Diary of a Mad Catwoman

another one of my mother's cats died last night. she's down to one. just last year between my mother and my grandparents, there were still four cats at the ancestral manse.
i always thought that missy and mitz were related because they look similar, were the same age, and came from the same place. fortunately i did get to see missy again when i was at home in may. bummer.




missy with her kittens when we first found them in 1996. the gray and white one, monet, died in november 2006. the little stripedy one, truffle, is the last remaining cat. he now weighs something like 20 pounds but he's also incredibly shy so i haven't actually seen him in years.

real yahoo headline:

"Walkman Mystifies Teen: A 13 year-old boy tries using the 'antique' device instead of his iPod"

full story here.

best quote: "Did my dad ... really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?"

since i haven't posted anything of much substance in lj in a while, some of you probably don't know that i know someone who was injured in last week's metro crash. bruce works in the caf at natty and he's a big sweetheart; everyone here loves him even though he hasn't been here all that long, and we're all pretty thankful that he is still with us and doesn't seem to have been severely injured. he was released from the hospital last wedensday. the following is a short video that Channel 9 WUSA did on that occasion.

thanks to AC360 for pointing me to this gem, the literal version of a song i can't stand, "total eclipse of the heart." hilarious. and i definitely need some hilarity right now. eventually i may post about some of it. but for now you get this:




fyi there are quite a few videos with "literal" versions on youtube.

pretty awesome cover of britney spears' "womanizer". srsly, give it a listen:

the boy pointed me to this today. i think we ought to get it so that we can teach neil patrick harris a few tricks so he won't get bored in his tank all day.

so, it's my first day back at the office in a week and a half. two passwords forgotten, one of which still isn't reset so i can't do much at the moment. so i'll update.

spent last week at home in CT with the family. more of a semi-crisis visit than a social call, but i don't really wish to discuss this too much right now. suffice it to say that it was a difficult week.

in the course of doing some major housekeeping around my grandparents' house, i tweaked my back. by the end of the week it was fairly well killing me. returned here sunday night to supportive boyfriend who is full of awesome.

monday was pleasant enough until we returned to my apartment to find it flooded in the memorial day deluge. not good. in fact my entire street looks like a raging river went through and the landlord tells me that much of the front yard was flooded too. they were worried about their side of the basement getting flooded but it didn't occur to them to check on my side. the drain outside my door didn't apparently drain so well this time. so been been dealing with a soggy apartment ever since, or rather my super-awesome boyfriend has mostly been dealing with it and my back.

took yesterday off and slept most of the day in annapolis. my wonderful boy slept in and then went to my place to deal with kitties and mess so by the time i got there, much stuff had been removed and there wasn't much for us to do but wait for the landlord to come home. fortunately there's not much apparent damage to much of my stuff, but there are things in the kitchen that i'm worried about and won't be able to get to for a while because a growing pile of furniture from the rest of the house is blocking it in. my landlord thought that they could just have the stanley steamer guys come out and clean my carpet (seriously? the carpet is *soaked* throughout most of the living room and into my bedroom and i already have a mold issue from water problems i've been having in the bathroom.) and they just about fainted when the stanley guys told them the only option was to replace the carpet and they'd be happy to rip it out (only, nothing else) for the small sum of $1500. so tonight the boy and i will try to move as much as humanly possible into the kitchen. those of you who've been to my place are probably laughing really hard right now. also there will be more people in to look at the carpet. and more discussion of whether it shall be replaced by new carpet or vinyl flooring or tile.

last night my back also decided that i really wasn't in enough physical pain already and it got very bad for a while. fortunately i have some super-strength ibuprofen left over from my foot surgery and that eventually helped. didn't sleep well last night, some combination of it being too hot, having three kitties in bed with me, a bum back, things at home in the back of my mind, and the dehumidifier and three fans running. but today the back does feel somewhat better although walking is a bit slow still.

so i've been busy, and without internet access save for about an hour over the time i've been gone. i haven't even looked at most of my email yet and probably won't for a bit. more pleasant things coming up on the horizon but not sure if i can think about any of that at the moment. really need to track someone down to reset my password so i can get some work done. whee!!!

in case you missed it on facebook, here's the linky for the pix from my Jesus and Dinosaurs tour of the midwest last weekend. Highlights included Big Butter Jesus in Monroe, Ohio, right next to I-75 (quite a sight to behold from the highway) and the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Why the hell would I go to the Creation Museum you ask? Because the guy who made the museum is obsessed with dinosaurs, way more than I am. And it was kindof nifty to see the Bible thumping explanation of the dinosaurs and the flood and such. And from a museum design standpoint, it's very well done. Anywho, clicky:

hey peter, lookie... it's the flaming onion volcano!!!!

hiking the appalachian trail. all of it.

yes, i do want to do this. would be awesome to start on my 40th bday.....

okay so y'all know i have shall we say interesting taste in music. and you know that i do rather enjoy britney spears. erik and i had tickets for her last tour, but then she went and twisted her ankle and canceled the tour, much to our disappointment. then she married k-fed and her life has otherwise gone to the toilet, so it's been a long haul back for brit-brit. but now she's on her comeback tour and she's in dc tonight. i've been checking ticketbastard for the last week or so for tickets. No luck with the two cheapest prices, and the next two levels were offering what i consider crappy seats for the asking price (great seats available for $700 though). even this morning at 7:30, no luck. just tried again on a whim and holy hell, suddenly there are cheap seats available! so i tried the second price level and scored a seat in the third row of the upper level dead center which is important because of the way the stage is set up. so holy hell, i'm gonna go see britney, bitches!!!! w00t!

EDIT: just tried to get another ticket and wasn't able to. totally lucked out....

still maintaining radio silence on lj. don't have time to post anything substantial during the week and don't have the inclination on the weekends. much easier to post one-line blurbs on facebook, although i'm still generally reading lj and making pithy comments.

anywho, for those of you not following along on facebook, you have missed out on the glorious news that dean and i rather spontaneously got a fish last weekend. his name is neil patrick harris and he's a very pretty betta, royal blue with some red in his fins. (dean's fave color is blue and mine is red, so with the red gravel that i insisted upon in the bottom of the tank, it totally works). i tried taking some pix without much luck (new p&s and wasn't using a tripod, also wasn't trying very hard) so you get the one below, which was the best of the bunch in showing the fish in more than an abstract way. will try to get something better, perhaps this coming weekend.

neil lives with the boy since i'm not allowed to have an aquarium in my house. i've never had a joint anything with anyone so this is pretty weird for me. but one week and one tank cleaning later, NPH seems happy and healthy. I still like to stare at him as he swims around his tank. this is my fourth betta, the boy's first. behold our new addition:

hard to believe my little kitten is all grown up now.

then:





now-ish:

Latest set of pictures is posted, this from last Saturday's fondue excursion at Boordy's Winery for Mary's graduation party. Clicky.

as promised, pix from our trip to the national zoo on sunday. i WILL catch up on the photos damnit. in the meantime, clicky.

catching up on some old pix last night....




not totally happy with it but it sure is cute.

some time soon, some zoo pix. and thanksgiving. and christmas. and maybe i'll even finish miami and key west.... nah.

been writing a lengthy blah blah about politics and the inauguration, will try again now going in a different direction.

even though i went to bed around 3:30 this morning, i've been watching inauguration coverage on the tube since 7am. (okay, i woke up for a different reason, but still, i coulda rolled over and gone back to bed.)

clearly this is a big deal for many reasons. and the aerial pictures of the metro stations show just how nuts this whole thing is. the photographer in me thinks that i'm a complete weenie. for someone whose photographic purpose is to record history, i damned sure should be down at the mall. it's not my party, but that didn't stop me in 2000 when i did participate in the inauguration shenanigans. i'm just completely averse to crowds and security hell and such. so i'm not going and i'm okay with that. but i will be watching. you all know i have not been completely psyched about obama, although i did vote for him. this is without question a big moment for our country though, and i hope that for everyone's sake obama is able to deliver the transformational change that he has promised.

and i am extremely pleased to see bush go. our eight year national nightmare is about over thank god. one of my non-local friends on facebook suggested a 21-shoe salute for bush, which i think would be hilarious. good riddance i say, good riddance.

at any rate, i am warm and comfortably dressed reclining in a very comfy chair in annapolis, watching events unfold in high def on a big screen. it's a historic day, and it's difficult for even affirmed pessimists such as myself not to be hopeful about the future today.

so i've been severely negligent in posting anything but comments to other people's journals, and i've been super bad about editing the few photos i've taken in the last two months. (i'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with dating. yup.) alas, last night i actually had some time to do some photo editing. started with the most recent, will get back to november eventually. anyway, i bring you....

Vail and Jesse's Semi-Impromptu Housewarming



and New Year's at the boy's place