Sunday, April 8, 2012

Happy Easter, Happy Mrowsering!

As often happens in Spokane, around rolls Easter and along comes Spring, dragging her feet three or four steps behind, like an unhappy child. 

Luckily, a quiet, sunny Easter was just what we asked for this year. Brian and I went to my cousin's house for a small Easter brunch before digging up our bikes from beneath all the garage clutter and taking our first bike ride of the year. Overall, a nice quiet day with those who matter most. :) 

Of course, after the festivities of last weekend, this was more than welcome. Brian's oldest sister and her two daughters (pictured left) drove into town for a weekend visit during Whittney's Spring Break. Fun, but definitely a little exhausting. :)

We spent Friday night chatting over dinner at Brian's parents house, Saturday's dinner took place at his sister Kim's house, and that left us to host Sunday's dinner at our house. 
After (a little) frantically cleaning the house Sunday morning and starting the chicken fajitas, Sunday turned out much better than expected! I think Brian enjoyed playing the host and cook, taking control of everything logistically and letting everyone else just mingle and talk. I'm not so sure the kittens can say the same.

As soon as Brian's brother and his wife arrived, two things happened: first, Hank took refuge behind the couch in the living room and a panicked look plastered itself on his face once he realized that he effectively cornered himself into the room. Second, Steve began hamming it up, playing the friendly, kitten with pitiful looks, just pleading with everyone to give him a belly rub.

After a couple hours of festivities, Brian asked me to feed the kittens since Steve decided to make it known that he wanted food, and he wanted it NOW. That involved lots of mrower-ing at Brian's feet in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, poor Hanklin, from his residence behind the living room couch, refused to move even an inch in response to the usual food whistle that typically sends him racing down to the laundry room for dinner. Instead, I brought his food to him, drawing him out from behind the couch before I grabbed him and brought him down to the safety of the basement, thinking that he would want to eat without an audience. 

Not so much. He looked at me, looked at his food, glanced around to the basement rec room, and then walked away. Being the good kitten-mama that I am, I picked Hank up and brought him and his food to his daddy in the kitchen. Where, with the comfort of his daddy nearby, ate most of his food. 

After kitten-dinner, I thought that Hanklin might like to go to his normal hiding place, under our bed. I took him and gently placed him on the stairs leading to our bedroom, nudging him up the stairs. Shockingly, he decided the kitchen floor presented a better option... a better option for getting tripped over!

Hank sat there for a good half hour, eyes always on Brian, looking scared if anyone else dared come into the kitchen besides Brian, Sarah, or me. The poor guy. Scared out of his hammer pants! 

Then, once he got tired of maneuvering around the kitchen to avoid being stepped on, he took residence in the next most comfortable and safe hiding spot in the entire house... between the wall, the toaster oven, and a colander. The poor cat sat there for at least two hours, entirely terrified of all the people (around 15) invading his house.

Not gonna lie, it was entirely sweet the way that he huddled there, and at point he even used the colander as a sort of pillow for his cute, little, fluffy head. The poor terrified kitten. Once everyone left it still took him a while before he felt comfortable enough to emerge from his hiding place and rejoin the rest of the household. 

That night, I woke up at about 3AM to find Hanklin laying on Brian's chest, while Brain gave him head rubs and whispered "You did such a good job today, I'm so proud of you" over and over again. If that wasn't the sweetest thing in the world, I don't know what is. :)

I think Hanklin is very happy that this weekend was nothing like last weekend. :)

And, because this was a primarily Hanklin-post, here's the obligatory cute Steve picture!!!! 












Saturday, April 7, 2012

Mrow?

I know, I know, it's been a while!

I really need to work on keeping this blog up-to-date on all of our activities... so far that goal amounts to one big FAIL for the year. So, I'm going to change that But first, let me give you a quick run-down of all the events since the last time I wrote in here.

As of February it appears that I'm headed down to Portland State come September! I got a department graduate assistantship, which means free school! I'm okay with that :) Brian and I are headed down to Portland in a couple weeks to take a look at potential apartments and figure out my living situation.

 I hope that we get a chance to take a tour of the campus, maybe go and poke around in the Sociology Department a bit, and, most of all, explore Portland! This will Brian's first trip to Portland, aside from driving through it a couple of times, so it will be fun to explore and get to know that city with him. I'm thinking that some stops at a few breweries is definitely on the agenda.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet around here. The cats mrowser their way into trouble on a daily basis. We keep putting their toys back into the Costco box turned toy box and, inevitably, by the end of the day they have gotten in there and pulled out their favorite toys, sometimes along with old favorites they haven't played with in  a while.

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Of course, for the past two months, Hank's favorite toy has been an old paper bag from the liquor store that we crumpled up into a ball. Whenever anyone so much as touches that paper ball, he comes running across the room, sometimes skidding to across the tile in the kitchen to our feet.

Earlier today as I attempted to throw it for him, he figured out the perfect opportunity to steal it from me before I threw it. I as standing at the stairs, ready to throw it towards the dining room, when all of a sudden I was standing there without the ball. Hanklin snuck up the stairs while I teased him with fake shot attempts and grabbed the ball when my hand went back to throw, and gave me a pretty satisfied look when I realized what happened.

I'm pretty sure the day that bag eventually gets thrown out is going to seem like the end of the world to Hanklin. Which, of course, means another trip to the liquor store to buy something so we can make him another toy. Or just because our liquor supply keeps dwindling at an alarming rate. ;)

Well, that's all for now.

Happy mrowering!