Magic Toilet Show

I have not recently subjected you poor folk to any cat-related postings or photos. So brace yourself--your blissful hiatus from felinity is now over. My cat, Sylvie, as many of you are aware, is insatiably curious, acrobatic, and hyperactive--at times a very pesky combination. Her latest discovery is that when I clean the cat box, this means an exciting toilet-flushing event is imminent. She has never ceased to be amazed and transfixed by the whirly gurgle of the water going down in the bowl as it flushes; now that she's figured out the signal that immediately precedes the show, she is always there right on cue to watch. This morning, the minute I began cleaning the litterbox, she jumped up to her front-row seat (the top of the toilet tank) and waited for the fun to begin. Once I flushed the toilet, her ears perked forward, her eyes dilated, and she stretched out her paw toward the whirlpool in the toilet bowl, utterly hypnotized by the noisy rush of the water. My only hope is that she never discovers the handle that makes it all happen. She is a very intelligent animal, and I wouldn't put it past her abilities at all to figure out how to do it herself. As a warning for owners of inquisitive cats everywhere to keep their pets away from the toilet lest their water bills suffer accordingly, I present this video.

Linktest and Happyblog

I just updated my browser, and a lot more options are available to me now when I write my posts. They probably always were available, but without being fluent in writing html, I couldn't do it on my own without nifty little icons to help me and do all the formatting. Now, hopefully I can make seamless, integrated little links in my text without having a big green bulleted thing show up. Sometimes I'm rather fond of big green bulleted things, but there have been many times when I just wanted a particular word to be the link without a whole lot of fanfare. Just like this: check out this blog that I have been going to nearly every day. It's a calm little dose of happiness in the form of short quotes and pretty things to look at.

Well-heeled Biohazard

I went for yet another neighborhood jaunt yesterday, this time with a practical aim: I needed to drop off several things at the post office. The past two or three weeks or so since I got out of the hospital, I've been dressing up almost every time I leave the apartment, even if it's just to go to the bank or the grocery store. My soul had just gotten weary from wearing sweats and t-shirts for 7 weeks without letup; I needed some uplifting after all that illness and emotional bogging-down. Looking good is a great cure for the blues, lemme tell ya. So, yesterday, there I was, dressed in an elegantly feminine springtime dress in a pretty 1930s-reminiscent floral pattern, wearing little black low-heeled Mary Janes and generally feeling very pleased with myself for managing to not look frumpy. But the very best part, the part that made me laugh the whole way to the post office and wish that I had gotten someone to take my picture, was that I was carrying a large carton with a big red "BIOHAZARD" sticker on it. That amuses me no end. I love the juxtaposition of the girly clothes and scary mysterious medical paraphernalia.

The explanation for the box: it's very mundane, really. When I was doing IV medications, the home nurse had to take weekly blood draws to check the level of the antibiotic in my bloodstream (it's highly toxic stuff and will ruin your kidneys if you get too much of it). So they gave me a little sharps container to put the syringes in and a postage-paid box for mailing the whole thing back to them. Enough of that.

In other happy news, I am on the hunt for a job. A real job. As in one with benefits, and maybe even a smidge of paid vacation every year. Whoa. Aim for the stars, I believe, and you just may catch hold of one. I'm feeling lucky at the moment, like something really good is about to happen. I think I will dress up again today and walk down to my friend's house down the street--just to be out and about and feeling pretty. It's a healing experience.

World News

Hey Kids,
It's time for you to stop looking at pretty pictures and learn about what's going on outside of my sleepy little neighborhood. Please check out the latest installment of my friend "Frances Goodman's" adventures in the middle east. She just went to Lebanon for a few days, and has written a very detailed, incredibly informative, and alternately humorous, heartbreaking, and infuriating report. I am always stunned at how utterly next-to-nothing I know of what is going on all over the rest of the planet--and I'm highly informed compared to your average complacent American. It's just not right. Enjoy your dose of world news.

Driving in Jordan blog

I must share this with you as well, because without putting it in writing and telling everybody I know it won't happen. I am going to travel this year. I am sorely overdue for some traipsing about in foreign lands. And this is going to be epic. I am determined to make this a reality for myself, and it begins with this simple statement. I am going to go visit FG in Jordan, visit my friend Irish in Turkey, and visit my friend Peter in Denmark or London or wherever he will be living this summer. I'm going. I have no idea how this is going to happen, or where the money is going to come from, and right now that doesn't faze me in the slightest. Big talk, I know, coming from someone who is unemployed, living off of state disability and can't even pay her own bills by herself at the moment. But things always change, and I truly believe that if I just put out this statement to the universe it will come about. I'm going.

Perambulation

I downloaded several of my photos from my recent walking jaunts around my neighborhood. Click on the Flickr badge down there, and you will see them in all their neighborly glory. I'd like to put them all in one neat little folder, but I can't (I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that) since I haven't paid those Flickr people for the privilege. I do love taking photos. I wish more of the ones I had taken had proven worthwhile enough to post, but there are enough good pictures to make me happy for now.

A hint for you: a dear friend of mine and I recently had a discussion about how few people click on the photo thumbnails to get a really good look. He was contemplating an experiment wherein he would keep shrinking down his thumbnails smaller and smaller until he found the point where every single person would finally be compelled to click on them for the larger photo. Trust me, you are missing out if you don't look at them bigger and close up. You should do that with any photo I post on here, as well as on Flickr. It's fun, I promise.

The best shower ever

I am so damn clean! I just took the most glorious, long, luxurious, utterly enjoyable shower ever. The nurse came just a few hours ago and took the PICC line out, so I was allowed a totally unencumbered showering experience. I washed my hair 'til it squeaked. I washed my left arm for the first time ever in over 3 weeks. I was reveling in the experience of having total freedom of both arms; not crackling with plastic wrap and layers of surgical tape and having to hold my left arm out of the water as much as possible the entire time. I was finally able to wash that one part in the middle of my back that has been neglected for 3 1/2 weeks--I've been imagining a very small very dirty spot lurking there insidiously where I just can't quite reach with only one hand. I spent much too much time in the shower, but I feel so very, very good right now. And clean!

I am super excited about my freedom time-wise, as well. I keep thinking I have to rush out to do my errands so I can be back in time for my 3:30 IV medication--and I don't! I can stay out all damn day if I want to! Oh, glorious freedom. Oh frabjous day!

The weather today is seducing me. The sky is full of dark blue, grey, and white clouds, with portions of bright pale blue sky in between, and the sun occasionally shining over the clouds' rims, outlining them in brilliant silver and gold and shooting gently shifting rays out from behind the cloudbanks. And just now the light got very intense and bright and is shining in brilliant white on the buildings across the street, making them a sharp contrast to the deep greyblue of the sky behind. It's lovely. I'm going for a walk.