Updates and New Desk Swag

Did everyone enjoy the snow day? We did. This past week was a serious blow-off for J. She had Veterans’ Day off, a half-day on Tuesday (conferences), a 2-hour delay on Wednesday (ice), her only full day on Thursday, and a snow day on Friday.

I expected to be traveling for a soccer tournament this weekend, but it got cancelled!  Ironically, it got cancelled before the snow started because the fields (down in New Jersey) were super-wet from recent rain. Apparently they’d been hoping things would drain off in time, but I think when they realized there was going to be a big ol’ pile of wintry mix, they just gave up.  Whatever the reason, I was pretty psyched, because there are plenty of other things going on this weekend (like M’s soccer banquet and work on Sunday for Cute W), and as of yesterday I was not even a little bit prepared to host Thanksgiving. Now I’ve at least had a chance to catch my breath and start planning, at least.

It is our one-week anniversary with our new kittens, and they’ve acquired names  . . .  [drumroll] . . . Ruth and Dave! We gravitated to the name Ruth, after RBG, of course, right away, but the boy’s name was tougher. Cute W had suggested Mookie, which everyone seemed to like except me. I tried to come up with other Supreme Court-themed names (Earl? Soto? Marshall?), and I also liked the idea of 2-syllable, long O names, like Otis or Milo, but I was shot down repeatedly. We even toyed with the idea of just calling them Brother and Sister . . . nope. A few days into their stay with us, at dinner, I was urging everyone to please, please agree on something. “We can do Mookie,” I suggested. “You don’t like Mookie,” Cute W reminded me. “At this point, I don’t like not being able to call them by name more than I don’t like the name Mookie,” I said. More names were discussed. Or, I suggested more names, and they were all rejected. Finally I said to M, “You know, you could come up with ideas, instead of just telling me that all my name ideas are bad.” M sort of rolled her eyes and said, “How about David?” Which was a terrible idea, but somehow Dave seemed like such a silly name for a small kitten that it made us all laugh, and we were finally done with choosing names.

Ruth and Dave still hide quite a bit, but they are (mostly) willing to receive pets, and they like to play. Ruth finds the actual cat toys a little bit too terrifying, but she will stalk the hell out of a strip of paper. She’s also a little bolder about approaching us. Dave is a bit more reticent, but he’s definitely a communicator, with meows, purrs, and the occasional hiss. They’re really cute cuddling or wrestling with each other. And they’re already way more outgoing than our attempted rebound cat.

In other news, in my files of photographs to share I found these two, from one of my favorite birthday presents this year. It’s a little easel with a little square of wood (3 1/2 inch square) that my sister painted on both sides. A lovely addition to my little home office corner. Thanks, Mimi!