Everything I Like Causes Cancer

I get one day I can work from home per week.  I am scheduled to take it on Fridays but in the event of inclement weather I can switch days.  It is snowing and sleeting here so I decided to switch days and work from home today.

My heart grew three sizes yesterday when I read your sweet comments on the passing of Michael K. Brown. It was so nice of all of you to take a moment and grieve with me. I held a mid-morning memorial service in the ladies' room (because the guys kicked me out of theirs.)

Mr. Michael was a beauty. He had a red body with long, curly blue fringe. It was unnerving to find him on the bottom of his bowl this morning, pale and motionless, but I didn't cry. He had been slightly off the past couple weeks and I wasn't surprised to see him move on.

He was a funny fish. He would come to the edge of his bowl every morning to greet me and helped me focus during tough negotiations.

Such beauty doesn't typically get paired with brains and a great personality, but here he is standing on his head and acting silly to remind me that I shouldn't take myself so seriously. He was a great little office pal. I'll miss him.

But I don't guess I have to convince you guys that having an office fish is groovy. It would seem my Internet niche includes the fish-owning peoples. I was surprised by the number of you who own or have owned a beta. Interesting. I still haven't figured out yet how that's meaningful, but it feels like it is.

Moving on . . . did I tell you guys about bowling yet? No? On Friday afternoon we closed the office early and went bowling. Two games, a pair of shoes, and all the fried food you can eat is all it takes to keep us happy.

The best part was when my team, made up of four girls, won the first game. Yup, you heard me, we won. One member of our team is on an actual league and bowled a 162 or something krazee, but there was one team with three guys on it. I did bowl over 80, as instructed, but I'm fuzzy on the exact score. (See Saturday morning's post for clarification.)

We each got an old bowling pin as a prize for winning the first game. The alley owner had marked each one with the name of our company and the date and they let us write all over them. It was more gay than signing yearbooks but a lot more fun. Mine's going in the garden next spring.

The candy is supposed to be in the bowl. The bowl is supposed to be on the table. The picture is supposed to be upright.

And he acted all lovey-dovey while I cleaned it up.

BTW, I'm still pressed for time this week so this is what you get today and since I won't be home tonight (we're seeing Richard III in Forest Park) you're likely to get an LOL cat tomorrow. Just a warning.

Apparently Fernando and the younger of my two cats, Skyler, bonded during some late-night discussions and now Skyler thinks he should get to travel, too. So much so, in fact, that he has set up residence in my suitcase and refuses to move until I send him somewhere. Perfect. Of course I end up with the cat who understands civil disobedience.


Any suggestions? Outside taking care of the mountain of laundry, that is.

Just ask my boys . . . this one was on the floor 0.02 seconds before they were fighting over who got to be in it.

My neighbor Larry came out and told me he had seen Sky on his front porch about midnight Friday night. I could tell he felt so bad that he hadn't brought him in so I staved off the sobbing until I was down the street. It was about 3-4 houses down that I found him. I went up onto this one porch and as I was sliding the flyer in their door, I heard his tiny squeak of a meow and he came running to me.

I guess I have to stop calling him my baby cat. He went on an adventure and earned his big boy pants. The little stinker fought me the whole way home.

I am certain that everyone in town now knows I am not exactly the hard nut I seem to be: I cried all over town today. The guy at Kinkos who helped me make the flyers asked me how my day was going and in response huge crocodile tears came rolling down my face. I was never able to recover.

And after I found him? An even bigger blubbering mess.

Huge thanks to all of you who called or wrote or prayed. You made my Christmas Miracle happen and for that I will be forever grateful.

5:50 PM UPDATE: I just received a call from the lady at whose house I found Skylar. She said she was so sorry - that she knew he had been on her porch all weekend but felt as if he was the reincarnation of her recently passed dog. She said that she was going to look after him one more day and then call the Humane Society. She was very relieved to hear that I had scooped him up and carried him home. She was so sweet.

5:57 PM UPDATE: I just got another call. The gal said she had seen him around for the past couple days and she was certain that he belonged to someone because "he was so friendly." She said she was just about ready to "do domething to figure out where he belongs." I told her that I was certain he had been taken in by someone and that it means so much to know that the neighborhood is filled with people who would call the Humane Society.

BTW, after scooping him up, running home, and crying for 20 minutes, I did actually go back out to reclaim the flyers but most of them had already been taken in.

So remember how I said I was going shopping for a new desk chair? I got one! I got a really nice one. I left the house with a spending limit of $100 and the knowledge that The Right Chair could make me spend more. This one did. It is extremely comfortable so I will no longer crippled by the hours I spend blogging and reading I Can Has Cheezburger.

I went to Big Lots first. Always check there first because you never know what they are going to have at any given time. And when you can find what you are looking for? Always cheaper.

Anyway, Big Lots had a pretty good chair and it was under $100, but I knew I could do better. After setting up a highly scientific experiment (leaving my full cart in the aisle at Big Lots with the intention of coming back later to see if it was still there - it was) I went down the street to Office Depot where I found The Throne. The Throne is leather, is comfortable, and isn't too big for my tiny antique desk. The two pieces don't exactly match but my sciatica doesn't care about matching.

I also picked up a couple cat beds for The Boys. As soon as I took the tags off this one, Max was in it and sawing logs. This wasn't even the one I intended for him - it's the smaller of the two that I bought. He barely fits in it, but since I haven't been able to get him out of it I guess he doesn't mind.

This is Max, the oldest of my two cats. He's five. When I sat down with the mail this evening after work, I heard a far-away but urgent meowing. I immediately panicked because I knew it meant Max was locked in a closet somewhere in the house.

Understand that his passion, the thing that gives him the most joy in life, is slipping into open closets undetected. He's invisibly quick. Which has brought him some trouble in the past. Like the 36+ hours he spent in the hall closet one Christmas while I was at my parent's house. He'd have been there MUCH longer if I hadn't gotten that cold-finger-up-my-spine intuition that told me I needed to get home. NOW.

When I arrived home that night I could hear him wailing as I walked up the back steps. I felt horrible. I was heartbroken. That is, until his first order of business was not food, or water, or the box, but rather the catnip. The catnip that his Aunt Tammy had gotten him for Christmas. He's such a junkie. As a testament to his extreme obedience, though, he did not potty in that closet. At least he's a hygienic junkie.

So, this invisible quickness of his? Most recently landed him three days in a storage room in the basement, his most very favorite place to slip into. Without fail, he will sneak in there when I've got my head in a box of Easter baskets or some such. It's happened so many times that now I prop the door open when I leave and close it the next time I'm down there.

I'm not sure how long he spent in there this time because I just can't remember what day I closed the door. I know he was around the house on Saturday because I had company who commented on how pretty he is. So it had to be Sunday . . . ?

Whatever day it was, he was in there long enough this time that he couldn't hold it. Given his circumstances, I'm impressed he was considerate enough to go on an old outdoor cushion that should've been pitched last spring.

He's taking it pretty well - he and Skylar are chasing each other through the house and I've already had to yell at him three times for chewing on the plant.