[Pre-bastardized picture found here]

The Large One is handsome.

(Click to embiggen. You gotta see it in it’s full glory.)

(However, this is balanced by the fact that I look like Christmas threw up.)

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UPDATE:

Plumber has come and gone. Thank goodness that’s taken care of.

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UPDATE 2:

Relax. The Small One is fine. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.

But the plumber did snake the drain.

Which could be the dirtiest statement I have ever written.

I was totally gonna start with Day 1 of my holidays, also known as “The Day That Everything Went Really Friggin’ Wrong”, which was punctuated by the experience of cutting my finger on a potato. Not on a knife with which I was cutting a potato. No — on on actual potato. Considering that Solanum tuberosum does not appear anywhere on the 2007 Year-End Top 100 Things That Are Sharp And Will Cut You, Bitch list, this was a fairly remarkable feat. Be it resolved, from this day forth the lowly potato is my nemesis and I will henceforth revel in my slow, tasty decimation of its entire species. [Perfunctory super-villain laugh.]

Next, I was gonna transition into our trip to Newfoundland, Land of Heavy Starches and Force-Feeding In-Laws. We had so much food thrown at us everyday that we did not get to eat a single bite of turkey leftovers. (Also, stuffing stings when thrown in the eyes, but not as much as cranberry sauce.)

The only mitigating factor to the lard-producing quantities of food was the two games of Ultimate I got to play (yay!) and the three-freaking days that I got to shovel several feet of snow (anti-yay!).

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Note: I would have had to shovel four-freaking days in Newfoundland, but my back seized up after the third shovel-o-rama — compounded by the 5 hours I spent hunched over attempting to set up a new Vista laptop to be “foolproof” for My Lovely Wife’s aunt — so I got to sit out shovelling on our last morning on the Rock.

But never fear, because upon arriving home that afternoon, I had to shovel OUR driveway out. And when I say “shovel”, I actually mean “repeatedly drive a metal gardening shovel into the 6 inch thick sheet of ice covering our driveway and cry”.

And then I got to do it again the next day.

That’s right. Five-freaking days of shovelling.

Good times. Good times.

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Then I was going to Snoopy-dance into the story of how the Small One seems to be completely out of the woods with his bladder problem. He — and the house — no longer smell like pee and he’s back to his regular cuddly self.

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Note: Actually, both our boys seem to have reacted quite strongly to our holiday absence and are taking steps to prevent our further departure from the house. For example, they have fashioned crude shackles out of cat hair and dander (not particularly secure — except for the very allergic — but props for effort!) and have chained themselves to our bodies. Bedtime has never been so warm nor so furry. Last night, My Lovely Wife was mad at me for two hours for snoring before she realised that it was the Large One sawing logs in her ear.

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And then I would have mentioned some other stuff.

Really, I could have gone on and on and on about every speck of minutia concerning our holidays.

But then… this morning I received this email from My Lovely Wife:

Hi,

Today is Jan 3rd. Three years ago something happened…

Yes.

It is true.

I forgot our anniversary.

[Hangs head in shame.]

And everything would have been JUST FINE if we BOTH continued to forget.

But My Lovely Wife remembered. Before me. And she got to be the one who told me.

If our marriage was a game — let’s say, Dungeons and Dragons — I totally failed my saving throw against Anniversary and took full damage. I’m at 0 hit points and need binding soon if I want to live. The DM is chuckling and rolling dice behind his screen.

Luckily… our marriage is not a game [listens for sound of polyhedral dice] and I seem to be at full hit points.

More importantly, I am married to the coolest chick in the world.

Heck she even put down my visor for me on our drive to work today so I wouldn’t get sun in my eyes.

(And she only complained a little while she did it.)

Ladies and gentlemen… that’s love.

When it comes down it it, only one thing matters.

I’m the luckiest guy in the world.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie!

The Small One is a wee bit out of it right now.

After an evening of very un-Small-One-like behaviour, yesterday morning we got to partake in a Very Special Easter Egg hunt.

“Very Special” in that it wasn’t Easter.

And the eggs were replaced by small droplets of pee.

Very smelly pee.

So we took him to the vet.

The verdict? He has crystals, which — insert parental warning here — the vet says makes him feel like he is “peeing razor blades”.

[Collective wince.]

So he’s on some pain meds and we just bought a few flats of special wet food that cost as much as our groceries for a week.

(He’s totally worth it.)

He’s already feeling better, but his medication is definitely making him even dopier than normal.

Last night, he spent an hour sitting on the living room floor staring at the leg of the coffee table.

And it wasn’t even doing anything.

I checked.

Periodically.

(You never can tell with that coffee table.)

But you wanna know what makes me feel better?

Well, at this very minute, this does:

Honestly. Are you so hard-hearted, so stony-souled, so psychically-constipated, that the sight of a small feline recoiling dramatically from explosives does not move you?

Shame on you.

Me and the Large One are on blackout watch. In the event that we lose power, my duties consist of leaping into action to get our generator running to keep the sump pump running or else we are going to employ a whole lot more dog-paddling than is proper when doing laundry tomorrow.

The Large One’s duties consist of keeping me warm.

I do have to say, I don’t know if this is what most people have in mind when they use the phrase “a state of cat-like readiness”:

• I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? (via MamaPop)

Well. I might as well go home. I’m not getting any more work done today.