opinion?

2005-12-28 / 10:57 p.m.

I got a new digital camera for Christmas, and it thrills me to no end. I decided to set up a flickr account to show my pictures--though sadly, it's almost entirely composed of pictures of cats. :( Hopefully in the future I'll take more pictures of PEOPLE and THINGS and FRIENDS and anything else that doesn't make me feel like a crazy cat lady. Anyway, the point of this is just to query whether or not the flickr "badge" (check under the picture of me) is too busy and distracting. I thought it was cool until I added it into my template, and now I just find it annoying. What do we think, my precioussss?

This is annoying, too.

Where did I get that, anyway?

on dignity and dying and cats

2005-12-26 / 11:55 p.m.

When I got home, the house was still a mess. I met my mother at the top of the stairs. She flicked my newly shorter hair and apologized for still not finishing cleaning the house. She had a sponge in one hand and a cleaning rag in the other; apparently, Sally had started coughing up a little bit of blood and mom was trying to catch everything before it stained.

For those not familiar with the drama of Ma�s Krazy Kat Kottage, Sally is what the shelter calls a Halo cat. This classification is reserved for aging cats that are given a retirement home of sorts by a shelter volunteer. The volunteer partially adopts of the cat so that it doesn�t live out its final years in the shelter, and the shelter in turn pays for its medical care. I�ve never liked Sally. She has a nasty disposition, eats foul tasting food, pees about a thousand times a day, and�most importantly�tortured Lucy until the day that I brought her here to live with me in A-town.

Anyway, Sally is reaching her final days. While the barfing incident (thankfully) was not repeated, she won�t eat and hasn�t since Thursday. This doesn�t come as a surprise, since she is rather old and has failing kidneys. She doesn�t seem to be in any pain�just listless and thin. Oddly, the beginning of the poor old cat�s end has done something strange to me, it�s made me almost fond of the little beast. I suppose the excessive empathy for cats that I inherited from my mother finally kicked for even nasty Sally. She spent a lot of time balled up on my down comforter in the center of my bed. Usually I would have made her move, but this weekend I napped curled up beside her, and on Sunday slept on the couch as not to disturb her or make her sleep with the other cats.

This new affection for the bag of bones made me realize that I had to go to bat for her when it came to decisions regarding her final days. The shelter where mom volunteers does good work, but I don�t agree with all of its policies: namely, keeping all cats alive as long as a vet deems their quality of life is good. For weeks, the shelter housed a cat with who had no use of the lower half of her body due to being shot with a bb gun. The animal couldn�t control its bladder or walk around, was secluded from the other cats, but wasn�t in any pain and admittedly seemed relatively happy. I couldn�t imagine anyone adopting her, but because she behaved as a normal cat on one end, the shelter treated her, medicated her, and took her in. To me, Sally seems ready to go gracefully, and I worry that the shelter is going to push for her to be sustained through medication and treatment when they should just be making her comfortable. I went with my mother to the vet today. The doctor said she didn�t find much, prescribed pain medication and something to settle her stomach, and made an appointment for Sally to get an ultrasound from a specialist. After the veterinarian finished talking to my mother, I interjected, �don�t you think that going to a second animal clinic would be very traumatic to a cat who is obviously dying?� I had done exactly what my mother asked me not to do, and had gotten snippy with the vet. I was surprised though�her answer was comforting. She gave me a sympathetic and knowing look, and reminded me (and I paraphrase) that all those crazy ladies at the shelter loved the cat too, and didn�t just want her euthanized without knowing what was wrong, or if there was anything that could have been done to save her. No one else with a vested interest in the cat could subjectively conclude that she was ready to go, because they weren�t with her all the time like my mother is. Finally, she assured me that she wouldn�t recommend or perform any treatment that would artificially sustain her life or anything that would be painful or difficult�she just wanted to make sure that it wasn�t some other condition that could be cured. I was glad she didn�t make it a metaphor to an aging person, that drives me crazy. Animals aren�t people; they don�t understand that treatments that might sometimes hurt will help them in the end. Pain is pain, health is health. Because of this, maybe you have to draw the line a little further up for a dying animal than for a dying person. I don�t want to see a cat as old and tired as being put on chemical life support when she has no real hope for a remotely healthy life. I see more and more that this isn�t really a statement of what I think, or any kind of logical argument, it�s just how I feel about a nasty old cat. I had written a paragraph musing over dying things and sustaining life, people and animals and how one could ever know when to stop fighting the inevitable--but it was boring and didn�t make any sense. I�m just writing for the sake of putting myself to sleep with a quieter brain now, maybe someday I�ll write something down that makes sense. I suppose a pet�s final days can always be more subjective than a person�s.

At any rate, I�m back home now with my healthy cat and my (relatively) clean apartment, and my concerns about Sally are farther away. I hope my mom handles this with minimal trauma. I�m on a roll with boring, shitty entries lately. There�s an entry about Christmas in the works, which will come most probably tomorrow, maybe Wednesday or Thursday. Tune in for details on which cat got the luckiest scratch-off lottery ticket in its stocking, and the debut of the recipe of mom�s notorious Christmas punch. 98% less stories about dying pets!!! Goodnight you princes of Georgia, you kings of the southeast.

snooze

2005-12-18 / 6:34 p.m.

And with a whimper, it ended. About 9:00 on Tuesday I finished my economics final. It was a total bitch, but it�s over now. C�est la vie.

Wednesday morning I was confronted head-on with the aftermath of the finals period�I hadn�t really cleaned up anything during the last few laps; just sped through studying, papers and exams, leaving a mess in my wake. No clean dishes, no clean clothes, clutter everywhere. As I ate my cereal from a whiskey tumbler with a measuring spoon, I realized that I�d rather take a day off instead of starting the cleaning process, so I did! And it was nice!

Because of my social conscious and my poverty, I realize it�s important to conserve gas but I decided to ignore that for the day, and drove into town. I needed a break from Athens. The whole city felt like finals, the regular rhythm of things is off and everyone is tired and pissed off. I spent the morning shopping in little five, and visiting some folk at the writing center. It�s finals for them too, but Andrea took an hour off to catch up and let me have some of this fantastic blueberry infused tea. Topping off the morning out of Athens, I got sushi from the Publix on Ponce. I don�t know what it is�ingredients, freshness, ability�but the grocerystoresushi there is so much better than it is here.

I came back well before rush hour started, and later went to El Guanaco�our little El Salvadoran hangout�with Roger and EK to finish celebrating my birthday. EK gave me the Ben Folds Live in Perth DVD, and now I can watch the supreme geekiness in action, with a backup orchestra(!), which is totally awesome.

And now for something completely different, Friday night, I went to a meditation class with Roger. He�s doing it for a class, and he suggested that I could tag along. It was really and interesting experience, but difficult. There were a couple of times where I felt really self-conscious and out of place because I didn�t really know what was going on, but it could have been worse. I don�t suppose there�s much to say about it without sounding like a weirdo, I�m too much of a noob (hey roger) to elaborate much. Maybe I�ll go again.

Someone I knew once used to say that �The Truman Show� was one of the few movies that made them cry. I watched it on TV last night, and while I certainly didn�t find it worthy of crying, it is way more depressing concept for a movie than I remembered.

Mlargh. As usual, I had things I thought might be neat to write about, but they�ve fallen out my brain over the last few days. I�m hoping to make some good use of my time over break. Writing or painting or something, I don�t know. Anyone have any good book suggestions?

This was a really boring entry.

it should be known that I answered the questions with this result in mind.

2005-12-16 / 8:54 a.m.

Unicron You scored 30 Heroicness, 20 Evilness, 20 Overthrow-osity, and 80 Uber-mayhem!

You are the omni-powerful planet Transformer, UNICRON! Basically, you kill everything.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 22% on Heroicness You scored higher than 0% on Evilness You scored higher than 0% on Overthrow-osity You scored higher than 94% on Uber-mayhem

Link: The What Transformer are you? Test written by Miserikordi on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

I'll update for real this weekend, and it will rock harder than this online quiz

a folderol, a gewgaw

2005-12-07 / 11:46 p.m.

I keep wanting to write�there are things to talk about, but I just don�t have much time now. Finals, finals, finals. Here�s a truncated entry over a tiny school-night-sized-gin-and-tonic

The new Fiona Apple CD has a couple of really great tracks. The ones that aren�t great are pretty catchy regardless, or at the very least interesting. It isn�t 100% fantastic, but it�s a pretty great album. It has also caused renewed appreciation of �Tidal,� despite the fact that it gives me flashbacks to 8th and 9th grade. Fiona Apple�s music has the unique ability to make me lip sync to her stuff. I could scientifically show you why, but it would be over your head. Totally.

Speaking of CDs, I am completely flummoxed. Yes, I admit I�m messy, but I take very good care of my music. My CDs are pretty carefully watched, and yet since moving to Athens, two have gone missing. TWO!? WTF. Not just any two either, two really fantastic albums. A couple of months ago, I discovered that �Songs for Silverman� was MIA. Roger bought me a new one for our anniversary, and the anguish had almost passed. Today, I decided I really wanted to listen to Snow Patrol�s �Final Straw� while I worked in the kitchen, and I discover that it�s gone. This is driving me INSANE. Despite having plenty of academic stuff to do, I devoted a solid hour to scouring my small apartment for the CD. It�s not here, and I haven�t ever seen it in this apartment, come to think of it. I listen to most of my music in my room, and all of my CDs have been ripped to MP3 since I can�t play CDs on my computer. I�ve asked my mother to look around and home and in her car and see if its there, but that�s my last home, because it certainly isn�t here. Could someone have taken it? Grrrr.

Some disappointing links for you:
• First
  
• second
  
• ham

Ok, sad as it is, it�s bedtime now. Everything�s in on Tuesday, then it�s party time. And by �party,� I mean, �sit alone in Athens with nothing to do but sit on my ass and no one to talk to but the cat. And drink.� It is reasonable to believe that I will update during this time. Until then, chau!

"The Enemy" who?

2005-12-01 / 4:32 p.m.

The following is an e-mail my mother wrote me from work:

Did you see that the new quarter for the stupid state of Kansas has a buffalo on it!!!! I have enough problems without not being able to tell the difference between a nickel and a quarter. Isn't that just like Kansas

Outraged

In other news, pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for Plan B, birth control pills, or any other FDA approved drug need to be kicked in the mouth. These state laws that make provisions for pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions when someone else at the pharmacy can, or when someone at another local pharmacy can, or when the moon is full are absolutely idiotic. God, especially idiotic and unfair if it's a drug where obtaining it reasonably quickly is very important. Last time I checked, if you have a moral or ethical conflict with something that is at the core of your legitimate job description, then you either deal with it, or you find a new fucking job. I'm a little less critical of the asshole corporations that are making individual decisions on the matter, but I still think that if you're going to be an accredited pharmacy (by whatever governing board regulates pharmacies ? ::shrug::), you'd better make your pharmacists fill any legitimate prescription that crosses the counter. Besides, you morally superior pharmacists, it isn't your job to regulate the behavior of your customers unless it has to do with dosage amounts or drug interactions. Also, let's get over freaking out about PlanB in general, folks. Anyone who says it shouldn't be dispensed because it's an abortion pill� needs to open up goddamn high school biology textbook.

There's something nice about surprise gifts, but there's also something nice in knowing that someone is finally going to buy you the Ben Folds EPs that were released a couple of years ago. Thanks, mom.

Speaking of gifts, my birthday is in one week and one day, and it is, as always, smack fucking dab in the middle of final exams. For the third year in a row, this will hinder excessive birthday drinking, which sucks. I've got two finals, one take-home and one that will be next to impossible to do well on without absurd amounts of study time. OMG I totaly luv ec0n!!11!!!

Thanksgiven

2005-11-27 / 12:25 p.m.

A change of scenery was needed today, so I packed up my homework effects and went to Panera where free wireless and free coffee refills have fueled my efforts to finish my �Biography of a Public Administrator� fluff paper. Added bonus: they seem to always play classical music, which makes this place my sanctuary from shitty Christmas music, at least for now. Since the evil family that was couched at the table next to me has left, things have been going swimmingly. I�ve written nearly all the words I need, and have peppered the paper with all kinds of inspiring clich�s; some from the mouth of my interviewee and some born of my own brilliance.

Thanksgiving this year was as un-crappy as it could be, considering that Thanksgiving is an intrinsically shitty holiday. I took Roger along to my Aunt and Uncle�s house. There was the typical celebration of gluttony. As usual, my Aunt followed in the footsteps of my Grandma and ran around making sure everything was perfect before she sat down and had anything to eat. Everyone else, per custom, had already started. That drives me nuts about thanksgiving. When I grow up and have a family & stuff, everyone is going to help, and no one is going to shovel a goddamn bit of food into their gaping maw until everyone is sitting down at the table. I suppose everyone helping might be a little impractical if I�ve got a small kitchen, but we�ll figure it out. I�d like to extend the rule that he (or she) who cooks does not do the dishes alone to apply to Thanksgiving. I think that�s a fair way to do things, it was always the law in my house as a child.

The rest of the break was very relaxed. I ate a lot, moved little, and spent time with Kyle, Hillary and Michelle who had migrated from far away lands, Roger, and my crazy mother. H and M plus their boyfriends Bruce and Michael (MikeB) respectively, plus me and roger played Trivial Pursuit. It might have been one of the few occasions where Team Michelle didn�t snag victory (albeit by a very small margin), but my companions tired of the game before victory could be achieved! Blast! We watched the Family Guy Movie�which was good, but not great�and drank delicious beer. Tomorrow it�s back to the usual, as I�ve got a lot of homeworking and exercising to do to make up for the last five days of sloth and gluttony.

Oh, and yeah, my mom is nuts. As I probably told you, she brought home two kittens, brothers. Before you shake your head in dismay, she did have some decent reasons. She nursed these kittens when they first came into the shelter, as the whole litter as well as the mother had been beaten up by some animal. Now it turns out that one of them might be terminally ill. They�re so shy that mom doesn�t think anyone will end up adopting them, even though they�re really cute and affectionate. Rather than risk them growing up in the cat shelter, mom just took them home. As far as the one who is diseased, at first mom was told there was no way to know, but our family vet said that was bullshit, and that there was some sort of antigen test they could give him to find out. So, in a couple of weeks when they calm down, mom will take him in and see if he�s got a death sentence. And Oh! They Are Cute! They�re still skittish and hang out under the bed, but I�ve socialized them to the point that they�ll come out when I�m in the room. They�re long and thin and tend to do things in pairs. They�re both tabby�Leo is more brown with shorter hair and Ares is grey and lots softer than Leo. They�re going to be a riot when they�re less scared.

Okay, time for more paper. The home stretch of the semester is here and slacking must be kept to a minimum.