of cleaning and comas

I've always been messy. No matter how hard I tried growing up, my room was looked like an explosion of toys, shoes, homework, clothes and what I called "projects." Twenty years later, not much has changed. Well, the toys are different. (Not like that! Get your mind out of the gutter.) Anyway, I try, I really do. But somehow the clothes don't quite make it back in the closet and the papers get stacked up on the desk and before I know it, there is shit everywhere and I don't know what happened.

It has been especially difficult in our wee Boston apartment because, besides the bedroom closet (which is overflowing with thingz), there isn't any storage space. We've had to get really creative with putting stuff out of sight but eventually there was only so much we could do. Combine that with the facts that there's no air conditioning system in our building (i.e. no air flow up in here, i.e. dust gathers like crazy) and that Penny gets a sick joy out of rubbing her long luxurious fur on EVERY SINGLE SURFACE IN THE HOUSE, well, we found ourselves living in an apartment laden with piles of stuff everywhere, all covered in dust bunnies and cat hair. Oh, and did I mention we don't have a dishwasher? Cool.

Anyway, this is a super longwinded way of explaining why I am awake and blogging at 1:00 a.m. (and on a school night!!! Whatttttt???) See, Brian and I decided to tackle the house today. Five sets of dishes washed, four loads of laundry done and folded, an entire bathroom scrubbed and reorganized with a brand new cabinet thingamajig, seven pictures hung on the walls, countless clothes picked up and hung up, two trips to the dumpster and one giant, heavy duty air purification filter machine set up and running later and it seriously feels like we are living in a whole new apartment.

Then we decided to reward our hard work with beer, spinach artichoke dip and beef & Guinness stew (aka the comfort food of kings) at the pub down the road.

Then we came back to the house and promptly fell into an epic food coma at 8:30 p.m.

Except then we woke up after two hours and couldn't fall back asleep. So now Brian is studying and Penny is sleeping on more stuff she shouldn't be and I am blogging.

Seriously you guys, we live the craziest life. The party never stops around here. Twenty-somethings shutting it DOWN, twenty-four/seven. It should be illegal how young and crazy and out of control we are.

I should probably go to bed.

adventures with kittens: hide and seek

Brian brought me something tiny and furry last night. Forget jewelry, THAT's love. Meet Penny:

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that I am a cat person. Like the most cat person of cat people. I wish I could post a picture of me with the last kitten I got, when I was 9 and my full-blown awkward stage was blooming, but said picture is at Chez Mom & Dad. (By the by, the last kitten I got is now the cat I still have, although he resides at my parents’ house. His name is Mischief and he is getting old, has been fat, and is recovering from feline diabetes. I love him.) Anyway, I hope this sketch will give you an idea of what it looked like:

 

But back to the new bundle of joy. Immediately upon being let out of her carrier, she made a mad dash for the tiny space under the heater, where she tried to stay all evening (except we kept pulling her out to pet/snuggle, which she would tolerate for approximately thirty seconds, then as soon as she could, run back to her heater haven).

Bedtime: before hitting the hay we decide to look for her again, to be sure she's not trapped or something. She's not in her usual haunts, which at this point include under the heater, under the couch… pretty much anywhere she can be “under.” However, she’s not in any of them. Finally I find her behind our printer, standing on her hind legs between the printer and the wall. She seems very alarmed to be found in this position.

2 a.m.: Brian, who is suffering from a raging case of indigestion and can't sleep, wakes me up for a kitten scavenger hunt. She's not in her carrier/bed, or under anything… Brian eventually points her out to me, on the desk behind our picture frames. She is adorable. We are slightly perplexed as to how she got on the desk, since I doubt she can jump that high yet. She seems too sleepy to care that we’ve found her in this position.

4 a.m.: Brian, who at this point has given up on sleep, wakes me up again to extract the kitten from behind the bookshelf, where he worries she will get stuck and/or pee on things that will be hard for us to clean. She seems pissed that we have found her in this position and are making her leave it.

5 a.m.: I wake up to find Brian is still awake and he informs me that the kitten is being unusually affectionate. I find her laying on top of the printer (a new favorite spot, at least for this hour). I put her on the desk and she proceeds to mew, purr, rub against my hands and climb all over me. Eeeeeee!!! Happiness. Pure happiness.

Unfortunately, once she’d had enough of that she retreated to under the bookshelf, where she is now ignoring me. She plays me so hot and cold.

EDIT: Picture acquired.

WHAT. ARE. THOSE. SHORTS?!?!?!