Learning to Love the Rugly

My body thought it was 4:25 AM when my alarm clock went off this morning. Hmpf. DST. And I'm sunburnt and my left piriformis is killing me after I abused it with yesterday's 10-mile. Yay, Monday!

I'm sure the weighty existential question at the forefront of your mind is probably "so, what is the Rugly?" The answer is not as cryptic as you think. It's my new living room rug. Rugly is so close to matching everything in the room - but not close enough. Friday night, I decided that I'd scrubbed Kiska's ate-too-fast kittypuke from my beloved (but old) cream carpet for the last time. The Rugly was a mistake purchase from about a month ago, and I kept it rolled up under the futon in the living room. Its time had now come. It took about three months of use for the cream carpet's enchanting new-plastic-and-kitty-pee smell (not a result of actual kitty pee) to subside and I wasn't looking forward to unrolling Rugly. This morning I decided that it does have its merits; it doesn't show kitty fuzz or dirt so readily, and the pattern makes it impossible to see vacuum tracks (or lack thereof). It has a different plasticky smell, not exactly pleasant, but it reminds me of being in college because it's the same smell as the charcoal-colored carpet that Natty and I bought for our dorm room floor.

I had a scare last night. Friday night before silent Bikram by candlelight, I had placed my diamond necklace on my dresser on top of my jewelry case, which is an almost medieval-looking, deeply stained, steel-reinforced wooden affair. In the morning, the gold chain was on top of the box, but not the diamond, which was discovered by accident in an unlikely article of clothing on the floor. Jesper or Kiska must have been up on the dresser, messing around with my stuff during the night. Saturday night, when I took the necklace off before bed, I made sure to put it carefully inside the box and away from curious kitties. I got my earplugs out of the box yesterday afternoon (to vacuum), and then took care of some errands and ran the aforementioned 10-mile. When I got home last night, I couldn't remember seeing the necklace when I got the earplugs, and went into my bedroom to investigate - and the necklace was nowhere to be found. With growing apprehension, I thought maybe it got tossed behind the dresser when I retrieved the earplugs, and I tugged the dresser away from the wall... Nothing. I looked all over my bedroom floor, behind furniture, I asked the kitties if they'd seen it. I started to feel sick. I'd only had the diamond necklace for a week. I was sure one of the cats had eaten it, chain and all, like a spaghetti noodle.

I had just cleaned out the litter box, and vivid visions of ::urp:: kitty poo dissection flashed through my brain. I was too determined to be disgusted by the thought. I'd gladly dig through poop all day to get that necklace back. I decided to take one last look in the jewelry case before trudging resignedly over to the trash can, so I removed everything from it and turned it upside down - and out falls the necklace! I was so happy that I wanted to joyfully consume it, but settled on kissing it instead, since I'd like to postpone the experience of poo dissection of any kind.

I spent much of my Saturday and Sunday afternoons curled up in my armchair in the living room with a book and all of the windows in the apartment thrown wide - which is almost like being outside, since much of the wallspace in my apartment is window. S and I woke early on Saturday, made breakfast and went book-hunting, then went out to the courtyard of my downtown apartment complex where he read his purchases and I snoozed in the sunshine with my feet tucked up against him. We had a little picnic and I brought my favorite sandwich - roast turkey with brie and cranberry on sourdough. We decided to try a new sushi restaurant for dinner... We waited an hour for an [excellent] appetizer, and were given the wrong order twice before finally getting our sushi - we were there for maybe 2.5 hours. I don't think we'll be going back until they improve their speed and accuracy. Then, we finished Howl's Moving Castle (one of my all-time favorite movies) with Lovely and Roony and ate late-night Samoas (I refuse to accept the rename to "Caramel deLites") and Thin Mints.

I forgot to mention that Batman is back in town and back to his usual scheming, having survived the bar exam. He took me out to lunch on my birthday; we must have spent about 2.5 hours catching up. Congrats to him!

And why are so many people having babies all at once? What event occurred around 9 months ago that caused so many buns in ovens?! ;D