new years eve...

my wife and i have an odd way of celebrating holidays lately... we drink a bit and she helps me study.  whatever it may be, from army study stuff to foreign languages.  usually, i try to put her in a position to teach me.  so, for army study material, we pull out apps that explain a particular regulation or doctrine, and she will work through it, explaining each concept.  she likes knowing that she is helping me, and she also likes being knowledgeable about the things that i need to study in order to further my career, so it works for us.  we have actually gotten into the habit of studying something every night, and we enjoy our time together.

so, i guess you could say we don't actually celebrate the holidays most of the time.  we celebrate pretty much every day.  well, this new years eve was no different.  we had been staying up all night going over ADP7 and AR 27-10.  the first is an army doctrine that govern training units and developing leaders, and the second covers the military justice system.  pretty boring topics eh?  well, its not boring when you want to know.  i want to know.   these kinds of topics used to bore the crap out of me, mainly because i found them so confusing.  when my wife reads the questions on the apps or study guides, she takes what they are saying, paraphrases it so that its easier to understand, and then reads off the original statement.  then we take a look at the actual document to see if we made any mistakes in our understanding.  don't ask me why, but its a lot easier to study all this crap when she does it with me.  but, i gotta give my wife credit, she does her best to keep me interested.  so, yea, take the most boring topic in the world and mix in a little alcohol, a hot chick, and a little sex, and i guess anything can become interesting.

anyway, it was probably about 10pm.  we had been studying for about three or four hours, taking smoke breaks every so often.  on one of the smoke breaks, we heard a cat meowing loudly from across the street.  my wife has a soft spot for animals, so she tried to approach it, but the cat, being a cat, was a little tease and started quickly backing away.  i don't like that about cats, always wanting your attention but never in the way you want to give it.  regardless, it was obvious we weren't going to get this particular cat, so we went back inside and went back to the debauchery that i like to call studying.  we actually started the night with AR27-10, and by this point we were on the 11 principles of training units, part of ADP7.  she was giving me a nice little show when i got them right, i was relating my experiences to the principles so that they stuck in my head...  good times all around.  then we went out for another smoke break.

grumpy, orange, fluffy as hell and LOUD.
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  that's another thing i don't like about cats.  when they want to be loud, they are good at it.  loud and annoying, it sounds like they are both whining and accusing you of something at the same time.  why do cats do that?  anyway, i really couldn't be bothered to coax it to come closer.  my wife, on the other hand, made it her mission to rescue the poor thing.  so, she went back inside and grabbed a container of of cat treats.  i went back inside and hopped on my computer and started writing, as is my habit lately for when i am not actively doing something.  i think of it as part of my therapy.  i used to keep my thoughts to myself.  nobody ever had an idea of what i was thinking, and i don't want to go back to that, so i am keeping up the things that are have always been difficult.  anyway, i got about two lines in when my wife came back inside with a look of dumbfounded joy on her face and the grumpiest orange cat i had ever seen in her arms.  i remember thinking "great, a third cat..."  but, what i remember the most looking back, is the look on my wife's face.  she might as well have just won the Boston Marathon.  that probably played a huge deal on what i did next...

i named it.  what was i thinking!?  it was like a train wreck, i knew what was happening but i couldn't stop myself.  i looked over at the cat as she was trying to calm it down and look it over and i said "if we keep that cat we are going to have to name it eve or something, given the day"  then i kicked myself a million times internally.  WHAT DID I JUST DO?  yes.  i named the new cat, the one i didn't want to keep.  FML.  my wife gave me the deer in the headlights look.

  damnit! damnit damnit damnit damnit!! 
so, i figured, maybe my wife wont even want to keep it.  i mean, it IS a pretty grumpy cat.  so i just let that thought be and watched her.  the cat just kept meowing away.  that pitiful whining meow that got under my skin to begin with.  and then it started looking at me. 
now, externally, i was just staring at it.  internally, i was picturing myself as a drill sergeant "you EYEBALLING me kitty?!" 
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but, again, my dumb self did something totally opposed to my selfish goals.  when my wife tried to pet the cat, it just whined.  so, i went up to it to "show her how its done" and rubbed my face on the cats face.  cats do that right?  i mean, i was only speaking its language, it just made sense.  well, the cat melted and immediately started purring away.  at that point, my wife jumped up and proclaimed with the excitement of a little kid at Christmas "YAY, now we can keep it!". 
there weren't enough concrete slabs in California to bang my head on.  i started laughing at myself.  then i told my wife what was going on in my head, and she started laughing.  and laughing.  i thought she was going to die.  and i gotta admit, its pretty funny.  me and my opposition to cats and i am the one warming up to it just to show off. 
so, we have a new addition to the family.  well, at least for now.  we contacted the SPCA to let them know we had a stray.  we took it to the vet to see if it had a chip.  no chip, and the SPCA will let us know if somebody reports a missing cat that matches the description. 
i guess i cant really complain about the cat too much.  in the past couple days, all it has really done is just keep to itself and whine when its hungry.  since we leave a food bowl out for it, it doesn't whine too much.  we do sometimes have to remind it where the food is.  she really does keep to herself a lot.  my wife says that its name has to end in an "a", like our other two cats, Kaia and Tigra. 

i guess Eva isn't all that bad...
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kaia is pissed. 
im sorry kaia, i promise, you are not being replaced.
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Mike NZ wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2014 at 1:04am:


that is, of course, my wrist.  so yea, its a BIG kitty.

Every life should have nine cats.

well... as one with three dogs (two pitts and a yard dog) and THREE cats who rule the dogs .. what CAN I say.. Enjoy your new addition. And Happy New Year..