...not because it's a dream come true or something sentimental like that. i can't believe it's real because IT'S A BLOG ABOUT CATS. w. t. f.
i mean, cats are great and all. i grew up with a cat; i think they're cleaner than dogs, which is nice -- but i don't own any cats now, and i'm not some crazy animal lady that spends all her time looking at photos of kittens laying with baby bunnies, or puppies dressed up in baby clothes.
i realize the existence of this blog, and eventual hundreds of posts about cats may make you think otherwise, so let's start at the beginning...
it was a challenging and crazy and ridiculous and liberating time, the beginning of college. i remember it well. i came to kansas from The Great State, expecting boring plains and lame people. on the contrary, i met a bunch of rebels from manhattan, kansas (k-state university territory) who lived in my dorm and loved being strange (<throw-up girls>...<red muffin>...<gryon> - holler). we all fell in love and became friends forever yay.
among the strange things said and done, one of them included a time when amanda and kerrie created a "house cat" for their dorm room out of a bag of flour (...looks exactly like it sounds). the three of us discovered our mutual love of cats (vs. dogs) one night while we were irritating all other girls on the floor by making various animal noises for awhile. [i'm sure amanda and kerrie will try to to deny this fact. being 18 was awesome.] anyways, cats, and animals in general, became a subtle theme in our friendship over the next couple of years.
let's go back a few years and visit little kate. i loved collecting things, was [am] very sentimental, loved reading and writing, and had an affinity for animals and music. little kate loved reading, but for some reason, whenever the scholastic book fair came to school each year, i didn't buy any books - only posters (anyone else?? anyone?). in late elementary school, i am sure it was posters of tye dye peace signs or giant yellow happy faces and things like that. but in early elementary school, it was this:
\another thing to know about kate: i also like to keep everything, for about ten years, before then going through ten years of shit and throwing it all away. this includes every drawing, every letter, every tiny gift, and included every frickin' piece of paper - assignments, notes, projects - since grade school.
SO, when i happened upon this kitten-teddy-bear poster of mine tucked away in my home closet one summer away from college, i knew i couldn't just throw it away.
amanda couldn't believe the gift when i gave it to her. she was SO happy, she loved it so much. it was actually a little weird how much she liked it. so i decided from there on out to only give her gifts that had something to do with felines.
and thus begins: "Amanda and Kate: The Cat Tales".
(i just made that up. not gonna lie, kinda love it)
anyways, we hope you enjoy this hilarious chronicle of six years worth of the most ridiculous and absurd cat-related gifts, emails, videos, text message exhanges, etc. that amanda and i could try to one-up eachother with.
while it's quite strange to explain to others, this part of our friendship has been a constant joy and way to stay connected across many miles and years. love you, girl. (how do you feel about being called "Cat-manda"?)
love,
kate
p.s. i take all the credit for the name "incatuation". GENIUS.
