cat's gonna starve

Angst has a peculiar habit of waiting until I get home from work to become ravenously hungry and eat all his food then beg for more.  The theory is that Mister is so scary when I'm not here to protect him that Angst can't possibly risk coming out of hiding to eat.

Well, he's going to need to get over that or he'll be a hungry, hungry kitty by the time I get home this time.  Tomorrow morning (and by that I mean a little more than 4 hours from now) I'll be rising and shining in place of an absent sun to gather my things and head to the airport.  Mister and I are pretty sure that at some point, probably after the sun goes down, Angst is going to start bugging Mister to either let me out of the bedroom or, if he remembers me going out the front door, to let me back in.  The way he does this is by walking into Mister's room (having summoned all his courage to try to find me - what a devoted kitty), squeaking urgently until Mister stops what he's doing and follows the cat.  Angst then leads him to whichever door he's supposed to open to 'free' me.  He did this the other day when I didn't get home from work early enough to protect him from a thunderstorm.  Mister let him into the bedroom to see that I wasn't there and apparently, this was quite shocking to the poor little bugger.

I think he's in for a traumatic few days.  Hungry, too, since he wants me to believe Mister never feeds him.

I, on the other hand, anticipate an absolutely fabulous next few days.  I also anticipate that it will be just as devastating to leave as it always is, despite that I know I will miss Mister and Angst, and despite that Northern California is supposedly quite different from SoCal, where I have the more recent experience [of never ever wanting to leave].  I am brimming with excitement, looking forward to all the wonders that await me on the opposite coast.  I'm not completely sure how I expect to get to sleep because I'm pretty amped up right now and I still have to pack anyway.

Fortunately for me, Mister slept ultra late today so he's also not remotely sleepy and has agreed to stay up until 4 to make sure I get my booty out of bed and out the door.  I am terrified that my weeks and weeks of sleep deprivation will catch up tonight and I will wake up at noon tomorrow without an outside force acting upon me to prevent that.

To reward him (and feed him and keep the excessive pizza purchases at bay), I made a huge pot of pasta tonight.

Pasta Primavera with Fresh Veggies and Herbs from The Vegan Table makes a tremendous amount of food - how could you not with 12 oz pasta combined with a veggie ragout of 2 zucchinis, 2 peppers, 4 carrots, 5 tomatoes, and 10 asparagus spears (as well as all the seasoning)?  It always occurs to me after I've cut up the veggies that I could probably get away with halving this recipe, but this time around, I didn't want to.  I wanted there to be ample leftovers for Mister's meals.

Here are the rest of Mister's meals this weekend.  Except the Tempt Chocolate Fudge ice cream.  He'd better leave at least some of that for me....

Anyway, big pots of pasta make Mister happy, so for our last dinner together until Wednesday, I wanted something special.  With all those veggies to chop, it definitely was "special" and a bit time-consuming, but the results are delicious.

Beautiful, too, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, I'm off to shove clothes, books, and other essentials into a bag or two and try to get at least a three-hour nap before heading to the airport.  I will try to check in, but the laptop is way too big, bulky, and heavy to take with me, so I'm at the mercy of what I can find (although I'm pretty sure my sister will have hers).  Either way, I'll be keeping my little owl journal and my camera close at hand, so you can count on a nice picture parade and possibly multi-part story when I return.

Depending on whether I get treated like the rockstar I am, I may also have some posts for the other blog...