I am working, at the moment, with a big black cat who used to be an overly-long-yet-still-skinny black kitten asleep in my lap. He has utterly ruined me for the rest of the cat world.

I'm in love with black cats.

His fur is silky beyond compare and shines in lamplight. He has tiny tufts of white fur at the epicenter of his little ears. Even his nose is black, so when he closes his eyes and curls up on a black blanket, he disappears.

He has the power of invisibility.

We were at PetSmart buying ridiculously expensive prescription cat food for this little black cat who almost died last year of urinary blockage (remember that??), and they had four little black kittens of varying sizes in one of those stand-up adoption cages.

We swooned. Even Beloved, who says NO every time I ask if we can get Kizzy a friend. (And I don't really argue that hard, because there is peace in my home now and I'm not sure if peace would reign if we challenged Kizzy's ownership of Chateau Travolta.)

But the three of us stood for ten minutes before the four little black kittens and poked our fingers through the wire to touch their little furry black toes and fawned over their perfect black noses and noticed how when they curled up on top of each other and closed their eyes, they disappeared into a pillow of silky black fur.

I wanted THEM ALL.

How cool is it that while all cats are gray in the dark, black cats can actually disappear? Who else among us has such superpowers?

"He's in the forest. Behind my house."

We have had the hermit crab twins, Charlie and Sebastian, since the little angel turned two. Never in a million years did I think they would live so long. Guess what? If you take care of your hermit crabs properly, they can live up to 40 years in captivity, with an average lifespan of 15 years. Charlie and Sebastian are at least eight and a half. Lord help me, these crabs may live to see the little angel graduate from high school.

Unless the mites get them first.

I have noticed the mites before, but I didn't realize they are such a big deal. Apparently, left unchecked, they can kill the crabs. This week the little angel and I have noticed Charlie coming out and attempting to scale his way out of the tank when we are in her playroom doing homework. Charlie is not shy, but this is new behavior. I felt kind of bad for a while, like maybe he wanted to run free. I even had an entire inner monologue with him about how he was too far from a temperate zone and even if I released him into the lake he would be toast in a month. 

I know, I know.

I just went over to Beloved and made a plea for a vigourous scrubbing and hermit crab bathing session this evening. He rolled his eyes and said we need new substrate and I bought the wrong kind last time. This does not surprise me, because no matter what I buy on my own, from ripe avocados to hermit substrate to gym socks, I buy the wrong kind in his opinion. It is a running joke. It used to really stress me out, this buying of the wrong kind, then I realized, well, if he is really concerned, he will do his own damn shopping. It is not like his legs are broken. 

This is the key to a lasting marriage.

Anyway, I kept poking at him and whining about our duties as hermit crab guardians (something I take more seriously every year these crazy huge bastards hang on) and so he has promised to buy new hermit crab whatever so we can SAVE THE CRABS FROM THE MITE ARMY this very evening.

I only hope we're not too late.

Last night I made my best friend meet me twenty miles closer to my house than she originally intended because on Saturday, I broke my ass. Okay, I don't know if I broke it, because I can't get in to my doctor until Thursday, but I fell backwards on tile and bounced, so let's just say it together: OW OW OW OW OW. Also, I really hate driving right now.

I tell you this partly in an obvious bid for sympathy (hello, I'm supposed to be training for another half-marathon, not trying to type with my butt on three pillows) and also partly to maybe explain the following, in that about 80 percent of my brain is thinking about the pain in my butt at all times, leaving only 20 percent left to process actual thought.

Her: Have you friended your fifth-grade teacher on Facebook?

Me: What? Why?

Her: She's, like, awesome on there.

Me: My mom was friends with her ... sister? Cousin? That's crazy, since they didn't live in the same town or anything. What was the teacher's name? Martha?

Her: Mary.

Me: I think her cousin's name was Martha.

(pause)

Me: Oh, wait. Maybe that was Jesus.

Some friends and I read Matthew Quick's THE GOOD LUCK OF RIGHT NOW this month. One of the quirky things about the book (one of many) is that it's primarily told through letters from the protagonist to Richard Gere. THE GOOD LUCK OF RIGHT NOW isn't my favorite Matthew Quick book (I love, love, love FORGIVE ME, LEONARD PEACOCK), but the main character's striking observations about people and humanity linger with me still.

I wondered aloud on social media if Richard Gere actually knew he was in the book, and the author tweeted me back today. 

@ritaarens We sent him a copy.

— Matthew Quick (@MatthewQuick21) June 12, 2014

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

 I've spent all day wondering what the hell Richard Gere thought when he opened the novel. I mean, seriously, what is THAT like? 

"My blog is my spirit animal." OMG.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPFCtD4IO_4] 

Today I had lunch plans for the second time in 2014. So exciting, this leaving the house during the workday thing. I hopped in Vicki, turned the ignition ... and nothing. Not even those little clicking noises that tell you all hope is not lost.

Pffft. My friend picked me up so we could still see each other and we talked about how like, yeah, I can handle this. (Beloved is out of town and has been during the week since basically the end of January). So FUCK YEAH WOMAN POWER.

Vicki was in the garage, but I remembered how when I was in college and won a trip to the Bahamas at a sit-through-our-time-share-pitch-and-win-fabulous-prizes meeting and we drove 24 hours from Iowa to the tip of Florida and left the car and when we got back three days later the car was dead and surrounded on all sides and we begged some guy with a jump pack to bail us out after freaking out. And Beloved looked at me with that face he makes when confronted with my spectacular lack of common sense and asked, "Why didn't you just roll the car back?"

So today! I knew what to do.

I rolled Vicki back and out of the garage, and my neighbor came over and gave me a jump, then I left the little angel jumping on a different neighbor's trampoline and drove to the auto parts store. He took one look at Vicki (which is disgustingly filthy because I was going to wash her tonight but OH BEST-LAID PLANS) and groaned. "A convertible," he said, and I knew this meant bad things. Yes, the battery is located inside the wheel well and you have to put it on a lift and take the tire off to get to it. Oh, and by the way every nearby mechanic is closed because it's six o'clock.

I bought the battery anyway, thinking if I had it with me then all I had to do was beg the one still-open mechanic in town to throw me a bone.

Except I forgot myself and shut off Vicki when I got to the auto parts store.

So the man got the little jump pack, but that was dead. Then he got his own car and gave me the second jump in a half hour and then I drove all the way across town.

The Firestone people took one look at Vicki and said, "Oh. A convertible." And I said, "Please, please. This is the only way I have to get home to my child who is hungry." Because that was the most guilt- ridden way I could think to say it. And they told me it will take an hour and almost $100 and I was all HEY, WHO CARES?

And now I'm here in Firestone.

In the past week or so I've written on BlogHer about Gwyneth Paltrow telling us it's harder to be a movie-star parent than an office-worker parent, things you'll miss while spring cleaning, why I really didn't like The Muppets Most Wanted, whether I'd save Beloved or the little angel if they were both hanging off a cliff, and what Fred Phelps saw when he died -- but by far the best comment I got this week was on a post I wrote about struggling with Beloved's travel.

The post was shared on BlogHer's Facebook page and the comment appeared there and got pulled over to BlogHer via Livefyre. When I went to read it, I realized the commenter probably didn't realize I've worked full-time for BlogHer since 2009. But still. Hilarious. Scroll down. 

I've heard rumors some songbirds are returning, but I hadn't heard any of them until yesterday. It's such a bad idea for them to come back in February when there's a polar vortex going on, but it's funny how you don't realize how silent winter is until a gaggle of loudmouth birds set up shop in the pine tree outside your window. And your little black cat sees them and races around the house like he just shot up crack. And you look up from the golf ball you've been using to massage your plantar fascia because it's pissed at you from too many treadmill miles instead of running outside, but you can't run outside because of frostbite and falling to your death on black ice.

So anyway, I heard birds. 

And though I know the East Coast is setting up for another snow dump that might threaten Beloved's return to Kansas City, at least I got to tell him about this:

I think we might have to go outside and play, according to DJ Nibbles.