Localvore.

Apparently, George Michael knows of my desire to try to eat more locally grown things, so he's been a real help this week. He's brought in a bird, a couple lizards, a few cicadas, and a mouse. (Well, two mice, I think. The first one looked so scrumptious that he ate it--how do I know? There was a pile of barf under the table, another pile of barf by the door which had, shall we say, remains in it, and then there were the entrails in a separate pile by the chair. So maybe it was not to his taste, but he tried to bring in another one that afternoon for me to sample on my own. I declined. And then subsequently played cat-and-mouse in the backyard, trying to distract GM long enough for the mouse to shimmy away.)

That cat's a real space invader.

There's also a frog that has taken up residence in my succulent pot. Or as GM probably puts it, there's a succulent frog in my pot. I see it in the morning, as we're returning from our 6 A.M. walks, just nestled in the cool soil. (Yes, I keep my succulents so watered that their soil is cool and damp. They are growing like gangbusters.) So far the frog has not been in the house yet, but I have every expectation that it will make that journey (inside GM's mouth).

And you wonder why I often have night terrors related to things crawling on the bed.

GM lives, but my new dishwasher must stay in the store.

Nothing wrong with GM aside from a ruptured abscess and a bad attitude. Thank goodness! No judgment calls on how much the Green Mile costs. After spending the night at the vet, he's still kinda groggy and docile. He even let me give him a sponge bath (ha--I almost wrote tongue bath, like I'm his momma cat) with a wash cloth, which tells me he is still very out of it.

The vet even refunded $200 of the deposit we had to put down for his procedure. Let's just say, there goes the new dishwasher. Funnily enough, I had been telling Chris that very morning that we should get a new one. Easy come, easy go.

The fine line.

GM is in the hospital. He has an abscess in a, shall we say, delicate area that popped and was bleeding all over the place. When the vet took his temperature (and he was roaring like a lion the whole time), there was blood on the thermometer, so his colon may be perforated. He's sedated at the vet as we speak, waiting for procedure to ascertain the nature of his injury, with the possibility of surgery on top of that.
 
Chris and I are faced with a conundrum: how much is too much to spend on a pet? We're kinda in for a penny, in for a pound right now, but the "pound" aspect could reach into the thousands. And as much as I love my cantankerous little monster, I cannot see my past spending X dollars on his medical care.

Problem is: what's X? And if you set a limit, say $1000, what if the vets says it'll cost $1100? Or $1400? Are you going to put the cat down over $400? It makes you sounds like a cheap, heartless bastard. But we don't have limited resources here.

I suppose my real problem is that I am a mixture of mother (unsentimental about animals when it comes to exorbitant costs) and my father (a bleeding heart animal lover). What's a pet owner to do.

A bird in hand.

This right here is worth at least two in the bush.

Or maybe just a trip to the doctor because of avian flu.

What was I supposed to do? George brought it in, and I've seen him tear birds limb from limb. It gets the carpet very dirty. So I picked it up. Which I've never done before--I usually I use the broom and dustpan. Or Chris. But this guy needed me. I let him rest in my hand. He was very hot. I tried to coax him onto a chair so that we would both be safe (and so that I would remain poop-free), but he wouldn't go. So I just held him in my hand like this until he flew away.

It's a lovely story. A parable of some sort. Until--or maybe because--I will see him again, no doubt. Probably missing some limbs. Once they've been in once, they tend to be marked.

But I have high hopes for this one. Fly, brown bird with yellow around its beak, fly high!

And yes, I washed my hands. Twice.

Did someone say mouse?

It won't surprise you to know that I'm typing finger by finger at the moment. When GM feels as though he hasn't gotten sufficient attention for a while, he curls up in front of they keyboard for some love and a quick nap. He's currently kneading my upper arm as I try to type around him. Wouldn't want to make His Highness angry. (No, really; you wouldn't. It's gruesome. Earlier this week we came home to find a bird leg, a bird stomach--cleanly and surgically removed--and several feathers. Where is the rest of this bird?! This cat is possibly a Voodoo priest.)

Rainy day

All day at work, I wished I were doing this:

You know, wrapped up in my JLo's (velor pants, which I for some reason always associate with JLo), snuggled under a blanket, watching the rain. If only I could work from home sometimes! (Except I don't have enough stick-it-to-ness to stay on task without every shiny thing distracting me, or me deciding that now is exactly the right time to vacuum the back of the refrigerator.) If only I could call in "sick" without feeling super guilty, thus ruining my day off!

Instead I sit in my little gray cube, hunched over reams of paper, and am assaulted with exclamation-mark-laden notes like this, from here:

 

  

Do these notes ever work? The ones in my office usually have LOTS more exclamation points and lots more run-on sentences. They are often accompanied by emails sent with high urgency. To which I would like to respond someday: Dear secretary, A high urgency email is one that warns employees about a gunman loose in the building or a tornado headed straight for us. It is not one that tells people not to put stir-sticks in the sink. 

Instead I plan to secretly rip down the one over the sink. Someday. Maybe.

Up to Speed

It's been two years since my last blog, and a lot has happened between then and now.

First, this:

 (Look at my secret Hook 'Em Horns sign.)

 Then this:

(Engaged! And I have short bangs!)

Followed by this:

 (Wedding on April 5, 2009)

Then we did this, here:

(Freezing out booties off in Monterey.)

And let's not forget this:

(He's very disappointed by how much you've been texting this month.)

So, you know: dating, marriage, travel, LOLCatting. The usual.