Office Monkey

Everybody needs some monkey sometime

Another vet visit

We got back from Florida on Tuesday night (more on that later). Everything seemed fine — it wasn’t until the next morning I discovered one of the kittens had been using the unfinished floor in the spare bedroom as a litter box. So furious was I, but that can be dealt with.

Last night, however, I got home late from work. Regularly scheduled lateness, so it was expected, even if I was tired. First I find my office desk chair covered in vomit. Not human, cat. So I scrub it out, what fun! Then I go upstairs to bed to find Pixel on the floor, coughing and throwing up. AGAIN. So I pick him up, and curl up with him. Was it an isolated incident? Nope. He did it twice again in the morning, at least. He’s been lethargic, and I have yet to see him drink any water or eat any food — his own or Glitch’s.

So I have a vet appointment for the two kittens. Each has a problem with one of their ports. Pixel’s throwing up, and Bit’s having issues at the other end.

They’re becoming damn expensive.

Filled under: Day-to-Day By: Andrew Tags: 
 Posted on: June 22, 2006 No Comments »

Another trip to FL

Mandrina and I leave tomorrow AM for Florida, to go to her High School Reunion. I’m not terribly looking forward to it. I have to play nice and dress up, and be away from my cat. Okay, so it’s mostly the latter — I’m afraid he’ll get annoyed with me while we’re gone, and adjust to a completely inconvenient sleep schedule, like he did last summer when we were in Romania.

Of course, we’re also going to take the opportunity to talk to Florists, and Caterers, and maybe, if I play my cards right, bakers. Because, of course, since Mandrina will want Chick Filet (spelling?), the diet is suspended while we are in FL. So I better get me some chocolate chip cookies while I can!!!

This I don’t get, though. We’ve been to Florida three times in the last year. We’ve been to New York all of once. Admittedly, Florida is nicer much of the year than New York, but… PIZZA!!!

Which I couldn’t have on this diet, anyway, so no big loss.

Filled under: Woman By: Andrew Tags: , ,
Posted on: June 15, 2006 No Comments »

Fast food destruction!

Mandrina suckered me into the Atkins diet for the next week or two (I know, a real healthy way to diet). I didn’t have any warning, so I didn’t stock up on chocolate, or his close friend chocolate-chip-cookie, prior to starting this diet that says I can’t have a single cookie. (Mandrina refers to my typical mode of dieting as the “Salad and chocolate” diet. Much catchier than “Atkins” if you ask me…)

So I got “convinced” to be on this diet with Mandrina, and we started Friday night (I’m down two-three pounds in three days, so… *shrug*). On Saturday, we had a panic with Pixel’s health — he spent 24 hours at the emergency clinic under observation, but he’s fine now, thanks for asking — and I ended up going to work with Mandrina for a few hours.

Unfortunately, there was some degree of hunger involved, so we stopped at MacDonald’s. Have you ever tried to eat a hamburger without eating the bun? While driving on the freeway? This Atkins fad strikes me as a fast way to an accident. Which is not the cause for the title of the post.

This is: Mandrina and I spent the day Saturday on the road, and got home late. We went out grocery shopping yesterday, and got Pixel from the vet. We also went to Old Navy so I had enough clothes for our upcoming trip. In all these trips, our hands were rather full coming home. So we never took out the near-empty soda cups from McDs on Saturday.

Apparently, Diet Coke + ice => a substance that can dissolve within two days whatever material those McD’s soda cups are made of. So now I have sticky soda-water on my car’s center console. I’m not too happy. I think next time, we’ll go to Arby’s.

Filled under: Day-to-Day, Living, Wine, Woman By: Andrew Tags: ,
Posted on: June 12, 2006 2 Comments »

Avoiding buying a new laptop…

I am getting really tired of some of the… idiosyncracies of my wonderful current laptop… that is now 5.5 years old. Tarot has some issues (Not the Tarot you’re thinking of, unless you know why my desktop is named Ghostwheel, and my other desktop Logrus…). He’s just been abused for several years.

I want a new laptop. I just can’t convince myself to spend the money — or that I necessarily have the money to spend. However, I could be wrong. I could use a laptop, I’m certain. At the same time, I know that there’s always new and better technology coming down the pipe, and in a year I could probably buy a laptop that will actually run Windows Vista. It might not be out in a year, but at least I could upgrade…

Read more

Filled under: Day-to-Day, Living By: Andrew Tags: ,
Posted on: June 8, 2006 1 Comment »

OpenID support

I’ve added OpenID support for comments — meaning that you can log in as a LiveJournal user, and if you’re already logged in at your LiveJournal page, you’ll share the same identity. Aside from LiveJournal, not too many places are using it yet, but it is a neat idea.

I’ve yet to figure out how to customize my own Nickname when I post to other sites, but hey.

I just added the WordPress plugin “OpenId Comments 0.9.1” — I’m not claiming I did any actual work. We’ll see if it works, then go from there.

Filled under: Blog, Colophon By: Andrew Posted on: June 5, 2006 5 Comments »

Glitch Glitch

Glitch is not the smartest cat in the shed. He is sometimes brilliant, but sometimes really, really, REALLY dumb. At least from a human perspective.

It’s currently 5:30 in the morning. I don’t want to be awake. I got bumped just enough by a cat to wake up, and see Glitch looking out the window that the head of our bed is against. I thought, “Awww, cute cat’s watching the outside world.”

And then Glitch started sticking his paw out the window, through the wire headboard. And then his head. And then he started trying both at once. Maybe he didn’t realize that it was a second floor window, but I don’t really care. Glitch has never been an outdoor cat, and it’s not time for him to start now! So I started closing the window on him. Unfortunately, it’s only the start of summer, so it’s only going to get worse — Mandrina’s going to want to open windows, I’m not going to be always around to see which one Glitch is currently interested in, so…

Does anyone know how to disinterest a cat from the great-wide world? It worried me.

Filled under: Day-to-Day By: Andrew Posted on: June 3, 2006 5 Comments »

Saddest thing I saw today…

Long story short: Mandrina and I adopted two new kittens. There are stories and pictures, but I don’t have the time right now.

Instead, I’m going to tell you a cute, cute story about a little kitten that can’t see. Bit came downstairs with her brother, Pixel, and were playing throughout the ground floor of the house. All of a sudden, Bit ended up in the spare bedroom with me, and just started a little whimpering whine. I pet her, she stopped. I stopped petting, she came over to my leg and placed a single paw on it. I leaned over to pet her, and she went immediately to my hand. I pulled my hand away, and she just sat down and stared at me. A moment later, Pixel and Glitch came wrestling into the room, and Bit ran happily after them.

She had come to me ’cause she was lonely!

Filled under: Day-to-Day By: Andrew Posted on: May 31, 2006 2 Comments »

Babylon 5 Revisited

The show is still as stilted and contrived as I remember, but from the perspective of someone who’s read “If Chins Could Kill” multiple times, I do appreciate the fact that major characters who were around for a season or two are consistently brought back in major roles. The sense of continuity is fairly impressive. And Checkov is on the series as a recurring guest, so it can’t be all bad.

I finished the end of Season 3 last Friday night — when Sheridan goes to Z’ha’dum. After multiple comments about “If you go to Z’ha’dum, you will die.” and “I won’t be there for you at Z’ha’dum.” Mysteriously, the same person who said that last was a voice in Sheridan’s head while he was at Z’ha’dum, presumably dying, so you gotta figure he’ll miraculously survive.

I flipped open my CD binder today, to pull out season 4, episode 1.

And discovered I’ve misfiled Season 4, episodes 14-21 — which would have been where I stopped watching the series the last time.

Whoops.

Anyone have copies of Babylon 5 sitting around?

Filled under: Day-to-Day, Living, Office, Song By: Andrew Posted on: May 22, 2006 3 Comments »
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