A brand new car!

Okay, brand new used car.

Check out the sweet Honda Civic that we just bought...in Heaven.

I don't know what that glare was.  We are now fully daycare ready, thanks to the bling we got for our wedding.  I played bad cop and had us walking out of the dealership, as I said, "No one but a retard would pay that for this car."

And then we payed slightly less than that.  We didn't pay what a retard would pay.  But we probably paid what more than a couple of Ivy League grads should have paid.   I thought Z would be a good bargaining tool, but it turns out that a baby spitting up all over you just makes you want to do the deal fast.  So I got the interest rate down but I could not haggle as much as I wanted on the price before I just got tired.  Z did throw up on the dealership floor however, which was very very good.

Draggin' Z's ass all over town.

First, the good news.  Yesterday we dragged Z to the urologist, and just as we has suspected, his hernia has disappeared.  He may have had something called a hydrocele.

But anyway, it's gone and we don't need to worry about it, unless it comes back.  Then we can worry, but just a little.

Z chillin' on a Boppy at the daycare place.

And then the even better news:  Jeff got a last minute gig working on Robot Chicken!

The only bad news is that this means that Z has to go into daycare on Tuesday, when I go back to work.  So I've had a lot of running around to do.  I had to run to the doctor yesterday to get his daycare form signed.  Caught her on the way out the door and she filled the form out.  Such a score.

Then today, I dragged Z all over the place, from seven a.m. until six p.m.  Weissbluth be damned.  Z slept on the go like a champ.

I took him to his daycare center and we set up his cubby and his crib, and I went over some stuff with "Teacher Patty."  It all kind of sucked.  I hate that I won't be with him all day.  The place is great, but I am sad that we are not independently wealthy.  I would love to just keep hanging out with Z all the time.

Then I took him to Babies R Us and got a car seat for the car that we have to buy this weekend for Jeff.  And a bunch of other baby stuff, like a little car adapter for my pump, so I can pump in the car.  And more bottles.  And pacifiers for a three-month-old.  And a Sleep Sack for the daycare hours.  (I didn't like it that they were going to put a blanket on him, but the air conditioning is a little fierce in there, I guess, so I got a wearable blanket for him.) 

There were three Zacks in the Babies R Us Mom room, where I had to feed Z.  There was a four-month-old Zack who is actually not quite as big as Z!

Then, I took him to a much put off trip to Jennie's to meet Layla.  Z really enjoyed hanging out in Layla's bouncy seat.  

Layla is so beautiful.  And so teeny.  Holding her feels like holding a little feather.  I guess our son is just a big guy.  But I don't think of him as big when I'm with him all day.  All my childhood I was the big girl in the class, and it's funny to have a physical attribute that people remark upon like that.  I wonder how much it has affected my personality.  I think of Z as just so easy going and so incredibly communicative.  And so responsive and smiley.  But when new folks meet him, the first thing they say is, "He's huge!"  And then, "He's cute!"  Ah well.  There are worse things than being a tall, good looking white male in America.

I just moved the seat into the front to extract Z,

so I could feed and change him.  This is not where he rides,

so don't go callin' K Fed to take my child away.

On the way home, Z was fussing a little in the car, and then he changed pitch and I recognized the hungry cry.  So we pulled over and I fed him and changed his diaper.  Going north on the 405 at rush hour can make me cranky, too, and that's not even on the days when I'm starving and sitting in my own poop.  So who can blame the little guy?

When I put him back in the seat, he started to cry, and then I looked at him and explained that we were going home.  Giant smile, and then this.  Whatever this is.  He said, "Ooooh.  Aaaah.  Ooooh."

Then I gave him Mr. Monkey, who was promptly put into Z's mouth.  Where he belongs!  

The whole time we were pulled over and listening to music, I was really pretty happy.  Other times when I've had to stop and feed Z while out shopping, or at that late night party, I always feel like I'm with the best company there could possibly be.  I don't feel deprived at all if I have to slow down or go into another room to relax with Z.  We have a fun time just staring into each other's eyes and smiling and smiling.  I'll miss it next week!

Conversations with Zack

Before we start posting Zack footage

This is another Youtube classic that cracks me up.

Go Team Cross!

Yep, we got hitched yesterday.  We planned the whole thing in a week.  Jeff's folks came out, and we thought it would be a good time to make this thing legal.  We did a very small ceremony at a local restaurant, and it worked out great!

Jeff's "vows"

Getting a little emotional

And yeah, he loses it a little

Mike and Jessica, who married us

Nana and Zack

Team Woodbury

Tekla and Julie's grandparents

Dean and wedding bunny ears

Grandma and Zack

Geneva and Oona

Bruce and Tekla

Jeff, Adam, & Jonah

Jessie

The kids experiment with photography.

I'm still looking for pictures of young Master Cross in his little suit (which came off pretty quickly, as he delayed the ceremony with a little fussy episode).  Also, there don't seem to be any pictures of Burt, since I guess he was taking most of the pictures!

Technical difficulties with the video at the moment, but for now, here is the text of our ceremony.

THE CEWEMONY

Mike Dunn's speech:

“Moawiage. Moawiage is what brings us together today…”

Dear Friends & Family,

It is marriage that brings us together today. But that is only the order of the day, the event we are here to celebrate. It is so much more that brings us together today. It is Julie. It is Jeff. It is Zack. Today is only possible after 10 years of events and occurrences and awakenings and heartaches. Jeff and Julie met in college and Jeff was smitten from the start. They became close friends over those 4 formative years and after graduation, Julie realized what had been right in front of her all along. Julie and Jeff dated for two years and through that time grew up a lot together and discovered many things about themselves and each other. And as we grow up and develop, our ambitions shift and change; as we discover things about ourselves we become more and more who we are. Those shifts and changes brought Jeff & Julie to a place where they parted ways. But that time they had spent together had a deep and profound effect on each of them and as we see today, they never forgot about that time, or how they felt about each other.

So years go by…Julie & Jeff follow those ambitions and they take each of them to so many places…New York, somewhere else, and eventually California. Jeff & Julie had kept in touch over those years, those moves and time & space eventually brought them together again a little more than a year ago…In San Francisco. And upon seeing each other again, face to face, there was that spark. Julie spoke of a lightening bolt moment upon seeing Jeff again. She took one look at him and it rang in her head as clear as a bell, “I should be with Jeff Cross.” That original spark, from years ago, was there, waiting to burst forth. Waiting, biding its time until the opportunity presented itself again. And on seeing each other again…that spark blew up, EXPLODED! And a month later, Jeff came down to Los Angeles to visit Julie…to explore that spark again. Many of you may know about Jeff’s desire for Empirical evidence, in all situations, and that’s what Jeff wanted, Empirical evidence, of that spark igniting again. I’m not going to speak about this evidence…that’s for Jeff and for Julie. And they got it. I will say though, that that weekend, while the sun came up Jeff said, “So, I guess one of us needs to move and I guess it should probably be me.” Sounds like proof positive to me!

So Jeff moved to Los Angeles and he and Julie were together again. And it was everything that it had been 10 years previous, and more. From all that they had learned, from all the challenges and victories and losses, they had become more themselves. And those two people love each other as they had years before, but more….more deeply, with more zest and vigor, just more of everything. And that more is here before us today. Zackary Aldwin Cross. Zack is the more that Jeff and Julie are able to share now, something that they both desired very deeply, more…of themselves and each other all at once. Aldwin, Zack’s Middle name is an Old English word that means “Old Friend”. It seems appropriate; he is the result of 2 peoples love and that love is the result of their deep and very long friendship. Zack is named after his parent’s first and best relationship; the fact that they are and always will be, old friends.

It has taken many years to come to this particular moment. And there are so many things that had to have transpired over these years to create this moment. But I am so thankful for all of those things, joyous as well as tragic, because I see nothing but Love in front of me here today. Jeff and Julie loving each other. Julie and Jeff loving Zack. Zack loving Julie and Jeff. And all of us loving them, so much. And our love for them inspired by so many things…For finding each other, for growing together, for standing on their own as individuals, for finding each other again, and realizing that they were meant to be together…even if it took them a while to figure it out. And for loving each other enough to turn that love into more love. And giving us and the world the gift of Zack. All of these things, all of these people standing before you…and our love for them…make the world a better place.

Julie's "vows"

It’s an amazing thing we’re doing here today. Anyone can get married in the flush of romance, but if you can get married when you have a 10-week-old baby and the romance is somewhat on hold, then that’s really saying something. Although seeing Jeff as a parent has made me fall in love with him in a deeper way. It’s so wonderful to see Jeff as a dad. When we first met Zack at St. Joe’s, Jeff was holding him, and he got all choked up, and he said, “You’re such a beautiful little dude.” He is so fascinated and delighted by our baby. And I know that Jeff’s dad was probably like that, at one time, about Jeff, and really, I’m like that about Jeff, because Jeff is a beautiful dude. So it’s a great continuum. And I am so happy not only to be marrying Jeff but to be marrying into Jeff’s amazing, and amazingly huge, family. We are not exchanging rings tonight, and we thought that might be something we save for the East Coast version of this ceremony. I know his family means so much to him, and the gigantic continent between us is kind of an annoyance in terms of planning.

I wanted to write something that really captured how much I love Jeff and how much having him in my life is a completely amazing thing to me, but since we’re taking care of a newborn, who I feed approximately every 40 minutes, my brain is not entirely in working order. So I searched through our emails to each other from before he moved down to LA, hoping to find some great turns of phrase from when I used to be able to string sentences together.

We saw each other again on February 18th, 2007. Three days later, on February 21st, I called him to admit that I was completely crushed out on him, and I am so, so glad I made that phone call. Of all the crazy chances I’ve taken in my life, that one paid off the best. On February 22nd, I wrote in an email:

“Seeing you was like getting whacked in the head, after all this time. I heard your footsteps on the stairs, and then I was in your arms, and it was honestly, honestly, THAT crazy moment that we see in movies. I finally got it: Jeff is awesome. As clichéd as it sounds, I probably just wasn't ready for you when I met you. Why would I ever want to go out with someone who totally supported me, really got me, made me feel great, liked my family, laughed at my jokes, and rocked my world beyond rocking in a very special way?”

Several times we both tried to play it cool. Later that day, as I was trying to calm myself down, I wrote:

“Let's not get all our eggs into one basket and swing the basket around over our heads and then jump into a volcano.”

I bring that quote up because it’s sort of funny to think now that well, that’s exactly what we did. We put all our eggs into one basket, got really excited, swung the basket around over our heads like crazy nuts, and now I’d like to welcome you all to the volcano. Because Jeff just jumped right in there with me, and this whole thing has had such a spirit of joie de vivre—and that’s why throwing together a wedding in a week is just so right on for us.

On February 23rd, I found a Bible quote that seemed to sum up our situation.
"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly."
--Proverbs 26:11

Since we’re not having a religious ceremony, I just thought I’d throw that in to give props to the Bible and all its wisdom.

There were so many emails between us that I’d be reading them for a long time and then realize, “Oh, that was ONE day.” I actually could not finish reading them before this wedding. I always used to say I could talk to Jeff for a million years. Of course, in that million years, he would probably tell me the same stories many times, but that’s okay, because I often don’t remember them so it’s often like hearing them for the first time. I think this makes us the perfect couple to grow old together.

When we dated a decade ago, I urged Jeff to take a stop motion animation class, and from that class, he got a career. He gave me a packet of letters I had written to him while I was in Japan, when we were just friends. And reading those letters, I realized I was kind of a funny writer. So we have traded inspiration and found potential in each other that we didn’t know we had. And now we’re creating a home base together, and there is just nothing like a happy family life to ground you for the fight ahead. I’m so excited about Team Cross.

On March 27th, I wrote:

“This is truly, truly special. It's unique. I want to say very unique, but as we all know here in the smarty pants circle, there are no degrees of uniqueness. This is one of a kind, a rare and precious gem. I may not be able to modify the word unique, but I can still go on and on about it in an attempt to really drive home the point that this is like nothing else ever that happened to me in my whole life since I was born and I can't even freaking believe it's happening now--except that I'm soooooo ready for it that my shock and surprise are more aptly expressed not as, "REALLY? ME?" but as "FINALLY! MEEEEE!"”

I love you so much and I could not imagine a better partner or a better parent. You have made me so happy and your spirit of adventure, the way you have taken care of me this year, your kindness, sensitivity, sense of humor, and crazy smartness are all such great things to come home to every day. I just think you’re the best person in the world, with the possible exception of the person we actually made together.

Jeff's "Vows"

I was pretty nervous the night Julie and I saw each other again. It had been seven years since we'd seen each other, maybe three since we'd spoken, and that conversation was exactly the one you don't want to have with an ex. She was feeling great about her life being on track, and I wasn't. So when Adam and I hopped in the taxi that night, we'd already stopped for a nip of liquid courage.

Feeling talkative, I told the cabbie exactly what we were up to. "Going to see an old girlfriend. Haven't seen her in seven years." "OhhHHhh," she said, "don't do it!" Fortunately for Zack, I'm made of sterner stuff. Vodka.

Three days later Julie called and left message saying she she never should have broken up with me and that in one way or another she'd been thinking of me for the past ten years. Basically the best message any ex-girlfriend ever left for anyone.

In a way our new adventure together is so beautifully simple, almost obvious. And yet I go over it in my head all the time. It's like between Julie and me w ere the gears of a gigantic clock, through which we could only glimpse each other for the shortest of moments as the gears turned. And Julie picked up a rock, tied a string to it, and threw it juuust right so it sailed through each brief opening in the machinery and landed at my feet. And when I picked it up, suddenly the string went taut and the colossal machine that stood between the two of us and our own happiness smashed and exploded and fell to the ground in thousands of pieces, revealing that the clock was made of spun sugar the whole time.

It's familiar, and it's new! I just can't say that enough, it hits me afresh all the time. We get to romp and joke in all our old ways, and all the stuff that didn't work years ago, well somehow we learned how to do it. I was having fun in Berkeley, but I was stuck. I was too afraid to build a complete life for myself, partially because I thought I didn't deserve it or I thought I'd lose it, but mostly because I didn't think it could work out. I saw myself stuck in a catch-22, I couldn't find someone to join me in my struggles because I felt I needed a victory to catch the attention I wanted, and I was feeling too lonely to find that victory on my own. But Julie already knew me, and knew me deeply. I didn't have to concoct a way to impress her, I had the unique luxury of being completely myself.

And she's so sweet now! Right in our first weekend, in the interest of full disclosure, I laid down some problems I was bringing to the table: debt and back taxes. On her next visit we were waiting for a table at a sushi place, and she mentioned that I needed to take care of these things. I felt that familiar clench in my chest, the anxiety and defensiveness that enabled me to ignore these issues for so long, but before it could even take shape she looked me in the eye and said "I completely support you, I totally have your back" and my chest unclenched. This, really, was what I'd been waiting for, what I'd needed. (And I'm happy to say I took care of all the money stuff, but anyway...)

Getting back together had another amazing benefit: all that we'd gone through before suddenly had new meaning. For years I had thought of our time together as a disappointment, and now that's all been turned around. So Julie actually made my past better, and I never thought that was even possible.

We've still got a lot of victories to fight for, but the path to them is so much better now. At Julie's behest we grabbed at the biggest adventure of them all, and now that adventure can grab you back with his tight little grip. I'm convinced that having a child really is the best thing life has to offer. I knew that already, thanks to Adam and Jeannette and their two rugrats over there, watching them grow up has been one of the best parent prep courses anyone could have. The only people who have helped me more on that score are my own parents, who braved a tropical storm to be here today. I love watching Zack and Julie together, watching his first and foremost love develop around someone I've loved for half my life.

So, sweetie, it's time to get married. I remember a phone call we had way back, after we were just being friends but before we'd fallen out of touch. You were chattering away and I was only half-interested, and I noticed a bit ruefully that even after all that had happened, something about the sound of your voice just made me feel calm, relaxed and content. Now I get that all the time. When I see you walk into the room, or look at the hollow of your neck, or watch you with Zack and see a smile light up your face, I think "my love rests here. I'm home."

The "Will Yas"
(Mike and Jess alternated asking us these.)

Will you Jeff:

--Buy ice cream for Julie in the middle of the night?
--Burp and change Zack when Julie is too tired to move?
--Go food shopping, since you love it and Julie hates it?
--Continue to be the best possible dad Julie could imagine, concerned for Zack’s safety, fascinated and delighted by his development?


Will you, Julie:

--Continue to allow an entire room dedicated to Legos in your home?
--Ensure that Jeff never again neglects his taxes for years?
--Occasionally say funny things when you are half asleep that leave you both laughing for twenty minutes, gasping for air and pounding your pillows?
--Continue to be the best possible mom Jeff could imagine for Zack, devoted to his nourishment, physical, emotional, and intellectual?

Will you, Jeff:

--Continue to be the grounding force in Julie’s life?
--Not only accept Julie on a deep level but revel in who she is?


Will you Julie:

--Continue not to save Jeff, but to use the strength your presence gives him so he can save himself?
--Keep on making Jeff feel every day like you did when you made that phone call?

We said yes to all of this, and then we were pronounced man, wife...and baby!

This woman is her own baby tsunami.

And then there were none.

Bridget went off to her new home today, and we hope she will be happier there.  After losing Harold, she spent most of her time hiding under the bed and running away from us.  We knew her life wouldn't get any easier once the new little monster started walking.

So my ex took her.  He didn't want to have kids, but he was willing to take on an extra cat.  Helluva guy.  Kind of squares a little of our past.

We are now preparing for the arrival of Jeff's folks who are highly cat allergic.  So it is a big relief to vacuum knowing that A, the cat hair will not all be back in one afternoon, and B, the cat is not cowering in absolute terror from the vacuum somewhere in the apartment.

Cat free for the first time in over a decade.  My old family is out, and my new family is in.

Recent Faves

Sorry it's been more than a week! We've actually got a lot of new pics but my computer's hard disk is almost full and blah blah blah who cares.

We caught this picture just this morning -- probably the best smiley picture yet. Zack's been giving us big Hello grins whenever he wakes up these days, which is great beyond great. But he tends to stop smiling when the camera's on him, which is less great.

This one I got on my way out the door to take Z to the park. Turned out it was too hot for the hoodie, but he insisted on modelling it before taking it off. Okay, we insisted.

And here's my favorite shot from the park. I like it because it was the reigning smiley pic until this morning, but also because it looks like somebody just told Z a funny joke. Really it was me doing the intro to Touch Me by The Doors. "Ba ba ba badup ba baduh duh, ba ba ba badup ba baduh duh..." It usually works.

Last Wednesday was a big day for pictures. Here we are that night shortly before bedtime, when Zack suddenly turned his head and started sucking Mommy's finger vigorously. Still hungry, don't you know.

Here's the look that the sight of the camera usually provokes. "Hmmm. That thing again. Why do they keep showing it to me? I better stare at it until I figure it out." Meanwhile Jules and I engage in one of our new favorite pastimes, kissing his little head. Pretty much the main reason to have a baby around is so you can kiss his little head whenever you want.

Two months old yesterday

My God. I can't really think of anything to say because this is the first time I've looked at yesterday's photo side by side with the one-month picture and, and... look at his legs! He's HUGE! One month of growth?

We're doomed! Doomed, I tell ya!

Finally caught a few of these on film!

I was using my iphone in low light, so this is blurry.  But the best smile.  This is a little like taking pictures of Bigfoot.  (Or maybe exactly like taking pictures of Bigfoot.)  (Because Zack has big feet.)  (Get it?)

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

Daddy does a late night burping session.

Z sleeps GREAT at night, still.  He went to bed at 10:00 last night and woke up at 2:00, 4:30, 5:30, and 7:00.  Okay, that actually doesn't sound so good.  But at night, he wakes up, eats, and that's pretty much it.  Right back down, with few exceptions.  So really, he slept with small interruptions until about 9:00 a.m. today.

The only tough thing is that after the 7:00 a.m. feeding, he wants to be nestled up close to me, asleep right on the boob.  Nothing else will do.  We can stealthily transfer him to crib or bassinet at all other times.  But early mornings, he must be near Mommy.  This has been fairly consistent of late.  I tried four times this morning to get him in the bassinet.  He would not be fooled.

So I took him to the couch and watched CNN over his snuggliness.  He'll only be eight weeks old once, after all.

Bridget's new black and white friend

More on my favorite monster.

One of the many things I love about Jeff is that he is such a softie, and he was so very upset about Harold today.  It truly moved me.

For me, it's different.  I've lived with Harold for 11 years, and he wasn't himself today at all.  I said on Saturday that I thought we'd lose him within the month.  But it quickly became clear that it would just be cruel to let things drag on any longer.  His condition went from bad to unbearable overnight, and he was already gone when the vet came.  I can be oddly businesslike at times, but I think I did my crying about Harold, and I was ready to let him go.

A couple interesting things about this document, which came from my vet in Brooklyn.  One:  Harold truly did take a one way trip to California.  Two:  he weighed 14 pounds, which is now what our son weighs!  It's so weird what I end up saving.  Meanwhile, where the hell are my iphone headphones?  I've lost two sets of those things.

When I first moved to LA, I got a one bedroom.  For $550 a month, if you can believe that.  I remember looking around that place our first night here, and looking out the window, with Harold.

But he hated living alone.  He was very gregarious and missed my crazy Brooklyn roommates, who used to feed him fish when I wasn't looking.  Harold was the kind of cat who would come out during a party and sit in the living room, as if he were participating in the conversation. 

One day when I came home to the K-town one bedroom, Harold jumped up on top of a tall dresser, because I was busy on the phone and didn't stop to pet him.  He didn't quite make it all the way up, and seeing his desperate little face over the side of the dresser, while he held on with his front paws, really convinced me that he was not good on his own all day.  He was too social for so much solitude.

So the penthouse apartment upstairs became available--an enormous two bedroom that a couple who recently became unengaged was vacating.  It was $1100, which seemed expensive to me back then.  So I got a roommate who had two cats.  Harold was much happier there.

Harold and Julie wrestling in the penthouse.

Harold was a mad wrestler.  If I really wanted to play with him, I had to wear an old Columbia sweatshirt, so he could use his back claws on me.  He ripped that thing to shreds.

He didn't like to play with stuff that most cats like.  He really loved to interact with people.  Facsimiles of birds or mice or whatever did nothing for him.  He didn't even acknowledge the laser pointer.  He wanted to play with you.

But mostly, he was a lover!

Eventually I had to stop having roommates, because I had this funny idea that I should live on my own before I got into a real relationship.  I moved into another old building in K-town, where a whole bunch of other actors and writers lived.  They were mostly people from Improv Olympic, because the building manager worked there.  We had a lot of fun in that building.  There were always cool neighbors to hang out with, and we were all poor as hell.

We would trade stuff in the basement.  You could leave things you didn't need in the basement, and other tenants would pick those things up.  I still have a spaghetti serving thingemebob from there.  And it always cracked me up what would disappear from the basement.  For example, once I left (ahem) a sex toy down there.  (Someone gave it to me as a joke--I didn't buy it.)  I left it in the basement at 6:00 a.m., and it was gone by 7:00!  Meanwhile, a fully functional Juiceman juicer remained for weeks.  I learned from this experience that people like sex more than juice.

Harold in a sunny patch in my little Koreatown studio.

Of course, I knew that I could not leave Harold alone all day.  So I got him a pet: Bridget.

Both of my cats were cast offs, desperate for homes.  Harold came to me via my friend Jon, who was out of work and needed a "temporary" place for Harold.

Some other friends of mine captured a stray mother cat and all her kittens.  They spayed the mother cat and let her go.  She was totally feral.  The kittens became various degrees of tame.  Bridget was somewhere in the middle.  The nice thing was that she would never, ever have become tame at all, if it weren't for Harold.  She loved Harold and was afraid of all humans.  She would only approach me if Harold led the way.  Eventually, she came to see that I wasn't so bad.

Bridget biting Harold's tail.

Their relationship was so innocent back then.

Later, it became oddly perverted, as Jeff described below.

Harold would occasionally dash out the door of the K-town studio, into the hallway.  Then, he would look around, as if to say, "This is where you spend your time away from me?"  He never really knew what to do once he got out.  He was an apartment cat all the way.  But one day, I walked with him up to the roof of the building, and he stayed by my side.  It seemed he was more interested in having an experience with me than exploring the outside world.

I kind of regret that I never tried to take Harold on walks.  I believe he would have stayed with me.  He was definitely dog-like in that way.  But I'm so horribly allergic to flea bites, and by an awful coincidence, so incredibly attractive to fleas, that taking the cat outside on a regular basis would have been a huge pain.

Bridget is totally freaked out today.  She has a little ritual of begging for treats, and one of my exes actually trained her to "squeak" for them.  But she would never eat alone.  She always looked for Harold to come and get a treat, too.  She just loved Harold, even though he could not stop molesting her.

She got her treat today, and she still hasn't eaten it.  It's sitting on the floor.  She won't indulge herself without Harold, and she's been crying for him and looking around the apartment.

I'm afraid her mistrust of us is at an all time high.  And who can blame her?  After all, we're getting rid of cats today.  It's the culmination of all her fears.

Harold trying to convince me not to work.

(*Sigh*  I had a such a great desk in that K-town apartment!)

Harold foraging for plastic to chew in our bathroom.

He became skilled at opening these cabinet doors.

I will really miss my little buddy.  I got Harold at the end of a bad breakup with the guy I stupidly dated after Jeff, back in the day.  That stupid guy was allergic to cats, so it was kind of a big thing to take on Harold.  But Harold was ready to commit!

I'm glad Harold got to be a part of our family for just a little while.

Harold really could never pick his way across the LEGO desk

without making a racket.

These are the things I will miss most about him:

--He would play tag with me, and he would chase back.

--I had to teach him how to climb the spiral staircase in my Brooklyn apartment.  He was afraid of stairs, never having seen them before.  But after a few lessons, they became his favorite place to play.  He would greet me by running up the stairs so I could play with him through the gaps between the steps.

--If I yelled because I saw a spider or stubbed my toe, Harold would come running into the room with a terribly concerned expression and meow to ask if I was okay.  (Bridget runs under the bed to save her own skin.)

--He would spoon with me.  I've lived with cats my whole life, and he's the only cat who actually almost hugged.

There are pets and there are pets.  Harold was really a classic.