Tail-chasing whee!
Starr had a rough night: discomfort, poor sleep, and more back-and-forth from her doctors on the probable cause. We had hopes that she’d be home by now, but that’s clearly not working out. Continued good thoughts, and maybe a phone call or three would help a whole lot right now.
Midori is still freaking, and I’ve been feeling a bit unwell the last few days myself (due to stress, no doubt). Last night I was supposed to send out some e-mail and phone calls to concerned family and friends, but I lost consciousness before I could wake the laptop.
In happy news, Collegiate BattleBots events will be airing on ESPN2 and ESPNU (http://www.battlebots.com/news_home.asp) this summer. This is great news, but the sad thing is that I don’t think I have either of those on my channel lineup. I may have to get someone to do some ‘time-shifting’ for me.
Also, I have confirmation of my TCon timeslots, and I have the theme for my panels ready. I kinda like this one, and I hope some people show up!
Primate Engineering
Slept reasonably well last night, but for some reason I am sluggish and foggy this morning. I remember bits and pieces of the dream I had… something about gorillas loping calmly out of the old General Electric plant back in Salem. In my dream, it was 3am, and rattrap and I had been tasked to do something about the gorilla situation, which I protested because I’d been up all night and had work tomorrow.
These are my dreams, folks. They don’t get any more coherent.
Despite, or because of, my mental fog this morning, my brain was quite creative on the drive to work. I fleshed out some more concepts for the webcomic I’m never going to have time or skill to do. I really miss plotting out Artificial Intelligence with Tom Monaghan. If I ever fix or replace my scanner, those old comics really ought to go on the web while I can still find the old print collection.
Midori-kitty has been a lot more affectionate to us the last few weeks, but she’s been quite hostile to visitors at the same time. We’re thinking it’s a territory issue, but she really needs to quit it. This remains our place, not hers, until she’s willing to pay rent for it. And she doesn’t make much money.
Must. Clear. Head. And. Get Work Done.
Anyone for a swim?
Bad night last night to leave your car windows open.
The wind was so violent that you frequently couldn’t hear the thunder. The rain lashed the roof of my apartment building so heavily that it woke up more than once, and Midori, unsurprisingly, stayed pretty close the whole evening. (She didn’t like it either that Starr was spending a night with her mom last night.) I peeked out the front of the building during a laundry run to see visible waves and sheets in the torrent. The fresh mulch that the groundskeepers had spread Monday was all over the sidewalk and parking lot this morning.
It was the sort of night where I was utterly grateful for 21st-century shelter. It was also a good night to finish two more levels of my “yes I will beat the Terran Starcraft missions before Starcraft II comes out” campaign. I started fresh a few days ago, to get back into the rhythms, and I won Mission 8 last night – two more to go. The funny things is that I have a strategy guide, but always end up doing it my own way. This is, by the way, part of the awesomeness of Starcraft – it can support multiple play styles.
The sky is crystal clear this morning. Shame we’re losing those soothing high-60s temperatures.
Little one
This weekend was exhausting. Amazing, but exhausting.
We had a lot of cleaning to do before our guests arrived this weekend. Starr did a lot of it, but I tried to pull my weight. We established Friday’s high point when I received a panicked call at work letting me know that Midori had pulled the gerbil cage from the bookshelf and smashed it. Starr finally managed to catch two traumatized but unharmed gerbils, and I screwed the replacement cage to the bookcase… so there, cat.
Why all the kerfuffle? Well, we had a rather special little boy and his parents coming by. Owen is observant, intelligent, cheerful, and energetic; and Starr gave birth to him four years ago, giving him up to a couple in a much better position at the time to give him a stable home.
I hadn’t really been aware of “open adoption” before. The idea is that the adoptive parents keep the birth mother in their life, trading phone calls, email, and pictures, and even getting together when possible. Owen has grown up thinking of Starr as a relative who loves him a lot, and I suppose that one day, when he asks very specific questions, he’ll get straight answers.
The idea sounds good; an extra close relative in a child’s life has to be a bonus, and when he’s a teenager trying to figure out who he is, he’ll have immediate answers to many of the questions I imagine an adopted child might ask. On the other hand, I can see how the relationships involved might need more work on everyone’s part than normal. On the gripping hand, I have some experience of my own with unusual relationships, and I feel the effort’s well worth making. I suppose time will tell how it all works out.
More importantly for the time being, Owen was a joy to meet. I’m spoiled by precocious kids like him and Bethany… perhaps it has just as much to do with the parents’ determination to raise him as something more than a yard ape. His parents were pretty awesome too; we got along from the beginning, and it only got better when Paul and I started Mac geeking together. Starr reported later that they thought I was a pretty decent guy.
(Actually, they called me ‘grounded’. Is there anyone here who knows me who’d have picked the adjective ‘grounded’ to describe me?)
I greatly enjoyed the day and a half of time with Owen and Paul and Susan; Starr’s mom joined us as well. However, all that time of socializing and trying to keep up with a 4-year-old drained me dry. I took a somewhat unwilling nap on Sunday afternoon, and craved a quiet night of WoW afterwards. Wouldn’t have missed it though, and Starr’s center returned to her after a week of pure frantic. At least next weekend ought to be a bit quieter.
A bit.
Highly-rated lap
Every morning for years now, I perform a little ritual of dragging my semi-conscious carcass out of bed and into my office, where I wake myself up with the morning’s email and Friends page.
Now there’s a new element to that ritual: every morning, little Midori sees that I’m awake, jumps up to my chair, curls up her kitten body in my lap, and goes to sleep.
As if it wasn’t hard enough getting out of this chair to shower and dress…
(I have to keep grabbing her, too, as she forgets that my lap is not infinite, and tries to roll over in her sleep.)
Cat vs. Weasels
I spent a fair chunk of the weekend ‘suffering from brain weasels’ as they say… just listless, depressed, and grumpy. As near as I can tell, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, or due to anything going on around me – perhaps my body chemistry fell out of whack, I can’t tell. Last night, I consumed a fair amount of chocolate – it seemed to help.
After months of waiting for the money to be available, we have a new kitten! She’s 8 weeks old, and is a grey tabby we picked up at the local shelter. Her name is Midori, and she’s already fixed and microchipped – she goes in for her first vet visit (since moving in with us) on Thursday. She’s sweet, but full of mischief – in other words, perfectly normal.
I may have addicted ptownhiker to Guitar Hero II Saturday night. Heh, heh, heh. Now to spring Katamari Damacy on them!
Finally got your questions ready, fishy1. Sorry about the wait!
