Photo Friday: Stop and Eat the Roses

We have a problem with bringing fresh flowers into the house. That problem's name is Wicket. She has a disturbing habit of deciding that, where ever we put those flowers, we clearly intended a cat to be there, because the only purpose that flowers could have would be as a cat snack.

She also feels this way about houseplants.

And leftover Thai food plates.

And water glasses.

So, whenever my lovely wife does something romantic and sweet like finding me fire and ice roses (yes, we have 'our flower,' and I don't care that it makes me a big sissy dork) for Valentine's Day, I get about ten minutes of cooing and burbling about them, and then three days of "WicketgetthefuckoffthediningroomtableIseeyoutheregoddamnit." And when we leave the room, we have to lock the flowers in their own room so we won't come back to shattered glass, electricuted electronics, and one very happy cat with vaguely rose-scented breath.

In fact, she's sitting on the couch staring at them right now.

Photo Friday: Our Commune- An Organization

Our Commune- An Organization

From the Photo Friday site:

or·gan·i·za·tion

1.
c. A structure through which individuals cooperate systematically to conduct business.
d. The administrative personnel of such a structure.

4. A group of persons organized for a particular purpose; an association: a benevolent organization.

5.
a. A structure through which individuals cooperate systematically to conduct business.
b. The administrative personnel of such a structure.

We may not be organized. But we sure as hell are an organization. We have both cats AND hot shirtless boys. Come on. What more do you want?

Originally uploaded by brooklyn.kittens

Calling the Child

The sperm was finally delivered at 3:45pm on Saturday, after a phone call to FEDEX, being put on hold for ten minutes while they tracked the package down, being told that it was in Erie, NY (7 Hours from our house) and then having it arrive ten minutes later with no explanation to how that was possible or why it was almost four hours late. Sigh.

Having gotten negatives on the two OPK's I took on Saturday, I kept on testing on Sunday. Towards the end of the evening, all my signs were lining up and Em and I agreed we would do the first insemination at midnight after I peed on one last stick. That stick had a very faint line, but we decided to go ahead with the insem because the book I've been reading for months said that the worst thing you can do is wait too long, waiting for an OPK to read positive.

I had readied myself for this first time to be comical and badly done and a complete miss, so I was quite happy to discover that we appear to be good at this. We filled the bedroom with the candles in vases that we had used for the centerpieces for our wedding, brought our Quaker marriage certificate into the room, to represent the loving family and community that we were calling our baby into to and starting the thawing of the spermies. It went well, Emily was really skilled at using the syringe and I rotated like a turkey for an hour afterwards. After the first thirty minutes or so, we opened the bedroom door and let the cats in and told Jesus that he should come visit. And it felt so right, our little commune, the queers and the cats, all together, calling this baby to us.

I was slightly concerned that we had done the first insemination too early but when I tested at 2pm today I got a very strong positive, so I think we got the timing down pretty well. We're going to do our second insemination around 10pm and then we will officially be in our first ever TWW!

Photo Friday: Black & White

The Girls
Originally uploaded by brooklyn.kittens

This is my first Photo Friday. My girls are black and white to begin with, but I like the added touch of black and white cats in black and white.

What, You think I'm inseminating my cat?

I did something very exciting earlier this week. I called the sperm bank and asked them to take two vials of sperms out of our storage container and FEDEX them to our house. Due to my cycle this month, it has to be a Saturday delivery, which is more expensive, but you do what you have to do.

It was the next day before I realized that they are shipping us sperm and thawing instructions, but we are responsible for getting the syringes. Em and I met after work and went to a pharmacy nearby in Manhattan. No luck. They had 10ml or 5ml syringes, which don't work for us. We need a 1ml needleless oral syringe. I really didn't think this would be difficult to get at a pharmacy. So we pushed on. We took the train home and went to the local Walgreen. They too only had 10ml and 5ml syringes.

We pushed on to the RiteAid a few blocks down the street. And there is where the story becomes much more entertaining than previously. I walked up to the pharmacy counter and asked if they carried 1ml needleless oral syringes. The woman at the counter thought for a moment and then asked, "Why do you need it?" I wasn't expecting the question, so it took me a moment to reply, "For a home insemination." I tried to pitch my voice towards her so the three people waiting to ask questions weren't involved in my business any more than necessary. She asks, "Who are you inseminating?" And this is where I stood with my mouth hanging slightly open for a second, not quite knowing what she meant. What, I'm inseminating my cat? (Now that is something I would never want to do!) I told her that I was inseminating myself. And she freaked out. She kept saying, "Oh no! Do you have a doctor? Oh no!" I assured her I had a doctor who said that it was completely okay that I do this. "Don't hurt yourself," was her reply. In the end, she and the pharmacist took ten minutes trying to take apart insulin needles and I told them it was very kind of them, but I would look elsewhere.

Emily then brilliantly remembered that our neighbor Sean who runs the local pet store/animal rescue had given us 1ml syringes when we first adopted Sara from him and she needed to be dosed with medicine. So I headed to his pet store. I asked him if he had any 1ml syringes and he said he didn't have any in the store, but he walked thru to the shelter and came out with a handful of syringes. I thanked him and asked him how much I owed him and he said not to worry about it.

So there ends the story of how we got a four months supply of syringes for free after an evening spent trying to purchase them.

A Kitten to Keep You Company Until Content Returns

24 Hours in Pictures

The Katester informs me that there's this thing? Where you take a photo every hour you're awake of a day? One of the bloggers she reads said we should do it? Yeah, so I did it.

Here is:
FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, IN CRAPPY CAMERAPHONE PHOTOS

MIDNIGHT

We're watching a lot of TV these days that comes on late at night. A Daily Show (not The Daily Show; The Daily Show has writers, A Daily Show has Jon Stewart and Jon Oliver fuckin' around without a script), followed by multiple re-runs of Sex and the City, followed by the midnight Simpsons episode, and by the time we've worked through all of that the 2 AM X-Files is on...It's pretty terrible for us. Plus, Uncle's schedule keeps having him get in around 12:30...so we just stay up to be together. So this is what midnight looks like in our house: my wife, in her fleece pajama pants and robe that my mom got her for Christmas, clutching that remote like her life depends on it.

ONE AM

My comprehensive exams start in a week: Friday the First. For those not in academia, comps are a series of absurd hoops that grad students need to jump through; they ensure that you have a basic grounding in the core texts of your field, and they compel you to spend a whole weekend of your life writing pointless essays. Because of this, I'm spending all my time lately reading articles I don't find particularly interesting, so I can write pointless essays about them in a week's time. 32 pages worth of pointless essays. On the left is an article by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan about democratic consolodation. On the right is my EndNote entry for said article. On the couch in the background you can see Sara's leg.

TWO AM

Oh, and did I mention our projected insem date is somewhere between Monday the fourth (the last day of my exam) and Wednesday the sixth? So we're a little obsessed. At 2 AM the wife felt the need to read to me about insemination timing.

I coulda done a three AM shot, but it would have been of me in bed in the dark, trying to fall asleep.

EIGHT AM

Kate had to leave for work early, so I got up to see her off, pack her lunch, and generally be wifelike. After she left, I picked up her bathrobe and put it on. I've been doing that a lot lately. This is a bathroom-mirror shot, if you can't tell.

NINE AM

Incidentally, all of the shots from this point forward? Could have been mirrors of the one AM shot. Instead, I photographed other things. There was some sort of Serious Cat Dramatics happening in the house this morning; I think there were more squirrels than usual on the back porch. Both Wicket and Sara kept tearing back and forth between back door and kitchen window with puffy tails. These R Srius Cats.

TEN AM

Because every morning needs some Dana Scully in it. Her hair looks so freakin' good in the ninth season, which is funny because the show is breaking my heart. Why even bother pretending it's the X-Files without some Mulder/Scully longing gazes and witty repartee? And Invisible Mulder? Not cute. I CAN HAS VISIBLE MULDER NOW PLZ. (Funny, I think that's what Scully's thinking the whole season, too.)

ELEVEN AM.

Finally I get around to breakfast. The smoothie of the week is strawberries, blackstrap molasses, maple syrup, soy milk, and plain cow's-milk yogurt. It's not disgusting, and it's healthy. Apparently.

NOON
Time to get dressed. I bought that shirt at the beach last weekend. This is roughly my fashion MO on school-or-other-official-days: ribbed tank top, button down shirt, sweater over top if it's cold enough, cool looking jeans. Hair alternates between up in a bun and clipped, and pulled in a low pony-tail. I like up better, but pony-tail is winning these days because 1) cold=hats=hair should be down and b) my hair is just a little too long and I run a severe risk of a big poof of hair puffing up like a rooster's comb. Need a haircut.

ONE PM

Workin' on the train. A different article this time. Also I kept having to pause in my reading to dance in my seat to "Dirt Off Your Shoulders," which is only recently on my iPod.

TWO PM

And I arrive at 'Snice, a vegetarian/vegan coffee shop in the West Village. I was meeting my exam study group. We are a motley bunch: different regional foci, different theoretical foci, different tastes in caffeinated beverages. You can see the edges of them through the glass. I got the seat by the door. It was cold.

THREE PM

'Snice has the most amazing freakin' cupcakes. They're vegan and covered with icing like I used to eat out of the can that I kept by my bed when I was a kid. We almost had them be the cupcakes at our wedding (for our gluten-eating guests), but the vanilla ones are healthy-looking: you know, they look like they have nutritional value. We didn't want to scare our guests, so we went with Crumbs' less healthy-looking but almost as yummy cupcakes. But I got one today. And a Cuban with soy ham and lots of mustard. And a large hot chocolate, which had entirely too like chocolate in it. Basically, I want liquid chocolate pudding.

FOUR PM

Once something passes two hours in length, unless it has a lot of shiny bells and whistles, I've lost my attention span. This is my "I'm done studying for my exam today" face. Taken in the bathroom at 'Snice. Luckily, we broke up the session about 20 minutes later.

FIVE PM

I got home around 5:30 to a very exciting piece of mail: my very first journal article is published! My copies have arrived! It's a graduate-student women's studies journal; the article is the first published thing I've gotten out of my undergrad thesis. That was my squee of the day.

SIX PM

My evening needed some Dana Scully in it, too. On second thought, those Doggett and Reyes kids are OK. I like there being Mexicans on TV, even when they're played by white girls. And there's a baby around. But still. I CAN HAZ. Etc.

SEVEN PM

Kate gets home from her super-stressful day, and we have to go out tonight (more on that below). Dinner is tomato soup with shredded cheese melted on top. This is a loser's way out of a meal, but she will eat it and it contains vegetables and/or fruit.

EIGHT PM

Our evening was spent at the Park Slope Food Co-op, where we've been members since we moved to the city. It's the largest member-run co-op in the country; there are about 30 paid employees, and 14000 active members, who all work one shift a month (roughly) and do all the major work of the store, from stocking to checkout to designing the newspaper and running the office. Kate's shift started at eight-thirty, but mine didn't start until 9, so I grabbed some much-needed groceries in the break. In this basket: cream cheese, frozen peas, soy milk, tortilla chips, peanut butter, and other necessaries.

NINE PM

Then I took my place at the cash register. Checking out groceries and taking payment are different jobs at the co-op, in order to reduce the number of people who handle cash. I handle cash. We just got a new system, that makes our lives much easier.

TEN PM

Providing plenty of time to do my homework. This is for class, not for exams. It hurt my brain due to the dumb. Sigh.

ELEVEN PM

Then we took the bus home. And came home. And watched TV (not the X-Files: I want her to stay married to me, after all). And ate cheese puffs. And blogged. (Photos not included of that. No one wants to see my in my little brother's red hoodie and blue cotton panties. Not even my wife; she hates this hoodie.)

Kate promises to do this soon...on a day when she won't just be taking photos of what she's watching on TV all day, which is what tomorrow is expected to be.

The Furry Children

When I'm at home and I talk about wanting a baby, I always have to pause and say, "I mean a HUMAN baby, princess." Like so many other queer households we are mommies to two beautiful little girl cats. In fact, it's our house motto: Queer Feminists with Cats.

At the moment we have Wicket, a beautiful black and tan tabby cat who will be five years old in April and Sara, a white and black kitten who will be six months old on Monday. While Emily has been away over the last nine days, Sara has become a very needy little girl. Since she came home to us at 8 weeks, she has been a cuddler, a constant source of purrs. But with Emily gone, she's become a clinger also. I am not allowed to sit at the computer without Sara draped on my lap, held craddled in my left arm or draping herself across the back of my neck, contentedly chewing on my hair. If I sit in my blue chair to read or watch TV, she mews plaintively for me to pick her up and then remembers that she can jump now and lands on my lap, feet splayed. She follows me into the bathroom and demands to sit on my lap.

I was instant messaging with a friend the other night and mentioned that I was becoming quite skilled at typing with one hand while cradling a baby cat in the other. I thought that this would be a useful skill when we have a human baby who needs attention all the time. Her response was that I would have to stop cuddling with Sara all the time or she would be jealous of a baby. And I've been thinking about that. Our cats take almost all of our mothering energy right now. I am Mama and Em is Mommy for them. Uncle is...Uncle. I don't think that there is any way that the cats are going to be happy about a little human who gets most of the attention and cries and doesn't pet them nicely. So, any thoughts? I don't want to stop paying attention to my kitty children, but I also want to prepare them for the changes to come and they don't speak English.