Category Archives: Friends & Family

adopt a kitty?

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My crazy alcoholic friend Krissy called me at 9 a.m. today. It seems that she’s been fighting a lot with her crazier, alcoholic-er (?) roommate lately. This morning they got into an argument that ended with Psycho-Roomie calling Krissy the c-word. (I should add that the P-R is a very mean & angry drunk, and it wouldn’t be inconceivable for her to have already started drinking that early in the morning.) Now, those of you who know me in real life know that I have no real problem with profanity. I have been known to use it quite profusely at times. But I typically avoid name-calling (at least to people who can hear me; other drivers on the road are fair game), and honestly, that is one word that is just WAY over the line. Krissy seems to feel the same way, and it’s technically the Psycho-Roomie’s house; Krissy never signed a lease, she was just renting a room. So after this fight, she decided that she’s moving out. Today. Her sister was heading over with the pick-up truck to help her load up her stuff when I talked to her this morning. She already has a storage unit for some of her stuff, so she’s going to put all of her belongings there and stay with family until she can find an apartment.

Here’s the problem: She needs a “temporary” home for her cat, Shadow. He’s a very sweet-natured, friendly 5 or 6 year-old black kitty. I put temporary in quotes because Krissy is starting to realize that she’s far too irresponsible to be a pet owner (she’s only had the cat for about a year), and I have a feeling that she’ll end up leaving him with his foster home permanently. I feel bad for this cat because he had one family for his first 4 years, then they had a baby and the baby was allergic, so they had to get rid of him. Since then, he’s been shuttled around to 3 or 4 different homes in the past 2 years. So if I can help to find him a permanent home, I’d like to. My apartment is too small for 2 cats, so I can’t take him, and Dave already has 2 1/2 cats (one of them is semi-feral and only comes in for food), so he doesn’t need another one. Anyway, Shadow is used to being indoors and outdoors (although I think he’d adapt OK to being indoors-only), he’s totally litter box trained, he’s up-to-date on all of his shots (had them at the beginning of the summer), and he gets along with other cats. Any takers?

gym gripes, etc.

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Monday, when I went to the noon yoga class, it had been cancelled because the instructor had some sort of family emergency. I found out later that her grandmother was sick and she had to leave for Oregon suddenly, and didn’t have time to find a replacement. Sure, it’s annoying since I drove all the way there before I found out, but I think that’s an acceptable excuse to cancel a class. Besides, there was another yoga class at 5:30 that evening, so I went to that and it was fine. Then last night, I was all psyched for Cardio Funk, everyone was in the room ready to go promptly at 8:00… only there was no instructor. Some of the class regulars said that the teacher was on a 2-week vacation, but there was supposed to be a fill-in instructor. Nope. I guess the gym management never got off their (perfectly toned) ass and found someone else to teach it, so class was cancelled. Again. Is it totally unreasonable for me to be pissed about this? It’s such a pain to get myself motivated to go to the gym, get dressed, drive there, park in the horribly constructed parking garage (why make rows & rows of “compact” parking spaces when you know that the vast majority of the people in this area drive huge-ass SUV’s and take up 1 1/2 spaces? Seriously, why?), and then it’s all for nothing. Grrr. Since I was already there, I jogged on the treadmill for a while, and even though I had my brace on, my knee hurts today, so it looks like I’m going to have to take a day off from working out. Which is fine, I need to clean my apartment, and that’s reasonably good exercise.

In other news:
* I found this link on Fred’s site that predicts the results of the election based on current polls. It changes daily, so I can’t stop looking at it. A few days ago, it had Bush in the lead. Right now, it has Kerry as the predicted winner. It’s making me nuts.

* Has anyone seen the movie “Signs”? It happened to be on TV this morning while I was eating breakfast so I watched the second half of it. I didn’t even see the first hour, and still I screamed out loud twice. I wasn’t expecting it to freak me out quite so much, but I’m glad I watched it in the morning rather than at night. Yeesh.

* Dave finally updated his blog! Hooray! He almost made it a whole month.

* My brother got the job that he interviewed for, which is great news, because he’s been completely miserable at his current job for a long time now. He’s going to be working for Dillard’s department store, although I’m not exactly sure what his job title is. Something to do with men’s clothing, I believe, but he’s planning on eventually working into more of a store manager role. So yay for Chris! However, this does mean that he won’t be able to come to Seattle for Thanksgiving, since he’ll be working in retail, and the Friday after is the biggest shopping day of the year. But that’s ok, we’ll see him at Christmas.

neurotic cat, once again

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Teenie does this same thing every fall: she scratches the spot in front of her right ear until it bleeds. Then, when it starts to heal (and I’m sure we all know how much scabs can itch), she scratches at it some more. Which makes it bleed more. So it never heals. I’ve never figured out why she does this – despite our 8 years of cohabitation, we’ve never quite taken up each other’s native language, so the whole thing is somewhat of a mystery. I have a theory that it has something to do with allergies, change of seasons, something like that. Who knows.

Typically when this has happened in the past, my vet gave me a special cream to put on that spot to make it not itch (and that won’t be harmful if she ingests it, because after all, she is a cat, and she’s going to lick off whatever I put on her). So this year, I dug the cream out of the back of my medicine cabinet, only to find that it is no longer cream. It’s way past its expiration date, and it’s now more of a liquid form. Hmmm. Not good. I called a vet down the street and asked if I could get more, and they said I need to make an appointment. So fine, we’ll go to the vet on Wednesday. I asked the nurse if there was anything I could put on there in the meantime. She told me I could use Neosporin, but that I shouldn’t use that “Neosporin with pain relief” stuff because it has lidocaine in it, and it will numb her tongue. The mental image of that was kind of amusing to me.

And that pretty much sums up the excitement of my week. In other news that may or may not be interesting to anyone:
* The headache is now just off and on, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was last week. So I’m back down to just taking the occasional Tylenol, nothing more hardcore than that.
* I got a new project at work: more writing/documentation, which will allow me to work from home. This is expected to last until January 30th. Pajamas all day, every day! Whee! Actually, it really is a good thing because writing = lots of downtime, which means I’ll have time to update my certifications (which I’ve been procrastinating about for months) and I won’t have a problem taking time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hey Alphagal, Dave’s going to meet up with me in New Orleans after Christmas – are you & the hubby going to be around?
* My brother has been calling me every day to get work-related advice, because his boss is being accused of sexual harassment. Not by my brother, of course, but by other women in the office. (And no, he doesn’t work for Bill O’Reilly. Although I love that story, too.)
* Have I mentioned how much I love Jon Stewart and The Daily Show? This interview is short and sweet.
* Speaking of which, you know how O’Reilly said that all viewers of the Daily Show were stoned slackers? Turns out that people who watch the Daily Show are more likely to have college degrees than O’Reilly’s viewers. Take that!

ruh-roh

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Whoop-whoop-whoop! Attention: security has been breached!!

Or in other words, my parents found my blog. This is actually not that big a deal, because I think they know most of this stuff already. But the occasional profane word does sneak in here and there, and I’m sure that if they start reading too far back, they could find a thing or two that they disapprove of (not that I’m mentioning topics, so everybody keep your mouths shut). Anyway, looks like I’m going to have to watch my language a bit for a while, at least until they get bored and stop paying attention. 🙂

Oh yeah, and my parents now have high-speed Internet access at their new house. As their personal resource for all aspects of technical support, I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. The good news is that now they can upgrade their pc to Windows XP, and I could use the Remote Assistance feature to help them from here when they have problems. (There really didn’t seem to be any point in upgrading them from 98 when they were on a 56K dial-up line.) At the same time, I’m expecting my call volume to increase significantly over the next few weeks. Whee!

Anyway, events for this weekend are as follows:
* Saturday – Dave & I are doing a fundraiser walk for the Humane Society. It’s only a 3K, so it’s not like we’re doing a marathon. It’s cool because they encourage people to walk with their dogs, so I imagine we’ll see lots of different types of pooches. And since I’m trying to coerce Dave into getting a dog, this can only help to further my cause. (Muuwaahahahaha!!)
* Sunday – DAVE’S BIRTHDAY!!! HOORAYY!!!

weather disasters and MP3 players

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My parents moved into a new house this past weekend. It’s been a long, arduous process, and they’re both completely exhausted. I move approximately once a year, so I’m familiar with how stressful it can be – however, I only move my little one-bedroom apartment, not a 4-bedroom house that I’ve lived in for 20 years. I can’t even fathom how much stuff they’ve accumulated over that amount of time. They’ve had at least 3 yard sales over the past 6 months just trying to get rid of all their junk.

Last night, I called my mom’s cell phone (they don’t have a land line yet) and my dad answered. I asked him how things were going, and after the quick unpacking recap, he said, “And your aunt Si is on her way here now.” Um… What? This aunt is actually a great aunt (she’s my mom’s aunt), and in my 28 years on this planet, she has never to my knowledge set foot in my hometown. We always see her when we go to New Orleans for family gatherings, but I honestly didn’t think that the woman ever traveled at all. So, my curiosity peaked, I asked my dad why she was coming, and he said “Oh, you know, just to visit…” I must have made some kind of confused “huh??” sound because my dad cracked up at that point. He laughed and explained that it’s because Hurricane Ivan is heading toward New Orleans and the local authorities have issued a mandatory evacuation of the entire city.

So my 90 year-old great aunt, her middle-aged daughter, their dog, and some nephew related by marriage who my parents have never met were all on the freeway headed out of New Orleans, moving along at a top speed of about 4 miles per hour. I guess that’s what happens when everyone in the city tries to leave at the same time. They had even changed the incoming freeway lanes to outgoing – no one can drive into the city at all. Pretty scary. My parents live about 200 miles north of New Orleans – they were predicting that my aunt and her posse would arrive at about 4 a.m. I haven’t called to get an update today, because my mom is totally stressed. Not only does she have 3 unexpected visitors (plus a dog), but they’re all going to be staying in a house that my parents have lived in for less than a week, and they can’t even get to the guest beds because they’re surrounded by boxes. Yep. Should be a rockin’ good time. It’s funny, I’m always happy that I don’t live in Mississippi anymore, but sometimes I’m REALLY particularly glad that I’m not there.

In other news, I got an iPod yesterday. Oh. My. God. It is so cool. I’m copying my entire CD collection onto it, I’m on the D’s right now. (Yes, I alphabetize my CD’s – my obsessive-compulsive disorder is just mild enough that it doesn’t require medication, so back off.) I’m not even using 2 GB of space yet, how am I ever going to fill up the 40 GB that are available? Oh happy happy happy…

goodbye sleep, it's been fun, I'll miss you

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This weekend I did something that may prevent me from rejoining society for the next few months: I got a Game Boy. It all started because Dave bought one, and since he knows how much I love old-school Super Mario Brothers, he bought the game for me. Of course, I ended up stealing his Game Boy & not giving it back, so eventually we came to the conclusion that I needed one of my own. And I bought a new Super Mario game (Mario & Luigi Super-Stars! Yeah!!), so I haven’t slept much this weekend. I just lie in bed with my Game Boy and work on building up good calluses on my thumbs. Fun stuff.

Actually, though, it was a pretty productive weekend. Our Thanksgiving plans are now set: my whole family is coming here, and Dave’s mom is coming over from the UK, so we’re going to have the Big Meeting Of The Families on Thanksgiving. I’m really excited to meet Dave’s mom, she seems like a hoot. I’m a little nervous about inflicting my entire family (parents & 2 siblings) on Dave & his mom, because we can be a pretty loud bunch. I think they’ll all like each other, but I’m a little worried about my dad. He hasn’t really ever met any of the guys that I’ve dated – or if he has, they were just introduced as “friends” so he didn’t know I was dating them – but he’s never been particularly friendly to any of my sister’s boyfriends. Granted, my dad is just not an overly warm guy in general – for example, Kris was my college roommate for 3 years and has been my best friend since 1996, and to this day, he still refers to her as “that ol’ gal, you know, your friend what’s-her-name…” Nice. So, I’m excited, but I’m sure that I’m going to be more than a little bit tense when the time comes.

Anyway, we’re talking about having our big Thanksgiving dinner at Dave’s house, since he has way more space than I do. (Four-bedroom house vs. one-bedroom apartment… hmmm, which to choose?) And to that end, we’ve now started to try to make Dave’s house look like an actual home, rather than a work-in-progress. It’s a really great house and has potential to be really beautiful, it just needs some work. So we started that this weekend – we went shopping for a sofa on Saturday, and ordered one (and a coordinating chair, boo-ya!) that I think is going to look amazing – that is, it will look amazing when it’s delivered in 4-6 weeks, by which point the living room will be painted and the carpet will be replaced with hardwood flooring. And yesterday, we painted Dave’s office so he can actually start using it.

By the way, does anyone happen to know if it’s difficult to install hardwood floors yourself, or is it something that requires a professional? We’re both down for any do-it-ourselves project, but that’s one thing that we don’t want to get screwed up.

Oh, and yes, I’m referring to all of these home-improvement projects with “we” even though it’s not my house – I’m marking my territory there, and Dave is cool with that, so it’s fine. 🙂

Alright, I gotta go see an Italian plumber about saving a princess from an evil monster…

boy done good

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My sister is trying to find a new apartment in New York City, but her landlord won’t let her out of her lease without paying some insanely exorbitant fee. They finally agreed that if she can find someone else to rent her apartment, they’ll let her out of the lease agreement. So she’s posting classified ads on the Internet, and I’m hosting a photo album of her apartment for her to try to help out. We’ll see how much (if at all) this affects my average bandwidth usage…

In other news, Dave & I had our little tri-month-iversary date last night. I honestly wasn’t expecting anything, I just thought we’d go out to dinner. But when I got to his house, I had the following:
* flowers
* a very funny, sweet card
* a stuffed kitty (not taxidermy stuffed, toy stuffed)

Damn. Win a girl over, why don’t you? 🙂 That was so awesome. And because I am a huge dork and like to make note of these things for posterity purposes, this morning I arranged them all on my coffee table and took a picture of them. Hee! It turns out that Teenie really likes the stuffed kitty. She’s very soft (and… oh yeah, minor point… not a real cat), and she’s been using her as a pillow all day. Now I’m trying to decide on what I’m going to name the toy kitty. She’s Siamese and has blue eyes, so I’ve decided she’s definitely a girl. And she has to have a name, because that’s what I’ve done with every stuffed animal I’ve had since I was able to talk. As a kid, though, I only did alliterative names (i.e., Christina Kittycat, Morris Moose, Burt Bear, etc.). Now, I think I want something funny. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

* Davida/Davina is the female version of David, which would be funny since Dave gave her to me. And they both have blue eyes.
* My sister has a friend who named her cat Walter Peyton (and always refers to him by both his first & last name, never by a nickname), so I was trying to think of random blue-eyed vaguely cat-like celebrities to name her after. So far I’ve come up with Uma Thurman (probably my favorite so far), Olivia Newton-John (2nd place), Charlize Theron, Paris Hilton, etc. You get the idea. I suppose I could give up the self-imposed female gender association for this one – maybe Paul Newman or Frank Sinatra would work?
* The 2 Siamese cats in “Lady & The Tramp” were named Si and Am. I have a great aunt that we call Si, so that would be funny, and I like the name Am because it’s part of the verb “to be”. Hmmm… which to choose?
* Something silly & cutesy, but I have no idea what.

Any ideas, folks? I’m taking a poll.