It must be Monday. I've been trying to edit a word document this morning. It goes something like this: edit, edit, re-read, delete old copy, CRASH and lose document. Scream. Swear. Open document. Edit again. Get smart this time and click save. Delete old copy and CRASH. And Word, ever-so-helpful, has just overwritten your saved file with the current recovered doc which is the old unedited version of the doc. Scream. Howl.

Curse modern technology - someone get me a quill pen and I'll do this old school.

Don't know what to make for dinner? Check out some foodblogs linked from Metafilter. As I haven't eaten lunch yet, these are making me very, very hungry.

Chomp.

$270.00, pills twice a day for the next week, and my mopey, sickly Chet is on the road to recovery. His blood profile came back this morning and he's healthy and there's nothing to indicate any internal problems. After a night spelt sulking under the bed, he moved back up to sleep with me around 5 AM, and this morning is back to playing with a catnip mouse. Yay!

And then I bumbled across this post in my web ramblings, and it brought tears to my eyes. While I don't visit every day, I love checking out the pictures of the Daily Oliver on occasion, and I'm glad to see he's recovering well.

I've never had a pet die - directly. My childhood pets either died while I was too young to grasp why they went to the vet's office and never came back, or they died after I went off to college. Someday, when Chet dies, it will be the first time I am ever forced to deal directly with the loss of a pet - and I absolutely, utterly dread the prospect. Even writing this, a voice in my head is prodding, 'Stop writing about it! Put it out of your mind! You don't have to face that yet!' And I will in a few minutes - because I just can't deal with the thought.

Chet has been right beside me for 10 years now - across six states and thousands of miles. He's guarded me while I slept in my car in a rest stop in Oklahoma, left prizes of dead mice at my feet in Iowa, Texas, and inbetween, and left a trail of hairballs across the Midwest, West, and South. And every night he still hops up next to me on the bed to sleep spooned against my body. I refuse to consider that he won't always be there - and at only 10 years old, we've still got plenty of miles left to travel together.

And now I should probably stop sniffling at my desk at the prospect. ;)

The vet just called to tell me my cat is too fat and won't pee.

I know, I know - I'm gone for a week and that's all I have to tell you people. Bad, bad blogger.

But it's true. Chet is a bit of a fattie-pa-tootie weighing in at 16 pounds at the moment (and yes, I resisted the urge to respond to the vet that, hell, my other cat is damn near twice that size!) and he is currently spending the day at the lovely and plush Highland Pet Medical Clinic. Uncooperative? Yes, that's my cat - the orange tabby currently refusing to pee for the nice vet doctor so that they can analyze and determine that he needs $70 worth of antibiotics or something of the sort.

Oh, I'm sure I'll be getting the silent treatment when he gets home later. After suffering him the indignity of both a 1 AM vet visit and then, of all things, forcing him back in the cat carrier this morning, I am currently Bad Mother of Cats.

But hey - I consider it his due after the many hundreds of dollars spent on his bladder in the last 10 years. The thing is, the first emergency midnight vet visit all those years ago was scary enough to last a lifetime - so at the first sign that he might have a 'blockage', I'm happy to spend $100 to have a vet tell me I can safely fall asleep and know he'll be alive in the morning.

So he's safe, fat, and stuck in a cage a few miles from here.

And meanwhile, cat #2 is at home bouncing on the bed and eating all the food in the house...

From the referral files:

1. There are a rather alarming number of people in the world who hit this site searching for barnyard porn. Is it a distinct fetish? Is the "barnyard" part specific? Or could it be petting zoo porn? Or perhaps free-range porn? Maybe wildlife preserve porn? I have no idea. But now that I've written it here, I guess I'll know if I see an increase in search engine hits looking for free-range porn... As it is, I'm the currently ranked #4 site in MSN searches for barnyard porn. Which just disturbs the hell out of me, I don't mind saying.
2. Specific for the person from AOL. I'm afraid I've no idea what the lyrics to "Not Alan Rickman" are, so you won't find them here. If you're a big fan, however, you might want to know which Alan Rickman character you are.
3. Disappointing but true: I do not know how many eggs a chicken hatches daily, despite my Google placement for said knowledge. Sorry.
4. And how in the hell did I end up on the first page of Google searches for hairy chickens?

And meanwhile, I'm trying to put together some notes for a meeting in LA later this week and I'm having an afternoon where I stare at the words on the screen and they just merge into a babbling blah blah blah. My mind, while not exactly elsewhere, is willing to be distracted by the slightest motion, sound, or shiny object if it means I can stop working on the notes. Concentration has left the building, and I wish I could go too...

I have a headache and keep forgetting to go take Tylenol for it.

My weekend was lovely and too short. My boyfriend is wonderful and considerate. Florida Seafood Grill is overrated and expensive. My cats are still round and demanding. I won some money in a card game. And I read and enjoyed the latest Harry Potter book.

Oh yes, and somewhere in the last 3 months, I've managed to misplace 25 pounds.

How was your weekend?