Our new cat Boris is quite lazy...

A while ago, I wrote about our cat, Moe, who passed away. Moe was Laura's baby, so she was understandably devastated when he died.

We had three cats at that point, two of whom favored me a lot more than they favored Laura. Until a little over a year ago, we had just two cats, Moe and Murphy, who were the same age. Then Laura and Julia wanted a new kitten. I was against it because I didn't think it was necessary. If fact, when Laura and Julia went to pick up the kitten at the Humane Society, the HS people called me to get my permission. I felt very tempted to say that I didn't want a cat, but I relented.

Laura and Julia picked out a female they named, Suzie. Now it's been a good track record that female cats tend to gravitate themselves to me. I told Laura that she should get a male cat because I didn't want her jealous when a female kitten started to favor me. She felt that was ridiculous, so in the end, they got a female kitten.

I had requested that Laura and Julia would be responsible for the kitten so I wouldn't corrupt it. This worked for a few days, but then they got tired of always tending to the kitten, so I got brought into the mix despite my warnings. Sure enough, after a few months, Suzie started to gravitate towards me. Straight out of a cliche'd movie, Laura would be in one chair tapping her leg while exclaiming, "Suzie!". I waited and tapped my lap while also exclaiming Suzie's name. Sure enough, Suzie took off for me. Before long, Suzie was completely corrupted by me and followed me around wherever I went.

So when Moe died, Laura was sad for a bit, but then she was really pissed off because then she had no cats that favored her. It was only heightened when we'd be watching TV in the living room and Suzie would stroll into the room. She bypassed Laura's pleas and jumped into my lap.

Laura seethed, "It's not fair! At least you have two cats that still love you!"

So it was decided that we would get another cat. After several weeks, we went to the Humane Society to pick out our cat. We had been there a few times prior scouting out some cats. Laura had even had a private room session with one of the cats a week prior, an orange tabby they named, Cheddar, but she wasn't sure if he was right. She didn't have her heart set on Cheddar, but she just wanted a cat that liked to cuddle.

We picked one orange tabby cat to look at, but when he was brought into the room, he spent the entire time just wandering and paying no attention to us at all. After a few minutes, I said, "Well, I don't think he's very interested in us."

Laura agreed and they brought in Cheddar. We didn't pick him first because he was a rather scrawny cat. He was eight-months old and had a skinny body and skinny legs.

The Humane Society worker pulled Cheddar out of his cage and he immediately bounded for our private room. Once inside, he jumped up on the bench we were sitting on, put his head on Laura's leg and started purring loudly. She pet him and he responded with even more purring. Over the next 10 minutes, it was obvious that Cheddar was the cat we were taking home. He seemed to love all of us. Laura had a name picked for him: Boris, after Boris Yeltzen (don't ask).

We packed Boris into the cardboard carrier and placed him in my car. Laura had to go back to work. Julia and I started driving home. Boris started to meow loudly. He started to claw frantically at the holes inside the box.

Julia started to yell, "Dad! He's trying to get out!"

I tried reassuring Boris, but he was bound and determined to get out of the cardboard carrier.

"Oh my gosh!" Julia exclaimed, "He's dug a hole in the box! He's going to get out!"

I reached into the backseat and felt the box. Sure enough, there was a hold in the box. I reached a finger into the box to try and stroke Boris' head, but was scratched instead by the whining cat that frantically started resuming his prison break.

I looked around the front of my car and grabbed a CD case from the console. I reached back and said, "Here. Hold this over the hole."

Julia did as instructed. She held the CD over the hole, but Boris kept clawing away at the box. Julia squealed a few times and exclaimed, "This is the weirdest day of my entire life!"

She protested that she couldn't keep Boris out any longer, so I took the CD case and held it over the hole with my right arm stretched to the back seat and my left arm still on the steering wheel. I felt like stopping to calm him down, but I figured that getting him home as fast as possible was the wisest strategy.

Once home, we shut him into our room and shut Murphy and Suzie out. After a few days, we opened the door and let Boris meet the rest of the cats. There was a lot of hissing and chasing for a while, but he quickly won over Suzie since they are around the same age and they became buddies. Murphy still hasn't befriended him. Not that Boris cares.

There are a few things about Boris that we have noticed. While Moe ruled the house like a tyranical king in which he did everything himself and attacked all threats, Boris rules like a lazy emperor.

Boris likes to eat.

He was practically skin and bones when we first brought him home, but he quickly got into a routine of eating. If he doesn't have food, he whines and cries. If he does have food, he whines and cries as if there isn't enough. If I add food to the bowl, you'll often hear a cat sprint downstairs to get to the food and it's always Boris.

Boris is a little demanding.

Besides the food demands, Boris will whine and complain if he doesn't have enough fresh water. He'll sit there and meow in protest of his lack of water. If that doesn't work, he dips his paw into the bowl and starts sloshing the water out of it and all over the floor. Lately, he's just taken to dumping the whole thing over to get me to fill it up with some fresh water. I thought briefly about getting a filtered pet water fountain, but I figured he'd then start complaining if the filter wasn't fresh, so I dropped that idea.

Boris also is demanding of Suzie on getting cleaned. Our old cat, Moe, cleaned his hard-to-reach areas like any other cat by twisting his head around or putting saliva on his paw and rubbing it on his out-of-reach areas. Boris just walks up to Suzie when she's cleaning herself and drops down in front of her. This is her cue to start bathing him. One gets the picture of an old emporer lounging while a bather cleans him.

Boris is an attention whore.

Moe liked his attention, but usually just from us. Boris, on the other hand, prefers his attention givers like doctor's prefer their patients, with a pulse. There hasn't been a person that Boris hasn't prompted for attention.

He's climbed onto the laps of door-to-door salespeople, a water softener representative, a gas company tech and various kids that have come over. He even rolled onto his back when he was chained up outside on Halloween so
the parade of kids could all pet him. He's like the town doorknob: everyone gets a turn.

Now that I have a laptop computer, Boris jets for my lap when I have it on. He must love the warmth that comes off of it because I can't keep him off my lap for too long.

The up side is that he's a friendly cat to everyone, which is also a downside. I've mentioned before that Moe could be very aggressive and attacked people he didn't know (or acted like he was going to). While I counted on Moe to scare away any burglar that might break in, I get the feeling that Boris will just follow the burglar around purring and rubbing against the burglar's leg while the burglar robs us blind.

Boris is incredibly lazy.

I know cats sleep a lot, but Boris has taken it up a notch. He just seems to sleep all the time. Oh sure, he gets up to eat and drink, but then he lies down to do it. As you can see in the pictures here, he lies down down on his side to drink or eat. Granted, he could stand up and stoop over his bowl like any other animal, but that would be asking too much of him. once, I saw him get up from a long nap in his favorite chair, lie down to drink and then fall asleep in mid-drink because it was so much effort to move over from his nap chair to take that drink. He also lies
down to eat.




I'm exaggerating a little. Boris doesn't sleep all the time, but he does spend a large amount of time eating, drinking and getting attention when he isn't asleep.

What I am happy about is that Laura got her wish. Boris is more than willing to lie there and cuddle. To that end, he's a great cat.

Hiding the evidence...

The other night, Julia had one of those 'Oh crap!' moments that every kid goes through. If you've ever accidentally

broke, scratched, ripped, burned, doused, crumbled, or chipped something that you shouldn't have, then you know what

I'm talking about.

For me, there were instances like this when I was a kid when I accidentally knocked the sink off the wall in our basement, which I was playing on at the time. Or it could have been the time I accidentally set fire to the kitchen cabinets when I was 2. There was the time when Bill and I were having a water fight, and I accidentally threw a glass of water all over my Mom's sewing fabrics when Bill got out of the way of the water I had just tossed at him. Pick a year in my life and I'll have an example of an 'Oh crap!' moment.

I was out in the garage cleaning trash out my car. I walked inside and I heard Julia shuffling quickly around the

kitchen. I walked into the kitchen to see the whole floor between the refrigerator and the island covered in water.

Plus, there were shards of glass on the floor.

I asked, "What in the heck happened here!" in a loud voice as I looked over at Julia. She was standing next to the

our deck door with her back to the wall. She was standing in front of something.

"Nothing!" Julia exclaimed nervously.

"Did you break a glass?" I asked.

Julia groaned a little and nervously said, "It was an accident, Dad!"

I looked on the ground. There were a couple of shards of glass on the ground. It looked like glass from the

McDonald's Shrek 3 glass that we had bought this summer. I glanced around. "Where is the rest of the glass?"

Julia hesitated and said, "Umm... It's right here."

She stepped out from in front of a blue storage tub. I walked over to it. Sure enough, there were lots of shards of

glass in the tub.

She said, "I'm really sorry."

I laughed. "Don't worry. I'm not mad. I'm just glad you didn't cut yourself."

She helped me pick up the rest of the glass on the floor and to mop up the water. My phone rang. I answered it. It's

Laura.

"Hello?"

"Uh... What was that?!" Laura asked with a surprise.

"Oh, you heard that, huh?" I asked. I had forgotten that I had called Laura at work and handed Julia the phone

before I went outside.

"Yeah!" Laura said like Elaine would on Seinfeld. "I was talking to her when I heard this loud crash. Julia said,

'MOMMY! I'VE GOT TO GO! I'VE GOT A BIG PROBLEM HERE!' Then she hung up.

I told her what had happened. Julia dropped the glass while she was talking to Laura, hung up, ran to find something to dispose of the glass and started putting the glass in the storage tub. She would have probably attempted to mop up the water herself had I not come in.

It's an almost unavoidable fact of life that your kids are going to break and spill stuff. now I'm just afraid that

she's going to spill onto more expensive things that can't be fixed like a TV or a computer.

More joys of commuting with your spouse...

Driving Adventures Part 2

I mentioned in a previous entry the highs and lows of commuting with my wife, Laura.

One of our favorite shows is one called 'The Amazing Race', which pits teams of 2 against each other in a race around the world. It involves a lot of transportation with cab rides, train rides, plane rides and a lot of personal driving in which one member navigates while the other drives. I often joke with Laura that if we were ever on that show we'd be yelling at each other constantly.

This is often true of us when we have to leave town. Invariably, Laura gets stressed out when we don't leave the house at a certain time. I think she has a problem with my packing at the last possible minute and then throwing everything that I think I might need. This usually means I bring a lot more than I would ever need, but at least I've covered my bases. One of my biggest fears is that I will be driving out of town and a sudden pang will hit me that I've forgotten something important.

Because of this, when we have to leave the house, I usually have to make a few trips inside before we leave. I'll get in the car and then suddenly realize that I don't have my keys, so I run back inside to get them. I'll get back in the car, put the key in the ignition, but then I'll have to run inside because I've forgotten my sunglasses. So I run inside to get them. We're about to leave again. I've started the car and am about to back out, when I realize that I've forgotten my cell phone, so I run back inside to get it. This either ends there or I'll remember that I need to blow out candles, turn off lights, get a drink, go to the bathroom, lock the doors, grab a book I want to read, grab some CDs, grab my music player and other assorted trips inside for something. For some reason... Laura gets annoyed by this. I have no idea why...

So when we're off to work or driving home together, Laura has a few pet peeves in relation to my driving. She suggested a lot of these, so she had some input into this story. Lest you think I am complaining out of spite, my view is that if you can't laugh at these things, then you're on the verge of splitting up with your significant other.

Laura insists that if I am driving and there is a big gap between me and the car in front of me, that I need to close that gap. She'll start to intone, "Why aren't you going faster?", "Can't you go any faster?", "Why are you driving so slow?", "Why are you in this lane?", "Why are people passing us?" or "Jesus, you drive like a grandma!".

In my defense, if the traffic isn't that busy, I'll be sure to close that gap because I can get around the cars. However, if the traffic is wall to wall and the cars in front of me are both neck in neck with no hope of moving to allow more cars to pass, I find it idiotic to accelerate only 50 feet to the car in front of me, only to slow down to the same speed.

I joke that if we ever get into an accident that involves me hitting a car from behind because of her urging to 'get on his ass', that I'm going to blame the whole thing on her.

"Officer, I was obeying the speed limit, but my wife kept yelling at me to go faster and to 'get on' the car in front of me's 'ass'." That's me doing air quotes by the way.

The officer will probably shrug and mutter something like, "Hey buddy, I hear you..."

The ordering of directions doesn't end with on the road danger. If we're in a parking lot, Laura will bark out parking directions, even if it's obvious as hell which spot to take. I'll be driving up a row of cars and spot an empty spot. Laura will yell, "Ooh! There's a spot right there. Right there! (points)."

"Thanks," I'll say. "I couldn't have spotted that on my own."

"No problem," Laura will smugly say.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Julia has gotten into that habit, too. I'll be driving through a parking lot without Laura and Julia will exclaim, "Oooh! Daddy! Right there's a spot!"

So while I'm getting plenty of direction on the road, I am getting no help trying to decide what to eat.

I'll be driving home by myself on a Friday (Laura has that day off) and I'll call her up to see what she wants to eat. The segue here is a little awkward I'll admit, but it does tie into driving as you can see.

Usually, she wants to eat pizza. On a side note, I've never seen a person enjoy pizza more. If she could have her way, she'd eat it 3 or 4 times a week. It's as if she has a pizza maker's blood running through her blood, except she only got the part where the pizza maker just eats them.

Unfortunately for me (and her), I worked at Pizza Hut for about 10 years. During that time, I had every type of pizza imaginable and tasted every ingredient we ever had, which includes anchovies. I worked there part time to supplement my income five days a week. To save money, I would take home a personal pan pizza almost every single day that I worked there. As a result, I've not only had about every combination of pizza that you could imagine, but I've become so unbelievable sick of pizza that I could just about throw up.

Yet on almost every Friday, Laura will want pizza. So then I'll ask, "What do you want?"

She'll answer, "I don't care. Whatever you want."

Then I'll say, "No, it's not what I want. It's what you want."

She'll retort, "You know what I like. Whatever's fine."

To which I'll start to get a little testy, "Just pick something. I don't know what you want."

She'll start to get testy with, "What do you want on the pizza? Just pick something!"

I'll come back with, "You're asking the wrong person! That'd be like me wanting some Chinese food, but then asking you to pick it out for me when I know that you don't like it that much."

"Fine," she'll sigh, "Give me a ham and pineapple."

"Now was that so hard?" I'll ask.

If only Laura would concentrate on what we're going to eat instead of the driving, then maybe I wouldn't be so stressed when I drive home on Fridays.

But I think I realized why Laura and I clash when we drive together. It came to me when we were driving through our neighborhood to pick up Julia after work. Laura turned to me and said, "Jesus, you drive like the slowest f*#$ing grandma driver I've ever seen."

Of course, I pointed out that I was driving through an area heavily populated with kids. I sped up a little and then made noises and gestures as if kids were getting bounced off my car as it plowed through the neighborhood. She laughed.

We clash because when I get up in the morning, I'm pretty wide awake. I'm not one of those people that take two full hours to wake up, like Laura. As a result of this, our morning drives are pretty uneventful. Laura is too busy waking up to notice how I'm driving. But when I pick her up at work in the late afternoon, I'm running on a half-full tank, while Laura seems to be running at full speed. I'm the one that's zoning out while she's the one thinking of the best and fastest way to get home.

Once this past week, we took Laura's new car. She decided to drive on the way there and the way back. Now I think that I've mentioned that having Laura drive is analogous to riding a roller coaster. You're pretty sure you're going to die, but you hope to God that you don't. I said in a previous story that she tails people like she's trying to dry hump the back end of their car. Last week did not disappoint. There were several times when the cars would break and I could have sworn that we were going to hit the car in front of us. I winced and grabbed the little hang down arm on the ceiling. Once or twice, I signed the sign of the cross just to be safe. After a while, I just stared at the ground or out the side. It wasn't as scary that way.

I'm all for her driving. I just need to bring something to distract me from the excitement in front of me.