Julius!

So remember how sometime 3-4 months ago I told you that our fat orange wonderful cat Julius ran away? Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles....Guess who showed up at our apartment Tuesday night!?

I'm pretty sure Whitney Houston was singing "I Will Always Love You" somewhere during the reunion of laughter and tears and purring and so much Julius affection.

He's really skinny (the once plump tummy is now concave) and has a few battle scars that weren't there before and his meow has gotten older somehow, but it's definitely him. And he's sitting on my lap right now pulling chunks of flesh out of my leg with his love claws. But I let him do it, because it makes him happy and I'm just so excited that he's home and alive and that I can fatten him up again and pet him and kiss him (he hates it but he loves it) and keep him warm and safe during the winter.

Tylor had predicted that Julius would come home once the first snow of the season fell, and I always felt it was wishful thinking and Julius was long gone, but I guess I should never give up hope on these things. Guess what else happened on Tuesday? The first snow of the season.

The kittens (who are getting bigger and bigger every day, but are still the kittens) aren't quite sure what to make of their new big brother. They don't get along particularly well: Julius seems to prefer a world where they leave him alone and he leaves them alone; they seem to prefer a world where they smell Julius every chance they get and swat at his tail whenever the opportunity arises. Tiberius has become protective of his cuddle time. If I'm petting him and Julius comes up, he'll hiss at him which is kind of cute because he's so brave to stand up to Julius who is still huge comparatively, but I would of course prefer that we all cuddle together. Fidel is a little terrified of Julius, who has beat him up on a few occasions over the past days (no major fights, but enough to make sure Fidel knows his place), but Fidel also idolizes Julius. The wonder on his little panther kitten face when he watches Julius jump onto counters he could only dream of reaching or open up cupboards when he wishes he knew how is so adorable.

The Catch:

We are only allowed to have less than or equal to two pets at our apartment. While it's fairly likely that we could get away with having all three without getting caught, there is a $2000 fine if you are caught with an unauthorized pet (ridiculous, I know, but it is on a contract that I signed so I have to live with that), and that's too much of a risk to be worth it. It's heart-wrenching to break up our family when it's just been made whole again (or more whole...I still wish Lyric were here, too), and I don't want to have to pick a cat to get rid of. I love them all so much. It probably makes the most sense to give away Julius because Tiberius and Fidel get along so well and they're who we've grown accustomed to having, but it still breaks my heart. And where could he go? If any of you reading this would be interested in or know anybody who would be interested in giving my Julius a good home, please let me know. If you'd like, it could be a temporary thing: our contract in the current apartment is up in six months and if we could find somewhere where we can have three cats after we live here, we'd be happy to take him back. Please let me know if any of you have any ideas.

Oh my sweet Julius kitty.

And since it is Halloween, but a kitty post, I'll end with what I would dress up each of the cats as for the holiday if I could only get them to wear anything:

Julius - Firefighter
Tiberius - Bumblebee
Fidel - 30s era Gangster

So I checked my personal email today...

and was shocked to discover that apparently I haven't been on there in a little over a month. Tons of unread messages. Sorry to those of you who try to contact me there. I just keep forgetting it exists. I spend very little time on a computer outside of work and when I'm at work I'm working. I'll clean it up today.

Twitter Post

Each bullet point contains 140 characters or less:

• I feel like an old fogey when people talk about Twitter. "Who needs/wants that kind of new-fangled I'm-so-in-touch-ness?

• The commercials for Apple Jacks where the main point was "They don't taste like apples?": Did those convince anyone to buy Apple Jacks?

• Long ago, a French class spent a day listening to NPR so Mme Sacco could hear her name as a donor. Only time I enjoyed pledge drive season.

• Becca, upon meeting Fidel: "Perfect name! He looks just like the cat from Pinocchio!" The cat from Pinocchio's name: Figaro. Silence from me.

• Even in this format, It's hard to avoid bullet points like "Mm...pop tart" or "It sure is hot for September". Update for the sake of update.

• Am I a terrible person if I give a good reference for an employee because I want him to get a new job so I don't have to deal with him?

• Science Friday is the worst day of the week.
  

• Limiting to 140 characters is harder than expected. But still a fun challenge. And I have yet to use "4" for "for" or any of that crap.

• The editing skills I'm practicing will help with writing [Next Great American Novel]. My Biggest Writing Weakness: I'm an over-explain-er.

• Though sometimes things are lost in the quest for ≤140 characters. I really wanted to use the phrase "predilection for over-explanation" in the last one, but couldn't make it fit.
  

• And now, of course, I'm cheating by stringing "tweets" together that would normally be in the same paragraph.

Promotion Day

You are reading the blog of the new call center manager of the esteemed establishment I work for. Moving on up. Woot!

And on this same day, Trevor was promoted from supporting dial-up to supporting broadband, which hopefully means the people he'll be working with won't be quite as technologically behind the times.

One of my first tasks in my new position would have been to conduct a job interview for a prospective new collector, but we got a call from his father this morning saying he died of a drug overdose. Promising beginnings.

Kitty News

So in kitty news: Julius has been missing for a while now. Maybe I'm just a terrible cat mother? It's even more devastating than Lyric missing. Trevor and I have had Julius since before we were married. With his big lion paws and soft proud chest. I love Julius.

But we have acquired a new kitten. He is gray and white with black-man-hair-texture fur and a serious face. His name is Fidel. And he and Tiberius have kitten battles all day long and are great pals. I love Fidel.

Tiberius is getting really big. I didn't realize until we got Fidel how he's turning into a little cat instead of a kitten. Tiberius is at least twice as big as Fidel. He's getting close to cat puberty, so it's time to get the little guy neutered. We have an appointment for next Monday. I love Tiberius.

Coming Soon...

I promised Trapper that I would post yesterday and didn't, so I'm a terrible person. Every blogger has that person who is their "you need to post again" conscience, and Trapper is mine.

The excuses: I'm too busy to post at work and I rarely get computer time at home.

But it'll happen. Some sort of new post. The first step is recognizing you have a problem so I've at least gotten that far.

Huh.

I'm feeling a lot sadder about Ted Kennedy's death than I thought I would. Huh.

Alabamians and all the rest of those Get-Rich-Quick Dial-Up Users

I work in the online payday loan industry. Let me first of all say that I have respect for our customers and all ribbing is done in good fun. However, a good chunk of our clientele happens to consist of people from the South named Lawquinda.

My darling husband Trevor does tech support for dial-up users (aka people from the South with names like Twaquiqua), so he can relate (and even top a good deal of my stories).

Basically, our livelihood depends upon these people:



Coworker Emilie: "We should change our website to something a little more appealing to our clientele, like getyocash.com."

Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent trying to say "Get Yo' Cash, this is Emilie" in our most professional phone voices without cracking up.

Book Cart Drill Team Champ

Thank you All Things Considered, for giving me a really really good reason to be a librarian.

I can't decide if my favorite quote from the story is "Our carts at home don't do wheelies as well as the models we use here. These are full-competition models." or "There's a stereotype that librarians are boring. And I think they want to change that stereotype to 'librarians are crazy.' "

Dear my family,

I think we should all become librarians, because we would totally rock this competition. I know you agree. Thank you.

Love, Andrea

ANTM Dreaming

So I had this dream last night that I was on America's Next Top Model and they kept forgetting my wardrobe and makeup and stuff so everyone elses' pictures where all awesome and mine were just me standing there. But I somehow got to the top five anyway (and probably would've done even better if my alarm didn't go off during judging).

Anyway, I told a couple of my coworkers about it this morning and the response was "Do you watch that show 24/7 or what?" And then they related to me two other dreams I'd told them about ANTM in the last month. I had forgotten about both of them. Now I'm a little embarrassed.

Whatever, they won't be laughing when Tyra Banks crowns me America's Next Top Model.