Contrariwise

For folks who still read LJ, and who remember entries over the years that featured Morgan, my Small Emergency Backup Cat. She lived to the ripe old age of 20, which is pretty remarkable given that she spent the last like 5 years blowing snot everywhere and the last year getting daily fluid injections.

Morgan started out life as a barn kitten in Morgantown, West Virginia. She came to me when she was 9, and she instantly became the dominant cat in our house. She always charmed everyone and was never shy about demanding attention -- breaking all the rules for what calico cats are supposed to be like. Over the past year, because of the fluids, I boarded her whenever I went out of town, and she had all of the staff at the vet/kennel wrapped around her paw. She would become "desk kitty" whenever she was there, not caring the least about big dogs who'd come in, or anything, so long as she was getting scritched. She was a total sweetheart right up to the end.

I'll miss her. (I don't think Emily will.)

As promised, I selected just 24 photos to represent the year, and hit every month except for April and September, I think. Click any to embiggen at Flickr.

Let's see if I can get one of those new-fangled LJ Collapse things to work...
( I think I got it... oh it's just the old LJ Cut... )

So! When I last updated, it was to announce in a brief way that I had broken my right wrist in a fall on the ice. It's been a while, so it's a good time for another update.

I've been coping, even though it is a gigantic pain in the ass. Many thanks to people like emilytheslayer, lynxreign, elishavah, and especially veejane, for various bits of assistance that have made the last four weeks get-throughable. Everyone at the office has been very nice; it helps that we are in a somewhat slow period. (Although, our annual symposium took place a couple of weekends ago, and that wasn't what you would want to call "slow". But I was able to line up a lot of minions and delegate to them, so we survived it.)

The office bought me a copy of MacSpeech Dictate, the Mac version of Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I have been able to install both at work and at home. This allows me to keep up with some of my e-mailing, rather than having to do all my typing one-handed. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work for me for writing fiction, and needless to say, what the right hand out of commission I can't do any artwork, which is driving me nuts. Still, thank goodness for small favors. (I am however getting really tired of having to speak everything out loud, including punctuation.)

Below, an example of how the cats have been "helping":





(i.e., Morgan has decided that the pillow that I use to prop up my arm when I'm sitting in my chair is her new favorite place to lay, and I have to shove her over when I actually want to use it for the purpose that I intended it for. Also, yes, I had undecorated the tree prior to the fall, but had not taken it down and put it away; now, it is up for the duration, and I don't see the point of having it sit there without putting the lights on.)

That is an example of the original splint. It was succeeded by a hard cast, which is what I'm wearing now. I have a compression fracture of the distal radius, and from the start, the surgeon told me that he was worried it might "fall apart", rather than "get sticky" and start to heal. Well, nearly 4 weeks later, the latest round of x-rays taken today has shown that it decided to fall apart. Or to be more accurate, it collapsed in on itself. The ends of the bone to connect up with the wrist are not quite in the right alignment, which could be a bad thing going forward. So today, I found out that I will be having surgery on Friday to put in a plate to correct this.

The bright side is that this will not set me back to the beginning in terms of recovery. It will add a few weeks, but it won't (or, it shouldn't) add six more weeks. I'm annoyed, because the arm has just been getting to the point where it is starting to hurt a little less, like its, you know, healing; and now after Friday it's going to hurt all over again while I recover from the surgery, and I have no good idea of how long that's going to take.

In summation: FEH.

I leave you with a cute picture of Emily (all 4 feet!):

Happy New Year, everybody! A grab-bag entry of recent-ish things...

First, to remind myself (because I can never really remember, any more, what I actually did on New Year's Eve in any given year): this year there was a snowstorm out there, and it was very cold. I had yummy food for dinner, and yummy wine courtesy of rednikki and mycranium. I watched the Disney movie "Enchanted", which I got from the library (to replace a unworking copy of "Madagascar") and which I'd been meaning to see. And it was a HOOT. Really. Disney taking the piss out of its own romantic-cartoons genre.

Speaking of the aforementioned snowstorm: I went out very early yesterday, to feed elishavah's cat Tigger. It was already snowing, but given the forecast it sounded like it would be better to get it done earlier than later. By the time I got home, it was seriously putting it down out there. I came in the door, and of course, there was Emily, crying to be let out. "Yeah, yeah," I said. I picked up her harness, and the little fruitcake actually sat up on her hind legs and thrust her head through the loop, she was so eager to go out.

And then she found out what the outdoors was actually like:





I think the expression on her face in the first pic says it all, no? She did walk down the steps of her own volition, but she didn't really make it very far before she decided "Fuck this" and headed back up the steps to the door.

(Showing that she either does not learn, or else cannot keep a thought in her tiny little walnut-sized brain, today, she was crying at the back door again when I got in from Cat Sitting Errands. I ignored her this time.)

Also apropos to a post this time of year: my Fannish Year in Review.

In Kadanzer Weyr, my Pern fandom group: approx. 11,050 words of fic (spread over 4 fics). No art. (!!!) :( Yeah, I'm bad; I've got catching up to do there...

In RiverTwine Holt, my ElfQuest fandom group: approx. 11,375 words of fic (spread over 4 fics... okay, that's a bit eerie; I had no idea I had such parity between the two groups in terms of how much fic I was doing!). 52 pieces of art (most in color), including 77 individual figures. This included two pieces for the group's 2009 Calendar (I did February and July.)

Hmm. Basically, I wrote approximately the same amount of fic over this year as last year, give or take a story (still a total well under what I've done in years past). I actually did somewhat less art than I did in 2007. Good lord, what have I been *doing* this year? I guess, increased admin duties in the EQ group; that always sucks up time, it's true.

----------

Finally! One more piece of art I did this year was for EQ fandom -- every year, the EQ site's forum, Scroll of Colors, produces a fan-art calendar. It's juried. Artists submit pieces related to the year's theme, and then you don't find out if you made it in until the calendar is released.

Well, the calendar was released today. The theme is "The Magic of ElfQuest". My entry was chosen for January. :) It can be seen here: The 2009 ElfQuest Fan Art Calendar


That's all for 2008! Really, I am not sad to see it go. :P Here's to a MUCH BETTER 2009 for everybody!

Time for some cat pictures! This is Emily in her Latest Favorite Spot (lord knows, it's only a matter of time before Morgan decides to annex it), showing off one of her favorite lounging postures, Sphinx-Cat. The second shot is a good look at her thumbs. (In fact, on that particular paw, she not only has the thumb with the claw on it, but in that Y between the thumb and forefinger, she has another claw hidden away. Her left paw has the thumb, but not that extra claw in the cleft.) And the bottom pic is just fun. (It was another attempt to get a close shot at her toes.) Plus the source of a new icon!

Yes, I went to the gym again! Also, I went on Thursday, I just forgot to post about it.

On Thursday, I discovered two things. One: weeknights around 6pm is when EVERYONE goes to the gym, apparently. That was the most crowded I had ever seen it. But thanks to them having a skillion of each type of machine I use, I never had to wait to get on one. Score! Two: huh! Cute guys go to the gym! I know, this shouldn't be news. It just struck me, that's all. And you get to talk to them! Or, to be accurate, you get to say things like, "Give me a second to wipe this[ piece of equipment] down, and it's all yours", and they'll respond with things like, "Sure, thanks." ... Yeah, I know, that's pathetic. Still, baby steps.



I also need to provide this pictorial proof of the occasional cat detente that happens at my house. This pic was taken at about 2am on Jan 1st, when I finally came to bed to find that the cats had given up and gotten there before me. (It was cold.) I have no idea who was there first and who got there second. It's just that normally you cannot measure the distance between the two of them on the bed in single-digit inches. They were *really* cold. I heartlessly evicted both of them so I could get in bed. Emily did come back to lie down near me.

You know what the definition is of "BAD CAT"? A cat who removes an ornament from the tree and has to play with it, loudly, at 4:27am. A cat whose name is MORGAN.

(This was, luckily, one of the styrofoam ornaments that I hang on the lower branches with just this eventuality in mind. I'm a little bummed, though, because -- and raqs will know what I'm talking about -- it's the only blue one left from the set of ultra-cheap styro balls wrapped in shiny silky floss that we bought at, like, Ames or something a skillion years ago. I have lots of red ones left, but just one blue and one green. They're very shiny! I like them on lower branches, and on the window-facing sides of the tree. I wish I knew where to get some more.)


I can't brag about my shopping prowess today, because Someone is likely reading this LJ. But I can say that there are certain stores that are really, really dangerous to go into at any time, and it was only with a great effort of willpower that I got out without purchasing many more things. (Hah! Let 'em wonder!)


You know what I hate? How when you go back to the same vendor to buy a pair of jeans to replace the jeans you love but that unfortunately have finally developed holes in strategically inconvenient places, you [a] have to buy the next size larger, even though it can't just be your Ever Expanding Ass's fault, because the old jeans still fit perfectly well (are a bit LOOSE, even), so, BITE ME, Gap; and [b] are seized with the suspicion that these new jeans are somehow flimsier than the old ones, and honestly, the old ones are not THAT old, what gives? Grr.

It's not just my jeans, either. My gloves, which have done yeoman's work for something like 4 or 5 years, finally developed a hole after shovelling on Sunday. *sigh* And my BELOVED GREEN VELVET SCARF (which raqs brought for me years and years and years ago, from Germany) is developing a lot of holes/splitting/rips in its silk lining, and I just don't know what to *DO*. *sob* (Also, the gloves perfectly match the scarf, which is sad, because that particular nice shade of dark olive is so hard to find.)

I wish my clothes would get the memo that it's a week to Xmas and replacing key items of my wardrobe wasn't on my agenda.


ETA: What do you do when your bosses give you a holiday gift that is genuinely very pretty, but difficult to actually use/wear? I've just been given a lovely ethnic-y woven scarf, and my feeling is that I would like to figure out some way to use/wear it around the office in future, but... it's very *short*. Difficult to wear in practical terms. And I deeply suspect that if I do wear it the only way I can figure doing so, it will look like nothing so much as a prayer shawl.

Cats enjoying early-winter sunbeams.

(YES, I know, I'm spamming LJ, and it's probably a procrastination tactic! I've BEEN running the sweeper, okay? Also I had to go out and get new bags for it. I'm taking a BREAK.)

So, some of you may have seen raqs talking about obtaining the DeFURminator shedding tool from QVC, and how magical it was and all. A friend of ours in NZ apparently expressed interest in one, so Raqs got her one and shipped it to me so I could carry it over to her. It arrived last night. So I tried it out on the cats.

MY GOD.

The problem is: either Emily (the big grey one) is just a SPOILED PRINCESS, or else, she has particularly sensitive skin. She hates it. And this is after a long, semi-successful program in which I've trained her to accept a wire brush in the mornings after my shower. (But she only accepts that for about one brush's worth of fur-wad, and then that's it, she's Had Enough.)

The deFURminating process with Emily was WILDLY successful, in terms of getting GOBS of fur off of her. GOBS. But oh, with the yowling and the growling and the not staying still, and the swiping and the fighting. Man, what a BAD CAT.

So, I got about 2/3rds of a cat off her before I had to give up. And I felt bad, because I couldn't do it evenly, because of all the moving-around-avoiding she was doing. I know it says not to do it too much in one place, which I was trying to avoid doing. ALL I wanted was to do it on her sides and flanks, but OH NO. (She doesn't really tolerate being wire-brushed there, either.) *sigh*

Morgan, on the other hand, was a fairly good cat about it. I got *2* whole cats off of HER. But the problem with Morgan was -- she has A.D.D. She doesn't complain or fight and she keeps coming right back. But she is constantly moving and circling, trying to get her head in on the action, and I'm like, dammit, cat, I don't WANT your HEAD. The nice thing about Morgan is she's so small and light that I can pick her up in one hand and work the deFURminator in the other. (Can't do that with Emily, even if Emily wasn't being a fighting bitch about
it.) Morgan just kind of hangs there until she gets too squirmy.

So -- brilliant idea. Wonderful amounts of hair off them both. But not 100% successful, I'm afraid.

I sure hope that tyellas's behemoth of a cat *likes* being brushed.

(And I still feel bad if it turns out that Emily has really sensitive skin and I hurt her somehow. Because she sure as hell COMPLAINED enough as if I was.)

(But we're even, because she nicked me in quite a few places. Ow.)

***

Now, yes, I'm cleaning and vacuuming. Morgan doesn't apparently care. Emily hides when the sweeper is on, and then, every time I shut it off, she comes out and comes up to me and YOWLS and YOWLS and YOWLS. I don't know what her little kitty problem is. Unless -- and this is depressingly likely -- she associates Mom doing serious housecleaning with Mom Going Away. Hmm. So right now she's pacing around

Man... I have a bunch of things I want to post about (recent day-trips, Stargate fic, my bonsai, etc.), but that will take more than a few seconds to compose a post on... so I'm falling behind. Bleh! So here's some unorganized random brain-firings, instead.

1. WHY, when it is 86 degrees inside my apartment, will my big, hot cat insist on sitting in my lap? WHY?

2. I've been having a run of insects in the apartment. The usual carpenter ants, of course. And also... what I think might be water-bugs. Thank god, this year, no carpenter bees. (They appear to have made a home in the walls using the same holes that the aforementioned sparrows are using. I say, I don't care, if they stop comiing IN the apartment.)

OMG WHY DID I JUST GOOGLE-SEARCH "WATER-BUG"?????? *is completely grossed-out forever*

( More insect ramblings... )

3. Hey, you all remember the raccoon? From a couple of months ago? ( Well... )

4. Meh. I'm sure I had other things to post about, but I can't recall what they were after all the ranting. Or the things I can recall... do you ever get to that point where you think about posting something and then you get around to actually doing it and then think, oh, why bother posting that, it's dumb?

Like, I could tell you that I like the new Fountains of Wayne song because it's actually a bouncy and cheerful song about being a sad, single loser in your late 20s or 30s (hello), but don't despair... and also I'm pretty sure the song is strongly alluding to the idea of single women masturbating in the shower, which, I have to give it props for that. Or I could say that I like the new Green Day song, which has a great beat and is also actually very political and anti-war, which is nice, because I do sort of wonder every once in a while where all the protest songs have gone. But... meh.

Yeah, it's that time of the summer when I feel kind of very isolated, like no matter what I do, there's just crickets chirping out there, and meh. I don't know whether that's because it's summer and that's when people's schedules get wacky and they have better things to do, or whether it's because I'm just ridiculously needy, or what. Probably, er, both.