Pilcrow

I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time this year. The past three years, I've gone to my friends the Saccos' home, but with Pam due to give birth next Monday, they didn't want to host anything this year. Instead, I invited them over, and John and Elizabeth as well. Naturally, I got started cooking far later in the day than I should have, so we didn't sit down to dinner until 8:30, but everything turned out okay and my friends all were pleased.

I talked to my sister Andrea yesterday about how I've found myself yelling at Nimiel a lot more ever since moving here. Nimiel has been more troublesome about things such as trying to fish pebbles out of the tree pot, she's shown more interest in biting on electric cords, and generally has been more aggravating. No doubt I've been more sensitive due to stress from settling in and from financial issues, but still she does seem to be getting into stuff more, and generally showing little interest in her toys - it seems the only toys that really interest her are the small fur-covered rattling mice, that she now destroys and devours within 15 minutes. Andrea mentioned how Siamese cats are clever and consequently get bored easily, which is something I've worried about, that I'm not providing enough entertainment for Nimiel and don't know what I can get that she won't destroy quickly. Getting another cat, as I'm sure certain people will be quick to suggest, is now out of the question even if I wanted to take on a second one, because the condo association rules only permit one cat (or dog).

Today however, Nimiel's been very mellow, and spent a while sleeping on my lap. She got a lot of attention last night, with various people playing with or chasing her, and she was so tired that when I left the computer desk to get ready for bed, she stayed put in her perch on top of the desk instead of following me around as usual. Perhaps I just haven't been taking enough time to play with her lately, although I have also noted that a couple times recently when wrestling with her, I've irritated her enough to make her try to leap at my head as an attack. So there's some balance to be struck there.

Today's been a very mellow day for me as well. The weather here has turned crappy, with temperatures in the low 40s and rain, so it was a very good day to sleep late, stay inside, and do nothing. Nimiel finally got me out of bed at 11:30am by starting to play with the alarm clock cord, and I fed her breakfast, but then I just went right back to bed. I dozed a while longer and was thinking about how I ought to get up when my parents called at 2pm to find out how Thanksgiving went. This time I stayed up, showered, and had breakfast at 3. I've spent the day just browsing online, and finally making my flight arrangements to return home for Christmas. It's been nice to have such a do-nothing day. Tomorrow afternoon I'm supposed to meet with John to go over the Stranger Things draft, and Sunday I'm having the Dowlers over for a dinner of leftovers, featuring turkey pie.

The insurance payment: a little over $2,750.
The actual repair cost to replace the light, patch the hole, and otherwise bang the sides back out: $180.
I win! But because the insurance company is writing it as a total loss, I still have to get the State Police to inspect the car and approve it for road use, reinstating my title. It's a minor nuisance though.

---

Saturday I went to see Mirrormask. It's visually really cool, with lots of weird and clever ideas, and the music's rather good. Story-wise it's on the light side, it's essentially the same film as Labyrinth, but I feel that's actually to its advantage, as you don't have to concentrate so much on what's going on that you miss seeing it as a whole - you don't miss the forest for the trees, as it were.

When I first got home from the film I felt like I was seeing everything just slightly differently, and it really made me wish to have just a bit more sense of wonder and magic in my daily life. It's why I envy my friend Tony's artistic ability, and it's one of the reasons I continue to be so fascinated by fantasy literature and RPGs (and also why I've become frustrated with the now-stereotypical fantasy RPG setting). I'd like to create some of that wonder and magic myself, and yet I'm too often too easily dragged down by the mundane world, or by myself.

However, I've finally got most of a complete draft of Stranger Things from John to start editing, so I do get to help bring just a touch of wonder and magic to reality. And the film, particularly the appearance of the sphinxes in the film, spurred me to write up a game setting idea I toyed with in the past, and it's got a bit of praise, which is nice.

---

I've mostly settled into the condo by now. There are still some shelf pieces I have to decide what to do with, the TV's not actually on the stand because of the broken door on that cabinet I need to fix, not quite everything's arranged or put away the way I want... but for the most part things are set up and it's quite liveable. Nimiel seems fairly happy with the new place, and has already helpfully pointed out things I need to deal with, such as putting some kind of latches or fasteners onto the kitchen cabinet doors to keep her out of the garbage, or emptying and disposing of the cardboard moving boxes so she doesn't eat the cardboard or styrofoam bits. I've been pretty busy and keeping long hours, and consequently I've been very tired a lot and a bit short-tempered with her, but I'm trying to be patient. And with that, it's past time I should be getting to bed.

Perfect Teeth by Unrest is such a brilliant album. I just don't understand how anyone could fail to appreciate it.

---

On this long holiday weekend, Nimiel was lucky enough to go outside for a walk not once but three times. All three walks went fairly well, although she had a bit of a mishap on the first one: she pounced on a bee, which apparently stung her paw. She pulled back immediately with a dismayed mew and started furiously licking her paw. After hobbling over to the grass for more paw-licking, she then threw up - I'm still not sure whether that was in reaction to the sting or not. After a bit, she actually led the way back inside, apparently having decided she'd had enough. But she seemed to recover well enough, hasn't been favoring the paw, and hasn't thrown up since.

On the positive side, although she's still very skittish about other people, she had some close encounters with people passing by and didn't scamper off in a full panic. Apparently it's all a matter of whether she feels she's in a protected or hidden place or not; when she's out in the open, her instinct is to run for home, amusingly enough even if that means running right past the "threatening" person. I'm glad at least that she is cautious of strangers and that she does head back toward the apartment instead of some random direction. Some of the passersby have also remarked with some amazement to see her in the harness, and anyone who has stopped to make a comment has also mentioned what a pretty cat she is, which is nice.

---

Two weeks ago, on Sunday the 15th, I went to see Ivy, Robbers on High Street, and Astaire at The Crocodile Cafe, for my May concert. I feel bad that I've already forgotten about the other two bands; I know I liked them, and they were both straight-up alterna-pop, but I really just don't have anything else to say. Ivy however was just wonderful to see and hear. The three members (Dominique Durand, Adam Schlesinger, and Andy Chase on vocals, guitar and bass) were ably backed by another trio on guitar, keyboard and drums. They played a fairly even split between new songs from their latest album, In the Clear, and their earlier albums - they didn't play "The Best Thing" or "Blame It On Yourself" as I'd hoped, but they did play more old songs than I'd expected and everything sounded great. Also, Dominique is totally hot. :-) I've seen photos of her before, so I knew she was pretty, and she has a totally sexy French accent, but still there was something about seeing her in person that brought it all home.

---

parkbenchzine wanted to see the full breakdown of my finances, so ( I'll hide them behind this link, for you number-phobic people... )

We tried out the harness again today, and things went much better. We were outside for about an hour. The yard is one big salad bar for her, and she spent a fair amount of time just going around munching on various blades of grass.

She's surprisingly very skittish about other people, and would even stop to peer suspiciously at people across the street. At one point a couple guys, one on a bicycle, were coming down the sidewalk, and I picked her up, carried her back up to the porch steps, and held her while they went by. She did try scrambling out of my arms when I did that, apparently because she was very alarmed by these two approaching guys, but once I got up by the steps and held her she was calm enough. On the other hand, when my downstairs neighbor came outside to garden, Nimiel recognized her and didn't get scared off. She's a bit skittish even with me when she's outside - if I make a sudden noise behind her, she turns with a start and crouches in her ready-to-flee position - so it was good that she was not startled by my neighbor.

The session finally ended when a nearby car, once started, turned out to idle with a loud rumble. Nimiel didn't like that, and ran for safety in the house. Fortunately I wasn't caught completely off guard, but still had to scramble a bit to keep up with her up the porch steps. Once she was at the top and heading inside I dropped the leash and let her run upstairs, then followed her back into the apartment, where she was calm enough that I could remove the leash and harness right away.

My concern now, belatedly, is whether it's likely she'll pick up fleas or ticks when she's outside. Normally I wouldn't worry about myself picking up fleas just from being out in the tiny urban yard, but cats (and dogs) may just be more appealing to the neighborhood fleas - lots more hair to hide in, or something. I guess I need to ask the vet about that.

A couple weeks ago, Nimiel got to have a little supervised time outdoors in the front yard. It didn't last too long, as it was clear I couldn't keep her from running into the neighbor's garden or underneath parked cars with the danger of darting under a moving one. But she clearly enjoyed being outdoors enough that I decided for certain to try putting her on a leash with a kitty harness. I bought the harness last weekend, and as the package recommended, I simply left it out where she could sniff it and get used to it. Well, that seems to have worked too well: she's decided it's a great new toy to wrestle with and chew on the buckles. When it's finally time to put it on her, I don't know how I'm going to manage, because she's clearly going to be too interested in wrestling it. (The instructions helpfully say, "to fit: stand your cat up straight, adjust and buckle the collar and girth straps..." as if it were going to be that easy.) If I can get it on her then get her outdoors, she may learn to tolerate it, the idea being to get her to associate it with being allowed outside. I'm suspecting she'll prove to be too independent to tolerate it, but it's either this or no outdoor time for her, so I might as well try.

Tomorrow I'm also getting her microchipped. It's a good idea in general, it's a better idea if I plan to give her some outdoor time even if accompanied, but most importantly the work on the building is supposed to start soon. Our established practice is that when I leave the apartment, she gets to spend some time out in the hallway first, before I chase or carry her back into the apartment. This practice became established in part because it seemed much easier than trying to keep her inside while I got out the door, and in fact I rarely have trouble getting her back in the apartment once she's had a little free time. I'm worried though that when construction begins she may get a chance to run out the back of the building, so I want to make sure she's traceable back to me.

---

I went to a home buyer's seminar last night at the branch of my bank near work. There were only about ten of us, though supposedly they were expecting around 30 people, and I'm pretty sure I was the only first-time buyer, everyone else was selling. The main things I learned were that:

• There are big scary numbers I'm not at all sure I can handle.
  
• Putting it off to next year only makes that worse.
  
• I need to get a buyer agent first thing and a pre-approved mortgage loan second thing before I panic about the big scary numbers.
  
• Apparently it's sometimes possible to "borrow" the closing cost amount by adding it in with the agreed-upon purchase price.
  

The biggest problems I have at the moment are that I have nothing whatsoever available for a down payment, thanks to the ongoing braces and car repair payments, and those payments I've been making have demonstrated that I can't afford much of an increase in my monthly payments without simply going broke each month. I know these can be dealt with and I have to push forward, but I'm concerned. As it is, it already looks like I have no choice but to cut back on my braces payments (again, I already paid for the whole thing with a credit card, so it's my choice what I'm paying the card company) because I am indeed simply going broke at the end of each month. It'll work out, it's just not working out as I'd have liked.

Yet another sign that Nimiel was meant for me: she didn't like the chicken and lobster cat food, and she didn't like the sardines, shrimp and crab cat food. However, she loved salmon & trout, chicken & herring, and turkey & salmon.

All right, I've never had herring before, or trout. But I do hate shellfish! And I really like salmon, chicken, and turkey.

I'm particularly pleased she didn't like the sardines, shrimp & crab, because that was pretty smelly.

Hey Zannah, when you've opened a can of cat food, how do you store the rest of it? Do you just put plastic wrap over the can? Right now I'm buying the 3-ounce Wellness cans as I figure out which kinds she'll eat, and I feel like I'm going to waste a lot of wrap if I keep buying the small cans. But I'm going to be washing small plastic containers a lot if I transfer the rest into a container.

A few more goals:

• Resume reading for a half-hour before bedtime.
  
• Shift my personal schedule back a bit and establish a habit of getting up at 8 AM. (With Daylight Saving Time coming up, this is particularly important.)
  
• Buy decent speakers for my Mac, which I've been talking about doing for probably two years now.
  

I'm pretty sure I'd thought of another one or two, but I can't recall them now. It's been a long, busy week at work.

Nimiel's been much more pleasant - generally chilled out and sleeping next to me at night, and otherwise playful and kittenish. Occasionally she's been a bit of trouble. Last Thursday when I got home from work, I discovered she'd knocked out a wall outlet adapter in my bedroom. This adapter is what the DSL modem and wireless router are plugged into, and as the DSL connection is being shared, that's not a good thing. Shortly after, I found out why she'd knocked the adapter out: she sat on my bedside table, staring intently at the completely blank wall, and eventually jumped to attack nothing at all. I have no idea what was fascinating her, but she's kept some fascination for that wall, particularly that corner, since then, although not as intently as the first couple days. Fortunately I was able to move the bedside table so that it covered the outlet, protecting it from her and also protecting the DSL modem. (It's an open-sided table, so there's no fire hazard - it just keeps her from being able to knock into the adapter and cause it to fall out.)

Tonight for some reason she was very fascinated with my dinner of leftover garlic chicken with garlic rice pilaf, even though she hadn't been so interested on Sunday when I made it. She couldn't keep her nose out of it and I had to keep moving her off the table. She was also pretty interested in my drink (cranberry with ginger ale), again something she normally shows only a cursory interest in, and she ended up knocking the glass over, though fortunately it had only a little left. I wish I could communicate better with her, although she is still just a kitten so I suppose there was no good way to convince her not to mess around with my glass.

Back on January 1, I mentioned that I'd been contacted by someone through my Salon Personals profile. We exchanged a few messages, and I was very interested in meeting her, but she was busy with work and graduate studies, and now it's turned out she's moving to NYC on short notice. (Some might think she's just trying to let me down easy, which is possible, but I myself did move to Seattle on short notice, three weeks after being offered a job, without prior plans or preparations to move.) So that fell through, which is disappointing, but still someone I found attractive was interested enough to contact me first, so that's something. I've bookmarked someone else that seems interesting, if I hadn't been so busy this week I'd have sent her a message. I'll have to get to that soon.

Oh, a couple years ago I hosted a dinner party at my place for Easter, and I've decided I should do that again. Looking forward to it.

Well, Nimiel has kept up the mewing plaintively and wandering the apartment behavior. Both Sunday and Monday nights she settled down with me when I went to bed, but then woke me at 5 and I had to isolate her.

Last night while I was busy installing the child safety gate under the sink, she did the same mewing and wandering behavior, and she would stop as soon as I left that task and played with her. I then spent most of the hour from 1 to 2 am playing with her, getting her to run around a lot, in between getting myself ready for bed. She did settle down with me when I finally went to bed, but only a couple hours later she woke me up, so I isolated her again. Of course when I isolate her, she does seem to spend a lot of that time continuing to mew for attention.

So I am now concerned that she is bored and lonely. I am also very annoyed because one of my stated reasons for not getting a cat was that one cat means two cats, and I didn't want two cats. Well I've finally got a cat much to my friends' delight, and it looks like I might "need" to get a second one, which I really really do not want to do! One cat is plenty. I hope Nimiel will be okay and grow out of this behavior even if I don't get her a companion.

I also have to decide whether to just routinely isolate her before I go to bed, or to continue letting her be free and only isolating her if she wakes me up with that particular behavior. I am reluctant to routinely isolate her, partly because I like having her sleep next to me, and partly because that part of the apartment will be unbearably hot and stifling in the summer with the doors closed. On the other hand, I'm reluctant to continue having my sleep broken up.

In other matters, I've been meaning to write more about specific goals for 2005, but I've been busy. One of those goals is to write at least one journal entry a week, and with Nimiel around, that does not look to be a problem at all.

So I bought new food and new litter for her yesterday. I already forget the name of the crystals I bought. We were both dubious about the crystals once I'd filled the litter box, so I decided to go ahead and put a thin layer of the Arm & Hammer stuff on top, to help her adjust. I'm not sure whether that was necessary, but she has been using the litter so I guess it'll be okay. I rather wish I hadn't bothered with the A&H stuff because that means the smell of that litter is still getting all over the house.

As for the food, I ended up buying the Wellness brand that Zannah recommended. I was amused that the company that makes it, Old Mother Hubbard, is based in Lowell Mass - a back-home connection, there. It was the only brand I recognized at Mud Bay Granary, although they gave me a booklet about choosing cat food and it mentions "Feline Vitality" by Wysong, so I guess they have the Wysong, I just didn't recognize it. Here too I deliberately mixed the new with the old, adding some of the Wellness stuff to the Purina that was already in her bowl. She did munch on some of the Wellness right away, so I guess she likes it. I can't really tell from the current state of her bowl whether she's continued eating the Wellness.

Now, I don't know whether these changes had anything to do with her obnoxious behavior last night. I certainly hope not. I watched a DVD late last night, and she mostly chilled out and napped while I was watching it. I made sure to play with her for several minutes before and in between getting ready for bed, and she seemed fine. As soon as I went to bed, she started wandering through the apartment, mewing plaintively.

I let that go on for maybe 15 minutes before I thought, well, maybe there is something wrong, and I turned on the light and got up to check on her. Of course as soon as I did so, she switched over to purring. I pet her for a minute, picked her up and held her, then put her down and got back into bed. She immeditely resumed the plaintive mewing and restless wandering, but got noisier and noisier about it. She crashed through the window blinds a lot, she went into the bathroom (where it echoes) and mewed loudly several times, she'd pace a circuit around me on the bed still mewing as if I weren't even there, and so on.

I let that go on for another half-hour I guess before I started spraying her with the water bottle. That'd stop her temporarily, then she'd start up again, and she kept this up for the entire rest of the night. Every hour or so I'd lose all patience and jump out of bed with the bottle to chase her and spray her. Six in the morning is when I started yelling "NO!" and "STOP!" at the top of my lungs. She did settle down next to me a couple times, as if she were going to be good and let me sleep, but only stayed there for a couple minutes and as soon as it seemed I was going to go to sleep, she'd leave and start up again.

I may have managed to get an hour or so of sleep, finally, very late in the morning (between 8 and 9:30 when my alarm went off), because I seem to recall having some dreams. But aside from that, she very literally and deliberately kept me up all night. I'm angry and stressed and aching - I'm not even that tired because I'm just too wound up. And as far as I can tell, she of course has no idea she's been such a bad kitty - after all, being sprayed with the water bottle all night never got her to give it up - so for all I know she's going to do the same thing tonight. I cannot keep this cat if she keeps up this behavior, and I have no idea how to convince her to behave, if that's even possible.

She's napping under the couch right now, and I'm sorely tempted to poke her awake, and keep her from getting any sleep during the day today.

Ever since moving to Seattle, I've been thinking about and occasionally talking about getting a cat. I've always liked cats a lot, I've enjoyed playing with my friends' cats, and I was thinking it'd be nice to have a cat around in the apartment to offset the occasional loneliness of my new home on my own. My idea to get a cat was met with A LOT of enthusiasm by most of my Seattle friends, as well as my younger sister, and that was actually a bit off-putting. After all, I was just settling into my own place in a new city, and I'm a very neat and organized person so I wasn't sure a cat would fit in with me, and I've never had a cat before... it was a big step for me that I wasn't sure I was ready to take.

Well, about a week before Christmas, the neighbors (Sharon and Rich) of my friends TonyD and Orkgrrl lost their cat - I think it was an outdoor cat, I'm not sure, but in any case it disappeared outside. A couple days later, Sharon heard a cat mewing outside their door, so she opened it, and in ran a strange white cat. Sharon took the cat around the neighborhood - I found out from Orkgrrl she spent five hours going around with the cat, so she must've covered quite a large area, not just the houses in the immediate block - but no one claimed the cat. She then sent out some kind of email about the cat to the "Madrona Moms" mailing list, which Orkgrrl is also on, so Orkgrrl learned Sharon had a stray kitty in need of a home.

I got a call at work from Orkgrrl, who asked in her chirpy, "I'm up to something!" voice, if I wanted to come over for dinner that evening. I agreed, but I knew there was something odd going on. When I got there, Orkgrrl immediately asked if I wanted to go see the new kitty her friend Sharon got. At first I thought she meant just that, but then I realized she was up to something - it was a plot to get me to get a cat! We went over to Sharon's, and sure enough, they had a cute white kitty that turned out to be a stray. The kitty was cute, and seemed fairly friendly, and needed a home - Sharon and Rich were fostering two basset hounds, and still hoped their cat would return, and preferred to see this cat go to a good home., So I said well, sure, I'd like to try having a cat, and I agreed to take the cat home on Friday, which was Christmas Eve. I was busy Wednesday and Thursday, but I had Friday through Monday off for the holidays so I thought that'd be a good time to let the cat and I get to know each other.

Friday I was anxious all day, wondering if this was a good idea and wondering whether I really wanted a cat or if it was just that everyone else wanted me to have a cat. I also had to do some last-minute running around to pick up kitty litter and cat food - fortunately TonyD and Orkgrrl had a spare litter box and food dishes - and that made me realize just how little I knew about having a cat - what kind of food is good, what litter should I buy, and so on. But then, when I actually arrived to pick up the cat, I found myself charmed by her, moreso than I had been on Wednesday. She went into the cat carrier with no fuss, she was quiet for the whole trip, she even sat quietly in the carrier while I finished bringing in her stuff and set up her litter box. When I let her out, she calmly checked out the apartment and settled right in, proving to be affectionate and playful.

I've been very happy ever since taking her in. My only concern has been that she must've belonged to someone, but Sharon couldn't find anyone who'd claim her, there haven't been any "missing cat" posters up in the neighborhood, and when I took her to the vet, they had no notice on file either and also did not find a microchip when they scanned her. So, it seems safe to say I'm now the proud owner of a wonderful cat. The vet says she's about a year to a year-and-a-half old and healthy.

Being a big geek, I decided I should name her in (Tolkien's) Elvish. After some searching through my Tolkien Dictionary (like I said, big geek), and with some help from my friend Christine, I settled on Nimiel, which means "white maiden". In my mind her name's really Nimloriel, "golden white maiden," reflecting the hints and highlights of orange in her mostly-white fur, but Nimloriel just sounds too long and heavy.

Orkgrrl took some pictures when she was over yesterday, you can view them in this Shutterfly album. Unfortunately Orkgrrl wasn't able to get a good photo of Nimiel's bright blue eyes - another time, when the flash isn't needed, perhaps.