The bright side of a Moon
Didn’t see Dr. Strangelove. Wanted to see the 2:45 PM showing but couldn’t make it in time. Damn bus system. OK, I stopped for lunch but still should have had plenty of time to make it clear across town for the movie.
Smacky’s still bite-y and needing-attention-y. Not sure what’s up with him.
Another weekend over. Bleah.
Caleb and I were going to see Dr. Strangelove today, but apparently he’s busy falling in Love with Pure Knowledge. I don’t think Caleb sees the irony, but I do.
Smacky is being very bite-y today and I don’t know why. He climbs up on my shoulders and bites my hair and ears. Not fun. Especially not fun when I’m trying to get him off of me and he digs in with his claws while continuing to bite me. At first I thought he was grooming me (awwwwwwww…) but then I realized that grooming would involve less biting and more licking. No, he was up to something else.
So… I think I’m still going to go see the Dr., just because it’s horribly funny (or funnily horrible?) and it’s been years since I’ve seen it (and never on the big screen). Also I can get away from my bite-y cat, who is currently perched on my left shoulder purring and watching me type.
Did you know that it can take 5 minutes or more for my blog to load if you’re on dial-up? Yeah, bad, I know. If any of you are out there reading it after waiting that long, I probably owe you booze or something. I like the way it looks but a) my page doesn’t validate as CSS-anything, and b) it’s super-resource-intensive, and c) it really only looks good in the browsers I use, which means that the majority browser (Internets Exploder from MS) wasn’t even considered when I designed it. So, I need to come up with something new. And I’ve kinda been putting it off, since I haven’t been, y’know, inspired.
However, I’m happy to announce that I’m much closer to a final design for Lunar Obverse v2.0. I worked on a mock-up tonight, just sketching something out and getting the colors down. And I’m not even sure these are the final colors and right now none of the elements are in place but, what the hell, I’m posting a tiny scaled-down version of it just to show everyone that I’m working on it:
click on image for larger version; opens in new window
See, the image at the top will be an actual picture (grabbed from NASA, since all that stuff is public domain for taxpayers) — the grey area will be the surface of the moon and the blue blob is the Earth. The tiny little bar underneath that will be the navigation menu. The wide left-hand column will be the main content, my posts; the right-hand column will have the extra stuff, like the Picture of the Week, the archive links, and maybe a poll someday or something.
I haven’t decided if the sections will all be boxed in like that. I mainly did that to show myself where they’d go.
I’ll work on it some more tomorrow and when I’m done, I’ll use it to throw together some HTML/CSS and then mock up a couple of posts, ’cause I still have to decide what color text to use for all the elements. I still like light text on a dark background but might flip that and just have dark borders around everything. Decisions, decisions… and I’m not a graphic designer, dammit, I’m a writer and a geek. So comments are welcome. But hold off until I’ve got more of the total design filled in.
Then I’ll post a link to it, hopefully later next week, and let people comment on it.
One thing I don’t have now is an “About Me” page. But the whole damn blog is about me, so why would I be redundant?
Went up to Urban Fauna in NW Portland today. I didn’t spend a lot of time there, just did boy-shopping (I went in, found what I was looking for, wandered for exactly 2 minutes, paid for the item, left).
I was downtown anyway for my eye doctor appointment, and I’ve got a project I’m going to attempt now that Smacky is big enough.
I’m going to leash train him.
I want to be able to take him on short runs with me (you know, after I can start running again. *sigh*). Or at least go for walks, or be able to safely restrain him if I ever take him visiting with me.
Call me craaaaazy, but I think Smacky is smart enough to train. I’ve done a good job of training him out of being so bite-y, and have gotten good results with the “ride on Brian’s shoulders” trick (although it’s painful when I’m only wearing a light t-shirt or no shirt, but I think teaching a cat tact and discretion might take a lot longer than I’ve probably got patience for).
I will, of course, post pictures of Smacky in his stylish new purple harness. Maybe for next Friday’s cat blogging.
By the way: I totally stole “Friday Night Cat Blogging” from Atrios, a.k.a. Duncan Black.
Oh, right, the two helpful appointments, mentioned below?
One, I took Smacky in for his first exam and shots. He’s healthy and well-behaved… except for the fleas. But we’re taking care of those.
And, two, I saw a doctor for the coughing and nasal drip I’ve been having. Yeah… it’s allergies. Probably Smacky. We’ll see if they get better after I start my inhaler. Yeah… inhaler. Dammit. I asked the doctor if I could start running again (I’ve stopped in the last week because of the coughing) and she said that I should stop until I come back in for the follow-up.
“But… do you know about runner’s guilt?” I whined. “I didn’t believe people when they told me about it, but… damn… can’t I run just a little bit?”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m a runner, too, believe me, I know. You’ll be so much faster and better after the treatment, it will be like night and day.” Damn, she did know about runner’s guilt. So with that encouragement, I’ll try really really hard not to run for… two… whole… weeeeeeeeeeeeeks. Dammit.
Had three appointments today with various professionals. One adversarial, two helpful.
The adversarial one was related to the trial back in November where I was called as a witness. You may recall that I thought I might have been harassed by the county lawyers. Today I was finally able (along with another coworker) to present my claim to them and see how they react. They, um, didn’t like it much. In fact they used the Nuremberg defense: “We were only doing our job.” I know, I know, it’s probably an unfair comparison, but I still believe that they put their desires to defend themselves and their schemes above their responsibility to their fellow employees and the rights of said employees (like, for example, me).
Basically: I didn’t want to talk to the lawyers for the defense, and they intimidated me into it relentlessly and by getting more managers involved.
Which leads to the scene in the meeting today where the head lawyer pages through a copy of my email exchange with her lieutenant and dismisses it as, “Frankly, I thought that you were a little less than clear in your communication.”
I’m pretty sure my eyes bugged out. “I was,” I said, enunciating each word separately, “less than clear?”
She may have snorted derisively. She did glance at me as if she thought my question was so far off the topic, it didn’t even merit a response.
I said, “I used the phrase ‘I decline to meet with you.’ How unclear can that be?”
She pretended I was speaking Japanese or something and continued not responding.
Incredulously, I continued. “I used that phrase five times!”
At which point she changed the subject.
When it became clear that we were not going to agree, the HR fluffer in attendance asked me what I had hoped to achieve.
I replied, “I wanted to challenge management on this issue and bring it to their attention.”
He smirked, and understated, “Well, I think you did that.”
We’ll see what happens. Probably nothing; county management seems constitutionally incapable of self-reflection and self-correction. They’re, y’know, always right and everything they do is on the side of the angels.
I’m taking Smacky in for his shots (yeah, yeah, finally) so this week I thought I’d introduce him to his carrier. I didn’t want him to freak out when I put him in it or associate it only with trips to the vet.
Probably optimistic, but there you go.
Anyway, so the night before last I left it out in the living room so he could sniff it and get comfortable around it. Then last night I put some cat treats in there for him to find, and I praised him and petted him whenever he went near it…
Well, my treatment worked very well, because he spent the night in it. I woke up this morning when I looked in the living room, in the darkness I could see his eyes glowing inside the little box…
I’ve bought him a cat bed, and a little cat condo, you know, one of those carpeted things that are a couple of stories high with cubby holes… but where does he like to sleep? On top of the water heater (sure, makes sense, it’s warm) and inside his cat carrier (because it might have treats inside)… I think I’m encouraging the wrong behaviors.
At least he’s way less bite-y now, though.
Best. Article. EVAR:
Kate Beckinsale forced to give away masturbating rabbit.
From the article:
“I think his own frustrated sexuality just consumed him in a horrid and chilling way.
“I don’t think he liked being in a cage and wouldn’t stop masturbating and humping his food bowl. I was sick of inventing different explanations of what that was.
“Also, he was boring and, other than masturbate, he didn’t do anything.”
Can you seriously blame the rabbit, though?
He lived with Kate Beckinsale, for ghod’s sake!
While I was cleaning tonight, I found something tiny and white and curved. Looked like a toenail clipping, but it was too white and too thick. Then I thought it might be one of Smacky’s claws — and it looked bloody. Did he tear one out… um… somehow?
But what it really looks like is a tooth. A tooth! I mean, baby humans lose their teeth, but it never occurred to me that a kitten would, too.
I grabbed Smacky and took him into the bathroom (better light in there) and pried open his jaw and it looked like he had all the normal complement of teeth in all the expected spots.
How weird. No, it’s probably normal. Probably is weirder that I want to save it as a keepsake, huh?
No, wait, don’t answer that.
Grilled/toasted sandwich update:
I finally tried one of the panini sandwiches from Big Town Hero.
Not bad.