And back again.

Back to normal, that is in the sense that I have nothing going on nothing to do and nothing to show for myself. It's been a few days or a week or however long since the last thing I had to do in that week of (relative) busy that I had. The last thing was the film, not the film I may have already mention though I'm not sure if I did, but the other one. The one I"m almost certain I didn't mention because I haven't written since before we had even scheduled the shoot let alone.. well anyway it's the other one. The one I worked on with the group,  you know the group I'm in that does films. It went well. At least I think it is, I don't remember that was already a week ago.

That whole week, or week and a bit.. *scratches head wondering just how long it was but not enough to bother to figure it out* was unusual for a week that I'm here alone that is here alone with no other human, I'm not really alone, I am with the kitty, in that I had a fair amount of human interaction, I went out among other people and spoke to them and was in their real physical presence for amounts of time that is typical for the average human, or at least close to it. So, we did the film and..

I came home. That was a week ago. I haven't left since. Well that's not true I've gone out for short walks and to get stuff from the shop, but I haven't said 2 words to any human in physical reality since then. Actually that's not true the words one uses when one is in the shop is more than that, I think, don't remember.. hmmm.. but I haven't interacted with anyone else. I don't think.. *scratches head again*

but not to worry, Cooley is extremely intelligent and she understands a lot about a lot, we've been having some very deep conversations. Mostly about tuna, but everything counts.

At the end o' the week..

well it's Friday. People do tend to make a big deal about that, I suppose it matters if you work, and if you work a regular full time regular hours job, and if you live somewhere where the weekends fall on the general Western lines of Saturday and Sunday or even just Saturday, I can understand why. I remember, way back when.. blogging was not exactly in it's infancy, but it was around the time I joined the club, so to speak that there were these themes on Fridays.. Friday cat 5, cat club, random.. cats.. or something. Something to do with cats. I think there may have been some that were not cat related but there was definitely some cat stuff. Today I'm going to be old timery and do a post that is cat related, somewhat, for Friday. I'm currently creating a website for Cooley, the cat, our cat who I may have mentioned a bit here on this very blog. I'm actually creating about 5 websites simultaneously if by "creating" you mean made folders for, but Cooley is the one I'm working on mostly because I don't really know what will be in any of the others yet, though I want to learn and relearn and add to my learning of website building.. you know, html, xml, css and all that. You know. So I'm doing this. Well I was doing this, been ill the past few days, but I worked on it for a full 2 and a half days during which I spent probably and hour an a bit each, on and on working on this site while flipping back and forth between whatever I was doing.. then I became too weak or more accurately, irritated to sit at the comp reading text and stuff so I spent the day lounging around watching stuff on the computer from a slight distance as opposed to reading stuff on the computer from close.. and then after I forgot I'd been doing it, along with all the other things I forgot I was doing because I started doing something else or I went out or I didn't feel like doing it anymore and didn't do it for a bit and then forgot or because I made coffee or something. I'll get back to doing it though. I have some ideas. I was thinking about it last night.. just as I was about to fall asleep.

And the excitement never ends..

Still gotta use the upstairs flat to use the loo. Well, to use a proper loo anyway. I actually managed to open the door, well the gate in front of the door after a while. Oh, I had trouble unlocking it at first, and then again, and again, but then I figured it out.

It's quite cool up there, really weird to go up to an empty flat on my own, and of course taking the opportunity to check it all out, go to all the rooms including the weird storage attic room off the upstairs bit up the stairs. Felt like a real estate agent or something. Lovely view from up there, well it's our view, just slightly higher though different windows or off a balcony.

Vet night again, Cooley is getting used to the office there and was ok again tonight, though spending a bit more time in her hiding place behind all the pet food, mostly because the nurse was in the room with us instead o the vet who she knows pretty well by now, and other people came in and out a few times, but she's used to being there, sorta.. but when it came time to go back in the cage it was something of a debacle. The first week, Erik tried once and failed and the second time was ok. The next week, he floundered around trying to get her in the cage where she discovered her new hiding place, behind the pet food and felt somewhat chumpish and got scratched and hissed at and had no luck. Then the vet got her in the cage right away through some handy trick one would expect a vet picks up over the years. Today, Erik tried, failed and then said yeah you do it.. and the vet tried and failed numerous times to get her in there, and got hissed and growled at for her troubles. Now we really have to do our homework of getting Cooley used to the cage.. we did a good job of our other homeworks over the last week, but not so much that one. Then we went ot a bar, then had another beer, though I'm sure it's not at all noticeable, NOT!

Tomorrow is Hannukah, then what has been referred to as "a bullshit American holiday" by one of my friends who is currently at large, or at least not online to communicate with me.. Thanksgiving that one is, probably won't be celebrating that one so much as well.. no one eats turkey and the dolphins aren't playing and then.. yeah the big day I've been banging on about way too much, will get to that more then, don't you worry about that.

I feel like all this blog has been is me going on about the somewhat boring if mildly unusual minutaea of my day.. not sure how I feel about that. Ideally it would be something more.. less crappy, but what can you do.

Yoohoo.. I'm home..

Yes. Home. Very tired. Long trip. Lots of changes and waits. A last trip to Tel Aviv for a few hours with luggage and nothing in particular to do with a few adventures on the way, including being accosted often.. mostly for a ride.. ie money, but also for our souls.. sorta. It's not as sinister as it sounds. But anyway, back home, with the kitty.. she's already as bratty as ever.. and we're settling back in to winter again. Pretty tired at the moment, might go into details at some point.

It's a battlefield.

I'm sure someone somewhere at some time has said something along the lines of "the greatest battles are with the ones you love", or "there is nothing so fierce as those wars we wage in the home" or "you always piss off the ones you live with" or anything that means that sometimes, the people (and/or four legged furry creatures) who are closest to you and who live with you can really make your life difficult, more so than even the like.. really big things. That's what it's like here. I may have been banging on a lot recently about how I'm all alone and lonely and oh so lonesome etc.. and I still am, with the exception of a particular four legged furry creature. It is said four legged furry creature I wish to speak of now. Cooley, the cat. She is a master a psychological warfare, mind games and general super brattiness. You see.. she, like most sentient beings, likes to eat. It is necessary with our living arrangements for the humans to feed her, and well, we try to feed her at regular times, and the right sort of food and not too much. She doesn't always agree with our methods, especially the not too much part.. but also the.. feeding time not being earlier than we wish to get out of bed. Or the middle of the night. She likes to use her particular set of skills to get us to do what she wants.. She scratches things, rips up paper, knocks things off tables or just stares. If all that fails then there's the endless meowing. Needless to say, this can get vexing. It's gotten worse the last few weeks I've been on my own here, I don't know why but every night, again and again and again, she scratches, stares, meows, knocks, stares, meows, rips, taps... once to get me up to feed her, then again to get me to give her more, and then again.. and often again. Just before bed and then again or twice during the short night before I get up because I just can't sleep. Oh yeah.. I'm not getting enough sleep. I try to stand up to her, not to feed her too much, hoping that eventually she'll just settle down and go to sleep, but she doesn't. She just stares. Or scratches, or knocks, or meows or.. you get the picture. I haven't been getting much sleep lately.

Christmas at our place...

All about Cooley. Santa was very good to her this year.. we're thinking that she's just permanently on the "cute" list.

So now you decide to work!

The internet has been working crappily all day, sometimes not at all.. this has been vexing, vexing I tell you! I had all this stuff I intended to do and needless to say, I needed, well not the internet for most of it but the time that trying constantly to connect to the internet and make it work better cost me so...

oh whatever here's a pic, haven't posted one in a while.

Dare I say it?

Demon is now officially exorcised, for once and for all. I can wash my hands of it, sleeping soundly in the knowledge that it shall not return.. I can clean stuff up properly, knowing it won't get all messed up again and.. this weekend we should be able to do whatever we want to do, and not have to wait around for a bunch of dudes to fix it again.

I shouldn't have said that.. :/

So.. this morning they've been working away, made me get up early, went off for a bit, then came back and I was under the impression they'd have to do it in stages, like leave a bunch of stuff here and come back Thursday or whatever, but.. it's done... 'parently. Cooley will be pleased and I must say I'm rather chuffed myself.

And here I was, all ready to have a big ole grumble about the neverending mess here, the whole week being taken up with waiting around while dudes mess my place up, not being able to use the shower or toilet, and poor little Cooley, being repeatedly frazzled. So what do they do? They finish? And leave? Totally messed up my blog post.. if the internet was working better I'd have had it written already. Things just never work out do they?

Ok I can live with it.

Calm.. storm.. whatever.

The weather has been extremely changeable in general lately and specifically today. Now it's storming but I expect it will be doing something else 20-40 minutes from now.

Life in general has been calm since the departure of my drunk friend.. and apart from the fact that he accidentally took my keys all went well and I already got the keys back so that was hardly even worth mentioning.

So.. whatever your opinion on drunk friends and in was a mixed blessing/curse in this instance, with him came a computer. Yes.. a computer! We have a computer now.. well.. we have.. um, there are 5 in this house at present count but it's the only one which doesn't have the problem of a) not actually belonging to us and due to be returned.. at some point.. b) a serious case of not working at all, c) a serious case of working, technically but not doing anything useful like say.. connecting to the internent.. playing music and stuff.

So that's cool. It's just a little laptop, good for anything I need to use it for and using it has been going smoothly except for a while earlier when the desktop was turned upside down. Apparently you can do that by holding down the shift key too long or something and that's what I guess Cooley did. She likes to lie on keyboards. That's my new bit of knowledge for the day.

The eve of...

solitude.

Well, if you don't count having a rather lively and noisy kitty about, which I do so I suppose it's not the right word.

Erik is off again tomorrow, travelling with work, again, this time to Toronto and Chicago for 2 weeks. So I'll be left to my own devices again. I'll be alone for most of this holiday but fortunately it's the chocolate one so it's cool.

Actually I don't have any chocolate.. I might get some. I have plenty of eggs.. so I'll be living lots of partly dyed egg salad for a few days :)

Cute Kitty Post.

A photo for Thursday. One may caption this if one wants, but I just feel like putting a photo up. I've been posting (to Flickr) nothing but 365 self portraits lately.. and this is one of them, though it may not look like it. See those fingers nuzzling Cooley? Well that's me :)

It's a lovely day..

It's actually raining, and quite cool for the day before summer. Perfect conditions for the return of Erik. Oh well, it's very hot where he's been so perhaps it'll be pleasant for him. At least the place is what I would call spick and span, at least comparatively.

It's strange, things are going back to normal again.. once again I'll have another human living with me here, someone to talk to, and see in person many hours out of the day, as it has been ever since I moved in here.. but it feels almost like.. I don't know. I almost forgot that there is someone else who was usually here.. as if. Just as if.

I've been existing in a sort of surreal not real reality sort of place the last month, and I've almost forgotten that things were ever different. I think it's something like that. I'd explain it better if it were explainable or I was proficient in explaining things which for some are deemed unexplainable. Well it's something like that.

I just can't wait to see the kitty's face when I open the door and there he is with me. I hope she smiles.

Tomorrow...

This month of solitude is almost over. I will have company again!

Well.. I have had a bit of the month busy with people.. and just hanging out with people though the hanging out happened exactly twice. And there's the kitty. You're never alone when there's a little furry thing that demands as much attention as your average 2 year old, which makes sense as she is 2, but generally people refer to non furry 2 year olds when they speak of such things, and this one is furry. We have bonded over the month though, but I'm sure she'll be happy when her daddy gets back. She might snob him off for the obligatory few hours/day but she'll be happy again. I hope.

It's a good thing, him coming back.. I look forward, but as I might have mentioned before, I've really let this place go, and it's sort of come upon me rather quickly, the return. The incident with the cat piss and the washing machine hasn't helped, held me up a lot.. and I've been a bit ambitious with how clean I want to get the place, which means I've turned everything upside down and it's a bigger mess than it ever was...

however.. it's getting done and it will be done. I just have to do a bunch more things today, especially if I don't want to have to do any tomorrow which I don't.

Ok, enough of that, back to work.

I'm gonna upload a photo now..

And you can either comment on it, ignore it, draw a moustache on it...



The ideal would be to give it a caption, but whatever tickles your boat..

Nothing to say..

Actually I have plenty to say, but right now I'm not in the frame of mind to put it in a blogworthy way, if indeed it's something I feel like sharing here, which it isn't and I know it's Thursday and I could just post a photo to be captioned but.. eh.. no one ever does anyway, so instead I'll just say.. and yes, I do have a little to say, even excepting the aforementioned exceptions, that Cooley is better. She's eating and drinking and putting Friskies in her bowl and sleeping on her favourite bag. I'm very happy about that.

Some stuff

So Cooley is now post-op. Soon after writing yesterday Erik came home, put her in the cage which she submitted to with a minimum of fuss, we took her on the tram to the vet, during which time she was calm and quiet, introduced her to the vet, who Erik informed that Cooley doesn't have a positive reaction to strangers handling her, and suggested she give her the shot before taking her out of the cage, but she said oh no, we have to weigh her... so the cage door was opened, Cooley taken out, and then she flipped. She ran around the room trying to escape, climbing the walls, literally climbing the walls! It's amazing how far up the wall she managed to get, more than once, and hiding in whatever little hole she could.

They caught her, managed to give her an injection to calm her down, and were able to proceed from there. We went off for an hour and came back when it was done. Everything went fine, though we learnt that Cooley is too fat, apparently, which made the operation slightly more difficult. It was hard to see her, eyes open and glazed though asleep, with a stitched up stomach, but that's what they do. We took her home, she slowly came to. Today she's been groggy and I think in pain. She's recovering slowly. Not too happy with us at the moment.

In other news. I made bread. Actual bread this time, not at all like rocks. It was satisfying to have everything seem to work every step of the way, which might have something to do with using actual yeast this time... don't ask. Anyway, dough rose, the bread rose, baked and it tastes good so I'm pleased.

And one more thing. Why do they always have the cool words on the days that aren't word o the day days? And always on the weeks where I did the word of the day with some mediocre word? Well today's (yesterday's now actually) is peculate, which means to "appropriate fraudulently". Not that that explains it much better. Still like the word.

Believe me it's for your own good.

It's a big day for my adopted kitty Cooley. In just under 2 hours she's going to visit her first Czech vet. She's being "fixed". She's already an adult kitty, and the reason it hasn't been done before is mostly due to Erik needing to take her to the vet, and what would have been the convenient time for this, to get injections and papers and all that for her move here, then he was moving her here, then they were settling in and then we didn't really know of a vet, or feel such a pressing need to find one.

But after a particularly long spell of horniness, followed almost immediately by another, he got a recommendation for a vet from someone at work and made an appointment for 19:00 today for "fixing". It's supposed to be good for animals, and at very least it will alleviate (hopefully most) of her suffering when she's in heat, and I would be lying if we aren't concerned about our own suffering during those bouts.

The preparations started last night when we had to take away her food, a decision that wasn't so popular, but she coped. I had to come early today to remove her water, and by now she's pretty hungry and vocal about it, and was a bit taken aback when, instead of giving her food just now, I took away her water.

Still, apart from the occasional outburst, she seems to be taking it all pretty well, and doesn't seem to have any idea what's in store.

Just under an hour now we have to put her in a cage, get on a tram that takes us halfway across the city where she'll meet a new person who will poke and prod her and do whatever it is these vets do. Fortunately she'll be asleep for most of it, but I can't imagine she'll find the directly before and after bits too pleasant.

Poor kitty, but it really is for her own good. Or so "they" say.

Rum, cabin boys and lots o' fish..preferably tuna..

"Ahoy! me maties.. I hope you're havin' a fine day today. "

If you're wonderin' why I'm speakin' oddly it's because I'm a pirate. No really I am.

Ok, I'm just celebratin' talk like a Pirate Day! A little thin' that people do if they're nerdy enough.. and, if you know me as well as I do.. then it's quite clear that I'm more than nerdy enough.

But that's not all....

Oh what an excitin' day it is.. not only be it an internationally observed holiday for all pirates and buckos of.. it's all a very special little rascal's birthday....

She's 2 today. And in the spirit of.. well.. just spirit.. she's a pirate today too.


Oh dear another filler post.. *sighs*

Actually having a weekend..

It is coming up to what we in our culture generally refer to as the "weekend", a time which normal people usually use to do something different than the "week", when they're required to work, and a time that usually isn't that much different for me, well that's not true because since I've been living with Erik I spend the time with him as he has a regular job, but that's not the point.

The point is we're having visitor's, Erik cousin and her friend, and we're picking them up from the airport this evening, and will be doing touristy stuff over the weekend, and may even go just outside of Prague for a day trip one of the two days which make up the weekend.

Bit of random though not unrelated trivia, do you know that in Israel the weekend consists of only Saturday and Sunday is a regular work day? It's true, something to do with god. Well, they get sorta Friday off too, depending on the week. I'm sure other people could explain it better.

Here's Cooley.

It's just too easy..

We come to the end of the week.. that is if we don't include the weekend which I haven't decided yet if I'll be including in my new system.. anyway, after the astounding success of yesterday's gimmick to try and make people comment (yes I am being sarcastic) today I will be going back to the usual I-write-and-people-sit-there type of post. Which I was going to do anyway...

so.. being that it's Friday, which already has a tradition out there in the mainstream blogosphere, the random 10, which I've used a few times.. and the cat blogging which I've been doing recently.. so I may or may not use one of these for future Fridays.

This Friday, I have a kitty.

That's Cooley under there, in case you wondered.