Stuff and Moonshine

Had to contact the vet to reschedule Beatrice’s appointment (check-up, shots) for another day, as I was unable to catch her.

Apparently my workplace counts as an essential service (we’re a manufacturer), so I’m still going in. I have my own glassed-in office and a big bottle of hand-sanitizer, and the subway cars and buses are only about one-quarter full during my commute, so it’s easy enough to sit several feet away from other passengers.
ETA -- OK, I was told at lunch to stay home (using paid vacation days) from tomorrow until April 6.


I accidentally let Beatrice out of the bathroom last night, so we’re not sure exactly where in the apartment she is. Here’s hoping she relaxes enough to come out sooner rather than later, though I have faith in her ability to at least locate the food we put out, even if we don’t see her do so.
ETA-- Andrew has spotted her:


Finally watched Midnight Special last night, a month after reading sovay’s review of it. Her description is as thorough as you need—the only addition I need to make is that I especially loved a little moment while Alton (Jaeden Martell) is channeling transmissions from a Spanish-language radio station. By this point in the story it’s evident that this is the mildest and most benign of the phenomena the kid manifests, and his father (Michael Shannon) permits himself a a very slight smile of amused pride, like this is a cute party trick his kid does. Compared with bringing down tracking satellites or causing earthquakes, it is.

 Well, tonight we had the preliminary telephone interview. Obviously the current situation has affected how they process applications, and the woman on the line told us apologetically they they’ve actually been getting more people applying to adopt pets (presumably because people are stuck at home and have more spare time to fill out the form on the website), so they’ve “added a couple of layers” to the approval process. Anyway, if we pass the hurdles, they’ll get back to us and we can move on the next stage, which is a skype visit with the kitten. 

 

 It's possible I'm the last one to know this -- I'd seen a couple of pages floating around Tumblr of a Junji Ito story involving a cat. Today I finally googled "Junji Ito cat" and discovered there's a whole manga called Junji Ito's Cat Diaries (scans of the first few chapters here), which is basically gentle domestic comedy about Ito, his wife, and their two cats; but it's still drawn in Ito's horror-manga style.

Anytime J-Kun (Ito) is surprised by something (which is often) there's a closeup of his bloodshot, horrified eyes. His wife A-Ko, meanwhile, has completely white, pupil-less eyes in most panels, which make her constant smile the stuff of nightmares.

As for the cats, Yon has "a cursed face" and spots on his back that look like a skull; Mu seems like a fairly normal Norwegian Forest Cat, but sometimes he bites. Generally everything looks like it's going to turn gruesome, but never does, although J-Kun sometimes hallucinates.

Been a mildly stressful few weeks, here. ( Read more... )

So, Narly (our younger cat) had to have five teeth out this week; I'm going to have to make sure we're frugal for at least the rest of the year to pay that off. I think we might be off to a good start, given that Andrew hadn't been feeling too well the last couple of weeks (I think part of it was worry over Narly), so we haven't been going out.

Narly, meanwhile, seems to be recovering just fine, and doesn't hold a grudge against us; I hope he keeps his patience in the face of the antibiotic pills I have to give him for the next while. The painkiller is in liquid form, so i just squirt a dose down his throat.

Carter, OTOH, keeps hissing at him, because he looks like Narly but doesn't smell right and he thinks he's some kind of alien imposter. To be fair, even I can tell Narly smells like the vet -- when i cuddle him I get a faint whiff of disinfectant.

I don't know if this comes directly after the previous scene, or if there should be something in between.
( Read more... )