I realized today that “I beg your pardon,” or even simply, “pardon?” is a genteel, slightly Victorian alternative for “Oh, you did not just say that, bitch!” You can get away with a great deal more snottiness if you talk like a Victorian socialite rather than a Jerry Springer guest. I know I’ve admittted in the past that I sound irritatingly like Niles Crane when I’m annoyed, but I’ve decided to capitalize on this unfortunate fact. People misread my pique, and thus believe that I’m being supercilious when, in fact, I am being quite pissy. Thus, I can vent my sleen without unduly damaging those around me. Talk about convenience!
I haven’t written in a small age on account of having been a grumpy bugger. Bicycling and antidepressant notwithstanding, I’ve been in the throes of the winter blahs and have been in an extended state of “meh.”
Early on in December, I bought about 30lb of supplies for holiday baking, yet remained uninspired to turn the raw goods into edible cookies until midway through the month, when I really needed to get a move on to get stuff done in a timely seasonal fashion. During this time period, I also did my desultory gift shopping.
Before, during, and after the Ides of December, I baked exactly a zillion and a half cookies, different sorts, and distributed them to various friends and family members.
Two days before Christmas, Todd and I left for Wyoming to go to his brother’s graduation from WyoTech. Then we Christmassed with his folks, then, on our way back East to KCMO, we stopped for a visit with my folks and hung out with them for a couple of days. While I was there, Dad and I did a little work on my ’59, which, thanks to our ministrations, now lacks four fenders, two running boards, and two bumpers. Baby steps closer to the paint booth.
After we got back to Kansas City, I got the hot idea to trim up the back of my hair and thin out the bangs a little bit. Unfortunately, I rolled a critical failure against my haidressing proficiency and now look like I came out on the losing end of a crewcut. Ah well, hair grows, and mine especially does. So January will be Bad Hair Month. I should look reasonably presentable by this time next month. Pictures of the Brutal Haircut That Could will follow, probably tomorrow.
On New Year’s Eve Day, I solidified my suspicions that Griswald had something the matter with his pee system. Indeed, it was when he pissed in the bathtub that my suspicions were confirmed, as the urine was reddish in color. Cue panic. Cue calling every vet in about a 20 mile area to find out who could see him on a holiday weekend. So, I bundled the poor fellow into the carrier and toted him on down to 74th & Wornall. Griswald, in the car for half an hour as I muddled through Mapquest’s cracked-out directions was not a pleasant object, and Griz’s incessant yowling about drove me smack out of my tiny little mind. To make matters worse for the both of us, in his state of urinary discomfort and general panic, he peed in the carrier, too. Yeesh. The diagnosis was generically given as Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease and tentatively a bladder infection. We were sent away from the vet’s office with a week’s supply of Clavamox and instructions to follow up with our regular vet a week later. Nearly a week later, after twice daily doses of Clavamox, the Griz seems to slowly be improving, but his urine is still reddish, and he’s still peeing in the tub. I expect I’ll have our regular vet do a proper urine culture and we’ll proceed from there. Otherwise the catso is acting perfectly normal, aside from pissing in the bathtub. At least he is choosing a place that is easy to clean, and ironically, makes monitoring his condition pretty damn easy. The only real bright side to this little adventure is that I’ve discovered a hitherto unknown talent for pilling a cat. I can get that pill into his gullet just about before he knows what hit him. A useful life skill, indeed.
We celebrated New Year’s Eve with and and their four cats, though their shy kitty was not much in evidence. Their half-grown kittens, on the other hand, very much were. We drank copious quantities of coffee, as none of us seemed up to the task of midnight, and played Axis & Allies, a dauntingly complex game for four tired and distractible parties. Effects of sleep deprivation notwithstanding, I think everyone involved had a good time, especially the kittens.
Since the holidays, I’ve pretty much been doing the usual. Working and biking, reading and shirking the housework. Occasional fits of sewing. The weather’s been unseasonably mild lately. I actually busted out the Burley last night, aired up the tires, cleaned and lubed the chain, switched over my lights, and rode that to work today. After three months of riding my mountain bike or the old gas-pipe Schwinn, it felt like someone strapped a rocket to my butt and blasted me off. I’m still not very fond of the brakes on my road bike, though. For whatever reason, they don’t seem to have the grip they should, and the levers are slightly too long of a reach for me. From the hoods, I can’t get a good “squeeze” on them, and even from the drops, I can’t lock ’em up like I can on the mountain bike or the Schwinn. I can make that old gas-pipe Schwinn, with its steel wheels and side-pull brakes bust about a 20′ skid, but I can barely break it loose at all on the Burley. I’m going to have to work something out with it, because I like to stop about as much as I like to go. I also think the stem is too long and might eventually want to do something about that. I adjusted the seat tonight. Tipped the nose of it upward a bit and slid it forward a bit, and lowered it a bit. I noticed today that I had a tendency to slide forward on the seat, which my more delicate parts didn’t appreciate, and I kept having to hitch myself back on the seat to keep my butt-meat centered on the part of the seat where you’re supposed to sit, so I reasoned that the seat was too far back and I discovered that the nose of it pointed downward, which is not ideal for a woman’s bike anyway. After I made those adjustments, I discovered that my toes could barely touch the pedals, so I had to knock it down about an inch and a half. Weird. Whatever, it’s comfortable now, as best I can tell, though I’ll be testing the theory properly tomorrow.
So, that’s my boring life in a nutshell. I’ve got to update properly more often, so I can at least make a pretense of being entertaining once in a while.