Distraction by Cute Animals

There are going to be times in your blogging career where you need to make a post but have nothing much to talk about. For me this is one of those mornings. It is effectively my Friday after having not really had a weekend last week due to issues arising that caused me to work Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. My brain is fully in tilt mode, and as such my goal is to do as little as humanly possible today. So in honor of “Topic Brainstorming Week” I am going to teach you all a not so well kept secret. Cute animal pictures are a reasonable replacement for actually having something to talk about on a given day. So this morning I am going to more or less ramble about how life has been going for me and share pictures of my cats. The other night I sat down on the couch for a few minutes and this happened.

I’ve said before that we are living in interesting times, and I am sure in hindsight this will be something we talk about for the rest of our lives. However on other levels we are living in exceptionally dull times. The highlight of my week thus far has been managing to get a grocery pick up slot for tomorrow since there is always competition for those. The cats and my wife are in theory keeping me sane, or at least I hope this is the case because I am not sure I would know otherwise. At first the cats were extremely confused as to why the hell we were never leaving the house. Now I think they have more or less settled into the same routine we have. Side note it has been extremely important that we keep a routine, because without that day and night would sort of blend together. I still get up and go through the same routines as usual, it is just that I never actually leave the house.

We occasionally go around the block and my wife spends a lot of time out on the front porch, where we are constantly visited by this guy. He has a proper name I am sure, but we more or less just refer to him as “big boy”. This is the same cat that I posted photos of earlier giving me headbutts when he wants attention. He always wants attention and he always wants food… because he seems to be a bottomless pit for both of those. He is adorable however and I am super happy that he comes to visit regularly, because if not for me I might never leave the house at all. My wife had been successfully getting me out each day on a walk, but right now I have a puncture wound on the bottom of my foot from stepping on something I shouldn’t have stepped on… and am now waiting on that to heal. It is fairly important to actually leave the house to do something each day however to remember that the sky and fresh air do exist.

The cat that always gets left out of these posts is Mollie, in part because she rarely sits in one place long enough for me to take a photo. She is exceptionally skittish and does not get along well with the other two, but can be sweet and affectionate at times. Mostly in our household she is that weird roommate that keeps to themselves and occasionally comes out to be friendly. I had to dig back a bit in my photos to find some good pictures of her that had yet to be shared. The thing around her neck is an elastic hair band from the dollar store… and Kenzie LOVES playing fetch with them. I came downstairs from my office one day to find her sitting up on our bar with one around her neck. I am guessing Mollie was playing with it, because I have seen her toss them up in the air and catch them when she thinks nobody is watching.

Here is another rare photo of her laying on the rug, and I happened to snap it as I entered the room because I just happened to have my phone in hand. Moments later she darted away because that is a thing that Mollies do. I’ve never actually managed to catch her when she is snuggling, because the slightest movement and she bolts. This is sad because at this point we have had her for I think four years? There are days when it seems like we have made progress with her, and other days she seems just as skittish and crazy as the first day we got her. I take every opportunity however to give her attention, and being around during the day means I am getting a lot of those opportunities. She however is a cat that play bites and as a result I have several battle wounds right now.

For the most part though things are going fairly well. I wish it was all over tomorrow, but I feel like I am better equipped for this sort of lifestyle than most. I am thankful that we have had a bad habit of buying shelf stable or freezer food and never actually getting around to eating it. This has served as a good opportunity to dig deep into our freezer and find things we had forgotten about. I am also super thankful for delivery services, which gives us the opportunity to feel like things are normal and we are just lazy not too scared to leave the house. I’ve been working remotely for a month now, and there really is no clear end in sight. I expect to be doing this same thing at the end of May as well and then MAYBE just MAYBE we get to go back to normal in June. Maybe leaving my house will be a birthday present. All things considered though we have fallen into a rhythm that is our new normal, and I am exceptionally thankful we are both healthy and still have jobs. It is at this point that I feel like I have to acknowledge those who don’t have one or either of those things. I am scared about how many people I might lose during this event, and if I myself die I want to make sure you all know how much you mean to me. I am thankful that you have all been along on my journey and love you dearly for the interactions that you share with me. Maybe that is too real talk to end a post on, but I have run out of things to say. I hope you all stay safe out there and we all make it through this on the other side. Now that I have bummed everyone out, just go back and look at the adorable cats. So again we loop back to the original lesson… adorable animals are a reasonable replacement for content.