Our poor kitties get the brunt of holiday wrath

Hello from rainy Wisconsin!

Christmas vacation is flying by fast! Both Becky and I have been off work since last Wednesday, which has for the most part been filled with delicious food, tons of time with both of our families, and relaxation. For Becky, this is "holiday break," as her work closes for the time period, and for me it's vacation, as my work does not. Amazingly enough though, I might end up using only one vacation day for the whole thing, between holidays, bonus days in lieu of 2011 raises (bleh), comp time, and a fortuitously placed snow day. Although I'm sad to have missed the snow disaster of the decade in New York City (which is pretty pathetic from the perspective of our Midwestern roots), I'm also quite happy to have missed it.

The brunt of the impact of the snow on us was born by our poor kitties. As we nestled in to our plastic Amtrak waiting area seats at Penn Station, waiting for the train to take us away to holiday wonderment, Becky pulled the envelope with the keys for our cat sitter out of her purse. We frantically decided to mail the keys to the sitter, figuring at worst that the cats would be one day late on their food. The keys literally needed to travel one mile, starting from one of the most major post offices in the country. A snowstorm intervened. By Tuesday night she still had not received the keys. As Becky frantically googled for bus tickets home, my parents suggested FedEx. We made it to a FedEx shipping depot five minutes before they closed and paid too much money to overnight a second set of keys to the cat sitter. Guaranteed by 10:30am the next day. Right. But only on days that are at least 96 hours from the last snowflake falling from the sky. By Wednesday mid-afternoon there was still no sign of either set of keys. Thankfully both finally arrived that early evening and she was able to get in (as Becky and I were boarding a flight across the country). The cat sitter reported back that poor Piccadilly had a gift bag around her neck that she needed to cut off. Our poor kitties!! Hopefully their eventful vacation is over.