Author: Laura Highcove

The broken links in The Gallery and The Random have been fixed to their original glory.

“So Pyro,” you may be thinking. “What happened with that whole wedding thing you mentioned?”

Oh that wedding? It happened. I am now happily married to SD (aka Matthew) and we’re living life much as we did before. Well with a slightly fuller kitchen. Lots of wedding gifts were things to take up space on the counter I don’t have. It’ll be so nice when we get that house in Blacksburg.

Which brings up that point, if you haven’t heard it yet, that we are planning on buying a house and moving back to Blacksburg, Virginia (You know, where VA Tech is?) sometime at the beginning of next year. That is of course assuming finances stay as they are and job things…but still, it’s “The Plan”(tm).

There’s also the cat. Nickel, whose picture you saw a while ago when he would still run from us every chance he got. He’s quite the opposite now. He has attached himself to us, and is quite the lap cat. He’s very curious and gets into *everything*. Anything that isn’t nailed down has been knocked over or around, often multiple times. I always thought of cats as more mellow than dogs, but on the contrary, they’re more effort. You might not have to clean up their bodily functions as often as with a puppy, but you’re cleaning up everything else. I may have to take more drastic action soon to keep my plants and anime figures out of reach, and to keep things from falling over when he jumps on them with more weight. Sounds like a mission for tomorrow.

And things should be picking up again soon in Shifting Winds. I’ll be working on that tomorrow as well.

So getting a new cat is like having a baby. It’s small, cute, and you just want to hug it and kiss it, and you’re worried about every little thing because even though there’s a million books and people tell you what to expect, you still stress out that you’re doing something wrong. Sleep is lost as he cries throughout the night, and every time you get close he hisses and makes a break for the safety which is under the bed…

So I just spent the better part of the day in my bedroom with our new kitten. Claudia came right about 11, and we put Nickel in the bedroom while we worked out the paperwork and I asked her a few questions. When she had gone, I went back in and was unable to find Nickel anywhere. Only after several minutes of ‘could he possibly gotten out of the room’ did I finally realize that one of the dressers was actually open in the back and he had climbed under there.

I scooted the dresser out, and eventually got him out. He hissed at me and did some growling but never actually lashed out or bit me. Once I was holding him he seemed pretty okay, so I petted him for a while and then let him go about his business which (once I had made it so he couldn’t get behind the dresser anymore) consisted of under the bed and inside the litter box.

So the rest of the day consisted of holding him for a bit, and then leaving him alone while I read. Eventually he got to the point where he would no longer cower or hiss when I came to hold him for a while. When Matthew came home I pulled him out once again, and he settled into the crook of my arm. He hissed at Matthew once, but pretty much just chilled next to me until I had to move due to my neck hurting from the position.

He’s now in the litter box again, and Matthew is in the room playing his game boy. I’m going to make dinner and then we might give him some completely alone time for the evening. I have some pictures, but they’re not great so I might wait a bit until I actually post them.