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Tonight, Danny and I hosted a Wii party for a few of my classmates. I’ve wanted to have guests over for a while but the time just hasn’t been right. I decided that tonight was far enough away from finals to avoid everyone stressing out over studying.

I think we had about 15 people over including children. All of my guests brought food and we had fun playing, watching the kids play, and just hanging out.

One of the highlights was when the two-year-old discovered the kitties hiding under the covers of our bed. The kitties got pet through the covers before escaping under the bed. At one point, Danny pulled boomer out to show him to the girls. His appearance was greeted with loud squeals of joy followed by his loud hissing and struggling. Fortunately, no one got close enough to get clawed.

This post is in response to Lisa’s weekly blog challenge. List all of your pets and what made them special.

1. Daisy - Daisy was my first and best cat. My parents got him six months after I was born and determined that he was a female. He wasn’t. He didn’t care and neither did we. He was a short-hair grey and black tabby. He was the most laid back cat ever invented. We have pictures of me walking around the house with him in a death clutch (my arms wrapped around his chest with all paws facing out, back feet hovering millimeters above the ground).

Daisy grew old and fat but still loved kids. He slept on my bed every night. We’d have to put him out around 2am, but he would go to bed with me at 9pm. My brother would come in and pet him goodnight.

Since Daniel and I grew up in the country, we invented many new games including cat castle, moving circus, and baby carriage. Daisy was the star of all of our games. He tolerated cat castle (we built a blanket tent for him, placed him on a pillow inside, covered him in fake jewerly, and brought him little dishes of food and water), but he wasn’t too keen on movable circus (sitting in laundry baskets being dragged around the house, or baby carriage (you can figure that one out).

When he (and I) were ten, he developed severe glaucoma in his right eye. My parents paid for the surgery to have his eye removed. His wound healed and, aside from a slight loss of depth perception, he was fine.

Poor Daisy finally succumbed to a urinary disease and passed away under a bush in our front yard. We wrapped him in my pink satin pillowcase and buried him in our garden.

2. Slash

We got slash a month after Daisy died. Slash was a skinny black, grey and brownish tabby with a tendency to claw anyone who picked him up. He was very cute and a pain in the butt. After he got a little bigger, he decided not to shred us everytime we touched him.

After I went to college, Slash stayed gone for longer and longer. Everytime he came home, he looked healthy like someone else was feeding him. He disappeared in 2001. I hope he is still happily chasing rodents in the pasture.

3. Ginger

Ginger was my dog. She was a cross between a cockerspaniel and a poodle. Poor thing, she was smell, dumb, and ugly. She was never housebroken so she spent most of her time outdoors. My brother got a dog the following year so she had friends. In retrospect, I feel bad for ignoring her. She was a sweet dog but just not very bright. She is also the reason I will never voluntarily own a long-haired pet.

4. Doogie

Doogie was a black lab that was found by some hunters right before Christmas. My dad brought him home and we fell in love with him immediately. He wasn’t very smart either, but he loved attention. He played with Ginger and went to the creek with us in the summertime. He would stand in the shallow water and try to catch minnows.

When he was about two, he got hit by a car. He survived with a broken leg and some squished toes. For the rest of his life, when he ran he only ran on three legs. He never ran on the squished toe foot. He lived to a ripe old age and then keeled over in our neighbors yard one night. I think he was 14.

5. Feather

Feather was a small yellowish hound of some sort. He showed up at our house and we started feeding him. Mom named him feather because he had white fur around his butt that looked like a puffy feather. He was the sweetest dog ever. We think he had been abused though because he cowered whenever we made sudden movements. He got hit by a car on the road by our house.

6. Sapphire

Sapphire was a part Siamese cat with blue eyes who lived in our carport. She never wanted to come inside and was really wild. She had one litter of kittens on my bed when I was visiting my grandma. I was so proud that she’d decided to give birth on my bed. After that, we had her fixed. She lived out her days in our carport and died of old age.

7. Chester and Leo: Chester and Leo were the dogs we got to replace Doogie, Feather, and Ginger. Chester and Leo were two black lab mixes. Chesther was all black with wavy thick fur. Leo looked like a black lab. They played with each other and spent most of their time chewing on sticks in our front yard. They ran away or got picked up by someone passing by when I was a freshman in college.

8. Lulu

I can’t remember if Lulu was a stray or a cat from Greg. She was a black and white round little female. She had one litter of kittens including Cally and Grungy. I can’t remember what happened to her.

9. Cally and Grungy

Cally was a calico. She was skittish but she was my mom’s baby. She followed my mom around the house and would always sit on mom’s footstool while my mom read. Grungy was a brown and black cat. She was super friendly but had an unpleasant habit of drooling profusely while being pet. Grungy disappeared after being gone for longer and longer periods and Cally had to be put down because of cancer.

10. Petunia and Pansy

Petunia and Pansy were two sisters that were adopted from Greg’s “cat farm.” Greg was my mother’s boyfriend and he always ended up attracting pregnant female cats. He always got them fixed as soon as he could, but then another one would show up with dumplin’s in the oven.

They both had little bobtails. Petunia was a short-haired grey tabby and Pansy was a fluffy black and white cat with a fluffy stump tail. Pansy was a master hunter. One time, she caught a bird in her mouth in mid-air. We think she ran away with Slash. Petunia is mom’s new lap cat and hangs out with Milo.

11. Milo is Daniel’s cat. He adopted him one summer while he was home from college. Daniel was working as a waiter at a seafood restaurant. During his breaks, he hung out with his smoking coworkers behind the restaurant. There were some kittens that were living in the dumpster and there was one really friendly black kitty who always wanted attention. Daniel brought him home. Little did Daniel know that this cat would grow up to have the fluffiest, thickest fur ever known. Milo has a great personality and loves being held and picked up. You cannot sit in a chair and not have him in your lap. He lives at home with mom and Petunia.

12. Ralph

Ralph was a stray orange kitty that my neighbors and I fed while I was living in Austin. In the summertime, Ralph hung out in my yard and could be seen wandering the sidewalk between my and my neighbors houses. I didn’t adopt him because my lease prevented me from having pets. My neighbors already had two indoor cats and were content to let Ralph be their outdoor pet.

In the wintertime, I’d let Ralph stay inside where it was warm. He’d sleep on my bed all night and only go out when I went to work in the morning. When I moved, my neighbors agreed to keep feeding him and promised they’d take good care of him. I regret not going against my lease and just keeping him, but he was an outdoor cat and I didn’t want to transport him to a new neighborhood.

A few months later, my neighbor told me that they’d found a home for Ralph at the SARA Sanctuary in Seguin. It is a no-kill shelter/animal ranch in the country. I was happy for Ralph but sad to think that he wasn’t still sitting in front of my house in the sunshine.

12. Boomer and Boris

Boomer and Boris are my babies. I adopted them when Danny and I moved to California. After Ralph, I made it a requirement to find an apartment that allowed pets. We decided to adopt two cats so they could play with one another while we were at work. Originally, I wanted to get two adult cats since it is harder to find homes for them as opposed to kittens. I looked for two adult cats that liked each other but I was unsuccessful. One afternoon, we went to a local no-kill shelter. They didn’t have any pairs of compatible adult cats to adopt, but they did have a litter of two-month old kittens and their mother. The kittens were used to being around people and let me handle them. I wanted a male and a female, but the females had already been claimed. I took the two males that were left. They had a two-for-one special at the shelter so my cats were half price.

These are my new babies. They sleep on the bed with me every night and keep me company when I’m studying. They are also indoor-only cats. I’ve learned my lesson about pets and the outdoors.

I’ve been neglecting this site lately because I’ve been updating Nintendo Widow.

A couple of big things have happened in the last week. First of all, it snowed on Wednesday and on Saturday. I still had to go to school but it wasn’t too bad. I’m in love with snow as long as I don’t have to drive in it. In my opinion, we’ve gotten enough to just make it a little prettier around here.

The second thing is that my best friend Diana just got engaged. Yay! She and her boyfriend have been together for two years and I’m very happy for both of them. I’m also excited because her fiance is my brother’s best friend.

More updates to come. Stay tuned.

We successfully moved into our new place this weekend. Compared to our last two moves, which were cross-country, this one was relatively painless. We only needed the rental truck for one day and had all of our big stuff unloaded by 6pm on Saturday. Yesterday, we organized everything and introduced the cats to their new home. They adjusted much faster than expected.

Last night, I cooked supper and then we went downtown for a party at my classmate’s condo. He and his wife have a great view of the Space Needle, so at midnight everyone went out on the balcony and enjoyed the fireworks.

Today, I put up some curtains and got organized for classes tomorrow. I had a great break: skiing, visiting friends, and moving into a really cool new place. I hope my luck continues throughout the year.

After getting back from our honeymoon yesterday, we hit the road this morning for Portland. Rodney and Laura are home for the holidays so we thought we’d crash at their house to eat a little, drink a lot, and open a few presents on Christmas morning.

Before leaving town, we got up EARLY (9am) and went over to our new apt to sign the lease. We got a full tour and the apt is as glorious as we remembered. We met the owners and they seem nice and normal. We had to cough up first and last month’s rent as well as a pet and security deposit, but it’s worth it to us. We get a nice nice place close to school with AC. Have I mentioned that it has AC? Since the highs are in the 40’s now, AC seems frivolous, but trust me: it’s important.

We wrapped up our lease, grabbed our stuff, stopped at the Original Pancake house for some brunch including pumpkin pancakes and hit the road.

We got to Rodney and Laura’s around 4:30 pm. They have a great house. It is almost like going home for the holidays. They have a Christmas tree, decorations, a fire blazing in the fireplace, friendly cats, and lots of good wine. We started drinking, snacking, and talking immediately. Rodney whipped up some spaghetti and garlic bread for us. After devouring that, we went into the living room and played Wii bowling and golf until we were too tired to concentrate. It was great. Don’t get me wrong. I miss my family at Christmas, but this was the next best thing to going home. We are chilling in our pajamas while staying cozy by the fire.

Did I mention that our new apt has a fireplace AND a big deck? Well it does and I’m stoked.

Merry Christmas y’all!

We made it back from Canadia or, for the ininitiated, Canada. Okay, so it’s just Canada, but doesn’t Canadia sound more exotic and exciting?

We had a great time. We got much better at boarding and nearly mastered the easy green run by the end of the day yesterday. The weather was nice but strange. I’ve never been skiing on a mountain with so much fog. I could see well enough but patches of fog would come and go and you just had to keep your eyes open and pay attention.

Even if we hadn’t snowboarded, there was plenty of other stuff to do in Whistler. We went sledding on the first night we arrived. We paid by the hour to rent a tube and have guys push us down groomed sledding runs. We could hold onto each other’s tubes or go solo. It was great and it was a fun way to start the trip.

The next morning, we got up bright and early to get our equipment at the rental center. The place was chaotic but we got our boards, boots, wrist guards, and helmets. We spent about four hours on the mountain with five other beginners and one instructor. We learned how to balance going backwards and forwards and how to do basic turns. I still suck at turning, but the forward and backward balancing got me through this trip.

That night, we went out for our “fancy” dinner at a Bavarian restaurant. I love good German food but alas, this food was not good. The schnitzel sucked. At least we had good food for the rest of our trip.

On Wed and Thurs, we practiced boarding and even took the lift to the top of the mountain to check out the view and have lunch at the big restaurant on top. It was more of a shop/giant food court with an awesome view. We were too chicken to ski all the way down, so we took the lift back to the midway point and kept practicing on our favorite green run.

This morning, we woke up so sore. My legs hurt but my arms are worse. I spent three days balancing and hoisting myself up with my arms. Now they ache. It was worth it though. I have to get better at boarding or “riding.” I’m not ready to buy my own equipment or a season pass, but I do want to take another lesson.

We got home today no problem. Aside from waiting in line at the US/Canadian border for an hour, our trip was uneventful. The scenery was nicer today since it wasn’t as foggy as it was on Monday. We got to enjoy the sea-to-sky highway and see the mountains rising up out of the ocean.

Tomorrow we’re off to see Laura and Rodney in Portland. We’ll be crashing with them until Christmas day and then we’ll be back to pack and move our stuff to our new apartment. It never gets boring.

I finished my finals. I’ve slept. We’ve found a new apartment and now, we’re going on our honeymoon.

Although all of this is very exciting, I haven’t had time to get excited about it. I finally got finished with my autumn quarter on Tuesday and I’ve been dealing with weird weather, power outages, and errands since then. It hasn’t been too bad though. I partied with my classmates on Tuesday night and then spent the last few days hanging out with Danny and getting ready for our vacation.

We spent most of the afternoon on campus because Danny needed an internet connection and our power went out at midnight last night. I had a good afternoon though. I hung out with him and negotiated a new apartment for us to move into in January. Most of you know that I’ve been bitching incessantly about our current apartment. The location and price are good but the complex is trashy. I want an upgrade. Anyway, we got a really nice place in a nearby triplex and get this, it has a fireplace AND AC. We’re pretty freaking excited.

I’m tired so I’m going to hit the sack. Updates from Canada to come.

It snowed here. Then the snow melted a little. Then it froze. Now it’s all icy. This would be fine if I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow. I do. I had to go today even though every other university was closed. It wasn’t bad until I waited in the sub-freezing temperatures for 45 minutes for a bus that never arrived. Apparently, Seattle-ites handle snow and ice like Texans: they stay home or drive their cars off the road. The buses were running but apparently a bunch of them got stuck somewhere about an hour before rush hour. After waiting for 45 minutes, I called Danny and got him to pick me up. Thank God we live close to school. I would have had to walk home.

Being a Texan also means that I have no snow-appropriate shoes. I wore my leather flats because they’re flat and somewhat waterproof. My only boots are black Justin Ropers. They are more appropriate for ice skating than for climbing icy hills. I think tomorrow I’ll wear my tennis shoes and watch for puddles. Oh, I only fell twice today and managed not to hurt myself. This was an accomplishment.

In other news, I had a great weekend just hanging out with mom and Daniel. They arrived on Wed and stayed until yesterday morning. The weather was fine until Sunday night when it started snowing. That was the best night for it though because there was no ice.  We drove to dinner as big, fat flakes floated down around us. It was very Christmasy.

Not much else is going on. I’m tired and I’m going to go to bed soon. I hope everyone had a fun Thanksgiving and is not stressing over that extra piece of pie consumed.

Last week, I asked my mom to try and find me a Kinky Freidman for governor t-shirt. Even though he lost, I can still support the cowboy with an authentic vive le kinky shirt. She is bringing it to me post-haste.

That’s the sound I’ll be making when I’m slipping down the slopes at:

Whistler, British Columbia

on my

HONEYMOON

I’m SO excited. We’ve been debating what to do for our honeymoon since funds are tight. However we did save enough to have a great domestic vacation and since we don’t need plane tickets to get to Whistler, we’re driving up there the week before Christmas. We’ll probably spend a couple of days in Vancouver and then head up to the mountains for some snowboarding. Neither one of us can board, but we have lessons planned.

My last skiing adventure was kind of traumatizing. I had one day to relearn skills I hadn’t practiced in six years. Plus, I was skiing with advanced skiers and I just couldn’t keep up. I nearly killed myself careening down a slope until Daniel’s roommate Jeremy caught my arm and saved me from certain death. After that close call, I stayed on the green runs and dragged myself along with my poles. It was beautiful and safe. Yes, safe.

So why am I learning to snowboard, something that is more difficult to master than skiing? Well, I’m a bit wiser now and I think with some lessons I can get down the mountain, or the bunny slope, in one piece. Plus, Whistler has some of the best runs in North America, so I’m sure they have slopes for every level of skier.

On top of spending the week before Christmas in a beautiful setting, we’re also staying in a kickass hotel. Supposedly, it has a huge outdoor hot tub. I might need to sooth my sore muscles there.