hip, hip.

The thought of pulling a dead cat out of my HVAC did not excite me. Tuesday night around 8 p.m. I was laying in bed reading when I heard this awful meooow! seemingly from directly beneath me. Miles perked up and jumped down from the bed. All during the night I kept hearing this cat and it didn't seem to move at all. On the north side of my house in the crawlspace is my HVAC (heating, ventilating, air conditioning) and I just knew that somehow a cat had managed to get into it and was trapped. I've been watching too many Rescue 911 episodes on YouTube lately, and in my mind I was already trying to decide how I would save this cat. Besides, if I ignored it and it died, the smell would be atrocious and I would just feel bad for doing nothing.

The next day, Nate walked around my house to try to see what the problem was. He discovered a hole at my front porch and another where the screened vent had been pushed away from the base of my house. Apparently all the neighborhood cats that roam freely (the reason why Miles stays indoors) have made my crawlspace their little winter getaway. This is no bueno for many reasons so we'll be figuring out a way to block up those holes in the very near future.

My boss, Cheryl, turned 50 today. Sometimes I give her a hard time because she's been working at LW longer than I've been alive. But we think she's great and we got here early to decorate her office with yellow streamers. I'm sure she appreciated it very much. :) For lunch our preteen team took her to Pei Wei. I don't think I've ever eaten at Pei Wei, but I was very glad to find they have pad thai. Jeff was sneaky and scheduled a "meeting" for 1:30 in the conference room. The rest of us showed up at 1:25, then we surprised Cheryl with a cookie party. Jeff read an ode I wrote in honor of the celebration.

Jeff decorating Cheryl's office

An Ode to Cheryl on Her 50th Birthday

Ms. Cheryl, excuse us; we've something to say.
We've planned and we've prepped for your most special day.
We wanted to tell you our own special way
So here it goes, rhyming—a hip, hip, hooray!
Big 50! Big 5-0! We'll deck out your door.
Is that what the L* in your middle name's for?

A Braves fan, a traveler, a passenger by train:
Newfoundland to Scotland … where next, the Ukraine?
They say that at your age, some things start to strain,
So maybe for 60 we'll buy you a cane!
But really, we're happy. We've baked up some dough.
We're glad you were born those five decades ago.

This ode's for you, Cheryl, enjoy our grand cheer.
We hope you love 50. It will last a whole year!

*The Roman numeral for 50 is L … no one got the joke.

Happy Birthday, Cheryl. :)