This has been making our day all week.

Whenever Rob and I go on trips, we always get a king bed in the hotel room. We have a queen-size at home, and so a king is a step up, a treat. And yet, what I always forget is that I don't actually like sleeping in a king bed. I always wake up vaguely dissatisfied, having slept fine but yet not quite right. I lie there for a moment trying to figure out what was wrong. I stretch my limbs awake - stretch them as far as I can - and that's when it occurs to me. I'm not touching Rob. Where is he? I look to my left, and he's there, asleep on the other side of the bed. But he is so far away. The space between us is a huge expanse of mattress, a vast plain with a pillow all to itself. I journey across it, scooting beneath the sheet, farther and farther until finally my body is next to his. And then I glance back from where I've come and I see that we are now occupying less than a third of the bed.

And I'm always reminded, with a smile, of a conversation my mom once had with her neighbor. My parents had just bought a king bed, and somehow my mom and this elderly woman fell into a conversation about their sleeping preferences. Mom likes her space when she sleeps, and so she was pretty excited to be getting a bigger bed. But Martha said she much preferred a queen or even double. They'd slept in king beds on vacation a few times, and she hadn't been impressed. "In those beds," she told my mom, "I can't find Harold."

The truth is, I sleep best sharing the sofa with Rob. Sometimes we take naps there, or fall asleep watching tv. And it is always the best sleep I get. It doesn't make any sense that being cramped on the couch would feel like such a comfortable cocoon. But it is, and I think it's because I am all wrapped up in him. I'm safe and warm, and we mold to fit each other's form, touching all along the length of our bodies.

"I’ve always found shooting in the streets of New York energizing. The stoops, the sidewalks, everything’s been marked by decades, sometimes centuries, of life. Even in the neighborhoods that have been gentrified, the traces of what’s been are there somehow. At the same time, everything is always moving forward, nothing ever stops, at any time of the day or night. Ever. What winds up happening is that you become a part of the street you’re filming. You become one with its energy."

I turned 27 on Saturday, and spent the weekend in my favorite city with a few of my favorite people - Rob and my family. This photo was taken at the spot I love best.

"Rob, look at this survey that came for me in the mail!"

"What's it about?"

"Shopping. It says they're surveying a 'very select group of fashionistas'. Did you hear that? I'm a fashionista!"

"Uh-huh."

"It says less than 1% of US residents are asked to participate! And they chose me to represent 'the most fashion-forward' shoppers in my state. This is like being a Nielsen household! It's huge!"

"Yeah."

"Somebody must have noticed me out and about, looking fashion-forward. You think?"

"Could be."

"It's funny - just the other day I walked by a few women at work and they said they'd just been talking about how I have such cute outfits and always look so put together. So see? I am totally a fashionista."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Or maybe some company just sold my name."

"That seems right."

Ever since the start of Bridget's pee problem, I have been a wee bit obsessed with her health. I've been monitoring her progress meticulously, which involves paying close attention to her peeing habits. I am now quite skilled at litter box stalking. I daresay that the past six weeks I have been witness to every trip she has made into the box while I've been home. She no longer covers the spots in the litter box when she's done, and I think it's because she knows I want to see them. Poor kitty, she probably cannot wait until the day when she can piss in private. Although she seems to enjoy the post-pee praise. "Oh, what a good kitty! That was a good pee, Bridgie!! High five from Mommy!"

My obsession with Bridget's progress is so consuming that I feel compelled to tell everyone in my life about it. Everyone. My co-workers are intimately familiar with Bridget's urinating habits. Last week my hair stylist got to hear all about the illness, treatment, subsequent setbacks, and current tentative improvement, a detailed briefing prompted by a simple, "So how have you been?" (She'll never make that mistake again.) At a wedding this weekend, multiple people inquired about Bridget's health, as I might have gone on and on about my poor kitty's problems at the bridal shower last month. When I saw the groom, the first thing he said was, "How's Bridget?" I'm not even kidding. The groom!

As you may recall, we think the trouble began when we had our metal roof painted, a project so loud that it caused the cats to hide under the bed for days and left Bridget, apparently, highly stressed and emotionally scarred, a state of mind that commonly leads to the physical condition of cystitis in cats. It has taken her nearly two months to recover, and those two months have involved so many diagnostic tests and meds and vet voodoo that I finally stopped telling Rob how much I had spent at each appointment because he'd get this stern disapproving look in his eyes and I was afraid he'd tell me that in order to afford all of this I was going to have to stop buying shoes.

Today the roof painters were scheduled to come back for a second coat. I've been very anxious about this because Bridget is finally starting to get better and the last thing I want is a recurrence. I seriously think the stress of another round of this would give me pee problems. So I'd arranged to have the day off work so that I could take Bridget to, and stay with her at, Rob's parents' house, which was the best solution I could think of for sparing Bridget the terror of another roof painting. His parents kindly agreed, having figured out long ago that when it comes to the cats I'm a total overprotective psycho and it's best to just let me do my thing.

But then last evening I got the brilliant idea that maybe the sound wouldn't be so loud in the basement, and so I made Rob get a ladder and climb up onto the roof and stomp around while I sat in the basement and tried to determine if the faint thunder-like roof rumblings I heard could be considered traumatizing. I decided they weren't, and so today when the painters arrived I scooped up all three cats and carried them to the basement. If Bridget acted frightened, I'd whisk her away to the safety of my in-laws' house. But my hunch was that she'd busy herself chasing spiders and barely even notice the noise from the roof.

She entertained herself for about half an hour, and then emerged from the depths, spider webs clinging to her whiskers, and insisted on going back upstairs. I acquiesced, because I'm a pathetic pushover. She marched up the stairs and into the living room, hesitated for a moment to listen to the sounds of the sky falling above, and then shrugged. Okay, she didn't actually shrug, but she might as well have. Because she hopped up on the sofa, curled into a circle, and fell asleep.

She's fucking fine. And totally telling me that I need to Let Go.

Rob and I ate dinner on the deck yesterday evening, and I took Bridget outside on her harness while we were out. I glanced up from setting the table just in time to see her fling herself into a bush, spread-eagle and legs flailing. She came out the other side with a bird in her mouth. We were simultaneously quite impressed and rather horrified. We didn't know she was capable of this, and by 'capable' I mean both that we didn't think she had the skills and that we'd nearly forgotten that our cuddly cat is above all is a cold-blooded carnivore. We praised her dutifully while she stood there with the limp clump of feathers grasped tightly in her jaw, but when she finally dropped the bird we snatched her up quickly to allow it an escape. It immediately flew away, apparently unscathed, and Bridget proceeded to parade around the yard, immensely proud of herself.