green_dreams | Current Genius

Light stuff, this time. Piper's fallen asleep again (yay!), and I'm waiting for the vet to call back, just over a couple of questions. Poor girl.

Rewatching Cabin in the Woods[1] (and I think at this point I am rather past worrying about spoilers) and am just gonna say: this movie makes me so angry for Jules. First, what happened to her was horrible. Second, what the Institute-Company-whoeverthehell did to her was horrible. Third, dammit, every time I watch it I am reminded that from what you can see of who she was before she was bleached and roofied, she's the closest thing the group has to a Final Girl.

I'm not saying Dana should have died; honestly, if this movie wasn't the kind of thing to give me pause about any such kind of statement, I wouldn't like it as much as I do. I'm saying it annoys me even more because it points up how much Those Guys are willing to chew people up and spit them out without regard for who they are.

(And yet, yeah, I still feel for Gary and Steve and even Wendy and... Dammit.. I mean, I despise what they do, but I can understand them, and there is not as much disgust in the understanding as there could have been. --and I'm going to end this before I start trying to break down everything that movie makes me think about, because those rambles can get positively fractal.)

This is by no means the ~~worst~~ most upsetting or biggest effect of the movie, but dammit, it's one of them.

A/y. Yes. The finale is... making the screen very red, so I'm gonna go back to that, now. Back in a bit.
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[1] Hush, it's my birthday.

Current Mood: content

Customs issue was sorted; when I got to the vet's a little past 4, actually, pretty sure I saw the FedEx van leaving.

We picked her up and took her home. She is stoned. She's been given some kind of time-release painkiller that'll have a slowly decreasing effect over the next three days, and she's having trouble with her back legs because she is high as three kites so walking is wicked tricksy right now.

She is not in nearly so much pain as last time, and that is awesome. She needs help to get up or stand (we have a sling for that, so we can take a lot of her weight), and the six-yard round-trip to the old picnic table in the back yard is a huge deal (she made it! so brave! good dog!), and she is very very whiny, and I am sure some of it is pain. But she's much better than last time. Also she ate, which she hadn't done since the surgery. (Yes. Piper hadn't eaten since Tuesday. Yes, that is exactly as worrying as you might imagine, if not moreso.)

John insisted I get out of the house to go to knitting for an hour, and am feeling much better for it.

Hoping that she heals as quickly now as she did then.

Current Mood: relieved

Piper went in for surgery on Tuesday. Wednesday was that whole not-abnormal-but-very-worrying thing with her body temperature dropping, and the expected ton of pain. (Her body temperature was back to normal by evening, at least.)

She's getting treatment for her joints. The treatment came in to the airport today, whereupon Customs apparently saw "medical treatment, time-critical, biological material" on the label and decided the best thing to do was sit on that for a few days.

I count us lucky that they have not yet dropped it down the back of a radiator to dry out.

The medical company, FedEx (which is apparently a lot better when delivering to businesses, which is nice), the medical company's broker, and the vet hospital are all yelling at them to for the love get that to us, but it literally needs to be released in a few hours or it's useless. So I'm basically wishing there was some way I could usefully scream at someone--hell, I wish there was some way I could usefully do anything at someone, but there is a very strong impulse to yell right now--and hoping that someone with either clue or clout gets back from lunch in the next twenty minutes or so and lights a fire under Customs' ass.

We're picking her up tonight. She's currently "heavily sedated" and "very vocal when disturbed" which suggests to me that yes, there will be a lot of crying and probably not enough we can do about the pain. (We will manage it as best we can, and her vets are mercifully very sensible about pain management, but there is only so much we can do without the NSAIDs.)

Current Mood: enraged

Jack Vance died today.

"A golden witch named Lith has come to live on Thamber Meadow. She is quiet and very beautiful."

I'm... this is so odd to say, but I'm offended. It's Jack Vance. He's been there forever. He's-- not an institution, but a cornerstone. He shouldn't die.

"Return, young man, return--lest your body lie here in its green cloak to rot on the flagstones."

I remember the first story I read by him, "Liane the Wayfarer". There was (in addition to a flatly horrible protagonist), an unapologetic and very simple sense of wonder. A willingness to put in fantastic elements, and not overexplain them, and have the reader pick up a very great deal from context.

Plus, you know, really creepy moments that I still love a great deal.

"I am Chun the Unavoidable."

The gentleman will be missed, and I am glad he was around.

Current Mood: blank

12 percent done, 88 to go, and I feel warranties should come with an extension.

I married an eloquent, you know. Much love.

Current Mood: loved

I'm clearing out more books, and it's weird. I have a lot of books. Most of them still aren't in Goodreads (and I get that funny guilty twinge whenever it recommends a book I've already read and have on the shelves to me). And given that Goodreads lists about six hundred books on my "owned" shelf, and yes, I really did mean most of them still aren't in the system...

...I have a lot of books.

It's being a lot easier to cull them this time, and it's nothing to do with not wanting to read. On top of the books, I have a particular attitude: I don't want to be the kind of person who gets rid of a book. I have had this attitude for a long time. I've had it since before we bought our house.

I've had it since before I rented my own place.

I've had it since before I moved out and went to university.

I've had it since before I went to boarding school in Switzerland[1], and that was for ninth grade.

Like some of the books I still own, I've had it since I lived in London as a kid.

I think it's very easy to embrace absolutes when you're a kid. And it's easy not to question those absolutes, especially when they're not overtly harmful. I don't want to be the kind of person who lets go of a book. Because books are awesome, dammit. I mean, that hasn't changed for me--books are amazing, books make me happy, new ones can be a wonder and old ones are a comfort and I don't see this changing. I love (the best of) my books, and I love the idea of books, and I have a respect for the physical integrity of books (even ones I don't like) that's... quite hard to override.

When I developed this attitude, I didn't understand certain things that I understand now. Like the fact of limited space in housing, and how sheddy long-haired cats can be, and how books can pile up and collect dust. Shared space, really shared space (our anniversary's tomorrow <3 ), and the importance of not having someone you live with made uncomfortable by your housekeeping. The low-level cringe that a cluttered room induces. The embarrassment of finding you already own a book you just got[2]--fortunately I've never bought one and had that happen, but there've been friend loans and library loans and... yeah, it's not a good feeling.

I'm still not the kind of person who gets rid of books casually. But I don't want to look at myself and say I'm the kind of person who won't get a book out of her house if it's making her unhappy to have it there. There's nothing noble or devoted about that.

That's damaging, albeit in a low-level constant-background what-weight-do-you-mean-oh-this-weight-I've-been-carrying-this-weight-so-long-I-don't-hardly-notice-it-no-more, and I am, finally, too old for that shit.
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[1] In a former tuberculosis sanitarium.
[2] This is totally different from buying a replacement for a battered copy, or deliberately picking up a second copy for love or loaning purposes. On this note, you should all read Days by James Lovegrove, Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, and Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Seriously.

Current Mood: calm

Okay. So we're just catching up on Game of Thrones--watching the last two episodes tonight, in fact--and as you might expect it's being an HBO show, with a lot of sex and it's just dawning on me that I think they haven't actually shown any sex that's consensual or uncreepy since Jon and Ygritte. Four episodes ago.[1]

They haven't even talked about it, unless Ygritte talking to Jon about his technique was three episodes ago instead of four. Instead we're getting Joffrey and Mero talking up their plans, and then there was Littlefinger trading Roz to Joffrey for a snuff session, and...

I am bored, and mildly grossed out.

Gonna back to cheering Sam, now.
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[1] As I was about to hit post, I remembered that Robb and Talisa actually got a few minutes of cute naked screentime last episode. My mistake. So we are averaging one scene every two episodes over the last month, whooo.

Current Mood: annoyed

All 93 issues of Heavy Metal rehomed, and someone is willing to take the laptop despite its occasional "oh, were you doing something? sorry, I am busy being a frozen brick now" tendencies[1], so that's good. Also there's a garage sale on our street this Saturday; looking to maybe get some stuff out.

The carrybag for the laptop has a half-busted zipper (it's double-ended, so you can still close it 2/3s of the way). Am trying to decide if that should mean toss it (I have tried but cannot repair it myself, and zipper replacement tends to run $1-2 per inch), keep it for knitting-projects-etcetera, or send it off with the laptop and let the new owners decide.

Also trying to catch up on reading (I had one of those horribly embarrassing moments cleaning the library[2]), clean all the dishes etcetera because we're getting our first box of vegetables tonight and it will be good to have all implements and all counter space available while we decide what to do with them, catch up on laundry, and possibly finish going through the box of things that Absolutely Need Putting Away from the coffee table. (I am a third of the way through it. It doesn't seem like enough.)

If I am feeling better later, may try to reseed a patch of the back yard, but I don't think that's happening today.

...when I write it out, it sounds productive. I'm not sure if this is a clever illusion or not.
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[1] Which mostly kick in when it moves or tilts. Very annoying behaviour for a portable.
[2] "Wait, I own this[3]? Dammit. I had to borrow it from a friend to read it."
[3] This, in this case, being Coraline.

Current Mood: busy

I have/had/am getting rid of ninety-three issues of Heavy Metal, mostly from 2002 to 2010, although one is from as early as '79 (second anniversary issue, yay). Mostly in good condition (and a few still sealed >.< ), although a couple have been foxed by cats.

I'm going to see about Freecycle or something, I think, although if anyone local (or who is willing to cover postage) is missing anything specific, now might be a good time to let me know? I would feel better getting these out of here if I knew some of them were going somewhere friendly.

(The fact that I worry about the landing place of comics I haven't read in years is probably an excellent hint as to why I am currently running short on shelf space.)

Current Mood: tired

He brings me trailers.

And the trailers make be bounce and squee and carillion I knew it![1] before I have even finished my coffee.

The trailer advertises a new show within an existing continuum, and contains what is probably a spoiler. It will probably be revealed early in the first episode, but that is not for a few months yet, so I am carefully talking around it. (Trailer is here if you want a look though.)
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[1] Please note: that "I knew it!" is not the cry of someone who is right. That is the cry of someone who happens to be right and is happy. For a cinematic version, please refer to Brandon Wheeger's response when he is explaining that he understands completely that Galaxy Quest is just a TV show, and is interrupted and told that it is all real.

I am thinking, now, of Thad Beaumont's attempt to explain a writer's grasp on the reality of the fiction he writes about.

Current Mood: jubilant

The cats are happy.

The cats are happy because there is more space.

The cats are happy because there is more space because I have been cleaning out the coffee table in the living room so that we can move it and there are many books and many magazines that have been moved and I am trying to organize this and I think that things are coming to a bit of a head in my head.

Angus has been peering curiously at me, and sticking his head over the edge of the table, and climbing around the undershelf, and proving to himself that yes, he can walk on all these spaces (and can get from the table across onto the other table if he just s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s). He seems very proud of himself.

It's May. How can I feel this overwhelmed by books in May?

So.

I am not saying "no more books". But the thought of getting almost[1] any more books right now makes me feel a bit tired, and that's not a feeling I want, and especially not from books.

And for the love, someone teach me how to be okay with getting rid of magazines?
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[1] The stuff on my wishlist-plus list on Goodreads? That would be ok. I may pare it down a bit again, though.

Ray Harryhausen died today, less than eight weeks shy of his 94th birthday.

(First thought, when I got the news, was remembering hearing that he and Bradbury went to the movies together as kids.)

And I'm sitting here, remembering Clash of the Titans a little vaguely, and the skeletons[1] much more clearly. Not as cool for me as I guess it must have been for the people who first saw them, but damn that was something.

(Upon reflection, I think we may actually have gotten shown some of those movies in class when I was a kid. In a section on Greek myths or ancient history or something. Which would be odd, but I guess not totally unreasonable.)

Feeling a little stunned, not that he'd been working lately and his work is now gone, but that he's not there anymore. I grew up knowing he'd always been around, you know? And he wasn't Bradbury or Eisner to me, but it feels very strange to hear that he died.

RIP.
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[1] From Jason and the Argonauts. Come on, I cannot be the only one who remembers that...

Current Mood: shocked

Went to bed two hours ago. Cannot sleep; partly I have a cracking headache, partly I'm hungry, partly I'm apparently just not tired. Going to grab a pita and maybe try warm milk and honey.

Lucy's right eye is getting a bit goopy; she's squinching it more shut than the left one, sometimes lightly so, sometimes noticeably so. Hoping it clears up in a day (she gets this sometimes); if not, will see about a doctor's appointment. Am particularly sympathetic to itchy eyes right now, as I just realized that I can't do the warm milk thing without aggravating my own allergies.

Anyway. Warm soothing drink of some variety, and possibly a bit of laundry folding until I feel sleepy.

Current Mood: awake

I've cleared three books off my to-read list (two by turfing them, one by starting it), gotten four boxes of stuff downstairs and labelled for CDA pickup (unfortunately they're actually coming tomorrow, not today, but better to be ready early than late), worked on a little knitting that is reminiscent of if perhaps not strictly inspired by the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum, and dug up, seeded, and watered perhaps two square feet of back yard, juggled laundry and dishwasher a little, and finally gotten my New York pictures... well, not up. But up for vetting. I may put up a small photo post tomorrow.

Weirdly, the thing I'm happiest about is the book extraction. Second-happiest goes to the back yard. I'm hoping to do a more there tomorrow, as well as running around picking up assorted kinds of cat food (possibly over multiple trips).

Current Mood: content

I've come to the realization that I have too many things; things to do or things to use or things to own, but ultimately things. Stuff. Clutter.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about this, but I need to do something.

The owned and bad or unused stuff, that's actually kind of easiest. CDA comes by pretty regularly; between that and garbage, what that takes is mostly the effort to decide to remove things, which is not that hard. (The owned and used-but-rarely stuff is a similar animal; more effort to decide "I like it, but not so much that it is worth the space in my home, or its share of the space allotted to such things in my home".)

Then there's the things I want to do. The discretionary time. TV shows, books, movies, reading, scribbling-of-assorted-kinds, puzzles, knitting, occasionally cooking, gaming. (I guess things to use is a subset of this, or in some ways acts as subsidiary to it; puzzles to assemble, books to read, yarn to knit.)

I do not have enough time. I mean, I recently looked at exactly how many books I have, and... uhm... it is not right to get a book and not read it, I think, or to get yarn and not knit it. I would like to do right by my books. (Waiting is okay, but there is a point at which you must realize you have gone from "waiting for the right moment" to "not reading", and... well, you should at least assess the idea that perhaps you have changed enough that there will not be a right moment, so you should find the book a home where someone will love it. Or something.)

So I think I need to weed through my stuff (I did a yarn purge late last year; I do try and cull books, but it's slow), as much in terms of what I would like to use as well as what I already have to use. I am not sure exactly how to do that, because it basically means deciding that there's this thing I like doing but that I'm not going to do anymore because time/space/energy.

I think this might be being an adult. It kind of sucks.

Current Mood: busy

First, if I can help, please let me know. Please? I'm checking in, but I can't see everything.

Third, I am am afraid I am quite tipsy. It's a strange soft feeling, and not unpleasant. It's a bit unnerving; I am not at all used to being this tipsy.[1] I keep getting the urge to read the Ramsey Campbell-based Chaosium mythos supplement, for some reason.[2]

Last, the unicorn; The Last Unicorn. Because someone said they didn't understand the appeal, and I get that they don't get it, but that's not the point. And

theweaselking and I were talking about it to them and to each other and then he played the opening music, and I cried, and it wasn't in a bad way and we are watching it now.

I do not say it is a movie immune from criticism, but for me it is not "brilliant" or "terrible". It operates on an alternate criteria stream.[3] ( Cut for... schmaltz? But okay. ) I hope you are well. I hope you and yours are well, and you are taking care and being taken care of, and I wish you only the best. Let me know if I can help.
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[1] Sample dialogue, petting the cat: "Her eyes are very green. Her eyes are green as limes, which is how Poppy Z. Brite described the eyes of the vampire Zillah in her first novel which I can't remember the name of but it wasn't Drawing Blood. Also, Z is for Zillah who drank lye by mistake in the Gashlycrumb Tinies."
[2] It sort of makes me a teeny bit sad how few people I expect to follow that statement.
[3] I have been using Leverage as a comparison point for everything from Game of Thrones to The Last Unicorn tonight. It is for me a show about handling cruelty with grace and compassion and wit, and making amends, and balancing scales. It is a good collection of stories.

Back in December, I mentioned that I'd picked up a collection of eight horror movies for five bucks. The recognizable one[1] is the original Night of the Living Dead, so I'm not going to be putting that on. However! There is also Colour from the Dark, a movie which instantly raises the burning question "Did the writers read "Colour out of Space", or is this a direct ~~rip-off~~ ~~tribute~~ derivative of the very-understandably-forgotten The Curse[2]?"

A family accidentally frees something from the Earth's womb while drawing water from their well and now a sinister glow is seeping into their lives.

Really, it could be either.

========

...okay, that movie was a lot better than I expected. ( Surprisingly pleased reaction, possibly spoilery discussion but haven't you read the story anyway? )
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[1] There's usually one that everyone with a passing interest in the genre will have at least heard of on compilation DVDs, and the rest are what I am going to charitably call a grab bag. F'r ex, on the 10-movie Werewolves, Vampires, & Zombies DVD compilation, you have the 1973 The Satanic Rites of Dracula with Christopher Lee. (I don't think this applies to DVDs with paired movies nearly as well. But you get three or more movies in the DVD case? Ohyes.)
[2] It's not the most memorable thing about the movie, but I confess that what always first springs to mind about The Curse is the fact that Lucio Fulchi was credited Louis. WTH.

Current Mood: content

Piper is doing much better; she still whimpers when she moves (and screamed a couple of times, dear god), but she's crashing out and sleeping a lot. We've gotten her up the stairs, let her fall asleep in front of the fire, and the day seems to be turning into a Mad Max marathon interrupted by pauses to find out if she's complaining because she wants to roll over, be brought water, be helped up, get more pills (strict schedule, puppy), or just get tummy rubs.

Hadn't ever seen the first two Mad Max movies. Mildly surprised by how non-post-apocalyptic the first one was. The second one, on the other hand...

To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time. When the world was powered by the black fuel, and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all... Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A firestorm of fear.

I'll, uhm, be over here, trying to wipe the Deadlands: Hell on Earth off my TV screen. (This may prove difficult. It's an enduring setting.)

If Piper keeps improving at this rate, I expect we'll need to set up the baby gate soon to keep her from trying the stairs by herself. This is encouraging in terms of progress, but honestly, she was having trouble with the hardwood stairs being slippery before the surgery, so it is sort of horrific in terms of things to visualize. It's not the up, it's the down.

Nothing much else, today. Mostly counting down the time to Piper's next dose.

(Right, we've just seen a... a bicycle-auto-gyro-copter-thingy. The Wasted West ain't going nowhere.)

Current Mood: tired

Piper went in for her her arthroscopy yesterday. They kept her overnight for grogginess and to ensure she recovered from general anaesthesia properly. Today she seemed in "unusual pain" this morning, and we were told we could take her home. It's not dangerous--my understanding is it's not even atypical. Joint surgery, arthritis, working on tiny chips of bone, that kind of thing hurts and she can't have NSAIDs so one of the biggest hammers in the painkilling arsenal is not there for her.

I thought I understood this. I was unprepared.

I got to the vet's at 4:45. She was whimpering and crying and huffing out tight little pained breaths, and sometimes she was yelping, and a couple of times, when we had to help her move, she snarled.

She did this for over three hours. Around seven-thirty, she napped for three minutes. John (thank you, John) got us food and then sent me out of the house at eight, because I was cringing every time she cried. I think this helped. I knew that she was in pain, but I had no idea what that meant. I was expecting her slow and stiff and hobbling and still able to be happy to see us; I was expecting her as she was a few days after the septic peritonitis that, as the vet said, most animals die from. But this is fresh joint surgery, not work on her intestine and abdominal wall, and I didn't get that. I was not expecting a constant "I hurt. I hurt. Why won't you make it stop hurting? I told you I hurt. I hurt, monkey. I hurt. Help me. I hurt."

It's very hard to regroup and hit a point where you can cope with a crying dog when you are in the same room as said crying dog. So yay for breathing room. Very much.

(She napped for longer when I was out--I think about twenty minutes--and she's actually been crashed out since just a little past ten. She's not asleep, but she's zoned out fairly hard, and sometimes she snores a little. I'll be giving her her next painkiller in about forty minutes.)

((She's on an "every six hours" painkiller schedule, BTW. I am really really hoping it will be enough.))

She bounced back very quickly after the stomach trouble; I'm hoping the healing she displayed then will kick in soon and she'll be much better by, say, forty-eight hours after it's done. Early afternoon tomorrow or so.

She's just started the paw-twitching that indicates she's running in her sleep. You good dog, you. You keep sleeping until it's pilltime.

(I swear I never thought of myself as a dog person.)

Current Mood: anxious

So. Sat down to watch TV tonight, and the only thing we had that I was in the mood for was Justified. Which is good, because we were actually a couple of episodes behind, but it got me thinking.

I would like a show that isn't heavily driven by a/the protagonist's angst and/or lostedness (The Mentalist, Lost Girl), does not involve people regularly getting killed (Castle, Criminal Minds, The Mentalist), is not grimdark (Criminal Minds, Walking Dead, Bates Motel (which I am so giving up on)), is not strictly a comedy (Community, Scrubs, Modern Family), is not so dense that I cannot fairly step away for a moment or two (The Wire, Doctor Who (you can argue this, but frankly I'd rather you not argue it here, thanks much), House of Cards), and which I have not already seen in its entirety (Leverage, Justified, The Wire).

Suggestions? I'm down to Alphas, here...

Current Mood: hopeful

Zero Summer identifies itself (quite honestly) as a wordy Western RPG. It's a free browser-based game, that uses (almost) the Fallen London engine. It's fairly grindy at times, which is usually really not my thing. I cope with it for the writing; I actually think that the amount of text helps me slow down and not click through it all so quickly.

Here's the thing: there are individual stories (as opposed to the repeatable mundane actions) which cannot be repeated. You play them once, you read them once, and then they are gone forever, unless you care to start over again with a new character. So when I run across a step in the story that reads in part (yes, in part; I did say it was wordy):

What does it say? It says: under clear skies and the fresh fingernail moon and the bright brilliant stars when the world was young there was the masterless Dog. And still he howls. His voice freezes the blood. His tongue is warm and wet. His pelt flea-bitten but strong and golden. His ears hung with carved wooden rings. His eyes too-human. His paw outreaches. A mark is left.

Suddenly Jim is on you, wrestling the book away and slamming it back onto the shelf where you found it. Real panic in his eyes. A high unexpected color.

"What did you see?" he says. Demands. "What did you see?"

Under a fingernail moon, there was a hound. Under the clear sky he reached out. Under his paw there came a mark. It itches and burns. It weighs on your heart.

...when I come across that I stop, and reread, because I know there are no save points, no rewinds, no YouTube captures, no wikis, no-one I can ask for an explanation. (Okay. Technically I could go poking around the Failbetter forums and see if anyone had theories, but it's not like sitting around a gaming table and troubling a Storyteller for clarification, you know?)

It's oddly lovely, and no less so for being so transient.

========

ETA: Aaaaaaand I just got a message related to that specific storylet. I'll, uhm, be shivering gleefully, visiting the Scrublands, and dealing with the Jackal-Caller now. :D

Current Mood: thoughtful

In the last 105.5 hours, I have spent 42 on work. (Not at work, mind, since that would include lunches. Working. Am also not counting the weird dreams I have had about coding.)

I feel a little better about feeling quite so out of it, when I think of it that way. Which is ridiculous, since it's not a completely unreasonable amount, it's just... Yes. I can see it all at once now.

Plans for the weekend involve... I'm not really sure. Returning library books, perhaps, and sleeping in until 7, and other such luxuries.

Thoughts on starting A Boy and His Dog: wait, Joanna Russ thought the ending was the particularly misogynistic part of this movie?

Thoughts on finishing it: ...I think she was right.

Anyway. I'm, uhm, going to chalk that up as useful to have seen for context of the genre, be vaguely depressed over how unremarkable most of it was and mildly glad that it prompted Russ to write something on the topic, and go have a very hot shower.

Current Mood: dirty

The thing about our cat, Lucifer Tailypo--well, kitten, really--she's sweet and she's affable and she's very patient. But she may have been taken away from her mother a bit too early, or possibly she just has a nervous habit...

To wit, she suckles. She'll find a blanket, or occasionally a housecoat or a jacket, and she'll start kneading it with her front paws and purring and sucking on it, loudly.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning. The blanket was over my mouth and nose. I could see, dimly, in the dark above me, a pair of black ears not six inches in front of my eyes. And she was sucking determinedly on the duvet cover right over my mouth.

(Who's a good little breath-stealer? You are!)

Ways to wake up, I tell you.

Current Mood: amused

Today, Piper got her staples out! And her tube. (It is kind of a sign of our decreasing nervousness about her situation that we started calling the feeding tube her hip-snorkel a couple of days ago, and by this morning it had progressed to "Little Miss Butt-Snorkel".) It was somewhat painful--she cried and kicked and tried to pull away, but she did not growl or make a motion to bite. Mind, she is apparently a particularly sweet-natured dog.

She is also an amazingly good-at-healing dog. The whole thing about surviving surgery? The taking food by mouth 24 hours afterwards? The fact that she got to come home after one week, rather than staying at the vet's under 24-hour trained surveillance for at least two? The lack of complications? Yeah. The surgeon was talking about her in terms of winning the lottery. We'll need to watch her carefully for gastro-intestinal troubles for the rest of her life, pretty much, because once you win the lottery it is a good thing to make sure you are never again in the position of needing to buy a ticket again, but that's okay.

(They're sterilizing the bit that was inside her and letting me pick it up for a souvenir when we next go back.)

She's on more painkillers, because her elbow is really giving her noticeably more trouble, and we are so not putting her back on NSAIDs. Hoping to do the elbow surgery in a couple of weeks or so.

Lucy has turned the Cone of Shame into a Fortress of Solitude that just happens to have a convenient skylight for entrance, exit, and sudden lunging pounces at Things What Dangle.

Piper's currently crashed out hard--it's been an exciting morning, and I don't imagine anyone in the household really wants to be out in the determinedly-falling snow-and-ice mix we are getting--and I am so glad to have her home. Home without extra bits, even.

Current Mood: tired

Needed to replace the dressing on Piper's... stomach peg tube thing. Anyway, she seemed unhappy about that, and then there was goop[1], and given that there was a hole in her stomach, we decided to take her to the vet so a professional could say "calm down, it's okay, here's how you replace the dressing."

That went pretty well, although took up half the morning. And then there was the discovery that one end of one of her staples had come out[2], and some backing and forthing about what needed to be done about that. Turns out this is apparently okay and a thing that happens, although speaking as a layperson I do not exactly feel bad about having been being a bit freaked out about it.

Today, she has been offered wet dog food (duck-based), dry dog food (kangaroo-oatmeal blend), semi-solid dog food (pill pockets), human baby food (chicken broth variant), water, dry cat food (for clean teeth!), and other wet dog food (junk food, but apparently tasty). Yesterday's options of peanut butter and wet cat food were sadly not on the menu (at any rate, she's sad). We're picking up some more dry dog food in case her usual stuff got stale, and some different wet dog food that's meant particularly for animals recovering from serious surgery, since she was eating it at the vet's and it's probably better for her than the junk food.

...and they say that cats are the picky eaters.[3]

She's crashed out again, and all is well.
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[1] Not infected goop that would be described in any words from the surgery report! Just anxiety-inducing wet reddish goop, if you see the difference.
[2] If I may just gently reiterate, metal-staples-in-my-dog. It's not upsetting, most of the time, but it weighs on me.
[3] Oh, yes, Lucy. Diving whisker-deep into the duck-based wet dog food marks you as the epitome of discernment. Meanwhile Abby and Angus were climbing me to get the baby food.

Current Mood: busy

We actually went to get her twenty-one hours ago. Mind, we only actually got her home eighteen hours ago, because putting the dog in the car is apparently a very reliable invocation for snow. And then I had absolutely miserable cramps and just was not up to posting about it.

The drain in her ~~stomach~~ abdomen's been taken out. She still has the feeding tube going into her stomach, but we're not expected to use it. The staples (!metal staples! in my dog!) should come out in about a week.

She's still stiff and limping (and yes, looking forward to elbow surgery on top of this, once she heals), and her appetite isn't what it used to be. She's definitely alert enough to object to the cats going near her food, though, and she actually tried to chase Lucy when Lucy was scolded and dropped on the floor. Awesome that she wants to, although that is definitely Not Allowed Yet.

And she flumps against me, and sometimes she sleeps, and sometimes she purrs. It's a very clumsy purr. That's okay, because she's doing amazingly better, and she's home.

I never thought I was a dog person, you know?

Current Mood: slept on, warmly

We got to see Piper last night, and she cleared the 36-hours-out-of-surgery point[1] at three this morning. The surgeon was very busy today[2], so we haven't gotten a medical assessment, but the technician called a couple of hours ago to says she's eating solid food again[3], looking for attention, and doing well. The drainage bottle hanging off her side is collecting less fluid[4], and I guess they can take the feeding tube out soon.

If she keeps improving at this rate, we can expect her home tomorrow or Saturday. If she slows down, Monday.

(Then, mind, there are going to be weeks of Elizabethan collars and keeping her out of the cat food and making sure she gets her meds and then taking her back for the knee surgery she was initially scheduled for a week ago today. And we get to do this. Because she is coming home. Oh my good dog.)
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[1] Given that her odds of surviving until then were given as 50%, I was a little tense.
[2] I so do not begrudge this, given how quickly they got Piper into the OR once they determined she needed surgery.
[3] For the record: her refusing solid food was a big factor in our deciding that something was vet-wrong on Thursday night.
[4] My dog. My poor poor dog.

Current Mood: relieved

...if we were planning to harm you,
do you think we'd be lurking here beside the path in the very darkest part of the forest?

Piper is not awake yet. She is out of surgery, and they have patched up the hole in her stomach with a bit of intestine. We got to it reasonably quickly, and everything went well, and if she lives through the next 36 hours, she'll recover fully.

The vet said "We are not out of the woods. These are very large, very deep woods. But we're on the path."

I am going to sit here and hope. It is scary, and exhausting, and much better than the alternative.

Don't expect to be around much for a day or so.

Current Mood: awake

The overnight vet just called. On the plus side, she didn't call because Piper's condition deteriorated. Minus side, explanation for the condition is not good.

The blur on the X-ray was an infection. They drew a sample of fluid, and it has an elevated white blood cell count, and the white blood cells have been busily killing bacteria. They didn't show on her bloodwork because they're all going to the fluid to deal with the infection, rather than running around in her bloodstream.

(Yes, she has a small reservoir of infection contained within her body that is currently not spilling out and overrunning everything. Management thanks you for considering the Feed reference to have already been made, but is willing to hear further commentary along these lines.)

((Goddammit dog when you get these many X-rays you are supposed to get super-powers. Superpowers. Not zombie infections.))

This is likely septic peritonitis, most probably due to (1) a perforating ulcer from inflammation from the medicine that burst, or (2) a puncture or tear in the abdominal wall from something she ate. It might be an infected tumour, but they're not looking at that as one of the two likely primary causes.

The surgeons are getting in at 8 a.m. The surgeons and the medicine guys are going to look at her, and unless one of them spots something that puts a different spin on things (which everyone is pretty sure they won't) they're going to skip the ultrasound and go straight to getting her an emergency surgery slot.

50/50 chance of making a recovery and coming home.

Current Mood: numb

More about Piper, again.

( Cut for length. )

I want her to get better, and I really hope it's soon.

I leave you with this thought:

Current Mood: drained

Movies. Yes.

Went to see Warm Bodies yesterday. It's pretty much what I expected; fluffy little feelgood movie. Really nice soundtrack, though. I don't think it's exactly a romcom, although I'm having trouble articulating exactly why... Most of the funny bits seem to come from the zombieness, not the relationship. (A romzomcom, rather than a zomromcom? (Who worries about something like this?))

I needed to stay up until midnight last night for Piper's medication schedule, so I put the 2002 Carrie TV movie on in the background. It's amazingly faithful to the book, which is actually kind of nice; I liked Tommy Ross in the book, and in the original movie, he's a bit of... well, not much. Billy Nolan was creepy as hell, too; I think there was more about him in the book (faithful not being the same as complete), but I think I might actually be confusing him with memories of Buddy Repperton from Christine. Also it made it easier to follow.

Today... ugh, I don't know. Up until 1, up again at 6, Piper's assorted medication until 8:30, and then I fell asleep again until just a bit before we went to the vet again. Currently waiting for bloodwork results, and trying to decide if I have the energy or focus from knitting. The Emperor's New Groove is playing; we tried watching the latest Walking Dead but I think I pretty much tuned out most of it.

I'm not really watching new things; even Warm Bodies was pretty by-the-numbers, and the Romeo and Juliet references were cute, not new. It's been a long sort of weekend.

Current Mood: exanimate

A touch of context, before getting into the breakdown of My Poor Dog; she has a damaged elbow, and she has been on an anti-inflammatory/painkiller (Metacam) to help manage this for a few weeks as we arranged X-rays and tried to get the surgery scheduled. Tuesday we took her in for a consult with the surgeon, talked about options, and arranged for surgery to happen Thursday morning.

That was the first time she was at the vet this week.

( A summary, just so it's all in one place and I can forget about it. )

And that is why we have been at the 24-hour vet's every day this week except Monday, and why I am a bit distracted and stressed.

(Please understand if I am slow to respond to comments, and if I've forgotten to get back in touch with you about something, do let me know?)

Current Mood: tired

She's overnighting at the vet's. She, apparently, should be fine. I'm very happy, very tired, and going to go to sleep now.

Current Mood: exanimate

At vet's again. Yes, at this hour.

Current Mood: scared
Current Location: 45.36114, -75.63137

Just got back from the emergency 24-hour vet. With thirteen hours to go before surgery, Piper started oozing bloody goo.

She's fine, surgery is being rescheduled, and I am fried.

Someone Else is cooking and then I'm crashing.

Stupid dog.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: 45.35767, -75.63082

Dear brain,

If you are going to give me nightmares about needing to escape a city that has been invaded by aliens that turn people into horrible monsters, could you leave out the bit where I make my mother cry? For an hour? Because that was really upsetting.

No love,

Me

Current Mood: drained

I went out and got groceries, which is nice; we have plans for dinner tonight, and tomorrow (probably?) I'm making the leek-and-potato soup from A Fest of Ice & Fire. And maybe oatcakes. (Related to that: pine nuts are ridiculously expensive. O.o I mean, I am sure there are reasons, and I can't speak to what those reasons are, but ~$70 a kilo is... sort of mindblowing. (Suggestions for alternatives included roasted sunflower seeds, which are a tenth the price.))

And we heard back from the vet! Piper is probably getting surgery, and we are taking her in for a consult tomorrow morning. We will hopefully know more about how much we can help her and what aftercare will look like then.

I am off to tidy and cook the kitchen into submission.

Current Mood: busy

"This pattern's more complicated than I expected. The knit stitches are knit backwards, and it's making the cabling a lot more fiddly."
"Isn't knitting backwards just purling?"
"Well-- no, not this way. Purling is backwards in that you slide the needle back to front, rather than front to back. When you go backwards by knitting through the back leg of a knit stitch instead of the front leg, you get a twisted knit stitch."
*a pause, during which the slightly yes-dear look is replaced with dawning suspicion*
"...sorcery."

I have, I believe, escaped burning for my unnatural acts. However, I suspect I may be required to prove that neither I nor the hat weigh the same as a duck.

(As ducks feature in the lyrics which were the inspiration for the hat's name, this amuses me oddly.)

Current Mood: optimistic

Having made breakfast, run errands, had lunch, put away groceries, etc., the following dialogue was heard in our house:

"Okay. I'm going to go shoot people until enough dollars come out that I can play Pretty Pretty Princess. That is how the game works, yes?"
"That's about it, actually."
"Cool. ...you get to shoot bad guys, right? Not cops?"
"Oh yeah."
"Awesome."

I think this is about what I need to unwind right now.

(The nice thing about starting to get on top of the laundry and kitchen and everything? It means that when there is a morning where I am all "Ugh, I don't wanna deal with Generic Housecleaning Stuff, then the result is "Dammit, the dishrack is full and there are two minutes worth of dishes to clean." Not "Oh god I am never going to see the bottom of the sink again I don't wanna even be in this room.")

Current Mood: content

Lucy, my poor dear suffercat, would like to make it clear that it is incredibly hard to sleep on my socks when I persist in doing all this "cleaning" and "putting away" around her. But there is now more space on the floor than there's been in a while, and I am starting to very much appreciate the UfYH (content is worksafe, though page title contains NSFW vulgarity) tenet that "putting things away" is a critical part of laundry and dishes.

On the plus side, I have (somewhat?) corralled the pile(s) of books, and have found a ton of bookmarks. Also liberated a previously-in-use laundry basket.

I really need to figure a better magazine storage solution, too.

Also, although unrelated to tidying, we were given a pair of theatre tickets for Friday and couldn't use them, so John gave them away to a coworker who went to the play with his wife. Apparently they had a lovely time, plan to visit the theatre again, and sent over some of her chocolates (she's a professional chef/caterer) as a thankyou.

In the future, I should probably not start on the last third of a Dennis Lehane novel before going to sleep. It is inconducive to relaxation.

(Also, iconed a quote in the book that had me grinning a bit:

I'd have used it here--I did on DW--but my paid account expired on LJ, and I am not paying for more-than-six-icons right now, dammit.)

Abby is being grouchy, and I suspect it has something to do with our cat-sitting Gizmo; will see. And it's currently -22°C (-30 with the windchill[1]), so I am thinking that perhaps it is a day to get as many things possible done from inside the house.
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[1]-7°F/-22, for those of you not using metric.

So. There's this thing Fallout: New Vegas lets you do, which is talk to people. Almost all people, in fact, and if you're good at it, you can win a great number of conflicts that way. (I think I did that with everyone of note in my playthough, except Caesar and the Legate, because, uhm, no. It's my game and my story and my relaxation, and I get to decide that some people are horrible enough that shooting them is okay.) People will let you go, people will decide to cover for you or actually support you.

Colloquially, this is called talking the monster to death (thank you, TV Tropes!), even if you usually don't actually kill them, and I tend to think of it as talking them 'round, as Daniel Webster is purported to have done to the Devil's jury.

Anyway.

John and I were discussing F:NV this morning, since the weather brought on thoughts of snow globes, and from there we got to the cigarette butts (these are A Clue) you can find early on in the game, and I was mentioning that I'd missed them the first time. John was surprised, and was explaining their use at one particular point, and then a sudden realization came upon me.

"...son of a bitch, Benny talked me to death."
*pause* *John started laughing*
"No wonder I let the little prick live.[1]"
*laughing harder*

And then there was a lot of, well, sputtering.

I mean, I went there with a plan of what to do. There was no advantage to changing it, and there was, I think, some personal satisfaction to letting it play out as it would have. And then the character said things, things mostly that weren't even intended to persuade me, and the next thing you know I'm thinking "okay, right, I personally object but I can see the rationale, here," and the next thing I'm dishing out resources to let him get away and busily annoying certain people it is expensive (in terms of game resources) and painful to annoy by doing so.

I know that part of it is that I generally actively dislike being a bad guy in video games, but... damn. A story that can change your mind, even a bit, is not a hugely common thing. Affect you, upset you, show you something new, sure[2], but not so much make you ditch a plan and decide to do something harder. Admittedly, most stories don't unfold in a context where you are directly involved in making decisions, but still.
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[1] I am not in the habit of using such language, but really, he shot me in the head and buried me in a shallow grave before the game even started, I feel some acrimony is not unwarranted.
[2] Okay, not sure, but a lot of stories do and can.

Current Mood: shocked

Ran across an interview of Silvia Moreno-Garcia yesterday, and was mildly amused to find that the blog running the interview belongs to one of the people that I ran into at CanCon last year. I'd lost his card, so it's nice to find it again.[1]

(Also, if I trip over Ian Rogers' name one more time in the next week I am going to need to get Every House is Haunted next, just because the frequency illusion[2] effects are getting a bit surreal. (It's on the list to get anyway, but I would ideally like to finish a couple more books first.))
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[1] This was a theme for CanCon. Annoyingly. I must organize better in future.
[2] Also called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, a term it took me a ridiculously long time to find, because for some reason I was stuck on "cognitive bias".

Wow, nearly a week. I need to better manage my online time.

Piper is doing better with the higher dose of glucosamine. This is kind of sad because she still isn't allowed to exercise, even though she is bouncy and jumpy. We're calling the surgeon on Monday.

I am looking at the Tcho-Tcho, and there are a couple of niggling ideas in my brain (mostly along the lines of "okay, what would you be seeing there if you filtered out the racism of an unreliable narrator?"), and I have no idea where the hell to start.

Job hunt remains unproductive. Got a lot of cleaning done this week, though?

Current Mood: frustrated

Bear with me for background: there's an author called Jay Lake. His weird short story "The Soul Bottles" was actually the first story I ever bought in e-format, and is still one of my favourites. He has cancer, and it's not going well. And someone organized an online fundraiser (I think around noon today, my time?) to see if they could get him a particular diagnostic tool, and it went really well.

It's... partly being happy that he's getting help, and partly "oh god internet I'm so glad you make nice things happen sometimes," and partly just... I hope it helps, I really do.

(

cmpriest doing a steampunk/gothic fashion show with her pets should also be cool.)

(Also

seanan_mcguire filking. I understand it's filk, and not "Wicked Girls", but still!)

I made dinner tonight; I got the A Feast of Ice and Fire cookbook last night, after deciding that dammit I really wanted to look up a few things, and today I made the modern leek soup. (Not the same as the blog recipe; the one from the book has less spice, and uses butter and potatoes.) It actually worked out really well; the book calls it comfort food and it manages to be that, despite being a large pile of vegetables. It's less odd when I remind myself that it has butter and carbs.

(At some point I need to figure out exactly which cooking tends to stress me and which doesn't. I know part of it is mood and part of it is familiarity, but that's not all of it.)

Also, I finished three books today, and am halfway through a fourth. Only started one of them today, but still. Am trying to actually write reviews on goodreads, so may be a bit before I toss them all up there, but still. Coraline is the fourth; I'm finding I like it better than the movie in most particulars.

Current Mood: content

There comes a time, around the eighth day in a row of waking up before 7 a.m., where one should gracefully accept that it's not (just) the cats, and that one's circadian rhythms have decided (for whatever reason) that the predawn quiet is awesome.

(This covers qualities of "quiet" which include the two cats with bells on their collars charging back and forth and pouncing each other. My fuzzy little ambush predators, they bring so much to the house.)

I guess this means going to bed between 9 and 10 on a regular basis until I finish paying off sleep debt. That is going to be so weird.

Current Mood: thoughtful

"Monkey, what on earth are you doing up so early? I didn't call you!"
"I'm on the dog's schedule this morning, furbeaste."
"...horrors. Well, as you are up I shall nonetheless make use of it. Feed me."

(Day six of an early awakening. But I expect to be able to get back to bed and get a proper sleep cycle out of it, at least!)

Current Mood: exanimate

Today's been... odd. Not very odd, just a kind of one-degree-dislocated bit-off-kilter odd. I feel like I'm fuzzy on details, misunderstanding things. Tiny things, like "Oh! I thought you wanted to go out at noon, I didn't even consider the possibility that a bit after noon would be okay and it didn't occur to me to ask, yes in that case I would love to watch TV and get ready after and go with you." Not a big deal, just... drips of molasses in the gears.

I spoke to mom today, and she sounded a bit down. So I called her back and she sounded a little better, and then I called her again just a little while ago, and she sounded better but I keep hearing a dip at the end of the conversation and worrying she wants to cry.

I am telling myself that (1) she is allowed to have off days too, especially when everyone (her everyone) is getting either cold or flu and the weather is doldrum-inducing and (2) I have this occasional tendancy to overanalyze and worry about how horrible things are and (3) I cannot do anything about this right now. So I am going to make sure I get a decent night's sleep on it (I am side-eyeing you, cats), and will touch base with her tomorrow.

Also I will possibly go outside tomorrow. I have been avoiding the outside because Weather. (Although it's meant to go up above freezing Tuesday and only get back down to 0°C on Friday! *winter cheers*)

...I have just realized, thanks to LJ's helpful timestamp, that I have been picking at this post for half an hour, and that is not getting me any closer to a good night's sleep. I have been trying to get something I am pleased with done each day, and mostly I've been succeeding. Today, I am thinking that will be "going to bed when I start to get tired."[1]
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[1] It's been okay these first six days, but I am fully prepared to accept that there may be days in the future that are low enough that I end up putting "got dressed" on the list. Getting enough sleep seems a lot more helpful.

Up early again; this time I heard the noise (of something ceramic?) sliding around even through the humidifier. I'm not sure where it was coming from, exactly--I can't figure out what the cat was pushing--but here I am, awake early again.

I wish it'd happen earlier, honestly. Four in the morning, or something; I would have time to get back to bed and get a proper sleep cycle out of it. Yesterday I fell asleep on the couch for an hour in the afternoon, and I was still a bit hazy when we had a guest over.

Current Mood: tired

Audience of Strangers

Current Genius