this is getting serious
Yep. He’s done birds, mice, and today, he’s stepped up his game. I opened the garage door, and instantly noticed the rabbit. Even before I recognized Toby next to him, I said “Toby!” in the same voice your mom used when she found you covering your face in marker.
It’s hard to express my feelings. Part of me is disgusted. There is a large, dead animal in my garage after all. Another part of me is flattered. He brought his kill home to me. The other part of me is IM-PRESSED. Those rabbits are fast. And that thing is nearly as big as he is. I mean, how did he kill it?
Best part is he just kinda sat there, looking around like, “What, this? Oh, yeah, I did that. No big deal. You know, whatever.” His panting gave him away though. He worked hard on that one.
Here’s hoping he doesn’t bring home the great dane from next door in the following weeks.
family day number 1
Here I am, scopping cat litter, thinking over the day. With the right mindset the cat litter can be a lot like one of those Zen Rock Gardens. Like I said…with the right mindset.
Anyway, today was the first official Bullard Family Day. We’ve finally gotten to where Teresa can alter her schedule, take a pay cut, and we can all have a day together. Up until now Teresa has worked every weekend but twice a year, leaving us on opposite schedules. It was kinda like being divorced, without all the spite and passive aggression. Well, no, that’s not right. There’s still plenty of passive aggression.
So needless to say we’ve been looking forward to this day for a while. But today was a little different than other special days where I’ve gotten off work early, or Teresa got canceled. It was different because it represented our new reality. If we were going to be doing this weekly now, we’ve got to figure out how to fit it into our budget.
I had Friday off, for the 4th of July, and we made the awesome decision to go to Stone Mountain. That was 50 bucks just for the afternoon. So not only could we not do THAT once a week, now our first official family day had to be especially cheap.
So now we’ve discovered that everything costs money. Especially including a toddler. On top of that it was raining all day, so the free parks all around us we’re kinda out of the question. So we bit the bullet and spent some money to go to the Bethesda Aquatic Center. I’ve realized that Gwinnett County seems to love aquatic centers, and apparently has a crap ton of extra cash for their parks department. Teresa says it’s cause they don’t pay into MARTA at all, which I think isn’t completely true.
Anyways, Gwinnett seems to have 4 or 5 of these places, a few of which are almost up to par with most kid’s water parks. 5 Bucks for each parent, Noah’s free. Not super cheap, but pretty good for what it is. Noah had just graduated his swimming class, so it was good to keep him practicing. Now if only he was tall enough to ride that slide…man he wanting in on that. (It was admittedly pretty awesome.)
Once home we had dinner and went out for a short bike ride.
So as I meditate on the day, doing my best to make perfect circles around balls of solidified cat urine, I think that’s a pretty good way to do a family day. I’m hoping for better weather and less expense next week, but we’ll see what happens.
when robots are mean
Ah spam. Sometimes automated mail can send you some interesting information. For instance:
For those of you who don’t get it, you should read this post. It’ll make sense pretty quick.
you know, whatever
I can always tell when Teresa has family or friends in town. My phone sits silently in my pocket, not getting the regular 5 calls a day. When she does call, it’s always for a very specific question, with little to no small talk bookending it.
I don’t have anything to say, but I feel like writing. That doesn’t happen often, so this will probably just get posted,and then regretted and I’ll try and wipe it off the front page with multiple posts about babies and cats.
I started to write about Christmas and my frustrations with it, but I got bored with myself and deleted it. It annoys me that gift giving is more of a frustration than a joy. But that’s more my fault than anyone else’s. Or maybe it’s just cause the only free, indoor playground is in the mall, and this time of year, when it’s so cold, is the best time to use it, but it’s now inundated with Christmas shoppers. Or maybe it’s cause my mom will hate that horrid structure of that last sentence.
The cat (Tobias) narrowly escaped banishment from our house. Both Teresa and I realized we bit off more than we could chew. We weighed the ups and downs of pet ownership using memories of an 18 year old cat that we loved, minus health issues due to age. We forgot to weigh the fact that young cats are very similar to babies in many ways. Important ways like not getting sleep due to crying. But it wasn’t just that. It was also wondering if we were making Noah into a sociopath. he seems to enjoy beating Tobias with cat toys. You can’t blame Noah fully, since Tobias continues to play with the stick Noah is hitting him with. Having to keep the two of them from killing each other is a surprise we weren’t expecting.
But lucky for him, much like Noah, he saved himself by being cute. He’s grown on us.
So that’s our cat. And with that, I’ve worn out my desire to write. So there you go. Have a nice night.
meet tobias
We got a cat. He’s three months old. He’s playful, but very cuddly too. We haven’t figured out a name yet. I like “Steve” but Teresa says that’s weird since she has an uncle named Steve. I suggested Leroy, and we both like it, but not sure about it. I kinda like using people names for pets, just cause.
Any ideas?
His name is Tobias. Tobias Shu-Shu Bullard. Shu-shu was the name the Humane Society gave him, and Noah can say it, so there you go. I should mention, he’s super patient with Noah. Noah has managed to be pretty gentle for the most part, and even when he’s not Tobias still hangs around so Noah can pet him.
meow says the kitty
just to show that i’m not completely self absorbed, a post about my roommate, Juan:
I’ve been living with Juan for nearly 5 months now, after having met him at fullsail. when we first started our little adventure, he said to me, “i’ll like…pet your cats occasionally and stuff…but, like…i’m not gonna pay for cat food or anything.” what he was trying to say is that, just because the cats are in his apartment, he doesn’t want me to assume he has to do anything about them. this is all well and good, it’s not like i’d expect my roommate to pay me some sort of cat rent, like i’m some sort of cat pimp and they are my little petting prostitutes. but it’s funny to watch him now, lovin’ on my cats. he tends to feed them more than i do, because he gets up earlier than i do, and taylor is pretty much un- ignorable in the mornings.
but i must say that this humourous evolution came to it’s peak when juan and i were watching “the shield” (best show ever) and in the end (*spoiler alert*) the character “Dutch” strangles a cat (don’t ask why, you’d have to watch the show). The funny thing was, as the charcater approached the cat, juan made a little joke about snapping the cats neck…(once again, makes sense if you saw the show), but when the character picked up the cat and actually strangled it, juan paused and stated “that’s messed up.” it’s always fun to watch a tough guy get soft.
© 2009 tonybullard.com
