Gummy Kitty: Cordelia Cat has a Rough Month

Cords had a rough couple weeks in October, which necessitated two trips to the vet, which, as far is she is concerned, is two trips too many.  Her least favorite thing to do is anything relating to her crate, which means that any vet trip is a nightmare for me too.  And last winter, after she tore up my entire left arm, and Mum's hand, trying to get her in the crate from my parents' for the trip back to Philly, I told her that she was never going anywhere ever again.

Unless it was to the vet.

It was a Saturday evening, and she started gross-drooling.  I don't want to get into details about this, let's just leave it at gross-drooling.  Leaving nasty, uncharacteristic slobbers all over the place, and not grooming as throughly as she usually does.  I do know her teeth are all messed up: she was in a hoard (well over 350 cat roomies) and has all sorts of issues now (very small, FIV, scared of everything real cats enjoy, bad teeth) plus I think she needs glasses and that she's a lefty.  So Monday morning I call the vet and we schedule a check up for the very next day.  

I shove her in the crate and we head out.  She complains the entire trip to the vet, and the entire time we sat in the waiting room.  Last time we went to the vet, Cords attempted to crawl up the wall of the exam room, and ended up suctioning herself to the floor.  The vet was reluctant to pry her up, so she just did the exam and vaccinations on the floor.  So this time the vet opens Cords file and says, "Has her temperament changed since last fall?  No?  Okay, we'd like to give her a tranquilizer so that we can do a proper thorough exam."  Certainly!  Dope that kitty up!

The verdict: Cordie has a number of foul teeth that need to be removed.  Her blood test comes back all well, so we're set to get the offending chompers extracted.  

Everyone at work kept asking, how many teeth?  I didn't ask.  And it didn't really matter.  Like I'd let her keep nasty teeth in her mouth, when they are clearly sore and she's mouth breathing foul stinky breath into my face at night and leaving gross-drool all over my apartment?  

A week after the initial appointment, I shoved a hungry kitty into the crate and dropped her off early at the vet.  I'd be able to pick up my dopey kitty at the end of the work day.  She was dopey, but not like the dogs would be, all knock-kneed and wobbly.  She kept wandering around the apartment wide-eyed like she'd never seen it before.  Like, "Omg!  Is that a red pillow?  A blue blanket?  Madness!"  

How many teeth had to come out?  Seven.  SEVEN!  And since she'd already been lacking teeth when she moved in, she only has one fang left (on the bottom left) and no teeth at all on the top!  Thankfully, this has not affected her eating habits at all.

Gummy

Everyone at work did a simultaneous awwww/lol when I explained how Cordie is now Gummy Kitty. She also inspired the chalk pumpkin up in the staff room.  No idea who the artist is...  there are a couple suspects.

(On a side note, we have such a big number of people sharing the same tiny staff room, purges are a regular event.) 

Worst Airport Ever

Atlanta.  Nothing about this place is good. 

 

The lights, the muzak, the inefficient seating (why all the footrests?), the unavoidable constantly-running tvs which resulted in me being fairly convinced that I had actually contracted the flesh-eating bacteria, the veggie lo mein that actually resembled an unnatural spaghette bolognese (the only thing Asian about that mess was the name), the lack of Starbucks or any other coffee/tea shop, and the fact that you have to walk half-way down the terminals (ten minutes) before you hit the bank of screens that tell you where your flight is leaving from.

It can be depressing if you're doing lots of travel to the Deep South, as Atlanta is the major midway point for everything in and out of the region.  However, the Charlotte (NC) airport is also a possible connecting point, and I highly recommend it.  Clean and bright, no tvs, multiple speedy Starbucks, and a respectable sushi bar.

(Please note: I'm not a Starbucks person, as I'm not a coffee drinker.  But Starbucks is reliable in that no matter where you are, you know exactly what you're going to end up with when you purchase something.  As per what you purchase, I recommend an Earle Grey tea with added vanilla syrup and cream.  They might be momentarily confused, but it'll always work out.  They'll put the vanilla in, and you add the cream yourself.  Tasty!)

New Rug

Cordelia, sitting happily on her little rug about a week and a half ago.  Life seemed easy, there was a rug to lay on to get brushed, and to give her some traction when she runs around.  Until she puked all over it one day.  All over it.  So much so that I made a vague attempt to clean up, and then just rolled the sad little rug up and shoved it into the garbage.

I missed the rug just as much as Cordie.  She got kind of unkept: no brushing on the hardwoods, as she just kind of slides around on them.  So I went to Target to get a new rug.  Happy with it, I came home and put it on the floor, all, "Look Cordie!  New rug!"  And she hid from it, terrified.

 Close-up on the kitty.  Close enough to keep an eye on the rug, far enough away from it's deadly talons.

 I picked her up and put her on it multiple times, only to have her scoot off immediately.  She finally accepted it about five hours after it arrived.  Now, over a week later, she loves it.

 So cute.  

Tape: Don't Even Think About It

I spent the entirety of last week, at work, dealing with this thing that had tape all over it. Being that I work where I do, the thing was a work of art on paper. An important 125+ year-old family document belonging to a private client. And, at sometime in the past, some genius decided to do a little self-lamination project and cover the main area of design with multiple layers of tape. Recto and verso. With like four layers in some places! I can't even imagine somebody taping this thing back together, all crooked and whatnot, and then stepping back to admire and saying, "Damn... I did a good job on that!" It blows my mind.

Ugh! The worst part is that the design liked the adhesive of the tape so so so much better than in liked the paper. What a nightmare. I generally have a 0.1% (at the most) acceptable loss policy, but I had to opt for a 10% loss on this sucker. And I have what I like to think of as mad skillz and infinite patience. (I'm pretty sure that one time I told somebody that I have a masters degree in getting tape off of things.) But - no choice. The tape had to come off. This is what they don't really get into in conservation grad school: the degree of acceptable loss.

Stuff with tape comes in all the time. And all kinds of tape, even the kinds you wouldn't expect. Like duct tape. I think my least favorite is gaffers tape: its so hard to get off of things. Ugh - and then the stains and the sticky residue all those tapes leave behind.

So, the moral of the story is as follows. If you're thinking of putting tape on something that may be of value to your descendants, be prepared for a paper/photo conservator to charge like $5,000 to deal with it. And don't whine about the cost: it was your own fault.

I M Pei

In the East Building of the National Gallery is some support column on which the names of people tied to the building are carved. This would be unremarkable, if not for the fact that the area around I M Pei's name is all stained and dirty from large numbers of hands. We were astounded: do people stand there and think, "Ooo I M Pei," and touch the stone with there dirty fingers because they so love the buildings he designed? That doesn't seem to make sense with what we know about the general population of America.

East Building. Thanks for the picture, wikipedia.














After museum closing hours, we pay our respects to I M Pei. Crazy style. Photo by Jennifer, or she'd be in there too.

Art Installation

The newly-revealed 1940's linoleum on the wall of the dining room has provided everyone at Chez Headley, and our varied guests, with great enjoyment. Since the linoleum will eventually be torn down, we decided to use it as a large, green canvas for our Sharpies.

The Headleys. Drawn to scale.

Fragmentary astronaut, turtle, and a dream of bacon and eggs.

Lena reacting to the Turtle, man with weights, martini glass, and large dark blob.

Rough map of the US (note how large Pennsylvania is), coffee cup, Bret's graffiti tag, assorted flowers, and some dude's head.

Fraktur nonsense, Bret's tag again, and 80's band graffiti.

You should come visit. There is still more wall-canvas available.

Archaeologists!

A few weeks ago, before my classmate Cindy and her boyfriend arrived to spend a Philly Weekend, those at Chez Headley decided that we just couldn't stand the huge, white, nasty wainscoting in the dining room a moment longer! So we tore it off! (photos by Emily)

I display the prize we found trapped between the maybe 1940's faux green tile linoleum and the wainscoting: one Uno card. Sweet.

Then Bret tore some of the wall down, while I tore the rest of the wainscoting off. So now the dining room is larger, but uglier.

Larger, because the people who lived in Chez Headley prior to us were crazy. The wainscoting was normal wainscoting attached to two-by-fours that had been nailed into the wall. The gaps between the boards, behind the wainscoting, were filled with large chunks of foam. Like foam that electronics would be packaged with. So removing it actually made the room much more spacious.

Ikea Food

Yesterday Flatmate Andrea wanted to go to Ikea and I was like, "I'll drive.  We'll go to Ikea and then to the grocery."  Which was fine, excepting that we didn't leave until way later in the day than usual (and than I wanted to).  I didn't want anything there (Ikea), but I did want to go to the grocery.  I never want to go to Ikea.

Flatmate Andrea originally didn't know I would be so easy to convince, Ikea-trip-wise.  She first attempted to tempt me into going.

Flatmate Andrea: Oooo!  Ikea!  And we can get some hot dogs there!

Me: NO.

Flatmate Andrea: Yes!  Ikea hot dogs!  Fifty-cents each!  Why not?

Me: NO.  I don't eat boiled hot dogs.  I only eat hot dogs if they are cooked over a fire.

She was really confused about my refusal to entertain the idea of eating an Ikea hot dog.  (I did not take this picture.  Clearly, as I did not even touch an Ikea hot dog).  

I did wonder if they too were made from glue and sawdust and if they had some bizarre Nordic name like 'DOGGEN' or 'HOTJA' - complete with umlauts and other comically exotic Nordic vowel modifiers.  All the Ikea food comes with some sort of dark blue wrapping labeled 'IKEA FOOD' in that same terrible faux-pine veneer equivalent of typography.  

And to top it off, Ikea was full of parents and children, running around, all of them eating 50-cent Ikea hot dogs, screaming and touching everything and walking very slowly through the maze that is Ikea.  So I couldn't even get out of there as fast as I wanted to.  It was terrible.

The Tuna Eater

The Tuna Eater, in his natural habitat.  He's eating a sandwich consisting of white bread, ketchup, and hot dogs.  Three hot dogs, all lined up in a row between the slices of white bread.  As you can see, one of the dogs has escaped and is lounging on the plate.  (Sidenote: I'm laughing so hard right now my computer is shaking).

Absolutely Infuriating

An old high school classmate posted a note of Facebook, calling for unity after the results of Tuesday's election.  Commentary was friendly and quite decidedly pro-McCain and Palin.  I decided to add a comment, more centrist and apolitical, topical in that it would be about unity.  Unity and the fact that I think we, as a nation, should back whoever is elected, because that is what we do, as Americans, and that Obama's call for change can be embraced by everyone, no matter the politics.  I vetted it by M.D. before posting, and he felt that it was peaceful and appropriate and hopeful.

Any way, this comment was taken completely the opposite of what I intended.  And the childish and obnoxious responses it generated have reminded me why there are only a few people from high school I wish to be in contact with.  Ever.

And I am correspondingly furious.  But, like all things, it will pass.  I am being the change.

The comment in question:

I concur with D-(other high school classmate).  McCain's speech was gracefully done and exactly what his supporters needed to hear.  

What I cannot condone are the people who refuse to support Obama - such as those who chose to interrupt McCain's speech - very discourteously too.  It is childish behavior to sulk and whine and make disparaging comments because one does not always get what one wants.  Though disappointed, a Real American will support the person elected, because that is what we do and the power of our democracy.

What makes Obama great is his ability to galvanize people.  Just think how many people have been moved to action during this election, Democratic or Republican!  just think of the great things we can accomplish if we approach our problems with passion and dedication!  

Be the change you wish to see in this world.

Yes.

We, and I mean all of us Americans, can. 

I guess Gandhi and his non-violent ways just can't get any respect.

Pizza Abomination

The Tuna-Eater is a terrible cook.  Not because he sucks at cooking and always burns/ruins things, but because he concocts nightmarish foodstuffs.  Like hot-dog covered pizza.  

So unnatural.