Me and the QC

Quinn Cummings (whose HYSTERICAL book you can buy at her blog, http://qcreport.blogspot.com) answered my question! Here it is:

Emily
Emily asks:

Do you prefer dogs or cats? Does Daughter prefer dogs or cats? How old is Lulabelle? When did you get your first pet? Oh, and can I ask about tea? What is your favorite brand? Favorite flavor?

In my mind I'm completely 50/50 on the whole cat/dog thing, but the reality is that I prefer cats, even though they eventually make my lungs offer up the special noise. My reason for liking cats slightly better isn't even slightly emotionally healthy, but I think it's because cats make you work a little harder. Our dog loves me for simply having the incredibly good judgement to be me; I suspect the cat likes us well enough, but doesn't get messy about it. If we fell down and were knocked unconscious, she would eat us. She'd wait a couple of days, but she'd do it. I always liked the people who weren't too enamored of me. Daughter is, far and away, a cat person, but that's more about the hope that each new cat will allow her to put American Girl clothes on them.

We think Lu is about six. I remember when she was found as a mere slip of a kitten living under someone's car. They had her for a year during which time I think their second child was born, who is now six. Or maybe he was born before then. Probably. Maybe. She's middle-aged, much to her chagrin.

I was born into a house which already had a dog and a cat. The dog was half coyote and half German Shepherd, which should have led to all sorts of "The dingo ate my baby!" moments. In fact, the Shepherd part of her brain took over and Ginger decided I was her charge from the first day I came home; if I squeaked, she'd run and bark at the nurse to get to work. The cat was an orphan who was probably born the same day I was, and was brought into the house when we were a week old. The way my mother describes it, first she'd feed me my formula, then Pooh the kitten would get her formula and then Ginger the dog would get whatever was left over. Perhaps not the ideal, but each lived well into her teens and I'm still here.

Tea? Oh, it's green tea. It's any green tea I can lay sweaty palms on, unless it's white tea. I wish I was fancy enough to have favorites, but all I know is that once I got over my suspicion that green tea is just repurposed lawn clippings, I grew to love it in an unwholesome way and now cannot be without it. Don't like the overly cute kinds, though; jasmine is a fine additional flavor, "Wild Tropical Berry" is not.

Her book is HYSTERICAL (did I say that?). I mean, laugh-out-loud, I cannot read this in public, high-sterical. I have read it three times, in rapid succession. My father, who turned me on to her blog after watching The Goodbye Girl (in which she plays the daughter), is now reading it. I want it back. Promptly.