Month: September 2002

GWB throws a party…will anyone come? (via mightygirl)
your hobbit name (via ev – this time.)

childhood memories are strangely proven right: Diet Coke is still nasty. (I wanted caffeine, but not so many Kcals. I think I’ll just drink black tea instead.)

also from Rebecca, a page of advice for writing. I’ve had a very good couple of days on that front – readers in the know will understand when I say that I’ve been writing Marcus & Radla’s backstory(ies), and that it’s been both fun and useful.

and because reading Rebecca’s Pocket always turns up good stuff, go read this: Visual Journalism: An interesting day. as stavros (welcome back, dude!) says, politics chafe my scrote. or something. 😉

The Gypsy Lore Society: External Links

In order to assess the worth of any item of information the reader should always ask the following questions about any claims an author makes […]

(via Rebecca Blood)

I’m in the middle of changing webhosts – there may be a hiccup in the next few days, but hopefully I’ve provided for enough overlap that it shouldn’t be a problem. the new host has much better features for a lower price. happy happy. (assuming I can find/remember my domain provider account name & password….)

I was listening to a conversation about the opening of the new building, and I suddenly had a flash of last night’s episode, and Dawn & Kit falling through the bathroom floor, and thought – wow, at least we don’t have to worry about it being over the hellmouth. (hopefully.)

– EZ-3 trike. long-time readers may know that I’ve never learned how to ride a bike. a tragic combination of bad balance & coordination, family tragedy, and not enough interest to put in the resources.

but Saturday we dropped by Bike Tech (no web site, apparently) and Chad tried out the recumbents while I tried out the aforementioned recumbent tricycle. wheeee! no, really – it was way fun; I could even imagine tricycle commuting…. riding felt a little like one would imagine driving a race car might feel. (yeah, sure.) and I could even keep up with Chad on the recumbent.

alas, I don’t have the money for it now…but I think I’ll start saving my pennies.

also:

there was a stray cat who came ’round our house over last weekend, and he looked thin, and was friendly, and so we gave him food. he was also a very vocal cat, so we started calling him Mr. Noisy. then we sat down, each in turn, outside, and let him crawl onto our laps and we petted him, and he purred.

then he stopped eating.

we brought him inside, and let him sleep, at first in a little cat basket thing, then in our laps. all he did was sleep…whenever he woke up, we tried to feed him. we tried all sorts of things, even chicken broth, tuna, and milk (not together). he drank a little bit of milk, not even a teaspoonfull, and threw it up (outside on the driveway). he never used the litterbox, or defecated outside, as far as we could tell. he stopped being noisy.

we had to go to Mt. Rainier, to make sure that some humans had food and clothing. we couldn’t think of what else to do; we couldn’t afford to take him to a vet, and we were afraid it was something like feline leukemia, something fatal…that we’d spend a bunch of money and then he’d die anyway. so we took him to the animal shelter, where they at least test for leukemia. the guy there said if he was okay he’d be available in two days…we agreed that if he was, we’d adopt him. I cried.

yesterday we went back to see if Mr. Noisy was available. he wasn’t in the main cat area, but he was in their book, and a woman went to check if he was okay.

fatty liver disease. still not really eating, but she didn’t know much more; somebody else, who knew the veterinary stuff, would call us later to tell us more. he also had a chip – he’d been adopted from that very shelter. they were trying to get ahold of his previous owners, but so far no success. somebody abandoned Mr. Noisy.

the call: fatty liver disease, in cats, is terminal most of the time. there was nothing they could do, and that afternoon he was euthanized.

rest in peace, Mr. Noisy.

a bunch of other stuff happened, like going to Mt. Rainier…we resupplied a few friends who are hiking the wonderland trail. we got to camp overnight at Mowich Lake, which was absolutely gorgeous (pictures later, hopefully), and not only brought the supplies they asked for, but made dinner and breakfast.

we really need a sleeping pad for our tent, though – I hardly got a wink of sleep, except for this exceptionally strange dream about UPS (the school, not the postal service). got up in the middle of the night, after the (almost full!) moon had set…vast fields of starts, Orion rising in the east. I could tell where civilization was, though, from the fading of the stars and the brightening of the sky off to the northwest.

and the road was…painful, coming up from Wilkeson and Carbonado and into the forest. very bouncy.

first off, Dorothea writes beautifully about blogging & the family.

I too have wondered about what might happen should random people (family, friends, other sorts of acquaintences) run into this little page…so far, all of those random moments have been quite pleasant – mostly on the level of “yeah, I saw something about X on your weblog.” (so have said Elizabeth, Kat, Tom, Kermit)

and occasionally I have held back about personal things because of the unknown audience. a few months ago, Kermit would’ve merely been “K”, because I was feeling cautious & coy. but I’ve worked that out (sort of) with the one person whose (anticipated) reaction made me uneasy. I know that my life is just fragmented enough, and I’m just cowardly/cautious enough that some things seem best unsaid. (whether that’s true or not will be left as an exercise for the reader.)

C & I have an agreement about my blogging that has always reminded me of the role of Anais Nin’s husband in her diaries: he wishes to remain a figure in the background, not an object of discussion…and I’ve agreed to that, because I respect him…but it means that sometimes things I’d sort of like to write about, I refrain from doing so.

I don’t know what my point is, really, except – go read what Dorothea wrote, she’s much more eloquent than I. (also, I need to go to the store. more (I went to a party!) when I get back.)