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.

so, i had a cat.

last picture of ophelia thunderpaws

she was an awesome being. seriously, when i think about her personality, and the quirks she had, i smile. she was the only cat i ever met who would burp. and eat crackers. and fetch. and snore. losing her was tough. i had raised her from the tender age of six weeks. she would have been 11 this past june.

i got a tattoo for her.

paws and dirt marks. naturally

not that i need help remembering. but paw prints on my left shoulder (where she was laying where she died), inked three months after her death, seemed appropriate. they are also right in the path of my bra, which made things really uncomfortable for a few weeks.

anyway.

i had thoughts of getting another pet. i didn’t think i could get another cat. just petting neighborhood cats was enough to make me tear up. i really wanted a bunny. i looked into the rabbit rescue, and gave the whole thing serious thought.

then i found out someone who worked at my same hospital was giving up her dog. and was giving him back to the pound.

not a bunny, that’s for sure. but, how could you not love that face?

i took our resident dog, bentley, a few times to the dog park to meet this hansome man. his name is mario. his person was an absolute flake. we’d make plans for the dogs to hang out, to make sure they were okay with one another, and she’d forget. or show up a few hours late. seriously, i’d complain to anyone who would listen, about how this woman was wasting my time. there were a few episodes that made me want to stop thinking about this dog, and just get a bunny.

however.

mario came to live with me just before the fourth of july. he’s mellow. he’s goofy. he’s the alpha dog. he won my black little heart over.

dig that spotted tongue

he’s a bull mastiff mix. also, due to that tongue up there, i also believe him to be of chow descent. plus, he’s a fan of knitting. and oingo boingo.

happy dog

he doesn’t really bark, but he does a lot of grunting. he chases cats, but we’re working on that. he rolls his eyes, and is laying on my leg as i type. so far, he seems to like kung fu movies the best.

it's almost impossible to take a picture of one and not the other

and he’s pretty good with bentley’s spastic ways. he treats him the way an older brother would treat a younger, slightly disabled sibling. which is close enough to reality to make me giggle.

just waiting for the temperature to drop

he won’t allow bentley on the bed. when he sleeps, he snores. loung enough to be heard through the whole house. and with enough force to shake the bed. even when he’s laying on the floor. he gets the hiccups nearly every morning. i’ve successfully scared them out of him, which makes him wag his tail and grunt approvingly.

when he hears the alarm go off, he grunts and sticks him nose in my face. he head butts me until i get up.

he's as cuddly as he looks

he wags his tail in a circular manner.

i have no idea if ophelia would approve of him. she spent her life around various dogs, both canine and human. she dominated all of them. i think she would have dominated mario, but she would have napped with him after.

he’s no kitten, that’s for sure.

interrupting the nap is punishable by head-butting

but he’s the perfect act to follow her.

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.

here’s the thing. i love living in the portland area. there is so much lunacy to be had. there are drag queens, yarn shops, and strange eateries scattered all about the area code.

but, what we don’t have? erik’s deli.

during my high school years, i lived in santa cruz, california. a lovely pocket of nuttiness, where i’m still convinced all the hippies go to die. i’m not being mean, i’m just saying. it’s a very mellow area, and it’s a beautiful pocket of landscape. also, they have these signs at the city limits that say “santa cruz is a nuclear-free zone”.

i wish i had pictures to prove it.

one of the great things about santa cruz – i mean, besides living so close to the ocean that i could hear the waves crashing at night in my bedroom – were the delis. there were a fair few awesome delis. we had togo’s, dharma’s cafe (which used to be called mcdharma’s, but they changed it because of that other mc-place giving them the serious side eye), and that little place around the corner from our house, to name a few. as an aside, the place around the corner from our house? really good food. but one of the guys in the back? gave me the straight-up creeps. he always wore his apron. even while waiting for the bus. and he would stare you down. i’m sure he was a nice guy who treated his pets really well, but he freaked my teenage self out.

anyway.

erik’s is awesome. they have amazing food. their menu items have amazing names (seriously, you can order a knuckle sandwich there. it’s cream cheese, salami and sprouts on dark russian rye. sooooo good). it was all healthy. they had the best brownies in the universe. and if you ate there, your drink came in a mason jar. i don’t think erik’s could have happened anywhere else. although, technically, their first place was in scott’s valley. but that’s right up the freeway from santa cruz, and it totally counts.

i bring this up because tonight i was at my yoga class. and the instructor and i were talking about favorite sandwiches. she mentioned this amazing-sounding concoction she’d sweet-talked a bar cook into making her. there was bacon, cheese, avocado and tomato in a pita pocket. it sounded so good. and it made me think of my favorite sandwich at erik’s, the natural high. when i told her about this sandwich, she asked, where do they make that? it sounds fabulous. i sighed and said, at erik’s. in santa cruz. i’d love a natural high, with a berry calistoga to drink.

portland has failed me. and through no fault of its own. there’s nothing that comes close to that here, at least in my opinion. i was even looking around on their website. thinking, please let them have a deli in yreka (pronounced why-reek-a). that’s just across the oregon-california border. i can go there on friday. sadly, they haven’t left the bay area.

my point is this. if you live in the vicinity of an erik’s… dude, you’re so lucky. if you have no idea what i’m talking about… dude, you’re missing out. if you’re looking for a franchise to start in oregon… dude, give erik a call. he’ll hook you up.

basically, i’m just hungry. thanks for stopping by.

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, yeah.

… do you ever have those times where you don’t even know where to begin? i’m having one of those times.

this week, kitten has been lethargic. not herself. slightly out of breath and exhausted. but then, she’s 10. which is, like, 60 in cat years. i took her into the vet. which was a feat in and of itself. i don’t deal with veterinarians. not because i don’t have the money or anything like that. but… my cat, she is aggressive. the last vet asked me to not bring her back.

don't come back unless you're covered in bacon

she’s a spitfire, really.

so, i take her to the vet. who tells me to run, not walk, to the animal emergency room down the road. who whisk her away while i’m filling out papers. and then usher me into a little room, where a much nicer vet asks me a bunch of questions about kitten, and tells me he has no idea what could be wrong with her. while we’re sitting there, some tech is testing her blood. a normal red blood cell count (these are the cells that carry oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body) for a cat is 40-50% of the total blood volume.

my cat, when i brought her in? about 7%. not good, y’all.

so, they stick her in a oxygenated cubby and wrap her in a fleece blanket. i’m a bit hysterical, so they ask me to go home, and they’ll call me with updates. the updates are the best part of my day. the cliff notes version of things: she’s had a transfusion from one of the donor kitties in residence at the hospital (the idea of live-in donors knocks me out), and is doing well. x-rays have shown some stuff in her stomach, which could be food. or not, it’s hard to tell. they’ve run a few blood tests, and are waiting to hear back from pathology. she has a kitty IV. she’s biting the staff, which is normal behavior for her (she’s fixed and aggressive. she’s the awesome). she’s eating and drinking, which she wasn’t earlier. they’re keeping her, at least overnight, to monitor her. i visited with her earlier, and it was clear that she was happy to see me, not so happy to be staying, but resigned to hanging out for the night. i scratched and rubbed her normal spots until she drifted off to dozing land.

we know it’s not feline AIDS, we know it’s not leukemia. i’m pretty sure it’s a liver or kidney problem. i’m hoping to be wrong. i know it’s a major thing, whatever her illness. i’m just kind of hoping it’s little major, and not big major. i already know her hospital stay is pricey. we’re amazingly lucky i have the money sitting in an account.

they can rebuild her. they have the technology.

(insert six million dollar man sound effects here)

i can’t even begin to tell you all how absolutely terrified i am of losing my cat. my burping, farting cat who cleans herself loudly when company’s over. who will poop on people she really doesn’t like. who head butts me most mornings. who crawls into the knitting basket for extended naps, and curls up next to my shoulder when i’m reading in bed. the cat who seems to really dig hip hop, buries her face in my hair when i’ve used that one shampoo, and sometimes licks my nose is what has to be her version of a kiss.

the cat who, probably right now, is whacking at some technician while they try to check on her IV line. as is her way.

"i fart in your general direction, kniggit"

i’ve been asking the universe most of the day to help me out here. to let me have my crazy little cat restored to me. what really has me bent out of shape is the fact that, whatever she has, it’s a chronic thing. meaning it’s been going on for longer than the last week. which makes me feel like an absolutely bad person. surely, i should have seen something before now, if i was any kind of a mom. i know that animals hide their illnesses, and really, i did the best thing for her by rushing her to the hospital instead of letting the non-hospital doc run tests and adapt a wait-and-see attitude. i’m upset that the first vet – the non-hospital guy – made me feel like an animal abuser, saying that i should have seen that something was wrong sooner (yes, he really did say that. kitten tried to poop on him, but she was too weak).

anyway. i’m distracted. my furry baby is really ill. i can only visit her three times a day.

the once and future crazy

leave a message at the beep, is what i’m saying. i’ll get back to you.

kitten says meow. i say, thanks for stopping by.

when i was graduating from high school, one of the instructors gave a speech that rubbed my cortex the wrong way. every paragraph, it seemed, started with the phrase “a new day is dawning.” it drove me – and a fair percentage of my fellow graduates – bonkers. i mean, it was pretty hot outside. we were sitting in those blue polyester robes and matching hats. it’s a wonder none of us tanked from heat exhaustion.

i digress. i’ve always been a little bitter about having to wear a bit of cardboard on my head to get out of high school.

anyway.

i just came across this article. and, well… i hate to say it, but a new day? it’s kinda… you know…

dawning.

thanks, president dreamboat!

maybe i’m just overly sensitive to this sort of thing, but has anyone else noticed a marked decline in manners and etiquette? i mean, i’m not the nicest or most well-mannered human on the planet. i doubt i’m even in the top 1,000. however, i know enough to know that people in general are losing the ability to be courteous. and y’all know i have examples.

situation #1 – i’m sitting at a table in a shared break room area. i’ve got a book open in front of me, and i’m reading. there’s no one else in the room. or, there’s another person at the table, also reading. co-worker comes in, sees books open and reading happening, and starts talking. loudly. about bowel problems, usually, but the point is the talking. i look up, smile, then prop my book up to make sure the co-worker sees that i’m reading a book. co-worker continues to talk.

i’d love to start slapping people in the face with a large, smelly fish every time this happens. it’s one thing to join in a conversation already in progress. quite another to disrupt my free time talking about your ass issues. i don’t stand outside your bathroom door and read knitting patterns through a megaphone. although, maybe i should start.

situation #2 – say you’re walking down a hallway, pushing a cart in front of you. let’s say the cart in question is the size of a coffee cart, and it’s heavy and doesn’t corner very well. coming toward you are three people, walking shoulder to shoulder, taking up the width of said hallway. instead of moving out of the way of you and your cart, they simply stop. you’re forced to wrangle this cart around three people with doctorate degrees, who are acting like a bovine trifecta.

in reality, the cart does not have lovely caffeine aboard. it, in fact, has a wide array of needles and other bloodletting devices. and it would be wise to get out of the way of such a cart and its person. i am very good at getting needles into moving targets. and stationary ones. just saying.

situation #3 – driving on the road in snowy conditions. seriously, these last two or three weeks have made clear to me the definition of road rage. the ones i’d love to slap with my aforementioned fish would be the people who are insistent on tailgating. i’m driving the speed limit, cable-chains on my tires, on a public street. the person behind me, usually an SUV, is so close to the back end of my car i can’t see their headlights. this makes me nervous as all get-out. it’s also nice when large trucks get annoyed with your safe driving and speed up to overtake you on the snowy median, then swerve in front of you. honestly. maybe, you should leave earlier when there’s bad weather. or, you know, take the bus.

situation #4 - not exactly an etiquette thing, but… when someone asks you for your area code, don’t act like a moron and give them your zip code. pay attention.

situation #5 – you’re in an elevator, the sole passenger, and you reach your floor. the doors open, and people start pushing their way on before you can even get off. you say ‘excuse me’, to draw attention to the fact that these people clearly are about to be fish-slapped. they say, ‘it’s okay,’ or ‘don’t worry about it.’ like, somehow it’s your fault they can’t be bothered to let someone get out of an elevator before they get on.

here’s what i suggest. how about, for your new years’ resolution? you resolve to be a little more considerate of other people. return phone calls in a timely manner, don’t flake on your friends and associates. smile, make a little eye contact.

and be extra-polite to any redhead toting a large fish.

thanks for stopping by.

inside my head, there’s a voice that says stuff like, if you say that out loud, then it totally makes it true. i must be twelve years old or something. that’s right up there with stepping on cracks truly breaking your mother’s back. meaning, it feels silly to think such things. i should be good with silly. it seems to be my primary operating mode.

meanwhile, back at the ranch…

so, the vet and i were dating, knowing full well that he was changing states at the end of october. i figured it was no big deal. i’m a fan of road trips and airports. and while i’m not thrilled about a long distance relationship, i was willing to take it for a test drive. but, the weekend before he was supposed to be moved, he decided that what he really wants is a good christian girlfriend.

i am many things. a fundamentalist christian is not one of those things.

i’m not going to sit here and tell y’all i wasn’t hurt. i didn’t cry a river or anything, but i do feel a bit craptastic about the whole thing. he was very casual about it. starting with, well, i’ve thought about this, and i think that blah blah blah, i might have my head wedged firmly up my tuckus. i don’t take rejection very well. and even though it wasn’t technically a rejection… it was a rejection.

yes, i’m getting to the point.

since i’ve been back from california, i’ve had no interest in going out. at all. if i could stay at home watching DVD’s and knitting for the rest of my life, i think i’d be okay with that. and that can’t be right. i’m well aware that after a relationship ends, it’s pretty normal to either go out every night of the week, or lock yourself in your house and eat your body weight in cheetos. i’m somewhere in between the two. after work, i go to the gym, run my errands, then go home and eat a sandwich. maybe some popcorn. i read, i knit, i listen to the radio. and i don’t give a damn about the outside world. which is maddening to me, sitting here at work. because it’s taken me a good long time to come out of my little shell. and now, a few words from a guy with a crew cut and i’m ready to go right back in. if i thought that stamping my foot and saying, “it isn’t FAIR!” would get me out of this self-imposed hermitude… well, i’d stamp my foot, then.

essentially, i have a deep-down urge to keep everyone at arm’s length. there’s a long and involved reason for this, but the cliff notes version is, i don’t trust people in general because of a few specific crappy people. a few rotten apples and all that. somewhere in my brain, it seems totally logical to just stay home. that way, i don’t have to endure people inadvertently ripping me to shreds. and i can think that maybe i’m wrong, and people really are decent at their core.

i have more to say on this topic, but i’m at work. and continuing on this path is just gonna make me cry.

but thanks for stopping by.

i’ve been thinking a lot about obligations as of late. while it started before my trip to california, i can say i became totally conscious of it while in one of the many gift shops at disneyland. specifically, while i was looking at the watches.

about a thousand years ago, i dated this guy who wore a goofy watch. i mean, a watch with goofy on it. and it ran backward. whenever i’m confronted with disney watches, i seem to look for the goofy watch. it’s a habit i can’t quite explain, except for the fact that it was a really cool watch, and sometimes i feel like i could erase the jerk i kinda was to the guy by looking for goofy. but, while i was looking for this particular watch, moi was off dealing with one of the employees, in regards to some prints the birdman had bought for her, and which she had returned to the store to have framed. they were beautiful prints of cinderella, as i recall, not all cartoon-ish like one would think. they were these amazing oil paintings, and they were pretty cumbersome as we toted them onto the parking shuttle/ train thingy. i’m not saying i felt obligated to carry these pictures, nor am i really obligated to look for that goofy watch.

both things were done because i care about the person with which i associate these things. does that make sense? i care about moi, so obviously i would visit her for her birthday. and of course i would go to disneyland more than once, and naturally i would help her carry these prints. and, it stands to reason, i care still about the guy with the goofy watch. who, thanks to the power of the google, has found me after a thousand years, and thinks i’m funny. or at least, interesting enough to call on occasion. hello, mr roboto!

anyway.

so, obligation. maybe, if you come from that kind of family, your life is nothing but a series of obligations. you do things because you have to, and that’s just how it is. while i was raised that way in regards to some things, i try not to make people feel like chores i have to accomplish. i loathe feeling that way, and i’ll be damned if i purposely make someone feel like an item on a to-do list.

i get really upset if i miss a birthday, even if it’s an honest mistake. i feel bad if a friend has a monumental thing happening in their life, and i’m not there to help, or be a part of it in some way for them. does that make sense? i don’t have friends so i can have an impressive list of names in my phone book.

so, the goofy watches. they were awesome, and i nearly bought one. but if i were to buy a goofy watch, i’d stop looking at the watches. i’d stop looking for that one watch. and i don’t really wear a watch, anyway. i have quite a few, and i wear them for a while, then they sit in the jewelry box, running down. i might go looking for the goofy watch in a few months, and i’d be sad that it ran out of power. i’d get the battery replaced, and i’d wear it again for a week or two. only to remember i’m not a watch person, and back into the jewelry box it would go.

lather, rinse, repeat.

buying the watch turns a memory into an obligation, and i don’t want that. for anybody, when it gets right down to it. and i especially don’t want it for me.

the point i wanted to make with all this isn’t really coming out the way i wanted. so, i’ll say this instead. one of my aunts once told me you really only get five friends in life. you have a lot of people that are your friends, yes. we all probably know more than five people. but, you will only know five people in your entire lifetime that are true friends. the kind of people that would donate blood for you. that would give you a kidney. that would hold your hand when your life is crumbling around your ears. only five. when i think about the people in my phone book, i wonder if i’m one of their five. i wonder if they would cry on my shoulder. i wonder if i could cry on theirs.

i wonder if i mean anything to any of them. or if i’m an obligation to be dealt with from time to time.

tell your five that you love them. that’s my point, i guess. and never let them forget.

thanks for stopping by.