He'll be happy when Paul is home as well

He was my cat for two years before Paul and I were married. I am now merely around for feeding him (and that's only because I get up before Paul). Any time Paul sits down on the couch, Jubjub is up on his lap in a matter of seconds. This is especially amusing when Paul wants to read or has the laptop out. That's when it becomes a battle of wills--the cat is nothing if not persistent in his pursuit of a little bit of lap. There have been days when Paul sits with his knees pulled up to his chest, pillows surrounding him, trying to read while the cat patiently sits near by, staring at Paul knowing that before too long Paul will cave and Jub will get just what he wants. And happily for both of us, Paul will be coming home this evening, two days earlier than originally planned.

(And the computer contraption in the background is the Paulvo--Paul's homemade Tivo. It worked great; it was just big and noisy. When he first set it up, he didn't have a flat-screen monitor but a 27" behemouth on the coffee table. Paul said he knew he'd broken my spirit when all I said about it was a request to be moved slightly to the left so I could still see the TV from the couch. The monitor and the Paulvo have both recently been replaced with a more streamlined and completely silent DVR.)

While the cat's away...

Paul is currently on a two-week business trip to California. He left last Monday and will be back next Friday. Because I'm employed (and actually like my job again) and the nature of the trip (testing a chip design at the Berkeley lab), it's not conducive to me tagging along on the trip. No worries--I'm nothing if not resourceful and I've been able to find ways to entertain myself.

Things I've done so far while Paul is out of town:

1. Stay up past my bedtime with no one to remind me that I should be in bed. The cat doesn't care--he loves that I'm up at midnight, hanging out with him.

2. Ignore the alarm clock for 30 minutes with no one to remind me that I need to get up (although the cat starts meowing after about 15 minutes because he thinks he needs food). This one is a direct corollary to staying up too late but it's been nice to snuggle in those extra minutes, even when it means I'm rushing to get out the door on time.

3. Go to town cleaning closets and loading up things to take to Goodwill. This is especially nice to do when Paul isn't around because he has an unnatural attachment to some of his clothes and other treasures. It's not been easy to get him to part with just a few of his many t-shirts but he'll never miss them if he doesn't know they're gone.

4. Finally, finally clean out the garage. When we remodeled the house 18 months ago, Paul had just quit his job to start the new company so all the boxes from his home office and his work office ended up in the garage during the remodel. Most of them have managed to get carted back upstairs and now reside in the closet of the new room. Eventually, I'll convince him to sort through them to toss, keep, and organize. In the meantime, I was able to tackle the mountain of boxes (mostly empty) that Paul was storing in the garage. One of the bigger boxes was full of the treasures from his 1993 Camry. The very car we sold over three years ago. Included in this box were a pair of jeans Paul could wear if he no longer required breathing, a pair of dress shoes circa 1991, mountains of papers dating between 1996 and 2002, a variety of tapes (including, much to my amusement, a single of Tag Team's "Whoomp! There it is") and about $3.82 in assorted change.

5. Eat crackers and cheese for dinner. At 4:30.

6. Watch anything I want on television without fear of him mocking me. Hello E! and The Hills on MTV.

7. Repaint the side table in the guest room.

8. Read. Read some more. Stay up too late reading a little bit more.

Still to do:

9. Recover the dining room chairs. I'm not a huge fan of upholstered dining room chairs but when we bought the table, Paul wanted them. So I've got them as long as I've got that table. Currently, they are a very neutral (and very blah) cream fabric. Today, I purchased a twill fabric that is a light sage/khaki color. It's not going to be a huge change but I think it will look nice. I can't decide if Paul will notice immediately or in June. Probably June.

10. Clean the ceiling fans. OK, I could do this when Paul is home but I haven't and it is something that needs to be done. Especially since Paul was tossing a little Frisbee thing around for the cat and hit the ceiling fan in living room. There's now a clump hanging precariously from one of the blades.

11. (And in more confessions on my housekeeping skills...) Clean and dust the office nook. Normally, Paul tells me to leave it and he'll clean/dust. His "dusting" is typically done with a can of compressed air. Fun but not very efficient.

12. We've been invited to go skiing next weekend. I haven't been in about 10 years and it would be fun to go again. I'll have to get some ski gear, though. I guess I can add shopping for ski pants to my list of things to do as well.

In addition to my list of things to do, I've got a few meetings next week that will take up part of the evenings. Paul arrives back home midday on Friday. Aside from the fact that I have been much more productive than normal, it's almost as if he never left. And here people were worried that I'd be bored and lonely while Paul was gone.

Sometimes, I'm able to move him out of the way and claim the place as my own

Through the joys of modern technology, we enjoy a fire on these cold nights with a flip of the switch. And when Paul is home, it a Battle Royale between the three of us as to who gets to claim the floorspace in front of the fireplace.

Toasty

While we haven't been as cold as parts of the country, this recent bout of winter has definitely made me long for the warmer days of spring. Or even temperatures in the more moderate normal winter range. Because it's hard to argue when the normal temperature for January is 45. This below-freezing and snowy stuff is for the birds.

I think I found the solution to my chilly woes. And paired with one of these.* With all that fluff and fur, I'd never be cold again.

Growing up, my sisters and I would beg our parents for something from the Overland Sheepskin Co. We would stop at the store on family ski trips to Taos but our pleading, begging, and whining was always in vain. Each stop always resulted in us leaving empty-handed. When my oldest nephew was born some 15 years ago, my dad bought a pair of shearling booties for Preston to enjoy while in the 0-3 month range. That purchase caused my younger sister and I to flounce as only teenaged girls can flounce. We huffed, we puffed, we pouted, we glared, we gave the silent treatment. It was all in vain as nary a shearling scrap was purchased for us. I think we're both still a little bitter about that.

Fifteen years later, I decided there are some advantages to being a grown-up:

Being able to buy my own sheepskin slippers and have warm toes is just one of them.

*And I actually own a shearling hat but it doesn't include any large fur cuff. It is much more understated bucket hat. Very unflashy.

And now we know what I'd sound like describing the tornado that came through the trailer park

I happened to turn on the television around 7:30 this morning, hoping to catch the day's weather before leaving for work only to see my place of employment in the live report. There was a broken water main in front of the school this morning. Apparently, it was a slow news day here in ABQ because one local news stations was next to the burbling mess throughout their morning broadcast. The other two stations and a Spanish new station were there at noon.

Because the water was freezing and generally causing problems, through traffic was blocked off on the road in front of the school. I would have been able to drive past the road block and park in the staff parking lot but just as I was pulling up to the intersection, an older gentleman pulled up, got out of his car, and started chatting up the police officers. Instead, I went around to a back street, parking across from the school and on the same street as the news broadcast. As another teacher and I were walking up the street, I joked with the newscaster about jumping around in the back of her shot--"woo! we're your kids' teachers! woo!" She laughed and after confirming that I was, indeed, a teacher, asked if I would mind being interviewed.

And that is how I ended up on the local news this evening, describing the gushing water flow in front of the school. Paul asked if I managed to include the word "y'all" in my 5 second clip. Happily enough (but probably more surprisingly), there was not one use of that word and as I was able to avoid the use of the long I sound and most gerunds including the ever-popular "fixin'" while describing water, I didn't even sound too terribly hick/Texan. However, I could have used a bit more blush this morning and my coat makes my hair do this weird thing in the back that I didn't know about until I saw myself on TV.

My friend Devlyn left a message for me that her mother had called her when the report was airing at 5:00, letting me know she recorded my fleeting bit of fame. Paul and I caught it at 6:00 (and also recorded it because we're dorks like that). If it didn't have all kinds of identifiers about me (last name, school name) that I'm not willing to divulge to the blogging world, I'd share it here. But since it does, everyone here will just have to imagine the dorkiness that was my brief moment in the spotlight.

Thursday update: I had an email this morning from another friend who saw me on the news last night. Two teachers stopped me when I arrived at school to let me know they'd seen it. Another teacher recorded the bit and showed it this morning at our staff meeting. My five seconds has now stretched to 5 minutes of celebrity.