kitt79

Last night I had a dream. The dream itself was not remarkable, as far as dream plots go. I was climbing around in an apartment building looking for something, hoping the tenants didn't get mad at me. I think part of it went video game style; I was controlling little smurf characters who could walk up walls. Whatever.

The important thing is, Jazz was there.

I inherited Jazz from my sister, who decided litter boxes were icky. He was an ornery cat by anyone's standards, exacerbated no doubt by his UTI problems. He had a temper, but loved me; hated kids, especially my little brother. He could back a full grown adult into a corner by intimidation alone, puffing himself up and doing that sideways walk, ears back, every whisker screaming "I'm going to destroy your face if you move wrong, punk." But I loved him, and he loved me. I could tell by the way he had to be in my lap, had to sleep on my knees, followed me everywhere, how happy he was to see me when I returned from a trip. An odd cat, but a good one, and a loyal one.

Sometime in 2006, I went to work at 6 am as usual. Jazz got himself kicked out of the house by yowling at the door and generally making a scene. He was very good at that. He wanted OUT and if he couldn't go then no one was getting any peace. He'd gone out before, and always been back a couple hours later, satisfied. That day at work, even before I knew anything was wrong, I felt bad. Ill. A little nauseated. I got home and my heart sank when I found out he wasn't back. He never came back. We spent a few weeks looking for him, putting up signs and calling, jumping at every little meow-like sound in the darkness. A neighbor mentioned a coyote in the area on the same day as he left. And finally, we gave up.

A couple of weeks after he went missing, I started having dreams about him. No, that's not right. Not about him. He was just in them. Not a main character, just there, walking beside me, or sleeping on a couch as I go about my dream business. And they kept on happening. I'm not generally in the habit of dreaming about deceased pets, and I've had my share...but he keeps on showing up. Five years later, and I'm dreaming I'm exploring an apartment building whilst controlling gravity-immune smurfs, and there he is, exploring beside me, sitting on a counter watching said smurfs, or trotting past me on his own dream mission unrelated to mine.

Always used to joke that he was my familiar; maybe he still is.

I checked us in around 2 on Thursday; room one had 2 doubles, but room 2 only a king and a rollaway. Annoying, but whatever. When the roommates arrived they didn't seem crushed by it. Stood in line for registration for 2ish hours, which wasn't bad compared to some others. Got William's badge too; karma for me :). Winry slept in line; luckily Colt was there to hold her for a bit or I would have been in trouble.

Finally collected all our various roommates by around 6, and went to dinner at the new place that used to be steak and ale; it was pretty good food, and bonus bellydancers. We were babysitting OM while her parents waited in a much longer registration line than I had; both little ones were enthralled by the dancing. Afterwards we wandered the mall with them and watched them run into glass doors simultaneously. We are such awesome parents.

Friday morning we slept in slightly, then headed to the food court for lunch, and got as many photos of Winry in her Ewok costume as possible. William also got his DJ Lance on. Took a lap through the first exhibitor hall, where I saw a shirt I would later regret not buying. Played follow the baby through the crowd for a while, stopped at Voltaire's booth to buy his new kids' cd. After a brief chat with him I was putting my new cd away when William walked up behind me and asked "Where's Voltaire?". He was standing right in front of me. Hehe. (Voltaire had a new beard and wasn't thin as a rail anymore; he blames this on marriage.) Winry went home with Nana shortly thereafter, and my package arrived with my mord-sith costume. Talk about last minute. I put it on and we went out to wander and find Keith in the dealer room.

The costume itself was ok I guess. It was close enough; people knew who I was, it fit me, that kind of thing. However, the rivets for lacing various lacing up bits popped out if you looked at them wrong, a lot of things were not hemmed well, and we had to take out a collar panel to make it lie flat on my shoulders. The bodysuit part was fine, but the leather bits needed help. We did what we could, and I think it was close enough. The other mord-sith at the photoshoot/meetup were much much better, with real leather and pretty accurate costumes, but I blend in alright. I have mixed feelings about it.

Sometime after dinner I changed back into normal clothes and spent most of the rest of the evening sewing scales onto Holly's bra for her Nemesis costume. I had developed a monster headache and the repetitiveness helped. Wanted to see Black Tape for a Blue Girl but missed it; caught the end of Weep but left before he was done and wandered some more. Luckily sleep cured the rest of my headache that night.

Saturday we watched a couple of panels on tv, I wandered the Art Show with Keith, and got to run through the second exhibitor hall and dealer hall. Got my free tetanus/pertussis vaccine. Wore my Ramona costume for a while that night. It was recognizable, so good enough. Voltaire played that night, and then there was a bit of a rave that made me very happy. We left about half an hour in due to being tired old people, though.

Sunday night was Celldweller and Cruxshadows. Luckily, they didn't clear the room between the two so I got to see both. I had spent some time after dinner in the room with Kimberly and OM, and a bottle of long island something or other, making it the first time all weekend I was not sober. CXS announced that Jessica is expecting, so later...and very early in the morning... we went and found Rogue and congratulated him. It was 6 am before we went to bed. Monday we woke around 11, packed in a hurry, did some lunch and last minute shopping, and dealt with craziness.

I've forgotten some things, including double rainbows and hide yo children/wife/husband, secret handshakes, wing decapitations, etc. But it's mostly a blur now anyway.

I do hope our otherroommates had a good time and aren't too mad at any of us; there was some alcohol related nastiness in their room that one night, and migraines and lost air pumps didn't help I'm sure.

It was an ok DragonCon; I costumed for the first time really. I've only ever done "random goth chick" before. William too, with his DJ Lance costume. Picked up some cool prints at the art show, and enjoyed some good bands. Got to spend a lot of time with Holly. It's too bad one of our roommates nearly drove me to violence, but it's over now and I didn't maim or kill anyone. Next year will be different. Every DragonCon is; sometimes you see panels, sometimes you costume, sometimes you are the embodiment of rage restrained.

Next year we hope to control the roommate situation and catch more actual panels.

Only 350-something days to go.

So, I've always thought I was allergic to "fake" cinnamon, the kind in candies and gum. (It makes my tongue sore, I get little sores on the edges and can't taste anything for a few days). I figured "real" cinnamon was safe, because cinnamon toast or cinnamon rolls don't affect me.

Turns out, a lot of cinnamon used in cooking isn't true cinnamon but cassia. So, I may actually be allergic to real cinnamon! Wacky.

I wish I could find out for sure whether it's cinnamon or cassia I'm allergic to, so I don't eat any more accidentally. I'm pretty sure the "cajun catfish" I bought from Publix caused this current reaction I'm going through.

It's unpleasant to say the least.

Well, we feel like crap.... Winry was sitting in her little folding chair and turned around in it to hold the back.... and fell over on her face. She cut the inside of her lip and the gum around her top teeth (not even all the way through) is bruised pretty bad. She bled for a minute or so and cried for a quite a while. A dose of tylenol and an hour later she is playing but keeping that binky close, and her lip is a little swollen. To the doc tomorrow morning to see about it. Sigh.

One of my/our Christmas presents was tickets to Cavalia.

It was teh magic.
You should go.
I now dissolve into squeees.

Winry's first Christmas was awesome. She is currently way overtired and we are hoping she'll pass out soon. We got up around 9 because she woke up (she's got a cold, like me), and she flipped out over all the new toys under the tree. I would say her favorites were the baby doll, the stuffed snoopy, and a book of baby animals from her grandpa "Fireball" and Yaya.

Around 11 we went to my parents' house and although she was already tired, she flipped out again over the toys Santa left there for her. She especially liked the stacking cups and the inflatable bop-able lion. I got some cool loot as well, most notably an adorable little netbook (I'm typing on it now!) and tickets to Cavalia tomorrow (eee!). Also got some clothes, a gargoyle, a bluetooth headset, a couple of DS games, and various assorted other things that my tired, NyQuil filled brain can't quite remember.

Grandmama, Vicki, and Katherine dropped by for coffee and we visited awhile, me from a distance to prevent contagion if possible. Dinner was pizza and then I passed right out for a while.

Now we are sitting in the living room hoping Winry will sleep soon... sigh..

But what a nice Christmas :). Thankyou all for presents big and small, and I hope everyone had as nice a day as I did!

# Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
# I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
# Update your journal with the answers to the questions
# Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

(Questions by malachus)

1. When/how did you first become interested in animals? Was it some singular event or were you always that way or what?

Always that way, as far as I can remember. I think my mom is the main reason; no matter how ugly the bug she always exclaimed about how interesting it was. It started with fish, and that's still my specialty.

2. What thing do you most want Winry to have/do/not have/not do?

I'd like for her to have the confidence I lack, in many areas but I think especially in some kind of physical way. I realized the other day that I was absolutely shocked that my diet/exercise plan was apparently working, because apparently, deep down, I don't really think I can accomplish anything with physical stuff like exercise. I don't know why I feel that way, but I do. I give up easily on things as a result. I'd like for her to have more confidence to keep trying things until she gets it right/gets results.

3. What is your favorite type of animal and why? I like cats. They are clean, quiet, a little evil/mischievious, and only give their affection to those who prove they deserve it. They also have an uncanny ability to know when you're not feeling well, and try their best to cheer you up with as many cuddles as you can stand.

Also, this quote. I am too sick and lazy to cite the source at the moment.
"Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance"

4. What book would be the biggest personal loss if you had never read it and why? That's a hard one. I'm going to say the Foundation series, because it introduced me to a lot of concepts that were very new and intriguing to me. That having been said, I read it in 5th grade along with Dune and Amber, so it's been a while... I was impressed by all three, and they sparked all manner of imaginings for me, but I have a hard time remembering specifically what it was about them now.

5. What is your fondest Christmas memory? (That's what you get for posting today...)

It's not a single Christmas, but when I was younger we would have our Christmas morning at home, then head to my grandparent's house, where we would wait for the lunch delegation to retrieve chili dogs from the Varsity (which used to be the only place open on Christmas day). Then we'd open gifts, and I'd fall into that Christmas afternoon haze, and fall asleep somewhere until it was time to go home again... It was a very warm fuzzy time.

Sooooo do I have to give LJ moneys in order to not see the stupid pop-up-ad-that-isn't-a-pop-up-so-my-ad-blocker-can't-stop-it ?

We went to the bird fair today and I bought Oy a pretty little orange head female :). And 2 society finches to keep Milly company when I have to take her out of the cage to make room for the happy couple. They are hopping around chirping excitedly now. I did buy them from one of the more expensive vendors; the cheaper ones all looked a little shady. I paid $60 for the gouldian and $9 for each society - the cheap vendor was asking $35-40 per gouldian but they were all small, skinny, and many of their birds looked kind of beat up and stressed out. I decided it was worth $20 for the peace of mind -- these guys are big and healthy. We also got a huge bag of seed that should last us at least 6 months if not a year, enough cuttlebone to keep Merlin happy for ages, and some perches and toys. Winry had a good time seeing all the birds, too.

Also, the "splat" of my treefrog jumping onto her head a few minutes ago was absolutely priceless.

I'm about to give up for the night, as it's late and baby is always the ticking time bomb of FEED/SLEEP/DIAPER/TEETHING.

I have disabled all my addons (even though the problem exists in Firefox, IE, and SeaMonkey).

I ran spybot, avg, malwarebytes, vundofix. Spybot found some things, but nothing major, and nothing that seems to have fixed my problem.

I updated windows, avg, java, and flash.

I rebooted everything multiple times.

I cleared my cookies, caches, history.

I can sometimes load the login page to gmail -- but after logging in, if I click anything in my inbox it simply times out.

I can sometimes login to facebook as well, but once in, I can't update my status or get to anything else (although, oddly enough, an app -- Realm of Empires -- worked for me for about 10 minutes).

Myspace, livejournal, and every other site I have tried seem to be working just fine.

Apologies to Tamane for apparently lacking the google-fu, but all my searches have come up empty. Well, not empty, but not right.

I'm down to wondering if it's the hub or wired bit of the router; Rist's laptop loads things fine via wireless connection. I still strongly suspect Something Bad has possessed my computer, more than anything, but I can't find anything.

Grrrrr... my computer is making me sad.

Facebook logs in but then I can't do anything before "oops, facebook is experiencing problems..."this is making me crazy! I can browse most sites but gmail will only occasionally load my inbox, and once i'm there i can't do anything and geta message about internet connectivity problems. i have run vundofix, updated and run avg, updated java, updated windows, rebooted three times, rebooted the modem and router twice, cleared my cookies and history. This also happens in IE.