(no subject)
You know, sometimes there's a stretch of days-or even a couple of weeks-where I just don't want to do any general interaction on the web. Oh, I read my e-mail and flist, and I check the JC and Twitter and all that, but to actually talk to people? Not right then. At that point in time, I'd rather be a hermit. Sometimes this is because I'm very busy with RL. Sometimes it's because I'm depressed or upset about something and don't feel like inflicting that negativity on other people. Sometimes it's because I think my life is far too boring to share. A lot of the time it's just me being an introvert and needing some recharge time. (If you're an extrovert, take my word for it: It doesn't matter how much you love someone or enjoy their company, interaction is mentally and emotionally tiring for an introvert. We need alone time to recharge. It's not you, it's us.)
Anyway, as intense as these hermit urges can be, I'm starting to think that I need to work harder at maintaining some modicum of communication despite that, because when I don't, all the interaction that I was happy to keep quiet about during hermit-stage come bubbling to the top as my recharge finishes, and I find myself with a tremendous amount to say, even though none of it is particularly important. That sort of stuff is probably easier to read spread out over brief random LJ updates rather than the giant overload update of triviality that I'm about to write. But I really need to clean house in my brain, and my family and RL friends have either heard all of this or don't much care about it, and at least this format is easy for everyone else to skip over if they so please. It's probably the best balance I can achieve between clearing my head and inflicting the least amount of inconvenience on others.
TL;DR: Update Of Doom below. No hard feelings if you ignore it.
My God, what a disappointing football week this was. Broncos, I love you. I have since Elway was a wee NFL n00b. I want to support you no matter what, because I really don't like fair weather fans. But look, if you're going to lose 59-14, I just can't. How? How is it even possible for any NFL team to rack up a score of 59? What did you do, take the snap and then politely hand the ball over to the other side? And to make matters worse, this was to the Raiders-bitter division rivals who also happen to SUCK this year; how bad to you have to be to lose that badly to the Raiders-and they got those 59 points in three quarters, not four. That's just unbelievable on so many fronts. I don't think I can care about your progress for the rest of this season.
On top of that, did I hear the ESPN announcers say that the Broncos' next game would be from London? Surely not. Surely. If we're sending NFL teams to Europe to represent American football, we need to send good teams. That needs to be a merit-based operation. Don't schedule particular teams, just say "two teams" until about two weeks before the scheduled game, and then pick that week's match up likeliest to put on a good show. The Broncos are currently 2-5, and they're playing the 49ers next week, who are currently 1-6. What the hell, NFL. Europe will scorn us, and deservedly so. If I did hear correctly, England, I apologize. Please don't watch that game. Watch the Packers/Jets game if you can, or the Steelers/Saints, or the Texans/Colts. Those games will probably be good and properly showcase the sport. The Broncos and the 49ers will probably look like a Pop Warner team.
Additionally, both the Cardinals and the Chargers lost, not because they're bad teams, but because they're apparently talented teams lacking in self-discipline and skilled at giving up opportunities. Good job, guys. Not to mention that the Dolphins failed to beat the Steelers. It's not that I love the Dolphins particularly, and the Steelers are a good team and fun to watch. But as long as they keep Roethlisberger on the roster, they're dead to me. The bastard should be in jail, not headlining an NFL team.
The week's highlight for me was watching Favre singlehandedly lose the game against the Packers. Even though the Packers had no business ever letting the Vikings get that close, Favre had a chance to be the hero one last time at Lambaugh. He almost pulled it off, too. If that receiver had managed to stay in bounds in the final seconds when Favre threw that otherwise-successful TD pass, the Vikings would have won. But the receiver didn't. Thus the game went down to the wire, to the very last pass. Favre, whatever else I may think of him, is still one hell of a quarterback and could conceivably had thrown a real TD and ended the game. Instead he slipped and fell with absolutely no one around him, and totally flubbed the last play of the game. It was entirely him. Yes, mistakes happen. If it had been almost anyone but Favre (or Roethlisberger), I'd have felt terrible for him. But not for Favre. You want to sexually harass women, Brett? You want to send them unsolicited cell pics of your equipment? I want to see you go down in flames and humiliation, especially since I now cannot help but wonder if half the reason you've been so damned wishy-washy about retirement was because if you gave up your impressive and high profile job as Legendary Starting Quarterback Idolized By All, you might have to go home and quit-or at least cut back on-dicking around on your high school sweetheart breast cancer survivor wife. How awful would that be? I know! Well, now you get to end your career with an NFL investigation into your conduct instead. Enjoy it. Creep.
Quark has been limping for a couple of weeks now. I examined the leg in question, and she let me handle all of it, down to extending each claw, so I thought that it must not hurt very much. Maybe she just jumped badly and twisted her ankle? Entirely possible, because Quark is a bit stocky and a clutzy jumper. I hoped that it would heal on its own. But it didn't, and on Monday night her limp was bad enough that she was essentially hobbling along on three legs. I e-mailed the vet on Tuesday morning, and they got her an appointment that afternoon.
Tangent: My vet is the best vet in the entire world. For any cat owners in the Phoenix area: it doesn't get any better than Scaredy Cats Hospital. I've gone to them for years, since they first opened, since before Quark and Siri were even born. They've taken care of my kitties from kitten shots to spaying to a life-or-death bladder operation to putting my eighteen-year-old Gabrielle to sleep when it reached the point that her treatment would adversely affect her quality of life. They're phenomenal on all fronts. As long as they're around, I will never take my cats anywhere else.
So poor Quark yowled all the way to the vet, but she was an excellent patient once she was there. Both the vet and the techs who dealt with her commented on how sweet and accommodating she was. I was very proud of her, even if she did shed all over me. She got an examination and X-rays (and a claw trim), and the verdict was that she had arthritis just beginning to develop in her right front leg, where she had also likely sprained her elbow. She was prescribed glucosamine powder for her joints and some liquid painkiller, and she doesn't even notice that they're mixed in with her food. Better yet, only about an hour after giving her the painkiller, she began walking almost without a limp at all! I am so relieved. I'd started to think that the limp might be indicative of something really terrible. This can be managed, and she's obviously feeling better already.
Quark is also acting much happier, and has from the moment she got home. She was purring from the moment she stepped out of her carrier, and even went back inside it to sniff it thoroughly and rub it, then came back out to rub everything else she saw. Yes, part of that is undoubtedly just being glad to get home, but I'm pretty sure she figured out that people were trying to help her, too. And the painkiller obviously helps, and Siri has been being particularly accommodating to her, even to the extent of giving up her favorite place on the sofa to Quark. Okay, I could have done without the expense of the vet visit, but my baby feels better and she's not dying of bone cancer or something. All is well with the world.
Except that Quark is fourteen pounds. My baby is apparently going to have to go on a diet. She'll love that.
poor sulky Quarkie at the vet
a much happier Quark going back into her carrier at home
a surprisingly decent cell phone pic of the full moon rising
In other news, I'm starting to get caught up on being an adult and pulling slowly but surely out of the guilt spiral. Except for the fact that I must indeed clean all the things. So-rather than cleaning all the things, I'm sitting here writing an LJ update o' doom? Sounds about right.
I bought this book. Because I don't have nearly enough books yet. (Not a word, Blank. Not one single word. :P ) Also because Ryan North told me to. Bonus: It looks like totally fun reading. I'm greatly looking forward to getting it.
Hopefully by then I'll have finished reading Mansfield Park. I don't know where the sudden intense desire to read Austen came from, but it hit like a freight train. I'd intended to give Persuasion a try-I didn't like it much the first time around, but that was years ago and these things alter-but I couldn't find my copy of Persuasion and thus settled on Mansfield Park. I've never been able to articulate why I like Mansfield Park, but I do enjoy rereading it every so often despite Fanny's timidity and everyone else's idiocy and the fact that cousin/cousin romantic interest creeps me out. Eh. There are worse things. Maybe like reading a book about people who know how they're going to die. :P
Flogging Molly is recording a new album! I came dangerously close to a literal squee upon reading that. Oh, FM, how I love you. Please tour in Phoenix soon. (You too, Bob.)
I also bought Dylan's Witmark Demos. In a rare display of shipping slowness, Amazon has yet to deliver it. Argh. I'd love to also get The Original Mono Recordings, but that price is out of reach for a while. Eek.
I made two loaves of Irish sweet bread last night. In a repeat of the first time I made it, the bread went into the oven at 2 AM. That's just how I roll. The bread, incidentally, is even better this time around. Originally I thought it tasty but somewhat heavy. I didn't do anything differently with the recipe or baking, so I wonder how it can seem different. Have I been eating heavier food lately? Or did I need an introduction to the bread to get used to it before realizing how yummy it is? The smell of molasses didn't knock me over this time, so maybe I've just gotten used to it. Anyway, it's delicious.
However, I now have an abundance of buttermilk. I'd originally bought a quart of it because I wanted to make soda bread-which I did, two loaves. And despite-or because of?- the fact that I doubled the specified amount of raisins, thus endangering the bread's structural integrity, I love the soda bread. But I had leftover buttermilk, which inspired me to make another batch of sweet bread. Fortunately it's fruitcake-baking time and the store had currents and candied lemon rind. Alas, it was after midnight that I got out all the ingredients only to realize that I was missing shortening.
Not to be deterred, I instead made a third loaf of soda bread. Then I realized that this left me with exactly a quarter cup less buttermilk than I needed for the sweet bread. D'oh! And then when I went to buy shortening, the store only had buttermilk in the half gallon size. That's right, I now have a half gallon less a quarter cup of buttermilk. What on earth am I going to do with that? If I make any more bread, I won't have room for it in the freezer. Buttermilk biscuits, maybe? But that won't use it all up, and surely there's something more interesting out there. This requires a google search.
I want to knit a scorpion. I do not have time to knit a scorpion. Oh, but it's so tempting.
Basketball season has started! The Suns lost their season opener-*sigh*-to the Portland Trailblazers but I'll be okay with that if they win their home opener against the evil-and-hated L.A. Lakers on Friday night. Beat L.A.! (Also: I love you, Steve. <3 But pull up your damned pants on that profile pic. For pity's sake.)
I went to the pet store today to buy Shadow a new bone and the baby leopard gecko tried to lick me through the glass. I think he was fascinated by my nail polish. He was adorable. And Shadow loves his bone.
These people put one of Mandy's tweets to music. It's kind of awesome.
Speaking of Mandy, she got the R2-D2 Droid (turn your volume down) and I therefore hate her. (I WANT A DROID, DAGNABBIT. *sob* #firstworldproblems)
Okay, I think I'm done. Thank you for your forbearance. Maybe I should get on with that cleaning all the things business. :P
Anyway, as intense as these hermit urges can be, I'm starting to think that I need to work harder at maintaining some modicum of communication despite that, because when I don't, all the interaction that I was happy to keep quiet about during hermit-stage come bubbling to the top as my recharge finishes, and I find myself with a tremendous amount to say, even though none of it is particularly important. That sort of stuff is probably easier to read spread out over brief random LJ updates rather than the giant overload update of triviality that I'm about to write. But I really need to clean house in my brain, and my family and RL friends have either heard all of this or don't much care about it, and at least this format is easy for everyone else to skip over if they so please. It's probably the best balance I can achieve between clearing my head and inflicting the least amount of inconvenience on others.
TL;DR: Update Of Doom below. No hard feelings if you ignore it.
My God, what a disappointing football week this was. Broncos, I love you. I have since Elway was a wee NFL n00b. I want to support you no matter what, because I really don't like fair weather fans. But look, if you're going to lose 59-14, I just can't. How? How is it even possible for any NFL team to rack up a score of 59? What did you do, take the snap and then politely hand the ball over to the other side? And to make matters worse, this was to the Raiders-bitter division rivals who also happen to SUCK this year; how bad to you have to be to lose that badly to the Raiders-and they got those 59 points in three quarters, not four. That's just unbelievable on so many fronts. I don't think I can care about your progress for the rest of this season.
On top of that, did I hear the ESPN announcers say that the Broncos' next game would be from London? Surely not. Surely. If we're sending NFL teams to Europe to represent American football, we need to send good teams. That needs to be a merit-based operation. Don't schedule particular teams, just say "two teams" until about two weeks before the scheduled game, and then pick that week's match up likeliest to put on a good show. The Broncos are currently 2-5, and they're playing the 49ers next week, who are currently 1-6. What the hell, NFL. Europe will scorn us, and deservedly so. If I did hear correctly, England, I apologize. Please don't watch that game. Watch the Packers/Jets game if you can, or the Steelers/Saints, or the Texans/Colts. Those games will probably be good and properly showcase the sport. The Broncos and the 49ers will probably look like a Pop Warner team.
Additionally, both the Cardinals and the Chargers lost, not because they're bad teams, but because they're apparently talented teams lacking in self-discipline and skilled at giving up opportunities. Good job, guys. Not to mention that the Dolphins failed to beat the Steelers. It's not that I love the Dolphins particularly, and the Steelers are a good team and fun to watch. But as long as they keep Roethlisberger on the roster, they're dead to me. The bastard should be in jail, not headlining an NFL team.
The week's highlight for me was watching Favre singlehandedly lose the game against the Packers. Even though the Packers had no business ever letting the Vikings get that close, Favre had a chance to be the hero one last time at Lambaugh. He almost pulled it off, too. If that receiver had managed to stay in bounds in the final seconds when Favre threw that otherwise-successful TD pass, the Vikings would have won. But the receiver didn't. Thus the game went down to the wire, to the very last pass. Favre, whatever else I may think of him, is still one hell of a quarterback and could conceivably had thrown a real TD and ended the game. Instead he slipped and fell with absolutely no one around him, and totally flubbed the last play of the game. It was entirely him. Yes, mistakes happen. If it had been almost anyone but Favre (or Roethlisberger), I'd have felt terrible for him. But not for Favre. You want to sexually harass women, Brett? You want to send them unsolicited cell pics of your equipment? I want to see you go down in flames and humiliation, especially since I now cannot help but wonder if half the reason you've been so damned wishy-washy about retirement was because if you gave up your impressive and high profile job as Legendary Starting Quarterback Idolized By All, you might have to go home and quit-or at least cut back on-dicking around on your high school sweetheart breast cancer survivor wife. How awful would that be? I know! Well, now you get to end your career with an NFL investigation into your conduct instead. Enjoy it. Creep.
Quark has been limping for a couple of weeks now. I examined the leg in question, and she let me handle all of it, down to extending each claw, so I thought that it must not hurt very much. Maybe she just jumped badly and twisted her ankle? Entirely possible, because Quark is a bit stocky and a clutzy jumper. I hoped that it would heal on its own. But it didn't, and on Monday night her limp was bad enough that she was essentially hobbling along on three legs. I e-mailed the vet on Tuesday morning, and they got her an appointment that afternoon.
Tangent: My vet is the best vet in the entire world. For any cat owners in the Phoenix area: it doesn't get any better than Scaredy Cats Hospital. I've gone to them for years, since they first opened, since before Quark and Siri were even born. They've taken care of my kitties from kitten shots to spaying to a life-or-death bladder operation to putting my eighteen-year-old Gabrielle to sleep when it reached the point that her treatment would adversely affect her quality of life. They're phenomenal on all fronts. As long as they're around, I will never take my cats anywhere else.
So poor Quark yowled all the way to the vet, but she was an excellent patient once she was there. Both the vet and the techs who dealt with her commented on how sweet and accommodating she was. I was very proud of her, even if she did shed all over me. She got an examination and X-rays (and a claw trim), and the verdict was that she had arthritis just beginning to develop in her right front leg, where she had also likely sprained her elbow. She was prescribed glucosamine powder for her joints and some liquid painkiller, and she doesn't even notice that they're mixed in with her food. Better yet, only about an hour after giving her the painkiller, she began walking almost without a limp at all! I am so relieved. I'd started to think that the limp might be indicative of something really terrible. This can be managed, and she's obviously feeling better already.
Quark is also acting much happier, and has from the moment she got home. She was purring from the moment she stepped out of her carrier, and even went back inside it to sniff it thoroughly and rub it, then came back out to rub everything else she saw. Yes, part of that is undoubtedly just being glad to get home, but I'm pretty sure she figured out that people were trying to help her, too. And the painkiller obviously helps, and Siri has been being particularly accommodating to her, even to the extent of giving up her favorite place on the sofa to Quark. Okay, I could have done without the expense of the vet visit, but my baby feels better and she's not dying of bone cancer or something. All is well with the world.
Except that Quark is fourteen pounds. My baby is apparently going to have to go on a diet. She'll love that.
poor sulky Quarkie at the vet
a much happier Quark going back into her carrier at home
a surprisingly decent cell phone pic of the full moon rising
In other news, I'm starting to get caught up on being an adult and pulling slowly but surely out of the guilt spiral. Except for the fact that I must indeed clean all the things. So-rather than cleaning all the things, I'm sitting here writing an LJ update o' doom? Sounds about right.
I bought this book. Because I don't have nearly enough books yet. (Not a word, Blank. Not one single word. :P ) Also because Ryan North told me to. Bonus: It looks like totally fun reading. I'm greatly looking forward to getting it.
Hopefully by then I'll have finished reading Mansfield Park. I don't know where the sudden intense desire to read Austen came from, but it hit like a freight train. I'd intended to give Persuasion a try-I didn't like it much the first time around, but that was years ago and these things alter-but I couldn't find my copy of Persuasion and thus settled on Mansfield Park. I've never been able to articulate why I like Mansfield Park, but I do enjoy rereading it every so often despite Fanny's timidity and everyone else's idiocy and the fact that cousin/cousin romantic interest creeps me out. Eh. There are worse things. Maybe like reading a book about people who know how they're going to die. :P
Flogging Molly is recording a new album! I came dangerously close to a literal squee upon reading that. Oh, FM, how I love you. Please tour in Phoenix soon. (You too, Bob.)
I also bought Dylan's Witmark Demos. In a rare display of shipping slowness, Amazon has yet to deliver it. Argh. I'd love to also get The Original Mono Recordings, but that price is out of reach for a while. Eek.
I made two loaves of Irish sweet bread last night. In a repeat of the first time I made it, the bread went into the oven at 2 AM. That's just how I roll. The bread, incidentally, is even better this time around. Originally I thought it tasty but somewhat heavy. I didn't do anything differently with the recipe or baking, so I wonder how it can seem different. Have I been eating heavier food lately? Or did I need an introduction to the bread to get used to it before realizing how yummy it is? The smell of molasses didn't knock me over this time, so maybe I've just gotten used to it. Anyway, it's delicious.
However, I now have an abundance of buttermilk. I'd originally bought a quart of it because I wanted to make soda bread-which I did, two loaves. And despite-or because of?- the fact that I doubled the specified amount of raisins, thus endangering the bread's structural integrity, I love the soda bread. But I had leftover buttermilk, which inspired me to make another batch of sweet bread. Fortunately it's fruitcake-baking time and the store had currents and candied lemon rind. Alas, it was after midnight that I got out all the ingredients only to realize that I was missing shortening.
Not to be deterred, I instead made a third loaf of soda bread. Then I realized that this left me with exactly a quarter cup less buttermilk than I needed for the sweet bread. D'oh! And then when I went to buy shortening, the store only had buttermilk in the half gallon size. That's right, I now have a half gallon less a quarter cup of buttermilk. What on earth am I going to do with that? If I make any more bread, I won't have room for it in the freezer. Buttermilk biscuits, maybe? But that won't use it all up, and surely there's something more interesting out there. This requires a google search.
I want to knit a scorpion. I do not have time to knit a scorpion. Oh, but it's so tempting.
Basketball season has started! The Suns lost their season opener-*sigh*-to the Portland Trailblazers but I'll be okay with that if they win their home opener against the evil-and-hated L.A. Lakers on Friday night. Beat L.A.! (Also: I love you, Steve. <3 But pull up your damned pants on that profile pic. For pity's sake.)
I went to the pet store today to buy Shadow a new bone and the baby leopard gecko tried to lick me through the glass. I think he was fascinated by my nail polish. He was adorable. And Shadow loves his bone.
These people put one of Mandy's tweets to music. It's kind of awesome.
Speaking of Mandy, she got the R2-D2 Droid (turn your volume down) and I therefore hate her. (I WANT A DROID, DAGNABBIT. *sob* #firstworldproblems)
Okay, I think I'm done. Thank you for your forbearance. Maybe I should get on with that cleaning all the things business. :P