it's atkin's diet friendly

Greg went with me to the vet today, since Alex had to work, and we found out that the 2cm lump on Zach's nipple is not malignant, it's all fat and protein. Now I just have to get Oliver to stop jumping on Zach's back and eating his food and everything will be back to normal.

photo friday - chaos

This is not really what I had in mind for chaos, but it will do. There are a lot of other cool photos on Photo Friday, so far my favorite is from Mark My Shots.
I was pretty bummed out last night because Alex and I found a lump on our old cat, Zach, and I spent WAY too much time looking stuff up on the internet about cats and lumps and found out that 90% of lumps or tumors found on cats are malignant. I'm taking him to the vet tomorrow, so I have about 24 more hours to come up with outrageous scenarios of how our cat will die.

the home of the future

Yesterday when I got home from work Alex could barely contain his excitement about all his technological advances within our household. Not only did he make all my dreams come true by replacing the hard drive on my computer and reinstalling all of the software, but he also created a network for our computers and the TiVo. This means that we can now view all our photos on our television through TiVo as well as listen to all our stored music. I felt old and out of touch because my first thought when I looked at photos of Alex's family on the television was "look, it's like they're famous, they're on TV!" Loser.

Alex also decided that it was time to start saving money by using the internet for our phone service, so we now have two phone numbers for the rest of the month. One is old school style, the other is one that would scare my Nana.

I feel so advanced now, but the bad part is that if any of this stuff stops working I would have absolutely no idea how to fix it. The other day the wireless went down while Alex was at work and my solution was to unplug the hub and plug it back in. Dude, it totally worked.

photo friday - one

I wasn't too crazy about this entry, and I probably should have waited until the end of the week to post something better, but I like making it in as one of the first 50 entries on Photo Friday, because if you're not, you just get lost in the shuffle. My computer died, fo' reals last Saturday, so I just chose from stuff I already had on Flickr. I actually got voted in as one of the six Noteworthy entries for last week's complexity challenge. I'm ever so proud, which is why it bothered me a little to post something I'm not 100% satisfied with this week.
meh, whatever. I'm over it now.

we're movin' on up

Alex and I found a new apartment. It is, in fact, a deluxe apartment in the sky. We'll be living on the 19th floor of this building on Lake Merritt.

We do have to wait until October 15, which seems like a long time, but that actually excites me, because I now have two months to get rid of every paper, book, item of clothing and piece of lint I don't want. I love moving because it gives me a chance to purge all those items I've collected over the past few years. I don't even know where all this crap came from but I'm guessing at some point, for some reason, each useless thing gave me a sense of security. Luckily, I spent a few hours on Sunday with a trusty garbage bag and decided that not too many things on the bookshelves looked like keepers and I was able to fill my garbage bag. Impressive on a few levels... one because I was able to throw out so much, but also because I was able to collect so much junk since the last move.

The worst part about this next move is knowing that we will have more square footage than ever before, so in the back of my mind is a little voice telling me to not throw anything out. Check out the floor plan of this new place.

7' x 50' on one side of the deck? Think of all the stuff I could fit on the balcony alone!

photo friday - violet

Go here for other wacky 'violet' photos or cast a noteworthy vote for 'complexity.'

wow, look at that, it's Friday and I haven't posted for a whole week. To sum up this past week: I overbooked myself and had plans every night this week, including tonight and tomorrow. I wake up at 4am every morning, no clue why. Oliver is starting to look more like a cat than a kitten and is learning how to take a good ass whoopin' from Zach. Alex and I met with a mortgage broker and realized we are way too poor to buy a house, or even a condo, so we found a new apartment to rent. But I'll write more about that as soon as I can stop myself from being so social.

photo friday - complexity

This is another photo from my trip home in June. Alex and I went to the Museum of Science. It was like being on 6th grade field trip all over again. It was awesome.

As always, many other 'complexity' photos and a chance to cast your vote for last week's 'somber' challenge here.

to fill our lives with love

Every once in a while a candy break is necessary 'round these parts. Today Sean and I took a walk to the company subsidized vending machine on our way to visit Greg in the sound studio. The vending machines here are a little magical... M&M's are only 35 cents! It makes the trip to the lunch room worth it. The problem is that sometimes the magic gets stuck right in the dispensing coil and you either have to shake the machine or buy another pack to get to your original M&M purchase. Since I'm pretty short and weak I always opt for the purchase of second bag to force the first bag out. Not only would I look like an idiot trying to shake a vending machine three times larger than myself, but let's face it, I would never be able to get the candy out, or even worse, die trying. So Sean and I ended up with two bags of peanut M&M's. I thought that was good, because there were two of us, so now we each had a bag of our own. However, this brought grief to Sean, as he does not like to snack on unhealthy foods, but knowing there were so many M&M's at his disposal he would probably partake. He said he would have two. Or five. Maybe seven. Then I was reminded of a time when I was little and my sister and I were asking my mother what a few meant. I'm not sure why we were having this conversation with my mother, but for whatever reason, I recall she was quite annoyed that her own children should even have to ask what "a few" meant. She turned to us, rather flustered, and spat out "a few means three to seven!" To which my sister and I inquired, "Does that mean if it's peas we only have to eat three, but if it's candy we can eat seven?"
I do not remember her answer.
I told Sean and Greg about the conversation with my mother which led someone to say "If seven is a few, is eight too many?" And as we all know, eight is not too many, Eight Is Enough. Sadly, I will admit that Sean and I burst into the classic theme song.

I'm not sure if you remember the opening to that show, so allow me to share these tear-jerking lyrics and let yourself to take a trip down memory lane... back to a time when TV shows came complete with passionate theme songs, just like this:

There's a magic in the early morning we found,
When the sun rise smiles on everything around.
It's a portrait of the happiness that we feel and always will,
For eight is enough to fill our lives with love.

Oh we spend our days like bright and shiny new dimes.
If we're ever puzzled by the changing times.
There's a plate of homemade wishes on the kitchen window sill,
And eight is enough to fill our lives with love.

you know what rocks?

when you bring your dead computer into work and ask your I.T. guy if he can recommend a place to bring it to recover your files and he says "just bring it by here and I'll take a look at it." And then he fixes it for you. And then when you get home you find that Alex bought you stuff so you can finally back everything up.

how did I get to be so lucky?

you know what sucks?

when your laptop gives you the blue screen of death and then you can't get any files back or even get your computer started again. But then a few hours later your computer miraculously starts and all your files are still there. So you say you're going to back everything up, but really, you don't. And then less than 2 days later your computer crashes again, for real this time, and doesn't miraculously start up again.

it's not like it didn't warn me. how did I get to be so lame?