A Professional Dilettante

Does actually being able to walk away from a litter of kittens mean that those kittens were not for me? Or that I'm not ready? Or that I've just got willpower out the wazoo?

I may still go back, mind...

Something really odd has begun happening since I started posting my trip blog posts on my WordPress blog (this is the first real posting I've done on it since I moved over from Blogger a while back).

Every time I post I get a few more email notifications that complete strangers (so far as I can tell) are following me. Some even comment. Now don't laugh, I know that's the purpose of the blog, and I'm certainly not complaining [g], but that never happened over on Blogger in the several years I was there.

Is WordPress just that much better at getting people to notice other folks' blogs, or is it something new I'm doing that I just don't realize I'm doing? (the latter is highly unlikely)

Anyway, I think it's cool.

Completely unrelated spoiler warning ahead...

I finished the eARC of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance last night in one fell gulp (started about 5:30, finished about 1:30). I like this one much better than CryoBurn, not least because it's a whole book, with a fantastic ending. Oh, Ivan, she flung every single last one of your worst things at you, including your claustrophobia, and you ended up happy in spite of (or perhaps because of) it all! Your wife's a sweetie, too. In spite (or perhaps because) of her family. Ye godlings [g].

Longer post ahead when I've caught my breath from laughing. Which wasn't just from all the in-jokes, legion though they were. Lois was channeling Preston Sturges, I swear. Or maybe Frank Capra.

So. I think I'm ready. But I am dubious about going through the Humane Society again given my last experience. I'm also dubious about going through Craigslist, and Petfinder appears to only do shelters in my area. I think I want kittens again (if I do I want to get them directly from their mother, like I did Morgan and Linnet), but I'm not 100% sure. I might go for one a bit older. I would vastly prefer male(s). I have a hankering for tabbies (in any color but orange -- Linnet was my orange tabby for this lifetime), but that's not set in concrete.

I'm not sure where else to look. I'm more concerned about making sure I get healthy, non-neurotic cats than anything else.

Any suggestions?

I mean, I don't have anything against their cars or anything. But their latest advertising campaign features the music from National Lampoon's Vacation, and now I've got the stupid thing as an earworm. This is just nasty.

To Doing Something about getting another cat.

I just spent half an hour in my backyard petting a stray. S/he was a lovely long-haired medium gray with green eyes, and extremely affectionate.

Obviously I miss having someone to pet.

A couple of photos from my recent trip:


Sunset over Nelson Reservoir, along the Hi Line in northeastern Montana. This is now my desktop wallpaper.


Moonrise over Fort Buford, near Williston, North Dakota. And this is now my netbook wallpaper.

Just because.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/entertainment/movies/2012/06/kate-winslet-kenneth-branagh-get-royal-honors/734971

Well. It's about time!

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2012/05/24

ROFL is all I have to say on this one.

Via jaylake.

When people post a quote I really like on LJ or DW:



I don't remember who posted it. Possibly thnidu, but I could be misremembering.

The border is taken from a book I photocopied the pattern from about twenty-five years ago, and the colors are not the original choices of the designer, either. Anyway, it only took about four evenings to stitch up, the frame is a $4 document frame from a discount store sans glass, and it's now added to the wall of cross-stitched quotations in my bedroom [g].

I could have done without "mewling quim" and with a few less explosions, but other than that? Wow, what a ride.

The Avengers wins, with the exception noted above, the Oscar for Action Movie with the Best Dialog. Period. End of discussion.

Joss Whedon and Robert Downey, Jr. should make lots more movies together, but everybody else was terrific, too. Esp. Tom Hiddleston. Ye godlings. There's just something so Wrong about falling for the villain every bit as much as I did the heroes. Seriously.

My inner ten-year-old (not to mention my adolescent fangirl) is extremely satisfied right now.