Random bullets of November

I'm feeling unimaginative lately, which is why I haven't posted anything. I'm not even desperately busy; indeed, if I were, I'd probably have more heretical ideas about teaching, or more updating about writing projects, or whines about committee meetings. But we're just chugging along here. Nonetheless, just to prove I'm still alive in the blogosphere:

• The Grammarian is a very strange sort of picky eater. He meows piteously for food. I put down a plate with his usual food on it. He stares at it in horrified disbelief and informs me that I am trying to poison him, he can't eat this slop, he has been miserably betrayed by someone he had trusted to have his best interests at heart, etc. etc. I run my finger through the food, force his mouth open and smear it on his tongue, whereupon he says, "OMG cat fud!!! Why u not SAY so?" and sets to.
• Why is it so hard to find a financial-advice book that will just answer some simple questions (or at least run through a list of things to think about when considering various situations) without a lot of touchy-feely claptrap? With all due respect to the Grumpy Pair (and that's quite a lot of respect) and their enjoyment of Your Money or Your Life, I'm quite clear on my values and my risk tolerance, I am very well aware of the costs of my commute, and I don't want to live in jeans and thrifted clothing making my own bean soup like some damned hippie (grumble grumble), except on maybe one weekend a month, because I do, after all, hail from hippieville and the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree. Suze Ormond, a recommendation from someone else, also has a lot of "spiritual" blah-blah. I just want to know, hypothetically, how to balance the tax advantages of having a mortgage plus a larger lump sum in the bank against not having a mortgage and having a smaller lump in the bank. Sure, it's a nice hypothetical problem to have. How do I approach it?
• In these days of miracle and wonder, the long-distance call and e-mail, it is a complete delight to get a hand-written letter from an old friend. Such a sense of intimacy and connection! It's enough to make me contemplate sending a few Christmas Solstice cards.
• One more week of classes. Just three days of actually meeting students. But OMG that means I have to invent a final exam right quick.
• I am never going to get involved in conference-organizing again. Be it resolved.
• Writing update: I have now drafted two chapters of the Unexpected Book. Both need work, especially with source material, but the basic argument is in place. I think I am going to use the winter break to try to finish an article (the MMP) that should have been finished a year ago; my library now has a reference work I need, so that should help a bit, except that the library will be closed for a couple of weeks (where are the foreign/broke graduate students supposed to go???). I will need to cannibalize that chapter for a conference paper this spring (and I think I should get at least some of the source material worked into that paper), and I have another conference paper to write, so making this decision makes me a little nervous: I'd rather like to do those things first. OTOH, conference papers don't have to be as complete or as polished as full articles, and I do have the chapter as a base for the one; so I think I can do those things while teaching, whereas the MMP needs some undiluted thinking time. And it would be so great to get that particular monkey off my back.
• Now that I mention it, getting the MMP out ASAP is a great idea because if I can get an R&R within six months, I can work on it in the summer while I will have access to the relevant manuscripts. Be it resolved.
  

Reflections on fantasy and real life

Awhile ago there was a blogger who wrote as Professor Me (IIRC); some of you no doubt remember her, or even have the password to her blog. As I recall her blog, it was very appealing, and I read it with the sort of attention and wilfully suspended disbelief that I usually reserve for space opera. She couldn't get down to academic work until the kitchen was clean, so every night after cooking dinner for her husband and adorable child, she cleaned up and scrubbed the sink, then settled down to writing or class prep.

I loved that image of the clean, tidy, orderly setting for the life of the orderly and productive mind.

At the same time, I noticed that it was achieved at the cost of a fairly traditional division of household labor. The husband was handy at doing household repairs and remodeling, but only the wife cleaned the kitchen.

Now, if it were possible to leave dishes of milk out and attract a brownie who would clean the kitchen every night, I'd go for it, and risk the cats getting diarrhea if they got to the milk first. I guess it would fall to the brownie to clean up, anyway: dude, them's the breaks if you're late to work.

But in the absence of brownies, my life is much messier, in all respects, as well as more egalitarian. No one around here is at all handy (except maybe Basement Cat, and we are lucky that he still finds the lack of opposable thumbs a considerable handicap), so if the house needs fixing up, we hire someone else to do it. We share laundry. Sir John shops for groceries, because I hate shopping in all its forms (no, I have no idea where all the shoes came from; maybe some brownie dropped them off). I pay the bills. I cook. Sir John handles the dishes.

Some readers might justly recall David Lodge's novel Nice Work, in which Robyn Penrose says, "I quite like washing up, it's therapeutic," and Vic Wilcox replies, "You don't seem to need therapy very often."

The thing is, however you divide the work, you can't micromanage each other. So tonight I moved some dirty dishes aside to wash vegetables, put a cutting board down over this morning's newspaper so I could chop them, and got on with the cooking. And then I left the dishes and prepared the guest lecture I have to give tomorrow morning.

This was all clearer in my head when I wrote it as I was cooking dinner. Post-lecture prep, it's gone fuzzy and the logic is lousy or missing entirely. But it's supposed to be a sort of meditation on the differences between what we expect or think we want and what our actions show that we really value, and about letting go of expectations. I want to make it clear that I'm not complaining. I sometimes fantasize about a self-cleaning kitchen, but I don't want it enough to do it myself, or even enough to hire our cleaner for some extra hours. The dishes get done sooner or later, the cleaner scrubs the sink once a week, and that's good enough. What I do want is home-cooked food (because I am greedy and like my own cooking), and time to do my work, and the ability to think of household work as shared responsibility, not just mine.

Also, I guess, I liked the chance to live vicariously a little, to imagine that someone has time and energy to both clean the kitchen and get the real work done.

Writing etc. report

Sample chapter: done. Done enough, that is, to send to recommenders. It still needs work before it's publication-ready: more conversation with critics, more historical support, more direct discussion of a textual problem. But the argument is clear and well-developed.

Grading: oh, so not done. So just barely started.

Syllabus in need of revision, too.

I need to devote myself to teaching for a bit once I get this application finished and sent.

It's very clear that when I have a single writing goal for the week, I do quite well at it, and when I have more than one thing needing attention, I get anxious and scattered and don't do very well at any of my goals.

In fact, I think this may apply more generally: on writing-intensive days, it is very hard to switch gears and think about teaching. One of the reasons writing first thing in the morning is good for me is that that time-slot compartmentalizes the writing.

Female Science Professor had an interesting post about types of worker. I think I am an X1 who has managed to learn to juggle a few things. In grad school I thought I was an X2 but actually I am good at organizing my own structure: I wrote most of my dissertation in a single year on fellowship while also on the job market. It was a stressful time (more because of the job market and personal life than because of the dissertation) but I got a lot done. But I have never been a W. I wish I were, but I'm not.

So today I meant to finish fixing up the chapter, grade some papers, and pay bills. I finished the chapter, graded about half the papers I wanted to, and went to the bank, which was a precondition of the bill-paying. I went to the gym and took the boys to the vet.* Not a bad day. But all the gear-switching was hard.

I still believe in writing first thing. I'm not changing that. But I think I need to consider ways to "do less" but get more done: maybe that "three things" way of listing tasks, or have days that are supposed to be primarily for grading or for Life Stuff after the writing gets done in its little compartment.

*Basement Cat was so good. The Grammarian fought vigorously against going in the carrier, shouted for help to the whole neighborhood, and then gave up and sulked at the back of his carrier once he was loaded into the car. But Basement Cat was a dream. He ignored the Grammarian's pleas for aid and jumped in the carrier when I tossed in some kibble bits. BC is totally venal: anything involving kibble is fine with him. Since I have no head for philosophy or theology, I hesitate to draw eschatalogical conclusions from this. But I assure you that he thinks it is better to reign with kibble than to serve without kibble.

And once again . . .

Why, when a cat has what we may euphemistically term a problem in the middle of the night, a problem that involves the humans' bed, is the alternate mattress pad always already awaiting its turn to be laundered?

Writing retreat

My good friend and most gracious lady, Queen Joan, whom I have oft attended when she did make a royal progress, recently requested the presence of myself and my old friend Lady Maud at the Biona Camp for Wilde Wommene and Colony of Enditers, where we did disport us most marvellously well.

And where I wrote about 5000 words, in less than a week, plus did some work on the translation project, and all quite painlessly.

My friends did not mind if I went to bed early. I got up around 6:30, when it got light, made a cup of tea, and went to a desk that had been cleared for me. I worked till around 9:00, when Joan and Maud were up, and then we'd have breakfast and do yoga together. Afternoons were spent at the beach or a park, before dinner out. In the evenings, we worked on a jigsaw puzzle. Hanging out and catching up was blissful.

There were no cats. The social life was built in, and took place in the afternoons and early evenings, instead of keeping me out late. Moreover, it did not involve discussion of movies and TV shows that I haven't seen and am not interested in. There were no household distractions (call here, arrange that, get the other fixed) because it wasn't my house. I went to my desk with a sense of pleasurable anticipation, eager to discover what that day's work would bring.

Now, I love my cats, but they are a total pain in the ass in the morning, wanting to be fed as soon as I wake up, and if I don't do it, Basement Cat will start banging cupboard doors, which wakes Sir John, and picking fights with the Grammarian, and so on and so forth. So when I work early in the mornings at home, it's with one ear straining first for the pathetic cries of a black cat who can't bear to be locked up any longer, and then for the hissing and grumbling from downstairs, and then I have to go close the bathroom door to stop the cupboard-banging. All four get different things for breakfast, because the Grammarian has kidney problems and the Tiny Cat has vitamins mixed in with her food and the Shakespearean Heroine gets other stuff mixed in for her joint problems. Basement Cat gets Prozac on his. So it's not a matter of just putting out more kibble and getting on with things. Breakfast is a production, and flings me into housekeeping-caretaking mode.

I'm still working, now that I'm back, but a little more slowly and with rather more grim determination than pleasurable anticipation. Intense nostalgia for the break and deep gratitude to Queen Joan set in about ten minutes after I woke up yesterday.

Who needs Prozac?

Because of my carelessness, this morning Basement Cat got to eat all the kibble he wanted. This was quite a lot of kibble.

He has been remarkably sweet and placid all day.

Lest you think we have been starving him, he has been at a stable, healthy, vet-approved weight all his adult life. But his normal diet is canned food, and what he really loves is crunchies. We use kibble to reward him for good behavior and to lure him to his room at bedtime.

That may not work today.

It's not the first time I've wondered if it might be better to have a fat and happy cat than a healthy aggressive cat. The thing is, we had a diabetic cat once, and we don't want to go there again (especially because Basement Cat would likely be much less good about insulin shots than our former cat). Diabetes is commoner among cats, especially neutered males, than you might think.

Still . . . a placid Basement Cat is a different critter.

Tour de Chat

Since the big guys are taking the day off, I bring you this pre-recorded commentary on the highlights of last night's stage in the on-going Tour de Chat:

Basement Cat hit a fast pace right out of the starting zone, going straight up the Col de l'Escalier, followed by two laps around the bedrooms, including the Cat Four climbs of the Col du Lit Matrimoniale and Col du Futon. A daring descent of the Col de l'Escalier almost ended in disaster when he took the last corner a little too fast and came frighteningly close to the wall at the foot of the stairs, but he recovered and turned the corner into the last short descent before making up time in a rapid dash across the living room, completely ignoring the feed zone. He kept his cadence high in his ascent of the Hors Catégorie Col de l'Arbre du Chat and detoured onto the Boite de Carton before negotiating the highly technical descent of the Col de l'Arbre du Chat. He kept up the pace through the second climb of the Col de l'Escalier, descending rapidly and gracefully, and collapsed at the finish line in front of the rocking chair.

Unfortunately, the time-keepers were laughing too hard to record what was undoubtedly a personal best for the individual time trial on this course.

The Shakespearean Heroine abandoned after the first climb of the Col de l'Escalier.

The Grammarian says he'll attempt the time trial when he gets good and ready, although he prefers multiple laps of the Col de l'Arbre du Chat: "The Col de l'Escalier just isn't my style. I need a steeper course to make an impact."

Basement Cat said, "I was feeling really strong, really good, my legs were strong and I was on good form, so I just went for it."

Basement Cat's Secret Life, again

Yesterday when I was driving around with the radio on, the DJ announced that she was going to play a song requested by Basement Catski (a nickname we often use for BC): "Uprising," by Mews.

Post-Zoo

Post-Zoo, et propter Zoo (wait, how do you decline apparently Greek nouns in Latin? should that be Zoon? oh, how truly do we say that a little learning is a dangerous thing), I have entered my newly acquired books into my relatively newly acquired spreadsheet.

Pause to thank the converter of a typed list's contents into a spreadsheet; pause to consider my unbelievable wisdom in long-ago, pre-tenure days, in hiring a student to type up a list of all the books I owned at that time (fewer than now) so that subsequently I could simply add new ones a few at a time rather than contemplate the awfulness of recording them all . . . pause to threaten Basement Cat with mayhem if he continues to hassle the Grammarian.*

Where were we? It appears that even now I have fewer books than I think I do. The new additions bring the spreadsheet up to line 1031, which doesn't seem like enough. I had probably better check the list against the actual shelves. Oh, gods, oh Ceiling Cat, what a chore. Maybe I'll wait till we move. Maybe I'll wait till making the check seems like a good procrastination device; at the moment, I think I'd rather write.

Anyway, that is one of my after-the-Zoo (no cases in the vernacular!) rituals, and I am pleased to have done it just three days after my return. It was easier than it is some years. I bought only eight books this year, a far cry from the four-sack feeding frenzy that afflicted me a few years ago.

No, The Alliterative Revival was not among them; why do you ask? Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a copy of it, though.

Since I had a stack of paleography projects to grade, I've started my summer by driving out to campus to sit in Rare Books and pore over manuscripts. Today I'm at home, trying to get some other tasks out of the way, and surprise surprise, it's harder to settle when I'm not in the library. (There is no Basement Cat in the library, among other details.) But on the plus side, I did not get up at 5:00 today in order to fit in a trip to the gym before driving for an hour (or more, in the morning rush) in order to get to Rare Books when they open. I like mornings, but I'm not the sort of extreme morning person who thinks the day's wasted if she's not up by 4:30.

At times like this, I wish I lived closer to my office, though mostly I love living where I do. But I really have to do better with the days when I'm working from home. Coffee shops and more local libraries are both options. Clearing stacks of books, file folders, and miscellanea off my desk at home would probably also help. And I think I have to set hours in which no blog-reading is allowed. Possibly no Lexulous, either, as I can get very involved in trying to plan out moves and strategy.

I had a good Zoo this year, though I would have liked to shop around a bit more among sessions. Because I was involved with organizing a couple of sessions, which led to still further inter-sessionality, my schedule filled very fast; the papers I heard were mostly from big names or rising stars, and mostly very good, so in that sense I did very well: I did not have to sit through rough or plodding work, as sometimes happens, nor did any speaker I heard talkveryfastsoastodeliveranentirearticleintwentyorsominutes (though one had to do some off-the-cuff cutting). But hearing big names be brilliant does tend to activate my tendency to feel like chopped liver, whereas that tendency would be counteracted by thinking, "I could do so much better than that" during a dull or mistaken paper.

*Not up for online library things. Old-fashioned. Voted most likely to move to a compound in Idaho completely off the grid, in fact. Feeling particularly elderly and kids-off-my-lawn-ish today, I don't know why. I'm happy with my spreadsheet, so go away.

Thank you

I appreciate the condolences my readers have offered. My cats are an important part of my life, and even with what many would consider a household full (or overfull) remaining to us, we miss the Scot. It's kind of you to take the time to comment: thank you. He was indeed beautiful, and well-loved, and I like Clio's idea of drinking to his memory, preferably in good Scotch.

And thanks as well to anyone who felt sorry but didn't know what to say, and to anyone who wondered why all the fuss about a cat, but refrained from expressing such a thought.

I suppose grief hits people differently. It doesn't necessarily feel like sadness. With me, it takes the form of feeling tired, stupid, and heavy, as if I'd gained 50 pounds overnight (not the case, I assure you: I'm one of those annoying people who lose weight when unhappy). I mind the stupidity more than the fatigue. It took me six hours to put together a quiz, last week. Admittedly, it was a paleography quiz, so I needed to do a certain amount of copying, cutting, and pasting on top of choosing what to test on, but I think I could have done it in two hours in better circumstances. Also, I'm more than usually distractable, so the six hours were interspersed with e-mail and extra trips around the building, because of forgetting things and having to go back for them. But that's how it goes.

Today I feel a bit lighter. Not normal; but ten or 15 of the extra pounds have gone away, and that's enough to make a difference.

Basement Cat plots

Now I've finally got rid of that old guy, so that's one down. It shouldn't be too hard to take out the old bat*, or that whiny middle management type.** The real challenge will be His protegée***—He gets out the squirt bottle if I so much as look in her direction. Even She squirts me if I attack that one, and I have Her pretty well under my paw. She'll soon forget about that old guy. I'm much younger, stronger, more fit, better dressed—a full Cleveland with an orange jacket? Puh-leeze! Solid black is always correct for every occasion. And I have much better teeth (here, check them out; see, doesn't that hurt?). Chicks love me! I'm the Man! Anyway, if I sit in Her lap and groom Her hands a lot, She'll mellow out and start letting me out more. (She did say I was only grounded for the rest of the old guy's life, right, so I should be fine, now.) And then I can further my plans for world domination, starting with this household. Of course, I'll have to do something about Neighbor Catboy, too. I am the Only Basement Cat around here. Maybe I'll deal with that guy before I take on His protegée. I don't like Neighbor Catgirl, either, but she can live if she never gets up on my windowsill again.

*The Shakespearian Heroine.
**The Grammarian.
***The Tiny Cat.

R. I. P. the Scot

1999-2011

He was a braw gallant,
And he played at the ba;
And the bonny orange tabby
Was the flower amang them a'.

Victour he is at all mellie

The Scot has been battling abdominal lymphoma since Thanksgiving. This is often, perhaps usually, highly treatable in cats. And since the Shakespearian Heroine, with a different sort of cancer, has managed to shrink her tumors to invisibility, at the outset we were optimistic. While it would have had to be an on-going campaign, it should not have been an intensive one.

But after initial advances, the Scot's war did not go well. The enemy was wilier, more persistent, more resistant, than anticipated. And our side had only limited tactics at its disposal.

So the white flag has been raised, and we are now negotiating the terms of the Scot's surrender.

In other words, we have a few days to say goodbye, and then


Well, then. You know what I'm trying to say.

On to the ded gois all estatis,
Princis, prelotis, and potestatis,
Baith riche and pur of al degre:
Timor mortis conturbat me.

He takis the knychtis in to feild,
Anarmit under helme and scheild;
Victour he is at all mellie:
Timor mortis conturbat me.

The Scot will follow William Dunbar, good gentle Stobo, and the others of their nation.

Basement Cat and the Scot, or why you should keep up with laundry

Or, maybe, why you should have more than two sets of bedding if felines outnumber humans in your household.

This is most definitely a TMI post. If you are squeamish, stop now. Click away from the blog. Delete this post from your reader.

Have I mentioned that I believe it is the human condition to have to talk about poop? If you have kids, you know about those conversations. But if you think you will avoid them by not having children, the universe will laugh at you, and give you cats. Or dogs. Or aged and incontinent parents. Or any combination of the above.

If you are a childless, petless orphan, the universe will visit poop problems on you, yourself. It's just how, you know, shit happens.

OK, don't say I didn't warn you. I even gave you time to get away. Even now, I'll start with Basement Cat; you can stop before I get to the poop.

So the Scot's eye problem was a big old scratch across the eyeball, undoubtedly caused by Basement Cat. That delinquent can't leave well enough alone. The Scot is the only cat around here who doesn't hate his guts; so what does he do? Walks up to the mellow, tolerant Scot and hits him in the face. This mostly happens before meals, not without remonstrations from us and the squirt bottle, so we can probably keep it from happening in future by feeding Basement Cat in his own room.

Of course the vet trip was traumatic for the Scot, who is very shy. Even more traumatizing was the Elizabethan collar he was issued, which he tried to back out of, and then to remove by getting stuck between the bathroom door and the under-sink vanity. He tried lying down and looking pitiful, and then he ran into things with it, and finally I took pity on him and removed it, because I'm sure he's not rubbing his own face. Basement Cat is the culprit here, and Basement Cat is grounded for the rest of his life. Or the rest of the Scot's, anyway.

At least the laying-on-of-hands aspect of the vet trip inspired the Scot to eat more readily than he has been doing lately. (The vet also took blood for the vampire cats CBC, since he's been off-color for nearly two weeks now, long after he should have recovered from the last chemo dose.)

Are you still here? You can leave now.

The Scot spent most of the afternoon on our bed. He got room service for dinner, and since Basement Cat was allowed out for dinner, I shut the bedroom door for a little while, after spending an hour or so in with the Scot.

I came back ten minutes later to find a pile of poop in the middle of the bed.

Naturally, I just felt sorry for the Scot. He's sick, he gets shut in, he feels too bad to kick up a fuss, maybe he's taken short. He's a cat; he doesn't want to poop where he eats and sleeps. I remove the top layer of bedding, do some clean-up, pop it in the washer, spray some Simple Solution on the next layer (a wool blanket), and decide I'll wash the blanket in the morning.

Only I really hate the smell of Simple Solution, because though it's all right by itself, I associate it with much more noxious odors. So when I'm on the verge of going to bed, I remove the wool blanket. Oops. There's a big wet patch on a far corner of it, and sure enough, the wet has soaked through to the next blanket, and the sheets. And the bed pad. And the cover that goes over the memory foam pad under the bed pad.

And the other set of sheets, and other bed pad, are still in the dirty laundry heap basket (we have baskets. Really).

I'm still sorry for the Scot, but now I'm sorry for me and Sir John, too.

So, check out the time stamp. I'm still up, waiting for the first load of laundry to get dry. And then there will be another. It might be quicker to make a WallMarche run.

This is why I read the mommy bloggers' blogs. Even though my kits don't drive me crazy asking "why," and they do let me sleep in the middle of the day when I need a nap, and they are rarely loud enough to give me a headache, I like knowing that there are other people who wake up to middle-of-the-night barf, and who run out of sheets because somebody's wet or soiled the bed, and who understand that talking about poop is the human condition.

Oh, and the Shakespearean Heroine is still constipated, which is like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

(I will remind you that I actually had a request for more cat blogging. I bet Nicole and Maggie are sorry now.)

Still lame, in more ways than one

I've never been one of those multiple-posts-a-day bloggers, or even (except for short stretches), a once-a-day blogger, but really, what has happened to my blog-brain? I seem to be living IRL instead of online. That can't be right.

I feel like I'm just starting my day at sundown, not my usual schedule at all. The beginning of the week was intense, with my on-campus days running 11 hours each (plus the commute on either end). Because I was so tired, I stayed up too late last night (you know, just couldn't get myself to go to bed, too tired to make sensible decisions about how to use my time), slept late this morning, got up for breakfast and cat-wrangling, and then went back to bed for several hours. I feel vastly better for the sleep, but so much for all the things that were supposed to get done during daylight hours. I will still write tonight, though; and even if I don't put in a planned two hours on grading, I'm at least going to sort the papers into piles based on which topic their writers chose.

This is how I wind up working on weekends. If I had to show up at an office, obviously I'd have dragged myself through today; but since I spent the day asleep, the time will have to get made up somehow, and Saturday/Sunday are the obvious times to do that. Actually, I've started feeling a sense of relief when the weekend rolls around, because I can finally get my work done without interruption, sort of like wanting to get to the office early or stay late so you can do your job without people wanting things from you all the time, whether via e-mail, phone calls, or popping in "for just a minute."

I could just declare that my "weekend" is some non-standard set of days, like Thursday and Friday, and take Saturday and Sunday as working days. But of course e-mail still comes around from people on campus during the week; and Sir John works a more "normal" schedule; and the New York Times Sunday edition only comes out on Sunday. And people tend to schedule social events for Friday and Saturday nights, or Sunday afternoons. So some weekend stuff is still going to happen on the regular weekend.

But really, I like the non-standard, flexible, work-whenever schedule that academia makes possible. Sometimes it's good to have a day or two totally free of work, but a lot of what I do goes better if I do it every day. Writing, for instance. Grading, too, is better done either in large chunks or in very steady regular sessions, so that I can be reasonably sure I'm applying the same criteria to all the papers. Reading. Recently I tried reading fiction a chapter or so a day (well, okay, maybe 1/4 of a book per day, let's be honest: less than that is only possible if I really hate the book). I found that I forgot key plot elements and spent a lot of time paging around trying to find where they were. Binge-reading is much more satisfying. I don't read for a half-hour's enjoyment; I read to plunge totally into the world of the book. I don't want to come up for air. I follow the story better, notice more details, if I'm completely submerged.

So while I'm happy with the write-every-day habit (it's sticking; I really do feel twitchy till I get it done, and better afterward), I'm going to keep some of my other "bad" habits, like working on weekends and binge-reading when I discover a book or author I like.

As for the "more ways than one" part, remember my ankle problems? I would have sworn I had the damn thing totally rehabbed. I was on the cross-trainer for an hour at a time, even running a little bit (a mile or two at a time, on a treadmill). All was fine. And then a couple of weeks ago, I stood up to walk across the kitchen floor and suddenly the ankle hurt and felt weak. So I'm back to bracing it and trying to do just-enough exercise in the pool and on the exercise bike, until it's better again. I am annoyed. I have much more energy when I can exercise for longer periods.

Cat update: the Scot seems to have trouble with an eye again, so we'll be going to the vet tomorrow, second vet-trip in a week (different cats). He's been off-color since his last chemo dose, too. The Shakespearean Heroine is struggling with constipation again. TMI? She's an old lady, with old-lady problems. The other cats are well, knock on wood and all that.

Wonderfully different? Wondrously pissed?

I "heart" all you people who are pissed off by that prompt.

Still crossing fingers, but I think the cats are doing better today.

I don't have much idea who my "followers" are, but I did notice that I recently lost one. Too much cat blogging? Too much whining? You can't please everybody, all of the time. Thank you for going away quietly, without telling me what's wrong with my blog.

And now, back to grading exams and surveilling cat poop.

No, really, cats!

And the Shakespearean Heroine had to go to the vet in the afternoon. Cat-people, please.

As for the student-people: the final exam was yesterday. Yes, I know I made a mistake on the syllabus. I am sorry about that. And I made that announcement in class every day the last week of classes. And you were there. Despite what you may have written down, I did not say it was on a day that was neither yesterday nor today. I can't take notes for you; please try to transcribe announcements on the classroom whiteboard accurately. Or check the university website, which is up and running and contains the entire final exam schedule. Haven't I been enough of an absent-minded professor to make you realize you should check on such things?

Yeah, so I got into my e-mail long enough to get the student e-mails, but when I tried to open the message containing the page proofs that have to be done by Monday, no dice. That server problem is seeming less restful now.

Back to grading exams, I guess. Nobody better need to go to the vet before tomorrow morning.

Oh, come on, cats!

Pull yourselves together.

Now Basement Cat is off his feed, under the weather, etc. Inconclusive vet trip this morning. If he's not eating by tomorrow morning, there will have to be another (no doubt even more expensive) vet trip, because we can't afford to ignore the possibility that he might have found some string to eat, even though we don't know how he might have done that. But if anybody around here were going to manage it, Basement Cat would be the one to do it. At any rate, at this point every single one of our non-human housemates is on twice-a-day medication. Most of them, at least, are pretty good about it.

Basement Cat needs two humans and a towel.

I'm getting a little tired of all the cat drama.

I did finish grading all the papers and got them all back yesterday. Now I have exams to grade, instead.

I found a missing mechanical pencil and am hoping that this might be a good omen for retrieving other lost objects. Not holding my breath, though.

And my favorite news of the day . . . the e-mail server is down at school. Being out of touch is surprisingly restful. I'm sure that when the server comes back, I'll have a ridiculous amount of mail, but for now, out of sight is out of mind.

Cat update

The Shakespearean Heroine has recovered very well from her lumpectomy. These tumors are 90% malignant in cats; hers was in the 10% of pre-cancerous. She's bright-eyed and always hopeful of extra food, these days.

But now the Scot is sick. It looks like we're going to have two cats on chemotherapy, if the biopsy agrees with the initial findings. That is, the cancer is certain; the question is whether it's the more treatable sort or the very-bad-news sort. The treatable sort can go into remission for years, and of course that's what we hope for. The Scot is my favorite cat; I'm really not ready to give him up. Although he's not a traditional alpha-cat type, his calm, mellow, affectionate personality strongly influences the other cats in this multi-cat household. He's made friends with everybody, including the Heroine (who just vanted to be alone, when we got her) and Basement Cat.

So, please join me in waving the Scottish flag, so to speak, and rooting for my ginger guy.

Basement Cat meets Basement Cat

While we are definitely the Crazy Cat People on our block, several of our near neighbors are also servants to cats, and one of the closest has two: a big black cat and his clearly part-Siamese sister. Their person allows them to go out while she is doing yard work.

Sir John and I do not approve of letting cats go out, but having mentioned the reasons for this a time or two, we now shut up and pet Neighbor Catboy and Neighbor Catgirl when they're out.

Both of them are very nice, sweet, friendly cats, especially Neighbor Catboy. He likes everybody. Both of them like to jump up on the ledge outside our living room window.

Most of our cats say, "Oh, hey, another cat. We're used to . . . [yawn] . . . cats. [Snore.]"

But our Basement Cat is another matter. On Monday, Neighbor Catgirl got on the outside ledge while Basement Cat was on the inside sill. I was at school, but Sir John said he thought Basement Cat was having a hairball: low yowls and an odd chittering noise, like an insect.

Tuesday, while I was home, it happened again.

Wednesday, Neighbor Catboy, aka Neighbor Basement Cat, jumped up on the ledge. Our BC screamed. Poofed. Howled his indignation and intent to terminate with extreme prejudice.

There is ONLY ONE Basement Cat in the world, and we shall have no other basement cats before him.