Here's Johnny! (Except it's not - it's "Jack" - but it's the only cool quote I could find from my previously favorite Jack. Maybe I should just use "Honey, I'm Home.")

As many of you already know, we made an important leap on Friday and opened our home and hearts once again to a little one of the furry four-footed variety. (He doesn't like to look at the camera).

He was originally named something else - but after a bit of debate on our part, we didn't think it suited him and we went with Jack.  (This has cause some confusion with regard to his paperwork. Also, I bought a $10 name tag with his old name. But it suits him). He wasn't really answering when we called him by the previous name, herein after "TPN," so I allowed Allen to pick the name.  Believe me, this was the least offensive of the bunch.

Here he is dutifully answering to his new name.

We had a few flase starts on the first night - he didn't seem to understand the concept of a bed - or at least a bed that he didn't have to share with anyone else.

When I tried to explain the concept to him, he seemed sort of grumpy.

But we're thrilled with the life he's brought to our empty house.  I had a wonderful recommendation from a friend, and we located Jack through Austin Pets Alive.

And see, he's bright - he figured out the bed thing pretty quickly.

We'll head to the vet for a check-up tomorrow and then obedience class on Thursday...but we think this will be the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.

A Belated Valentine's Day Post

004, originally uploaded by TUWABVB.

Since I spent the majority of my Valentine's Day either in the state of New Jersey, or in the air...I suspected that there would be no "celebration" of our love. In fact, my flight was scheduled to land only moments before the holiday ended AND my brother-in-law was visiting. Not exactly the recipe for romance, right? WRONG!

I don't think anything says "I love you" quite like a little Napoleon Dynamite (by the way, how is that movie even still relevant given that it was made years ago? Maybe he got a discount on the card - which makes me love him even more).

The Married Version of "Sexting"

The night before I left for New Jersey a pivotal part of my plan failed - our three month old laptop died. DIED. Just stopped working.

Granted - it's our secondary computer...so not a lot of information was lost, but it was still a major inconvenience because (1) my husband had just finished six hours of work that he had not yet saved on his main computer and (2) I needed to take the craptop with me to get some work done while I was away.

I traveled up North hoping to use my mom's Playskool version of a laptop to get a last minute project done for work. Except her computer has the crack-whore version of Windows known as Vista. It wouldn't open my Excel files and I worked for hours trying to find a viable alternative.

Have I ever mentioned that my husband was an IT consultant in a previous life? In fact, that's how we met...but I digress. I texted him no fewer than 25 times asking for help and feeling sorry for myself.

But then I figured out the problem and fixed it myself - it was truly a week-before-Presidents' Day-miracle. So I sent my husband this text:

Me: I rule! (Imagine red rose petals strewn around a naked Mena Suavari).

Him: Me too. Imagine me just being my bad ass self. I was able to hook the laptop drive to my desktop and get the data off.

Me: You definitely rule more. You are the pumped up Kevin Spacey to my teenage cheerleader.

Him: Scratch that. The whole machine froze up and freaked out. What a POS.

And that, my readers, is the efficiency of marriage...the ability to start, ruin and finish a fantasy all in three minutes via a few typed out words.

A Story of a Boy and His Cat

I think I've made it pretty clear that my husband is an animal lover. Currently. He wasn't always that way. It's not that he didn't like our furry counterparts, he just didn't attach the status of "family member" to his pets. Until he met "my" dog Murphy and subsequently fell in love. I often joke that he dated me for my dog. (He wasn't a huge fan of Riley, but Riley wasn't a huge fan of his either which actually cracked me up - but that's a story for another day). As I've stated before, he was devastated when we lost Murphy - we both were, but he took it really hard and it broke my heart.

However his heart is finally showing signs of mending, slowly but surely.  Recently, after months of rejecting my overtures, he began to speak of the possibility of new dogs. He's even looked at a few pictures of shelter dogs that I found promising. He mentioned various renovations that we need to do around the house and whether we should go some before others since they would interfere with pets.

But the most important sign of a healing heart has been a flirtacious game of  - well, cat and mouse, that he's been playing with a local stray. 

His family always had cats growing up.  In fact, his dad still has a photo of the last family cat as the background image on his cell phone even though he died over three years ago. It's likely that we can't ever have cat because I'm allergic. (Also can't stand something that poops in a designated indoor box and whose food makes me vomit in my mouth. But really they do make me sneeze a lot).

The first time we spotted our little friend, he was sitting by Murphy's grave in our backyard (calm down, we only buried his ashes and have a nice plant as a headstone -we're not crazy!).  The second time, he was there too. And the third and the fourth. One night we were sitting on the deck and we spotted him again - and the truth came out...he was convinced the cat had Murphy's spirit. (Yes, there was copious amounts of red wine involved, why do you ask?) Well, my heart broke and melted at the same time and I vowed I would be supportive and helpful in this little courtship.

But M2, as he's come to be called, or the Deuce (which I don't like as much because it sounds like poop) is fickle and untrusting and there's been little to no progress over the past few months. Every time we spot M2, my husband runs to the door and starts mewing like a madman - and the cat just runs away.

The other day I was home alone in the house and something caught my eye on our back deck:

(Please ignore the HORRIFIC chain link fence along our side yard which I swear will be replaced soon). There he was, asleep on our hot tub within a few steps distance of our back door. I was ecstatic. Later that night, he returned and sat on the deck looking in our TV room. He was hungry, my husband insisted, and I scrambled to provide tuna on some paper plates.  He put the food on the deck and we sat inside and held our breath. And M2 came and ate and ran away again.

The next night, he appeared again.  Just sitting on the deck looking down at his paws - he seemed somewhat despondent. We scrambled again and I grabbed some leftover salmon from the fridge.  He ate again then ran to hide in the bushes.

Saturday was a busy day as I prepared for a week-long trip to New Jersey to help my mom after surgery.  I headed to the grocery store to stock the house before I left - a bit of a tradition between my husband and me and one that brings me a bit of comfort before I leave - and we made the serious decision to commit.  And commit I did - I bought a bowl and some cat food. We put the bowl on the deck that night and held our breath but he didn't show.  It was suggested that feeding him leftover pecan-crusted salmon from Central Market might not have been the best idea and he was likely lying dead from a nut allergy somewhere in the neighborhood. I rolled my eyes and kept my thoughts to myself - this cat had managed to survive "on the streets" if you will, but my gourmet left-over salmon had killed him? I think not.

Later that night I realized that I was only going to get about two hours of sleep before the car came to pick me up at 6: 00 a.m. and I sat on the couch, tired, cranky and dreading the trip. Manbug was asleep and I was feeling lonely and afraid. And what did I see out of the corner of my eye. A feline shaped band-aid enjoying a feast out of his new bowl - he looked up, saw me and then kept on eating as if to say, "Baby steps...baby steps."