Worst Super Bowl Party Ever

On Super Bowl Sunday, normal people get together to watch the game. My person, like usual, didn’t do what normal people do. She did go over to a friends’ house and it was even during the Super Bowl. There were other people there and snacks and beer and a television with the game on. I was totally hoping my person would not be a nerd for an afternoon. But no. Do you know what my person and her friends did instead of watching the game? The learned sword fighting. That’s right. They learned how to do something that no one’s needed to be able to do in like forever. Lame.

It gets worse. My person is the one who taught everyone else how to use a sword. I guess the swords on the wall downstairs aren’t just to look at.

Before I came to live with my person and TGWWGA, before I was even born, my person was in a sword fighting club in college. That’s right, there was a whole group of these people and they somehow managed to find each other. Spanky says I have to tell you that my person was in a “theatrical combat troupe.” What kind of dorky word is “troupe”?! Anyway, that means that they used real swords, not toy ones, but they weren’t sharp or anything. The people also couldn’t hit each other because “that wouldn’t be safe.” *rolls eyes* Seriously, if you’re going to use a sword at least hit someone with it!

But back to the Super Bowl. I’d met my person’s friend, Tom, before and he seemed like a pretty cool guy. Well, as cool as one of my person’s friends is going to be. I thought he might be a good influence on my person. But no. He’s total nerd, too. So much of a nerd that his wife got him a sword for his birthday.

When he told my person about it, she got all excited. Because if anyone was going to think her friend getting a sword was “really awesome” and not really weird, it would be my person.

So, instead of watching the Super Bowl like normal people, they all went out on the lawn and practiced with swords.

One of my person’s friends is learning to sword fight in heels. Which is pretty cool, I guess. Cool for people with swords. More importantly, why did they let my person have the sharp sword in this picture? She injures herself on her desk chair! If she cut off her hand with a sword, how would she feed me and rub my tummy? People should think about these things!

I wasn’t there to tell them that, though, so they kept going. Here’s my person and her friend, Tom, practicing a sword fight. My person was showing him how to fight with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.

Huh. They actually look kind of fierce. Never thought that would happen.

It did get kind of cool at the end. Tom cut a pumpkin in half in midair! This is actually awesome enough to deserve video!

How cool is that?!

It kind of looks like brains in there! Pumpkin-colored brains but still pretty awesome.

I guess as far as nerdy stuff my person has done, this is okay. I still wish she’d be normal more often, but I can see why she likes swords. They are pretty cool.

The Monster is broken!!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!!

The Monster has been sort of broken for awhile because he hurt his back really bad. The doctor says he's not allowed to lift heavy things which includes me (but not Spanky). Which is fine with me because I don't want him to pick me up.

After Mommy and the Monster came back from their trip home for Christmas (they left me! I was sad!), the Monster had a cold. One one paw, it's nice when he has a cold because he's not as scary when he sleeps all the time. On the other paw, he doesn't leave very much when he's sick so I have to be extra careful that he doesn't see me. Spanky likes it when the Monster is sick cause he says the Monster makes a great bed for sleeping on. The Monster is warm and I like warm things, but I do not like Monsters! He could wake up when I was sleeping on him and then he would get me! Very scary! O.o

Mommy was sick too, which was sad, but she got better and in the meantime I got lots of snuggles and ear scratchies. So it was only sort of sad that she was sick. But the Monster didn't get all better like Mommy did, probably because he's a Monster. He ended up with a sinus infection AND con... conjun.... conjunct.... I can't write it! It's too hard! It means his eyes got all red and they itched. Since the Monster's eyes were all ucky, he couldn't see as good as he usually he can. I was able to sneak by him lots of times! I even got really close to him yesterday and he didn't see me. I'm a brave kitty! :D

Mommy didn't want to catch the Monster's germs so she had to wash all the things the Monster touched. I don't know why she doesn't do that all the time. The Monster is probably full of germs. He IS a monster and everyone knows that monsters can make you sick. That's one of the reasons they're so scary. Well, that and their claws and their teeth and their general scariness. Anyway, Mommy washed all the sheets and towels and blankets every day. It was a lot of work to wash all that stuff, but I helped her. I sat on the bed when she changed the sheets and grabbed the corners when she was folding them and crawled inside the blankets so make sure they were nice and warm. I'm even rolled around in the clean laundry so it would be nice and fluffy. I'm such a good kitty. :D

Spanky was busy keeping an eye on the Monster. The Monster wasn't supposed to touch his eyes because they were sick so Spanky had to meow at him when he forgot. He forgot a lot.

Spanky was also grumpy because when Mommy was washing all the things the Monster had touched, she thought about washing Spanky. She decided not to but he was still mad at her just for thinking about it. Silly, Mommy. Spanky's already covered in Monster germs, a couple more won't matter. I never let the Monster get close enough to touch me so I never need a bath. I'm smart like that.

See? Aren't I good hider!

Dante says the Monster won't be broken forever so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Oooo! Maybe I could sneeze on his pillow and he'll get sick again. Maybe I could get Dante to sneeze on it too...

The Return of the Plum Pudding

Editor's Note: Today's entry is a guest post by Watson who lives with Jennifer's parents in Michigan. The cats have agreed to this only on the condition that they did not have to personally associate with a dog.

Good day,

Watson here. I am a canine companion to Jennifer’s mother and father and share my lodgings with Sherlock, a rather eccentric and excitable fellow. Before I took up residence with Harry and Bethanie, I served Her Majesty in various uncomfortable and distant parts of the Empire such as Afghanistan and Flint. These days I get quite enough excitement listening to Sherlock bark at everything imaginable and some things which are unimaginable (such as phantoms and other superstitious nonsense). Sherlock is the perfect example of a canine of whom it can be said that, “his bark is worse than his bite.” I am very proud that such a thing can never be said of me. To give you a further idea of his personality, I've included the following photograph. Here, Sherlock is "investigating" the family's baking plans.

Jennifer recently came home for a holiday visit. As a physician, I was pleased to observe no deleterious effects from her recent association with feline companions. I was particularly pleased that we had a few days of her company before Jason joined us. When I first met Jason, several years ago, I expressed my opinion of his (lack of) suitability quite forcefully. I have since become resigned to his presence because Jennifer is fond of him and she is a somewhat headstrong Irish lass. She would not take it well if I were to detach any more pieces from Jason.

While Jennifer was staying with us, she and Harry made plum pudding following a recipe that has been in Harry’s family for several generations. This is curious because Harry is not at all English and plum pudding is a fine old English Christmas tradition. As I'm sure we're all aware, however, humans do all sorts of strange things and generally are none the worse for it. But I digress. I am given to understand that Jennifer made plum pudding a few years ago and that Spanky, a member of a lesser breed without the law, wrote a description of the process for this blog. While it provides a quite suitable description of the process given it's authorship, I felt that an additional account would be quite beneficial to the readers of the blog.

Things went about the same this time around except that Bethanie knew of a local grocery store where all of the ingredients, including the essential suet, could be found. Jennifer had quite a bit of trouble locating suet in California, but Michigan is much more civilized than California in that respect. As some of our readers might be unfamiliar with this ingredient, I thought it wise to include a picture:

Numerous ingredients are necessary for a proper plum pudding and they must be thoroughly mixed. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how distasteful it would be take a bite of what one believes to be delicious pudding only to discover that a particular morsel consists entirely of raisins or have cherries.

Harry and Jennifer had a bit of a debate over whether the ingredients, specifically the cherries, needed to be chopped. Harry was against it, while Jennifer was for it. Things reached such a state that Jennifer threatened to call Harry's mother. Rather than see either one proved incorrect by this appeal to a higher authority (they are both quite stubborn when it comes to admitting fault), I intervened and suggested a compromise. The cherries were cut in half and the process was finally able to move forward.

After the ingredients were mixed, they were usually steamed using a pudding steamer. It should come as no surprise that individuals with a mixture of Irish, Scottish, and French blood failed to have such a device at hand. Fortunately, Jennifer is English on her mother's side and was able to assemble an ad hoc pudding steamer from materials at hand. It may be inelegant, but it was sufficient for our purposes.

And at last we have the finished pudding! Delightful, isn’t?

We're back! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's like the best Christmas present ever!

Mommy finally passed her exams and says we can use the computer again. Yay! I was very sad that we didn't post hardly at all last year 'cause then I didn't have a reason to stand on the keyboard. Even Dante was sad that we didn't get to post. He tried to pretend like he didn't care, but I know better. His ears totally perked up when I told him we were going to blog again. He can't fool me! I'm a smart kitty! Almost as smart as Spanky! :D

So, you're probably wondering what we've been doing all this time. Well, we've been super-busy. The monster started law school so Spanky had to make sure the monster did all his homework. Dante and me helped Mommy with her exams and then helped her grade some essays. Every time she got a pile of essays we'd knock them over and then sleep on top of the best ones. Or maybe it was on top of the worst ones? I forget. Maybe this quarter we should sleep on all the essays just to be safe.

We've also had lots of adventures this year to tell you about! Super-exciting!

First Day of School

Things have been rather quiet around here of late, but that doesn't mean we don't have big news to share. Some of our readers are undoubtedly already aware; however, I thought it best if I made a more formal announcement. Jason is now attending Southwestern Law School!

I was a bit trepedatious when I first learned that Jason was applying to area law schools as I had become accustomed to the amount of time he and I had spent together of late. In addition to bringing an end to our Star Trek marathons, Jason's returning to school would also mean that I would be in Jennifer's care more often. She has recently decided that Edmund needs to go on a diet, and while I agree that my young friend is quiet portly, for some reason his being on a diet also means I'm on a diet. Despite my repeated protests, Jennifer has gone ahead with her plan to restrict access to our food dishes. The other two have accepted this situation but I remain hopeful that Jennifer will eventually see reason.

Where were we? Oh, yes, law school. Despite my concerns, I've come to realize that law school is a big opportunity for Jason. He shall be able to continue assisting others while earning a living that will enable him to buy me all the kibble I can eat and perhaps even one of those robotic vacuums for my two young friends to chase. He also seems quite excited about the prospect of returning to school and I am willing to put up with Jennifer and her "ideas" if it will enable my human companion to pursue his dreams.

And what has Jennifer been up to, you ask? She is in the midst of studying for her Ph.D. exams which are scheduled for this November. As near as I can tell, this process involves checking out a large number of books from the library and then reading them. The stacks of books are quite sizable; I almost feel bad for the poor girl. Almost. Once her exams are completed, she will be able to begin writing her dissertation. A process which I'm sure will involve acquiring even more books.

Once both of them are done with their respective graduate programs, it will raise the number of doctors in the family to three. I, of course, earned my Ph.D. in Feline Studies several years ago.

I am not a mutt!

Jennifer has been spending a lot of time around the house lately. I believe she is reading as the stack of books on her floor keep growing. I have mixed feelings about her seemingly continual presence. One the one hand, I am forced to deal with her unusual ideas more frequently, but on the other, I can ensure that my meals are served promptly at the proper times. Feline meal times is one of Jennifer's recent notions, and a peculiar one at that, but that is a subject for another post.

Recently, I came across an intriguing chart. As the image is quite large, I won't post it here. Instead, this link should allow you to access it. The chart is really quite fascinating and reflects an immense effort on the part of its creators. As many of you may know, my feline housemates and I are not members of any recognized breed. Because of this, Jennifer insists on calling us mutts when asked about our pedigree. Mutts, of course, are dogs and it is terribly improper to refer to the more sophisticated cat by that term. This chart, however, enables us to determine a more suitable designation.

We shall begin with Edmund as he is the easiest to identify:

Under the "Solid" category, the gray is a tempting choice, but my young friend's paws are pink and so that option is out. Instead, he must be a Frost and as he has some white on his chest we have decided that he is a Tuxedo Frost.

Dante's case is more complicated as white fur is generally indicative of albinism, a condition which he most assuredly does not have.

However, it is possible to locate a non-albino white with Dante's eye and paw color on the far left side of the chart. His spot patterns means that he is white with black Harlequin spotting. An excellent pattern for my occasionally uncoordinated housemate.

Identifying my description gave us the most challenges.

My coloring and pattern suggest calico. However, male cats lack the genes necessary for tri-color coats and thus calicos can only be females. Lady cats are all well and good but I am most definitely a gentleman. (Editor's Note: Male calicos do exist but are extremely rare). My coloring, instead, is that of a tabby. Tabbies are located in several places on the chart and it is necessary to look under the "Tipped" section to find mine. I am a Spotted Cameo Tabby.

I can only hope that Jennifer uses the correct terminology in the future although given her stubbornness I suspect she will continue to refer to us as mutts.

Presents from Santy Claws

I wasn't sure about this Santa Clause thing. He sees me when I'm sleeping? He knows when I'm awake?! He knows if I've been bad or good?!? This is supposed to be exciting?! Sounds pretty scary to me. O.o

I was getting all worried, but Dante told me not to because Santa only comes down chimneys and we don't have one. I had to take his word for it 'cause I don't know what a chimney is.

But I LOVE getting presents! I thought you all might like getting presents too. So here's some links to funny pet things and the three of us all dressed for the holidays!

Cat vs. Printer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSK1D3bZhRs

Dogs are silly (not like good kitties)
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html

Spanky


Dante


and Me!