Category: Pointless Ramblings

Happy New Year

Posted on by Nimgimli

Well, 2006 is behind us now, thank the gods… I can’t think of anyone for whom 2006 was a really good year. I’m sure they’re out there, but among my small circle of friends it was a year of upheaval at best, and just a bad year at worst. Perhaps 2007 will be better for everyone.

I spent New Year’s Eve watching the extended versions of The Two Towers and The Return of the King. A nice, quiet evening (I’d finished watching Fellowship yesterday). Somehow these movies are trying their best to become a holiday tradition with me.

Anyway, here’s wishing everyone who reads this a happy, healthy and prosperous 2007!

A nice Callie card…

Posted on by Nimgimli

Today a card arrived in the mail, from where I’d been taking Callie:

Dear [DC],
We are very sorry for your loss of Callie. We understand that Callie was truly a part of your family, and we know that you must miss her very much.
We hope that it may offer you some comfort to know that a donation has been made, in Callie’s memory, to the hospital stray animal fund. Callie was very lucky to have had you to care for her.
With deepest sympathy,
Dr. [Callie’s doctor] and staff at
Marlboro Animal Hospital

I thought that was an awfully nice gesture, and on the off chance you’re in the Marlborough, Mass, USA area and in need of a vet I’d confidently point you to the Marlboro Animal Hospital.

I sure do miss the little furball. I’ve been re-arranging my house a bit to kind of fracture the memories a little. I still find myself looking for her, and I lose track of the time every afternoon because no one is curling around my ankles reminding me its dinner time.

At the same time, the acute pain of loss is already fading, which is good I suppose. I regret not having taken more pictures of her… I had a lot on my old cellphone but never transferred them off and the phone is long gone now. And I tossed all her toys and kind of wish I’d kept one as a memento…

My friends have been very supportive and that’s helped an awful lot.

Callie (????-2006) Rest in Peace

Posted on by Nimgimli

CallieI lost a friend today, after about ten days of trying one cure after another. My strange little cat, Callie, who came into my life about two and a half years ago, was put to rest at noon today.

I am overwhelmed and startled at how sad I am over this. I’ve lost grandparents and my father and a step-brother and a step-father and I don’t remember ever being quite this sad…and its over a cat. Strange, and probably not really true. I’m sure I’ve just buried the old griefs so that I don’t remember them as being as bad as they were. Or maybe its just that she was so totally dependent on me.

Callie was a wonderful creature, though she wasn’t much of a cat. She was a street cat that wound up in a shelter somehow and I don’t think she spent much time with her mother learning to act cat-like. We think she’d had some kind of head trauma, because she couldn’t walk very well and seemed constantly surprised by the world. She was a total mess of a cat who had trouble eating and so wound up with food in her fur constantly. That said, she’s often decide my beard needed grooming when I picked her up. She was sweet and good natured, but she hissed when she wanted attention (other than a quiet purr, hissing was the only sound I ever heard her make). She seemed happiest with a warm lap to nap on, or failing that, to stretch out alongside a reclining human. When I brought her home she had ear mites so bad that I think she was mostly deaf. She couldn’t see very well, either. Couldn’t walk very well… though she ran fine. And her lack of grooming talents extended to both ends of her, and more than once I had to plop her in the bathroom sink to bathe her. When this happened she’d quietly accept it, but she’d just look at me with this totally puzzled expression.

Today was her 4th trip to the vet in ten days and she wasn’t getting any better. She’d been mostly sleeping for almost a week and we decided that the best thing for her was to end her misery. I knew it was coming so we spent a lot of time together over the past couple of days, her sleeping in my lap while I watched endless tv while petting her and giving her scritches under the chin. At the vet I kept on petting her and keeping her comfortable while she drifted off (they give the animal two shots. The first puts them to sleep and the second actually kills them). I kept on petting her while she got the second shot. The vet checked her heart. It had stopped. He told me to take all the time I needed and left the room. I kept on petting her for a good while longer even though she was beyond feeling it. Then I left her body laying on the examining room table and came home. I chose to have her cremated; I’m not big on burials.

When I got home and saw her toys all over, and her favorite box (she *loved* cardboard boxes, as most cats do) waiting for her, I lost it all over again. I quickly gathered up all her things and removed them. Then I went out again. When I came home the house felt empty and silent, even though she wasn’t a ‘greet you at the door’ type of animal usually. I still opened the door carefully, though, just in case, because she wasn’t really smart enough to get out of the way if she was there.

I have no idea how old she was, but she was only with me for about two and a half years. When I adopted her they told me she was two, but the vet felt she was much older, and I tend to agree. She was pretty much a lap-cat and it took a lot to get her motivated to play. She clearly led a rough life before she came to live with me. I think she was happy to end up with me. I remember the day I saw her picture on PetFinder.com and just knew she was the cat for me. Oddly, I’d wanted a big cat and she was tiny. That laptop she’s sitting on is a 12″ iBook, just for a sense of scale. I went to the shelter and they opened the door of the cage she was in and she just climbed up into my arms like she’d always known me.

I’m really going to miss that little furball…

NYC health board bans trans fats at restaurants

Posted on by Nimgimli

I don’t usually do commentary on news items, but this one really caught my eye. An Associated Press article on CNN ( NYC health board bans trans fats at restaurants) reports that the New York City health board has instituted a ban on the use of trans-fats in restaurants. They have to switch over to non-trans-fat fryer oil by July 2007 and have a year after that to totally elliminate it from their kitchens.

I’m just dumbfounded by this. Granted, trans-fat is bad for you, but so is alcohol and remember how well the last ban on that went over? What’s next, do you think? Salt? Jalepeno peppers? Because they can cause heartburn, you know. The article tries to infer a parallel between this ban and the ban on smoking in restaurants (which NYC was an early adopter of) but these are totally different things. If you choose to eat a heaping plate of french fries at the next table, I don’t have to eat second-hand-fat because of your choice.

And it’s always amusing to read the “I don’t want to be a parent so let’s let the government be one for me.” quotes:

It’s the danger a bad diet poses to children that has experts the most worried. It’s also what worries Kathy Ramirez, a 26-year-old New York mother who takes her toddler to McDonalds every week. She approves of the ban and a related measure passed Tuesday, requiring restaurants that already disclose calorie counts — mostly chain restaurants — to post them right on the menu.

“It’s hurting us, all this fat, but the kids really like it,” said Ramirez, pointing to 3-year-old Amber, who’d just finished her dinner. “It would be better to know what we’re getting.”

Here’s a crazy idea, Ms. Ramirez… if you don’t want your kid eating fatty food, don’t take her to McDonalds every week!!! Oh, but I see… she really likes it. Maybe in a couple of years she’ll really like tequila, and you can take her out for shooters every week. For her seventh birthday you can let her eat the worm.

OK super-cynical mode off. I read not too long ago that Dunkin Donuts was struggling to find a replacement for the oil/grease/lard/whatever that it uses to make its donuts and wasn’t have any luck at all. All the non-trans replacements left the donuts greasy or soggy or tasting bad. So getting rid of this stuff is, I guess, not trivial. It’ll be interesting to see what alternatives restaurants come up with, and what impact those alternatives end up having on the taste buds and gastric systems of New Yorkers.

NaNo 2006, Day 16

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It’s been a hectic couple of days and I haven’t found the time to get to the Novel. And that’s my fault, but it took my dear friend J to point that out to me. I continue to treat the novel as something I do when I have nothing else to do. And yet, it’s important to me. Very important.

I need to make it a priority. To make time for it. We’re past the half-way point now. I’m running out of days for ‘making up lost time.’

The good news is, I finished the last article I have due last night (I hope, at least. The editor could always request rewrites). So for now I have no other writing committments.

Another bit of wisdom I heard was about when to write… and basically the answer was “Whenever you have a free moment.” This came in a round-about way from Cory Doctorow via Mur Lafferty, in a piece she did in a daily NaNoWriMo podcast where she shunned the idea of writing rituals. I’m a little guilty of being ritual bound. I have to have a block of time set aside to write in. I’m trying to break out of that mold and write a bit in the cracks and crevices of my day. A hundred words here, a hundred and fifty there…they add up, right?

A nice surprise

Posted on by Nimgimli

So this afternoon I’m actually on a mini-roll of writing when the door buzzer goes off. “Bloody hell” I mutter (ok, so maybe I said “huh?” but ‘bloody hell’ sounds more interesting). I’m not expecting anyone so it’s either someone at the wrong building or, y’know, some other irritant. How the hell am I supposed to earn my Recluse Merit Badge when people come buzzing the damned buzzer?

But it’s the UPS guy, which is weird because I haven’t ordered anything. And he’s got a big, heavy box.

Flashback to last December. I was so jazzed at the end of my first NaNo that I decided I was going to really work at this writing idea. And in that flush of enthusiasm I registered for the World Fantasy Convention 2006, which was held Nov. 2-6 in Austin, TX. I went to work and put in for the vacation time…11 months in advance. I was pumped!

I never anticipated being unemployed though. So I couldn’t go to the convention; between airfare and hotel accomodations, I just didn’t have the money. I didn’t bother asking for a refund of my fee or anything. I just…well, it was pretty depressing, the whole thing. (We won’t go into the fact that from Dec 2005-Oct. 31 2006 I didn’t write a word of fiction.)

So where was I? Yeah ok, so it’s the UPS guy with this big box. I sign for it and look at the label and it says “World Fantasy Convention 2006.”

“What the hell?” I say to the cat. She gives me ‘that look’ and goes back to licking her bottom.

So I open it and its full of goodies from the con! There’s a bookbag stuffed full of novels, plus a program and a few magazines. They even sent my badge. So now I have ten new novels to read, and not a single one is a duplicate of something I already had.

What a cool treat!!! It made my day. It made my day so much that I registered for World Fantasy Convention 2007, in fact. That one’s in Saratoga Springs, NY, so I can drive there… I know I can go if I can drive there.

NaNo 2006, Day 2

Posted on by Nimgimli

Bleah.

Day 2 and I’m already discouraged. Well, a little discouraged.

My NaNovel is dull so far. And… well, I’m not really sure where its going. So far my MC (Main Character) is more an observer than anything. I need to get him engaged somehow.

And life is being a pain. Suddenly I’m in demand at irregular times. I should’ve expected this since we just launched a new site but still its been frustrating. I had urgent emails asking for help at nearly midnight last night, and they kept coming in throughout the day.

Mind you, I’m not complaining, except in terms of the impact on my NaNovel. The impact on my wallet is very, very much appreciated. 🙂

The NaNo counter widgets are slowing down DC, too. Next year I’ll have to build something local. BTW those little lines above the logo aren’t errors. They’re a ‘sparkline’ that is suppose to show how far over or under my daily quota I am. As we get more days behind us hopefully the information will be more clear.