For those of you waiting with bated breath for another cat update, I'm pleased to report that Frasca and the Commodore are getting along swimmingly. He even washes her ear where she has a little bit of fur missing, which is extremely cute. She's not totally sure how to respond to his affections, I think, especially since he spent so much time last week hissing at her, but she seems at least neutral, which is good enough for him.

And we seem to be making it through this weekend without any major purchases, which both our bank account and my stress level are grateful for.

In late-breaking Frasca news, a prolonged examination of her paperwork and the Commodore's paperwork, which I've carefully saved this last year and a half, shows that, in a "Lost"-style twist, while they were apparently not littermates, they lived at the shelter at the same time in 2005, and got all their shots on the same days and got altered on the same day and microchipped on the same day. So, they almost certainly spent plenty of time together back in kittenhood. Then Frasca got adopted by some chucklehead who gave her up again because her living situation was changing, and the Commodore got adopted by us. This totally explains why Frasca keeps saying "Don't I know you, brotha?"

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Frasca Sedgewick:


We thought that the Commodore should have his own thing going on when the baby comes home, and also that we had room for another cat, so we decided to take the plunge, and got Frasca from the shelter yesterday. She's very, very sweet, and totally unperturbed by the Commodore's getting-to-know-you strategy, which consists mainly of hissing, growling, and trying to sniff her. (I'm not sure why he thinks that last will have any success, given the hostile way he carries on most of the time, but you know how men are.) Actually, he seems to be applying some very odd criteria to his hissing and growling--he was outraged when she had the temerity to get into the bathtub, for example, but he watched her eat some of his beloved wet food and he was all, eh, all part of life's rich pageant. All in all, they seem to be working things out well, if strangely to our human eyes.

Here it is--our new car. I'm extremely, extremely fond of it, even more so now that I've figured out how to turn it on without pushing buttons ineffectually for five minutes or so. So far, we're averaging 44 miles per gallon, and yes, watching the little fuel monitor is totally addictive.

I have a question: do you think we can start using "Andy Bernard" as an adjective? For example, in the sentence "You know how she is--she finds the most popular person in every crowd, and then she goes all Andy Bernard on them."

Still too obscure? And if not yet, then when?

We're leaving for Scotland in two days (mention haggis and I swear I will vomit on your shoes), but I wanted to make a post today, because Robbie and I did something unconventional last night, unprecedented in our twelve years together, something we didn't discuss at the time and still haven't, I think because we're both afraid that by drawing attention to it the other person will act disgusted and then it will never happen again.

Yes, that's right--last night Robbie and I had a dinner consisting entirely of guacamole and chips. At first I think we both thought we were just having an appetizer, but then it got to be about nine o'clock and we were still eating the guacamole (we'd gotten a five-avocado pack at Costco) and I was going to say something but then I realized I was totally happy just eating guacamole, so we stayed on the sofa sort of nervously eating and not discussing it, and eventually we were full and I went to bed. It was pretty great, I have to say. It's nice that we can still keep the magic alive like that.

Well, now that we've weeded out the riffraff and are left only with hardcore stalkers and those of you with RSS feeds, I have three pieces of news, ranging from sad to happy, to report.

1. Ethel died about a month ago, at the beginning of March. We had a lot of warning that it was going to happen, and she'd clearly been in very bad health since the holidays, but it was still pretty sad. We'll definitely miss her. She would have been 90 last week, and we were sorry she missed that, but it was still a good long life.

2. Robbie took a new job, which he's starting in early May. I feel it would be imprudent of me to go into the exact details of it here, but he's really excited, and it allows us to stay in Pittsburgh for the foreseeable future, which we're both really happy about. If you want to know more and don't already, you can email me (or him).

3. We appear to be having a baby! Yes. I'm due at the end of September. As you might expect, I'm still pretty nervous, but now that I'm out of the first trimester (I'm 14 weeks today) I'm feeling more confident than I was.

So, now you've heard all our big news. I plan to still update here every so often, because I don't want to be totally pregnancy-dimensional, but it won't be very frequent, and I think I'm going to stop blogging totally in September.

I have no real information to share with you, but here are some tidbits, some of which are based on the heavy Tour of California viewing we've been doing this week:

1. This is pretty messed up.
2. This, while old, is the best Overheard in Pittsburgh ever.
3. I think something's wrong with Bob Roll. I'm not sure why I think this. Something to do with what's going on with his hair, plus his website has been shut down. You heard it here first.
4. Levi Leipheimer looks like he could be a member of my mother-in-law's family. Despite this, I fail to really like him very much. This year, I'm backing Bobby Julich.

OK, as my internet Valentine to the world, I'm making this statement, which I will make only once:

"The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" is not, not, not, not, not a pejorative saying. It really isn't. I know those of you who went to Sunday school already know this, but those of you who found other ways to obtain doughnuts on the weekends in your childhood may actually believe that it is. Please, please do not. If you use it as if it is, you will make me cry. Worse, you'll be using it in a sense that I believe was recently popularized by George W. Bush, and I know that will make you cry, unchurched blog readers.

Thank you, and give generously to the charity of your choice.

Well, we had a fine weekend around here. On Saturday we went to Canonsburg to go antiquing, which I had pretty much zero enthusiasm for ahead of time, but which ended up being really fun. We didn't get anything, but it was neat to see some of the things I have or my family has in the antique stores--there was a great set of china in the style of some drinking glasses that belonged to my grandmother, which was really cool to see, and a Conneaut Lake Park banner that I've seen an exact copy of at my great-aunts' house. That one was only like $25 or so, which is not a huge amount, but considering that I'd thought it was worthless, that was pretty cool. Oh, and also, I had a really good gyro for lunch. Who knew there was good Greek-American food in Canonsburg? Not I.

Then yesterday--um, I know we did something. Oh, I worked a lot, and we watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which I'd never seen before. It was awfully good. I hadn't realized that that was where the line "We don't need no stinking badges" came from. Oh, and also, the orchid that Robbie got me last year for Valentine's Day started to bloom again. This makes total sense, but I still thought it was cool. Mostly, I'm just impressed that we've managed to keep it alive for so long and the Commodore hasn't destroyed it. He did sort of mouth at it this morning, but I think that was to prove that we aren't the bosses of him. We're already painfully aware of that, but I suppose we need to be reminded every so often.

In other news, it's no longer brutally cold here, but we're supposed to get five inches of snow tomorrow. I'm very, very excited to be going to Houston later this week, and I say that even though they appear to be having apocalyptic thunderstorms at this very moment. And you all know how I feel about thunderstorms, so you know I'm really sick of winter. According to the ten-day forecast, though, it's supposed to be warm, or at least tepid, by the time I get back to Pittsburgh, which will be nice. I think sometimes they just stick fantasies in the end of the ten-day forecast, though, to keep hope alive.