JFK twice in a day

For my birthday Jon agreed to help me move my junk from my old apt down to the sunshine state.  I've been stalling for far too long so today was finally the day.

I woke up at 4 this morning to begin my journey that I have been dreading for a while.  The above picture was from around 9 when Jon and I met at JFK.  As you can see he was already belligerent at this point.

We decided it was best to ride the wave of sleepless delirium and go straight to the apt to deal with the closet that time forgot.

Ahh the old stomping grounds.  I have to say, between the bitter cold and the endless ever changing 2nd Avenue maze I was reminded of why I left this desolate wasteland.

But then I stepped in to the old apt and came face to face with this guy:

awwwwwwwwww.  And just like that I was missing life in nyc.

I just had to remind myself that for every picture perfect innocent doe eyed looking cat there lurked a vengeful gargoyle-esque demon bubbling right below the surface.

He's nice.  But sadly, I had to leave him behind, as I did with new york.  But not before having brunch at the old barking dog, and beginning the process of trying to soothe Jon's rage with booze.

I'm not sure why our drinks are bathed in a heavenly glow but it is appropriate as they were quite delicious.  The blinding white light emanating off the whip cream is actually keeping you from seeing Nathanael who is in the shadows just on the other side of the Nathanael.  In case you're wondering he of course roofied our drinks.

After lunch Jon and I headed back to JFK for round two.  Unfortunately the afternoon flight did not go as smoothly as it had earlier this morning.  Due to circumstances beyond our control we were stuck at the airport for several hours, which meant there was only one thing I could do to satiate Jon.

There were a lot of pictures taken over the course of the next several hours.  We've had several fights about what is and is not allowed to be posted on the internet.  The compromise that we reached was that I can post this picture:

Which Jon actually posed for, that wasn't like a candid shot while he was in the middle of talking, that was a face he was making at me to show his disinterest in something I was saying.  Anyways, I was allowed to post that picture but then I had to also post this picture:

In case it isn't obvious the drinking has continued throughout the day.

And believe it or not I'm back home and everything is as it should be.

I wish the photo weren't so blurry but I could not stop laughing to save my life.  But it's time for the laughter to end as I tend to the chore of unpacking all this junk I just moved down here.

The worst part is that I only emptied like half of the closet.  So you can expect a "JFK twice in a day round two"

their names should be Handsome and Nice

The woman at the front desk explained to me that the nice little one has to eat his food up on the highest part of the palm tree because the other one is on a special diet and is too fat to jump up there.  She said they used to put the food on the second tier but the fat one would reach up and knock the bowl down and then eat all the food as fast as he could.

I LOVE THEM.

This was the first time I saw them when it was just us and they both came up to me and just stood there for a few moments while I pet them and told them how nice they were and then they walked away.

I was looking at the stats on my blog yesterday and saw that somebody had been looking at this post I did last year about the detective and weezie being best friends.  Being reminded of those good times and then seeing these two best friends hanging out made me feel even more that the detective needs some companionship.

The real question is, cat or dog...

he's happy

What's funny is that he doesn't really seem affected at all by his view going from 6 floors above a bunch of garbage trucks to ground level of backyard full of wildlife.  Half the time when I let him out on the back porch he just sits at the sliding glass door staring inside at me.  It took him a while to figure the glass door out, I would have to stick my arm through the opening and wave to him for him to understand that's where he could walk through. 

He has since figured it out, and his new favorite move when he's ready to be let inside is to stand up on his hind legs, reach as high as he can, and then drag his claws down the glass.  It's so lovely. 

I think he still misses Weezie, he's been weirdly affectionate with me the past few days.  But I have also started him on a new diet so he's going through his usual tricks to try and get sympathy.  It reminds me of the first time Ariel's parents came to visit us and her mom told Ariel that our cat acted like it had never been pet before. 

So I guess all things considered he's acting pretty normal.  As normal as he's ever acted.  I'm just happy to see him enjoying the perks of his new living situation.

Snowbird

Good bye New York City, I'm sure I'll be back soon but for now I'm retreating to the warm embrace of the sunshine state. 

Yesterday did not go as badly as it could have gone, kitty was actually a precious precious angel for most of the trip.  I was the most nervous about taking him out of his carrier to go through TSA but he did fine.  I think he was a little overwhelmed but he basically just looked around at everyone while I held him and went through.  He did get compliments left and right, and even melted the icy hearts of two different stern faced TSA ladies. 

The Detective is definitely a lightweight, I learned that from this trip.  The Vet gave me extra drugs to keep him quiet in case I got stuck at the airport for a long time, but the dose I gave him at 10am before we left actually lasted the entire day, to the point that I was getting worried about him on the way home from the airport when he still seemed totally out of it. 

When I first let him out of his carrier at my Dad's he seemed pretty freaked out.  He went straight behind the toilet to hide, which was ridiculous because he didn't fit at all so his big fluffy tail was still sticking out in the middle of the bathroom.  When you looked around you could just see his little face staring straight back at you.  I felt bad. 

But it didn't take long for him to acclimate to his new surroundings.  Once he came out of the bathroom the first thing he did was climb in to the closet in my bedroom and start breaking things.  And today he's been even worse. 

I had to go to the airport to get my luggage (It was sent to Sarasota though I ended up flying in to Ft. Meyers) and my dad sent me a text message while I was away saying that the cat was aggressively purring and rubbing against his legs and if he didn't pet him right away, or if he did pet him briefly and then stop, he would hiss at him.  Now I have never EVER heard the detective hiss so this comes as a surprise to me.  Especially from wanting attention?  That just seems unusual. 

But it's true, he even hissed at me for no apparent reason when I got home.  I guess it's just retaliation for the drugging.  I hope it's not because he's upset that I separated him and Weezie.  Ariel said that Weezie is depressed : (

As for Florida it's fine.  It's of course rainy and gross today but at least the temp stayed above 60 for the entire day, even going in to the 70s.  Much better than the 20 degree (feels like 10) weather that was New York for the past two weeks.  I already made my first trip to Whole Foods and stocked up on tons of fruits and veggies so I'm a happy camper now. 

best friends forever

I feel really guilty about separating these nice guys.  I feel like having the detective with me and having to turn his world upside down is making me feel more nostalgic about my own leaving. 

I spent so long feeling like I lived in the middle of a construction site, which I do, that I had pushed all the great memories I have from living at this apt to the back of my mind.  But now as I'm getting ready to leave, and seeing the detective doing his usual things like looking out the window with his best bud, I am reminded of what a great chapter in my life it's been to live at this apt. 

I've lived at this place longer than any of the other places I've lived in NYC, and while it hasn't been all that long I do feel like I am such a different person now than I was when I moved in.  When I think back on all the experiences I had when this was the window I looked out of, and this was the bed I went home to every night, it's really incredible.  I have a lot of really great memories and I have a lot of really bad memories, but I know that they are all memories I'll carry with me for a long time, if not forever. 

I don't think the detective will miss weezie so much, just because I think he'll be so overwhelmed by the complete change in environment for him.  I'm really curious to see how he acts at my father's place.  The detectives first love has always been textured surfaces.  Any kind of rug or carpet or even just a piece of clothing left on the floor, will always be his number one choice of place to lay.  My dad's entire place is carpeted so I'm hoping that he will be in heaven.  But I'm also nervous that he's going to get carried away and start tearing it up with his claws.  We had a talk this morning about his behavior over the coming days, I don't think he was listening. 

I pretty much have everything ready, I have to work a 9 hour day today and then I leave for the airport at 5am tomorrow so I needed to be sure I was ready to go by now, which I am.  It definitely helps that I can leave so much stuff where it is, and that I can use the closet to store things.  Thanks Nathanael!

Now all I have to do is get through today and then deal with tomorrow.  I'm trying to think of it as an adventure, though I have a feeling it might turn in to more of a nightmare. 

snoozin'

They have a really rough life so any chance they get to rest their weary little bones they take it. 

I'm really excited for my job interview tomorrow.  I'm trying not to get ahead of myself but if all goes well it will hopefully be the much needed catalyst for the next chapter in my life.  These past few years have been so strange for me.  As I have been trying to begin sorting and organizing for this move that is somewhere on the horizon I keep being taken down memory lane. 

It's wild to think that I moved in to this apt as a temporary solution, and that was like 3+ years ago now.  I feel like I was always resistant to commit to being there.  The only reason I ever painted my room was because I couldn't deal with what it was when I moved in.  The previous tenant had painted the room a lovely shade of flesh pink that literally made me feel like I was living in a womb.  What's worse is that she had painted the walls after moving her furniture in so there were sections where her furniture had been that she just painted around leaving these large amorphous white ghost figures amidst the pink. 

And it gets better.  Apparently when she had first moved in, before painting it pink, she had had a brainstorm for an edgy look for her bedroom.  She wanted to write the seven deadly sins on the walls.  I'm not sure what the rest of the direction was that she was going in because after writing the first 4 she realized that it made her look like a psychopath and changed her design direction.  But because she had done the script in black paint, the single coat of pink on top of it wasn't really enough to cover the text.  So when the light would hit the wall in just the right way you would faintly see "LUST" scrawled across the wall in what now looked like blood, thanks in part to the fact that the black paint had dripped down after she liberally applied it to the walls. 

If it hadn't been for living in buffalo bill's wet dream I probably wouldn't have ever gotten around to painting the walls.  It was months and months before I even got my bed up off the floor.  Mostly it was just because I always entertained these ideas of moving out, and to a better apt.  In all the 7 years that I've lived in nyc I have always lived on the upper east side.  It has always been my goal to move to a neighborhood that doesn't suck balls, but every time I have come close to having the opportunity it has been snatched away from me.  I guess that's why I'm hesitant to get too excited about this job interview I have tomorrow, but if all goes well I am thinking that I will actually be able to move to somewhere fantastic in the next month or so.

Getting back to those nice guys, it does make me kind of sad to think about separating them.  I feel bad enough as it is about taking the detective away from an apt of three different humans who all give him nice pets alone, but now that he also has a feline best friend it's going to be extra hard.  I don't know if I will have the time to give him the kind of non stop attention that he requires.  Of course not actually touching him or looking at him, but just being in the same room appreciating his beauty. 

Maybe we'll just have to plan play dates so that they can see each other.  They are best friends!

my day

source

Today has not been the most productive in my history.  And I didn't even sleep in.  Usually if I sleep in I kind of feel like I accomplished that at least.

But today started for me like any other, at the crack of dawn.  Weezie would run full steam in to my room, leap from the floor directly up on to my bed, landing with all of his momentum directly on me.  Using my meaty body like a spring board he would bounce right back off, fly to the floor, and go tearing out of the room again.  The detective, upon seeing that I was roused, would begin his more subtle psychological torture.  The tip of his tail right in my face, his butt in my face no matter which way I turn, general lumbering around my head while I'm trying to enjoy sleeping in.

Even waking up early didn't mean that I got anything accomplished today.  I cleaned, yoga'd, ate food, watched seven, and got my laundry.  And here we find ourselves at dusk already.

Maybe I'm jumping the gun though.  The night is still young, perhaps there is excitement on my horizons.

I'm going to go put away my laundry and will my phone to ring.

walkin' along, singin' a song, butt to butt

I came home last night to a dead silent, pitch black apt.  I don't have an overhead light in my bedroom so I have to walk all the way in before I can turn on a light.  I thought I saw some shadow beasts lurking in the darkness but I didn't realize what was really going on until the eco bulb actually brightened up.

Believe it or not they were actually even more adorable fast asleep before I could take this picture, but at least they were still positioned how i found them with their tails intertwined.  I like that they won't actually sit with each other, just near each other annoyingly hitting the other one with their tail.

It's scary how much weezie is taking after the detective, right down to his signature 'laying on the bed with my head hanging off the end so it looks like i'm actually dead' move.

why are they so lazy?

best friends

I came in to my room and found them both snoozing together.  I guess it makes me feel better that the detective has to have his big butt in everyone's face, it's not just something he does to terrorize me.

They are too cute.  It was hard to get a good picture of their adorableness because of the usual reasons.  Most of them turned out like this:

like the shadow monsters that take the bad people away in Ghost.  Just those evil eyes, pulling you to hell.

I'll be sleeping soundly tonight...

he's helping

The detective was being a terror all morning.  If you're wondering what those sparkles are around his eyes they're drops of water.  At his insistence I turned the water on for him and he just kept sticking his whole head under it and letting it run across his cheek.  When he finally did start drinking it he got so eager that I guess water went up his nose.  He sneezed like 8 times in a row.  It cracked me up.

But he really decided to be a good boy and help me when i was trying to make my bed, as referenced earlier in the mariah post.

Once I had gotten the bed stripped he immediately flopped down in the very center.  He did look very adorable so I wanted to give him some nice pets.  This was his response:

I feel like I always look like a cutter because of the gashes along my forearms.  He gets such a faraway look in his eyes when he bites me and kicks me.  It's kind of creepy.  Like rage is his drug of choice.

Well I finally couldn't take anymore and went to picking up my room, hoping he would get bored and leave my bed.  He didn't, but his best friend came to join the party:

One of these days i'm going to take a video showing how these pictures are not me catching kitty with a funny look on his face.  He literally sits completely still like he's pretending to be dead but really just waiting for the right moment to attack.  In reality he's just weird and lazy.

I finally got them both off my bed and put the fitted sheet on.  I am not kidding when I say I literally turned around to get the sheet, turned back and found this:

I don't even know where he came from.  I thought I had seen him leave the room altogether.  He was not pleased about me taking so many pictures of him:

I decided that if he was going to insist on being on the bed I would just have to make him in to the bed.  At first he played my game of chicken, acting like it didn't bother him in the slightest:

But once we got to this point he couldn't take it anymore.  He stayed under there for like 30 seconds before he finally ran away:

At one point when I was doing yoga I looked over and there was a pile of dark fur sticking out from under the door to my room, but I haven't seen him since.  I guess maybe he got called in for a case? I'm sure he's figure out some way to retaliate against me.

too many cats

source

Note: go to above link at your own risk.  There is a lot of butt on the screen. 

One of the really fun things about starting this blog is when i get emails or messages from friends saying that they laughed at something random that I wrote.  Partly because i made them laugh (or in the case of any of you who check my blog at work, i made you titter), but also just that it's really cool that people are checking my blog of their own volition now instead of because I sent them harassing emails immediately after posting something saying, "have you checked my blog?  Did you check my blog?  Check my blog..."

I think most of the people who read this are my real life friends still at this point, but Ive also gotten a few people that I don't know as well who have commented that they've read my blog.  One was a friend I met through a myspace-esque website back in the day but have never actually met in person.  He sent me a message the other day saying, "I confess, I've read your blog.  I like it, except for one thing...too many cats". 

and i say no such thing sir!  

So here's a few more pictures. 

Literally the day after I posted those pictures of those nice guys riding the magic carpet I came in to the kitchen, turned on the light, and found this

and yes, in case you were wondering, princess jasmine can still shoot lasers out of her eyes

and then just for good measure here are some pictures of the detective with his best friend.  When we first got the detective we were so excited to have a cat that we went to Petco and got all these cat essentials; brushes, toys, treats, etc.  We also splurged and bought him this scratching post, which we felt had everything a cat could want.

Well he does love this thing, but he loves it in the way that you love something you never want to see get hurt.

as you can see it is still good as new, while the chair next to it has literally been torn to shreds.  He loves laying on this carpeted base of this thing, or rubbing his face against the sessile rope, but he refuses to take his claws to it.  We will put the scratching post right next to the chair so the scratching post blocks his access to the chair and he will just go to the other side and start working on the chair there.  I'll catch him sharpening his claws on the chair and will carry him over to the scratching post and literally drag his now lifeless paws across the rope part to show him how satisfying it would be to scratch it and he just gets this faraway look in his eyes like he has gone to his happy place in order to cope with the horror of being picked up by me.

I finally just quit caring and just try to ignore that he spends all of his time awkwardly trying to sit on the base that's too small.  I don't try to understand him and he doesn't try to understand me.

magic carpet ride

They are playing aladdin and princess jasmine!!!

except in this version aladdin has a serious addiction to downers and princess jasmine can shoot lasers out of her eyes

best friends

excuse my messy messy room but I couldn't resist putting these adorable pictures up.  I was working on my computer and when I got up from my desk they were both sitting like this!!

I like that true to both of their personalities they like to be with each other but not actually touching or acknowledging each other in any way.

But they certainly are handsome!!! I think somebody should write a hilarious situation comedy about them and their misadventures.

some really nice photos

I was leaving for work, in a rush heading from my bedroom to the front door, when i was stopped in my tracks by these two handsome guys.  I like how it looks like the scene of a brutal murder, the det lifeless on the floor while weezie dominates him from above.

They were just so nice that I had to take a couple pictures, here's another good one

weezie was predictably a little more full of life than the det who remained like this for the entirety of the photo shoot.  I was actually able to snap a couple different photos of them and they stayed exactly where they were.

I decided I couldn't pass up this opportunity and ended up taking some close up photos of each of them that crack me up!  I guess weezie had been clawing at the chair and his claws were still hooked in to the fabric, making him look crazed and evil in all the photos.

like this one

or this one

and especially this one

i seriously cannot stop laughing at these photos.  omg i am actually laughing too hard to type hold on a moment.

he looks so crazy!!!!  he was just sitting there though, loving the attention.  I was even petting him and he was fine, I don't know why these photos portray him as the personification of pure evil.

and then there are the pictures of the detective.  The lazy lazy detective.  He was barely able to keep his eyes open for most of the shots

like this one

or he would just have them closed entirely because he was just so irritated with me taking his photo over and over

but i did finally manage to take one that really captures his spirit I think

that's the exact look i see every morning when i wake up.  Well the first thing I see when I wake up is his big butt right in my face, but then I usually pet him and he acts startled like he doesn't understand why I think I'm allowed to touch him and he looks over his shoulder and makes this exact face.

It's usually really hard to take pictures of either of those guys without them just turning in to scary dark blobs with a set of angry eyes, so it was fun that I got so many great ones from this photo shoot.  I seriously still can't stop laughing when I look through them, especially because I know that they were both so incredibly calm and relaxed the entire time I was taking them.