Looking into the future

Having pets is giving me a terrifying preview of how I will behave as a mother.

Pets are basically like small children in that they can't tell you what they need using words, they keep you awake by jumping into your bed, crawling all over you and chewing your hair (ok maybe that's just Mini... a human child probably wouldn't do that), and sometimes your wee morning hours are spent cleaning up their messes.

He may look innocent...but...

Shockingly, the grossest mess came not from Sid, but from Mini - little angel-faced kittens can be quite disgusting. I'll skip the gory details, but let's just say that this story ended with me in the bathroom at 2am cleaning cat poo off of Mini's foot and praying that Sid was not about to start barfing all over the bed.

I have a vague recollection of saying something like "Alright kitty, you're coming with me. We've got problems." And Ben's eloquent response of "Hurmmmsnarfhsmmm?" before he rolled over and went back to sleep (honestly, I would have done the same thing if it had been the other way around. Plus he got up at 5:45 to walk the dog).

The things we do for the love of our pets. But how could you not? I mean... LOOK.

It just... I... GAHHHH cuteness. I think Mini understood what she had put me through, though, because she snuggled with me for the rest of the night and did not chew on my hair once. Yay.

And now, after that disgusting story about animal poop, I bet you really want to see pictures of some delicious food! Ben and I went out for a dinner date on Tuesday - we both had stressful days at work and just needed something to break the normal routine of "come home, crash on the couch with DVDs of Community and How I Met Your Mother while eating a PB&J." Yes this is my life. Such excitement.

Anyways, we hit up Blackbird Cafe for dinner - one of my favorite spots and the kickoff point for my bachelorette party! They've recently started focusing on small plates so I ordered two to sample: a squash-filled pasta with swiss chard and the "tender vegetables" (roasted broccoli and brussels sprouts with basil and parmasean). Both were out of this world. Ben had the shaved apple salad and walleye potstickers - I tried both, and the potstickers were good but the salad was AMAZING. Just goes to show that the best things in life are usually the simplest.

Walleye Potstickers

Buttercup Squash Pasta

There are probably veggies under all that cheese

After we returned home, my friend Amanda stopped by bearing cupcakes - halloween ghost cupcakes, no less! Hurray. The three of us chatted over dessert before hitting the hay at the ripe hour of 9:30pm. Remember how I said my life was thrilling? Still true.

Is it just me or does it look like something unfortunate happened to this ghost?

Oh and last weekend - was fantastic! It was the first weekend in a looong time that neither of us had any major committments, and we took full advantage. My friend Tessa came over on Friday night and the three of us had dinner at Crema, where we made the fun discovery that if you order 2 entrees you get 1/2 off a bottle of wine plus two free scoops of ice cream. I can get behind that. I can also get behind discreetly stashing the remainder of the bottle in my purse and sneaking it home. What?

I also destroyed this giant spider on the walk home

Ben had to finish some grading, so Tessa and I had a girls night at the movies! We went to see this at the Uptown theater - if you haven't seen this film I highly, highly recommend it. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time... this movie did such an amazing job of building a constant sense of foreboding - definitely a mindf**k. One of the best movies I've seen in a while - you know it's good if you are still thinking about it a week later.

So that's basically what I've been up to! Tonight I'm heading to a hot yoga class and prepping for a weekend's worth of Halloween festivities. It's almost heeeere....!