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I finally managed to snap a picture of the little maniacal furball in our house.

As Sara noted, he looks very genteel, but looks can be deceiving. He’s either up and running all over the place or passed out, and he doesn’t pass out before going through an elaborate settling in ritual that usually results in bodily harm. Or rather, harm to my bodily.

When he snuggles, he’s heavenly. But he’ll attack me via flying leap and I have scratch marks all over me. I’m too embarrassed to admit that I’m getting regular beatings from a 3-pound kitten, so I’ve just been telling everyone that I’ve been in a knife fight.

We had another busy weekend, so I decided to take the day off of work on Friday to hang out with the dudes, since the baby didn’t have school. We mostly chilled out all day but did manage to check out the Alex Ross exhibit at The Warhol, which was just so, so rad. You should go.

However, I realized on Sunday night that I probably should have taken Monday off instead, since the husband and I had to be out really late. The husband and two of his friends started this…musical group? Band? I’ve also seen the term production trio thrown about. I’m not sure what to call them. But it’s the three of them and a bunch of synthesizers and keyboards and doohickeys and whatnot and they make dance music. They call themselves Pittsburgh Track Authority and things have really taken off for them in the past couple of months, with their tracks getting signed for release by dance music labels. Here’s one of their most recent compositions:

They had their debut live performance on Sunday at the Shadow Lounge as part of the VIA festival wrap-up party. They were all pretty nervous about it in the weeks leading up to it, since it was a week after the main festival and on a Sunday night.

As it turned out, a TON of people showed up and I don’t think I’m biased in saying that PTA’s performance was the highlight of an all-around fantastic evening. They were preceded by Smooth Tutors and ELQ and followed by Dam Funk. People were dancing the whole time, but seemed to really get into it for PTA. I was so, so impressed with their music and was so incredibly proud of the husband for getting to experience that after so much hard work and so many setbacks. Plus, you know, it’s always exciting to get a post-performance kiss from the hot guy on stage. 😉

Since I knew we were going to be out so late, I had to get lunches ready for me and the baby and decided to bake some cookies while I was at it. I made a batch of Martha Stewart’s pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing (going to write about them for Foodie Parent tomorrow) and toted some of them to the show in my uber-housewife covered pan/container thing that I got from The Cake Pan Lady. Frank, who was in town for the show, cracked up at me bringing treats to the dance music show, like, “Here boys! Brought you some goodies! Have a good electronic music performance! Make sure you use the potty beforehand!” It might have seemed absurd but let me tell you those cookies were gone by the end of the night, devoured by the performers and various attendees with much groaning in delight.

About five years ago, the three of us got the urge to add a pet to our family. We wanted a dog, but realized that we weren’t really the best family for one. We’re gone a lot of the time and wouldn’t be able to give a dog the attention and maintenance that it needs. So we decided to get a cat. I was skeptical, because I’ve never particularly liked cats. But we adopted Greedo and he’s been a beloved member of our household ever since.

The past couple of months, the husband and I talked about maybe getting a kitten, but were very hesitant because we didn’t want to change the household dynamics or Greedo’s wonderful personality. But on Friday, I absentmindedly followed a link to PetFinder from a friend on Twitter and started poking around at the cats up for adoption just to pass my time on my lunch break. I came across a boy kitten, only 10 weeks old, who looked like what we imagined Greedo would have looked like when he was just a wee thing.

I informed the husband that we would need to go to the Humane Society cat adoption at the PetSmart in the North Hills after work.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because that’s where the kitten is,” I said.

“What kitten?”

“Our kitten. That we’re getting. Tonight.”

The husband was resistant, sure that Greedo would be traumatized. However, when he got to hold our kitten for the first time, a grin full of defeat spread across his face.

We took him to my mother-in-law’s house first so everyone there could see him and delighted in watching this fuzzball of energy bound around the room, curious about everything and purring constantly. My mom brought the baby there after his piano lesson and I got the extremely cool experience of surprising my kid with a new pet.

When we took the kitten home, Greedo was not excited. There was some hissing and some big tails before we isolated the kitten in the bathroom per the shelter’s instructions. The husband was being all doomy and declared that they would never get along and the kitten would have to go back. The baby started crying, agreeing with the husband’s assessment. “Look, guys. They’ve only known each other five minutes. They just have to get used to each other.”

We didn’t get to play with the new kitten that much during his first few days home. Friday and Saturday nights we were out at the VIA festival, not getting home until the very wee hours of the morning and having to get up at 8:30 for soccer both days.

Saturday afternoon, I had to take a nap if I was going to make it through another night of music and another early morning soccer game, and took the kitten into the spare room with me so that he could be isolated from Greedo but not cooped up and lonely. I woke up from a delicious nap to find the kitten snuggled up against me. He felt me stir and nuzzled into my neck, tickling me a little bit and just generally melting my heart.

“Greedo is going to have to get over his hang-ups about the kitten because I’m pretty sure we just bonded,” I declared.

Once Greedo had an opportunity to watch the ridiculous antics of the kitten as he hopped sideways and zoomed on tiny legs and jumped from tall heights with little to no regard for his physical well-being, he seemed to appreciate how entertaining the kitten was and began to slowly warm up. Which is good, because I’m in love.

He’s named Florian after one of the members of Kraftwerk. Don’t you think of 1970s proto-techno German electronic music when you see kittens?