Happy Anniversary to the Cat Loving Couple that put the GLO in GLOGIRLY

WAFFLES:  Hey Boss, what's it like to be an old married couple? 

KATIE:  How would I know, Waffles?

WAFFLES:  Because you're old and we're a couple?

KATIE:  Waffles, you're on thin ice. 

WAFFLES:  Ice? But it's not even winter. 

KATIE:  Waffles, today is Glogirly and Gloman's wedding anniversary. THEY'RE the only couple around here. You and I are not a couple. Understand?

WAFFLES:  Are you sure? Maybe we could elope or something.

KATIE:  Waffles, we can't elope.

WAFFLES:  You mean like melons?

KATIE:  *sigh*

WAFFLES:  Is a wedding anniversary the same as a Gotcha Day? Did they gotcha each other? Like from the shelter?

KATIE:  I'm pretty sure they didn't get each other at the shelter. That's not really how it works.

WAFFLES:  They got YOU at the shelter though, right? Isn't it your Gotcha Day too? Will you tell me the story again, Boss? Will you?

KATIE:  Fine, Waffles. If you promise to behave. No food stealing, no fur sniffing and no meowing back.

WAFFLES:  Got it, Boss. Food, fur, meow.


Once upon a time...

KATIE:  I bet you didn't know that this is the photo that started it all. It was the picture we used on our very first blog header way back when I started every blog post with, "Hi Everyone, Katie here."

I was an anniversary present. A nice man with kind brown eyes and a deep voice adopted me for someone he said was very, very special. This special someone had no idea what he was doing. It was going to be a HUGE surprise. He'd been hinting around ... telling her that he was working on her anniversary 'kit.'

She was thinking maybe a kit for washing her car, or a kit of accessories for her iPod or something.

Little did she know, 'kit' was short for kitten.

It was love at first sight.

Gloman's given Glogirly some very special anniversary gifts over the years. He's always really creative and silly about how he gives her presents. Sometimes he'll hide cards by her toothbrush or tucked inside her makeup bag. One year he hid a beautiful watch in the refrigerator next to the milk and butter.

But the most special gift of all was a little black and white kitten with a purple bow around her neck and a tiny little tag that read, "Happy Anniversary."  

The Story Behind the Story

Over the years we've shared the hopelessly romantic story of how Glogirly and Gloman met. ...and how they came to be Glogirly and Gloman. If you're new to the blog and like a sappy love story, turn off the Lifetime channel and click the story link below. If you already know the story and want to read it again, well that's your problem. 

It's proof that love is everywhere. 

And when you least expect it, love might just tap you on the shoulder.

The Story of Glogirly & Gloman

On the Road with Waffles & Katie: A Vacation Birthday

KATIE:  Waffles! Wake up! It's here!

WAFFLES:  It's here, Boss! It's here!  

KATIE:  That's what I said, Waffles. It's here!

WAFFLES:  Uh... what's here again?

KATIE:  I'll give you a hint.

WAFFLES:  It's my BIRTHDAY? COOL!!! What'd you get me, Boss? A bucket of extra crispy? Original recipe?

KATIE:  No, Waffles. As shocking as this may sound, it's not always about you. It's Gloman's birthday! 

WAFFLES:  We need to get him a present! Do you think he'd like a wand toy? 

KATIE:  Not unless Nikon makes wand toys. 

WAFFLES:  I heard him talking about a 400 millimeter Nikon thing. That must be a REALLY BIG wand toy!

KATIE:  Waffles, I have a better idea. I think you know what Gloman likes the most. 

WAFFLES:  You mean even more than those Nikon millimeter things? 

Dear Gloman,

Happy Birthday from your FAVORITE cat. Thank you for adopting me and bringing me home to your girl. Thank you for our long conversations about life, love and Waffles. Thank you for understanding me, watching out for me and for the extra treats when Waffles isn't looking. 

Most of all, thank you for loving me.

~Katie

Deer Gloman,

Happy Birthday from your EXTRA FAVORITE cat. Thank you for always having room for me on your lap. Thank you for playing fetch with me, giving me my early morning crack, and fixing my broken wand toys.  I'm sorry about all the singing... if you tell me your favorite song, I'll try to learn it for you. 

Thank you for calling me your little buddy.

~Waffles

TODAY'S RECAP

It's Someone's Birthday!

Today's our last day here at our condo castle on the lake and it's a very special day. We're celebrating Gloman's birthday! Waffles has been working on a new song and I'm trying to find enough earplugs for everyone. 

We heard it SNOWED back home yesterday! No snow up here, but the lake was so cold the waves crashing into the shore were filled with big shards of ice. It looked REALLY cool (and really COLD!) and sounded like a cross between a giant martini shaker filled with ice and huge ocean waves crashing in. It was super loud and pretty scary at first. But once we got used to it, we all had fun watching the waves out our windows... while Gloman braved the cold, camera in hand.

Glogirly says it's funny how we've adapted so quickly and are doing so many of the same things we do at home. It's almost like we did a copy/paste on the computer. Copy all of us, our toys, food, daily routines and paste them into this new place. Once we're home, we're going to share some of the tips and tricks we've found helpful to make a feline-friendly vacation like this possible.

Need to Catch Up?

If you've missed our previous On the Road with Waffles & Katie posts, we've DVR'd them for you:

1.  Preview: Wait, Did You Say FAMILY Vacation?

2.  Day One: Caturday Road

3.  Day Two: Our New Digs

4.  Day Three: Fun by the Fire & Synchronized Loafing

GIVEAWAY!
Whisker Stress Free Dish from Trendy Pet

We are LOVING this awesome new feeder designed especially for cats and we think you'll love it too! 

Enter to win your own HERE.

What Do You Love About YOUR CatDaddy?

WAFFLES:  The girls probably think we're kissing and all but I'm not a baby, I'm TWO whole years old. Me and Gloman, we're just chillin' in our mancave. 

Conversations With a Cat Daddy

KATIE:  Life used to be so simple, Gloman. Remember when we'd have our quiet conversations about life, love and catnip? But now every time we talk, there's that orange cat climbing up your back...just itching to horn in on our *moment.*  He's there right now, isn't he?

KATIE:  I knew it. Gloman, you praise me for my patience, my reserve, my feline etiquette. But the food stealing, the butt sniffing and the chase scenes... they just never stop.  Did you know that yesterday, Waffles actually stole a treat right out of my mouth??? RIGHT OUT OF MY MOUTH! And then he had the audacity to lick my dish.

KATIE:  I know where that tongue's been and it's got NO business being in MY dish.

WAFFLES:  Bwaaaaaaah!!!! What about my tongue???

PetBox Giveaway!

Enter to win your very own goody-box from our friends at PetBox. Stufffed full of the good stuff (and TOYS,) you don't want to miss this one!


ENTER PETBOX GIVEAWAY HERE

CatMan Sunday with Katie & Gloman

Hi everyone, Katie here.

It's CatMan Sunday. Although it's no secret I'm not exactly a lap cat, (...I'm not easy like Waffles) Gloman and I share a very special bond. We have long conversations about life, love and wand toys. He understands me like no other. 

Waffles couldn't care less about meaningful conversations. He's just a common lap whore.

What kind of lap cat are YOU?  Or aren't you?

P.S. As a matter of fact, Yes. Gloman DOES wear shorts in the winter.

The Gloman Chronicles: Day 3

Dear Glogirly,

Katie here. I hope you're having a good time at your cat conference thing. As promised, I'm continuing to monitor Waffles' behavior for you. 

As of 0800 hours, he's eaten my food 13 times. I don't need to remind you – he's messy. Hence I'm forced to clean up the carnage myself. 

Maybe if Gloman understood how to more evenly disperse the food inside the dish, we'd avoid these flying cannonballs of chicken pate Waffles shoots off the dining level of the cat tower. But the learning curve is steep. 

And another thing...

Everyday after the Gloman leaves for the office, I've caught Waffles displaying inappropriate contact with Black Cat. 

VERY inappropriate contact.

The Gloman Chronicles: Day 2

Dear Glogirly,

With only two days into your absence, I'm continuing to monitor Waffles' activities.

So far he's eaten my food 7 times. Four of these times, he horned in on my dish WHILE I was eating, exhibiting blatant disregard for common dining etiquette.

My plan to send him to the office with Gloman was looking promising.  Especially considering our usual cat sitter works at the same office AND she actually LIKES the orange terrorist. Surely Gloman cold handle a simple pass-off.

With the carrier strategically positioned by the steps leading down to the garage, I was certain I could lure him in for swift and easy transport. 

Sadly, my plans were thwarted and the whole thing ended up with another incident of inappropriate touching. 

A Special Gift For Our Cat-Loving Cameraman

Hi everyone, Katie here.

Waffles and I gave Gloman a very special gift recently. Many of you know he's rarely seen without a camera hanging from his neck. Well, we found the purrfect t-shirt for this cat-loving cameraman.

The illustration on the t-shirt even features one of the very cameras that Gloman owns. So he thought it would be fun to take a photo of his new favorite t-shirt with his favorite camera and his favorite cat. 

HEY!  I said FAVORITE cat, Waffles. 

Wait until he finds out you've been touching his shirt AND his camera.

This cool t-shirt is one of our many fabulous finds on Etsy. Glogirly ordered it from the CatsSecret Etsy Shop and it came all the way from Russia. Given Gloman's Russian blood, it made the gift even MORE special.

But to be clear, I'm STILL his favorite cat. I mean, my real name IS Katerina after all. If Waffles were Russian, we'd be calling him Вафли. Try to say THAT 10 times fast.

...ok, just try to say it ONCE!

~Katie 

This is not a sponsored post, review or anything of the sort. We were just so thrilled with this t-shirt, we HAD to share it with you!

Triple Gotcha Day: Gloman, Glogirly & Katie

Hi everyone, Katie here.

It's a special day here at the Townhouse. It's a TRIPLE Gotcha Day. 

Eleven years ago today, Glogirly gotcha'd Gloman and Gloman gotcha'd Glogirly when they pledged their forever love and married. That's a double-gotcha. 

Eight years ago today, Gloman adopted me for his girl. I was a surprise anniversary gift. Better than diamonds and chocolate if you ask me. That's makes it a triple-gotcha.

So in honor of my girl and her Gloman, I'm going to tell you their story. It's no secret the two are silly romantics. And the angels were looking out for the two of them one random September day sixteen years ago. So why am I not telling you about MY gotcha day? Well, I figure this story has got to be worth a few extra pounds of salmon in my dish. And salmon speaks.

It All Began With a Bed

Glogirly met Gloman by accident one September day sixteen years ago. She was moving and needed a bed. The house she was moving out of was teeny tiny and the only way her bed was coming with her was through the upstairs window, out onto the roof, and down onto the grass. She decided no bed was worth that.

Her friend, Nettie, knew of her plight and offered up an extra bed she was storing in her garage. Glogirly happily accepted. All she had to do was stop by Nettie's duplex on moving day and pick up the bed.

The Meet 
Nettie told her that her upstairs housemate would be home so she could get into the garage where the bed would be waiting for her. Glogirly arrived at the duplex with the two-men-and-a-truck she'd hired to help. She climbed the steps up to the door marked 3440 and rang the bell.

When the door opened, there stood Gloman. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and Glogirly was looking deep into the friendliest brown eyes she'd ever seen. She said something clever like "I'm here for the bed." All she could think of was how cute and charming this Gloman person was. And his voice...oh, his voice made her heart melt and her knees weak. She had to pull herself together just to make it back to the garage.

As Gloman opened the garage door, she made small talk, attempting to be smart and funny about the bed and anything else she could think of. Deep down she was terribly sad though. You see, Glogirly knew that she would be moving yet again later that month. But this time she wasn't just moving across town. This time she'd be moving to Detroit, Michigan. And Detroit was a long, long way from Minneapolis. She'd accepted a job there and was planning on starting a new life in the motor city.

The Hug
Gloman sensed her mixed emotions that day, even though he didn't know anything about Glogirly. He didn't know her favorite color. He didn't know she liked movies or popcorn or strawberry rhubarb pie. And he sure didn't know she was going to move all the way to Michigan. Gloman thought Glogirly needed a hug so that's just what he did. Glogirly said goodbye and left with the two-men-and-a-truck and the bed. 

When she talked to Nettie the next day, she told her she was sad. The bed was perfectly fine, but she was sad to have met someone like Gloman right before she would have to leave town. 

Nettie said that was crazy...that she was bound to come back to Minneapolis on business and wouldn't it be nice to have a friend to go to dinner with? She told her to pick up the phone and call him.

The Note
Glogirly knew Nettie was right. But she was too shy to call him on the phone. So instead she wrote him a card. In the card she wrote about how much she loved meeting him. She explained that she was moving away. She also said how much she would like to have a friend to come back to. Someone to have dinner with or go to the movies with. She mailed the card that same day. Then she waited.

The Phone Call - According to Gloman
Now the next part of the story is from Gloman's perspective. You see, he received the card a couple of days later. After he opened it up and read it, he thought about it and decided he shouldn't appear overeager or desperate. So he waited to called her. He waited a good 5-10 minutes.

Glogirly's heart skipped a bunch of beats when she heard Gloman's voice on the other end of the phone. They met for dinner, and then another dinner and another. It wasn't long before Glogirly was head over heals in love. Then it came time for Glogirly to move. She said the hardest thing she ever did was leave him. When they said goodbye and Glogirly drove off to Detroit, she cried the whole way there. She cried for 11 hours straight. And I know she cried herself to sleep many nights after that.

Just as Nettie suspected, Glogirly got to come back for meetings and projects. In fact she came home almost once a month. Every time she did, she and Gloman would see each other and do fun things together. They went up to the North Shore of Lake Superior, they stood at the edge of the ocean at Big Sur, they stayed at cute and sometimes corny bed and breakfasts, they went to restaurants and movies and ate popcorn and laughed. They learned about each other's favorite things. And they learned what was important to each other.

Despite the distance, their love grew stronger and stronger.

Homeward Bound
Two years later, Glogirly's job brought her back to Minneapolis for good. Back to her home and back to where she'd left her heart. Gloman flew out to Detroit so he could drive with her home. After the movers left with their big truck, Glogirly & Gloman hopped in her Jeep and headed west. As they were leaving town, he looked over to her, held her hand and said, "happiness is Detroit in your rear view mirror."

Glogirly couldn't have been happier. Even though she would have run off and married Gloman on the spot, she knew they needed more time. They needed to get to know each other all over again now that they would finally be living in the same zip code. She knew how special Gloman was to her and how she needed to be more patient than ever before. She wanted to spend her life with him and wasn't going to do anything to mess that up.

So Glogirly and Gloman spent the next two and a half years doing what everyone who is in love should do. They ate pancakes on Sunday mornings, they went to the movies. They snuck away for long weekends at the lake, they went for bike rides along the river. They surprised each other with cards and notes and cute socks wrapped up with ribbons. They went to Target, the grocery store, the computer store. They played foosball at the sporting goods store. They watched TV reruns like Seinfeld and laughed at all the same lines. They celebrated birthdays, Christmas's and Thanksgivings. They helped each other and comforted each other when life was hard. 

They realized that although they didn't need to be with each other, they wanted to be with each other. 

Ding Dong, Love is Calling
It was just another Sunday morning. Glogirly was picking up Gloman for pancakes. She parked on the street in front of the duplex, climbed the steps up to the door marked 3440 and rang the bell. Just as she had done that one September day. This time Gloman was waiting for her. The door opened and he asked her to marry him in the very place they had first met.

Just a few months later they were married on the banks of the Mississippi River with all of their friends and family cheering them on. Their wedding was eleven years ago today. They had a big party at the townhouse we now all live in. It was a scorching 100 degrees. But the sky was blue, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. It was as perfect a day as the day they met.

Glogirly can't imagine life without her Gloman. He's her best friend, her companion in life (in addition to me of course) and he is her inspiration. She loves seeing and experiencing the world with him. Glogirly says she is a better person because of Gloman.

REWIND: The Meet 

According to Gloman

Gloman also likes to tell the story of how they met. It's pretty much the same, except when he tells it he adds one small detail.

You see, when he opened the duplex door on that September day sixteen years ago and saw Glogirly, he was the one that had a very hard time finding the right words. He claims to have stumbled over them, barely being able to pronounce his own name.

Later that same day, when Nettie came home and asked him how everything went with Debbie. "Did she get the bed okay? What did you think of her?" 

He simply replied, "Well...I'm going to marry her."

Happy Gotcha Day to Gloman & Glogirly.

Now let's bring on the treats. I've got a Gotcha Day of my own to celebrate!

Cat Daddyhands

Hi everyone, Katie here.

Gloman is usually the one BEHIND the camera. In fact, we've often suspected his arms are actually MADE of cameras. Kind of like Edward Scissorhands striking an endorsement deal with Nikon.

But those suspicions have been put to rest and documented by Glogirly.

There he is (above) holding me in his arms, nuzzling my fur, and telling me everything's going to be alright... as I've got my eyes locked on Waffles closing in on us.

 Still, he never plays favorites. Even though I know I'M his favorite. 

That's right, Waffles. You heard me.

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R&R Ready

Hi everyone, Katie here.

Ok, I'm not really in that first photo, but trust me...I'm here.

Waffles and I are both ready for some serious R&R this weekend.  It's been a busy week what with the air conditioner repairman, the UPS man, and even the cable guy.  It should come as no surprise that Waffles is already curled up on Gloman's lap. Just look at him. I swear, pretty soon that pink nose of his is going to turn brown.

Me?  I prefer the plush comfort of a stylish rug. And when I'm done napping, I can chase the dots. And Waffles.

What's on your agenda for the weekend?

Vote for GLOGIRLY & Support Minnesota's Feline Rescue, Inc.

We need your votes to help win $1000 for some very special shelter kitties. Just a few miles from the Townhouse sits a small rescue shelter called Feline Rescue, Inc of St. Paul, Minnesota. Feline Rescue is a no-kill, all-volunteer cat rescue organization with shelter, foster and outreach programs. They provide safe shelter, veterinary care and socialization for stray, abandoned or abused cats until permanent homes can be found. 

Feline Rescue is one of the little guys making a big difference in the lives of homeless kitties.  And nothing would make us happier than being able to award them such a generous donation. 

Please take a moment to vote GLOGIRLY for Funniest Blog. And while you're at it, we've got a number of friends and fellow bloggers that are finalists in other categories. Each of them has selected an equally deserving shelter for their donations, should they win. 

So, Vote, Vote & Vote some more. Once daily thru July 31. Thank you so very much. We heart you big time.

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