Raoul is grounded, again

I finally won the stare down with the cat. He was sitting, lazing even, on the dining room table until I (shouting and flailing like a not very effective, but still superior, predator) rushed him on the table and dropped him on the floor. And then we had a stare down. Now El Gato keeps following me around trying to make nice- fat chance, buddy. Not if you keep sneaking back onto the table under the cover of Matt's clean shirts.

While I am on the topic of how absurd my cat is, you have to hear about the 'snack' he made himself the other night. You may know that Raoul drinks out of a kitty fountain- this is mostly because he is spoiled, but partly because we thought his showers might be a sign of mortal dehydration. Sometimes Raoul drags his toys and treasures through it, before dredging them in cat food. I suspect this is to make them more disgusting when you go to fish your hair ties back out of his food, but perhaps not always. On this other morning, when we got up we found his fountain pouring something tea colored onto his little catnip pillow. He was preparing catnip sun-tea!

Micro-news: Friday is the homebrew bash- there isn't really enough beer to make it a Homebrew-only bash, but the entire department will turn out to socialize regardless. I am abysmally unprepared for this 5K Saturday, but I did walk to work this morning. I signed up for another semester of Ceramics, to start in April. If you are hoping for an upgrade- start breaking the old stuff now. Our soldier friend will remain in the states for at least a month before he is sent off to combat- hooray! My undergrad was awarded a summer fellowship to continue his research with me, which makes us both feel good. Matt and I are both dreading changes to our workspace- me to a smaller lab, him to a non-cubicle 'workspace.' No date set yet for either.

That, and I have the most ridiculous cat ever. Stay tuned!