Author Archives: Cindy

feline shout-out

Posted on by

This is sort of tough to write because I don’t know where to start or what to say. Last summer, my sister’s cat Neffertiti had a tumor on her hip that turned out to be cancerous. She had her leg amputated, and she seemed to recover fine. The vet told my sister (aka Cosmopolitan, as she is known on some blogs) that if the cancer was going to come back, it would most likely do so within a year. Well, it’s been 8 months. She suddenly stopped eating and had a fever – X-rays showed that the cancer is back, and it’s in her lungs. She has a tumor about twice the size of her heart.

So tomorrow, my sister’s vet is coming to her apartment to put Neffertiti to sleep. They want her to be peaceful, and she’s scared of the vet, so they’re going to do it at home. The hope is that it will also help her other cat, Ramses (Neffertiti’s brother), cope with the loss, if he’s there with her when it happens. She’s only 9 years old, which isn’t terribly old for a cat. It’s just horrible – for her, for my sister, and for Ramses, who has never spent more than a day away from his littermate.

I wish I could say how sweet this cat is. She’s the first cat I ever met who had no concept of personal space, because she wanted to be in your face, being loved and adored, all the time. Nef sleeps on the same pillow with Cosmo every night (much the same way that Teenie does with me). She was the tiniest cat to ever terrorize our cat Fred. [A note about that photo, which I love: Neffie is the one in the red collar on the windowsill, getting as close as she can to Fred, who’s observing her from the safe distance of the cabinet. She was too little to jump up there, or she would’ve been right up in his face.] She was the first cat to fall asleep on my dad’s shoulder, who has always claimed to actively dislike cats. She prompted me to take this photo at the Luxor in Las Vegas. She’s just an all-around great cat, and I’ve had a lump in my throat for her and my sister all day today. So there you have it. Fare thee well, Neffertiti, and may there be lots of kitty treats and shoeboxes to nap in wherever you may go.

vacuum-robics?

Posted on by

My future brother-in-law (aka Dave’s brother), Steve, is coming here from the UK to live with us for about 3 months. He wants to start his own landscaping business, and since we live on 2 acres that’s pretty much completely un-landscaped (calling it a mess would be far too kind), this seems like as good a place as any for him to start building a portfolio. We’re going to do before & after pictures and everything. I’m reallly excited to see what he has in store for us. I know that he’s going to extend the deck around the side of the house – so the French doors in the dining room will no longer open up to a 3-foot drop to the ground – but other than that, I have no idea what else he has planned. It’s a weird thing about having this much space, it seems overwhelming to gardening novices such as myself, so I can’t really envision how it’s going to look, but I’m sure it’ll be great.

Anyway, since Steve is going to be arriving on Wednesday, I am in hyper-housecleaning mode. Not that he really cares how it looks – I mean, the reason he’s coming here is to help us out with our home improvements – this is just my reaction to any visitor’s arrival. (I think I inherited this “Oh crap, people are coming! Quick, tidy up the house!” gene from my mother.) Today, I vacuumed the stairs. I even used the hose attachment to get in all of the little corners where cat hair tends to accumulate. Has anyone actually tried to vacuum a flight of stairs? It’s no easy task, I assure you. That was quite an impromptu little cardio workout that I gave myself. I also rearranged the furniture in the living room – which probably would’ve been easier if I had waited for Dave to get home to help me, but I was determined to do it myself so he’ll be surprised when he gets back. Cleaning is also the primary item on the weekend agenda. If we’re efficient enough, we might even get around to painting my soon-to-be office so I can start putting furniture in there. (It’s sort of a puke green right now. No thank you.)

So yeah, that’s about all that’s going on right now. Monday is my last day at my current (old) job. I don’t start at the Big Software Company until March 14th, so it’ll suck to have no income for 2 weeks, but we’ll catch up. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

change is good, right?

Posted on by

This year, 2005, has been pretty amazing for me so far. I moved in with Dave. I turned 29 – my last official year in my 20’s. I got engaged, which is something that I think most people (including myself) thought I would most likely never do. I started planning my wedding – yet another thing I never quite saw myself doing. And then today, I got offered a job with the Biggest Software Company in the Free World, who I’ve wanted to work for since before I moved to Washington four years ago – and which just happens to be about a 30% raise from my current salary. Holy crap! And it’s only February. What on earth do you have in store for me, 2005? It’s simultaneously exciting and scary, because with all of this great stuff happening, I keep waiting for something bad to happen so things will even out. The universe has to have some sort of balance, doesn’t it? Or is this the payoff for a whole bunch of bad years past? It’s sort of strange to be elated and worried at the same time. I suppose I just need to relax and go with it, but let’s face it, how many of us humans are really all that adaptable to change? I put myself only a slight notch above my cat on that scale – I won’t lick myself bald when my routine gets thrown off, but it frazzles me nonetheless.

Totally switching gears: I got the pictures from our trip to Sun Mountain this past weekend posted online. There’s a whole other drama going on right now about how we’ve had no heat or hot water since we got back from our trip on Sunday afternoon, but that should hopefully be resolved within the next hour or two, so we’ll just leave that story alone.

P.S. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, our wedding date got changed. We really wanted to have it in this one place, which wasn’t available on May 7th. So now we’re getting married on Sunday, May 15th. Still less than 3 months to go!

the busy bee

Posted on by

So, let’s see. This week I found a dress, which has been ordered in my size, and since I paid a rush fee, it should be here in plenty of time before the wedding (also allowing time for any last-minute alterations that might need to be done). For the record, I have pictures of the dress so I could show it to my mom, Mags, my sister & a couple of friends, but I’m not posting them here. You’ll just have to wait until you see the wedding photos. I must say, though, that I am really annoyed with most of the women who work in bridal shops, who stare at me incredulously, and almost all of them say things like, “You’re getting married in less than 3 months and you’re just now getting around to looking for a dress??” I’ve been engaged for 4 days, lady, back off. Then they point me toward the maternity dress section. No thanks, it’s not that type of wedding. I promise.

Also, on Monday, I had a job interview at a very large software company that everyone in the world knows the name of, but which I shall refrain from writing here just in case they end up being my future employer. (Here’s hoping.) I was supposed to have a 2nd interview with them this morning, but the person I was supposed to meet with got stuck on the east coast and couldn’t get a flight back in time to meet with me. So that’s been postponed, probably until early next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

Today, I am frantically cleaning so we can take off this afternoon for the mountains in eastern Washington. I know I don’t have to leave the house spotless for the cat-sitter, but it makes me feel better if it’s at least somewhat presentable. Anyway, this is the romantic Valentine’s weekend trip that we were supposed to take last week, but then Dave got sick and it didn’t work out. I’m really excited to be going this week, I think some quiet time in the mountains will be wonderful. But before we leave town, we have a meeting with the event coordinator at the place where we want to have our wedding. This less-than-3-months thing is gonna be fun. Whee!

One last side note: Project Runway last night was FABULOUS!! It was “beat up on Wendy” night, which was awesome to watch. The one thing that disappointed me was that I thought I really liked Vanessa, but she was such a sour-grapes bitch that I’ve pretty much decided that I don’t like her anymore. But the outtakes were great – my favorite was during the credits, Austin flitting around in front while Jay was doing some kind of kung fu samurai thing with an empty roll of fabric as his sword/light saber in the background. Awesome.

The Ring

Posted on by

Now, I know I was bummed that Dave got sick last week and that we had to postpone our trip to the mountains in eastern Washington, but I actually had quite the spectacular Valentine’s Day weekend. Why, you ask? Well, I think this might have had something to do with it. Oh wait, is that not a good enough close-up? How’s this? That’s right folks, it is now official: Dave and I are engaged. I kind of had a suspicion that he was going to propose when we were on our trip (he’s a really bad actor), and even though we didn’t get to go on the trip, he was apparently too preoccupied with the idea of proposing to wait until next weekend. So instead, he proposed over the kitchen table on Friday night. Of course, I didn’t even hesitate to say yes. He then called my dad to get his blessing. It was a really great night.

The thing is, we had been talking about getting married in the fall, but then we realized that his mom and brother will both be here in the spring, my best friend Kris will be here after she finishes school for the semester, and the odds of getting everybody together again in 6 months seemed like an impossible task. So we’re getting married on May 7th. As in, less than 3 months from now. I’m only mildly starting to panic, but we’re going to keep the wedding very small, so it shouldn’t be too bad. The last thing I want is to go into Bride Stress Mode. Since my mom does alterations for a living, I have encountered many a bride-to-be in my day, and they all seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I don’t want that, I want to be the Fun Bride. (This is why I started doing goofy dances in a posh bridal shop yesterday to entertain Dave. And did I mention that I was trying on wedding gowns at the time?) I’m considering the idea of dressing the entire wedding party in clown outfits. Ok, so I’m really not. But this wedding is going to be fun, dammit!

So that’s my big news. I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day – although I don’t know if it’s possible for anyone to have had a better one than me.

In the name of all things holy

Posted on by

How, oh how, did Wendy make it to the final 3 on Project Runway? Someone please explain it to me, because I am distraught that Austin got cut. I know some people didn’t like him (I know some people even considered him dead to them), but even his strongest detractors must concede that just his blonde foppish bangs alone had more talent than Wendy has in her entire skunk-striped soul. Blah. Everyone knows she’s only there because the producers have a say in who gets cut. I hope she gets destroyed at fashion week.

Btw, if any of you read Manolo’s shoe blog, it has a great summary of this past episode of Project Runway. He’s also where I found these links to the final 3 designers’ web sites: Jay, Kara Saun, and even our nemesis, Wendy.

I also have to mention this great new blog that I found, the Bad Date Club. It’s basically 2 girls’ stories of their really horrible dating experiences as young, professional, single women living in a medium-sized midwestern town. I read the whole thing this afternoon, it’s hilarious. I cannot recommend it enough.

In other news: Dave is back home from Massachusetts, and he has some kind of weird cold/flu thing. So much for our big romantic Valentine’s weekend getaway to the mountains. Sigh. It’s ok, we’ve rescheduled for next weekend. In dog news, Rose has yet to reappear, so maybe her mom is being more attentive after getting a “hey, we have your dog” call from the neighbors. Oh, and I’ve had 2 job interviews this week, both of which were really promising (and both of which would include significant raises), so fingers crossed there. I guess that’s about it.

all by myself

Posted on by

Dave’s company has an office in Massachusetts, and he has to go there for a couple of days this week for some work-related thing. This only happens a couple of times a year, it’s not exactly the extensive travel requirements of my current job. So I dropped him off at the airport yesterday, and he’ll be back home on Wednesday. And for some unexplainable reason, I got totally freaked at the idea of staying here by myself. I mean, I’ve lived alone for the better part of the last 6 years, but I’ve always been in an apartment. There is something about living out in the country, and knowing that if I were to scream for help, there’s not even a remote chance that anyone would hear me. Also, the house is really big, so if I were upstairs in the bedroom, someone could break in the house and I wouldn’t necessarily hear them. So even though it’s somewhat irrational, I got kind of spooked. Before Dave left, I made him hang up the curtains in the living room (which we had taken down when we painted). There’s a huge bay window in there, and at nighttime, you can see inside from the street, which didn’t sit too well with me. There’s also a sliding glass door that leads to the backyard, but that doesn’t freak me out as much – I think because there’s two huge floodlights there, so if a crazy man with an axe comes running out of the woods toward the house, I’ll see him and have a chance to get a head start out the front door.

Speaking of the woods behind the house, yesterday when I got back from the airport, this was in the backyard. Shortly thereafter, one of her friends showed up. (It’s a bad photo, so I labeled it.) They’re really cute, but they confuse the hell out of the cats. Particularly Beaumont, who can’t seem to decide if they’re just super-huge mice that he should be hunting, or if he should run back in the house where it’s safe. He did get pretty close before deciding to vacate the premises, though.

Anyway, back to my spooked-out self, Dave pointed out that with 2 cars in the driveway and a light or two turned on, no one would be stupid enough to try to break in. So last night I left several lights on throughout the house, took 2 over-the-counter sleep aids (ahh, Tylenol PM, how do I love thee?), set the sleep timer on the TV to drown out any mysterious noises that I might hear while I was trying to fall asleep, and managed to sleep soundly through the whole night. So I think I’ll be fine if I stick with that routine. One night down, two nights to go.