Rain and Roses

We made it to Sierra Vista in one piece.  The travel went smoothly enough, but it was hard to enjoy because I had a big knot in my chest from listnening to Dexter yowl, scratch, and generally go nuts the entire way.  Two 2.5-hour flights, a 1.5 hour layover, and a 1.5 hour car ride.  I'm surprised the poor guy wasn't hoarse.  (Leo, on the other hand, was remarkably chill - I guess either the Valium helped, or he was just too plain terrified to do his usual mental-patient-throwing-himself-against-the-walls-of-the-carrier routine.)  We got them here eventually, and they proceeded to spend the entire night making as much noise as felinely possible so that we knew exactly how unimpressed they were with air travel/car rides/Arizona/the new digs/the narrow windowsills/moving in general.  Needless to say, we didn't get a whole lot of sleep, although it was worse for Brian than me, as he had to start his new job the next day.

One day later, Dexter's pretty much calmed down and seems happy enough exploring the new place.  Leo, however, has found a hiding place where we can't find him, which worries us some.  We know he's got to be around, though - he hasn't gotten outside and I saw him dashing between rooms briefly earlier this evening - so if he needs to be an invisible cat for a while until he's more comfortable with the new place, I guess I can understand that.  There have certainly been a couple of times I'd have liked to curl up where no one else could find me.

ETA:  Found him - there's a hole in the inside part of the wall where the plumbing from one of the bathroom sinks goes in, just big enough for a cat to jump through.  We'll have to find some way to patch it.

Incidentally, I'd forgotten exactly how bloody expensive it is to (re)stock a household - we've spent more than a grand on just basic items like bedding and cookware and cleaning supplies and dishes, and we haven't even begun to look for furniture yet.  I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of Craigslisting in our near future.  (Still cheaper than the seven grand it would've been to ship everything, though.)  Many thanks go once more to the lovely guests at our housecooling party - their generosity made the process much less painful than it could have been.

We rented a car for a couple of weeks until the Audi makes it here.  The guy was going to give us a Chevy Aveo but offered us a discount on an upgrade to a new Mustang, which we decided to take - although more because Aveos are crappy cars than for any love of the Mustang (we test-drove a 2006 a few years ago and were extremely unimpressed with the build quality, noisy ride, sound system, and various other non-features).  It ended up being well worth the extra expense, however, because the 2010 Mustang is like the 2006 one built by Japanese engineers - still a lot of the same aggressive American styling cues, but much nicer materials, a far quieter engine, surprisingly good soundproofing, a much nicer stereo system, a cool retro-look interior design, and generally a much higher standard of build quality.  I'd heard rumours that Ford was trying to clean up its act with regards to its passenger cars, but I hadn't realized exactly how stark the difference was - I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really enjoying driving it.  It's just the basic hardtop V6 model, but I'd easily recommend anyone looking for a midsize car to give it a look - it's nice and roomy (the backseat is decent-sized for all it's a coupe), the engine's got plenty of power, and the styling's a lot more interesting than (say) the comparably priced Chrysler Sebring (to say nothing of the Sebring's myriad other faults).

Sierra Vista itself has yet to really convince me that it's a place we're going to want to stay for very long.  Admittedly, it's only been a day, but the various message boards I was reading weren't kidding - this place is like Strip Mall/Big Box World.  I guess when you don't have to build slanted roofs to deal with snow/rain, a box is the most efficient shape for a building, but yeesh - talk about blandness in architecture.  Even the place we're renting, which is quite nice on the inside, isn't much to look at, just...boxy.  The real question will be the people, I think - places to live are all well and good, but friends are what make them worth staying in, interesting architecture or no.  So we'll give it time...we're here for a year, and if we're unimpressed at the end of it, there's nothing stopping us from packing everything into a U-Haul and heading someplace else.

I really miss Juneau right now.

Oh, and one last thing - all of you whom I've been telling about the 72 degree sunny weather?  It's all lies.  Today was about fifty degrees and windy, and supposedly it's going to get down to 28 tonight.  They say it's a cold front moving over the entire Western US, and that it's blizzarding in Wyoming and Colorado right now, but I see through their claims - the whole "come to the desert for the nice winter weather" thing is one big joke meant to lure unsuspecting northerners down here.  Don't be fooled!

...the newest member of the family.


I haven't been posting a lot of personal stuff lately, so I'm not sure if I ever formally mentioned it, but our beloved Adora Belle went missing while we were on our honeymoon.  The door got left slightly open, she and Dexter both went out, and only Dexter ever came back.  We posted notices and set out a trap, but no luck - the only indication we got that she was even still around was a dead mouse left at the bottom of the stairs a month ago.  So a couple weeks back, after a neighbor found her collar (it was designed to be the break-away sort if it caught on anything), we just decided to let her be and hope she was happy being feral again.  Considering how poorly treated she'd been in the past when her people abandoned her, I can't really blame her for wanting to leave before she ended up somewhere else with awful people.  I just wish we'd been able to explain to her that we loved her and were coming back.

On a happier note, however, we have a new kitty!  His name is Leo, and he is a golden tabby with the whitest white fur you have ever seen, on his paws and chest and half his muzzle.  His paws are also huge, as is the ruff of fur on his chest; between those features, his remarkable jumping ability (he doesn't so much jump onto things as lazily leap), and his uncanny intelligence (within five minutes of arriving in his room he'd figured out how to open the hanging closet doors, and within a day he'd learned how to knock things inside the closet over to push the doors outwards and give him more space), we think he's probably at least part Maine Coon.

Leo comes from a rather happier background than Adora Belle did.  He was rescued as a kitten from under a neighbor's porch by a kindly family who wanted to keep him and his sister, but eventually discovered that four cats was just too much (something I can certainly understand, given the way feline presence seems to multiply exponentially to the actual number of cats).  His sister Jade was adopted out, so he was there all alone at the shelter, and when he jumped up in Brian's lap and put his big paws on his chest it was pretty much a sure thing.

Normally he's a tad shy, but he warms up to you pretty quickly, and his purr is almost as loud as Mr. Jerry Brown's was.  I'm pleased to report that he and Dexter seem to be getting along well enough, so I hope they'll be friends like Dexter and Adora Belle were.  But, much as I've been ambivalent about adopting a new cat so quickly, I'm very happy that Leo has done such a thorough job of snuggling up into my affections.

Dexter was having health issues over the weekend, which led to my being rather upset and depressed for much of Sunday. It wasn't anything serious, just a urinary tract infection, but I think I was having a hard time because of how quickly Mr. Jerry Brown had gone from "a bit out of it" to "seriously ill", and I was afraid the same thing would happen again. (Plus the inevitable large vet bill hovering over the horizon doesn't help one's state of mind any, especially when one has just paid for a wedding and is already on the uncomfortable side of "in debt".)

Anyway, getting the kitty diagnosed and treated did wonders to lighten my state of mind as well as my wallet, and somewhere in the intervening time I heard a clip from "Because I Got High". And the rest sort of...happened.

( Here there be bad song parodies. )

Dexter is currently prowling the kitchen, convinced that everything he has ever wanted is just on the other side of that glass-paned door. And because no one will let him out, he of course is the world's most unloved and lonesome kitty. No cat has ever been so cruelly treated, he sings, in a remarkably wide range of enunciations.

Adora Belle has spent the last five minutes sitting in the bedroom doorway, staring up at the doorjamb, which she finds completely fascinating for reasons best left a mystery to humankind.

I love my kitties.

I'd like to introduce the newest member of the family: Miss Adora Belle.










Adora Belle came to us from the shelter with a different name and a rather sad past. While we don't know the details, we do know that she'd been adopted out multiple times and abandoned at least once, and her skittishness makes us believe that she may have been mistreated at one of her previous homes. Thanks to some efforts from a kindly shelter employee, she has recovered somewhat, and while she still startles easily, she is very affectionate once she gets used to your presence.

We spent some time debating what to call her before settling on "Adora Belle". It's a bit twee, but there's a character in a book series Brian and I like named "Adora Belle" who's a chain-smoking tough-as-nails kind of dame. So we're hoping some of the assertiveness will rub off on her. And for all that the name itself is cutesy, she is an adorable cat.

She spent the first week in the library (which we had prepared to be her room), alternately spending most of her time in the corner, in the kitty condo, and behind a painting. She would occasionally come out, and although she wouldn't approach us, she would let us come forward slowly and pet her.

Introductions with Dexter have gone remarkably well. We had a gate between them for a few days before introducing them properly, and they've not been hostile to each other at all aside from a bit of posturing. I have heard them tearing around the house at night, but I haven't heard them fight at all. Which makes for a nice change. And Brian's seen them grooming each other, definitely a good sign.

After about a week of her being in the library, Brian and I came home to find the lower part of the gate pushed out and Adora Belle under the bed in the bedroom. (We'd been trying to decide when to let her explore the rest of the house, but it seemed that she had made the decision for us.) And this morning, for the first time, she jumped up on the bed with us for cuddles. She seems to be acclimating rather faster than we expected, which makes us both quite happy. Hopefully soon she will get used to our comings and goings, and not flinch away when we raise a hand to pet her.

I auditioned this morning for Juneau Lyric Opera, a local group who've done some pretty impressive productions in the past. I didn't feel like I was at my best - I'm still getting over this cold, and that combined with having been out late last night wasn't doing good things for my voice - but I felt like I finished strongly, which is the most important bit. Anyway, it was a fairly brief affair; they didn't seem like incredibly chatty folk (most likely they were trying to get through the roster without keeping people waiting), but they were friendly enough. Given that I don't know any of the folk there, and that they're not even starting rehearsals until early next year, I'd figured that I wouldn't hear from them for a month or two, if at all.

So imagine my surprise when I get a call from the director roughly eight hours later asking me if I wanted to be in the chorus for The Mikado. He seemed excited about offering me the part, too, which added to my general sense of taken-abackedness - admittedly, he might just be a generally enthusiastic person, but he said that it was good to see new people who wanted to join up. I guess I can see that; the Juneau labor pool has been slowly drying up over the past couple years, and while there's always been a high percentage of talented and artistic people in town, that pool has to have been shrinking as well. So, hurray, I guess. I'm looking forward to it.

Brian and I went to visit kitties at the shelter today, partly to spend time with them and also partly to see if any of them seemed like they'd be a good friend for Dexter. We didn't find any who seemed exactly right, but it was fun meeting some new ones. They had a very sweet Himalayan named Sierra who'd unfortunately been back there a few times; she was lovely, but rather timid, and Dexter's rambunctious enough that we were concerned she wouldn't be happy with us. Which is really too bad, 'cos I'd have loved to give her a good home.

The 80s dance last night was most excellent. I got several compliments on my outfit, and Lydia and I quite literally danced the night away, until our feet hurt too much to continue and we were both starving (yay late-night Pel'Menis). Plus I got a lapdance! And gave her one too, to David Bowie and Queen singing "Under Pressure". So it was pretty sweet altogether. Also, the midnight screening of "Thriller" was awesome. (Although in hindsight, during the transformation sequences, the Michael Jackson/plastic surgery jokes sort of write themselves.) If my apocalypse has zombie-Michael-Jackson leading a troupe of dancing zombies, I won't be too upset, because it will have been greatly entertaining.

The next segment of our trip didn't quite go as planned. Originally, we'd intended to rent a car, drive to Kennewick to visit Brian's mum for a day, drive to Portland and stay for a few days to check it out, then head back to Seattle to meet up with cyranocyrano and see the stuff we'd missed. But whatever nasty con crud I'd picked up during PAX had other ideas. {Insert dramatic cliffhanger chord here.}

The first part went well enough, happily. We got back from Victoria via the ferry and took a cab over to the downtown Dollar car rental place, where my information was taken by a hilariously crazy employee on a system that dated from 1988 ("See this forehead? See how big it is? Ugh. Ugh. I Neanderthal Computer User. Don't piss me off or I'll club you.") I was a bit nervous about driving, given that I'd never done so in anything resembling the Real World before, but I had my TomTom GPS with me, and that helped alleviate a lot of the nervousness - driving itself doesn't worry me half as much as getting lost does. Fortunately the TomTom proved itself to be quite a useful device, and we didn't get lost once. And the little Subaru Impreza that they rented to us was actually pretty fun to drive.

We had an uneventful drive to Kennewick, punctuated at various points by hitting the "scan" button on the radio station as we moved out of range of whatever station we'd been listening to. (One of my favorite moments was driving through a hilly area right in the overlap between two classic rock stations, both of which were on the same part of the band - so depending on which angle the terrain was facing, we were listening to either ZZ Top rock out over his "Cheap Sunglasses" or John Mellencamp wailing about how it "Hurts So Good".) That evening, we made it to Brian's mum Julie's place, and she was very happy to see us, as was his too-cool-for-school brother Joel. We had a nice evening catching up with them.

Unfortunately, I woke up the next morning with the Plutonian Death Cold, probably passed on to me by some con-goer who couldn't miss his Call of Duty 4 tournament. So instead of getting to go out and do things with Julie and Brian, I spent the day being a lump on her couch - and instead of driving out to Portland the next day, I continued to be a lump. And the next day, when Brian started to show symptoms. And the next.

Long story short, we ended up missing that whole leg of our trip. It wasn't as awful as it could've been - Julie took good care of us, and we ended up saving a significant amount of cash on hotel and food for that leg. And it was nice to see her, as it'd been a couple years since the last time. Still, I felt bad about taking up her couch for five days and not even being able to help around the house to make up for it. (When I expressed my apologies to her, she laughed and said "I'm not in the habit of enslaving the ill." I love her. I really do.)

So instead of checking out Portland, we spent the next few days visiting with Julie and Joel, reading, watching the fourth season of House, and generally being useless. It was pretty nice and relaxing, though, which was a nice change from day-to-day life. And I found a couple more pairs of the Levi's Curvy Jeans that I love at the nearby JCPenney, so hurrah!

Fortunately we were both feeling better by the time we were scheduled to be back in Seattle, so we bid Julie good-bye and drove to the Sea-Tac Holiday Inn, a three-star hotel that had been kind enough to accept our Priceline bid of $80 per night. I was a bit apprehensive about the place, as the online reviews had been mixed, but I'm pleased to report that our stay was perfectly nice - the hotel was an older building that showed obvious signs of remodeling, but they'd done a pretty nice job altogether. The bathroom was a tad cramped, but the fixtures were new; the room was really quite nice and the bed most comfortable (and huge!). The soundproofing was also pretty impressive, given that we were right by the airport and barely could hear any noise from outside.

Brian was pretty wiped out from the trip and still getting over the Plutonian Death Cold, so I ventured forth alone to meet up with Cyrano for the first time in person. He was perfectly pleasant and sweet in person, and was a good sport about waiting around for me to do some lingerie shopping at Victoria's Secret, where I discovered what was probably the best-fitting and most impressive push-up bra I've ever worn. $68 for the set...that was painful, but worth it to know that I have one set of super-awesome va-va-voom underwear. And considering how well-made it is, I should probably be able to wear it for the next several years. So amortized over (say) a five-year period, that's not so bad.

After that trip, we headed to a nearby brewhouse for some beer (for me), some Coke (for him), and fried artichoke hearts. The latter weren't half bad, although I wasn't able to eat very many of them; the beer was unfortunately rather mediocre. But it was fun to sit and chat in person. And afterward, we went to Barnes & Noble and I managed to only buy one book. I was minorly proud of myself.

Brian was very slightly better the next day (up and moving around, at least), so after an IHOP breakfast I took him to meet Cyrano and we all went and did touristy things like ride the Monorail and check out the Experience Music Project. And given that money wasn't as big a consideration as we were expecting, we all went out to Cutter's Bayhouse again for dinner. This time I had a berry-and-grilled-chicken salad that was excellent, but the standout dish was the salmon chowder. Most fish-based chowders I've had were far too heavy on the fish, but this was divine - just enough salmon flavor to achieve a delicate balance with the creaminess, and garnished with chives on top. By the time dessert came around, I could only manage a few bites, and even then I was in a near-food coma for the entire walk balk. (Admittedly, this might have something to do with the fact that I was wearing a corset that day.) Cyrano was kind enough to let us stay in his hotel room and chat about movies until I'd had a chance to digest some and felt up to driving back to our place.

And our last day there, we all went to the Aquarium before going to the Nordstrom's outlet and finding an absolutely smashing deal on a Swiss Army luggage set to replace Brian's old crappy bag. Considering those retail for $350 a bag, we felt like we'd hit the jackpot when we found a set of four (large wheeled bag, smaller carry-on size wheeled bag, duffel bag, toiletry bag) for $100. Plus I got an adorable pair of heeled sandals.

After getting Cyrano to his hotel so he could head to the airport, we went back to our hotel room and had a nap before the Nightwish concert. Getting to the concert itself was a bit tricky - we circled around downtown for a while trying to find parking, and when we finally did (in a paid lot) and walked to the venue, we discovered that the wrong address had been on the ticket and that we were a couple of miles away from their other location, where the event actually was. So we part-walked, part-rickshawed our way there, got in line, had a burrito from a handy street vendor while we were waiting, and found spots and waited for the show to start.

The concert itself was pretty well done, all told. I've heard horror stories about places with crappy sound equipment or bad mixers or all kinds of other issues, but this was a pretty quality production. The mixing was good (bass didn't overwhelm the vocals), the volume was plenty loud enough to RAWK without being overpowering for the size of the venue (a big problem at many Juneau concerts), and they had an incredibly talented lighting designer. So even though neither of us had as much energy as we would've liked, it was nevertheless a fine evening.

And that's pretty much it for our vacation. Between repacking and returning the rental car, we only got a couple hours of sleep that night, and between that and the plane ride we both relapsed. I was lucky enough to only have a bit more sniffling and coughing to deal with, but Brian's been sleeping through the last couple of days. Dexter was just fine, but extremely needy when we got back - and fat! He must've gained two pounds in the last couple weeks. Poor guy; between Mr. Jerry Brown dying and our leaving, he was probably a pretty depressed kitty. I know Jeanne spent lots of time with him, but she doesn't live there, so he was probably lonely. Fortunately, Brian's been home with him for a couple days, and he seems much happier now.

Okay! Work's over. Time to go figure out how to tease my hair...

Mr. Jerry Brown first snuggled his way into our lives on a sunny afternoon in the summer of 2005. Brian and I were at the shelter to adopt our first cat, his large and very sweet poodle having passed away shortly before; and while we didn't bring him home that trip, he stayed so cozy in our hearts that when we saw him at the shelter six months later there was nothing for it but to take him home. He was eight years old.

We knew very little about his former life; the closest hint on his paperwork was the "Owner relinquish: Moving" tag. We felt safe in assuming his had been a low-key and happy existence, for he was a low-key and happy cat - always the first to purr when you petted him, and always happy to be picked up and snuggled. His purr, like the rest of him, was large and strong - when he was really comfortable he could sound like a small motorboat.

An intelligent and talkative cat, he soon found ways to train his humans to give him treats, snuggles, and gooshyfood. One of his favorite signals to be picked up was a trilling meow combined with an arching of the back; similarly, when he wanted his window open, he would come yowl at us until we got up and followed him into the bedroom. He also quickly learned that Brian, the gooshyfood dispenser, could not sleep through the sound of the window being pawed at.

While he and his adopted brother Dexter were never close, they eventually learned to respect each others' space. It was humans, though, who were his real loves. It didn't matter if they were cat people or non-, if you had a lap and hands to pet him you were okay in his book. One of my favorite memories will always be him sitting in our friend Adam's lap (Adam, the consummate dog person), gazing adoringly into his eyes while purring and being petted and equally adoringly gazed at. ("I thought you weren't a cat person?" I asked Adam. "Mr. Jerry Brown is a very special cat," he replied.) People remembered him, too; more than once he met someone who had worked at the shelter when he was there, and they almost always remembered him and were glad to see how happy he was.

He loved everyone, but it was Brian with whom he was especially close. Many a time he would watch a movie or "help" play a game with Brian on the couch. And more than once I woke up to find him sitting on the pillow above Brian's head, keeping watch over him while he slept.

Mr. Jerry Brown died very early this morning of hyperthyroidism. The vet did what she could, but by the time she saw him things had advanced to the point where he had lost his sight and his metabolism was in overdrive. We got him medication and brought him home, but he was just struggling all evening, with no eyesight and a hyperventilating system; and a couple of hours ago he gave up.

Given how miserable he was, I'm relieved for him. But we will both miss his big fuzzy happy self just terribly.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Jerry Brown started throwing up and acting listless. When he wouldn't eat and wasn't getting any better today, we called the vet's office for an emergency visit. The blood work showed his thyroid levels as being off the charts; the consequent metabolic increase (specifically high blood pressure) seems to have taken most of his sight.

We got him some thyroid medication and fluids and brought him home. Hopefully his system will calm down enough so he can eat; past that, about the best we can hope for is that the medication will keep his thyroid under control and that he'll adjust to living without much sight. We don't move our furniture around much, so that's a plus, I suppose.

Brian and I are trying to decide what to do with our upcoming trip. It doesn't seem fair to ask our friends to take care of what is rapidly becoming a high-maintenance cat for two weeks, so we'll probably need to discuss it with them. Plus it would make better financial sense to cut things short, since regular vet visits and blood work are likely to be a bit of a liability. But at the same time, we've been looking forward to getting out of Juneau for a while for months now. So it's kind of frustrating.

But the worst part of it is just seeing Mr. Jerry Brown look so confused and unhappy in what should be his happy home.

Wow, and I thought last Saturday at the Viking was fun. I'm starting to see why it is some people hang out at bars frequently - the more people you know who're there, the more fun it is.

To be fair, it didn't start out super-promising. I got there at 10:00, which is usually when things are in pretty full swing on a Saturday night, but it was near-dead. I met up with Lydia and her boyfriend Zack; we chatted for a bit until Monica and Eric got there. Then, since the line wasn't super-long, I went up to sing.

Related aside: I realize that this is Juneau, and we don't have all the nifty-awesome things that other places have because we're so out of the way. I'm cool with that, really. But - not having "My Sharona" available as a karaoke track? The #1 hit of 1979? What is wrong with you, people?? End of aside.

I found myself singing "Hand In My Pocket" sort of on the spur of the moment (hooray for my high-school obsession with Alanis Morrisette; I memorized that entire album in high school so I can always fall back on it). It was pretty fun. Obviously there weren't too many people there, but most of them were paying at least partial attention, and I think I did a pretty good rendition.

Afterward we went upstairs to play some pool. Monica and Eric beat Lydia and me three times in a row, but it was okay - we had a lot of fun anyway. (It helped that whoever was in charge of the music upstairs had much better taste than the usual hip-hop, hip-hop, hip-hop, and more hip-hop.) And midway through the game, Alfie (a mostly online/work friend that I'd invited along) showed up, so there were lots of people to chat with, which was pretty awesome. Zack bought me something called a Jamaican 10-Speed to try. I had about five sips of it and decided it was way too dangerous for me; it tasted good, but there was a pretty serious amount of booze in there. So the rest got split up between Monica and Lydia and Alfie. Which is probably the safest way to drink something like that.

Eric ended up leaving after the last game, while the rest of us went downstairs to dance. I'm not sure what happened this time around - I usually only have the stamina for one or two songs at most, but I was really grooving and having just a fantastic time out on the floor. (Maybe there's Red Bull in a Jamaican 10-Speed?) Lydia and Monica and Alfie all danced with me, and if the music wasn't more varied than the usual hip-hop, it was at least decent hip-hop. After about an hour of dancing on and off (mostly on), though, I was starting to figure that maybe I should have a break. We all went to check out the karaoke section again.

Things had picked up in the meantime, and I was impressed; there were some truly good singers going. Just for the heck of it, I put my name in for Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger". It's not exactly musically challenging, but it's a lot of fun to perform nonetheless; I actually managed to get a few folks' attention while I was singing, which I took to be a good sign. (Amusing story: When the MC called my name, some other dude was up there with me asking what he was supposed to be singing; I guess his name sounded like mine. The MC explained to him that I was the one he'd called, which seemed to relieve the other guy. He turned around, caught sight of me, and looked taken aback; I quirked an eyebrow at him and he said, "You're beautiful!" before heading back to his friends. It made me laugh, partly because of his seeming wonderment but mostly because it seemed genuinely sweet [not to mention much classier than the usual cadre of "compliments" girls hear from drunk dudes in bars]. It was probably due in part to him I sang as well as I did.)

Shortly afterward, Alfie sang "Basket Case"; quite courageously, I thought, since the woman who was on before him was one of the aforementioned excellent singers. But he obviously had fun with it, and he managed to charm a decent segment of the crowd, so he got some cheers and applause. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun seeing someone else I knew have fun performing. He didn't do a half-bad job, either. I guess Green Day's one of those bands that practically anyone can sing.

After that, I was about ready to go; I went back to the dance floor to go find Monica and tell her I was leaving, but ending up dancing to another couple songs. Go figure. :) I did get out eventually, and was making my way through the karaoke section when a young-looking dude shoved a slip of paper in my hand. I didn't really get a good look at him, just an impression of longish brown hair and black clothing. But once we all got outside, I looked at the paper (it was a karaoke request slip) and found this scrawled on the back:

STAB ME,
DIRECTLY IN
MY HEART.
LIVING WATCH
ME BLEED, LYING
AT YOUR FEET.
DYING, LIVING
FOR JUST ONE
LAST BREATH
WITH YOU.

...I guess I *would* attract the goth/emo fans, wouldn't I?

For all the OMG! DARK!ness, it was sort of sweet, even if the only emotion it really evoked in me was laughter at its absurdity. Alfie thought it was hilarious, too - apparently he also used to write poems for random girls in bars when he was younger. (Although to be fair, I don't have any way of knowing whether he wrote it for me or just wrote it offhand and was looking for some cute girl to foist it onto. But Alfie said it was definitely for me specifically, so I'll trust his judgment.) I think I'll put a date on it and save it in my memento box. My first fan letter. :D

Going home, I had a bit of a scare; as I turned onto our street out here in North Douglas, I saw a black-and-white cat by the side of the road with markings very similar to Dexter's. I stopped the car and got out to make sure, of course; fortunately, I could tell from the pitch of her Miaouing that it wasn't him. I coaxed her to come up for some skritchings; she was definitely a well-fed house cat, so I figured she wasn't lost or a stray. Hopefully she enjoyed her nighttime sojourn.

That was pretty much it. I'm still a touch worked up, so I might have a bath before bed. Hooray for not having to worry about waking up the neighbors!

Mr. Jerry Brown seems back to his normal self. When we went to pick him up yesterday the vet said he hadn't seized again, he'd been eating his canned food enthusiastically (surprise, surprise), was very affectionate when the staff played with him, and his pupils were starting to respond normally. Having been back home for a day now, he seems okay, so I think right now we're just hoping it doesn't happen again. (If it does, though, it's not going to be fatal or anything - we'll just have to get him put on some anti-seizure medication. Which doesn't make the prospect any less scary, but it's nice to know.)

Needless to say, yesterday was kind of an upset and stressed-out kind of day. By the end of it I was feeling a bit better, but I probably would've just gone to bed if I hadn't told Monica I'd go hang out at the Viking with her that night. I felt a bit out of it but figured I could at least go and play some pool and try to relax a bit.

By the time I got there, though, I was actually feeling pretty good - maybe getting nicer clothes on and getting out of the house helped my mood some. I proceeded to have a very fun night, helped along in part due to the bartender's somewhat liberal interpretation of the proportion of gin in a Greyhound, and in even greater part due to my erstwhile friend Lydia suddenly appearing for the first time since I saw her at the Deathly Hallows release party a year ago. Catching up with her was great fun - not in the least because she danced with me in ways that were rather attention-grabbing.

Unfortunately, my stamina hasn't yet caught up to where it used to be, and the Viking was crowded full of sailors off the recently-arrived USS Juneau, so I lured her to our place with the promise of an artisan-quality drink or two, thanks to my recently-honed drink-mixing capabilities. I ended up making her a Lady Orange, a drink of my own devising that involves chocolate liqueur, Grand Marnier, and rather more alcohol than you would think could hide in such a smooth-tasting beverage. Lydia pronounced it "so much better than anything they have at the Viking", so I felt my efforts well-rewarded.

What? Why are you looking at me like that? Nothing untoward happened. Brian was asleep. :P

Lack of happy endings aside, we still had a great time catching up. She left town a couple years back with plans to join the Army; while she didn't make it through basic training (which, frankly, I'm a bit relieved about), she's learned a lot about the value of assertiveness from the experience, which she sorely needed. Maybe I should see if I can convince Monica to give the Army a shot - I love her dearly, and she's a very sweet person, but there are times when I wish she felt more comfortable saying "I'm worth better than this." But...it's her life.

So, on the whole, yesterday was kind of a mixed bag. The morning was horrible, daytime was upset and stress, but the evening was pretty great. Today's been pretty lazy, but I don't think that's a bad thing. We need time to recover from our high-energy day.

We got an emergency appointment at the vet for Mr. Jerry Brown today; they did blood work and didn't find anything seriously out of whack. His potassium levels were a bit low, though, so they're keeping him under observation and giving him an IV to try and get things back in balance. Assuming nothing goes wrong, we'll have him back by the end of the day; if he starts seizing again, though, they'll be able to give him antispasmodics.

So, the bottom line is, we don't know what caused it, so we're taking the wait-and-see approach. Fortunately he doesn't appear to have suffered any lasting damage; he was a little wobbly on his feet this morning, but once we took him to the vets he was investigating the exam room just fine. If it happens again we can get him on medication; otherwise, I guess it'll be just one of those weird things.

I'm relieved that he seems to be okay, and I'm glad the vets are keeping an eye on him, but I can't help but worry a bit. Dexter's been even more demanding of attention than usual; I think he's worried too.

Many thanks to everyone for their kind thoughts. It's comforting.

Waking up at 5 AM to a seizing cat?

So not for the win.

I don't think I actually mentioned it here, although I know I've told a lot of you - Mr. Jerry Brown had to get his liver biopsied a couple weeks ago. We'd had blood work done for unrelated purposes and his liver enzymes were way up, which could've been a relatively mild autoimmune thing or could've been liver cancer. The veterinarian assured us that cancer was unlikely in a ten year old cat, but recommended we get things checked out anyway.

One biopsied Brown and a couple weeks later, the report's back from the lab - and everything's just fine. He doesn't even have an autoimmune problem; they did find some fatty deposits that were normal age-related things, and figure they're causing the elevated liver enzymes. Fortunately, though, they're not likely to cause any issues. They'll just keep the information in his file so they can make sure to keep an eye on things.

So that's a relief. I didn't figure anything was seriously wrong with him (he seems his normal self), but it's always nice to hear it from the doctor. I'll admit to being a bit miffed to paying for an $800 procedure just to find out everything's fine, but I guess that's the medical profession for you...and it's certainly better than finding out otherwise.

Aaaaaand just as I'm about to reach shore, another wave decides to wash me back out to sea.

Screw it. I'm applying to Costco for a weekend job.

Thanks to some playing around with the formatting options of WordPress, I am proud to introduce my first fully illustrated post! So go have a look.

(And no, I'm totally not trawling for more hits on my other blog. Seriously. Despite how addicting it is looking at the nifty little graphs and charts and things move around as more people visit. =P)

On Friday Mr. Jerry Brown had to go in and get his teeth cleaned. Since he’s getting to be the equivalent of a retirement-age person (eleven or so) we figured there might be some complications, and sure enough - the pre-anaesthesia blood panel showed elevated liver enzymes. They did an ultrasound on his liver and didn’t find any obvious danger signs, and he went through his cleaning just fine, although he had to have a few teeth taken out that were pretty badly decayed. We’ll take him in for another blood panel in a month or so to see if anything is still wrong, but other than that he’s fine.

Well, “fine” is sort of a relative term - he’s got a big bald spot on his tummy where they had to shave him for the ultrasound, and the tooth extractions have caused him some discomfort. They sent us home with some kitty morphine and instructions to administer it every twelve hours, beginning this morning. (He’d already had some drugs at the clinic, and the effects were almost creepy. On the way to the vet, he was yowling all the way from his carrier; on the way back I was wondering if he was even there because he was so quiet. But whenever I turned around, there he was, staring glassily at the windshield.)

Anyway, we got him home just fine. When we first opened his carrier and let him out, Dexter came over to sniff at his stomach (which still smelled like ultrasound goo), sniff at his breath (which I can only assume smelled like all sorts of interesting things), and give us the most accusatory look you can imagine. Fortunately we escaped to the library, where we helped to assauge our guilt by making up his bed with towels and things so it would be especially soft and warm and in a low-traffic area. After giving him special afternoon gooshyfood to make up for the can he’d missed that morning, we tried to let him be (aside from giving him antibiotics, which was not fun - I had to use the towel trick). He spent the rest of the evening migrating between the bed and the gooshyfood bowl, and was unusually non-cuddly.

This morning we slept in, since it was Saturday, and it was only around noon that I remembered that we needed to give him his medicine. (In hindsight, I’m sort of surprised that the lack of ten pounds of fuzzy cat yowling for gooshyfood that morning didn’t give it away.) I found him under the bed making his “I’m uncomfortable” purr and felt really bad for him; he didn’t even resist when I wrapped him up in the towel to medicate him. Fortunately the kitty morphine turned out to be pretty fast-acting stuff; he stopped purring the minute I gave him some, and after giving him antibiotics and letting him out of the towel he headed straight for the gooshyfood bowl, albeit weaving pretty impressively.

That’s pretty much where he’s at now, busy recovering. He was pretty lovey again (albeit drugged) today, so I suppose that means we’re forgiven. Although this evening, when I got the towel out to roll him up, he laid right down on it. I think he’s beginning to like the kitty morphine a little too much…but hey, if it makes giving him his antibiotics easier, I guess that’s fine. It’s not like he can become a kitty junkie, as funny as that would be.

On a more personal note, I went grocery shopping today and managed to resist buying anything nonessential (which was especially hard when I saw that Battlestar Galactica Season Three was out, but I did it!). Then I went by the Rock Dump today and ran a whole mile on the treadmill, alternating between four miles per hour (fast walk) and six miles per hour (steady run) every quarter mile. I have to admit, I’m sort of proud of myself on both fronts. Let’s see if I can keep it up for a couple months - if so, by the end of May I should be [a] in much better shape and [b] mostly out of debt. Hooray!

...so here's a picture of a Mr. Jerry Brown in a bowl.

Two of the funniest YouTube clips I've ever seen, courtesy of CuteOverload.

This doesn't look familiar at all...


Work that tail, baby!



And yes, I know that putting embedded YouTube clips in my blog automatically kicks me into the lowest circle of LJ UserHell. But in my defense - I've never posted a quiz telling you which Transformer I am. =D