I'm just a little black rain cloud.

A list of random things that have made me cry about my father's death (months later):

• A Glidden paint store hat
• The selling of his Barracuda
• The new Star Trek trailer
• American Pickers
• Adopting Vera
• A sunset
• Little Debbie Cakes (Oatmeal Pies = His favorite)
• Painting Mom's living room
• Having paint-speckled forearms after painting at Mom's
• Resaving his last voice mail on my phone
• Coffee
• My apartment
• Father's Day 2013
• The thought of having children
• Chipping a piece off of my bookcase that he'd painted for me while I was moving it
• Recommending his chiropractor, who was his best friend, to a friend
• His work building full of tools and boxes
• Grilling hamburgers
• My wedding anniversary
• Hugging my father-in-law
• Seeing a bunny hop across Mom's lawn
• Removing him from my emergency contacts on my work profile
• The photo I had set for his contact photo in my phone showing up when Mom called me because she'd changed her profile photo on Facebook.
• Driving his truck to the shop to be worked on
• Ensure
• Not remembering the last time I bought a battery for my car
• The first warm day of the year

...and, for some reason, today. Just because.

Hey, remember that time we adopted a cat?

Ever since we got married, I've begged J for a pet. We talked cats, dogs, hedgehogs, and chinchillas over the last year, and finally, my sweet husband, despite his allergies, finally caved and said we could adopt an animal. If we're being completely honest here, I went a little crazy bouncing between shelter websites and Craigslist.

We attended an adoption event on April 6 and looked at an adorable little Manx kitten that I had seen on a local shelter's website. I picked her up and fell in love with her, nuzzled her, pouted a little, put her back in the cage, and squeezed J's hand and told him we needed to leave or I'd take her home. He nudged me in the direction of the adoption table and encouraged me to get her. I was over the moon. I went back (nay, ran back) to get her, handed her to J, signed all the papers, and cried all the way home because I was so excited.

Sittin' pretty on the couch, watching J come inside from grilling.

We named her Vera (after Jayne's very favorite gun) (my husband is a Browncoat and I love it). Vera was snuggly and adorable and bouncy just like any other kitten. She loved sitting on shoulders and head-booping. She made air-biscuits when you picked her up. She pounced on anything that moved.

But.

She also howled. Like, howled. I've owned many cats in my lifetime, but none have make noises even close to her howls. She howled every time she was alone, which was unfortunate for everyone involved because while hubs was attempting to adjust to her presence by eating Zyrtec like candy, we knew that allowing her to sleep in the same room as us would never be an option. Also, we have elderly neighbors who absolutely never ever ever make a sound and we didn't want to be rude to them by leaving our screaming kitten alone for them to hear while we worked 8-10 hour shifts.

Every single night we had her, right before we laid down to sleep, we put her in the guest bathroom with her food, litter, bed, and toys, and we laid down to sleep. Every single night we had her, she howled all. night. long.

The first night we had her, we figured it was because she was scared and in a new environment. The second night was more of the same. Every night after that got worse, not better, because she was more comfortable in her environment and she was less apprehensive about jumping onto the counter top and knocking every single thing off of it. One night she howled, figured out how to knock over the garbage can, and rolled around in it all night. Howwwwwwl rollrollrollthumpHOWWWWWLthumpTHUMP. Two rooms separate our bedroom and our spare bathroom -- and she was still loud enough to keep us awake. It was puppy behavior. I've never ever met a cat in my life (until Vera) who flipped out about being left alone. Incessantly. For hours on end.

To add to that grief, J's allergies immediately flared up within hours of bringing her home. He doubled up Zyrtec and Benedryl and still had itchy eyes and a stuffy-sneezy nose. Between being kept awake due to howling/thumps of destruction coming from the guest bathroom and being unable to sleep due to the guilt I felt for causing my poor husband's head to explode in an allergic reaction, I couldn't take it. I told him I wanted to re-home her, for his health and for our sanity.

We talked to a few people we knew, and luckily, one of them wanted to take her. The person who took her a) isn't allergic and b) has other cats, so she will be blissful and she will never have to go from a warm snuggly lap to a boxed bed in a lonely room at the end of the night. She'll even have friends to snuggle and play with when her owners are at work. It'll be a better environment for her since she's such a dependent cuddlebutt.  

Our last night with Vera. She likes for you to hold her paw or arm.

I'm not going to lie about it -- I'm bummed out. Truly. So is Hubs. We grew attached to her quickly -- it was impossible not to. When she wasn't wreaking havoc in our bathroom, she was a fantastic, picture-perfect kitten full of love... but her personality was exponentially more codependent than we were hoping for and we were not the right people to meet her needs, so we gave her up to someone who could. 

And now we know. Now we know J's allergies, even with medication, cannot withstand an indoor cat. Now we know we probably need to own a home with a yard before we consider another pet.  Now we know we value our morning snuggles over getting up and comforting a tiny thing that has been screaming for our attention all night (that one was especially eye-opening; I caught myself picking up my birth control pills two or three times all week to ensure I'd taken my daily dose). Now we know.

Couch-snuggles. She ALWAYS had to have her cheek against my cheek.

& she could never decide between us, so she hopped from me to J every few minutes.

Oh, Vera. We will miss you, but we are so thankful that you'll be happy in your new home. ♥ 

Mixtape Monday #3: Childhood

To say I've been slacking on my mixtapes would be an egregious understatement. I'm no good with commitments, so I don't know what was going on in my brain when I decided a weekly mixtape would be a phenomenal and simple task. Oops.

Today, I bring you the mixtape of my childhood.

These are my comfort songs. They're the songs that Mom danced to while she was cleaning our old apartment, the songs that Dad cranked up in the back yard when he was mixing paint for his new client's house, the songs that don't sound the same without the soft pop and crackle of a needle on a vinyl groove. They're the songs that can't be played loudly enough, and until the past three months, the songs that never made me cry.

What are songs that remind you of your childhood? What songs bring you comfort? What songs feel like home?