Meet Effie!

This is Effie, our new baby! She's a dilute calico/domestic short hair mix, and a rescue from the Look What the Cat Brought In shelter.

That's the Professor's Wife in the background. 

We picked her up last night. She's about nine months old, and she is as sweet and outgoing as can be. When she's not cuddling with Mom or Dad, she loves playing with her toys, scratching her post and running crazily from one room to the other. Granted, that last one is probably mostly dear-lord-where-am-I behavior, but it's still cute.

She's been adapting wonderfully to our home, and since I'm home this morning, I've been able to hang out with her and start figuring her out. Some things I've learned so far: In typical cat fashion, she loves sitting on my keyboard while I'm trying to use it. Any typos in this post will therefore be blamed on her.   She loves drinking out of people cups and will try to squish her face down into one, no matter what size, in order to get what's in it. This means I'll have to be much better about cleaning up my wine glasses. She also loves to sniff the Professor's shoes and spent quite a bit of time this morning exploring his half of the closet. And she's an excellent cuddler. After the Professor left for work this morning, Effie finally got tired of knocking papers off of the desk (they say the first night is the hardest) and climbed up into the bed with me, curled up, and napped there for an hour. She purrs in her sleep.

Can you tell I'm in love? The funny thing is, I've never been a cat person. We've always had dogs in my family, and because of allergies (including mine) we never had cats. The Professor and I had been talking about adopting a pet, and when we walked in and saw Effie we both loved her right away and it wasn't a tough decision to bring her home. So while we have to deal with the allergies (we stocked up on Claritin and Visine), we already feel like we got really lucky with Effie. She's great in a kennel in the car, she eats well and has already gotten used to the new litter box. It's like we were just waiting to find her, and she was waiting for us.

So now I have to interject and tell you what cute thing she's doing. I have my water cup right next to my computer and she's squashed her face down in there to get some, but every once in awhile she'll pop up and put her paw on my hand like she's helping me type.

I am totally turning into a cat lady.

-The Professor's Wife

Lazy Sunday

I've been having trouble with my newspaper subscription. I get the paper on Sundays and holidays, because I like the Sunday New York Times crossword and the color comics. The Professor likes the Sunday sports section, and we both like the coupons. We like to get up on Sundays and have coffee while we read the paper - it had been something of a routine for us until a few weeks ago.

Three Sundays ago, I didn't get my paper. I ended up having to work that day, so I didn't notice right away, but Sunday evening came along and I got home, looking forward to a little crossword-puzzling and coupon-clipping, and my paper was nowhere to be found. I furrowed my brows a little and made a mental note to call the Post and ask what was up. I ended up sending an email and getting credit on my account.

Fast forward to last Sunday. I wake up, throw on my slippers and scamper outside for my Post, pick it up, bring it inside, open it up - and it's the Gazette. Now I must interject here and confess that I am an unapologetic newspaper snob. I hate the Gazette. It's a poorly written, poorly edited, poorly laid out paper and the coupons suck. There's a reason I pay an extra two bucks for the Post. How in the name of James J. Hill did I end up with a Gazette?? I chalked it up to a delivery error and called the Post - who again, credited my account and promised a re-delivery (which happened on Thursday).

So this morning, I'm fully prepared for the problems to be remedied. They've had two weeks of error, they're bound to get it right this time, right? Wrong. Not only did I not get the Post, I didn't even get a consolation Gazette. Although, between not getting the paper at all and getting the Gazette instead, I think the Gazette was worse. It's like being told you're getting a trip to Fiji for Christmas and getting a trip to Des Moines instead. So I have again alerted the kind people at the Post, who have credited my account. I'm going to end up with a year of free papers - except they won't ever get delivered.

So that's my complaint for the week. Now for the goods: The Professor and I, despite our newspaper woes, had a lovely Sunday morning. There's a small bakery near our house that we have been attempting to test out, but in Abbott-and-Costello fashion every time we try to go, it's closed. We've got the hours written down now, and barring another week-long holiday closure, we'll eventually get there. So after an unsuccessful attempt at the little bakery, we enjoyed some Einstein Bros, then took our gift-card-holding selves to Bed Bath & Beyond over the way. We are not Bed Bath & Beyond people by any means, but we were given a hefty gift card from a regular customer as a wedding present and took the opportunity to buy some big, fluffy towels and some kitchen utensils we had somehow been living without. The Professor also lucked out and found a lovely Metrokane Rabbit wine kit with an aerator. We're now kicking back at my parents' house, watching the NFC championship (football-watching is another of our Sunday traditions), enjoying the company of my dad and my dog. Another wonderful Sunday in the lives of the Professor and his Wife.

May your Sundays be ever in your favor!

-The Professor's Wife