Kitty Fever.

My old friend Keith started following my blog.  Hi Keithy!  Thanks for following!  Welcome to the most depressing website on the internet.

And Jennifer!  I must know how you found my blog and where you know me from!  Please email me at twelvedaysold@gmail.com so I can put a face with the name.  Thanks for commenting.  Also, welcome to the most exciting website on the internet.

I MADE SOCKS, SUCKAS!

So sheik!  So FIERCE!

And this was the moment Cinnamon decided he didn't want me to be his owner anymore.  "I'm leaving," he said. "And fix that lampshade."

Who can't get enough cats now?  Is it me?  And my husband?  Obsessed with everyone else's kitties?  Oh, hi Cinnamon.  I didn't see you there.

On Saturday night some friends invited us to dinner.  They just adopted two kittens, one 4 months old, one 6 months old.  Trying to nap?  No, you're playing with me.  Irritated with me?  I don't care, let's cuddle.  Ooh, that was a pretty disgusting sneeze all over my arm.  It's okay, I forgive you.  Kiss.

Add that to the fact that we watched the first season of Project Runway and when I woke up this morning Jesse said, "Did you dream about clothes?"  "Yes, and cats.  It was weird."

AAANNNNDD my Nana sent us some pillowcases for our anniversary!  Naturally, they are covered in cats.  She is what we call an "enabler".

Oh, and I want to leave you with this shot I took of Cinnamon's chest.  I know, I know, he said "My eyes are up HERE" too.  This is his lovely belly fur that I like to snuggle.  Go ahead.  Be jealous.

Boxers or briefs? I don't know.

I just deleted my whole blog post.  So I'm sure you can understand if this is brief.

BRIEFS GOOD ONE KATIE.

Are those briefs?  I don't actually know.  Please advise.

What I already typed, before Blogger decided it was mad at me, was:  Do you like the Gap (yes)?  Or Old Navy (double yes)?  Or Banana Republic (not so much, no)?  Well then I HAVE A DEAL FOR YOU!  Through Sunday you can use this coupon for 30% off your purchase at any of those stores.  Five percent of your purchase will then be donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters!  And even if donating to those type of things isn't your bag of tricks, it's still an awesome deal, yo.  Here's the coupin.

http://www.gapinc.com/giveandget/bigbrothersbigsisters/

And sorry for calling you yo.

Oh, and I know that this is the second time I've told you guys about opportunities to donate to charity.  But I won't ever post organizations that I don't believe in.  And there are ones I don't donate to because I feel they don't use their money wisely.  But Big Brothers Big Sisters, along with volunteering there myself, I really do believe in what they do.

Anyway, I was then going to tell you that my husband and I just had our 3 year anniversary on Wednesday.  And he told me not to blog about what we did this year because it was lame.  So I won't mention it, even though I don't think eating a ton of Burgerville and then falling asleep on the couch watching Mythbusters is lame.  But I guess you'll never know.

Alright, Cinnabutt:

"Cinnamon, get off the coffee table."
"Everything ELSE is on the coffee table."
"Carry on."

And a cute one of the Jessebutt.  Well, not literally.  I guess.

Knock knock. Who's there? I'm Evan!

As of a few days ago, I started an experiment to see if VW Beetle drivers wave at each other.  Did you know that they all look really mad all the time, and never wave back?  I told Susan I continue to do it because the people behind me won't notice that the other person didn't wave, but when they see me stick my hand out the window they'll think: "Hey, those slug bug people all wave to each other."  Then they'll think I'm part of some elusive club of slug buggers, but really, we are all in bad moods even though our cars are cute.  Hey-o!

Oh yeah, and Jesse and I agreed on a name for the car.  It took a while.  But we named it after my friend Evan.  In particular, his knock knock joke.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

I'm Evan!

Yes it's a stupid joke but it GETS ME EVERY TIME.

(And if you are interested, Evan is in Iceland right now and has a blog titled I'm Evan and I'm in Iceland and funnily enough, he's coming back to America in like 5 days, so that link will be a lie soon enough, end of sentence.)

Oh, and could my family be any pushier about me naming my car?  We never named our cars growing up, but when I mention that we name ours, everyone has an opinion.  My own MOTHER tried to guilt me into naming it after a dead family member.  Name your own car, I said to her.  I don't name my cars, she said to me.  I don't understand why we're still talking about this, I said.

Well...here's a picture of Cinnamon.  It feels awkward only having one cat to show pictures of.  So I'll show multiple pictures of him.

This is his newest look, The Sleepy Look.  Very Mugatu.

And this one's a bit of a game.  Can you see the yellow cat in the dead grass?

Moving forward...

My favorite author, A.B. Keuser, sent me a box of cookies (being a biggest fan has its perks) and in there was a note that I could share them with my friend Jenna.  As it turns out, Jenna...I owe you some cookies.  As in, I need to make you some cookies.  Amy's a great cookie baker!  And snickerdoodles for breakfast?  I think even my mom will let that slide.

Look at me with all those links.  My sister gave me a hard time about never linking to her when I talk about her so I'm trying to fix that.  Hey, Susan!  I'm linking your blog!  LIIINNNKKK.

Anyway, here's an updated picture of my hip.

And I just lied right there, because I had Jesse take this picture like 3 days ago.  The bruise is almost gone.

Oh, and I wanted to thank you all for your really nice comments about Suki.  We totally miss her and keep thinking we see her, so it's nice to know other people understand.

Also, we have TWO NEW FOLLOWERS here at twelvedaysold yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

We have Daniela!  And LoveandLust! (Etsy shop link)  And I just saw I got another new follower, and that is Willoughbywhimsy.  I guess I didn't need to tell you I just saw I got a new follower, when I am writing this and I could go back and delete that line and just mention the three of them together.  Yet here we are.  It's like when my mother-in-law sent me an email and wrote "just a second" in it.  One thousand one...

All right, well just a second and I'll post this.  Wait for it...

Poop accidents.

FINALLY.

Someone found my blog by searching "poop accidents".  And I just really don't think it can get any better than that.

Twelvedaysold.

Poop accidents.

Things are better, guys.  A bittersweet kind of better.  Things got drastically better and drastically more sad at the same time, but what can you do?  You live your life, and you tell yourself my new motto to keep yourself going:

Poop accidents.

Just like that Katie always says, "Poop accidents."

Let's pretend that my mind was a bunch of building blocks, built up into a pyramid.  And I love building blocks by the way, that would be a great present if you feel so inclined.  Yesterday I got a call from my insurance company that Hank was totaled.  And it's like, one block had been poked from the initial car accident, and then 6 more throughout the course of the weekend.  And then I got that call and that one was too weight bearing of a block and then it got knocked out and AAAAAAHHHHHHHH.  I mean, would we be upside down on the loan?  When can we take Suki in?  How much will it all cost?  How much longer do we have the rental? 

And then as quickly as it fell apart in the morning, it came back together in the afternoon, finishing up a really horrible 5 days.  We were not upside down on the loan.  Suki's parting was way more rough than I could have imagined on us, but we distracted ourselves with this.

Speaking of Suki, we were hoping to keep her for another week or two.  But you know how when you find out something's wrong that you didn't know about that you suddenly notice all the things you should have seen before?  Sleeping more, how much she drank, etc.  On Sunday we left her home alone for 3 hours and she peed in 5 different spots of the house. Not vengeful peeing, like on our pillows, but in the hallway, the bathroom, the bedroom...  And it wasn't like regular cat pee, but really diluted.  Ugh, guys, it just totally blows.  I know we did the right thing.  But it blows.

Oh, and we got to see Hank one last time when we emptied her out at the auto shop.  And I snagged this photo on my phone before we left:

We're going through a little bit of mourning as Jesse and I adjust and talk about all the sweet things she used to do.  How instead of playing with yarn she would pull it taught and then continually LICK it (that was always a fun spot to get to in my knitting), and how whenever she dropped a big poop she would run as fast as she could through the house.  Or how she would be sitting in front of you looking at something behind you and you could wait and wait to see if she's still looking, but the moment you turned around to see what she's looking at she either 1) looked away casually or 2) looked at you like you are a huge moron.

Oh, and the "she" up there was in reference to the cat, not Hank.  Hank never licked my yarn.  

So hopefully we will get back to your regularly programmed activities instead of talking about the week from BEYOND.  Because I have a couple new followers.  And I may have eaten all the cookies Amy sent me that I was supposed to save for Jenna.

And now a quote from my fazha: "Everything with be OK and it will all work out, mostly because there is no other choice."

And don't forget what Aunt Katie says.  Poop accidents.

The terrible, horrible, no good, really sucky three days.

Suki has always had a thing for water.  I've blogged about it a lot, about how she likes to get in the tub after we've taken a shower, or whenever she hears us go into the bathroom when she turns off Miss Silent and becomes Miss Do-What-I-Want until we turn on some water for her in the tub.  For at least the past few weeks, we've noticed that the cats go through one whole bowl of water every day.  We knew it was mostly Suki, but it wasn't until Jesse said he thought it was strange that I looked it up and realized cats aren't supposed to drink that much normally, especially because we feed her wet food.

So even though I had just been in a car accident a couple days prior and haven't quite been myself, I put my foot down and said we needed to get the cats to their vet appointment, even if something was wrong with Suki.  And that's when they told us she has diabetes.

And that's when they told us Cinnamon has the beginning stages of kidney disease.  It's not too terrible, and we can have him for another couple years before anything really starts to happen, but he needs to be put on a special diet.  A diet that would be fine to share with another cat that didn't have diabetes.  And insulin for Suki would cost $130 a month, along with that new diet.  And while I know you've seen the lavish life we live here in the 'burbs, there's no way we can scrape that money up.

So, sad news, Internets.  It might be a little quiet and sullen over here for a while as we say goodbye to our sweet Suki so we can get Cinnamon started on his regime before we wait too long.  We're really bummin here at the Bray household, even though we knew the risk of adopting an 11 year old cat last year, and knowing the possibilities at the end of the vet appointment today.  We're hoping God cuts us a little slack the rest of the weekend before hearing back from my car insurance company and having to think too much about Suki being gone.

For your viewing discomfort.

If you have no idea why I'm showing you my hip's new look after dating Korean steel, please see my last post where I attempted to take myself and a minor that I was in charge of out to dinner.

Casualty.

Well.

It's always the ones you don't think would hurt you, that do.

I had a slight altercation with Hank.  Perhaps 7 months into this relationship was too long.  Or perhaps the fact that I drove her in front of a car that was moving 40 miles an hour while shouting out "T-bone me!  T-bone me!" is what did us in.  Quite literally.

Last night I was pulling out of a side street when I was a big fat dummy and didn't see the girl driving towards me on my left.  I saw her too late, tried to speed up, and she swerved like a madwoman (in slightly the wrong direction) and hit my car.  I like to think I can blame her.  Because I pulled out in front of her.  Remember that part about being a big fat dummy?

It totally ruined my dinner plans. 

I'm part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.  I've had my little sister for a few months now, and I picked her up last night to celebrate a belated birthday with her.  We hadn't gone 300 feet from her house before my attempted murder of Hank.  The reason I tell you this totally embarrassing part about putting my Little in danger is that I have to check in with someone at Big Brothers every month to see how things are going.  She wrote me a few days ago and had a list of questions for me to answer.  One of which was the following:

2)      What are some of the safety precautions you take as a Big to make sure that your little is safe when hanging out with you?


"Well, first I make sure she buckles that seat belt up.  Then I look over at her and say "HOLD ON!" while I pull out in front of a car during a left-hand turn.  I mean, she's gotta find out sometime, right?  Life lessons!"

Oh.  And the irony.  The stone-cold, slap you in the face, never call you back after that first date that you thought went really well irony.  When the cop came and talked to me and got all my information, he suddenly said, "That shirt is appropriate."

I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

Please note the small "ctrl + z" to the side of the car crash.  Control z is "undo".  Unfortunately, no one had a keyboard handy.  And believe it or not, I was wearing my slimming bra.

I have a really horrendous looking bruise on my hip that I'll show you later.  I know you're excited.  Holy crap, I was just about to make a joke about how I got injured and it wasn't even anyone's birthday before I realized why I was taking my Little out in the first place.

Okay, here's where you leave comments to me about how glad you are that I'm not dead.  Because we all know Jesse would never clean the litter box unless Suki dropped a particularly nasty dookie.

Gloves and WHO'S THE CULPRIT YOU LITTLE JERKS

My many fans, I do not understand.  I have had three new followers on my Twitter page in the last month.   Twitter called, wants my poop back.  I haven't updated since December 2009.  In case you don't know (and you were so lucky before you started reading this), I'm what we call "anti-Twitter", seeing as I really don't care what my friends are doing every single moment of their lives.  Sorry, friends.  You're just really, really boring.  I KID.  (No I don't.)  So I started Twittering every time I pooped.  Do you think these people noticed my page, and are concerned that perhaps I haven't pooped since December 2009?

A long, long while ago I started knitting some gloves, and I showed you how quickly I knit the first hand.  The second hand, well...that took some motivation.  But here they are.  Here they are, indeed. (craftster post here)

"And tonight we see Katie wearing...what's that...looks like the Disney collection...Yes!  The Princess pajamas!  It's definitely Cinderella, I'm sure of it.  And those gloves!  So chic!  An excellent pick with the kitty clutch, newest from Fred Segal.  She has chosen 'Frightened Feline #3'."

And yes I had to look up Fred Segal to make sure it was a clothing retailer.  Didn't want it to be Fred Meyer's cousin or anything.

Why yes, I did blur the background to hide the stuff we had on the floor.  How did you find out!

Moving forward...

I was going to talk about how the cats had what people call "accidents".  But we call it "we temporarily forgot why we have those cats in the first place."

I realize that is interesting to no one, yet here I am still talking about it.  The first two times they peed in really good spots (for cat pee, that is) like a plastic bag that was easily thrown away.  Then there was two small spots of pee on the carpet in the living room, which was convenient for no one.  Well, except for Jesse, who was on his way to school and "oh the cats peed on the carpet, I put a paper towel down." A paper towel.  I scoff at your paper towel.

Now, Jesse thinks one of the cats decided to pee on the carpet.  I, myself, me, Katie, choose to believe that they both sat across from each other and counted down to peeing, and then ran off giggling to the tub for a midnight tub licking.

I've also brought all of you here today to ask a favor.  When you guys comment, I usually have things to say in reply to that comment.  But I'd rather not comment underneath your comments because I'm pretty sure none of you come back to read them and it depresses me when half of the comments on a post are from myself.  When I get an email saying you have commented, I like to hit that 'reply' button and send an email back to you.  And, as it turns out, almost all of you have set your email address to not show when you comment.  I'm asking you to change that.  To do so, go into your blogger profile ("edit profile" on your dashboard) and click the "show my email address" box.  I'm not forcing you to do it (but if I were in your computer room with you, I would try, trust me) but what of the whimsical and uninteresting things that you never get to hear from me?

Sorry I'm still talking about this. Part 3.

After this post, things will go back to normal, but I feel the need to clarify what Comic Con actually was.  Well, kind of.  I still don't really understand it myself.  Don't worry, next post will be filled with the gloves I finished knitting, and cats that have decided that peeing inside the litter box is something only cats that aren't mad that their owners left them for a week decide to do.

Contrary to what you might think (this is for you, Steve-oh), Comic Con has, how you say, like, no comic books.  It seems no one knows why it is still called Comic Con.  We went to the Will Eisner Awards and the host said he was told that somewhere on the floor there was rumored to be comics, but he hadn't seen them yet.  It should be called Media Con or something.  While, yes, there are nerds there (lots and lots of nerds), there are more shops selling toys and artists selling art and movies and tv shows and video games taking up massive amounts of floor space.  There really is something there for everyone who is into any of those things.  And I'll be the first to say the comic books section was lame.  But see?  I'm not into comic books.

Oh, I did see one artist's tramp stamp.  I bought a Dr. Horrible print from Russell Walks and he bent over to grab it for me and said to his friend who was in the booth with him "Hey, stop looking at my tramp stamp."  And then he stood up and said, "You know, years ago it was not odd for a guy to get a tattoo on his lower back."  And his friend stopped what he was doing and looked up at him and said, "Do you really have a tramp stamp?"  I saw it guys.  It was...awkward.  That's a lie, it was awesome.

Oh, and another thing, I have officially become an old worried woman, because when we were driving home in LA, motorcyclists kept riding between the lanes, bypassing all the traffic.  And you know the only thing I was thinking?  YOU'RE GOING TO GET YOURSELF KILLED!  Motorcyclists, please.  My nana rides a motorcycle.  Don't be stupid.  The thought of killing you sounds like it would ruin everything I had planned the rest of the day.

How glad will you be when I stop posting about my vacation that happened over a week ago and wasn't that interesting to you in the first place?

Oh, and Jessica, please follow my blog, and not just Susan's.  Remember me?  The sentence I had originally typed trying to get you to follow me had a lot of CAPS and I think this was a much more pleasant sentence full of begging.

You stay classy, San Diego.  I'm Ron Burgundy?

A whale's vag-- wait, what? Part 2.

We left off with me saying "I was on vacation and you weren't so be very jealous."  Let me continue.

Oh, but first let me say that this Thursday (August 5th) all of you should go to Dairy Queen and stuff your faces with a Blizzard.  On Thursday, DQs across America are giving $1 (or more, depending on the location) of each Blizzard sold to the Children's Miracle Network.  If you don't know about the Children's Miracle Network, they are a string of hospitals across America that don't turn kids away that are sick -- everything from a broken bone to cancer.  It's worth eating some ice cream for!  Here's the website to enter your zip and see if a DQ near you is participating.

I don't know where to begin with the vacation pictures.  Let's just jump right into it.

At the trolley stop at the convention center, they had changed all the signs to Klingon.

Knitting in line.  I knit that sock all the way down the leg and turned the heel, and put it on my foot and it was huge.  I ripped it out in that line as well.

This is Maeby from Arrested Development GUSHING over Joss Whedon.  She had a comic book for him to sign.  Famous people waiting in line for famous people.  Huh.

And yes, a grave at Comic Con.  My great-grandfather is buried in San Diego, so Jesse and I took a trip and took a million photos.  Looking back, I would have taken off the temporary tattoos (of dripping BLOOD, what is wrong with me) and not worn a shirt where a guy's plumber's crack is showing.

Many of you are familiar with the website icanhascheezburger.com.  At Comic Con I found a shirt that says "I CAN HAS BRAINZ?" with a zombie cat underneath it.  You can see it in most the pictures with me in them.  Do you know how disturbing that tshirt is outside of Comic Con?

The "winners" (if you can call yourselves that) of the postcards are: (did you know I was giving out postcards to a select few commenters?  NOW YOU DO!)

Beth's husband Steve (and consequentially, Beth herself)
Joann
A.B. Keuser, who I actually know in real life and is probably wondering why she didn't get a postcard in the first place.

But now I need your addresses, so email them to me at twelvedaysold@gmail.com.  And I'm not writing them up until you send me your address, because I learned the hard way that sometimes people don't get back to you with their address even after leaving two voicemails saying you have a Christmas card stamped and ready to go.  I may be talking about my in-laws, and I may still be a bit bitter over that wasted stamp.