Things Are Not Good

Things are not good.  They started out good in that I finished my mosaic (my absence from here was due to spending every last damn moment I could in the garage toiling away at the damn thing).  Then things went bad.  Whoopis is very sick, and we're waiting for the vet to come see him.  I am very worried this is it for my little guy.  He's having problems breathing and seems to have gone suddenly blind in one eye.  And he's drooling a foul brickish-colored mucousy substance.  Please say it is not blood and just weird cat snot, and that he has a cold.  I don't even care if he loses the eye.  Just let my baby be okay.

Oh, I also have a pain in my right side.  I woke up with it yesterday and it has not gone away.  It is not near my navel, and I refuse to think it is appendicitis.  I take high dosages of iron, and seriously hope it is just constipation.  It is not acute.  It more like a menstrual cramp that doesn't go away.  Like someone is lightly squeezing an ovary.  Nothing to make me scream, but hard enough for me to say "cut it out."  I am horrified at the thought of going to the doctor to find out I just need to take a huge shit.

I would hate for The Boy to have to deal with me having surgery and with Whoopis dying.  I'd hate it, too, but at least I would be knocked out for some of it.

For now, I'm just going to sit here on the couch and watch Whoopis breathe and gurgle. 

Going to Get You, Little Fishy

Here is my fish taco.

It is in my lap at work.  He looks great with my pink dress.  I felt Senor Senior Del Mar would be more safe at work, out of the kittens little clutches.  Wikus said that when he says my fish taco, he starts singing, "I'm going to get you, little fishy," from Red Dwarf.  Cat sings it.  Obviously.

This is how far I have gotten on my spider lily:

That's five days of work.  Not consecutive days.  I am doing all this by hand.  No ringsaw.  It is exhausting work.  Tonight I think I gave myself a sandblasting facial while grinding the glass for the pollen bits.  I have three weeks left to finish this.  I'm trying to feel optimistic, but my sinuses are conspiring against me.  Jackasses.
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The Vaselines were awesome.  Granted, my expectations were a bit low going in to it.  One album two decades ago.  Never really toured.  Just how could they be that good?  After suffering through three hours of waiting for the damn opening bands to quit the crap, we were treated to something really nice.  Their voices sounded great, and their new songs (yes, a new album was released in September) were fun and catchy.  I highly recommend the show if they come through your town. 

While waiting in near agony (Emo's has these hard, wooden bleachers that I'm pretty sure were specifically designed to make people NOT want to sit down, or at least drink themselves in to a stupor so they won't notice how much their asses hurt), I noticed that the majority of the women in the crowd were dressed in the most fucked-up, ugly-ass outfits.  From the looks of it, they all went to various thrift stores with the instructions to buy three things.  Then they all got together and played an elaborate game of pass the items around--two to the left with one to the right, then one to the left and two to the right, one twice to the right and two three times to the left.  Time is called and everyone has to don what she is holding.  A kind of musical chairs for crappy floral materials.  Embarrassing and non-flattering.  They all seemed so happy, though. 

Way back in the way back when, when I was probably 13 or so, I decided that I would look really awesome in a sweater dress.  It was red and black striped, wide stripes.  I work it with black pantyhose (I was sheltered and did not have access to tights) and some heinous Payless black flats.

I felt awesome.  I just knew I looked awesome. 

Looking back, I was really fucking wrong. 

Second-Grade Math Comprehension

Our next-door neighbor is a hoarder.  I don't know how bad it is inside Franz' house, but he spends a lot of time in his white van.  He has a brown van, too, but it's so full of stuff, he cannot sit in it, so he sits in his white van, in the driver's seat, usually reading and smoking a cigarette.  He's a very nice fellow who doesn't have much money.  When The Boy bought this house, he used to run a long, heavy-duty extension cord from the house to Franz' house.  We don't give away the electricity anymore, but they do have an arrangement where Franz borrows our lawnmower and mows both our lawns.  I don't know how much of a fair trade that is, but they seem cool with it.

Franz mowed the yard yesterday.  He took out some wildflowers that I had planted at one corner of the house--however, I do admit they looked more like weeds than something that should be saved.  Late this morning, I took ET out front, and we spent hours outside.  I attempted to rough sketch my mosaic.  It ended up too large, and I tried to make my feeble brain do some math involving fractions and percentages.  Oh my god, when did I end up so stupid?  Horribly stupid.  Do not ask me to take a 5.5" x 3.75" picture and enlarge it to 24" x 18".  After some schooling from Wikus, I now have a vague handle on it, but I cannot promise I can do it again. After grumbling on FB for awhile on what a dumbfuck I am, my hero DJ MC swung by with the longest ruler in the world and a T-square.  Those are going to be invaluable to me during the project.  As far as the drawing, in the end, Wikus drew the whole thing for me.  He did an excellent job.

The weather was absolutely phenomenal.  He drew in the sun, and I lazed on a beach towel taking pictures of my surroundings and myself (so damn vain) with my Hipstamatic.  ET insisted on going over to Phil's side of the yard, or directly in to the road.  I felt like one of those flustered mom's you see running after children in a park.  I looked away for two seconds, and poof, he was out in the middle of the road, poking out his little head and staring up at the sky.  I don't even know how many times I picked him up and put him by the house, just for him to turnaround and head right back to the road.  That little bastard.

It was such a lovely five hours.  Then I took a nap.  I really couldn't ask for a better Saturday.

Yesterday afternoon was equally as delightful.  After work I read outside by the creek.  It's amazing how peaceful it can be right in the middle of downtown Austin, 1.5 blocks from the interstate.  I used to spend every work day out there during lunch, and gave it up for an hour of more sleep.  I may have to reassess my need for that much sleep.  As long as the weather is clement, I should really spend more time outside reading (or what have you). 

I did try to convince CSP to play hooky from work, and have a picnic with me.  He could get the fried chicken and I could get the doughnuts.  While he felt it was "very tempting," he did not acquiesce; even when I explained I was the boss of him.  It's offensive when people pick work over a picnic!

The Boy is in some kind of nightmare work situation (too many jobs and projects), and we haven't been able to really hang out in quite some time.  I did manage to persuade him to get an iPhone 4 earlier in the week, and he just managed to get it turned on yesterday.  Since I am such an awesome person, I downloaded many applications for him, and manually typed in over 100 contacts from his very old phone (it didn't have a SIM card to transfer the information electronically).  I also made sure to put racy photos of myself on his phone.  It's important that every time I call him, people can see what a hotty he dates.  Of course I put some kitten photos on there, too.  To show how he is also a family man.

Tomorrow I start cutting glass.  I have one month (just like last year) to finish the mosaic.  This is how it starts.