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Books, Food, Friends, Games

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Early February the author Sarah Monette held a memorial book sale for her cat to benefit the veterinary hospital he was treated at. Among the books offered were ten sets of her 4-book fantasy series Doctrine of Labyrinths. I had the first part already, but the second part is out of print, and, if I remember correctly, the fourth part too. So when I read she was gonna offer them, and for only 35 dollars, I knew I had to get one. So I set my alarm for the day of the sale so I would be online and ready when she would post the sale. And it worked, I got lucky and ended up being the fourth person to speak out for a set. Within ten, twenty minutes, all ten sets were gone, so I was damn lucky.

Anyway, long story short, yesterday when I got home there was a note from the postal service indicating they had twice tried to deliver me a package and found no one home. I could pick it up at the post office the next day.

Today, Nienke asked if I wanted to join her in making homemade pizza for lunch, to which there is really only one answer: yes! Except a quick stop at the store was needed fore some additional ingredients. Since the post office is in the store, this was an excellent way to kill two birds with one stone. So we picked up some meat for my pizza and some mozzarella and my package at the check out. As expected, it were the books.

So, I am now the proud owner of a complete set of Doctrine of Labyrinths, and I’ll finally be able to continue the adventures of Felix and Mildmay.

After I sufficiently drooled over my pretty new arrivals, and shared this through Twitter and Facebook :D, Nienke and I finally got around to making pizza. I went for a home made Hawai’i type thing with tomato paste, corn, regular cheese, lots of ham and pineapple, grated cheese and mozzarella. Nienke had similar, but replace ham and pineapple with tuna (ewwwwwww :D)

*unrelated sidenote, since I’m re-watching Atlantis, I <3 McKay*

Pizza turned out to be really tasty, so instead of eating half and saving the other half for breakfast, I ate it all. I felt rather stuffed, but it was delicious.

Eva called, in the morning, to see if I wanted to hang out, maybe play a game, and of course I agreed. Since I was planning on cooking for me and Nienke anyway, I invited Eva to join us. When Eva showed up, however, she surprised me by informing that Mellien was coming too. Fortunately, I made stir fry which is easy to expand when you get more people than planned. Nienke left us shortly after since she had a visitor of her own forthcoming. Eva, Mellien and I went to play Munchkin. It’s been quite a while since I last played, so I had to re-read the rules for a bit, but I quickly got back into it. Mellien had never played it before, and for Eva it was a long time too.

Within a round or two, three, they mostly figured it out, and it went very well for a first time. Eva won by gloriously defeating Level 4 Harpies. We were mostly really nice to each other during the game, not a lot of hindering and pestering took place. And, as the game master of the evening, Eva bribed me with a cookie (for a level) and I nagged myself (for a level) 😀

Mid-game

My cards at the end-game

Mellien’s final monster, it ate all her cards 😀

Eva’s final monster, Level 4 Harpies

The winner with her level markers

Time

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I need more time. Or maybe just better time management…

The puppets are feeling sorry for themselves since they’re still only just a body with a head (although I have made George a leg to go with his solitary arm, and I attached said arm).

My Book Club books are also feeling neglected. I haven’t finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms yet (although I’m far enough in that I can finish that tonight) and haven’t even started on Chill. Saving grace on that is that I’ve read it before so I should be able to do a post about it and discuss along a bit.

My blog is lonesome since I’ve only been doing the regular theme posts of late (weekly four, P365) and not very much personal blogging or one of the other varieties of theme blogs I have going on.

On the up side, I’m no longer sick, I’ve a reasonably uncluttered house these days and Monkey’s paw is as good as better. That counts for something right? 😀

It’ll right itself next month, I expect. New years usually start of a bit rough 😀

Weekly Four: week 3

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I’m grateful for my new storage containers, I <3 organizing 😀

I’m happy I’m renewing my interest in other non-computer things beside reading. Not just crafts, but also board games. Now to harass more people into playing with me.

The one downside of living in Smalltownia, there’s not a lot of recreational things beyond the basics. So, in reference to the previous point, something like a game club you won’t find here.

I learned forgetting the book you’re reading, and enjoying very much, at your parents is not smart 😀

The Saga of the Toes, Part Two

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Took pictures of Monkey’s paw today and sent them off to the vet so she can decide whether we need to come back for a check-up or it’s going well enough that we can just go on with the antibiotics and wait it out. I love living in the future 😀

The picture taking was an adventure on itself. I was wrestling the cat into not moving in my lap with one arm, all the while holding his paw out and spreading the toes with the other arm. Nienke then took some pictures. They’re not the best quality, but I hope they’ll do.

His paw looks much better already, I think it was indeed the soaking that was slowing down the healing process. While the stuff disinfects the infection, it also made Monkey lick and clean the paw even more. And with the rough tongue cats have, he was continually making it worse again.

Over the past week I’ve noticed him cleaning the paw much less, and the sore has diminished in size considerably. On the top of his foot, where you could see the edges of the sore at first, almost all the hair has come back. I’m hoping the vet will not have us come back, my bank account would be grateful, but if we must, we go.

The Saga of the Toes, Part One

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So Monkey’s been having a wound/infection kinda thing between the middle toes of his back leg for a while now. I took him to the vet in early December to have it looked at, and she gave me some antibiotics and told me to soak the paw in sodium carbonate.

So I soaked his paw every day, and finished the antibiotics treatment (about a week), but the wound didn’t really change. So I gave it some more time, kept soaking the paw once every day and then the holiday preparations hit and I got distracted. But last week, as excitement ebbed away, I took notice again, and saw that there were still barely any changes.

So today I took him back to the vet, and just like last time he’s turning out to be quite medical marvel. The vet was surprised it hadn’t healed yet and took a swab to have it checked out to see what kind of infection it is. She also said to stop the soaking, it seems as if the wetness isn’t helping, so we’re trying keeping it dry. She also gave me another antibiotics treatment, this time ten days worth. We probably have to come back, like last time, on a weekly basis, unless I manage to get good pictures of the paw to send to her. Will have to try doing that.

I know the cat will be pleased that there’s no more soaking. He absolutely hated it! The first few times, as I was trying out how best to do it, I got scratched all over. Then I figured out how to roll him in a towel tight enough that he would stay confined, and calm enough, to soak the paw for a minute or so. But as the days went on, he started realising what it meant when I put the bow with the solution on the floor and came at him with the towel so he’d hide in corners 😀

And today he decided he really didn’t want to go to the vet, so as we (Nienke drove us) were just a couple hundred yards away from the vet’s office, he decided to poop in the carrier…

The smell was horrible, and as he was squirming about in the carrier, trying to get out, and away from the poop, he managed to spread it over the bottom, and into the towel, and some on himself too. The vet was heroic, in that she cleaned out the worst in the carrier while I held the cat in a stranglehold. The carrier got at least cleanish enough to take Mr. Poop home without making it worse.

Back home I cleaned the cat, which he did not like. But serves him well for the crap he gave me (pun intended). Then spent fifteen minutes minutely scrubbing the carrier since poop had been in all the corners and crannies. Joy.

Weekly Four: week 45

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I’m grateful for those colourful, puffed rice thingies, they’re awesome 😀

I’m happy my cat and my bed are nice and warm.

I’m angry at my knitting, I’d gotten to a nice little square and then I lost a stitch and recovered it wrong. It annoyed the crap out of me so I tore out the knitting again. And now I have to look up how to start again. Bugger.

I learned it sucks sometimes. And sometimes it doesn’t. And it’s mostly about trying to make the things that suck be less than the things that don’t. And vice versa.

Today is a Good Day

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I feel good, happy and at peace and stuff like that. I’ve tidied up, re-arranged my books a bit so they fit better in the available space, vacuumed and just went to the store. A nice, balanced day of doing stuff, instead of a flying-all-over-the-place day or a sit-on-my-ass-and-do-nothing-at-all day 😀 (Although I now do have my standard vacuuming head ache :/)

Bought pears and apples to make stuff with tomorrow and next week and a bunch of grapes to take with me to work on the irregular shifts. And since I was quite proud of myself for actually vacuuming today instead of pushing it away again and again, I rewarded myself by buying a cake. It’ll be a delayed reward since it needs to defrost, but it should be ready to eat tonight. Yum!

This week was mostly a good week too, was a bit tired on occasion, but felt good on the whole. Slowly getting used to the time change, but early evenings still completely derail me. I’m continuously misjudging the time and get grouchy at the early dark. Fortunately the mornings aren’t as dark yet.

Met Gert on Wednesday for our usual belated mutual birthday hanging out and gift exchange. I’d bought him a pretty  book, but he couldn’t choose so we went shopping to find me a present. No fun Star Trek things to be found, so we headed for the regular book store. Finally decided on E.E. Knight’s Dragon Champion, and Trudi Canavan’s The High Lord. I’ve read the last one, but I didn’t have it yet, and I hate unfinished series in my bookcase. Plus, they’re awesome books, so this makes a re-read easier, too.

Afterward we hit the shops for some clothes. Gert was successful, but I didn’t find anything (except a new hat). I wanted to get some t-shirts at V&D, but they didn’t have them anymore. Shortly after, Gert had to go. I had a last hour to kill before my train would go, so decided to check out the H&M Man. Their basement has the best accessories. There I came across very nice sweaters with the Ghostbusters logo, and they were only €29,95.  Together with some heavily discounted ties (one with colourful dogs, and a pink/purple striped one), my mission was successful after all.

And, suprise, surprise, earlier today Gert called. He was in Utrecht at the V&D and they did have the shirts I wanted there! So he bought two shirts for me, and we’ll exchange later this week. Yay!

Also, finally new Glee again this Tuesday. I thought there’d be a new episode right the week after the Rocky Horror Glee Show, so I was all set last week and then nothing 🙁

But! Mash-ups next week, and Kurt’s new (possible boy)friend!

Weekly Four: week 32

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I’m grateful it didn’t rain yesterday. My parents had a great time at the Agricultural Day at Verhildersum Museum Estate, and Nienke’s Birthday BBQ approved of the dry weather as well 😀

I’m happy Monkey is so close lately. I think he missed me when I was away last weekend. He’s letting me pet and hold him much more, and is seeking my company (and lap) of his own accord more as well. He’s on my lap as I type this <3

I’m angry with my WordPress. After returning to this site, and updating WP to the newest version, updating pages stopped functioning. And later posting pages stopped working, and now I’m even having trouble posting blog posts. Didn’t find a lot of info on the net, but what there is, is pointing to security issues and .htaccess file edits. So I first had to scour through my hosting provider’s FAQ to figure out 1) if I already had one somewhere (I couldn’t find it in the directory structure) and/or 2) how to edit and where to put it (since hosting provider is not using the standard public_html folder for the site but has named it differently. I think I got it now, we’ll see if this posts, then I probably got it 😀

I learned that draping a string of fake ivy across the top of my window looks neat.