Have you ever noticed how emotional sports shows can get?

The ultimate is the Olympics.  If it’s not who’s carrying the torch (hello?  Muhammed Ali??), it’s those behind-the-scenes stories that every country has to contribute to the tear-jerking exclusive reports that each network seems to have.

But equally impressive are those Super Bowl winners.  Big, tough football coaches breaking down into tears.  It’s enough to rip your dull cold heart out!  It will affect anyone - even a stone-cold German, such as myself.

Could someone please explain to me why I am suddenly overcome with lump-in-throat, teary-eyed emotions when I’m watching huge defensive backs rip into the eensy-weensy wide receivers on the other team to win the championship?  What the heck?  I mean it’s universal!  All sports, especially the rockem-sockem sports are replete with teary-eyed players and coaches after the big games!  And, dammit, they make me cry, too!

It’s just not fair!  I expect more fortitude from my 300-pound sport stars and their war-worn coaches!  They’re not supposed to make me cry!  (I’m sorry if I seem to be picking on Dick Vermeil here, with his picture and all, but he was an easy target.  He always cries!)

For all of you (*cough* Fran *cough*) who are waiting for a kitty update, here’s a quick one.

Not much to tell - we still do not have a consolidated family.  The new guys are still living in their own room but we do let the other ones in once in a while.  There’s some growling and hissing and everyone walks as low to the floor as they possibly can with their eyes open as wide as they can possibly be.  We were sort of hoping that the new ones would become much more comfortable with us and come bounding out every time we walk in the room before we consolidated, but it’s sort of the opposite.  If they are out when we open the door, they duck for cover a lot of the time.  Sometimes they’ll stay out, but not often.  And they do eventually come out if we’re patient and just sit and wait for them.  They are lovely, lovely cats - very friendly (when they come out from hiding), beautiful and very, very soft.  They will be great members of our family some day, I’m sure!

We’re planning on a lot of “everyone out” time this weekend.  I’m really hoping that by the end of the weekend, we don’t have segregated cats any more.  We tried this once before (they had about 24 hours out and about) and the pre-existing cats were just too domineering.  Patience is truly the name of this game.

I’ll try and remember to take the camera up with me next time I go up for playtime with the new kids.  I should really have some better pictures of them!

Scenario 1.  Buzz and I went with a bunch of people to a seafood restaurant, something like a Red Lobster (but it wasn’t a Red Lobster).  At the end of the meal, several of us had leftovers and asked to have them wrapped up to go.  Like in many restaurants these days, the waiter brought out styrofoam boxes and we all packed up our own leftovers.  Which is fine, except that the waiter let it slip that they are not allowed to touch our food (which is very silly because they’re the ones who brought the food to us in the first place), so that’s why we packed up our own.  That never occurred to me as the reason - I thought it was just because we live in a DIY society now.

Scenario 2.  Much more recently, Buzz and I went to an upscale restaurant and paid a lot of money for our entrees.  We, again, had leftovers and asked to have them wrapped up to go.  The waiter took the plate and brought back a nicely bundled package of food.

Despite what my mind can conjure as to the reasons why restaurants won’t package up your food any more, I still prefer the bring-it-away-and-bring-it-back-all-wrapped-up scenario.  Especially when the restaurant is upscale and sophisticated.  Let me live my hour or two of luxury.  It’s not something I get to do very often and I like to feel pampered.

It’s time for another installment of Empress’ Celebrities Separated at Birth!

Here’s my first entry - Reese Witherspoon and Julia Stiles:

Next up - Katherine Heigl and Ashley Judd:

And, lastly, Chrystee Pharris and Jennifer Beals:

What do you think??

OK, so I’m back on board with my Medical Transcription course.  I’m moving full-steam ahead and totally loving it.  I’ve been through some pretty hefty cardiology sample reports, wherein people were having super-duper (yes, that’s the technical term) surgeries to biopsy or remove or resection or whatever and they have not bothered me in the least.  I’ve read through laboratory reports and physical exams - no problems!  Found it all terribly interesting, in fact!

But, this morning, I started the dental reports.

Oh.my.gentle.Jesus.  I cannot take this!!  And they are only talking about wisdom tooth extractions!!  I’ve always said that if someone ever wanted to get information from me, just tell me you’re going to use dental torture and I will sing like a canary!  You don’t even have to touch me - just tell me it’s coming.  In fact, just tell me that I’m going to the dentist for a cleaning and I’ll spill it!

This is making my ever-loving skin crawl right off my body.  My shoulders are hunched up near my ears, I’m shuddering, and my mouth is beginning to hurt!

Thank goodness this section consists of only four reports.  If I had to do much more than that, I think I’d vom.  *shudders again* *and again*

Day five in the Great Cat Integration of ‘08™.  Everyone is still separated - four cats roaming about the house, two cats in their own room.  Things have calmed down a lot with our four existing cats.  So I decided to ruffle some feathers.  I took one of the new cats’ blankets and brought it down for the other cats to smell.  I sat on the floor and they gathered in a circle.  I fed them treats while they sniffed.  There was some growling from Maddy but not a whole lot.  And only one half-hearted semi-altercation between the two main culprits, Maddy and Courtney.  There wasn’t even any contact - just a half-second of a howl and then it was over.

Courtney decided she wanted to see what was going on in that bedroom once and for all.  So she hung around and I left the door open a crack (holding the handle, of course).  Kahlua, the bolder of the two new cats, met her nose-to-nose at the door.  Kahlua did a little hissing but Courtney just purred and purred.  During playtime with the new cats this afternoon, Kahlua was finally active and chasing a toy (this is the first time either of them has been interested) and she actually made a little noise.  These are Siamese cats - I was expecting a lot of yowling but so far, there has been no noise from them at all.

Bella, the other Siamese, seems sad and/or depressed.  Or she could just be that kind of cat.  Phoebe, our old grand dame of a cat, is that kind of cat.  She doesn’t really want to play - she really just wants to eat and sleep, thankyouverymuch.  I’ll have to ask more about the personalities of these new cats.  I’m itching to get them out with the other ones so that the hierarchy can be established and we can get back to a quasi-normal existence.  That may still be a long time coming, I’m afraid. 

The new cats seem very afraid of Buzz.  Bella never comes out when he’s there and Kahlua is very hesitant.  It takes a lot of patient sitting-still to get her to come out when Buzz is in the room.  But once she’s out, she loves the attention - she purrs and rolls around.  But still. 

This is taking a long time. 

Another day in the journey to integrate six cats into one household.  The previously resident cats seem to be settling down a bit.  There were two instances of fur-flying wrassling yesterday but only a little bit of growling so far this morning.

In the other room, the new cats seem to have swapped personalities.  Yesterday, I spent a lot of time with one of them who cuddled with me for a couple of hours, purring and rubbing and rolling all around.  The other one stuck her head out from under the bed for about two minutes - they hissed at each other - and then she went back under.  Today, when I went up to feed them, one of the cats came out and was purring and rubbing and rolling all around and the other one wouldn’t come out from under the bed.  Only they were switched (and I was fooled for a while because they look a lot alike!).  I must say that I’m confused by all of this.  Do they share personalities and only one can be loving and social at a time?  I guess I’ll find out eventually.

I must say that the constant awareness of cats is really rather exhausting.  I was wiped out yesterday when I went to bed.  And I didn’t do a whole lot of anything all day except visit from cat to cat making sure everyone was OK and getting their fair share of Mommy.

I’ve come to a conclusion about this integration, though.  The two sets of cats have not visually seen each other yet.  And I don’t think there will be any attempts at meet-and-greet until the new cats want to get out of the room they’re currently occupying.  And to do that, they’re going to need to get bolder and more confident with their new people.  So, I think I’m looking at lots of hours of socializing with them to get them to where they actually want to come out and join the fun. 

Oh, the sacrifices I make for my little furry kids!   

You never know what’s going to happen when you bring a new cat or cats into your home where another cat already resides.

When we adopted three rescued cats back in 2005 (Maddy, Valley and Courtney), we had one cat at home - Phoebe.  We were really surprised by her reaction to the new cats - she was pissed!  She is such a docile and laid-back cat that it never occurred to us that she’d react that way.  It took about a week for things to settle down.  Maddy established herself as the alpha cat and life went on.

Until yesterday.

Queue the rescue music again.  We have now adopted two new cats - Bella and Kahlua.  They are 9-year-old sealpoint Siamese females.  They are both really freaked out by this move.  They are not doing a whole lot of anything but hiding.  I’m not overly concerned yet, because Valley hid for two days before she came out from behind the toilet.

But, just by bringing in things that smell like them (the other cats have not seen the new ones yet), Maddy has reared an aggressive ugly head.  She is posturing, growling, hissing and sometimes chasing the other cats, just like she did when she was establishing her alpha cat-ness.  But these cats have been together for over two years now.  I’m just really astounded by this reaction.  And wondering what’s going to happen when she actually does meet the other two cats!

However, it’s only day two.  This may take a while.  But in the meantime, I have to get the two new babies out from under the bed where they’re hiding.  One step at a time, I guess.

UPDATE:  A couple of pictures are up in my Flickr site.  They’re pretty bad pictures but it’s the best I can do at the moment.  Hopefully, once everyone learns to live together, I can get some better ones.

I am officially on vacation until Monday, March 17th. 

No plans (except for the mini-Meester’s birthday party on Saturday) and no worries.  No stress, no obligations, no hurries.

Now, this is what vacation is meant to be!  This might be the perfect time to break out the book that Buzz gave me a while back - “The Art of Doing Nothing”.

(And I will have a surprise for you tomorrow.  Oh, yes, I will!  Hee hee!)

A long, long time ago, I heard a reference to how time is relative.  And, no, it wasn’t in Yellow Submarine.

The statement was that 5 minutes with your hand on a hot stove burner is a very, very long time.  But 5 minutes, if they are the last 5 minutes you will ever have with your most precious loved one, is a very, very short time.  It’s all relative.

When you’re scared and waiting for the doctor to call or for the ambulance to arrive, all those minutes seem like hours.  Don’t they?

There’s a lot of weird stuff in the air right now.  Keep your heads low.  Stay out of danger, ‘k?

(P.S.  We’re fine.  I didn’t mean that stuff was happening to us...)

-d tagged me to do this meme.  I have no problem with that! 

Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment here once you post it to your blog so I can come see!

Confirm your reservation.  Sparks can be very casual when you call.
I once made a reservation for Sunday night only to show up and discover that the restaurant was closed.

Now, I must confess, that’s pretty damn boring.  It’s the very end of a restaurant review from Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl.  So, I’m going to pick up another book and try again.

“Sixteenth," added the Dormouse.
“Write that down,” the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.
“Take off your hat,” the King said to the Hatter.

That’s better!  A little Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland.

(And I don’t tag - it’s a rule I have.  If you want to play this game, that’s great and if you want to drop a comment and let me know that you did, that’s great, too!)