20 hours to Christmas

It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm finishing up getting ready for a road trip involving three adults, two cats, and a Mini Cooper. Do you think this is a good idea? Wait, don't tell me until we're in Redmond.

This road trip is this year's solution to the annual problem of, "How can we arrange for our cats not to die while we're out of town for two weeks over the holidays?" Last year, my good saintly friend Saterah stopped by our apartment every few days to make sure Bumble and Tove had food and water. However, what you may not know about Bumble and Tove is that they subsist almost entirely on cuddles and snuggles and without someone around to administer those 24/7, they had turned the apartment upside every time Saterah stopped by.

(Don't worry, I know I'm not making the same mistake I made early in their lives, when I would frequently watch them scream and paw at me and say, "Ohhh, look how affectionate they are!" when I should have been saying, "Ohhh, they are completely out of food and I am a really bad pet owner.")

No, these kitties last about 30 minutes without full belly scratches before they start rolling around on the ground and purring like a lawnmower. It's actually somewhat disturbing now that Tove has learned to stand on his hind legs and make Shrek-cat-eyes that bore into my soul when I'm sitting at the computer. And Bumble, well, it's hard to resist scratching inside his cone when he can't do it himself. Yes, he's still in the damn cone and yes, he still needs it.

Anyway, these are the creatures with whom Dan and David and I will be spending a very intense 20 hours starting at 5 AM.

I'll let you know how it goes.