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As of today, we have two new kitties. They are three-month-old male grey tabby kittens. They are also siblings. However, they were cursed with lame names, so please, if you have any suggestions, let us know muy pronto.

I located another pet shelter close to our place, so I decided to go by at lunch today and see what they had. I picked Danny up at his office, grabbed a quick lunch, and then headed over to the shelter. It was a madhouse. The shelter is run by volunteers and is only open four days a week. There were families with kids there, but according to the sign-up sheet, everyone had come in to look at dogs. When they called our names, a volunteer took us to the cat area. We saw the kittens first and then moved on to the older kitties. There weren’t really any that I was crazy about, but there were plenty of sweet kitties to choose from. We went back to the kitten area to play with some of the babies. There was a cage with four grey kittens - two male and two female. I picked up one of the males and he went limp in my arms. They had all been in a foster home and were used to being handled. A volunteer then told us that the females had been adopted and the new owner would be back to get them later.

This is when I knew I had to make a decision. I really wanted to get two older cats that were either siblings or had grown up together. I hadn’t been able to find any in this situation either because the pair had been split up or the shelter wasn’t aware of which cats arrived together. I had found some really sweet older cats, but I was worried that randomly picking two older cats to socialize might be risky because they might fight all of the time.

Here was my chance to get two young siblings who obviously enjoyed each others company. After telling Danny my plan, we decided to adopt the two male kittens. A volunteer told us that since they were both siblings, we would get a two-for-one special. Instead of paying $150 for both, we only paid $100. This included neutering, vaccinations, flea-treatment, 5lbs of kitten food, and a free vet visit. Everything except the vet visit had been completed and the cats would be ready to go home with me in an hour.

I took Danny back to work, then returned to the shelter to go over the paperwork. I had the cat carriers ready to go and the volunteers gave me some towels for the cats to snuggle in while I took them home. I loaded up the kitties and drove them home. I placed the carriers so that they could see one another. They didn’t cry until we were almost to the house. I set up all of their stuff in our bathroom and left them alone to get used to their new surroundings. I checked on them now and then and, after a couple of hours, they were snuggled up on the counter together purring away.

When Danny got home, we drove over to petco to get them some toys. Although they are probably content to play with each other, we wanted to get them some kitty toys so they would know that those were for biting, not our hands.

When we got home, we set them free to explore the living room. They raced all over the place. They have been too hyper to cuddle yet tonight, but Danny and I have had fun wearing them out with their new fishing rod cat toy. They are both quite acrobatic although they need to work on their depth perception as they’re racing around corners.

The best discovery of all is that they both know how to use the litterbox. Hallelujah!

Oh yeah, cat names…help, please!

Danny and I made it back to CA yesterday. I’m glad to be back although it is unusually cold, wet, and rainy. It’s not bad though. I just forgot how spoiled I was not having to drive in the rain for nearly six months.

Now that we’re back, we are actively cat shopping. We decided a while ago that we would get two cats after Christmas. We visited two shelters today and found some really cute kitties, but the adoption process is long and arduous (I know, WTF?) so we probably won’t bring the cats home until next week. We had to make an adoption appointment and the earliest time is Monday at noon. We’re both off work on Monday so it should be fine. We’re going to visit one more shelter tomorrow that does not require “appointments” so maybe we’ll have hairy babies by tomorrow night. Yes, I am already calling them babies.

Today, Danny and I are packing up the wagon and heading home to Texas. Fortunately, the wagon is a plane and we won’t have to drive until we arrive in Austin around 11pm. I checked the weather there and it is below freezing. Brrr.

I will probably update my site again next week, but until then, Happy Holidays and watch out for the fruitcake hangover, or, in my case, the inevitable sugar rush from eating too many other homemade baked goodies.

At the beginning of the holiday season, I decided that I would try to eat healthy as often as possible. I realized that trying to control my appetite at parties and special dinners was ridiculous, but I would at least attempt to eat healthy during the week. I did fairly well, but this weekend I gave up completely. It all started with Danny’s Christmas party. At it, they served an assortment of cheeses, crackers, and they even had a chocolate fountain. Yes, it was a fountain made of chocolate. Remember those little punch fountains that they have at lame wedding receptions? Well, it was sort of like that only it oozed chocolate instead of dribbling pink punch. Surrounding the chocolate fountain were plates piled with fruits, marshmallows and small pieces of yellow cake. The idea was that you spear some fruit or cake with your fork and then run it under the chocolate waterfall. This was fun until, predictably, after making my second chocolate-covered cake piece, I dribbled melted chocolate on the front of my dress. Damn you tricky chocolate river of misery! How could you betray me like this? After that, I cleaned the chocolate off my dress (the dress was black, fortunately) and moved on to the cheeses and veggie trays.

Back to my sugar story… By the morning after the party, my resolution had gone to pot. I had french toast with sausage and extra syrup, followed by a lunch of pepperoni pizza. Please note that I DID have a diet coke, but that was only because it was the alternative to root beer. That night, I went all out and made Christmas sugar cookies with extra sugar decoration. They and the bits of cookie dough I devoured tasted pretty good. This morning, I looked in the mirror and what to my wondering eyes did appear but a big honkin zit in the middle of my chin. At least it’s not on my nose so that I resemble rudolph.

I doubt, however, that my sugar binge is over. I have yet to go home and eat homemade flan, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies - my favorite. Today, I plan to have salad for lunch, but we’ll wait and see what happens.

I’m looking forward to the short work week coming up. Last week got better by the way. I got over my rotten day and had a fun Friday. Danny’s office party was a lot of fun and we should have some pictures of it very soon. Today, we drove up to Lick Observatory outside of San Jose. The weather here has been awesome and it was nice to explore someplace new.

I had a crappy day today. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t go well. First of all, I ordered the extended edition of LOTR ROTK for Danny and paid extra so it would arrive on the day it was released. It never showed up. I checked the status on the order when I got home from work and it is now in transit from Nevada. Joy. I hope we get it tomorrow.

Then, I was about to finish up my day at work when I got a call about something I had submitted for review. I knew it wasn’t perfect, but I got quizzed about some little stuff. This caught me off-guard, so I went back and checked my document and discovered some more stuff I needed to fix. I was just embarrassed and felt really dumb. I mean, it isn’t a big deal, but I feel like I failed in a major way because I was confused and didn’t complete my project. I got the other main thing done on time, but the little side project is the one that caught me off guard. The good thing though is I noticed some stuff yesterday, so I told my boss that I would spend of the rest of the week cleaning it up. This is good because now she knows I’m aware of the problem before the development team calls to rat me out. They’re probably not going to “rat me out” but I’m still paranoid.

Once I got home, I managed to smash my hand on my keyboard tray and in my closet door. There are no scars, but it just makes me want to pull my covers over my head and stay there for the rest of the week.

Okay, I’m done whining for now. When I got home, Danny gave me a big hug and told me not to worry and that I would be fine at work tomorrow. I know he’s right and it’s good to hear it from someone besides that little voice in your head. I’m talking about the good voice; the one that says “cheer up.”

There isn’t a whole lot to report this week, but I’ll do it anyway! On Saturday, Danny and I made it an East Bay day. We drove over the bridge to Fremont for a late lunch, went to insanity mall in Milpitas which was even more insane than usual, then drove all the way up to Berkeley for a Christmas party. I really enjoyed the party. It was casual and I had someone to talk to the entire time. The food was good and Danny enjoyed the professionally mixed drinks. I say professionally because the hostess’s sister is a bartender and they had her set up with the blender and a large liquor supply.

After chilling at the party for a couple of hours, Danny, Sonya (book club buddy and former coworker) and I checked out some stores on University Avenue. We then went back to Sonya’s apartment to meet her cats and have some tea.

Yesterday, we grabbed some breakfast, ran some errands, made some phone calls, and in general had a relaxing Sunday night.

I don’t have any big plans for this week except to finish up my Christmas shopping and go to Danny’s company Christmas party on Friday night. I don’t know why they’re having it on Friday, but at least we’ll have the whole weekend to recover. Yeah right, like we party hard anyway.

Best quote I’ve heard in a while:

From a harried mother to her twin two-year-old daughters: Don’t touch! Remember christmas tree rule: only look. She says this while she’s guiding them forward gently by the hoods on their matching jackets as they reach out for every christmas decoration available at their height.

Danny and I did a little shopping this weekend in Japantown. It was crowded, but probably not as crowded as the regular malls. I’m trying to do all of my shopping online this year so I can just have everything shipped to Texas. We also went to Burlington coat factory to get some more sweaters. Danny found a few on sale that he liked. It isn’t as cold this week as it was last week, but I’m sure he’ll use them regardless.

Although I don’t pay attention to much in the way of sports, I couldn’t help but notice all of the depressed CAL football fans when I got to work yesterday morning. Apparently, UT beat them out in a close race to go to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena this year. The Longhorns have never gone and this could have been Cal’s first chance in 50 years to go. I’m happy for UT, but I’m keeping my alliances quiet for now. Cal is playing Texas Tech in San Diego. My brother went to Tech and is just excited that Tech is “getting out of Houston” for a change.

My commuter train has been promoting this weekend as the trains for tots toy drive. To kick it off, there was an event at the train station in SF yesterday at 5pm. When I got there after work, they were passing out cookies, had a band playing, and Mr. and Mrs. Claus were in attendance. Was is cheesy? Yes. Was it fun? Yep. They also had the Urban Dog Walkers club there with canines in costume.
The other thing to happen was that they decorated one of the commuter trains, added some extra cars, and sent it down the peninsula stopping at different stations along the way. While at the station, santa and his helpers sang christmas carols, posed for pictures, and picked up toys for the toy drive. They arrived at our station at 7pm tonight. Since we live so close to the station, Danny and I walked over there to see what they’d done to dress up a plain old gray commuter train. I can’t say that it was miraculous, but it was fun to just wander around and check out all of the wide-eyed little kids clambering to the guardrail to say hi to santa and his gang. It wasn’t as cold tonight as it’s been lately, so we hung out for the 20 minute stop until the train moved on to the next station.

I got my first thank you letter from a soldier yesterday. It was a long, typed letter thanking me for my care packages. It also included some personal information about the soldier and about what his group is doing in Iraq. I was very touched that he took the time to write back. I suppose it could have been a form letter, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I’ve gotten some emails from soldiers, but this is the first regular letter I have received. Getting something like this makes me want to assemble and mail out ten more packages this weekend.

I found out today that my boss is getting me a laptop so I can work out of the Mountain View office a couple of days a week. It makes sense for me to be there more often because that is the engineering office. I love coming to the city, but I don’t like that it takes me an hour an a half to get from my office to my doorstep. The Mountain View office is only a 20 minute drive from my apartment. It will be good to have some variety and I think I’ll learn a lot more about our products being closer to the development team. It will also be nice because Danny and I can meet for lunch sometimes.

Basically, I get to be the documentation liason for Engineering. I’ll still be doing the same work, but I’ll be a lot more in touch with what the developers are creating. This is what I did at my old job and I loved it. It is so much better than sending out emails to other offices and praying for a response before the end of the week