Was there ever/A cat so clever

I re-read Heather's post about losing Chuck today in hopes it would make me feel a bit better, like someone else understands, in light of losing Holmes last Thursday. I should find solace in the fact there's no one to blame in our situation. It must have been terrible for her to handle being solely responsible for leaving the dog alone outside. In our case, I suppose you could argue that my choice to allow the cat outside in the first place makes me culpable, but I certainly prefer not to. I know he never would have been happy staying inside all day--he was too full of life and too excited by chasing birds and exploring the garden. Despite knowing he could get outside if he pleased, he would still sit atop Ray's recliner daily, peering out between the blinds to survey any and all action that was occurring. I know he would have been miserable if he hadn't ever been allowed to participate.

But allowing him that freedom has left me miserable. Having had him for only two years, after never really planning on owning a cat in the first place, I suppose I didn't realize how much I'd miss him if he weren't around. I was never a cat person in particular, it was just this cat that somehow won me over entirely. I miss the little things I'd come to expect: that he'd always push open my bedroom door, the one I can't close fully, when I retired to my room post-shower on Saturdays, inevitably while I was completely naked and always leading me to chastise him for his compulsion to enter at that exact moment every week. That he'd curl up on the couch with me most nights, the only member of the household to celebrate the fact that I was wasting yet another hour on American Idol, and then stay up with Ray in to the wee hours, keeping him company after I'd already gone to bed. His favorite thing in the world was to play attack games with us inside, or in the yard, or with fake mice that seemed particularly wily when he was wide-eyed and wired off catnip. He'd always come running, because he was never far away, when either of us arrived home from work, a lovely greeting and reminder that after a long day there was always unconditional love waiting at home.

After five days I'm beginning to learn not to check the yard in the mornings or expect him to greet me when I get home. I'm not mis-hearing what I think is him, pawing at the front door to get in, and when I woke up this morning I wasn't surprised to realize I was alone in bed. My friends tell me to keep hoping, that maybe he took a break and will be home in a day or two, but I'm convinced this isn't the case. We've checked the SPCA and walked the streets. We've spoken to the neighbors and posted fliers and I feel like I knew this cat too well and I know that he's gone. He wouldn't have gotten lost and he wouldn't have left. It's hard not to have closure but I imagine the best case scenario, the one where some nice family, charmed by his his good looks and an excess of personality, took him in to be their own and love. I imagine this even if I don't believe it.

More Fun With Email

Did someone just send me an email, inquiring about renting the room for an event, with not just one line song lyric as her signature but in fact the entirety or Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" written out? Oh yes, yes she did.

One Year Later

It's my anniversary so I figured I would tell you about my boyfriend.

Before Jeremy asked me out, I only knew of him vaguely as the handsome parking lot attendant who sometimes gave me a break on my daily rate. This unwarranted discount, however, did nothing to dissuade me of my vague presumption that he was an asshole. Charlottesville is, you see, rife with attractive dicks and I suppose I just absentmindedly threw him in to that category for no good reason at all since that's the criteria I generally employ while baselessly judging people all day long like I do.

But he isn't, as evidenced during our first date, despite its being a somewhat uninspired pool session (although admittedly this was a mutual decision after I shot down his suggestion we go to a movie I'd previously seen). The real proof was when he followed up that date with a visit by the house later in the week wherein he a) watched reality tv with me b) pretended (convincingly!) to actually enjoy said reality tv and c)brought chocolate for me to devour during this boob tube session, and we all know it was a straight shot to my heart after that.

In the year since then, things have been largely consistent. By that I mean I continued to watch bad tv and eat too much chocolate and he continued to be nice to me and fake it like he meant it in areas where it really mattered (see: the music I like, the TLC shows I rot our brains with, all things horse-related, etc.). Of course he had to go and throw a kink in the chain with that whole 'moving to Houston and becoming a meat-eating, homo-hating, acid-making, cowboy' but somehow even that has not deterred us and things have only grown stronger and better by the day.

It sounds generic, but Jeremy is just about the best person I know and has made this past year the best year I can remember. Thanks.

Indeed, I have the best job in the world

I suppose I don't talk about work too too much here since the consensus seems to be that blogging about your job = bad bad idea, but the fact of the matter is that I could and I should because my job is awesome and I am spoiled. Take for example, today. We've paid some advertising company too much money to promise us that anyone who searches online for an event venue in Charlottesville will find us at the top of his/her results page. Problem is, even I can't find us when I search using our agreed upon key words. So we whined to said advertiser who, rather than actually doing something helpful like explaining or fixing the issue, faxed over a USA Today article titled "How to get Google to notice you." (Before you ask, this advertiser is actually some subset of the Yellow Pages and yes, I too was expecting some sort of customer support other than blurry photocopies of a fluff piece from a poorly written newspaper.)

Anyway, the point of the story is that the article mentions the import of key words and and links and in regards to the latter suggests that you post links on Flickr pictures, MySpace, and in blog comments, and then, if you're really gung-ho, maybe start a blog yourself! My boss came in and I handed him the article while mentioning that if had to I would totally spend more time trolling the internets and linking our site on every blog I read. "Why don't you just start a blog instead?" he responded, "Make up some crazy soap opera about what goes on here."

The humor in this lies in the fact this place often could be mistaken for some crazy soap opera and we've talked, on more than on occasion, about how we so should have had someone make a reality show out of the business--at least that way we could pay the bills. Lately, my boss' (generally silent but not so silent anymore) partner has been meddling in all our affairs and, by and large, driving us all completely insane. So my next question to the boss was, "So what do I write about then? Your crazy partner and the fact that he's been in here lately and everyone hates him?" "Sure, I don't care."

This should be a better post

I don't have a myspace page. Which is not to say that I don't sign on to the Ballroom's page and secretly peruse your own from time to time when work is slow, but still. My lack of myspace or facebook presence has imbued me with an inappropriate sense of holier than thou-ness, or at least it had, until today when Ray pointed this out. Looking at the first picture I've seen of me on the site I realized that in actuality, I am worse than all of you combined.

Dear Ray, I did a bad bad thing

If my new year's resolution had been to post here more often, well then, dear internet, it seems I already would have thwarted myself. I have an addictive personality when it comes to media, you see, and lately I've been filling the gaps left by my half-assed crackdown on tv watching with internetting of the most useless variety. Not learning anything new, not IMing with friend, certainly not posting on here (because seriously, with the amount of time I spend on this thing I should be averaging somewhere around 1000 coherent words/day). So I figured now was the PERFECT time to send ye olde laptop back to Best Buy for yet another fix--that and the fact that I have 63 days left on my warranty and if it breaks one.more.time during said period I get A WHOLE NEW COMPUTER (commence to crossing your fingers and sending me viruses (or something)).

Anyway I thought this was a great plan and all until I realized that, hi, the computer? sorta like a lifeline for me. Or maybe like a life preserver. I can tread water, but only for so long (until, say, Britney Spears gets knocked up again and I mustfindoutwhosthebabysdaddyohmygodrightnow). Ray, on the other hand, lovely and amazing roommate Ray, he has become somewhat of a computer junkie. I hate to out him but it seems he may have more online friends than real live and in person friends lately and for him, that computer? IS THE AIR HE BREATHES. So let me apologize Ray, here's hoping you can hold your breath for two to four weeks.

memememememememe

Ok. Finally getting around to my five things.

1. I really dislike hugging. Unless you are my s.o. or possibily some attractive celebrity I want to touch.
2. When I was little (elementary school age?) I was terrified every night that I was going to be killed. I would try lying really flat and covering myself, head to toe, in a blanket in hopes the intruder(s) wouldn't notice me. When I wasn't doing that I would sleep on my side, but only my right side and facing the door because I reasoned that I'd rather wake up, first see my killer, and then be stabbed in the chest than suffer a sneak attack and have a knife plunged in to my back. I couldn't sleep on my left side, regardless of whether I was in my bed or elsewhere, until I was about 12.
3. My second and third toe on both feet are kind of webbed. My mom says it's one of the first things she noticed about me when I was born. I prefer to think of them as 'growing from the same stump' rather than webbed, but man, I can swim like a fish.
4. I've never smoked a cigarette. Not even a puff.
5. I had lice something like 3 or 4 times in sixth grade. Now I think it's totally weird when people say they never had it, but they probably also didn't have a best friend at whose house they slept over all.the.time and who a)didn't know she had lice b)didn't admit she had lice even after you gently suggested she might want to get checked since you'd gotten it c)continued her reign as nice lice lady until your fed up mother finally called the school and insisted they send her ass home until she got rid of that shit.