From the Desk of baxtermurphyblog

Dear Baxter and Murphy,

You may have noticed that I was grumpy, cold, and dismissive this morning. My behavior had nothing to do with normal morning blues, but, rather, was a direct reaction to the extreme mess you left me during the night. In light of this event, I feel it is time to enact some House Rules.

1. Playing With Yarn
If you'd like to play with yarn, I have a ball just for you! It usually resides on an end table, but is frequently strewn about the apartment. Feel free to chew, rip, chase, or cuddle with this yarn. It is not appropriate, however, to open partially ajar desk drawers during the night and extract knitting projects, needles and all, and wind this yarn all over the apartment, forcing me to cut it up in order to untangle it.

2. Scratching
Great places to scratch include the carpet and the scratching post. If you must scratch the couch, please do it while I'm not home. If I'm not there to see it, I can't punish you! If you do decide to risk scratching it while I'm home, please refrain from doing so while I am trying to sleep. Making me get out of bed to reprimand you does neither of us any good.

3. Special note to Baxter Re: The Blinds
You may have noticed that I am perfectly happy to put up the blinds for you during the day. This allows you to gaze lazily out the window, stare at the pigeons, or nap in the sun. But once it is dark out, people can see inside so it is imperative that I close the blinds. I apologize for this inconvenience, however it is not appropriate to attempt to climb through the blinds so that you can look out the window. This behavior may cause choking or cut you, and is also damaging to the blinds. One day I hope to get curtains to accommodate us both, but for now I'd appreciate your compliance with this rule.

4. Special note to Murphy Re: Running/Jumping
I appreciate your playful nature, however if you must run from one end of the apartment to the other, please do not use me as a "jumping off" board. If you are going to hop from bed to couch to table to floor and I am sitting on/near any of those items, please do not include me as an "object of furniture to jump on." It hurts. A lot.

In return for your cooperation with the above items, I promise to:
1. Feed you
2. Provide you with shelter
3. Snuggle with you
4. Buy/make you toys
5. Entertain you


Sincerely,

The Management

Ahhhh!!!!!

I can only say so much about my cats. This morning while struggling with what to write about, the only thing I could come up with was an essay on the shocking amount of poo they produce...but who wants to read that? So instead I'm going to use my blog as a place to FREAK OUT and complain and explain why I didn't go to business school (short answer being that I have no interest in business, accounting, finances, or numbers).

I generally think of myself as pretty smart. No, I didn't go to an Ivy League school or anything, but I went to a good college, graduated with honors, am doing fairly well in my career, and have pretty good "life skills" (whatever that means). So it's incredibly frustrating for me to suddenly be back in school and not understanding things. My Masters in Publishing program requires that we take two semesters of accounting, which pretty much makes people in this industry run the other way or hide, for fear of math, numbers, or evaluating financial statements. Which was pretty much my reaction, until I talked to some friends and attended my first class.

"Accounting is easy," one friend told me.
"The class wasn't bad at all," a former student advised.
"There isn't even much math involved," said the professor.

So I convinced myself that it would be ok, because after all, one main reason I'm getting this degree is because it's useful to understand the business side of your industry (and necessary for when I become VP one day and take over the world).

It's only three weeks in, but let me just say that EVERYONE WAS WRONG. Today I spent an hour trying to do my first assignment until I got so frustrated that I felt physically ill and had to give up. Turns out there wasn't actual math involved (so ok, maybe the professor was right) but I feel like I'm rewiring my brain to understand terms and concepts I've been using my whole life that suddenly mean different things. Assets vs. Revenue vs. Gain? In "My World," these are the same. Losses vs. Liabilities vs. Debt? The same. Owners equity...say huh? Except in "Accounting World" all of these have actual meanings and, sadly, are not the same at all.

What bothers me most is that my "scary homework assignment" was to do two (yes, only two) practice problems that involved identifying different terms and determining whether they were assets, liabilities, losses, revenue, etc. So to anyone who actually has a business mind and is laughing at my stupidity right now...if you'd like to explain all this to me in layman's terms that I can understand, it would be much appreciated because I'm confused and frustrated and annoyed.

And that, my friends, is why I didn't go to business school.

Hmph.

The most wonderful time of the year

Since Baxter has yet to take over the world and all is calm in kittyland, I thought I'd divert from cat-talk today in order to reflect on my favoritest of seasons, Fall.

Fall is here, and oh, how I love the Fall. Let me count the ways.
1. The crisp-ness in the air
2. Sleeping under the comforter
3. Fresh air instead of air conditioning
4. Pumpkins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, and Starbucks pumpkin-spice lattes
5. Apples, picking apples, and apple pie
6. Fall television (whoo-hoo!!!)
7. Wearing sweaters but no jacket
8. Jumping in piles of leaves (This cannot be done in NYC, so someone must jump in a pile for me)

Feel free to add your own. Hurrah for fall!

Smart vs. Stoopid

You'd think that all cats would have a similar intelligence level--from a human's perspective, at least. But looking at Baxter and Murphy, it's clear that one of them is a little (evil) kitty genius, while the other could benefit from kitty special ed. I love them both, but the difference in their intelligence is astounding.

Examples of Murphy's (endearing) stupidity:
-Sometimes goes charging across the apartment, aiming for the windowsill, only to miss and slide down the wall.
-Frequently chases his own tail, spinning round and round in circles until he gets dizzy.
-Loves to lick my bathroom sink (ew).
-Tries to talk to pigeons (Really. He has a special voice he uses in an attempt to communicate with them through the window.)
-Eats the fringe off my chenille blanket. Yes, I said eats, not chews.

Clearly Murphy is not the smartest of kitties. He's cute, just really really dumb--in a lovable sort of way, of course.

On the other hand, I'm convinced that Baxter is some sort of kitty genius. Whether it's a glimmer of understanding in his eye, or a determination in his stride, it's clear that this kitty knows what's going on and the wheels are constantly turning in his head. I'm pretty sure his ultimate plan is to take over the world.

Examples of Baxter's genius:
-Learned to use tools: After watching me use one of his dangly toys-on-a-stick to fish out a toy under the fridge, I witnessed Baxter trying the same method.
-Enforces the rules (when he's not breaking them): When Murphy's misbehaving but is out of sight, Baxter will position himself where I can see him and glare at Murphy, letting me know his brother is up to no good.
-Anticipates loud noises: Rather than running away startled when I turn on the vacuum, Baxter calmly saunters into the bathtub to hide when he sees me getting it ready.
-Knows how to manipulate me: No matter how bad he's been, Baxter knows that if I'm in the kitchen standing near the snack cabinet and he acts affectionate and cute, he'll get a treat.
-Keeps to himself: While Murphy is my snuggle buddy, Baxter loves to sit alone by the window, most often with an expression on his face that says, "Just give me time and I will rule the world. Mwaah ha ha."

So don't say I didn't warn you. Baxter's coming.

The $4000 cat

Today I was surprised to learn that scientists have genetically engineered a hypoallergenic cat, which costs $4000. Seriously? I know plenty of people who are allergic to cats. Most of them have therefore grown to hate cats, so I cannot imagine any of them suddenly warming to the idea of a cat that would be perfectly fine allergy-wise, but cost a small fortune.

Then of course my thoughts turned to Baxter and Murphy. This morning I awoke to a small pile of kitty vomit. If I had paid $4000 for either of them, would they still occasionally throw up on my floor in the night? Most likely, yes. Would they still scratch my couch, chew through my computer cords, and track litter all over the place? Yes, yes, and yes. So I ask, why would someone pay $4000 for a cat?

It's almost as confounding as cats using the toilet.

Were you planning on baking me cookies?

I've gotten pretty used to coming home and finding my apartment in some sort of disarray due to kitty playtime. Whether it's a ball of string that's been completely unraveled and wound around every chair and table; books pulled out of the bookcase in order to provide a cozy kitty napping spot; or a previously organized stack of papers in a pile on the floor, I've learned to take it all in as "cute" and imagine what fun the kitties must have had to create such a mess.

I remember the first time I left Baxter alone overnight. I worried all night that he'd be afraid or hungry or bored (this was before I got Murphy). When I got home, I found that not only was he doing fine, but he'd somehow learned how to open the closet containing his toys and had helped himself. How proud I was of my smart little kitty, who'd found his own entertainment when times got rough.

However, I was not prepared this morning when I walked into the kitchen and found my oven door open. How, I wondered, could creatures without opposable thumbs manage to pry open a door? A relatively heavy door? Did they:
a) Stand on the stovetop (eek), bend over, and push it open?
b) Stand on the floor and carefully grab a dangling dishtowel at just the right angle and, using some sort of physics--Torque? Gravity? I never really understood physics--to pull it open?
c) Create some sort of kitty ladder, with one standing on top of the other, wrapping paws around the handle, and then tumbling backwards, letting the door open behind them?
d) Use some type of kitty zen mind power to will the door open?

Unfortunately this is most likely one of those mysteries that will forever remain unsolved. Though I'd welcome any other suggestions on how (or why) two tiny critters attempted to bake.

Baxter and Murphy's first cuddle!

Ok, so it wasn't as much of a cuddle as it was Murphy jumping on top of Baxter, who was happily snoozing in the kitty house.





Baxter tolerated it for about two minutes before leaving. But still...so cute. What a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

See ya kitties. I'm going back to school.

Today I head back to school after taking five years off. I'm going back for my Masters--something I always meant to do and never quite got around to until now. I'll still be working full-time, just taking classes a couple nights a week. But while 90% of my life is staying exactly the same, I feel I've neglected the other 10%.

Currently it's 5 hours until my first class. So far, I have:
-Skimmed the syllabus
-Opened an email account and immediately set it to forward all messages to my personal account

I have not:
-Purchased any supplies (notebooks, pens, etc)
-Found out (besides an address) where my classes are
-Gotten a student ID card
-Attended any sort of orientation

It's weird, this part-time school thing. No dorm of other new students to mingle with; no parents driving you across the country with a car full of all your crap; no pre-school orientation teaching you the need-to-knows of your new university; no wide-eyed discovery of a brand-new city. Needless to say, it doesn't feel quite real.

The real losers in this situation are, of course, Baxter and Murphy. They'll have to wait a long time for dinner tonight, and will hopefully not destroy my house in protest of my new long hours away. Of course, they tried to show their disapproval of my going back to school when they gnawed through the application back in June, hoping it would deter me from applying in the first place. But alas, they were foiled. I'll just hope that they're waiting for me, cute as always, whenever I get home tonight.