Goodbye to little kitties

No, nobody's little pets died or anything. What happened was that I stayed in a house with 2 cats this last weekend. And, it proved to us that we can never have a cat in our house again. not unless I like the feeling of not being able to breathe and getting up in the middle of the night to suck on my inhaler or finishing 2 boxes of tissues per day.

It sucks. I loved Bandit and I would have loved to have gotten another little kitten someday. But, apparently my body has different ideas about this.

Farewell, adieu, we had to say goodbye UPDATE: RIP

to Bandit.

We had to give up our firstborn today. Not to the devil though. He went to a really good home. Jeff's uncle and aunt and their 2 little munchkins and 3 other cats took Bandit in.

Our cat allergies kept getting worse, even with allergy shots. Jeff found out his constant sinus infections were due to severe allergies to nature and the cat. We couldn't get rid of all the nature Maryland has to offer but the cat had to go.

Next weekend, we are going to visit them and I'll have pictures of a hopefully happy Bandit settling in with his new non-allergic family.

UPDATE: After a few days of Bandit scratching and biting and hissing at everybody, they had to take him to SPCA where Bandit was put down yesterday afternoon. I spend my time swinging between guilt and anger at myself. I wonder what I could have done differently so he wouldn't have turned out the way he did. He had suddenly gotten aggressive and this was before the dog came home. We thought being without the dog and with other cats might help but it made him worse. I hope wherever he is, it's a better place for him because he was obviously unhappy and sick here.

R.I.P. Bandit Williams - Sometime in April 2006 - July 26, 2007.

Bandit must not recognise Smokey

Bandit, camera shy?

Smokey and the Bandit!

The name decision is final :-)

Dog's settling in

He's making himself at home. Bandit's still not so sure :-)

Names so far that we are thinking of: Tex and Sher'ff

Anjuli's birthday

We had a mini-celebration for Anjuli's birthday today. Bandit and the new nameless dog took part in it too. Actually, Anjuli and her husband Mike came over to play the new Nintendo Wii we got. We ended up eating pizza and playing some games. Then we had her cut the half-cake Mike had brought with ice cream.

We also watched a semi-decent Indian movie, Kismat ... ok, I have to say it was pretty bad but we sat through the whole 2 hours and 38 minutes of it and all the dance scenes.

Bandit has a little brother ... nameless yet

We need help naming our Schnoodle - he's almost 4 months old, just got him today. He's made some sort of pact with Bandit already. You can see how their agreement came into being.

Bandit didn't really know what to make of this new entry into the house:

Not that the puppy had any idea what to make of Bandit either:

Eventually they both sniffed each other and came to an understanding:

The puppy stayed calm even when Bandit tried to evict him from his space

So, help us name him :-) We've already voted against Toto.

Check out the new blog

Bandit has started critiquing movies: please check it out: http://whatwewatchwecriticize.blogspot.com/

Bandit is back: bigger and better!

Here's 12 lbs of pure joy and love!

New toy

We finally bought a digital SLR - the new Nikon D80:

It takes beautiful pictures; I just point and shoot:

Bandit sleeping peacefully: Bandit wondering what I'm doing:

YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN:

Where are we going, mommy!

About a week and a half ago, we had a note on our door telling us that they would be reinforcing our cielings (whatever that means) and we had to either keep our pets in their kennels all day for a week or on the patio. Now, the temeratures here were in the 50s that week, so the patio was out. And, cats don't really have a kennel. So, poor Bandit was a hermit in my car. He had his litter box moving at 70 mph as he's trying to do his business. His food's sloshing around. But, after his initial fright, he had a lot of fun as you can see from these photos.

Bandit living out of my car!

Finally on Flickr

Ok, so I followed Noor's advice and started putting photos on Flickr. After 4 days and many hours of frustration, I have figured it out and have posted many photos of Bandit here: Bandit goes online!

Sunday, September 24th: A lazy, lazy day

Ah, sleeping in never felt so good! We had started watching a Bollywood movie, Hum Aapke Hain Koun? (What am I to you? (literally)) Saturday night, but seeing that it was 209 minutes long, we left off somewhere in the middle. Sunday morning, we watched the rest, interrupting at some point to speak to my parents and show them our faces via webcam. They get such a kick out of watching Bandit run around. Even when the webcam's not on, my mom keeps saying she can hear his bell.

At 12:30, we had sausage egg biscuits - everything made from scratch (well, biscuits came out of a Pillsbury can, sausage out of a Costco box and well the eggs out of a carton, so as from scratch as can be without me chasing hens around), with hashbrown patties.

Then, at 2:30, we left for ... yes you are hearing right ... the Maryland Rennaisance Festival. It was fun, even though I forgot my discounted tickets at home, and we had to buy full price tickets. That just means we get to go again. I think the only reason I go to fairs like this is so I can eat things that I wouldn't in my normal daily life. Like:

• Ice cream covered in King's special coating (something with coconut), deep fried and smothered in whipped cream.
• A pound of mixed nuts, cinnamon roasted.
• Steak on a stake.
• Cheesecake on a stick, covered in dark chocolate.

I am glad we're going again because now I want that ice cream ... mmmm.

Creme Brulee

I tried my hand at Creme Brulee today. I had bought the ramekin and blowtorch set at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $15. (using their 20% off coupons) a while back. Then last weekend, while shopping at the Arundel Mills Outlet Mall with Autumn, I bought the QuickMix, which came with 4 flavors of caramelizing sugar.

Today, the ramekins, the blowtorch, the quickmix and the sugars were all put to some good use. As you can tell, everyone in the family enjoyed it. Bandit even seemed to ask for more. Now, I am looking forward to trying some different recipes and my own versions.

Bandit takes up excercising and calls Autumn out!

These pictures tell a story!

Bandit, worried about his health, decided to start walking more and keeping track of how much he was walking.

He lovingly shows it to Autumn, his current best friend:

Autumn shows her disbelief in his conviction and calls him FAT!!!

Bandit: "What? FAT? Look at me! I say just look at me! I am int he best shape of my life ever!"

And he proceeded to untie her halter top to prove his manliness!!!

But, he also got really upset at the pedometer and tried to eat it at the end:

Yes, there's even more stuff

We have some more things in the apartment now. This first one was my proud purchase off of Craigslist. Though, Bandit seems to have claimed it as his and is seriously considering his choices of drinks:



We added a mosquito netting to our bed. No, we don't have a huge problem with mosquitoes inside, but we just liked the way it looked:



Last, but not the least, we finally put together the futon from Ikea. Jeff stained it and I hammered it together last week. Can you locate Bandit in the pictures?



Sorry, this is truly the last item. We have a bed in the guest room, so we needed bedding We picked up a pretty quilt at Penney's for half off.