...and my cat is HUGE*

Random things in random order because I'm not feeling like organizing my thoughts today:

• Work is extremely crazy stressful right now, for a variety of reasons, most of them involving stuff I can't discuss



• I've started taking a belly dancing class, which I am enjoying very much. However, I am sore in places I didn't know I had.



• I am completely horrified by this story involving a woman who was adopted by an American family at the age of 8 months. She is now facing deporation because her American citizenship was never established. As the author of the story notes, the moral of the story is that adoptive parents have a responsibility to establish citizenship for their children before they turn 18.



• I am wholly devoted to the TV show Burn Notice and the capers of Michael and Fi and Sam. This is keeping me on the treadmill, thank goodness.



• After devouring the Hunger Games Trilogy and a disturbing novel called ROOM that everyone is buzzing about, I longed to read something sweet. As such, I picked up a copy of Anne of Green Gables at the library and I am loving the quaint coziness of it. The last time I read through the series was 1996, when Husband and I were living in Japan and the series was one of the few selections available in English at the library. I am finding it as charming as I did then (and before that as a 12 year old girl) although I will confess to the fact that I giggle inappropriately every time the author uses the word "ejaculate" to describe someone's speech. (I.e. "Anne, why did you do such a wicked thing? ejaculated Marilla." Totally approprirate for 1905, of course, and yet hilarious in 2011.)



• We adopted a new cat at the end of December. He is HUGE. He is one of the tallest, longest, largest house cats I've ever seen. Much larger than a number of dogs we know. But he is so charming and has such an empathetic look on his face I can't help but love him. Also, he loves me devotedly, and has since the day we brought him home. His devotion to me is undeserved - Husband is the one who rescued him from the cat shelter - but he adores me just the same. I've not had an animal so enamored of me since my dog died. (The dog I had growing up, from the time I was 12.) I'm quite fond of him as well, so I will spam you with a photo:

The photo really doesn't give you an accurate feeling above how massive this cat is. But trust me when I say, he is HUGE.

*Christopher Moore, from his book Bloodsucking Fiends