Duke: Hello, I am Duke....
Amber: ..... and I am Amber.

Duke: You probably don't know who we are, so Amber, lets introduce ourselves to Coolkit's friends and family. Ladies first!
Amber: Hi, I am Amber; I am 8-month old young adult cat. I was found by a kitty shelter. I stayed at the kitty shelter with my elder brother Duke and several other kitties. But I wanted a home to call my own. The first time coolkit came to see us, I remember hiding behind the bookcase and did not want to see anyone (I guess everyone has a bad day and I was frightened with the new voice in the room). So, Coolkit did not even see me. She was happy playing with my brother and getting to know other of my siblings. Ah well....
Duke: I remember that visit. She (Coolkit) appeared normal and was happy to pet and play with me and other siblings. I was a bit tentative about being held, but I think I liked her. After two hours, she left. I wondered then if she would come back. And she did!!
Amber: Yes, she did, after three days, this time she had her father with her.
Duke: You (Amber) finally did come out of hiding to play with her and I could see that the two of you bonded so well.
Amber: I was scared, and still am, but she is slowly earning my trust, I loved to run around her, butting my head on her arm and have her scratch my neck, and head and tummy. I think we should keep her, what do you think, Duke?
Duke: I think so. I wonder how she really is
Amber: Did you see her sign any paper work? What is happening?

Saturday, 11/25/2006: 4PM
Duke: I see her, I see her. Meow!
Amber: I am so scared. Is this her car? Where is she taking us?
Duke: It is going to be okay
Amber: I am so frightened.

Saturday, 11/25/2006: 5PM
Duke: Is this your house?
Coolkit: No, Duke, it is your house too.
Duke: I am going to check it out. Leave Amber under the stair for a while. She is going to be scared.
Coolkit: Sweetie, this is the basement and there is the litter box.
Duke: What is upstairs, may I go?
Coolkit: All yours, go on.
Duke: This is upstairs, wow, so many windows. May I go further up? I am not waiting, I am going. You can take a look at Amber.
Coolkit: Amber, sweetie, welcome home, come lets see the place.
Amber: Whhhaaaa!!! Who are you? Get away from me. (Coolkit picks and holds me), Ohhh! it is you. I am frightened and jumpy, please give me time. I am going to find all possible places to hide first and make you come looking for me. Coolkit brought me to a huge room (living room), and I am still scared. I run and hide in the basement. She brings me back and shows me the food.... hmm Salmon, I am too worried to be thinking about food. Water.... what you want me to drink!
Duke: Say, come take a look, it is wonderful.
Amber: Where is the couch? Is there space behind that bookcase or behind that couch? What about under the dining table? How about behind that huge TV box? I need to hide.
Duke: Hide? Hmmm... behind the couch it looks nice warm and dark. But basement is your best bet. I am going there.

Coolkit: So, on and on for the next 12 hours, it was hide and seek game for me. I barely got 3 hours sleep, between worrying where they are, every so often, Duke goes down to the basement and meows soulfully as if it reminds him of the industrial place where he was found and is looking for the other siblings. We are going to have to work on this one. Amber meanwhile found all the hiding places possible. All Sunday, I had to find where Amber and Duke were, and simply pick them up. There was no hissing, no scratching me, nothing. Once they see me, they are happy to play around in the open. They are still a little skittish and not used to the noises of the heater, doorbell, me suddenly jumping up and running for something and they scamper off to their favorite hiding places. They have become very attached to my sofa and thank goodness it is a old one, they are already scratching it.... I need to get them a scratching post and we need to work on this one. They have already found the two small tennis balls (bought for Van Burren and Baxter) and enjoy playing toss, catch and tumble with them. This morning as I was preparing to leave for work, they were up and around and not hiding.... :) So, they are settling in well. They are not ready for more people right now, but give them a week and they will be fine.

But I just got back......

Just got an email from another event planner at my company. My hotel room is already been booked at the swanky Orlando World Center Marriott & something-or-the-other and I have 31 days to book my flight down to Orlando, Florida. Normally, I would be thrilled to escape the cold northeast to the warmer lattitudes. But last weeks trip to San Diego has left me a tad frazzled. I need more than 31 days to recover before I can haul me to the airport again. I am supposed to be there for a whole week, all 7 days, all 168 hours..... arggh. Before you go off and say "U are being dumb!", let me enlighten on what this trip means.

Every year, we (my company) hold our annual national (well, international, we have loads of people from all over the world coming, so why call it national, duh!, but that is another story) forum in some exotic location or the other. The last few years it has been Orlando, Florida, before that it was New Orleans, and I don't know (don't care) where it was before that.  Like I said, we get thousands of people from all over the world. Last year we had 5500 people, from 20 countries. Nice bunch, all fancy folks from the healthcare industry. Nah, I don't work in healthcare, but work in the engineering fancy applications for the company to use. It is actually quite thrilling (for a few seconds) to converse with CEO's for top hospitals in US, Doctors for John Hopkins, and Nurses and Administrators. But then we have very little in common, that they in healthcare and me in computers. The job description for me during these 'fun' 7 days will be saying hello and directing (read: herding) people and handing them their 'coveted' tote bags filled with loads of paper (WHA! When are we going paperless!! Save the trees, Read online..... sadly no one listens!!). It is a mindless job, but then everyone from the management (leave out the senior management) down to co-ops in the company do this staffing job. There are two-three other jobs that I could have done, like room checks (checking with faculty and Audio-Visual checks before the session begins), or on-site registration (glorified clerk to take payment, change peoples session, listen to gripes, tell people session is full, and every few mins aggravate my captain with "can I take a break?"), or catering (help to organize catering for the few thousands, so that they can eat). Except for the catering, I have done all other positions and the jury is is still debating on which on is better. Current verdict is neither is better than the other. I rather be..... sitting poolside with a book, or taking a walk on the beach alone or with someone nice, or having a great conversation with someone intelligent (read: no gossip.... it leaves me brain-dead), or watching a movie, or knitting, or going to the gym, or sightseeing, or hiking, or or or.... for that matter be clickitty clicking on my keyboard, developing a new application (in short working my day job).

*Sigh*, so I don't want to go, but I have to.... If you like to go instead of me..... let me know. Oh! Just remembered, last year when I flew down to Orlando (for the national forum) the airline lost my luggage..... Ah, now it is coming back.... and I hated every minute of it. Oh dear!! There is too much hostility, too much negativity, too much angst..... this cannot be good......... I MUST concentrate on getting back to my happy place..... whatever and whereever that is.

Last week was the worst week in ages. Everything went from great to this sucks!

What made it the worst week?

The flight to and back from San Diego.... in one word.... sucked. My 6AM flight from Boston to Minneapolis was cancelled, so they had booked me on a later flight out from Boston to Detroit. Oh well! Sure. But this dopey flight got delayed at Boston. Wha!  Delayed already! There was not even a cloud in the sky, not even a speck of snow, and who is flying out at 6AM in the morning from Boston, save a few Delta Shuttles to New York or Washington DC. Anyways, 30 mins late, we were flying to Detroit. But of course with the 30 min delay, I missed the connection from Detroit to San Diego. So, the rebooked flight had to be rebooked and I was finally on my way to San Diego. I had forgotten how long these flights are (not comparing to going south East Asia), but, man, I got very fidgeting and annoyed with smallest of the items. Thoughts kept wandering to the lonesome cats; what are they doing right now? Sleeping on the forbidden couch for sure! Probably the most absurd thing was that despite all this cancellation, delays and aggravation, I reached only 45 mins after the original scheduled flights AND my bags arrived with me. Whoa! Who would have thunk!

Now the flight back, we started on time, at 12:26PM on Saturday, and got into Detroit on time (in fact 15 earlier), but Detroit was a MESS (capital MESS). We arrived at 7:30PM local time, I was starving, but there was no food available, as there were quite a few flights were delayed and early birds were able to scavenge all the food. And, I was too tired to go out beyond security point (actually, more than tired, I had laptop, and a brown bag carrying a precious glass vase, a jacket, a scarf that kept falling off, and shoes with buckles........and the thought of going through security left me numb). So, sans food I climbed into the dopey flight that was 1.5 hours delayed in taking off from Detroit. Doing the math.... oh yes, I was 1.5 hours later arriving in Boston, in the small hours of the Sunday morning. Now anyone who knows me, knows, I don't do too well in the really small hours of the morning. I need the hours to read greater than 4, for me to make any sense.

I got home at those wee early hours to an empty house sans the boys.... it was disheartening on one hand, but happy that they were back home. The boys go home this week. Wah! I have come to love these boys as my kids, but of course they are 'borrowed hearts'. I cherished their stay and they are the nicest and warmest guests (till date). I left for sunny San Diego on Tuesday early morning, and it was heart breaking to leave them for 4 whole days until their real owners came to pick them up. It felt miserable, because it was the first time I was leaving anyone home alone and I knew in my heart I was coming back to an empty house. So going away on its own was bad enough..... read on.

The meeting staffing at San Diego was alright, my event planner rocks, so everything went smoothly. Ah, but well, one tragedy that left us (staffing team of 8 people) really saddened was that one of the attendee to the meeting died in the hotel room. This was the hotel second death since its opening 10 years ago and the first happened in august this year. What made this especially sad for me, was that Tuesday (Nov 1st) was also my mothers death anniversary. Sorry mum, I know you did not raise a frail kid, but, it just feels very lost.

I am back... hoping things will look up, I know and believe they will (I think). :)