P365 Day 52: At the gym

I hate going to the gym, yet I feel compelled -- even on days when I don't want to climb out of bed. This makes me ever-so-slightly proud of myself.

P365 Day 51: Tea for two and two for tea

As a thank-you present, Paul's undergrad research student last semester gave him two large tins of Taiwanese Li Shan tea as well as a beautiful bamboo wall hanging. The wall hanging is in our bedroom; the tea is slowly being savored on everyday special occasions -- you know, like Sunday afternoon.

Ahh.

P365 Day 50: Use care around Autobots

Gotta watch out for those car-machines!

Speaking of '80s-ish cartoons, Netflix Instant Queue now has The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and The Legend of Zelda on tap. Time to swing your arms from side to side and do the Mario!

You should see how the sports desk uses Lincoln Logs

A friend capped this and posted it on YouTube. From a Memphis TV news program:



... I would've been willing to donate Matchbox cars, you know.

P365 Day 49: Tree on the water, storms in the sky

Paul and I went to a Jimmy Buffett-themed Citadel party tonight. This photo was taken at the party. I didn't have a Hawaiian shirt (sorry, Smacky) or a "lost shaker of salt" costume (sorry, De -- but very clever), so Paul and I ended up in black shirts and blue jeans. Classy.

And though they served tasty margaritas, I was sorely disappointed at the lack of cheeseburgers in paradise. C'mon. There aren't any Jimmy Buffett songs about coconut shrimp with mango chutney.

P365 Day 48: Starin' right back at ya

This is my creepy eye agate necklace. I bought the stone in Memphis before we left for Charleston. Pretty cool, huh? I haven't worn it yet though.

For the record, Joe-Kitty has a clean bill of health from the vet. We'll have her kidney function retested in a month. She's already acting much like her old Joe self.

Okay, I'm off to chill on the couch and watch cartoons. Thursdays are still my favorite day of the week. <3

P365 Day 47: A little piece of heaven

I just made a s'more in my microwave. Doesn't it look good?? It was absolutely heavenly. And now that I've had my fun, I need to start cooking dinner. Turkey Stroganoff ahoy!

P365 Day 46: Boo!

This little (OK, 3-inch) guy likes hanging out at The Cit and scaring tall people (ahem) who walk through his web. No idea what kind of spider he is, but he and his 4-foot web are more than enough to give the creepy-crawlies to you arachnophobes out there.

By the time you read this, classes will have started back. Best wishes to my favorite professor. <3

$89 flights MEM-CHS

Memphis to Charleston flights are $89. Deal expires today.

Come visit me.

P365 Day 45: Three of a kind

Here's Fred-Kitty with my Fred shoes! ^_^ (Secret: Those shoes are actually quite uncomfortable and I don't wear them often. I just can't bring myself to get rid of them because they're so darn cute.)

We've run into some issues with Joe-Kitty's health problems — but not how you'd expect. Paul is great at administering the IV (I'm sure that has something to do with his instrumentation background). The problem is that Fred seems to be insanely jealous of all the attention Joe is getting, though she probably doesn't realize why Joe's constantly in the carrier or on the table with us ... or whatever. Cats are very much like children. Except, you know, for the litter box thing. And the bathing oneself thing.

Joe's back at the vet tomorrow. Hopefully the results of the culture will be in and we'll see whether it's a bacterial infection. Either way, she's leaps and bounds better than she was a week ago. And I mean it; she's literally leaping and bounding around.

Paul starts classes Wednesday. Time flies, no?

P365 Day 44: Pelican Do

These pelicans -- plus three or four more -- were hanging out with a couple of dolphins on Shem Creek. Unfortunately, the dolphins wouldn't play along with the whole photo op thing.

We finished a lot of unpacking today. It's starting to look more like a home and less like a storage unit.

P365 Day 43: Beach bums

Paul and I drove to Folly Beach today to watch the surfers. Hurricane Bill swept just close enough to make some awesome waves. You won't catch me out there (once bitten, twice shy because of those jellyfish stings last week), but it was cool standing on the pier and watching the surfers do their thing. (Paul gets props for this picture. Thanks, hon.)

Ghost Adventures summed up in six words

Duuuuuude! Did you hear that, duuude?

P365 Day 42: 85 and counting

It's hot in here. Fred, Joe and I are just kind of lazing about, trying to stay cool.

The repairman said the capacitor outside shorted out and it's going to take several hours for it to cool down inside. He also added some freon and changed our filter.

Until it's bearable inside, I'm going on the porch and getting some consulting work done. Phew!

P365 Day 41: Dancing on the beach

See how super-happy Paul is to be back on the beach? We didn't get in the water tonight though because the currents were strong and the waves were big.

--

Paul and I were able to give Joe her IV tonight. Specifically, I was able to hold her while Paul did all the hard work. But she's eating a little, drinking a little and showing a lot of improvement over her weekend condition. I'm proud of my little trooper. (Fred, on the other hand, is being a jealous, moody poopyhead. Sigh.)

Our air conditioning is broken. Do you know how hot it is in Charleston -- even at night -- with no fans and no A/C? Hoooooot.

Bonding over a little weed

Get your mind out of the gutter! I was just talking about my cats!

Joe's home. We have to give her IV fluids subcutaneously, which is going to be quite an adventure. That starts tomorrow. For tonight, I'm just going to cherish having her home.

P365 Day 40: Only slightly illegal

This MIT-based site is pretty cool, assuming you don't have a super-common name. Maybe it's fun even if you do have a super-common name. Basically, you plug in your name and it analyzes keywords from sites on which your name appears.

The site goes has a philosophy ("... The computer is our indispensable but far from infallible assistant. ...") but I really just had more fun seeing which of my friends had the highest "illegal" rating.

P.S. A screenshot has to replace a snapshot today. Joe's coming home!

P365 Day 39: Get me outta here!

Sorry for the gratuitous number of Joe photos, but part of P365 is documenting what's important in a person's life in a year, and getting my Joe-Baby home from the vet is pretty damn important right now. She's acting much, much more Joe-like — moody, squirmy, purring like a motor when I hold her. She doesn't like the vet techs much — they had to put a laundry basket over her the first night before they administered sedation — but she's very happy to see Paul and me.

In the face of mounting vet bills (now topping $2,200), we're going to bring her home tomorrow. She'll be starting a special diet to help her kidneys, and we'll probably have to administer fluids to her between her shoulder blades. Makes me sad, but anything to help her get well.

Not much else is going on in our lives, other than trying to figure out how to pay down this debt on one income.

Oh, and I've got to find a way to get it through the postal service's collective head that just because we were on vacation for three months doesn't mean our apartment is vacant. Kind of funny now that I think about it; while we were getting all our bills, etc., forwarded to us, three months of advertisements were probably building up in our box. We removed the "vacant" sign when we got home, but a new one was there the next day. D'oh!

And she has such a pretty collar!

Joe looks so-o-o-o much better. She probably will get to come home tomorrow. She perked right up when Paul and I got there, but apparently she's been *quite* a handful for the vets. Turns out she likes doctors about as much as me. What a mama's girl.

P365 Day 38: In which I paint to cheer myself up

It's kind of hard to play long-distance spades, but I couldn't just forget about the semi-cute-bordering-on-creepy cat-themed playing cards Johanna, Matt, Paul and I used for our game a couple of weeks ago. Johanna left them at my house, so they made the trip back to Charleston with me. This morning, I decided to paint Crotch Dog. Not perfect but not too bad, in my humble opinion. I'll touch up details tomorrow. [Edit: Okay, the more I look at it, the more it looks like a child did it. Oh well. Kept me busy.]

The painting was just my way of getting my mind off things like Joe's mounting vet bills ($1,300) and my lack of a job. I put out a couple of feelers today, so we'll see if anything pans out.

I'm going to the vet to visit Joe this afternoon. They're keeping her at least one more day, but they say she's awake and alert. I just want to make sure my baby's OK.

You know, I don't know what I'm going to do with this painting. Probably put it in a box with the other things I've doodled over the years.

Yes, I really do call her snickerdoodle fuzzbutt

The little Joe-Kitty is really quite sick. The vet says she's in renal distress (I suppose that's just short of renal failure?) and that the problem is likely congenital. She's awake from her lab work and is receiving IV fluids and antibiotics.

Visiting hours are at 11:30 p.m. (!!!), so it's going to be a late night for us. We're taking Joe-Kitty her favorite duck:



Tomorrow she'll be transferred to the vet next door for an ultrasound. We'll know more about her prognosis after 24 hours or so.

Oh, snickerdoodle fuzzbutt, you gotta come home soon. Fred's not as fond of my singing as you, and she won't let me cradle her and call her stupid names. Whatever will I do while you're not around?

P365 Day 37: Hawkeye

Took this at the Cit beach house. Unfortunately, the photo didn't turn out as well as I expected, but my cameraphone has no zoom! Click through for the bigger version. The flag on the left is the South Carolina flag; the one on the right is the Citadel flag.
--

The Joe-Kitty didn't handle the trip back so well, and we ended up taking her to the emergency vet today because she's very dehydrated and weak. She's lost a couple of pounds since she was weighed three months ago. The emergency clinic is running labwork and taking x-rays to make sure she hasn't swallowed any un-food-like stuff. It's setting us back $700, but that's a small price to pay to see Joe back on her feet.

The jellyfish stings aren't quite healed up, but they look way better than they did yesterday. It's easy to forget about them when I'm so worried about my baby girl.

Okay, off to edit some stuff.

P365 Day 36: In which I get stung twice by a jellyfish

Paul and I bought a new TV in Memphis and haven't gotten rid of the old one, so our temporary setup allows me to play Rock Band on one TV and watch skateboarding on the other. <3

We arrived in Charleston last night and hit the beach this afternoon. All was well until a jellyfish took a swipe at my left foot. We got out of the water to have a look at it, then I decided the draw of the ocean was greater than the pain on my foot. So we braved the water again ... and I got stung again, this time on my right leg. It turned all red and splotchy, so we came home and I popped a couple of ibuprofen and Benadryl.

Just this morning, Paul said, "I can't think of the word for a person who does the same thing over and over again and expects different results." Yeah, that would be "me."

P365 Day 35: Last meal

P365 Day 34: Lap Cat

She travels well as long as you hold and spoil her. (Pic from our drive to Memphis)

P365 Day 33: Value of things on Paul's desk

Knitted Open Tubular coil: $408
Glass bottle stopper: $10
Aluminum thingy with lathe marks: $6
Dollar bill: $1
Red pen top: Free with pen
Blue painters' tape: Free with larger roll
Razor blade: Ask the emo kid in the corner
--

Tomorrow is our last day in Memphis. Mixed feelings about going back.

I'm going to the beach!

P365 Day 32: Three fun facts (plus one to grow on)

Fun fact: My favorite music to listen to while editing is the soundtrack from the Myst series. The same 93 songs on repeat. (Actually, that's sort of not true. I listen to other instrumental music, but I come back to Myst again and again.)

Fun fact #2: Solstice gum tastes exactly like Thin Mints, which is a cheap way to get your fix between cookie sales (or between trips to Wal-Mart, which might or might not be knocking off the Girl Scouts).

Fun fact #3: My favorite Girl Scout cookies are Samoas.

Something I learned while researching this post: You can use this website to find out how long you're going to have to wait for Girl Scout cookie sales in your area. As of this very moment, I have to wait 144 days, 6 hours, 34 minutes, and 22 seconds for mine. (?!)

P365 Day 31: Rainbows over Cooper-Young

Caught this double rainbow over Cooper-Young Saturday. Why was I in C-Y, you ask? I was buying this adorable bag made of recycled water bottles! Cool, huh? And Johanna bought this bag, which is equally lovely.

P365 Day 30: One month down

It is with great frustration that The Joe-Kitty marks the last day of the first month of my Project 365. Why? Because she knows I've turned into a total shutterbug, and unlike that spider on the dining room floor, she can't playfully pull the legs off a shutterbug one by one. It's been a fun month — and it's gone by really quickly! Though my tweets have taken a major hit, I'm enjoying once again blogging on a regular basis. Yay, P365!

And as my first month of P365 comes to a close, I'm also entering my last week in Memphis. I'm sure I'll have plenty more to say as the week winds down, but for now, I'm getting in those last, special lunches and coffee runs with friends and family. Paul and I had lunch with my sister yesterday. (He says there's a family resemblance. Maybe if I wiped the damn smirk off my face.)

[Deleted this graf because all my plans today were canceled. Funny how that works out.]

P.S. I really love that picture of The Joe-Kitty. Man, she looks peeved.

P365 Day 29: To prom or not to prom

Tilt, the arcade in Wolfchase Galleria where Paul and I met 12 years ago, has closed. It's sad that all the good arcades — well, almost all arcades, period — are in severe decline or gone completely. I'm no wizard (ahem), but I've spent plenty of hours in front of pinballs, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Pac-Man, and claw machines.

In fact, Paul and I both skipped our proms in favor of a few hours at the arcade. (No joystick jokes, please.) My prom was at the Memphis Zoo. Paul's was on a riverboat, not exactly conducive to leaving if we got sick of the party.

Recently, I was telling this story to a friend and asked him if he went to his prom. He said, "Nope, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have much in common with anyone who did." (His prom, for the record, was at a state park in Mississippi, so I don't blame him.)

So I've got to know: Where was your prom and did you go? Gory details, please.

P365 Day 28: Crabby crab

This happy little guy was on our table at Joe's Crab Shack Thursday night. Charleston has spoiled me when it comes to seafood. Joe's coconut shrimp was mediocre — and twice the cost of the shrimp dishes at Red's — and the hush puppies were downright horrid. Sorry, JCS fans. You're welcome to visit me in Chas. and try some decent seafood.

So, yeah. Angry crab pretty much sums up how our meal went.

P365 Day 27: Guess the animal shape

There's no right or wrong answer here. At least I don't think so.

P365 Day 26: Epic spades win

I have been avenged! Matt and I won our spades game with my well-placed (but admittedly by mistake) diamond during the last hand. Johanna and Paul's problem is that they had this grand strategy to come from behind like last time, and it bit them in the ass — not once, not twice, but three times.

Rematch is Sunday night. Why bother when the real champions have already vanquished the posers?


No idea why Paul wrote "FFFF" on there, but I think it stands for "F-F-F-Fail."

By the way, the cards we were using were (sort of cute) bordering on creepy. Here's a picture of the one we call Crotch Dog:


All in all, that was the most fun I've had in a long time ... and not just because Matt and I totally pantsed Paul and Johanna. It's good to be in the company of good friends ... even those who are going to lose again Sunday night. <3

P365 Day 25: Second home

This is the lovely home in which Paul and I have been staying while we're in Memphis. The coolest indoor feature is the octagonal dining room (no photo because it's not furnished right now). The coolest outdoor feature is the roof rain, the timed sprinkler system on the roof that surprises everyone who approaches any part of the house between 8:10 and 8:25 a.m. and p.m. You've been warned.

--

I have an epic game of spades scheduled for tonight. It's epic because it's the first time my little group has played in two years and Matt and I must avenge our loss to Paul and Johanna's double blind nil during our last game. Matt and I were one hand away from winning the game that fateful night, but Paul and Johanna's Hail Mary play managed to sink us in a single hand.

I've carried a pang of guilt for two years because Matt's a spades whiz and I caused our loss that night. He and I have won our share of games, but I'm definitely the weaker player and hopelessly drag him down. He's always been very patient with me. If he rolls his eyes at my lacking card skills, he does it where I can't see him.

Fortunately for me, he doesn't read my blog. I'd hate to give him any notions about finding another partner because that would just upset the balance of the universe.

P365 Day 24: Wisdom for the ages

I was hoping my fortune would be something like "You will get the job of your dreams." I got this instead:



How amusing. I'm making my amused face right now. Really.

P365 Day 23: Adventures of Grimace

What is everyone's favorite purple taste bud up to today?

Maybe he's sharing a Happy Meal ...


... or playing Pokemon ...


... or bothering Joe-Kitty ...


... or browsing an awesome blog.


Oh, Grimace, you've got such great taste. (Get it? Taste? He's a purple taste bud?) Yeah. That.

P365 Day 22: On my way to Memphis

By the time you read this, I'll be headed back to Memphis for two weeks. Then Paul, Fred-Kitty, Joe-Kitty and I will come back to Chas. for good. (Well, at least until the next holiday or whatever.)

I can't leave Charleston without posting one of my favorite sights. This is the view of the ocean from the top of the Isle of Palms connector. I get a warm-in-my-heart feeling every time I hit the top of the bridge and see ocean all around me.

If I had to guess, Paul and I will hit the beach the very first day we're back.