a cat lady musing

I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one.

They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, 

outside of the girl you love, of course.

- Mark Twain

I have a feeling that Mark Twain and I would have gotten along quite fine. Bosom friend status.

There's something about the cat-less population that I find quite sad. The cat-hater is typically a person that is missing something lovely, something like a cuddly spirit, a purity of heart, an affectionate nature. A soul.

The world needs its harshness, of course, but I find it hard to imagine dealing with it without a furry friend to guide the comfort levels of your home. 

A home without a cat -- and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat --

may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

- Mark Twain

I am sensitive, affectionate, romantic, loyal, devoted, warmhearted, friendly. And I am a cat lover.

Or am I those things as a result of loving cats?

World-changing questions.

I find myself changed by their sweetness, calmed by their presence, soothed by their tired, sleepy grins.

Happy to care for them, happy to be with them. 

I had a friend recently say that if and when we are able to care for them the way we do, vet bills and messes and all, we are good stewards. It made me smile and I think in most cases that's true.

What an odd little gift they are, such strange little creatures, like having my very own pokemon.

I choose you, fluffychoo!

I can never fully put my trust in someone who hates cats. (I am also inconsolably sad for those who are deathly allergic). The cat-loving world is like the best of secret societies, really -- you hide your adoration, knowing in your heart that 1.) others will never truly understand 2.) you have something precious that they cannot have 3.) you're not alone in the world.

 When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade,

without further introduction.

- Mark Twain

You pass by cat-related merchandise and point and laugh, or show your friends, secretly knowing if they weren't there you'd probably make it all the way to the cash register with it before realizing you could never wear it in public anyway, because people would shun you.

You are unnaturally thrilled that cat sweaters and graphic Ts have become a somewhat quirky exception in the fashion world, allowing you to partake in the celebration of cattiness in style.

How much is too much? The cat lady will never know.

I do know that my life has been measured by the constant embellishment of animal interaction, by the sweet little souls within beings that make me laugh and cry. 

Every home I've ever lived in has had these treasures, these accessories of life and activity and playfulness. 

It's how I was raised, how I love to live, and how I live to love.

The wide-eyed way in which I take in the world, and come home to the purrs of a day well spent.

Mark loved cats...and pool, or pocket billiards. 

Whenever he played pool, he'd tuck a pet kitten into a corner pocket. The antics of the cat as it pawed at passing balls amused and relaxed Mark Twain...sent him back in high spirits to write the stories that endeared him to all.

Americans today have the same shrewd understanding that one relaxed moment 

helps you work and fight harder.

- Royal Crown Cola ad, 1940s 

student workers: trifecta

All of these posts remind me of another blog I once read. It's definitely worth the read, I sat laughing for hours reading it.
(Go read Hammerhead Theater!)

I find myself faced with my own version of Hammerhead Theater over here, and can't help but wish that you could all be here with me, seeing and hearing all of this.
I also really, really want to be able to articulate the sound of someone's voice and laughter via font or description, but I just can't. 

Charles: "[Mumbling]...C, C, C, C...."
Matthew: "Huh?"
Charles: "There's a "C" written over here, so I figured it was for my name."
Matthew: "Is that what you always think when you see the letter C?"
Charles: "Do I sense sarcasm?"
Matthew: "Not at all."


Before long the aspect of being "shallow" came up, the other major topic of yesterday.
(See Student Workers 2).
While not all of this has to do with the all-important "What is Shallow?", it all circled around and came back to land on it over the course of the entire day.

Boppity: "I am pretty shallow sometimes. It's easier."
Charles: "It's easier to be shallow?"
Boppity: "Yes."
Charles: "No it's not."
Boppity: "Yes it is! It's not hard to be shallow, Charles!"

Back and forth, back and forth...

Boppity: "Ok...define what you mean by shallow. I don't think it's the same shallow, we're talking about here."
Charles: "Ok...not real."
Boppity: "Ok, define not real. So shallow is...fake?"
Charles: "Well that's an interesting question."

The subject of dating tries to interject...

Boppity: "The first time you go up to bat is important, because if you go up and strike out, you'll never want to bat again!"
Charles: "Well, there are three outs in an inning, and 7 innings..."
Boppity: "No, Charles, there are 3 strikes. And then you're out."
Charles: "Yes, but it's not like you go up to bat ---"
Boppity: "NOBODY LIKES TO STRIKE OUT, CHARLES."

That came about because Charles had began asking me questions about my life.
About meeting my husband, where I'm from.
Like,

Charles: "Did you meet in Arizona? At college?"
Me: "No, in high school, actually."
Charles: "At the same high school?"
Me: "Um...yes."

Then,
Charles: "Was he your first boyfriend?"
Boppity, startled: "CHARLES! Good Lord, stop it! You hardly know the girl!"


Winding around and eventually landing back on Shallow...

Charles: "If you have to actually think about what your words mean or what's really happening, then it's hard, so it's easier to be fake, in a sense, then to just..."
Boppity: "Uuuoohhh...okay. I mean, kind of, I kind of understand what you're trying to say. This is all crazy, because I just meant sometimes I like to take a brain vacation. Be shallow for a while, which is what is easy, to take a break. "
Charles: "So how do you define shallow?"
Boppity: "No, you never answered it for me!"
Charles: "Ok..."
Boppity: "Shallow just means you never go below...it's like a survey course. You don't go into it too deeply but it's enough to get by."
Charles: "I wouldn't even say that."
Boppity: "About survey courses, or..."
Charles: "No, you're defining shallow by the actual definition of shallow water. That's what you're defining it by."
Boppity: "No, you're going too deep. "
Charles: "No, I'm not even thinking..."
Boppity: "HAHA!"

(This conversation went on for a full 20 minutes. They asked three separate people who came into the office what their definition of shallow is. They still don't know what shallow means to one another.)

Boppity: "But children all the time say but why, but why, but why..."
Charles: "Yes, because they're REAL. They're inquiring minds and they're REAL."

After talking to Matthew and asking him a few questions...

Charles, leaning against Matthew's desk: "I'll bet your wife really likes you. People ask you questions and you just say, "Meh, sure." You just seem really passive. I'll bet she loves it."

Later on, this Shallow idea somehow transitioned into...

Charles: "There is a very deep meaning to french fries."
Boppity, Me, random-student-worker: "[blank stares]"
Charles: "It symbolizes the great symbol of America. It shows us, for one...especially fast food fries. It shows that we don't care what we eat...it's all about instant gratification."
Boppity: "Speaking of fries, I wouldn't mind having some steak fries."
Charles: "But it goes much deeper than that. There is a very deep meaning to this."

I never found out what that deep meaning was. Although I'm really, really fine with that.

Later,

Charles: "I think Caitlin is taking a brain vacation."
Boppity: "HA! She's not listening to us. She tuned us out a long time ago."



Sigh.

student workers: the sequel

Yesterday was a giant pot of weirdness for the student worker antics.
Instead of wacky one-liners or casually short conversations, they ended up talking about "bouldering" and the definition of "shallow" for hours. I tuned in and out (I think I may have even passed out at one point) and so I've had to chisel it all down to my favorite excerpts. There's just no time, no capacity, to record it all.

(If you missed part 1 of "student workers", check it out here).

Before the giant topics of Bouldering and Shallow came up, Charles was on a roll. He talked for most of the morning, and at certain times I feared for the lack of oxygen going to his brain when he wouldn't take any breaks to breathe and/or let us recover.
I'm not sure if Boppity was having a bad day or was just "taking a brain vacation" (to be explained later) but she didn't have as much to say.
She didn't even come in to join the fray until we had had our fill of alone time with Charles.

Matthew: "How's your day?"
Charles: "Pretty good, I took a nap on a bench outside for an hour...well, like 10 minutes."
Matthew: "Oh. Nice."
Charles: "Yeah, I wasn't really planning on it. It was a really hard bench."

I think he felt comfortable with us at this point, because he began to really bond with Matthew and felt totally at home going closer than even I'd go, into his personal working space. Which is a very sacred thing.

Charles [randomly pausing, jumping up, and walking over to Matthew's desk, picking up a stack of paper): "Is this recyc...recycle...recyc...[30 seconds later] can you help me?"
Matthew: "Recyclable?"
Charles: "Recycle...recycable...no, that doesn't sound right. Say it again."
Matthew: "Recyclable."
Charles: "Wow, what a word!"

Around lunchtime, still before Boppity joined us:

Charles: "Did someone eat Chinese food for lunch?"
Matthew & I, exchanging glances (neither of us had eaten Chinese food): "........."
Charles: "I had a waft of some kind of soy sauce. Or it's my imagination."
Matthew: "It's your imagination, although...I have some ground beef and some peppers..."
Charles goes over and sticks his face in the tupperware, taking a giant whiff.
Charles: "Ah, yeah, must be the peppers."

Charles, about 2 hours later, leaning in closely to Boppity: "I smell...Chinese...in this room."


What's funny is that on some days, not a word is spoken. On others, a goldmine of nonsense.

Later on, Charles once again wanders too closely to Matthew's desk:

Charles: "What kind of hot sauce is that?"
Matthew: "Tabasco."
Boppity: "Ah, ah-ha, that's too hot."
Matthew: "No, it's not too bad."
Charles: "I think Tabasco is mild, to be honest."
Matthew: "You should try Melinda's, you'd probably like it."
Charles: "Oh, does that have a--a wooden, a wooden like, top? A wooden top?
Matthew: "No, that's Tapatio."
Charles, nodding, his eyes narrowing, with a strange smirk: "Ah, so you're a hot sauce fan."

A while later, Matthew was over by the packing area (we pack and ship a lot of books) and as he turned to go back to his desk, Charles was standing right behind him.

Charles: "Do you eat a lot of nuts?"
Matthew (pausing, staring, walking around him): "Sure, sometimes. They're good."
Charles: "Me too. I like nuts. I've seen them on your desk."
Matthew: "Oh? Well...yeah, I've had them before."
Charles: "Yeah I've seen at least two jars. You had a trail mix at one point. Planters, maybe? At least one jar of peanuts, probably a week ago."
Matthew, at a loss: "...could be, could be."


These last bits are what I like to call the Bouldering Excerpts.
I'm unsure how and why Charles is so observant of Matthew, but I suppose that will remain to be seen. It all started with...

Charles: "Do you boulder at all?"
Matthew: "Boulder?"
Charles, walking over to him: "Boulder, like climb, a lil' bit?"
Matthew, somehow understanding, and looking back at a pair of climbing shoes behind his desk: "...no. They're my wife's ...I've been trying to sell them for a while, I kind of forgot they were there."
Charles: "What size are they?"
Matthew: "Well they're women's..."
Charles: "Yes, but what size? I've been meaning to perhaps purchase a pair...can I just see them? [he grabs them and puts them against the soles of his feet for comparison] Oohh, yeah right. My friends, I've tried some shoes from them that I could sort of walk in, they're like two sizes smaller."
Me: "You've tried on your friend's women's shoes?"
Charles: "Heh, heh, heh, no, they were climbing shoes. So, can I possibly just try and stick my foot in here?"
Matthew: "[raised eyebrow]"
Charles: "Because...if I can walk in them, then I might possibly get them off of you, if I...well...let me try them on first...
"Well this feels fairly normal, actually...although I don't know how much I could take of this. Ouch. I think my right foot may be larger than my left foot. I think the left one could maybe stand this in about 3 minute increments...
"[three minutes later, triumphantly] Well they definitely would work in a pinch!"


Matthew: "So when would be the next time you have the opportunity to climb?"
Charles: "Well, I would basically just use it for the climbing wall...I think it's closed during the summer but I think I'd just keep doing it and getting kicked out throughout the summer. Heh, heh, heh."
Matthew: "Thats...a good strategy..."
Charles: "I've never been that into it but my friends are definitely great boulderers."
Boppity: "You know, climbing can be really hard, it's a good workout."
Charles: "Well, I'm actually in good shape. I would say very, very good shape."

One rabbit hole later...

Charles: "I actually got into Chess for a while."
Matthew: "Chess?"
Charles: "Yeah, but...I actually felt like I was getting into a Chess cult. So I just ripped up all my books on Chess and didn't ever let myself get seriously into it."

Matthew, trying to participate in the bouldering conversation (which if I was a mind-reader, I would have told him that was a really bad idea)...

Matthew: "Did you ever hear about that one free climber--"
Charles, perking up: "The Indian?"
Matthew, startled: "Uh...no, I don't think so."
Charles: "Yes, it is. He's native american. He died."
Matthew: "Um...no."
Charles: "Different guy?"
Matthew: "Yes."
Charles: "Hm. Don't know him."


Stay tuned for more Student Worker excerpts, coming to a blog near you.
I think I'll go take a nap on a really hard bench. 

student workers

I'm not saying that working in a window-less, closet-like office space in the corner of a library makes you a cranky person, but I will say that I'm about to smack some people over the head with my book pile.

Chris is an amazing student worker. He's been here the entire time I have, and he's honestly above and beyond, most the time. Kind of like I used to be.
He's gone for the summer, and one of my two coworkers quit a month ago, so there's a very tangible emptiness in the office. It's just Matthew and I, which is fine with us. We like the quiet, we like the occasional conversation or huff of annoyance that we can both appreciate after a particularly difficult phone call.
Our mail guy is also named Chris, and is fun and talkative and usually his visits are the peak of conversation for the entire day. Around here, the Chris's have it together.

Then there's now, when it's summer and student Chris is gone and the library is swarmed with summer student workers that just so happen to be assigned to our office for various tasks.
Hey, it may be a closet, but it's my closet and I feel rather protective of it. And by "it" I mean the silence. 

What is it about kids these days?
I can really clearly imagine myself saying this as a 70-year-old now, because I just said it this morning.

There are two particular students that are working on reorganizing the microfiche and microfilm cabinets that were shoved into our office many months ago (because we're a closet), and I'll just call them kids because through this experience I've aged 10 years.

Girl: "Wait a minute...[watching me pull a microfiche article from a drawer] are you telling me someone actually wants one of those!?"
Me: "Yeah, it...actually happens every once in a while."
Girl: "Can you believe I met someone that didn't even know what these were? I was like you're trolling me. You're trolling me! Have you never seen a microdot? I've seen a microdot and I hate James Bond!"

Later on.

Girl: "I don't know why we even have to keep these around [the microfiche/film]."
Matthew: "We should just throw them all out. We should throw all the books out, too [dripping sarcasm]."
Girl: "Hey, I don't disagree with that. I mean, some books are just downright useless. I say we throw out all the useless books."
Matthew: "...like what?"
Girl: "Like really old books, stupid books. Some books are just boring, and don't even make any sense. What is the point?"
Matthew: "Um...to document the human race? I think some anthropologists would have some trouble with your standpoint."
Girl: "HA! GOOD THING I DON'T KNOW ANY!"

......


Matthew, to me: "Do you know that quote?"
Me: "No, I don't, what's it from?"
Matthew: "Jurassic Park, it's Dr. Malcolm."
Girl, loudly: "Mmm, mmm. NOT a fan of that."

At one point, the conversation switched to aliens (I think it somehow entangled with the idea that if aliens invaded they could access the books/records of the human race) and zombies. So, there was that.
Then,

Matthew: "I don't really have much confidence in a zombie apocalypse ever happening."
Girl: "What, but...you believe in aliens?"
Matthew: "Maybe."
Girl: "Wait...you're kidding me. Are you trolling me? I can't tell. Are you seriously trolling me? 
Matthew: "...trolling?"
Girl: "WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!"

Despite the appearance of only one student worker, there are actually two. But "girl" is the talkative one usually, although sometimes the boy gets really philosophical and they end up bantering about some mathematical equation or something of the like. I'm going to call the girl Boppity.


Boppity: "I want to see the trinity library so bad."
Boy: "Why? Then you'd go and see it and then what? It'd be over. Any time you seek out and wait for an experience, it just leads us to wanting more experiences. On and on, never ending. It's pointless."
Boppity: "Um...isn't that life? Life is just a big line of experiences."
Boy: "Not if you're dead."
Boppity: "......are you talking about non-Christians?"

Then,


Boppity: "I really want to see Now You See Me."
Boy: "Why, what's it about?"
Boppity: "It's about..."
Boy: "Nevermind. I don't want to know. It doesn't matter."
Boppity "...okay."

Apparently this guy, I'll call him Charles for the sake of this. Because that's his name. But Charles doesn't ever watch movies, I think because he's morally opposed although I've only assumed this information via snippets of conversation.
While Boppity is great enough on her own, their interactions are always the strangest. I don't know how their line of conversation ever proceeds the way that it does. It is very perplexing.

Boppity, coming back from next door: "Ah, the smell of boxes. A cockroaches best friend."
Charles: "What?"
Boppity: "You know! They like the glue on boxes."
Charles: "I like getting high off glue."
Boppity: "WHAT!?
Charles: "..."
Boppity: "No...they [cockroaches] eat it. They don't sniff it."
Charles: "Well, maybe if I ate it..."
Boppity: "You'd be as trippy as a roach!!!!"

Boppity: "Have you ever played that, Charles? Trying to flip cards into a hat?"
Charles, speaking slowly: "Not a hat necessarily, but...something."
Boppity: "What, you don't remember?"
Charles: "I remember. I remember that it wasn't a hat."

I missed the first part of this last conversation, but it was between another student worker who came in for a little while, and it was something along the lines of inquiring about Boppity's "jarring", perhaps a hobby or some sort of side business which I find incredibly entertaining.

Mystery girl: "[something about]...jarring?
Boppity, alarmed: "We call it canning. We don't call it jarring. We call it CANNING. We use metal lids. And oh, my, goodness. Canned deer meat is so very good."
Mystery girl: "I've never shot a deer. I did shoot a big jug of water once, though."


Oh, good. It's almost time to go home.

the long weekend

I have completely forgotten how to be by myself.

I'm actually pretty impressed that I managed it. Dusty was gone all weekend for a Mediation Tournament (for those of you who don't know what that is, go ahead and Google it because I'm certain I'd only confuse you more).
Because I'm an introvert at heart, I was actually kind of excited for the chance to reconnect with my fascinating self.
But come to find out, BAM. I am really boring to be around.

I have melded into Dusty's wife. We have become one. I am no longer on my own, and I get really lonely when he's away. It was a weird realization. I couldn't fall asleep, I had to keep a light on, everything was quiet, I had to turn on a fan and put on music...it was sad. Even with no one else around to witness it, I knew in my heart that it was sad.
Friday night was a blur, and I was in the throws of depression already from watching Downton Abbey so we'll just skip that.
Saturday, I was proud of myself. I got up. I got dressed. I was cute. I went downtown, fancy downtown, and I sat in my favorite coffee shop and read in my favorite nook all day long.

As you can see, they transformed this old store front, complete with its platformed window displays, into little reading nooks. Complete with comfy chairs, side tables and lamps. It's picture perfect.
The coffee shop/bookstore continues back into a quaint ensemble of wooden floors, hanging lights, Tolkien-inspired art and freshly roasted coffee.
They have the most delicious breakfast and lunch menu...they feature local produce and meat, and they use dairy products from a local farm. Their milk and cream and goat cheese is divine. 
This is the second time I've spent an entire Saturday there, and I hope it's not the last. I dream about it when I'm not there, and never want to leave once I am there.

My only complaint?
People sneaking in on my window display.
Excuse me, does this look like a double-display of fashionable mannequins at a local Belk? I don't think so!
This is a one person nook, despite the two chairs, no arguments, please.
My feet aren't just propped here for comfort...they're the signal that says, "Do not Enter".
Punishable by glare.

Maybe it's just me, but I would never climb those stairs and crawl over a stranger's happy, reading self to get to the other chair in that cozy little haven. It's too personal. It's too perfect. Too intimate to interrupt.
But, I had two different people awkwardly come and go while I was enjoying my stay.
One of the girls took her shoes off.
Please explain this behavior to me.


That afternoon, once I finished my last sip of iced lavender latte, I decided it was time to head home.
I ran a few errands, and then arrived at my empty apartment.
It was quiet again. Too quiet.
So I watched an entire season of America's Next Top Model. Yeah, that happened.
I'm not proud of it, and yet, I can't really bring myself to regret it.

The evening's progression.

I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one. 

They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, 

outside of the girl you love, of course.

-Mark Twain

I stumbled into bed with Enya playing in my ear, and Sunday morning dawned bright and lovely.

I spent the day with Disney, playing Tangled, Mulan and Gnomeo and Juliet while cleaning the house. 

I thoroughly cleaned every inch of the place, and felt extremely accomplished by the end!

I also fixed a yummy casserole dinner and ran out to buy Dusty some new clothes in celebration of his qualification for nationals! 

He's going to be heading to Chicago in April to compete. So exciting!

What a weekend. 

I'm glad to have my husband back, and there are only 10 days until we fly away to LONDON!

I can hardly believe it. London and Paris, here we come!

Considering my issues with packing...I should probably start now.

:)

In love,

Cait

snow snow snow

Last Thursday night, we almost died.

If I'm being really honest, we just almost slid into a ditch, and "almost" is kind of an extreme term for the situation, but it was still really scary.

We knew snow was rumored that night, and were really hoping for it!
Almost everyone around school left at 3pm, when the supposed flurries were scheduled to begin. No one wanted to be caught in the snow storm!
In Lynchburg, snow may as well mean Armageddon. People get crazy.

When Dusty came to pick me up, it went from a cloudy/rainy day, to this in a matter of minutes.

It was really intense.
But also really beautiful, really exciting, and really dangerous!

The drive home was precarious, at best. We couldn't see a thing. The inside of the windshield was fogging, so we had the defrost blasting on cold and were constantly wiping down the window to keep it clear.
The snow was falling in huge clumps and clogging up the windshield wipers.

By the time we got to our street, we could see a little bit better but the roads were really slick.

Lucky for us, the road leading to our apartment is dark and treacherous.

As we approached the last turn onto our street, the two cars in front of us began to do a little dance.
A dance called the sliding-on-ice-toward-death. The Slide and Ditch.
As the second car began to slide down the ice toward the ditch on the left, (while I'm screaming "NO! NO! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what? Whatdowedo, arewegonnadie!? We can't get stuck here!") the preppy passenger jumps out and falls painfully about 6 times, his Target hoodie flapping uselessly, before reaching our car window and warning us boldly, "Hey, that's all ice."
What a hero.

He then continued to run and fall past us, and was never seen again.
Maybe he was an angel.

Anyway, we both started just praying out loud. Really loud, panicky prayers with lots of word repetition. Somehow I don't think God cares as much about creativity in those situations.
Dusty drove the car as far to the right as he could, without going over into the other ditch. We slid a few times going up the hill, but managed not to hit any of the obstacle-course cars that were parked with their hazards on in various locations along the way.
I was very fearful of a pinball game type scenario taking place.
We reached the apartment complex, but knew we couldn't go all the way down the hill to our apartment. It was too steep, and way too dangerous.
We parked on even ground, and walked the rest of the way huddled underneath our umbrella. It had mostly stopped snowing at that point, and everything was quiet and beautiful.

I decided I hate when it's snowing but I love when there's snow. 
Is there a way to arrange that?

The rest of our night consisted of making our favorite pasta sauce recipe (the secret is the splenda!), and pretending we were fancy with some olive oil, balsamic, fresh ground pepper and pesto/butter covered toast.
And now that small salad and apple I had for lunch seems ridiculous. 

We stayed in our pajamas on the couch in front of our space heater, watching TV.

The next morning was bliss.

The University was delayed until 11am, so we enjoyed the beauty all around us while we slowly got ready.

The blizzard the night before was totally worth the snow-covered paradise we got to enjoy the next day!

Oh wait -- it's not Fall? I guess we should take our wreath down...

It took us about 20 minutes to chip away all the stubborn ice from our car. It wasn't a fluffy soft snow...it was very thick and icy, and our car was buried in its igloo embrace.

It's all melted now, although it's in the 20's today and walking outside makes me feel like anything thinner than my thighs is going to break off like peanut brittle.

The forecast is predicting more snow for Friday - and I don't mind one bit!
As long as I can stay inside while it's actually snowing, and then walk around in it in the sunshine.
That's the best.

In love,
Cait

our friends

We're kind of surrounded by these crazies that we've come to really love and enjoy.
Without their encouragement, laughter, invitations, parties, crazy ideas and adventures I don't know if we'd have made it a week here in Lynchburg.

November held two particularly fantastic shows of craziness that I will always hold pretty dear to my heart.

On November 1st, we had a really fun post-Halloween Murder Mystery party!

There are a few really important reasons why this was hilarious.
First of all, I planned the whole thing, which meant that it was a little disorganized and kind of confusing at times. I also didn't read any of the other character's descriptions, the evidence pages, or any other detailed pages because I didn't want to know any spoilers! I wanted to play along with everyone else.
I only read the hostess pages, and my own character's description. Everything else was a total surprise.
Because of that, I wasn't really able to double check the content. Meaning, the inclusion of a plethora of inappropriate content.
Which ended up mostly landing on my character.
Eh, well. No regrets!
(Although the same can't be said for Molly Ringworm, my devilish alter ego).

At Murder High's 25 year reunion, NO ONE could have guessed the horrific events that were going to ensue.
(Although the title of the school may have given the smart noggin's a clue).

CLASS OF '85!

Randy Reporter, Molly Ringworm, Pamela Abdul, Cindy Crawfish, and Natalie Nebraska

Nick Nixon, Joe Nebraska, Steve Spielson, Byron P. Keaton, and Danny Drums

Embracing the full force of the 80's, we had handy high school snack foods and lots of intrigue.

The night started out innocent enough...

Nick Nixon, welcoming everyone to the reunion.

Byron being Byron.

The happy couple....OR ARE THEY!?

So many smiles, so many lies.

Byron had a plan to woo his high school love. Maybe his wealth could lend him a hand...

 The night was cut short when the lights went out, a loud THUD sounded, and...

DUN DUN DUN.

 A body slumped unceremoniously to the floor, causing instant mayhem and panic.

 The investigation had begun!
 ...whodunnit? Whodunnit?

You've got NOTHING on me.

When the investigation had come to a close, and the evidence was collected and presented, there was only one possible conclusion.

(Josh also got to play Terry Johnson, the investigator, since his character was dead and all...)

 I DID IT.

Trying to protect my budding career with Disney, I killed Steve Spielson with my Emmy to prevent him from spilling the beans on the film project we worked on together early in both of our careers.
Let's just say, Disney would not have approved.


Let's hear it for our dashing pretenders!

Josh and Stephanie as Steve Spielson and Pamela Abdul!

Dusty and I as Molly Ringworm and Byron P. Keaton!

Colin and Victoria as Joe and Natalie Nebraska!

Emilie and Jon as Randy Reporter and Nick Nixon!

Allison and Greg as Cindy Crawfish and Danny Drums!

 Despite the dastardly deeds of the day, I still got to go home with this fetching fellow.

 SO MUCH FUN.

The next week, we had our 2nd annual Friends party.

We had one last year, which I didn't actually blog about.

Basically, we all dressed up as our favorite character, and we each chose our favorite episode.
We had Friendsy food and talked about why we chose our character/episode, and watched the episodes together! It was so much fun!

This year, Allison hosted again, and went all out.

The theme was definitely vibing "Cups and Ice" from season 5!

Phoebe even had her special cup hat :)

Ross's dinosaurs

Meatball subs, for Joey!

And, of course, cheesecake.

Ross brought tator tots!

This time, we each had our own character, but we deviated from the original six.
We were a mod-podge of hilarity, I must say.

I ended up being the only girl to play a guy, (I was Ross), which meant I was the only ugly-looking one.
I say that because Dusty couldn't even look me in the eye before I left. I think it still really disturbs him.

So, just...prepare yourself, and try not to judge me.
I'll show you Allison first, since she looked like a hot mama!
Introducing Janice:

Oh. My. Gaawwwdd!

And Ross.

I put so much gel in my hair.

And I also darkened my eyebrows.

Overall, I looked like a very scary lesbian woman. 

Janice, Rachel, Ross, Monica, and Phoebe

 (We were also supposed to have lovely "Estelle", but she ended up not being able to come! She was very missed!)

Monica and Ross, brother and sister!

 Rachel and Ross, their love will never die...

 Although maybe it should, in this case.

We had a blast, playing our favorite episodes and then passing the guitar around and playing our favorite Phoebe songs!

This is why I love our friends.
We dress up, we make fools of ourselves, we laugh a lot, we have lots of silly parties, and we always have the best time together.

Thanks for being awesome, guys. And for being such good sports.

And for letting all this craziness continue.

In love,
Cait