MeghanIsMe

I just got an email asking to confirm that Seregil's information for his microchip is up to date. I managed to enter a sort of emotionally numb state while I figured out how to log in and update his information to indicate that he is dead, so I hopefully won't get further reminders. After he died, we got several text message saying that he had been found, and those hurt so very much (I assume they are auto-generated when his chip is scanned), and this is triggering that trauma.

Yesterday was already very high anxiety, and this morning is high fear. I'm not sure how I'm going to be feeling, but this won't help.

That said, I'm so glad this system exists. I've seen it unite pets and owners and it's a really wonderful thing.

Yesterday, Seregil escaped the apartment for about an hour while we were away getting pre-flight Covid tests. We came back to find him gone and we just about had breakdowns on the spot once we realized. But thanks to neighbors (Danae knocked door to door) we were able to locate him again. In all honesty, I don't know how I would have managed the upcoming 10 hours of plane flights and three days of hotel-stay quarantine if I thought Seregil was lost in Amsterdam somewhere. I'm glad I don't have to find out. I would have been a complete wreck.

So Danae and I are leaving our apartment for the Amsterdam airport at 3 AM, in about 3 and a half hours.
The craziness with Seregil yesterday is a good reminder that, as long as the three of us are healthy and together, the rest will be manageable.

For the moment, I'm having a last cheese treat before leaving the Netherlands. Danae doesn't like blue cheese so it's *all mine*!

Our cat is the biggest drama queen of any pet I've had. He starts crying sometimes an hour or more before meal time. We have a timer on my phone for his meal times, and he knows this and knows when those times are. But he seems convinced if he sounds sad and hopeless enough, we'll feed him early. We were even tracking his nutrition data on a spreadsheet for a while to ensure his weight is constant and he eats enough. It is, and he does.

Seregil, our cat, jumped onto my desk (as he often does) as I was writing about a museum exhibit for one of my classes.

"Do you want to help me write?" I asked him. "Yes," I replied to myself in an authoritative kitty voice. "This museum's website did not have enough mice. Also, the museum did not have enough mice either."

"Good points!" I responded.

I have been in quarantine since March. Send help. Or don't, actually. I'm in quarantine.

I just got over the worst headache of my life. Four days of debilitating pain, and another couple days of lingering effects To the headache, my body added neck pain, nausea, and chest spasms, any one of which would probably have kept me home.

I called the animal shelter and arranged to have someone get Rufus because I simply couldn't take care of him and get him his meds on time. I didn't know how long I was awake and asleep, and even when I was up I couldn't manage to get his meds to him. Because of that, he was seizing more often. When the cat pestered me for meals, rather than dividing cans into thirds for him, I just popped the top and dumped it in his bowl. He ate well these past days. Rufus too, when he was here; I just scooped up a bunch of kibble and dropped it in his bowl a couple times a day.

Writing about Rufus hurts. I miss him. He really needed to have someone else take care of him regardless, but not having him at home hurts.

Anyway, today, an echo of that head and neck pain remain, but I"m feeling human and I'm back at work. I overslept my alarm by two hours because I'm still not sleeping well, but I got up and caught the train and here I am.

I measured it; it's 22".

Unfortunately, the frame of the cursor is cracked and falling apart at one edge so I don't want to use this one. You can see the magnifying lens in this picture though. It's so nifty!



( Our cat is not as interested in them as I am. )

Sleepy kitty.

National Coming Out Day this year reminds me of how quickly the conditions in my country seem to be deteriorating for folks who are members of minority sexual orientations and genders, among other people.

Silence = Death. If you must be silent, I am doing my very imperfect best to be loud for you. You inspire me to try to make change; thank you.

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Yesterday evening, Miriam and I picked up our new foster dog, Rufus, from Evanston Animal Shelter. He's verah verah small. At five pounds, this little Chihuahua is less than half the size of our cat! I thought Piper was small, and she was over twice his size! It's a little weird to get my head around: he *seems* like a dog, but...



He was a surrender, and the shelter was told he's epileptic, but none of us have seen him have a seizure yet. He was also fed purely on table scraps, so we're going to have to wean him off of that and get him onto real dog food. For now, we have a bag of cooked chicken to feed him bits of. I'm going to start mixing it into some wet food as a start.

I think the stress from his situation change and the kennel plus the diet issues are giving him some diarrhea. He has some trouble pooping and sometime during the night he made a (very small) mess on one of my sandals. He's mostly going to be in his crate at night until we're sure of his potty habits and his relationship with the cat, but he was so scared and uncertain last night that I slept with him on the couch. I didn't even have to ask Miriam if she minded; she had assumed I would and said it was ok. I am predictable.

He was terrified of every little thing at first. He was scared of Miriam and I at the shelter, but that didn't last long, especially after we gave him some chicken. He trembled and cried in the car all the way back from the shelter, and was clearly nervous at home at first, but he seems to be settling in. He likes the couch, and when we're on it with him he either gets nestled in on top of one of the back cushions, or comes to us for attention. As well as giving us licks, he tries to pull our arms out from our bodies with his paws. If we oblige, he'll lie on his side to push his head and body against our arms, pushing against us as hard as he can (which isn't very hard) while we rub his tummy. It's really adorable.

I think he's scared of being alone. When I walk around the condo, he's glued to me. If I'm in the bedroom with the door closed, he starts to cry outside of it. I'm sure he's still pretty shaken by all the change in his world lately.

He's been passably good with the cat so far, as Seregil has been with him. When we first came home with him, Seregil was waiting at the door for us as usual. If I were to put his response into words, it would be something like "Yay! My humans are b-- what the hell is that!?!?" Rufus is a little nervous about the cat, and I've headed off a couple of interactions that turned into growls on his part. By the end of the evening, they were both wandering freely about and were looking at each other but avoiding proximity. I think that's a good place to be for now.

He's in the crate today while I'm at work. I hope his tummy issues clear up soon. I'd like to get a handle on his potty needs and be sure about he and the cat so I can leave him out during the day. I'm hopeful for positive change!

Kitty stuff!

Seregil almost convinced me to pet him long enough to miss my train. I was sitting to put my socks on and he jumped into my lap and started headbutting me. I think it's fair to say he's pretty content here. He is unhappy about not being let in the bedroom at night. For the last few days he's been meowing, pawing at the door, and scratching at the carpet. He's actually done a little damage, but we're going to replace the carpet someday anyway, and it's been better since we trimmed his claws.

Trimming claws was a little tricky, but he's such a forgiving boy that it went just fine. We'd clip a claw or two and he'd squirm loose and cross the room to get away, but he was always back in a just a minute or two for more snuggles (and trimmings).

My parents never trimmed their cats' claws, so this was new to me with our former housemate, whose cat's claws I helped clip. It makes sense though, and has been easier than dealing with dog nails. It seems to be a lot easier to see the quick on kitty nails and avoid hurting them.

I want to get nice pictures of Seregil, but getting my camera out and finding good light and catching him in a nice pose has always been a bit more than I want to get into in the evenings after work when I could snuggle my partner and play Parkour Pirate. This weekend there will probably be more pictures.

Music Stuff!

I've mentioned the mysterious, never-open record store on Belmont that I walk by after therapy on Wednesdays. The posted hours include Wednesday afternoons, but end with "Or whenever I feel like it." Every week, I look over as I pass the doorway, but the lights are always off.

Yesterday, I was looking forward to getting home to snuggles and kitty petting. I glanced into the windows of Groovin High as I walked by and actually did a double-take; it was open! I had to drop in.

There were just a few people looking through the records and CDs in the small, cozily-full-of-media storefront. I rummaged through the discount bins, and then moved to the regular used and new sections, looking for prog rock and other things that might catch my fancy. I found plenty of things I'd buy if had more disposable cash, but new vinyl is pricy. I came very close to ponying up for a new pressing of King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King," but finally set it back among it's friends and moved on.

I saw the owner wasn't busy with other customers and asked him whether he had any Laurie Anderson. "Sure! CD or vinyl?" He knew who she was!!

In LP format, he had "Mister Heartbreak," which I already own on CD, and "Strange Angels" which I do not own and haven't heard. Sold! But it was $8 and the minimum purchase with a card was $10. I looked through the discount stuff again, but half-heartedly. I kept thinking about the King Crimson album. It's one of the most influential and well-known prog-rock albums; of great importance to forming conceptions of the genre as a whole. And I've never heard that one either.

The album is on heavyweight vinyl, and mixed from original masters that were located in 2003 rather than the 'corrected' (to fix some problems introduced by bad head-alignment on the original multi-track tape recorders) stereo mixdown that a lot of pressings prior to that were made from. It was priced around $25. It has now become the first LP I've ever bought new, and the most I've ever spent on a musical album in any format, given that most of my stuff comes from thrift stores and buying "Nevermind" at Half-Price Books a few months ago felt like a splurge.

I hope to set aside an hour block this weekend to put it on my turntable and sit close-eyed on the couch to listen to it all straight through, as prog-rock and concept albums in general were made to be heard.

I haven't opened that one up yet, but I looked at the Anderson LP once I got home. It's such a difference to look at clean, well-cared for vinyl instead of the usual thrift store fare!

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I've picked up a few other records lately, including a copy of the Vee-Jay records pressing of "Introducing the Beatles." I was pretty excited to see that at a thrift shop! I think it's one of the later pressings that isn't worth as much (it might even be counterfeit; I gather there are a lot of those around). It also has a chip on one edge that makes the first track on each side unplayable. But it has a number of songs on it that I'd never heard before; Danae and I both really enjoyed listening to them.

*As an aside, the King Crimson remix is an example of why vinyl is sometimes 'better' than CDs. I'm not convinced that that the objective sound fidelity is necessarily better. It's that the mix on the vinyl version is often higher quality. If you're interested in this, there's a great Wikipedia article on the so-called 'Loudness War' that makes for really interesting reading.

That kitty we weren't sure whether we were going to keep? We're going to keep him.

His former person named him Zeke, but Danae has decided that he is Seregil, a character from Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner books, who is also known as "The Rimini Cat" in the guise of his work as a spy and thief in the city of Rimini.

Pictures are forthcoming.