For a few days now I've been mulling over how to write coherently about the past couple weeks, but as time continues ticking by without an update, I think I'll settle for my usual journalistic diarrhea. Don your slicker.

Back in early December my friend Sara Kate announced that she was moving into a new place and had to give up her two cats, Syria and Siberia. Since I've wanted to have a cat for ages, I talked to Matt about it and agreed to take them in. We swapped blankets to begin getting our animals accostumed to each other's scents in preparation for introducing two cats into a house of two dogs and I got more and more excited as the month went on. Two days before we were supposed to adopt Syria and Siberia, however, Matt went to work in the morning to discover that a friendly stray cat lingering around his office for the past several months had been injured. He caught her and brought her home, and we set her up in my office with a bed and some food. I spent the afternoon looking after her and when Matt got off work that afternoon we took her to the vet down the street. There, the vet gave her a thorough checkup, cleaned the wound and discovered that she was actually an eight year old, declawed, neutered male. Armed with antibiotics, we took him home, settled on the name Pharaoh, and continued looking after him. When the day came to take Syria and Siberia, I stationed them in Matt's office hoping everyone would settle down, but they didn't: the dogs, already upset at having a cat in the house, grew even rowdier when two more arrived, and while Syria and Siberia seemed interested in playing with Pharaoh when I introduced them, he acted hostile toward them and the dogs. It was becoming clear that I needed to find another home for Syria and Siberia, which made me feel awful consdering how Sara Kate had been relying on me and how eager I'd been to adopt them. Fortunately, things worked out well: my father and step-mother had been wanting another pet since their dog Pearl died several months ago, and they asked to adopt them when I told them what was going on. Once I finished my finals, I made a less-than-fun drive up to Asheville to give them the babies. They seemed to take to the house quickly, and now my parents and the cats are quite happy together. Syria and Siberia have a huge home to roam around with tons of windows looking out into the woods, and Dad says they like to spend the evenings sleeping in my parents' laps. I'm still sad I couldn't keep them, but I'm glad they have a great home now, and since then Matt and I have both fallen in love with Pharaoh, who at the moment is purring in my lap and patting my chin with his paw.

So ends Part One. Plenty more on the way.