Happy 6th Birthday!

On this day 6 years ago, our "kids" were born! I know that I've written about them before, a lot of the times they just sneak into my posts (and they are definitely a focal point to my Instagram use if you follow me), but let me formally introduce you to our kids, aka, our cats, Luna (left) and Teddy (right)!

 They are six years old (obvi), brother and sister, spoiled rotten, cuddly, annoying, and, well, true members of our little family. Last year on their birthday, I wrote about their actual "birth" day and their momma, Yuki, so this year I wanted to write something different about these two crazy cats in honor of this momentous day in their little lives. As many of you pet owners out there know, pets truly have a personality of their own, and Teddy and Luna are certainly not lacking when it comes to the personality-department! So, in honor of their 6th birthday, here's 6 little tidbits about our "kids" . . .

1. They are chatty. Their momma, Yuki, was some kind of Siamese mix and while neither Teddy nor Luna resemble anything close to a Siamese, they definitely got the chatty-gene passed down to them. Of course, when they're "talking" to us we oftentimes talk right back. Yes, we are those weird cat people.

2. Teddy is big. Not only is he a fat cat at a whopping 18 lbs (don't worry, we have him on a diet!), but he's also long and tall. Taller than a lot of small dogs. As long as Chris' legs when he stretches out. He's a BIG boy. And because he's a BIG boy, he's slow and really easy to take pictures of :)

3. Luna is particular. In people-terms, we sometimes call that OCD. Luna is very particular about when and how she cuddles, when and how you pet her, and don't even think about picking her up. She will literally "yell" at you if you do something that displeases her, like touch her. And don't even try to take pictures of her!

4. Teddy's the ultimate lounger. Teddy would never just simply lay on something and take a cat nap, he lounges. Whether it's a pile of clothes, some books, or the bottom ledge of our coffee table, he's always leaning or literally resting his head on something. Sometimes, I'm secretly jealous of how comfortable he looks and wonder if I too should lay on a pile of books or dirty clothes . . .

5. Luna has recently become a little circus freak. That girl's got some leaping action going on. Instead of running down our steps to get into the basement, she'll just jump from the highest step that she can. One day, she jumped from the shelf in my closet, through the 6 inch gap in my closet doors, and landed on our bed, easily 4 feet away. Crazy. Also, she's crazy good at playing fetch, but since she's pretty particular, we only play fetch on her terms.

6. Usually you hear that cats are independent; ours are not. Teddy and Luna have serious attachment issues. Luna frequently follows me from room to room (talking to me along the way), while Teddy makes the most awful yowling noises when he's in a room by himself and is "looking" for you (we literally have to call to him so that he can "find" us). They're kinda pathetic in that way, I know, but gosh do we love them!

So, there's six tidbits about our crazy 6-year-old kids. I can't believe we've had these two crazy kids cats in our lives for six years already, but then again, I can't really imagine our lives without them. Happy Birthday, Teddy and Luna!!

Washington Wednesday: EARTHQUAKE!

Now, I was totally going to do my first Washington Wednesday post on this cool little semi-abandoned park I found a couple of weeks ago when I was walking home from lunch with a friend, but yesterday's earthquake was too good to pass up. I know all of you non-Washingtonians would love to know all about. (Or is it already media'd out?) And, I am sure you want to know if we are okay - we are - and what kind of "damage" we sustained... yes? no?

First, I have to tell you that neither Chris or I have ever felt an earthquake. We both slept through one in Missouri as well as one a couple of years ago here in DC. Obviously both were small compared to this one, although it's not like this one was that big either. Anyway, I was at work when it hit. I work in a 100-year-old building that looks and feels every bit its age. When I initially felt the shaking I honestly thought that I would see someone run past my office door pushing some kind of equipment cart, it was that kind of rumbling. I think subconsciously I knew that no one person and a cart could make my office shake like that. . . anyway, after 5 seconds or so it stopped. I definitely remember my body relaxing and silently telling myself that I was right, it was just someone out in the hall make a racket. It might sound crazy, but my building is really old and some kind of phenomenon like that did not startle me that much, even though it was different. In an old building, everything is a racket. But I quickly realized that the shaking didn't just stop, it paused, because it started all over again. At this point, I knew something crazy was going on, definitely an earthquake, and I jumped out of my desk and ran to my door calling to my co-workers in the offices next to mine. I remember both of them sticking their heads out of their offices and my boss coming out of hers. We all looked at each other in disbelief. "Is this an earthquake?" one of us asked. "What do we do?" I'm pretty sure by this point the shaking had stopped and we all decided it would be best to get out of this old old building. (Yes, I know you are supposed to go under a desk, etc. but this building is old I tell ya!) All of us, and others throughout our building, poured out into the parking lot. Crazy crazy stuff. We all laughed and talked semi-nervously, semi-excitedly. The campus I work on sustained minor damage, but somehow my old building remained unscathed apparently. Although, I did notice some cracks in the plaster walls... but who knows if they are old or new!

Chris felt it too at his work, but he didn't realize until afterwards that it was an earthquake. He was in his parking garage leaving to go to lunch and says that when he felt the rumbling he thought he had hit a car backing up out of his spot! By the time he got out and saw that he didn't hit another car and was still a few feet from it, the shaking had stopped. He works in a nice fancy-schmancy office in fancy northern Virginia so his building and campus are fine. He did feel one of the aftershocks later in the evening though!

Now, since we live close to where I work and there wasn't much damage at work I knew that our house would most likely be fine. However, I was eager to find some "damage" and scoured the house with my trusty camera phone as soon as I got home.

Canned goods toppled off our pantry shelves to the floor. No dents or anything though . . .

Since I am in the process of stenciling our bathroom (post to come next week?), I have a lot of our bathroom stuff on a bookcase in the hallway and only a few items fell off of it. At least that perfume bottle landed on the rug and didn't break!

These books were upright (at least as far as I know). And Good Ole Abe the Bobblehead survived. (Thank goodness, right Danielle?)

Our bathroom mirror fell over. Thank goodness the door frame and facuet caught it because that would have been a mess. Although, I'm not in love with the plain builder-mirror anyway... (btw, it's not attached to the wall, because again, I'm in the process of stenciling. Tune in next week to read what color I picked!)

The most tragic damage was that my coveted candle pillar thingys fell and kinda shattered. You might remember them from my bathroom dilemma . . . *tear*. Any suggestions for repairing/salvaging them? Chris thinks I could take the tiles off, which are unbroken and make new candle pillar thingys, but that might be too much work for a bathroom accessory, yes/no?

Lastly, you might be wondering how our precious kids kitties reacted to the earthquake. While we were not at home to witness anything, we can only suspect from their behavior when we returned over 2 hours later that they were pretty shook up.

I eventually found Luna hiding in our basement after I had heard her little sad "mews." She was very skeptical of coming upstairs and was skittish and on edge almost all night. Here she is trying to decide if she wants to venture away from the basement stairs . . .

Teddy was pretty easy to find. I knew he would try to hide under our blankets.

It definitely took some coaxing by Chris to get him to come out. He didn't even fall for my bribe of treats but instead burrowed further into the blankets.

So, that was our experience with the Washington Earthquake yesterday. It was a bizarrely "fun" experience, not really scary, and definitely not something I will soon forget!

Anyone else have a good better story? Or felt an eartquake before? Isn't it the weirdest feeling ever?!

Cat of Steel

As you might remember or already know, Chris and I have two kids... err, cats. One of them, Teddy, is a "big boy," which is putting it nicely...

(Apologies for the poor quality, it was taken with my cell phone.)

As you can most likely tell from the photo in which he takes up a good portion of the dresser top, he is big. He weighs a little over 18 lbs. and can easily stretch from our ankles to our hips when he lays on our legs. Plus, he is all black. To the regular passer-by he is probably terrifying, but in reality, he is the biggest cuddly-bear kitty ever and is completely pathetic 90% of the time.

For example, sometime last spring Teddy began to meow, loudly, these most pathetic yowls we had ever heard. And, he always did this when he was in a room all by himself, especially at night when we would go to bed and Teddy would still be in the living room or basement. Chris and I would joke that Teddy had gotten "lost" and was scared and looking for us. That's how pathetic he is.

This summer, we realized that those "yowls" were actually his way of telling us he had something that he wanted to show us or play with. (I know, you must be thinking that we are regular cat whisperers in this house.) For instance, he usually yowls while he is bringing us hair bands (his favorite "toy") or bottle caps (another favorite). Rarely does he actually brings us one of the numerous real cat toys we have bought him, like a catnip-stuffed mouse.

So, bringing this long background story to a close, last night Chris said he heard the similar yowling coming from Teddy after we had gone to bed. He said it sounded more labored or struggled than usual, but he didn't think anything else from it. Remember, Teddy's pathetic. He didn't think anything of it, that is, until this morning when he walked downstairs to leave for work and saw this in the middle of our kitchen/dining room:

Don't mind our tiny overflowing trashcan.

What is it? you ask.... that is one of Chris' tennis shoes. Yup, just one.

You wanna know where it was last night when we went to bed? Not in the middle of the kitchen, that's for sure! It was in our BASEMENT! Not only was it in our basement, but it was on the complete opposite side of the basement from our stairs. Meaning someone picked it up and carried it across the basement, up the stairs, and into the kitchen...upon closer inspection of the shoe, Chris found this piece of evidence:

Do you see them?

Do you see them? On the toe box? Yes, that is two teeth puncture marks on the shoe's mesh upper. Someone, a CAT (or a tiny vampire), carried that up from the basement. And, based on the fact that Chris heard Teddy's labored yowling last night, our guess is that our pathetic cat of steel, Teddy, carried a whole entire tennis shoe up from the basement! Such strength and determination to get that thing up the stairs!! Hilarious!! It is moments like these that I wish I had cameras set up around my house to catch these acts. Or, perhaps kitty-cams!

So, yes, I just wrote an entire post about the happenings of one of my cats last night. Yes, we are crazy cat people for thinking this is hilarious and wanting to share it with all of you! But seriously pet-owners out there, don't you have crazy animal stories too?

Happy 5th Birthday Kitties!

Today is our kitties' 5th birthday! It's hard to believe that 5 years ago today I was sitting in a cubicle at work excitedly receiving text messages from Chris letting me know that our kittens were being born . . . And, Chris was sitting in his apartment watching it all take place!

See, what happened was, 5 years and 9 weeks ago, Yuki, our beloved siamese mix cat escaped through an open door when one of Chris' roommates had a party. We found her a day later, under his neighbor' porch, but we quickly realized that she came back to us, "knocked up." We definitely did not intend for that to happen, but prepared ourselves anyway for this completely unfamiliar process . . . In the meantime, Yuki's little body got bigger and bigger . . . 

Pregnant Yuki. She was HUGE.

Then, on June 5, 2006, Yuki gave birth to four precious little kittens - two black, one gray, and one black and white, two males and two females. As you can guess, they were soooo precious, and cute, and fun! It was a blast helping Yuki take care of them, watching them open their eyes for the first time, wobble around on their little legs, and then begin to pounce around and play with one another.

The babies.

Taking a family cat nap.

Playing.

 (Excuse the poor poor quality of the photos in this post. I am no photographer, and I was using whatever crappy camera I had 5 years ago!)

Chris and I decided to keep two of the kittens - the black boy, who we named Teddy, and the gray girl, who we named Luna. (Teddy because he reminded us of a Teddy Bear and for Theodore Roosevelt, one of Chris' favorite presidents, and Luna because, well, she was kinda crazy, spastic, and looney. And for Luna Lovegood for all of you HP fans out there!) Chris' mom and sister kept the black and white one, who is now known as Nike, and the black girl kitty went to a friend's girlfriend at the time.

Chris, Teddy, and Luna. Yup, I'm sure they loved this.

 These last 5 years have been a blast watching them grow-up, learning about their bizarre cat personalities, and loving them. Teddy and Luna are like our kids and I cannot imagine our lives without them!

Unfortunately, we lost Yuki to cancer this winter. She was too young and it was a hard loss for our little family, but we have adjusted and while we will miss her on this big celebration day we know that without her there wouldn't be a day to celebrate! So, as much as this post is about sharing with everyone that we are crazy cat-people and are celebrating our "kids" birthday, it is also a big THANK YOU to our Yuki-baby who gave us our little family and will never be forgotten!

And, if you must know, we will be celebrating Teddy and Luna's birthday by giving them some "fancy" cat food, probably some loads of catnip, and some new toys to add to their collection! Plus, we have yardwork to attend to and need to run errands - it is still a Sunday!