Categotry Archives: General

the internet at my house has been broken since sunday night. as brody puts it, “that would be the end of the world for me.”

brody, as you might now be wondering, is the 4th grader i’m seated next to right now in my mom’s classroom. an astute little 4th grade observer, he has summed up my distress at having to be in this classroom with 32 little kids.

seriously, imagine my face as red as can be and that is how it is. there’s so many of them! one of them just asked if my tattoos were real! inquisitive! argh! i’m freaking out!

sadly, i really had to come here today and do school stuff as i’ve already missed out on 2 online meetings with my library class discussion group and i had to take a quiz today for the class before the deadline. i did get full points for the reaction paper i wrote for my other library class a couple weeks ago. A+, suckers. my streak of always getting perfect on the first paper of a class holds. we shall see if i manage a B on the next one and maintain that streak as well.

my mom is now reading a story to them for 15 minutes before they go off to music class. brody is reading his own book on the weird and wonderful. pay attention, brat!

the main character of mom’s book just died while an owl hooted her name. this book is incredibly stupid sounding. at the close, the kids are all, “she died?!” “who died?!” “she was only 17 summers old!”

kids, get used to it. you’re going to die.

for the last two weeks i’ve been convinced that moo cow (my cat) was dying. she had elevated enzymes in her liver and bile system which is indicative of either a liver disease curable by antibiotics or terminal cancer. the symptom i developed from this disease was an antipathy for dealing with other people. i pretty much haven’t left my house for 2 weeks. i’ve been awful about answering the phone and initiating email.

yesterday, moo cow had a second set of blood tests done which came back with significantly decreased enzyme levels. which means the antibiotics are actually helping. which means she probably won’t die. i started feeling better about things. i actually emailed people today to ask how they were doing. i commiserated with jason’s story of mexican food poisoning. i matched electronic wits with sean and lost (because, as we know, he’s so much funnier than me). but that was this morning.

last night i walked out into the backyard where fats waller (my other cat) was lying on the grass meowing piteously in a voice not his own. he actually let me walk right up to him and pick him up. if you know fats, you know this is completely against his normal behavior. this morning he was still doing no better and we were worried about him so a trip to the emergency vet was in order. first they thought it was just kidney stones–treatable. but then they thought it might be a kidney infection–again, treatable. so for a great part of today i was feeling all right about things. fats would be ok, he’d be treatable. soon he’d be back meowing his actual meow and flopping over for me to rub his belly.

it turns out though that he had kidney cancer–really not treatable. this is the first time in my life i’ve been around for the death of one of my cats. it’s not an experience i have any desire to repeat. the vet injected him and he turned to me for comfort. he put his head in my palm and i watched him die.

twisting the knife

this weekend i went to santa barbara where i ate amazing food and dealt only with migrant farm-workers and not dirty hippies.

san ardo

on the way down i squealed in feigned terror while driving through san ardo. i had to take a mini step back though and realize the absurdity of my own reaction when i didn’t have sean in the car talking about slurping out my brain pan in a zombie voice. i think possibly i made up a little song about my brain pan, so delighted was i by the phrase. i don’t remember it now. and even if i did, i probably wouldn’t share it. who am i kidding, i would fully share it. i am the naked sushi girl without secrets.

gilroy outlet malls

why must they taunt me so?!?! et tu, dsw shoe warehouse?

willoughby the cat

argh! the cuteness! and the kitten-ness! he woke me up every morning at 6:30 by kneading my face and purring while sitting on my chin, but did i care?! no, i did not care! the most amazing thing about this cat? he thinks he’s a dog. much like the book ‘a dog called kitty’ but with less of the animal mutilation at the end of the story. why did someone give that to me to read when i was in 3rd grade? fucking scarred for life, people. willoughby plays fetch. HE PLAYS FETCH. better than most dogs i know too. except oreo. oreo is a champion fetcher. but willoughby will bring you a rubber-band over and over again every time you throw it for him. the same goes for water bottle caps. grah! the unmitigated cuteness, mommy-matching cuteness!

couple-hood

rosemary turned to me at one point in the van and whispered in a totally audible voice, ‘it’s so strange to see my girls with boys. i’m used to having them all to myself.’ seriously, the crazy PDA face-sucking behavior was likened (in my head) to the pornographic laurell k hamilton vampire/lycanthrope/necramancer nonsense entitled danse macrabe i read in quiet snatches all weekend. ha ha ha! if only the situations had been anything alike, but at the moment no baby scares seem imminent.

or DO they?

…dwayne.

wine

i still know nothing about wine. though i think i can now say with certainty that i like whites more than reds. this, i think, is a good lesson to have learned. though pam warned me that i would eventually like reds more once i knew anything about wine. ‘more variety and flavor,’ she claimed. i drunkenly agreed with her. what i do know for sure though is that being driven around in a giganto van with 9 other people and drinking a lot of wine in a gorgeous valley is the way i’d like to spend everyday. the scenery, conversation, food, and drinks were all incredible.

pictures

of course i took them. other people had cameras too so there’s got to be some more photos out there. potentially of me even. though there are some of me even in my photos. the amazing thing about these photos is that the cuteness leaps out of the frame and bites you on the nose. with cute love. so maybe more like an eskimo kiss than a bite. i’m just jumping to biting first because my personality is a little too anita blake-infused right now (and not for the first time). also i deleted down from 200 to 72. helped a little along the way by adie who commandeered the camera to delete what she perceived as awful photos of herself. she’s crazy and gorgeous and thus a little crazy gorgeous but maybe not crazy like kirsten dunst in that crazy/gorgeous movie.

mad props

are due to nuala who planned and executed the entire weekend from dinner on saturday to hangovers on monday. from cafe zaytoon’s dinner watching rosemary push dollar bills into the belly dancer’s bra, to the first sip of the amazing winery tour, to drunken yells of “i love you more” across the backyard BBQ, to the morning after’s embarrassed laughter. nuala, it was an amazing weekend and that is completely due to you. thank you thank you for i had so much fun.

so ‘happy birthdays’ are in order

and the order of the day. live long and prosper/procreate/procrastinate. whatever. follow the first half at least.

while i was in oregon a couple weeks ago, i discovered pooh in animal costume key chains. it was a delightful day in the grocery store that tuesday. i said to myself, i will collect all 6! i will never be pooh-less again! the latter i liked to throw in as a shout out to my hatred of maureen o’hara. pooh in a jellyfish, i feel, is much more beneficial to the human race than planting some rows of carrots. or whatever her ribless waistline would allow her to eat.

yesterday in chinatown i discovered an overabundance of pooh dispensers. just hanging out on the street even. they were free and unfettered by society’s rules, they just didn’t give a damn!

and what’s more, being san francisco and thus a much more cosmopolitan metropolis than gold beach, they had more than just the pooh in sea world costumes. they had baby animals AND original animals. so you had a range of bush baby pooh to chameleon pooh. i cursed my lack of 4 quarters, not realizing for a solid 45 minutes that i had 2 quarters in my freaking pocket. jason kindly lent me 1 and i scrounged one from my mom. OG animal pooh was to be mine!

i whirled that little dial around fast as lightening and jumped up and down a little on the spot in impatience and barely repressed glee. pooh! pooh! pooh! out came the globular plastic case and with it all my hopes and dreams! pooh! pooh! which was it to be? flamingo pooh? dragonfly pooh? IT WAS BABOON POOH! OH HAPPY DAY!!

pictures from yuba river are here.

last week i went with my mom, brother, erin, kristen, aunt mary, and james to gold beach, oregon. we took a lot of pictures. i deleted over 300! that still leaves like 200. dammit. some are really good though. such as ME TOUCHING A LION CUB!! that whole album is just chock full of exclamation points and capslock. but, i think you should all remember my last post about touching a big cat and understand a little of where i’m coming from. there’s also pictures of us on a boat trip up the rogue river, building sand castles, lounging around our vacation rental, playing with starfish, and screaming at cattle guards.

note: i divided the photos up into 6 individual albums to make it easier to access them in smaller chunks. that’s just for you, loyal readers, because i love you like that.

i’m plugging. which is silly since they’re not actually selling anything right now. but if you’re interested i can let you know when adam actually gets a delivery and has stuff to sell.

the shirt! the shirt! i’m so excited!