Six Years

Today is Ben and my six year anniversary. Six years. That's a long time. That's 27% of my life so far.
It's 5:30 and Ben isn't home yet. He said yesterday that it would be really funny if he had me believing that we weren't going to do anything on or anniversary (which we aren't since he had to get up really early this morning and all this week and is working outside in excruciating heat all day -- he's sweaty and tired when he comes home) and then he would come home and propose. He said he's definitely not doing that and really wants to surprise me and make me think that he's like mad at me and then propose when I least expect it.

I finished the six Harry Potter book for the second time today. I almost cried in the middle of class - it is a bit sad.

This kids in summer school aren't as smart as the other group. I thought they would be smarter -- or at least as smart -- but they're not. The math teacher actually like chewed a kid out today in class for asking too many questions and really, for getting mad when she didn't call on him with his hand raised to answer a question. It made me giggle when she told the story because she's not a very laid back person.

Now for some things that happened in the past week:

1. Tim's cat is pretty cute. I cheated and figured out how to get her to sleep on my lap.

2. The swim team banquet on Saturday was ridiculously boring.

3. I did a lot of laundry yesterday.

4. That's about it. I didn't do much more than that.

It's been a long fortnight

Let's see... a lot has happened in the last two weeks. I'll categorize things by category... that was oddly redundant.

Cats
Jack and Waffles get along very well. They chase each other around the house and play with each other. They made me jealous last night because both of them were sitting on/near Ben in bed. It was mean. However, Jack obviously favors me and will sit with me no matter where I am or what I'm doing. For example, we had a little problem just a few minutes ago where Jack wanted to lay on my shoulder and next to my neck while I was typing. This makes using the computer much more difficult. All in all, getting Jack was a good idea and he makes a great addition to the apartment. He is also the cuddly cat that compliments Waffles nicely. She also likes him and will sit near him. The next goal is to get them to start throwing toys around for each other.

Summer School
The kids pretty much do their work without prompting and are using their time to enrich their educations. However, there are two students who have no business being there and just try to be pains in the asses and not do their work. My feeling is pretty much whatever. They don't get a grade for this and it's for them to improve their chances of getting into TJ. I don't understand why these two kids are in the class seeing as how neither one of them has the slightest chance of getting into TJ or even getting into an honors level class. The kids are done on Friday and I'll get another group of twenty kids on Monday. The class is over in another two weeks. Here's where it gets interesting. Summer school lasts for an additional three days after my last class ends. The plan is my partner teacher (who does the math section) and I are not bothering to remind the administration that we don't have any students the last three days of summer school. I don't know what I'd do for those last days, but maybe I can get a lot of reading done. Wait, I've been getting a lot of reading done during class (there's a lot of down time for me when the students are working on exercises in their books and seeing that they're the best of the best -- well, most of them are -- I don't really have to monitor them so much.). The next two weeks are going to be really boring because I'll already have all the answers in the book and all my examples written. I know I will miss this easy job once September rolls around, but I wish this could be a little more engaging for me -- it almost is like sitting in a room and staring at the wall sometimes. All in all, it's sort of a boring way to make money.

Funeral
It was sad. I cried. Alot. It really hit me when Ben's uncle, Mike, talked about a fight he and his wife had on the day before she was killed. He told the story of how he kept moving his chair on the beach to be near her (because they both wanted to sit in different spots) and he made grumbly noises every time she moved. He thought he was being embarrassed by her -- she said he was the one embarrassing himself, and he told her that he wasn't his mother nor the boss of him but he was crazy about her anyway. Umm..how much does that sound like Ben? It finally hit me what had been bothering him all week -- his aunt's death was giving him a idea of what it would be like for him if I died.
Bart, his cousin, made very funny comment about how people treat young adults/children when their parents die. Bart said that he could really do no wrong right about now. He thinks he can get up on a table, take down his pants, and defecate and people would tell him he did a good thing, people grieve in different ways, and it was good that he was showing emotions. Ben made a good point in stating that his mom would probably tell him to not let Bart be alone at this time and go on the table and join him. I like Ben because he can still make me laugh when everyone else around me is crying. His mother also appreciates this talent and is talking to him a lot more -- it's nice that he can give her that support. However, he made a pretty not good comment on the phone with her the other day when he was talking about something I told him. He said, "Mom told me [meaning me]... you and Anna inhabit the same part of my brain." Yeah, no one wants to hear that. His mom wants to inhabit a more important part and really, I don't want me associated in his brain with his mom. That makes sex way creepy.

Harry Potter
I missed getting the Harry Potter book on Saturday morning since it was being delivered to the apartment and Ben and I were in MD at his aunt's funeral. We went out on Sunday afternoon to get a copy for Borders. I stayed up until 12:30 that night finishing it. I thought the kids in my summer school class would ruin it for me if I didn't finish it before I got there. It took me about seven hours to read it. Thank god for college for improving my reading speed. I made Ben read it when we got the second copy (I picked it up from the post office since the mail carriers were not allowed to leave it on door steps seeing that they thought that people might steal copies of Harry Potter left on doorsteps). I've gotten to discuss the book with Ben, which I am very happy about; it's like having my own personal book club in my apartment. The book made me cry a whole lot. I think that has to do with the fact that I read it the day after a funeral -- well, that's probably not totally to blame since I do tend to cry in most sappy children's entertainment -- for proof, ask Ben, Nick, and Drew what I did during the Pokemon movie. Now I'm sad because I'll have to wait like five years before the next, and final, book come out.


Ben
Ben is adorable and his eyes looked really pretty today when he come home. He was wearing a pretty blue polo, blue jeans, and was sitting on the blue chair. It was bluetastic. He is also hung like a horse (and not a female horse, either). ((He's sitting behind me and I'm afraid he'll hit me if I don't put that in.))
Our six year anniversary is next Wednesday (July 27th). Six years, that's a long time. I know that I'll get engaged before my sister, though. I told her I would be mad if she got engaged before me and she sort of flipped out in her email a bit. Me thinks Karel is more like my mom than I previously thought (my mom wasn't married until she was 32 when she got married after she and my father had been dating for many years -- she also tells a story of seeing a white dove (symbolizing freedom) flying away when she agreed to marry my dad). I was really weirded out when my sister started dating Jason (who lives in Austin -- which is really far away from Troy, NY), but I know I feel better about my knowledge of my sister.

That's about it. I hope you enjoyed it.

Pictures coming at some point

That is a bad title, but I'm a little tired.

Jack is fantastic. He's so cuddly and already slept with me today. I've had Waffles for a year and she's only napped with me once. Jack is so demanding of attention and affection that I've tripped over him a couple of times. He likes to run between my legs.

He has a weird habit. I gave him some food this morning and he quickly knocked over his cup of water near his food dish. I brought in a towel to soak up the water. He proceeded to rake the carpet and try to dry it and then pulled the towel over his food to cover it. I came home to find his food covered and took the towel off. He proceeded to eat some of it and then covered it again. I guess it's a good thing because his wet food was still fresh this afternoon.

Anyway, I'm too tired to write anything worth reading. Or, really, I'm too tired not to ramble unintelligently anymore.

Summary: summer school inservice - Day 1. I'm in Antonietta's room, I put up pretty daisy table cloth material on the bulletin boards, I am teaching 17 kids - half of whom do not go to a Fairfax public school, none of the kids who signed up for TJ prep are from Whitman (unless there's another list for second session that I don't have). Most of the people on my list are boys (go figure, it's a science and technology magnet).

Anyway, time for sleeping with my new panther kitty. He goes to the vet tomorrow for a check up and then we're introducing them because I'm tired of having to switch rooms to spend time with different cats. Waffles has started spending more time staring at Jack's door than with us so I'm letting Jack sleep in the bedroom tonight. Umm, cuddly kitten.

Kitty Flapjack

I'm trying to think of a funny title for this post that has to do with either a.) pigs flying, b.) hell freezing over, or c.) some other thing that signals the world has gone topsy turvy. I wrote the post and couldn't think of anything. That's his name, the cat I got. Shot, I just ruined most of the post for you.

Ben told me on Saturday that I could get a kitten. He was in a good mood and wanted to do something nice to make me happy (considering my jealous at Parker who has an engagement ring and a new kitten, it was a good idea to fulfill one of those desires of mine.) I was all excited about getting a little, teeny tiny, kitten. I even spent some time on Sunday on Ben's blackberry looking at kittens and then some time at home on the computer yesterday looking at kittens. We had picked out what shelters to get one from and I had my kitten qualifications ready. I wanted a young (8 weeks of younger) fluffy, long-haired, cuddly, lovey boy kitten. I love kittens!

I originally wanted to go to the Faquier SPCA because, if I remember correctly, they'll pretty much just hand you a kitten if you pay them the $80 adoption fee. This would be good so we could get around paying $25 more a month in pet rent and another $400 deposit. Well, the problem is that they were only open until 4 yesterday and they weren't open today at all. I probably could have gone out there yesterday to just look and see if I found anything I was interested in, but I figured this out too late in the day and by the time I would have driven the hour it takes to get there, they would be closing in an hour. So, I waited for Ben to get home from work so we could go to the Arlington Animal Welfare League (which does not require a home visit for cats --- it requires one for every other animal, but not cats). They had so many kittens! We spent ten/twenty minutes just looking at two cages with maybe fifteen kittens in there between them and then realized there were way more kittens to be seen. We walked around and visited with the 50 plus cats they had there. I found many female kittens that I liked (but I wanted a boy so it might get along better with Waffles) and a couple boys who were very cute and not uber rambunctious. I found one little black kitten named Jack. He was very sweet and had the most beautiful dark green eyes. We played with him in the play room and he was very sweet, shy, and cautious. There was no way that this little kitten was going to boss Waffles around. Then we took out these two buff and white colored boys. They were so cute! They purred when you held them. One licked my hand and the other started to nurse on Ben's shirt. I thought he would get along well with Waffles and they could neurotically nurse on furry stuffed animals together. The boys were very sweet and playful. In fact, they reminded me of big dumb jocks. They were cute, very athletic, and there didn't seem to be much going on upstairs (not that I don't like dumb cats, I do, but I would prefer one with mental power). Those little babies just weren't what I was looking for. When we put them back, we passed this other cat that we had seen when we came in and really liked, but didn't consider him since he was a year old. We took out Jack (yes, I know he has the same name as the first kitten and he is black like him, too) and played with him. He is the sweetest, most lovely cat I have ever seen in my life. He like wants to jump into your skin so you can pet him and cuddle him. He liked being held and purred constantly. The volunteer said he was a really sweet cat and that everyone liked him. He had been originally brought in either late May or early June and had been adopted by a person with another kitten. He had been brought back a few days later because the person said they had changed their plans and were going to travel a lot and couldn't take care of him. This is the sweetest cat in the world, how could you not want him?

Anyway, I came back this morning and finished filling out the paper work. When I was waiting to pick him up, the animal techs were all sad to see him go and had to tell everyone that he was leaving. So, I guess I got a good cat. I feel weird getting an adult cat when I could have had a kitten, but I guess Waffles's superb babies spoiled me on sub par kittens.

Waffles so far does not like Jack and we have to keep them separated. This is very hard for me because I've got to split my time with two cats who really want attention. Ben needs to come home to help me cuddle all the cats who want cuddling.