A Professional Dilettante

Success! Success! I did it! I did it! (as my ex used to say [g])

I have reached the end of True Gold. At last. Now I need to go back and fix a few things, but I'm hoping to get it up on Amazon, etc., by the end of the month.

My original deadline was the end of May. Sigh. But better late than never!

So. You'd never know by looking at Ivan and Teddy (well, except for looking at their private parts [wry g]) that anything at all had happened to them yesterday.

I came home with a list of instructions on aftercare. The first one was not to feed them for a few hours because they might throw up from anesthesia nausea. Right. When I finally did feed them a little bit at suppertime they were absolutely ravenous, did not throw up, and between the two of them over the course of the evening, polished off an entire can of food in tiny servings every hour or so.

Oh, and Ivan has learned how to cuff Teddy to keep him out of Ivan's food dish [g]. Something my late much-lamented Linnet never learned to do to my also much-lamented Morgan in seventeen years, bless his heart.

This morning everything was fine, and they split another can of food (a bit more than a normal meal) between them, plus they're eating the dry stuff.

No redness or irritation, no problems at all, and all is good in our world once more.

But it was a good day. Today was my annual "doing something about getting Loralee (my best local friend) to actually see the beautiful area she lives in" thing. A few years ago I was appalled to find out that she hadn't been to Mt. Rainier, or Olympic National Park, and any number of other wonderful places within a day trip of where we live. So every year we try to hit another new-to-her place.

This time we went to Mt. St. Helens. It was a gorgeous day, we had a good time, and I'm pooped [g].

I will write a proper blog post about it soon.

Is there a way to try out different email clients without downloading and configuring each one?

Are there websites where one can go to do this sort of thing? My google-fu is not working on this.

Apparently I'm screwed if I don't update my OS soon, but I can't update my OS until I find and download an email client I can work with, and I can't find an email client I can work with without trying them out. And downloading and configuring each one just so I can try it out is a supremely bad idea, esp. as I'm really, really bad at doing this sort of thing without screwing it (and any email that may download during the process that I might want to keep) up. I don't want a website where I put my email up on it, I just want to be able to try out the features, maybe with some generic sample emails or something like that.

Actually, he arrived night before last, and we are having a terrific time. He and Teddy hissed at each other just a little bit at first, but now they're both basically wrestling and playing non-stop till they fall asleep in their tracks, then waking up, eating and taking care of necessities, then wrestling and playing until -- well, lather, rinse, repeat.

The purring is loud and clear, whatever food I place in front of them is scarfed down without complaint (actually, they purr while they eat, which I find charming), they're both drinking out of the water dishes regularly, they haven't missed the litter box yet, and all is extremely well in our house.

Well, except for the small matter of my computer speakers going silent on Wednesday, and discovering in the ensuing inquiry that Teddy had chewed the cord clear through -- evidently while the surge protector was turned off, because he's not sporting an afro. I took my computer desk completely apart yesterday and all of the cords are as out of reach as I can make them. I suspect it's a moot point, though, because they're both so occupied with each other that they're completely ignoring it, even when I'm sitting at it. Hurrah!

Anyway, here are the obligatory photos. The close-up of Ivan was not intended to be a close-up, but he was so curious. Doesn't he have gorgeous eyes?


Ivan


Ivan's close-up


No way to tell who's winning at this point...

Where does one buy an inexpensive laser pointer?

So, here he is:



Theodore. Aka Theo, aka Teddy.

Hopefully we'll get to take photos of Ivan again soon.

Warning, girly things below:

How much I hate insomnia? Which I am blaming on menopause, right or wrong.

Given that AFAIC medication or hormones for it are completely out of the question, and none of the relaxation/nighttime routine things have worked, I'm pretty frustrated.

To expect that when something goes wrong with my cell phone minutes (I'm on a cheap $15 automatically charged to my credit card every month gives me 200 minutes and 30 days burner cell phone, because $50 a month is too much to pay for a cell phone I use maybe an hour a month) and I have to call Net10 to actually get the minutes I paid for because every six months or so there's a glitch and they have to be downloaded manually, I should be able to use my cell phone to call and get this straightened out?

This time when it happened, apparently the rules have changed because they now say I have to call from another line to get my minutes (and my days -- I can't get one without the other or I would, because I've got almost 2500 minutes on my phone right now, but if I don't get the monthly minutes I don't get the days). This pretty much enrages me. Yes. I have a land line. But what if this was my only phone, like cell phones are for a lot of people? Would I have to go try to find a pay phone or something, or borrow someone else's phone? At this stage of the game it's the principle of the thing.

Is this utterly ridiculous or what?

I really don't want to get rid of this phone because I don't think I can transfer a burner phone number and all my clients know this number. Also I don't want to lose all those minutes I paid for. Also, see above about not being able to find a phone contract for less than $50 a month.

Although if anyone knows how I can solve those issues and get away from Net10 to a company with real customer service that doesn't overcharge, I'd be grateful (and you can quit laughing now).

ETA: I guess I shouldn't have taken it for granted that my "you can quit laughing now" would signal that this was mostly a rhetorical question. If there's one thing I don't want to do right now, it's go through the hassle of switching cell phone companies, or lose all those minutes I paid for, or buy a new phone. I just want things to work the way they're supposed to.

But thanks for the suggestions.

My first reaction to the issue was to complain to my state consumer advocate [g]. Not that their response time will be timely enough to do any good even if they can do anything which they probably won't. But it made me feel better.

Another piece of my redecorating the living room project:



I actually stitched part of this on my trip, two parts of which involved actual, real bison [g] (Yellowstone, of course, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park).

I'm going to wait to frame it until I have all the animals I want to stitch stitched. This is from a booklet that I bought thirty-odd years ago (the first project I stitched from it was a bear on a shirt for husband #1 at least two years before we left California, and we left California in 1983), and had the good sense to hang onto through umpteen moves. The patterns are based on paintings in the book Album of North American Mammals. It's stitched on 18 ct. Fiddlers Cloth (basically beige Aida cloth with brown slubs in it) with DMC thread. It's a bit over 6" square, finished.

I have started a pronghorn pattern from the same booklet.