Selling our Sh!t to Strangers

This blog is even boring me. Two posts in three months. And this one features furniture? This, folks, proves that my greatest fear in starting a blog is becoming a reality.

I don't know if it's the hormones or what. But I am a little emotional right now. We have completed due diligence for Project Making Room for Baby and are currently working on the terms of the transaction. Phase 1 involves turning our dining room into an office / den. Phase 2 will be turning our office into our bedroom. Finally, Phase 3 will be turning our former bedroom into a nursery.

Yesterday, I posted our Mission-style dining room table and chairs on craigslist. This set ain't even our style anymo'. That happens. BUT, it was the very first thing Mike and I bought together as a couple. We remember finding it on craigslist, driving to an unfamiliar part of SF to see it, negotiating a steal, and then lugging it up the three flights of stairs to our first apartment on Capra Way. 

We had visions of dinner parties. Which happened. But mostly it was the venue for drinking games. It held a buffet of provisions for some excellent parties (Super Bowls, book club, Christmas Eve, Spark fundraiser, etc.) and one time it featured a party fountain that flowed a dangerous concoction in honor of our tax dollars hard at work, err Fleet Week. Mookie, who considers each chair a place to claw / nap and the table a place to receive treats (pain in the ace when one of the aforementioned dinner parties is actually taking place), will most likely miss it the most.

We sold it today, for not much less than we paid for it. It will live with a nice older gentleman and his wife - who just got the dining room she had been dreaming of for years - in the Santa Cruz mountains. But, alas, let our first major purchase as a couple live forever in our bloggity boog. 

We had thought acquiring a dining room table was a sign we were growing up. The irony that selling it is actually an indication of the real deal is not lost on me.

I hope I love my kid as much as I love my cat.

Some years ago, my mother gave my boyfriend, at the time, and I a cat for Christmas. Even though she has a penchant for giving funny gifts (note: they are mostly for her amusement), I suspected she was testing our relationship. My boyfriend responded by asking that she give him a swift kick in the nuts, instead, the following year. Never give someone a pet, as the saying goes.

This was no kitten. Well, for accuracy’s sake, we had a choice. She presented us with two framed photos, one of a feral kitten and one of an older cat, both male. The older cat, according to my little brother and my mother’s accomplice, drooled. A lot. We decided to meet this cat first.

“Puffy” – his street name – lived with his foster parents a few blocks away. We visited during the early afternoon of a grey San Francisco day. Puffy, part Maine Coon, had a mane like a lion. His foster parents, still in their pajamas, were watching college basketball on the boob tube and had a purple bong either poorly hidden or conveniently located (depending upon your view of such things) behind said boob tube. So, his street name had a double entendre. We knew this was our cat.

Renaming Puffy took too long. I know this because a lot of people still call him Puffy. To be clear, his name evolved from Puffy to Puff to P-Kitty, just like the hip hop mogul naturally, to Michael Jackson (who passed mid-naming, okay) to finally landing on Mookie. When we took him to his first vet appointment, there was an older couple that was laying their dear Mookie to rest. One Mookie leaves the cat world as another one enters. You can call him Mookie Boo Boo, Monkey Butt, or Boobies. He does not necessarily have a preference.

Mookie climbs onto my chest, with his nose close to mine, every morning and every night. He talks to me in squeaks and likes to be held like a baby. The left shoulder of most of my shirts has claw marks and absorbed much drool. He never breaks eye contact and he greets me at the door. He hates having his picture taken, especially when he is wearing a sombrero. He is going through a husky phase, at the moment, but perhaps it’s just sympathy weight. I tell him that he is going to have to learn to play second fiddle.

I hope I love my kid as much as I love my cat. And I hope they love each other. And I also hope they do not sit on each other’s faces.