Fight or Flight

Last year around this time, I had a fairly interesting conversation with a group of my friends about a topic I was abruptly reminded of last night..and thought it may make for a good story/opinion poll from you fine folk.

 

What would you do if you thought you heard someone in your house?

 

 

Hopefully all of you are lucky enough to have never had your house broken into while you're home.. but I KNOW all ya'll have a "plan" in your head about what you'd do if it happened. and I KNOW most of you have "thought" you've heard something which resulted in an ultimately futile attempt to implement the "plan" ... amiright??

 

I've always SAID my plan was to quietly roll off the bed (so if they came upstairs they couldn't see me..since my side is furthest from the door) hide under the cover overhang, and quietly dial 9-1-1. Our house is old, so if I even stepped out of bed, said robbers would know that there was someone home because you can hear it downstairs.

 

M has always said his plan is to go downstairs and kick some ass.

See? I flight, he fights.

 

Well, having a cat who likes to cause a ruckus at night, we've had quite a few opportunities to practice implementing our burglar-plan. Last night, being a prime example of them. I'll tell you how it went, and also leave commentary about how if it were a real burglar, we'd all be dead:

 

laying in bed last night, we hear what sounds like people talking...and INSIDE the house. (we later learned it was the cat in the middle of some wheezing/coughing/"almost barfing but not quite" fit...he's a peach)

 

I'm putzing on my cell phone and stare at M, he says "did you hear that?" (the 'real' burglar downstairs now has notice that there are people in the house after hearing our voices, and in my world, is now sitting at the bottom of the stairs with a .22 waiting to take us out one by one. Yes, I watch too many crime shows, thanks for asking)

 

So M creeps out of bed and reaches for the shotgun he keeps under the bed (I realize on some level this is "practical" but, I hate it. because usually it's our cat. and I don't need him blowing the cat away on accident.)

 

I see what he's doing and say "DON'T YOU DARE. It's probably TJ and I don't need you shooting him." (This is where the REAL burglar would be laughing because, well, now we're unarmed. and dead.)

 

Instead of staying safely upstairs, I always have 9-1-1 pulled up on my cell phone (yes, EVERY TIME we hear a noise...again..too many crime shows) and slowly creep behind M towards the stairs. Usually this involves me hanging my head over the bookshelf/railing thing, whispering to him "do you see anything?" (BAM, M's dead. Then I don't have enough time to call 9-1-1 before the guy shoots me too. This is why I need to stick to the damn plan.)

 

so that's how this routine goes down, usually 2-3 times a month..because my cat is a lunatic. He's been known to launch himself onto one of the chairs in the living room, which lifts it up a little bit and causes a "BANG" when it comes back down.

 

It didn't help to hear my co-worker and neighbor tell us that the house across the street from him got broken into in the middle of the day a week or two ago. I've been a bit edgy since then.

 

I do prefer HIS described method of dealing with potential intruders. He told me this after he told me about the break-in, and I laughed, but it's kind of practical. and awesome. He told me if he ever legitimately thought there was someone in his house at night, that he keeps a gun next to his bed and that he'd sit at the top of the stairs, cock his gun, and scream "I HAVE A GUN. I'VE CALLED THE COPS. IF YOU TRY TO COME UP HERE I WILL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF."

 

I seriously cracked up, but I mean.. think about it: what kind of ballsy burglar is REALLY going to test that theory out?

 

SO, what is your theoretical "panic plan" in event of a burglar?

Got any funny stories about pets alarming you?



M & K: the vlog

well kids, here it is. 

a little over 14 minutes of awkward, but your questions have been answered. 

Pardon my cackle-laugh at various points, and note the two times I subconsciously slip into "cat voice" when referring to TJ or talking TO TJ. 

Also, I hope the "Tweeeeeeeeeeeets!?" call to TJ at the end doesn't deafen you. It's quite loud. 

-M & K

My little stinker

I have another short tail* for you guys today

 

*(yep, another cat story)

 

Yesterday Teej went to the vet in the morning for his comprehensive exam, and to get his teeth cleaned. They had to put him under, because..well.. you try cleaning a sassy young kitten's razor sharp teeth while he's conscious. I can't imagine it'd be easy.

 

I shoved him in his carrier and he WAILED and HOWLED the entire way to the vet. Thank god it's only an 8 minute drive 1/2 mile away. If you think cats meow the same, you clearly have never heard the distinct difference between an "I'm HUNGRY!" meow, and a "I'M DYING!" meow. Especially out of my cat. oof.

 

I picked him up after work and he has the saddest little animal print bandage on his paw where they shaved him a bit, and administered his anesthesia.

 

He's a little wobbly and giving me the side eye the entire car ride home. No meowing, just side eye.

 

I bought him treats and a new toy to make it up so we played a bit, and then M and I went to our friends' place for dinner. Get home at 9 and are exhausted, so we decide to head upstairs to watch a Dateline in bed, a little tradition of ours.

 

That's when I first smell it.

My nose is plugged up so I'm just getting tiny whiffs of something, but that something is FOUL, and smells like poop. Literally. I'm sniffing every piece of clothing on me, my pillow, etc., and it goes away aanndd I also start to think I'm crazy. M comes upstairs and declares that the ENTIRE upstairs smells like shit.

 

We look down at the fuzzy culprit, who blinks back at us.

I ask him, "did you poo somewhere, TJ?"

<<blink, blink. mrawr!>>

 

I figure maybe the anesthesia had him groggy and he had an accident. Poor guy.

 

For the next THIRTY MINUTES M and I are on our hands and knees with a flashlight convinced we're going to find a little cat turd ANY second. We tear apart the bed, sheets, thinking maybe he shamefully scooted between the sheets and pooped. We look in closets that weren't even opened when we were gone, and inside the rafters..and then start to wonder if something hadn't DIED in the house because it smelled that bad.

 

It was strongest over on my side of the bed, but started to go away. Then M said he smelled it over by the closet/stairs.

 

We finally realized:

While we had been running around for a half hour looking for shit, TJ had been running around the upstairs laying the WORST SMELLING fart-bombs I have ever smelled.

He was just running, and tooting, and that's why we couldnt' find the source.

 

We realized how dumb we were in that if it was REALLY poop it obviously would have been concentrated to ONE area.

 

So, poor baby TJ got banished from the bedroom last night, since our gas masks were out for repair.

 

And thus concludes the time I devoted an entire post to my cat's rear end.

 

TGIF, people.

 

Stay tuned for that promised vlog. It's so happening this weekend. Mark my words. 

Minnesota Nice

 

I could say 1,000,000 things right now.

A part of me wants to. Especially after the tirade that a co-worker (and family member) just went on regarding my voting choices.

 

About how this is now "my fault" and that now real estate taxes will go up, income tax will go up, interest rates will stay artificially low and the stock market will crash and senior citizens are screwed and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

 

But you know what?

 

If I have to pay "$300 more a year in property taxes" on average, so that this could happen in Minnesota:

 

 

I gladly will.

 

There is no price tag on civil rights.

Money is not what makes my world go round.

I know that I'll be just fine, and I'll sleep better at night knowing that in 10 years my property taxes aren't what matters or what I'll remember... it'll be that I was on the RIGHT side of history last night.

 

"To deny this fundamental freedom [marriage] on so unsupportable a basis as the (racial) classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law."

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)
 

annddd I'm out.

 



Q & A

Well, it started off as a joke on the last post, but after emailing M and telling him he was going to guest vlog (and then explaining what a vlog was), he seems to have reluctantly agreed to do so!

actually, this is what he said: 

Sooooo there's that. 

I assured him you guys weren't going to go all therapist's couch on him,. but it'd likely be "fluffier" stuff. He's also a wee bit concerned that, well, nobody "cares" or will ask questions of him. (perhaps worse?)

Here's where YOU come in! 

1. What questions do you have for M?! 

Feel free to ask anything, and obviously if he thinks it's too personal or whatever, he'll pass, but I'm assuming you will be just fine ;-)

2. What questions do you have for ME?!

This is a 2-fer-1 guys. Since only 10-15 of you comment on the reg (ahem...lurkerpants....) I figure opening it up to both of us may produce a respectable length blog. Plus, M won't feel like he's so much in the hot seat, then. 

It can be absolutely anything. 

Like, why do you talk about your cat so much? (OMG GUYS, TJ can even guest star. Oh this is going to be good)...

ooooorrrrr, are you really as "sweet" as you seem on your blog (HAHA)

but seriously, anything. 

3. What questions do you have for M about ME?!

That one could get interesting. I'm sure he'd love to oblige. 

SO, you have from now through Friday to ask ask ask!  I'm going to try to corner M Saturday at some point and get him to film this thing, and then post it by Monday. 

ready, set, GO.    

Oh, and P.s. GO VOTE today. that's all I will be saying about that.  

This weekend I..

Well, 

for the first time, oh, EVER, I recalled that Syndal hosts a weekend linkup, and I finally formatted my post properly so I feel like I can participate, weeeee!

 

This weekend I...

did some emotional shopping, and eating, and got our guestbook in the mail! I LOVE IT, it's just as pretty as the photos I posted. I need to start ordering more wedding things in the mail, wedding mail is the best kind of mail!  

This weekend I...

Visited the exotic land of Moorhead, MN for a wedding, and spent a lot of time with M's dad's kitty (literally, she's still a baby) "sassy cassie".. who happens to have a heart shaped mark on her back.  

This weekend I...

Supervised some naps before the wedding, whilst I did my nails 

This weekend I...

 gave myself some fancy nails for the wedding. The base is a burgundy color so dark it looks black except in certain light, accented with some silver glitter. I kind of love the way it looks like it's falling down the nail from the top.  

This weekend I...

returned home Sunday to MORE fun wedding nails! Remember how I said I'd maybe bring you guys mock ups of STDs (save the dates, pervs)  for a vote? Welp, I got impulsive, and to be honest I rarely ask people for their opinion on these types of things... so I went ahead and ordered them.

(here's the back!)

Here's the front!

1. Yes, I know, the front is vertical, the back is horizontal.. but I really wanted to include a photo that had our heads, so people knew those were my feet, and..well...who matthew & kelly were...(you can never be too careful).. is that totally weird? I'll be honest, I don't care a lot. hahaha.

2.  I REALLY didn't want to put the date on the back again, since the whole point of the adorable shoes was to tell people what the date was. BUT M had me all freaked out that there would be stupid people who wouldn't see it and call or something asking what the date was. I've heard of way dumber things, and in an effort to subvert the stupid people, I complied....hesitantly. 

I just designed the back as a "photo" in Photoshop, and then used Shutterfly's postcard custom designer, uploaded one for the front, one for the back, and bam! The deal was $10 for 100 postcards. Except, then they charge you $4.99 per photo you upload. (uhhh, sweet?) So, we had originally used a bunch of small photos to compile the back of the postcard, which was itemized at like, $50. No thanks. So, M figured out how to do it in Photoshop so that when we uploaded it, and stretched it out, it wasn't all ugly and pixelated. Beat the system! Sort of. Cost us $30 with shipping. Not too bad, and same as our invites. I only could order 100 or 200, so I think I'm going to wind up sending to families vs. individual kids..we'll have to see how I'm doing on numbers. Then, send invites to more individuals. I figure the parents can pass on the word though in some cases (i.e. college students out of state)

 This weekend I...

Came home to cat barf on the basement storage room floor. 

When we leave town, we usually have someone come over only once on Saturday to feed TJ, so he gets his full 1/2 cup of food all at once. This weekend it happened to work to have M's mom come Saturday morning, and sister come Saturday night. I don't think M passed word along to make sure his mom used the 1/4 cup then in the morning.. so we think she gave him the full half cup (or at least, one of them did) and then "a little more" because she said it didn't look like enough. We came home at 1:00 sunday, and there was still a LOT of food in his dish..so something had to have been wrong w/how much he was given. We then discovered the barf. This is why he's regulated, because he's a little fatty with no self control, and ate himself sick. (Something his father has done a time or two, as well....)

There's my weekend! 

Unrelated... I just made an off the cuff comment to M about guest blogging. 

Seconds later, he noticed his sweatshirt, that had buttons and a pouch on it, had been inside out all day.... this was his response: 

"guest blogging? Ha!" (not thinking it was a real "thing")

"like..guest starring on a TV show?... well.. I'll work on putting my clothes on not inside out first"

so, stay tuned for that, guys. hahaha

A short Halloween tail*

*intentionally, so... as this story involves (surprise, surprise!) my cat.

 

Just wanted to pop in and share a story from trick-or-treating last night.

Not me, the kids that came to our house.. duh.

 

Anyway, we have a plate glass front door..so when the weather is nice (anything above 50) we leave it open and TJ relishes sitting on the rug and staring out the door. Imagine his confusion last night after a few weeks of closed door when I turned on all the lights in the house and then flung the door open.

 

He wasn't really sure what to think about the trick-or-treaters. Sometimes he'd run, sometimes he'd creep up and try to stick his head out the door. So as not to look crazy pantomiming "NO. HEY. STOPPIT!" while handing out candy (since TJ wasn't visible to the kids whilst creeping) I would just step out onto the step and close the door behind me.

 

It's not like I don't know I have a cat, but every time I would be dropping candy into pumpkins and a kid would go slack jawed, and start pointing through the door, I'd get confused. Until they said "kitty!" and asked what his name was.

 

Well, it was later in the night, and M's friend Brady and my friend Molly were over.. we were eating chips and nacho dip and watching Hocus Pocus and chatting when one last straggler kid came to the front door.

 

The most adorable little boy dressed like a transformer.

 

I could see them come to the door before M, since I was on the couch, so I told M "there's a kid here" and made him get up. (Hey, I'd done it all night while he made dinner). In that time M is walking to the door, TJ charges towards the door and scares the daylights out of the kid, who jumps. which then scares TJ so TJ jumps, and skirts out of his view. We're all just dying laughing.

 

The best part, and maybe none of you will find this at all amusing, but M comes back in side and tells us the 2 kids and parent (who was standing back by the sidewalk) didn't speak any english, they were hispanic.

 

But when TJ charged and the kid jumped, the only thing that the dad said after letting out a short chuckle was,

 

"El gato."

 

I just LOST IT. I have no idea why I find that so funny, but I do. Thinking about it now just cracks me up. Whole night of kids oogling the cat, and that one line just gets me.

 

Anyway, hope you all had fun handing out candy, or trick or treating with the kids last night!

 

M and I have a wedding this weekend that I'll be sure to try to take photos of..and then if we get back in time Sunday, I have a home decor project I'd like to share! I have half of it done, but need to return to Home Depot to get something else. ;-)

 

-Kelly