The Cat is a big bully

The Cat (Maia) is the undisputed Queen Animal of the household.  She is the sweetest, most loving, devoted cat you will ever find.  Unless she is in one of her Moods.  Then she becomes a Queen B#@%.  This side of her also comes out when she has to co-exist with other animals.

The vet once told me, "Your cat is highly susceptible to stress.  She should probably be in a single-animal household."  Too bad for her, I thought, she's gonna have to learn to deal.  All things considered, she's learned to deal fairly well.  As long as she can bully the dog around and eat the dog's food, she's perfectly fine with the arrangement.

And it works out all right, because The Dog is a complete and total wuss.  Example?  When we were in Kansas over Christmas, she let my brother's two ferrets kick her out of her kennel.  As in, she would be hanging out in her kennel and the ferrets would wander in and she'd look around like, "WTF?  What are these things?  Why are they in my kennel?  Oh well I guess I'll just get out and let them have it."  And the ferrets would go to sleep in her kennel while Chloe looked at us with sad eyes on the living room floor.

So recently we got The Dog a new bed.  We fluffed it up all nice and laid her favorite blanket on top.  Unfortunately for The Dog, it appears that The Cat (in full Queen B mode) decided that the new bed was hers.  So when The Dog approached the new bed, sniffing around and thinking, "gee this bed sure smells like my favorite blanket" she would wake up The Cat (curled up sleeping on the bed).  Maia would hiss and swat and Chloe would wander off with a kind of stumped look on her face.

She's such a sweet little pudgy bundle of joy, my cat.

The 2% Rule

If anyone wants to know, they do not sell alarm clocks at Macy's.  In case you are in there with a gift certificate to buy a shawl for an outfit and you don't want to stop at another store to get a clock.  You will unfortunately be forced to spend your gift certificate money on other necessary items, like shoes or a new dress, or maybe some pretty wine glasses...

A N Y W A Y.  We needed a new alarm clock because, as you may recall, the old one sounded like a turbo jet about to take off at any given moment.  So I bought us a new clock.  I shelled out the $17 after I left Macy's and found a store that does sell alarm clocks. 

THIS CLOCK IS MAGICAL.

I mean, literally, magical.  Like, you plug it in to the wall and you don't have to set the time.  It just knows.

The clock is also smarter than me.  Here is how it went down.

The Husband was already sleeping, so I had to figure out how to take the clock out of the box, plug it in to the wall and set the time and alarm and stuff in the dark.  I was marginally successful in removing the clock from the box and getting it plugged in.  Then came the tricky part.  Since I couldn't read any of the buttons in the dark, I had to keep illuminating them with my cell phone light. I searched and searched, but I could not find the button that said "time set."  I probably turned the clock over searching it for the fabled "time set" button for fifteen minutes.

This is where I failed the 2% rule.  What is the 2% Rule? you may ask.  I will tell you.

The 2% Rule states:  "In order to successfully manipulate an object, you must be at least 2% smarter than the object you're trying to manipulate."

I finally had to admit defeat.  My new clock was smarter than me.  With an audible sigh, I went to get the instructions manual.  (Yes, it's true.  I needed to read the instructions for a $17 clock.  I've had lunches more expensive than that clock.)

After flipping through the Spanish and French versions, I found the English instructions.  They read that one just needed to set the clock to the proper time zone, and that's it.

Wha?  The clock already knows what time it is?  And the clock functions within time zones?  I didn't believe it.  I went back to look at the clock.  Sure enough, it stared back in unblinking letters the exact time in Eastern Standard.  After turning the little knob to "Mountain" I was done.  I tell you, MAGICAL.

I guess it's been like almost a decade since I've truly bought an alarm clock.  Am I really that behind the times?  Is this magical time-knowing thing pretty standard these days?

Time to head to the sacred caves

Er, I mean, it's Valentine's Day.  (If you want to make sense of my obscure reference, click the link here on Roman History).

Because I like having an excuse to dress up all pretty and have a candlelit dinner with my honey, Chris and I celebrated with a romantic Saturday night at one of our favorite local restaurants.  (Celebrating a day early because you know, the whole Monday-workday thing).  Our first choice was one of the valley's most popular romantic dinner destinations, and this is what they told me when I called:

ME: I know this is probably a silly question but, do you have any available reservations tonight?
HOST: (Once he stopped laughing hysterically) No, I'm sorry, we're all booked.
ME: That's pretty much what I expec--
HOST: Oh, wait, I shouldn't say that.  That's not true.  We could probably fit you in... 11?  11:30?
ME:  11:00 PM?
HOST:  Yes.
ME:  Okay, um, well... thanks anyway.

When I visited their website later I noticed that they started taking reservations January 7th.  Not really a surprise that they were booked.  But our second choice was just as delicious, and we were able to snag a reservation at the (comparatively) early hour of 9:00 PM.

Also, last Thursday I made some Red Velvet cupcakes for everyone at work.  I was so proud of how pretty they looked that I spent a good half an hour taking about twelve thousand pictures of them from all different angles.  I had to hold them up really high to get enough light from the overhead lamp.  Thankfully Chris was sleeping on the couch while I was doing this, so no one was around to look at me all weird as I performed the awkward ballet of balancing a plateful of cupcakes while simultaneously shoving a camera lens close enough to touch the frosting.



And, as these type of things go, it turns out the first picture I took was the best one.

A Normal Kind of Conversation

CHRIS:  We need a new vacuum.  This one sucks.  I mean, doesn't suck, technically.

ME: Can we get a purple one?

CHRIS:  Can we get a purple one what?

ME:  Vacuum.

CHRIS:  Can we get a purple vacuum? 

ME:  Yes, we were still talking about vacuums.

CHRIS:  Why do you want a purple vacuum?

ME:  Because purple is a pretty color.

(Duh.)

And this is when Chris rolls his eyes and says, "you are ridiculous" as if that answers my question on whether we can purchase a new vacuum in shade of purple, or not.

I Want Candy

Let’s face it, Chris and I don’t always communicate on the same wavelength. Chris thinks in very straightforward, black-and-white lines. I think in circles and tangents and lots of color and -- ooo look,a butterfly.



But one thing that Chris is good at is interpretation. He knows that “it’s nothing” means “I’m upset about something that you did” and that “I maybe cleaned the catlitter box” means “I thought about cleaning the catlitter box but then a good show came on TV and I got distracted.”

So, when Chris asked me last year what I wanted for my birthday, and I said “nothing” he knew this meant he still had to get me something.  He's no dummy.

When I said I didn’t want anything for my birthday, it didn’t mean that I literally wanted nothing. It just meant that I didn’t need a huge fancy gift, and that there (honestly) wasn’t one thing in particular that I wanted. In other words, some flowers and nice cake would be fine.

He complained that "I know if I don't get you something you'll be upset, so why can't you just name one thing that you want so I don't have to guess what to get you?"

I was reminded of this conversation during Ryan Seacrest's radio show the other morning.  Some lady called into Ryan Seacrest asking for advice. (I have yet to figure out why people call RS asking for relationship advice, but whatever.)  Here’s the basics of how the conversation went:

LADY: I have a problem.
RS: Okay, what is it?
LADY: Well, my boyfriend asked me what I wanted for Valentine’s Day, and I told him that he didn’t need to get me anything.
RS: So what’s the problem?
LADY: I’m worried that he’s not going to get me anything.

Yes, this lady told her boyfriend she didn’t want anything for Valentine’s day, and then got worried that he would actually listen to her and she’d get nothing on V-day.

Thank goodness Chris knows better. If you’re reading this, honey, I promise you don’t have to get me anything for Valentine’s day. Really. *snort*

TYSE #2: Not a Breakfastfood

Since it's Sunday, and since nothing really interesting has happened since The Dog almost ran away, we'll call today a "Sunday Advice" kind of day.  As in, stuff-you-shouldn't-eat kind of day.

I woke up one morning hungry for breakfast.  Since I didn't feel like getting dressed and going to the store for food, I did a quick inventory of available foods in my kitchen.  (I had just graduated college and moved to L.A.  I had no job and my cost of living had just doubled.  Ergo, I was not spending a lot of money on food.)

I had frozen potstickers and strawberry jam.  I decided to eat them.  Together.

This is the vision that I had:



Turns out, notsomuch.

Just because you smother your chicken potstickers in microwaved strawberry jam, this does not mean they will taste like miniature crepes.  Even if you put whipped cream on them.

TYSE #2: Strawberry Potstickers.

Terrorizing the Neighborhood

The front door on our rental house is faulty.  It doesn't latch, so if you forget to dead-bolt it, and it happens to be a windy day... ahem.  The next thing you know the front door is wide open.

And if you happen to be upstairs when said door is opened and you don't realize that you've just posted an open invite to the neighborhood...the animals see this, and they get curious.  They decide maybe they would like to explore the wild.

Chris gets a call from one of the neighbors.  The dog had wandered outside the wide-open front door as our neighbor was walking her dog, also a 2-year-old lab.  Chloe decided they could be great friends.  So she followed our neighbor and her dog home.

The neighbor finds our number on Chloe's tag and calls Chris. "So your dog is in my backyard, is she friendly with other dogs?"

"Um, yes, dogs, people, cats, squirrels... whatever.  She's not picky."

The neighbor lets her dog into the backyard with Chloe.

When Chris gets there to retrieve our mutt, he walks up to the neighbor's backyard gate and there's Chloe, happy as a clam and playing tug-of-war with her new best doggy friend.

The zebra whisperer

I bet you don't get to work with a zebra.

Okay, okay, I don't actually work with a zebra.  But I do get to see a zebra while I'm at work. 



Actually make that two zebras:




Although I should really say it's two zebras, a couple of ponies, half a dozen horses, one mule and a llama.  Oh, yeah, and a camel.  This is what happens when you live too close to L.A.