This is perverse...

Last Monday I collected all the squirt bottles in the house for a cleaning and refilling.  I had them set around the house in locations where they would be easy to reach, quickly.  They are for the correction of inappropriate feline behavior.  Always handy to get the cat off the bookcase.
As I was getting ready to refill them Thursday afternoon, I realized I didn't need them anymore.  Anya was the only cat in the house indulging in inappropriate feline behavior.  Oz rarely leaves the floor.  His worst habit is sleeping on the rug in front of the toilette, and he's learned to move when I go into the bathroom.  Ash is rarely in the house.  When he is the only inappropriate thing he does is try to grab food off my plate, and he hasn't tried that in a long time.
With Anya gone, I don't need the squirt bottles.
The other day I left the back door open.  It was a nice day, there was a good breeze, and the dogs could come and go as they pleased.  The only reason I had for keeping the door shut was Anya.  Ash pretty much demands to be out most of the time.  Oz wants nothing to do with the great outdoors.  Anya was the one I didn't want going outside.
Tuesday, I washed the blanket that was on top of the other blankets.  I kept an old blanket on top of the other ones so Anya wouldn't get them dirty.  She liked to lay on top of the stack.  Which I was OK with.  That her usual route for getting there was across the top of my dresser didn't thrill me too much.  Now I don't have to worry about the stuff on my dresser getting knocked around or off.  I won't have her looking down at me from the shelf in the washroom.  I don't have to worry about what hangs at the front of the bar under that shelf anymore, cuz she won't be using it to climb up.  I keep an old, ratty jacket in that position.  She put a lot of snags in it.  I don't have to worry about keeping the sheets and towels on the shelf in the bedroom packed so tight she couldn't curl up on top of them.  I can untie the string that's holding the back cabinet shut.  She won't be going in there anymore, or pulling anything more out of it.  I won't have to rearrange the little rubber duckies on the desk shelf every few days.  I won't be cleaning up sand from the desktop Zen garden anymore.  I don't have to worry about where I set things now.  Don't have to consider if it's completely stable or it's something the cat can knock off.  I can leave thread spools sitting on the table for more than 5 minutes.  I don't have to worry about anything ending up on the floor as a cat toy or dog chew.  The next time I work a puzzle I won't have to worry about covering it up or leaving the pieces out on the table....
I could go on, and I'm sure things will occur over time to add to this litany.
WHY DO I MISS THIS CAT SO MUCH?!
When she was on my lap, she wasn't happy if she couldn't sink a claw in somewhere.  She was a knead-y cat, persistent despite endless correction.  She had a bad tendency of snuggling up and then sinking teeth in.  She truly and honestly earned the title Demon Kitty, and the name of an ex-demon.
For those who are not fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  Anya was named after a character on the show who debuted as, Anyanka, a demon big bad.  At the end of that episode her power center was destroyed and she was left a mortal teenager in Sunnydale.  Watching her try to order a beer is one of my favorite bits from the show.  She, like her namesake, was inappropriate, annoying, and, sometimes, downright mean, but endearing and sympathetic enough to become a major character.
Anya, the cat, was cute and could be cuddly.  She made me laugh.  Watching her play was one of my favorite things.  The house is too quite without her.  Rotten cat.

Well, I've got things to do today and I have to be at work 7am tomorrow.  I think Macy's really wants to keep me.  Yesterday my supervisor was asking if I was considering staying with the job or if it was only a
seasonal thing.  I told her the truth.  I would consider staying with it.  I actually like the job.  But, right now, it's a job, and if I can't support myself I will continue to look for something that will.  If I find something better, I'm outta there.  I need something better than $8.00 an hour.  I could see the merchandising at Macy's growing into something better, but I can't really wait for that.

I'm considering going out to the Occupy St. Louis action.  I really want to go over there and camp out.  But I'm not prepared to do that, yet.  I am going over there sometime today.  Just to see what's up.

The other thing on the slate for today is a memorial campfire in Marc's honor.
And I really want to go out for that.  At least for a little while.
I knew Marc for about 14 years.  We didn't hang out all that much.  Maybe once or twice a month, lately.  But sitting around in his living room talking about... pretty much everything was one of my favorite things.  It was always fun, even when he was watching wrestling.  Knowing that I'll never do that again is very depressing.  I'm really glad that I saw him a week ago Thursday.   I don't have the regret of not having seen him in over a month.  I count myself fortunate to have that time.  Marc was an intelligent, sensible, compassionate, funny person.  Just knowing he's not there has made the world a bit dimmer.

I've been feeling a trifle paralyzed this last part of the week.  Left to my own devices, with nothing immediate to take care of, I'm being slow to move.  Don't know how this day will run, but I've got to get it started...

Time to get serious....

Believe me, nobody wants to do that less than me.
But, the circumstances are beyond my control.

Check out this article from Monday:

Long road from farm to fork worsens food outbreaks

Now, I have to wonder about that.  Cuz really, most everything sold in the produce isle at the store I can grow fairly well in my backyard.  There are some exceptions, cantaloupe not being one of them.  Why is getting food from the farm to the table such a problem?  We used to be pretty good at it.  Since the turn of the last century, when we started checking and regulating things we've kept a large portion of our nation fed and healthy for a very long time.  I haven't checked the history, but I don't recall too many tainted food stories before a few years back.
So, what happened?  Last century we had a good system in place and most people got good, fresh food in their local markets, and this century we can't manage it?  Really?

"Increasingly with agribusiness you have limited producers of any given food, so a breakdown in a facility or plant or in a large field crop operation exposes thousands because of the way the food is distributed," says Dr. Brian Currie, an infectious disease specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

Ah yes, now I understand.
Big corporate farms are not a good thing?  What a shocker.
It used to be, back in the day of mom and pop, those much maligned oldsters.  There were a lot of small, independent farmers.  These farmers traded directly with the consumers of their areas, or at least no more than 3, maybe 4, levels of local middle men.  Things moved pretty quickly from the field to dinner plate.  Since their were lots of smaller farms people grew a wide verity of things locally to offer to the market and you could pretty much get whatever you wanted.  We operated on that model for decades and with a little oversight and tweaking here and there it worked, and people didn't die.
Now with the advent of large corporate farms things that are grown down the street are getting shipped half way round the world, and the land around you grows 1, maybe 2, different crops.  Things have to be shipped farther and farther, and people are getting sick.
We really need to rethink this system.  I, for one, will seek more and more to get my food from local sources.  I already deal with small, local businesses for some of my provisions.  It's time to see what else I can find.
I would really like to know where my food has been.

Up and moving... sort of...

I'm up.  Gotta be at work at 6am.  So I'm up.
And my fingers are moving...
It's amazing how much presence 1 tiny little cat could have.  The house seems empty without her.  She would have been in here trying to jump in my lap, or on the bird, long about now.  Anya was a bitchy little thing but she kept life interesting and was a good snuggler, when she wanted to be.
Marc's funeral is later today, at the crematorium.  I know where it is.  That's where I had to go pick up Steve...
But I'm good at loosing people and things.  I've got a lot of practice at it.  I'll absorb and adapt.  I always do.
The real problem I have is never fully investing in anyone or anything while they are here.
I probably will never fully move in to this house.  I have some stuff that hasn't been out of the box since I moved out of my mom's house.  It's stuff that I really don't want to loose.  So it stays in the box, ready to go.  When it's time to move, I grab that box and I know it's all there.  I added Stonzie's puppy stuff to the box the last time I moved.  There's stuff in that box I'd like to have out where I could see it, but I don't expect I'll ever take it out of the box.
So far this has been a strange morning.
But my time is ticking down.  I've gotta get dressed and motor...

$97.50 =

One dead cat.
I had to put Anya down today.  I sat outside with her till about 3am this morning, she seemed to be doing better.  Was trying to squirm off my lap.  I brought her in and parked her in her window in the bedroom.  She settled down and seemed to be breathing alright.  She had stopped wheezing.  Was taking deeper breaths...
I watched her till about 5:30am.  I set the alarm for 8:30 and laid down.  When I got up she was in the living room wheezing again.  I took her outside but that didn't seem to help much.
So, bundled her up and took her to the Banfield Vet in Edwardsville, they were, supposedly, cheap and I had a coupon..  She had lots of fluid on the lungs, severe respiratory distress.  Still no idea what really happened.  Doesn't appear to have been any sort of infection.  She was fine when she was clawing my leg to get into my lap yesterday.  C said she was fine this weekend.  Vet said it could have been caused by some sort of trauma.  Asked if she was a chewer of electrical cords.
If she was trying a new hobby, it backfired...
Vet said that she'd need intensive treatment and he still couldn't say she'd recover.
I had her put to sleep.
And that cost $97.50.  Thanks to the generosity of friends, and house cleaning,, I had that.  I know it's stupid to spend that kinda money on a cat, but what was I gonna do?  She could have lingered like that for days.
I couldn't do that.
Anya can now go as high as her little heart desires.
Though I really think she's headed the other direction....

She was too good at her job.  They called her home for a promotion.
<SIGH> No more vulture kitty...

No more kitty in interesting places.

This is the last picture I took of her...

 

Anya Kitty

 

April '09 - October 5, 2011

Looks like Marc will have a traveling companion...

That was fun...

The plan was to go to bed early and get up at 3am.  Trying to switch back over to work time.  I've gotta be in at 6am tomorrow.  I was gonna try to switch back over to that schedule today.
But it wasn't meant to be.
It appears that Anya has had an asthma attack.
At first I thought she was choking.  but C ruched over and confirmed that she wasn't choking.  After that it took us a bit to figure out what was going on.  We both think it was an asthma attack.  I took her outside for a while and she seems to be doing OK now.  I've got her all set up in the window in the bedroom and she seems to be comfortable.
But I've been up all night messing with her.
It's just a good thing I don't have to be in until tomorrow.
Now I get to decide weather or not to take her to the Vet.  I really can't afford that right now.
And I get to decide weather or not to lay down for a while, or just stay up all day,,,,
Guess it's time to make some coffee.

Archon 35....

When last we talked of this, seriously, I was heading out the door...

Costumes ready to go.

All my stuff packed.

I was loaded and ready to go around 2:30pm.  My personal launch time for Con. is 5pm.  Comes from the days of having to work on Thursday or Friday.  So 2:30 ain't bad.

I motored over to E & J's to see what was up.  Had a cup of coffee.  C gave me a key card for the room.  I took one of the boxes they had ready to go and headed out.  I was in Collinsville around 4pm.

Next time, I'm taking a smaller first trip, that way when the key card doesn't work, it's not such a pain.  Somebody was nice enough to let me into the hotel.  But that was no help with the room.  Luckily, our Linus and Lucy were in the parking lot.  I had gone up to let them in.  It was good in theory.  They came up and watched stuff and I ran down and got the key card fixed.  We got into the room, yeah.  I lugged the rest of my stuff up.  They lugged up their stuff and we settled in.

Shortly, everybody else rolled in.  We all settled into 2 connecting rooms, with refrigerator and coffee maker.

Yeah, we were stylin.

After the meet and greet and exploration and setting of the rooms we ascended to the flurry of the first round of costumes.  This is the round where basic costumes difficulties will arise.  Depending on your level of perprep, these will very in challenge and toughness.  It's good to have safety pins, superglue, and duck tape for this round.  This year the round was fairly uneventful.  Most of the difficulties having been considered and planed for.  We had the duck tape and Saran wrap when it was needed.

My Rouge costume is meant to be a Saturday day costume, not a main costume, not yet.  It's a work in progress.  I realize that I can't do the whole thing right in one year.  The plan is to slowly build the whole costume up with leather armour and everything, into an elven rouge.  It's a long term thing.  If I had considered using it as the main costume this year I would have done something about the make up.  As it was with the critical fails on the T.A.R.D.I.S costume, it was a fair fall back.  Wearing it this year made me decide that this year's serious project is a proper tunic.  

The lining of the cape being black wasn't a planned thing.  But, the cape worked well.

I wasn't stepping on it and not many other people did either.  It billowed quite nicely in the wind.  I like the way it turned out.  So it stays with the costume.  I'm gonna see about turning the pin into a button.  Pinning it all the time is a pain.  The belt and scabbard worked great.  But you can't really see them.  So this year I'm gonna work on a suitable tunic.  The mask was a last minute addition and it was a little difficult to see out of.

Learned that real quick by walking face first into a window right off.

I had only had one drink.  My title as Champion Klutz is secure.

I registered, I got my weapons, peace bonded.

Anything that could be used as a weapon has to be secured to the costume.  Since my sword and dagger or metal and pointy enough to do damage they were zip tied to the scabbards.  I didn't take the staff with me this year, didn't want to deal with it.

And then I walked around, talked to people, and took pictures.

That's pretty much what I did all weekend.  Walked around, took pictures, talked to people, hung out in the room.  Had a great time.

Saturday morning we all suited up and did the Hogwarts sorting ceremony.

This year we had a Professor Sprout and Hagrid.

This year was a little low key for all of us.  There weren't any panels that looked interesting, I couldn't find a schedule for the video room in the program, didn't work up the interest to look for it.  Half of our number were sick.  People had other obligations.

The beds were comfortable and the squishy pillows were awesome.  I miss the squishy pillows.

We ate unhealthy food and partied.  Can you ask for much more? 

 The rest of my pictures from Archon 35 are on Picasa...

Monday and the return to the mundane....

Ahhh, yes.  The return to the real world has been interesting.
Had to dig out the old curtain rods and put them up in the living room yesterday.  The dogs managed to to take the curtains all the way down over the weekend.  Leaving them alone in the house is almost as bad as leaving teenagers alone.  I tried to dog proof the house as much as possible last Friday, but there's only so much you can do.  I'm gonna store the tables behind the couch.  Maybe that will help a bit.
We'll see.
Had a great weekend at Con.  But that's a topic for another post.  Today I'm gonna clean and get my house in order.
The weekend had a BIG bummer in it.  Saturday a good friend passed.  It was quite a shock, complications from a scooter accident he had about 2 weeks back.  He was going to come out to Con on Saturday, but...  We have lost another truly good person.  The world is a sadder place.
I'm glad circumstances conspired and I got to hang out with him last Thursday.  Very grateful that I got to see him smile and got that last hug.  Very mindful that you never know what the future will bring and that you've got to enjoy the time you get.
Looking forward to hanging out with friends later today...