Goodbye Sunny.

I just got back from picking up Sunny's ashes at the vet. We had to have him euthanized a few weeks ago, he got very sick very fast. He was always a big guy, until last year. He lost a lot of weight, but he stopped losing and his personality didn't change at all. He was still eating fine and running around the house, being a bully to the other cats. Like normal.

About a week before he died he started eating less, so we started to worry. But we decided that we would let Sunny be. He was around 17 years old, and a vet visit he had last year so traumatized him that he gave me a kiss on my nose when I brought him home and removed him from the carrier. If you knew Sunny at all, you would understand how significant this was. We felt that we gave him a good life, and we learned from trying to force feed Melon last year that we never wanted to do that again. All that stuff to keep the cat alive I think is more for the owner's sake than for the cat's. We knew he would let us know when it was time, and we would try to check our emotions when that time came.

On Sunday night we thought it was time, but it was hard to let him go, and the next day was our anniversary. We tried to make him comfortable, but that was hard too. He went from jumping on the couch to not being able to stand up in about 3 days. We called the vet Monday night and they said to just bring him in anytime on Tuesday. We didn't put him in the carrier, Sarah held him on her lap. At our vet they usually give the cat a tranquilizer before they give the injection for euthanasia, but they brought him back into the room and told us that he didn't need it. When they set him down on the table and got the injection ready, Sarah thought he had already passed. The vet put her stethoscope on his stomach, and Sunny drew this long, harsh breath and scared the crap out of me. He did that a few more times while the vet got the syringe ready. My thought is that he was stressed about being at the vet and it pushed him over the edge.

I think that I was more sad for Sunny before he died than after. Usually I become unhinged with grief when one of our pets die, so I don't know why I didn't really do that this time. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or if it's because we lost 3 of our cats within a 14 month period. I don't know if my feelings will change in the future, but I guess I won't worry about that now.

Like I said in my blog about him, Sunny was a sweet guy who was constantly rebuffed by our first cat Bruiser, and we think that made him a little mean. He was definitely a couch bully, he would bat at other cats to get a good spot, or he would just flop down his 14 pounds on top of them until they moved. He was a good lap cat though, and loved to be petted, but as I said, he did not like your face anywhere near his. I love you buddy, I miss and I'll never forget you.

Dream State

The past few weeks, especially this week, have seemed sort of unreal to me. This week is definitely because of losing Bunky; he's been around for so long when he wasn't supposed to be that I thought he would ALWAYS be here with us. Work has been changing a lot too, and although it was initially my doing, I'm not really sure if it's good or not. I hope this clears up soon because it feels strange.

I thought that I would break down sobbing at some point over Bunky, at least once, since I did twice for melon. maybe that's a part of it, the grief is stuck inside and can't come out for some reason. I have moments where I well up a bit (we got a card today from the vet who told us he would be dead within a year back in 1998; it was a few simple phrases but very sweet and heartfelt. You would think vets always have clinical detachment, but I guess sometimes they don't), but no sobbing. I don't know if it will happen now, and I don't know what that means. Maybe the scab will be ripped off next week when I pick up his ashes.

Two things I wanted to mention about Bunk was the way he liked to snuggle you. He would bury his head in your armpit or elbow and be content to lay that way until you moved. Being cat people, we would try our hardest not to disturb the cats unless we lost total feeling in the snuggled appendage. I liked to scratch his back hard, I'm not sure if he liked it or not, but I wouldn't stop until he made this "mrat" noise. I hope he liked it. He would also give you a kiss on the mouth sometimes, but you really had to beg for it. He gave me one on Saturday, which is nice to remember now.

I still hope to write blogs about the rest of our animals, past and present. I'll try to get moving on that. Taking a break from Facebook to do something mildly constructive on the internet would be a refreshing change of pace. You may also have noticed that my book blog posts have fallen by the wayside. I was going to note that here awhile back when I joined Goodreads, but I stopped updating that too. Oh well, maybe I'll try again next year. One book-related promise I made to myself is to read the children's book The Enormous Egg this year. Why? The summer between 4th and 5th grade, we did a summer reading project where you would get a prize if you read the most books. I forgot what the prize was, but I won handily with 100 books. The Enormous Egg was on the list, but I actually did not read it. I had a pile of library books that had to be returned, so I just returned them all and told my mom that I had read them all. I felt bad about it, but it wouldn't have affected the outcome. To this day I feel bad about this, which is why I finally want to read it. Is that weird?

Goodbye Bunky.

I hoped that I wouldn't have to write another one of these posts so soon after Melon passed away, but it was not to be.

Bunky had been sneezing on and off for a few weeks and had also lost some weight. We had planned on taking him to the vet, but we were having some trouble paying our bills, so we kept putting it off. Aside from the sneezing, he seemed fine. He was eating well and constantly underfoot as usual, especially when I was preparing food. This past Friday he was in the kitchen, on his hind legs begging for cheese. Saturday he was with us on the couch while we were watching tv and had taken a nap with us in the afternoon. By Sunday though, he didn't respond at all to us calling for him, and also was not interested in the wet food we gave to him (he normally ate dry food). Remembering what Melon went through, we got the syringe out and gave him the juice from the cat food, then some chicken broth later on. He threw some of it back up but kept most of it down, which made us think that because he was congested, he couldn't smell the food and didn't want to eat it. So we put him in the bathroom when we took a shower and ran it a few times when we weren't, and it seemed to help him. Late Sunday night he was very lethargic and fighting the force feeding more, and he would make this long, distressed mewling sound which scared me. We talked about going to the emergency vet, but we knew we couldn't afford it.

I called our regular vet the next morning while I was at work. The only time they could fit us in was at 10, but I couldn't get off work that early on short notice, and Sarah couldn't leave work because she was there by herself. The vet receptionist made me feel bad about that, which I didn't care for. We settled on Tuesday at 10, so we tried to make Bunky comfortable until then. We tried giving him more broth, but he was fighting us even more. I went to bed early so I could get out of work in time to take him to the vet the next morning. I got up at 10 and Sarah was upset and said that we should probably take him to the emergency vet to have him euthanized. She said he looked yellow like Melon did, so it was probably going to mean more force feeding for him if we tried to keep him alive. We had agreed to stop doing this to Melon, so it made sense to do the same for Bunky, even though it hurt both of us to lose him.

We took him to the emergency vet and they told us what we feared, that he was most likely experiencing liver failure and had pneumonia, and there was no guarantee that he would be able to bounce back, so we let him go. The really strange thing was that just the week before, I had a dream that I was chasing Bunky and finally caught him, because he needed to be put to sleep. I finally caught him and gave him half a pill (we give our dog half a thyrozine pill every meal), and he died in my arms. It freaked me out a little bit when I remembered it afterwards.

For some reason losing Bunky was not as upsetting to me as losing Melon was. One reason may have been that we knew he was going to die from the first day we had him. My sister said that maybe because we just went through this with Melon, it made Bunky's death easier to deal with. Also, he went downhill so fast. Aside from the sneezing, he didn't seem sick at all on Friday. I'm not saying I'm not upset at all; I am. When I came home from work, he was always the first to greet me at the door, and I missed that yesterday. It was also weird last night when I was making dinner, no one was in the kitchen looking for food. I take comfort in the fact that we helped him defy the odds and that he lived a long and hopefully happy life. He could get overbearing at times, and I feel bad about how I reacted to that sometimes. But like Sarah said, he just wanted to always be near us, and that's not a bad thing.

Rest in peace Bunky, I'm glad that you came into our lives and I love you very much and I will miss you terribly.

Winnie.

Continuing our cat series, Winnie is now the 3rd in command. I mentioned him in passing before, he was one of the first four domesticated cats that we took in as rescues (the first was a single feral mom and her kittens who stayed in our bathroom). The 4 cats were perfectly healthy; Sarah brought them home because the woman who had them didn't want them anymore and was going to take them to the SPCA, which was definitely not a no-kill shelter back then. Joining Winnie was an annoying but cute kitten named Tigger, and a pregnant married couple named Kanga and Blackfoot (bet you can't guess what we named one of Kanga's babies!).

Winnie was very skittish when he first came to us. He stayed under the bed for at least a week until he got to know us.Eventually we made friends with him and he became a very sweet boy. He also became a sort of mediator between all of the cats as the room he was in filled up with more cats. He was friendly to everyone and liked to play with the other cats and with any kind of dangly toy (we have one that has a jingle bell on it that is Winnie's favorite).

Eventually we adopted out most everyone out of the room so we could have it back as a bedroom, but Winnie wasn't one of them. We put the few remaining cats back outside for a little bit (they were all outdoor cats to begin with), but then we decided to bring them back inside and keep them ourselves. I think Winnie still remembers this brief period, as every once in awhile he manages to escape. He also likes to man the doors and windows too see what is going on outside. We can tell when there is a feline interloper outside, because Winnie meows weirdly when he sees one. We can also tell when something interesting is happening outside by Winnie trotting quickly from window to door to window. All part of the curiousness, I guess.

Winnie had a little bit of trouble convincing Sunny and Bunk that he could be their friend, but he eventually won everyone over. We were a little worried about Winnie catching HIV from those two, but we found out later that someone who gave us their cats for rescue didn't tell us that one of them was FIV positive, so Winnie may have already had it. But when we had him tested later on, he was negative, so we think he is immune to it.

Winnie is about 9 and is still very active. I mentioned the constant trotting, but he also likes wrestling. Bailey is his main partner, but Melon also liked to wrestle with Winnie. Winnie would wrestle with them for a few minutes, then fake walk away and comeback and attack. Very sneaky.

Winnie was in the first I Can Has Cheezburger book! If you need that explained to you, I can't help you. Sarah bought an old library card catalog to put her rubber stamps into. She was in the midst of doing that when I found that Winnie had climbed into it and was just hanging out in there. I went to get the camera, and he actually stayed in there until after I had gotten a few pictures. I uploaded it to Cheezburger and put a caption on it (which in retrospect, doesn't make any sense). I was disappointed that it didn't get any votes or make the homepage, and I forgot about it until I got an email from the Cheezburger people, who wanted to use it in their first book. Check towards the end of the book for the picture of Winnie!

I'm glad we kept Winnie. He is sweet boy and plays well with others, which I cannot say about all of the cats. Plus, he hasn't really been sick. One time he was moping excessively and not active at all, but we took him to the vet, he got a shot and was all better. Right now he is "mowing," and we can't figure out why, so he is going back to the vet. he usually takes it in stride, and they love him at the vet because he is so good-natured. The only negative against Winnie is his penchant for using my testicles as a jumping-off point when he doesn't want to be on my lap anymore. :(

Books #5 & #6

My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult

I have read a few of Jodi Picoult's books before; I was introduced to her work in a book club and I read another after that one because I enjoyed it. She apparently specializes in fictionalized accounts of real life news stories. This one happened in the early part of this century, where a couple had a daughter with a life threatening disease, and they conceive a baby (with the help of reproductive medicine specialists) so they can use the blood from the umbilical cord to help save the daughter. Jodi Picoult picks it up from there, and has the 13 year old donor daughter sue her parents for medical emancipation. I enjoyed the book, it was well written and I liked most of the characters. However, the ending was unforgivable. I won't spoil it for anyone, but it cast a pall over the rest of the book for me.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

I tend to stay away from what everyone else labels as science fiction, so I'm just getting to this. I did read The Man in the High Castle years ago and enjoyed it, but I suppose I didn't consider it to be sci-fi. I knew it had been the basis for Blade Runner, but I haven't seen that either (I plan to now). Rick Deckard is the main character, his job is to retire (kill) androids on what's left of Earth, which was devastated by a nuclear war, which has also wiped out most of the animal species. There are 6 escaped Nexus-6 model androids on Earth, and they are so advanced that they could possibly pass the empathy tests developed to identify them.

I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this, I liked it a lot and finished it very quickly so I could find out what happened. Even if you're not a sci-fi nut, I think you will enjoy this book. I am planning to read more of Philip K. Dick's books, and I will definitely see Blade Runner.

I am currently reading Life Of Pi by Yann Martel, so look for a poorly thought out post for that book soon!

Goodbye Melon.

Those of you who are my friends on Facebook may know that our sweet girl Melon passed away on Saturday. We think she was around 9 or so. I wrote the blog post about her towards the end of January, and she was still very heavy then. She started to lose weight soon after that. We thought it was because she was constantly running around and wrestling with a few of our other cats. We had just brought in Hedwig to be an inside cat a few months previous, and she and Melon kind of became chasing buddies, i.e. they would chase each other all over the house. That's why we didn't think anything of the weight loss.

We went on vacation in the beginning of March, and Melon had dropped some more weight, but she was still very active with the other cats. When we came back it was a different story. She was markedly thinner than she was when we left, and she was hardly active at all. The Monday after we came back, she could jump on our bed, but by Wednesday she couldn't. She would hang on the side until we lifted her up. We took her to the vet and he told us that her liver was failing. He showed me where her skin was yellow, which I had not noticed before. He told us that we had to make her eat, which was the only way she could have a chance at getting better. He didn't know if the FIV was going to be a complication until we could stabilize her liver.

One option was a feeding tube, which involved surgery. I was there with Melon by myself so I told the vet I had to talk to Sarah about it. He gave us some special food and a large syringe and told us in the meantime to force feed her. She was so weak that force feeding her with the syringe wasn't a problem, but she did throw up quite a few times right after. We looked up feline feeding tubes on the web, and all the cats that had them looked miserable. We didn't think she would adapt well to the feeding tube, because she was constantly scratching at her pet collar thing after she had her surgery. She was also throwing up, which meant she could also throw up the feeding tube. The vet also said that there was no guarantee how long it would take her to eat by herself again, if at all.

We took her back to the vet after five days, and she hadn't lost any weight, so we decided to try harder with the force feeding. She was also dehydrated, so the vet gave us an IV drip bag that we had to use on her with a needle. I was hesitant to do this, and Sarah doesn't even like looking at needles, but Melon took the needle okay the first few times while Sarah held her. Thursday night was the end of the IV fluids though, she was struggling more and the needle came out halfway through. Through all of this, she would have good times and bad. She might be really bad in the morning, but she would be perky and a little active when I got home from work. But the force feeding was making all of us miserable.

Friday morning while I was at work, I got a tearful call from Sarah. She had tried force feeding Melon that morning, but she threw it back up. Sarah didn't want to torture her anymore, and I was in agreement, even though I didn't want to lose Melon. Sarah said she would call to make an appointment to euthanize Melon that night, but I asked her to make it for next morning, so Melon could have one last peaceful night with us. Both of us were glad that we had that last night together, even if I had to go to work early so we could make the appointment. Melon was glad too, as she seemed much happier not being poked or prodded.

The night at work was rough, because all I could think about was Melon and how she wouldn't be with us anymore. I was very upset, as she had become my favorite, but I knew she was suffering and I didn't want her to hurt anymore. My brain knew this, but my heart didn't. We took her to the vet without a carrier this time so she wouldn't be too stressed out. The people at the vet were very nice, they allow you to pay beforehand so you don't have to linger too long afterwards if you're upset. The vet was different from the one who initially treated Melon, but we know her well and she was very good to us and Melon. Both of us were crying hard after she was gone, and Sarah had to leave the room before I did. I didn't want to leave because I would never see her again.

I managed to hold it together somewhat until we got home, and it hit me like a ton of bricks and I pretty much broke down sobbing for about 5 minutes. Losing pets is extremely hard for me, I'm actually crying right now as I'm writing this. Like I said before, I didn't want her to suffer, but a part of me wanted to be selfish and keep her with us so it wouldn't hurt. I know we did the right thing for her, even if it did make us sad.

When we came back from the vet, I took everything out of our bedroom that we put in there special for Melon. I didn't want to be reminded of her being sick. We both took a nap after that, but I didn't sleep well. I know I had dreams about Melon, but I couldn't remember them. Last night I had a dream that I was chasing Hedwig through a mall, and somehow she was yelling (or meowing, I guess) Melon's name over and over as she ran. We went to my in-laws for dinner, but I wasn't all there, I was still thinking about Melon. It hit me hard again when we went to bed, because she had spent the last week and a half with us in the bedroom. The same thing happened last night when I went to bed, and I'm sure it will happen tonight as well. It will take time. The worst part about that is that we had her cremated separately, so it will hurt all over again when I go to pick up her ashes. We never liked the fact of having our pets cremated anonymously. We buried the first cat we had to have cremated, but not the ones after that. We didn't want them to be cold underground. I know that sounds stupid, but that's how we feel.

Melon, you were such a good, brave, sweet, beautiful girl. I'm so glad that we were able to be your people, even if it was for only a short time. We and all of your kitty and doggie friends will miss you very much. Rest in peace sweet girl, we love you so much.

Book #4

Under The Dome, by Stephen King

Every time I go to the library, I check the Stephen King section because I have a backlog of his books that I need to read. I would reserve them, but then I'm never able to make it to the library in time, and they get put back into circulation. But this time I managed to find one I hadn't read, and Good Lord, it is a large one, over 1000 pages. And it figures that it took me the least amount of time to read it of the books I have read so far this year. But I read most of it on the plane to Vegas and the drive to AZ, so that's why I finished it so quickly.

Not much to tell about this one, it's not one of my favorites of his, but I didn't hate it like the Tommyknockers (bleah). It's typical Stephen King, supernatural tales filled with endless description (which I do like). It was kind of like putting on an old pair of jeans, comfy and familiar. For awhile there he kind of got away from horror/supernatural, and I really enjoyed those novels very much (Hearts In Atlantis is probably my second favorite of his). I think all I have left of his is two short story collections and whatever he just released. The most exciting news is that there will be another Dark Tower book! It's supposed to come out next year, but I most likely will not be in line the day it is released. I'll wait a year or two until I find it in the stacks.

Book #3

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

Quite a few years ago (before we got an iPod), I began to take a lot of audiobooks out of the library. I started with a few that I had already read, but then I began to listen to books that I hadn't read yet. At first I thought it was cheating, but I soon changed my mind. I think I was less lazy around the house back then, and I was always doing things, so I didn't have time to sit and read. The only time I ever sat down to read was on my lunch break at work (still true to this day, for books at least). But since I got an iPod and Sarah got me into podcasts and I have grown fat and lazy, all of that has changed.

When I was into audiobooks, there was one reader that I really liked, named George Guidall, and I would get books that I never heard of before just because he had read them. One of those was I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb, a sprawling book about twin brothers and the mental illness that affects one of them. At the end of the audiobooks, there's usually a section where there are other books you'll enjoy if you liked this one are mentioned, and She's Come Undone was listed there, so I got the audiobook for it. My audiobook reading comprehension is just as bad as my regular reading comprehension, because I did not remember that I had listened to this book when I found a copy at Sarah's lending library at her work. It wasn't until halfway through that I thought that I MAY have already listened to it. It was nice though, because it was mostly new to me again.

The story is about Dolores, a girl who comes from a broken home and is raped by a neighbor in her adolescent years. She can't really find comfort in her family, so she turns to food and television, and eventually has to spend time in a mental institution. After her constant therapy there, she leaves and gets married, which ultimately fails when Dolores realizes she is married for the wrong reasons. After her divorce, she has some ups and downs and also meets Thayer, who is smitten with her and willing to wait until Dolores is ready. They eventually marry and at the end of the book, Dolores is seemingly at peace with herself.

I guess this didn't have the same affect on me as I Know This Much Is True because I didn't remember it at all. It was a good book though, the most amazing part of it being written by a man from the first person perspective of a woman. But of course, I am a man too, so I only have second-hand info to go on. It's written very well and keeps you engaged. Like I mentioned, I normally only read at work, but I read this at home too because I wanted to know all the things that were constantly happening to Dolores.

This was an Oprah Book Club pick in 1996, 4 years after it was released. I didn't know she was doing the Book Club in the 90s, I'm not really an Oprah follower, but I assume that it did a pretty good business after that. I have only read these two books by Wally Lamb; don't be put off by their length, they are both well worth the effort. I do recommend this book to any reader, but I would read I Know This Much Is True first.

Book #4 was supposed to be Uncle Tom's Cabin. We were reading that for Classic Book Club, which Sarah runs at the library. We both started reading it, but neither of were able to finish it. So of course, a complete stranger showed up for the first time at Classic Book Club, so we talked about the book a little and also about Civil Rights in the 50s and 60s. It turned out to be a very interesting discussion.

The actual Book #4 is Under The Dome by Stephen King, because I have to keep up with the literature, right? :/

Book #2

My Turn At Bat by Ted Williams and John Underwood

This doesn't bode well, I finished the book over a week ago. Oh well.

I of course knew of Ted Williams and his best season average record (mainly because George Brett came close however many years ago), but that was about it. As a Yankees fan growing up, I was supposed to hate the Red Sox, so I didn't really look into any of their history, other than Babe Ruth and the Curse. But I digress.

This book showed up at Sarah's lending library that she has at work, so I picked it up, hoping it would get me excited to watch some baseball this year (I read Jim Bouton's Ball Four around this time last year, but it didn't work). It was definitely an interesting read. You get the feeling that however much Ted Williams loved and intently studied baseball, he had more fun fishing. The book goes through his not so great childhood and his playing career and his stormy relationship with sportswriters and fans. He definitely hated most sports writers, but he seemed kind of ambivalent about his fans. He apparently only tipped his cap to the fans once, and refused to do it ever again, despite their love for him. I really didn't understand that, but what do I know? Maybe he just wanted to go fishing.

I did not know that he was in WWII and Korea and lost 5 seasons of playing time. It makes you wonder how many more records he would have had, as he hit over 500 home runs during his career. It also is puzzling that the Red Sox never parlayed a World Series win during Williams' tenure there (they only made it once, and Williams only went 5 for 25), but I suppose that one player does not a team make.

The impression I had of Williams before I read the book was that of an excellent player who wasn't a team player and was mean to fans. From reading the book (and since he had a co-writer, you really don't know how much was embellished or cut out), this idea didn't really change very much for me, but he was pretty self-effacing. He was his own hardest critic, even more so than the sports writers he loathed. He spells out in the book that the reason he was so good is that he was constantly practicing and striving to be better. His one goal was to be the greatest hitter who ever lived, and I think he came pretty close to succeeding on that front.

I highly recommend this book to any baseball fan, especially if you like the glory days of baseball, when substance abuse meant drinking a lot and eating a ton of hot dogs before the game. The names he rattles off almost second-handedly in the book are like a Who's Who of baseball greats from the past. The book was written in 1969, after he had retired as a player and was about to start managing the Washington Senators (I had no idea they were still around in 1969). Since I finished the book I have done some Googling and found some unsavory info about Williams' cryogenically frozen head, which I won't go into here.

I am currently reading She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, which I also found at Sarah's library. I picked it because I listened to the book on tape of I Know This Much Is True (also by Lamb), and I loved it. I have since discovered that I may have listened to this one also, but I barely remember it, so it will still be a surprise. I stopped listening to books on tape when I started getting into podcasts a few years ago, so therefore I read less, if you count that as reading (I do).

Melon

I realized that I have been errant in keeping up with blogs about our cats, so here is another in a continuing series that I will try to update more frequently.

In 2004 Sarah and I started doing cat rescue. We had a feral mom and her kittens in the downstairs bathroom (which we weren't really using at the time), and four cats in the spare bedroom upstairs. These cats were on their way to the SPCA to be put down by their annoyed owner until Sarah stepped in and brought them home. More on them later.

In the midst of this, we thought it would be a GREAT idea to have another cat of our own, as we only had two at the time (those were the days). We were taking our rescue cats to the Delaware Humane Association because they had a very inexpensive spay/neuter program, compared to the local vets. We were looking through their website one day, and they had a photo gallery of all of the available animals for adoption, and we saw this photo of Melon:

Sarah and I both fell in love with Melon from this picture. The caption said he was a sweet boy and that he had FIV. Both of our cats also had FIV, so we figured what's one more cat? Sure.

I took a trip up to DHA to meet Melon. The first thing I found out was that he was a she, they assumed that Melon was a boy because she was an orange tabby, which is apparently rare in females (score!). They kept the sick cats out behind the main building, I don't remember if it was another building or just a shelter, but whomever was sick and contagious were kept out there. One of the staff took me out there and went inside and brought Melon out, into what I guess was the foyer part. There were other cats there walking around, seemingly starved for attention, and it did make me kind of sad and I wanted to take all of them home. The woman gave Melon to me and she was very small and very sweet, and let me put my face up to hers, which hardly any of the cats at home let me do. I decided that I wanted to take her home, and I thought Sarah would agree.

The director of DHA had gotten wind that I was there and was looking to adopt an FIV positive cat. He came out and asked me a lot of questions, I guess he wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to perform experiments on Melon or something like that. I assured him that we had FIV cats at home and just wanted to add to the party. He seemed assuaged by that and I made an appointment for Sarah and I to come back and pick her up.

Our other two cats at the time were male (incidentally, they both still are male), and Melon did not get along with them at all. She was always growling at them when they walked by her, and they seemed to give her a wide berth (the year before, we had acted as a sort of hospice for a terminally ill female cat who acted pretty much the same as Melon, more on her later). She also was very standoffish to us. It took her about 3 years before she would sit with us on the couch or tolerate petting from us. Our poor dog Niffler really got the short end of the deal, as he was never hostile to any of the cats, but they always were to him (not for long, more on that later, probably much later).

Melon eventually ingratiated herself to us and the rest of the cats, and will play with some of them, but not all of them. She really enjoys ripping up carpet, especially when she has a freakout and rips up the carpeting on the stairs. She's really done a number on those stairs.

A few years ago she got sick and she needed exploratory surgery. When she came home she had to wear a collar (which she was VERY happy about, as you can see) and stay in our room by herself for close to a month. She made a divot in the carpet by the door, always trying to get out. Later on, after she was better, she made another divot on the opposite side of the door trying to get back in. Cats.

Luckily the vet couldn't find anything, but after the surgery she... changed, a little bit. She gained a lot of weight, which is weird because she chases the other cats around quite a bit (we call her Melon Ball). When she lays on the floor on her side her legs almost stick up in the air. She also meows differently. I don't know how to describe it, maybe it sounds scratchier than her meow used to, but it's definitely different. She also has this weird tic with her tongue now, like she's trying to clean herself but failing. She's still a sweetheart though, maybe even moreso than before the surgery. She's a very good sleeping companion, she's not one who is trying to get you to pet her when you're trying to go to sleep. She stays near the foot of the bed and observes personal space rules. She will come to you if you call her to get some pets, but then she will go back to the foot of the bed when she gets tired of it. She also likes sitting on our lap or by our feet when we're on the couch watching tv. She makes the recliner go back down when she jumps on it though. She is a very sweet girl and even though we had too many cats at the time we got her, I'm glad we did.

Book #1

As I mentioned in my last post, I will be writing about all of the books I read this year, and perhaps every year. I don't know how good it will come out because I'm not that good at reviewing any kind of media, other than "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." Perhaps I will get better as the year progresses. That would be nice.

Enemies and Allies, by Kevin J. Anderson

This book was given to me by my friend Adam for my birthday last month. I love Batman and have for a long time, but my exposure to Superman has only been through TV and movies, and of course general pop culture. I was looking forward to reading this book because I have a few Batman short story books that I read and enjoyed very much. It's kind of nice to read a story about Batman and not have to look at a lot of pictures. I know this is practically blasphemy to comics fans, but I have always been more of a story person. I catch myself quite a bit reading the story in a comic and barely glancing at the art.

The book is set in the 1950s and revolves around how Batman and Superman met and had to unite against their common foe, Lex Luthor. The basic tropes of each character are added along the way, and some of the aforementioned pop culture tidbits relevant to each character are mentioned. I did like that, and I didn't think it was overused to the point of corniness.

This being a superhero book set in the 50s, you can guess the outcome. It was an easy read and I enjoyed it very much. I usually only read books during my lunch break at work; what I read at home is usually just Entertainment Weekly or other magazines. But I did manage to get a few chapters of Enemies and Allies in at home as well, so that's usually a sign of a good book for me. My only complaint is that there seemed to be more chapters based around Superman than Batman (each chapter was headed by the Bat symbol or the Superman symbol, so you knew who the main focus of the chapter would be). Anderson really plays up the differences in the two superheroes; the almost goody-two-shoes alien Boy Scout Superman, and the dark, law-breaking Batman. That's probably why I prefer Batman, because he could actually exist, but in this day and age someone would be able to find his secret identity very quickly.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to a comics fan or a Batman/Superman movie or TV fan. You don't really need to know the backstory of each character to enjoy the book, as Anderson basically gives all of that to you during the book. But if you're not a superhero fan, you should probably read something else.

Wow, this was a lot harder than I thought. I'm definitely not a book reviewer, so I'll have to come up with a different method of writing about the books I read. The next book is about the baseball player Ted Williams, so that will be interesting. I don't know much about him aside from the fact that he is one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball. And he's angry.

Recycled Blog Idea/Adulthood Dream Come True

Happy New Year!

I was looking at a friend of a friend's blog, just out of curiosity, and she had posts relating to books she had read during the year. For example, the first book she completed was posted as Book 1, etc. I thought this was a cool idea and that I would try to copy it this year. I'm not a book reviewer by any means, but I will share my thoughts on said book and give it a thumbs up or down. I just started a new book yesterday about Batman and Superman, that I got for my birthday from my friend Adam. It's pretty good so far. Before that I read Blockade Billy by Stephen King, which I had not heard about until I saw it on the shelf at my library. It's more like a short story, it only took me a few lunch breaks to read it. Stephen King loves baseball, and it comes through in this story. It was kind of weird too, because King wrote it as if the character telling the story was telling it to him. I have a lot to catch up on with Stephen King, so you'll probably see me write about some of his books this year.

A few years ago, we went to a local restaurant for the first time, and they had on the menu something called pineapple bread pudding. I had never had it, and it sounded good, so I ordered it. It turns out that I had had it, and quite often when I was a kid. My paternal grandmother always made it, and I had totally forgotten about it. It was exactly like the scene in Ratatouille where the critic is instantly transported back to his childhood (this happened before I saw the movie) after taking a bite of the ratatouille. I thought I was going to start crying right there in the restaurant, but I managed to hold it together.

After I had this experience, and I saw the movie, I started to hope that one day I could do the same thing for someone else. As I have mentioned, my dad was a baker when I grew up, so we had a lot of bakery stuff around the house. Christmas was my favorite time because there was a lot of different stuff that you didn't get the rest of the year, stollen being my favorite. When I got to my current job I started to experiment with it at Christmas time. I started it maybe 5 or 6 years ago (my manager looked at me funny when I asked for a bottle of rum), and I could barely give it away. This year, I had an order for 2 before I even started making them, and people came in and asked for stollen specifically. I'm not making hundreds of stollen every year, but it's a far cry from that first year.

The day before Christmas Eve was a pretty emotional day for me. I was tired as my schedule ramps up around the holidays, and the store ran out of propane, so all of our ovens were down, ruining some of the stuff I had made. I actually threw a bucket in the back room and put a hole in the wall that day, which I feel bad about now. After we opened and had put the stollen out, one of the managers was walking out to the store when a customer stopped him and asked him about the stollen. He referred her to me (I'm the only one who makes it, my co-workers are afraid of it). She told me that it was delicious, and that it made her husband cry because it reminded him of the stollen his mother used to make. I don't remember what I said to her because I was concentrating hard on not losing it right there in front of everyone (I managed to bottle it up until I got home). But whoever you are, that was best compliment I ever could have gotten and probably ever will get. Thank you for making the holiday better for me.

John Lennon and George Harrison

Today is a bad day for Beatles fans, quite possibly the worst. As we know, John Lennon was murdered on this day in 1980 by Mark David Chapman (many Beatles fans won't mention his name, which I think is ridiculous, it's not going to change what happened and never will). This is just my thoughts about that day and also November 29, 2001, the day George Harrison died.

I wrote in one of my November blogs last year about my friend Steve coming over the morning after. We were in 5th grade at the time, and I think he knew more about them than I did, he certainly had more of their records than I. At one point during the school day we switched classrooms (there were 2 fifth grade classes, and they switched us a few times a day, to make us woefully unprepared for class switching in middle school). The other teacher (Mrs. Cooper) asked us if we knew what happened last night, and I clearly remember my shouted-out answer: "Some jerk shot John Lennon." I don't remember exactly what we talked about after that, but Mrs. Cooper seemed a little angry about it, like Steve did that morning.

The radio of course was filled with Lennon and Beatles music. I made a few tapes of some of that, I think mostly from WNEW-FM out of NYC, but they have been lost to time. I know I played them quite a bit after the murder. There were plenty of TV shows as well, and I remember taping a few of those too, but they met the same fate as the radio show.

That Sunday was the vigil in Central Park that Yoko asked for. People gathered there at 2 pm and had 10 minutes of silence. That morning I went with my dad to get wood for the stove that we had, but not because I wanted to. I brought a radio with me because the stations were still playing all Beatles and Lennon solo stuff. We went back to my dad's friend's house before 2, and my dad's friend put on his stereo so I could listen to WNEW. I sat alone in that room while everyone else was in the kitchen getting ready for lunch. The vigil started and WNEW was silent, but I didn't realize that the rest of the house was also silent. A few minutes later my dad came in and tapped me on the shoulder and gestured for me to come with him. There was a room in front of the house where they had a TV, and everyone was gathered around it, watching live coverage of the vigil. No one said a word until it was over.

I was sad about the murder, but I didn't cry, because I didn't really know what I had lost. After that, I jumped into the Paul sucks because he's still alive camp (which a LOT of people are still in, sadly) and read as much about the Beatles and John Lennon that I could, and I became more aware of the loss over time. A few years ago I was watching the Lennon Legend DVD (a collection of videos for his songs), and after a few songs I found tears streaming down my face. I think it was more for what could have been, which is a bit selfish.

George Harrison's death was a different story, although it was as much a surprise to me as John's death was. Despite my internet obsession in 2001, I really didn't know he was that sick, and when I saw his death mentioned on a news site, it was a shock. What was also a shock was the amount of coverage that his death received. It wasn't nearly as much as John had, even in the pre-internet days, but it was more than I expected. I remember watching various news channels on Saturday night (he passed away on Thursday) well into the night, and they all had extended coverage about George and broke away occasionally for other news. I also watched A Hard Day's Night and Help! that night too, I was home by myself and I was doing a cross-stitch project that I had to finish by the next day, so I was up very late.

I did cry a little that night for George. I was into the Beatles more than ever at that time, the mp3 was fairly new and I was finding a lot of Beatles bootlegs online that I had never heard before. George is definitely the unsung hero of the Beatles. I was also getting into George's solo stuff more too, my child- and early-adulthood being dominated by John and Paul, and even Ringo, since he was putting out albums where George wasn't. The year after George's death, the Concert for George happened, and that was hard to watch without crying. I still haven't watched the whole thing, despite being a celebration of his life, not a remembrance of his death.

And I guess that's the thing, we can be sad that these two men are gone, but we still have and will always have their music to listen to and enjoy, and that makes me happy.

My drunken exploits

You may surmise from my frequent writings of pouring bourbon and other liquors over things that I eat, that I like to drink a lot. That is not the case at all, I rarely drink. If I do, it is at home or at some one's house, where it is much cheaper than drinking at a restaurant or bar. I do that occasionally, however. For example, I went with my family to Trader Vic's, and I deemed it necessary to have a pina colada while I was there.

When I was in high school and drinking was prevalent amongst my friends, I didn't drink. I think the main reason was that I was afraid. Of what, I don't know, maybe getting in trouble for being underage, or perhaps getting into an accident (this was the heyday of MADD, I remember watching the TV movie made about it, I think Jamie Lee Curtis was in it). It wasn't until after high school that I began dabbling, mainly wine coolers, because I didn't like the taste of alcohol. I was introduced to the screwdriver and fuzzy navel soon enough, and I loved those. I think I had shots exactly once, I don't remember what kind of liquor it was, but I didn't like it.

My 21st birthday rolled around, and I decided (or my friends decided for me) that I would get drunk. If I remember right, I had a mudslide and a kamikaze, and maybe a screwdriver or two. But I was really sozzled, I threw up quite a few times (I had also eaten an entire pizza), and I still have a scar on my right middle finger from burning it with a cigarette I was smoking (I didn't smoke). I passed out around 3 am, and I had the worst case of cottonmouth the next morning. I felt truly awful, and I guess I got it out of my system, because I never did that again to that extent.

Because of this, I have an extremely low tolerance for alcohol. The aforementioned pina colada made me silly for the rest of the night. Sarah and I went to the LoneStar Steakhouse when we were still in NJ, and she drove so I could try the Pecos Peach, which was basically a Slurpee with alcohol in it. I liked the first one so much that I had another, and I was pretty well toasted after that. We ordered dessert, and I got a brownie a la mode, which contained the worst brownie I have ever eaten. Since I was drunk, I brought this to the server's attention, and he brought the manager out. I told the manager how bad the brownie was, and I offered to go into the kitchen and show them how to make brownies, to which he politely declined. Sarah laughs about this incident now, but she probably wasn't then.

Nowadays I don't drink at restaurants because as I mentioned, it's too expensive, but I also don't trust myself to drive, since such a small amount affects me so much. So I limit it to Christmas time, when I make fruitcakes and cookies loaded with alcohol. I also make an egg nog recipe that came from a cousin, we went to their house for New year's a long time ago, and they had this egg nog on their patio, so it was almost like ice cream, and it was delicious. It was also chock full of alcohol (rum, brandy, and bourbon), but I haven't been able to make mine taste the same as theirs, probably due to the fact that I usually buy the cheap stuff, since I use it for cooking. The bottles I buy usually last a few years, so maybe I should upgrade next time.

Cheers!

Yeah, I know (Christmas Sweet Edition).

Surprised to see me so soon? Me too.

If you know me you know I like to eat. This is one of my favorite times of the year for that activity, because there are lots of Christmas goodies that I really enjoy. One thing is cookies. I don't normally make or eat many cookies during the year, but all bets are off during December. I usually spend a few days and make a variety of 10-15 kinds of cookies, then I distribute them to our jobs and families. After a healthy distribution to myself, of course. One of my favorite specifically Christmas cookies is pfefferneusse, which I used to eat a lot as a kid, then lost touch with for many years. A few years back I discovered that Archway made them every year, and I also found their Fruit Cake cookies (now discontinued), Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, and Cashew Nougats. They are a little expensive, and they don't usually last too long in our house, but this year I thought that I should put a limit on how many of them I eat (Sarah bought me 12 boxes of pfefferneusse last year, because they can be hard to find). I have tried making the pfefferneusse myself on a few occasions, but they never come out right. The Archway cookies have raisin paste in them, which is probably why Mine don't taste right. I have to google raisin paste, maybe I can make it myself.

Another thing I like is stollen, which is a German Christmas bread that has nuts and fruit in it. It can just have raisins, but it can also have the yucky fruit that's in fruitcake that no one likes (I love fruitcake too, but I make my own in early September and pour bourbon on it every week until Christmas or until I break down). I made a stollen at home last year that was awesome, but it didn't translate well at work. I bought one at a German bakery last year as well, and it was good, but not worth the 16 bucks (mine is 5 bucks, albeit a bit smaller). I did find out recently that the German bakery uses a base for the stollen, which made me kind of sad.

Anyway, at one of our local supermarkets, they get the Archway cookies and 3 different kinds of stollen in every year at this time. I usually get the marzipan one, it has a almond paste core running through the bread. I went to this market yesterday, and they had the Archway cookies and the stollen, but this year they also had a competitor for Archway (I forget the brand), and the cookies were cheaper. I picked up a stollen and a box of the competitor's cashew nougats. The competitor didn't have pfefferneusse, but they did have bells and stars sugar cookies, which Archway doesn't make anymore.

I managed to wait until I got home to try the cookies. I ate two of them and that was it for me. There was an overpowering butter flavor taste to them that I didn't like, so I gave them to Sarah to take to work with her. I don't know if the Archway cashew nougats taste like that, it's been awhile since I've had theirs, but I won't try them now. Especially since I tried their two new flavors, Candy Cane and Snow Top. Candy Cane is a white sugar cookie with candy cane bits in it, which I did like, but I don't think I will buy them again (I made a test batch of a recipe from King Arthur Flour of a chocolate cookie with candy cane bits, and while I didn't really like them right after they were baked, they were awesome the next day). Sarah thought they tasted like medicine. The Snow Tops are chocolate cookies with nuts in them, very bland actually. Definitely won't be buying those again.

The same thing happened with the stollen, I even at two slices of it and I didn't really care for it. I'm not sure what this means. Perhaps my tastebuds are being slowly destroyed by my discovery of hot sauce this year? Am I growing out of eating sweets? That would be nice, but all other signs point to no. I think it might be karma. I really enjoy cooking and baking, but I only really bake at work and I don't do too much cooking that is very involved. When I do spend some serious time making a meal, it usually turns out really good. I found a stollen recipe in one of my cookbooks where the method is very similar to the one my dad made in his bakery, so I'm looking forward to trying that. And the weekend after next I have planned for my cookie baking, which Sarah is going to help me with. I'm going to start on Thursday doing prep, because Saturday night is Sarah's office Christmas party, which I am making something for, so I won't be doing cookies that night.

Fair reader, do you have a particular Christmas cookie that you enjoy making/eating? I'm always looking for more to add to my arsenal, so post 'em if you've got 'em.

All done again

This is the last day of Nablopomo, as I said earlier I won't be doing this too often anymore, unless I decide I miss it and pick another month to try Nablopomo. December's theme is zeitgeist, I barely have a grasp of the definition, how am I supposed to write about it 31 times? At any rate, you won't be seeing me complain as frequently as you have this month, right?

There are actually things I have wanted to write about here, but I never got around to it. I have to finish my cat blogs, amongst other subjects that may alienate people. But who knows when they will show up. Anyway, thanks for putting up with my endless ranting about work this month, I'll let you know if I win a prize.

Sour apples

Many years ago we visited a friend who had an iMac, one of the older colored ones. My wife was playing with it and fell in love with it and wanted to get one. I did not, I didn't want to change anything and I didn't know anything about working a Mac. A few years later, the same friend got the first iPod, and Sarah fell in love with that too, but I again did not.

In 2007, after years of our disappointing PC from HP which we couldn't update (Windows ME sucks by the way), we decided to get a Mac. Sarah had already gotten an iPod for Christmas the year before, and she loved it. I was still not convinced by the iPod, but I was more than ready to abandon the PC world. The Mac was expensive, but it was a lot easier to use than I originally thought, and we could use most of the programs that we frequently used on the PC. I also found out that you could actually run Windows on the Mac, but I didn't really want to.

After we got the Mac I started to get into the iPod, mainly for podcasts. I had some music on there, but there wasn't much room on it. Sarah had dreams of me putting my thousands of CDs onto the Mac and getting rid of them all, but that will never, ever happen. I have gotten rid of a few, but the vast majority is going to stay. Sorry sweetie.

That struggle was rendered moot in late 2008 when the DVD-ROM in the Mac broke. I was in the midst of starting to put all of my CDs onto the Mac's hard drive when it happened. We brought the Mac to the Apple Store and they said it would cost over $400 to fix it. Of course, it was out of warranty, so we opted not to fix it and get an external DVD-ROM, which has proven difficult. We are currently borrowing my father-in-law's converted internal DVD-ROM drive, which sounds like an airplane taking off, but it works. But if we want to make our own DVDs with the iDVD program on the Mac, we're screwed, because it doesn't recognize external DVD-ROMS. The fact that it broke after a year and a half of not very much use pissed us off, but Apple wanted money that we didn't have, so we had to let it go.

Last year Sarah bought me the 120 GB iPod Classic for my birthday, because my iPod usage far outweighed hers. Besides podcasts, I started putting all of my music onto it so I could listen to it at work, instead of dragging CDs with me everyday. I bought a little radio with a 1/8 inch input jack and I was in business. Until last month, which was almost a year and a half after I got it. It seems that the headphone jack is this cheap plastic piece of crap that just sits inside the iPod (it's not soldered), and if you frequently put headphones in it, it will eventually move and you'll only be able to get one channel. In my case, only the left channel works through the headphones, and I listen to a lot of older music, where the stereo separation is severe. I'm talking vocals in one channel and instruments in the other channel severe, so I get an instrumental or acappella. It was driving me crazy until I realized that I could convert the songs to mono so it wouldn't be so bad, but of course, that takes time and more space on the iPod. It's basically an enormous pain in the ass and is pissing me off.

You would think that something that didn't have external speakers would have a more stable headphone jack, but of course it doesn't. And also of course, they don't don't make my model iPod anymore, and again want an arm and a leg to fix it. Thankfully, there is a market that has risen up to meet this demand, since it is a common problem with iPods. I have ordered the offending headphone jack and iPod pry tools, and my brother in law (who is handy with such things) has offered to replace it for me, since the online tutorials looked really scary. In the meantime, I have discovered that I can get stereo from the dock connector, but there are caveats. You can't adjust the iPod volume, so it tends to distort if you have it up too loud (read:loud enough to hear over the mixers). Also, I need to use the iPod to TV cable, which is a very long cable, made even longer by the RCA to 1/8 inch plug cable I need to plug into the radio. But at least I can enjoy stereo, as long as the dock connector holds out, since I use that everyday to charge the iPod. Hopefully my brother in law will be able to fix it and Apple has this problem fixed in the next iPod I get.

Now Sarah wants an iPad. I think that we will get the extended warranty if we get one of those.

New career is kaput.

When I was young I had designs on being some sort of writer, as I think I have posted before. When I met Sarah, she was a journalist like me, and I told her I wanted to write a book about my grandfather. She gave me some writing instructional stuff that she had from school and encouraged me a lot, but the closest I got to starting that book was last year on this blog. Nothing since then.

I had hopes that blogging would help me become a better writer (or a writer at all), but I don't think it's working. Just doing Nablopomo every day for a month is really annoying, and as a writer I would have to spend a lot more time on it than I do on my blog. True, life/work gets in the way, but even when it doesn't I can't commit, hence my very infrequent posting when I'm not doing Nablopomo.

I don't know if I'll ever finish the book. My friend Adam is a writer, and he writes a lot and enjoys it. He also submits a lot of stuff to publishers and is rejected, but he makes fun of that and keeps going. I don't think I would be able to deal with that. He and Sarah said that I should write things down about my grandfather on my blog, and maybe collate it all into a book later, which is very easy to do these days. That's a good idea that I think I will try, but once November is over, I don't know what will happen.

Another communication thing I've been wanting to do is a podcast. I love listening to them and I want to join in, because I can be anonymous; I don't really like a lot of attention anymore. I'm not very sociable either, so this way I can reach people without actually interacting with them. I know this is sad, and I don't really have any explanation for it, it just developed gradually since my early 20s, I think. As with writing, I've been hemming and hawing about it for 2 years now. I did record a test that came out decent and I have everything in place for it, but I haven't been able to hit the Commit button yet. The same thing with Librivox, I volunteered to read a chapter of a book two months ago and haven't done it yet. That actually has a due date, so I will get that done, but the book and the podcast don't. I can put a mental due date on them, like this month's blogging, but my other mental parts will rationalize not doing it. My main problem is that I have so many things that I want/need to do that I don't know where to start, so I don't start at all. I somehow need to fix that.

bleah

So I went back to work today after 2 days off, which is unusual (we are closed on Sundays, and they won't let me work then, I asked). It was hard, as post-holiday days always are, mentally and physically. There were about 30 bags of rolls left today, but we did sell more than last year. Lots of pies left as well, but we put all that stuff out for half price today, hoping it would sell so there would be less to throw away on Monday. Throwing stuff away is the last resort, we don't throw out very much stuff at all since the economy tanked. It seems like people wait for stuff to go out of date these days. Which is fine, as I'd rather sell something at half price than throw it away.

It was crushingly slow yesterday, so I baked very conservatively this morning, which turned out to be a big mistake. The bread rack was almost empty when I left at 12.30 (we're open till 7 on Saturdays), and the 3 pumpernickel bread I made didn't even make it out to the sales floor. I do like when that happens, but not that early in the day. I suppose I have to leave sometime, right?

Another nice day

I had the day off from work today to make up for the holiday pay yesterday, which was nice. My sister and brother in law stayed the night, and we went to my work so my sister could check out the gluten free stuff we have for sale. Then we went to the health food store and came back here for leftovers. Then Sarah's sister and her family came over and we played the Wii for awhile, which was a lot of fun. Sarah and I are going to have dinner and then I have to go to bed since I have to work tomorrow. It was a really great Thanksgiving!