Hello, Old Friend

As Rainy was detailing her grand plan for a Spring Cleaning this morning, I rearranged some books on my shelves and came across the comic I wrote in 2006.  It tells the story of my move to Illinois on my 30th birthday.  I remember showing it to my dad after I wrote it and how it made me feel so special that he read it all the way through and looked at me in a way he never had before when he said it was really good.  I hope I can always remember that.

Now, I'm no artist, so what I'm about to show you is basically crap as far as the drawing goes.  But it tells my story, and I'll always love it.  I hope you do too.

Superhero Cat Contest

Today Isabel--Super IT Cat as she will now be called--showed me the most wonderful post on our bud Angie Bailey's website Catster.  It's a super hero cat contest!!!  All we have to do is detail how awesome Super IT Cat is, and this really cool artist Jeff Hebert will draw a picture of her wearing a super hero uniform!!  I hope our entry wins:

Julie Atherton 

• 2 minutes ago

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Superhero name: Isabel, Super IT Cat

Weight: 9.4 pounds

Age: 15 and kickin ass!

Favorite Place: In her office, right next to the router

Superpower: I think others would say her greatest ability is how she turns 3 big dogs into her instant slaves with a crusty glance and a howl, but personally, I think it's how she can turn from that tough lioness into a tiny kitten with one flip to show me her belly. :)

Kryptonite: Weird smells and her brother Paco, her nemesis since birth

Greatest strength: Resilience! Isabel was found in the woods when she was a few weeks old and came to live with me, and then I hauled her 2500 miles in a black car with no AC on our Big Move. She's lived through new houses, kids, new cats, DOGS, an extra parent, and especially Paco! Sometimes he just peers at her with one eye around a door or a corner. Sometimes he reaches out with his delicate extended toe to try to touch her. Isabel, Super IT Cat has to be on guard AT ALL TIMES.

Greatest weakness: Inability to actually process any IT tickets.

• 

Fingers, toes, paws--all crossed for a big win!!!!  :D

A Wonderful Find

I don't know how I found these, but I happened across the paintings of Eldar Zakirov the other day.  It makes me happy to think of him, big ol smile on his face, meticulously putting paint to canvas to create these ridiculous portraits of cats in Czarwear.  Love, love, love!!!!

Stupendous Rainy!

This morning my crazy wife is out running a half marathon in the downpouring rain, and it's not all that warm out either.  The 4 leggeds and I are standing by at home with her favorite warm and fuzzy towel for her return, but in the meantime, we're looking out the window and thinking about how PROUD we are of our very own super hero, Stupendous Rainy!

Stupendous Rainy in her natural habitat, looking super handsome!

She runs through fire!

She runs in a dress!

She challenges tigers!  Roar!

She's got moves like Jagger!

She is every bit as regal as the King!

She is a warrior!!!!

She comes back, even after being encased in carbonite!!!

She stands in solidarity with the casted!

She has the sweet heart of a child  :)

We love you Rainy!!!!!!!!

Your Tribe  :)

Missing Katie

I am in my usual place, the window.  Life has not been exciting since Mom and Mama Rainy shut down the International Cats ONLY Space Station and forced our return to the casa.  Our shuttles are dismantled, as is my spirit, stripped of freedom and adventure.

This morning I learned that our Minnesota space station team members have been abandoned at the Townhouse, left at the hands and mercy of some stranger.  It seems like a lifetime ago that Lt. Glovatsky and I were in another galaxy, gazing upon one another amidst the stars.  Now we are reduced to this.  

I have begun rereading the poems of Federico Garcia Lorca in my sadness, and this one in particular reminds me of dear Katie, whom I think of often...  

Ballad of the Moon, Moon

The moon came into the forge

in her bustle of flowering nard. The little boy stares at her, stares.The boy is staring hard.  In the shaken air the moon moves her arms,and shows lubricious and pure,her breasts of hard tin."Moon, moon, moon, run!If the gypsies come,they will use your heart to make white necklaces and rings.""Let me dance, my little one.When the gypsies come,they'll find you on the anvil with your lively eyes closed tight."Moon, moon, moon, run!I can feel their horses come.""Let me be, my little one,don't step on me, all starched and white!"
Closer comes the the horseman,drumming on the plain.The boy is in the forge;his eyes are closed.Through the olive grove come the gypsies, dream and bronze,their heads held high,their hooded eyes.
Oh, how the night owl calls,calling, calling from its tree!The moon is climbing through the sky with the child by the hand.
They are crying in the forge,all the gypsies, shouting, crying.The air is viewing all, views all.The air is at the viewing. 

Dear Katie, hold strong.  I will find a way.  I will come for you.

Signed, Paco Atherton

The Song of the Sparrows

It's true, I am not a member of the Audobon Society, so I have no idea what birds are actually singing songs outside my open windows this morning (nor would the Audobon folk probably have much appreciation for Simon's voracious need to torture any bird he finds before he rips its heart from its chest and leaves it to rot in the midday sun while reviewing my application for membership.)  All I know is that the birds outside sound lovely and "The Song of the Sparrows" seemed like a lovely title for this post.  We almost didn't make it through winter, so I am celebrating that Spring may actually, finally be here!!!!!

Rainy and I celebrated Spring yesterday with a long ride on our new motorcycles, Red Phil and Elvis:

She named her bike after Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Lighting, from Dilbert, and I named my bike because it's so cool and what name is cooler than Elvis??  Also, my bike is much cooler than Rainy's--let the record note that point.  Simon wanted to go on a ride, but his helmet, vest and chaps are on back order from the cat motorcycle store and he will just have to be happy with this picture of him looking cool with Elvis and leave it at that for now.

It was a great day, yesterday, and came on the heels of a REALLY great day the day before, when Rainy's sister and our niece rolled through town on the way to Birmingham.  We invited our friends and goddaughter over for dinner so the children could play together and joy filled the house.  It's no wonder Spring came in so beautifully the next day.

Rainy learning all about the Pet Shop!

Julie trying to get Crazy Mike's girlfriend out of the truck... 

Tomorrow is the 2 year anniversary of my dad's death, and the thought of it hangs heavy in my heart.  The warm Spring air yesterday felt just like it did on the day he died, so it was really nice to get on two wheels and let the wind blow heavy thoughts away.  I miss my dad.  He was my first road trip buddy and filled my head with travel dreams, and I hate it that I am fulfilling those dreams without him.  As close as I can get is doing it with Rainy, who was born the day before him 40 years later, and has his same silly sense of humor and the same loyalty and big heart.  That I met her only half a year before he died is not lost on me as some kind of divine intervention.

Rainy and I are very aware that us finding each other is a miracle, and we try our best to live accordingly.  What this means for us is having an argument over what we're allowed to hoard in our limited closet space, like normal people, but then feeling really guilty about it later.  We have been planning for awhile now to lose all of our extra weight so we can be healthy and steer clear of any sort of nursing facilities so that at the age of 105 for me and 96 for her, we can rent a plane, fill it with our current animal family and ourselves and crash into the side of a mountain so we can all go out together and have a pretty place for our exploded ashes to rest.  What we are finding is that it's nice to have goals, but it's a lot harder to carry them to fruition, especially when people who make things like Cheerios try to make us feel hopeless at every turn.  

This morning, Rainy juiced some vegetables and headed out the door for work, while I laid in bed, trapped under the blankets by the dogs and a couple of cats.  Eventually, I freed myself from their bonds and decided to have a nutritious breakfast of Cheerios in milk with a banana.  I know it's not kale juice, but it's not a sausage biscuit from McDonald's either, so there's that.  However, I made the mistake of looking at the nutritional values on the side of my Cheerios, thinking I would feel a bolster of pride in my good decision.  It turns out, if I eat 1 cup of Cheerios dry, I've eaten 100 calories.  If I put 1/2 cup of skim milk (something Simon refers to as "white water") on my Cheerios, I've eaten 140 calories.  Reasonable, right?  Gaze your eyes on this:

On the left, we have the blue bowl I bought as part of a set of dinnerware 5-6 years ago.  This is a soup/cereal bowl.  On the right is a 1/2 cup measuring cup.  There is something very twisted and wrong about the disparity of proportions of these two things.  How can you feel anything but hungry and denied if you use the item on the left to contain the Cheerios, milk and banana that are allowed within the measurement of the item on the right???  So I rebelled, scoffed, and filled my bowl.  And now I should run another mile today.  The good news is, I'm not hungry, and I ate a banana.

It's 9:30 and the bird songs are changing to the work tunes of the woodpecker and some dispute between a couple of blue jays.  Life goes on.  I'm pretty sure Bruce is trying to break into the litter box, knowing that the cats had chicken treats yesterday and his rewards should be processing nicely.  Better get to my day.  :)

Cat Recovery Mission

Hey everyone!  Julie here.  I'm sorry it's been such a long time since we posted anything.  I caught the flu and then I caught the excitement of my first surgical tech job and I kind of forgot all about these stories.  Well, not forgot exactly, more like thought "I should really get the stories rolling again" at the end of a long, happily tiring day when I couldn't even be bothered to drag myself to my computer.

Anyway, we're back!!  Let me catch you up on the adventures of our intergalactic warriors.  When we last left them, Isabel and Katie were assembling the International Cats ONLY Space Station while the boys caught some zzzzz's.  All of this space travel came to be, of course, because some ugly "research" reported that cats were killing billions of birds and should probably be "depopulated."  Our heroes are no fools:  they ramped up their plans to escape a planet full of obviously jealous humans and they blasted off to parts of the universe unknown to any jerks!

What happened next, you ask?  Well...the girls had the space station fully assembled before the boys could even wipe the drool off their chins!

Wow!  Never doubt the ingenuity and determination of a couple of bright women!!  Great job, Isabel and Katie!!  

Of course, by this time, the rumors of cat annihilation turned out to be the ramblings of some sick maniac, and when the rest of "Chicken Little's" followers came and saw the evidence of a healthy bird population in the tree that looms over our truck like a mid-air toilet, they decided that cats were pretty cool after all and they stopped talking about killing them and decided to give them free milkies and ear scratchies instead.  After repeated failed attempts to communicate with our feline tribe in outer space, Stupendous Rainy and I decided to blast our way through outer space, attacking anything that got in our way so we could bring our babies and their friends home.  

Whew!  That was a really scary trip!  We could have died and everything!

Anyway, after all our crazy adventures, Casa de Tribe Atherton is a full house again and we'll be telling our stories from THIS planet for awhile.  Thank you, Katie and Waffles Too for accompanying our kids on their great intergalactic adventure!  We'll be seeing you again soon.  ;)

Love, 

Julie, Stupendous Rainy, and the 4 leggeds

Frankie's Notes on Nursing--What It Is, What It Is Not

Mama Julie has contracted a virus, and I am taking good care of her while she is sick.  Here is me making sure she is still alive on the couch:

This is me guarding the yard so no one can attack Mama Julie while she is sick:

This is Mama Julie's perspective on the world right now:

Ugggggghhhhhh...

She said to tell you guys that she'll be back to translating the cat adventures as soon as she feels better.  

Love, 

Frankie Fitzgerald Atherton

PS  Shout out to Florence Nightingale!  I hope I can be as good a nurse as you.  Love, Frankie

Bed time at CUI Shuttle 2

Waffles (whispering):  Simon, is you awake?

Simon:  No Waffles, I am asleep.  Do you see my eyeballs?

Waffles:  No, but I gotta question!

Simon:  What's your question Waffles?  We're s'posed to be sleepin ya know...

Waffles:  I know but I was tryin to count the stars and I wanted to know, what comes after 27?

Simon:  Oh my God Waffles, GO TO SLEEP! There's a BAZILLION stars out there, you cain't count them all!

Waffles:  Well ok, I'll go to sleep.  But what comes after 27?

Simon:  28 Waffles.  Go to sleep.

Waffles:  Ok, thanks Simon!

...

Waffles:  Simon, what comes after 28?

Hansel:  Wow, it's been a long week.  I'm just going to curl up here for some much needed rest.  Floating sleep is pretty nice once you get used to it...

Griffin:  Wow, that's a lot of stars.  I can't wait to go walking out in space!  I wonder if I can touch a star...

Isabel:  Good work, Katie!  Now hand me that wrench!

Katie:  I like your style, Isabel!

Status Report 1.3

It has been several hours since the rendezvous with my team members and I am curling up for some much needed rest.  I have communicated via blink with Lt. Katie Glovatsky, who seems to be most intelligent.  I look forward to working with her in these coming months.  My brothers are preparing to do their first space walk tomorrow to begin assembly of our docking station.  My sister reports that all computer systems are online and working properly for the time being.  Ens. Waffles Glovatsky is having his meals rationed heavily, as he appears to be gaining weight and will soon be unable to fit into the necessary tight compartments we need to do delicate work in.  For the time being, all is well.  We shall see how long it lasts.

Good night from CUI Shuttle 1.

Paco, Mission Commandant
International Cats ONLY Space Station

Finally, We Meet...

Hi everyone, Katie here.  Today, Paco and I finally met.  After 2 loooonnnnggg days of listening to Hansel, Griffin, Simon and even Waffles Too try to figure out how to work the GPS, Isabel and I finally just looked out the window and saw where we were supposed to have turned to get to the worm hole that would get us to the rendezvous point.

Right after we came through, we all heard Paco bellowing.  Poor fellow must have been lonely out here all by himself--he sounded so forlorn!  We quickly spotted his shuttle and came to rest close by.  I saw him looking through the window of the cockpit, and I have to say, he's handsome!

I quickly went to our floor hatch to greet him.  

It was really good to finally see a man who is not a blithering idiot, or narcoleptic, or simply clueless.  Isabel told me not to expect too much from her brother, but already I am impressed.  I can't wait until we are in the same space together and can finally talk face to face.  

In the days to come, we will be building a docking station between our two shuttles.  Here's part of the schematics:

The other shuttle will join at the other side of the dock, and in the center, we will have our common space.  After this part of the mission is complete, we can start adding on to the center to create a complete space station.  Our dream is on the verge of becoming reality!  I'm so thrilled.  Out here in outer space, sharing this wonderful view with Paco on Valentine's Day, the possibilities seem endless...

Signing off,

Lt. Katie Glovatsky

International Cats ONLY Space Station