When I was visiting here in October for a week, Kristi and I quickly learned something interesting. Our lives – work, play, animals, even down to daily chores – are unusually compatible and complementary. Since I still have to work on East Coast time (only a couple of my clients know I’m not in Florida anymore), we’re awake and asleep at the same time; while she’s showering and getting ready for work, I’m putting coffee on, getting her lunch together and ensuring that she gets out the door on time and in one piece.

She’s working solid for hours at a time at East Union. I work in short bursts of high activity in the home office, spaced out by long periods of quiet and nonbillable work time; that means that I can easily run a load of laundry, wash dishes or sweep a floor with a few spare minutes during the day, while Kristi’s tangling with smartass 14-year-olds all day at school. She comes home tired and most of the house chores are done – and it doesn’t involve more than a few spare minutes of my day to do it.

It took us about two days in October to discover that this life-together thing had pretty good odds of working out.

Now that the office is rebuilt and I’m back to work in full, we’ve again picked up the same daily routine that we did in October. Good coffee and English muffins for breakfast, lunch packed, Tuck drugged (and probably cleaned up after), Samson’s hugged and petted, litterboxes cleaned and office floor swept. A day at work, and then a relaxing evening together on the sofa, watching TV and trying to keep Samson from climbing up on our laps. A nice life for both of us.

Meanwhile, the animals are settling out as well. The office has been declared a Samson-free zone (a nice heavy door gate fixed that), which suits Ruca just fine; she’s adopted the office wicker chair as her own. Tuck and Samson continue their negotiations. Tuck had Sam pretty well intimidated for a while, but now Sam seems to want his old status back. He’s taking less crap off Tuck, backing down less often. Tuck has yet to back down, even to the extent of blocking Sam’s passage in the hallway and instead just staring him down until Sam found another way around.

All in all, though, our four-legged Brady Bunch is working out a lot better than we thought it might. Negotiations will continue, and will probably have to be reopened from time to time, but we aren’t getting much barking, chasing or hiding – just the occasional hiss and claw. Boys will be boys, Ruca has a secure spot, and all’s well in the world.

Oh.. and speaking of Ruca, on Sunday I had a very enjoyable chance to meet more family at Kristi’s birthday party. I finally met and got to know Kristi’s sister Janelle, her cousin Emily and others. Janelle gave us a nice card (from her cat, Porcupine); we both thought it was very cute:

(BTW, the back’s mostly better. Still a slight bit stiff, but I’m definitely on the mend and feeling more like myself.)