Why The Cat almost died

Anybody who can access my facebook page may have noticed a status message involving coming *thisclose* to killing one of our cat.  Aptly named, The Cat.  (don't blame me, Nathan named him before we ever got together.)  I didn't give a reason at the time and am going to be explaining now.  Mostly because I didn't feel like adding paragraphs of explanation to a status update.

First a little background on The Cat.  Out of our "two" (read:  three.  Two, according to the apartment rules.  I know, I know, but he had two and I had one and neither of us were gonna give up a cat when we moved in together.) cats, he's the boy.  And boy does he love to act the Alpha Male part.  He is named The Cat after an older british sci-fi series, Red Dwarf.  My husband has loved it for a long time and has also converted me.  If you like sci-fi, british comedy and are ok with cheesy 80s special effects, I recommend it.  Fair warning:  It's totally geeky.  Probably why I love it.  Anybody who has seen the series and meets The Cat knows he takes after his namesake PERFECTLY.  He has attitude to spare.  As evidence of his personality, I submit the following:

A clip from Red Dwarf of The Cat.  Consider this how our cat would act if he spoke english (for the record, our cat is fixed so can't actually make anything "his" anymore, but that doesn't stop him from trying):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q54lVO7elt0

Also pictures:

"yeah, I made a mess of my food, what of it?  Not like I'M gonna be cleaning it up"

"Sweet! Breakable stuff!  Now if I can just pull it down off the desk I can play with it!, It's obviously mine anyway"

Anyway, so one of the cats bad habits has always related to dirty clothes/wet towels.  Basically, if Nathan leaves dirty clothes, or if either of us leaves wet towels on the floor, he will make a bee-line for them and pee on them.  Normally, it's not an issue cause we don't leave these things on the floor, hence, no worries.  The only thing I didn't think of is the fact that our clothes hamper is right next to the closet.  It turns out one of Nathans shirts had fallen in between the clothes hamper and the closet.  So this past week, I had to pick up Nathan from work.  It was midnight and I was in comfy clothes so looking for a pair of slip-ons to wear out to pick him up.  I couldn't find them anywhere so I started digging through my shoes in the back of the closet.  Normally, where the ones I don't wear that often end up.  

That's when I found the shirt.

It turns out The Cat had found the shirt that fell before we did, had drug it into the back of the closet, where he was unlikely to be seen, and had been using the shirt as a bathroom, for, it appeared to be, quite a while. And the thing is....the shirt...when he was dragging it...ended up ON TOP OF A LARGE PORTION OF MY SHOES!!"  And due to the apparent time he had been doing it, absolutely nothing was salvageable.

Yeah, I was pissed.  I could have strangled him.  The fact that he's furry and cute and cuddles with me is basically all that saved him.

As soon as I walked in to pick up Nathan, he came up to give me a hug and tell me hi, the first words out of my mouth were "You're lucky you don't have a dead cat!!!"  It's all cleaned up now.  I trashed the shirt, took all the shoes out of the closet and went through them all (not an easy task) to see which ones had been hit and which hadn't.  It was easily the grossest housekeeping I've ever had to do.  Oh, and as of today the carpet in the closet has been completely cleaned.  No trace is left, thank god.  In the end, literally half of my shoe collection was trashed, including three of my favorite pairs.  I'm mostly not mad at him anymore.  I'm trying to see this as an opportunity to go shoe shopping to replenish my, once glorious, collection.

And that is the story of why The Cat almost died.

Toys R Us kid

It's been two weeks since I blogged last.  The reason for this is mostly because it's been a stressful couple of weeks and I don't care to broadcast drama/problems on the internet.  There's enough negativity in the world, I don't feel like I need to add to it.  That, plus, I feel silly complaining about problems when I know people who have it worse.  For instance:  I may have a job that is currently stressing me out, BUT, I have a job.  And in this economy, that's nothing to sneeze at.

I will say one thing though:  It turns out being an adult can kinda suck.

It turns out it's not all desert for breakfast and staying up way later than I should.  But, before I completely rip off a Grey's Anatomy episode, I'll explain.

I was initially under the impression that my Master's degree would be the key to a sweet job very soon after college where I combined with my husbands income would be enough to live comfortably and even take vacations from time to time.  It turns out a Master's degree is not, in fact, a magic key to a comfortable middle class life.

Don't get me wrong, it definitely helps!  Because I got it, I have learned TONS about my field (thank you Dr. Peebles, and all of my grad professors too ), been published in scientific journals, gave presentations in front of others in my field (and decided I will never not be insanely nervous before said presentations) and given opportunities that there's no way I would have had otherwise.  I in no way regret the decision.  And it's helped me get the jobs I've had.  It's just, it turns out that a comfortable lifestyle takes longer than either me or Nathan had intended.  Nathan has been incredibly awesome dealing with me carting us around the country until I find my dream job.  He's putting off finishing what he wants to, to get the career that he wants so I can find mine.  It's an awesome sacrifice and I can never thank him enough.  I also can not thank our family enough who has helped time and again when we've needed it, often without our asking.

Anyway, I'm getting off-track.  The point of me saying being an adult sucks is *drumroll*....bills.  Yes, bills. And responsibilities.  BUT, as with everything I am trying to find the positive side.  We have been forced to find inexpensive ways to entertain ourselves, and having a blast!  Matinees can be inexpensive.  We've seen Fright Night (finally!) and Harry Potter recently.  I've been reading alot more.  I highly recommend the Game of Thrones series.  OH! and MONOPOLY!!! :)  I have a new love for that board game.  

Because if I can't be rich in real life, dang it, there's always Monopoly!

I know it may not seem that exciting.  In fact most people would say we lead a really boring life right now.  But the important thing is we are still having a good time despite recent troubles rediscovering things we loved when we were younger is always fun.  And also just reinforces my earlier opinion:  Growing up can kinda suck.