photo friday - darkness

more darkness photos here.

and when I'm feeling down...

I watch a lot of TV. Well, even when I'm not feeling down I watch too much TV. It's a new season, the possibilities are endless, how can I resist?

Last night Alex and I watched My Name Is Earl, The Office and The Amazing Race. I'm really digging on Jason Lee as Earl, but what I'm not digging on is the Weaver Family on the Amazing Race. It's a team of a widow and her three kids who like to say "with the will of Jesus" before they look at a map or head out to the next checkpoint. They know with the will of Jesus they will be guided correctly. During last night's episode they were helped by a truck driver and after he gave them a map the mother asked him if he was familiar with the ways of Jesus. He confirmed that he was and then the mom exclaimed with glee that they would spend all eternity together. It was downright creepy.

sad

We got the lab results back today from Zach's procedure and it turns out that the tumor behind Zach's lymph nodes was indeed cancerous. This doesn't mean a lot right now, we just have to wait and see if the cancer has spread or not. I was hoping that it was some weird fatty tumor full of love or something nice, not cancer. From what I've been reading online it seems like he can live up to another year, or maybe two if the cancer hasn't spread to his lungs or some other organ.

The weird thing is that mammary adenocarcinoma is so rare in male cats, it only happens to about 1 in every 100,000. That crazy little Zach, always has to set himself apart from the crowd.

life is all flowers and sausages

Tonight Alex and I wasted about an hour and watched the worst show ever, Wife Swap. It was an episode that pitted a Christian, sports lovin' family against a swearing, punk rock family. When the "rule changes" came to be, the Christian mom told a mohawked kid that black clothes were forbidden and that he was now to wear vibrant and neat clothes. This rule upset the young anarchist so much that he responded with:

"If you're going to make us wear bright little clothes.... oh ... life is all flowers and sausages!"

If only, my little mohawk friend, if only life were so delicious.

a bean sized tumor

Zach made it through surgery just fine and looks very funny with a shaved belly full of staples. They removed two swollen lymph nodes and one tumor. Who knew that Zach was hiding so much in there? Now we just sweat it out until Monday to find out if the tumor was cancerous or not, and if it was, we have to figure out if the cancer spread.

I took Oliver in for his first vet visit today. And even though Ollie didn't like the shot very much, I'm going to guess he had a lot more fun than Zach did yesterday.

photo friday - burn

yeah. That's not exactly what I had in mind for burn, but I put it up anyway.

I'm sleepwalking through my day today. I'm doing all the things I know I have to get done, but I'm really thinking about Zach in kitty surgery and hoping everything is okay.

elastic reinforcement

Today at lunch Christine, Greg and I could not help but overhear the woman at the table behind us SHOUTING a story to her friend as she gobbled up her tempura. It was all about how she met someone famous (I missed the first part of the story, so I can't name drop like she did), had her picture taken with him and had a conversation with him about how she saw him on Oprah and admired all the work he was doing for the tsunami victims. Apparently this very handsome celebrity had built some houses for victims or something. I also learned that this stunning superstar has an album coming out soon. Amazingly enough, when Loudy McLoud was done with the "brush with fame" story she was very demure and quiet. But then for the rest of lunch I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out who she was talking about.

Of course when I got back to work I googled a bunch of stuff about celebrity, Oprah and tsunami that got me nowhere. Then, unfortunately, I came across this

"Do you have a flabby tummy like me?" Susannah asks. "Spilling out over your too-tight, cute little pair of panties is a big no-no. You need a waistband on your panties that reaches up to your rib cage where there is less flab." Lots of elastic reinforcement will hold you in beautifully.

No waistband on any pants, especially underwear, should ever go up to your rib cage. I'm all about looking good, but c'mon ladies, I also like to breathe.

I'm not good with commitments

obviously.
I've let you all down.

but see with the cats and the dizziness and the... oh never mind. You all knew I'd never make it.

lonely cat lady

Alex and I finally filed our "intent to vacate" with the University housing office. Like clockwork, the very next day we got a notice that they'll be showing our apartment to prospective tenants tomorrow morning at 10. The only problem with the showing is that we're not supposed have a cat, let alone two of them. I know they can't kick us out at this point, because we're leaving in less than 30 days, but I like to keep the illusion of a being good tenant going. So tonight we packed up all evidence of cat occupancy, shoved it under the guest bed and then took Zach and Ollie over to Jen's house for a sleepover. Because Zach has surgery on Friday I felt bad taking him to a strange place, but I know he's in good hands and this will give Ollie a chance to attack him in a new space.

Now Alex and I are sitting here enjoying the season premieres of My Name Is Earl and The Office and it's very quiet around here, a little too quiet. Although I have to admit that it is pleasant to watch an entire show without having to be poised with a water gun to discipline a kitten.

I can't go on like this

Having a blog and not writing in it is so 2003. I'm putting an end to it, right here and now. And all week. Yeah, that's right, I'm going to write something every day this week. How's that for commitment?

I could have written about the Chocolate Festival I went to, but I didn't. I could have documented how many boxes I've packed for our move to the deluxe apartment in the sky, but no. Instead I read junk on the internets, felt bad for myself because of my stupid inner ear and ate a lot of ice cream.

One rewarding yet creepy thing we've done was put a bunch of our crap on Craigslist to have weird people buy it. I wasn't here to see most of the stuff get picked up, but Alex told me that one guy gave him half the money from his pocket, the other half came from his shoe. I have to say that I would have had a hard time accepting shoe money. We still have lots more to sell, so if you need a basket of stuffed animals or a really old CD player (stereo component style) that only plays one CD at a time, let me know.

In other news, we found out today that Zach's lump isn't just a lump, it's a swollen lymph node, accompanied by a fellow swollen node. He goes into surgery on Friday to have them both removed, then we find out if he's got the cancer. weeeeeee.

Luckily, Arrested Development was on tonight and kicked all sorts of ass when it came to cheering me up. If you're not watching that show you're really missing out. And if you are watching, I know you went to this site. Oh, Arrested Development, what can't you do?

Oh, and here's the picture I entered in the last Photo Friday challenge, Divine.

photo friday

two for one...
I didn't submit my entry for last week's challenge, which was order, until last night. I had this great idea and tried to go to the MAC store on Fourth Street to take a picture of all the purdy lipsticks in their assigned rows. But MAC closed before I got there and the reflection on the window was really awful, so I went with a whole different meaning of order.
okay, I know it's kind of a stretch, but I feel like I have to post something every week now that I'm committed to Photo Friday.

and then there's this week's entry for massive,


and someday I'm a-gonna write bout somethin on this here blog. but that takes spellin and thinkin. I'd rather just hang out with my camera and my cats right now.

wrinkle free

I hate ironing. I don't have to it very often, because I can wear t-shirts and jeans to work, but every once in a while I like to look a little snappy and this means that the iron must come out. Our iron happens to be called "the Sunbeam Touch and Go." I know they're trying to give the impression that ironing your clothes is a breeze with this appliance, but honestly I hate ironing so much and have ruined enough shirts that it is really a touch and go situation for me. More overwhelming than the hate I have for ironing is the lack of patience which Alex has for my behavior while struggling with the Touch and Go. This has worked to my advantage, not only because Alex is pretty handy with a hot iron, but he does not want to be around me while I attempt to press creases out, so he will iron for me, as to not hear my persistent and annoying whining. This sometimes makes me feel guilty, but if he's offering to make my clothes look good I'm usually not going to say no. Yesterday I felt kind of bad about him pressing my shirt because it was the day after his birthday and he didn't have any ironing to do for himself. But then he said in his best ladies' man voice, "Hey, don't feel bad. Just give me the shirt you want ironed. You choose it, I smooves it." How can I say no to that?

sugar free ice cream

Is it inappropriate to have an ice cream social to help make people aware of juvenile diabetes?

Because it kind of seems like that's just saying "In your face young diabetics! Check out all this ice cream I can eat and you can't!" However, that will probably not stop me from walking down the hall to get myself a bowl while I think about those poor kids.

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.