MOSCOW ULTRA MIDNIGHT SHADOW

Moscow Ultra Midnight Shadow is my cat. She likes the streets of New York as much as I do, although she likes to eat bits of pizza and bagel off the sidewalk, and I prefer to buy them. 

We call her Midge. She likes to attack any toes that dangle off the side of the bed while you're sleeping. She is literally the monster under the bed.  

And Now, A Communique From Nat The Rat, Checking In From The Mall, Where I Just Ate Panda Express:

Hi! How are things, you ask? Things are good! Like I said, String Bean Chicken and a large Diet Pepsi! I'm in between marathon job interviews today, on this lovely foggy Portland Tuesday, and it occurred to me that this might be fun. Smash-style super quick blog post don't overthink this Natalie. Let's see what all I can come up with to talk about in the next 10 minutes that I have before I have to jet!

Well, this is how ballet is going. Ballet is going so great. Oh gosh. I think the one thing I can definitely say for Portland is that it is NOT letting me down on this healthy extra curricular activities front, and to that I say THANK GOD. Something needs to be rad, and my ballet class is rad. I can't manage to remember how to convincingly pull off a pirouette, but I did finally get to a place where my fifth position and I are friends again, and that feels like something. This is what it looks like when I go to ballet. Clogs for the drive, leather ballet shoes for the tendus, stretchy layers for the plies, and a foam roller for the hamstrings. Not pictured: the kid who will be glued to this iPad/headphones set the entire 90 minutes I'm in class, because he is a patient dreamboat, and I have a pure and abiding testimony of the loveliness of screen time. Amen. 

Mirror selfies are still the raddest. Speaking of which! Alex! 

Alex moved back to Oregon and now all we are missing is Brother Blake. I keep asking her to give me eyelashes for free but she keeps insisting I have to pay for them myself and anyway, one of these days eventually I will have killer eyelashes. I'm banking on it. 

Oh, right right, I had a birthday. October is birthday month at our house. I got too old, Huck got too old, the whole thing was a mess, but my family surprised me with this hideously PERFECT DREAM of a birthday spread and did I get all choked up? 

I did. 

Huck's birthday was what he called his "BEST DAY YET," but then immediately after the following day he proclaimed it his "WORST LIFE EVER" when I made him eat a bite of the minestrone soup I'd just made. So, there are a few inconsistencies to being eight, it turns out. 

It was Halloween the other day, right? So this year I am super proud of myself because I have WATCHED THE SCARY MOVIES. I haven't willingly seen a scary anything in about 10 years (one of the benefits of being a grown up, I've decided: I don't have to ride scary rides, and I don't have to see scary movies, AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME), but this week I watched The Witch, Halloween (HALLOWEEN!!) and Uh, The Haunting of Hill House which is on Netflix and you NEED TO WATCH but do it all in one go and with all of the lights on and try googling spoilers first if you are a scaredy cat because it makes ALL the difference and the last episode of this one will make you cry ugly cries and then surprisingly feel like the whole world is just the sweetest little place. 

Okay now I have to go. Let's make this fun and have you all tell me what scary movies did you watch this Halloween and am I finally becoming brave now that I'm coming up on 40 and WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE THIS IS A SPOILER FRIENDLY ZONE FOR ALL US CHICKENS! K byeeee!