Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Fun weekend.

Sigh.

I am drowning in email; I tried to go do something fun today and was guilt-tripped into taking son-friend, who promptly upon arrival had an absence seizure. Then he was ok for a while, and had another as I was driving. On the freeway.

Sigh. It's not his fault.

Squoosh is fine, all cats are fine. Meg is fine. Nurse Betty is fine.

Mom I would sell to the gypsies for a shiny nickel.

I officially hate Memorial Day because of my brother, but that whole deal is more than I can bear to even think about right now. Just can't deal. I will vent eventually, when I can cope with thinking about it.

And I'm back snowed under. Whee!

I swear to god--you can't *buy* this kind of fun. You have to just let it happen to you.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Ack! Pffftt!

Squooshable is half-ok. He’s as ok as he was before. I’m mostly just a moron who panics. His vet says that it’s too early to test him again; two weeks ago they tested him for both FeLV and FIV. I had been concerned that an ELISA only did one or the other, which he said is sort-of correct, but his policy is that whenever he checks for one, he checks for both as a matter of routine. I’m not an expert, and he explained it, but I’ve mostly forgotten. It’s something about antibodies versus antigens (if I’m not misremembering the terms), so I guess I’m running off of old information. It’s highly possible. But anyway, Squoosh was negative for both two weeks ago and per Dr Vet, it’s pointless to test him again until he’s twelve weeks old because of the time period needed for the virus to incubate enough to show up.

Dr Vet also said that the lymph nodes in Squoosh’s neck are swollen because Squoosh’s ear infection is still not gone. The severity apparently wasn’t being exaggerated two weeks ago. It’s not oozing crap outside of his ear anymore and hasn’t for a while, but it’s still swollen and infected deep inside. Squoosh loudly registered his displeasure at having the scope-thingy stuck down his ear, but then forgot about it less then five minutes later and ate two dog vitamins. :-)

Yeah, dog vitamins. They’re apparently really similar to cat vitamins. Go figure. As far as Squoosh is concerned, his favourite food is food.

Oh; and Dr Vet said that FIV lymph node issues would be more systemic, not just in one area (usually). So I’m a panicky imbecile. At least Squoosh’s vet thinks it’s funny, so someone’s benefiting at least. :-) I'm glad I entertain. He asked me to please assure him that I hadn’t stayed up the night crying, like with Puff, or the last time my older cat had a respiratory infection.

Ummm...thanks for remembering that. I guess I made an impression. Geez. May I go die of embarrassment now? Please?

What can I say? I have no excuse. I’m guilty of worrying, being emotional, and other bad things. So shoot me. I could do worse things, and I’ve never claimed to be perfect.

After I left the vet, I decided I needed a mental health day, and blew off everything and did nothing. It felt weird, but I did watch a lot of TV, something I haven’t done in a long time.

Eviljob sucked ass today. I started off doing what I usually do on Saturdays, and then got sweet-talked into a “Downhill” task. That’s as in where shit flows—something someone else didn’t want to do, or the person they pawned it off to, or the next in line for the duty, so they kept passing it along down the (poop) chute until they came to me. I swear to god, I might as well have been walking down the hall from the bathroom and gotten pounced on in a corporate game of Tag-You’re-It. I was allowed the privilege (oh…no…my *pleasure*, really!) to be a “resource” (said as if I had any idea what the answers to any questions were) to a group of new recruits—for a department in which I have never, ever worked!!!! AUGH! I was too stupid to look down at my watchless wrist and declare that I “had a thing”. :-)

Ok, granted—before I got the position before the one I have now (if that’s hard to follow, my resume’d be cause for cringing; you actually *can* have six different jobs, most with wholly different descriptions, and still work for the same company the entire time. I’ve moved laterally a lot since first casting a shadow on their doorstep—that’s why I’ve not moved *up* as much as I could have), I *did* interview to be one of that department’s regional trainers. And that did entail researching what exactly the hell they did (more than anything else I wanted to get out of where I was before I became Completely Crackers), although all a regional trainer really does is learn the material handed down from Above or an outside vendor superfast and then re-teach it (ok—not always, and they sometimes develop, depending on qualifications, but whatever—in general, I’ve given a good Reader’s Digest version of the job). So I’ve a few years’ worth of stale knowledge about what these young’uns are doing; in other words, I’m worthless to them—too much has changed since I knew what I was talking about, from policies, to systems, to even Managers and Supervisors, chains of command, etc... And I know it; it’s unfair to the young’uns. Not that they’re all eighteen, or anything—I mean “young’uns” figuratively.

Butsoanyway.

So I babysat. I tried being as helpful as I could, but finally ended up just opting for being nice. And saying a lot of “do this for the time being, and tell Them that Ancodia told you to do this if they ask, and I’ll find out what the *real* answer is, and email it to you” ‘cos I couldn’t figure out fast enough what else to tell them. And I’m too nice—this is why half the building of young’uns and still-wet-behind-the-ears former young’uns will walk over to the other half of the building to ask me a question when their Fearless Leader is absent before doing anything else--like thinking. And in being nice, I tried too hard (apparently) to make them comfortable—I had one girl distracting herself every five minutes to ask me for something. She was asking me to get everything from a glass of water (huh?!? And you can’t get that yourself because of…???) to moisturising lotion. No. I’m not kidding. Moisturising lotion. That has to be one of the most bizarre requests I’ve ever had in a training class. Well, it for sure makes the Top Ten; I’ve had a few other doozies. Lotion? What do I look like—a stewardess? A concierge? Is this something you think we keep in the lounge, next to the wet bar on the Lido deck? Am I missing something?

And no; she didn’t say anything even remotely normal such as, “do you have any lotion I could use?” No. What she said (while I was in the middle of trying to help another young’un with a real problem) was, “when you get a chance, could you go get me some lotion?”

Ahhh…yeah. You wait here, and I’ll pop down to CVS and see what I can do about that.

Okay, okay; I was nice about it. I told her that I didn’t have any with me (truth), and I wasn’t sure where I would be able to get some in the building, especially on the weekend, where I couldn’t even ask many people’s permission to use theirs. She just looked at me as if I were a very unhelpful stewardess, and went back to what she should be doing.

Yeah…call Eviljob Airways and register a complaint, whydon’cha.

Sigh.

In between Ms Pesteryouruthlessly and the young’uns with real problems, I thought I was going to go bonkers. I literally never stopped moving all day—it was bouncing from one to the other to the other; I took no break (it wasn’t fair to—their breaks were staggered across the shift, so I would have abandoned some of them), and the only time I got to sit down was when I had to look something up that required manager access, and I then got to theft one of their dep’t manager’s seats. For a minute or two.

Whenever I did find a second to stop, I was accosted by Mr Chatty. Pretty much every class has a Chatty. Chatties will drop whatever they’re doing to come and schmooze, under the guise of seeking help. They have a question, but it doesn’t stop there—they then want to get a run-down of your resume (both too much, and not enough, so there); why you did this, that, and the other (‘cos I don’t know what in the hell I’m doing); where you think is a good place to park (anywhere—but look out for the cats, and feed them if you are a Nice Person); what do you think of Policy x (I try not to. Really.); do you like the food here (Who here named Ancodia ever gets to eat?!?); do you play video games (yeah, sure; my favourite one is called, “Let’s Look Rules and Regulations Up On The Company Intranet”. In fact, I like it so much that I’m playing it RIGHT NOW!); who do you talk to about the violence inherent in the system here (I’d recommend a pastor, or a trained counsellor), and so forth.

No, I didn’t really say that.

In fairness, Mr Chatty seemed like a nice guy; he even offered to get something for me to eat or drink (no, I did never mention anything to him—I’m not like that—for all of my complaining here, I would never even hint at that, or show discomfort in any way; that’s not fair to whatever Thems I’m dealing with). So I declined of course, but thanked him (kind offer, but no time).

Augh. My feet hurt. My brain hurts. I want Approved Medical Leave.

Thank god that I don’t have to do this again tomorrow, or I’d have to plath the bejeezus out of myself. Or go tag-you’re-it some unsuspecting janitor.

Mwahahaha!

Ack. Pffftt.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Squooshnodes.

Hmmm. Good news, or bad news? When offered the choice, I always pick the bad news first; to me it just seems easier to get it out of the way.

When I came back home this evening, I went (as usual) to visit Squoosh. He's still alive, and spunky. But it occurred to me that since his checkup is tomorrow, he actually should be over that head-tilt thing. But he isn't. And it's actually very cute--Meg calls him "the fat-tummed, cock-headed beast". He grows on you, fast. But, he should be over the head tilt. So I was wondering if tomorrow I needed to ask the vet if I should take him to like, a kitty chiropractor, or something. I figured maybe his little neck hurt or the muscles were tensed from him having such a bad infection, or something. So I was rubbing his neck to try to help if that was the case, and I noticed that he has a little lump in his under-jaw area on the side that he cocks downwards--the same ear that's been infected but now looks much better. You actually don't notice it until you're rubbing both sides at the same time and feel the difference in the two sides.

I doubt it is a growth, or some type of tumour; not that I'm an expert, but it felt too soft or malleable to be. I'm thinking that it's a swollen lymph node. This leads me to think a few things: First, that I am the dizziest bitch that has ever lived because I didn't check before. Second, that Squoosh is going to be on antibiotics for a little longer. Third--and this is the one that worries me--we're going to have to have an FIV test tomorrow.

FIV is AIDS. One of my cats, a Bombay, died from it. It's passed the same way AIDS is transmitted in humans; unlike FeLV (Feline leukemia), it is not airborne. Cats can pass it through sex, fighting (scratches/bites/saliva/blood), and being born to an infected mother. The first symptoms occur a few weeks after infection, and can themselves look like an infection; one of the symptoms is swollen lymph nodes.

I found all of this out when my beautiful Bombay baby was diagnosed. I'd made the mistake of letting him be an indoor/outdoor cat, because I'd inherited him from an ex-roommate who left him with me who let him out and he loved the outdoors so much; that's how he became infected. Before he went into ARC, I had no idea. His vet said that a few years before he went into ARC, he probably showed some signs of infection that went unnoticed and then went away. FIV then goes into a dormant stage that can last several years before it rears its proverbial ugly head again.

And Squooshable is about six weeks old. The timing fits. As much as I don't want it to, the timing fits.

I would think that being on amoxicillin for two weeks should have gone to work on that swollen lymph node by now. Unless there's some confounding factor. So now I'm worried. Did Squoosh's mom infect him? And if she did, what should I do about it?

If Squoosh has FIV, he's going to die. I tried as hard as I could to save my Bombay baby. We did AZT, Interferon, transfusions, and a bunch of other drugs that I can't even remember anymore. When he became paralyzed in the rear, I took him to the vet at least once a day to have his bladder expressed, because I couldn't learn how to do it. Then the Interferon kicked in, and he regained some tail and bladder control. I tried; I really, really tried. It's no use. You can't win.

So what should I do? I believe that if it were just me and Squoosh, I would keep him and let him have a happy life for as long as he could. The problem is that it's not just me and Squoosh. He might get into a fight.

I'm going to not take this for granted until I know for certain. I know I sound as if I have, but I'm a realist, not a doomist. It just looks like pathological depression to most Polyannas. I know that the ELISA Squoosh had for FeLV was negative but if I am remembering correctly, ELISAs for FeLV actually test for something else--it won't tell you if there's FIV. And vice-versa. There is a vaccine for FIV, though. My oldest Siamese has had it regularly since it was invented because he lived in the same house as my Bombay. It's not a 100% certain vaccination, but it lowers the rate of infection considerably. I wonder if Squoosh had it now if it would help at all.

I know that's stupid thinking. I know it's too late for that. In my head I know it, and I know I shouldn't do it. But I just can't help it; my heart wants to think it. I'm a weak and feeble critical thinker. But if Squoosh is old enough, I'm going to ask them to give it to him tomorrow. Even if he is positive. Maybe it could work.

There's this really fine line between acknowledging that The Experts That Be are experts but don't know everything, and being a wholehearted believer in cockamamie bullshit. Kind of like a "how far can you open your mind before your brains fall out?" thing.

Maybe it is a growth, or some kind of tumour. Maybe his lymph node needs to be drained, or something. Maybe it's something simple.

-------------
I took a break from writing this. I can't tell if he has a fever or not. I guess that probably means no. I can't believe I waited this long to "notice" that his head tilt should be gone. I'm just going to try to be optimistic and get to the vet first thing in the morning. Squoosh's appointment is for 9:40, but I'm going to try to sneak him in at 9:00. They're usually pretty busy, so I don't think I can hope for better than that. But they open at 7:00, and I'm setting my alarm to be there when they open just in case. If Squoosh is not in an emergency in the morning, we'll play Fingers until it's time to leave. :-)

God, this sucks. This is like, the story of my life: I want to do the right thing, but always fuck it up somehow. I mean it; I have the best intentions in the world, but I just can't make it work out the way I intend. It, by the way, is EVERYTHING. I want to be like SuperMom. I want to have everything prioritised, written out, labelled, filed, and ready in little Ziplock baggies. All the kids dropped off and picked up, dinner made, socks stitched... This stuff doesn't happen to some people. They have everything taken care of before it happens. They would have engaged their brain a week ago and had Squoosh back at the vet.

I really, really love Squooshable. I guess it doesn't show at all, but I really love Squoosh. I love all my cats. And other people. And I just keep screwing it up.

I took a Xanax. I have this huge-ass bottle left from when I had two surgeries. The surgeries are a long story, but I'm ok now for the most part. One was an ovarian cyst (there; that's not such a long story); the other one is a longer story. But for whatever reason (probably because he looked Deep and Long into my eyes and saw a neurotic, paranoid, hysterical idiot underneath the silent exterior), my doctor prescribed like, six thousand Xanax. Ok, ok...it was actually more like three hundred. I was supposed to take two a day (I think), but I ended up only taking about ten before each surgery, and only when I would have those moments where I was certain I was going to die under anaestheia or something, so I have this stockpile of Xanax that should see me through to the next millennium. My drug-using-for-fun days are over, so I just use them now for panicky moments--like flying, and stuff like this. And when I really, truly can't sleep and even Excedrin PM isn't working.

I would take Squoosh to the emergency vet, but my experiences with them have not been positive ones in general. I think the vets are too new, or something. I brought an abandoned kitten to them when I first moved here, and they let it die; then I brought my oldest Siamese in when a guy I was dating came over and made lobster (my oldest Siamese's favourite food, we've discovered), and to get my cat out of the way, he flicked one of the elastics they wrap around the claws across the room. Well, Romeo chased after it and ate it, 'cos it smelled of lobster. I didn't see any of this--Shit For Brains just called from the kitchen, "hey, I think the cat ate the elastic; should I give him the other one?" Fucking moron.

So I had to rush him to the emergency vet that night (because the hydrogen peroxide I gave him didn't make him throw up; I think he thought it was an after-dinner drink); they gave him eye drops to make him vomit, and he barfed up the elastic eventually later on that night, but the psychotic vet there said he had a behaviour problem and wanted to put him to sleep. All because he struck her after she put the drops in his eye! I told her no, I wasn't going to put him to sleep, and what in the hell did she expect him to do? In his mind she attacked him, and did something to his eyes that made him sick, and he was defending himself. She got pissed off at me and we had a scene in the waiting room, and then she left and the tech that had been with her told me that she didn't think Romeo was a behaviour problem, because he only struck at the vet, even though there were other people in the room, and after he had startled the vet and she'd let him go, he ran under a cabinet and this tech had been the one to pull him out; when she did, he didn't even growl. I agreed with her, and she apologised for the vet and suggested that the vet must not have liked Romeo for whatever reason. Fine. I'm taking my despised cat and going home. :-) The guy I'd been with had insisted on coming because he "felt guilty" (not guilty enough to offer to pay part of it, though!), and he agreed with the vet, for what it's worth.

Ummm...yeah. I dumped him. Not exactly father material there. What--if we'd been married and had children together, he'd give our three year old a live power cord to gnaw on so he and I could have some "alone time"? I don't think so. Buzz off, freak. You tried to kill my cat.

And I've been a few other times before I finally caught on that most of the time it wasn't working out well.

If Squoosh has an actual emergency, of course I would take him. Them doing something is better than me doing nothing. But unless it is an actual, literal emergency, I think he's safer waiting for the regular vet. They know me and him (well, they have his first visit history and blood work and stuff), and I trust them. I'd hate for Squoosh, or any of my cats, to die because some vet "didn't like" them. Or misdiagnosed them because they're new, or some other stupid shit like that. There are some very, very good vets out there, but there are also some very, very horrible ones. Most of them are in-between, and I'm automatically suspicious of any vet that's low enough on whatever totem pole there is to have to pull midnight duty. And sure there are exceptions, but I have no way to know who those are. Some emergency vet that sounds perfectly reasonable could be a raving idiot; I have no way to know. There's a lot of trust that has to be in that relationship. For instance, I really, truly trust that this vet did everything possible for Puff-Puff. I feel that if someone else could have done more for Puff, it would have been by accident. He inherited this vet hospital from his father, and I'm told he's developed as strong a reputation as his father had as a good, caring, knowledgeable doctor. He may not be The Best (I'm not claiming he's World Class), but...I trust him. I don't think he cuts corners, or errs either by going too much by the rules, or thinking too far "outside the box".

I'm rambling; it's because I'm nervous and angry at myself. I had better go to sleep. I started this post hours ago, and there's no end in sight. This is one of those times that I just want to talk--that pathetic, nervous talking with which guards on Death Row are probably pretty familiar.

And I lied at the beginning of the post. There isn't any good news. I hope I have some tomorrow.

I'm fucking pathetic.

Cancelled meetings

[You] I swear; if people don't stop insisting we have a meeting and then cancelling it at the last second, I'm going to...
[Cat] And BTW, You're Going To Need This Knowledge...
[You] ...I'm going to do nothing.
[Cat] I am going to 7-11 right now to buy a pre-paid phone as a test for you.
[You] And I'll vent here.
[Cat] And why does my heart keep beating in my chest?


Wow...talking with Cat's like being at some of these meetings. Sigh. We cancelled this for exactly what reason? I dunno. I'd probably get a more coherent answer asking Catty.

[You] Why'd they cancel the meeting?
[Cat] Wir dürfen passieren.
[You] Huh?
[Cat] Wir sind fast die Letzten.
[You] Cat, I refuse to speak German.
[Cat] I am looking for a repitable German Shepard Breeder.
[You] But of course you are.
[Cat] Conversely, if the requirements are vague or likely to change in the course of the project, it could be argued that XP still isn't the best process to use.
[You] If we ever have a meeting, I shall propose exactly that; thanks.
[Cat] How many seconds have YOU spent posting on the 'den?
[You] None. Let me get back to the blog, ok?
[Cat] But since it's not your property to begin with, you don't really get to set the rules because it's not yours.


Bite my ass. I set all of the rules. I'm going to spend all day doing nothing, in rebellion. Pfft. Well, ok--not *all* day. I want to come up with a good ad for YouWhores, and go into business for myself. I'm up against some stiff competition; I'm having a hard time thinking of something novel.

I have to take Squoosh for a checkup tomorrow, and then he'll be off the antibiotics (I hope). Yay. Squoosh is, I think, doing fine. Even though he has an eating disorder. If left to his own devices, he'd never stop eating! I'm told this is normal for kittens, but I'm not so sure. I've tried talking to him about it, and he just says he's very hungry, and that he's read that it's okay for kittens to eat fifty times their body weight in one day. He also says that being isolated from people in the bathroom is a violation of his civil liberties. I take him out, and I visit him in there--he just wants to have access to the bigger cat's food bowls. I asked him how in the hell he knew about civil liberties, and he said that he's been reading about them. ...in the bathroom? Deliveries from the book club he joined, he said.

I'd been wondering what all those packages addressed to "Indestructible, c/o Hall Bathroom" were. Damn business reply cards. I told him that if he joins Columbia House, he's shopping for a new home.

I have to work through something related to a side project I'm taking up this semester. I'm not sure how to work it out. It's in the setup--the Overarching Concept type thing. This is potentially very confusing (well, I'm confused easily also, so...), and I don't want to start one thing and end up finishing another because I'm misphrasing the question and/or losing sight of what I'm supposed to be doing. Sophie has a really bad habit of doing that, and some of her undertakings are like spaghetti to wade through. So I need to I guess draw this out formally so that I don't trip myself up. Seeing as how I have newfound free time, this is something that I can do today.

Right after I go forage for nuts and berries in the forest; or maybe I can do it during--I've just realised I'm starving.








Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Musique Non Stop

I'm going to talk about that instead of how annoying Sophie was today.

Which, for the record, is quite extremely. We're talking fingernails-on-the-blackboard annoying. We're talking race home and take a hammer to your piggy bank and see if you have enough to hire a mercenary yet annoying.

But back to music. :-)

I have a huge list of songs that I think were performed by the wrong person. Or songs that I'd like to hear someone else's interpretation of, and I have added another to that list: Love You Inside Out, besides a re-naming, should be re-done by Al Jarreau. I would love to hear his version. And maybe Jimmy Somerville, too. But Jarreau for sure. In case that seems like a bad match, let me throw out a few others that seem obvious to me: Crush With Eyeliner should be done by Iggy Pop. Laugh if you must, but I think it would kick ass. And there was another song that I thought was much better-suited to Bowie, but I can't remember it at the moment. I want Marilyn Manson to do covers of everything The Specimen ever did; some may not be any good, but all of them would be better suited than Golden Years (until you listen to it about a thousand times and realise that in many respects, it's better than the original; true, the original is better in other respects, but whatever). I wanted someone to do a cover of Rundgren's Blue Orpheus, but I can't remember who that was. It's somehow related in this chain-o-segues, but I forget how. This is all connected up in my head like a Kevin Bacon game, which is how I usually organise things, and why I can never think of anything when I need it. Except...


Damn, Sophie was annoying.


Ok...back to music: Par for me, I can remember only a little of this huge list I've been compiling for a few years; usually I'll get started thinking about it when I hear a song that's on my list. What made me think about it tonight was that I've added a new one, but that doesn't exactly prime the pump to chain out the rest. Grr.

I need a new filing system in my brain. And possibly an Administrative Assistant. As soon as we can have little AI brain implants, I'm signing up for one; mine will probably go nutso and lock me in my house and try to kill me... Oh. Wait. That wasn't me.

giggle

In truth, with my luck, I'll probably end up with some defective-ass recycled chatterbot like Catty, and I'll walk around for weeks happy, thinking that my life is so 21st century and improved, when in fact it's just that in comparison to my AI, I look organised and together. Hmmph.

Butsoanyway.

I forgot where I was going with that, but whatever. :-D My train of thought derailed.

Yes, I know--thoroughly original.

Anyway, I stopped for fuel on the way home. I wish I could say that I don't do that a lot, but I can't. Yes, the car I bought is not conservative on the fuel usage. Ok, so global warming and everything else is my fault. Whatever. Go find a dead tree and plant a sign near it that says, "Ancodia did it!" I don't care.

So I'm getting fuel, and the place I usually stop is one of the new-style gas stations--the ones that have TVs, music, a bakery and cafe, small lake, boat rental...

Ok, I'm exaggerating about the boat rental.

But they're playing Orinoco Flow (loudly) as I'm getting gas. And it occurs to me that, while this is and always has been pretty much one of (if not the) the ultimate song to get really high and space out to...

Not that I do drugs, or have ever done drugs. Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. I've just...heard people who have...and that's what they say. Yeah. Rilly. Swear.

...I don't actually understand what in the hell she's saying. So I get home and steal some Me Time before getting back to work, and I finally get around to looking up the lyrics.

Who in the hell is Rob Dickens? And Ross?? 'scuzati, Mistress of the Obscure Reference--you've positively lost me.

So I have to do some hunting. Sadly, it takes about a minute and isn't even a good story. How disappointing. Inside jokes are ok, but geez...make them good ones, fer chrissake. Or make the hunt harder. Something. Anything.

And I've just remembered: A Girl Like You by Edwyn Collins I think might sound better or at least more interesting if done by Bowie.

Ok; time to go kiss Squoosh g'night and head to bed.

One For The Road

An example of what my future blue light special AI implant and I discuss when I'm bored:



[You] bwaah!
[Cat] We're all with you on this.




And thank god for that. Don't know what I'd do without you, Catty.





Bwaah!

Monday, May 23, 2005

The Cricket Conundrum

AHA!

I need not worry over KGB spy crickets. Whew!

Well, I mean...they might not *be* bugs, but they do *look* like bugs, so it would be quite disgusting if they invaded. Or they might be bugs; what in the hell do I know about crickets? Or bugs? If they were bugs, that would certainly explain the 'buggy' look, now wouldn't it? On the other hand, lobsters look like bugs but are (besides tasty) crustaceans. At least I think they are. Or arthropods, or something. I'm not totally certain which one means 'lobsters'. This whole kingdom/phylum/class/year/make/model thing is not my forte.

Well, I had to let my father and Dorkface shine in *something* that I didn't. I picked Biology and History. :-) I could look it up, but that would involve research and researching things is not how I'm going to spend my Me Time. Plus I'm lazy. Well, right now. It actually takes less effort to type all of this than to just go look it up. Pathetic, isn't it?

Oh, screw it... I just looked it up. A cricket, per Merriam-Webster, is a "leaping orthopteran" insect, noted for its chirping noise. I think an insect and a bug are the same thing, so yes: crickets are bugs. I'm not going to look up 'bug'. I'm 99 44/100 % certain that an insect is a bug, and vice versa. Iff. That sort of thing.

Ok, now for Public Radio:

That chirping is a satellite feed index that makes it so that the cutting and pasting of satellite-fed program materials can be done without human intervention. This answer is courtesy of a kind soul on Wikipedia who answered my question. Still no reply from my local PR station to my query by email; I tried them first, then Wikipedia. :-)

Well, I had my email open. I'm sure my email's been printed out and framed by now; I'm probably called "the weirdo cricket lady". Sigh.

But at least I have an answer.

Posting on Wikipedia was my first break, then I broke for lunch with Meg and a friend/coworker of hers. First we were going to go to this one Mexican place in a strip mall just up the street, but I arrived first. Closed. Sigh. I called Meg and let her & friend know. Ok--so they then send me just down the way to an Italian place to snag a table and wait. I get there, and...sigh...closed. I call Meg & friend to let them know they're the Kiss of Death to restaurants. So then we pick a sub shop. I *know* they're open, 'cos I can see them across the street from the Italian place. Or ex-place. So I just leave my car and walk over. Meg & friend will be like, ten mins or so at least, plus walking over has the benefit of letting me wander into a dollar store in the strip mall that houses the sub shop. I used to go into them a lot; now, not so much. Back when I first found them, they were a godsend--but that's a long story that points out how stupid I am, so I'll not go into it today. But so I went. I ended up not buying anything, but they had a local "easy listening" station on, and I did hear a Bee Gees song--More Than A Woman--that I'd not heard in a while. And I was actually really enjoying it, and kind of swinging my head in time (I *can't* be the only one who does this!), and then I noticed this woman looking at me as if I were acting crazy!

Oh, geez. Whatever, lady. If I weren't in an introverted cycle right now, I'd have broken out into a Snoopy Happy Dance just for your benefit.

So after the song was over (it was the best part of the dollar store, in truth), I left and went on to meet Meg & friend, and we kvetched over lunch. Then, on my way home, I stopped and bought a Bee Gees cd. Yay! It has like, all of their hits, or something. But my point is, in listening to the #2 cd (that has the stuff I am somewhat familiar with), I found this *other* song that I haven't heard in practically ever--Love You Inside Out. What's funny is that when I put it in, I punched that up first, 'cos it sounded posilutely gory. :-D But it's actually a really good song! It might be my favourite Bee Gees song, I think. But I haven't listened to the whole thing--both cds--yet, so I don't know. And I might not get around to listening to the whole thing any time soon, so no breath-holding.

Inadvertently Funny

Some things are hilarious without meaning to be; this has to be one of the funniest paragraphs I've ever read (from The Composers Datebook, and yes, I believe an apostrophe is missing):

Today, a tip of the hat to the persistence of one Ms. Elisa Hall, who lived in Boston from 1853-1924.

Ms. Hall was at the heart of that city's musical life for many years. She was a Francophile, and championed the best and the latest in French music. Sadly, Elisa Hall suffered from a hearing ailment, which would eventually result in complete deafness.


Ok--that's almost as funny as the "handicapped people are our customers" line (No! Do tell!) I encountered in one of Eviljob's disability sensitivity training a few years ago; that one had me literally on the floor. Okay, so I'm not so sensitive, maybe.

I'm behind in mail still, and am trying to catch up on Composers Datebook a bit. That's from the show on the 17th.

Poor Ms Hall--she's so bleeding deaf she likes frog music!

Having a smidgeon of Frog in the woodpile, I can say that with impunity. ;-) In my mind, I picture her also jamming out to say, the washing machine, construction sites, and the like. She's just being remembered kindly because of her generosity towards the Arts.

Sigh. French music: recommended by nine out of ten deaf people.

giggle.

Lucky No. 13

I forgot:

13) Mom's really pissed off at me 'cos I didn't walk at graduation.

Like I care. That stupid degree was too much agony, and has cost me Puff-Puff; I don't feel like celebrating it. But at least I now know what she's been so damn testy about. As if I were someone of whom she's proud, or something. Feh. She was just looking forward to the celebratory nosh afterwards.

I know you, lady.

No, I didn't say that.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

My Weekend

Well, I don't have a lot to say. But that's not ever stopped me here. :-)

Events of the weekend:

1) Meg throws Squoosh in the toilet.

Okay, not as such exactly. But on Friday night she did use the bathroom I have him in and did forget to close the toilet lid, and he jumped in his own self. I asked Meg could she please not try to kill my kitten any more, and she gets mad. Anyone can make mistakes, says Meg. Okay, replies m'self, so could she please not make any more mistakes that end up killing my kitten? Meg leaves in a huff. Some people, I swear--no sense of humour about tragedy.

2) Meg leaves Squoosh's antibiotics out, and it turns bad in 12 hrs.

Yeah, really. She did a favour for me and dosed Squoosh on Saturday 'cos I was trapped at Eviljob and wasn't sure I could get back home on my lunch break to dose Squoosh in time. I thank her profusely for doing this, optimist that I am. Squoosh is on Clavamox, which turns bad with amazing speed if not kept refrigerated. So I go to dose Squoosh that evening, and...no Clavamox in the 'fridge. Hmmm. I check in the bathroom and, lo and behold--dark yellow Clavamox. I call Meg. Is there any particular reason the antibiotic was left out to turn? Oops. Forgot. Totally forgot. Sorry. Uh-huh. Me, too. Meg offers to call the emergency vet and see if a refill can be gotten from them. Yay; it can. I drive with her allthewaythehell out there, 'cos I want to make sure she doesn't screw it up, plus I want to smoke. I'd said I would give that up again, but...well I haven't. So we get there and have to wait an hour, making Squoosh's dosing now two hours late. Two hours isn't *that* bad, but I'm slightly ticked, 'cos you don't mess around with infections and antibiotics. On the drive home, I ask Meg to please stop trying to assassinate my kitten. Meg doesn't laugh. I do. A lot. It's laugh...or hit her.

3) I did nothing towards the projects I'm working on.

Whoo... Big surprise there. I want a vacation like nobody's business.

4) My oldest measle has been angry at me, but forgave me.

We cuddled.

5) I have proof positive that everyone in the world is Evil.

Although I've known it all along, it's a nice crutch for thought to see it actually proven out.

Ancodia is Evil

6) The emergency vet would only spell Squooshable's name "Squishable" on the new Clavamox, 'cos that's how it's spelt on the old Clavamox.

What...you think my cat's a Clavamox junkie? I'm scamming 'scripts for a housecat? It's cherry flavoured 'cos it's for kids, and cats generally hate berry flavours. Or do you think I'm stockpiling antibiotics for the next SARS outbreak? Or maybe I'm going to dash home and sell it on eBay? Let's keep the Sherlock Holmesing for things we actually have to give a DEA number for, eh?

7) I have a new obsession.

I'm going to find out why some Public Radio stations play a teensy little "cricket noise" in between things, even if it kills me. I've been through here, and found nothing. I smell a conspiracy. Possibly they're broadcasting coordinates to teensy little spy crickets from the former KGB. That's all we need--KGB spy crickets.

As if the Mossad squirrels weren't enough.


8) I'd bet those KGB spy crickets aren't even members of their local Public Radio station.

Freeloaders. Don't you listen to Noah Adams during pledge drives? You're stealing radio.

9) I am one giant walking cat scratch.

Ouchy. Thank you, Squoosh; may I have another? I am such a pansy.

10) I don't have a tenth thing.

This was a pretty boring weekend, except for the attempts on Squoosh's life.

11) Squoosh still has a head tilt

And he turns his head practically upside-down!

12) I had better go to sleep.

If I want to get up in the morning. Which I don't. Unless it's by a masseuse with a coffee.

Friday, May 20, 2005

I should be working...

...but I just wanted to see if Blogthings was fixed yet. :-)





You Are From Neptune



You are dreamy and mystical, with a natural psychic ability.
You love music, poetry, dance, and (most of all) the open sea.
Your soul is filled with possibilities, and your heart overflows with compassion.
You can be in a room full of friendly people and feel all alone.
If you don't get carried away with one idea, your spiritual nature will see you through anything.



What Planet Are You From?

I know a lot of people who would agree that I may be from Neptune. But for that matter, they'd probably also agree that I was hatched. They're critics, given to crit-i-cism. :-)


And,





You Belong in 1969



1969





If you scored...

1950 - 1959: You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

1960 - 1969: You are a free spirit with a huge heart. Love, peace, and happiness rule - oh, and drugs too.

1970 - 1979: Bold and brash, you take life by the horns. Whether you're partying or protesting, you give it your all!

1980 - 1989: Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

1990 - 1999: With you anything goes! You're grunge one day, ghetto fabulous the next. It's all good!





...it's 'cos I said Brady Bunch, isn't it? You bastiges didn't ask me if I like disco, or house. Hmmm... Or hair bands. :-) Yep, yep, nope. If you're interested. I say I would be happier in either this age or the 1920s, or maybe the 50s. Or the future; I could deal with some apocalyptic future. I might even have a cool-ass light sabre, or a laser zappy gun. If I had one of those, I have a list of people I'd zap with it already worked out. I could look up their like, great-great grandchildren and zap them, just on principle. But when I think of the 60s, I think of a bunch of whiny, braless bunny huggers that badly needed to be bathed. Well, that's the impression that I get; almost like air conditioning hadn't been invented yet, or something. And everything back then also just reminds me of porn movies, I've no clue why. 70s would be ok, but only if I could be this ragingly slutty disco girl, and there were no STDs. Or leisure suits.

Well, I have to have standards.

After thinking about it, I'd rather have the zappy gun. I'd use it wisely.

Swear.









Blogthings goes insane

I don't believe it. It's just not true.










Your Political Profile



Overall: 60% Conservative, 40% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal



How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

But wait, there's more:





You Are a Liberal Republican



When you tell people that you're Republican, they rarely believe you.

That's because you're socially liberal - likely pro-choice and pro-gay rights.

You're also not so afraid of big goverment, as long as it benefits people and not politicians.

You are the most likely of any Republican type to swing over to the Democrat side sometimes.




I am not *EVER* a Conservative anything, or Republican. Or anything else, for that matter; I'm an Independent. If they had a Misanthrope ticket, I'd vote that. ;-) Blogthings is suffering some technical malfunction, or something. It's that simple.

My body!

:-) I am covered in scratches--everywhere. All courtesy of Squooshable. After another marathon meeting (we'll be having them every Tues. and Thurs.), I felt drained. It didn't help that Fluffernut McWhinymuffin actually deigned to attend and grace us with her insights.

Shut the fuck up, Fluffer!

Whew! That's been wanting to escape for hours.

Anyway, I lost the will to live midway through because (once again) the whole thing degenerated into yapping about nothing. This time it was a raging debate over whether or not market research companies conduct research. I mean any at all--not just empirically sound studies. Let's not even revisit that one. Let it suffice to say that Fluffernut remains unconvinced.

So I decided to go get a pedicure to try to relax. Or something. The place I go is run by cute little Vietnamese ladies; this place is less expensive than where I go to get my hair done, where they want like $50 for a pedicure. They're obviously supporting some outrageous crack habit, so I just go there for haircuts, 'cos SuperLinda, Goddess of the Shears is a bleeding miracle worker. She can take my cat fur thin hair and make it *do* something with just a cut.

Butsoanyway.

The Vietnamese ladies are less expensive, and they do a great job, especially for the money ($22!), and the place is very clean; I see them take apart and disinfect the manicure and pedicure stations most every time I'm there (we had a big to-do in this state over that a little bit back, and I'm sure they're just being extra careful for licensing reasons). It doesn't even matter that I can't understand a word they're saying; they're very nice, and they know you don't speak Vietnamese, so they work with you on the communicating stuff. They're good people. Well, when I had my pants rolled up, the lady doing me was all concerned over all the scratches I have. :-) She kept asking me, "Wha happen? Fall down? Wha happen?" I guess she thought I'd gotten mugged, or something. Hell...when I took a good look at my legs, *I* was wondering how Squooshable could have done all of that. :-) He climbs up me, and I don't have the heart to stop him--he's just so proud of himself when he makes it up. And yesterday, he discovered leaping, so now when I go in there, especially if I'm using the bathroom, Squoosh will get on the stepstool across from the toilet that I've covered with a towel for him to play on (it's wooden, and I didn't want him to hurt himself on the edges), and take a flying leap to get onto my lap. Well, he misses sometimes. But he catches himself by digging his claws into my leg, lowering himself down and trying again, or climbing via nails the rest of the way up. It hurts like hell, but it's kinda cute. And you should see my stomach and arms...

Well, he's learning to be a cat; this stuff doesn't happen overnight. I've begun taking Minocycline again day before yesterday, to be on the safe side.

So I tried for about ten minutes to get her to understand it was a cat. A tiny cat. When she understood, she started laughing, slapped me on the leg and shook her finger, meaning to not let him do that. :-) She says I should get a dog, because dogs don't do that.

Ah, hell...at least we had something to talk about; many times I go there and she doesn't understand me and I don't her, so we just smile a lot. :-)

After our meeting, Nastypants actually came up to me and asked how I am and stuff. I mean in a friendly way. Something's afoot; my radar's beeping, bigtime. RCG is pleasant, even though he knows I'm flying solo, so I don't know if it's that. In this stupid discussion we had, Scooter, Sophie, and I were trying to talk some sense into Fluffernut, and if Sophie wanted to make any comments at me, she more than had opportunity. So it might not be that at all.

We have a new intern-kind of person, Kidlet. Kidlet's an undergrad, and is in the being overly helpful, trying to be useful, puppydogging stage. She's not gotten the whole Group Dynamics thing down, so I think Fluffer's "I smell a dirty diaper" face and eye rolling were flustering her. Goddamn Fluffer. Kidlet tried to establish rapport with me by looking at what I was looking at on my laptop and trying (I guess) to help by giving me a synopsis of it. Normally, I find this kind of behaviour annoying, but I think Kidlet is afraid no one will like her, or something. I can empathise with that. I wanted to tell her that Scooter, Doogie, until recently RCG, and myself...we're normal(ish). It's Sophie, Fluffernut, and Nastypants that she needs to be on guard against. But I can't say something like that. Who the hell knows--her mileage may vary.

Anyway, after the pedicure, I called Meg and begged her to meet me for a late lunch. I've simply got to stop going all day without eating. Somehow.

So I drove over to Meg, and we took her car. Afterward, we were driving back, and Meg elbows me to look at a car in the neighbouring lane; it's a Toyota Corolla, probably about a '96. The paint is dulled considerably, but it has those chrome spinning hubcaps or wheels, whatever--the really expensive ones. And *huge* speakers in the back window. And there are two boys and a girl inside, all white. And the boys have their bling-bling on, and rally caps, and they're so totally mack-daddy, or whatever, I'm sure.

"Awww," says Meg, "how cute! Mom and Dad gave us the old Corolla, and we've turned it into a pimp ride! ...well...as much as a Toyota Corolla can *be* a pimp ride."
"I don't know," I said, leaning over to get a better look, "I think he's pretty fly, for a white guy."

And, serving me right, I've had the song in my head for the rest of the day.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Nephatiti

I couldn't sleep. I'm all stoked. Which is stupid, 'cos I'll be tired soon enough this semester. But I found this site...some of these backgrounds are gorgeous. I especially like this one (see? It's not dirty like NYC), though I would have named it Nephatiti.

But then again, I'd name most everything after 808 State songs if I were in charge of naming.

Quite cool

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Papers, please

Ok; I may once again be taking on too much, but hopefully this'll be fun. And productive. I'm so very excited! And nervous and scared, but whatever.

After leaving Eviljob this midmorning, I probably listened to too much Space Tribe on the drive in to campus because an Idea did come to me. It seemed Workable, Right, and Good--and best of all, no one was going to have to get nailed to a tree for anything. ;-)

I've listened to far too much Oliver Wisdom over the years, and it warps your brain. :-)

So I've turned what I'm going to be doing all by myself into different pieces, and hit up two profs to independent study me over Summer, so I'm getting something out of this. Basically, what this does is ensure that I "have" to produce something that is "theirs" for the class. And what I've committed to producing is pieces of the channelling Rin Tin Tin thing. This will work. :-) Yay. This is me, refusing to be miserable and just gripe anonymously about things that aren't going to change. So I have what will be two separate thought papers kind of thing plus the actual channelling RTT product that isn't mine per se; it's not mine 'cos it's contracted and paid for by the RCMP, but I've carved out a "mine" in a tiny respect.

And I found out why RCG is so positive Octopi are paid for, or should be in his case (which is such a brassy assumption that it's breathtaking), and his Octopus' OPP (other people's papers, of course) should be a group thang.

Why, it's because that's what Sophie's doing.

And he's been helping *her* with it. Well forgive me, but the both of you will be long gone by the time *I* am doing mine, so I'll decline the invite to the circle jerk if it's all the same to you. And that reaction is completely ignoring the fact that I *still* think it's morally questionable to be bending a project to your needs. If you need to benefit, do what I just did and make a side benefit for yourself, but do the assignment! And if he's a big enough doof to have Stepnfetchited for Sophie, that's *his* problem. And that is so totally like Sophie; I can so completely see her doing exactly that. This, in fact, is *exactly* what I would expect from Sophie, not him. So he now thinks it's ok, or de rigueur, or whatever. So then go hit up Sophie; how in the hell did I get dragged into this? Tell her she owes you. Geez.

Go figure. But I'm going to make an attempt to get one of my thought papers published. And anyone who doesn't like it can bite me. They're *my* thoughts. Product is *theirs*; thoughts are *mine*. One part of Sophie's thingy (let's say channelling Lassie about the width of the stetson's brim) was my idea that I threw out in a group meeting--and now it's making one major part of Sophie's thingy. Another major huge part of our Overarching Concept was COMPLETELY done by me, Nastypants, and another person who has since left the group (this is back when I was trying to get along with Nastypants so hard it was painful) because I got sick of the stagnating pool of having meetings about having meetings the whole group was in, and picked the two most likely candidates for getting something accomplished and met on our own, away from the chaos. So I've given more than enough ideas away for free. I'm not giving ideas and labour away to RCG for his Octopus. Not going to happen, even if he let me go down on him for a month. Plus, I'm being left out completely on this Overarching Concept thing now, because it worked. So it's glam and certain people have first dibs on claiming it. Okay, fine. Whatever. But I'm not giving anything else away for free; if I'm a major contributor, I get major credit, or forget it. I can run my own shit privately and take full credit. So bite me. This is one of the things that has been making me miserable, and I'm fixing it. Starting now.

I'm standing up for myself and looking out for my own behind, for once. It's long overdue.

On the Squoosh side, he's feeling super-spunky. And he eats too much. So I had to take away his food and am meting it out a bit at a time. Squoosh thinks he's starving, but truth is, he has no "off" switch. And I don't think it's healthy for him to walk around looking pregnant. :-) And his poor little butthole is probably staging a rebellion from overuse. He's still poopying, but I think he took a break from it yesterday, and that's what I'd noticed.

My older cat, Romeo, may have a respiratory infection. He's sneezed a bunch tonight, and if he does have one, he's probably caught it from The Interloper who has taken up residence in my front door area. It's an enclosed area with a teensy clearing with a little tree and a roof overhang (the reason I want a picture window in the living room soooo badly!), and I've been giving him food and water whilst waiting for Judy the Crazy Cat Lady to get back with me about pet-rescuing him or her. So the cat is happy, but I think (s)he might have a respiratory infection (which increases my belief in my hypothesis that it's the cat--or former cat--of the people across the street who have just had a baby; I'm wagering they've kicked him out because of the baby), so I'm going to have to harrass Judy the Crazy Cat Lady again in the morning. I can't take another cat, no matter how nice of a cat it is; I can't run up more vet bills, especially now if I have to take my older one in, and I can't bring it into the house and lock it in my other bathroom and dose it...I would do nothing but care for cats all day. I have to draw the line somewhere, and I'm drawing it at Squooshable. Judy will take it, get it to the vet, and then get it adopted out to someone. It'll have a better life, and all that. These past few days, I've been giving it food and water regularly, and those FaVor cat vitamins that I buy at the vet for my oldest cat (and it's now mandatory for Squoosh to eat, too; my middle cat can have them when she wants them, which she sometimes does and sometimes doesn't, but she's younger and healthy--and, yes, spayed; she's the one I rescued from Animal Control, and they spay/neuter before they will release them).

And we're getting a huge electrical storm. Whee. It's coming right at us from Out There, and it's really, really high on the K-scale (doesn't that measure lying or misrepresenting? Hmmm... In my best Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind voice, This Means Something) or whatever, so it could bring down entire power grids and whatnot. Cool cool, cool. I'm telling you--the end is nigh.

How can we survive The End? Well, I've been listening to Art Bell and George Noory for decades it feels like, and I think I have a pretty good handle on this. :-) I'm packing up the famille and heading to Mexico. Well, in theory. If you saw The Day After Tomorrow, you know--it's the only safe place to be. So I can head over there, buy property somewhere that's not too horribly disgusting, and wait for the Utter Devastation. OTOH, if you believe all of the John Titor malarkey...ummm...I meant hypothesis. Yeah. Hypothesis. Well if you believe it, then it sounds pretty good for Canada. I can deal with Canada better than I can deal with Mexico. But if TDAT's correct, I'm going to be an Ancodiapopcicle. Hmmm...

One place you don't want to be is New York. You'd think there would be safety in numbers, but I think everyone is in agreement that New York is a goner, whether it's from nukes, drowned world, global freezing, civil war, or whatever. And even if it survives and isn't underwater, it's still going to be really dirty and all Escape From New York-ish or Judge Dredd-ish, and who in the hell could stand that? I'd rather be an Ancodiapop. It's not the hustle and bustle; it's the freaking dirt. That's just one grimy-assed city. I think most writers of fiction destroy New York City for subconscious reasons, the same way cats cover up poopy in the litter box. Even Squoosh understands that.

:-)

So I think about these things... I mean, somebody has to.

Oh, poopy.

I'm waiting to see if Squoosh poopies; if not, it's back to the vet. He's been doing fine, but I'm not sure whether or not he's poopied today, and he's farting.

Squoosh farts are not attractive.

So I've put him back in the hall bathroom; we'll see what comes of it. He is a people person, and when I let him out, he gets so excited that he might be holding off on poopying, or something. He's amazing; he's litter trained himself! But when I come into the bathroom, he gets overly excited--he got so excited one time that he just jumped out of the litterbox without covering what he'd done up. So I think he might be holding it, hoping I won't put him back.

My meeting with RCG was...well...disappointing. I have, admittedly, a big problem with people who don't do as they should. This includes following simple directions that harm no one and benefit someone, fundamental rules of social interaction, obligations, and so forth. This doesn't mean someone has to toe the line all the time--hell; I'm freaking Generation Slack, if I remember how those silly generational names go. Sure--cut corners. Ride coattails to benefit yourself; it's all good. But overall, you should do as you should. It's the Jew in me--if someone is paying you, you are obligated to them for an amount of work commensurate with your salary. If you don't like the job, leave. But unless you're self-employed, you don't have the luxury, odds are, of doing only what benefits yourself; your employer has an agenda, and you are charged with furthering that agenda without exception. Otherwise, you are a thief, an embezzler. So in your heart of hearts, you don't care about a damn thing your employer cares about...welcome to my life at Eviljob. That check is the causa sine qua non of your loyalty, fealty, and obedience. Welcome to Adulthood--a lot of us feel that way.

I'm not talking about thefting god damn pencils. Go steal pencils and stickynotes if that's your joy. But you should not do it to excess, and it's nicer of you if you do it off the clock. I myself became unnaturally attached to a particular keyboard in my early days at Eviljob; even though computer stuffs are all labelled and coded and only belong to one station, cube, or office, I took my keyboard with me as I changed places, functional groups, and so forth. Some keys fell off, yet it remained. Finally, I was forced to retire it when everyone had to switch to black workstations. So I took my keyboard home. It's mine. We've been through a lot, my keyboard and me.

Yes...I know...

I believe you have my stapler?

Giggle.

Ok, so I'm pathetic. But my point is that sure, call in sick when you aren't; liberate pencils and staplers (though not in excess); sneak an extra five minutes into your fifteen minute break when you need it. But don't take on a project, say that you're going to do one thing, and then turn around and plot out another thing (that your job doesn't want, but will benefit you) and hope nobody notices. Especially if I'm that nobody. No matter how damn cute you are, you're not that cute.

So what happened? Think of it this way: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had an extra USD $52 (CAD $65.80) in the coffee kitty one week, so they contracted a group of canine psychics to determine whether or not RCMP dogs like their spiffy new red doggie coats with official RCMP hats, and what the public thinks of it--do those sneaky-ass Americans think the pooches are more intimidating as they cross the border, for instance?

So we're multi-talented puppy psychics. Suspend disbelief for a second.

Now this is a boring as hell question. In all likelihood, not even the RCMP themselves give a damn about an answer, it just sounds good when the press or someone else asks. It's probably even going to be used to justify spending money that would be better spent some other way, like William Shatner's acting lessons, for example. Now there's a public service.

Butsoanyway: Puppy psychics don't get a vote on how the money is spent. The RCMP asked, "Who wants $52 to investigate this?" Fido Fortunetellers, LTD. said "We do!" To my way of thinking, it ends there; we (Fido Fortunetellers), are beholden to produce something relevant to RCMP dogs, their uniforms, their opinions of their uniforms, and the public's perception(s) of their uniforms. After all, we're getting a dollar a week to study it for a year--right?

So I meet with RCG to discuss the dogs. We're going to be working on channelling Rin Tin Tin to get his opinion on the epaulettes.

Admittedly boring. Yet it's paid work, all the same. And this type of work is rife in this field. It pays the mortgage. And the more you do, the more you get; next couple of months, we will be getting USD $104 per year, 'cos we've handled this so smashingly. So basically, if you can't at least go through the motions, you might want to consider doing something else with your life. This boring ass shit enables you to buy new crystal balls on the RCMP's tab that you can use to do all your "real interest" stuff with later on--after you get their work done.

So Ancodia wants to hammer out whether we should observe feng shui principles when we set out the crystal balls and incense. This semester we are, after all, channelling Rin Tin Tin. Plus feng shui's all sexy right now, so we might get published in the International Journal of Feng Shui Police Puppies if we play our cards right.

RCG however, wants to spend half of the time allotted reading up on the Pythagorean Theorem and transmogrification of souls, and then maybe do something with that.

"...I'm sorry," says I, "come again?"

Well, RCG is writing his own Magnificent Octopus. The Big Octopus. And he's in the Reading Other People's Stuff stage. He wants to determine if all poets become cockroaches and all Cleopatras become alley cats when their souls transmogrify. And the cool thing is, the RCMP can buy all the things he needs, and pay him to do it. And since Ancodia's not writing her own Major Magnificent Octopus yet, she can help pore over all these dusty books we're going to go gather up. And at the end (of this period, not of his Octopus), we'll give them a hastily put-together paper and Powerpoint about transmogrification and cockroaches, and tell them this is imperative to know before doing something complex like channelling Rin Tin Tin, 'cos he might have transmogrifed into like, Art Bell already. If he did, we can just call Art--that'll save money in crystal balls, and we'll only need a prepaid calling card to the Kingdom of Nye. So we'll tempt the RCMP with saving money falsely. We'll explain to them that poets into cockroaches and Cleopatras into cats are the only documented examples, so we had to research them. After all, they are just cops; what difference will they know?

Ummm, no. Number one, that's stealing, and it's reprehensible. Aside from that, that's lying, and that's even worse. Add to that the fact that Ancodia is not going to research part of your Octopus for you--that's your job, just like my Octopus will be my job. As important as that is, I don't know why you'd trust someone else to read stuff for your Octopus. I mean, I could be retarded for all you know about me, Mister. Add to *that* the fact that it is not taken for granted that your work on your Octopus will be paid for; if it is, great. Most of the time it isn't, or at least not completely. When your Octopus deviates so significantly from the goal--getting Rin Tin Tin's opinion of the epaulettes--it's wrong of you to try to force it just so that you can get paid to produce an Octopus. Especially when that Major Octopus ups your value so much. Incorrect, my friend; Ancodia's not helping. Count me out. Especially when I'm supposed to meet with a big RCMP Kahuna because he's really really interested in Rin Tin Tin. Has all his movies, even carries a Rin Tin Tin lunchpail to work every day. That means that *I* have to lie, and I try to keep my lies to a minimum, 'cos I'm retarded and forget what I've lied about.

Though I said it politely. And probably not as firmly as it merited, because he's cute. Damn it all.

RCG was nice about it; he even tried the "are you *certain* you understood our goals? I think my interpretation is the right one, and even if it isn't, we're being Thorough" tack. Being thorough is an appealing tack after all, the argument goes; no other puppy psychics would have been this Thorough, and that would make for one hell of a joint authorship...

Octopi aren't joint authored, Ancodia points out. I believe that's a checkmate, bubelah.

To his credit, and in one of his sexier moments, RCG paused. And smiled. I'm right, he admits; they aren't. Pause. Why don't we check with The Powers That Be and get clarification, he suggests.

Because TPTB don't give a royal god damn, and would say your way is fine. TPTB don't like Mounties, anyway. TPTB just do this because it's prestigious, brings a dollar a week in, and keeps them rolling in new crystal balls. And you know it, but I can tell you don't know it for certain. So I obfuscated to buy some time. I made something with someone higher than TPTB seem more imminent than it is.

And I woke up early this morning, and went to TPTB myself. First. And I proposed to TPTB that RCG shouldn't be hemmed in by the restrictions on this silly channelling Rin Tin Tin crap. After all, he's got an Octopus to think about. So Ancodia will set up her crystal ball and incense, and channel on her own. RCG can do his own thing, and be a Rin Tin Tin channeller in name only; Ancodia will do all of the boring RCMP shit, and RCG can do the gravy transmogrification stuff. After all no one, even Ancodia, gives a flying flip about epaulettes. It's just another something on our "gotta do" list.

TPTB said that sounded great.

Woof, baby.

So I will be working alone yet again, and admiring RCG from a distance. Which is good, because although he's sweet (and cute, and really really pretty, and so forth), I'm not crazy about what I saw close up. I'm hoping this was a Weak and Confuzzled Moment brought about by the stresses of an Octopus, and not proof positive that he's a moral attractive nuisance.

A moral attractive nuisance is like an unfenced swimming pool that looks so fucking luscious that you just *have* to dive in but when you do, you can't remember why looting the owner's house was such a bad idea before. It's the blue soup of the ethical world, and I avoid it like the plague. Or try to, when I'm bright enough to recognise it, that is.

Not that I'm saying he is. I don't know, you know, who knows? :-) But I'm wary now. That laid-back "it's all good" attitude could be more ominous than it seems. And that royally sucks. But oh, well.

This doing the right thing thing really blows goats.

And in the time it has taken me to vent I went in to give Squoosh his antibiotics, and yay! Poopy!

Who'd have thought my life would ever come to this? I've ditched a Truly Hot Guy, and am thrilled over cat shit. This is perverse. And so totally not the life in which I thought I'd end up.

G'night, Squoosh. I love you.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Bwah!

I woke up this morning (da naa-na-nah)
With a call to the phone (da naa-na-nah)
That's like a boot to the head (da naa-na-nah)
'ceptin you're all alone (da naa-na-nah)

Just call me Blind Grapefruit Ancodia.

I stayed up really late, and planned to sleep in. I don't really have anything to do today; I don't have to go in to Eviljob (yay), and other stuff...isn't doing today. But I just received a call from...

Eek...

RCG. Yep. He wants to meet this afternoon. Sigh. As in just us, to discuss this thingy. Partly my fault; I was pushing for a meeting to get things going. But I was talking like Wednesday--once I'm awake. And stuff. RCG even asked me if I'd been asleep, so I guess it snuck through even though I did my best to sound all awake-like. Of course I told the truth; I mean...I'm not good at lying in the first place. Even worse about it to people that I like, so...what was I supposed to do? Plus I was all distracted because I've still not trained myself away from being a little preoccupied with how I want to do him whenever we talk. This is double-plus ungood...I can't do this! Eek!

I want to send Dr Sobel as my consigliere, damnit. I want to phone a friend. I want to do this all by email. Or carrier pigeon.

Oh, dear--I need to pluck my eyebrows.

Squoosh is great. He just was sleepy. I'm going to go give him his antibiotics again, and have a panic attack for a few hours.

Oh, and pluck my eyebrows. I wonder if I could get a hair appointment on this short of a notice...

I hope I don't do anything stupid, like tell him I love the way he writes with a pencil.

Augh.

Mr Lonely and the Interloper

Augh! I think Squoosh is feeling better. :-) He's rumbling and ticking and purring on my chest (I'm reclined way back) trying to beat the living hell out of my necklace. 2ZVVVVVBBBBBA2555XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ummm...that was Squoosh. He had something important to say. He's been trying to type for an hour, and I told him he could here if he wanted to. I didn't let him type in any of my emails to instructors or school people just now, 'cos I didn't think they'd...ummm...speak Squooshable.

But I assured him that what he just wrote here was very well-put and insightful.

Now that Squoosh is feeling somewhat better, he's talking a lot more. :-) As soon as I put him back in the bathroom, he starts crying. As soon as I pick him up, he stops crying and starts purring.

If this was designed to make me feel guilty, it works like a charm.

And I am still so paranoid that Squoosh isn't going to be okay. He's just so tiny. I'm normally paranoid and neurotic, but...he's just so teensy and sick-ish and frail-ish, that I'm more nutty than usual, I guess. I'm just scared that I'm going to do something, or not do something, and he's going to die.

Squoosh still has his little head-tilt from the infection. Hopefully that will go away soon, as will the stumbling, but as bad of me as it is to say it, he looks cute with the head-tilt.

And we like to play Fingers--that's the fun game where you grab a moving finger with your needle-sharp claws, pull it to your mouth, and try to nurse, interspersed with sinking our little fangs into the nasty, evil finger. :-) Ouch! But...I'm a wuss. I don't have the heart to correct him, so I let him play. Yeowch! Another version of Fingers is played by me waggling slowly my fingers, and he takes turns sticking the tip of each one in his mouth, but not biting down. Fingers is like, the coolest game in the world; a million times better than bizzy balls, or anything else I could buy. We can play Fingers for at least an hour or so before we have to go back to sleep. It rocks.

And I swear to god--I gave him food this morning and left him in the bathroom, and as I left for work, I heard him singing "Lonely... I'm Mr Lonely..."

I may name him Squooshable Bobby Vinton. :-) Or Squooshable Bobby Vinton Baconface. We majorly pigged out on bacon bits from my BLT wrap.

Bacon and Fingers. Who could ask for more?

Am I going to keep him? Augh.

I shouldn't. But I want to. I already love the little guy. And I think about him all the time. But I feel guilty; I mean, I just lost Puff. I shouldn't go replacing her like this. She was irreplaceable. But Squoosh needs me. Someone else might not sneak out early from work to come home and play Fingers. He likes Fingers.

So I just don't know. But I am going to keep him until he's done with his antibiotics and is all well and everything. At the very least. And probably gains some weight. So we're talking like, two or three weeks.

So I won't think about it until then.

Now for the incredible part:

When I came home, I got out of my car and tried to go into the house... And my house was almost broken into! Yes...someone tried to follow me into my house, and I think he (or she) is still at my front door. He (or she) is about mid-calf in height, white and grey, and wears a blue necklace with a bell. And he (or she) is very dirty.

What in the hell is going on? Am I a cat magnet? Did word of Puff's death get out, and now I'm getting volunteers?

This is an older cat--you can tell he's older. And big. I fed him and gave him some water, and a kitty vitamin. He's too friendly to be a stray. I'm hoping he'll go back home. If he's still there in the morning, then I'll call the Pet Rescue people. I so completely totally cannot take on a fourth cat.

I just put Squoosh up for the night. When he goes to sleep, he looks very limp. That scared the hell out of me the first time I saw him asleep; I thought he was dead. He's just...limp-looking. I can't imagine why, and no other cat I've had did that when they were a kitten. Or maybe they did, and I never noticed, I don't know. Most of the time when he's awake, he looks pretty good. But then when he gets sleepy, like tonight, he just looks very bad, and I'm afraid he'll die. But he has a pretty face, and he's so nice, and quick to purr. I so totally have my fingers crossed that he will hurry up and get over the ear infection and gain weight. Then maybe I won't worry so much.

Yeah, so I need to be put on a permanent Valium drip myself. Sigh. I love the little guy. I can't help it.

I think the cat at my door might belong to the family across the street. I hope he does, though if he does, I think he was kicked out because of their new baby, which is mean and bad and wrong. I hope like hell he's not belonging to the mouthbreathers diagonal to me; they're horrid people. Even their children are mouth-breathing rednecks, who play in the road (yes--they let their children play in traffic; if that isn't Natural Selection at work, then I don't know what is!). Ok, this is a residential area, and so there's not traffic traffic, but there are still people who drive way too fast, and why court disaster? Especially when you have a huge lawn and drive in which your children can play. And beat each other up. And scream. And run around half-naked.

God help me, ever since they moved in almost two years ago, you can practically *hear* the property values dropping. All they need to do is put a burnt-out Chevy up on cinderblocks in the front yard, and the picture shall be complete. I could continue to whine about them, but I'll sum it all up by saying thank god for homeowners' associations. You think they're Nazis, until Mouthbreathers move in.

Eviljob was, well...Evil. As always. But it is a boring Evil. :-) But I am all uncomfortable now, for some reason. I mean physically. Like I was sitting for too long, which I probably was. So my butt is as numb as my mind, and I'm achy.

I had better go to sleep, or I'll worry about Squooshable all night. He's all I can think about. I guess I've really come to love the little guy a lot in just a few days.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Squishable?

Squoosh had to go to the vet today. It seems we have a bad middle ear infection. :-( Last night, I noticed Squooshable was tilting his head and holding it there, and seemed to be a lot less steady on his feet. I know he's still learning to walk somewhat, but it seemed like he was doing a little worse than Wednesday on Thursday night. So I took him this morning to the same nice vet that tried to help Puff, because I like him and I had to pick up Puff's ashes anyway, and Squooshable needed an FeLV test anyway. So here's what I found out:

1) Squoosh is pretty infected in the ear. The vet cleaned it up and has him on oral and topical antibiotics, going at the infection from both sides before it pops his teensy eardrum. :-( The good news is that I gave Squoosh his first dose of each around 2:00pm, and already he seems a little perkier. The vet said Squoosh will probably be just fine.

2) Squooshable is FeLV negative, though at appx. 5 weeks old, an ELISA may give a false negative because antibodies haven't been given a chance to form. Negative is definitely good, but Squooshable will have to be re-tested in a bit.

3) Squooshables don't like being tested for FeLV and red blood cell count; they holler loudly about it. But when brought back to Mom, they forget about it in a minute or two and start purring again.

4) Squooshable is more like five weeks old, possibly less.

5) Squooshable is anaemic. This is probably because when we were found, we had fleas on us that were as big as we were. But even though Revolution (like Frontline, but does ear mites & heartworm) is for 8wks & older cats, you can put a smaller dose on younger kittens if they need it--and Squoosh needed it. He has ear mites bad, too. :-(

6) Squoosh is a people person. :-) We purr at Mom, vets, techs, and anything else we think might benefit from our love.

I've learnt other things about Squoosh, but the only other one I remember is that we could also be named "Squishable", 'cos that's how they'd spelt it at the vet's. So I'm debating: Squooshable? Squishable? Hmmm...

And Squoosh (Squish?) gives kitty kisses. :-) And is dizzy from the infection and therefore bops his little snout on the bottom of the dish, or the floor when he lunges down to eat. Ouch!

So I got Squoosh back home, dosed him, took a quick shower while I gave him time to react horribly to the Revolution, antibiotics, or anything else (I am so paranoid, it's sad), and then dashed off to yet another meeting. This one I didn't mind going to--it's hopefully going to make the Summer more fun. Yay. Naturally, I hope my ideas win out because I like them more, but...either way, I'm good. :-)

Then I decided that if I went home, I'd just bother Squooshable, who needs to sleep, and worry, and piss my other two cats off by only paying attention to Squoosh, 'cos I'm paranoid that he's going to die. So I went to a movie. I haven't been to a movie in ever. I mean seriously. It's been at least a year. Maybe more. And I felt negligent as hell, but I figured it was best for all of us. Squoosh sleeps, I get occupied by something else for a few hours.

I just can't stop apologising for going to the damn movie, can I?

I went to see Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which is one of my longtime favourite books (series, really). I'd only just found out about the movie like, a week or two ago. Shows what a rock I live under.

It was pretty good overall. Considering I've read the books probably twenty times at least over the years and seen the BBC show and heard the radio program, I was expecting Hollywood to completely screw it up. Thankfully, they didn't. It's not the BBC show, but it's good in its own right. It deviates a little from the book, but that's to be expected. So I was happy. :-)

And I came home, and Squoosh was a little perkier and stuff. And not dead. So that was even better.

Let's hope it stays that way.

Oh, noooooo!!!!!!!

Ok... I turned a what was assigned as a 6-pg paper into a 20-pg paper because they invented the word "overkill" just for me. This puts the class with my advisor to bed. Woof, baby! Now I have just one more thing to hand in for my other class, and then this term is officially *over*! The other prof (the one I'm still owing) just went ahead and submitted a grade, though. It's an A or B, I'm sure (and I'd bet on A, but I don't want to count my chickens, as it were), but I'm afraid to look. :-) I normally don't get Bs, for the most part. I mean, I will if there's extenuating circumstances like a suck-ass prof or the fiasco that occurred this term, or if I just don't give a damn, but in general, no.

Which is different from how I used to be; I used to not care at all. But that's ok. Now I still don't care really, but I end up with better grades. Go figure. But I guess one factor in that is that, on the graduate level, it's pretty much A, B, Fail. Those are the choices. I mean, most programs won't let you get more than two or three Cs, and technically a C is thought of as "failing". Some programs, like Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Comp Sci, are sometimes more lenient, but you usually end up talking to HoD, or something similar.

Butsoanyway.

Squooshable barfed today. Of course that sent me into a panic. I think it was from overeating, which Squooshables seem to do a lot, but still...it scared me. I probably should get with the Pet Rescue people and turn him over to them. I mean, I can't do right by him. Hell...I can barely do right by myself and the people and cats I already have. That is very depressing, but I guess it'll make my oldest cat happy. Tonight my oldest walked up to me, glared, flicked his tail, and said, "It doesn't even have a tail, Babe. Put it back." And stalked off.

Sigh. Poor Squooshable. I don't know what to do.

Had a marathon meeting today at Supidjob, the not-Eviljob job. Well, I didn't get New Guy; I ended up with no beneath-me help, and co-ing up with RCG. Oy, vey. Just what I need. I don't mind working with him; he's cute and smart and on top of things. The problem is the cute. It's hard to be all innovative and go-getting and business-like when you're mentally running around, stamping out the "geez, I could so totally do you right now!" thoughts like they're little brushfires. Plus, screw it--I need a Stepnfetchit. Eviljob has trained me against being my own Stepnfetchit...I've been spoilt.

This is my "I'm an ideas girl" whine. It's copyrighted.

Sigh.

But in a way, it's ok. Maybe together we'll be more productive. At least I've gotten a productive one; things could be worse.

Squooshable is against my leg. :-) I think I might let him sleep with me. We'll see. I probably shouldn't until I find out if he has FeLV or something, though. He could wander off while I'm asleep, and one of my cats might deck him, and get it too or something.

Speaking of which, Puff's ashes were back today. I couldn't go pick them up because I was in Marathon Meeting. One of the postmortem tests the vet should have back for me to pick up is the Feline Infectious Peritonitis test, which I'm half-convinced will come back positive. The symptomology sounds very similar to what happened to Puff. I think she might have had the less-symptomatic one, I think it's the "dry" one.

On second thought, maybe I should follow common sense preventative measures and put Squooshable up for the night in the bathroom. :-\ I just can't stand to lose another cat. Not right now.

Oh...I went off on a tangent... I think RCG's been poisoned by Sophie though; he didn't seem any too thrilled to have me. Eh. The Truth shall set me free. :-) I'm unconcerned. Let her do her worst. Talking shit about me is so very Third Grade.

Okay; on to the next: I did make up with a lot of people. :-) My immediate family is, well...different. Mom, the little I've been able to talk to her before and since she left, is just Mom. She's as dotty as they come. I guess I can either cope with that, or not. I choose to cope.

My brother is a unique one too. I'm not sure we'll ever have a really good relationship, exactly. We're just very different people. And his wife is such a clone, but we'll not go there. He and my father have definite ideas about how women should be and behave, and I have never ever fit that mould. And I don't agree with everything he is and does, in return. I resent like hell having to worry about him over things that are preventable, things that he only got into because of his enormous ego. He has to "best" everyone. Every single fricking person around. But that's just like my father, too. So in a way, the two of them are in a lifelong pissing contest with each other. I'll grumble more about it later in detail. I'm still trying to not be angry about it, so it's going to have to sit and wait until I can be dispassionate(er) about it.

Dispassionater is too so a word. Maybe.

Meg likes me. She's more like me than either my mother or father, but enough like my father that she doesn't fuck up as often as I do, and she is for this reason more accomplished in life than I--at this point. I'll catch up eventually. And we for the most part get along, at least now. I just have to remember that when things get rough, I can't just dump on her or jettison her. And I can't get as selfish as I have been.

Of course, I never even received an acknowledgement from my advisor over my apology. Feh.

Oh, well. Can't have everything.

Meg's still Away, and says she'll be back on Monday. She's got to start the term, and has to prep, so she can't really stay any longer if it's being unproductive, and I guess she feels she's being unproductive there. She hasn't gotten her chip into one of the big games yet, and she's frustrated and getting broker. She's not resenting the money laid out, but she just feels she's not seeing the return on it that she wants in the amount of tme she wants it in. I can kind of understand that, thought I'm more inclined to engage in fruitless pursuits than she is, so if I were her, I'd hang in there. But that's my major malfunction, not hers.

Sigh. I'd better get to sleep if I want to get anything done tomorrow. :-\

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Squooshable

Today I met Squooshable.

I was leaving Eviljob and walking all the way out to East Egypt to get into my car, when I passed by this "lowrider" type of car belonging to another employee that was all "hispanic-ed out"--you know, crap dangling from the rear view mirror, low to the ground, shiny tinting...the whole nine yards.

And no, I'm not prejudiced, but I think it's just silly.

Butsoanyway.

As I passed this car, I heard a cry for help. Or it might have been saying "hi!" Regardless, I heard it.

Ok, so I heard a cat. Mewping. A lot.

I tried to find the source of the sound, and it was coming from this car! From the trunk! I was fishing in my purse for my cell phone as I swore at the son of a bitch that had put one of the strays in their trunk; I was working myself up into a fury! I was going to call the police, and the ASPCA, and find out whose car it was and have them terminated... And then I was going to key the car and beat them up! How dare they trap a cat in their trunk?!?

Before I made an *absolute* ass of myself (ummm...yeah; I'm clued in to the fact that I sometimes think the worst of people), I decided to make only a minor fool of myself, and get down on my hands and knees and double-check underneath the car. I'd leaned over and seen nothing, but that's not thorough. So I got down and looked underneath--no cat.

And then it went Mewp! almost right in my ear.

I realised that it was somehow up in the car; you hear all the time about kittens crawling up into car engines and stuff...I figured that this was what had happened, only in the back of the car. So I tried to slide under the car to look as much as possible, and saw something moving in the wheel well, on top of the tire--something dark.

Augh. As if I didn't look foolish enough already.

So I had to wedge my right arm and shoulder up under the car and around the tire to fish blindly in the wheel well. And all the while, this cat was mewping its little heart out. I was glad I thought to leave my coffee cup and case on their car where if the owner came out to leave, they would see it, because if they jumped in and pulled off, I'd be without a cat *and* a right arm. Finally I managed to grab something on the little thing and tried to gently slide it down around the tire without banging it into anything, or poking its eyes out.

This is not an easy thing to do, by the way.

Finally I got it out! And it was small! A tiny black kitten with blue-grey eyes, and...no tail! Well, a stub of a tail. And it had eyeboogers, and crap in its ears, and was crawling with huge fleas! And still mewping at me!

"What were you doing up there," I asked it, "you could have been clobbered if someone had decided to drive off!"
"Nope," it said, "I'm rough and tough, and Indestructible! Invincible maybe, even!"
"You are not ever. You're Squooshable."
"Am not!"
"Are too."
"Not!"
"Are."

I decided to take Squooshable with me. I mean, what else could I do--leave it there? It thinks it is Indestructible, Invincible maybe even, and climbs up into the wheel wells of lowriders.

I'm temporarily calling it Squooshable, hoping that it will take the clue.

I took it home and bathed it in Joy to kill the fleas, 'cos it's too young to have any insecticides on it. The first two latherings rinsed black--so black I was half afraid the cat would turn out to be white, or something! And we talked the whole time!

"I think I'm washing all your black off, Squooshable"
"Indestructible!"
"You wish."

Then I tried to feed it, but I didn't have any soft food left. And it even though it drank water and ate a couple pieces of dry food, he (he's a boy) kept trying to nurse me--my chin, neck, arm, fingers... I knew he was trying to nurse, 'cos it's the same thing Puff did ever since she was a baby. My son-friend was coming over to take me with him to exchange a razor I bought a few months ago for him (bless Bloomies and their way-too-lenient exchange policies), so I put Squooshable in a carrier and told son-friend that we were stopping at the pet store for cat milk. I took Squooshable in with me, and the lady there said Squoosh is about six weeks old. :-) So we got the cat milk and soft food, and went back to the car, where I set up food in the carrier.

Turns out that Squooshables like cat milk. And soft food. A lot.

So Squooshable gorged himself tremendously and then passed out. He was in the carrier, so we left him there (yes, windows cracked, plus it was only like low-70's with no sun today & son-friend's car is tinted) while we went into Bloomies to exchange the razor. Sucker that I am, I let son-friend trade up and paid an extra $80. What a moron I am. Oh, well.

When we came out, Squooshable was still asleep and I was feeling nice, so we went to another store and I bought a weird digital Kenneth Cole watch for him. Well, he really wanted it, and he did a great job on the back door, and I'm just a sucker, plus I owe him for ignoring him kind of these past two months. Whatever. It made him happy, and that's what matters. I was starting to worry about Squooshable when we got out of that store, so I made him stop in the parking lot and checked--Squooshable deeply resented being awakened, and fussed at me. Or said "hi, Mom". It's hard to tell.

So I figured Squoosh was ok and we went to grab something to eat, since I realised that I hadn't eaten all day. With the exception of his girlfriend calling five times, it wasn't a bad dinner. Girl-friend of son-friend felt the need to call five times because she likes drama, and desperately wants me to have a brick fall on my head and decide to try to steal son-friend away from her, or fuck him, or something.

Can you say "Eew" boys and girls? I know you can.

This is mega-retarded of g-f of s-f on more levels than I care to think about, but I'll visit it here for a sec: (1) we're just friends; (2) we're...ummm...different. Different in interests, education, money, background--you name it, we're different in it. It's a dumb idea if it were an idea, which it isn't, because people have to have *something* in common to have that kind of a connection. These differences make for interesting conversation, but anything other than friendship is out of the question; (3) The feelings just aren't there. Anyone who has ever had an opposite-gender sibling would get that. Some things just ain't a-gonna happen, folks. Not even after a nuclear war; (4) As much as it pains me to admit it, I have to have respect for someone I'm sleeping with, even if it's just a fuck-buddy thing. I'm not saying I don't respect son-friend, but... It's not the kind of respect I would have to have to do the deed. He has too many problems (mental, physical, financial, educational, career-wise) for me to have the genre of respect I would have to have for this to even be a question, much less an answer.

Ok, so those are my reasons. G-f of s-f's reasons for not understanding or believing this are (1) I've never explained it to her, because (a) she's never broached the subject with me; (b) getting that bimbo to understand something that contains actual thought, well... I'd probably have an easier time getting her to understand the epsilon-delta definition of a limit; at least that has diagrams I can draw for visual assistance.

Ok, so I'm a bitch. I'm also honest, even if it hurts.

(2) is that she is a total drama queen herself. I don't think she's comfortable when she's not stealing a man, or having one thefted, or some kind of Jerry Springer-worthy drama that involves screaming, crying, and throwing things. Probably ideally whilst in a house which is on wheels. :-) I don't get Ladies Like Her. (3) She's the type that is jealous of my type Just Because. And no, I'm not giving myself an ego blowjob. I run into this type occasionally. Maybe someday I'll figure it out because, from my perspective, there's nothing to be jealous of here. Would that I were, I'm not that great. I had one of Her Ilk theft a guy I was dating once. When I gave up and let him go, she decided she didn't want him anymore. Heh. Neither did I, much to his dismay. Teach you, buttmunch betrayer.

Ok, enough of g-f of s-f's reasons; they're enthralling, but I must simply tear myself away and continue.

So we ate, and every ten-to-fifteen minutes g-f of s-f would call. Sigh. I didn't give him any shit about it, because he was bound to get enough from her when he came home because I'd bought stuff for him including dinner, and given him money. Her biggest problem with this is that I don't do it for her too, is what I'm thinking. Well, I've bought her *scads* of dinners, and if he and she didn't live across town and she was way over there while he was over here, and she didn't have a problem driving after dusk because it gives her anxiety attacks and then she has to take Klonopin and then that makes her too sleepy to drive...

...did I mention she just loves that drama?

So after dinner, son-friend dropped me off at home and I gave him money to get something for her in the hopes that she'd quit with all the whining. Squooshable let me put him in my hall bathroom without any fuss and when I put him in the litter box, he just sat there--like he was awaiting further instructions. :-) Awww...

Then I got the food & cat milk set up, and he started eating again. I think Squooshable has an eating disorder. I may have to rename him Explodable. And I know I'm pathetic, but it kind of makes me sad, because I'm concerned that these past six weeks haven't been very good ones for Squooshable. I think today is the nicest day Squooshable has ever had. That thought makes me want to cry. Poor Squooshable.

And I need to make sure he doesn't have FeLV, or AIDS, or anything. And then I guess I have to figure out what I'm going to do with Squooshable.

I should give Squooshable to the Pet Rescue people, who will take him and get him neutered and give him his shots and all and then get him adopted. I can't handle three cats; we've already proven that.

But I like Squooshable. And he likes me. And he falls asleep on me and looks cute.

My other two cats hate Squooshable. My oldest has told me several times this evening that I should take Squooshable back to where I found it. :-) In no uncertain terms.

Squooshable, on the other hand, finds my oldest cat fascinating. This irks my oldest cat beyond description. My oldest cat has already taught Squooshable some Dirty Kitty Words.

What to do... What to do...