I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul. ~ Jean Cocteau

Alabama

Off The Chain

I missed my movie-watching goal last year by about a million.  I kept the Movies page updated with every movie I saw, but it was way less than what I originally planned.  Honestly, I spent more time watching great tv shows: Downton Abbey and Homeland and Girls and Newsroom and Breaking Bad and Big Bang Theory.  And those were great and worth watching, so it's all cool, I guess.  I think I was inspired by several movie geek friends who watch 300-400 movies a year, but it's just not that high a priority for me.

Out of all the movies (few as they were) I saw last year, two really stood out.  The first was Midnight Son, an independent movie about a vampire.  I just happened to be walking through the room when my husband started watching it to review for his site and I got drawn in. It's spare and poetic, dark and beautifully shot, and it's not a typical vampire movie; it's realistic.  It's creepy without being terribly gory, and it's just... sad.  I enjoyed it tremendously.  Though it was pretty low budget, it's not hard to find, it's been on premium cable channels and it's available to buy or stream on Amazon.

The other was Finding Hogwarts.  I read about it and saw a trailer last summer on Mugglenet.com and pre-ordered it (which means my name is in the credits!).  It hasn't been distributed so it's only available on their site, and it's clearly very low-budget, even having a few obvious technical problems.  Having said that, I loved it.  It's a documentary about the Harry Potter fandom in general and a few friends in particular who go to Scotland in search of Hogwarts.  The interviews with people who have been inspired by the Harry Potter books were touching and I really found myself liking them, and obviously as a Harry Potter fan I can relate to the intensity of the emotions. This movie is probably only for Harry Potter fans, but I'm really glad I bought it and I know I'll watch it again. 

Today Greg and I got up relatively early (for a Saturday) and went to see a 9:30am showing of Django Unchained.

I absolutely love Quentin Tarantino.  I love his over the top dialogue, his pop culture and movie references, his strong female characters, his originality and his badassery in general.  I've loved him ever since I saw True Romance - twice - in the dollar theater in 1993.  Our little cat is named after the hero of True Romance: Alabama Whitman Worley.

Patricia Arquette as Alabama: "You call for a date?"

From Joe Morganstern's review in the Wall Street Journal:  Django Unchained is "wildly extravagant, ferociously violent, ludicrously lurid and outrageously entertaining, yet also, remarkably, very much about the pernicious lunacy of racism and, yes, slavery's singular horrors."  Ferociously violent is right, there were two scenes that were horrifically bloody and tremendously disturbing and I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the theater who looked away. For a long time. But there are also some very touching moments, and one truly hilarious scene that still makes me laugh when I think about it.

Overall it's a revenge movie, and despite the disturbing parts, it's fun, because it's over the top, intense, and truly BAD ASS.

So I am discontinuing my movie watching goal, however it does occur to me that it's been a long time since I've seen some of Quentin's movies.  Greg and I watched Jackie Brown not too long ago, but I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs or Natural Born Killers in years, and I never did get around to watching Kill Bill parts 1 and 2 together.  Maybe I should have a new Quentin Tarantino goal...

Life of a Kitty

I often genuinely wish I could spend a few hours every single day just lying in a sunbeam.

Alabama

Cutest Kitten

Posing on her kitty condo

Everyone Goes On Vacation To Florida On July 4

For somebody who doesn't have a job to go to, I've been kind of busy.

Greg and I had originally planned for a vacation week over July 4.  My pre-approved vacation days are a moot point now, but Greg still took the week off.

Last Saturday we had lunch with a writer friend that I met on Twitter.  I am trying to cultivate writerly friends, and how awesome is it that we met on Twitter?  She and her husband live over near the coast but drove over for lunch and tour of Orlando's finest comic shops.

Monday we went to Cape Canaveral to have lunch with my cousin, her husband and their son.  Despite hours of hard thinking, I couldn't even remember the last time I saw this cousin.  We've kept in touch through Facebook, but I swear it was at least the 1990's, and could possibly have been the 1980's when we last met.  They were on vacation and had a lovely timeshare right on the beach. We had a great time catching up, it's nice to connect with someone who knows your history and your childhood.

Tuesday we went to various hardware stores to buy stuff to put up many many shelves in our living room to hold Greg's many many DVDs and Blu-rays.  It was one of the main things we wanted to get done during our vacation week, but it turned out to be more expensive than we expected so we're putting it off until I find a job.

Wednesday we stayed home for a quiet Independence day celebration, had hamburgers and corn on the cob, and watched The Sound of Music, which Greg had never seen.  Never!  He loved it, of course.  Days later I'm still humming Sixteen Going on Seventeen, and A Problem Like Maria.

Thursday was supposed to be beach day, which I've been looking forward to for weeks, but I got my period and felt awful, so we didn't go.  I consoled myself by whining a lot.  Greg and I watched Die Hard, which he also had never seen.  I know, right?

Friday at 7am we took little, tiny, baby Alabama in to be spayed.  Then we sat around and worried about her all day.  I honestly don't know what we would do if either of us had to go in the hospital for a serious procedure, we were wrecks all day for a cat having a completely routine surgery.  At 6pm we brought her home and were tortured by her grogginess and by having to put a cone on her poor little head.  The second the cone comes off she tries to lick her incision, so we had to leave it on her, even though she is clearly completely tormented by it.  At first she freaked out and tried to pull her head out or pull it off or run away from it, then she just broke and lay down sadly in defeat, while Greg and I stood over her wringing our hands and apologizing to her.

Yesterday we managed to tear ourselves away from the kitten, who is healing just fine but still hates the cone, to go to lunch with one of Greg's old friends and two of her daughters.  They were in town on vacation for a few days, and it was fun.

Today I'm getting ready to drive up to GA to visit Mom.  I can't wait to see her, phone calls are just not the same at all.  Over time, it seems like fewer and fewer of those little daily life details get said on the phone, and I feel like I'm missing things. And we just feel so much closer after seeing each other in person.

I'll drive back home on Thursday, and we are going to the beach for sure this Saturday.  I'm already looking forward to it.

Fun With Kittens

Apparently if a kitten has fleas and it ingests those fleas, the kitten will end up with a tapeworm. 

The medicine to get rid of the tapeworm is pretty quick and easy; administered one time by the vet in the office, and once at home the next day by squirting banana-flavored goop into the kitten's mouth.  This will cure the problem in a few days.

By producing terrible diarrhea.

Now, you might think that a tiny kitten who weighs nothing and consists entirely of fluff couldn't really even have very bad diarrhea.  How much  mess could such a little thing even produce?

Well, let me tell you, the cubic area of mess increases greatly if the kitten in question can't make it to the litterbox in time, has an accident on the floor, falls into it, then shakes her leg in an attempt to get it off her.

I have never been so thankful for our ceramic tile floors.

Let me also tell you that the phrase "bad diarrhea" is also defined not only by the cubic area, but the specific location.  If one is standing in the bedroom holding the kitten in question, and at that moment the kitten has another accident, a terrible terrible accident, all over one's favorite relaxing-at-home soft t-shirt, then one is bound to consider that bad diarrhea.

The weirdest thing was how bad the kitten smelled.  We kept picking her up and examining her hind quarters for evidence of another accident, but saw nothing.  But oh, the reek. 

Then we noticed that the reek wasn't constant but came and went, and we finally figured it out: kitten diarrhea poots.

Stabbing Anxiety < Blank and Fuzzy

Well, I still don't know what is going on at work, and last week I started to get anxious and upset almost to the point of panic. PMS made things worse, for sure. I tried to keep up with my cardio workouts in the mornings, and that made a big difference with the muscle tension creeping up my shoulders and neck.  I took a few Advil PM's to help me get enough sleep. Taking a few days off last week to celebrate Greg's birthday gave me a chance to get away from the office and have a little distance, both physically and emotionally.  And it might not be possible to cuddle a sweet, nuzzling kitten without being cheered up.

This week I'm back and I just feel sort of numb.  Every night I have weird stress dreams; like wandering through a huge pot-luck lunch full of strangers and platters full of delicious looking food that I don't want to eat because I don't know anyone.  I don't feel the stabbing anxiety anymore, but I don't feel good either. 

Of course I haven't been writing.  Other than taking a few pics of Alabama I haven't done anything at all creative.  A friend invited me to go to a local Romance Writers of America meeting.  It sounds inspiring and helpful, full of experienced writers who have been published, and she said that the fact that my chick-lit novel isn't technically "romance" wouldn't matter.  I'm planning to go with her on Saturday, and there's like a little piece of my brain that is excited about it, but mostly I just feel reluctant.  I feel intimidated by the writers and overwhelmed by everything, and just thinking about going makes me tired.

I am going to try to talk myself into going.  I haven't seen this friend in a long time, and we could go have lunch afterwards, and it would certainly be fun.  I feel like I ought to use writing to relieve all this angst, or to at least escape from it, but I don't know how to do that.  My mind feels blank and fuzzy, but maybe being with other writers would spark some inspiration.

We'll see.

Alabama

She's here!  We brought her home after work on Wednesday.

We have a front sun room that has a sliding glass door and we set up her little kitten stuff out there, to keep her separated from Sydney.

Alabama exploring her new home

The next morning we took her to the vet.  Her mother was a 9 month old stray cat, so we were a little worried about feline leukemia and other scary diseases, but little Alabama checked out just fine.  She yowled a bit in the car, but did very good with the exam.

Alabama exploring the vet's office

She does have fleas, unfortunately, so we are keeping her in her own little room until we can make sure they are all gone.  She seems comfortable and happy.

Kittens don't need no stinkin' gravity!

She can be a bit talkative, which is interesting since Sydney, being a Siamese, talks a lot.  It could get pretty noisy up in here.

Did I hear someone say catnip?!

She seems very intelligent, and she's been energetic and playful and friendly. Sydney has hissed at her a few times from the other side of the sliding glass door, and she just calmly looks at Sydney like, What's up?  She ate her kitten food and drank her water and used her tiny litter box right away.  It was like she was just waiting for us to come and get her.

Overall it was a great birthday present for Greg, his heart is completely and utterly taken by this tiny little ball of fluff.

Alabama

Kittens > Work

I hate this.  There is something going on at work and I've been directed not to talk about it, so I'm afraid to write about it here, even though as far as I know no one from work reads my blog.  But it is all I can think about, any other thoughts that happen to make their way into my head get pushed out of the way sooner or later by thoughts and worries about work.  We are supposed to have a big meeting on April 4, so maybe I'll be able to talk about it after that.  Maybe I'll have answers then, I don't have any real facts right now anyway.

Greg and I are planning to go see The Hunger Games movie soon, although it might not be this weekend because, somewhat ironically, I have to work.

Greg's birthday is on April 5, and his birthday gift will be a kitten. Greg absolutely loves cats, and has never had a little baby kitten. 

When we went to the Humane Society 6 years ago we planned to adopt a kitten, but then Greg got completely distracted by the full-grown adult cats. We had to adopt one of the adults, he insisted, the adult cats are more likely to be put down since everybody wants kittens. I argued that so many kittens are born every day and not all of them do get adopted, plenty of kittens are put down too.  But it's MORE likely they'll get adopted, Greg insisted, and then when an adult siamese cat came over and jumped up on his lap, that was the end of it. She is a very decisive cat. So we brought her home and named her Sydney.

I knew Greg couldn't go back in the Humane Society and see all the poor potentially doomed adult cats again without getting sidetracked from wanting a kitten, so when a co-worker (See?  Work again!  Every thought leads back to work) mentioned having a new litter of kittens, I said we'd take one.  Last Saturday we went to meet the kittens and pick one out (One, I told Greg. ONE.) and holy crapmuffins, they are just the cutest little things with their pointy tails and their blue eyes and their wobbly attempts to claw their way up on the couch with us.

We'll pick her up after work on Wednesday April 4 (Work! That'll be the day of the meeting. Okay, stop thinking about work) and the next day will be Greg's birthday.  We took that day and the next day off, so we'll have a four-day weekend to celebrate the anniversary of Greg being born, get to know the new member of our family, take her to the vet for a check up, and introduce her to Sydney.  Hopefully that'll go fairly smoothly and fang-free, we're planning to restrict the teeny fluffball in one room for the first day or two, then gradually get them together.

Madame Sydney might wake up to acknowledge a kitten

Possibly the long weekend/mini-vacation will also include watching lots of movies and having Chinese food delivered, we'll see.

She really is adorable, as all kittens are.  She's got blue eyes and fluffy gray fur with a few little spots and streaks of white.  To continue on the tradition of naming cats after movie characters (Sydney is from High Art) Greg wants to name her Alabama (from True Romance).  Alabama was the hero of that movie, maybe our teensy little fluffball will turn out to be heroic as well.