so. there’s that.

it’s a habit i’ve fallen out of, that’s for sure. i don’t have as much time to myself as i once did, and the blog suffers like some kind of unloved stepchild. plus, we are once again minus an interweb connection at the house (i’m blaming the brats in particular, and verizon in general) (i’m typing this on my phone. that’s how hardcore i am).

none of this is a valid excuse. bear with me, and i’ll get there. if you’ve got better things to do, i totally understand.

as always, thanks for stopping by.

hi. i’m still here.

i have no good excuse for not posting in such a long time. other than, there may have been some drinking.

the hooch of choice in triple digit weather

there may have also been some shenanigans.

stealing my sunglasses. and my sippy cup

also, there may have been a new addition to my little army.

mario in the front, bentley in the back

i have missed you, internet.

here’s the thing. i really like the internet. like, as something more than a friend. you can type the most random of phrases into your search engine of choice, and spend a few hours giggling at what is retrieved. i mean, who knew there was a blog dedicated to cakes gone wrong? or a woman that will induce you to scream WOLVERINE!! for no good reason? not to mention all the crazy stuff you can find on youtube. which i’m convinced is its own little internet.

i have met great people through my computer. some of them i have even met in real life. and, so far, most of them have not been creepy stalkers. the internet has this amazing power to connect people and spread factoids. you can send your mom flowers, and then find a strip club. all within five minutes. it’s incredible.

anyway.

life, as they say, is what happens when you’re making other plans. i will try to post more regularly. but there’s knitting to accomplish, alcohol to be consumed with friends, and a dog who grunts and demands i rub his belly. and a heat wave to avoid amidst all that other stuff.

but, as always, thanks for stopping by. and not giving up on me. is appreciated.

so, today? i was gonna talk about something kinda funny. but then, farrah fawcett died. and then, michael jackson died.

i’ll be hiding in my room for the rest of the day. because, clearly, death is knocking out the crazy.

have you ever actually read the product reviews at amazon? sometimes they’re helpful, sometimes they’re whiny.

sometimes they make you think, is this for real?

case in point – i was getting my gossip on over at dlisted. one post featured this photo (saved to my own compy, because i’m not a dumbass):

i howl at the moon, if you catch my drift

wolf shirt. being sold on amazon. with the most amazing product reviews. as i was reading, i kept thinking, is this a joke? did i just get hyperlinked to the onion’s website? i laughed so loud i snorted. i may have peed a little.

a sample:

So, when wearing this shirt, I noticed that I immediately received all powers of the planeteers, superspeed, invisibility, flight, and the ability to turn woodchucks into gold.

The problem is the powers only occur when I think about happy thoughts. I later found out that Peter Pan made the shirt so it makes a lot of sense. I think that the manufacturer would specify this.

-1 star cause it fades easily in the wash.

go read all the crazy goodness over there. i’m really glad that amazon doesn’t really monitor the product reviews too closely.

thanks for stopping by. be on the lookout for golden woodchucks.

i’ve been sick with a cold the last week. which is awesome. i hate the sound of phlegm, and i’ve been making the sound of phlegm. so it’s been a lot of blowing my nose and saying ewwww.

seriously. sound of phlegm being coughed up is one of the only things that can make me gag.

but thanks for stopping by. have a cough drop. i bought eight bags.

i may have a problem.

so, it’s fair to say i’ve been a little emotional the last week and change. i’ve started half a dozen blog posts in my head, only to have my internal editor veto them before i got to a computer. and then, i end up reading a book and forgetting about the blog altogether.

instead of talking about this cat-shaped hole i now have in my life, i’ll talk about my neck. at least that story has a happy ending.

as you may recall, i had an MRI of my neck that told me what most of my friends and colleagues already know – that i’m damaged goods but pretty much within normal limits. a few saturdays ago, i was in the shower washing my hair, and i experienced what i thought was a pulled shoulder muscle. great, i thought. i’m the only person i know who can get injured while performing personal hygiene.  i continue about my day, which included going to see the watchmen and doing a few little errands. as an aside, i’m still not sure if i recommend the watchmen to non-geeks. you may love it, you may hate it. or, you may just go to see if dr manhattan really is totally naked (yes, and apparently uncircumcised. just saying). it was fun to watch, but i don’t know if i absolutely loved it. i guess if i still don’t know, then i probably didn’t love it. still, worth watching.

anyway.

as my day goes on, my neck starts to hurt more and more. what started as a mild pain in my left shoulder became really intense pain working its way up my neck; by the time i was heading home, the pain was on both sides of my neck, shooting into both shoulders. i couldn’t turn my head to check traffic, or my blind spot. which made my drive home one elongated prayer to the universe. please don’t let me hit anyone, please don’t let anyone hit me, let me make it home safely, please please please…

as another aside, i don’t really believe in god. i blame my catholic upbringing. i can’t get behind the idea of an invisible man, up in the sky, watching every move i make and deeming it good or bad. also? that’s just plain creepy. but, i can get behind the idea that energy in the universe can be positive or negative. and if you ask nicely, these good and bad energies can sometimes work together to get you what you need to get where you’re going.

so, i get home in one piece. i go to bed, because i can’t really hold my head up. this is the week before ophelia died, and she was all over me, and very much on board with going for a lie-down. i lay down, put on a DVD, and proceed to try and not move.

i know i’ve said this before, and i’m pretty sure i’ll be saying it again, but you really don’t appreciate beign able to do something until you experience not being able to do this same something. the act of moving from a horizontal position to a sitting position takes no time or thought on most days. it took me over 15 minutes. seriously.

so, i’m in a lot of pain and moving sucks. i take waaaay too much aspirin, and roll out of bed monday morning (yeah, i spent my weekend snoozing with the cat and trying not to move. i’m such a rock star). i go to work – yeah, i’m having trouble moving, but i work at a hospital. surely, someone there can help me. what i get is a stern talking-to about taking waaaay too much aspirin, a prescription for muscle relaxers, and a referral for chiropractic services. the pills help, but it’s the chiro dude that makes the pain go away. i was so impressed when, 10 or so minutes into my first appointment, i could move my neck. i’ve had a few appointments since then, and i’m down to once a week. it still hurts a bit, even now, but i can move my neck without wincing or making little gasping noises. it takes me no time to get up in the morning – i mean, no more than is usual. the appointments themselves are pretty great. during one morning appointment, the chiropractor said my shoulder muscles were really tight, and he was going to use some kind of electronic stimulation that would cause my muscles to spontaneously contract and relax. essentially, he hooked me up to a battery for ten minutes, and i got to watch my arms jump about of their own accord. he said i’m the only patient that’s ever laughed their way through such a session.

anyway, i’m glad my neck works again.

it’s going to take a little doing to get back in the swing of sitting down to blog. normally, ophelia lays on my feet while i make fun of myself on the interwebs, and it feels wrong to be doing this without her. however, life continues, and i do like writing, even if i’m not terribly funny all the time. i have ideas coming, things that do get past the internal editor. like, i really want to talk about all the badly misspelled signs i’ve been seeing. but that needs photos, and i just haven’t gotten around to it.

so, thanks for stopping by. i hope you continue to stop by. it’s only gonna get weirder.

ophelia thunderpaws

mah bubbeh

time of death: friday, march 13, 2009. 9:15pm

i just couldn’t let her suffer anymore.

y’all excuse me for a bit.

so, i was at the dentist this morning. where they like to complain that i don’t floss vigorously enough or whatever, and the hygienist pokes my gums with that pointy thinger far too often to be accidental. seriously, what kind of person becomes a hygienist? you scrape at other peoples’ oral cavities all day. it just seems like odd behavior.

says the girl who draws blood for a living.

anyway.

the dentist is telling me i need more fluoride, so i should get a rinse to use at night. or, she says, we can get you a prescription for toothpaste.

i mean… really? a toothpaste prescription? i use toothpaste (the arm & hammer stuff. it’s great. and over the counter!), so it’s not like i need to be dragged into the modern age or anything like that.

that just slays me. a prescription for toothpaste is like a prescription for dental floss, or a hairbrush.

sorry. it’s not terribly funny. but it’s still baffling to me.

carry on.

you know what’s great? when you’re having a super lousy day, and you decide the best thing for your foul mood is a walk. and you go to the nature-ish path near your house, and within ten seconds, you’ve managed to slip on some mud and fall spectacularly on your knee. with witnesses.

yeah, friday was a great day. i’m not even joking about the ten seconds. i wish this bruise would photograph well.

anyway.

so, it’s been a not-great week and change. if you’ve been playing the home game, you know that last week, i took miz ophelia to the emergency room vet, where they poked holes in her and gave her a boost of blood. she’s still doing well. on wednesday, the vet called to tel me that she has lymphoblastic leukemia. which is a type of bone marrow cancer. so, that’s bad. but, she’s still on my list of favorite things. and now, she’s pretty much allowed to do whatever she flippin’ wants. it’s a house rule i have – if you get cancer, you get your way. so, she’s been sleeping under the sheets sometimes, and drinking right out of my glass when it suits her. and eating crackers. which i don’t feel bad about, because they’re the annie’s organic bunny crackers. those can’t possibly be bad for her.

it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it, yeah

she really likes the dirty jobs dvds.

i’ve nearly finished knitting a pair of socks. which is not a big deal by itself. but, considering that i started the first sock this past monday, and i’m a few inches from completing the second sock here on sunday, it’s a fast set.

it reminds me of stained glass windows

i can’t show you the whole sock, because they’re a gift, and i’m not entirely convinced the recipient doesn’t read the blog. but they’re cool, and i wish they were my size.

seriously, it looks like a muppet to me

i discovered what can only be the single ugliest scarf i’ve ever tried to make. i stuffed it away a while back, and i found it today. it’s so not my style.

like i eviscerated a muppet and put my head through it

i mean, as a scarf it’s not my style. clearly, i enjoy the idea of it being some kind of accessory.

this gives me the desire to swig vodka

or prop.

also?

i’m not the kind of girl that has crushes on movie stars. i tend to reserve myself for television actors, apparently. and not only do i find david tennant’s version of dr who to be amusingly cheeky, i have a desire to get the TARDIS tattooed on my person. if you don’t follow dr who (and really… what’s wrong with you that you don’t?), the TARDIS is that police box the guy’s standing in front of. it’s really a time-and-space travel machine.

i kinda want one in the backyard.

thanks for stopping by.

sorry about keeping all three of you hanging.

kitten is home. thus far, she’s fine. she had a blood transfusion and a lot of fluids. it was kinda great getting the updates from the vet every couple hours. he would judge her recuperation by how many of his staff she had bitten or screatched.

now, i have to give her an antibiotic twice a day. which involves two grown women, a blue towel (to keep her from clawing the holy hell out of us), and an eyedropper of liquid that smells like bananas. i haven’t heard back about what exactly is wrong with her. i mean, it’s not like cats are cars, and they need their fluids changed every decade.

they don’t, do they?

my MRI came back all crazy. however, my doctor has determined that it’s WNL (within normal limits) crazy, and has suggested i do more yoga and see a chiropractor. and a massage person. which is seriously the awesomenest prescription ever.

and? apparently the snow level is getting down to 500 feet tonight and tomorrow. so, maybe we’ll have a sugar frosted thursday.

thanks for stopping by.