Holy cow its been 5 years since we met! And look…We still do cutesy things like take pictures with this heart we found carved into a tree a few weeks ago. Aren’t we adorable?
Tag: sam
Mister Shadows
Sam and I adopted a new cat last weekend. We specifically adopted Shadows (given name.. Not the one we would have gone with… I call him Mister Shadows) after one of Sam’s coworkers told us about him. Her coworker volunteers at the Cleveland APL and Shadows had been there for more than a few months. However recently he had nipped at several of the volunteers and was at the point where if he did it again they would have to put him down.
After Angelo passed earlier in year we had talked about the possibility of getting a new cat. Maisey also had grown quite attached to me, and that left Sam feeling like she needed a cat to bind with like she had with Angelo. In her own words Sam wanted “an old cat who realizes that Sam is it’s last chance at feeling loved” and would
immediately cuddle and bond with Sam. As good of reason for adopting a cat as any.
Shadows wasn’t that cat Sam wanted, but he was a cat in need and we wanted a cat. Shakes is a young cat, two and half years old. He came to the APL from a hoarder home, and had nipped at people so we knew he’d need some time and probably like to hide. We brought him home and put him in the spare bedroom to acclimate – we couldn’t let him out at night in particular until we’ve seen him around the guinea pigs – but left the bedroom door open while we were home in case he was courageous and wanted to explore.
He was not. He quickly found a corner in the closet to make his own. One day last week we came home and couldn’t find him at all… Turns out he crawled inside a suitcase that was on the floor to sleep. It was cute. He loved being pet and while not super outgoing would come and rub up against and beg for pets. So things were going good.
UNTIL HE FIGURED OUT HOW TO OPEN THE ACCESS PANEL IN THE ROOM.
He first got in there yesterday. He apparently pawed at it until he pried it open. It is pretty disgusting in there. But the only place he can get to is the inside bathtub frame. We spent hours during by it yesterday until he crawled out to eat, when we grabbed him, put the cover back on and put a 30 pound bin of car litter in front of it.
Despite being annoyed we gave him lots of attention and he went back to sleeping in the closet. I didn’t see it but while we out in the living room we heard him venturing out into the apartment as well. All was good.
UNTIL WE WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND DISCOVERED HE HAD SOMEHOW MOVED THE 30 POUND BIN OF CAT FOOD AND GONE BACK IN.
It’s five o’clock and we have been taking shifts waiting for our apparently super strong cat to come back out for the last five hours. We can hear him moving around in there and I even got a picture of his beady little eyes starting at us mockingly.
Hopefully he comes out tonight. And we will have to do something extreme to make sure he can’t get back in there.
Sam’s new haircut
Two trips to Best Cuts later and Sam’s hair looks quite fetching.
Led Luther!!!
Led Luthor rules with a smile in Sam’s car.
No Sun
I love my dreams. They are just bizarre, but all have a narrative of some sort.
So in my dream last night Sam and I were in my parents house. We were staying in the basement and went upstairs when I saw that the sky was just dark. It was the middle of the day and dark as night outside.
Stepping out on the porch I could see stars and clouds and animals, just not the sun. It was like a clear summer night outside. I was freaking out because there was sun and it was the middle of the day. Sam on the other hand didn’t see the big deal. It was just something that happened, and she was sure the sun would be back tomorrow.
Just then I realized it was a school day, and I hadn’t cancelled work. But at the same time, it was near noon and I hadn’t had an e-mail, text, or phone call about not being at school. I kept trying to type ‘Cleveland.com’ into my phone to check school closings, but was unable to type Cleveland correctly. I seemed to recall in that the weather was supposed to be very cold (below zero) and that school should have been closed anyways, but I couldn’t remember closing the school. After several unsuccessful attempts to type in Cleveland I woke up.
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When I woke I still thought I had forgotten to cancel school and needed. It took a few minutes for me to completely come to my senses and realize it was all a dream.
Sam’s Birthday
On Thursday, September 25th, Sam turned 30. I got a plan going in my mind a few weeks ago to celebrate.
I took a personal day and didn’t go to work, but didn’t tell Sam I was taking the day off. I got up at 5:45am, like any other work day, showered, got dressed and left for work. I picked up a slew of pictures I had printed at CVS, drove to the Giant Eagle to pick up some ingredients for birthday cookies and cake, hit Target and Staples for some tri-fold board, a card and markers, and hit up a florist for some flowers.
After about two hours of driving around Sam had left for work and I returned home. I got right to work on cookie dough (using our awesome Kitchenaid Mixer). After putting the dough in the fridge, I started on the apples for the cake. I sautéed up some apples on the stove with sugar and butter, hand mixed some dough up (since the Kitchenaid bowl was in the refrigerator) and put the dough in the oven.
Next I got to work on her card. This idea didn’t hit me until I was actually at Target (hence the trip to Staples). I cleaned off the kitchen table and laid the tri-fold board out. I decorated it, threw some pictures on it and added a nice birthday message. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but thought it was a good idea.
After the cake was set aside to cool I put the cookies in and cleaned the apartment. By this time it was getting close to 11. My original plan was to surprise Sam as they were walking out of the office to head to lunch but that wasn’t going to happen. It was a 30 minute drive out to Sam’s work and cookies hadn’t finished yet and I still needed for finished the glaze of for the Toffee Apple Cake. So the new plan was to surprise Sam where they were for lunch. I finished up the cookies and took the flowers out of the water I had set them in and packed everything up to go surprise Sam.
I drove out to the east side of Cleveland, and I knew Sam was going out to lunch with her co-workers at Olive Garden, so I looked up the closest one to Sam’s work and headed out there. I parked right out in front of Olive Garden and gave Same a call. She didn’t answer, instead sending an auto-text back ‘Can’t talk right now.’ I wasn’t deterred. I sent her a picture of the front of Olive Garden and a text that said “You should at least come out and kiss me since I’m outside right now.”
About ten minutes later I got a “Wait… Are you here?” text back and she came out. I opened up the card and gave a her a big kiss. Ate lunch with her co-workers and hung out at work with her for a bit before coming back home.
It’s her 30th Birthday. She deserved something special. When she got back from work we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, came back and caught up on some Doctor Who while eating birthday cake and opening her last present (a gift subscription to LootCrate). That was in addition to some Daniel Closes books, a candy thermometer and one more thing that hasn’t arrived yet… although that might become a Christmas present depending on when it arrives.
Sam was amazingly surprised. The right amount of surprise she says. She not a big surprise person, which made me debate whether showing up with flowers, a giant card and White and Milk Chocolate cookies would be too much or not. But it wasn’t, and I scored boyfriend points with all her coworkers (woo boyfriend points).
