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I wanted it to have a very crude, children's drawing look to it. It makes me think of a 3D blueprint.
I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out.
It's made from a cardboard gift box covered in fleece with both machine-sewn and hand-sewn details.
Side:
( A few more pics under here... )
They're also really good with the addition of walnuts or coconut or caramel chips.
Step 1, mix:
1 cup margarine, softened
1 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
Step 2, mix:
2 cups flour
1 cup large-flake rolled oats
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
12 – 18 ounces semisweet chocolate squares, cut into chunks (the amount of chocolate you use depends on how much you love it!)
Step 3:
Combine steps 1 and 2.
Form into large balls and place on cookie sheets, 2 ½ inches apart.
Makes 15 - 18 LARGE cookies
2 cookie sheets
Bake @ 300F for 20 to 22 minutes.
Cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minute then place on a rack to cool
What does it say about the value of someone's life when family doesn't even want to keep a sick person's photo albums? At least until the sick person is dead?
My neighbour has recently entered Palliative Care in the Hospital. She's been getting sicker for a very long time and can no longer look after herself. She has no immediate family but seemed to be fairly close to her extended family. (They live a few hours away.)
When her family came up to see her for a short visit, they took a quick look through her apartment, took a few items and said to dispose of anything that was left. She's not even dead yet but the things that defined her daily life have been thrown out.
To be fair, I didn't actually meet her family (I was dead sick so wasn't feeling overly social at the time), but was told about it by another neighbour who was present.
I guess a few things were taken to her at the hospital - nightgowns and a painting, not sure what else. The rest of her clothing was either donated or tossed, same with her furniture and, well, everything else.
It's... sad.
I helped to get a few things packed up for donation and in doing so found that she had an old set of silver cutlery. Her family either didn't want it or didn't care enough to look through her things to find it.
I also found 3 photo albums. There were pictures of the triplets in there along with other family moments. (The triplets are her 6 or 7 year old great (?) nieces / nephew. They were left behind to go in the dumpster.
My neighbour claimed the albums were full of pictures of her church friends. Some of them might have been. But, in that case, why wouldn't her church friends want to keep the albums? At least until they had a proper chance to look through them?
I know that she'll never be able to come home, she doesn't actually have all that much time left. I get that. But damn it! It still feels wrong.
I keep looking around at all my junk. What would happen to it if I dropped dead? The cats would be taken care of either by my parents or the SO.
My cameras would be kept, but what would happen to my pictures?
The books would likely be given away or sold. Even the ones I've had since my first Christmas.
There wouldn't be anything of 'me' left.
Anything I've made would simply be tossed into the dumpster to become part of a landfill along with old diapers and odd socks.
Such a great feeling. :(
Noooooo…
I got the pleasure of experiencing a bacterial throat and nasal infection that started on the tail-end of a cold I’d had for about a month.
The high fever I had for over 24 hours as well as a very sore throat led to a visit to the local (and very efficient!) ER last Sunday night (the 18th). (In and out in less than 40 minutes FTW!!)
They put me on penicillin. (I think the white sludge in the back of my throat might have influenced the decision a bit there.)
The fever sorta, almost, kinda, went away, but by Friday, I had acquired one of those ‘let’s see if I can cough up the sidewalk in China’ coughs. It was, of course, accompanied by the usual headache, aching everything and general ‘oh please kill me now feeling’ I’d had since the fever started the previous Saturday.
This led to me making an appointment at the after-hours clinic Friday evening. (Much easier than a regular Doctor’s appointment to get.)
Take note: If you really want the Doctor etc to take you seriously, make sure to have at least 3 coughing fits lasting about 5 minutes each while in the Doctor’s office. (Just remember to put a mask on first. It never hurts to be polite.)
Coughing fit #1 should occur while in the waiting room.
Coughing fit # 2 should occur while the nurse is trying to interview you.
Coughing fit # 3 should occur while the Doctor is examining you.
Turning a rather charming shade of purple also helps.
This tends to make sure they know you’re serious about dying in their office if they don’t give you a prescription for the ‘good stuff’. (Codeine, oh wonderous codeine, how I cherish you…)
The Doctor also changed the antibiotic to a stronger one since the penicillin hadn’t really done as much as it should have to get rid of the bacterial infection.
As of today, I’m feeling much better. I no longer have to take the cough meds every 4 hours or risk death by suffocation. I can usually get by with every 5 hours or so.
And I can sleep for almost 3 hours at a time without being awakened by a coughing fit that feels like it's tying to turn my lungs in-side-out. Sooo nice.
The Doctor said I was to stay away from work until the cough is gone. Well, since I still have to be careful to sit down when a fit starts otherwise I risk falling down, (it’s very un-nerving to cough so hard you start to grey-out at the edges, I don’t recommend it), I’m not back to work just yet. I’m very sure the bookstore customers appreciate me staying away too.
So, the moral of the story is, avoid people.
Or bath in a big vat of hand sanitizer every time someone comes near you…
I know these things can be unpredictable and I know you didn't plan for it to happen.
But baby-girl, next time you feel the need to projectile barf, please for the love of little toy mousies, don't do so from the top of the 3-foot-tall, carpeted cat tower...
Love,
Your Mommy.
( The Offender herself... )
Some very odd things show up at Ye Ol' Bookstore every now and then.
Today's find is a Dean R. Koontz book I'd never heard of before. Not surprisingly it's out of print.
I'm not quite sure what to do with it. Maybe I'll hide it away until a collector comes along.
( Okay, so the scratching post is only 3 feet tall but she looked really good from the floor. :) MOAR here!! )
This time it's salmon...
Tig approves!
( Many more... )
This is my sister's cat, Soleil.
She's so tiny compared to my 3 cats. She's about 8 pounds after a large meal.
( A whole bunch moar... )
I usually like my customers. Occasionally I get someone in who ticks me off but for the most part the job is great.
Today? Not so much greatness.
Today I had an ever so charming fucktard come in. He looked around a bit, then brought a book up to the counter to purchase. When I opened the cash register to give him his change, the bastard grabbed all the 20s and ran.
Being the idiot I am, I took off after him. Being the klutz I am, I tripped on the carpet and just missed grabbing his back-pack. (Ok, ok, he probably would have gotten away anyway but I like to delude myself that I almost caught him.)
I rug-burned my elbow and scuffed the palms of my hands. Needless to say, the ass got away.
I got to spend the next hour talking to cops, filling out a statement, letting the owner know his business had been robbed and trying very hard to stop shaking.
What a fun day.
And the worst part? I still haven't had a chance to finish my book... Grrr.
...And the cat didn't even wake up. :3
Greymalkin is 15 this month. I don't know his actual birthday but the vet told me he was born mid-May, so mid-May it is.
I met Greymalkin for the first time on August 23rd, 1994. It was love at first sight. I had no choice but to take the little silver guy home with me that day. He's been the love of my life ever since.
Earlier this year, I thought I'd lost my Greymalkin to kidney failure. I've never been so scared in all my life. The two of us lucked out in that with regular sub-q fluids Greymalkin's health has improved beyond all expectations. If we're very lucky, he'll be with me for many years to come, but no matter what the future has in store, I plan to cherish every day I have with him.
I also plan on taking many, many more pictures and plaster them all over the interwebz. :D
So, I give you my Greymalkin...
2005 - Greymalkin practicing hiding in plain site...
( Moar under here... )
"Put the camera down and scritch my ears silly hooman."
( Moar under here... )
But the colours look much better on her.
( I'll get you my little Pretty... )
Hello and welcome to a picspam dedicated to me...
My name is Greymalkin and I'm cute.
Means I can bat my purrty eyes and make the most pathetic little meows and Mommy will give me Greenies. She's such a push-over. :3
( Many more ME under here... )
Question for anyone who post pictures on the internet...
How do you feel about people borrowing your pics to make macros?
For the most part I don't mind. I do, however think it's polite if the person asks first or at least credits the pic back to the owner.
But I realize that this is the interwebz with a whole different mind-set where anything that's posted is often seen as 'it's there so I'll use it'.
I'm asking because a couple of macros of my Tig (Very funny macros IMO!) have made an appearance on another comm and I'm just interested in hearing other people's opinions / comments etc about people using your pics.
x-posted to
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cat_lovers & kittypix See the discussion here and here.
And because they made me laugh, a few more pics of Tig himself...
( 2 moar under here... )
The day started off very early with some fantastic deer watching.
Unfortunately, the day got weirder and very gross in the evening. I finally got to meet my upstairs neighbour. He's very nice. That's not the weird or gross part.
The weird part was that he knocked on my door to let me know that he was in the middle of a mini flood upstairs, there was running water that was likely headed my way and it wasn't his fault. The guy at fault? The Special Snowflake that lives on the 3rd floor. Yay. Again with the guy on the 3rd floor. (I have problems with him every year when he has his air conditioner installed. It splashes so much on my windowledge that I can't have my window open at all. I politely complain, he says he'll fix it A day or so later I complain some more, he whines, I 'ask' him to turn it off until he gets it fixed 'or else', he turns it off and may or may not get it fixed but at least I can have my window open again.)
My nice upstairs neighbour had called the landlord and left a message that something needed to be done, NOW. That's not going to much hlep since the landlord checks his messages every couple of days. *sigh*
My nice nextdoor neighbour gave my nice upstairs neighbour the landlord's home number since water running inside the walls and all over the floor is never a good thing.
Never one to just sit on my hands and do nothing for several hours while a problem gets much, much worse, I go upstairs to talk to the Snowfake.
When he answers the door, I can see that he's having a Very Bad Day. The Snowflake has days where he can function just fine in the real world and other days when he really, really needs a keeper. Really. Today was a 'Really' day.
Great. Let the fun begin...
I ask if he's got a problem with a leak.
-Ya, seems there's water on the floor.
Okaaayyy...
Does he know where the water's coming from?
-No, not really. The water in the toilet is yellow. Could that be from the cat?
Uhhhh...
Can I take a quick look and see if I can figure out where the water is coming from?
-Oh, sure, go ahead.
Yup, there's water on the floor outside the bathroom.
Yippy...
OMFG!!!!!
Let the gross-ness begin...
The entire bathroom should be sealled off and bombed with bleach. Then some ammonia added to make sure anything in there is dead, dead dead!!!!
Everything is black. The bathtub, the floor, the toilet, the sink, the countertop... EVERY FUCKING THING!!!
I haven't seen anything so gross since the city flooded 6 (or so) years ago and there were major sewage back-ups. *GAG*
I'm sooooo proud of myself. I didn't run screaming to go jump in a vat of bleach. Sooooo proud. Self control, I can has.
So, tomorrow I'm going to call the health department and ask a few questions. That bathroom HAS to be a health code violation. There's no fucking way it can be fit for human habitaion. I'm beyond pissed at my landlord. It's his property and it's disgusting. Why the hell would he let anyone treat his property like that!?
And the water? Not from the bathroom (thank Jebus) but from the hot water tank. It's got a major leak. The Snowflake wasn't impressed when I turned his water off until the landlord could get his butt here to deal with it. I think the landlord probably turned the cold water back on but I wasn't about to go trying to sort it out. I just wanted the water to stop running inside the walls.
Someone who isn't me will have to make arrangements to get the local utilities company out to replace the tank in the next couple of days. Assuming they'll be willing to. They'll have to run a hose from the tank to the bathtub to drain the tank and I'm not sure they'll be willing to go anywhere near the gag-inspiring bathroom to do so.
Woot.
I love you. Yes, I do, how could I not?
But my darling little girl, could you not have just crossed your paws for 5 more minutes? Just 5. That's all it would have taken to finish washing the box out. You weren't supposed to use the basin my dear. Next time I'll find a lid so you can't use it.
Thanks for helping, it's a good thing you're cute...
Love,
Mommy
( Watch where you step... )
While sorting through the collection, I did find a few little gems that I'd forgotten about...
A Field Guide to Cows by John Pukite
How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art by Kathleen Meyer
What Bird Did That? A Driver's Guide to Some Common Birds of North America by Silver Burton
Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart by Jim Dawson
Flattened Fauna: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets, and Highways by Roger Knutson
Yaaaaa, high-class literature it ain't. But entertaining? You betcha!
On the up side, my book collection now only numbers around 1800. Only.
*headdesk*
Greymalkin showing off his amusing hairstyle.
He had to have blood taken several times over the last three weeks so he had his throat shaved.
( Update & pics... )
( Greymalkin update and a few more cute pics... )
( Cut for rambling thoughts, sarcasm, a touch of humour, Science Stuff and a couple of big pics... )
Greymalkin's bloodwork came back and it's not good news. It's his kidneys. When he had bloodwork done last September his results were normal, now they're very much not normal.
He was back to the vet this morning to have another dose of sub-q fluids and will go back again tomorrow and Saturday for more in the hopes that this will helf flush his kidneys out. He'll have more bloodwork done at the beginning of the week to see how things are going. :(
The vet doesn't know if this will help in the long run or not. We'll have to wait and see if his kidney's can fix themselves.
Only time wil tell.
He has food stuck to his nose...
