Promiseland

[Fetian]

I carved it while listening to Over the Garden Wall on my record player. Very seasonal, except for the part where it was 88F outside

[Fetian]

Another nail in the coffin of the 'cats use their whiskers to measure whether they'll fit into a space' myth: Oz's whiskers are just about as wide as her cone and she has been bumping it into things constantly. If it were true, she'd be used to steering wide around things

(also cats wouldn't get their heads stuck in things constantly, which they do)

(also cats would hold their whiskers forward, instead of pulling them back, when walking near things, which they do)

(also there'd be a greater correlation between whisker length and cat width, which there isn't)

(also cats' bodies are just about their head width anyway, so they can just judge whether they'll fit in a space by whether or not their head fits, which is what they actually do, and is how point 2 happens)

[Fetian]

Tonight we are halfway through Oz's treatment, and tomorrow morning we drop Cael off to have his surgery. He's fasting, now, and probably going to be a real butt about it.

He's still getting put in the bathroom every night for bed, because it's basically the only time Oz gets that she can be sure he's not around, and she still needs that, and also I need to be able to leave her food out for her overnight because that's when she's eating, instead of at dinner-time, and, she's got to be able to eat. But I'm hopeful we can figure something out to let him stay in the room while he's healing.

I've been waking up at 6:50 (or earlier, if I wake up before my alarm) to do Oz's eye-drops with ash, and so in theory I should be able to just wake up at 6:30 to get ready to get the boy to the vet, but I might stay up instead of trying it. I've been waking up early under the conditions that I then get to go back to bed, and there's a difference between throwing on a sweater, doing a task, and then collapsing again; and putting on real clothes, corralling a cat, and going somewhere. I dunno, we'll see how tired I am by bed-time. Probably pretty tired

Today I replaced the doorknob on one of the doors leading outside with one we can actually have a key for (they didn't want to give us any keys when we moved in, and in fact had an electronic lock on the door at first that broke pretty much immediately and forced them to give us house-keys when they replaced it; but we don't have keys for the garage door or the side door (except we do now)) -- this largely has the effect of letting me go out the gate and into the garage without having to go through the house to do it, which will be useful for things like groceries. I also cleaned part of the window AC unit, and those tasks combined (plus unloading dishwasher, plus the required playing with the kitten) have killed my legs

ash and I are 30% of the way through Wizard and Glass, an 860-page book, so again, speeding through it. ash has judged the current part of the book poorly, and this section is the reason why I originally never finished this book and just skipped it to start Wolves of the Calla -- it's worth noting that Wolves of the Calla was new, at the time, so I would have been excited to get to it, but mostly I was excited to get out of weird-boring-Roland-backstory. Since it is going so fast, though, we are currently of a mind to finish it, and I'm interested now as a more patient adult with a better understanding of the greater context around weird-boring-Roland-backstory, to actually finally finish this book I started in high school

When we're done with it, we'll have some decisions to make -- we'll have to decide if we want to read Little Sisters of Eluria, which was published between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla and takes place after the events of weird-boring-Roland-backstory and before the events of the Gunslinger, and so is likely going to be more of the stuff ash doesn't like about the series, and which I have read but recall not understanding so am a bit curious about; and we'll have to decide if we want to read Wind Through the Keyhole here, which I have never read because it was written and published eight years after the series ostensibly concluded, but is also set between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla

But before all that we'll probably go read The Obelisk Gate, the second of the Broken Earth trilogy, and then of course we've also got Sideshow, the last of the Arbai trilogy

Meanwhile in media I'm consuming solo, I'm three chapters in to Phantasmagoria and good lord. The word I would use to describe it is "plodding" -- the pacing is very slow and everything you have the main character do takes two hours of the actor acting her little heart out, bless it. But the bigger sin is the husband and wife, who start off the game with zero chemistry, but then it's a plot point that he becomes abusive (supernaturally), and it's just painful to watch this relationship that I already hated devolve into this guy being a supreme dicklord to this poor woman.

And I'd started reading Amber Skies but haven't touched it since a couple days of it. I am figuring I'll finish it, but it's looking unlikely I'll ever bother with the sequel. The author thinks very highly of their skill and prose, but I personally find this pride misplaced

It is Too Quiet in the house, so I'm going to go see what the boy is getting up to, and then play video games for a few hours. It rained a lot, and frequently very hard, today, and my hand is killing me.

[Fetian]

Look at this baby picture of Oz

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[Fetian]

Another old one

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[Fetian]

Here's her with Luna -- see, she can get along with other cats

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[erikavonkaiser]

BABY OZ

[Fetian]

Did just stay awake all night, because the one thing that makes me more miserable than not getting any sleep is only getting five hours of sleep. So at 6:45 we medicated one cat and at 6:50 we drove the other to the vet

Of course when I got there at 7:15 -- by happenstance precisely between the 7:00 to 7:30 dropoff window I'd been given over the phone -- they were still closed and couldn't take Cael for fifteen minutes. The lady inside was very nice about it, and brought the paperwork out to the car for me so I could just get that done while waiting to actually drop him off, but this isn't the first time something like this has happened and I'm beginning to suspect the person making the appointment confirmation phonecalls doesn't actually know what time this particular VCA opens. But that puts me in an awkward position of, confronting them when they try to tell me to drop my pet off a half hour earlier than I'm actually able to? Just ignoring them and risking arriving late and having the office get annoyed with me? Put way too much effort in to arriving at exactly 7:30?

But we hopefully will not have any drop-off appointments for a while, and in fact hopefully will not have any more vet appointments, after Cael's second round of vaccines, for a while

Anyway, dropped him off, came back home, ate some food, and went immediately to sleep for about four hours whereupon I decided to be up for the day. This contradicts the 'five hours of sleep' point made earlier, but you know, there's a huge difference between forcing yourself to wake up after x hours and just naturally waking up after x hours. After being up for a bit, I got a call from the vet -- Cael's surgery went well, he's got a cone, a prescription for a few days of pain meds, a microchip, and will be ready to go home in about an hour (from the time of the call). ash is going to swing by to pick him up after work, so he'll unfortunately have to hang out for about three more hours, and I wish I could go meet ash up there again to do the pick-up but I am forbidding myself from spending two hours on public transit, let alone all the walking that would also have to happen. My joints cannot take it today

In the meantime I'll clean litterboxes so he has a fresh one to go in, and otherwise just hang out and wait

[Fetian]

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[Fetian]

Have some more Oz baby pictures

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That top one also features Rug-Rat