Silly us; we were too tired to check the weather when we stumbled into Casa Richardson last night. We awoke to discover that weather was being wreaked all around us today. That plan I had of getting up fairly early and driving home from Atlanta?

I've got just the one question for ya, baby. Tell me why. Oh please, please, please, tell me why.

First, a set of two photos from Megan of rapunzellstower.com. I haven't asked her permission to quote this letter yet, but I'm hoping she won't mind too much, as she summed things up better than I probably would have:

After scooping up, the twelve-pound cat nestles quiet, quiescent, in the crook of my left arm. After twenty minutes of fussing, complaining, plaintive mewing, and other guerrilla tactics that amount to nothing more than human harassment, he has finally gotten what he wanted.

I can't reach the keyboard, but from the pillow of my shoulder, the two red-gold eyes flutter closed. The paws lying limp at the base of my neck shift and begin to gently knead my chest. His eyes and tail droop in unison, until he is a limp, nearly-sleeping cat being cuddled with his belly and back feet pointing toward the ceiling. His paw pads are pink, silken. The fine, soft individual tufts of white fur between them flow and bend in the gentle currents of air.

I realize that it's cheeky of me to rant and ramp about the parenting choices of other people when spouse and I do not have children ourselves, but there are some decisions that just strike me as incredibly wrong, even from a childless person's standpoint.

Between rainstorms, spouse and I sneaked off to see Matrix: Reloaded tonight (although the only actual 'sneaking' content involved was in not telling the cats we were leaving). Now, I understand this whole cultural-phenomenon thing, and know firsthand from watching my friends with children that parents' lives don't just stop permanently after childbirth, but doesn't there come a point where a parent has to ask the most dreaded question of all:

Your regularly-scheduled domesticat entry shall not appear here this evening, canceled due to sadly extraordinary life events. After a good bit of cross-checking with friends, we still don't know much about what happened, but what we do know is this: someone whom my friends and I have worked with on dragon*con tech staff, someone whom I probably would've called a friend on staff, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

I'm going to file this statement under "death wish fulfillment":

If you begin in a clear state with no symptoms and a clear mind, the ingestion of even one cup of coffee will often produce a marked and undesirable effect. The sustained ingestion of even small amounts of coffee seems to produce a subtle psychopathology. The chronic coffee user risks a variety of physical and mental disabilities, especially coffee-user-fog. If your Cuffer spouse, employer, employee, or best friend seems irritable, obtuse, unduly nasty, or depressed, nurse them through the three-day-withdrawal headache and serve nice cups of hot water instead. [see quote in context]

(Mmmmmmm, vegans. Gotta love 'em.)