Happy October!

Over the past couple weeks, we've learned a few more things about our cats - namely, the reason that Luna was having such litter box problems is because of the stress of living with Mara. Once we isolated them completely from each other, there were no accidents. The only problem is that Luna needs a lot of companionship, and so when she was isolated she would cry, and cry, and cry. Of course when we'd go in to play with her, she would be happy and purry and fun and all sorts of things that an awesome cat is like. When we'd leave, though, she'd be a loud unhappy mess.

Mara, on the other hand, had been reveling in her newfound solitude, and her personality has been changing back to what it used to be. She didn't hide anymore, she was more vocal, she was more playful, pretty much everything was great for her.

The whole situation just illustrated the fact that our house/living situation just isn't meeting Luna's needs, nor would it ever. She's a great cat, and will make someone a great pet.. so, since we wanted her to have the chance to live in a place where she could be happy and not isolated, I brought her to the humane society today.

Quite a few volunteers remembered her fondly from when she was there a year ago, and I really think that she'll get another chance.

But, really. Today has been one of the crappiest days I've ever had.

So, most folks know that we've had problems with Luna and Mara getting along ever since day one. The last month or so has seen some pretty significant litter box problems with Luna as well, and we're pretty much at the end of our rope in figuring out how to have a harmonious household. Here is what we've tried to treat the peeing-all-over-the-house issue:

- Full vet workup for Luna (no physical problems, no UTI, nothing)
- Have three litterboxes on various floors of the house
- Clean up litterboxes every day
- Thoroughly clean soiled spots as soon as we see them, with enzyme cleaner
- Try to deter Luna from the previously soiled spots by covering them with other objects
- Keep cats in separate rooms so they don't bug each other (Luna still pees, and cries because she's lonely)
- Changed to a higher quality food just in case that's the issue

Our vet has no further recommendations, and the intarweb is out of suggestions as well. At this point we're keeping Luna in her own room because at least then we know where to look for pee spots, instead of having to scour the entire house a couple times a day. Of course, she's crying almost constantly. It's obvious to me now that she's just not happy with us, and we're not jumping for joy anymore either. She really needs to be in a household with other cats that actually like her - she just wants to be near other living things a lot, and apparently us humans aren't enough to compenstate for the hatred that Mara has for her.

Does anyone have any other suggestions that we may have overlooked? We're thiiiiis close to bringing Luna back to the shelter we got her from, and that's a really crappy place to be.

The trip was great, and crappy, and all the things that a trip would be that involve seeing wonderful family that you haven't seen in 15 years and being welcomed in right away (great), and then going to a funeral for the patriarch of said family (crappy). I am already looking forward to my next visit back there, though.

Arrived in North Dakota around 10pm, and immediately met up with a good 10-15 relatives that I haven't seen in 15 years. The town is bigger, but it still smells exactly the same. I feel really old and really young all at the same time.

Vacation from work has been nice so far, except for the screaming migraine that smacked me down for a good portion of yesterday.. bleah. But, it's been almost 6 months since my last one, so I can't really complain all that much!

Hopefully today or tomorrow I can get over to Home Depot and start the beginning of our kitchen remodel.. mmmm new countertops. Goodbye ugly green fake marble laminate!

Dad's surgery was textbook, or perhaps even better than textbook - shorter than expected, no delays/complications, and he was exceedingly coherent and talkative (joking, even) shortly after he woke up. Woot!

...since it's been a while.

Work time has been completely eaten up by the NIH stimulus funds, which is simultaneously awesome and horrible. I'm definitely planning on taking some vacation time when it's all calmed down again.

My dad is going in to get his other carotid artery cleaned out on Friday, after which he shouldn't have any more surgeries on the horizon. Woo!

This year is the year of remodeling the kitchen, and so I've been checking out countertops and tile and appliances and generally having a good time imagining how cool my kitchen could actually be.

williamofoccam is crazy busy with school and internship and work, which means we usually only really see each other a couple times a week. I'm glad it's temporary (but will possibly get worse this fall when I start taking a chem class that eats up two nights a week).

I am ridiculously excited to go to Shepherd's Harvest this year, and my shopping list includes decent hand cards as well as a variety of fibers I'd like to try (cormo, polwarth, falkland, perhaps some shetland).

Mara still hates Luna, Luna still likes trying to play with Mara, fighting continues apace. I think we've reached an odd but mostly sustainable balancing point.

So, I cancelled our subscription to the Star Tribune today - we only got the Sunday paper, and for a few months now we haven't really read through it or used the ads or anything. I figured, heck, let's save the money and cancel... get all our news online, anyway.

I expected the customer service guy to try to convince me not to cancel, but he didn't. It was a little weird, actually, he just processed it right away but sounded really beat down. This is the first time I've cancelled something and felt bad about it - I know their circulation is down, and I'm sure they're experiencing economic issues like every other business. I actually feel a bit bad about not supporting our local news workers. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they have layoffs in the future, since everyone seems to be doing it... I just hate the idea that I contributed to that, even if it's in a tiny tiny way.

Argh. Ah well. It's saving us money, which is good since williamofoccam's new internship means he had to drop to part time at his current job. I'm just glad they're letting him stay on at part time and not letting him go.

I won't wax philosophical or poetic or anything, but today has been a long time coming, and is awesome. Also, Chicago? Loves them their Obama. Spent the morning/early afternoon at a lovely gay sports bar, which was PACKED full of people cheering and crying and generally enjoying themselves while watching the inaugural process. Someone was clever/amusing enough to play "Hit the Road Jack" on the overhead speakers while Bush was leaving in a helicopter, and then "Movin on up" as the Obamas walked back to the capital. I've never sung so much with total strangers before.

This trip has been totally worth it.

Each day is getting progressively warmer, which is so nice. Today I didn't even need a hat outside.

Yesterday I met up with some knitter folks at the local (and very awesome) yarn store, Loopy. We were fantastically lucky enough that one of the knitters happens to be an architectural guide, so we got an awesome walking tour of downtown. She was super knowledgeable and a lot of fun :) I really appreciate that the city is mostly flat (unlike San Francisco), because I'd be even more sore than I am now if it were otherwise. Man, if I lived in a more walkable city like Chicago I bet it would help my fitness!

Have had the requisite deep dish pizza, which was good. So good. Oh, yeah. Good. And more beer! Hooray for beer.

This morning I made it to the Shedd aquarium right as the doors were opening (had heard that it gets crazy busy on holidays such as today), and spent more hours walking around. It was really cool, although mildly disappointing in that a big chunk of it was closed for renovation.

Hmm, I think it's time for some food and perhaps a nap.

Yesterday's train ride took a few minutes short of a millenium.  I really do appreciate the fact that it was much less expensive than flying, and more convenient than driving, but holy hell.  We were supposed to leave the station at 7:50, but did not actually leave until 10.  We set of a variety of track alarms at different points, which required us to stop so the crew could inspect the train (all were false positives - no actual problems).  We had to wait a couple times to let other trains through so we wouldn't mess up their schedules.  All told, we finally arrived at the hostel at 7:45 or so, when we should've been there by 4.  Eeesh.

BUT, we're here, have already met up with other knitters (and gaming geeks alike!) and gone out for drinks and later today there shall be a yarn shop crawl and very possibly more beer.  I'm now listening to a crowd of people sing folksy songs to a guitar in some room adjacent to the lounge... hostel =/= hotel.  Heh.

Apparently the furnace fix lasted for one day.  Maybe the repair guy will fix it for real today.

Furnace is out.

Edit: Fixed!  Huzzah.  Some sensor was broken or wonky or something.  Let the heat return.

Hot damn, Canadian politics are crazy fascinating lately.

ETA: Looks like it's a prorogue, then.  Hmm.

Oh, the creature outside is frightful
And he thinks you'll taste delightful
There's a monster out in the snow
Wendigo, wendigo, wendigo!

This is a kid who will always know that he and other kids like him could truly become president one day.

I don't generally think about pregnancy (unless I'm plotting things to make for elenfair's spawn), but I've been pondering it more since learning that my blood disorder thing (posted here) would make it fairly dangerous for me to be pregnant - both for myself and the theoretical fetus. 

Trust me, I don't want no baby.  But it's a weird idea to think that there's something about me that is inherently wrong enough that reproducing could be harmful.  Part of me feels like it's a touch bit dehumanizing in a way, in that things don't work quite how they are supposed to in a regular person.  I suppose, though, that everyone probably has some way in which they don't "work" quite exactly like normal.

Blather blather.  Just random things going through my head.  Again, I'm just so thankful I didn't want (biological) kids, because this could be so hard to cope with if I did.

Hey folks - I found out that people can participate in the Knitters for Obama fundraiser I talked about earlier without having to create a membership at ravelry.com. They created a separate blog for the fundraiser (http://knitters-for-obama.blogspot.com/) with all the details.

So my father-in-law has been recently diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, aka kidney cancer. Fun times all around, of course. He had the tumorous kidney removed last Wednesday (apparently the other one is perfectly healthy and is having no problem supporting his filtering needs) and is recovering well after being discharged from the hospital on Saturday evening. They did find some malignant cells in a lymph node in his chest, but I believe that's the extent of it. Sometime next week they will be going in to consult with some oncologist or another (I don't remember which one, since they've been reassigned a few different times now), and most likely he will be able to take a pill form of chemotherapy at home... no idea how long, though. Either the doctors have been judiciously avoiding the talk of stage and life prognosis, or those bits of information just haven't gotten passed down the line through the family. I'm guessing that it's the first, though, and they'll get more information about that next week.

It's kind of odd - since I work in the division of the medical school at the U that deals specifically with cancer, it seems almost mundane to me. I certainly don't want to downplay the seriousness of what my FIL is going through, but at the same time it just doesn't seem all that out of the ordinary, or something to fall to pieces about. I'm sure that once we get more information on prognosis it will have more of an impact.

And being as we were in Maine, I ate and pretty much mostly enjoyed lobster, clams, and scallops. Take that!

My brother's wedding went off without a hitch, my sister-in-law was freaking gorgeous, and I'm happy to be home and not caught in a hurricane.

My online home for the past few months has been the Knitters for Obama group on ravelry.com, and we're gearing up to start our third fundraiser for Barack Obama's election campaign. Our previous two fundraisers have netted nearly $10,000 apiece, and I'm guessing that this one will be even better given some of the most amazingly awesome prizes that are being awarded.

Here's the scoop - for every 5 bucks you donate to the campaign through a specific link from September 20 through October 31, you get 1 chance in the drawing. So far there are over 60 prizes, and you can allocate your chances to whichever prize(s) you may be interested in.

Why am I posting about this? Because, my fiber-ly friends, you ought to know that one of the prizes is a Louet S51 double treadle spinning wheel. Another prize happens to be a 1 oz. 300 yard skein of qiviut. There's some Wollmeise in there. There's also some Sundara yarn in there. There's Kauni, there's oodles of Malabrigo, and a ton more kinds of yummy yarn that I'm not listing here because there's so much. There are lots of books signed by their authors, there are gift certificates, there are other crafty goods, there even happens to be a felted purse made by yours truly!

If you have a ravelry account, please do go to www.ravelry.com/discuss/knitters-for-barack-obama/338382 and take a look at the details. If you don't have a ravelry account, you should get one! If you go to www.ravelry.com, you can request an invitation to create an account. It usually only takes 2-3 days to get your invite.

I'm pezwitch over there, too, so do feel free to look up my knitting/crochet projects if you like :)

EDITED TO ADD:  Psst!  They've added a second spinning wheel (a SpinOlution Mach1) to the prize list - you know you wanna get in on this!

Angry politics + me = fast and furious migraine. Doh.

ETA: Barfy barfy barfy. How stupidly republican of me.

can't. stop. must. keep. spinning.