first time we've been able to host a group at our place.

The sight and sound of an empty house brought back some very uncomfortable memories; namely the crappy job, feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, and isolation setting in. I had to remind myself that my emotions were revolting from the realization that California was not as advertised and there was no foreseeable way out.

California: Still room for millions of immigrants; also home of crazy bosses.

It's just so relieving to have The Philosophress physically moving towards what we've been hoping and planning for about a year now. Of course, she has the cats, but hopefully they'll play nicely with their traveling companion, Mr. Valium. I figured I can choose to look at this time of life like my family (change is sad/difficult/to be avoided) or more like my Europe trip (I already know I'm getting in over my head, so I might as well have a blast!) I'm tired of taking life so seriously that I resort to inaction, and goodness knows the geographical surroundings have dictated self-preservation mode. I'm just trying to shift my attitude to fit the more relaxed and adventurous environment that lies ahead.

In other news, The Philosophress is making camp in Needles, CA tonight, on the banks of the Colorado River. Tomorrow she hopes to teach the cats how to escape from quicksand, Bear Grylls-style.

Working Out the Kinks

Okay, Philosophress here, let me purvey a quick explanation for my last blog post about bathing cats. Like many married couples, G$ and I do not always communicate perfectly with each other. :) So when I told him I had written out a quick narrative of what went on Saturday night with the cats to use on the blog sometime, I did not in fact intend him to go ahead and put it out there on the web in all its unfinished, unedited, flow-of-conciousness glory. Trust me, I know you don't all want to hear the long boring version of how we bathed our cats. My own mother probably wouldn't humor me through that detail-laden anecdote. That said, my intent has now been cleared up and sometime in the next few days you can expect the G-man to revise said cat-bathing entry in a more humorous way to keep all of you entertained. To show you proof of my intent to actually keep things more interesting, check out the new picture I just added to the cat-bathing entry ;)

Anyway...the moral of this story is please don't stop reading G's blog just because you want to avoid weird stories about cats (although if you get sick of all the big words and obscure literary references he uses, that might be a legitimate excuse)...I promise in the future this will not be the normal characteristic of the content he/we put up here. Grazie!

News & Notes from around the League

Couple random things to start the week. First, the Philosophress is fulfilling her prescribed “one blog for every two of mine” quota quite nicely. Actually, it’s probably more of her just humoring me (and hopefully y’all / you’s guys / y’ins also). Quick backstory on the cats. The Philosophress let me name our first cat, and I was hoping for a ND name, but figured Rockne, Sorin, etc. were overused and too common. Before settling on Morrissey, the Philosophress commented, “If it turns out the cat is a jerk and doesn’t like us, we can just change his name to Zahm and kick it around!”

Isabella, of course, derives her name from her Italian roots and also from the Sultry Sicilian who is responsible for the sequence of events that found me bathing cats instead of bowling on a Saturday night (or is that “Summer Monday Nights”?)

You might think that the way we bathed Isabella on Saturday was a neat and novel trick (actually, you probably didn’t think that, just pretend). Not coincidentally, T-Rugg and I used to employ the “baby talk, warm water, and washcloths” method to calm Stags down when he needed to shower back in the day (you should have seen him scratch and claw in protest!)

Also, there was frost on the ground this morning in sunny SoCal, and I’m looking forward to Chicken Little doubling as the weatherman on the local TV/radio/internet today.

Lastly, our church out here is super-hip (that’s what everyone looks for in a church, right?). More serious church topics later, but apparently, when the church purchased new chairs a year ago, part of the selection process involved the “thong check,” which meant the staff had to insure that no female unmentionables would be visible during standing and sitting. I’m really not sure what to think about this…part of me thinks that’s way over the top, but another part finds that tremendously ingenious and considerate to the male population. And then there’s the part of me that wonders if they auctioned off the “Quality Control Inspector” privileges to the highest bidder. Exactly which pastor is in charge of such things? Can you put that on your resume if you’re applying for a new job? Can chair manufacturers use this as a part of their sales pitch? One thing’s for sure…the Philosophress will be going to church clothed in a Bedouin-inspired shroud from this point forward.

Typical Saturday Night?

Yes, this is what our lives have been reduced to...only read if you're reaaaally bored :)

Sooooo, you may know, we have two cats now--Morrissey (10 mos. old) and Isabella (almost 6 mos.). Tonight was our first experience bathing BOTH cats (because, you know, what else do normal 25 year olds do on saturday nights? lol).

We were going to bathe Mo first but as I'm climbing in, we turn around and realize he's eating something off the floor...and yes, as if he knew what was coming, he picked that exact moment to throw up for the first time since we've had him. Alrighty!

So, not wanting to make matters worse, we put him in the other bathroom to let his tummy settle and tackled Isabella first. So I climbed in and sat down on the edge of the tub, armed with a bucket of warm water, wash cloths, and a towel across my lap . And, will wonders never cease, she was perfectly behaved as I held her on my lap and wet her down, we lathered her up and alternated holding her while rinsing her off. No claws, no real effort to run away, she even was good about letting us towel dry her. With her the trick we realized was to baby talk her the whole time so she felt safe, hehe.

So we put her in another room to let her finish drying herself off, and bring Mo in. He fights us from the beginning, but when he realizes we're not going to let him run away, he turns around towards me and spends the rest of the bath time with his paws desperately clinging to my shoulders (or at one point, wrapped around my neck). The good thing is he doesn't use claws so he wasn't hurting me, but I guess he needed to nuzzle up against my face and cling as tightly to me as possible to be assured we weren't trying to punish him or something. Due to my incapacitation as a makeshift security blanket, Irish Elvis was voted the washer/rinser for the rest of the Mo bathing experience. And so they lived happily ever after...or at least until the next bathing experience :)