Illumination

I never understood why office buildings leave all their lights on all the time anyway.

I think "earth hour" could be called "crime time," because there are people who, like those who steal copper wire from empty homes they could never afford, don't care. I heard about the lights-out, but then forgot. I think I was already asleep. I'm sure we'll all learn how to do this when they call it a blackout again.

Most of you already know my deep personal hatred of urban lighting. And wastefulness.

We still can't decide about the cat.

However, things like this make it seem like it really doesn't matter about being in debt.

I thought Buddhists were okay with the never-ending (but for enlightenment-attainment) cycle of life and death.

Entropy

Yes, I'm still screwing around.
And, no, I haven't eaten.

Eat

I had a salad and wheat crackers with neufchatel, and it should be enough.  It's not, because there was no protein, of course, and my stomach is still gnawing at me, and though breakfast was at 2 p.m., following laundry, laundry, and re-cleaning the mattress side where the cat exploded Friday night, it's now 3, and I'm a disaster of struggling with hunger, homework, work-work, cat-death-decision-making, and other things.  There is never enough time, I know.

There is a most-turkey in the fridge I can make us for later; I think it's thawed finally, but making turkey takes forever and offers too-easy diversions from doing my job.  I did work from 8:30 to noon, just so you know.

Then the chores, minimalist style.  Then I talked to my friend who has had many cats in her life who have had many illnesses and different paths to euthanasia.

I just don't want to, not when there's only the one tumor, not when Kitty is still jumping and purring and eating.  I want the surgeon to be the one to tell me that she's too small, lost too much weight, will be too traumatized, to make it.  Is it stupid to pay for that?

"The average lifespan for a domestic indoor cat is 13 years."  It feels like I lost six years of time — the last vet had me believing she was only seven or so.  If the tumor removal and possible subsequent infections don't do her in, it will only be something else, and who knows when…renal failure, more intestinal cancer, whatever.  It's likely she'd not outlive the debt, but while I can laud my frugality against buying new clothes, a television that doesn't have lines going through the picture, even home-improvement things or new contacts or dental work or my first haircut in two years, I can't see not spending money on the only pseudo-offspring I'll ever have.

Eat it.

Cabinet

My mind remembers useless things:
the next plate in the stack is the clear glass kind,
one of two, the other on floor, with half-eaten
canned cat food on a place-mat, stained with
things I've eaten, also on the floor,
where I prefer to be, where I am now.

These plates are from my union, as are
the next ones in rotation, orange, ironstone-type and
stamped with a brown, semi-oriental flower.

The others are white and fluted, now
cracked with leaden-colored pre-shatters;
we measure our time together by all
the dishes we have lost.

Mine came from an Illinois-antique
shopping trip with my mom, and his
from his own, earlier existence, the sixties.

No wedding shower was our request:
the nature of our self, since I admit
we were one before the flawed ceremonial,
seeks to conserve against certain pain,
lidding bowl with sturdy plate
for refrigeration of leftovers.

My mind remembers useless things:
I don't need to look in the dark cabinet
to know I have my hand on it and we agree
on more than we admit.

Not much change

Haven't gotten diagnosis, but cat seems happy-ish.

Still making gruesome puddles in terrible places.

Frequency increased. Three-days no longer holding.

Abno and/or Lympho

…carcinoma…

Cat update

Since all of you are so involved and kind and such:

bloodworks says that the analase and whateverase is not elevated, so it's not pancreatitis; white blood count is up, so could be infection or inflamation and so getting antibiotics today; could still be cancer;

cat is still eating, though, and is uncomfortable since she's all bloated and backed up.

expecting another fun pool of wonder sometime later today; ultrasound tomorrow. Wish I could post those or the cool cat X-rays.

Sorry to be a blogfreak.

I like to wallow in sad things, as you know.

On the other hand, my mom-in-law had knee surgery yesterday, and I haven't followed up on that.

And probably some of my relatives in eastern and sort-of southeastern Missouri are flooed, and I haven't followed up on that.

Bye, Kitty

We went to the vet today. We had some x-rays, some blood tests. Blood is fine. Full spectrum coming soon may reveal more. Weight is down. Ultra-sound is coming Wednesday to provide clearer details of what was preliminarily evident on film. It could be cancer, and even if it's not, I see no way that the other possibility will have a good outcome either, as Katrina has been sick longer than just a few days.

This is what the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse has to say about it:

Acute pancreatitis can be a severe, life-threatening illness with many complications.

Acute pancreatitis occurs suddenly and lasts for a short period of time and usually resolves.

Acute pancreatitis is usually caused by gallstones or by drinking too much alcohol, but these aren't the only causes. If alcohol use and gallstones are ruled out, other possible causes of pancreatitis should be carefully examined so that appropriate treatment — if available — can begin.

Chronic pancreatitis does not resolve itself and results in a slow destruction of the pancreas. Either form can cause serious complications. In severe cases, bleeding, tissue damage, and infection may occur. Pseudocysts, accumulations of fluid and tissue debris, may also develop. And enzymes and toxins may enter the bloodstream, injuring the heart, lungs, and kidneys, or other organs.

Needless to say, I hope no one (else?) I know ever gets this. Anyone in Kansas City (or other places currently hosting / have hosted a Bodies Revealed exhibit) who has gone and looked, as I have, at the blown-up and tumerous pancreata, livers, colons and such, will already be thinking about these inevitable deteriorations and failures.

I think Katrina came to us to teach us to stop drinking.

But if she's dying, that's going to be really hard to do.

Even if she is 12 and not seven like the other veterinarian who shall remain nameless (and who has retired, so don't worry) estimated when we first got her off the streets and fixed her up from leporous flea scabs and said "you can live with us even if you shed all the time and make T. crazy when she cleans, because G. always wanted a cat, and you are small and sweet and magically already fully declawed and could care less that there are six birds in the house and just want to be warm all the time, sit on laps or in the sun, and you came at the time when my grandmother had died and have always done that cool sympathetic-animal thing when I'm feeling bad."

And now I'm feeling really bad.

Etymological Eostre

Great mother goddess of the dawn in Anglo-Saxon times, not worshipped anymore by the 700s AD when good old (forgot about you!) Venerable Bede was a'scribin'. Also a fertility-type for the Teutonics.

Here are some other fun things with root languages:

Aphrodite from ancient Cyprus
Ashtoreth from ancient Israel
Astarté from ancient Greece
Demeter from Mycenae
Hathor from ancient Egypt
Ishtar from Assyria
Kali, from India
Ostara a Norse Goddess of fertility

…more…

It's no secret that the grand He is Risen holiday is timed to be the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring.

It's also well-known that the reason Christians eat ham on this holiday is so that in-laws can torture each other with asparagus casseroles.

I tried to wear green

I used to have only one green top. Recently, I expanded my "collection" with two other green tops from Target. I have worn them this winter with knowlege that springy apple green is not quite right in January and February.

I put one on today, even though I don't work someplace where people are jaunty about pinches to the green-less. I was not planning on going to the parade or any morning parties, even. I'm not in anyway that I know Celtic. I'm usually a bad sport when it comes to culturally-controlled dresscode.

The neckline was torn, though, a testament to the global economy, so I changed into all black and was done with it.

If you own a business, you can tell people what to wear.

One yesterday

Untenskull Rocks

I love Skull A Day

The Face of Illness

It can be deceptive.

B

My first exam grade in more than a decade.
Considering I had feared a D, this is adequate.
I have skipped two classes since then, however;
one was a choice between slides of the Sistine
Chapel and a free pass at the plasticized and
exposed dead bodies, the other a work-related
explosion that required my constant attention.
Leaving for three hours twice a week is not
conducive to continuity. I thought that it
would provide variety; turns out, two things
over and over are not varied enough.

Progress is mild: formatted photos to have
e-printed and sent to dad; planted sprouting
jade plant; CLEANED FIVE BIRD CAGES; cleaned
up cat vomit; transferred photos from several
cardboard and other boxes to single, 21-gallon
plastic tub I can not move; transferred items
of Christmas into two tubs; put all VHS tapes
into tub for no good reason since we have no VCR;
a spot of work-related e-mail (people are dead-
line deficient and/or, they need constant reminders
that the first of the month is on its way — every-
one else is a daily or weekly and so it's confusing,
I guess). I need to add reciepts to start taxes.

Time May Change Me

But I can't change time. And I hate Daylight Savings.
I'm used to waking up at 6 now, and it's going to be
all wrong in the morning, 7.

Friday Parenthesis

Wish I Were There

(Berlin)

And that I could speak German such as the person I met Friday night, who learned it well enough in three months in order to teach a university-level architecture course a number of years back.

I also wish I could process numbers more quickly, have some anchor of reference, so that when someone says (when asked) they graduated from Wash. U. in 1989, I actually can tell that we're only seven years apart instead of cultural aeons.