Purrthday Photoshoot

Yesterday was my lovely friend Jen's 28th birthday.  I love birthdays and want everyone's to be chock full of awesomeness. Thus, when I saw her status message yesterday, I took it as a personal challenge**.

 I would get her a picture of real live kittens in bow ties or die trying! If you haven't seen the movie Aristocats, here is a visual:

I was immediately faced with a setback: Chris doesn't own any bow ties. On any other day, this would not be a disappointing discovery. In fact, I am suspicious of any straight man who owns more than one bow tie. But or the first time ever, I briefly considered the benefits of dating a "metro"sexual.

I compromised by tying strips of fabric into loose bows around their necks. They were willing, if confused subjects at first.

Uncanny, no?

That didn't last long. In a month they have transformed from screeching, helpless lumps of fur into one- pound balls of running, leaping, exploring energy. If I open a door, they will try to run out of it, on principle alone. I soon discovered that their kitten principles extend to any attempts to make them sit still and pose angelically on a chair. They immediately began sprinting around the room, dive bombing under the couch and tackling each other. 

I should have known it wouldn't be easy. Even cartoon cats are hard to wrangle.

Eventually, one kitten (Yogi) passed out, as they always do after an hour of cardio. (They take after me). The other two kittens resisted settling down at first. 

But eventually, they began to lose ground. I choose to believe that they finally realized their principles were weak, at best. 

And finally, "success"! Hey, It's the best I could do.

 

Perhaps we can derive a life lesson from this. Artificial principles are weakened by exhaustion. We mustn't try to force others to do what we want. We just have to wait until they're running out of steam.

Now if we can just figure out how to get certain people on a treadmill.

Meow

**If you've ever been unemployed, you understand.

It's my costume and I'll cry if I want to

This past Saturday was Halloween. I initially wanted to dress up as the giant tube sock from the Skittles commercial that I'm obsessed with. If you haven't seen it, check it out:

Unfortunately, it proved to be a very difficult costume to put together. You can't just go out and buy a giant tube sock at your local Target. Instead, I decided to embrace what I've become in the last 2 weeks: a cat lady. Obviously my first stop was Goodwill. It is a gold mine for tacky clothing. Within 20 minutes, I had a pile of cat themed clothing to choose from. 8 dollars later, I had this snazzy getup:

The cats loved it for obvious reasons

I put a lot of effort into the details of the costume (including an hour spent applying glitter) and was confident that I'd be a shoe-in for the costume contest. Chris decided to wear the same costume he'd worn for the past four Halloweens: a whoopie cushion. He got it from a child who outgrew it. A child. Who outgrew it. He almost didn't even wear a costume. No Halloween spirit, I tell ya.

A few weeks ago, Chris read about a Halloween party at Thomas Creek Brewery. It promised , live music, BBQ and five hours of all you can drink craft beer for 10 dollars. As a plus, the brewery was less than 10 minutes from home. It was an easy decision.

The event started at 1:00 and by the time we arrived unfashionably late at 3:00 the party was in full swing. The instant we got there, some revelers turned and laughed at us. I was prepared for this. I know, I know people, cat lady = brilliant! The timelessness! The attention to detail!

And then, something terrible happened. They started telling Chris how awesome his costume was. CHRIS' COSTUME??? They looked at mine just long enough to register confusion then began requesting pictures with him like he was Jake Gyllenhaal. Dressed like a whoopie cushion. This disturbing trend continued the rest of the afternoon. I think some people honestly questioned whether or not I was wearing a costume. My visions of sweeping the costume contest and being paraded through the party on the shoulders of a horde of partygoers faded with each passing minute.

I beelined to the beer line to drown my sorrows. At least the beer did not disapoint. They had a variety of specialty beers, from IPAs to Vanilla cream ale to Belgian Porter. They also had some pretty intense cask beers that helped ease my pain. Chris on the other hand was eating up all the attention.

He started walking around squeezing the whoopie cushion to make the farting sound behind random people. The whoopie cushion that I told him to buy. The crowd loved it. I can't win. Obviously simplicity is key down here. I mean, a teletubby won the costume contest. A teletubby! 1997 called and wants it's costume ideas back.

Too excited for spell check

Ok yes, I was a little bitter. Halloween is MY favorite holiday and Chris swooped in and got all the attention with a lazy costume he didn't even want to wear. But despite the soul crushing, there were quite a few perks. The live music was good, the beer lines were short and the BBQ was amazing. Carolina BBQ is second to none. Chris had an incident with the hot sauce but that was kind of his own fault. We literally had to sign a waiver to try it and he decided to slather it all over his pulled pork sandwich. A few beers (and tears) later, he was recovered.

The party didn't go quite as I'd hoped but it ended up being a good time. At least the kittens loved my costume. And the old man from the portapotty line that offered to lick cat food off me. Hoping not to run into him again.

Below are some more pictures from the party.

Next year, I'm all over that giant tube sock.