in re cats:

non-cat owners, hearing a weird noise at night: oh god, this is it for me, i'm done for. that's got to be a serial killer who climbed in the window, or a ghost, or perhaps satan himself to drag my soul to the pits of hell

cat owners, hearing a weird noise at night: god damn it scooter go to bed

This particular cat owner, hearing a weird noise at night: Look at nearest cat to see if he cares. If he doesn't care, it's nothing. If he cares, it's one of the other cats. If he cares way too much, it's an animal outside. If he hides, it's a human - oh no!

Scooter, ha. I'm naming a cat Scooter. I need moar catz. (No, I really don't.)

Quick question for my Jewish friends. My husband's ex wife just had a baby girl on the 12th and I would like to send her a congratulations card because I'm courteous and the baby never did anything to me. Is there a Hebrew salutation that is appropriate or is there anything that is not appropriate to say in a card, is there anything that I need to know about that I should or shouldn't do. Thanks!

Todd, I have often reflected that one of the reasons I like having cats is that it keeps from getting too paranoid about living alone. The dog is probably better for letting me know if there ever was an intruder or something.

That cat people thing is how I feel about having a roommate--if she's around I assume any weird noises are her. If she's not I assume it's a killer come to murder me.

And like Laura, I get annoyed by FB the company and their changes and ways to make it HARDER to see things you want...but I love that there's a semi-passive way to keep up with friends who are scattered everywhere! God knows if have lost touch with most people if we had to send regular emails catching up, instead of just seeing and commenting on FB.

The dog is probably better for letting me know if there ever was an intruder or something.

Kato is THE WORST watchdog. He doesn't give a crap if someone comes to the door. He doesn't bark at anything but other dogs. So if someone broke in and had a dog with them, he'd bark. Otherwise, he'd just be all "Hey, you here to see the humans? They're down the hall. You got any peanut butter?"

Chloe the dalmatian, OTOH, barked at EVERYTHING. A bug. The wind. At us if we walked into the living room from a different part of the house. So if anyone tried to break in, she would have barked at them. But we got so inured to her barking that we wouldn't have thought it was for a legitimate problem and we would have just ignored it.

Walter is not a barker EXCEPT when someone comes to the door (although he has been getting lax about that lately. It just occured to me in the last week or so that that he might be losing his hearing, he also ignored my vocal commands more than he used to (without looking like he is deliberately ignoring me, which he has always done but it's obvious that's what he's doing). I'm trying to be more consistent about using the hand signals that we have, fortunately, always had as part of his training) so he is actually pretty reassuring when there's a noise and he just keeps sleeping. He will bark at racoons or whatever that come into the yard, but those are technically intruders, I guess.

Damn, now I have a meeting. I just got up to thinking about today's issues!

Erin, I am a couple of generations removed from Jewish but "Mazel Tov" is always a good all-purpose general congratulatory thing to say.

Which reminds me of the greatest thing one of my ex-bosses ever said - he came in to work all filled with purpose one morning because he'd just found out that a colleague at another big important local hospital had just become a dad and he wanted to send a bouquet to the happy new parents. He had just started a master's program in medical marketing and was temporarily filled with enthusiasm about marketing and PR and monkey-grooming as good business practice (his baseline state ordinarily is Lewis Black with an MD), and so he had me call a local florist right damn quick to get those flowers out right away for maximal monkey-grooming effect.

"The florist wants to know what you want the card to say."

"To say? Jesus, I dunno."

"Mazel tov, maybe?"

"Yeah! Mazel tov! That's great!"

"The florist also wants to know how much you want to spend."

"Ehn, not more than about thirty dollars. Guy's a real prick."

Monkey-grooming!

Back when I had a samoyed as a child he chased a prowler out of our back yard one night. Also, when the neighbor kid I really didn't like climbed the fence into my backyard he jumped up with his front paws on the kid's shoulders and peed all over him (which he never did with anyone else). Good dog.

Erin, I don't think you need to come up with a specifically Jewish way to congratulate someone for the birth of a child. A warm welcome or congratulations is fine.