Weekend Update November 24

The Weekend That Was - Well most of the snow came before the weekend so I'll just ignore it. I may have some photos soon (I seem to be missing a cable) No, the real excitement of the weekend was with our cat Zaphod. Z is still enough of a kitten that she lives life at warp speed. Well Saturday she went into hyperdrive. Racing around, then stopping and giving the look of panting for a couple seconds, then racing off again. Then she'd hide under the furniture, then start all over again. She was obviously in distress but we couldn't figure out what kind. She didn't want to be touched (in fact she took a good shot at me and drew blood. She's never done that before) So after about 45 minutes we called the vet. Any new liquids/solids/stuff in the house (no), new lights or electrical cords (no), any new flea treatments (no), is she alert (yes), seizures (no), the running around would seem to eliminate heart or lung problems. Hmmm, well try wiping her fur down in case she'd gotten something on it (she would occasionally groom frantically)and see if she calmed down. If not call back. I've no problem with that response from the vet. As they said they best they could do under the circumstances would be to just observe her any way. We can do that at home for free. So we looked around. The only unusual thing was the very hot pan that had the Christmas fruitcake cooling in it. Our theory is that she licked the pan and burned her tongue. By this morning she was back to normal.

Then today she jumped up on the toilet seat just as I sat down. Surprised the daylights out of us both. No one injured. So it's been an interesting weekend for her.

Yes, I bake fruitcake for Christmas. It is 3.5 pounds of candied fruit soaked in brandy and held together with a very minimal amount of cake. It's delicious and it's not Christmas till I have a slice. I will wrap it in brandy soaked cheesecloth for about a month and then send it some to each of my brothers. Do not compare this with any fruitcake you buy in a store. I do not permit that wretched stuff into my home.



The To Do List - Still whittling down those little projects. Need to start thinking about summer camp issues very soon. Yes, seriously. Plus I have some absolutely cool reading that just arrived (details soon)


What Am I Procrastinating About? - Mostly doing those small projects. Silly. I could knock off a most of them in the week and be done with them.

What Am I Watching/Reading/Listening To? Working on Kerouac's "On the Road". I'm still early on but it looks interesting. I really want to finish it before the holiday so I can get to two new books that I'm really excited about.

Finally saw "Unbreakable". Gotta admit that Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are on my list of actors I'm willing to watch in just about anything. The movie may be absolute garbage but they're just fun to watch. This is the second M. Night Shyamalan movie I've ever seen (Sixth Sense is the other). I don't remember if he did it that movie but he spends a fair amount of time early in this one with cutsey camera angles and stuff. It gets irritating. And it's unnecessary because his basic directorial style is pretty good. The Hitchcock influence is a bit heavy handed though. It's like the difference between Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. Pryor used obscenity for a purpose and Murphy just decided to crank it up. Which totally misses the point. A really clever/artsy shot should lead back into the story and then disappear. A lot of these don't.

Otherwise I really liked the movie except for the end which felt contrived and dumb.


Next Up I need to plan out a sprint through to the end of the year to really set up next year. That means getting the little projects done, and laying some ground work. This next stretch is usually very quiet for me so I don't have many distractions.

How Am I Doing I'm in an OK place right now and I have some very cool things within sight.

Peace