One Year with Dilly

Dear Dilly,

Last week, in the midst of my beginning of the year blogging hiatus we celebrated your Adoption Day!

You're the first real pet I've had (by real I mean not a hermit crab or a fish that lived in my bathroom) and you have totally made me a cat lady. I'm not even upset about it.

You are so snuggly and you sleep on funny things! You let me and Fiance do funny things with you (like put a fleece neck warmer around your belly like a cat sweater) and sometimes you roll around like a worm!

You know when I am sad or stressed out and you snuggle me.

A year ago, I could only pick you up like a sack of flour...arms under belly, flip up body toward face, hold awkwardly. Now though, I pick you up no matter how you are laying or standing. I hold you like a baby (because you are my baby) and we dance around the living room while Fiance looks at us funny.

You are one special kitty cat. Everyone loves you, even our friends who don't like cats! I think you are even more special to us because you are the first living thing Fiance and I have ever taken care of together. He cleans your litter box (ew) and I feed you every morning. We lay on the couch and watch television, you try to steal my yarn when I crochet, you sit on Fiance's lap when he plays video games.

Dare I say it, Dilly Marie, I think you are the best thing that's ever happened to us. So much so that I will even try to forget the day we moved to Brooklyn and you pooped in your carrier and then laid in it. The poop, not your carrier.

We love you!

In Which Dilly Wants to Be A Runaway

Just some pictures from our very first barbeque yesterday!

Shannon is basically a professional chef. Please note those skewers! 

Fiance learned how to make delicious mojitos! I don't even like mojitos and these were so tasty! Also when you send Becca, Stephanie and Fiance to the supermarket you inevitably get potato chips and onion dip (please see photo evidence of previous vacations to Puerto Rico). 

Our grill masters for the evening...

Becca had too many mojitos. This is my impression of Becca's "too many drinks" face. 

Dinner! And a very glamorous Stephanie! 

WHOOPS! Becca dropped her dinner on the ground. 

ALSO Dilly loves to be outside, specifically she likes to eat leaves? Like a lot. I was nervous that she was going to throw up but after eating a lot of leaves, she didn't even gag! She is a BAMF but if she thinks she is going to be a runway, she is sorely mistaken.

A Christmas Gift for Dilly

Fiance has a friend (let's call him Stan, to protect his identity) who he used to live with. Well, Fiance lived with a lot of people (hence the icky factor of his house sometimes) but Stan was one of them! Stan and Fiance played video games together a lot, and after they moved out in June, I think Fiance missed Stan a lot more than he let on.

Proof? Stan came to visit in November for Sidesgiving (Thanksgiving with friends sans Turkey...only sides, you see!). Fiance was thrilled but had to work when Stan arrived, so Stan and I watched TV and Stan watched me while I baked (because there are desserts for Sidesgiving, too!). When Fiance came home, Fiance and Stan reunited and they were so happy (bro happy, so not a lot of outward indication of joy, but I knew they were thrilled)! They played video game and I think there was a fast food run...I'm not really sure because I went to bed to give Stan and Fiance some alone time. I do know though, that there was much laughing, and that Fiance did not want to wake up at 9:30am when the Sidesgiving alarm went off and that when I went downstairs, there was fast food evidence!

Stan's visit was also awesome because he loved Dilly! I mean, a lot of people love Dilly (she's really good with strangers) but Stan loved her a lot. He played with her, and picked her up, and told her he was going to feed her to a goat. Which, if you know Stan, means ummmm he loves her!

Stan loved Dilly SO much that he sent her a Chistmas gift! A book called What's The Matter with Henry? The True Story of a Three-Legged Cat. It is awesome! Henry only has three legs and has a stump where his missing one is (which Dilly does not have, thankfully because I think that would creep me out).

The gist of the book is that he is awesome...a lot like Dilly (and her favorite Uncle Stan). Dilly hopes Stan comes to visit again soon (unless he brings a goat with him).

True Life: My Cat Wet the Cat Bed

On the day we adopted Dilly, we drove her home from Brooklyn in a carrier Fiance had ordered from Amazon (its awesome and has a strap that you can attach to the seatbelt so that they are safe!). She was a d-r-e-a-m in the car. I even thought she may have enjoyed it.

Fast forward to every time we have taken her on a trip post September...she cries the entire way. When Fiance took her to Albany for Thanksgiving, he bought her a pheromone collar which, according to every cat blog on the internet, should have calmed her down. It did not and she cried for four whole hours each way (granted, she was laying down and dozing, too so I'm not sure that it was too traumatic).

Yesterday in the car, we hit a new milestone in kitty mama-hood...she peed in her cat bed, which was in her (very safe) cat carrier. Traumatic? You betcha.

She was whiny most of the way and then around New Jersey, started digging at the bottom of her carrier. I should have realized that she had to tinkle, but alas I kept driving and she kept meowing/digging.

We arrived at my parents' house and I picked her up out of her carrier and BAM wet butt, wet cat bed, PEE ON MY HANDS.

Up to my parents bathroom she went to be wiped down with baby wipes and sprayed with a bottle of water. She was a pretty good sport about it. And my mom even washed her cat bed in the washing machine (thanks, Mom/cat Nanny)!

Then, because her entire belly and her bottom half was wet, I wrapped her up like baby Jesus and snuggled her until she was calmed down. How much does it look like she loves to snuggle (the answer in this picture is ummm not at all).

Kitties Really Do Love Yarn

Last night, fiance and I ate tacos for dinner and then resumed our positions on the couch to finish episodes 16-22 of How I Met Your Mother's 6th season (we watched 1-16 yesterday). I really had to get a move on a blanket that I'm making so I grabbed my needle and yarn and resumed my stitches...for about six seconds until Dilly realized what was happening, jumped up next to me on the couch, and went to town on my yarn. Wholly unhelpful for crocheting.

Luckily, Dilly is still recovering from her eye infection slash is the still the laziest cat ever so her interest didn't last long. Just long enough to make me lose interest in crocheting and prove that cats do in fact love yarn.

PS: In an attempt to be a super duper proactive blogger, I wrote this post last night at about 10pm with the intention of publishing it this morning. Last night after I lost interest in crocheting, I put my yarn on the table (next to a half full glass of Crystal Light), picked Dilly up, and went to bed. At 4:00am, Fiance and I woke up to a bang. Dilly was not on the bed. We went downstairs to see what had happened and surprise! Her love for yarn was thus proven again. Dilly (in her still recovering state) had jumped on the table and knocked the glass (and its contents) to the ground in an attempt to play with the yarn that is attached to the blanket. Fiance and I mopped the floor at 4:30am, which in case you were wondering is way too early to do any chores...let alone one that requires a bucket.