Beowabbit

plumtreeblossom's sweet cat Ben Ben died this evening. We'd spent all weekend together, and Sunday after a concert and dinner in Harvard Square I went to Quincy and she went to Somerville. When she got home she found him blind and unable to stand. While I was trying to work out cab and Zipcar arrangements to get to Davis quickly and get him to Angell, he died in her arms. He was an old cat and had a wonderful run and died at home, and he was begging for treats and enjoying life until the last few hours. He had been in notable decline, though, so it wasn't a suprise.

(We took the body to Angell for cremation. It's a wonderful, wonderful animal hospital run by wonderful kind caring people and we're very lucky to live somewhere where that kind of veterinary care is available 24/7/365.)

Goodbye, Ben!

Hi. Apologies for not having all the details, but my ex sionnagh is looking for a home for her sweet nine-year-old service dog Hamlet. His vet bills haven’t been at all unreasonable over the years, but she’s on a fixed income and she can’t afford them any more. Most recently, he’s got a tumor of some sort on his ear which might just be a cyst [or something, that wasn’t the exact word she used] but might be something else, and she can’t afford the surgery or biopsy to find out, so she doesn’t know if he just needs antibiotics or if he needs to have it removed.

She lives in Hawai‘i, but she says she could fly him out to the Northeast. She’s looked for a new home for him there as well, so far without success, but if anybody has a lead on good doggie-parents there, or for that matter suggestions for resources for very low cost veterinary care, that would be very welcome too. (I realize that’s a long shot.)

He’s a dear, sweet, loving dog who gets along with pretty much everybody. He’s a lab mix. He’s good with other dogs, and with cats unless they run or fight, but she says he’s good with cats that are comfortable with dogs. He likes to play outside but he’s mostly an indoor dog.

There are photos of him — although he was only about two or three when I took these — at http://www.aq.org/~js/gallery/2005.02-hamlet/.

Since last weekend (Circus weekend!), I’ve been busy.

You might need to click this twice; I do, on two different browsers:

• Monday was the regular Poly Boston dinner at Bertucci’s. Unfortunately plumtreeblossom couldn’t make it because of rehearsal. It was quite fun, with a bunch of cool new people!
• Tuesday I had dinner with xmelancholia near (my) work; she introduced me to a new-to-me restaurant, Mulan. I loved their chicken in chili sauce. More importantly, I loved the opportunity to catch up with xmelancholia. She rocks, and I hadn’t seen her in a while.
• Wednesday I usually get together with cathijosephine for dinner, but she was out of town for a funeral (my sympathies to buxom_bey, whose relative’s funeral it was), so plumtreeblossom and I went over to hang out with surrealestate, DD, and little J, and we had a blast. Love that little baby! (Actually, love all of them!)
• Thursday I got together with teratomarty, who works near me. Among the impetuses (impetusses? impeti?) for getting together were some biological specimens (small animals, mostly arthropods) in jars that I had aquired, and wanted to pass along to him. I had enjoyed the food at Mulan so much on Tuesday that I suggested we go there again. Had a great time.
• Friday morning in the shower I heard that the annual sheepshearing festival at Gore Place was going to be Saturday. Oops! plumtreeblossom and I love that event, and had tried unsuccessfully a month or so ago to figure out when it was. We ended up shuffling some plans around so we could go.
• Friday night I drove to the airport to pick up bedfull_o_books, who was arriving at Logan after a very very long series of flights from Beirut. Got to hear about her fabulous visit to Lebanon and Egypt with r_ness, and she brought me some Lebanese coffee with cardamom which I look forward to making.
• Saturday I slept really late (needed to; the flight was delayed, and I was sleep-deprived anyway to start with), so we were late to the sheepshearing festival, but we got there in time to enjoy epic fair noms, stroll among the vendors (and make some impulse purchases), and see the border collie demo (border collies managing sheep and goats). I had foolishly forgotten to bring my good camera, but I got a few photos on my phone which I may get around to posting eventually. Afterwards, we had dinner at Blue Ribbon Barbeque in Arlington, which I’d never been to before (although I’ve had it catered at work a few times). The brisket was quite good. (The sausage was good too, but, contrary to the menu’s assertion, it was not at all spicy.)
• Today, after sleeping in (which we both needed) and breakfast at The Broken Yolk, I came home to Quincy for a very productive afternoon of yardwork and working on the house. I completed three of my four painting projects; just have a final coat on the office door left to do. I didn’t get as much cleaning done as I’d like, but I got lots of work done on the yard and I have the pleasant aches of a productive day of physical labour.

So, busy and happy (and as always, epically in love with my honeywuzzle).

I’ve uploaded some photos from our day at Nantasket Beach a week ago to Flickr. Here they are. Photos of the two of us, and lots of photos of seagulls.

Had a great weekend with my wuzzle! On Saturday we went to the Franklin Park Zoo and had a great time. I will eventually post some photos to Flickr, but for now there are a couple on my Tumblr account. (Sorry they’re fuzzy; my good camera was out of batteries and I was taking them with my phone — at an unreasonable zoom level without a flash — until we found the gift shop to buy spare batteries.)

Then on Sunday we saw closing night of The Big Broadcast of 1954, and had a blast. We’d seen opening night, too, and it was neat to notice the minor differences — such as PMRP’s favorite deployed Marine delivering the recorded opening speech. Yay srakkt!

This was a great show, and while we regret that geography kept us from participating this year, we enjoyed the opportunity to experience a show purely as audience members. If I listed all the great performances and nifty touches I’d be typing all night, but I have to mention just how much the band, Jaggery, added to the performance. (The background music for the final climactic ride in Sleepy Hollow was especially effective.) Everybody involved should be very very proud, and I can’t wait to hear the Ride Across America CD when it comes out and see what the other radio-drama groups that participated came up with.

Then Monday night I helped plumtreeblossom and one of her downstairs neighbours hand out candy to Trick-or-Treaters, which was lots of fun and something I almost never get to do since I’ve usually got Hallowe’en night commitments. And we finished up Hallowe’en night with a nice chat with vanguardcdk and a Twilight Zone episode.

Lovely weekend!

I'm guessing this is probably norovirus, gathering from what y'all seem to be up to. Got very suddenly sick at about 1:00pm at work (after PT appt I should post about), went home w/ a box and a roll of paper towels on the seat next to me just in case but managed not to lose lunch until after I got home; have been sleeping since then. Not on deathbed, but not very happy. But even this ill, I can still use "lose" and "loose" properly, so I'm ahead of 90% of the English-speaking Internet.

I hope cats can't get norovirus, because Chickenfinger is being her usual cuddly demanding self.

I am on the mailing list of the fabulous local funk and disco band Booty Vortex, but it seems like whenever I hear about a gig it’s on a day I already have overscheduled. But this past Thursday they were playing at Johnny D’s, very close to plumtreeblossom’s place, and I was free, so I asked plumtreeblossom if she wanted to go.

As she posted, we had a wonderful time! The audience was pretty small, but that meant we weren’t claustrophobic and we could hear the band well, and gave the whole thing a more intimate feel. They had a couple people join them on stage. One was a guest singer, and I’m not sure if they had planned that or if they just saw a friend in the audience and invited him to join them. The other was a guy whose dancing they really liked who they had come dance on stage for a while. And during the second half, the band members took turns coming out on the dance floor and dancing. It was awesome!

One of the vocalists said that the band may be doing more Thursday shows in the future, perhaps as a regular weekly thing. I hope they do; so far, I’m a groupie in spirit, but I haven’t been able to make it to many of their shows. If they do a lot of Thursday gigs at Johnny D’s, I’ll be able to act like a groupie too.

(While I’m here, I also want to link to plumtreeblossom’s post about the relocation of Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary to New Hampshire. Oh, and I should also mention that our dinners at Johnny D’s were very good; I had their steak Stroganoff, which we both love, and she had a yummy bacon cheeseburger.)

I’ve had a lot stacked up to post about lately, but the only thing to talk about right now is that plumtreeblossom’s cat Rowley is dead.

( Cut for those who can’t deal, but I’d love it if those who can read do. It’s not gory. )

I love you, sweet Row-Row. And I love you, dear plumtreeblossom, and I am so glad that the logistics worked out so that I could be with you so quickly and stay with you through this.

Sorry for my extreme radio-silence lately. I’ve been mostly sort of keeping up with other people’s LiveJournal posts (albeit with more skimming than usual), but I haven’t had time or brainpower to post or do much commenting. Anyway, since I’m sure you all are wondering whether I’m still alive, here’s some of what I’ve been up to lately:

Home repairs: Just after cathijosephine moved out, the bath surround (the panels on the wall around the bathtub) fell off. Well, large bits of it did, anyway. It had never been all that convinced it wanted to be attached to the wall, and it gave up. I had been thinking for a very long time (since before I moved in, come to think of it) of pulling it off and repairing whatever damage it had been put up to cover, but had never gotten around to it, in part because it involves not being able to use the shower for extended periods of time due to wating for various bits to dry. Anyway, since I didn’t have a housemate for a bit (anybody want to move in? Quincy’s got lots of history and lots of yummy restaurants! Won’t be available for a bit yet, though.) I decided I’d go ahead and try that. As is the way with these things, it quickly became a much larger project than I expected it to. It was just three days ago (after starting the project about a month ago, although of course I’ve been working on it in spurts) that I finally had a day where I left the bathroom looking better than when I started.

This has all taken a lot longer because of not having a working car any more, so when I discover I don’t have the right tool or I didn’t get enough tile adhesive, I need to either carry stuff on the T (and on the walk home from the T) or rent a Zipcar. (I have to say, I’m really enjoying using Zipcar. But still, it means having to plan stuff in advance.)

Theater: As I did last year, I’m rehearsal-assisting for plumtreeblossom’s show in the summer one-act festival at Theatre@First. Unlike last year, I’m also going to be on the run crew, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. Means I can’t sit in the audience for the actual performances, but it means I get to be on stage, albeit with the lights dimmed. Also unlike last year, the show plumtreeblossom is directing is one she wrote herself! My darling is having her début as a playwright! I’ve read a bunch of short stories she got published before I met her and really enjoyed them, but this is the first substantial writing she’s done since I’ve known her, and I’m thrilled to see her getting back into it. It is a really funny show being put on by very talented actors and it’s going to be a blast! Many of the other one-acts are also really funny too, including the one being directed by surrealestate (who is directing for the first time, if I’m not misremembering). I am really really looking forward to this and you should all come see it.

plumtreeblossom: Things continue to be delightful in my relationship with plumtreeblossom! We have lots of wonderful dates and delightful times. Tomorrow we are going to see Up for the third time. :-) Her cat Rowley who had been frighteningly skinny for a while has been putting on weight, which is really encouraging. We’d already been mentally preparing to lose him. Not sure if the subcutaneous fluids the vet has her giving him are what made the difference or not, but he’s doing a lot better.

Work: Work is busy, but rewarding, and I feel like I’m accomplishing stuff (although projects in IT, as in homeownership, tend to take several times as long as you think they should).

cathijosephine: I’m delighted that I’m still seeing lots of cathijosephine despire her having moved out. We’ve been trying to have dinner together once a week (often with darxus and m_c_t if he’s in town, and sometimes with xmelancholia). Chickenfinger (her cat) has adapted really well to moving back to her condo; we were both worried she’d be upset about moving back to a much smaller space, but she had no trouble adjusting at all.

(Other than seeing a lot of plumtreeblossom and her housemate, cathijosephine and her partners, and the Firsties, I’m feeling a bit undersocialized and missing my friends. Have been popping my head in at some lovely parties though, at one of which I got to catch a glimpse of the delightful weegoddess during a visit this side of the pond.)

I feel like there’s been other important stuff over the past few weeks, but I’ve run out of brain so I’m going to stop for now.

As usual lately, I’m too busy living life to write about it — I haven’t even really caught up on reading LiveJournal since my New York trip — but here are some recent highlights.

On Friday, plumtreeblossom and I got together with our LJ-bereft friend J. at Namaskar for yummy Indian food and catching up. We really like him, and we hadn’t seen him in ages, so that was great.

On Saturday morning, we took plumtreeblossom’s cat Rowley to Angell for training on giving him subcutaneous fluids (and in the process giving him his first administration of subcutaneous fluids). He did not like being put in the box and travelling — he had an even harder time with it than last time — but he had no problem with the actual procedure, which plumtreeblossom performed like a pro, and he seemed to perk up afterwards.

On Saturday evening we went to a fabulous delightful party with lots of wonderful snuggly people. A cute woman quite justifiably admired my honeywuzzle’s legs. Got to catch up with a few friends I hadn’t seen in a while. Thanks so much to our wonderful hosts who created a spectactular party!

On Sunday morning, we got together with zzbottom and library_sexy at a new-to-us Portuguese place in Union Square, the Neighborhood Restaurant and Bakery. The food was very very yummy, and the catching up was great. Afterwards we stopped into a nearby comic-book store, where plumtreeblossom got an Obama action figure (yes, she’s a serious fangirl; so am I) and I got another zombie-themed board game to add to my collection.

And on Sunday afternoon I did some yard work and a little bit of tidying up in the house, and finally got around to posting something to LiveJournal. :-)