Catching Up

As always.

In tonight's episode:
Why Kids Can Wait
Chris and Liz's Day o' Honda
Gearing Up for the Move
A Question for Jaimie

I. Why Kids Can Wait

Chris and I have slept head-to-head on our L-shaped couch for three out of the last four nights. I've felt compelled to stay near our kittens, because one of them is sick. It's a cute little orange kitty which we temporarily named Sneezy after the tell-tale signs of upper respiratory infection it so cutely exhibited. We have since renamed it Banshee, or Screaming Banshee, or S.B., because it has been wailing for a straight week. I thought it was having a hard time breathing and maybe it was frustrated about all the sneezing and the snot. But then, one day, I realized that the little guy was about half the size of his brothers and sisters (honestly, I think it really happened overnight). So I guess he's been crying because he's been hungry, constantly, for the last week. I didn't suspect that because he wasn't being shunned or anything. He just suddenly lost all natural instinct and could for the life of him not remember where the teet is and what it is for.

I swear, we've spent so much time coaching this kitten to suckle, which he could do just fine before, but he just doesn't get it. Half the time I'll catch him looking for somewhere to feed, facing the wrong way. So the last few days, we've been bottle-feeding him at all hours of the day and night. I'll wake up all bleary-eyed at 5 a.m. and hear him screaming, and I'll get up and grab his bottle out of the fridge. I'll hold it under hot water until it warms to room temperature, and I'll squirt some on my finger to make sure it's not too hot. It's about that time, every day, that it occurs to me I shouldn't have to be doing this yet. I'm intentionally avoiding this very thing. But I guess it's good practice, and hey, no diapers.

II. Chris and Liz's Day o' Honda

Chris and I test-drove Hondas yesterday. We want a hybrid, and all they had in a hybrid was an Accord. But we were really interested in the Civic, so we drove the hybrid Accord and the regular Civic EX, to get a feel for the difference.

Laura, Kristie, you were right.

After riding around in the Accord, the Civic felt like being locked in a closet with airbags. The Accord had XM and separate passenger temperature controls and cool stuff like that. But what difference took the biggest toll on me? The fact that the Accord had one of those awesome retracting change holders in the compartment between the seats, and the Civic didn't. It wouldn't have felt like so much of a compromise for me if not for that.

We told them we couldn't buy the damn thing that day, but they convinced us to see what financing would be like anyway. Sure, satisfy my curiosity. Why not? It took them three hours to let us know we couldn't afford it, at least not with their financing options. And there goes the afternoon we'd set aside to get our personal business done. Live and learn.

III. Gearing Up for the Move

Why is that title a shameless pun? I'll tell you why.

Jaimie's moving into her very own house later this week (w00t!), so Chris and I went over to her place last night where we celebrated by drinking wine and cutting styrofoam into the shape of gears. I cut out the biggest one and I got styro-shrapnel all over me. It was a winter wonderland in Jaimie's kitchen floor (I hope the term "winter wonderland" hasn't been distorted into some disturbing sexual idiom yet, because Laura could already make that last sentence sound trashy).

While we were cutting gears (great, now everything sounds dirty...Laura, somehow this is your fault), Jaimie gave me the honor of previewing her next Weekly, under the condition that I read it aloud. So now Chris and I have read the Weekly. And so has Jose Conseco. But you haven't. Neener.

IV. A Question for Jaimie

You know how there is no #6? Is that a reference to Season 6 of Xena, which the fans wish did not exist? Because I always just thought that was random, but if that's the case, it's really funny.