I honestly thought I couldn't have been happier than I was when I was honestly surprised by my family and friends on my birthday two weeks ago. Turns out the capacity for joy is magnified by a factor of ten when one adds in kittens on top of reunions. This has been a spectacular weekend.
River spent the night with her forever humans last night, and it is safe to say she is there for good. We didn't know how Barley would react, having only seen cats through my back door, and Athena has been known to tell him to get bent on pain of death. Or nose scratching. Really, the nose thing. Once they were allowed to interact, Barley thoroughly licked River's head, and she let him. They've been buddies ever since. We were invited to dinner with the whole family, and I was impressed with how quickly River has taken over the whole family, humans and canine both. We got word this morning that Johnny Rzeznik's family is thrilled with him, blanketing friends with Snapchats of him. His new name is Mowgli, and he is well loved.
I am having a hell of a time typing. Harvey has not been in contact with a laptop before (my daughter's has been out of commission for a long time), and his favorite game appears to be prancing across the keys and touchscreen. I have done everything I can to distract him, to no avail. Maybe he thinks he's actually a Hemingway cat, and he has a story to tell. He's leaping from across the bed onto the computer, no matter how many times I pick it up and hold it out of his reach. The good news is, Athena came onto the bed, and watched him do all this, and didn't make a sound. No growling, no hissing, no threatening moves. She just watched. He took note of her too, but was too busy prancing about and telling me how bored he was while we were next door, having dinner and getting me introduced to Stranger Things.
Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all of this, there was a football game. No, I mean There Was A Game! The first three conference games were so bad I couldn't listen to the whole thing. Last week we pulled out a win. Today we remembered how to dominate.
Our check-in time was supposed to be between 6:30-7 am. I was not capable of reaching campus so early. For that matter, I couldn't get out of the house until 7:05. But we got there before the business meeting ended, and made it to the alumni breakfast just fine. I didn't put the piccolo to my mouth until halfway through the parade through campus, when we stopped at another alumni tailgate, and the first few notes, well, let's say they weren't actually notes. By the second quarter, we had made so many first downs and touchdowns that I could play at least one of the fight songs by memory, although I never got the other one. My ability to play Fight peaked right after the first half, and by the end I was so tired, I could only hit a couple of the sustained high notes at the end of it. That's okay. I wasn't there to play. I was there to hang out with old friends and watch the best game of the season. Anytime your team shuts down an attempted comeback with an interception 8 yards deep in the endzone, and runs it back 108 yards for a score, it's a lot of fun to watch. By the end I was so exhausted I couldn't keep up with the band marching in formation up the ramp to the back side of the field house. I lagged back far enough that other non-band people cut in front of me and I just walked back to the music building alone. It was fine. I was too happy to care how tired I was.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to fail to sleep while I little white-turning-flame-point killing machine bounces all over me and my bed with the gold mardi gras beads I brought him from the game. It's going to be a long night.
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