i give me fever

[ans99]

so i'm home sick today and my head keeps spinning. so of course i figure this is the perfect time to make an lj entry since i've just slept for 4.5 hours and can't really sleep anymore. can't believe it's been almost two months since i made a proper update that nobody wants to read. see sophie, next to that 5 weeks is nothin'!

only trouble is it's been so long i can't remember what i was up to... so maybe i will start with major obvious stuff and then proceed in reverse.


the rats are indeed finally snuggling, all in the same box most of the time. i never thought this day would come, honestly. ken says when they all come out for their snacks it's like watching them exit a clown car-- one at a time they poke their heads out for the proffered scrap of red pepper, and then dash out entirely and to their secret eating hidey hole/corner of choice. rats are so funny.

wilson is still alive, although he's steadily slowing down. doesn't appear to be sick, just old. his skin temperature has been lowering along with his activity levels (he sleeps ALL THE TIME now), and his balance sucks (he's fallen a couple of times) but he is still bright and loves his eats. no wheezing or anything. at this rate the guy might live forever. he was two in june.

the other two are getting big. when we got back from a week's vacation harvey looked like the rat equivalent of draco malfoy in the 5th and 6th harry potter movies-- he'd just exploded in size. bruce is definitely fat. you can see it in his little greedy face even. i have no idea how to restrict his diet in a multi-rat cage but i am sure i'll figure out something. along with the embiggening though has come some odd role reversal where bruce appears to be dominating wilson. he'll pin him, do those teeny tiny "aggressive grooming" neck nips... i'm not happy about it because wilson is so old, but they all seem generally happy together and i haven't seen any actual bite wounds. i just wanted wilson to be king, not fatso over there.



i mentioned vacation. many of you might not have been aware since i never update this thing but we went back to MA to go visit my dad, who broke his back, at the end of august. we decided since we were re-visiting our old haunts we'd also see how many visits with friends we could cram into our schedule. i think we ended up seeing about 15 people all told. we also were able to catch a jim's big ego concert (now that was surreal-- they all look a tiny bit older but still delightfully squishable and just as personable as i remember. i also found out that one of our friends, an entertainment lawyer, is working for the drummer on something, and i'm insanely jealous), revisit amherst with purpleprimate and Julie (the tombstone on a stick is gone now i think, but the hadley farm goats are still around), watch district 9 (curtis and cecile thought it was racist and jejune, ken and i thought it had its moments and some nice messages, although i feel the ending was a little too spielberg), nosh with ken's grandparents and listen to his doctor uncle complain about house m.d., enjoy an elaborate brunch with ken's parents/sister/sister's boyfriend/next-door neighbors since childhood/the couple we stayed with last time we were in england, try unsuccessfully to get into a cemetery in northampton, meet all of jacki's cats and witness the horror that is ghost adventures, check out the museum of bad art, fly dueling kites at the beach with my parents, FINALLY get a copy of kim's album, and lose horribly and embarrassingly at in-flight trivia on our plane home.

it was a pretty good vacation all told. our animals were very happy to see us home though.



speaking of animals, kitsune is acting strangely. maybe she's just going through a phase; it's a possibility since she's still maturing. but i distinctly remember when we first got her she loved to climb up on my lap and sleep there. now it's a chore to get her to sit next to me, and she no longer sleeps on the bed at night. she seems to be suddenly frightened of us. this started happening before we left on vacation. along with this she began to meow constantly (although luckily and thankfully that has tapered off quite a bit). i think i need to get her an appointment with the vet just to check her out and make sure nothing is going on, but i have the feeling she's got some sort of anxiety disorder. either that or the ONE time i brushed her teeth she'll never forgive either of us for.

there's also the possibility that she's bored (we are usually gone all day at work and we still have not completed the cat condo), although she definitely has her share of "toys"-- among them my elastic hair ties, which i'll find strewn along the floor, gutted and torn and abandoned like dead fish; and also this catnip mouse i have to actually lock away from time to time because i think catnip *really* messes her up :P

i've started giving her treats when i pick her up or hold her to try to get her to understand how rewarding cuddling can be, but this behavior just seems a complete 180 and i'm worried.



had a pretty good weekend. actually caught the davis art walk friday night-- i felt like crap but ken dragged me out, and the food and drink perked me up considerably. i guess now i'm paying for that? also got a chance to play beatles rock band with mario, and rented a really awful slasher movie called rest stop. how bad was it? well, beyond the title, which sounds about as scary as a slasher film entitled toilet, it was direct to dvd and got 0% on rotten tomatoes (check out the synopsis on RT by the way-- "two women"? lol). there was the promise of a staple gun as a torture tool, but we only ever saw the killer use it on the bottom of someone's foot. and it wasn't even industrial-sized staples! i won't even get into the nonsensical plot, horrible choices made by characters, or the use of every horror trope imaginable, even if they contradicted one another. we knew it was going to be awful going in though, so it was pretty enjoyable. especially the alternate endings.

most of the weekend, though, was spent cleaning, which was necessary but sad. yesterday we did get out for a bit and went used cd shopping. ended up buying about $140 worth:

ellipse- imogen heap (how can this be used yet?)
riot!- paramore
blood money- tom waits
the promised land- dar williams (new but discounted and it's dar frikkin' williams)
far- regina spektor (new but discounted)
no one's first, and you're next- modest mouse
kill the moonlight- spoon
third- portishead
the devil, you + me- the notwist
pressure chief- cake
narrow stairs- death cab for cutie
the slip- nin (new but discounted)
boston legal, 2nd season dvd set

blah blah blah. trust me it was a treasure trove.



saturday i helped james, mario, and a lovely lady named ko film some batman shorts. i was catwoman; mario was batman and the joker; james was batman and the riddler; ko was harley quinn (she made the costume herself, and was definitely the most convincing of us all). james even let me film some. it was fun to completely shout direction over him.

sunday ken and i went to the state fair. man have times changed (the economy). there was a candy exhibit hall with no free candy (a travesty); the "wild, weird and wacky" main exhibition looked like it cost at most $100 to put together (kaleidoscopes? really?); the petting zoo is now pay-only (!!!!!!). it was still a lot of fun. almost got trampled by pigs, got to watch baby goats play king of the hill, had fried zuke, got to hold a cockatoo and a cockatiel (not at the same time), as usual made fun of the art exhibits (topless female robots? nipple dresses? really?), actually saw some guinea pigs this year (!!!), walked about 1/2 a mile to and from parking (at that point it should have been discounted), and took loads of pictures.

on labor day we went to villa toscano for another free pasta buffet, and picked up our wines. then we went to bray for a tasting and ended up with another wine. there was this really vocal guy tasting next to us in a group of obviously drunk people, who was just RAVING over the barbera. would not shut up about it. we left at about the same time they did, and could hear the guy behind us still raving about the wine as we walked to our car. a woman in the group kept piping up, "hanna barbera!" over and over again with no acknowledgment from her group, as if she thought maybe they didn't hear her funny funny joke the first six times. i LOLed.

i still haven't started gardening but now i've bought fall blubs* so i guess i have to.


this is probably a long enough entry. time to take my temperature, because it's either really hot in here or i have a fever.

yes, i totally just asked if it was hot in here or if it was just me.

*intentional misspelling; long story