is this a face you can say 'we reject your proposal' to? I don't think so.

oh, for the love of all things furry, cute and feline.

that's it. that is the nail in the friggin coffin. I mean, I knew these people had it all funny, their priorities, what with their love of all things singularly auto and their overt disdain for the real -as in not that glossy mag pretty- life creature of motion that is public transportation. and just when I thought they were to redeem themselves with the construction of what is to be the hopefully oh so useful cap hill light rail station, the rug is unceremoniously yanked out from under me.
what am i talking about? well, I answered their sirens call for artists to transform their work space into a thing of beauty by submitting a beautiful, eloquent proposal for a giant banner of BABYSEAL (in a spoof of the Chloe apartment advertisements) and it was summarily REJECTED. I, BABYSEAL, have been rejected. nobody puts BABYSEAL on the corner of john and broadway. and that person is SDOT.
it is time to implement. . . PLAN B. (as in BABYSEAL).
stay tuned.

1 peach does not equal 1 seal.

(note the reference to lack of internet access at the time of writing this blog which was sometime last week)
a friend is out of town for 2 weeks and I find myself with access to wheels and internet if I could figure out how to make it work on this computer. along with this, I am at the mercy of one tiny, many clawed calico creature by the name of peaches. to peaches, I quadruple as a scratching post, snack machine, summoner of fun (in the form of a red invinsible dot and a bodyless plumey bird, also invinsible), and letter inner to the house. as I write, she is demanding of my attention. as I write, I must take breaks and -ow! claws to the thigh! - to point the laser.

ok I'm back. red laser dot ate peaches' food, drank her water, got high off her cat nip then disappeared with out so much as a goodbye. hmmm. I feel like, except for the getting high part, that describes me in certain situations with certain people. ah, relationships. . . my ankles are being devoured. her kitten status is simultaneously the source of the problem and her get out of jail free card. I have distracted her with a noisy orange birdmouse. my stocking feet are stinging.

this cat has more energy than all the other cats I've ever lived with. combined. specifically, she has moved more in the last half hour than I ever saw BABYSEAL move in, well, the entirety of me knowing her. oh, my sweet SEAL. ow peaches get off me! where was i? SEAL, BABY: I tried to get peaches to lay on my chest like you do when I lay on my back on the floor to meditate. to no avail. where are you when I need a warm feline body pillow? a giant ball of love that leaves more fur behind than seems physically possible? and biscuits? where are my biscuits? sigh.

my black pants are suspiciously free of dander. my eyes, when I rub them from time to time, do not puff up or itch or redden. to console me in your absence, I have only that one dude in my yoga class who hasnt quite gotten the hang of oo-jai (sp?) breathing so that it sounds less like karmic asthma and exactly like you snoring.

basically, in not so many words, and I know I only moved 8 blocks from you, I miss you.

BABYSEAL is a SAINT. and cries. tears of blood for you.

two days ago i wake up to a phone call from my roommate who woke up to a phone call from random stranger saying she found BABYSEAL's collar in the middle of John street. not the worst news ever, but certainly not definitively good. i got off the phone with not even gone 24hours roommate and head outside. i found the collar and only the collar by the bus stop where random stranger said she put it. there were no SEAL bodies lying in the street that i could see, so i headed back home.
and who should be waiting for me at the door but Peter Peter Jennings (SEALBABY's brother), Darma (sp? there's probs an 'h' in there, my neighbor's hiss inducing black and white cat) and non other than BABYSEAL! alive! and well, mostly well. she looked like she always does (uh, handsome, sturdy) except for the giant bloody tear drop coming out of her right eye. mother mary, check out the photo, it looks fake, but trust me, BABYSEAL's blood tears are real. (for the record i feel a little bad about getting all paparazzi on the SEAL in her time of trauma, but i had to get documentation.) it was like one of those statues that people flock to holy pilgrimage style. i was close to calling the pope but instead called her human back to report the news of BABYSEAL being cannonized as saint sometime in the wee hours of the morning. since when did being made holy require a trip to the vet?
the seal doctor was nice and SEAL was well behaved. she (dr.) surmised that she (her holiness) got in some kind of scuffle that ended up with her (meow) getting a small laceration on her (again with the meow) eyelid, before running like hell and losing two nails to the asphalt in the process. ouch. i looked at her (furry beast) and thought, damn, you are gonna be sore tomorrow. then came the purr stopping rectal thermometer followed by some glow in the dark eye drops to check for retinal/corneal damage. there was none. but later on the way home, the stuff started gooping out of her eye and it looked like she was a cyborg crying robot juice. unfortunately, no photographic evidence exists of that. . .
so now we are home safe. SEALPUP is doing her best to keep the rug from flying up and away, waiting for half her whiskers and spots of fur on her hind legs to grow back. i am happy to have her home and now am extremely reticent to put her out. i think maybe this calls for a BABYSEAL slumber party: we stay up late watching WINGED MIGRATION, eating smoked salmon, napping on the table. im sorry, boss man, but i cannot come into work today i am busy. tomorrow, too. and the next day, for good measure.


for the record, administering antibiotics by jamming them down the held open jaws of a held down SEALPUP sounds like the worst idea ever, dear roommate whose seal i am watching over. you can take your life into your own hands, i, on the other hand, choose life. (thank you marisa for the crush it up in wet food idea. i owe you my life. or at the very least, a pint of blood.)

3 cheers to long ago advances in western medicinal technology

speaking of allergies, wtf. my world is collapsing in on itself - a direct result of the vicious battle (my body vs pollen) that has been waging for the last few days that reached a fever pitch this afternoon. jehus h christ i almost sneezed out a kidney.  

i was in new york last week and was telling my friend, yeah, i didn't have any allergy problems there, it was amazing. to which she deftly pointed out, that's cuz there are no trees in new york city. point taken. here on the west coast, things be different.  a day or two of rain followed by bright sunshine kicked everything and its amebic version of a mother into motion.  for those of you blessed with bodies who dont decide one day that (insert innocuous species) is now your mortal enemy, consider yourselves lucky.  allergies are dreadful. you know that feeling like you are about to sneeze? take that, multiply by always, add what amounts to a heinous, watery sinus rash, put a bucket (or giant zip lock baggie) over your head and walk around, that is pretty close to what it feels like. oh, and get no sleep the night before. i'm staring at the beautiful blooming trees that surround my house, my feather comforter, the adorable BABYSEAL asleep atop it, and my vision is intercepted by a circle big enough to encompass object of my gaze in a thick red halo with a giant diagonal line across it. get. away. from. my. face. 

today, i finally, after a whole day's worth of violently sneezing, finally, after years of suffering in all my life of residing in the pacific northwest come spring time, finally, broke down at 8pm and walked to the drug store to find some quick (as in not 3-4 months worth of preventative acupuncture) relief. i bot two kinds. on sale. 

. . . ok, i was gonna go on to talk about how, on principal, i generally tend to use nonwestern medicinal fix its. (uh, can you believe both my parents are nurses? and no, it's not some rebellious act. that would be taking things too far/silly). and how i would rather have puffy red eyes sitting pretty above a nose that never stops water making than take over the counter meds. but that today was exception and maybe there is something to the OTC, as long as you don't abuse it. but right now it feels like my fingers are disconnecting from my hands i took the super allergy kind that didn't say *non drowsy*. must not operate heavy machinery.  i will sleep well tonight, there is no question about that .  i , have ,.nothing else. my eyelids weight a thousand pounds. there is an invisible axis that goes straight out from my solar plexus that my chair is slowly spinning on, the computer spins opposite. let us hope i wake up on time in the am. good bye cruel world.

BELATED MIRACLE OF MIRACLES!

BABYSEAL has returned! unscathed, hungry and dandery as ever.  little lost kitten is neither little nor lost no more.  tho the little part and the kitten parts have long since gone out of fashion.

ok, she actually came back like a week ago. sorry to keep all you in suspense. why the delay in announcing such momentous mews- i mean news? well i have not one, but two excuses cooked up for you. ready? here we go:

1. i was ill. i was in bed for a few days, basically adopting the covetous daily routine of my beloved by proxy felines: lay in bed, get up to snack, lay in bed. the only glaring difference in my days and the cats' days was that my routine was punctuated by laborious descension/ascension of stairs to bathroom to properly respond to all the liquids i had been downing. the cats, they do not deviate from the invisible path that marks the beeline from the bed to the snack bowl. prostrate field research leads me to conclude that domestic felines retain their water well. quite well.  further investigation into the matter is neither interesting to me nor called for.

2. i am in new york now and have been here since sunday. i got busy with prepping and getting all my proverbial ducks to fit in one carry on and one personal item. now i am here, sans personal computer. equipped with nothing more than my notebook and a metro card.  this time it is i who is feeling a little lost. . . 

BABYSEAL IS M.I.A.!

and not the pregnant paper planes kind!

i had written some text the other day under the title BABYSEAL WENT MISSING FOR ONE.5 DAYS! but now one.5 days after her return, she is missing once more! what once passed as humourous prose now seems rather insensitive considering the current state of affairs. . . .

so now with all due respect, i shall put here few highlights of the piece which i shall respectfully rename MOMENTS, WITH BABYSEAL:

-BABYSEAL snores in her sleep. it is adorable. and remarkably loud.

-BABYSEAL lives. for snack time. ilvs: did you just throw something at me? geode: no, BABYSEAL was eating and turned her head fast to look at Peter Peter Jennings and a piece of cat food flew out of her mouth. ilvs: BABYSEAL, i love you.

-BABYSEAL is a lover of animals. except for her brother Peter sometimes when he comes in from being outside and smells of foreign smells at which point she turns into a hissing gremlin and lazily swipes at him from her prostrate lounging position when he gets too close.

BABYSEAL, please come home.

battle cat

i enjoy a good evening routine. drinking coffee substitute tea after dinner. reading by the fire before bedtime. administering ointment to numerous cutaneous wounds on my upper body. 

i live with 2 cats. according to the way things are gonna go from here on out, thought up by their owner/my flatmate, they, BABYSEAL and PETER PETER JENNINGS, are to go outside at night. usually, she that thought it up does it herself. the cats are moderately compliant. she that thought it up is out of town; the responsibility falls heavily upon me. somebody cue up the battle hymn please. 

BABYSEAL is about the size and shape of a watermelon. an 18lb watermelon. with a cat head stuck to the end. while her outward appearance may lead one to think that any inherent catlike qualities she was born with have long ago been squandered/forgotten/eaten, let me be the first to tell you that hiding under that dense layer of insulation, there lies a fierce beast. whose claws (ilvs: hey geode, why don't you cut BABYSEAL's nails? geode: why don't you cut BABYSEAL's nails?) protrude far beyond fleshy flesh and can pretty much cut thru all layers of human epidermis with little to no effort. when provoked, the results are stunning. in the worst way possible.

the photo does my feline inflicted injuries no justice. there is no visual substitute for the impressive torque of a cat body trying to escape, the sting of a cat's claws slicing human skin, the resulting mixed feeling of anger/guilt/utter defeat.

BABYSEAL: 1, ilvs: -5

she that thought it up does not return for another week.

like an ill fated victorian Misses living next door to the Count, i dread the coming of night.

eyeball candy!

looking at other blogs, i realized i am sorely lacking in the visual department. 

here is a photo of me and my roommate GEODE. yes, like the geological formation.

ok actually, i couldn't find that photo. so here's a different one. it's of me and my other roommate, BABY SEAL. handsomely sporting the neckerchief i tied around her neck. on it, there are drawing of cans (of tuna) and the words 'CAN IT, LADY!'.

more where that came from, for sure.