My stupid cat, Raoul

On Saturday night, we came home to the sobering news that our cat Raoul had run away.  The door was open for hours, it's hard to imagine him not giving in to the temptation of investigating new territory.  It was also very hard to imagine him navigating his way around well, or getting on with the thugy neighborhood cats.  We were worried.  I was too upset to look for pictures of him to make a Missing Cat poster, but I had put most of the text together in my head. 

Missing Cat
Probably won't respond to his name, Raoul.  Will come running for a can of beans- might kill you for smoked salmon.
Has pretty stripes that he likes to show off by rolling on his back and flicking his long tail as if he wanted to be pet, but this is just a cat trap- which he will spring in all pointiness on the first hand to enter the trap.
Not always nice to people, but too much of a sissy to be an outdoor cat.
Unlike other neighborhood thug cats, he has a long tail, still pointy ears, a neck, and is probably getting beat up by those tough, tail-less cats.  His favorite hiding places include the shower, under the covers and the middle of the floor.

My version was too wordy, fortunately Matt put out a nice version, which we posted on mailboxes.  He found a way to prop open our back door to 1 cat size (probably smaller than one fat racoon- probably).  We left food outside, and put out cat toys, which kept disappearing.  Our house was freezing from having the door open all the time, but Mom and Nana chugged tea and put up with our heartbreak.

I called a cat rescue shelter, that suggested I get a cat trap.  Since we had daily gasping disappointments seeing those local thug cats, I just knew a cat trap was going to result in mayhem.  I was mentally wondering how many feral cats I would be willing to spay before I gave up on the trap as I went to bed.

And then something crazy happened.

Well after midnight, we both woke up in confusion to tiny meows walking in to our bedroom.  My reaction times aren't great when I am "alert" so try to imagine me assessing this situation from a deep slumber.  "Cat?  Feral?  Mine?  Here?  Am I awake? My cat is here? "  He just sauntered in like we'd been gone on a long vacation and he couldn't find us in the house.

Matt grabbed him in his arms while I flew downstairs to close the door behind him and spring the cat trap (because we SO don't need any feral cats now).  He was filthy, a little skinny and hungry.  And thirsty.  But fine. He has a wicked case of the sneezes, and seems sleepier then the average cat, but he is much more willing to put up with me moving my legs underneath his nap.

Grinding away on the rumor mill

Some of you may have heard bits and pieces of Nana's adventures as they unfold.  The latest news is that Nana is quite happy with the place in Bothell, and is really looking forward to making her home there.  We enjoyed a fantastic after-Nana-walked-to-Church brunch with an interesting quilter/ performing art center volunteer/ former League Member.  I'm told Nana is meeting lots of stimulating and charismatic people, in addition to letting us steal her away.  Today we went to the epic garden store in Woodinville, Molbaks, since Matt's Mom came down for a visit.  They enjoyed catching up a bit, and will hopefully provide us even more excuses for all hanging out.  Mom (my mom) arrives tomorrow to help us finalize our impressions in Bothell and think about how to move this to a permanent arrangement.  I can't tell you how excited I am to have Nana as a regular feature in my life, and how excited I am that she has found a place that will be such an easy transition for her.  This is really good news.

The (unrelated) bad news is that Raoul ran away.  Our front door doesn't shut very well, and it came open while we were out.  Nothing was disturbed, but the cat was gone.  We've looked around the neighborhood, and fortunately haven't found him pasted to the asphalt.  However, he isn't that good at coming when called, nor does he have much experience navigating, so it is hard to imagine us finding him, or him finding us.  Keep your fingers crossed that he walks in the back door (which we have propped open to accommodate 1 cat).

Finally back home

Yeesh, what a mess our travel was. All successful, but between Tyler's pox, pink eye, and a mysterious third ailment that I'll discuss later along with some sort of super-cold that's kept me feeling like garbage for the past three days, flying was not fun.

Let's recap Christmas, though. Tyler was an absolute gentleman. He played with everyone, let people feed him, napped well, and adjusted pretty well to his new surroundings, despite a series of illnesses that would greatly hamper any normal baby. We even got to show him off to a few other Juneau resident friends, mostly people we ran into at the airport. Next time maybe I'll just layover in Juneau for a few hours and catch all the people I know that way. Seems more efficient.

Anyway, we packed up a lot of our stuff, and a lot of Sandlin's stuff too, and I woke up feeling like a hot mess. I took some painkillers before the flight out of Juneau and got Tyler as situated as we could. He looked pretty horrible, though, all dark circles under the eyes. Still a charming smile, though. We got some complements from a lot of our fellow travelers. The flight from Juneau to Seattle went pretty well, and we got to see Aunt Sandlin and Uncle Matt one more time. Apologizing profusely for bringing so darn many germs into their house, we enjoyed some great soup and put Tyler down for a fitful sleep. He woke up in a fussy mood several times, but we managed to get a game of dominion in nonetheless.

And side note: Raoul is terrified of me. Just me, though. He would hiss and slink away every time I came into the room. I did manage to get close enough to let him sniff me at one point in the early morning, but something about my intimidatingly manly presence seemed to irk him to no end. I'm pretty butch.

I went down to sleep pretty early and nearly set the bed on fire with my heroic fever. Jess played supermom and took care of Tyler while he woke up periodically with hurting-sounding cries. I did my best to keep myself rested, but I ended up dosing myself heavily with drugs, eating a PB and J sandwich at 1:00 AM (I was hungry!) and then sleeping in another room on the futon. Rough night.

The flight from Seattle to Austin started off well enough. Tyler had a bottle and took a nap during most of the ascent. After that it got a little spotty. There were times when he was fine and dandy, making cute faces at the girls in the seats behind us, and other times when he was a bundle of nerves and complaints. He liked walking around as much as he could, though that isn't something you can do a lot of on a plane. We did our best, but were quite relieved to land, finally.

Last night Tyler went to sleep at an almost-normal time to the sound of neighborhood fireworks, though decidedly later than normal, and only needed his parents to come in once. He sounded like he was having a rough time of something, again, but we weren't sure what. Eventually I beat-boxed and danced him to sleep. I slept soundly, in between bouts of not sleeping soundly, and woke up at nearly noon. Thanks for the resting time, Jess!

Well Jess convinced me that we needed to go shopping this morning, so we went out and got some food, and while we were out, I spied what, among his other illnesses, has been making Tyler so fussy lately. New tooth! Finally! It's a top one on his right side, and it's just barely visible under the gums. We'll put up pictures of his new smile when it comes in more fully. I'm starting to get over my cold, or maybe the dayquil is just working better now. Rough travel for all involved.

-N

Dissertation Writing

Step 1) Spill your hot tea across all your accumulated documents and turn your post it notes to a sponge...

Yeah, this isn't going as smoothly as I'd like. I need to get myself some distance from work to get things done. I've done the reading I wanted to do before I get too committed to my outline, and developing that is today's project. Sadly, while I have most of my papers at work, I don't think I'll be very productive at my desk- I'd rather chat with my coworkers, I get asked for advice... and I really just need to be selfish and efficient right now. I still need to go to work 3-4 days a week due to meetings, but I need to find a way to be productive despite all the distractions. Sitting at home in the spare room having the cat force his way onto my computer and spilling my tea isn't seeming like much of an improvement.

My project for the next bit is to turn my (now soggy) notes into a more coherent outline, and maybe commit some words to paper. Don't be surprised if this turns out a bit like Noel's liveblogging- I'll have lots to say at the start, and then it'll get crazy, and I won't want to spend an extra second on my keyboard and then we'll just say- graduated! Party!

Harumph... Monday

I'm grumpy! I don't know why. It might be because I woke up at 6 this morning to buy bagels for my lab so they would love to listen to me ramble on about this journal article I presented (and wasted my weekend preparing for). Or it might be that it was ZERO degrees when I went to get the bagels.

It's totally possible that it is because the Awesome Science I did this weekend prompted Dr. Boss to give me a couple more weeks of work to do for this manuscript (that I thought I was submitting soon- guess not). We are supposed to be finishing, not starting! That's not Awesome, but now that I have a defense date, I can't bring myself to argue with my boss anymore. On the plus side, he seems much happier with me. The minus side, this is a dumb reason to wait to submit this paper.

It could be that a really beautiful job opened up in Alaska that I think I am neither qualified for (BS + 2 years 'field work'?), nor prepared to take when they might offer it (February), but I can't tell because all the right people are on annual leave, and not answering their phones. But I would be so awesome at it! Sigh. I'll have to wait a couple weeks for that disappointment.

It is not helping that my jerk of a cat has decided to make an absolute nuisance of himself, stealing the leftovers from dinner off the table to "hide" under the table and eat, making no end of a mess, then fetching trash off the kitchen counter while I clean up his mess.

I mean, I have some good guesses about why I am grumpy, I just haven't decided who to blame just yet. I guess I'll eat some chocolates and watch TV with Matt until we feel better. Or at least until it is Tuesday.

He'll have a chapter in my memoir

As frequent readers will know, our little tomcat Raoul has a size XL personality. He likes to shower with us, he likes to eat beans and spicy food, and he chases crumpled balls of paper across the house like a puppy. He's got these handsome stripes and he knows it, and these cute little lynx-like ear tufts. He also is very accustomed to being the master of his domain, for it is written: pity the fly that dare to enter our home, for the great predator will find it and paw at it until it can't fly away anymore. It's written here at least.
What he doesn't have, is a lot of hair. He is actually balding on his little ears. The vet had no clear insight, but gave us a super mix of soothing, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial anti-fungal drops to rub on his bald ears for a few weeks. The drops are kept in the fridge. While he normally isn't keen on having someone mess with his ears, he really loathes having cold slimy drops rubbed on them, but in his oddly passive way. If one of us holds him, he doesn't struggle while the other puts drops on, he just tries to fold that ear away so far it retracts. Inevitably, the few hair left on his ears look even more pitiful, greased together and dark in contrast to his naked ears. The balding doesn't seem to be improving yet- but it also hasn't spread. Perhaps this is some kind of alpha cat pattern baldness, maybe we can try rogaine for felines next. More likely, he will feature in my memoirs as the slightly bald, home-bound comic relief.

Cooks Illustrated = Date Night

Seems like I've been spending a lot of time away from home these days. We have a standing Tuesday date with our most favorite friends, Wednesday I've been going to "Study Hall" (aka waffle/ice cream shop) to spend a couple hours working on writing, and this Thursday was WISC. Fridays I often get swept into an after work Happy Hour/ Dinner, so it can seem like ages go past before I get to hang out with just Matt. Which seems weird, since he is my favorite. For some reason this week felt especially busy- or maybe just bouncing back from being sick still- and I didn't feel like going out for a big to do, which suited Matt just fine.

Since I spent most of Saturday catching up on the latest Cooks Illustrated, we decided a good way to share the evening would be to make Cacio e Pepe and Brownie Sundaes. We've got access to things like imported cheese, and indulged in trying to find the Cooks Recommended brands for everything. Even though we had what amounts to cheese on noodles, Matt declared it the best meal we've made it ages, and I'll tend to agree. And it made us feel like real wizards too.
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Another project that has come together recently is a new scratching post for Raoul. It's time to give him a more serious option then the cardboard scratcher- and rather then shell out the Petco prices, Matt hypothesized (correctly) that he could make something just as good for cheaper. What he has now is a 6 foot tall post, with two shelves and sisal wrapping, hooks to hang dangly ribbons and carpet up to the top. It gives Raoul a new vantage on the kitchen, a new window and is the new highest place in the apartment, so you can imagine he is quite fond of it. So, yes, the cat is certainly spoiled. It is a bit of a monstrosity, but it's not as if our apartment is crowded- and frankly he spends the most time here. I am hoping this will lead to a ceasefire with the furniture, or at least lay the groundwork for those negotiations.

And Matt enjoyed designing and building it. I helped a very little with the whole process. Seems I don't have much patience for this sort of thing, and my slipshod attitude was designing an eyesore. So, extra kudos to Mom and Dad for sticking to their bathroom project for significantly more then the 12 hours it took this to come together- the proof is surely in the pudding.

Other news, most recent WISC was a great success, we talked about management- with two main outcomes for me. One, I am trying to be a more empathetic manager to my undergrad (whose foot is in a boot to protect a broken toe, and decided to use this week to work on summer fellowships- since I got to surprise him with another application last week), and two, I am trying to see myself as the manager for my project. Next up, we are going to try negotiation. I may end up hosting this one... I also taught again, for the last time, last week. This week I am going to let these students assess the content, and me, and the course, and get some good feedback from them. I am spending a lot of time pondering how to elicit this.

Which is silly, because I should be spending a lot of time pondering my annual seminar! And my thesis committee meeting! But I am feeling so jaded since before Christmas, I can't really connect "working really hard" with "impressing my committee so they want me to graduate." And it's hard to talk to Dr. Boss for more then 5 minutes at a time these days and.... I just don't want to keep working for more years.... ugh. Winter is a hard enough time, without trying to muster up enthusiasm for something like one's thesis. Actually, I think I am in mourning, I can't seem to find a solution where I graduate in time to get to the 2011 AAAS Policy Fellowship. Sigh. The seminar is the 19th, so think of me fondly then.

Things to do while waiting for a party to start

Well, today we are celebrating Matt's birthday. We started with hefty breakfast at Pamela's (famous for their fried in butter pancakes- ooooo :), and then I surprised Matt with tickets to the Steel City Big Pour, an amazing event that benefits Construction Junction, and features breweries from all over the country. We chatted with some people, had great food and beer and headed home to prepare the house.

Right now, we sit with munchies in place, a sextel of Dogfishhead's 60 min IPA in the kitchen and a happy Matt on the couch. Should be a good night.

I am sharing a photo below from Papa's birthday party (lovely!), and also and album of pictures of Raoul. Betty make him a brand new kitty bed for his birthday, which, you can see, he enjoys a lot. The position on top of my dresser is where he has been settled in this summer- the new bed makes him really happy.

Vignettes of my birthday

It has been a pretty wild week around Casa Seguin. Most of this revolves around lab politics and scientific maneuvering that Matt informs me is too boring to dominate my social interactions. I appreciate having someone around to remind me what fun looks like. Instead, I'll share with you some of the highlights of celebrating my birthday, but imagine them set to a background of work related tension and sleep deprivation.
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My birthday was Tuesday. At work that morning, a colorful bouquet and chocolates and balloon was delivered to my desk, complements of Matt. I think he must have learned something from Dad- there is no where to hide such a thing, so it sat out where even people walking down the hall felt compelled to pop their heads in and wish me a happy birthday.

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That evening, Matt drove me and a couple co-workers to Kennywood, Pittsburgh's own amusement park. We rode roller coasters, and antique rides, stuffed ourselves with corndogs and funnel cake and ice cream, and stayed until the fireworks display. It was Italy Day at the park, which meant everyone stayed to see a ~20 min fireworks display at the end of the night. I told you Pittsburghers love their fireworks. I screamed myself hoarse, laughed until I had a bellyache and smiled until my teeth were tired.

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The next day, the gifted wife of a co-worker brought in the birthday cake we've been joking about for nearly a year. The piece centered around a Chocolate Moose, filled with a chocolate mousse. Yeah, Moose Mousse! But it gets better- it the moose was nuzzled into a yellow cake base that also held a spice cake Igloo, the whole affair swaddled in arctic marzipan. Can you believe this?? I told her this was exactly what birthday cakes look like back home, and I was pretty grateful to have a friend here who would go to the effort to recreate the traditional Alaskan birthday for me.

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Remember that balloon that Matt had delivered? I untied it from the vase, and let it drift around in the fans that are a constant in the summer weather. I like to picture what happens next from the perspective of the cat. Another one of those smarmy ribbons is sneaking around the house- this time completely defying gravity- it doesn't quite touch the ground. After a few attempt to get the ribbon to accede to gravity by throttling, he decides to kidnap it. He grabs the ribbon (and balloon) in his mouth and run across the house with it- only to be stopped when the balloon hits a ceiling fan- spooking his hair straight and giving the balloon a chance to flee. The balloon has been moving all over the house when we aren't looking- I don't think fans are involved.

Actually, every morning starts like this

Cats are creatures of habit. My cat in particular, is not a creature of much grace- despite everything else you have heard about cats. I say this to set the scene for the recent string of morning sillies, starring our cat Raoul.

You may remember, that Raoul likes the shower. Often he ducks into the just emptied tub, and then onto the sink or back of the toilet to be near the action. Recently, he has had some serious traction issues due to soggy paws. The other day, he jumped up to the sink, only to peel out sideways and slide under the faucet. This morning he jumped onto a magazine on the back of the toilet which avalanched under his weight, catapulting him at odd angles back onto the tub, but not, notably, his feet.

To help him recover from this, I decided to toss him a Q-tip. He loves catching and absconding with Q-tips. If you chuck it into the bin, he'll lean right in to grab it out again. Of course, we recently emptied this receptical, so for the last couple days his lean has turned into a nose plant- his back feet jutting straight into the air behind him until he kicks around enough to fall all the way in or get traction to leverage himself out. Every morning he does this garbage can swan dive, leaving himself as helpless as a flipped beettle- all for a Q-tip to stash under the bathroom rug.

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News in brief: Matt's old roommate Shaoshu is coming out to visit us next weekend- plans include Eating, Drinking and Merriment. I am trying to start a Women's Career Skills discussion group- I actually have a dozen people so far who've shown some interest, so it is just a matter of nailing down a time and I think we may be in business. Matt was very happy to go to Pittsburgh's new Haufbrauhaus- a big German stlye beer hall that serves brewskys by the Liter- we hardly drank that much between the two of us, but the pretzels were quite delicious.

Thai week begins at Casa Seguin

We have long assumed that Raoul is a Mexican cat. All signs point to it- his tough guy attitude about spicy food, his obsessive interest in anything with beans, and he can roll every letter in his alphabet. Today, this assertion has been challenged.

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This week Matt and I went to a Thai cooking class. This was hugely fun, very casual and both inspiring and informative. The chef, Apple Knisley, explained where to get the ingredients, how to use them, and how to recombine them into further iterations for leftovers (since, you are going to have like a pound each of Spearmint, Queen of Siam Basil and Cilantro). Thoroughly moved, Matt and I headed to the Strip District to track down a Thai grocer and stock up on herbs, fish sauce and preserved cabbage. If you go purchase these things at the Thai grocer, it costs pennies, hardly dollars. We spent $25 on what will easily be a week's worth of food once we start assembling it.

We are starting with a recipe for garden noodle rolls- a kind of fresh roll. If it turns out, I'll share the recipe. I was assembling the sauce earlier, to give those tiny, brutal Thai peppers a chance to mellow a bit. Matt waltzed in and decided to check on the hotness of the peppers by popping an 1/8 of one in his mouth. Burnination! Silly man- he had to chug about two pints of milk to cool his mouth (and throat, and ears...).

Being Thai, this sauce calls for a dash of fish sauce (which is, by smell, the liquid contents of a long dead, salted anchovy). After the pepper indecent, Matt was being all whiny about what was going into this sauce, and to make a point grabs up a dribble of this stuff to smell. Since it smelled fouler then a slime-line on a hot day, he passed his rank finger tip off to the cat, who savored the sauce, with just a little bit of finger tip. He seemed so take in the sauce like it was replenishing his supply lines, as if this whole time we'd been neglecting this basal requirement for sustenance. And this is when I realized the Raoul may not be Mexican at all- I think he is Thai. Love of spicy food, unintelligible language, affinity for fish sauce? The pieces are all there.

If the Thai movement doesn't last in the house, at least we won't have to through out the rest of the liter of fish sauce.

**** UPDATE****
Ohmygoshness, these fresh rolls are the best thing that ever happened to my plates. I feel like God's gift to my kitchen. Seriously, I would not have believed I could make something so exotic and flavorful so easily in my own kitchen.

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!

Pittsburgh Ordination

So last weekend Connie and I went to the ordination of our new Bishop who just happens to be from Pittsburgh where he is beloved. They clearly wanted to give him a big she-bang promotion ceremony which we locals couldn't hope to replicate. We get to do our modest best for his "installation" here in Juneau, but this was something to behold in the great ceremonial traditions of the church. We also got a nice visit with the sweetie-face and her family, to include our introduction to Raoul.

We also got to experience the sophistication of big-city dining at assorted French, Ethiopian, and converted church brewhouse establishments with some old friends as well. The Brewhouse set the standard for sophistication with rattlesnake dumpling appetizers that we all agree tastes like chicken, just like they say in the old westerns.

The main event was just as pomped and circumstantial as one can get this side of the Vatican: 150 preists, 20 bishops, archbishops and papal nuncio's, 10,000 piped organs, brass and tympanies in the choir loft, professional cantors, etc., etc. To be honest, we're rather intimidated. We know this fellow has seen us and understands what he is getting into. Its just a little embarrassing to feel like we need to measure up.

Will keep you abreast of our various efforts and remodel stages but for now this posting process is defeating me. Dad

Moments of the week

One of my labmates works with low levels of toxic radiation. His bench always has weird stuff on it like lead shields. Yesterday, I noticed he had an AM/FM radio out, and I couldn't imagine what it was for. His response "Listening to music." Oh.

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We've known since he was a kitten, Raoul has a lifelong infection with felines herpes. The vet told us he would have outbreaks that will look like upper respiratory things, but he is otherwise very healthy. This week, his eyes have been running a bit (the first symptom), and he has started sneezing at night. It took us a couple nights to figure out what it is- he sneezes in rapid succession, with a noise that sounds like he is opening up half a dozen cans of soda.

"Pfff... Pfff... Pfff...Pfff... Pfff..."

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The teaching lab where my class is next to the main offices for the construction works renovating our building. I see these guys a lot, and many of them have that charming Pittsburgh accent. I passed a bunch of these guys in the hall, headed back to base with their own chairs in hand for a meeting. As the line of them passed, another guy yelled out (with typical Pittsburgh aggressive hospitality), "Yinz mus' be da chairmen of the Board. Ya' know, good to see ya', chairmen!"

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Peering outside this morning with coffee and slippers, Matt says "Um, there seems to be some weird slow moving rain out there. Wait, that's not rain. Too white."

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I got an email from my collaborators in Alabama this week. They are trying to perform a high through put screen to find drugs to treat my viruses. It is a great system if we can get it up and running, I send them protein, they screen their library or 300,000 compounds. Previous efforts have managed to take a time consuming assay I do that could screen several drugs a day to be able to screen hundred. Alabama just announced they miniaturized the assay by 1/4, so they can easily screen thousands of compounds a day- which means I don't have to send so much protein (read 1/4 the work!). Take that, Dr. Bigbucks!

Instead of more griping...

Yeah, teaching today wasn't so smooth either. This time, not my fault. Rather than rehash the train wreck that was our first lab, I thought I would post something more lighthearted- it seems like I am not the only one having an incredibly long month of August.

I remember now how weird this is- we showed this clip to W and J, and were reminded that most cats HATE water. Like avoid it. Like don't even try and cuddle it. Ever. But Raoul does this every morning. Turn on the the shower, while it comes up to temp... well...