Happy B-Day Cat-the-Meanie

Cat's been a meanie and a computer hog. She wouldn't let us on the computer the whole time she was student teaching. Like months and months. 16 whole weeks. Not even to tell you that the children didn't eat her.

I kinda wish the children HAD eaten her!!

Well, not really . . .

Meanie.

In the mean time, she taught lots of lessons, nannied for the family, went to game, and watched lots of TV (mostly SG-1 because that's on all the time on SyFy). Then she moved away from school last week because she's all done. I guess she has this Master's Degree thing she was working on. Is that important? The family she nannied for will miss her, but I like the new place ok. Deirdre already came to visit, because Adrien isn't far away. This is much better I think, but nobody listens to me (and no one lets me on the computer, either.)

Cat has to look for a real job. For a while she's going to sub, and probably be poor. Good thing she has time to look for jobs to apply for now. It seems kind of boring.

The cable's better up here, I'm hoping to find some other good TV to watch. Unless Cat won't let me watch TV either.

Cat turned 25 today. It was good because it was a pretty normal day. The last two years have been really lame as far as birthdays. So a pretty normal birthday is a big improvement.

Also, Cat's hair is red now. Well, not all red, just pieces. Like highlights, but not as stupid looking.

That's all I have for now. Maybe Cat will let one of us on to talk about Christmas. It wouldn't be that hard. Really. Meanie.

Miss Caitlin, the Computer Hog

It turns out that a masters degree in Library and Information Science requires a person to be on the computer a great deal of the time. Miss Caitlin has been constantly doing homework for her computer networking class or her cataloging class, and then she turns it off to read for her children's literature assignments. It is most vexing.

Miss Caitlin has made it into the K-12 Media Specialist program, meaning she will be certified to work in Illinois schools as a librarian. She has to take a bunch of education classes, so that won't be hard, but then she has to do a practicum and student teaching. I am not at all interested in this part of her education - sticky children are not at all interesting to me.

Miss Caitlin is still ill and not sleeping. The sleep specialist has gotten back to her saying her sleep study was "inconclusive." Miss Caitlin thinks that means they want to get more of her money. But she needs to sleep so . . .

In happier news, Deirdre and Miss Adrien came to visit. They young ladies spent their time on campus mostly, while Deirdre stayed with us. However, Tipsy positively hung on her the whole time, so I was unable to meet with Deirdre alone.

She will travel this week for Thanksgiving to visit her Grandparents and immediate family. Hopefully she will remember to take us as well.

Oops.

So, we didn't post in January. Cat is all better, though she is still relearning to breathe through her nose. She seems happy about her classes. She comes home from the Family's house this sort of blue color. Cat says she's helping the Family's Mom paint. I think she wants to be a Smurf.

So Deirdre sent us some pictures. It seems she and Miss Adrien went to some other park-type places.


This is Deirdre on a morter at Yorktown Battlefield. There was a battle there. In the Civil War. That's all I got on that.


Here she's at Jamestown - It seems like she really likes cannons. At least now she is sitting ON them instead of INSIDE it.


This is also Jamestown. It looks like a really old house. I don't have more info than that. But it's all good to see Deirdre and know that she is okay.

So, in other news, Josie has been chosen to be in charge of a Plan. We roped Cat into the conspiracy; we needed some money and a car to make it work. Otherwise, we wouldn't bother because Cat's like no fun. How well the Plan succeeds depends on Cat's Favorite Junior. Hopefully, she will go along with The Plan. Here is Josey at the inception of our Plan.


Josey, we're rooting for you. Plus, we'll be pissed if you mess up our sweet Plan. Just keep that in mind. Favorite Junior as well, if you don't go along with the plan, we'll be sad.

Miss Dierdre's Visit and Christmas

Miss Dierdre came to visit us, arriving late in the evening of the 22nd, and leaving the morning of the 24th. Due to inclement weather, she estimated that she spent as much time in transportation as she actually did in visitation. While this was unfortunate, it was better than not being able to see my dear friend at all, as we have not been together since Miss Caitlin and Miss Adrien graduated from college. This was a sad situation without remedy except such as the two ladies devised. Since the weather was poorly, Miss Caitlin and Miss Adrien spent most of the time inside, playing games with Miss Caitlin's Bother and watching a particularly terrible Japanese drama.

After Miss Adrien and Miss Dierdre left, Mr. Caitlin's Father arrived. On Christmas morning, it was found that a most unwelcome guest had stowed away with him on the way down and hidden herself in Miss Caitlin's stocking - that devious Sheepy. A picture will not be provided as she is not worth it. She has, however, been behaving since arriving. She will depart when Miss Caitlin goes north to visit her grandparents next week and observe the work on the family house. She will not return.

Miss Caitlin has her splints removed tomorrow. She will be immensely relieved, as will everyone else. Their lingering presence has her predispositioned toward crabbiness. It does not help that she is rather stuffy but can do nothing about it. She feels that she will be much more cheerful after they are removed tomorrow. Hopefully, it will be the first day in the rest of her life of easy breathing.

I Can't Believe Snibbly Forgot

After being all angsty about the election, Snibbly totally didn't talk about it. He and Cat were real nervous. Cat called her parents and Gabe-Poli-Sci-Man and they all were like, it'll be over when California is called, chill. But still Cat was so relieved when they announced it that she burst into tears. Very silly. I mean, of course that Obama guy was going to win. It'd be the least he could do after Cat and Snibbly went through all the trouble to go see him and everything. That'd just be ungrateful!

You know what else Snibbly forgot about? (he's going to be in trouble!) He forgot we got pictures from Deirdre. She's at Fort Sumter with Miss Adrien and we miss her lots.


I'm not so sure that Fort Sumter is a safe place for her to be . . . (watch out Deirdre!)


I mean this looks like moref fun. Maybe a little like that castle place we got to play in at Greece.


Okay, so maybe it's okay-fun, but I think it would be more fun if she got to see us all the time. Like we used to. She's probably really lonely . . . I'm not sure the farm animals in South Carolina are as nice as here. I bet they say things like "Bless her heart . . ." And they might seem nice, but when she's not there, I bet they say not nice things. And Deirdre doesn't have friends there to stick up for her when she's not around, or at least tell Deirdre what the other animals said . . . Come back to civilization soon, Deirdre! And don't tell anyone "Bless her heart!"

Summertime

Miss Caitlin is not up to much lately. She has gone through several phases of cleaning, though thankfully today's stint promises to be the last for a while.

Camp does not commence until next week, though Miss Caitlin is already excited. She has not packed up everything yet, and she will not until she has her assignment for the first few weeks of camp, but she is very excited and has many ideas. This year she has been told she will be instrumental in training the teenage volunteers. She thinks this sounds amusing. I think it sounds painful. But then, I will stay here in the air conditioning while she wondering in the wilderness.

Miss Caitlin and Mr. Caitlin's Father are looking into purchasing a small used car for her. This will take time, research, and many outings. Miss Caitlin is excited to have a car for the fall, but she is not excited about gas prices.

If you will remember, Miss Caitlin and I are taking an online class for HTML. We hope to put together a few pages about our trip to add to the blog. We may also end up changing the way the blog looks, though this requires advanced techniques that we are not prepared to do yet. Perhaps in June or July we will be able to do that. Right now, we are learning to manipulate text on the page.

My last news is tragic. Deirdre, that intelligent and cheerful sow, has journeyed with Miss Adrien to Montana, where Miss Adrien is spending the summer exploring the outdoors at a National Park as a trail guide and gift shop cashier. It pains me to be separated by so many miles from one of my dearest friends. I can only hope that she sends me regular communique from that distant land.

Preparations

Miss Caitlin has finished her finals and returned to her parents' house. Miss Caitlin's Father is ill, and both Miss Caitlin and her Mother hope to avoid catching his illness.

Preparations for our departure are now being made in earnest, as we depart for Greece on Tuesday. Miss Caitlin is doing laundry and figuring what to pack. She has set aside some books for reading while there, including the first few Harry Potter books. Caitlin claims it is necessary for her job as a camp counselor to read them (again) in preparation for the new book's release. In addition, she feels the need to come up with a costume design for the release date, with her eye on winning the costume contest. This does not excite me as much as you would suppose.

In any event, a few items remain to be purchased, but they will be seen to in the next few days. Miss Caitlin also has to secure a set of traveler's checks so that she can purchase gifts while on her trip.

Miss Adrien and the esteemed Deirdre remain at University for a week before departing for China. I have offered to put up pictures from their journey on our blog, but I am not sure that it will be possible for us to do that until after we return home.

Tipsy has spent all of the last few days complaining that Sauinkoku has been licensed and is no longer available. Miss Caitlin promised Tipsy that she would buy the second season if it comes out next year. Depending on how much it costs, she might even buy the first season when it is released in the fall. And yet, Tipsy still continues to complain. I hope this does not continue through our trip to Greece. It is too long of a plane ride to put up with that.