Saturday, April 26. 2008
I have confessed my Jane Austen addiction before. I sit wrapped in a bouclé throw and under a purring Sophie watching the A&E series. As time passes, I wonder that I know every line of this five-hour film. What keeps me coming back to a story that I know so well? Is it personal joy, or is it the joy that remember in sharing it with someone? A worthy question, and one that I am unable to answer.
I have just now reached the conclusion of the first DVD, the moment when audible breaths catch, and Mr. Darcy confesses his love for Elizabeth. "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." No wonder I spent a decent portion of my adolescence in love with Collin Firth, huh? But instead of losing myself in the conflict and the rawness tonight, I lose myself in memories. Mom bought the six-part VHS copy when it came out in the 90's. That tidbit probably tells you little knowing that the two-part DVD is $20…but that VHS set was nearly $150.
We would take a week every year, watching one tape a night until we were through. Days four and five were the best, when the original conflicts lessen and Mr. Darcy puts Caroline Bingley in her place. FINALLY. Hate that woman!—in every medium I've seen/read her presented! Yet, I find my emotional involvement with tonight's viewing detached.
Boredom does not seem to be a factor. Is it melancholy? Stronger emotions trumping silly fantasies? Is it a jaded outlook that makes this story unbelievable? Is it a calm contentedness in my own life that makes romanticizing this story unnecessary? I think it's likely fatigue, knowing we are faced with choices regularly—hard choices—and they may or may not lead to happy ends. I do not care to think of them.
This all seems very inane, doesn't it? Welcome to the Blogosphere. It's just that I find it curious that I no longer lose myself in stories. My energy, heart, and time is better invested in my own life anyway…but I feel as though I have lost part of my identity.
Thursday, April 17. 2008
I grudgingly watch South Park with Nick every now and then. Mostly, I find the show distasteful, but I would be remiss if I did not find it in equal parts funny.
I am not proud.
Last night, I was particularly amused when the townspeople of South Park awoke to no Internet. Widespread panic ensues as people cannot find out what happened to the internet because there is no internet to check! An awkward moment of silence encompasses the crowd as someone asks how they got their news before the Internet. As memory dawns, the throng breaks into a television store to turn on the news. The newscaster reports dully that their Internet is down and they have no way to get the news to report. In a deep resolve and in Grapes of Wrath style, one family decides to head out to California where it is rumored that there is still some Internet out there.
I found the satire hilarious. To equate the loss of the Internet with the Great Depression was brilliant, so sad and true. In the end, one of the little boys is sent to negotiate with The Internet (a giant router with a blinking orange light), and he makes peace with it by unplugging it, then plugging it back in. Peace (and the World Wide Web) returns to South Park, and a town meeting is held wherein the people are cautioned not to abuse web browsing, to only surf when absolutely necessary, and to view Internet pornography twice a day maximum.
And, with that distasteful note, I have dedicated an entire entry to South Park. Nick has poisoned my mind.
Saturday, April 5. 2008
I had my yearly eye exam on Thursday. My optometrist monitors my hazel-y eye because she says that we should monitor anything on our bodies that change. Good news to report: I still don't have a disease! The coloration is not raised and there is no presence of a tumor behind my eye. She says the hazel pigmentation cells in my right eye are the ones that I would have been given when I was created in my mother's womb—and there is absolutely no presence of hazel in the other eye. Not even tiny cells that'll be more apparent later on. Though, she did see noticeable advancement of the hazel from last year. Whereas her notes described last year's presence as a "quadrant", she says it is definitely fingering out. So, I guess we keep watching that sneaky booger and celebrate that I have another clean bill of health—those get more valuable after receiving several that are still pretty dirty. I am happy. I am just in a conundrum. I "dress" my eyes to bring out the blue...if I become all-hazel over there, do I need different palettes for each eye? Coppers for the blue and plums for the hazel? I find this all very distressing.
Sunday, March 30. 2008
After dinner conversation last night, my curiosity grew as to how I spent my money last year. Holding my breath, I downloaded the report and opened the local file this morning. Three things: - Sophie leads a royal lifestyle.
- I am so happy that every Walgreen's visit is classified as "HEALTHCARE"—lord only knows what the absence of yet another eye color compact would do to my delicate state.
- I've spent more on gas than on either Sophie or "HEALTHCARE"…which I can say, without embarrassing myself on either of the previous totals, is quite a lot.
I am actually very impressed by the completeness and organization of my bank's spending report. The only problem is they don't know how to classify checks—not that I write many. Goals for this year? Learn to teleport.
Friday, March 28. 2008
Sophie went back to the vet on Tuesday; her father took her. I was concerned about her long stretches of sneezing and a weeping eye that I first noticed Saturday. Sunday night, she went potty—first #1, then #2—in my closet. Monday morning, I called the vet to see if my fears were unfounded: nope, they wanted to see her.
Her eyes looked good (I keep thinking of her sister whose eye infection caused them to remove her eye when she was a kitten...so weird eye stuff with Soph freaks me out) and her sneezing has stopped. BUT, it just isn't normal for cats to do their business just anywhere. Instinctively, cats look for soil or sand-like material to eliminate…shag carpeting does not so much meet the prompt.
So they did a urinalysis and found crystals. Feline cystitis has ruined our little kitty's life. I gave the unopened bag of cat food that I had to a friend at work. (When I handed over the Iams Naturals she exclaimed, "My cats have never eaten so good!" and somewhere Sophie was weeping at her lost lifestyle…) I want to have a vet tell it to my face before I give away her precious Fancy Feast—she will be on low pH food the rest of her life. Dr. Larsen told us that her infection is very rare in a female feline.
She is on Hill's Prescription Diet s/d for at least the next 1-3 months (at which point we would be able to switch to the over-the-counter version), but possibly forever. As I rearrange my budget to accept that I can probably live off on an English muffin a day, I am planning to call PetSmart (where I get an über low price) to see if Sophie's clinic needs to fax over her prescription for a refill, or if I can walk in there with the copy they gave Nick on Tuesday. I will also call the vet today to see what I can give her for treats since she is used to getting them in the morning (it's the only reason she gets me up at the most ungodly hours, but I enjoy her enthusiasm), and OTC treats are a no-go.
We read over her diagnosis and her new diet, Sophie sitting on the counter-stool next to Nick. He looked at her with sad eyes and said, "You know what this means, don't you? No more potato chips." And I swear, if she was any kind of a teenager she would have ran upstairs and slammed the door while screaming, "I HATE MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!"
A Life Gone By:
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Saturday, March 15. 2008
They found roundworm in our cat's poop.
Being that she has no outside exposure and that she can't get five-inch worms in her intestines from sniffing air, I would say that she has had these suckers the entire time we've had her (I refuse to believe we have mice that she could have gotten them from). When I asked if this was possible considering that last year's sample yielded no parasites, they replied that they only test a portion of the sample and that some worms are discriminatory-layers. In essence, it's likely that they missed her nasty worminess.
They gave her the first deworming treatment and sent a second home to be administered in two weeks. I am so completely grossed out. They have me on the lookout for squirming poo, and I am wigging out. So seriously. Nick and I threw out all of her current litter. The instructions I found were to first scrub it out with bleach because bleach is toxic to ringworm larvae, and then the scrub away the bleach because bleach is toxic to cats. Then we scrubbed her bathroom. My eyebrows physically itch. Why my eyebrows? Good question. I feel like the psychologist from Miracle on 34th Street.
I don't remember feeling quite this disturbed since we had to read How to Eat Fried Worms in fourth grade. Some describe the Antichrist as a horned demon with flaming nostrils—in my mind, he's slimy and squirmy, and he should be fed to baby birds. I will spend the next weeks trying to overcome my revulsion and work up the courage to so much as touch my cat.
Friday, March 14. 2008
Madison, Wisconsin tops the national best teeth list.
Look, I know it's no secret that I more than just a little obsessive about certain things. I grew up with my role model being someone who regularly marched to her car with a Q-tip, rubbing alcohol, and sheer determination and disinfect those dashboard crannies. I am not quite that way, much to Nick's chagrin ("I thought when I started dating someone with OCD, the condo would always be spotless!"), but I have instead the compulsion to randomly wash my face, scrub my hands, and brush my teeth. Don't worry, Nick. When you started dating someone with OCD, your significant other would always be clean!
I get picked on a lot for my obsession—but today I did manage to have a rather riveting conversation in the bathroom which I did not initiate, thank you very much. I had this conversation with the very acquaintance who stumbled upon me brushing my teeth one day and sneered, "Let me guess. You ate something and now you think your teeth are scummy." A former cube neighbor, I know she sees me as competition: it is arguable whose collection of Purell is greater. She has a very sensitive nose and can often be found walking through our team asking who stinks. I always hold up my hands for vindication and she replies, "Oh, you smell like a hospital. Yuuummmy, clean hospital." Curiously, I have no qualms with double-dippers or sharing toothbrushes (except with cats) and I am fond of eating with my hands.
The moral of the story? Madison's got it right, and I'm still messed up. YAY!
Thursday, March 13. 2008
Remember when she use to actually fit in her bed? Ah, they grow up so fast...
I am almost afraid to mention it, but I think Spring is well on its way. It has been over 40° most of the week, and after a winter season that seemed to start in October and during which we broke snowfall records from 1978, 40° feels just about like paradise. Finally I can look both ways without edging halfway into an intersection, and that stubborn icicle on the edge of the garage has bid us farewell. Good riddance.
My car said it was 50° when I got in after work. I rushed home to turn off the furnace and open the windows and the patio door. Immediately, Sophie scrambled to the edge of the now screened door. She sniffed excitedly at the smell of real air, so excited in the exercise that she began to sneeze, sniffed more, sneezed more, and then rolled to her back, stretching all four paws in opposite directions as if to say, "I love life!"
And then she sat up to clean her butt.
She has an appointment on Saturday, March 15th: her one year check up! She has no idea, as I can assume that she's pays about as much attention to soothsayers as she does to me or Nick. She's a cat: if it isn't sparkley or jingly, why should she care? Though, I must say she always comes when called, even if she's in the middle of doing her business downstairs where the litter box resides. She's good like that—which is why Nick was alarmed Monday morning when she wasn't underfoot and did not come to his call. I, slower to stir after that nasty bout of Daylight Savings Time, awoke to his frantic looking for your favorite cat and mine. We found her in the garage. Even though it was her own lousy fault for somehow sneaking out there, I felt incredibly guilty and bought her several toys and two beers.
Wednesday, March 5. 2008
I would not classify myself was wholly Democratic or wholly Republican. I reserve the right to change my beliefs as I make my way through life. Embarrassingly, I did not vote in the last election. Why, you ask? Besides the fact that I lived in the Bible Belt at the time, I wasn't fond of either candidate. I have always said that if you choose not to vote, you lose your right to complain—and I have held true to this these past years, biding my time until a new day arrived.
Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton: the closeness of their race thrills me. Last night, after an 11-state winning streak, Hilary won the big states of Texas and Ohio. We have members of two subordinate groups racing, members of two subordinate groups vying for the title of "Leader of the Free World"—the pride in our progress brings tears to my eyes. So many spit sarcasm at Tina Fey for singlehandedly keeping Hilary in the race:
My, but politics do get ugly. Now we are claiming that people don't know their own minds enough not to be swayed by late night television. I watched the skit. I laughed. I cheered. My opinion was the same as it was before I watched the program. I am not so headstrong as to parade my very personal choice for you all to dissect, but there are some points upon which that we should all wonder.
Firstly, in this country, why are men perceived to be more handsome as they age and women find themselves societal outcasts? Why is a man is applauded for knowing his mind and defending his opinions and a woman is labeled a bitch?
I am fairly mild-tempered. I am not quick to anger, but constant abuse of my trust or my kindness ignites a fire from which you'll want to run. I can think of maybe four periods in my life whereing that fire has burned, and they were the periods in my life where I needed to get something done, where I needed to stand up for myself, and I needed to thrive. Am I a bitch? Tell me. Are women supposed to be seen and not heard? I dare you to answer.
Once our Democratic candidate is selected, I hope all of this stereotypical-minded association meets its end, and we can finally study the minds of our future presidents. Do not belittle Hilary Clinton so much as to say that Tina Fey handed her anything. She and the people at SNL used satire, as they always have, to humiliate those who would discriminate.
As a friend at work always says, "Don't hate—Congratulate."
Sunday, March 2. 2008
The past several weeks have been stressful at work as we have be testing a pilot that caused nothing but misery and bitterness. Tammy, my good friend and cube-neighbor extraordinaire, placed miniature candies on her side of the glass. She calls them my personal stash, to be consumed in times of utmost stress. I returned to my desk one afternoon after a tedious day in class to find the above note. SHE IS SO AWESOME.
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