i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

...more or less

One of my groups has concet tomorrow so we've been in rehearsal hell week ... compounded by a) the semi-idiocy on my part or being in two choral groups (so the extra rehearsal Tuesday night for the concert group came on the heels of the Tuesday afternoon rehearsal for the other group; I'm not the only one doing both but it's a lot) and b) a migraine on and off this week, partly hormonal (yay shark week) and partly exhaustion and partly migraine randomness.

The concert tomorrow should be awesome though. Assuming I survive. Heh. What masochist schedules a 9am rehearsal on the day of the concert, anyway. (rhetorical question. It's our one and only chance with the chamber orchestra though.(

I am doing a lot of random crochet things because I can. Nothing that's useful. Tiny socks and cactuses and such. By "a lot" I don't mean I'm getting a lot of it done, but the crochet that I am able to get done is mostly random stuff.

I haven't done any writing-writing in ages; I keep getting story ideas, nothing more detailed than Yuletide prompt level (e.g. the survivors of Deep Blue Sea get together for a reunion but definitely not sushi), but haven't figured out a good way to get back into writing. Maybe tablets are the way to go? Idk. (Relatedly, thank you for the reassurance that I wasn't just being irrational and petulant over the iPad update problems -- and I finally realized that it may be a first world problem in a technical sense, but it's also one of my connections to the world.)

Loki is still in a cone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There's no indication of why he keeps doing shit with his tail. Nothing is visibly wrong (they did an X-ray(. He's on kitty Prozac for now. Monkey is continuing to do her thing of sleeping on my stomach at times (only when I'm in bed, but it's sometimes at the start of the night and sometimes at the end of the night and sometimes the middle and there's no real pattern) and there's something magically special about having a warm purring furry blob trust you enough to not only relax on you but fall asleep, and it also sometimes feels like she's guarding me, and I love her so much it almost hurts.

Lastly: supposedly Babylon 5 is coming to amazon video. I am so fucking excited, y'all. I mean, yes I have the dvds, but streaming video is so much easier.

I am alive! Still struggling with a lot of RL shit, still not keeping up in very many places.

Tl;dr summary of my life the last few weeks:

* found a Person Who Isn't My Mom to stay over for the period while roommate is out of town (three and a half weeks). Friend in Sacramento. So I seem to be surviving.

* Christmas was very quiet and peaceful. My sister had water heater explosion issues (and ensuing insurance / repair / etc shit to deal with) so didn't come in for xmas, and my mom went down there so wasn't bugging me. I came down with a mild cold that gave a good excuse for why I was being antisocial, but tbh I really just wanted peace and quiet. So Christmas Day was crochet and watching Die Hard.

* it feels very weird and wrong to not be involved in Yuletide at all. No pinch hits, no treats, no reading archive. Some of this is just indicative of my overall stress level, but it's way too easy to twist that into "I suck".

* several weeks ago my bed/mattress died (alternating air pressure mattress to keep me from getting pressure sores -- I can't shift position so it shifts under me -- but the pump died abruptly). Getting a new one is taking forever. I have a loaner mattress now (different brand and not quite as good, but at least aap) but it goes bzzzzzzt at random intervals and is driving me crazy.

* Loki somehow managed to lick the tip of his tail raw. He's in a cone -- soft rather than hard; the vet gave a hard plastic one but I was worried he would hurt himself and/or Yahtzee and/or me, so I got a soft one off amazon and he does better -- but he keeps getting out of it and re-raw-ing it. Sigh, cats. He has also started flopping down on me at night and demanding head scritches (especially since he can't scratch on his own with the cone) and I am a sucker.

* Monkey has also started climbing up on me sometimes, when I'm in bed. Usually around 4am but it varies a lot. She's less demanding of scritches, and does catloaf more than flop sprawl. If I'm doing something on the iPad it can be mildly annoying to have a cat blocking the screen but mostly I like it. Warm furry purring love puddles ftw.

* my stepmom apparently thinks I'm not allowed to get frustrated (or at least not allowed to get snippy ever) and thinks a frustrated tone is the worst insult ever and also thinks that a face to face confrontation about how horrible I am is the best way to go. (I will probably write out more details later, as part of processing what happened and how to respond.) I'm still both angry and somewhat traumatized. Mostly angry though. And brainweasels are loving it. The actual confrontation sent me into a shame / self-hate spiral for the day.

* Still addicted to Merge Dragons and to Zen Koi. (Also, lesserly so, to Zombie Castaways and Diggy's Adventure.) Also: There is Zen Koi 2. Similar principle, plus you can play with the dragons. I haven't done much with it.

* I did not know Lego makes dinosaur kits. Someone sent me a box as part of a surprise care package and I maybe made supersonic squeaking noises. Legosaurs!

My cat
Is a stealth
Cuddler

She generally likes to be
Near but separate
Sitting on a cat tower
Or an unoccupied couch arm
In the same room as her people
And purring

But sometimes
If I am awake at the right time
I am aware of the foot of my bed shifting
And a cat-weight settling
At my feet

I can't see her but
I can feel the warmth and weight
On the arch of my left foot
And if I stretch my toes I can touch her
But I do not, because we have
An unspoken agreement
That neither of us ever admits
She is there

It would not do, after all,
To ruin her aloof image

So my roommate sent me a photo of a kitten that was looking for a home. Now, mind you, I have a cat and a dog, so I don't really need another pet, and i tend to prefer acquiring adult pets rather than babies. But I saw this photo:



...and had an immediate visceral "omg I need that cat" reaction. Which apparently my roommate did too, and there was much whimpering, before we came to the conclusion that while *I* do not need another cat, my *roommate* clearly needs a kitten.

She went today (when the bunch of kittens, of which this was one, was available), and apparently when she cuddled him he kind of stretched out and went all limp and purry, and everyone there was like "yup, you belong to that cat now."

Soooooo, there is now kitten.

Kitten is named Loki. Which bodes so well, heh.

( obligatory pictures )

Cat: Oh hey there is a plate with turkey remnants! I will go onto the Forbidden Table and partake of this feast!
Human: OFF!
Cat: But... but...
Human: *louder shout plus thwack of backscratcher against table*
Cat: Oh, FINE. *jumps off and saunters away*

Repeat a few times, because Human is particularly slow.

Finally, Human gets out the Spray Bottle Of Doom.

Cat: *sits on floor, gazing at table*
Human: Don't even think about it.
Cat: Wasn't.
Human: Do you see this? *wiggles SBOD*
Cat: I'm OFFENDED that you would even THINK that of me.
Human: *glares warningly*
Cat: *licks genitals*

Of course, a watched cat pot never misbehaves boils, so after Cat wanders off, Human sets the spray bottle on the table pointing in the direction of the turkey plate, and wanders off to resume watching of last week's Sleepy Hollow.

To the surprise of no one who has ever owned a cat, not two minutes later:

Cat: Aha! The Table is unsupervised!
Human: *hears suspicious noises and turns*
Cat: Om nom nom turkey scraps!
Human: *squirt in face*
Cat: OH HOLY FUCK WHAT WAS THAT NOOOOO *flees*
Human: *possibly giggles just a little bit*
Cat: I was done with it anyway. *licks fur furiously*

She is now sulking at me. Heee.

Guess who came onto my lap this morning, entirely of her own volition?

(She's been on my lap before, from people putting her there, but she's never come there herself)

...guess who chose the absolute awkwardest time possible to do so?

(I was torn on what to do, because on the one hand I want to encourage physical contact and lapness, but on the other hand it is kind of awkward using the toilet with a furry lap, especially when the fur is purring and kneading)

I has a kitteh!

( photos and info )

Worried about cat.

The last few days she’s seemed ... totally not herself. Wobbly, and physically unstable, and she’s walking funny, and she’s not able to jump as well (used to be able to go from the floor to my shoulder, while I was seated, with ease and without claws; now she barely can make it to my lap and that takes some scrabbling) and she’s scary thin (never been big, especially not since the kidney stuff started, but I was petting her last night and there were bony knobbles I don’t remember feeling before) and ... /flail/

Took her to vet. She is down to 3lbs (!), vet is not happy with her smell, and just ugh not good overall. They are running bloodwork to see (won’t get results for another day or two) but it is not the general outcome I was hoping for. Apparently there was also some pus building up under a tooth, may or may not be related to the renal issues, so they sent me with clavamox (?) drops to see if that helps any.

Scared.

Somebody has an adorable little purple collar, complete with jingly bell and a little ID tag engraved with her name and my cell phone number.

Somebody is not particularly happy with the situation and is off playing hide-and-sulk... :)

- trying a new nighttime headphone setup with slightly less probability of the earbuds falling out, by virtue of the fact that there are no earbuds. (RunPhones; I had tried SleepPhones but got too hot with the fleece.). I do have to crank up the sound all the way up and still can't hear the softest 30% or so, which may mean the speakers aren't positioned quite right. Will let y'all know tomorrow what I think

- on the tmi-adventures front, ( Read more... )

- armwise, there is still pain and awkwardness but it's mostly manageable with painkillers (prescription, but the milder sorts, ibuprofen during the day and Vicodin mainly at night). The biggest issue is that the way my chair controls are set up requires my right hand to be more palm-down-rotated than it wants to any more. WTB telepathic chair controls dangit.

- voice dictation stuff still kinda sucks

- as does my computer nagging me about genuine windows blahblahblah

- the kitteh had a vet checkup (following up from the kidney issues diagnosed in November) and is doing better. BUN and creatinine levels are half of what they were, though still high, and her phosphorous is back to normal range, and she managed to gain a whole pound of weight. (which is a lot for someone that weighed 7 and change when I got her and had dropped to 5). Woot etc.