Cat Years

I'm a little down today. I've just spent three months sitting a friend's 18-year-old cat. I've been a semi-regular cat-sitter for the past few years, and during that time, the cat and I have really bonded. (Well, I've really bonded with the cat anyway. She's super-friendly, and doesn't really care who's around as long as she's getting constant attention. She even sleeps in bed with you!)

In the last week before my friend got home, the cat started to get sick. Vomiting, not eating food, looking and acting generally unwell. I took her to the vet who gave me some pills to boost her appetite, and took some blood, but she couldn't really do anything else until I got a hold of the owner. (I could have paid for treatment myself, but I simply didn't have an extra $300.00 for an overnight stay.) My friend got back to me the next day and said that, unless the cat seemed to be in incredible pain, to simply do what I could to keep her comfortable until she got home. The cat actually seemed to improve a bit. She started eating, although only soft food, was drinking a good amount of water (not too much or too little), and although she was a bit constipated, it seemed that the crisis was over.

Well, my friend got home, and the next day the cat took another turn for the worse. We got a phone call that she couldn't make the BBQ we'd planned, because it looked like the cat would need to be put down that night. But once again, kitty stared death down and seemed to improve.

Yesterday, I got a page. My friend is out of town for the weekend for work, and she was able to find someone to look after the cat from 6pm on Friday until she came home. The problem was, she was flying out at noon, which meant the cat would be alone for over six hours. Since I haven't had the chance yet to return her key, she wondered if I'd stop in for a few hours, just to make sure the cat wasn't in too much distress. Of course I said yes.

Normally when you walk into the apartment, the first thing you see is the cat standing on the stairs, crying about how she's been all alone for so long. Yesterday, instead of the cat, there was a bowl of water. At the top of the stairs, another bowl of water. Numerous bowls were scattered around the apartment, most of them near a makeshift cat bed. I found the cat on one of these beds in the bathroom. She was curled up with her eyes open, and lying so still that at first I was sure she was dead, but as I moved closer she raised her head a bit to look at me. I reached out to pet her, but she pulled her head away a bit so I just put my hand where she could smell it, hoping that she's recognize me by scent. The idea of this cat not wanting a pet is unfathomable, and it was then that I knew just how sick she was. I spent the next several hours watching her move slowly around the blanket trying to get comfortable, and occasionally reaching out for a few painful sips of water from the bowl. She didn't seem to know what to do with her legs - they were getting in the way more than anything - and she sort of dragged herself around instead of walking. She never really succeeded in falling asleep, and occasionally would look up at me with these eyes that would break your heart. It was the same look she gave me the day I took her to the vet, after she started eating again, but before she was able to keep anything down. The same look a sick child gives you when they're too young to say "I'm hurting. Why aren't you helping me?"

I know she's dying. I know that yesterday was the last time I'll ever see her. And I'm glad that I had a chance to say good-bye, even though I don't think she knows who I am anymore. But I'm nearly as upset over this as I will be when my parents call to say that our cat is dying. It seems wrong, in a way, because she's not mine. I've only known her for a few years, and then only intermittently, but I love that cat. I need to have a good cry over this, I think. I need to call my mom, who's the only person I know that can send a hug over the phone. But right now I need to push this down and not think about it, because I have a long day's work ahead of me, and I can't afford to spend my day thinking about the dying cat.

It's May 25th, And You Know What That Means!

It's Towel Day! That's right. This is the day to grab your towel and carry it around with you all day long in tribute to the most hoopy frood ever to walk this mostly harmless planet - Douglas Noel Adams.

Why should you carry a towel? Well, the answer is simple. As explained in The Guide:

"A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a brush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough."

For more information (you know you want it), click the banner.

You Wanna Hear About My New Obsession?

Of course you do. Who wouldn't? They're vaguely horrifying, and yet so compelling. They're the toy I wish I'd had when I was a child. Unfortunately, they were originally released nearly a decade before I was, and I don't keep enough up-to-date on new toys to have known that they existed before today. In fact, the only reason I found out was because Knitty released some patterns today that just happened to be written for them. They look like this:







and they're called Blythes. And I want one more than anything right now. I want one more than I want the new Harry Potter book, and that's saying a lot. (Admittedly, if the book was available tomorrow instead of two months from now, I'd probably think differently.) The problem with things like this is, they don't take over my old obsessions. I seem to have an incredible ability to allow these things to pile up on each other. Hence the plethora of candles I collect but almost never burn. The thing is, these dolls are expensive - over $100.00 average, and that's for the new release version. But maybe that's their saving grace. If they were cheap and easy to get, my house would be full of them by tomorrow!

Right now I have over $50.00 in coins in my 'scooter fund' jar. I'd love a scooter, but realistically, I'm never going to buy one. The jar was really just to freak out my mom, who has visions of me splattered across the highway. But I will buy a Blythe doll. Someday. And if I turn the scooter fund into the Blythe fund, I'm pretty much halfway there!

Occasionally Normal

How Normal Are You?

You Are 35% Normal (Occasionally Normal)

You sure do march to your own beat... But you're so weird, people wonder if it's a beat at all You think on a totally different wavelength And it's often a chore to get people to understand you

Yeah, that sounds about right. Thing is, I was a bit worried that I'd turn out normal. But this makes me happy. (And don't those girls look great? I wish I could pull off a look like that! Not that I'd do it, I just wish I could.)

Enter The Haggis

For the past two summers, a kid I work with has been insisting that I check out a band named Enter The Haggis; a bunch of Ontario boys and a Scottish bagpiper that play Celtic rock/bluegrass/all-around-fun music. I went as far as downloading a few songs and then forgot about them. (Yes, I steal music. But if I don't like it, I never listen to it again, and if I do like it I buy the CD, so I don't feel like feeling guilty about it.) When I moved out of my last roommate's house, I copied all of my MP3 files onto a couple of CD's so that she could get them off her computer. The collection is extremely random, and it's always a bit scary putting one of them on, but this morning I popped one into my CD/MP3 player as I was leaving to run some errands and then go to work. I skipped through the first several songs - I've heard the beginning of this CD numerous times, but for some reason decided to stop when I heard bagpipe music.

These guys are fun. A lot of fun. No, they'll never be in my top ten, but they definitely warrant a commercial CD or two on my shelf. Now, it's hard to say which of their songs is my favourite. To begin with, I've only heard them once. There's also the problem of trying to compare a ballad, or one of their instrumental numbers, with songs like Donald Where's Yer Trousers or Bagpipes On Mars. It's just not going to happen. However, I can definitely tell you what my favourite lyric was:

".. I could move the world without you
...
But I'd never know just where to move it to"

which is from Echo Of A Whisper. I don't usually go in much for love songs, but this one is a bit different. There's something about that line. It's not your typical "I don't know what I'd do without you", it's more like "I could do amazing things without you, but what's the point?" True the rest of the song is cheesy, but that line... for some reason or another, it's stuck with me all day.

Sometimes They Come Back

My SO and I had a few friends over for a BBQ two nights ago. That morning we'd swapped 'offices'. I needed the larger room since he's got only office stuff, and I have a computer, bookshelves, an electic keyboard, knitting stuff, etc. which was overflowing from my room and invading his space. The move took longer than we expected, as it always does, and the result was a bit of a frantic clean-up an hour or so before people were to start arriving. Basically, we threw stuff in the appropriate office and shut the doors. All good. The BBQ went well. The guests went home happy if slightly tipsy.

The next morning I got up, made coffee, flipped on the TV and picked up the sock I'm working on from the corner of the coffee table where I'd left it. But when I went to grab the empty needle, it wasn't stuck into the sock the way I normally leave it. Neither was it in the ball of yarn. Or on the coffee table. Or under the coffee table. Or anywhere in the house as far as I could see. I was bummed. These were my new Clovers, my splurge, my only set of bamboo needles, and I love them. I still had 4 of the 5 so the set wasn't ruined, but it made me sad. Still, I resigned myself to finishing the socks with only 4 needles.

When my SO got up, I asked him if he'd noticed a small wooden needle while we'd been cleaning. He answered that he didn't think so, but when I put an empty needle on the table to show him what it looked like, his face kind of fell. He didn't remember throwing it out, but it kind of looked like a broken skewer, and he might have without even making note of it. I take full blame for that. The way I leave my knitting around the house, it was bound to happen at some point, and that's what I get for leaving small sticks lying around. I peeked into the garbage cans, lifting the top layer of paper towels and chip bags, but decided that if it was any deeper than that I really didn't want it.

In a way it's not surprising. At least one of the needles has been trying to run away from home ever since I started this sock. It started with falling down between the couch cushions, and by Tuesday it had jumped out of my hands while I was waiting for the bus. Clearly it had seen its chance and made its escape. Maybe it doesn't like the sock, or the yarn. (I'm making Knitty's Broadripple out of DGB Confetti in colour 01.005. I think they're really cute, but who can account for the tastes of inanimate objects?) I counted myself lucky that I'd only lost one, and decided to get on with my life. There are worse problems in the world, after all.

This morning I needed a hair elastic. My search led me to my bedside table. Laying there, right in front of my nose, hanging out with my hair 'chopsticks' (passé I know, but my hair is finally long enough) was my missing DPN. I don't know where it was yesterday, or the day before. I definitely don't remember putting it there, and I don't remember seeing it yesterday when I was searching the house for it. The only thing I can think of is that it went and had its little adventure and then decided to come home. Like a tom cat that disappears for a day or two and then comes back holding his tail a little higher than before as if he's just done the world a great service. I finished my sock on 4 needles, and am now debating whether I should use 4 for the second one or risk using the truant needle. I think I'll try it with 5, but at the least sign of resistance, back in the pouch it goes.

First Real Post

Just to address questions that might come up, yes I will have pictures here eventually. Yes I will make this thing look pretty. Yes I will be adding links. Yes it will one day look like a proper blog, but I'm a big procrastinator, my computer will not allow USB connections including the digital camera, and my knowledge of HTML is really rusty. So for now, if you must read, you'll have to settle for text only. So no whining. But of course you wouldn't, right?

This is most likely going to be primarily a knitting blog, but don't be surprised if I show up here to simply blather on about something inane for a few minutes.

And I know the name sucks. When I come up with something clever I'll be changing it.